Disciple of Vengeance by CC Rasmussen (phonics readers .txt) 📕

“All creation is change,” Malarlo said, foam escaping from inside his mouth. Janis reached down, trying to clear the airway, but he’d already taken the poison. “Until we meet again, Aphora.”

Malarlo choked his last. Janis dropped his body and looked at the Trajan window. “Sorry,” Ruck called over the sound of the artifact. “I tried, but they’d changed it somehow.”

Qinra’s presence loomed behind them. They’d bought some time burying it in the rubble, had even wounded it, but it was repairing its connection to the physical world with every step, fueled by the god-being’s hate. His only chance at learning why Orinax had betrayed him had died with Malarlo. Janis’s frustration fed into his rage. The symbiote ignited it to a crescendo in what would soon become an eruption of mindless energy. Janis knew he should stop it, but the urge was so strong. What difference did it make if he let the anger expel itself? He could kill the mage, maybe even consume Qinra himself. What would that feel like? The power would be incredible.

“You alright?” Ruck asked. He snapped his head up. His body was trembling. He’d almost lost himself. Ruck’s small face looked worried underneath the retracted tentacle like a suspended star.

“No,” Janis said. He regarded the Trajan window. “If I use it, can it help me find Orinax?”

“Definitely,” the boy interjected. He tinkered with something on the pole he was hanging from. He stood up. “Just step to where Malarlo was. You’ll see.”

“How does it work?”

“How the Shimmer should I know?”

Janis stepped into the flat circle on the ground and faced the window. He tried to take the same stance that Malarlo had. He felt silly. The retractable tentacle dangled luridly from its socket, maybe 20 paces diagonally from his face. What was it? Something the Trajans transported here a millennium ago? Another piece of Etheurien magic they sacrificed their peasants for? He remembered the legends about how the world had been before they’d communicated with the creatures in the Shimmer and other branches beyond. The Trajans had learned to project and focus their minds into the Shimmer using drugs and artifacts. This must be one of them. A way to enhance a practitioner's abilities.

“Janis,” Sciana said as she approached, her arrow still strung.

“Stay back,” Janis said.

“It’s okay,” Ruck called out. “It’s perfectly safe. Just one more second.”

“It’s getting close,” she said.

“This may be our only chance to find the wizard.” He could see it terrified her. Not her natural state. “Find us a way out,” he continued. He turned back to the lurid nub of the tentacle.

“Okay,” Ruck said. “Just look right at it and think you want it to grab you.” Janis did. The tentacle didn’t move. “Well, aren’t you going to do it?” Ruck asked.

“I am doing it,” Janis replied.

“Try harder.”

Janis cleared his mind. He let the feeling of approaching doom that was the ever-strengthening mage sink away from the light of his attention. All his thirst for revenge, the horrors of what he’d witnessed, even the deep-seated shame at having failed his family, dissipated. He breathed in and willed the thing to come. He thought about Renea and Orinax, his desire to know exactly where they were and what Orinax wanted. Desire overcame every other thought and sense, so much so that he only barely noticed that the tentacle had been squirming out towards him for the past few seconds like a cat edging out from underneath a bed. He let himself swim in desire until he felt it grip his face.

It was like he’d dipped his head into a marsh, only the feeling was pleasant. The more he thought of it, the more it felt like entering a womb. He reeled back, the idea of regaining that lost innocence so repugnant he nearly pulled away completely. The tentacle did the same. He couldn’t let it. He redoubled his desirous thoughts.

He could hear Ruck and Sciana talking, but as if they were leagues away. Solid ideas in an abstract world. He focused on Orinax. Willed himself to remember everything he could. The Shimmer floated before him. Inscrutable. Unknowable. Had he lost those memories forever? Was he doomed to remaining the pale shadow of a former self he’d never regain?

The memories poured into him: his time as a child training with Brethor; the wizard watching from a balcony three floors up as Janis struggled with the other initiates to pass the dangerous training courses. Brethor: gray-haired, with a thick neck and heavy shoulders. Even then, his darkened skin was cracked like the Waste’s. Janis would look away at Orinax, fascinated by his sister’s own Brethor. Scared of him. The wizard had dark brown hair that cascaded down his back and smooth, nearly olive skin that seemed to glow green in the dim light of the course. In retrospect, he’d never trusted the man. He couldn’t remember why. He’d just known his kind was dangerous. His eyes were two slivers of obsidian, his mouth curled upward as though he was laughing at some joke at your expense, but that he’d never share with you.

Blotchy colors came together into images of terrain: mountains, rivers, towns filled with strange faces. He saw towers of metal looming above a wall, edged with spikes and weaponry, segmented like pieces of a puzzle. The images zoomed out. Drew closer to a crowded bridge. Re was looking out from its edge towards the pit below, her face smothered with a white cloak their mother had gotten her when she’d first become a wizard-in-training. Her violet eyes peered out from underneath its hood, as melancholy and thoughtful as he remembered.

And then Janis saw him.

Orinax stood behind her, his own cowl lowered from his head, expression neutral as he too appraised the large gate ahead. Why had he betrayed them? The images shifted again. Orinax inside a great vault. His family’s vault. Standing before the muted metal where his father kept their most valuable treasures. He used a key to unlock it, whispering some incantation for it to open without him needing to pull. The wizard entered, selected an item from one shelf, and slipped it under his robes. He didn’t see it, but as if in response, the Trajan magic showed him what he’d missed. An ornate collapsible bar. It was gold and etched with Trajan symbols. He’d seen it before, but where? The image grew splotchy again. Janis focused. Where were they now? What was that place?

He was in a lavish bedroom. High ceiling, weighty tomes on carved shelves, the smell of ancient knowledge. Renea stood in front of a window overlooking J’Soon. He had his arms crossed. Frustrated, angry. Why was the artifact showing him this?

“Speak your mind, sister.”

She sighed. He waited for the words he knew were coming.

“You always wanted to get away from hurting people. That was why you ran away all those times when we were young.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” he asked. A packaged answer. “This is the only way I can fulfill my duty.”

She looked at him. “That’s Aron talking.”

He saw an image of his oldest brother. His tall ears flanking his narrow head. “He isn’t wrong.”

“Your duty is being an assassin? Even Father looks down on it.” He sighed. “You didn’t used to care what they thought was necessary. You cared about what was actually good for us. For yourself.”

“And where did that get me?” he asked. Speaking the bitterness was like bloodletting a poison. “If I’d been what they wanted me to be, if I’d accepted the mantle of House Wizard…”

“Stop,” she whispered. They stood in silence.

“I promised I would make it up to you, Re. If this is the way, then so be it.”

“There is another way.”

“What?”

She opened her mouth as if to speak, then thought better of it. He sighed. “I have to go prepare for the mission tonight. I’m about to kill the Arawat’s Master at Arms. It will end this war, save thousands of other lives, and prove that I can fulfill my place in the family. The onus won’t be on you for much longer.”

She said nothing. He turned and left.

Was this one of Renea’s memories? He felt an intense urge to know where she was. To speak with her. To understand what was going on. He felt the tentacle and the machine behind it churning through ways to make him understand. A map formed, its layout yanked from his mind in a way that made him feel sick.

He was back on the bridge. Orinax turned and faced him, those obsidian eyes now glaring straight into his own with menace. Ahhh, the wizard said, though his lips remained closed. Janis.

It was like a massive ogre snatched his throat. The image stuttered. His emotions lit with impressions and knowledge of things he couldn’t understand. You thought you could search for me with such a blunt instrument and come away unscathed?

Janis pushed back. The wizard’s eyes widened in surprised amusement. You killed that fool Malarlo, yes? As I hoped. But what power do you serve now, Shadowstalker?

He felt Orinax using the connection much like the artifact, probing his mind for answers, peering into memories he couldn’t recall himself. He tried to make his mind go blank. Orinax chuckled. Janis could feel some presence behind him, far more powerful than even the wizard, pressing on the man like a river behind a dam. What is it you’re hiding? He probed the symbiote within and scowled. You’ve made a pact. Do you think this Lethi can save you? Orinax leaned closer as the world dimmed. Die.

Janis struck with all the force he could muster. The image shattered, the impressions rippling away into nothing as Urias erupted into his senses again. The artifact exploded, shattering the tube and hurling him against the distant statue. Janis fell to the floor, coughing as he grasped at his own throat.

Where was Ruck? Had he left the thing? It was a smoldering ruin. He pushed himself to his feet. “Ruck? Sciana,” he yelled. He fell again. His back spasmed. The symbiote trembled along his bones. He was still so weak without it, little more than a puppet. No. Never that. He pushed himself back up. “Are you there?”

Ruck scampered up to him. “You okay? I got us away when it started spiking. I knew it couldn’t be good.”

“Get him up,” Sciana said. Hands gripped him under his shoulders, cupping his armpits and yanking him up as he gulped for air. “We need to get the horses.”

“There’s no time,” Ruck said as they dragged him across the ground. He felt his feet scrape against the strange stone. The world was a sea of impressions swimming in his vision, making him want to vomit. He could feel the mage was close.

“We don’t have a choice.”

“The chariot I built is just over there.”

“I’m not leaving my horses behind.”

“You want to go back through that thing?”

Janis took a step, causing the entire group to stutter as he regained his balance. “Where’s this ‘chariot?’”

He looked down, still massaging his throat, to see Ruck beamed. “This way,” the boy yelled, running ahead of them between two statues and out of the immediate courtyard. Janis followed him.

“Janis,” Sciana called out. Janis looked back at her. Despite her best efforts, he could tell it terrified her. “I can’t leave my horse.”

Qinra was closing in. The god-being had almost completely repaired its host's body and was even now gathering a terrifying amount of power. “The mage is too close, Sciana. I can feel it.” She pursed her lips. He held out