The Warlock's Gambit (11 page)

“
A
rthur! Wake up!”

Scared out of his wits and shouting incoherently, Arthur snapped up in bed. Lexi, who had been curled up beside him, shot six feet up into the air. She landed, hissing.

Arthur looked around. Someone, Morgan he thought, had yelled his name, but she wasn’t in the room. Had he dreamed it?

“You heard someone call my name, right?”

Her eyes narrowed, her fangs bared, Lexi nodded.

Arthur’s currently-phone-sized c|slate was glowing on the nightstand. Morgan must’ve used the emergency voice feature. He picked it up to call her back, but just then, the elevator rose up into the room with Morgan and Vassalus on board.

Morgan clapped her hands. “Lights on!”

Arthur flinched and threw an arm up to shield his eyes. “Morgan, what the heck is —” the bright lights flickered “— going on?”

“That answer your question? Now, get dressed, quick.”

Squinting, he looked at her. She had on her power gloves and the belt with her holstered raygun hanging from it.

Arthur jumped out of bed and rushed to where his uniform hung on its heated rack beside his armor and weapons. His pulse was racing, and his knees wobbled. The lights flickered again.

“How long has the power been doing this?”

“About five minutes,” Vassalus said. “Lady Morgan’s third movie cut off near the end, and that is what woke me. Naturally, I alerted Lady Morgan immediately.”

The lights dimmed halfway and didn’t return to full brightness.

“Turn your back,” Arthur said to Morgan. The two numina turned as well. He started getting dressed. “Your third movie?”

“I fell asleep playing with the c|slate while watching a movie. I did wake up during a loud part though, and — oh no!”

“What is it?”

She spun around; luckily, he’d gotten his pants on. He pulled his shirt over his head.

“Valet was there. I asked him to get me a blanket. But I didn’t have one when I woke up — he never came back.”

“How long was he gone?” Arthur asked.

Morgan shrugged. The lights returned to full strength.

“It could not have been more than ten minutes,” Vassalus replied.

“Not good,” Lexi said.

Arthur buttoned his shirt, and then moved on to his armor. He was going as fast as he could, but his hands were shaking. Suddenly, the lights went off, leaving them in total darkness. They stood unmoving … silent … waiting … and then, after about twenty seconds, the lights returned.

“We’ve got to get out there,” Arthur said. “Lady Ylliara is failing.” He felt a knot in his throat. “What if the wraiths have gotten loose? I hope Valet and the other servitors are okay.”

“Your armor takes forever,” Morgan said.

“Going as fast as I can — almost done.” He laced up his boots, and then buckled on his helmet and the belt that held his holstered rayguns. “Okay, let’s go make sure everything is okay, and then —”

“We start our attack,” said Morgan, “after very little sleep.”

Arthur nodded. They piled into the elevator, and halfway down, the lights flickered and the elevator shuddered to a stop.

Lexi said, “Oh dear. Arthur’s living room isn’t secure. There’s no sigil on the door leading out into the Grand Hallway. If something’s gotten loose out there …”

Arthur drew his rayguns, and Morgan activated her shield. Though it gave off a dim red glow, the force field was more distracting than anything; it only helped them see a few feet ahead. Arthur was afraid it just made them more obvious. They crouched down, ready to shoot anything that might have gotten inside as soon as it came into view. The power came back on — not to full strength, but enough to let the elevator finish descending. As soon as it stopped, Lexi and Vassalus bounded into the room, circling from opposite directions.

“I don't see any shades.” Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. “I think this room is still safe.”

“All clear,” agreed Lexi as the numina returned.

Morgan groaned. “Oh, I’m so stupid! We can access the camera feeds from my c|slate just like we can with the desktop computer. We can see what’s going on out there without risking our lives or letting an enemy know that we’re on to them.”

“I didn’t even know my c|slate could do that,” Arthur said.

“Yours can’t.” Morgan dropped her force field. “You just have a standard account. I’m the administrator on your c|slate.”

“You — you can be the administrator on
my
tablet? On the Multiversal Paladin’s tablet?”

“Sure can.” Morgan took her c|slate off her shirt where she’d pinned it at its smallest size and stretched it out into a full tablet. “I didn’t want you using it to spy on me.”

“I would never spy on you.”

“Arthur, I
know
what boys are like.”

“You — you know what?” He sighed. “I don’t have time to argue with you.”

Lexi crept up to the door, pricked up her ears, and bobbed her head, sniffing. Slowly, she backed away from the door. “There’s something moving out there,” she whispered, “and it smells like wraith.”

“We should go to the Office,” Vassalus said. “
If
the sigils are still active, it will be easier to defend.”

“I agree,” Lexi said as she opened the Office door with her paws. They all followed and Arthur locked the door behind them. “If we slide the small writing desk over to barricade this door, then we can kill any enemies in the Grand Hallway while we stay safe behind the sigil.”

“
If
the sigils are working,” Arthur said as he moved the little desk in front of the door leading to his suite. The sigil that floated in the doorway between the Office and the Grand Hallway wasn’t visible from this side of the door, so there was no way to know whether it was still there.

The power flickered again.

“Argh!” Morgan collapsed into the desk chair. “If the power keeps fluctuating, I’ll never get the views we need. Our c|slates work just fine, but the room cameras work off the Manse’s power system.”

“So,” Arthur said loudly and deliberately, “we
need
the Manse to give us a few minutes of consistent power so we can see what we’re facing.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow. “You think that will help?” She tapped the c|slate. “Ylliara probably doesn’t even remember that we exist.”

Arthur propped himself against the desk, and pointed a raygun toward each door, ready should an attack happen. “Worth a try.”

Morgan didn't respond. She was too busy.

Either through luck or as a response to his request, the power remained on for several minutes straight, long enough for Morgan to say, “Got it! The camera system is up and running.” She frowned. “Valet’s not in my room.” She tapped the c|slate quickly as Arthur rushed over. “And here’s the first view of the Grand —” She gasped.

Arthur leaned over to get a better view. Standing in front of the open doorway to the Smoking Lounge, which was no longer protected by a glowing sigil, Arms was in a desperate fight against three shades. He was wounded, but his rapier flashed like lightning as he continued to defend himself.

This was exactly what Arthur had been afraid of. He understood they weren’t human, weren't “real” people, but he’d already grown attached to them. Besides, they had been here when he was a kid, and so he thought of them as part of his family.

“We’ve got to get out there,” Arthur said. “Arms needs our —”

A wraith barreled through the shades, took a sword thrust from Arms directly to its gut, and then clawed Arms’ head from his neck with a single, wicked swipe.

Arms turned into a wispy cloud of smoke that rapidly dissipated. His black army helmet clattered to the floor, and a moment later, it too disappeared. The shades and the wraith rushed into the Smoking Lounge.

Horrified, Arthur wanted to cry out. But his voice caught in his throat. Instead, he simply stepped back into the wall, shaking his head. This couldn’t be happening. Bile rose into the back of his throat. He was fighting the urge not to throw up.

Morgan, her voice quiet and shaking, said, “Here’s the interior of the Smoking Lounge —”

“Wait,” said Vassalus just before Morgan switched the view. “Wait a few moments. Waiter was in there. You do not want to see what comes next.”

Morgan tapped her slate. Images of the doors to the Dining Hall, the Library, the Armory, and the Training Room appeared. None of the doorways were protected by sigils. A scan of the interiors of those rooms didn’t show shades, wraiths, or servitors. The rooms were dark and gloomy, despite the lights still being on. The enemy had already taken them back.

The wraith that had killed Arms returned to the hallway. Morgan switched to the cameras in the Smoking Lounge. There was no sign of Waiter.

“I’ll check the Great Room,” Morgan said in a quiet voice.

She pulled the image up. It was just as gloomy as when they had first entered the Manse. It was like … it was like they hadn’t accomplished anything. The fires were out; the lights were dim. There was no sign of Waiter or Maid or any of the other servitors here, either. But they had seen what that wraith did to Arms. The others wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“
L
et’s see the rest,” Arthur said.

Morgan flipped through the views quickly. Only two sigils were still glowing: the one on the door to the Office and the one on the door to the Inner Sanctum, though that one obviously must have failed at some point. And now, right outside the door to the Office, wraiths and shades were gathering.

“Three wraiths and … ten, maybe eleven shades,” Morgan said. “It’s hard to tell with the shades. When they stand beside each other, their bodies sort of bleed together into one shadow.”

Arthur barely paid attention. He had spotted, lying in the hallway, a white blanket — halfway between his room and Morgan’s. Valet had gone to get her a blanket.

A cold anger began to build inside of him.

Thump.

His second heartbeat, whatever it was, kicked in. He took deep breaths, trying to contain his anger.

Thump.

“Well, it is not completely bad,” he heard Vassalus say, as if from a great distance, or over the radio. Arthur was beginning to pull away into the tunnel of shadows. He had to fight it.

Thump.

“How’s that?” Lexi said incredulously.

“Well,” replied Vassalus, “we do not have to face all eight wraiths and forty-eight shades at once, do we?”

The lights flickered, and Morgan sighed. “There goes our surveillance.” The lights dimmed to halfway and didn’t come back up. “Probably for good.”

Thump.

Arthur swallowed hard. He didn’t want this. He wanted that white, glowing feeling he’d gotten when he had rescued Morgan from the training monster. Fighting creatures of darkness in his tunnel-of-shadows mode didn’t sound like a good idea. For all he knew, he might get the urge to join them. He
had
to keep his cool. What was it that had given him that feeling of brightness and strength that he assumed was the power of the Multiversal Paladin?

Morgan — he had wanted to save her. So it was love, not anger. That’s what he had to —

Suddenly, Arthur wasn’t in the Office anymore. He was in the Grand Hallway, watching helplessly as Valet got tackled and torn to shreds by two wraiths.

Thump — thump.

Then he saw Arms die again.

Thump — thump.

He heard steps behind him. He spun around to face Kjor in his warlock form: cloak of living shadows, tattooed skin, and all. Arthur tried to draw his rayguns, but they weren’t there. He charged instead. But when Arthur shouldered into Kjor, he just passed through Kjor as if he were made of smoke.

Kjor shook his head and laughed. “Poor, lost boy. You’re out of your league here. I tried to save you. What a waste. It would have been kinder if I had killed you when I killed your father. What a fool I was to think you were worth … anything. Quintus would be so disappointed.”

Thump — thump.

“Shut up!” Arthur yelled.

“And your dear mother.” Kjor shook his head. “She was an amazing woman, and I know she wouldn’t even recognize someone as pathetic as you as her son.”

Thump — thump — thump.

“And the girl, Morgan. Do you think as she dies, she will still believe in you? Do you think she’ll still consider you her friend? Or will she become one more person who’s disappointed in what a failure you are?”

Kjor vanished. In his place stood Morgan. She was bleeding, injured; her force field had failed. Two wraiths leapt onto her … clawing … ripping …

The blood turned to shadows, a tunnel of shadows. Thump — thump — thump — thump. His second heart beat was pounding rapidly. He was back in the Office. The vision was over, but he still boiled with anger.

A paw swiped his leg; he ignored it.

“Arthur,” Lexi hissed. “Get with it.”

“The warlock, was he in your mind?” Morgan asked. “You can’t let him get to you.”

There was fear in her voice. And she
should
be afraid. Not only were there shadows and wraiths and a warlock in the Manse, but her only friend was himself a creature of shadow, in some way he didn’t understand. There were three Arthurs: the Multiversal Paladin, a frightened fourteen-year-old boy, and an angry Shadow Arthur. The last had won out, and it was bringing him in synch with the shadows within the Manse. He could feel the darkness growing, shifting, breathing; it was a living thing he could see and almost touch. This shadow force was overtaking him. He couldn’t stop it. He could only try to control it.

Thump — thump — thump — thump — thump.

“The darkness has come,” Arthur said. “Night is falling in the Manse.”

“Arthur, what the heck are you talking about?” Morgan said. “And what’s wrong with your voice. It’s all —”

THOOM!

The Manse shook.

The lights went out. And this time, they didn’t come back on.

A
rthur watched as the others began to panic. He could see … their souls, he guessed. Within each of them, Morgan especially, there burned a bright core, as if they were lit from within by a star. He looked down at himself and saw … darkness … only darkness. If there was a soul within him, it rested deep within.

Morgan used her c|slate as a flashlight. “I think the lights are out for good.”

“We do not have much time,” said Vassalus.

“The sigils will all have gone out too,” said Lexi. “We’d better start our attack now.”

Morgan shrunk her c|slate down and pinned it to her shirt. Then she activated her force field.

“Arthur, do what I did. Then you can see in the dark while you fight.”

“I don’t need it,” he replied. “I can see in the dark just fine.”

And he could, in a way. It was like everything was illuminated with a faint, purplish glow. And with his companions’ glowing centers, he understood how the shades and wraiths could spot them so easily. He could even see the shades and wraiths through the closed door. Within the shadow body of each beat a purple and red heart. In the shades it was a thimble-sized thing connected by a thread that trailed all the way back to their dark-heart stones floating in the Inner Sanctum. In the wraiths beat powerful, unconnected hearts. Their hearts beat in a strange but familiar rhythm of darkness and overwhelming anger. And then he realized: his second heartbeat was in tune with theirs.

Arthur wasn’t the only one to notice this. The shades and wraiths had taken notice, too. They were staring at him in confusion and fascination. They had not expected to encounter another … another warlock? That’s what they thought he was. A part of Arthur deep below the anger knew this was absurd, but that part wasn’t strong enough to interfere — it wasn’t even sure it wanted to.

Arthur walked toward the door, holstering his rayguns as he went.

“Arthur!” Morgan yelled. “Have you gone mad?”

Lexi ran forward to block him.

“Out of my way,” he snarled, and she backed off.

Arthur opened the door to the Grand Hallway. Five wraiths and over a dozen shades were waiting there. More were coming toward him. He was angry, but not as much at them as he was at Kjor and the Hosts. The shades and wraiths were merely weapons, mindless tools.

He stepped toward them, and they backed away. They were enraptured — drawn to him — as if he were giving them new life. They wanted … they wanted direction. They felt his anger; they wanted it unleashed. They wanted a target. They had done nothing but wait here in the Manse for a decade, doing nothing. Apparently, even beings of chaos and disorder needed
some
direction.

Arthur didn’t want to fight them, not when he could direct them elsewhere. He focused his anger on Kjor, picturing him in his mind, trying to project his desire to fight Kjor onto them. “Fight for me,” he said. “I will give you purpose.”

They listened; they stared; but they did nothing else.

Morgan slipped out of the room with her shield active and her back against the wall. She slid along the wall, edging her way toward the Inner Sanctum. A wraith moved toward her, with two shades at its side.

“Leave her alone,” Arthur commanded.

The wraith growled and lunged toward her. Its claws pounded into the force field. ZZZT-ZAP! The shield wavered. Then the shades struck it too. Their attacks had less effect, but it would all add up and eventually short out the shield. Another wraith was moving to join in. Morgan could barely keep moving toward the Inner Sanctum, since the attacks kept her pinned against the wall.

“I said leave her
alone
!” Arthur roared as the wraith struck again.

The attacking wraith exploded into a cloud of black smoke. A crystal stone dropped from its center and clinked onto the floor. The black smoke poured into this … this new dark-heart, Arthur guessed, since it had the same purple glimmer within that the others had. The blast had also taken out the three or four nearest shades.

Morgan stared at him in horror, unmoving. He glared at her and mouthed, “Go!”

That display of power had an immediate effect. The shades and wraiths all bowed to Arthur. He tried again to direct them. “Kjor abandoned you. He is a traitor. We must take him out.”

But still, they did nothing. Perhaps they couldn’t act for one warlock against another. Maybe Arthur wasn’t convincing enough. He had no idea.

Morgan disappeared into the Inner Sanctum. This was getting him nowhere. He needed to be alongside her. He needed to be entering the Heart. He had to face Kjor; he had to defeat him. But these useless wraiths and shades were in his way.

“You are completely useless!” he yelled at the nearest wraith.

It too instantly exploded, taking out a couple of nearby shades. A brand new dark-heart clattered to the floor, and the black smoke that had been the wraith flowed into it. He had no idea what he was doing to them, since this wasn’t what happened when they were killed by rayguns or the numina. And as far as he could tell, no shades had emerged from the first dark-heart he had created by destroying a wraith.

Arthur was beginning to think more — to feel more like himself. The room was growing darker; the shades and wraiths became less distinct. The second heartbeat was slowing, and he suddenly realized he was panting for breath. He was tiring out.

The wraiths and shades stood and began to inch toward him.

“Get back!” he yelled.

They paused, then started forward again. Arthur pointed at the nearest wraith and focused his anger. “I ordered you to get back!”

It staggered a few steps away from him, but it didn’t burst into a cloud of smoke. The second heartbeat ceased. The tunnel of shadows sensation vanished. His ability to see in the dark was fading fast. The shades and wraiths surged toward him. He didn’t have enough time to draw his rayguns. By the time they struck, he wouldn’t even be able to see them. He was practically dead already.