“So,” Keithus said, coming to a halt atop the last, small staircase that ran the hall’s width, and speaking in a voice within an octave of Marcus’s own, “here we are. Three Viaggiatori managed to make it through my many traps and minions to me.” He chuckled. “I like it. You must understand, I had to set some traps up, just for the look of the thing. I wouldn’t be much of an adversary otherwise, would I? So there was.. well once I knew you were coming, I sent word out to that paranoid town down south to try and apprehend you if they saw you.. and it was too much fun messing with that guy in the log cabin. And then Kimberlite was all like ‘my liege, I must protect your quarters’, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her no. I was rooting for you guys, though,” he added, with a macabre grin.
“You wanted us to get to you?” Marcus asked, amazed.
“Of course!” Keithus roared. “It’s bad manners to not welcome your guests, especially once they’ve travelled so far to come and see you. I must say, you took your time. I’ve been ready to go for days.. I imagine you got slowed down by the snow, not your fault. You wouldn’t believe the looks Kimberlite has been giving me when I tell her we’re not going yet, I think she’s about ready to try and give me a good slap. Oh, that reminds me,” he said suddenly, and strolled over to the side of the room, where a full-length mirror was propped up next to a large red lever, which he pulled.
For a moment, nothing happened. “Wait for it,” Keithus said, holding up a hand. “Now, where was I? Something about you guys making your way here.. Oh yeah, what was up with that ridiculous cover story? ‘We are Viaggiatori, but we’re only going so far north, and then we’ll mysteriously disappear’? Seriously, who thought that one up? Even if I didn’t have people in Plumm I’d have spotted you a mile off. Ah, there we go,” he cocked a hand to his ear, indicating the sounds of a ringing bell that had begun to sound somewhere above them. “That’ll echo right out through the valley, giving my armies the signal that it’s time to get moving. So I’ll just deal with you guys, then we can all be on our way. Sound good?”
He smiled wanly at the assembled trio, who had spent the entirety of his monologue stood in frozen shock, and only now broke out of it, with the air of people waking up from a trance.
“I don’t think so, Keithus!” Kendra said, flipping her knives across her fingertips and assuming a fighting stance with perhaps slightly more ostentation than was necessary. “How about we deal with you, then return home victorious?”
Keithus giggled, a sound so manic yet bereft of humour that it sent a shiver down Marcus’s spine. “Very cute. You must be Kendra, on account of being the only female I see. Pleasure to meet you. And you must be the one who sees everything,” he said, addressing Lucin. “I believe this is yours.” From a pocket of his robe he produced a small, pathetic looking creature that Marcus recognised as the short man’s bird, and threw it at him. Lucin caught it with a gasp, apparently horrified at the pitiful state that the only living creature he’d ever expressed any positive emotions for had been reduced to. “What did you do to her?” he asked quietly, but Keithus had already moved on.
“You,” he said, addressing Marcus, “I don’t know. I had myself a handy living database who knows most of the Viaggiatori, but you he didn’t recognise. So, who are you?”
“I’m Marcus,” Marcus said, swallowing his fear.
“Who?” Keithus asked.
“What?” Marcus asked.
“Who’s Marcus?” Keithus repeated.
Marcus was aghast. “You don’t know me?”
“Well, I am trying,” Keithus said. “Should I know you?”
“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “We’re meant to be connected somehow.”
“Hmm,” Keithus said, idly drumming his fingers along his staff. “Wait.. are you..? No, it couldn’t be. Unless, of course, it could. Yes, you’re right, he does look a bit like me, and that does make sense. It must be! Tell me, Marcus.. do you believe yourself to be a resident of Earth, originally?”
“Uh, yeah..” Marcus said, and was distracted as Keithus broke into peals of laughter.
“Oh .. haaa.. don’t mind me,” the man said, bending over double and waving his hand urgently. “Oh my.. to think.. they actually.. I know! Oh man. Sorry, oh so sorry, I’m being a terrible host, but.. this is just the funniest thing ever. You’re actually working with them! You must have no idea!”
Marcus glanced at Kendra and Lucin. The latter was too busy crying over his bird to be paying attention anymore, and Kendra just shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Marcus said.
“Clearly,” Keithus said, pulling himself together, “or you wouldn’t be working with these idiots. Listen chap, if I should happen to leave you alive at the end of this, I recommend you go have a glance at my crystal ball. It’ll show you everything you need to know. Especially if you want to-“
“KEITHUS!!!” came a roar, and Lucin dived forward, knife in hand, aiming to slice the wizard to little bits. Keithus stepped back smartly as the short man leapt at him, and as he stumbled, attempting to catch his balance, the wizard pulled up his staff, aimed along its length, and.. fired. A burst of what Marcus took to be pure magic shot out, struck Lucin in the chest and enveloped him in smoke.
There was a moment of silence, interrupted only by Keithus blowing the residue from the end of his staff. All eyes were focused on the cloud of smoke, which drifted apart to reveal a distinct absence of Lucin. There was, however, a seagull.
“Well,” Keithus said, “that was distracting. Once again I’ve completely forgotten what I was saying.”
“What did you do to him?” Kendra asked, horrified.
“What? Him? Oh, it’s not what it looks like. Random matter transfer – which is pretty difficult to pull off, by the way; wherever that seagull was, our dear vertically challenged friend now is. He’s probably thanking me right now, unless that seagull happened to be in mid-flight. Heh. Couldn’t stand him, had to get rid of him. Bye bye seagull,” the wizard said, as the bird flew up and out of an open window far above.
“So he could be anywhere?” Kendra asked.
“That’s it!” Keithus suddenly roared, making them jump. “I was talking to you,” he continued, refocusing on Marcus. “And I was going to tell you how terribly ironic this entire situation is. Or was I? I don’t know, it might be better for you to see for yourself, but then again, I might be about to kill you, I haven’t decided yet. But the thought that you might die without realising how ridiculous this entire situation is is a rather tragic one. Oh this is difficult. Strong arguments on both sides. Hey, what are you looking at?”
This question was directed to Marcus, who had been distracted from the wizard’s ranting by the movement behind him; just as Keithus had struck Lucin, a shadowy figure had snuck into the room, and had taken advantage of the wizard’s follow-up rant to sidle up close. Now, Keithus had spotted that Marcus’s eyes were not focused on him but rather the person standing behind him, and spun around, staff at the ready, just in time to get a sword through the gut.
“Nice distraction, Marcus,” the Assassin said. “Never liked that short guy anyway.”
Keithus gaped blankly at the tall man, before staggering backwards away from the group, the sword still protruding from his lower abdomen. “Ouch,” he said absently, as blood began to leak out from the wound. He looked down at the blade with distant interest. “Curious.”
“So this is the great wizard Keithus?” the Assassin asked disdainfully. “I was expecting this one to be more of a challenge. Shouldn’t have bothered listening to Musk, obviously. Just another egotistical lunatic. The wizard, I mean, but hey, pick one.” He chuckled, then opened his mouth as if to add some more insults to the pile, but was distracted from his witticisms by Keithus. With a roll of his eyes, the wizard had yanked the Assassin’s sword out of his body, tossed it away, and put a hand to his wound, exploring it with a distant curiosity. “Idiot,” the Assassin said. “He’l
l just die quicker now.”
“You, Mr. Assassin, are a very rude man,” Keithus growled, in a voice that didn’t sound particularly weak or defeated. “I’m going to have to teach you a lesson or seven, I think. Just you wait.”
“Wait for what?” the Assassin mocked. “Your next life?” And then he did a double take as he realised that sparks were flying from Keithus’s hand into the wound, and that it appeared to be closing up. For sure, there was much less blood squirting around everywhere. As the assembled audience watched, the wound closed completely, and Keithus straightened up, shaking the excess blood from his hand and spitting more from his mouth. With a grotesque, shaky grin, he levelled his staff in the Assassin’s direction, prompting Marcus to dive aside. The Assassin, however, just folded his arms and stood there as if to say, ‘bring it, wizard boy’.
Keithus brought it. The Assassin was engulfed in magical fire. “You think I’d be so easy to kill?” the wizard snarled, and the voice was now guttural, driven by pure fury. “I, who was given a great gift? You should be aware, I am not just skilled in some kinds of magic. I possess the ultimate knowledge of ALL,” he fired again, “kinds,” – again – “of magic!” A final blast actually blew a hole in the wall behind the Assassin, such was its force. “Including healing magic,” the wizard added proudly.
“And all of that means nothing to me,” the Assassin said, calmly walking out of the inferno that Keithus had conjured around him without so much as a scratch. “I too was given a gift; complete immunity to any kind of magic, no matter how strong. Your boasts are meaningless. And I know how magic works, wizard. No matter how much you can hold, eventually you’ll run out. I’ll kill you as many time as I have to before you don’t have the means to heal yourself.”
“Whatever,” Keithus snapped, but he backed up as the Assassin strode towards him with unstoppable calmness, firing more shots that either bounced off or had no effect. The wizard cast a freezing spell, and accomplished nothing other than giving the man a slight chill. He sent a blast of air the Assassin’s way, and all it did was ruffle the man’s clothes. He began to fire spells apparently at random with increasing panic, his eyes widening as the man stepped closer and closer.
“Now’s our chance!” Kendra whispered excitedly to Marcus, as they stood forgotten by the two combatants. “We get him whilst he’s distracted, like in the movies!”
“Like in what movies?” Marcus asked, as Kendra broke into a run, heading for Keithus. She only made it a few steps before bouncing off nothing, and falling over. “Ouch.”
Marcus moved up to her, and felt at the air; it was quite solid, as air went. He glanced around, noting in the edges of his vision the faint, ethereal shimmer of the not-quite nothing that stood between them and the battle beyond. “He’s blocked us in! This is some magical barrier thingy.”
“What?” Kendra asked. “Locked us up like we’re not even a threat? What a –“ the rest of her sentence was drowned out by the sudden explosion as a blast of air bounced off the Assassin, shot up into the rafters and shattered a chandelier. Neither Keithus nor the Assassin flinched as glass and candles rained down around them, continuing their slow chase around the room.
“Maybe he locked us up because we are a threat,” Marcus suggested. “I’m going to try something.” He boinged his scythe, and swung it in the vague direction of the barrier. It met resistance, but then he felt it sink in, and the magic twisted in his grasp, writhing from the pain of the strike, before falling apart around him. On the far side of the room, Keithus cried out, and looked away from the Assassin for the first time, evidently feeling the effect of his spell being destroyed.
“What happened?” Kendra asked, feeling vaguely around herself. “You broke it?”
“Yep,” Marcus said. “A wizard once mentioned that their magic is basically life energy, and this is the weapon of Death, who specialises in taking life energy away. I’m so glad that worked.”
“Technically, Death doesn’t take life away..” Kendra began.
“Ssh. I think now is where we attack, yes?”
“See, that doesn’t make sense at all,” Keithus yelled. He addressed Marcus casually, whilst still fending off the Assassin with a firestorm of magics with one hand. “How does that blade even fit in there? It’s way more curved than the wood. Stupid magic weapons, completely illogical. Ooh, there’s an idea,” he added, and took a moment to stop nuking the Assassin, skip back out of range as the man dived at him, and fire his staff at the man’s discarded sword, which lay forgotten on the floor nearby. The blast knocked it up into the air, where, instead of falling down in accordance with the laws of gravity, it span in mid-air and flew blade-first towards its owner. The Assassin swore and ducked under it, barely avoid an impromptu haircut. He drew two smaller blades from somewhere about his person, and set about fending off his sword as it came around to attack him again.
“Yes,” Marcus said, “now is definitely where we attack.”
They ran at Keithus, Marcus quashing the voice of self-preservation that told him he was doing something completely ridiculous. Keithus rolled his eyes at the new attack and spun his staff around to send a huge ball of fire in their direction. They dived aside, Marcus one way and Kendra the other, straight into the path of the wizard’s follow-up blasts of air. Marcus desperately spun the scythe and hit the spell before it hit him, bouncing it away off the flat of his blade to harmlessly shatter a priceless stained glass window instead. Kendra, lacking any means of reflecting magic, was hit by the blast that came her way, and thrown up into the air. She managed to come down on her feet, staggering a bit but still upright, on the other side of the room. Marcus spared a glance to see that she was okay, and then he had closed in on Keithus, and swung the scythe with intent to slice.
Keithus bought up his own staff to swipe Marcus’s weapon aside with a bone-jarring glance, and followed the move up with a swift kick to the gut. Marcus doubled over, winded, and was flung away by a blast of air before he could recover. He rolled away, desperately attempting to not cut himself to pieces with the blade of the scythe, and staggered upright near the Assassin, who was still struggling with his own possessed sword.
“Let me get that for you,” Marcus said groggily, swinging his weapon around to crash blades with the sword. On impact, the sword promptly dropped to the ground and lay still like the inanimate object it was, the possessive spell crumbling to the scythe’s powers. The Assassin gave Marcus a nod, picked up the sword and hefted it a few times as he refocused on Keithus.
The wizard was distracted by Kendra, who had closed in on him and was dodging around his blasts whilst trying to grab his staff away from him. Both combatants were moving so fast as to be almost a blur. The Assassin raised his eyebrow at Marcus.
“He uses his air blasts to throw us away when we get too close,” Marcus said.
“They don’t work on me. Distract him for long enough that I can close in, and-“
He was interrupted by the twin loud cracks of Keithus smashing his staff into Kendra’s side, and at least one of her ribs breaking at the impact. Her cry as she stumbled backwards spurred Marcus into action, running towards her as Keithus levelled his staff, business-end first, and blasted her away with a rather unnecessary amount of force. The backdraft from the hit almost knocked Marcus off his feet as Kendra flew past him, crashed against the far wall and fell to the ground heavily.
“Ouch,” the Assassin said, with feeling, as Marcus felt his heart do a somersault.
“I’m bored of this now,” Keithus said irritably, turning back to Marcus and the Assassin. “Little gnats buzzing around me, better to swat them all at once.” With what would have been in any other circumstance a pleasant smile, he aimed his staff upwards and fired a blast of energy at the ceiling. The force of the impact shook the room, blowing out the windows and a fair chunk of whatever was above them. “Look out!” the Assassin yelled, diving aside as several tons of orphaned masonry fell towards them. With
a curse, Marcus turned and ran, dislodged rocks crashing down around him. He stumbled as stray detritus sprayed against his knees, and fell flat to the ground as one rock rebounded and hit him in the back, knocking him clear of the impact area with a cry.
He lay there groaning and coughing as the dust settled around him, one hand still tightly gripping the scythe. Similar groans from off to his side told him that Kendra was still conscious, although she might wish that it were otherwise. Muscles protesting loudly, he pulled himself to his feet once more, and slumped against a large chunk of what might once have been ramparts, peering through the dust to try and see where the others were.
A shifting shadow coalesced into Keithus, who in the newly dirtied atmosphere bore more than a passing resemblance to Marcus’s original demonic vision of him. He held his staff in one hand and the Assassin’s long sword in the other, and was advancing on where the man lay pinned down amongst a large pile of castle. The Assassin struggled to free himself, but his legs appeared caught, and he ceased his exertion as Keithus moved up and stood before him.
“I’m surprised no-one ever thought of that before,” the wizard said airily. “Imagine how many of my kind have died to you, at the bequest of the highest bidder, just because they forgot, in their arrogance, that there are many other ways to kill a man than with magic. Looks like you forgot too, Mr. Assassin. Now, I don’t claim to care much for my fellow wizards, but that isn’t going to make this any less sweet. Oh look, now I’m gloating. Better wrap it up before some big old hero comes to save you in your moment of peril.” And without any further warning or flinch, he plunged the Assassin’s own sword into his chest.
Mirrorworld Page 34
