Mage Dissolution

by Christopher George

  “Our kind should be afraid,” I said, “it will keep us in check.”

  “Not amongst our kind, amongst everyone else. They saw that day a power that they cannot understand and cannot stand against. Humans are a shallow species that will not allow anything to stand greater than them. You just issued a challenge to the world. They will respond.”

  “That wasn’t my intention,” my words sounded lame even to me.

  “Intention or not boy! That is what you did,” the Primea hissed. “There are those amongst the governments that search for you still. I wonder what would happen should they find you now.”’

  “They would probably be very disappointed,” I murmured dryly.

  “As am I,” the Primea shot back. “You have taken your gifts and abused them. Perhaps this punishment is a fitting reward.”

  “This is not a reward,” I snapped. “This is a consequence.”

  “Is that so?” The Primea raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, this is a consequence of Victor’s work and my own choice. When he compelled me to kill your son, I made a choice. It’s a choice I now regret, but one I would probably make again.”

  “I did not know Victor ordered you to do this.”

  “Didn’t you? Well, he did and I knew there was no way to resist the compulsion. It burned like a fire in my mind. It was all I could focus on. It dominated my thinking. I knew that should I strike Marcus down there would be nothing to stand against Victor.”

  Renee looked at me, her face twisted with a mixture of curiosity and guilt. She was the one partially responsible for sending me after Victor. In a way this was a consequence of her decision to bring me before Marcus.

  “I knew that there was a possibility that I could kill Marcus and I didn’t want to do that,” I continued, “so I pushed myself. I kept myself going. The Compulsion did not force me to act with the speed and urgency that I kept up. I did that! I made the compulsion work for me.

  “I pushed myself to the brink of complete exhaustion, thinking that when I confronted your son I would be too weak to be a threat. And it worked! When I did finally confront your son my powers were weak. I knew that should it come to fight I would be easily overcome and I assumed that Marcus would not destroy me.

  “What I didn’t realise of course was the possibility of this.” I finished, waving my cold Mana-dead hand in front of my face. “Had I known my fate I probably would have rethought things.

  “No, probably not,” I reflected grimly, “my fate was sealed the moment I stepped foot into that prison camp.”

  The Primea nodded in agreement, “You weren’t ready for the task that my son assigned you. Still we needed to do something.”

  “We?”

  “If you think my son does anything without my knowledge you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “You did this to me?”

  “No.” The Primea coughed, “I saw the potential in you, but first we had to find you. You were moving from city to city searching for god knows what, creating havoc and chaos as you went.”

  “I was searching for my cousin. You know this.”

  “Victor had hidden her well, you were never going to find her that way.”

  “What other choice did I have?”

  “You could have worked with us,” she said sternly.

  “What? With the very same people who had me named Outcast and threatened death?”

  “That was Victor’s doing,” the Primea snapped. “You accomplished one thing with your crusade, you kept his eyes focused firmly on you and not on what we were doing. He even tried to have you killed.”

  How could I forget. Six Mages had ambushed me in Shanghai. This was when I still thought that Victor was operating out of southern China and I was moving north from Singapore, attempting to reach the mainland. I was travelling through a night market contemplating where to search next. I knew something was wrong when the street quickly cleared itself. I looked up and there they were, three of them, standing at the end of the road. The other three didn’t show themselves until the battle had already started.

  I originally thought that they had been sent by order of the Primea. Then they stated outright that Victor had pronounced my death. It hadn’t been a pleasant fight, but they hadn’t been strong enough to carry out his decree.

  “When you killed three of his number,” the Primea continued,” I think you brought fear to him at last. He hadn’t expected that and he didn’t like it.”

  “You knew about that attack?” Renee queried, “and you didn’t do anything?”

  “How could we have helped him if we didn’t know where he was?” she scolded her granddaughter. “It wasn’t until you led us to him in Berlin that we were able to become involved directly.

  “You are just as much at guilt here as I,” she continued. “Had you trusted us, we could have prevented this.”

  Renee shook her head, “I don’t believe that, I don’t think you had our best interests at heart.”

  “Foolish child,” the Primea snapped. “What do you know of such things? Your path has only led to ruination, first for your man, and now your cause.”

  Renee didn’t reply, but I could tell that she wanted to, she really wanted to.

  “Are you going to execute me?” I asked again, the old bat hadn’t answered me last time.

  “I have only one question further,” she said. “Aaron Chen. Did you kill him?”

  “No, he was killed by one of Victor’s henchmen who sought revenge upon me. Aaron wouldn’t allow it and so he was attacked from behind. He was killed before he knew what was happening.”

  “I thought as much,” the Primea mused softly. “Leave me now, I have much to think about.”

  “You haven’t given me an answer yet.”

  “No, I suppose I haven’t” the Primea’s voice was losing power. “I am tired. Leave me.”

  “Primea,” I said, “if you’re going to have me executed I deserve to know.”

  The Primea sighed. “The last time that question was before me I chose poorly. My instinct now is to have you killed and be done with you, but I was wrong last time. This time I need to be more careful.”

  “Then I have my answer,” I whispered darkly as I turned to leave. The Primea didn’t say anything further. She simply let us go. It wasn’t a good sign.

  Once the door was shut behind us Renee turned on me in fury.

  “We can’t just sit here and wait for her to come to her decision,” she snarled.

  “What do you propose we do?”

  “Let’s go! Just you and me! We’ll find somewhere safe and just wait it out.” Renee whispered urgently.

  “Where could we go that we could not be found? The only reason they had trouble tracking me down before was because I was constantly on the move.”

  “Then we’ll do that.”

  “Do you think I could really live that life without my powers?”

  “You keep coming back to that point!” Renee hissed angrily.

  “It’s a rather important point don’t you think? I used my powers for food, comfort, shelter. Without them I would be dead within a week. No. It might be better to just end it here.”

  “Don’t you say that!” Renee slapped me.

  “I’m tired,” I whispered as I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I’m so fucking tired of this.”

  “Fuck you Devon! Fine! Go off and die then! Just don’t expect me to wait around to see it!”

  She stormed off.

  “Trouble Mister Wills?” a snide voice shot in from behind, placing extra emphasis on the word “Mister”. Victor.

  “I keep you alive, because you bring my granddaughter happiness. The moment that is no longer the case, my protection withdraws.”

  “Don’t lie,” I sneered, “you’ve been trying to kill me for three years and I don’t believe for a second that you’re acting out of any moral imperative now.”

  “Perhaps I merely wish to express gratitude. You did remove one of my more dangerous en
emies.”

  What the hell was he talking about? I had no idea what that meant but I wasn’t going to give Victor the satisfaction of seeing me stumped. I merely nodded and attempted to move on. I had no interest in talking to him.

  “I was surprised that you actually survived, I had expected Master Marcus would kill you. You have always been resourceful though.”

  He thinks Marcus is dead? Wait a minute. Is Marcus dead? I don’t remember killing him, but it was possible that I couldn’t remember everything from that day. Renee had brushed me off when I had asked after Marcus. Was it possible he was actually dead?

  “Burning yourself out in the process was a delightful extra,” Victor continued smugly, “I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried.”

  I didn’t even look back. I just kept walking. So what if Marcus is dead? Let Victor join him. I’m sure they’ll both end up in hell. I don’t care anymore. I just want out.

  * * * * * *

  The sound of my door opening and closing brought me out of my slumber. At first I thought they’d finally come to put me to death, but quickly rejected that idea. Surely they’d at least wait until morning for that. As I blearily opened my eyes, the light flicked on, flooding the room with bright searing light.

  “What the hell?” I grumbled, rubbing my eyes. Renee was throwing some clothes into a bag while Tychus stood guard by the door.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “The Primea has fallen into a coma. She’s not expected to awake,” Tychus informed me from the door. “She hadn’t made an announcement about your execution, so we’re moving you to a more secure location.”

  “Just in case,” Renee said, throwing some clothes at me. I’d need to talk to Renee about this at some point; I was capable of choosing my own clothing. I threw the clothes on and joined Tychus by the door.

  “What’s the plan,” I whispered.

  Tychus grinned, “Plan?”

  Right, this was going to go well then.

  We moved through the house at a rapid pace. There were a surprising number of people active for this time of night, but no one paid us any attention.

  Two identical cars had been parked by the front door. Both had darkened glass.

  “You go with Tychus,” Renee motioned towards one of the cars, “I’ll draw them off.”

  “Are you sure?” I whispered. “Remember what happened last time we tried that plan?”

  We had been trying to escape from Renee’s father. The plan hadn’t exactly worked out that well. True, I had gotten away, but Renee had been captured and it was several months before we saw each other again. Actually, come to think of it, the Mage we’d been running from had been Tychus. There was a strange irony to that.

  Renee grinned and kissed me on the cheek, “Second time’s the charm.”

  “This won’t keep anyone serious about searching from finding him,” Tychus warned as he threw himself into the driver’s seat of the first car. Renee grinned and raised her hand. She flexed her fingers and I knew without doubt that she was calling upon the Mana.

  “That’d just about do it,” Tychus commented dryly.

  Suddenly all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I had a strong feeling that someone was right behind me. Well, that was good news at least. It meant that I was still sensitive to Mana. When Renee had been training me she had explained that many people could sense the flow of Mana, but were unable to utilise it. Most of them went through their life without ever knowing what was causing the tingly sensation – I envied those people.

  “Shading?” I guessed. Without being able to see the Mana I was forced to make an educated guess.

  The shading Spell was designed to prevent people from Scrying on an area. It threw up so much magical noise that it was like looking at static on your TV. I’d tried to peer through a Shading veil once and knew just how futile it would be.

  “Go, I’ll see you soon,” Renee whispered. I smiled back at her and headed towards the passenger seat of the car.

  “Get in the back you idiot,” Renee called as she moved towards the second car.

  Tychus took off at high speed as soon as I got in.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Business district,” Tychus said. “Called in a favour, going to get you air lifted out by helicopter. That’ll get you to the airport, then you’re going to chill in New York for a while until this all cools down.”

  “New York?”

  I’d never been to America. I’d always wanted to though. As a kid growing up in Australia, America had seemed like an amazing place to live. All the movies and TV shows made it seem like the centre of culture and entertainment. I hoped that the reality would prove as exciting as my younger self had believed.

  “Just sit back and relax,” Tychus advised, “We’ll be there soon.”

  We were moving through the streets of Paris at a good clip. I could see the central business district in the distance. The Primea’s manor had obviously been some distance from the centre of Paris. That made sense I guess, you wouldn’t want too many Mages that close to the hustle and bustle of the city where someone could accidently see something they shouldn’t.

  After about fifteen minutes Tychus brought the car up front of a building. Someone jumped in the driver’s seat as soon as we got out. I was ushered through the front doors of the building and towards the elevator. This had been really well organised.

  Tychus kept clenching and unclenching his fists, but neither of us commented on it. The elevator took its sweet time getting to the ground level and seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to get to our destination.

  The building was only five stories or so. When we got to the top floor, we had another flight of stairs to climb to get the rooftop, where we were greeted with the panoramic view of the Parisian night sky. Paris really was a beautiful city.

  Tychus cursed when he saw the helipad was clear, but was assured by one of the attendants that the chopper would be here soon. Tychus paced up and down the length of the rooftop, obviously annoyed at the delay. We were a little exposed up here. A Mage on top of a building would be visible from even the most cursory Scry spell.

  A tingling sensation down my spine was the first alert that something was wrong. I turned to Tychus and saw his mouth drop open in shock. The next clue was the feeling of all my atoms in my body fizzling as they were bombarded with Mana.

  I knew this feeling. This had happened to me before. This was the product of a teleport spell! Tychus cursed as he ran towards me. I could have told him not to bother; there was nothing he could do now. Should he attempt to disrupt the effect it would merely result in him scattering my molecules across the distance between here and where ever I was being teleported to.

  Teleportation when you’re in control is scary enough, but when you’re not the one calling the shots it’s terrifying. I knew from experience just how difficult this was, one mistake and your body is trying to be in two places.

  The last thing I saw before the teleport spell took hold was Tychus’s trying to tell me something. It may have been that he was promising to find me, or maybe it was simply that he was apologising. It didn’t matter much now. Whoever had done this probably had a plan to deal with Tychus. I was on my own. For the moment at least.

  It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to my new location. It was large, dark room. From the pipes and cables run across the ceiling I guessed it was a sub-basement level of a large building. I couldn’t see who had teleported me, but I knew that they wouldn’t be far away. It would be even more difficult to teleport a target from one location but send them to a third. There was only one person I knew for a fact who could accomplish that feat.

  Victor.

  I glanced around nervously. The only light source was a series of lights hanging from one of the ducts on the ceiling, but most of them were out, creating pockets of darkness in the room.

  “Okay,” I said, “why have you brought me here?”


  Silence. If my captor was hoping to freak me out they were succeeding. I called out several more times, eventually concluding that I was alone down here, wherever here was. I wasn’t sure if this made me feel better or worse.

  In the half-light I made my way to one end of the room hoping for a door or something, but only found some crates and storage barrels. The other end of the room yielded a better result – a set of double doors. Unfortunately for me there was a chain link locking them together. There was no way I was going to be able to get through that.

  Maybe I could find some bolt cutters. Maybe there was a toolbox or something down here? It wasn’t out of the realms of possibility. It took me about fifteen minutes poking around in the darkness before I came upon a locker bay. Most of the lockers were locked, but one of them at the far end swung open freely. Sitting inside the locker was a small flathead screwdriver.

  It wasn’t ideal, but it was a start. Maybe I could leverage the lock off the chain with the screwdriver. No, probably not – the chain links were thicker than the screwdriver. Still if nothing else the screwdriver might serve as a weapon should I need it. Bah, who was I kidding? A Mage had brought me here. A screwdriver wasn’t going to be of any help.

  A more thorough exploration of the room confirmed that I was underground. There were no windows, only large vents periodically lining the walls. I wondered if I could use the screwdriver to pry open one of the vents. I supposed it was possible, but I wasn’t too keen on the idea of crawling around a duct system. Knowing my luck, I’d crawl into the vent and end up scorched by hot air and pass out in the vent and die. That didn’t seem like a pleasant way to go.

  No, for the moment I was probably better off here. I had found a jacket in one of the lockers, which I pulled over myself. For a supposedly temperature controlled room it was certainly getting cold. My best option at this point was probably waiting until whoever had nabbed me came to collect their prize.

  My money was on Victor. I just didn’t know why he had brought me here. Was it simply to keep me out of contact for a few hours while he did whatever he needed to do? Or did he have a darker purpose in mind? He had claimed that he would leave me my life, but I didn’t believe him. He’d lied to me before and I was sure he would do so again.