Magus (Advent Mage Cycle) (11 page)

"Well, I haven't found the man, but this building was definitely burned by magic," Chatta explained. "He's in this area."

"Good enough for now," Xiaolang declared. "Where are we going?"

"North-west."

Xiaolang gave a sharp circular gesture. "Load it up, people. Let's move."

~*~

By twilight, we'd found the smoking building.

Actually, that was the least of what we found.

The whole
city
was burning.

The air was thick with soot and smoke, rising high into the sky and serving as our beacon to guide us in. As we crested a hill and came into full sight, it was immediately clear that a good half of the city was engulfed in flames. Acovone is a very metropolitan city built with sturdy brick and granite buildings. I knew it to be a major center for trade, as it was close to the coast and near the border of the Empire of Sol. I felt bile rise in my throat as I took in the damage already done. Even from a distance, it was hideous to look upon.

I didn’t wait for Xiaolang’s order, I just tapped Night’s flanks and bolted down the hill for the city. There was little I could do about the damage already done but there was a great deal I
could
do about stopping further damage from happening.

I had to find that rogue magician.

The whole team was on my heels, I could hear the thundering of their mount’s hooves behind me, but I paid them no attention. I was intent on finding the magician. I had my senses stretched to the max, but it was hard to find him. Cities are difficult to search even on a good day and today was hardly that.

“Can you find him?”
Night asked, slowing slightly as we reached the main gates of the city. He had to slow down to avoid trampling people fleeing outside of the walls. I snatched at the saddle’s horn when he abruptly side stepped to avoid knocking a hysterical woman over.

“No,” I growled in frustration. I scanned the road in front of us, trying to find an opening we could slip through, but it was impossible. There were hundreds of people rushing toward us, trying to escape the city and its wall of flames, and they pushed against us in their panic. “There’s too many people milling around, I can’t pinpoint him!”

“
We need to find another way into the city,
” Night gave a toss of his head, dancing in place. “
I can’t get through, not without hurting people.”

We were at a complete standstill, unable to move against the flow of traffic. Growling out a curse, I reached for the ground deep beneath our feet and built a bridge that arched out over the crowd and over the city wall. Night let out a yelp as the ground abruptly shifted under his feet.

“Garth, warn me!”
he snapped.

“Go!” I ordered impatiently. I’d probably owe him a jar of peanut butter later as an apology for my brusqueness, but I’d handle that moment later.

Night bolted up my makeshift ramp, and judging from the sound of hooves behind me, we weren’t alone in our ascent. My bridge touched the top of the city walls, which was fortunately wide enough to hold several horses, although it was a bit crowded. The scene that met my eyes as I cleared the final obstruction to my sight made my chest constrict. It was like a wall of flame. There were people of every possible age and occupation running, jostling each other, carrying children or bundles in their arms. Dozens of people were passing buckets of water from one to the other, fighting a losing battle with the fire.

I twisted in the saddle until I found Chatta. “Help me!” I ordered desperately. “I can’t find him in this mess!”

She nodded curt understanding, raising her wand and conjuring a large, round mirror. As she started scrying the city, I closed my eyes and focused more intently than I’d ever had in my life. Where was he? I started with the people directly in front of me and fanned out from there. With the aura of people came other signals—heavy collisions as buildings collapsed and sank roughly to the earth’s surface, rapid footsteps from thousands of people as they ran in every conceivable direction.

Where, where, where…he has to be here
somewhere
.

“That way!” Chatta abruptly cried, pointing off to the northeast. “He’s in what looks like the main market area.”

“Garth, let us down,” Xiaolang ordered. “We’ll help put out the flames.”

I took the ground I’d used to build the bridge to here and reshaped it into a new bridge that led to the street below. Miraculously, there was a small corner near the gatekeeper’s house that was free of people and gave us room to descend.

Night leapt onto the bridge without pause and handled the steep angle of the bridge at a dead run. I had to angle myself almost flat against his back to keep my balance, legs wrapped tight around his barrel and fingers knotted around his mane. When he landed, I was thrown forward, the horn lodged into my sternum with an unpleasant jolt. His hooves barely touched cobblestone when he spun and headed in the direction had Chatta pointed to. I grimly held on.

We didn’t make quick progress simply because of the people we had to dodge. Three different times Night barely avoided trampling some poor man. It wasn’t just the people, however, but also the fire we had to contend with. Buildings were succumbing to the fire as we passed them, slowly collapsing in on themselves and sending out errant sparks and support beams that toppled into our path. It made us cautious, nervy about entering new streets or getting close to any of the buildings. We were down to a slow canter and impatient with our progress.

Chatta cast quick shields that hovered over our heads, protecting us from anything falling. It didn’t do anything to deflect the errant sparks that singed our hair and clothes, or the thick soot that seemed to hover in the air. We were barely two streets away from the wall and I could already feel soot clinging to my skin and leaving an aftertaste in my mouth.

Time was clicking away in the back of my mind, and I was hyperaware that for every second more it took for us to get to him, the magician was causing just that much more destruction. Night lowered his head and started using it as a battering ram, forcing people to give way and let us through. Chatta stayed close on our heels, following the trail that Night was blazing.

We finally reached a main street that led directly to the market. I didn’t need Chatta’s mirror to see him now.

He was in front of me.

The whole street was lined with vendors’ stalls, small wooden constructions with colorful roofs and banners that were burning quickly before my eyes. Merchants were running everywhere with buckets in their hands, frantically trying to put the flames out. Night was forced to dodge in and around them, his abrupt turns so sharp that I nearly lost my seat several times. It didn’t stop me from getting a cursory look at the magician.

He was just walking along, hands gesturing wildly, flames shooting out of his palms and hitting buildings at random. When I was closer, within twenty or so feet of him, I could see his mouth moving but I couldn’t hear the words. The noise all around me was too thick for me to discern anything.

Ten feet away, and it struck me that he was young, probably two years younger than me. His clothes were plastered to him with sweat, emphasizing his whipcord build. He kept running his hands over his fair hair, sending it standing up in different directions, and there was a manic smile on his face of unholy glee at the destruction he was causing.

When he lifted his hands again, I instinctively grabbed a chunk of cobblestone and threw it up around him, blocking his attack.

He stumbled to a halt, looking at the rock in confusion. In that moment when he was distracted, I slid quickly off Night’s back and ordered over my shoulder, “You and Chatta get the people out of here!”

Night bobbed his head sharply and turned toward the nearest group that were working desperately to recover bolts of fabric before it could become nothing more than char.

There were perhaps fifty or sixty people in my immediate vicinity and that was a concern I didn’t need. I’ve never fought with another magician in unconfined conditions before, but I knew how destructive it could be, and I didn’t want other people being caught up in it. This battle would be far worse than anything I’ve experienced before for one simple reason: He was a Fire Mage.

His eyes left the crumbled cobblestone at his feet and he looked up at me with oddly unconcerned eyes. The smile was gone from his face now, but the dead lack of emotion was somehow more disconcerting. “Did you throw that?”

I nodded in short confirmation.

“What are you?” he asked with childlike curiosity.

“I am Rhebengarthen, Earth Mage.” As I spoke, I lifted my shields up around me, as strong as I could make them. My power was building, poised for attack. I didn’t trust this strange attitude of his one bit.

“Earth Mage…” he repeated, thoughtful, head canted to the side as he considered me from head to toe. “What am I?”

“A Fire Mage,” I answered neutrally.

“Fire Mage? Is that why I like to destroy things?”

“No,” I refuted harshly. “Fire Mages have always been the ones with the most control, the most discipline. Your magic cannot be blamed for your delight in destruction.”

A cruel smile teased at the corners of his mouth. “I wonder what it would be like to destroy you?”

I had no time to garner a response to that. He lifted both hands, palms facing me, and screamed, “
Fire Inferno!”

The flames he shot at me were hot enough to melt steel, large enough to incinerate a full grown stallion instantly. I didn’t flinch, simply held his eyes as his fire washed over my shields without noticeable effect. As the attack faded, he stared at me in disbelief.

Did he really think himself invincible? My hands clenched at my side, nails digging into my palms, as I raised up my own attack. I gathered cobblestone, any loose bricks or stones from destroyed buildings, and threw everything at him.

He threw up another wave of hot flame, the force of it knocking back my attack. “You didn’t say a spell!” he yelled at me in accusation, as if by not saying anything I was somehow cheating.

I wasn’t about to explain to him that as a Mage, I didn’t use spells. His habit of saying things as he attacked would help me defend against him. Instead, I gathered up more stone and attacked again, this time as a feint. While he was deflecting my airborne attack, I tried to suck him into the cobblestones beneath his feet as I’d done with a group of city guardsmen so many months ago.

Swearing viciously, he aimed a concentrated burst of flame toward his feet, melting the stone enough to where he could pull free. He didn’t emerge unscathed from this, as his clothes were clearly scorched, but he wasn’t trapped and the victorious smirk he gave me gloried in that fact.

I ground my teeth together in frustration. Alright, these types of attacks won’t work. What else can I do? I threw more stone at him to simply buy another moment to think.

From the side, a torrential wave of water came from thin air and hit the Fire Mage square in the chest. He went down and rolled, back on his feet as quick as a cat.

I risked a quick glance to the side, even though I knew that the water could have come from only one possible person. Chatta met my eyes and gave me a reassuring nod. “They’re all clear!”

At least I didn’t have to worry about the people, then, although I didn’t like the idea that she and Night were joining the battle.
Night, get clear,
I thought to him firmly.
You can’t protect yourself from flame.

“
I’m well back,
” he reassured me. “
Focus on him.
”

Flame burst up around the Mage, whirling around him like a dust devil, and the expression in his eyes was that of a madman. “Two of you,” he rasped out, teeth bared. “I won’t deal with
two of you!
”

I instinctively knew what he was going to do in the next second, and despite the intense heat pressing in around me, my blood ran cold. “Chatta,
shield!
”

Even as she raised them, he cast his attack, the flame so hot that it was nearly white. It hit her shields full force but unlike me, her shields couldn’t withstand that kind of attack. The shields shattered on impact, the force of it throwing Chatta back.

My own defense of a stone wall was a split second too late, only protecting her from the main onslaught. It also blocked her from my sight, so that the image of her falling was emblazoned in the front of my mind.

With a snarl of rage, the Fire Mage produced more fire, the flames leaping up high around him. I prayed Chatta was alright and dove back into the fray. To do otherwise would kill both me and her. I had to stop him. At any cost, I
had
to stop him.

“
Chatta?!
” There was raw panic in Night’s voice.

A hammer of fire struck my shields, forcing me back a step. I barely felt it. My mind was focused on Night’s cry. I’ve never heard him sound like that, not once. His panic froze my heart for I knew what it meant.

Rage, hot and quick, dug in with barbed tendrils. Under my feet, the ground trembled in reaction, every loose brick and piece of stone rose in the air to gather around me. I was past thinking, past strategy. I wanted him
dead
.

With absolutely no finesse, I reached into the ground and tore it asunder under the Mage’s feet. There was a tortured groan from the cobblestone as I wrenched it apart. The ground shook under my feet in violent tremors as the surface of the world shifted. A fissure spread rapidly, starting from under the Mage’s feet, extending a mile in both directions. Buildings started to slowly topple, collapsing completely as the bedrock supporting them was suddenly yanked away. The Mage screamed as he abruptly dropped into the ground, the sound of his voice cutting off seconds later.

I spared him not another moment’s thought as I quickly scrambled around all of the potholes and strewn wreckage to Chatta. She was laying unconscious, limbs sprawled. Night was already hovering over her, anxiously nudging her face with his nose. She never twitched.