Taken (33 page)

Crystal was standing motionless but I knew she was speaking with Lyle, even if I couldn’t hear her. I bit my lip in frustration. Crystal was right there . . . but if I made a move to attack, Lyle would too, and I couldn’t fight them both. I couldn’t hear the sounds of battle from behind anymore and that filled me with dread. I needed to get back there fast. “You want the key?” I said. “Take it.” I pulled Crystal’s key out of my pocket and threw it to Lyle.

Lyle caught it and stopped. He seemed to be at a loss. Crystal looked taken aback too; whatever she’d been expecting me to do, it hadn’t been that. “What are you waiting for?” I asked Lyle. “Open it and go find the Keepers. Unless you want to stay here?”

The words broke Lyle’s paralysis and he hurried past Crystal to the door, inserting the key. I felt a flash of magic as it turned in the lock and then the door opened, spilling a wash of brilliant light into the corridor. “Crystal!” Lyle called from the doorway.

“Come on, Crystal,” I said. “Let’s go see what the Keepers say.”

Crystal looked at me, then darted for the door.

I sprang after her but Crystal had thought and acted in an instant and I hadn’t had any warning. Crystal made it through the door and swung it closed behind her. I had just a fleeting image of Crystal’s lips curling in a slight smile, then the door slammed shut, leaving me in darkness.

A second later my hand closed on the handle and I yanked the door open to see a blank wall. I felt for the keyhole and swore. Crystal had taken the key with her. I stood there, staring at the wall, then turned back to where I’d seen Luna and the others and ran.

*  *  *

B
y the time I got there it was all over. Variam was propped up against the wall, blood on his clothes; his right arm had been horribly mangled and was hanging limp by his side. Anne was kneeling next to him, her face lit up by a soft green glow and filled with concentration as she worked her hands around Variam’s injured shoulder. Luna was leaning against the other wall; her face was white and she was shaking. But Vitus Aubuchon’s body was on the floor, blackened and decaying into nothingness.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Where’s Crystal?” Variam said.

“Gone,” I said. “She locked the door behind her.”

Variam looked at me, then away. “Um,” Luna said. “Is there another way out?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I was trying very hard to think.

“Alex, we can’t survive another attack,” Anne said. She didn’t look up from where she was working on Variam, and her voice was calm.

I didn’t know what to do but I knew we couldn’t stay here. “We’ve got about five minutes until Vitus comes back,” I said. “And Onyx is on his way too. Let’s move.”

With Anne supporting him Variam made it to his feet and we started walking. I picked a direction away from Onyx that I thought would give us the most cover. “Okay,” I said. “If anyone has any ideas, now would be a good time.”

Anne gave me a quick glance and shook her head. “Can we get out?” Luna asked.

“I’m not sure there
is
an out,” I said.

“Gate magic,” Variam said.

I looked at Variam. “Can you get out of a shadow realm with that?”

Variam gave a small nod. He was badly hurt and I could tell the adrenaline rush that had got him through the battle was wearing off; it was an effort for him to talk. “Harder, but yeah.”

Luna looked at me. “That other place we went to from the British Museum. Deleo got out of there with a gate, didn’t she?”

“Your stone . . .” Anne said.

I thought quickly. Gate stones didn’t work inside the real Fountain Reach; the wards blocked them. But the wards didn’t cover
this
Fountain Reach. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I couldn’t think of a better plan. “Let’s try it.”

We came into what seemed like this Fountain Reach’s copy of the duelling hall. It was higher and narrower than the one in our reality, with an arched ceiling and pillars along each wall. I picked out a side room that looked defensible and headed in.

Once we were inside Anne helped Variam down on a chair and I pulled the gate stone from my pocket. The focus was dark in the shadows, the rune barely visible. “Anne,” I said, holding it out. “Do you think you can work it on your own?”

Anne looked at it for a second, then nodded. I placed it into her hand. “Get going. I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

“Wait,” Luna said. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. This is what I do. Just get that gate open.”

Luna’s eyes flashed. I knew she was scared but even so she wanted to fight. “I’m not leaving without—”

“That was an order, not a request,” I said flatly. “Stay here.”

“We won’t leave without you,” Anne said. She was clasping the stone in one hand and her eyes were steady.

I nodded and walked out into the duelling hall.

*  *  *

O
nyx strode in one minute later. The darkness seemed to follow him as he moved, and his eyes were black slits. I knew he’d been fighting both Vitus and Crystal but he didn’t look so much as scratched. His eyes flicked from left to right, coming to rest on me.

“Looks like you’re getting your duel after all, Onyx,” I said. I was standing on one of the pistes.

“Nowhere to run?” Onyx asked. He walked into the room and stopped, turned slightly side-on to me, his hands ready by his sides.

“You wanted a traditional duel,” I said. “Bring it.”

Onyx tilted his head and studied me for a moment.

I was moving before Onyx threw his spell and the force blade hit the spot where I’d been standing a moment ago. Chips of wood went skittering across the floor as I ducked behind a pillar. “Run and hide,” Onyx said contemptuously, walking forward. He kicked one of the wooden splinters, sending it clattering into the corner. “What does Morden want with a coward like you?”

“Speaking of Morden,” I said, taking care not to poke my head out, “didn’t he tell you to work
with
me?”

Onyx just laughed. He started to circle the pillar at a leisurely speed, not taking his eyes off my hiding place. I moved to match him, keeping the pillar between us. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting rid of Vitus?” I asked.

“Vitus isn’t going anywhere,” Onyx said. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Yeah, I bet you have,” I said. “Remember our chat in the basement? As soon I saw that look in your eyes I knew what you were planning. I’ve seen it before.”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Onyx said. He was circling to a position where if I kept trying to keep the pillar between me and him I’d come up against a table. “Let’s see what you got.”

Just before Onyx could trap me I moved sideways and back. A second later Onyx came around the edge to see nothing but empty space. “What I figured,” Onyx said.

“You know,” I said from behind a second pillar, “Morden’s going to be quite upset if you miss Vitus because you were busy with me.”

“Morden’s not here,” Onyx said, and I could tell he was smiling. He started walking towards my new hiding place, following the sound of my voice. “You’re supposed to know everything, right? Know why I’m going to kill you?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I do.”

“Yeah?” Onyx said. I could feel him lining up another spell. “Why?”

“Because you’re a murderous, egocentric asshole,” I said. “Because nobody beats you and walks away, even if you were the one who started the fight. You’re too aggressive to quit and too stupid to call it even. You’re just going to keep coming back over and over again until you’re dead.”

Onyx stopped, and I could tell he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Okay,” he said after a pause. “Enough talk.”

The plane of force was about the size and shape of an industrial saw blade, and it went through the base of the pillar in a spray of debris. I’d already gone flat and felt the breeze of the thing as it cleared my hair by six inches or so. The second force blade went through the
top
of the pillar. Cut at both ends, the pillar toppled and hit the floor with a shattering crash as I rolled out of the way and came to my feet. Onyx came into view a second later . . . and I hit him in the face with a staff.

This version of Fountain Reach didn’t have focus weapons, but I’d spotted the six-foot metal pole before Onyx had entered and I’d been letting him back me towards it. I didn’t know what it was made of but it was light and strong. Onyx was caught off balance—he’d obviously been expecting me to keep running, not close in—and I hit him with enough power to crack his skull.

Unfortunately it didn’t do the least bit of damage. The force shield around Onyx absorbed the blow effortlessly. It did make him flinch though, and the blast he’d been preparing went wide, tearing a chunk out of the wall. I pressed Onyx, striking again and again and pushing him out into the centre of the hall.

I felt the flicker of a spell and a swordlike plane of force appeared in Onyx’s right hand. To normal eyes it would have been invisible but to my mage’s sight it was a razor-thin line of smoky glass, and Onyx brought it around in a wide arc that would have ended somewhere in my rib cage. Letting that happen didn’t strike me as a good idea so I knocked the force blade up and over my head before landing the end of the staff in Onyx’s body, driving him back another step.

We fought in the shadows of the duelling hall, staff against sword. The inertial planes of the force magic made only a dull
clack-clack
against the metal pole and the loudest noise echoing around the dark room was our footsteps. The force weapon was sharp enough to cut the staff like paper but I kept parrying the flat of the blade, turning the edge away. As blow after blow got through Onyx’s guard it became clear that in terms of skill I had the edge on him. Onyx was fast—very fast—but speed alone isn’t a match for technique. The problem was that hitting him wasn’t actually doing anything. The invisible shield of force around Onyx had enough raw inertia to stop anything short of high-level battle-magic or a military heavy weapon, and my staff couldn’t even scratch it. It was Vitus Aubuchon all over again. I couldn’t kill Onyx but he could kill me.

I could feel the stirrings of magic in the room behind me, life and fire weaving together, and I knew Anne and Variam were trying to use my gate stone. They’d done the smart thing and stayed hidden, and from a glance through the futures it looked like they were starting to get it to work—

But I’d taken my focus off Onyx for an instant, and against someone as deadly as the Dark Chosen that was simply too long. My next attack was a fraction too slow and Onyx was able to get his blade in the way and this time the force blade met the staff edge-on. There was a faint
shinnng!
as one foot of staff went whirring off into the darkness, my next strike fell short, and Onyx’s blade flashed out at me.

I had my staff in place to parry, but it didn’t do much good. Onyx’s blade barely slowed down as it went through the metal and my backwards leap wasn’t quite fast enough. I felt a sharp horizontal sting across my chest and upper arm, then I was out of range and Onyx was bringing up his other hand, ready to throw another spell at me.

I dropped into a crouch, holding still. Onyx had been about to hurl a force lance, but as he saw that I was ready he stopped, standing side-on with his left arm up, palm flat. His eyes were fixed on me with flat concentration and I knew what he was thinking. He was trying to figure out how he could get me with that spell without me dodging out of the way. “Try it,” I said.

Onyx didn’t answer and I knew he was through with words. My chest and arm hurt and I could feel blood trickling down my skin, but I could still move and right now that was all that mattered. “You know,” I said, “before you go back to trying to hit me, there’s something I need to tell you. Actually, two things.”

Onyx’s eyes tracked me, ready to release the spell. I knew he’d fire the instant I moved. “First thing is we’ve been fighting for a few minutes now,” I said. “The second is that force magic of yours is really easy to detect from a distance.”

Onyx frowned slightly.

Behind Onyx, Vitus Aubuchon teleported into the duelling hall.

Onyx spun snake-quick and the force lance flashed out, but it curved away from Vitus, its path distorting. From behind I felt the flare of a gate spell and I heard Luna’s shout. “Alex!”

I turned and ran. I covered the distance in seconds and I had one last fleeting glimpse of Vitus, re-formed and whole again, those ghastly empty eye sockets locked on Onyx and one hand grasping towards him. The space around Onyx was warping, trying to compress inwards, and Onyx was crouched in a snarl, the force shield flickering and trying to maintain its shape as the two magics clashed. Then I was through the door. Where I’d left Anne and Luna and Variam an oval gateway was hanging in the air, its edges flickering green to match the light around Anne’s hands. Variam was already through and within that oval I could see the natural darkness of our own world.

Luna and Anne had only been waiting for me and as they saw me they darted through the gate one after the other. I knew the gate was about to close and I put my head down and sprinted.

It was very, very close. Anne’s grip on the spell faltered when I had ten feet to go and I turned the last three steps into a running jump. I went sailing through the gate, hit Anne along the way, and felt the spell snap behind me. We both went into the table and chairs in the middle of the room and hit the floor in a crash of furniture.

The light of the gate stone had extinguished with Anne’s spell and we were left in pitch-darkness, the only sound the noises of everyone checking to make sure they were in one piece. But it was natural darkness, not the strange half-light of that other place, and while it was cold it was the fresh cold of winter. I could smell dust and spiderwebs but the air was clean.

Orange light flared, illuminating Variam’s face as he held an orb of magelight above his head. He looked battered and weary but he was still in one piece and his eyes were alert as he looked around. In the glow we could see the tiles and table and chairs of the kitchen of my farmhouse in Wales. Outside was the darkness of a winter evening, and looking around I could see Luna and Anne. We were safe.