Essence of Chaos Read online

  One of Ghortin’s first accomplishments as a mastermage had been to create his home at the mouth of a displacement vortex. The things were rare and infinite, folding into themselves in a way that even Ghortin couldn’t explain. They were also notoriously unstable, which accounted in part for the lack of information about them. Ghortin had been the first, and the only, mage to successfully control one.

  “How about some Stoutworth?” Ghortin tried to keep his voice light as he headed to the kitchen to grab the ale, but the tightening in Storm’s face as he turned away showed that it had been a wasted effort. Stoutworth was too high-end to be had on a regular basis.

  “That bad?” Storm asked from the parlor. “Is she mad or simply bewitched?”

  Ghortin debated grabbing an ale of lesser quality and trying to play it down, but it was too late. Might as well make themselves happier with good ale.

  He waited until Storm had his first sip before responding. “What would you say if I told you she’s neither? That she does hail from another world entirely?”

  Storm studied him for a moment; then finally he broke into a grin. “I’d say that one of you has been tipping a bit too much drink. How could she say that? I don’t know about the odd leggings or boots, but that dress could come off any peasant in the field. Or do they have the same clothes there too?”

  “I’m not sure about the clothes, and I’m afraid that she’s not either.” He studied Storm over the rim of his mug. “There are a lot of things she’s not sure about.”

  “Her eyes.” Storm shuddered.

  “Ah yes, she said something about you mentioning them,” Ghortin said. “There seems to be a fair bit that we don’t know yet, but I believe she doesn’t come from around here. I slipped in a truth spell along with the language one, and she didn’t trip it once.”

  “How can someone be from another world? Or is she from one of the stars we see at night? Did she drift down to visit?” Storm waved a finger at Ghortin. “And if she was bewitched, wouldn’t she believe her story well enough that she wouldn’t trigger a truth spell?”

  “I’ll agree it’s farfetched.” Ghortin rose to his feet and began his customary pacing. His mind always worked better when he was moving. “Even bewitched she should have triggered some sort of response from the spell. Another issue, however, is her magic. If we believe her, and I do, she claims her land has no magic. Yet she has it in raw abundance. But untrained, totally untrained.” He ruffled his scruffy beard in thought. “And she has the oddest drain on it, almost constant, yet I see no source.”

  “In what manner?” Storm leaned forward. “Not that I’m saying I believe you or anything.”

  Ghortin gave a rude snort. “Of course not.” His pacing picked up speed. “The drain’s an odd one, that’s for certain. Appears to have almost a constant tap on her, as if she’s magically pulling something or something is pulling on her. It’s obvious she has no training at all or she would have stopped the Power loss immediately.” Ghortin froze mid-stride. “When did her eyes change?”

  “Last night or early this morning. Is it important?”

  Ghortin resumed pacing. “It might be. Something’s there, that’s for certain. Let me think this through. What if her world is adjacent to ours?” At Storm’s snort of disbelief he waved his hand and continued. “Not physically, but sort of shifted away from us. Close enough to cross over, but far enough to make it practically impossible.”

  “Even if such a thing were possible, why would anyone want to come over?” Storm laughed. “Wait, let me guess, she’s the invasion force?”

  “No, no, no.” Ghortin’s scowl jutted his chin forward. “Give me a moment. Once we tuned that odd echo out of her head she knew she’d never seen a kelar before, called you an elf or some such thing, and then said you didn’t exist. What if her people don’t look like ours at all? What if only her mind came through and somehow she’s changing that body to whatever she was in her world?” He froze and spun, opening the vortex with a thought an instant before he charged into it. “Which may or may not be something we are ready to deal with. We need to see her. Now.”

  Storm was right behind him as he ran through the vortex. “Why the hurry? I don’t think she’s going to become a monster overnight.”

  Ghortin picked up his pace. “Think about it, my obstinate young friend; most body replenishments take place when the body sleeps.

  4

  Storm passed Ghortin as they entered the vortex and got to the room a second before Ghortin did. Jenna was still in bed, but she wasn’t sleeping well. Storm swore her flesh was twisting under the sheet, but he hoped it was just his imagination. “Ghortin, what in the eight hells is she?”

  “Isn’t this amazing?” Ghortin seemed far from worried; in fact, he appeared enthralled. “It’s as if two bodies are fighting for the same space.”

  Storm grabbed Ghortin’s arm as he turned to go closer. “What if there were two? What if the only way for her to come to our world was to take over another body? That echo in her head may be the remains of the murdered victim.”

  Ghortin removed Storm’s hand from his arm, and then joined Jenna. “I don’t believe for one minute that this poor lass is evil. And neither do you. However, there could be a grain of truth in your words nonetheless. Wake her up.”

  Storm shook his head and went to the other side of Jenna’s bed. Arguing with Ghortin was pointless. The mage always won and Storm ended up with a headache. With a sigh, he sat down next to Jenna.

  She didn’t show the slightest sign of waking up until Storm shook her hard enough to almost drag her off the bed.

  Unfortunately, she’d woken up before her memory did. Storm grabbed her hands after her first few strikes, but he couldn’t do anything about her screaming.

  “Would you do something?” Storm glared at Ghortin as the mage continued to watch. “I can’t hold her like this forever.”

  Ghortin snorted. “Big, strong, kelar huntsman can’t hang on to a simple thing like an apprentice. What are we coming to?” He gently reached down and took one of Jenna’s fists from Storm’s hand.

  “It’s all right, Jenna. Remember us?” He sat down on the edge of the bed, smoothing back her hair with his free hand. “Storm rescued you and I fixed that nasty broken ankle of yours?”

  Jenna stopped yelling and warily glanced from one to the other. She finally shook her head. “Oh god,” She freed her hands with a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry; I thought I was back home. I couldn’t figure out what Storm was.”

  “Didn’t like being awakened by an elf?” Storm was glad she’d finally realized who he was; he was going to end up with a bruise or two from her flailing fists. She was a lot stronger than she looked.

  “Ghortin told you.” She shook her head. “Actually, that was making the problem worse, because elves don’t exist. Nor do kelars or mages.” She gasped, clutched her head, and then collapsed next to Storm.

  “What is it?” Ghortin pulled her back up into a sitting position with Storm’s help. “What’s happening? If you can tell us, we might be able to help.”

  “My head hurts.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. “I can’t see.” Her eyes rolled back into her head.

  Storm held her up with care. “What’s happened?”

  “I’m not sure what it was, but there was a flash of Power just a moment ago.” Ghortin closed his eyes and gently laid his hands on Jenna’s head. He opened them with a start. “She’s dying.”

  “How? She was just talking to us.” Storm stopped short of shaking her again, but he needed to do something. The color drained from her face as he watched.

  “I know, I know.” Ghortin stood up and moved to the side of the bed. “Something is pulling her, draining her life as well as her Power. And I can’t stop it.” Ghortin’s hands were a whirl as he formed spell after spell, none of them having any obvious effect that Storm could see. Her life was simply flowing away in front of them.

  Minutes later, Jenna’s heart stopped.
Then it came back with a vengeance, and she pulled away screaming.

  Fortunately, there was precious little air in her lungs so the scream was short. She looked toward Ghortin with red-rimmed eyes, fighting for breath.

  “I was there. Home.” She sat up in her bed and turned back toward Storm. “It wasn’t a dream, I was in a morgue. Or what was left of me was.” A shudder raced through her. “Cold. Broken. Dead.” She collapsed.

  Ghortin’s gaze was fixed a foot over her head at a blank spot on the wall. “Hold her still. Make her pay attention to you—to this world. Do whatever you need to, but don’t let her slip away again.”

  He didn’t wait for Storm’s acknowledgement before he shut his eyes and locked into a spell-trance. Storm shook Jenna gently, not wanting to hurt her, but all he got was more whimpering. Then she started shaking. Panicking, he tried to think of what else he could do. He tried shaking her, then slapping her lightly, then a bit harder. Since that failed to get her attention, and he didn’t want to hurt her, he did the only other thing he could think of to get a response. He kissed her. Hard.

  Her eyes popped open and she pulled away with a sudden alertness and surprising strength. “Of all the egotistical male things. Either slap a woman or kiss her; and you think that just because you’re so damn pretty that any woman would want you.” Her fist connected sharply with Storm’s mid-section.

  Storm pulled back as the air was forced from his lungs. Jenna clutched her head and collapsed back to her pillow. He was just about to try shaking her again when Ghortin came out of his trace.

  “Excellent job, my boy.” Ghortin looked a bit frazzled, but he was smiling. “You tied her attention to this world extremely well. She’s unconscious, but she won’t be pulled back to her broken body again. See here, what have you done? You look for all the world as if you’ve been struck.”

  Storm grimaced. “She hit me. You said to keep her attention here and she kept slipping away. Shaking didn’t work, so I kissed her.” He scowled as Ghortin’s eyes lit up in glee. He knew Ghortin wasn’t going to let this go, not for a good while at any rate. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “I’ll most certainly grant you that.”

  “I assume from your smug face that everything is fixed now?”

  The mirth faded from Ghortin’s eyes. “I managed to end the drain on her life. She was causing it herself.”

  “She was trying to kill herself?” Storm studied the unconscious woman still in his arms. She certainly seemed like she had been fighting for her life.

  “Not really, more like she was unconsciously trying to fix herself. Somehow, and I have no idea how so don’t ask, part of Jenna came to our world, the rest of her however…” Ghortin shivered. “The rest of her didn’t make it. The first time she slipped away from us she actually made it back to her world. If her body had been whole on that end, that would have been the end of the story. We would have lost her, but she’d be back in her home world now.”

  “I take it from the way she reacted that it wasn’t?”

  “No. Her world is strange, but I recognize a destroyed body when I see one. And there wasn’t much of this one left to see.”

  “Oh gods.” Storm brushed back Jenna’s hair, her face wasn’t relaxing in sleep. “No wonder she was screaming. Is she going to be all right now?”

  Ghortin helped Storm tuck Jenna under the covers. “I wish I knew. She’ll no longer have the tie to her world that she had. I’d say we’ll see no more physical changes.”

  Storm silently studied her. He didn’t want to ask this question, but they needed the answer. “What happened to the original owner of this body? Before Jenna started changing things.”

  Ghortin resumed his traditional pacing, although it took an almost comical turn because of the small size of the room. “That is yet another problem, I fear. After going into her mind, I was directly exposed to that voice she hears—that echo. It is real. Sad to say, the body that Jenna was drawn into belonged to a newly made mindslave and a wildly magically strong one at that. Qhazborh’s priests are back.”

  Storm slammed his fist on the mattress. “Damn it. I told Resstlin weeks ago that they had to be behind some of the problems we’ve been seeing lately. The bastard wouldn’t send out anyone to check.” Even at seventy years old, Storm was still a young man by the standards of long-lived kelars. Still, his family, or certain members rather, had no excuse for treating him like a wayward child. That was one of the reasons he spent as little time as possible at home.

  Storm ran his fingers through his hair, and then sighed in surrender. “Will you get the word to them? Obviously nothing will happen if I do it, they don’t take me seriously.”

  Ghortin patted his shoulder. “Sad to agree, but you’re right. I’ll get word to one of them. However, no one should be informed of Jenna’s true nature. With all of the other nastiness of late, I don’t want to throw in a woman from another world.” He frowned in thought. “We’ll say she’s from one of the outlying villages near the Strann border. As my apprentice, they shouldn’t look much past that story.” That settled, he turned his frown on Storm. “And I believe we agreed that you would spend more time with your family?”

  “No, you agreed. I sat there. However, you made some good points and I do intend to spend time with them.” Too many things had been happening lately, deadly things. And making peace with his family wasn’t a priority at the moment, no matter how important Ghortin felt it was. “Unfortunately, I had a pressing reason to be out this time, and a good one.” He glanced from Jenna to Ghortin. “Is she going to be okay? Because I think it would be better if we talked about this somewhere else.”

  Ghortin hadn’t missed the haggard lines that crossed Storm’s face. But he had learned long ago that it was best to let Storm talk when he was ready. With a check on Jenna’s pulse, he nodded toward the door. “She should be fine. I’ve set up a ward, and if she has any problems the spell will alert me.”

  Upon entering the parlor, Storm went straight to the couch and dropped down, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.

  “Oklan is gone.” His words dropped like stones and Ghortin felt the bottled rage behind them. “And his entire village with him.”

  Ghortin dropped to a chair. The past year had turned into a conglomeration of violent disasters. None large enough to point to any one person or group, but something bad was definitely growing. Brutish creatures, some no more than ancient myths, appearing with horrific consequences before vanishing again; the only proof of their visits, the dead bodies in their wake. Homesteaders from outlying areas disappearing. So far nothing as large as an entire village destroyed; or, he thought grimly, the appearance of a woman from another world whose real body was in shreds.

  “Tell me exactly what you saw.” When Storm rubbed shaking hands over his eyes, Ghortin realized how exhausted his friend was. Storm’s stamina was exceptional, even for one of his race; it was rare that he was brought so low.

  “I went out five days ago on the trail of those strange spiked dog creatures that have been reported out that way. I thought maybe Oklan or one of his wives might have heard something about them.” Storm’s gaze was fixed on a thinning spot on one of the bright rugs that covered the floor. “There were no sentries at all, which was bad, since they’d been doubling them since Goklin’s lambs were killed. I went into the village slowly, but it was too late, far too late. They were all gone.” He finally raised his eyes. “Ghortin, there’s nothing left of that village but a burnt crater and rubble.”

  Ghortin sucked in his breath; that village held over two hundred souls. “Maybe they got out.” The look on Storm’s haunted face told him his answer.

  “There were pieces.” Storm swallowed quickly. “As I scouted the perimeter, I found shredded remains of the huts, livestock, and the villagers. Whatever did that hit them quickly and with a force beyond reckoning.” He shook his head. “I sensed residue.”

  Ghortin swore under his breath. Storm was magic num
b, he had not even the tiniest shred of magic sensitivity and never would. Someone or something had used a massive amount of magic in wiping out the village and hadn’t bothered to shield it. Or there was someone with that kind of Power and the inability to shield it. He wasn’t sure which was worse. His mind briefly went to Jenna. She possibly had more raw Power than he’d seen in decades. Could she have inadvertently destroyed the village upon her arrival?

  Annoyed with himself for thinking it, Ghortin pulled free his map from the ledge it had been hiding on. “Where exactly did you find Jenna?”

  “Past the west side of the forest, in that ravine off the main trail.” He shook his head as he pointed to the spot. “You don’t think that Jenna—”

  “No.” Ghortin cut him off. That was exactly what he was thinking, but he didn’t want Storm to be thinking it. Not yet anyway. There had been a time when all of Ghortin’s intuitions held true. Unfortunately, those days were gone. He’d say nothing until he was positive. If the woman was innocent, she deserved a chance here.

  “I was curious if she saw anything. She hasn’t been able to remember anything of this place prior to you finding her. Maybe when she wakes up she’ll have more of her memories intact.”

  Ghortin mentally measured off the distance between the village and where Jenna had been found. It was possible that she had accidentally destroyed Oklan’s village with her arrival; although what a mindslave, and a newly made one at that, would be doing in the distant reaches, he had no idea. But the distance was daunting, it would have been a long steady jog for Storm, and he was a fully trained woodsman.

  “There’s nothing to be done for it, I’ll have to head out there tomorrow.” Running his hand through his hair, he swore when it got stuck on a myriad of knots that he didn’t recall having. Damn elementals, they must have ransacked his hair while he wasn’t paying attention. “However, I’m certain the Power signature will have become too diluted by then. Can you stay with Jenna while I go down there? I can’t transport over, I don’t want to disrupt anything.” Not to mention heavier spells, such as transports, had been draining him oddly as of late, as if there was something wrong with the force of chaos from which all magical energy came. He’d spent his whole life with almost unlimited magical abilities; the fact that something or someone seemed to be limiting him was terrifying. Not that he would let anyone, even Storm, know that.