by Chris Fox
Voria longed to help him, but knew she couldn’t reach him. And even if she did, she’d only draw Nebiat’s attention to him. “Davidson, cut forty-five degrees to your left, then angle around and look for Bord and Kez. They’ve almost reached us.”
Nebiat swooped after her. “Oh, you are cruel. You have to realize that if you go to your tech mages for help, I will only dismember them in front of you. Do their lives matter that little to you?”
Voria didn’t answer. She didn’t say she treasured their lives, each and every one. Even Thalas.
Nebiat breathed. The cone angled at Bord and Kezia.
Bord’s arms shot up, trembling, but still held high. A small latticework flowed out around him, the tiny ward reaching completion just as the breath hit them. It was barely big enough to cover him and Kezia, but they were knocked sprawling by the breath. The ward flickered and died, and Bord slumped to the ground. Kezia moved to stand defensively over him, screaming her wordless rage at Nebiat.
“Hear me, Wyrm,” Voria roared. “If we are going to die, then we are going to do it defiantly. We are going to do it fighting, proving to you that the Krox will never break us. The Confederacy will oppose you wherever your forces appear.”
“Really? Like they opposed us on Starn? Or Vakera? And now Marid?” Nebiat taunted, flapping her titanic wings, her shadow darkening the world to twilight. “You have fought bravely, Voria, but you have lost. Die with honor, little mage. Know that you have impressed the spawn of a god.”
But death didn’t come.
Nebiat’s head shot up, and she turned back toward the mountain. A heartbeat later, Voria realized why.
The ritual’s resonance had changed. Someone was manipulating the spell.
Voria spun, facing the bog where Crewes had gone down. She relaxed her death grip on the ladder, smiling grimly as the sergeant climbed back to his feet.
Apparently not even Nebiat could drop the Sergeant.
61
Finish The Spell
Nara stepped slowly to the center of the ritual circle, raising her hands. Vast currents of magic pulsed around her, strong enough that they nearly lifted her into the air. Each flow was pulled from one of the urns, and all were delivered to this precise spot.
She could feel a vast reservoir of power, each flow corresponding to an aspect—save for spirit, which they’d destroyed.
“Any time, Nara,” Aran yelled, decapitating an Enforcer with his spellblade, then yanking its body up to shield him from several acid bolts. He hurled the smoking corpse back at the Krox, gunning down another pair as if they were corpses, and not full Enforcers.
“This isn’t like casting a cantrip,” Nara snapped, trying to tune out both Aran and his conflict with the Krox. Doing so left her vulnerable, but if Aran couldn’t keep them alive then none of this mattered anyway.
Nara examined the latticework of sigils Nebiat had been crafting. Already its complexity exceeded Nara’s ability to understand, but she saw things she thought she recognized. That light blueish area was designed to unravel a sleep spell, though a sleep spell far beyond anything any mortal mage could cast. This kind of power must have belonged to the gods.
She walked around the spell, studying another part. This one wove into the spirit of a creature, binding its will. It was familiar, a type of magic she sensed she was already proficient with. This too was far more complex than she’d seen before, the kind of trap one might set for an incredibly powerful archmage, or some sort of demigod. But what was it doing here? There was nothing to trap.
Nara understood Nebiat trying to remove the seal, but not how the sleep spell and the binding accomplished that. There was something she was missing. Something of massive importance.
“The potion is starting to wear off,” Aran roared, his words punctuated by the whine of his spellrifle. “You’ve got a few more seconds. Make them count.”
“Okay. Well, then, I’m about to do something stupid,” Nara said, biting her lip as she studied the spell.
“What kind of stupid?” Aran called, rolling between an enforcer’s legs. A Wyrm dove from above, breathing a cone of white at Nara. She flinched, but before she could dive out of the way Aran was already moving. He leapt skyward, faster than she could track. He raised his tiny spellshield, which somehow deflected the entire cone. The forced knocked Aran to the ground near her, but he rolled quickly to his feet.
“I don’t fully understand what the ritual does, but part of that ritual is a binding, for a really powerful creature.” Nara inspected that part of the spell again, looking for a way to sever it. “I’m thinking I could remove that part, then complete the spell.”
“I very much doubt that Nebiat would like that.” Aran laughed. He landed, spinning to impale an Enforcer. This time he was too slow, and the Enforcer backhanded him. He went flying, tumbling across the broken ground until he’d nearly reached the edge of the circle, and rose shakily to his feet. Clearly, the grace provided by the potion was gone. “Do it! We’re out of time.”
Nara turned back to the spell, dissolving the sigils connecting the binding to the rest of the spell. There were dozens of tiny connections, but she meticulously severed them one after another. She ignored the sounds of combat, though she winced when Aran gave a pained yell.
Finally, she’d severed the last one. This was the moment of truth. A spell, especially a ritual, needed an enormous amount of power to sustain itself. By destroying the urn, they’d deprived the ritual of some of the power it needed. Normally, that would mean the spell couldn’t finish—but, by removing the binding, Nara had lowered the power requirements of the spell.
She sketched the final sigil, closing the ritual. A sharp hum began, just past the edge of hearing, thrumming through her entire body. The ground trembled, then bucked wildly. She was tossed from her feet and rolled across the ground.
The flows of magic thickened, and power surged from every urn at once. The ritual circle drank it eagerly, feeding the magic into the spell Nara had created. The hum deepened until it rattled Nara’s teeth, until she could feel it in her eyes.
Brilliant, multicolored light exploded outward from the circle—not in a single pulse, but in a continuous torrent. The power washed over the entire mountain, clinging to the mossy slopes. That magic accumulated in drifts, almost like snow. Then, ever so slowly, the magic sank into the mountain.
The stone began to glow, and a wave of dark heat boiled outward. Had Nara not been in her spellarmor, she doubted she’d have survived.
The moss burst into flame, burning away from the mountain, and gave the rock definition, particularly around the face Aran had pointed out earlier. The “mountain peak” was a pair of spiraling horns topping a draconic head. The slopes of the mountain revealed themselves as two colossal wings wrapped around the Wyrm.
Rocks and burning trees tumbled away as the island trembled. A pair of starport-sized eyes blinked slowly open, and the wings slowly unfolded. The Wyrm raised its head and looked around.
Its gaze settled on Nara. She floated there in her spellarmor, paralyzed. Perhaps, if she kept very still, the creature wouldn’t notice her.
One of those eyes moved to within a few meters of her, the golden slit narrowing as it studied her. “If you believe remaining still will protect you from my wrath, you are very much mistaken. I see you, tiny mage. I hear your thoughts, and that of many others. There is much that concerns me.”
The Wyrm’s voice thrummed through Nara’s entire body, and she was thankful for the suit’s protection.
“You should be concerned,” Aran yelled, zipping into view over Nara’s head. The eye moved away from Nara. She could have kissed him. “She stopped a ritual designed to enslave you.”
The Wyrm rose to its full height, shook itself, then scratched behind an ear with a leg that could have flattened most towns. “Yes, I am unsurprised. I see Krox’s damnable children are here. They were always fond of such tricks. I will see them…punished, for their transgression. Then we
will speak of yours.”
62
Flee
Nebiat couldn’t remember a finer moment, not in all her centuries. Those able to vex her rarely survived long enough to present a challenge, but in her short time this pitiful human had managed to wreak incalculable damage on the Krox invasion timeline.
Now, she’d have her moment of vengeance. Major Voria’s infernal interference would finally be at an end. Then she could return to—
Nebiat’s head shot up, facing the mountain. Someone was manipulating her spell, making significant alterations. She flapped her wings, gaining enough altitude to see the ritual circle.
A human in spellarmor stood in the center, manipulating the ritual. A second human, this one a tech mage, battled her followers outside the circle. He moved in a way that could only be achieved with immense magic, but that magic was already fading. Soon, her followers would overwhelm him—but not soon enough.
The spell reached a crescendo, which should not have been possible with the amount of power available. Not unless significant parts of the spell had been removed.
The mountain rumbled, and the great Guardian Drakkon stood up for the first time in dozens of millennia. His gleaming blue scales were magnificent, many times older and thicker than Nebiat’s, covering a body brimming with power far greater than even her father could muster.
The magical slumber imprisoning Drakkon had dissolved, as planned. But where the binding should lay—the part that would allow her to control his mind—there was nothing.
The Guardian was awake, and free-willed.
Nebiat considered her course for a single heartbeat. Then she fled. Voria could be killed at her leisure, but if she didn’t leave right now Drakkon would turn his attention to her. She very much doubted she’d enjoy the results.
Fortunately, enough of her followers had survived to serve as a distraction—a distraction she intended to use, immediately.
Nebiat banked toward the mist, quickly sketching a short range teleportation. She used it three more times in rapid succession, blinking a thousand meters each time. Then she flapped her wings furiously, fleeing for orbit. She glanced down at the battle, at the retreating forms of her followers, only once.
Nebiat had spent seven centuries building this army—seven centuries slowly recruiting and manipulating. And now, that army was gone. Not a single Krox would escape, of that Nebiat was sure. Her surviving brothers and sisters were about to meet their end.
She’d no doubt be punished for this failure, but at least she’d be alive to be punished.
Once she reached the upper atmosphere, Nebiat stopped flapping and took over with her gravity magic. She shot up into orbit, away from the hated world below. She could still feel Drakkon’s strength, and knew merely reaching orbit wasn’t enough to keep her safe.
Nebiat plunged into the void, fleeing for the planet’s umbral shadow. She wouldn’t stop fleeing until she reached the Erkadi Rift, where her father could offer his protection.
63
Marid
The torrent of emotions threatened to swamp Voria. She could do nothing but stare—first as the mountain stood up, then as Nebiat fled. She’d reconciled herself to death, and it remained unclear whether that was still about to happen.
“Lieutenant, do you copy?” Voria said into the comm. She could see a pair of tiny figures hovering in the air near the Guardian, and prayed those figures were her people.
“Affirmative, sir,” Aran whispered—only a breath, really.
“Status report.”
“Well, uh, you can pretty much see the status,” Aran protested. “I’m not sure what to report. Nara woke it up, and it looks pissed. She said something about removing a binding from the spell.”
Voria grinned, then she began to laugh. She laughed so hard tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Sir?” Captain Davidson called from the tank’s interior.
“It’s nothing, Captain.” Voria struggled to catch her breath, still chuckling. “I understand what happened now. There was no seal over the wound—or rather, the Guardian is the seal. Nebiat wanted to enslave him, to take control of this place. Can you imagine unleashing that thing on Ternus?”
“Uh. That would be a very short, very messy battle.” Davidson gave a low whistle. “But Nebiat doesn’t control this thing, so now what?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Voria said, still watching the Wyrm.
It raised a single claw, sketching a sigil. That sigil grew into two, then twenty, then countless sigils. They burst out from the Wyrm in an endless wave, growing in all directions. Wherever the sigils touched, death followed. The flows moved unerringly toward the Krox, singling out Enforcers and corpses alike. They even wove into the sky, catching the several remaining Wyrms. Every last dragon died in just a few heartbeats.
Voria’s mouth went dry. She’d always considered herself a quick thinker, but in the sight of something of this…magnitude, she simply didn’t know what to do. For the first time in her life, Voria had no idea which course of action to take. Should she flee? Would it even matter?
The dragon took a step, and a blast of blue-green light flooded out of the place where the Wyrm had been standing.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
“What is it?” Davidson asked.
“The Guardian was covering the heart wound. Now that it’s gone, there’s nothing between us and the strongest Catalyst I have ever seen.” Voria braced herself.
Blue-green light exploded outward in all directions, blinding her. She had only a moment to fear for Davidson’s safety, and then Voria was sucked into the mind of a dreaming god.
She’d catalized before, but each time had been different. Each god saw the universe in a unique way. Some had been violent and filled with rage, others peaceful and content.
This mind, she could tell immediately, was ordered. Logical.
Yes. You see into my mind. I am called Marid, the same name your people use for this world.
Her consciousness was plucked up like an insect, and dropped a hundred hundred centuries in the past. She appeared in an unfamiliar star system, a blue star floating alone save for a tightly packed cluster of asteroids, shaped roughly into a sphere.
You see the world Ephera—or its remains. My children used their magic to keep the planet from final destruction, and even managed to preserve an atmosphere.
Ships flitted back and forth between fragments, dozens of them. Her perspective zoomed closer, and she saw entire settlements on the larger asteroids. A thriving culture dwelt there, thriving among the ruins of their planet.
“Why are you showing me this?” Voria asked. “And how is it you can show me anything? I thought you were dead.”
You are speaking with an echo, one I created at the moment of my death. Even now your young companion experiences that death, trapped in the memory of my final confrontation with Shivan. I was created to speak to you, and when our conversation is done I will cease to exist.
“You knew I’d come, back during the godswar?” Voria asked, staggered by the implications.
Yes, but only if I made it so. I created a possibility where you might reach this world in time to stop Nebiat.
“You sent the augury, didn’t you?” Voria asked, finally understanding.
Indirectly. At the moment of my death I created a living spell, one designed to carry out the billions of specific actions necessary to create this exact moment. That spell sent you the augury, and will send others in the days to come.
“Why me?” Voria asked.
You are not the only tool I have chosen. Each of you was chosen because you possess the abilities to accomplish part of a greater plan—a plan you are not yet ready to know in its entirety.
For this part of the plan, you were not the most important variable. In every possibility where you were used to stop the ritual the Wyrm Nebiat slew you. So I sought another possibility. I arranged for you to have a true mage, and a war mage. Both had no mem
ory, making their threads very difficult to predict.
“You’re talking about Aran and Nara. You’ve jerked us about like a puppets.” Voria’s words were cold. Speaking angrily to a god might not be the best idea, but from the sound of it this thing needed her. “The least you can do is explain to me why you did it, and what you’re after.”
For now, be content knowing that I oppose Krox. If he rises, your galaxy will be reshaped to fit his whims. Krox, like me, is one of the eldest gods. He possesses both the power and will to enslave your species. If allowed to rise, Krox will raise other gods. And he will enslave them, forcing them to help reshape the galaxy. There is no end to his lust for control.
I release you now, to leave this world and continue to fulfill your purpose. The days ahead will be difficult, and you will make many sacrifices. If you succeed, you will die, but the galaxy will survive.
If you fail, you will become that which you fear most. Be ever vigilant, mortal.
64
Answers
A well of infinite power burst up underneath Aran, blinding him even as the power swept over his armor. It suffused his being, the unfamiliar energy resonating with every cell in his body. Then, as it had been with Xal, he was elsewhere—in the memory of a god.
He—she—stretched out vast, leathery wings. There was no need, as her magic propelled her through the vastness of the void. Her shadow covered the entire planet, a blue-green world rotating around a bright orange sun. That world bore the same name she did: Marid.
This world had potential; it was the first to be worthy of her name. The life she had seeded flowered across all its continents, expressing itself in a variety of ways. The species were as of yet primitive and superstitious. They believed their world the only one in the cosmos, the center of the infinite they were so ignorant of. Yet, in time, they would progress much.
