The Cost of Magic

by S T G Hill

  Matilda and Thorn jumped up as soon as the attack ceased. Thorn lifted their blue-robed attacker up with a glowing magical fist.

  Matilda hurled a sputtering ball of energy at him. When it connected, the channeler flew down the hall and landed in a crumpled heap.

  Arabella knelt down beside Ellie, a glowing fist raised to block any more incoming attacks.

  “It’s clear,” Thorn said, “The other squadrons must still have the garrison busy.”

  Sounds of magical battle tore through the corridors. Some loud and thunderous like cannon shots, others quiet and somehow even worse to Ellie’s ears.

  And the place shook every time the thing that Belt battled roared.

  Ellie pushed herself to her feet, one hand against the trembling wall. “How many of you came?”

  Matilda looked back as they all started forward again, “All of us. The entire Resistance.”

  “Why?” Ellie said, “You all know I don’t have my magic anymore.”

  Arabella hadn’t let go of Ellie’s wrist. “Aurelius thought there was a way to bring your magic back. And I trust him. And I know that we can end all of this if we can just figure that out.”

  They took another corner in the corridor, and a wave of déjà vu lifted Ellie’s stomach. She thought about rushing through the corridors in the Trial, trying to find the way out.

  She thought about Aurelius, and that twisted lie that Belt had told about him being murdered by the Resistance.

  And that awful false memory that he’d called up to prove it.

  “Main hall’s just up ahead,” Thorn paused just before the mouth of the corridor. He frowned and raised a hand.

  He sent a barely visible seeking spell out from his fingers, and from this angle Ellie saw his eyes glow.

  “Any surprises waiting for us?” Matilda said, moving close to him.

  The glow in Thorn’s eyes vanished and he lowered his hands, “Nothing I could see. The plan’s working.”

  A titanic roar ripped through the air again, everyone hunkering down in instinctual fear of whatever could make such a noise.

  “It sounds different,” Ellie said, “Hurt.”

  “You said it would hold him longer,” Thorn said to Matilda.

  “I was wrong. So sue me. You want to argue about here or get out first?”

  Ellie still wanted to know what it was. Though the desire to get out stamped her curiosity down to manageable levels.

  “How are we getting out?” she asked Arabella.

  Arabella looked at her, “The same way everyone gets in: through the ceiling of the main chamber.”

  “Let’s move, before another patrol finds us,” Thorn waved them all forward.

  Ellie’s arms prickled with goosebumps when they stepped out into the main chamber with its impossibly high ceiling and hundreds of levels.

  The sounds of battle echoed eerily in that massive space.

  The statue on top of Cassiodorian’s cenotaph peered about impassively, and when Ellie saw it her heart sank again.

  “Okay,” Thorn said, “Get your transpheres ready; as soon as we clear the roof outside hit top speed, everyone in different directions just like the plan. We have no idea what’s out there waiting for us when we—”

  “What’s that?” Arabella said when her eyes fell on the cenotaph.

  Her hand, formerly resting comfortably on Ellie’s shoulder, tightened.

  Kinesinomy was the school of the empath. A sudden flash of grief ripped through Ellie like the point of a knife.

  Grief and anger and other hot feelings ran from Arabella into her, until she severed contact when she rushed towards the cenotaph.

  “Master Thrace!” Thorn said, following her.

  Arabella ran up the few stairs that led to the display, the statue of Cassiodorian peering down at her.

  “Ellie, where is Aurelius?” Arabella said.

  They didn’t need to be in contact for Ellie to know what the woman felt. Shocked disbelief.

  “We came in so fast to get to our position for the attack, I didn’t see this. Ellie, where is Cassiodorian?” Arabella said again.

  “Gone. He’s gone,” Ellie managed. Another dead because of me.

  The pressure of the Gem built behind her forehead at that thought, and she hated it. She found some part of her wishing that Belt had managed to get it out of her. Found that some part of her almost blamed Thorn and the rest of them for rescuing her before Belt could finish.

  “Gone?” Arabella said. Ellie could see that Arabella knew the truth already. She saw the same thing in Thorn’s eyes.

  “Guys, we need to get out of here. Now,” Matilda said after the monster Belt fought roared again. Much weaker, this time.

  “Ellie,” Arabella said, looking back at the inscription beneath the statue.

  This time, the pressure pushed at the back of Ellie’s eyes. And it had nothing to do with the Gem. “He’s dead. Belt… he killed him.”

  Arabella collapsed against the cenotaph, “He can’t be…”

  “Guys!” Matilda shouted, something in her voice finally catching their attention.

  “Stop there!” an unfamiliar voice shouted, amplified by magic so that it pushed against Ellie’s eardrums.

  A squadron of a dozen sorcerers fanned out around the memorial, the man who’d spoken stepping forward.

  “Surrender now and we won’t hurt you,” he said.

  “Thorn!” Matilda shot him a pleading, desperate glance.

  Thorn shook his head. This wasn’t part of the plan. They were supposed to have been out of here before any patrols could catch up with them.

  They’re all going to get caught. All because of me, Ellie thought.

  “Stand down,” the squadron leader said. “You, back there, get over here with the rest of them.”

  Arabella trembled, one hand braced against Cassiodorian’s cenotaph.

  At first Ellie thought that Arabella was sobbing. Her body shuddered and trembled so much.

  But then she felt it, the emotion so strong that no physical contact was necessary.

  Rage, so red and hot that Ellie’s own blood boiled with it.

  The others felt it too.

  “Master Thrace, don’t,” Thorn turned towards her.

  “They killed him! How could they kill him?” Arabella shouted, turning her full fury towards the squadron leader.

  The air around her crackled. Little static flashes of lightning slithered through the hazy air closest to her body.

  “Surrender…” the squadron leader said, swallowing hard. He took an involuntary step back.

  “There’s too many,” Matilda said to Thorn.

  “I know,” he replied, “But we don’t have any other choice.”

  “They killed him!” Arabella shrieked. Her voice, normally low and melodious, cracked and broke with grief and anger.

  She kicked one foot back against the cenotaph, the marble cracking against the force of it. Then she launched forward as a red missile, straight at the squadron leader.

  Matilda and Thorn charged in as well, both of them calling forth thick bolts of lightning that tore the air and left greasy purple afterimages in Ellie’s eyes.

  Ellie watched Arabella slice through the air, her fury burning in a hot, bloody glow around her.

  When she reached the squadron leader, he tried to stop her with a spell. But before he could cast it, she grabbed him by the wrists.

  His entire body exploded with hungry blue tongues of flame and he rushed away, screaming.

  Then another red-robed kinesist tried to grab her. She took the man’s head in her hands and a heartbeat later he sank to his knees on the marble floor, shrieking and clutching at his skull.

  Ellie grabbed one of the chairs left over from Cassiodorian’s memorial and threw it at a blue-robed channeler gathering up some sparking static energy he intended on throwing at Thorn.

  The chair hit him in the back and he turned, lips pulled back from his teeth.


  Ellie stood still, a quiet voice in the back of her thoughts telling her that she should’ve found somewhere to hide. That she had no way to defend herself.

  Thorn saw this, too. He fought a channeler and a kinesist, the first hurling bolts of fire against the shield that he’d morphed into being on one arm and the second who used his magic-augmented strength to tear huge chunks from the floor and smash them into Thorn.

  “Ellie! Move!” Thorn shouted, “Matilda!”

  Except Matilda couldn’t do anything, either. A strange shape of magical energy had captured her in non-Euclidean curves that Ellie’s eyes couldn’t quite comprehend.

  The lines of that spell brightened every time Matilda hammered against them.

  Vampire’s Polygram, she thought.

  In short, no one could save Ellie from the incoming spell.

  The channeler threw it at her as soon as the roiling ball of power gathered enough energy. It crackled hungrily as it raced through the air towards her.

  The pressure behind Ellie’s forehead built, then stopped.

  For just a moment, perhaps just the time between two panicked heartbeats, everything seemed to stand still.

  Ellie perceived it all somehow, even though it happened to quickly. It seemed almost peaceful, that time between moments.

  The time between that man launching his spell at her and the time her whole being exploded with power.

  She immediately remembered waking up in that alley and those men who tried to attack her and what happened to them.

  “Ellie!” Arabella shouted, the event managing to tear her from her own rage.

  Those men in the alley behind the Chinese place had been low-lifes. Nil muggers who thought magic stopped at card tricks and stagecraft.

  The men and women of the Council who attacked them were fully trained sorcerers. Elite soldiers chosen for their craft and their ability to defend the very heart of the Council from attack.

  It didn’t matter.

  Ellie got the feeling that Darius Belt alone may have been able to survive what happened next. If he had time to prepare and more than a little luck. Maybe.

  The power of the Gem filled her body to the brim, crackling with hot energy that left every nerve tingling.

  It lifted her off her feet, the polished floor beneath her shoes fissuring and then finally shoving down into a concave crater.

  She tried to move and couldn’t. The Gem had control of her. A terrible and harsh white light emanated from her body, casting sharp-edged shadows from the rubble of the battle.

  Everyone in the broad space stopped, throwing hands and arms and spells in front of their eyes to try and block out that glare.

  Then something strange happened.

  The harsh shell of light projecting from her body began to focus. It turned from a sphere into distinct beams.

  Each beam concentrated on one of their attackers.

  They tried to fight it off, but couldn’t. A kinesist hacked at the bar of light with a curved blade of magic. Nothing happened.

  A blue-robed channeler projected power from their hands at the light, and it didn’t budge.

  A gray-robed woman near the back decided that discretion was the better part of valor and turned towards one of the exits that led away from the massive circular room.

  She took half a step and then couldn’t move anymore, her booted foot hanging in mid-air.

  None of the beams touched Matilda, Thorn, or Arabella.

  Thorn and Matilda kept their hands up, ready to cast a spell should anything happen.

  When Arabella saw Ellie, most of the rage and grief drained from her face. Wonder and something else joined the expression on her face. Pity.

  “What is this?” one of their attackers yelled.

  “It won’t let me go!” someone else called out.

  Then Ellie realized what was going to happen next. It came to her from thoughts not her own. Thoughts heard and felt as though she pressed an empty glass against some wall in her brain.

  The Gem intended to kill them.

  “No,” Ellie said, “Don’t.”

  But without that shard of unicorn horn close to her, she couldn’t understand the Gem. And it couldn’t understand her. Not at such a precise level, at least.

  It understood only that she was in mortal danger.

  “No!” Ellie said, trying hard to wrench control of her body back. She couldn’t.

  And it was already too late.

  She and the other Resistance members watched, helpless.

  The harsh bars of light turned hard. Then they turned sharp. The angry calls to be released turned to shrieks and screams.

  The spears of light pushed into them. That light surrounded and encased them.

  Then the light disappeared. When it did, the sorcerers were gone. All of them. Ellie and the others blinked against the afterimages, their pupils stinging as they dealt with the sudden change in illumination.

  A second later, Ellie dropped down into the crater in the floor left by the power of the Gem.

  Sharp little shards of marble bit into her palms and her knees and she hissed at the pain.

  “Ellie!” Arabella said.

  Thorn knelt down and put his hands on the edge of the crater. A set of stairs dug themselves into it, makes a sound like crackling tinfoil. “Come on, we have to get out of here before more show up.”

  Ellie trembled on her hands and knees, her hair hanging down all around her head.

  “They’re dead,” she said, “They’re all dead. I killed them.”

  Arabella pushed past Thorn and Matilda and rushed down the stairs to her. As soon as she touched Ellie, Ellie felt a calming rush of feelings spreading through her. It helped, a little.

  “It wasn’t you. It was the thing inside you. I saw you try and stop it,” Arabella said, kneeling down beside her despite the sharp marble shards littering the crater, “We’ll talk about it later. We just have to get out of here now. I know you can do it. Just take my hand.”

  She held one hand out to Ellie, who looked at it as though she couldn’t recognize it. She could feel her body trying to go into shock. Trying to shut down around her.

  It felt cold.

  She swallowed, her tongue feeling too big in her mouth. Big and numb. Her vision started receding, and she knew she needed to do something.

  So with what willpower she could cling to, she pulled her bloody palm up off the curved floor of the crater.

  She didn’t so much as grab Arabella’s hand as drop into it.

  “Just hang on,” Arabella said, and Ellie felt the warm flow of healing magic begin stitching her torn skin back together.

  They stood, and Arabella lead her up the stairs.

  That thing fighting Belt roared again. Except this time it sounded pained and weak.

  Thorn looked back in the direction of the sound and then to Ellie and Arabella and they crested the edge of the crater.

  Matilda looked shocked, and refused to meet Ellie’s eyes.

  “We have to go,” Thorn said.

  Chapter 30

  They shot up towards the inward curve of the domed ceiling at incredible speed.

  Ellie flinched when they came closer, the most primal part of her brain certain that the bubble of light—the transphere—that she and Arabella shared would shatter both it and themselves when it made contact.

  But they didn’t.

  Ellie had a brief moment where it felt like she looked into the massive slab that made of the ceiling and then clear sky burst into being around them.

  They rocketed upwards another moment, putting the skyline of London into breathtaking view.

  That big Ferris wheel, the Eye, stood guard over the band of silver that was the Thames river cutting the city in two.

  Ellie had only a moment to look out at it before two more spheres rose up, flanking the sphere she and Arabella shared on both sides.

  Circular windows appeared in the gloves of light surrounding them, like three cars
all sitting next to each other and rolling down their windows for a chat, letting in a cool flow of outside air.

  Thorn looked through one, and Matilda through another. Ellie saw how dust from the battle covered his face. How something, probably a piece of shrapnel from the floor, had cut him above his left eye. He wiped absently at the slow flow of blood from the gash.

  Matilda didn’t look much better. Something had almost torn the right sleeve of her trench coat. Every time she took a breath she winced. More tiny cuts covered her face, also coated in fine dust.

  Ellie tried not to think about how all those sorcerers just disappeared from whatever the Gem did to them.

  “Okay,” Thorn glanced at them all in turn. “You know the plan. We’ll all fly together, and when the pursuit starts me and Matilda will draw the chasers away. Then we’ll meet at the rendezvous point. Got it? Good. Let’s go.”

  The windows disappeared so that all Ellie could see were the twin balls of light surrounding Matilda and Thorn, which she assumed was all they could see of her and Arabella.

  Which was funny, since she could see through their transphere just fine.

  “We’ll be safe really soon, I promise,” Arabella said.

  They shot towards London’s downtown, its skyline growing larger with each moment. Ellie found herself looking at the tallest building, which was stabbed upwards into the sky looking like a great, shiny arrowhead.

  Some incredible exhaustion weighed on Arabella, her skin pale, her lips thin. Thin, red veins, web-like, occupied the whites of her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Ellie said.

  Arabella shook her head and looked at Ellie. When she saw her, she realized what Ellie must see. A moment later she looked healthier, somehow. Some spell, Ellie knew.

  Even the charm she’d cast couldn’t hide her grief, however.

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry about, Ellie,” she replied.

  “I do, though. I’m sorry about Magister Cassiodorian. I’m sorry you had to find out like that… And I’m sorry that he’s dead. That’s my fault, too,” Ellie crossed her arms and watched London rush towards them, unable to look at Arabella for fear of what she might see in her eyes, charm or no charm.

  “No, Ellie, this is all Belt’s fault. Never forget that. He’s the one who started all this. He’s the one who’s always had a choice in the matter. And he’s the one who will pay for it all.”