Sorcerer Rising (A Virgil McDane Novel) (26 page)

I heard tires behind us and whipped around. To my immediate delight, I realized it was James. And he was in a jeep. I would need to add Ford to one of the
saints I prayed to.

“No time for a picnic!” James said. “We gotta get the hell outta here!”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. We all jumped in the jeep and he tore off down the path. We caught up with the rest a moment later. The cloud was losing mass, yesterday the same trip had taken hours. Ahead of us I could see the swirling mass of purple Aether that was our gateway home. A column of people were marching toward it; our camp and hundreds of others.

I looked behind me and felt my blood run cold.

The circus of horrors was still crawling up the path,              a writhing mass of half formed ideas and roiling absurdity. Creatures, horrors, and wonders formed and dissolved, some not even cohering into a complete form before they changed again, resulting in creatures with deformed heads, dozens of limbs, covered in fur or scale, made of flesh or stone.

And they were catching up.

There was a grinding sound and a giant stone hand ripped its way out of the ground, smashing one of the lead creatures. A large figure, made all of stone and dirt, followed the hand, dragging itself from the earth and squaring itself against the horde.

A flash of light caught my attention.
              Conrad Dorne had set himself as a wall to keep the creatures at bay. He drove the end of his staff into the earth, grey and silver mist spilling from his eyes and hands, down into the ground. The wood hummed with power, loud enough to be heard even at this distance, dark light coursing down the marble coils. Two more constructs, raw elementals of earth, stone, and metal answered his call, ripping their way out of the ground to face the apparitions.

I pointed at Dorne. “Drop us off there, than get the hell out of here!”

“You sure?” he asked over the noise of the battle.

I nodded. “We’ll be fine.”

As we pulled up, Dorne twisted his staff into the ground, cracking the earth apart. He let it go, and hands wreathed in gray mist, drove his fingers into the ground. Red hot liquid metal flowed up from the cracks, flowing over his hands and up his forearms. He stood, wrenching the rest of the metal from the ground. In each palm the metal shaped itself into a hot disk of semi-solid steel. He dove forward and took one, two, three steps, his body spinning, and sent one then another disk sailing into the horde.

The discs cut through them, a red hot wheel of destruction.
After slowing, each exploded in a storm of shrapnel and molten metal.

Tiffany joined him, placing her own staff in front of her, green mist swirling around the head of the wood. Small budding branches popped up along the surface, forming into multicolored pods. She plucked one and cracked it open, holding the exposed interior to the air. The wind caught its contents, drawing a faint, silvery powder from the seed and spreading it throughout the mass. Whatever the powder touched, whatever was made of flesh anyway, it was hard to tell, instantly swelled, dark veins of red forming under the skin. Whole droves of the apparitions dropped to the ground, puss and slime running from their swollen bodies.

And me? Well, I watched.

My poker buddies had aske
d the difference between Wizard and Sorcerer, and in the end it came down to a simple answer. Standards. I had spoken of Wizards before as talent with education. Well, this is what education brought.

I was powerless in the face of this horde. I had a whole bag of tricks, a whole collection of knickknacks and toys that could help in a pinch for this and that. But I was standing next to two full-fledged members of the Wizard’s Guild, professional mages of such high caliber that they could demand kingdoms for their service.

Four years ago I would have been Flame Made Flesh, a living volcano of fury and fire. A firestorm of rage. I would have burned the ground to glass, these horrors to ash, the very oxygen drawn from the air to fuel my carnage.

That was then, and this was now. Even with Tiffany’s help, that had just returned me to the level I had been days ago.

The horrors were beginning to take more specific shapes, the Aether feeding off the nearest sources.

Namely, us.

Spiders began to crawl from the earth, bigger than our jeeps, hungry and mean. Carapace like black steel shone in the ever shifting sun, thick green venom dripping from a multitude of ravenous mouths. Merciless, black eyes focused on us.

In between them, skeletons dressed in the uniform of the Anderian military, took shape. Gunshots filled the air, bullets whistling over my head.

Dorne came to a halt, his jaw clenched tight, his eyes wide in fear and rage. He had seen those uniforms when they were on living men. The war hadn’t affected me like so many others, but I knew many it had.

He gritted his teeth and chunked another disk at the horde. “We have the situation under control, McDane! We will hold them, lead the rest to safety.”

An idea popped into my head. “I can help-”

A rifle cracked and Tiffany’s head snapped back. I watched in horror as blood erupted from her forehead, watched in slow motio
n as she collapsed to the ground. Dorne’s attention snapped away from the battle instantly, the metal flowing from his body like water. He fell down to his knees beside her, his face twisted.

             
One, then another elemental crumbled to the ground behind him, their form dissolving as his concentration waned. Only one stood between the various monstrosities and us, and chunks of dirt were crumbling from its surface.

I joined him next to her, my heart sinking at the sight. Her sightless green eyes, filled with life before, stared back blankly. The small pink flower had fallen from behind her ear, its delicate petals stained with blood.

An angry, red circle glared out just from below her hairline.

I gritted my teeth, staring at the circle. Red seeped into my vision. I felt around in my pocket and grabbed hold of Abigail’s grip. I concentrated on her, ignoring the chaos around me, on the aching pain playing across Dorne’s face, on the lovely young woman lying before me.

Abigail?
I asked.

Yes, Virgil
, she replied, her soft, calm voice whispering in my mind.
What can I do for you?

We are in it bad. I am going to need to ask the most from you. I will need to use the black shell. Can you handle it?

She hesitated.
If you think it is necessary. Just point in the direction and pull my trigger.

I broke the gun and pulled a shell from my pocket, the last I had. It was black and silver, heavier than it had any business being. Carefully, I slid it into the barrel.

Shit Shot. Pick called it that because if you ever needed to fire it, you were in deep shit. Gunpowder, Canish silver, a bad man’s ashes, sulfur, dragon shit and a drop of nitro glycerin, all prepared under a meteor shower. Just point and pull, and never, ever, use it in both barrels.

I stood up, staring the horde down. A tank, a crawling metal monstrosity, had joined its ranks. Electricity popped and crackled from the various crystals adorning its surface. The spiders howled
at seeing me and the soldiers directed their fire in my direction.

I ignored the oncoming spiders, the bullets that whizzed inches from my body, the world dissolving around me. I ignored Dorne and Tiffany, ignored the shimmering column of light in the distance that had brought it all on.

I kept my mind on the gun, on the process required to convert the raw ingredients into such a powerful spell. Deep blue sigils, runes that had lost all meaning to me, lit up down the barrel and the metal began to hum.

A bullet skimmed my shoulder
, sending searing pain lancing down my arm. I ignored it. Another bullet exploded at my foot. I ignored it as well. The tank’s massive cannon slowly swiveled in our direction. It meant nothing.

             
I thought of the woman laying at my feet. Of all the possibilities that had been stolen from her, the potential that had been squandered by an ounce of lead. I looked over the horde and the Arcus, the burning band of light that had caused the woman’s death.

The runes blazed into a corona of light until the barrel became translucent. I felt the stock soften, molding itself to my grip, latching on to my aura, drawing strength from me.

I couldn’t make it pay. But someone would.

Dorne’s construct fell to one knee, spiders swarming over its form. They were only a couple dozen feet away now, a writhing mass of legs and fangs. One leapt over the elemental, eyes intent on me…

I squeezed.

It erupted like a full armada of cannons all going off at once, a wave of force erupting from the barrel. It swept forward, a wall of power and energy that churned up everything in front of me. The construct was vaporized, the spiders, the skeletons, the horrors, wiped out in a fireball, the very air combusting under the force of the blast.
The hillside disappeared in an instant, the blast digging a deep crater in the earth, leveling trees for over a mile back.

It kicked so hard I felt it in my soul. The energy, the very heat and motion of my body, seeped out through my hand and into the gun.

My knees wobbled, but I kept myself up. An odd blue smoke drifted from Abigail's barrel and the whole thing glowed faintly.             

Grimly, I slid her back into my pocket. I looked at Dorne, whose face was hard. He picked Tiffany up, surveyed the scene, and nodded to me.

Silently, we hiked out of the dying world.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Around two in the afternoon,
we left the Aether, one of the few groups not to keep running. We stopped at the camp to gather our wits. Half the workers kept on going. I didn’t expect to see them again.

It took about twenty minutes, but steadily the cloud evaporated. When it was gone, the Arcus receded up into the sky and disappeared.

I sat on the tailgate of one of the trucks, sipping a beer as a world died. I had seen forests burn, seen rivers poisoned, heard of animals driven to extinction, towns that fell to ruin, cities abandoned, but I had never, ever seen a cloud disappear.

Then I threw up. I crawled into a corner behind a truck and gagged until I was on the verge of blacking out. A good bit of the party had broken up, drifting into the wind. Sam was bandaging a whole slew of injuries, which I now realized would include removing a shard of metal from my leg
. I didn’t even remember getting it.

He gave me something to numb the pain and I sat in one of the trucks, waiting for it to kick in.

James shook my hand, told me I had saved a lot of people back there. I took his hand numbly, his thanks punctuating my failure.

Dorne nodded at me, then left to return Tiffany’s body to the Guild. They would handle the details there, though I suspected Dorne would have a hand in it.

I wanted to say something. Anything to release the pressure that had built up behind my eyes, inside my chest. To lessen the grief, the guilt, of seeing another friend taken away to be buried.

But there
was nothing. It wasn’t my place, wasn’t my privilege even.

I lay back in the truck and let myself drift into darkness.

I awoke to strong hands shaking me.

I opened my eyes and was greeted by the hard, ugly features of Levi Dalton. The Leviathan in the flesh.

Want to know why he was called that? Well, he was taller than the truck for one, over seven feet and four hundred pounds. His head was shaped like a mason jar with features that had seen so many breaks it looked like bag of gravel.
He kept his head and face shaven, small eyes staring at me under a thick brow.

This day was just getting better and better.

“Hello, Levi,” I said groggily.

“Virgil,” he rumbled, placing me gently back on the truck bed now that I was awake. “Benjamin would like to speak with you.”

“And if I don’t want to talk to Ben?” I asked, knowing the answer.

He gave me a pleading look. That was Levi. He may have been able to bench press an elephant, but he was by far the most polite person I’d ever known. He was all
about using words before fists, much to the delight of those he was usually sent against. Everyone knew what his fists could do.

“Alright,” I said. “Hope you have a car.”

He did. I asked about his family on the drive over. He had a wife, eight kids, and loved to talk about them. One was graduating soon and would be joining the Guild.

We pulled up to the building half an hour later. The sun had set on the drive over. The city was abuzz with the news. Even more than its appearance, its abrupt departure and the disappearance of a whole Cloud of Aether had frightened everyone.

I sat in silence for a long moment, staring at the front door. Finally, I got out.

My gaze traveled up the building. It was a small, three story structure but Ben owned the whole thing. It took up the corner block, wedged between two newer buildings. It was squat and plain and just a little bit ugly, but it had outlived all its neighbors and had character most the rest of the buildings lacked.