In another, there was a single gargantuan, muscular man with thick, rhinoceros-like skin crammed into the tiny cell. He turned his humanoid face to look at me passing by. His solid black eyes stared at me, and I could have sworn I saw a deep and profound sadness there. He gave a soft snort through his tusked mouth and turned back to staring at his hands, folded neatly in his lap as he sat hunched over on a dirty floor cot. A deep, blotchy burn scar covered his entire left shoulder.
More unknown creatures— “Paxians”, Liam called them— passed by as the guard walked me down five flights of stone stairs and into a small holding cell next to the arena, underneath the stone floor around the top of the pit. Another gate of wrought iron was all that separated me from that sand-pit. Icy fear and molten rage filled me when I saw that in an identical holding cell directly across from me, was the same lumbering beast that had tried to eat Lexie yesterday. Fixated, I couldn't take my eyes from its slow, lurching movements as it wandered around its cell, sniffing at the packed dirt flooring and carved stone walls.
The low, incomprehensible murmuring of prisoners in their cells ceased and the tower abruptly went dead silent.
“Good afternoon, Stone Mage,” Octavius' voice boomed throughout the tower, like it was being amplified through a PA system. I looked around, trying to identify the source of the sound, and couldn't spot any speakers. From the corner of my cell, I could see the viewing platform perpendicular to the cells. The platform was decorated in the same black-and-gore décor as the throne room and was equally sumptuous. All three members of the Eight were present in the peanut gallery and watching intently. “Welcome to your first pit battle. The only rule here is that there are no rules: two mongrels enter, one mongrel leaves,” he announced, almost as if it were a rehearsed speech. In a sick, sing-song tone, his voice echoed, “Don't hold anything back.”
Without anyone touching them, the heavy gates separating me from the monster groaned open and the guard behind me shoved me out into the arena. Before I could turn around to run back inside, the gates were closed, leaving me alone in the pit with a monster from my worst nightmare.
My heart sank to see that creature stalking towards me, menacingly eyeing my every movement. No longer sluggish, its movements were now predatory in nature as we circled each other warily.
The only fight I'd ever been in was in elementary school with Jessica Kirk, when she found my summer Bible camp t-shirt to be too dorky for the playground. I hadn't even lasted long enough for the teachers to intervene before I was on the ground. Now, I had no skills beyond a six-week women's self-defense class and no weapons against this Tim Burton-esque monster.
It launched itself at me with its claws flying at my face, breaking me out of my thoughts. Instinctively, I ducked downwards and it sailed over me, crashing audibly face first into the stone wall behind me. I ran to the opposite end of the arena to try to escape it.
The creature stood on all fours, shaking its head and panting heavily. As it tried to recover from the blow to its massive head, I scanned the stone wall looking for hand and foot holds. Even though I consciously knew that the pit had an impenetrable covering over the top to keep people from climbing out, I couldn't stop the fight-or-flight reaction spurring me to escape the monster.
I saw no ledges big enough to grab hold of, but I did see a banana-sized corner section of stone that was about to crack off fifteen feet in front of me. If I could break it off, it looked sharp enough that I could use it as a shiv. Before I could take a step towards it, the beast leaped into my path.
From this distance, I could smell its noxious breath, like a dead skunk left rotting out in the summer sun. Every step it took forward, I backed up until I felt my back brush the rough stone behind me. I had nowhere to go and the shiv was all the way on the other side of the arena. The beast pressed its advantage and slashed its claws through the air, leaving a burning trail on my belly and knocking me to the ground.
The roar of the crowd and loud, frantic beating of my heart filled my ears as the edges around my vision went dark. The beast crept slowly towards me on all fours, and in its milky blue eyes, I saw that this was no mindless beast. It was cognizant and it knew I was afraid. It relished my fear. The knowledge that it wanted me to be terrified just made me more so, even though that was exactly what it wanted.
Its razor-sharp, gaping maw clamped around my thigh like a bear trap. At first, it felt like it had slammed me with a baseball bat. But once it began to whip its head from side-to-side, the deep, piercing pain consumed my entire consciousness.
Blood pooled around me, warming me like a heating pad that was on too high. My leg was on fire as I saw the vague shadow of a chunk of flesh being lifted from my leg. That soul-searing pain fueled my conflagration of hatred.
Fire… fire… burn.
The last thing I saw before the world went dark was a bright object hurdling toward me as a bloodcurdling screech reverberated through the tower. Mercifully, my mind went blank and I drifted away into the cool, weightless blackness that called to me.
A shock of electric energy jolted me awake, compelling me to suck in a massive lungful of air. I coughed and wheezed and rolled to my side, just trying to breathe. My head felt like rusty nails were scraping at the inside of my skull. Panicked, my eyes darted around my surroundings. I was back in the cell again, on the cot. But it wasn't until I saw Liam sitting cross-legged on the floor next to me that my fear started to wane.
I focused on him— the only ally I had— and calmed myself. He was looking down at me with a curious expression on his face; it was almost victorious.
Once I could form words, I asked, “What happened?” My voice came out sounding as rough as a chain smoker's from my desperate hacking.
“Take it easy. You died in the ring and need some time to finish healing. You've been out for a while and in and out of consciousness for the last few hours.”
Trying to save my voice, I gave him a skeptical scowl.
Understanding my look, he rolled his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh. “Yes, you died. I've had to answer this same question four times now. I really hope your head damage has healed enough that I won't have to again.” A calculating half-grin spread across his lips. “More importantly, I think I know why you're here and how we're going to get out of this hellhole.”
My heart skipped a beat. “What?” I barked, sending me into another fit of coughing.
“You're here because of this.” Liam lifted my arm and fingered the bracelet on my wrist. Sometime while I was unconscious, he must have taken off my jacket and ripped-and-bloodied camisole, leaving me in only my old black sports bra. I looked down to see that he'd tied my jacket like a bandage around my left thigh. I couldn't see where he'd put my shirt. It may have been torn to where it revealed more than it covered, but without it, I felt a little bit naked. Also, it was kind of cold in here and I was probably flashing headlights. I draped my free arm over my breasts nonchalantly, trying to cover them without attracting notice to them, but it backfired.
With my wrist still in his warm hands, his eyes caught the movement and became momentarily stuck on my cleavage. I'd never had that much to begin with, but who knew how long he'd been in here without a woman's company. He would probably find a perfumed rump roast attractive at this point.
He seemed to snap himself out of it and drag his eyes back up to mine. I had the random thought that he would be very handsome if he showered off the grime and shaved the bushy beard. “And this is exactly how we're getting out of here.”
“Wait, what?”
“This bracelet makes you a stone mage and it's why you're here.”
“I'm a what?” Disbelief peppered my voice with mocking laughter, but at this point, there was no purpose in denial. I would just have to roll with it.
“Stone mages are a unique and exceedingly rare kind of mage. I've already told you that mages are mages because we can use magic, but I haven't told you much about the magic itself. See, magic is a ubiquitous k
ind of energy that comes in two forms: raw and genus. All lifeforms absorb it in its raw form to varying degrees, but mages are unique in that we can not only naturally absorb it, but can utilize it by spelling it to accomplish a task. Are you following me so far?” He gave me that assessing look again. Rather than getting irritated at his patronization of me, I simply nodded for him to continue. I didn't have the energy to argue right now.
“Okay, so to spell magic is to actively turn raw magic energy into a genus, or functional form of magic. Spelling can also occur passively, rather than actively. Every mage has a heritable form of genus magic. In this kind of passive spelling, a mage's body will automatically spell and store a certain type of magic. Using genus magic is advantageous because you don't have to spend the time to spell the magic before casting it. The downsides, though, are that the strength of your genus magic varies from person to person and that it's kind of like a battery. You only have but so much of it before you run out and need time to recharge.
“Stone mages are unique in that the 'sets' of stones they wear do this kind of passive spelling and storing on their own, with each stone representing a single type of genus magic. Normal mages have one genus magic, maybe two for the very gifted. Your bracelet gives you the ability to use six.”
“But—” I interrupted, shaking my head and wincing when it felt like another bomb went off between my ears. “I've never used any magic before.”
He shrugged. “It could be that you have very little mage blood in you. From what I've read in old texts, diluted mages typically only have genus magic, but there haven't been any half-breed children in thousands of years so there's no way to know for sure. You could have next to no raw or genus magic besides what your stones give you. I can guarantee you, though, that this set wouldn't have bonded to you unless you were at least part mage. Admittedly, I'm not an expert on stone mages. You're the first one that I've met in person. But from what I do know on the subject, I can guess at what your stones represent.” Liam's warm hand twisted my bracelet around my wrist, examining each stone.
He pointed to the red one. “This one is fire; the blue one is water; the clear one is air. I'm pretty sure of these, since elemental magics are pretty common as genera. The other three I'm not so sure of, but I think the purple one is telepathy; the pink one is healing; and the pale yellow one is mimicry— the ability to temporarily copy and take on certain traits of different species.”
“What does this have to do with anything that happened?” I twisted my wrist back and forth in his hold, making the bracelet bounce and jingle. That high-pitched, tinny sound jabbed needles into my eardrums and I stilled my wrist.
“These sets of stones are extremely rare, so there are only a few hundred stone mages in the entire world. Octavius has been searching for a set for centuries because of the regenerative capabilities they give to their wearer. Stone mages are never alone: they form lifelong bonds with each other by exchanging stones between individual sets. These bonds prevent individuals within the group from dying, since through that bond, they can resurrect each other. To kill a single stone mage, you would have to kill all of their bondmates before they can bring the others back to life. As a hunted man, Octavius has been wanting not only the added strength that having a set of stones would give him, but also the security.
“As you can imagine, because of their difficulty to kill, there aren't many sets of stones that are loose in the world. By sheer dumb luck, you stumbled onto one. When he found out about this, he started plotting how to steal it from you. Ignorant of our world, you'd normally be an easy target for someone like him. But since you were revived, it looks like you have a bondmate, otherwise that wendigo would have killed you when it bit your head off. I can only imagine how royally pissed Octavius is.” A shit-eating, schadenfreude grin split his lips and a snickering laugh rocked his muscular chest.
“It bit my head off?” I almost yelled, my incredulity making my question sound more like a statement.
He shrugged nonchalantly, like we were discussing a paper cut. “After it ripped a few mouthfuls out of your leg. Every corporeal species— no matter how tough— can be killed by decapitation. And you did die, but your new friend brought you back to life with your head on your shoulders from wherever he or she is. You've slowly been healing the rest of your wounds on your own since.”
I lifted my leg in the air to untie my jacket from where it was around my thigh and examined the wound. It was completely healed beneath the gaping, bloody hole in my pants. And now that he mentioned it, my ribs weren't broken anymore either. Decapitation would explain the searing pain in my head and neck. However, the thought of my head not being attached to the rest of my body was too much— not only because I didn't like the mental image on me, but because it also brought on flashbacks of what had happened to Lexie.
Blinking the horrific images away, I changed the subject. “If Octavius wants a set of these special rocks so badly, why doesn't he just make one? He's supposed to be really strong, right?”
“He can't because the technology and sheer strength to make them has been lost for thousands of years. Modern mages are actually the watered-down descendants of an extinct race, the Atlanteans.”
I couldn't help but break out in a fit of hysterical giggles, thinking of that Disney movie and all of the History Channel specials with alien chasers. Even after all the talk of magic and decapitations, it was only now that he was starting to sound silly.
“Don't laugh,” Liam chastised, clearly expecting that reaction. “They're your ancestors and they were a real species that went extinct around eight thousand years ago. The last few started breeding with humans, resulting in a weaker, more diluted species— the mages. According to the history books, a single Atlantean used to be strong enough to move mountains. They created these stones to further augment their soldiers, but when they died out, so did most of their knowledge.”
“Okay, I think I'm following you. If you're so strong, why do you need my help to escape? I have no idea what I'm doing.”
“This tower that we're trapped in is specially sealed to prevent raw magic from seeping in, so I can't cast any spells. And I've tried my best to conserve what wind magic I had on me when I came in, but it's not enough to escape. Even without magic, these cells are magically reinforced to prevent anyone from bending or slipping through the bars,” he explained darkly. “It's your mimicry stone that I think can get us out of here.”
Liam stood up and walked across the cell to the other side, where a small iron pipe was exposed and dripped water slowly onto the floor. With his back turned to me, I saw that he had two more tattoos: one was a black, snarling Irish wolfhound descending along his right shoulder, as though it were climbing down a flight of stairs to attack something. It had such beautiful, realistic artistry that it looked like it could come to life at any moment. The other was several lines of curling, archaic vertical script that descended from the top of his left shoulder to the bottom of his ribcage.
“This pipe is connected to all of the other water pipes not just in the tower, but the entire castle. If you can get into this pipe, you could find my GPS locator and bring it back to me.” He gestured to the pipe, no more than an inch in diameter.
Wondering whether or not he was growing delirious, I replied in a flat voice, “I may be tiny, but there's no way I'm fitting in there.”
He rolled his eyes, like I was missing something. “I just told you that the yellow stone on your bracelet is representative of mimicry. I know a bounty hunter who's a mimic. Whenever she touches somebody's skin, she can copycat their abilities until she touches somebody else and takes on their traits. The tall, skinny guy with the blue hair in the cell next door is an undine, a type of rare water fey that can turn their bodies to water. If you touch him, I believe you'll be able to become water, and flow upwards through the piping.”
“Become water? How is that even possible?” I knew better by now than to ask questions like that, but I couldn't help my
self.
Liam shrugged. “How do shapeshifters turn into animals?” he asked, clearly as a rhetorical question, but still….
“Shapeshifters? Like werewolves?”
He winced theatrically, as though I'd just made a huge gaffe. “Yes, the two terms are synonymous, but don't call them that to their faces unless you want to get punched. To call a shifter a were is very non-PC. But just like they can change shapes, so can an undine.”
“How does water even know where it is? How does a drop of water intentionally go anywhere?” The laughter that I'd intended to be sarcastic turned out to be more hysterical than anything. Not a good sign.
He noticed the note of hysteria in my voice and watched me warily, judging whether or not I was going crazy, which sadly wasn't out of the realm of possibility. “They just do. So the next time you get called down to a fight, you're going to try to touch him as the guard escorts you to the arena.”
“Why don't we just ask him? He's only a few feet away. Or better yet, why doesn't he do it?”
“Ever notice how you can hear the other prisoners talking or shouting in their cells, but you can't make out a single word? That's because each of the cells is magically isolated from the others so there can be no communication to plot any prison riots. And aside from the pit itself, the rest of the tower is also spelled to prevent individuals from using any species-specific capabilities: undine can't turn to water, sirens' songs can't enchant anyone, vampires can't teleport or manipulate people's minds, shifters can't turn in here, etc. Genera magics are kind of a loophole because they already exist, so they aren't affected by that particular spell. In theory, they could block them as well, but I guess they don't feel it's enough of a threat to go through the hassle of adding more security.”
Accepting his explanation, I thought aloud, “So wait, if I can get through the plumbing, then what's to stop me from leaving? Why are you telling me this when I could just leave you?”
Unus (Stone Mage Saga Book 1) Page 9
