Bond of Magic

by Trip Ellington

  Behind the door was a tiny cell. An emaciated figure lay curled on the straw-covered floor. The very old man threw up one bony arm across his face, blinded by the sudden illumination from outside his windowless, black stone cell.

  “Ranyegar!” Mithris exclaimed. He stepped into the cell and knelt beside the old wizard. Ranyegar was clothed only in a filthy loin-cloth. Slat-ribbed and painfully skinny, he was covered in bruises and open sores. His long beard was tangled and caked with dirt.

  The old man blinked large, colorless eyes. He opened and closed his mouth without sound. A dry croak sounded low in his throat.

  Mithris rose and went out of the cell. Hunting through the outer chamber of the dungeon, he found a washstand in an alcove. He took the pitcher, half full of dingy water, and went back to the man in the cell.

  “It may be putrid,” he warned Ranyegar, showing him the pitcher. The old man’s eyes had finally adjusted to the dim, flickering torchlight. He looked at the pitcher and nodded. Mithris held it over his face and tilted it so a thin trickle of the stagnant water ran down into Ranyegar’s mouth.

  The old wizard held his hand up after a moment, and Mithris set the pitcher down. Ranyegar swished the stale water in his mouth then turned his head to spit in the corner. When he turned back, his face was twisted in disgust.

  “Ranyegar,” said Mithris again, and the wizard looked at him sharply.

  “Who the devil is Ranyegar?” he asked in a hoarse voice barely above a whisper. “And who are you? Are you with him?”

  “Him?” Mithris echoed. “Oh. The one who took your tower? I’m not with him. He’s masquerading as you, though. I mean, he looks just like you. He told me his name was Ranyegar. When I found you, I just assumed…”

  “My name is Rethbrin,” the old man said, drawing himself up self-importantly. The effect, given his state of undress and the extensive bruising, was almost tragically comical.

  “Rethbrin,” Mithris repeated, astonished. His mouth fell open and he stared at the debased wizard.

  “Heard of me, have you?”

  “Extensively,” Mithris said. “I was Master Deinre’s apprentice.”

  “Deinre!” Rethbrin turned his head and spit in the corner again. “Now there’s a disappointment. Never have I so foolishly attempted to train a more hopeless apprentice than that imbecile Deinre!”

  Chapter 55

  Grandmaster

  “Imbecile?” echoed Mithris, taken aback. “Hopeless?” The corner of his lips quirked up, twitching toward a smile. He leaned closer to Rethbrin.

  “Grandmaster,” he said, unable to resist the smile despite the grim surroundings. “Tell me more.”

  “Pah,” said Rethbrin. “Always shirking his lessons, always whining about how I never taught him anything interesting. To hear him tell it, I had him toiling on wards for thirty years! Well, if he’d only applied himself he’d have mastered them in three. It’s hardly my fault all he ever wanted to do was traipse around the wide world having adventures and sampling exotic recipes for steak and kidney pie!”

  Mithris clamped a hand over his mouth. He was not sure the irascible-seeming old man would appreciate it if he suddenly laughed aloud.

  Why ever not? In such luxurious apartments and with no pressing concerns, who wouldn’t engage in mirth at a time like this?

  “Shut up,” Mithris muttered.

  “What did you say?”

  “I was talking to Vapor, sorry.”

  “Who’s Vapor?” Rethbrin’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he strained to peer over Mithris’ shoulder.

  “Vapor is a foundation crystal.” Mithris shifted, bringing the airstone sewn to his robes into the light. “It speaks to me, although the other four don’t.”

  “Remarkable.” Rethbrin was quite obviously impressed. He ran his pale eyes over Mithris with renewed interest. “You say you were Deinre’s apprentice? You hardly seem old enough, yet you carry five of the foundation crystals. Remarkable! Are you quite sure we’re thinking of the same Deinre?”

  Wizards! Vapor made the word sound like a curse. The crystal’s silent voice was exasperated. Have both of you forgotten the circumstances completely?

  “Hm,” grunted Mithris. “Steak and kidney pie? That’s him, alright.”

  “It seems he made something of himself after all, if he has an apprentice who consorts with foundation crystals. I know a little about foundation crystals. I have one of my own, you know.” Suddenly, the old man’s face crumpled in dismay. “I suppose I should say I had one. The rogue who threw me in my own dungeon has it now.”

  “Who is he?” Mithris asked.

  “Heh?” Rethbrin looked up at the much younger wizard. “No idea, my boy. None at all. Some upstart who envied my tower, my privacy? Or perhaps he came for the voidstone, I’ve no idea. But now that you’re here, well…”

  Naked hope showed through the look Rethbrin gave Mithris then. The young wizard smiled, nodding in agreement.

  “Can you make the hallway move?” Mithris asked.

  “Of course, I can,” snapped Rethbrin, levering himself up off the straw-covered floor. Leaning against the black stone wall, he pushed himself upright and stood unsteadily on his feet. “This is my tower, after all. Three centuries I’ve lived here. The upstart only arrived yesterday.”

  “How is it he can control the hallway then?”

  “You said he was disguised as me,” Rethbrin said. “A good enough disguise would fool my tower for a brief time. The Mirror of Illusions spell might do it, I suppose.”

  Rethbrin nodded to himself, and then a thought struck him and he froze. Turning slowly toward Mithris, he narrowed his colorless eyes. “How is it you managed to find your way to the dungeon?” he asked. “How did you turn the axis?”

  “Oh, that,” said Mithris, affecting a humble shrug. “I have a…talent, I suppose. I can manipulate the basic energies of magic.”

  “Energy shaping, huh?” Rethbrin considered. “I’d have thought that a fairy tale, but…No, I see how it could be done.” He looked up at Mithris again. “Remarkable!”

  If you two are quite finished, Vapor muttered.

  “Okay, okay,” said Mithris. “Come on, Grandmaster. The crystals are getting restless.”

  Rethbrin had to lean on Mithris, throwing an arm across the young mage’s shoulders. The old man hobbling at his side, Mithris led the way out of the dungeon. When they reached the hallway, Rethbrin closed his eyes.

  “Yes,” he muttered. “Yes, old girl. It’s me.” He opened his eyes and turned to Mithris. “Which chamber?”

  “Wherever Absence is most likely to be,” answered Mithris.

  That seemed to startle the bi-millennial wizard, but then he nodded. “I see, I see. Well, it’s my good fortune, I suppose.” Whatever he was thinking, Rethbrin did not elaborate. He merely spoke a low word under his breath and made a twisting motion with his outstretched hand.

  Mithris felt the hallway shift this time. His stomach lurched in protest but the motion was over almost before it had begun. The open door to the dungeon still stood at their backs, and the corridor ahead did not appear to have changed.

  But the ley line was again distant, more distant than it had been outside the bedchamber. Mithris knew they had climbed nearly to the top of the black tower.

  Rethbrin seemed to grow stronger. Releasing his hold on Mithris, he stood on his own and smiled. “That’s better.”

  “What’s better?”

  “The cells are enchanted. The longer you spend there, the weaker you become. The only way to break the spell is to leave the vicinity of the enchantment.” Rethbrin looked shrewdly at Mithris. “It takes a good hour to really sap your strength, but you should have felt it beginning to leech at you.”

  Mithris shook his head.

  “Hmm. You’re a powerful young man.” Rethbrin shrugged, then muttered an incantation. Fabric materialized out of thin air, draped itself over the bony wizard’s wiry body, and stitched itself into a loose robe of r
ed and gold. A tiny portal opened at the same time, and Rethbrin reached through it. When he withdrew the hand, he held a thick wand of some pale wood Mithris did not recognize.

  “You’ve recovered quickly,” Mithris noted. “I’d say you’re a powerful wizard as well.”

  Could you two please stop congratulating each other and just get on with it?

  “What is your hurry?” Mithris demanded, having had enough of Vapor’s prodding. “You’ve been rushing me ever since you gave up trying to stop me. What’s the problem?”

  Ranyegar has been awake for the past ten minutes. He’s in the hallway, on his way to that room at the other end.

  “He’s not in the hallway,” Mithris argued.

  He’s not in the version of the hallway that connects the dungeon to the Arcanium, no. But he is in the version which connects his bedchamber to the Arcanium. That must be where Absence is. Can we go, please?

  “We have to hurry,” Mithris told Rethbrin.

  Chapter 56

  Mirror of Illusions

  The far end of the corridor was a massive, arched doorway. It was much larger than the hallway itself, but was somehow contained by the corridor. It hurt Mithris’ head to look at it. Rethbrin never paused, but strode straight through into his Arcanium. Mithris followed a step behind.

  Ranyegar was already there. He was six paces into the room already, but he whirled around at the sound of their footsteps.

  Rethbrin drew up short, staring at his own mirror image. Ranyegar bore no bruises, and still wore robes of silver and black. The charms dangled in his beard. Otherwise, the two wizards were identical.

  But then Mithris saw a standing mirror, over in the corner by a low scrying basin. The mirror was angled toward the center of the room, and from where he was standing Mithris could see both wizards reflected.

  They were not identical in the mirror.

  So that’s why the mirrors in the other chambers were turned facing the walls, said Vapor.

  Mithris realized the crystal was right. The spell — Rethbrin’s Mirror of Illusions — did not work on reflections. The mirror showed Ranyegar’s true visage. It was a familiar one.

  “Eaganar!” Mithris cried.

  The dark wizard sneered, waving one hand. The complex illusion surrounding him dissolved to reveal the familiar features of Eaganar. He appeared to swell, growing several inches as his body filled out with muscles the underfed Rethbrin did not possess. At the same time, his flowing white beard shrank up into his chin to become Eaganar’s neatly trimmed and lightly salted black goatee. The charms woven in the air fell to the floor, tinkling on impact.

  Eaganar’s other hand whipped up, and a small object leaped from a shelf on the far wall. Absence flew through the air and planted itself in the dark wizard’s outstretched hand. It sat there like a nothing, like a place where reality didn’t exist. The voidstone was impossible to focus on, and Mithris felt his eyes sliding off it each time he tried.

  “You’re too late, boy,” sneered Eaganar. “You refused the poisoned food. You avoided the trap I laid on the bed. But you haven’t beaten me, not by a long shot! I hold the most powerful of the foundation crystals in my hand. Soon enough, I’ll take the others from your corpse. The game is won, the victory mine!”

  Holding Absence high over his head, Eaganar spat rapid words of magic and leveled a finger at Mithris. The young wizard hurled himself to one side as the spell lashed out toward him. Rolling painfully across the rough stone floor, he saw a chunk of wall behind where he had stood simply vanish, ceasing to exist.

  Eaganar flung another spell, this time targeting Rethbrin. Though lacking the agility Mithris had shown, the ancient wizard was far from helpless. Intoning three quick words, he held up both hands and rotated them about one another.

  The air in front of Rethbrin distorted, forming a translucent shield of solid air. Mithris could not see the spell Eaganar had thrown — that must be some quality of the voidstone — but he saw Rethbrin’s shield shudder under impact, and then a chunk of the ceiling midway between Rethbrin and Eaganar vanished.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” taunted Eaganar, hurriedly casting a third spell. This time Mithris could see the threads of the magic. Surging back to his feet, he darted forward to grab at the spell. He was too slow, and the power resolved itself.

  Bands of air wrapped themselves around Rethbrin and bore him back, slamming him hard into the stone wall. The old wizard wheezed as the breath was knocked out of him on impact. Mithris saw the air tightening around him, squeezing and choking him.

  Mithris ran to him, fending off a trio of fireballs Eaganar sent his way. Reaching the wall, he grabbed at the invisible bonds which held his master’s master. Once he had hold of them, he tore at the magic and ripped the spell apart with his bare hands.

  Rethbrin sank to the floor, gasping for breath. With no time to see to the old man, Mithris whirled in place. He had just enough time to throw up his most powerful ward before the bolt of lightning struck. It sizzled against his ward, threatening to collapse the barely resolved shield.

  Meanwhile, Rethbrin had regained his breath and barked an incantation. As he finished the spell, he made a throwing gesture with first one hand, then the other.

  Steel blades with razor edges materialized out of thin air, hurling across the room like thrown knives. Cursing, Eaganar ducked one of the blades and batted the other side with his arm. Though he knocked the blade aside, it tore a long rip in the sleeve of his robes and nicked the flesh below.

  Mithris had already cast his next spell, taking a cue from Rethbrin and going on the offensive. Drawing on Depths, he pulled the tiny particles of moisture out of the air surrounding Eaganar. The room became very cold as water droplets too small to be seen coalesced into a large, floating glob of water. Mithris wove fire into his spell through Ember, super-heating the water until it threatened to boil away in a cloud of steam. He hurled the boiling water at the dark wizard.

  It splashed over Eaganar’s face, scalding him instantly. The dark wizard howled in pain, squeezing shut his eyes and falling to his knees. He dropped Absence, and the voidstone fell to the floor. It’s spherical blackness disappeared against the flat black stone of the floor.

  “You can’t win, Eaganar,” Mithris declared. “You couldn’t beat me on my own, and a powerful wizard fights at my side. Give up now.”

  “Never!” Eaganar shrieked, clutching gingerly at the reddened flesh of his face. Tears streamed from his tightly-shut eyes, streaming over the burnt cheeks and trickling into the singed goatee.

  Mithris summoned bands of air like the ones Eaganar had used on Rethbrin, draped them over the dark wizard and confined him. At the same time, Rethbrin resolved more of the magical steel blades and held them poised all around their foe, ready to strike.

  “You’re beaten,” Mithris pleaded with the dark wizard. “Be reasonable, Eaganar.”

  The evil wizard opened his eyes wide. They shone wetly from his crimson face, burning with hate. “I’ll never surrender to you, whelp!” he cried. “Not in a thousand years, not if the mountains crumble and the seas boil to gas, and the stars themselves consume all the foundations in fire and madness!”

  “It’s useless,” Rethbrin said to Mithris. “We must finish him.”

  Mithris studied the kneeling, defeated wizard. How many times had this dark sorcerer tried to kill him? How many creatures had he sent against Mithris, how many human agents had done his bidding? He had struck down Deinre and robbed Mithris of his Master. He had ruined the young wizard’s life and repeatedly tried to take it.

  Still, Mithris hesitated. He had killed before. He never enjoyed it, but he’d never had a choice either. Ileera would have killed him; the same went for Zerto. He felt no remorse over the omnitors and devinists, and certainly not for the Chaos Lord Tzrak. But again, he’d had no choice.

  Eaganar was beaten. The dark wizard could do nothing to him now. Mithris was far too powerful, especially with the foundation crystal
s. Soon he would hold all five, and this whole business would be over.

  He could stop having dangerous adventures. He even thought Rethbrin might accept him as a student. Mithris was a wizard in his own right now, but there must be so much he could learn from Deinre’s own Master. He could return to some semblance of a normal life, as normal as it ever got for wizards.

  He felt no desire to kill the enemy he had beaten.

  He won’t give up, you know, said Vapor. The foundation crystal sounded distant, unconcerned. It was as though the warning was given off-hand, and of no real consequence. Not to Vapor at least.

  Mithris narrowed his eyes. The crystals would all be together soon, he thought. That was what they had always wanted. But what happened next? What scheme had the foundation crystals cooked up between them? And why had they waited until now to reunite after being apart for so long?

  At that moment, Absence rose up from the floor. Against the flat black volcanic stone, the voidstone had been invisible. When it rose into the air, Mithris saw it had moved across the room. It was inches from him now.

  He felt a tugging at his robes. The other foundation crystals lifted into the air of their own accord.

  Beside him, Rethbrin gasped and stepped back.

  The threads securing the crystals to his robes snapped, releasing the stones. The five crystals came together in midair, all save Absence flashing with inner light. They moved, orbiting one another and fitting together like pieces of a whole.

  “What are you doing?” cried Mithris, falling back before the steadily increasing light of the foundation crystals.

  That light swelled to a blinding supernova, and then everything rippled and vanished. Mithris, Rethbrin, and Eaganar fell through an endless void which soundlessly swallowed their frightened screams.