Bond of Magic

by Trip Ellington

  The wizard Mithris reacted without hesitation. Recalling a suitable spell, he flung up one hand and uttered the words. He drew strength from the leys beneath the earth, and forced it to mold itself to his design.

  Unholy fire sprang up from the devinist’s shadowy forms, instantly engulfing them in roaring flames. A strong wind blew up without warning, fanning the flames as the devinists howled and beat at themselves with their nub-ended arms. In moments, the creatures had been reduced to ashes that blew away on the now-dying wind.

  Mithris never broke stride. He walked across the courtyard without hurrying and passed through the gate from which the trio of devinists had emerged. He was in the tower. He was home.

  Mithris paused inside the threshold, closing his eyes and taking a long breath. He had not seen these halls for nearly two years, ever since the wizard Eaganar murdered his master Deinre and invaded the spire. Eaganar had hounded Mithris ever since.

  But Mithris had grown strong and learned much through his ordeal. He carried four of the most powerful artifacts in all creation. The foundation crystals were sewn to his ash-colored robe, decorating his chest and sleeves. He had studied his master’s experiments and spells. He had defeated every foe, man or beast or summoned demon, and bested Eaganar himself in a duel.

  Mithris would be hounded no longer.

  Can we please get this over with and get out of here?

  Vapor, as usual, shattered the moment. Mithris bit down on an irate reply, shaking his head ruefully. The airstone was the only one of the four crystals that could make its voice heard in his head like that. Vapor loved, ironically, taking the wind from the wizard’s sails.

  “Eaganar won’t be back tonight,” Mithris assured the foundation crystal. “He’s ten thousand leagues away, and busy.”

  We were a thousand leagues distant not an hour gone, argued Vapor. Wizards tend to flit back and forth so quickly, don’t they?

  “He’s busy,” Mithris repeated. He was confident the dark wizard would not return soon. With his eyes still closed, Mithris extended his awareness to the stone spire. Wizard’s towers were often… responsive to their owners, and Deinre had dwelt here for centuries. Surely in a mere two years, Eaganar could not have completely broken the tower to his will.

  We didn’t come for the tower, Vapor reminded him. We came for Tempus.

  Tempus. The timestone. Eaganar had found it first, beating Mithris to the Forsaken Tower of Krahn the Undying. Well, Mithris thought, Eaganar was welcome to that contest. Let someone else face Krahn the Undying. Mithris was perfectly content to slip into his tower while he was away and pilfer the timestone.

  “It seems too easy, though,” he mused aloud. Deinre had bequeathed Vapor to him as his last act, but Mithris had needed to go searching for the others. He’d dueled an evil wizardess for Depths, the waterstone. He had faced an ancient, paranoid wizard who summoned an earth elemental in the battle for Terra, the earthstone. And he had descended into an erupting volcano to retrieve Ember, the firestone, facing a Chaos Lord and Eaganar himself before he escaped.

  Somehow, sneaking into an empty tower and just stealing Tempus didn’t seem like an appropriate challenge.

  I liked you better when you were a whining coward, said Vapor.

  Mithris sighed. Much as he wanted to exert his influence on the tower and see if he could win it back from Eaganar before the other returned, he knew the airstone was right. He should find Tempus and get out of here. He would have to face Eaganar eventually, and once he’d avenged his master’s death the tower would quickly bond itself to him.

  Mithris cut himself short. Had he really just made plans to move into a tower? Maybe it was the nostalgia of being in a familiar place, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized even this tower couldn’t be his home. Eventually another wizard would try to take it from him.

  Turning, Mithris headed for the stairs. He knew the way. He would ascend to the pinnacle chamber.

  Chapter 47

  Tempus

  Encountering no further resistance on his way up, Mithris reached the uppermost floor of the tower and entered the large, circular room which took up the entire summit. A bay window curved around the outer wall, offering a view out over the darkened forest. Shelves lined the rest of the wall, stocked with arcane ingredients in jars and lidded pots. A large cauldron hung over a fireplace set directly opposite the window. Free-standing braziers sat cold around the room.

  A mist-wraith waited, floating in the air before the massive, stone scrying basin. Its ghostly eyes burned crimson in the midst of its shapeless, ever-changing smoky form. The mist-wraith struck immediately, shooting across the room to attack Mithris.

  The wizard reached up and clutched Depths and Vapor, barking an incantation he had memorized for just such an occasion. Born of the third foundation it might be, but on this plane the mist-wraith’s body was water vapor. Animate, extremely powerful water vapor that could leech the life-force from his body with a single touch; but water vapor all the same. Mithris controlled the water, and Mithris controlled the air.

  The mist-wraith shrieked as its every particle was torn asunder. Its body burst in million pieces, each fragment shattering further. Its spirit, deprived of its anchor on this plane, was cast back into the under-realm from which it came.

  Mithris smiled, pleased with himself. Remembering his purpose, he began methodically searching the room. He found Tempus quickly. The timestone rested in a small, velvet-lined chest atop a narrow wooden table. Open spellbooks lay to either side of the chest, and Mithris glanced over them. Ancient studies of the foundation crystals. Mithris shook his head in amusement.

  Some of those ancient scholars knew what they were talking about, Vapor reminded him.

  “Some of them did,” admitted Mithris, who had spent months tracking down every scrap of information about the foundation crystals he could get his hands on. His studies had convinced him of one thing for certain. “But even those who possessed a single crystal to experiment with embellished their research with made-up hogwash. If Eaganar thinks he’ll find reliable answers in books, he’s mistaken.”

  Dismissing the tomes, Mithris reached out and lifted Tempus from its velvet cradle. The timestone was perfectly spherical, smooth and cool to the touch. It was one moment completely dark, an impenetrable midnight hue; the next moment it shone brightly with colorless light and Mithris could see through the now-translucent stone a slightly distorted image of what lay behind it. Light and dark followed each other in a regular pattern.

  “Hello,” Mithris said to the timestone.

  He could hardly believe Eaganar had left it behind. Still holding Tempus in his hand, Mithris spun around. He eyed the shadowy room suspiciously. The timestone flared brightly in his grip, its progression of light and dark speeding up. Soon Tempus was flashing like a strobe, brighter and brighter.

  Mithris squinted his eyes against the blinding flashes. The youthful wizard hunched his shoulders down in an unconscious posture of wariness. Eaganar had set a trap. Like a fool, Mithris had sprung it.

  The shadows moved. Mithris opened his mouth, ready to deliver a cantrip. He hesitated. There was nothing in the room with him. And the shadows were retreating. What was going on?

  Light spilled in through the window. Mithris whirled around, expecting attack. But it was only the rising sun. Mithris stared, uncomprehending. That window faced west.

  The swollen red sun leaped over the far horizon, shooting up and across the sky. Mithris threw up a hand to shade his eyes, but the glare lasted only a moment. Light faded in the window and the shadows advanced again. Now it was dark. But then, the entire process repeated. The sun rose in the west, arced across the sky in a heartbeat, and sank in the east.

  “Oh, no…” Mithris muttered. He thought he knew what was happening.

  Tempus wants you to know how very sorry it is, Vapor told him.

  Eaganar opened the door and walked backward into the room. Mithris sprang away from the table
, ready to defend himself. But the evil wizard did not seem to notice him as he walked backward to the table. Mithris looked and saw Tempus lying in its velvet-lined box. He stared at the timestone in his hand as Eaganar lifted the stone and whispered an enchantment before returning it. Then the dark wizard left again.

  The reverse flow of time sped even faster. Eaganar came and went many times, often moving so fast Mithris saw only a blur of dark robes and occasional flashes of magic. The sun rose and set in reverse, up and down again in the space of a heartbeat.

  Beyond the window, the sun was a streak of light across the flickering sky. Days retreated, weeks slipped away, months trickled back. Eaganar was a near constant presence in the room, but he never noticed Mithris standing in the center of the room holding the foundation crystal tightly in one hand. And then Eaganar was gone, and the flow of time slowed. Tempus itself slowed, its strobing easing back to its original slow pulse.

  Time resumed its normal flow, moving forward once more.

  The tower shook violently, as though rocked by an earthquake. Masonry dust spilled from the cracks between stones, filling the air.

  “Mithris! I told you to flee!”

  Shivers ran up and down the young wizard’s spine. He turned around slowly. He knew what he would see, but even so his mouth fell open in shock.

  “Deinre!” he cried.

  His old master stood there, a trickle of blood running down one side of his face, his robes coated in dust. He held a stout birchwood casting wand in one hand, an open spellbook balanced in the other. As the tower shook under the assault, Master Deinre eyed his apprentice sternly.

  “Master Deinre,” he said, ignoring another explosion from below. “I am still your master, boy, and I told you to run!”

  Chapter 48

  Deinre

  Mithris ran to the window and hurled a series of fireballs with a little help from Ember. The floor rattled beneath his feet and the tower groaned. He could see the grounds below swarming with denizens of the lower foundations, summoned forth by Eaganar to assault Deinre’s stronghold. Sneering, Mithris rained fire down on the creatures.

  “Mithris, boy!” Deinre hurried up beside him, pulling Mithris back from the large window. The old wizard peered into his apprentice’s face, then took in the robes — and the four crystals adorning them. His eyes widened in shock.

  Grinning sheepishly, Mithris held up Tempus. “I came from the future,” he said.

  Deinre surprised Mithris by grabbing him up in an embrace. The five-hundred-year-old wizard shook with emotion. Mithris found himself more than a little shaken as well by the time Deinre released him and stood back to look him over again.

  A large, bat-like creature alighted at the window, folding its leathery wings and shrieking challenge. Deinre and Mithris reacted at once. Deinre cast a fireball; Mithris summoned a blast of air to knock the creature back and a lightning bolt to destroy it once it was away from the window. Deinre’s fireball incinerated the corpse.

  Deinre looked at Mithris again with pride in his eyes.

  “Five foundation crystals,” he marveled, shaking his head. “Simply amazing. But why have you come back?”

  You can’t, warned Vapor. Mithris, you cannot save him.

  “Why not?” the youth demanded.

  Deinre arched one eyebrow, and then the old man paled and his jaw dropped open. “They speak to you?”

  “Only the first one,” said Mithris, frowning. “The one you gave me.”

  “Vapor.”

  “That’s right.” Mithris shook his head. “It says I can’t save you.”

  A pained expression fell over Deinre’s face. The old wizard nodded sadly. “So I’m to fall this day. I can’t say it surprises me, though it burns my heart to know that dog Eaganar will take my tower.”

  Mithris set his jaw stubbornly. Turning back to the window, he gripped Vapor and Depths one in each hand and spoke a brief incantation. The sky beyond the window darkened. A howling wind sprang up. The clouds split open, releasing a torrential downpour. Jagged lightning bolts stabbed again and again at the creatures below. Mithris turned back to his master, again shaking his head.

  “I don’t care what Vapor says,” he told Deinre. “Eaganar can’t stand against the pair of us, and I won’t leave you to face him alone. Not again.”

  “Mithris, lad…” Deinre shook his head sadly. “Playing around with time itself is a dangerous business. Think what must happen if you interfere with the past. If you change this day, then all the days which follow are altered as well. You stand before me wielding five foundation crystals. But if I do not die today, as seems to be the case, you would hold none.”

  Mithris considered that. He was not sure Deinre was right, but he could see the sense of what the old wizard said. But Mithris — the younger, terrified version of him — had already fled the tower. By now, he would be running blindly along that rocky shore.

  But if Mithris — the wizard — stood with Deinre and defeated Eaganar now, then the dark wizard would never have gone after Mithris. He would not have hounded the lad across thousands of leagues, sending demons and mercenaries after him.

  The youthful wizard hesitated. He began to realize how…mutable were the events which had led him here.

  “This is his trap, then,” he said aloud. He had thought Eaganar meant to send him back to the midst of this battle to die. But that would have been foolish indeed, and Eaganar was anything but an idiot. No, the trap was far more subtle than that. Even so…

  “I know where the crystals are,” he said, sending another fire-spell out the window with an off-hand cast. Deinre’s face set in stubborn lines, but the former apprentice persisted. “Listen to me, Deinre. I can tell you now where they are. When the battle is over, we’ll go collect my younger self. Or…you will. I suppose if Eaganar dies now, he can’t set a trap for me two years later can he? So I won’t be here…”

  Deinre shook his head again. “We cannot know how events will fall out if you make such a change, Mithris. I’m sorry. You must leave me to my fate.”

  So saying, the white-bearded old man lifted his arms and began an incantation which sounded familiar to Mithris. The younger wizard recognized the beginnings of a traveling spell. Yet this spell was more complex than any Mithris had seen before. He felt a magical pulling against the timestone in his hand, and realized what Deinre must intend.

  “No,” he cried, and seized the thread of power Deinre was feeding through Tempus. The old man’s eyes widened in shock as Mithris hijacked his spell and twisted the energy to his own ends. Seizing control from his former master, Mithris pivoted in place and hurled the ruined spell out the window. A deafening crack of thunder sounded as the summoned energy dissipated into the storm without.

  Master Deinre’s eyes narrowed. “I see you’ve studied my experiments,” he said, a touch of pride in his voice. “That is well, Mithris. I should hate to think my life’s work abandoned. But hear me, lad: you…must…go!”

  Deinre hurled another spell at Mithris so quickly the former apprentice could barely react in time. Mithris seized at the power before it could resolve, again twisting it. But Deinre extended his hands, clutching at the empty air between them, and wrenched back control. Mithris staggered back, stunned. He had thought Deinre never succeeded at this!

  “Oh yes,” said Deinre, seeing the younger man’s surprise. And then he wove his hands about in a complex gesture, intoning three solemn words as he did. Mithris felt the magic energy torn from his grasp, and a portal resolved.

  “Go, my apprentice,” said Deinre. “Heed the advice of the foundation crystals. Seek out the final stone. You were the one they were waiting for, my boy.” Deinre grinned with tears in his eyes as he performed a final gesture with his hands.

  Mithris felt himself pulled back, dragged through the time-portal by some irresistible force. He struggled in vain, flinging out his hands to reach for his former master. His eyes burned and his vision blurred as tears leaked down his che
eks.

  “Deinre!” he cried just as he was yanked through the time-portal. The last he saw of his master was another of those leathery-winged creatures swooping in through the window, a gout of flame blasting from its mouth and enveloping Deinre. The centuries-old wizard threw up his arms and howled in agony as he was blasted to ashes, and then the time-portal closed and Mithris was once more alone.

  Chapter 49

  Absence

  Mithris sank to his knees in the center of the shadowed chamber atop his dead master’s tower. Head in his hands, he wept.

  We should go, urged Vapor.

  “Leave me be,” Mithris snarled through his sobs.

  Mithris, I share your grief. I was Deinre’s companion for more than three centuries. But we must go.

  “You don’t understand,” argued Mithris. “I always thought that if Master Deinre had kept you, he could have prevailed against Eaganar. I’ve faced Eaganar myself, you know. He’s powerful, but not that powerful. Deinre could have defeated him. Now I know why he did not. It’s because I was there. I distracted him.”

  Vapor was silent for a long moment. Mithris knew he was right.

  Through his grief and new-found guilt, however, Mithris knew also that the foundation crystal was right as well. They needed to get out of here. Eaganar would know by now that his trap had failed. If Mithris had changed the past, the Now would have changed as well. Eaganar would be coming for him, then.

  Wiping the bitter tears from his cheek, Mithris drew a shuddering breath and steadied himself. He spoke the words, opening a portal back to Avington. With a final glance around the darkened chamber where Deinre had once lived and worked, Mithris stepped through the portal and returned to Ileera’s abandoned tower far to the north.