“I greet you,” Dua Kepala said. “Have you no words of greeting for me?”
Casper took a step forward. “In the name of the Allied Lands, I call upon you to surrender,” he said, briskly. “The war is over.”
Dua Kepala snorted. “The war is very far from over, young man,” he said. The hard edge was still in his voice, but otherwise he sounded normal. Too normal. “We will be trying to kill each other soon enough. But surely ... before we fight, we can talk.”
Casper glanced at Emily. “Is he a necromancer?”
Emily nodded, slowly. She’d had her doubts, but Dua Kepala stank of necromancy. There was more raw magic sparkling around him than she’d seen around anyone else, save for Shadye. And yet, he sounded almost affably evil. She’d never been able to hold a real conversation with Shadye. He’d been more interested in talking about himself and gloating than in chatting with her.
She cleared her throat. “How are you sane?”
Dua Kepala giggled. “Every law has its loophole,” he said. “And what is magic, but exploiting those loopholes?”
His voice hardened, suddenly. “How did you defeat Shadye?”
Emily clamped her mouth shut as the compulsion struck her. It was a crude spell, a simple spell, a spell students might use to embarrass their fellows ... cast with such power that it almost broke down her resistance. She bit her tongue hard, tasting blood in her mouth, as the compulsion slowly faded away. It was hard to be sure, but Dua Kepala seemed surprised she hadn’t immediately started to babble. Perhaps he was further gone than he seemed.
“Polite hosts don’t try to force their guests to talk,” she managed, as she banished the last traces of the compulsion from her system. “Does it matter how I beat Shadye?”
“Of course it does,” Dua Kepala said. He didn’t sound unhappy that his gambit had failed, merely amused. “I must confess I didn’t believe it at first, when one of my allies on your side of the mountains alerted me to Shadye’s death. He had a ... stubbornness that kept him alive when much else failed. His solid self-centeredness gave him a grip on his power that made him a real threat.”
“You must not have found him a pleasant neighbor,” Casper jeered.
Dua Kepala ignored him. “And then he is killed by a scrawny girl,” he continued. “Don’t you think that that was a little surprising?”
“I imagine so,” Emily said. She had been scrawny back then, hadn’t she? The school staff had worked hard to fatten her up. “You must have been terrified.”
“Oh, I was,” Dua Kepala agreed. “And then, you didn’t set out to lay waste to the Blighted Lands.”
He smiled, rather unpleasantly. “This war is a war to the death,” he said. His voice was calm, yet there was a thin note of cold triumph that warned her he felt he had the upper hand. “The lords, peasants, and chimpanzees might like to pretend that we are on the other side of the globe, but the magicians know it’s a fight to the death. If there was something about you that made you special, that gave you the power to destroy necromancers with ease, they would have pointed you at the next necromancer at once.”
“Maybe they thought my schooling was more important,” Emily said, although she knew it was unconvincing. Dua Kepala was right. Their security had rested on a bluff and eventually, inevitably, that bluff had been called. “There was no immediate threat.”
“I know how the senior magicians think,” Dua Kepala said, sarcastically. “There is no way they would let you put your schooling ahead of crushing the rest of us, if you could crush the rest of us. They wouldn’t want you to run around playing at being a baroness when you could be grinding us beneath your heel. Time is not on their side, is it? Holding the Allied Lands together gets harder and harder every year ... and that’s with us breathing down their necks.”
“Maybe they were scared of what I could do,” Emily said.
“They have more reason to be scared of us,” Dua Kepala said. He shook his head. “They called you the Necromancer’s Bane, yet they didn’t send you out to kill a few more of us while they had the chance. No, they were bluffing. I suspected it from the start, but I knew when that fool beat you in a duel. If you couldn’t stop an apprentice, how could you stop a necromancer?”
Oops, Emily thought.
Casper leaned forward. “What did you offer Gaius to make him turn traitor?”
“He wanted revenge,” Dua Kepala said. “I merely offered him the chance to take it. He was quite obsessed with exacting revenge, in humiliating her in every way possible. Such self-centeredness !”
“He would have made a great necromancer,” Emily snarled. Letting Casper win had been a mistake, perhaps. Gaius hadn’t been the only one fooled. It had been sheer luck that Dua Kepala had retreated the first time. “Wouldn’t he?”
“I have no doubt of it,” Dua Kepala agreed, pleasantly.
His voice hardened. “And now I have you — both of you,” he added. “You have done me some damage, but I remain strong. I will regain control of my armies, then move to capture Farrakhan with your help.”
“I would rather die,” Casper said.
“You will not be permitted to die,” Dua Kepala informed him. “I will use you as my tool to reach your father, killing him before I attack the walls. The city will be crushed, the population sacrificed. I will push onwards, breaking through the inner defense lines and overrunning the whole kingdom. Thus reinforced, I will advance on Stronghold and break a second school. I may even split the Allied Lands in two! The war will end and I will be victorious!”
Emily gritted her teeth. If Dua Kepala was talking, he wasn’t trying to blast them. “What did you do to the nexus point?”
Dua Kepala cocked his head. “I did nothing to the nexus point.”
“You must have done something,” Emily said. She didn’t believe him. “What happened to it?”
“I neither know nor care,” Dua Kepala said.
He smiled, coldly. “Surrender yourself to me, completely and utterly, and I’ll let your friend go.”
“Never,” Casper said, before Emily could think of a response. “My life isn’t worth it.”
“I quite agree,” the necromancer said. “Now burn!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“MOVE,” EMILY SHOUTED.
The first burst of power crashed into Casper’s wards. There was nothing subtle about it, nothing but a deliberate attempt to break through by brute force. The second burst of power shot down the passageway behind them and exploded, collapsing the roof. Their line of retreat had been cut off.
Shit, Emily thought. She pushed her wards forward as a third blast of power slammed into her, knocking her backwards. He’s got us trapped.
She forced herself forward, knowing it was dangerous. But there was no choice. If they stayed where they were, the necromancer would hammer their wards until they broke; if they moved, they might just have a chance. She saw Casper throw a fireball back at Dua Kepala, Casper’s eyes wide with fear and grim determination. The fireball struck the necromancer, but he showed no sign of slowing down. A moment later, he launched another blast of light towards them.
“Jump,” Emily snapped.
She threw herself off the bridge, leaping down to another bridge and landing neatly. Casper jumped in the opposite direction, allowing the necromancer’s blast to pass harmlessly into the corridor. The entire chamber shuddered, a moment later, as it struck the pile of rocks. Emily wondered, as she ducked another blast of raw magic, if Dua Kepala had just reopened their line of retreat, but she knew it was unlikely. Besides, getting back up was going to be difficult even if they beat the necromancer.
“There’s no point in fighting,” Dua Kepala informed them. Casper dodged a burst of magic that would have burned through his wards if it had struck them. “And there is nowhere to run.”
He was right about that, Emily knew. She threw a handful of spells herself, trying to see what had an effect and what didn’t. The fireballs and other lethal spells seemed to ha
ve some effect, but prank spells didn’t appear to do anything. She tossed her transfiguration spell at him, followed by another fireball, yet the resulting explosion didn’t seem to bother the necromancer. His magic protected him. Even a ward-eater didn’t seem to have much effect.
Keep him firing at us, she told herself, as she avoided another blast of power. The necromancer was holding back, wasn’t he? Why? She had the oddest feeling it was important. Surely he couldn’t be completely fixated on taking them both prisoners. It wasn’t as if he needed them to get into the city. What is he doing?
Casper jumped, using magic to throw himself up. He landed on a bridge above Dua Kepala, then started to pour spells down. The necromancer growled, firing back a combination of overpowered spells and raw magic. Casper cursed as the bridge disintegrated, then leapt to another bridge before he could fall to his doom. Dua Kepala didn’t seem to have any hesitation in firing at him ...
Is he intent on capturing me, Emily wondered, or ...?
She looked down. The nexus point was below her, far below her. Was Dua Kepala worried about firing magic into the dead nexus point? Was it truly dead? Surely, if it was gone, she wouldn’t be able to feel anything. She braced herself, as the necromancer launched another series of spells at Casper, then threw herself up to a higher bridge. It shuddered a moment later as a series of spells slammed into its underside. The necromancer seemed to have forgotten his reluctance to fire on her.
He’s reluctant to fire down, Emily thought, frantically. She jumped as the bridge disintegrated, landing neatly on another bridge. And that means ... what?
“Emily,” Casper shouted. “Look out!”
Emily gritted her teeth as Dua Kepala landed on the bridge, facing her. His raw power beat on the air, his presence so daunting that she almost cowered. And yet, his power was under restraint. He should be utterly insane, holding himself together by force of will alone ... she stared at him, trying to parse out the secret. There had to be a secret. Had he sworn oaths not to lose his mind? Was that even possible?
He might be so far gone that he genuinely believes he isn’t violating his oaths, she thought, as a bolt of magic slammed into her wards. Oaths were complex, dangerous magics. An oath was nothing to be taken lightly. Or he may not be violating them. The oaths might be holding his mind together.
She bit her lip as the surge of power grew stronger. Dua Kepala was breaking down her wards by main force, practically daring her to dodge as he poured a stream of fire into her defenses. But the brute force of the attack made it harder for her to take any countermeasures. None of her usual tactics would save her. They would only make matters worse. And he was stalking towards her ...
Casper jumped, slamming his wards into Dua Kepala’s. The necromancer started, losing his concentration just long enough for Emily to break free and jump. She landed neatly and spun around, throwing a series of fireballs at Dua Kepala. Casper jumped a second before a blackened hand could grasp his throat, threatening to crush it effortlessly. Emily felt an odd stab of relief, mixed with fear. Could they play keep away long enough for the necromancer to run out of power?
If we can’t, she told herself, we’re dead.
She considered and discarded a number of ideas as the necromancer glared down at them. If they stayed low ... he’d have to come after them, rather than pour spells down on them from high overhead. It wasn’t a good thing. They’d been lucky, so far. But they had to be lucky all the time. Dua Kepala only needed to be lucky once.
Casper jumped to another bridge, hurling spells up at the necromancer. Dua Kepala turned, one hand unleashing a wave of fire. Casper jumped again, the fire twisting to follow him as he landed on yet another bridge. Emily cursed, then cast a series of illusions, trying to give the necromancer too many targets. Shadye had fallen for it, years ago, but Dua Kepala seemed harder to fool. Or maybe he was just too close to the magic of the chamber to be fooled by insubstantial illusions.
Think of something clever, she told herself. An idea was bobbing at the back of her mind, but it refused to come into the light. Think!
The haze was still there, making it impossible to teleport. She wasn’t sure she would have tried even without it — Whitehall’s wards were configured to capture anyone who tried to teleport within the school — but the haze ensured that trying to teleport would lead to certain death. And yet ... she shaped the spell carefully, trying to cast it over Dua Kepala rather than herself. It would drain her magic, but the haze should ensure that Dua Kepala was scattered over a thousand miles. And then ...
Dua Kepala turned to peer down at her, then thrust his magic out. Emily stumbled back, almost slipping and falling off the bridge as the spell disintegrated. The feedback slammed into her mind a second later, the force of the impact nearly knocking her out. Just for a second, she thought the entire chamber was spinning around her, brilliant lights burning into her very soul. Everything seemed so wrong ...
Strong arms — Casper’s arms — caught her and yanked her up, a moment before the bridge disintegrated under her feet. She forced herself to focus despite the throbbing pain in her head. Dua Kepala had defeated the spell, somehow. It wasn’t as if it was a hard spell to defeat, if one expected it. The necromancer was hardly short of raw power. Her head cleared just as Casper landed on another bridge. A harsh sound echoed through the air. Dua Kepala was laughing.
Smug bastard, Emily thought. Her throat was dry. She wanted — needed — water. But she knew she wasn’t going to get it. He knows it’s just a matter of time.
The nuke-spell glimmered in her mind, taunting her. She could win the fight in a moment, if she dared use it. But she had no idea how the blast would interact with the nexus point, or even if they could use a pocket dimension to escape. Perhaps they could use a pocket dimension anyway ... but Dua Kepala would know what they’d done. He’d just have to wait patiently for them to emerge. Or destroy the bridge below their feet so they plummeted to their deaths.
She glanced at Casper. He looked tired, sweat running down his face. They were both drained, unable to fight for much longer ... she’d made a mistake, she realized dully, in walking straight into a trap. She’d assumed she could set the nuke-spell and escape before it was too late. And now they were trapped.
“This has been fun,” Dua Kepala said. His voice was cold, but there was a hint of malicious amusement in his voice. “And yet I fear it cannot go on.”
He jumped down, landing neatly on their bridge. “Neither of you can resist me any longer,” he added. “Surrender now.”
Emily closed her eyes for a long moment. He wanted them, clearly. And he was right. She couldn’t hold out for much longer. He’d take her and break her and warp her mind ... he’d break Casper too, just for giggles. She thought about trying to bargain with him, about trying to offer something — anything — in exchange for Casper’s freedom, but Dua Kepala had no need to make a bargain. They were trapped. Perhaps they should throw themselves off the bridge rather than allow the necromancer to break their minds ...
She opened her eyes. She’d just had an idea.
“Get us to a lower bridge,” she ordered. She had to trust Casper to do it. Her head was still spinning uncomfortably from the failed attempt to teleport Dua Kepala. She wasn’t sure if she could cast any of the more complex spells without knocking herself out. “Hurry!”
Casper caught her again, then levitated them down onto a lower bridge. Dua Kepala peered down at them, his skull-like face twisted into a gruesome smile. Emily wondered, as she fought to remain upright, just how much of his original skin and bone was left. She had no idea how he’d retained so much of his sanity, but it was clear that necromancy had taken a major toll on his body. Magic was all that was keeping him alive.
“There’s nowhere to run down there,” Dua Kepala informed them. He sounded amused. “I won’t hurt you if you come back up.”
“Bullshit,” Casper said.
Emily sensed the necromancer’s power building for another blast
and knew they were running out of time. “Hit the bridge,” she snapped, as she threw a blasting curse up at the necromancer’s bridge. She wasn’t sure what it was made of — it looked like stone, but she was sure it was something else. “Now!”
Dua Kepala looked surprised, just for a second, as the bridge began to disintegrate. Casper’s spell struck the stone-like material a second later, sending the debris plunging down into the darkness. Dua Kepala fell too, his magic billowing out of control. Emily gathered herself, then thrust all of her remaining power into disrupting his magic. Flying was dangerous in a battle, if only because a single sorcerer could send the flying magician falling to certain death. Now ...
The necromancer howled, screaming his rage as he tried to fight back. Emily felt warm blood trickling over her lips as she pushed harder, trying to keep the spell in place. Dua Kepala could not be allowed to fly back up, not when they were both drained. And then she sensed a surge of magic as the necromancer fell into the nexus point and vanished, his life snuffed out in an instant. And yet ... she had the oddest feeling he was stretched in some way, as if he’d tried to teleport at the last moment. The traces of magic were gone almost before she could do more than catch a glimpse of them. Maybe he’d tried to escape, too late; maybe his haze had kept him from saving his life. She felt a flicker of grim satisfaction at the thought. Dua Kepala had clearly gambled on not needing to teleport.
And then there was a blinding flash of light, followed by a low rumble running through the bridges. Emily hastily pulled her senses back as the nexus point returned to life, flares of magic burning through the air and reaching up towards them. She didn’t dare let herself be blinded, not now. Sheets of light flashed up the walls, changing color randomly as they moved up and into the castle. She was suddenly aware of a spider-web of power reaching out in all directions, touching something far greater than herself. The nexus point was intimately connected to the planet below...
11- The Sergeant's Apprentice Page 34
