The Choice of Magic

by Michael G. Manning

  “Told you,” said Selene coolly.

  Will managed to disentangle himself from Annabelle. “We’re leaving. It’s up to you if you want to come with us.”

  Annabelle answered immediately, “I’m in. Tracy?” She looked questioningly at the older woman.

  Tracy Tanner seemed uncertain, but then her jaw clenched, and her eyes shut tightly. “I’m only doing this for Joey,” she said finally.

  “Joey?” asked Selene.

  Annabelle explained, “Her son.”

  Will was afraid to ask, but he did anyway. “Is he…”

  “Dead,” said Tracy, her voice cold and empty. “The warehouses take up most of the southeast quarter.”

  “What do they look like?” asked Selene.

  “The only things in this town that aren’t tents are the warehouses, the brothels, and the commander’s residence,” said Tracy. “The southeast quarter is nothing but large warehouses made of rough timber.”

  Will felt like laughing. They had entered through the southwestern quarter, narrowly missing the area of their objective. If they had just turned right before reaching the center lane, they would have found them almost immediately. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

  “How?” asked Annabelle. “They sounded an alarm not long ago. That’s why we were all on the porch, trying to see what was going on.” She glanced at Selene. “The mist, was that you?”

  Selene nodded.

  “How are we going to do this?” asked Tracy.

  Will was full of anger over what the Darrowans had done to Annabelle and Tracy. He put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I’ll go down first and surprise Stan. Then Selene can re-summon the mist and we’ll head for the warehouses.”

  “You’ll have to kill the other girls too,” said Tracy, her tone unforgiving. “The old hag would stick a knife in us as easily as breathing. Marcy is almost as bad.”

  That gave him pause. Could he kill Stan and then drain the girls? Selene gave him a glance that clearly said ‘idiot.’ Then she wiggled her fingers. Oh, the sleep spell. He nodded.

  Selene led the way down the stairs, and before Will reached the ground floor, Stan and both of the other women were out cold. Annabelle began rummaging through Stan’s clothes and held up a bag of coins triumphantly.

  Selene gave will a sour look. “We aren’t here to steal.”

  “It’s our money anyway,” said Tracy, before spitting on the floorboards. “Bastards.”

  Will shrugged, and Selene summoned her mist again. The four of them stepped outside. “I can’t see anything,” complained Annabelle, grabbing Will’s hand. Will noticed a look on Selene’s face that could have peeled paint from a wall.

  Adjusting his vision again, Will told them, “We’ll form a line. Annabelle, hold onto my belt. Tracy can hold onto you, and Isabel will take the rear.”

  “Good plan, hero,” said Selene, her voice thick with sarcasm.

  They left the porch and threaded their way down the lane, taking the first right they came to. At the next intersection of lanes Will saw a large group of soldiers, but he was able to lead them around it without problem. Further on he saw a massive wooden building looming, along with another large group of soldiers. As they got closer, he could see that the warehouse was nearly a hundred yards across on its nearest side. In the distance a similar building rose from the mist behind it. “How many warehouses are there?” he asked.

  “Seven or eight?” said Annabelle uncertainly.

  “Nine,” answered Tracy. “They’re all about the same size, built side by side. If you can see the closest one then there’s two more to the left of it, and two more past it. They form three rows of three each.”

  “Damn,” said Will. The first one was huge. He could only imagine how much grain and other foodstuffs might be stored in buildings of that size.

  Someone called out from the group of soldiers, “They’re approaching! That mist isn’t natural.”

  Will focused on the source of the voice and saw a man with a burning flame above his shoulder. Shit, a sorcerer, he swore silently. He moved back along their line until he was close to Selene. “There’s a group of soldiers in the intersection ahead and they have a sorcerer with them.”

  “What sort of elementals does he have?” she asked.

  “Just one, fire.”

  She thought about it a minute before replying, “I could kill the soldiers, but the sorcerer will kill the rest of you. If I drop the mist so I can see him the soldiers will be all over us, but if I don’t drop the mist, I can’t use my water blades.”

  “You can’t use them at the same time?”

  “No,” she said dryly. “And you wouldn’t want me to anyway. Think about what would happen if I started whipping them around while blind. I’d be just as likely to kill you and your girlfriend as I would the enemy.”

  She’s definitely jealous, thought Will, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. “She isn’t my girlfriend,” he whispered.

  “Say it a little louder,” returned Selene. “She can’t hear you.”

  Exasperated, Will replied, “Neither can the soldiers. Isn’t that the point?” Selene said nothing, but her eyes were as hard as stone. “Can you set the warehouse on fire?”

  “I don’t have a fire elemental,” she said, her tone implying he was stupid for asking.

  “With a spell. Can’t you just absorb some turyn from them and make a spell to blast it?”

  “First, if I wanted to destroy something, ordinarily I’d just use one of my elementals, so I’ve never spent any time studying destructive spells. Second, most spells are small. Even at Wurthaven they don’t teach things like that.”

  Will was dumbfounded. “Why not?”

  “Because any wizard that attempted one would just wind up killing himself and no sorcerer would bother. Elementals are much better for that sort of thing.”

  Will had a feeling his grandfather would have disagreed, but it wasn’t the time to argue. As he watched the soldiers, he realized the sorcerer had walked to one edge of the group, and Will had an idea. “I’m going to leave you for a moment. When you hear them start shouting, or me shouting, drop the mist and come save me.” He walked away, letting the mist take him out of sight.

  “Save you?” Selene hissed. “Will! Wait. What are you doing?”

  He moved closer to the group of soldiers and shifted his vision back to normal so he could tell exactly how well he was obscured. Crouching low, he drew his sword and crept forward until he saw his first hint of a human figure, then he moved back a step and adjusted his vision until the mist vanished again. He was roughly ten feet from the soldiers. Any closer and they might spot him.

  The sorcerer was talking steadily, trying to reassure the soldiers with him. “They’re bound to be close, in the middle of this fog. Stay alert.”

  Will’s hand was hurting, and when he looked at it, he realized he was gripping his sword too tightly. Stay calm, he told himself. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled slowly, then he expanded the outer boundary of his personal turyn, so that he would begin absorbing more to fill the emptiness around him. Inhaling sharply, he lunged forward.

  The sorcerer saw him, and the man’s eyes went wide with alarm, but it was too late. Will drove his sword into the man’s chest and leapt away. Unfortunately, his sword didn’t come with him. It had caught on something, and try as he might he couldn’t pull it free. He was forced to leave it as the soldiers began to react.

  The soldiers weren’t behaving quite as he had hoped, either. None of them had shouted or called out. The fact that their sorcerer had been stabbed was still registering with those closest.

  And the sorcerer was anything but dead. The man was gasping with pain, but the thrust hadn’t been instantly fatal, as Will had hoped. The fire elemental swelled, and Will realized he was about to be roasted. “Selene!” he screamed. “Selene!”

  The mist began moving, rushing inward as though a strong wind was blowing, and then everythin
g was flames as the elemental’s attack washed over him. Will shut his eyes, unsure if he would die or not, but after a second he realized he was still alive. He opened them again and saw that the mist was gone. Three soldiers with spears were charging toward him. Shit. He started running, heading away from his friends in case the sorcerer unleashed another blast of fire.

  And then Selene was there, clad in stone and swinging blue blades of destruction. Men started screaming, and a severed arm flew past Will’s head. He watched in fascination as she waded into the soldiers. Selene’s swords didn’t seem to cut metal, and he saw one man’s sword almost pass through one of her blue blades before it was torn from the soldier’s grasp and sent flying through the air. Their mail armor was similarly unaffected, but it didn’t save them. Her weapons tore through padded gambesons and shredded the flesh beneath the armor. Men died in dozens, and Selene’s swords turned red as blood mixed with the water.

  The fire elemental rose up above them, a raging inferno, and Selene’s swords melded to become an opaque disc that she used to shield herself as another searing blast of flame came down on her. The result was a blast of steam that exploded outward from her, scalding the last two soldiers that stood within her reach. But the shield was gone.

  Will ran toward her as the sorcerer snarled and prepared a fresh attack. The man was on his knees twenty feet in front of her, sword still stuck in his chest. Ten soldiers were left beside him, but the sorcerer cautioned them, “Stay back. This will finish it.”

  Will reached Selene just as the next blast of flame came down on their heads. This time he felt the searing heat as his empty sphere reached capacity and he was forced to expand it even further as he tried to absorb everything the elemental threw at them. When the attack ended, he could feel his hair standing on end, and a globe of burning turyn surrounded him. He had reached his limit.

  The power he was holding threatened to consume him, and there was only one thing left he could do. Thrusting his arms out, Will released it, and a wave of incendiary power washed over the sorcerer, his men, and the corner of the warehouse behind them.

  The enemies’ screams were brief as their lungs filled with flame, and moments later their bodies were just smoldering, black lumps of flesh as they fell to the ground.

  Will looked at Selene first. “Are you all right?” She nodded, and then he glanced at Annabelle, who was huddled against the side of the tent on the opposite side of the square from the warehouse. Tracy was nowhere to be seen.

  He spotted her a moment later, or rather, he saw what was left of her. At some point she had run forward and to the side. She had been caught in the edge of his blast. Will screamed, “No!”

  The left side of Tracy’s body was blackened, and half her face was gone, yet there was still some life in her. Her head turned as she tried to see the world with eyes that had burned away. Her arms and legs thrashed against the hard earth. “No, no, no,” Will moaned, running to her side.

  Tracy’s mouth worked, opening and closing as she tried to speak with lungs that could no longer draw breath. “I’m so sorry,” Will cried. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen.”

  Mercifully, Tracy Tanner died a moment later, and her body grew still. Will felt Annabelle’s arms around his shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly.

  For some reason his first thought was of Sven, with a spear through his face. “Yeah it is,” he said slowly. “The moment you pick up a weapon, it’s your fault. It always is.” He stood and shrugged off the embrace before going back to Selene.

  “Can you make a new mist?”

  Selene had dismissed her stone armor, and Will could see that the elementals hovering above her shoulders looked smaller. “No,” she answered. “It will take a while before Syllannus recovers enough power. I’ve been using him steadily since we entered the camp, and that fire blast wiped out everything he had left.”

  He studied the elementals for a few seconds, seeing something he had never noticed before. The random wisps of turyn that floated through the air near them were being drawn in, sucked into the elementals. They’re absorbing ambient turyn—like me, he noted. It seemed important, but he wasn’t sure why. He filed the fact in the back of his mind for future consideration.

  The warehouse in front of them was blazing merrily, but more needed to be done. Shouts were coming from every direction. Will found the sorcerer’s corpse and quickly abandoned the idea of recovering his sword. The hilt was still too hot to touch, and the leather grip had burned completely away. Bending down, he held his palm above the sorcerer’s chest and pulled, extracting the heart-stone enchantment.

  As soon as he had it, he began plucking it apart.

  “Don’t!” exclaimed Selene. “William! You could use that to protect us! There are more soldiers coming. I can’t do this alone.”

  He shook his head and finished, the enchantment dissolving in his hands. The fire elemental expanded, becoming visible and towering over them. Please help us, thought Will. The warehouses need to be destroyed.

  He felt something, an emotion like gratitude, but he couldn’t be certain. The elemental bowed and turned away, moving toward the other massive, timbered buildings. “You’ve killed us all,” said Selene bitterly. “Was it worth it?”

  Will began whispering to himself, “Tailtiu, Tailtiu, Tailtiu. Thrice called, come to me.” He looked at Selene. “We just have to survive a little longer. Can your earth elemental keep the soldiers from reaching us?”

  Selene’s eyes were searching his face. “Maybe.” A moment later, her earth elemental pulsed and walls of earth grew from the ground around them at a distance of twenty feet, creating walls fifteen feet high. “You’re mad, you know that?”

  “I prefer to think of it as purposeful stupidity,” said Will.

  “What happens now?” asked Annabelle. They could hear soldiers gathering just outside the walls, shouting back and forth to one another.

  “In a few minutes one of their sorcerers will get here,” said Selene calmly. “Whatever elemental he has will take my walls apart. After that we’ll most likely die.”

  Will looked up at the sky. It was filled with smoke. “Will they be able to stop the fires?”

  Selene shrugged. “I don’t think so. Maybe if they have an elemental like my Syllannus, but water elementals are rare, and greater ones even more so. Fire or wind elementals will just make the blaze worse, and while an earth elemental might help put it out, the destruction would be just as bad.”

  “Greater?”

  She nodded. “You didn’t know? Both my elementals are considered major elementals. That’s why they recover so quickly. Most elementals have a limited capacity before they need to rest for a long period.” Something pulsed beneath her shirt, and Will saw a bright, golden glow radiate through her shirt.

  “No!” said Selene sharply. “Not now! Please!”

  “What is it?” asked Will. As he watched, power began to flow around Selene, rippling and shimmering.

  She screamed, begging, “Please! Don’t do this.” Her form became indistinct. The last thing Will saw of her was her desperate look at him, and she broke her own rule. “I’m sorry, Will, so sorry.” Then she was gone.

  In shock, he stared at the place she had just been standing. “What the hell?” Panic set in as he realized she was truly gone, though whether his fear was for her or himself he couldn’t be sure.

  “Will?” said Annabelle timidly. “What’s happening?”

  Before he could answer, the northwestern portion of Selene’s wall began to glow, turning red, then orange, before it began to slump and flow sluggishly to the ground. A wide hole formed, and then the entire wall on that side collapsed. Beyond it he could see another fire elemental, and behind that more soldiers. “Fuck,” he said, to no one in particular.

  Chapter 62

  “Stay close to me,” Will cautioned, pushing Annabelle behind him. He had no idea what to do, though. His last good idea had been waiting until Tailtiu
could get to them, but that seemed unlikely to happen now.

  Annabelle’s arms went around his waist, and she squeezed him briefly. “I can’t go back, Will. I can’t. You don’t know what it was like,” she whispered. Then her arms released him, and he felt a tug at his belt.

  Through the hole he saw a man lift a crossbow. “Stay behind me!” He never saw the man fire, but he felt something strike his chest like a hammer. A second blow staggered him as something slammed into his back, between his shoulder blades. He fell to one knee, and when he glanced up he saw Annabelle holding his belt knife.

  She stared at the unbloodied blade in shock for a moment. “I tried, Will,” she mumbled. “I wanted to save you too.” Then she reversed the blade in her hands, holding it out from her chest. “Forgive me.”

  “No!” Will surged up from the ground and caught her hands before she could drive the blade into her heart. Annabelle struggled with him, desperation and fear lending her more strength than he would have believed possible.

  “Let me go!” she shrieked. “I won’t let them take me. Not again! Not again!” Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she fought to end her life.

  Will felt two more hammer blows against his back and a sharp pain as something pierced his mail. Some of the soldiers were cheering the crossbowmen on as they reloaded. A shadow passed over him, and when Will looked up the largest owl he had ever seen dropped down and landed in front of him. It began to shift and change, and moments later Tailtiu was standing there, her hip cocked to one side with a hand resting on it.

  With a sly smile, she asked, “Want me to kill them?”

  Yes! he thought desperately, but something stopped him. “No! Get us out of here.”

  A quarrel appeared, sticking out of his aunt’s chest. She glanced at it in disgust, then pulled it free and studied it. The blood covering the iron head bubbled and smoked, burning away. “They really need killing.” His aunt lifted one hand, and vines shot up from the ground, forming a tight wall of greenery across the breach in Selene’s earthen wall. “Who’s the trollop?” she asked with a sneer, gazing at Annabelle.