Sorcerer Rising (A Virgil McDane Novel) (35 page)

She hopped to her feet in an instant, lighter than she should have been. She put her forehead against mine. Her breath smelled like roses and sewage. “Done,” she rasped, a sexual shiver playing down her body.

“Woah, hold on there,” I said, struggling harder.

She touched my face, trailing my jaw line. “No, no, no. Your wish is my command, little Sorcerer.”

Behind her, her own Sorcerer whimpered. He was pulling away on all fours, head tucked down. She probably spoke to him like that too, right before she worked her stuff on him.

“Quite!” she snapped over her shoulder, making me jump and knocking the Sorcerer to the ground.

I had an idea of what I might be able to do, but it would require her attention to be diverted. For me to do that, I needed to keep from being skewered.

“Pan has forgotten you, hasn’t it?” I asked.

Her attention snapped back to me, her eyes taking on a dangerous clarity. “That is no concern of yours,” she said. “You know not of what you speak.”

“I know exactly of what I speak,” I said in reply.
Al, if you can hear me, I need you to get ready for something.
“You are an outcast,” I continued to her. “A nomad. Abandoned by your world. Forgotten.”

Discord flicked the blade, twisting what would have been a beautifully crafted smile into a feral snarl. “Glass houses and stones, Sorcerer. I may have been forgotten, but at least I remember what I am.”

Al
, I thought to myself again,
I have an idea, but I need your help. You need to get back to me, buddy.

It took a minute but eventually he replied.
I was wondering what you thought you were going to do in this one,
he said. It sounded far off. He wasn’t diverting much attention to this. He usually didn’t in the life or death situations.

“You know nothing of the Fay,” Discord continued. “Nothing of what it takes to stay in Pan’s favor.”

I ignored her, focusing on the room where I had stored the tree from the orchard. A burning sensation filled my body, my head throbbing, but the pain wasn’t near as intense as back in the warehouse.

She was still ranting about something or another, but at this point I
’d completely blocked her out. Instead I sighed, Exhaling.

And released a swarm of monstrous, chittering insects right into her face.

Trailers of green and orange mist spilled out from my mouth and nose, forming into the wicked little insects that had killed my friend. They swarmed her, digging wicked little feet and sharp stingers into her skin. She swatted at them, speaking twisted Fay curses that blistered the air and incinerated the insects.

While she was distracted, I focused on her pet’s chains, watching the way they dragged behind him, the way they glittered. They were a powerful enchantment, but not unique. The Fay loved to keep pets, and they could range from people to dragons.

The Sorcerer was curled into a fetal position, trying to evade his mistress’s attention while her fury singed the air.             

I looked Deeper at the chain while Al diverted some of his focus into mine. This was a dangerous task. I needed to reach out and influence an alien spell, while bound, and not get killed in the process. To do it, I was diverting more of my mind than normal to the task. That could get tricky. You needed your mind to do all those little background tasks. Small things like breathing and pumping blood.

The world started to distort, the chain becoming more and more pristine, taking up all my vision, until it was crisp and clean, the only thing I could see.

I felt my heart shudder, skipping a beat.

I looked Deeper, taking a moment to analyze the spell’s structure, what little there was. Human mages had to think these things through. Each spell was a manufactured creation, for the Fay it was as natural as breathing.

That had its advantages, but it also came with its drawbacks.

I found a flaw, a minute imperfection in the spell. Then I dug my mind into it like a crowbar and leveraged everything I had into it. The chain shattered, sending shards of crystal links scattering across the stone.

The world snapped back into focus and I
gasped. My heart fluttered back into rhythm as my lungs filled with air.

The Sorcerer dragged himself to his feet, eyes locked on the fairy. I had seen th
at look, had given it to Teplov and Dorne. It was the pure, unfiltered hate of a man who’d been kicked while he was down.

Discord saw it too. She waved her blade forward, her lips forming a curse, but the insects had dug in well and her reflexes were slow.

A sphere of pure white light formed in his right hand while his second blurred through the air, drawing together the power of force and motion. White and yellow mist spilled from his eyes, from his nose, forming a pair of black, crystal goggles that covered his eyes and ears. He gritted his teeth, feral and hateful. Finally, he brought his hands together and the forces exploded, a flash of light that drained the color from everything it touched, sending cracks spidering through the stone.

The blast hit Discord head on. Her fine crystalline blade shattered and she screamed as the force pushed her to the edge. She set her feet into the ground, her own magic distorting the air as she held on. The Sorcerer screamed, a sound filled with pain and anguish and wrath, and the force doubled.

I saw the fear in the Fay’s eyes right before the blast swept her off the temple.

There was a ten second delay, but I knew she hit the ground when the statue’s arms relaxed. It stumbled backwards. I spun around and placed my palm against its face. This time my power ripped through the air, mental force slamming into the stone like a sledgehammer. Its head exploded, its body crumbling to the ground.

The other statue dropped James, took one look at me, then jumped from the plateau.

I sighed, falling to my knees. A new creature released on the world. Its magic would either wither and die or take hold, like a seed, and grow into something new. Pantheons had been born from Fay influence. For all I knew
, I had just seen Africa’s next deity.

Shit happens. The world keeps turning.

I pulled James into a sitting position. “You all right?”

He winced. “Feel like I got hit with a truck.”

“Told you not to fight,” I said. “Stay down.”

I looked out over the horizon. There were dozens more pyramids just like the one we were on. I could just make them out under the dense jungle growth. I shivered. The sun was beginning to set and the very last thing in the world I wanted was to be in this place when night took the jungle.

Djinn were the least of what the Wise One conversed with.

The Sorcerer was puking his guts up. Poor guy. I didn’t want to see any deeper into him. I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as Sara
h’s mind had been but severity didn’t equal nastiness and vice versa. His head was probably a nightmare.

I sat against the wall, watching him. He was older than me, in his forties, but that could just be his condition. He was thin, emaciated, with oily, stringy hair that was a patchwork of gray and black. A wispy, uneven beard grew from his face like peat moss.

“Thank you,” he rasped.

“Think nothing of it,” I said. “Right place, right time. And you were lucky. I didn’t think I’d be able to do that.”

“All the same,” he said, spitting, “thank you. I haven’t seen another person…I don’t know how long it’s been.”

“How long did she have you?”

He shook his head. “It’s a blur,” he said.

“My name’s Virgil,” I said. “The fella trying to patch his skull back together over here is James.”

He sat back, a look of confusion on his face. Finally he blinked. “Simon,” he said. “That was my name.”

“Well, come on, Simon,” I said, standing up. “Time to get going.”

By that point James could at least follow me, if not drive. We made our way out of the city as the sun dipped under the horizon. I looked back and shivered as the darkness, and the jungle, swallowed the forgotten city.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO

We barely found our path
and made it back to the jeep. It took hours and was followed by the long drive to catch up with the expedition. I won’t bore you, the next part took days. We spent forever in the jungle, avoided much of the dangers the Congo had to offer, and in the end only made it because of the light of the Arcus.

I spoke with Simon, filling him in on why we had been in the jungle. He knew little of what Discord and Gulo had been doing. They were a mercenary team, had been hired for everything from sabotage to expeditions to theft. For this, they had been hired for a combination of all the above and not just a little bit more on the side. They’d used Simon as a mule, their only way to cart things out of the Aether.

Gulo would not be happy to have lost his partner or her pet.

We met up with the group on the second evening. They were camped out at the Arcus and we found them just in time. They were wrapping things up.

I rolled into the camp, the engine sputtering and making a whole lot of other unsettling noises I didn’t know anything about. My dad had been a mechanic, but it might as well have been speaking Martian for all I knew.

I waited for a moment, letting the team realize it was us. I didn’t want to get out of the jeep until I absolutely had to. My entire body ached and itched whil
e my stomach growled in hunger.

James was holding his face next to me and Simon was unconscious in the back seat.

Dorne was the first to meet us, followed shortly by Lambros. “Where have you been?” she asked. “It has been days!”

I helped James down. “Get a doctor,” I said, ignoring them both, my head swimming.

The medical staff took James away. Hopefully, he would just need some rest and an aspirin the size of an ostrich egg.

Dorne peeked into the back seat. “Is that Dr. Green?”

“No,” I said quietly. “He didn’t make it.”

Dorne lowered his head, his eyes closed. He swallowed it down and said, “That is
the Fay’s thrall. The Sorcerer.” He gave me a look but remained calm otherwise. “Do you think that wise?”

“I broke the hold she held over him,” I replied. “The formal enchantment anyway. Hard to say what residue
the enchantment left on him.”

“So you brought him here?” Lambros asked, hand on the gizmo on her hip.

“Well, I would have dropped him off at the pound,” I said, “But I was in a hurry.”

“I will not
have him endangering this expedition,” she said.

I rubbed my forehead. It was pounding. “I’m not going to leave a Sorcerer in Africa. He’d be snatched
up the moment he made it out of the jungle.
If
he made it out of the jungle.”

“I am inclined to agree,” Dorne said.

The both of us stared at him, surprised.

He shrugged. “We don’t do that. Especially if he’s been Faytouched.”

“See,” I said. “Now have ya’ll made any progress with the Arcus?”

Lambros groaned. “We were just about to go over everything.”

I followed them into Diana’s office/tent.

“While you were wasting time, we have learned a great deal about the Arcus,” Lambros said. Arne was in the tent as well, looking over a large map that had been spread on the table in the center.

The machine looked up momentarily. “Dr. Green did not make it back?”

I shook my head.

“A pity,” he replied. “It is good to see that you and Mr. Baker returned whole.”

“We got sidetracked,” I s
aid. “Have you had any more run-ins with Gulo?”

“None,” Dorne said.

I frowned. “We ran into him and the fairy a few days back. He looked like he was heading in this direction.”

“And you survived?” Dorne asked.

“I’m here aren’t I? And we don’t have to worry about the fairy anymore.” I told them about Solomon’s ruins, the battle with the fairy, and the creatures from the alleyway.

Dorne nodded in approval. “It was wise to deal with her in such a way,” he said.

I tapped the table with my fingers, frowning. “You didn’t see Gulo at all? He didn’t seem like the type to give up or get sidetracked.”

Dorne shrugged. “We’ve had no trouble since we separated.”

“You say these creatures were exploring the ruin?” Diana asked.

“From what I understood from their encounter with the Djinn,” I said. “I think they were exploring, looking for other magics.”

“If they were, that would make sense,” Lambros said.

“How so?” Dorne asked.

“No Aether,” I answered for her. “If they’re connected to the Arcus, and they’re using it somehow to get around, why not zap into another cloud? Instead, they’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“And I still do not have all the data needed to plot a reliable course,” Arne said.

I remembered the Djinn’s gift. I dug around in my pocket and pulled out the cylinder. “Does anyone know what this is?”