Magefall

by Stephen Aryan

  “What do we do?” asked Tahira. Garvey smiled and his mirth seemed to unnerve her and the others.

  “Run.”

  Several of them were already backing away. Two of those guarding the villagers had already disappeared and were scrambling onto their horses.

  One of Haig’s friends wasn’t cowed. “If we fight him together we will—”

  “All be slaughtered,” said Garvey, cutting him off with a snarl. “I don’t need your help. You’re only going to get in the way. Leave, before I step on your neck.” Garvey stared hard at the boy, daring him to say even a single word. All he needed was the smallest of excuses to rip the boy’s head from his shoulders. It was what they had come to expect.

  Showing more wisdom than Garvey thought possible, the boy bit his lip and backed away. Most of the others went with him, but a few lingered, staring at Tahira. It made sense. Most would separate into pairs but a few would cluster around her. It would make it easier to hunt them down later.

  Garvey turned his steely gaze on her, knowing that she wanted to say something. To praise him, to thank him, maybe even to say that she loved him. It didn’t matter. It was all too late. She seemed to deflate then shook herself as if coming awake. Tahira turned on her heel and ran towards the stables.

  “Clear the area,” warned Balfruss, gesturing at the villagers to disperse. Even without their guards they’d remained on the ground, but now they ran towards the safety of the woods beyond the boundary of the village. Garvey waited until the last of them had disappeared among the trees before turning back to face his old friend.

  Balfruss kept one eye on the villagers running for the trees and the other on Garvey. Oddly his old friend seemed completely at ease. His followers were riding hard in all directions, but Balfruss couldn’t worry about them for now. He could sense a handful had not fled and were watching at a distance to see what happened next. If he survived then they would become an issue for another day.

  When the last villager disappeared, Garvey turned back towards him and smiled. It seemed so out of place. He’d become so used to seeing Garvey’s permanent scowl it was unnatural. His whole demeanour had changed and Balfruss barely recognised him.

  “I can’t believe it’s come to this,” said Balfruss. “After everything we’ve been through, how could you do it?”

  “They did this. They drowned, hanged or burned their own children. Then they came into our home, Balfruss, and tried to do it to the rest of us.”

  “So it’s us against them? Everyone? In every country?”

  Garvey shrugged. “I told you. I will not hide and I will not run. Not from them. I spent too many years in the shadows as the Bane, protecting them, and this is my reward. How many times will you save them from themselves? How many lives have you saved over the years?”

  “I don’t keep a tally,” said Balfruss. “But this rampage must end.”

  “Then tell me, wise Sorcerer, what is the answer? What is your solution?” said Garvey, holding his arms wide, his voice booming around the streets of the deserted village.

  “I don’t know,” Balfruss admitted, before pointing at the building that had been destroyed. “But this is not it. We always said we would accomplish great things.”

  “We were young and naïve,” said Garvey, but his voice sounded rough and choked with emotion. Perhaps he was thinking back to when they’d been young men studying at the Red Tower. They’d both had great ambitions about how they would make an impression and shape the world. Create a legacy that would echo down through the centuries. Time had weathered them both, smoothing away their sharp edges, eroding some of their glorious visions for the future, but Balfruss was not ready to give in to apathy and despair.

  “Perhaps, but naïveté is better than this brutality and a lack of compassion.”

  “Talk as much as you want,” said Garvey pushing up his shirtsleeves to his elbows. “I’m never going to stop. That leaves you with one choice.”

  “Don’t make me do this,” begged Balfruss, but Garvey’s face had settled into its familiar mask.

  Balfruss was about to make another plea when he sensed a massive build-up of power as Garvey drew heavily from the Source. Instead of weaving a shield Balfruss covered himself in a veil and darted to one side, blending in with the street and the houses behind him. A bolt of pure white energy struck the spot on which he’d been standing, blowing a horse-sized crater in the earth. Another landed to the left and another immediately to the right. Garvey was trying to bombard the area as quickly as possible and catch him before he made it too far.

  Balfruss sprinted to his left and skidded around a corner before heading back towards Garvey from behind. When Garvey failed to hit him, Balfruss knew his old friend was trying to find him, via his connection to the Source. All magic users could sense each other when in close proximity to one another because it created an echo. It was how Seekers tested children for magic. But Garvey knew better than that. Balfruss had taught both Garvey and Eloise the ability to mask their connection to the Source. It was something he’d learned from one of the tribes across the Dead Sea.

  Holding one hand out in front like a dowsing rod, Garvey turned to his right and let out a shout of triumph. It wasn’t Balfruss’s connection he was sensing, but the few remaining students who hadn’t fled with the others. Too late Balfruss realised what was about to happen as Garvey unleashed a powerful blast of force which smashed the house apart. The walls collapsed and the roof broke into a hundred pieces, blasting the surrounding area with chunks of rock and wood. One student was impaled by a spear of wood through her torso and another was crushed by an avalanche of rocks. The two remaining students suffered minor injuries but fled before they were caught in the crossfire again. Balfruss felt them retreat to a safe distance but unlike the others they didn’t keep going. They were waiting for something.

  Moving as slowly and quietly as possible Balfruss approached Garvey from behind as he continued to scan the village. Garvey remained in the open, standing in the middle of the street, which was alarming. Either he was more arrogant than Balfruss realised and thought himself unbeatable, or his lack of indifference extended to his own future.

  Balfruss edged closer, certain at any moment Garvey would spin around and attack. When he was within arm’s reach he dropped his veil and locked his arms around Garvey’s throat in a chokehold. Once more his old friend surprised him by not putting up any kind of a struggle.

  “It’s about time,” said Garvey, pretending to wrestle with him but making no real effort. “I’ve been standing out in the open. I couldn’t make it any easier for you.”

  “You wanted me to stop you?”

  Garvey gestured at the space around them. “Can you veil us? Create a distortion so they can’t hear us?”

  With a series of quick twisting gestures Balfruss created a slow haze around him and Garvey, sealing them inside a bubble. Everything outside appeared the same, but sounds were distorted and the nearby tweeting of a bird seemed to stretch on and on, becoming unrecognisable.

  Garvey stared at the fine net he’d woven about them and, turning his head, Balfruss saw him smile. “Can they still see us?”

  “Not really.” Anyone looking at them would only see vague shapes inside the net, as if they were observing them through a dense haze.

  “How much time do we have?” asked Garvey.

  Something in his voice made Balfruss release his chokehold and step back. Staring into the eyes of his old friend he saw a glimmer of the man he remembered from his childhood. The other version of Garvey was there, the cold man fuelled by rage and without remorse, but it seemed at a distance as if it was a mask that belonged to someone else.

  “What have you done?” asked Balfruss. “Did you plan all of this? Was it all a charade?”

  “Even before Danoph had his vision about the Red Tower, I knew a version of this was coming,” admitted Garvey. “The old ways of teaching were flawed. We knew that when we left the school as young men.
”

  “I told Eloise that being the Bane for so long had left a mark on you. You’re sick, Garvey. You need help.”

  “If only it were that simple,” he replied. “When the hatred began to build, and they started to turn on Seekers and children, people soon forgot what magic had done for them. The lives that you and the others saved during the war. The sacrifices we’ve all made to protect them over the years.” Garvey’s nostrils flared and his hands balled up into tight fists but he didn’t reach for the Source.

  “I didn’t know,” said Balfruss. “It was years before I found out what they’d made you do. The old Grey Council were wrong to ask you to take on the mantle of Bane.”

  Garvey dismissed it with a wave. “If it wasn’t me they would have chosen someone else. Nothing would have changed.”

  “I could’ve helped you. I should at least have tried.”

  “It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter now. They’re killing children, Balfruss,” he said, gesturing at the village and the world around them. “Blaming them for something they’re born with. Magic isn’t evil and it’s not going to go away. They need to understand that.”

  “You’ve killed hundreds of people …”

  “They needed someone to hate. A lightning rod to focus their anger. If my years as the Bane taught me anything, it’s that magic is necessary. There will always be another Flesh Mage, another Warlock. I don’t need to be an Oracle to know that, in time, it will happen. What I’ve done will force them to change. To create new schools and find different ways to teach magic. Children with magic should be nurtured, not drowned or burned at the stake.”

  Balfruss was struggling to accept what Garvey had done. Not only killing so many people because he thought it necessary, but creating a persona of someone fuelled by rage and living inside that mask. For years he’d isolated himself from everyone and never once hinted at what he was planning. From the first day he’d returned to the school, Garvey had been wearing a disguise. That level of determination and focus was unlike anything he’d ever seen.

  “You’ve been lying to everyone for years. You manipulated us all into thinking you were brutal and unstable.”

  “Not all of it was an act,” admitted Garvey. “But it was necessary.”

  “You should have told us about your fears. We could have tried something else.”

  “We did try, old friend,” said Garvey, gripping his shoulder. “We worked so hard to try and stop Danoph’s vision coming to pass. Once I realised it was inevitable, I knew I had to play my role through to the end. And now, you must play yours.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “There’s only one way this can end,” said Garvey. “If you kill me then you risk creating a martyr. The rogue mages will unite in my name, creating a whole generation of Warlocks who only want to destroy. Nothing new will be built and magic will be pushed to the fringes. But if you stop me, if you drag me before them in chains, it will be the catalyst others need.”

  “We’re over the border. Garvey, we’re in Zecorria. They’ll kill you,” said Balfruss, amazed that Garvey could be so calm. But on the other hand he’d been preparing for all of this for years. He must have known this moment would come as well and he seemed willing to accept whatever punishments lay in his future.

  “They will try, but it won’t be as easy as they think.” An unusual serenity had settled over him, washing away all traces of anger from his features. At that moment Garvey seemed reborn. “I am sorry to add to your burdens, but there’s something else you must do.”

  “I’m afraid to ask,” admitted Balfruss.

  “You must become the Bane, at least for a little while. Those who fled the Red Tower with me must be stopped. They’re unstable and they threaten what could be built in the future.”

  “I cannot,” said Balfruss, shaking his head. What Garvey was asking brought up old memories of what he’d done in Voechenka. Years later he still had nightmares about the corrupted children he’d been forced to kill. “Do not ask that of me.”

  “Then you must find another who will assume the mantle, because we both know that, in time, there will be others who choose the left-hand path of magic. The Bane is a necessary evil.”

  Balfruss had thought he would face the problem of the rogue students another day, but now he was forced to consider his options. When the Red Tower had fallen they had given the students three choices, but Wren had presented them with a fourth. Perhaps it was not too late for those who had followed Garvey. Perhaps they could be brought back into the fold. Perhaps.

  “It’s time,” said Garvey, taking a deep breath. “Short of death, there’s only one credible way they’ll believe you captured me.”

  The full horror of what Garvey was asking him swung into focus and Balfruss was so shocked he involuntarily took a step backwards.

  Knowing the reason for his actions, no matter how noble, did not make his crimes any less heinous. He had destroyed entire communities and, at the last count, slaughtered hundreds of defenceless people. He had created a level of fear focused on one individual not seen since the Warlock. Even knowing all of that, Balfruss had been struggling with the idea of killing his old friend.

  What he was now asking him to do instead was far worse.

  It would cripple him in a way that only a couple of people could heal and both Yettle and Eloise were far away. If Garvey died they couldn’t hurt him any more and after that only his name would be cursed. If Balfruss did this it would be in the full knowledge that what lay ahead for his friend was months and perhaps years of torture.

  “Do it quickly, before I lose my nerve,” said Garvey, staring up at the sky.

  With tears running down his face Balfruss embraced the Source and lashed out.

  CHAPTER 28

  Akosh stared in disbelief at the man seated across the table from her. Akharga.

  Finally, after some negotiating about the time and place via his surrogate, Bissel, she was face-to-face with him, in the flesh. Wearing masks and blending in was common to all of her brethren, but she would never have guessed his real identity.

  Akharga was Kai. The Pestilent Watcher. The Eater of Souls. And one of the oldest and most dangerous beings she had ever met. He was a monstrous thing from another era who had managed to survive across many long centuries. He was unique, alien and terrifying.

  He was also the only one of their kind who had feasted upon his own followers in order to sustain himself. It should have spelled out his doom and yet, somehow, he was still here and flourishing.

  For the last ten years she’d heard the name Akharga bandied about among the humans, but not once had she considered it would be him. His name was always mentioned in relation to doctors, healers and apothecarists. Wherever there was a terrible outbreak of a disease, or a surge in the damp lung, a plague priest would show up to offer comfort and care for the sick and dying. And all of them wore his symbol around their necks. A triangle with an eye at its centre. Akosh suspected that none of them knew whose symbol they really carried and what it meant. Kai wasn’t curing diseases or taking away pain and suffering. He was feasting on it.

  The handsome human face he wore was completely at odds with what was lurking just beneath the skin. To a stranger he would appear to be a cultured and wealthy man in his thirties, judging by his fashionable clothes and long coat. His smile was warm and friendly, but her flesh crawled as she’d seen what was underneath the mask. The shadow on the wall behind him seemed normal, but at times she was sure it flickered and parts of it began to writhe like the many arms of a giant squid.

  “You’ve been a stupid girl,” said Kai, picking up his glass of wine. He held it up to the lantern and swirled the liquid around, watching it slide about. The tavern, and the wine, were among the best in Herakion but it was not somewhere she’d visited before tonight. He had chosen the place even after her insistence that they meet in what she had thought of as her city. It made her wonder how many loyal people he had in the Zecorran capi
tal and how many were in the building right now.

  No one had ever called her a stupid girl before. In front of any human she would have bristled at the insult or simply killed them. But he was not human and since they were alone she kept her mouth shut and let it pass.

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  Kai’s eyes briefly turned red before returning to normal. “The list is long, but let’s start with some of your most recent mistakes.” He sipped his wine, made an appreciative noise and put down his glass. “You had one follower who was a Guardian and you let her kill herself.”

  “Someone had been taken prisoner at Unity Hall. I needed him silenced.”

  “What a total waste,” he said, ignoring her protest.

  “He was telling them all about—”

  “He knew nothing of worth,” said Kai, cutting across her. “So what if the Guardians found out about Habreel? He’s insignificant. They all are. They’re like moths, here for a moment and then gone. In a hundred years every single one of them will be dead. Which brings me to the second thing on the list. And this is a big one. You used your own name.” He seemed both disgusted and disappointed, as if he’d found out that she was inbred.

  Akosh clenched her jaw and dug her nails into the padded arms of her chair. He was right and she hated it. Many years ago, when her power had started to wane, she’d been desperate to find a way to reinvent herself. Survival was the only thing that had mattered. Creating the first orphanage had seemed like a brilliant solution.

  Many of those she’d befriended had also started to wither away as the mortal races grew and their needs changed. After only a few years most of her friends were gone. For a time their chairs remained at the table before they too simply disappeared. Other new faces took their place, but by then she was committed to her new path with the orphans.