Magus

by R H Frye

  Carol was just about to dismiss the pair as some unknown friends of her parents until she saw the man from the car take a rifle from the back seat and hang it from a sling over his right shoulder.

  Maraydel was struck by an uneasy feeling as soon as he stepped out the back door of the house and closed the door quietly behind him. Something was not right; he could feel it in his bones. The hair on his arms was standing up, and the forest behind the backyard was unnaturally silent. The wizard’s eyes widened in amazement and alarm as black, angry storm clouds began to appear in the sky far overhead. A harsh wind began to blow, and as if at some signal, a huge cacophony of sound, composed of the sound of hundreds of angry animals raising their various voices in protest, erupted from the woods around the house.

  The evil mage quickly erupted a shield like the one Carol had used earlier in the day, and it was not a moment too soon. As soon as the shield solidified in the air around him, an enormous blast of lightning splashed down across the barrier, and the sudden boom of thunder was so loud that he nearly fell to his knees. He barely managed to stagger backwards against the side of the house in time to keep his feet, and his unease turned rapidly to abject fear when he saw a huge wall of animals step forward from the underbrush at the edge of the forest.

  Maraydel braced himself for the charge that he was sure was about to begin, but for some reason the animals stopped just inside the line at the edge of the forest, with the exception of one lonely crow. The black bird cawed raucously as it drifted to a landing a few feet in front of the mass of animals. In front of Maraydel’s angry eyes, the form of the bird shimmered, and his enemy appeared in its place.

  The shaman stood radiating power from his very pores. The air about him was alive with a wholesome glow, and when the man smiled even his teeth seemed bathed with an eerie white light. Maraydel squinted against that wonderful, terrible light, and tears leaked from eyes that were already stunned from the earlier bolt of lightning.

  John finally spoke to his enemy in a deceptively pleasant voice. “Hello again, Maraydel. I feel like we haven’t been properly introduced. The last time we talked, you did all the talking. Now it’s my turn. My name is John Raintree. I’m a direct descendant of the people that stuck you in that hole in the ground underneath your shitty altar. And I’m the guy that’s going to send you back to hell where you belong.”

  John would have said more, but suddenly the mage pushed away from the wall and heaved an enormous ball of fire at John. The shaman quickly sent his thoughts into the clouds above to call forth a downpour of rain, and the fireball sizzled harmlessly away to nothing. When the steam cleared, the mage was no longer standing by the back door. Instead he was sprinting down the length of the house and was just about to round the corner.

  John sent silent directions to the furry army that he had mustered, and wild dogs sprinted forwards to meet the fleeing mage. Maraydel saw the dogs coming and the wall of other woodland creatures on their heels and stopped his headlong flight. He reversed his direction to run towards the back door of the house and began to rip all of the energy that he could from the world around him. He knew that he would need all the power he could muster coupled with his mastery of the arcane if he hoped to survive the battle ahead. He poured part of the energy that he was gaining into reinforcing his shield and dashed madly for the back door of the house with the barks and yelps of the animals seemingly right on his heels.

  Mike and Sarah saw the clouds appearing above them and knew that the battle had been joined. Mike’s trained eyes noticed the flicker of the blinds on the front of the house closing and rapidly adapted their plan. “Sarah, there’s someone in the house. I’m betting that John and that other guy are fighting in the backyard, since they’re not out front. Can you go try to get whoever is in there out?”

  “But I should stay with you. John said so.”

  “I know what he said, but didn’t you see the extra car that was here when we pulled in the driveway? There could be someone inside that has no part in all of this, and with the shit storm that’s coming, I think we owe it to them to get them out of there, okay?”

  Sarah seemed about to protest further, but after a few long seconds, she nodded her head. “Do you have an extra gun on you, Mike?” Wordlessly the policeman pulled up the right leg of his jeans and quickly pulled a small revolver from the hideaway holster that was strapped above his ankle. Sarah accepted the pistol and without another word moved towards the front door of the house.

  Mike pulled the rifle off of his shoulder and moved it into a ready position in front of him. Thus prepared for combat, he moved smoothly and quickly around the corner of the house.

  Carol had raced to the back door of the house as soon as the first enormous crash of thunder resounded throughout her family home. She looked through the window of the back door just in time to see Maraydel throw the enormous fireball at John. She started to open the door and join the battle when a more pleasant idea formed in her mind.

  Why not let the shaman kill the mage? She had already learned much of what Maraydel had to offer. She knew that her strength and rapid progress made the wizard feel threatened, and she also knew that once the shaman had been killed Maraydel would begin to question whether he really needed an apprentice after all. Maybe it was better to just slip out the front while the fight was in progress and leave her evil master to fend for himself. She could disappear and take time to properly master her craft. And then, of course, the world would be hers to plunder as she saw fit. She was sure that Maraydel would not hesitate to do the same to her if given the chance, and this thought abruptly made up her mind.

  Carol slowly and deliberately turned the deadbolt on the back door of the house. She then turned and started to push past her bewildered father, who had followed her into the kitchen when all the commotion started. He grabbed her arm and started to demand some answers, but with a word and a moderate push with her mind he tumbled away from her and crashed against the counter.

  Carol left her father where he fell as he rebounded from the counter and rounded the corner into the living room just in time to see her mother opening the front door. A woman with auburn hair was waiting as the door opened and Carol felt a strange sort of recognition at the sight of her, even though she was sure she had never seen the woman with the fiery hair before. This woman knew Danny. Carol could feel his energy mixed with the woman’s. If the woman at the door knew Danny, then she also knew the shaman. And if the woman knew the shaman, then she was an enemy.

  All these thoughts flashed through Carol’s mind in an instant, and she began to rip energy from the world around her as sparks began to dance across her fingertips.

  Sarah looked past the middle-aged woman that had opened the door to see a young woman walking towards her in a bathrobe. This was not too unusual, but the sparks that were flying from the younger woman’s fingers were. Sarah allowed herself to fall backwards just as an arc of electricity flew over her head.

  Sarah’s momentum caused her to tumble in a backwards somersault down the three concrete steps leading to the front door, and she gasped as the impact of her impromptu acrobatics drove the air from her lungs. The pistol flew from her hand and disappeared under a bush a few feet away. She was still struggling to draw breath as Carol emerged through the open doorway.

  Carol looked down at Sarah where she was struggling to breathe on the walkway leading up to the house. The woman was a threat, but a moderate one at best. She was incapacitated for the moment, and no real danger to Carol, so the young apprentice started to pass her by, but she stopped as another idea formed in her mind.

  Carol spoke to the woman at her feet. “I don’t hate you or your man, at least not any more than I hate the whole world for what happened to me. I’m tired and I only want to be left alone. Make sure to tell your man that.” A look of inhuman cruelty flickered briefly across Carol’s face before she continued. “But maybe you need a warning of what I can do, just in case you decide that I’m a threat af
ter all. So I’m going to give you a quick lesson as a reminder of what I told you.”

  Carol raised her hand and spoke a single word as she closed her hand quickly into a fist. Sarah’s world exploded in pain as her left knee and the ends of the bones above and below it splintered as if they had been crushed in an enormous vice. Shards of the broken bones pushed through her skin, and the knee of Sarah’s jeans was quickly soaked in blood, but she was beyond caring. She shrieked in pain, and the last thing she saw before the pain caused her consciousness to flee was Carol walking barefooted down the walkway towards the cars parked in the driveway.

  Maraydel reached the back door just as another deafening blast of thunder and lightning assaulted his shield. The impact of the blast knocked him down, and he skidded through a rapidly forming skim of mud before stopping painfully and suddenly as his head contacted the small concrete step that led from the house into the backyard. Stars burst in his vision and he almost let his will slip from his shield as he struggled groggily to his feet.

  The beleaguered mage poured all of the power he could steal from the world into his shield as he reached for the door handle that would let him into the house, and the grass and shrubbery that made up the landscape of the backyard withered and died as he robbed them of the life force they needed to live. He was relieved as the doorknob turned in his hand, and he threw his weight against the door…but the door did not open.

  The magus howled in frustration and a spray of frothy spit flew from his mouth as he slammed his shoulder against the door, but it still would not budge. Briefly he thought of bursting the door through the force of his will alone, but he stopped as he realized that the animals had grown silent once more. He turned from the door and faced the hated shaman where he stood amongst his animal army.

  John stood quietly studying the magus. He was trying to find some way to break through the man’s shield, since his earlier attempts to use raw force had failed. He forced himself to remain calm as he sent his mind questing through the world around him for an answer.

  Finally, an idea began to form in his mind, and John instantly reached into the living earth deep beneath the wizard’s feet. He worked quickly to soften the soil beneath his enemy, and water from the earlier deluge was quietly shunted into the soil below the unsuspecting magus. Perhaps an indirect attack would be more successful than his earlier, more direct methods.

  John focused all his attention on his task. After all, he had never tried to make quicksand before, and the red clay soil that made up much of the countryside of western North Carolina was less than perfect for the task, but as the shaman worked, he could feel the earth changing to meet his requirements.

  Mike slipped silently around the corner of the house, and his mind reeled at the scene before him. A huge host of animals sat staring at the man that had tried to kill him only a few days before, in what was rapidly starting to seem like another lifetime. Since that afternoon, the order of the world had fallen away and chaos had taken its place. Nothing was as it seemed any more, but Mike was certain of one thing.

  A bullet could still kill a man.

  Unnoticed to either of the human combatants in the yard, Mike raised the rifle to his shoulder and rotated the safety lever from Safe to Fire.

  Maraydel could feel the shaman doing something, but he could not understand just what the man was attempting. The effort of maintaining the shield was beginning to wear on the magus and he hung his head as if in defeat, but his mind was racing.

  There was always a way out if only he could find it in time. How could the shaman have such energy available for his use? Maraydel had faced his kind often enough, but their power had always seemed weak and unruly before. How was it that the man could control such power so readily and in such quantities? Was it possible that the world had changed so much while the magus had slept?

  Maraydel did not know the answers to these questions, but for the first time in all his long life he was determined to find them. He made an issue of allowing the shaman to think that he had won by sagging to his knees in the yard as if beaten. At the same time, he shifted his senses and sent his mind outward to look for the source of the shaman’s energy. What he saw surprised him with its simplicity. Why had he never seen this before?

  The answer was simple. The world wanted the shaman to win. It freely gave energy to the shaman. Every animal, every leaf in every tree, every blade of grass, every breath of wind, and every living bit of earth rejoiced in the magic of the shaman. What Maraydel took without asking, the shaman asked for and treasured. This was the source of the shaman’s strength, magnified by the fact that there were no longer any other men like him in the entire world. And in the shaman’s strength, Maraydel also saw a vast, unrecognized weakness. Without the life force of the natural world all around him to protect and sustain him, the shaman would be easy to best.

  Maraydel continued to hang his head as if in defeat, but he also began to rip energy from the world for a last desperate attempt to win the day.

  John felt a change in the air around him just in time to change his focus from attack to defense, and the earth beneath him reached up to wrap him in its protective embrace.

  Maraydel shouted a word and a blast of fire that rivaled anything John had seen, in his dreams or elsewhere, erupted outward from the evil mage. The animals that had kept watch on the wizard were incinerated in seconds, and the trees in the nearby woods burst into flames. The house at Maraydel’s back folded in on itself, and Carol’s parents were incinerated in a fiery hell of smoke and exploding, crumbling wood. In that enormous inferno only a few things survived.

  Sarah slept through it all in a pain-induced coma. The front wall of the house blew outwards, and miraculously fell across the wounded woman in such a way that she was safe and untouched by the fire, although she was trapped beneath the heavy lumber and siding that made up the wall of the house.

  Mike survived the fiery holocaust by diving around the corner of the house and huddling against the strong cornerstone of the structure’s foundation. He could never afterward tell what had spurred him to move at just the right time, but in dreams that he never remembered, he would see the corners of Maraydel’s mouth turn up in a nasty smile just before he woke up screaming. Burning splinters of wood blew over his head, and the intense heat singed the hair from every exposed inch of his skin. Long moments passed before he dared to raise his head and look for John, but what he saw made his blood run cold.

  Maraydel was standing in front of a large mound of earth where the shaman had stood. The mound was approximately seven feet tall and looked like a madman’s conception of a snowman made of dirt. As Mike watched, the evil wizard began waving his hands at the mound and speaking a foreign word with each pass of a hand. Each time his hand waved towards the mound, earth would explode from the pile and land on the scattered bones of John’s army of animals.

  At first Mike could only watch the strange proceedings, but when one of the mage’s motions caused blood to fly from the mound, the bemused officer of the law abruptly realized that somehow John was hidden inside the mound. The protective spirit that had made Mike a good policeman spurred him to action, and he quickly rolled to one knee and raised the rifle to his shoulder. The plastic grips of the weapon were painfully hot to the touch, but Mike ignored the pain as he yelled, “Hey! Asshole!” The wizard began to turn, but never had the chance to finish the motion.

  Mike settled the crosshairs of his scope across the mage’s left ear, paused his breathing, and squeezed the trigger.

  Maraydel had one brief, fraction of a second to realize that he had once again failed to maintain his person shield. Then a 5.56mm round entered his brain via his left ear, carved a path through his brain, and exited through his right temple.

  The magus fell in a crumpled heap in front of the vaguely man-shaped mound that he had been attacking.

  Chapter 29

  John awakened to the sensation of being slowly smothered to death.

  In a p
anic, the shaman started to flail his arms about wildly and was surprised to feel the soil around his body fall easily away. In mere moments he was dirty but free, but as the feeling of being starved for air diminished, he was abruptly aware of a new pain in his left side. He looked down and was dismayed to see the bone of a rib exposed where there should have been only the smooth, unblemished flesh of his rib cage. The shock of his wound set in, and he collapsed to the charred earth of the yard. And it was there that he found himself staring into the lifeless eyes of his enemy.

  John struggled to raise himself to a sitting position to survey the damage that his latest battle had caused, but his strength began to fail as an enormous feeling of lassitude overcame him. He was about to sag back to rest peacefully on the earth when strong hands caught him by the shoulders and hauled him roughly to a sitting position.

  John dragged his eyes away from Maraydel’s body to see who was so rudely intruding on his well-deserved rest. His tired eyes were eventually able to focus on a man that looked vaguely familiar. “Mike?” John managed to make the name a question in a voice that sounded like a much older man’s.

  “Yeah buddy, it’s me. Don’t go taking a nap on me now, okay?” Mike slumped to a seat behind the wounded shaman and let John rest his torso against his own weary chest. “So do you want to tell me how you managed to survive this latest nightmare, or what?”

  John pulled the tattered ruins of his work shirt off and plastered it against the hole in his ribcage. He was certain that the resulting bandage was a good deal less than sanitary, but at least it seemed to slow the flow of blood from his wound. With his impromptu patch job completed, he found the strength to answer Mike. “It was like I could feel all the energy of the world draining away, so I asked the earth to protect me.” John glanced at his soiled clothing and laughed weakly. “I guess the earth took me pretty literally, huh?” The weary shaman paused for a moment before asking, “What happened to him?” He kicked the corpse in front of him with the ash-covered toe of his battered work boot.