He shouted in surprise as she slipped inside his guard and poked him in the arm with her spear. He yelped as the magical tip pierced his unnaturally tough skin. Sally danced out of his range before he could grab her. He retreated. She moved in again, reached up and clubbed him on the side of the head with the flat of the blade. He cried out and fell backward, an angry red triangular mark on his face.
Wolfgang laughed as he watched the boy scramble backward, unable to stay away from the girl half his size.
“Goddammit, let him go!” cried the Musician. “He’s no threat to you! It’s me you want!”
“Wait,” whispered Wolfgang. “Your turn will come.”
Sally had the boy in full retreat. She aimed a jab at his midsection. He slapped it away and grunted from the pain the magical spear left in his hands. She allowed the force of his slap to spin the spear around and pushed the blunt end of the haft into his instep.
“Stop it!” screamed the dark-haired woman.
Wolfgang clenched his fingers in the air and the woman was lifted into the air. “I’m doing nothing. He will survive to fight in my army.”
The boy found his back against a wall. Sally lunged at him but he ducked and rolled to one side. Her spear cracked the stone wall with a flash of cobalt light.
“Sally,” he whispered through his pain. “Baby, it’s me. Stop hurting me.”
He was rewarded with a thrust to his thigh which made him collapse to the stone floor.
Sally’s heart was pounding and her blood roared in her ears. The torture she inflicted on the boy had quickened her breath, not from exertion but from pleasure.
“Break him,” murmured Wolfgang. “Make him mine to command.”
“Yes, my love.”
The boy choked as she poked the spear into his throat. She jabbed again and again, faster and faster, until her attacks came in a blur. Each time, the tip penetrated his skin just enough to raise a welt and bring forth a single droplet of blood. He couldn’t fight back when Sally could be everywhere at once. He hunched down like a turtle to protect his midsection from her lightning thrusts.
“Please stop! We’ll do what you want!” The dark-haired woman cried openly now. Wolfgang ignored her plea.
A horrible, tortured wail came from the boy on the floor.
“Hold,” said the Archmage quietly, and Sally jammed the haft of the spear into the floor with a sound like a mountain splitting asunder.
The boy groaned and panted from the pain he endured. He wouldn’t raise his head to look at Wolfgang. “Please… no more… I’ll do anything… just make her stop.” His voice shook.
“Come over here, boy. Crawl.”
Sally watched as the boy crept slowly across the stone floor. Sweat ran off his face in rivulets. His gray and brown clothing was all but shredded. His skin was lashed with the marks left by her spear, but nowhere was he cut or bleeding. She felt not the slightest bit of pity for him and stared down at him as if he were a dog cowering from a beating.
“Bow before me.”
The boy bent his forehead to the cold stone floor as tears squeezed from his tightly shut eyes.
“You are mine to command. Say it!”
“I…” the boy choked on his words, and then spat them out in a painful whisper. “I am yours to command.”
A grin of triumph overtook all other emotions on Wolfgang’s face. He turned to the corner where Seth watched. “You see, dear old friend? Did you really doubt any other outcome?”
“No, my lord,” said Seth. “But it grows late, and your enemies are marshaling their forces. Would it not be best to end this amusement and claim your birthright?”
Wolfgang sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” He smiled fondly at his servant. “You have always advised me well, Seth. I shall reward you richly for your service.”
Seth bowed.
Wolfgang turned back to the beaten youth. The Musician and the dark-haired woman remained frozen in place. Their cries of anger had been replaced by horrified silence. “Boy, what is your name?”
“J-Jason, m-my lord.”
“A heroic name. Hardly fitting for one such as you. Evermore you shall be known as Dog, for you are no better than one. Say it.”
“My n-name… is Dog.”
Wolfgang laughed. “It will amuse me to use the Musician’s infernal instrument in his destruction. Fetch it for me, Dog.”
Sally watched as the cowering boy went over to where the Musician strained against his unseen bonds. “Don’t do it, Jason. Don’t give in,” he pleaded.
Wordlessly, Jason lifted the strange guitar over the Musician’s head. Unable to resist, beaten, the Musician lowered his eyes. The boy slung the guitar around his own neck so as not to drop it, and trudged slowly toward the Archmage. As he passed Sally, he raised his head slightly, meeting her eyes with his.
Improbably, he winked.
Seth, ever vigilant, started to utter a warning, but he wasn’t quick enough. The boy touched a spot on the guitar and something burst forth from it. It wasn’t a bomb or magic spell; it was only a red balloon, inflated suddenly by a concealed gas canister. It drifted upwards and spun to reveal a bright yellow image of a chess knight on it.
A bomb went off inside Sally’s brain.
Bright white light blinded Sally and tremendous sound echoed through her head as all her memories came rushing back like a tidal wave breaking over and through a levee. Her perceptions accelerated to the fastest they had ever been and suddenly it seemed as if the world had gone completely still. She realized she could see the light moving away from her, slowly and lazily as if it were thick molasses. It was coming from her, shining brightly in all directions. She saw the Archmage, flung backward by the force of the magical brightness, about to crash to the floor. She saw Seth, his hands outstretched as if he were trying to stop her act.
And she saw Jason changing his form in front of her. Instead of the boy who she knew she loved, and to whom she had done a terrible wrong, she saw a man with a sardonic grin and a purple mohawk.
Stratocaster.
Somehow he’d fooled the Archmage into thinking he was Jason, who hung paralyzed in the air beside Ace.
Time sped up again. The Archmage skidded across the floor, stunned by the burst of magical energy which had emanated from Sally.
“No!” Seth screamed, too late.
Stratocaster didn’t waste a moment to thank Sally, and began to play, pressing his advantage while he could. His fingers danced a difficult toccata over the fretboard of the magical guitar. Blast after blast of magic poured forth from the strings. Each one hit the Archmage harder and harder. Stratocaster’s face was terrible to behold; he was a man bent on murderous revenge for uncountable wrongs perpetrated by the Archmage.
Seth leaped at Stratocaster, screaming wordlessly, with his fingers arched into claws. The musician spared a single blast of magic to deflect away the hapless man. In that moment of distraction the Archmage recovered his poise. The next blast from Stratocaster’s guitar split apart in front of the Archmage, curved around him, and blasted a crater in the wall behind him.
“A fine trick,” spat the Archmage through a mouthful of blood. “I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so pissed. Time to die, Stratocaster, like all the others.”
Sally realized she still held the spear in her hands. In the space between breaths she covered half the distance across the Great Hall and forced the spear deep into the Archmage’s ribs.
The spear penetrated easily into his body, but it was Seth who fell with a choking, bubbling scream. Blood fountained out of a deep wound which had appeared on his chest. It soaked through his fine clothing to spray the floor around him. Somehow the Archmage managed to transfer the fatal wound Sally inflicted upon him to his faithful servant. Even so, he appeared startled by the ferocity of the act, as if he’d never really expected Seth to fall in his stead.
“Seth?” he cried.
Sally yanked the spear free from his undamaged body and flung it away from her as if it
were unclean.
The Archmage screamed out wordless anguish. A blast of foul-smelling corrosive liquid shot toward Sally from his hand. Even with her perceptions running full tilt, she barely dodged the jet as it splattered against the wall, dissolved stone in rivulets, and filled the air with acrid fumes. She ran and the stream of corrosion followed her, cutting through pillars and scarring the floor.
Stratocaster blasted more heavy chords toward the Archmage, forcing him to break off his attack against Sally.
He doesn’t fight multiple foes well, she realized, the insight striking so hard it almost made her stumble. That’s important, that’s how we can defeat him.
The wall of the great hall, overstressed and weakened by the Archmage’s acid attack, buckled and collapsed. Large chunks of stone rained down and beams of sunlight poked through the dust. Sally ran to Ace and Jason—the real Jason. The paralysis the Archmage had imposed upon them seemed to be weakening, for they could move their heads and their fingers were twitching.
“I’ve got to get you out of here.” Sally glanced over her shoulder at the escalating fight between Stratocaster and the Archmage. They hurled massive spells against each other’s protective shields. Energy and noise bounced away from the points of impact to wreak destruction across the hall around them.
“Take Ace first,” said Jason through lips and tongue that could barely move. “She’s more fragile.”
“Now wait just a goddamned minute,” began the Israeli pilot.
Sally knew Jason was right and she struggled to lift the woman up over her shoulders. She was thankful for the hours she’d spent in the gym under Jason’s tutelage. A year ago she couldn’t have swung Ace up into a fireman’s carry. She staggered down the hall with her burden and made for the great archway at the far end. If anywhere would be safe in the area, it would be there.
“Wait here.” Sally lowered the semi-paralyzed woman to the ground.
“And what? Watch you all die?” Ace struggled in vain to roll over.
“The only person who’s going to die today is him.” Sally glared back at the Archmage. “I promise you that.”
Ace’s mouth snapped shut in shock; she had never heard such bloodthirsty words come from Sally.
A puff of sulfurous air washed across the room to sear her lungs and send Sally diving for the floor. She wished she had her own costume on instead of this horrible armor Frazier had designed for her. Then she’d at least have her goggles and breathing mask. She squinted toward the two combatants through the clouds of dust and smoke which filled the hall.
Both Stratocaster and the Archmage had been wounded in the fight. Strat’s face was cut and bled profusely; the hot droplets stained the top of his guitar, which was cracked and showed blistered paint. One string had snapped and hung loose, trailing sparks of green fire every time it swung. His mohawk had charred away to leave only sooty residue across his scalp. Still he played, countering every spell the Archmage hurled at him with one of his own. The Archmage was battered and bruised, and his left arm had withered into something resembling a dead tree branch.
Sally crawled rapidly back over to where Jason was. He had fallen over and was grunting with the effort of trying to bend his arms. “Baby,” she said, “can you move at all?”
“Not enough,” he admitted, his face purple from his efforts to force his body to overcome the magical paralysis. “I can’t do much more than twitch.”
Sally wrapped her small arms around Jason’s massive shoulders and tried to drag him along the floor. It was like trying to pull a car on flat tires. She strained to move him a few inches, and then had to stop. The heat of the battle and the bad air had taken its toll, and her reserves of strength were nearly sapped. “I can’t,” she groaned.
Suddenly the air was full of whirling blades, directed outward from the Archmage. Stratocaster yelped as one of them penetrated his shields and opened a deep gash across his ribs. His guitar strap fluttered down in two pieces. Another blade whistled past Sally’s head to bury itself in a pillar.
“Baby, you’ve got to leave me here.” Jason looked at her with his great big puppy-dog eyes. “Go help Strat. It’s the only chance any of us have.”
“No!” she cried in anger, even though she knew he was right.
A great explosion rocked the hall and cracked the walls floor to ceiling. Stratocaster and the Archmage were both flung away from its epicenter. The shock wave sent Jason and Sally skidding across the jagged stone floor. Stratocaster fetched up against a column, which shattered when he struck it. The Archmage left a furrow of shattered stone along the floor where he hit.
The ceiling crumbled in one great mass. Sally ducked in reflex, even though she knew it wouldn’t make a difference. In the space between heartbeats she grasped Jason’s hand and squeezed it tight.
“No!” Purple light flashed around her and Jason and the falling stones slid to one side, deflected by an ethereal hemisphere that formed around them. Stratocaster managed to keep his wits about him and cast a spell to protect his friends. Sally saw Ace likewise shielded by a glowing dome.
The Archmage took advantage of the momentary distraction to summon a massive burst of pure magical energy and hurl it at Stratocaster. It overwhelmed the musician and knocked him back into the ruin of the castle wall.
His guitar spun out of his grasp to smash on the floor.
The Archmage shouted in triumph and pointed at it with his good arm. The guitar whirled around and shattered itself against the jagged base of a broken column. Pieces flew everywhere and the cracked and broken carcass of the strange and beautiful instrument landed at Sally’s feet.
“This is how it ends, Kramer! This is how it all becomes mine! With you dying on the floor in front of your friends and me winning the world.”
“Gloat all you want.” Stratocaster coughed around a mouthful of blood. “They’ll never give up. They’ll never stop fighting you.”
Sally glanced down and saw something incongruous amid the wreckage of Strat’s guitar: her missing horseshoe—the one she’d found amid Shannon’s bones all those months ago. Strange figures were inscribed along the iron curve in many colors, layered on top of one another giving the illusion of far more depth than was possible.
She reached down for it and as she did so, symbols illuminated all up and down her arm in a specific sequence, like a computer running self-diagnostics. With each symbol, she felt like a piece of a puzzle locked into place. Her entire body hummed and the horseshoe quivered in her grasp like a living being, eager to fulfill its mission. She looked at it, then over at the gloating Archmage, and suddenly she understood what it was she held. Her stomach twisted. She was no stranger to death, having seen friends and foes die during the past year, but she had never been directly responsible for ending the life of another human.
She didn’t know if she could.
The final symbol illuminated and the horseshoe reshaped itself. The two ends became sharpened lances of crimson light. Bright yellow arcs of energy danced between the forks, and she knew she held the sole, ultimate weapon against the Archmage in her hand.
“I can stop them.” The Archmage used his magic to hoist Stratocaster out of the rubble and made him hover in the air, arms outstretched as if he was being crucified. “Once you’re dead, I can do anything I want.” Frazier’s withered arm thickened and strengthened until it was whole once more.
“What…” Stratocaster spat out a mouthful of blood. “What are you going to do, talk me to death?”
Energy gathered around the Archmage’s hands as he prepared to blast Stratocaster into oblivion. “And so my reign shall begin.”
“Wolfgang!” called Sally. He turned his head to look in her direction.
In the space between seconds, she closed the distance between them and hammered the horseshoe into his chest.
Chapter Twenty
“By accident of fortune a man may rule the world for a time, but by virtue of love he may rule the world forever.”
/> -Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu
August, 2004
Rugby, North Dakota
A part of Sally’s brain screamed at her that she’d just killed someone as the magical horseshoe plunged to the hilt into the Archmage’s flesh. She couldn’t believe it would be so simple. The best she hoped was to create a momentary distraction. Maybe it would give Stratocaster an opening, although she didn’t think he could do his magic without a guitar. Maybe I can go find him one, she thought frantically. But even at her fastest speed, she reasoned, it would still take her a few minutes to find a music store in Rugby, if there even was one, and return with a suitable instrument.
Surprise was just starting to replace glee on the Archmage’s face when Sally released the horseshoe. The symbols ran off her arm like dust in the wind, spiraling onto the glowing arc of iron which protruded from Frazier’s chest, transferring their destructive power into him.
He looked down at the object in his torso, confused. His fingers explored it as he sank to his knees. “How?” he asked.
Tiny rays of light pushed out of the Archmage’s body, the brightest from around the horseshoe itself. His head sank slowly to his chest and his arms dropped to the floor. The light within him grew brighter and dissolved his flesh into dust.
The world seemed to turn inside out and upside down. A tornado of whirling energy roared in place of the man who had dared to claim the title of Archmage. It consumed his remains until not even ashes remained behind. The castle walls evaporated around them and the mountain dove back into the plain as if it had never existed. Still the magic spun around, like an electrical storm seeking a ground.
It found that ground in Stratocaster.
Years’ worth of magical energy Frazier had hoarded so greedily flowed into him. The sum total of the world’s magical power rushed into him as if he were a void for it to fill. His wounds vanished, his hair grew back, and his clothing repaired itself. He closed his eyes, spread his arms wide, and drank in the power like a sun-worshiper on a Mediterranean beach.
The howl of the magic as it spiraled into Stratocasater was deafening, and Sally clamped her hands firmly over her ears. Spinning winds threatened to send her tumbling, but a strong arm wrapped around her waist and she caught the comforting scent of peach pie and knew Jason was with her.
Just Cause Universe 2: The Archmage Page 24