God of Magic 4

by Logan Jacobs

  Several of the guards threw themselves to the floor, heedless of the broken furniture and shattered glass in an attempt to smother the flames, but with another motion from Emeline, the fires sprang up anew. A few tried to flee, but Maruk, Dehn, Lavinia, Lena, Yvaine, and my clones kept them inside the circle of flame.

  I had to drop my arms as the pounding in my head became unbearable, and the clones I’d created vanished, but their job was done.

  The guards’ shrieks were almost inhuman as they burned to death. They began to curl in on themselves as their joints stiffened, and finally, every last guard collapsed and was eaten by the flames. The last sound was the hobgoblin’s roar of pain and terror before he fell among the others.

  The smoke stung my eyes and the reek of burning flesh was sharp in my nose as Emeline, still focused, curled her hands into fists and extinguished the flames.

  For a heartbeat, everything was dead silent as we caught our breath and stared at the pile of corpses in the center of the room. The glass from the broken coffee table had melted into the burnt fibers of the rug, and tendrils of smoke drifted up between the burnt corpses.

  Some of the guards’ bodies had been charred completely and barely looked human anymore, but others were covered in yellow blisters and welted red skin, only black where it had burned all the way down to their bones. I realized with a jolt that what I’d taken to be one of the guards’ red skull masks was actually the remains of the man’s face. His eyes had melted and trailed down the flaky, blackened skin of his cheeks.

  Then I was snapped out of it by the memory of a flash of black and white.

  “Cygne,” I said. “We need to go!”

  Chapter 16

  We all rushed out of the room and practically flew down the steps as we raced back to the ballroom.

  “Gabriel!” Yvaine called to me and caught my arm as we ran. The noblewoman’s face was drawn in a mournful sort of expression. “You were right about Cygne... about Lucius. I recognized his voice.”

  I gave her a nod. My intuition had been correct, then. I was glad that Yvaine was able to confirm the mage’s identity, though, because there was something else that I’d heard that was occupying my mind at the moment. It was one of the last things Cygne had said to his guards, that he intended to turn in all of the bandits here once they’d done his dirty work for them. I imagined the bandits in the ballroom wouldn’t take too kindly to that, and I expected they’d take double offense when we revealed that the man they were working for was a disgraced nobleman, the very type of person they were planning to rob tonight. The odds were in our favor now, but only if we could get them to listen to us.

  We reached the antechamber where we’d all met earlier and tore down the hall toward the ballroom. Before we’d even gotten through the doors, I could hear Cygne on the other side as he addressed the bandits.

  “...the greatest robbery in the history of that wretched city,” the mage finished just as we burst through the doors. At once, everyone turned to us, and I heard several people gasp as they took in our bloody and burnt costumes and our weapons.

  Cygne was just a few yards away, standing in front of a carving of his swan emblem on the wall. His face blanched beneath his black, birdlike mask when he saw us, and he turned in a panic to signal to one of his guards, only there were none in the ballroom. He’d already sent everyone he had after us, and now he was alone.

  “Cygne!” I called out. “Or should I use your real name?”

  That got the rest of the assembled party’s attention. The room became absolutely still and absolutely silent as everyone waited for me to finish. I walked forward and the crowd parted for me and the rest of my guild behind me as I approached Cygne.

  “You’re Lucius Previn,” I said, loud enough to be heard throughout the ballroom. “You were on the council in Ovrista until you were accused of stealing from the treasury, then you fled and faked your own death. You came here and bided your time, and now you’re trying to deceive these people as well. You’re using them.”

  Whispers started up among the bandits and they shuffled nervously. They were a suspicious group of people by nature, and Cygne hadn’t really come across as trustworthy with all of his posturing and secrecy.

  I turned toward the crowd and was met by close to a hundred curious and wary faces. More than a few looked angry already. Cygne had kept them waiting, and now I’d proposed that he wasn’t to be trusted after all. Good. I wanted to use their anger.

  “We just caught him speaking to his guards,” I said loudly, and I gestured to my clothes and the rest of my guild, bloody, burnt, and armed, as proof. “He told them that after the heist, after all of you have done the dangerous work to bring him what he wants, he’s not going to give you the reward he promised. No, he’s going to betray all of you by telling the city guards where to find you and keeping the spoils for himself while you’re all jailed or executed.” I turned back to Cygne. “Isn’t that right?”

  Every bandit in the ballroom was silent as they waited for their leader’s answer. The mage’s eyes darted toward the door, and for a moment he looked as though he was calculating the risk of trying to make a run for it, but then he straightened up proudly, and his lip curled up into a sneer beneath his mask.

  “That’s a nice story, boy,” he said, loud enough to be heard by the bandits as well. “Unfortunately for you, that’s all it is, a story.” He took a step forward and made a show of studying me. “And just who are you, anyway? I don’t believe I’ve seen you or any of your gang at our meetings before.”

  I curled my hands into fists at my sides. The bandits in the crowd were whispering to one another now, I could hear them. Had they seen any of us before? Now that Cygne mentioned us, they weren’t sure they recognized us after all.

  “It’s very clever of you to try to turn my friends against me,” Cygne went on, and he emphasized the word friends, “but they’re far too smart to fall for a trick like this.”

  “It’s not a trick,” I retorted. “It’s the truth! Look at us! We had to fight through his guards because he tried to have us killed when he realized we’d overheard his real plan. He thinks you’re all stupid, and he’s just trying to manipulate you.”

  “So you slaughtered a few of my guards,” Cygne said. “That doesn’t prove anything. These fine people know that I hate the nobles of Ovrista as much as any of them. That’s why we organized this whole endeavor, isn’t it?” He addressed his question to the crowd, and they responded with cheers. When Cygne turned back to me, his expression was smug. “We’re going to put those nobles in their place. We’re going to show them that with all their walls and guards and locks, they aren’t better than us. We’re going to take what’s most precious to them, and then it is we who will live like kings!”

  That speech was met by another round of cheering and applause from the assembled bandits, and I frowned as I looked out at the crowd. How could they not see what a fake he was? Were they really so drawn in by his false promises?

  “Now,” Cygne said then, and the crowd quieted down when he spoke. “Let us begin this first night of our reign, my friends, by killing these imposters!”

  I drew my dagger and summoned the mana blade as I lunged for Cygne, but in the same moment, the mage stepped back and raised his hands, and as his mana flared up, a blinding light shot from his palms.

  “Kill them!” he ordered again, and the bandits nearest to us surged forward. It became apparent at once that, rules or not, we weren’t the only ones who had thought to sneak in weapons, and arrows and crossbow bolts thudded into the wall behind us as Cygne started to run.

  He’d surprised me with that light, it wasn’t like Emeline’s fire or even Aerin’s healing magic, but I wasn’t going to let him get away again. I lunged for him, and just as I did, one of Lavinia’s arrows caught him in the shoulder, and he stumbled back with a cry of pain as red blood blossomed on his white robes.

  I reached out and grabbed ahold of the mage’s robes with my f
ree hand, my mana dagger in the other, but I was yanked back before I could stab him by one of the bandits. I twisted the blade in my hand and drove it backward, and there was a cry of pain behind me as the blade sank into my captor’s abdomen. The bandit released me, and I turned and stabbed him in the chest, right where his mana glowed like a little sun. As his body convulsed, and he fell, I whirled back around to face Cygne just as the mage finished casting another spell.

  Instead of light, however, this time it was darkness that flooded out from the mage’s palms like ink in water and swallowed up all the light in a five-foot radius around him. For a second I just stared, shocked by what I’d seen. I’d never even heard of magic like that, not even from the illegal texts I’d gathered over the months to teach myself mana manipulation. I remembered suddenly what Yvaine had said about the rumors about Lucius Previn when I had asked her if he was a mage. She’d said people had gossiped about his family hiring private tutors... I wondered if Eamon Maderel knew about those rumors, or if he knew anything at all about the sort of magic that Cygne was doing.

  I snapped out of my shock as I heard the sharp whistle of a fireball and ducked on instinct, but when I turned toward the source, it wasn’t Emeline, but a bandit mage. His mana gathered in his palm as he drew back his arm to launch another fireball at me, but I was faster, and I raised my hand in his direction and closed it into a fist.

  The mage stumbled and nearly fell as he clutched at his chest where his mana had dipped sharply beneath my influence, and I took the momentary distraction to grab him by the shoulder and drive my mana blade into his chest. His body lit up and shuddered violently as the bright blue blade connected with the mage’s orange mana, and he made a rasping sound in his throat as he fell dead at my feet.

  A scream drew my attention to where the rest of my guild were all backed against the wall as bandits swarmed around them. Maruk, Aerin, and Yvaine were doing their best to hold the line while Lavinia, Emeline, and Lena shot arrows, threw fireballs, and tossed explosive concoctions into the crowd of oncoming bandits.

  Despite lacking his signature spiked armor, Dehn wasn’t content to stay on the defensive, and I glimpsed flashes of the halfling’s orange hair and green suit as he tore through the crowd with his sword and axe. The scream I’d heard, I realized, had come from one of the halfling’s victims when he’d hamstrung the man, and as the bandit hopped and stumbled on one leg, Dehn pounced on him and stabbed him in the back with his sword.

  I saw one of the bandit archers’ mana flare up as he aimed a shot for Aerin, and I reached out and quelled his mana as I ran toward the rest of my guild. The archer coughed and nearly dropped his bow in surprise, and as I neared him, I drove my dagger between his shoulder blades. His body was still jolting from the explosion of mana in his chest when I dropped him and joined the others.

  Aerin threw me a relieved look as she swung her axe forward into the abdomen of an approaching bandit.

  “There you are!” the healer exclaimed as she pulled her axe free. “I saw that pyromancer attack you--” she broke off as she slammed the butt of her axe into another bandit’s head, just as I caught another by the collar and slit his throat, “--and I tried to come help but I couldn’t get through.”

  A bandit with a club charged us both with a ferocious roar, and I held my hand out and used my mana to augment Aerin’s axe as the healer blocked the bandit’s swing and retaliated with a strike of her own that landed in the space between the bandit’s neck and shoulder.

  “Are you hurt?” Aerin asked with a frown as she pulled her axe free and turned back to me. A spray of blood had splattered her face.

  “No, I’m alright,” I assured her. “I just wish--” I was about to tell her that Cygne had gotten away when I glimpsed the mage’s black and white robes in the crowd. So, the coward had stayed for the fight after all. He’d been careful to stay behind the rest of the bandits, of course, where he was in virtually no danger. Well, that was about to change.

  “Lavinia!” I called and turned to the ladona ranger. Before I could tell her to aim for the mage, however, inky darkness suddenly fell over all of us, and the world became pitch black.

  “What’s going on?” Emeline shouted fearfully. She hadn’t seen Cygne summon darkness like I had.

  “Shit,” I hissed. I could still see everyone’s mana, but the darkness rendered everyone else totally blind. Even the bandits nearest to us were affected, though I heard the thud of an arrow burying itself into the wall just above our heads and knew that the archers further back were continuing to attack, hoping for a lucky shot.

  “It’s Cygne,” I shouted in answer to Emeline’s question. “He can create it somehow.”

  “What the fuck?” Lavinia growled. “What kind of magic is that?”

  I turned back toward the bandit crowd where the lights of their mana bobbed and shifted like wisps in the otherwise pitch-black darkness. I could hear their own confused shouts, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. Even if Cygne could hold this unnatural darkness over the cavern, the bandits would regain their courage soon.

  I had another advantage, however, and that was that I could pick out the mages in the crowd by the brightness of their mana. As I scanned the lights before me, I picked out Cygne’s, the furthest back, but the brightest of all with the effort it took him to maintain his spell over us. He was too far away for me to be able to direct Lavinia for an accurate shot, but I could handle the bastard myself.

  I reached out my hand and concentrated, prepared to fight for control of Cygne’s mana. He was obviously a skilled mage, which meant he would be able to resist my influence more than most others. I took a deep breath and focused on the point of light that I knew belonged to Cygne, and as my mana flowed down my arm, I curled my outstretched hand into a fist. There was a slight burning sensation against the skin of my palm as Cygne’s mana burned against my own attempt to counter it, but then, abruptly, it dimmed, and the shadow that the mage had cast over us evaporated.

  At the back of the crowd, Cygne staggered with a look of complete shock as he clutched at his chest. I still had my arm up, and I tightened my fist until my nails dug into my palm, and the mage stumbled and looked panicked. He turned toward one of the doors then, and I realized that he was going to try to run again. No way.

  I was only thinking of not letting Cygne escape when I charged into the crowd with my mana blade drawn, but the bandits were so surprised that at first, none of them even tried to stop me. Those who did, however, didn’t get very far, though, as I literally cut my way through them with furious sweeps of my knife. I had backup, too. As soon as Lavinia, Emeline, and Lena realized what I was doing, they started targeting the bandits nearest to me to clear a path.

  Cygne saw me coming and raised his hand, no doubt to try to throw me off with another darkness spell, but I was ready for him, and I raised my free hand and quelled his mana before it had even reached his hand. He choked and fell to the marble floor, and his hand shook as he touched his chest. A second later his mouth went slack with horror as he'd finally connected the dots and realized what I’d done, but by then I was upon him, and as I grabbed him by the collar, his eyes bulged behind his mask.

  “You...” he whispered raspily as I hauled him to his feet. “You’re a manipulator? But how?”

  I didn’t bother to answer as I plunged my mana blade into the mage’s chest. His body lurched and twitched as his mana exploded with white light, and then he was still, and I let go of his collar and dropped his body to the floor.

  It was only then that I became aware of the absolute silence behind me, and I turned to see that all of the remaining bandits had stopped and were staring at me. Then, one by one, they all dropped their weapons and held up their hands in surrender. Despite having been so outnumbered, we had managed to take out a significant number of them, and I figured there was only a little more than half of their original number still standing. The marble floor was wet with blood and covered with burn marks, broken glass, and of
course, bodies.

  “This heist,” I panted, “is over.” No one moved. None of them dared to. “I suggest you all get out of here before we get back with the city guard.”

  As soon as I’d spoken, the remaining bandits scattered in a panic like startled hares and fled out of every available door, leaving behind their weapons and any other belongings that they’d happened to have on them.

  “What!?” Dehn roared as I crossed the ballroom floor back to where the rest of my guild was waiting. “We had them all right here, and you just let them go?”

  “They’re not going to cause any more trouble tonight,” I replied. “Our mission was to stop the heist, and we did.” In truth, by the looks on most of the bandits’ faces, I suspected that many of them were going to cut their losses and find new employment rather than risk coming up against our guild again. I wasn’t worried about them.

  “Come on,” I said then. “Let’s run a quick search of this place and see what we can find.” I didn’t want to go back to the city without proof of what we’d discovered - that Lucius Previn had faked his death, that he was Cygne and had organized this heist, and that Lord Adler was in on it. I did intend to tell the city guard and the council about this place, and I was certain that after we revealed everything to them, including that one of their own members was complicit, they would want to come down here themselves, but I wanted something to bring back, and I didn’t like the idea of dragging Cygne’s corpse back with us. Let them find it when they got here.

  Dehn’s mood improved somewhat when I told him that he could have first pick of the weapons the bandits had left behind, and he busied himself with comparing the swords and scimitars and other instruments of death scattered on the ballroom floor while the rest of us returned upstairs to Cygne’s suite to see what we could find there.

  The smell of smoke and charred flesh was as pungent as ever as we re-entered the room, and combined with the drain on my mana from the battle, it made me feel a little lightheaded. Lena came up and put a hand on my elbow as I leaned against the doorframe and gave me a small vial of bright purple liquid.