by Logan Jacobs
My chin was grabbed in a vise-like grip and yanked upwards. I tried to protest, but again, all I managed was a cough. When my eyes finally focused, I found myself staring into two very dark blue eyes set in a porcelain perfect face.
“Well, Maderel’s pet has decided to join us,” the woman snarled. “The vaunted Gabriel Vega, air mage extraordinaire. I thought you’d be a lot harder to take down.”
“Who--” I finally mumbled.
“Let’s just leave him alone,” someone outside my limited range of vision suggested. “Give him more of the drug, and then we won’t have to worry about him.”
“No,” the woman holding my chin replied. “I need him to know why he’s going to die.”
“What--” I mumbled again.
“Fine,” the second voice replied with a sigh. “We’ll be downstairs. Just don’t kill him yet. We still need him to get what we want.”
I heard a door open and then slam shut. The woman from the alley finally let go of my chin and grabbed my hair instead. I hissed as she pulled on my scalp, and she smiled at me, hatred brimming from every pore.
“Who are you?” I stammered.
“My name is Pebbles Gravel,” the woman snarled. “And you killed my husband.”
I gulped and stared at the face that loomed above me. She would have been beautiful if she weren’t so bitter.
“Murillo,” I managed to say.
The last time I had seen Murillo, he had been crumpled on the floor of the Gravel family lodge at Mount Speir. He and his associates had tried to kill the Shadow Foxes in order to claim the Shodra for themselves. I tried to remember what Yvaine and Aerin had said about the family. An uncle and cousins had been accused of supporting black sorcery, though Pebbles had managed to avoid any such scandal. Then again, so had Murillo, and he’d turned out to be harboring his own delusions of grandeur.
“Do you know,” Pebbles hissed, “that they didn’t even leave me a body to bury?”
“Who?” I fumbled again.
“Maderel, the little prick,” she spat. “As far as anyone knows, my husband simply had an accident at the house. That’s the official story. But I know what you did. I know you killed him. And I’m going to kill you. But first, you’re going to help me get the Shodra back.”
“I don’t know what--” I started to protest.
“Don’t lie,” she snapped. “I know you succeeded in the quest. You recovered the Shodra and you brought them to the house. My husband would still be alive, and ready to conquer the world, if you and that stupid puca hadn’t killed him.”
“Merlin,” I mumbled as I remembered his limp form lying on the street.
“Ugly thing is dead,” Pebbles declared in a gloating voice. “We shot him with enough poison to drop a rhinoceros.”
“Merlin,” I repeated angrily. In that moment, I knew I would kill Pebbles Gravel and anyone who stood with her.
“Don’t worry,” she said with a vicious smile. “You’ll join him soon enough. Once I have the Shodra, I will personally see you to the gates of hell.”
“Maderel has the Shodra,” I finally said.
“And you’re his new pet,” Pebbles replied as she finally released my hair.
I was more aware now, and I could see the details of the room. I was tied to a chair, hands and feet both bound, in what appeared to be an attic. The roof sloped sharply above us, and there was only one small window at the other end of the room. A nearby table was the only other piece of furniture, and I saw several small vials and a sharp needle lined up on its surface.
I tested the ropes that kept my hands bound behind my back. The knots were tight, and when I tested the ropes with my mana, I felt something oily and black push back. Dark magic, I decided. Pebbles must have picked up a few lessons from her uncle.
“Maderel won’t give up the Shodra,” I sighed. I made sure my voice slurred and let my chin rest against my chest.
“You’d be surprised what that man will do for his ‘special students,’” Pebbles remarked as she walked towards the table. “You’re not the first, you know.”
“He’s taught others,” I agreed. I watched her caress one of the vials slowly, her back to me. I tried pushing against the rope with my mana again, and something gave, just a little.
“He hasn’t let you in on his little secret yet?” she asked as she turned to look at me. “About the students that he finds and teaches personally. They never attend the academy, officially, and they often disappear without a trace. My husband thought he was killing them off and somehow draining their power, but I know what he’s really been doing. He’s been building his own army.”
“What?” I stammered, and I was not faking the shock I felt.
“There are traces,” Pebbles continued. “You can find them if you know where to look. And it doesn’t hurt to have friends in high places throughout the world. No, Maderel may have hidden his little private mage army from the Academy, but I know where they are.”
“That’s insane,” I finally offered, but part of me was trying to remember if I had ever seen or heard about any of Maderel’s students from anyone other than Maderel.
“He only takes the best,” she admitted. “They’re all trained in multiple elements. And there are rumors.”
“Rumors,” I repeated as I watched her dip the needle in one of the vials.
“That he’s training more than elementalists,” she said as she walked back towards me. I could see the poison glistening on the tip of the needle and I pushed against the dark magic in the ropes again. It gave, but not enough.
“Healers?” I asked, though I knew what she was really referring to.
“Manipulators,” she answered with a truly evil grin. She held the needle up to my eye, so I could see the thick red drop that sat poised on the tip. “So, Gabriel Vega, air mage extraordinaire, what does that make you?”
I shook my head in denial, and she started laughing. There was a crazed edge to it that would have sounded perfect coming from the likes of Jack Nicholson, but which felt bizarrely out of place coming from the plump red lips of this woman.
I sent a burst of mana against the rope, and I finally felt it slip. I pushed with my mana one more time as she took another step forward. I rocked the chair backwards and crashed onto the floor. My hands were free, but my feet were still tied to the chair.
Pebbles made a sound that would have frozen the hearts of the bravest of men, and she lunged towards me with the needle still in her grasp. I tried to pull up my mana, but I felt something dark grab hold. I looked at Pebbles and saw her irises had turned completely jet black. She was panting with the effort, but she had shut me down.
She still had the needle, but she wasn’t moving any closer. I managed to scoot back, and I realized she was following me not with her eyes, but with her ears. She might have blocked my mana, but it was at the cost of her own sight. I started to work on the knots around my feet, with one eye on Pebbles.
“I know what you are,” she hissed as she turned her head to the side. “I’ve been training for this moment for years. Now I’ll finally have the chance to kill a manipulator. The fact that you’re one of Maderel’s pets makes it just that much sweeter.”
“I think you overestimate the High Mage’s concern for me,” I replied. I nearly had the final knot undone, but she took another step towards my voice and swung at me with the needle. I managed to avoid the poisoned tip, but my head smacked against the floor.
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied with a devilish grin. “You’ll be good practice for my battle with Maderel.”
“You’re so certain that you can beat me,” I replied as I kicked free of the last rope and leapt to my feet. “You can’t even see me.”
“I don’t need to see you,” she snapped. I had to admit, it was eerie how well she could follow me.
“You won’t make it out of here alive,” I declared. “I’ll kill you for what you did to Merlin.”
“The stupid puca?” she laughed.
“What a weakling you are.”
That was it. My mana might still be blocked, but I’d learned plenty of ways to kill a person since I’d arrived in Evreas, and most didn’t require any magic at all. One of the chair legs had broken off when I’d crashed to the floor, and I darted forward and grabbed it before Pebbles realized I had moved.
She snarled when her strike found empty air, and then I swung the chair leg squarely at her head. She must have heard something, because she turned enough to take the brunt of the blow with her shoulder. I heard her gasp in pain, and I quickly swung the leg again. She was ready this time, and she kicked out. Her foot connected with my hand, and I nearly lost my grip on the chair leg. We each took a step back, like two boxers in the ring when the bell sounds.
Neither one of us moved for a full minute, and then a bright flash filled the room. I covered my eyes, and I heard Pebbles cry out at it in pain. She stumbled back towards the table, and I could feel my mana rising again. There was another flash, and Pebbles growled, a low, mean sound. Her eyes were blue again, and they burned with hatred.
I could hear the sounds of fighting now, and smoke drifted up from somewhere below us. Pebbles and I both looked at the door. I had a pretty good idea what I would see, and I wasn’t disappointed. Lena had nudged the door open and sent two of her flash bombs inside.
Pebbles lunged towards the elf, but I had full use of my own mana again. I sent up a shield in front of Lena, who had wisely started to back away when she saw Pebbles’ expression.
Pebbles ran straight into the shield as she summoned up another wave of dark magic. Pebbles cried out in surprise, and I saw her try to pull herself free of the mana. But the silver light of mana and the oily slickness of the dark magic were tangled around each other, and Pebbles was caught in the middle.
I poured more mana into the shield, and Pebbles fought back with her own dark magic. I’d never seen anything like it before. The light and darkness swirled around each other, like they were caught in a whirlpool. Pebbles struggled against the tide, but it kept circling closer to her.
The vortex collapsed, and Pebbles was flooded with mana and dark magic. There was a sickening sound, and then Pebbles whole body seemed to liquefy. For a moment, I saw her as she must have looked, before the corruption of dark magic had taken hold of her soul. And then she melted, leaving behind nothing but a gelatinous pile of goo on the floor.
“Gabriel!” Lena called out as she peeked around the door.
“I’m here,” I replied. “I’m okay.”
“Emeline and Aerin are downstairs,” she said. “We should see if they need help.”
I looked around the attic and saw my pack tossed into a corner. My mana blade was on the floor nearby, apparently discarded as a useless broken blade. I grabbed both items and then joined Lena at the door.
“You don’t need samples?” I said as I stepped over the former Pebbles Gravel. More like Puddles now.
“I don’t like ingredients that’ve been corrupted by dark magic,” she sighed. “They're just too unpredictable.”
We ran down two flights of stairs. The smoke was growing thicker the lower we went, and I could hear Emeline’s growl as well. I heard a loud thwack, and someone cried out in pain. Lena and I made it to the bottom of the stairs and found ourselves in the middle of a battle. Emeline was holding her own, trading fireballs with one mage, while keeping an air mage too busy to bother Aerin. The redhead elven priestess had her hands full against three armed mages. Four other bodies were scattered around the floor.
I saw a heavy shield lying on the floor near one of the bodies. It was still smoking from Emeline’s fireball, and a dent along the edge showed where Aerin had taken a swing at it as well. I didn’t even stop to think, I just seized the shield in a wall of air and sent it spinning like a helicopter blade towards the three mages that were attacking Aerin.
It sliced through skin and bone, and the mages fell without even a cry. That left the two who were trying to corner Emeline. I pulled up a clone and set it just to the right of the fire mage. The two dark mages jumped in surprise, and Emeline blasted them with one massive burst.
“We should go,” I said as I glanced around at the destruction. “Someone’s probably sent for the city guard by now.”
“There’s a back door,” Aerin said as she approached me. She placed her hand on my arm, and I heard the chimes that meant she was sending her healing power into me.
“We might have to jump a few fences, but we can be back at the guild in no time,” Lena agreed.
“Merlin,” I suddenly cried out as I thought of my poor puca friend.
“He’s okay,” Aerin assured me. “We found him when we came looking for you. That’s how we knew something was wrong.”
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Later,” Lena urged. “First, we should leave. I think I hear the guard.”
“This way,” Emeline called out. She’d already sprinted towards the back of the house, and we ran after her.
The back door led into a postage-stamp sized yard, just big enough for a statue of Theira and a clothes-drying rack. We scrambled over the fence, and then the next one, and the next one. Despite our best efforts to remain quiet, we made too much noise, especially when Emeline knocked over a collection of pots. I could hear voices call out behind us as we crashed through our neighbors’ yards, and I nearly let loose a stream of curse words worthy of Dehn when I stepped into a pile of compost.
Somehow, we made it back to the guild hall without running into any of the guard. We burst back inside and slammed the door shut behind us. For a moment, we just stood there gasping for air.
“The guard will probably start knocking on doors,” Aerin pointed out.
“We’ll just say we heard someone crash over the fence,” I suggested. “When we went to look, no one was there.”
“Except no one past us will report any noises,” Lena pointed out.
“Then we didn’t hear anything,” Emeline suggested. “But we were up late preparing for a bounty, and we were wondering what all the commotion on the street was about.”
“That works,” I chuffed as I dropped into a chair.
“What happened to you?” Aerin demanded as she dropped into a chair as well. “Who were those people?”
“You first,” I replied. “How did you find me?”
“When you didn’t come back, I sent another note,” Aerin replied. “When you didn’t answer, we thought maybe, well, that you had met someone.”
“Or maybe you had met up with Maruk and Yvaine,” Lena added.
“Show her the paper,” Emeline said.
Aerin pulled her sheet of paper from a pocket and handed it to me. It just had one word scrawled across it: Help.
“I didn’t write this,” I declared. I started to stand up and imagined all sorts of dire things that might have happened to the other members of our crew, but Lena placed a hand on my arm, and I sat back down.
“We know,” Lena said softly.
“I left the paper by the altar,” Aerin added. “When I came back, that had appeared.”
“We wrote another note that we sent to everyone, and we heard back from them, eventually,” Emeline continued. “But we’d already decided we would walk back towards the Tower, to see if we could find you.”
“We found Merlin just down the block,” Lena said as she picked up the story. “We thought he was dead at first. When I was checking him, I found a dart, and I knew he had been poisoned. I gave him something to help clear the poison, and Aerin used her own powers on him.”
I saw Aerin flinch and rub her hands.
“They were using dark magic,” I murmured.
“I thought so,” the red-headed elf replied. “It felt all wrong, but I kept going. He finally woke up.”
“He was still woozy, but we asked him if he could find your trail,” Lena added. “We didn’t expect him to lead us to a house on our own street.”
“Where is he now?” I sai
d as I looked around the room. Merlin still hadn’t appeared.
“We sent him back here,” Emeline mused. “He wasn’t up for a fight.”
I whistled, and this time, I heard small footsteps plodding towards the room we were in. Merlin appeared, still swaying unsteadily on his feet. He was in his puca form, and he greeted me with a single chirp, as he came to a halt in front of me.
“Buddy,” I cried out joyfully as I swept him up in my arms. “They said they’d killed you.”
Merlin chirped again and then nuzzled against my chin. I held him against my chest and smiled happily at my companions.
“Now it’s your turn,” Emeline said.
“I turned onto our street, and this woman collided with me,” I began. “She had been crying, and said she’d had an argument with her boyfriend, and said she was sorry she’d walked into me. But then she acted like she knew me. I was about to pull my knife, when Merlin just fell to the ground. Turns out it was Pebbles Gravel.”
I gave the puca another nuzzle with my chin, and he purred in response.
“She must have been waiting for you,” Lena surmised.
“Yes, and who knows for how long,” I replied. “I have been getting this strange feeling of being watched over the last couple of days, but I never spotted anyone.”
“Did they poison you as well?” Aerin asked.
“Yes,” I sighed. “I was worried about Merlin and was trying to check on him. I felt a sting in my neck, like a wasp or something. That’s all I remember until I woke up.”
“You said that was Pebbles Gravel upstairs with you,” Lena prodded.
“She was going to use me to get the Shodra back,” I replied.
“Everyone wants these things,” Emeline huffed. “I wish we could figure out a way to destroy them once and for all.”
“How was she going to get the Shodra back?” Aerin asked.
“She was going to hold me hostage until Maderel returned the Shodra to her,” I explained. “Though I’m pretty sure her real plan was to kill me and Maderel once she had the Shodra.”