The Channeler

by William Kline

  Suddenly, an immense arc of electricity flew down the corridor. Tommy tried to flatten himself against the wall, but he was too slow – the bolt grazed his leg, causing it to lock up in a violent spasm. Tommy fell to the floor, gritting his teeth in pain. The spasm lasted only an instant, but the pain lingered on as Tommy got back to his feet and renewed the pursuit, biting back some choice curse words as he did so – he had lost all the ground he’d gained on Ryan, and more.

  The pain in his leg was lesson enough for Tommy, however. As he ran, channeled magic and enchanted his vision so there would be no more nasty surprises, and just to be on the safe side, he prepared a defensive spell to shield himself from the next inevitable attack. As he ran, Tommy had a moment to reflect on how far he’d come. Less than a year ago, he hadn’t even known what magic was, and had struggled mightily to even be able to sense it. Now, here he was, casting multiple spells while running.

  He didn’t have long to ponder his progress, though, because Ryan ducked around a corner and through a door. Tommy raced to the door and flung it open, the followed more cautiously. Sure enough, Ryan was waiting on the other side with what Tommy recognized as a particularly nasty spell designed to poison his blood. Ryan hurled the spell, but Tommy was ready, and deflected it with his shielding spell, causing the foul poison to strike the floor nearby, where it dissipated.

  The two boys eyed each other across the room – it was another small, seldom used sitting room high up in the school, with a dusty couch and a small table with a darkened lamp sitting on it. The only other exit was an archway on the other side of the room that led to yet another set of stairs. Ryan was clutching his side, likely from a stitch, and had probably decided it was better to stand and fight than attempt yet another long stairwell.

  Suddenly, both boys flew into action, and began in earnest the combat dance that they had practiced in training. Tommy cast a spell that caused the ground at Ryan’s feet to protrude in spikes, but Ryan countered the spell and returned the floor to its flattened shape before hurling another bolt of electricity at Tommy. Tommy used his shield spell to deflect the electricity, and Ryan followed up with another spell that caused a small ball of fire to shoot toward Tommy’s face. This, Tommy countered by channeling pure water at the spell, causing it to unravel and vanish.

  Back and forth the two went, attack and counter-attack, thrust and riposte. As before, Ryan was clearly more skilled at spellcraft, and although Tommy felt like he should be much stronger at channeling than Ryan, something was wrong – a dark strength was behind all of Ryan’s attacks, and Tommy began to understand with a rising panic that he was outmatched. His study of dark magic had given Ryan an edge that Tommy could not hope to match.

  Soon, the battle became increasingly one sided, as Tommy was forced to focus less and less on attack, and more on defense. He thought for a moment that his battle began to parallel the one taking place between Micah and the woman Requiem, below, except that in this case, it was the dark side that was winning and Tommy who was forced on the pure defensive.

  Suddenly, Tommy realized he had made a second critical mistake – he had let his thoughts wander too far, and hadn’t been concentrating enough on the battle. With a cry of victory, Ryan slammed a spell home on Tommy, causing bands of thick, black smoke to wrap around his limbs and his torso. Tommy had a moment to stare at it in puzzlement before it began to constrict extremely tightly, and with a scream of agony, Tommy fell to the floor. The smoke was crushing his lungs, cutting off the flow of blood to his limbs, and slowly beginning to break his bones. Through his pain and panic, Tommy realized that he was going to die unless he did something.

  He could only think of one thing to do. Gathering all the strength he could muster, Tommy channeled directly at Ryan, intending to overwhelm the other boy with power just like he had done in the practice battle arena. This time, however, Ryan was unsurprised.

  “Not this time, Tommy boy. I’m ready for you this time,” Ryan sneered nastily as he soaked up all the energy Tommy could hurl at him, and began working with it, using it to craft a dark and terrible spell.

  Tommy could only stare in horror as Ryan worked. The bands crushing him were so tight he couldn’t even scream, and black spots started to swim before his eyes. The pain caused him to lose touch with the magic, probably fortunately, since it stopped him from fueling the dark magic spell that Ryan was crafting.

  Just as Tommy was about to black out completely, the pressure suddenly abated. A golden warmed spread through his body, and he sucked in deep breath and opened his eyes. Ryan was still standing over him, still working on the spell, and Tommy realized that, although it had seemed longer to him, mere seconds had passed. However, now there was a pulsing shield around him, pushing the bands of black smoke away from his body. Tommy wasted no time wondering about the source of both the shield and the magical energy filling him; he reached out and began channeling magical energy of his own, forming a small blade of pure magic that he used to slice through both the spells around him, and whatever dark spell Ryan was building.

  Ryan grunted, and took an involuntary step backwards as his spell vanished, causing him to lose his hold on the energy, which dissipated into the air around him. Tommy gave him no time to recover, however. He thought back to the words Micah had shouted at him as he left, “Don’t forget everything I’ve taught you.” Tommy now realized what his mentor had meant, and he reached into his pocket and withdrew the large, golden needle that Micah had given him and named a “spell binder”. Micah had said the device would create a spell that was effective against dark magic, so Tommy pointed it at Ryan and summoned every scrap of magical energy he could muster, both from his own skill and from the energy that was filling him from the nameless source.

  Ryan had just recovered and was about to work another spell when Tommy let the energy go, pushing it into the spell binder. A massive, golden-white beam of energy shot forth from the tip of the spell binder and slammed into Ryan. The force of the blow lifted Ryan off the floor and hurled him across the room, where it held him pinned against the wall. Gritting his teeth, Tommy channeled harder, trying to force more and more energy into the spell binder. The beam of energy got brighter, until it seemed it would sear Tommy’s eyes.

  Suddenly, the spell binder let out a loud, high pitched whine, like that of a jet turbine, and with a final flash of light, it exploded.

  Tommy instinctively threw his free arm up to protect his face as tiny bits of half-melted gold spattered him. He gave a small yelp of pain as the gold struck, burning his skin and putting small pinhole burns in his clothes. Tommy cursed as he dropped the remains of the spell binder, which now ended several inches shorter in a small bit of twisted, blacked metal, and used both his hands to bat away the bits of hot metal. He felt a burn on his head, and caught the stench of burning as he realized that a chunk of hot metal was smoldering in his hair.

  It wasn’t until the last bit of hot metal was gone that Tommy realized Ryan was screaming, lolling back and forth against the wall and scratching vainly with clawed hands at a glowing white sphere that was on his shoulder.

  “You bastard!” Ryan screamed. “It hurts! It’s burning me away! It hurts so bad!”

  Tommy could only stand and stare. He hadn’t known what was going to happen, and his instinct was to help his one time friend, but he was heavily conflicted; Ryan had been about to kill him just scant seconds ago, and would probably do so again if Tommy intervened. Then, the decision was made for him as Ryan uttered one more curse and, with a shriek, yanked open the door next to him and fled the room.

  “Crap!” Tommy yelled as he dashed across the room. Micah had told him not to let Ryan get away, so Tommy ran as hard as he could, grabbing at the closing door and pounding down the hallway beyond after Ryan.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Mary pushed open the door she’d been peeking through, and entered the room. She took in the bits of metal, scattered around the floor, and hoped that Tommy hadn’t been badly bur
ned when the spell binder exploded. It would be a shame, after all, to ruin such a beautiful face.

  She had been watching almost the entire fight, having followed Tommy after she caught sight of his mad dash through the school’s hallways, and had wanted to intervene, but she’d been too intimidated. The energies both boys were wielding were staggering, and she had been afraid to get involved. However, when it looked like Ryan was about to seriously harm Tommy, she’d had to act, and had done what she could to lend him her strength and save him from the spell that threatened to choke off his life.

  Suddenly, Mary heard footsteps approaching down one of the hallways. She gave one last, lingering look at the door Tommy had ran through, and whispered, “Good luck, my love,” before she, too, fled the room in a different direction.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Tommy dashed down the hallway, well behind Ryan, who he could see distantly due to the light cast from the golden sphere clinging to his shoulder and, seemingly, growing larger as time went on. Suddenly, the light vanished, and Tommy took a deep breath and ran all the harder. Arriving at a narrow spiral staircase, Tommy realized why the light had vanished – he could hear Ryan fleeing up the stairs, still cursing under his breath.

  Steeling himself, Tommy started up the stairs. They were extremely narrow on the small side, and uncomfortably wide on the large side, so that Tommy found climbing them difficult and taxing. A stitch was beginning to form in his side, and after climbing what seemed to be at least a half dozen flights of steps, Tommy had to pause and catch his breath. He could still hear Ryan climbing, above him, and regardless there had been no doors, landings, or hallways down which the wounded boy could run.

  Tommy heard the bang of a door slamming shut above him, and with a curse and a grumble he set off up the stairs again, wondering as he ran how Ryan found the strength to run up so many steps, wounded as he was.

  He was panting and almost doubled over in pain by the time he’d run up the equivalent of about four more flights of stairs, although, like the previous steps, he had come across no exits from the stairwell, just more and more stairs that wrapped around and around. Finally, at the top, there was a small landing backed by large, solid wooden door. Taking a deep breath and trying to calm his pounding heart, Tommy yanked the door open.

  A strong gust of wind blew into the room and howled down the stairs, nearly ripping the door out of Tommy’s hands. Tommy readied himself as best he could while still trying to catch his breath, prepared to defend himself against magical attack, and stepped through the door...

  ...and onto a large, empty balcony. It was about ten feet long and half again as wide, formed into a semi-circle shape around the mountain, and made from the same grey stone as the rest of the school. A carved stone railing stood slightly over waist high, and a small pile of blackened ashes rested against the railing on one side, but of Ryan, there was no sign. Tommy peered back into the stairwell for a moment, sure he must have missed a door, but seeing none he made his way over to the railing and looked over. Tommy was grabbed by a sudden and intense feeling of vertigo as he looked down at the ground several hundred feet below him, with nothing in the intervening space; beneath the balcony there was only the wild wind whipping around the mountain.

  Tommy backed slowly away from the railing, the profound sensation of vertigo making him afraid to move too quickly or to even turn around. He was still backing up, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him, when he walked backwards into someone. His heart in his throat, Tommy spun around and almost feel to the floor in his panic, but it was only Micah, who grabbed Tommy by the arm and shoulder to steady him.

  “You... you nearly scared the life out of me!” Tommy gasped.

  Micah favored him with a smile. “It’s just me, Tommy. No need to be afraid.”

  “I thought you were Ryan, sneaking up behind me.”

  Shaking his head, Micah looked around the balcony. “Where is the little demon, anyway? Did he get away from you?”

  Tommy could only shrug. “I don’t know. I saw him come up here, I heard the door close, but now... he’s gone. We had been fighting, down below.”

  Micah nodded. “I noticed,” he replied, holding out the shattered remains of the large golden needle that Tommy had dropped in the room below. “I see that you’ve broken my spell binder. You weren’t supposed to put that much energy into it. You need to learn finesse, Tommy. You try to overcome every problem with pure brute force.”

  Tommy felt his face flush red. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. Ryan had hurt me so badly, I just... I wanted to hurt him back.”

  Micah laid a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Tommy. You did what you had to do to survive, and no one will ever fault you for that, understand?”

  Tommy nodded. “Is there another way off the balcony? Could Ryan maybe have jumped over the side?”

  Shaking his head again, Micah’s voice took on the lecturing tone that he used in class. “Not if he wanted to live. Remember, Tommy, that flight is impossible. Every mage that has tried to figure out a way to fly using magic has died, eventually. There’s no other way off the balcony, other than a long drop with a painful ending.” He bounced the remains of the spell binder on his palm. “I really wish you hadn’t broken this, though. They aren’t easy to make, and this one in particular took quite a bit of time.

  “I’m sorry,” Tommy said, abashed. “I’ll replace it for you.”

  Micah gave a chuckle at that. “I don’t think I’ll be able to replace it any time soon, if ever. You’ve got a long road ahead of you before you’ll be ready to try making something like this. I am curious, though. It was only supposed to work against dark magic constructs, how were you able to use it against Ryan?”

  “I don’t know. I just put all the energy I could into it, and aimed it at Ryan. It left a kind of... white... ball... thingy on him.”

  “Hrm. Interesting,” was all Micah replied.

  “The ball stayed, though. Even after the spell binder was broken, I mean. Ryan said it was burning him up...” Tommy trailed off, the horror of sudden realization dawning on his face. His eyes went immediately to the pile of ashes resting against the thick stone railing. “He said... it was burning him up, and it looked like it was growing...”

  Micah strode over to the ashes, and studied them for a moment. “Well, I guess we know what happened to Ryan, then.”

  “You mean... he’s... gone? And I...” Tommy gulped past the lump in his throat. “I... killed him?” Tears were starting to form in Tommy’s eyes as the full realization of what he’d done began to sink in. Ryan had been his friend.

  Tommy hadn’t realized he’d sunk to his knees until he felt Micah kneeling next to him, putting a comforting arm around his shoulders. “Hey, hey... don’t be upset, Tommy. Ryan forced this on you, do you understand? He was bad. He was evil, rotted in his heart. He tried to kill James, and he tried to kill you. You did what you had to do to protect yourself, your friends, and the school, okay? Don’t waste your tears crying over Ryan. He was a bad egg and he got just what he deserved.”

  Still sniffling, Tommy nodded. “What happened to the other one? The woman, I mean.”

  “Requiem?” Micah said with a grimace. “She got away. Fled. She teleported as soon as she knew the fight was lost.” The scowl on Micah’s face deepened. “I couldn’t risk her doing something to the school, do you understand? I had to keep her busy defending herself so she didn’t have the time to do anything. She could have done massive damage to the school and hurt a lot of people. Sure, I would have destroyed her, then, but at what cost?” Micah shook his head. “Sometimes, we have to do things we rather wouldn’t, in order to protect those around us. That’s what I did, Tommy. That’s what YOU did, do you understand?”

  Tommy nodded, and forced a smile. He wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t want to seem a coward in his mentor’s eyes.

  “’Attaboy,” Micah smiled, clapped Tommy on the shoulder, and helped them both t
o their feet. “You’d better go clean up, now. You’ve almost missed dinner. We’ll talk more, later, okay? I promise.”

  Tommy nodded and headed for the door. He cast one last look back at the pile of ash that had once been his friend, sighed, and began the long trudge down the stairs.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Micah stood on the balcony and watched Tommy leave, enjoying the feeling of the breeze in his hair. Tommy was a good kid, albeit a bit naive. Good in the heart, though, and that’s what mattered right now. His naivety even worked out for the best, in this case.

  After Tommy had gone and the door was closed, Micah walked over to the ash pile. He drug the toe of his boot through the pile, sending clouds of ash up into the air to be snatched away by the wind. There were a few small sticks buried in the pile; some of the senior students had come up here a few nights ago to camp out. They’d slept in sleeping bags and built a small fire in the lee of the railing so they could toast marshmallows. He cast a small spell that scooped up the entire mess and scattered it over the side; it wouldn’t do to have Tommy come back and start poking around the ashes. It was doubtful that the boy would chance something he would regard as that macabre, but Micah was nothing if not meticulous, and he had invested too much time and energy to have everything fall apart now.

  It was a shame to allow not only one, but two dark mages to escape proper justice, but Micah reminded himself that it was all for the greater good. Even now, he could feel the spell that he’d placed on the young boy Ryan. Requiem had taken the boy and retreated to a location somewhere outside of the city of Miami, in the United States, and from the vague impressions sent to him by the spying spell, Micah gathered that they were getting ready to move again. No matter, really. It was extremely unlikely that Requiem would think to check the boy over for such magicks; overconfidence was always one of her weaknesses, and Micah felt that he’d been successful in giving both the boy and his vile teacher the impression that they’d fooled him, as if he didn’t know exactly who had begun dabbling with dark magic the very minute the lad had attempted it in his school. No, it was unlikely that the spell would be found. Eventually, Requiem would retreat to her own home, in her own school. Micah would then gather the location from the spell placed on the boy and would settle with Requiem’s entire coterie of dark mages and students at once. Micah smiled at the thought; oh, yes, the reckoning would come with the blade of a sword.