George spoke up, “Let me go with you.”
Walter stiffened, “No, son. This is my burden.”
“But…,” George started to protest.
The elder Prathion held up his hand to silence him, “Will you be alright without me?”
“Of course,” said George. “I can operate the shield to let you out and back in again.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” said the father. “Will you be alright without me if I don’t return? Do you understand?”
George’s face became animated. Normally his expression gave the people the impression that he was either uninteresting or, at best, uninterested in the rest of the world. Swallowing, he looked seriously at his father, “I wouldn’t like it, but I would carry on.”
“And your mother, your sister?”
The young man blinked, eyes watering, “Neither of them are so weak as to fall apart from life’s trials. We would take care of each other.”
“Get inside the key chamber,” ordered Walter. “When you see us at the gate, open it and then close it behind us. Then you join the others. If Elaine asks you where I am, tell her I am already inside. She’s far too stubborn to be obedient.”
“And mother?”
“Tell her I love her,” said Walter solemnly. “Afterwards make certain that no one comes back. Ever. That door must stay closed. Assume the worst. If by some chance we survive, I will find you. The Countess knows where you will be. She can guide me.”
“Yes, father,” said the youngest Prathion, bowing his head slightly.
“Whatever you do, don’t let them keep the door open. Everyone is in danger until it is shut and Mal’goroth can no longer find you. This shield will hardly even slow him down,” added Walter and then he hugged his son.
“I love you,” whispered George, in a voice almost too hoarse to understand.
Walter smiled and kissed his son’s cheek, “I’m proud of you son. You’re a good man.” Then he turned and walked briskly away. He never looked back, and Penny didn’t comment upon what she saw in his face.
“Let’s be fools together,” he said as they began to jog down the corridor.
For the first time, Penny doubted her decision. Not for herself, but for the price her friends might pay trying to help her undo her mistake. One more regret, she thought, but there’s no turning back now.
Chapter 42
The pain was beyond belief, but it ended as abruptly as it began. It was remarkable mainly in that I had felt so little physical pain since my death. It was no longer a sensation I knew very well. It was almost a welcome change.
Pain makes you feel alive.
I had drawn as much of the power in as I could before the enchantment failed, and then, with an extreme effort of will, I had contained the majority of the explosion. There wasn’t much to compare the sensation to, but if I’d been forced, I would have likened it to a hangover—The worst hangover imaginable, and then you start slamming your head against a wall.
The power of the explosion itself, I held onto, carefully assimilating it within myself. I doubted it would be enough to make a difference, but I decided I wouldn’t throw any chance away. The more power I had, the more likely I could survive what was coming.
Six or seven Celiors now, I thought to myself, estimating what I must have after stripping Chel’strathek of his aythar. Mal’goroth must have more than forty, possibly more than fifty.
My experience in Albamarl had taught me one thing. People add up. I had slain several thousand men there, taking their lives in the most direct way possible. While each had been a relatively small meal, as a whole their aythar had been considerable.
This started when I slew the army of Gododdin, said my inner observer. Thirty thousand men, gone, and their families afterward, taken by Mal’goroth. That was when my foe had become too powerful to stop. That was what had given him the strength he needed to overpower his siblings and take their power for his own.
“I would have to slay half the world to gain the power to defeat him,” I told myself, and for a moment my mind considered attempting it. No, my conscience argued, this ends here. As usual my conscience was a killjoy.
Then I remembered Peter. “There’s no getting away from that anyway. I’m on borrowed time now,” I said aloud. Somehow the thought made me feel better, no matter what happened, my part in all this would soon be over. The end was in sight.
Having a final stopping point ahead of me gave me a certain kind of strength. “I’m free to spend the next fifteen minutes or so any way I choose,” I said to reinforce the idea. Penny and the children flashed through my mind. My first choice would have been to see them one last time. “But that’s not an option. Some doors have already closed.”
I could feel Mal’goroth approaching now, flying in at a leisurely pace. He was taking his time. Probably savoring the moment—the asshole. A thought occurred to me then, and I reached for my pouches. They were gone. My armor was gone as well. The destruction of the stasis enchantment had burned away everything on my person.
I was naked.
“Son of a bitch,” I cursed, more because of the inconvenience than the possibility of embarrassment. Those pouches had held a plethora of handy tools, most notably my silver stylus and in this instance my staff.
One of the conveniences of power, when you have it in quantities that can be measured in Celiors, is that some extraordinarily wasteful uses of said power are no longer quite as important. I had enough power to simply manufacture things, creating them from pure aythar itself. However, I still didn’t want to waste the aythar.
A minor illusion provided a semblance of clothing. Doubtless Penny would complain about my choices, I thought with a chuckle. She regularly disagreed with my fashion sense, mostly because I didn’t really have one.
On a whim, I changed the doublet and hose I had chosen at first, to a plain homespun robe. I considered just a loincloth, but that seemed a bit silly.
Manipulating the wind, I rose a hundred feet to survey the earth below. Despite my effort the explosion had leveled the terrain for probably a quarter mile in every direction. I wondered how many livestock had lost their lives. Think of the sheep! I almost started giggling. I could feel the edges of my mind skittering away in the distance.
With a conscious effort I focused my attention. You only have a few minutes, don’t waste them losing your sanity, cautioned my imaginary friend.
I nodded in agreement. I would have replied mentally, but I worried he might get confused, since our thoughts sounded the same. Or maybe he isn’t as easily confused as I am?
Shaking my head, I opened my hands and imagined my fingers as rune channels. It was an enchantment I was intimately familiar with, so it didn’t take much effort. Looking down, I saw that they were now elongated, and each of my digits was ringed in perfectly arranged runes. That should work, I noted.
Then I began to draw.
I was still at least a hundred feet up, so the ground below was like a great sheet of blank parchment. Creating the shapes from my current vantage point was far simpler than I would have expected. I drew lines and circles, ringing them with symbols and geometric shapes. It was rather like finger painting.
That’s utterly mad, observed my more sensible counterpart.
“Only if you expect to survive. I’m just having fun,” I told him.
It will certainly piss him off, came a thought that had a smile attached.
***
Mal’goroth was much better looking than I remembered. He had forsaken his horns and extra limbs for a simple human shape. The only extravagance I could see was a lovely set of ivory wings. They had an almost iridescent shine in the morning sun.
He flew toward me with a knowing expression, his sense of smug satisfaction so strong that I felt it as a palpable force in the air.
“You look well,” I complimented.
“You also,” he responded, through a sparkling white smile. “Though I can’t say much for your taste in cl
othes. Is this a product of some previously unseen humility? I had not thought you so modest.”
His remark provoked a bit of introspection. “I think perhaps the robe is a reflection of my favorite self-image,” I answered.
“Novitiate priest?” he asked in jest.
“No. I’ve had a lot of roles and titles in life. I’ve been a peasant, a nobleman, and even king briefly,” I said.
“What about a god?” suggested Mal’goroth.
“I suppose, but I don’t think of myself that way,” I explained.
“What then?”
“I think my favorite role was father and husband, but I can’t claim those anymore. Archmage was the most interesting, but my transformation to my current condition robbed me of that. This would be the best of what I have left,” I replied enigmatically. I’m sure it annoyed him as much as it always had me. I had fought a lot of long-winded villains over the years. It was my turn now.
“Idiot?”
I sighed. He just had to ruin the moment. “Wizard,” I said in irritation. “I have only wits and magic left.”
“You have none of the former and too little of the latter,” said my exquisitely beautiful foe. He accompanied the insult with a probing burst of power.
It rebounded harmlessly from the shield enchantment carved into the ground around me.
“You waste your time with those scribbling’s,” he complained, sending a more powerful surge at my position.
This time his magic was in the form of a spellweave, which gave it far more potency. The air crackled around my shield as it burned into it, but my enchantment continued to hold.
“My scribbling’s too much for you?” I asked dryly.
His answering smile was almost feral, “I’m just warming up. We wouldn’t want this to end too quickly.” Another blast struck suddenly, without warning or any sign of buildup. It wasn’t a spellweave, but the sheer force of it shattered my shield instantly.
I laughed at him from a different vantage point, standing now in a different circle sixty yards to his right. A new shield surrounded me now. “There isn’t much risk of that happening, I think, unless you manage to get smarter in the next few minutes,” I taunted.
To his credit he didn’t lash out immediately. Instead he watched me with careful eyes, wondering at my ruse. The landscape was covered with arcane runes, lines, and circles. I was betting my opponent hadn’t a clue what any of them meant—or more importantly, which ones were pure gibberish.
“You realize these games won’t last forever,” he informed me.
“You said you didn’t want it to end too quickly,” I retorted.
“That’s right,” he agreed, “so I did.” As he spoke, I began noticing a strange red mist rising from the ground. Mist was too simple a description though; it was a complex weave of She’Har magic, breathtaking in its dual complexity and simplicity. It covered the ground in every direction for almost a mile, and while I couldn’t be sure of its purpose I had a few guesses.
He’s testing, trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t. The mist flowed smoothly, covering everything except some of my circles. Roughly half of them had shields around them which kept the mist out, while the others did not.
“It appears you didn’t have time to finish your work,” he commented.
In point of fact, I hadn’t finished, but it wasn’t the shields that were left undone. “Chel’strathek took longer than I might have wished,” I lied. I had actually gotten lucky. If his lieutenant hadn’t been such a fool, I would have still been fighting him when Mal’goroth arrived.
Another swift strike destroyed the shielded circle I had been talking to him from, but I wasn’t there any longer, and as the aythar destroyed my circle, some of the power was drawn away, caught in the lines that traced back and forth across the scenery. I wasted no time in claiming it.
“Teleportation circles or illusion?” wondered Mal’goroth openly.
“You’re getting warmer,” I teased.
I could imagine his mind working now. He had already discovered that many of the circles were merely for show, unshielded as they were. The others appeared empty, but all of those boasted a shield that blocked aythar, preventing him from actually sensing whether I was inside.
Since meeting Walter Prathion, I had learned a lot about invisibility and illusion. In particular what invisibility was not good for. “Invisibility is wonderful when no one suspects, but if they know you’re there already, it’s much less useful,” he had told me.
“What do you mean?” I had asked.
“If they suspect your presence, there are many ways to ruin invisibility. In those cases it is often better to give them something to see, rather than trying to hide completely.”
Watching him work, I had come to understand his lesson, and since I couldn’t create the type of invisibility that came instinctively to him, I focused on what I could do. In a situation like this, that was almost as good. Hiding from a god was tricky, especially if you possessed the immense aythar that I currently had. It was like trying to hide a blazing torch in a dark room, impossible. Unless you covered it with something else.
The shields disguise my location, and the illusion gives him something to focus on, I thought silently.
A line of flickering power, a spellweave this time, cut through the air like a whip, but my shield disappeared before it made contact. My body vanished and reappeared in a different circle.
The differences between spellweaving and enchanting were many, but superficial. The theory behind them was the same, only the execution differed, well that, and the symbology. During the course of my experiences with Thillmarius, the She’Har, and several of the Dark Gods, I had discovered a few things. While they believed in the superiority of their spellweaving ability, and they were very fast, they weren’t instantaneous.
Enchanting was the same, except that it took a lot longer to prepare. Once finished though, both types of magic had similar properties. The extra formality involved in their structure and creation isolated the magic along the fourth dimension, time, preventing them from dissipating or wasting aythar. Although I couldn’t prove it, I was pretty certain that everything that could be done with one, could, with some time and effort, be done with the other. They were like different languages.
Except they can produce theirs in seconds, while it can take me minutes or even hours sometimes to prepare mine, I thought ruefully. Preparation had its advantages, though. Since they could produce complex, permanent, and frankly, fantastic magical constructs almost on a whim, they rarely bothered building things in advance.
A human enchanter has to think about what he does. He plans and prepares.
I might not be an archmage anymore, or even human for that matter. But I was the best damn enchanter who had ever lived.
Or the most arrogant, suggested my inner self.
“Somebody told me that once,” I replied defensively.
Mal’goroth was watching me suspiciously. “Are you talking to yourself?” he asked suddenly.
I made a face, “Perhaps.”
“You were poorly made then. Your mind is starting to unravel, though I suppose that should be expected of anything of human origin,” he announced. Another spellwoven whip struck, and again my shield vanished a split second before it could make contact. I reappeared in another circle.
I smiled, “I’ve been called worse.” This time his reaction was a blinding strike of pure aythar, raw and unformed. It happened almost instantaneously and with enough brute force to make up for what it lacked in finesse. The shield around my apparent position never had a chance, nor did the illusion of me that stood within it. The extra aythar from his attack bled away through the lines I had scribed on the earth, moving in every direction.
I quietly absorbed the aythar from where I watched.
“I can see what you’re trying to do.” Mal’goroth turned in a slow circle, unsure which direction to face when speaking, since it was obvious that I
was unlikely to be where I appeared. “Stealing odd bits of power, do you think you’ll gain enough to balance the scale?”
I hadn’t thought I could hide it for long. Nor had I believed it was practical. Such a thing would have taken days at the rate things were going now. There weren’t enough circles to keep him busy for that long. My main purpose was to show him the truth. He might win, but it would only be because of brute force. In every other way I was his superior. That couldn’t sit well with him.
Just to get under his skin even further, I reactivated the shields at the places where he had tried to hit me with his spellwoven whip. Since I had turned them off before he struck, the enchantments were still functional. The places he had smashed with pure aythar were a lost cause however.
“There really isn’t a balance between us,” I told him. “No amount of power will ever compensate for all the things you lack.”
“I haven’t forgotten the places I attacked,” he assured me. “Shield or not, I won’t bother with them again.”
“Then you assume that it’s illusion I’m using?” I said suddenly, and this time I appeared in one of the unshielded circles near the center. He had been ignoring those since deciding they were decoys, but my appearance there now was a direct challenge.
Without a shield to hide my aythar, he knew without a doubt that I was truly there. I teleported away an instant after I appeared.
His reaction, expected as it was, was still so swift that it nearly caught me, although I had already prepared myself to teleport immediately after showing myself. A blazing column of raw power struck the place I had been standing, burning a deep hole in the ground. The attack was so great that half of it was absorbed by the earth itself, and only half was caught in my enchanted sieve—to be funneled into my greedy hands.
Damn, I thought, he isn’t playing around. The strike had used an incredible amount of aythar. If he keeps doing that, he’s a bigger fool than I thought.
Snarling, he sent more of his spellweavings to destroy the shields around empty circles, but I had enough warning to shut them off before they struck. I brought them back up the moment his spellweavings vanished.
Mageborn 05 The Final Redemption Page 38