The traveling incantation ended in an agonized scream.
Hot lava covered the entire ledge. More of the magma surged up below. The caldera boiled upward toward the jagged opening high overhead.
Mithris materialized in midair above Mount Wileth. He fell to the snow-covered summit, rolling over the ground. His burning robes hissed as the flames were extinguished. Snow melted from the heat. Mithris slammed up against a sharp rock, cracking his ribs.
The young wizard jerked his head up in time to see the lava spurt over the lip of the crater. Boiling over, it vaporized the snow and spread quickly in all directions. Mithris lay some twenty paces from the peak.
He pushed himself to his feet, wincing at the sharp pain from his broken ribs. The traveling spell had worked, but it had not taken him far enough. Focusing on a point at the foot of Mount Wileth, he gathered his concentration to try again.
Wards!
Mithris did not think. He reacted. Instead of the traveling spell, he threw up a series of wards. The first resolved just as an invisible fist struck at Mithris. The magic attack crashed against the ward, nearly collapsing it.
Eaganar stepped out from a deep cleft in the side of the mountain, his expression murderous.
“So, you survived the Chaos Lord,” said the evil wizard. “Most impressive, apprentice.”
Eaganar raised his skull-headed staff. Three foundation crystals glittered and flashed in his other hand where they were squeezed tightly together. The empty eye sockets of the skull glowed with infernal light as Eaganar began a new incantation.
Mithris quickly threw up the rest of his wards. Eaganar completed his spell. The dark sky above rumbled in concert with the erupting volcano. Tongues of lightning shot down, driving themselves at Mithris. Again and again the lightning struck his wards.
Eaganar advanced, already casting a new attack.
We cannot resist him, Mithris. While he possesses us, he may use us.
The lava flow had nearly reached them now. Lightning continued battering the wards, joined now by howling winds that pushed Mithris back. He dug his feet into the snow, resisting.
Eaganar glanced back at the lava. He spat out a series of twisted words, and a powerful ward sprang up around him. The lava reached the edge of the ward and parted, flowing around it. Eaganar was already intoning his next attack.
Mithris stood within the protective bubble of his wards. The flurry of lightning strikes battered against his shields. The rushing wind whipped his robes and pushed at him, threatening to throw him clean off the side of the mountain.
The lava flowed completely around Eaganar’s ward, encircling the dark wizard. It was a bit higher than ankle-deep. Mithris knew his own wards could not withstand the molten rock.
He rushed through a cantrip and felt himself lifting off the ground. The winds buffeted him, seeming stronger than before. Without his feet firmly on the mountain’s slope, it became much harder for Mithris to resist their pull. But his feet had risen high enough that he could ignore the lava, for now.
Eaganar’s latest attack resolved itself. Enormous chunks of the mountain ripped themselves free and spun into the air. These boulders hurled themselves at Mithris, smashing into his wards. Most of the rocks were pulverized, sending a spray of rocky debris that splashed into the lava and melted.
Steam rose in a billowing cloud from the vaporized snow. It formed a thick fog that blended with the thick smoke belching from Mount Wileth’s mouth. Mithris could barely see Eaganar through the smog.
But now, the steam seemed to pull in on itself. All around Mithris, the thick vapor condensed into monstrous shapes with bulbous bodies and a thousand tentacles of boiling hot steam. These tentacles lashed out at his wards.
Eaganar had used each of the crystals in his attacks. Vapor, to control the wind and lightning from the sky; Terra, to control the rocks which continued to batter at Mithris; and Depths, to control the steaming water vapor that filled the air.
Each of the attacks continued inexorably. For each boulder that smashed to pieces against his wards, Mithris saw three more tearing themselves free of the mountain. The smoky demons of steam wrapped his shields in their tentacles, squeezing and straining to find a way through to scald his skin. The wind roared in his ears, and lightning strikes dazzled his eyes and rocked his wards. Mithris felt the outermost ward giving way, ready to collapse.
Shouting over the deafening wind and thunder, Eaganar spread his arms and rose from the ground. He glowered darkly at his youthful opponent as he crafted yet another attack.
Mithris cast every cantrip he knew, trying to beat back the continuous assault. His outermost ward was gone, and the next one already trembled uncertainly. Eaganar was enormously powerful, and three foundation crystals were his to command.
Mithris knew he was beaten.
Chapter 44
Doom
Floating a pace above the raging torrent of lava that spilled down the mountain-side, Eaganar glared malevolently at Mithris and began a new incantation.
Mithris hung similarly suspended in mid-air, fighting the howling winds that fought to throw him out into empty space. He briefly considered surrendering to that violent gale, allowing himself to be blown away on the wind. He could cast a traveling spell, get away.
But Eaganar had the foundation crystals.
After everything he had gone through collecting those stones, Mithris was not about to let the dark wizard simply take them. Besides, he knew Vapor and the others did not wish to go with Eaganar. He could not leave them to that fate.
Yet, what could he do? Eaganar’s canticle rose in pitch and volume, the wizard shouting his twisted words over the shrieking storm. A titanic surge of magical power responded to his summons, forming up in the turbulent air between the two wizards.
The foundation crystals burned bright in Eaganar’s grip, their various colors blending together in a brilliant halo about the wizard’s hand. With his other arm, he extended and leveled his skull-head staff at Mithris as he bellowed the final words of power to complete his spell.
Mithris had been throwing dueling cantrips at Eaganar throughout, desperately trying anything to distract the dark wizard. If he could only break Eaganar’s concentration…It was to no avail, and now the energy Eaganar had gathered began to resolve.
Mithris cast his eyes about in a panic. Lightning flashed, nearly blinding him. Boulders smashed against his wards, sending sparks and chunks of debris scattering into the wind-blown smog. Thunder boomed high overhead. Lava spilled beneath his feet, radiating heat and an smoldering orange light.
There! Mithris jerked his eyes back, not sure of what he had just seen. There it was again. A relatively tiny jet of flame broke the surface like a whale breaching at sea. It curved shallowly over the magma flow before diving back down beneath the surface. Almost immediately, an identical spurt burst upward behind the first.
Ember!
Mithris did not look up to see what monstrous attack Eaganar had summoned. He did not stop to think, or to pray. Throwing out his hand, stretching his arm to its utmost, he hurriedly shouted the final lines of the spell he had so recently crafted, the one he had used once before for this same purpose.
Like an invisible lasso, magic flew out from the young wizard’s splayed fingers. The spatulate end of his summoned lariat sank into the rushing lava and closed like a massive fist round the foundation crystal which bobbed along beneath the surface.
Mithris yanked back on that invisible cord. He need not worry about disturbing Mount Wileth, not any longer. Hot rock and explosions of long-trapped gases spewed from the mountain’s broken summit, and the lava Mithris and Eaganar hovered over ran knee-deep at least by now. From that deepening tide of fire, Mithris drew forth Ember.
Dripping hot liquid that cooled into solid rock as it fell, only to be consumed on the instant it splashed into the spreading tide, Ember shot through the air, slipped through the layers of his wards, and slapped itself neatly into Mithris’ hand.
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The young wizard looked up in time to see Eaganar’s spell resolving. Mithris gasped at the complexity of it. Eaganar must have crafted his incantation on the fly. He had made full use of the power of Vapor, Depths, and Terra. Mithris had only seconds to act.
Thrusting himself forward in the air, Mithris dove for the thick trunks of magic that wound themselves together to form the spell. Holding Ember in one hand, drawing on the foundation crystal’s affinity for fire and destruction, Mithris reached out with his other arm for the resolving magic.
He tackled the flow of power, wrapping himself around it. He shouted two words. Ember flashed and burned in his hand.
Eaganar’s spell snapped on the point of resolving. The well of power he had drawn exploded like a river of oil set aflame. The enormous fireball burned brighter than the sun, burning away the steam of melted snow and blasting back the thick smoke of eruption.
The shockwave slapped Mithris backward, sending him spinning wildly through the air. He plummeted toward the ground far, far below. But he had cast his summoning spell again in the instant Eaganar’s spell went supernova.
Three opalescent stones hurtled through the air, pulled on invisible strings of magic, following the battered wizard as he fell.
Mithris managed to get himself turned around in the air. Wind whipped at his robes and his tousled hair, roaring in his ears. His heart pounded in his chest. He fell.
Vapor, Depths, and Terra sped after him.
Thrusting Ember in his pocket, Mithris reach out and up with both arms. The crystals fell into his hands. He nearly dropped Terra, but caught the stone. Shoving all three in his pocket, Mithris shouted his traveling spell.
And, a split second before he would have hit the frozen ground and splattered, Mithris winked out of existence.
He reappeared hundreds of leagues away, still falling. Splashing down into a freezing lake, he plunged to the depths.
With burning lungs, Mithris struck out for the surface. He clawed at the water, a drowning man. Just as he was sure his lungs would burst, the young wizard’s head exploded through the surface. He spluttered and heaved for breath, bobbing on the waves of his violent splash-down.
He was alive. He had escaped. He had the foundation crystals.
“Yeah! I did it! I’m alive!” crowed Mithris, raising his arm over the water and pumping a triumphant fist in the air. Despite the pain of his recent battle, Mithris couldn’t help but smile.
He had done it!
Chapter 45
Exhaustion
Sodden and dripping, a weary magician made his way through the arched gate of the small city. It had taken him three hours to get here from the lake.
Avington. He was back in Avington.
“This is why you said I shouldn’t just Travel to a warm inn as far from Mount Wileth as I could find?” Mithris muttered beneath his breath.
You exhausted yourself at the volcano, Mithris, said Vapor. I just didn’t want you to risk burning yourself out. Remember how helpless you felt when Tzrak managed to block you from the magic completely?
Mithris shook his head. He was worn, and the exhaustion was far from merely physical. Though he felt he could drop on the spot and sleep for a year, there was a much greater weariness in him. He had taxed his magical ability to the utmost limits in the duels with Tzrak and Eaganar.
Even so, he suspected Vapor had known precisely where they had landed. The crystal had known which direction he should walk; it must also have known what city Mithris would find in his path. Avington. He certainly never expected to walk these dusty streets again, not after what had happened the last time he was in Avington.
Ileera is dead, Vapor reminded him.
“That’s right.” Mithris squared his shoulders, nodding to the city watchman who stood beside the gate eyeing him strangely. The guard decided not to challenge him, and Mithris passed into the city where he had fought Mistress Ileera. A smile, tired but proud, spread over his lips.
What? What are you smiling about?
“Ileera is dead,” said Mithris, not caring if any passers-by saw him apparently talking to himself. Let them think whatever they wanted. He could take care of himself. “And now, so is Eaganar.”
Oh. I wouldn’t be too sure about that.
“Come on,” argued Mithris. “The way he was knocked back by the explosion, he surely fell into the volcano. He’s dead, Vapor.”
You cast a traveling spell, and survived a surely fatal fall from the mountaintop.
Mithris drew up short. An old woman, stooped under the weight of a large, woven basket laden with apples, bumped into him from behind. Swearing, the old woman moved to pass him with a steely-eyed glare.
Mithris didn’t even see her. Vapor was right. Eaganar was centuries old and veteran of many duels. He would have escaped.
He’ll come after us again, warned Vapor.
“We’ll just have to worry about that when it comes,” said Mithris. Then, he yawned. Shaking himself after the yawn, he added, “For now, a hot meal and a bed. Come on.”
Adjusting his sodden robes on his shoulders, Mithris strode deeper into the city of Avington.
Singed and humiliated, the wizard Eaganar strode into his stolen tower in a fury. He flew up the stairs to the very summit. Slamming open the door, he stormed into the pinnacle chamber.
In this room had he slain Deinre.
This room had seen Eaganar’s greatest victory. In over fifteen centuries of wizardry, Eaganar had killed many a rival. He had stolen towers before. He had taken the work of his fallen enemies and used it to make himself great. He was the most powerful wizard in the entire world.
So how could Deinre’s whelp of an apprentice have bested him? It was inconceivable! Yet, it had happened.
Eaganar fumed, pacing back and forth and grinding his teeth in frustrated rage.
The boy could shape energy directly. Deinre had worked at that for centuries. It was why Eaganar had come for the old fool. But Deinre had never succeeded, not fully, not so far as Eaganar knew. Apparently, he had come further than Eaganar suspected. The boy had done it.
Oh, it was roughly done and surely lacked finesse. But there was no denying what Mithris had done.
“Perhaps an apprentice no longer,” mused Eaganar, stopping his restless pacing. He frowned, deliberating a moment. Then he ran to his scrying bowl.
The boy should be considered a wizard in his own right. Eaganar knew now that he had been overconfident. He’d thought he was dealing with an untrained fool of a boy. But this whelp could shape energy with his touch. Eaganar would have to be more careful.
He had beaten wizards before. Scores of them. He would simply have to modify his strategy. So Mithris had four foundation crystals. No doubt he would seek the final two.
Smiling darkly to himself, Eaganar searched the world through his scrying bowl, hunting out signs of the voidstone.
“We’ll meet again soon, Mithris,” the dark wizard hissed. “And this time, I will destroy you!”
Chapter 46
Home
Atop a rocky promontory overlooking a wave-crashed shore on one side and a deep forest on the other stood a slender spire of seamless white stone. The wizard’s tower was taller than the tallest trees in the forest and more majestic in its simplistic lines than the most opulent of palaces in distant cities.
The tower gleamed in the light of twin moons full. It was built atop a convergence of ley lines which, to the right kind of eyes, emitted fluttering shimmers of raw magic that lit the tower from beneath as if with light reflected from water.
The youth who crouched amid the scraggly bushes some fifty paces from the low, outer wall which surrounded the tower could see that flickering illumination. He had the right kind of eyes. He was a wizard.
Mithris hid in the darkness and shadows, garbed in dark gray robes and an enveloping cloak of rough-spun black wool. He had cast a series of portable wards around himself which blurred his image, making him difficult to see. An
other simple cantrip disguised his use of magic so no other wizard would spot him by the aura of his spells. Mithris was well-hidden.
His precautions were wise. Within the outer wall which circled the slender tower, a large pack of omnitors prowled the grounds. Beastly denizens of the second foundation who resembled an unholy mixture of ape and hyena, the omnitors were loping shadows whose feral eyes gleamed from the light only magicians could see.
Mithris was ready for the omnitors. He had a series of cantrips ready to cast as soon as he topped the wall. By the time he landed in the grass on the other side, the omnitors would be dead. Mithris wasn’t worried about the omnitors.
He was worried about what else Eaganar might have left behind to guard his tower. There were creatures more fearsome by far than omnitors.
Mithris shook his head in the darkness. Whatever defenses his nemesis had left in place, the youthful wizard would discover in time. Squatting here in the brushy foliage gained him nothing. Readying himself, he broke cover and ran for the wall. Nearing it, he whispered his first cantrip.
The spell resolved, catapulting Mithris up into the air. He landed deftly atop the stone wall, balancing on his heels and uttering his second cantrip.
Throughout the grounds, wherever an omnitor trod, small holes opened up in the soil. These were no sinkholes, but yawning portals into the second foundation. In unison, fifty omnitors were ripped, mewling and screaming, from this world and thrown back into the twisted realm from which they came. The portals all closed just as Mithris landed in the grass at the base of the wall. He crouched down and waited, listening for any reaction to the omnitors’ desperate howls.
A gated doorway at the tower base opened, and three devinists floated out. The wraith-like demons hovered over the ground, waving their truncated arms menacingly. Those arms ended in narrow little nubs without hands. They were far more intelligent than low creatures like the omnitors, and infinitely more dangerous.
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