Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  Amanda redoubled her efforts, and with a few more hits, his Aegis finally dropped.

  “No, wait…” he called, but Amanda wasn’t interested and sent a Kinetic Ram at the man that sent him flying across the floor despite him throwing Magic at it to try and deflect it.

  Amanda Ported and appeared next to him. “Not so confident now, are we?” Amanda taunted him.

  “You can take it. I don’t want it. I’m not interested in it,” he said, scrambling away from her.

  “I will take it,” Amanda said and kicked him across the face. The Magus dropped back, alive but unconscious, as blood leaked from his nose and mouth.

  Amanda shook her head and left the temple behind, walking out into the street and hurrying along the thoroughfare. Stopping a little further along, she ducked into a side street and opened the rags that the stone tablet was wrapped in. She got a much better look at it now, and sure enough, it was the exact same one that Liz and her friends had got hold of.

  She wasn’t too sure what it was she needed to do with it, so she concentrated and reached out for her Null Realm before shifting the Artifact into it.

  Cancelling the effect, and satisfied that the Artifact was now safe, Amanda moved back to the roadway, suppressing her Magical signature once more and conjuring the Misdirection effect.

  ***

  Amanda had been wandering the city for hours already, and still the violence, robbery, and destruction of Constantinople and its treasures continued.

  Amanda walked past a large building that had a few points of concentrated Essentia somewhere within. Parts of the building had been set alight while people were rushing inside to save some of the precious books and works it apparently contained.

  People were shouting and there was general chaos everywhere. From what she could see and hear, it was abundantly clear that this was the main city library, and the Crusaders were doing their best to destroy this building, too.

  Moving into a side-alleyway, Amanda concentrated and sent a set of her senses into the building, focusing on checking out what the Essentia concentrations were.

  A few of them seemed to be Magi who were either helping to destroy the building or trying to save the treasures within it, while the others appeared to be Magical books.

  Pausing for a moment, Amanda realised that she could actually save some of these artifacts herself. Checking around her in the alleyway to make sure she was still alone, Amanda went to work, Porting some of these choice books out of the library and shifting them over into her Null Realm. She took Magical and mundane books, hunting for some of the more valuable tomes that the library contained.

  Splitting her mind, she sent another part of her psyche off to scan through the minds of some of the Riven that were running about. Soon enough, she found first one, and then a few more people who had worked in the library and quickly hunted through the memories for some of the more valuable items that seemed doomed to be consumed by the flames.

  Amanda saved books, paintings, statues, and other artifacts, even Porting some of them from pyres that were being built or from the arms of Crusaders who were about to smash or rip them up.

  Amanda sat, hidden amongst the debris for a good hour before she felt she’d done as much as she was able. She wasn’t sure what she would do with these items for the time being, but it felt good to save as many as she could from the Crusaders.

  Satisfied with her work, she moved further along the alleyway and out into the street, ducking through the lanes, and doing her best to remain unseen by the Crusaders.

  Groups of militia, residents, opportunistic thieves, and looting Crusaders ran past her. She listened to each of them as they talked. Usually, there was little of interest, but when a couple of people ran down the street ranting about some kind of Demon, Amanda stopped to listen. It sounded incoherent but promising, when movement to her right caught her attention. She saw a sizable group of Crusaders rushing around a corner up ahead. Maybe half of them were injured and were being helped along by those in a better state. A man dressed in finer armour than the others hobbled along, clearly in pain, being helped by one of his knights. He was cursing to himself as they went.

  In a rage, he stopped abruptly and looked back the way he’d come.

  “Damn you, Horlack,” he roared, shaking his fist. “I’ll get you yet. I promise, I will find you, and I will kill you,” he raved, while his retinue urged him to keep moving.

  The knight was surrounded by a ragged-looking Aegis that looked like it was about to falter and die at any moment, so Amanda backed up into the shadows of the building next to her and took a few moments to build up a powerful Essentia strike. Suddenly, the lead Crusader seemed to notice something and looked around. He’d sensed her.

  Amanda lashed out, sending a dagger of Essentia into the knight’s Aegis and cracking it open like an egg.

  The knight looked surprised, but Amanda didn’t hesitate, plunging into his mind and scanning through his most recent memories.

  Within seconds, she was looking through his eyes, seeing Horlack and his followers attacking the Crusaders and their Magus commander, Marcus with a savagery that was breathtaking. Horlack was an engine of destruction, but Marcus was no weak, inexperienced Magus and fought well, holding his own. But his men were dying all around him, and in the end, he’d called a tactical retreat.

  She also noted that the fight had happened just a short distance from where she currently stood.

  Amanda released the Crusader’s mind and started up the street as the knights went in the opposite direction.

  Turning the corner that Marcus had appeared around, she found that the road opened up into a public square of some kind that was a scene of carnage. The bodies of Crusader knights littered the ground, while other fighters, who weren’t wearing any sort of standardised uniform, lay scattered amongst them.

  Around the square, more of these mercenaries were looting corpses. Most of them were human, but a few, including the hulking form of the Were-creature, Horlack with his black fur and large horn, were clearly Scions. Amanda advanced on the Scion, picking her way through the detritus that was scattered through the streets to get a closer look. She saw Horlack standing over the transforming body of a Crusader that was writhing in pain and growing in size. Within moments, the Crusader’s body had more than doubled in size and seemed to be made from stone with two enormous wings sprouting from his back. Standing beside Horlack, a man focused on this new Scion, working Magic on him. She could see the Essentia flaring and flowing into the Scion’s mind, warping it.

  Moving a touch closer, she realised she recognised this new Scion. It was Balor, the Gargoyle Scion who worked with Orion and Xain, and who sometimes worked with the Legacy as well.

  Amanda scanned the scene again. There were a few other Scions here and a couple of other Magi. She’d be jumping into a dangerous fight, but she couldn’t let them corrupt Balor.

  Amanda cancelled her dampening effects and focused on bringing her defences up to full strength. She split her mind once more before flooding her Aegis with Essentia. A second later, as a few of the more sensitive Magi and Scions turned towards her, she Ported and appeared beside the Magus who stood over Balor.

  Amanda released a powerful wave of Kinetic energy along with several pointed Essentia strikes at the Magus.

  It was as though a battering ram had hit him as he flew back twenty feet and crashed into the ground with a grunt, his Magic failing.

  At her feet, Balor writhed on the ground as the Magi’s telepathic probe was ripped from his mind.

  Horlack’s claws scythed in towards her. Amanda turned and blocked. She’d not been sure she needed to, given her Aegis, but Horlack’s attack had been incredibly powerful. It reached through her Aegis, his claws ripping worrying rents into her defences, only to slam into her forearm as she blocked him.

  It was almost comical to see her thin arms bringing Horlack’s tree trunk sized ones to a standstill.

  Deflecting his arm, Am
anda lashed out with a kick that crunched into his stomach and sent the shocked Scion sailing backwards.

  He rolled before his claws bit into the ground, bringing him to a stop as he looked up.

  “Amanda,” he roared.

  Amanda smiled as a couple of men with swords ran at her. Amanda turned and moved like lightning, ducking under and around the swings of the two attackers before lashing out and knocking the two men to the ground in short order.

  Magic crashed in on her. The Essentia strikes were powerful and hit her Aegis from a couple of angles. They damaged her defences, but she had one of her Multitasking minds doing nothing but funnelling more energy into her Aegis, repairing the damage that it was being dealt.

  The Magus that she’d thrown away from Balor was the closest one to her and started throwing rocks and debris at her with his mind. Amanda reached out and hit him with another Kinetic Ram, this time from his rear, smashing him towards her. He stumbled and fell, but started to pick himself up. Amanda hit him again from above with another powerful Kinetic and Essentia-charged strike and cracked his Aegis.

  Spotting the weakness, and the sudden look of fear on the Magi’s face, Amanda hit him again, ramming a spike into the crack and disintegrating his Aegis entirely before she Magically kicked him up towards herself.

  She swung her fist and caught him in the face. He fell to the street, covered in blood and clearly in a bad way. Nearby, she spotted Horlack walking calmly towards her as anger seethed behind his eyes.

  She used her Magic and assigned a few sets of senses to her multiple minds, allowing them to look out around her, independently of the others. Horlack’s forces surrounded her, but held their ground as Horlack approached.

  Suddenly, he rushed her, leaping in close, his lethal claws—each one as big as her forearm—slashed at her as she spun, ducked, and dodged around him. Horlack could move faster than his size should allow and she had a tough time keeping away from him.

  His claws caught at her Aegis every few hits, cutting considerable rips in it each time. She knew he was a powerful Scion, but she’d not really been in a pitched battle with him before, so seeing it from this side of things, and seeing him make short work of her Aegis was more than a little scary.

  Out of nowhere, Essentia flared and Amanda and Horlack were thrown apart. Crashing into the ground, Amanda rolled and brought herself up to her feet in short order, looking around. She quickly spotted two more arrivals in the courtyard on the other side of Horlack’s main forces. They were both cloaked, with deep hoods concealing their features, and in addition to that, they were clearly powerful.

  Both figures glowed brightly in her Magical vision and were shifting around a considerable amount of Essentia with little effort.

  “Feck me, now what?” Amanda cursed.

  1302 AD – Near Earth Orbit

  “This is incredible,” Amanda said, looking out from the balcony and over the Earth below. “I mean, I’ve been to Ultima Thule, so, I knew this was possible, but actually being on one of these… What is this? A spaceship?”

  “Yes, technically, but we call them Aetheric Craft,” Cyrac said. “Or Aether Ships.”

  “So, the Magi have been in space for a while, haven’t they?” Amanda asked.

  “For a long time, yes. Estimates vary, but we’re sure that the Magi have been travelling through space for over ten thousand years, using Aetheric Craft like this one,” Cyrac said, guiding Amanda into the ship and indicating that she should take a seat while he spoke. “They’ve been in space since the time of the Archons and before their Sundering of the Magi.”

  “I’ve heard of that. Isn’t that when the Archon’s tried to cut the Magi off from Magic entirely?” Amanda asked.

  “That’s right, yes. But, as you must know, they didn’t succeed. They weakened us but didn’t end the Magi. There are Magi out there who are more powerful than any Magi who has come about since. Anyway, the Magi have travelled through space, creating colonies, space stations, and entire empires out in the cosmos. Earth has been left to develop on its own, and was left behind in technological advancement many millennia ago by the Riven humans in space, of which there are billions upon billions.”

  “You mean, there’s a whole human empire out there, in our galaxy, using super-advanced tech that the humans on Earth have no knowledge about?”

  “That’s right. There are a lot of Riven humans out there, and they have been free to push their scientific advancements, aided by the Magi and without being held back by superstition, to a degree unthought-of by modern scientists. The Riven in space were crossing the void between stars before the humans on Earth had created their first city,” Cyrac said.

  “And we’ve crossed our entire galaxy?” Amanda asked.

  “We’ve reached other galaxies,” Cyrac said.

  Sentinels

  1204 AD

  As she watched, the two new arrivals were attacked by Horlack’s forces. Magic flared as these two new Magi ripped into their attackers with a strength that concerned Amanda.

  Horlack seemed frozen with indecision and was entirely distracted by the two new Magi who were holding their own against his followers.

  Amanda grabbed the opportunity and lashed out at Horlack, her Magic smashing into his Aegis. Horlack whipped back to face her and roared before lunging for her again. Amanda ducked, managing to stay out of reach of those wicked claws for a few more seconds. Hammering him some more with her Magic, she ripped at his Aegis.

  Dodging and keeping her distance, Amanda did her best to keep Horlack occupied with a near-constant barrage of Magical attacks. Meanwhile, another of her minds reached out and hauled an immense boulder into the air before smashing it down on top of him. Horlack howled.

  She smiled and set more of her minds to throwing objects at him.

  All around him, Amanda telekinetically lifted rocks, boulders, and bricks into the air before launching them at the Scion.

  Horlack was no longer trying to attack Amanda. Instead, he thrashed about, waving his arms around, trying to fend off the endless barrage of debris that was hitting him from all directions.

  “Damn you, Amanda!” he howled as she hit him again and again.

  Casting around, she spotted a huge stone pillar leaning against a nearby building. She reached out and willed the pillar to tip and then fall onto Horlack. She watched the whole thing almost as if it were in slow motion. The pillar shifted slowly, reaching the point of no return, all without Horlack spotting it because he was too busy trying to fend off her other attacks.

  When gravity took over, Amanda let go and just watched as the pillar arced over like a felled tree and smashed into Horlack’s head.

  The great Scion crumpled beneath it, dropping to the ground where he lay still. Amanda watched him for a moment, not quite believing she’d actually managed to subdue the brute. But he didn’t move.

  Amanda glanced left and saw that the pair of new Magi were still fighting with Horlack’s forces. Leaving them to fight it out, she was about to move towards Horlack when she remembered Balor. He still lay on the ground, now fully transformed into his Scion form and looking somewhat peaceful. Amanda concentrated and reached out to his mind, pressing into it to find that Horlack’s Magi had done a lot of irreparable damage. Almost all his human memories were gone, everything that made him who he was, including his identity, but Horlack’s Magi had also started to implant the idea that Horlack was his master.

  Feeling more than a little disgusted by this, Amanda reached out and pulled the allegiance to Horlack from Balor’s mind and proceeded to instil some fundamental good morals and standards into him instead, as well as the name Balor.

  She was only maybe half a minute into it when Balor woke up. Withdrawing from his mind, she stepped back as the Scion stood up and grabbed her, wrapping his huge hand around her shoulders, arms, and chest.

  Her Aegis strained under his grip but it kept him from hurting her or even really touching her at all.

  Balor
looked at her, and then all around. She could feel the confusion within him and how scared he was.

  “Balor, it’s okay. I can help you. You’ve been hurt, but I stopped them,” she explained. “I helped you.”

  Balor looked back down at her and seemed to notice his grip on her and let go. “I’m… sorry,” he said, and took a step back, looking at his hand in horror. “What is this? What am I?”

  “It’s okay. You’re a Scion now, I think you understand what that means,” she said, knowing full well that she’d gifted him that knowledge during her telepathic exchange, as well as imparting some basics about remaining hidden from the Riven world.

  Balor nodded and looked up from his stone-like hands. “Who was I?” he asked, haltingly.

  “I don’t know. I’m afraid, those memories were taken from you,” she answered. “But I know you as Balor. You’re an honourable man and a good friend, and I want to help you if I can.”

  “I… I think I need a little time,” he said, backing off from Amanda and holding his head. She could sense the pain there. He’d had his mind invaded twice now, and both times he’d been subjected to some fairly major psychic surgery. The second time—Amanda’s attempt—had only happened to save him from becoming something horrific, and unfortunately, had been necessary.

  She didn’t want to push him. He needed to find his own way. “Of course,” Amanda said. “You’ve been through a lot. If you need to find me, come to Paris and ask for Amanda, okay?”

  Balor turned to look back at her and nodded once before his great wings unfurled and with a single beat, launched himself into the air, before flying off at an incredible speed.

  Amanda watched him go, feeling pleased that she’d helped someone. After a moment, she turned, looked down at Horlack, and sighed. He was still unconscious and hurt, but his wounds were healing rapidly. He wouldn’t be unconscious for long.