Maggie Furey - Aurian

“Anvar, did you see her?” Nereni asked anxiously.

“I saw nothing—it was too dark. But I called, and she didn’t answer,” he told her miserably.

Eliizar frowned. “But I examined that rock when I searched the pool, and it was quite impervious.”

Anvar stared at him. “So it only responds to Magefolk,” he said slowly.

“Sorcerers?” Eliizar gasped. He backed away hastily, making a sign against evil. “But you are not—”

“I am, Eliizar—just like Aurian.”

Nereni, though wide-eyed, was more practical than her husband. She tugged urgently at Anvar’s arm. “Can you use this sorcery to open the way for us?”

Could he? Anvar had no idea how the magic of the portal worked. He was still too much of a beginner at this kind of thing, and there had been little time for Aurian to teach him much . . . Then the solution came to him in a blinding flash. One of the first spells that Aurian had taught him, with the terror of the Nihilim still fresh in her mind. “Nereni, I think I can!”

Anvar positioned himself before the featureless stone of the portal. Bohan stood behind him, his massive arms locked round the Mage’s waist. Eliizar and Nereni waited on the brink of the pool, not daring, to the Swordmaster’s obvious shame, to approach any closer.

“Are you ready, Bohan?” Anvar glanced back over his shoulder. The eunuch nodded, tightening his grip. “Now!” Anvar muttered, and placed his hand upon the stone.

Again, the shrieking clamor rang out. The rock became fluid and clinging, clutching at Anvar’s arm to draw him within. But this time, Bohan held him firmly, fighting the pull. Anvar concentrated with all his might, trying to block out the shrill distraction of the alarm. He had to get this right .

Sweat broke out on his brow. Extending his free hand, he carefully constructed Finbarr’s time spell—and toppled backward with Bohan into the water as the force that pulled at them suddenly ceased. Anvar struggled to his feet, spluttering and panting, and reached out to the stone. Bohan forestalled him— and thrust his own fist straight through, pulling it out again with ease.

“It worked!” Anvar yelled. “Eliizar, it worked! I’ve taken the portal out of time! We can go through now!”

Shia bounded forward, needing no further urging, but Eliizar stood back, white-faced. “I—I cannot!” he gasped. “Anvar, forgive me, but sorcery ... I cannot!”

Anvar grasped his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Eliizar, we all have our fears.” With a pang, he remembered saying the same thing to Aurian, on top of the cliff ... “I must go.” He turned back to the portal, where Bohan and Shia waited, plainly anxious to be moving. “You and Nereni stay here, and wait for us. We’ll be as quick as we can.”

“Wait!” Nereni came running, splashing through the water in her haste. “Here.” She thrust a bundle into his hands, “Here is a water bag, and food—the poor girl will be starving. And I put in a robe for her, and her boots—and she might need these,” She handed him Aurian’s sword and staff, “Hurry,” she urged, and reached up to kiss his cheek. “Hurry, Anvar, and come back safe.”

It was difficult to force a way through the viscous rock without the spell of the portal to draw them. Shia, bristling with impatience, went first, with Anvar and Bohan helping her by pushing from behind. Anvar followed, feeling the cat’s massive jaws grasp his collar to pull him through. It was pitch-dark within, even to his Mage’s night-vision. He turned and groped for Bohan’s hand, and Shia helped him haul the eunuch through. Bohan had brought a torch, but when he kindled it, the flame gave no light.

“What on earth . . . ?” Anvar gasped. He could see it flickering in midair like a pale, disembodied wraith, but that was all. It illuminated absolutely nothing.

“Magic!” Shia spat disgustedly. “You make some light!”

Anvar sighed. Fire-magic was not his strong point, but ... By dint of much^cpncentration, he managed to form a rather wobbly ball of Magelight—and fell back, screaming, as the interior chamber burst into eye-searing brilliance.

“Put it out!” Shia roared in agony. Anvar snuffed his flame, his eyes watering and blinded with crimson and green spots of dazzle. He picked himself up—only to be flattened again, as the entire chamber lurched into motion with a grinding roar, rushing upward with terrifying speed.

As Anvar’s vision cleared, he saw that the chamber was now illuminated by a soft glow that seemed to emanate from the walls. His mind reeled dizzily as he realized he was within a hollowed-out gem. All around him, the gleaming facets reflected myriad images of himself, Shia, and Bohan. When he moved, the images lurched and swooped, making him sick with disorientation. It was as though he too were part of the reflections; as though his soul, his very self were being sucked away into the walls. Beside him, Shia whimpered unhappily. It was the first time he had ever heard the great cat show the slightest sign of fear.

“It’s all right,” he said, trying to sound convincing. “Lie still and close your eyes. We’re being taken somewhere—maybe to the top of the mountain. It’s bound to stop when we reach it.”

“For their sake, I had better not find whoever created this thing,” Shia muttered wrathfully. Her words made Anvar wonder just who the creators were. This was far beyond the power of his own Magefolk.

“Now, how do we~get out?” As Anvar had predicted, their strange conveyance had eventually come to a juddering, spine-wrenching halt. He looked around, confused by the images that curved into infinity on all sides. Then he saw it—a pale, glimmering blue patch of Magelight that marked the area of his preserving spell. He got to his knees and thrust an experimental hand toward it. To his relief, the spell was still in operation, and his hand passed easily through the wall of the gem.

“Let me go first!” Shia shouldered past him. “If anyone is out there, I want to deal with them!”

They emerged onto flat bare rock that was shadowed in the half darkness of another cavern. Looking behind him, Anvar saw a featureless wall of polished stone, with nothing but the telltale glimmer of his spell to mark the point of their exit. He prayed that the spell would last. This was the first time he had tried anything so complex without Aurian’s help, and he was still uncertain of his raw, untried powers. The roof of the small cavern was low, like an inverted bowl, and the wall through which they had come swept round in a broad semicircle, its ends marked by a massive stone archway, through which the faint light came. From beyond the arch, Bohan was beckoning. Anvar hurried to join him.

Beyond the archway was a broad apron of stone, a ledge over . . . nothing. Anvar reeled back from the dizzy brink, swallowing hard. As far as he could see, the chasm below was endless, its sheer walls stretching away on either side and plunging down into a gut-churning nothingness, in the midst of which glowed the faint and sickly light that illuminated this massive maw in the body of the mountain. Some hundred feet away, on the opposite brink, there was another jutting tongue of rock like the one on which he stood, with a similar archway behind it.

His mouth gone suddenly dry, Anvar prayed that the ledge on which he stood was more solid than its counterpart looked. Apart from the sheer impossibility of scale, Aurian, with her terror of heights, would never have managed to get across. Yet there was no sign of her anywhere. Anvar refused to countenence the obvious—that she might have plunged to her death over the precipice. But if that was unthinkable, only one alternative remained. Something must have taken her across. Furthermore—he thought, recalling her terror on the cliff—she must have been very much against her will. He glanced up at the low roof, where stalactites hung like dripping fangs, hoping to find some means of crossing: a rope, handholds cut into the stone—anything at all. There was nothing.