Arcane Ops

by T. R. Cameron

  Dammit. She couldn’t justify killing the woman, even though leaving her alive would increase the danger. Instead, she waited until the witch turned away to gather more vegetables and hurried in behind her. She struck her on the temple with the hilt of her knife and used her free hand to cover her target’s mouth. The witch struggled, and it required two more blows to make her stop. Diana lowered her gently to the floor and checked her pulse, which was still present. She cut pieces of the woman’s robe off and used them to tie and gag her, then put her in the corner near the cooler, hoping no one would come upon her by accident. A quick shuffle took her back into the hallway where her teacher waited. The other woman nodded and pointed forward to indicate two cult members in the room to the left and two in the room to the right. They had barely begun to move where there was a sudden noise from the area Nylotte had been responsible for.

  They both stiffened and darted ahead, turned toward their respective areas, and leapt inside. Diana found two witches who were gathering their wands from where they’d been seated at a dining table, and she used force magic to thrust them both back against the walls before they could secure the weapons. One fell, but the other remained standing and charged forward to snatch a knife from a low chest. She slashed wildly at the agent’s head but wasn’t anywhere near good enough to be in her league. Diana pivoted and struck the arm in a block with her left fist, caught the woman’s wrist with her right hand, and pulled her into a left elbow strike that broke her nose and felled her without even a squeak of protest. The other tried to find her feet and Diana reached out with her telekinesis and tipped the nearby china cabinet onto her. The imposing item of furniture toppled with a satisfying eruption of breaking crockery and splintering wood.

  She turned and met Nylotte in the hallway, the woman apparently having dealt with her own targets. “What happened?”

  The Dark Elf looked annoyed. “I didn’t kill the ones in the first room. One of them managed to escape her gag.”

  The agent laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “When we get back, I’ll teach you the proper way to tie scumbags up, okay?”

  Her companion pointed at the staircase. “Maybe we should focus on the here and now, hmm?”

  She turned as two witches emerged onto the landing closest to her, followed seconds later by another two on the opposite side. Without waiting for her teacher, she sprinted up her flight of stairs and summoned a flame shield to intercept the cones of fire launched by the coven members. The force of their attack stole her momentum and she stopped halfway up, unable to press forward any farther. She was perfectly placed, however, to target Nylotte’s opponents and threw a hail of icicles at them. Her partner did the same, and the attacks subsided as their enemies focused on defense. She reached the top of the staircase and released a force sphere that launched a witch into the next room, then pounded a kick into the closest opponent. The woman thudded into the wall and her wand fell from her hand, and Diana followed up with a roundhouse kick that effectively eliminated her from the fight.

  The agent stalked into the bedroom into which the other woman had been flung and who now rummaged in a chest of drawers. “Oh no, you don’t. No backup wand for you.” She caught her with another force blast that flung her through the room’s window to sprawl onto the grass below, narrowly missing two headstones. Diana looked through the broken pane and cringed at the narrow escape. “Let that be a lesson to you.” She turned and walked away as she muttered, “I’m not sure what lesson that is, other than don’t pick fights with people better at magic than you—which is probably everyone, because you’re so damn stupid.” She and Nylotte approached from opposite sides of the hallway and met in the middle.

  “Well, that wasn’t optimal,” the Drow said acerbically.

  “No. But at least it’s done. What’s next?”

  “This.” She gestured with her hands and colors glowed along her wrist, visible where her sleeve had ridden up a little to expose the flesh. When the motions stopped, her teacher looked irritated again. “It’s nearby, but below. And not directly below. Which means…”

  She let the sentence hang, and Diana groaned. “Which means there’s some kind of damn disgusting cave or cavern or something down there that we have to deal with.”

  Her teacher nodded and they wandered through the first floor in search of the stairs leading down but failed to find them. Eventually, the agent gathered her wits and noticed that the living room had a suspiciously large open space that featured nothing but a rug. How many movies have I seen with trapdoors by now? Rath would be appalled. She moved the carpet aside to reveal the expected entrance to the space under the building.

  The stairs to the lower level were steep and shallow, which required them to descend sideways. Nylotte generated a light sphere to guide their way, and they reached the end without incident. The basement proved to be as uninteresting as the rest of the house, and they prowled through the open space, looking for a clue to access what lay beyond the immediate area. The Drow focused on the wall that had been on the left as they’d entered and claimed to feel the pull of the sword most strongly from that direction. She muttered spells and incantations to reveal illusions, but to no avail. Diana searched for more mundane tricks and found a hidden door almost by accident, barely distinguished by a groove in the floor that had caught the toe of her boot as she moved past.

  Predictably, the heavy stone barrier concealed a passage of hewn rock. She sighed, shook her head, and gestured her teacher forward. “After you, and once again, thank you for bringing us to such a lovely location.” The door swung closed behind them as they advanced through the corridor and the dull thud made her jump.

  Nylotte spoke into her mind without turning or stopping her progress through the hallway. “This is a good sign. I can sense something ahead, and the tunnel is heading more or less in the right direction. I consider this a promising development indeed.” After another several minutes of walking, Diana was able to hear sounds from farther along the passage and crept closer to her partner. They stopped together when the corridor ended and a spacious cavern came into view, their perspective from somewhere near the top of it. The Drow lowered herself to her stomach, banished the light, and inched forward. The agent did the same and a few moments later, they reached the edge of a high platform that looked over a grand ritual chamber. A long curving stone staircase led down from the side nearest her.

  A massive round table took pride of place below, and one of the coven’s witches was strapped to it, her cowl down to reveal her burned and hairless head and her arms and legs stretched seemingly as far as they could be and secured with metal bands. Around the edge of the object stood six other witches, alternating in position with the same number of men who presumably were wizards although there were no wands in sight, only knives—large, sharp, ornamental-looking knives. Several of the women were chanting, and Nylotte hissed at the sound. “Wretches. They still believe that sacrifice is necessary to transfer magical power. Their thinking is trapped somewhere in the last century.”

  Diana shook her head and whispered, “So blood ritual magic isn’t a thing?”

  Her teacher made a chopping gesture, clearly disgusted. “No. Blood can be used in magic but not to power magic. Their words are as nonsensical as their beliefs.”

  “So, should we break their party up?”

  “Without question. The only variable is whether we do it before or after they kill the idiot on the table.”

  “Is she willing?”

  “She seems to be. Look at her.” Indeed, the woman did have a serene and almost blissful expression on her face and seemed entirely reconciled with what was to come. Of course, there was any number of assumptions wrapped up in that, including the biggie—that she knew what was to come.

  Diana gestured at her. “I assume she’s not the brightest bulb on the tree. It’s surely possible she thinks it’s all a play, right?” The Drow shrugged. “Okay, then, let’s at least try to save her.”

  He
r teacher pointed at the staircase. “Fine. You move that way. I’ll attack them from up here and then we’ll improvise.”

  She darted up and took the stairs at a run. Improvising is what I do best.

  Chapter Ten

  When Diana reached the bottom, Nylotte provided a distraction from above in the form of a shield that suddenly appeared over the table, followed immediately by a column of lightning that descended upon the gathered cultists. It was a great plan in theory but in retrospect, one or both of them should have noticed the wards etched into the stone floor that collected the magic and funneled it away from their enemies. Together, the magicals turned and raised their wands toward the platform to layer fire attacks until the stone itself began to glow and crack in the heat.

  Fear spiked in the agent’s mind and she pushed it aside. I’m sure she’s fine. Nylotte wouldn’t let herself be killed at the hands of those she considers amateurs. She theorized that the counterattack would have required them to deactivate the arcane protections and tested the premise with a series of force spheres thrown like baseballs. They grew in flight before they pounded into their targets, each of the three at an angle that would cause the recipient to stumble in the direction of one of their allies. The projectiles struck perfectly and half the enemies were momentarily disabled.

  The others babbled unintelligible words and sprayed fire toward her. It was too much to catch with small bucklers, and she didn’t want to find herself locked immobile inside a bubble like she’d been with Nylotte. Instead, she triggered her force magic to launch herself across the room. Subtle adjustments in mid-air accomplished by her telekinesis allowed her to land in a position where the cultists risked wounding one another if they tried the “burn everything” tactic again. She lashed out with a side kick. Her nearest adversary proved to be remarkably fragile and simply slammed into the table and crumpled with the sound of broken bones.

  Diana ducked under a thin beam of fire, swept the attacker’s legs out from under him, and rolled sideways to evade two more streaks of flame that intersected in the place she’d abandoned. She rose in a crouch with her bucklers extended, intercepted the next two attacks, and drew power from them to recharge her energy and maintain the defense. When a third fiery trail joined those two, she expanded the size of the shields and felt the magic begin to drain from her. The cultists she’d disabled began to push to their feet and she backed slowly away and circled toward the protection of one of the ornamental pillars that supported the rocky ceiling. She made the shields taller as the next series of attacks lanced in and saw with dismay that her foes were smart enough to spread apart to try to encircle her.

  That, apparently, was the cue her partner had waited for. Nylotte materialized out of nowhere, standing near the bottom of the stairs Diana had used. She discharged lightning again and struck a third of the enemy with forked electricity that jumped from one to the next in what appeared to be a self-sustaining circle. Her teacher moved toward the second group while the initial targets twitched and lurched, and Diana flung herself toward the remaining foursome, holding a flaming barrier in front of her as she closed the distance between them.

  The Dark Elf was the first to attack and shadow tentacles stretched hungrily to ensnare her adversaries. The cultists responded with fire swords to cut and slash at the translucent limbs, and a wry grin twisted Nylotte’s lips. A quick gesture summoned ice under their feet, and they fell in an almost slapstick display of panicked flailing. Once they were down, she wound two in tentacles and covered another with enough ice to encase him. The last one rose and snarled a curse. She grinned at him. “Your group has always been insane, but I seem to recall that in the past, you were also competent. Apparently, that has changed.”

  His voice was hoarse and choked. “You have no idea of the torments that await you, evil one.”

  She laughed. “Evil? Little old me? Hardly. Now, burn.” She flooded him with flame, and he shielded and counterattacked with the same. It was a classic image, the twin magical attacks meeting and fighting for dominance. Within moments, it was clear that Nylotte was the stronger of the two and her attack inched closer and closer to him. He lurched forward and stalled the advance for a moment before the inexorable progress resumed. When the flames finally surged over him, he screamed once in something that sounded like a mixture of pain and elation and fell silent. The Drow didn’t cease her assault until only ash remained.

  That battle barely registered in glimpses of sight and sound as Diana dealt with her own opponents. She ducked and wove through fire beams as she attacked, and at the end of the whirling and spinning, found herself surrounded by the four, who summoned flaming blades from the ends of their wands and lunged toward her. She marshaled her force power in an instant and released it in a circular wave to sweep her opponents off their feet. Without hesitation, she pressed forward and dispatched the first with a kick before he could recover, then disabled the second in the same way. The third and fourth decided a little distance was preferable and retaliated with wide cones of fire as they retreated. She held them off with a large flame shield and threw a low blast of ice beneath it. The disappearance of the incoming attacks heralded the success of her counter-attack, and she used force magic as they fell to bounce their heads off the stone floor and end their involvement.

  She shook her head and turned to see Nylotte destroying the bindings holding the sacrificial victim to the table. The woman sat and lowered her hood, muttering. Diana leaned in to hear what she said and flinched away in time to avoid the wicked knife that licked out at her eyes. She reacted reflexively and her force magic thumped into the cultist to hurl her across the room and into a wide stone pillar. She collapsed bonelessly onto her face. The Drow laughed. “Of course. Like I said, they’re insane and incompetent.”

  Diana shook her head. “Do you still think these are the guardians of the sword?”

  Nylotte nodded. “More than ever. I sense it over there.” She gestured toward the far wall, where they discovered—inevitably—another rough-hewn passage leading onward.

  The agent groaned. “Is all of Oriceran like this?”

  “No, there are many beautiful parts. And where our people are from is the most gorgeous of all.”

  “I’d like to see that sometime. Truly.”

  Her teacher made an approving sound. “Once we finish with these idiots and the ones on Earth, there will be more than enough time for you to explore your heritage. I would…enjoy showing it to you.” The slight pause, as if it was an admission of an emotion she was uncomfortable with, gave Diana’s spirit a boost.

  “I would enjoy having you show it to me.” She pointed at the passage. “For now, though, I guess you should lead on through there.”

  She scowled. “There are sure to be more idiots. But, as they say, there’s no time like the present.” She strode forward and summoned a ball of light to illuminate the path.

  The corridor ended after a short distance and they emerged into an entirely unexpected room. It was an underground vault constructed of elegantly etched ebony blocks that marched upward in a spiral pattern to the dome above. The arrangement affected the eyes and made everything seem off-balance and strange. Illumination came from a ring of fire that burned in a groove directly before the courses of blocks began to narrow inward. There were no pillars and nothing else that seemed to support the towering ceiling above.

  The floor of the room was made of a series of concentric rings that rose like stairs to a platform that filled at least half of the room’s total space, making it about three times as large as Nylotte’s training area. In the center stood a figure clad in black metal armor that was a combination of chainmail and well-placed plate, similar to her own but undoubtedly much heavier. It had a wide gorget at the throat and a helm resembling a stylized flame. A deep voice, clearly male but otherwise revealing nothing about his age or ability, emanated from within. “You have entered the Sanctuary of the Cinder. You will die for this offense.”

  Nylott
e snorted. “If you’re as inept as your followers out there, I don’t think we have much to worry about. How about you hand over the sword and spare us the effort of taking it from you?”

  He reached behind his back and drew a two-handed greatsword, the black blade inscribed with runes that glowed in silver. “This sword? Fury cannot be given, Drow. He must be won.” He placed the weapon point down and rested his hands on the crosspiece of the large pommel. “Are you willing to challenge me? The battle is, of course, to your death.”

  The agent stepped forward and pointed at him. “Hey. Black Knight. Not her. Me. And it would definitely be better for you if you gave it up willingly. We’ve been through too damn much to leave here without that blade.”

  The man gestured with his hand and Nylotte was brushed back from the platform. A barrier shimmered into place the instant her teacher crossed the threshold and sealed Diana in with him. She looked around. “So, how do we do this? Are there any rules?”

  He grinned. “The strongest wins. The weakest dies. Those are the only rules that ever matter.”

  She shook her head. “Stupid rules for a stupid person. Being. Whatever.” She pictured the scene with the sword wielder from Raiders of the Lost Ark and wished she had a pistol to do it right. Oh well, magic will suffice. Let’s get this nonsense over with. She thrust her hands out and reached within for flame, intending to cook him inside his armor as a piece of poetic justice and be done with it in a single attack.