Page 89 of Silent Lucidity

Though he continued scanning his surroundings, he slowed his pace as he passed the Well of Secrets. Leaning closer to its inky contents, he whispered, “The one who calls himself the Master, in any and all of his names.”

Tenthil turned his eyes toward the doors leading into the knave; it was the most direct route to reach the Master’s chamber, but the massive room had little practical cover. In such an open space, Tenthil’s anger and hatred could not shield him from being overrun.

Hold on, Abella. I am coming.

Opting for an alternate pathway through one of the side wings, he exited the courtyard and moved quickly and silently through the halls. In the back of his mind, he tracked his steps, counting down the distance between himself and the Master.

Beneath the fury and instinct raging through him flowed a strange sense of predetermination; part of him had always known he’d one day stand against the Master, that one of them had always been the other’s eventual doom, but he could never have guessed how high the stakes would be during their inevitable confrontation. Tenthil had never valued anything above his own life—which even he had seen as ultimately expendable.

But now Tenthil had Abella. She’d changed everything.

A scent lingered on the air; it was little more than a ghostly suggestion, but it was undeniablyhers. She’d passed through these halls recently.

A hint of sound—the soft slide of a boot over the floor—brought Tenthil to an abrupt halt. The sound had come from the left branch of an intersecting corridor a few paces ahead. He glanced over his shoulder to confirm the hallway was clear behind him before resuming his slow advance. He heard another sound when he drew within a meter of the intersection—quiet breathing.

Releasing the auto-blaster’s foregrip, he dropped his left hand to the explosives case on his belt and pressed the release on its lid. The latch opened with a tiny click that resonated up and down the otherwise silent hallway.

Black-clad acolytes leapt around the corner and into Tenthil’s hallway—a large borian, a horned groalthuun, and a pair of lanky, violet-eyed daevahs with identical-but-mirrored white stripes on their cerulean skin. Tenthil squeezed the auto-blaster’s trigger, firing a burst of plasma bolts into the borian’s chest armor.

Before the blaster fire could penetrate the armor, the groalthuun lunged and swung his shock staff in a downward arc, striking the auto-blaster near the end of its barrel. The force of the blow knocked the weapon from Tenthil’s grasp. Tenthil sidestepped a kick from the borian, whose breastplate glowed with heat from the plasma buildup, and shrugged off the auto-blaster’s shoulder strap. The auto-blaster clattered on the stone floor as the groalthuun swung the staff again.

Tenthil ducked under the blow, narrowly avoiding the crackling electric beam, and only barely raised his left arm in time to deflect a heavy punch from the borian. Dropping lower, he swept out his right leg, knocking the groalthuun’s feet out from beneath him, and rolled backward. He drew the hilt of an energy blade as he sprang to his feet. Green light bathed the nearby walls when he activated the weapon, cast by the broad, flat, thrumming plasma blade that had formed.

The borian produced his own energy blade and stepped past the groalthuun, who regained his feet a moment later. The narrowness of the hallway forced the daevahs to hang back while the borian and the groalthuun advanced.

No more obstacles.

Before his foes could attack, Tenthil charged at them, moving his blade in flowing, continuous arcs. The blade’s motion left no opening for counterattack from the acolytes; the borian and the groalthuun backpedaled, parrying furiously with their own weapons. Flashes of heat and light punctuated every bit of contact between the blades and the staff.

As Tenthil swung his blade down, the groalthuun spread his arms wide and blocked the blow with the center of his staff. The electric beam spanning the staff’s length hummed and hissed, binding the energy blade.

With a growl, Tenthil forced his blade down. The electric band sputtered, wavered, and broke. An instant later, the energy blade sliced clean through the other weapon’s shaft.

The groalthuun’s stance crumbled as his weapon split in half. He swayed backward to avoid the tip of Tenthil’s blade, which caught the groalthuun’s armor and cut a sizzling trail over the breastplate. The groalthuun stumbled into the borian behind him.

Tenthil grasped his secondary blaster with his left hand, flicked the power to maximum with his thumb as he drew it, and angled the barrel toward the off-balance groalthuun. He pulled the trigger. The weapon emitted a high-pitched whine, and Tenthil felt its building heat through his glove.

The groalthuun’s eyes rounded.

A massive burst of plasma erupted from the blaster’s barrel, engulfing the groalthuun’s upper body.

When the blast ended—it lasted only a fraction of a second, despite how long it felt—the groalthuun had been reduced to nothing more than a pair of legs held together by a smoldering pelvis. The left half of the borian’s torso was missing, leaving only charred flesh and glowing embers around the edge of the immense wound. The plasma’s path continued on through the bodies, having left a massive, semi-circular hole in the corner of the intersection and an even larger one in the wall across from it. The borian and groalthuun’s remains collapsed.

The daevahs—who’d managed to flatten themselves on the floor just before the blast—stood up in unison. Each raised an energy blade, taking two-handed grips on the weapons, and narrowed their eyes. Their long, thin tails swayed side to side in sync with one another.

Tenthil knew little about these specific daevahs, but he knew enough about their species to recognize the threat they posed—male daevahs were always born as twins, linked through a psychic connection.

He tossed the smoking blaster aside. The air stank of burned flesh, shorted electronics, and melting stone, but beneath it all Abella’s faint-yet-unmistakable scent lingered.

She was alive. She had to be. And she needed Tenthil.

He lunged forward and attacked just as the daevahs made their moves.

The narrow corridor became a blur of slashing energy blades, which left temporarily glowing scars on the walls as the combatants flowed through the steps of their deadly dance. Tenthil soon found himself on the defensive; though neither daevah could match his individual speed or skill, their coordinated attacks left no gaps in their collective defense and forced Tenthil to create vulnerabilities in his guard to protect himself—parrying one of their blades often meant leaving himself open to the other.

His frustration mounted as the twin daevahs advanced. He would not accept defeat, would not tolerate delay. Shifting his stance so his body was perpendicular to the acolytes, he extended his right arm to parry their attacks. The change hid his left hand from them for long enough to pluck a stun charge from his belt. He activated the device’s on-impact detonator.

Tenthil growled and unleashed a quick series of wild counterattacks, briefly creating a wall of whirring plasma between himself and his foes. The daevahs took the most sensible action—they retreated just beyond the range of his swings. He hopped back and snapped his left hand forward, released the stun charge, and closed his eyes.

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