The Withered King Page 6

  Gaby’s twin blades were out of their sheaths and each shone with a clear, bright light, one glowing blue and the other red.

  “Are those Tempest Blades too?” Fionn asked with an incredulous stare.

  “Yes,” Gaby replied with her crooked smile. “Their names are Heartguard and Soulkeeper.”

  “How did you…”

  “You are not the only one with secrets, Greywolf,” Gaby said. “But that will have to wait, there is work to do.”

  Both Fionn and Gaby jumped, attacked, dodged and parried the blows coming from the creature. But after every attack that the creature suffered at the hands of Fionn and Gaby, it regenerated immediately. It was growing angrier by the moment, picking up trash cans and throwing them, breaking walls and destroying the windows of the shops and pubs. The creature kept throwing things at them, forcing them to take cover behind a semi-crumbled wall. Behind the cover, they saw the men-spiders returning, attacking the scared patrons who were trying to get away from the creature.

  “Those civilians need help. Would it be too much to ask you to help them?”

  “As much as I would hate to leave you with all the fun, you are right. They need me more than you do.” Gaby winked at Fionn. “Be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  Fionn could only smile at her with admiration in his eyes. Gaby ran towards the running people, not losing a second in attacking the men-spiders. Her blades were streaks of red and blue light in the dark. Parts of the spider-like creatures started to fly off. She was efficient, Fionn thought, too efficient even for a Sister of Mercy. There were so many things he wanted to ask her. But that would have to wait. A girl, running away from the conflict, broke a heel and fell in front of the path of destruction of the larger creature. Its collection of sharpened teeth was in full sight in a mockery of a smile. Seeing that, Fionn ran towards the girl, covering her with his body as the claw descended upon her.

  “Oh shit,” Fionn managed to say before the creature hit him fully in the back with all its strength, sending him flying away with the girl in his arms. He managed to twist his body mid-air to absorb the blunt force of the imminent impact when they hit the ground. His jacket and the skin of his back were torn to shreds and he was bleeding profusely. His head was spinning. Fionn looked at the girl who was scared and crying, but safe. He shook his head to clear it and smiled at her.

  “I will distract him while you escape. Can you run?”

  The girl only replied with a nod and Fionn let her go. She ran away into the streets. It was then that Fionn noticed a faint cut on his right cheek, a cut that started to heal amidst tiny green sparkles of energy.

  This is gonna hurt tomorrow.

  The open, bleeding wounds were mending and closing at an unnatural pace. Weeks of the healing process compressed into seconds. For Fionn, the sensation was akin to a faint tickling. Catching his breath, Fionn ran again towards the creature, picking up his sword along the way.

  With a powerful leap, Fionn landed his knee on the creature’s face, making it bleed black ichor as if it were a fountain. The creature responded by throwing a slashing hand towards Fionn, who dodged it by jumping into the air with a back flip and then descending, cutting off the arm of the creature. At first, it remained quiet, in shock, while the open wound sprayed black ichor over the white tiles of the ground. Fionn smiled, satisfied, but soon his smile turned into tight lips. The creature stood tall while laughing. The circlet on its neck glowed brightly for a second. Its arm grew back from where the stump was.

  “That’s new,” Fionn exclaimed. The creature then spat, which landed near Fionn’s feet. It bubbled and sizzled on the tile. “And that’s gross,” he added, running away from the incoming acid barrage. He ran towards an alley and turned the corner, finding himself next to Harland.

  “Nice view, isn’t it?”

  “Your definition of nice is skewed,” Harland retorted. “While you were dancing around with that thing, Gaby has been taking care of the smaller creatures. She can fight, I give you that.”

  “I didn’t expect any less from her.”

  “I expect more from you. That thing can regenerate like you. That circlet on its neck may be the reason.”

  “I noticed that too. I need to destroy it before cutting off its head and piercing its heart.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the only way to really kill it. Don’t look at me; those are the points where the powers of those creatures reside.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  “Why should I be? It’s part of the job. I’m used to it,” Fionn said to Harland, confidence in his eyes. “Enjoy the show.”

  Fionn ran out from the cover towards the creature once more. Its roars only made him chuckle as he stopped a few steps from the beast, trying to keep it focused on him.

  “I admit that the acid spit was a nice trick. But you need more than that to scare me,” Fionn yelled at it, while the wind picked up once more. The creature spat the acid once more, combining it with slashes at blinding speed. Fionn kneeled slightly as if building impulse. Taking a deep breath, he let himself feel the world in a way no one without the Gift could. The energy inside him filled him with warmth.

  The wind, the specks of dust, the ample square, even Harland and Gaby felt different, surreal, but with more substance. He felt in the air all the connections between things, between beings, and for a brief second, his body moved faster than the wind itself, light and free. Fionn analyzed the attack patterns of the creature. He dodged each of the attacks and slashed at its feet, damaging its balance and making it fall to one knee. He then jumped onto the knee and the right arm, evading a slap.

  Fionn jumped onto its shoulder and rode the creature, raising Black Fang. With a swift move, he cut off the creature’s head, a flash of green light trailing. Another cut sliced the circlet in two as the head started to regenerate. Those moves were followed by a single circular movement that cleaved the creature’s heart with force. The creature’s body collapsed on its side, and once it hit the ground, it started to melt away, leaving ashes and black blood behind. Fionn looked at the corpse while it dissolved, leaving only the damaged circlet behind.

  Gaby walked towards him, while Fionn picked up the pieces of the circlet. Harland soon reached both and gave Fionn a few pats on the back, which sent prickles of pain up his spine. Although his injuries had healed, his back was still sensitive. He had to develop a high tolerance for pain to compensate for that.

  “I have to admit, that was pretty impressive,” Harland exclaimed. He had a wide grin and if Fionn knew him he probably would have filmed everything on his cell phone.

  “I’m a bit rusty,” Fionn replied while rotating his right shoulder to warm up the muscle.

  “How did you do that?” Gaby asked.

  “Killing it?”

  “No, evading its attacks that way.”

  “When you have the Gift, your senses are more attuned to the world, but it takes practice to get used to it, to let the energy flow through your body. You need to clear your mind and focus. Once your body and mind are in sync, then your body can move as fast as your mind.”

  “Sounds eerily familiar,” Gaby replied in low voice.

  “To what?” Harland asked.

  “An old training technique from the Sisters of Mercy,” Gaby replied, evading Harland’s gaze. Fionn saw that and choose to change the topic.

  “We need to find out what this thing is and how this works, and more important, who gave this to those men.” Fionn pointed to some engravings on the broad side of the circlet. “These symbols are the same as those I found scribbled on the papers at Hunt’s manor. This thing is tied to his disappearance.”

  “This doesn’t look like a magick item,” Harland said while examining the circlet. “More like advanced technology.”

  “I might know of someone who can he
lp us then,” Gaby offered.

  “Who?” Fionn asked.

  “My best friend. He is a former student of the professor and is well acquainted with new technology. He lives not far from here.” Gaby smiled again while walking towards the hotel as if nothing had happened. Fionn was curious about her and he hated to admit it, but he was starting to like her. Harland looked at his friend and smiled.

  “Careful or you will end up with a new student. Or maybe even… a date!”

  “Very funny,” Fionn walked away.

  Chapter 5

  The Inventor

  “Now, in the fourth hour of Mr. Funkatastic’s marathon of oldies but goodies, this song is a classic anthem by the legendary group Que…”

  The sun filtered through the dirt-stained window into the small room. Specks of dust floated everywhere. It gave the place an ambiance of sadness, reflecting the mood of its current occupant. Alex was laying on the bed, on top of the covers, still dressed in jeans, a black t-shirt with the logo of a cartoon, and white sneakers. The room was sparsely furnished, with just a small bed, a desk with a chair and some upper shelves, a sink and a closet. The shelves had some books, comics and a pair of action figures, nothing remarkable. The only thing out of place in the small student’s room was a sheathed long sword, a family relic with a unique handguard, designed to resemble six wings fully opened.

  Alex looked at the sword and then at his right hand. He raised his hand, fingers extended, in front of his face, examining how the light illuminated it. His left arm was resting on his forehead, keeping strands of his messy, brown hair from his face. He was stuck in a rut, his postgrad research going nowhere, and his personal life wasn’t doing any better. The nightmares continued to plague his sleep. The only good thing going for him at the moment was the side project he was developing with a few friends. With any luck, it would work any day now. But meanwhile, his mind had trouble remaining focused. He needed something to get over his funk.

  A road trip might not be a bad idea, Alex thought. He looked at the sword again. He felt that the sword called to him from time to time, bringing about a natural instinct to wield it. But, much to his chagrin, he admitted that he wasn’t good with it. He preferred the bow. He was brought out of his reverie by the ringing of his cell phone.

  “What’s up?” Alex asked in his thick accent, typical of those from the Straits, not moving from his spot on the bed.

  “Youneedtocometothelabrightnow! Wedidit!” The excited voice on the other side yelled without stopping to breathe. It belonged to Birm, one of his friends at the university. “You were right, we did it!”

  “Calm down. I can barely understand you.” Alex rose up, trying to make sense of what he was hearing, but to no avail.

  “Just get yourself here now!” Birm yelled at Alex through the phone, and then hung up.

  It took Alex a few seconds to process everything, but once it dawned on him, his eyes opened wide. He grabbed his backpack and stormed out of the room, leaving his cell phone behind, unattended, which rang once more.

  Mercia University, located in the Midlands of the Emerald Island, was considered one of the most innovative schools in the whole Free Alliance territory. It excelled at sports, design, and engineering, and was making inroads into the latest generation of arcanotechnology. The new cell phone system, which overcame the heavy ionized charges of Theia’s atmosphere that limited the range of communication technology, and new possibilities for air travel, had been developed here. The university had cutting-edge laboratories filled with the latest (and most expensive) equipment as befitted the leading university on Theia. The equipment was like catnip for a creative student with attention deficit disorder and special abilities. And those required an outlet.

  In the lab, four sets of eyes were admiring the black goo – composed of carbon nanotubes and metaling nanoparticles with memory – twisting and floating inside a transparent case, stimulated by electrical currents. The monitor showed computer-assisted graphic designs of a recurve bow with variable shapes. It looked as if it could collapse onto itself and become portable. Alex sported a wide grin, filled with childlike glee as he and his three companions – Birm, Andrea, and Quentin – admired their work. The three were his best friends at the university and each of them knew about his secret abilities and how he had acquired them a decade ago.

  “So your material works,” Alex stated, trying to contain his excitement. He was smiling.

  “Of course it works!” Birm replied with a wide grin. “Did you ever have any doubts?”

  “Well… after twenty-nine failures, I learned to keep my expectations in check.”

  “Yeah right,” Andrea said. “Weren’t you the one planning on creating a whole range of products with this material, to make us very rich, just two weeks ago? You were even planning paid vacations for all of us to Korbey World.”

  “I might have been getting a tad excited, yes. But it was just because we made progress. Besides, without my input on the electrical current, it wouldn’t have worked,” Alex gloated.

  “You mean your twenty-three ‘try an error’ experiments?” Andrea replied, deadpan. “Yes, they were really helpful.”

  “Yup. You were right about the electrical current,” Birm said, ignoring both. He couldn’t stop staring at the material. “The input you calculated was exactly what it needs to regain the preprogrammed forms and shapes between them. You can actually make a collapsible bow!”

  “What he means,” Andrea added. “Is that a bow made of this material should be able to collapse and expand to its full form with the right electric input. And then, you just need to practice the inputs.”

  “Won’t the material become fluid after a while?” Alex asked.

  “No,” Andrea said. “The alloy catalyst I used this time will make sure the nanoparticles stay in place forever, once the chemical reaction from the printing process cools down. They can only change shape to their predetermined forms with the right input. Otherwise, it would be as solid as a regular bow.”

  “And while the bow will work with normal arrows, the best part is that the same principle extends to these cartridges,” Birm continued, handing a small black case to Alex. He was bursting with pride. “You insert this into the bow and you have here preprogrammed material to form arrows with heads of any shape you need. And if you can recover them, you can reuse them. Even charge them electrically! You don’t need a quiver anymore!”

  “Full, lightweight body armor able to withstand the impact of a titanfighter attack or even magick spells is within reach,” Andrea said.

  “As they say,” Quentin said. He stood with his perpetual cup of coffee in his hand. “The sky is the limit.”

  “I just want a bow,” Alex said.

  “Way ahead of you,” Birm replied. “After the success with the arrows, I fed the goo to the 3D printer and put it to work. The bow should be ready in a few minutes. Take a look!”

  Alex eyed the material 3D printer that was finishing his bow design. He looked like a child in a toy store, eyes wide, a goofy grin and tapping his feet, while ruffling his own hair. The 3D printer finished working on the bow, or at least the riser of a bow. It was black, shiny and with smooth edges. Alex opened the door of the printer and took the riser with his left hand. It felt lightweight but balanced. He placed his left thumb on the red dot painted on the side of the riser and concentrated. The irises of his eyes took a subtle golden glow. He concentrated and felt a jolt of energy running from the core of his body into the length of his arm and released through his thumb into the riser. The electrical current ran through the black material of the riser, from which two limbs grew, one at each end. A string formed between them and the whole object took the form of a full-length recurve bow.

  Alex tensed the string without releasing it; an arrow was starting to form on the string. His design felt perfect in his hands and his grin grew wide. It was the k
ind of grin a child would have if he had free reign in a candy story.

  “We need to take this for a ride!”

  † † †

  The night was falling on the university campus when Alex, Birm, and Quentin returned from the archery range. Andrea had stayed at the lab to work on her degree project while she made a backup of all the data on her and Birm’s material and Alex’s bow design. As the project was something they were doing off the books, the data couldn’t be saved on the university’s servers. Only the basic theory, enough to grant them a patent and their degrees within three years, remained on those servers.

  “You are improving, Alex,” Birm patted Alex’s back.

  “You still beat me by a hundred points at the range,” Alex admitted ruefully. “And yours is a traditional bow.”

  “No matter how fancy your equipment is, there is no replacement for talent and practice,” Quentin said.

  “Thanks, man,” Alex rolled his eyes. You really know how to cheer someone up. You should really lay off the coffee; this is your eighth cup today.”

  “The extra security makes me tense,” Quentin pointed at all the security guards inspecting the campus.

  “Yeah, what’s that about?”

  “Well, there have been reports in the news,” Birm explained. “That research laboratories and universities all over the Free Alliance had been robbed in the past months. There were even a couple of deaths. I assume the Dean is not taking any chances.”

  “Anything in particular?” Alex’s curiosity was piqued.

  “Some high-energy power sources, alloys, catalysts, superconductors…”

  The pieces clicked in Alex’s mind. He opened his eyes wide in realization.

  “You mean like the very stuff that Andrea is using for her Ph.D. project?” Alex asked. There was an edge to his voice.

  “Yeah, why?” Birm asked. “Oh no.”