Magician's End

‘If your magic won’t work on it, can it work on me?’

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Fly me around that thing so I can get to it from behind.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  ‘Who’s the woman with the mace?’

  ‘Sandreena, Sergeant-Adamant of the Order of the Shield of the Weak.’

  ‘Good,’ said Brendan. He turned and shouted, ‘Sandreena!’ His voice cut through the chaos and she looked over.

  He pantomimed her moving to her right, causing the creature to move in the same direction, and she nodded. ‘All right,’ said Brendan. ‘I need to be right up behind it.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Get me a couple of feet above it, then when I shout, let me fall.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ The magician’s expression indicated that he was as concerned for Brendan’s sanity as for his safety.

  ‘No. I’d rather she turned it around, then I could run and jump, except there is no footing.’ The ankle-deep water made the move he desired impossible.

  ‘Ah,’ said Ruffio, now understanding. ‘When?’

  ‘Now!’

  Ruffio waved his hand and suddenly Brendan felt a force lift him up out of the wet garden mud, twisting him slightly as he was elevated to a point immediately behind and above the sea creature. Sandreena did as she was asked and continued to hammer at the monster, keeping his attention.

  ‘Now!’ shouted Brendan and he felt the force holding him vanish. He almost mistimed his blow despite knowing the drop was coming. He held tightly to his down-pointed sword and drove it into a spot above a row of barnacles and below the bulbous back of the monster’s head.

  The sword bit deeply, and Brendan was knocked about for a second as the creature began to thrash. Then he lost his grip on the hilt and fell to the ground, only to be hit by a powerful jet of water that sent him once again crashing into the bushes at the boundary of the garden.

  A cry of pain and rage filled the garden, then suddenly the creature seemed to fall apart, bits and pieces just dropping away from its form. Within a minute, only a pile of foul-smelling debris from the ocean’s bottom remained.

  The rain still pelted them all in the garden, and Brendan looked up to see the blonde warrior extending her hand. ‘Well done, youngster,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Brendan as his once-again-punished body reminded him he was not immortal.

  The man in the finely fashioned robe came and introduced himself as Amirantha and said, ‘Bravery or foolishness, it worked.’

  ‘A bit of both,’ said Ruffio. ‘Now, how are you?’

  ‘Glad your gardener didn’t plant roses,’ Brendan said, pulling twigs out of his hair.

  Ruffio said, ‘Let’s get out of the rain and discuss this. Pug’s study after you’ve dried off?’

  Amirantha and Sandreena nodded. Brendan said, ‘I am going to need some of that healing draught before I sleep, I think. Things are starting to hurt again.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Ruffio. ‘I know how foul that concoction tastes.’

  ‘They always do, don’t they?’

  Dilyna came to Brendan’s side and said, ‘Do you need help, sir?’

  Brendan smiled and found his face hurt. ‘Thank you, but I can manage.’ He turned to Ruffio and said, ‘I’ll clean up and …’ He turned back to Dilyna. ‘You could come by in ten minutes. I don’t know my way to Pug’s study.’

  She almost beamed, then nodded and left.

  Ruffio said, ‘You seem to have charmed our shy girl.’ He looked with barely hidden disgust at the mass of rotting sea life where the monster had stood. ‘Given the circumstances, that’s an achievement.’

  Brendan shrugged. ‘It’s a knack.’

  He left Ruffio, Amirantha, and Sandreena collectively shaking their heads in amusement.

  Brendan was wobbling a bit by the time he reached Pug’s study, Dilyna gripping his arm. ‘Thank you,’ he said, trying to be charming, but only managing to look more pathetic.

  He entered the room and found Ruffio, Amirantha, and Sandreena along with three magicians he didn’t know, sitting down and the two elves seemingly content to stand at the wall.

  ‘Young Prince Brendan,’ said Ruffio as Brendan sank into a chair near the door. ‘Again, your bravery and ingenuity put us all in your debt.’ A smattering of agreement went around the room. Brendan was in too much discomfort to feign modesty. He really didn’t want to be anywhere but in bed at that moment – alone, to his own surprise.

  Ruffio said, ‘Let us go back over what we know.’ He held up a finger. ‘First, we were attacked by an agency that is powerful enough to put a creature into our midst despite our best defences against magic. Second, it was immune to our magic. Lastly, we’ve never seen its like before.’ He looked at Amirantha. ‘Have you?’

  ‘No,’ said the warlock. ‘But I have heard of creatures like it.’

  Sandreena looked at him and said, ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Where I hale from, in Novindus, there are several types of water-based demons, called rakshasa, who are pretty nasty customers.’ Amirantha paused and said, ‘This could get complicated.’

  Sandreena smiled and said, ‘Say on. We need to know and we realize you tend to the pedantic.’

  Brendan realized at that moment there was quite a history between those two, but he found the subject matter interesting.

  ‘Like the demons you and I are more familiar with, the demons of water – those I mentioned are more associated with rivers and lakes than oceans – are one of three basic types: the summoned, the spirit, and the created. The reason none of our magic worked is that that thing was neither spirit nor summoned, but created. It was the work of necromancy, coupled with demonic spirits.’

  Sandreena looked disgusted. ‘So my banishment would not work.’

  ‘Nor mine. Nor apparently any of the magic employed here.’ He looked at Ruffio. ‘Had you a priest of Lims-Kragma here, he would have recognized the necromancy instantly for what it was, and if powerful enough, he would have had means to counter it. Several other temples likewise could have dealt with the creature, though an especially powerful construct can even overcome that.

  ‘But even the most powerful of the created beings have a vulnerability, one still-living part necessary for its continued existence. Find that part and kill it, and the rest falls apart. It’s usually a human head or a heart. The head makes for a more intelligent creature, able to act more independently, but the heart is preferred, for you can encase it in the centre of the creature, providing more protection.

  ‘Young Brendan’s sword did the trick, cutting down through the body into the heart, the one living thing left in it to bind the spirit to the flesh and other matter used to fashion the body. That caused the demonic spirit to flee back to the Fifth Circle and the creature to fall apart.’

  Sandreena looked at Brendan. ‘How did you know where to strike?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t. I just saw an opening between all that armour on its body and the head, a bare spot at the base of its neck. I didn’t think I could hit it and slice the head off, but if I could jump high enough and plunge my blade …’ He shrugged. ‘With all that mud, I couldn’t get a running jump, so I needed you to distract it long enough for Ruffio to magically pick me up and drop me on it.’

  ‘Still,’ said Ruffio, ‘some of our magic should have harmed it.’

  ‘That has me concerned as well,’ said Amirantha. ‘It wasn’t the usual sort of demonic resistance to banishment magic or even physical damage; it was as if the magic wasn’t working when I cast the spell.’

  Several voices echoed agreement. ‘It’s canted everything,’ said one magician. ‘I tried to access my room through a step-through rift to fetch a magical weapon, and it wouldn’t open.’

  ‘I can’t transport to my room, either,’ said another magician.

  Ruffio got a very worried expression. He pulled a Tsurani relocation orb from his pocket, pressed his thumb on a tiny lever and nothing h
appened. He said, ‘One of the properties of this storm seems to be to keep magic from working as it should.’ He lifted his hand and a small pot of flowers in the corner of the room moved upward. ‘Not all magic, but …’

  ‘The important magic,’ finished Sandreena.

  ‘Where did it come from?’ asked Calis. ‘There’s a very nasty storm blowing, so how did it get into that garden?’

  ‘You said it wasn’t conjured,’ said Ruffio to Sandreena, who nodded. ‘Our magical defences prevent any conjuration or translocation from outside. Someone or something had to physically bring that creature here and drop it in that garden.’

  ‘For something to be flying out in that weather …’ said Arkan. He shrugged, leaving the thought unfinished.

  ‘This storm shows no sign of letting up.’

  ‘It’s not natural,’ said another magician. ‘I know as much about weather-magic as any man here, and this storm is being manipulated.’

  ‘To what end?’ asked Brendan.

  Sandreena’s smile was ironic, ‘To keep us busy here.’

  ‘So we aren’t somewhere else,’ finished Brendan. He sank back in his chair, fatigue washing over him.

  ‘In the Grey Towers Mountains,’ supplied Arkan.

  ‘At E’bar,’ finished Calis.

  Ruffio sat, ‘Then we have but one task. We need to find the source of this storm, and put an end to it.’

  Brendan looked out of the shuttered window as if he could somehow see through the heavy wood, and knew what he would witness if he had that ability. He had lived on the coast his entire life and could tell from the sounds that the winds were mounting, and trees were bending before them. Soon roof tiles would be torn away and smaller buildings knocked over.

  And as the elves had observed, it was all designed to keep them from returning to the elven city and the struggling defenders trying to keep a nameless horror at bay.

  • CHAPTER NINE •

  Journey III

  NAKOR RAN.

  He had appeared in what looked like familiar grassland, and had hiked to the top of a small knoll to look around, only to discover three very angry riders heading his way. A sense of the familiar washed over him, as he ran away from them. He evaded the first rider to overtake him, rolling underneath the horse he rode, dodging the next two riders.

  Once before in his life he had enjoyed such an encounter, rolling under horses, taunting riders and otherwise making the best of a very bad situation, but today he had misplaced his sense of humour. The three riders looked remarkably like the three Ashunta warriors he had cheated at cards many years before. The one currently trying to brain him with a ceremonial war club wore leather leggings, no shirt, and a leather vest. His companions were dressed in a different fashion, one in leather armour, the other in an ornate red shirt, flop hat, and leather knee-high boots, yet all had the ceremonial band holding their long, flowing hair back, set with a single feather.

  Nakor remembered this encounter and how it had previously ended, but lacked patience to see if things turned out as before. He might look like the card cheat who had swindled these three before, but he still possessed a demon’s powers. He jumped up and knocked one of the three riders from his horse, and leaped from that mount to the next one, swatting that rider off as he would a bothersome insect.

  The third rider shouted a war-cry and charged, and Nakor leaped again and drove his shoulder into the rider’s chest, knocking him from his horse. Nakor hit the ground, tucking and rolling, and came to his feet ready for more.

  He turned and the riders were gone.

  Standing a short distance away was a familiar figure, one Nakor had never expected to see again in his life. Looking amused, the red-haired young man walked slowly down the hill.

  ‘Nakor!’ he said, throwing his arms around the little man, lifting him off his feet.

  ‘Borric,’ said Nakor.

  Putting Nakor down, Borric looked around and said, ‘Am I dead?’

  ‘In one sense,’ said Nakor, ‘we both are. But I think differently.’

  ‘As obscure as always.’

  ‘It’s my nature,’ said the little man, laughing. He reached into his shoulder bag and said, ‘Want an orange?’

  Borric conDoin, eldest of twin sons of Prince Arutha of Krondor, and Hal, Martin, and Brendan’s many-times-great-uncle reached out with delight and said, ‘Thank you.’ He stuck his thumbnail into the orange and began peeling it.

  Nakor looked around and said, ‘Some things are missing?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Borric. ‘The caravan and Ghuda and Suli Abul and the others.’

  ‘So we’re really not where we think we are,’ said Nakor.

  ‘Actually,’ corrected Borric, ‘we are not where we appear to be. As I have no idea where we are, I’m not thinking about it.’

  Nakor grinned. ‘You learned a few things.’

  Borric smiled. ‘You have to, being king.’

  ‘What do you last remember?’ asked Nakor.

  ‘Lying in bed, listening to a priest droning on; I was silently praying to Lims-Kragma to take me so I wouldn’t have to endure the sound of his voice any more. I know my wife was there, and other family, but the last year … it wasn’t kind.’ He looked around, smelling deeply. ‘Flowers blooming, close by.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘The worst thing about ageing, Nakor, is that until the mind goes, you think you’re eternally … thirteen years old!’ He laughed. ‘Perhaps lacking some of that youthful optimism, and certainly knowing the sting of setbacks a great deal more, but in the end, there’s still a child in there somewhere.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘If you but just let it thrive.’ Then he laughed again. ‘Look who I’m talking to. You’ve always let the child in you find wonders.’

  Borric sighed. ‘The thing is, that child wants to run, jump, swim, love, fight, sing, and all the joys of being young, in just existing and feeling invincible and eternal.’ He smiled. ‘But the body won’t answer. You try to leap to your feet as you did when young, but there’s a pain in your back, and one knee wobbles and someone is there with an outstretched hand to guide you.’ His expression turned wistful. ‘The last year, though, I would be talking and then … I was somewhere else, and hours had fled. I could look at the faces of old friends and their names … were missing. My children … sometimes I confused them.’ He looked regretful. ‘You’ve made the right choice, Nakor, in not growing old.’

  ‘I can’t say I had much choice in the matter,’ said the little man, biting into his orange. ‘Something to do with the power to do tricks that I was given.’

  Borric laughed. He looked down at his hands and flexed them. They were the hands of a young warrior in his prime. ‘I feel wonderful. Though …’

  ‘Though what?’

  ‘This small cut, here,’ he said, pointing to the back of his left hand. ‘I remember exactly how I got that. When we were storming through the imperial palace, trying to save the empress. With all the knocking about Erland, Ghuda and I did, the sword fights and brawling, I banged my left hand against a damn lantern on a metal tripod, and got this annoying little cut.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Nakor. ‘As I suspected, you are not some creation of the gods given Borric’s memories, but it is really you. Somehow a tiny part of you was captured and brought forward to this moment.’

  Borric put his hands on his hips and looked down. ‘I think I know. Right after we left Kesh to return to Krondor, a bit after we dropped you off at Stardock, when Erland and I were perhaps two nights away from home, we were sleeping next to our horses and I awoke.’ He put his hand on his chest. ‘I felt this … slice of cold.’

  ‘Slice?’ Nakor’s expression was now very curious and lacking the usual delight he showed faced with a conundrum.

  ‘There was an … echo, for lack of a better word. A similar cut of cold.’

  Nakor was silent and then said, ‘I think I understand.’

  ‘What?’ asked Borric.

 
‘If I am right, a tiny sliver of your existence, the briefest moment of your life, was captured, and kept, for this meeting. It was your life, cut so thinly, that your existence jumped that infinitesimally small space, so your life didn’t end there. But a bit of that life was taken from you.’

  ‘Odd,’ said Borric. ‘How is it, then, my memories after that time are with me, from then to taking the Crown when Uncle Lyam died, to my marriage, children, all the palace years … to my own death?’ He looked around, the wind picking up a little. He turned his face to the sun, smiled, and extended his arms. ‘If I am only to remain for a moment, at least my last memory will be of sunshine on my face, wind carrying the scent of tall grass, and a conversation with the most amusing man I ever encountered.’

  Nakor said, ‘Thank you, but beyond amusing, I am also very curious. If I understand what is occurring, your presence was arranged to impart knowledge to me.’

  ‘Ah,’ laughed Borric. ‘I can’t begin to imagine what I could ever teach you, Nakor.’ He shook his head and said, ‘You know, Erland and I always regretted that you never left the west to come visit.’

  Nakor shook his head. ‘After our adventure in Kesh, I’d had enough of palaces for a while.’ He sighed. ‘I did visit Krondor, once, when Jimmy was duke. That’s a nice palace.’

  Borric’s expression turned thoughtful. ‘That was my home, where I grew up.’

  ‘Very nice place. Lots of rooms.’

  Borric laughed again and looked around. ‘Is …? Did you hear something?’

  Nakor cocked his head. ‘A pipe … and a drum, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘Odd,’ said Borric, casting around. ‘This way, I think,’ he said, pointing up a rise. He took two steps, then stopped. ‘I remember this place.’ He pointed behind Nakor. ‘Shouldn’t there be a river that way about a quarter of a mile?’

  Nakor nodded, ‘On the other side of the road that isn’t there, either. Yes.’

  ‘So on the other side of this ridge is that nice little vale where we camped the night after you joined the caravan with Ghuda and me!’

  Borric was about to walk up the rise when Nakor said, ‘Wait.’