by Garon Whited
“Is there a problem?” he asked, almost sweetly.
“You know what the problem is!”
“I should hope so. Why do you think I’ve been taking my time between moves? Or pondering so long on each one? Or allowing you to take your time?”
“To make sure that if the game went on long enough, the sunset would catch me in the courtyard.”
“Indeed. It’s hardly an ideal outcome, but I’ll be content to have you burn.”
“What would be ideal?”
“I’m not going to explain. Suffice it to say that I, personally, will settle for your complete destruction, even though it costs me dearly. I hate your kind, all of you, and wish you had never existed!”
I gripped the arms of the chair and flexed. They bent a little, but nothing broke. I rammed them back and forth; the chair creaked and groaned, but nothing gave. I planted my feet and pushed, trying to topple the chair backward; it crackled and popped, but it remained fixed. The spell was too strong for me to simply break out of.
Hagus was white-knuckled in his own chair, metaphysical sweat beading his brow. His look of concentration was absolute. I could tell he was focused on maintaining his spell, and that I was straining it. If I could break free—and, during the night, with that kind of power at my disposal, I might—then I could escape the spell entirely. Or… could I… since we were both actually here, in a very real, if non-corporeal way…
After a few minutes, while my transformation was ongoing, I realized I wasn’t on fire. It didn’t hurt. At least, it didn’t hurt any more than it normally does. After a few minutes more, I relaxed.
I smiled at him, showing fangs. He turned white and his eyes tried to jump out of their sockets.
“Want to give up now?” I asked.
“How have you managed to avoid destruction?”
“I have no idea. You’re out to kill me; I’m guessing someone doesn’t want you to,” I said. His eyes flicked left and right, at the figures seated at either hand, then focused on me again. I continued with, “I guess it’s possible I was in enough shadow during the sunset that I’m just badly hurt, rather than destroyed, but I don’t think that’s it.” I thought about it for a moment. “No, I get the feeling that someone helped. It’s just a feeling, though. I don’t suppose you’d care to quit now and let me go check?”
Hagus’ mouth turned into a narrow line as his lips pressed together.
“Then we’ll just have to kill you more than once,” he observed, and focused on the arena again.
“I thought you might say that.”
While we spoke, I reached out with the dark lines of my spirit, slithering them along the chair, down to the floor, and around the arena. The shadow-figures were real, I discovered, but not truly connected to the spell. They seemed to connect through Hagus, which made magical sense. He was the one casting the spell and participating in the contest. They were just along for the ride, loaning him the power necessary to push the spell far enough and strongly enough to drag me into it and keep me inside it. Hagus was the key to the spell; they were just extra batteries.
If I could sever their connection, the spell wouldn’t have the power to continue. Unfortunately, they were grouped together somewhere far distant, and connected only through Hagus. I would have to reach through him to get to them, or even to get to the connections between Hagus and them.
On the other hand, Hagus was here. My tendrils could reach him.
The arena filled with a heaving mass of formlessness. It ate at the eyes with colors indescribable; it fluxed and shifted in ways that defied geometry. I was instantly repulsed by it, feeling an instinctive, fundamental revulsion. It was a something that had no business existing.
Hagus grinned at me.
“There you go. Defeat that.”
I wanted nothing to do with it. It reminded me far too much of Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. For all I knew, it was exactly that. I wondered where Hagus had conjured it from and then realized I wanted desperately to never find out.
I’ve never seen an actual nuclear weapon detonation. I’ve seen lots of film, though. It was worth a shot. I shielded my eyes and handed it what I recalled from the Castle Bravo nuclear device.
The arena blazed white. I could see the bones of my hand through the skin. Hagus screamed.
The light faded. The arena, undamaged, was empty. Hagus was white and shaking, pressed back in his chair with his hands over his eyes.
Hmm. Apparently, things in the arena can affect us, I thought. It might be important. On the other hand, if the bomb had been to scale, we were close enough that we should have been vaporized, or at least deep-fried. The arena must incorporate some sort of safeties. They probably didn’t anticipate something that gave off that much light, though… So, at a guess, it couldn’t really affect us, other than as something we could see.
Okay. I could use that.
I continued to feel my way along with tendrils, delicately tracing the legs of Hagus’ chair and working my way up along the sides and back. Hagus took a minute to recover, and I let him take his time.
When he finally regained his poise, he pressed fingers to either side of his head, resting his elbows on the chair arms, and focused grimly on the arena.
“All right. Your turn. Now!”
And I realized that I could use things I hadn’t personally seen. Something from movies, or television, as long as I was familiar enough with it, would serve just as readily. But I felt I should test that.
I put a giant robot in the arena. It drew a sword and looked around expectantly. So, anime and manga were on the table. It was a terrible realization.
“Hagus, you’ve got no chance at winning this,” I told him.
“Silence! I am about to destroy your golem.”
“No, really,” I insisted. “You haven’t got a snowball’s chance in a solar flare. I mean it. You’re dealing with someone who has access to the combined creations of some of the most powerful explorers of the realms of what-might-have-been, what-could-be, and what-might-happen. I’m not all that impressive, but I just realized I can call upon powers far, far greater than myself. Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein… Roddenberry, E.E. Smith… Lucas and Spielberg… you really don’t understand!”
“I said, silence! Here!”
And my giant robot faced some sort of earth-being, an elemental of rock and soil. They went at it, but I paid no attention. I might be about to get another needle through the head, but in the meantime, I had a deeper plan. Tendrils. Psychic, spiritual, magical… creeping ever-more-thickly up along and around Hagus’ chair. His metaphorical chair, but the very real psychic/spiritual presence in it.
It was a long fight, and I was very pleased. Sadly, my robot lost; the elemental kept getting better while the robot retained damage. But it took a while, and that was what I wanted.
I grimaced again as the sting of losing shot through my head. I didn’t mind it so much. I knew I was dead, and that whatever I might suffer now would get better in record time. Knowing that it hurts, but can’t actually harm you, takes a lot of the sting out of being wounded.
Plus, I had a plan.
“All right,” I acknowledged. “Another for you. But, no matter what you do, if you don’t quit this, right now, you’re going to suffer for it. You’re facing not just a nightlord, but an elder geek. You have no idea just how awful this is about to become for you. My god, do you realize that you could have to deal with the Enterprise? Or the Death Star? To say nothing of Superman, or the Avengers. Or Mentor. Please… I’m giving you a chance, which is more than you wanted to give me. I swear to you, you really don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
Hagus snorted and nodded to the arena. It filled with water—it looked like a section of ocean, viewed from a mile or so in the sky. Tiny little whitecaps showed a fair amount of wind. I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t even need to get fancy for this,” I said, and an entire naval carrier strike group made white wakes in the sea. The car
rier launched aircraft. Attack helicopters simply lifted off; lines of steam rocketed down the deck behind jets.
I paid close attention to this one, because there were things this creation had to do, specifically, rather than just fight whatever Hagus conjured.
Tentacles rose out of the water on the port side. Phalanx guns ripped into them with lines of fire. Helicopters gained altitude and circled, prepared to carry out antisubmarine warfare on a sea monster. Turrets rotated on destroyers and battleships; missile hatches opened, depth charges rolled, klaxons sounded.
Meanwhile, two more jets launched and circled to form up with the first two. As the carrier group attacked tentacles and sent various forms of destruction below the surface, the jets suddenly broke off and went screaming toward Hagus, firing missiles as they went. The missiles exploded early, rather than striking him; it was as though the arena was under some sort of dome. The jets veered off and went back to help deal with the squid or kraken or whatever it was, and that suited me perfectly.
Because Hagus flinched. He stopped leaning forward and flinched backward into his chair.
A thousand strands of darkness looped over and around him—head, throat, arms, legs, body. Nothing hurt him; nothing even tried to drain him of vitality or essence. Instead, I tightened them as much as I could on his spiritual avatar. Physically, their power is minimal. I couldn’t tie him to a chair in the material world. Well, I don’t think I could; things have changed a little during my long sleep. But here, in this dream construct, where the mind and spirit were everything, they had real force.
“Now, tell me more about the King of Rethven, and why he wants me dead,” I said.
I didn’t wait for his answer. I was already sending a tendril back along the line of power that was the spell, tracing it. Somewhere to the west, yes; that was obvious. But where?
“How…?” he asked, wide-eyed and staring.
“I’m a nightlord. Didn’t he say?”
“This is impossible! You’re under a binding!”
“Do you really want to know how I can do this?” I asked. “You’re not just in denial—you really want to know? I’ll tell you, if you do.”
Hagus opened his mouth, paused, then just nodded.
“No, I have to hear you say it. A nod won’t do,” I told him, still tracing back along the line of power. “It’s a politeness thing. I’m big on politeness, in case you haven’t heard.”
“Indeed; I have heard. Very well. Please explain to me how you are able to do this. There is no way of which I am aware that anyone can counter the power of this spell without defeating the caster in the arena.”
“That’s simple enough,” I said, playing for time while I continued to reach down the connection of the spell. “See, under normal circumstances, the subject of the spell—me, in this case—is stuck to the chair. It’s a metaphor for the entrapment your binding spell produces, right?”
“Yes.”
“The trouble is that you ensnared me as a mortal, and that’s all the spell found when it ensnared me. As a result, all the powers I might bring to bear—which reminds me, you did allow for my exceptional strength, didn’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Was that because I know I’m strong, and would bring that with me into this realm, or because I possess considerable magical and spiritual force?”
“In this particular spell? It was your actual strength; you remember being strong. It is part of your body image, so it is part of your avatar.”
“I thought so. Thank you. But to continue. When you ensnared a mortal, you contained a mortal. After nightfall, I was no longer mortal, and the bindings you placed on me did not allow for the containment of the powers I gain at night. Of course, you anticipated that I would be destroyed at sunset, didn’t you?”
And there we are, the other end of the spell. Now all I need is a map…
“Yes… I see,” he said, nodding. “Well, what do you plan to do? I can’t get up, so we are stuck here in this spell. Is it your plan to wait until the energies of the spell are exhausted, and so escape by default? Or simply continue the contest?”
“Neither. If anything, I intend to reinforce the spell,” I told him. “I can’t have it collapsing on me before I’m finished.” I started doing so, feeding it power from my own storehouse of energies. He frowned. Puzzled, but unworried. Perfect.
“I don’t understand. Finished?”
“Well, I do want to know why the King of Rethven wants me dead. Is it because I’m a nightlord? Or does he have other reasons? I get the impression that you have personal reasons for wanting me dead.”
Hagus was silent.
“Well?” I demanded. His response was, shall we say, vulgar and uninformative. I shrugged. “Have it your way.”
On the far end of the spell, wherever his physical form might be, I stabbed tendrils into him, spearing through his avatar like needles through cloth, sending them arrowing down the line of my other tendril, to bury themselves in the living being beyond. His avatar writhed in my grip, withering and shriveling as I drank his life. Shadowy forms flickered out as the larger structure of the spell failed, but I held the connection to Hagus like a drowning man holds a rope.
I held the spell connection in place, feeding it, maintaining it, while lines of darkness drained his soul down that channel. His very being weakened, faded, drained away into me as I held the spell in place. I drew the stuff of life from him until there was nothing left to draw. The precious, precious life of a man, not just a beast. The pulse of a soul, rather than just some animal spirit. Everything that made him what he was, made him who he was, vanished into me, swirled within me, and was gone. The dream-image-avatar collapsed into whirling motes of light, flickered in the sea of dark and writhing tendrils about his chair, and were consumed.
Fade to black.
I lay there quietly, awkwardly, hesitant to move until I took in my situation. I slitted my eyes and looked around. The floor in the throne room was probably cold, but I was already dead, so that mattered not at all. The main door was closed, and Bronze stood over me, looking down. I wondered, just for a moment, if she was looking slimmer, more streamlined. Her body design adapts over time to what she’s doing…
“I just had the strangest dream,” I said. Bronze nodded while I rolled over and sat up. “Either someone was trying to kill me in a spell-induced nightmare, or the local dazhu have been eating entirely too many mushrooms.”
While I spoke, I climbed to my feet and shook my head. Everything seemed intact. Better than that, in fact. An empty place seemed satisfied. A hollow spot filled. A hunger sated.
Magicians make good dinners. Dangerous ones, but delicious. Kind of like fugu, I suppose; totally worth it if it doesn’t kill you.
“Why is it that powerful people always want to see me as the guest of honor at a funeral?”
Bronze flicked her ear: I have no idea. I sensed she might be more than a little amused.
“By the way, have I mentioned that you are not only the strongest, fastest, and bravest horse in the world, but you’re also the smartest?”
She tossed her head, mane tinkling: No.
“You are. You dragged me inside, yes?”
She nodded.
“Then you’ve saved my life again.”
She nodded again. Just another day for her.
“Is that blood on your hooves?” I asked, looking at one closely. She agreed that it was. “Have you been stomping people while I was sleeping?” From the way she shrugged and shook her mane, I took it to mean: Only people who deserved it.
Outside, in the upper courtyard, a half-dozen men in leather armor were in various states of flattened. Blood and other fluids had congealed in the sun and cooled in the evening; none of it tried to crawl over to me, which suited me just fine.
“Bronze?” I asked. She cocked her head in my direction. “I love you.” She snorted warm air down my neck: I love you, too.
All right. The directional fix I had
on Hagus was a feeling, not a compass bearing. It would be wise to get that nailed down before it faded. We went back into the great hall and I closed my eyes, trying to get a feeling for which way to face. I bit my thumb with a fang and smeared a little blood on the wall to mark my position.
I tried to, anyway. Blood didn’t come out. Frowning, I tried again, but no go. I tried to suck blood out of the hole and spit it on the wall. It didn’t spit. I sucked it out of my thumb, sure, but it soaked into the tissues inside my mouth as readily as it soaked into my skin. I felt the impulse, but didn’t bother to swear.
I’m not just a blood-drinking monster, I’m a sponge.
I drew a two lines of light on the wall, forming an “X,” instead. I hurried off in what I thought was the proper direction and stopped when I reached the other wall. I drew two more lines of light to form another “X”. The two formed a line directly toward the dream-spell’s source.
Let’s see, I thought. The main entry door is north… somewhere to the northwest, bearing slightly more to the north. That’s one line. Am I going to need another attempted murder to get a second?
I realized I would also need a map. Well, maybe later.
The great hall was dark as a tomb, aside from my dim lines of light, so everything was in black and white. Maybe that’s why I noticed a few small areas of distortion hanging in the air. They were scattered about, wavering like heat shimmer. I recognized them as the business ends of distant-viewing spells. I wondered if they were specifically looking for me, or just looking inside the mountain and hoping to see me.
It occurred to me that with the Ascension Sphere taken down, magic would be able to reach me again. While I slept inside that thing, locating spells would just get sucked in and fail to find anything. Now there was nothing between me and a hostile—or, to be fair, maybe just curious—world. Therefore, I suspected I was the focus of their attention and the reason for their presence.
I acknowledge that it’s possible I’m just being paranoid. People trying to kill me makes that an occupational hazard. I’ve learned to live with it. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though.