by CT Knight
As I reached the apex of my rise, I felt a sudden weight shift in my jacket. Most might not take the time to investigate but with things looking hopeless, I figured what could it hurt? I stuck my hand in my pocket and snickered at what was there.
“On me this whole time.” I pulled out the Locator-Warp Lens and looked through it. I never took the time to study how the arcane object worked. It, somehow, identified the subject and where it came from, showing me the portal of origin. I could see the swirl of red and purple clouds moving around as I placed the lens over the monster below. All it would take was one word.
“Nepo,” I said.
In the street, beneath the Chaos Bringer, a new rip in the fabric of our world opened. The red and purple clouds of what I guessed was the chaos dimension, swirled around like paint in water.
The Bringer looked down then back up at me. Even from that high up, I could tell it knew what was next. “Pendragon!” it yelled. The name barely registered. While I still had enough of me left, I drew all of the balance magic into my right fist. The weight of it pulled me down faster and I reared my fist back while the Chaos Bringer reached up toward me.
“Kaosuburōnā!” It English nor was it my voice that came from me.
The weight of the magic pulled me down faster than the monster could catch me. I fell down the length of its arm, heading right for its monstrous head. It was the hardest I’d ever hit anything. My fist slammed into the Deity of Destruction, forcing its knees to buckle and its feet to slip into the swirling tear in the fabric of reality. Its defiant roar shattered glass and set off more car alarms.
My eyes were starting to see differently and not in that chaotic way from before.
The Bringer’s head slipped through the portal rip, followed by its hands.
“Esolc!” I said in broken English. My mind was tearing as I was losing myself to the warlord. Even as the portal was closing and the Chaos Bringer
disappeared from sight, while I fell, the warlord was taking over.
At least the danger of the Bringer was out of the way. The world was safe from chaos. But it was definitely not ready for the warlord. I may have been looking through the eyes of Kagawa the warlord but I still knew what the ground rushing up to meet us looked like. And I didn’t care how strong you were. If you were human, a fall like that was not something you walked away from. Maybe this was the answer to getting rid of the warlord once and for all. Two birds one stone. I guess this one really was pro bono. Nice to have met you Princess. Sorry, John. No payment for you.
CHAPTER 26
“Why do you stay here?” Professor Xin asked.
“Because I want to learn more,” I told him.
“There is no more you can learn. As long as that spirit remains within you, you cannot even use magic. What is the point of learning more?”
“One day, I won’t have this spirit in me. Then I can use magic again. So I want to know all that I can for that day.”
“And how will you get rid of it?”
I didn’t have an answer to the question. At that point, all I could do was study the spells and incarnations. That might have made me a master scholar eventually. Sure, it would have been nice to say that I knew all the spells in the world but I couldn’t actually use any of them. So even if I knew the spell to excise the warlord, I couldn’t use it without being taken over. “Couldn’t you teach me?”
“I have already tried to excise it, twice. To no success. You believe you can do better?”
“Please, Professor Xin. Let me stay. I won’t be able to learn how to get rid of the spirit unless I stay here.” Tears were falling from my eyes.
Xin leaned down in front of me. “You are afraid?”
The answer to that question shamed me. I wasn’t usually one to admit fear. Facing it was always better than giving into it. That wasn’t just a lesson I’d learned from Xin. It was one I’d learned just growing up in Brooklyn. But in this case…I nodded.
“Wise answer,” Xin said. I expected the cane or a harsh word. “Only the foolish are never afraid. Facing fear can lead to clarity. We must not cower from it or we will only see that of which we are afraid. Do you know what it is of which you are afraid, Arthur Pendragon?”
“The warlord?”
“Are you certain?”
I gave it another moment of thought. Of course, the warlord was scary. But I wasn’t the one who had to look at him. I had only looked at him through the eyes of others. He wasn’t who I was afraid of.
“Losing myself,” I said.
“Another wise answer. Now, go to the well and bring back four buckets of water.”
“Then you’ll keep teaching me?”
“Then I will let you stay here. Tomorrow is a new day and who knows what it will bring?”
“If it’s more water, then—”
The cane struck me right on the top of the head.
As I fell toward the New York City street, I could hear the warlord protesting as that memory helped me to push back. There was no one else to look to except myself. I released the last of the balance magic in my hand, dousing the black and white glow. The warlord was always strongest just at the surface but there was just enough of me left to save both of us from a heart to heart with the New York City street.
I made a series of gestures across the sleeves of my jacket, as though I were unlocking a complicated lock system. It wasn’t working. And the ground was coming up fast.
“Stupid…” I hit my own shoulder and the back of the jacket unraveled and expanded into a parachute.
I was still coming in too fast. I lifted my legs to avoid any ankle breaks and to keep the chute open for as long as possible. Once my shoes hit the street, the chute detached and faded away. I stumbled forward, moving my legs as fast as I could which was still too slow to keep them under me.
The first impact was absorbed by my jacket. Too bad I hadn’t infused the same thing in the legs of my pants. I rolled over and over along the concrete, ripping up my khakis and banging my knees pretty good. It was a worse thrashing than John had given me earlier and far worse than any of the fights with the Acolytes. They say the street always wins. I was living proof of that.
I finally rolled to a stop, face down in a puddle of water. The warlord seemed particularly affected by the tumble. My guess was he wasn’t used to falls like that. And certainly not used to combat with asphalt. His voice in my head had gone silent.
I pushed off the ground and looked down at the puddle. I didn’t recognize the man staring back. It was the first time I’d seen the warlord up close. He stared back and snarled. His mouth was moving but all I could hear was the buzzing in my head getting quieter. I took several deep breaths. With each one, his visage faded until I could only see myself again.
I was actually relieved to see just how tired I looked. It may have not been pretty but at least it was all me.
“Arthur!” a woman’s voice called out.
I glanced around to see people who looked just as dazed as I felt. Those who were still breathing anyway. The hospitals and the morgue were going to be busy that night. It was a sad way to save the world.
“Arthur!” she called again. I looked back toward the building I’d just fallen from to see Sasha running toward me. As she got closer, I could feel the pull of her allure. Even surrounded by the after effects of chaos, those shifter traits of hers still had a way about them.
Sasha slowed down in front of me as I rolled onto my back, letting the last of the rain drizzle on me. I was already soaked to the bone so I figured a little more water didn’t matter.
“Is it over?” she asked.
I sat up. “I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
“I’m sorry.” She grabbed my hands and pulled me up. “This is all just so—”
“Chaotic?” I asked with a boyish grin.
She slapped my shoulder. I winced at the pain deep inside my muscles. Jacket or no, there was going to be major bruising in the morning. But her reaction was r
ight, it was too soon for that sort of joking.
“I woke up on the roof and there was no one there. I thought maybe you had fallen off.”
“Well…” I tried to think of some clever response but unlike most things in the arcane world, the simplest explanation was often the best. “That’s exactly what happened,” I said, touching the back of my head. There would be a bruise there later from all the impacts with walls I’d taken.
“It feels like I’ve been up for days. I can’t believe all of that happened in one night,” she said.
“Me, neither,” I told her. It was true, too. These cases usually took three days to solve. Even the familiar from earlier was a two-day deal. “I guess that’s what happens when you pull bodyguard duty.”
We both looked back at the dead Acolytes on the plaza of One World Trade Center.
“What about them?” she asked.
“Prime is still out there. This isn’t quite over.”
“So they’ll come for me, again.” Her voice grew distant.
“Maybe not,” I told her. “We thought the Verhaven’s were gone. For all we know there’s another royal out there. But who can say? We live in a crazy world. But you are safe and the Chaos Bringer has been sent back to wherever it came from.”
“For now,” she muttered.
“Now is all we have. Let’s just call this one a win.”
The look in her eyes was uneasy. I didn’t blame her. What she needed was a distraction. Actually, it was more like what I needed was a paycheck.
“So, Princess Verhaven. Will that be cash or check?” I asked.
She looked back at the skyscraper, obviously pondering the recent events. It took a few moments but she finally turned to me with a sly smile. “Mr. Pendragon, how would you like to be placed on retainer? I would even be willing to work for you if it means staying under your watch.”
“But you’re a princess,” I said, having a hard time believing what she was asking.
“Of a kingdom that no longer exists.”
“You’ve seen my office, right?”
“We fixed this mess. I think we can fix that one, too.” There went that devastating smile, again.
I probably took longer to think it over than most would have. I admit, some of that was due to a little embellishment. She drove a hard bargain but it was a good deal. And my office and image could do to have an exotic boost. Maybe I could even charge more on future cases.
I glanced up at the skyscraper I’d just fallen off of. If we did this, she was going to find out about the warlord sooner than later. But after the night we’d just experienced, it was clear she could handle the news of another world-ending entity. Besides, didn’t the old movie gumshoe detectives always have a pretty assistant?
“OK, Princess,” I said. “You got a deal. Welcome to the Pendragon Agency.”