by R. L. King
Once they located the house proper, it was an easy matter to head out into the woods, find a suitable clearing, and set up the materials they would need. So far they hadn’t heard anything out here but the wind and a few small animals, but they had set a couple of magical warning devices thirty yards or so away, one toward the house and one in the direction of the road; if anyone blundered near, they’d know about it and could take appropriate action.
The Three stood inside the circle they’d made, hands clasped, each concentrating on his or her specific task. Individually none of them was highly accomplished at this sort of thing, but to their fortune, magical rituals’ power multiplied significantly depending on the number of people involved in casting them—and when you added that to the fact that they’d worked together for so long that they could practically read each other’s thoughts, it meant that their individual deficiencies in skill were largely negated by the sheer amount of power and focus they could bring to the table when working together.
They had tried to anticipate any potential difficulties in casting the circle and performing the ritual: things like bringing along tall enclosures for the candles to shield them from the wind, and a larger barrier to put around the brazier in the center for the same reason. They had each provided a bit of blood to fuel the casting (usually one contribution was sufficient for their minor rituals) and had made a point to stop by a nightclub for an hour or two earlier that night to top up their power so they would be at their strongest.
All of this, when it came down to it, was because they were afraid. They’d never admit it, of course: The Three never admitted to being afraid of anything. But when the entity, whatever it was, had taken control of their previous ritual, transported them to a different location in magical space, and imposed its images and impressions upon their minds, they realized that they were dealing with a being of vast power—and one that had far more experience manipulating arcane forces than they did.
And it wanted out.
That’s what it had told them. It was imprisoned. Though the bars of its confinement were beginning to slip enough that it could communicate with those who were sensitive to the vibrations of the supernatural world, it was impatient. It didn’t want to wait any longer. The blond boy knew where it was held, but he didn’t have the power to release it. The dark-haired man had the power, but he was wily and dangerous, and difficult to tempt. And so it had reached out to The Three, with promises of power and forbidden knowledge if they could aid it in breaking free of its prison. They had listened to its offer and agreed to help.
And then the ritual had ended, and The Three, as they were inclined to do, began to wonder if there might be a way that they could turn this situation more to their own advantage. The entity (they had no idea yet what else to call it) had been imprisoned: that meant that someone had imprisoned it. And if it could be imprisoned, perhaps it could be bound.
The ritual tonight was not designed to bind it: in fact, if all went as they planned, it wouldn’t even notice what they were doing. Although The Three were young, and impatient for results themselves, even they wouldn’t attempt to harness power of this thing’s level without some serious advance reconnaissance. It would be equivalent to trying to disarm a powerful bomb while possessing neither schematics nor even a basic understanding of what kind of bomb they were working on. In other words: very bad idea.
The reason they were here tonight, then, was to perform that reconnaissance. Their aim, should they pull off the ritual successfully, was to get a better idea of what kind of magical thing they were dealing with, and what kind of power level it had. Was it a spirit, a physical being with magical powers, an extradimensional entity of some sort—or something they’d never even seen before? If it turned out to be any of the first three, they had a chance of being able to deal with it. They didn’t have the knowledge now, but part of Miguel’s most valuable contribution to their little cabal was his unsurpassed skills at research, surveillance, and other similar things he called “magical spy stuff” (which often included stalking, but that wasn’t relevant to the subject at hand).
So far, the casting was going well. It had taken them over an hour to set up the circle, and once they joined hands and began channeling their power into a shared spell, they found what they were seeking nearly immediately. There was something there, and it was somewhere inside the house. They did their best to be subtle, to search around the edges of its consciousness without alerting it to their presence. As far as they could tell, its “mind” (or whatever you called it in the case of an entity like this) seemed to be elsewhere, or disassociated—as if it were asleep and dreaming. They got too close a couple of times and felt it stir, reaching out to try to find them, but they pulled back and held off their continued search until it had quieted once again. It wasn’t the kind of work they enjoyed doing: all three of them preferred their magic faster, more visceral, and more immediately gratifying, but so far this seemed to be working as they hoped.
They didn’t have much left to do tonight—maybe another half an hour’s work at most plus whatever time it took to dismantle the circle. If they were successful, they could then go back home, do their research, and prepare a trap. Sure, they would “help” the entity break free of its prison—but it didn’t have to know that they were preparing another, even more permanent, one for it to occupy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Stone buttoned up his overcoat. The wind was picking up, whistling through the trees and slicing at him, even through the coat’s thick wool. His ribs were beginning to ache again, and he wondered if he should take another pain pill.
Not yet. Not until I find out more about this thing.
He’d quickly determined that if he was to have a hope of triangulating on the thing inside the house, he’d have to start outside. The mansion was simply too large, with too many haphazard passageways and long corridors—it was like trying to find something in the middle of a maze, and he didn’t have time to keep backtracking every time he chose the wrong path. Outside, he could figure out the general part of the house where it was located, then try to home in more carefully inside without having to explore the entire place.
It was almost three o’clock now. The fog obscured the moon, so there wasn’t much light once he got out past the boundaries illuminated by the perimeter lighting; he summoned a small light spell centered around his hand and held it up to show him the way. He’d have to move out some distance if he wanted to do this quickly.
Keeping his magical senses open, he left the lighted area and headed out into the forest. It was hard to track the creature and walk through the uneven terrain at the same time; twice he almost tripped over a root or branch and had to shift back to mundane vision to avoid it. Even so, though, he could still sense the entity. It was stronger now, but still diffuse. He couldn’t explain why; the best way he would describe it if asked was that it felt like only a subset of a greater whole was actually here—but that a significant part of it existed somewhere else. As he had inside the house on the first night, he sensed both a deep, abiding hatred and a longing for something, but he wasn’t sure for what.
He moved further out, keeping his little light spell glowing on his hand. It wasn’t much help, as it only lit an area three feet or so in diameter around him, but it was better than nothing and if he moved slowly he could watch both the mundane and the magical worlds without too much fear of catching his foot on something.
He was getting closer; he could feel it.
The Three were jolted out of their concentration by the sound of their magical alarm going off. “What the—” Miguel began, looking around.
“Fuck! Somebody’s out here?” Oliver, too, began swiveling his head to try to spot the intruder.
“Damn it, hold it together, you two.” Trin’s voice sounded strained as her companions let their grips slip on their parts of the pattern and she struggled to pick it up. “Miguel, go check it out. Oliver and I can hold this for a few minutes. But
make it fast. We don’t have time to start over.” Her green eyes met his. “If you find somebody out there, take ’em out, then get back here quick.”
“With pleasure,” Miguel said, grinning. He paused, closing his eyes and carefully taking himself out of the pattern the three of them were weaving, waiting until Trin and Oliver had picked up the threads before stepping out of the circle. Once his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, he faded into the forest, pulling a spell around him to obscure him from the view of anyone who might be nearby. He found a spot away from the circle, hid behind a tree and waited. His hands hummed with power, itching to release it on whatever unfortunate fool had blundered into their business.
It was only a minute or so before he saw the light approaching. Someone was definitely coming. He glanced back over toward the circle: he could barely see its flickering candles through the trees, but only because he knew what he was looking for and where to look. Would the intruder spot it as well? He waited.
The intruder approached closer. A tall, thin, dark-haired man dressed in some kind of long coat, he held a flashlight in his hand, and—
Wait a minute.
Miguel strained to get a better view.
That wasn’t a flashlight.
His breathing quickened a bit, more from excitement than fear.
There was another mage out there.
He forced himself to be patient, to wait for the man to approach closer. He didn’t have a lot of time to wait, but he wanted to be sure what he was dealing with. If this had been a mundane intruder, there would be no defense. He could just hit him with something that would be certain to take him down. But with a mage, there was always the element of uncertainty. He’d probably only get one chance, so he’d have to make it count. For now, he focused on keeping his blending spell up and watched as the mage moved into his line of sight.
Miguel had never seen Alastair Stone before, but he’d heard Trin’s description. He stared. Could it be? How could Stone be here? He thought Trin had said her thugs had put him in the hospital, but he seemed to be moving fine, if a bit slowly. He held his light spell in front of him and stepped gingerly over fallen roots and branches, all the while heading in the general direction of The Three’s circle. Had he seen it?
Miguel grinned. It didn’t matter. In a couple of minutes it would be all over.
Stone continued picking his way through the uneven terrain, trying to watch both directly in front of him and out into the forest at once. He was still getting closer; he sensed a significant source of magical energy up ahead somewhere now. He hoped he could find it soon, as the cold was really starting to seep in through his overcoat and do a number on his ribs. Once he’d identified the location, he could go back inside. Magically it might not be safer, but at least it would be warmer, and he wouldn’t have to keep moving around so much.
He was looking toward the house, trying to spot the source, when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye, further out in the forest. “Odd...” he murmured. There shouldn’t be anything out there—he was sure whatever he was looking for was coming from the house.
Still, he was nothing if not thorough. Stopping, he focused his attention on the direction where he thought he’d seen something. For a moment there was nothing, but then he picked out several tiny glows down close to the ground. And—
Magical energy.
The same magical energy he’d noticed a trace of before.
Bugger! There’s another mage here!
And then something bright lanced out of nowhere and slammed into him, driving out all further thought.
Got him!
It took all his self-control for Miguel not to whoop aloud in triumph when his concussive blast hit Stone square in the chest and blew him backward out of sight. So much for the so-called “powerful” mage. He might be powerful, but by The Three’s standards he was old—old and slow.
Miguel wondered if he’d killed him. He listened for a moment, heard no sound, and thought about going after him, to finish the job. But Trin had said to come back quickly, or there was a risk that their whole ritual would fail. Much as he hated it, he knew that was more important. With one last glance back toward where Stone had gone flying, he grinned again and loped off back toward the circle.
Stone couldn’t think straight.
He’d blacked out for a moment, but when he came to, every nerve in the core of his body was on fire. His ribs felt like someone had snapped them. What the hell was that?
He thanked whatever gods or lucky stars looked out for him that he’d spotted the movement behind the tree just quickly enough to get a shield up, or he’d probably be dead now. With no time to react it hadn’t been much of a shield, but at least it had soaked the worst of the damage when his body had slammed hard into a tree. Still, he was afraid he might have collected a couple more cracked ribs for his trouble.
Concussion blast, he thought grimly, struggling to his knees. That wasn’t the kind of magic every mage knew—not by a long shot. There was no prohibition about mages learning combat spells, nor was there any governing council or other body that dictated what they could and couldn’t do or learn. But he was the only white mage he knew who even bothered with that sort of thing. Combat magic was very difficult stuff for white mages, due to the way it was powered, just like long-term enchantments were difficult for black mages.
Which meant that he was most likely dealing with a black mage.
He was disgusted with himself for taking so long to arrive at that conclusion. He couldn’t afford to be out of it now. Quickly he glanced around to make sure that whoever it was, he or she wasn’t now sneaking up on him and preparing to deliver the final blow. With effort he re-established his shield, stronger this time, using one of his crystals to power it. They wouldn’t catch him by surprise this time.
He grabbed the tree and dragged himself up the rest of the way. His chest and sides were on fire. He thought about taking one or two of the pain pills in his pocket, but decided against it. The pain was bad enough, but a dulled brain when going against a black mage would be worse. If the mage wasn’t coming after him, it had to mean one—or possibly both—of two things: that they thought they’d killed Stone or incapacitated him, or that they had more pressing things they had to deal with.
The lights.
Whatever was going on, they were the key.
Slowly, carefully, Stone began moving in the direction where he’d seen the lights. He didn’t use his own light spell this time, fearful that the other mage would spot it. He didn’t want to take another hit, even with his shield up. Still, he had to hurry: the small crystal wouldn’t power the shield spell for long. He wove a blending spell, using another crystal to power it, then moved forward again, hoping that the mage wouldn’t hear him huffing like a freight train as he crept through the forest. He was having a hard time getting a deep breath. One way or another he was going to have to deal with this soon, because before long he wouldn’t be able to.
Miguel reached the circle, grin still fixed on his face, and stood waiting at its edge.
Trin, face focused on her task, shifted concentration a bit to provide an opening for him to re-enter. “Did you find anything?”
Miguel stepped back in, joined hands with Trin and Oliver, and picked up his part of the pattern before he replied. “It was Stone,” he said.
“Fuck!” Oliver breathed, glancing out as if expecting him to be standing there.
“Don’t worry. I took him out.” Miguel sounded pleased with himself.
“How—” Trin began.
“He didn’t even see me coming. I might have killed him, even.”
“You’re not sure?”
“You said come back fast. We can check after. I don’t think he’ll bother us, though.”
Trin wasn’t so sure. “Let’s wrap this up,” she said. “If he’s still out there somewhere and you didn’t kill him, I want to be out of here before he wakes up.”
This was just getting w
orse and worse.
Stone stood behind a tree, shield and blending spells still up, watching the magical circle.
There were three of them.
Not just one. Three.
And what the hell were they doing?
They stood in a circle, hands clasped, and with his magical sight Stone could see that they were calling up a significant amount of power—but why?
He stayed quiet, trying to still his breathing so they wouldn’t hear him, but they seemed completely occupied by what they were doing. He recalled the ruined beacon he’d passed (how had he missed it the first time?) that had probably alerted them to his presence in the first place—whatever they were trying to accomplish here, they didn’t want anyone to see it.
Were they somehow responsible for what was going on in the house?
He studied them. The woman looked vaguely familiar: tall, dark red hair, tattooed forearms. He didn’t think he’d ever met her, but he’d seen her in some context before. He recognized the circle construct, though: the three of them were definitely black mages. This was an odd ritual for their type to be doing—spells like the concussion blast were much more their style. This ritual didn’t even look like it was designed to hurt anyone. Instead, it appeared to be set up to study something. But what—
And then he understood.
They were doing the same thing he was: trying to figure out what was in the house. The tendrils of magic that carefully, subtly (since when were black mages that young subtle? Stone had never met one who was) creeping out and toward the house had been designed and constructed to gather information.
