His Cure For Magic (Book 2)

by M. R. Forbes

  "They came for the ebocite. They came for the power."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Wilem

  Wilem took a moment to gather himself while he rubbed the lump on his head. They were almost at the shaft. All they had to do was get past the single juggernaut that Clau had left guarding it.

  Oz was hunched behind him, keeping its metal frame as low and out of sight as it could. They were both waiting for Silas, who had moved ahead to cut down the ircidium soldier before it could raise an alarm.

  "It is worried."

  Wilem was worried too, but he didn't say anything. He could see the juggernaut standing still and patient at the lip of the shaft, and he wondered when Silas would appear.

  The map had led them to the discovery of a small corridor that ran alongside the outer perimeter of the structure, used to filter air in from above. He had gone to find one of the open vents and see if he could get inside, to crawl his way to the shaft and sneak up on the juggernaut.

  Since he hadn't returned, Wilem could only hope he had made it.

  "It is taking very long."

  Wilem put a finger to his lips. He didn't know how well the juggernauts could hear, but he didn't want to take any chances. "Be patient," he whispered. "Silas knows what he's doing."

  Oz was silent.

  They waited long enough that Wilem was on the verge of fearing the worst, when he saw only the flash of an ircidium blade, and the juggernaut fall forward with a crash that echoed through the corridor.

  "Come on," Wilem said. "Quickly."

  Oz loped behind him while he ran. The juggernaut's heavy feet shook the floor around them, and the noise was enough that Wilem was sure Clau would hear it, wherever he was.

  "It is dirty," Oz said when they reached the shaft. Wilem thought he was talking about Silas, whose black shirt, pants, face, and hair were all coated in a layer of grime. Instead, the metal man bent down and pulled the massive sword from his downed counterpart's hand. It was coated in thick black liquid.

  "Wilem, it's time."

  "They're going to feel it. They're going to come."

  "I know. Oz and I will protect you."

  "It is pleased to fight with First of Nine and its wizard."

  Wilem took a deep breath. He was nervous about summoning the magic again, but he focused on relaxing and allowing it to come.

  "Wizard. It is near."

  He heard the voice as soon as the tingle began to run down his spine. He fought to concentrate on the stone disc that Silas had said was at the bottom of the shaft. He didn't know how he was going to lift it, especially when he couldn't see it.

  "They're at the shaft!"

  "Clau knows we're here," he said, his voice wavering.

  "He'll be cautious. Concentrate on the disc. This is our only chance to save Eryn."

  Wilem took another deep breath. "Erigo," he said, holding the image of the platform in his mind.

  At first, he didn't think anything had happened. He could feel the magic running from his body, but it seemed to vanish into the depths. A moment later, he felt it further below, stronger than he had expected. It was as though something in the walls of the shaft was amplifying his power.

  Two juggernauts came into view, side by side with their swords raised. Oz moved forward and raised his captured blade, shifting it to catch a strong blow. It was covered in the slick liquid, and the strike sent it from his hand and over the edge, into the shaft.

  "It is minor," Oz said. The opposing juggernaut brought its blade back and around for another strike, but Oz shifted to the side and pushed hard with his shoulder. The older creature had the advantage in mass, and it forced its opponent to flop backwards and crash to the floor.

  Wilem felt the vibration from the shaft as the disc began to rise. Slowly at first, and then it started to gain momentum. He turned back towards the fight.

  The second juggernaut lumbered towards him, getting within two large strides before it was intercepted by Silas. It swung its heavy sword at him, but he deflected it with his own weapon, using the motion and angle of the block to push the heavy blade to the ground. He danced up the flat of it, planting his feet on the creature's hand and leaping forward, bringing his sword around with enough force to sever its head in one smooth stroke.

  "It is better," Oz said. It had smashed the other juggernaut's arm with a massive ircidium boot, and taken its clean blade. Then it stomped on its head, crushing it.

  Silas came to stand next to Wilem, and leaned over the shaft to look down. "Well done, my boy," he said, able to see the disc rising below.

  "Talon."

  They turned together at the sound of Clau's voice. He was standing in front of them, flanked by three of the juggernauts.

  "Clau," Silas said. "It's here. Do you remember? The Shifter's General. It escaped."

  "You didn't make your report."

  "To Heden with my report! Their General is here, and it has Eryn."

  "You made a promise, Talon. You took an oath to protect the Empire."

  "Didn't we already have this discussion, brother?" Silas asked. "Why won't you listen to me? Why won't you see reason?"

  Clau laughed. "I made my report, Talon. He was willing to forgive you. He was willing to bring you back into the fold. But... you had to break the promise. You couldn't be satisfied with the life he provided. You can't see past your own misguided selfishness, to the mercy that he granted you. You threatened Iolas, and he spared your life, setting you up to exist in a comfortable state of drunkenness. You killed him, and Feng, for Amman's sake, and he still sent me to talk to you. To try to reason with you."

  He moved forward as he spoke, the juggernauts moving with him. Oz backed away in front of them, until he was next to Wilem and Silas.

  "I saw it, Clau. Through the seeing stone. It knew I was looking at it. I may have forgotten those eyes once, but seeing them-"

  "You are beyond reason, Talon. Whatever has happened to you, it has led you to madness. The Shifters are gone, destroyed a thousand years ago. You killed their General at Ares-Nor. You won the war for him, and for all of us."

  "I don't know if I won. I would never have fought for the Empire I remember. He made me a murderer."

  "You would have, and you did, and for good reason."

  "There was no good reason."

  "I know I can't convince you, Talon, just as you can't convince me." He raised his sword, leveling it in front of his chest. "Let us be done with this business."

  Silas looked at Wilem and smiled. "Yes, let's." He grabbed the Mediator's shirt, and pulled him over the edge.

  The sudden fall made Wilem lose his grip on his power. He felt the tingling subside in an instant, and he clenched his teeth and tensed his muscles in anticipation of being flattened a thousand feet below.

  They hit the platform sooner than he had expected, landing on his feet and then stumbling to his knees from the momentum. Silas landed gracefully next to him.

  "The platform," he said. It had been rising from his power, but its own upward energy was lost, and Wilem could feel it beginning to drop.

  He closed his eyes and found the magic again. "Erigo," he repeated. The energy spread out through his feet, wrapping itself around the platform. It was so much easier to control now that he was in contact with it.

  The whole thing tilted when Oz crashed onto it, its weight forcing the left end down. The juggernaut leaned forward to steady itself, and stomped towards the center to help balance it.

  "We'll meet you in the reactor," Silas shouted upwards.

  Wilem looked up. Clau was there, peering over the edge. The General didn't dare jump down alone, and he surely couldn't trust the disc could support four of the ircidium men.

  "It is pleased to fall," Oz said.

  So was Wilem.

  We're coming Eryn.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Silas

  The stone disc settled on the floor of the shaft. Wilem took a deep breath and stepped forward, his for
ehead creasing in pain as he dropped to a knee.

  "Wilem?" Silas said, bending down next to him and putting an arm on his shoulder.

  "It is not safe," Oz said.

  "I'm well. It's been a long day. Every part of me is tired. Are we here?"

  "Yes."

  He pushed himself to his feet. "I'll finish being tired later."

  Silas smiled. "Well done, Wilem. Keep your guard up. With the amount of noise we made, we'll be knee-deep in Shifters before we know it."

  Oz started moving towards the doorway out of the shaft. "It is here. It is pleased to fight." The juggernaut turned its head and looked back at Silas, waiting for the order.

  "As you will, Oz."

  "As First of Nine commands. It is very pleased, indeed."

  Silas took Wilem by the shoulders, pushing a hard gaze into him. "Whatever happens, leave the General to me. You can't fight it. It will kill you if you try."

  "If it has Eryn-"

  "You can't defeat it, my boy. No one can. None but the Nine."

  "I don't understand."

  Silas looked down, directing his words to himself more than to Wilem. "He must have known that some had escaped. Maybe not the General, but perhaps others of its kind. Why else would he have locked us in this cycle?" His eyes found the Mediator's again. "I was... not created... I was... altered, to fight the Shifters. We were an experiment. We weren't even sure it would work, until we arrived in Ares-Nor."

  "Jeremiah's research?"

  "Jeremiah... That name is familiar. I-"

  A loud cry interrupted him.

  "It is here," Oz bellowed from beyond the room. They heard the wet slap of a blade driving through flesh.

  "Come on," Silas said. He ran from the room, with Wilem chasing behind.

  A dozen corpses already lay at the juggernaut's feet, but it was nothing compared to the sheer number of the creatures that were coming towards them. They were in a large antechamber that had once been separated from the reactor by a wide, heavy ircidium door, which now rested on the floor in front of them. The Shifters poured over it like ants, leaping at Oz and trying to gain enough numbers and mass to bring it down.

  "Goblins," Silas said. "Oz should be able to manage them."

  "The reactor?" Wilem asked.

  Silas sidestepped a goblin and brought his blade around, skewering it and returning his blade with expert precision. He caught the wrist of another, turning the arm to break it, and throwing the creature aside. "Oz?"

  "It is pleased," the juggernaut said. It had seven of the goblins striking at it with their claws, but it didn't seem to notice. It removed them one at a time, cutting a large swath of destruction with the sword and sending bodies away with its heavy feet.

  Silas dispatched two more of the creatures with ease, leading Wilem through the onslaught to the room beyond. They could hear the mechanisms in the background, the gears, pistons and pumps in perpetual motion, pulling energy from the core and now using it to expel the mist.

  Then they were through the melee and in, looking out at the massive expanse of the room and the ircidium and iron machinery that worked there. Silas knew the layout from their view through the seeing stone. Eryn would be in the far corner, tucked away from sight. The General was here, somewhere.

  A Shifter appeared to his left. A twelve foot tall creature with thick limbs and a heavy jaw; an orc. It carried a blade of its own, and it brought it down with a heavy stroke that Silas barely managed to evade. He turned and moved in, bringing himself inside the creature's guard to strike.

  It disappeared, coming back into view a few feet away, sword raised and ready to strike again.

  A ball of fire slammed into its chest, exploding as it hit the monster and spreading across its skin. The orc vanished for a moment, and then reappeared as charred, dead flesh.

  Silas scanned the room, but he knew he wouldn't be able to see them. Eryn had told her that Iolas called it a 'distortion field'. She explained how she could use her magic to go to this space outside of their time, where everything moved so much faster than it did here, such that it appeared to her as if everything were standing still. She had the ability to reach across time and affect things in their world, as she had when she'd killed Feng.

  Fortunately, the orcs were limited to one or the other.

  Unfortunately, not all of the Shifters were so constrained.

  An orc appeared beside Wilem. Silas started to shout a warning, but the Mediator had learned quickly from seeing the first. He reached out and put his hand on the Shifter's wrist, and a glow of energy ran up the creature's arm. It cried out and fell over, burned from the inside out.

  A shimmering bolt of light appeared ahead of them and launched towards Silas. He set his legs and put his blade up in front of it, catching the power on the metal and holding steady while it fought to get beyond his barrier. Light flared in front of the sword, reflecting off the ircidium and shining an intense brightness throughout the reactor. Silas turned his head away from it so it wouldn't blind him, and pushed forward through the attack.

  It ceased without warning. Silas turned his gaze again and saw the Shifter burned and on its back, killed by Wilem's fire.

  "You came for the daughter."

  The voice arrived from nowhere, and everywhere. It boomed in his head, and made him shiver. "Where are you?" he asked.

  "I am here."

  The Shifter appeared in the center of the room. It had Eryn cradled in its arms.

  "Eryn?"

  Silas heard the anger and desperation in Wilem's voice. "Wilem, don't. Remember what I told you."

  The turmoil played across the Mediator's body. The tension was obvious in the flexing muscles of his neck and hands, but he stood his ground.

  "I remember."

  Silas felt the blue eyes piercing his soul. He raised his sword up in front of his face, but it did no good. He was trapped by the gaze, frozen in place while the Shifter raided his mind.

  "I killed you," he managed to say, without moving his lips.

  "You wounded me." It touched its abdomen. It was smooth, undamaged. "It was healed when we were forced to flee through the subroute. Few of us escaped, but escape we did. We have waited for our brothers to return, but with the daughter, we will not have to wait. With the Queen, we can restore our kind from the energy of the reactor, and the power of the prozoa."

  Silas felt a burning in his head as the Shifter pulled his memories to the surface. They flashed behind his eyes, single images of other times, before he had been turned into a creature of flesh and metal, crystal and magic. He saw men, women, and children moving through the corridors of Genesia. The dim hallways were bright with glowing moss, brightly colored flowers, and illuminated stones. There was laughter and music creating a landscape of normalcy amidst the serious intensity of the research.

  In the beginning, the reactors had been a utopia for making dreams into reality.

  In the end, they had brought them only nightmares, like the creature standing in front of him.

  "Yes. This was the place where it began. The stone at Ares-Nor was larger, stronger. The resonance magnitudes greater. Remember for me, Talon Rast. Remember the mathematics. Remember the algorithms. Help us increase the resonance, and we will be free once more."

  Silas had no control of it. Pictures flew through his mind, so quickly that he saw nothing but blurs of color and light, and drawings of symbols on black stone. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to will the ircidium blade to protect him, but the power was coming from everywhere at once. In full ircidium armor he could withstand it, but he didn't have so much as a helm.

  "Interesting."

  Silas tried to scream. It came out as nothing more than a guttural growl of pain and fury. The images kept coming, faster and faster.

  "Yes. Yes. I understand."

  He felt the power release, and everything slowed. He felt his mind become his own again, but there was something different about it. He remembered Genesia. He remembered his wife,
Alyssa, and their two boys. They had been traveling at the time, and had died in the first attacks. Killed by the Shifters. Who was the woman that had left him for the unknown lands? Had she ever existed at all? Who was Aren to him? Had Rossum been telling the truth, or had all of the fingers picking at his mind damaged it beyond repair?

  The pain of it would have brought him to tears, except there was something else he remembered now. Something he needed, but hadn't known it.

  "You have been useful, Talon Rast. You are no longer necessary."

  The Shifter vanished.

  Silas vanished with it.

  He entered the distortion field, tagging along on the energy of the creature, an energy that he could feel as a solid thrumming at the base of his ebocite heart. He remembered the experiments now, the captured Shifter soldiers, the ircidium and wood machines that measured the resonances, the power outputs, the 'temporal variations', as they had labeled them.

  The Shifter elite were like Eryn. They could affect one time from the other. Unlike Eryn, they could remain there indefinitely, or come and go from one to the other as they pleased. They were the reason the war had almost been lost. It took only a handful to move through an army and cut the throats of ten-thousand men in what they would feel only as a single heartbeat or two. The most powerful wizards had been able to join them in the temporal distortion to fight them, but they could last a few minutes at most outside of their time. They had killed two of the elite, while the elite and their armies had killed over three hundred thousand.

  The bodies had been brought to Genesia. To Jeremiah. He had used what he'd learned from the soldiers to make a different kind of juggernaut than the ones that built the reactors, like Oz, or now fought against the lesser creatures. That much ircidium couldn't pass through the distortion, but they couldn't pierce the hides of the Shifter elite without it.

  They needed to turn humans into monsters.

  Only nine of them survived.

  He stayed behind it, watching unseen as it retreated across the reactor and returned Eryn to the bedding that had been left for her there. It lowered her with utmost care, placing her tenderly on the mattresses and using a long finger to push the hair from her face. She turned her head and released a satisfied gasp.