He would not have to.
Max was over the ledge and running. Astaroth had his back to him. He was only thirty feet away … ten feet …
The gae bolga screamed.
Astaroth whipped about, his expression one of utter shock as the spear impaled him through the heart. Staggering, Astaroth did not cry out but stared at Max as though trying to understand how he could possibly be here. As he did, torrents of energy shot into Max. Just as Astaroth had devoured Bram, the gae bolga was devouring him. And as it did, the Old Magic rekindled in Max like spent coals blazing back to life.
But Astaroth was recovering from his initial shock. Gasping, he dropped the Book of Thoth and wrapped both hands around the spear shaft. Instead of pushing the weapon out, he pulled it deeper, grinning like a madman as he staggered toward Max.
“Joined at last,” he hissed. “Let’s call them together!”
The viper rod flew to Astaroth’s hand. Stabbing it skyward, he screamed and sent a crackling bolt of energy into the aurora’s midst. It pierced the many worlds like a lance of white light, ripping a hole in the universe with a sound like shattering glass and bursting metal.
Max wrenched the gae bolga out of Astaroth, who sagged to his knees.
“My masters will revive me!” he laughed. “You’ve won nothing!”
Raising his arms, he cried out to the gateway in an alien tongue. His flesh was burning away to reveal a faceless, shapeless core of wriggling black tendrils.
Max speared it again, shuddering as its hideous energies flowed into him. He glimpsed Mr. Sikes as the imp darted over the ledge and fled down the mountain. Max paid him no attention. If the portal was open, if the Starving Gods were coming, he needed as much of Astaroth’s and Bram’s energy as possible.
He knew he was shining, that David and the others were retreating from him just as others had in the Workshop. Turning, Max saw YaYa crumpled against the base of Ymir’s peak. The ki-rin was dead, her neck broken. Already, she was combusting from within, burning away like a disintegrating phoenix.
David was not merely shouting; he was screaming. The ringing in Max’s ears muffled the sound, but there was no mistaking David’s desperation. The sorcerer had snatched the Book of Thoth and was rifling through its pages. Mina stood beside him, clutching the green stone. Her face was turned toward the sky.
The sky!
Max gazed up.
Within the auroras, the sky looked to be a flat, pale gray. And this struck Max with a peculiar horror. He was looking at a universe without light or dark, just endless gray, as though whatever scant energies remaining had settled into a strange, featureless equilibrium. He was looking at a cosmic corpse.
But every corpse had its scavengers. Like distant black stars, several dark pinpricks had appeared in the gray monotony. They were approaching the gateway, converging at unimaginable speeds. Already the tiny black stars had grown into what resembled little spiders. A final surge of energy flowed into Max. Glancing down, he saw what looked like a burning black starfish covered in wriggling cilia. Astaroth’s true form resembled his masters. He was a tiny replica—a cosmic spore sent out to seek prey.
Removing the gae bolga from the melting mess, Max turned to see David kneeling and flipping through the Book of Thoth at a frantic pace. He paused occasionally, scanning a few lines, before hurrying on to the next. Max knew he was looking for the proper spell or truename to close the gate. He had to find it and quickly. A few feet away, Cynthia had collapsed onto the snowy summit and was staring up at the skies in mute horror. Mina crouched beside her, watching the gateway and holding the green stone tightly in her hand.
Gazing up, Max saw that one of the stars had grown much larger than the rest. It was so close that he could clearly see its wriggling, flailing contours. It was blotting out the others, nearly filling the entire opening. A few more seconds and it would be here.
Max heard Mina cry out.
A flash of sickly green light filled the skies. The aurora disappeared. So did the moon, stars, and everything else. For an instant, Max thought the black star had burst through the opening. But he was mistaken. It was not a Starving God that was trying to devour them.
It was Yuga.
The demon Mina had summoned filled the heavens, covering the landscape for hundreds of miles. A hollow moaning shook the mountain as lightning flashed from deep within Yuga’s depths. As it did, countless funnel clouds formed, trailing down like a jellyfish’s tendrils. Perhaps Yuga could destroy the portal. Perhaps she could block it and buy them time until David found the spell he needed. Regardless, they still had to protect themselves from the tendril descending toward them with a sound like a cyclone.
Max raised the gae bolga to meet it. Electricity sparked between them. The tendril recoiled momentarily before seeking to reach them from another angle.
The second time the gae bolga stabbed into the swirling black vortex, the tendril tried to recoil but was held fast. Unfathomable energies poured into Max. He tried to release the gae bolga but could not. His hands were fused to the weapon, which was burning white-hot.
Max was burning, too, shining like the sun. Too much power was coursing through him. He was but a lesser god—a mere demigod—and this far exceeded his capacities. He was already brimming with energies leeched from Astaroth and Bram. He could not absorb any more.
With a scream, Max channeled everything he could back into Yuga.
The tendril burst into brilliant blue flame that raced up its length, consuming the swirling funnel as it went. When the fire reached Yuga’s core, the demon ignited like a pool of gasoline. A moaning shriek filled the air as the flames spread, radiating outward like a shock wave. All around them, Yuga’s tendrils were withdrawing, retracting swiftly into her burning body. She was no longer moaning but shrieking as though in unimaginable pain. But Max sensed that something else was happening to the demon—something that had nothing to do with Max’s fire.
Gazing about, Max saw that the roiling black storm appeared to be shrinking, contracting toward its center. The sight was so odd it took a moment for Max to understand what was happening. And then it hit him.
Yuga was being dragged into the other universe.
And it was happening quickly. As Yuga was pulled farther into the gateway, her burning tendrils vanished. For all her awesome size, Yuga was disappearing at an astonishing rate.
Max glanced at his friends. Cynthia’s eyes were open, but she looked to be in a state of shock. She slumped on her side next to David, who had apparently found the page he needed. The Book of Thoth lay open on his lap, and he was reciting the page’s dense contents as quickly as he could. Mina knelt beside him, looking exhausted and terrified. The little girl held his hand so tightly her nails had drawn blood.
As Yuga was sucked through the portal, the skies began to clear as though a great storm was departing. Distant mountains now shone with moonlight. The demon was no longer moaning. The lightning in her depths flickered with far less frequency, as though she were a brain whose neurons were failing to fire. Yuga was almost gone—the shadow surrounding Ymir could not be more than twenty miles across. Max turned to David.
“You have to hurry.”
David did not look up from the Book but beckoned furiously for Max to take his other hand. Max did so, and felt an immediate mingling of energies between himself, David, and Mina. He knew what they wanted to do, as if they’d shouted it. Gazing up, he pointed the gae bolga at the gateway. Yuga’s last extremities were disappearing like dregs down a drain.
“—asch nühl mitravael!”
The instant David finished the incantation, a bolt of energy erupted from the gae bolga. It shot into the night sky like a comet, striking the gateway’s center. There was a flash of light and the portal filled with an orange incandescence that looked like molten glass. Its glow intensified to a searing heat they could feel from miles away. And then the portal vanished, collapsing upon itself like an imploding star. There was no dying universe, no
Starving Gods—only a tranquil view of the Pleiades.
Releasing Max’s hand, David pushed the Book off his lap and collapsed into a gasping heap. Mina was trembling with exhaustion, her chin puckering as the tears came in a steady flow. Poor Cynthia hadn’t moved at all. She lay on her side like a discarded doll, breathing slowly and staring ahead with sightless eyes.
But there was nothing broken about Max. Indeed, he was shining even brighter than he had in the Workshop. Reaching down, he picked up the Book of Thoth. He had handled it before, but only to keep it safe or to surrender it to Astaroth when Rowan had been conquered. He glanced at Astaroth’s black, oily remains.
How times have changed.
Max liked the Book’s weight, substantial and reassuring. He liked its heavy golden cover and the image of old Thoth himself etched with expert care. Raising that cover, his eyes fell upon the very first sheet of papyrus—upon its ancient symbols and ciphers. And these he liked best of all. For Max now understood them.
He comprehended them immediately. No intermediate steps, no translation or interpretation. Max simply knew what they meant. The Book’s first pages contained truenames of basic elements and forces, the building blocks of everything that would come after. He turned several pages, stopping at one containing incantations of terrible power, recitations whose formulae combined particular truenames to great effect. There were thousands of them.
When Max turned another page, he saw it: the very spell Astaroth had used to create this red winter that had plagued the world since June. It was astonishingly simple—no more than a dozen truenames combined in precise sequence. Max could fix that easily. In fact, he could fix many things—any things—that struck his fancy. Max could restore what he wished, even make them better if he chose. The possibilities were infinite.…
Max lost himself in the Book of Thoth until a light caught his eye. He glanced up from a page, irritated by the interruption. To his surprise, he saw that the sun was rising. Its orange rim peeked above the distant horizon, painting the eastern sky with golden light. Max hardly believed it possible. How long had he been standing here?
He turned to find David watching him carefully. The sorcerer stood some twenty feet away, his arms folded as he scrutinized his friend with an attentive frown. Max might have been an alchemical experiment, a potion distilling in a retort. Their eyes met. David said nothing, but he did not need to.
Closing his eyes, Max could hear Scathach’s voice.
“You are the child of Lugh Lamfhada. You are the sun and the storm and the master of all the feats I have to teach. You are these things because you must be.”
Those words had been his battle hymn, an incantation that called the Old Magic forth. But at this moment, they struck him as having a fundamentally different meaning and purpose. The child of Lugh Lamfhada had a responsibility to be whatever he must be—and no more.
Closing the Book of Thoth’s golden cover, Max walked forward and delivered it into his friend’s safekeeping—a friend whose wisdom and judgment he trusted far more than his own. When David accepted the Book, Max felt like an immense burden had been lifted.
“We did it, David.”
David’s eyes filled with tears. “I guess we did.”
“Where are Mina and Cynthia?”
David pointed over Max’s shoulder. Turning, Max saw them sitting with their backs against a rock face, not far from where YaYa had died. Mina was holding Cynthia’s hand and speaking softly to her. To Max’s immense relief, Cynthia no longer looked catatonic, but dreamy, as though she was under hypnosis.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said David. “If Mina’s successful, Cynthia won’t remember anything from last night. I’ll just tell her she conked her head doing something heroic. Not many people could witness what she did and not lose their minds. And then there are others who seem completely unaffected.”
David pointed to a glossy black rock near Mina. Evidently aware that it was being discussed, the rock raised its head and revealed herself to be Nox chewing contentedly on what looked to be a badly savaged rat. As a delighted Max hurried toward it, the lymrill gave a companionable mewl.
From her jaws fell Mr. Sikes.
The wolfhound loomed over Max, no less terrifying for being so familiar.
“What are you about? Answer quick or I’ll gobble you up!”
Max did not have a chance to answer, for an urgent knocking interrupted the dream. As Max awoke, the monster withdrew into his subconscious where it would lurk until the next time he shut his eyes. He no longer dreaded these visits. Since Ymir, they came so often he’d grown accustomed to them. Few nights passed when he didn’t dream of the wolfhound.
And few nights passed when he wasn’t awoken by urgent knocks. But that was the price of having Rowan’s Director as your roommate. David’s reaction to these frequent intrusions on his sleep had become routine. From across the Observatory, Max heard the inevitable groan as David slipped on his robe and shuffled reluctantly to the door.
The instant the door was opened, someone burst in and began chastising David in a strong Scottish brogue. “I’ve been knocking for three minutes, Director. Three! The longest Gabrielle Richter—God rest her soul—ever required to answer a door was forty-two seconds. And that was when she had the flu.”
“Good morning, Tweedy,” David yawned. “Happy Midsummer.”
“Don’t you ‘Happy Midsummer’ me. This island’s bursting with visitors for the treaty signing and you’re content to act like it’s any old …” Tweedy trailed off into a stupefied silence. Max hardly needed to open his eyes to know the Highlands hare was now gazing about their room.
“Y-you haven’t packed?” Tweedy sputtered.
David sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just been a little busy—”
“Ha!” roared the hare. “I don’t want to hear it! Room Three-Eighteen needs to be reconfigured. We need it for the new class, not to mention that the recently-confirmed-and-no-longer-temporary Director of Rowan cannot live in the dormitories.”
“That’s a lot of hyphens,” observed David.
“This is not the time for one of your smart replies,” Tweedy snapped. “Do you know what smart replies got sassy kits in the Burrfoot clan? A red bottom! There are countless things to do, Director, and I hadn’t planned for your gross negligence when it came to packing your personal effects.”
“Well,” said David, “I suppose I knew you’d do a better job.”
“Hmph,” said Tweedy. “And where’s McDaniels? Sleeping, I have no doubt. Has he packed?”
“No!” Max called out from beneath his pillow.
A second later, his bed curtain was ripped aside and his pillow was yanked away as Tweedy harangued him on the importance of respect for one’s elders, rising early, and keeping a tidy room. Rolling out of bed, a bleary Max agreed that Tweedy was right, and he should indeed be ashamed, and that rising late was a sure sign of moral decay.
“It’s already half past eight, McDaniels. I’ve been up since three making certain everything will run just so. And what have—Dear God! What happened? Are you all right, my boy?”
The hare was staring at the injury whose dressings Max had begun to change. Over four months had passed since Imbolc and Max’s wound had worsened from a raw red gash to an area of blackened, necrotic flesh that covered most of his midsection. Anyone with a lesser constitution would have died months ago. Hours spent in Ember’s coils could cause the infection to retreat but these interventions were becoming less effective. Disheartening as this was, there was a bright side: dead tissue didn’t hurt nearly as much as living tissue.
“I’m fine, Tweedy,” said Max, rubbing the area with an ointment that was medically useless but marvelous at masking the smell of rotting flesh. “Hand me one of those, will you?”
The hare brought over a fresh bandage from the stack upon a chair. “This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about, McDaniels. Any lad gritty enough to put up with such an injury ca
n manage to rise at a decent hour and make himself presentable.”
“I am making myself presentable,” said Max, finishing the bandage and reaching for a shirt. “Can you hand me those pants?”
Tweedy eyed the pair in question on the floor. “Those are trousers,” he sniffed. “Canvas trousers of a type favored by transients, gadabouts, and pirates.”
“They’re pants,” said Max, slipping them on. “Very comfortable pants.”
“Comfort has no place in the wardrobe of a young gentleman.”
This was stated with the authority and conviction of a commandment. With a sigh, Max buckled the gae bolga about his waist. It was a shame they could not simply enjoy a moment’s peace after years of struggle, but Max could not ignore reality. They may have defeated Astaroth and conquered Prusias, but the Atropos remained a threat. Mina did not go anywhere without Ember or considerable security.
“Tweedy, we’re going to get some breakfast,” said Max. “Have you eaten?”
The hare was picking up stray clothes. “I had a modest meal at five before taking a brisk constitutional. Others might learn from my example …”
“And others will,” said Max, pulling on his shoes.
“Yes, yes,” said Tweedy. “You two go on. I’m going to whip this calamity into shape.”
Bidding the hare farewell, Max and David slipped out of the Observatory and into the hallway where four members of the Bloodstone Circle stood at attention. Max hated the idea of bodyguards and absolutely refused to let them follow him unless he was with David, in which case he had no choice—Rowan’s Director was required to have security. As he closed the door, David paused to polish its brass number.
“Room Three-Eighteen,” he said quietly. “I’m going to miss it.”
“Life goes on,” said Max. “I wonder what it’ll be next.”
The Red Winter Page 61
