Free The Vitalis Chronicles: White Shores by Jay Swanson Page B

How did she do what she did to the Peninsula?”
    “Who knows,” he said absentmindedly. “This place has fallen into disrepair to say the least. Whatever happened she must have found a way to break through the seals.”
    “She's had enough time to,” the gaunt old man agreed.
    “Bring three companies up in fifteen minutes and secure the perimeter,” Silvers turned to his subordinate. “No one in or out. Set two companies as a rearguard at the mouth of the valley to ensure no one comes up and interrupts us. And for God's sake, keep Brutus' dogs out of here until I'm ready for them. I don't share their zeal for repulsion devices. For all we know the ones in the compound simply malfunctioned.”
    “Sir.” The colonel turned briskly and walked away.
    Metaphysical Atmosphere Repulsion Devices, or MARD if you didn't want to choke on the name, were made to repel the source of the Magi's power. In their most basic form, MARD were simple containers built to house an alloy comprised of two rare but natural ores. When the two were mixed in the proper ratios they repelled what was called the Metaphysical Atmosphere, something most humans were blissfully unaware of but from which the Magi drew most of their strength.
    If one ran an electrical current through the ores, the effect could be amplified. If the Atmosphere was repulsed in a Mage's presence he would immediately go limp. Their bodies were but physical shells for an otherwise metaphysical existence.
    The real danger was in the Mage's ability to grow in power as he or she learned to manipulate the Atmosphere and convert it to matter, affecting the world around them. Most people referred to it simply as magic, and it may as well have been, but Silvers had seen enough to know that there was a method behind the madness. He had seen its power first hand at the Raising of the Cliffs among other things.
    The entire western coastline had been covered in cliffs. They were made by the Magi in a desperate attempt to ward off an invasion of their own making known best as the Great Defense.
    Thankfully, as the treachery of the Magi was revealed during the Continental War that was to follow, MARD was discovered by a professor of chemistry in Liscentia, to the south, that most considered insane. Perhaps the majority held him in esteem. But those who knew about his tendencies to cut himself and drink his own blood considered him insane.
    Through the clouds of his madness he had managed to concoct a Repulsion Device which he proceeded to demonstrate on one of the few Magi left behind during the War. He had performed the unthinkable when he walked nonchalantly up to the helpless Mage in front of an Inter-City Council and surreptitiously slit his throat with a small knife.
    They had become increasingly elaborate devices, to the point that one could use the casing of mortars or the shrapnel in bombs to introduce MARD just before the rest of the device ripped a Mage's weakened body to shreds.
    Many cruel contraptions had been conceived and used, but such was war. Treason, to the scale of the Magi's especially, deserved little mercy.
    These devices, however, were incredibly expensive to make and increasingly rare since the Purge. For the past twenty years they had become almost entirely unnecessary and widely forgotten by the current generation.
    Silvers stood inside the gate that led to the Cave. Finally alone in the compound, his troops amassed behind him, he pulled a slender black object out of his jacket. Tugging on the end revealed a knife hidden within, sheath and hilt made from one solid piece of material, dark as hate. Every inch of the knife and sheath were covered in dark runes, mystical things that Silvers didn't fully understand. He didn't feel the need to.
    The lean, gray haired general sheathed the knife and placed it back in his jacket. Brow set and fists clenched, he began his solemn march up the path, a growing mist gently swirling around his boots. If she knew he was here it