by Sever Bronny
“That was an interesting trap,” the man said, before blithely continuing on, unaware that he had not sprung a trap at all.
Augum felt a tinge of disappointment at not being able to affect the man. Yet he also found this new strength invigorating. In this form, he was Atrius Arinthian, or at least an echo of his knowledge, applying that ancient arcanery to perfection.
Until it began to recede, that is.
The tuning power suddenly flickered like a candle in the wind, and continued to do so. Augum used the remaining precious moments to cast another semi-complex Seal in the path of the Lord of the Legion, hoping it would slow him just enough.
Time. He had bought them time. The castle was fortified, the horde kept at bay … but not for long.
Gauntlet
Augum appeared in the foyer and immediately collapsed, vomiting, feeling unlike himself. His body was a noodle. It was languid and weak and pitifully mortal. The scion rolled around on the floor beside him, silent, dark. Gasping, he fumbled for it, finally managing to grasp it with a cold and clammy hand. He could hear distant pipes as they dropped in pitch, steadily readying for another rousing onslaught with a slow build.
The girls were talking to him in frantic worried voices, but his mind was still trying to grasp what it was like being mortal again, feeling flesh and bone and weakness. What he had glimpsed was infinity, having crossed some kind of arcane ethereal boundary to a whole other plane, becoming pure spirit. He had used true ancient arcanery, like Centarro or Annocronomus Tempusari … and it had been incredible.
Bridget and Leera dragged him to his feet while the questions poured forth.
“Were you a ghost—?”
“How’d you blast them like that—?
“What was that? How’d it feel—?”
“Spirit Form,” he gasped. “One with … one with the castle. Can’t … can’t really describe it.”
“So why didn’t you remain in that state?” Leera pressed, wiping under his nose with a cloth. He hadn’t even noticed it had been bleeding.
“Not practiced enough,” he replied, still gasping. A supreme headache was smashing his brain. He tried to fight it but that only seemed to make it worse. Instead, he let go and allowed it to consume him, judging that a better strategy.
“What now?” Bridget asked, brows furrowed.
“Gauntlet.”
She yanked him aside suddenly as if an attack had come. But when he turned to look for the enemy, he saw nothing.
“Just, uh, ignore that,” she said, adding in a mutter, “Darn shadows. Sparkstone on his way in?”
Augum nodded as he winced, not really wanting to speak.
“We better hurry then,” Jez said, rushing them along. “Move it, misfit monkeys. Final positions. Go, go, go—”
Augum stumbled along. His strength returned with each step, as did his arcane stamina, though at a slower pace. The scion had to be regenerating his strength, for it rapidly flashed with silent lightning. It seemed to him that not only was he tuning to the castle, but to the scion too.
As he gained his stride, he once more marveled at what he had experienced in Spirit Form. He could barely articulate what that had been. The closest thing he could think of was unmentionable, for it seemed like he himself had become an Unnameable. A ridiculous thought, yet to an observing Ordinary …
He dared another thought, however. Would it be possible to combine it Annocronomus Tempusari?
“Be ready, Alyssa,” Augum said as they strode by the well.
“Who are you talking—” Leera stopped, smiling. “Oh, right.”
As the group passed through the open gate and into the hall that would take them to the round domed chamber with the dragon chandelier, Augum stopped. The bagpipes filled the hall with a soaring, echoed sweetness.
“Here?” Leera asked.
“It’s what we planned,” Bridget replied.
“Well then stop dallying, Stone,” Jez said. “We don’t have the time and I feel myself getting old watching.” It seemed her anger about their screw up had dissipated, which made Augum feel a little better.
He withdrew the divining rod from his belt and let it fall from his hands. It clattered to the ground, the final piece of the ruse. But as they stood there staring at the significance of it, he realized something.
“He’s going to see right through it.”
Leera waved dismissively. “Don’t be paranoid.”
“Can we take the chance?”
“Nothing we can do about it,” Jez said.
“There is.” Augum looked between them all. “But I’ll need to ask permission first.”
“What? What are you yapping on about, Stone?”
But there was no time to waste. Augum closed his eyes and prepared himself. He already knew the spell, able to perform it with the aid of the scion. As he readied the words on his lips, he vividly drew the destination in his mind and took a series of deep breaths, summoning inner strength and beating back the noodle feeling in his bones.
“Impetus peragro.” The scion flashed as his body yanked. There was a THWOMP as he appeared inside the dark room with the covered body of Constable Clouds. No one else was able to teleport within the castle. That was strictly for the Keeper of the Keys.
Augum closed his eyes once more and used the vision power to soar over to the bathing rooms, where the people hunkered together in the darkness, listening to the awful—albeit muted—sounds from above. There he found Devon sitting off by himself, holding his legs, rocking back and forth.
“Devon, it’s Augum …”
Devon’s head shot up, whispering, “Augum—?”
“Yes. And I’d like to ask your permission for something …”
* * *
Augum soon returned to his body in that dark room. “Please forgive me, Constable,” he whispered, placing a gentle hand on the still form that was covered by a white sheet. “I received permission from your son. He misses you terribly. We all do. If it is all right with you, Constable, I would like you to perform one last duty for the Resistance.” He paused, though what he expected from that pause, he did not know. Then he gently removed the white sheet, revealing the man. His face was waxy pale, lips blue.
Augum readied the next spell. The casting of the 17th degree Group Teleport spell would once more require him to perform a feat of legend, meaning he’d have to overdraw, using wild arcanery as the supply. It was dangerous, but he’d done it before, aided heavily by the scion. It was a feat impossible for an ordinary 5th degree warlock.
Yet Augum was no ordinary warlock.
He only thanked the Unnameables his arcane stamina replenished at a faster rate now.
The scion’s buzz amplified as he tapped his arcane reserves, quickly drawing from the painful beyond. Then he perfectly visualized his destination along with the nuanced meanings behind each sacred word.
“Impetus peragro grapa lestato exa exaei.”
He and the body of Constable Clouds were yanked with a THWOMP. They reappeared back in the domed chamber, Augum’s stomach roiling and head pounding. Even with the scion, the Group Teleport spell itself was almost beyond his competency. Yet he had trusted his instincts, refined by multiple wild castings and by repeated boundary expansions. And sheer daring, for that is how warlocks died … arrogance combined with wild arcanery.
Still, it was amazing how quickly he recovered from spells and weakness now. It’s what suddenly made him understand why kingdoms went to war for scions. They were just that powerful. It was obscene … and his father has six of them!
Jez raised a questioning finger as her other hand pointed at the body. Her mouth opened to speak but she said nothing. After repeatedly trying to utter a single word, she finally blurted, “Did he just … did he just perform a feat of legend?”
The girls nodded, smiling.
“He’s … he’s only 5th degree. He’s only 5th degree.”
The trio watched her struggle with the concept.
“But … but that’s …”
“Impossible?” Bridget said.
Jez gaped, hands hovering awkwardly.
“Yeah, we know,” Leera added with a smirking nod. She punched Augum’s shoulder. “Nothing surprises me with this one anymore. Besides, how do you think we got back from the Black Castle?”
“I thought … I thought Hawthorne brought you back.”
But Augum was focused on the body. He used Telekinesis to gently flip the man over, making it appear as if he had fallen. Then he took the divining rod and placed it in his waxy, stiff hand.
“Devon will never forgive you,” Leera muttered.
“Yes he will,” Bridget said.
“He already did,” Augum replied. “I asked permission,” adding under his breath, “War sucks.”
The ruse complete, they moved on. Augum, blood stirring with the marching-style tune blared by Mr. Fungal’s pipes, led with purpose, soon striding past the first of five ballistae that, combined with the numerous freshly spawned arcane traps, made up the gauntlet. The Lord of the Legion, guided by the divining rod, would follow this exact path, as on the other end would be Augum and the final scion.
“Rip him in two,” Olaf said, manning an invisible fortified ice ballista perched in the crown of a nearby tree.
“We smash and make devil pay,” Sasha said in her Abrandian accent from within another invisible ice ballista hidden in a hollowed-out oak tree trunk.
“Glory to the Resistance,” Elizabeth’s muffled voice came from within a nearby boulder.
“Was that Elizabeth?” Bridget asked.
“Uh huh,” Augum replied.
“I wasn’t imagining that?”
“Nope.”
“And she was inside the rock?”
“Yup.”
“But—”
“Tuning, Bridge, get with it,” Leera said in playfully sarcastic tones.
Augum had hidden her in the boulder after finding it empty, creating a tiny hole for her to shoot from.
“This is crazy, but then so am I!” Isaac hollered from within his invisible watery ballista, hidden between the trees along the path. “Good luck!”
“You too!” they called back.
They waved at Jengo, who remained hidden in a giant tree trunk, behind a quaint door. He had to crouch to peek through its tiny window, carved in the shape of a heart. It was his healing station.
“G-g-good luck, Your Highnesses!” Garryk called, manning an invisible air ballista perched on the edge of a tree house.
“Wish I could see them,” Leera said after wishing Garryk good luck as well. She followed Jez, who wandered around a hidden explosive ground trap.
“But then so would the Lord of the Legion,” Bridget replied, stepping around the same trap.
His six scions might allow him to see them anyway, Augum thought morosely. Nonetheless, he was prepared for that. With the exception of Alyssa’s, all these ballistae were teleportable, including the people that manned them. It was something he intended on taking full advantage of.
But would the ballistae even affect the Lord of the Legion? All they needed was one true strike each. And because they were invisible, Sparkstone would need time to find them. By then, Augum would teleport them away. He was superbly grateful for Spirit Form, for it was the one part of the plan he had gambled with. If it wasn’t for that power, he’d probably have cancelled Gauntlet as a strategy altogether, instead going with their backup plan—attacking the Lord of the Legion directly once he got inside, specifically in the round domed chamber, for it had enough space to take full advantage of Annocronomus Tempusari.
One thing was for sure—the man was on his way at that very moment, and it was now Augum’s responsibility to manipulate his path through the gauntlet using Spirit Form. This was the part he had to play and what the entire plan rested upon. He was supposed to have had another day to practice Spirit Form, but his huge mistake with Bowlander had prevented that, and now they had to deal with it. He only hoped the scion would get him back to full strength before they faced the Lord of the Legion, an encounter that drew nearer with every tense heartbeat.
They soon came upon a wide glade, the place they had decided gave them the best chance for victory, for the trees would afford a possible retreat if necessary.
The final check before battle was done wordlessly while listening to a tense but distant bagpipe melody. Arinthian armor and vambrace buckles were tightened, war rings adjusted, reflecting crystals palmed in their left hands, Slow Time scrolls pored over one more time to ensure quick casting. The cavern was lit with an apocalyptic crimson light, as if echoing the ocean of fire above. A crisp breeze blew at their hair and robes. The air stank of burning evergreens … and war.
Augum flicked his tuned vision to the battle outside. The horde was relentlessly attacking the castle, trying anew to breach its doors. The base of the castle dome had begun to crack in places. It was only a matter of time until there was another breach, most likely multiple. As fierce as the ballistae attacks were, there were simply too many enemies. The remaining bull demon was taking the brunt of the general Resistance onslaught, led by Mrs. Hawthorne from the terrace. Nearby, a giant air elemental fought with multiple wraiths and towering Red Guards. Leland’s Agonex army had mostly crumbled, though some pockets remained, fighting armored reavers and necromancers.
He next flicked to the secret entrance, finding the Lord of the Legion at the end of the tunnel, still working to undo Augum’s Seal spell. Time was almost up, and Augum returned to his body.
Jez finished adjusting her chainmail, polishing the crest with her sleeve. The trio stood before her in the center of the glade, surrounded distantly by the forest. She leveled her gaze at each of them.
“A normal mentor would say something …” She made a vague twirling gesture with her hand. “… profound, or whatever.” She forced a smile. “Be brave. Be strong. Do your best, and apply everything you learned with Mrs. Stone.”
“And what we learned with you,” Leera added, chin rising.
“I hate mushy stuff, monkeys, so you go on and do your thing. I’ll do what I can to keep everyone safe.” She wagged a stern finger at Augum. “Just because I saw you cast a feat of legend doesn’t mean you’re better than your mentor.”
“Of course not.”
“Because I’d go toe-to-toe with that evil man if I had spent months training with Cron.”
“Gotcha.”
“But I don’t need to age faster.”
“Right.”
“Right.”
“Right,” Leera echoed, suddenly embracing Jez.
“Let’s not overdo it, you rascal,” Jez said, ruffling Leera’s hair but still giving her a hug. “Oh, come here you two,” and drew Augum and Bridget in for a tight hug. Then she let go, gave them a bittersweet smile, and strode off back to the forest. She would not be able to help them, not without a Slow Time scroll, for otherwise the Lord of the Legion would be a blur, impossible to fight. It was also the reason they could not surround the Lord of the Legion with ballistae, as those ballistae would fire in slowed time in relation to the trio and the Lord of the Legion. Otherwise, Augum would have utilized everybody in one great fight.
“Hey, what degree is Slow Time anyway?” Augum asked.
Bridget raised a brow at him. “You don’t know?”
“I don’t either,” Leera volunteered.
“Then I’ll tell you later. We need to focus on what’s coming.”
“Jerk,” Leera muttered.
“Hush or I’ll tell a joke.”
“Gah.”
The trio took a deep breath together. The tender music of the bagpipes began soaring again, drawing out the tension.
“Ready?” Augum asked, meeting the girls’ gazes and trying to ignore the horrible butterflies in his empty stomach.
“Ready.”
“Ready.”
“Armari elementus totalus,” they chorused, summoning their elemental armor.
<
br /> Augum nodded. “Time to war.”
The Stalker
Augum used his tuned vision to watch the Lord of the Legion finally break into the castle wine cellar, telekinetically shoving aside an oak cask like it was nothing more than a tiny stone. Augum had left his physical body behind along with the scion. It stood beside Bridget and Leera in the glade. He flicked back to his body to say, “He’s in.”
“Here we go,” Leera said, squeezing his hand. “Good luck, love.”
Going to need it, he thought as he flicked back to the wine cellar where the Lord of the Legion straightened to his full height. He was wearing a magnificent but deathly helm in the shape of a skull, with a crimson horsehair plume. The family Dreadnought blade Burden’s Edge hung at his hip. Six scions buzzed around him like wasps. Even in Spirit Form Augum caught the putrid stench of sulfur emanating from the man.
The Lord of the Legion suddenly turned his great head to the spot Augum’s consciousness floated. Augum instinctively recoiled and floated to the side. Alarmingly, the man’s gaze followed. His head tilted in what Augum deemed interest. Had he been seen? Or was it just a distortion in the arcane ether only the Lord of the Legion could see?
The man finally turned away and strode forward in the darkness, boots crunching ancient glass shards from long-pillaged bottles of wine. He flicked a finger and the door ripped off its hinges, the demonstration making Augum’s physical body, still back in the glade, tense.
But he couldn’t let it distract or intimidate him. Always monitoring the health of the castle’s superstructure, he floated his awareness to the well where Alyssa waited with bated breath. Together they watched as the Lord of the Legion exited the wine cellar, entering the main cellar. There he stopped to quietly listen to the castle, to the distant reverberations of attack. And as he listened, Augum felt those attacks prodding his being. It was an uncomfortable sensation, as if fish were nibbling at his toes.
Alyssa did not pull the trigger on her ballista. As trained, she was waiting until Sparkstone closed the gap, giving him less time to react. Augum’s consciousness hovered around her, ready to teleport her out of there as quickly as possible.
