The Royal Wizard (35 page)

Jasper was still ablaze when she pushed him past the castle walls and started up the hill toward the altar. He put the flames out at the cost of his own body. More cracks appeared in the shell of his mortal form, his legs so damaged already they could no longer hold their shape. His limbs shattered, scattering pieces of him over the hill, leaving behind nothing but sloppy, dripping blobs of flesh.

He spat more spells at Nia, though most of them dissipated before they reached her. One or two made her falter, and forced her to heal herself again or risk setting him loose. It was too much. She knew this, felt the strain on her own body. Nia couldn’t handle much more of his assault before she, too, began to shatter.

Saeran.

The sorcerer had hurt him. The image of him unmoving in the great hall squared her resolve, and she forced her body to endure. Almost there. Almost at the altar. Her hands were shining like stars at her sides, as were her feet where they peeked out from beneath her robes with each step. The wind howled at her to stop, the earth rose around her feet to slow her, but never quick enough to trap her foot before she lifted it again.

The Others had gathered again, keeping their distance, but watchful. Nia felt their apprehension, but for the safety of their people they would stay and see this through. They would do whatever was necessary to contain this uncontrollable flare of magics. As much harm as those magics could do to the human realm, they could destroy Otherlands in an instant. It could not be allowed. They would kill Nia if they deemed it necessary, and knowing that gave her the courage to keep going.

Jasper was beginning to look demonic. The watery stumps of his legs had touched at some point and melded together, forming one liquid mass below his waist. His fingers were breaking as he kept trying to bend her will to his, but she had to hear his commands to obey, and Nia was past listening to him.

“Loki,” she called into the night when she reached the altar. Her voice was not her own, and in the depths of the forest wild beasts howled in fear.

Fear for her.

Fear of her.

“
Loki!
” She made it a summons, imbuing it with all her will. Her power flared, searing her insides, and she doubled over, briefly loosening her hold on the ropes that held the sorcerer. It was all he needed to break free and drop to the ground. The grass died where he touched it, and the death spread out from him, poisoning the land.

His teeth were gone, his mouth filled with darkness. Though he still had a voice, it growled rather than spoke. He couldn’t give his words any shape. One hand clutched the pendant, the source of his powers, as the black liquid he was turning into gathered around it.

And still Nia felt its pull. It could sense her power; called it out. Nia fought to keep her magic reined in, but her control was tenuous at best and she was tired, so tired of resisting. Part of her was curious at this strange toy, wanted to reach out to it. Wanted to kill the sorcerer to possess it.

She found herself drawing closer before a chilling screech in her mind made her fall back again. The dragon’s warning had come almost too late. And the sorcerer cackled madly, his cheeks breaking off, taking the lower half of his face with them.

In the absence of a spoken command, his dark power spread out across the earth, killing everything in its path. It was almost close enough to touch her.

The wolf pelt at her back shivered, dragging at her neck as if it could pull her away. Nia couldn’t leave. If she didn’t stop it, the darkness would cover all the land and everything would die.

She cupped her glowing hands together and gathered light into them. It pooled and then rose, shaping a sphere that grew larger and brighter. In the back of her mind she noticed that the sorcerer had fallen silent. She felt his rapt attention on her, sensed his anticipation and impatience.

The sphere swirled with currents, magic trying to arrange itself so that more could fit into a smaller shape. It became so heavy it almost had a physical form.
Like a crystal ball.
The fanciful thought became a spell and shadows moved across the sphere, forming into shapes. Nia saw the great hall and the people still trapped therein. It fascinated her. Eager to see what else the sphere might reveal, she fed it more power.

The light was so bright it illuminated the ground where she knelt. As the sorcerer spread death, Nia’s light brought the earth back to life around her. The light, too, began to spread, overlapping and then banishing Jasper’s darkness.

He cackled, staring at the approaching well of power. He was ravenous for it.

Entranced by this thing she had wrought, Nia’s attention never wavered from her crystal ball. Curiosity made her deaf and blind to the world outside of it.
What secrets will you show me? What will you teach me?

Shadows swirled in its depths, and Nia squinted, bringing it closer to her face. She saw a mother giving birth, a mighty dragon circling high in the air, breathing magic fire. She saw a young woman bursting into flames and a young man walking in illusions.

Nia’s body began to shake, but she didn’t care. Looking deeper she saw demons dancing a horrible dervish in the desert night. A vast army gathering beneath the banner of a blood red cross on a grassy field. Ice slithered up her arms to her heart. Nia didn’t mind; she had the cloak and the wolf skin to warm her. And the light spread ever farther.

The wolf pelt whined softly at her ear. Nia frowned, resenting the distraction. The crystal was showing her a drop of blood. It splattered on a shining wall of magic and shattered it, erasing the Veil between the human realm and the Otherlands and from that explosion arose a people who would carve a new order into the world. Oh, to walk among such giants!

Nia’s light touched the edge of Jasper’s withered form. He screamed with glee, even as the blob of black that was his body began to solidify into rock. As the light moved up to engulf him, the pendant in his hand shimmered with white, shining through the black slime. The sorcerer’s laughter died abruptly as rock sealed shut around him and the night became quiet.

Claws sank into Nia’s back, fangs bit into her ear. She cried out and almost dropped the crystal ball. Through watering eyes she looked up at the rock that had once been the sorcerer. She cocked her head, puzzled by how this could have come to be, or when it had become day. Everything was so bright, colors so vibrant they blinded her.

The wolf whined again. Nia looked over her shoulder to see the wolf pelt she’d worn restored to life. He tilted his head at her and Nia reciprocated. Hadn’t he died? She recalled as much. Yes, poison. She’d felt him leave his mortal shell, yet somehow he was back, flesh and blood, or at least he looked that way. Could it be an illusion?

The wolf shifted uneasily and then lifted his head and howled. Nia looked up. The moon was big and bright, the sky clear and glittering with stars. It was still night.

The wolf whined and barked, got to his feet and jumped forward and back. Nia reached out to pet the beast, only to have him shrink from her touch. Her hands were still glowing.  All of her was.

The wolf sniffed the ground, backing away from the spreading light, lifting his paws high as if it bothered him.

And then the ground shuddered and the rock began to crack.

CHAPTER 38

“Foolish girl,” Loki hissed in furious whisper, appearing just before her. “Look what you have done. This was precisely what I wanted to prevent!” He snatched the glowing crystal ball out of her hands, making her gasp. “
You doomed all of humanity to make a toy?
” he boomed.

Nia reached out to take it back, but before she could, part of the rock behind Loki crumbled to reveal the shiny black crystal and her hand changed direction. It was too far.
Must get up. Must possess it.

Loki followed her gaze and straightened an arm out to stop her as she struggled to her feet. He flinched at touching her, but held firm. “Do not go near it,” he warned, though he, too, sounded distracted.

Nia couldn’t look away. It was so shiny. Even from so far away she could see her own reflection in it. And every so often, it breathed! Its breath was as dark as its core. Puffs of black smoke emanated from its depths to disperse in the air. It was alive. And so beautiful and dark. She felt on fire with the light. It filled her, made her shine like the sun and it hurt. She needed that darkness to soothe her.

I might die otherwise.

“It’s the magics,” Loki said by way of explanation. “This is only the beginning. It will keep weakening until all of them are released.”

“Pretty,” she said on a sigh, not recognizing her own voice.

“Well, can’t have that,” Loki said brusquely and whistled. The pendant tore itself out of its cradle and as soon as the last contact was severed, the rock that used to be Jasper crumbled to dust. The pendant floated toward them, still puffing gently, and Nia’s eyes opened wider and wider the closer it got. So close she could almost touch it. It felt as if it wanted to come to her. She wanted it to. She reached out to it in welcome, undeterred even when Loki slapped her hand down. Nia tried to shove him out of her way, but she may as well have been pushing at a mountain. The Trickster didn’t budge a hair.

He caught the pendant by its chain before she could grasp it and turned to keep it out of her reach. Infuriated, Nia watched through him as he dipped the pendant into her crystal ball. The black stone screeched as it sank into the light. Nia could feel its pain, and it made her angry. She shoved her arm through Loki’s body to take it from him, making him yell out, but it was too late. The pendant was fully submerged into the light, and the ball became solid, encasing it forever. Even some of its glow dimmed until she could see the pendant’s dark outline in the middle.

It was a strange sight to behold. Nia could still sense the black ice within the orb, but it was getting weaker and weaker, as if the light was slowly destroying the darkness. Soon, she lost all awareness of it.

Loki yanked at the chain, breaking it off, and growled, “Take your arm back, or you never will again.”

Nia shook her head to clear it. What was she doing? She pulled her arm free of him and stepped back. Her entire body was shaking, and she felt as if her skin was stretching, trying in vain to accommodate the power filling her. She would burst with it soon. “Can’t hold this much.”

Though she wasn’t looking at him, she saw Loki glare at her. “I should let you shatter,” he said. “If not for you, it never would have gotten this far.”

Nia hunched her shoulders, trying to keep together. Just a little longer. It was becoming unbearable. The light made her feel at once heavy and light as a feather. If she managed to hop up into the air, she’d never come back down. But she was too stiff and fragile to make that leap, rooted to the ground like a tree.

Loki tossed the orb into the air and caught it in his other hand. “Then again, if you had not made this little toy, I would have had a much tougher time sealing the damned thing. I suppose that balances things out. And I can’t very well leave you as you are. You are as much of a problem now as the black ice was.”

“Fix…me,” she managed to say, having to shift all of her body just to make her voice work. Nothing was where it was supposed to be anymore. She couldn’t feel her heartbeat; couldn’t breathe, either, but she didn’t seem to need it any longer. That frightened her.

Loki scowled again. “I can’t. You did this, you have to undo it. And you can’t do it here.”

He expected her to solve riddles now? A burst of light escaped her body and she screamed, though no sound came out. She hugged herself to keep from breaking apart. The pressure was too much. It was killing her.

“I said not here,” Loki snapped. “Fly up—far up, mind you—and release it there. The stars won’t mind. And you had best hurry up. Any longer and you might as well join them.”

Up? He meant fly. But how?

When she didn’t move, Loki heaved a sigh. “I hope one day you appreciate all this,” he said. Turning his face away, he came to her, bending double. She could feel his hands slipping beneath what should be her feet. “Safe journey, Lady Nialei,” he said and, with a grunt, launched her into the air.

She flew up fast as a shooting star, just as she’d thought she would. No stopping now. Thousands and thousands of lights sang to her. The stars. The higher she went the better she understood them. They were welcoming her among them, eager to hear stories and to tell their own. Their voices were so beautiful, listening to them felt like coming home.

For a moment she embraced this strange place she was flying through, even let herself enjoy it. There were entire worlds filled with people and creatures she’d never seen before. She could peek into them, watch from afar as they went about their lives; watch them like players on stage.

And the plays would never end. She knew this. Eternity beckoned to her with all its charms and Nia was curious to see it.

Saeran.

He will not be there.

Her memory returned, shocking her back to what was really happening. Going too far. Nia willed herself to stop.

The stars were puzzled. She only had a little way to go, why was she stopping?

I am sorry,
she thought to them.
I cannot stay.

The stars sang to her to keep going. They wanted to welcome her as a sister, share their world with her. She was almost there, almost home.

Nia stopped listening. There was one thing she had to do before she returned, but she had to return.
Saeran is waiting.
She hesitated for a single moment, just one moment to feel fear and doubt. Then, praying she was doing the right thing, she released all of the light, pouring it out in thick, brilliant white streams. The force of it sent her spinning, and the faster she spun, the faster it drained out of her.

As it dispersed in the sky, the pressure inside her body eased. She could feel herself returning to the way she’d been before. Her heart beat strangely in her chest, but it was beating. Her limbs began to ache, strained and tired, and her lungs expanded, filling with icy cold air. Nia shivered, but it felt wonderful.