Michael Manning - The God-Stone War

I had my own advantages though; in particular, I possessed a near limitless resource as an archmage, I wasn’t limited to just my individual strength. The fire demonstrated that point quite eloquently as it engulfed the shiggreth’s shield. The long dead lore-warden’s defense held despite the incredible force I brought to bear, but even it couldn’t last forever. Seconds ticked by, five, ten, fifteen, and with each passing moment the fire grew hotter while the wind whipped it into a fury, creating a sound not unlike a scream.

Inevitably the creature’s shield failed, popping like a bubble as the flames rushed inward, to devour… nothing. Thillmarius wasn’t there.

My own carefully crafted defense crumbled, as Thillmarius’ knife severed the links between my enchanted stones in a gracefully complex stroke before plunging into my lower back. The monster had hidden himself and diverted my attention with a powerful illusion. I had to marvel at his skill, to be able to manage so many things at once, for the shield he had created for his illusory double had been quite real. Too late I realized I should have kept my attention on the source of the dissonant song of death, for it was the only reliable way I could be sure of his location.

“Did you think yourself a match for an elder lore-warden, animal? ” he said sneeringly into my ear, as the blade sent waves of eldritch agony rippling through my body.

I was still in my ‘idiot-trance’ as my kindly wife had named it, and while my human form should have been incapacitated by the energies coursing through it, I was still largely able to act. Willing my human lips to move, I spat out my defiance, even as my elemental mind acted upon the stones beneath our feet, “I’ve got a collection of ‘gods’ at home. I really don’t think you’re that special.”

Looking down, Thillmarius saw that his lower legs were fully encased in granite that had until recently, been street paving stones. Struggling to free himself, he tried to withdraw his blade from my back, to begin a new weaving, but I had the wrist of his knife-hand firmly within my grasp.

The child’s body he occupied was no match for my adult frame, but the effort caused even more pain to shoot through my body. Showing his teeth, he growled at me, “Does it hurt? That body can’t take much more before it expires, and unlike me… you can die.”

“You really shouldn’t piss me off,” I bit back through clenched jaws. “Do you think it’s that easy to hold all that back?” my eyes flicked upwards, and then I dropped the building on our heads.

Thillmarius’ expression was priceless as he saw the stone wall and heavy timbers falling toward him, but I kept his hand firmly in my grip, and his feet were completely trapped. His body was crushed under untold tons of wreckage… while my own slipped through, stone and wood parting like water to let my human form pass unharmed.

Pulling free I left the dagger and the hand clutching it behind, while I used my now free magic to lift myself up and out of the pile of rubble, that had once been part of my neighbor’s rather large and ostentatious home. As I climbed down from the top of the heap, I let my mind collapse inward, becoming once more merely human.

My physical condition was alarming, to say the least. The cuts I had received earlier had left me light headed from loss of blood, and my new stab wound had done terrible damage to my left kidney and some of the muscles in my back. I was still hemorrhaging, and my strength was diminishing with each passing second. Pain made it nearly impossible to move, and I already regretted leaving my ‘idiot-trance’, but it was clear that if I hadn’t, I might have ignored my wounds until they left me dead.

Looking back at the wreckage I had just left behind, I prepared to finish what I had started. My wounds were dangerous but they didn’t worry me too much. Given a moment’s respite I could stop the bleeding, and with a bit more effort I should be able to restore myself to full health. Regaining my energy would take longer, but that was simply a matter of proper rest.

More important was eradicating the undead creature I had temporarily beaten. I knew better than to think Thillmarius was permanently defeated. My ancestor had burned him to ash and yet the magic that kept him alive had still preserved his spirit against the void, until first Balinthor, and then later, Millicenth, could resurrect him.

I had no way of unraveling the spell-weaving that kept his spirit and its eternal hatred tied to our world, but I could at least do as much as my predecessors had done, and destroy his body. Drawing my will inward, I focused my remaining magic and readied myself to turn the pile of rubble into a funeral pyre… even stone will burn if you get it hot enough, and I planned to spare nothing to make sure Thillmarius was thoroughly eradicated.

“Mordecai?!” came Penny’s voice, yelling from a block away.

As I turned to look backward, the wound in my back caught when damaged muscles failed to do their job. Stumbling, I fell and found myself having difficulty getting back to my feet. Shit, maybe I should have fixed my back first, I thought silently, but I knew I had little time. My magesight, now that my focus had expanded, showed me that the carriage containing my family was returning, with Dorian, Rose, and the children still inside it. They were a few blocks further away but approaching quickly. For some reason Penny had chosen to run ahead, using her strength and speed to arrive sooner.

My attempt to stand didn’t go well, so I quickly abandoned it. On hands and knees, I returned my attention to my fallen foe; I didn’t need to be on my feet to incinerate him. My head came around just in time to intercept a heavy piece of masonry, as the pile of wood and stone exploded outward. I was fortunate in that the blow was a glancing one, otherwise it might have crushed my skull. Lady Luck wasn’t doing me any favors though; her idea of ‘fortunate’ was more painful than being killed outright. I heard a snap, followed by blinding pain that sent me tumbling back as my jaw broke from the force of the impact.

Things became much more confused after that point, for I lost track of the world around me for an uncertain period of time. As my senses returned I noticed two things immediately; one, Thillmarius was now standing over me, and two, Penny was racing towards him at a speed that would have made a racehorse jealous. She had her sword in hand, and her skirts had again been hacked off. And that’s why we can’t have nice things, I said silently to myself, because you keep chopping up your dresses. Of course, I had to be silent, my jaw was a mass of blood and pain… speaking aloud wasn’t an option. That’s going to make magic more difficult too, I realized, not that I had much strength left.

My enemy didn’t look like much now; his body had originally been that of a child, and it appeared to have been through some hard use… being crushed under a wall often had that effect. It was animated now purely by magic, and I could see that his bones had been shattered in numerous places, not that it seemed to bother him much. My chance to finish him off had disappeared, turning my hard won victory into a crushing defeat.

Gesturing idly with one hand, he sent a twenty pound block of stone flying toward my enraged wife. It shot toward her as if it had been fired from a siege engine, with bone crushing speed, but even before he had finished that weaving, I saw he had begun another spell weaving with his other hand.

Penny leapt skyward, taking to the air like a falcon springing into flight, rising over the stone and twisting in mid-air, to prepare for her landing. Thillmarius released his second spell as soon as he had seen her trajectory, sending a writhing mass of snakelike bands to intercept her as she came down. Her sword flicked out to strike the spell-weaving, but it flowed up and around it, catching woman and weapon alike in a tangled mesh of magic.