Armies of Nine, Book Three of The Adventures of Sarah Coppernick

by SJB Gilmour

  ‘Very well then Mistress. It shall be as you say, but I have one question.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Why? Why bring me back to be your immortal mummified servant?’

  Mel grinned. ‘First I want you to train me to fight.’

  ‘And then?’ the ghost pressed.

  ‘I’ll just need you to fight. There’s a dirty great war coming, and I need allies.’

  The idea of once more engaging in battle appealed greatly to the ghost. ‘In that case, Mistress, proceed at your will!’

  Mel returned to Exlam with the spirit and used another rite of necromancy to force the soul back into the shrivelled corpse, and yet another to bring it back to life. All it needed now was a spell to bring it all together and finish the job, and she knew exactly which one to use.

  ‘Amalgammus!’ she commanded the armour and now re-possessed body within it.

  It was then that, for one of the very few times in his long career, Captain Jax of The Imperial Guardslins saw something that truly frightened him. There before him rose a living dead warrior. Its eyes were glowing red spheres inside shrunken sockets. Its armour and weapons shimmered once and became brightly burnished once more. Even more amazing, Jax realised, the armour didn’t move the way most armour did, which wasn’t very well no matter how well-made it was. It bent and flowed with the movements of the mummy within it.

  The mummy stretched and flexed a few times, testing the freedom of his movements, then he stood at attention and saluted Mel smartly.

  Still naked, Mel turned to Jax. ‘Tada! One swordsgoblin I won’t need to hold back with.’ To demonstrate, she produced a sword and faced the revived mummy. The mummy reacted by readying his own weapon and shield and adopting a well-practised fighting stance.

  Mel and the living dead goblin hero began to circle each other. The goblin struck out first, but Mel was far too fast for him. She danced to one side and then lashed out with her blade, severing the goblin’s head from his body. The head flew through the air to land with a clatter on the floor, while the body simply crumpled into a pile of jumbled body parts and armour.

  But, neither stayed still. The head rolled back to the pile of goblin bits that was beginning to reassemble itself. Soon the mummy was once more intact and standing at the ready.

  Jax bowed with true respect and even stronger awe. ‘Mistress!’ he breathed.

  Mel’s eyes became mischievous again. ‘Just how many corpses did you say are down here?’

  Outside, in the other corridor, Vickix crouched in a deep but narrow crack in the rock. The crack, probably aeons old, zigged and zagged a ragged line deep into Jilde’s crust. Many forks and fissures branched off it, some small, some huge. One tiny crack, barely big enough for a rodent to scurry through, led into Exlam.

  From her hiding place, Vickix had heard many secrets from Exlam. It was not as infrequently visited as many goblins believed. The Moon Cult used it of course, but so too did many of the Imperial Guard and various other dignitaries who wished to conduct business away from prying eyes and ears. Vickix had heard many secrets over the years — information she had often used to her own advantage, often to the disadvantage of those who had so unwittingly shared it with her.

  Hearing that awful human girl in there, desecrating the holy temple with her foul rites, did not so much offend Vickix as it did further her already considerable venomous resentment. For hundreds of years, she had been convinced that she was to be the one mentioned in The Babylonian Heresies. Unlike most goblins, she’d been born on Earth. She’d apprenticed herself to Jeffretix to learn his arts. The key to the secrets of Conundrum Gate should have been hers! Oh, that human girl was going to pay for her crimes true enough, but worse, she was going to pay for the life Vickix had wasted down in the dark…

  Things had not been going very well for Marzdane lately. Guntex had betrayed him. N’butu was dead. Moira Cromwell was dead. Kate O’Brien was nowhere to be found. Three times, he had just missed Coppernick and three times, it had cost him dearly. His face and beautiful beard now looked centuries older. Damn, that Hazelwood had been strong. He’d had no idea a child that young could pack such a punch. How the hell was he going to restore himself?

  Unfortunately, that was the least of his problems. Conundrum, the very seat of his power and the central aspect of his entire life, had suddenly been taken away from him. Mautallius had leaped upon Oliver Cromwell’s arrival as an opportunity to replace him. The only bright side he could see was he was away from Mautallius. As strong as the forces Coppernick might be gathering, he’d seen the endless horde of demons Mautallius was planning to unleash upon Earth. Mautallius was going to annihilate Coppernick and her allies and then he too would be on the receiving end of Herpethia’s wrath.

  Avoiding that would be a real problem now he had no allies at all. The first thing Cromwell had done when Mautallius woke him up and charmed him was to have the entire Guild vote him out. He, Marzdane Vivian Hardingleflass, was now a renegade! His blood boiled and bile seethed in the back of his throat. He could not believe that he, of all people, could be called renegade. He was sorely tempted to reveal just how Mautallius had cast such a mighty charm. If not for the aid of Hnug, Herpethia’s underling demon, he would never have been able to reach so far. However, as Mautallius himself had pointed out to him only months before, nothing was beyond the evil monster. Trouble was, now no-one would listen to him.

  The curse Mautallius had spread throughout The Guild was such that any declared renegade would be disbelieved so long as the curse was in effect. The members of The Guild were blind to the truth and had lent all their support to Oliver Cromwell.

  Marzdane stormed into his apartment in Paris in a cold fury. At first, he paid no notice to the pile of mail that had been shoved under his door. After several minutes of being ignored, the latest copy of The Rebel Rouser fluttered up from the pile and flew about like some overgrown moth, just out of his reach.

  ‘Woo hoo!’ the newsletter cried. ‘You’re in big trouble now, Hardingleflass!’

  Marzdane swore under his breath and lunged forward and grabbed the offensive publication. He held it still with both hands while he read the front page.

  Marzdane booted out! Marzdane Vivian Hardingleflass has lost his seat as Chair of The Sorcerers’ Guild to Oliver Samuel Jacob Cromwell, aka Oliver Cromwell Senior. Insiders within The Guild have cited Hardingleflass’ poor management as cause for his dismissal. The decision to replace him was made in part due to the recent attack upon The Nonagon by an unknown intruder who managed to destroy much of the Council Headquarters. One hundred and seven Guild guardslins were killed and the slateback prisoner Cexil was allowed to escape. Conundrum Gate was unaffected and remains locked. The key to the mystical portal that no sorcerer yet can operate, remains lost.

  Marzdane was shaking in fury. He hurled the offensive newsletter into the fireplace and blasted it to cinders. The resulting choking acrid smoke refused to go up the chimney, surging out to fill his apartment instead. Sparks were now flickering up and down his body and the smoke alarm in his ceiling began screeching in an ear-piercing siren. Furious, he blasted that too. He took several breaths and managed to calm down. The deep breathing exercise did in fact calm him down, though since his flat was now filled with smoke, it made him cough.

  He opened his windows and stared out into the dark Parisian night for several minutes then he sighed and went back inside. He coughed several more times and looked about his flat. Despite his former exalted position, Marzdane was a man of relatively simple tastes. His flat was furnished with only a few chairs and tables, a couple of couches and a number of small bookshelves.

  He decided that he was going. He wasn’t sure where, but he had to leave. He had to get out of that place. In fact, he had to get away from Earth. It was time for a holiday. After all, he thought, he deserved it. It was time to get as far away as he could. He needed to go somewhere far away where he would no longer be in reach of Mautallius. He had very little
in the way of personal possessions. His wealth was nearly all cash held in an account at the Witches vault in Fort Knox. It only took a few minutes, but soon he had stuffed those few valuables he did have into a small Gnumphlatian rucksack. His personal tomes, his block of cold-forged goblin carving knives and of course his rune-carved staff all went into the enchanted bag. Lastly, he looked at the doorway to the second bedroom of his apartment.

  In that separate room, the door to which he kept securely locked, he had collected a huge array of pictures and sculptures of his beautiful ex-wife. Not that he considered Angelina his ex. She was still his. She had to love him, just as much as he still loved her! Her fascination with McConnell would fade in time — he was sure of it. Each passing year, the pain of losing her had not subsided. The betrayal… Those words “I don’t love you any more” just twisted in his belly like a hook-pointed knife.

  Try though he might, he could not accept that cruel statement. He loved her still with his every fibre. He missed her so much it hurt. He remembered the smell of her hair in the morning, the look in her eyes when they wed, the way she looked when she slept… Why had she left him? He knew he had spent too much time at work. He realised that coming home grumpy had affected his marriage, but damn it, she had been difficult too! The fussing over cleaning the house, the inexplicable mood swings and gods below, that mother! Still, he knew now that he would put up with a hundred Cassandras if only he could have Angelina back again.

  Marzdane allowed himself only an hour or so every week in that room. He could spend hours and hours simply looking at the pictures he had of Angelina. If he did that, he could lose track of time so completely, hours would become days and he would be vulnerable. That was something someone in his position — his former position could not afford to do.

  He had a few locks of her hair and some of her clothes. If he shut his eyes, he could still smell her when he pressed the hair to his nose…. He had not spent any time in his private world of Angelina for a few weeks now. That wretched business with Mautallius and now Cromwell had taken up way too much of his time. He unlocked the door and let it sway open slowly. That way, he would always get those first few precious glimpses of Angelina’s pictures on the walls as the light grew stronger.

  His heart felt as if it had stopped. His mouth hung open in absolute horror. Every picture was burned to cinders. The sculptures of stone had crumbled to dust and those of metal had melted like butter in the sunshine. He rushed into the room in a blind panic. Her clothes had burned also. The locks of hair had been reduced to blackened dust. Only one thing remained in the room. Angelina’s small gold statue of Apollo holding a drawn bow and arrow had stood on one of the dressers since Marzdane had moved into the apartment. Now that statue had changed. Instead of holding the drawn bow and arrow, the little gold statue of Apollo was holding a near-naked Angelina in a loving embrace.

  Marzdane gaped at the statue. Shaking, he crumpled to his knees in shock.

  ‘No!’ he gasped. ‘Angelina! You can’t!’

  Tears ran down his aged cheeks. Only once before had he felt so much pain. To get away from him, Angelina had enlisted the help of some wicked spirit who had affected his mind. When he had come to after that influence was gone, and realised just what an awful betrayal he’d suffered, the pain and grief was so bad he’d been admitted to The Guild’s hospital for weeks on suicide watch. Angelina was outcast for using such forbidden sorcery and declared renegade. But, Marzdane would have nullified that declaration in an instant if she had come back to him. She never did. All he had left of her was what had been in that room, and all that was left of that was the gold statue.

  He stared at the statue, shaking. In a final moment of absolute torture, the gold figure of Apollo turned and looked at Marzdane with a cold, triumphant grin and reached down and squeezed Angelina’s bottom. The statue winked at Marzdane lewdly and disappeared.

  Marzdane gave a strangled, animal-like howl and scrambled to his feet. Thunder boomed outside and his apartment shook and rattled. Sparks shot out from his body in all directions and his clothes began to smoulder and smoke. Weeping tears of pain and rage, Marzdane lurched about his apartment, hurling everything he could find at the walls and floor. He kicked a couch to pieces and blasted the windows out into the street. He blew all the cupboard doors off their hinges and destroyed his refrigerator. Outside, over the thunder and hammering rain, French police sirens began to wail.

  Marzdane paid no attention to them and continued to wreck everything he could get his hands on. Soon, there was an insistent banging on his door. At first, he ignored it. When the police began using a megaphone to instruct him to stop whatever it was he was doing and come out quietly, he stopped ignoring them. He turned and glared at the door. His eyes were now red with rage and foam was flecking his mouth. His breath was steaming and his hair and beard was standing on end as though he had been struck by lightning.

  The police outside the door took the brief moment of silence as their cue to kick in his door. Dressed in combat gear and carrying large machine guns, they stormed into his apartment. They got about two metres. As each policeman charged into the room, he was met with a blast of lightning and exploded with huge sprays of smoking, bloody gore. Then Marzdane tired of blasting them individually, and as casually as though he was swatting a fly, he erected a quick containment shield at his doorway.

  One of the police who had not yet entered the room, thought better of it and began shooting at Marzdane with his machine gun. Several of his comrades also decided that this was the best thing to do. They were wrong. The bullets bounced off Marzdane’s shield. The crazed sorcerer waved his hand at them and like their fellows, the police who were shooting at him exploded. When none of them were left alive, Marzdane stood in the middle of the mess and panted for several minutes. Finally, he picked up his rucksack, let his shield dissolve, and marched out the door.

  Moments later he was on the other side of the world. He stepped out of a portal into a cool morning in inner-city Melbourne. His hair and beard were once again neat and tidy, and he had replaced his charred robes for a smart business suit and overcoat. The look was marred somewhat by the casual appearance of his battered satchel, but overall he looked every bit the businessman and not the sorcerer. He caught a taxi to Benjamin McConnell’s office in Punt Road. He didn’t care what happened now, but he had to confront Angelina. The problem was he had no idea where she was. He could no longer feel the pull of the Star of Planes and he suspected that Apollo had something to do with that as well. McConnell’s office was the most obvious choice to begin his search.

  He marched into the foyer of the new building. Two years ago it had been invaded by trolls and wrecked so badly, most of it had been demolished. The re-building of the premises had only just been completed. Oh, how he wished he could wreck it again, just to stick it to McConnell.

  The place smelled of fresh paint and floor polish. Behind the new counter sat a new receptionist. The young woman looked at him calmly. She quickly shifted several sheathes of paper and scrolls about on her desk, moving her hands so fast they seemed to blur. Marzdane realised this receptionist was no ordinary mortal — she was a quickling.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the young quickling asked very slowly and politely. Quicklings are always polite, and usually quite pretty, in an elfish sort of way. She was no exception. She had jet-black hair and a light olive complexion. Like all elves and quicklings, her pointy ears had no lobes. Her brown eyes were angular and wide set. Normally Marzdane would have been quite taken with such beauty, but at that moment, he was not in his normal state of mind.

  He glared at the quickling. ‘I’m looking for McConnell,’ he said as politely as he could manage, which wasn’t very.

  The quickling smiled regretfully. ‘I’m afraid Master McConnell is not in the office at present. I can forward a message to him if you like?’

  ‘Where is he?’ Marzdane demanded. His tentative grip on his manners was beginning to slip.

&n
bsp; The quickling continued to smile. ‘Out.’ She said it quite firmly, but still with that annoying smile on her face.

  Marzdane began to fume. ‘I can see that…’ He paused, peering at her name tag.

  ‘Maddy,’ the quickling supplied her name for him.

  ‘Maddy,’ Marzdane continued. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded again.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mister Hardingleflass,’ Maddy said politely.

  ‘I didn’t tell you my name!’

  Maddy tapped the front page of Spellcaster Monthly, which was sitting neatly folded on the front counter. Marzdane’s picture was on the cover. Maddy smiled again. What Marzdane didn’t see was the young quickling moving her hand so fast that the naked eye couldn’t even detect any movement at all, to press the emergency button.

  Marzdane swept the newspaper off the counter. He reached out to grab Maddy, but she flashed back out of his reach. Before he could say anything or try again, a bell rang and a large stainless steel enchanted elevator appeared in the foyer. Marzdane turned around and Maddy scurried off so quickly that several sheets of paper flew off her desk in her wake. The elevator doors opened and two smartly-dressed ogres shambled out.

  Marzdane glared at them. ‘Well, well,’ he snarled. ‘It’s Fred and Barney, come to throw me out.’

  The two ogres looked at each other for a moment.

  Castor turned back to Marzdane. ‘What is you talkin’ about?’ he demanded in a deep growl.

  ‘I fink he’s insulting us,’ Pollux grumbled.

  Castor frowned at Marzdane and took two steps forward threateningly. ‘Oh now dat’s not very nice, is it, Pollux?’

  ‘No it isn’t Castor,’ Pollux replied in the same tone and he too stepped forward towards Marzdane.

  Marzdane was not about to be intimidated by two ogres. ‘Where’s McConnell?’ he demanded, standing his ground.