Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  “Many of us are blessed with long life, immortality in some cases, but the end will come to us all one day. The real way to have someone live forever, to be truly immortal, is to never forget them, to always remember and to celebrate their achievements. That is what Yoh would want for us to do, and what I, for one, will continue to do.”

  Her eulogy finished, Maya stepped back, into her place beside Amanda. Amanda reached out, placed her hand on Maya’s back and pulled her close. Maya looked up and smiled.

  “Beautifully done,” Amanda whispered.

  “Thanks,” Maya replied, sadness in her eyes.

  Trevelyan stepped forward and the group fell silent.

  “Thank you all for your kind words. I’m sure Yoh would be humbled by them. However, the time has come to say our final goodbyes, as we wish Yoh well on his next adventure, whatever that may be.”

  As she watched, Magic flared and dirt was conjured into place, covering the casket. A headstone had been set into the edge of the lawn with the simple inscription of his name and the year of his death.

  Slowly, one at a time, starting with Stella, each person present stepped forward and laid a flower or wreath or another item of remembrance on the ground before the headstone. Most of them also took a moment to think about their lost friend or offer a silent goodbye.

  Eventually, Amanda stepped up and laid a single red rose on the ground. Crouching down before the grave, weeping quietly, she reached out and touched the headstone. Silently, she said her goodbyes and apologised for not being able to help him in his final moments.

  After another few seconds, she stood and walked away from the grave, sniffing back her tears, and attempting to get a grip on herself as everyone made their way into The Jade Palace’s restaurant. The building was closed today, and blinds had been pulled, hiding them from the prying eyes of the public.

  Food and drinks were provided as they all stood around talking in quiet, subdued tones.

  “I have to say, I’m surprised Horlack came,” Amanda commented to Maya.

  “He’s different,” Maya replied, looking up. “He’s changed. It wasn’t something I was expecting, but he’s not the same Scion he was, well, just months ago, really.”

  “Do you think it’s real? I mean, he’s not faking it, is he?” Amanda asked.

  “I hope not,” Maya said.

  “Me, too.”

  “How are you, ladies?” Trevelyan asked, picking up some food from the table beside them.

  “As well as can be expected,” Amanda replied. “Thank you for leading the service today, that was very kind of you.”

  “My pleasure. I didn’t know Yoh very well, but I’d met him and I knew he was a friend of yours, as well as of many other people I respect. It felt like the right thing to do.”

  “I’m sure everyone was happy with how you handled it,” Amanda commented.

  “It was perfect,” Maya added.

  “Well, thank you, that means a lot,” he said, pausing and taking a bite from one of the canapés he’d picked up. “So, sorry to bring up recent events, but Yasmin lost the Scroll during the attack, I hear?”

  Amanda nodded. “That’s right. I can’t figure out what happened to it, but I know she dropped it.”

  “Well, that’s good. At least some good came from all this,” he said.

  “Providing it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands again,” Amanda said.

  “We can only hope,” Trevelyan agreed.

  A little later, Amanda stood talking with Gentle Water who, during a lull in their conversation, looked up at her, apparently with something on his mind.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Was that Alicia with Yasmin during the attack?” he asked.

  Amanda pressed her lips together as she tensed, trying to keep her emotions in check. She’d wondered if anyone else had noticed Alicia. “Yes, it was,” Amanda said, feeling emotion bubble up inside her again.

  “I thought so. Sorry. I had no idea Yasmin take her.”

  “Neither did I. I mean, I know she was possessed or merged with whatever had been summoned, but this is just so much worse.”

  “I understand.”

  Amanda nodded to her friend. “I’ll get her back. I’ll free her from Yasmin’s influence,” Amanda said, a note of steel in her voice.

  “If anything I can do, you say, yes?”

  Amanda nodded, feeling her friend’s warm and caring spirit wash over her.

  - Somewhere in the Middle East

  Lillia watched Kennedy and Bryn push with all their strength, and suddenly the door jerked open as they gave another shove.

  Lillia jumped, half-expecting something to reach out from the darkness behind the door, grab the men, and pull them inside. They looked pleased with themselves, though, and flicked on their torches before peering into the darkness inside.

  Everything remained silent, and nothing came rushing out to attack or eat them.

  Lillia sighed and shook her head. It was just a bad dream, nothing more. There was no such thing as monsters, after all.

  Resurrection

  Manhattan, New York

  Toni stared down at the unrolled length of parchment in her hands and the curious, eldritch mess of words and symbols written on the Scroll.

  The vast majority of it made no sense at all. It was in a foreign language, and yet, hidden within the chaos of the markings on the Scroll, there was a passage that she could somehow read and understand.

  She had no idea how this could be possible. The script was similar to what was on the rest of the Scroll, but she couldn’t understand any of that. All she knew was that she could read this one section, and she knew exactly what it meant.

  They’d left Yoh’s funeral early, having stayed for as long as they thought they needed to in order to remain polite. Almost everyone else was probably still there, but Toni had been keen to get back.

  When the Scroll had landed at her feet during the fight at Amanda’s house, something washed over her. Something that she couldn’t explain urged her to pick it up and hide it.

  She’d heard Yasmin say that it could bring people back from the dead and knew she had to take it. It was as if it had wanted to help her. Maybe she’d been calling to it, subconsciously summoning the Scroll.

  Tabitha was less keen and quite nervous, but she missed Melissa as much as Toni did, and desperately wanted her friend back as well.

  “You know, I have a bad feeling about this,” Tabitha said. “And I’m not just saying that because of, well, that.”

  Toni looked up at her lover. She was waving towards the dirty casket on the floor of their living quarters in the tower of the Darkside of the Moon Nightclub. They’d used their combined Magic to bring the coffin over to their place without disturbing the grave, but they hadn’t felt they’d have enough time to complete the ritual before the funeral. Tabitha had been keener on the idea before the service, but now she seemed to be having doubts.

  “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” Toni asked.

  “I just... I don’t know. What if she comes back and, you know, she’s different?”

  “Different?”

  “Yeah, you know, like a Zombie or something?”

  “I don’t think that’s how this works,” Toni said, giving Tabitha an incredulous look.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I’m positive that this will bring Melissa back, as she was. I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, that’s great, but I’m not so sure,” Tabitha protested.

  “Tabby, look, if Melissa is anything other than the friend we knew, anything else, we’ll… you know…”

  “Kill her again?”

  “If that’s what it takes.”

  “Shit, this is messed up. You should’ve given the Scroll back to Amanda after the fight with Yasmin.”

  “I’ll give it back to her, after we have Melissa back. Look, this Artifact came to me, it found me,” Toni explained.

  “Yo
u know how crazy that sounds?” Tabitha asked.

  “How else can you explain it? How else is it possible that I can read a passage in a language I’ve never seen before?”

  “I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “But we’re Magi, strange things happen to us all the time.”

  “Exactly my point,” Toni insisted. “Crazy things happen. Look, don’t you think I’m taking this seriously? I know this is risky. I know this could be dangerous and that it might not be Melissa we bring back, but we can handle this. We’ve been through worse,” she said, stepping up to Tabitha.

  Tabitha sighed. “I know, it’s just seeing all our friends today, and seeing Yoh get lowered into the ground like that, it just made me wonder, you know?”

  Toni took Tabitha’s hand in hers and looked into her golden feline eyes. It was a curious modification, and one Tabitha forever had to hide, but Toni loved it. It made Tabitha unique.

  She didn’t want to admit to Tabitha that she was harbouring a few doubts herself. She was aware of the Arcadian’s policy on resurrection. She knew it was crossing a line with them, but she wanted to try. She had to. This was their friend, her friend. She’d been stolen from them by Shaitan and his Nomad friends before her time.

  It just wasn’t fair.

  She’d done a little research into Necromancy these past few days, looking for any loopholes or what the reasons were for its prohibition. She’d kind of known about the moral reasons already. It was a mix of it upsetting the natural order of things and also of being Nomad Magic. Less well documented, however, was that too much Necromancy, or powerful Necromancy, could attract the attention of beings within Sheol. But details were a little sketchy on that point.

  This would be a one-off, though. A single use to bring Melissa back, and that’s it. She’d hand the Scroll over to Amanda or get it to her somehow. She wasn’t sure how.

  She pulled her mind out of those thoughts, though. She didn’t like getting too bogged down in thinking about whether she should do this or not. When all was said and done, there was one thought in her mind, and it overrode everything else.

  She wanted to see her friend again.

  And to her, that was enough.

  “Look, all I want to know is, do you want to see Melissa again?”

  Tabitha sighed deeply and looked up at Toni. “Yes, I do. I’d love to see her again.”

  “Then, we have to try. Look, it might not work anyway. According to my research, it depends on if Melissa’s soul, her Anima, is still within Sheol. If it’s not, if it’s passed on, then this is all a moot point anyway.”

  “Alright,” Tabitha said.

  “Alright? You mean, alright we can do it?”

  “Why not? I mean, we’re halfway there already,” Tabitha said, pointing to the coffin. “How did you convince me this was a good idea, by the way?”

  “I have no idea, but it will work, and soon we’ll have Melissa back.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  -Somewhere in the Middle East

  Kennedy walked into the darkness beyond the door, sweeping his torch back and forth across the floor and over the walls. They appeared to be in some kind of antechamber and there was another pair of double doors in front of him. The chamber was sparse apart from a few murals on the walls. Kennedy wanted to have a better look at the paintings, but before they settled into going over the finer details, he was keen to have a look around and see the whole building.

  He approached the double doors, noticing that these weren’t sealed up like the outer ones. In fact, they were slightly ajar.

  He could see something on the floor, sticking out of the doorway, but it was difficult to make it out in the haphazard lighting as the torches moved around.

  He was quite close before he realised what it was.

  Sticking out of the doorway were the bones of a human leg.

  He paused for a moment and looked at it, but they’d already seen a few similar skeletons in the temple, so it wasn’t too shocking. Approaching the door, Kennedy saw that the leg belonged to a whole and complete skeleton on the other side.

  Kennedy reached up and pulled on the door, heaving it open, revealing a vast chamber beyond that had a similar ambient, if dim, light to it as the chamber outside did, and the whole room was covered in the bones of the dead.

  There must have been hundreds, probably thousands of people in here, and there was nothing left of them apart from their dry, brittle bones scattered over the entire floor from wall to wall.

  “Well, I think we found out where the city’s population went to,” Kennedy said, as a skull dislodged from a nearby skeleton and rolled out into the antechamber before coming to a stop at his feet.

  Hackers Attacked

  Manhattan, New York

  It wasn’t far to her house from The Jade Palace. She could have Ported back, but Amanda decided that she needed some fresh air and to be by herself.

  Amanda had stayed to the end when there was only Stella, Maya, and herself left, sitting at a table with some wine and sharing memories of Yoh. It was difficult to come to terms with the idea of him being gone. She kept half-expecting him to walk in at any moment, but she knew it would never happen again.

  Yoh was dead, and it was Yasmin’s fault.

  The service had been lovely, however, and it was wonderful to see so many people all coming together to celebrate his life. It was a truly sad occasion, of course, but the reception after the service had a bittersweet feel to it, with people discussing their memories of him and celebrating his life rather than wallowing in their grief.

  He might be gone, but he would never be forgotten.

  The reception went on for a few hours, deep into the night, but people had started leaving about an hour after the service ended. It was those who knew Yoh best who stayed on, talking, drinking, and eating.

  It was getting late, though, and Stella ended up saying that she really did need to get to bed.

  Maya took her chauffeur-driven car back to her estate, but not before giving Amanda a big hug and saying good night.

  Standing on the street in her black patent leather heels and knee-length black dress, the cool air was a bracing and welcome feeling. It cut through the fog of grief and the general numbness that it brought to her head. It reminded her that she was alive. Alive and vital, and her time in the universe was not yet at an end. People needed her, relied on her, and she didn’t want to let them down.

  She needed to be alone for a bit, though. She needed time to herself to think things through and come to terms with all that had happened. Setting off, she found she was enjoying walking the streets and surrounding herself in the life of the city.

  As she walked, her mind returned to the shock of seeing Alicia with Yasmin. She had a lot on her mind at the moment, but this was something she kept coming back to, and the idea appalled her. Yasmin must have had her for awhile, inducting her, brainwashing her. Yasmin herself had said as much.

  The idea of that was horrific, and to think Yasmin had been doing that while she’d been manipulating her as well, only made it worse. It did help to solidify in her mind that Yasmin had outlived her time here in this reality. She needed to be stopped and ideally, ended. Amanda would do whatever it took to save Alicia. She would not die a servant of Yasmin’s.

  It wasn’t far to her place, and as she passed by one of the city parks, she veered off into it and found a bench to sit on, pulling her jacket a little closer. The fresh air didn’t bother her at all, but she could still feel it washing over her skin. Despite its coolness, she welcomed its touch.

  She’d not really known Yoh for very long, if you didn’t count the whole time travel thing. As far as Yoh would have been concerned, they’d not even known each other for a year, and yet, the intensity of their situation, especially during those early days with Lucian in the city, had brought them close.

  He’d been a kind and gentle man, and even though he’d been through some things that might have broken a
weaker person, he’d endured. She felt sure she and Yoh had Maya to thank for that. Having been turned into a Scion Vampire by Maya to save his life meant he’d lost all his Magical ability—something that Amanda found difficult to comprehend—and yet, after withdrawing for a few weeks, probably to get his head around it, he’d continued on without any obvious issues.

  He was an incredible man, and she felt very proud that she’d been lucky enough to know him and call him a friend.

  She wondered if her moving here, her very presence in the city, had indirectly led to his death. The answer was probably yes. If she hadn’t moved here, there was every chance that the city would have continued on without changing. Lucian would still be the self-named King of New York, and Yoh would still be in hiding, reporting back to Victoria.

  Recriminations got you nowhere in life though, and there was no way of knowing what would have happened had she not moved here. It was just as likely that Lucian would have found Yoh by himself. It was pointless to dwell on the “what-ifs”.

  Instead, it was better to think of the good times. It was better to remember Yoh as the kind and friendly man she had known and to never forget him. Trevelyan and the others had spoken some wise words during that service, and they were lessons that she needed to remember.

  Looking around, the city and its residents went about their evening as they always did. The glow of the city lights filtered through the trees in yellows and oranges as car horns honked and police sirens wailed. They were the usual sounds of the city, and here, in this small park, people wandered along the paths that wound through the trees and bushes. Dark shadows in the night, going about their business.