The Book of Deacon Anthology

by Joseph R. Lallo

  "What?" he called out.

  "I said, why couldn't you have used your magic!?" Caya repeated.

  "Haven't the strength. Keeping us disguised and hidden during the flight here, the shield, and now with no crystal? I can barely think!" he admitted.

  "You haven't . . . you . . . YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT WE'VE JUST DRAWN THE ATTENTION OF EVERY LAST ONE OF THOSE MONSTERS AND YOU HAVEN'T A SPELL TO CAST AGAINST THEM!" Caya raved, pulling her sword.

  Deacon nodded, fumbling through his bag.

  "I can understand wanting to end your life on a high note, but I would have appreciated a bit of warning! I'd have preferred an audience for my death!" Caya fumed, as she gripped the sword tightly. "Ah, well. At least we'll take a building full of cowards with us! Shame it being a church!"

  Deacon did not answer. Partially because taking his hands away from his ears to rummage through the bag had cost him what was left of his hearing, and partly because he was busy running some calculations. He pulled the small, clear vial from the bag and pulled it open, smelling it. It certainly smelled like the substance he knew as moon nectar. He recalled the portion of his education devoted to it. Collected from the leaves of special herbs only on the nights of blue moons and eclipses, moon nectar was nothing short of condensed, distilled magic.

  He hadn't taken it from Entwell. Even in Entwell, there simply wasn't this much to be had. There was no telling where it came from--it would have taken ages, perhaps thousands of years to collect this much. Had he been more certain that it was what he believed it to be, he'd have sent the bottle with Myranda. Now, well, if it turned out to be poison, whatever death it might bring to him could only be an improvement over the one heading toward him on rough leather wings. One drop, he worked out, would provide him with all of the strength he'd squandered and then some. His body might just be able to contain the strength in two. Slowly, he put the edge of the vial to his lips.

  "Trying to gird your loins? No sense being genteel about it," Caya said, quite literally to deaf ears.

  In a smooth, practiced--and, at any other time, predictable--way, she placed a finger at the vial's base and tipped it up, pouring the entire contents down Deacon's throat. The wizard silently swallowed. Even facing the death sentence it represented, he would not allow himself to waste a drop. A moment later, the sensation began. It was a fire, though the word falls far short, that burned in the center of his mind and the pit of the soul and built. He shuddered as he tried to spread the effects, feeling as though if he allowed it to remain concentrated, it would burn a hole through all of reality. The liquid was the spark, and his spirit the tinderbox.

  "Strong stuff?" Caya asked, eyes wide as Deacon turned slowly to her, his eyes already taking on a brilliant white gleam.

  "Get your men and bring them indoors," he calmly instructed, his unstrained voice louder than the bell and gaining dimensions with each word, as though it echoed not only through space, but time as well. "I do not know what is going to happen, but it is going to be spectacular."

  With that, Deacon paced toward the edge of the roof and, without hesitation, stepped off of it.

  Caya had opened her mouth to warn him, but something about the crackling, glowing footprints he'd left a few inches above the roof behind him made her realize it would be a waste of breath. Reluctantly pulling her eyes from the spectacle, she rushed down the stairs.

  Deacon hung past the edge of the roof for a moment, then he was atop the tower. He hadn't appeared to move at all, as though he'd remained still and all of existence had shifted to accommodate him. Once in place, he turned his mind lightly to a spell.

  The mystic act reached Myranda as a distant, brilliant flash of light. The flare was impossibly bright, somehow gleaming through the stone walls of the castle. It lasted for less than an instant, so brief that she dismissed it, but she could not dismiss its effects. Myranda's trip down into the heart of the castle brought her against spell after enchantment after curse, as though the castle itself was composed of the blasted things. They bored at her soul, pushed against her from all sides. But now they were gone, every one of them, swept away by Deacon’s will. The door ahead of her swung open.

  A thousand questions and a hundred concerns fought for a place in her mind, but Myranda ignored them. She could not afford to waste this opportunity wondering if it was a trap. Already the spells were slipping back into place and the door was closing. She dove for it, gathering the might of her body and mind to keep it open. It was enough to halt it, but only just, and not nearly wide enough to slip through. Slowly, the enchantment against her strengthened and she began to lose ground.

  Behind her, there was a whipping of wind. Outside it might have been dismissed, but her mad dash had taken her deep into the castle. There was only one explanation for such a sound here. Myranda cast a look over her shoulder and saw the swirling form of Ether rushing toward her.

  The shapeshifter had spent the last few minutes attempting to enter the castle. As a creature of pure magic, Ether found herself far more affected by the recently dismissed enchantments, and the look on her face made it clear that she was in no mood to allow them to bar her way any longer.

  In a single smooth motion, Ether transitioned to stone, gently brushed Myranda aside, and clashed against the door before her momentum had begun to dissipate. The collision neatly knocked the heavy wooden construction from its hinges, sending it sliding a short distance into a particularly ornate hall.

  Myranda pulled herself from the floor and clutched the growing lump where her head had met the wall. A gentle brushing aside from a stone form moving at blinding speed was, indeed, anything but gentle. She'd barely brought the thought of healing the injury to mind when her new staff obligingly dipped into the filled-to-bursting reserve crystals and did so for her.

  Ether stalked into the tall, elegant chamber beyond the door, but clearly something was wrong. She walked as one through a storm. The magic that merely slowed Myranda hit her like a hurricane gale. Finally, she reluctantly took on her human form. As the focused mana turned to mundane flesh and bone, the arcane pressure parted around her rather than pounding against her. The expression on her face was one of determination and concentration. The human form was useful for many things, but battle was not one of them. If her elemental forms were vulnerable in the presence of this magic, she would need an alternative. She mentally searched through the handful of forms she'd managed to memorize from the samples Deacon had stolen. Surely one of them would be adequate for an indoor clash . . .

  Myranda hurried in after her. One of the generals was near, she could feel it. What little light there had been in the hallway gave way to utter darkness in the massive new room. The light from her staff glinted off hints of gold and silver hidden in the blackness. The hall had a luxury to it that was felt, even though it wasn't seen. Slowly, carefully, as though she might not be ready for what it would reveal, she coaxed more light from her staff. It fell upon portraits in gilded frames, ornamental and ceremonial swords, shields and daggers . . . and a throne.

  Myranda dropped to one knee and lowered her gaze, managing. "Y-your Majesty."

  Somehow, Myranda hadn't thought she would find him here, that she would have found instead one of the generals in the throne, gloating, with the crown of the empire upon his head. Instead, she found a man. Though frail and old, he seemed to be authority and wisdom itself. Even with her eyes averted, she could feel him looking at her.

  "Rise, child. I deserve no such reverence. Not anymore." He spoke in a voice to match his position, rising slowly and stepping down from the throne as he did.

  "But you are the king. The emperor. You rule this land," Myranda said.

  He placed a hand on her shoulder.

  "A ruler has power and wisdom. Power I never truly had. Wisdom . . . wisdom I had only believed I had. I realized too late that even that was not so," he said. "Now stand. You are Myranda, I believe. Myranda Celeste. My generals would have me believe you mean only harm for my kingd
om."

  Myranda stood.

  "The generals. Sire, you must understand, the generals are--" Myranda began.

  "I know. I know more, perhaps, than you. You've made a valiant effort, but you are too late," he explained.

  "That is not your decision to make, human. Now reveal the generals. Bagu is near," Ether growled.

  "Ether, please this man deserves respect!" Myranda scolded.

  "Yes, Ether. Where are your manners?" came a voice, seemingly from everywhere at once.

  The words echoed around the room, masking the slow, deliberate opening of a door. From within emerged Bagu. His scarred face bore an arrogant expression, an expression of extreme satisfaction. In his hands was an hourglass. Myranda raised her staff, Ether took a step back, settling on one of the more aggressive forms she could remember. With a burst of wind, she assumed the form of a tiger. Massive teeth bared, plate-sized paws sprouting finger-long claws, the shapeshifter pounced.

  "Enough!" Bagu shouted, raising a hand.

  A pulse of energy knocked the heroes back.

  He grinned, continuing. "This is a momentous occasion. It is for your benefit that I allow you to live to see it. You see, you are about to witness the death of your world."

  As Myranda struggled to her feet, the last grain of sand slid with painful slowness into the bottom bulb. It struck the pile. Instantly, there was a rumble like continuous thunder. The ground began to shudder under their feet. The roar grew steadily until antiques rattled from their shelves and smashed upon the ground. Dust and mortar sprinkled from the walls and ceiling. Bagu laughed. It was a dark, demented laugh, dripping with evil.

  The sound stabbed at Myranda's mind. The young wizard steadied herself on the shaking ground. No. It would not end like this. Not here. She charged. Bagu raised his hand again. A wall of magic shimmered into being, crackling with energy and strong enough to stop a stampede. Myranda did not slow. As she came to the wall, she slashed at it with the D'karon staff. The impenetrable barrier rippled and spread apart like the oily surface of a swamp, Bagu’s spell countered by one of the same design. She hurtled through the gap. The wizards clashed.

  Outside, those soldiers who had not managed to reach shelter before Deacon struck were left with an image that would linger in their nightmares for the rest of their lives. The whole of the first attack occurred in an instant, but that instant seemed to last an eternity.

  A sphere of light burst out from around Deacon. Those creatures nearest to it were simply undone. First, their body divided into separate pieces--heads, limbs, wings, and segments of tail and neck hanging in midair. Then they too disassembled, hide, flesh, blood, and bone pulling apart--not in a gory way, but as though they were simply components that were being dismantled. Then, somehow, even these things seemed to divide further into whatever constituent parts made them up. It continued, further and further, finer and finer, until nothing remained at all, the whole sequence analyzed by Deacon with a cool, scientific eye.

  Those luckless beasts who found themselves just outside of the sphere suffered the same fate, albeit to varying degrees of completeness. They remained in such a state when time finally came flooding back, some clattering to the ground, others dissipating like a cloud, still others spattering as a liquid, and the rest in some horrid combination of every stage. None lasted for long. All told, perhaps ten beasts remained fully intact once the moment had passed--those fortunate enough to have been slower than their brethren.

  Deacon's mind was fragmented, with each part working feverishly on its own task. One aspect stored the wealth of information gleaned from the dissection of the dragoyles. Another skillfully navigated him to the ground. A third carefully tallied the remaining threats and tasks at hand. The largest part was taking special notice of the effects an overdose of moon nectar seemed to be having.

  The mystic energy he'd consumed was greater by many orders of magnitude than he was able to contain or control. Were it a more traditional type of energy, the effects would have been brief, immediate, and messy. Instead, the power he could not contain was escaping. It was not like his own strength, nestled inside and waiting to be harnessed. This power was pouring out of him, slipping through his mind and soul like water through a sieve. Whether he gave it form or not, it slipped away, crackling and baking the air as it did.

  As each facet of his mind finished its task, it merged with the rest, until finally there was but one Deacon within his mind once more. He was busy debating on what to do next. This power would be gone soon. The bulk of it was gone already. Briefly, he considered joining the heroes and striking down what foes he could, but he knew it would not last, and there was no telling what state he would be in when it ran out.

  The outside world, having recovered from his onslaught, made its presence known, quickly putting any other prospective tasks to rest. The ground was shaking, a mysterious blue light was painting the clouds to the north, and he was surrounded by nearmen.

  Their numbers, despite the long battle against superior foes, were still in the hundreds. The creations had been imbued with a carefully measured amount of intelligence. They were smart enough to identify him as the chief target, but not so clever as to determine their odds of victory. Fear and common sense existed in precisely edited forms so as to ensure that orders were followed no matter the cost and no matter the risk. They raised their weapons and rushed at him.

  Deacon's mind was still floundering in energy enough for an army of wizards, but it was rushing out rapidly. Already he knew that any attempts at the reality-defying manipulations he'd managed moments ago would fall short. What was called for now was conventional magic . . . in massive quantities. He attempted a quick assessment of the surplus of energy but failed miserably, the constantly shifting effects of the overdose having evolved into a sensation akin to looking into the sun while simultaneously another sun was looking out from the inside. This was a situation that called for successive approximation.

  He drew his gray blade and spun it up to speed and beyond, until the weapon was little more than a shimmering disk producing a terrifying whine. He hoisted a sword from the ground with his mind and set it spinning. It quickly became clear that this was taking too long, and the circle of nearmen charging toward him was growing nearer. Like birds rising from a field, every stray sword left by a defeated soldier lifted from the ground. There were dozens. One by one, in rapid succession, the swords matched the speed of his blade.

  Deacon nodded. This would do.

  Chapter 27

  Across the city, the thump and clang of blunt blades encountering poorly-made armor filtered and reverberated through streets and alleys until it reached the motionless body of Ivy as a chorus of dull percussions. She was sprawled on the ground, barely breathing in the aftermath of her outburst of fear. Desmeres’s blades were scorched but intact in her still-clenched fists. At some point, they had resumed their original shape, but the near-blinding glow of the embedded crystals persisted. As Ivy drew in a slow, shallow breath, there was a sudden, sharp pulse. The breath came out as a scream. The stored energy forcibly and painfully returned to its source, tearing Ivy from her repose and restoring her to a wakeful, albeit dazed, state.

  "What was that? Oh . . . Oh, no. Where am I! There were dragoyles! Are they gone? Hello! How long has it been? Did we win?" Ivy stammered, as her eyes darted around the street.

  Slowly, she became aware of her surroundings. The ground was littered with broken armor, flecks of black blood, and gray dust. Debris was clattering about the cobblestones as the ground maintained a constant, low rumble. The nearest sound came from the north. She turned to find, a short distance away, a gate. A smattering of nearmen were hacking at it with swords and axes, and a few were in the process of scaling it using ropes hanging from the top. Beyond that was a castle. Far in the distance behind it, there was a pool of white-blue light on the clouds.

  With her investigations thus far offering up more questions than answers, Ivy looked herself over. She was c
ertain she'd changed, and fairly certain it had been fear. That usually cost her a few days and left her with scorched clothes. Her outfit was none the worse for wear, and she was not nearly hungry enough for days to have passed. There was something strange going on, and she had a feeling Desmeres’s equipment was to blame, but that didn't matter right now.

  "We were heading for the castle, so that's where I'm going," she decided.

  She ran to the castle gate, her head slowly clearing. By the time she reached it, she felt tired, but no more so than after a long day of walking. She wasn't at her best, but she was hardly at her worst.

  There was something very noisy happening on the other side of the gate, something that clearly was far more interesting to the nearmen than she was. Jumping from ground to shoulder to rope, she managed to make it halfway up the wall before a single foe noticed her.

  "Off! Get off!" she cried as one of the soldiers grabbed at her foot.

  A firm yank managed to dislodge the foe above her on the same line, and moment later she was atop the gate. A moment after that, she was dangling from the edge, a column of flames lancing over her head.

  "Myn!" she scolded, peeking up. "It's me! What are you . . . wow. You've been busy."

  At the base of the other side of the gate was a mound of ruined armor and ruined soldiers as tall as Ivy. Myn reared up and leaned against the gate, bringing her to eye-level with Ivy atop it. The malthrope stepped gingerly onto Myn's head and navigated down her back to the ground. Myn finished the remaining nearmen with a sweep of flame down the outside of the gate. The immediate threat gone, Myn looked with confusion at the streets that were mysteriously free of nearmen. She gazed vaguely in the direction of the city's center, where periodically Deacon's spinning swords flitted above the skyline like long metal insects. The dragon looked in confusion to Ivy.

  "Don't ask me, I just woke up! Where is everyone? In there?" Ivy asked, indicating the splintered doorway.