by K. E. Mills
Straight away, because it was close, he stumbled across the incant Lional had used to keep Melissande locked behind her own doors. Very nasty. Brilliant, but nasty. It was nothing short of a miracle that Monk had been able to break it. Briefly he felt a burst of pride in his friend. Crazy Monk Markham, the metaphysical genius. On the heels of pride, sorrow.
He’s going to be so angry when he finds out what I’ve done.
With a grunt he wrenched himself away from that profitless line of thinking. It didn’t matter how Monk felt, or Reg, or Melissande. Or at least he couldn’t let it matter. He let himself sink more deeply into that dark place Lional had hollowed out inside him.
Sentiment is weakness.
Eyes still closed, leaning against the corridor wall now, his body shaking, he pushed further and harder. Stirred up in his blood, the remains of Lional’s curses started screaming. Or were they his own screams? Either way, it didn’t matter. The only important thing now was finding the Lexicon.
A tug on his potentia. A sharp rebound. A sudden burning conviction. That way. On a deep breath he opened his eyes, pushed off the wall and started walking. Instinct dragged him along, dragged him almost to jogging, down corridor after corridor, up staircase after staircase, heading for the palace’s highest floor. The closer he got to Lional’s domain the harder his potentia tugged at him, so tuned now was it to Lional’s caustic thaumic signature.
He didn’t encounter another soul. Every last servant had fled, every single government lackey had deserted his or her post. With their sleepy little kingdom turned on its head, with a dragon raining acid and fire from the sky and their sovereign hunting them instead of protecting them, what could they do except run? But how many had run only to die anyway, in the palace gardens or on its carriageways or down in the city?
And is Zazoor feeling proud of himself, sitting there safe in his little bubble? Is his Holy Shugat pleased? What kind of gods does the old man serve, that he could sit there with all his power and not lift a finger to help the innocent?
Resentful anger simmering, warming him, helping to keep his fears at bay, Gerald kept on through the eerily empty palace. His heart thumped and his breath whistled as he climbed yet another daunting flight of stairs. The next opened door he fell through would take him into the attics or onto the roof, wouldn’t it?
But no. The next door he eased open showed him an opulent corridor-where Lional’s thaumic presence shouted loud enough to send him deaf, dumb and blind. Shouted so cruelly he staggered and dropped to his knees, one hand still clutching the door knob, the other fisting to his head. Lional, ever prudent, had warded the corridor with a brutal keep-your-distance hex. Snarling the hallway in thaumic barbed wire, armed with teeth and talons and a bloody minded ferocity, it tore at his potentia until he was whimpering in his throat.
I can’t break through that. How can I break through that? I’m only as good as the incants I know right now, and I don’t know any incant that could dismantle this hex. Not even Reg taught me an incant strong enough for this.
So-was that it? Had he been defeated before he ever really started? Looked like it. Looked like Lional’s native cunning had beaten him without so much as raising a sweat. For all the good he could do here he might as well have stayed in the cave, in the dark, and starved slowly to death. Letting go of the door knob he folded to the floor and rolled himself into a tight ball, battered by Lional’s inimical magics.
Gerald Dunwoody, what are you doing? Stop being such a pathetic tosser!
Startled, he unrolled himself and sat up. “Reg?”
But he was alone. That was just Reg’s voice, the voice of his conscience, kicking him in the pants. Ashamed, he scrubbed his hands across his face. Oh, lord, he was pathetic, wasn’t he?
If I don’t get back on my feet and finish what I started then I’m no better than Shugat and Zazoor, hiding behind their precious, indolent gods.
Through slitted eyes he stared the length of the gilded, plushly carpeted corridor. Saw, at its far end, Lional’s hexed double doors. Beyond that flimsy barrier lay Grummen’s Lexicon and Saint Snodgrass alone knew what other proscribed texts. He was yards, mere yards, from laying his hands on the weapons he needed to defeat Lional, save New Ottosland-and possibly the rest of the world. And the only thing standing between him and victory over New Ottosland’s mad king was this one measly, wicked, obliterating hex-which he didn’t have the first notion how to dismantle.
But I made a dragon, so I can bloody well do this.
Grimly determined, goaded-and he knew it-by an unaccustomed but undeniable sense of competition with the Department of Thaumaturgy’s one and only Monk Markham-he faced his fears. Faced Lional’s hexed doors. Braced himself-feet wide, shoulders thrown back, head lifted, teeth gritted-and opened himself fully to the worst of Lional’s magic.
CHAPTER THREE
It was like throwing himself into a writhing pit of insane vipers, or diving headfirst into a vat of boiling acid, or trying to ride a hundred wild horses bareback, all at once. The hex took him and shook him and tried to tear him apart. Flogged him and crushed him and threatened to splinter his bones.
Every instinct he possessed was screaming get out, run away but grimly he fought that cowardly impulse as hard and as bitterly as he fought Lional’s hex. His heart was drubbing so hard he was afraid it might burst-or that his eyeballs would explode or his jaw crack into pieces. He could feel a howl building in his throat. Prying his teeth apart he let it out and heard it bounce back and forth between the walls of the corridor, a skin-crawling cry of pain and near-insanity.
Lost within Lional’s merciless attack he flailed and thrashed, dimly aware of his battered potentia as it grappled with the onslaught of dark magic. He didn’t know how to help his strange powers, or control them, had no idea how to harness their strength to his need. If there was an elegant, subtle way to dismantle Lional’s incant, well, he had no idea what that was. And he didn’t have the time to work it out, either. Because time was precious and it was fast running out.
Oh, Saint Snodgrass. I could use some help about now…
Howling again, Gerald pulled his potentia back inside himself. Poured every last skerrick of his strength into crushing it small, then smaller, compressing it until it too was howling. He felt like he’d plucked the sun from the sky and was trying to stuff it into an egg cup-and the sun, his potentia, was fighting back. Rivers of sweat poured down his face, down his back. He could feel his spine bowing, his knees bending, could feel his heart trying to batter its way right through his ribs. His unremarkable body couldn’t take much more of this. Punished by Lional and by himself it was threatening to fly apart, to escape this unending torment in death.
No-no-just a little more-a little longer And on the screaming brink of self-destruction he let himself fly free.
Like molten fire his power poured out of him, angry and indiscriminate, to smash the bindings of Lional’s warding hex and obliterate its fabric. The keep-your-distance incant went up in flames and greasy smoke, stinking, unwholesome. Reeking of every foul enchantment Lional had so eagerly embraced.
Sobbing, Gerald fell forward onto his face, unable to save himself. The corridor’s plush carpeting saved him from a broken nose or worse. Gasping he lay there, excoriated, waiting for the flames and agony to subside. When he thought he could feel his bones whole within him, when he thought he could trust himself to sit up in one piece, he pushed himself off the carpet and looked around at the scorch marks on the gilded walls and the expensive carpet. Stared, astonished, at the smoking doors to Lional’s private apartments, drunkenly hanging from their half-melted hinges.
“Gosh,” he said, his voice a thin, surprised croak. “How about that, Reg? I did it.”
And surely Lional would know he’d done it, too. So what little time he had left, he’d be a fool to waste it. Wincing, he staggered back onto his feet, made his way along the unimpeded corridor-and crossed the threshold into Lional’s private domain.
It stank
of dark magic.
Standing just inside the open doorway, one hand braced against its almost too hot to touch frame, Gerald fought to keep his stomach from turning itself inside out. Every breath sucked the stench of corrupted power into his lungs, sent it flooding through his veins. Was it his overworked imagination or did even his sweaty skin feel sticky and fouled with it?
I don’t understand. This entire palace reeks of Lional. How did none of the other court wizards not notice what was going on right under their noses? And what about Shugat and his gods? Am I supposed to think Lional just-what? Slipped their minds?
Possibly that was the most terrifying thing of all-that Lional possessed such strength, such mastery, that he could hide himself and his workings from the keen senses of a holy man like Shugat. That he could hide from the world-class First Grade metaphysical experts he’d hired to serve him. To die for him.
But then… who am I to talk? I didn’t notice, did I? If I’m so special, if I can do things that make a man like Monk panic, how come I didn’t realize the truth the moment I stepped out of the portal?
The unpalatable answer stared him rudely in the face. Because Lional was unique-and unthinkable. What Melissande’s brother had done was so heinous, so appalling, that nobody thought it could-or would-be done. Or had realized that not only did Lional have the twisted imagination, and the will, to conceive of this plan, but that he also had the means to make his demented dream come true.
Bloody Pomodoro Uffitzi. This is all his fault. If he hadn’t hoarded those grimoires… There’s always one who thinks the rules don’t apply to him. Why does there always have to be one?
And so now, because Uffitzi had been an arrogant plonker, two nations and countless innocents stood on the brink of destruction.
“Unless that ratty old holy man changes his mind and does something before it’s too late,” he muttered, suddenly needing to hear a friendly voice. No matter he was talking to himself-even that was better than the resounding silence of Lional’s apartments.
Shugat. Mighty and mysterious and downright terrifying. Powerful enough to withstand the worst of Lional’s foul magics-yet unwilling to help the helpless people of New Ottosland.
And why is that? Why won’t he lift a finger? I don’t understand.
Unless…
Chilled with fresh horror, Gerald swiped stinging sweat from his eyes. Could Shugat want this? Could Kallarap’s holy man and its sultan and its gods want Lional to run the length of his madness unchecked? Were silence and inaction their way of ending New Ottosland without a single scimitar drawing blood? Of putting an end to their tariff payment problem without directly getting involved?
Or are they convinced that I can handle Lional without their assistance?
Either way, he was in trouble. New Ottosland was in trouble. Because here he stood, a Third Grade wizard-sort of, technically-with extra powers he didn’t begin to understand or control, who’d never so much as set foot in a proper wizarding academy, who’d received his barely adequate qualifications from a modest correspondence course that important wizards like Errol Haythwaite pretended didn’t even exist.
And somewhere not far enough away was Lional, who’d left mere metaphysics behind some four dead wizards ago and had transformed himself into something the world of thaumaturgy had never seen.
Oh, lord. If I don’t stop him here, today-if he gets past me and leaves New Ottosland-then he’ll just keep killing First Grade wizards and taking their potentias.
The thought of Lional, twinned with his dragon and wielding the power of ten First Grade wizards, or twenty, or more, weakened his knees so he nearly dropped back to the carpet. Squeezing his eyes tight shut he gritted his teeth to keep an unmanly whimper trapped in his throat.
I can’t do this. Dragon or no dragon I’m not good enough. Lional with a mere five potentias is more than I can handle. Come back, Reg. I need you. Tell me what to do.
Except-he already knew what to do. And he’d come here to do it. And if Reg were here she’d only try to stop him, so it was best she wasn’t. Because if anyone could talk him out of this crazy plan it was Reg.
“Stop bloody stalling, Dunnywood, you tosser,” he told himself savagely. “You’ve got no choice. Thousands of lives are depending on you-so get on with it.”
The burning tide of fear receded and a little strength returned to his numbed limbs. Swiping sweat again, he straightened out of his slump, took several deep breaths, ignoring the taint in the air, and for the first time looked at his surroundings properly. Lional’s apartments were dim, their curtains drawn and no lamps lit. The light from the corridor behind him barely washed over the threshold, as though the darkness of Lional’s soul were soaking it up, like a sponge.
Letting go of the door frame he snapped his fingers, hoping to ignite whatever candles or lamps might be usefully lying about the place. Incant accomplished he stared, blinking in the sudden illumination, expecting to see Well. Not this.
“Blimey, Reg,” he said, looking around. “I thought at least there’d be a cauldron or a skull. Something arcane and sinister and suitably repellent. Not to mention a few bucket loads of gilt and an ocean of velvet.”
But no. The room he stood in wasn’t plush or opulent or arcanely sinister. It was the antithesis of plush and opulent, every unadorned surface a stark black and white. No chairs, sofas, fountains or froufrous. One spindle-legged desk with a lone burning lamp on it. And not a single darkly arcane artifact in sight. If he hadn’t known without a doubt that this was Lional’s lair he’d never have believed it.
“Mind you,” he added. “This is only the foyer.”
Like his own royal apartments there were three doors leading out of the suite’s severely restrained entrance hall. So if the similarity of design continued, that meant Lional’s bedroom-and Grummen’s Lexicon and whatever other revolting books he kept handy-lay behind that door there. On a deep breath Gerald took a step towards it, then hesitated. Wait a minute, Dunwoody. Just wait. This was Lional’s private domain. No matter the ferocious keep-your-distance hex guarding the corridor, that didn’t mean the place was safe. If he rushed in willy nilly now like some over-excited First Year student he might well trigger another guarding hex and get himself killed before he could do anybody any good.
Remember Reg’s rule: look before you leap. It prevents a lot of unnecessary bleeding.
Thrusting aside his growing sense of urgency he closed his eyes and pushed his potentia through the curdled ether, seeking danger.
And found it, of course.
All three doors in Lional’s apartment were hexed. And not singly hexed either, no. They were link-hexed, which meant that to get into Lional’s bedroom he’d have to unbarricade all three in the correct sequence or risk-well, something disgusting. Wonderful. Clearly today nothing was going to be simple, or straightforward, or quick.
Heart thudding hard again he approached the doors, step by cautious step, reaching out both hands in the hope that he’d be able to sense something to help him proceed. He could feel his potentia quivering, reacting to the incants sunk into the aged oak. Not dark magic this time, not exactly. Just Lional’s twisted thaumic fingerprints leaving a tainted smear in the ether, the multiplicity of stolen potentias garbled and gross. He felt his belly heave, protesting as again he heard the anguished screams of his predecessors… and felt their agony as they went up in flames…
Stop it, you idiot. Don’t think about that. They’re long dead, past helping. All you can do now is avenge them.
Shuddering, he wiped a clammy hand down his face. This wretched place was getting to him. He couldn’t let it. He had to concentrate.
“Come on, Dunnywood.” Alarmingly, his voice sounded thin and lost. “It’s nearly over.”
At least the door hexes were nowhere near as ferocious as the keep-your-distance hex. Lional felt himself safe here, in his private domain. But his unbearable arrogance was neatly tempered with caution. New Ottosland’s mad king wasn’t lea
ving anything to chance. The triple-hex was convoluted, tangling itself in complex loops and knots, and tugging on the wrong bit would doubtless unleash disaster.
Daunted, Gerald pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He had such a headache brewing. But he couldn’t afford to dwell on that either. Pain was just another distraction. Besides, if he didn’t make it past those hexes a headache would be the least of his worries. Blinking hard to clear his blurry vision, he stared at the three doors. He could sense nothing, nothing, to suggest the order in which he needed to clear Lional’s wickedly clever incants. He could stand here for hours, days, weeks, and be no closer to the answer. The hexes were clear and slippery like rain-washed glass. His potentia slid over them, unable to get a purchase. Unable to feel anything, sense any order or echo or hint of how to unlock them.
He turned aside, frustrated, feeling that tide of fear rising. There was no time for this nonsense. Lional would be coming. He could be inside the palace even now, snarling his way upwards, ready to rip intruding Gerald Dunwoody to bloody shreds. Without the protection of Grummen’s Lexicon he didn’t stand a chance against New Ottosland’s mad king.
“So bugger this for a boatload of monkeys!” he shouted. Raised clenched fists over his head, summoned his potentia — and unleashed it on the barricaded doors.
They exploded in a storm of splinters.
Without even thinking he whipped his potentia around himself like a cloak, a flexible shield. The released energies from the destroyed hexes billowed harmlessly about him, dirty smoke and spitting sparks. Bits and pieces of ruined doors bounced off his etheretic armor and tumbled to the black-and-white marble floor, some of them burning.
Stunned, he stared at the gaping holes in the wall that used to be three doorways, then carefully eased his tight grip on his potentia. Like a sword gliding back into an oiled scabbard it slid back inside him, out of sight.
“Gosh,” he said. “That was-different.”
