Third Earth, page 29
“Cool,” said Temnon.
“Yeah,” replied Jenz, punching the dragon in the head with the metal shield. “I designed it myself. Chiri powered it for me.”
Dizzy and beaten, the dragon slumped to the ground.
“Grandmaster Shume is on the way,” I said. “Now all we have to do is capture Pyranathos before he kills Dominath.”
“How?” Temnon asked.
“Have enough energy left to shift those?” I said, pointing to the giant metal sconces hanging from the ceiling.
With a mischievous glint in his eye, Tem’s beautiful magic, dancing in that familiar pattern I loved so much, extended to the ceiling. His matter shaping grabbed the chandeliers, tore them from their chains, and bent them into a single backbone with dozens of outstretched arms.
Dominath shoved his rear legs under the oily belly of Pyranathos and kicked him into the center of the great compass. Temnon seized his chance and dropped the metal dragon-trap. It fell onto Pyranathos, and the arms clapped closed, ensnaring him like a fly in a carnivorous plant. He struggled, muscles straining against the metal, and one oily wing slipped out from the restraint, flapping helplessly.
Dominath’s chest expanded, and an inferno of red flame exploded from his gaping jaws. The flame engulfed Pyranathos, igniting his oily scales. From behind, three more loyal dragons added their flaming breath and pounced on the trap, viciously attacking their enemy. Pyranathos writhed in pain, and huge wads of burning oil flicked from his free wing at the Odonatas. I held out my hands as Madame Chief Sempira taught me and caught the flame by its light. I pushed the fire at the horde of dragons flying after Phar Sekmet and coated them with the sticky oil. The fire scattered most of them, but one wicked hwedo, a flying dragon with a serpent’s body and only two legs, batted Sekmet out of the air with his burning tail. Flame extinguished, she sailed like a baseball to the north end of the arena.
“Mother!” yowled Lumi.
She leaped, nearly unseating me as she beat her wings to rush to her falling mother, but we both knew she’d be too late.
Grimmal, help, I telepathically yelled, placing the falling form of Sekmet in his mind.
The carcass of the pulverized purple dragon landed with a squishy thud as panther giant Grimmal rose from beneath the crumbled box of the regent. He spread his furry human hand and caught the phar, then gently set her on top next to Rein. Rein knelt over her, helplessly shaking his head.
Roaring in anger, Grimmal leaped and snagged the hwedo’s burning tail, dragging him to the ground. The two fought as the walls of the royal boxes crumbled and the unsupported top dropped in a sharp tilt. Rein leaned back and grabbed Sekmet by her fur, but her heavy body slowly dragged him down toward the battling giants.
“She’s injured,” Lumi mewed in misery. “I have to help her.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “Rein too.”
“Put up a light shield,” she said.
Spinning in the air, she tucked her feathered wings, caught me in her arms, set me in a relatively open space, and hurried to help the fallen phar. From my position west of the great compass, I saw Rein create a platform of solid water and hold Sekmet in place as the whole top broke loose and slid down to ground level, running into Grimmal’s giant ankle, which bent unnaturally. The hwedo spiraled around him as he fell to one knee. Kyprios’s tail flapped angrily from beneath the heavy top.
Things were falling apart. Shume had better hurry.
The formally ordered courtroom with its laws and hierarchy had deteriorated into a war zone. Flashes of scales and wings tumbled through the carnage. Rubble marred the smooth floor, and fires burned everywhere.
Maybe fear and fatigue made me hallucinate, but one of the thousands of fires seemed to be moving. Toward me. More creepy-crawly goosebumps erupted as I saw the fire glaring at me with intense hate.
Clothes burning, Fake Thayn strolled up, wearing a freaky, casual grin. His dark hair twisted and shrunk in the heat, and his skin blistered, but he acted like he felt no pain. Even in the shape of a person, he was still a dragon and mostly fire-proof.
“What’s this?” his familiar voice drawled. “The truth wizard left all alone? This is an opportunity I can’t afford to miss.”
My spine tingled in fear. Behind him, the metal chandeliers near Dominath still held the form of an oily, dark, burning dragon. Dominath still bathed the squirming shape in fiery breath, but my gift showed me the dark glittering magic that swirled around them both, changing their forms and blocking any telepathy.
“Tainted magic,” I whispered.
The tainted magic helped Pyranathos create a deceptive illusion. During the chaos of their fight, he changed Dominath to look like him. The real Dragon of Knowledge fought for his life in the metal cage, silenced by the dark spell, while the Dominath I saw was only an illusion. The slippery liar wasn’t out of tricks.
“What? Oh yes. You can see magic.” Thayn glimpsed back to where he was supposedly being held. “I’ve always wondered—what does it look like?”
“Black stars,” I answered, heating my chest for a revealing spell, “with a translucent glow. You are using tainted magic to hold an illusion. But you aren’t using light like a normal illusionist. You used shadow.”
“You can see all that? Truth magic is a wonderful talent.” Thayn rubbed his chin, leaving a streak of burn on his full jowls. “Better than knowledge. If my high-minded brother stopped trying to kill me long enough to see my side, he wouldn’t be painfully dying under the claws of his allies.”
I simultaneously released my revealing spell and invaded Pyranathos’s mind.
Enormity engulfed me. A cosmos of darkness and shadow reached beyond the normal limitations of a mortal mind. His focus remained on the conscious world, and with his eyes, I saw my spell reveal Dominath’s true shape.
Pyranathos’s mind lay in an immaculately patterned order, beginning far in the past and extending long into the future. It was too broad for me to grasp entirely.
In its center, a kiddy-pool of oily sludge bubbled, seething with darkness. His magic. He managed to cripple my gift with just a pinprick of this disgusting slop. Fake Thayn’s power wasn’t his magic, but his cunning.
I followed his past with a featherlight touch, searching for the identity of his boss, but a wall of steel hurtled toward me, blocking my search and thrusting me from his mind.
I adjusted back to the conscious world. Freed from his cage, Dominath lay slumped on the ground, and Temnon ran to his side. Fake Thayn put his hands on his hips and chided me.
“Don’t you know it’s rude to trespass in other’s brains?”
“You don’t have the magic or skill to maintain illusions that big,” I said. “Your magic reserves are exhausted. You’re only alive because you borrowed tainted magic from someone far more powerful than you.”
“Just taking advantage of my resources. When playing games of strategy”—he shook a grandfatherly finger at me—“one should always surround himself with generals who can dutifully execute grand plans.”
“And what were your orders, General?” I asked.
“No, little missy,” he tutted and tried to pat my head, but I flinched away. “I pull the strings. My generals serve me. I am the future regent of the universe.”
Lie. I enjoyed the unpleasant buzz this time.
He turned and breathed in the chaos-choked air like a hiker relishing a fresh, spring morning. He held his hands open to the scene of desperate struggle and destruction.
“This is the future I seek. A universe where dragons freely follow their basest instinct. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Wow. This psycho was missing a few gallons of sanity. While his back was turned, I tugged open a Velcro pocket in my baggy pants.
“You may be a scrawny little hatching, but your talent has uses,” he hinted. “Work for me. You tell me everything I want to know, and I’ll pay you with another day of being alive.”
“Tempting offer.”
“Refuse, and I’ll kill you in an instant.” He turned suddenly and tried to snap his fingers in my face, but his fingertip melted off and plopped on the floor.
Gross. I stifled my gag reflex. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“You have no choice. We both know you have no physical power. You are little more than a helpless cripple.”
“I am pretty weak,” I said, “but I’m also arch mage of Second Earth. I have more than magic. I have science.”
“Science?” Pyrana-Thayn laughed. His burning robe disintegrated and slipped from his red, blistering shoulders. “What can math and theories do to help you now?”
“This.”
I aimed my taser at his bare chest and squeezed the trigger.
32
Shadow, Fire, and Smoke
With a loud zap two barbed electrical wires shot into Thayn’s chest and 50,000 volts of electricity surged through his body. He shook violently. His eyes rolled back and foam sizzled in his mouth. Colucci told me the current shocked him for five seconds, but it seemed longer than that.
Thayn groaned, drooling spit and blood.
“I think you bit your tongue,” I said. “Sawrrryyy. Hmm. I lied. I guess I’m not sorry at all.”
Finally, in a great flash of blue light, a regiment of soldiers in red uniforms transported inside the barrier. A bald guy with gray stubble on his chin darted to King Odric, who, with relief on his face, issued an order. The army of paladins spread out; weapons the size of bazookas rested on their shoulders.
“Protect the king and the allies of First Earth,” barked the grandmaster. “Target those with the mark of the curved sword.”
Another flash of blue light filled the arena. A second army appeared, this one in silver with purple sashes. They joined the paladins in seeking out the radicals. A tall woman, her auburn hair wrapped in a tight twist, led a group of wizards in purple togas.
I couldn’t believe it. Arch Mage Adrina from Earth 22. King Po Lan must have sent her and his forces. Enraged dragons attacked, blowing fire that harmlessly spread around the soldiers, deflected and diffused by an ingenious fire elemental enchantment. The radicals resorted to physical attacks and charged. Adrina’s rainbow magic swept across the arena catching up dust, and with deadly accuracy, she flung it into the eyes of the charging dragons. Blinded, they stampeded or flew in random directions, and Po Lan’s telekins held them in place.
Shume’s paladins sniped them with enchanted bazookas that hit their targets with cloudy spells. Zen-shots—the human equivalent of Regent Menneth’s peace magic. With zen magic hanging heavily in their faces, the radical dragons slowed their attacks, giving the loyal dragons an advantage. One by one, the radicals gave in, overpowered by their kindmates.
With one more flash, full warrior-queen-mode Dame Maudine transported in. Her sharp eyes appraised the scene in seconds and streams of life magic flooded into the drained and injured. The twins brightened, Phar Sekmet stirred, and Dominath weakly trudged over to Bandlash and the shattered regent. Temnon, now by Dominath’s side, put a hand on a great ram’s horn and his golden magic slipped around the curve and under the green scales. Menneth’s spine went on forever. That was a seriously tricky repair.
I kept Pyrana-Thayn covered with a fresh cartridge in my taser. So far, he hadn’t moved. Dragons might be fire resistant, but they were sure vulnerable to electrical signals immobilizing their muscular systems. With the regent and Dominath badly injured, I wasn’t sure who to turn Pyranathos over to.
I noticed Maudine’s life magic straightening out Grimmal’s ankle when the vice regent pushed himself from the rubble of the collapsed regent’s box. He seemed okay.
I sent him a telepathic image of Pyrana-Thayn convulsing helplessly on the ground. Kyprios. He’s over here.
He soon spotted me waving at him and glided over, his warm eyes glowing in relief. Well done, Arch Mage. He poked Pyrana-Thayn experimentally. Is this wretched creature truly the Dragon of Lies?
“He is Pyranathos, brother of Dominath, son of the Tine Banri’on line, and a convicted traitor of Third Earth,” I said with full confidence.
I see you have broken the curse on your truth. I am glad of that. How did you defeat him?
“With a little Second Earth science. He should have read my history when he had the chance.”
Menneth was wise to enlist your aid. I hoped, from the beginning, you would succeed, but I never imagined such an outcome.
“Me neither.”
Pyranathos coughed, and his eyes flickered open. Groaning, he rolled up onto his elbow.
Ah, Kyprios said. He wakes. Pyranathos, as vice regent, I am authorized to administer the death sentence. Whom do you serve?
Pyrana-Thayn spit a mouthful of foaming blood on the floor. “All those who long for freedom.”
I did not expect you to betray your superior. It is of no matter. Dominath has revealed all who have sworn themselves to your pointless cause. We will learn the truth soon enough. Kyprios lifted a paw over the sporadically twitching figure of Pyrana-Thayn. His coppery claws twinkled with metallic glint and extended into fifteen-foot spears. May your soul comprehend your crimes and receive enlightenment.
The rage of a dragon twisted Pyrana-Thayn’s burned face, and orange eyes glittered with blame. “And may your soul be haunted eternally by your cowardice.”
Meet your end, traitor.
“Whew,” I said to myself. “It’s oohhhvv—uh-oh.”
Kyprios’s death strike didn’t fall. His claws remained high above Thayn, unmoving.
A cold mist fell on my hair, trickled into my scalp, and filled every cell with utter horror. My legs flexed with an urge to run for my life, but they froze in place, as lifeless as a statue. My arms became solid, my neck inflexible. What kind of attack was this—only my eyes moved. I glanced around; the entire room waited on pause. Dragons, paladins, even magic and fire, halted entirely. Only the shocked eyes of the spell’s victims darted, trying to understand the magnitude of the spell that locked us all in time.
High above the great compass swirled a dark vortex, brimming with tainted magic. Descending into the hall, it reached the golden barrier of the enchanter twins, paused, then shattered the powerful barrier more easily than spun sugar. Jagged fragments of golden magic drifted, weightless, submissively shifting to allow the dark vortex into the Hall of Ri Dauch.
Crap. That same vortex distorted the Jent Path to First Earth and nearly killed me and Lumi. Vi Lorina had sat in one as she drained the magic from Dame Maudine, but this uncontrollable fear, Vi didn’t have that. No, that came from the vortex that enveloped the wolf demon who possessed King Odric. This tainted magical vortex opened to the world created by Dominath. The purgatory of the magical worlds. The Nia Nega Abyss.
For the longest of moments, we all waited. Then a tentacle of black, billowing smoke flowed out of the vortex and wrapped around the waist of Pyrana-Thayn. The smoke lifted and pulled him to the pulsing vortex.
“No!” He pushed against the smoke, which held him as solidly as steel. “Stop! I have not failed you yet, master. I can still deliver your prize. Release me!”
The smoke ignored his pleas and drew him ever closer to the chilling vortex. Pyranathos reverted to dragon form, and with claw, fire, and fang he battled the smoke, but to no avail. With all four limbs and his tail, he strained to break the hold. Shadow and fire blazed from him, but the tentacle never wavered. With calm insistence, it carried the Dragon of Lies into the vortex, and his frenzied roars faded in the distance.
Pyranathos was what? Free? Doomed?
Another tentacle of smoke extended from the vortex and drifted toward me.
My heart hammered, and the blood rushed from my face. I did NOT want to go into that vortex. Desperate to escape, heat blazed in my chest and white light glowed. My magic released me from the halting spell.
Run, my magic told me, but my legs couldn’t obey.
They buckled under me, and I cried out in pain. “Move,” I said. “Please, move!” But my own stabbing nerves disabled me as surely as the dark spell. The black smoke billowed near and its rounded tip studied me as I cringed, breathless, on the ground. It reached for my waist.
Terrified, I surrounded my skin with a light shield, but it didn’t prevent the smoke from wrapping me up. The tentacle lifted me, my useless legs dangling like wet rags, and pulled me across the arena. Next to the fallen regent, Temnon shook, fighting against the power that held him. His golden magic stayed about his fingers, and his face paled, but even his prodigious talent remained constrained by the all-encompassing spell.
High above the arena floor, the dark vortex waited. Framed by the tainted magic, a forest of dead trees, branches bleached white as bone, covered the dark earth. Streams of roiling mire wound between their roots, its banks dotted by bushes of soot and blossoms of ash. Instead of blowing breezes, wails of despair filled the air. Instead of light, a moribund haze of pale gray hung on the horizon. It was as if Death himself tried to copy nature.
Beyond the forest, a flare of red flame from the captured Pyranathos lit a mountain of darkness, but this mountain was built of smoke, not stone. Thunderous flashes of lightning exploded within the smoke, defining the layers upon layers of dark clouds. It dwarfed the dragon, and I understood why Pyranathos’s efforts were so futile. It fought against a sentient storm cloud. One that paralyzed victims with fear.
Fight.
It took a moment to remember the sound of my own mind. Fight how? I couldn’t kick out of this hold with my stabbing legs. Then again, I didn’t need to. My talents lay elsewhere.
I dove inside myself, a bit surprised to see my ocean of magic gleaming with fierce courage beneath me.
I don’t want to go in that hole, I stated unnecessarily.
No. Fight.
Okay, then.
Inside myself, I swirled my arms, stirring my magic in a circle. It followed my command, flowing faster and faster until a whirlpool of light appeared. It was inverted, like an upside-down draining sink. My magic spun and flowed up into my arms. Now, I could fight.
