Reality's Plaything 4: Savants Ascendant Read online

  Grouped into three knots of figures were the balance of family Felspar and their allies. Cassandra, stood at the center of one circle, a jeweled staff raised over her head, a flood of gold energy pouring from it into the confinement magicks. A smallish woman with sparkling ruby-red hair formed the hub of another circle. She too held up a staff contributing to the integrity of the shield. A third lady with black hair was dressed in dark violet leather and holding a red scepter was the center of the third circle. Her sharp features reminded Bannor a great deal of Dominique, the Shael Dal and mate of Marna who guarded him on Homeworld.

  Tymoril and Kegari had somehow managed to get into the chamber from the lower gallery, and the two massive dragons were hunched down with their long necks and wings extended forward almost as if to provide shade for the coven groups.

  “About time you got here!” Cassandra snapped. “Megan, when you said a ‘little while’, I wasn’t thinking all bleedin’ day! Elsbeth, Gabriella, are you two okay?”

  “Yes,” gritted the red-haired woman. Bannor noticed she was another Shael Dal, the staff had shaladen threads associated with it. Looking at her again, he realized she must not actually be a part of the family because her aura was that of an elder.

  “I’m ready to end this foolishness,” the dark-haired mage muttered. “Dorian dear—cloth.”

  Dorian who was part of the circle around Gabriella pulled out a cloth and daubed the woman’s perspiring forehead.

  “Spread out,” King T’Evagduran said, aiming his bow.

  As their group dispersed, Bannor felt the power begin to mount. Bodies tensed as Shael Dal, great elders, valkyries and Kriar, prepared to put their strength behind the already powerful assemblage.

  “Lady Cassandra,” King T’Evagduran said. “Can we shoot through your barrier?”

  “No,” the gold mage gritted.

  Bannor narrowed his eyes. The barrier wasn’t completely opaque. He could see places where threads could reach through.

  “Ladies,” he said. “Please brace yourselves.”

  The three mages glanced at him.

  “Millicent, Jhord, get ready,” he continued. “I’m going to see if I can get them to calm down in there.”

  “What are you…?” Sarai started.

  He grabbed the physical threads of one of the pounding dreads and heaved. The huge creature slammed up against the shield causing the valkyries to reflexively jump back with yelps as the creature’s face and body mashed up and flattened against the curved surface.

  The three mages also jerked.

  “Ow!” Cassandra gritted.

  “Ack!” Elsbeth staggered but was balanced by the circle of supporters.

  “Dolt!” Gabriella yelled. “Don’t do that again! That hurts!”

  “Sorry,” he said, twirling his finger in the air. The already staggered and disoriented dreadnought began spinning and let out a weird confused bellow. Whirling at high speed, the nigh invulnerable creature made an effective broom, smashing aside everything inside the perimeter as he sent the monster hurtling around the circle, bouncing off and crushing anything close to the barrier. With a flick he sent the monster careening off into the Baronians gathered at the middle.

  Elsbeth, Cassandra, and Gabriella visibly relaxed as the battered and disoriented Baronians stopped attacking and stared. Even the dreadnoughts paused.

  “That was impressive,” Sindra remarked.

  King T’Evagduran broadcast the thought through his Shaladen.

  The Baronian commanders simply shook their heads.

  Kalindinai let out a breath. “That’s unfortunate.”

  “They can’t,” Senalloy said. “It isn’t the Baronian way.”

  “I know it sounds naïve,” Ryelle asked, sword readied in her hands. “Isn’t there some other way besides killing?”

  “You heard me offer a change of allegiance,” Bannor said. “They didn’t go for that either.”

  “I understand why you did it, but you were rather lenient to let the other group go,” the King said. “I do not think that option is open to us here.”

  “I believe I have a solution,” a female said behind them. A slim black-haired woman who looked very much like Senalloy entered the room flanked by a squad of Kriar and valkyries. She carried in her hand a large staff encrusted with dark jewels. She held a large red metallic sphere in the other.

  “Luthice,” Senalloy growled. “Where have you been?”

  The Baronian woman pointed to a bandage wrapped around and through her hair. “Getting my fractured skull mended. My brains were leaking out and it was causing me discomfort.” She spun the black staff.

  Bannor didn’t know what the intruders thought she was going to do, but whatever it was, they didn’t like it. All of them went into a frenzy of activity, smashing and battering at the screen that Cassandra, Elsbeth, and Gabriella had been maintaining.

  The three mages let out gasps.

  Luthice sighed. She thumbed something on the side of the red sphere. Something green began blinking. She gestured with the staff and a shiny reflective disk about the size of a melon appeared in the air in front of her. At the same time another disk the same size appeared in the middle of the space enclosed by the barrier.

  One of the Baronian commanders yelled and lunged for the spot but Luthice had already tossed the red ball into the gap. In the instant of leaving her hand it fell out of the duplicate disk inside the barrier and clanked to the floor.

  Luthice dismissed the tiny opening with a wave of her hands as the Baronians swarmed on the object. Whatever they intended to do never happened because the room shook as the object detonated. All of the Baronians in the chamber froze, their bodies illuminated as though their bones had become flames.

  A deep purple gas flooded the space with a rush. Causing all the intruders, including the dreadnoughts, to choke and cough.

  “Sorry to be late to your party, Sis.” Luthice said, pulling a few strands of long dark hair to her lips. “I trust this makes up for my tardiness?”

  The Baronians were growing weaker by the instant, their struggles and attempts to breach the barrier becoming more misdirected and feeble.

  “You promised to have that concoction, a half bell ago,” Elsbeth growled.

  “I didn’t have a concussion a half bell ago,” Luthice snapped, fingering her obviously hurting head. “Damn dread nearly crushed my skull.”

  Janai dropped her bow. “Guess we should be thankful for a bloodless solution to that mess.”

  “More than thankful,” King T’Evagduran said. He bowed to Luthice with a flourish. “Our thanks, Lady Luthice.”

  Wincing, the Baronian woman returned the bow.

  Bannor studied the circle making sure none of the creatures in the containment area were feigning unconsciousness. “It looks like they’re all down,” he remarked.

  One of the Kriar pulled a device from his belt and panned it back and forth.

  “Okay, let’s drop the shield,” Cassandra said.

  “You are positive they are unconscious?” Gabriella asked.

  Bannor double-checked. “Looks safe to me.”

  A few others in the room added their own confirmations.

  “I will dismiss the gas,” Luthice said. She gestured with the staff and another opening appeared inside the hemispherical area. Air rushed toward the silvery gap making hair and clothing bend toward it. In moments, the mist that had rendered the Baronian’s unconscious was gone. Luthice shut the gate. “You may drop the containment shield now.”

  Gabriella relaxed, as did Cassandra and Elsbeth. The white shield winked out. The Kriar also withdrew the teleportation blocking energies.

  “I’ll call Nova for a pickup,” Megan said sheathing her weapon. “We want these creatures incarcerated long before they wake up.”

  Bannor wondered if he could consider this a happy ending. They didn’t have some u
ltra-violent bloodbath simply to neutralize the enemy.

  Sarai fluttered her wings and tilted her head to one side. She seemed disappointed there wasn’t a fight, but didn’t voice it.

  After only a few moments, the silvery disk of another portal opened on the floor in the middle of the fallen group of Baronians.

  “Quickly,” Megan said. “Let’s get them in that cell!”

  With Kriar, Baronians, Shael Dal, and valkyries all putting their considerable muscle to the task, it was a simple matter to hurl the dreadnoughts through the gateway. The tenth creature had flopped through the opening when he felt it—something not right.

  He paused in the midst of preparing to pick up the next unconscious creature. Of the fifty or so creatures they were only half way done. Sarai, who was next to him, tossed in a body she had picked up and gave him a puzzled expression.

  “What’s wrong, my One?”

  He held up a hand and looked around for Cassandra. She and the other two mages were getting their breath back. What they had been doing was obviously extremely taxing. “Lady Cassandra, are the citadel defenses still intact?”

  The mage’s head snapped up. “What? Why?”

  Several people looked over in alarm.

  “I don’t know, I feel—”

  Megan stiffened and her face clouded. “Go! Go! Go!” She shouted. “Get them all through that gate now!” The rainbow-winged Vanir air-maiden began picking up unconscious Baronians and hurling them through the portal.

  The dragons who had squeezed into the chamber made uneasy rumbling sounds.

  Feeling Megan’s urgency, Bannor put his back into the effort of flinging as many bodies through the opening as he could. It was a race with an unknown amount of time. That indescribable feeling was getting stronger.

  The last Baronian was cleared out. Megan dismissed the portal with swing of her sword. “Damn, get ready—”

  A host of voices were raised in concern looking around. The others could obviously feel that underwater, ears under pressure sensation that oppressed the atmosphere.

  “Oh—frell,” Corim let out in a tired voice a short distance away.

  Bannor looked and saw the smoky distortion in the rocks of the citadel wall as huge metallic humanoids began stepping out with thunderous footsteps. He heard mecha weaponry spinning up to velocity and the high-pitched whine of energy reserves charging.

  “Do these guys ever bleeding give up?” Arabella murmured pulling out her sword.

  As the mammoth constructions leaned forward weapons poised, glowing red eyes pulsing, Bannor doubted they ever would…

  * * *

  Chapter Fifteen

  Internal Conflict

  « ^ »

  Me, frying pans and fires have an unhappy working relationship…

  —Bannor Nalthane Starfist,

  Prince Conjugal of Malan

  What the Baronians had to gain other than revenge, Bannor didn’t know. Perhaps they hoped to take him prisoner along with the others. What the alien war-planners actually wanted to accomplish was irrelevant because he didn’t plan to go along with any of it. The sizzle of weaponry, the rasp of magic, and the growls of the figures poised around him said that no-one else had any intentions along that line either.

  Combatants faced each other across the minimal expanse of the northern council room. The opposing forces stood less than ten paces apart. The T’Evagduran defenders could be considered nothing less than an army; dragons, elders, valkyries, Kriar warriors, and Shael Dal numbering close to a hundred.

  Bannor felt a crackle of energy rippling around Sarai as she pulled the shaladen from its sheath at her side. Eternity’s essence licked and surged across her exposed flesh like a second skin of liquid light. Fire burned in her green eyes and a halo scintillated in her golden hair.

  “What are these things?” she whispered. “They look like golems.”

  “Kriar war machines,” he answered.

  Neither group attacked. Weapons readied and bodies tight, the defenders confronted the dark horde of constructs. Several of the enemy appeared to be much larger versions of the combat frames like Hiram and Yamah that he met in Quasar’s tower. He noticed other smaller entities closer to man size in the back of their formation. There appeared to be six or seven types that ranged from something that looked an armored wagon to a thing like looked roughly akin to a metallic canine. One thing they all had in common—weapons, most were armed; blades, barrels, and missiles.

  Bannor found the enemy’s hesitation puzzling. It wasn’t like the Baronians or their assigns to shy from a fight. Why give them time to think?

  As Bannor scanned amongst the intruders, he didn’t see a single organic creature. Every one of them appeared to be synthetic.

  Shaladen bow nocked and poised, King T’Evagduran shuffled as he stared into the flat expression of the enemy contingent. “Steady,” he murmured. “Tarkath Chauser, these look like some of yours…”

  A Kriar male in the back of the group with gold shoulder pad over his red uniform had his head down sighting along the barrel of one their big weapons.

  “All right,” the King said, drawing a breath. “Any idea why they’re just staring at us?”

  the Chauser responded.

  “Maybe they want to make friends,” Arabella said, blade braced in front of her.

  “Maybe I’m a virgin,” Sindra growled.

  The D’klace’s words sent a nervous titter through the group.

  “Those are some frelling big guns,” one of the Felspars murmured.

  “All the better to shoot you with,” another added.

  “Tarkath,” Bannor asked. “Are all these mecha self willed?”

 

  “What are you thinking, my One?”

  “Defectors.”

  Heads turned toward him.

  “Why?” Beia said. “They aren’t defeated.”

  “They aren’t exactly winning,” Megan said.

  “The mecha of Karanganoi Homeworld are as much slaves as their Kriar creators,” Senalloy said.

  “Maybe a cyber managed to hack the security protocols,” Luthice remarked.

  “Ladies,” King T’Evagduran said. “If you know so much about these things, perhaps a little more action and a little less speculation. All those weapons make me—edgy.”

  “He’s edgy, I need to change my short clothes,” Arabella remarked.

  “I hear soda is good for those dark stains.”

  “All of you, hush,” Megan ordered.

  Senalloy drew a breath, she sheathed her sword. She took a few steps forward.

  With a whine of mechanical artifices, several large weapons focused on her.

  A collective gasp went through the defenders as breaths were taken. The Baronian woman winced to a stop with her eyes closed. After a moment, she opened one eye and then the other.

  “So far, so good,” Luthice remarked. “You aren’t dead yet.”

  Senalloy glanced back at her sister with a frown. “You’re the one with the bloody staff—you should be doing this.”

  “You pulled the short straw.”

  The silver-haired Baronian woman growled. Under the intense scrutiny of the enemy mecha, she advanced to within arm’s reach of one of the bigger humanoid machines.

  The mecha’s shiny black carapace shined in the flickering glow given off by torches, glowing weapons, and readied magic. The war machine’s weaponry was not mounted like in the other creatures that Bannor had seen. It carried the three pace long gun under one arm, and held it steady with the other. A single shot from the device would easily vaporize a house.

  Senalloy stared up at the creature over the barrel.

  Bannor saw the glowing red of the creature’s eyes narrow. It leaned its broad humanoid face down to where it was on a level with the silver-haired woman.


  The elder tilted her head, brow furrowing. With a slow and deliberate motion she reached out and touched the face of the giant battle frame, and stroked its cheek. The huge mechanism shuddered, its red eyes fluttered, and it moved its head to rub against her palm. It made a sound like a sigh.

  “That is one big frelling puppy,” someone murmured.

  “A puppy with a rail cannon in its hands—shhh.”

  Senalloy drew a breath. “Bannor, I need you.”

  He blinked. “Uhhh, me?”

  “Sheath your weapons and come over here—slowly.”

  Sarai gave his shoulder a squeeze. He sheathed his axes and gripped her fingers briefly. Heart beating fast he took slow deliberate steps across the floor toward the silver-haired woman. Weapons of several different varieties tracked him with a low humming sound.

  By the time he stood at Senalloy’s shoulder a bead of perspiration trickled down his forehead. He noticed the perspiration on the Baronian Lady’s face.

  “Bannor,” Senalloy said keeping her eyes on the machine. “Let me introduce you to a Karanganoi interdiction assault frame. We just called them boomers for short.”

  “Boomer,” he said, swallowing. “Appropriate. It’s big.”

  “Big, fast, and powerful,” Senalloy said. “And he’s got a problem.”

  “He’s got a problem? I’d say we have a problem.”

  “Listen,” she told him. “They’re acting weird because it’s like you said, they’re trying to get away from the Baronians. I’m guessing they’ve been mounted with some kind of inhibitor.”

  “A what?”

  “Never mind, I need you look for anything that might be interfering with his operating. Whatever it is, it’s probably connected back to the ship that they came from.”

  He rubbed the side of his head. He studied the creature with his nola. He saw all manner of strange threads running through it. While he had thought these things were like the frames he saw on Fabrista Homeworld there was one huge difference. He scanned the other frames in the area.