A Magic King (30 page)

She ground her teeth as his words ripped away the last of her more palatable options. Still, Kyree's words came at her, relentlessly pounding at her hopes until there was nothing left.

"You are dying, Oracle. Each moment, your life is whittled away by the very air you breathe, the food you eat. The magic is everywhere, and you cannot escape it."

Jane pushed forward, abandoning the bookcase to stand directly in front of Kyree. "I don't have to escape it. I have to change to accommodate it. I need that spell Kyree, the information that tells me how to change. You give me that, you help me adapt, and I'll help you build your empire."

His eyes narrowed, and Jane could almost see his thoughts wrapping around her offer, deciding how best to use the situation. "How will you help me, Jane? What specifically will you do?"

She glanced away, wondering what she could ethically give him. "I'll tell you everything I have on those symbols and how each was used."

"Guns, Jane. I want guns."

"No. Your magic is enough of a weapon."

"Everyone has magic. And there are many more ways to block spells than there are to create them."

Jane scrambled mentally as she struggled to find something else he wanted.

As if guessing her thoughts, he answered her question. "There is nothing else I want. Guns will give me the power I need. Rulership was a ploy to please you—"

"The hell, it was. You need a power base, a kingdom, and loyal subjects. You need people to wield those guns. An army to protect the knowledge you intend to steal."

He grinned. "Yes, there are definite advantages to ruling my own kingdom, and it was a sufficient lure for you."

"I could still walk, Kyree." She resorted to her most desperate plea. "And if I die, the knowledge will be lost forever. There's no way you can retrieve it from the computer without me."

Kyree clapped his hands, and Jane experienced a moment of sickening disorientation. In her weakened state, it took her even longer to focus. When she did, her jaw grew slack in astonishment.

Gone were the bright walls of his laboratory, the bookcase, the bucket of symbols, everything. Instead, she stood in the middle of a cave with slick, damp walls lighted by torches set throughout the room. A table lay to one side, filled with books that were probably ancient in her time. Looking down she saw she stood in the middle of a pentacle, etched into the stone floor, each line a small rut lined with gold.

Her blood ran cold when she saw the burning candles, one placed at each point of the star. It was as though he'd already been prepared for some sort of ritual.

"Try and leave now, Jane," taunted Kyree from where he stood just outside the circle.

Jane continued to inspect the room, stretching for a show of bravado. "Impressive trick, Kyree. Where are we?"

"Far below the courtyard. Even the Elven Lord doesn't know it's here."

"Cute," she repeated, starting to casually walk off the pentacle. He didn't stop her, and she extended her step to carry her off the symbol.

She was stopped cold. There was a force field of some sort extending from the circle upward. It tingled along her fingers where she pressed into it. It burned at her shoulder where she tried to shove through it. It was an agony of electrical energy that would not budge.

Finally she fell backward, the first tendrils of terror seeping into her system as she realized how badly she had erred. She'd thought she could handle Kyree.

"It's a cage of sorts," Kyree offered from the sidelines. "It follows the edge of the pentacle, and it is impenetrable."

"Nothing's foolproof, Kyree," she said, but they both knew it was an idle threat.

"True, but I've tested this particular cage. First with small animals, then larger ones. I even had a bear in there—"

"I'm not a dumb animal, Kyree."

"No. But neither was one of my more brilliant students. And even he couldn't get out."

A shiver of apprehension slid up her spine. "What did you do to him?"

Kyree moved away from her as he talked. He knelt down to repair a chalk pentacle half hidden behind his worktable. "He was a bright but idealistic boy who unfortunately learned a great deal more than he was supposed to about my experiments."

Jane tried to steady herself against the panic welling up in her throat. "What did you do to him, Kyree?"

He didn't even glance her way, but continued conversationally, gesturing at an old tome hidden in a shadow, placed at the center of the chalk pentacle. "Interestingly enough, this book was hoarded by the Tarveen. They, of course, couldn't understand it, but its loss sparked their more violent raids on King Daken's lands."

Jane gasped, appalled not by his evil, but that she'd completely misread his true character. "You started the war against Daken?"

"Me?" He looked up and laughed. "No, the Tarveen have raided his lands for years for their own reasons. The loss of the book only increased their anger and, consequently, their viciousness. An unfortunate side effect, I must admit."

Jane tried to think, but she was weak, her thoughts dull and slow. A part of her still hoped there might be a core of decency in Kyree. Maybe this was just a show of strength for him. Maybe the goodness she'd seen in the grove wasn't all false.

"Kyree, the symbols you're using, the book itself, it's all evil. It's black magic."

"Nonsense," he called back cheerfully. "Symbols and knowledge aren't good or evil. They are simply a way of tapping into the source of power within oneself. This book contains healing spells, finding spells..." Kyree glanced at his worktable.

Following his gaze, she felt her heart begin to pound painfully in her throat as she noticed a metal object gleaming dully in a light of a heated brazier.

"Ah, you finally noticed." He stood up, his chalk pentacle now clean of smudge marks, and went to his table. "You are so pathetically naive about the ways of magic, Jane." He picked up the Beretta from the table, firing pin in place. "I watched you that day in the House of Prophesy. I saw you dismantle this in the back room. I even knew you buried it the next night. All it needed was a simple finding spell and here it is. I have a gun. Given a little time, I will learn how to manufacture more."

Moving to a better angle within her limited space, Jane saw what she wanted. The bullet clip was on the table, not in the handle. It was a weak ploy, but all she had.

"You still need me, Kyree. The gun won't work."

"Of course it does. Why else would you work so hard to hide the pieces?"

Jane grinned. "Get a bullet and put it in the chamber."

Clearly intrigued, Kyree did as she directed.

"Now pull the trigger."

He did. Nothing happened. Berettas don't fire without the clip in place.

Kyree twisted the gun, inspecting it in the flickering light. "How very disappointing."

"You still need me, Kyree. Now let me out of here."

He stared vaguely off into space, and Jane began to hope that maybe her bluff had paid off.

"Plus," she pushed, "even if you do figure the gun out, military secrets disappear fast. All too soon your enemies will have them. You'll need me to give you that next boost in weapons technology."

Kyree turned, his head bobbing up and down as he silently agreed with her. Jane's hopes soared. Then Kyree turned, dropped the gun casually on the table, and began collecting chemicals which he tossed into a cold brazier. His next words effectively extinguished any hope that she'd gotten through to him.

"I had such plans for you, Jane. If only you had been less intelligent."

"A smart collaborator is better than a stupid one," she offered, willing to say anything he wanted if he let her out of the cage.

"True, true. But you see, you're a bit too smart, and I'd have quite a time keeping you in line."

"Believe me, Kyree," she offered, trying to placate him. "I'll be a lot more amenable now that I've seen some of your abilities." She again pressed against the forcefield with the same painful result.

"Yes, and I considered it until you mentioned you're dying. That, of course, leaves me with only one recourse."

She cursed silently, wondering how things had gotten away from her so fast. For a little bit there in his laboratory, she'd thought she had the upper hand. "How will you explain a change in me?" she asked, hoping a small change was all he had in mind.

He glanced at her. "My dear, everyone saw how ill you were. Your death, even an illness, is already explained. I, of course, will neatly step into your place. You see, you will have given me the secrets of the Keeper. With your last dying breaths you passed on the information so the knowledge would continue."

Jane felt her hands begin to shake, and she clasped them in front of her, trying to think. "There must be other options, Kyree. What do you want? I can get it for you."

"I have thought and thought, but I must do this while you are strong enough to endure the process." He looked over at her, his expression sad. Like a person going into a pawn shop, he looked like he was about to lose something valuable out of necessity.

Jane swallowed, the taste of terror bitter in her mouth.

"You're right, you know," he continued. "Military secrets are never secret for very long. Eventually, I will figure out the gun."

Jane closed her eyes, knowing he was right. It was only a matter of time, probably minutes, before he thought to put the clip into the Beretta.

"But then someone else will figure out how to make them too. What I need is your knowledge, the information stored in your mind."

"Exactly," said Jane, pressing enthusiastically forward in her cage. "If you kill me, it will all be gone. Even drugging me is unreliable," she offered, trying to hedge her bets. "A lot of this stuff is very tricky. I'll need all my brain power focused and sharp."

Kyree shook his head forlornly. "This really isn't how I'd intended things to end." With a swift twist of his wrist, he lit the second small brazier. The chemicals began to burn, causing a thick, gray smoke to billow up from the center.

Carrying the small pot of sputtering chemicals, he stepped into the center of the chalk pentacle and sat down.

"What are you doing?" Jane asked, not trying to disguise the tremor in her voice. She had the most horrible feeling her time just ran out.

"Look at the smoke, Jane."

She did as he bid, a gasp of shock escaping her lips as she realized what was happening. Rather than floating above Kyree's head, the smoke from the brazier was somehow filling her airspace. She could smell the coarse burn of sulfur, the cloying scent of myrrh.

She coughed, waving her arms to clear the air, but she became lightheaded from the effort, and the smoke thickened, rather than dissipated.

"I give, Kyree! I'll get you the guns," she lied, desperately playing for time. "I promise." She coughed again, her breath coming in frantic gasps that caught on the way in and burned on the way out.

Kyree's voice came to her, soft and melodious, as lights began to dance before her eyes. "The smoke is a kind of poison, Jane, but a slow one. First it robs you of your mobility, then it slowly bleeds into your mind."

"I'm no good to you dead," she gasped out.

"As it slowly eats into your soul, your mind becomes open and free. Highly vulnerable, you might say."

Jane felt herself stagger. Her legs were numb, and she dropped to her knees.

"In this weakened state, I will merge with you much like the Old Ones merged with other animals."

She tried to fight, tried to think of a way out, but she was so weak, and so very, very slow in her thoughts.

"Once joined with you, I will wander through your memories, absorbing them, living them, learning all you know."

"Can't be done," she muttered, her words slurred and weak.

"But I've already done it to that very bright student I mentioned earlier."

"Dead. First," she forced out. "You'll die with me."

"Oh, no," he chuckled. "I'll be long gone before the last flicker of your life is extinguished. I really am sorry about this. I had such plans for you. Oh," he added as an afterthought. "It won't be painful. You'll be unconscious long before you die. At least it will be relatively quick, almost pleasant when compared to radiation poisoning."

On those words, Jane lost the battle with her body. Dropping away from her physical awareness, she slipped into the nebulous plane of her thoughts, trying to hold them tight to her.

She felt his presence immediately, pressing against her like a heavy weight on top of her heart. She pushed him away, but her efforts seemed pathetically weak against his overwhelming strength.

Desperate for anything, any kind of help, she called silently for Daken. She'd been toying with the idea ever since Kyree mentioned the bonding that was part of their communication spell. She brought out as clear a picture of Daken as possible, then called to it, begging for help.

Nothing happened. On the edge of her consciousness, she heard Kyree laugh at her feeble efforts even as he began to invade her mind.