Magi Legend

by Andrew Dobell

  “You might be right,” Amanda agreed. “They may make a return in a much smaller form, but I doubt they will ever be the same force that they were. Yasmin made sure of that.”

  “She sure did.”

  “I trust, you will be monitoring the situation?” Amanda asked her.

  “We will,” Liz said, nodding to Shaun. He acknowledged her as well with a small movement of his head.

  “Speaking of monitoring. You might want to visit Alicia in her room. She’s woken up,” Shaun said.

  “She has? When did that happen?”

  “Just a few moments ago.”

  “Thanks, Shaun,” Amanda said and excused herself after a few more hugs from those closest to her.

  She ran to the room, which wasn’t far away and soon reached Alicia’s door. She knocked on it and waited.

  “Um, hello?” she heard Alicia call out.

  “It’s Amanda, may I come in?”

  “Amanda?” asked Alicia from inside the room, followed by the sound of movement before the door swung wide and Alicia looked up at her with a face full of wonder and happiness.

  “Are you okay?” Amanda asked.

  “I guess…” she said and pulled Amanda in for a hug. “Oh, my God. I… I’m so glad to see you again, but… I’ve done some… Oh shit. I just, I can’t explain…” Alicia said, tears starting to fall as sobs wracked her body.

  “It’s okay, you’re okay. You’re safe now. Yasmin is gone, she can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “She made me do terrible things. She made me love her, need her…”

  “But you don’t anymore, right?”

  “No…” Alicia answered and stepped back, looking up at her. “No, I don’t. I… I hate her. Am I healed?”

  “It sounds like you’re a lot better.”

  “There’s a voice, you know? In my head. It’s speaking to me.”

  “A voice?”

  “Yes… It says it’s part of me. It says it… It saved me. Healed my mind. Am I going mad?”

  Amanda looked at her with her Aetheric Sight and found she could sense two minds in Alicia’s head, two minds that were part of the same being.

  “It’s the spirit,” Amanda said.

  “The... Shadow Elemental?”

  “The thing that possessed you, yes. I think it’s part of you now,” Amanda said, feeling worried about what Alicia might think. She was a devout Catholic, and the thought of sharing her body with what Alicia would probably think of as a demon might be too much for her.

  Alicia seemed to think it through for a moment before she looked back up at Amanda and smiled. “Fuck yeah.”

  Amanda’s eyebrows crept up to her hairline in surprise. “Fuck yeah?”

  “You’re damn right, it’s great.”

  “Is it?” Amanda asked as she processed everything that had happened to her friend. The Alicia she knew was a prim and proper girl with strong morals and devout faith in God. She didn’t swear and never said anything mean about anyone. She was the kindest, sweetest girl she had ever met. This was still Alicia, she could tell by her Aetheric Sight that it was the same girl and the same soul, but she’d clearly been altered.

  She guessed that being fused with this spirit had affected her worldview slightly, and added a touch of naughtiness to her. It was fascinating and would warrant some study, but not today. Today, she wanted to celebrate having her friend back.

  “Yeah. Plus, I can do things like this,” she said as a tendril of solid darkness whipped out of her shadow on the floor, grabbed the glass of water from her bedside table, and delivered it neatly into her hand.

  “Wow,” Amanda said, watching in fascination.

  “I know, right?”

  “That’s amazing.” Amanda smiled. “So, want to come and meet my friends?”

  ***

  Amanda sat in the mouth of the cave on a rock, holding a stick in her hand, and using it to poke at the stones in the stream that flowed from a natural spring in the cave behind her.

  Gentle Water sat next to her as they looked out over the Red Temple clinging to the side of the mountain. Behind them, in the cave, a small dwelling made of wood stood up against the back wall, lit by several Magical flaming torches dotted through the cave itself.

  The small shallow cave was rather beautiful, with its babbling stream and the bits of vegetation scatted through its insides, including several well-cared-for bonsai trees. Various statues had been carved from the walls as well, including a Buddha partway in.

  Nearby, perched on a rocky outcrop, sat Balor, looking out over the view, while a large sandy-coloured temple dog with a lot of shaggy fur relaxed in the morning sun on a nearby ledge.

  “You’ve really settled in here,” Amanda said. “This place is beautiful.”

  “Thank you. Things well with you now? You back at home?”

  Amanda nodded. “Yeah. We moved back pretty quickly after repairing the house. It’s good to be back.”

  “And how are you?”

  “I’m fine,” she smiled.

  “You don’t sound sure about that.”

  Amanda sighed. “I know. I still question whether I made the right choice by killing Yasmin like that. I mean, I know the arguments. I know how evil she was, but I do sometimes wonder if there might have been another way.”

  “If it someone else, someone different, I might agree. But Yasmin was different, Yasmin was always Nomad. She trick you, make you think she was not who she was. I understand your feeling, but you do right thing. I have no doubt.”

  Amanda smiled. “Thanks. I know you’re right. But it was only a few days ago. I’ll sort my head out soon enough. Having you and the others support me is a great help, by the way. Thank you.”

  Gentle Water smiled. “It my pleasure.”

  She sat there with him for another hour talking, often about trivial things and just enjoying the company of the man who had been there for her from the start.

  She felt incredibly grateful to have Gentle Water in her life.

  Later, she walked back to her ship, the Arkady, and settled into her chair on the bridge. She was alone, and she was enjoying some time away from the chaos before she got back into it.

  The Archons were still out there, somewhere. They were lying low for now, but she knew they would show themselves one day soon. She was already making plans with her coven and the Magi Council to find them.

  She’d visited Enceladus a few times as they rebuilt the castle.

  She would soon start hunting for the Archons, tracking them down, and dealing with them. Shaun had already begun to gather clues as to their whereabouts. He had some pretty solid leads, which she would be following up in the days to come, but for now, she wanted to have a few days to herself. She needed a break.

  With a thought, the ship lifted off and rose through the atmosphere and out into space. She directed it towards the moon and flew close, looking down at the crater she had helped create.

  Gentle Water, Liz, Maria—they were all right about Yasmin. She was irredeemable. There was nothing about that woman that deserved sympathy, and she deserved everything that had happened to her.

  She’d done the right thing. She felt sure of that now. Even if it had been more of an execution than anything else. Yasmin’s death had saved countless lives. The world and the Magi community were better off without her.

  As she looked out the viewport at the surface of the moon, the last thoughts of concern about her actions fell away, and she felt like she’d finally come to terms with it.

  What was done was done.

  Smiling, she turned the ship around and raced back to Earth.

  It was time to go home.

  The Message

  Orcus, Dwarf Planet, Sol System

  Nessa stood in her office, looking at the images pinned to the wall. Images of the redheaded Magus from New York.

  Amanda.

  Every time she saw this Earther, her hate for her boiled up anew. One day soon she would complete this mis
sion, and then she could finally take her revenge. It had been a long time coming, but she would kill that Magus in the name of Grokar, her Void Dragon who Amanda had killed all those hundreds of years ago.

  But all in good time. Her mission for the Crux was not yet over, but she had an inkling that it wouldn’t be long now. If the rumours were true, the barrier to the Aetheric was gone and the Archons were free. But she had yet to get confirmation.

  Each day she reached out, trying to contact the Archon, Samael but so far, there had been nothing. No answer.

  She wasn’t sure what was going on.

  Closing her eyes, she reached out again and tried to contact Samael, but still, after much effort, there was nothing. No reply.

  “You won’t get a reply,” said a dusky feminine voice in the room.

  Nessa jumped in shock, her Aegis snapping into place as she recoiled and boosted her defences while readying her Magic. No one had ever appeared in her base before.

  Looking up, she spotted a woman stood nearby. She wore a simple robe, its hood back over her shoulders revealing a pale, beautiful, but dangerous-looking face framed with dark hair. Her ruby lips, full and pouting, curled up into a smile as her dark eyes regarded Nessa. Her robe was open at the front, revealing her nakedness beneath.

  “Who are you?” Nessa asked.

  “I am Lilitu. I believe you know of me.”

  Her voice was silky and sultry, and melted into Nessa’s brain like butter. She knew who this was and she could feel her intense power. This was one of the Archons that Samael had spoken of.

  “I do,” Nessa replied breathlessly. “I’ve been trying to reach Samael. I was hoping for a message from him.”

  “Sadly, Samael is no longer with us,” Lilitu answered. “You may deal with me.”

  “So, you’re free?”

  The Archon smiled slowly. “We are.”

  “Then, I should contact the Crux?” Nessa said. She didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, as she knew the answer, but it did anyway.

  “You should, the time has come. Summon the Crux.”

  Nessa smiled. It was time to contact the Aerie and her fellow Void Riders. The Dragons of the Crux would fly once again.

  The Witch is Dead…

  Sheol

  Yasmin stood in a dark, gritty shadow of the world she had known. The colour was leached from the landscape, leaving it dull and grey with the buildings in ruins.

  She knew right away what this meant, and she could quite clearly remember what had happened to her on the moon.

  She was dead and this was Sheol, the Realm of the Dead.

  She tried to work her Magic, but nothing happened. She wasn’t a Magus anymore, not here, anyway. Her Magic was gone.

  She wasn’t sure what awaited her here. Would she move on, move into the light and disappear forever? Or would the Archons find her here and consume her soul?

  There were so many questions.

  She sighed. So, this was her life now as a shade, a ghost, separated from the land of the living.

  Putting one foot in front of the other, she set off down the dark street, walking deeper into the Realm of the Dead, leaving her old life behind.

  THE END

  ***

  Amanda’s Story Continues…

  This book sees the end of the first story arc of the Magi Saga. But it’s not the end of Amanda’s story. In many ways, this is just the end of the beginning.

  Amanda’s story continues in the Star Magi Saga.

  http://mybook.to/StarMagi1

  You can pick up the prequel, Maiden Voyage now, and find out why Nessa is so angry with Amanda.

  You can get it for FREE, here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/d5ifx03vo7

  Or on Amazon, here: http://mybook.to/StarMagiPrequel1

  Book one of the second story arc, Star Magi, can be found here, and picks up the story with Amanda’s hunt for the Archons:

  http://mybook.to/StarMagi1

  Author Note

  Thank you for picking up this collected edition of the Magi Saga.

  This series really was a labour of love for me, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

  Amanda-Jane Page has been a character that has existed in my head for a long time. She first came to me back in my late teenage years when I was interested in getting into comic books as an artist, and she was one of many characters that I invented at that time.

  But, for whatever reason, Amanda stayed with me.

  She originally started out as some kind of powerful Psychic who could transform into a fighting machine, similar to the Genocyber Anime and Manga series.

  As time went on, she became a character in my World of Darkness Roleplaying Game series that I ran, and appeared in several different forms, until she settled into being a Mage.

  Years later, after I stopped playing RPG’s, Amanda still lived on in my head, and refused to be denied.

  Her story needed to be told.

  So I took that character, removed her from the game world she’d been a part of, and built a whole new world around her from the ground up. Many characters that I had created over the years crossed over with her, as well as creating many new characters too.

  The influences on Amanda and the world she inhabits are many. From Japanese Anime and Manga, there’s elements of Geno Cyber, Akira, Serial Experiments Lain, Guyver, Ghost in the Shell. From Comics there’s X-mens Jean Grey, Mary Jane Watson, the X-Men in general. Other influences include the Dresden Files, the Matrix films, Jupiter Ascending, Underworld, Mage the Ascension, the World of Darkness, Gonstisism, H.P. Lovecraft, the Art of Adam Hughes and more.

  I actually find it hard to list all the influences on this universe, as there are so many.

  The first four Magi Saga books were some of the earliest novels that I ever wrote, but they were also the gateway into the Magi Saga universe. So as I progressed through my writing career, it became clear that the early books were not my best work, and were not doing the universe justice.

  So I went back to them, and completely re-wrote book 1 and re-edited books 2 through 4. I re-released them, and then wrote the final 3 books to complete the series.

  Later still, in 2019, it was becoming increasingly clear to me that the books, especially the early ones, were still riddled with typos. Also, as I had moved into writing the follow up series, there were elements within the this first series that needed fixing.

  And so, I dived back into the series and began another deep edit, and in some places, either re-writing parts, or adding in new sections.

  Books one, six and seven being the most extensively changed, and books two through four being the most edited for typos.

  The result is a series I think I can finally be proud of, and maybe finally leave it be.

  Thank you so much for reading this complete edition, I really appreciate the time you have invested in my work, and I hope you enjoyed it.

  If you would like to connect with me more, the best way is to join my facebook group;

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/MagiSagaFans/

  So, come on over and say hi! I’d love to hear from you.

  Many Thanks,

  Andrew

  Booklist

  For full list of Andrew Dobell’s Books, visit his website at:

  http://www.andrewdobellauthor.co.uk/booklist