Lightning

Lightning in A Scattering of Seeds  

Sean gripped the weathered railing as several heavy gusts of wind whipped through his hair. Another flash in a frequent succession of lightning illuminated his already pale features in its ghostly blue.

The grumbling, ponderous boom of thunder vibrated through the stone under his palms.

Behind him the peaks of several tall mountains provided a backdrop for the abandoned village of Dyrewatch. Cobblestone streets and decrepit buildings huddled near the tall, thin tower upon which he stood. They might have been bunching together for protection against the approaching storm.

Even now the cloud base lowered ominously. It was still high above where Sean perched, nevertheless it felt like a very close ceiling, threatening to crush or envelop him.

Two thousand feet below, illuminating the underbelly of the storm clouds with its thousands of tiny points of light, sat the great city of Seaward Dyre. In stark contrast to the silent, cold, wary town behind him, Seaward Dyre radiated a sense of barely constituted annoyance. The city was used to storms. They weren’t so much an interruption as merely the signal of an alternate, familiar routine.

Sean’s eyes scanned Seaward Dyre with purposeful urgency. Smudgy tendrils of falling rain had begun to obscure parts of the sea beyond, and soon the city itself would be hidden behind thick curtains of falling water. Stray droplets smashed against his exposed skin and dampened his clothes, heralds of the soaking shortly to come.

Sean blinked and strained, as if he could focus hard enough and pick anyone out from this distance, let alone the one man he sought. In truth, as passive and quiet a magical screen as he could cast listened carefully for his quarry.

Sean shivered. It was true the temperature was dropping fast as the clouds lowered, but the shiver came because he did not relish the task at hand.

Banished for cycles, Archon had lain low. Though Sean had known Archon had settled in quietly with the Necromancers of Alvédon, most of the world was unsure if he’d even survived. Their battle had become something of legend.

The two most powerful wizards alive, Sean and Archon had come to confrontation.

Archon’s practices, though expanding the knowledge and power of magic, had not so much questioned ethics as blatantly ignored them. In the sphere of the Wizard’s Guild, that caused two unsurprising factions to emerge. Eventually, as Archon’s practices became less and less acceptable and his power grew more and more impressive, the friction ignited.

As the Archseer, head of the Seer’s Council that ran the Wizard’s Guild, and as the only wizard largely unafraid of Archon, it fell to Sean to challenge him.

At that time, Sean thought, I had the backing of the Seer’s Council and most of the Wizard’s Guild, and Archon had been spending his power reservoir with abandon.

Sean watched as the far edge of Seaward Dyre began to fade behind an oncoming wall of rain.

Tonight I am alone, and unsure of Archon’s fitness for a fight.

He marshalled his power, using magic as little as possible in order to maximize his reserves and minimize the chance that Archon could sense his presence.

If he has found Kragen’s Crown, Sean thought uneasily. He cannot be allowed to keep it.

Questions and doubts crowded his mind about how Archon could have found or acquired the Crown, whether he had it now, and if Sean could defeat an enemy so armed. He knew Archon would not hesitate to kill him. Sean preferred capture, though Archon had successfully fled last time the two had battled.

Sean had just pulled his weather cloak closer around his small, thin body when the first flash against his listening net registered. Just a tiny flicker of red in his mind, but enough to draw all of Sean’s considerable attention.

Within moments a second, then third spark flared against the magical projection in Sean’s mind. Without a doubt, Archon was here. And he’d begun to use magic.

Tieron faltered and crashed to his knees on the muddy street. Outstretched hands and splayed fingers shattered the newly formed puddle, splattering his heaving chest and gasping face with thick, summer-warm water. The wild flickering of lightning and near-instantaneous shuddering thunder illuminated the whites of his wide eyes and drowned his coughing cry.

“Bone,” he rasped. “Why is bone such a magical substance?”

He struggled to his feet, dragging his boots through the puddle while he searched wildly over his shoulder. Sinking almost immediately back to one knee, he clutched at a rigid bulge in his ragged shirt.

Two forms emerged from the archway over an alley some way down the street. Their movements were inhuman, shifting and bobbing like land-bound, hunting raptors. They oriented on him a moment later and sprang forward.

“They’re not undead,” Tieron growled in frustration. “I don’t remember why that’s important.” He lurched away. A sprinter’s physique and trained balance allowed him to keep his distance, but the constant flight and wounds from his pursuers’ occasional successes were taking their toll. His two-toned wheeze often caught into a rattling cough. Raw pain pulled at the abrasions on the side of his head, and his vision seemed blurred.

He turned another corner as the rain began to come down in earnest, pulling frantically at the pouch nestled inside his shirt. He could feel a thick pulsing within. After more than a sixday of handling the dormant circlet, now it was displaying magical properties.

A flash of purple lightning connected sky and earth, tearing away a chunk of tree not five feet away. The sudden blast of fury blew Tieron off his feet. He rolled over mid-flight, the pounding of thunder reverberating painfully through his chest. He slammed back to the ground and tried to roll further to spread out the impact, but came up short against the stones of a wall.

“Mother of the moons,” he groaned, but the colossal vibrations of the thunder had stunned his mind and he could not hear anything. His body ached in new places.

“Dazed,” Tieron put a hand to his face, feeling rubbery to his own touch. He pinched at the bridge of his nose and then looked at his fingertips. “All my days are dazed. I need to wake up. Remember… Remember…”

As sound rushed back, he pushed desperately against the wall and squinted back towards the lightning-struck tree. The cry of pain from his other arm echoed loudly from his mouth. Thick strands of wet, black hair spread across his face, pulling at his cheeks.

There, struggling under the recently felled bough, the two pursuers writhed, attempting to free themselves with reptilian mouths, strong legs, and tiny arms. Their supine flailing suggested they had tails, but more urgent, it looked like they were wriggling free.

Tieron took the chance to catch two deep breaths before shoving himself up and cradling his broken arm. Swaying unsteadily, he wove his way down the half stone, half mud street.

“Trap,” Tieron whispered hoarsely, reaching another intersection and turning uphill. “I took the trap. It worked.” He struggled to bring his thoughts together. “So how am I being chased?” He watched his footing as the new road became fully cobbled, water streaming between the stones. His hand grasped his shirt again, holding the pouch within against his skin.

A sudden light glared across the water, drawing Tieron’s attention up and to a doorway on the other side of the street. Other sounds tumbled out, mixing with the wind, rain, and thunder. Jovial laughter chased raucous voices into the night, drawing Tieron like a battered moth to the light. With his good arm he reached out to a figure he could just see, silhouetted in the frame.

As DragonTayl emerged from the tavern, a haggard, injured man staggered towards him, one arm outstretched. As the door closed behind Tayl, the man jerked forward and collapsed on the rain-soaked street. A creature had leapt out of the darkness, landing on the man’s back and biting at his neck and head.

Tayl jumped forward, drawing a short sword from a scabbard at his hip. By the time the unfortunate victim touched the ground, Tayl had run the point of his sword through the assailant’s supine neck. With a swift and smooth twist and slice, he severed the creature’s head and had his weapon clear again.

A second attacker appeared out of the rain, reared back as if to strike, reptilian maw agape. Tayl wasted no time but closed the distance in two great bounds, leaping as if to pass it.

Unbalanced by the unexpected move, the supine creature kicked sideways on powerful legs, just quick enough that Tayl’s short sword cut little deeper than its scaly skin.

Both combatants landed unsteadily on the wet cobblestones and had to struggle for balance. Tayl’s blade caught on the uneven ground and was damaged as he regains his stance, but the creature had learned to take caution with this foe.

They circled and feinted briefly, each looking for an opening for fanged maw or jagged, broken blade, then the creature struck forward like a snake.

Tayl barely side-stepped the attack but managed to bring down what was left of his sword into the exposed neck and back of the beast. It collapsed with a shudder.

Pausing only long enough to feel assured it was dead and would not attack him from behind, Tayl spun to return to the fallen man.

Whoever it was lay almost face-down with the remains of the first beast still pressing against his back.

Tayl knelt in the stream of water cascading down the street and as gently as he could, turned the man over. He worked with fingers that appeared long and somewhat bony despite their agile care and gracefulness.

A slow, labored breath marked Tieron’s only reaction. Unable to control his eyes, his gaze seemed to wander. His right hand fell away from his shirt. The pouch was clearly visible, some sort of round object imprinted against the covering. Tayl frowned and leaned closer.

“You had better – take it now…” the wounded man managed weakly, raindrops continuing to moisten his face.

Tayl did not attempt a platitude about rescue or safety, the man was clearly about to die. He asked instead, in an accent made slightly worse by his own panting, “What can I do for you?”

“I don’t know,” the man’s eyebrows twitched as if he attempted to frown but was unable. His voice continued to quieten. “Keep my body and soul away from Necromancers?”

His voice lost the power to compete with the rain, and Tayl could sense him release his final burden. With no one else to witness or mourn the man’s passing, Tayl gently pressed his palm to the man’s chest and gave him a moment of his thought and blessing.

Presently Tayl’s eyes, which glowed a soft blue in the night, shifted to the man’s pouch and the circle pressed within. Seeing in more clearly, he could make out it was an oval, maybe six inches across one way and eight the other.

Complying with the dying man’s suggestion, Tayl reached for the pouch. Feeling inside, his somewhat pointed fingertips closed around what felt like ivory. He pulled it out carefully, exposing it to the rain, but also to the dim light from a nearby streetlamp and the near continual flashes of lightning.

It appeared to be a circlet or perhaps tiara made of some milky, smooth substance. At one end seven settings held seven stones of different sizes and colors, though their details were difficult to make out in the white-purple strobe of the storm.

With a sudden blaze, the coronet glowed bright yellow like sunlight, causing Tayl to wince and look away. At the same moment, as if it had ricocheted off a building, what looked like lightning sizzled down the street toward him.

In rapid succession Tayl registered that the bolt of energy had funneled into the crown, heard an almost demented howl of frustrated rage, and saw several flashes of light bursting onto the street down the way the danger had come.

At the source of the tumult, windows exploded outward, sparks scattered across the gleaming cobblestones, and shockwaves shoved against the air and rain. Tayl rocked sideways, attempting to maintain his crouched balance.

For several precious seconds, Tayl filtered through the man’s clothing, seeking anything that might help identify him. All he found was the pouch he’d already grabbed, and a ring the man wore like a wedding band. “Yes, I will take it,” he murmured into the dead man’s ears. “And I will try to find out more.”

Tayl rose from the body and slipped quickly to his right, away from the magical battle, away from the strange supine beasts, and into the obscuring rain.

A flash of lightning flooded Hook Street in blue-purple light. Its strobe seemed to suspend the raindrops mid-fall even as the near-instant thunder shook them in the very air.

The brief blaze backlit a surreal tableau of hunched-over silhouettes, recessed doorways, street signs, and store fronts.

In one such recessed doorway Archon stood, a tall man in a full cloak, his arms crossed, unconcerned by the falling torrent. His hood revealed enough of his face to show a trim goatee, thin cheeks, and deep-set eyes.

Hidden in the anonymous doorway, obscured by the worsening weather, Archon had followed the progress of his reptilian hunters through the tether that bound them. He’d felt them close in several times, fall back, and reengage. Moments ago he’d had to counter magical feedback as they’d been killed. Someone or something had intervened.

He reached out with a magical scan and found a balcony just down the lane from where the hunters had been slain and teleported there at once. With no more than a second to orient himself, Archon glared down the avenue with enhanced vision to see two men in the pouring rain. One leaned over the other and was about to take the Crown.

Without time to plan better, Archon sent a blast of energy towards the men, intent on incinerating them before the exchange could be completed.

The same instant he felt his energy absorbed into the Crown, the air around him pulsed as someone else teleported onto his balcony. Archon’s reaction was immediate and visceral. Even as he recognized Sean’s magical signature he let out a howl of rage and despair, hurling himself through the balcony door.

Magical hardening and shielding protected his body from the impact and large splinters, but combined with the magic to keep himself upright and propel himself through the unknown space beyond, he found himself spinning rapidly.

Sean flooded the room with light and with his maddening ability to cast contradictory spells in concert, smothered the space in a magical dampening field.

Archon came to an abrupt halt, struggling to maintain balance and control. With a grunt and supreme effort, he pushed back against Sean’s pressure. His cloak ripped and tore as it convulsed in the opposing magics, and his hood was thrown aside. His normally neat hair slapped chaotically.

Sean strode into the room as if straining against a current, his arms to either side, palms up.

Feigning collapse for half a second, Archon let the dampening field close in around his core, sucked in as deep a breath as he could, and exploded power outward in a desperate gamble.

The pulse blew glass outward, shoved everything loose away from where Archon had crouched, and caused a shockwave of eerie silence and ear-popping pressure in a one-block radius.

Over as quick as the battle had begun, Sean doused his castings, plunging himself into darkness even as he stared at the empty space where Archon had been. The battle had lasted mere seconds. Split second decision to cut his losses and flee, Sean considered the ramifications.

A pool of hesitant light gathered outside the mangled doorway, and a frightened face peered around the jamb. Sean blinked at the old man in his nightcap and gown. The old man blinked back. “I thought,” the man quavered. “Maybe the storm…”

Sean looked behind him at the shattered balcony door. “Right,” he said in his calm, pleasant voice. “Sorry about that.”

He backed towards the balcony, arms held almost the same as when he entered. Spending some of his precious reservoir, he restored as much of the room as he could, fragments of the doors flying back into place as he emerged back into the driving rain. Archon had fled so quickly and so completely that Sean was convinced he would not be coming back.

Sean left the astonished man in his mostly repaired room and leapt lightly off the balcony. He glided down to the street, angled towards the dead body. Before his boots had touched the ground, people had begun to emerge from nearby buildings. Even the soaking rain could not keep them from the spectacle of a body killed by beasts.

Acting like one of the crowd, Sean moved in closer. Snippets of alarmed voices called out to the storm, and several people ran in different directions, clearly summoning officials. Unlike most of the horrified and fascinated people around him, Sean did not want to be detained and involved in the story or the investigation.

Archon is the more important element, he admitted grudgingly. With the few moments he felt he had before ‘help’ arrived, Sean projected questing tendrils of magic into and around the dead man and the reptilian monsters who had apparently killed him.

Traces of the Crown, Sean thought. Like a lingering scent but no longer present.

He looked up and around, feeling through the immediate vicinity. The Crown is not here, he concluded almost immediately. Did Archon take it?

Sean thought back to the extremely short battle. Archon had not fought back, which Sean had erroneously assumed he would. Archon had fled immediately. Preserving energy? He wondered. Because he knew he would lose?

He looked down at the rain-soaked body. Reconstructing the last few moments, for the battle had been only a few seconds ago, he tried to remember if he felt a double-transport. Would I have been close enough? I was no longer monitoring wider activity. I was focused.

“Make way, make way, make space,” a loud voice intruded into the rain. A few of the other people grudgingly backed away, though staying close enough to be important witnesses.

Sean slipped to the edge of the growing crowd. He’d have liked to have more time to try to discover who the man was, a lead perhaps to further his own investigation, but he felt following Archon forward would be more productive than backtracking down trails Archon would likely abandon. He survives now on stealth and misdirection – he will likely abandon anything I might discover and start anew. He knows he must be very, very careful.

Would Archon have the audacity to stay in Seaward Dyre? As an unexpected thing to do? Sean didn’t think so. But where had the Crown gone?

While dormant, the Crown is difficult to locate, Sean thought, looking around at the glistening, tight-packed buildings. At least without Necromancy.

Sean stepped further from the scene. I must conserve some energy, he concluded. I am going to have to Futurecast to see if I can pick up Archon’s trail.

A few moments later, as the guards who had come to investigate began to take statements from the more enterprising gossips present, Sean withdrew into himself and faded from sight, teleporting the long distance back to Draquil and his laboratories.