A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) (27 page)

34

Ignalius Potchkins was a madman. Friendly, clever, and endlessly endearing, but clearly crazed beyond any reach of reason. Niel could think of no other cause for the professor’s outrageous assertions.

The source of his good-natured exasperation with the professor was their banter that had ensued from the moment Niel realized he had woken before the others and poked his head above deck.

The conversation started innocently, with Potchkins wishing a good morning and inviting him to examine the bridge and the various instruments that made piloting the craft possible. A wide glass cylinder there caught Niel’s attention. Inside it clicked and turned an intricate array of gears and springs situated over a swinging pendulum. The cylinder itself sat mounted on an equally complex tray designed to keep the device level no matter what the vessel’s movement. According to the professor, the delicate, extremely sensitive mechanism aided in determining their position in relation to the world below.

“Wouldn’t it be simpler and more reliable to use magic?” Niel had asked—the last words he could remember getting in edgewise, because the question sent Potchkins tumbling down a long and winding stream of consciousness.

Niel sat patiently on the bench by the steering wheel as the professor spoke, facing him intently with one elbow propped up on the railing.

“The trouble with you magicians,” Potchkins prattled merrily, “is that when someone comes to you and says they’re hungry, not only do you feed them instead of providing them the means to feed themselves, but you give them such a delicious meal that they lose interest in
ever
feeding themselves. When they get hungry again, they’ll go find the nearest mage.”

Niel knew full well that magicians tended not to involve themselves with such charity unless they’d found something in it for themselves—but the professor’s metaphor made an interesting summation for a string of equally interesting points.

“So what would you have the College do?” Niel asked, baiting his new friend. “Ignore the needs of those who solicit their help?”

The tahlerig smiled. “Now you’re just being difficult. What I’m saying, what I’ve been blustering about all along, is that had the College never existed, then neither would the need for the College.”

“Then let me ask you this,” Niel said, gesturing to the ship in general. “If the College had never existed, would you have been compelled to build this?”

There came an unexpected, somber silence.

“Frankly,” Potchkins replied, “I think if the College never existed, none of us would be here, faced with what we are.”

Niel peered down at the expanse of sea moving dreamlike far beneath them.

“Well said,” he muttered.

While Niel felt the ship’s motion in his stomach, the tiny white crests on the waves below looked frozen in place, like an endless painting of an ocean scrolling by that he could reach over the railing and touch. He closed his eyes and lifted his face into the cold, steady wind.

For all the wonders available through Canon, Niel could not imagine any of them coming close to the glorious sensations of being aboard the professor’s ship. He breathed the delicious scents of sea and sky, surprised he could still detect the salty aroma from so high up.

Then Niel thought of that faraway day on the bluff overlooking the Nilfranian, and wondered on what side of Potchkins’s argument he had just landed.

***

That night the sky finally began to clear. Niel stood near the bow watching the moons as they gleamed beyond the patchy, silvery quilt of clouds—poor, blind Aial forever searching her skirts in vain for tiny Erbi, her mischievous child.

Arwin’s voice surprised him, but not enough to startle.

“In some ways it’s better than even the Forest, isn’t it?”

Niel gave a small smile of agreement.

Arwin approached, leaned back, and rested his elbows on the railing.

“Since Jharal’s out of earshot,” he said, “I need to ask you about what happened before Glernny. My keen sense for the obvious tells me the spell I asked you to learn didn’t quite take.”

“No,” Niel acknowledged. “It didn’t.”

Arwin’s brow wrinkled. “Do you know why? I mean, do you know what was different from the Light spell?”

Niel tapped with his fingers the pouch hanging beneath his tunic. “It has to be the stone. I can’t imagine another reason.”

“Any guess what it’s doing?”

Niel chewed at his bottom lip, then held up his wrist. “Before I left home, I charmed this rope bracelet. I made it to help me keep my balance so I wouldn’t get seasick. I’d never been on a boat before.”

Arwin arched an eyebrow. “Would your bracelet also explain your uncanny horsemanship at Hallen’s?”

Niel gave a scant smile. “It was slightly more effective than I’d counted on.”

“But at Glernny you fell getting off the horse.”

“Right. The charm I used on the bracelet was actually a simplified rendering of a larger spell from one of my teacher’s Canonic tomes. Funny now, I guess, to think he even had one. Anyhow, the Sleep spell was also from Canon.”

“And you learned the Light spell before meeting our Galiiantha friends.”

Niel toyed with the pouch once more. “My guess is that the energies in this aren’t exactly compatible with Canon.”

Arwin held up a finger. “But Lleryth said the College Elders use their own portions of the Heart.”

“Maybe they found a way to reconcile the differences. Or maybe their greater experience with magic made them better at using their cantles. I don’t know.”

“Or maybe,” Peck said, emerging from the shadows with a steaming mug cupped in both hands, “they’ve long since abandoned Canon in favor of the Heart.”

That time, Niel did jump.

“Could be,” he said, deciding not to bother asking how long Peck had been listening. He faced out toward the moons again.

“What are you thinking, Apprentice?” Arwin asked.

“I keep hearing Lleryth telling me how much hinges on everything that’s about to happen.”

“And what do you suppose is going to happen?”

Niel shrugged. “I suppose if we go along with the stories, then everything’s about to change.”

Arwin crossed his arms. “Hopefully for the better.”

Peck propped himself up against a wooden beam as he took a careful sip.

“That means,” he said, “the only thing left is to figure out how to do that—change everything. I don’t recall there being much written about what the Apostate is actually supposed to do.”

Niel didn’t reply. He grappled instead with the utter strangeness of the conversation, and then wondered how one normally discussed the possible fate of the world.

Arwin nudged him with a gloved fist. “You all right?”

“Like you said, I’m scared.” Niel looked toward the professor, still dutifully at the helm. Then he looked up at the moons as they slipped back beneath the steely cover of clouds. “But fable or not,” he said, “we do not want the Heart to be healed. We simply cannot let that happen.”

***

Dawn came as a bleak wince, a pallor that seeped into the horizon between the angry greys of the sky and the drab, jagged contours of the Peridehn Mountains.

Niel shuddered. The frigid wind racing at them across the Black Plains bit hard even through the protection of his cloak. He scarcely remembered the last time he had slept, though the steady pull he felt toward their destination provided sufficient counterbalance to his fatigue.

The others stood with him at the bow of the flying ship, each wrapped in a Galiiantha cloak as well. The few necessities they had packed lay in knapsacks at their feet.

Niel peered over the railing. The professor sailed close to the ground, making the dark, cracked surface of the Plains seem glacial. Ahead rose the ominous form of the Black Wall against the like-hued mountains, though the strength of the wind made it feel as if the ship moved diagonally rather than directly toward it.

“Well,” Arwin said, “I hope they’re home.”

Jharal crossed his arms over his huge chest. “I don’t.”

Niel looked at neither of them, unable to break his gaze from the forbidding shape growing ever larger in their path.

***

Potchkins offered to land the ship directly on top of the Wall to make disembarking that much easier, but Arwin decided against it. Not only could they not be sure of the structure’s soundness, but it wouldn’t take much longer to get under way from the ground than it would from atop the Wall. Plus, tucked down beside the Wall, the ship would remain at least somewhat concealed. Potchkins acquiesced, swung the vessel gracefully about and slowed to a gentle stop parallel to the enormous base of the Black Wall.

It had taken the ship little more than an hour to traverse the Black Plains. For a moment, Niel felt guilty for not having spent more time with the professor given the tremendous effort he had made to help them. But then Niel smiled to himself as he recalled how conspicuously the tahlerig had kept a distance from the group to ensure their privacy. He decided if future circumstances allowed, he would get to know Professor Ignalius Potchkins as well as he could.

During their farewells the professor gave Niel’s wrist an extra pat as they shook hands, and as Niel climbed down the rope ladder, Potchkins leaned over the railing to wave at them one last time.

“I’ll be waiting right here!”

“Believe me, Professor,” Arwin replied, “we’ll keep that well in mind.”

Niel watched the tahlerig nod and smile, then turn to busy himself about the ship.

35

She didn’t have to search her chest to know her cantle had been taken. The cold, engulfing blackness of its absence left no doubt. She spent what felt like several eternities huddled and weeping.

The very moment she accepted the cantle’s loss and began to calm, there appeared a light. First, she thought the light hopelessly distant. When it beckoned, however, she flew toward it without even the most errant notion of resistance.

After several more eternities of effort, she reached the light. Warm. Beautiful. She bathed in the fierce fire of the knowledge and comfort it provided, gorged on its nourishment like a creature crazed from hunger finally allowed to feed. Had she been permitted, she would have willingly lost herself in the bountiful oblivion of that light. Instead, as soon as it sensed she had taken in enough to sustain her, the light withdrew, though it remained tantalizingly near—a promise of reward should she again be found deserving.

Tell me, can you feel him approaching?

“Yes,” Ennalen said.

Very good. That pleases me.

“Then I am pleased.”

It pleases you as well that he intends to separate us forever? You will allow him to take me?

The idea flooded her with desolate hatred.

“No,” she seethed. “Never.”

What will happen to him when he tries?

Ennalen had to pause to prevent her churning rage from consuming her. She placed her hand on one of the small, nearby statues. Only then could she whisper her reply:

“Everything that can.”

36

The wind came, razor-cold and in shrieks, whipping their cloaks behind them as they stood and watched the vessel bob in place like a cork on water—another reason Arwin had decided against landing on the Wall. With wind so ferocious, starting from the ground and climbing to the top was much safer. The professor had apparently gone below deck.

“You know,” Arwin said, “we never asked the name of his ship.”

“I wonder if he’s given it one,” Cally replied.

“Surely he has,” Niel said. “I thought sailing a ship without a name is bad luck, isn’t it?”

“Oh, it must have,” Peck said as he turned away. “Otherwise our boundless good fortune would have come to an end.”

The main corridor struck Niel as exceedingly narrow given its immense length. Pushed back into arched alcoves, with a column between each, stood thousands of large, richly detailed statues of creatures Niel had never before seen—remarkable works mounted on great blocks of dark, burnished marble. Niel couldn’t help speculating about the sculptor and the phenomenal effort necessary to create so many wondrous and distinctly individual figures. Something about the way they’d been shaped, though, suggested there was more to them than simply their appearance, especially with how the bizarre, ambient chorus of wind through crumbling stone seemed to emanate from the statues’ open mouths.

Niel pulled his hands inside his cloak and folded them over his chest, over the pouch beneath his tunic. The rushing air brought a penetrating chill from beyond the edge of the Wall, but the small stone allowed him to acknowledge the discomfort and set it aside without yielding to it.

The group moved in single file toward the massive set of wide, shallow stairs leading to the mouth of the cavern. Peck stayed in front, stepping with the watchful deliberateness of a cat expecting to be pounced upon at any moment. Niel followed him, trailed by Cally and Jharal in the middle with Arwin at the rear, who spent as much time walking backward as not.

At the foot of the staircase Peck stopped so suddenly he had to reach behind and yank Niel to a halt as well. As Peck’s hand tightened around his arm, a dreadful shiver ran through Niel’s body, making his stomach lurch and the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

It hadn’t come from Peck, though.

Niel studied the uncertain concentration creasing Peck’s angular face.

“Lord Elder,” he whispered, “tell me that was my imagination.”

Niel shook his head.

Jharal had taken up a defensive stance with Cally and Arwin, his back toward them, battle axe at the ready.

“Tell you
what
was your imagination?” he asked over his shoulder.

Peck whirled around to face the same direction as Jharal.

“Everyone. Up the stairs.
Now.”

There came another, more violent shudder, and the corridor’s floor buckled as the jolt rippled its way through the stonework. The rest of the group teetered, trying in vain to maintain their balance while Peck rode out the tremor, crouched low in place with arms outspread.

When the tremor subsided, Niel stood and saw what both he and Peck had sensed.

And terror burned away his confusion like fog fleeing a white-hot sun.

An army of the sculptures he had admired only moments ago stalked toward them. As those nearest advanced on the group’s position, others awakened in their wake and left their pedestals to join the brigade. A flood of horrific abominations poured into the center of the walkway, moving not only with unquestionable intent, but with a fluidity wholly incongruous with their construction. While the figures scraped their way forward with a bone-shivering, droning grind of rock on rock, no awkwardness or irregularity hindered their gait.

As though he were suddenly swimming in it, Niel sensed unfathomable magic at work. The stone beneath his shirt seared as it responded to the energies engulfing them. The exotic influence of power as it swirled and filled the corridor could have easily driven Niel to intoxication.

A hulking warrior-figure fronted the horde. The torso and arms looked human, but it had the backward-bent hind legs of a horse, the clawed feet of a reptile, and the squarish head of a mastiff. The monster leveled at them a massive marble sword, its eyes burning with violet malignance.

You were not invited,
it said in a deep, loamy groan.

Peck nudged Niel. “And you thought the bouncer at the Rascal was big.”

As if in reply, the dog-man raised his weapon and made a wicked slice at Peck, but by the time the sword crashed, biting deep into the floor where he should have been, Peck had rolled away and stood far off to the creature’s left.

Bursting from either side of the dog-man like blood-frenzied hounds loosed for the hunt, the other statues rushed forth.

Peck pointed toward the top of the stairway and shouted at Cally. “Get him inside!”

Cally snatched Niel’s wrist, yanked him along behind her, and raced up the long flight of stairs.

Another quake, more severe than the last, pitched the stony floor causing Cally to topple halfway back down the steps. Before she recovered her stance, a pair of spider-like felines scrabbled out from the mass of statues, biting and slashing. Cally’s grunted cry sounded equal parts fear and anger, and it brought Jharal to her side within seconds. He dropped his axe, lifted one of the monsters from Cally and hurled it down the remainder of the stairs. The spider-thing cartwheeled, crumbling to bits by the time it reached the bottom.

The second creature released Cally and launched itself at Jharal, who grabbed his axe and with a wide swipe batted the spider aside. The flat of Jharal’s blade exploded half of the creature’s legs into a rain of gravel.

Niel pushed himself up to see Arwin sprinting toward him. While the statues advanced unabated, he caught a glimpse of Peck beyond Arwin, dodging and dancing around his attackers.

Jharal, beard and hair dusty with the remnants of his adversaries, reached out to Cally, who slapped his hand away. Torn and bloodied, she pressed her back against Jharal’s, readying her sword for the next attack. Jharal poised himself as well, only without the benefit of his axe—his last strike had snapped the blade from the stock, leaving him with nothing more than a great splintered stick to face the creatures drawing near.

A wild battle cry issued from the giant man as he raised the shaft over his head, and the monsters charged.

Niel witnessed only the first few defiant strikes before a river of marble limbs and teeth swallowed Cally and Jharal.

“Gods in heaven,” Arwin gasped as he reached Niel.

From over the edge of the staircase’s upper portion came another collection of clawing and scratching beasts, so close that the grating clicks of mandibles rattled Niel’s teeth. At the lead, an appalling figure resembling from its neck up a skeletal bull pointed a long, jagged talon at them.

You were not invited,
it screeched.

“I don’t think they want us going in there,” Niel said.

“So it would seem.” Arwin set his jaw. “Come on.”

For an instant, Niel felt his companion’s determination, warm like an unexpected embrace, and it brought him to his feet. He and Arwin ran, and the statues took positions to block the entrance above. Arwin shoved Niel aside and with his sword deflected a scythe-like arm that swept between the two of them. Niel staggered but kept his balance and managed to jump from one stair to the next over the thrust of a slender, fish-looking beast with the elongated, fanged face of a hawk.

Step by step, Niel and Arwin ducked and ran toward the opening.

Only a few strides from the top, Niel heard a wrenching cry of pain, and felt a blinding anguish erupt between his own shoulders.

He looked back.

Arwin lay on his stomach, sword on the ground in front of him, his arms and legs splayed out. His already paling face turned up toward Niel, and wine-dark blood bubbled from his mouth. A fiend vaguely resembling a scorpion towered over him, its rapier tail arching over its head and into Arwin’s back, running him through.

The beast leered at Niel with the face of a horridly old woman.

Terror and anger rushed from deep within Niel, blazed through him, and he screamed at the abomination that had felled his friend.

As though he’d struck dead-center with a great hammer, the scorpion-woman burst into a thunderous shower of stone and pebbles. The remaining statues, however, never paused.

Niel ran to retrieve Arwin. Despite his friend’s larger size, and ignoring the weakness left by the waning rush of magical power, Niel threw Arwin’s limp arm over his own shoulder, picked up the sword, and hobbled to the top of the great staircase.

They staggered across the threshold into the cool darkness of the huge chamber. Agony blossomed in Niel’s calf from what felt like a vicious bite, and the two of them tumbled inside.

Niel wheeled around and leveled Arwin’s sword to protect himself and his friend, even if all he could offer was a clumsy, token defense.

The horde did not follow them. Instead, as the creatures reached the chamber’s entrance, each turned its back and sat, one beside the last, then one upon another, until they formed a solid wall of marble worthy of the finest masons, sealing Niel and Arwin in the mountain.