Separated from Yourselves

by Bill Hiatt

  “Shifter or illusionist,” said Shar.

  “Notice that gray robe,” added Dan. “She could be one of Nicneven’s witches.”

  I didn’t recognize the woman, but the only one of Nicneven’s witches I ever saw at close range was the one we’d captured. “We knew some of them escaped, but why come here?”

  “Because they could,” said Shar. “Remember a lot of them came to the Santa Barbara area during one of the attacks, so they could open a portal to this area. They might have figured fleeing here after Nicneven fell would be a move we wouldn’t expect—and they were right.”

  I kept looking at the witch on the floor. Something wasn’t adding up.

  “Damn!” I said, turning back to the computer.

  “What’s the problem?” asked Dan.

  “Whoever is running the show had to have had access to the magic protections here and around the town, as well as passwords for the regular security system. Passwords someone could maybe have tortured out of Vanora, but the supernatural parts she couldn’t have transferred to someone else unless that person could read minds like Tal, and we know how rare that gift is. There’s no way some random witch could be in control. The woman we beat was just a decoy.”

  “I should have known it was too easy,” said Shar.

  “What does that—” began Dan. He stopped when the lights went out.

  I cursed myself for not changing the password on Vanora’s account. The real Vanora, under someone else’s control or not, had just cut power to this floor, ending my security-terminal access. It wouldn’t take her long to end the lockdown and throw every guard in the place at us.

  I pulled out my sagephone, which fortunately recharged while we were on Alcina’s island. Vanora had also cut the Wi-Fi in my immediate area, so the sagephone had to reach farther to find a signal, but in a minute I’d be able to sneak in to the security system through the back door again.

  I heard the click of the office doors unlocking.

  “Guys, help me drag the desk over in front of the doors!” I barked, still waiting for the sagephone to connect. The doors opened inward, so putting the desk in front of the doorway would at least slow the guards down, though at this point I had little doubt they’d blast those doors right off the hinges if they needed to.

  We only just managed to block the door when we heard a bump as someone tried to open it. Then we heard screams and frantic movement.

  “They think the room outside is on fire,” said Gabriela. “I can’t keep that up for long, though. I sense…resistance.”

  “Vanora is probably pumping power into them,” I said. “If she can make them spell-resistant enough, they’ll just shrug off the illusions and keep on coming. We might only have a couple of minutes until that happens.”

  “We need options,” said Shar. “We’re basically trapped, and once we run out of tranquilizer ammo, the guards can easily pick us off.”

  I noticed the light from Gabriela’s cell phone. She punched in a number and had a very fast conversation in Portuguese.

  “Help is on the way,” she said. “Apparently no one has thought to put the shields Alcina took down back up. I’ve had friends keeping an eye on the town, and some of them managed to slip in when the magic preventing them ceased.”

  “How soon can they get here?” asked Shar.

  “They’re on foot. Fifteen, twenty minutes,” she replied.

  “That’s going to be too late,” I said. I could have bought us more time with the sagephone, but by now I could tell Vanora had shut down Wi-Fi, not just in the immediate area, but throughout the building. I could still connect to an external network, but that wouldn’t get me back into the security system.

  “I will keep the men away from the door as long as I can,” said Gabriela, “but you are right; the resistance grows. My illusions will not hold for twenty more minutes.”

  “Then we’ll be recaptured for sure,” said Dan.

  “You could come with me,” said Umbra. In the darkness she had entered the room unseen, and we jumped halfway to the ceiling when we heard her voice.

  “Umbra, we’re so glad you’re alive,” I said, trying to keep my voice from sounding too shaky. “We were afraid the Populus Umbrae would have executed you by now.”

  “I am…on parole, I think you would say,” she replied. “I can take you from this place through the shadows, and then perhaps you can save me.”

  This seemed suspiciously too good to be true. “We’ll do whatever we can to save you, Umbra, but I still don’t understand. Why did the Populus Umbrae parole you?”

  I suddenly realized she had moved right next to me. “They would deny this, but they do not wish to risk another encounter with your people that might result in a defeat. At the same time, they were intrigued by a proposal I presented to them.”

  My heart sank. “Proposal?”

  “Lucas was a training exercise. The imperator is willing to overlook my various failures on that mission. Even more, he is willing to overlook my apparent treason in helping you earlier. All of this he will do if you provide an opportunity for the Populus Umbrae to erase the damage to their reputation.”

  “My illusions are almost blocked, and men are gathering in the next room,” said Gabriela—her diplomatic version of “Hurry the hell up!” Even so, I couldn’t just plunge us into shadow without knowing what we were getting ourselves into.

  “What kind of opportunity?”

  “One of you will become a dominus. Literally, that means Lord, but the Populus Umbrae really mean something more like what you would mean by client—the person who has hired them, yes? You will hire the Populus Umbrae to eliminate a dangerous foe for you. They have had few risky missions lately, partly because so many potential clients know of their difficulties with you. Give them such a mission, and the imperator will do as I have said.”

  “What becomes of you after?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “I will return to the Populus Umbrae to complete my training and be given another chance to prove myself.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to do that?”

  “It is what I was raised to do,” she replied. I thought I heard a small quaver in her voice, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I had an almost irresistible urge to tranquilize myself and let someone else sort this mess out. If we didn’t agree, Umbra would be executed, and we would be recaptured. If we did, Umbra, who had just discovered her humanity, would have to go back to being an assassin, and we would have to pick someone on whom to unleash the Populus Umbrae.

  Vanora might seem like a logical candidate, but we still didn’t know whether or not someone else was controlling her. We did know some of her security guys would certainly get in the way if the Populus Umbrae attacked, so even if Vanora had actually turned evil, she would almost certainly not be the only casualty.

  Struggling to find an alternative, I could think of many beings both powerful and evil, but…hiring murderers to get rid of them? I had killed in battle to save myself and others, but this was…different, creepy…wrong somehow.

  Gabriela gasped. At almost the same time, I could hear someone taking a fire ax to the door. It was a sturdy door, but it wouldn’t hold longer than a minute at most.

  “Guys?” I asked. I knew it was cowardly to force them to share the decision, but I just couldn’t help it.

  “Do we have to decide now?” asked Shar.

  “If you take my help, the Populus Umbrae will consider that you have agreed to their terms. The actual naming of a target can be done later.”

  Great! We’d get to wait until later to fill in the blanks in our contract with the Devil.

  I could keep my conscience clean by refusing. I just didn’t have it in me to condemn Umbra to death.

  “Do not do make a deal with the shadows, Stanford!” demanded David. “If you feel in your heart that it is wrong, do not do it.”

  “Sorry, David, but my heart doesn’t feel right about either choice. What am I
supposed to do?”

  “Let me deal with it,” said David, surging toward the surface.

  I allowed my cowardice to get the better of me and left the decision to him.

  “We will go with you,” I heard him tell Umbra, “but we will only agree to the terms if we are given sufficient time to make a proper choice.”

  The guys were thrown a little, but they must have both realized from the tone that it was David, not me, accepting the agreement.

  “The imperator has said you may have time to make a choice.”

  The ax was chopping through the door. We had only twenty seconds left.

  David led us into the shadows.

  I let him do it—and I had never felt so low.

  Chapter 15: Shifting Alliances (Tal)

  I couldn’t make myself accept the idea that we had lost Khalid and Jimmie for good. Shar and Dan would be crushed by that. We all would be.

  We did at least have Jimmie’s soul, but without a body for him to occupy, I wasn’t sure how much good that would do him or anybody else.

  “Tethers,” I muttered, realizing right after I’d said it that Magnus had said it at the same time.

  “What?” asked Gordy, looking back and forth between us.

  “I can still feel the tether Magnus and Atlante used to attach me to them,” I said.

  “I can, too,” said Magnus. “I can feel everyone’s tethers. That means—”

  “Atlante hasn’t released them yet.” I finished for him. “The question is, can we use them to pull him and Khalid back?”

  “Maybe…if he’s still in the Valley of Lost Things,” said Magnus, closing his eyes. “Yes,” he added, eyes open again. “Yes, he hasn’t gotten out yet. We have to strike so fast that he won’t have time to cut them, though. I helped make them, but the connections all run to his ring, so he’ll be able to free himself once we remind him the tethers are there. We’re also going to need an amazing amount of power.”

  “Perhaps I can help,” said Arianrhod.

  “The addition of your power would be most welcome,” I said.

  “Everyone, gather quickly,” commanded Magnus. “Are all of you willing to let Tal and me draw power from you?” People could hardly agree fast enough. Most of us joined hands. Magnus linked psychically so that he could keep his hands free to use the lyre of Orpheus, giving us even more energy from which to draw. He also linked Lucas, who we figured would probably be moved to dance again, raising the power still higher. With someone like Arianrhod in the mix, Atlante was never going to know what hit him.

  With my ears filled with the music of the lyre, I sang to help build the power, as did Arianrhod, and soon enough Lucas started dancing again, his eyes glazed but his body on fire, moving at xana speed. Raw power crackled through our nerves, sparking around so intensely I knew even the nonmagical could feel it.

  Just when it seemed as if the power would consume us in a fiery maelstrom, Magnus gathered up the tethers to Atlante and Khalid, pulling them with our whole combined might. I felt the ground shake as if we were about to bring Caer Sidi down around our ears.

  Holes tore open in the reality of the room, spilling explosions of rainbow light all around us. Then Atlante came screaming through the largest one, still mounted on the hippogriff but otherwise looking as if he had been swallowed by a rainbow dragon and then spat out in one mighty blast. The hippogriff hit the ground, and the impact sent Atlante crashing to the floor. Eva cried out to see Jimmie’s body bashed around that way, but even so, she had the sense not the break the circle.

  In another moment Khalid came spinning in, much calmer than Atlante. The little guy must have realized we were rescuing him. He even had the presence of mind to use his flying ability to keep from smashing into the floor or one of the walls.

  Then we could finally break the circle and allow the power to fall back to more normal levels. Gordy and Carlos made sure Khalid was all right, Arianrhod calmed the panicked hippogriff, and the rest of us rushed at Atlante. Only the fact that he was in Jimmie’s body saved him from an epic beating.

  Magnus and I grabbed him before he overcame the shock of his sudden return and rough landing.

  “Unhand me,” he demanded shakily as he started to recover.

  “What kind of idiocy was that?” asked Magnus. “Did you always intend to betray us, or were you just improvising?”

  “I helped you cure your friends, as I had promised,” said Atlante, his eyes narrowed. “I took Khalid only because he was once Ruggiero, and, as I told you, I had to make amends for failing him in his earlier life.”

  “How is kidnapping him making amends?” I asked angrily.

  Atlante looked at me sadly. “Khalid is in danger every bit as much as Ruggiero was. The only way to protect him is to get him to a safe place.”

  “Safer than with us?” I asked. “Safer than with his family?”

  Atlante sneered at me. “Khalid is but a child, yet you keep dragging him into danger. How many battles has this boy fought? How many times has he faced death? You call that safe? As for family, none of you are of his blood. I am more closely related than you will ever be.”

  “That’s not true!” protested Khalid, walking over to look Atlante in the eye. “They and the Sassanis are my family, and what danger I faced I chose to face.”

  “You should not have been allowed—” began Atlante.

  “That’s none of your business!” Khalid snapped. “I don’t care who we were to each other in another life. In this life, you’re nothing to me!”

  Atlante drew back as if Khalid had slapped him.

  “I…I free you of any need to make up for what happened to me in a previous life,” continued Khalid. “Now get the hell out of my friend’s body!”

  “We may need his sorcery,” said Magnus. “We’re going to be facing some pretty nasty opponents.”

  “Seriously?” I asked. “How can we trust him?”

  “A tynged should do the trick. He can be bound to do none of us any harm, to obey us in all things, and specifically not to kidnap Khalid. For the main parts I believe I can remember the wording of the tynged Nicneven imposed on me as an alternative to execution. If she hadn’t died, I would never have found a loophole in that thing.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Gordy.

  “I don’t, either,” said Alex.

  I could tell everyone was going to join that chorus, but Atlante preempted them.

  “I will swear any oath you wish as long as you all swear an oath to keep Khalid out of danger. Take him somewhere secure and keep him there until your battles are all won. Do that, and nothing you demand will I refuse.”

  “Khalid would be welcome here with me,” said Arianrhod. “This tower is far enough removed from the dangerous parts of Annwn that I could easily flee with him before any attack could reach us.”

  “But I have to help my friends,” insisted Khalid. “Lady, thank you for your offer, but I will—I must—go with them.”

  “He may have the body of a child, but he has the heart of a warrior,” said Arianrhod, looking at Atlante.

  “Either you keep him safe, or I will swear no oath. Neither will I lift a finger to help you in any way.” Atlante stared back at Arianrhod defiantly.

  “We need another sorcerer more than we need Khalid—” began Magnus.

  “Shut up!” yelled Khalid. “You aren’t the boss of me, and certainly not anyone else here. I’m staying with the group, and Atlante can go—”

  “Don’t you want us to have the best chance of winning?” interrupted Magnus.

  I hated to admit it, but my evil twin did have a point. Atlante was powerful, and he knew a type of magic none of the rest of us did.

  Khalid, however, was not in any mood to listen to that argument. “Oh, yeah, Atlante helped win the Holy Grail. Oh, wait, that was me. But he got his arrows blessed by Israfel and used them to defeat Asmodeus. Nope, that was me, too.”

  “You do have the heart of a warrior,” said Atlante, �
��but so did Ruggiero. It did not save him from death.”

  “No one is asking you!” yelled Khalid, shaking. I couldn’t remember ever having seen him so angry.

  “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” said Magnus. Much to my surprise, and I’m sure even to Magnus’s, Khalid lunged at him, his fists flying. At that moment, Magnus was only moving at normal human speed, but Khalid was naturally faster, and he got in a few good punches before Magnus started defending himself.

  Unfortunately, Magnus had to let go of Atlante’s arm to restrain Khalid, and Atlante used the free arm and the distraction to punch me. Jimmie’s body had a lot of muscle, enough for the blow to throw me off balance and cause me to loosen my grip just a little, which in turn allowed Atlante to slip away.

  At first I thought he was just desperate. We had him surrounded, and he’d be restrained again long before he could possibly cast a decent spell. However, at almost precisely the moment he broke free, the hippogriff went wild, rearing up on its hind legs, tearing its reins away from a startled Arianrhod, then flying up, only to dive, eagle claws extended, first at Lucas, then at Carlos. Lucas dodged easily out of the way, but Carlos came within inches of having the claws rip into his face. For such a cumbersome-looking creature, the hippogriff was fast, and its formidable attack drew all of our attention to it.

  While we were distracted, Atlante somehow managed to weave between us, obviously trying to get to the hippogriff. Alex tried to knock the sneaking sorcerer off his feet but just missed him.

  At some point Khalid had stopped throwing punches at Magnus and shot an arrow at the hippogriff. The beast dodged with unexpected grace and took another swipe at Carlos, knocking him to the ground. Atlante had wiggled his way a few steps closer to the creature.

  Stopping Atlante would have been child’s play if he hadn’t been in Jimmie’s body. I could see Eva had a shot, but she didn’t want to take it. Khalid aimed at the hippogriff but not at the hippogriff’s master. Nobody drew their swords, and the need to keep dodging the hippogriff’s claws, and occasionally hooves as well, hindered everyone’s attempts to grab the sorcerer.

  Instead of trying to pursue Atlante, Magnus, whom I could see with grim satisfaction had a black eye, started playing the lyre of Orpheus. I might have expected an offensive spell, but it was defensive power I felt building. Whatever Atlante was trying to do—and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just to mount the hippogriff and escape—Magnus must have decided the sorcerer intended some kind of hostile act. Following his lead, I started singing, and we joined psychically to synchronize our efforts.