The Warlock's Gambit

by David Alastair Hayden

  “He showed you me getting killed again, didn’t he?”

  Arthur sighed. “Yes.”

  “Arthur, you can’t keep falling for that trick.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Want to talk about the other part?”

  “Me acting like I was a warlock or something? No, I don’t. Not now anyway.”

  Arthur closed his eyes, and he must’ve fallen asleep immediately, because it seemed like Morgan’s timer went off only moments later. He stood, stretched, and walked around. His legs didn’t tremble, and his head seemed mostly clear.

  “I’m as ready as I’m going to get without a night of sleep.” He took out his c|slate, shaped it into a tiny square, and pinned it to his chest. “How do I make it light up?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You have access to voice command. We went over that.”

  “So I just need to tell it to?”

  “Yes,” she sighed.

  “And it won’t affect yours?”

  “Your slate is tuned only to your voice. I swear we went over that.”

  Arthur shrugged. “I figured out the raygun flashlights.”

  “Well, you did do that. You’re not altogether clueless. Ready?”

  Arthur turned on the c|slate light and approached the silver door that led to the Heart of the Manse, a door they supposedly couldn’t walk through, and weren’t supposed to. Lexi and Vassalus wished them luck.

  Arthur turned to Morgan and said, in a trembling voice, “Well, here we go at last.”

  “Ugh — please, no mushiness. If it’s the end, I’ll go out the way I’ve lived — without sentiment and just as I am.”

  Arthur smiled — deviously. He dashed in, gave her a quick peck on the cheek, and darted away before she could react.

  “For luck,” he said, as charmingly as possible.

  Morgan’s eyes blazed. She stepped in and punched him on the shoulder — hard.

  “Ow!”

  “You deserved that.” Her lips trembled; she almost smiled. “You remember the plan we went over at dinner?”

  Arthur drew a raygun and grabbed the handle to the door leading into the Heart. “I do.”

  Morgan activated her force field. “Then let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Warlock’s Gambit

  Together they charged into the Heart of the Manse. It was exactly like what Arthur had seen in the dream, but with two exceptions. First, the streams of light that emanated from the crystal standing stones weren’t consistent — they were sputtering, and the column of light itself was pulsating and wavering. Second, it wasn’t Lady Orella hovering cross-legged in the column but her daughter, Ylliara.

  Arthur had no idea where the door was on this side. They had simply stepped into the room and appeared right at the edge of the standing stones, between vermilion and rose. Behind them was only darkness. The moment after he’d taken all this in, he realized with a shock that there was one other difference: Kjor was standing — facing them — and ready for a fight. The eye blinked within the shard floating behind Kjor. Bright-Cage lay between Kjor and the eye — that was going to complicate the plan. The Stone of Unbecoming still lay at the bottom of the light column, beneath Lady Ylliara. As feared, she gazed at Arthur and Morgan with a blank, unrecognizing expression.

  A tremendous blast of dark energy — like a mix of shade stuff and purple fire — shot out from Kjor’s hands, struck Morgan’s shield and knocked her back into Arthur. They both stumbled and nearly crashed into the vermilion standing stone. Arthur had no idea what would’ve happened if they had. For all he knew, touching one of those would get them disintegrated.

  Arthur ducked around the edge of Morgan’s flickering force field and fired twice at Kjor. The shots struck: one to the shoulder and the other to the stomach. Hope flashed swiftly within Arthur, and burned out just as fast. The shots didn’t affect Kjor at all. Either Kjor’s shadow mantle had protected him, or Arthur hadn’t really meant them like he should have. Destroying a shade or wraith was one thing, but Kjor was a person — wicked or good or in-between didn’t matter. Arthur couldn’t kill someone.

  Another blast of shadow-fire struck the force field. Morgan staggered back into Arthur again, but even she was too focused on the danger to complain about them touching. Her shield had held, but only by shrinking down to a smaller size. Arthur was going to have to stay directly behind her now.

  “How are we supposed to get past this?” Morgan muttered as shadow-fire again formed between Kjor’s hands. “Our plan is useless. Another blast will take out my shields and then —”

  “We’ll be dead.”

  Kjor’s voice suddenly entered Arthur’s mind; there was nothing he could do to prevent it. He looked over Morgan’s shoulder and met Kjor’s coal-dark eyes. This wasn’t a vision, but a telepathic link, where they could simply talk through their thoughts. And it was private. No one else could hear them. No one would even be able to tell they were communicating. How Arthur knew this, he didn’t know. But he had experienced this connection once before: in the dream where he was a child again, when Kjor had talked to him via thought alone, when Kjor had promised Arthur would always be safe with him.

  “Do you understand what’s at stake here, Arthur? Do you understand the dream? Lives hang in the balance …”

  “I understand,” he thought back. And he did understand. He could feel the pain and regret in Kjor’s mental voice, and he knew Vassalus was right: Kjor had been begging for Arthur to save him.

  “I will help you … as best as I can, Arthur … but I can only help so much. You have to legitimately defeat me. If I … if I kill you, know that I am deeply sorry. I don’t want to do this, but I have a —”

  “A family,” Arthur responded. “I get it.”

  “Step to the right and brace yourself.”

  Arthur took the step, hesitantly, as another blast of shadow-fire slammed into Morgan’s force field. Though the shield absorbed the shadow stuff and flames, the force of the strike knocked the shield out of commission and blasted Morgan off her feet. Flying backward, she struck the vermilion pillar, back first, and then her head made a solid thunk against the stone. She slumped down — unconscious — her face, arms, and legs blistered red by the heat from the blast.

  “Morgan!”

  She didn’t respond.

  He fired shots at Kjor, meaning to hurt him but not kill him, but again they did nothing when they hit. Kjor hadn’t even tried to evade them.

  “This is going to hurt,” Kjor said telepathically as shadow-fire again formed between his palms. “But you can survive it. The Hosts don’t know about the darkness in you. I never told them. That darkness is waking up, and it will protect you. The Hosts won’t understand, not by watching from such a distance. They will think you’re more powerful than you actually are when you survive the blast.”

  “You’re going to have to hit me first,” Arthur thought back as another stream of shadow-fire streaked toward him.

  Arthur dove to his right; the shadow-fire roared overhead. Unharmed, Arthur rolled up to his feet. Karate and the cannonball practice in the Training Room had paid off. Arthur fired more shots at Kjor, with his mind fully intent on stunning him. With a twist, Kjor dodged one blast. The other struck him in the thigh — and did nothing.

  Arthur sprinted full speed toward Kjor, hoping to get past him so he could reach Bright-Cage. Another jet of shadow-fire rushed toward him. Arthur tried to dodge it, and if he had zigged to the left, he would’ve been fine. But instead, he zagged right into it.

  The hit didn’t knock him flying like it had Morgan, but it did make him stumble back a few steps. Had Kjor pulled the punch, or was this solely the darkness within protecting him? He was blistered badly now; his face was numb one moment and burning the next. But that was from the heat. The flames themselves had parted and flowed around him, as if he were a rock in a stream. As for the darkness that hit him full on, he knew that power — he had felt it before, when
he had destroyed the wraiths with his anger. That kind of power was a part of him. It couldn't hurt him, but the force of the impact could knock him back.

  Whether or not he actually was, Kjor looked surprised as he took a step back and stammered a curse that invoked gods Arthur had never heard of before. Arthur sprinted forward again, firing shots at Kjor’s head. If they couldn’t hurt him, maybe the blasts could at least blind and distract him a bit. Arthur rolled under another blast of shadow-fire and past Kjor. He dropped the raygun from his right hand and dove for Bright-Cage. Leaping up to his feet, the handle gripped in his hand, he thought about using the sword. Immediately, a three-foot-long blade of white energy appeared. The sword hummed and vibrated, and it seemed almost to have a pulse, as if it were alive somehow.

  Arthur pointed the sword at Kjor, who snarled at him. Arthur could actually feel the presence of the Hosts’ eye in the shard hovering behind him. So he began to circle, putting himself in between Kjor and Ylliara. He stole a quick glance at Morgan. She wasn’t moving, but he felt certain she was alive and only knocked out. There wasn’t any blood.

  “Make a statement,” Kjor said telepathically. “While I’m surprised and sizing you up.”

  “Scared now, warlock?” Arthur said out loud, hoping his voice was defiant and not trembling. “You should be.”

  “I killed you,” Kjor hissed. “I buried you with my own hands. You were dead — I made sure of that.”

  “I guess it didn’t take.”

  “How is this possible?”

  “Powers you wouldn’t even understand brought me back to life. And after they trained me, I returned here, to take back what is mine. Now I am the Multiversal Paladin, and I will have my revenge.”

  Kjor flung his arms out wide and cast a massive blast of shadow-fire at Arthur. Unlike the other attacks, this one didn’t form between his hands. Instead, it fired out immediately: from his arms and legs, from his chest and stomach, and from his eyes and mouth. Arthur didn’t have time to dodge; all he managed was to hold the sword up in front of him. Again, the flames parted around him, but the heat was far more intense than the first time. He felt the skin on his hands and face melt, as it had on his forearm when a shade had gripped him when he had first tried to enter the Manse. The shadow force punched the air out of his lungs and launched him into the air. He flew, tumbling backward, straight into the column of light.

  The light burned away all the shadows still clinging to him, and all his injuries — from the excruciating burns on his face a half-moment before to the scabbed-over knot on the back of his head — healed instantly. Even his fatigue disappeared, as if he’d had several good nights of sleep. In that moment, he felt more energized and alive than he had ever felt before. Then he crashed into Lady Ylliara and knocked her out of the column of light. They landed hard on the ground, tangled together in a heap, on the other side.

  Arthur had dropped his raygun, but he had managed to hold onto Bright-Cage — without hurting himself or Ylliara. She groaned and grasped at her head as Arthur stood. Surprised that he hadn’t been blasted by shadow-fire again already, Arthur gripped the sword with both hands and spun around.

  Kjor hadn’t moved. He was still standing on the other side of the column, staring at the same thing Arthur’s eyes were now fixated on: a glimmering, translucent, image of Ylliara still hovering in the column of light, sitting cross-legged and gazing blankly above their heads. Except for the way he could see right through her, she looked exactly as she had before: powerful and angelic.

  Arthur’s eyes darted to the dazed Ylliara on the ground. Though she had the same bronze skin, coppery hair, slanted emerald eyes, and silk dress as before, she no longer had the shimmering aura of power that made her seem otherworldly. She also seemed more like a teenage girl and less like someone who had lived for millennia.

  Kjor wasn’t the only one shocked by this. The eye of the Hosts was blinking rapidly. Whatever he had just done, Arthur was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be possible. While Kjor hesitated, Arthur took the opportunity to look back to Morgan again. She still wasn’t moving. He had thought she would be fine, but she hadn’t stirred at all, and he was starting to worry. What if she was —

  Kjor had noticed where Arthur’s attention was focused. He turned toward Morgan, raised his hands, and pointed them toward her. As the shadow-fire formed in his hands, he spoke into Arthur’s mind. “Move now — use the sword.”

  Arthur sprinted toward Morgan, but there was no way he could make it there in time to intercept the blast. Morgan would be burned to a crisp and crushed against the standing stone.

  But he had to save Morgan. He couldn’t do this without her.

  The second heartbeat kicked in immediately, thundering full-tilt, and all the world became a bright tunnel of light between where he was now and where he needed to be. And it worked exactly like it had when he had rescued her from the training beast. His strength and speed became, for a moment, superhuman, and he closed the distance in a single heartbeat.

  With the sword held in both hands, he stood in front of Morgan and shielded her for a change. The blast struck him. The sword acted differently; this time, it drew in the purple flames and absorbed their heat completely. The shadows struck Arthur and vaporized like raindrops striking white-hot metal. Not even the force of their impact affected him. This time, he felt no connection to the shadows that contacted him. This time, he wasn’t infused with darkness; the power of the Multiversal Paladin surged inside him. He was even casting off a subtle glow.

  Kjor drew a long, thin blade of cold, dark steel from his cloak and charged at Arthur. With a strange, high-pitched war cry, he sliced downward. Arthur lifted Bright-Cage instinctively to block. The blades met, pure energy against dark steel. Arthur had expected Bright-Cage to cut through the other blade. Instead, the collision resulted in a solid clunk, like metal striking wood. The reverberation ran down Arthur’s arms, numbing his shoulders.

  He still felt the Paladin’s power coursing through his muscles, but he could tell the second heartbeat was already slowing. It was harder to sustain than the anger that brought out the shadow force.

  Kjor broke away and slashed low toward Arthur’s legs. Arthur tried to block it, but only managed to partially deflect it. Enhanced speed or not, he wasn’t trained in sword fighting, and he had no idea what special tricks, if any, Bright-Cage could do. The sword sliced a shallow cut into Arthur’s left thigh. Wincing from the pain, he brought Bright-Cage up, but Kjor was already starting another attack.

  “A thrust to your right,” Kjor said telepathically.

  Arthur leaned to the left, but not soon enough. The blade pierced his armored jacket and scored a thin cut along his ribcage.

  “Faster! From high!”

  Arthur had begun his own attack, but aborted it and raised Bright-Cage overhead to block. He succeeded, but the force of the blow drove him down onto one knee.

  “You’re losing strength. Hard right; follow with a thrust to my chest.”

  Kjor’s directions came so fast Arthur could barely take them in before it was too late to do anything about them. He hopped to the right, avoiding Kjor’s thrust. He returned with his own, but it was wildly off-target.

  “Do you realize how hard it is for me to pull my punches like this? To hold my shadow mantle in check so that I can aid you? Leg sweep.”

  That Arthur could handle because of his karate lessons. He leapt up, though barely in time. Arthur slashed down with his blade, and Kjor easily blocked the attack.

  “I’m trying, but you’re getting faster,” Arthur thought at him.

  “You’re getting slower. Block middle left.”

  Arthur managed the block, but still ended up with a cut on his arm.

  “You do realize the girl needs medical attention, right? She’s dying. To your right.”

  Morgan was dying? The world turned bright; his second heartbeat thundered. He blocked the attack with such strength that he threw Kjor off balance, exposing
his side to Arthur. Suddenly, it occurred to him: the sword was his weakness. With increased speed and strength, he should focus on what he did know: karate. Arthur continued the sword block and threw a side kick to Kjor’s ribs. Kjor stumbled back, gasping. Arthur feinted with a sword slash, and then threw the fastest roundhouse kick he’d ever managed. He was certain that even Bruce Lee would’ve been impressed. The kick struck Kjor in the jaw and sent him reeling. Arthur then did his own leg sweep, struck Kjor in the shins, and brought him to his knees.

  Arthur launched a forward kick, trying to finish Kjor off, but Kjor was ready for that. He blocked Arthur’s kick, redirecting Arthur’s motion so he spun slightly. Then, rising up, he punched Arthur in the side, using Arthur’s momentum to continue spinning him around. Arthur stumbled off balance and couldn’t recover fast enough. Kjor’s blade sliced across his back. Luckily, the cut wasn’t deep — no doubt on purpose — but Arthur cried out as the pain seared into his nerves.

  He turned back, and Kjor’s blade was speeding straight toward his heart. Arthur couldn’t stop it, and there was no way Kjor could pull this punch. Arthur, in that split second, saw it in Kjor’s eyes. Arthur was about to die; it was all over.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Arthur’s Gambit

  Out of nowhere, Lexi leapt onto Kjor, tearing at his arm. The death stroke missed. Kjor, Lexi, and Arthur all collided with one another. Lexi’s injuries were worse than she had made out. As soon as they hit the ground, she mewled out in pain. Kjor kicked free and leapt to his feet. Arthur was still scrambling back up when Kjor brought his blade down, aiming it at Lexi. The cut would slice into Lexi’s neck; Arthur couldn’t get there fast enough to block it.

  Arthur had no idea how he did what he did next, but he understood what it was: the Aetherial equivalent to the shadow-fire. Instinctively, Arthur pointed Bright-Cage at Kjor, and a stream of orange flames and blinding light seared into him. The attack lasted only a moment, but it was enough. Knocked back, Kjor’s attack failed. Part of his shadow mantle had burned away, and his skin was blistered. Staggering, Kjor doubled over, groaning in pain.