“Remarkable,” Xenoth breathed. “Truly remarkable.”
Amric eyed him. “What is remarkable?” he demanded, but the man continued as if he had not heard the question.
“The trail you left behind shows you are quite strong, if clumsy, and yet had I not looked more closely….” Xenoth trailed off, pursing his lips. Then he shook his head. “Even now I cannot be certain. I could just kill you. Perhaps I should. Perhaps this is some elaborate trick.” He stared at Amric with distrust and hate in his eyes, but then his brow clouded and his gaze wavered. “No, I have to be certain. There can be no mistakes, this time.”
His frown of concentration deepened, and Amric felt a strange probing at the edge of his senses, as of a low sound just beyond his range of hearing that tickled at his inner ear, or a feathery touch hovering just above his skin.
“Remarkable,” Xenoth muttered again. “Very few full Adepts can conceal themselves so well. Did you truly learn this on your own, without tutelage?”
Amric remained silent, glaring at his captor. He still lacked the context to form a meaningful reply anyway, and if the man interpreted his reticence as indication of the presence of some powerful teacher or ally, then so much the better. Perhaps it would cause him to proceed with greater caution. The probing grew stronger, more invasive. It blossomed into hot, needle-sharp talons that plucked and pried at his psyche. Amric gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to flinch with each sharp new twinge. He could endure this violation, for he had endured greater pain. After all, it was all in his mind; it was not as if this attack would inflict any lasting damage, like a physical weapon-would it?
An eternity later, Xenoth rocked back on his heels and blew out a frustrated breath. The stabbing pains ceased, and Amric sagged against his unseen bonds. He hoped that the man did not notice the prolonged shudder that ran through his rigid frame.
“However you learned this trick,” said the black-robed Adept, “and whether you managed it yourself or it was laid upon you by another, it is magnificently done. I cannot pierce it.” The troubled lines on the man’s face hardened once more into a venomous resolve. “Fortunately, there are other methods available to gather the proof I require.”
There was a grey blur of motion at the edge of Amric’s vision, and Xenoth spun in that direction, raising a clenched fist before him. Bellimar’s hurtling form halted in mid-air, hands extended like claws, teeth bared in an enraged, frozen grimace. The vampire’s fangs, so carefully concealed all the time by restrained expressions and half smiles, were bared beneath narrowed eyes that glowed like red embers. Bellimar hung suspended in the air, straining in helpless fury toward the Adept. Xenoth, for his part, stroked his dark beard as he studied the vampire with cold, deliberate amusement.
“That is the second time you have intervened on the boy’s behalf, creature,” he said. “Shall we see if he feels the same concern for you?”
Xenoth brought his hands forward and together, as if plunging them into Bellimar’s midsection, though several yards still separated them. The old man convulsed, his eyes flaring wide in sudden shock. Then the Adept whipped his arms apart in a sudden ripping motion. A rush of energy washed over Amric like a warm wall of mist and was gone, dissipating into the air. Bellimar bent like a drawn bow, arching backward with his head thrown back as every muscle in his body went taut. The scream came an instant later, an inhuman shriek of agony.
“Stop,” Amric grated. “Stop whatever it is you are doing to him.”
Xenoth threw a glance at him, and his mouth quirked up in an icy smile. “Ah, boy, do not be a fool. This was the easy part. I have only just begun this one’s torment.”
Bellimar’s scream continued. It went on and on, rising into the night air to hang there unending, as if refusing to be bound by the need to draw breath. Amric added his own voice, shouting forth incoherent rage as he strained against his invisible prison.
“Perhaps I am not casting my net wide enough, however,” Xenoth said, his words vibrating with power as they cut through the din somehow without him raising his voice. “If this one’s plight does not move you, then we will try another.”
He turned toward Halthak, who had regained his feet on a leg that looked to be fully repaired. The Adept made a sharp gesture, palm up as if scooping something from the ground, and angry blue fire erupted from the wasteland beneath Halthak’s feet and crawled up his limbs. The Half-Ork uttered a cry of pain and dismay, and he staggered back, slapping at the flames. The blue fire spread hungrily to his hands and arms, writhing along his limbs like a live thing. In its wake, the healer’s skin blackened and cracked. Halthak stumbled to his knees, a look of concentration freezing his coarse features into a rictus of pain. The flesh began to heal beneath the licking blue flames. Halthak scooped sand onto his limbs, seeking to smother the spreading fire, but when the sand fell away the fire still remained, slithering over his figure to blacken new flesh. Halthak groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, and the skin knit shut and healed once more. The fire, however, was an implacable foe, and continued to crawl over him.
Amric roared his fury, throwing himself into his efforts until his vision swam and darkened at the edges from the exertion. Something cracked in the back of his mind.
Get out here, he panted at the presence hiding within him. He is killing them! Get out here and join me, or we all die, here and now! The only reply was a mindless, gibbering terror, distant and muted.
“Or perhaps another,” Xenoth continued in a hard tone. He flung out one hand and great gout of brilliant white fire erupted from it. The fiery display was blinding, and for a brief moment it lit up the wasteland around them in stark relief. Amric, squinting against the sudden illumination, was able to catch a glimpse of the sprinting form of Innikar, rushing forward with blades upraised, before the fire engulfed him in mid-stride. The Sil’ath warrior did not even utter a cry, so quick was his demise. The white fire flared once, dazzling and fierce. When it faded, Innikar was simply gone. His abandoned blades glowed and hissed in the sand, no more than warped pieces of metal, and the remains of the warrior’s armor were a blackened and shriveled mass.
Amric’s throat cracked and closed on a scream he had not even realized was his own. He saw Sariel and Valkarr approaching from opposite sides, their mouths open in horror. Xenoth turned toward Sariel. Without hesitation, she hurled one of her swords to spin in a glittering arc toward the black-robed Adept. The spinning weapon struck some invisible barrier in mid-air and ricocheted to the side, but Xenoth flinched away from it with a grunt nonetheless, and it saved her life. She had thrown herself to the side as soon as the sword left her hand, and another long breath of white flame seared through the space she had occupied a moment before.
Halthak uttered frantic cries of pain as the blue flames writhed all over him. Bellimar was still suspended in the air, bucking and convulsing, his scream becoming hoarse as it echoed on and on. Sariel rolled on the ground and came up in a dead sprint, running parallel to Xenoth. Valkarr did the same from the other side. The Adept tracked their movements with calculating eyes.
Something broke in Amric’s mind. The barrier that had cracked moments before shattered into razor shards, which then shattered into so much dust. He could not say for certain whether he drew forth the other within him and shook from it the blind, unreasoning fear that held it paralyzed, or whether it rose to meet him, buoyed by a rising explosion of power and vengeful fury. There was a jarring collision that shook him to the core as they joined, exquisite pain and pleasure interwoven in an instant, and the other suddenly filled his awareness. Before, when they had interacted, it had felt like two wary combatants circling one another, seeking some way to occupy the same space without breaking some fragile truce. There had been an impression of passing control from one to the other, a grudging relinquishing of self.