Veneficus: Stones of the Chosen (30 page)

From above the long magus watched her. She was beginning to get a little confused, wondering what he was up to. The birds, carefully placed at least a thunderbolt apart, were too many; it would take too much power to fire at them all, if, indeed, they were real.

“What’s the matter, sinister one? Afraid of a few chickens?”

The long magus’s soft voice spoke just above her head.

She whirled in surprise and, needing to be visible in order to release thunderbolts, appeared and fired three of them harmlessly upward. She was rewarded with a mocking chuckle from somewhere to her left.

Again she unleashed a thunderbolt in the direction of the voice.

“Perhaps you should call in your slavering dogs. It’s just the terrain for them, eh, hybrid?”

Another blue bolt flew, this time to the right. More feather-carrying pica arrived. Back down the valley, three flights of hawks again appeared. This time they, too, clutched a blue feather in their sharp, curved beaks.

“Mastering the art of disguising your aura trail won’t save you, old man. I’ll catch up with you eventually,” she shouted, looking wildly about her with just a hint of desperation.

Two more flights of hawks came over the horizon and, moving quickly into a one-behind-the-other formation, arrowed in on the castle.

Each one of them carried a small, round object in their talons.

“Those are live thunderbolts,” the long magus’s voice said matter-of-factly as she spotted the incoming hawks. “There are many more coming. Some even have water bombs.”

Screaming in desperation the wolf-woman began hurling blue-streaked missiles at the fast approaching birds.

They all disappeared before the fizzing missiles got to them.

Merlin’s voice boomed out.

“Consider this, barbarous misfit. Besides my presence, I can disguise my thunderbolts as well. The first thing you will know of their deadly presence is when one of them separates your murderous head from your lifeless shoulders. I also have a lot more strategically placed ice-cold water bombs awaiting my command.”

It was a double lie. He couldn’t disguise his thunderbolts and did not have any more water bombs in position, but she wasn’t to know that. After what she did to Mael and his wonderful otters, telling her lies in order to hasten her end was justified.

“Your murderous charade is almost over, wolf-woman. The reason you were placed on this earth has been curtailed by my greater experience and battle skills. The immortal who placed you here would have known that when you were selected. You were doomed from the very beginning, sacrificed on the altar of his amusement.
Summa seeds non cupit duos -
the highest seat does not hold two, left-handed nearly woman.”

Elelendise visibly shuddered. The mocking voice of the long magus was all around her. For the first time a look of fear came into her eyes. She was beginning to understand the greater meaning behind all this and the impossibility of the task before her. Merlin had cleverly cornered all the advantages. He had purposefully chosen this place where he could dodge and hide as her power reduced. Somehow he had found a way to hide his aura and therefore whereabouts; her wolves were useless in this rubble-strewn terrain; the water bombs were sapping her resolve; and there were those accursed birds carrying blue feathers and bombs everywhere. If all that wasn’t enough, he could hit her with disguised thunderbolts and mock her at will. The battle was slipping away from her; she had been outthought and outmaneuvered. She doubted if she would be resurrected a second time. When she had drowned in Mael’s lake, her purpose had not been served. Now, apparently, it had, and this time she would be left to rot.

She compressed her lips. There was one thing left, one last, desperate action.

It was time to go berserk; it was time for a
terminus
.

The bardic runes that enshrine the venefical enchantments have a built-in mechanism that allows a holder of the enchantments a few precious minutes of time when the venefical heart has stopped beating and premature death - before the end of the one-hundred-year term is up - has occurred. The long magus had already alluded to this extra period in answer to the question from Twilight as to how he would transfer the great Stonehenge secret if his own life were extinguished. These few golden minutes were the finale of a two-stage failsafe venefical mechanism known as the
venefical conclusion.
The first part, a desperate measure designed to inflict maximum damage and take as many assailants with you as possible, was known as the
venefical terminus
. In essence it meant summoning up every last ounce of power, directing it at the heart of the enemy or the terrain he occupied, and going out in a blaze of glory. Elelendise had no use of the
conclusion,
as she had nothing to pass on and no one to share it with, but she had one very good reason for a
terminus,
namely that she was on the verge of a humiliating defeat.

From his invisible position above, the long magus watched carefully as her shoulders began to sag and the arrogance and fight seemed to drain from her. Suddenly reinvigorated by the thought of the damage she could inflict through a final
terminus
, she straightened up, stretched her arms out wide, and began snarling like a wolf. Her capitulation and reinvigoration could only mean one thing, and he knew what it was. He also knew just how deadly it could be for anyone in the vicinity. He immediately switched off every bird image and transformed to the other side of the hill where the boy was waiting. Revealing himself, he held his hand up to still the many questions, then called to his hawks in the surrounding trees to flee the area as fast as their wings would take them.

“Tell your pica to follow my hawks … quickly!”

Twilight issued the command.

“Now take my hand. We are about to become a dark cloud!”

Far below them they watched as Elelendise, long white dress and blond tresses flying outward, gradually began to spin on the spot. With her arms still stretched out she began to gather pace until she became a blurred white ball of human parts that hummed on its axis. Then the white ball began to move. Gathering speed, it flew out over the ruined castle ramparts and suddenly began spitting out thunderbolts in all directions. The trees where the birds had been sitting moments before exploded into a flaming inferno as the missiles hit them. Clusters of explosions ripped into the ground, killing many of her own wolves as they cowered in terror. Next the spinning white ball turned back on the castle and zipping around the perimeter released thunderbolt after thunderbolt at the remaining walls and the earthen banks of the moat until all the water had quickly washed away. The earth shook and lifted in the tumult, and a pall of black smoke and dust hung over the scene like a blanket. Unrecognizable as a castle, the former mighty landmark on the hill resembled a huge pile of blasted rocks. Heading quickly down the valley the rapidly firing white ball destroyed everything in its path. The track along which Penda’s army had come and gone was reduced to a series of large, smoking craters; bridges, cattle pens, gates, and several hovels were summarily blown away. Back to the castle ruins, the white ball began firing in the air in a random pattern as if sensing that the long magus and Twilight were hiding somewhere up there. Wide of the mark, the airborne thunderbolts fizzled out and fell back to the earth. It was a show of wanton destruction for the sake of it, a spectacular death knell with no purpose other than the obliteration of everything in its path because the main battle had been lost.

Gradually the spinning white ball of thunderbolt-firing mayhem that was Elelendise began to slow down. The thunderbolts lost their impetus and began to fall to the ground, where they fizzed briefly, then died out. The wolf-woman’s human form was visible again as she flopped in exhaustion to the ground on a small stretch of undisturbed bank to the side of the smoking ruins.

“By the Nine Liar-Kings of Bisitum, she knows how to create carnage,” exclaimed Merlin from the safety of the dark cloud.

“Carnage utterly without purpose,” murmured the boy.

The long magus and Twilight had watched the scene of utter devastation unfold far below them. Grasping Twilight’s hand, the old astounder took them to a spot alongside where the exhausted wolf-woman lay.

“Have a care, skirmisher, she may have something left with which to surprise us,” said Merlin as they revealed themselves and approached her prone form, but it was immediately clear that Elelendise was a spent force. Life barely flickered in her face; just breathing, she didn’t even have the energy left to speak and regarded their arrival with faded blue eyes just about capable of recognition but too spent to register anything else. The fires of hatred and dominance that had burned deep inside her had finally been extinguished.

Twilight and the long magus stood above her for some time before the old sorcerer and victor leaned in to her face and without any trace of triumphalism spoke quietly.

“So, it comes down to this. Whilst it suited the immortals to keep you alive, it was so. That purpose is obviously no longer valid. Your abominable existence in these Celtic lands has come to an end. A wasted
terminus
as a finale to a wasted life. The scroll of every death you have caused will be rustling with joy at this moment, and the soul of each name, in whatever form and resting place your killing has left them, will be celebrating joyously.”

Twilight pointed to the sky, which had quickly became dark with birds, each carrying a blue feather; then he, too, leaned closer to the pale, still face framed by golden tresses.

“Here come my capricious pica and the beautiful yellow-eyed hawks with their tokens of thanks for your demise and remembrance of those you destroyed.”

Hundreds of blue feathers began to float gently through the thinning smoke and dust as the birds wheeled overhead and released their light cargo. Landing all around them, some on the wolf-woman’s face, the feathers carpeted the immediate area.

Merlin stood and raised his right arm to its fullest extent, palm open. His eyes glowed a momentary iridescent green, and he appeared to be looking deep into the rubble of the destroyed castle.

“
Ventum
Excalibur!” he said in a loud whisper.

A small section of rubble over what would have been the ceiling of the Great Hall of the castle suddenly burst open, and the mighty double-handed sword of
Dux Bellorum
fame, a weapon created by Merlin himself in order to glorify the myth of Arthur, flew out of the shattered castle blocks and landed handle first in the raised right hand of the long magus. Adding his other hand to steady the mighty heft, the old astounder stood for a long moment with the blade poised above the inert Elelendise. If she understood what was happening her exhausted face did not show it.

“Please don’t,” whispered the boy. “She is finished.”

The long magus looked down at him, the sword steady above his head. Then he looked back down at the exhausted, expressionless woman. As if showing him where to slice through her soft flesh, several blue feathers settled on her white exposed neck.

“I must,” Merlin said gently. “There is no alternative. She must be dispatched completely.”

He brought the great broadsword arcing downward with a swishing sound. The boy turned away with an anguished cry. Sparks flashed as the great blade struck bare rock, the shock sending it spinning from Merlin’s grasp. He gasped loudly in surprise, and the boy turned back expecting to see a blood-soaked body with the head severed. There was nothing there. Her body had disappeared before the sword struck. Blue feathers, disturbed by the vortex of the passing blade, wafted upward.

A loud thunderclap rolled over them. As it died away a deep voice began to laugh, its timbre echoing over the riven landscape.

Then, like the body of Elelendise, it was gone, and every wolf in Wessex began to howl.

There was great merriment in the Presidium; the show was going down well. The sight of the long magus fleeing for his life with the castle disintegrating around him had struck a particular chord with the gods, especially, Tiresias was pleased to see, with Zeus himself. They had also liked the way he had spirited away the near-dead body of Elelendise from under the flashing blade of Excalibur. Near-dead she may have been then, consigned to the forever state of oblivion now. Assured by the Seer of Thebes that there was more to come, Zeus called for Ganymede to recharge their goblets, and they settled back for more of the same.

“Do you think she was taken away by Tiresias?” The boy looked up at the long magus as they began to climb down the shattered rocks of the demolished castle.

“Couldn’t have been anyone else,” the old astounder said, easing his long legs over a still smoking, thunderbolt-scarred block.

“Will she be resurrected again and come back to seek revenge?”

The old wizard stopped and considered the question. In the background the wolves’ howling had turned into a mournful lament.

“No, we are done with her. She is gone forever.”

“Despite everything she has done, I couldn’t have killed her or ordered someone else to do it,” said the boy. “I suppose I’m too soft, too
placidus
for this business.”