by Bill Hiatt
“Monsters are made by deeds, not looks,” said Nancy. “I’ve met some handsome monsters in my time.” The tears in her eyes mirrored those in Morfran’s.
What Amy could remember of Nancy was all business. She was a woman who could handle herself in battle without a second thought. Why Morfran’s plight would upset her so much I couldn’t imagine.
“May I join your fellowship?” asked the hairy knight. “I have had so little use for my combat training in the last few centuries. I long for a good cause in which to fight.”
“When I said I was your comrade earlier, there was one detail I omitted,” said Tal. “I am…the counterpart of your comrade from another universe. In that universe, I fought beside your counterpart. I did not mean to deceive you, but at the time—”
Morfran did his best to smile. “I was ready to give one of your men a blade through the heart. I understand why you did not try to give me the full, head-spinning story. Why tell me now, though?”
“Because we’re not from this world, you’d be welcome among us if we intended to stay, but we need to return home. You’d have to say goodbye to your mother and sister—forever—if you wish to become one of us.”
Morfran sagged. “And I would not wish to leave them. At least I know I will be able to help you in battle against the evil Amen Hafez. That will be a more useful deed than I have been able to perform in a long time.”
Viviane opened her eyes. “The curse is definitely Celtic, as Ceridwen must have surmised long ago. I cannot sense who the caster might be, but the spell is incredibly sophisticated and powerful. Only someone like a faerie king could have pulled that off.”
“So my mother suspected—but which one? Gwynn ap Nudd is the only one in Wales, but Ireland is full of faerie kings—and not a one would ever accept responsibility. Nor would the faerie rulers of England, Scotland, or Brittany. Mother was never able to be sure who was to blame. The caster could have lifted the curse, but without knowing who it was—”
“I don’t recall any of the faerie rulers being hostile to your mother. That came later,” said Taliesin. “However, your father, Tegid, made enemies of many. Pardon me for saying this, but he had a reputation for cruelty, greed, and excess. I don’t remember much of him from when I was Gwion Bach, except that he beat me more than once.”
Mofran nodded. “It is why my mother left him. We were not there when his castle and the old town of Bala were sunk in a flood as punishment for his sins.”
“It sounds more likely, then, that the curse might have come from an enemy of your father’s,” said Viviane.
“He had many. That doesn’t narrow down the list of suspects much.”
“I can see one thing clearly. The curse is an overlay. Your genes are perfectly normal—”
“I have heard of genes, but can you examine such things?”
“It’s the advantage of combining magic with modern medical science,” said Stan. “She can examine all kinds of things that neither a doctor nor a mystic healer can. It’s the combination that really works wonders.”
“Again, I can make no promises,” said Viviane. “However, in theory, it would be possible to tear the curse away. Because of the manner in which it is attached, such an effort might pose risks for you, though I think we can manage if we have a while to work uninterrupted. The effort would require great power, though.”
“But great power we have,” said Ceridwen, who had just come into the room. “I have long been a loner, but I still remember a little of power sharing. We have…how many casters do we have? I can feel several in the room.”
“Counting you and Creirwy, six,” said Viviane. “We also have the lyre of Orpheus, an extremely powerful artifact upon which we can draw. The nonmagical members of the party can contribute what energy they can safely give. Michael can regenerate energy faster than most. Oh, and Lucas can dance up more as we work.”
“Never have I had so much power to make an attempt of this kind,” said Ceridwen, tearing up a little.
“Morfran, we should at least try. This may be the only time we will have so many willing allies.”
“What about Hafez?” asked Magnus. “By now, he has probably noticed you’re gone—if he didn’t let us rescue you for purposes of his own. What Viviane suggests is going to cause a major power surge. We might as well set off a fireworks display over Awen. He’s going to know we’re here.”
“The house and grounds are well-shielded,” said Ceridwen. “One of the things I’ve been doing is making sure those defenses are at full strength. Some of them had started to wane, but they are all working at the highest possible level now. Hafez would have to be standing practically on the front porch to sense anything. Nor would it be easy for him to get in even if he knew we were here.”
“We don’t know what the staff can do,” said Tal. “However, we can minimize the risk. Shar, stay out of the power sharing and stand guard.”
“The staff would have to be pretty tough to enable him to get past me.” Shar drew his sword with an emerald flash, and I felt the way it blocked magic. Amun-Ra himself would not have had an easy time casting a spell on him. It was hard to imagine a mortal, even one with a god-empowered staff, getting around him.
“Amenirdis, I’m also going to ask you to stay out of the power sharing unless necessary. We’ll link you up, but not draw on you unless we have to. You’d be better able to counter Egyptian magic than anyone else here.”
I nodded, hiding how offended I was that Tal would presume he could tap my power without asking. To maintain his trust and that of the others, I had to be as agreeable as I could manage. My scowl I kept on the inside.
“We should all remain alert,” said Magnus. Grudgingly, he added, “It does sound as if we can make the attempt safely, though.”
“Yeah, we’re not really in a position to go on the offensive against Amen Hafez until we know more,” said Tal. “Why not help out Morfran while we’re waiting?”
It would perhaps have been better to save our energy, but again I bit my tongue and kept my lips frozen in a smile. Watching Magnus had taught me how little point there was in opposing Taliesin.
I felt the familiar tingle as we were bound together. Taliesin might make decisions I found hard to understand, but his magic was effective.
Ceridwen led us to the sitting room Taliesin had been asking about earlier. The room was full of comfortable chairs and looked big enough for two families to live in. Shar, Alex, and Gordy pulled the chairs into a circle. Viviane put one in the center and led Morfran to it. Ceridwen lowered the lights to a soft glow.
“This is going to take as full concentration as all of you can manage,” said Viviane. “I have a good feeling about this, but the curse is strong. Removing it will require every ounce of magic we can muster.”
“Every ounce? Doesn’t that happen at least once a week?” asked Gordy, grinning. “We’re used to it by now.”
“Let’s get started, then,” said Viviane, sitting next to Morfran and again taking his face in her hands.
I glanced outward to make sure I caught no hint of Hafez. I could feel the shields humming all around us, but I could sense no trace of Apep’s servant.
I could feel the power flowing into Viviane from the others. Like Tal, she was a skillful caster. I couldn’t follow everything she did, but by watching closely, I could see the curse flickering blackly all around Morfran. Viviane’s energy, sometimes golden, sometimes blue as a deep lake, surged around the curse, gradually settling on it until it was like a thin film all over it. Then it thickened and brightened, a sheet of pure light that began to pull the curse outward, away from Morfran.
Magnus strummed the lyre and Lucas danced, his eyes vacant as the trance took him over. The power surged higher and higher. No wonder Magnus had been worried about drawing Hafez’s attention. Without Ceridwen’s concealment spells, magic of this level could be sensed by anyone with even a small aptitude for sorcery for many leagues in all directions. It would make seers
twitch half a world away.
If I were careful, I would have all this power to help me free Amun-Ra and set the world right.
The shield around the house shook as a lightning bolt struck it. I felt the power of Set behind that attack, but Set was no freer in this world than Amun-Ra.
“Hafez is attacking!” I yelled. Shahriyar raised his blade as if he expected Hafez to appear right in front of him.
“How could he know we’re here?” asked Taliesin. “Ceridwen, you assured us the shielding and the concealment were both working.” Implicit accusation hissed in his thoughts.
“They are. He must have found me missing and is searching for me. He’d look here. He can’t know we’re here, but he can probably sense the strength of the shields—too great for protections that have not been renewed in over twenty years. I should have known.”
“We need to counter his attack at once!” I insisted. Why were they not heeding me faster?
“Just a minute longer,” said Viviane. I glanced over and could see the curse tearing away from Morfran.
“We may not have a minute,” I said. A gale-force wind struck the shield, and I tasted the power of Amun. That I could counter, and I did. I was giving away my presence, but Hafez doubtless suspected I was here, anyway.
The rays of the moon became silver fire as they struck the shield—the power of Khonsu. The shield was holding, but I sensed cracks.
Raw magic struck the shield, hard as a war hammer, precise as a quill. The power of Thoth shook the shield enough to widen the cracks.
“Ceridwen, attend to your shield. It cannot stand against the united might of the Egyptian gods. The staff is even more powerful than I feared.”
“We are so close,” whispered Ceridwen.
“Close to being killed by Hafez.”
The fires of Sekmet blazed hotly against the shield. It quivered and began to melt against the onslaught.
“Push all the accumulated power into the shield through Ceridwen!” I yelled. “That’s the only way to save us.”
I could feel the power shift around me. Praise be to Amun, who made them hear my advice.
Morfran screamed. It was a blood-chilling sound, a scream of the man who knows that death is near and cannot avert it.
“The curse is pulling back—hard,” thought Viviane. “If we stop now, Morfran could be badly injured, even killed. His only hope is if we finish.”
“Our only hope is if we do not,” I thought back. No one responded.
I felt the power of Apep lashing the shield with chaos, parting it as the slave leader Moses parted the Red Sea. Our defenses would be stripped away in seconds, and no one was doing anything.
I fed the wind of Amun and the sun of Ra into the shield, but its collapse was already assured. Instead of coming back together, the two halves fell apart, disintegrating as they descended.
We might still beat Hafez, for he had expended much power just to destroy the shield, and, god blessed or not, the staff was not itself a god. Its power had to have some limits. But to defeat him, I needed to interfere with the effort to save Morfran. He would have to die that the rest of us might live.
Magnus’s eyes were closed, and his face was tense with concentration, but he was also frowning. He was the most likely to realize what needed to be done. I walked toward him, intending to strike him in an attempt to get his attention, but Shahriyar grabbed my arm.
“You heard what Viviane said. You can’t stop them now.”
I aimed a gust of wind at him strong enough to knock him over, but that accursed sword of his deflected it harmlessly.
An earthquake shook the house—Set’s power again—and the ceiling cracked. I heard a crash, possibly the front door being torn from its hinges.
“Wait! Your sword can stop all magic?”
“Anything I’ve ever encountered,” said Shar, eying me suspiciously.
“The others need to stop Hafez—now. If you give Morfran the sword, will that protect him from the curse backlash?”
“Viviane, you hear that? What do you think?” asked Shahriyar, still gripping my arm.
“Try it!”
I heard screams in the distance. Security had tried to stop Amen Hafez. Their efforts had not gone well.
Shar ran to Morfran and forced the sword into his hand.
The curse wasn’t broken—I could see that much—but it wasn’t able to fold around him again while he held the sword. An emerald layer formed around him, blocking the dire magic from engulfing him.
I saw his face—the face he would always have had if the curse had not concealed it.
I had thought Lucas was the most handsome man I’d ever seen, but it was Morfran, every bit as handsome as his sister was beautiful. He could easily have been a god in human flesh.
The floor shook beneath my feet. Hafez was getting closer. I could sense the differing powers of dozens of gods pulsing nearby.
Taliesin and his allies should have taken the force they had generated and flung it all at him in one giant blast that would have reduced him to ashes.
They didn’t. The disturbances around them had broken their concentration. Their eyes snapped open, then closed again as they tried to regain the right state of mind. Their idea was the same as mine, but would they have enough time to execute it?
The building shook hard enough to make me fear it would collapse on us—perhaps a better fate than what Hafez had in mind.
Did I see some kind of haze in the air? No, it was magic, a spell of Thoth, greatest sorcerer of the gods. It would make spellcasting difficult.
Since it took the form of haze, I turned the wind of Amun against it, but I couldn’t get enough power into the wind to dissipate the enervating cloud.
“Power sharing isn’t working,” thought Tal. “Prepare for physical combat. Hit Hafez with everything you’ve got. Knock the staff out of his hands if you can. Keep him from casting at all costs.”
Finally, a decent strategy—but I was unarmed. So was Shahriyar, whose blade was the only thing keeping Morfran alive.
The door tore from its hinges as if it had been caught in an indoor tornado.
The False Pharaoh
At first, there was no sign of Hafez. Instead, a mob of baboons—servants of the god Babi—charged through the door screaming an eerie battle cry.
Magnus slowed them with soothing music, but so driven were they by the power of the staff that he did not halt them completely. For a second, time seemed to slow down. The baboons crawled forward, and Taliesin’s warriors reluctantly raised their weapons.
“This isn’t the time to worry about animal rights, guys!” Magnus’s thoughts were as emphatic as a shout. “These are products of the supernatural, not regular creatures. Slice and dice!”
Animal rights? If animals were not sacred, they had no rights. However, if these creatures were truly here by the power of Babi, should I regard them as sacred?
Taliesin’s warriors had no such qualms. One of Eva’s silver arrows struck one of the closest baboons in the forehead, and he thudded to the floor. Stan—no, David—cut one of the creatures in half with a single blow. Jimmie took the arm of another with his blade surrounded in a pale-yellow glow. Nancy used the weapon Amy’s memories told me was a gun to send a small projectile—a bullet—crashing into the skull of one of the creatures. Gordy had only to raise his weapon to strike fear into the hearts of the remaining baboons. Only the unbreakable grip of the staff prevented them from fleeing in terror.
Standing their ground did them little good. Taliesin flicked fire at them. Lucas spun and kicked so fast his body blurred. Umbra dropped them with her dagger. It only took seconds to annihilate them.
The next attack—war lions of Sekhmet—was not so easily defeated. Sekhmet was also a goddess of fire, and the lions took Tal’s attacks as if they were no more than tiny sparks. Nor did the music of the lyre slow them as much as it had the baboons. Fire flared in the lions’ eyes, and they surged forward.
A large shot
of magic would have overwhelmed the beasts, but Thoth’s haze still inhibited spell casting. I tried and failed to raise enough sunlight to blind the lions. I glanced back at Carla and Viviane to see how they fared. Somehow, they were keeping Thoth’s haze at bay, or perhaps Shar’s blade was, or even the curse. Whatever the case, their casting seemed uninhibited. They ripped and tore at the curse, trying to force it further away from Morfran. He still clutched Shar’s sword as if is life depended on it—which it might. He was unbelievably handsome beneath the emerald glow. I had to tear my eyes away.
The lions pressed Tal’s warriors hard. Lucas was forced to use his speed primarily for evasion. His capoeira moves angered the lions but did not do enough damage to take them out of the fight. Swords did more damage, but the lions sometimes evaded the strokes or deflected them with their claws. They batted Eva’s and Khalid’s arrows aside.
Alex’s sickle-shaped sword seemed to be doing the most damage. Whether it was its uniquely sharp edge or the strength with which he swung it, he hacked away the claws that tried to block his attack. He hewed away limbs. The savagery of Sekhmet had met its match. The floor was slick with blood around him.
The air of the room heated up from a desert wind—the breath of Sekhmet. Through the doorway blazed harsh sunlight, for Sekhmet was sometimes empowered as the eye of Ra. Between the power of the staff and Thoth’s haze, I was powerless to divert the baking wind or the blinding light. Umbra was blinded and had to fall back. The others stood their ground, but the lion counterattack did damage. Jimmie’s sword hand was wounded, and he lost his grip on the blade. Gordy was smacked down by a lion’s paw, though his armor kept the claws from penetrating.
By now, many lions had fallen, though. Why were Taliesin’s warriors so hard-pressed? I had not noticed at first, but each time one of the lions fell, another charged through the doorway. If that continued, they would eventually take down all of the warriors.
Surely, Hafez must be nearing the staff’s limit. I could sense him nearby, but power still blazed around him like a small sun.
