by AR DeClerck
She was right, and from the triumphant grin on her face she knew it. He dreaded pulling back from her, but a shout from Archimedes made him do it. He reached for her hand and this time she took it willingly.
“Icarus.”
Her soft words brought him to a halt again. He turned to her.
“I love you, too.”
***
“Can you see anything?”
Archie shook his head, waving his hand at me to quiet me. I ground my teeth together and crouched low behind him as he looked over the rise to the town below us. I glanced up as Levisque tiptoed closer, going to his haunches beside me.
“The ship is ready.” He whispered into my ear. “Shall I stay?”
“No.” I grabbed his hand in mine, smiling at him. “Thank you, Captain.”
He was uncomfortable with my appreciation, and he flushed red before nodding and striding off quickly back to his ship. I looked up as Archie backed away from the rise and hunkered down closer to me. “The Captain is ready.”
Archie nodded. “The wards I placed over the ship, in addition to his invisibility cloak, should keep him and the hostages safe.”
“If we can get them out.”
“I see Gecko milling about through several of the old homes. That must be where Victor is keeping the prisoners. They can see the bonfire burning from every room.”
“Where’s Bainandelio?”
Archie shrugged. “The bastard is sensitive to light, so he’s lurking about in the shadows. I’ve no doubt he’ll come out to play when we put the plan in motion.”
I glanced over the top of the hill at the ruins of Longmoore. The bonfire burned bright in the town square, the crackling of the logs loud enough to be heard even that far away. “Shall we go, then?”
Archie’s smile was strained, but he nodded. With Lucia’s help his bruises had faded to ochre, and Nickerson had managed to pound the mangled joints of his mechanical hand back into some working order. He gathered his bag filled with the supplies we would need and threw it over his shoulder. He wrapped his human hand around mine and we stood together looking down at Longmoore.
“Don’t worry.” Archie’s big hands squeezed mine. “Icarus will be fine.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I think we need to worry about us,” Archie said with a grimace, “because we will have enough on our plate when Gecko and Baiandelio get a taste of this.” He patted the bag.
I nodded, but still I strained for a sight of blonde curls below on the road to Longmoore. I followed Archie as he tugged me away, but I stayed focused on the road until I couldn’t see it anymore.
We made our way quickly and quietly through the deep underbrush toward the edge of town. I winced at the crack of every branch under my boots, but Archie marched on, his face a mask. I hurried to catch up to him and he looked down at me when I touched his arm.
“Are you thinking about Lucia?” I asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Well,” I pretended to scratch my chin as I looked him over thoroughly, “you appear to be in pain and your face is twisted in ill humor. It seems to be a symptom of early love.”
“Love.” He shook his head, the word slick with disgust. “I take back every foolish, sentimental ideal I tried to force onto you and Ic.”
“Is it that bad?” I wondered what had happened back on the ship. From all outward appearances Archie and Lucia had grown close in the short time since we’d left him in her care at the VansMueller. I pondered exactly what she might have said to him to bring on his foul distaste for love now.
Archie was silent a while as we moved through the dense forest. So far there was no sign that the dark wizards were warding or protecting the farthermost edges of the town.
“She fears me.”
I could not help but laugh. Archie glared at me, scratching his head in anxious ire at my response.
“What? It’s a plain as the nose on her face. I can’t get within a foot of her without her running from me.”
“Archie,” I laid my hand on his forearm, drawing him to a stop, “Lucia isn’t the sort of woman to be afraid of anything. If she’s running, it’s not from you.”
“Then what?” He shuffled his feet and shook his head in bewilderment. “I tried to kiss her.” His face grew red with embarrassment and he looked away from me, “A proper kiss, you know, before we left the ship, and she ran from me. She ran pretty fast.”
“Did she tell you about her past? What happened to her after she was healed?”
“No.” He frowned down at me, worry twisting his lips. I patted his arm, not willing to give up Lucia’s confidences, but hating to see him pained.
“Ask her, then. I think you’ll find she’s far more fearful of what this,” I motioned to the air between him and the field of tents behind us, “means, than of you.”
“What does this mean? I am not sure I know myself.”
“That is part of the problem. Lucia is afraid to give her heart to someone who ends up breaking it. She wants to be sure of your intentions before she gets too close.”
“My intentions are honorable.” He drew himself up in a huff, insulted by my unintended slight.
I suppressed a smile. “I know that. She does not. It’s not me you need to convince.”
He nodded slowly, and we began to walk again. His face was serious as he looked at me. “I think you’ve become more knowledgeable in the ways of the heart than I.”
“No, I’m simply a swift learner.” I leaned against him for a moment, my mind leaving his romantic troubles and returning to the danger that lay ahead. The trees were thinning and the tops of the empty buildings were just visible. We froze as the crack of breaking underbrush hit our ears.
“Don’t move.” Archie whispered. I stood with one foot in front of the other as the sound of someone running through the brush grew closer. Archie removed a knife from his pants, and I made my hand into a fist, calling the aether to me with a word. We waited, stiff with fear, as a figure ran at full speed from the bushes ahead.
It was a man, covered in dust and leaves. He skidded to a stop before us, backpedaling fast when he saw us.
“Wait!” I recognized the square jaw and handsome hazel eyes almost immediately. “Mr. Trimble, it’s Cora Jenkins!”
The young mage stilled, his breaths rasping as he bent over his knees. He raised his eyes to mine, relief so stark on his face that he went pale with it. “Thank God, Adept Jenkins!”
He moved to me, grabbing my hand in his trembling one. I just managed to snuff out the aether before he touched it.
“Grayson! What happened?” I put an arm around the traumatized young man, holding him as he shuddered.
“Dark wizards.” He bit his lip and breathed a deep slow breath. “You most likely know it already, seeing as how you’re here.” He grabbed my hand again, squeezing it. “They have the children.”
“How did you escape?”
Grayson’s eyes went wide at the size of Archie. He was quite formidable with his gleaming golden clockwork peaking from the cuffs and collar of his shirt, stretched wide across his shoulders with his girth. Archie stuffed the knife into his sheath as Grayson followed every move. “S…sir?”
“Escape, boy!” Archie’s voice was sharp with impatience. “How did you get away?”
“They tried to keep us all together, but there were too many. They separated us, taking the children away to a different building. Some of the seniors tried to resist, and I slipped away during the frenzy.” The young wizard’s voice shook, “I s…saw a lot of blood.”
I rubbed the man’s arm, my stomach sick with the knowledge. I looked up at Archie. “So there are two buildings, then.”
He nodded and turned to Grayson. “What else can you tell us, son?” His voice dropped an octave and was gentler now. It was strange to hear Archie call Grayson ‘son’ when there was barely a decade between them, but Grayson was fortified by Archie’s new approach. He straightened
a bit and the color came back to his face slowly.
“Two dark wizards, in service of a more powerful one.”
“Gecko and Baiandelio working for Victor.” Archie said to me, confirming what we already knew. “What else?”
Grayson drew in another deep, shaky breath. “The two buildings closest to the well. The old wizard with the gnarled hands guards the men, and the mean one with the hat guards the children.”
“That son of a whore still has my hat?”
I rolled my eyes as Archie cursed Gecko again. “Are there wards? Magical protections on the prisoners?” I asked Grayson.
“Cruen ta mors, around the buildings. They set it after I slipped away.”
I winced. Cruen ta mors literally meant “bloody death”. It was a particularly nasty warding spell that liquefied the organs of anyone who tried to cross the boundary without the casting wizard’s permission. I thought back to what I knew of the aether, and I guessed that millions of aether particles would be sacrificed when they broke their rules and killed a living thing during the blood magic spell.
“Can we undo it?” I asked Archie, “Is there a counter?”
“One.” I thought the slightly satisfied and bloodthirsty smile that slid across his lips was the thing that made Grayson swallow hard beside me. “We kill the bastards who cast it.”
I had to admit that the idea had appeal. “How?”
Archie patted his bag. “With a spell of our own.”
“They’re very powerful.” Grayson said from beside me.
“This spell was created by Icarus Kane.” Archie’s smile grew, and now he was a shark who smelled blood in the water, all teeth and biting rage. “There’s not a wizard alive who could do better.”
“He’s right.” I knew my pride in Icarus shone through to my words, but I didn’t care. He was the most powerful wizard in the world.
Grayson knew Icarus as the warden, the Grand Adept, but he hesitated at believing he was powerful enough to defeat two dark wizards with a single spell. I patted his arm and smiled at him.
“What is your focus, Grayson?”
He stiffened and pulled away from me, his features growing sterner as he aged before my eyes. He went from a frightened young mage to a serious wizard. I saw the way his hands clenched at his sides and it piqued my interest. I only grew more curious when he answered simply, “Electrical current.” The mages of Desmond House all had magical talents that leaned in that direction, but something about the way Grayson wouldn’t meet my eyes made me wonder if he was telling us the whole truth. The aether was eager to assist these wizards in creating electrical current that powered the world, but Grayson Trimble wasn’t any ordinary electric mage. I knew it as well as I knew my own name. Still, our time was short so I let him have his subterfuge and vowed to dig deeper into his secrets at a later time.
“Very well. You may come in handy, Grayson.” I ignored the slack-jawed bewilderment on Archie’s face. “If you will, of course.”
“Those children are my charges. This is my year to teach in the school, and half my class is in that building. I’ll do what I have to do.”
I looked at Archie, who only shrugged at me in acquiescence to my wishes. “Good. The spell is a complicated one, and Archie and I will need time to draw the circle and work the magic. Can you create a field around us, blocking the wizards from us as we work?”
Archie’s eyebrow went up as if he was surprised at my idea. I winked at him and looked back to Grayson. The younger mage nodded, afraid but ready to help. He was a courageous man, willing to fight despite his fear.
“Good.” I tucked his arm in mine and turned to Archie. “How close will we need to be?”
“Within a few yards.”
I forced down the niggle of fear in my gut and felt the rush of adrenaline spike my veins. My cheeks grew hot with it, and breathed deep to quell the nausea. “Into town we go, then.”
***
“Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
Icarus let the words play through his head as he marched toward Longmoore. The serene little village had once held all the appeal of gruel and curdled butter to a child with grand dreams. Now, he would give anything to see it whole and bustling with life again. Even the flowers along the roadside were overgrown with weeds and dying from neglect. Another tragedy he could blame on his father. Victor and his hunger for power was the cause of all the grief and despair that lingered in the soil and in his heart.
“You were right, Mother.” He said to the wind. “One cannot appreciate peace until there is war.” How he longed for the nights in Longmoore before the fire, listening to her sing as she brushed his sister’s hair or carded wool.
“I knew you would come.”
Icarus froze as his father’s voice came to him on the breeze, covered in roses and rot. “I won’t run anymore.” he answered.
“You are everything I had hoped you would become, my son.”
The pleased pride in Victor’s voice made Icarus’ hairs stand up, but he kept his voice calm. That same insistent tickle in his mind had him wincing, but he ignored it again. “I am not a dark wizard.”
Victor’s laugh made the birds take flight, the whole flock of them screaming at the sound as they ran. Icarus could understand their desire to get as far away from his father as fast as they could.
“Come to me, Icarus. Let us see what you have become.”
Icarus trudged resolutely forward, feeling the eyes of the other two dark wizards on him as he passed through the entrance of the town to the town square. He stiffened at hot breath on his neck and turned to see the shadowed face of his old enemy just behind his shoulder. He froze but did not fully turn, refusing to give the bastard the satisfaction. “Baiandelio.”
“Icarussssss.” His name was hissed, as if the man’s forked tongue wasn’t the only part of him that had become reptilian. “I will eat the marrow from your bonessssss.”
“Get in line.”
Icarus moved on, leaving the dark wizard in the shadows. He could feel other eyes on him and he turned his head to see faces pressed together in the doorway of one of the big huts. Children. He winced, but kept moving. His eyes strayed back, and latched onto a pair of big blue ones staring hard at him. He recognized the wide gaze and the freckled face it belonged to, under a fall of shining blonde curls. Cassie. The little girl Cora had befriended in the market. He knew she recognized him, too, and her mouth puckered in an “oh” of excitement. He steeled his heart, knowing that he could not kill Baiandelio and Gecko and run with the children as he longed to do. The moment he showed he cared for them, or her especially, they would become pawns his father could use to control him. He broke her stare and looked away, ignoring the disappointment and fear that replaced her adoration. He walked away, but his heart beat hard. He hoped Archimedes and Cora were ready. They would save the girl and the others, he knew. He had to deal with his father once and for all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“The spell requires a circle.” Archie handed me the chalk and a bag of salt. “Three feet, or four, wide.”
“I know how to draw a circle.”
His lips twitched but he did not argue. His eyes strayed to Grayson who moved quietly behind us as we approached the town square.
“Do you think the boy is trustworthy?”
“The boy is only a bit younger than us.” I reminded him. “And yes, I think Grayson can be trusted.”
“He was lying when he said his focus is electrical.”
“Not lying, but definitely hiding something.” I agreed. I scratched my nose, ignoring Archie’s chuckle at the chalk dust left behind. I wiped it off as he shrugged.
“I’ll kill him if I must.”
“Archie!”
He stared at me with a hard look in his eyes as I chanced a look at Grayson. He was walking ahead with a stern, thoughtful look, and did not appear to have heard Archie’s comment.
“We don’t kill innocent people.”
“If he’s n
ot with us he’s against us.”
I couldn’t disagree. If he chose to fight with Victor he would be our enemy by default. “I do not think that is the case.” I clenched the chalk tight in my hands. I hoped that wasn’t the case. I liked Grayson Trimble and would hate to find my judgments wrong on so many levels.
Archie waved us to a crouch at the edge of the town in a thicket of brush. He pointed, and I saw a thin man with sallow skin and a bowler traipsing jauntily outside one of the larger huts.
“Gecko?” I guessed.
Archie’s nod was stiff, his eyes locked on his bowler. I squeezed his shoulder as Grayson leaned between us to point out the other hut. It was only when I squinted that I could see the faint outline of a man in the shadows of the building.
“Are you ready?” I asked our young mage, and he nodded, his eyes locked on the shadowy figure.
Archie raised his hand and chanted the spell under his breath quietly, weaving the ward so carefully and tightly that even the dark wizards would not sense the magic as it was worked. I smiled at him as he concentrated, a sheen of perspiration on his forehead.
“I’ve never seen wards like those.” Grayson’s eyes were wide as he watched Archie work. “The rumors are true, then.”
“Rumors?”
He looked at me, “They say that you three are powerful. More powerful than a House of soldiers. You’ve chased demons and destroyed them with a word when a lesser mage might have failed.”
“Flattering, but chasing demons is dirty, bloody work. Don’t let stories change that fact.”
He nodded as Archie breathed a sigh, finishing the ward. We would now be able to cross into the edge of the town square without being seen. The minute we finished the circle the spell would lift, and Grayson would have to protect us.
“The aether will respond to you as it never has before.” I said to Grayson as we palmed the chalk and salt. I handed him a leather sack full of salt. “Don’t let it scare you.”
“Aether has never scared me.”