George Martin - The Way of the Wizard

That struck a nerve, more than Malcolm could know, and Simon felt a hot rush of fury.

Malcolm called to the assembled children of Atherton, “You’re all afraid of him! Why? What’s he going to do?” He shoved Simon in the chest, forcing him back a few steps. “Huh? What’re you going to do?”

Simon glared, smoldering.

“Ha,” Malcolm said, turning away. “You see—”

Simon launched himself at Malcolm, tackling him to the ground.

The room erupted with shouts, as Simon straddled Malcolm and belted him several times across the jaw. Malcolm clawed for Simon’s face, but Simon swept those arms aside and punched him again.

Then Malcolm went for his knife.

He drew it from its sheath and waved the blade at Simon, who grabbed Malcolm’s wrist and slammed it against the floor, once, twice, to jar the weapon loose.

Then Simon was flung aside, onto his back, by Bernard, who had a rapier in his hand. As Simon watched, Bernard drew back the sword, then skewered Malcolm where he lay.

No! Simon thought.

He rolled to his feet. Weapons were being drawn all around him.

“Wait!” he cried. “Stop!”

But it was too late. The children of Franklin and the children of Atherton came together in a clash of steel. Malcolm’s gang rushed Bernard, who backed off, slashing at the air to keep them at bay. Simon drew his own sword and leapt to help. Malcolm, hacking up blood, was dragged away from the fighting by one of his cousins, Nathan — a stolid young man who for whatever reason had always been fiercely loyal to Malcolm.

Simon ducked and cut and parried. He didn’t use magic — he might need all the magic he could muster to defend himself against Meredith, he knew — but some of his relatives let loose with spells, and there were occasional flashes of light and small explosions. The whole chamber convulsed with violence, generations’ worth of rivalry and mistrust unleashed at last, there in front of the shrine to Victor Archimagus. Soon Simon’s blade was slick with blood, his hand sticky with it. Faces appeared before him — angry faces, faces he remembered from childhood, faces he hadn’t spoken to in years, and he thrust his sword at them.

Sometimes one of the descendants of Franklin fell — Simon saw Garrett cut down by one of Meredith’s uncles — but more often the casualties were among the descendants of Atherton, and soon many of them lay strewn across the floor, trod on or tripped over by the remaining fighters. Then the children of Atherton broke and ran, retreating pell-mell up the great staircase that led to their branch.

Meredith, Simon thought. He had to find her, though whether to protect her from his family or to protect his family from her he couldn’t say.

He followed along as the children of Franklin pursued the children of Atherton up into their branches, many of which had now withered and fallen, with no male heirs left to sustain them, and Simon saw one of Meredith’s cousins cornered and slain while pounding at a solid wall that had been an archway just moments before. There was nowhere for the children of Atherton to go except higher into the tree, no way for them to escape except a doomed leap from a window or balcony.

As Simon hurried through the chambers of Meredith’s grandfather, he heard a handful of men from among the children of Franklin shouting, “This way! They’re up here,” and the men went charging through an archway and up the stairs into the branch of Meredith’s uncle Kenneth, Nathan’s father. Simon followed.

He caught up with the men just as they burst into a large parlor, at the far end of which stood a group of people clustered around Meredith, who knelt over the prone form of Malcolm, her hands pressed to his gory chest as she attempted to heal him. Meredith’s mother was there, and a few cousins by way of her uncle Fletcher, and a few other relatives, many of them holding swords. Nathan stood by a window, gazing out. “No!” he cried. “No! It’s falling! It’s… it’s gone.”

Meredith sagged. Malcolm’s branch had withered. He was dead.

Nathan glanced toward Simon, then drew a sword and moved to Meredith’s side. Simon eyed him. Nathan’s brothers had been slain in the battle downstairs. And his father. Simon had seen the bodies.

Meredith stood then, turning to regard Simon. She was tall and grim and wrathful, her hair dancing on ethereal winds, arcs of lightning adorning her fingers, eyes full of a fiery hatred. Simon beheld those eyes and knew there could be no more pleading, no more chances. His dreams had died along with Malcolm.

The men beside Simon hesitated, reluctant to confront the family’s most powerful sorceress, and Simon didn’t blame them. “Get out of here,” he told them. “Go. I’ll handle her.”

The men exchanged glances, then fled.

Meredith strode forward, deathly silent. Don’t take me on , she’d told him. It’ll be no contest . He was terribly afraid that she’d been right.

She halted in the center of the room, her arms outspread. “I warned you, Simon.” Her voice trembled with rage. “You brought this on yourself — so help you. You think you can face me? Well, here I am. Take your best shot. You won’t get another.”

One shot at this, Simon thought.

He thrust his palm at her, hurling from it a double dozen points of magical light, which spread apart as they flew, growing larger and transforming into spinning daggers, so that she faced an incoming wall of lethal blades.

Meredith raised her hands, summoning a glowing ghostly shield. Daggers that struck it vaporized, and the rest sped past her. She regarded Simon almost with pity then.

He turned and bolted back down the stairs.

“Coward!” someone cried.

And Simon was afraid. But not of Meredith, not then, as he vaulted the steps three at a time.

For some of the daggers that had passed her by had impaled themselves in Nathan, including one that had caught him full in the throat. Meredith would see this, and would guess that he’d been the intended target after all, and would wonder after the fate of his father and brothers. And then she’d realize…

Simon ran. The branch around him shuddered, the wood fading, becoming dry, gray, pitted. Through the windows he saw leaves turn brown and blow away in great dark clouds.

He neared the archway. A rift appeared in the ceiling ahead, spilling down rays of sunlight between him and safety. As the floor gave way he leapt across the threshold.

A deafening crack. He turned and saw Meredith, back up the tunnel, dashing toward him, dragging her mother by the hand, other relatives running at her side, as the branch plunged from view.

Simon rushed forward, to see what had become of them. But even as he tried to peer out, the archway, now framing blue sky, was absorbed back into the tree, and wood grew to seal the breach, and the portal shrank and shrank, like an eye closing itself, forever.

A few days later the Archimagus family gathered at their private cemetery to hold a mass burial. The battle had been distinctly one-sided, and the children of Atherton were now a much smaller contingent. They stood in silence, looking weak and frightened. As per the terms of their surrender, they’d accepted full responsibility for the whole unpleasant affair, had handed over all their weapons and valuables, and would soon be exiled. Simon wondered where they’d go. They’d lived their whole lives in Victor’s tree. Simon couldn’t picture them anywhere else.

After the ceremony, as people drifted off, Simon lingered over the grave marker that read MEREDITH WYLAND.

His mother sidled up beside him and said, “I knew you could beat her.”

He was silent.

She added, “We’re safe now. Thanks to you.”