Alexey Pehov - Shadow Prowler

“Murderer!” shouted Ilio, who had got to his feet. Forgetting his magical gift, he went rushing at the traitor with his fists held up.

Zemmel, reveling in the newly awoken Kronk-a-Mor, took no more notice of his opponent than a giant does of a mosquito. A click of the fingers, a an incomprehensible phrase in ogric, and Ilio cried out as he fell into the hole that appeared below his feet as the floor parted. The edges of the mirror came back together with a squelching sound, burying Valder’s friend.

“You!” Valder shouted, jerking himself up onto his knees, but he was suddenly swathed in supple black cables of power.

“Quiet.” Zemmel’s voice was quite imperturbable. “I’m busy.”

“What are you doing, you madman?” Valder shouted, trying to break free. “Don’t you understand what you’ve set free?”

“I understand. The Master explained it to me. He taught me how to wind you all round my little finger and become immortal. In a few minutes I shall be the equal of the Nameless One, or even more powerful! Why, the Nameless One, that incompetent, will bow his head before me!”

“Who is this Master?” asked Valder, trying not to pay any attention to O’Karta, who had begun to stir, and to continue distracting Zemmel.

“You don’t need to know that. Dunces like you are altogether too proud of the might of the Order, you have no idea at all of the might that will soon be mine! Awakening the Kronk-a-Mor proved incredibly easy. All I needed was the Horn and five idiots willing to give me their power. I have studied the language of the ogres, I have pored over their books for decades, mastering the ancient secrets of shamanism. I have achieved my own immortality, and I do not give a damn how many of you are dispatched into the Darkness after Panarik!”

“Go there yourself!” shouted O’Karta, and struck at Zemmel with the hammer of fire.

Boooom! the flame roared, and the snowflakes melted in the unbearable heat.

The black bonds loosened, and Valder added his own power to the redheaded archmagician’s second blow. But Zemmel merely swayed, and the flames flowed down off his clothes like a waterfall.

The traitor struck a terrible blow in reply. The air trembled and thickened and a semitransparent crimson sphere came hurtling toward the two magicians. Valder could see a densely interwoven Air, Earth, and something else incomprehensible. All he had time to do was to activate his extinguished shield and throw all of his energy into it.

An azure wall sprang up between him and Zemmel and the battle spell crashed into it, shattering it into hundreds of thousands of bright blue sparks that scattered across the ruined Council Hall like grains of millet. The sphere lost speed and changed direction, but it still caught Valder a glancing blow.

A shaft of fire penetrated Valder’s chest and exploded, and he collapsed onto the floor. He writhed and twisted, wheezing hoarsely in his pain, and missed the moment when O’Karta struck with fire again, this time not at Zemmel, but at the Horn, from above which the black magic was pouring out into the air.

This blow sent the Rainbow Horn spinning across the mirror floor and, having lost its stable base, the power escaped from Zemmel’s control.

“What the…” was all that the traitor had time to say before all the power of the Kronk-a-Mor that had already been accumulated struck back at its master like a sledgehammer, then dived into the mirror and retreated deep below the Tower of the Order.

The Council Hall was immediately flooded with silence. There was only the cold wind howling through the holes in the walls and snowflakes falling from the night sky.

“Are you alive?” asked O’Karta, walking across to where Valder was lying.

“Yes, but it’s only a matter of time.” The magician tried to smile. Blood seeped out onto his lips.

There was a hungry weasel in his chest, devouring his lungs. It was getting harder to breathe. Valder had no illusions about his own condition.

“Excellent,” the redheaded archmagician said. “You’ll live for another fifteen minutes. Quite long enough.”

“Enough for what?” Valder asked, sitting up and keeping his hand against his chest as he spat blood onto the mirror floor.

“To carry the Horn out of the tower.” The Filander held out the artifact that had somehow appeared in his hands. “Get a move on. You’ll have an eternity for lying down.”

“Take it out? Where?” Valder didn’t really understand, but he took the Horn.

“As far away as possible. See that?”

Valder looked where O’Karta was pointing. A thin, sinuous crack crept across the surface of the mirror floor.

Then another one. And another.

“When it breaks, the tower will be no more than a memory. And what went down through its floor will flood out into Avendoom. Come on! Get up! You were never a spineless milksop!”

Valder got to his feet, struggling hard not to fall over.

“I’ll hold the mirror together for as long as I can!”

“I’m already dead, O’Karta. Let’s do it the other way round. You have a chance to save yourself.”

“We’re all dead already. If you stay, it will be over too soon-you’re very weak. I’ll try to hold out for as long as possible.”

O’Karta turned away from Valder, raised his hands, and began directing streams of energy onto the cracked mirror.

That was the other magician’s last memory of him.

Intent and unbowed.

Valder found the winding staircase very difficult. When he reached the ground floor, there was darkness dancing in his eyes and the pain in his chest had expanded to a huge, pulsating sphere. He kept spitting out the blood that constantly appeared in his mouth.

The Tower of the Order was quivering slightly. Inconceivable forces had locked grips with each other in a struggle for liberty, and the archmagician had no doubt that the Kronk-a-Mor, even though Zemmel had not completed it, would be victorious. Valder tried not to think about what would happen after that.

The tower was no longer shaking; it was groaning in a low voice. Massive cracks ran through the walls. The ancient building could feel that its death was near. But the magical door opened gently to let the archmagician out.

The cold air and icy wind stung his face. His hands, firmly clutching the now-dormant Horn, were instantly frozen. Valder staggered away from the tower. Now without a single light burning, it watched him go with a melancholy stare. Every now and then there were flashes of magic at its very top as O’Karta spent his last strength on delaying the mirror’s collapse.

The Street of the Magicians was surprisingly empty. No one came out of their houses to see what was going on, as if everybody had been crushed under the weight of heavy sleep. The pain in Valder’s chest was growing worse, and he could hardly see anything. He walked blindly, setting his feet down one after the other and moaning softly when the torment became unbearable. Blood filled his mouth, running down over his chin and dripping onto his clothes.

The ground shuddered as it tried to expel the hostile magic of the ogres.

O’Karta held out for much longer than could have been expected. Valder got as far as the Street of the Sleepy Cat.

Even from there he heard the jangling sound of the mirror breaking, and then the triumphant howl of power hurtling up out of the earth. A terrible explosion threw the magician into a snowdrift and his face sank into the gentle coolness. The roaring continued as the magic of the ogres went on a rampage. As he lost consciousness, Valder could sense the threads of people’s lives being crumpled and snapped as the dark curse consumed street after street, house after house, inhabitant after inhabitant… They died in terrible torment. This power that was alien to humankind knew no pity or compassion; it took everyone who happened to be in its way.