Page 36 of Dancing With Demons
His robes swish behind him as he glides into his chambers, and the slamming of the heavy, ornate doors signal my leave.
I race back to my lab, using magic to transport me outside the doors. Rain falls sideways. A vicious storm is upon us, as always. Of course, Piper would take her chances with my lab now, when all of the students have fled indoors.
With a snarl, I summon a student and demand he find Eth’tak immediately.
Before he’s taken more than a step away, I open the doors.
The creatures pour into the stormy garden like oil. I summon fire, but it cannot hold against the rain, and their exoskeletons are too thick to damage by blunt force, their prickly limbs too nimble to blow away with wind. Not that I don’t try. I summon rocks and smash them against their backs, to no avail. I spin a windstorm strong enough to nearly pluck the roof from my lab, but they dig in their stubborn appendages into the dirt and hiss with displeasure.
“Tolmond!”
Piper clings to a desk, desperately defending herself against a small swarm intent on devouring her whole. Goo drips from her clothes and hair; it seems she has had more success killing these beasts than I have. Magic sparks and pops about her, but nothing holds. It’s barely enough to keep the things at bay.
I haven’t taught her.
If I’d been even a second later, I’m not sure she would still be alive. If I don’t manage to rid my lab of this swarm, they still might hurt her, or worse. Humans are so very fragile.
Fear morphs into rage. I have to kill these things, but how?
“Damnation.”
Fire, wind, and weapons haven’t worked. Perhaps drowning will. I pull from the sky, and a deluge descends upon us, lifting my desk and destroying decades of research. It hurts, watching my hard work pummeled by water, but hopefully I’ll be able to salvage some of it once this is over.
At least the rain seems to be working. The creatures swim poorly. The heavy exoskeletons that made them impervious to rocks send them to the bottom of the soggy garden floor. I keep the water coming until their corpses begin to pop up. The creatures float, dead, on their backs with their razor-sharp limbs curled against their brown bellies.
A few malingerers cling to the walls, so I direct the rain until they, too, begin to fall.
“You might have warned me that I’d need a boat.” Eth’tak, as prissy as ever, looks down at his ruined silk tunic. “Why are you creating an ocean, my friend?”
I don’t answer; the small sea of floating, murderous insects answers for me.
“Ah,” he says. “Piper.”
His magical skills are more meager than mine, but eventually we destroy the plague of demonic insects and clear the garden of the excess rain. As soon as the water retreats, I stride towards Piper.
I’ll have my students remove the corpses later.
For now, I have more pressing matters.
“Would you care to explain,” I try to keep my voice even, but it rises with each word, “why I had to leave a royal appointment in order to destroy my own laboratory? Or why you were practicingalone? Did you think I forbade this for fun? Do youlikenearly being eaten by giant insects, or can you try to listen to me for once?”
I expect her to shoot back a fiery retort.
I don’t expect tears to fall from her eyes, or for her chest to heave with the force of her sobs. Eth’tak’s eyes are wide in panic.
“I…” Piper swipes her sleeve across her cheeks, but more tears fall. “I didn’t mean… I just… I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but you never help me. I had to learn this somehow. It’s… it burns, not using the magic. I feel like I’m going to explode, but I have no idea what I’m doing, and I just need you to teach me.”
“I am teaching you.”
But am I? Am I really? As a soz’garoth, I know all too well the pull of chaos magic on the uninitiated. It’s as if the magic itself wills creation, and resisting can be nigh impossible for most adept students.
Isn’t that why we find our students so young?
I pull her against my chest and stroke her goop-riddled hair, feeling like an ass. This has all been my fault. In trying to spare her, I’ve only put her in more danger.
“I’m sorry. I thought, since you were human, you might not have the same magical calling as the rest of us. It was short-sighted of me. By not wanting to put you in danger, I’ve caused you even more harm.”
Eth’tak strokes a finger down her cheek. Her tears have mixed with the rain, and she shivers from the cold. “Let’s bring her somewhere warm,” he suggests.