Page 50 of A Spot of Tea and Sorcery: Vol. 6

“What’s the plan, Grimm?” Ward demanded, pausing fire.

There was no plan. Not really. Only impulse. Only the need to get through one of those portals, follow it back to wherever it led, follow the sorcerers to where they were keeping Luna.

“Cover me,” Nigel said and took a step.

A Dire-bolt appeared out of nowhere, whistling so close, he felt the wind of its passing. Nigel jerked to one side, but the bolt wasn’t aimed at him. It connected. Hard.

And Ward went flying.

Nigel pivoted, watching as the wardsman struck the far wall, a black mass of writhing Dire Matter protruding from his chest. “Ward!” Nigel cried and leapt toward him as the wardsman sank to the ground. Nigel dropped to his knees, uncertain what he could possibly do. His trembling hands reached to grasp the bolt, but it simply disintegrated in the severmist.

Ward dragged in a huge, painful inhale. Then, coughing, he blinked dazedly up at Nigel. “Anti-sorcery vest,” he choked and pulled open the front of his uniform to reveal the dark fabric. “You didn’t want it, so . . .”

Nigel spat a foul word. He’d never in his life been so glad to see someone he hated so much still alive and kicking. It was quite a unique feeling. One he did not have time to contemplate.

Somehow, Ward had held on to his firearm. He hoisted it up, pressing the stock against his shoulder once more. “Go after her, Grimm,” he wheezed painfully. “I got you covered. Go!”

More transmatterportation sigils were going off, one after the other. In moments, the granary would be empty. Nigel had no time for thanks or curses. He had to move. Now.

Leaving Ward propped against the wall, Nigel sprang to his feet and sprinted into the purple fog, aiming for one of the last cowled figures remaining. A blast of anti-light, filled with multi-hued colors for which there were no names in mortal tongues, ripped a vertical opening in the veils of reality. Nigel felt the chaos of the Void beyond, churning with screams. A great, horned, lion shape peered out, its face hideously manlike save for the massive tusks. A Dire Demon, summoned by its master. Nigel recognized that demon, knew exactly to whom it belonged.

Grinding his teeth, he surged forward. Just as the sorcerer mounted the back of its enthralled fiend, just as the demon turned to launch itself into the Void, Nigel dove through theportal, one hand reaching out. His fingers closed tight, fastening around a lashing tail.

Then the portal slammed shut behind him, and he was hurtling through the Dire Dimensions, hanging on for dear life.

The lashing horrors of the Dire assaulted his senses. Horrors which mortal minds were not meant to perceive or comprehend, battering against all bastions of sanity he fought to construct.

Nigel had traveled through the Dire many times in his sorcerous history. But always on the back of a demon he commanded, wielding terrible skill and tremendous power. Never dangling like a hooked fish on the end of a long, sinuous, scaly tail, fearful that any second he would be dashed off and sent careening into the chaotic Void.

Luna!

He clung to her name, willing himself to remember, even in the midst of cacophony and terror, his reason, his purpose. Luna needed him. She needed him to somehow survive this. To be more than the sum of his parts, to strive, to fight, to overcome impossible odds. He would do it. For her, he would break himself in half, then break those halves in half. Whatever it took, whatever sacrifice. He would reach her. He would save her.

Was that his own voice he heard, underneath the howling of chaos-entities? What was he doing . . . muttering prayers?Well, this was something new. Still, he supposed, even the most resolute heathen could be driven to piety through desperation. And he was nothing if not desperate.

The stink of the Dire seared his nostrils. The wails of demonic beings ripped at his ears. Raw heat and bitter cold by turns slashed across his skin, along with other sensations which had nothing to do with mortal perceptions, but were no less real, no less hideous.

Then, abruptly, a rip. A vertical slash in the fabric of reality, widening swiftly into a circular window, sparking with unknowable colors and weird darknesses. Through it gushed the atmosphere of the mortal world. The Dire Demon lurched to a halt on the edge of its reality, roaring in a strange, ululating voice. With a shake of shoulders and massive, batlike wings, it tossed its rider through the portal to land hard on the waiting stone floor. Then, abruptly, it turned its hideous face about, leering at Nigel. For a terrible instant, Nigel felt the absolute vulnerability of his position. If the demon chose, it could easily swallow him up right then and there, for he had no sigils to protect himself.

Instead, with a huffing sigh and a roll of all-too human eyes, the demon flicked its tail and sent Nigel flying through the portal as well. He landed hard and skidded, half-convinced he’d broken multiple bones in the process. His gas mask knocked partially askew, the filter giving an ominouscrunch.That couldn’t be good.

The portal closed fast, zipping up reality in its wake. There was an almost violentPOPof pressure in his ears, a burst of anti-light and weird colors. Then silence. Punctuated only by his own breathing.

Nigel pushed up onto his hands and knees, turning his head sharply just in time to see the cowled figure whom he’d followed rise to his feet and throw back his black hood. TheDire-burnt visage of Lancelot Mortimer glared furiously down at him. “Have you taken leave of your senses, Grimm?” he snarled, though the ferocity of his voice could not disguise the fear gleaming in his eyes. Mortimer, after all, had to know the Sovereign Troth was broken. He must be suspicious of the fact that Nigel hadn’t used sorcery in the granary. The balance of power between them was as yet unknown. “You could have got usbothdevoured by the Dire with a stunt like that!”

Nigel didn’t answer. He pulled himself to his feet, watching how, even now, Mortimer’s hand twisted. He knew what was coming, knew what his fellow sorcerer was about to try. But he was helpless to prevent it. The next instant, a stream of his own lifeforce wrenched painfully from his body and soul, yanked into Mortimer’s grasp. Nigel screamed at the shock of it, falling back to his knees.

“Interesting,” Mortimer said, toying with the lifeforce, pausing before performing the energy exchange. He stared down at Nigel, calculations and conclusions rolling through his head, one after the other. Suddenly, his one good eye brightened with understanding. “Ah!” he said, his voice strangely high, on the edge of a cackle. “You breathed in the severmist at the warehouse, didn’t you? That Sovereign Troth made you vulnerable, and now . . . ah! Ah hahahah!”

He broke into wild laughter, throwing back his head. His voice echoed against the stone walls around them. Then, jerking his face forward again, Mortimer gleefully tossed the ball of stolen lifeforce from one hand to the other. “You’re weak as a little first-year undergrad, aren’t you? Forced to resort to cheap wardsman’s tricks!” With a deft twist of his fingers, he performed the energy-exchange with one hand while the other began to draw a sigil.

Nigel had mere seconds in which to act.

He reached into his pocket. He had four more severmist bombs on him, and he yanked one out and threw it straight at Mortimer. It whizzed past his Dire-burnt ear and struck the wall behind him, shattering even as Mortimer dragged Dire Matter from its fell dimension and shaped a bolt spell. The severmist hit the atmosphere, and the spell disintegrated, little motes of anti-glitter dispersing uselessly.

Mortimer merely laughed again. With a twist of his hand, he dragged forth another line of lifeforce, straight from Nigel’s core. There was nothing Nigel could do to prevent it. He had no barriers, no defenses. He fell forward, landing on his forearms, his masked face inches from the floor. Heavy breaths heaved with exaggerated roughness through the mask’s cracked filter.

“What did you think of my simulacrum?” Mortimer asked, prowling the perimeter of the circular chamber in which they had landed. “I picked up a few tricks from Jastira over the years, refining my technique. That simulacrum I left for the wardsmen certainly did the trick, did it not?”