Michael Foster - The Young Magician

The sun was setting now, and the sky to the east was in twilight, leaving only the west still hung with a hint of daylight. Looking up, Samual saw an unnatural silver light beaming out from Ash’s window and a vast crowd had amassed in the palace grounds far below. People were filling every available open space, staring up at Samuel and pointing at the awesome display of light from Ash’s window. This was more than just magic. Samuel could feel something terrible happening up in that room.

Samuel took one last determined breath and started back up the tower wall, spider-like, and an audible gasp rose from the people below. He still had no idea of what to do or how to defeat Ash. All he knew was that he had to stop the man. If he could even delay him for long enough, perhaps the others would finally arrive to help; or perhaps Ash would make some crucial mistake. Perhaps his flesh would finally fail under the strain of all his newfound power. Perhaps with the Lions, Lomar and Master Glim together they had a chance of stopping the man. He only hoped the others were somehow on their way to help.

Laughter was still emanating from Ash’s chamber. The man was giggling like a child now. He had opened himself entirely to the Staff and magic was gathering into him at a terrible rate. The pattern itself seemed to be shuddering in trepidation.

‘Ash!’ Samuel cried into the window. ‘You have all that you wanted and yet still you have not destroyed me! What good is all your power if you can’t even kill one insignificant magician?’

The smoke within the room had thinned enough so that Samuel could peer in and he saw Ash’s face slowly turn towards him. Ash raised a charred sleeve and wiped the dribble from his lips. He opened his mouth and a dark, coiling vapour ran out and down his chest. It was blood, boiled and fused with magic so that his flesh could no longer contain it. Samuel was horrified.

‘Ah,’ Ash gasped slowly. ‘Ah, the power. I can feel it in every part of me.’ He held his hand up before his face and turned it over, as if scrutinising it in wonder. ‘I am but a shell of flesh.’ The man’s very words echoed with magic. Samuel could feel it rattling against his skin like splashes of rain.

A spell formed and Samuel rolled aside as the window exploded out, leaving a gaping hole. Chunks of dust and smouldering rocks dropped far below into the grounds.

Ash slid out and hovered beside the tower. ‘Now I am coming for you, Samuel. Run.’ he whispered. His voice was hollow and echoing, his lips were parted, yet unmoving.

Samuel realised he was in desperate trouble and scampered away from Ash and around the tower, still maintaining the same height. He lay panting with his back against the hard stones of the wall, looking left and right for any sign of the abomination that had been Ash.

Curiously, a tight white beam of light appeared out of Samuel’s middle. It shone out far to the hills like some form of signal and, when it had ceased, Samuel found a neat smoking hole at the centre of his robes. The pain followed and Samuel screamed out loud. His body had been pierced right through by an intense light, so hot that it had cooked a path from his back out through his chest. The pain was unspeakable, causing him to shriek wildly until he could throw enough spells into himself to dull all feeling. As a result, his vision began to blur and darken at the edges and his head felt thick as tar. Inside him, flesh and organs had been baked and crisped.

Even his fingers and toes had gone numb and Samuel quickly sucked on the fingers of one hand in desperate effort to revive them. He could sense the incredible amount of damage that had been done inside him and realised it was only pure luck that none of his vital organs had burst altogether.

A tingle in his spine lit Samuel’s senses and brought him back to alertness. He rolled aside as another beam silently pierced the tower directly beside his head and flashed out into the distance. Smoke seeped out from the two tiny holes that now marked the tower stones. Not wasting any time, Samuel started straight upwards.

The land all around was now cast in shades of grey and the sun was just a glimmering sliver of gold on the horizon. Flecks of silver covered the shimmering ocean, gathering towards a single gleaming point far away but, as the tiny crack of the sun melted and vanished away, the sea, too, became grey and quiet, leaving only the distant clouds with any colour, saturated in pinks and oranges. Directly above, the sky was darkening as storm clouds slowly gathered, and a soft groan rumbled out from amongst them as lightning flickered in their depths.

Samuel continued moving up the sheer, stone wall with labouring breaths. A flurry of silent beams sliced through the tower behind him and always the laughter continued, seeming to issue from the very air itself.

Samuel reached his goal and leapt over onto the top of the tower, waiting in the eerie silence of dusk while he gained his breath. The wind made a soft whisper and the other palace towers were dark shards in the twilight. The city was grey below, but tiny dots of light were quickly appearing everywhere as people lit the lanterns in their homes. The ocean, spread out vast beside the city, was tranquil, now barely seeming to move at all. Various city sounds seemed to carry up to him on the wind and, occasionally, a distant breaker could be heard striking onto the shoals with a whump and a hiss. At any other time, the panorama would have been marvellous to behold.

A whimpering sound made Samuel turn around and he found Lullander, the magician, splayed out on the tower roof, bawling and whimpering like a child. On spying Samuel, the man leapt to his feet and ran screaming and blubbering straight off the side of the tower, leaping as if to his salvation. His howling faded quickly as he plummeted away.

The wind blew up and the sound of rippling cloth caused Samuel to turn back as Ash rose slowly beside the tower heights, held up by the air itself. Samuel stepped away. He could no longer see the aura around the man as he had dulled his senses so much, but he could still feel the tremendous power threatening to be unleashed within. For an instant, Samuel wished he could get a glance at the weaves around Ash-even for just a moment. He could learn so much just by looking at the spells that Ash had brought into existence through sheer force, but he could not risk it in his current state.

A sickening grin was painted on Ash’s mask-like face. He observed Samuel, but his eye sockets were empty, gaping holes and his skin was taut and dried like bark. The Staff of Elders was clutched so tightly in his left hand that the tendons in his wrist were popping out with strain. The Argum Stone glinted, shimmering on his finger and still feeding magic into the corpse of a man. Somehow, Ash still lived, even as the mage-fire continued to eat through his body. He no longer relied on his own mortality. Such concentrated power was sustaining him beyond all normal reason.

Samuel needed far more power than he had ever summoned before, even if he was just to escape with his life. He sought within himself for the calm he needed and fought to slow his desperate, shallow breaths. There was nowhere left to run. Only his magic could save him, if only he could gather enough of it in time.

‘I see now what the universe is about,’ Ash whispered without motion-his words poured black vapour, his skin was bone white. ‘I no longer care for the trinkets and coins of this world. Even my eyes and flesh are only keepsakes that I willingly discard. What is being an emperor when I can be a god! I can feel the energy, the life, within everything, within you. I want it all ,’ he hissed.

Ash lifted his hand and five arcs of raw energy flashed out from his fingertips, striking at Samuel like vipers. Samuel’s legs kicked out from underneath him, sending him sprawling onto his face. He thrashed and convulsed, his cheeks and teeth striking the stones as he flailed about uncontrollably. He could feel the life draining from him, being stripped from his marrow.