05 The Warlock

by Michael Scott

  Sophie was still sitting with her back to the apple tree, the palms of her hands flat against the grass.

  Tsagaglalal sighed. “In truth,” the old woman continued, “I think all magics are equal and identical. A lifetime of study has led me to believe that they are all the same.”

  “But the elements,” Sophie pressed, “air, water, fire and earth are different.”

  Tsagaglalal nodded. “But the same forces control those elements. The energy you use to control fire is the same energy you use to shape water and mold air.” She patted the ground. “And the earth, too. That energy comes from within: it is the power of your aura.”

  The garden filled with the odor of jasmine, and Tsagaglalal rubbed the palm of her hand across the earth. A speckling of brightly colored daisies appeared. “Now, was that earth magic?” she asked.

  Sophie was a bit unsure, but she nodded. “Yes …”

  Tsagaglalal smiled. “Are you sure? Why not water magic? These plants need water to survive. Or maybe it was air magic—they need oxygen, too, don’t they?”

  “And fire?” Sophie asked with a little smile.

  “They do need warmth to grow,” Tsagaglalal said.

  “I’m confused. What’s the Magic of Earth, then? Are you saying that there’s no such thing?”

  “No. I’m saying that there is no such thing as the individual magics. There should be no differentiation between earth, air, fire and water. And why stop at those four classifications? Why isn’t there wood magic or silk magic, or fish magic?”

  Sophie looked at her blankly.

  “Let me tell you the secret that was revealed to me by my husband.” The old woman leaned closer, enveloping Sophie in the sweet aroma of her aura. “There is no such thing as magic. It is a word. A silly, foolish, overused word. There is only your aura … or the Chinese have a better word for it: qi. A life force. An energy. This is the energy that flows within you. It can be shaped, molded, directed.” She plucked a single blade of grass and held it up between thumb and forefinger. “What do you see?” she asked.

  “A blade of grass.”

  “What else?”

  “It’s … green,” Sophie said hesitantly.

  “Look again. Look deeper. Deeper,” Tsagaglalal commanded.

  Sophie stared at the waving blade of grass, noting the faint pattern that ran along the underside, the pointed tip turning brown.…

  “Use your aura, Sophie. Look at the grass.”

  Sophie allowed her aura to wrap around one forefinger like the finger of a silver glove.

  “Look into it,” Tsagaglalal urged. “See it.”

  Sophie touched the blade of grass … and instantly she saw …

  … the structure of the grass, growing huge, unfolding like an entire garden … the outer layer peeling back to reveal veins and threads beneath … and then these dissolved to reveal the cells … and within them the molecules … and beyond those the atoms …

  Suddenly she felt as if she was falling, but was it up or down? Was she flying into space, or dropping deeper …

  … into planet-sized protons … and neutrons and electrons like whirling moons … and even smaller still, the quarks and leptons surging like comets …

  “I cannot teach you earth magic,” Tsagaglalal said. Her voice sounded distant, but suddenly Sophie was surging back toward the sound, seeing everything in reverse, minuscule becoming tiny, tiny growing to small … until she was looking at the blade of grass again. For a moment it seemed as big as a skyscraper, and then Tsagaglalal pulled it away from the girl’s face and it returned to its normal size.

  “You have seen what shapes us, one and all. Even I, who was created out of dust and animated by Prometheus’s aura, have the same structure deep within me.”

  Sophie’s head was spinning and she pressed her hands to her temples. Just when she thought she’d seen everything, she was hit with something new, and it was too much to take in.

  “If you want to do water magic, you shape the hydrogen and oxygen atoms with your imagination and then impose your will on it.” Tsagaglalal leaned forward and caught Sophie’s hands in hers. “Magic is nothing more than imagination. Look down,” she commanded.

  Sophie looked at the ground between her outstretched legs.

  “Visualize the earth covered in blue flowers.…”

  Sophie started to shake her head, but Tsagaglalal squeezed her fingers painfully. “Do it.”

  The girl struggled to create the image of the blue flowers in her head.

  Two tiny bluebells appeared.

  “Excellent,” Tsagaglalal said. “Now do it again. See them clearly. Visualize them. Imagine them into existence.”

  Sophie focused. She knew what bluebells looked like. She could see them clearly in her mind’s eye.

  “Now imagine the grass turning to bluebells. Change it in your head … force it to change … believe it will change. You have to believe, Sophie Newman. You will need to believe, to survive.”

  Sophie nodded. She firmly believed the grass was now covered with bluebells.

  And when she opened her eyes, it was.

  Tsagaglalal clapped her hands in delight. “See. All you had to do was have faith.”

  “But is it earth magic?” Sophie asked.

  “That is the secret of all magic. If you can imagine it, if you can see it clearly, and if your aura, your qi, is strong enough, then you will achieve it.”

  Tsagaglalal attempted to stand. Sophie got easily to her feet and helped the old woman up. “Now why don’t you run on up to the house and get changed. Put on heavy jeans and hiking boots and wear something warm.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “To see your brother,” Tsagaglalal said.

  Nothing sounded better to Sophie at that moment. She kissed her aunt quickly on the cheek before darting off through the garden.

  “And I don’t think it is going to be a happy reunion,” Tsagaglalal murmured.

  rometheus pointed directly ahead to a shining crystal tower rising out of the sea. “That’s where we’re headed.”

  Palamedes twisted to look at the vimana fleet trailing behind them. The enemy ships had grown more cautious since they’d lost the three craft to the megalodons and had hung back, obviously content to trail the Rukma to its destination.

  “The tower is under attack,” Scathach said, leaning forward in her seat to get a better view.

  A larger triangular Rukma vimana hovered over the tower. Long ropes trailed from the Rukma down to a platform close to the top of the tower, where a single armored warrior with a sword and battle-ax guarded an open door against a dozen howling anpu, which slashed at him with serrated spears and deadly kopesh. At least ten anpu lay sprawled around him, and in a flurry of steel, he sent another staggering off the platform into the crashing waters below. And while his weapons were dark with anpu blood, his own gray armor was cracked and broken, bright with red blood. An anpu appeared in the Rukma vimana’s door and fired a tonbogiri down at the warrior. He ducked and the metal balls struck blue sparks where they hit the crystal wall, and the ground around the warrior was streaked with pitted white scars.

  “Now, there is a warrior,” Palamedes said in admiration.

  “None finer,” Prometheus agreed. “Hang on, old friend,” he said softly, “we’re coming.”

  A huge anpu with an enormous curved sword slashed at the warrior in gray, catching him on the side of the head, knocking his helmet off and sending it spinning into the air.

  It took a moment for the immortal humans in the Rukma to recognize him. They had only ever known him as old and ragged, lost and crazed, but here he was in all his glory—it was Gilgamesh the King, howling with laughter, teeth bared and bloody as he fought against impossible odds. More anpu rappelled out of the hovering Rukma.

  Scathach pulled herself out of her chair. “Get us down there!”

  “I’m doing my best,” Prometheus muttered.

  Behind him the vimana fleet closed in.


  “Get us close and I’ll jump,” the Shadow said. She pulled her two short swords from the sheaths on her back.

  “No,” the Saracen Knight said. He pointed to the hovering Rukma. “Get on top of it. We’ll go down by the same ropes.”

  Shakespeare unclipped his restraints. “I am no warrior,” he said to Prometheus. “But you are. Show me what to do, and I will attempt to hold this carriage in place.”

  Prometheus brought their Rukma in almost directly on top of the one hovering over the tower. Even before he had it properly positioned, Scathach had popped open the door and dropped the ten feet onto the second craft. She hit it hard and rolled to her feet. The anpu sniper poked its head out of the opening, wondering what the noise was, and Scathach caught it by the throat, lifted it bodily out of the craft and flung it into the air. It shrieked as it fell into the sea.

  “I guess not all of them are mute,” she muttered.

  She caught hold of the dangling ropes, wrapped an arm and leg around one and slid to the platform below, landing in the middle of the startled anpu.

  “I am Scathach!” she howled, her swords a blur, driving the anpu before her. “I have been called the Daemon Slayer and the King Maker.” Three anpu attacked simultaneously. She ducked, chopping at one, driving another into its companion’s weapon, forcing a third to the edge of the platform. It staggered and then, arms windmilling, fell over the edge. “I have been called the Warrior Maid and the Shadow.” She fought with feet and fists, her swords screaming extensions of her arms. “Today, I am adding the Anpu Killer to my list of titles.”

  The shocked anpu fell back, leaving Scathach alone with Gilgamesh. “It is good to meet you again, old friend. You were magnificent.”

  The warrior looked at her with puzzled blue eyes. “Do I know you?”

  A wave of anpu attacked, howling their terrifying war cry.

  “They must not get inside,” Gilgamesh said. He grunted as a kopesh shattered against his breastplate. “Abraham is finishing the Book.”

  Scathach’s swords slashed another kopesh in half, then chopped at the warrior holding it. The anpu shrieked and spun away.

  “Did you come alone?” Gilgamesh asked.

  And at that moment four figures rappelled down the ropes into the melee.

  The Warrior smiled. “I brought some friends.”

  Prometheus caught two anpu—one in either hand—and tossed them off the platform, while Joan’s blindingly fast sword work sent another staggering over the edge. Saint-Germain fought with two long daggers, and his speed and agility meant that there was no way to defend against his attack. Prometheus used his hammerlike fists to punch his way through to stand alongside Gilgamesh.

  “My friend,” Prometheus said, “are you hurt?”

  “Merely scratches.”

  Scathach drove the last of the anpu over the edge. “Let’s get out of here and—” she began, but Prometheus caught her and flung her to the ground—just as a trio of tonbogiri balls spat into the crystal wall above her head. “—go inside,” she finished.

  With tonbogiri balls ringing and screeching off the platform around them, they scrambled into the tower.

  A beautiful young woman in white ceramic armor holding two metal kopesh faced them. She flowed into a fighting stance when she saw the strangers passing through the doorway, only relaxing when Prometheus and Gilgamesh ducked inside.

  “Let me introduce you to my sister, Tsagaglalal,” Gilgamesh said proudly. “If the anpu had gotten past me, she would have stood as the last line of defense for Abraham.”

  “I knew you would come, Prometheus,” the young woman with the huge gray eyes said. She pressed her hand against his cheek. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she whispered.

  “I am sorry I got delayed.” He jerked his head to a side door. “Is he nearly finished?”

  “He is on the last few lines,” Tsagaglalal said.

  Scathach risked a quick look outside. “Shakespeare is a sitting duck.”

  While they had been fighting the anpu, the vimana fleet had closed in. The Rukma, with Shakespeare at the controls, was coming under sustained fire. They could see puncture marks all across the craft, and as they were watching, there was a sudden bang, and black smoke started to pour from the left wing tip, tilting the craft at a sharp angle.

  Palamedes turned to dart outside. “We’ve got to get—” he began, but Prometheus and Saint-Germain dragged him back as tonbogiri balls peppered the doorframe where he had stood only moments earlier, ripping it to pieces.

  There was sudden movement on the Rukma and Shakespeare appeared, pulling himself up out of the domed roof. With tonbogiri balls cutting chunks out of the craft around him, he crawled out on the tilting triangular wing, then spread his arms and allowed himself to slide off the craft and drop onto the Rukma directly below. He slipped into the opening of the second vimana and reappeared outside a moment later, holding the anpu sniper’s tonbogiri.

  “He’s never fired a gun in his life,” Palamedes said. “He abhors weapons.”

  As Palamedes spoke, the group could see Shakespeare put the tonbogiri to his shoulder, then jerk three times.

  Two of the attacking vimanas spun out of control, both of them crashing into two more. The four flaming craft spiraled into the sea.

  “But then he’s always been full of surprises,” Palamedes added.

  Shakespeare fired again and again and destroyed another two craft. One of them flew into the side of the crystal tower, and the entire building rang like a bell.

  But more and more of the vimana had arrived, with the bigger Rukma warships and the oblong vimana moving up to the front.

  “They will be armed,” Prometheus said. “They’ll shoot him out of the skies and then turn their weapons on us.”

  “We could make a run for the ropes—get into the vimana and leave …,” Scathach said.

  “They’d pick us off as we climbed up. Besides,” he added, “Abraham cannot climb.”

  Saint-Germain risked a quick look outside. Shakespeare had driven off the snipers. “I think we’ve got more trouble coming.”

  They crowded around the door and peered up into the darkening skies. Another vimana had arrived, a slender crystal craft that looked shining and new. The setting sun painted one side of it a warm gold, leaving the other almost completely transparent.

  “So who is this newcomer? The fleet commander?” Scathach asked.

  Prometheus frowned. “I’ve never seen anything like it—only a member of one of the Ruling Clans would have something like that—Aten, maybe, or Isis. Aten would not do this—he would not move against Abraham. But the anpu are Anubis’s creatures, and that dog-headed monster is very much under his mother’s thumb. He’ll do as she tells him. Whoever it is, though”—he shook his head—“it cannot be good news.”

  A series of tiny dots winked around the rim of the crystal ship, and a dozen vimanas, including one of the Rukmas, exploded into flame.

  “Or I could be wrong,” Prometheus conceded.

  The crystal vimana swept past, and for an instant, they all saw who was piloting the craft. Marethyu waved his hook in greeting before racing into the heart of the vimana fleet. Almost immediately a dozen craft blossomed into flame and the fleet dissolved into chaos. Vimana crashed into vimana as they attempted to escape. Those few craft with weapons tried to bring them to bear on the crystal vimana, but it was too fast, and they only succeeded in firing on their own ships.

  Marethyu swept through the fleet again and again, targeting the Rukma vimana and the oblong craft, sending them, flaming, into the sea below.

  When the vimana fleet finally scattered, less than half remained. None of the bigger craft were still in the air, and the seas and rocks around the crystal tower were scattered with bright metal and dark debris.

  Marethyu brought the crystal vimana in and landed it on the platform. He sat inside, not moving.

  Scathach was the first out the door. She picked her way across the
platform around chunks of metal and ceramic from the downed Rukma. When she reached the crystal craft, she looked inside, and then she nodded and turned away. She had seen Marethyu sitting with his right hand covering his eyes, his shoulders shaking, and she knew he was weeping for the death and destruction he had caused. It had been necessary, she knew, and she had no doubt that he had saved their lives. But in that moment, seeing him weep for what he had done, she trusted him more than she had at any time in the past. She knew then that whatever he was—whoever he was—he had not lost his humanity.

  lack Hawk brought the boat in close to the dock and expertly flung a loop of rope around a wooden piling. He nodded to the expensive motorboat Dee and Josh had used to get to the island. It had slipped free of its moorings and was in danger of drifting out to sea. “Well, at least we know they’re still here.”

  Mars hopped off the boat and turned to hold out his hand to Hel. She hesitated, as if surprised, and then took it. “Thank you,” she mumbled.

  Odin stepped out onto the dock and then looked back at the immortal. “Are you coming with us?”

  Black Hawk laughed. “Are you insane, or do you think I am? One immortal and three Elders, heading onto an island of monsters. I know who’s not coming back from that trip.”

  Mars worked his head from side to side, easing the stiffness. “He’s probably right—he’d slow us down.”

  “I’ll be right here,” Black Hawk said, “so that when you all come screaming back here, I’ll be able to get you off the island.”

  Even Hel laughed. “We’ll not come screaming to you.”

  “Have it your way. I’ll be here, though. For a while, anyway,” he added with a grin.

  “I thought you would want to rescue your friend Billy,” Mars said.

  Black Hawk laughed again. “Trust me, Billy never needs rescuing. Usually people need to be rescued from him.”

  r. John Dee stood in the middle of the cellblock and howled his rage. Behind him, a ragged and filthy sphinx regarded him with an expression of distaste on her face.

  Virginia and Josh came racing into the building and Dee spun around to greet them, his face contorted with anger. “Useless!” he shouted. “Useless, useless, useless!” He flung a pile of paper into the air and it rained down like confetti.