Old Man patted Gerald on the back. “I’m assuming there is a switch hidden somewhere to shut off the blades.” Old Man watched the blades swing back and forth and frowned. “I should be able to make it through, but you might have some difficulty.” That was a polite way of telling Gerald there was zero chance of him being quick and agile to make it through in one piece.
“What if I used my magic to summon some boulders?” Gerald asked. “I could use them to block the blades, so we could get past.”
Old Man pointed at several spots on the walls. “See those? Those are actually concealed explosives. If the blades stop for any reason other than the switch being used to disable them, then the explosives will detonate and bring down most of the building.”
“…” Gerald’s jaw clenched. “Of course.” He rubbed his temple. Maybe he should have stayed with Avraniel in the courtyard. At least up there, people would be trying to kill him in more normal ways. “Wait… how do you know that?”
Old Man pursed his lips and patted the rat on his shoulder. “Our friend here noticed something amiss… and I saw what could happen.”
“You saw? What does that mean?”
“Time is an interesting thing, Gerald. It is closely related to space, and my magic can affect both although affecting time is a more difficult and costly affair. Altering the flow of time significantly – even stopping it – cannot be done easily, and there are always consequences. However, taking a quick peek ahead can be accomplished without too much risk if you have enough practice and the right sort of magic. Of course, the more often you look and the further ahead you look, the greater the price you pay, which is why I don’t usually rely on that aspect of my magic. I also don’t like using it. I am a swordsman. Being able to know what my opponents are going to do takes all of the challenge out of the fight.” He smiled faintly. “And the future is not nearly as static as people think it is. The very act of glimpsing one possible future can nudge fate in the opposite direction.” He stretched and worked some kinks out of his neck. “And I’m not as young as I used to be. I can’t throw my magic around the way Avraniel does.”
“But you looked, right?” Gerald knew he was probably better off not knowing, but he had to know. The bureaucrat inside him wouldn’t have it any other way. “What happened?”
“If you summon boulders to block the blades, everything seems fine for about five seconds, and then the explosives detonate and the building collapses. If I don’t use my teleportation, we are both dead in a little over ten seconds. If I do, the magical defences in this building are strong enough to kill all of you except me. I reappear outside – as do bits and pieces of the rest of you.”
Gerald said nothing for several seconds. Eventually, he swallowed thickly and forced himself to speak. “Okay… blocking the blades is not an option. What should we do instead?”
Old Man chuckled. “Peering half a minute into the future doesn’t tell us what to do, but it does tell us what not to do. The rest is common sense.” He glanced at the ninja rat on his shoulder. “This building was heavily staffed with guards, so the switch is likely on the other side. This fellow here should be able to get past the blades and find it.”
The ninja rat hopped off Old Man’s shoulder and watched the blades intently for several moments. The other ninja rats chortled and began to make bets about how long it would take him to get through. The ninja rat rolled his eyes and then burst into motion. Despite his small size and agility, he was still hard-pressed to avoid the storm of blades. There was no way Gerald would have made it through – in one piece, anyway – and he had a hard time imagining Old Man getting through either although the swordsman was a great deal faster and more limber than he let on.
The ninja rat ducked away from one blade, leapt over another, slid under a third, and then launched himself upward, spinning end over end as he sailed through the air and avoided half a dozen blades by a hair’s breadth. He landed in the midst of yet more blades and darted forward, somehow making it past two blades before he was forced to leap over a third and then roll away from a fourth, fifth, and sixth. Pausing for a split-second as a blade came within a whisker of cutting him in half, the rat dodged the last four blades in a flurry of acrobatic motion before emerging unscathed on the other side.
Gerald felt the urge to clap, but one of the other rats squeaked a warning. It was entirely possible that making too much noise would activate yet another trap. He had a hard time imagining what could be worse than a corridor full of giant, swinging blades, but then he remembered the lava trap Katie had tried to include before Timmy had pointed out the difficulty of securing a permanent source of lava in an area that wasn’t volcanically active. In the end, Katie had settled for something a bit more pedestrian – a trap that unleashed a flood of boiling oil. He also didn’t want to distract the rat that had made it through. The spry rodent had yet to find the switch, and there could be traps on the other side just waiting to catch him off guard.
After a brief search on the other side – a search that involved avoiding five concealed traps, two of which led to spike pits while the other three involved deadly projectiles of various kinds – the rodent finally located a hidden panel. He pried it open and flicked the switch. The blades stopped, and Gerald and the others quickly hurried across. The switch might have stopped the blades, but it was best not to take any chances. There was a chance the pause was only temporary.
Unfortunately, they weren’t out of the woods yet. There was a third – and hopefully final – challenge ahead of them: a massive staircase that basically screamed booby-trap. For a moment, Gerald considered sliding down the banister or leaping over the side of the railing to the floor below, but both of those were probably covered in traps too. Everything in this place seemed to be. There was also the not-so-small problem of the welcoming committee.
A burly man in a grey cloak stood not far from the bottom of the stairs with more than a dozen guards. “I don’t know how you lot got this far – this damn place is full of traps – but I, Jiren the Master of Paper, shall stop you!”
He punctuated his statement by striking a series of outlandish poses, not unlike those Katie sometimes struck when she was practicing in front of a mirror when she thought nobody else was around. Gerald only knew because he’d been passing by, and she’d forgotten to close her door. He had wisely chosen to hurry along without saying a word, and Rembrandt had later approached him to ensure his silence continued. Katie was keen to appear appropriately menacing, which was difficult due to her small stature and love of the colour pink. What better way to be more menacing than to practice? At least, that was what Rembrandt had said. He’d said some other things too, but Gerald had been more focused on the way the rat had glared at him. Rembrandt might not be very big, but Gerald had seen what he could do.
Old Man tilted his head to one side. “Master of Paper? Do you mean that in a literal sense or a figurative sense? If it’s the latter, I daresay my friend here could best you.”
Gerald felt a surge of pride. He might not be much of a fighter, and he was still working on getting through a mission without screaming in terror, but he could definitely handle paperwork. In fact, he could honestly – and very proudly – say that he was one of the best bureaucrats in Everton. He’d even placed in the top five during the last National Bureaucratic Championship, a most prestigious and noble event. The next one was coming up in a few months. Hopefully, he’d be able to crack the top three.
In answer to Old Man’s question, a sheet of paper raced toward them with incredible speed. The swordsman cut it in half, and there was a blinding flash and a sound like thunder. The next thing Gerald knew, he was fifteen feet away with his stomach doing its best to turn itself inside out. An explosion had consumed the area where they’d been standing only a moment ago.
“What happened?” Gerald summoned a paper bag and fought to keep the contents of his stomach where they belonged. A few seconds later, the nausea passed although his eyes were still wate
ry. “I thought you couldn’t teleport in here?”
“I didn’t teleport,” Old Man murmured. “But I have other ways to move at seemingly instant speed.” He gestured at the scorch marks left behind by the explosion. “Given what we faced, I had little choice.” His gaze drifted back to Jiren. “Impressive. I once fought a man who could control paper, but your secondary magic must be different from his. He could turn paper into metal. I’d say yours has something to do with explosions. I didn’t sense any runes or seals on the paper, and it still exploded.”
Gerald’s eyes widened. If Old Man was right, then Jiren could not only control paper but also make it explode. Magic that could make explosions was already bad enough, but being able to guide those explosions made it even deadlier. And then there was the question of how many pieces of paper he could control. Depending on the answer, they could be facing a barrage of exploding paper.
“Runes and seals?” Jiren gasped. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”
For a moment, Gerald was genuinely convinced that Jiren was being sarcastic. Gerald wasn’t an expert in combat, but he knew how powerful runes and seals could be. Paper was not a good medium for them since the magic involved usually destroyed any normal piece of paper after one or two uses. But that shouldn’t be a problem for someone whose magic could control paper. They could simply bring along lots and lots of paper.
If Gerald’s magic had allowed him to control paper, then using runes and seals on paper was one of the first things he would have tried. However, as the look of enlightenment lingered on Jiren’s face, Gerald realised that, no, the other man was not being sarcastic. He really hadn’t thought of it until Old Man had brought it up. Then again, if Jiren focused primarily on combat, being able to control exploding pieces of paper had likely been more than enough to win most of his fights. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time a mage got tunnel vision when it came to their magic.
“A boulder would be good now,” Old Man murmured.
“A boulder? Is it safe to use one now?” Gerald cringed as he remembered Old Man’s earlier warning when they’d faced the swinging blades.
“It should be. I doubt our opponent would come out to meet us if it was possible to accidentally blow up the building by using the wrong kind of magic. There must be a system in place to activate or deactivate different parts of this building’s magical defences. Only a madman would do otherwise.” Old Man glanced at the rats, and the rodents began to spread out. “Lord Tarrick is said to be many things, but a madman is not one of them.”
Detecting and disarming traps could be a risky, time-consuming affair. Triggering them was not. Something like, say, rolling a boulder down the stairs ought to do the trick. A boulder would also do a pretty good job of crushing their enemies. Katie had asked some of the rats to come up with more advanced boulder traps, but to her dismay – and Gerald’s quiet relief – the cunning rodents had yet to come up with anything fiendish enough for the young necromancer.
The air in front of Gerald shimmered, and a large boulder appeared. It was poised at the top of the stairs, perfectly balanced, until Old Man gave it a stout kick. As the boulder began to roll down the stairs, Jiren stopped muttering about the possible applications of runes and seals. His eyes widened comically, and he made a sound not unlike a startled seagull.
“What?” Jiren squawked. “A boulder?”
An assortment of traps went off in quick succession. Pits appeared, arrows fired, and acids flew, along with all manner of more bizarre obstacles. There was even a trap that unleashed what looked an awful lot like a gang of rabid rabbits, but the animals took one look at the oncoming boulder and scattered. Rabid or not, they weren’t about to pick a fight with several tonnes of rock.
“Hah! You think I’m afraid of some boulder?” Jiren had recovered his composure, and he gestured extravagantly. “A mere boulder is no match for the power of my exploding paper!”
Unfortunately for Jiren, this was no mere boulder. It was a boulder that Timmy had asked Gerald to store in case he ever needed a particularly large and sturdy projectile to throw at something with his earth magic. The boulder was solid granite, and all half a dozen sheets of exploding paper did was scorch the exterior. The boulder continued its descent, and all Jiren had to show for his efforts were some scorch marks.
“Never mind,” Jiren cried. “Move! Everyone, move!”
Even more unfortunately for Jiren’s men, the mage had forgotten one small detail – not all of the traps on the floor had been deactivated. One poor fellow went headlong into a spike pit, another was incinerated, and several more fell prey to a large pit full of cobras. As the remaining guards and Jiren finally managed to scramble to positions of safety, Old Man smiled at Gerald.
“Nicely done.” The rats squeaked their agreement, and Matisse patted Gerald on the shoulder.
“Uh… thanks.” He hadn’t done much. All he’d done was summon the boulder. Gravity had done the rest. Below them, the boulder thudded into the far wall and lurched to a stop. Interesting. That wall must be incredibly thick and sturdy because the boulder would have smashed through any normal wall. “But Jiren and some of the other guards are still around.”
“The rest of the rats and I will deal with them.” Old Man paused. “Although I don’t suppose you have some more of Timmy’s zombie warriors, do you? I haven’t seen any since we fought the half-elf.”
Gerald shook his head. “I lost them when he grew that giant tree. They haven’t come back, so they must have been destroyed.” As durable as the hulking zombies were, being pierced by dozens of roots and branches before being ripped apart and crushed would have been enough to destroy them. Hopefully, Timmy wouldn’t be too upset about losing them. Then again, the necromancer could always make more, and he was constantly refining his designs. More than once, he’d also told Gerald not to worry so much since he could always make more zombies, but there was only one Gerald. “I could summon some of the other zombies he gave me.”
“Perhaps later.” Old Man began to walk down the stairs, and Gerald followed him, keeping a close eye on their surroundings in case any other traps activated. “Wait at the bottom of the stairs. We can handle the rest.”
Gerald waited at the bottom of the stairs as Old Man breezed forward, light and easy on his feet. He’d paid close attention to which parts of the floor were safe and which were likely to have traps, and he moved from one safe spot to the next with speed that belied his age. The rats were a step behind him, scampering eagerly toward their targets.
“Stop him!” Jiren bellowed. “Don’t let them get close!”
The guards with crossbows opened fire as Jiren began to hurl paper at Old Man and the rats. The swordsman dodged the crossbow bolts and used the barest sliver of his magic to extend the range of his strikes, destroying the incoming pieces of paper before they could reach him. From the minute tightening of his expression, Gerald could tell that using his magic had come at a cost – the building’s magical defences must be formidable – but it had to be done. The rats followed his example with one of the demolition rats producing a steady stream of tiny explosives to blow up any paper headed their way. It was the sort of thing Avraniel would have loved – destroying exploding pieces of paper with explosions.
As Jiren called more paper out of the satchel he’d brought, one of the rats unleashed a flurry of needles. The mage was forced to use his paper defensively, forming a wall of the material to ward off the attack. Gerald had seen the ninja rats pierce steel with their needles, so Jiren’s magic must have some way of reinforcing the paper he used. However, with Jiren on the defensive, the rats were free to shift their focus. They darted over to the guards and drove the poor fellows off the safe sections of the floor. With their small size, incredible speed, and inhuman agility, the guards simply couldn’t lay a hand on them.
Gerald winced as one guard met a particularly gruesome end. In a bid to pry one of the ninja rats off his helmet, he stepped onto an unsafe section of t
he floor. A pit opened up beneath him, and he tumbled into acid. The rat leapt off, and the guard had just enough time to give a terrified wail before he dissolved. Gerald cringed. What an awful way to go.
Elsewhere, Jiren had abandoned his position on the floor in favour of soaring over the battlefield on a hastily crafted platform made out of dozens of sheets of paper. The so-called Master of Paper was busy lobbing paper at Old Man as fast as he could, but the swordsman was having none of it. The swordsman’s magic stirred, and he blurred into motion, so fast that all Gerald perceived was the crack of displaced air he left in his wake. He reappeared on the ceiling, and the front half of the platform fell away. Gerald’s eyes widened. Old Man must have used his magic to either slow down time for everyone else or hasten it for himself. It would explain how he had managed to move so quickly. Pushing off the ceiling, Old Man vanished again only to reappear on the ground. Behind him, the platform disintegrated, and Jiren tumbled to the floor. It was simple luck that allowed him to land on a safe section of the floor, and he scrambled to his feet only to screech to a halt as Old Man’s sword stopped a hair’s breadth from his throat.
“Wait!” Jiren cried. He looked to be somewhere in his late thirties to early forties with the heavily tanned skin of someone who’d lived along the coast for most of his life. “Is surrender still on the table?”
“You want to surrender? Our last opponent was loyal even unto death. I was under the impression that all of Lord Tarrick’s senior followers were.”
Gerald huffed at Old Man’s use of the title. As a bureaucrat, he was all for propriety. The title of lord should not be used willy-nilly. Timmy got to call himself Lord Bolton because Black Tower castle actually had been recognised as a seat of lordship for centuries, well before it had been taken over by necromancers. Lord Tarrick, however, was a criminal with illusions of grandeur. Being rich and having access to a seemingly endless horde of guards did not make him a lord, nor did running a vast criminal enterprise. If anything, he should be calling himself Boss Tarrick or Grand Boss Tarrick since he was arguably the most powerful crime lord in the Combine.
Two Necromancers, a Dwarf Kingdom, and a Sky City Page 7