Chapter 18
A sense of helplessness washed over me as I watched Rai run toward the skull, leaving the army of undead behind him.
Q was gone in a flash, his superior speed carrying him past the ward lamp and toward the oncoming wizard faster than I could track. I knew from experience just how intimidating the sight of a charging goblin could be, but the young wizard did not react. His face was impassive as he whipped his sword down to the side. His lips moved silently as a gust formed from nowhere, enhancing his leap with the wind at his back.
I saw Q skid to a stop as the leap carried the boy overhead. The goblin's arm moved, a blur of motion accompanied the glint of metal as he threw several blades after the boy. Rai must have felt them coming; perhaps his status as an air mage made him acutely aware of inbound attacks, just as Salvago had been aware of my own back in that nameless town.
The boy spun in mid-air, his sword flashing to knock away two of the blades while a palm thrust sent another two spinning out into the night. The fifth slipped past his defenses, and I saw his body jerk as it sank into his right thigh.
Although no blood spilled from the wound, it must have been enough to break the undead wizard's concentration. His wind spell faltered, and he began the long fall toward the ground, his momentum carrying him toward the skull. Q ran back toward the skull, and likely would have met him before Rai reached his target.
Unwilling to risk it, Argondian stepped forward, flinging one side of his blue velvet coat open as he withdrew a vial of paint. Quickly uncorking it, he flicked the vial toward the oncoming wizard, muttering an incantation in some language I didn't recognize.
"Абавязковы!"
The paint arced up, propelled forward under an unseen power. I watched as it splattered against the boy in strategic locations, striking his wrists and ankles. As he hit the ground, his limbs snapped together, bound by the spell.
It was almost enough to buy Q the time he needed to land a killing blow. But the boy rolled as he hit the turf, and came to his knees facing the goblin. I could just make out his jaw moving soundlessly, and then Q was diving aside, the sudden gust of wind only barely clipping his leg as he narrowly avoided being thrown back.
Rai took that time to cast a spell at the bonds holding him, and his limbs broke free just as Argondian unleashed another vial, paint rocketing toward the boy's face. "Маўчанне!"
The blob of paint struck Rai in the face, sealing his mouth in a half-mask of crimson as it quickly hardened. The boy tried to utter another spell, but it seemed he wasn't used to casting without verbalization, even if it was done silently. Instead, he drew the throwing knife from his thigh and flicked it toward Argondian, where it sunk into the older wizard's forearm.
"Ungh!" Argondian groaned, stumbling to a knee as he reached for the blade. He wasn't completely healed from the injuries he'd taken fighting Salvago and the Hound nights earlier, and having three inches of steel in his arm wasn't helping matters.
While he was dealing with that, the young wizard was doing his best to duel the most accomplished fighter I knew.
The goblin moved with incredible speed, which the boy somehow matched using his talents. His spins and twirls were weightless as he parried Q's attacks. Rai was forced to draw his tanto sword to help fend off the barrage from my friend's enchanted blades, and it was obvious who would win in only a matter of seconds.
Q's left-hand sword swiped in a backhand motion, sweeping across Rai's defensive pose. But while the boy could match his speed, he couldn't match the goblin's strength. The strike spun Rai to one side, shifting him off balance just enough for Q's right-handed thrust to take him in the side, the silver steeled sword plunging into his heart.
The goblin held him there for a moment, pinned on the weapon, before ripping the sword from his body. Rai shook from the blow, falling to his knees. Q whipped the sword to one side, flinging what looked to be congealed blood from the blade, as Rai began to topple over.
But Q apparently hadn't gotten the memo about fighting undead Revenants.
"Q, finish him!" I shouted, even as the enthralled wizard finished swiping across his own mouth with the tanto blade.
My friend tensed at the warning, and was suddenly moving toward the wizard in a blur, his swords raised. But the moment had given Rai time to break the seal over his mouth, and his jaw worked quickly, unleashing a powerful blast of air at the unsuspecting goblin, sending him hurtling back toward the line of zombies.
As Q flew through the air, Rai spun about, beginning a stumbling advance on the skull. Despite the horrific injury he'd taken, the Revenant was still up-right. No blood spilled from that wound either, and I wondered what it would take to kill something clearly not alive.
Argondian stood before the advancing air mage, unarmed other than for his collection of vials. He'd tugged the throwing knife free, and held it in his left fist. His right hand held only a short steel rod of some sort, no longer than a foot in length.
"I am sorry, young Fukui," Argondian said with resignation as the boy's pace quickened, clearly sensing victory. "I am so very sorry."
The boy blurred toward the old man, even as the wizard muttered, "вільготныя ляза."
Motion in his right hand caught my eye, and I watched as a flood of red slipped from the end facing down. It sank to the ground, coiling around like wet paint.
And then it was moving, the wizard's wrist flicking it first backward, and then forward, as the weapon revealed itself to be a whip.
The tip lashed out, and the young wizard tried bringing his sword around to defend. But the whip responded to a twist of Argondian's wrist, moving unnaturally as it evaded the boy's two handed swing. The liquid whip flicked wetly toward the boy's hands, no doubt preparing to coil around them.
Only, I was wrong. The whip did not simply seize the boy's wrists.
It cut right through them.
I watched in horror as the boy fell to his knees, his face twisted into a silent scream as both hands toppled to the turf, still grasping his sword. Rai stared at the stumps of his arms, as if unable to comprehend what had happened. Both were wet with more of the congealed blood that would not spill.
"It is over, boy," the old wizard said, his voice matching his age for the first time.
Rai looked up, a mask of passive indifference replacing the pain he'd briefly felt. Pain is for the living after all, and Rai was no longer that. I saw his jaw begin to move, casting a silent spell. "Don't," Argondian urged, a pleading tone to the word.
The boy didn't stop. He began to thrust his arms forward, preparing to unleash the spell.
Q's sword took his head off before he could finish.
The goblin came to a halt beside him, having freed himself from the mass of the undead. The boy's head tumbled toward Argondian, who looked on with a profound sadness.
I looked away, unable to watch. That's when I saw Nelson beside me in the darkness, watching silently as his apprentice died a final death.
He broke his gaze, turning in my direction in the odd world of the crystal skull. "He was already dead," he said softly, sounding as if he were convincing himself as much as me. After a moment, he lowered his head, and began to recite a prayer. "Oh Buddhas and Bodhisattvas abiding in all directions, Endowed with great compassion, Endowed with foreknowledge, Endowed with divine eye…"
I shifted away, moving my hand to another stone so that I would not have to watch the tears slip down his cheeks.
When I looked up, I found myself staring at Penny, who stood in the light cast by the ward lamp. Vaccaro and Sal were both standing before the crystal skull, each hesitant to attack the girl, who appeared to be content with standing at a distance. She bore the copper wand and twisted staff of wood I'd seen her wield as my ally, now turned against us by dark magics.
Sal gave a mournful trill, trying to coax some recognition from the girl, who's face was slack and without expression.
"Wizard Satakieli," Vaccaro called out to her. "Stand down."
The girl just watched, no sign that she'd even heard the well-dressed man.
Movement caught my eye, and I shifted my gaze down. It took me a second to realize what I was seeing. At first, it simply looked like wind was blowing across the roadway, shifting dust and dirt across it. But after a second, I realized the road itself was moving, slight ridges in the surface itself marking the slow progression of something beneath the surface.
Something that had finally reached the two guardians of the lamp.
"Sal, look out!" I shouted, just as vines and roots shot out from beneath the road.
The flora mage had been tunneling beneath the warden and the salamander, positioning her craftings until they were too close for the defenders to avoid. They burst from the ground, breaking through the paved surface as if it were nothing more than sand. Rubble flew outward as the dark roots wound out and around the two.
I saw the knotted wood pierce both as if their skin and armor offered no resistance. It wrapped around them, before tightening in a flash, crushing them without effort.
I blinked, startled, as neither reacted nor cried out. Neither responded at all to the vines lashing through them. I blinked again, realizing that under no circumstances could vines writhe about in the space that they occupied, no matter how powerful the magics made them.
As I realized what was happening, the two disappeared in a blink, and reappeared half a dozen paces away.
The roots and vines shot toward them, desperate to pull down their quarry. But once again they shot through the space the two defenders seemed to occupy, finding nothing to grasp and crush.
And then those two illusions fell away, and were replaced by a dozen more.
"Wow," I whispered, as a dozen Sals all crouched down and growled in the direction of the girl. Each flickered with bright flames dancing across their bodies, just like the real Sal could produce. The dozen illusions of the well-dressed Vaccaro just stood there, hands in their pockets.
More vines appeared from beneath the ground, lashing out all around the surface of the road. None reached the skull, as a circle someone had carved into the road around it deflected their attempts to dig at the ground beneath it. Roots crept up the outside of the ward, an invisible wall given shape by the wet subterranean wood.
"Stand down, apprentice," Vaccaro said, his voice repeating a dozen times over.
In response, Penny silently raised her twisted staff, and close to two dozen poles shot up from the ground, parallel to her position. Each was slightly bowed, and a second thin shaft was connected to the top.
"Those are atlatl," I observed, somewhat stupefied. In my extensive training with Q, he'd shown me all sorts of weapons, both modern and primitive. One of the earliest forms of projectile was the atlatl, a hand-held stick that was used to throw arrows without a string. The missile was hurled with human strength, a forward throwing motion combined with the snap of the atlatl stick that sent the arrow at its target with impressive speed and accuracy.
Penny had duplicated the affect with bowed bamboo shafts, each bearing a slim pointed projectile. They all bent backwards in unison, before snapping forward with a wooden twang. Primitive arrows flew at the two dozen guardians, whistling through the air as they went.
Every single one missed.
As all of the illusions disappeared in a blink, another Vaccaro appeared directly beside the girl. I saw Penny flinch back in surprise as the warden extended his thin dark cane at the girl, touching it to her before she could react.
"Dormo," he said softly, unleashing a spell on the girl.
There was no flash, no bang. One second Penny was standing; the next she was falling, crashing to the ground with a thud.
Sal appeared a moment later, approaching from the other side of the fallen girl. He gave a soft trill, clearly concerned with her fate.
"Forgive me for what I do," Vaccaro said coldly, drawing the handle of his cane out. His dispassionate voice gave me chills. I saw the flash of the concealed steal, and then it was swooping toward Penny's neck.
"She's alive!" I shouted, hoping I wasn't too late.
Vaccaro's sword froze, perhaps an inch from the girl's skin. "Mister Hayes…" he began.
"I forgot," I said, feeling foolish for my hastily relayed story earlier. "Katya said Salvago was trying something different with Penny. He was trying to enthrall her, bond with her, without her dying first."
The warden continued to hesitate. He glanced toward the skull, the sight of his dark eyes causing me to shiver. "But the bond has been made."
"Yes," I said quickly. "But she didn't die. If we can figure out a way to undo what Salvago did, maybe we can save her." My heart was beating a thousand reps per second. "Please. We have to try."
Vaccaro stared at her, his face hard and grim. There was a darkness there I hadn't seen in the old fort; a cold and pragmatic mind that had seen hard things. I'd seen it before, in those that had served in the fire and police departments. Men and women that did hard things, setting aside their morality at times, and disbelieving in their mortality at others, in order to do what needed to be done, no matter what the cost.
The warden had no desire to kill the girl. But if she were a monster given over to darkness, he would do what needed to be done. He would kill her just as Q had killed Rai, knowing there was no other way.
Only, I had just told him that there might be another way.
I'd introduced that doubt into his mind, and now it coiled and wrapped its way through him like the vines and roots had attempted to do. They seized at the cold detachment he'd worn like an armor, and tore it from him, until there was nothing left but the kind man I'd met before.
"Very well," he said, lowering the blade. "Let us hope you're right."
"Thank you," Argondian whispered across the link. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or Vaccaro. Maybe it was both.
"We will take her back to—" Vaccaro began, before the crack of thunder rocked us all. The connection between the stones seemed to waver for a second, the IMAX view around me rippling with static before solidifying again.
"That came from—" the wizard had begun, but my hand was already moving, shifting to the next stone over.
When the world reappeared, I was staring out from the southernmost ward lamp. I spun it around, looking for the others, and spotted Simon and the other wizard, Lane, both of whom were down.
Standing only a few paces away from the crystal skull was Somboon, his sword raised with lightning crackling along its length. The wizard looked horrible. His body was emaciated, clearly no longer a vessel for the living. The dark splotches from Penny's grass attack still covered his body, the burns horrid to look at in the bright light of the ward lamp. I could see the other wounds he'd taken, first in the fight against Rai, and then later against Simon and Anya. There was simply no way a living thing could take such damage and survive.
A chill passed through me as my free hand idly traced the bandage over my side.
As I watched, the Revenant Warden swiped his dha sword at the skull, the weapon sliding across the invisible wall protecting it. The lightning along the blade sparked, pulsing with power, and the view wavered again as the power disrupted the spells binding us together.
"We're in trouble," Simon said, his teeth gritted in pain. I looked toward where he lay, and saw him cradling his hands. Smoke rose from them, and I watched as he worked at removing the gloves he wore. They appeared to have been severely damaged.
"What's your situation?" Vaccaro called.
"My gloves are fried," Simon replied. "Lane can invoke some serious lightning, but Somboon just rolled with it, redirecting it at me and the ward lamp."
"Jag kommer att prova något annat," Lane said unhelpfully.
The kid started rotating around, so that whatever he unleashed wouldn't hit the crystal skull and its protective barrier. His hands began to glow with a red light, and I saw something flicker between them. It wasn't exactly like lightning; it was more fluid, but still made of energy.
"Careful," Simon warned. He'd shrugged the gloves off, and was wrapping his hands in some fabric. Once those were secured, I saw the fluid from his ectoplasm reserves flowing out, a shield forming on his left arm as a long sword formed in his right.
"Låt oss se dig stoppa detta!" Lane shouted, holding his hands up. The red light arced together again, a swirl of energy flowing back and forth between his hands almost like a solar flare, before he thrust it forward. It surged toward Somboon, and the view from the skull disappeared in a flash of light.
I moved my hand from the stone, afraid of being blinded by the light. I kept my eyes closed, and after a few seconds, I touched the stone again to see what had happened.
Lane was on one knee, clearly spent from the powerful spell. His chest was heaving, but he was in one piece. So was Simon, who was only beginning to peak around the large shield he'd formed.
Somboon, on the other hand, was decidedly not in one piece.
What was left of the wizard lay outside the protective ward around the skull, surrounded by superheated rock. The earth around him was almost like lava, glowing with a bright red light. Flames rippled along Somboon's skin, burning what flesh he had remaining.
His lower half was missing, as was one arm.
"Oh shit," I said, "You just Anakin'ed him."
The Revenant Warden screamed a silent scream, his one good hand clawing at the sky. The melted earth around him was slowly sinking, incinerating what remained. That he was moving at all, that there was even a remote resemblance of life in the man, was due solely to the dark magics that had been worked on him.
"Sweet Lord," Simon said, sounding sick. "How did he survive that?"
"Finish him!" Vaccaro screamed. "Finish him!"
Somboon raised his hand up to the sky, his lips moving silently, as Simon said, "He's finished, Master Vaccaro."
"Finish him!" the elder wizard screamed, clearly running toward their ward lamp. "Before he can cast his Death Cu—"
And then Somboon collapsed. The world exploded, and once again I was awash in pain.