Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (104 page)

“The men beside me here saved Europe last
night. In the largest elven attack against us since the days of
Merlin, these four young men, led by a seventeen-year-old boy,
fought close to two hundred seasoned elves to a stand-still while
eighty of us stood by and gawked.” Not quite true and now I really
wanted to disappear. I slowly started to shift in behind Gordon. He
was big enough to hide behind. Peter proved that.

Watching Bishop speak, though, was an
education. He changed the cadence and volume as he went, watching
the emotions of the audience. I wondered how old he was and how
many speeches by Churchill and Hitler he’d witnessed personally. He
was certainly old enough to have seen Kennedy and King speak, as
well as other masters of that craft.

“And when we thought they were beaten and the
elves tried a death-before-dishonor move, he saw the power draw, he
saw the problem begin, and he provided the answer! And when the
elves dropped a third of the mass of Europe on top of Felix Cahill,
he was there, beating his heart, pumping his lungs, stealing his
pain!” The passion he put in those three words was creepy. “Felix
Cahill lives today because of Seth McClure. We all live today
because of Seth McClure and he has demanded only one thing from us:
that we be polite. Marchand learned that.” A few chuckles rounded
through the crowd. Apparently, the story of me killing his car had
gotten around to a few people.

“Seth was set to go alone to rescue his
brothers, the other two unseeable wizards. Peter threatened him
with something… gruesome if Seth left without him.” Bishop
shuddered at the thought, as did about a third of the men in the
audience. Peter beamed proudly out at the crowd.

“How did that get out?” I whispered to him.
He shrugged but Shrank giggled shrilly from the sling in my shirt
he’d managed to sneak back into. I grimaced, shaking my head and
inching further behind Gordon.

“Gordon managed a more emotional entry and I
believe Mr. Ferrin just didn’t ask at all. The point here is, if we
can provide him with the slightest diversion, the smallest
distraction, then we can help him achieve his goal and thereby
achieve ours. So once again, we’re going to take advantage of young
Mr. McClure and send a message back to the Fae.”

He leaned over the edge of the terrace and
manifested a shaft of silver fire to support himself. The crowd
seemed to lean in with him, expectantly.

“Don’t fuck with us,” he said, barely above a
conversational tone, but everybody heard. The resulting shouts of
approval and agreement could surely be heard in the next county.
And it had the necessary effect. The emotional charge helped to
focus everyone. I just wish the focus wasn’t me.

“Laying it on a little thick thar, aintcha,
Mr. Bishop?” I asked, cringing inside when my accent slipped out so
thick. Then I remembered exactly who I picked that up from, back in
Savannah, and it stopped bothering me. I liked Mr. Barnes, one of
the gardeners, and he deserved the respect he garnered. “I am under
no delusions that my mother is a virgin or that any relative
created the universe.”

Bishop grinned. “You don’t scare me anymore.
I know what buttons to push. Come, we need to know what you plan to
do.”

“Oh, that’s simple. I haven’t the foggiest,”
I said, looking innocently around. “Peter, you got any ideas?”

“Seth, quit picking on Mr. Bishop,” said
Peter, throwing his arm across my shoulders and pulling me from
behind Gordon. “You know perfectly well your first move is to
create a portal to our brothers. It’s what comes after that that we
have no idea about, right?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” I admitted, smiling at
Bishop.

“So you have a way to pierce the veil?”
Bishop asked. “He is notoriously jealous of his borders.”

“We’re not going to go through the veil, so
much as going around it,” I said. Bishop cocked his head and raised
both brows, an expression of “well, spit it out, kid,” without
actually saying it. “I don’t know how to explain it any better than
that.”

“Well, try! We have to follow you,” Bishop
said with aggravation.

I knew what I was going to do, but I didn’t
know what to call it. In the Pacthome, Peter had claimed it was a
summoning when Ethan explained it to him and Peter almost freaked
out. I was going to do that in reverse. Push the two of us to them
by riding that connection. It wasn’t a portal. It could be if you
wanted it, but that was a conscious decision. This was more…
primal. I brushed up against Peter’s mind and gave him the
idea.

After a moment’s consideration, Peter said,
“Yeah, they’re not going to be able to follow that. We’ll have to
give them something they can.” We went back and forth with ideas
for a few minutes then decided on a simple plan. Not a word was
spoken.

“Okay,” I said. “Peter and I will go over
first. I’ll distract him long enough for Peter to get Gordon and
Ferrin over. This should give you enough time to lock onto our
position and start whatever you’re going to do. We don’t need to
know what that is. If we know, we’ll anticipate then he’ll know and
it’ll be useless. If at all possible, your people should take that
portal from Peter. It’ll be harder for the elves to see and force
closed. Okay?”

“Much like what we expected,” Bishop said,
nodding. Hmm. We were getting obvious. We would have to shake
things up soon.

“Where do you want your end?” I asked, ready
to move.

“We’re set up at the top of the hill,” he
said pointing up through the house. I glanced over and saw everyone
from the party had redistributed into groups throughout the fields
surrounding the west side of the house, where we’d been riding a
few hours ago. There was a tent set up there now, atop the hill. I
wrapped the five of us in portals and moved us. Bishop was almost
run over by a man walking to the tent. He quickly side-stepped
Bishop, murmuring apologies as he jostled him. Peter nodded to me
once and he wrapped portals around us and moved the four of us
north to a neighboring hilltop.

I turned to Gordon and Ferrin. I pleaded one
last time, “I really wish you two would change your minds. You
don’t have to do this. You shouldn’t do this.”

“Bullshit,” Ferrin said. “You’re my best
chance at keeping Ian safe. I’m not losing that.”

“You know my answer, Seth,” Gordon said,
crossing his arms on his chest, puffing up. “Get on with it.”

Peter giggled. “Can’t you just feel the
testosterone surge?”

“Good!” I said. “We’re gonna need all the
aggression we can get.”

I faced Peter and stared into his eyes, just
for something to focus on. Gordon and Ferrin moved in behind him on
either side, watching intently. I pushed out my senses and felt the
wards. Peter slipped in beside me, raising his sensitivity with me.
The wards were hot with the activity of the day. Then we slipped
past them and out into the energy planes. Then the astral, too. I
felt the difference again. So did Peter. We felt Bishop questing
out for us, along with Ferrin and Gordon and several others, and
not finding us.

When I spoke, Peter spoke with me and the
words were full of emotion and intent, desire and power. Kir
du’Ahn, Eth’anok’avel. It was just a whisper, at least the sound
was. Ferrin turned to Gordon, quizzically. Again, we spoke, Kir
du’Ahn, Eth’anok’avel. An aura appeared around us in violet, fading
to black. We seek you. The universe began answering our call,
peeling back a layer of reality and showing the veil between
worlds. I pulled energy from the batteries and wrapped it
thoroughly through the aura around us. We were going slowly to be
as subtle as possible, but we do need to get it done. It was time
to put that calm determination to work.

Kir du’Ahn, Eth’anok’avel, we seek you,
brothers.

We come for you, brothers.

We slipped down beneath the veil into a
narrow chasm filled with light purple and pink strands of rotating
energy that stayed just out of reach. We had no doubt that our path
led us to Kieran and Ethan. What I found curious was that we saw a
path at all. Then we were punching a hole into the squirming
strands, turned a bright and angry red by the contact. And we were
in.

“Hello, Seth. I’ve been expecting you.”

I whirled around to face him, the armor
snapping into place. Taking stock as quickly as possible, Peter and
I had pretty much nailed it. I stood in the floor of the Arena.
MacNamara sat atop a very tall throne in the center. The throne
itself looked to be made of bone, but was the palest blue,
deepingdeepening on the way up until the very top, then it burst
with a vibrant orange to mimic the sun. I tied into the perspective
spell and locked in with the Quiver.

“Hi, ya Rat Bastard,” I snarled at him.
“Sorry I won’t be staying.”

I slipped into the Pacthome.

Ten seconds and counting. That’s all I had to
wait and I hated every damn one of them. He had more than that
anyway since I couldn’t leave right away. Five seconds. I paced the
gate again.

Seth’Dur’an o’an, I’m coming, putting the
full force of my will and considerable power into the words.
Sinking into that primal chasm again, I knew for certain this was
not the same as portal travel. This held a certainty to it that the
conduits of portals just didn’t have. Further, there were no
conduits, no intervention of space at all. Just a chasm between
strands of writhing energy and I was standing beside Peter where
Shrank was bound to Kieran. It was the most memorable spot we could
think of that was likely to be empty.

“Just like we predicted,” I told them. “He’s
got ‘em all, maybe seven or eight hundred in the Arena to watch him
win against us, cocky bastard. Y’all right, Peter?” He looked
drained and pale. Peter had made the portal back, grabbing Gordon
and Ferrin on the way. Looking at him now, I should have been the
one to do it—he looked too wasted to move. Gordon stood next to him
protectively, hand on his back as he bent over, breathing hard.

“Just a… little winded… is all,” he panted
out, standing and flashing a smile.

“They’re all in the Arena, but that’s
changing as we speak,” I said. “They’re streaming out after us
now.”

“So he can see you?” asked Ferrin.

“Not outside the Arena,” I answered, snapping
the Crossbow off my back and opening the connection to the
Perspective spell in the Arena. “And let’s see if I can’t make him
want to shut that down.”

Concentrating on the Arena, I looked for the
elves that were giving the orders. Just like any army, there were
hierarchies of rank that processed orders and committed them:
generals, lieutenants, sergeants, and foot soldiers. I aimed for
the middle. I loosed twenty Bolts, shifted a degree, and loosed
another twenty, nice and lazy. All of them were in a very high arc
and came down almost straight out of the sky like a quiet summer
rain.

“Here they come,” I called out. The first
swarm of leaf-eaters to leave the Arena crested the empty ring
where tents and pavilions previously stood. No doubt, they expected
two lonely mages, fairly empty of power, as the environment was low
as well. I rushed forward to meet them, Ferrin took my left and
Gordon, my right. Peter went up. Up? I didn’t have the time to
question how as the Day Sword jumped to my hand, splitting a golden
staff in half and slicing neatly through the neck of the elf
wielding it. He didn’t have time to recognize his or his weapon’s
demise.

The inertia of the swing took me into an
impossible turn. Kicking out with both feet, I connected twice,
hitting an elf with each, snapping one’s neck instantly and
crushing through the skull of the other. I landed, crouching.
Thrusting out, the Night was in my left piercing through the guard
of a sword narrowly missing Gordon and drinking deeply and quickly
of its binding.

“Fire in the hole!” Gordon yelled.

I had no idea what that meant, but he dove
for me and Peter dove for ground. I went with it. A plume of magma
shot up through the ground fifty feet away forward of us, thirty
feet high. The ground was shaking violently as the plume died away
quickly. I grabbed the four of us and moved us away.

MacNamara stood at the top of the Arena,
looking out at our handiwork. He gained control of Gordon’s
miniature volcano within seconds of it being unleashed, but not
before it removed his first wave, some eighty or ninety elves. We
were standing opposite him, on the ledges of the Arena. It offered
a mild blind spot for Ferrin and Gordon. Like most of the tactics
we used against the elves, it would only be useful once.

I sought out Kieran and Ethan on the floor of
the Arena. They were both there, bound together, in a sphere of
energy I couldn’t place. It was like what I saw looking through the
anchor. It rolled away from me whenever I tried to look at a
specific spot.

I heard a whistling noise to my right, then a
portion of the Arena exploded suddenly. MacNamara’s head snapped in
that direction. A second whistle, followed by another explosion
away from the Arena, caught his attention for only moments. It was
much closer and far more colorful. It rocked the Arena as it
collapsed a section of the coliseum, dropping the seats the elves
occupied. The elves were abandoning the Arena, either taking to the
field or exiting to the rooms below.

We needed to up the ante on the destruction.
I pulled the Crossbow and selected a random target. The Quiver
provided me with a silver Bolt this time. Curious to see the
effect, I fired and instantly found a red shaft in place and the
target still acquired in my senses. Curious again, I fired. The
silver Bolt shot across the Arena and, and in a twenty-two foot
radius around the elf it hit, everything was covered in a silver
sheen. It was if the entire area was suddenly layered in a half
inch of solid silver, buffed and polished in a millisecond. Then
the red Bolt hit and the silver lit up in solid crimson energy that
melted down into slag, falling down into the depths below. It
penetrated but I couldn’t tell how far from here.