Lucian: Dark God's Homecoming Read Online Free PDF Page B

was grateful.
    In the middle of the square, the great plume of the Fountain flared up like a geyser, spouting golden sparks and stars and constellations into the too-blue sky. The column of energy towered over a hundred feet into the air before falling back down like water into the great basin surrounding its base. Frail by comparison, a gilded stairway ascended some forty feet up alongside the Fountain, topped by a ten-foot-wide platform, just within arm’s reach of the current, from which various ceremonies were conducted in happier days.
    The air around the Fountain fairly buzzed in harmony with the erupting shower of primal energy. Freed from the shielded interior of the dungeon, I could feel the full, invigorating effects of the Power washing over me. The clothes that have always been a part of my Aspect quickly regained their luster; my indigo shirt and pants seemed fresh and new again and my navy-blue long coat flared crisply behind me. The sapphire jewel I wore at my collar sparkled like a new star.
    One thing was certain. We had to get out of the city immediately. Any planning beyond that point could wait. I led them to the main gates, but remembered my last journey on the road from Earth’s plane and hesitated.
    “What is it?” Cassidy demanded. “What are you waiting for? Get us out of here!”
    Resisting the urge to backhand him for his impudence, I considered our options. The road I knew best—that most direct, best-mapped, and least-tasking of routes among the planes back to Earth’s dimension—would surely be watched, if not by the man in black then by one of us. Perhaps by Baranak himself, once word reached him of my escape.
    Anger swelled within me. I had not come all this way simply to give up and flee back to my place of exile, even were I sure it would be safe. But where else could we go? I needed information. I needed advice. I needed…
    “He’s right,” Evelyn said, anxiety evident in her voice. “It can’t be wise to stand here so long.”
    “Wise…” That word conjured an image from the depths of my ages-old memory. “Wisdom. Yes!”
    Ignoring their further questions, I led them a short distance along the city’s massive walls to another gate—a smaller one—and cautiously opened it. Seeing no signs of an attack, I motioned the humans out and closed the gate behind us. A narrow path led away from the city walls and into a wooded area down the hill, and I hurried off in that direction, the others behind me. It had been some time since I had last taken this route, and I hoped the intersection with Malachek’s realm still lay in the same place.
    “Where are we going?” Evelyn asked as we ran.
    “To visit the god of wisdom,” I replied, “and see if he can live up to his Aspect.”
    I strove to relax my mind as best I could, allowing my senses and my instincts to guide me as I mentally examined the texture of reality around us. It didn’t take long. The point of close proximity between the City’s dimension and my destination, where the barrier between those two planes was thinnest, had not moved since last I had passed this way, so many centuries earlier. Gesturing with one hand, the Power flowing through me, I pressed at the invisible wall and penetrated it easily, causing a portal to flare open. Quickly I expanded it into a ten-foot circle of blue fire that hovered before us. Smiling for the first time in quite a while, I quickly led the others through, allowing it to shrink to nothingness behind us. When we stepped out the other side, the brightness of day had been replaced by a dim world of long shadows and near twilight. The tall, straight trees from the outskirts of the city had given way to gnarly, twisted growths and thick underbrush.
    Through the woods we raced, shadows descending all around. Gradually the ground sloped further down, until we found ourselves in a low area covered over completely with layers of contorted and knotty branches high above. Vast puddles of