Frostfell_ The Wizards - Mark Sehestedt [117]
Jalan's song filled Gyaidun, awakening his senses beyond anything he'd ever experienced. He'd sometimes heard the belkagen speak of the heart's eye, the vision that the enlightened were granted on the dreamroad, and for the first time he understood it. He saw beyond fleshy reality to the deeper life within it, saw Erun's tortured and tormented body, his imprisoned soul; latched onto it like a parasite was a cold darkness, a thing of never-ending hunger and malice. But even as Gyaidun watched, the dark thing's grip weakened.
Three of the other sorcerers shrieked in confusion and fear, and their leader screamed, "No! You dare not! You dare not!"
And then the dark thing was gone, and Erun fell upon the stone steps. He did not move, but with his new sight, Gyaidun could see life there-weak, faint, and hurt, but there.
The remaining sorcerers turned all their strength and spells upon Jalan. Even the weak one loosed spell after spell as he clawed his way up the final steps.
Jalan blocked or turned most of their spells, but some few managed to break through, and Jalan fell back, frost and ice forming where the blue shards of light struck him. Walking backward to Gyaidun and continuing to try to block their barrage, his song changed. It did not lessen in power but broadened in scope, and even Gyaidun, who had never studied the ways of priests or sorcerers, recognized it for what it was: A call. A summons.
The sorcerers doubled their efforts, fanning out to hit Jalan both in front and to the sides.
Still smiling, Jalan shouted, "Wed chai'el!" and a great wall of flame roared from the stones of the island between him and his foes. So great was the heat that Gyaidun backed away.
In that moment of respite, his enemies cut off, Jalan turned to Gyaidun and extended his hand. The gash where Gyaidun had cut the palm still bled freely.
"Gyaidun," said a strong voice, the voice of the singer speaking through Jalan. "Time for you to trust me."
Gyaidun reached out. He grasped Jalan's hand with his own bleeding palm, and their blood mingled anew. Gyaidun gasped, and the gasp turned into a laugh, for he saw whom Jalan had summoned.
* * * * *
Over the wind and crashing waves, through the roar of magic and the crackle of the flames, Amira heard something she had never heard nor hoped to hear: a laugh of pure, utter, unrestrained joy-and it was coming from Gyaidun.
She tossed her hair out of her eyes and looked up from where she'd fallen at the bottom of the stone stairway. The four sorcerers had fanned out in a half-ring at the crown of the hill, and they faced a great wall of fire. But even as Amira watched, the four summoned a great wind off the sea and the flames bent and died.
Amira pushed herself to her feet. Her skin was a mass of bruises, scrapes, and cuts. Her arm still throbbed from where the sorcerer had held her, and she'd twisted both her right knee and ankle in the fall. Agony flared in every injury, but she forced herself up the stairs. The sorcerer had taken her staff and thrown it away, but she knew she dared not take the time to look for it now. She still had a few spells of her own ready. She had to get to Jalan.
Amira passed the body of the fallen sorcerer but did not spare it a glance. The sounds of spells and the incantations of the other sorcerers shook the air above her, and she forced herself to move faster. When her knee gave out on her, she crawled up, tearing her clothes on the rough stone of the stairway.
She crested the hill, pulling herself over the final step and through the rubble of the broken wall, but the sight she saw there stopped her.
Passing the dead tree in a slow, deliberate walk, the four sorcerers advanced upon… a god.