by S T G Hill
Belt pulled the stone away, making a hmm noise as he did. “This process will be painful, I’m afraid to tell you.”
“So don’t do it,” Ellie said, trying to hold back her tears. That awful shriek still echoed in her skull.
“There is no other way. No other choice. I told you the cost of the magic already.”
“I don’t want to pay it,” she said.
He leaned over her, a gentle smile of sympathy on his face. “I am afraid the choice is not yours to make.”
He did more. Ellie endured. Or tried to, at least. It was far more invasive than anything Cassiodorian tried.
He used other artifacts, other reliquaries to try and break into her mind. Other spells that seemed to twist around inside of her.
He magicked up a stool beside her table and sat on it, regarding her as though the answers to his questions might appear if he stared hard enough. Even Darius Belt took breaks, it seemed.
“The Gem, as you must know, is special. Different from any other magical thing in this world. More powerful, certainly…”
It sounded like he was talking more to himself than Ellie, and her insides hurt too much to engage, anyway.
“It is,” he said, “The Gem of Orlyon, but it has been known by other names in the past. It does have the power to grant eternal life, much like the stone in the stories. But it is not through some potion, no. And the price? Yes, the price, too, is high…”
He got up and went over to the other table to peer through his old book again. Ellie thought this meant he wanted to try more things. More painful things.
She closed her eyes and imagined herself somewhere else. She imagined she was back at the Williamsons with Chauncy curled up on her lap, purring while he stared up at her with emerald eyes.
Chauncy.
“Is he dead?” Ellie said, straining against the band that held her head down so she could look at Belt’s back.
“Who?” Belt asked without turning around.
“Chauncy. My cat. The one who attacked you.”
Belt stopped. “Chauncy? That is not his name. Nor is he a cat. Not entirely at least. No, girl, it is not a good thing to invite a god into your life.”
“A god?” Ellie said, recalling the strange way Chauncy seemed to grow bigger. And the terrible, trembling sound his voice made in the air.
Belt did look at her this time, “Yes. His name is Amenhotep. And he is terribly dangerous. How did you come to meet him?”
I thought you were dead, she recalled Belt saying.
She thought she couldn’t bear the answer, but she needed to know. “Is he still alive? What did you do to him?”
Darius Belt turned back to the table and began flipping through his book again.”
"It is exceedingly difficult to kill a god. Even for me," Belt said.
Something inside of Ellie calmed, just a little.
"Difficult, but not impossible."
“What does that mean?” Ellie asked, afraid she knew the answer already.
Belt turned around. This time he held another object in his hand. This one looked like a twisted wand, of all things. She had no idea where he’d gotten it from.
All she knew was that she didn’t want him to use it on her.
“That doesn’t matter,” Belt told her, “We have to get back to work.”
And then he used the wand on her.
Chapter 26
Aurelius Cassiodorian awaited Darius Belt in the meeting chamber for the Council. The circular table sat empty.
Cassiodorian tapped the bottom of the Staff of Tiresias with some impatience against the polished floor. No sooner did the motion leave a blemish then the cleaning spell that enchanted the place cleaned it away.
He could not foresee the events of this meeting, as with many things involving Belt. Only that it was important. Only that it was dangerous.
But at least Ellie is safe.
Yet even that thought gave him pause. It disturbed him how little he could see of events surrounding the girl.
For while what Cassiodorian told her of how unreliable prognostication was as an ability, he himself was quite skilled in deducing the true course of events.
Except that she is like Darius Belt. Why can I see so little?
The massive doors leading into the chamber swung inward on silent hinges. Air from the broad hall on the other side breathed into the room, ruffling the hem of Cassiodorian's robe.
Belt stood alone in the doorway. He held an odd cube that pulsed with inner light.
"Aurelius," Belt said.
"Darius. You look much older," Cassiodorian regarded the gaunt figure cut by Belt.
This close to the event itself, even the obscuring force Belt projected over the most likely future couldn't prevent Cassiodorian from seeing it.
He saw, and his heart sank. But then the magic revealed more to him and it lifted once more.
"I know that you're the one who's been giving them information," Belt said, advancing into the room.
His rage at Ellie's continued escapes sifted and seethed through the air.
Cassiodorian glanced down at the artifact Belt gripped so tightly. "How long have you possessed the Archimedean Paradox?"
Belt stopped short a few paces away. The cube continued to dim in his hands. Belt's physique swelled simultaneously. His body glowed as the ancient relic transfused its power into him.
"Longer than you've been alive. For so long, I've wished you would see things from my perspective. You know that I am right. You know there isn't any other way."
Cassiodorian shook his head, "I know that you think that you are right. I know that you won't acknowledge that there is indeed another way, another choice."
The whites of Belt's eyes glowed. His fingers pushed into the cube, absorbing the last bit of power. "No. I won't let it happen. Give me the staff, Aurelius."
"No," Cassiodorian replied.
"Then I'll take it," Belt said.
"You're welcome to try."
The magical battle of wills that took place between them couldn't be seen with the eye.
It could be felt, thought. The pressure in the room increased, pressing in on their ear drums. Their bodies trembled at the effort it took to attempt to slice into the other's mind.
Belt snarled, and a trickle of blood ran down from one nostril.
Spider webs of red appeared in the whites of their eyes.
Aurelius accessed the power of the staff, and the battle shifted in his favor. Belt grimaced, his legs slowly collapsing beneath him.
Then he lurched forward and took hold of the staff as well.
They tugged at it, each attempting to use its power themselves.
For just a few heartbeats, their minds connected. It felt like eons of time leapt into Cassiodorian's thoughts. He understood who Darius Belt truly was, what he had been. And what he had lost and intended to find again.
"You see... You see..." Belt said.
It overwhelmed Cassiodorian. With a groan, he released his hold on the staff and stumbled backwards, shaking his head.
Cassiodorian saw something else, too. The future. The real future, he knew. That poor girl, he thought.
Belt advanced on him, intending on finishing the other sorcerer. But their fight had once again sapped his power.
He cast the staff aside and wrapped his fingers around Aurelius's throat.
When he finished, he took the staff back up again. He admired the ancient craftsmanship. When he closed his eyes, the thrum of its power infiltrated every nerve and fiber of his body.
And when he finished with that, the ashes of the ancient reliquary drifted to the polished floor. The cleaning enchantment swept them as it had any other, not caring about their source.
Then Belt went about setting the stage, manipulating the past so that when he brought the other Magisters into the room and the many magical guards that accompanied them, they would see only what he wanted them to see.
Belt’s body crackled and bu
rned with the power of the staff. He ran his fingers through the air and called the past into the present. Rather, his version of the past.
In this version, it was not Belt who killed Cassiodorian.
“It is unfortunate, but it needs to be done this way,” Belt murmured to himself as he watched the scene unfold.
The scene wherein Thorn had somehow gained access to the headquarters of the Council of Magisters.
The scene wherein Thorn wrested the Staff of Tiresias from Aurelius Cassiodorian and then choked the life from the older man, even as he pleaded for mercy.
Chapter 27
Darius Belt looked out over the assemblage of sorcerers. Hundreds of them, all in their finest robes.
They had all come to pay homage to Cassiodorian at this newly dedicated area in the middle of the central room of the Council headquarters.
A raised dais now stood, and centered on that rested a massive cenotaph. Atop that an animated statue of Aurelius Cassiodorian himself watched over the crowd with impassive marble eyes.
Belt didn't look up at the statue, Ellie noted.
Her body still ached from his latest attempt to remove the Gem of Orlyon from her mind. She couldn't speak, and could barely hold herself up.
Which, she assumed, was why Belt allowed her to be here.
It wasn’t just the experiments, though. She couldn’t believe it: Aurelius was gone. Killed by Belt, she knew.
She’d gotten the news when several of the magisters had come to question her themselves, trying to find out if she somehow let Thorn into the headquarters.
She’d tried to tell them that it had been Belt. That it was a lie.
But then one of them called the sense memory up in terrible detail, projecting it from his hand into the middle of the laboratory floor.
She watched Aurelius beg for his life. Watched Thorn disarm him. Then watched a strange a twisted pleasure come over Thorn’s face as he wrapped his fingers around Cassiodorian’s throat.
When she tried to turn away, one of them used a spell to yank her eyes back onto the scene. She couldn’t even blink.
Her insides had gone all numb, and stayed that way.
They left disappointed, but with the headquarters on a much tighter security lockdown.
The door had barely closed when Belt returned to his experiments.
He takes everything from me, Ellie stole a glance at Belt.
It had been a message to her, she knew. That he could get away with anything he wanted, including murder, and she was powerless to stop him.
She was just another symbol of his victory and of his power, standing her by his side, defenseless.
And, she noted, Belt looked better. Younger. Decades younger. So instead of looking at him, she looked to the cenotaph.
Deeply engraved letters etched the surface, inlaid with gold that glowed with its own inner light so that anyone could read them.
In Memory of
Flavius Marcus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator
Ultimus Romanorum
Ellie blinked away at the blurriness in her eyes that rose up when she read them.
"Don't worry," Caspian said, "You'll be joining him soon enough."
Ellie lowered her head. Despite her exhaustion, some anger still sparked in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to punch Caspian right in his stupid face.
She wanted to tear down that statue. She wanted to scream out to everyone there that Belt was tricking them all. Couldn't they see that he had murdered Aurelius?
Belt's voice boomed out over the crowd, "This is a tragedy, to be sure, to lose such an esteemed colleague and close friend. But that tragedy should also cast our need for a quick victory over both the Errant forces and the Resistance in even sharper light.
"We've lost so many already. With your continued support, I will bring the Resistance elements who took Magister Cassiodorian from us to justice. With your support, I will unlock the secrets of the Omenborn so that we will never face such a threat again. This I promise all of you. And this I promise to the memory of Aurelius Cassiodorian. No one shall miss his presence more than I."
Ellie's stomach lurched and she thought she might actually hurl. Caspian saw and steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't worry, you'll be back in the chamber soon," he said.
"For Aurelius!" Belt said, lifting fist above his head. It glowed with a brilliant white light.
As one, the rest of the sorcerers in the hall also lifted their fists. They glowed, bathing the broad, circular room in light so bright Ellie could still see it with her eyes squeezed shut.
Aurelius, what am I supposed to do without you?
Ellie filled her lungs again and again with the fresh, sweet air of this place, knowing that her breaths were numbered.
Knowing that she'd never see the outside world again.
Chapter 28
Belt took her back to his laboratory via breach portal. He didn't even bother watching as his spell forced her back into the chair, or when the straps slithered back over her body to hold her down.
Right away, the pressure in her thoughts built again, as though coming to the front of her mind to better observe.
"Why did you kill him?" Ellie said, blinking at the pressure in her eyes. It wasn't all from the Gem's presence.
"Because I needed the staff." He still didn't look at her. "You must understand, I didn't want him to die."
Ellie blinked at the wetness in her eyes. "Then you shouldn't have done it."
Belt drew a circle in the air with his finger. A shimmering doorway appeared into a place lit by candlelight. He reached in and drew out a small, ornate box.
Ellie couldn't tell for certain, but she thought the inlay looked like a unicorn.
"I've done many things that I didn't want to do," Belt opened the box, peered inside, and then closed the lid with a slight click, "But they were all in service of a greater purpose. Perhaps even the greatest of purposes."
"Everyone has excuses," Ellie replied, flexing her fingers against the numbness creeping down into them.
"True," Belt turned to her, "But not everyone has good reasons. I would return Cassiodorian to life if I could, but that is beyond magic. I would have done things differently, but I saw no other way I could get the staff and stop his meddling."
She wondered if Caspian had finally told him. And if so, why did he bother to hold that back at all?
They were fleeting thoughts. There were other, more important things to worry about.
“I thought there was nothing magic couldn’t do,” Ellie tried to ignore the patter of her heart and the way it made the back of her mouth taste like copper.
Belt approached her, that small box floating in the air beside him. “Then you are a fool. Magic cannot return the dead to life. Not to the previous life, at least. Animate the body? Simple enough. Restore the soul? Impossible.
“There are few things magic cannot do. And that is one. The other is to travel through time.” Belt spoke idly, as if for something to do while he cast his eyes over his laboratory, making certain everything was in place.
This close, she saw that a unicorn did indeed adorn the small lacquered box.
This close to Belt, Ellie's stomach went tight and she strained against her bonds. Her body still remembered the terrible nausea it caused every time he peered into her mind.
And that tearing sensation when he tried to brute force the Gem from her mind...
She wondered if any of the other magisters intended on showing up to watch her with pity in their eyes, unwilling to lift a finger to help her.
"What are you going to do this time?"
"Tell me," Belt said, "When you touched the Gem, what did you feel?"
"It was warm."
Belt took one hand from the box and raised it palm up between them. A scene flickered to life in perfect clarity.
Ellie recognized it immediately. It was her escape, just as Belt entered his office and found her at the strongbox that held
the Gem.
"It speaks to you?" the smaller, much younger version of Darius Belt said.
"It doesn't speak to you?" Ellie replied.
Then Belt curled his hand into a fist and the memory disappeared. The pressure at the back of her thoughts. "Do you recall what it said to you? I would look into your thoughts to find out, but the Gem guards them well."
"You're used to just looking into people's heads and finding out what they're thinking aren't you? Even if they don't want you to," Ellie said.
"What they want or don't doesn't matter to me. I'm only seeking the truth," he replied, voice steady.
Ellie resisted the urge to smile. She wondered what he might do if he found out Caspian hid things from him.
"I don't remember what it said. I'm not sure it said anything, actually," she replied. She glanced down at the lacquered box he held, her heartbeat speeding up as she wondered what it contained and what he meant to do with it.
She didn't think she could take much more of his experimentation.
He nodded as though he expected as much, "It did speak, but you don't have the capacity to understand. All that power without the will to master it. Such a shame. You see, I've already discovered how to part the Gem from your psyche."
The darkness in her thoughts buzzed. She looked up at him. "How?"
"You have but to commune with it. However, since you are unable, I will have to do so for you. Its removal will not be a... pleasant experience."
Belt let go of the box. Rather than fall to the floor, it hung in the air. Its lid swung smoothly open. Belt looked again at the contents and sighed, brief but powerful grief crossing his face. "The world used to be so much better. Purer, cleaner. Did you know that unicorns once existed?
“They were the purest creatures in all creation. That purity granted them incredible clarity and understanding."
He reached into the box and withdrew a jagged length of horn, broken at either end. He held it with reverence in both hands. Belt groaned as though it hurt to hold.
Ellie couldn't help but look at it.
Something about it drew the eye. At first it looked the purest of whites, but then she noticed that it glowed with its own inner, gentle light.