Havoc Rising

by Brian S. Leon

  “You are welcome, Tydides. I am glad I could be of service to one such as yourself.” He inclined his head in a lieu of a formal bow. “Now, where is the unfortunate victim?”

  I directed him over to my easy chair. The tendrils of his aura began exploring Sarah before he was close enough to touch her. The ropy green energy recoiled as it met the greasy gray haze engulfing her, and Voerig winced. He set his bag down with a jingling thump and then bent forward as if to stare at Sarah up close, his hands behind his back. His eyes were actually closed, and he was mumbling. His aura coalesced into a sheet that began to envelop Sarah’s entire form. At first, the green energy scattered like water from oil as it touched the haze around Sarah’s head. I watched as the wizard’s face strained and his mumbling became more determined. His aura flashed and then fully surrounded her.

  My intention was to leave him to work while I finished my preparations for our assault on Medea, but as I began to walk down the hallway to join Duma and Ab in my bedroom, the wizard cleared his throat behind me. He was standing upright next to the easy chair, hands still behind his back.

  “Certainly, you don’t expect me to do all the heavy lifting myself, do you?” the wizened little man said, peering down his nose at me.

  “Ah, well, I don’t really know much about magic.”

  “Well, I assumed that’s why you called me,” he said with a chuckle. “That doesn’t mean I won’t need an assistant who is capable of doing as I say.”

  I couldn’t tell if he really needed my help or if he just relished the idea that he might have a chance to boss me around like a lowly apprentice. I looked at Sarah’s unconscious form in the chair and then back at the old wizard. “Whatever you need,” I replied, throwing my hands up in surrender.

  “Excellent,” he said like a professor who just got his point across. “Please lay her on the couch, and then bring me my bag.”

  I complied, and then the wizard began digging into his leather satchel, placing liquids and items on the coffee table next to him, some of which gave off small amounts of magical energy.

  “Ah ha!” he finally said excitedly, holding up what appeared to be simple cotton rope. “Remove that one and use this to bind her legs and wrists, and then bind her arms at her torso. Tie her tightly.”

  I took the rope and did as he said, noticing a few delicate veins of copper running through the white strands as I secured them.

  “And then place this over her eyes,” Voerig said, holding out a black satin sleeping mask.

  “Um…” I took the mask from him, confused.

  Voerig squinted at me. “Let’s just assume that I know what I’m doing here, shall we?” He chuckled again.

  I couldn’t help but think he was trying to make me feel like an idiot. Putting up with his condescension was probably just part of the price I’d have to pay, so I gave him a half smile and put the mask over Sarah’s eyes as requested.

  With a wave of his hand, the wizard’s aura leaped toward the rope binding Sarah, turning its entire length the same bright green and tightening her bonds.

  “All I can tell is that this is a very old spell. Not simple or outdated, mind you, just ancient. It is, in fact, very efficient and quite effective, but the hold on her mind is minimal, so it should be simple to break without harming her.” He smiled smugly, emphasizing simple, and gave a flourish with his hands.

  “Ah,” I said, as if anything he said made much difference to me. I understood the parts about “simple to break” and “without harming her,” and that was all that mattered.

  “I will let you know how I need your help as I work, understood?” He grinned at me for the briefest of moments and then began.

  The first thing he did was grab one of the little vials of liquid from the coffee table and unstopper it. He then passed it under Sarah’s nose and returned the bottle to the table. A second later, Sarah arched her back, her arms and legs gave a spasm, and she inhaled deeply. The instant she tried to move, Voerig placed both hands, claw-like, over her body. The magic in the ropes flared brilliantly, and she became rigid again, though she was clearly awake and struggling.

  He began speaking what I could only assume was some sort of incantation in a language I didn’t know or even recognize. His voice began low, but as it increased in volume, it also increased in strength. I watched as his aura surrounded Sarah, stopped pulsing, and then began glowing brighter and brighter with the volume of his voice. I could see Sarah trying to speak, but I couldn’t hear her over Voerig’s thundering voice. The lights dimmed, and the temperature in the room began to drop rapidly as all of the ambient energy was sucked into Voerig’s aura.

  All at once, an explosion of green light blinded me while every light in the house exploded, sending us into utter darkness. The sensation was staggering, and I had to bring my hands to my eyes. When I opened them, my vision was wrecked with floating green spots in the blackness, but I could hear Ab and Duma grousing about the power outage from the bedroom.

  Out of the darkness, a single flame jumped to life, and it took me a second to see that Voerig was the source. With the conjured flame, he lit several candles from his bag as my eyes adjusted.

  “What the hell, guys?” Duma said gruffly through the darkness.

  “That was most interesting,” Voerig said, lining up a series of crystals on the coffee table. Once he had them lined up, he blew on them, and they began to glow. “Oh, you can do better than that.” He addressed the crystals directly, egging them on with his hand, and they glowed even brighter until the entire room was well lit. “Much better.”

  As the light increased, Duma stood right behind me while Ab leaned against the wall where the hallway met the living room. Duma pointed toward Sarah, and his eyes widened. She was sitting upright, straight as a rail, moving her head as if surveying her surroundings. Even Voerig recoiled at the foot of the couch as he noticed her. The haze around her head was so intense it was hard to make out the finer features of Sarah’s face. Voerig’s green tendrils had coalesced back into a solid mass close to the wizard’s body.

  “Ah, is she supposed to be doing that?” I asked.

  Voerig scowled at me and put a single finger to his lips.

  “Diomedes? Is that you? I know you’re there, Diomedes.” The voice sounded like Sarah and came from her body, but it was definitely not her talking.

  No one moved or spoke, but we all traded furtive glances as Sarah kept turning her head mechanically from side to side.

  “Come now, Tydides, I know you are close. I just wish to speak with you,” Sarah’s body said.

  Duma stepped silently next to me, holding his karambit in one hand and one of his kukri knives in the other. I grabbed the front of his shirt and held him fast, slowly shaking my head. His body relaxed slightly, and I let go.

  “Why, Medea, it’s been a long time,” I said, deciding to see where this was heading.

  The moment I said her name, Voerig’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened slightly. After another second, he scrambled off the couch as fast as his little old body could move him, and he ducked in behind Duma.

  Holy crap. If this guy was that scared of her, we were screwed.

  “Ah, so nice that you remember me,” said Medea through Sarah’s body as her head turned toward me.

  “How could I forget?” I moved Duma so that I could see Voerig behind him. “Get her out of Sarah—now,” I whispered hoarsely, trying to keep my voice low.

  “Now now, Diomedes, whispering isn’t fair,” Medea said. “But who are you talking to? Most certainly, I felt another mage. A member of the Order, no doubt…”

  “Well, sure, why not? We were having a party, and everyone loves magic tricks.” I widened my eyes at the wizard and jabbed my finger toward Sarah.

  Voerig suddenly snapped his fingers and became animated. He glared
at me and rolled his hand around at the wrist, urging me to keep the conversation going. Then he grabbed Duma’s sleeve and tapped Ab on the elbow, and they disappeared down the hall into darkness, leaving me alone with Sarah, who was possessed by the nastiest witch in history. Just one of the perks of being me.

  “Come now, let’s not be coy,” Medea said. “We both know you’re going to try to save this woman for some reason. I simply wish to tell you to desist.”

  “Desist?” I said, walking closer to Sarah. “I don’t follow. Was our party so loud that it was bothering you in your cave? I mean, the magic tricks were great, but we were just about to bust out the polka music.”

  “Enough!” Medea screamed. “If you choose to pursue me, I will be forced to end you this time. If I must prove my point, I will start with killing this woman.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I guessed that Voerig was working on a solution, but I had no idea what or how soon he’d be ready. “No one needs to kill anybody here. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie!” Medea shouted again. “I know you killed my Ifrit and Ghilan in New York, and I know that little waif found you before my servants could stop her. I also know you took Jamshid’s Cup from that pathetic excuse of a shaman I hired to steal it in the first place. After I had the boy blow himself up for me, of course. And, of course, I recovered the Cup, didn’t I? So I’ll say it again. Desist. You cannot stop me, Diomedes. You never could.”

  Damn, this witch was nuts, and she really needed to die. Where the hell was Voerig? I really had no idea where to take the conversation with the crazy lady in order to draw it out. I thought about telling her I knew she was after the chain that bound Prometheus, but it wasn’t as if I knew where it was, and I preferred to have her guessing at just what she thought I knew.

  “Stop you? I wasn’t trying to stop you,” I said, turning and speaking a little louder so they could hear me down the hall. “I was just trying—”

  “No matter. I know you are coming. It is in your nature, and besides, it is inevitable. You and I have been absent of blade for far too long. Meanwhile, I will show you what you can expect…”

  At that, Voerig came shuffling rapidly down the hall toward his bag at the foot of the couch, and Ab walked over to grab the coffee table next to it. Duma stood next to Ab, focused on Voerig.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Why kill her? She’s irrelevant. You don’t have to do this. If this is about you and me, then let’s just settle this between us.”

  While I spoke, Ab grabbed the coffee table with one hand as if it were a small box, spilling all the objects on it onto the floor, and lifted it out of the way. Voerig threw a fist-sized glass vial at Duma, who caught it and instantly flew into a blur of motion in the space the table once occupied. Voerig tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at Sarah and then onto the floor where Duma worked. Through the Peri’s blur of motion, I could see a circle forming on the carpet. I got it: Voerig was going to use a conjuring circle to isolate Sarah and sever the connection with Medea.

  “Oh, always the hero. Poor child. Heroes always die alone,” Medea said, and then Sarah’s body began to tremble violently in her restraints as if she were having a grand mal seizure. Blood started to run from Sarah’s nose.

  “Guys, anytime now,” I said to no one in particular.

  The blur that was Duma stopped and rolled to get out of the way. “Now, D—do it,” he shouted.

  I scooped Sarah up, which was like trying to hug a thrashing, hundred-pound tuna, and stepped into the middle of the circle Duma had formed, careful not to smudge or smear the design. The instant I cleared the border, the slightest hint of a wall of energy surrounded us, and my ears popped as the world became silent. Sarah’s body fell limp in my arms. Through the slightly murky barrier, I could see Voerig clap his hands in triumph, though I couldn’t hear anything beyond my own breathing. I felt like I was in a glass jar. Sarah was back to being unconscious again, her breathing steady but shallow. I exhaled heavily. Even the haze around her head was gone.

  After a solid minute contemplating what had just happened, I finally stuck my foot over the circle on my carpet and slid my foot back, smearing the circle and releasing its energy, popping my ears again. I laid Sarah back down on the couch and looked from Voerig to Duma to Ab, my hands on my hips. “Thanks, guys,” was all I could manage to say.

  Voerig was the only one who chimed in. I knew Duma and Ab wouldn’t say anything, nor did I need to thank them, which was exactly why I did.

  “You are quite welcome,” the wizard said excitedly. “We bested Medea, did we not?”

  “We severed a link to her from four thousand miles away.” Duma snorted derisively as he threw me a wet rag.

  I laughed as I wiped the blood from Sarah’s face and removed the mask. And then something dawned on me. Why did Voerig have me tie her up and place the mask over her eyes? He must have known this could happen. I wondered if I should be pissed off or just happy we saved her. I decided I had enough to deal with. I didn’t need to start a fight with a wizard, too.

  “You saved the girl, though, right? She’ll be okay?” I asked the mage, handing him back the mask.

  “I shall make sure of it,” he replied, smiling broadly, clearly pleased with himself.

  Voerig began untying Sarah, and I walked mindlessly to the garage to check on the circuit breakers and to get more lightbulbs. However awkward I was with the mundane, this was precisely the reason I couldn’t get involved with them. Sarah had nearly gotten killed by something she didn’t even know existed. That would be her life if she stayed anywhere close to me. And I couldn’t do that to her—not if I really did care for her.

  After throwing the breakers and gathering all the extra bulbs I had in the garage, I returned back inside. In my living room, Sarah was lying on the couch, covered with a blanket. Voerig was in the kitchen, brewing something that reeked—it smelled like a combination of skunk, licorice, and mint. Ab and Duma were leaning against the kitchen counter, laughing. All at once, a sound like a chainsaw ripping through aluminum, wielded by a grizzly bear with sinus issues, erupted from the couch. Duma pulled his knife, and I fumbled with the box of bulbs I carried, and then we realized it was just Sarah snoring. I say just, but she’d actually rattled the windows. Sonic booms were more subtle than that. I had to laugh, relieved she was okay.

  “Holy crap!” laughed Duma next to me, curved knife in hand. “I thought a dragon farted or something. Speaking of which.” We both frowned at Voerig, who was swirling the rank liquid in a small copper pot over one of the gas burners on the stove. He was disheveled. Even his aura was severely diminished and inactive. “What is that stuff you’re making?”

  “Oh, it’s my own special concoction,” the withered old man said, smiling. “It’s like a sports drink for wizards.” His smile grew, and he began humming to himself.

  “Well, how’d the rest of it go?” I asked as I walked into the kitchen, waving my hand in front of my face to ward off the smell.

  “Fine, fine. She’s sleeping now. Short of the bump on the back of her head, she’ll be right as rain when she wakes up. I have no idea how much she’ll remember, though, poor girl. Where do you keep the cups?”

  I grabbed the closest thing to a teacup I had—a mug with a fish tail for a handle that a client had given me. “It’s all I have. Sorry, but I don’t drink tea or coffee.”

  “Heathen,” he replied under his breath as he snatched the mug from me. He stared at it intently for a few seconds.

  “What was all that?” I asked.

  “Well, in the beginning, it was a thought-implantation spell. It didn’t need to be complicated, because the basis for the action already existed. It just”—he waved his hands around—“enhanced them. Reinforced them, so to speak. You can’t really make someone do something they wouldn’t be
willing to do, without dire consequences.”

  The impact of that statement was jarring. It made me even more melancholy, given that I knew there was no way I could allow any kind of relationship to develop between me and Sarah.

  “But—” I had to stop to clear my throat. “Um, what about the rest of it?” I finally spit out.

  I could hear Duma snickering over my shoulder. That was followed abruptly by another riotous blast of sound from the direction of the couch. I could have sworn the dishes in my cupboards rattled.

  “Oh, my,” the wispy little wizard said, clearly still on edge, spilling the stinky tea all over himself. Once he gathered himself, he continued. “Medea is wickedly powerful. I could barely penetrate her spell at all. Of course, no one bothered to tell me it was her we were dealing with.” He peered at me again from under his bushy eyebrows. “The moment I did permeate it, she knew it and was able to project herself through her connection to the girl. Unbelievably strong.” He shook his head and stared into his cup of tea. “Many of the so-called fairy tales about nasty, evil witches were based on things Medea did during her time in medieval Europe. The Order even commissioned two men, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, to create and spread stories about her—and others—as a kind of warning. There are those among the Order, the Ipsissimus included, who believe that her power exceeds the collective capabilities of the entire Third Order.”

  “Seriously?” I asked, unsure of how to follow up his statement about Medea’s strength.

  Voerig just bobbed his head without taking his eyes from the cup.

  The Third Order included the entire upper echelon of the most powerful group of mortal wizards and witches on the planet. The Ipsissimus was the head of the whole shebang and widely considered the strongest wizard among them. I was in way over my head.

  “In the end, the only thing I could think to do was isolate the poor girl,” Voerig continued after a few silent moments. “Fortunately, I was proved correct in my assertions.” He smiled broadly at us all.