A Champion Falls, page 2
“I trained you to do that,” Tristan said.
“No. You trained me to fight on your behalf. You trained me so you didn’t have to fight.”
“I trained you to be the Champion.”
Gavin wasn’t going to keep arguing with him. There was no point in it.
“I’m not sure what it is,” Gavin said instead. “There’s a pattern here. It repeats itself up the wall, but…” He looked over to the other wall near him and realized that the pattern didn’t exist on it. There was a different one. “It probably means nothing.”
Tristan shook his head. “The ancients had reasons for everything they did. Especially in this place.”
“We don’t know exactly what they did or what this place was.”
“It was a way of touching the gods,” Tristan said.
Gavin expected him to smile, to admit that he was making a joke, but Tristan looked completely sincere. “The gods?”
Tristan nodded. “What do you think this power is? It’s the power of one of the gods. That’s what Chauvan and the others were trying to reach for.”
“Like Sarenoth?”
“There you go again, speaking of things you don’t really understand.”
Gavin shrugged. “Then explain them to me.”
Tristan frowned at him. “I’ve explained enough to you over the years.”
“Actually, you taught me how to fight, to kill, and to identify patterns that you can’t, but you never taught me about the gods.”
“Because there wasn’t time. Not with everything else you needed to do and master in order to become what you needed to be.”
“I still have the feeling that you aren’t exactly sure what I needed to be,” Gavin said. “Other than you wanting to turn me into something that you couldn’t be.”
Tristan shot him a look. “If you want to make comments like that, then you can figure this out on your own.”
“Now you’re going to refuse?” Gavin said with an incredulous laugh.
“I’m not doing anything. I’m just telling you what I’m willing to do.”
“And what is that?”
“Help you find the truth,” Tristan said.
“If you wanted me to find the truth, then you would have shown me all of this from the very beginning.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to do what you needed to if you knew what you were expected to be.”
Gavin shook his head again and decided to change the subject. “What gods?”
Tristan started to answer, but a voice interrupted through Gavin’s enchantment.
“You need to get up here, boy,” Gaspar said.
“Where?”
“Ruins. Now.”
Gavin glanced over to Tristan. “We’re going to finish this conversation later.”
Tristan smirked as if to tell him that they wouldn’t, but Gavin was determined to get him to talk.
He raced through the hallway until he reached the stairs leading up into the ruins. There had been a time when this had been little more than a maze for Gavin, but he had navigated it enough that it was easy for him now, and he knew exactly where he needed to go. The urgency with which Gaspar had spoken meant that something was going on, so he called on his core reserves as he went. He bounded up the stairs and popped up into the open.
The stone enchantments he had placed for protections were battling something. Gavin hurriedly surveyed everything around him. Shadows looked as though they had come alive, and they swirled around the enchantments. He had never seen anything quite like that before.
“By the rocks,” Gaspar said through the enchantment. “Can’t do much of anything. They’re too powerful.”
“Nihilar?”
“It’s different than last time. My enchantments worked, but…”
Gavin unsheathed his blade.
The nihilar was a destructive force he thought he could use. Maybe not as well as the others could, but he had some experience with it now. It filled his ring, and he had learned that he could push it into his blade, drawing some of that power from it.
Gavin focused on what he felt around him now. The power didn’t restrict him from reaching for his core reserves the way it had before, and it didn’t suppress the connection that he shared to the El’aras ring, but there was something to it that was difficult for him to master. It was control.
He needed experience. He needed practice. More than that, he needed somebody who could explain how to use that power, but it was something that Gavin did not have. Tristan didn’t fully understand how to use it either, so he wouldn’t be able to offer what Gavin needed. Even if he could, Gavin wasn’t sure that he would agree to his help.
Instead, he had to battle blindly, and sometimes foolishly. Which was exactly what he did now.
He stepped forward, and he focused on what he could detect around him, but there wasn’t all that much. Just a hint of the darkness, and an awareness that there had to be some sort of power here.
Magic constricted around him, trying to confuse him. Gavin thought he could fight through it, but in order to do that, he had to push past what he felt.
He focused on the El’aras ring and drew power from that.
He wasn’t going to let this battle last too long.
Gavin heard a crash and the sound of stone cracking. One of the massive enchantments protecting the ruins stumbled and fell. The golem was shaped like a man, but one that was nearly four times any normal person’s height and with blunted features. The thing was made entirely out of stone, with hands that were gigantic and legs that were stiff and unbending.
He couldn’t even tell what had happened, but he managed to catch sight of something like a lightning bolt shooting and causing the stone to crumble down to the ground. He had to jump out of the way before one section struck him.
Gavin pushed power out from himself, through the ring, into the sword. He stormed forward, readying for the attack, and swept his blade around as quickly as he could, intending to carve through the nihilar here. But as the power filled his weapon, he felt something strange. It was almost as if there was a trembling sense against the blade, and energy seemed to reverberate off it.
Shadows continued to sweep toward him. He carved through them, and they separated around his blade. When they did, he saw nothing.
Gavin brought the sword around in a series of patterns he fashioned after the Leier style. The shadows began to ease, the resistance around him fading completely, and the darkness lifted.
There was nothing left, only the enchantments that had been placed as protection. He looked around, searching for more of the nihilar, but there was no sign of them. He turned to Gaspar, who was still crouched behind one of the stones with a pair of knives in hand and enchantments encircling his wrists and fingers.
“What was that?” Gaspar asked.
“I don’t know. I thought it was the nihilar, but there was something new too.”
“I wonder why they returned.”
“I’m not sure.”
Unless Chauvan had been involved, there wasn’t any reason. Gavin had claimed the power they wanted and had secured it.
He found a small metallic item resting on the ground near the remains of the golem that had been destroyed. It was made from the same strange silver as the staff, and when Gavin reached for it, he felt an echoing sense from within the El’aras ring he wore. Nihilar energy was in there.
He frowned and hesitated, holding his hand above the device.
“What is it?” Gaspar asked.
“As far as I can tell, that’s an enchantment.”
“A nihilar enchantment?”
Gavin reached for it again, feeling an echo of power press against him. “I don’t think so. I don’t know what it is, but we have to figure out who placed it.”
As he took it in hand, it crumbled into nothing.
Gavin rushed and searched around the clearing, where he found five others. Each was made out of the same silver metal, and each disintegrated when he tried to pick it up to study it.
They had been designed to fail.
But for what reason?
CHAPTER TWO
Gavin took a few moments to examine the space around the boulders, searching for signs of additional enchantments. He found nothing other than the ones that had crumbled when he’d tried to pick them up. This was a different kind of attack than what Chauvan had used before, but Gavin wasn’t exactly sure why, or what it meant.
Gaspar searched with him. “Do you think they were looking for the temple, or was it something else?”
“They knew how to find the temple. When Chauvan was here before, he knew where it was. Which suggests to me that it wasn’t about finding so much as it was testing me. But it’s more than that. There’s something on those enchantments that has me worried.” He looked at Gaspar. “I’ve seen those markings before.”
“Where?”
“Another place of power. El’aras.” He crouched down, but the markings—and the enchantments—were gone, having collapsed. “The problem is that I’m not sure I even remember them correctly, but if I do, then it could have been Chauvan.”
“Would he want you to go back there?” Gaspar asked.
“They know I have the ring and the sword, and that I’ve connected to the power of the nihilar. It just seems unlikely that they would risk coming here unless they’re after something, but I can’t think of what that might be.” They hadn’t found anything in the temples. Just more writing, and nothing that he thought Chauvan would care about.
“Unlikely don’t mean it’s not possible,” Gaspar said.
Gavin nodded. He was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to know what he needed to do.
“I’m not sure we’re going to find answers out here,” he said.
Gavin looked around. A few rocks created an illusion that masked the entrance to the temple, but it wasn’t so effective that it had prevented the nihilar from finding it. That was how he referred to them. Nihilar. It was also what he called the power.
Because the nihilar knew where the temple was, they would have no difficulty with uncovering it. The protections placed by those within Yoran could do only so much. The golems prevented access, but how long would that work? Eventually, even the stone creatures wouldn’t be enough to defend this place.
Gavin looked over to Gaspar and found him looking back at the city, a distracted look in his eyes.
“Maybe you’ll have to look for answers, though that might be what they want,” Gaspar finally said. “You’ll need to be prepared for that possibility.”
“A trap?”
Gaspar shrugged. “To pull you away. Put you somewhere you can’t prepare. Sounds like something I’d do. You’re protected in Yoran. He’s got to know that.”
“That’s another concern,” Gavin said. “I’ve stayed here while I healed”—Gavin healed quickly, but his arm had been broken and his leg injured, which took time to recuperate from—“but maybe it’s really time for me and this ring to depart.”
Gaspar frowned and shook his head. “Or it could still be just about Yoran and whatever might be here. We just don’t know. You know, none of this is really easy, is it?”
“Not a bit,” Gavin agreed.
“We go about thinking that the city has faced the last attack it can, and then you run off and we deal with another one.”
“I’m also not convinced that whatever tied them to the city in the first place is over,” Gavin said.
“Me neither. I suppose there’s something we could do.” He turned to Gavin. “At least, to test whether it’s you or the city.”
“Test?”
“You need to know, don’t you?”
Gaspar wasn’t wrong.
“What do you propose?” Gavin asked.
“Well, I haven’t given it much thought, but…” The way he said it suggested that he had, in fact, given it quite a bit of thought. “We could go someplace where we don’t have to worry about anyone else getting hurt, but close enough that we can return if something were to happen. We have to make sure that we stay in communication with others in Yoran.” He tapped on the enchantment in his ear and motioned to the one in Gavin’s. “And give it some time. If they’re after the city, we wait and see if the city is attacked again. If it’s about you, well…”
“You want us—me—to be bait.”
“Better than me, and surely better than the city.”
“Great,” Gavin said.
“I will take any other suggestions you might have.”
The problem was that Gavin didn’t have any suggestions. Not ones he thought would be effective, at least. In this case, it seemed to make sense that he get digging.
“Tristan has to come with us,” Gavin said. “Mostly because I don’t want to leave him in Yoran if there might be a danger to others here.”
Gaspar nodded. “Agreed.”
“And we need to make sure that we have plenty of defenses. If we’re attacked, we want to be able to defend ourselves as well as possible.”
Already Gavin started to think through the various possibilities of what he might need. Zella had given him dozens of different enchantments before, but this time, he had specific ones he thought might be beneficial. The golems were particularly useful, but he needed something that would be more than just useful—he needed something destructive. But he thought he also might want something that could contain the nihilar. Gavin wasn’t exactly sure what that would take, or whether there would even be anything that could contain that power.
“I have a feeling you would have better luck with Zella than I would,” Gaspar said, reading his mind.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Gavin said.
Gaspar arched a brow, then gestured toward the city. “Come on. We should start making preparations.”
Gavin hesitated, glancing toward the opening leading down to the temple.
Gaspar shook his head. “It’s not going to change anything for you to go down after him.”
Gavin appreciated that Gaspar understood his hesitance and what he was considering.
“He might learn something.”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Gaspar asked.
“I’m not exactly sure what I want.”
He stared at the opening, considering what he wanted to do, but maybe Gaspar was right. Let Tristan have time to study the temple. If there was something there, then maybe Tristan would come up with it. If there wasn’t, it wouldn’t harm anything. Besides, Gavin needed to prepare.
As he started back toward Yoran, he realized that maybe he had lingered too long anyway. He’d been here long enough to make a full recovery, and he should have already started traveling back to the El’aras to continue his training, but he had remained.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have a desire to better understand the nihilar power, though that was part of it, especially as he knew the El’aras viewed it as dangerous. A great darkness, in fact.
This was more about his own hesitation to leave Yoran again.
By the time they reached the outskirts, he found one of the constables investigating the barrier enchantments around the city. The man was dressed in the dark blue uniform of the constables and swept an enchantment out in front of him. It glowed softly, and Gavin could see the symbols etched on it. The device was likely nothing more than a way to probe at the barrier to ensure it remained stout. Davel would likely have the constables doing that regularly.
Gavin nodded to him. He didn’t know the man very well, but he recognized him. In addition to him being a constable, the way he was testing the enchantment also suggested that he had enchanter abilities. He might not have used them during the time when enchantments had been forbidden in Yoran, but he certainly had some predilection toward them and seemed far more comfortable with them than most.
As they passed through the barrier, Gavin was aware of the energy coming off the enchantments, and power flooded through him.
“I presume we’re on the other side,” Gaspar said.
“Right. We walked through it. You know where the enchantments are, don’t you?”
“I have a general sense of where they are, but knowing is a different thing,” Gaspar said. He glanced back, nodding to the constable. “But then, they aren’t doing a whole lot to hide what they have done.”
“Why would they need to hide it? Those who know what the enchantments do understand the need for them, and those who don’t just think the constables are patrolling.”
“It’s more than that,” Gaspar said. “But maybe it doesn’t matter.”
They reached one of the outer markets, and Gaspar paused. The market was little more than a wide-open square, not nearly as busy as it could be during certain times of the day. Merchant carts lined the area, and a small crowd meandered from cart to cart.
“Listen,” Gaspar said. “I’m going to talk with a few of my sources, and then we need to think about our departure.”
“I’m going to Zella first. Then I’ll have to go back to the Dragon and eventually have words with Wrenlow.”
“The kid has to stay here.”
“I know,” Gavin said.
“You think he’s going to be upset about it?”
Knowing Wrenlow as Gavin did, he didn’t think so. Wrenlow had learned to fight, and certainly had learned to defend himself. But what they were about to do—serving as bait—might be more than Wrenlow could handle.
“I doubt he’s going to be too upset,” Gavin said.
“Good. Like I said, for the plan to work, we need somebody on this side to alert us if something happens.”
“He’s going to be more than happy to be our ears.”
Gaspar frowned. “I’m not sure about that. When you left the last time, he was a little restless. I think we all were, to be honest. Any time there was even a hint of magic in the city, he looked into it. I think he kept searching for you.”
“I wasn’t gone all that long,” Gavin said.
“Not too long, but long enough that… Well, you get into a bit of a pattern, and you start to look for comfort.”
Gavin snickered. “You can say that you missed me.”
