Cameron Johnston - God of Broken Things

We struck at the same moment, Alvarda’s power ripping cobbles from the street and launching them at my head, and mine smashing not against that experienced magus’ mental fortress but instead cutting straight through the youngling’s walls of green wood. I found his mind conflicted and confused, still instinctively trying to fight the parasitic creature’s controlling influence. They must have taken him in the last few months else his mind would have been as corrupted as Alvarda’s.

I felt what could only be that creature’s shock as I stormed the man’s skull. I didn’t try to fight it for control of his body, instead I was in and out quick as a sharp knife through the ribs, ducking and diving the flying cobbles while leaving the aeromancer to enact my orders before the Scarrabus knew what was happening.

Wind tore Alvarda from his feet and flung him face-first into the nearest stone wall – which parted and left him crashing through somebody’s kitchen, pots and pans clanging. With any luck he’d landed balls-first on a whole tray of kitchen knives.

I focused my Gift and will upon the aeromancer, peeling open his mind like ripe fruit. As I struck, the Scarrabus burrowed further into his mind like a maggot through rotting flesh. We struck and recoiled, both shivering and numbed like swords swung full force colliding into each other. These creatures controlled their hosts’ thoughts and feelings and twisted them towards their own alien ends, so it only made sense that they would be able to detect my intrusion and fight back. I recovered first, but then I’d come expecting this kind of fight.

I tore into the Scarrabus through the aeromancer’s mind, following the flow of thoughts and spreading stain to locate the vile thing’s connections to his brain. My magic burned through the mental pathways with righteous wrath. These were the vermin that had attacked my city, my people – and they had murdered Lynas. Nothing and nobody would stand between me and them. I could have killed them but we needed one alive. Man and creature convulsed and collapsed; the youngling lay foaming at the mouth, spasmodically twitching, leaving me free to focus on the more experienced and deadly geomancer.

I was a shade too slow. Alvarda had already recovered. He leapt from the gaping hole in the wall and gestured. The ground went liquid beneath me, swallowing my feet and ankles before solidifying again to pin me in place.

“Hey, hey, let’s you and me make a deal,” I said. “There must be something you lot want?” Shackles of stone slithered up my body to secure my arms.

His expression didn’t change as he reached inside his robes and pulled forth a pale ball that unfolded into a squirming segmented beetle with too many legs and dozens of translucent threads instead of mandibles. Scarrabus. This was the same kind of vile creature I had seen torn from that traitor Heinreich. “You are correct, Edrin Walker. There is something that we desire of you.”

My mouth was suddenly a desert. I swallowed and scrabbled feebly at his mind. His Gift was strong and his mind tight; he kept me out with apparent ease. “Oh gods. Please, no. How many of our magi have you already taken? You don’t need me too.”

His mouth ticked into a smile that came nowhere near his eyes. “You have talents that will serve us well, as they were always meant to. You will find it a most fulfilling life.”

I cringed, or tried to. The stone held me secure. “The two of you can’t possibly defeat the Arcanum.”

“Here we become three, but already hundreds elsewhere,” he replied. “Soon to be thousands. We have no intention of defeating your Arcanum. We will become the Arcanum, and so much more. Rejoice, for you will become what you were bred to be.”

I grinned. “Cheers for the information you festering piss-stain. Good to know there’s only the two of you here.” Then I raised my voice. “Now would be good.”

An arrow thudded into his eye. His head snapped back in a spray of blood and jelly. He didn’t scream or snarl or make any human noise, instead the street around me erupted as he flailed and fell. Anything less than a mortal blow would just have enraged him. The older a magus got, the harder they died.

I spat at him. “Fucking parasite.”

I scanned the rooftops and spotted a grey figure wearing a black leather mask perched on the roof above. My friendly assassin lifted two fingers in greeting – only a fool would hunt magi without somebody to watch their back.

My moment of victory was immediately spoiled as a pale and slimy creature the size of my fist escaped from the grasp of his corpse and scuttled straight towards me. I panicked, struggling against my prison, flooding my muscles with magic as I heaved at solid stone to no effect. My minor skill with body magics proved useless, and whatever enhanced strength I could gather was not even close to breaking free. I turned my Gift on the parasite, but the creature’s mind was too alien for me to understand, and too well protected to crush out of hand. I didn’t have the time.

“Layla!” I screamed, as the creature reached for my legs, translucent tentacles writhing.

A block of masonry smashed into the cobbles, crushing the creature to paste and almost taking my foot along with it. I loosed a shuddering breath of relief. Then I shivered at how close I’d come to being taken by those things. The horrors they could wreak with an enslaved tyrant would be unimaginable.

The tall grey-clad woman leapt from the high rooftops and landed with all the grace of the mageborn assassin she was. A four storey drop meant little to her magic-infused muscles and bones.

“You look a tad worried, Walker,” she said from behind her mask. “I’m wondering if I should be insulted you thought me unable to squash a mere bug. Did you imagine an assassin of my skill would miss such an easy target?”

What a magus she would have made if only her Gift had fully matured! She had already mastered our arrogance. I struggled against the stone clamping me in place. “Ach, save me the lip and just get me out of this.”

She removed her mask and smirked at me, brown eyes shining bright in the moonlight. Her dark skin bore numerous still-healing scars that made my withered old heart lurch. Even with her hair cropped short she resembled Charra far more than Lynas, but that was no bad thing. She noted my expression and the smirk dissolved. There were reasons we’d kept our distance these last few weeks after her mother’s death. Emotions were still raw and it proved to be too much of a reminder for the both of us. Still, I couldn’t have denied her this opportunity: these things had killed her father, the best friend I’d ever had.

Being what I was I harboured no illusions as to which of us hurt the most. It’s hard to wallow in your own misery when you can take a peek inside somebody else’s head and feel so much worse. Really, you’d expect I of all people would have more empathy for others. But this thing here and now was business and emotion had no place, not even our anger.

She picked up the block of fallen masonry and smashed it into the stone that held me. It took a few bone-jarring blows before it split in two and freed my arms. After that I was able to pry my feet free of their old boots, leaving them behind still stuck in stone. I sighed. Those comfy old boots had served me well over the years. I eyed the two fallen magi critically, then approached the corpse of Alvarda Kernas. His House were going to be beyond pissed, at least until the pungent stench of treachery rose around them. Hmm…he had some fine boots on him. I yanked them off his corpse and pulled on the soft leather. Luxury! They were a shade overlarge but an extra pair of stockings would sort that. My feet had never had it so good.