The Night Mage

by April Swanson

  “Yes,” he said coldly. “I will claim back who I am. I will accept that I’ve been used by another mage, my life impacted by yet another demon. I will see the light instead of the dark. I will accept who I am, and be grateful for my life. I will defeat the Night Mage.”

  My smile rose and fell. “Yes, you will… So why are you—”

  He let go of my hands. “If I defeat the Night Mage, I will be resistant to the lure of demons. I will be a vessel for good, not evil. I will heal, not damage. Build, not destruct.”

  “But that’s who you are! Why aren’t you happy? I thought you wanted all of these things?”

  “Of course I do,” he said, his voice still heavy. “But my name wishes otherwise. Kiro has set a path for my name, and my name is part of me. If I don’t fulfil her wishes, if I don’t live up to my name, I will cease to be.”

  My own heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. “Cease to be?” I asked, trembling.

  “I will not die, but I will not live. I’ll become an empty shell.” He forced a weak smile. “Don’t worry, Aideen. With this information, I believe I have time to defeat the Mage and pass the test. Upon its death, you will be free, and its poison will leave your veins.”

  “No…” I said through my tears. “But then—”

  “Moranda will see to my death, so I don’t suffer long. Tell her I was grateful in the end. Of course she’ll know, if the Mage is gone, but I want her to hear it from you. And tell her about Kiro, so she knows what I had to fight against.”

  I stumbled around the table and wrapped him in my arms. “No. Don’t do this!”

  “I will never stop fighting for your life,” he said. “My own is a small sacrifice.”

  “No, it’s not. I don’t want you to make it! This is my fault. I—”

  He clasped me firmly by the forearms. “And your sickness is mine. If I don’t defeat the Mage, we will both rot in this castle. You will die first, when that poison strikes your heart, and I will watch you die, before succumbing myself. I’ll throw myself to the Mage and let it rip me apart. And what about Cal, and Orla? What happens to them? I won’t have them suffer any more on my account. Now”—he stood and set me at arm’s length—“I have to be alone to order my thoughts. I have to open my mind and lay it on the table, and rearrange it before nightfall. If you’re beside me I’ll only be distracted.” He smiled again, half-hearted. “I’ll find it much harder to accept death when I know what I’ll be giving up.”

  “No,” I said, without conviction, as he left me alone in the kitchen. “He can’t do this,” I said to Cal, who bounced into my calf and stayed silent.

  Faol was not leaving this castle alive.

  No matter how often I approached the problem, there were only two solutions: he defeats the Mage and loses his name, or he succumbs to the monster he’s been fighting for years.

  And I could live, but I didn’t want to live with the pain. I couldn’t go home with nothing. I couldn’t go back without him. I’d rather die.

  I felt Cal’s heat on my calf. And I burst into loud, uncontrollable sobs, because of course Faol had to defeat the Night Mage. He owed it to his friends. They couldn’t remain in this castle with Faol and me dead, the Mage running riot, and no way of feeding or defending themselves. And Cal with no one to talk to, and Orla with her voice trapped inside.

  He had to win. He had to prove to Kiro, to himself, that he was stronger than the demons of this world, stronger than his name itself. He had the power to deviate from the path set out for him.

  His death would kill me. And I understood what it meant to be both dead and alive.

  But Cal and Orla would be free – and Moranda could restore them to human form. And they would feel pain, but they did not share a bond with Faol. They would move on with their lives and find happiness somewhere.

  I’ll never find happiness.

  I prayed I had not gifted more power to the Night Mage with my own negativity.

  At dusk I went down to Faol’s study. It was now or never.

  I found him on the floor, leaning against the wall with his head in his hands. I crouched beside him.

  “I don’t want to die,” he said.

  My tears fell again, my jaw clenched. “I don’t want you to either.”

  “Every time I try… Every time I think about everything I’m grateful for, and all that is good about me and my life, I think…this will kill me. I will cease to exist. My thoughts will vanish. And I think of the Otherworld and the knot of time, but it doesn’t help. I’m alive right now, and soon I won’t be.” He lifted his head from the cradle of his arms. His eyes fell immediately upon my blackened arm. “My fear is killing you too. Why can’t I do this? I love you, but I can’t save you. I can’t save my friends, or myself. I am selfish and despicable!”

  I held him close, and our tears mingled on our cheeks. “You’re not selfish,” I said. “Not selfish.”

  “But I am. The truth is laid bare.”

  “No. No.”

  All I could say. No use to anyone. If I couldn’t face death, how could I ask it of him? Cowards. We were both cowards.

  I pulled him closer, squeezed him tighter. There had to be a way out. There had to be a way to wake from the nightmare.

  The sun set on our final night, our last chance for freedom.

  The Night Mage woke.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “Do we run?” I asked Faol. “Or is there any point at all?”

  Faol stood, his eyes burning bright against the darkness. His hair was wild as the sea. “We run. Unless you wish to be disembowelled.”

  “I most certainly don’t.”

  And there, for a moment, the weight lifted, the future irrelevant, and we smiled.

  He took my hand. “Then we run.”

  We didn’t run far, on the account I was never a good runner, and a downright awful runner with the Mage’s poison lying heavy in my blood, but we made it up the stairs to Faol’s room.

  “The door should hold it for now,” he said. “Rest while you can.”

  I flopped onto the bed with my legs and arms stretched wide.

  “For now?” I asked.

  “The Mage will strengthen after midnight. I can’t guarantee this room will be safe.”

  “But…the Mage will still only wake at night? It is called the Night Mage after all.”

  He sat beside me, his lean legs crossed on top of each other, and said, “I can’t make any promises.”

  I almost said, Well, I only have a few days left, but caught myself.

  “Here it comes,” said Faol, as the rumble of the Night Mage grew louder, bashing into stone as it ascended the stairwell.

  “Please door. Please hold.” I was far too tired to run again.

  The Mage roared outside the door, and used its body as a battering ram.

  “Aideen,” Faol said fearfully, yet with a trace of excitement, “I’m afraid we have to move.”

  I lifted my head from the soft sheets and saw the crack in the wall above the door. I groaned.

  Faol took my hand again and pulled me to the sky door. It flew open, and the wind tugged at our hair, and the blue of the sky was offensively bright and cheerful.

  The ground fell away beneath our feet, but this time I did not drop. Faol kept a tight arm around me, just as he’d done the first time he’d saved me from the Night Mage. I spun my legs around as if I were walking; it seemed like the natural thing to do.

  I was glad to be wearing trousers instead of a skirt.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Faol.

  “Where the sky takes us,” he replied.

  “The Mage can cross the sky.”

  “I know! The Mage can go wherever it likes now.”

  My stomach wobbled up and down as we moved through the air. Faol was the only thing holding me up. I looked down to my feet, and then vowed to never do so again. But at least my limbs felt lighter, almost healthy.

  “Why are you smiling?” I asked him.


  “I’m thinking! And Orla once told me that if you smile, you’ll feel happy no matter what.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about death, Aideen! My own death!” His grin spread wider. “Death will be exciting! A new adventure!”

  I tried to smile with him, but the corners of my mouth refused to move anywhere but down. Through the rush of air, the guttural roar of the Night Mage hit my back and pulsed through my chest.

  Faol would have to smile harder.

  The sky around us turned dark. The wind pulled harder on my hair.

  “Don’t look behind you,” Faol warned me.

  I felt the heat of the monster’s breath. I didn’t turn around.

  We shot off to the left, towards a whorl of darkening sky. Faster, faster. My eyes watered, teardrops streaking past my ears and into my hair. Thunder rumbled all around.

  “What’s happening?” I asked over the rush of wind.

  “I don’t know!”

  His arm strengthened around my waist.

  “Run faster, Aideen!”

  I had no idea I was making any difference to our speed, but I moved my feet faster nonetheless. We pushed ahead with a fresh burst of speed. The clouds were no longer white and fluffy, but dark and full of menace, growing in size, grouping together to form an offensive front. The clouds closed in around us, and the thunder too, and the hungry growl of the Mage.

  “Hold on tight,” Faol said, as we rushed towards the wall of cloud. I pressed my face to his chest and closed my eyes.

  My clothes were drenched with ice-cold water, and then blasted with dry heat.

  And then we were on solid ground, and it was even colder than the sky, and the darkest black. We were in the western corridor, the one I’d seen on my first night in the castle.

  Faol pulled me in one direction, away from the main door of the castle. The fleeting thought of escape evaporated in my head. There would be no escape for either of us, unless Faol could overcome the Mage before midnight.

  And right now he was running too fast to be thinking, hauling me along with him on my broken, weary legs. The stone walls of the castle trembled and cracked. Behind us, the walls exploded.

  The Night Mage had crossed the sky as well.

  “Where are we going?” I asked through puffed breath.

  “Away,” Faol replied. “I can’t think beyond that.”

  Away? We couldn’t run forever. He couldn’t run too. Midnight was so close; he needed time to stop and think!

  But he’s done nothing but think the last week, I realised. And what good has it done?

  But what about Cal and Orla? He had to save his friends!

  The Mage landed a heavy foot behind us, and a crack opened up in the ground, swallowing the thread-bare carpet. Faol leapt to my side before we could be torn apart. He spun around and held his wand to the Mage and uttered a quick, harsh spell. Jagged spears of fire shot from the breaking stone walls and into the grizzly skin of the Mage.

  We didn’t hang around to see what happened next. We took the next opening on the left and passed locked doors and crumbling walls. The flames in the sconces wavered blue and yellow, dancing in their cages of iron, taking on lives of their own.

  The ground shook; I stumbled forward. Faol shot another spell at the advancing Mage. But I think he knew as much as me that his magic was no match for the monster.

  The ceiling collapsed, as if something heavy had jumped on it from above. Without a moment’s hesitation, Faol pulled me through one of the closed doors. It led to a flight of spiral stairs, and I blanked out the pain as I scrambled behind him. I could barely breathe. Could hardly register any thought but the simple command of climb the stairs. One foot then the next. And Faol never let go, though our arms were stretched at full length, my hand weak and frail in his.

  I felt the chill of the night air. We rounded the final steps and tumbled out onto the roof of the castle. We ran to the battlements and looked over; the drop was too great. We ran to the centre of the castle, and peered down the long shaft to the castle’s heart. But we couldn’t survive that either.

  The four turrets looked down on us, and so did the mountains, and high above, the great white moon.

  “This is it,” I said to Faol. “You have to do it now.”

  “I don’t know how,” he said, the smile long gone. “I can’t do this.” He glanced up at the moon. “There isn’t time.”

  “Cal and Orla will die!”

  “And so will you.”

  “Don’t think about me,” I said. “Think about them. How lucky you are to have them. You have so much good in your life!”

  His mouth twitched. “Do you really believe it?”

  I didn’t have time to answer, not before the Night Mage crashed through the stairs. It had grown to a monstrous size. The Mage threw its head back and howled. We had run out of time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  My legs collapsed beneath me, burning with fresh pain. The Mage howled once more, and the pain grew even brighter.

  Unless Faol defeated the Mage, I would die from the poison.

  But if Faol defeated the Mage, he would die with his name.

  And he had no time left.

  He cast a wall of water and wind and flame between us and the Mage, but the Mage stepped casually through, ignoring the fire licking up its muscled legs.

  No time. No peace. Faol had to gather his thoughts and truly overcome his demons. Yet how could he do that while casting spells to protect me?

  I could gift him that time. I could show him that death was nothing to fear…

  “Run!” I screamed. “Let it take me! You have to defeat the Mage, Faol! It’s the only way to save Cal and Orla!”

  But he wrapped his arms under my shoulders and tried to haul me to my feet. “I won’t leave you.”

  “You must! It’s the only way. Run away from battle, to a place in the castle where you have peace to think—”

  A crack in the stone snaked its way to my hand. We both looked up into the gaping maw of the Night Mage. Faol threw his arms wide, wand in his hand, but I threw my weight against him.

  “You can’t think if you’re casting spells! Your magic is useless now! We’re both going to die, Faol. But your friends can live!” I saw realisation dawn in his eyes. “Go!” I pushed him away again, wondering if it was the last word I’d ever say to him.

  He kissed me fierce on the lips, saying all he had to say, and left me in the claws of the Night Mage. I watched him sprint across the stone, the moonlight on him, the darkness chasing.

  “Go on then,” I said to the Night Mage, as it towered above me, watching Faol go. “Kill me first. Take your time. Enjoy it!”

  My death is a sacrifice, I repeated to myself. So others can live.

  Perhaps Faol and I could find each other in death, if our bond didn’t break.

  The Night Mage swiped my feet from under me. As I crashed to the ground, it trapped me with its razor-like claws. I didn’t try to escape. The Mage sucked in a long breath, and I felt the pull in my chest. The poison in me was still linked to the Mage, and it held firm on the reins. My legs stiffened, first my feet and ankles, and then moving up until my lower half was turned to stone.

  I do not fear death, I told myself, as the Mage drew in another breath, and the tightness spread across my chest. My death will help others.

  But as my arms stiffened too, I wriggled against the Mage’s magic. I didn’t want to be still and helpless while it finished me off.

  I didn’t want to die.

  Sacrifice. Sacrifice!

  But the instinct to survive crushed my thoughts and gained full control. I screamed. I pushed back against the poison, kicking my legs and punching my arms against the tightening grasp of the Mage. I rolled onto my side, into the sharp edge of its claws.

  A spout of wind and earth spun across the stone and into the Mage. It stumbled back, and I rolled under its claws as they lifted. I couldn’t move my arm
s or legs. And the weight in my head made it difficult to think.

  Faol was there. Of course he was there, the fool. He summoned a storm of snow from the cloudless sky, tiny hammers of ice, drilling into the Night Mage as it battered against the windspout. I lay at Faol’s feet, useless and helpless, like I’d always been.

  The Mage swiped at the snow, brushing it aside. So Faol sent a spear of ice through the Mage’s chest. Any other monster would have died from the injury, but not the Mage. Only one thing could draw the life from its lungs.

  We couldn’t win like this; I had to do something.

  I couldn’t give Faol space to breathe, not with my broken body and utter lack of magical talent. But how could he have a moment to think when his mind was constantly focused on attack after attack?

  All I could do was die, and accept it willingly. Because if I couldn’t accept my own death, how could I ask it of Faol?

  “How can I embrace it?” I asked myself, a whisper in the chaos. I looked to the moon for answers, blocking out the battle raging above me, and the magic singing in the air.

  I was born, and I am alive. If I was born, I must also die. There’s no escaping it. Life and death are inseparable twins. One cannot exist without the other. It is impossible.

  “I have to die,” I said to the moon. “One day, I have to die. And if it’s not today it will be next week, and by then it will be too late for my death to do any good.” I began to cry, quiet at first, then louder. And Faol did not look down – he probably couldn’t hear me. His eyes were focused on the Mage, and sweat dripped down his brow from the relentless attack. He would crumple on the spot from exhaustion if I did nothing. “I can’t do much,” I said, “but I can be useful in death.”

  There is no other way. No other way.

  But still I fought it, searched for alternatives. My heart raced, frantically pumping through my life’s supply of beats. I faced a wall of black. I had to break through that wall and welcome what I found on the other side; accept I might find nothing.

  I am going to die anyway, I repeated to myself. And soon. And Faol will have to watch, and then he’ll die too.