Archon's Hope: Book III of 'The Magician's Brother' Series

by HDA Roberts

  I concentrated my Will down into a single, flat plane above my head. It helped me conserve energy, but I was still losing. That beam was only about half done, and I was down to less than a quarter of my strength. I didn't even have enough concentration spare to siphon my life off to refill my Well.

  Then, a strong hand took my left, and Lady Time's other hand rose towards my shield.

  "Easy, Brother, you're not alone."

  It was like a sluice gate opened and our Wells merged. Her Will joined with mine and my shield strengthened and shone with our combined power. I felt stronger, more able to resist, more able to push that dark part of myself back where it came from.

  The beam petered out, but not before it animated a tree with the splash damage, it grew a mouth and barbed, dreadful talons in its branches. It started reaching for us as I slumped down onto the ground. Kron waved a hand, and the tree instantly immolated, along with the twisted grass and other plants. I would have sworn that I heard some of them scream.

  "You're alright," Kron said, propping me up, "it's over now."

  I held onto her like she was a lifeline, breathing hard.

  "Well done, Graves," Kron whispered, patting my back, "I'm very proud of you."

  "What was that?" I rasped, shaking with reaction and exhaustion.

  "Someone who wanted us to kill you," she said, "They tried to force the Black on you."

  "Matty!" Tethys said, dropping to my side. She pulled me into a tight hug. I hadn't known how cold I was until she started to warm me back up again.

  "Relax, Graves," Kron said, "Resisting that much Black takes its toll on a Shadowborn. You'll need a minute to breathe."

  "I'd never wanted anything so much in my life. Saying no... it was like being torn in half," I said.

  "I've seen more than forty people given that choice, Mathew. You're the first one that ever even tried to say no," Kron said, patting my shoulder, "That's impressive. Still a sloppy shield, though."

  I couldn't help it, I burst out laughing. Tethys squeezed me tighter to her, and the combination of the laughter and the presence of the two women seemed to banish the ice that felt like it had been forming in my guts. I slowly stopped shaking and my breathing normalised.

  "Crap, I hate Black Magic," I said, "And was that a carnivorous tree?"

  "Black Magic doesn't generally make things cuddlier," Kron commented, standing up and helping me to my feet.

  "Thanks for coming. I'd ask how you knew, but I assume Time Magic?"

  "Fair guess," Kron said with a tight smile, "and you're welcome."

  "Any idea who did this?"

  "Could have been anyone that hates you. It's not a short list," Kron replied, the ghost of a grin on her face.

  "I would guess the same people who've been taking Fairies," I replied, "That was a lot of Magic."

  "Agreed," Kron said, "though with any luck at all, they won't be able to do it again."

  "Wouldn't that be nice?" I said.

  "Can I take him home? He doesn't look well," Tethys said.

  "Way to kick me when I'm down."

  "Shut up," she said, still having to prop me up.

  "Yes, he should rest," Kron said, taking a proper look at Tethys, "You're his Succubus. The Spymaster."

  "Yes, to all of that," Tethys replied, linking her arm with mine.

  "Then he's hardly going home with you," Kron said, her eyes narrowing.

  "It's okay," I said, "if she was the sort to do me a mischief, she would have done it ages ago."

  "I'm not reassured by that," Kron said.

  "He's fine with me. I'm hardly likely to hurt him now that you know where he's gone, am I?"

  Kron muttered, but nodded.

  "Thanks again, I really mean that," I said.

  She patted my shoulder and vanished.

  "I wish they'd show me how to do that," I said.

  "You move fast enough as it is, thank you," Tethys said, "How are you?"

  "Weak," I said, "I'm all out of energy."

  "Ooh, I love it when you're pliable," she said, moving in closer.

  Before I had a chance to protest there was a pop, and my mother appeared. Grommit dropped off her back and vanished just as quickly.

  "Mathew!" Mother shouted, running towards me.

  Oh, there was just no way this was good...

  Chapter 17

  "What's happened?" I asked, Tethys still holding me up, by the way.

  "I don't know!" she almost wailed, "The sky went black, this black beam shot down and hit your brother. He seemed fine for a second, and then he started laughing. Matty... it was horrible, like the sound you'd hear at the end of the world."

  There was another pop and my father appeared with Grommit on his shoulders.

  "Wait!" I said before the 'cat could teleport away again, "Can you take me back home with you?"

  He nodded and jumped onto my back, wrapping his paws around my neck and chest, damn he was heavy!

  "Call Kraab and Hopkins," I said, tossing my phone to Tethys, "and could you take care of them?"

  "Like you need to ask," Tethys said, moving over to my parents.

  "Let's go," I said to Grommit.

  "Matty, wait!" Father shouted, but it was too late.

  Grommit emitted a little 'meow' and suddenly we were in front of my home.

  A huge patch of grass had been transformed into grotesques, the resultant plants undulating and seeking prey.

  I had started to recover, magic wise, but I was barely at five percent, if that.

  I cast Mage Sight and nearly ran for my life.

  I saw Des' Magical signature, about a hundred metres away on the other side of the house. His aura reeked of the Black. It was ugly and awful. I wanted to kill it, and its host; who it was barely registered. It took all my concentration to calm down and think things through. I could see that his Well contained only a tiny fraction of the Black Magic that had come for me, I didn't know why that should be, but it meant that I was in with a chance.

  I saw four auras close by, my grandparents. Two on the top floor of the house, two on the middle. Des was approaching the lower ones, standing right below them, in fact. I saw him gathering Magic, tapping into the Black in his Well.

  Oh God, he was going kill them...

  I could only think to do one thing: give him another target.

  I cast an amplification spell, and my voice boomed across the lawn.

  "DES!" I shouted, loud enough to rattle the windows in their frames, "COME OUT HERE, OR I'LL COME IN AND GET YOU!"

  The idea was to draw him out and buy enough time for Grommit to rescue my grandparents. Hopefully there would be enough left of Des that he still hated me enough to rise to my bait.

  As it turns out, there was, because the wall in front of me exploded and my brother came bounding out. He was laughing manically, and I absolutely understood what my mother had been talking about.

  He... he didn't look right.

  His form was bulging against his clothes, the muscles rippling under the transformative power of the Black. There were red and black veins crawling up his neck and over his face. His eyes were blue and shimmering, like they were metal; his hair was blonde and moving, almost like it was a living thing all on its own. His face was contorted in unholy humour. I saw strange bones protruding from his left arm, black and barbed; they'd torn right through his clothes. His left leg had changed; it was wider and covered in chitin that had ripped through his trouser leg, more like an insect's than a man's, ending in two clawed toes. At the centre of his forehead was a red, staring eye.

  The Spelleater Manacles were nowhere to be seen

  "Oh, I am so happy to see you!" he said, his voice thick and ugly, his mouth filled with sharp, blackened teeth and a tongue that would be more at home on a lizard than a mammal. Now that he was closer I could see that his eyes weren't metal. They were compound, like you'd see on an insect.

  Due to the simple fact that I didn't dare allow myself to know, I'd never done
much reading about Black Magic. But from what Hopkins and Cassandra had told me, I was able to recognise that Des had become a Grotesque. That's what she called things altered by the Black, like the tree or the grass. This was what happened to a non-Shadowborn Black Magician who didn't know exactly what he was doing.

  Assuming I survived this, I was going to have to improve my knowledge base, and bloody fast, too...

  "You know," he continued, walking towards me, his movements twitchy and predatory, "over the last few months I've given some thought as to how I might get back at you one day."

  He looked me up and down before licking his lips, smearing some black fluid over them.

  "I've decided to eat you," he said, his tone matter-of-fact, like we were discussing the weather, "not too quickly. I'll start at the extremities and work my way in. I think you'd be delicious. I wonder what your eyes will taste like? Let me have one."

  He came for me, blindingly fast.

  I'd waited until the last instant to raise my shields, desperate to conserve energy. He bounced off.

  "That's cheating, little brother," he said, darting around, "I'm hungry, and I couldn't catch your precious Burglar. He looked tasty, too."

  I had to approach this very carefully. At fractional strength, I was too weak to fight like I normally would. And if I siphoned off any more of my life force before I'd fully recovered, I might do some permanent damage, or die on the spot, so that's the very last resort. Palmyra had told me categorically that I shouldn't do it for at least another couple of months.

  My shields were at about half the level I'd normally conjure for a duel, six barriers instead of twelve. I dared not risk a dispel-cannon, not that it would help much here. My only hope was Will to keep the Black off me, and Force to buy myself time for reinforcements to turn up. I couldn't use my shadows, because I could get contaminated, and I couldn't risk telepathy for the same reason. I didn't know that for sure, but better safe than genocidal.

  So, defence until help. I could already see that Grommit had been back and taken two grandparents to safety. Just a little longer and I could run for the Grotto myself.

  "Des, please think! This isn't you. You're better than this," I said, trying to buy time. There was no reasoning with him, but I might get him to taunt me.

  He laughed at me, "Oh, what a tired cliché," he said, barely controlling his laughs, "I am what you made me. And soon, I'm going to make you watch as I pull them all apart. I'll eat a little bit of them, then a little bit of you, it'll be fun. I'll bet that friend of yours tastes sweet. What's her name? Cathy?"

  Maybe I lost my temper a little.

  In my defence, I had that natural revulsion to other Black Magicians, my over-protective boyfriend instincts and enough unresolved issues with my brother to pay a therapist for a decade.

  I hit him with force, barely keeping it below a lethal level. The blast was tiny, a ball about an inch across. It hit him square in the gut and flung him head over heels. He was back up in a flash and started calling light.

  He threw a beam, suffused with the Black, making it dark and evil.

  I dodged and ran, sending a beam of Force back at him, which he dodged easily now that he was ready. A flickering dark barrier appeared in front of him, ragged and sloppy, but effective. When my next lance struck it, the energy fed back along the spell, and I screamed as the lattice broke every bone in my right hand, which should have been impossible!

  I fell to my knees, and he was on me, Black Magic coiling around his hands as he tore through my shields, his eyes widened in hunger.

  Arrows sprouted from his back, just as he was about to tear through my last shield and he fell away from me, his eyes darting to and fro, looking for the source. Thank God for Centaurs. Lunson had told me that they were all expert archers and woodsmen; they couldn't be seen unless they wanted to be. I'd lost my Mage Sight when I'd been hurt, so I couldn't see them either.

  Des pulled the arrows out with his Will (something I'd never have believed him capable off) and the holes closed, Black Magic pulling his flesh back together.

  And that's when I noticed it.

  The next two arrows ripped into his chest and neck, spraying dead blood everywhere. He re-orientated his shield, surrounding himself, and the arrows simply turned to mush before impact.

  That confirmed it. The Black closed these injuries, too.

  And then it didn't come back.

  He wasn't generating any Black Magic. If it got into me, it would merge with the very fabric of my Well, and I'd always produce it. But he wasn't a Shadowborn. He couldn't generate it naturally. He'd need to do it directly, and he didn't know how.

  That meant that if I got him to spend his Black Magic, this would be over. He'd be down to his regular Magic, and I could put him to sleep!

  But how to do that? I could hurt him, force him to regenerate, that had a certain appeal, I had to admit. I'd have to use projectiles, though. Beams were too dangerous. I cradled my mangled hand and cast a numbing spell while I backed away. My mind quickly cleared and I could concentrate again.

  I called a little shadow and threw a tiny Shadow Lance, as an experiment. It darted through Des' shield and smacked into his altered leg, blowing a chunk away and causing him to collapse. Des turned his attention back to me, and cast another Black beam at my head. I ducked and my shields collapsed from a glancing shot. I scrambled away and called my shadows to pull me clear.

  Des followed with his Black Light, and I felt a spreading cold as his Magic clipped the edge of my shadows, the Black Magic crawling inwards, straight towards the point where shadow ended and my Well began. I panicked and released my constructs. I dropped like a stone, and hit hard enough to break something in my leg.

  I screamed again. And Des was suddenly standing over me, a dozen arrows in his chest, neck and face. He didn't seem to notice.

  He smiled evilly, raising his hand, his nails black and elongated into curved talons, inching towards my eyes.

  "Red eyes, I wonder if they taste like strawberries?"

  The hand lanced downwards... and suddenly he was flying backwards; dragged away by the sheer power of warping space! Lighting buzzed from behind me, and I turned to see Hopkins coming towards me, electricity connecting her with Des, who was laughing manically again as his flesh charred, smoking as it turned black.

  I added a Shadow Lance to the barrage and his left hip exploded, leaving the limb attached by a shred of skin and muscle. The Black was already rebuilding him, but he was draining fast. Just a little longer...

  He cast a ball of something nasty at Hopkins, and I put a plane of Will in the way, which deflected it into the ground (creating some rather horrible things out of the grass. To this day I still feel a little sick when I think about them). Hopkins followed up with more electricity, enough to wound and incapacitate, but not kill. She was doing her best to keep my brother alive.

  I drew chemical energy from the grass under my body and hurled it at Des, the energy leeched into his flesh, and it started bubbling like it had been struck by acid. I was nearly out of Magic at that point; the numbing spells were coming undone, and the pain was starting to seep through.

  Des took a long look at Hopkins, and paused for a second. He licked his lips, concentrated, and suddenly his entire form seemed to burn with black fire. An instant later, a massive ball of Black Magic, most of what he had left, came straight at the Starborn Lady.

  She snorted in derision and simply waved her hand. A portal opened before it got anywhere near her, another above her head, and the ball flew through the former and out the latter, straight into the sky.

  I have to admit, that was pretty damn cool.

  Hopkins finished him off with lightning even as he was trying to recover from his failure. She drained the last of his Black Magic in regeneration and when the final drop was gone, she threw a pulse of Force that smacked him hard over and onto the ground. He twitched, trying to stand up again, and she blasted him a final time with lightning. He gaspe
d once and was finally down for the count. I used the very last trickle of energy I had to throw a coma-hex his way.

  Hopkins knelt next to me, her face worried as she looked me over.

  "Oh, thank you," I said, "nick of time, as usual."

  "What were you thinking?" she said, "You should have died, right here!"

  She started using Flesh Magic.

  "Knew you'd come," I said, feeling slightly woozy, ready to pass out, actually.

  "Well of course I was coming! That doesn't make it any less stupid!"

  "He was going to kill my grandparents."

  Hopkins sighed as she worked.

  "Move over, you're hamming it up," Palmyra said, suddenly on my other side, "Yikes, what hit you? This is one mangled hand."

  I snorted and told them what happened while Palmyra poured Life Magic into my body. I felt the various bones set and start to heal.

  Kron and Killian turned up about half way through and I had to start again.

  "I left you alone for maybe five minutes!" Kron said, kneeling next to me, a worried look on her face as Palmyra finished her work.

  "Oh, thank you," I said to the little Life Mage, "that's so much better."

  "You want to thank me? Make me unnecessary! I don't need this stress," she said, flopping down next to me.

  "Would if I could, it's not my fault!"

  Palmyra and Hopkins made disgusted sounds.

  "Not that I'm complaining, but you four do seem to show up a lot when I'm in the middle of doing something stupid, you mind if I ask why?"

  "Maybe it's because when you do something stupid, it's at a point where the planet will break if it ends badly?!" Kron said.

  "Fair point," I said, "Thank you all, really."

  "I was only here because Kron made me," Killian said, "I was napping, would have left you to it. Why would you need four Archons to deal with one little Black Magician? Even Jenny could take him."

  "Hey, I'm sitting right here!" Hopkins replied.

  "Alright, where's the outbrea- oh," Kraab said, emerging from a portal with Braak and a small team of heavily armed S.C.A. agents.

  "Well, better late than never," Killian said, dropping next to Kron on the grass. She'd already taken the trouble to burn the mutated horrors Des had made of the plants.