Sarn shook his head. “No, you’re the Adversary.”
“You called me.” The creature’s wings dropped over its shoulders and melted into a cloak. A hooded head lifted and eyes like burning coals sought him and kept searching. “Where are you, boy? I hear you. I feel the conflict raging within you.” It cocked its hooded head to one side like a listening bird. “I know you’re here, and I know what you want.”
Sarn tried to rise, but the mark was flowing down his left side. It was past his groin and shooting down his left leg, making it jump. But he no longer had command of those muscles.
“Where’s my son?”
Sarn felt to his right where he remembered Ran was standing, but his hand didn’t encounter a set of miniature boots, nor snag on a child-sized cloak. In fact, his hand touched nothing at all.
“He’s not part of the Question. He’ll have his own in due time. That’s the way of things for mages if he’s a mage.”
The ground receded into a fog bank rolling closer with every breath, bringing with it the Adversary. He was surfing it.
Sarn rubbed his eyes with the hand he could still control. Am I losing my mind? “What’s the ‘Question?’”
“It differs depending on the mage. For you, it’s whether you want to be a mage. Next time it’ll be something else. Everything must balance and all that rot. So, we’ll dance this dance again in a few years.” The Adversary shrugged, and his body flickered as if he were shifting between two locations. “Have you made a decision?”
“Ran? J.C.?” Neither answered, but they were both right there not a moment before. They must still be here but hidden somehow by the Adversary’s power. “Sovvan? Some advice would be great right now.”
She too must be there, but he couldn’t feel her presence or hear her voice. Damn. She likely knew six ways to defeat the Adversary.
“Who are you talking to? You’re alone with me. We’re done with the witness portion. It’s down to the question. What do you want?”
That hooded head turned and kept turning as the Adversary searched for him by sound alone.
It still couldn’t see him. Maybe if I shut up, he’ll bother someone else. That was unlikely given the throbbing pain in his marked hand. This ‘Question’ business sounded serious.
“Unlikely, since I’ve spent several hours looking for you. You’re a hard mage to find, Sarn. Good name by the way. Short monikers are hard to work into incantations. You need at least two syllables to work up a good rhythm. A catchy rhyme scheme helps too. Spells take hold better if the subject can’t get the rhyme out of his mind.”
The Adversary’s smile was as crooked and sharp as a scythe and bore more than a passing resemblance to one.
Sarn shuddered. The splinter swelled until it drove itself through his palm, pinning him to the shrouded ground. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, but it was no use. The Adversary could read thoughts, and the devil was cocking his hooded head as if it listened to his internal dialogue again.
“I know what you fear—being different. You want to be normal—mundane. How quaint. Take my hand. I can give you that. I can take it all away and give you the normalcy you crave.” The Adversary retracted his six-inch claws into the back of the skeletal appendage he extended.
“Imagine it! No more voices in your head. No more strange interludes like this one. No more hiding. No one will chase you. No more fearing mobs. They’ll have no reason to corner you. You’ll be as benign and boring as a slice of bread. And best of all, we won’t have to rehash this in a few years. You can live a small life of absolute boredom doing whatever it is mundane people do.”
“You will figure out what normal is and you will spend every minute of every day trying to be it,” Jerlo said in his head again, as a miniature version of the commander retook the observer seat in his mind.
Nolo stood, arms crossed, beside his boss. His black face was stern, but his eyes challenged Sarn.
“Are you taking the easy way out? I thought better of you, Kid.”
Nolo’s phantasm turned his back on Sarn and faded, but his aura lingered. Death’s Marksman may have left this bizarre conversation, but the avatar of Death Nolo served fixed dark eyes on Sarn, and they swelled into portals to the past. Sarn fell through them into a child’s body.
Sarn’s bare feet struck the cold tiles then he launched into a run, gauging the distance to the next roof as he neared the gap. Miren clung to his back in an improvised harness. He couldn’t be more than ten in this memory, which made Miren about four years old.
Fat snowflakes swirled around them as Sarn leaped. Magic punched him in the back, giving him that extra push, so he sailed over the silent street below. Ahead a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer landed on another roof six buildings on. He was catching up. Soon he’d find out how reindeer knew how to fly.
But for now, the exhilaration of the jump warmed him from head to toe as his feet struck stone and he bounded onward, always chasing, always racing with a shining green doppelganger running at his side. Its whispers told him how he too could fly, and a smile lit him up. It was good to be a mage.
That glimmering city faded into the black eyes of Death right before it too faded out. Its Marksman’s words echoed back.
“Are you taking the easy way out?”
Stunned, Sarn sat there. I once reveled in my power? The idea was as alien to him as that daredevil kid he’d just visited in memory.
Yes. We played together when you were young, said his magic, and it spoke in a full sentence containing more than two words.
“Be normal. Those are my orders.” Jerlo’s phantasm stepped forward and his words reverberated through the oaths Sarn had sworn. They were chains, binding Sarn to his commands.
My orders…
Obey. Obey. Obey!
Yes, Master.
Sarn extended his unmarked hand to the Adversary but stopped before their hands connected. Do I want to give it up? The question gave Sarn pause, so he withdrew his hand.
Little fingers felt along his neck for something then jerked on it—Ran. His son was here, but the fog hid him until white light peeled back the darkness revealing Ran’s confused face inches from his own.
“Papa! Magic is a good thing, and we need it now.”
Truth, said his magic, and Sarn felt the rightness in his son’s words. But Ran was receding into the fog.
And I like playing with it, said a ten-year-old scarecrow of a boy—his inner child. A green flame divided on his outthrust palm into a miniature man. Magic is my friend. Don't take him away from me.
Sarn shook his head. “But all the trouble I’ve faced comes back to magic. Demons, devils, ghosts and other supernatural things would leave me alone if I was mundane.” And Shade might still be alive if I didn’t have magic.
Magic is normal for us. We are Magic Kind, not humankind, said the green man-shaped blob of fire jumping off his inner child’s hand.
As it approached Sarn, it grew until it could slap his hand away from the Adversary, who still hadn’t seen him. In fact, the Adversary seemed to be muttering to himself about tentacles. Oh Fate, I promised to help J.C., not get mired in my own doubts.
We are power. We are magic. We were born to wield the life-fire of the universe. Don’t deny us. Together we can do great things. His magic extended a glowing-green hand to Sarn. Choose us. Choose magic.
Shade, veiled and hooded as always, appeared next to the magic-made man. “I loved you, magic and all. It’s who you are. It’s what you do. Even if you gave it up, you’d still be different. No one is normal. Everyone is as unique as those ice pellets that beat us up after we saved your son. Don’t chase someone else’s lie. Be you and let the world be itself. Be the man I’ve always loved.”
Shade gestured to the magic, and its luminous hand shook as Sarn reached for it.
“You were always right, old friend. I loved you too, but I’m still mad at you.”
Shade shrugged as a wave of darkness rolled over them, snuffing out
the magic-man before Sarn could grab its hand.
No, screamed his magic then it went silent.
“This isn’t over yet, boy.” Skeletal hands seized Sarn and forced something down his throat. “Magic-stealer, take his light. Live ‘till again we’ve shared slights. My mark binds you to this plight: life you’ll have while you feel my bite.”
Ran screamed and the world blackened.
Foiled Plans
“Live free of the magic, you despise. At my side, thy time is nigh. Come, sinner, to your dark Father fly. At my side, thy time is nigh.”
The Adversary held out his hand to the doubly-gifted mage still hidden by the Queen of All Trees’ spell. Soon that little technicality wouldn’t matter. Sarn was already darkening and succumbing to his spell.
“Come, sinner, reclassify. Take my hand, thy time is nigh. Embrace the lie, you glorify. Take my hand, thy time is nigh.”
Sarn was wavering. I feel you waffling, boy. Just a little push and he’d fall. The Adversary smiled and took a moment to check in with the bit of himself in the Ægeldar.
Everything looked good there. Thirteen entranced fools leaped to their fiery deaths every minute. That second shield only needed to last for thirteen minutes and he’d have all the souls, and the power he needed to reign supreme. So why aren’t you trying to stop me, Queenie?
Her absence perturbed him more than he wanted to admit. What are you doing? Why aren’t you here to witness my triumph? And what happened to that Divine One I sensed earlier? Why is no one trying to stop me?
A game was only fun when your opponents put up a good fight but his weren’t. What do they know that I don’t? Aren’t I the biggest threat? The Adversary tried to put such thoughts away, but they wouldn’t go because he knew little about black lumir crystals.
And there was one loose in the hands of an unstable cleric. There were more beneath the shield he’d warped into a killing machine. How many more were there in the pit?
For the first time in ages, doubt bit him hard, and the Adversary doubled down on the mage he was trying to turn. Curse makers had an affinity for black lumir crystals just as their opposites, curse breakers, had an affinity for black lumir’s antithesis.
“Mage to mundane, I modify. Take my hand, thy time is nigh. Your magic, I nullify. Take my hand, thy time is nigh,” said the Father of Lies.
Far below, in the Ægeldar, a life expired, and it distracted the Adversary from his task. He shifted back to that chasm. What have we here?
Everything that had been the man known as Cris fled his dead body and winged to the Adversary. He caught that dark package of soul energy, pulled it into himself then ripped it out again. In his hands, a black blob waited to be molded into a vessel for his will. After a moment’s reflection, the Adversary spun the ball on his palm and carved it into another wraith.
When his minion was complete, he set it on the ground and grew it to man-sized, then kissed the empty wraith’s forehead. Into that vessel, he poured his essence until it could hold no more.
Coughing and spluttering, the finest servant he’d ever created levitated to his feet. A permanent shadow veiled much of Cris’ face, but his eyes were still human, though there was no separation between his pupils and irises anymore.
“What is thy command, Father of Lies?”
“Watch and report to me when that shield is about to fall,” said the Adversary as he gestured to the thin sparkling line floating above a bottomless pit.
Thirteen people leaped off the edge and the shield flared up, ashing them. Their spirits flew past him into his waiting soul trap, and it captured them, adding their soul energy to the growing gray sphere at the heart of his dark web. The Adversary smiled. Soon he'd have enough power to break the seals barring him physically from this world. Then, the real game would begin. Checkmate, Queenie.
Remembering the young mage he'd left wrestling with himself, he fought down the urge to laugh. His triumph wasn’t assured yet, not while a potential curse breaker still had access to the one type of power that could interfere with his plans.
“What about my friends,” Cris asked as a remnant of his lost humanity momentarily overcame his infernal existence. “I have a vague memory of them in peril.”
“They’re better than fine. In fact, I have one of your friends right here.”
The black flesh on his goat leg bulged as a tiny arm pushed out of that rippling tar-like substance. It broke off and floated into the Adversary’s hands, so he could shape it into another wraith.
Ragnes should be here to see his triumph. After all, the wraith had told him Sarn’s name. The Adversary let go, and Ragnes floated out of his hands fully formed.
“What is thy command?” Ragnes asked as he blinked confused black-on-black eyes.
Having spent more time as a wraith than the newly-made Cris, most of Ragnes’ former self had darkened until he resembled a three-dimensional shadow. Only a few features remained, but his face was a sketch of itself, slowly fading into the anonymity of his brethren. What need did a dead thing have for individuality?
We’re alike in the fall. The Adversary smiled at his creations until he recalled a third wraith who hadn’t reported in nor completed his task yet. That was strange. His creations couldn’t disobey him, their undead maker.
“Find Gore and bring him to me. Go”
Ragnes bowed and blew away on a puff of wind leaving Cris hovering over the shield.
“You have your instructions. Call me if anything changes.”
Cris nodded and echoed Ragnes’ bow. “All will be done according to your will.”
“Good.” The Adversary shifted back to finish the Question and the trap he was weaving for one doubly-gifted mage. Checkmate, indeed.
Sarn was right where he’d left the mage, conflicted but swaying towards the lie of mundanity. Good. Now to apply some pressure. The Adversary chanted under his breath, keeping his rhyme just below the level of conscious thought, where spells took root.
“My mark, our bargain signifies. Take my hand, thy time is nigh. Come, sinner, to your dark Father fly. At my side, thy time is nigh.”
Normalcy was a lie, one he’d enjoy binding Sarn to. When you can’t take it anymore, you’ll beg me to restore your power and I will for a price. You'll be the most powerful curse maker that's ever lived.
The Queen of All Trees’ spell cracked allowing a glimpse of the doubly-gifted mage reaching for his hand. Just before their hands connected, the Adversary’s vision doubled.
“Master,” Cris called. “Look through my eyes. See what changes and direct my hands.”
As those words left his wraith’s mind, the Adversary was both there in the tunnel holding an almost finished spell and in the Ægeldar watching an object sail toward a thin line of white fire.
“Bear? J.C.? Rat Woman? Someone help me, please!”
Ran held Papa’s pendant so its light held back the wraiths floating in the black fog bank encircling him. His arm was shaking, but that pendant was all that protected them. He firmed his grip and held it higher.
“Papa, please wake up!”
At least the crowd was turning and heading back the way they’d come. So, he was no longer in any danger of being trampled. That must be a good thing. Ran leaned into Papa and propped his tired arm on his shoulder. With his free hand, he gripped J.C.’s pant leg and tugged. It was the only part of him not covered by wraiths.
“J.C., wake up before the bad things eat your light. J.C., are you here?”
Light exploded the pile of wraiths. They flew off in every direction revealing a rumpled J.C.
“Yes, I’m still here Little One. I was just multi-tasking.” He frowned when he noted the skeletal creatures bouncing off the walls and heading in his direction. A black colloidal substance crawled along the ground.
“What are those things?”
“Magic-eaters, Bear said they’re wraiths, but they say they’re nulls. I just know they’re bad. Come into the crystal’s light so it can pro
tect you too.”
Ran swallowed the fear choking him. Papa’s eyes weren’t glowing anymore, but a white flame bobbed deep in their depths. “They ate one of Papa’s magics and Bear’s too. But if that tiny white flame keeps burning, Papa will be okay. He’ll need to—” Ran frowned as he tried to recall the big ‘r-word’ Bear had used earlier.
“Recuperate?”
Ran nodded. “And eat something.”
In fact, dinner sounded like a great plan. Ran poked his father in the ribs with his free hand.
J.C. stepped close and examined the stone. When Ran tried to hand it to him, his fingers refused to let go.
“No, I think you need to hold it. This crystal has some special properties, and they’re keyed to you and your father.”
“Why won’t Papa wake up?”
“He will. The Question takes time to administer. Both sides can call in ‘witnesses’ to testify then it’s up to your father to decide which way he’ll turn—toward magic or away.”
“But they’ll hurt him if he doesn’t come back soon.”
Ran nodded to the wraiths pacing around the edge of the crystal’s nimbus, and the thickening black mist shrouding the ground. Both wanted to pounce on them.
“I think they have to wait until he decides, but I'm not sure about that. I haven't dealt with many mages before.”
“When you went away before, did you see any bear spirits?”
“No, but I found a terrible wrong I need to right.” J.C. looked where the crowd had gone.
“Please don’t leave me alone again.” Ran tried to suppress the quaver in his voice, but failed, so he turned his face into his father’s chest. Why won’t you wake up, Papa?
J.C. rubbed his back. “I won’t. I've done what I can. Their salvation’s in mortal hands now. I pray he makes the right decision. I’m sorry about before. I’m not omniscient.”
“Neither is Bear.”
“You’ll have to introduce me to him. He sounds like quite a character.”
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 104