Secrets of Arkana Fortress (51 page)

              Maybe, just maybe, Blaigen would slip up and allow Byde an opportunity.

              A thick cloud of steam rose from his shield as an overcharged swing pounded into it like a meteor from the skies. With his sword hand he batted the second flaming weapon away from his midriff. With baited breath he kicked his leg forward, connecting with Blaigen’s belly. The mage stumbled back, winded.

              This was Byde’s opportunity.

              He barrelled ahead, utilising his shield as a weapon and pushing his opponent’s sword aside while attacking with the charged blows of his watery blade.

              He kicked Blaigen again in the stomach.

              The frustrated mage went down on his front, his swords disappearing in a puff of smoke, a curse leaving his snarling lips.

              ‘You think you can oppose the Providence, mage?’ he spat as he watched Byde walk toward him carefully, shield raised. ‘Do not be foolish!’ He sprung up to his feet and flung his arms into the air, eyes aglow.

              Mist swirled from his out-faced palms and looped round in front of his thin frame. A hurricane-like cloud stood in front of Byde before it shot forward at an incredible speed; faster than any arrow. His shield disintegrated along with his sword as he toppled backwards; he was blown across the floor, smacking against a jutting section of stone. He yelped loudly as the pain exploded across his body.

              Blaigen spat onto the floor and lowered his arms, sharp twinges visible in his face. ‘Nice effort, but not quite good enough,’ he grunted amidst the pains. His legs wobbled as he went to stand over his grounded opponent.

              ‘Blaigen!’ Vicana’s scream echoed in his ears like resounding bell tolls. He turned his head to see her struggling to get up off of the floor, her demeanour shaken and battered. A shaky hand pointed toward the spire. After following it he cast his eyes upon a darkly dressed figure running haphazardly across the cavernous room, occasionally stumbling. He swore under his breath before his legs churned into a hobbling pursuit.

              Mikos felt his leg begin to cramp before something wrapped around his waist, tight and invisible, yanking him onto his back, pulling him across the floor. He kicked and batted his arms about, fingers scrabbling at whatever had a hold on him, but he felt nothing. His body ached and he didn’t have much energy left to fight against it. He swallowed hard, his throat and mouth acrid like smoke.

              He stopped at Byde’s feet, his face contorted in agony from where he had landed.  Reaching for his friend, he suddenly felt a pair of eyes burning into him. He turned his head around, meeting Blaigen’s evil glare.

              ‘You’re no ordinary mage, are you?’ he hissed, still clutching his side. His snowy hair was dishevelled, caked with sweat and burnt with magic.

              ‘Who… are you? Really?’ asked Mikos. There was a confusing element about Blaigen that completely threw him.

              ‘Don’t even try to get into my fucking head like you did with that stupid bitch.’ He pointed a thumb at Vicana blindly. ‘Who the hell are you? Really?’

              Mikos pressed his lips together stubbornly.

              Vicana hobbled up beside her counterpart and leaned on her splintered staff. ‘More than a simple mage.’

              ‘Shut your fucking mouth,’ Blaigen growled, half swinging his arm round to hit her in the face. ‘If you’d done your fucking job properly we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

              She blinked, her jaw clenching. ‘Me?’ she screeched. ‘You’re blaming me for…’ She recoiled as the back of Blaigen’s hand hit her face.

              ‘Vicana? Shut up now. You’re lucky I stopped them both seeing as your incompetence brought the barrier down.’

              ‘You cannot be serious, Blaigen. What the…?’

              Another blow to her face.

              Mikos looked her over, sensing the hatred and loathing inside her. Anyone could see that she did not like Blaigen and that she was becoming increasingly tired of him. He was arrogant and too self-important to work with – that much Mikos could see.

              ‘Leave her alone!’ he shouted.

              Blaigen twisted. ‘What the fuck do you care?’

              ‘You’re the one to blame, not her.’ Mikos supported his weight on one arm.

              ‘You know nothing so shut up.’

              ‘I know that she hates you.’

              Vicana went wide-eyed, half way between annoyance and shock, deftly averting her gaze. Her slender fingers squeezed around the gnarled wood she was leaning on.

              ‘Vicana…’ began Mikos softly. A foot swiftly kicked his head to one side, splitting his lip open from the sheer force.

              ‘Leave me with them, Vicana, now.’ Blaigen let out a heavy breath.

              She ran her tongue over her teeth as she turned her back on them.

              ‘What have they taken away from you, Vicana?’ Mikos seethed amidst a mouthful of blood. ‘Is this what you want? Is it? A world covered with eternal suffering?’ He spat thick red blood onto the stone floor.

              ‘I said shut up!’ screamed Blaigen, his eyes roaring with magic.

              Byde groaned and lifted his head up. ‘We can’t let you do this,’ he grumbled, the physical strain ever present in his voice.

              ‘Unfortunately you won’t be alive to stop me.’ Anger filled the air, flames licking the ceiling and the walls like vines.

              ‘There will be nothing but pain, misery and suffering if you allow them to come back into our world,’ Byde bellowed before the pain got the better of him.

              ‘The Providence
are
the destined rulers of this world. They are all-seeing; all-knowing. They are…’

              Something ripped through his chest, sticking out in front of him. Blaigen’s eyes were wide, mouth agape… disbelief covered him.

              ‘I… you…’ he gargled.

              Vicana twisted the staff and plunged it through with more intent. Tears littered her cheeks. ‘They’re right. I’ve been selfish and have allowed this to happen.’

              ‘You… have… betrayed them. You won’t live.’ Blaigen fell to his knees, the magic seeping out of his eyes, blood trickling from his mouth. ‘You are dead like me…’ He closed his eyes and twitched violently. ‘No… not now,’ he uttered quietly. His body fell limply to the floor, a dark aura rising into the air and fizzing into the abyss.

              Vicana withdrew her staff from the mage’s dead body and threw it to the floor where it clattered and rolled away. She clutched her belly and wailed, her entire being filled with despair. ‘I’m sorry,’ she blubbered. ‘What have I done? What did I do? It’s all my fault.’ She collapsed to her knees and doubled over, her head shaking from her tearful exertion. She screamed.

              ‘Mikos…’ Byde reached forward and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘The mages… we need to stop them from maintaining the spire.’

              ‘If you do that,’ Vicana spoke amidst gasps of pain. ‘This entire place will come down on you.’

              ‘At least we will have stopped it,’ insisted Byde as he struggled to his feet.

              ‘It’s too late. They’ve already prepared for their return to our world. The spire is useless to them now – they have what they need.’

              ‘By the gods…’ Byde lifted Mikos up. ‘We still need to bring this thing down.’

              ‘You’re right,’ Mikos agreed.

              Vicana slowly rose. ‘Let me…’

              They both stared at her.

              ‘My life is forfeit now. The Faceless will soon be here to dispose of me. You may as well let me do something good before I die.’

              ‘But you said this place would come down. We can’t make our way through all those passageways again.’ Byde paced his breathing.

              ‘There’s an exit at the top of the spiral stairs up there.’ She pointed, two sets of eyes following her finger. ‘Quickly now.’

              Mikos walked over to her and held her arm. ‘Are you sure about this?’ His deep eyes glowed with warmth and concern.

              ‘I know who you are… what you are. Blaigen was a fool to underestimate the pair of you.’ She smiled weakly, her smooth, slender features brightened by it.

              ‘How do you know?’

              She smirked. ‘Over the years I’ve done a lot of research into areas of magic including the casters. When I was a little girl I always dreamed of becoming a mage, renowned all over the place for my elegance and skill.’ Her eyes dropped to her feet. ‘I… my desires got the better of me. They watched me for a long time. I don’t know if my desire for magic had made me a target, but nobody knows the Providence’s full extent.’ She looked away, tearing up.

              Byde reached his hand out invitingly. ‘We can escape.’ His hostility had evaporated.

              Vicana laughed sceptically and shook her head. ‘Don’t you get it? I’m a marked woman…
they
will come after me and kill me no matter where I go.’

              ‘Surely if you hide…’ Mikos suggested.

              ‘They are all-seeing,’ she half-screeched. ‘They gave me my magic, at a price.’

              ‘What price?’

              ‘I’m incapable of having children.’ Her face was sullen. ‘They have my life in their hands. They can see what I do and where I go – my sacrifice meant they could track me wherever I went.’

              ‘It must be hard to know that you’re never leaving anyone behind to carry the lineage on.’ Byde looked back at the spire mages who were completely oblivious to what was going on around them. Blind subservience.

              ‘All I am leaving behind is my younger brother, Siler. He knows nothing about me or what I do, or have done… I’d like to keep it that way.’

              ‘What if they go after him?’ asked Mikos.

              She sighed. ‘He’s no threat, or of any importance to them.’ Her breath shook. ‘I wish I could see him one last time…’ A tear trickled down her smooth cheek. ‘Go, now. The Faceless will be here soon. You must leave.’ She winced as she held her midriff.

              Byde grabbed Mikos’s arm and tugged him to follow. ‘Thank you, Vicana,’ he said, soft and sincere.

              Mikos nodded at her imploring face. ‘Rest easy knowing you’ve done the right thing by the people, and yourself.’ His head bowed as he moved off after Byde who made his way to the stone staircase that ascended around the room.

              There was a silence.

              Vicana stared, fixated, at the spire mages. All she had to do was order them to stand down and then take the strain of the spire onto her own shoulders until it became too painful. Maybe it’s what she wanted? A painful death as a punishment for what she had done to Salarias and its people?

              Blaigen’s lifeless body lay to her left, his face pale. The death of such a powerful mage had left some sort of void. She had always respected the highly skilled and wisest of magic wielders, but Blaigen had been consumed with arrogance and a type of internal rage that had always battled inside him. Even though his power had been great, Vicana had always felt that there was something false about him; about his persona. She thought back to the show of humanity she had seen in his eyes – the small glimpse into his vulnerability. He had been scared of something, but whatever it had been it was now too late to find out.

              Regardless of his demise at her hand, his body still ebbed with magic; a glow surrounding it. Maybe it was his soul or the leftover magic in his body.

              She focused on the spire and hobbled toward it, her mind flooding with her life memories – her parents, brother, long lost friends, former lovers. She had consumed her own life with such selfishness and pure ambition that she had missed one of the most important things about life itself – happiness. Her pursuit of alchemy and longing for magical abilities had only satisfied her to a point. There had always been a lingering sadness about her, as if the things she had done had filled a void that required a deeper meaning and not such conscious desires and pleasures.

              She raised her hands, tapping into her mind to feel the spire’s magical weight. There it was, even more powerful than she had remembered.

              ‘Mages… release your hold.’

              Her slim arms shook as the magic fell upon her, the mages stepping back and lowering their grip. She gasped heavily and squeezed her eyes tight. The power was unimaginable – the spire had grown in strength and potency since Blaigen’s reformation of the mages and their abilities. She knew that she would fall soon and bring the entire room and surrounding complex down on top of them.

              It all flashed before her closed eyes.

              She opened them and looked up towards the steps. ‘Hurry!’ she screamed. The two casters were two thirds of the way there. She had to hold on a bit longer.