Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,100

lost.”

Syth stared at him, recalling his heated exchange with Amric over possession of the key device. He flushed, though whether in shame or anger he was not certain, and he found himself grateful for the concealing dark. “Well,” he said at last, “your friend Amric can be a persuasive fellow.”

“Nonetheless,” Halthak pressed, “I owe you my freedom, and probably my life as well.”

Syth fidgeted, and then shrugged, flashing his ready grin. “I have stolen much in my lifetime,” he said. “I thought it would be a welcome change to be rightfully owed, for once.”

Halthak nodded and swung away. Syth watched his silhouette pick its way back toward the camp, and then he sank smoothly to the ground to sit cross-legged once more, facing out into the night. Later, when the sky began to lighten with the coming morn, it found him still seated there, a solitary figure lost in unaccustomed thoughts.

The man in black emerged from the Gate to stand on a broad platform high above the ruins. He glanced behind to see the Gate seal itself, a searing vertical slash of light that frothed and hissed at the edges until it dwindled and finally vanished. Then the portal was tranquil once more, or at least as tranquil as it ever became.

The man cocked his head, regarding its shimmering surface within the great enclosing arch of stone. As always, he could not decide which it resembled more, the iris of some massive eye without a focusing pupil, or a roiling, fibrous mass of clouds. And he shrugged, as ever before. It was a thing of function, not of beauty, though he had always felt there was an ancient splendor to it that transcended mere beauty.

He turned his back on the construct, and took a few cautious steps. His knees quivered but held, and already he could feel strength seeping back into his limbs. Passing through an Essence Gate was always disorienting, but in this case the reward was almost immediate. He tasted of the energies gathered here by the Gate, and he smiled. Nothing compared to the heady rush of power back home, except of course for this, when a Gate was gathering. And this one was doing little more than sipping thus far, he thought with anticipation, trying to imagine the concentration of force it would reach when in full operation.

The black-robed man strolled around the platform, hands clasped behind his back as he took in his surroundings. Tiny, dark shapes wheeled high overhead in a cloud-streaked sky, but they did not approach and he paid them no heed. The mid-morning sun struggled to pierce that high shroud, sending sparse shafts of warmth down to dapple the crumbling ruins, which stretched away in every direction to the limit of his vision. A blanket of mist rolled and curled over the ground, like some turbulent phantom sea. Where the white waves parted, he could see vegetation pushing through shattered paving, and great mounds of wind-worn, sun-bleached stone.

Bent, misshapen forms shuffled and crawled through the mist, but they gave a wide berth to the colossal pedestal and the wide stairs leading up to the Gate. Good, he thought, as it would save him the trouble of dealing with them.

His expression twisted in distaste as he surveyed the ruins, and with long fingers he stroked a neatly trimmed ebon beard shot through with grey. The place was a shambles. He preferred it when the locals kept the Gate locations in a suitably respectful state, but that had obviously not been the case here. There was no longer power enough to spare from the other side for the old ways either, he reflected with some regret. No matter, he supposed; the Essence Gate was the important thing, and it was fully functional and well preserved by magic. On a whim, he tried to recall the name given to this place. It took long seconds, but finally, through the dusty halls of memory: Queln! That was it, he decided, pleased with himself at this small indulgence.

Then his mood darkened as he remembered his purpose in coming here.

Indeed, how could he forget the name of this place, even over the intervening years? Another part of this otherwise insignificant world had played host to a personal failure which had taken him a great deal of time and effort to overcome, ever since. In many ways the echoes of that time haunted him yet today, for he suspected its influence in the treatment he received, in the