Cloak Games: Truth Chain Page 7

  The vast rose window at the other end of the cathedral did.

  It was huge, at least eighty feet across, and the strange sky made it blaze with fiery light, filling the cathedral with a harsh, flickering glow. Unlike the rest of the windows, the rose window wasn’t made of stained glass, but the glow from the sky made it look as if it had been carved from fiery light.

  I walked with Arvalaeon to the shallow steps that would have led to the altar had this been an actual church, and we stopped, gazing up at the window.

  “What is that?” I said.

  “Your test,” said Arvalaeon.

  I looked back at him and frowned. “Test of what?”

  “To prove that you will be ready to defeat Castomyr,” said Arvalaeon.

  “The window is the test?” I said.

  “Yes,” said Arvalaeon. “You must break the window.”

  “Okay,” I said, shrugging, though I suspected it wouldn’t be that easy. “Fine. I’ll get a bucket of rocks from the park. Give me five minutes, and I’ll have the window broken.”

  “It is not that simple, Nadia Moran,” said Arvalaeon. His eyes seemed to have extra weight to them. “The window is both the test and the exit to this domain.”

  “Exit?” I said.

  “It will take you back to Earth,” said Arvalaeon. “Break the window and pass through it. The rift way beyond it will take you back to the coffee shop.”

  “That’s it?” I said. I could liberate a hammer from the general store on the main street, levitate up to the window, smash myself a hole, and leave. It would take all of ten minutes. “That’s going to make me ready to fight Castomyr?”

  “I shall also,” said Arvalaeon, “teach you new spells.”

  I blinked, trying to conceal my interest. This man had kidnapped me and was forcing me to do his will while using me in a game of his own design, but I wanted those spells. “New spells?”

  “Six new spells, to be precise,” he said, flexing his left hand. Harsh blue light appeared around his fingers. “We do not have time for you to learn the spells by traditional methods, so I shall place the knowledge directly into your memory. I am afraid this is going to be quite painful.”

  Before I could react, he touched my forehead. Pain exploded through my head, and I shrieked and almost fell over. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, and I started hyperventilating.

  It took a few moments to get myself under control, and when I did, there was something new inside my head.

  “This spell,” said Arvalaeon, “will allow you to work a sphere of elemental fire, which you can then direct against your enemies. Cast it now.”

  I concentrated, took a deep breath, and called a sphere of fire into existence above my hand.

  I had seen this spell before. Hakon Valborg had used it, and he had been powerful enough and skilled enough to use a single casting to kill a half-dozen anthrophages in the time it took me to blink. Sadly, I didn’t have his skill or power. I focused my will, and the sphere leaped from my fingers and splashed out of existence against the floor.

  “Oh,” I said. “I could think of a few times that might have been useful.”

  “A second spell,” said Arvalaeon, calling more light around his fingers. “Of related principles.”

  He touched my head again, and once more the pain exploded through me.

  When it cleared, I cast the new spell. This time freezing mist swirled around my fingers, and when I gestured, a spike of rock-hard ice shot from my fingers and shattered against the floor. It was like I could shoot a frozen arrow from my hand.

  “Fire and ice,” I said.

  “Command of the basic elements,” said Arvalaeon. “On Kalvarion, the initiates in the Towers of Art learned the primal elements in their first years of study. Illusions such as Cloaking and Masking spells were taught much later, and only to those Elves with sufficient magical aptitude. Morvilind has given you an advanced education while neglecting the fundamentals.” More blue light shone around his hand, and I braced myself for the pain.

  He touched my head, and the pain exploded through my skull. This time it was bad enough that I fell to my hands and knees, wheezing, my whole body shaking. Arvalaeon waited as I recovered myself, got to my feet, and tried the new spell.

  The spell was designed to conjure a wall of freezing ice, presumably to seal doors and block pursuit. I had no practice with the spell, so instead of a wall I sort of summoned a low fence that melted in about five seconds. Nonetheless, I could think of several times in the past when I could have used such a spell.

  “The fourth spell,” said Arvalaeon, and he touched my forehead again.

  This time I blacked out for a little bit, and when I woke up, I had a ringing headache. I sat up, groaned, and stood, and I saw that Arvalaeon was standing next to a plastic picnic cooler.

  “Um,” I said. “Is that lunch?”

  “The spell,” said Arvalaeon. “Cast it upon this object. You should find it effective.”

  I frowned and cast the spell that he had put into my increasingly sore head. It was a spell of telekinetic force, one that transformed my thoughts into kinetic force and let me move things by thinking about them. Morvilind had already taught me a spell along those lines.

  Yet this one was better.

  The spell Morvilind had taught me was a bit like pushing something with my little finger.

  This spell was like gripping something with both my hands and lifting with my legs.

  The cooler hurtled into the air, slammed into the vaulted ceiling, and fell in pieces to the floor.

  “Uh,” I said. “I might need to practice my control.”

  “You will have the opportunity,” said Arvalaeon. The blue light shone around his fingers once more. I braced myself, and he touched my head again.

  I blacked out.

  When I woke up, my nose was bleeding a little, my head felt like I had a railroad spike between my eyes, and I knew a new spell.

  “That hurt,” I croaked, standing up.

  “Cast the spell,” said Arvalaeon.

  I forced myself to cast the spell. The effort of casting unfamiliar spells was exhausting, even in the magic-charged environment of the Shadowlands, and I had already been drained from the day’s ordeals. Magical exhaustion was creeping up on me, but I forced myself on and finished the spell.

  It was another spell of telekinetic force. Instead of projecting the force, it wrapped around my arms and legs like an invisible suit of armor. I blinked and looked at my hands, but nothing was obvious.

  “What does this do?” I said. “What is the point of this?”

  “Punch the floor,” said Arvalaeon.

  “What?” I said.

  Arvalaeon nodded towards the flagstones. “Punch the floor.”

  I shrugged, squatted, and punched the floor with my right hand.

  I didn’t hit it all that hard since I didn’t want to hurt my hand. Yet to my utter astonishment, the flagstone shattered as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer, or if someone had run a jackhammer over it. The damage had come from the invisible gauntlet of telekinetic force around my hand, and I hadn’t even cast the spell that effectively.

  “I can definitely see how that would be useful,” I said, straightening up. “What, do you want me to punch Castomyr in the head with that?”

  “If you wish,” said Arvalaeon. “There is one more spell to teach you.”

  I took a deep breath, trying to clear my buzzing head. “Okay. Do it.”

  He flexed his hand, summoning blue light, and touched my head.

  Pain exploded through my skull, and everything went black.

  It took me longer to wake up this time. Slowly, slowly, my mind came back into focus, like an old computer monitor trying to power up. I became aware of the cold stone beneath me, of the dim fiery light that painted everything, of the rise and fall of my breathing, of my thunderous headache. I sat up, wincing as the muscles in my back clenched and shivered.

  Arvalaeon stoo
d nearby, waiting.

  “That hurt,” I croaked, getting to my feet.

  “This method of teaching is rarely used,” said Arvalaeon, “due to the extreme stress it places upon the student. Too much more of it and you will likely die of a brain hemorrhage.”

  I rubbed at my face and looked at the half-dried blood that had been dripping from my nose. “Good to know. The new spell.” I turned it over in my mind as Arvalaeon walked to my side. “What does this do?”

  “Some preparation is required,” said Arvalaeon.

  Before I could react, he reached into his coat, drew a tactical knife, seized my left hand, and sliced my palm open.

  “What the hell?” I shrieked, jerking back from him as the searing pain shot up my arm.

  “Cast the new spell,” said Arvalaeon, wiping the knife clean.

  I started to snarl just where he could stick that knife, but I closed my eyes so I didn’t see the ugly gash in my palm, summoned magical power, and cast the spell.

  The strain of the spell jolted my eyes open. I saw my hands glowing with golden light, the glow crawling up my arms and over my body like a wave of ice. I staggered, and the golden light faded away. The gash on my hand had vanished, the skin like new, and some of the pain in my head and arms and legs from Alan’s beating had dimmed.

  “What…what just happened?” I said, and then I passed out again.

  When I woke up again, I felt utterly exhausted, but the cut on my hand was still gone.

  “A spell of regeneration,” said Arvalaeon, still standing at the foot of the shallow stairs below the glowing rose window. “It will heal your wounds and repair injuries you have sustained.”

  “Really?” I said, rolling my neck. My head and neck and shoulders still felt sore, but I did feel a lot better, though more tired. “That’s…kind of really useful.”

  “The spell has limitations,” said Arvalaeon. “It cannot cure normal illnesses, only injuries and wounds. Nor can it heal every wound you take, though as you practice the spell your skill with it will grow. Additionally, after you heal yourself, the exhaustion of the effort will send you into a deep sleep. If you heal yourself of a severe wound, you could potentially be unconscious for a week or more.”

  “So, don’t heal myself in the middle of the street or in traffic, got it,” I said. I hesitated. “Would…this work on frostfever?”

  “No,” said Arvalaeon. “You can only cast the spell on yourself, not another. And frostfever is beyond a simple spell of regeneration.”

  “Oh,” I said. I suppose that had been too much to hope for. “Still, these spells will let me kill Castomyr?”

  “Yes,” said Arvalaeon, “aided by the spells that Morvilind and others have already taught you. But first, you must leave this place.” He pointed at the glowing rose window over our heads. “Break the window and pass through the rift beyond it. When you can do that, you will be ready to face Castomyr with a chance of success.”

  “Easy enough,” I said, turning to face the window. “I’ll do it right now.” I was tired, but I could manage a levitation spell without too much trouble, and the telekinetic gauntlet spell would let me punch through the glass.

  “Perhaps,” said Arvalaeon.

  I hesitated. Again, that expression of weary regret went over Arvalaeon’s face, the same expression I had seen in the parking lot when he said he regretted what he would have to do to me.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “Thirty days,” said Arvalaeon. “That is how long you have until Morvilind notices your absence. You have thirty days to escape from this place.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “When I was your age, I didn’t either,” said Arvalaeon, “but you are about to learn the cost of gaining power.”

  He gestured, and blue light leaped from his hand and struck me in the head.

  A deep wave of exhaustion went through me, and I sank to my knees, and then slumped to the stone floor.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter 5: Stay For Dinner

  I blinked awake, my eyes gazing at a harsh yellow-orange sky marked by rippling ribbons of fiery light. I was lying on asphalt, a cool breeze and a bit of dust blowing past me.

  A yellow-orange sky?

  Right. Arvalaeon. The Shadowlands. The new spells. He had knocked me out, and then must have taken me outside.

  “Was there a point to knocking me out that last time?” I said, wincing as I pushed myself to a sitting position. My muscles and joints still ached, and my head throbbed, but I did feel better. The regeneration spell had healed some of the damage that Alan had done to me, though if it was going to knock me out every time I cast it, I had better use it only sparingly.

  I sat up, and blinked in surprise.

  I wasn’t anywhere near the cathedral. I was back in the parking lot between the gas station and the grain silos, sitting on the ground at the foot of the bronze monolith of the clock. Come to think of it, I was sitting in the exact spot where Arvalaeon and I had appeared after leaving the coffee shop.

  He had moved me here?

  “Arvalaeon?” I said, looking around. “Hey, asshole? You there?”

  Nothing. The parking lot was deserted, and so were all the streets in every direction I could see. Well, he had said this was a test. I guess the test was to walk a mile to the spooky cathedral and break a window. That didn’t make much sense, but…

  A metallic clang came to my ears.

  I jumped to my feet, calling magic to me. The clanging noise came from the Elven clock, and as I looked the dials on the face moved into a new configuration. The row of numbers beneath it shivered, but remained at DAY 1. I hesitated, then cast the spell to sense the presence of magic.

  The power radiating from the ground and the air nearly overwhelmed me, but I forced my mind to focus. The earth and the air were saturated with magic, but I also sensed a powerful aura around the bronze clock. It was complex beyond my ability to comprehend. I had sensed a few devices of similar complexity in Morvilind’s mansion, but I didn’t know what they did, and I didn’t know what this thing did, either.

  Despite my better judgment, I touched it. The metal felt hot beneath my fingers, and I jerked my hand back before it could be burned.

  “Right,” I muttered. “Giant metal clock. That’s not creepy, either.” I didn’t usually talk to myself, but it had been a bad day. The town was silent save for the occasional murmur of the wind, and it was a little unnerving.

  But that wasn’t my problem, was it? I knew what I had to do to get out of here. Walk across town, break the rose window, and go through the rift way and back to Earth. That ought to be simple.

  I suspected it wasn’t going to be that simple.

  There was one thing to check first. I tried casting the rift way spell myself. Arvalaeon had set up this entire game for me, and sometimes the best way to win a game was not to play the stupid thing at all.

  As I expected, the spell didn’t work. It was as if I stood within a Seal of Shadows. Arvalaeon had blocked the way to Earth, and the only way out was to play his game.

  “Damn it,” I muttered.

  Well, best to get on with it.

  I looked around again, took a deep breath, and headed out. I walked down the center of the main street, looking back and forth at the ancient cars parked on either side, scanning the windows of the shops and offices. I also looked at the rooftops, and glanced down the narrow alleys between the buildings as I walked.

  I didn’t know what I expected to find. The place seemed deserted, but Arvalaeon would not have taught me those six new spells, and powerful spells at that, if I would not need them.

  Plus, I had a crawling feeling against my skin. This place had been creepy while I had been touring it with the Lord Inquisitor, and it was even creepier when he was gone. I was certain that something was watching me with hostile intent. Maybe someone (or something) was following me while using a Cloak spell just as Arvalaeon had done, which was a disturbing
thought, because I would have no way of detecting a man under a Cloak spell until I walked into him.

  Or he strolled up and stabbed me in the back.

  I kept watching the street, but nothing moved, save the wall of mist upon the hills outside of town. And me, I suppose. I turned my ahead again, looking for any sign of danger.

  And as I did, I saw the motionless shape of a man standing in a nearby window.

  I whirled, my hand coming up to begin the lightning globe spell Riordan had taught me. The big picture window belonged to a land title business, according to the sign, and through it saw a receptionist’s desk and some chairs and end tables.

  There was no one in the office.

  I waited for a moment, and then crossed to the office’s door. Part of me wanted to sprint for the cathedral as quickly as I could. Yet that seemed too easy. If Arvalaeon had left a trap, if this was a bizarre test, then I didn’t want to blunder into it. I doubted I would get a second chance.

  Best to be cautious.

  I opened the door and stepped inside. The place looked pleasant, at least for a land title office, with a blue carpet and some magazines and newspapers spread on the end tables. An old pre-Conquest style computer sat on the desk, powered off. I eased past the receptionist’s desk and moved down the narrow hallway behind it, examining the three offices lining the hallway.

  All of them were empty.

  But the back door was ajar, as if someone had just passed through it.

  I walked to the back door and peered out, holding my magic ready. Behind the building was a parking lot, a fenced-off area holding HVAC equipment, and a dumpster. Past the parking lot was another street, and then the residential area of the town.

  Save for the ribbons of fire in the sky and the mist in the hills, nothing in my field of vision moved, and I heard nothing but the faint moaning of the wind.

  I stepped back into the hallway, pulling the door shut. It latched with a solid metallic click, and I shoved it a few times. It wouldn’t have opened on its own.

  Which meant that either Arvalaeon had created this domain with the door already ajar…or someone had been watching me through the window and fled out the back door when I spotted him.