Traitor Savant (Second Seal of the Duelists) (32 page)

Taban’s voice echoed from the tunnel doorway. “Oh, a game, is it? Room for one more, then?”

“Taban, run!” Kiwani cried. “Tell everyone that he’s—”

Kiwani never got to finish her sentence. Crystalline spider legs emerged beneath her and yanked her down into the floor.

“Kiwani!” Eward and Bayan cried. Taban
bolted across the floor, looking less like he was planning magic and more like he was planning murder. Bayan let Firemark go and summoned Timbool, but kept him beneath the floor so he could search for Kiwani.

Eward let out a howl of rage and threw
Slurp forward. Witten Oost split the Water avatar with his walking candle and retaliated with his blue crystal spider, which still lurked beneath the floor. The long-legged beast wrapped one of its slender legs around Eward’s and yanked him into the air upside down, where his free limbs flailed helplessly. Unsupported by magic, Slurp faded.

Bayan’s heart stuttered.
Taban’s angry cursing tirade only registered in Bayan’s mind as a hexmate he didn’t need to save. Reluctantly, he let Timbool fade and brought Root up from the floor in a rush of green energy, hoping to secure the flailing Eward before he crashed down and killed himself.

He was only partially successful. Eward’s head thudded against the
floor as the slender, fuzzy taproot secured his body in midair. Crying out with a combination of guilt, frustration, and fear, Bayan made Root slide the now-limp Eward to the edge of the room, then let him fade. He re-summoned Timbool and made him as large as he could.
How deep did that infernal avatar drag her? Bhattara, please, don’t let her die! Hear my prayer, and help me find her!

In the worst realization he’d had since he learned he could do magic, Bayan
recalled that what he’d said to Sivutma about Bhattara might not be true. In the depths of the mountain, where there was no sky at all, perhaps Bayan could indeed be separated from his god.

Utter despair gripped his soul for the space of an eternal moment. Then
Timbool brushed against Kiwani, and Bayan felt the weight of the world lift from his shoulders. A quick spell and the stone of the floor parted. Kiwani’s head and shoulders emerged. Bayan was further relieved to hear her gasping desperately for breath and swearing with each exhalation.

“Bayan?”
He heard Taban’s worried call. “Bayan!”

Bayan
looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Taban in trouble. Instead, he saw three of witten Oost’s avatars bearing down on him.

“Bayan!” Kiwani screamed. “Go, leave me!”

Spinning around, Bayan planted himself between Kiwani and the avatars, knowing there was little he could do to postpone the inevitable. With a burst of red smoke, he dragged Firemark back into existence and used him to hurl Lava Blast—the avatar-level version of Lavafall—at his attackers. The goblet-water was overcome by the tsunami of lava and evaporated in defeat, but the cloud of lightning remained unharmed and the crystal spider merely became a walking lava flow, its glowing legs crackling closer with every passing moment. Bayan saw with horror that he needed only to step aside to save himself, but Kiwani, trapped in the stone floor, would burn to death.
I should have freed her completely. I need to cast—

A strange chirping behind him drew his attention. It moved quickly from left to right.
A bat!
The small brown creature was no doubt terrified by the noise and flashes of light.

Hope
rose in Bayan’s chest. Letting Firemark go, and praying that doing so wasn’t a fatal choice, Bayan swung his arms through the motions of Lifeseeker. The room seemed to dim. The battling avatars nearly vanished from sight. Ignaas and Taban beamed brightly from across the room, Kiwani from behind him. Eward made a dimmer glow over against the edge of the room.

T
he dome came alive with bright orange dots of life. Desperate and curious, Bayan threw his awareness across the curved ceiling, finding spiders, crickets, millipedes, and a few more bats. And one dim glow somewhere behind the dome walls—but Bayan didn’t have time to deal with that at the moment.

The flying bat zipped by, an orange streak of fear and warmth. Bayan snagged its attention and begged it to help him. The small creature, a mother with young
pups, instantly agreed. She veered toward Bayan and arrowed between gouts of flame and lightning bolts.

The bat landed on his shoulder. Bayan gulped, uncertain whether a bird spell or a
furry-animal spell would work better. He chose the bird spell, hoping to rely on the bat’s airborne attacks.

In the air before him, a massive brown bat took shape, solidifying out of nothingness. Even Bayan was surprised at its sheer size. The
magical creature flew to the top of the dome, circling, and Bayan tried to use its eyes to select witten Oost as a target, but the bat could barely see.

The bat on his shoulder chirped, and the sound pressed pa
infully against Bayan’s eardrum. At the same time, the image of his own head, enormous to the small bat, appeared in his mind.

“Echo
pictures,” he muttered. He stared up at his large magical beast. The great bat opened its mouth wide and let out a horrific shriek. All the humans in the room, including Bayan, flinched and covered their ears.

The
mother bat gave him a chiding squeak. “I know, I know.” Bayan brought the bat down on an attack run, then let loose another ear-pounding shriek right into the crystal spider in front of him. It shattered, and Bayan hunkered down in front of Kiwani’s exposed head.

“Bayan, what have you done?” she wheezed.

“Changed the rules.” He stood again and saw Taban being thrust back toward him by three different avatars. Surprised his new hexmate had held up so well on his own, Bayan picked the Shock avatar and readied another shrieking attack.

The cloud of lightning
struck his bat with a massive Blue Bolt spell, destroying the magical projection and killing the bat on Bayan’s shoulder. The small creature slid to the floor with a soft plop.

Aghast,
Bayan looked down at the mother bat with a wince of guilt. “Bhattara! I’m sorry.” Bats were no good against lightning. Was any living thing? Maybe that was anima magic’s fatal flaw. How could he possibly take on the speed and numbers of witten Oost’s avatars with a fatally flawed magic that killed every creature he bonded with?

“Let me up already, Bayan,” Kiwani called. “
You can’t get smeared all over the floor without me. Hexmates, remember?”

Bayan forced the stone to give her freedom, and she crawled out and stood up. “You sure you’re not hurt?”

“Don’t baby me. I’m fine.”

“Bayan! Meld with me!” Taban
jogged backward toward him while his Earth avatar, Ducat, rolled on its edge like a shield and absorbed the attacks of its three opponents. His left sleeve was in tatters and the arm beneath badly blistered.

“It’ll still be
four on three.”

“No, listen. Your anima. My elements. Melded.”

“Bayan… no…” Kiwani’s voice was still faint.

Bayan frowned. “Don’t know if it’ll even work.”

“I’m about dead, here. Canna go on much longer. One last hurrah?”

Bayan glanced at
Kiwani, then back to Taban. He nodded. “One last hurrah.”

As Kiwani sent Ghaw lumbering over to distract the three avatars who had chased Taban, Bayan sent Lifeseeker overhead again and found
a willing cave spider. The creature spun down to him on a thick, silvery web, landing on his shoulder where the bat had rested. It propped one long leg against his ear, giving Bayan the momentary fear that it would climb inside.

“You want to play with spiders, witten Oost? Let’s play with spiders.”
The anima projection of the cave spider manifested between Bayan and the little thundercloud, all long legs and orange bands on white. Witten Oost’s cloud whirled up a thin mist, about to cast. Quickly, Taban and Bayan performed the melding spell at one another.

Just before the cloud
released its spell, the cave spider’s long, spindly legs bulked out with delicate, pointed iron armor. The Blue Bolt spell struck the metal, flew along its surface, and vanished into the ground, leaving the spider unharmed.

Taban whooped. The spider on Bayan’s shoulder put a second foot on his ear.

The magical armored spider strode toward the cloud of lightning, which backed away, joining the other three.

“Who’s the traitor now, Bayan?”
witten Oost called. “Dabbling in forbidden arts, consorting with animals of mean intellect. What will everyone say?”

“Watch this,” Taban murmured. The spider’s palps became icy fangs.

Bayan marched his creature toward the walking candle, which threw a constant flame up at the looming spider. The thundercloud tried again to electrocute it, while the corn plant managed to tangle some vines in two of the spider’s iron leg protectors.

The long-legged spider managed to reach the
candle and munch its warm wax to death before its icy fangs completely melted, but it soon became immobilized in vines. The other avatars surrounded it, hurling attacks.

“Best let it go,” Taban said.

“I don’t have another—” Bayan began. Then he felt a tiny weight upon his hair. Another. The spiders crawled down to his shoulders, making him wince at the touch of their grasping feet. “Volunteers it is.” He let go of the magical spider he’d made. Its counterpart hunched down on Bayan’s shoulder.

“Looks hurt,” Taban said.

“This reeks,” Bayan growled. “Why do they get hurt, but not me?”

“Focus, hexling! They’re coming!”

Bayan saw the remaining three avatars advancing on them. Behind them, witten Oost re-manifested his lost goblet-water in a swirl of blue fog.

Taban stared at Bayan’s shoulder.
“How many spiders are up there?”

Bayan looked
too. He saw three more spindly-legged monstrosities clinging to him. “Not sure I want to know.”

“No,
how many
? Are you bringing them all?”

Bayan looked up. The ceiling
seemed to be pouring down toward his head as dozens of spiders slid down from the darkness above. Luckily, they seemed to sense that there was not enough room for them all on Bayan’s person. They spread out on the floor around him, yellow legs mixed with brown, white legs crossing orange.

Wide eyed, standing very still, Taban said,
“Spider king, your army awaits.”

Bayan stared down at the
mass of spiders. He could feel
hundreds
of tiny minds pressing against his. He looked over at witten Oost’s avatars and smiled.

Thrusting his arms forward, he created a hundred w
aist-high spiders in the space between Bayan and the enemy avatars. A swirl of red mist from Taban, and the ones on the left near the walking corn plant, sprouted hazy flames. Bayan directed them to swarm all over witten Oost’s Wood avatar.

The
little thundercloud spread massive bolts of lightning across the spiders, killing them in swaths.

Without extinguishing his flaming spiders, Taban moved his hands again. “Have that lot there attack the Air avatar with their silk.”

Bayan directed some of his spiders toward the spinning disc of air, which managed to blow some of them away with fierce gusts of wind. Some wove a shiny substance below it,. Others launched themselves over it, trailing the arcing strands overhead. Gradually, the gleaming net enclosed the avatar.

“What is
that stuff?” Bayan asked.

“Metal.”

“Two elements at once? Taban, you’re hexing!”

Taban only grinned.
“At my best when my choices are panic or manic, aye? Besides, ever since I got Eward to spill your Savantism secret, I’ve been bonding spells like a mad thing. Power is
good
, aye?”

With a frustrated growl, witten Oost tried to use his
small thundercloud to free the trapped Wind avatar, but the Blue Bolt spell flew through the metal silk, electrocuting the avatar inside the net. The wind disc sputtered to a moaning halt.

Taban hollered in triumph, laughing at their good fortune
, but his voice fell silent as witten Oost vanished his foremost avatars, leaving only the goblet-water.

The avatar swelled until it touched the top of the dome, then
poured itself out, gushing across the floor in a flood. Spiders both magical and mundane were swept away. Taban, Bayan, and Kiwani joined them.

With sudden panic,
Bayan glanced toward Eward. Mercifully, his hexmate had come to when Bayan wasn’t looking and now crouched on a small ledge above the water line.

As he smacked against the back wall with his hexmates,
Bayan ended his bonding with the spiders so they could all clamber to safety. Taban helped Kiwani stand while Bayan sought another ally.

“I’ll protect Eward
.” Kiwani splashed her way along the back wall and struck a defensive pose with Ghaw.