The Archimage Wars: Wizard of Abal (33 page)

I nodded, “That might work, but I
don’t want to wait until dark, they have had Ziny too long already.
We need a plan which will get us there right now.” I turned
reluctantly to Hydan and said, “What about you, I ask with real
regret.”

Hydan looked innocently at me for a
moment and then replied, “I suggest we just go through the wall.
First, we set up a diversion to get the attention of the guards,
and then we run to the wall and walk through.”

I scowled at him, “How do you walk
through a wall?”

“
Well, technically, we
won’t, not through solid stone, what we will do is walk through the
passage which is there.”

“
What passage?” I
asked.

He looked at me and blinked those
shiny black saeran eyes, “The passage which is there because we
know it is there.”

Shit, that again, I
thought.

“
Won’t they have thought of
that?” I asked him.

He shrugged, “Why would any mage try
to get to the place where they are trying to capture mages in the
first place? Sure, if they bring an army they might try, but then
they would just assault the entire wall, but a lone mage in their
right mind is going to go away from Mystical Island, not towards
it!”

“
And we are certainly not
in our right minds!” I noted with a smile.

“
I am,” Myrka noted
seriously, “What other mind would I be in?”

I ignored her and said to Hydan, “What
kind of diversion?”

“
Leave that to me,” he
answered.

I gave him a hard look and then said,
“You make me very nervous when you say things like
that!”

He replied, “Wait here until I return,
but be ready to run for the wall.”

We waited about a half hour, and then
Hydan ran up to us and said, “Get ready!”

I looked toward the wall, and the
guards, waiting, but nothing happened yet.

“
What did you do?” I
whispered to Hydan.

Then I heard the sound of tree trunks
snapping, and trees falling.

“
Here they come!” Hydan
said with a kind of glee.

Down about a hundred yards to our
left, I saw three tall trees suddenly fall toward the wall as if
knocked down by some massive force. Something large and white was
in among the trees. That’s when I saw it emerge; it was a chicken,
a chicken the size of a three story house!

It was running toward the wall and one
of the guard towers.

The guards on the wall were all
pointing or yelling, and many were running toward the place where
the giant chicken was attacking while a few near that point were
actually running away down the wall.

Hydan said, “OK, let’s
move!”

But right then trees started falling
down toward us from deeper in the forest.

Hydan’s eyes grew round and he said,
“Oh, I didn’t count on that!”

“
On what?” I
demanded.

“
One of my chickens has
chosen to head in our direction,” he replied.

That’s when I saw another of the giant
white hens bearing down on us, knocking down trees as she
came.

“
Run!” Hydan yelled, but
the rest of us were already in flight.

We ran for the wall since it was away
from the rampaging chicken giant.

I’m not sure if guards saw us or not,
it’s hard to say, what with the giant chickens coming at them and
all, but we reached the wall without mishap and Toji gestured. A
row of bricks disappeared leaving a shallow arch. He moved inside
and another row disappeared. After four of these, he turned and
closed one row at the entrance behind us. Now we were in a small
room with no exits.

“
Here,” Hydan said
pleasantly, “let me.”

He stepped forward and six rows of
bricks all disappeared at once, making a much deeper passage in
toward the center of the wall.

Unfortunately, this created a
T-intersection with a passage which ran lengthwise through the
wall. There was a squad of six necromages headed for a set of
stairs which led to the top of the wall, but when our new passage
suddenly appeared, they all turned and saw the four of us standing
in our little cul-de-sac.

They immediately attacked.

Toji tried to seal the passage, but he
was too late, and the necromage’s vision of reality kept things
from changing.

The necromages drew knives, as did
Toji and Myrka, and they leaped to battle.

Unfortunately, my grasp of magic was
sketchy at this point, so I drew Caliburn.

That changed things in this tight
chamber significantly. This was the most powerful Actuality weapon
the Sivaeral House had ever created, and what it did was keep ANY
mage of the Second Tier or below from altering reality in a decent
area around the unsheathed blade.

Hydan took one look at my exposed
sword and yelled, “Nick, get away from us or we can’t use
magic!”

I hadn’t really thought about the fact
that it would do the same thing to my companions as to my
enemies.

I took a round house swing at two of
the necromages, who leaped back out of the blade's reach. Their
daggers were useless when confronted with the reach of my sword
unless one of them came in from behind and back stabbed
me.

Worrying about that very thing, I ran
forward and past our enemies and got into the larger hallway, away
from my companions so they would be out of Caliburn’s area of
effect.

Two of the necromages came after me,
their daggers held ready to attack.

I could hear the sounds of battle back
in the cul-de-sac.

One gestured at the ceiling, I think
he was trying to collapse it on me, but nothing
happened!

“
Hell yes!” I cried out,
knowing Caliburn was working! He couldn’t change things around me!
What I believed stayed the way I saw it all.

The failure of his attack surprised
the necromage, because he paused, which is when I brought Caliburn
down and loped off the thing’s arm at the shoulder. This sword was
SHARP!

The necromage snarled and pulled back.
I was surprised he wasn’t dead, but then I realized these
necromages were using dead bodies, they could probably take a lot
more physical damage than a living body could handle.

The one with the missing arm hissed to
his companion, “That is an Actuality blade! We cannot affect things
here!”

They both backed up, keeping an eye on
me warily.

But I charged them, I didn’t want them
getting out of the blade’s effect.

They tried to run, but I swung and
took One Arm in the neck, catapulting his head from his
shoulders.

That’s when reinforcements arrived
from down the hall behind me. I heard them coming and looked back
to find four more necromages and six regular saerans. As they got
near the regular saerans held back and let the necromages take me
on.

I was about to call out to my
companions when I noticed one of the necromages limping, it was Peg
Leg, one of the necromages who took Ziny back at the
river!

Sudden anger boiled in my gut, and I
charged them, going for the necromages.

I was like a berserker, and the
necromage’s knives were inadequate against my sword, and their
protections no longer worked. Caliburn was like a ribbon of death,
cleaving through their undead bodies. I only stopped when it was
just Peg Leg and me.

At the sight of me slaughtering the
necromages, the six saerans watching suddenly bolted back down the
passage.

“
That’s right, run for your
lives!” I bellowed after them.

Then I lifted my sword and spoke in a
voice quivering with anger, “Take me to the saeran sorceress you
took at the river or die here and now!”

Peg Leg looked at the gleaming blade,
and then at his own little knife. He nodded, and said, “She is this
way.”

He limped ahead of me, and I stayed
hard on his heels, er, heel, the other was a couple of splintered
bone ends.

After a few passages we came to a bank
of cells and he pointed at one.

“
She is there,” he
noted.

I glanced in the grate and saw her
small huddled form.

Peg Leg ran away, or at least, kind of
hop-skipped away.

I guess I should have been more
concerned, but I was happy to see Ziny alive.

That’s when Peg Leg stopped about
fifty yards away.

I was concentrating on trying to
believe the door was unlocked and was barely keeping track of the
one legged necromage. And then Medrod spun into existence next to
him.

Right at this moment I must have
believed the lock was open, because the door opened to my pull, and
I called, “Ziny, it’s me, Nick, run!”

She looked up with tear stained eyes
and blinked those big round saeran orbs at me, and then she ran to
my arms.

It felt so good to hug her when she
arrived, she was so small and thin, just a little waif caught up in
a war she had never wanted.

But now I had to turn, Medrod was
approaching, and he was a mage of a whole new color or
Tier.

The first thing he did was raise a
hand and blue light lanced out, Derkaz power!

But when it reached the sphere of
Caliburn’s influence, it just evaporated! Obviously, his blasts
could not affect my reality around Caliburn!

Medrod scowled, and kept coming,
pulling a dark black short sword from a sheath belted to his
waist.

I pushed Ziny behind me and snarled at
Medrod, “Come on you bastard, let’s dance.”

He slashed in a cross body blow, but I
parried. We exchanged two more blows, but then I started thinking
that Medrod’s blade was getting kind of translucent. I must have
believed it, and Caliburn was on my side, so Medrod couldn’t change
reality to his own liking. Our next clash was less jarring, more
like hitting something soft.

Medrod was scowling, but he swung
again and I parried. When our swords met, he reached out with his
free hand and grabbed me by the throat. My sword was bound against
his and I was staring into those dark bloodshot eyes.

“
Now you will die,” he
hissed.

That’s when Ziny leaped onto Medrod’s
back and bit him on the shoulder.

He howled and turned, which let me
disengage Caliburn.

Medrod let loose of my throat to avoid
my sword slash.

Ziny was still clinging to his back,
and I was afraid he would just stab her with his sword, so I
pressed the attack.

I swung, and this time, when our
swords met, his stopped the blow, but then crumbled to dust, I’d
thought it looked kind of ancient and what I thought was working
around Caliburn!

Medrod gaped at his empty hand for a
split second, and I pulled back Caliburn with a snarl, ready to run
him through the gut.

But Medrod leaped backward, and
reached up to grab Ziny by the arm, and he yanked her down in front
of him, right into the path of my thrust with Caliburn.

I had to abort the attack lest I
skewer the little saeran girl.

She was looking terrified, and Medrod
grabbed her by the neck.

“
One move toward me and I
will snap this little girl’s neck,” he said.

I stopped but I was pacing back and
forth only four feet from him with a snarl of hatred on my
face.

With his other hand, Medrod drew a
pentagram in flaming red.

I was desperately trying to figure out
how to get to Medrod and save Ziny, so much I forgot about Peg Leg
completely. Suddenly he leaped on me from behind, locking one of
his arms around my throat.

I gagged, and tried to reach with
Caliburn to stab him, and I might have got him a few times too,
though he didn’t seem to be affected by the thrusts. In moments,
the lack of blood to my brain caused me to start to black out. I
dropped Caliburn so I could try and pry his bony arm from my neck,
which was another mistake. Medrod stepped forward and hit me,
hard.

The world went black.

I woke up with a very sore neck and
face, and a headache. I was wondering if I had been out on a bender
the night before. I figured this must be the hangover of all
hangovers. Then my vision cleared and I noticed I was in some kind
of stone room, which had two window openings. In one, I could see
an ocean with an island some distance offshore. Out the other I
could see a forest. I also noticed I was bound to a post with
ropes.

Then my memory returned and I
remembered little Ziny’s body held against Medrod as a little girl
shield. I really hated the bastard. After a moment to digest what
had happened, I looked up and around the chamber and noticed
Caliburn, now sheathed, laying on a wood table. There were three
necromage guards watching me, all with those drawn and dry skinned
faces and milky white shriveled eyes. One of them was Peg Leg. It
seems he was now elevated in status. To my left was Ziny, also
bound to a pole, and about six feet away, staring at me with those
dark saeran eyes was Medrod.