Devon Monk - Magic in the Shadows

“Yes,” he said. But he didn’t sound very sure of it.

There had been a lot of noise going on around us. A lot of people hurrying here and there, a lot of magic being used, but I hadn’t been paying attention to it.

Then Shamus strode over and crouched down next to us.

“You two done? Because we have a problem here.” He pointed at the far, dark side of the room.

The room was in chaos. Magic vibrated in the air. Even without Sight, I glimpsed the afterimages of spells being cast, of magic being used. A hell of a lot of magic. By a hell of a lot of people.

And no wonder.

A hole, easily a yard wide and tall, and getting wider and taller by the second, was burning into the air, like a light-bulb burning through a filmstrip.

“What?” I said.

“A gate,” Shamus said. “It opened when you tapped into the well. Fuck if I know why, but we haven’t been able to close it.”

“Here?” Zayvion said. “Impossible. It’s too Warded, too safe.”

“Yeah, well, your girlfriend there wreaked havoc with the Wards. Nice going, Beckstrom.” Even though I was pretty sure I’d done something bad, Shamus didn’t sound mad. The boy loved trouble.

“Not possible,” Zayvion said again as he stood.

“Looks pretty damn possible to me,” Shamus noted.

I got my feet under me and managed to stand too. The magic inside me was small, and I felt emptier than I had in a long, long time. Maybe even a little light-headed.

The hole on the other side of the room sizzled and flashed, lighting the room like a flare.

“That’s your cue, Closer boy,” Shame said. “Go. Fix.” He shoved at Zayvion’s shoulder.

Zay strode away from me, toward the hole. Between one step and the next, between one blink and the next, he became a man of black flames, silver glyphs blazing against his body.

I had seen him like this before, but I had never felt him like this.

It was as if I walked with him, felt the crushing weight of dark magic and light magic war through my body, tug at my control of sanity, singing of pleasures within my reach if I succumbed to its siren call. Shamus had said Zayvion could use all the kinds of magic, and now I believed him.

No wonder he was so disciplined, so calm. It took an amazing amount of concentration to keep sanity and reality in perspective while dark magic sang its song. Zayvion stopped, lifted his hands, and wove a spell that looked a lot like the net he’d thrown at me, only more solid.

He incanted something, or at least I thought he did. Everyone in the room was chanting or humming or singing. Well, except me.

Blocking spells, Warding spells, defensive spells; magic users moved as far from the burning gate as they could, casting their magic at the walls, the pillars, the inn itself to repair the damage I’d done. They supported the inn and guarded the well of magic that pushed up and up from the earth and rolled beneath the floor.

They, the Authority, worked to contain the magic, to support the room, and not let a lick of magic escape these walls.

Zayvion stood alone before the gate. He twisted at the hip and threw the net. Magic flared in me, wanting to leap to join his spell. I inhaled, cleared my mind, and held tightly to the magic that rushed up to fill me, afraid to let it merge with Zayvion’s.

We might be Soul Complements, but we had not yet cast magic together. Now seemed like a horrible time to find out what would happen if we did.

The net closed over the gate, damping the mercury-gray light that poured through it, but the gate was still growing, still burning.

Then a voice rang out, a man’s voice from the other side of the gate.

“I will not be denied.”

Oh, no. This I did not want to know. There were things, people, on the other side of the gates, in death? Angry people?

Within the gate stood a dark figure of a man. Magic fluctuated across the gate and obscured the huge shadowed figure, but I could make out his hands held to either side, elbows locked, as if he could force the gate to open faster. As if he could walk through that gate and into our world.

No, no, no. That was not good.

A small part of my mind refused to believe what I was seeing. Sure, I’d seen stuff like this before-in horror movies. But this was real. This was now. I could taste the copper-hot burn of magic, could smell the sweat and fear in the room, could hear the people around me swearing, chanting, angry, calm.

This was really happening. And this was really, really bad.

The man yelled and shoved the gate wider. Now I could see behind him, slashes of fangs, bloody red eyes and claws, just like the Hungers we had hunted in St. Johns.

The man tipped his face so that shadows and magic hid his features. Except for his eyes. Blue as a summer sky, his eyes were familiar. I scoured my memory, but could not think of where I had seen those eyes before.

“Life and death are mine to wield. Light and darkness.” The man flicked one hand, and as if to prove his point, dark magic, a solid tentacle of blackness, whipped out and rammed into Zayvion like a wrecking ball.

I yelled as Zayvion flew across the room. Shamus was already running toward Zay and reached him before he hit the ground.

“Sedra,” the voice called out. “You will bow to my will. I will walk between life and death. Immortal.”

The tentacle of darkness that had knocked Zayvion down whipped through the air and plunged into Sedra’s chest.

The ice queen stiffened. She took a jerky step toward the gate. Her jaw was set, the bone there straining against muscle and tendon as she took another involuntary step.

“No,” she mouthed. She lifted one hand, traced a spell, and a shot of light pierced the man’s chest.

Several people around her cast magic, trying to break the rope that held her.

Nothing worked. Dark magic forced her forward, toward the gate, even as the light seemed to force the man to lean against it to keep his feet.

Okay, here’s the deal. I had no fucking idea what was going on. I mean, really. If this was how they always gave tests, it was amazing anyone survived.

But even though I didn’t know what was happening, that didn’t mean I was going to stand around while people were hurt.

First, stop the dude in the gate.

Right. Like I had any idea how to do that. And since I had no idea how to stop him, the next thing I could think to do was to save Sedra from his grip.

Zayvion stood again. I felt his anger, felt the calm Zen that kept his mind clear. He wove an intricate spell in the air with one hand and sang that lullaby waltz. Shamus was beside him, a bright shadow to his dark light, his hands extended in a hell of a Shield spell.

They looked good together. Like they had done this sort of thing before.

Another man joined them, Victor. Tall, lean, fit, dark-haired. Older. He took the place to Zayvion’s right, and fell into rhythm with his chant, sang with him, building a spell that licked with silver light.

While Sedra marched toward the gate.

I felt Zayvion hold his breath. He and Victor threw the spell at the same time. It skittered over Sedra, past her, a wind of silver and gray, a shatter of glass that tore into the gate and burned into it like a maelstrom of silver embers.

The man in the gate looked away from Sedra, as if noticing other people in the room for the first time.

“Victor, and your favored student. Why have you betrayed me?”

“Mikhail,” Victor said. “Let Sedra go. You cannot cheat death. No man is immortal. It violates the true ways of magic.”

“True ways?” Mikhail snarled. “Do you think you follow the truth? You follow the enemy among you. Light cannot be separated from darkness. I was a fool to assume the old ways could withstand the change. This-” He pulled, and the rope tightened on Sedra. She yelled, and stumbled forward again, but still didn’t do so much as raise a hand in her own defense. “-This is what comes of truth. Lies. Deceit. Betrayal.”