The surge of magical energy could be felt even before the sudden drop in temperature. Sullivan had one hand against the slick, wet wall, but he snatched it away, as the stone froze so quickly that it burned his flesh. He even left some skin behind. Ice crystals formed and spread, and within seconds, the tunnel was covered in gleaming white. The dirty ice reflected and bounced the flashlight beam. The cold hit Sullivan like a hammer and his breath shot out in a burst of steam.
Zhao shouted something, but Sullivan’s ears were too cold to hear it. Either that or the blast of air pushing ahead of the water took all the sounds with it. Then somehow it got even colder. The storm at the North Pole was a summertime walk in the park in comparison. Sullivan’s exposed skin felt like it was on fire. His eyes didn’t want to move in their sockets. His teeth felt like they were about to shatter, and the worst part of all was that Sullivan was on the warm side of the tunnel. He was only catching the aftereffects radiating off of Zhao’s body. The real force of his magic was being directed the opposite way. The kid was using so much Power, so fast, that it was liable to kill him. The cold ate the batteries in their flashlight, plunging the tunnel into darkness.
When using their magic, Spikers could see gravity, because everything was just matter and force after all. The whole universe was simply little bits, seen and unseen, constantly moving against each other and creating energy. In all of the many years since Sullivan had begun to truly understand the nature of his Power, he had never seen the world deprived of that energy, until that one brief moment in time, when he got to see Zhao suck every last bit of heat from that tunnel. Sullivan had never seen matter be so perfectly still before.
And then the water was on them.
It roared down the tunnel, ready to smash them flat, but then the angry water molecules hit the impenetrable cold, and then it was energy bleeding into the complete absence of it. The top layer turned to ice and the layer behind it turned to slush, but still behind that was a million gallons of pushing death, and Zhao pushed back even harder. Thicker and thicker, the wall turned into a plug of ice with the density of a prehistoric glacier, but it still kept on coming. Releasing that much magic at once threatened to tear the kid apart, but he kept it up. The ice thickened, hardened, cracked, exploded, and reformed, slowing, but still driving onward.
So now they were about to get steam rolled by a giant ice cube.
All of his Power exhausted, Zhao collapsed. The temperature immediately began to rise as molecules began moving again. Sullivan tried to lift a foot and realized that his boots had been stuck to the floor, so he pulled harder until his soles cracked free. He was so cold he could barely think, but ice was solid. Sullivan understood solid.
Lumbering down the tunnel, he stepped over the fallen kid, gathered up all of his considerable Power, magnified his density, lowered one shoulder, and absolutely chained himself to the center of the Earth. The ice flow was moving about as fast as a truck on the highway, and it hit him equally hard.
Sullivan flinched, partly from the impact, and partly from the sheer, unbelievable cold. It shattered around him, and despite his magically amplified mass, it shoved him, his feet turning the stone of the tunnel floor into gravel. The cold was killing his flesh. The moisture in his skin was freezing and rupturing his cells. The Healing spells he’d carved into his chest were burning like suns, trying to repair the damage. Sullivan drew as hard on his Power as he ever had in his life, increasing his density even more, and now the cold could not penetrate as fast, though it just kept on pushing.
There was motion in the shadows behind him. Heinrich had returned. Take the kid! Sullivan wanted to shout, but he was so locked under the pressure of a multitude of gravities that his vocal cords couldn’t vibrate. Heinrich grabbed Zhao and they were gone.
The ice cracked. It was like the plug on a pressure vessel. The edges let go. The friction lessened. Water began to spray past. The ice split again, harder this time. Water was spraying him in the face. The tunnel was filling. The iceberg was breaking apart. The unstoppable force had met the immovable object. The ice cracked, spreading out around him, and then it exploded.
Water was blasting past him, surrounding him. The current would have torn any normal man away, but Sullivan planted himself there and waited. At least the river water was warm in comparison to the Zhao’s ice, but compared to that hellish freezer, everything was warmer. The pressure lessened, so Sullivan was able to ease up on how fast he was burning through his Power. He could feel the reservoir of magical energy stored up in his chest. The air in his lungs would run out long before his magic would.
Today would be nice, Heinrich.
The pain was in his lungs. How much time had passed? He really needed to breathe. No matter how dense he could make himself, there was still the delicate balance of allowing the blood and the air in it to flow to his brain. Cut that off and he was out, just like anybody else.
Come on, Fade.
A hand landed on his shoulder. Sullivan let go of his magic, and suddenly they were both being swept away.
The world was already pitch black, so he couldn’t see when it turned grey, but he felt it as Heinrich pulled him through the tunnel wall. Despite the pain and the danger, his analytical mind couldn’t help but marvel at the feeling of Fading. Sullivan had expanded his original magical connection with gravity into the adjoining areas of force and density, but so far the flip side of the coin, making himself insubstantial enough for his own molecules pass through solid objects, had absolutely eluded him. Maybe Fade magic just didn’t work with his mentality. Nobody would ever accuse Jake Sullivan of being flighty.
They passed through the solid earth. It was an uncanny feeling, but Sullivan trusted that Heinrich knew what he was doing, though for such a supposedly short distance, this did seem to take forever… Luckily, they hit the river and he felt himself become substantial again. Immediately his body began to be affected by the currents, and not being buoyant, he began to sink like a stone.
Desperate for air, Sullivan kicked toward the sunlight.
Yao Xiang had been scribbling furious notes for an hour. It had been a long time since he had personally conducted an interview, and he found that all of the writing was making his hand cramp badly. He had suffered from arthritis ever since the Imperium torturers had broken all of his fingers during questioning, but despite that, he could not stop, because what Toru was telling him was either the most important story in the world or utter lunacy.
“That is all, Xiang. Print that in its entirety.” Toru placed his teacup gently on the table. “The Imperium needs to know the truth.”
“But the censors—”
“They will deny you. That is to be expected. However, the important thing is that my words have been recorded, and will fall into the hands of Imperium intelligence to be analyzed. In a short time the truth of my story will be demonstrated, and they will have the testimony necessary to sort out the reality from the lies. If not, by next week the Imperium censors will have more important things to do than to monitor your little paper, and you can print it for the masses then.”
“I would never violate the censor’s orders.”
“Do not bother trying to lie to me. We all know that there is plenty of underground propaganda printed in this city. I used to believe it was a problem when Imperial citizens would read such subversive things, but now I see the value.”