The Last Cleric

by Layton Green

  “You think the hot ones want humans? That’s a male fantasy. We get the Woodland Fairies, kid. Bottom of the barrel.”

  Two of the fairies started arguing, and one dumped the contents of her mushroom-shaped cup on the other’s head. The dispute dissolved into a hair-pulling fistfight. The other fairies joined hands and flew in a circle around the combatants, cheering them on.

  “This is awful,” Caleb said, as colored spots filled his vision.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do the mushrooms give the wings their power?”

  “I think so. The shrooms only pop up around a full moon.”

  “So what happens next?” Caleb wrinkled his nose. “They have their way with us and let us go?”

  “Only the queen gets those honors. She shows up on the last night of the cycle.” The Brewer glanced at the moon. “Two or three nights away, I’d wager.”

  “Does she look any better?”

  “You see these ugly mugs flying around? They’re like Brazilian supermodels compared to her.”

  Caleb swallowed. He glanced around the circle, then back at the Brewer’s filthy clothes and dirt-encrusted nails. “You look like you’ve been here awhile.”

  “About a year.”

  Caleb started to laugh hysterically. “A year?”

  “I’m lucky,” he said, flashing a lascivious grin. “I keep the queen entertained.”

  One of the fairies took a puff off the brazier and blew a cloud of smoke in Caleb’s face. It smelled of sassafras and rotten eggs. Above his head, the moon started to rotate slowly in place and then enlarge, until it was a spinning top that dipped and whirled across the night sky. Caleb felt himself losing his grip on both sanity and consciousness. “What happens when the queen gets bored?”

  The Brewer let his cheek sag against the ground, his face slack as he stared at the circle of mushrooms. “She turns us into one of those.”

  -14-

  The raised torches of the villagers glowed brightly in the night. It seemed to Val as if the entire town surged towards them. He and Adaira and Dida bought them a few seconds by tossing the front line back with a Wind Push, but hundreds more rushed forward.

  The legate and the queen had badly miscalculated the effect of the deaths of the local children. The village had gone mad with grief.

  “Retreat!” Rucker bellowed. “There’s too many!”

  Synne pulled Val into a sprint. Adaira ran beside him, turning while she fled to swipe a hand through the air. Atop the pyre, a fountain of blood erupted from Legate Wainwright’s throat, silencing his screams. The legate’s body shuddered and then sagged, his spirit released. Good girl, Val thought grimly.

  The party ran for their lives, knowing the villagers would not want to leave witnesses to their crimes. The queen would send the Wizard Guard to slaughter them.

  “If we can reach a building,” Dida said, huffing as he ran, “I can ward us.”

  “Better to get to open ground,” Rucker countered. Easily the oldest member of the group, he wasn’t even breathing hard from the sprint. “If they don’t lose their appetite soon,” he gave Adaira and Val a hard look, “make an example.”

  Whenever one of the faster villagers drew too close, or someone launched a brick, Val or Adaira or Dida would send them flying backwards. By the time the party reached the edge of town, the crowd had fallen back and the closest pursuer was fifty yards away. Just as Val began to relax, he realized something was missing he couldn’t leave behind.

  “My father’s spellbook,” he said. “It’s in my room.”

  Rucker waved a hand. “Leave it, boy!”

  Val was already hovering in midair. “I can’t do that.”

  Adaira and Dida rose with him, but he put out a hand. “Stay with Rucker and Synne. They might need you. I’ll meet you at the fort.”

  Without waiting for a response, he extended his arms and soared into the night sky, high above the angry villagers, heading back into the center of town. He looked down and realized the enraged mob had stopped chasing after the others, instead focusing on the wizard who had foolishly decided to return. Fearing arrows were being notched, he flew higher and faster, relying on speed and darkness.

  His room was on the second floor. As the villagers poured into the inn, he crashed feet-first through a window, blowing out the glass as he went through. He slowed, landed on his feet, and crunched on broken shards as he strode to the bed and lifted the mattress. The spellbook was still there. With a sigh of relief, he tucked it inside his cloak.

  He turned to leave as the door flew open. Five men burst into the room holding torches and swords. A sixth lagged behind with a bow and arrow trained on Val, negating the option to fly away.

  He kept them at bay by swinging his staff in a wide arc. One of the men tried to block the staff with a wooden shield, and the azantite crescent moon sliced right through it.

  The men approached more carefully, backing Val towards the window. The archer released an arrow. Val put up his Wizard Shield just in time. The archer grinned and notched another, waiting for Val to fly away and negate his Wizard Shield, sensing they had the advantage.

  Footsteps pounded on the stairs. Val had to think of something fast. He used his staff as a deterrent while he worked to summon bigger magic. Focus, he whispered to himself. Focus the will and release. Focus and release. Focusreleasefocusreleasefocusreleasefocusrelease

  Black lightning crackled at his fingertips. He was backed against the open window, but the men stopped moving when they saw Spirit Fire emerge. Still, he wasn’t sure how much energy he could expend. What if he killed three of the men and ran dry of magic, leaving him defenseless against the others?

  He should have worked harder to understand his limits. And now it was too late.

  As they rushed forward, Val made a snap decision. He pointed his hands downward, at the men’s feet, and disintegrated the wooden floorboards. Arms flailing, all five men fell through the jagged tear in the floor.

  Val extinguished the sparks. He had to conserve enough energy for flight. The archer released another arrow that fell harmlessly to the floor, turned aside by Val’s Wizard Shield. He sent the archer toppling backwards with a strong push of air, then turned and flew out of the window, soaring high to escape the marksmen below.

  He caught up with the others before they reached the old fort. After checking to ensure no new demons infested the ruins, the party decided to camp for the night, in case the villagers mounted a pursuit. They reasoned the twin threat of demons and angry mages would deter them.

  “Ye learned an important lesson tonight, boy,” Rucker said as he and Val took first watch. The sky above the village still smoldered, though not as brightly as before.

  “You don’t need to tell me how vulnerable I am,” Val muttered. “Isn’t that why wizards formed the Congregation in the first place? To protect themselves against the prejudice of angry mobs?”

  The old adventurer eyed him carefully. “Aye.”

  “What if the town had attacked a few elder mages?” he asked, still seething at the senseless murder of the legate. “I doubt they would like the outcome.”

  “I doubt it, too.” Rucker spat. “But are ye an elder mage? Or high in a tower in the Wizard District? Didn’t think so. The lesson was for ye, not them.”

  Val gripped his staff and peered into the blackness. “Lesson learned.”

  No one approached them during the night. The villagers probably thought they had returned to Londyn. At first light, the party set out for the wall of mist, tracking it to the southeast. They moved slowly so Val could test the strength of the barrier periodically.

  There was no breakthrough, and they spent the next night camped atop a high, sloping moor with nothing but wild countryside as far as the eye could see. The air smelled damp and earthy.

  “We’re running into peat bog territory,” Rucker said. “We’ll have to watch our step.”

  Synne took first watch by herself. Val laid his sleeping roll n
ext to Adaira’s, studying his father’s spellbook while the others slept. He examined a number of spells, including Spirit Radiance, which allowed a mage to create a light source directly from spirit, and Moon Ray, a cousin to the Sun Ray spell that, his father had noted, the Battle Mages of the Mayan Kingdom employed.

  Val read about a spell called Mind Whip, though he didn’t understand the principle or the execution. He also started practicing an advanced form of Wizard Shield called Spirit Armor.

  When he finally turned in, Adaira stirred on her sleeping roll beside him and reached for his hand.

  “It’s beautiful out here,” Adaira said dreamily, still half-asleep. “So many stars.”

  Val had to agree. As he lay on his back and stared at the constellations speckling the firmament like exploded silver, he wondered how many worlds his father had seen.

  She murmured, “Did you know Londyn has an underground transport system with wooden rail cars powered by wizards?”

  He smiled at her half-conscious rambling. “I did not.”

  “Let’s ride it together one day. Good night, my love,” she said, so softly he wondered if he had heard her correctly. He turned his head, but she was already asleep.

  Another frustrating morning probing the mist. What if they failed before they even began? Would the queen send him back to prison, and Adaira along with him? Would they execute them?

  He didn’t want to find out. They had to break through.

  “What about your magic?” he asked Dida, as they delved deeper into the countryside, traipsing through tangled woods and mist-soaked valleys. “Is there anything you know that might help?”

  “Bibliomancy spells often intersect with other dimensions, true, but we employ mathematics and principles of physics, combined with runeology and general principles of magic. We do not manipulate spirit itself.”

  Rucker grew increasingly skeptical of their chances, until Val worried he would abandon the quest. Knowing his loss would be catastrophic, Val began trying inventive methods to breach the barrier. He sent Spirit Fire arcing into the wall of fog, tried a light spell to burn away the mist, and joined forces with Dida and Adaira to produce a hurricane-force Wind Push. Nothing seemed to affect it. Caring less and less about his personal safety, Val tied together every bit of rope and loose clothing he could muster, attached it to his waist, and ventured deep inside the fog.

  No black shadows approached him, but neither did he make any progress. As far as he could tell, the world inside the mist was gray and unchanging.

  They ate a cold lunch beside a waterfall that tumbled off a steep embankment right at the edge of the fog. Forced by the villagers to set out prematurely, they carried but a week’s worth of emergency provisions in their packs. Munching on his ration of dried beef, Dida stood and walked to the edge of the waterfall. He closed his eyes as if deep in concentration. Val wandered over and asked him what he was doing.

  “The tellurian energies are strong here,” Dida said. “Not the highest we have seen, but potent.” He wagged a finger. “Something else comes to mind. Flowing water interacts with different energies in different manners, sometimes enhancing, sometimes retarding.”

  “And?” Val said, intrigued. “Can you sense a difference here?”

  “Only a slight one. But part of the waterfall is flowing inside the wall of fog.”

  “You think that might matter?”

  Dida gave a helpless shrug. “I’m unable to judge the strength of spirit. But I think it bears investigation.”

  Val pressed his lips together and nodded. As he stood beside Dida and began to gather his will, the bibliomancer grabbed his shoulder and pointed at the waterfall. “I would advise standing there,” he said. “Right where they meet.”

  “Underneath the waterfall?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  It was cold, maybe fifty-five degrees. Val grimaced and stripped down. Adaira wandered over, chuckling. “Are you that desperate for a wash?”

  “Get everything packed and ready to go,” he said, forcing conviction into his tone. “Just in case.”

  Adaira’s eyebrows rose, but Val had already started to wade into the freezing water. His legs numbed by the time he reached the waterfall, and when he stepped underneath the flow that abutted the wall of fog, the shock of cold water made him gasp. He hoped he could endure long enough to test Dida’s theory.

  As Val concentrated, sifting through spirit while inside the fog as he had done a hundred times already, he was shocked to notice an immediate difference. Instead of pushing through wet concrete, it felt like he was trying to catch a greased pig. The stuff of spirit slipped away from him as if buffeted by the falling water, and it took everything Val had to hold on.

  But when he finally grasped it, good and true, the barrier felt much weaker.

  “To me!” he roared, fighting to maintain his mental hold. “Grab on!”

  His back was to the party, his eyes closed so he could focus, but soon he felt hands grabbing onto his arms and waist. Moments later, Adaira shouted that they were ready.

  Val pushed. Hard.

  And felt himself moving forward, through the veil of spirit.

  He worked to control his excitement. It was the first time he had made real progress. As with the Planewalk, the task grew more difficult over time, each step heavier and less steady than the last, until he felt as if he were trying to control an oil-drenched boulder on a Slip ’n’ Slide.

  It was too hard. He couldn’t do it. Muffled shouts of encouragement from the others reached his ears, as if coming from faraway. While it bolstered his spirits, his greatest motivation came from inside.

  You have to get through the barrier, Val. Failure is not an option. It never has been. It never will be.

  He thought of his brothers and the threat of execution and reached deep into his well of power, opening himself as he never had before, feeling the magic burn through him, not caring if it ripped a hole in him. He was getting through this invisible barrier he didn’t even understand. He was getting through it right damn now.

  With another roar, he made a final push, willing his way through, and then he felt as if he were falling. After a moment of panic, he landed on a spongy but firm surface, and got a whiff of morning dew.

  When he opened his eyes, the world had changed.

  -15-

  Mala kept two waterproof lanolin bags in one of her pouches. The sacks were as thin as silk, magically enhanced by artisamancers. The party stripped down, then split the provisions and clothes between the two packs. Gunnar took one, Mateo the other.

  Coba dove into the cenote again, treading water while everyone shimmied down the ficus roots. Mala and Will brought up the rear, and he worked hard not to stare at her naked, athletic body.

  Or at least not to let her catch him.

  The water was much chillier than Will expected, and quite deep. As he neared the bottom, he noticed a number of uneven passages that erosion had bored into the limestone. As Coba led them through one of the larger openings, he pointed above the hole, to where a small dagger-and-crown symbol had been carved.

  They followed the watery passage, swimming behind a school of green-and-white striped fish. Just as Will began to worry about his oxygen, the channel poured into a half-submerged cavern. Far above their heads, shafts of sunlight streamed through holes in the limestone.

  The party emerged wet and freezing from the sump. Hundreds of stalagmites and stalactites lined the floor and ceiling like the maw of some great beast, and Will had an unpleasant flashback to the journey through the Darklands. Unlike that subterranean environment, deep and dark and smothering, the Yucatan cavern had a pungent mineral smell, moist walls, and vines creeping down from the ceiling.

  As if the cavern were a living, breathing thing.

  “Come,” Coba said, once everyone had dressed. He led them behind a huge stalagmite near one of the walls in the dry half of the cavern. The rock formation concealed a narrow opening that blended into the
wall, unnoticeable from a few feet away.

  Shivering, they followed a damp, uneven passage through a series of caverns with varying levels of water. Will took off his boots and waded through two of them, his feet slipping on algae. The journey was quiet except for the drip of water and the soft rustle of bat wings.

  As Coba ranged ahead, Will and Mala walked side-by-side, ahead of Mateo and Yasmina. Gunnar and Selina guarded the rear. Whenever more than one choice of passage appeared, a dagger-and-crown symbol marked the way.

  In a low voice, Will said to Mala, “You know something about that symbol, don’t you?”

  She gave him a sidelong look. “Aye.”

  “Does it have something to do with the fact that you can read the runes on the map?”

  Her eyes sparked but she didn’t respond.

  “You never offered an explanation,” he said.

  “Perhaps there was a reason for that.”

  “I’m sure of it. You want to tell me what it is?”

  After a moment, she said quietly, “As I said, the runes are written in a code language used only by the Alazashin.”

  “Marguerite told Caleb you were once a member.”

  “Desire produces loose lips.”

  “Why did Leonidus never send an expedition here? Because he couldn’t read the map?”

  “He could have hired a linguist. Or made inquiries. I have to assume it was a recent acquisition, a mission known only to him and interrupted by his demise.”

  “Do you have any idea why the Alazashin might have sent someone looking for the tomb in the first place?”

  “They are always looking for items to improve their craft, or to barter with.”

  “What’re you looking for, Mala?”

  “Is a fabled treasure hoard not reason enough to search?”

  “Maybe. That doesn’t mean you don’t have another reason.”

  “You think too much, Will the Builder.”

  “Is that a crime? Or do you prefer companions who think with their sword arm?”