Richard Baker: Prince of Ravens

“Seila?” Jack called. He picked his way through the wreckage, and then ran over to catch her in his arms.

Jelan stood staring at the wreckage of the wild mythal. She held up her hand and, with a small frown of concentration, evoked a small green flame from her fingertip. “Remarkable,” she breathed. “I can feel the substance of magic. I can feel it!”

“Is that it, then?” Norwood wondered aloud. “Are they truly beaten?”

Jack looked around for more dark elves, anticipating that they might be regrouping in the shadows-but there were no conscious drow in sight. He’d seen Jaeren, Jezzryd, and Dresimil killed outright, and even if some cousin or another survived to claim leadership of House Chumavh, most of their warriors and slave monsters had been wiped out in Norwood’s assault. Fetterfist, Cailek Balathorp, was dead under Jack’s own blade … but there were certainly any number of slaves to rescue.

A small, wiry figure groaned and stirred quite close to the mythal’s resting place, then slowly pushed himself to his feet. Jack frowned, wondering who it was … and found himself staring at his own visage, although somewhat burned and disheveled from the force of the explosion. The shadow-double met Jack’s eyes, smirking in silence, and then darted off into the smoke and gloom of the ruined city. Jack took two quick steps and seized a drow crossbow to bring down the creature before he got away, but it was too late-by the time he had the weapon in hand, the simulacrum was nowhere in sight.

“What was that, Jack?” Seila asked.

“No one of consequence,” Jack said slowly. Apparently the simulacrum was disheveled enough that Seila hadn’t noticed the resemblance. Tarandor must have indeed found his way down to Chumavhraele and interred his double in the wild mythal sometime in the last few days before the attack on Blackwood Manor and Norwood’s attack. He wondered if the abjurer would discover that the imprisoned Jack was now free, and decided it didn’t matter. Whatever Tarandor feared, the ancient mythal stone was a smoking heap of rubble, and even Jack, dabbler and dilettante that he was, could see that there was no magic that could ever make it whole again.

Halamar and Kurzen limped up, joined a moment later by Jelan. “Well, I expect that bounced every wizard within a thousand miles out of his bed,” Halamar remarked. “Did you have to destroy the thing, Jack? Great magics like that are rare wonders indeed, you know.”

“It was that, or let the drow have it for their own. I don’t want to think about what Dresimil and her brothers would have done with the wild mythal; it was too powerful a weapon to leave in anyone’s hands,” Jack answered. “In fact, Mystra herself told me as much once upon a time. I only hope there is not too great an area of dead magic left behind. Raven’s Bluff without magic would be little fun.”

Halamar frowned. “Dead magic? The arcane currents flow unconstrained, Jack.”

Jack blinked. “I do not sense them,” he said. He glanced at Jelan, and a sudden suspicion came to him. His magic was born of the wild mythal, in its way. Had he just deprived himself of his own sorcery? Or had Myrkyssa Jelan’s curse been transferred to him when the overwhelming power of the mythal’s destruction had washed over them both? He tried a minor cantrip, summoning up a light spell … but absolutely nothing happened. Quickly he tried several more spells; he might as well have been making up nonsense. “My magic’s gone,” he groaned.

Myrkyssa Jelan bowed her head. “If I caused it, Jack, then I am sincerely sorry; I only meant to see you spared if I could manage it.” Then she looked up with a wry smile. “And yet irony is again served; you once deprived me of my magic, and now perhaps I have deprived you of yours. However, look at it like this: You may find there are certain advantages to learning to rely on wits, character, and hard work alone.”

Jack made a small strangled sound in his throat. “What a horrible thing to say.”

Seila came to Jack’s side and slipped her arm around his waist again, quietly comforting him. She looked around the ruined plaza and gave a small shake of her head. “It seems that we are done here,” she said. “What do we do now?”

“Now?” Jack answered. He stood silent for a moment, wondering whether his magic was indeed gone forever or merely dormant for a time, and then shook off his self-pity with a low laugh. He stepped back to kiss her hand, rendering a florid bow. “Now, my dear, we go home, enjoy a flagon of the best wine gold can buy, and celebrate! I, for one, am through with the Underdark, the drow, and all their works.”

Seila laughed, and kissed Jack until his heart thundered in his chest; and he was consoled by the thought that there was more than one sort of magic in the world.