Mark Del Franco - Uncertain Allies

The dark mass pressed against the inside of my skull, and I relaxed against it. It pierced my eye with searing pain. I coaxed it into dark ribbons that coiled around me, a trick I’d picked up when I touched Vize in the Tangle. “Watch me.”

The tower shuddered. Briallen stared at me, fear and uncertainty on her face. You can control it, she sent. It wasn’t quite true. I could push it in certain directions, but “control” was an overstatement.

“Stop delaying,” I yelled, and started climbing. The damage gave me plenty of handholds as I pulled myself toward the remains of the Receiving Hall. Black-clad Dananns swooped in overhead. They tumbled back into the sky as emerald essence flashed out from the ledge, a blast of elf-shot more powerful than any I had ever sensed.

I pulled myself over the remains of the overhang. Behind the Guildmaster’s chair, still glamoured as Aldred Core, huddled Donor, with the stone clutched to his chest. His body shield was warping and flashing around him. Vize stood a few feet away, dark shadows slicing the air as they stabbed at the remaining Guild agents.

I could use some help, Grey, Brokke’s voice reverberated in my head.

I craned my neck, searching the debris.

Down here, he sent. I leaned back over the ledge. A dozen feet down, Brokke dangled from a section of broken floor. He had fused his fingers into the stone. The building shook again, and the stone shifted farther down the side.

“Fuse the slab to the building,” I shouted.

Brokke bowed his head against the stone. Been trying. Too much stone.

“Hold on. I’ll get a Danann,” I said.

I scrambled back from the edge. The Receiving Hall was a haze of essence as agents exchanged fire with Donor and Vize. A steady vibration built beneath my feet, and I stumbled again. A burst of essence flashed from the end of the hall. I slipped, rolling back toward the edge.

Listen to Bastian, but trust Eagan, Grey, Brokke sent.

Brokke’s slab had levered out into space. He pulled a hand free and pressed it into the stone farther up. With painstaking slowness, he dragged himself toward the building. The wall shuddered, and the slab slid. I thrust out my hands, opened my mind to tap into my abilities to extend ribbons of essence and grab Brokke. I screamed as the black mass spiked like claws and shut me down. I fell forward, clutching the edge of the floor.

I watched in horror as the slab broke free. In silence, it tumbled end over end, with Brokke clinging to it. He vanished in an explosion of dust a hundred feet below.

Angry, I knelt back against my feet. The black mass burned with sharp intensity. I held my breath, calming myself. It didn’t help. The mass trembled with spikes, piercing my mind again and again. My body essence retreated before it, crumbling under the strain.

White essence jolted through me like a stroke of lightning. A sharp white line appeared in my mind, pulsing with power. I recognized that essence. The spear had reestablished its bond with me. Dizzy, I retreated from the edge and faced the remains of the Receiving Hall. The spear whirled in Vize’s hand as he fended off Guild agents. Sliding his grip to its base, he swept the spear around him, scattering more agents. With a pivot, he brought the spear to a stop, point ready for the next opponent, when he saw me.

Planting the spear on the floor of the cleared space, he wrapped his arm around Donor’s. When I had touched Vize with the darkness, he had touched me, too. A primal understanding had passed through our connection. I had learned how to control the darkness like he did. He had learned how to use the spear to teleport like I did. Through my bond with the spear, an echo of Vize’s destination opened in my mind, like a tunnel of vibrant, spiraling essence. He was going to teleport away and take Donor with him.

I wasn’t going to let him. I stretched out my hand.

“Ithbar,” I shouted.

The spear lurched in Vize’s hand as it responded to my command. Our minds pressed against each other, the spear a white streak of essence between us. I focused all my thought on the spear, willing it toward me. Vize fought back, trying to teleport away. The vision clarified as the tunnel locked on its destination. I pressed harder, my will against Vize’s. The spear slipped his grasp and launched across the expanse. I grabbed it, and the world fell out below me, twisting and blurring as I hurtled into the tunnel.

I landed hard on my feet, my ears popping in the sudden shift from the wind-torn Guildhouse to a dim, quiet room. I didn’t know where I was. It was Vize’s destination, not mine. The room appeared to be an office with a bed tucked in the corner. I sensed several elven body signatures, including Vize’s, but no one had been there recently.

I hesitated. As much as I wanted to know where Vize had hoped to escape to, I didn’t have time to investigate.

I focused my inner vision on the entrance to the Guildhouse. The swirl of the tunnel formed again, and I spun across the darkness to a spot of daylight in the distance. I tripped onto the sidewalk under the Guildhouse portico. A brownie guard shoved me to the side. “Get down! Get down!”

Essence-fire slammed into the roof above. Chunks of granite cascaded into the street, and I ducked behind a column. Shouts drew my attention across the square. A block away, people filled the street—fey folk, yelling and shooting essence at the brownie security guards and police. In the air above them, Dananns and other fairies tangled with Guild agents.

I stood before the shattered front doors under the dragon’s head. “What the hell is going on?” I asked.

“The Unseelie are attacking. They have breached the dome,” the brownie said. He was fighting his boggart side; but from the length of his claws, he was going to lose it soon. He growled, his jaw lengthening with exposed teeth, and sprinted across Park Square toward the fighting. While I didn’t delude myself into thinking Eorla would take me into her confidence, outright battle wasn’t her style. She was a diplomat. The attackers weren’t her people. They had to be Donor’s in disguise.

Where are you? Briallen sent. The sending was followed by another, then another, each more frantic than the last, like a flurry of mental voice mails. I didn’t have the ability to respond. I debated using the spear to join her, but the tower she was in was now disconnected from the rest of the Guildhouse. Donor and Vize were somewhere in the main section. My strength was fading against the power of the spear. I hated ignoring her, but I had no choice.

I stepped over broken glass into the lobby. A Guild agent by the elevators raised his hand at me. “You may not enter.”

“I already have,” I said.

The agent’s hand glowed white as it welled with essence. I didn’t engage him, but opened my mind to find Meryl’s essence. My body essence danced along the spear, searching for her as I had done once before, in TirNaNog. This time I knew what I was doing. As the agent’s hand released its fire, I let the spear run free, and it pulled me into its twisting tunnel of darkness and light. I landed on the threshold of Meryl’s office, taking a step to keep my balance. I was getting better at teleporting.

Meryl shoved her computer mouse away. “Dammit, Grey. I was going to beat my best time.”

“No, really, I’m fine. Stop asking,” I said.

She grinned. “I knew that. As soon as Briallen told me what happened, I figured out what you did.”

“She’s okay?” I asked.

“Making her way down what’s left of the tower as we speak,” she said.

“What’s this about an Unseelie attack?” I asked.