Will Wight - Of Dawn and Darkness

“I am…a business partner of your husband’s. I’m the one who arranged for your jailbreak and ensuing expedition through the void. I assigned you here, Jyrine Tessella Marten, and I sowed the seed of this moment long before you were born.”

Jerri fell to her knees, pressing her forehead to the floorboards. “Kelarac, Great One,” she whispered. Only in her most daring daydreams had she imagined that she would someday come face-to-face with one of the Great Ones. This was even better than she’d hoped; Kelarac was actively helping her. He had guided her wisdom closer to his own, so that she could continue serving the world.

“Do you wish to learn from me?” Kelarac asked, and his voice came from all around her.

“More than anything.”

“I know the secrets of time, of the worlds, of the future and of human Intent. With a fraction of my knowledge, you could guide the Empire into a new golden age. Each man an Emperor, each woman an Empress.”

She could picture it as he spoke, as though he were feeding her specific images. A man flexing his Intent to open a solid wall into a door; a woman climbing into a machine shaped like a winged Kameira, and soaring through the clouds; a little boy waving his hand and causing a thousand flowers to bloom in a field.

“The mysteries of this world are keys that can unlock any door,” the Great Elder’s voice went on. “And they will be yours…if you pay the price. And today, I take my price in obedience .”

She stood, green power swirling around her fingertips and lighting the room. She’d never been so ready to fight.

With Kelarac’s knowledge, she could shock the world. Prove to everyone, even Calder, that she’d been right. That she and her father were justified all along.

The Soul Collector laughed fondly, and the door tore open.

Jerri hurled fire.

At first, standing in the courtyard, Calder tried to take on a passive role in the defeat of the Elder wall. The mountain of flesh was not going down passively, lashing out at each of the Guards and Watchmen that dared approach. They were using their armor and weapons to clear the way for the Guild Heads—General Teach marched up with Tyrfang in one hand, keeping a healthy distance from the other humans so that the sheer aura of her weapon didn’t strike them dead.

Bliss skipped along next to her, apparently immune to Tyrfang’s power, the Spear of Tharlos leaning against one shoulder. When she and Teach struck together, it dwarfed anything Calder had seen before, exploding like an alchemist’s charge and sending stinking flesh blasting fifty feet into the air. Calder had to stagger back and hold a hand up over his eyes to block a faceful of Elder gore. They stood in a tunnel slashed in the flesh, black-edged with death and corruption.

But the wall was still growing. They weren’t getting closer to the heart.

Eventually, he knew, they would carve through. They were doing damage faster than the wall could heal, and they wouldn’t stop until they broke through to the center. But at this rate, it could take hours. And Bliss had emphasized speed above all else. No matter what they had to do, they had to reach the inside of the Elder wall as quickly as possible.

Calder lifted the sheathed saber he’d carried from his room. He had wanted to avoid drawing the weapon in front of Bliss, in case she could somehow sense that it came from Kelarac. Besides, he was wearing clothes fit for the Emperor himself. He didn’t want to ruin them with Elder blood on the first day.

But now, it seemed, he had no choice.

He pulled the sheath off with one hand, tossing it aside, and held the blade in the other. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll have ruined my clothes for no reason,” he said to no one in particular.

“I hear you have to pay for the second set,” Andel called from behind him. He hadn’t known the man was here.

Calder stepped up to the Elder wall for the first time since his dream last night. In the daylight it loomed even higher, more menacing, a sheer cliff of rotting meat. The stench rolling from the freshly carved cave was indescribable, and he couldn’t get too close to General Teach for fear that her sword would actually kill him where he stood.

But he did have one advantage.

Through the six-fingered mark on his right hand, he funneled his Intent and Read the simple Elderspawn wall. As he’d suspected, it was a simple creature, fashioned for the sole purpose of keeping them away from this room. It focused on him, preparing to lash out with its whips of muscle, and he moved his blade where the lashes would strike.

Raw Elder sinew met orange-and-black mottled steel. The orange of the Awakened blade flared, corrosive Intent surged in the weapon, and the tendril blackened.

A silent scream blasted out from the Elder wall, audible to Calder only through Kelarac’s mark. The wall recoiled—not visibly, but through its Intent—and tried to attack around the blade. Each time, Calder intercepted the strike an instant before the whip actually landed.

He found himself grinning. Fighting like this made him feel like a sword-master from legend, unbeatable and unstoppable, advancing against any number of opponents. His sword was always in the right place even before it was needed, and he fought on sheer instinct. Too bad it only worked on Elderspawn.

When he reached the cave that Bliss and Teach had opened, he dared not proceed any farther. If Teach happened to accidentally move the Intent of her Vessel backwards, he’d fall over dead.

Just as his father had, at the end of that same weapon.

Instead, experimentally, he drove his Awakened sword into the side of the tunnel. The simple Elder being let out another scream of Intent, and a massive chunk of the wall just melted . Odious black goo rolled like a tide over his shoes, and he knew he’d have to burn this pair too.

It was as he’d expected, remembering the fate of the Elderspawn on the Gray Island. Any lesser Elder that encountered this sword dissolved.

He would have to join the two Guild Heads, if they wanted to make it through the wall in any reasonable amount of time. Which left only the little inconvenience of figuring out how to fight next to Tyrfang without dying.

“Guild Heads!” Calder called. They were only a pace or two ahead of him, as their tunnel was incredibly shallow at this point, but they were both thoroughly engaged in digging through the Elder flesh. In fact, shovelfuls of carrion and rotting blood splattered him every time they moved. “Excuse me! General Teach!”

“Speak!” Teach ordered, without turning around.

More than the stench, more than the sickening sounds of blades in flesh, more than the reality of what they were doing, the Intent rolling off of her Vessel made him feel sick. “I believe I can speed us up, but I have to get closer.”

Teach gave no acknowledgement that she’d heard, hacking away at the wall, but Tyrfang’s Intent began to lessen. Her speed decreased in proportion, until the entire hall didn’t quite blacken and die with every swing of her sword.

On the other side of the General, Bliss just held her Spear jammed into the end of the tunnel, humming an aimless tune. The wall’s flesh actually fled from her blade, as if in fear.

Calder held his breath as he moved up, standing shoulder to armored shoulder. He immediately knew he’d been wrong; no matter how far Teach held herself back, the aura of the sword pressed against him like the edge of a blade. His vision blurred, and he could feel consciousness slipping.

He concentrated on his own sword, on the orange-spotted blade Kelarac had given him. Its power seemed to push around it, creating a little bubble where Teach’s influence was weakened. It helped, but not enough. He needed something else.