Death Mage (Prof Croft Book 4)

by Brad Magnarella

  We’d come to the staircase leading to the palace, and now he stopped. “That went double when you arrived, Everson. A new life is a growing system of order. In your case, one that was very precious to me. In your eyes—eyes already showing the first glimmers of insight and intelligence—I beheld the true horror of what Lich could do. Or more aptly, what he could undo. All so Dhuul could feed on the dissolution and Lich could know immortality.”

  I nodded, not sure what to say.

  “I wanted to be there with you, Everson. Through your questions, your struggles, through the lies and distortions that followed. But know that all this time, you’ve been with me. In my thoughts, my work.”

  Tears stood in Marlow’s eyes. For the first time since realizing he was my father, it felt natural to hug him. We embraced solidly, every so often clapping the other’s back. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. When at last we separated, moisture stood in my eyes as well. I blinked it back.

  “So is it time to save the world?” I asked.

  “We’ll need to depart for Lich’s realm shortly,” he said.

  “I’m coming, you know.”

  For the first time it occurred to me that I might not be included in the plans, that I would be considered too junior. But I was the one who had destroyed the Elder book. I was the one who had allowed Lich into the Refuge—twice. Besides that, I was Eve and Marlow’s son. I was a member of the Front. I was about to say as much, but my father was already nodding.

  “Yes,” he said, “we’ll need you too.”

  26

  When Marlow and I arrived in the altar room, Arianna and the rest of the Front were already there. The model of Lich’s realm remained in the water, the pit dropping like a narrow whirlpool. The members of the Front stood around it, eyes closed. I sensed a unifying force moving among them, conjoining them.

  “A guiding principle of the Order,” Marlow said to me, “is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

  I thought about the old Order and its practice of keeping us segregated.

  At the sound of Marlow’s voice, several members of the Front separated and made room for us. As we took our place at the pool’s edge, the strange force seemed to invite me to become a part of the magical collective. I flashed back to my nightmare of a gold-faced mage urging me to join the cluster, to become one. Everson, he’d whispered, emphasizing the son. But this wasn’t the same feeling. I wasn’t being compelled or even coaxed. I had a choice.

  I looked around at the statues of the great Saints. Four men and five women, rock-solid purpose in their frames and steady gazes. Beyond the head of the pool stood the statue of Saint Michael, the line to which all magic-users belonged. As I studied the image of my ancestor, I couldn’t help but feel he was looking back, asking me if I was ready.

  When I nodded, I imagined him returning the gesture.

  In a dizzying flash, my mind opened. The lone planet I had been zoomed out to become part of a revolving galaxy. Power hummed around my prism in a giant corona, but it didn’t overwhelm me. That power was being contained by the collective and the specters of those who had come before.

  “The world is fast succumbing,” Marlow announced, “meaning Lich’s thousand-year project is almost complete. By the First Saints, we unite in a common purpose. To destroy Lich, close the portal to Dhuul, and restore the Order to the purpose for which it was originally created.”

  No one spoke, but I felt the collective power deepen and move through me.

  “Lich has placed Everson’s staff here,” Marlow said, pointing his wand. In the pool, a light glimmered on the side of the pit opposite the fortress. It was the same spot Lich had taken me to. “Nothing stands between us and it,” he continued. “Lich’s plan, no doubt, is to bait us in and set the spawn of Dhuul upon us. There are many, yes, and Lich is counting on them to overwhelm us so he may claim our souls and complete his portal.” My gaze shifted to the horrid creatures climbing from the pit. “But thanks to a discovery by Everson, we’ve concocted a potion that will resist their influence, hold them off longer.”

  Hold them off? I thought to myself. That doesn’t sound like a plan for victory.

  “While we are thus engaged, Everson will steal into the keep, find the glass pendant, and destroy it.”

  “Me?” I stammered in alarm.

  “Lich’s attention will be on us,” Marlow explained. “Indeed, he will be salivating at the prospect of claiming the collective soul of the resistance and turning it to his own purposes. You haven’t enough power to interest him. You’re beyond his care. You’ll also have this.” An automaton entered, holding the robe of John the Baptist. It had been repaired, its cloaking energy coursing through the fibers once more. The automaton held the robe toward me.

  “The Banebrand,” I said, accepting the robe, “are you telling me I found it?”

  “I’ve inspected the collected items for Whisperer magic. They’re clean, but there isn’t time to examine them more thoroughly,” Marlow said. “The only way to know whether one is the Banebrand will be to try them all.”

  I thought of the collection of items in the sack: wands, amulets, the sorry-looking dagger. “If we don’t have the weapon, we can withdraw through the portal to regroup, right?” I asked.

  Marlow shook his head. “Lich won’t allow it. This will be our one chance.”

  I looked around at the other members of the Front, men and women who would be sacrificing themselves so that I might accomplish the impossible. Like the statue of Michael, though, their gazes were steady, resolved. They frigging believed in me. I fought the urge to look away from them. Instead, I centered myself in the collective until its resolve became mine.

  “What happens after I destroy the glass pendant?” I asked.

  “That will depend on Dhuul,” Marlow said. “Should he emerge before the portal fails, we will need to act. Part of our work here has been to cultivate a Word. A single, powerful note similar to that which brought the universe into being, that delivered order from chaos. Speaking the Word will drive Dhuul back. And without Lich to hold open the portal, it will collapse in Dhuul’s wake.”

  I sensed a thought move through the collective.

  “It will destroy us as well,” I said, voicing the thought. But of course it would. No one could survive the power of creation, not even through a collective. The Word would blow us apart.

  Are you still willing? my father asked in my head.

  The chances of returning alive had already been slim, but if we reached a point where the Word needed to be spoken, it would at least mean we had succeeded. I wouldn’t be alone in my sacrifice, either. I would be with my father and the highest echelon of magic-users.

  I am, I answered.

  He nodded. “Arianna will remain here,” he announced. “Should we succeed in our mission, but fail to return, it will become her duty to locate the remaining magic-users of the world and reestablish the Order. She’ll look after Tabitha as well,” he said with a wink that made me smile despite the terror pounding through me.

  A pair of automatons entered the room, each carrying a large goblet.

  “The time is upon us,” my father said. “We will drink and prepare to depart.”

  The automatons handed the goblets off at the end of the pool. The goblets made their way down, each member of the Front taking a sip, as though the potion was a kind of communion wine. When my turn came, I did the same. The potion was plain-tasting, but I felt its magic immediately, enveloping my mind in a protective field. I understood now that when my father had closed his eyes on our walk here, he had instructed the automatons to add an essence of cannabis to the potion.

  “Don your robe,” he said to me.

  As I pulled the robe of John the Baptist over my head, I noted how everything had come full circle. I’d first donned the robe on my journey here, in search of my mother’s killer and the book I’d been told sustained him. Both lies. Instead, I found the truth, a community, and a father. Now I
would use the same robe to find and destroy the liar and help cast Dhuul from our world.

  My father handed me the sack of artifacts. I took it and secured it in my belt.

  “Wait a full minute after we’ve entered,” he said. “We’ll push the fight to the edge of the pit. That will give you ample space when you come through. But you must make your way to the fortress quickly.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  He squeezed my shoulder, gray eyes peering into mine. “I’ll see you there.”

  He stepped onto the edge of the pool with the others. Power emanated from the ends of their wands. As though by unspoken agreement, they dropped in at the same time, the pool swallowing them without a splash. Light flashed from the water, and then only Arianna and I remained.

  “Do you have anything to give me this time?” I asked with a shaky laugh.

  I was cloaked now, and it seemed to take her eyes a moment to focus on mine. “Not this time, no,” she said. “The only way, Everson, is to trust you have everything you need.”

  I could feel my analytical mind wanting to discount the words as meaningless, but she was right. At this point, that was the only way. I tightened my belt and adjusted my grip on my sword. Then I climbed onto the edge of the pool, my heart booming like a base drum.

  I could feel Arianna behind me, watching.

  “Thank you,” I said, and dropped into the water.

  I experienced a stomach-dipping feeling of falling. Something rammed into my side—the ground, I realized—and I began to roll, black toadstools breaking around me. I finally came to a stop at the bottom of a hill. As my vision steadied, I stood and got my bearings.

  Away to my left, the pit to Dhuul belched bile-green fumes. Marlow and the other magic-users advanced on it, bright energy flashing from their wands. Shadow creatures were emerging from the pit to meet them, inky energy spewing from their tentacled forms.

  Take your staff, a voice sounded in my head—my father’s. It’s clean.

  I looked around and spotted the slender wood staff several feet ahead of me. I retrieved it and then cleared an area in the toadstools. In the spongy earth, I etched a casting circle and filled it with copper filings. In the center of the circle, I placed the strands of Lazlo’s hair, aimed my staff at them, and incanted. Light swelled from the opal as it absorbed the hair’s essence.

  Seconds later, the staff kicked in my hands and pulled me toward the pit, which made sense. The lion’s share of Lazlo’s soul was somewhere inside the portal, maintaining it. But by concentrating into the spell, I could feel another force splicing from the main pull. And that force was directing me to the keep on the opposite side of the pit, directing me to the glass pendant where the rest of Lazlo’s soul was being held to give Lich life. It was here.

  I glanced over at the battle. The shadow creatures had surrounded the magic-users but were keeping their distance as white magic burst from wands. Flesh-colored bats shrieked and circled above. In the collective mind, I could feel the magic-users’ straining efforts. I had to hurry.

  Eyeing the plain around the pit, I chose my route. With the creatures’ attention on the magic-users, and the robe of John the Baptist to hide me, I set off, staying well away from the action. I checked myself as I went. The small sack of magical artifacts swung from my belt while my coin pendant did the same over my chest. I had my staff back, my sword now sheathed inside it.

  The only way, Everson, is to trust you have everything you need.

  Holding to Arianna’s words, I rounded the pit, jumping oozing rivulets that coursed from the hills and flowed toward the abyss. The battle raged like a growing storm behind me, while across the pit, the keep loomed larger and larger. It was square-shaped and forbidding, walls black with mold. A large door stood in the front, its portcullis raised like an upper set of fanged teeth.

  Okay, he’s left the front door open. Overconfidence or an obvious trap?

  Certainly he had to have something defending his keep. No sooner than I’d begun considering what that could be, my right leg plunged through the toadstools. I tried to throw myself backward, but my forward momentum was too strong, and I plunged the rest of the way into water.

  Wonderful.

  I resurfaced with a sputter and splashed for solid ground. When the toadstools rippled in a spreading wave, I realized they hid a large pool, one surrounding the keep like a moat. I struggled harder, but it was like trying to climb out of a break in the ice. More and more of the surface kept coming apart in chunks of toadstools. As the water dragged on my clothes and robe, I felt my magic fizzling. I kicked furiously to keep my head above the surface, but the water was different here, heavier. Desperate, I aimed my cane downward.

  “Vigore,” I whispered, hoping for a force to propel me from the water. But my magic was waterlogged.

  I stopped scrabbling and forced a pair of calming breaths. My only option was to swim for the keep. I turned and began to breaststroke, arms breaking through the floating toadstools. The pond was deep—my feet had never touched bottom—and I didn’t want to think about what might be lurking beneath me. Just have to hope the robe is keeping me veiled.

  I was halfway to the keep when the water bulged ahead of me. My gut clenched. Something large had just passed beneath the surface. I slowed and peered around. The toadstools were rippling on all sides. Keep going, I counseled myself. Have to keep going. I resumed swimming, eyes fixed on the front of the keep. Something brushed my leg. Keep going. What felt like a hand wrapped my left ankle. I kicked it away. Keep going.

  When my knee sank into something, I nearly shouted before realizing I’d encountered semi-solid ground. I clawed my way up the pool’s far shore, the foul water running off me. I peeked over a shoulder and wished I hadn’t. My passage had stirred the bottom of the pond, and now leeches the size of small boats were flapping to the surface, their black bodies writhing over one another.

  I scrambled to higher ground, water streaming from my hair and splattering onto the back of my hand.

  But this water was bright red.

  I raised the hand to my head and felt the slick skin of a leech. The creature, whose weight I had mistaken for water, extended down my back, its tail ending below my waist. Its mouth was attached to the crown of my head, sucking the life from me. I tried to peel the creature away, but it held fast. Panicked, I balled my hand into a fist and began hammering its head. It wouldn’t let go. I could feel its body warming and swelling against mine, bulging with blood. White spots danced around my vision.

  Not thinking, Everson, I scolded myself.

  I stopped punching and dug into my pocket until I encountered the bag of salt Olga had given me. Tearing it open, I grabbed a handful of the salt and threw it over my back. The creature slapped against me. I took a second handful and ground it against the leech’s head. The leech released me, landing with a heavy thud. I staggered the rest of the way to the keep, stopping outside the portcullis. I felt faint and my legs were trembling. I’d lost a lot of blood.

  I turned toward the battle that continued to flash and rage on the far side of the pit. They were counting on me. And I’d be damned if I was going to let a leech doom the mission.

  I recited my centering mantra. My prism came back quickly, perhaps for the power of the collective, and fresh power crackled through me. With a whispered “Respingere,” I blew the excess water from me and then sized up the entrance. No wards from what I could detect. Lich must have limited his defenses to the barrier to his realm, counting on Dhuul’s shadow creatures to intercept anyone who made it through. Anyway, without the Banebrand weapon, what could anyone who entered actually do?

  I tested the threshold with my cane. The opal end passed cleanly through.

  I reactivated the hunting spell, waited for the cane to kick in my grasp, and entered Lich’s keep.

  27

  I hadn’t gone far when I began to encounter guards. The fish creatures appeared first, the same ones I’d been made to see in the Refug
e when Whisperer magic had superimposed nightmares over my senses. Their large, incandescent eyes shifted wetly as they passed, their pupils flat lines.

  I kept to the shadows, counting on the robe to hide me. When the creatures had gone, I moved on, the hunting spell tugging me deeper into the keep. One level up, I encountered a new variety of creature that oozed along on slug-like appendages. Blank eyes stared from gray heads without mouths.

  I felt like I was walking backward along an evolutionary line. But that was Dhuul’s objective, after all. To devolve everything, return it to chaos. These creatures may well have been human once.

  Where are you? came my father’s voice in my head.

  Inside, I replied. The pull of the hunting spell is getting stronger.

  Good, he said. Use the power of the collective as you need to.

  I didn’t like the pain in his voice. How are you doing?

  Don’t think about us, he said. Your focus is the glass pendant.

  Before he could break away, I felt a member of the Front get buried beneath an assault of shadow tentacles. The Front was beginning to falter. I swallowed hard and broke into a run: down a corridor, up another flight of steps, the cane and the desperateness of the situation urging me on. Creatures stopped and turned, sensing my movement.

  Screw ’em, I thought.