Mage Emergence

by Christopher George

  “I can’t without orders from the colonel,” the pilot replied briefly.

  “Where is Colonel Brandon?” I replied.

  “Unsure, sir,” the pilot replied. “I think he went ahead with the troops.”

  “In which case, he could be dead,” I replied savagely. “Get that chopper in the air, or I’ll throw it over to the ship myself.”

  The pilot balked at my threat and for a second I thought he was going to argue, but eventually he nodded and headed toward the cockpit. The heavy gun mounted on the helicopter opened up in fire as the helicopter rose from the ground and headed towards the down carrier. The enemy soldiers scattered as the new avenue of fire opened up. It was time to take advantage of the lapse in enemy fire.

  I leapt into the air and landed with a grunt in front of allied soldiers making their way down the docks. I broadened my shield to protect them as well and watched with a degree of satisfaction as a stream of bullets ricocheted off the shield. Quickly realising what had happened, the soldiers emerged from cover and stood behind me, still firing into the bayside area.

  It wasn’t difficult to modulate my shield so that it only stopped things passing through it one way, which allowed me to increase the strength of my shield into a wide flat plane in front of us. I kept a secondary shield around myself should anything get through the first one. With all the noise still being thrown up by the Shading spell, it was difficult to see what the hell was going on ahead of us and I had to rely on the soldiers whose vision wasn’t so impaired.

  The part of the docks closest to the beach was a smaller narrow section designed for car traffic. It would have made the perfect choke point to prevent troops from getting onto the land. We simply marched across it, with the soldiers behind me shooting anyone stupid enough to take a shot at us. I was grateful that they weren’t hitting us with anything larger than bullets; with my shield stretched it wasn’t unbreakable by conventional means, but it was a calculated risk.

  As we reached the beachhead, it was obvious that our resistance had all but fled. Some token shots were taken at us, but the majority of the enemy troops appeared to be dissolving further into the city. We could follow them, but it wouldn’t be wise to do so now. It would be far better to regroup, establish a beachhead, and then continue into the city once we had a safe base of operations. I glanced back down the dock; there were some casualties, but all in all it didn’t look too bad. That is, if you discounted the massive plume of smoke - all that was left of the carrier. A lot of people had died on that boat. I could only hope the damned thing didn’t explode before the Shading spell expired. Once the spell had ended, I would be able to scout the ship for survivors and remove them myself.

  * * * * * *

  Fortunately, by the time the Shading spell expired, there had been no sign of a reactor explosion. We were going to be safe for the moment, at least - if you considered setting up camp next to a possible nuclear explosion in an enemy-held city safe. The ground forces had repelled the assault and sent the survivors scurrying into the city for safety. We could deal with them later. The bigger issue was the two remaining mages who had been present at the battle. We had no idea where they had gone. But I was sure they would return to finish what they had started.

  I had secured Emily with a medical officer who survived the wreck, and it looked like she would recover. She only had minor injuries, and as I suspected her arm had been dislocated, not broken. There were those amongst the wounded who had fared worse, but their injuries weren’t too serious. Those with serious injuries didn’t make it off the ship in time and had died with the wreck. Master Glave had survived, but had been unable to locate the attackers within the shroud of the Shading spell. He had moved in to face them, but with all the noise he couldn’t have pursued them. All in all it had been a very well-orchestrated attack and it had cost us dearly.

  Our original mission had been to locate a suitable landing site to begin operations within the city; however, we couldn’t do that yet as we were still recovering survivors from the downed ship. For an aircraft carrier that could hold upwards of four thousand crewmembers, there were painfully few survivors.

  “We cannot wait any longer,” Colonel Brandon grunted as he surveyed the skyline. “We need to begin sending scouts into the city.”

  I nodded briefly. We were too exposed here and vulnerable to another attack. We had recovered the bodies of the three mages from the warehouse. They had indeed been crushed in the telekinetic blast that destroyed the building. I quickly counted about a hundred soldiers who had died with them. A lot of people were determined to keep us out of Los Angeles. Why?

  Brandon sent three teams of soldiers out into the city proper to establish a forward base. From the numbers he sent, he obviously expected to encounter resistance. He rolled up the map he had been working from and nodded to his soldiers, indicating that the meeting was over. Most of the soldiers immediately turned to depart, but before Glave and I could join them, Brandon called us over. “Can I trust you two to do your jobs?”

  “How do you figure?”

  “You were supposed to protect the ship.” He gestured to the still-smouldering wreckage. “If you’re unable to perform even that simple a task, then you’re useless to me.”

  I turned to look quickly at Glave, but I needn’t have bothered. From his expression I already knew what he was thinking.

  “Little man,” Glave rumbled, wrapping a thread around the colonel’s neck. “You speak of things you do not understand.”

  The colonel’s eyes bulged as the thread took hold. His feet scrambled for purchase as he was slowly lifted from the ground. Soldiers behind him immediately jumped into action. I didn’t know these soldiers – they weren’t from my team. Brandon had obviously brought some of his own men along. The soldiers raised their weapons, but were unwilling to fire with their colonel in such close proximity. Glave ignored the weapons pointed at him - with a shield around him they weren’t a threat anyway. I wondered briefly if the big man was going to kill him, but before the colonel passed out, the mage let his victim go. The colonel fell half a metre to the floor and landed on his knees. Glave cast his gaze witheringly across the soldiers before him.

  “You should show respect,” he announced, both to the soldiers and his fallen victim.

  The colonel coughed in response as he staggered to his feet. He quickly backpedalled from the room, keeping his soldiers in front of him as he fled.

  “That was less than politic,” I murmured as I watched the soldiers leave.

  Glave grunted. “It was no more than you would have done.”

  “I wouldn’t have let him go.” I smiled.

  Glave chuckled at my joke. But I wasn’t sure I was joking. It might have been simpler to have just ended him. We were going to have a tough enough time getting out of there with our asses intact without him playing politics. He was going to become a problem eventually. It may have just been easier to deal with him here.

  “Wait here.” I nodded to Glave as I followed the soldiers.

  Brandon had retreated back several rooms and I could see him preparing to rally troops to return. He obviously intended to pursue this and do something stupid, like arrest Glave. As soon as I entered the room, Brandon ordered me to halt and I was greeted by a host of rifles pointed at me. The colonel had brought in some reinforcements, as there were some very confused expressions from those soldiers who had served with me previously. I waved them down before they could raise their own weapons. The last thing we wanted here was a fire fight amongst our own troops.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed, colonel? I called.

  “Military orders must be followed!” the colonel called back from behind his row of troops.

  “Lower your weapons,” I ordered Brandon’s soldiers.

  Again I was greeted by stern faces of soldiers who were prepared to do their duty. I could tell from their demeanour that they knew what would happen should the colonel give the order to fire, and they were
prepared to fire anyway. It is a kind of stubborn stupidity to do one’s duty that seems to override common sense.

  “Lower them,” Brandon ordered grudgingly. The soldiers complied. That was a good sign at least. He didn’t want anyone to die either. I walked over to the colonel so that I could discuss the matter quietly.

  “If you go back after him, he will kill you.”

  “He assaulted a superior officer,” Brandon snarled. “Military law dictates-”

  “You insulted him,” I cut him off. “Keep that up and he might just take matters into his own hands again.”

  Brandon’s face took on a mottled shade of red as he realised his position. His eyes darted from side to side as he struggled to think his way out. He needed us, and he knew it. The first mage he encountered could very well wipe out his entire command without raising a sweat.

  “It was still assault,” he repeated uncertainly. I didn’t have time for this. Somewhere near here were two very powerful mages who needed to be dealt with before they returned to finish their job.

  “This isn’t the time or place for this,” I snarled, finally losing my patience with the colonel, “and I don’t have time to explain it to you. If you can’t see that then you’re not smart enough to be left in command.”

  “You’d dare?” he whispered.

  “If you force me to,” I replied simply. “You’re going to get people killed.”

  Brandon remained silent - the first intelligent thing he had done since I had met him.

  “Now, if you are finished…” I grunted, “Glave and I are going to go find the remaining mages and deal with them. That’s what we are here to do. Not babysit you and your men.”

  I turned my back on the soldiers. There was a stunned silence as I returned to Glave.

  The big man was sitting on a fallen chunk of concrete with his eyes closed. His scry threads snaked out, searching the city for his enemies. It was possible that they had fled the city – but I didn’t think so. The attack on the docks had all the trademarks of an opening salvo. We also hadn’t seen any heavier ordinance when I had followed the rift here - earlier I had seen tanks and cannons. Perhaps my earlier attack had prevented them from being moved in place. When I had closed the rift, much of their heavier equipment had been left behind. I wondered how much worse this ambush would have gone had they brought their full resources. We could have been wiped out.

  “Have you found them?” I asked, loath to disturb the man’s concentration.

  “I think so,” the big man rumbled back.

  “Let’s go then.”

  Without the Shading spell in effect, there was nothing to stop us teleporting now. Glave went first and I followed his thread.

  * * * * * *

  Glave’s thread took me to a secluded car park outside an inland shopping mall. The shopping centre looked like it had undergone bombing at some point, as many of the external walls were rubble and others bore the tell-tale mark of scorched burns and bullet fire.

  “Have I ever told you that I don’t like car parks,” I murmured softly as I looked around the mess.

  Glave looked at me quizzically as we surveyed our surroundings. As an outpost or fortress, a shopping centre made a pretty lousy defensive structure. There were so many ways into the sizeable building that it would be difficult to keep unwanted people out. The only thing going for it would be a large quantity of food goods. Although how long they would last was debatable. Ahead of us were two smashed glass doors that led into one of the lower floors of the complex. I’d always been uncomfortable around abandoned shopping centres, or any public place lacking people in it. The silence was deafening.

  “Are you sure about this?” I whispered.

  Glave nodded.

  “Awareness? Flush them out?” I suggested.

  Glave shook his head and gruffly said, “Don’t want to give away our position.”

  I chuckled. “It’s unlikely that we haven’t been noticed already.”

  I wasn’t going to argue though; my last experience with an Awareness blast hadn’t exactly been a resounding success. I briefly considered sending off a Shading blast of my own. This would stop them from escaping. but I wanted to be sure that my quarry was in the building before I did so.

  “Scry?”

  Glave nodded.

  I sent a scry thread in, but by necessity I kept my thread as light as possible. This restricted my vision but would make it much harder for the thread to be detected. An Awareness blast would give away the thread in seconds, but only a skilled mage would be able to detect a thread this faint in the first place.

  The interior of the shopping centre had fared no better than the outside. Looting and rioting had occurred on a massive scale. Someone had attempted to barricade the place - they had gone to a lot of effort to make sure people didn’t get inside.

  My thread leapt easily over several barricades consisting of sandbags and wire fences. A sense of unease overcame me. These barricades should have been manned. If we had arrived with troops, a group of a dozen soldiers could have kept my team out for quite some time. That they weren’t manned meant either they no longer had the manpower to defend their outpost, or they were intentionally luring us in. I followed the trail of defences all the way to the base of the centre until I found my prey. I was sure Glave had come to the same conclusion – although I couldn’t see his thread, I was confident that he had followed me.

  “I’ve found one,” I whispered as the familiar ping of a Mana signature lit up in my senses through the scry. I had seen this Mana signature before, but I couldn’t for the life of me think where. It seemed so familiar, like a song you’ve heard, but can’t name the title.

  “You teleport down, I will intercept when they flee,” Glave ordered gruffly.

  Great, once again I was being used as bait. I didn’t mind fulfilling this role when I volunteered, but being ordered into it took some of the fun out of it.

  “And if they don’t flee?” I replied grimly.

  “Then I shall assist,” Glave promised.

  I sighed as I summoned my powers. Teleportation was an exact art; any mistakes could result in death. It had taken me a long time and much practice to become skilled to the point where I no longer had to think about it. This particular jump should be no different from hundreds of others, but I was going to make it different. For one, I wanted it to be loud. I wanted it to look like I was a beginner. I wanted to make it loud enough that they would be spooked into running. Glave could then intercept and deal with them. It would make it look like I was so inexperienced with the technique and therefore easy prey, but that just made the gambit all the more appealing. If they chose to face me, assuming I was weak, then I would finish them then and there. My gambit worked. As soon as I teleported in, I saw the tell-tale sign of someone immediately teleporting out. Strangely enough, they appeared to be teleporting to where I had just been. It was possible that my inelegant casting of the teleport field had alerted them and they had gone to finish me off. Either way, I hoped that Glave was on the ball. I would have returned to assist him, but I now had bigger problems of my own. As soon as I had materialised, I was greeted with several rather serious strikes to my shield, sending me reeling.

  Ironically, it must have been my gambit that saved my life. After the initial attack, the further blows to my shield barely registered and I turned to face my attacker. They hadn’t expected me to bring my shield up so quickly. I saw the Mana signature of my enemy as he came for me. Again I was struck by the familiarity of the Mana signature but couldn’t immediately place it.

  Angered that their attack had missed me, they came at me with fury, but were thwarted by several threads of my own raised in defence. I leapt forward to counter their strike and watched with amusement as the tile where my feet had been only seconds earlier exploded into rubble. My counter strike sent my foe flying onto an escalator on the far side of the hall, his shield visibly flexing as my thread impacted it. He rose from the escalator, and I w
as on him in seconds as he attempted to bring his defences to bear.

  “Oh shit, not you,” he exclaimed loudly. He must have recognised me from my own Mana signature. It also wouldn’t have been too difficult to recognise me from the construct supporting my spine. No other mages used such a contrivance.

  His recognition hadn’t helped him. With a quick strike I tore through his defences and wrapped a thread around his chest. With a swift jerk I pulled him from his feet and sent him sliding towards me across the broken marble floor. As he slid to a halt before me, I gasped as I finally recognised him. I was ready and poised to end his life, but the shock of seeing his face gave me pause. A pause that almost cost my life. With a frantic strike upwards he knocked me onto my back. Several inches to the left and he may have taken my head off.

  Him? What the hell? Why was he here?

  My mind was still reeling from my discovery. What the hell was going on? Why was he fighting me? We were supposed to be on the same side. In fact, he was supposed to be dead.

  The man I was fighting was Master Kristoff. I had once thought I would be hard pressed to overcome him, but I had sold myself short. Now that I had engaged in battle with the man, I could see he was clearly no match for me. This could only end one way, and we both knew it.

  I regained my footing and again brought my foe to his knees. He had wisely attempted to flee by attempting to leap to the top story of the centre. I caught him about halfway up. Wrapping a thread around his waist, I brought him slamming down into the marble floor with devastating force. I heard his shield collapse at the impact and he cried out in agony. Holding him in place, I launched at him. I expected a counter attack, but I needn’t have worried. This fight was over. The fall had all but finished him off. I brought him to his feet and held him before me. He was already mostly dead. His broken ribs protruded from his chest and his limbs dangled uselessly. It was a miracle he had even survived the fall at all.