Paul Kemp - Dawn of Night

"Look!" Jak said, pointing at the tower.

The slaadi emerged from around the back of the tower, loping up the crystalline staircase for the cupola. The largest of the three hobbled along with a limp.

"Why didn't they teleport into the cupola?" Magadon asked of no one in particular.

"The magic of the tower must interfere with transport magic of that kind," Cale said. "They probably teleported to near the tower's base. We weren't that far behind them and yet they're already halfway up the tower."

"I can get us there," Magadon said. "Without magic."

Cale turned to face the guide and asked, "What can you do?"

Magadon, already drawn and haggard from all of the psionic energy he had expended in recent hours, said, "Attune our bodies to the air. We'll be able to run above the city to the tower."

"Dark," Jak whispered.

"What will you have left?" Cale asked him.

Magadon shook his head and replied, "I'll drop the mindlink. But still, not much."

Cale took only a moment to decide.

"Do it."

Magadon nodded and held his left hand to his temple. A dim white light originated at the crown of his head and spread downward until it sheathed his entire boy. There was a sound like the whoosh of a wind. Magadon touched each of Cale, Riven, and Jak in turn, causing a similar light to limn their bodies, eliciting a similar sound.

"Now," Magadon said, and the light flared.

A tremor ran the length of Cale's body. He felt lighter, as ephemeral as a spirit. The white light rapidly diminished to nothingness, but the feeling of insubstantiality remained.

"Walk on the air as though it's solid earth," Magadon said. "Vertical movement is controlled by your mind. Imagine stairs or a ramp as you run, and you'll move up or down."

Without another word, the guide stepped off the corridor's edge and into the open air. Jak audibly gasped, but instead of plummeting to his death, the guide stood suspended on nothing.

Cale took a deep breath and followed suit. The air felt spongy under his feet, but solid enough. He could see the ruins of the city far below and had to fight down a wave of dizziness.

He said to Riven and Jak, "Come on."

They did, and when all four had tested the air, they turned and ran across the sky for the tower. Magadon and Cale led. Jak and Riven followed hard after.

With nothing but air and orange light around him, Cale felt exposed, visible. He yearned for the comfort of shadow. He toyed with the idea of making himself invisible but saw no point. He could do nothing to hide his comrades, so he would stand with them.

When they had made it halfway across the city, the biggest of the three slaadi-Dolgan-saw them. The fat slaad, wobbling on his wounded leg, made an obscene gesture in their direction and shouted to his fellows.

The creatures were almost to the cupola. One more twist around the tower and they would be at the top.

Cale could see Azriim's fanged grin, even from that distance. An itch manifested deep in the base of Cale's brain, an itch that became a whisper, then a voice.

It is my pleasure to see you again, Azriim said into Cale's mind. Unlike the feeling elicited by Magadon's mindlink, the slaad's psionic touch felt greasy, hostile. You are a persistent creature.

I'm going to kill you, Cale projected back.

Hardly a novel plan for you, priest, Azriim replied with a mental sneer.

The slaad broke the contact and spoke to his fellows. As one, the three slaadi pointed in the direction of Cale and his companions, each mouthed an arcane word, and fired three pea-sized orange balls from their outstretched palms.

"Cover!" Cale shouted, and immediately realized how foolish the exclamation sounded. ,

They were running across the open air. There was nowhere to hide.

He turned, grabbed Jak, and threw himself face down over the halfling as orange fire exploded in their midst. He prayed that Magadon would survive the blast, knowing that if the guide was killed, their ability to walk on air would cease.

One ball of flame exploded, then another, and another. The blistering air rushed past and over Cale. Jak hissed against the pain. The heat and flames enshrouded them. Cale grimaced against the expected agony but the pain did not come. His shadowstuff-suffused body resisted the spells of the slaadi and sheltered Jak from the worst of the blast. Cale waited for the fall to come, his heart in his throat.

The air remained as solid as earth under his boots.

He climbed to his feet, pulling Jak up by the cloak. The halfling already had his holy symbol in hand and he began to chant.

To Cale's right, Magadon and Riven clambered to their feet, skin raw, clothes smoking. Riven pulled shadows from the orange-tinted air, twirled them around his fingers, and touched them to his flesh. His wounds disappeared. Magadon swayed but seemed all right.

In the meantime, the halfling completed his prayer. White fire flew from Jak's outstretched hands and broke on the slaadi like water on rocks, seemingly to no effect.

Recovered, Magadon unshouldered his bow, knocked an arrow, and let fly. The arrow took Dolgan in the shoulder. The impact drove the fat slaad against the tower and he howled, stumbling on his wounded foot.

"Move!" Cale said. "We have to keep them from reaching the tower!"

Together, they pelted for the spire, Cale and Magadon in the lead. They had a full bowshot of open air to cover before they reached the tower.

Seeing them charge, Azriim barked something to his fellow slaadi, turned, and raced up the crystal stairs, taking them two at a time. He spiraled around the tower and went out of sight. Meanwhile, Dolgan jerked the arrow from his flesh, threw it over the side of the staircase, and pulled a thin iron rod from a leather tube on his thigh. His fellow did the same, except that his wand appeared to be made of wood.

"Wands!" Magadon warned as they ran.

"Spread out!" Cale shouted, and began to incant his own spell.

The comrades opened some distance between them as they charged, to make targeting them with the wands more difficult. Cale finished incanting his spell, a dweomer that cancelled other magic. He targeted it on the gray-eyed slaad's wand hoping to disable it. His spell took effect, met the magic of the wand, and failed. In that failure Cale caught a sense of the power of the mage who had crafted the wand: the Sojourner.

"Dark and empty," he whispered.

Dolgan's fanged mouth formed an arcane word and the tip of his wand flared. A mass of churning green gas formed in the air near Jak and Riven, a noxious, sick-looking little cloud. The halfling tumbled aside, but Riven ran right into it. The vapors swallowed him. The gas was so thick Cale couldn't see within.

"Riven!" Magadon said.

Unwilling to leave Riven behind, Cale and Magadon aborted their charge and turned back.

Quickly, Jak sheathed his blade, pocketed his holy symbol, and said, "I'll get him."

The halfling took a great gulp of air, held it, and rushed into the cloud. He emerged a moment later pulling Riven by his cloak. The assassin was bent double, coughing and vomiting. He pushed Fleet away and gestured toward the tower.

"Go," the assassin spat at them. "I'll follow."

He retched again, raining the contents of his stomach on the ruins far below. The cloud of gas, evidently heavier than air, began to slowly sink toward the ruins below.

Cale turned just in time to see the gray-eyed slaad fire a thin green beam from the tip of his wand. Magadon saw it too, and danced aside as the beam streaked past his hip.

Azriim came into view again around the near side of the tower, still loping hard up the spiral stairway. He was nearly to the archway that opened onto the cupola. Cale knew then that they would not be able to stop him. His heart sank.