by Chris Fox
She stopped.
“The wards are bidirectional,” she mused quietly.
“And?” Eros called. His eyes glinted feverishly in the light of the sigils.
“Meaning that if there were an explosion, it would move in all directions, instead of outward from the blast point.” Nara realized the implications. “If I can disrupt the wards, the explosion will hit us both…”
“But?” Eros pressed, still sketching.
“I don’t know how much force the explosion will have. It could kill us, and Aran, or it might not be enough to hurt you.” Nara bent closer to the runes, eyeing them frantically. She had no idea how to calculate the destructive force of an exploding rune. She’d only been training for a few weeks; while Neith had given her increased intelligence, that didn’t automatically impart knowledge.
There was only one way she could find out what would happen, and the longer she waited the closer Eros came to completing his spell. “Screw it.”
She raised her staff, and brought it down on the life sigil with all her suit’s strength. The tip bit into the wood, scratching a wide line through the sigil. The sigil flickered, then winked out. The entire circle flared brilliantly, and a wave of magic energy burst outward in all directions. The blast flung her backward, and she tumbled drunkenly end over end as she struggled to get control of her spellarmor. She finally came to rest against the far side of the chamber.
Nara rose slowly. The paper doll on her HUD had gone almost completely red, but the spellarmor was still moving, at least. She raised her head, scanning for Eros. He lay crumpled in a heap at the edge of the circle. His robes were tattered and burned, and most of his pristine hair had been burned away. Even his eyebrows were nothing more than singed stubble.
But the important thing was the rise and fall of his chest. He lived, and didn’t seem too severely wounded, which meant he could be up and fighting in a matter of moments.
Nara sketched a paralyze and flung the spell at Eros; he went rigid. Now she could turn her attention to the spell he’d been constructing.
The ritual still appeared to be active, an immense amount of magic gathered into a sea of interlocking sigils. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing, only she didn’t know what the final picture was supposed to look like. Voria’s vision suggested a magical explosion, which meant the spell must generate an immense amount of force.
How did it do that? She floated a few meters closer, gaining a little altitude to study the spell. There was a great deal of fire, but also a surprisingly amount of void and earth. Those last two were often combined into the Greater Path of summoning. So what were they summoning that would require fire magic to sustain it?
“Oh, my gods,” she murmured. “You were going to summon a piece of a star. The ultimate bomb.”
Eros mumbled through his paralyzed jaw. “And what do you think will happen to the spell now?”
Nara considered. Back on Marid she’d completed the spell because Nebiat had left it unattended. She’d done it because if she hadn’t Nebiat would have simply returned and completed the spell.
But this was different. Eros couldn’t complete the spell. Could she leave it here, unfinished? What would happen if she did?
“It’s a pity I didn’t have time to teach you about spell erosion. Such a funny little effect. It begins with the sigils on the fringes of the spell,” Eros mused through gritted teeth
Nara bent to inspect the tiny sigils around the outer edge of the circle. They were slowly fusing together. What did that mean? The final step before a spell solidified involved the sigils merging. Was that what she was seeing? If so, the spell was already completing.
“Spell erosion,” she mused aloud. “I’m guessing a ritual can only be sustained for so long before whatever magic it currently contains fuses together and auto-casts.”
“That’s an interesting theory. Another interesting question, do you think Nebiat intended for me to survive? Or am I a discarded tool?” Eros asked with apparent disinterest.
Nara thought furiously. What did Nebiat want? And how could she determine the answer? For Eros to survive this, he’d have to somehow live through the spell. The only place he’d be able to do that, theoretically, was inside the ritual circle. If the spell were constructed the right way, the spell itself could be unidirectional, only blasting outward.
Could she study the spell and find out?
She looked to the edges and noted that the erosion had begun to accelerate. She didn’t know how much time she had, but it couldn’t be long.
“I think she wants you to live.” Nara darted from the circle and dragged Eros inside.
“And if she doesn’t?” he slurred.
“If she doesn’t, then we die.” Nara examined the part of the spell Eros had been working on when she disrupted him. This was the last piece, and finishing it would complete the spell. “I just need to make a couple minor alterations, then we’ll find out.
“What are you changing?”
Nara’s hands flew across sigils, erasing some and adding others. “I’m converting all this fire into light. It won’t do anything about the radioactive mass, but hopefully that will soften the explosion.”
“Well done, pirate girl,” Eros slurred, affectionately.
Nara took a deep breath. She placed her staff carefully in her void pocket, then glanced at the fight behind her. Aran’s fight with Dirk did not appear to be going well at all. He was outclassed, and likely going to die.
She smiled grimly. He wouldn’t die alone.
52
HELLS YEAH
“Ohhhhh, shhhiitttttttt,” Crewes voice boomed in slow motion.
A wave of fire and light burst from the ritual circle where Eros and Nara stood. It rolled toward them in a wave of death, one that would crash over them in an instant. He was aware of Crewes’s bulk moving to shield him. “Hold your breath, sir!”
Aran sucked in a deep breath. A moment later a wall of white flame blasted over them. As it arrived, a second wave pulsed outward, this one from Crewes’s armor. A wave of ice. It engulfed Aran, covering him in thick frost until he was imprisoned in the large block of ice.
The magical explosion flowed in swirls and eddies around a perfect sphere of deep blue ice Crewes had erected. The magical force warped the outer edge, flaking it away as it worked closer to the center of their shelter. Crewes’s arms shook as he poured more and more ice into the spell.
The flame passed, but black spots clouded Aran’s vision from the lack of oxygen. The ice exploded outwards, and Aran gratefully sucked in a breath. Then they were surrounded by sudden sunlight, spinning wildly as they entered free fall. Crewes’s thruster fired, keeping them aloft.
Aran struggled to focus, shielding his eyes with both hands. “Oh, my gods.”
Perhaps a quarter of the second burl had broken loose from the tree, and fell slowly toward the drifter city below.
“We’re about five kilometers up. That thing will hit in less than a minute. Sergeant, can you see the spellship anywhere?” Aran scanned the sky, still blinking away spots.
“Yes, sir. Down there. Four o’clock from your right foot. Well my only foot now, I guess.”
Aran glanced down, his heart sinking. The ship tumbled end over end, alongside manor houses, other ships, statues, and everything else contained in Ducius’s villa. All of it fell directly toward the dims, right onto the unsuspecting drifters.
“You can release me,” Aran roared over the mounting wind.
“Yes, sir,” Crewes roared back, releasing Aran.
Aran tightened his profile, pressing his arms to his sides as he angled his body toward the ship. He reached for his air magic, using it to accelerate his flight. Crewes blasted up beside him, joining his dive toward the spellship.
“We’ll never make it, sir. She’s falling almost as fast as we are,” Crewes shouted over the wind. “We need to get clear of the impact explosion, sir. Mission’s blown.”
Suddenly, the
spellship’s spin corrected. The thrusters flared and she began climbing unsteadily in their direction.
“Gods damn. You think that moppy-headed punk figured it out?” Crewes poured on the speed, pulling ahead of Aran as they raced toward the ship.
“It has to be Pickus. I don’t know how, but he must have read enough of the manual to operate the matrix.” Aran laughed, pouring on more speed.
The ship raced up to meet them, slowing awkwardly as they neared it. The hatch on the aft side opened and Aran executed a sharp turn inside. He flew straight to the bridge, dropping nimbly into the command matrix.
Pickus sat in the starboard wing matrix, his fingers flying across the silver and gold rings. “You sure do know how to make an entrance.”
“I cannot believe you learned to pilot in twenty minutes. You realized you just saved our collective asses, right? Maybe everyone’s asses.” Aran tapped the initiation sequence, wresting control of the ship from Pickus. She sang to him as he connected, ready to fly.
“I’ve been watching ever since the Texas, so I wasn’t completely unprepared.” Pickus pointed at the scry-screen. “So, uh, what are going to do about that giant hunk of wood?”
Aran guided the ship into a parallel dive, studying the falling burl. Shayawood was highly prized for how light and strong it was. There was no way to inflict enough damage to destroy that thing. Even a full disintegrate would only vaporize a small segment, and the surviving debris would still kill everyone below.
“Sir, you got a plan?” Crewes hopped his way onto the bridge, then used his cannon as a crutch to hobble into the last matrix.
“Yeah, I’ve got a plan, but it’s pretty bad, though.” Aran flipped the ship forty-five degrees, pouring void and fire into the ship to increase velocity. “I want the two of you to pour everything you have into the spelldrive. Maximum velocity. We need to fire this ship like a bullet shot from the largest gauss rifle in the sector. Can you do that?”
“Can do, sir.” Crewes tapped a fire sigil. “Pickus, I know you ain’t been trained, but you can push buttons right? When the LT says, push the red sigil a bunch of times. Normally I’d insult your moppy-headed ass, but since you’re technically a civvie I’ll be nice. Don’t fuck this up, mage. Or we’re gonna die.”
“What are you going to do being?” Pickus asked, eyes widening.
“I’m increasing our mass with gravity magic. Making us heavier.” Aran tapped air, then void. He repeated the sigils on the silver ring, then the gold.
“What’s the air for, sir?” Crewes asked.
“Watch.” Aran pulled up suddenly, just above the drifter city. They were close enough that he could make out individual faces. Children pointed up at them, laughing in wonder.
The ship shot back into the air, aimed at the falling burl. They were tiny compared to it, but he had a plan to fix that. He dumped air into the spell, adding as much as he could safely channel. He manifested the air from all three cannons, into a wide disk that extended for a hundred meters in every direction.
The ship accelerated, the gravity magic increasing its mass with every meter it traveled. The burl grew larger, blotting out the sun as they approached. “Brace yourselves!”
The ship punched into the burl and the bridge lurched. Aran slammed against the chair’s restraints, his neck snapping back painfully. A titanic rumble sounded outside and they burst into sudden sunlight.
Aran seized control of the ship, flipping it around to face the ground. His stomach rolled as the ship finally righted itself.
Below them one chunk of wood had become six, and all six chunks were now falling at an angle, away from the drifter city. Aran guessed they’d impact less than five hundred meters from the outer edges.
“Hells, yeah!” Crewes roared, slapping his fists together. “That’s how Confederate Mages do it.”
The six chunks of shayawood slammed into the ground in the fields outside the city, broken into kindling by the impacts. Wood was flung in all directions, pelting the drifter city with debris. An enormous cloud of dust rolled over the dims, masking the extent of the damage.
They waited tensely for the dust to clear.
When it did the drifter city stood, unharmed. “Hells, yeah, Sergeant. Hells, yeah!”
53
ICY STORM OF DEATH
Voria let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when she landed atop the Tender’s palace. Her hand was wrapped around Ikadra so tightly it stung, and she forced herself to relax her grip. Flying was one thing. Flying as fast as Ikadra flew was something else entirely. That was going to take some getting used to. No matter. They’d arrived.
“Could my father have really convinced them all to leave their posts?” she asked aloud, realizing the deck was completely empty, save for her. There were no bodies, and no sign of a struggle.
Then she felt the energies roiling beneath her. “By the goddess.”
She couldn’t see the spells through the walls, but the power being flung about down there dwarfed the conflict at Marid. Two demigods were fighting. She steeled herself.
“I have to go down there.” She started toward the doors.
“Not necessarily. I mean, you could retreat. Not that I’m recommending doing that.” Ikadra’s sapphire pulsed.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to talk,” Voria growled. She kicked open the door and stalked down the stairs. Multicolored lights splashed off the walls, reflections of the duel taking place further down the level.
“My parameters are relaxed during life threatening situations,” Ikadra supplied.
“So you can distract me during battle, but not when it doesn’t matter?” Voria ignored the staff, creeping to a corner and peering around it. She froze.
Nebiat stood there in human form, sketching a counterspell. Voria couldn’t see far enough into the room to make out Aurelia, but the smug smile on Nebiat’s face filled her with dread. The counterspell zipped deeper into the room, painting the walls multicolored as mana shards dissipated.
“You are weakening,” Nebiat taunted cruelly. She took a step deeper into the room.
Voria took the opportunity to creep closer. She planted her back against a pillar. One of the blue hover couches floated over, bumping her thigh. “Go away,” she hissed.
She peered around the pillar to see Nebiat completing the final sigil in a complex spell. The air beside her split, opening a Fissure into the Umbral Depths. Clawed hands burst from the Fissure, and a demonic cyclops pulled its way into reality. Its shoulders brushed the ceiling, and the shaggy-headed thing bellowed a challenge.
“Destroy the Tender,” Nebiat commanded, pointing deeper into the room.
Voria moved closer, finally able to see Aurelia. The Tender was paler than usual, with dark circles under her normally perfect eyes. Such things were no cause for alarm on a mortal, but on a demigod? Something was seriously wrong with her.
Aurelia sketched several more quick sigils and flung the nullification spell at the cyclops. There was no visible effect, but the Cyclops’s eye widened. Then it blinked several times. When it focused again Aurelia pointing toward the dreadlord. “Destroy Nebiat.”
The cyclops spun and glared hatefully down at Nebiat. It roared, trembling with rage. A bright, violet glow built in its eye, and a bolt of brilliant energy lanced down at Nebiat. The energy refracted off an invisible wall of slowly rotating sigils, exposing the ward briefly before it faded back to invisibility.
Nebiat raised a hand and the cyclops was sucked through the Fissure. It snapped shut with a pop.
“How many more spells can you manage, I wonder? A dozen? Less?” Nebiat gave a musical laugh. “No one is coming to save you. Your allies have all been stripped away.”
“Not all of them.” Voria stepped from cover and leveled Ikadra at Nebiat. She lowered her voice. “Okay, Ikadra. Time to earn your keep. Lead with something flashy. Use the ice storm spell.”
“It’s ice storm of death,” Ikadra muttered. His tip
flared to life and a cone of ice and sleet spilled out to quickly blanket the room. The sheer volume of ice and snow was impressive, hurled at Nebiat by gale force winds.
The spell caught the dreadlord off guard, sending her sprawling across the suddenly slippery floor. Icy shards rained down on her, shredding her dress and exposing bloody cuts underneath.
Aurelia flung a potent earth spell at Nebiat, and eight surrounding pillars ripped free and slammed into her, one after the other. They battered her across the floor, and the ice prevented her from standing.
Nebiat rolled from the mess. She glared hatefully at them, with one hand wrapped around her injured side. “I stand corrected. All but your least impressive ally have been stripped away. I’m going to kill you both, and I’ll do it with relish, I assure you.” Nebiat began to sketch a spell, a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.
“Can you tell me what she’s casting?” Voria whispered desperately. She only had one counterspell stored, and while it sounded like it could counter any single spell, she needed to make sure she chose the right spell to counter.
“It’s awful. A curtain of disintegration,” Ikadra warned.
“Counter it!” Voria shrieked.
A wall of nothingness swept out from Nebiat’s outstretched hands. It enveloped everything before it, dissolving pillars, hover couches, and everything else in its path as it shot toward Voria.
Wait, what if it couldn’t be countered, like a disintegrate?
The staff hummed, and discharged a beam of pure, brilliant gold. The spell sung, the air vibrating musically as it lanced into the wall of disintegration. The entire wall trembled for a moment. Voria froze, praying it would shatter. It didn’t.
But it did reverse course, flung suddenly back at Nebiat.
