by Chris Fox
Nara discovers that there are catacombs under Virkonna, and realizes that she’ll need to explore them to find wherever the ship is hidden. Ismene turns out to know an archeologist from Ternus with extensive experience. He’s a bumbling scholar, named Wes, who bears no resemblance to the character Wesley from Buffy and Angel.
Wes comes armed with a pair of golden spellpistols that are even older than Ikadra. Nara is skeptical of his ability to fight, but Ismene is adamant that she saw him gun down five men. Nara relents, and Wes is all too happy to escort Nara into the catacombs, and takes her down the very next morning.
We finally flash back to Aran. He carves a path through the drakes and reaches the temple. There are fifty war mages waiting, and if he can beat them, there are two levels full of hatchlings. The fight looks impossible, but Aran has the advantage of the new armor Kazon gave him.
The next few chapters are probably the best series of fight scenes I have ever written. Aran uses everything his armor offers, and some inventive, new tricks. Aran, unsurprisingly, just barely wins the last fight.
Lightning stabs down from the sky as he is judged by Virkonna, and then he disappears, apparently incinerated. We have to wait like sixty-four trillion chapters to find out what happened to him, since we all know there’s no way he really died.
Flash back to Shaya where Frit is slowly realizing that she’s going to need to help her sisters escape slavery. She’s learned that her people come not from the Blazing Heart, but from the Blazing Heart of Krox (dun, dun, dun). She, and all her sisters, are children of Krox. They’re fighting for the wrong side of the war.
Nebiat gives Frit all the tools she needs, and Frit leads her sisters to a circle of redwoods where they’re going to remove their collars and open a Fissure so they can escape. As they’re fleeing, Ree arrives. In an earlier chapter, Ree overlooked Frit being in a restricted area of the library, which Frit really appreciated.
We don’t want Frit to kill Ree, or Ree to kill Frit. But we know that one of them is probably going to end up dead. The Ifrit are badass war mages and true mages, and we get an epic brawl between them and Ree’s war mages. There are casualties on both sides, but Ree is forced to fall back. Frit and her sisters escape, though the cost is high.
Back on Virkon, Nara is exploring the catacombs. She goes through a number of cool puzzles, which I absolutely love writing. It hearkens back to my roots as a D&D player. Anyway, she and Pickus eventually reach the place where the first Spellship was forged.
They meet Shinura, the Shade of Inura. Shinura is an imprint of the Wyrm Father of life, who is *gasp* revealed to be Inura. Shinura explains that while the First Spellship was created here, it isn’t here any longer. To find it, they’ll need to use a temporal matrix to locate the possibility where Inura and Virkonna hid the Spellship.
Nara begins the process, but as she does so, Kaho and Tobek arrive. What are the odds of that happening at the absolute worst possible moment? It’s almost like the author planned it that way. Wes is shot, but Nara manages to find the right possibility, and they teleport away before Kaho and Tobek can reach them.
We flash back to Voria, who kicks Olyssa’s ass at Kem’Hedj. Olyssa realizes Voria must have godsight, and confronts her. Voria admits it, and it makes Olyssa more receptive to an alliance. Then, like two chapters later when Voria is in trouble, she basically does nothing to help.
Voria returns to the Hunter, just before the Krox launch a massive assault. They send five carriers. The Hunter could take one. Maybe two with the right commander. Five is absolute death, and Voria knows it. She uses her godsight to comb reality for a way to survive.
Voria asks Davidson’s Marines to hold the valley where they parked, and to make life hell for any carriers that get close. Thanks to Davidson’s enhanced hovertank, they’re a threat the Krox cannot ignore. The Krox detach one carrier to brawl with the Marines, and we get a fun combat chapter showing Davidson in action. Love that guy.
Over the next chapter, Voria destroys two more carriers by using foreknowledge of their locations, but it isn’t enough. She’s going to lose. She sends a missive to Olyssa begging for help, and Olyssa says she’ll try. She tells Aurelius, “Stop, or I’ll say stop again.” Aurelius is not impressed.
After like a hundred-page gap, we finally get back to Aran. He’s been brought before Virkonna, and as we’ve seen with other gods, he gains a Catalization. Virkonna grants him something called true air that enhances his existing air magic, and she tells him a bit about why she chose to go into endless sleep. She cannot accept her mother’s death, because she’d believed her mother infallible, and she knows that without her they cannot win against Krox and Nefarius.
Virkonna returns Aran to the world with the words ‘become air’, but he has no idea where she dropped him. He’s in a dark corridor surrounded by black goop, which we eventually learn is the Blood of Nefarius (dun, dun, dun). Aran is met by a woman covered in the black oil stuff, which may or may not have been inspired by nightmares I had after watching X-Files back in the day.
Rhea claims to be an Outrider, and Aran quickly learns that he’s somehow travelled 7,000 years into the future. Nefarius won. But Rhea is excited he is here and claims he has some sort of grand destiny. She also says the name of his sword is Narlifex, and that the blade is legendary. Saves Aran the trouble of thinking up a name.
She leads him through a bunch of oil-soaked corridors, until he finally reaches a door. We have no idea what lies on the other side, other than Aran’s Destiny (TM).
Flash back to Voria. Her ship is boarded by an advanced Krox party, and after she uses her godsight, she realizes she has no choice but to drop Ikadra outside the ship. The Krox will be forced to pursue, and she’ll be able to flee. She does so, and buys some breathing room while Kaho recovers Ikadra.
Back to Nara. Using the temporal matrix she finds the Spellship. It’s in an empty hangar, but it is coated in some sort of black oily goop. Worse, she knows that Kaho won’t be far behind them since he can simply use the same matrix she did.
She has Wes go find cover, while she takes up an elevated sniping position. They attack Kaho and Tobek, and Wes is much more impressive than she expected. The hatchlings are still too strong, and Nara is forced to go invisible and hide. She watches powerlessly as Kaho walks to the First Spellship’s airlock.
The door opens, and Aran is standing on the other side. He lops off Kaho’s hand, and snatches Ikadra. Kaho quite rightly flees like any sane true mage, and waits for the Tobek to engage.
Tobek and Aran start to brawl, while Nara heads inside the ship to find a way to send it back to their native possibility. Ikadra shows her how to amplify her magic, and uses void flame to pew, pew, pew all the black oil as they make their way to the bridge. They find Rhea, and Nara burns away some of the oil covering her.
Meanwhile, Aran is getting his ass kicked. His spellarmor has gone into storage mode, and there’s a band of blue runes covering the entire outside of it. Aran assumes that this is some sort of awesome power-up from Virkonna, and confidently engages Tobek.
Aran is wrong. So very wrong. Virkonna sealed the armor because it is infused with the Blood of Nefarius. So Aran has no spellarmor, and Tobek does.
He’s outclassed, but uses some inventive tactics to hold his own for a bit. There’s a wisecrack about face protection since Tobek doesn’t wear a full helm, and then Aran has a Karate Kid wax on, wax off moment where he realizes what Virkonna said to him at the end is the key to victory.
Become air. So Aran does. He becomes magical lightning and flows up Tobek’s nose and into his brain. He cooks it from the inside, and kills his rival. We’re all like, “Wow, that author sure is inventive. I never saw that coming. If I did see that coming, I’ll refrain from emailing the author and telling him, because I want to let Chris keep living in his bubble.”
So back to Voria. She’s screwed. The last two carriers have her pinned, and they launch a spread of nukes. It’s over. Except that the Sp
ellship arrives and intercepts the blast. Voria is teleported to the Bridge, where Nara returns Ikadra.
Ikadra asks if he can deal with the Krox carriers. Plllleeeeaasse. Voria says yeah and he casts the legendary So Fat spell. The carriers have their gravity increased a hundred fold, and plummet to the ground. Boom, dead Krox.
Our heroes won, but at a cost. The Blood of Nefarius coating the Spellship was theoretically destroyed during the nuclear blast, but what if some survived? Virkon could be doomed. The ship itself is still covered internally, and Voria will need either Eros or possibly the Inuran Consortium to help her cleanse it.
That’s the end, right? Cue the Star Wars ending credits.
Not so much.
Aran and Nara hook up. Fade to black hook up, because I don’t really write sex scenes. What if my mom reads these?
Nara has a nightmare where she is sneaking aboard the Spellship with a sniper rifle. She slowly makes her way to Voria’s quarters and finds her combing her hair before bed. Nara executes her. Ruthlessly, without a moment’s hesitation.
Nara wakes up with a terrified gasp, and finds Aran in enforced magical slumber. A large figure sits in the corner of the room, enshrouded in dark armor. He introduces himself as Talifax, the Guardian of Nefarius. He explains that Nara will kill Voria. He’s ensured that possibility.
Man, I love cliffhangers.
…Which brings us to War Mage.
Prologue
Skare sketched a void sigil to deactivate the wards outside his office, then tapped a seven-digit sequence on the alphanumeric pad next to the door. There was no visible indication, but the buttons also sequenced the DNA of anyone who touched them, adding a third level of security.
He carefully removed his jacket and set the rich, Shayan silk on the hook next to the door. A pitcher of lifewine floated to within easy reach, immediately followed by a simple, glass cup. He gave a nearly imperceptible nod and the pitcher filled the glass.
Today was a day for indulgences. Today he met with the Guardian.
Skare swirled his glass, enjoying the way the rich scarlet caught the light. He sat in the high-backed chair behind the wide, immaculate desk. As he sat, the desk rippled and data began streaming across its shiny surface. Reports from all over the Consortium, as well as troop movements for both the Confederacy and the Krox—his two chief enemies.
A red envelope flashed on the corner of the screen, and Skare tapped the missive to accept it. The data shimmered out of existence, and a holographic representation of Kazon’s bearded face emerged from the desk. The man wore an uncharacteristic calm.
“I’d assumed you’d start screaming at me the moment I accepted your missive.” Skare cocked his head and stared down at the young man’s illusion, made even younger by the mind-wipe that had robbed Kazon of much of the political savvy that had previously made him such a threat. “You must want something badly if you’re willing to forgo your hatred.”
“Thank you for accepting my missive, Skare.” Kazon inclined his head respectfully. “I apologize if my last was…rather explosive. After speaking to Mother, I’ve decided on a more moderate course of action.”
“I didn’t realize you were capable of moderation, in anything.” Skare raised a slender hand to mask his smile. He loved baiting the boy, though of late that had grown increasingly difficult.
Kazon inhaled slowly, and while his eyes blazed with promised retribution his words were almost…gentle. “You are doing amazing things for our profit margins. For that you have my gratitude. But I am very concerned about this new metal. You won’t even tell my mother, or the board, what it’s called. Much less where it comes from.”
Skare sipped his lifewine. He savored it before swallowing, and only then did he answer. “Despite your faults, you’re a smart man, Kazon. But like many smart men, your very intelligence will be your downfall.” Kazon’s face darkened, but Skare raised a hand to forestall him. “I realize the mindwipe wasn’t your fault. But it happened, like it or not. And it robbed you of the cunning you were so famous for, my friend. I won’t tell you—or anyone else—the source of the metal, because doing so risks the secret of its creation. If that gets out, then our competitors will catch up in months. Certainly no longer than a year.” Skare delivered the lie with complete conviction, utterly positive that Kazon would detect no deception. “Much better that I keep that secret close—for decades, if possible. By then, we will be the undisputed supplier for the entire sector in, well, virtually every industry.”
Kazon steepled his fingers, and eyed Skare with apparent calm. Skare didn’t like this new demeanor, nor did he understand where it had come from. Kazon was a hothead, and always had been, even before the wipe. Unless he wasn’t. Unless it had all been an act. Had he underestimated this boy?
“I understand.” Kazon lowered his hands and sat back in his chair. “Keep the source to yourself, then. But this metal concerns me. A…friend returned the spellarmor I gave him, claiming that the goddess Virkonna told him it was corrupted. Can you explain why a goddess might say that?”
Skare made no attempt to hide his amusement. He took another sip.
“You’re just going to sit there and ignore my question?” There was the anger. Kazon’s eyes positively blazed now. It had taken more to achieve than it had in the past, but at least it was still possible to goad the boy.
“Of course not.” Skare set his empty glass on the corner of the desk. “Kazon, you are a man of principles. I’ve always admired that about you. But it’s also the primary reason you decided to turn the voting rights to your stock over to your mother. You don’t have the stomach for business. Some of the most dangerous weapons in the world are considered to be ‘corrupted’ in some way. That extends all the way back to ancient Terra and their initial use of nuclear weaponry. They irradiated entire continents for centuries. Is that not corruption? A weapon isn’t corrupt. A weapon is simply a weapon.”
“And Virkonna herself warning us?” Kazon demanded. His hologram held up an oily, black bracelet and the scry-screen perfectly captured the metal, banded in white-blue runes. “Do you lend no credence to the words of a goddess?”
Skare almost reached for the image rippling across his desk, so great was his hunger. He longed to inspect a binding that had been placed by a literal goddess, to unravel its workings. But he couldn’t risk showing any interest at all.
Skare fixed Kazon with his most imperious stare, then shook his head. “The gods are no more. They call it sleep, but we know the truth. Virkonna is dead. And if she is dead then she could hardly have cast that spell, could she?”
“Then how do you explain the intricacy?” Kazon removed the bracelet from Skare’s field of view. “My mages have no idea how it was cast, but every last one claims it’s beyond any complexity they’ve ever seen. It could be a ninth level spell. Our best archmages, working in tandem, have only managed a seventh.”
“So someone powerful bound one of our new suits. Noteworthy, but hardly more so than a hundred other concerns.” Skare gave a noncommittal shrug. “My time is valuable, Kazon. I have a meeting that started five minutes ago. Good day.” Skare motioned and Kazon’s head dissolved into particles. He knew the missive’s end was abrupt, but he could not allow Kazon to witness what was about to happen.
A wave of cold emanated from the corner of his office, the only sign that the Guardian had arrived. It wasn’t the first time Skare had met Talifax, but it was the first time he’d been able to do so as a near equal.
“Welcome.” Skare didn’t rise, but he did swivel the chair to face Talifax.
The dark armor made identifying Talifax’s species impossible, but whatever it was, the limbs were too thick. The body too wide. An Eleph, perhaps? Skare wondered every time he met with Talifax, but still had no way to confirm his guess, and doubted he ever would.
“You have asked and I have come, a privilege I do not award lightly.” Talifax’s voice was disturbingly normal, completely misaligned with his body. “What i
s it you seek?”
“I need more.” Skare clutched his empty glass, but resisted the urge to refill it. He knew holding it was a sign of his weakness, and he sought to master it. Unsuccessfully. “What you’ve provided isn’t enough, not to accomplish the task I have been given.”
Talifax considered the request for a long time, then finally gave a short nod. “Very well. I will provide you with another shipment. But be careful, lest your hubris cause you to mistake your place. The task is important. You are not.”
Then Talifax was simply gone.
Skare would give up nearly all his wealth to know how the Guardian did that. Talifax ignored wards, and came and went as he wished. It suggested access to some new form of magical travel, or an ancient secret that had been long forgotten.
He gently chided himself. Right now the source of that magic, or even the magic itself, wasn’t important. He’d secured another shipment, and that would finally give him what he needed to convert Jolene to his cause. In a few more days, the Inuran Consortium would belong fully to him, and through him to Nefarius.
A silent, bloodless coup would rock the very foundations of power in the sector.
1
Kheross
Aran wasn’t certain what sort of reception he’d get when he stepped off the Talon into the First Spellship’s cavernous hangar. He’d been prepared for a snobby Caretaker here to cleanse the legendary vessel. He wasn’t at all expecting Ree to be the person they sent. War mages weren’t generally relegated to cleaning starships.
Ree stood at the base of the shimmering ramp, glaring imperiously up at him from her golden spellarmor. Her spellblade was buckled around the waist, and her helmet was clutched under one arm. A river of scarlet cascaded down her shoulders, framing the kind of ethereal beauty Shayans were famous for. Behind her stood a dozen war mages in similar garb, and those few with their helmets removed shared her bland expression.
