Lev Grossman - The Magicians

It made him think of the day the Beast appeared — that same bottomless feeling, all bets off, like the cable had snapped and they were in free fall.

“Those are not people,” Anaïs said. “Those were not people. And they tried to kill us first.”

“We were breaking into their home.”

“Glory has its price,” Penny said. “Did you not know that, before you sought it?”

“Well, I guess they paid the price for us, huh?”

To Quentin’s surprise Eliot rounded on him, too.

“What, you’re going to back out? You?” Eliot laughed a bitter, barking laugh. “You need this almost as badly as I do.”

“I’m not backing out! I’m just saying!”

Quentin had time to wonder why exactly Eliot did need this before Anaïs cut them off.

“Oh, God. Please, can we not?” She shook her curly head in disgust. “Can we all just not?”

Four hours and three flights of stairs and one mile of empty corridor later Quentin was examining a door when it opened suddenly, hard, smacking him in the face. He took a step backward and put a hand to his upper lip. In his half-stunned state he was more preoccupied with whether or not his nose was bleeding than with who or what had just slammed the door into it. He raised the back of his hand to his upper lip, checked it, raised it again, then checked it again. Yep, definitely bleeding.

An elfin being stuck its narrow, angry face around the edge of the door and glared at him. Purely by reflex Quentin kicked it shut.

He’d been about to point out the door to the others, who were busy surveying a wide, low-ceilinged room with a dry basin in the center. A creeping ivy-like plant had grown out of the basin and halfway up the walls and then died. Daylight was a months-ago memory. There were twinkly lights going off behind Quentin’s eyes, and his nose felt like a warm, melting gob of something salty and throbbing. With melodramatic slowness the door creaked open again, gradually revealing a slight, pointy-featured man wearing black leather armor. He didn’t look particularly surprised to see Quentin. The man, elf, whatever, whipped a rapier out of his belt and snapped into a formal fencing stance. Quentin backed away, gritting his teeth with fear and resignation. Just like that, Fillory had vomited out another one of its malignant menagerie.

Maybe fatigue had dulled the edge of his fear, but almost unbeknownst to himself Quentin was enunciating the words to Penny’s Magic Missile spell. He’d practiced it back in New York, and now he backpedaled as he cast it because the Black Elf — as Quentin tagged him — was advancing on him using a poncey sideways fencing shuffle, his free hand held aloft, wrist limp. Quentin was getting the spell right, he could feel it, and he was loving himself for getting it right. Terror and physical pain sharpened and simplified Quentin’s moral universe. He snapped the magical darts straight into the elf’s chest.

The Black Elf coughed and sat down hard, looking dismayed. His face was the perfect height for kung-fu kicking, so Quentin, in what felt like an act of consummate bravery, kicked him savagely in the face. The rapier clattered to one side.

“Haaaaaaa!” Quentin shouted. It was like when he’d fought Penny, when the fear had left him. Was this battle rage at last? Was he going to become a berserker like Fen? It felt so good to stop being afraid.

Nobody else in the room had noticed what was going on, not until he yelled. Now the scene tilted and slid into nightmare. Four more Black Elves scrambled through the open door carrying an assortment of weapons, followed by two goat-legged men and two terrifying flying giant bumblebees the size of basketballs. Also present was something fleshy and headless that scrambled along on four legs, and a silent, wispy figure composed of white mist.

With the two teams arranged on their respective sides of the room, a staring match ensued. It all reminded Quentin powerfully of the opening moments of a game of dodgeball. His body seethed. He wanted to cast the missile spell again. He’d gone from feeling frail and vulnerable and cowardly to feeling badass and supercharged and armor-plated. The two mercenaries were whispering and pointing, choosing up targets.

Fen picked up a pebble and tossed it lightly, sidearm, at one of the fauns (they had evil fauns now?), who let it bounce off a round leather buckler strapped to his forearm. He looked pissed.

“The grimling’s the problem,” Quentin heard Fen say to Dint.

“Yeah. Leave the pangborn, though, I have something for that.”

Dint withdrew a wand from his cape and appeared to write something in the air with it. He said a couple of words into the tip, like it was a microphone, then he indicated one of the fauns with it, a conductor cuing a soloist. The faun burst into flame.

It was like it was made of magnesium soaked in gasoline and had just been waiting for an errant spark to set it off. No part of it was not on fire. It took a step backward, then turned to the goat-man next to it as if to say something. Then it fell down, and Quentin couldn’t look at it anymore. As all hell broke loose he tried to hang on to the gleeful bloodlust he’d felt so clearly a moment ago, to fan it back into life, but he’d lost it, fumbled it in the confusion.

Fen was thriving. This was evidently what she trained for. Quentin had missed it before, but she was actually mixing in a little magic as she fought — her inc aga was a hybrid technique, a martial art fully integrated with some highly specialized spellcasting style. Her lips moved, and there were white flashes where her fist- and hand-strikes landed. Meanwhile Dint addressed himself to the ghostly, misty figure, saying something inaudible that caused it to struggle and then be dispersed by an invisible, soundless roaring gale.

Quentin took a quick inventory of his brave company. Eliot had made himself useful by casting a kinetic spell on the second satyr, pinning it safely to the ceiling. Anaïs had her short sword out — it had a moonlight shimmer to it now, which meant she’d put a sharpness charm on it — and was looking eagerly around for somebody to stick it into. Janet was hugging herself against the back wall, her face wet and shining with tears. Her eyes were blank. She was gone.

Too many things were happening at once. Quentin’s stomach clenched when he realized an elf had singled Alice out and was advancing across the dry basin toward her, twirling a long straight knife — were they called poniards? — in each hand. It was obvious from Alice’s face that every spell she’d ever learned had just now slipped her mind. She turned away, dropped to one knee, and locked her hands behind her head. Nobody in the history of all the conflicts in the world had ever looked more defenseless.

He only had time to feel all the tenderness he had ever felt for her surge up in one infinitely concentrated instant — and to be surprised that it was all still there, moist and intact beneath the unsightly scorched layer of his anger — before the back of Alice’s blouse tore wide open and a small leathery biped clawed its way vigorously out of the skin of her back. It was a party trick, a showgirl bursting out of a cake. Alice had loosed her cacodemon.

No question, the cacodemon was instantly the happiest being in the room. This was exactly the party it wanted to be at. Facing the elf, it bounced on its toes like a wiry little tennis pro preparing for return of service, with triple match point on its side. Its leap was evidently several beats faster than its opponent had counted on. In a moment it was past the poniards and had fastened its wiry grip on the elf’s upper arms and buried its horrible face in the soft hollow of the elf’s throat. The elf gagged and sawed futilely at the demon’s shark-skinned back with its knives. Quentin reminded himself for at least the hundredth time never to underestimate Alice again.