Star-Born Mage

by David Estes

  But that wasn’t what drew Dacre’s attention. It was the other Gremolins scattered on the ground before him. Some lay on their backs in straight lines, while others were on their sides, curled like commas and question marks. Still others had their arms or legs extended at various angles at either side.

  The one common thread was that they were interconnected—head to feet, hands to feet, feet to feet—in such a way that to most would seem random, but which to a mage was anything but.

  A glyph, Dacre’s instincts told him, though he’d never heard of such a thing. It certainly wasn’t something they’d learned at the Academy, nor as a Centaurian child being groomed to become a spy. Even if he had the ability to fly like some mages did, he wasn’t certain he’d be able to identify the nature of the glyph these Grems were forming with their bodies, the pattern as complex as the twisting, turning threads of a master weaver’s blanket.

  The Grems on the ground began to glow, the lines and curves of the enormous glyph coming to life even as the air-drawn symbols formed by each of the individual Grems in the circle appeared before them, hovering in a rainbow of colors.

  Dacre was frozen, unable to comprehend what was happening. What spell could possibly require this many mages? Were they planning to execute some sort of an attack on the Alliance? And if so, was there any hope left that he could still complete his mission?

  To his surprise, a Grem appeared from within the giant glyph, not so much stepping over bodies as gliding past them, its feet, hidden beneath the folds of its thick, dark cloak, never touching the ground.

  It stopped before Dacre, its face shrouded by the shadows of its hood. The words it spoke were foreign to Dacre, but his implant translated them. At long last. Dacre Avvalon. Centaurian.

  He froze. His identity had never been revealed to him with such candor. Black Hole, it had never been revealed at all, save in his private quarters of the Academy, as he and Miranda had argued that final time, just before the world had been swept out from underneath him.

  “You know who—what—I am?”

  Yes. Our magic is powerful and far-reaching. If the Alliance knew the extent, they would’ve destroyed our planet—and us—long ago. We have tracked your progress for many years. All the Centaurians’ progress.

  Dacre was stunned by the revelation, so much so that he barely noticed as the massive glyph brightened further, the lights of the multitude of hovering glyphs pouring into it from a thousand sides, a thousand spokes of light scything through the air around him. “You knew about us?”

  Of course. We have closed ourselves off for as many years as you’ve been in our galaxy, plotting against us. But your aura is changed. You are not what we expected you to be. You are not like the others.

  Dacre finally noticed the joining of the glyphs. He could sense the climax was coming, that penultimate moment between preparation and release, when a spell would coalesce into what it was meant to be. “What are you doing?”

  Stopping your people. Destroying them. We will use what is left of our own aura to do it.

  “By the godstars,” Dacre murmured, watching as tendrils of light began to wisp away from the main glyph, joining together above them, forming a barrel of energy. Building up, focusing. Rocks shot from the nearby cliffs, joining the energy. Spiraling, missing each other by bare centimeters as they whipped themselves into a frenzy.

  Yes, the Grem mage said. The godstars. Their living blood. The old ways have been lost to many. But not to us. This is the only way to stop your people.

  “What about your mag-weapon? The one the Alliance has been searching for?”

  Technology, nothing more. Do you think a piece of tech can outperform a mage-glyph?

  Until now, Dacre didn’t even know there was such a thing as a mage-glyph. “I have a prime artifact and access to a significant store of pure aura. And I am Centaurian.”

  The Grem finally pushed back its hood and Dacre was surprised to find a kindly-looking face wearing a thin smile. Its eyes were shadowed and sunken, its face pale and pocked. But it wasn’t grotesque, like he expected. It doesn’t matter. The spell is finished. We will know one way or another soon enough.

  The Grem turned to watch, and Dacre followed its gaze to the growing knot of energy, which now crackled with lightning around the edges. Larger boulders had joined the fray, spinning at great speeds. Next were chunks the size of starships, the caps of entire mountains. The planet itself was coming apart to be used by its masters. And then—

  It all shot forth with the speed of a starship leaping into hyperspace, an unbroken column of blue-white energy and chunks of rock and earth that split the sky and the atmosphere and then space into two separate sections.

  Anything in its path would’ve been disintegrated on contact, and from the direction of its path and the sound he heard from outside the circle—the shout of a man—he knew what was in its path: Coffee’s Alley.

  The knot of energy flared away, too, taking the spell with it like the long tail of a comet disappearing into the void.

  Dacre stared, thinking of his people in Demonstrous, not a care in the world, feeling as invincible as ever as they roamed across the universe, destroying at will, taking from those too weak to stop them.

  Do they know what’s coming? Or are they so arrogant and ignorant to even fathom that there might be a force more powerful than they are?

  The rest of the Gremolins had stopped chanting, peeling back their hoods. Those that had formed the glyph on the ground stood up. All heads were craned skyward, watching, waiting.

  Ten seconds passed. Then another ten.

  Coffee’s strangled cry had faded away long ago. Silence ruled.

  A line of light appeared, so faint and distant it might’ve not been discernible if they hadn’t known where to look. It widened, forming a sheet of blue-white, rounded at the edges. It faded, faded and was gone.

  Dacre frowned. He hadn’t known what to expect, but not that. A fireball, an explosion, a sound like thunder, the flash of an entire world, an entire species, being decimated. Something more.

  Which was why he knew the truth even before the Grem spoke it aloud:

  Failure.

  Dacre felt a sudden sense of relief so powerful it brought him to his knees. There were tears in his eyes and streaking his cheeks. His breath came in shuddering gasps.

  His creators. His people.

  Yes, he knew they needed to be stopped. And yet the thought of killing them all was too breathtaking to ignore.

  He breathed in, deeply. Opened his mouth, tasting salt on his lips.

  “Time for plan B,” he said.

  The mage’s eyes were sad when he turned to look at him. There was the pain of failure there, and a certain resignation, like it had always suspected it might come to this. The weapon is already on your ship. They will try to stop you. The others.

  Dacre’s heart skipped a beat. “What others?” he asked, though he already knew. Miranda for one. The other forward scouts. And, maybe, one more.

  Her.

  Despite being surrounded by so many Grems, Dacre felt as alone as he’d ever felt, on an island all his own. “I understand. We’ll be careful.”

  The Grem shook his head. No, he said.

  For a split-second, Dacre was confused. Why shouldn’t he be careful? Because time was running out? Because haste was of the essence?

  It hit him like a rocket to the brain. “No,” he said. “Don’t hurt them.”

  We have no choice. Now that we have failed, you cannot. Your quest must be completed. The Keeper of Urkusk is already here.

  Dacre was about to argue. He could tell them how he would talk to the others, negotiate another way out of this mess. Surely Vee, who he now believed he’d really, truly seen, had been deceived by Miranda. She would understand. Of all people, she would understand.

  He never got out a single word of it.

  The Grems vanished. They didn’t fade slowly into obscurity, but just disappeared in the space betwe
en blinks. There one moment, gone the next.

  The old ways have been lost to many. But not to us.

  He whirled around, seeing Kukk’uk and Coffee and the others, but no one else. The day turned to night, as still and silent as butterfly wings.

  ~~~

  It was like a bomb exploding from inside a moonpie, the earth erupting around them, showering them with clods of dirt and piercing their skin with sharp stones. Verity dove backwards, shielding her eyes with her hands. A rush of adrenaline coursed through her, but not because of the exploding ground—because of what had exploded it. She’d caught a quick glimpse of the creature just before she’d leapt back.

  A monster from nightmares. An enormous wormlike creature with a mouth the size of a large cave, surrounded by hundreds—if not thousands—of smaller mouths across the surface of its rough skin.

  The mother monster, Verity realized. That from which the other many-mouthed monsters had been spawned from.

  Miranda was beside her, frozen, the two women cowering beneath the tumultuous onslaught of sod and stone.

  “SHOOT HER!” Minnow yelled, a rocket bursting from his shoulder launcher, fire spewing from its rear.

  The dirt settled, leaving a fine mist in the air. Vee moved her hand from across her face just in time to see the rocket stab into the side of the worm monster, which was reared up like an animal on its hind legs, its thousands of mouths gnashing at the air. There was a dull thump, the explosion muffled by the layers of skin that surrounded the rocket, seeming to fold around it.

  The same skin then burst outward, spraying Vee and the others with sticky green ichor and gore. A deep, oozing gash was left in the monster’s skin and it responded with a ferocious howl before diving back into its burrow and vanishing.

  “By the seven godstars…” Vee murmured. “What was that thing?”

  The earth rumbled, and she was forced to extend her arms to the side like a hoversurfer to maintain her balance.

  “Nothing my launcher couldn’t handle,” Minnow said, casually blowing a tendril of smoke from the barrel of his massive weapon.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Terry said. “She’s gathering reinforcements. Stay on your guard.” The small Chameleot stood in a crouch, both hands gripping small globes that glittered like diamonds. Vee recognized them. Magic-infused grenades. Her friend was full of surprises.

  “Let her come,” Minnow said, bringing his launcher to bear once more. Miranda’s Centaurians had their own weapons raised and at the ready as they scanned the terrain.

  “We need to work together,” Miranda said. “You hit her high and I’ll go low. Fire and wind.”

  Though the thought of teaming up with Miranda left a bitter taste in Vee’s mouth, she couldn’t deny the peril they were in. The rumbling beneath the earth grew louder. “Fine.” She began to trace the glyph for firebeam on her weapon’s spellscreen. The moment she completed the symbol, it glowed purple. Ready. Her finger brushed the edge of the trigger in anticipation. Beside her, Miranda had traced her own glyph, something complicated-looking that was probably known only to galaxy-destroying aliens like she and Dacre.

  The rumbling intensified, the ground swaying now. Several of the Centaurians lost their balance, tumbling over. One of them accidentally pulled his weapon’s trigger, firing a spray of bullets from his railgun, the friendly fire causing his own comrades to dive for cover.

  “Fools!” Miranda spat. “Stay down and don’t hurt yourselves.”

  Minnow had dropped to one knee, aiming in the direction of the original burrow, while Terry had lowered his crouch further, one globe-wielding arm cocked back.

  Vee gripped her mag-pistol with two hands and took aim.

  The attack didn’t come from the front or the back or even around.

  It came from beneath.

  The very ground below them shattered as powerful bodies burrowed through, bashing each of them aside with muscular arms and shoulders. Like the dead monsters they’d seen around Dacre’s star-rig, the creatures had no heads, their bodies writhing with many mouths, each filled with several rows of needlelike teeth. As Vee was knocked to the ground, she felt one such mouth brush against her arm, slashing through her outerwear and piercing her skin. Heat blossomed as blood welled up, but she ignored it, maintaining a firm grip on her weapon as she pulled the trigger.

  The Class 4 spell she’d charged it with was intended to injure a much larger creature, and the many-mouthed monster was no match for it. The beam of purple fire tore through its chest, opening a hole through which she could see its mother explode from the ground once more. Flames licked from both ends of the hole as its dozen or so mouths screamed in agony, the body flopping on the ground and eventually going still as it smoldered.

  Not all the others had been as successful.

  Minnow had managed to get a rocket off, but his aim was knocked off-kilter by the monster that had tackled him at the waist. The rocket shot high in the air, arced, and then exploded in midair, raining sparks and ash across the wasteland. Now the large Minot barely managed to hold the snapping mouths away from his face, his muscles bulging.

  Two of the Centaurians were down, and it was clear there was no hope for them as monster mouths tore into their flesh, their screams fading away into the night.

  Terry had camouflaged himself, but the monster that pursued him wasn’t fooled, diving at his feet and tripping him up. Terry rolled onto his back and threw one of his globes, which happened to enter through one of the creature’s chest mouths before vanishing. The monster stopped, stunned by the turn of events, and for a moment nothing happened. Then bright light shot from all its mouths at once as its skin began to crack, crumbling away like it was made of stone, until nothing was left but a pile of gruesome rubble.

  Nearby, Miranda screamed as a hand mouth tore into her leg, shaking from side to side as it tried to rip her apart. Still, she had the presence of mind to fire her mag-rifle, her air-based spell blasting the creature away, sending it skidding across the terrain by a powerful wind. It slammed into the cliffside and went still.

  Vee fought to her feet just as several other monsters drew themselves from the ground wearing cloaks of crumbling stone and dirt.

  She fired. Again and again, feeling her energy wane with each pull of the trigger. Minnow had managed to extricate himself from his attacker and fire a rocket point-blank into its chest. The explosion pinned him to the ground but vaporized the monster, and when he rose he looked stunned, his skin darker because of the layer of ash, and yet no worse for wear.

  Another two Centaurians had been devoured, and Miranda hobbled on an injured leg, which bled profusely from a bite wound. Still, the rest of the monsters fell one by one, all save for the giant worm, which had slithered to the back of the space, screaming from a thousand nightmarish throats. Each scream was filled with rage and despair as she watched her children perish.

  She reared up once more, a mountain of flesh and teeth and fury.

  And then she slammed to the earth, which shook from the impact, and charged.

  Vee fired, but had hardly anything left in reserve, the aura inside her spent during the initial onslaught. Miranda seemed to have rationed slightly better, and sent a wave of wind toward the worm, slowing the beast slightly, giving Minnow just enough time to fire off what appeared to be his final rocket. Terry simultaneously threw his second globe. The surviving Centaurians fired round after round of energy bullets as well, pocking the worm’s skin without doing any serious damage.

  Minnow’s rocket, as before, was more effective, sinking deep into the monster’s skin and creating a rough gash and another shower of green ichor. This time, however, the worm didn’t run. No, if anything, the injury only pissed it off more.

  It swung its long tail about just as Terry’s shimmering globe reached the peak of its arc, batting it away. The globe landed between two Centaurians and stuck in the ground. The aliens shrank away, but nothing happened. One of them released a breathy laugh just before l
ong spikes burst from the globe, piercing his chest and neck. His partner was equally unlucky, impaled from bellybutton to groin.

  They stood gaping for a moment, their tongues lolling out, and then crumpled.

  “Oops,” Terry said.

  The worm’s tail lashed out once more, this time slamming into Minnow and knocking him askew. Instead of tumbling away, however, he stuck to the worm’s skin, and Vee realized one of the mouths had him by the foot, its teeth piercing his boot. “Ahhh!” he screamed as the monster flung him back and forth through the air as if he weighed no more than Terry.

  Vee raised her weapon to fire off another firebeam but earned only the click-click-click of failure. Her aura reserves were spent. She reached for several capsules of the dark liquid attached to her belt only to find them missing, having been ripped off by the first monster that had attacked her. Now they littered the ground around her feet.

  She scrabbled at them, but they skittered away. Miranda tried to get off another wind spell, but the worm was too quick, jabbing at her with its bulbous head. She flew ass over teakettle, her own mag-weapon slipping from her fingers as she landed hard on her shoulder.

  Desperate, Vee reached for the nearest canister of aura, her fingers finally closing around it. Just as she drew it back, however, the worm thumped down on her arm, one of its mouths snapping viciously. Dozens of teeth pierced her flesh and bone.

  The agony was like nothing she’d ever experienced, shooting through her central nervous system and drawing a gasping cry from the back of her throat.

  The weight of the worm’s thick body pushed its teeth all the way through her arm, a crisscrossing mesh that sent shockwaves through her.

  Somewhere above her, she saw Minnow flopping about helplessly. He was no longer screaming, his eyes closed.

  Her friends were dying. Her old enemies, too. The Centaurians fell one by one. Even the bane of her existence, Miranda, lay still.