The Mage's Limits: Mages of Martir Book #2 (26 page)

“I do this because I am the Son of Grinf,” said Jakuuth. “The Son of Grinf, and a mage of Martir. When I first discovered the truth about Limitlessness, when I saw with my own eyes how the Magical Superior and his teachers—among many, many others—spread the falseness of the Sixth Pillar, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would be unjust to let this lie continue unabated. Justice cannot tolerate lies; therefore, I could not tolerate the Sixth Pillar of Magic.”

He looked up at the ceiling again, like he could see into the sky and beyond. “I participated in the Katabans War so many years ago because I believed that by working with the katabans, I might first be able to spread the message of Limitlessness through them. The katabans, if you don't know, also believe in limits to their magical power, but Limitlessness is less controversial among them than it is among us.”

Jakuuth turned and walked over to one of the curtained windows. He peeked out it, like he thought someone might be listening in. Darek felt his speech return to him, but he decided to keep quiet and listen to Jakuuth's story.

But his back is to me,
Darek thought.
Just snap up my wand, aim it, and hit him with a good fire blast. He could be dead in five minutes.

Then Jakuuth turned around again, thereby making Darek's plan moot. “I provided one side of the War with the knowledge of Limitlessness so they could destroy their enemies quickly. I kept my involvement a secret from Jenur and everyone else … until that meddling King Malock discovered my plans and revealed it to all.”

Jakuuth's eye twitched. “I thought about destroying Carnag Hall, King Malock's dwelling place, when I went to visit Carnag after I escaped from World's End, but I knew it would only bring unnecessary attention to me. But rest assured, after North Academy is buried in ice and World's End is a ruin, Carnag will be the first Northern Isles nation to fall.”

Darek had never met King Malock, although he knew that the King of Carnag was a good friend of Mom's. He was glad, therefore, that Malock was still alive, though he didn't doubt the authenticity of Jakuuth's promise to destroy Carnag.

“It was because of King Malock that Jenur rejected me,” said Jakuuth. “She didn't like what I was doing, even when I told her it was for the greater good. But now, I will be able to resume my great plan to bring the good news of Limitlessness to all mages, human or aquarian, and it will be under my just rule that we mages of Martir will reach new magical heights, perhaps even become equal with the gods themselves.”

Darek didn't know how much time had passed. He guessed it had been fifteen or twenty minutes; even so, he knew that Aorja or Rema or Gonar or someone else would soon show up to find out what was taking Jakuuth and Darek so long. Therefore, Darek had to act now if he wanted to get out of here without anyone interrupting or stopping him.

So Darek said, “Then I guess that means I can't convince you to spare Mom or anyone else at North Academy.”

“Of course not,” said Jakuuth. “Unless they agree to become Limitless themselves, but I know how thoroughly the Magical Superior indoctrinates his students into the Limited belief system. When they see us, they will not stop and question whether they are wrong and we are right. They will fight, and to the death, most likely, because that is what they were trained to do.”

“So you won't even offer them a chance to survive.” Darek stroked his wand in his belt.

“Yes,” said Jakuuth. “You are absolutely corre—”

Darek didn't hesitate. He drew his wand out of his belt, aimed it at Jakuuth, and unleashed a freezing blast of ice in one smooth motion. The ice flew through the air at Jakuuth, moving too fast for him to dodge.

And when the ice struck Jakuuth, it exploded, covering his entire body from head to foot. He didn't even get a chance to scream as the ice grew so thick that Darek couldn't even see him through it. In a couple more seconds, the ice ceased expanding, though its presence did cause the temperature in the room to drop considerably.

With a chill seeping into his bones, Darek lowered his wand and put it back in his belt. Instead of running, however, he took a moment to stand there and stare at the ice block, scowling at it.

The Ghostly God was right,
Darek thought.
Killing another being really isn't that difficult, although I guess it would have been harder if he had not insulted my mother so much.

Then two familiar strong hands—Jakuuth's hands—grabbed his shoulders and shoved him forward. He smashed into the ice block, but before he could recover, one of the hands grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face into the ice again and again. The blows were swift and furious; on the fourth blow, Darek's nose broke, causing blood to leak into his mouth, but there was nothing he could do to stop Jakuuth from continuing to smash his face into the ice.

Then Jakuuth stopped slamming Darek into the ice block and shoved him onto the floor. Darek crashed onto his side, too weak from the repeated blows to get back up. His consciousness rapidly slipping, Darek's eyes darted up in time to see Jakuuth standing above him, his gavel in his hands.

“Teleportation,” said Jakuuth with that same evil smile of his, “in case you're wondering how I got out of that pathetic ice block you made.”

Darek groaned.

“It doesn't matter,” said Jakuuth. “I suspected you might try to betray me at some point, as your appearance on the shore of Rock Isle seemed a little too convenient, even though I hoped you would not. That you would wait until the last minute to try to kill me is exactly the sort of deceitfulness I should have expected from the son of Jenur.”

That was the last thing that Darek heard Jakuuth say, because the last of his consciousness slipped through his fingers like sand and everything around him went black.

Chapter Seventeen

D
urima lay underneath the heavy, dark sand along the shore of the Void that her and Gujak's tiny boat had washed up on … well, she didn't know how long ago that had been. It could have been a day ago, a week ago, hell, maybe even a year ago. Time in the Void was as ill-defined as the ramblings of a lunatic.

Beside her, Gujak also lay under the sand, having just finished complaining that the sand had gotten into the crooks of his body and would be hard to wash out later. Durima had no sympathy for him, however, because he clearly didn't understand how difficult it was to wash sand out of a fur coat like the one that she had. It made her wish that they hadn't ditched the Void metal armor Hollech had given them, which they had disposed of largely because they were not planning to fight the half-gods directly. Though at least the armor could have kept most of the sand out of her fur.

Regardless of their levels of discomfort, Durima knew they would have to bear it silently. Making even one unnecessary sound could ruin their entire plan. It would even get them killed, and getting killed was the last thing on Durima's list of things to do today.

They had been lying in wait here for hours (that was what Durima estimated, though again, she was not sure because of the Void's fluid time). There was still no sign of the half-gods or Uron anywhere. They didn't even know if this was the spot where Uron and his minions would depart from in order to get to World's End. Void Beach, as Durima called it, seemed to stretch on forever in both directions.

Though I suppose even if we knew exactly where they planned to set sail from, it might not matter,
Durima thought.
We're two katabans trying to stop a being as powerful as Skimif and an army of unfinished gods. Our chances of survival are slim, at best.

Their plan was simple. When Uron and his half-gods showed up here, Durima and Gujak would use their magic to set off a series of traps that would hopefully distract and maybe even frighten the half-gods. Then Durima and Gujak would hop into their little boat (the motor of which Gujak had managed to repair) and head for the Void's exit, where they would they emerge back into Martir and warn the gods of Uron's coming.

They would have put this plan into action much sooner, but several factors had prevented them from doing so. First, with Hollech's death, Castle Hollech was no longer a safe place for Durima and Gujak to stay. There was simply no way to defend it from the half-gods, which had forced Gujak and her to find another hiding place in order to avoid Uron and his minions.

That had taken them a while, but eventually they had found a cave well away from the place where Uron and the half-gods had been gathered. There, Durima and Gujak had hid for a long time, hoping that none of the half-gods would stumble upon them. Or any of the other creatures that lived in the Void, for that matter, creatures they heard moving around outside of their cave just when Durima and Gujak thought they were safe.

But of course, Durima didn't want to stay there forever. She may have been exiled from Martir, but it was still her home and she still wanted to save it. So she coaxed Gujak into helping her come up with some sort of plan for them to warn Martir about Uron and the half-gods, although that had taken her quite a while due to Gujak's fear of Uron making it almost impossible for him to think rationally.

After coming up with the plan, Durima and Gujak had had to find their boat again. Due to the darkness of the Void, that had taken even more time, but they did eventually find it and even fixed it. Gujak had wanted to leave as soon as they could, but Durima had resisted that suggestion.

Granted, it probably would have been more reasonable for them to take the boat and get out of the Void before Uron or his half-gods showed up. That way, they would have had plenty of time to warn the gods about Uron's army of half-gods, maybe even redeem themselves as heroes.

“But how can we prove that the half-gods will attack?” Durima had said at the time. “If the gods see us, they'll just kill us or throw us back into the Void. We can't leave now.”

“What do you suggest we do, then?” Gujak had asked. “Try to stop the half-gods ourselves? Let them leave the Void and then tell the gods about the army of half-gods they are probably already fighting?”

For once, Gujak had made an excellent point. Stopping the half-gods themselves was completely out of the question. If Hollech had been fighting them off by himself for thirty years with little success, there was no way that two katabans could possibly stop them, especially if they were led by Uron.

Nonetheless, Durima had said, “We'll confuse and scare the half-gods. Make them think that there are more of us than there really are. They don't seem all that smart or clever, so it shouldn't be hard to do.”

“But what about Uron?” Gujak had asked. “He's way too smart. He'll see right through our plan.”

“Not unless he's too busy trying to reorganize the half-gods to stop us,” Durima had argued. “Remember, he's not going to try attacking World's End on his own. So if we can scare the half-gods into a disorganized frenzy, it might give us enough time to get out of here before Uron rallies them again.”

After that, Gujak had agreed, although reluctantly, as he seemed to think that they were going to die no matter what. That may have been true, but Durima figured they would probably die if they left the Void too early as well, as she doubted the gods or Katabans Council would happy to see them.

Of course, another reason they had not left immediately was because Durima was not quite sure that they could. After all, if the Void's exit was open, then Hollech would have probably left ages ago. She vaguely recalled Erich telling her and Gujak that the Void was locked on the inside to keep people from getting out.

Even if our plan works, we might fail anyway,
Durima thought.
Not like we have much of a choice, though. We'll just have to hope for the best.

Gujak poked her in the side, causing her to shift her eyes in his direction. “What?”

“Do you hear that?” said Gujak, his voice muffled under the sand. “The half-gods.”

Durima listened as hard as she could. All she heard was the waves of the sea washing up on the shore. Then she felt vibrations in the sand, like an army marching into battle, and a moment later she heard the sounds of dozens of beings walking across the sand. She had a hard time gauging how far the half-gods were from their current position, but if she could feel and hear their movements now, then they were probably closer than she thought.

“Got the decoys ready?” Durima whispered to Gujak.

Gujak nodded. “Yes.”

“Really?” said Durima. “I just want to make sure so that you don't end up freaking out at the last minute and messing everything up.”

“I w-won't,” said Gujak, though his voice trembled. “I've got my fears under control. I won't panic. I promise.”

“All right,” said Durima, although deep down she wasn't so sure she believed him. “Get ready to activate the decoys any minute now, just like what we talked about earlier.”

Gujak nodded and turned his attention back to the sounds of the advancing half-god army. Durima was amazed at how silent the half-gods were. There was no cheering or chanting, nothing to indicate that an army of freaks was moving to destroy the Throne of the Gods. The only clue was the sounds of their feet beating against the sand and the vibrations in the ground.

The worst part about the Void was that it had no natural light, not even tiny stars in the sky to offer illumination. Timing their diversion right was going to be difficult, very difficult. If Durima and Gujak put their plan into action too soon, they risked giving the half-gods time to react; too late, and they would be dead.

So Durima, using her geomancy, sent a wave of energy through the ground to see if she could figure out how close the half-god army was. The wave soon returned to her, much sooner than she expected, which told her that they would have to act soon.

“Okay, Gujak,” Durima muttered, keeping her eyes firmly on the direction the army was coming in. “As soon as I give the signal, I want you to activate the decoys, all right?”

Gujak nodded again, a confident expression on his face that Durima was unsure she should believe. She would just have to trust that Gujak would do as he said, a rather depressing thought, as she rarely trusted Gujak to do anything effectively in stressful or tense situations like this one.