Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,186

decaying now, even with your bolstering. No doubt you can feel its hold upon you slipping more and more as the years pass. I cannot say for certain how much longer it will last. I can free you, here and now. The scant time remaining to this world is insufficient for you to do any material damage. How would you like to be free?”

Bellimar’s head twisted to the side, and his stricken eyes found first Amric, and then Thalya. His gaze caught on the huntress and remained there.

“What say you, vampire?” Xenoth said softly. “The Adepts did this to you, long ago. Surely there is no guilt in letting an Adept free you now. Tell me what I wish to know, and you can be unfettered once more. You can rule the twilight days of this world. Tell me where the fugitive Adept is hiding.”

Thalya stood rigid, staring back at the man––the monster––that she held responsible for the death of her father, and for the destruction of her entire life. She appeared to be waiting for him to utter the words that would deliver final condemnation in her eyes.

“What say you, vampire?” Xenoth repeated. The words, so like the ones Bellimar had demanded of Amric back in the inn at Keldrin’s Landing when they had first met, struck at Amric’s core. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, to distract the Adept and draw his attention away from the old man, but the words lodged in his throat and his limbs seemed frozen, unresponsive.

Syth took a sliding step forward, his fists clenched at his sides. The strange winds emanating from his person swept the sands back from him in a spiraling halo. “Leave him alone,” he grated.

Xenoth turned toward him, blinking as if had entirely overlooked the thief’s presence. He flicked one hand and Bellimar was cast away in an arc. The old man landed in a catlike crouch on the barren ground and stayed low with his grey robes pooled about him. His features were a frozen mask as he stared at the Adept. Xenoth held up one hand and curled it into a loose fist, and Syth’s fluttering cloak suddenly pressed tight to his rigid body as his feet left the ground. As Syth floated toward Xenoth, wide-eyed and struggling against his invisible bonds, the latter looked him up and down with a critical eye.

“Unstable,” he remarked with a note of disapproval in his voice. “The halves of your nature are in constant conflict, much like your vampire friend there. It is a wonder you survive at all, but you are calmed at the moment. Is this some subtle working of the rogue Adept, perhaps?”

Xenoth looked to the others, and Syth flinched when his dark gaze fell upon Thalya.

“Ah, I see,” the Adept murmured with a cold, knowing smile as his eyes lingered over the huntress. “Something much simpler, in fact.” He gestured toward the black, jointed gauntlets that Syth was wearing. “Does she know the price you pay in wearing those dreadful devices? Do you even know, yourself?”

The muscles in Syth’s jaw clenched as he glared defiance down at the black-robed man. Xenoth gave an unfriendly chuckle. “No matter,” he said. “You know the information I truly seek, and I now know what you truly value. Do I need to be so crass as to state the obvious?”

Thalya gave a startled yelp as her arms were pinned to her sides. She was pulled taut to her full height until the toes of her leather boots just grazed the surface of the sand beneath her. Syth gave an incoherent growl of rage and threw himself against the unseen force binding his limbs. He twisted and thrashed, but to no avail.

With an effort of will, Amric wrenched free of his paralysis and burst into motion at last. He stepped forward, reaching for his swords, and the other Sil’ath warriors started toward Xenoth in the same instant. The black-robed man barely spared them a glance, making an impatient gesture with one hand in their direction. The ground rose before the charging warriors in a thick crescent and smashed into them, hurling them all backward and crashing over them like a wave.

The last sounds Amric heard before weight and darkness closed over him were the frightened screams of the horses as they thundered away, deeper into the wasteland. A detached part of his mind was relieved that the beasts had not been caught in the wave, even though rounding them