The Hero's Recusants (Akynd Chronicles Book 1), page 11
Keldon burst through the door, looking around, his gaze falling on the mirror. At first glance, he saw a ghostly image of Gabrielle, his mother by her side providing comfort, and Kinra standing nearby. He thought she had teleported to the after life, killing herself in the process, and he collapsed in anguish.
Ram’uk entered quietly, looking at the heaving Keldon on the ground, then to the mirror. Confused as to why the image of Ji’leon comforting Gabrielle would upset him, he decided to instead help Gabrielle. Backing out of the room, his hand whispered a familiar phrase and he found himself a few feet from Ji’leon and Gabrielle. He called to her with an idea. “Ji’leon, you set the mirror to see here, right?”
Ji’leon looked up for a moment, and nodded quietly.
“Can you reverse it? So we can see from here what is on the other side?”
She flicked her wrist, and an image appeared before them of Keldon the black-hearted, Keldon the merciless, openly weeping like a baby on the floor.
“Would he be so anguished, Gabrielle, if he did not care?” Ram’uk asked softly.
Looking up at the silent image, Gabrielle wiped her tears away. Pushing herself up, she waved her hand and cast her charm, the group appearing in Ji’leon’s bedroom with a pop. If he heard the noise, Keldon did not seem to notice. He still writhed on the ground, sobbing about losing the last of his family, about being responsible for her death, and otherwise berating himself for his actions. He finally stopped when a small hand lay on his back, quietly. He glanced up enough to see her feet, floating a few inches off the ground, and leapt up to embrace her.
They hugged for a while, whispering their apologies to each other, ensuring that they would never leave. No one seemed to notice the mirror in the background at first. One lone figure stood among the rubble, in a deep black hooded cloak. His right hand was heavily scarred and curled around a gnarled staff. A steep hunch in the man’s posture kept a shadow on his face from his hood, though his eyes shone brightly. The deep red in his eyes observed the reunion with an almost curious gleam. He looked about the room, inspecting each of the Akynd, finally letting his gaze linger expectantly on Kinra.
Whether due to his magical creation, or simply intuition, something felt off to Kinra, and he glanced at the mirror. He locked eyes with the cloaked figure. “We have a problem.”
All eyes turned to Kinra, then followed his gaze to the mirror. Upon noticing the eyes staring back at them, Ji’leon cursed and muttered under her breath, her quarterstaff appearing in her hand. She smashed the glass of her mirror, shattering the image into a thousand pieces. The last sight they had of the red eyed man was him turning slightly to appraise Ji’leon as she swung, he did not even flinch as the image was struck.
“Who... or what, was that?” Keldon asked calmly. “And how could it see us?”
Ji’leon explained quickly, seeming a bit nervous, “I’m not sure what it was, but there aren’t many good options that have glowing red eyes. As for how it could see us, that is my fault. I traced a symbol on the mirror to hold the scrying in place, to get to Gabrielle faster, thinking you would follow. When you didn’t, I mirrored the scry so we could see you as well, to get Gabrielle to come back. “
Gabrielle sighed. “So it’s my fault he saw us? If I hadn’t run to the Teriks, you wouldn’t have followed, we wouldn’t have been seen.”
Keldon hugged her close. “Now now, if it is anybody’s fault, it is my own. I am the one whose actions caused you to flee in the first place.”
Ram’uk grunted, displeased with this course of conversation. “Are we going to keep blaming ourselves, or are we going to move past that and on to what in the hells that thing was? And besides what it was, why does it matter that it saw us?”
“For one, it knows we are alive,” Ji’leon began. “Assuming it is hostile, everything hostile to us assumed we were dead from the mage-bane until now. We don’t know if that thing is working with whatever created the mage bane, or if it even created them itself. Additionally, assuming it can cast, or describe what it saw to someone who can, a caster of even mediocre skill could teleport into the tower now. Bringing with them whomever they wish.”
“Then we need to go,” Keldon replied simply. “Pack what you need, and swiftly. We will take to the woods as soon as possible.” He quickly stepped out of the room, and the others followed suit. They hurriedly packed what little belongings they could carry, and gathered together to depart. As they left, Ji’leon enchanted a coin to project an image of the group discussing amongst themselves, hoping to at least delay or confuse their would-be pursuers. She took another coin and enchanted it to see from the eyes of her illusory double. Glancing at her ring, she realized she’d been careless in her use of magic. Holding the sight coin over her right eye, she fixed it in place with a makeshift eyepatch. She then swung her satchel over her shoulder and joined the others in front of the tower.
Chapter 14
Tools of the Trade
The problem was a big one. As they hurried away from the place they had come to know as home, Ji’leon kept an eye on the goings on within the tower through the coin in her eyepatch. Just as the structure began to fade from their view, she caught a glimpse of something in her scrying coin. With a wave of her hand the image she had projected stopped talking, turning to assess the threat. What she saw before the image was disheartening, to say the least. The red eyed creature stood huddled in front of twenty or so uniformed wizards, all chanting something in unison. She flicked her hand, turning the projected image to one of five battle ready companions, making them look like they would charge. She hoped her bluff would be enough. The wizards released their spell simultaneously, at which point the red eyed creature flicked his wrist, all of the enemies teleporting away. In case they were watching, Ji’leon manipulated her hands to show confusion and trepidation on the five projected images, scanning the room for a moment before the wizard’s spell took effect.
The earth shook, and a blast in the distance exposed itself as the point of origin. The entire tower shook with the force of the explosion in the middle, which then reversed and sucked the tower inward like a black hole. Ji’leon violently splayed her hands about, tearing apart the projected image to look as though they had died in the blast, disintegrating pieces of the image entirely so there would be no confusion as to why there were no remains to be found. The last part of her image to go was the eye she was looking through, as it landed in a fifty foot crater where the tower had once stood. Finally, she let the image fade with a shiver; it is generally difficult to watch yourself die. She pulled the eye patch off and looked to her companions, noticing they had all stopped running. “It looks like we were right to leave when we did,” she managed sheepishly.
“Was that the work of the red eye?” Ram’uk asked, concern evident as he looked back at where the tower had stood, the scar on the land evident even from their distance.
“He teleported them there, and teleported them away, but the damage was done by a group of uniformed wizards.” Ji’leon responded, her voice growing steadier.
“Wait... uniformed wizards?” Gabrielle asked, then waving her hands about and projecting an image of the fall of the Teriks. “Like them?”
Ji’leon nodded quietly as she watched the destruction of the orphanage in Gabrielle’s gruesome display. It pained her to see that Gabrielle remembered it with such detail.
“Wait!” uttered Keldon, momentarily confused by his senses. He pointed a finger at one of the silent images, realization dawning upon him.
“Don’tei? How is he-” Ji’leon began, growing quiet as she watched him order the execution of the children and staff. “That siyefa. I’ll kill him.”
Keldon tilted his head. “I do not understand the meaning of that word, but I am going to assume you wish to throttle him as much as I do.”
Even Ram’uk didn’t talk about the idea of redemption or the good within. Everyone seemed determined that killing Don’tei seemed like the best course of action. Amongst their silent nods, Keldon was the first to speak. “We will need to prepare. We still are not sure what our new limits are, and if he travels with that many wizards, it will be a difficult fight.”
“I can show you all how to enchant, so that you do not need to pull on your magic reserves as much.” Ji’leon offered.
Nodding in response, Keldon raised a fist. “First, we need a place to stay.” He thought for a moment, then swung his fist downward, and a slight tremor rippled through the ground. As Keldon twisted his fist, the ground continued to shake, until finally Keldon uttered under his breath “Nel-Tok-Hik-Ma’’.
With a flash the group found themselves fifty feet underground in a circular chamber. With a few snapped fingers, small balls of flame appeared around the perimeter for sight, and Keldon turned to the others. “We should be safe here. They have never seen it, as it never before existed.”
Gabrielle giggled at that. “You are just like mom. She did the same thing with our old house.”
Keldon quirked an eyebrow. “You lived underground?”
Shaking her head, Gabrielle continued. “No, she made a house in a place that didn’t exist. She called it extra-dimensional.” She shrugged. “Looked regular dimensional to me.”
Ji’leon perked up. “Extra-dimensional housing! Brilliant!” She began digging through her pocket and pulled out a few more coppers, stalking off to the side of the room to get to work.
“Ji’leon, are you forgetting something?” Keldon called after her. As she slowed and glanced back, he continued. “It would be the most efficient use of our time if we were all enchanting, yes? Only we have never done it.”
Realizing she had promised to teach them, Ji’leon chuckled to herself, pocketed her coin, and returned to the group for instructions.
For days the instructions went on, the group using hand motions to coax metal from the surrounding ground, forming it to their desires, and finally enchanting it. Kinra was lugging unfinished metals around to each of them, unable to cast himself. As the group wove spells about their items, engraving them with runes in the process, their rings would often drain to white, and they would pass out, waking a few hours later and just picking up where they left off. Gabrielle was the only exception. The black streak in her ring neither grew nor shrank, but it frightened her, so she refused to go below half a ruby of energy. Each of them had their own project, and they were pouring themselves into it wholly.
Keldon worked on the curved blades he kept sheathed on his chest. He pumped out a dozen of them, each identical: roughly two feet from the tip of the blade to the hilt if the black blade were straight, with a curve severe enough that four of them would make a circle. The outer edge of the curve was sharpened and serrated, the inner side about an inch thick and dull. The hilt was silver, bound in leather straps, with a hole in the pommel of the hilt. The hole seemed unimportant, until he finished a blade and would slide it onto a rod by his work area. The rod looked like a silvered metal quarterstaff, with runes carved around the entirety of it, and with the last dagger on it it looked like an artist’s rendition of a spiral staircase of war, each curved blade serving as another step.
He picked the staff up, twisting it around tentatively in his hands. With a deep breath, he thrust the staff forward, the small blades sliding off the end in a vicious twirl. As each blade struck the side of the cavern, Keldon would give a tug to the quarterstaff, pulling the blade back to its resting place as if with unseen strings. As he got a feel for the rhythm, he increased his speed, until finally he kept all twelve of them in constant motion, almost as if juggling at the end of his staff. Gabrielle had taught him how efficient a blade at a distance could be, and now he’d make use of the technique himself.
Ram’uk was focused entirely on his axe, just one was enough for him. With his spells he shaped the already enchanted blade so that it was so thin he could slice a single strand of hair in half—certain angles even rendered the axe’s blade invisible all together. Knowing the blade already returned when thrown, he added elemental power to it so that it would lay lightning in his wake, remembering his first use of magic since becoming an Akynd. He noticed some bare portions on the metal, and carefully carved a few more runes to fill in the blanks. When he finished, the axe’s only smooth portion was the paper-thin blade itself, the rest filled in with various spells both major and minor.
He felt the weight of the axe in his hand for a moment, then tested it by tossing it at a nearby boulder. As soon as the axe left his hand, it faded from view, and in its place a fiery tornado roared along, blasting lightning at everything within ten feet of it. When it struck the rock, the rock split in two, and the halves were then shattered by the flaming electrical vortex, which continued on, barely slowed. His axe finally returned to view after loudly digging into the wall behind his target rock, leaving a ten foot gash in it before returning to Ram’uk’s outstretched hand.
Ji’leon, ever the wizard, worked with books. She wove paper from the elements, and feverishly inscribed every offensive or defensive spell she could think of. When Kinra brought her metal, she asked him to forge her a simple quarterstaff that she would enchant later, and returned to violently scribbling throughout her growing pile of books. Each page of each leather bound tome had only a single, albeit very intricate, rune upon its dry surface. As she finished her seventh book, and woke from passing out a seventh time, she scrawled a simple rune on a coin and flipped it, the seven books disappearing from view. She then used her magic to etch three runes on her quarterstaff that Kinra had delivered, as almost an afterthought. Two of the runes let out a thunderous clap when swung, and the third would turn the bludgeoning edge into a blade when she placed her thumb over it.
She stood confidently, ready to test her more potent magic, and flipped the coin into the air. The coin vanished at the peak of its flip, and seven books circled around her. She glanced at the hole Ram’uk had inadvertently carved with his axe, and pictured a spell in her mind. The books swirled quickly until a specific one was in front of her, at which point they stopped, the selected book flew open, and flipped swiftly to a specific page. She reached out her hand and touched the page, separating the crack even further with a blast of force. As chunks flew off of the wall from the blast, the page she had touched dissolved. Nodding in satisfaction, she turned her hand upward in front of her. The books swirled about her, rising upward before they vanished, the coin returning to its zenith to continue its descent and land in her outstretched palm.
Gabrielle placed two runes among each of her four katanas. One of the runes was the same on every blade, and matched a rune she etched on the ring Ji’leon had made for them. The idea was to minimize the amount of energy utilized while controlling them. The other rune was different on each blade, representing fire, ice, lightning, and force. Getting some help from Kinra, she also designed a pair of small crossbows. The crossbows were majestically carved to look like a pair of ravens, one blue, one black. She carved a rune onto their wings matching her control rune, and then a rune of creation on the beak of each bird. She raised her hands into the air and the crossbows fluttered up, almost looking like living creatures. She pointed about the cavern and their beaks would glow, spewing forth a bolt of energy at their target. She then twisted her hands, pulling her four blades up as well, and closely watched her ring as she manipulated all six at once. Satisfied, she waved her hands, allowing her katanas to sheath themselves, and the raven crossbows nestled down on her shoulders as she began working on one final object. She flattened a disc of metal, carving runes all about it on both sides. The runes on each side matched, but were different in size. She then rolled a seperate piece of metal flat and began carving runes of protection all around it. Finally she twisted the flat metal around the disc, fashioning a handle from a bit of a tree’s root that had grown too deep. The others, having finished their creations, approached as she inspected her beautifully crafted bucket.
Ji’leon smiled softly at her, as if humoring a child. “A bucket, Gabrielle?”
Gabrielle nodded eagerly, and tossed her the bucket. “See if you can see what it does!”
Ji’leon caught the bucket, looking it over curiously. One of the runes carved by Gabrielle seemed to have concealed many of the more intricate runes, making it hard for Ji’leon to find an offensive or defensive use for the thing. Finally she handed it back to Gabrielle with a shrug. “I’ve no idea, the runes don’t make any sense together. They try to add force, and then try to remove it.” She offered a sheepish smile, trying not to hurt Gabrielle’s feelings.
Gabrielle just grinned widely. “Exactly! Watch this!” She turned the bucket around so the bottom faced her, the small runes glaring up at her. She placed her index finger in the center of the runes and thought for a moment of a nice spell. Aiming the bucket at the designated destruction site, she muttered softly “Spirukuss!” The runes began to glow softly, and Gabrielle waited patiently. A moment later, the large runes on the inside of the bucket echoed the outside, growing brighter until finally a blast of lightning two feet in diameter smashed into the pieces of the tattered alcove, crackling with electrical force.
Ji’leon’s jaw dropped, as did Ram’uk’s. Keldon, on the other hand, allowed himself a grin. “Gabrielle, my sister, you never cease to amaze me.”
Beaming with joy at the compliment, Gabrielle was about to respond when a loud rumble resounded throughout the chamber. Everyone shifted, ready for combat, except Gabrielle. As the others looked around for the source of the threat, they noticed Gabrielle holding a hand over her stomach. “Sorry. I guess we haven’t eaten in a while, and I was holding the bucket against my stomach...”
