by Logan Jacobs
There was a wet thwack behind me, and I turned around to see Aerin take another swing at a small golem that had come up behind us. Merlin was in his black hound form, and he dodged around the golem, keeping it off balance while Aerin swung her mace. She was taking large chunks out of the creature, but it would simply reform every time, a little smaller but still as dangerous.
I glanced around the rest of the field of battle and realized that many of the troops faced the same problem. They were battling creatures that wouldn’t simply die after a hard blow. Even if they somehow managed to destroy one, and the golem’s total destruction was what was required, they would be worn down from the effort. The mage army, on the other hand, would have no such problems.
I needed to get to Maderel.
I climbed atop a nearby section of collapsed wall that was still fairly flat. With my mana open, I studied the mage shield until I found an opening and launched my own attack. A fireball sizzled past the mage shield and exploded inside. Water mages with the group quickly extinguished the flames but not before several mages went down.
I saw Maderel quickly scan the battlefield and stop when he spotted my position atop the wall. He said something to the mage closest to him and then strode towards me, his black robe billowing behind him like a pair of wings. Several archers and mages took shots at him, but their attacks were all deflected.
Maderel looked like he was simply out for a stroll on the promenade. His hair was still perfectly coiffed and not a drop of sweat dared appear on his brow. He saved his most impressive feat for the wall. Rather than climbing like a mere mortal, he somehow levitated to the top.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this,” Maderel remarked in a bored tone as he stepped onto the wall just a few feet from me.
“I can’t let you destroy this place,” I replied as I drew my mana blade.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Maderel replied calmly as he looked at my blade. “We could work together on creating a new world. With you as the God of Magic, we could unify manipulators and elementalists.”
“That’s not what you want,” I pointed out. “You want to destroy elementalists.”
“Only if they couldn’t be brought into the new order of magic,” Maderel shrugged. “But if you are the God of Magic, then that becomes unnecessary. All mages will be able to use the new, one magic. Their elimination becomes… pointless.”
“Unless they stand against your new order,” I noted.
“Every empire is built on blood,” Maderel remarked. “Just look at the field around us.”
I had slipped towards the side while we talked and took up a fighting position that Lavinia and Dehn had taught me. All I needed was to draw him a little closer and I could end this all.
“Nice little toy you have there,” Maderel said with a smirk. “Do you really think you’re the first manipulator to create such a weapon?”
Maderel drew a bladeless hilt from his own belt and held it high enough for me to inspect. I stepped back reflexively and watched as he poured his mana into the blade. The weapon glowed with a bright blue light, but what he held was a sword, not a knife.
“Shit,” I heard myself say involuntarily.
“Now, will you surrender or must I kill you?” Maderel asked as he took a quick swipe at my head.
I ducked and rolled just in time, but I felt the sword bite into my left shoulder and the wrenching pain nearly knocked me off my feet. I scrambled backwards, carefully watching both Maderel and his weapon with my mana. Maderel made another lunge, and I backed up again. I could see now how he expanded his blade’s length and I realized that I could do the same thing, but better, if I added some elemental magic to my weapon.
I poured my mana into the sword as well as the bracelet around my wrist. The bracelet warmed, and I could see it start to glow even through the fabric of the suit. Maderel spotted the glow as well, and I saw him hesitate for a moment.
And then my knife was a sword, a brilliant silver thing that looked like one of the great weapons of legend, say Excalibur or maybe the sword Perseus used to slay Medusa. It felt right to hold this beam in my hand, even more so than the knife blade had.
Maderel charged forward, his own blade moving in a flurry of strikes so fast that it was almost impossible to track them. I fended the blows as Yvaine had instructed me to do during our training sessions, but two still managed to find my flesh, and I felt blood start to trickle down my chest.
I finally managed to pin his sword with my own, and we were locked face-to-face. He was breathing as hard as I was and he snarled at me as we both strained against each other. I was so intent on his face that I nearly missed the movement just above him.
Maderel, though, had sensed it. In a blind rage, he pushed away from me and swung at the great black hawk that was dropping from the sky. Merlin squawked and tried to pull up but Maderel’s sword struck home. The puca tumbled from the sky and landed on the rubble, a still and silent bundle of feathers.
“No!” I cried out as Maderel stepped towards the small body.
“No one likes pucas,” Maderel hissed as he raised his sword for a decapitating blow.
I charged towards him like a fullback plowing through the defensive line. I managed to square my shoulders and drive them into his ribs just as he turned to face me, and I had a moment of satisfaction when I heard him hit the concrete and release a small ‘oof’.
Maderel wasn’t one to stay down long, and in one motion he rose to his feet and landed a brutal front kick into my ribs that sent me backward and opened up a space between us. He assumed a defensive stance, and we circled each other, swords at the ready, looking for an opportunity to strike. His came first when my attention was caught by a series of loud explosions off to my right, and he lunged forward, sword raised for the killing blow.
It was my turn to kick as I dropped to my butt per Lavinia’s training and connected my foot to his knee. I heard a satisfying crunch and a flicker of pain darted across Maderel’s face. To his credit, he didn’t go down. I drove my blade upwards but Maderel caught it against his own. I used the impasse to slither backward across the concrete and scramble to my feet.
Maderel pressed forward, aiming towards my own legs, but the blow to his knee had slowed him down considerably. I stepped away, parried his strike, and then swept my own blade in a quick strike towards his torso. He spun to avoid the blow, but I managed to leave a seared line of burnt flesh across his arm. Blood splattered to the ground, and Maderel’s eyes burned red with rage.
We were circling each other again. Sweat trickled into my eyes, and I fought the urge to try to wipe them dry.
“It doesn’t have to end this way,” Maderel insisted as he made a quick strike that I just managed to block.
“You shouldn’t have followed us,” I replied. “You know Theira sent us.”
“Do you really believe that Theira sent you because she was concerned about us mere mortals?” Maderel hissed. “Do you expect her to welcome you into the pantheon of gods?”
“You’re the one who would destroy the world,” I declared as I tried to plunge my blade into an opening near Maderel’s waist, but he shifted quickly to block me, and we found ourselves locked together.
“Consider this,” Maderel snapped. “I could have taught you to master all magic. I could have made you a god. The person who showed you those images is the goddess you would have replaced.”
“So now you claim you won’t destroy the world,” I protested as he pushed away and I fought the urge to start laughing.
“With me by your side, we could have had whatever world you wanted to create,” Maderel replied. “Instead, you and the rest of the Shadow Foxes will be dead, and it will be the world I want to create.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” I growled.
We each made our share of feints, and then Maderel stepped onto a loose block of stone. On any other day, he probably would have leapt nimbly aside, but his knee wasn’t responding like it should.
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The stone beneath Maderel’s feet started to slip away, and his weakened knee buckled. He raised his arms to steady himself against the sudden loss of balance, and that was all I needed. I moved in, faster than I had ever moved before. I drove my sword straight between the ribs and then pulled upwards. Maderel had a brief moment where he tried to lower his own sword into my back, and I felt the tip singe my skin, but then the fire left his eyes, and his mana flickered out. The hilt dropped harmlessly to the concrete and clattered against the hard stone.
I pulled my sword back out, and Maderel’s corpse dropped slowly to the ground. I raised my sword again, remembering the way Maderel had tried to decapitate Merlin, but I heard someone call my name, over and over again in an urgent voice. I stepped away from Maderel and turned my eyes towards the battlefield.
“Gabriel!” the voice called again, and I realized it was Aerin.
The elf scrambled to the top of the wall and ran towards me, ducking as a fireball whizzed past her. She grabbed me with both arms, and I heard the chimes that signalled the flow of her mana. I felt the golden glow of her healing energy spread through me, and the itchy sensation of skin starting to knit itself back together.
“Merlin,” I choked out when I could speak again. “Check Merlin.”
Aerin spotted the limp form that lay deathly still on the cold concrete. She ran towards him as I threw up a mana shield to protect her from a barrage of mage spells. I saw the puca’s wings flutter briefly when she touched him but nothing else.
“I need to get him away from here,” Aerin yelled as the sound of an explosion roared across the steppes. “This unbound mana is making it really hard to help him.”
“Go on,” I ordered. “Take him to Doctor Laifa or Doctor Hin. We can finish things up here.”
Aerin climbed slowly back down the wall, trying to carry Merlin with one hand while she inched along. I stayed on the edge of the parapet, fending off a sudden volley of fireballs and mini tornados. Once she was on the ground, she sprinted towards the back of the battle line.
Maderel was dead, but the battle was far from over.
I saw Imogen and Cat both move forward to fight off a pair of mages who started to chase after the healer, while Lavinia fired off a barrage of arrows that were quickly redirected by a burst of wind.
I tried to find the other Shadow Foxes, and I picked out Maruk’s giant form as he shielded a group of Augustine mages locked in a fierce battle with some of Maderel’s elementalists. Yvaine was there as well, trying to buy the mages time to launch their attacks while she kept the elementalists busy.
Dehn and a group of soldiers were pinned down by a fire mage, and though the archers tried to give them some support, it was clear that they were in for a long, hard battle. More bodies than I could count already littered the field, and I still couldn’t see either Lena or Emeline.
As I scoured the field for signs of the elf and panthera, I spotted a manipulator preparing to attack Lavinia’s archers. I tossed a mana shield around the ladona and her group just as the mage released his spell. The lightning bolt he sent towards them glanced off my shield and smashed into a nearby concrete block, sending up a cloud of dust that left the archers blinded. My shield barely held, and I could see the mage was preparing another strike.
I reached out for his mana, shutting down his follow up attack. But the reprieve was only temporary. I felt someone grab my own mana, and the shield I’d erected quickly dissolved. Luckily, the archers had pulled back and the second bolt smashed into rock rather than flesh.
I ducked as a fireball rocketed towards me. I struggled to grab hold of my mana and finally found a way around my unseen opponent by feeding what mana I could still control into the bracelet. I could feel the other manipulator struggling to keep their grip and I pushed back as hard as I could. Finally, I felt the tension disappear, and my mana spread through me once more.
I gasped for breath and then risked a peek over the edge of the building. The field was covered in smoke and fumes, and flames flickered among the ruins. The battle was spreading through the rest of the rubble, making it difficult to see everything that was happening.
One thing was clear though, we were losing.
There was only one way I could end this madness. I needed a way to shut down all of Maderel’s mages at the same time, rather than trying to pick them off one by one. I needed the Shodra, and that meant I had to find Deneth and somehow get a message to someone who could bring them to the surface. It was a huge risk, bringing the relics out into the open, but it was the only way I could be sure we would win.
I spotted a flash of crimson in the middle of a group of camouflaged soldiers, moving towards a group of Augustinian manipulators. No one seemed focused on me anymore, so I scrambled from my rooftop perch and ran after them, dodging an assortment of missiles as I did.
“Deneth!” I called out as I neared the group.
The High Mage raised a shield around her party long enough to protect them from a smoking, oozing green blob, then dropped it so two of the mages could send their own fireballs sizzling towards their foe.
“Deneth,” I gasped as I slid to a halt next to her. “I need the Shodra. Is there someone you trust to bring them to the surface?”
Deneth had another shield up just in time, and I could see the fine sheen of sweat on her brow as she struggled to hold her spell against a fierce attack.
“You underestimate me,” the High Mage finally replied with a hint of a smile. “And Theira.”
“You have the Shodra?” I asked in surprise. “Here?”
“Theira warned me that they would be needed,” she said as a fireball passed over our heads and smashed into the remnants of an old column. “Quickly, the recon maps show there’s a sheltered spot nearby where we can protect you while you work.”
Our little group of mages and soldiers hustled through the old streets, with Deneth and I calling out warnings and directions to everyone else. The real danger was that there was no way to identify who was a friend and who was a foe without making visual contact. There was no longer any sort of line of battle, just different groups hunting each other as they moved through what was left of the old city.
Deneth’s sheltered spot was little more than a gap between a crumbling wall and a pile of debris. Deneth and I stood with our backs against the wall while the rest of our group formed a circle around us. From some hidden pocket in her voluminous robe, Deneth produced the pouch that I had used to hide the Shodra during our journey.
“Any tips?” I asked as I took the pouch from her hands.
“Open yourself to them,” she said thoughtfully. “But remember, you’re in control. You musn’t let yourself get drawn into their power. If you start to feel that you are being led rather than leading, it’s time to pull back.”
“Got it,” I replied.
I pulled the Shodra from the pouch and set them carefully on the ground in front of me. I sent a bit of mana into the Shodra as a test and felt an instantaneous response. Energy suddenly flowed through the Shodra, and I felt its tendrils start to snake into my mana. I let go and studied the relics for a moment.
Murillo’s book had mentioned that there was a specific pattern the Shodra needed to be placed in to manage them successfully. I hoped that I remembered the instructions correctly, and set the candle at true north, the knife at south, the gemstone at east and the chalice at west. When each item was in its designated spot, I stepped into the center of the relics and the Shodra vertex.
If my first link with the Shodra was energy, this was energy squared. It flooded my body before I could so much as lift a finger, and I felt as if I were being cut off from my own body and my own mana. I struggled against the tide until I remembered Lain’s story about creating the air bubble to float to shore. I pictured a bubble around myself and slowly the power retreated.
I could still feel it, but it wasn’t flowing through me. As an experiment, I envisioned a nearby pile of rubble turning to dust. I coul
d see an arc of white light reach out towards the pile, and then everything crumbled away.
I used the Shodra then to try to find the other people that were moving through the city. I suddenly saw where each and every person stood, and as I probed further, I could see their mana and their auras. I knew in less than a second which ones were on our side and which supported Maderel.
I risked opening myself a bit more to the Shodra. It felt like a wave that threatened to pull me under, but I kept focused on my targets and bent the power to my will. I grabbed the mana of every opponent and sent a surge of energy back through it. I saw their mana expand for a moment and then explode in a shower of pure energy.
Screams of agony went up as Maderel’s army collapsed, their mana scattered to the winds. I felt my nerves catch fire as I turned and twisted the Shodra, playing with the power. I could see the life-sucking spell that held this land hostage, and with one simple thought, I erased it from the land. I called forth life and felt the earth respond.
Even as I cast these spells, I was vaguely aware that I was being drawn deeper into the Shodra. I plunged into the power, savoring the feel and the taste of it. It was a chance to remake this world into a utopia. My utopia. All I had to do was let myself become a part of it.
But then, from some distant place, I could hear someone calling my name and I recognized Deneth’s voice.
“Let go,” Deneth instructed.
The power of the Shodra had penetrated my bubble, and I realized it was taking control of my mana again. I called up every last ounce of strength I had, but still the Shodra pulled me tighter. For a moment, I was tempted simply to give in and let the Shodra take me, to lose myself in the awesome power that I could feel coursing through my veins. It was a glorious feeling, to have such an intimate knowledge of every living thing in the universe.
Deneth’s voice was calling again, and I lifted my gaze from the Shodra long enough to peer around me. I thought about the Shadow Foxes, and the children I had yet to see. I wanted to be a part of their life, more than anything.