Tris pulled hard from his life force to send more power to his wardings, snapping them back into place. The battle outside had already taken a toll on his reserves. He sent a blast of energy back along the channels of power, focusing his attention on the tormentor in front of him, the author of the pain spell. His lips moved as he chanted the counterspell, reversing the blast that had been meant for him. He added to it, so that the magic seared along the path of power in the avatar's glowing gem, outside the Nether chamber, back to the blood mage himself. Sweating with the effort, struggling against a blinding reaction headache, Tris kept his focus until the magic felled his opponent in a blur of fear and pain. And in that instant, Tris knew what he had to do. Lady of the Four Faces, forgive me.
Around them, the Flow had become a storm. Not far beyond the dark walls of the place between realms where they fought, Tris could feel the Flow's power rising and falling like an angry
sea. Whipped to gale strength by the blood magic that imprisoned him, the Flow seemed to be howling in rage.
Tris dove down through the link with the blood mage until he found the mage's thin blue life thread. Knowing the other two opponents would counterstrike at any second, Tris spoke the words of binding that twined his own life thread with the downed mage's and pulled hard. He heard a piercing scream that crossed between the outside world and the Nether. There was a wrenching lurch, and Tris felt the mage's life force pull free of the man's body, felt the soul tear loose of its moorings, and let himself draw in the life energy that was rapidly dimming from the severed thread. Strengthened, Tris let his wardings fall. Simultaneously, he struck both left and right, concentrating his power on the amulets at the avatars' throats. His magic sought one goaclass="underline" the life force of the mages. Tris envisioned himself grasping the glowing threads in each hand, closing his fists around them and ripping them free with all his might. The screams of the dying mages echoed in his mind as he drew their life energy to him, strengthening his own failing glow. Still, the death warding held.
Tris took a deep breath. He focused on the glow of his own life thread, grown stronger now with the stolen energy. And then, he drew that glow into pure spirit, watching as his body fell to the ground and the thread within winked out.
The wild winds of the Flow howled around Tris. Time meant nothing. The old tales told of creation, when Nameless and Her horde rode across the winds of chaos, cleaving light from darkness. Buffeted in the storm of the Flow, Tris felt that primordial chaos close around him, as if the energies of all eight Aspects of the Lady were voices on the storm, calling him to rest or judgment. The Flow mirrored his own pain and fear. In the darkness, the death warding fell.
The night ripped open, and the light of a starry sky was blinding. With the last of his power, Tris sent his waning spirit back to the limp and battered body that tumbled from the rift between realms. Gasping for breath, he landed hard on his broken arm. Pain flared so strongly that he thought the tormentor's spell had followed him. He lay face down, his heart pounding, senses on full alert. Footsteps sounded near him, and his power lashed out reflexively, sending a torrent of fire in the direction of the sound. If I've been pulled within Lochlanimar, Goddess help me. I can't hold them all off, but I can take them with me. He mustered the power that remained within his grasp for one final salvo.
Powerful shielding glowed brightly around him before he could strike. A voice sounded with compulsion in his mind. "Safe. Home."
Tris fought the shielding and the voice. His blood was high for the fight; his magic reacted for survival. The shielding shattered. As he spoke the words of power, a crush of spirits enveloped him, pressing from every direction, absorbing the brunt of the magic. Charged with the power of a Summoner, the magic burned, and Tris heard the ghosts' screams as they threw themselves as a barrier between his wild magic and those beyond the circle. "Safe. Home." The voice-no, voices-sounded again in his mind, with a compulsion that he no longer had the energy to fight. Wardings snapped up around him once more and the press of spirits was a cacophony within his mind. Completely spent, he knew that his life thread was flickering dangerously. If this is a trick, if I've been captured, it's over. We've lost.
"Let me through the warding." "It's too dangerous." "Let me in!"
"We don't know if he's sane." "Dammit, let me in!"
The voices were distant, too garbled to identify, as if he were listening through water. Tris still lay where he had fallen, acutely aware that his heartbeat was growing more erratic by the moment. He felt the wardings waver, just long enough for someone to step inside, and then they snapped back into place, but whether the wardings formed a prison or a haven, he did not know. Whoever was inside did not move closer.
"Tris?" A voice sounded at a distance. "It's me. Coalan. You don't have to fight anymore. You're safe. You're home. The vayash moru have been trying to send that to you, but they can't get through. Fallon doesn't dare drop the shields until you give us a sign. Please, Tris. You're hurt bad."
Tris let his body relax, willing the fighting energy to drain out of him. He opened his fists and turned them palm up in a gesture of surrender. As the wardings fell, Tris heard bootsteps rushing toward him. Coalan was the first to reach him, and gentled him onto his back. Fallon knelt next to him. Around them, Tris could hear the thud of the trebuchets and the zip of arrows.
"Can we get him off the field?" Tris struggled to place the voice. Trefor, one of the vayash
moru who had brought back Soterius from the caves, joined them.
"Not alive," Fallon said. Already, Tris could feel Fallon's healing magic warring with the pain. The pain was winning. "We don't have a choice. There isn't time to move him. Cover us." "Done, m'lady."
"Sweet Lady of Darkness," Coalan breathed. "Where did they take him? How did he get burned like that?"
"If he wakes up, you can ask him. Will you let me draw from you? He's dying." "Yes. Yes. Take my life if you need to." "I hope that won't be necessary."
Tris faded in and out of consciousness as Fallon worked. Around him, the spirits of the dead kept vigil, and beyond them, faint but much too close, Tris could hear the soulsong of the Lady. The touch of snow against his burned and blistered skin was agonizing. His broken left arm had bent under him when he had fallen. The channels of magic felt too painful for the slightest mental touch, and the throbbing in his head pulsed with the beat of his heart. "Stay with us." Trefor's voice sounded in his mind, and Tris knew that for the vayash moru to be able to use compulsion, his own shielding must be totally spent. The voice was an anchor in the darkness.
If I die now, my soul is forfeit, Tris thought. I used my power to steal from the life force of another. Forbidden. Unforgivable. "Stay with us."
Finally, Fallon sighed and lifted her hands from the healing. "That's all I can do out here. Let's get him behind the lines."
Tris groaned as Trefor lifted him from the ground. The vayash moru moved with immortal speed and the rush of air across Tris's skin felt like a hail of broken glass. When they reached his tent, Trefor did his best to make Tris comfortable on his cot, and stood guard until Fallon and Coalan arrived, breathless, minutes later. "Will he live?" It was Coalan's voice.
"If he makes it through the night, he should be all right. It's not the injuries-although Goddess knows, they don't help. He's badly drained. The energy you gave me helped. I'll need more to sustain him, and I don't dare draw further from you." "Shall I ask for volunteers?"
"Send me whoever can be spared from the fight. Mind that they're not sick or injured. I don't