A Magic King

by Jade Lee

  At least they were picking up speed. The walls were changing. Instead of the treacherous shifting dirt mixed with tree roots near the door, they now walked down a stair cut through stone. Unfortunately, that also made it harder to remain silent.

  Ahead, Steve continued to slip from shadow to shadow, like a flickering ghost. Daken would have pushed the boy behind him, but Steve was adamant he go first, brushing his hands over the faint symbols carved into the rock walls.

  Daken hadn't noticed them at first. They were skillfully hidden in the cracks and veins of the stone. It wasn't until he saw the faint blue burn of magic beneath Steve's hand that he looked closer. He could only hope the boy knew what he was doing. If the boy wasn't truly mage-born, then the fitful, half-magic of witches and dabblers could be more dangerous than whatever traps lurked along the stair.

  Still they moved on. Daken strained to hear sounds, voices, anything ahead, but there was only a deathly silence more ominous than noise.

  Finally they rounded a corner and saw the flickering light of a torch reflected on the wall. This time, Daken was firm as he pushed Steve behind him. Then, together, they peered around the corner.

  Kyree sat in the middle of a chalk symbol. His back was to them, but even from this angle, he seemed relaxed—as if he were asleep or in deep meditation. Beside him was a brazier, burning something that, as far as he could tell, produced no smoke. Beyond Kyree was a table and then a huge dome of black air, thick and ugly as it roiled within its contained space.

  Daken scanned the room again, looking for any sign of Jane. And in that moment of inattention, he lost Steve. The boy shot past him, flying across the room, he grabbed the brazier by Kyree and shoved it toward the dome.

  Daken sprung after him, cursing the boy as they lost the element of surprise. Already Kyree roused from his trance and pointed one long, thin finger at Steve. Daken screamed a war charge, relieved when his yell distracted Kyree from whatever spell the wizard had intended to throw at the boy.

  Kyree spun around, his face twisted into a growl of pure rage. Daken ran as fast as he could, his weapon ready to strike the instant he was within range, but even as he barreled forward, he knew it was too far.

  Kyree's first shock dart nearly killed him. A solid arrow of crackling energy hit Daken on his side as he tried to dodge to the right. The heat burned through his clothing, and his left arm fell to his side, numb and useless. Still Daken pressed forward.

  It was a painful game of inches. Shock darts, fire balls, and lightning bolts flew at him, one after the other, while he ducked and dodged like a mouse scurrying away from a cat. Whenever possible, he pressed forward, always straining to close the distance between him and Kyree. He was bathed in sweat that sizzled and popped along his skin from the heat of Kyree's missiles. He gasped for breath, his head pounding with fear and adrenaline.

  Meanwhile, the wizard stood, calm and composed, like a man at a tea party. And though his attention was trained on Daken, he seemed almost bored with their little fight, serenely confident in his ability to handle one warrior and a small boy.

  Daken threw himself to the left as another flaming ball seared the cave floor, creating a sudden smoking crater where Daken's head had been seconds before.

  Further to the left, he caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. Was that Steve? Or another threat? Daken almost wished it were something other than the boy. He fervently hoped Steve had the sense to run back up the stairs and to safety. Maybe even bring some help. Even if it did come too late. At this rate, Daken wouldn't last than a minute or so more.

  Daken continued fighting, pressing slowly forward like a dog scenting a rat, knowing all the while the odds were stacked against him. Eventually, his luck would run out. Even now, each blow, each blast of magic burned closer to his body. It was only a matter of time before he ducked the wrong way and caught a fire ball in the face or chest.

  Daken saw another movement to his right and swerved around, facing the new threat. It was Steve, crossing to the worktable. Behind the boy, the dome of black air had been broken by the brazier, and the smoke now gushed toward the ceiling where it hung like a malevolent cloud, slowly spreading over them all.

  Glancing lower, Daken saw a shadowy outline at the base of the dome. It was Jane, her body twisted in slow agony, her skin already tinged with the gray pallor of death. There was no aura, no faint glow of life for his healer's eyes to see.

  Daken choked back his cry. He shouldn't have looked. He shouldn't have left himself open to the wave of fury that rampaged his system as he scanned her still body for any signs of life. He couldn't stop himself, and in that moment when emotions clouded his thinking, when hatred and vengeance burned through him like a fever, he rushed forward, sword raised.

  And he was caught in Kyree's trap.

  A wave of magic, like an undulating blanket, fell on him, pinning him to the ground while thousands of tiny needles seared into his skin. It was a slow torture, inflicting constant pain without being lethal.

  In front of him, Kyree laughed with spiteful disdain. "You're a fool, King Daken. She is already dead, and I now have all that she was. Do you understand me? Everything she knew, everything she was, I know it all."

  He backed up to his table where Steve hastily set down the heavy metal object then darted away. It seemed to Daken the boy had done something to the table brazier. He saw a flash and the low fire flickered; then it steadied.

  Whatever the boy intended, it hadn't worked.

  Kyree didn't seem to give the boy a passing thought. Either he hadn't seen Steve or he didn't think a mute servant boy could do anything against him.

  Daken exhaled in self-disgust, his last hope dying. There was nothing he could do. Kyree's magic held him pinned. Even breathing was agony. Any other movement left his limbs numb from shock. He'd already lost use of both his hands. Daken stayed still, listening to Kyree's gleeful chuckles, while his thoughts were on the woman just a few feet away. Just a few feet, and he could touch her one last time.

  Even that was denied him.

  "Would you like to see what Jane taught me?" Kyree lifted up the heavy iron piece, and Daken saw it was a gun. With a soft chuckle, Kyree picked up another oblong piece and fitted it into the handle. "I'm almost ashamed to say I didn't understand this before. But then I was looking for a triggering word, forgetting the past was a land of machines. All it needed was the clip."

  Tilting the gun, Kyree pulled back on the top, presumably to prime the weapon. Still prostrate on the floor, Daken tensed, knowing his death was at hand.

  Desperate, Daken tried to run only to be rewarded by a thousand shards of slicing pain searing through his nerves without leaving a mark. Daken stilled, biting his lip against the scream.

  Agonizing as it was, he'd gotten his answer. The field was still in place, but the magic was weakening. Daken was in pain, but not nearly as devastated as before. He curled his numb fingers around the hilt of his sword. If he could just keep Kyree talking long enough for the spell to fade, then he might be able to do a surprise attack. He had to keep Kyree talking.

  "She'd never tell you about a gun," he called, his voice hoarse as he fought the restraining magic.

  Kyree didn't even glance down. He was busy playing with the weapon, practicing his aim, sighting on various objects in the room. Then he pulled the trigger.

  The boom was deafening, as was the explosion of shards where a chamber pot once stood.

  "Oh, yes, she told me everything I need to know," Kyree said as much to himself as to Daken. "She led quite an unexceptional life, you know. For such a bright girl, I was surprised to learn how very dull her existence was."

  "Not everyone has glorious dreams of conquest."

  "No," he said, sighing dramatically. "She seemed singularly devoted to the idea of education for all. Rather like Ginsen in that respect." Kyree finally looked down, slowly raising the ancient weapon as he sighted Daken's head. "You'll be happy to know her last thoughts were of you.
"

  "I know," Daken said, his mind and body tensing for a last second spring. "I heard them."

  "Ah, so she did finally reach you. I wondered if she made it through. By the way, I know the field is almost gone. I feel it only honorable to tell you I will put a bullet in you long before you come within spitting distance. Use your time to prepare your soul for the Father."

  Daken swore under his breath. Kyree was right. A blind beggar couldn't fail to miss at this range. Still he kept talking, stalling for time. "My soul was prepared the first time I saw the field after a Tarveen raid."

  "Oh," responded Kyree with a twisted smile. "How convenient for you."

  Bang!

  Daken didn't wait for reaction to set in, he leaped forward, pushing through the last rending sheen of the restraining field. His body was prepared to compensate for a gaping wound that would no doubt kill him soon, but the expected agony never occurred.

  He wasn't shot?

  Ahead of him, Daken saw Kyree turn around, his eyes wide as he stared at his spinning table brazier. That's what the noise was. Whatever Steve had done to the hot coals, had finally paid off.

  Daken leapt forward, his sword ready.

  Kyree never had a chance. He was still realizing there was no threat from behind when Daken was on him. Kyree spun around, raising a finger to throw a spell, forgetting the gun dangled from the other hand.

  Daken snarled. Just as he'd fantasized back in the inn, he had the satisfaction of cutting through the evil wizard, ripping him open from neck to groin in one devastating slice. Daken didn't even feel the jarring connection of bone and metal as he shifted his grip, yanking the sword out of Kyree's pelvis. Blood spurted everywhere as the wizard fell in a gruesome heap on the floor.

  From the rear corner, Daken caught a movement and he spun to face his new threat. But it was only Steve, coming out of his hiding place, a rock clenched in his fist.

  Daken smiled grimly at the boy, glancing at the rock and nodding. "Is that how you did it? You threw a rock?" Daken grabbed a nearby rag to clean off his sword. "I suppose I should be grateful you missed Kyree and hit the brazier instead. It was just the distraction I needed."

  Steve slowly shifted his gaze from Kyree's still twitching body. He shook his head, his expression quite adamant though still a bit dazed.

  "You didn't throw a rock at the brazier?"

  Steve made the motion of throwing something into the coals.

  "What? What did you throw in there?"

  Steve pointed to the gun, still gripped in Kyree's lifeless hand.

  "A bullet," said Daken in amazement. His knowledge of the ancient weapon came back to him. "You tried to disable the gun? You took out the bullet and threw it into the fire? And it went off?"

  Steve nodded, his eyes still wide, still mesmerized by the butchery of violent death.

  Daken sheathed his sword, turning to the other still body in the room. He hadn't wanted to face it, but now it was time. He knew she was dead. Even if Kyree hadn't told him so, he'd felt her acceptance of it back in the inn. Back when she'd told him she loved him.

  Daken swallowed back tears of despair as he walked to her still body. He pulled Steve with him, trying to distract the boy from his first grisly sight of death. But even as Steve followed, Daken saw that his expression remained hollow and drawn in shock.

  No doubt the sight of Kyree's body would haunt the boy for the rest of his life. Daken gripped the boy's shoulder, understanding Steve's problem too well. Daken was also tormented by every twisted body, every bloodied, ravaged face the Tarveen left behind.

  Searching for a way to distract Steve, Daken glanced up at the hovering miasma of smoke still trapped on the room's ceiling. "Do you know what that smoke is? Should we be leaving?"

  Steve slowly lifted his gaze to the thin haze above them. It was as if a light went on in the boy's mind, snapping him out of his shock as he dropped to his knees beside Jane. With one hand, he lifted her head, the other tugged on Daken, clearly demanding Daken heal her.

  Daken settled down beside the boy, gently lifting Jane's head and placing it into his lap. "She's gone. There's nothing I can do."

  Steve shook his head, and Daken saw the tears flowing from his eyes. The boy grabbed his hand and pressed it against her chest, right above her heart.

  "I don't feel anything, Steve. Nothing but her sickness and the poison."

  Steve nodded, pointing to the smoke.

  Daken closed his eyes, feeling a wetness on his face and knowing it was his own tears. He continued to concentrate on the body of the woman he loved, as much in morbid fascination as because Steve demanded it of him. He wanted to know if she had suffered much. If the poison had been swift and lethal or a creeping horror, and if there was any possible way for him to bring her back to life, even while he knew there wasn't.

  The remnants of her illness still lingered. He felt the weakness in her very cells, deep in her body, but that hadn't killed her. The death stroke was the pervading poison that dampened her life like a candle snuff slowly suffocates a flame. The poison was everywhere, pressing down on her like a heavy weight. He pushed it away, using his skills to clear it from her body as he probed deeper.

  It was everywhere. Even knowing the poison killed her, he was still appalled by the thoroughness of this drug, sickened by the slow death. Even as he sloughed away the heaviest layers of poison, he found more still worming its way into her heart and soul.

  He worked harder, peeling away layer after layer of the deadly gas, digging through the oppressive weight as a flicker of hope stirred in his heart. This poison worked from the outside in, compressing as it killed. The loss of the living aura would be the first symptom, not the last. It was possible that underneath all that deadly ballast, straining against the insidious horror of the poison, Jane's soul still struggled.

  She could still be alive.

  He tripled his efforts, narrowing his focus into a tiny needle-like shaft of light. He would pierce down to the core, penetrating the blanketing layers until he found her center and the answer to his question.

  Was her soul still with her body? Could she still live?

  It was a risky business. If she had indeed died, her soul long since gone to the Father, then he might be trapped, buried just as she was under the suffocating horror of the poison. And even if she still lived, she had very little strength left. Separated from his own body by the covering layers of death, he was a good deal weaker than normal for a healer. They might both die, their combined strength unequal to the leaden weight.

  He didn't hesitate.

  Stabbing downward, he plunged through a darkness that filled his mind and heart. There was nothing here but death. Heartbroken, he struggled to come back, kicking like a foundering swimmer buried beneath the waves.

  That's when he felt it: A flickering light, more gray than white, faded in the distance.

  Jane!

  He abandoned his escape, knowing what he felt might easily be a trick of his own mind, a hope he'd brought to life out of his own wishes. But he had to know. If there was a chance she still lived, he wouldn't forsake her.

  Jane!

  He called to her with all his soul.

  Jane!

  He narrowed his focus again, slipping through the heavy morass toward the lighter darkness.

  Jane!

  The light flickered in recognition. Her soul.

  She was alive!

  Energized by the knowledge, he sped toward her, finally merging with all that was left of her. Their union was brief, but total in its joy.

  Then began the work. His energies pulsed within her, feeding her flickering life, empowering her against the black bog that encapsulated them.

  Help me, Jane. I can't do it alone.

  He felt her struggle, weakened and disheartened, her efforts only able to maintain her life, not heal it. And he too was weakening, the poison beginning its insidious effects on his mind.

  Still he pushed her on as they fought fo
r both their lives, but the evil was like quicksand beneath their feet, shifting beneath them, sucking them under no matter how hard they struggled. There was no escape.

  They would die. Daken felt her acceptance of it, that despite their efforts, she considered the end inevitable.

  No! Daken rebelled. He would not die this way. He would not give in to Kyree, not now, not after he had already vanquished the man in battle. He would not let Kyree take Jane either. But struggling to surface through the black morass was futile. With a sudden flash of insight, Daken realized they were going about it the wrong way.

  Daken's energies were foreign to this body. His consciousness fought to maintain its integrity while slipping through her body like a tiny insect spreading health in its wake.

  This, however, was Jane's body, Jane's home. She couldn't slip through the poison as he had. To live, she needed to clear off the evil permeating her body. She needed to maintain a steady center and expand outward until she was whole once again.

  Daken had been trying to take her with him. In effect, drawing her out of her own body, and that would only happen in death.

  Let me be your center, Jane. Let me support you as you grow outward.

  She didn't seem to understand at first. As he hardened himself into a tiny kernel of energy, she seemed to surround him, clinging to the support he offered. She stayed that way, resting, feeding off the life he gave her.

  Then suddenly she expanded. Using him as a foothold, she pushed outward, climbing in an ever-expanding sphere. The black cloak of poison had no choice but to recede, rolling backwards against her relentless pressure. As she expanded, Daken grew stronger, giving her more power with which to grow.

  Then they were free. The liberation was like a sheet of white light pervading his senses, enveloping his soul.

  She was alive!

  It was in the midst of this expanse of white that he realized his work was done. Jane could heal on her own now, and he needed to return to himself or risk his own body fading away into death. Still, he was reluctant to leave. He liked his position as the center of her life. He enjoyed the warmth and communion they seemed to share.