The Mage War

by Ben S. Dobson

  At the center of the talisman’s gem, the last spot of unblemished green shrunk away to nothing, and the hazy semi-translucence of the clouding began to thicken toward milky opacity. The cold was growing too, spreading down Tane’s limbs. Syllesk and Nevka were slowing the siphon’s drain, but they couldn’t stop it forever; they had to be suffering already. And not just them. The people of Porthaven had come together to stop this, and too many had already paid the highest price for it. Not just their lives, but the very essence of who they were. They deserved better. Time to end it.

  “I think you already do, Endo,” Tane said. “The siphon must be quite a rush, all that power flowing through you right now. But that’s different. Don’t let it distract you. Search for the channel inside yourself. Can’t you feel it shrinking away?”

  Endo’s brow creased. He was really trying. It was a risk, letting him fill in the blanks himself, but his mind could conjure things far worse than what Tane could describe. Better to just plant the seed, and let any little quirk in the Astra grow into a sign of the thing that terrified Endo most.

  All that remained now was to see if it had worked.

  “Of course,” Tane said, “we could make a deal. You turn off the siphon, we take out the talisman.”

  “Without my magic—”

  “Let’s not waste time on obvious lies, Endo. We both know you can still turn it off. You can’t cast spells, but the siphon is all Astral-side, to put it in your own words.”

  Endo set his jaw, shook his head. But the fear was there, in his eyes. He couldn’t hide that.

  Tane shrugged. “Your choice. Not much longer now. I hope you’ve got someone else in mind to take the throne. I’m sure you’ll be one of those useful non-magicals you were telling me about.”

  And that was all Endo could take. He broke, abandoned all trace of composure. “Yes! Fine! I’ll turn it off! Just get this thing out of me! Get it out!”

  “You first,” Tane said calmly, though his heart was pounding ice through his veins.

  Endo bobbed his head in desperate assent. His eyes focused on something far away.

  The siphon ended.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  _____

  TINGA SAT IN the grass beside Cestra, too weak to stand. Too weak to do anything but watch as Knights of the Emperor inexorably closed in and the talismans began to die.

  At the center of the park, Endo’s shield was gone, but she couldn’t see what was happening in the space where it had been. She wanted to, but she lacked the strength to get herself to a better vantage point. Whatever Tane and Kadka had planned, there wasn’t much time left. The first talismans had already lost power, their gems crumbling, and the ones that remained were close to it. Not far off, a young human man removed his to give it to a dwarven woman, only for the gem to dissolve into chalky green powder in his hand.

  Tinga leaned her head against Cestra’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I brought you here, brought everyone here. Told you all there was a chance. Now we’re out of time.”

  Cestra—with some effort—draped an arm over her, and shook her head. “Don’t. You gave all of us a fighting chance. And we’re still fighting. Look.” She gestured weakly across the grass.

  Everywhere, people were sharing what talismans were still intact, holding one another, caring for those who had fallen. Nearby, an elven woman sang a soft song to a little human boy who lay with his head in her lap. They were fighting, as best they could. In the only ways they had left.

  “So you had better not give up, either,” said Cestra. “Not until the very end. There’s still hope. Tane and Kadka tend to beat the odds.”

  Tinga nodded against her shoulder. “You’re right,” she said. “It’s not over until it’s over.” She was still looking at the gathered people of Porthaven. “You know, I don’t even know if my parents made it here. There was no time to…”

  “They’re here,” Cestra said. “I bet they’re close by. I bet they saw you in the sky, and were as proud of you as I was. You’ll see them again.”

  Tinga didn’t answer. It was too hard to talk. She just leaned against Cestra, and listened to the elven woman’s soft song.

  A moment later, a soldier in Belgrian uniform passed in front of her. Stopped, looked down. Saw how weak they were. A talisman glowed at his shoulder; he took it out, offered it wordlessly. He clearly didn’t speak a word of Audish.

  And just then, the singing stopped. Tinga looked over her shoulder at the elf woman. She’d fallen back against the grass. The boy’s head was still in her lap. He hadn’t stirred.

  Tinga glanced at Cestra, who gave her a small, sad nod.

  “Give it to them,” Tinga said, pointing the Belgrian soldier toward the elf woman and the little boy. He didn’t know the words, but took the meaning with a nod, and moved that way. She hoped there was still time.

  But she wasn’t going to see it, one way or the other. She couldn’t hold herself up to look anymore, let herself fall backward in the grass. Cestra’s arm was still around her, and she fell too, against Tinga’s side.

  The color was fading from the edges of Tinga’s vision again. She knew what that meant. She rolled her head to take one more look at Cestra’s green eyes and freckles, while she could still see them properly. “I’m glad you’re here with me,” she said softly.

  “Wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Cestra said, and with what strength she had left, she snuggled closer.

  Tinga closed her eyes, and waited. At least if it was over, she’d gone out fighting for the people she loved. Beside someone she loved.

  But the end didn’t come.

  Instead, warmth flooded back into her chest.

  Her eyes snapped open. She gasped, filling her lungs, and heard Cestra doing the same beside her.

  Tinga sat upright, looked to either side. She and Cestra weren’t the only ones. All around her, people were sitting up, standing up, breathing deep. The Belgrian soldier was helping the elven woman and the little boy to their feet.

  The siphon was gone.

  Cestra stood first—she’d had a talisman more recently, had a little bit more strength—and she offered Tinga her hand. She was smiling. Beaming, really, her freckled cheeks flushed with color.

  Tinga took her hand, and jumped to her feet. Her strength was surging back; she felt almost giddy.

  It wasn’t everyone. People had already been lost, riven, or just too injured to move. But looking across the park and the seawall, Tinga saw thousands of people standing with her. Not everyone, but most of them. They’d come together, stood together, and they’d survived.

  And then she turned outward, to the Knights of the Emperor. They hadn’t realized what was happening yet, were still closing in on the struggling mages who stood against them. And she wasn’t the only one looking.

  A memory came to Tinga’s mind, of some fifty people, already weak from the siphon, charging over a half-dozen mages. Not so different now. The numbers are just bigger. She couldn’t help but laugh, so full of warmth and life that she couldn’t hold it in. She looked at Cestra, and Cestra smiled back. Tinga took her hand and squeezed it tight.

  “Come on!” Tinga shouted. “Let’s show them that there are things to fear besides magic!”

  Side by side, she and Cestra charged the front lines.

  The thunder of thousands of footsteps rose behind them.

  _____

  It was over very quickly.

  Tane watched as the people of Porthaven rolled over the Knights of the Emperor, overwhelming them with sheer numbers. More than any spell could turn aside. Shields shattered under thousands of pounding fists, and then the time for magic was over, because the enemy mages were too busy being trampled underfoot. Golems crashed to the ground, toppled by the combined might of the crowd.

  Endo was still squirming beneath Kadka. “You have to get this thing out of me! You said—”

  Kadka clapped a hand over his mouth. She’d risen to her knee to watch, holding him pinned to the gr
ound beneath it. “Watch this,” she said, moving his head so that he was forced to see. “Is what losing looks like. Should get used to it.”

  The knights and bluecaps broke ranks, scattered. Some attempted a fighting retreat; others simply bolted.

  They didn’t get far.

  A familiar voice lifted over the noise of the battle. “Those who fight for Endo Stooke, stand down! This is over!” Lady Abena, amplified by magic. The reinforcements had arrived.

  From the streets along the harbor, a host of Audish soldiers marched into view, blocking any path of escape. Among them shone the brass cuirasses of the Mageblades. The Knights of the Emperor and Durren’s bluecaps had already been badly outnumbered; now it was clearly hopeless. Most of them laid down their arms at once, and the few fanatics who tried to resist were quickly put down.

  Tane looked at Kadka. “I’m not dreaming this in my final moments while the siphon sucks out my soul, am I?”

  She laughed. “Only if we have same dream. I see it too.”

  Across the sky over the waterfront, the dragons were returning, and they carried several people with them. They touched down in the grass beside Tane and Kadka. Indree dismounted from Syllesk, and Tinga and Cestra climbed down from Nevka’s back. Iskar and Bastian flew in on their own wings to land beside the others.

  Indree ran for Tane, and he caught her in his arms. “You did it!” she squeezed him tight. “I told you you could.”

  “It wasn’t just me,” Tane said. “Kadka did the hard part.”

  “Is true. He just talks.” Kadka was still kneeling on Endo’s chest with her hand over his mouth, but she grinned up at Tane, and then turned to the others. Iskar was beside her, and she reached up to clasp his hand. “And rest of you are only reason anyone is left to save.”

  “Oh, are we being humble?” Tinga was smiling, her arm around Cestra’s waist. “Do we have to? Because I’d very much prefer to brag.” Her eyes flicked down to Endo, pinned under Kadka’s knee, and her face darkened. “We won. We beat him. So much for magical superiority.”

  “Indeed!” Bastian’s unmasked face was flushed with enthusiasm. “This is not time for humility! What you have accomplished today is staggering! Stopping a war, defeating a would-be Mage Emperor! The story of the Magebreakers will be Audish history!”

  “Speaking of Mage Emperors…” Indree took a pair of cuffs from her belt, engraved with anti-magic glyphs. “I thought these might be useful.” She knelt beside Endo and cuffed his wrists.

  “You seem to have the situation in hand, but we will take him from here.” Tane turned to see Lady Abena approaching across the flattened grass with an escort of Mageblades. Behind her, the army was rounding up prisoners all along the waterfront, and medics were seeing to the injured and riven as best they could. “It seems Audland is in your debt again, Magebreakers. On behalf of a grateful nation, I thank you.” She smiled. “And on my own behalf, as well. For all the privileges of my station, I would have been riven as surely as any other non-magical.”

  The Mageblades moved to take Endo into custody. They’d come prepared, with a wheeled chair fitted with various containment straps and engraved with anti-magic glyphs. Only when two of them had Endo firmly in their grasp did Kadka remove her knee from his chest and stand.

  As soon as her hand left his mouth, Endo screeched, “Take it out!”

  Kadka grinned, and as the Mageblades lifted him into the chair, she obliged. Not gently. Endo cried out in pain as she tore the pin roughly from his chest.

  “Let me see that,” Tane said. Kadka dropped the talisman into his outscretched palm. The peridot at its center was an opaque, milky green. He tapped it with one finger, and it crumbled into chunks. “That’s what I thought. A few moments longer and he’d have had his magic back.”

  Endo’s arms and legs were restrained now, strapped into the chair, but he turned his head at that. “What?”

  Tane couldn’t help but smile. “That’s the thing about magic, Endo. No amount of it is going to help you against the right bluff.”

  Endo’s eyes widened as he understood. His face went dark with rage. But before he could speak, one of the Mageblades fastened an anti-magic muzzle over his mouth. All that came out was a muffled shriek of fury.

  Kadka was still cackling as they wheeled him away.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  _____

  THE WATERFRONT WAS abandoned. The streets were empty. People were avoiding this section of the harbor, and Kadka understood why. Bad memories. It had only been a few short days since the battle—what people were already calling the Second Mage War, as short a conflict as it had been. The Senate had barely even begun to debate how to handle the aftermath, what to do with the riven. The Mageblades were still tracking down traitors on the testimony of prisoners. People were mourning friends and family. Nobody wanted to visit the place where it had all happened, to be reminded of everything they’d suffered.

  But hiding from memories did no good. Kadka had come here to face them.

  She stood at the edge of the sea wall, with Iskar at her side, and two little ones—looking for all the world like a pair of wild-haired half-orc children—holding their hands. Their friends stood just behind. Carver, Indree, Tinga and Cestra. No one else. This was private.

  Kadka looked up at the sky from where she stood. Above, there was nothing, but she knew this was the spot. She’d almost fallen on top of it.

  Directly above her was the place where little Vladak had returned to the Astra.

  After a long silence, Iskar spoke, in a soft, solemn voice. “Our young Vladak was taken from us too early. They never had a chance at the life they deserved.” He didn’t use ‘he’ or ‘she’, because dragons, in their native form, were neither. Or both. They chose how they wished to be addressed, usually when they took other forms, as Syllesk and Nevka had. But little Vladak had never been given the chance to choose, and ‘it’ no longer felt right. “But I believe that in the end, they felt the love that they should have known from the start. Because they found the strength to give us the chance we…” The words choked off, and there were tears in his eyes. Kadka took his hand, squeezed it tight, and Syllesk and Nevka hugged him around the waist. After a moment, he mastered himself. “The chance we needed. At the end of their life, they were every bit the hero their namesake was.”

  “Uncle,” Kadka said. “Their uncle.”

  Iskar nodded. “Yes. And that is the other life we celebrate today. Vladak the elder. One of the truest friends I have ever had, in all my long years. He spent his life fighting for the lives of others, and gave it in the end so that others might live. He was not blood, but he was family. A brother. An uncle. He never had a chance to meet the child we gave his name, but I know that he would have been proud to share it.”

  “I wish we could bring him back,” Syllesk said through sniffles. “He always… he played with us when we didn’t have anyone else. I wish we could bring them both back. But we can’t, so…” She couldn’t say any more, looked to Nevka.

  Nevka nuzzled his head against hers, tears in his eyes. “So we’ll try to be good,” he finished quietly. “Like he was. Like they were.”

  “He died saving me,” Indree said. “I’ll never be able to repay him for that. But I’ll always be grateful.”

  “So will I,” Carver said, holding her close. “Every non-magical in Thaless should be. We couldn’t have stopped Endo without you, or Kadka, and neither of you would be here without Vladak.” A slight, sad smile creased his face. “Uncle Vladak or little Vladak.”

  Another long silence. At last, Kadka wiped her eyes. “But they do not want us to cry. They only want good things for us, I know. To be with each other. To be family.” She turned away from the sky to look at the others. “Is not Audish way, but in Sverna, when loved one dies, is custom to start something new. Something good. Remember them with happy news, not only sadness, even if is hard to do.”

  They were all looking at her with varying degrees of confu
sion, now. Her friends. Her family. It was strange to think that hardly more than a year ago, she had been alone in the world. Now, she had everything she needed. She grinned, and the sorrow in her chest relaxed just a bit.

  And then she dropped to one knee, and looked up at Iskar. Took his hand in hers.

  “Marry me, dragon man.”

  Syllesk squealed; Nevka gasped in delight.

  Iskar smiled down at her through tears, and placed his free hand over hers, so that he was clasping it in both of his. “Nothing would make me happier.”

  _____

  Tane applauded with the others, laughing. Trust Kadka to turn a funeral into a marriage proposal. But it felt right, somehow.

  Syllesk and Nevka were hopping up and down with glee, clutching at Iskar and Kadka’s clothes as Kadka leapt to her feet and practically grappled Iskar with an enthusiastic kiss. Tinga and Cestra moved in to embrace the newly engaged couple.

  Tane hung back for a moment. Kadka was his best friend, and he was so happy for her, but she’d also reminded him of something he needed to do. Something that had been too long coming.

  He turned to Indree. She looked at him, amber eyes shining with tears and with joy. She was beautiful.

  “Hey,” he said. “You know, neither one of us is about to die, just now.”

  She laughed. “I hope not. It might ruin the moment.”

  “Well, let’s assume that we’re safe, then.” He took a deep breath, swallowed. “There’s something I should have told you a long time ago. And you were right—it shouldn’t have taken the threat of rogue golems or evil mages to force it out of me.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “Why Tane Carver, I haven’t the faintest idea what you could be talking about.”

  He snorted. “Shut up.” And then, when she raised an eyebrow, “I mean, that’s not… What I’m trying to say is… I love you, Ree. I always have.”

  “I know, you idiot,” Indree said, but her smile took the bite out of the words. “I love you too.”