The Charmed Sphere

by Catherine Asaro

  “Even so,” Jarid said, “I will not kill you.” He made a blue spell and coated his hands with it like a balm. The pain receded.

  Anvil raised his arms. “Hear me, Mage King!” Outside, a crack rent the night. The window behind Jarid shattered, raining broken glass over him. His spell of healing deflected most of the shards, but a few sliced his clothes, bringing more pain.

  “Stop!” Jarid stretched out his arm, his palm facing Anvil. A wall of purple light rolled out from his hand and swept across the dark mage, making him jerk backward.

  “Stop my spells, will you?” Anvil laughed. “All of them! You don’t know how to deal with so many at once.”

  This time thunder rumbled within the castle, a rolling crash that shook through a nearby wing. Anvil was attacking Suncroft. Jarid’s temper surged. Wind rushed through the shattered window at his back, whipping his hair around his face. Somewhere a woman screamed. Sparks jumped from Anvil to Jarid, searing his skin despite Jarid’s protective spells.

  “Go ahead!” Anvil shouted above the noise. “Strike me!” His scorn fueled his spells, making flames jump within the chamber.

  “Waterfall,” Jarid said. Sparkling blue light poured down from nowhere, dousing the flames, healing, calming, cooling his temper.

  “Look.” Anvil motioned at the window. “See what happens to your home while you play water games.” As he spoke, another crack sounded outside.

  Jarid whirled—and saw flames. The Starlight Tower, clearly visible from here, roared with fire. Nothing remained of its turreted roof except a jagged border at the top of the burning walls.

  “I will bring it down,” Anvil grated. “All of it, unless you relinquish to me your life and your kingdom.”

  Cries came from within the castle, piercing Jarid like a sword. He swung around in time to see Anvil make a light spell, the glowing image of a woman in the palm of his upturned hand—a perfect replica of Iris. She screamed as flames enveloped her body.

  “This is what she feels now.” Hatred consumed Anvil’s voice. “Watch her suffer, you madman.”

  Jarid’s rage leapt. He felt Iris’s agony—and his capacity for rational thought vanished. Power surged through him, building to an explosive peak.

  Anvil kept pushing his spells outward. With a great, thundering crash, part of the wall around them collapsed, destroying the layers of Jarid’s spell that drew on the shape of the chamber. No matter. He needed no concrete shapes. He threw his fury into the orbs of light he held, turning them violet. They spun as he raised his arms above his head. Power rolled through him, building, gathering, cresting. Anvil had no idea; Jarid could destroy any spell the dark mage created, shatter it as easily as Anvil had shattered the window. He could kill this monster with one bolt or make him suffer protracted agony. His power flared, raging, and violet flames roared around his body.

  “Jarid, no.” Muller’s shout came from behind Anvil. “Don’t do it!” He stood in the doorway, his body bathed in radiance, his gold hair luminous with reflected light.

  The king barely heard him. He drew his spell back as if it were a spear he would drive through Anvil. Power coursed within him, wild, fierce, unstoppable.

  And in that moment, just before Jarid killed, Muller lunged into the room. He knocked Anvil to the side and stumbled when a backlash of the dark mage’s power hit him.

  “Muller, stay back, you fool!” Jarid shouted. He was losing control of his spell; his cousin could die here as easily as Anvil.

  The dark mage grabbed Muller and swung him around, his arm around Muller’s neck. “See your cousin!” he called to Jarid. “Watch him die.”

  “No.” Jarid’s voice fell into a deceptive calm. Muller stared at him, gasping for breath as he fought Anvil, his eyes taking a manic light. Erratic power flooded Jarid, an incredible power, untrained, untutored, unleashed for the first time with no restraint. Surely such an immense, indigo strength came from Anvil—but this magnificent power had a purity the dark mage would never know.

  Then, suddenly, Jarid understood; the room’s shape had become imperfect when the wall collapsed. Muller was using it to let his full power loose for the first time in his life. His cousin was an indigo sphere-mage.

  Light flared around Muller like wildfire. His power surged, but instead of striking Anvil, it blasted Jarid. The king was already struggling to hold his killing spell; now, with Muller’s spell whirling through him, Jarid lost control. Thunder crashed and light flared until he could see nothing, neither his cousin nor his enemy. In that searing moment, he knew Muller had never plumbed a fraction of his power. Stronger than Anvil, surely one of the most powerful mages ever known, Muller came close to breaking Jarid’s killing spell—

  But even he couldn’t stop the fury Jarid unleashed.

  With power coursing through him, Jarid stood, his legs planted wide as he raised his arms to the sky. His spell roared through the broken chamber. Muller’s spell coursed through him, melded with his own now, bending the forces Jarid and Anvil had thrown at each other. The roof and remaining walls of the room exploded outward in a rain of debris. Wind rushed across Jarid as he stood, his arms to the sky, his body ablaze like a star.

  He was dimly aware that Anvil and Muller had fallen to the ground. Muller was kneeling, staring upward in shock. Jarid fought to regain control of his power before the spell destroyed everything. His light filled the chamber, the tower, the castle, and flooded across the countryside, casting harsh shadows in the night.

  All around Suncroft, on the field and hills, in woods and vales, warriors were rising to their feet. Jarid saw them clearly, though they were far away. They stood among trees and by campfires, climbed out of bedrolls, and held restless horses. All stared upward at Jarid, who stood atop the broken tower, his arms raised to the sky, mage light brilliant around the radiant pillar of his body.

  Jarid thought he could stand there forever, lost in the magnificence and fury. Time lost meaning. A thousand glorious eons passed.

  Only gradually did he become aware that a woman had come to him. She stood within the circle that had been the floor of a chamber and was now the top of the tower. Her hip-length hair whipped in the gales, a curling mane, gold, bronze, amber, brown, red, copper. She was fiercely beautiful, like the warrior queens of legend who blazed across the sky on horses of fire.

  She spoke, but in the roar of his power, he heard nothing. As she came closer, her lips formed a word: Jarid. He should know that word, but his mind had filled with his spell until he thought he would ignite and be consumed in its fire.

  She took another step, closing the space between them—and touched him, laying her palm against his chest. With horror, he knew his spell would incinerate her.

  And yet, incredibly, power flowed around and through her, and she absorbed it unharmed, siphoning the energy that streamed off him with such ferocity.

  As his spell eased, he remembered his name. Jarid. He dragged in a breath, brought back from the edge of a catastrophe that could have incinerated everything he loved. This warrior mage was his wife. Iris. She stood with her hand against his chest and he could finally, mercifully, let his spell dissipate into the rushing winds.

  By the time Jarid came fully to his senses, dawn had turned the sky red. Iris continued to stand with him, her gaze steady. With a groan, he took her into his arms and buried his head against her hair.

  “Saints forgive me,” he rasped. He had almost destroyed it all—Suncroft, Croft’s Vale, everything.

  “Such power,” she whispered. “A spell created by three sphere mages, two indigos and one violet. And you held it all within yourself.”

  Jarid wasn’t ready to consider the magnitude of what he had done. He drew back and lifted her blowing away of her face. “Anvil told me you were burning alive.”

  “I am not so easy to overcome.”

  She didn’t fool him. Her mood echoed with the agony she had endured from that spell, which had burned her mind rather than her body. “I am glad you are ali
ve.” It barely touched what he felt.

  “And I you.” Her voice caught.

  He spoke raggedly. “You are my love. Always.”

  Moisture gathered in her eyes. “As you are mine.”

  Jarid became aware of other people. Lifting his head, he saw Muller standing a few paces away, his face pale, his arms hanging at his side, his hair ruffled in the wind. Brant stood behind him with Della and Fieldson. Arkandy waited with Sam Threadman, Muller’s valet. Beyond them, across the razed tower, stood the other chamber, the one with imperfect shapes—except it no longer existed. It too had exploded.

  Muller followed Jarid’s gaze to the blasted chamber. Then he turned back to Jarid. “It magnified my spell.”

  “Your what?” Della asked. The others stared at Muller in bewildered astonishment.

  Jarid spoke quietly. “You saved my life, cousin.”

  “Nay.” Muller flushed. “I almost destroyed you.”

  Jarid shook his head. “You deflected Anvil’s spell, so it exploded the room instead of killing anyone.”

  Muller swallowed. “Quite some luck.”

  Luck. He wondered if Muller had any idea what he had accomplished. Anvil would have pulled Jarid’s spell inside out, turning it to evil, just as he had done to Chime when he attacked her while she rode with the army, or to Muller when Anvil tricked him into losing his way in the bog. Only this time, the dark mage would have been dealing with a power unlike any other unleashed. If Muller hadn’t shunted off Anvil’s attack, turning it against the tower, Jarid could have destroyed Suncroft and saints only knew how much of the countryside.

  Jarid looked around at them all. “Anvil?”

  Iris indicated the ground. “He is gone.” Ashes in the shape of a man lay there. Despite the wind lashing the tower, nothing disturbed the remains.

  Jarid knelt next to the ashes, but a spell stopped him from touching them. He looked up at Muller. “How?” His voice sounded eerily calm.

  “I was trying to protect you.” Muller swallowed. “It seems I protected Anvil instead, even in death.”

  “Nay.” Jarid rose to his feet. “You turned his spell back on itself. He tried to make me strike down Suncroft in flames. Instead, he incinerated him.” Softly he added, “His hatred finally burned him alive.”

  Iris spoke to Muller. “Your protection only keeps his ashes here. He died from his own spell.”

  Muller just shook his head. Jarid didn’t know how to make his cousin believe in himself, but this much was clear: Muller needed to master his gifts instead of hiding from their terrible, beautiful power.

  Then Jarid realized who was missing.

  “Where is Chime?” he asked.

  “Just behind—” Iris stopped when she turned and saw no Chime. “She was running to the stairs with me.”

  Muller’s agitation flared. Without a word, he strode to what remained of the landing at the top of the stairs and took off down the steps spiraling into the tower. Jarid followed, a weight descending on his heart. In all that had happened, he hadn’t been consciously aware of a lack, but now he felt it clearly. Emptiness existed where Chime’s warmth had touched them.

  Tonight’s cataclysm may have stolen a treasure more precious than any castle—the life of their emerald mage.

  38

  Burgeoning Sphere

  Chime walked through the night, thunder crashing above her, though no clouds darkened the sky. A great, jagged branch of lightning hit the Starlight Tower, exploding the top with a crash. Debris rained down the castle, chunks of rock rebounding off the walls.

  She kept walking.

  Wind plastered her tunic to her body, wrapping the green and gold silk around her. She walked down the slope from Suncroft on its northern side, putting the castle between her and the woods where she and Iris had been with the King’s Army. To her left, the campfires of the Harsdown army flickered on slopes and ridges.

  She continued on.

  At the bottom of the hill, Chime crossed a field where the fighting hadn’t yet reached. Grass brushed her calves and knees, wet with dew, soaking her leggings. She came to the next slope and started hiking up Mount Sky, the highest point in this region of Aronsdale.

  Thunder rumbled, followed by an explosion behind her. She stopped and turned to the castle. The top of the Mage Tower had collapsed, leaving Jarid standing in the open, his arms raised to the sky, his body radiant with violet light. His spell roared through Chime and lit the countryside for miles around. Everywhere in the hills, warriors were rising to their feet, their heads turned up to the Mage Tower.

  “Be strong, my cousin,” she murmured. Then she resumed her climb up the hill.

  Chime had felt the power rising in Anvil tonight the instant Jarid had found him, guided by her spell. The king had tried to shield her, but nothing could break the link that had formed between Chime and the dark mage.

  When she reached the top of Mount Sky, she turned toward Suncroft, toward the pillar of light that was Jarid. The moon on the horizon had turned a jeweled green, though she had never heard of an Emerald Moon. Then she realized that a sphere of glimmering emerald light surrounded her, coloring the world.

  Chime felt Anvil die.

  His spirit rose into the sky as his body turned to ash. But he refused to relinquish his hold on this world. She had known he would never give up. The time had come for her to face him. He came toward her, and she stood firm within the glistening light of her enchanted sphere, the wind swirling her hair around her body.

  Suddenly Anvil’s spirit rushed through the air above her. He was all around, encompassing her spell, closing his sphere of emptiness around her light.

  Chime pulled off the gold chain around her neck and clasped her fingers around the emerald orb. It glowed within her hand, casting light as rich as new leaves in spring.

  You cannot stay, she thought to Anvil. Your spirit must pass on from this, the land of the living.

  Come to me, he answered. Come to me.

  He filled her mind, drawing the essence of her spirit to him. More than any other mage, any human alive, she had what he lacked, the green of empathy, of compassion, of moods felt and understood. It was the color of new life, of burgeoning fields and deep lakes. He filled himself with her spells like a man dying of thirst suddenly given a lake of clear, fresh water. He drowned himself in the empathy that life had burnt out of him, that he no longer had—because he had felt emotions too much.

  “No,” Chime whispered.

  “Become me.” Anvil’s ghostly voice drifted on the wind. “And I will become you.”

  She tried to pull away, but she couldn’t break their link. He would fill her with himself and she would become the dark mage, giving him a body to strike at Aronsdale, not only possessing her but also her unborn child, and through her, Muller, perhaps even Jarid. He would triumph now, when they thought him defeated, and he would do it by using her.

  You cannot, Chime thought. I am too strong.

  You are only a tender green mage, he answered. Unlike any other, but no match for me.

  Strength comes in many ways, Anvil the Forged.

  And I have them all. His spirit saturated her mind.

  Fear sparked within Chime, but she didn’t flinch. She accepted now that she had more within her than she had been willing to admit for so many years. Mage. Green mage. No longer would she deny her gifts, letting her doubts weaken her power.

  Suddenly she remembered the incantation. Sphere-inside-out. She had used it to free herself from Anvil before. She would do it again.

  No. His thought rumbled within her.

  Yes. Chime prepared to speak the words.

  Then she paused. The first time she had used the spell, it had left her nauseated, weakened with a darkness that she had abhorred.

  But it had worked.

  Perhaps she had to suffer its darkness to achieve the greater good.

  No, Anvil thought. Do not.

  Chime felt his mood. He projected fear. But she didn
’t believe it. He wanted her to think he was afraid that she would use the incantation. But why did she know it? She had dreamed the words while he tormented her nights.

  Desperation tugged at her. Sphere-inside-out. Allar nellari remalla. Was he maneuvering her into speaking those words? He reversed spells: the incantation reversed spells. It had seemed to work for her before, but doubt assailed her. Had it been a trick? The incantation might be her only hope of escaping his spirit or it might bind her to him forever.

  She didn’t have the mage power to overcome him. But if she didn’t stop him, he would take all that mattered to her, to the people she loved, to Aronsdale.

  She made her decision.

  Chime lifted her arm into the air, her hand fisted around her emerald pendant, its gold chain hanging down her arm. The wind whipped down at her sleeve, leaving her arm pale and bare in the night. Lifting her chin, she spoke the incantation—backward:

  Allamer irallen ralla.

  Reversed, the ancient words poured into the world with clarity and light. Brilliant. Anvil’s spirit cried out in horrified fury. He had never expected her to reverse a spell of reversal. His spirit whirled in the wind—and fled from her mind like a bird arrowing into the heavens.

  Chime followed.

  He plummeted through the clouds of death as if he had been struck by an arrow. Chime caught his spirit in her mage hands, cupping them around the fading essence that had been Anvil the Forged. Within that spirit, she found his life—the truth of his life. Mourning for the child he had once been, she drifted down to an endless ocean that filled her magescape from horizon to horizon.

  Colors swirled: the red of an apple, streaming gold sunlight, the yellowing green of a leaf at summer’s end, the sparkle of emerald, a forever sky, the indigo ink of a pen, the violet of night. They blended into a haze. She floated within them like a cork on the sea, drifting father from shore. A burial craft bobbed next to her, the ashes within it lifting on the wind and wafting into an endless clouded sky.