The Black Knife

by Christopher Nuttall

  The golden light grew brighter suddenly, as if the sun had decided to rise hours early. The sound of beating drums – no, Hind realised suddenly, of a beating heart – grew louder, just before Herod came into view. The necromancer no longer looked human. Wrapped in a glowing ball of golden light, his skin seemed to be sloughing off him and falling to the ground. Hind had barely known him before the coup, before the time when he’d broken his oath and murdered his Emperor, yet she still found it shocking. She could see his glowing skull, illuminated by bright red eyes, through his skin. Herod laughed...and there was nothing human in the laugh, just an absolute madness as old as time. She understood, suddenly, what had happened. The power he’d consumed had finally burned through him, warping him into a monster, a creature of utter darkness. Whatever political aim he’d once had, no matter how evil it had been, was gone. All that remained was a hunger that would never be sated, even if he drained the world dry.

  Herod stopped, eyeing them, daring them to do their worst. He didn't speak, but he didn't need to speak, not for them all to know the odds. There were seven Master Magicians and twenty-one other magicians facing him and Hind knew with a kind of sick certainty that it wouldn't be enough. Perhaps all of the magicians in the world, working together as one, could have stopped him dead in his tracks. She knew that it would be impossible to convince them all to work together, even now. There was no way they could stop him and no point in running, or in trying to surrender. Herod – the old Herod – might have wanted to force Eric to formally surrender the Throne to him, but the new one just wanted to kill and keep killing until the whole world was dead.

  Hind braced herself, summoning up all of her powers, thinking hard. There was no way to talk Herod out of it, not like they’d convinced the elemental to understand that she’d been awoken by accident. If he’d just been another powerful magician, she could fight and force him to burn off his energy, yet she doubted that they could hold out long enough for it to make a difference. She was mildly surprised that they weren't dead yet, but perhaps Herod had just wanted to gloat a bit before he killed them. Stranger things had happened.

  She looked past Herod and saw Reginald standing there, his face pale and completely terrified. Eleanor had told her how Reginald had freed them from the apartment wards that had held them prisoner, but she’d been unable to guess why he'd done it, or what he might have had in mind. Perhaps Reginald hadn't known himself. The old Reginald had been a coward, a sneak and a bully; the new Reginald had spent far too long in the company of a dangerous necromancer. Hind felt an odd burst of sympathy for him. No one, not even the old Reginald, deserved to suffer like that.

  Herod took a step forward and Mistress Fran’s nerve broke. She hit him with everything she had. Hind followed, casting her own spells, as every magician in the group bombarded Herod with magic. Blasts of lightning and fire raged against his wards, crawling over them without coming close to burning through his protections. Holes opened up in space and time and dark presences emerged, coming forward to attack the necromancer, who stood there and laughed as the summoned presences met his gaze and fled back to their own realms. Change spells, each one powerful enough to turn a dozen people into frogs, hit his wards and reflected back, warped beyond recognition by the sheer level of power flaring within Herod’s defences. Powerful blasting spells and subtle curses and hexes alike glinted off his wards, splashing bursts of raw magic through the air. Hind staggered backwards as one of her own spells struck her own wards, threatening to burn through her defences and harm her.

  “Futile,” Herod said. Hind knew that he was right. None of the attacks had come close to burning through his wards; indeed, she wasn't sure that they were wards, at least in the conventional sense. It was so hard to look at him through her third eye; every time she opened it, she had to squint against the blazing light she saw shining off him. “You cannot hope to beat me.”

  Herod could have killed them all instantly, but he was having too much fun. He gestured with one skeletal hand and pulled Eleanor into the air, yanking her forward so he could stare at the girl he’d intended to marry. Eleanor spat into his face, perhaps hoping that he would kill her quickly, but he just laughed and tossed her away like she was nothing. Hind reached out with the last traces of her magic and caught her before she crashed head-first into the ground, knowing that she was nearly defenceless now. It hardly mattered. Herod had enough power to burn through the most powerful wards she’d ever assembled in her life.

  Another wave of magic swept through the air as Master Adam produced an odd-looking blade from nowhere and leapt right at the necromancer. Herod caught him effortlessly, plucked the blade out of his hand with a simple manipulative magic and turned it into a stick, which then shattered under his gaze. Hind felt his powers gathering and focusing, seconds before he turned his full might on the helpless Adam. The magician seemed to sprout suddenly, tree branches growing rapidly out of his body, his face trapped in a final despairing scream. Herod dropped him on the ground and laughed as the remains of the magician put down roots and started to expand into the ground, leaving little trace of the man Hind had once known as a friend. She looked down as she felt odder trails of magic spiralling around her feet and realised in horror that the grass was turning to dust. Herod was bringing the desert to Larkrise, pulling the life out of the soil and using it to feed himself. She was no Oracle, but she had a vision of the future spinning through her head; a cold lifeless world where nothing, not even the monster Herod had become, lived. She wondered suddenly as Herod’s magic beat down on her, rooting her to the spot, if that had been what Kuralla had seen, back before it had all started.

  Mistress Fran screamed as she was lifted into the air, her wards being systematically unpicked and dismantled by her opponent. Herod gestured and her robes were torn off her body, leaving her completely naked before him. As Hind watched in horror, Fran’s body started to turn into stone, leaving her nothing more than a stone statue, her face contorted in a permanent moment of screaming agony. She reached out with her magic, hoping – praying – that she could do something to save Fran, yet Herod’s spell was too strong. He wasn’t just turning her to stone, although that would have been bad enough, but draining her life force at the same time. A naked statue dropped to the ground, falling – perhaps deliberately; perhaps by accident – in a shockingly provocative pose. She reached out again, hoping to feel even a tiny trace of life, but there was nothing. Fran was dead, beyond any hope of recovery, for no magic could give life back to the dead.

  The other Master Magicians gave it their best shot, but Herod merely laughed, tiring of his game. One by one, they felt the weight of his power warping them into other forms before he crushed them like bugs, gripping his hand together as they fell. Hind tried to stand up, to make her own final stand, but his power pressed down on her and forced her to her knees. She felt blood trickling down from where she’d placed the slave gem, perhaps a final humiliation, as Herod turned his attention to her. He’d killed or immobilised the other magicians. There was no one left to fight.

  Herod’s eyes blazed with unholy light as he bored down on her, his power lifting her up into the air and holding her suspended in front of him. She tried to close her eyes, wishing that she and Eric had been able to snatch one final moment together before the end, but even that release was denied her. It was impossible to read any expression on Herod’s mutating face, yet she was somehow sure that he was enjoying himself at her expense. She braced herself...and then she fell to the ground. Eric had stepped between her and Herod, holding Morningstar up to shatter the spell. Hind wanted to scream at him to run, yet all of her strength seemed to have deserted her. The Great Swords were powerful, but not even they could stand against a necromancer...

  “You won’t go any further,” Eric said, firmly. Hind gasped and tried to shout out a warning, but neither of them heard her. Herod had ignored Eric, the one with the weakest powers, until he’d drawn his sword. “You will not pass.”


  Herod laughed and lifted his hand. Hind felt the power building up and tried to scramble away, but she couldn’t move.

  “I will go where I please,” Herod said, and struck.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Eric had felt fear before, back when they’d faced the avalanche or even when he’d first been told that he was the Lord of Larkrise and the lives of hundreds of thousands of people depended upon his orders. He had never felt such terror that he was almost rooted to the spot, yet somehow Morningstar urged him forward. The Great Sword was humming in his hand as he stepped forward to confront Herod. The necromancer barely seemed to hear his challenge, or even to be aware of his presence; he just looked…distracted. No, his red eyes were focused, fixed on the sword in Eric’s hand.

  Herod looked as if he was burning up from the inside. His entire body was glowing with bright, yet somehow sickly light. The colours seemed to shift rapidly from brightest white to bright blue, but his red eyes remained the same, fixed firmly on the Great Sword. Eric remembered the Herod he had known as a child, the older cousin within the Royal Bloodline – even if not part of the core bloodline – and shook his head, wondering what Herod had wanted so much that he had been prepared to dabble in necromancy to achieve it. He hadn’t lacked for anything; as a Duke, as one of the people in line to the Imperial Throne, he had everything he could possibly want. Eric remembered playing together, hunting together and finally growing up together and felt a sudden burst of sorrow. His childhood friend was no more.

  Morningstar seemed to flicker in his hand as he lunged forward, stabbing the Great Sword deep into the necromancer’s chest. Herod made no attempt to block it – the old Herod had been skilful with a sword, one who had taught Eric quite a few nasty tricks – and the Great Sword cut deep, but Herod barely seemed to notice. Blue-white fire ran up the blade of the sword before fading out at the hilt, yet Eric still felt a powerful shock and almost dropped the blade. He cut at Herod time and time again, but the sword was somehow unable to inflict any real damage. Eric wasn't even sure if he was even touching the necromancer. Morningstar rarely encountered resistance when it cut through flesh and bone – even wards and cold steel – yet this felt as if he were slashing away at air.

  And then Herod looked at him. Two red eyes met his and held him frozen. There was nothing human in that gaze, just a monomaniacal desire for power that would one day consume the entire world. Herod had finally noticed his attacks and, suddenly, he was no longer sure that that was a good thing. The necromancer was dangerously unstable. Flames flashed from his eyes and came right at Eric, but he raised Morningstar to block them, turning them back on their master. Herod looked unaffected by the flames, walking slowly towards Eric as if he were taking a stroll in the garden, while the heat seemed to grow ever hotter. Eric caught sight of a tree, decaying to dust as Herod walked past it, and shivered. Just what had his old playmate unleashed upon the land? The problem with necromancy was that it was hard to separate legend from fact, yet some of the old stories were truly terrifying. Men – magicians - had walked like gods in those days.

  Eric caught sight of Hind, lying on the ground, and a new anger overcame him. He lunged forward and slashed and slashed at Herod, cutting into his body as often as he could. The power flowing through Herod seemed to keep him alive, even as he face grew less and less human. Eric felt his eyes start to burn as Herod grew brighter, casting an unholy shadow over the land. Hind had tried to force the necromancer to burn up his power, believing that that would make him vulnerable, but it was clear that he couldn’t keep up the delaying act for long. Herod snatched a fireball out of nowhere and threw it right into Eric’s face, followed by a dazzling series of malevolent spells that flickered and flared raw magic as they closed in on him. Eric wasn't sure, but he wondered if they were spells at all; they felt more like raw statements of Herod’s will. Morningstar twitched in his hand as it knocked some of them back, or destroyed others, yet it was only a matter of time before the Great Sword failed and let one of them through. Eric had seen what Herod had done to the magicians who had tried to stand against him and knew that, without their defences, he was completely helpless against anything Herod might throw at him. The only defence was not to be hit.

  Herod took another step towards him, the ground shaking under his feet, and lashed out with a stream of multicoloured magic. The magic danced around Eric, forming a webbing that surrounded him, mocking his attempts to escape the trap. The beams of light closed in rapidly. There was no longer any escape. Eric cut at them with Morningstar, but the web mended itself and kept trying to compress him down and hold him prisoner. There was no way of knowing what would happen when the beams finally touched him, but he knew that it wouldn’t be good. He took one last swing at Herod and slashed through his arm, something that should have severed it from his body. The necromancer barely noticed. It was as if Eric was cutting at air.

  “Die,” Herod said. Even his voice no longer sounded human. “Die now.”

  The webbing of light closed in.

  ***

  Reginald had watched in growing – and hopeless – horror as Herod had destroyed the fort and then the magicians, after laughing at their final stand. There had been no attempt to urge them to surrender, no attempt to even offer them enslavement as a choice preferable to death, just…wanton destruction. He could sense, with the faint glimmerings of necromancy that Herod had taught him before they’d left the Golden Palace, that the land was dying. Herod had gone beyond sucking the life out of humans; he’d moved on to sucking the life out of everything. Nothing was safe now.

  And you helped make this possible, the sword said. It seemed to be humming in the scabbard, waiting patiently for its moment. Or perhaps Reginald’s moment; he no longer knew which one of them was in charge. You ignored strictures that were created to prevent this very disaster from occurring.

  “But I had no choice,” Reginald protested, shouting the words into the air. Neither of the combatants heard him and his words were lost in the furious energy surrounding the pair. The drumbeat, whatever it was, seemed to be growing louder. “I had no choice!”

  You believed that you could look upon evil, deal with evil and yet remain unscathed, the sword said. That belief in itself is a symptom of evil. You used to think of yourself as knowledgeable and powerful, yet that delusion only hastened your fall into darkness, for it could not keep you from attempting to tap into necromancy as a way to increase your own powers. You knew nothing about the dangers and wouldn’t have cared if you had.

  There was a chilling pause. Herod’s power has reached the point where he is power, rather than a human with the ability to manipulate power – magic. If he is allowed to win this battle, there will be no one left to stop him. The life will be drained out of the entire world, leaving it nothing more than a barren husk. The gods will not intervene, for they have determined long ago that humanity should be left to survive – or die – on its own. You must choose now, for this is no more time. Which side are you on? Death…or life?

  Reginald felt his hand creep to the sword and clasp the hilt. Confidence seemed to flow through him as he drew the sword, even though he could still feel Herod’s power blazing through the air. He’d squeezed his third eye shut as soon as the power had started to flare up – he felt that if he looked at it directly, his mind would burn out under the pressure – but somehow he could still sense the power, as if Herod was somehow forcing him to look into the gaze of the medusa. Reginald had encountered a gorgon once, several years ago and he had barely escaped with his life. If he looked directly into what Herod had become…

  He heard a cry and looked up, to see Eric being wrenched up into the air by Herod’s power. The Prince looked determined, as if he didn’t intend to give Herod the satisfaction of crying out again, yet Reginald knew that it would do no good. The necromancer’s power was already building up; he didn’t intend to simply kill Eric, but drain him for power. Reginald was no longer sure that there was anything of Herod le
ft within the monster, for the old Herod would have simply killed the Prince…but then, the old Herod had wanted to rule, not to destroy. Herod laughed, an ugly inhuman sound that seemed to slide right into Reginald’s head, forcing him to make his choice. As Herod reached for Eric’s face, Reginald lunged forward and plunged the Great Sword into Herod’s back.

  Herod screamed for the first time as the blade cut into him, yet it didn’t seem to be enough to stop him, even though Reginald had rammed the blade in as hard as he could. He could feel Herod’s power billowing out of control and lashing out at the Great Sword, just before the energy swept over him. If he’d taken his hands off the sword, it would have killed him instantly, but instead he was somehow able to turn the energy and redirect it towards Herod. The necromancer screamed again, a terrible howl of death and despair, and started to turn. The blade should have cut him in half, yet somehow he rotated on the blade and turned to face Reginald. Even impaled on the Great Sword, he was still able to move.

  Reginald felt sheer terror as the red eyes came to rest on his face. It was impossible to read any emotions on the disintegrating face, but he was sure that he could sense betrayal and rage. Power flared around him without touching him, yet he found himself helpless as Herod started to walk towards him, impaling himself still further on the Great Sword. Reginald wanted to scream as the power levels grew stronger and stronger, yet that was suddenly impossible.