‘By the gods, Dividian!’ Ash cursed. ‘You can’t stop now! We’ll all be killed, damn you!’
‘Cang will kill you for this, Ash!’ Dividian declared, but he firmed his jaw and continued with the spell. The violent shaking became subdued as the Great Spell of Awakening continued.
Ash laughed again. ‘You see, Samuel? This is true power. Look at Dividian here. Right now, he has realised the truth about me and wants to kill me with all his will, but he cannot. His choices are defined by the situation I have created. Here he is, working the Staff of Elders on my behalf and for my benefit, even as he learns I have betrayed him. Even the great Circle of Eyes is but putty in my hands. Like all magicians, they are conceited and egotistical. They, the Order and even you, young Samuel, have seriously underestimated me. A common man has brought down the Order and the entire Turian Empire!’
There was a sickening slowing in the cycle of the pattern, making Samuel’s stomach churn. Then, a deep growling boom sounded and the tower lurched to one side, causing Samuel to scramble for balance. There was another gut-wrenching shudder and then Samuel’s head cleared. The Great Spell had finished and the enormous pool of energy in the room was gone, instantaneously swallowed with a great gulp into the ancient relic. Samuel knew what had happened, even without Ash’s maniacal laughter to tell him, for Dividian had succeeded. He had finished the spell and awoken the power within the Argum Stone. There was a sharp hiss as the enormous bulk of the ancient relic then shivered and vanished. For a moment, held in mid-air, something tiny could be seen in its place, glinting in the light, before it fell to the floor with a soft clink.
Dividian opened his eyes wide and staggered back, falling heavily to the floor and dropping the Staff of Elders from his hands. He looked thin and drained and struggled to move.
‘It’s done!’ Ash called out jubilantly.
‘Wait!’ Dividian cried. ‘The magic is spent but I must seal the spell for the transformation to be complete! If not, the relic will revert to its original form in a matter of days.’
‘Then do it, you fool!’ Ash commanded.
Dividian gathered the last of his strength and began to call out in the most ancient of tongues, the lost language of the people who had created all the wondrous relics ages before, a language only known as the Ancient Lick. ‘Karem abatu; mendar arrellum; daedus mantati hellevar; amun morbata!’
With each phrase, the tiny object on the floor blazed and squealed with white heat, seeming to recognise the words. At the completion of the utterance, it hissed cool again.
‘Is that it? Is it done?’ Ash asked impatiently.
‘It’s done,’ Dividian groaned, looking set to keel over.
‘Then it’s mine!’ Ash declared with delight.
‘Samuel!’ Dividian croaked. ‘Kill him! Kill him now, you young fool…before it’s too late.’
‘Hah!’ Ash spat out and kicked the Argum Stone’s wooden frame crashing to the floor, where it snapped in two under its own weight. ‘It’s already too late.’ Then, he bent over and plucked up the tiny, gleaming object from the floor. He gloated at it as he held it between his thumb and index finger, and rolled it around to glint in the light. It was a small, glimmering ring.
‘That’s it!’ thought Samuel. At last, he knew the meaning of the word’s Ash had spoken in Tindal. Amun-morbayah. They were simply instructions on how to awaken and use the relic, infused with the power of the Ancient Lick. ‘It’s a ring!’ he gasped aloud.
‘Why so it is,’ Ash responded, glancing up at Samuel with an amused smile. He popped the thing onto the ring finger of his right hand without so much as a pause and began rolling his hand around, letting the Argum Stone catch the light on its surface. ‘It’s not so bad at all,’ he mused to himself.
Samuel took half a step forward, but stopped in his stride, for Ash’s form had begun to pulse with blinding energy as magic began to course into him from the ancient relic. Samuel staggered back, shielding his eyes from the light as magic filled the man. Through slitted fingers, Samuel could see Ash bend over again and pick up the Staff of Elders.
‘Now let’s see what all the fuss is about,’ Ash mused.
‘Damn you, Ash,’ Dividian groaned, still splayed out on the floor. ‘The Circle will not forgive you for this. You will die the most horrible of deaths!’
‘So will you,’ Ash said and tipped the head of the Elder Staff at Dividian. A fury of magic sprang out and turned the old man to thrashing flames. ‘Wonderful!’ Ash declared, but Dividian continued to roll around as he burned, wailing and shrieking hideously. ‘Damned Magician! You can’t even die properly!’ he said and sent more beams of fire out over the old man until Dividian was only a flaming pile of matted bones.
The presence of the Great Spell forming in the room had kept Samuel’s mind reeling, but now, with the spell spent, Samuel could begin gathering power of his own. As Ash had his attention set on Dividian, Samuel had cast a spell of Lifting and began readying one of the huge bookshelves into position over Ash’s head. He only hoped the man was too busy to notice.
‘Perhaps this will take some getting used to,’ Ash spoke to himself, turning the Staff of Elders over in his hands as he scrutinised it. He then looked to Samuel with satisfaction on his face. He tipped the Elder Staff forward and power burst forth. Samuel leapt aside as the energy struck the wall with a piercing shriek, releasing his Lifting spell as he did. The hovering shelf dropped down and smashed Ash to the floor, spilling books all over. A protruding twisted arm was all that could be seen of Ash, still gripping the Staff of Elders tightly in its hand.
As Samuel dusted himself off, the shelf fell aside and Ash clambered to his groggy feet. Samuel gritted his teeth as Ash checked himself over. The man’s face was brimming with jubilance as he realised he was still alive.
Ash laughed. ‘How magnificent! The power of the Staff protects me, Samuel. And I have not even begun to draw on all power it contains. I was foolish to underestimate you again, but I cannot go on until you are dead—I know that now. I can sense all kinds of incredible things and I feel now that it was our destiny to meet here, but I cannot have you distracting me any further.’
‘Such magic will destroy you, Ash!’ Samuel called out. ‘It takes a lifetime of experience to wield such power. Such a burden will be the end of you.’
Ash laughed aloud. ‘We shall see!’
A deadly beam of heat struck out again and this time it struck true, piercing Samuel through the middle, blackening the stone wall behind him. Ash gave a triumphant yell, until he realised that Samuel was still standing unharmed. The young magician was actually grinning in defiance of Ash’s attack.
Another Samuel stepped from the curtains. Ash again raised his staff and blasted this second Samuel. He, too, remained untouched by the fire, even as the curtains behind became flames.
‘Damn you!’ Ash roared. ‘Such insolence!’
With that, Ash raised the Staff of Elders and closed his eyes in concentration. Only a magician should have been able to call such ancient magic, but Samuel could sense the Argum Stone pulsing into life, acting as a conduit between Ash and the Staff of Elders, channelling power into the man—not even a magician—against all known laws of magic. The air began moving within the room and loose pages on the floor slowly rolled over and began to brown and smoulder before the spell had even begun. Ash brought the Staff down to strike the floor and opened his eyes once again, igniting his spell with wild fury. A storm of sparks burst into being and swept around the chamber, scorching everything they touched. The room filled with a hurricane of intense flames and swirling smoke, howling madly with a deafening noise. As quickly as the spell had appeared, so too it faded. Everything not made of stone had vanished—even the walls were scored and covered with blackened marks. All the shelves and ancient books that had lined the chamber had been turned to glowing embers and blackened residue, smouldering and settling in the corners of the room. Even Dividian’s charred remains had been swept awa
y and obliterated. There was nothing left standing except for Ash. In moments, everything had been utterly destroyed.
Samuel lay panting, gripping the outside wall of the tower with all his resolve. Smoke billowed in plumes out the window through which he had just barely managed to escape. His robes were burnt and singed at the edges. He could hear Ash laughing inside and could feel the energy, ever mounting, as Ash opened himself to more and more power from within the Staff of Elders. Samuel’s heart was thumping in his chest in steady rhythm to the pulsing, grinding power that was emanating from inside. It was too much power for any human to wield so quickly. Soon Ash would not be able to contain all the magic he was calling and something very dire would happen. At the very least, the man would be incinerated by wild mage-fire as it burst from within him. Hopefully, that would happen before too much damage was done.
Ash’s laughter slowed and stopped and then his voice carried clearly out the window. ‘For a moment, I actually thought I had killed you, Samuel, but now I feel very glad that you are still alive. I wish you could feel what it is like to have this power. I have truly become more than I could ever have dreamed, and with every passing moment—’ His voice was changing. It seemed to be echoing from the air all around. ‘—I become even more.’
Samuel cried out as a shrill ringing filled his head. It was an unbearable pain, as if his mind was skewered with pins. It finished as abruptly as it had struck and, as he recovered his senses, Samuel had a strange feeling of motion and he could hear the wind whistling in his ears. He opened his eyes to see the ground flying up at him. His spell had broken and he was falling like a stone towards his death. It took a moment for him to recast his wall-walking spell and he desperately pushed his hand out to touch the tower wall. The spell formed true on contact with the stone and Samuel’s descent began to slow, with his hand brushing the smooth stones until eventually, and with a sigh of relief, he finally came to a halt. He hugged the tower with all his will while his heart slowed its feverish pace. In a few fleeting seconds, Samuel had dropped nearly half the height of the tower.
The sun was setting now, and the sky to the east was in twilight, leaving only the west still hung with a hint of daylight. Looking up, Samual saw an unnatural silver light beaming out from Ash’s window and a vast crowd had amassed in the palace grounds far below. People were filling every available open space, staring up at Samuel and pointing at the awesome display of light from Ash’s window. This was more than just magic. Samuel could feel something terrible happening up in that room.
Samuel took one last determined breath and started back up the tower wall, spider-like, and an audible gasp rose from the people below. He still had no idea of what to do or how to defeat Ash. All he knew was that he had to stop the man. If he could even delay him for long enough, perhaps the others would finally arrive to help; or perhaps Ash would make some crucial mistake. Perhaps his flesh would finally fail under the strain of all his newfound power. Perhaps with the Lions, Lomar and Master Glim together they had a chance of stopping the man. He only hoped the others were somehow on their way to help.
Laughter was still emanating from Ash’s chamber. The man was giggling like a child now. He had opened himself entirely to the Staff and magic was gathering into him at a terrible rate. The pattern itself seemed to be shuddering in trepidation.
‘Ash!’ Samuel cried into the window. ‘You have all that you wanted and yet still you have not destroyed me! What good is all your power if you can’t even kill one insignificant magician?’
The smoke within the room had thinned enough so that Samuel could peer in and he saw Ash’s face slowly turn towards him. Ash raised a charred sleeve and wiped the dribble from his lips. He opened his mouth and a dark, coiling vapour ran out and down his chest. It was blood, boiled and fused with magic so that his flesh could no longer contain it. Samuel was horrified.
‘Ah,’ Ash gasped slowly. ‘Ah, the power. I can feel it in every part of me.’ He held his hand up before his face and turned it over, as if scrutinising it in wonder. ‘I am but a shell of flesh.’ The man’s very words echoed with magic. Samuel could feel it rattling against his skin like splashes of rain.
A spell formed and Samuel rolled aside as the window exploded out, leaving a gaping hole. Chunks of dust and smouldering rocks dropped far below into the grounds.
Ash slid out and hovered beside the tower. ‘Now I am coming for you, Samuel. Run.’ he whispered. His voice was hollow and echoing, his lips were parted, yet unmoving.
Samuel realised he was in desperate trouble and scampered away from Ash and around the tower, still maintaining the same height. He lay panting with his back against the hard stones of the wall, looking left and right for any sign of the abomination that had been Ash.
Curiously, a tight white beam of light appeared out of Samuel’s middle. It shone out far to the hills like some form of signal and, when it had ceased, Samuel found a neat smoking hole at the centre of his robes. The pain followed and Samuel screamed out loud. His body had been pierced right through by an intense light, so hot that it had cooked a path from his back out through his chest. The pain was unspeakable, causing him to shriek wildly until he could throw enough spells into himself to dull all feeling. As a result, his vision began to blur and darken at the edges and his head felt thick as tar. Inside him, flesh and organs had been baked and crisped.
Even his fingers and toes had gone numb and Samuel quickly sucked on the fingers of one hand in desperate effort to revive them. He could sense the incredible amount of damage that had been done inside him and realised it was only pure luck that none of his vital organs had burst altogether.
A tingle in his spine lit Samuel’s senses and brought him back to alertness. He rolled aside as another beam silently pierced the tower directly beside his head and flashed out into the distance. Smoke seeped out from the two tiny holes that now marked the tower stones. Not wasting any time, Samuel started straight upwards.
The land all around was now cast in shades of grey and the sun was just a glimmering sliver of gold on the horizon. Flecks of silver covered the shimmering ocean, gathering towards a single gleaming point far away but, as the tiny crack of the sun melted and vanished away, the sea, too, became grey and quiet, leaving only the distant clouds with any colour, saturated in pinks and oranges. Directly above, the sky was darkening as storm clouds slowly gathered, and a soft groan rumbled out from amongst them as lightning flickered in their depths.
Samuel continued moving up the sheer, stone wall with labouring breaths. A flurry of silent beams sliced through the tower behind him and always the laughter continued, seeming to issue from the very air itself.
Samuel reached his goal and leapt over onto the top of the tower, waiting in the eerie silence of dusk while he gained his breath. The wind made a soft whisper and the other palace towers were dark shards in the twilight. The city was grey below, but tiny dots of light were quickly appearing everywhere as people lit the lanterns in their homes. The ocean, spread out vast beside the city, was tranquil, now barely seeming to move at all. Various city sounds seemed to carry up to him on the wind and, occasionally, a distant breaker could be heard striking onto the shoals with a whump and a hiss. At any other time, the panorama would have been marvellous to behold.
A whimpering sound made Samuel turn around and he found Lullander, the magician, splayed out on the tower roof, bawling and whimpering like a child. On spying Samuel, the man leapt to his feet and ran screaming and blubbering straight off the side of the tower, leaping as if to his salvation. His howling faded quickly as he plummeted away.
The wind blew up and the sound of rippling cloth caused Samuel to turn back as Ash rose slowly beside the tower heights, held up by the air itself. Samuel stepped away. He could no longer see the aura around the man as he had dulled his senses so much, but he could still feel the tremendous power threatening to be unleashed within. For an instant, Samuel wished he could get a glance at the weaves around Ash—even for just
a moment. He could learn so much just by looking at the spells that Ash had brought into existence through sheer force, but he could not risk it in his current state.
A sickening grin was painted on Ash’s mask-like face. He observed Samuel, but his eye sockets were empty, gaping holes and his skin was taut and dried like bark. The Staff of Elders was clutched so tightly in his left hand that the tendons in his wrist were popping out with strain. The Argum Stone glinted, shimmering on his finger and still feeding magic into the corpse of a man. Somehow, Ash still lived, even as the mage-fire continued to eat through his body. He no longer relied on his own mortality. Such concentrated power was sustaining him beyond all normal reason.
Samuel needed far more power than he had ever summoned before, even if he was just to escape with his life. He sought within himself for the calm he needed and fought to slow his desperate, shallow breaths. There was nowhere left to run. Only his magic could save him, if only he could gather enough of it in time.
‘I see now what the universe is about,’ Ash whispered without motion—his words poured black vapour, his skin was bone white. ‘I no longer care for the trinkets and coins of this world. Even my eyes and flesh are only keepsakes that I willingly discard. What is being an emperor when I can be a god! I can feel the energy, the life, within everything, within you. I want it all,’ he hissed.
Ash lifted his hand and five arcs of raw energy flashed out from his fingertips, striking at Samuel like vipers. Samuel’s legs kicked out from underneath him, sending him sprawling onto his face. He thrashed and convulsed, his cheeks and teeth striking the stones as he flailed about uncontrollably. He could feel the life draining from him, being stripped from his marrow.
Ash stopped abruptly and a wash of pain flooded back into Samuel. He screamed into the floor and choked on the fluid that spilled up into his mouth, coughing it up in volumes, retching pure blood. He rolled over with wide eyes—his muscles felt knotted and torn—to see Ash standing over him, gnarled and twisted like a salt-withered tree.
The Young Magician (The Legacy Trilogy) Page 68
