The Un-Magician

by Christopher Golden

  The Grandmaster slowly stroked the body of the cat as it nestled in his arms. “The Strychnos and the Nocturne—do tell?”

  Leander shook his head. “They suspect you of deeds most foul. Their words suggest that you have a connection to the string of disappearances in Arcanum, and beyond.”

  “Oh, my,” the Grandmaster said, startled. He set Alastor down on the seat of a nearby chair. “No wonder Timothy ran off.”

  Nicodemus returned to his desk, his eyes scanning the cluttered surface, searching for something. “And what are your feelings on these indictments, Leander?” he asked idly. “Do you believe there is any truth to them?”

  Leander kept his focus on the Grandmaster. He did not know what to believe. Everything that mattered to him was challenged by these suspicions, but he dared not ignore them.

  “He also told me about the oracle—and what it said to you.”

  The old man froze, his hand hovering momentarily over something on the desktop before snatching it up.

  “I see,” Nicodemus replied darkly. He sighed and turned to face his guest. “I can’t blame you for coming like this, Leander.” The archmage sat tiredly in his chair, the item he had picked up still clutched in his hand. “These charges are most dire. Does anyone else know of them?”

  A tremor of guilt and regret went through Leander. He thought of all the things Nicodemus had done for the order, all the years he had been grandmaster. “I know how wild this all sounds, my lord, but it cannot be ignored. Still, I wanted to hear your explanation before I made a report to the judiciary council.”

  With his free hand, Nicodemus pulled at his long, gray mustache. “As you must, I suppose. I appreciate your candor.”

  The Grandmaster opened his other hand to reveal the object he had lifted from his desktop. It appeared to be a small bell.

  “I’m going to share a secret with you, Leander,” Nicodemus said, and he proceeded to ring the bell.

  It wasn’t as pleasant a sound as one would expect from a bell so small and delicate. It was far louder than it should have been, its tone lingering in the air like an offensive smell, and the sound filled Leander with an overwhelming sense of dread.

  “I know the truth about each of the disappearances you refer to,” Nicodemus said as he set the bell back down upon the desktop.

  Leander was stunned.

  “And I’m forced to admit, I am indeed responsible,” Nicodemus confessed, as thick wisps of what appeared to be smoke snaked up from the floor surrounding the Grandmaster’s desk.

  Alastor rose from where he rested upon the chair and arched his back, hissing at what had begun to coalesce before them.

  “I am old, you see,” the Grandmaster continued. “Older even than you know. Mages live long lives, but still, not long enough. Worse yet, as we age, our power wanes. And I simply could not allow that. I have ambitions that could not be fulfilled by some weak old fool. I needed more power. More magic. And so I found those who would stand against me, and with a bit of ancient sorcery known to very few, I stole their power and added it to my own.”

  The smoke furled itself into the shapes of men and women, ghostly apparitions that swayed in a nonexistent breeze before the Grandmaster’s desk, glaring at him with eyes bulging and vacant.

  “The only failure to the process of extracting a mage’s magical essences is that it doesn’t quite kill them. Not completely. It leaves a bit of tainted soul behind, wraiths that can be controlled, commanded. Bad for them, but good for me.”

  Leander knew these pitiful shades before him. In his investigation into their disappearances, he had gazed upon their pictographs numerous times. He felt as though he knew each and every one of them personally.

  “At first I thought this might be a problem, but I learned that in this form they were quite malleable, and also very aggressive. They are hungry, you see. Hungry for what has been taken from them.”

  The wraiths began to wail, their mouths opening to emit a high-pitched scream that made Leander’s bones vibrate.

  “How could you do this?” Leander said, his hands going to his ears to block out the ululating cries of misery.

  “A new power is on the rise in Arcanum, my friend,” the Grandmaster said, standing up from his chair, little more than a wraith himself. “And I have every intention of sitting at its side.”

  “We … we’ll stop you,” Leander said. It was becoming difficult for him to speak, even to think. The wraiths’ screams were inside his head, and he was finding it hard not to fall to the floor and curl himself into a ball.

  “Who will stop me?” the Grandmaster asked, emerging from behind his desk. “You, Leander? I seriously doubt that. The boy? Timothy Cade, the freak of nature? All I see in that one is a useful tool to achieve my goals. And if he will not assist me in achieving them, he will be put to death.”

  Leander struggled to unleash a spell of defense. The words fluttered from his lips and his hands began to glow like twin suns.

  “Your timing is excellent, Professor,” Nicodemus said. “I am weak, you see. I have not leeched a mage in many days. I thank you for saving me the effort of hunting for one.”

  Suddenly the wraiths stopped their cries and in an eyeblink—before Leander had the opportunity to unleash his conjuring—the ghostly creatures pounced upon him, tearing at him with ghostly talons. It felt as though all the warmth, all the life was being drawn from his body. Leander fell to the floor, the wraiths swarming hungrily about him.

  “They are starved, Leander. Starved for what has been taken from them,” Nicodemus said. “They feed upon magic. But you’ve probably already guessed that by now.” The Grandmaster frowned and focused on the wraiths. “Slowly, my pets. Only a taste for you. The rest is mine.”

  Leander held on for as long as he could, but soon he was pulled into the embrace of unconsciousness, the wails of the damned dragging him down into a realm of eternal darkness.

  And it was cold there. So very, very cold.

  “Are you sure?” Timothy demanded, springing up from the kitchen chair in which he had just barely managed to get comfortable. It nearly toppled to the floor.

  “Caw! Caw!” Edgar cried, wings fluttering as he hopped across the table. “Very sure. Someone just opened a dimensional portal in the house.”

  Leander had brought them here, to Timothy’s father’s home—to Timothy’s home—and had instructed them to wait for his return. Timothy was not certain if Leander going to SkyHaven alone was the right thing to do, but the burly mage had seemed to think he owed it to Nicodemus to confront him, to hear him out before speaking of it to anyone else. Timothy had not argued with him, but now he regretted it.

  “How can you know that?” he asked his familiar.

  Edgar cocked his head to one side and eyed Timothy coolly. “It’s a little something I picked up while serving your father. I can smell when a dimensional rip has occurred.”

  Timothy was standing beside the long, wooden table where they had just shared a small meal of bread, cheese, and tea. Despite the tension, he’d almost allowed himself to relax. How foolish.

  “Did you smell the last one?” Timothy asked, referring to the attempt on his life that took place in this same house.

  “That one caught me off guard,” Edgar admitted. “Must not have been paying attention. But this one I can smell for sure. It’s coming from this floor.” The bird craned his head toward the doorway. “Down the hall—in the study maybe.”

  Ivar had already risen from his seat on the floor, knife in hand, the black, fluid patterns flowing across his pale skin signifying possible violence to come. He moved stealthily toward the doorway.

  “No,” Timothy said to him. The warrior turned and gazed at him with dark eyes. “We’ll all go. It’s safer if we stay together.”

  He didn’t give Ivar a chance to argue, moving around the table and out into the hallway. Timothy didn’t have to turn around to know that the Asura was following close behind. Edgar flapped above and past the
m, perching where he could, checking the air for the lingering aroma of a dimensional rip.

  “Definitely from the study,” the bird said, landing atop the head of one of the two carved wooden gryphons that decorated the posts at the base of the grand staircase in the entryway.

  Timothy felt his pulse quicken as he realized that there was a chance he was again stepping into danger. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? he wondered. He thought of the life he had left behind on the Island of Patience and wondered if it might not be best for everyone if he went back there.

  He looked about the lobby for a weapon, and his eyes fell upon a metal container in the corner by the front door. The container was filled with ornate canes, rare things that had been made by hand instead of by magic. In his father’s waning years, as his health declined, he had needed to use a cane to help him get around. Timothy darted to the container and selected one made from rich, dark wood, its head decorated with the body of a silver dragon. Timothy hefted the cane and then swung it like a club. Then he gestured for the others to follow him to the study just down the hall.

  As he prepared to push the door open, he checked to see if Ivar and Edgar were ready. The bird was perched upon the Asura’s shoulder, and Ivar wore the fearsome markings of battle. And so danger arrives again, Timothy thought as he looked away from his friends, placed the flat of his hand against one of the double doors, and pushed. It never seemed to end, the danger in this new world he had chosen over the old.

  Timothy entered the study, memories of the first discussion he’d had there with Nicodemus fresh in his mind. He held the cane like a club, ready to strike out at anything that came at him.

  Across the room, its back to him, there stood a large, hooded figure. The intruder had pulled a leather-bound volume from among the thousands of books arrayed upon the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and appeared to be reading it.

  “You don’t belong here,” Timothy said in his most menacing voice. He could sense Ivar at his back and, even though the intruder appeared quite large, was confident that he and the Asura could handle themselves.

  “Put the book down and explain your presence.”

  The figure closed the book, returned it to its place on the shelf, and slowly began to turn toward them. Timothy tensed, ready for just about anything, but nothing could have prepared him for what followed. The intruder was impressive in size, its body covered from head to toe in a dark, coarse material. From beneath its hood, eyes like twin balls of Hungry Fire burned.

  It brought its hands up and pulled back the hood to reveal its monstrous countenance. Timothy gasped.

  “It just doesn’t get any easier,” Edgar muttered.

  Timothy could not pull his gaze from the creature before him. He had never actually seen one in the flesh, but his father had told him stories of the race of beings called the Wurm. Its skin was the color of stone and multiple yellow horns of various sizes jutted from the top of its angular head. Trails of oily black smoke drifted from two nostril slits above its fanged mouth.

  “Cade,” the creature grumbled as it began to crouch. With a speed that should have been impossible for a creature of that size, it lunged across the room toward them, massive wings unfurling, his name again upon its lips.

  “Cade!” it bellowed, mouth opened wide enough to show what appeared to be a churning inferno burning within its throat. Timothy raised the cane to defend himself, knowing it would do him little good.

  Chapter Ten

  With a cry that seemed to claw at the very air itself, Edgar flew straight at the monster, darting down to rake his talons across the intruder’s face. The rook’s wings beat the air in an urgent, angry flurry. Timothy’s eyes went wide when he saw that the bird’s talons barely nicked the creature’s thickly plated hide. Its flesh was like armor. Edgar was doing more to annoy it than to harm it.

  And the towering monstrosity was annoyed.

  It snarled, plumes of fire curling from its nostrils, and turned its attention on the bird.

  “I seek Argus Cade!” it roared. The heat issuing from its bellows of a mouth was enough to sear Timothy’s face, even as the boy backed away. “Where is Argus Cade?”

  “Caw!” the rook cried. “He’s where the likes of you can’t do him any harm, Wurm! And I won’t let you harm his boy, either.”

  In the momentary distraction, Ivar blended in with the room, nearly invisible in the shadows and the dark, rich earth hues of the study. Frantic, pulse racing as he tried to figure out how to help, how to fight the monster, Timothy glanced around and caught the silhouette of the Asura warrior slipping behind the Wurm.

  “Damn you, bird!” the intruder roared. “I want Argus Cade!”

  “Caw! Caw!” Edgar continued to beat his wings in front of the beast, talons scratching that stony hide. “Timothy, run!”

  “Edgar, fly!” Timothy shouted, fearful for his friend.

  The Wurm opened its mouth and inhaled deeply, snorting.

  Tendrils of black smoke issued from within its jaws, where the glow of fire had diminished. But only for a moment. It shuddered, eyes lighting up as though the flames blazed behind them, and it braced itself as though to scream.

  What came from its mouth was not a scream but an inferno.

  Timothy shouted for Edgar to escape as fire jetted from the Wurm’s mouth. The rook soared low across the study, wings beating the air, feathers singed with flames as it tried to stay ahead of the stream of fire. Timothy could hear the rook screaming in pain and terror, and he felt numb and cold. He began to shake his head back and forth, even as the Wurm paused to take another deep breath, its eyes tracking the flight of the black-feathered bird through the room.

  “No!” Timothy snapped. Heedless of the monster’s fire breath, he lunged across the study and swung his father’s cane at the side of its head with both hands and all the strength he could muster. It connected with an impact that resonated through his entire body the wood splintering across the bony ridge behind its horns.

  The Wurm grunted and staggered a step forward, colliding with an ornate chair that shattered under its weight. With twin jets of fire streaming from its nostrils, the monster shook off the blow and turned toward Timothy, the rook now forgotten.

  Timothy froze. Brandishing what was left of the broken cane before him, he backed away, eyes wide. His gaze shifted toward the study door, but he knew he had no hope of reaching it if he ran. A chill went through him, a sadness he had never felt before.

  He was going to die.

  Teeth clenched, brow furrowed, he stopped retreating and raised the splintered cane higher. Fire burned behind the Wurm’s eyes, and Timothy was mesmerized by it. The monster let out a short burst of charnel breath, then it began to inhale again, the inferno churning at the back of its throat. Timothy clutched the cane, preparing to dive toward the monster, to try to penetrate its scaly, plated hide with the jagged shaft of wood.

  Ivar spoke then, his voice seeming to come somehow from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “There has been a mistake,” the Asura warrior said, the words heavy with regret and warning.

  The Wurm narrowed its eyes, clamped its jaws shut, and spun in search of the source of those words. Black smoke plumed from its nostrils, forming a cloud much larger than before, a cloud that enveloped Ivar, revealing his silhouette. The Asura bowed to the confused Wurm, but it snarled and its jaws snapped open. A burst of flame erupted from its throat, charring its own black teeth, arcing across the room.

  As though dancing with the fire, Ivar twisted himself out of the way of the attack. Then, with one swift motion, he stepped forward, grabbed the creature by its horns, and drove it to the ground. The floor shook beneath its weight. The Wurm thrashed at Ivar, who tumbled onto his back and turned the momentum into a somersault that brought him back to his feet in a crouch a moment later.

  “Damn your eyes, Asurahi!” the Wurm roared, rising to its full height, quivering with rage.

  Ivar tilted his head to one side, still
in a crouch, and deftly brought his hands up in front of him. With his thumbs together, palms outward and fingers fanned like a bird’s wings, he put his hands in front of his face so that he seemed to be peering through a mask.

  “Let calm prevail,” Ivar whispered.

  Shaking, fire leaking out from the corners of its eyes and dripping in ropy tendrils of liquid flame from his mouth, the Wurm took several long breaths, chest rising and falling like a bellows.

  At last its rage seemed to recede, and it nodded slowly at Ivar.

  “All right, Asurahi. Let calm prevail, as it did between our tribes in days of old.” The monstrosity curled its upper lip back from its ebony fangs and glanced at Timothy for a moment before its gaze ticked back toward Ivar. “But now I must have an answer. Where is Argus Cade?”

  With a flutter of wings Edgar appeared from behind a chair in the far corner of the room. He hopped, flying just a few feet before landing awkwardly, feathers singed.

  The Wurm turned to glare at the bird.

  “Caw! Caw!” Edgar chided it. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, lizard. You’re the intruder here, let’s not forget. And you just charred my tailfeathers. I have half a mind to—”

  “Edgar,” Timothy snapped.

  The rook glanced up at him, black eyes widening in surprise.

  “That’s enough.” Timothy dropped the broken cane and strode over to Ivar, who rose at his friend’s approach. The boy turned toward the Wurm, a strange calm settling over him despite the fire-breather’s ferocious appearance. “I am Timothy Cade. Argus Cade was my father. I deeply regret having to inform you that he is no longer with us. He has passed through that gate from which none of us returns.”

  Timothy had heard the words spoken before—by his father, by Ivar, and by Edgar—but this was the first time he had spoken them himself. He found within himself a strange, melancholy peace. One day he would pass beyond that same gate and join his father on the other side. Until then he hoped to live with courage and conviction, and without fear. He met the Wurm’s gaze with his own and did not waver.