Breaking Ties

by Vaughn R. Demont

  “This must’ve taken him…” I stare in awe, afraid to step inside.

  “Months. Couple hours a day, sometimes more. Enchantment needs a stable space, and he’s working on learning that.” Ozzie strides in like it’s nothing, the energy on the floor rippling with his steps, and he takes a moment to stand there and take a breath. “It just feels like him in here. It’s turning into a legitimate sanctum, a pretty weak one, but still.”

  I shrug and take a step inside. “He’s still working his spells out of a storage lock—”

  It’s like James is right behind me, his hand on my shoulder, comforting and relaxed. The air practically resonates with him. I manage to shake it off since we’ve got work to do. “Locker. Right, uh… Let’s get the stuff he asked for.” I run through the list in my head. “First and foremost, we need to find a brick.” I point at several shelves at the back that are beyond the Sigil.

  Ozzie quirks a brow at me. “Right, right. The beacon. Of course.” He starts looking for it, rummaging through piles of notebooks, muttering subject matters under his breath. He seems familiar with the place, and I’ll admit that stings. I know that a Coyote would hardly be welcome in a sorcerer’s sanctum, but I would think James’d be cool with inviting a friend over to see his progress. Did he think of me at all when he was working on this place?

  Maybe I should have laid off the storage-locker cracks.

  I start my own search, and since the notebooks are beyond my ken (an expression I picked up from Rourke), I look for the brick.

  The shelves are packed with notebooks, cassette tapes and CD-Rs with indie bootlegs, empty soda bottles with masking-tape labels, FOR POTION RESEARCH, tattered Dungeons & Dragons rule books, fantasy novels with ruined spines, Dashiell Hammett paperbacks, a bag of dice hanging from a shelf post…

  And something wrapped in white silk, about eighteen inches in length, tucked behind autobiographies of Lenny Bruce and Frank Abagnale. He’s reading about groundbreaking comedians and con men who turned their lives around…

  I lift the wrapped object from the shelf, taking care not to knock over the books. A tingle goes through my fingers as I grip the silk, like I’ve been loaded up with static. The world seems to fade as I kneel to unwrap it carefully, a walnut stock first coming into view with Sigil carved into the wood. I pull it free, like a sword from a sheath, electricity popping in the air as I do so.

  It’s a shotgun, antique, the barrels long since sawed off, but showing new etchings of Sigil, though I can’t make out any of it. I check, and the barrels are loaded with “shells”, but they definitely aren’t shells. They’re cylindrical stones, like diamonds, that have an inner silver light. When I touch one, I get a nasty shock and immediately close the barrels.

  “Found it.” Ozzie smiles, taking out a brick that’s been covered in Sigil, likely inscribed by a Sharpie. He notices me holding the shotgun and whistles softly. “He actually finished that?”

  “What is it?”

  “He’s been researching energy sources, why his stone works, all that. He transmuted a few rocks into something from one of his books. Then he enchanted it to hold energy for later.”

  I look down at it. “What kind of energy?”

  He shrugs. “Try it.” He gives me a look. “Outside.”

  “No telling me I’ll shoot my eye out?”

  “Sure as hell ain’t a BB gun.”

  Nervously, I step outside with the gun. The inscribed glyphs have an eager glow to them as I use a stance I saw in a movie (where a cop taught a gun virgin how not to hold a shotgun like they do in the movies). I set my feet properly, feeling a bit foolish as the hammers will likely just clack against the stones, aim at a particularly intimidating pile of industrial sand beyond the parking lot, and pull the trigger.

  When the hammers hit, the barrels flare with argent fire and there’s a thundering roar of, well, thunder. Two glowing balls of silver light emerge from the gun and lash outward in jagged aggressive forks of electricity that lance into the sandpile. Once it’s fully discharged, the bolts crackle along the sand for nearly a second and vanish, molten glass remaining at the impact point.

  This is a shotgun that shoots lightning bolts.

  “I have a shotgun that fucking shoots lightning bolts!” I jump up and down, repeating it several more times, probably more than enough to be humiliating. But, fuck you, I have a shotgun that shoots lightning bolts!

  I think I’ll have T-shirts made…

  “Spencer?” Ozzie taps my shoulder to get my attention.

  I think I squeak or squeal in reply.

  “Spencer? I don’t think that’s quite ready yet.” He reaches for it, and I back away, clutching it tighter.

  “It’s mine, it came to me. It’s mine! My own.” I stroke the stock lovingly. “My precioussssssss.”

  He folds his arms, rolls his eyes. “Are you done?”

  I grumble and hand it over, after which he wraps it back up in the white silk.

  “Spoilsport. He did mention that I should take it, you know, along with the brick and some of his notebooks.” I glance back toward the locker, remembering the piles of them in there. “He wasn’t all that specific about which ones.” I point at the brick Ozzie’s holding in his other hand. “I guess that’s keyed to him? You just say the word ‘find’ in Sigil, and it’ll work?”

  The Dwarf nods sagely and heads toward the car, giving a tic of the head toward the locker. “Close that up?”

  After pulling the door down, everything crackles, the Tolkien Elvish on the door glowing gently, as if to say the alarm’s set and armed. Six months and he can do this shit. Six months.

  “Where is he learning to do all of this?” I get in the car and buckle up.

  “Those notebooks? I wrote most of them. He wanted to learn about enchantment, and us Dwarves are pretty good at it since we make magic swords and armor. Takes us months to enchant one blade, and years of training to know how to do it right, and he picks it up like it’s nothing.” He shrugs, but there’s a bit of a smile there, pride. “He is the Ra’keth. Magic is supposed to come easy to him.”

  I snort at that. “Not to hear him talk. All he does is complain about how complicated it is.” At least he used to. We don’t really talk shop about magic. Generally we talk about nothing, hours of nothing, but good nothing not boring nothing.

  Ozzie hands me the brick and starts the car, the shotgun in the backseat, wrapped again in the white silk. When he speaks, it’s in Sigil, but a harder, though not harsher dialect. “I am speaking so you will be a Bard.”

  I raise a brow, and he mutters, “Not that good with Sigil, okay?”

  It’s enough though, and no matter the accent, Sigil is Sigil. I hold the brick in both hands and say the word. “Find.”

  And nothing happens.

  “Find.”

  Nothing.

  “Maybe I should tap it a few times?”

  Ozzie sighs. “It’s a brick, not a TV.”

  I stare intently at the enchanted masonry. Well, more growl actually. “Find the Lightning Rod, you cheapass knockoff piece of—”

  The Sigil flares with light, leaving wavering aftershadows in my vision, and settles to a simple glow on one side. I blink a couple times, both for the health of my eyes and from surprise, then point in the direction the Sigil is glowing. “The Brick of Truth says ‘dey went dat-a-way’.”

  Chapter Twelve

  James

  December 19, 10:45 pm

  So here’s something I’ve learned about screaming diamonds.

  Granted, my sources are a Coyote Bard and a Dwarf who isn’t much into his own culture.

  First of all, they’re a relic of a long-dead world where there were crevasses filled with these things, all of them containing the very essence of magic itself. In following worlds, magic itself was shifted into the soul, and the energy
to power it came from converting matter into energy through simple force of will. I’m sure there are physicists who would love to lock me in a lab for the rest of my life simply for that. I wouldn’t mind discussing it if I had any real idea how I was doing it.

  But as I said, it’s a relic, very likely the last one in existence, and it’s been passed down and killed for and won and lost and found and stolen through the ages by various sorcerers, most recently held by Cale, the Recluse, who gave it to me before he died.

  It’s a battery, essentially, a magical battery.

  And it’s nearly out of juice.

  Turns out that charging up a sanctum the fast way can be draining on a relic. So can enchanting various doodads while you’re experimenting.

  So I didn’t feel too bad about leaving it with Dave, as even without power it’s a priceless relic.

  Person-to-person scrying can be a bitch. Despite all of the Sigil I wrote on the walls, it was a brute-force spell rather than a subtle and well-planned working. Scrying was Cale’s specialty, and while I do have some psychic crib notes of what he could do, it’s not the same as years spent refining technique. So it figures that one of the times I really need the stone, I’d leave it at home.

  Probably would’ve kept me from passing out from exertion afterward too.

  Sorcerers may be off the loom of Fate, but we are whipping boys for Murphy’s Law.

  “One of the dreamblooded. I honestly thought you had better taste, James.” I look behind me to find Salondine leaning against the wall, the Sigil there already fading into the crimson paint.

  “Obviously not, considering I slept with you.” I pause a second, as I wasn’t helping myself. “Here to offer to let me out if I agree to take you as my protector?”

  He shakes his head and stretches. Don’t get me wrong, he is rather attractive in this form, like an elf, only taller. And hotter. And it was a rather enjoyable experience. He had just saved me from drowning when I slept with him. It’s the stalkery stuff that came afterward that made him a turnoff.

  “A Dwarf.” He shudders at the word, appearing to fight the urge to spit. “They forge weapons for the sole intent of killing my kind and you…you…” he gestures in a fashion that I would suppose alludes to Ozzie and me, “…couple with it. And favor the Snow Clan, of all things. It is no wonder the Ra’saar deems you unfit for your title.”

  “First, from what I’ve heard, the only way Dwarven smithing will take down a dragon is if you have them detail your car and pay for it on credit. Second, what’s wrong with the Snow Clan?”

  “They are children. Fools. Not a whit of creativity amongst all of them. To the noble race of dragonkind, they are an embarrassment.”

  Well, at least Dungeons & Dragons got that little feud right.

  “I’m willing to bet that the Snow Clan would say the same thing about the Crimson Flight. Though the words pompous and pigheaded would likely enter the conversation a bit more.”

  He snorts, a plume of smoke issuing from his nostrils. “A majority of my investment profits are given to various organizations in need. The Snow Clan cannot even afford such things.” He chuffs with amusement. “They are forced to do labor themselves.”

  “So…the Snow Clan goes out and works with the people, and you just cut a check for a tax break.”

  “What I do does far more good. Who cares of my intentions?”

  I give him an indulgent look. “Really? That’s your answer? I hope your whole clan doesn’t share that opinion.” I step toward him and poke him in the chest. “Honestly, in what fucked-up state of mind do you have to be to believe I’m going to pick you?”

  “I don’t.” He pushes off the wall. “I serve the Ra’saar, and he requested I watch over you. I am…” he grits his teeth, “…honored to serve at his pleasure in this regard.”

  “Let me go home.” I speak calmly, measured. “This isn’t helping anything, it’s certainly not helping me.” I get the feeling that I’ll have to sweeten the pot, and there’s only one thing I can think of that he’d be interested in. “I can rename you with something a little more grandiose.”

  He smirks. “The Ra’saar has graciously given me a new name. A name that accurately reflects my standing.”

  So much for him being punished. Since the Ra’saar is actually a Ra’keth, he could rename a dragon if he wanted to. He has been doing it longer than I have and is obviously more powerful. “I’m not going to get anywhere with you, am I?”

  No response, but it says plenty.

  “All right, get the Ra’saar, tell him I want to talk to him.”

  Salondine arches a brow at that.

  “I believe that the Ra’keth is formally requesting an audience with the Ra’saar. I wonder how he’ll feel when he discovers you took your time telling him?”

  He snorts another plume of smoke, walks to the wall and knocks on it, muttering something in draconic. A door then shimmers into existence long enough for him to make an exit. I check the space left behind but only find solid wall. Damn it.

  It’s still a smarter move to trade Sal for the Ra’saar, though. I need to keep moving forward and being stuck in a room isn’t how I plan to spend the next few days. If I can get him to let me out of here, even for a few minutes, I can get a sense of where I am and somehow get that information to Spencer. Ozzie must be worried sick.

  Considering that I’ve transmuted everything in the room to power my long-distance call to Spencer, the only thing I have to draw on is my own soul, so yeah, magic’s a last resort until I can find another source of juice that wouldn’t result in ending up naked or with no hair on my body.

  I barely feel it as the Ra’saar enters the room, the wall actually rippling as he passes through it. He hrms at the empty room and mutters a few words in Sigil to replace the chairs, though the style is older than anything I recognize, wood with no padding. The spell doesn’t appear to have needed any effort.

  I find his ease a little depressing. “How do you do that?”

  “As I said, centuries of practice.” He motions to the chair. “You wished to see me?” After I sit down, he does so as well. Now that I’m sitting, I can see that my chair is set a little lower to the floor. Subtle.

  “You made your point. I don’t know how to get out of here on my own.” I cast my gaze downward. “Will you teach me?”

  When I look up, his arms are folded, unimpressed. “I doubt your sincerity.”

  “I should take longer to break?”

  “You are Ra’keth, a sorcerer never breaks. I suspect you are plotting something.” I don’t make eye contact, but he smiles. “You are. I know you scried.”

  Crap, he knows I “called” Spence.

  “If you are an example of what sorcerers this world will create then…” He tilts his head. “Parivian stated that you were with one of the dreamblooded. Understandable. It is an embarrassment to fall to the wiles of a trickster.”

  “Huh?” I blink until I realize what he’s saying. “What, Spence? God, I’m not involved with him, he’s just a friend. I only scried him because I knew where he would be.”

  The Ra’saar gives me an indulgent look. “You know where a trickster is, but not the location of your lover?” He appears thoughtful a moment. “Though I suppose I see the logic. There is a saying, I believe, about keeping enemies close?”

  I cross my arms. “Are you going to teach me or not? You’re the one who said you wanted me adequately prepared.”

  He waves a hand dismissively. “To teach you would only teach you my own methods, my own technique. I would only be fighting a limping version of myself, hardly a challenge, hardly intriguing.” He leans forward and lifts my chin so I’ll meet his eyes. “No, I wish you to progress on your own path. If we must duel, I wish to duel the Lightning Rod, the sorcerer who slew the Frozen River and the Usurper, who took the final breath of the Recluse. S
trange.” He peers deeper into my eyes. “You do not have the look of a usurper.”

  “I’m not the Usurper.”

  “A, not the.” He doesn’t let go of my face. “Though your decree, should it be successful, would render you far more dangerous. Three have fallen to you, three Ra’keth, three thrones you’ve taken. The…audacity of such actions was once, yes, commonplace, but I suppose we have the Usurper to thank for your bloodlust.”

  “Bloodlust?” I push his hands away. “Fuck you. I don’t want to kill anyone. Heath and the Usurper were self-defense, and Cale was murdered.”

  “Yet every time…” he gestures to me, “…there you were to take their power at the tip of a blade.”

  I shake my head quickly. “No, it’s not like that.”

  He continues, as if I hadn’t spoken. “That power resides in you, it’s drawn to you. It was appropriate that you were named as such.” He glances at me. “And that you refuse to accept it, that is why you are still here. You are a usurper, like it or not. You have killed for your power, and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you can continue along your path.”

  “No, I’m not a killer. It was them or me, I didn’t have a choice.” I get up, turn away from him.

  “You had a choice with Fate.” I freeze, and his voice doesn’t become mocking or patronizing. “It was impressive, combining their Names, making three into one, claiming one of their tools as your own focus. I hear tell you are named for an incident where you hobbled the Crone herself.”

  Atropos, the Fate who cuts the threads, decides who dies and when. She’d confronted me in Hades, wanted me to give up Cale, so I answered her with lightning. In the face. In front of countless newly arrived souls. As a result, I was named the Lightning Rod by the bystanders, and the name spread and stuck.