Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

Scary man. Scary. Willem stopped. Tewk didn’t. Tewk kept right on going.

He’s a servant, Willam thought about Tewk. He’s supposed to be there.

Something slithered across the floor. It was black and it was like fog and wasn’t just on the floor. It was on eye level and it was fast and it wrapped around the man in brocade as his sword came out.

Tewk looks like that, Willem thought, and instantly honed that thought like a knife: Tewk looks just like that!

Tewk did. There were two of them, and the man at the table grabbed papers and scrambled and the men around their duke drew swords as Jindus did, as Tewk did—with all that black swirling around and around like smoke in a chimney. The two swordsmen went at it, circling like the smoke, swords grating and ringing—but all the bystanders just stood, swords drawn, but nobody moving, nobody able to see anything but Jindus, twice.

Except Tewk’s better, Willem thought. Tewk’s stronger. Scarier.

A sword swung and one of the two went down, blood spurting clear across the room, spattering the men, the pillars, everything. And one Jindus stood there, spattered, too, sword lifted…

And all that smoke whirled around and around and magic hit like a hammer, magic aimed at magic. Willem staggered where he stood, and didn’t see what had hit him, just felt it, and shoved back . The Alley was where he was. The Alley was here, and men yelled and swore, voices echoing off what wasn’t here at all.

The magic lashed at him like a whip. It was dark, it was angry, and it was scared, and it came from one old man, one old man who stood over in the shadows, over beyond Tewk, who was backing up from the advance of three of Jindus’s men.

Snakes, Willem thought, and there were all of a sudden snakes in their way.

But that left him open, and the magic that hit made his heart jump, and he was on his hands and knees, trying to get up, trying to defend himself from that old man, from that thing that wasn’t here, but almost was. It was hungry for the blood. It drank it. It grew stronger. And stronger.

But it was crazy, too. Crazy, and mean, and mad.

I’m not here, Willem thought. And that left the old man. Miphrynes is. He’s right—

An arm like iron snatched him right off the floor, up to his feet, and a length of sword was out in front of him in Tewk’s strong hand, between him and that old man.

We’re not here, he thought, fast.

The dark reared up above all the room like an angry horse, and then plunged down at the floor, spreading in all directions at once. It broke like a wave against the walls, and crested over, and flowed backward, all the waves headed at each other, with a shriek that racketed through Willem’s bones. The men went down. Only the old man, Miphrynes, was on his feet, lifting a staff that glowed with light the color of which had never been, not in the whole world. The eyes didn’t want to see it. The heart didn’t want to remember it. The ears didn’t want to hear the sound that racketed through the room, and the palace, and the walls.

Tewk’s arm tightened until it all but cut off Willem’s wind.

“Demon,” Tewk yelled in his ear.

It was. And there was one man in the middle of that roiling smoke, and Miphrynes began to scream, and to scream, and to scream.

I don’t hear it, Willem said to himself. But he couldn’t shut it all out. Tewk doesn’t hear it. We’re not here.

It stopped finally. The smoke went away. And there were just bones, and black robes, and a charred stick across them. There was a scatter of armed dead men. There was Jindus, staring rigidly at the ceiling, pale as parchment.

There was a great, deep silence—in this room.

Outside, far away, out in the courtyard, maybe, men were shouting. People outside were still alive.

“I take it that was the wizard,” Tewk said, letting up on his grip. “Are you all right, boy?”

It took three tries to say yes.

“Jindus was easier than I thought,” Tewk said, and nodded toward the pile of fresh bones. “That one—that one put up a hell of a fight.”

“Did,” Willem said. He was on his own feet, now, and there was something over there in that pile of bones, something dangerous that as good as glowed when he thought about it. He took a deep breath and went over and got it, a small book on a chain, which came loose from the bones when he pulled on it. He didn’t want to look at it. He knew better. He went over to the fireplace and threw it in.

“Ugh,” he said. And watched it burn.

“That’s not all that’s got to burn,” Tewk said, from where he stood. “Boy. Look at me.”

He wasn’t a boy. Not now. Wanted to be, but even magic couldn’t manage that. Tewk looked at him and something changed in Tewk’s expression, something serious and sober.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Tewk said. “Have you got one more trick in you, son? Can you get us over to that signal tower?”

Willem thought about it. A thick fog seemed to have settled in his brain. They were in a safe place at the moment, because everybody was dead. Demons were like that. That was what Master had told him: you could control them by giving them what they wanted, which wasn’t any sort of control at all—it was still what they wanted, after all, since they were still in their Place. And if you were going to bring a demon all the way into your Place so you could control it, you still had a problem, because you had to give them a shape to live in and if you wanted it to do something for you, you had to find something else it wanted. That meant you had to be stronger than that body was—Miphrynes hadn’t been stronger than Jindus—or smart enough to keep outsmarting the demon.

And Miphrynes might not have been smarter than this particular demon, after all. It had gotten its blood. A lot of it. And a few souls. And it was back in its safe Place. Wherever that was. One hoped it was back in its Place.

He wanted out of here. Right now. But wishing wouldn’t do it. Feet had to.

“Willem!” Tewk caught up at the door, and grabbed his arm. “The place is crawling with mercs. They don’t know Jindus is dead. They might’ve heard something going on. But can you—”

“You’re Jindus,” he said, and Tewk was. It wasn’t even a hard piece of illusion.

Tewk looked down at his hand, which was browner, and scarred, just like that of Jindus, who was dead back there on the floor.

Tewk looked a little uneasy.

“You can do it,” Willem said. “We go down there and you tell them to light the fire.”

“Works if nobody got out of that room,” Tewk said. “Where’s the old man? The scribe?”

The old man at the table. The table was overturned. The papers were scattered, the inkpot spilled on the stone floor.

But the old man was gone .

The upper halls were deserted. The Jindus illusion was worth holding on to, Willem thought, because not everybody might believe the duke was dead. He half-ran, being a merc, just a plain black-cap, beside Tewk, and they went rattling and thumping down the little side steps that had gotten them into the upstairs in the first place.

They passed the kitchen stairs. They descended as far as the closed outside door and Tewk drew his sword. “Open it,” he said, and Willem drew the latch back and swung it inward.

The guards were gone. Mercs were all over the courtyard, opening storerooms, carrying stuff, like an overturned anthill.

“They know,” Tewk said. “They know he’s dead. The town’s going to be next. Probably they’ve already started looting down there, but the gold’s up here. We’ve got to get Osric’s army in here. Got to get to the signal tower. Fast.”