A Dagger of the Mind (The Imperial Metals)

by Daniel Antoniazzi

  But it was magic, so it could be offset. Vye just needed to put up a barrier. She just needed to hold the water at bay.

  She reached out again, this time with force. This time with determination. She held up a barrier against the wave. She started right in front of her, then moved out, to her left and right, spreading along the beach. Every drop of water had to fight for every grain of sand it wanted to cross.

  Vye felt the strain right away. Her hand stung in pain. She was overexerting herself. She knew the feeling from when she had held up the tower of Hartstone. She knew the sensation from fighting against Devesant the Dragon. She was going beyond her reserves. Drawing on something deeper and beyond what her life had left to offer.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Vye could create a wall of force at the beachfront, but the wave was a hundred of feet high. It would crash over the barricade, hardly missing a beat. It would still kill everyone.

  So Vye reached out even further. She held out her other hand, as though conducting an orchestra of thousands. She expanded the wall up into the sky, trying to hold the water at bay.

  Up and up and up, until she didn’t even realize it, but she was rising off her feet. Airborne. The wind whipped across the beach. Sand and rain and dust surged across her body. But still she channeled more and more of her will through her hands, fending off the raging ocean.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Nuria didn’t know what she could do to help the spell. She didn’t know what Vye was doing. But she knew how to help Vye.

  “Landora!” she shouted over the din. “Help her!”

  Nuria and Landora held their own hands up, buffering Vye, supporting her. Channeling their own will through hers. Landora called to the Twins, and Xerxes and Xanathos lent their own aide. Everyone was in this fight.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  The Tidal Wave crashed forward. Every inch it moved, it became heavier, more violent. Gravity was joining the fracas. Vye’s magical barricade was cracking...

  “NO!” she shouted, redoubling her effort. And she felt it in her arm. A snap. Her bone had shattered. The black lines of death had begun to glow. It burned through her gauntlet, cracking her skin down her arm. The pain was immense, but she couldn’t let up. Not for a second.

  She poured more and more of her soul and her essence into the barricade. The white-hot cracks in her skin crawled up her shoulder, tearing her apart from the inside out.

  But it still wasn’t enough.

  She needed more help. But she didn’t know who else could do anything to help her. There were no other mages she could think of on this continent, or even in this world...

  ---

  “Vye, what are you doing here?” Frost asked. Now he was sipping tea by the fireplace. And Vye was standing in front of him, her hair blowing in the non-existent wind, her arm glowing with energy.

  “I need your help,” she said. “I need to stop a tidal wave from destroying Anuen.”

  “I don’t know how I can help you,” Frost said. “I haven’t been in the waking world for millennia.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Vye said. “You can support me. And I’m in the waking world.”

  “What?” Frost stood, incredulous. “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve been able to affect me in the Dreamscape. And right now I’m half in the Dreamscape and half in the real world. You can lend your aide here, and I can channel that against the tsunami.”

  “But that much raw energy... I don’t know what it will do to you.”

  “That’s a problem for tomorrow.”

  “Just get out of there! We can find another way to fight Grimsor.”

  “Too late,” Vye said. “If I let go now, that wave is killing everyone, including me. You only have one chance, and that’s helping me win this fight.”

  Frost paced his imaginary world. He had been out of the fight for so long, he didn’t know how to be part of a real conflict. But perhaps his wanderings through the realm of Dreams and the Land of the Dead had to come to an end eventually. Perhaps he was destined to lend his help, one last time.

  “Fine, I’ll help,” Frost sighed. “Come on.”

  “Wait.”

  “I just agreed to help you.”

  “I know, but you’re not enough.”

  “What?”

  “We need others.”

  ---

  Vye floated above the earth. Her body soared higher and higher above the ground, as though she wanted to be eye level with the Wave itself. Landora and the others lent what aide they could, but they could all feel the fatigue washing over them. They had only just escaped the volcano themselves, minutes before this new fight.

  But Vye could sense it, when Frost fought by her side. Nobody else could see him. But he floated there beside her. She was in a living dream. The real world, laid out before her, and her dream, of the same time and place, laid over it. With all the hidden truths that we hide in our minds.

  Frost opened his arms and channeled his own will through Vye, and she became emboldened. The barricade was growing stronger and stronger. The Wave was getting heavier and heavier, but it wasn’t moving forward.

  “Did you bring any help?” Vye asked.

  “Here they are!” he shouted.

  And on Vye’s right, she could see Halmir. He did not smile. Nor did he wink. He was just there to help. A ghost of the man who may have loved Vye at one point. But deep down in whatever was left of his soul, he knew he wasn’t going to let Vye lose this battle.

  Vye took all the energy of the living and the dead. She molded it, shaped it, and blasted it out against the Wave. The cracks in her body crawled over her back, across her torso, down her legs, up her neck. The water was slowing...

  But it still wasn’t enough.

  “We need more help!”

  And there was Michael, and Gabriel, and Sir Calvin. And though they couldn’t lend their aide in such a way as the mages could, still they stood behind Vye, and she felt stronger. And now she was glowing. The cracks in her skin had become her skin. They might win this one yet...

  “We’re almost there!” Vye shouted. “We only need a little more!”

  And there was Argos. Perhaps he hated Vye. Perhaps he wanted vengeance upon her. But the opportunity to stop his old friends, Selene and Helios, was too much for him to resist. He channeled his own will through Vye...

  And she burst like a nova. Her hair fluttered in the wind, crackling like bolts of electricity. She had been transformed from a mere mortal. She was an Angel of Lightning. A Goddess of Storms.

  And the Wave had met its match. It spent its energy, crashing against Vye’s impenetrable wall and receding back into the Ocean...

  ---

  Vye found herself in the room with the fireplace again. But there was no fire. In fact, she didn’t know where the light was coming from. But she could still see. Johann Frost stood grimly before her. A sadness on his face she didn’t recognize.

  “Julia,” Frost said, “You have to leave now.”

  “Where?” she asked.

  “Your body is forfeit,” Frost said. “You must do as I did. Escape your body. Come into the Dreamscape.”

  “But the fight isn’t over.”

  “It is for you?”

  “Am I dead?”

  “Not if you leave now,” Frost said. “I was able to slip into the Dreamscape seconds before my body perished. And that is where you are now. Seconds away...”

  “I have to help my friends.”

  “You saved them all,” Frost said. “Now save yourself.”

  “I want to say goodbye,” Vye said.

  “You can’t.”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I will! I’m sorry to shatter your illusion, but what you’ve been doing isn’t living. You’ve been waiting. Remembering. But you haven’t been ALIVE.”

  “It’s the best I can offer. I’m sorry, life isn’t fair.”
/>
  “Neither is death.”

  “So be it, but you have only seconds to decide. Do you want to vanish from the world of the living? Or do you want to stay in the Dreamscape with me, and continue the fight? You have to make a choice.”

  ---

  The Wave receded. The rafts that had been carried on the water were swept back out to sea, ricocheting off one another, top-sizing, splintering. But they gained their bearings and righted their courses. They were delayed, but they were still determined. They would be coming ashore, one way or another.

  But Nuria wasn’t watching the ocean. She was staring up at the sky. Her eyes were fixated on where Vye had been when the spell had finished. Her mentor, her friend, had been floating there. Aglow with magical energy. And then, just as the wave had subsided, she had evaporated. Vye had just ceased to exist.

  A tear fell down Nuria’s cheek. She might have been able to play it off as the residual rain, but nobody could blame her. Vye. The Sorceress. The Countess. The indestructible one. Was gone.

  “What happens now?” Landora asked Duncan, both of whom stood beside Nuria, both staring at the same spot in the sky.

  “She gave herself so we would still be here. Now we fight.”

  “No,” Nuria said, turning to the ocean, and the army that descended upon them. She glared out at her enemies, enough hate in her thirteen year-old eyes to account for lifetimes of malevolence, “Now we win.”

  Book 7

  Awake

  Chapter 56: The Battle of Anuen

  Duncan looked out over the beach. The Rone army and the Turin army were still sighing their relief. But they were still full of trepidation. As far as either was concerned, they were at War. They had just survived what should have been a deadly tidal wave. It seemed someone had wanted to kill them both. But now that that danger was passed, they faced off once again.

  Duncan grabbed Landora’s wrist and dragged her with him.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “We have to get organized,” Duncan shouted. “And we really, really don’t have a lot of time.”

  Indeed, the enemy rafts were already paddling back to the shore. The receding tidal wave had washed them far out to sea, but not far enough. They would still land on the beach in under thirty minutes.

  Duncan ran into the Castle. A few guards here and there tried to say something, or stand in his way, but there was just something about the way Duncan kept running that made them think better of it. They had just watched Countess Vye evaporate and a Tidal Wave almost wipe out their city. Each of the guards, in his own mind, had secretly resigned. This shit was getting too real.

  So Duncan led Landora up to the Grand Balcony, where Emily and the rest of the Council stood.

  “Who’s in charge?” Duncan shouted.

  “It’s...not entirely clear,” Emily admitted.

  “Where’s Landos?”

  “Accused of Treason,” Emily said. “And dead.”

  “What?! How did this happen?”

  “Well, Jareld came in and proved--”

  “Did you say Jareld? The historian?”

  “Yes,” Sir Gaelin of Trentford chimed in.

  “I thought he was dead.”

  “He wasn’t,” Emily said. “Anyway, he uncovered the Queen’s affair with Landos, and proved to us that Prince William isn’t the Prince.”

  “OK, fine,” Duncan said. “Who’s the new Magistrate?”

  “Jareld,” James said.

  “OK, get Jareld.”

  “He’s not himself right now,” Emily explained. “His mind might still be under the influence of the demon. Guards are currently holding him in his room.”

  “Great Halinor!” Duncan exclaimed. “OK, listen, this is Landora. She’s just become the head of the Turin-Guarde. I need her to make an announcement with whomever is in charge of the Rone, so we can get our two armies not to fight each other, and to instead fight those guys out there.”

  “So, you need to know who’s in charge?” James asked.

  “You mean, right now?” Gaelin added.

  “Yes!”

  “Can we just put you in charge?” Emily asked.

  “What?” Duncan asked. “No. I’m just...I’m the High Lieutenant of the County of Deliem.”

  “Actually,” Emily said, “You’re the temporary Count of Deliem.”

  “No,” Duncan protested. “I’m not a Count. I barely have the rank of a Knight--”

  “Your Countess just died,” James said. “I mean, she kind of...vanished, I guess. Anyway, that means until her heir is formally inducted, you’re in charge of the County.”

  “And since,” Emily went on, “None of us here hold the rank of Count or higher, you actually are in charge.”

  Duncan stared at the Council. Did they not want to be in charge? Were they intentionally throwing this responsibility on him? Perhaps if he had witnessed the chaos of the previous few days, the rise and fall of factions, the rampant politics, he would have understood.

  But it was more than that. Duncan was walking and talking with the confidence of a leader. And they all recognized it. They all felt safer in his hands than they would have been in any of theirs.

  “Fine,” Duncan said. “I’m in charge. Ready the catapults and the ballista. Wait for my signal. Set up the War Room. I need to know how many troops we have and where. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Landora, come with me. We have to make a speech.”

  “I’m not good at speeches.”

  “I’ll do all the talking,” Duncan assured her. “You just translate.”

  Duncan ran to the edge of the balcony, overlooking the two armies. He shouted for their attention. In the silence that had followed the Wave, he actually got everyone’s attention. They were listening. Duncan began his speech, and Landora translated for the Turin:

  “Our people do not have to be enemies,” he said. “There is no law of nature that makes one of us superior to the other. There is no law of state that insists we be at each other’s throats.

  “I know that Queen Sarah died at the hands of the Turin Regent, but it was a trick. It was designed to make us enemies. We recently held a Peace Festival, right here in this city. And I know many of you are skeptical. My fellow citizens of Rone, we were taught that the Turin are a savage people. That peace does not come to them naturally. That they want nothing but to destroy us. But I have been to their lands, and I can tell you this is not true. They want only the best for their children. For their future. Except for the vicious Argos, who led them astray, they do not seek to destroy.

  “And to the Turin people, please know that we are not the same men and women who conquered your ancestors. We are not all good or perfect. We have flaws. We are mortal. But we are trying to learn from our past sins. We did not seek out conflict with your people. We really do wish to live in peace.

  “The enemy who approaches our shores is more dangerous than any we have ever faced. Greater than Rone the Great, when he conquered the Turin people. Greater than Argos of the Turin-Sen, who invaded our country six years ago. We stand no chance-- None-- if each nation fights him alone. Our only hope is to stand side-by-side. To fight as brothers. To defy him as One.

  “Soldiers of Rone! Will you fight?”

  The Rone army clapped their spears upon their shields, shouting a great, “Hoorah!”

  “Soldiers of the Turinheld,” Duncan said in the Turin language, “Will you fight?”

  The Turin soldiers drew their swords, and as one, shouted, “Tempo Avara Sai!” A common battlecry which translated roughly as, “Now is the time for War!”

  “Turn and face the enemy!” Duncan said, “For they are upon us. FIRE!”

  The catapults released. The Ballista shot their bolts. The first flurry of ammunition hit the approaching army. The two armies turned and faced the ocean as the first boats arrived on the sand.

  The battle had begun.

  ---

  The invading army was numerous. They outnumbered even the
combined forces of the Rone and the Turin two to one. But Grimsor’s army had been counting on a tidal wave to do most of the work for them. Their entire battle plan had been to ride the wave in. Roughly a third of their ships would have coasted right onto land, their soldiers would have disembarked, and they would have been on mop-up duty, as they expected their enemy to have lost their footing to the Wave.

  But instead, they had to paddle extra hard against a receding current, and they floated to shore only a few ships at a time. And the Rone soldiers were right on top of them. Even on the sandy ground, they had better footing and slightly higher ground. They chopped up each crew as it landed.

  Xerxes and Xanathos became the de facto leaders of the ground troops. Though they could only speak Turin, their intentions were clear enough. At one point, Xerxes waved to a Rone Captain, then lifted a raft out of the water, carried it onto the sand, and turned it over. Grimsor’s soldiers tumbled out like apples from a basket, and the Rone Captain advanced his men on the pile, stabbing them to death. When the grim task was done, he returned a salute to the Turin mages.

  Nuria did what she could, but mostly she ran back and forth across the beach, healing any soldier she could find. The enemy ignored her, a waif of a girl scampering across the beach without a weapon. She kept running and healing until she exhausted herself. When Duncan arranged for medic tents to be set up on the hill, she retreated there, and healed any soldiers who could be carried to her.

  Duncan and Landora commanded things from the Castle. Emily had set up the War Room, giving them her best guess about which units were where. Duncan went to work maneuvering troops, moving supplies, calling in reinforcements and retreats. His managerial skills translated well to conducting a battle, so long as he could translate people and equipment into resources in his mind.

  The sky had cleared, the storm blown away in a strong southern wind. In the bright sun, the Rone and the Turin turned all their advantages to their favor, beating back the endless ranks of the enemy. For the remainder of the day, they were winning.