Armageddon's Ward

by T J Kelly

  Chas raised his right arm, the one that wasn’t already holding onto me, and pointed to the tree line. He casually leaned it against my arm, effectively embracing me wholly in his arms. There was no doubt in my mind that something was starting between us.

  “There’s a row of spells buried deep along the border of Ged’s land. It’s there as a warning and will stop a casual visitor and direct them to the guard house. If they have a legitimate reason for being here, the guards will send a message to the castle. If somebody tried to push through, like the men did over there at the edge of the forest, they’d set off the alarm.”

  I could see the remains of a spell fluttering in the wind where Chas pointed, tattered ribbons of violet and amber light. The undisturbed ends were woven into the trees. Once my eyes focused on that, I recognized by the pattern of the shadows that they were filled with protective magic. Ingenious.

  “And then that’s when chaos breaks loose,” I joked.

  “Controlled chaos,” Chas said. He sounded amused. “The guards transport to where the locator spell identifies the site of the break. Another spell then tells them all about our intruders. Things like height and weight, what weapons they have, defensive and offensive mechanicals, and their power source.”

  I was so startled that I straightened up, pulling away from Chas, and turned to face him. “You can identify a power source at a distance? I thought that was impossible. And even if it wasn’t, it’s illegal.”

  Well-known magical families all knew each other’s source of magic, but it was almost impossible to tell which elements they used to trigger their magic. Knowledge about the combination of source and connection would make an opposing magician unstoppable. Many deaths had been linked to the pursuit of a method of forewarning. The Council eventually outlawed it to stop them from trying. Not like that stopped the more determined magicians.

  “Ged knows how to do a lot of things that seem impossible, Lia. As the head of the Irregulars, it’s legal for him to use whatever method he deems appropriate. The government gave him complete autonomy. He figured out the trick of it about a year after I got here. It was exciting to see.”

  I studied his face. It was obvious that not only was he impressed by my uncle, but he took pride in his service.

  Chas gazed down at me, and my heart skipped a beat. His golden brown eyes were so warm and approving that they distracted me again.

  I never had a crush on a guy before. My friends fell in and out of love a hundred times a day, and it had seemed so silly to me. Then I was too busy following my parents all over the world trying to find a way to trigger my magic for there to be any time to meet any potential candidates. Our last attempt landed me at a prestigious all-girls school with a reputation for launching many successful magicians. That didn’t work, and I was also totally out of luck in the romance department. I made it through my teen years without ever falling in love.

  Until now. Whew.

  I cleared my throat. “What other impressive and slightly shady defensives should I know about?” I asked, pleased that my voice sounded normal.

  Chas placed his hands on my shoulders and pointed me in the direction we had been looking before. “The ground is weighted with Earth and iron spells,” he said.

  The soil had lifted into a ridge just under the grass, a trail made of spells that went off as the dead man had walked by. I watched as they reset and slowly sank back into the ground until it was another flat piece of field again. A whistle escaped with my next breath. Those were some pretty hefty defenses. It would be nearly impossible to walk across a field like that even if an enemy managed to get through the first line of warning spells.

  Chas’s hands were still on my shoulders. Not that I was complaining.

  “Lia,” my aunt called. I reluctantly stepped forward to look over the edge of the wall to where she stood near my uncle. “When Chas is done, will you go inside and let the cook know that we invited the guards to eat lunch with us? Please tell her seven additional guests.”

  “Sure,” I replied. “No problem. I think we were almost done here anyway.” As I stepped back, I accidentally bumped into Chas. He placed his hand on my arm to steady me and gracefully turned me around to face him. He was really quite good at that.

  “I’ll show you some of the spells tied into the walls, even though they weren’t used today. Then we can go back.” Chas slipped his hand in mine and tugged me alongside him for several feet until we reached a corner of the wall. As he pointed them out, I could see the spells shimmer in the stones and mortar.

  “That’s truly frightening,” I whispered. Chas chuckled in reaction to my understatement.

  The spells I could see weren’t just cast on the stones. They were buried deep within them, a part of the rock, pulling magic from the Earth element. Anyone who pushed through the forest warning spells and the spells from the fields was marked by a magical aura or trace. The next line of security spells in the walls would recognize the mark, and the intruders would be scattered into dust and blood. If they somehow managed to make it through alive long enough to get to the second spell border, an occurrence I couldn’t imagine ever happening.

  This was the most gruesome working of magic I had ever seen. Considering I had read our family’s histories about how we defeated the most powerful dark magicians, that was saying a lot.

  “Sobering, isn’t it? But the magic knows you. You’re blood kin. Even if you weren’t, you are connected to Ged through your apprenticeship. It will recognize that, and none of the spells will trigger against you.”

  “Very reassuring. How about we get down off this cursed wall right now anyway?” I asked.

  Chas laughed and then squeezed my hand tighter. “Close your eyes,” he said.

  When I opened them again, we were back in the sitting room.

  ◆◆◆

  I summoned a footman, and he ran off to the kitchens to let the cook know the additional numbers for lunch. I turned to Chas and smiled shyly. Something about returning to the castle proper made me feel hesitant to resume my flirting.

  “Thank you for showing me all of that. Uncle Ged is fascinating, isn’t he? Where does he get his ideas?” I shook my head ruefully. “I wish I were half that good.”

  Chas looked at me thoughtfully. “Lia, you’re twice as good. Have faith in yourself. You’re going to be absolutely amazing. Truly an incredible magician.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “We’ll see,” I said, doubtfully.

  “Yes we will,” Chas said. He tugged me closer to him, our hands still clasped. “We will see, and soon. I can feel it. Your magic is about to catch fire, and then you’ll realize that I’m never wrong about these things.”

  I let out a little laugh. “Want to bet on it?”

  “I’d bet on you any day. We’ve been hearing about you from Ged and Peony for years. I also happen to know that my father is scared of you.”

  I pulled back a little, surprised. “Oberon? He’s scared of me?”

  Chas studied my face. He nodded towards the couch, and we sat down. He dropped my hand, but we were close enough that our legs were touching. “My father is downright terrified of you. He’s been shielding his activities from your parents for years. Your father was a powerful man, but his power was about equal to my father’s. Donovan could never break through. It was difficult, but my dad was able to hide his plans.”

  I felt a twinge of sadness when Chas said my father’s name, but I pushed it down and away. I wanted to continue my conversation, not cry like a baby. “And Oberon thinks that somehow I’m going to do any better?”

  “You have no idea how you appear to those around you, do you?” he asked. “Your magic is so strong that we can feel it when you walk into the room. Once you connect to it, you’ll be able to dampen that effect so your enemies won’t be warned in advance. But for now, it’s almost overwhelming. You’re a threat to every dark magician, and they all know it.”

  The way he talked about my magic sounded impressive, e
ven to me. All the signs indicated it was strong, but it was impossible for a magician to know what they had inside of them before they make the connection. Hearing about it from somebody else made my magic seem more real to me.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question about your magic?” I asked.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “What do you do, exactly? And how do you trigger it?”

  “Wow, you don’t ask much, do you?” Chas grinned at me to let me know he wasn’t offended. The answer to my question could technically put him in danger, and I was impressed Chas was willing to share with me anyway. “My magic is related to my voice. I always used to sing to myself when I was a kid. Which isn’t a great habit when you’re the youngest of five brothers, much less born into a dark magic clan. But I always felt centered when I sang, and I needed a refuge in a household like that. So I did it anyway.”

  I could only imagine what it must have been like to grow up surrounded by so much darkness and expected to embrace it. I pictured Chas as a little boy, tiny and afraid, singing to himself in the night. Pain seared my heart. “It must have been difficult growing up that way.”

  Chas smiled ruefully. “Yeah, it definitely wasn’t easy. But it wasn’t all bad, either. Sometimes brothers can be fun, and my mother loved me very much.”

  I imagined little Chas again, this time sitting next to his mother, leaning against her much like he was leaning against me. Colubra Taine was a remarkably beautiful woman. I had seen her maybe half a dozen times in the last year alone since she was on TV all the time. Chas looked just like her.

  Colubra had been modeling since she was thirteen, stunning the fashion world with her almost monochromatic look. Dark brown skin, eyes, and hair. Regal features. A sense of mystery shining from within. Her mother was an ambassador, and her father was a wicked magician of great renown. He also had the dubious honor of being the first magician my father had ever vanquished.

  Chas’s grandmother still served as ambassador, and the Taine family had forged deep ties with several families all over the world because of her efforts. His mother’s beauty and fame tied the dark clans closer, an unmistakable allure impossible to resist. For them, anyway. I personally found her cruelty a turnoff.

  Trying to avoid an awkward conversation, I moved on quickly. “How did you find out that the trigger to your magic was related to singing?”

  Interesting enough, there was no correlation between strength of magic and accessibility. I always imagined strong magic would be difficult to access because I had been told countless times that I was powerful, and yet there I was, unable to access it.

  Turns out that many of the strongest magicians tapped into their magic all too easily. Some even connected to their magic at a young age. Although none had full access until the Ascension Ceremony. Many couldn’t do any magic at all until the ceremony, so I was on an even playing field until my seventeenth birthday. Since I was the only Rector in my generation, my parents were desperate for my magic to trigger early. They wanted to ensure that I would be able to ascend on my birthday and begin my training immediately.

  I pushed that uncomfortable thought out of my head. There was no reason to think that I couldn’t keep up once I became a magician.

  “It was shortly after Ged came for me,” Chas said. “I was walking by the river in the forest to the north of here. I was pretty bored. Peter was sick that day, and there wasn’t anyone else to hang out with. I heard a bird hit a high note that I didn’t think would be possible to duplicate. I decided to try anyway. My voice had already changed, but I have a broad range. I was imaging what it would be like to sit up in a tree, singing all day long. I kept trying to hit that high note, but it was beyond my ability. I was thinking about whether or not magic spells used for lifting or raising things would help a vocalist improve his range. Suddenly, I was in that tree. I realized later that I had been singing and thinking the magic words at the same time. That was all it took. I can do a lot of things just humming a tune silently to myself, but for the really powerful stuff, I sing out loud.” Chas studied me a moment. “Do you want to hear me sing? I can show you how it works.”

  “Definitely!”

  Chas grinned at my enthusiasm. He was silent for a moment, centering himself, then began. The song wasn’t one I recognized, but it was beautiful. The room around us brightened as the candles lit one by one. Chas grasped my hand, and I felt him push his magic through his song into me, showing me how the connection worked between himself and his magic, how they had become one. It was harmonious and wonderful.

  “That was lovely!” I said, falling back against the couch. I couldn’t think of the right words to say to express how I felt. His voice was warm and full, and it touched me. It made me feel weak, but it was enjoyable.

  “It’s a song I wrote shortly after I came here. I was scared and confused. I was hurt. Ged and Peony reached out and offered hope and light. The song was my thank-you to them. I sang it for them for my Eostre gift.”

  My heart melted. Chas had a soft side to him. Eostre was the spring equinox and magicians celebrated it by exchanging symbolic gifts about our hopes for the future. It also marked the official start of our new year. The song was a fabulous way for Chas to honor the people who had given him a chance at a new life.

  “I could never sing something like that. My voice is okay. Yours is extraordinary.” I silently promised myself that as soon as I was alone, I would give it a try anyway. Something, someday, had to work for me.

  “I’m sure your voice is as beautiful as you are,” Chas said. “Come on. Let’s get some of this mess straightened up before Peony gets here. She’ll be horrified if it looks like this when the guards arrive for lunch. Even if we were preparing for magical warfare.”

  Chas rushed me around the room, tossing spell crystals into a sack I found in one of the cabinets. He kept me distracted and laughing until the others arrived for our luncheon. It didn’t matter, though. I heard what he said, and there was no way that I would ever forget it.

  He called me beautiful.

  EIGHT

  Frantic Pace

  If I could only say one thing about my aunt and uncle, it would be that they were serious taskmasters. They ran me ragged with chopping, cutting, shaving, stirring, anything at all that I needed to do to prepare ingredients for every spell imaginable. My workshop was equipped beyond my wildest dreams, but it severely lacked basic supplies. I suspected they did that on purpose to give me something to do.

  Some of the ingredients were quite mundane until they were properly prepared. By the end of my first month, I could identify and process any of them blindfolded. The scary thing was, they taught me that because someday an enemy may actually blind me and I would need to save myself with a bundle of thistles and a handkerchief.

  Scarier still, I could actually save myself with a bundle of thistles and a handkerchief. Watch out, world.

  My mornings were taken up by the preparation of the ingredients and working magical calculations. They made my eyes cross, but it was also thrilling. The hours between lunch and tea time were dedicated to combat training. Mort was my taskmaster for those activities, and he told me that learning how to defend myself before I could use magic would make it easier for me to learn without subconsciously relying on magic. Seeing as how I couldn’t rely on something that wasn’t there.

  Peony earned my eternal gratitude with her spells to ease sore muscles. I needed them almost every day because of Mort, but it was worth it. I learned some magnificent dirty tricks.

  I had piles of books to read, and I happily plowed through them during the rest of the day and long into the evening. I had excellent recall. Soon the foundational patterns of magic tied themselves together in my mind. That’s when I realized why Armageddon designed my curriculum around the elements.

  Most magicians had a natural affinity for only one or two elements in their bloodline. They focused on mastering the familiar and easy. But many magicians were vanquished because
they couldn’t call Water to them in time to quench the Fire their enemies sent their way, or use Earth to cushion their fall when the Air element was used to snatch them up.

  Rectors used Dark to power most of our spells, but if I studied hard enough, I would be able to tap into the four basic elements as well as Light by the time I was ready to ascend. If I managed to ascend.

  As busy and exciting as my new life was, I didn’t spend all my time working. I was released on my own after tea for an hour or two. The days were getting longer and a little warmer, so I took the opportunity to go for long walks and explore the castle grounds. I particularly liked a small, marshy area surrounded by reeds. There were several giant, flat rocks in the water that baked in the sun all day. By the time I arrived, I could sit on them and soak the sun right back out of them.

  I often sat idly, tossing small bits of dried weeds and chaff that had blown up onto the rock back into the water. I would hum to myself, tracing the bumps and grooves in the rocks as my mind boggled over the different things I had learned. More than I had ever been taught by my fancy and expensive schools, that’s for sure.

  One of the most surprising things I discovered was that I was fantastic at doing math.

  I had a knack for memorizing numbers and dates. Ask me when the Rebellion of the Martyrs happened, and I would say in the fall of 1463. And nobody remembered that kind of thing. Now that I was in over my head every day, trying to memorize formulas and learning methods to track the stars and planets, a new talent for magical calculations emerged.

  And I kind of kicked butt doing it.

  ◆◆◆

  Apprentices were released for a break at the same hour of the day, so we spent a lot of our free time together. Like Chas said, there really wasn’t anybody else to hang out with. Not like I minded all that much since Chas and Peter were great guys.