Resurgence of Ancient Darkness (42 page)

“
Shea’s charms will protect us, but if he gets away we won’t get another shot at him while he is as weak as this
,” she sent as she cast her attack spell again.

While we were talking, he managed to get out a wand and fire a bolt at Spectra, who had to break off her attack to block it.

I couldn’t believe that the spirit drain was still going. The amount of power the sorcerer had in this realm was equal to the amount of life force he had managed to get from the table before we destroyed it. Spirit Drain was pulling that out of him, and had he been a normal person he would have been dead four times over by now, and yet the spell continued to run.

Spectra lowered her staff and fired back, forcing him on the defensive again. Spectra pressed her attack and continued to fire her staff at him. He writhed and screamed in pain as one bolt got through and hit him squarely in the chest.

He got back on his feet and tried to cast again, but finally the drain was starting to show an impact, as his movements were sluggish. “
Press the attack! We almost have him,”
I sent.

Spectra swung her staff up, and the end of it hit him squarely in the jaw just as he opened his mouth to cast. I heard the loud crack of his jaw shattering under that blow. Spectra spun off that and swung her staff around three hundred and sixty degrees into his chest. As the staff hit, I heard more bones crack and shatter.

I was just about out of strength myself as the green-hooded sorcerer collapsed to the ground and ceased to move. I knew he wasn’t dead because the drain was still pulling power from him. I felt the power of the Spirit Realm starting to pour into me; I knew I should resist, but it felt so good, and I was so weak from casting.

As the power entered me I felt my strength returning, and I was able to keep the drain going. The power was intoxicatingly good, and I desired more and more of it.
Focus, Dusty. Kill the sorcerer,
I thought to myself.

Spectra was casting now too, and I could feel the power of the realm flowing between us. I didn’t know what she was up to, but the amount of power she was drawing in was more than I had ever seen her call on before. Around us spirits of all kinds were circling and crying out as she cast her spell. A wind picked up where there had been none, and still she drew in more power.

To my utter amazement the sorcerer started to get up again, but it was too late for him. As he got to his knees Spectra brought down her staff and hit him squarely in the center of the back. As she connected, they both let out a scream: hers of victory, and his of primal pain.

There was a blindly bright flash of light, and my Spirit Drain spell finally came to an end. The sorcerer’s body rapidly decayed to dust, and then was gone. I looked at Spectra, who had fallen to her knees and was panting hard.

Still energized by the realm, I ran to her side and swept her up just in time to see a red-hooded face looking down from the sky. I could not begin to describe the horror of that face. It was pure evil personified.

Panic began to set in, as I knew I could not get Spectra home without her gate spell, and I dared not leave her here in his presence. In my panic, I began to draw power from the realm again, and it calmed me. I looked up at the evil face and said, “Game over, you lose.”

As the power refilled my energy pool, I felt stronger and stronger. I knew that with the realm’s help I could take this guy.

The creature began to cackle, and it was a fearsome sound. I am sure if I had not been pulling in tremendous amounts of energy from the Spirit Realm I would have died from fear alone at that cackle.

“I am coming, and you will replace the one you killed on my council!” it said.

“If I am to be on that council, it is you I will replace!” I called out. I was starting to visualize how I could rule over them and end this. Yes, I could see it clearly: he would be my servant.

That just caused it to laugh even harder. “Perfect! My plan is working out perfectly!”

“
Dusty, remember who you are,
” came a weak voice in my mind.

I looked down at Spectra in my arms. She was still panting heavily, and her eyes were unfocused and dilated. I knew I was losing her. Her weakness pulled me back, and I remembered what she’d said about the realm making people evil. I needed the power to fight with, but I needed to resist its temptation too.

Turning my back to the face, I pulled out another of Shea’s potions and sent, “
Here, drink.”
She tried to refuse, but was too weak to fight.

Meanwhile, over our heads the face continued to laugh. “I will be there soon, and you will fall to your knees and worship me!”

“
Spectra, we need to get you back to Shea. Spirit-walk home while you still can,
” I sent.

“
What about you?
” she asked.

“
Once you are safe I will spirit-walk home also,
” I sent.

“
Promise me you will come home to me,
” she sent.

“
I promise! Now go while you still can!
” I sent.

She vanished from my arms as I sensed something coming up behind me. I spun and saw the red-hooded sorcerer that I had seen previously in the sky.

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. I forced myself to replay Spectra’s comment: “
Remember who you are,
” over and over in my mind. I pulled in power from the realm and prepared to destroy him, then he commanded, “To your knees, mortal!”

I felt my will buckling under the force of his command, and I started to drop to my knees. “Never!” I screamed as I pulled in more power to counter his command word.

“Yes, fight it! Show me you are worthy!” he called out and pressed his will on me even harder.

I slammed my staff into the ground and stood up. “You will not order me around!” I screamed.

“Yes, feed the anger, and bow in my presence!” he ordered.

The Spirit Realm continued to feed me with the power I needed to stand up to him, but just barely. I grew worried that I would not be able to keep up with his increases indefinitely.

In my armor I had two of Shea’s potion grenades. I pulled one out and threw it towards him. He merely laughed and batted it to the side.

“You’re a failure, Dusty. You always have been, and you will prove to be one today! Now bow!” he commanded, and I felt the power of his command increase.

I screamed in pain from the agony of fighting back, and slowly but surely my body began to follow his orders. I gave one last scream of strength and stopped my bow, but could not force myself to straighten all the way back up.

I will never know if I could have beaten him because at that moment a bright white light streaked out of the sky and landed between us.

“Foul one, your days are done!” called out the normally sweet voice of Master Kellyn.

Suddenly the sorcerer’s power over me vanished, and darkness wrapped around me.

“
My love!”
came the cry from Kellyn. “
The Grandmaster is here!
”

That was all I needed to hear. I rushed to her side in the Spirit Realm. There I saw Dusty’s body crumpled on the ground and Kellyn locked in a battle of wills with the grandmaster sorcerer of old. Kellyn was glowing brightly in pure, white light as the dark power of the sorcerer tried to pound her down. She was holding her own, but this was my fight.

“It is over,” I said calmly as I walked up beside her. I unwove the power he was using to attack her with and sent, “
I can take care of him. Help Dusty.”

“So the baby wizard thinks he can play in the big leagues,” said the grandmaster sorcerer.

“
Okay, but call if you need help,”
she sent as she scooped up Dusty and vanished.

“Your master wizard was just beaten by a pair of my apprentices,” I said. “Not exactly the sign of anyone of consequence.”

He unleashed a wave of power at me, which I unwove as it came in. He continued to taunt me and cast greater and greater spells, but I did not succumb to it. This was not reality where we might have met as equals; this was the Spirit Realm were the rules of magic were different. Here one won through controlling one’s
emotions.

“You may as well stop fighting. You lost ten thousand years ago,” I said. Decades of following the God of Creation had taught me calmness in the face of adversity. I needed that calmness in the face of the hatred and anger of the grandmaster sorcerer.

As we fought, a second sorcerer appeared, and this one summoned an army of foul beasts. I could not keep up with both attackers at once. “
Darnath! Help!”

Immediately Darnath appeared and entered into combat with the second sorcerer.

“
Be careful of your power usage, or the realm will trick you into being trapped here forever,”
I sent.

“
Don’t worry. I’ve got this guy,”
he sent back. Darnath lowered his staff and fired several bolts at the second sorcerer, which interrupted his casting. Then he summoned his own force of creatures and sent them against the foul beasts of the second sorcerer.

The two of them struggled back and forth, each moving their creatures around the battlefield as if it were
a massive, three-dimensional chessboard. When either of them would stop to try to summon more pieces to the field, the other would cast mage bolts to interrupt the spell.

The grandmaster grew angrier and angrier as he continued to cast his spells, attempting to destroy me. Power was freely flowing into him from the realm now, which he gladly accepted. I continued to unweave his spells and ignore his taunts. I never once took the offensive. This would be a suicidal plan in the physical realm, but here there was a third enemy to deal with, one which I was counting on to win this fight. The realm was created as a prison for evil creatures like this sorcerer; the more power he spent, and the angrier he got, the tighter the grip the realm would exert over him. If I could wait him out long enough, the realm would claim him as its own. If I had tried to match him in combat as Dusty had, the realm would claim me.

For his part, he dared not scale back the attack. I had not used any of my own power yet. If he stopped his attacks or tried to retreat, that would give me an opening for a counter attack. I could safely use my own power; I just had to ensure I did not tap the power of the realm as he was doing. He must have been worried about the outcome if I attacked, because he never relaxed his assault and never gave me the chance to attack.

“You have become weak in your old age,” I said. I had to keep him angry. It was necessary for him to think he was having no effect on me. The more frustrated he became, the better.

Soon a third sorcerer appeared, and Jerran came to fight him. They danced around each other like master fighters, using their staves as their primary weapon. Each time the staves connected,
a thunderous crack resonated and threatened to break my concentration.

“Foolish wizard! With every cast I grow stronger!” said the grandmaster. That was strictly true. The Spirit Realm was feeding him power, which he was turning against me. Over time the power would start to grow intoxicating, and eventually he would want to draw on it for the sake of drawing on it. At that point he would begin to fade away into a wraith, or some other kind of evil spirit. All I had to do was to force him to go on using his power and drawing on the realm. I had only to survive long enough for that to happen.

“I could sleep while you cast and miss nothing,” I said. In truth, it was growing very difficult to keep up the unweaving. Daranth and Jerran’s fighting around us was also an unhelpful distraction.

More sorcerers came and were met with more of my master wizards until all six of them were fighting the six of us. Only Kellyn stayed in Vydoria, as Dusty needed her healing power.

No other realm could have withstood the amount of raw power that was flying around us as we continued to do battle. Entire planets would have crumbled and stars would have been consumed. The wizards were all trying to bait and draw out the sorcerers, and the sorcerers kept pressing their attacks and trying to force the wizards to make a mistake.

Luke sent waves of electricity into the sorcerer he was fighting, and he replied with something that looked like plasma bolts. Andreya seemed to be tricking her opponent into attacking himself, and Gafar was attempting to gain control over his opponent’s mind. Each wizard and each sorcerer fought in his own way, using the powers they were masters of. It was as if someone wished to see a display of each style of magical combat at the highest level all at once, and had arranged this demonstration.

If it were not for the fact that the future of the realm of Vydoria was at stake, the events taking place in the Spirit Realm would have been an amazing contest to sit back and watch. Five master-level wizards fought five master-level sorcerers in a three-dimensional arena around the grandmaster sorcerer and myself. The raw power flowing around and through the fight was extraordinary and even beautiful. I wished desperately that I could sit back and simply watch the dance of energy.

Back and forth the grandmaster sorcerer and I continued our verbal sparring, while I raced to keep up with the unweaving of his attacks. It took no power to unweave an attack, merely skill and concentration. Therefore, as long as I could keep up the pace there was no limit to how long I could prolong the fight, but the slightest mistake would spell my doom.

The complexity and speed with which he worked was daunting. I was beginning to understand that in his day his skill had dwarfed mine. Had I met him at his prime he might have won, but he was well past his prime, and I had the realm itself fighting on my side.

After an unknown period of time I heard him scream out in fear as his attacks faded and stopped. “And now you finally see,” I said. “You have foolishly banished yourself into an eternal prison!”

The grandmaster faded out of sight and was gone. I pitied him, knowing that the eternal life he faced would be one of horror and imprisonment. He truly was a master of his art; it was a pity he had gone so wrong at some point. I wondered if there had been a point in time when the right person could have intervened and changed his future, as Kellyn did for me. Now there were no more opportunities for him; his life was complete.