Ultimate Magic (15 page)

Krystallus tapped on the root beside him, thinking about their plight. He knew that those creatures—once so beautiful and admired, now so ghastly and feared—had migrated to Avalon, settling in the place known today as the Haunted Marsh. Feeling only wrath and sorrow, they had continued to bring revenge on anyone who dared to come near them. Only one person in history had ever faced the marsh ghouls and survived.

My father
. Krystallus pursed his lips, wondering about exactly what had happened. The marsh ghouls, somehow, chose not only to spare Merlin, but to help him—most likely the only act of kindness they had ever performed. But why? The journal’s description was sketchy; the only certainty was that their encounter had involved the magical Mirror.

Maybe someday
, mused Krystallus,
I’ll ask him to tell me.

He bit his lip.
Or maybe not.
After the way he’d spoken to his father the last time they had met, Merlin would never want to see him again—let alone tell him the secrets of his lost years.

Deep in thought, he leaned back against the old elm’s trunk. He didn’t notice the sharp edges of the flaky bark that poked into his back. He didn’t notice the rising chorus of chants that arose from the Marsh, pounding like distant drums. And he didn’t notice the dark, ghoulish figures that crept silently closer, like living shadows, preparing to attack.

Moments later, the chants grew louder. “DOOMraga, DOOMraga, DOOM” echoed across the surrounding desert. But Krystallus didn’t hear. He was already unconscious from strangulation.

20:
C
ONNECTION

Bravery, I can tell you, is not the absence of fear. It is doing all you can to overcome your fear . . . as well as your fondness for life.

Smells, putrid smells. Of decay, of rancid meat, of death. The smells of the Haunted Marsh.

Krystallus opened his eyes. Yet . . . he couldn’t be sure. Darkness still surrounded him, although it was a deeper, colder kind of darkness. He blinked, just to make sure his eyelids were actually open. They were—and what he saw made him wish they were not.

Shadowy forms, a shade or two darker than the thick fumes of the Marsh, floated nearby, sometimes passing directly over him. He lay in a shallow pit, a hollow filled with congealing ooze that reeked of decaying blood and bones. Sliding his body up a little higher against the boggy wall of the pit, he felt like he’d been dumped into a grave.

My own grave.
He shook himself, spraying globs of muck. Watching the marsh ghouls circling, he tried to focus his eyes. But the scene kept floating back and forth, in time with the pounding ache inside his head.

He reached an unsteady hand up to his neck. The skin felt cold and clammy, as if his neck had been squeezed by frozen, deathly fingers.
The marsh ghouls
, he realized, rubbing the tender skin to bring back its warmth.
They attacked me!

He swallowed, though it hurt.
Strangled me. Then they brought me here. Why?

Willing his eyes to focus, he gazed at his new surroundings. Beyond the circling ghouls, he saw smoky columns of fumes and several pools of vile fluids that bubbled like boiling cauldrons. Following the rising columns, he saw the fumes widen into billowing clouds that eventually merged into a black, smoky fog so thick it blocked out the stars.

Yet somehow, there was light. Vague, pulsing, and red, like luminous blood that flowed through the swampy air.

This strange light, unlike anything he’d ever encountered, was strong enough that he could see. Or, at least, discern the shadowy layers of darkness surrounding him. Where in the Marsh did it come from? What was its source?

He tilted his head farther back, even though that angle made the pounding swell. Peering up into the gloom, he noticed an especially dark shape within the cloud, rising high above the ground. Though it was hard to be sure, the shape seemed long and cylindrical, like a gigantic worm that was standing on its base, stretching up into the sky.

Whatever it was, this shape was dark. Very dark. To the point of being a void, the utter absence of any light. Though it looked solid, it also seemed to be made of absolute emptiness.

Was it another kind of fume, thicker and darker than the rest? He squinted, studying it closely. Suddenly he gasped, driving his fingers into the moist peat beneath him.

Alive! It’s something alive!
The gargantuan beast rose above him, writhing and twisting its dark body in some sort of sinister dance, an undulating column of darkness.
Great Dagda, that thing is bigger than Basilgarrad! Several times bigger. What could it be?

As if in answer, the continuous pounding in his head started to subside—just enough that he realized that there was another pounding outside his skull. All around him, the fume-filled air was vibrating with an incessant, monotonous chant. It came from the ghouls, and also, it seemed, from the swamp itself.

“DOOMraga, DOOMraga, DOOM. DOOMraga, DOOMraga, DOOM.”

The chant continued to pound, as relentless as a beating heart. Yet this couldn’t have been less like a heart, with its purpose of sustaining life. No, this chant felt just the opposite, as if its purpose involved only death, destruction, and more death.

Krystallus found, in that instant, the source of the mysterious red light that permeated this part of the swamp. An eye! The beast of darkness possessed, so far up he could barely see it, a luminous red eye. Though nearly obscured by all the choking fumes, the eye shone darkly, sending a dull red glow through the fog.

Something else about the eye made Krystallus shudder. Unlike any other eye, this one pulsed to its own sinister rhythm, throbbing like an open wound. With every pulse came a wave of anger, aggression, and hatred.

All at once, he noticed an explosion of black sparks that sizzled in the air. They came from somewhere near the monster’s midsection. More black sparks erupted, falling into the swamp with a chorus of hisses. Then he saw the source of the sparks.

Something is growing!
Like a serpent, one made from concentrated darkness, a long black thread was emerging from the being’s core. Reaching skyward, the thread surged higher and higher, groping ominously.

Krystallus watched, aghast.
What the . . . ? What is that thing?

“DOOMraga, DOOMraga, DOOM,” chanted the marsh ghouls. They tightened their circle, swooping close to the writhing beast’s body. Soon they seemed to merge with its skin, shrouding the utter blackness beneath as they circled.

The monster itself continued to rock on its base, grinding its weight into the Marsh. It groaned rhythmically, in time to the ghouls’ chants, all the while laboring to produce the evil thread. Meanwhile, sparks of black lightning erupted more frequently, showering the Marsh. All around Krystallus, fumes glowed with dark incandescence.

To his horror, he saw something else in the swirl of vapors near the monster’s eye. Another thread! This one was reaching downward, groping like the one that had sprouted from the body of the beast. Where this second thread was coming from, Krystallus couldn’t tell, but it must have been from somewhere far above, even higher than the rising fumes.

He shook his head in disbelief. His long mane, splattered with muck from the swamp, slapped against his neck. Could that new thread be stretching down from somewhere among the stars? From some source as evil as this monster of darkness?

In a flash, he understood. Whether he somehow caught an inkling of the monster’s thoughts, heard another kind of language beneath its rhythmic groans, or simply guessed—he suddenly felt sure.
That new thread is coming from the Otherworld. From Rhita Gawr.

The monster released a hoarse, rasping laugh. Krystallus heard it with his ears, but also, somehow, inside his bones. Its sound, echoing through the Marsh, filled him with a heavy sense of despair. At the same time, the continuous pulse of the bloodred eye added another emotion, one he’d felt only rarely in his life. Terror.

More swirling shadows rose out of the Marsh. Whether they were ghouls or something else, Krystallus couldn’t tell. But he could see them rise, like ghostly beings, toward the gap that remained between the two dark threads. Then he heard, even louder than the chants of the marsh ghouls and the groans of the monster, a sudden explosion of energy.

Black lightning blasted out of the ends of both threads. The twin currents of dark energy connected in the middle, sizzling and snapping in the swirling vapors. Tremors flowed through the surrounding fumes, while black sparks exploded everywhere. More shadows gathered, swirling around the threads like a cyclone, slowly drawing them closer.

And closer.

A huge explosion rocked the Marsh as the two dark threads connected. Vapors scattered, marsh ghouls ceased their chant, and for a brief instant the roiling fumes parted, opening to a few frail rays of starlight. Even the monster stopped writhing on its base as its hateful eye scanned the new connection.

Dark energy sizzled up and down the thread, spraying black sparks while sealing the bond. Meanwhile, the fetid fumes gathered again, deepening the darkness. But even in the gloom, one thing was certain: The two threads had joined.

“What
is
that?” Krystallus cried aloud, his caution overwhelmed by horror.

Abruptly, the pulsing red eye turned away from the dark thread—and directly toward him. For a few seconds it flashed its wrathful light upon him. Krystallus slid deeper into the shallow pit, heedless of the reeking ooze that chilled his skin and stung his nostrils.

Then, clenching his jaw, he lifted himself back up. Though he knew this monster could squash him to death in an instant, he stared back at it defiantly. He would not grovel in fear.

Doomraga’s rasping laughter burst over the Marsh. It sprang from its certainty that now, at last, it had triumphed. Rhita Gawr would conquer this miserable world in the shape of a tree, just as he would conquer other worlds, as well. Now the immortal warlord was completely unstoppable! No one could possibly prevent what was about to happen—not that wretched excuse for a wizard, not that pesky green dragon, and certainly not that lowly mortal man in the pit who would soon die a most painful death.

The laughter grew louder, reverberating among the hillocks and pits of the swamp. Marsh ghouls cowered in fright, for they knew from brutal experience that when Doomraga laughed, others suffered. Creatures would soon perish. Even the ghoul who still held tight to the limp body of the hawk, that little morsel it had captured for its master’s pleasure, hid itself in the darkest shadows it could find.

Doomraga ceased laughing. The towering beast’s bloodshot eye swiveled, turning its gaze back to the thread. At the same time, a new sound rolled through the Marsh. Pounding and booming like a deadly drum, it began softly then steadily strengthened, swelling with every beat.

Krystallus, too, gazed at the newly connected thread. For that was the source of the drumming sound. The dark thread throbbed, bulging with some sort of terrible power that had started to flow down its length.

Abruptly, Krystallus stiffened. He knew, beyond doubt, that the power was unimaginably evil. And that it was flowing into the monster itself.

21:
T
HE
C
HOICE

Doing something is usually more appealing than doing nothing. Until that something kills you.

Krystallus watched, horrified, as the dark thread throbbed. Its deep drumming, magnified by the swirling vapors, echoed across the Haunted Marsh. Just as it echoed relentlessly inside his head.

Whatever evil power flowed through that thread, pumping into the monster, spelled grave danger for Avalon. Of that Krystallus felt sure. He had no more doubt about the risk to his world than he did about his position—trapped in a shallow pit filled with rotten, reeking ooze from the swamp.

What should I do?
he asked himself, digging his fingers into the bog.
No time to alert anyone powerful enough to help! Basil. Or my father, wherever he may be.

His mud-stained brow furrowed, etching dark lines on his skin.
What,
he repeated,
should I do?
His hands closed into fists, squeezing the muck, as he realized the answer.

Whatever I can.

His eyes, as coal black as many of the shadows around him, scanned the Marsh. In the strange red glow from Doomraga’s eye—now pulsing to the rhythm of the throbbing thread from the stars—he viewed the billowing fumes, the eerily bubbling pools, and the darkest shadows that were, he knew, marsh ghouls.

He frowned, thinking what an utter fool he’d been to imagine that those wicked creatures might still have a shred of goodness left inside them. Sure, they had actually helped his father once, in the quest for the magical Mirror. But that was centuries ago, and even more centuries after their terrible sacrifice to keep their precious lands away from Rhita Gawr—still mortal in those days, but every bit the brutal warlord he remained now.

What a bitter irony that those very creatures had ended up serving Rhita Gawr! How far they had fallen from the proud and powerful enchantresses they once were, who took commands from no one but themselves.
No
, thought Krystallus,
I won’t get any help from them
.

His jaw tightened with resolve.
But I might be able to evade them
. Right now, while the ghouls were still hiding, trying to avoid any attention from the monster, he had an opportunity to do something bold. Something that no sane person would even consider.

I’m going to attack this beast. While there’s still time.

He felt, hidden under his mud-crusted tunic, the dagger in the sheath attached to his belt. It wouldn’t be much use against a monster as enormous as this one. But it was, at least, as sharp as any blade in Avalon, having been wrought by the elven swordsmiths of Ultan Fairlyn at the height of their skills. In fact, he now recalled, the master swordsmith had told him that this dagger could pierce “even a hide hardened by magic”—even though it would be wielded by a man with no magic of his own.