Page 47 of Rifted Hearts
He tried to calm himself, open his thoughts, and invite their form of telepathy into his mind. That wasn’t easy. Panic over what could have happened to Remi during the time it had taken him to get here threatened to overwhelm the concentration he needed.
A few descended, swirling around him in lazy pulses of blue. He forced himself to focus and sent out telepathic images of both Kat and Remi.
The buzzing of the sparkleflies intensified, and the combined intelligence of thousands of the insects sent back an answer, but to only one of his unspoken questions. The images of the recent past they provided were bewildering—and horrifying. Kaveh could see Kat in his mind as his assistant rode up to the base on Pogo, appearing unhurt, if anxious. A hulking canine as large as a grizzly loped along next to him, eyes glowing a dull red.
A hellhound.
Infamous for working as assassins or mercenaries, the hellhound clans loathed the drakones and had no business coming close to the Saguaro Riftland, much less inside it. Yet one of them had accompanied Kat and his horse, with little reaction from either one of them. His vet assistant could have been intimidated into cooperation, but Pogo would not have responded that calmly if one of the notorious canine predators was truly in its Riftworld form. It was more likely Kaveh was seeing the scene as the sparkleflies had, their vision able to pierce the superb cloaking ability hellhounds were known for.
The next set of images was even more confusing.
Kat stood inside the gates of the base, watching as the hellhound prowled toward the main building but making no attempt to flee. More images unwound from a different perspective and possibly a different time period. First was a sphere of energy exploding upward from the base, a massive power surge that left the physical components of the building untouched. This had to be another example of the sparkleflies’ ability to see things drakones couldn’t.
He was watching the destruction of the containment that kept the phantoms inside.
The next scene did nothing to calm his fears. The view shifted to an interior sealed door with acid eating away at the metal framework and the first pale appendage extending out of a smoking hole where the lock had been.
Kaveh’s heart thudded with panic at the visions, but he concentrated, sending images again of Kat and Remi to the sparkleflies.
Nothing came for several moments. Then another visual sequence played out in his mind, of the hellhound emergingout of a round opening in the outer wall of the base. In the next image, Kat kicked a frightened Pogo into a gallop and raced off with the hellhound by his side.
Finally, the telepathic connection showed Remi. He held a shroom lamp in one hand, sending light into the same gaping hole the hellhound had exited from. He stood still for a moment, as if hearing something, then bent over and stepped inside and away from the sparkleflies’ vision.
Kaveh ran the remaining distance to the front gates of the base, unsure if he should worry more about Remi facing down a horde of phantoms or a hellhound brazen enough to enter a drakone riftland and kidnap a human.
There was no sign of Remi on the outskirts of the complex, where Kaveh could enter without fear he would disrupt the wards placed to contain the phantoms.
If the vision the sparkleflies had provided was accurate though, he was too late. The phantoms had already escaped.
His legs burning and gasping for breath, he held up the shroom lamp he had brought and spotted Amanita inside the base’s outer fence, feeding on a javelina she had killed. The remains of the pig-like creature lay strewn around her hooves. Amanita lifted her head, her mouth smeared with blood, and regarded him with large eyes that flashed blue in the light of his lamp. He approached her with a good deal of caution, but she allowed him to stroke her now-scaly snout. An image of a frightened and abandoned Ranger came into his mind, and he projected it toward her. She shook her head and snorted then trotted away in the direction Kaveh had come. He sent up a quick prayer she would find his horse and protect him.
Remi had left the repoequus waiting for him out here and must still be inside. Kaveh wasn’t sure if that was good or bad news. He circled around the building, trying tomatch the location from the sparkleflies’ images, then came to a halt when he heard harsh shouting.
His light illuminated a now familiar circular opening in the wall. A soft glow came from within, likely from other phosphorescent light sources.
The arguing voices grew louder.
Phantoms didn’t communicate with spoken languages. If Remi was inside, someone else was with him, and it didn’t sound like a friendly conversation. Other than the multipurpose knife tool he carried with him at all times, Kaveh’s only weapon was his summ, which he didn’t want to use even if he could figure out how to call it up.
Then he heard Remi cry out in pain, and Kaveh stopped caring about who or what he might be facing. He charged in, and the summ responded to his fury by flooding into his hands.
Inside the room, he took in the scene. Remi stood hunched over and gasping, surrounded by three hulking ratkind. Two were massive humanoid rodents, with clawed hands and rodent-like heads on top of their large frames.
The male had a large club at his waist, and the female was waving a knife at Remi in a threatening manner. Kaveh couldn’t tell if the third man, a tattooed biker type who held an even larger knife and had tentacles sprouting from his back, was an unusual ratkind hybrid or outside muscle they had brought in.
The flames in Kaveh’s hands roared into a fireball without any thought on his part, arcing mere centimeters above the heads of the tallest ratkind before dissipating onto the far wall.
The Colony enforcers crouched in fear then turned to face him.
“The ratkind have no right to trespass on drakoneriftland.” Kaveh stood with both hands raised and emerald fire licking up both of his arms. Rage burned inside him as well, a fury that these criminals had dared to touch Remi. “Move a muscle, and I’ll kill you where you stand.”
That was a bluff.
He couldn’t use his awful power when they had Remi as a shield and was unsure if he could control the flames now that the summ had manifested again. His anger was fueling the poisonous fire, creating an inner tension that urged him to take the lives of the three criminals who had invaded drakone territory, likely colluded with the hellhound who had abducted Kat, and now were threatening Remi.
“I’m here for him.” Kaveh gestured at Remi and focused on the man’s face, pale with terror, hoping to reassure him he would rescue him from the three dangerous criminals. “Hand him over to me, and you can leave our riftland with your lives and nothing else.”
“Fine,” chorused the two rodent-like ones.
