Birthright - Book 2 of the Legacy Series (An Urban Fantasy Novel)

by Ryan Attard

  “You’re not missing out on anything, trust me,” replied Amaymon. He made a purring noise. “I’m the cuddly one in the family.”

  “Certainly not the most hygienic,” I muttered and watched his tail swish over the rice crackers, leaving random hairs on the plate.

  “Hygiene is for pussies.” Amaymon dipped his face into the plate and proceeded to gorge himself. “Man up,” he splattered between mouthfuls.

  I twisted my face in disgust. “Thank you, Amaymon,” I said sarcastically. “Thank you for ruining the concept of food for me forever.”

  “Anytime.”

  Sun Tzu cleared his throat. “If we could please get back to the story,” he motioned slightly with his hand, encouraging me to continue.

  “Yeah, I wanna see what my brother put you through. Was it dangerous? And funny?” Amaymon’s tone was genuinely happy.

  “Nope, nothing too dangerous. We ran simulations and such,” I said. “Most of the time, he’d let out some monster and we had to capture it again.”

  Amaymon’s tone went from schoolboy enthusiastic to crestfallen. “I could think of a dozen different activities that would be more entertaining. And that’s the stuff off the top of my head.”

  “Yeah, but killing us was not on our father’s agenda,” I replied, without thinking. Amaymon gave me a look, questioning whether I was as stupid as I looked. Or as stupid as he had assumed I was. Either way, he gave me a look which made it clear that he didn’t approve of me, and that I should seek immediate help.

  “Yet,” I added hastily. Amaymon sighed and went back to his rice crackers. I huffed and glared at him. He was my cat - law of nature dictates that he has to love me or face starvation.

  “The story, Erik,” said Sun Tzu again.

  “Yeah. Maybe I should tell you guys about this one time Mephisto locked us up with a rabid phoenix,” I said.

  Amaymon nearly choked on his cracker. Sun Tzu raised an eyebrow. “A phoenix? Those are, indeed, very rare.”

  “Says the guy with one in his basement,” I quipped. I thought it was amusing.

  Sun Tzu did not. “Do not presume to understand the nature of either myself or my comrades, Erik. There is not enough time or knowledge in this world for me to fully explain the significance of the things you have witnessed here today.”

  I remained speechless.

  “Wicked burn, Gramps,” Amaymon hollered.

  Sun Tzu ignored him. Perhaps he didn’t know the meaning of the word “burn” in this context. He sure as hell wasn’t raised in the last few decades. Or perhaps he just wanted to let it go. Either way, I was pretty sure I struck some sort of nerve.

  Sometimes I think I’m so damn funny.

  “So, what about this bird, Erik?” said Amaymon. “Did you get roasted? Did it crap on you? C’mon, please, please, please make the story about you being locked up with a flaming bird funny.”

  “Well, if you’d just shut up maybe I’ll continue with the story,” I replied. Amaymon let out the smallest of hisses and shut up. Wow, the fact that he actually obeyed meant he was interested. Maybe there is a way to shut him up, after all.

  ***

  Approximately 8 years ago

  Our lives had changed forever. We no longer went to school or met anyone from the outside world. Sure, we were allowed to accompany the staff on errands, or maybe run around the surrounding forest, but otherwise the Ashendale manor was a perfect prison. Mind you, it was a big, fancy prison. And forget the mansion itself — the entirety of Trinity Forest was our playground. Or rather, our own personal obstacle course.

  The evening after Dad told us that we were warlocks, he came to my room and dumped a pile of books on the small desk I had in a corner. As I said, my family is filthy rich, and yet my room was as Spartan as can be. A small, square room, with graying white paint, a medium-sized bed, a small desk on the furthest wall and a bookshelf. I did have a window, one big enough for a thin person to wriggle out of the house unseen. That came in handy a couple of years later. The curtains were a dull crimson, but the glow of the rising sun through them was one of my favorite colors. It was a nice, cozy room, I suppose, but I’d been to my sister’s room, and I could have sworn hers was slightly bigger. I guess the grass is always greener.

  The next day, our training began. Mephisto sat us down in a living room at the back of the house and explained the mechanics of magic. Which wasn’t too informative since magic is a very personal thing. Best he could do was divide the lessons into different categories and take it from there. Our schedule was pretty simple. After breakfast, where we were encouraged to eat as much as possible, we were escorted to our classroom to learn about energy projection, summoning, alchemy, thaumaturgy, evocations, curses, enchantments and even relatively non-magical subjects like physics, biology, chemistry, engineering, environmental sciences, pseudo sciences and theology. All I can say is, it was too damn much to expect from a kid.

  My sister didn’t help at all. She would sit there, her mouth slightly parted, absorbing every single bit of information Mephisto spewed over us. She remembered everything, as opposed to me, who would start nursing a headache after the first half-hour.

  Following that, we had a light lunch and then our practical sessions started. This usually involved the forest. We would take a long hike and either learn about the habitats of monsters, chase one down, or just learn stuff like tracking, hunting, shooting, fighting and general survival skills. Unlike my more academic sibling, this was where I shone. We learned how to start fires out of practically nothing, although later it was expected that we just conjure one up. We hunted deer and birds, using anything from modern rifles to long bows. We tracked down bears using stealth and traps. Sometimes our demon teacher decided to up the ante and let loose some monster. Sometimes we would spend the night out in the open.

  Sometimes we spent days.

  This went on for years — wake up, learn the subject, nurse a headache, eat something, walk forever amongst the trees, fight, hunt and survive whatever our twisted teacher sent our way, have some dinner and fall semi-comatose on the medium-sized bed in my small room. Next day the cycle was repeated.

  I suppose the real milestone came when I turned sixteen. The learning got more difficult, to the point where I couldn’t progress without my sister’s help. Which was code for my sister doing my homework for me. The physical exercises went from tiresome, to scary, to nightmarish. Mephisto would set up traps, monsters and wildlife, alike, in our path, and would leave us in the forest overnight. It was no longer a question of learning now, it had turned into a twisted survival game. We would always return scarred and battered, only to have the demon do it all over again a few days later. I think the only reason we stayed alive was because we had each other. Gil and I complemented one another very well. I served as our team’s action man, shooting and stabbing for both our survival. Gil had a talent when it came to setting up traps both real and magical. But, truth be told, she would have perished long ago without me to defend her. I guess that was why she never objected to doing my math homework.

  The phoenix challenge was our last and most difficult of these survival excursions. But for me, it has an even deeper significance.

  This was when I lost my magic forever.

  15

  Approximately 8 years ago

  It was a gray afternoon, with thunder-clouds threatening to execute their wrath over the surrounding flora.

  “Come with me.” Mephisto had gotten less and less talkative. When we were kids, he used to tell us stories about all the blood and gore he had experienced, how he would topple governments with a slight push, or about some long lost god from some long lost tribe and their blood rituals. You know, the usual stories you’d tell kids.

  If you were a twisted sociopath.

  We followed him without any questions. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, and it was time for our practice session. He led us to a clearing a mile from the Mansion and stopped abruptly.

  �
��So, what are we gonna fry today?” I said with bravado. “And where’s our stuff?”

  Every session we were provided with a random assortment of supplies, spell ingredients and weapons. Usually, they would be in a rucksack or rolled up in a sheet or sleeping bag. There were none this time.

  Mephisto turned and snarled at me. I flinched away, my reaction involuntary.

  “You must survive this,” he said through clenched teeth. The demon was not one for advice or pep talks. He would usually point his finger at our destination, and we’d start walking.

  “Both of you,” he said, squeezing my shoulders and darting his yellow eyes from me to my sister. “You must survive this.”

  He let me go and walked a few feet away. Gil and I remained frozen on the spot, our minds still trying to configure what the heck just happened. The demon tossed a silk bag with a knot at the neck and it landed about ten feet from us. He waved his hands and the wind gathered. I saw his eyes shine and could feel the terrible power emanating from the demon. The wind encircled the clearing, covering it like a dome.

  “A barrier,” I heard my sister mutter.

  “Not quite.” Mephisto’s voice boomed from around us as if the wind itself were speaking. “My power may act as a barrier, but it is not to keep things out. This power is to keep you in. Do not touch the wind or you will perish. Do not scream, because no one will see or hear you. This is your ultimate test. This is not a training exercise. Today, you fight for your lives.”

  There was something in his voice, as if he were being forced to put us through this. Or, perhaps, it was all part of his act to convince us that he was somewhat human. Either way, the ominous tone was real and we believed him. Whatever this thing was, it was no exercise.

  “Begin.”

  The silk rope constraining the neck of the bag whistled in the light breeze generated by Mephisto’s wind dome. The noose loosened, and soon, the small rope flew directionless in the wind. The bag opened and ashes scattered from it.

  “What the hell—” I began.

  The ashes pressed together in a bizarre blob of gray, and from the center a small spark morphed into a bright yellow ember. It grew until a small flame burned brightly in the middle of an ash pile, and grew. Soon, the entire structure was ablaze and we heard a screech. The ball of fire spread horizontally, and I soon realized that I was gazing at a pair of enormous wings. The fire turned and twisted, each wave releasing a blast of heat and the ever-terrifying whoosh. A long tail plumed into three lances of flame, each swishing to and fro in a hypnotizing lull. As its wings flared nearly as wide as our entire mansion, a pair of large, wicked talons bent forward from the fire. They curved forward, and wherever the razor-sharp tips scraped against the ground, long, deep grooves of scorched earth appeared. They shone with a golden hue, as did its beak when it appeared. Its eyes flared in a bright crimson and whenever the bird moved, heat blasted us, making us weak and dizzy.

  The phoenix screeched and flapped its wings, creating a small inferno. It rose high, crashing against the cage. Every time the flames hit the wind dome, they scattered. After a few tries, the phoenix was driven to the ground, having its wings and talons extinguished back into ashes. As soon as contact between the dome and the flames stopped, the ashes merged back with the bird and the flames grew once more, completely restoring it. Once the bird realized it was going nowhere, it began looking in directions other than the coveted sky. That’s when its red eyes found us.

  And believe me, you do not want an angry, trapped, flaming bird looking at you.

  I remember feeling terror for the first time in my live. Sure, I’d felt fear before and I did shake in my boots, especially when Mephisto got a little too creative. But this was a first for me. It was the first time I felt trapped and naked, up against a creature I had no idea how to confront. I mean, it was a flaming ball of fire. How the hell do you deal with that? Every course of action, every strategy I’d been taught, would only lead to me burning into a crisp. That was terror, real terror. The kind where your brain screams for you to move, but your body, some survival instinct embedded in you, knows that there is nothing you can do but shut down and hope you don’t die suffering. And amidst all those thoughts and images of me burning and frying and sizzling like a sausage on a spit, I couldn’t help but let my mind wonder. Maybe it was a sign of me going insane. Maybe this life of “hide and seek before you end up as lunch” was a little too much for a teenager. Whatever it was, when I first saw that bird screaming at us, all I thought about was what a bad idea it had been to eat that turkey sandwich earlier.

  The phoenix had no qualms about fear. Like the giant bird that it was, it clamped its talons on the ground and rammed its beak at us. I stood there like an idiot, watching a giant bird about to peck me to death with its giant beak. I mean, how do you deal with that situation?

  I felt a pair of hands push me out of the way and then Gil tumbling over me, as we both rolled on the ground. As the beak hit the ground, a blazing array of sparks and flames erupted, like a small volcano going off. We backed away until we heard a sharp whistling sound coming from behind. We were perhaps a few inches away from the edge of the wind dome. Some of Gil’s blond hair touched the barrier and was cut clean, almost as if the barrier was made out of razor sharp knives, not wind. The bird had recovered and snapped its beak, clearly pissed off at having missed its prey. I watched the giant talons lift off the ground and take one earth-shaking step toward us. One of the bird’s tails swung very close to us and we ducked for cover under the long, thick lance of fire.

  “Any ideas?” I heard myself asking. My throat was dry from all the heat and it was a wonder I could speak at all. We evaded another peck from that beak and scurried away from the bird to the other side of the dome. If we kept this up it would only be a matter of time before one of us slipped up and got burned. We needed something, anything, to give us an advantage. And when it comes to cooking up plans, no one can beat my sister. If there was one thing she was good at, it was focusing under pressure.

  “Usually, water spells work best against fire, but the wind is fanning the flames, acting against us. We need a source, and fast.” She patted herself and extracted a small, clear crystal. It was one of the generic tools we used. Crystals tended to act as focusing lenses for magic, particularly the earthy type.

  But it was less than useless in this situation. The ground inside the dome was scorched beyond use. Any of the other elements would be redundant, too — no amount of wind could ever compete with Mephisto’s barrier, at least not at our level. Fire would just be plain dumb. But there must have been something we could use.

  And then, it hit me. Spending days outside in these woods gave me pretty good knowledge of the layout of the geography. After all, it was me who usually went out and did the actual hiding and shooting. I must have walked up and down it a million times and never considered using it in a spell.

  “The river,” I told my sister. “There’s a small river that runs along a few miles south of here. There are trees all over the place. Some of the trees here have roots running under us to carry water directly from the river. We could tap into that.”

  Gil’s eyed flashed and she actually let out a squeak. “That’s it. I knew running in the woods would come in handy someday.”

  “Wait. What are you going to use to amplify it? If you just channel the water here all you’re gonna get is some trickle like we usually get when we’re hiking and refilling our bottles. That’s not gonna cut it for a fire that size.”

  The bird spread its wings, scattering flames all over the place. We ducked for cover, zigzagging from the fireballs.

  “There.” Gil pointed above. The wind dome covered us like a bell jar, and at the very center I saw a small black spot. Waves of air rippled from it, whistling down to the ground at our level, where they would shred us to bits if they hit us.

  “At the very center,” she said. “That’s like the eye of the storm. The wind acts like waves and it all passes
through there. But at the very eye it’s calm, like a cyclone. We could aim the water there and let the wind carry it. The water will spread out like a sprinkler system but at that speed, it’ll shoot out in jets.”

  I gave my sister an impressed look. She really thought of everything – a fast attack, covering a wide area, thus leaving no room for the bird to escape. And at that speed, the water droplets would shoot through it like knives.

  “And the catalyst? You need a water catalyst,” I said.

  Magic doesn’t happen just by waving a piece of wood around and saying a few magic words. It needs the right ingredients and the right circumstances to work, otherwise you either get a big bang or just a flop of muddy water on your hands. The crystal Gil had would have been great for earth evocations, but this was a completely different element. For water evocations, most wizards used vials of liquid, usually a blend of blood, clean water and some unpronounceable herbs to strengthen their connection between caster and spell. We had none of that, just a stupid crystal.

  Yet, Gil still smiled. She gripped the shard tightly with one hand and pressed its sharp tip against her other palm. Blood oozed around the crystal and fell in thick droplets on the ground.

  Before I could say anything, she said, “The human body is sixty percent water. It pays to study, Erik.” Leave it to my sister to act smugly about school in the face of imminent, fiery danger.

  “I’m all set, but I need time,” she said. Her face was contorted into a frown, which I came to know as her ‘thinking face’ – Gil was completely in the zone. “Do you think you can buy me some without killing yourself?”

  I nodded, nervous again. This is how our plans usually worked. The brains of the team, my sister, would sit back and analyze the enemy, then conjure up something to exploit its weaknesses. In the meantime, I, the brawn, would be doing the actual fighting. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle the spells — it was more a case of personality. My style is usually diving headfirst into the fray and going all Conan the Barbarian on them. Gil is more methodical and clean, wasting no effort or magic. Besides, she had a lot more concentration than I did. She could handle observing her enemy and concentrating on the spell she was casting. And this one was extra complicated. I mean, doing a thaumaturgy spell on a river that was quite a distance away from here, channeling water though hundreds of tree roots and rock formations and finally through scorched ground, adding a water evocation through a small crystal and her own blood, only to force it onto a demon’s wind spell in the hopes it catches a high-speed piggyback ride and shoots through a giant bird of fire? Yeah, better leave that to the brains of the team.