The Mage's Limits: Mages of Martir Book #2 (34 page)

Durima found herself wishing she could have spoken about this with Skimif first. But there was just no time to do that, even if she wanted to. She would just have to trust that Skimif would trust her and Gujak to do what they were trying to do, even if he didn't know what it was.

Finally, Durima reached the edge of the roof. She carefully peeked over to get a good look at the current situation.

Just like earlier, Skimif and Uron were at a standstill. Skimif's fists glowed with the light of the sun, while the fingers of Uron's ungloved hand looked as sleek and slimy as a snake. Neither of them seemed to notice her yet, which was fine by Durima. That would make her job so much easier to do.

The only problem was that Gujak did not seem to have reached the roof yet. As some strange eagle-like creature with tentacles went soaring by overhead, a Soldier of the Gods standing on it and stabbing it wherever he could, Durima began to worry that something might have happened to Gujak.

Unless he forgot,
Durima thought.
And if he forgot, then I will personally come back from the Heavenly Paradise as a ghost and haunt him for the rest of his days.

“Why do you insist on fighting me, Skimif?” said Uron. He gestured at the chaos all around them. “Do you not see your precious city falling apart all around you? I can already sense that you're getting weaker, just like the handful of other gods who are too stupid to run away. Sooner or later, I will find an opening and your reign over Martir will end.”

“I fight you because I am the God of Martir,” said Skimif. He coughed, an alarming sound to Durima. “And it's my duty to protect Martir from all threats, no matter how powerful or scary.”

“I forgot how duty-bound and arrogant you are,” said Uron in annoyance. “I suppose that is what I get for spending a year inside the Void. Thankfully, I will be able to spend the next year, and the next, and the next, rebuilding my home on the ruins of this one, just as I am destined to do.”

“Destined?” said Skimif. He wiped away a trickle of what looked like blood from his mouth. “What kind of destiny could someone like
you
have? The Powers didn't create you.”

“Nor did they create destiny,” said Uron. He clinched the God-killer around his hand. “Destiny is a force much larger than even the Powers. No one can escape its grasp, not even you gods.”

“I'm not in the mood to debate philosophy with you, to be honest,” said Skimif, shaking his head. He held out one fist before him while raising the other above his head. “Let's finish this once and for all.”

“Of course,” said Uron, raising his clinched God-killer in front of him.

At that moment, Gujak's head popped over the opposite side of the roof. Hope rose in Durima's heart as Gujak waved at her briefly before climbing onto the roof itself, though he crouched low so as to not draw attention to himself just yet.

All right, Gujak,
Durima thought.
Shouldn't be long now. Just yell or jump or insult Uron or anything. I just need a split second opening—just one opening is all—and I can banish Uron to the ethereal for good.

While Skimif and Uron looked ready to jump at each other, Gujak stood up and dusted his arms off. He then took a deep breath, but before he could say anything, an ethereal portal opened up right next to him.

Faster than Durima's eyes could follow, Erich jumped out of the portal. Gujak turned to look at him in surprise, but before he could say anything, Erich stabbed both of his Mican crystal claws into Gujak's chest.

The sound of crystal cutting through wood was marred by Gujak's screams of pain, which were so loud that Durima could hear them even over the sounds of battle raging in the city below. His screams were so loud that Skimif and Uron both looked in his direction as if wondering what was going on.

Then Erich yanked his claws out of Gujak's chest, sending even more chunks of wood flying off his body onto the stone roof underneath. Without hesitation, Erich kicked Gujak, sending him falling off the roof, still screaming and yelling.

“Gujak!” Durima yelled, her shout causing Skimif and Uron to turn their attention toward her instead. “No! Gujak!”

Soon Gujak's screaming was lost over a nearby explosion, but she heard Erich, who laughed and said, “That is for trying to kill me, you murderer of the gods! I, Commander Erich, Commander of the Soldiers of the Gods, have avenged the Spider Goddess! Justice has been served!”

He raised his claws above his head and then looked at Skimif with a huge smile on his face. “Lord Skimif, did you see that? Did you see what I did? Did you? I just made Martir a safer place for everyone, including you. I am a hero, deserving of the highest honors that that title implies.”

Skimif stared at Erich uncertainly. “Who are you again?”

Erich's triumphant smile vanished as quickly as the receding waves of the sea. “Lord Skimif—”

Durima didn't let him finish. She leaped over the edge of the roof, opening an ethereal portal that briefly took her out of World's End. She rolled across the white, silvery road of the ethereal before opening another portal and emerging back onto World's End, close enough to Erich to get him.

She flew at Erich, who noticed her coming at him only a second before she slammed into him with her bulk. Durima pinned Erich to the roof underneath them, keeping his arms pinned to his sides with her short yet powerful legs.

“Get … get off me, you murderer,” Erich said, though she barely felt his struggling underneath her. “I am a hero, you idiot. I deserve to be treated as such.”

Though Durima heard him, she didn't care. She just raised her massive fists above her head and then began smashing Erich's pretty human-like face in as hard as she could. Erich's screams of pain were quickly cut off when she smashed his lower jaw, yet she still attacked him even then. She didn't let up, not even after she no longer felt him struggling to get free underneath her.

She wouldn't let up, not after what Erich had done to Gujak. All reason had left her. The Demon within had arisen, as it usually did in times like this, and she gladly allowed it to control her every movement if it meant avenging Gujak's death. She was only vaguely aware of the sounds of Skimif and Uron resuming their fight behind her, all thought of her original plan forgotten in her rage.

Durima kept smashing and bashing, breaking Erich's skull, his teeth, and his neck. Blood splattered over her fists and chest and face, but all it did was enrage her further. The Demon kept urging her on, urging her to kill and smash until the katabans known as Erich was no more.

But the events of the day had taken their toll on Durima's body. Fatigue began to settle over her arms, making her blows not nearly as swift or devastating as they once were. As she slowed down, awareness and reason returned to her mind, like inhabitants returning to a town they had been forced to evacuate.

Then Durima stopped, her shoulders slumped, her breathing hard, as she looked down on the bloody mess that had once been Erich's head and face. She became aware of the sticky blood on her body, which smelled like mud and salt.

Ow,
was the only thought she could think, because all of the pain she had suffered over the last several hours had finally caught up with her.
Need to sleep. But can't. Not yet.

Durima had only two choices: Recover Gujak's body, or see if she could possibly salvage the 'trap-Uron-in-the-ethereal' plan. Both sounded like too much work for her tired old body, though she figured she only had enough energy left to do one.

First things first,
Durima thought.
As … as important as retrieving Gujak's body is, Uron is the more immediate problem. Better deal with him first. Then get Gujak's body.

Gathering what little strength she had left, Durima stood up. She turned around to see Uron and Skimif's fight.

Thankfully, the two almighty beings had not gone anywhere. They were both a flurry of fists and feet, punching and kicking at each other with the kind of strength that would probably demolish a mountain. Durima doubted they were landing any of their blows; at least, Uron apparently hadn't succeeded in touching Skimif with the God-killer yet, which was a good thing, of course.

Need to find an opening,
Durima thought.
Can't do anything until there's a break in the fighting. Otherwise, I'll get pulverized like Erich.

Just as that thought passed through her mind, Skimif and Uron leaped back from each other, skidding across the rooftop of the building. As they did so, the two thrust their arms forward, Skimif unleashing a blast of golden energy, Uron a blast of black energy.

The twin energy beams met in the middle, creating an earsplitting
kaboom
that forced Durima to slam her hands over her ears to save her hearing. The explosion created a large hole in the roof in between Skimif and Uron, which separated the two by a fairly wide margin. As before, they were staring each other down, no doubt looking for a weakness they could exploit in order to end this battle quickly.

Durima stood up, even though she was almost too tired to do even that. Neither Uron nor Skimif seemed to be paying her any attention, which made sense, seeing as they were busy fighting each other. Yet Durima wasn't sure if she was fast enough to reach Uron before he noticed her or resumed his fight with Skimif.

No time to waste worrying,
Durima thought.
I'll have to do my best, no matter what Uron might do.

Ignoring the tiredness in her bones, Durima dashed toward Uron as fast as she could, willing her body to move faster than it normally could under the circumstances. She felt maddeningly slow, like a slug, but she pushed herself anyway, even when her legs burned with pain and her arms felt like they were about to fall off any minute.

Then Uron glanced in her direction. Without missing a beat, he raised one hand and fired a burst of darkness at her. Durima, however, forced open an ethereal portal and vanished into it before the burst of darkness could get her.

For a brief moment, she was back in the ethereal, but then she opened another portal and ended up back in World's End, only a few feet from Uron. Uron's yellow eyes widened in shock as Durima slammed into his gut with her shoulder, hitting him with enough force to send him staggering back.

As soon as Durima made contact with Uron, she opened another portal directly behind him. Both Durima and Uron fell into the ethereal and the portal closed with a loud
pop
behind them as they did so.

Durima rolled off of Uron and landed on the ethereal road beneath her. She lay there, breathing hard, too weak to move, as Uron jumped to his feet and looked around the ethereal in confusion.

“Where am I?” Uron demanded, whipping his head back and forth as he looked at the stars in the sky and the shining white road that stretched on forever in both directions. “What is this place?”

Durima knew she should have opened another ethereal portal and returned to Martir immediately, but just the thought of doing a task as simple as that drained her. She could barely even lift her eyes to look at Uron, who had his hands on his head and was pacing back and forth as if everything was going wrong.

“No, no, no,” said Uron. “Why can't I leave this place?”

“The ethereal,” Durima said. “Not easy to get out of unless you're a god or a katabans.”

Uron stopped and looked down at her. “The ethereal? Ah, yes, now that you mention it, I have indeed heard of that place. I did not think I would ever visit it, but it doesn't matter. I will force you to let me out of here. A temporary setback, that's all this is.”

Durima watched as Uron reached for her with the God-killer, a smirk on his face, as if he was so smart for figuring out that he could use Durima to escape. She wanted to get up and leave, but she was too tired to even think about doing so.

Then an arm burst through the ethereal, its appearance so sudden and unexpected that Uron actually jumped. The arm grabbed Durima's fur and yanked her through the portal even as Uron, quickly recovering from his shock, lunged for Durima.

The tips of Uron's uncovered fingers brushed against Durima's feet, sending a shiver up her spine but only for a moment. Then Durima went through the portal, which snapped closed behind her, although she did catch one last look of Uron's smirking face, even though she had no idea what Uron had to be happy about.

As soon as the portal closed, the arm that had grabbed Durima gently put her on the remains of the roof that Skimif and Uron had been battling on mere moments ago. Even with the sun in her eyes, Durima recognized the being standing over her as Skimif, though with the sun behind him, his face was covered in shadow.

“Are you all right?” said Skimif, his tone genuinely concerned. “Did Uron hurt you?”

Durima shook her head slightly. “No. Barely even touched me.”

Skimif sighed. “Thank the gods. I was worried that a brave katabans like you might have been killed by him. Your death would have been a terrible loss to the world, for sure.”

Durima blinked. “Lord Skimif … do you even know who I am? What I did?”

“I am aware of your accident,” said Skimif. He scowled. “And I am aware that there has been a very severe case of injustice committed against you and your friend Gujak. I will have to speak with Grinf about this later.”

Durima did not get to hear what else Skimif had to say, however, because the last of her adrenaline had left her and fatigue drifted over her mind and body like a thick fog. She slipped into blissful unconsciousness, marred only by a deep laugh she heard in the back of her mind that she dismissed as nothing more than her mind making her hear things.

Chapter Twenty-Four

One week later …

D
arek Takren didn't feel comfortable following Mom down the steps to the 'Godly Chamber,' as she had said it was called. Aside from the fact that it was dark and narrow, Darek was pretty sure that tradition dictated that only the Magical Superior of North Academy—which in this case was Mom, even if only temporarily—was allowed to go down here. Darek hated going against tradition, even if it was for a good reason.