Awakening Camelot: A Wizard's Quest (Awakening Camelot Duology Book 1)

by Dan Wingreen

  Lee, I'm so sorry…

  "No! Stop! I'll do whatever you want, I swear! You can punish me. Do whatever you want to me, just stop hurtin’ him," Eallair yelled desperately. He struggled harder against the undead, twisting and thrashing, but it did him no good. The undead were also unmovable, implacable. Impossible to fight without magic.

  There was nothing he could do but watch as Aidan was strangled to death in front of him.

  Then, to Aidan's surprise, the pressure on his throat eased. With a painful gasp, he sucked down all the air he could in huge, greedy gulps.

  "You will listen to us, you will obey us."

  Eallair nodded, his eyes never leaving Aidan. "Yes, I will. I said I would. Just leave him alone."

  "Fight us…and he dies."

  "I know, I won't fight."

  "We will take your soul. Give it to us, and after you are dead we will let him go."

  "No! Lee you can't—" Aidan started.

  "No!” Eallair shouted. His eyes were wild in a way Aidan had never seen. “What I can't do is watch you die." He smiled weakly. "I just can't. I ain’t strong enough for that. I'm so, so sorry I got you into this, Aidan. You would have been so much better off if you never met me."

  "Stop talking like that—that's such bullshit and you know it!" Aidan yelled. He'd never wanted to hit the sorcerer more than he did right then. "You can't just let them kill you! You can't make me watch you die."

  "I'm sorry," Eallair said, his voice choked with emotion.

  "No!" Aidan bucked and slammed against the rock, but the hands holding him were as unyielding as magical shackles. "Fucking dammit! You can't fucking do this. Get out of this. You always get out of everything."

  "Not this," Eallair said sadly. "I…I don't have any ideas. I'm all out." He let out a tiny, pathetic laugh. "Guess I should have listened to you about makin’ half-assed plans then."

  Aidan couldn't believe what he was hearing. The…defeat in Eallair's voice. He was never defeated. Even when he seemed like he was about to die he always acted like he was enjoying himself, like everything was a game and death couldn’t touch him as long as he kept laughing in its face.

  The sound of Eallair giving up was the worst thing Aidan had ever heard.

  Lee's supposed to be the hero, dammit!

  His vision swam again as tears leaked out of his eyes and poured down his cheeks.

  The necromancer closed his eyes and began chanting again. Eallair kept watching Aidan, an apologetic smile frozen in place as tears of his own started to fall.

  Aidan looked around frantically for something, anything, he missed before. But there was nothing. The only thing that could save them was magic, and Eallair couldn't—wouldn't—use his as long as Aidan’s life was one squeeze away from being snuffed out in front of him. Instead, he was going to make Aidan watch as some ancient, insane monster killed him.

  No, there has to be something I can do!

  The magic in his chest burned and roiled, begging to be used.

  No!

  He couldn't let it out. It would kill Eallair, too.

  But…Eallair was going to die anyway. They both were. Aidan didn't for a second believe the necromancer wasn't going to kill him the instant he'd taken Eallair's soul, or whatever he was going to do to him. He'd most likely turn Aidan into another undead, slowly rotting away underground until he could be used to kill and destroy the same way he’d used the bodies of so many of his own People…the same way he was going to use Eallair. The necromancer would take everything that Eallair was, his infuriating grins, his tender looks, his righteous fury, his determination to do the right thing, and strip it away until all that was left was his power, and then he'd use that to murder the world. If…if Aidan could stop that…

  It was worth any sacrifice.

  It's what Lee would do.

  With that thought, nearly two decades of fear and control and restraint were finally stripped away. For the first time in his life, Aidan and his magic wanted the same thing.

  He closed his eyes and reached deep inside, right to his very core.

  It was surprisingly easy, pulling on his magic. Except, he didn't know why it surprised him. It had always been there, waiting, wanting to get out, desperate to be used. It was like pushing open a well-oiled door that had never quite been closed properly. The power—and there was so much power, more than he'd ever thought possible for one body to hold—spread out, filled him, until he felt like he was going to split into a million pieces; but for all that, it didn't hurt. Not even a bit. It felt like…coming home. Like it was the most natural thing in the world even though he hadn't used it since that day so long ago when he broke his arm—

  And used magic to heal it.

  Aidan Collins you are such a fucking idiot.

  Because he had used magic before. On purpose. He'd made it do exactly what he'd needed it to do, instead of just exploding out of him, and that had been instinctual. He hadn't even been trying. The magic inside of him wanted to be used; that was what Eallair said. That it didn't want to be stored and that was why wizard magic was wild.

  So…

  Who said it needed to be stored? Maybe if he could use it up, completely and totally, on what he wanted, there wouldn't be anything left to lose control of.

  All right magic, you wanna be used? Then get fucking used!

  His magic didn't seem to object. Quite the opposite, actually. It surged out of every pore on his body, from in between every microscopic part of him, and it was the easiest thing in the world to grab hold of it and make it go where he wanted, to do what he told it to.

  The cavern, for all it was obviously altered by magic, was actually natural. The spikes in the ceiling were the result of Eallair's water minerals, not Shaman spell work. He sensed it would have been harder to manipulate it, if it was formed by another magic user, so he was pretty glad it wasn't. The spikes were almost childishly easy to grow or shrink, Aidan’s magic easily making a mockery of the multiple wizards it took to open up one little hole in the ground, and it would have been the work of seconds to pull back the spikes that made the cage that trapped him and Eallair and free them…but he didn't want that. He stretched his magic out past their prison, over the polished floor and up the walls and into the ceiling, until it permeated all of Eallair’s stalactites. He grabbed a hold of them, of every single spike that was directly above the necromancer, and pulled.

  In the back of his mind where he could still hear the real world over the rush of magic in his ears and the horrible tearing of stone being ripped from stone, he heard the necromancer's chanting falter, and then stop. He found, with a bit of concentration, he could actually see through the stone. He had thirty-seven different angles to watch as the necromancer stared in disbelief at the spikes hovering in a semi-circle above him, ready to strike.

  "That's…"

  "Impossible."

  Aidan smiled. "Isn't it just?"

  There was a tiny pull at the edge of his mind, another, different kind of magic trying to grab the spikes away from him; but it was sick and weak and stretched too thin, and he slapped it aside with pathetic ease before he sent the spikes hurtling down at the necromancer. They all hit at the same time, impaling him and tearing him apart in an explosion of blood and bone and rock. Every single undead, now back to being just dead, collapsed to the cavern floor as the magic animating them died with the necromancer. But Aidan wasn't done. He pulled part of the ceiling down on top of the remains of the necromancer, burying what was left of him so that, lich or no, he could never pull himself back together.

  When he was done there was a new pillar, tall and thick with rock that had lain undisturbed for millennia, standing in what used to be middle of the cavern.

  A grave marker for a foolish man and a vengeful ghost that should have died long ago.

  The magic continued to pour out of him, dragging his consciousness along the currents of rock and earth until it almost felt like he was the magic. It was exhilarating. And he
still had more work to do.

  He cleared up the collapse in the entrance to the cavern, pulling the rocks back into the walls they'd come from. After that, he sent his magic out into every tunnel in the entire cave system and pulled the ceilings down on top of every unnatural path—and there were a lot of them, Mr Necromancer had been busy it seemed—with the exception of the one they'd need to get back out. No one would ever find this place again. Not unless he wanted them to. Aidan laughed as the magic ran through and out of his body, making his very essence thrum with power. He felt like he could do this forever.

  The cage was the next to go; the spikes pulling themselves back into the ceiling and reinforcing the weak spots the necromancer had purposely left. Then, the corpses. Aidan decided he didn't really like them lying around dirtying up his cavern, so he turned the rock under them to liquid, letting it swallow them up before hardening it again.

  It was all so easy! Poking and prodding and changing the world around him, and he'd thought that a stupid broken light was so much trouble? Why didn't he ever think to do this before?

  He could feel the drain on his magic. There was less than before, the thrumming weaker, the rush in his ears quieter. It's working! I'm doing it! What’s next?

  And that was his mistake. Because the magic was finally, after so many years, being used; it wanted to be used. And it didn't want to stop and think about it.

  Aidan lost control almost immediately, slamming back out of the nebulous awareness of living through his magic and into his body.

  He burned.

  He tried to hold it back, tried to grab the magic again and force it to his will, but it was just like being ten again and watching as something he couldn't control or understand ripped its way out of his body. Flames came to life on his skin. The last time it happened he'd only had maybe a few months of magic stored up. This time, it was sixteen years, and instead of protecting him like it had when they were both new to each other, his magic only saw him as something else to devour as it prepared to burst out and consume everything in a horrifying, glorious escape.

  Then Eallair was in front of him, his hands on Aidan's shoulders, and Aidan felt the tears start to well up in his eyes again, the heat turning them to mist before they could fall.

  "I'm sorry," he said. His voice shook with the strain of trying to hold back the fiery tide. "I can't…you need to run! Or put up a shield, but it's going to burn me up and when it does it'll explode and you'll—"

  Eallair kissed him. It had to hurt; Aidan's skin was literally on fire and getting hotter by the second, but Eallair didn't seem to feel it. He kissed Aidan until he began to feet hot for an entirely different reason, then pulled back, his lips burnt and blistered.

  "I ain't leaving you to die," he said.

  Aidan tried to protest, but the pain was too much and all he could do was clench his teeth and try to push Eallair away.

  To his surprise, he actually stepped back.

  Run! Run! Run!

  "I'm really sorry about this," Eallair said, his ruined lips pulled into an apologetic smile.

  What are you…?

  The last thing Aidan saw before everything went dark was what looked, for all the world, like a fist attached to a beat-up leather jacket coming right towards his face.

  Chapter 7

  Softness. That was the first thing Aidan noticed. There was something under him that was soft and comfortable. The word "bed" floated through his mind and he turned it over and thought on it and decided it fit perfectly. He was on a bed. Figuring that out probably shouldn't have been so difficult, but he was too tired to care. His entire body ached, and it was hard enough to hold onto his thoughts. Except for one.

  Beds are for sleeping…

  So, he slept.

  Later, something touched his shoulder, dragging him unwillingly out of slumber. A hand. The thoughts came a bit easier now, were less difficult to hold onto. Still, there was something about hands he should remember…

  The thought nagged at him, pulled him further out of sleep. He opened his eyes.

  His vision was blurry and the lighting was terrible, but he was pretty sure he didn't recognize where he was. That probably should have bothered him more than it did, but he was too busy looking at the face of the man standing over him. It was a pleasant face, for all it was unshaven. The eyes looked sad and old and worried, a sharp gray buried in dark hair and pale skin. Aidan liked those eyes. The man's lips pulled into a small, familiar smile when he noticed Aidan was awake.

  Eallair. Lee…

  "You're…dead?" he slurred. He frowned. It didn't seem right. He obviously wasn't dead. But wasn't he supposed to be? The softness under him seemed wrong, too. It should be hard. Hard and cold and dirty, smooth and unnatural, and surrounded by death.

  He liked it a lot better when he couldn't think.

  "Nah," Eallair said, gently brushing Aidan’s hair off his forehead "I ain't dead. No one's dead but them what should be."

  His words soothed Aidan. He tried to speak, but his throat was dry and his head was stuffed with cotton and he was so damned tired…

  "I—" The word turned into a yawn.

  "Shh. Sleep, little fire," Eallair said softly. "You earned it."

  "Okay," he said.

  He thought he should be annoyed at something, but who was he to argue with sleep?

  He closed his eyes and, just before he drifted off, he thought he felt a pair of lips softly brush against his.

  ◆◆◆

  Aidan's eyes snapped open.

  "Lee!" he yelled, pushing himself up in the…bed?

  He frowned as he shoved his hair out of his eyes. Why in all the ancient hells was he in a bed? All he could remember was…

  Fire. Burning. Pain. Lee's mangled smile—I did that to him—Lee holding onto him… Why isn't he running?

  Aidan's head swam as he struggled to remember what had happened. Was Eallair dead? His heart clenched… But, no, hadn't he seen him? Or had that been a dream? Aidan shook his head, then winced at the sudden pain. He felt drained, like he had after Anwir's torture room, except not nearly as weak.

  Did that mean it worked? Did he get rid of his stored-up magic safely? If he did, why was his heart pounding in his chest? Why did he feel like he'd lost everything?

  Absently, he took in his surroundings as he tried to remember what had happened. He was in a yurt. There wasn't much furniture, mostly just a few blankets and pillows strewn about. Messy, but not overly so. Different from the Shaman's but not so much that it didn't take him a few moments to realize it wasn't actually the same yurt. He was in the only bed—a collapsible cot like the one the Shaman had—but there was a woven wicker chair, also collapsible, set up next to it with a brightly colored, oddly patterned blanket thrown over the back. The flaps to the outside were closed, but not secured, and no sunlight came through the opening.

  So, it was night and he was back at the village. Or a village anyway. But how did he get there?

  And why wasn't he wearing his clothes?

  That thought was enough to startle him out of his near panic. He wasn't naked, thank Merlin, but he was in his underwear and he was wearing a black shirt several sizes too big for him, one he knew for a fact he hadn't been wearing before.

  Then, thankfully before he could think too much about strange clothes and who might have put them on him, the flaps were pushed open and Eallair walked in.

  "You're awake," he said with a smile when he noticed Aidan. He was carrying a wooden cup filled with some kind of steaming liquid. He walked over to the chair and set the cup down on the arm, then sat on the bed next to Aidan.

  "You're alive," Aidan said, his voice shaking. He was almost afraid to believe it, but the proof was right in front of him. Unless he was hallucinating. Or he was dead and this was an afterlife. He reached out with an unsteady hand and touched Eallair's bare arm—he wasn't wearing his jacket, Aidan noted absently—and swallowed, his throat heavy with relief and emotion. Eallair felt real. He
was real. Or real enough because if this was a hallucination he was having as he was dying, or some kind of afterlife, then he was perfectly happy to accept it as real for as long as he could.

  "Your lips," Aidan said, noticing them for the first time. Pink and full and whole and perfect.

  "Aye," Eallair said. "Healed them up. No big deal."

  He sounded like his usual self, teasing and carefree, but it wasn't hard for Aidan to see in his eyes the concern he couldn't quite hide. The worry and relief he was almost afraid to let himself feel. Aidan could definitely relate.

  "You…" He grabbed Eallair's hand and held it tight. "You didn't run."

  Eallair squeezed back. "Why would I do something that bloody stupid?" he asked, his voice harsh with sudden emotion.

  "You could have died!" Aidan yelled. "You should have saved yourself and let me—"

  And that was when it hit him that he was alive, too.

  "What happened?" he asked. The last thing he remembered was…

  "Did you hit me?" Aidan winced slightly at how reproachful he sounded.

  "Aye," Eallair said with reluctance. "I was kinda hopin’ you wouldn't remember that bit."

  "Why?"

  "Because it ain't something I want you rememberin' when you look at me."

  "No, not why you hoped I didn't remember,” Aidan said, a smile tugging at his lips, “why did you hit me?”

  "Oh." A ghost of an answering smile formed on Eallair's face, just for a second. "It was the only way to keep your magic from explodin’ out."

  Aidan frowned. "How does that work?"

  "Can't use magic when you're sleeping," Eallair said with a shrug, quickly warming up to the idea of explaining something. "Can you imagine if people could? World woulda destroyed itself centuries ago. It's actually how you train a wizard. Knock 'em out if they mess up and their magic gets away from them."

  "Wizards learn magic by getting punched in the face?" Aidan raised a skeptical eyebrow.