Creation Mage 7

by King, Dante

  My closed eyelids blazed red as the blood in them was lit up by the glowing crystal. When it faded, I opened my eyes and saw that the stone had transformed into a simple white staff.

  It was elegant, clean cut and utterly marvelous looking. It was a simple thing, but the word ‘simple’ did not do it justice. It was simple in the same way that a cloud is simple, as sunrise or a tree or the moon is simple.

  Simple and completely beyond mortal comprehension.

  Not allowing myself to get distracted by the wondrous magical object that I sat across my lap, I ran my eyes over the base of the staff but could not see the key slot.

  “The head, friend, the head!” Rick croaked from behind me.

  My eyes flicked upward, and I saw that he was right. There was a little keyhole set near the very tip of the staff.

  The key slot of my father’s staff had been near the base. Was that a not-so-subtle metaphor for females thinking with their heads while dudes thought with their… other heads?

  There was no time to ponder on that. Trying hard not to drop the key in my clumsy fingers, I slipped it into the keyhole and turned it.

  And everything went a bright, all-encompassing white.

  Long blonde hair like a sheet of shimmering gold. Pale skin that was flushed with the dusky rose of life. Bright blue eyes that cut through me like a couple of liquid lasers.

  My mother was beautiful, and it was all I could do to remember to breathe or blink when I saw her for the very first time, standing there in the flesh—or what passed for flesh in the strange place we were inhabiting.

  “Hello, Justin,” she said, as if I had simply walked through the door after a day at work, or at college or at kindergarten.

  I swallowed.

  “Mom…” I said.

  “I expect,” my mom said, smiling a smile that made me feel as if my soul had just been bathed in hot chocolate, “that you have a lot of questions. That is unsurprising, but we have to be prudent here, as time is a tricky beast. Even now ten of your minutes have passed outside in the forge. Time is like water: it behaves differently when it comes in contact with different elements and different kinds of magic. One of the unforeseen side-effects of me disguising my staff as a crystal is that time runs quicker here.”

  She gestured around the hazy, insubstantial environment that we were standing or floating in. We might have been in a park, or at the top of a church spire. Every time that I looked more closely at a detail, it faded away and formed into something new.

  “I have questions,” I said, a little dumbly. “A shitload of them, actually.”

  My mother, Istrea, smiled once more. It was crazy—I felt the warmth of her smile blossom in my chest like a flower.

  “The chief among them being, I would hazard a guess, why it was that I did not steer your father from the course that inevitably led to our downfall and from us being sundered from you?” my mom said.

  I nodded. “Yeah, that’d be up there.”

  “I had the knowledge,” Mom said. “I could have told Zenidor the true way to save Universal Magic.”

  “Then why—” I began to say.

  “Because I could not bring myself to tell him what it was… I would have to betray him by—by having sex with another Creation Mage.”

  Launching into the sex chat with your estranged mother a second after seeing her for the first time in decades might have been awkward at any other time, but time was one thing we did not have. I was stuck in this magical version of that planet on Interstellar where every passing minute in the forge counted for ten here. I needed to be quick.

  “Go on,” I prompted the tall, elegant woman standing in front of me.

  “I could not be unfaithful,” my mother said simply. “I felt terrible about it, about the very thought of it, Justin. Zenidor had other lovers, yes, but I was always faithful to him. Polyamory is not in my nature. Which may be strange, considering what I am.”

  “If saving Universal Magic just required two Creation Mages sleeping together, then couldn’t you have done it? Was something wrong with dad’s… you know…?”

  “Not at all,” my mother said with a chuckle. “It requires the fusing of five Creation Mages. Five is a magic number, and it carries great power. Five elemental magics. Five elder magics. Five Creation Mages to save the world and magic itself. Well, that is the theory at least. But we never got to try it. I was the fifth Creation Mage in existence at the time, and there was no other to replace me. If the Arcane Council had let us live a little longer, perhaps I would have given it. Suffice to say, I did not.” Her expression became sad just then, and I wasn’t sure what to do to comfort her, so I decided upon shifting the conversation back to the main topic.

  “So joining five Creation Mages would be like a defibrillator shocking a dying heart back into life?” I asked.

  “That’s exactly right,” my mother said, beaming.

  I hitched a smile onto my face and said, “Well, I think I can say that the same issue won’t be a problem for me, Mom. I’m practically cultivating my own harem.”

  “Perhaps not, but you’ll still need to find four other Creation Mages to sleep with,” Istrea said to me. “Unless, of course, you’ve already found them?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet.” I looked up, remembering something. “Dad said something about the Avalonian Kingdom rounding them, Creation Mages I mean, up and detaining them in the Castle of Ascendance. I didn’t see any while I was there recently, but if they are in there, I’ll find a way to locate them. Reginald Chaosbane might be as mad as a bag of snakes, but he’s clever too.”

  Mom smiled at me and nodded. “Yes, Reginald is one of those seemingly untrustworthy men who can hold a secret closer to his chest than anyone I have ever met. If he can help you gain access to the Castle of Ascendance once more then, please, implore him to do so.”

  I nodded, my face set. “If it means saving the Universal Magic, Mom, I’ll definitely fu—ah, make love to other Creation Mages.”

  My mother snorted.

  “Mom,” I said, finding that the word came delightfully easy to my lips, “someone told me that you used to be a bit of a dab hand with a blade and could teach me swordsmanship…”

  Istrea laughed out loud and clapped her hands together, her eyes sparkling.

  “Gods, boy, but you are just like your father,” she said. “Unless you had not noticed, there is scant time for that sort of thing now.”

  “But if we get to speak again…”

  “If we get to speak with each other again,” my mother said, “then I shall teach you all I know. I promise.”

  I opened my mouth, but Istrea raised a slender hand.

  “Listen to me, Justin,” she said. “Time is almost up, and I need you to remember precisely what I am going to tell you and pass it on to Reggie. Do you understand?”

  “I—” I began to say.

  “Do you understand me, son?” she asked me again, her voice firm. “This is beyond you or me, or the importance of any one person. We’re talking about the fate of the Multiverse here.”

  I took a breath. Somewhere, far away it seemed, I was dimly aware of lying on cold earth next to a roasting hot forge fire.

  “Is it about the Stronghold of the Twin Spirits?” I asked.

  Istrea hit me with another of her ten-thousand-watt smiles. She nodded and looked proudly at me. “You understand,” she said.

  “I understand, Mom,” I said. “Give me your instructions.”

  * * *

  I came back to reality with a thump and a rushing intake of ashy breath. There was sweat beading my face and soaking my hair. I ached all over.

  There was no time for self-pity.

  “Are you okay, friend?” Rick asked me, his voice sounding as if it were coming from about three-thousand feet above me.

  “Rick,” I said, but the word came out as a croak. I tried again and this time elicited a response.

  “Yes, I’m here, friend,” the big Earth Mage said, his
voice veined with worry.

  “Rick,” I said, “get me to the Headmaster right now.”

  Reginald Chaosbane was taking his ease in a plush office in the ranch house when we were ushered in by Chubbs and Aunt Ruth. I was deposited in a comfortable wingback armchair by the crackling fire by Rick, who then left at a signal from the Headmaster.

  “So, Mr. Mauler,” he said, his dark ironic eyes dancing over me in the same manner that a seedy businessman might appraise a stripper, “you talked with your dear mother.”

  I didn’t bother to ask how he knew. Of course, he fucking knew.

  “I did, sir,” I said. “And she gave me a message to pass along to you.”

  Reginald Chaosbane threw his almost full brandy glass into the fire. Instead of smashing, the crystal vessel crunched and vanished and there was the sound of the fire smacking its lips and belching.

  “Fire away,” the Headmaster said, steepling his fingers in front of his face.

  “My mother said that the Stronghold of the Twin Spirits is secreted in the Spectral Realm,” I said.

  Reginald Chaosbane fist pumped silently to himself a couple of times and said, “I knew I should have put a bet on with Mort and Igor, blast it!”

  “My mother told me,” I said, plowing on and ignoring the Headmaster, “that this Spectral Realm is in a very defensible and secret location—in a space that is disconnected from all others.”

  “Of course, of course,” Reginald said, his clever eyes narrowing, his clever fingers tugging at his suave goatee. I could practically hear the cogs of his mind whirring up into hyperspeed as he began to ruminate.

  “Yes, it is as I suspected,” he said. “And doubtless she told you that we cannot simply use wormhole magic to get there, such as how we traveled on the Klaus’ sled to get to the ranch.”

  My mouth opened and closed a few times, goldfish-style.

  “That’s exactly what she said, sir,” I said in disbelief. “She said that the only way to gain access to the Spirit Realm would be—”

  “With spectral guidance,” the Headmaster said.

  “Exactly,” I said, dumbfounded by the man’s brain.

  I just could not fathom it. He must have been capable of drinking more than any other person I had ever met, and yet this man had the intellect of five Steven Hawkings shut away in his noodle. Incredible. It made me wonder whether Frank Sinatra had got it right when he observed that man’s worst enemy might be alcohol, but the Bible tells you to love your enemy.

  “You look perplexed, Mr. Mauler,” the Headmaster said to me, patting me chummily on the knee. “Is everything okay?”

  “Honestly, Headmaster,” I said, “I’m just in awe of how the fuck a man with your appetite for mind-bending spirits and chemicals is so damn discerning.”

  “I think, it’s all about having the courage to live outside of that special societal square that so many of our good, obedient fellow citizens live in,” Reginald Chaosbane said. He extracted a flask from the air and carefully poured a stream of yellow powder into his palm. With great deliberation, he sucked a great quantity of it up his nose and sighed happily.

  “What society is that, sir?” I asked.

  “The one which tolerates heavy caffeine imbibing from Monday to Friday, so that we keep ticking along like good little efficient worker bees,” the Headmaster said. “And the very same one which encourages us to get so tolerably plastered on the weekends that we’re too wacked out and stupid to question the prison that we have built for ourselves.”

  I blinked dazedly. I was still feeling a little stupid myself from the chat with my mother and the out of body experience that it had entailed.

  “What are you going to do about the spectral thing, sir?” I asked.

  Reginald Chaosbane took another massive hit of whatever the hell he had in his palm and said gently, “Don’t you worry about that, my old china,” he said, patting my knee again, but missing this time. “Now that we know where to find the Stronghold, we have all we need. Barry will be able to help us.”

  “Barry? Barry Chillgrave?” I asked.

  “The very one,” replied Reginald.

  “A specter… A poltergeist,” I said, my tired brain joining the ghostly dots.

  Reginald removed a little bell from his pocket and gave it a ring. In a few moments, Barry appeared. He was the ghost of a remarkably ingenious mage who dressed in the stereotypical garb of every Hollywood pirate: red surcoat with brass buttons, a feathered hat, a wide belt, and tights tucked into his leather boots. His face, however, was devoid of skin.

  He took one look at me, then at Reginald, and grinned. How he could do that without lips was a mystery, but he was definitely grinning.

  “You want me to do something, don’t you, Master Chaosbane?”

  “That I do,” Reginald replied. “Build me a fleet of ships. A fleet that we can transport everyone, including the supportive students of the Academy, to the Spectral Realm in.”

  “That I can do, sir,” Barry said, then he groaned. “The only problem is that my shipbuilding schematics are tucked nice and safely away in the Academy’s library, while most of my gear is secreted in the dungeon in Justin here’s bloody fraternity house.”

  “So we have to go back to Nevermoor?” I asked.

  A few sparks crackled from the Headmaster’s mustache, danced across his eyelashes, and set the edge of one of his lace cuffs on fire.

  “Yes indeedy,” Reginald said, patting the flames out. “A little sneaky sneaky under the upturned schnozzles of any of the Arcane Council’s goons and into the Academy to retrieve Barry’s technical blueprints, then off to your fraternity house to pack up the ancestral home. What could be more jolly and less taxing, hm?”

  “I could think of a few things,” Barry said. “If I still had a cock, that is.”

  Reginald simply stared silently at the ghostly pirate for a few moments, then turned back to me. “What do you think, Justin?”

  “That’s good news, sir,” I said. “With it looking like we were going to be moving on from Nevermoor, I was hoping that we might be able to relocate my parents’ house.”

  The Headmaster of the Mazirian Academy waved his hand airily. “Not a problem, my boy, not a problem at all. A simple reversal of the magic that I whisked around the place when I moved it initially and you shall have your residence fit inside of a thimble.”

  A house that fits inside of a thimble… He says it like it ain’t no thing, I thought in awe.

  Thinking of the fraternity house abruptly brought Felicity to my mind. The sexy Changeling would be waiting for us there too, and I was more than eager to bring her along for whatever ride Reginald Chaosbane and Barry Chillgrave had in store for us all.

  Chapter 3

  As anyone who had ever met Reggie Chaosbane knew, the man was a special case. The way that he casually threw out sentences like ‘…you shall have your residence fit inside of a thimble’ and ‘A little sneaky sneaky under the upturned schnozzles of any of the Arcane Council’s goons and into the Academy…’ would have sounded like A-grade Tom Cruise talk coming from anybody else.

  As it was, the Headmaster of the Mazirian Academy made it all sound so simple and straightforward.

  This was, as my twenty-first century gaming brain couldn’t help but think, a stealth mission. My team members?

  Obviously, Barry and I would be going. The poltergeist knew where in the library his spectral schematics were hidden and how to access them—he was, essentially, our safe-cracker. Along with the two of us, I had elected to take Damien, Rick, and Nigel. Since we were all students of the Mazirian Academy, there was less chance of anything looking out of place if anyone spotted us.

  Bradley was another fraternity brother that I was eager to have along on this mission. After winning his cooking competition, he had been enjoying Yuletide with the rest of the Flamewalker clan, although I wasn’t sure if this meant that he was at the next property over from the Chaosbane Ranch or some other place.
r />   Rather than go over there and risk potential assault by the elderly Flamewalker who had also been on the receiving end of a serious amount of bullshit, Nigel had sent a homing phoenix. The homing phoenix was not a creature, but more like a little origami bird that homed in on the recipient of the note that was written on its inside. Once the note had been unfolded and read, the homing phoenix would then burst into flames, effectively destroying the communication.

  The plan was that Bradley would meet us at the fraternity house after he disarmed the wards that Barry had placed on the building before we had left for Chaosbane Ranch. He would also prep the two remaining Blade Sisters, who were currently residing as prisoners in the dungeons, on what was going on. His third task would be to make sure that the Changeling, Felicity, was also at home.

  So, with Barry riding pillion behind me, Rick, Nigel, Damien, and I took to the skies on the backs of the fantastic broomsticks that we had been given by the incredible craftswoman, Solarphine.

  “Where exactly are we going, Barry?” I asked the poltergeist over my shoulder as we hurtled over the pristine fields. We were flying at no more than fifteen feet off the ground at Barry’s instruction.

  “His Headmastership bade me get us back to Nevermoor in as expedient a method as possible, sir,” the poltergeist said. “That means a portal, sir.”

  “But I thought all the portals and wormholes in and out of Manafell were monitored?” I pointed out. “I remember the Headmaster telling me about the Slap on the Wrist spell defense.”

  “Bah, there be more than just the official channels to get in and out o’ the capital, sir,” Barry said. His tone told me that he held the ‘official channels’ in little regard. “How else would smugglers be able to ply their trade, eh? Don’t you worry about a thing now, sir, not a thing. Old Barry will see you right.”

  Barry guided us around the skirts of Manafell. We carefully kept our very low altitude while avoiding the little villages and farmsteads sprinkled around the outskirts of Avalonia’s capital.

  Eventually, after heading through a shallow ravine cut by a mostly frozen over river, we found ourselves approaching a disused mining camp.