Each raid left a trail of destruction in its wake and provided enough distractions so that my sabotage teams of warmagi were able to complete their own clandestine missions. These were designed to mess up their communications and logistics as much as possible. While we didn’t have a chance against the Old God, there was no reason to leave his forces unmolested before he showed up.
And that factor was foremost on everyone’s minds. The overbearing presence of the Old God on the horizon could be felt by nearly everyone with a shred of magical sensitivity. We could see passed the mountains, of course, but westward there was a shimmering in the air over the peaks. It became especially florid at dusk. There was no denying that every dusk was worse than the previous one. While it did little for morale, it kept everyone extremely motivated about his or her tasks.
Meanwhile, I stayed in conference with the team I chose to help open the portal. We continued to meet in the Cave, itself, usually with Gurkarl helpfully providing translation of some of the gurvani texts. He had been a model prisoner, almost one of the team. Since he had seen and dwelled in the sacred cave he had seemed to transcend the pettiness of the Old God’s rampage, readily helping us with our plans as the best way to accomplish the goal of cleaning the valley of all humani influences.
The others were wary of including an admitted foe into the midst of our most secret councils, but I invited any of them to find a single spell on him that tied the gurvan to his leaders. Besides, his gruff voice and odd accent concealed an offbeat sense of humor to our discussions that kept things cordial under tense circumstances.
The core team stood at seven, excluding Gurkarl. Penny and myself would be the energy providers; Carmella was the Transformer, controller of the various apis that we would need in the course of this spell – really a director of power and monitor of our physical bodies. Terleman helped design the specifics and would act as a back-up to Carmella or Delman or Taren, if needed.
Delman would shoot our energy out to the other magi, who would then spin it up to reality-altering levels, before shooting it back through Reylan, who would act as a Converter, taking all of that raw power and building it into a coherent wave.
Then there was Taren, a mage not too much older than me, with whom I had studied briefly at the Academy. While trained as a warmage, Taren had been one of the few who had been selected for advanced study at the War College. He missed the Farisian Campaign entirely, electing, instead, to pursue his studies without being shot at. I don’t remember being given a choice, but maybe I’m just not that good. Taren would be our Focus. He had spent the longest time at the Academy, and that’s where we were shooting for.
That might sound like an unusual choice of destination, but it made sense in a lot of ways. First, it was a place that most of us were familiar with. We knew it like a farmer knows his chicken coop. There was a lot of residual magic there, some going back to the Magocracy, which theoretically made it a bigger target for Taren to latch onto. While the distance was far greater than, say, one of the larger cities in Alshar, we couldn’t really decide if distance had anything to do with it.
Taren had suggested attempting to anchor the other end of the gate – assuming we could activate it – to an old and crumbling memorial archway in the courtyard of the Academy. It dated from Imperial times, some benefactor of the school no doubt had it built to celebrate the glory of the Magocracy, or some crap like that.
Anyway, it was there, made a good theoretical anchor point, and should be mostly deserted. Taren said he found it a perfect place to study, and I fondly recalled one rare and memorable assignation I had there with one of the local girls at Midsummer. I never saw her again, and don’t really remember her name, but I’ll never forget that night. Others had similar memories, so we aimed for the Academy.
It didn’t take long to decide the most basic issues, like who did what. The problems came in executing such an intricate spell. Imperial training covered the basics for what we were doing, but no one had tried anything like this, with irionite, no less, since the Magocracy fell.
It took six hours to hammer out the particulars for the spell. We did two dry-runs, using minor cantrips to stand for the more serious power we would generate, and made certain everyone knew their part.
There was the usual grandstanding and juvenile complaining that you get anytime you try to get more than three people to do one thing at a time, but then again these were professionals. The tangible sense of doom that was only a day or two away, at most, gave us a sense of urgency to get this right. We would not have a second chance. The hour of departure was set for dawn the next day.
Not that you could really see the sun anymore. Shereul had darkened the sky.
* * *
I awoke long before dawn the next morning with my face pressed into Alya’s sweet-smelling hair. I restrained the impulse to make love to her one last time. As sweet as it would have been, it would have depleted me of my vitality prematurely. I settled for holding her and smelling her hair until I could brook no more delay.
“You remember what I said?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said sarcastically as she pulled her shift on over her head. “Take your baggage through to the Academy grounds. Find some old codger named Master Hesclesti and give him your journal. Then tell my story to the authorities, whoever they are. Wait for word from you for three fortnights, then take the small fortune you have given me and use it to get to your parent’s house, along with the depressing note about how you are dead, so that they can take care of me and your unborn bastard.”
“A little dramatic,” I concluded, “but essentially correct. Tell my folks that I love them.”
“You tell them yourself,” she said, sliding up next to me for a last hug and kiss. “Now get down there and screw your ex-girlfriend for the good of the people!”
“Al-y-a!” I groaned.
“No, seriously. Give her an inch from me,” she said, swatting me on the butt. I’ll never understand her. Or any woman. But particularly her. Perhaps that’s why I had fallen so hard for her, and why leaving her standing there, pregnant and packing, was high on the list of the most difficult things I have ever had to do in my life.
I made my way down into the cave and tried not to think about what I was going to do. Once I got there, most of the others were already standing around, drinking hot cups of sweet mulled wine (the bastards had been holding out on me!) And taking the herbs they would need to sustain them through the spell. Penny had my little pharmacopeum laid out on a bale for me: no less than six different powders and herbs prepared in various ways. Three of them I knew, the other three I took without comment. Penny knows her stuff, and I trusted in that.
While I waited for the drugs to take effect, I wandered around and talked to each member of each team, joking, laughing nervously, and double-checking that everything was prepared. That was as much as for their benefit as my own, I guess. They had formed as tight-knit a team as I could ask for in this last week, aided, of course, by the potent power of the witchstones. But they were a good team – young, skilled, ambitious. When I had done all the reassuring I was capable of, I wandered over to the molopar portal and stared at it for a while.
Could we do this? Really?
There was no doubt that it had been done in the past. The horrors of the Goblin Wars, the strange beasts that were not native to this world, had arisen from someplace, and this looked like the place.
But could we do this? This was high magic, on an order that hadn’t been attempted in centuries. I was proud and confident in my crew – I’ve never worked with better magi – but would the rest of the universe cooperate? Could we activate this thing, direct it, and keep it open long enough for everyone to get out?
Would I have enough strength? My future wife and child depended upon it. Did I have enough resolve? I had to. I would will them away on my own, if I could.
Did I suddenly have a screaming erection so hard it could break rock? Apparently I did, I noticed as I look
ed down.
“All right, everyone,” I called, “get to your places. Goodman Pokey-Poke says it’s show time.”
Penny stretched out on the round cushion we had created as our staging area – and “staging,” I realized, was the proper term. I was used to performing for Penny. I was not used to a well-informed and highly critical audience watching my every move, mundane and mystical.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly shy. About sex, that is. But this was different. The group would not just see my lusty performance, but they would also see the complex interplay of magic that would arise from it. I was more worried about their criticism about that than I was my ability to physically perform. Besides, whatever Penny gave me had me stiff as iron. I couldn’t wimp out of this if I tried.
Penny leaned forward as I was shrugging off my robe and gave me a quick peck on the cheek – the only kiss we shared. This wasn’t about romance, this was business.
“For luck,” she said, settling back.
“Luck is for cowards,” I said, mock-bravely. “We real men—”
“Yeah, yeah, mister, let’s get on with it.”
We started out in the first of the Five Classic positions, with me on top. This is best for starting a brisk rise of power. I was handling the apis for the two of us – the concentration required is helpful for maintaining a consistent state of arousal over a long period of time, and First Position is the easiest one to hold an apis in.
The plan was for us to go through all five, then repeat. I clasped my irionite sphere in my left palm, and felt Penny do the same to hers in her right hand, and the moment we began to raise power the two were linked. I felt it run through me like a shiver, coalesce around the sphere, then jump over to Penny’s shard. I felt a reciprocal jolt from hers, and I welcomed it into me to mix with my own.
All of this was more or less textbook, except the power levels we were playing with were rising far faster than I had anticipated. Before we knew it, our personal reservoirs were filled, and it was time to begin the operation in earnest. It was . . . unexpectedly intoxicating, like discovering too late that someone has poured spirits into your wine glass.
The connection between our two stones was even more intimate than the one at our loins. I could feel Penny’s thoughts and emotions through the stone, without going through the Overworld at all. The proximity of the molopor was not hurting, of course – I could sneeze down here and cast better spells by accident than an Eastern mage could do in hours. I had the barest moment of panic that the power would be too much, but the confident look in Penny’s eyes banished it instantly. I was far more confident in her abilities than my own.
“Prepare, Delman!” I called, though I never took my eyes from Penny’s. Eye contact is very important in such a working. It facilitates communication at levels that even magic can’t reach, and it gives you something to stare at. And Penny had pretty gray eyes.
When I heard Delman’s assent, I silently questioned Penny about who should do the honors, and with the barest nod she let me take control. I shifted my weight slightly, shifted my focus minutely, and suddenly the reservoir of magic poured out of our combined bodies and minds, through the apis, and over to Delman, who used his own stone to parcel it up and hand it off to the others. It was a strain, I know – I was feeling it myself – but Delman was good in groups, and after the first couple of sloppy hand-offs he got more efficient.
After that time just kind of stopped for me. I was anxious, of course, but I knew my anxiety wouldn’t help matters, so I concentrated on the task at hand. It was after our first position change that I heard Delman call out, “Here it comes, Reyman!” and I felt a slight shift in the power flow. I could also feel Reyman struggle with the first few transfers, but he straightened out quickly and began building his spell wave.
I continued to focus, feeling almost overwhelmed at the amount of power we were handling. It is indescribable, as if every cell in your body is singing at once. I saw those feelings reflected back at me in Penny’s eyes and we both added a little extra capacity with our enthusiasm for the chore, like two little kids who found the sugar bowl unattended.
In this type of magic, the power is built on the male side by postponing orgasm while encouraging empowerment, while on the female side the power comes in sharp waves, tied to the duration and frequency of orgasm. Every time Penny had a happy moment there would be a resulting spike in power that was my job to complement.
“Keep it going, friends!” called out Carmella, who was doing an excellent job of monitoring. “Just one more link and we’ll be there, I think!”
That was fine by me. My arm was getting tired. We were about to shift into Position Three when Reyman finally called out, “I’m just about there! Get ready, Taren!”
Our final mage in the working nodded curtly, and suddenly there was a sustained magical flash between Reyman and Taren as their witchstones leapt to life. Taren was stationed in front of the portal, which he had been studying nonstop since he found out about it, and he did not move a muscle that I could tell. He stood there, stone in front of his face, and waved his right hand as he plumbed the depths of the molopar. He had tried explaining his theory to me, but it was based on precepts that were in advance of what I knew and I was therefore lost very quickly. At least he had a theory. I had no idea how I would try to unlock the thing.
He must have been doing something right, though, because shortly the disk started to cloud in, a thick gray murky cover over the naked stone underneath. I saw glints of shapes and colors wade through it, and I found it fascinating to watch. Too fascinating. Penny slapped my face, hard.
“Focus!”
I grunted, and focused. She was quite right, of course. I had my job to do, Taren had his. I got back to business and redoubled my efforts.
It took far longer than I would have liked, and I won’t lie and say I wasn’t worried for a bit, but Taren eventually shouted, “I’ve got something!” Then, a moment later, “I have it! I see the arch! I see the arch!”
While we were all too professional to burst out in cheers or applause – which would have been counterproductive, if not disastrous – I could definitely feel the shift in attitude around the room. One of the mercenaries who had volunteered for the assignment took a breath, made a sign with his hands, and then walked through. In seconds he stepped back through and was shouting excitedly, It worked! I saw people! It worked!
I could tell it worked, too. There was suddenly a warm breeze on my backside, and the smell of fresh grass, rather than moldy cave. A few seconds later, I heard the belltower in the commons sound the afternoon call to chores.
We had done it. We had taken an ancient piece of alien magic and made it do our bidding. We had threaded a grommet in the fabric of reality. Something this powerful hadn’t been done by humans since the Inundation. I really wish our spectators would have been more impressed, but I guess that’s the layman’s privilege.
We altered our work then, concentrating more on maintaining and sustaining the reaction, and not building more power. This was easier for me than Penny, as women have a natural inclination to increase the level of their climaxes. But then again, when it came to sex magic, Penny could screw circles around me.
As she regulated her climaxes I finally broke eye contact with her (in Position Three this is pretty easy to do) and closed my eyes, fine-tuning the stream. I almost didn’t notice the parade past the bedstead. The refugees were starting to file past, their arms full of their valuables or their children. I didn’t see them, of course, but I could smell them, hear them, and feel their terror as they walked into a hole that wasn’t there a few moments ago. They were being herded by the castle’s men-at-arms, and overseen by Sir Cei.
Time tromped by like the feet of a thousand peasants – which were also tromping by. Twice Carmella came by and offered Penny and me water, for which we were grateful. Dehydration is one of the inherent dangers in sex magic, as the participants are often too distracted by the work to care
about such things. But not too much – interrupting a spell because you need to find a chamber pot is amateurish.
Toward the end it was Alya’s turn in line, and she broke step just long enough to kiss me on the ear before she was safely through. I thought Penny would have a hissy fit about letting a commoner distract me at such a crucial moment, but when I ventured a worried glance in her direction I was pleasantly surprised to see a warm, almost loving smile on her face. Heartened that my personal life may not be a total disaster after all, I focused my efforts and gave her a little extra for a few minutes.
We were almost ready to switch out of Position Four when Tyndal came by. He knew better than to interrupt me, but he drew his wand and saluted bravely before he left. Somehow I don’t think Penny would have been as tolerant should he have kissed me like Alya did.
I’m not sure I would’ve been, either, come to think.
I should have realized that the line was almost through, as Tyndal was definitely at the tail end of it. Gurkarl was behind him, in Tyndal’s custody, our one prisoner of war. The rest followed. One by one the guards and sentries were pulled from their posts and replaced with slightly enchanted dummies. From a distance they should fool casual observation, as they would appear to “move” in small ways – shift weight, scratch their nose, rub their eyes – and to improve the effect we had several fires lit in the kitchens and the bailey. From the front lines and the scrying pools of the gurvani besiegers it should look, more or less, like we were all still here awaiting slaughter.
Finally, Carmella called out, “Sir Cei just went through, ladies and gentlemen! We have officially rescued everyone! Over four thousand people just saw your hairy, naked arse, Min!”
I felt elated. So did everyone else. And I wasn’t tired at all – I was just getting started.
Which was good, because this was the part of the plan that was problematic. You see, it took a dozen of us concentrating intently to keep the gate open. It wouldn’t stay open unless we kept at our tasks. So there was no way we could follow them through the molopar.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 01 - Spellmonger Page 37