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seemed to flow from somewhere, almost effortlessly now. Then, he was thrown to
the floor by another bolt of Talent-force.
For a moment, the dark cocoon wavered, but he shored it up, held it tight.
Abruptly, a brilliant greenish light poured through the now-huge cracks in the
chamber wall, and the remaining faint purplish light swirled as if it were
smoke, smoke pressed back by the greenness.
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Alucius struggled to his knees, pouring more blackness around the shrinking
purple crystal. The whining from the crystal rose in pitch into a piercing
shriek, and then into a frequency so high that while Alucius could not hear
it, he felt as though his very bones were being sawed apart from within, that
his entire being was being sliced into slivers by invisible knives.
He forced more blackness, backed with green, looking up as a single point of
fire brighter than the sun replaced the dark-enshrouded pur-pleness, throwing
his darkness back at him.
At the same moment, in that moment of clarity, three guards fired. One shot
hammered the back of his shoulder, another his lower back, another the back of
his thigh. He tried to turn, to throw himself flat on the stone splintering
beneath him.
Silver-green surged across the chamber& a blinding wave of color and power&
& then darkness claimed him.
Someone was groaning.
After a moment, Alucius realized he was the one groaning. His head throbbed,
and his eyesight was blurred. He was lying on something hard, very hard.
Stone.
The chamber was dark. Black, with but a faint glow from a single dying light-
torch, its crystal cracked and its energies dissipating.
The guards! He tried to move his head, and sharp pains jabbed through his
skull. Gingerly, he turned his head, and looked across the chamber. There was
no sign of the purple crystal. There was no flow of pink or purple'thread
power.
There were figures on the stone floor. There were still large fissures in the
walls of the chamber, but no light sunlight or green light came through those
cracks.
Alucius slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. Outside of his head,
which ached, his body did not feel as sore as it should have. He looked down
at himself. There was a hole in his trousers on the side of his thigh, but his
thigh was not sore. Carefully, he stood, looking around the chamber, and
particularly at the floor around himself. There were stone shards around him,
except they lay in a semicircle almost a yard from where he stood.
The feeling of silver-green? The only creature he knew that felt silver-green
was a soarer. But what had a soarer been doing in the chamber? Or had he
imagined it? And what would a soarer have been doing underground?
He frowned, then moved a step around to his left. Even though the space in the
center of the chamber was empty, as if the crystal had never been, he had no
intention of walking through where it had floated. Before him, there were five
bodies, and all lay in pools of blood. He looked at the body of the nearest
guard, and then looked away from the splinters of stone that had riddled her.
He had to swallow to keep from retching.
He stepped carefully around the other four. The last one had been an officer
of some sort, but Alucius did not recognize the insignia. Slightly behind the
five figures was a line of clothing a deep violet tunic, matching trousers,
black boots, and an emerald necklace of some sort all stretched out as if
someone had been wearing it and then vanished. But there was not even dust
within the clothing.
He reached for the necklace, then drew back his hand. There was something
about it very old and very evil, as if it had been imbued with the pinkness,
even though the purple and pink had vanished from the chamber. He looked at
the clothing once more, and then at the ancient emeralds. Although he could
scarcely prove it, he knew who had worn those clothes. He swallowed and
straightened, and then glanced around.
After a moment, he eased toward the open oak door and peered into the corridor
beyond. It too was empty. He walked steadily to the end of the long corridor,
and stopped at the silver door. There were no Talent energies playing around
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the door, and the crystal handle looked like dull glass. There was no one on
the other side of the door either. The handle was cool to his touch as he
pressed it down. He opened the door and stepped through. On the other side was
a staircase wide enough for two that led straight upward to a landing.
He walked up the three flights of stairs, slowly, listening, but he could hear
nothing. When he reached the top, he faced a blank wall except for a small
handle.
He cloaked himself in his screen, ignoring the headache that intensified, and
then pulled the handle. The wall slid apart, and Alucius stepped out in one of
the side corridors he had thought led nowhere when he had been looking earlier
in the day. The corridor remained empty.
It took him several moments to figure out that the light-torch bracket served
the same function it had in the Matrial's closet, but the wall closed, and
Alucius moved back toward the center of the building, staying next to the
shady side of the corridor. From the position of the sun, it was early
afternoon.
He could not believe that no one had seen or heard what had happened. But
then, it had all occurred three levels down, behind stone walls, and past
three doors. Also, he suspected that no one had dared question the Matrial too
closely about what she did behind such closed doors.
Alucius smiled.
Several of the women in purple and green moved along the corridor, radiating
concern, but they were preoccupied and did not near Alucius.
Again& it took patience, but only about a quarter of a glass before one of the
Matrial's aides appeared and opened the silver gate to allow someone in
uniform to depart. Alucius followed. This time, even before Alucius could let
the officer move away from him, the overcaptain looked over her
shoulder twice, frowning then shook her head and continued. He swallowed,
silently.
On the north side of the residence, it appeared as though nothing had
happened, and Alucius made his way past the guards. Neither even looked in his
direction. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]