Magic Zero (27 page)

Timothy knew his way around SkyHaven, and it had been obvious to them all that their destination ought to be the wing of the fortress that had been off limits to the boy while he had lived here. Finding the chamber that was most powerfully protected by the Grandmaster’s magic had been simple enough for one with Verlis’s sorcerous senses. With the rook flying above him and Ivar running behind, Verlis had led Timothy to the corridor beyond that chamber.

The boy went to the wall—careful to stay clear of Verlis’s path—and put both his hands on it, disrupting whatever magical protections Nicodemus had placed there.

With a hiss Verlis spewed a blast of fire from his gullet that incinerated most of the wall, blowing pieces of stone into the room. A blazing brick struck a hooded Alhazred mage in the chest and his robes burst into flame.

Verlis folded his wings tight against his back and stepped into the vaulted chamber. In a sliver of a moment he took in the forces arrayed against them. There were perhaps six young mages, Nicodemus’s acolytes, scattered on one side of the room, near the tall double doors. Several others were on the floor, injured or unconscious. The Wurm’s entrance had disabled one of the hooded mages, but two remained, far more powerful than the acolytes.

Across the room a man was in the grasp of insidious, flitting shadows, creatures of magic unlike any Verlis had seen before. This, he knew, must be Leander Maddox.

And, of course, there was the Grandmaster himself. The moment Verlis focused his gaze upon Nicodemus, he felt an ancient hatred in his heart, as though the fury of all of his race was welling up within him. The Wurm opened his jaws and hissed at the Grandmaster. Fire flickered and heat bellowed up from his chest.

“Wurm!” Nicodemus shouted. “You dare? Filthy, stupid beast, you dare to enter my home?” The Grandmaster shook his head, shielding his eyes from the bright fire that still roared up from portions of the ruined wall, obscuring his view of
Verlis and the corridor beyond. “How? I don’t understand. Your kind do not have the magic to—”

“Don’t need magic,” Verlis growled, wings unfurling, curling his hands into deadly claws. “I’m adept enough, don’t you doubt it. But I didn’t need magic to get to you.”

Verlis enjoyed the confusion in the archmage’s eyes and the way his mouth worked as he searched for an answer. In a moment Nicodemus would do what he had always done—destroy the things he did not understand. But he was not going to get that moment.

The Wurm folded his wings again, knowing that his companions would have come up behind him in the chaos of fire and smoke. When he put his wings down, the Grandmaster sputtered with fury, for Verlis had revealed his secret weapon, the way in which he had been able to break through the spells protecting this room.

Timothy Cade stood at his side, the black-feathered Edgar perched upon his shoulder.

“Boy,” Nicodemus said, as though he were scolding the young man. “You have made me very, very angry.”

Timothy uttered a soft laugh of amazement. “Good.”

Nicodemus raised both hands and a massive wave of sickly yellow energy erupted from them, a hex that shot across the room at Timothy with a thunderous clamor. The two hooded mystics attacked as well, emerald light arcing like daggers from their fingers. Several of the acolytes were unprepared, but the others cast spells of their own. The air shimmered between them and the boy as the various magics collided and merged
into a churning storm of malice that should have torn him apart.

The rook took flight, escaping the attack. But the boy did not move.

A rainbow of mist circled Timothy for a moment, and then dispersed. Verlis glanced down to see the boy’s smile disappear, and then he started toward Nicodemus. From behind Timothy, the Asura warrior leaped into the room and quickly merged with the colors within. He was no mage, but Ivar was invisible to the acolytes, and with the burning debris and the smoke, he moved like a ghost. Edgar cawed loudly, drawing their attention, and Ivar raced to attack the acolytes.

Verlis turned on the hooded mystics, launching himself into the air in that vast chamber and breathing down a fountain of liquid fire upon them. The mystics defended themselves with magic Verlis himself knew. When they tried to use sorcery against him, he deflected their attacks as well.

And the battle was on.

*  *  *

Edgar shrieked and swooped above them and the mages sent spells searing the air toward him. The rook was far more than a bird, however. After all, he had been the familiar to the greatest mage in the world before serving Timothy and had been in combat hundreds of times.

“Caw! Caw! Run, you amateurs! There’s only one way this is going to end!” Edgar cried as the rook darted down and raked his talons across the face of a pale-skinned acolyte.

The Asura warrior stepped behind one of the young mages,
staff in hand, and he cracked the length of wood across the back of the man’s skull. Before the acolyte had even hit the ground, Ivar had slipped away. Some of them were shouting at the others to find him, to stop the ghost, but they were frantic now and disorganized. In service to Nicodemus they had never imagined having to fight such an unorthodox battle. If it were mage versus mage, they would certainly have been prepared. But they were not prepared for this odd alliance of an Asura warrior, an angry rook, a fire-breathing Wurm, and an un-magician.

One of the acolytes froze, narrowing her eyes as she managed to get a glimpse of Ivar, despite his blending into the colors of the room. She lunged at him, and he easily sidestepped her attack and shot an elbow back into her face. This fight drew the attention of the others. Ivar shoved the woman backward into two of her companions, and then he slipped into a cloud of smoke and disappeared again.

All the while he kept track of his friends. Verlis fought the Alhazred mages valiantly, but neither the Wurm nor his opponents seemed able to get the upper hand. Edgar expertly avoided attack. But Ivar saw the array of metal parts on the floor and knew what had become of Sheridan. The Asura’s heart was saddened by this, but there was nothing he could do for Sheridan now. There was, however, another ally who needed his aid. In the middle of the room, Leander Maddox was held captive by dark spirits, their ghostly lips fastened to Leander’s flesh, feeding off him.

I must reach Leander Maddox,
he thought.

Ivar continued to fight the acolytes, defeating them one by one. He wanted to be sure that Timothy could concentrate on facing Nicodemus. Then he would see what might be done about the dark spirits.

*  *  *

Timothy advanced across the room toward Nicodemus. The man was cruel and cunning and he knew he ought to have been frightened, yet he could not find any fear inside of him. The Grandmaster was a betrayer at best, and at worst . . . Timothy’s heart ached when he glanced at Leander and the shadow creatures that were swarming around him. He did not want to know the worst of the things that Nicodemus had been responsible for.

“You’ve made a grievous error turning against me, boy. I am the only one in the world who can protect you from your enemies,” Lord Nicodemus said imperiously. His long silver mustache quivered as he spoke, and he pointed an accusatory finger at Timothy.

“You are my enemy,” Timothy replied. “And I can protect myself, thank you.”

The Grandmaster’s normally pale face grew dark red with fury, and he bared his teeth like an animal. With a grunt he muttered words in an ancient tongue and spread his hands wide. Then he spit at Timothy, but his spittle did not hit the ground. It did not land at all. In the blink of an eye it grew into a large sphere of purplish, oily mucous that passed right over Timothy, surrounding him, trapping him inside this strange bubble.

Or so Nicodemus had intended.

Timothy walked right through the bubble as though it wasn’t there, and it burst upon contact with him. He strode up so that he was, at last, face-to-face with the archmage.

“Have I been gone that long?” Timothy asked, glaring at him. “Remember me? I’m the freak. The un-magician. I’ve come back for my friend. And for you, Nicodemus. I’ve come back for you.”

Poisonous hatred filled the Grandmaster’s eyes. Timothy could see Nicodemus weighing his options. The archmage knew he had been trained to fight by an Asura warrior. Nicodemus knew that magic could not harm him. Timothy allowed himself a quick glance around the room and he saw that his friends were doing quite well. The acolytes were all unconscious or moaning on the ground, injured. Two other sorcerers remained, and it appeared that Verlis, Ivar, and Edgar had joined forces against them. It would not be long before Nicodemus and his shadow creatures were the only ones standing against them.

But Nicodemus must have seen this too, for the moment Timothy glanced away, Nicodemus turned and strode to where Leander hung in the midst of the room, suspended several inches off the ground by those black phantoms that preyed upon him. Timothy tried to stop the Grandmaster, but too late.

Nicodemus reached toward Leander. “Another step and I’ll kill him.”

This time Timothy smiled.

Nearly invisible, Ivar appeared beside the Grandmaster and knocked his hand away from Leander.

Timothy raced at Nicodemus. The Grandmaster tried to strike him but the boy dodged his blow, then struck out with a rigid backhand. His knuckles rapped the Grandmaster’s skull and the archmage stumbled to one side. Timothy stepped into a second blow, a flat palm against the Grandmaster’s chest, and Nicodemus fell onto the floor. He looked ridiculous sitting there on the ground with wide eyes, trying to catch his breath.

“The spirits, Timothy!” Ivar called.

The un-magician turned and saw that the shadow creatures seemed now to be strangling Leander and sinking their fingers into his flesh, penetrating him without making visible wounds. But one look at how pale Leander’s face was, at the despair in his eyes, and Timothy knew that invisible wounds could be infinitely worse.

“Leander!” he shouted, and he ran to the man, his friend and mentor, the only mage in this world who had ever really looked out for him. Timothy threw his arms around Leander and held him in an embrace.

The mage went rigid at Timothy’s touch and then abruptly began to sway. Confused and alarmed, he tried to hold Leander up, to keep him from falling. Timothy grabbed hold of him and saw that there was new light in Leander’s eyes, a new awareness that was there in spite of the mage’s weakness.

Then Timothy saw pale, misty figures flitting about above him and around Leander. His breath caught in his throat as he
realized that the shadow creatures were gone.
But no,
he thought.
Not gone. Just free. Free from Nicodemus.

Leander crumbled to his knees and then slid to the floor. Timothy tried to hold him up but the burly mage was simply too huge. Still there was a thin, exhausted smile on Leander’s face as he looked up at Timothy.

“Tim,” the mage said.

“I don’t understand. What happened?”

“They were all . . . draining me. Attached to me,” Leander explained, eyelids fluttering, on the verge of unconsciousness. “Grandmaster . . . leeched their magic out, fed off it for himself. Murdered them, but kept their shades as slaves.”

Timothy glanced around at the wispy white silhouettes that flitted up toward the ceiling, drifting out through the walls.

Leander coughed, and when he spoke his voice was a rasp. “When you touched me, whatever it is in you that cancels out magic . . . it freed them . . . freed their spirits from Nicodemus’s control.”

Timothy shook his head in horror.
Stolen magic,
he thought.
Nicodemus survived on stolen magic, kept himself young, made himself powerful. But that kind of power doesn’t mean anything to me.
Carefully he touched Leander’s face, frowning, so many questions on his mind.

Yet in spite of his horror, he was also elated. He was an abomination to the mages of this world. Without magic, they thought of him as useless at best. A freak at worst. But un-magic could be a useful power of its own.
I did it!
The thought
raced through his mind, over and over.
I did it! I saved Leander. And all of those poor mages . . . I stopped Nicodemus.

Guess I’m not so useless after all.

He smiled, feeling better than he ever had since leaving the Island of Patience. Then he heard Ivar shout his name.

Timothy spun in time to see Nicodemus crouched over Sheridan’s shattered remains. The pieces of the mechanical man were scattered on the floor. He had seen this when he entered the room and his heart had ached at the sight, but he had tried to tell himself that Sheridan might be rebuilt, that Leander was the one in danger at the moment.

Now the Grandmaster reached into the pile of metal parts and shot to his feet, clutching one of the tools that Timothy had built into Sheridan’s chest cavity. It was a metal prong, and upon its end was a razor-sharp circular saw. Nicodemus smiled, his weathered, papery skin wrinkling hideously as he started toward Timothy.

It wasn’t over yet.

Ivar raced across the room, his footfalls silent upon the floor. His skin coloring shifted to try to match his surroundings, but he called out Timothy’s name again, and he drew Nicodemus’s attention. The archmage raised an arm and with an effortless flick of his wrist he struck the Asura warrior with a hex that sent him spinning across the chamber to crash into the wall.

Edgar cawed and swooped down at him, but the Grandmaster used magic to lift some of the still-smoldering stones from the floor and throw them at the rook. Timothy’s
familiar was caught in the left wing by a piece of smoking debris, and it singed his feathers, causing him to crash to the ground with a panicked caw.

“Timothy!” Verlis roared. But the Wurm could do nothing. One of the hooded mystics was still standing, and it was all Verlis could do to shield himself from the mage’s magical attacks on the other side of the room. His wings were folded tight against his back and he vomited fire at the mage, whose robe and hood had been scorched and whose face was charred and blistered. Yet the mage battled on.