The Copper Gauntlet (19 page)

“Dad!” Call staggered to his feet. The room was full of a burning stink and smoke that stung his eyes.

“No! NO!” Master Joseph cried out, picking up his staff and flinging himself toward Constantine’s body. He yanked the Alkahest free, yelling in pain as his hand closed on the hot metal. Still, he didn’t drop it. Instead, he swung his staff and magic exploded from it, surrounding the Enemy, trying to halt the force that was devouring Constantine’s body. Energy crackled in the room as he cast his preservation spell again and again.

Call limped forward and then stopped, overcome by a wave of dizziness. The edges of his vision were starting to turn dark.
What’s happening to me?
he thought as he slid down to his knees. He felt no pain, but his body was shaking, as though he was being destroyed along with Constantine.

“Run, Call!” Alastair shouted, clutching his burned arm. “Get away from the tomb!”

“I — can’t,” Call gasped, and then there were figures around him, Aaron and Tamara and Jasper, and someone was trying to help him to his feet but his legs wouldn’t work. “Go,” he whispered. “Go without me.”

“Never.” A hand gripped his arm and he realized it was Aaron’s.

“What’s happening to him?” Jasper’s frightened whisper was drowned out by Master Joseph’s cries; Constantine Madden’s chest was collapsing inward, like a balloon with the air sucked out of it.

“Seize the Makar and his friends!” Master Joseph shouted at Stanley. “Kill everyone but Callum!”

The Chaos-ridden began to lurch toward them. Call heard Tamara’s frightened cry and felt her arms around him; all of them were trying to pull him toward the steps, but he was dead weight. He slid from their grasp and hit the floor in front of the steps.

Then everything seemed to vanish, the voices of Call’s friends fading into silence. All he could do was try to keep breathing as a roiling darkness rose in front of his eyes, a pure blackness he had seen before only when it had come from Aaron’s hands, the lightless darkness of the void. Chaos filled him, his thoughts shredded by it, his responses overwhelmed by the power expanding inside of him.

Slowly breath ebbed back into Call’s body. He raised his head, his face wet.

The room was in chaos. Stanley had obeyed Master Joseph’s command and attacked Call’s friends. He loomed over Tamara, who was backing away, summoning fire. She threw it, but it only seemed to singe the Chaos-ridden. It left a burned scorch along Stanley’s chest, but he barely seemed to notice.

Aaron jumped on Stanley’s back, his arm circling the Chaos-ridden’s neck, tightening as though he was attempting to pull Stanley’s head right off. Jasper was using air and earth magic together to throw dust in Stanley’s eyes. Stanley thrashed around but seemed more annoyed than damaged.

Alastair and Master Joseph were struggling over the Alkahest. Master Joseph cracked him across the face with his staff. Alastair staggered back, his face bloody.

“Leave him alone,” Call shouted, crawling toward his father.

Master Joseph spoke a word and Alastair’s legs gave out. He fell to the floor.

Constantine’s body was partially burned away, his chest concave and blackened. Call could see the burned bones of his rib cage through his charred skin. A fresh wave of magic washed over him suddenly, pushing him back into immobility. It felt as if he were watching something unreal, happening at a great distance.

“Call.” Tamara’s voice cut through the fog in Call’s mind. “Call, you have to do something. Order the Chaos-ridden to stop.”

“There’s something wrong with me,” Call whispered, spots dancing in front of his vision. The pressure inside him was still expanding, pushing outward against the limits of his control. He didn’t know what it was, but it felt as if it were going to break him apart.

Tamara’s grip on him tightened. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” she said. “There never has been. You’re Callum Hunt. Now tell that
thing
to stop attacking us. It will listen to you over Master Joseph. You can stop it.”

And so Call brought up one hand, meaning to thrust it forward to hold off Stanley, meaning to tell the Chaos-ridden leader to stop. But as he raised his hand, the pressure inside him broke through the thin shell of his control, like an explosion in slow motion. He stared in shock as his fingers flexed and opened, and for the first time ever, Callum Hunt summoned chaos into the world.

Darkness exploded from the palm of his hand. The shadows rose, circling Stanley, surrounding him with ribbons of blackness. The Chaos-ridden turned tortured eyes toward Call, and Call could see the feeling of betrayal in them. Stanley began to shriek, and Call understood the cries as words, each one stabbing into his ears:
Master, you made me — why do you destroy me?

The shadows collapsed inward, crushing Stanley out of existence.

The darkness spread its tendrils as if in search of other prey. It reached out, spreading toward the others, reaching toward Tamara, toward Jasper, toward Master Joseph — who turned on his heel and ran, clutching the Alkahest, vanishing through the door in the wall that he and Alastair had come through. Alastair tried to stop him, but it was too late. The door slammed shut behind Joseph, locked.

Call couldn’t seem to stop the chaos magic. It flowed out of him like a river, and he felt himself flowing away with it. He remembered what it had felt to fly without a counterweight, to drift away without human cares.

He felt Aaron’s hand on his back, pinning him in place, forcing him to focus. “Call,
enough
.”

And somehow, that allowed Call to turn off the torrent. He couldn’t reverse it, but at least it was no longer pouring out of him like his lifeblood. Shaking, he looked around. The chaos he had unleashed had become living shadows, shadows that were tearing at the edges of the room. Darkness was spreading inexorably, eating away at the walls of the tomb at the pillars that held up the roof, gnawing at the mortar that held the bricks of the underground room together until they started to loosen and fall to the floor.

“We need to get out of here!” Alastair turned away from the doors Master Joseph had escaped through and dashed to the foot of the stairs, gesturing for the others to follow him. “All of you, come on!”

Tamara rose to her feet, pulling Call with her. Along with Jasper and Aaron, she and Call began to race toward Alastair and the steps. Nearby, a piece of roof gave way, and rock tumbled to the ground, exploding at their feet. They swerved, nearly colliding with a patch of spreading black shadow. Jasper yelled and jumped back.

The darkness shot toward them; Aaron thrust his hand out, and a beam of black light shone from his palm: It struck the shadow and enveloped it. Call looked at Aaron in amazement.

“Chaos stops chaos,” Aaron explained.

“I can’t do chaos magic,” Call whispered.

“It looks like you
can
,” Aaron observed, and there was something in his voice, a dark amusement and maybe something less comfortable.

Tamara’s face was smudged. “It’s devouring this whole tomb. Aaron, can you hold it off until we get out?”

“I think I can,” Aaron said, looking around at the shadows, at the crawling magic that deepened them, drawing off everything it touched into the void. “But Call released a lot of chaos energy — I don’t know.”

“Just go,” Call said. He felt better without the chaos in his head, cluttering up his thoughts, but he could still feel something simmering inside of him, something that hadn’t been there before.

“Callum —” Alastair began, but Call cut him off.

“Dad, I need you to get them out of here. Now.”

“What about you?” Tamara asked. “Don’t get some idea about staying behind.”

Call looked Tamara in the eye, willing her to believe him, to trust him just this once. “I won’t. Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

What’s something that’s not behind you?
Call thought grimly.
Ahead. A head. Get it?

Tamara must have seen something in Call’s face, because she nodded once. Jasper was already moving past Alastair. Aaron looked less sure, but with chaos magic burning away the walls around them, he had his hands full. He threw out more and more magic, pushing back the void as they made for the stairs.

Call had only a few moments before Alastair noticed he wasn’t following.

Call drew Miri from her sheath and went to where the remains of Constantine Madden rested on the marble slab.

C
ALL RACED UP
the stairs as quickly as he could go, cursing his leg for slowing him down when the very walls were crumbling away into nothingness. All around, darkness was lapping at his heels, as if it wanted to pull him into its endless embrace. Chaos magic that he’d unleashed but had no idea how to constrain.

“Call,” Alastair was shouting from the corridor, hands thrust up to hold the ceiling above them with magic. “Call, where are you? Call!”

He ran to his father, rocks spinning above them, rocks that would have collapsed had his father not come back for him. “Here,” he said, out of breath. “I’m right here.”

“We’re going together now,” Alastair said. He put out his arm and Call saw that his father’s burned hand had been healed — not completely, but the bubbling black marks were just sore-looking red skin now. “Healing magic,” Alastair explained at Call’s surprised look. “Come on — lean on me.”

“Okay,” said Call, letting his father slide an arm around Call’s shoulders and help him make his way past the bodies of Drew and Jericho, past Verity’s laughing head and out onto the grass where Jasper, Tamara, and Aaron were standing. Aaron had both hands raised and was obviously doing all he could to hold back the chaos magic that was trying to rip the tomb apart. The moment he saw Call and Alastair he collapsed to his knees, letting go.

Blackness roared up like ash pouring out of a volcano. Call and Alastair stopped, Call leaning hard against his dad, as they watched the final resting place of the Enemy of Death be devoured by chaos magic. A thick, oily darkness covered the building, tendrils snaking along the outside like ivy. But as Call stared, he realized that it wasn’t really black — it was something darker, something that his eye was translating into the comprehensible, because what he was seeing was
nothing
. And where nothing touched, the building simply wasn’t, until what they were looking at was the flattened earth where a tomb had once been, Verity’s strange and terrible laughter still hanging in the air.

“Is it gone?” Jasper asked.

Aaron gave him a tired look. “The tomb went to the same place I sent Automotones.”

“Automotones?”
Alastair looked shocked by that pronouncement. “But he’s trapped in the deepest pits of the Magisterium.”

“He
was
,” Call said. “The Magisterium sent him after us.”

Alastair inhaled in a way that he did only when he was angry or surprised or both. He took a few steps away from the rest of the group, obviously trying to clear his head. Call hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder. He was exhausted.

Master Joseph had gotten away — and worse, he’d gotten away with the Alkahest, the very device they’d come to keep out of their hands. The massed army of Chaos-ridden had vanished. Master Joseph must have commanded them to take him back to shore. He’d probably taken all the rowboats, too, just to be a jerk.

Suddenly, Call remembered that Havoc had been with the Chaos-ridden, that Havoc was Chaos-ridden, and so, if Master Joseph could command the rest of them, he could probably command the wolf, too.

“Havoc!” he shouted, panic reigniting in his chest. “Havoc!”

How could he have let his wolf stay outside the tomb? He’d left Havoc behind like Havoc was just a dog, when Havoc was way more than that.

Call rushed along the path back toward the beach, leg aching, nearly in tears, calling for his wolf. It was one more thing he wasn’t ready for, one more thing he couldn’t bear.

“Call!” his father shouted. Call turned and saw Alastair looking weary, walking up the path with Havoc at his heels. Call stared. His dad’s unburned hand was buried in the wolf’s fur, and there was ash on the wolf’s pelt, but he didn’t look otherwise harmed. “He’s okay. You rushed off before we could tell you, but he tried to get back into the tomb. We had to stop him, but it wasn’t easy.”

“Your father held him back,” Aaron said.

Havoc took a few steps toward Call. Call held his arms out and Havoc bounded into them, licking his face.

“That’s a way more touching reunion than you had with me,” Tamara said. She was going over Aaron’s cuts and scratches, using earth magic to heal the worst of them. She’d already fixed Jasper’s bloody lip.

Call patted Havoc on the head. “I should have known Master Joseph wasn’t going to kidnap you. He only likes dead things and weird things.”

“We’re all weird,” Tamara pointed out. She examined Aaron. He’d used what must have been immense amounts of chaos magic without a counterweight and, although he was still standing, he looked on the verge of collapse. “Well, you’re not actively bleeding anymore, but I don’t know enough healing magic to check to see if you have anything sprained, or broken, or —”

“Is anyone going to talk about the fact that Call’s a Makar?” Jasper said, cutting into the discussion.

Everyone looked horrified. “Jasper!” said Tamara.

“Oh, sorry,” Jasper said. “I didn’t realize we were pretending it didn’t happen.” He turned to Call. “Did you know you were a Makar before? Oh, wait, never mind, I forgot I can’t trust anything you say.”

“He didn’t know,” said Alastair. “Chaos magic was locked into Constantine’s body and when the body was destroyed, the chaos magic was released. It must have been attracted to Call’s soul. When Constantine became a Makar, it was because there was a danger to his brother. Jericho was attacked by a rogue elemental in the caverns, and Constantine — made it disappear.”

Tamara looked at him narrowly. “How do you know that?” she said.

“Because I was in the same apprentice group that he was,” said Alastair. “There were five of us. Sarah, Declan, Jericho, Constantine, and me. Rufus was our Master.”

Aaron, Tamara, and Jasper all goggled at him. “They say Constantine got perfect scores on the Trials,” said Jasper. “Perfect scores.”

“We were the best in our year,” said Alastair. He sounded tired and distant, like he was talking about something that had happened a million years ago.

“You were friends with Constantine? Good friends?” Aaron said. Despite being messy and bloody and dirty, he looked ready to defend himself, to defend them all.

“He and Jericho and Sarah were my best friends,” said Alastair. “You know how apprentice groups are.”

“Speaking of which,” Tamara said, casting a worried glance at Aaron, “we need to figure out how to get this apprentice group out of here.”

“Nice segue,” Call muttered. Tamara gave him a dirty look.

“Water magic,” Alastair said, and started to walk down to the edge of the beach. “Gather up some wood. We’ll spell together a raft.”

Suddenly, the whole beach lit up as if a spotlight had been shone on it. Call staggered back, clutching his backpack, fingers digging into the straps. He heard Jasper yell something, and then mages were flying above them.

Master North, Master Rockmaple, Master Milagros, and Master Rufus hovered in the air.

“Dad,” Call shouted, rushing to his father. “They’re going to kill you — you have to go. I can try to hold them off!”

“No!” Alastair cried against the wind. “I deserve punishment for taking the Alkahest, but I’m not the one who’s in the greatest danger —”

“CALLUM,” Master Rufus said. “TAMARA. AARON. ALASTAIR. JASPER. DO NOT STRUGGLE.”

And with that, air swirled around Call, thickening and lifting them into the sky. Despite what Master Rufus said, Call still struggled.

“We must have been hidden from them by the tomb,” Tamara said. “It must have been enchanted the way the Magisterium is — to prevent scrying. But now that it’s gone, they found us.”

“Don’t hurt us!” Jasper shouted. “We surrender!”

Master North raised his hands and out of clouds came three long eel-like air elementals. They were large and placid, until they unhinged massive jaws. He saw one swallow Aaron, gulping him down into its gullet. A moment later, the second elemental was racing toward him, large maw waiting.

“Aaaaugh!” Call yelled as he tumbled inside it. He was expecting to land in the stomach of a creature, but where he fell was soft and shapeless and dry, the way he imagined lying on clouds might feel — even though he knew that clouds were actually just a bunch of water.

Havoc rolled in after him, looking really freaked out. The Chaos-ridden wolf howled and Call hurried over to try to calm him down. Call wasn’t sure Havoc was going to get used to flying. Then Alastair came rolling in, hands still up, as though he was in the middle of readying a spell.

The elemental began to move, swimming through the sky, following the mages back to the Magisterium. Call could tell where it was going, because he could see through the creature in places. It was opaque and cloudy in some spots, translucent in others, and completely transparent in a very few spots. But wherever he touched, the elemental seemed like a solid thing.

“Dad?” Call said. “What’s going on?”

“I think the mages want to be sure we don’t get away, so they created a prison
inside
an elemental. Impressive.” Alastair sat down on the cloud belly of the creature. “You four must be quite slippery.”

“I guess,” Call said. He knew what he had to say to his father, what he’d wanted to say since he’d first seen Alastair’s notes to Master Joseph. “I’m sorry about what happened. You know, this summer.”

Alastair glanced over at Havoc, who was trying to pull up his paws at once and slipping around. Call followed his glance and remembered that he wasn’t sorry about everything.

“I’m sorry, too, Callum,” Alastair said. “You must have been very frightened by what you saw in the garage.”

“I was afraid you were going to hurt Havoc,” Call said.

“Is that all?”

Call shrugged. “I thought you were going to use the Alkahest to test out your theory about me. Like, if I died, then I was really —”

Alastair cut him off. “I understand. You don’t need to say anything else. I don’t want anyone to overhear us.”

“When did you start to suspect?”

Call saw the weariness in Alastair’s face as he answered, “For a long time. Maybe since I left the cave.”

“Why didn’t you say anything — to me, at least?”

Alastair looked around, as though evaluating if the elemental might be eavesdropping on them. “What was the point?” he said finally. “Better you not know, I thought. Better you never know. But we can’t speak about this anymore now.”

“Are you mad at me?” Call asked in a small voice.

“For what happened in the storage room?” Alastair asked. “No, I’m angry with myself. I suspected Master Joseph had been in contact; I worried he already had his hooks in you. I thought that if you knew more, you might be tempted by the idea of power. And after he began writing to me, I was afraid of what he wanted to do to you. But I forgot how frightened you must have been.”

“I thought I’d really hurt you.” Call let his head fall against the softness of the elemental’s side. The adrenaline was quickly draining out of his system, leaving only exhaustion behind. “I thought I was as terrible as —”

“I’m fine,” Alastair said. “Everything’s fine, Callum. People don’t start wars by losing their tempers or losing control of their magic.”

Callum wasn’t sure that was true, but he was too exhausted to argue.

“You never should have come to the tomb, Callum — you know that, right? You should have left things to me to handle. If Joseph had actually been able to do what he planned — who knows what he might have done to you.” Alastair shuddered.

“I know,” Call said. If his soul had moved into Constantine’s body, maybe all the memories he had of being Callum would have been gone, which, when he let himself think about it too much, seemed like it might be a fate much, much worse than death.

But the farther they flew, the more exhausted he felt. He remembered the way Aaron had been after using chaos magic on Automotones.

I’m just going to shut my eyes for a moment
, he told himself.

When Call woke, it was because there were arms around him and he was moving. Being carried, he realized, over the rocks outside the Magisterium. He cracked an eye and looked around.

Morning light stung his eyes. He guessed it was probably around breakfast time. Master North and Master Rockmaple were behind him, watching from their places astride massive air elementals. They looked dour and stern. Havoc, Tamara, Aaron, and Jasper were following Master Rufus down a path to a gate set into the wall of the Magisterium. Alastair was following them, and he was carrying Call the way he hadn’t since Call was very young, with Call’s head against his shoulder.

The backpack.
Call grabbed for it, and realized his dad was carrying that, too, slung over one shoulder. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Do you want me to put you down?” asked Alastair in a low voice.

Call didn’t say anything. Part of him wanted to be set down on his own imperfect feet. Another part thought this was probably the last time his dad would ever carry him.

The stones had given way to a grassy patch beside the Magisterium. They were in front of two doors that had been hammered out of copper. The hammering had been done in a way that left swirls and coils in the metal that looked like flames.