Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,149

at him. He looked again at the prisoners, bent and huddled on the stone floor in that hellish cavern. He could not see any Sil’ath among them, but the distance and the poor light made it impossible to be certain. Regardless of race, they were mortal men, his kind. Soon to become her kind.

He spun on his heel and strode over to the group. He relayed in brief everything that he and Valkarr had seen in the void below. He described the towering creature and the numbers it commanded, and he watched their expressions tighten as he told of the captives and the horrifying transformation one had undergone before their eyes.

“So,” Sariel muttered. “It may not have been a trap before, but it is almost certainly one now.”

“Without a doubt,” Amric replied. His storm-grey eyes were cold and hard, holding an iron promise as they shifted back to the gaping maw in the crater that led into shadow below. “And I am going in anyway.”

A wolfish smile spread across Sariel’s face.

CHAPTER 19

The black-robed man sat, cross-legged on a high parapet, with eyes closed and mind far away. Wan sunlight spilled across his upturned face, giving his dark beard a tinge of gold, but he did not feel its meager warmth. At his back, the colossal fortress hummed with the power that coursed beneath it like a winter river swelling against its ceiling of ice, but he took no note of this either. If not for the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the occasional furrowing of his brow, he could have been one with the stone.

The clouds crawled above him as time passed, and the sun fell slowly in the sky as if it sought a better look at his still features.

At last his eyes fluttered open as he returned to himself, and his face settled once more into hard lines. He drew a deep breath and spat a sulfurous string of oaths. Slamming a palm to the stone, he pushed himself to his feet. He looked out over the walled courtyards surrounding the fortress, and past there to the spreading mantle of forest. He stood rigid, fists clenched, and then his shoulders slumped.

Almost three days he had spent in this wretched place that reeked of musk and death, and the trail was cold. The marks of his quarry’s power were in ample evidence at the core of the fortress, but the lack of guile and restraint employed there was in sharp contrast to the thoroughness of the vanishing afterward. It was a maddening mystery; the cunning and skill required to evade one with his considerable tracking skills bespoke an astonishing discipline, a long practice at the art of concealment that did not match the hasty, brutish splash of power used inside.

Worse, no matter how far he extended his senses, he could detect no further signs of his quarry exercising that power, to any degree. What Adept could go so long without embracing so much as a hint of his potential on this pathetic world? He could be a veritable god among the primitives here.

He sighed and looked down, digging through a pouch at his belt. He brought forth a small, dense loaf of travel bread and a sheaf of dried meat, eyed them both for a moment, and then returned them to the pouch and tucked it beneath his robes. He had hoped to be done with this mission by now, and his supplies were running low. Much longer, and he would have to seek food among the indigenous races here. He frowned in distaste. The fortress still held considerable stores of clean water, for which he was grateful, but what food he had found was either spoiled or revolting in nature. The stench of the lifeless place had grown to such an extent that he dreaded venturing within to scavenge for stores.

For the hundredth time that day, he considered simply striking out to the west in the hopes of following a more mundane trail. He was skilled in such methods, but he would be forced to exercise his power repeatedly to fend off the creatures being driven mad by the draw of magic. Such outbursts could mask the subtle and remote magical signs of his true prey. Worse, they would eventually alert his quarry to his own presence.

He shook his head in frustration. For a mad, impulsive moment he considered returning to Queln and activating the Essence Gate in full. He had the knowledge, as an