The Conjuring Man, page 37
Lilith punched his shoulder. “I won’t leave you,” she said. “I’m staying.”
“You can stay together, if you like, if you bow the knee to me,” Arnold said, stepping in through the other hatch. “But otherwise, this is the end.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“I’m impressed to see you made it here,” Arnold said. He looked – and sounded – exactly like the man Adam had met months ago, right down to the craftsman’s outfit and bright smile. “Perhaps you will tell me how you did it?”
“Magic,” Lilith said, her words dripping ice. “We teleported onto the gondola.”
Arnold’s smile grew wider. “If you’re going to lie, at least make it convincing,” he said. “You couldn’t have teleported onto the airship. You’d have materialised into open air and fallen to your deaths.”
“We managed to break into an impregnable castle,” Adam pointed out. The airship was still spinning. They needed to buy time, both for his plan to work and for the university to ready its defences. If Arnold wanted to talk, let him. “Why couldn’t we teleport onto an airship?”
Arnold sneered, the expression coming and going so quickly Adam would have missed it if he hadn’t been watching closely. “Apples and oranges,” he said, dismissively. “You wouldn’t have made it at all, if Master Dagon hadn’t done the hard work. I never knew he had it in him. The way he treated you ... I always had the impression he was more interested in the idea of a daughter than a real-life child. He was certainly reluctant to give you the training you need.”
“My father was a better man than you’ll ever be,” Lilith snarled. “And I will avenge his death.”
“Really.” Arnold didn’t look impressed. “You are a Laughing Bitch, aren’t you? You flew to the airship.”
Lilith snorted. “Oh, how funny. Oh, how original. Oh, how ... utterly devastating. I’m just lying on the floor, screaming in pain, because someone rhymed witch with bitch. Do you honestly think you’re the first person to make that joke? Honestly?”
“No,” Arnold said. “I really am impressed with the pair of you. I really am. And my offer was quite sincere.”
“You’d take us as your slaves and nothing else,” Adam said. He could feel Lilith’s growing anger as she prepared herself. “Do you already have collars charmed and waiting for our necks?”
“Of course not,” Arnold said. “There’s no point in crushing your minds and turning your bodies into property. You could have long and happy lives in my new fortress, developing your magic and magitech alike, in exchange for your service. Are you not tempted?”
“You killed my father,” Lilith said, flatly. “Do you think there’s any force in the universe that could convince me to forgive you?”
Arnold looked bored. “I don’t want your forgiveness, merely your service,” he said. “And if you won’t give me that ...”
He waved a hand at Adam. Adam felt his body freeze. He cursed mentally, unable to move a single muscle. Lilith growled, a terrifying sound, and darted forward, magic flashing around her. Arnold raised his hands an instant before they clashed. Adam wanted to scream in frustration as raw magic cascaded around them, threatening to tear the airship apart. There was a real chance he’d be thrown from the airship a second time. This time, he might not stay frozen until he hit the ground.
She can beat him, he thought. Can’t she?
Lilith was thrown back. Adam thought, for a horrible moment, that she’d lost ... and then he realised she was flying, levitating herself around the compartment. Her hand darted at him, releasing the spell. Adam dropped to the deck, ducking a second spell that flashed over his head and splattered uselessly against the far bulkhead. Arnold snorted rudely and threw another hail of curses at Lilith, the flashes of bright light hiding complicated spellwork far beyond his ability to sense, let alone understand. He wondered, not for the first time, just what it looked like to a real magician, then started to stand. Arnold stuck his feet to the deck a second later.
“Stay there,” Arnold said, dismissively. “I’ll hammer your girlfriend into submission and then deal with you.”
“You won’t,” Lilith said. Her magic flared, a wave of fire taking shape and lashing across Arnold’s wards. “You’ll die.”
Adam gritted his teeth, ignoring the duel as he lifted the magiwriter and spun the wheels into place. The magic billowed around him – he couldn’t feel it directly, but the device was vibrating – and lashed out, the spell taking shape and form practically instantaneously. Arnold barely had a second to react before he was smashed against – and through – the bulkhead, metal and wood tearing like paper. Adam thought, just for a moment, that they’d won and the battle was over, before Arnold slowly rose to his feet. A shiver ran down Adam’s back. Arnold wasn’t smiling any longer.
He sounded astonished. “What?”
“I told you,” Adam said. His fingers spun the wheels, setting up the next spell. “I made my own magic.”
Arnold stepped forward, then staggered as the first perfectly shaped fireball crashed into his wards. Another followed and another, the magic flaring brightly and threatening to break his protections once and for all. Adam pushed forward as Lilith joined in, casting fireballs of her own ... something wilted, just for a second, before Arnold simply snapped out of existence. Adam blinked ... Lilith launched a force punch, sweeping the chamber with naked power. Arnold appeared and threw a spell back ...
Clever, Adam thought. He spun the wheels again as Arnold launched a curse at Lilith, then another at Adam himself. He didn’t stick around to be blasted. He slipped out and left an illusion to be blasted in his face.
He gritted his teeth, the magiwriter twisting as he cast spell after spell. Arnold snarled, dodging or deflecting each of the spells with terrifying skill. Adam gritted his teeth and kept going. The bastard was too close to break contact and escape and yet too far away to guarantee a hit. Adam forced himself to think, all too aware there’d been no time to link the magiwriter into a battery. The power might run out at any moment.
“Impressive,” Arnold said. “And I’ll take it from your corpse after you’re dead.”
Adam gritted his teeth. The magiwriter was absorbing the spells hurled at it and channelling the magic into its own spells. Arnold was literally powering his enemy, but it wasn’t enough ... how could it be? The airship shook, violently, as something exploded far too close for comfort ... Adam didn’t dare look up to see what it might be. If one of the fireballs lasted long enough to strike the gasbag, they’d be watching the second half of the explosion from the next world.
“You’ll die too,” Lilith told him. Her spells might be weaker, at least in power, but they were harder to deflect. Adam’s lips twitched. Arnold could take either of them, alone, but together? The moment he turned his attention to one, the other would blast him in the back. “My father will be waiting for you in the next world.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Arnold said. He sounded oddly distracted, as if he were trying to do two things at once. “You won’t survive this day.”
Adam snorted, trying to cover his sudden alarm. “We knocked the smile off your face,” he taunted. It was playground stuff, but it might win them a few more seconds. “And you can’t get away from us.”
The airship shook again. Adam wondered, suddenly, what he’d do in Arnold's place. Teleporting off the airship would be suicide, as long as the defences remained in place ... probably. No one had tried. What else could Arnold do? Keep fighting in hopes he could outlast the magiwriter? The smartest thing he could do would be to keep his distance and ...
A whiff of durian crossed his nostrils. Adam blinked in surprise – he hadn’t broken any more of the vials – and then cursed as he realised what Arnold had done. He’d called the slaves! A hand grabbed his neck, hauling him back with a strange mixture of fanatical strength and cold indifference ... he found himself looking into the eyes of a dead man walking, a man so lost in his own enslavement he was no longer even aware of himself. Adam nearly dropped the magiwriter, before shoving it up and against the collar. The man staggered as the slave spells flickered and died ... Adam forced himself to knock him out, to let him sleep it off and – hopefully – awaken a free man. The rest of the slaves were still coming.
Adam spun the wheels and cast a spell. The slaves stopped dead, then morphed into tiny statues of themselves. It wouldn’t last long, Adam knew, but it would hopefully last long enough for Arnold to be beaten and the airship recovered. Arnold laughed, incredulously, as he traded spells with Lilith. She was stumbling back, taking one hell of a beating. Adam feared the only reason she hadn’t lost already was because Arnold had been watching him.
“Clever,” Arnold said. “But it won’t save you.”
Adam pointed the magiwriter at him, cast a spell ... and nothing happened. He swore, his eyes going wide with horror as he realised the last spell had drained the rest of the power. Arnold looked at him, his eyes glittering with suppressed amusement as he realised what had happened. The magiwriter had run dry and ... and Adam was powerless. He stumbled to his knees, hands scrabbling for the wands. But they were just as useless, nothing more than pointed wooden sticks. The power was gone.
“You were reflecting my power back at me,” Arnold said. “Amazing. Truly amazing.”
His voice hardened. “It seems to me that shooting raw magic at you is asking for trouble,” he said. “But you know what ...?”
Adam grunted as strong hands grabbed him. Captain Harkness was standing right behind him, eyes dead and cold. Adam acted quickly, slamming his palm into the man’s groin – it was dirty, but trying to fight honourably on the streets meant getting his head kicked in – yet the man didn’t seem to notice. Arnold chuckled as the captain’s grip tightened. Adam couldn’t break free.
“Stay there,” Arnold said. He made no move to take away the magiwriter, or even to order his slaves to tie Adam up. “I’ll deal with you shortly.”
Adam felt overwhelming despair as the two magicians closed one final time. He’d given it his best shot – he’d made his own magic, as he’d bragged – and it hadn’t been enough. Arnold was too strong, too cunning ... he was going to beat Lilith and then enslave them both and that would truly be the end. Or maybe he’d just drop them to their deaths, far below. Adam hoped, vindictively, that the changes he’d made to the spell circuits would be enough to ruin Arnold’s plan. The bastard would get away – of course – but Heart’s Eye would survive.
He tried to think, to come up with one final trick. There was nothing. The gas vials were out of his reach, and in any case, Arnold would have no trouble filtering out the gas before it reached his bloodstream. Captain Harkness was so deeply enslaved that there was no way Adam could hurt him badly enough to force him to let go, not without crippling him. He couldn’t figure out a way to do it. The captain wasn’t in his right mind, but he was still tough. And strong. Adam hadn’t been manhandled so easily since he’d left Beneficence.
Think, he told himself. The airship was still spinning, but once Arnold dealt with them, he’d be able to resume his mission. There has to be a way out.
“Bow to me,” Arnold hissed. He had her, the last of her defences flickering before the final inevitable failure. “Bow, and you will be spared.”
Lilith spat in his face. “Go to hell.”
Adam wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Lilith was going to die. Lilith ... he wished, with all his heart, they’d never met each other, or that they’d stayed enemies. It hadn’t been pleasant, and their rivalry would only have gotten worse, but ... she’d be alive. She’d be free. She’d be ...
The airship lurched, again, as something exploded. Adam caught a glimpse of something alongside them, something that shouldn’t be there. Another airship? There wasn’t one! Praxis and Yvonne had already started work on Voidsdaughter II, incorporating everything they’d learnt from the first model, but they’d said it would be at least a month before the second airship was ready to take flight. He realised the truth a second later. It wasn’t an airship. It was a hot air balloon!
He felt the deck shift again, the captain losing his grip for a second. Adam pulled himself free and yanked the collar from the captain’s neck, the man spasming madly before opening his mouth and screaming like a newborn child, wetting himself a second later. Adam gritted his teeth and rolled away, a crazy thought crossing his mind. If he was wrong ...
There’s no choice, he thought. The hot air balloon might have brought reinforcements, but they were nowhere to be seen. If this works, we might just win.
He grabbed the magiwriter, exposed the wires underneath and, bracing himself, shoved them into his arm. The pain was excruciating. He screamed as the wires stabbed deep into his skin, his blood – infused blood - welling up and around the magiwriter. His awareness seemed to shift, the magiwriter becoming almost part of him. Captain Blademaster had told him a skilled swordsman often bonded with his blade, to the point he couldn’t fight so well without his favoured weapon ... why not a magiwriter? Why not ...?
Arnold straightened. “What ...?”
“My blood is infused with magic,” Adam said. He felt as if he were back on the pitchfork, flying through the sky, but without anyone to guide the magic. He was riding a boat through the gorges, all too aware that one bad call would see him smashed against the rocks. “I told you! I made my own magic!”
The magic flared, as if it too were a part of him. Adam knew, now, just how magicians felt when they wielded their power. He felt weirdly drunk, as if he could do anything ... and he could. The raw magic had so much potential. He could do anything, anything at all, with enough magic. Who cared about teleporting or transfiguration or anything, when one could be a god?
He lashed out. It was the blow of a swaggering drunkard, thrown with no precision at all, and yet Arnold couldn’t hope to stop it. The sorcerer dived for cover, the blast smashing through the gondola and raging onwards into the darkening sky. Adam laughed, mind too twisted to think straight, and hurled another one. Arnold barely deflected enough of the blow to survive, but ...
Lilith staggered back. “He’s breaking through your crude spells.”
“They’re not spells,” Arnold said. He was still fighting. Somehow, incredibly, he was still fighting. “They’re just bursts of raw power. Necromancy without necromancy. Do you think they’ll let him live, when they realise what he’s done ...?”
A gun barked. Arnold staggered. Taffy stood in the hatch, one hand clutching the railing and the other holding a gun. Arnold stared at her, his eyes going wide with shock even as he cast a spell to yank the pistol out of her hand and throw it through the gas in the hull. Adam felt the power welling up again and lashed out, hurling the remaining vials a second later. Arnold smirked, his magic crawling into the magiwriter spells and reaching towards Adam. He could feel it.
“A necromancer couldn’t be taken down like this,” Arnold said, staggering to his feet. “But you?”
Lilith stumbled up to Adam and pressed her hands against his, against the magiwriter. “I know magic,” she said. Arnold’s questing spells fled like fire before a tidal wave. “And with power ...”
Adam braced himself. His blood was on fire. The stench of durian was everywhere and yet Arnold was still fighting and ... his thoughts and magic – borrowed magic – merged with Lilith’s, the raw power being shaped into a spell. It wasn’t a very complex spell, but it didn’t need to be. And there was no escape.
Arnold smiled, his hands dropping to his sides. “Well played.”
Adam barely heard him. Or saw anything, through the haze. But he felt the sorcerer die.
He stumbled, crashing to the deck. His blood was still on fire. The airship was lurching ... he’d damaged the engines, then Taffy had damaged them again and ... he could feel the airship dying, all around them. There was nowhere to go. He dared not trust the parachutes and Lilith didn’t have the power to save them and they were going to die together and ...
“Taffy,” he managed. He was already close to Lilith, their bodies and minds pressed tight together. They had power and focus, but no knowledge. “Come here.”
Taffy inched towards them, her hands clutching theirs. Adam braced himself – she might never forgive him for this – and brought her into the makeshift ritual. Taffy screamed – Adam hated himself in that moment – as her knowledge flowed into their minds, becoming part of them. For an instant, they were a god, with everything they needed to fix the airship and themselves. The world seemed to pause, as if everyone were waiting to see what would happen ...
... And then the power was gone.
Adam opened his eyes, unsure of when he’d closed them. His right arm was a bloody mess. He thought, for a horrified moment, he’d lost it completely. The remains of the magiwriter lay on the ground, shattered beyond repair. Lilith and Taffy looked as stunned as he felt, as the remainder of the crew slowly came back to life. The spell he’d used had broken, he thought, and their collars had died with Arnold. Or ...
Lilith coughed. “Is it over?”
“Yeah,” Adam said, although he knew it would never be truly over. Not for them. “I felt him die.”
Chapter Forty
Adam felt ... drained.
It was over – it had ended on that final terrible day – and yet he knew, as the last of the mourners walked away, that it would never be truly over, not until he died. It had been three weeks since Master Dagon’s death, three weeks before anyone could organise a proper funeral, and he’d spent them alternatively comforting Lilith and trying to come to terms with his own lassitude. They’d won. Arnold was dead, King Ephialtes was dead, Queen Violet was on the throne and yet ... it felt as if nothing had ended. The world was going on and on and there was no time to catch his breath.
And yet, they’d done very little since returning to the university.
