A Dagger of the Mind (The Imperial Metals)

by Daniel Antoniazzi

  “It would have taken a massive amount of energy,” Frost explained, stoking the fire some more. But for fun, he also made the fire green. “Maybe if they had stored up magic over time.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Look, places and things and people all have magical energy, whether or not they know how to use it. So does time. So, basically, you could cast the first half of a spell. And then you let it sit there, collecting energy over the years. And when there’s enough energy there to, say, sink an island, you cast the other half of the spell. And the island sinks. It’s sort of like a dangling phrase or--”

  “--an incomplete sentence?” Vye asked.

  “Precisely.”

  “The prison... The cage you built...” Vye stammered. But since she was at a loss for words, she just brought him to the same place. The place where Nuria had just brought her.

  The room was hazy and blurry. It was a dream of a memory that belonged to someone else. But Vye didn’t care. She only wanted to show Frost one thing.

  “It had this symbol on it,” Vye said.

  Frost crouched over the foot of the pedestal, staring at the symbol. A chill ran through his soul. That marking wasn’t in his memory of the room. But it was so familiar. It was so intimate in his mind. He knew he was the one who carved it. That he had chiseled the stone with his own hands.

  “Of course!” Frost stood, excited. Giddy. “Of course, of course, of course! We couldn’t open the portal again. Not the way I had originally, with Selene and the others. But we could imprison Grimsor. And then wait until the spell was ready to dispatch him back to the Abyss.”

  He hugged Vye in triumph. It was as though a dam had collapsed in his mind, and realization and recognition were flooding through him.

  “So, we just need to cast the other half of the spell?” Vye asked.

  “Yes, but...” Frost said, “I still don’t remember what spell. And I can’t even remember who else would know.”

  “It’s OK. I know someone who does.”

  “Who? Nobody alive knows about any of this.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”

  ---

  Vye stood upon the Lunapera. She had always tried to avoid this dream. Reliving her final encounter with Argos. She always woke up in a cold sweat. But now she had shared it with her friends and colleagues. And she felt stronger for it. Now she sought it out.

  Even though in the real world, the sun was just rising, in Vye’s dream it was night. Just as it was during her battle with her old foe. But even in the pale moonlight, she could still see one thing clearly: Michael’s corpse.

  His body was in full armor, the Saintskeep discarded by his side. His eyes were open, but glazed over, unseeing, unmoving. They used to feed his mind, to bring him news of the world around him. Now they were just the leftover tissue of a life cut short by the War.

  Vye had brought herself to this place, in this time. But this wasn’t just a dream. She was visiting the Land of the Dead. Just as when she sought out Halmir and Gabriel, she was finding them in familiar places. She didn’t know Argos that well, but she imagined that if this was where he had retreated when he fled the Battle of Hartstone, it must be important to him. It was also fresh in her mind, from sharing it with the Council.

  It was colder in this dream. And again she felt her own heartbeat. It made so much noise in the Land of the Dead. Like a child crying because it didn’t know the noise would attract wolves. She was a light in a world of moths.

  Vye knelt beside Michael’s body. And the same thought came to her mind now as had come to her mind for the last six years: Why had she lived when Michael had died? She had played the fight out a million times in her mind and in her dreams, and still he was always dead and she always lived. She never tried to change the past. She just punished herself by living through it again and again.

  But she wasn’t here to see Michael’s corpse. Not this time. His body was a prop. A part of a ritual. A tool for her to summon the dead person she needed to speak to. The only other person on the Lunapera that night.

  Argos.

  Vye had fought a dragon. She had recently battled with Selene and Helios. She had battled almost every member of the Turin-Sen, back when they were agents of evil. But none of them instilled the kind of fear Argos had. Perhaps Grimsor, a creature of nightmares, was worse. But Vye had only contended with that monster for a few weeks. Argos was a part of her soul. He was the key to the door that held her fears at bay.

  And there he was, as she remembered him. He always seemed ten feet tall, and now, in her dream, he was. His bright, white hair blew in the wind. His dark green cloak fluttered around him. His claymore was planted in the ground before him, like a six foot tall letter “T”. He rested his hands on the hilt, staring at Vye.

  “Why would you seek me out?” he bellowed. Vye shook at he sound of his voice. She remembered that it was deep and resonant. But without hearing it, she had forgotten how commanding it was. How it instilled fear with only its timber and pitch.

  “Master Argos...” Vye began, but she couldn’t complete her thought.

  “Was it not enough that you turned my pupil against me? That you killed my soldiers? That you ripped my life from my body? And now you must disturb me in the Land of the Dead.”

  “I need your help.”

  “How did you find me here?” Argos pondered, as he pulled his sword from the ground and stalked towards her. “Halmir may have taught you some tricks. But he wouldn’t have known how to commune with the dead.”

  “I have a new mentor. Johann Frost.”

  “Frost!” Argos almost sounded amused, an emotion Vye would never have associated with the villain. “So, Johann Frost has been sending you on his little errands. I don’t suppose he warned you about the dangers of communing with the dead, did he?”

  “He said it was dangerous,” Vye retorted, but suddenly Argos swung his claymore down on her. Vye parried with her own sword (though she didn’t remember having one a moment ago.) Still the swing packed such a punch that she staggered back five paces, skidding to a stop at the edge of the Lunapera. Pebbles trickled off the precipice...

  “Dangerous?” Argos said. “You have stepped across the threshold. Your ability to get back depends on my generosity. If I want to, I can hold you fast. I can keep you here until your body fades from the earth.”

  And now Vye saw they were not alone. Michael’s corpse remained still, but behind Argos, climbing the hill, were dozens of others. She identified some of them. Recognized some others. The rest all rang any number of distant bells in her memory.

  All the people she had ever killed...

  “What are they all doing here?” Vye asked.

  “I sensed that you were looking for me,” Argos said, “So I reached out, and found others who might have a bone to pick with you. Or off your body.”

  “Argos, listen, I don’t want to fight you.”

  Argos attacked her again, a flurry of swings with his sword that kept Vye on the defensive. She had precious little room to move her feet. She could only give ground laterally, and Argos was pressing the attack every second. Behind him, the ranks of her dead foes marched closer...

  “The Turin people are in trouble!” Vye tried, desperately.

  “I might have cared, during my life,” Argos insisted. “But you took that all away from me.”

  “They set you up!” Vye yelled, parrying another deadly blow from Argos. He stepped back, letting up just enough to hear her out.

  “Who?”

  “Selene and Helios,” Vye said, panting, “Michael was supposed to kill you. It was part of the plan. To free Grimsor.”

  Argos glared at his nemesis. He would have believed she could lie about anything to get her way. He thought as little of her as she thought of him. Still, her claim fit the facts.

  “Selene and Helios were my allies. Frost betrayed us, but those two were still loyal to the cause.”

  “But you wer
en’t,” Vye said, inching forward. She was betting that Argos wouldn’t attack until he had heard the whole story. He backed up, step by step, as she gave herself more room to move. “You became loyal to the Turin cause. So they sacrificed you to open the seal.”

  Argos knew she was telling the truth. He knew that the pact he made with the others would be void if they thought they could get something useful out of him. Perhaps they hadn’t stabbed him. But his death would have opened one of the four locks on Grimsor’s prison. A fair price for his life.

  “Even now, after you have undone my life’s work, and murdered me, still you haunt me in death to mock me. To gloat in your victory.”

  He charged in again, but Vye was ready for him this time. She parried off his first swing, bobbing aside, letting him run himself right up to the cliff. She whipped her sword around, holding the tip right up to the small of his back.

  “I don’t know what happens if I stab a dead person,” Vye said. “Do you want to find out?”

  “Even if I don’t kill you, they will,” Argos said, speaking over his shoulder. Vye could hear the others approaching. Lord Stafford, the man she had dismembered in vengeance for killing her father. Selikk, one of Argos’ students, the only one that Vye herself had actually killed. Rows of soldiers from each of the battles she had fought. All coming for her.

  Vye parried off Argos’ desperate attacks, keeping him at bay, even as her other enemies approached. But she knew how to strike a bargain.

  “I’m going to die one day,” Vye yelled. “And we can strike at each other until the end of time. But if I don’t kill Selene and Helios, who will?”

  Argos paused his attack again. She had a point.

  “What makes you think you can defeat them?”

  “I’m a stubborn asshole,” Vye said.

  “They’ve been around for thousands of years.”

  “So were you.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I know.”

  “If I help you, you have to promise to kill them. Not capture them or detain them. They must be dead.”

  “Do I strike you as the merciful type?”

  “What do you want?”

  The relentless dead were creeping up on Vye, only a few paces away.

  “Well, for starters, can you clear up the crowd?”

  “Sorry, you’ll have to make separate bargains with each of them.”

  “Can you at least help me out?” she pleaded as her old foes surrounded her.

  “Watching you die is still an acceptable outcome to this situation.”

  “Fine, we’ll just have to do this the fast way. I need to know the identity of Frost’s ally.”

  “He had many,” Argos said.

  “The one who lived.”

  “Just ask Frost.”

  “His friend erased his memory. He doesn’t know who it was.”

  “He was telling the truth? We tortured Frost for months to learn his plan. When he said he couldn’t remember, we always assumed he was lying.”

  “Well, he wasn’t. And if you really want me to fuck up Selene and Helios, you’ll tell me who it was.”

  Vye’s voice was getting short and desperate. Her attackers were flanking her on all sides, poised to strike. But just before the first blade fell, the scenery changed. Argos had taken them to another place and time, somewhere in the Dreamscape.

  “The others will find you shortly,” Argos said, “So we don’t have much time.”

  “I know this place,” Vye said, “Frost showed this to me, in his dream.”

  It was the field where Frost had been captured. The same place where his friend had erased his memory. Indeed, as Vye and Argos stood quietly atop the hill, she could see the visions of Selene, Helios, and the young Argos capturing the young Frost.

  “I don’t know his name,” Argos confessed. “I can only show you what he looks like.”

  There he was. Frost’s unseen friend. The one whose face didn’t appear in any of Frost’s memories. But there he was, in Argos’ mind. Vye recognized the man.

  “That’s not funny,” Vye said to Argos.

  “Do I strike you as the joking type?” Argos retorted.

  “Now you’re mocking me,” Vye insisted.

  “I know not what you mean,” Argos insisted. “That is the man who was with Frost the day we captured him. And I have not seen him since.”

  “Will you let me go, so I can finish this?” she asked her old enemy...

  ---

  ...Vye sipped her tea. Back on the couch in the room with the fireplace. It was bitter this time. Too much lemon. Frost, the older Frost, was still stoking the fire, as if that’s all he ever did. He noticed Vye was back in the room.

  “Well?” he said, “Any luck?”

  “Yeah, I know who we’re looking for,” Vye said, “Though I’m having trouble believing it myself.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know what his real name was,” Vye said, “But I knew him as the jester. I called him Flopson.”

  Chapter 53: Out of the Volcano, Into the Tidal Wave

  Eric opened a portal, transporting himself, Landora, Duncan, and Nuria to the home of Xerxes and Xanathos, who were more commonly referred to as The Twins. Eric’s first students since he’d started training Landora. Two fifteen-year-old boys, identical despite their best attempts to be different. They weren’t as powerful as Landora, and probably not even as versatile as Nuria, but they could use magic, and that was something Eric needed desperately.

  As soon as the Twins were packed and ready, Eric opened another portal, this time to the Volcano. He was worried about opening two portals just before he would be opening a much bigger, much longer-lasting Gate, but they needed to move fast. They arrived at the volcano as the sun rose above the highest of the mountains.

  But Duncan couldn’t see the sun. Because the smoke coming out of the mouth of the volcano was so dense it felt like midnight. He knew nothing about volcanoes, except what he had read a decade ago in a class. But he didn’t need books to tell him what his feet were telling him. The ground was shaking. This volcano would go up in minutes.

  The Turin army was assembled across the black rock. To their credit, they were trying to move off the fiery mountain, but there was no way to get them clear before it erupted. They were relieved to see Eric and the others appear.

  “Everybody get ready!” Eric called before turning to Duncan. “Where are we sending them?”

  “Anuen,” Duncan said.

  “Why!?” Eric demanded as he began to move his arms to open yet another Gate.

  “I have reason to believe the enemy will attack that city,” Duncan called over the roar of the mountain, “He can’t attack Sayil right away with a traditional army. You guys are too deep in the forest. So if you’re going to move an army anywhere, that would be the place to land.”

  “Very well,” Eric said, finishing the ritual, “We’ll go to Anuen. But you better go first. I don’t want to send a Turin army to your capital without someone to explain what’s going on. Especially after what happened to the Queen.”

  “Agreed!” Duncan yelled. The volcano belched a new cloud of dust and soot. For a brief moment, he thought he saw someone else, floating through the smoke high above the volcano. But he didn’t have time to think about it. They were seconds away from disaster.

  “Nuria! Help Eric as much as you can. I have to go first.”

  Nuria nodded. Already, she was getting in position next to Landora and the Twins, ready to lend her aide.

  Duncan almost couldn’t see the Gate at first, since it was primarily outlined in smoke. But when the other mages added their power to the spell, it widened, and Duncan could actually see a faint image through it. He could see the shores outside the Castle Anuen...

  “Good luck!” he yelled, “Everybody, follow me!”

  And he ran through.

  The Turin army, usually a very disciplined force, charged for the exit. They could only get through four or
five at a time, and the logjam was made worse on the other side, since they stumbled upon one another at the entrance. It was everything Duncan could do to get them to clear out in an orderly fashion.

  And then the volcano burst. No longer content to fire black smoke into the air, it exploded. The opening at the top cracked wider as the surrounding rocks were consumed by the magma. The mountain vomited up its molten core.

  Landora had to think fast. She turned away from the Gate, and instead concentrated on covering the troops in their retreat. She couldn’t do much. Some of the soldiers were consumed by the fire and there was no way she could help. There simply wasn’t enough power available to her to save everyone.

  And the Gate narrowed as she turned away, reducing the speed of their retreat. And now the fire that had been shot up into the air was raining down on them. Nuria had to turn to help Landora protect what was left of the army. And still their numbers dwindled, and still the Gate got smaller.

  “We’re not going to be able to get everyone out!” Landora shouted over the thunderous din.

  “We’ll get as many as we can!” Eric called back.

  The soldiers ran, stumbling, tripping, trying to reach the shadow portal. There wasn’t room for everyone, but there was still time for each of them to hope he wasn’t one of those left behind.

  That was when the earthquake hit.

  Everybody lost their footing. Every single person on that mountain. All five mages. The hundreds of soldiers. Everyone. The ground beneath the mesa had given way. And the volcano erupted again.

  The Gate almost shut completely. Eric was sprawled out on the stone floor. He held his hand out, keeping the Gate from closing. But he was alone. Xerxes had been knocked out by the tectonic shift. And Xanathos was crawling to his brother’s side. Landora was lying on her back, facing up into the black and red sky, trying to keep the firmament from crushing them all. Nuria was healing her own broken leg.

  “We’re out of time!” Eric shouted. And he was right. “Xanathos, get your brother through the Gate!”

  The standing Twin cradled his unconscious Twin and ran through the Gate. Landora could see the lava streaming down the side of the hill on all sides. There was nothing more she could do. No amount of energy she spent would save anyone.