The former Good Witch of the North was not what I had pictured. Her one-shouldered black gown was puffy at the bottom and cut with streaks of pink. Her hair was similarly spliced—shoulder-length hazel locks intercut with onyx, straight bangs, and a vivid strand of pink that curved against the left side of her face. She wore a silver band with a glowing red face on her wrist. The crowning accessory was a thin gold tiara.
The Simia Crown.
Glinda extinguished her orb when she landed across from us; however an outline of dark energy still radiated from her. Like me, the Pure Magic throbbing in her system must’ve been extraordinary. In a rush, a large black energy orb appeared around Arian and me.
While I was concerned for my own safety, it was kind of nice to see the shock and worry cross Arian’s face. I spent so much time feeling trapped when powerful people had me in a corner—to see him experience that for once was gratifying.
“You’ve trespassed on my land,” Glinda said, approaching. Her voice was soft and smooth. Her eyes were as black as Arian’s, but their shade extended past the irises to fill each socket.
“You’ve killed many of my flying monkeys,” she continued.
I glanced around. There were no more airborne monsters; they must’ve all been dead or grounded. Crows watched us from different vantage points. The cameras strapped to their collars blinked with eerie steadiness.
Glinda turned her eyes to me. “You have infected my mountain with your power.”
Arian and I scrambled up side by side. We stood there together in the energy dome—him clutching Excalibur and me my wand in its shield form. This was probably the closest we’d ever been to each other without being engaged in combat or exchanging threats. At that moment, we shared a different enemy.
“And for what?” Glinda asked. “Access to my memory stone? So . . . small-minded. I would expect more from an antagonist,” she looked to Arian then pivoted to me, “and from a wielder of Pure Magic. Honestly, whose mind could possibly be so valuable that you’d risk coming here for it?”
Arian and I exchanged a look.
Glinda didn’t know. She may have collected these minds for sport, but she was clearly unaware that one belonged to a Fairy Godmother who knew the location of Book’s genies and thus held the key to ultimate power.
Before I could come up with a lie, Glinda swiftly produced a force field that shielded her from a massive punch of water. When the surge collapsed, she smiled and lowered the barrier.
“Back from the dead I see, Ozma.” She extended her hand and Ozma was captured within her own smaller energy dome downriver.
The corners of Glinda’s eyes curved as she smiled. “And the legendary Merlin—I wondered if our paths would ever cross. You’re famous for your meddling.” She projected a force field like a wall. It slammed into Merlin, who had been sneaking up for an attack from the side. The energy partition thwacked him into a rock. It looked like it hurt.
Then Glinda cried out and all her force fields faltered. A throwing knife protruded from the witch’s bicep. Arian and I both tried to leap free, but Glinda was powerful, especially with the boost of the Aurora. The walls of her prisons snapped shut again before we could escape. Glinda promptly conjured two more domes to enclose Merlin and Blue, the latter of whom had been approaching opposite the wizard and had obviously thrown the knife. I was glad she’d regained consciousness, even if she was trapped like the rest of us.
“I have always wanted to meet you, my dear wizard,” Glinda said to Merlin, approaching his dome. “A person who has remained powerful and avoided the corruption of Pure Magic is a rare thing. You are unique, sir—unlike that little girl there.” She gave me a cruel glance. “I’ve seen how she works and she’ll be no better than I am. While I kill her and the others, I’ll keep you for study.”
Merlin’s hands were palpitating with golden energy, which reflected off his dark dome prison. I didn’t understand why. None of us were invisible. He, Blue, me, Ozma, and—
Wait, where was Julian?
A tidal wave rammed into Glinda. The swell washed her to the rear of the cavern. When the wave receded, the wet witch only had enough time to cough twice before a new wave assailed her. A third came promptly after, but Glinda managed to overcome the shock in time to raise an energy shield to protect herself.
Regrettably, the shields around us hadn’t faltered during this assault. Glinda may have been caught off-guard by the water attack, but the pain was not enough to cause a magic disruption like Blue’s knife.
Glinda shook away the water and stood as her force field protected her like a shield. Her eyes raked everywhere for invisible Julian—or, in this case, his shadow. She held the force field slightly at her side for that reason; the dark energy blocking her view would make his shadow harder to spot.
A fourth discharge of water careened in. Glinda rotated her shield and blocked. Another punch of the river immediately followed. Glinda blocked that too and then sent a force field wall in the direction the water had come from. It swept across the space like its own dark wave until I heard an “Oomph!”
Though still invisible, Julian was an easier target now that he’d been generally located. The witch began releasing more force field battering rams. She glowed vehemently with dark energy. Meanwhile, Merlin glowed even more intensely gold. He was working harder. Who was he protecting? Then I saw the fireball.
The cluster of flames came spiraling over the rock reef. Glinda expanded her force field at the last second. While the force field intercepted the fireball, the flames made it disintegrate.
The energy of Glinda’s force fields is flammable!
Glinda turned around, expression tight. “Where are you, Eva?” she shouted.
If Eva had snuck in, shielded by Merlin’s invisibility, were my friends here too?
Two more fireballs sped at Glinda. The witch raised her hands and a pair of energy walls blocked the shots, but these shields collapsed on impact as well. A wave of water, courtesy of Julian, came at Glinda’s left. She shielded herself but only barely. Now she was mad. She glanced back, reassessing Merlin’s golden glow. Only then did she understand what he was doing.
The dome around Merlin warped and lifted off the ground in the form of an orb. It shot toward the ceiling. When it was halfway there, Glinda reversed its trajectory until it collided with the cavern floor. Though the force field cushioned the impact, the wizard bounced around inside like a gumball. When he finally stilled, he did not get up. His glow went out. Julian became visible downriver, as did Eva, who was standing a dozen feet from me.
“It looks like we have a fair fight,” Eva said, strutting forward. Her long raven hair was pulled back in a half ponytail. Her black jumpsuit was cut with streaks of leather. A fireball floated above her hand.
“You don’t have Pure Magic anymore, Eva,” Glinda countered. “You’re weaker without it. And your fancy little husband here only has normal magic, which he’s not even that skilled with. How could the two of you possibly challenge me?”
“We couldn’t,” Eva replied. “Which is why we brought more than two.”
Silver energy encased Glinda’s body and drove her into the river. Across the cavern, I saw another figure glowing silver. It was Kai. She stood on the rocky ledge we’d entered the cavern from. I wasn’t sure how she’d regained levitation magic after being killed in the Portalscape—it wasn’t Pure Magic, as noted by the color—but I wasn’t complaining. Glinda was suddenly up against three normal magic wielders and three heroes. My friends had arrived!
From one side, Julian launched punches of water while Eva rained fireballs. SJ darted from one section of the rock reef to another as she fired portable potions. Daniel and Jason followed her path, easing ever closer. I figured their play was to get near enough to Glinda to kill her from close range while she was distracted by the long-range attacks. Kai used her levitation magic to blast Glinda around the cavern. The blasts sometimes missed and encased a rock instead—she was inexperienced w
ith the power—but they definitely helped the cause.
I wished I could’ve assisted my friends, but like Blue, Ozma, and Arian, all I could do was watch from my dome as the battle raged on. Thankfully, it didn’t look like we were needed. Glinda was losing, and she knew it too. But maybe that should have been a sign for me to keep on my toes. Evil people didn’t stay down for long.
Glinda had just been rammed into a section of rock reef when she raised a series of three overlapping energy domes around her—each bigger than the last. Eva threw another fireball at the same time as SJ launched an explosion portable potion. The two shots instantly combusted the outermost dome. As it fell away, Glinda raised her wrist. I squinted to better see through the dark shade of my force field prison. The red face on Glinda’s bracelet flashed. And then the crows responded.
The three dozen or so birds that had been stationed throughout the cavern swarmed together. They assailed my friends, giving Glinda an opportunity to fire a trio of force field walls at SJ, Eva, and Julian that seemed to sparkle and snap with electricity. My allies found cover behind rock ridges; however those hiding places were quickly decimated. These new force fields had been electrically charged. When they impacted the rocks they released a deadly surge of energy that annihilated the surrounding area.
“Glinda can project different kinds of force fields,” I thought aloud.
I turned to Arian. “There was a force field in the cavern before this one that covered that internment camp. It was electric like some of the ones she’s throwing now, but the force field she rammed us with and the ones she uses as shields are solid.”
“The electric ones may be harder for her to project,” Arian replied, talking to me for the first time without being patronizing or cruel. “They must take more of her energy or else she would have been attacking with them the whole time. It’s not like she wants any of us alive except Merlin.”
“So which kind do we have?” I transformed my shield back into a wand and stuck it in my boot. I picked up a stray rock and threw it at the wall of our enclosure. A small spark went off at the point of contact, but the rock bounced off and didn’t get obliterated, confirming what I’d hoped.
“This force field won’t electrocute us. The magic is only caging us in.” My eyes flicked to the pale blue luminescence of the sword in Arian’s hand and I had an idea. “Give me Excalibur.”
Arian huffed in surprise. “What do you take me for, a fool?”
“Yes,” I replied, eyes narrowed. “But that’s not the point. I have an idea.”
“You and your ideas.”
“Hey,” I snapped. “Who here is better at escaping evil traps?”
“That’s not a good enough reason to trust you.”
I threw my head back in exasperation. “Excalibur can cut through anything, Arian—even that which is magically protected. That’s the whole reason we needed it to access Glinda’s memory stone. I think we can slice through this force field, but if I’m wrong the dome may still react aggressively and shock whoever is touching it. So you’re more than welcome to take the lead if you want.” I gestured dramatically at the dome.
This reasoning seemed to appeal to Arian and he hesitantly handed me the sword. “You’re not going to hang onto that for long,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah.” I approached the edge of our dome.
Please work.
Chaos teemed outside our prison, but I focused solely on the task at hand and willfully plunged the blade through the force field.
Thanks goodness I was right.
Well, partially right.
The resistance from the force field was intense. I could only get about half the sword through the dome before I could no longer push it through. It was like trying to pierce a fudge-covered wall. More than that, the force field didn’t take kindly to the disturbance and as I’d feared, there were repercussions for touching it. The force field sent a painful vibration through the sword and up my arms accompanied by angry sparks. Better than being electrically obliterated, but still not great.
I gritted my teeth and pushed the sword lower, straining to expand the slice I’d made. Abruptly, Arian put his hands over my own and together we forced Excalibur down further and further—cutting a slit in the force field. When we’d made a tear about two feet long, the force field’s energy was disrupted enough that the entire thing evaporated. I guess it couldn’t take any more damage. Arian and I were free.
So much was happening in the cavern—crows, fire, force fields, water, levitation, and avalanches of rock—and yet, in that split second, it was like all that bedlam didn’t matter. What did was the following: the memory stone was forty feet away, Arian was next to me, and I held Excalibur.
Arian had inadvertently released his grip on the sword when the energy dome came down, but when he realized this, he lunged and grabbed my sword arm. I punched him in the face but he didn’t let go. Instead, he struck me in the stomach then swept my leg out from under me. I crashed to the floor yet I did not release my hold on Excalibur. I couldn’t let him have it. Not again.
I looked up. Crows swarmed overhead. Electrical charges and fire lit up my peripherals. Rocks showered down as the mountain moaned.
Arian crouched over me. His left arm pinned down my sword hand, his right arm raised in preparation to punch me in the face. My glow was igniting, but I didn’t need magic to beat Arian. I could do it on my own.
I grabbed his wrist before his blow landed and redirected it to strike the floor as my head dodged to the side. Off balance, his grip faltered on my other arm. I kneed him, reached for the back of his skull, and brought him toward me—thrusting him to the ground and off of me. Free, I launched to my feet and ran for the stone. Excalibur felt weightless and every other battle seemed inconsequential. I was about to finish what I’d set out to do.
Twenty feet from the stone.
Fifteen feet.
Ten.
I drew my arm back and—
Oomph!
My chest collided against something hard and I was sent toppling to the ground. It felt like someone had arm-barred me, but who? Who was left?
I groaned as I sat up. Then I realized I’d let go of Excalibur. It was floating a ways in front of me. That’s when Mauvrey and the magic hunter became visible—the latter held the sword.
Of course.
I guess Ozma hadn’t taken out the magic hunter permanently; he’d just been knocked unconscious. He and Mauvrey had been invisibly biding their time until they could make a good move. She had probably been the one to hit me.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” I choked, still getting over the shock of her blow.
“That is what all heroes say,” Mauvrey replied. She was trying to be smug, but I could tell she was in pain. I’d crushed her hands after all, and a cut on the side of the face where I’d witch-slapped her still bled.
Footsteps behind me drew my eyes back—Arian was inbound. I jumped to my feet, but it was too late. The magic hunter was already shin-deep in the watery pool surrounding the memory stone. Before I could even run three steps, in one extravagant motion, the hunter plunged Excalibur into the stone.
Both Arian and I stopped cold twenty feet from each other, just watching as an epic crack formed in the memory stone, slowly widening and widening until it shattered. BOOM. The stone broke in half like an egg and the water inside spilled out into the pool. The purple and green lights shot into the air like escaped birds alongside a massive gust of swirling wind that caused Arian and I to stumble. The magic hunter and Mauvrey, closer to the stone than we were, got pushed off their feet. Mauvrey was thrust to the floor between me and my foe while the magic hunter slammed into the cavern wall behind him.
The swarm of lights—the minds of Glinda’s brainless scarecrow victims—whirled around us for a few moments before shooting across the ceiling of the cavern and soaring out the tunnel we’d taken to get here. They were off to reunite with their owners assumedly—the scarecrows t
rapped in the Maze of the Mindless.
All but one.
A single purple light continued zigzagging erratically overhead. I felt certain that it was Paige’s mind, her memories. This mind didn’t have a body to go back to; its original owner was dead. Did that mean it was up for the taking? Could we catch it like a firefly?
Like magic energy after its host dies, a mind without a master must be attracted to the nearest living thing.
Arian and I looked at each other. I knew he had the same idea. As the purple light dove between us, we bolted for it. I couldn’t believe this all came down to a matter of footsteps and who would complete them first. The light plummeted closer—we drew closer, reached out—and then it touched down.
On Mauvrey.
The girl had only just gotten up. When the light hit her, the princess’s entire body seized violently. Paige’s mind energy absorbed into Mauvrey then her body released a blinding, supernova-level flash. I couldn’t see, and the light was so intense it seemed to take on a physical weight. The sounds from all other battles ceased under the might of its brilliance just as two distinctive, excruciating screams filled the cavern, both of which came from Mauvrey’s direction.
The pressure of the scream and light forced me to my knees, and I shut my eyes and covered my ears. It sounded like Mauvrey was being split in two. When at last the phenomenon subsided, I discovered it was because she had been split in two.
Lying unconscious on the ground where Mauvrey previously stood were two girls. Both wore identical clothes but curiously the hair concealing their faces was different. The girl closest to me had Mauvrey’s familiar golden blonde color; the other was more platinum.
I looked around. Crows littered the ground, all killed by the light and screaming. Every one of Glinda’s force fields had disappeared, her concentration broken by the overwhelming event. All other players in the cavern were in shock too. Everywhere I looked, characters were flat on the ground or crouched on their knees. The fight was not over, but there was a pause as people got up and composed themselves. I was the first to fully regain control of my faculties.
Crisanta Knight: The Lost King Page 27
