The Worst of All Possible Worlds

by Alex White

  “Boots, no!” came her scream, and her aim snapped to Witts’s head. He’d gotten tangled up with the twins, and she couldn’t shoot into their group without hitting Alister and Jeannie.

  Aisha had no such restriction. She emerged into the room shooting, spells slamming into Witts’s conjured shield. It didn’t hurt him, but the pilot’s bolts certainly kept him distracted while Nilah approached.

  But what was she going to do when she got into striking distance? Flicker? How were they supposed to fight someone who had every spell?

  Boots erupted to her feet at the center of a magic bonfire.

  Nilah skidded to a halt, watching the Wellspring take root in Boots’s spine, its luminous coils writhing into her flesh. The crystal shrunk and re-faceted, sliding deeper into her back before disappearing entirely beneath Boots’s skin.

  Empowered, Boots launched at Witts, an array of glyphs forming across her palm to make a flaming spear, prompting a “Well, okay, then” from Nilah.

  The two luminous figures traded glyphs in rapid fire. Cordell and the others couldn’t even get close with the level of magical artillery striking between them. Nilah wasn’t sure there was a safe place anywhere inside the dome.

  The pair of duelists weren’t human, but something entirely beyond. Their skin glowed with an inner light, highlighting their veins like bare branches on a sunny winter’s day. A symphony of spells crackled between them, glyphs popping into existence and fusing with one another to nullify or amplify. On Witts’s side, the spells were masterful and elegant, locking together like gears in a jeweled watch movement. On Boots’s, the glyphs were rowdy and spontaneous, raging against one another like dancers in a mosh pit.

  Witts glanced at Nilah, and that was all the warning she got before he pointed at her, firing off a beam of pure light at her chest. She rolled out of the way as Boots threw a shield over her, shouting, “Stay back! I’ve got this!”

  Taking advantage of her distraction, Witts lashed out with a whip of poisonous green spells, striking Boots across her shoulder. Cloth split, flesh darkened and bubbled over with tumors and weeping pustules, and Boots wobbled from the hit. She spun out spells to wrap around the magical wounds, nullifying them with healing light.

  But when it was Boots’s turn to mount a counterattack, Witts was the superior fighter in every way. A long, silver sword flashed into the old man’s grip, and he soon put her on the back foot.

  Boots turned to face Nilah, eyes aglow and light spilling from her throat, and said in a celestial voice, “A little help here, please!”

  “What am I supposed to do?” she called back.

  “You know hand-to-hand!”

  “I’ll cover you,” Aisha said into Nilah’s comm. “Get over there.”

  Nilah bolted for Boots’s position, nearly a hundred meters away. It would’ve been a snap inside Teacup, but on foot, the distance seemed to stretch forever. Aisha turned on Witts’s position and began spraying the ground just in front of him, sending sharp rocks pinging against his body. Witts growled in annoyance, and with a gesture and a mason’s mark, reshaped the glass floor to form cover from Aisha.

  The enemy alchemist turned his attention on lone, slow, bloody Cordell. He raised his palm to the captain, all kinds of destructive marks burbling from him. No dodging or shielding this time.

  Nilah couldn’t look.

  “No, you don’t!” bellowed Orna, slamming into Witts head-on. Charger’s claws tore at his flesh as they tumbled across the floor. Magic spells arced over his exposed skin, repelling most of Charger’s strikes, but the bot was still on him like a feral cat. “Get out of here, Captain!”

  Using newfound telekinesis, Boots yanked Cordell to her hand, teleporting him to Malik’s position. She knocked down some of Witts’s precision glyphs, and Nilah could finally make out what she was doing: Boots and Witts were weaving a magic program against one another, trying to push through each other’s defenses. With the man occupied by Charger, Boots made some headway into his space, winding her spells into his.

  Her style was raw and unrefined, her penmanship terrible, but the sheer power of the Wellspring enabled miracles.

  Witts knocked Charger free with a conductor’s mark, hoisting the bot helplessly into the air. Orna tried to level her slinger—anything to break his hold over it—but Witts tore the weapon free with his overwhelming magic.

  Nilah took the last two meters in a flying leap, landing a kick across Witts’s face.

  It was like kicking a brick wall, but it stopped Witts dead in his tracks. He looked at her like she’d walked up and asked him if he’d wanted a cookie—so shocked was he to receive a mundane strike from a tactical shoe. He shook his head, telekinetically hurling Charger into the distance so he could focus on the new challenger. “Really?”

  He tried to grab her, and she juked, snapping out a punch into his jaw once more. His magically hardened body stung her knuckles, but she was definitely annoying him. He took another swipe, and she did a back handspring, landing a few meters away in the ready position.

  Witts wasted no time shoving Boots’s magic free of his spell, his magical program growing sharp tines. His wall of arcana smashed against Boots’s magic, subverting her work and gumming it up.

  Boots cried out as one of his barbs slipped through her spell into her hip. She let go of her assault to extract the thorn from her skin, and Witts surged forward even more.

  Starry silhouettes slipped from one of the glyphs at Witts’s side, cutouts of humans made of pure light. A rush of heat struck Nilah’s exposed skin like that of Charger’s igniting plasma blade—the figures were fire incarnate. They fanned out around him like silent soldiers, forming a wall of deadly, superheated gas.

  They didn’t look like they had any mass to worry about; so they’d be bloody quick. Springfly-quick.

  Muscles coiled. Fingertips flexed. Nilah tapped her comm and whispered, “Protect me, Boots. I’ll give you the distraction you need.”

  Boots had dreamed of having magic all her life. When she was just a little girl, nursing the bruises given to her by a damned scribbler, she’d imagined gaining a spell of her own. When her mother used to cry while looking over her medical expenses and report cards, Boots had told herself she’d have power one day. When she’d discovered the location of the Saint of Flowers, she’d stood in front of the mirror and practiced casting.

  And now that she had power beyond anyone she’d ever known, some asshole was trying to destroy everything she dared to love.

  Witts unleashed a staggering variety of attack spells in her direction, and it took her full concentration to counter them.

  She wanted to talk to Nilah—to strategize—but even conjuring a sentence was tough under the circumstances. She couldn’t begin to explain the intricacies of the duel—she and Witts had long since passed beyond the vagaries of mere language as they volleyed the rarest arcana back and forth. Worse still, the vast engine of her enemy’s interlinked spells tugged on the Wellspring inside her, threatening to yank it free. He had a lot more magic practice than Boots, and all things considered, it was lethally unfair that he was her first challenge as an alchemist.

  It was hard for Boots to imagine any outcome where Nilah didn’t end up a pile of ash. Flicker might’ve been formidable, but bare hands weren’t enough, and Boots seriously lacked the reflexes required to help her. At least she’d proven she could hit the guy, which was a damned sight better than Boots could do.

  “Now, Boots!” Nilah snarled, sliding beneath the legs of the nearest flaming creature. “Fight!”

  Boots blasted out cyclones of subzero wind, but the creatures of light just blurred and re-formed, ignoring the new impedance. Witts was far more effective, wielding his huge, glittering sword and rushing straight for her. Boots dodged one attack by a few hairs. She summoned the diver’s mark to her hand, altering the weight of her fist by several tons before swinging it at him. To her delight, she struck home.

  Her knuckles collided with
the angry old man like a starfreighter, releasing a satisfying thump. Witts went soaring toward the far wall and winked out with a porter’s mark, appearing behind her in a clap of thunder. His sword made wide arcs, and Boots took off at a jog trying to get away from his murderous slices.

  All the power of a god, and she was still running like some lily-livered cadet.

  “This is bigger than you, Miss Elsworth,” Witts grunted, firing off blasts of fire between his wild swings. “Just die and get it over with.”

  She spun and brought up a shield, multiplying it with the silverer’s mark into a hundred onion skin layers. His sword went straight through the first twelve.

  “You killed my people,” she said, casting the lapidary’s mark. Light split and sheared as invisible knives cut apart the space where Witts stood. “Nothing bigger than that.”

  He shattered her spell without blinking. “I’m sorry that you can’t see the promise of a brighter tomorrow.”

  “You won’t be seeing any tomorrows at all.”

  But he would, because for every offensive spell Boots could dredge from her memory, he could break it. The engine continued building behind him, composed of thousands of different glyphs—the code that would force her to surrender everything.

  She tried to write her own defense. The Wellspring OS helped her pick marks, but it wasn’t enough. Every pair of glyphs she strung together, Witts would snip them apart.

  He bashed through her magical defenses and yanked her head to one side with a conductor’s mark. Boots screamed as she was dragged bodily along, the meat in her shoulder making hideous tearing noises. He threw her to the ground and stomped on her chest, ready to fill her guts full of his white-hot blade.

  Then Nilah, armed only with her bare, flashing arms, came streaking into Witts’s space, peppering the man with ineffectual jabs. The man took a swipe at her with his silvered sword, and she danced away, grabbing the guard and twisting his blade from his grip. He came at her, punching and swearing, but she was far too fast for him.

  She counterattacked with Witts’s own blade, stunning alchemists both newly minted and old. She put him on the defense almost immediately, so he teleported just out of her range. Since he was clear of the melee, Aisha, Malik, and Charger had clean firing lines. They blasted his position, forcing his defenses up.

  Boots took the opportunity to snuff out his star people with a few well-placed spells.

  Dozens of conjurer’s marks brought shiny darts into existence around Witts, and he sent them buzzing for Nilah like a swarm of drones. They should’ve flensed Nilah’s flesh from her skeleton, but Boots stopped the projectiles dead in their tracks.

  Witts glanced back at Boots, annoyed by her interference. Then a wild slice from Nilah took his right eye out of his head.

  His anguished scream ignited a fire in Boots’s breast hotter than any shot of booze.

  Nilah danced through Witts’s defenses, landing another swipe across his abdomen. Glyphs poured from his mouth as his voice became a struck chime, vibrating every molecule of Boots’s being. He waved the sword in Nilah’s hand into nothingness, then laid down a blanket of black flames that set fire to the very glass around him.

  But Nilah was always a step ahead, ready to blind him or misdirect him. Everything that Boots lacked in speed and finesse, Nilah had in spades. What she lacked in arcane power, Boots could provide. Alone, they were weak and clumsy. Together, though—

  “Nilah!” called Boots. “I get it! I get your plan.”

  Her companion leapt clear of Witts’s outraged maelstrom, skidding across the tiles before coming to a halt. She looked to Boots and nodded.

  “You hold on to me and give me the power,” she said. “I give you the hits.”

  “How dare you?” Witts’s anguished voice rasped through the arena, delayed echoes in its wake like a chorus of ghosts. He clutched his face and spat magic in all directions—a typhoon of pure hatred. The grand spell he was writing against Boots faltered as little imperfections streamed through its code. When he finally lowered his hands and staggered upright, he’d replaced his missing eye with something else—an orb of twinkling red, like a free-spinning drop of blood suspended in the hollow. In its reflections, Boots saw her doom.

  Nilah’s arms radiated dazzling pulses, and she bounced on the balls of her feet. “He’s a big old boy, isn’t he? Give us a beat to keep time, love.”

  “What?”

  “Flicker needs music, love. Let’s have it.”

  Boots scanned the Wellspring’s repository of marks, settling on the orator’s mark for amplifying sounds. She’d seen it used in concerts, sometimes called the “rockstar’s salute.”

  She looked at the speed of Nilah’s dancing and guessed the right song to keep up—something from her Civil Air Patrol days. The electric strains of Inkwitch shredded through the cavernous space as a drum kit thundered to life.

  “I will outlive this,” hissed Witts. His limbs began to lengthen, muscles wrapping around bones in taut cords. His robes changed shape with him, distorting in space rather than simply growing. Breaker’s marks popped up across his body—a swipe from him would tear Nilah in half. “I’m the only one willing to stand up to death.”

  He wasn’t even trying to craft his fatalistic masterpiece anymore. The spell rotted and broke above his sinewy body as he readied himself to fight. Shining onyx claws curled from bony fingers and grew needle thin, edges sizzling with dark energies.

  “Dance music, Boots!”

  Boots cracked her neck to limber up. “Fighter jocks got to rock. This is all I’ve got for you.” Then she cast a copy of the Ferrier twins’ spell directly into her palm. “Guide me. You punch. I’ll magic.”

  Nilah slapped her palm across Boots’s, locking their fingers together and gripping tightly. Her thought came whispering through Boots’s head: Gladly, darling. Follow my orders exactly.

  Boots felt the woman’s thoughts bubbling inside herself—a one-way, instantaneous comm.

  Give me speed.

  The fastest means were teleportation, which their adversary clearly enjoyed, but when Boots tried to teleport herself, her glyph fizzled in her hand. Even with the Wellspring, a basic porter’s mark wouldn’t work with her teleportation anchor.

  She watched the motes of magic fade out. “Ugh. You’re kidding.”

  “Messenger’s mark,” said Nilah. “Makes you fast.”

  “Right!”

  Nilah dashed for Witts, her intended destination a hot spot in Boots’s brain. Boots grabbed the collar of her shirt and flowed the messenger’s mark into them, granting speed beyond sight. She felt Nilah’s surprise at the breakneck arrival, but the fighter came out swinging.

  Give me power.

  Boots wove her own breaker’s marks into Nilah’s muscles. Legs bristled with strength as Nilah catapulted herself into Witts’s side, pummeling him. To keep up, Boots cast spells to enhance her reflexes, holding a hand to her companion’s back.

  Protection spells crackled beneath Nilah’s fist like safety glass, but they held. Keeping time with the kick drum, Boots was able to predict most of Nilah’s movements. She began to feel the flow of the action, only thrown a little whenever Nilah would break off to strike.

  Boots figured she could take Witts’s shields apart, and tried to unravel them, peering around Nilah to pull at their threads.

  Get us out of here!

  In her eagerness to help, she’d almost missed Witts’s counterattack—a wide swing of his claw. Panicked, she summoned the messenger’s mark once more and leapt high into the air, dragging Nilah with her. Witts searched his surroundings, then spotted the pair and readied to receive their attack with eager talons. Gravity lazily took over their momentum as Inkwitch’s classic guitar solo came to a close.

  Just fall. Give me weight.

  Boots rifled the alien knowledge in her mind, drawing the diver’s mark back to the surface, and increased their weight by several hundred thousand tonnes. The pair came down on Wi
tts like a hammer to an anvil, and though his skin was as strong as regraded steel, they shaped him. Witts cried out, distended vocal cords curling his voice into an unnatural rumble. The glass below him shot through with fault lines, and the shock wave of their hit knocked the feet out from everyone except Charger, but even the bot took a knee.

  There’s a spell protecting his hide! Cancel it! came Nilah’s frantic thoughts.

  Wellspring OS fed the answers into Boots’s mind, and she tore into his wards with entropic marks, rotting them from the inside.

  The sheen of Witts’s bony armor dulled like it had covered over with condensation, and he bellowed in anger, lashing out with blinding speed. Nilah flipped clear, but Boots was late to the party.

  A shield coalesced out of nowhere and shattered under Witts’s strike, blunting the attack. If it hadn’t been for that, Boots might’ve been missing a head.

  Boots quickly found the source of her salvation: Cordell, despite being warned, was limping toward them—huffing and clutching his chest, hands bleeding anew. Witts paused briefly, clearly shocked to see another mere mortal daring to approach.

  “Let’s do this, Bootsie,” said Cordell, casting again.

  I need to cut, came Nilah’s thoughts.

  Boots cast a variant of the lapidary’s mark, infusing it onto Nilah’s hands with binding spells. The air crystallized around Nilah’s fingers in nearly invisible facets.

  “Don’t scratch your nose, or you won’t have one anymore,” Boots whispered. “I’m going to get help.”

  Witts charged for Cordell, but Nilah caught up to him, sliding through his long legs to hamstring them with her bladed fists. Then a slinger bolt came sailing into Witts’s cheek, smashing against his magical protections and whipping his head to one side. Far away, Aisha traced her glyph and set up for her next shot with a whoop.

  Bits of broken spell dripped from his skin—there was a hole in his defenses, and Aisha hammered it. She fired again, and Witts had to stop what he was doing to block the shot. Nilah dove in, slicing away more of his protections.

  But he was still fast, and Boots struggled to close the deal. His incredible strength and dozens of other magical effects kept him spry while he scrapped with the others. He’d tried to rip the Wellspring out of Boots; if the others could keep him distracted, she could copy his engine and do the same to him.