Centyr Dominance

  The upper portion of its body bulged outward strangely; sharp pieces of metal protruding as smoke and sparks issued forth. Most of the creature seemed intact, but it wasn’t moving at all. Moira leaned in and shouted in his ear, “It’s much worse inside than out. It won’t be a danger to us now.”

  “Are your ears ringing?” he shouted back.

  “No, I blocked them before you opened the door,” she admitted.

  “Couldn’t you have done mine too?”

  “The armor,” she said, pointing at his head, “it interferes with my magic.” Of course, after she said it she realized she could have made something like a sound dampening shield around him instead, but she didn’t bother telling him that. She’d consider it for the next time.

  The others were moving now, coming up to stop their advance. With her magesight she could see them squeezing their way up the stairs from the level below. They didn’t have long, but she had an idea. “Don’t move,” she told Gram. “I’m going to make a wall for us.”

  Wall? he wondered, but he soon saw what she meant.

  She used her aythar to tear at the walls around them, pulling heavy stone blocks out and piling them in the corridor in front of them. Moira didn’t bother with niceties like structure and organization, she ripped timbers and stones free with equal abandon and piled them up in front of them.

  Gram worried that the ceiling above them might collapse, but when it began to sag, she pulled it down and used the materials that formed it to add to her collection of rubble.

  The wall, perhaps it was better to call it a pile of heavy debris, grew quickly, and not a moment too soon, for the enemy rounded the corner fifty feet away and began firing as soon as Gram and Moira came into view. The monsters’ weapons roared, with a sound somewhere between the buzzing of hornets and thunder. Bits of stone and wood flew from the barrier Moira had created.

  The two of them ducked below the rim of their defense, which was annoying to Gram, since it meant he could no longer see, but of course that was no real problem for Moira. She could locate the foe with magesight.

  She had taken off her belt, and the two lengths of braided metal had once again become sword-like weapons in her hands. As she pointed one of them at the barricade Gram was enveloped in silence. Moira had shielded him from sound this time.

  “Thylen pyrren,” she intoned, and a vivid line of scarlet fire shot forth, piercing the wall of rubble and striking one of their new attackers. Unlike the attacks made by her spell-twins in the earlier battle, this fire was focused by the rune channel she held, and it pierced cleanly through the metal monster. Moira kept her will on it, maintaining the devastating beam of fire and moving her arm slightly, so that it scythed across the enemy.

  Well, ‘across’ was not quite the correct word, bisected was more accurate, for the beam of fire sliced completely through it. While Gram couldn’t see what happened, he felt the pressure wave as the thing exploded. He was grateful his ears were protected this time.

  The second creature reacted forcefully to the destruction of its comrade. Seeing the ineffectiveness of its primary weapon and the possibility of its imminent demise, it switched to its other armament. Likely they hadn’t used the other until that point because it was dangerously destructive in an enclosed environment. Moira guessed that her threat had become great enough to justify the risk.

  Time slowed to a crawl as she shifted her line of incandescent fire to strike the second one. She tried to reinforce the shield she had built behind the wall of rubble, but she couldn’t know whether it would be enough.

  The thing’s strange weapon lined up with their position as her line of fire cut across it, but the attack was too low; instead of hitting the weapon, or its torso, it cut through two of the legs. The monster’s weapon fired a split second before it began to fall.

  Gram had switched Thorn to its shield and one hander form since there was little else he could do, he crouched in front of Moira wondering if there were something more he could do and feeling useless, when something knocked him prone and pain shot through his left side. His vision was gone, or so he thought, until he realized that the air was full of thick grey dust and sparkling pieces of metal. His shield had disintegrated into swirling fragments.

  His hearing returned suddenly and with it the sound of stone and wood fragments pattering like rain to the floor. From the corner of his eye he saw Moira lying behind him, blood trickling down across her face as dust seemed to drift down and coat her with a layer of grey. Her eyes had rolled back into her head.

  The stairs behind them were gone, a gaping maw of stone remained which seemed to be filling up as the upper level collapsed into it.

  All this he absorbed in the time it might take to draw a single breath. He knew there was little time. If the creature still lived, it would be able to fire again within a couple of minutes. He struggled to push himself up, but his left arm didn’t respond. The enchanted shield was reforming beneath it, but it lay limp and useless. He suspected the arm was broken inside his armor, or worse, but after the initial shock of pain he couldn’t feel anything more—it and his shoulder were completely numb.

  His right side was marginally better. He could feel that arm, but when he tried to roll onto it and use it to push himself up, he couldn’t find the strength, instead he wound up flopping feebly on the floor. Something did hurt then, a strange throb that ached through even the gauzy fuzziness of shock. I have to get up! Gram closed his eyes and listened to his body for a moment, allowing the steady beat of his heart to calm him. Concentrating he focused on another heartbeat, that of the red gem nestled in Thorn’s pommel, his dead father’s heart. Help me.

  He felt it then, a warmth that traveled up his right arm, connecting the beat of the gem to the steady thrum of his own heart. It grew stronger, louder, and he devoted himself to its rhythm. When he tried to roll the next time he succeeded. Pushing himself off the ground, he looked over the scattered remains of their barricade. The monster was still there, lying on its side—waiting.

  It had its primary weapon pointed at him and as he stood Gram could hear the whine as it began to spin.

  He couldn’t lift the shield. That arm simply wouldn’t move. Growling, he leapt up and over the scattered rubble. Stone chips flew in every direction as the creature began firing at the place he had been. The beast corrected its aim even as he flew through the air, and when he landed hammer-blows began striking his legs and then his torso.

  Some of them struck the shield, but most hit his armor directly. At close range the pieces of metal it was firing landed with devastating force. Gram’s armor absorbed the first few hits, but the attacks came in such rapid succession that some of the scales that made up his armor flew off, leaving his body exposed. The pieces of enchanted metal would return, reforming his armor, but there was a limit to their speed.

  Gram turned, twisting in place to keep the attacks from striking the same place too long as he strode forward, trying to close the last few feet between him and his antagonist. He stumbled and half fell the last five feet as he closed on the monster’s left side, and it could no longer point the weapon at him.

  The torso swiveled and the other, more deadly weapon lined up with his chest.

  Someone screamed as his sword swept up and across propelled by more strength than he knew he had. Mindful of the past, he aimed for the joint where the metal arm met the body. Thorn sheared halfway through before sticking in the dense metal.

  Gram stared down the empty black hole that would administer his death sentence. Time stretched out for what felt like an eternity, but nothing happened. A small light on one side of the box-like device slowly stopped glowing. His attack had somehow disabled the weapon.

  He couldn’t pull Thorn free, so he spoke a command to make the sword shift again, changing from sword and shield to its original great sword form. When it reformed it was free in his hand again. It was meant to be wielded with two hands of course, but his arm was strong enough to use it eff
ectively even if it wasn’t optimal.

  The monster was trying to swivel and bring the other weapon back around to face him, but lying sideways on the ground made that difficult, and he was close enough to move out of its line of fire. He hacked at it in a frenzy, sending fragments of the dense metal flying in every direction. It took almost a minute, but eventually he severed the other arm and then he started on the central portion of the thing, not satisfied until he was certain that it was no longer functional in any sense of the word.

  When he finally stopped, a wave of fatigue washed over him and he stumbled, almost losing his balance. There was blood everywhere. That’s odd, he thought, these things don’t bleed. The room spun, and he found himself lying on the floor, staring at the partially demolished ceiling. He felt his chest fluttering, his heart was beating too fast.

  “Take off the armor,” said Moira leaning over him. “I need to see your body to heal you.”

  “I’m fine,” he told her, trying to speak clearly, but the words were slurred. “I just need to rest a moment. I think I overdid it, my heart’s racing.”

  “Gram, please! You’ve lost too much blood—your heart is trying to compensate. Take the armor off before you pass out, or I won’t be able to help you.” Moira’s voice was desperate.

  “Oh, right,” he answered, and then he managed to get the word out to remove the armor.

  Moira’s face changed when she saw what lay beneath the metal, her lip quivered faintly and her eyes grew liquid. A gasp almost escaped her lips before she suppressed it.

  Gram wanted to tell her he was alright, but something in her look made him stop, so instead he commented idly, “You seem different.”

  “I’m not Moira,” she told him. “She’s still unconscious.” She stretched her hands out, and Gram felt something passing through him as she began to work.

  He had been about to pass out, but the pain brought him fully awake. “You don’t look unconscious,” he hissed, still trying to remain casual despite the situation.

  A tear fell from Moira’s eye, “Please, I’m trying to stop the bleeding. Moira will be fine and she’ll wake up soon. The shock of losing the shield she had up knocked her senseless.”

  Gram felt something change then, and his heart rate slowed. He wanted to look down, to see how bad it was, but he found himself captivated by her face. He tried to speak, but his tongue wouldn’t cooperate.

  Shhh, I can hear you without words, now that your armor is off, she told him mentally.

  If you aren’t Moira, who are you? he asked, curious.

  Good question, I wonder myself. As far as I’m concerned, I am her, but in reality I’m a magical creation, just like her mother, the woman who married Archmage Gareth.

  Oh. Gram didn’t know how to respond. Strange sensations passed through him as she worked on him, and finally he came up with a relevant question, What should I call you?

  Call me Myra, it’s close enough to the name I remember as my own, and it should help avoid confusion, she answered. You should be dead. You’ve lost so much blood. There are several terrible wounds and pieces of metal embedded in your body. I don’t think you’ll be able to walk for several days, and you’ll wish you were dead for weeks after that. There’s going to be a lot of bruising.

  That made Gram want to laugh, I’m starting to understand why Father didn’t want me to follow in his footsteps.

  Long painful minutes passed while she removed the numerous fragments of metal from his legs and abdomen. Once that was done, she closed the smaller blood vessels that had been severed and finished by sealing the skin. Myra wanted to cry at what she had seen. There was blood all over the room, and all of it was Gram’s, but she steeled herself, fighting down the urge. She could feel Moira, the ‘real’ Moira, beginning to stir, but she had more to tell him.

  Leaning down on impulse, she kissed Gram lightly on the lips. His eyes fluttered open then, staring at her.

  What?

  She jerked upright, Forgive me. She—we—care about you a great deal. That was imprudent of me. She could sense the confusion in him. He was thinking of Alyssa.

  You don’t seem like Moira to me, he said at last.

  I’m like she was, like she used to be, Myra told him. The battle—earlier—it hurt her. She isn’t the same, Gram. She wasn’t lying to you. She’s dangerous now.

  I don’t understand.

  What she did, controlling those people, it has a price. Bending someone else’s mind exerts a similar pressure on the mage’s mind. It’s hurt her, twisted and bent her in ways she hasn’t fathomed yet.

  But she’ll get better, right? You can help her, he suggested.

  No, we are all marked by what we survive. She may improve, but she will never go back to the way she was. None of us can do that, not her, not me, nor even our father, despite being an archmage. We are all the sum of our experiences.

  As long as she can get better, I’ll take it, replied Gram hopefully.

  Keep your amulet on. Try not to think on it when she’s near unless you’re wearing your armor, warned Myra.

  Gram didn’t like the sound of that, What does that mean?

  She may not get better, Gram. She might get worse—much worse.

  Chapter 24

  Moira found herself kneeling beside Gram’s body. She had blood on her hands, her knees, and all over her clothes. From the look of it he had bled all over the room. She wiped her hands on her dress with a feeling of irritation. How did I get here? The last thing she remembered was the sudden pain of her shield shattering.

  He finished it off, but it nearly killed him. Since you were unconscious I healed him. I thought it’s what you would want me to do, said her assistant from the back of her mind.

  The thought of her twin using her body while she was out bothered her, but she couldn’t fault her for what she had done. It made her angry, but she tried to suppress the feeling. Gram was passing into unconsciousness, but a glance at his mind showed some strange things floating through his thoughts. Myra?

  He was confused, I thought it best to take a different name.

  Moira stood, extending her magesight once more, trying to confirm her route to the stairs down to the lowest level. She could feel something there, and it was familiar. Whether it was her father, or just a place where he had spent a lot of time she couldn’t be sure, but the enemy had a lot of metal down there around what appeared to be a massive stone outcropping.

  She began to pick her way through the rubble.

  Don’t you want to make sure his healing is complete? He was very near death, suggested Myra.

  Moira dismissed the suggestion impatiently, You know everything I know. If you did the work then I’m sure it’s as good as anything I might have done. She continued walking without sparing a glance back at Gram, either with her eyes or her magesight.

  The stairs down were much longer than the previous set, but that was to be expected since the lowest level beneath Earl Berlagen’s home was really just one room, a large cavern with a vaulted ceiling and a floor that was level only because someone had spent a lot of time and effort making it so. She wasn’t sure if the cavern was natural or manmade, nor did she care. Moira was only interested in what was within the cavern, not its origin.

  The stairway opened up halfway down, giving a view of the room for the last half of its length as it followed the wall to the floor below. She created two hasty spellbeasts, small barely intelligent creatures shaped like birds, and sent them out as she neared the open area. She hadn’t detected any more of the metal guardians but she couldn’t be certain whether the enemy had other defenses.

  Something roared in the room below and stone chips flew from the wall along the stair as something began firing at her creations. Moira tracked the movement within the cavern and discovered that two objects mounted on the cavern ceiling in different places were actually more of the enemy’s strange weapons. They pivoted, pointing long barrels at her flying minions and spewing death wherever they
aimed.

  While they were distracted by her spellbeasts she took several steps down and pointed one of her rune channels at them and sending out a line of focused light and heat. Moira cut the two weapons free of the ceiling before they could reorient to fire at her and watched them fall clattering to the stone floor below. Then she hurried back up the stairs and waited.

  Nothing happened, so she sent two more small spellbeasts flying down into the room; the first two had disintegrated under the hail of flying metal. This time nothing responded.

  Stepping carefully, she began to descend once more, her eyes drawn to the stone mass in the center of the room. It appeared to be a massive stone outcropping that had thrust its way up from the earth below. The paved stone floor around it was cracked and buckling, which indicated that it was more recent than the room’s construction.

  In her magesight it appeared much like normal stone, but there was something extra, a feeling that clung to the rock, her father’s aythar.

  But she could find no sign of his mind. He wasn’t there.

  Strange metal devices were everywhere, in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and forms. Metal boxes that might be countertops, or devices, she couldn’t be sure. The walls were covered in more complex pieces, from the ground up to a height of several feet. None of it made sense to Moira.

  Two large metal pillars rose on either side of the stone in the center, each of them leaning toward it and pointing heavy crystalline tips at the rock. She could detect some sort of energy in them but for now they were quiescent.

  Some wizard I am, she thought. All of this arcane equipment is as unknown to me as a weaver’s loom might be to a lamb. Walking forward she approached the stone, hoping to find some clue to her father’s disappearance. As she closed the distance, she felt something.