by HDA Roberts
"An invitation," Kraab said, his expression turning to one of extreme distaste.
The message was written in dark, expensive ink, the calligraphy delicate and precise.
Dear Mister Graves,
With the increase in tensions, I extend this invitation to you in the hope that we might come to an understanding before any unpleasantness occurs that jeopardises the reputation and unity of the Conclave.
There is a small soiree this Sunday night at my property here in Stonebridge, the details are on the card attached to this message. I hope that you can attend, as there is much to be discussed, and it is my hope that you can be introduced in a less formal setting, and perhaps offset the damage caused by certain other parties.
Sincerely,
Lord Balthazar Thorne.
"This smells fishy," I said, eyes narrowed, "Thorne hates my guts."
"Yes," Kraab said, "but you should still go."
"Good grief, why?"
"Because he's trying to destroy you, and in knowing that he's going to try, you might be able to avoid it, even turn it around on him."
"That would be utterly asinine of me. Since when has my forte ever been defusing situations?"
Kraab chuckled in response.
"You're a smart man, Mathew. And you'll have friends there, you won't be alone."
I rubbed my eyes.
"White tie? Where am I going to get a tailcoat at three o'clock on a Saturday, for heaven's sake?" I asked.
"Barton's is open until five; you can get there if you hurry. I'll tell Thorne you're coming?"
"It causes trouble for you if I don't, doesn't it?" I asked.
He shrugged. I sighed and nodded.
"Alright, I'll go."
He smiled, "Knock them dead," he said, offering his hand, which I took, and then he squeezed a little, "Just not in any way I need to fill out paperwork for, alright?"
I laughed. He walked away.
"So, need a date to this little soiree?" Cathy asked, batting her eyelashes at me.
"Cath, I don't like you being in the same county as these idiots, much less the same room," I said.
"That bad?" she asked, sounding a touch worried.
"Worse," I answered truthfully.
She understood, and I had to start doing things, which turned into an outing for all three of us, and a mess because of it. I'd wanted to simply fly there, but Cathy insisted on getting us all passes, which ate up time, and then the bus, which cost even more. In the end, when I finally got to Barton's, it was ten minutes until closing time, and the shop assistant wasn't happy that he had to help me rent a tailcoat and all the accompanying paraphernalia. I swear he gave me a jacket just a little too small, and overcharged me out of spite. There's no way rented trousers should cost that much...
We messed around, went to the McJenner's Gaming Club, where we played Magic: The Gathering, Halo and Call of Duty until eight, all of us losing handily, which put Cathy in a mood, and I had to fill her full of pizza before she could be persuaded to come out of her funk. After that, we went to the movies, during which Cathy snuggled up to me, and made the whole experience far more enjoyable.
We emerged into the a cold night, Cathy on my arm, and Bill contemplating an ice cream before we headed back to Windward. I was content, relaxed and happy.
The Universe always knows when I feel that good, and more often than not arranges for there to be a prick on hand to ruin it...
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Rat-Eye Graves," said a low and sneering voice.
And why do they always have to sneer? Why can't anyone insult me in a soothing baritone or a soaring alto? Why is it always an oily sneer?
I turned to see those wretched Hellstrom kids approaching, along with a couple of hangers on, people I didn't recognise, tall and broad, bouncer types, or security, perhaps. We were all on a wide boulevard in the centre of town. The Odeon was behind us, and there was a small plaza across the road. It was a busy night, bustling and crowded. Plenty of witnesses.
"Maybe we should skip that ice cream," I said, gesturing for Bill and Cathy to make their way off to my left, in the direction of the bus stop.
"Hey, girl," Darius said, Cathy ignored him. He darted closer to us, getting around me.
"I said, hey!" he said, moving forward, his arm outstretched, reaching for Cathy.
I had Hopkins' warning in my mind, I dared not call my shadows.
So I used my Will, and a mental hand closed around his wrist and squeezed, making him squeak and drop to the ground in pain. Nothing was broken, but it would hurt in the morning.
At which point things started to get ugly.
Though for once, it wasn't my doing, or even the Hellstroms', which was a surprise.
There was an immense thump from off to my left, and I turned to see something out of a Fairy Tale! The knight was huge, almost seven feet tall and correspondingly broad. He wore armour that shone so brightly that it looked white; light flaring all around him, banishing the shadows. The armour plates were segmented and looked thick, but modern, closer to something from science fiction than fantasy. The shapes were organic-looking, rounded and a perfect fit; his movements were flowing and graceful, as if unencumbered by all that metal. On his chest, blazing more brightly than the rest of his suit, was a pentagram surrounded by a circle, seemingly drawn from pure light. He had a shield strapped to his left arm, and a broadsword in his right fist, both of which were flaring with yet more light and power. I couldn't see his eyes, but I had the distinct impression that he was glaring straight at me.
"Abomination!" he said, his voice deep and resonant.
As introductions go, it wasn't exactly overburdened with ambiguity.
"Everybody run!" I shouted. Bill and Cathy obeyed first, knowing the procedure for this sort of crap (i.e. run away P.D.Q.). I released Hellstrom's arm and called my shadows. Maria called her own magic and pulled her brother back out of the way as the knight charged, heading straight for me. I cast Mage Sight just as he was getting close, his weapon raised to slash at my shadows.
And just like that I realised that I was in very, very big trouble.
That armour could have been made to kill Magicians. Hell, it probably was! Every inch, every plate, section, clasp and strap was covered in enchantments, delicate and intricate and massively powerful. The whole suit was run through with Life Magic, channelled and enchanted to protect the wearer and dispel incoming attacks. There would be no getting Low Magic through that, and with the sheer amount of Life Magic there, anything High was likely doomed to failure as well.
If the suit had one weakness, it was that there was so much Life Magic set to dispel that there was no way the wearer could cast from inside that armour, not that this was necessarily a handicap, as I could sense hundreds more enchantments underneath the defences. I had not the slightest clue about many of them, but I saw plenty for strength, others for endurance, speed and perception. He was a close combat monster, and Magic wasn't even going to dent him.
His sword came slashing down, and t
o my horror, an entire third of my shadows were shredded into nothing by that strike, and more when his armour contacted the ones that were left. I had a tendril coil around me and pull me out of the way just before the sword would have bisected my head.
I was yanked into the air, but the knight pointed his sword straight at me, and it flared, bright as the sun, so actual Light Magic, too? That's hardly fair...
I dropped like a stone as my shadows shredded, barely catching myself with my Will so I could lower myself gently to the ground. The knight was already coming back at me. I looked around quickly, thinking fast. Shadows were out, he seemed to be built to counter them, but that's far from the only arrow in my quiver, and I grabbed the nearest bench with my Will, ripping it out of the ground and sending it hurtling towards the knight, who tried to duck and failed.
The bench was smashed into splinters from the impact, but the man barely slowed down! I should have known that armou
r would be able to take it. I drew myself up into the air, this time using my Will as my shadows were being shredded far too easily. I called light into a photoburst, which should have blinded him, but did exactly nothing, which I should have expected, as his visor was closed.
The street was finally clear; everyone was out of the line of fire, and the screams had died down. I was up in the air, a good ten feet above the knight, which meant I had a moment to think and do things properly. I cast my shields, layers of force and dispel, and just in time, too, as he raised that sword again, and a lance of Life Magic smashed into my defences and tore away three of the four layers I'd managed to put up.
I darted to one side and threw more power into the shield-regenerator, bringing up six, then ten new shields and telling it to maintain while I started looking around for something heavier than a park bench.
I decided on the concrete awning in front of the Odeon entrance. I flew over to it and used force, focussed down into a beam less than a hair's breadth wide to cut the awning away, causing a shower of concrete dust to spray into the air. I used more Will to tear it free of its mountings and lift it into the air.
That wretched knight figured out my plan and released another blast from his sword, but it was too late, and about ten tons of concrete and steel came crashing down onto his armour. The ground shook, dust flew, and... naturally the bugger started clawing his way out from underneath all that mess almost immediately.
He'd dropped his sword, though, and now it was away from its host, and his energy, it was a simple matter to throw it up onto a nearby roof, far out of reach.
That gave me a little breathing room, and I used it to my advantage. I used my Mage Sight to look around and make sure that there was nobody in the building, then I simply ripped a massive section of roof away from the cinema and dropped it after the awning. There was another rolling boom, and the knight's struggles became more frantic, though his movements were now severely hampered by the sheer mass of rubble, and lack of leverage was a significant problem for his attempts to escape.
He was still trying though, and even making progress! Was anything going to put him down?
Not dead, you understand, just out of the fight. If I'd wanted him dead, I'd have just drowned him by now, assuming that blasted suit of his didn't provide oxygen, which I can't assume. Just to be sure, I dropped another dozen or so tonnes of roof on him, and his struggles seemed to cease.
And just like that he was gone! The heap sagged down into the space he'd occupied.
I let out a breath, still in mid-air. Bloody hell that had been a close run th-
He dropped on me from above.
I lost my shields and my Will and plummeted to the ground as his armoured fist surrounded my arm in a vice-like grip, tearing all my active magic away. It was all I could do to get a shadow under my clothes (shielded from the light), between him and the bones he would have broken. I called Will, and our descent slowed, but not quickly enough, and a horrible pain lanced through my ankle as it hit the pavement. I screamed and my shadows came, run through with stupid amounts of energy, enough to rip him away and throw him into the already half-wrecked Odeon cinema. I gritted my teeth in pain and rage as he crawled his way out of the hole.
"Fine," I rasped, my temper getting the best of me, "Gloves off!"
I used my Will to bring a solid chunk of the cinema's first floor down on him to buy time, and then focussed. First I cast a numbing spell on my foot, which blanked out the pain, and then I concentrated hard on my shadows, carefully crafting the spell I needed. It took two precious minutes; he tore himself free and leapt at me just as I cast the spell.
It was called Shade armour. It's a little like what the knight was wearing, only made of shadows. It was highly resistant to dispels, increased my physical strength, and made me only just this side of invulnerable. The drawback being that it was a power-hog when it took damage, and it stopped me using any other sort of Shadow Magic (not that I could with the Knight's Light Magic sprayed all over the place).
I should state up front that I had absolutely no skills in physical combat whatsoever. None at all. But I didn't really need any. The knight smashed into me with the force of a runaway bus, ripping a few small shards of my armour away, but not moving me an inch. He was dazed for a second, and in that second I grabbed his helmet and pulled.
He fought me, how could he not? But my Magic was far stronger than his enchantments, and it wasn't long before I felt something give way, and the helmet came off in a shower of metal shards and leather fragments. The knight screamed in agony as the light of his own armour scorched his eyes, and he shut them tight.
I was taken aback as I saw his face for the first time, and I felt a wave of pity flood through me.
The man's face... it was a melted horror. There was nothing but shiny, puckered burn tissue, as if the skin had run like wax. He had eyes, but they were milky and staring, his mouth was little more than a slit, and his nostrils reduced to two ugly holes in the centre of his face. He wasn't a Magician, I could feel that now, but he was alive and vital, that living energy fuelling the armour, something that would knock years off his life for every hour he wore it in combat.
I stood and backed away from the man, my armour cradling my broken ankle, which sent spikes of pain through me in spite of the numbing spell I'd cast. Compassion made me stupid as I released my Shade Armour. He scrabbled around for his helmet, pulling it back onto his head. I let him.
Stupidly.
He just came right at me again.
He hadn't spoken a single word. I didn't even know if he could. But I had the measure of him now. His armour may be filled with Life Magic, but the principle was much the same as a Spelleater, if more potent than three working together would be. The suit absorbed, refracted and dissipated any magic coming towards it, thus destroying the spell. But if you put enough energy into the spell framework, then the armour could be overwhelmed, just like a Spelleater amulet.
My shadows came, hard and brutal and powerful. A tendril hit him like a freight train, and I saw the armour dent as he flew head over heels into the wall, through it and straight through two more before he landed.
He stood shakily, but it took him a while.
"Stay down!" I shouted, readying a supercharged Shadow Lance, a nasty attack spell designed to batter its way through Magical defences. I hoped that it wouldn't kill him, but at this point better him than me!
He staggered towards me again, the smashed remains of his shield falling off his arm as he picked up speed. I threw my lance.
The armour ripped most of it away, nine-tenths or so, but the rest hit him square in the chest. The last of the power ate its way into the enchanted metal and the shadows spread out, weakening in the dispels, but still digging, forming crevices and caverns that expanded... and then exploded.
I hadn't been expecting a chain reaction, but that's what I got as the chest plate was torn apart. One broken enchantment breaking another and another, and another until the armour seemed to glow like a flare. I frantically recast my shields just as the suit exploded. Stone flew, wood burned, concrete shattered and a wave of fire and light seared away from him.
For a moment, my soul was filled with a terrible horror as I contemplated the idea that I'd murdered a man.
But the makers of that armour had done just a terrific job. There wasn't a scratch on him, not a one, not so much as a bruise! But that didn't really matter, as his body was in no better shape than his face had been. And he was... missing a few things (from the damage he'd suffered before that battle, just to clarify).
He screamed again and came for me hard, swinging at me, probably cutting and burning his feet, on the mangled ground only to hit my shields and bounce off. I sighed and cast a sleeping spell, which dropped him instantly. I went over to him and spent a few seconds crafting a coma hex that would keep him asleep until I came to get rid of it. Even Knowles couldn't figure out how to get rid of my hexes, it was a point of some pride to me
.
The street close to me was a nightmare of burning buildings and shattered brick. I cast a suppression spell that sucked the fires away, but fixing the damage was beyond the one small repair spell I knew.
I was pulling my phone out to call Kraab when the night once again exploded with sound and light, scaring the crap out of me, and nearly causing me to swat someone out of reflex.
"S.C.A.! Nobody move!" shouted a number of familiar voices.
"Easy, Agent Braak, it's only me," I said, turning to face him, my shadows keeping my weight off my ankle, the pain of which was now definitely starting to overcome the numbing spell, and with a vengeance.
"Graves?" Agent Braak asked, walking towards me, his form flickering with Battle Magic "well, the report said lunatics, Shadow Magic and property damage, so I should have thought of you."
I gave him an ugly look, and he grinned back, looking around.
"You want to take it from the top?" he asked with an exaggerated sigh, reaching for a notebook.
"You mind if I sit down first?" I asked, "I think I've broken my ankle."
"Crap, sorry," he said, coming to my side. We dropped our shields and he gripped my arm so that he could ease me onto a convenient pile of rubble.
"Ow," I said with a wince as I examined the injury, and yes, broken. That actually made things quite simple, broken bones are relatively easy to fix, it just takes a while, and it would be fragile for a few days afterwards. I started casting a healing spell. It took me a few minutes, but the spellwork was actually quite simple. I felt warmth spread from the site of the break, followed by a horrific itching, as the magic sealed the fracture. I released the numbing spell, and the wound started to ache a bit, but it wasn't unbearable. I relaxed.
"Better now?" Kraab asked as his people went looking through the rubble, "Can we get some answers?
I glared and he grinned.
I told him what had happened, and his expression slipped as I described my assailant. He wrote everything down, and by the time I was done, he looked distinctly unhappy.
