The Archimage Wars: Wizard of Abal (8 page)

I was puzzled by this, but she
continued.

“
You couldn’t tell me more
at the time because a group of hunters found you right then. I
couldn’t see who, though I heard things through the bridge. I
believe you fought an arcane battle against these mages. I’d taught
you how to use some of your powers, and you were getting pretty
good, but you weren’t ready for an Arcane battle against superior
numbers, not if some of them were Thirds… or higher.”

“
What happened then?” I
asked.

“
You managed to escape, and
then found a place and the time to open a Traveling Star. They
caught up with you at that point and hit you with sigil, which
contained the memory eater spell. I found the place later, and the
remnant of the Star you used to escape, but it was too old to track
your destination. They hit you with the spell just as you stepped
into the circle, which is how you escaped. Unfortunately, you were
already under the effect of the memory spell. You arrived at your
destination, but your mind was damaged. Fortunately, one of your
servants was with you, and he rescued your body, moving it to a
hidden location so you could heal.”

“
How do you know all this?”
I asked softly.

“
Pox, your servant, or at
least the phantom of Pox, eventually told me you were alive. In the
years which followed your memory loss, Pox kept your body hidden
and protected, though he eventually died defending it. Even then he
stayed near you as a ghost, which is what he was when he finally
sought me out. He wouldn’t leave your body, or even tell me where
you were hidden; he is insanely loyal to your line. After he was
slain his ghost came to me, begging for help. He convinced me, and
I reached out to a mage I knew, and they made him into a phantom.
It was the only way I knew to give him some kind of physical form
so he could continue to help protect you. The process of becoming a
Phantom is not pretty, so now he is a malformed thing. Eventually,
many years later, he came to me again and told me what had
happened, though he didn’t know who it was who attacked you. He did
tell me there were three mages, each from a different House. I only
learned that part recently, when Pox contacted me and told me you
had finally awoken from your coma.”

“
You’re saying I was in a
coma for twenty-four years?” I asked.

Fiona nodded, “Mages don’t age,
Nicholas, not like mundanes. Once we reach adulthood we can alter
reality around us, and that includes using Self Image to keep your
body at any age you desire. When you were hit with the spell your
Self Image kept your body young, holding you at the age you chose
earlier. Meanwhile, it took your subconscious a long time to
unravel the spell enough to break free. I had no idea where you
were, and neither did anyone, other than Pox. As long as you were
in a coma, he wouldn’t even tell me where to find you. For the
first twenty-one years of the twenty-four you were in a coma, I
thought you were dead, so I wasn’t even looking for
you.”

“
So, can you remove the
rest of the spell blocking my memory?” I asked.

She replied, “I’ll try, give me a
moment. Her beautiful features hardened into a look of
concentration. Then she said, "Do you remember
anything?"

I shook my head negatively.

Fiona looked apologetic, “I tried,
Nick, but it didn't work. I don't think the sigil is still active,
so the spell has worn off, but it may already have eaten at your
memories. I'm sorry, Nick, but they could be permanently gone.
However, the mind is a tricky thing; so those memories may also
come back to you at some point. I just don’t know.”

Hydan was about to say something, but
right then the door burst open with such force it tore off the
hinges and the whole door flew into a nearby table, knocking three
people to the ground.

Fiona stood and turned to face the
disturbance calmly.

What shouldered itself inside was a
very large man, like a linebacker on mega-steroids, but this guy
looked, well, dead. His clothes were half rotted and there was dirt
caked on him like he had crawled out of a grave recently. His lips
were half twisted and frozen in a bazaar position, revealing his
teeth and rotting gums. One of his dried eyeballs was hanging down
onto his cheek, like a shriveled grape. The other orb was milky
white, but it was scanning the room.

Patrons of the pub were backing away,
and a couple of women screamed.

“
What, in the fiery pits of
hell, is that!” I exclaimed.

“
Necrosoul… probably
controlled by a Dokkalfar,” Hydan noted dispassionately, and then
added, “big one, too.”

That’s when the windows around the pub
burst inwards in a shower of glass, and more necrosouls could be
seen crowding in to try and clamor over the sill, their dead hands
grasping at the frame as they struggled to get past the others and
be the first into the pub. I noted they were moving quite
fast.

“
Doka-what?” I burst
out.

A woman screamed, “Oh god, are those
zombies!”

Hydan shrugged, “That must be the
Earth name for necrosouls.”

“
They don’t move like
zombies!” I said as I backed away from the necrosouls leaping
through the broken windows. They were fast, if kind of jerky, and
looked like they knew exactly what they were doing, not slow and
stupid looking like movie zombies.

Hydan looked at me, “Have you fought
necrosouls before?”

“
Ah, not that I can
recall,” I said hesitantly.

“
Then how do you know how
they move?” he asked me, logically.

Three of them tumbled into the room
through a window frame and scrambled to their feet. These were not
as big as the one in the door, but still formidable. Their flesh
was quite dead looking, but these weren’t the slow zombies of movie
fame.

“
What should we do!” I
yelled.

Hydan gestured to Fiona, “Now you get
to see what a pissed off sorceress of the Second Tier does for
fun.” He scooped up someone’s mug of beer and said, “Personally,
I’m going to take a seat and watch!” And he did just that, plopping
down into a chair which had a good field of view of
Fiona.

She glanced at him and said, “Aren’t
you going to help?”

Hydan grinned and replied, “Nope, not
a lick.”

She didn’t have time to reply, since
the first creature had made it through the window, and had leaped
forward to slash its clawed hand across a young couple standing in
its way. The blow instantly decapitated the woman and cut through
most of the man’s neck.

“
Shit, those things are
STRONG!” I exclaimed, backing away further.

Hydan nodded, “They are magically
enhanced by their necromancer.”

“
What necromancer?” I
bellowed.

He shrugged, “He must be
near.”

Then it leaped fifteen feet, coming at
Fiona through the air with outstretched claws.

I was too slow to go to her aid, and
its leap had been too fast. I realized, in horror, that nothing
could stop this horrid undead monster from reaching the beautiful
Fiona; his claws were going to rip her pretty face to shreds. It
would be like destroying the Mona Lisa with a chainsaw.

Just when the outstretched claws were
about two feet from her calm face, a wall of flame suddenly
appeared in its path. The monster howled, but could not change its
trajectory in mid-flight. It hit the burning wall and its body was
completely incinerated. Now, I don’t mean burned, I mean instantly
gone! A bit of dust residue landed at Fiona’s feet.

Two more necrosouls ran at her from
the window area, but she pointed down and a hole opened up in the
floor. The two creatures fell into the pit, which sealed itself
with them inside; their howls were cut off by a quick crunching
sound.

Hydan was grinning, like a spectator
seeing a seal show at Sea World. He took a big swig of beer,
leaving a foam mustache on his upper lip.

The big one at the door turned and
howled, and then headed for Fiona, casually smashing furniture and
people out of its way to reach the sorceress.

She made a slashing gesture, but
nothing happened, and the big monster kept coming. She gestured
again and an unnatural wind howled in the small room, the force of
it going right at the monster. It was slowed but kept
coming.

“
Uh oh,” Hydan exclaimed,
and got to his feet.

“
Are you going to help
now?” I asked.

But it was Fiona who answered in a
worried voice, “No, Nick, get out of here, quickly! This… it feels
like an Archimage!”

Hydan had taken a step toward Fiona,
but now he stopped and called out, “Which Archimage?”

Fiona took a step TOWARD the oncoming
monster as she drew her knife from her waist.

“
Well, this Archimage is a
necromancer, which narrows things down considerably,” Fiona
exclaimed, and then swung her long dagger in a horizontal arc which
would have taken the head off the charging beast, but the large
necrosoul leaped back nimbly, knocking over a table and several
chairs.

Hydan took a step backward, his eyes
widening, “We’re screwed, but it can’t be…”

Fiona interrupted, “Think about it,
Nick stole something from The Dragon, and now an Archimage
necromancer is coming! I can feel his power getting
closer!”

“
SHIT!” Hydan exclaimed,
and I could finally hear real worry in his tone.

Fiona circled, so she was covering us
from the charge of the large necrosoul, which was sizing up all our
positions.

“
Run!” Fiona called to us,
“The Dragon is coming for Nick. I think I can hold him off for now,
at least until he gets closer, but hurry! Get out of
here!”

I started to ask, “Who is The
Dragon…”

But Hydan grabbed my arm and pulled. I
desperately wanted to get an answer, but I felt Hydan’s urgency, so
I turned, and then better sense prevailed, and I ran with Hydan out
the back door into the kitchen area.

Ahead of us, as we entered the
Kitchen, I heard a door smashing open. It was the exit to the
outside. It burst open, and we heard the snarls of more of these
living dead necrosoul things.

“
By Baal’s nasty balls,”
Hydan yelled, then spoke in a more normal tone, “That’s damned
inconvenient.”

“
Inconvenient!” I
exclaimed.

He nodded, “We’ll have to escape
another way.”

“
And, how are we going to
do that? There aren’t any more exits!” I pointed out.

He stepped to a clear spot on the
floor and replied, “We’ll have to make one. Unless The Dragon has a
StarWard blocking this area, which I doubt since he is currently
dealing with Fiona, we should be able to Five Point
travel.”

He pointed with a finger at the ground
and started making patterns in the air. On the ground, fiery lines
were burning into the cement floor, following the pattern his hand
was creating. First, he drew a Five Pointed star, and then he made
a circle around it.

But three of the necrosouls spotted
us, and rushed toward our position, and they were closing
fast.

Hydan looked up, and pointed at the
three undead monsters hurtling at us, and they all turned into
white chickens.

Hydan barked a short triumphant
laugh.

I did a double take when I noticed
that the beady-eyed chickens looked kind of dead, with cloudy eyes
and motley feathers, but they were still moving like they were
alive; they were zombie chickens! Those undead fowl kept coming at
us, but when the first one arrived Hydan booted it in the breast,
sending the big rooster flying back in a cloud of mottled
feathers.

I took his cue and practiced an extra
point kick on the second necrosoul, which was an undead hen. My
kick connected solidly and sent it flying up into some hanging
frying pans, which made a horrendous racket, not to mention more
falling feathers. One of the frying pans fell onto the table near
me.

“
You handle the chickens,”
Hydan exclaimed, and turned back to his circled pentagram and
started drawing a second slightly larger circle around the first
one. Down on the floor the whole pentagram and circles were burning
in six-inch-tall red flames. He started adding a few symbols
between the two burning rings.

This left me to deal with the third
necrosoul chicken. It was coming fast across the floor, so I
snatched up the black cast iron frying pan, and when the undead
rooster launched itself at me off the ground, I Sam Gamgee’d the
thing, like a cricket player taking a pitch. It made a very
satisfying crunch, and a dull metal ringing sound, as it sent the
undead chicken flying back the way it had come.

Hydan looked up at the sound of the
exploding chicken and grinned, saying, “Don’t you just love
chickens!” Then he pointed at the pentagram on the floor and added,
“Alright, it’s ready, go ahead and hop in!”

I shook my head, “Are you nuts? That
thing is on fire!”

I was referring to the flaming red
pentagram, circles, and symbols on the ground.