The Rifts of Psyche by Kyle West (popular e readers txt) 📗

Lucian felt his shield buckling while his reserves of ether burned away at an incredible rate. Thermalism was not his strength, and this would be a losing battle the longer it went on.

“Get out of here!” Serah said. “He’s too strong!”

Ramore’s stream strengthened, and there was nothing Lucian could do to defend against it. Ramore’s expression was one of twisted, murderous rage.

Serah was trying to pull Ramore away, but he shook her aside with unreal strength, sending her sprawling to the ground. Lucian edged away from the cave while concentrating all his ether on maintaining the wavering shield. If it cracked, he would be immolated in seconds.

When he reached the cave mouth, Ramore was still in pursuit. Lucian had to do something to keep the frayed mage from following him, but what? All his ether was tied up in the shield’s upkeep, and if his concentration slipped, even for a moment, it would mean his death.

Suddenly, the heat dissipated, and Ramore keeled over with a groan of pain. Serah had clearly done something to distract him, but Lucian didn’t have time to speculate. He ran off into the darkness, leaving the frayed mages behind. Serah screamed something after him, but Lucian wasn’t sure what. The only thing he was sure of was that there was no way in hell he was taking his chances back there. Not when he could be murdered in his sleep.

He had to find his own cave, somewhere. Serah had said there were plenty of them. The only question was, could he find one before the wyverns smelled him out?

Serah had also said the wyverns hated light. So, he streamed a light sphere to illumine the path ahead, tethering it so that it floated about a meter ahead of him. As before, streaming Binding seemed to make no impact on his ether at all, even when he was dualstreaming. All he had to do was keep up Radiance, which thankfully used less ether than the Thermalism.

The trail snaked down into the rift. Due to the low gravity, Lucian wasn’t really sprinting, but loping. He forced himself to slow down before he careened over the edge. It didn’t seem as if he were being followed.

Not ten seconds after streaming the light sphere, bloodcurdling shrieks echoed from the rift, causing the hairs on his neck to stand on end. Lucian picked up the pace, glancing behind to see the cave mouth he’d just escaped, where two human silhouettes blocked the interior light. They both disappeared, likely seeking shelter from the wyverns that were surely coming.

He had to find a cave, and enough fuel to make a fire. The shrieks sounded again, closer now. Would he have the time?

The path made a bend, weaving between two clefts of rocks. It had to be the entrance of a cave. If he could just get inside, find some fuel, and light it with a Thermal stream, he’d be safe. Probably.

Lucian went inside, following the trail until it reached an open area surrounded by high cliffs. No, this was most definitely not a cave. There was no discernible escape, though of course it was impossible to tell in the darkness.

Lucian’s blood went cold when he realized the truth. He would have to fight for his life again, but this time, there was no Serah to bail him out.

The first thing he did was deepen his Focus, streaming the light sphere as bright as he could manage. Doing so burned his ether at an alarming rate, but there was no other way to counter what was coming. He needed not only to see his surroundings, but to inhibit the wyverns before they got too close.

Lucian didn’t have to wait long. Two massive, dragon-like creatures with wide, leathern wings and long, snake-like necks emerged from the darkness above the cleft. Their forms were long and scaly, while massive black eyes reflected the light of his sphere. In tandem, they opened their gaping maws, revealing rows of needle-like teeth, and let out discordant shrieks that sounded demonic as they flapped toward him. The light sphere had little, if any, effect on their aggression.

Lucian reached for his shockspear, only to realize he had no weapon at all. He had only his magic and his wits to rely on. And of course, the Orb of Binding. If everything about what he’d experienced on Volsung was a dream, then he would be dead within seconds.

But he would not begin by streaming the Binding Aspect. He reached for his Focus, only to find that the light sphere had eaten up all his ether. He had no choice but to overdraw from the Manifold itself. A sweetly poisonous infusion of ether entered him, leaving him shaking and exultant. It was a fiery power that demanded immediate release. He reached for the Psionic Aspect and began to direct every bit of that ether into a stream designed to push the two wyverns back as far as possible. He needed to create some space, enough time to figure out how the Orb of Binding worked. And a kinetic wave would give him that space – assuming his stream was powerful enough.

The hardest part was waiting for the right moment, watching helplessly as the wyverns dove toward him. They seemed to move in slow motion, a side-effect of being so deep into his Focus. All that training on the prison barge had given him a concentration greater than he would have ever thought possible.

And he would need every bit of it as he waited, patiently, for the right moment. He had to wait until they were just meters away . . .

The wyverns’ shrieks pummeled him then, drowning him in a wall of sound. The time had come to create his own wall. He finally let go of his stream, unleashing a massive, kinetic wave. His entire body shone with violet light as the shockwave emanated outward. It blasted the wyverns, who shot away as if knocked with a gigantic and invisible bat.