Endless Magic (57 page)

I built my reluctant, tired magic, built it fiercely in my blood until it boiled and sizzled under my skin. With a scream that echoed through the cavern I threw every ounce of power I had against the stone wall. It bounced back, rocks tumbling from the ceiling and the ground trembling beneath my feet.

For a moment I felt defeated, I used everything in me and nothing happened, but my eyes focused on a crack not longer than my fingernail and I promised myself it had not been there before. That tiny crack was encouragement enough for me.

I shook off the fatigue and ignored the burning in my chest from lack of oxygen and built the magic again. I let it fizz and bubble in my blood until I was absolutely sure it was strong enough to make at least an identical crack. This time when I released my magic, I was confident more absorbed into the wall then bounced back into my face. Still the ceiling rained down rocks and the ground tremored in my efforts.

I brushed away the debris, and turned back to the wall. Spider-leg-like cracks spread from my original one outward in every direction. Success rippled through me and I forced myself to send my magic against the wall again and again.

I fought the fatigue that threatened my consciousness and refused to think about the struggle that still lay before me. Right now, the only thing that existed in my life was this wall and until I conquered it, nothing else could matter.

Eventually large chunks started to fall off with each pulse. First, quarter sized ones bounced off the floor and into my shins, but soon they grew to baseball size and then basketball size and when I sent my final burst of energy through a weakened hole it opened the space from my side of the wall to the other.

I pushed through the hole, making it big enough for my body and not allowing myself to contemplate what waited for me on the other side. When finally I made it through, a freezing cold burst of air hit me in the face. I opened my eyes against the blowing wind, shielding my face against a mustard yellow tornado three times my size.

The tornado whirled in one place in the middle of a cavern with perfectly rounded sides and ceiling. I stared it down purposely; it slowed its violent spin and seemed to face me. If it had eyes, they would have been staring me down, demanding to know what I wanted. So I stared back, forcing my lips into a smile and my magic to full alert.

The point of the tornado that spun next to the ground whipped in my direction to warn me first. Nothing would stop me from facing it down, not even a polite warning from the beast itself. Wasting no time, I sent a burst of blue magic into the core of the cyclone, hoping to break it apart, but instead it caught my magic and held onto me making my magic an actual, physical extension of my body.

I stiffened with panic only a second before the cyclone lifted me off the ground, using my own magic and threw me into a wall. My head smashed against the stone, and I heard my shoulder shatter before I felt the pain that flooded my senses. I hoped to be dropped to the ground, but instead I was thrown against the opposite wall, listening to my opposite appendages snap in the same way.

The twister wasn’t finished though, not before throwing my back against the high ceiling and then letting me drop to the floor in an insurmountable amount of pain. I cried out in agony, but my voice couldn’t be heard over the gusting, turbulent winds of the cyclone. The blue, healing smoke worked quickly against my bones and muscles, but not before the cyclone could attack again.

As I lay, motionless, on the floor the cyclone left its pinnacle and moved over me. I thought I would be crushed against the violent force of the rapidly spinning gales, but instead the tornado brought on a new kind of pain up until now, I never experienced before.

The tornado burned across my body, in a temperature so cold I thought my body would freeze and then shatter. I screamed from the terrorizing hurt, tears slipping from my eyes in a reaction to the pain that I could not stop. The cyclone zigzagged back and forth across me with a freezing pain so intense I felt like I was being brutally licked by a thousand flames.

My tormented screams echoed in the cavern above the tumultuous tornado. I rolled over; afraid another icy slice across my back would be the undoing of my sanity and stared up at the coming tornado with a mixture of fear and determination. I remembered the wind in India and how it tortured me relentlessly until my magic overcame it.

This cyclone felt a thousand times stronger and more deadly than India, and I was sure I would die in those caves. This fate felt worse than death, this battle felt more like a lifetime of suffering than the sweet relief of leaving this world.

I pushed my magic against the cyclone, staying its deadly winds for only a few seconds, only long enough for me to shakily stand up. When I faced it, eye to eye, I gathered my strength and then dropped my magic.

The cyclone flew against me with renewed anger and I took one flying, fateful leap into its spiraling winds. The wind cut my skin with its icy tendrils, setting my body on frozen fire and sending my back arching in anguish.

I opened my eyes in the center of the tornado, floating in the middle, the frozen air sucking the life out of me, breath by frozen breath. I tried to send my magic out of me, but I could not build its strength. The air was too cold for it to come to a boil, the frozen temperature magically seeped into my blood forbidding my magic to gather, freezing my blood in my veins.

I waged a new war against despair, against the defeat that resounded in the middle of the storm. There had to be a way, a way to fight the power that felt too great for me. I released the blue smoke that seemed impervious to other elements, hoping it would heal my frozen veins. The cold moved deep inside my blood, turning my insides to popsicles and slowing my heart. The blue smoke swirled around in rhythm with the cyclone, but did nothing against the excruciating frost spreading through my body.

I sucked in a sharp breath but it fell flat in my frozen lungs, unable to soften the burning pain that caused my vision to blur. I grunted, an insignificant effort in light of the battle, both in this cave and waging above ground. My voice echoed inside the tornado, bouncing against the wind and up into the cavern ceiling.

I decided if I could get something small, like a grunt, out of my body, I could get something more. So I screamed, loud and desperately, lifting my face toward the open ceiling and the blue smoke moved with me, soaring upward and coating the twister in healing power. In that moment, that small infinitesimal moment, I felt release from the bone-deep cold, and my magic surged from my body in an intense escape. My lungs relaxed, and my blood pumped through my heart again. But after only a moment, the cold had taken over fiercely once again and I struggled for consciousness.

I screamed again, this time more magic left my body. In the short seconds I had to build and release my electricity, I knew it had to make a difference. The magic pierced the whirling wind, shot through like light in the darkest places. The mustard yellow flashed blue for just a second, just a moment before speeding up with a vengeful strength.

I had maybe one more shot, if I was lucky; maybe one more time to make this cyclone bend to my will before it turned me completely to ice and shattered me against the hard ground. With one final effort, in which I didn’t even bother to scream, instead I chose to save all my energy for the force of magic I needed to release, I exhaled my magic against the cyclone with every ounce of immortality I had.

My magic, a real and palpable energy force now, fought against the tornado in a flash of colors so quickly I struggled to keep my eyes open. The tornado grew angrier, throwing me around the room and trying to disorient me. I held my ground, so to speak, and kept both the smoke and the electricity focused on the twister.

The colors moved faster in between, and my heart kept pace threatening to pound right out of my chest. My head hurt from the quick, violent movements of the cyclone and my body ached from the effort. I promised myself just a little bit longer, and then later, just a little bit longer.

Finally, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I opened my arms and released everything I had. It felt as though I had just given away my magic and I fell limp in the middle of the tempest. I felt unconsciousness finding me, taking away my vision and ringing in my ears. But when my final burst of magic hit the walls of the twister, the winds exploded in blue magic to the far corners of the cavern. I fell from the ceiling to the ground in a painful heap of broken bones.

The wind disappeared, along with my magic and only the blue smoke was left to heal my battered body from a fight I started to believe was pointless. When I could move my arms again, I propped myself up on my elbows and looked around the now empty, dark cavern.

A sound could be heard from far away, and I tilted my head toward the hole I made to enter this hell on earth. The sound grew louder, and stronger, and I leaned closer trying to figure out what it was. The closer it got, the more violent it became and when I recognized it as a thousand rushing winds, I tried to scoot away from the entrance, afraid of the vengeance to which I was about to be the victim.

When the wind flew powerfully through the opening I only had a second to recognize that the forceful air rushing at me with purpose was blue, not mustard before it descended on top of me, entering my body from every pore. I gasped one final breath and then fell into the blackness.

----

I woke up slowly, consciousness painfully flooding my senses, and then jumped to my feet, realizing the wind had knocked me out. I took one minute to breathe deeply again, before I moved out of the opening and toward the prison.

It worked.

My plan worked.

I could feel the new magic pulsing inside me, pumping with my blood, mixing with the blue smoke, and at my disposal. There was no time to gloat, but this was the first one of my plans that had actually panned out, and if the fate of the Immortal world rested on tonight’s outcome, it was about time I got it right.

The once invisible dividing line that separated the prisons from the more dangerous part of the underground had disappeared. I took a step onto the smoothed out dirt floor and the earth trembled underneath me. When my second foot joined my first the ground shifted one way and then the other. I took a step deeper into the prisons, passed the now empty cells and the ground shook violently. I reached out for a prison door while the earthquake violently rearranged the prison layout and then clutched the door tighter, when the ground opened up completely and a canyon divided the dungeons in half.

When finally the earth stopped shifting, I took tentative steps forward, careful not to plunge into the bottomless depth below. Doors hung from their hinges and manmade prison cells crumbled into the ravine, my footsteps created.

I wondered if the earth rejected the idea of the sadistic prison cells as much as I did. With the removal of the magic, could it be that this planet decided to ensure the freedom of my people as well?

Once I passed the long crater, I reached the stairs and ran up them, afraid of the devastation I would find. And as I emerged from the now useless prison door, I came upon a Citadel on fire. Magical battles were being waged all around me, as the thin moon rose higher into an empty sky. I searched the crowd for Kiran, for Avalon or Talbott, anyone. I knew they would be close to Lucan, and now I knew how to defeat him.

I wanted to help the other Immortals that fought unfair battles against the Titans. I knew though, that the best way to help them would be to find Lucan and kill him first. I would deal with the Titans later as a natural result of the king’s death.

I stopped moving and focused on Avalon, searching for him in the thousands of Immortals fighting for their lives. I entered his consciousness and began to move before I could even pinpoint him. Lucan was there, along with Kiran and things were not in our favor.

I sprinted through the Citadel, toward the fountain of the four original Oracles. I dodged flying objects and bursts of magic as Titans started to recognize me in my flight. I sent magic behind me, and ducked out of the way of several magic bursts. My dress was torn, my hair ripped from its updo and I dashed barefoot toward Lucan and away from the pursuing Titans.

When I stumbled into the square where Lucan faced off against the two boys I loved most in this world, Avalon and Kiran, I swallowed the fear that threatened to consume me.

Lucan sent his powerful magic against Avalon, sending him into the fountain, breaking it further into disrepair. Kiran stepped forward to attack next and Lucan lifted him off the ground in a stronghold of bitterness.

I sent magic at Lucan, forceful and angry, but he waved it away with a swish of his hand. I struggled to release the new magic; the magic I knew would hinder Lucan’s and restrain his impossible force.

“How could you betray me? I am your father!” Lucan was shouting at Kiran while I tried to find a way to release the dangerous, new magic. I walked forward, hoping the closer I got to Lucan, the easier it would be to figure out this new magic.

“You are more monster than my father!” Kiran shouted back, his head tilted back in agony. “I gave you my loyalty, I stood up for you, I followed you when I knew it would destroy the only thing that I loved and yet nothing I did could satisfy your bloodlust!”

“You chose her,” Lucan’s malicious eyes flickered to me for only a brief second before turning back to his son. “You chose her over your family! Over your blood!”

“I chose goodness, I chose morality! I chose correctly. You stand with one foot in hell, and release your demons on innocents! You chose death. I chose life,” Kiran growled, his words resounding with conviction.

“No, son, by choosing her, you asked for death,” Lucan finished sadly, tightening his hold on Kiran. I was just ten feet from him, and still the magic stayed in my blood; it had no desire to leave me.

Lucan picked up a forgotten sword from the ground and before I could react hurled it through the air into Kiran’s chest. Kiran’s wound opened up to the sky and released his grey magic into the night. Lucan dropped Kiran’s waning body onto the ground and turned his attention to me.