Magic Zero (26 page)

Sentries on another turret began to flee as Verlis roared fire at them. One jumped off the fortress and two others quickly dropped down onto the steps that ran around the side of the turret, to a door set into the wall several feet below.

At last Timothy brought the gyro around again, his gaze sweeping the upper reaches of SkyHaven. Only then did he realize that the girl in the green dress was gone. He frowned, slowing the gyro. She had beckoned to him.
Why?

Then he saw the other set of stairs that went around the outside of that tower, and the door they led to that was still open, only darkness and shadow waiting from within. They had planned to fight off as much resistance as possible and then land, going right through the huge, ornate double doors
that led into the main living area of SkyHaven. As long as they stayed together, with their unique attributes, Timothy felt they would have a chance. But now this . . . this new approach . . . had presented itself.

What if it’s a trap?
he wondered. But then he felt foolish. If the Grandmaster expected them to return, he would not have relied upon a single, mysterious girl gesturing to Timothy from atop SkyHaven.

Nearby, the rook was diving maniacally at another sentry. Edgar clawed at the man, who fell but managed to grab hold of a ledge. The bird left him dangling there and beat his wings against the air, turning to look for more resistance, more prey. Timothy knew that Edgar would be as anxious by now as he was. They were taking too long. They did not want to be up here if Nicodemus made an appearance. There was nowhere to hide.

Then he spotted Verlis. Fire trailed from the Wurm’s jaws as he swooped down at several mages who had either fallen or been on the ground to begin with. One of them held his ground, performing a rapid spell that erupted from his hands in silver bolts that were likely to cut the Wurm’s scaly hide as easily as they did the air. Verlis brought the golden sword around in front of his body, deflecting the sentry’s magic.

The mage who had dared to fight was engulfed in a blaze of magical power, the very spell he had tried to use on Verlis. In moments, he was nothing but ash, as Verlis headed toward the double front doors of SkyHaven’s core.

“Caw! Caw! Let’s go, Timothy!” Edgar cried as he kept
pace with the gyro through every turn and jog the boy’s navigation caused.

“No. Let’s try that way!” he told the rook, pointing at the stairs on the side of the tower, where the girl had stood. He gestured toward the open door. “Fly down and tell Verlis. We’re going in that way.”

To his credit, Timothy’s familiar did not ask why, did not question this change in plans. The rook simply cawed and darted amid the jutting turrets, diving down toward Verlis.

Timothy swung the gyro around and spotted Ivar clinging to the side of another tower. Atop it was one of the last sentries who had not been driven off or killed. The thin, extremely tall man pointed a single finger down at Ivar, and scarlet light sparked there. He was chanting something—more screaming it than chanting—and Timothy did not have to understand the words to know that Ivar was in serious trouble.

Biting his lip, Timothy pulled up on the controls, causing the gyro to rise up swiftly toward the mage, hurtling toward him. With a jerk to the right he spun the gyro sideways. In his fury and the concentration of his spellcasting, the mage did not look up immediately. When he did, it was just in time for his eyes to go wide as Timothy knocked the gyro into him and sent the man tumbling backward off the wall, cursing as he plunged toward the ocean far below.

“Ivar, come on!” Timothy called.

The Asura leaped out and grabbed hold of the axle that supported the wheels of the gyrocraft. Timothy struggled to compensate for the sudden addition of weight, and in a
moment he had them hovering above the turret where he had seen the mysterious girl. Ivar let go, dropping down and rolling out of the way so that Timothy could land. Even as the boy did so, Edgar cawed and alighted upon Ivar’s shoulder. Verlis landed with feral, deadly grace, golden sword at the ready, wings folding tightly against his back.

Following a single gesture from a mysterious girl, Timothy at last led them into SkyHaven, intent upon keeping Leander Maddox alive and upon revealing the dark secrets of the Grandmaster.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A
numbing cold had enveloped Leander Maddox. His body was like ice, but where Nicodemus touched his chest there was fire. The Grandmaster’s touch siphoned the magic right out of Leander, and his life drained along with it. Darkness encroached at the edges of his vision. The wraiths whispered in his ears, some of them still crying in their high, mad voices. Leander felt weakness closing his eyes. He blinked to keep them open but could not. Several times he seemed to drift away to a place of absolute night, only to feel a fresh burst of searing pain in his chest as Nicodemus sucked more power from him. His eyes popped open, and though what little he could still see was out of focus, the old mage’s pink, glowing eyes were there, staring at him. The grin that split his face was gleeful.

But it faltered.

In the midst of the fog that tried to drag him back down
into darkness, Leander saw a tremor go through the Grandmaster. A look of uncertainty shuddered across Nicodemus’s face.

Leander mustered the last of his strength to strain against the grasp of the wraiths that held him. He forced himself to smile. His voice was weak, his throat raw, but he made himself speak.

“What’s wrong,
my lord
? You look as though you’ve just tasted something that didn’t agree with you.”

Nicodemus seemed not to hear him. The Grandmaster turned away, ignoring the wraiths and his captive. His hand fell away from Leander’s chest, and with it the pain began to recede. Though he still ached to his bones and the cold still worked at him, a prickling of fresh sensation went through Leander. The numbness was leaving him. The touch of the wraiths was chilling, but now that Nicodemus had stopped draining the magic from him, he felt as though the fog was lifting from his mind. The room swam into focus once more. He could see the other mages in the room, Nicodemus’s acolytes, two of whom stood near the door.

“You!” the Grandmaster snapped, pointing at one of his followers. “Go and find out what has happened. SkyHaven’s defenses have been breached. And it isn’t one of the other guilds, because I didn’t feel them coming through the barriers. They’re inside the fortress already! Within these very walls!”

Timothy,
Leander thought.

“It’s the boy,” Nicodemus sneered, shooting a quick, cruel glance at Leander. “I’m sure of that. Doesn’t it warm your
heart, Professor? He came back for you. What wonderful bait you’ve made. Now I won’t have to go to the trouble of tracking him down.”

Adrenaline had given Leander a burst of strength, but now he felt himself flagging once more. The touch of the wraiths seemed to be spilling sorrow into the places inside him left hollow by Nicodemus’s leeching. Still, he managed to scowl at the archmage.

“I think you’ll find . . . that Timothy Cade . . . is more than you bargained for,” he said, voice ragged, words halting.

The Grandmaster did not have to say anything to show how absurd he thought this idea. He sniffed and turned to see that the acolyte he had instructed was still standing by the door, waiting for further commands.

“What are you doing? Go!”

The young mage nodded gravely, turned, and rushed to the door. It opened for him, swinging outward so that Leander could see the corridor beyond, could see freedom waiting for him.

In the corridor a lone figure stood in the shadows. It was strange and awkward, bent slightly and with something jutting from the side of its head. The moment it started to move, Leander knew who lurked there, who it was that had come to his rescue.

As if to announce himself, the release valve on the side of the metal man’s head whistled with a spray of steam. The acolyte who had opened the door shouted in alarm and raised both hands, though whether to cast a spell or ward
off the mechanical man, Leander could not tell.

Sheridan clanked forward with surprising speed and shot out a metal fist. His blow struck the acolyte on the side of the head and the man toppled to the ground in a splay of limbs. Timothy Cade’s greatest invention—and greatest friend—raced past the unconscious man toward the other acolytes who were gathered near the door. Several of them seemed to be too stunned to react immediately, but a female acolyte stepped away from the others and began to mutter a spell, the fingers of her left hand twisting as she drew sigils in the air.

A panel slid open in the mechanical man’s chest and a thin tube jutted out. Liquid fire sprayed from the tube and the red-haired woman screamed as it engulfed her left hand. She clutched her hand against her body and tried to smother the flames with her tunic, dropping to the ground and rolling away from the door.

“Idiots!” Nicodemus shouted. “You’re sorcerers! It’s a thing! An object! Destroy it!”

With the Grandmaster distracted, Leander saw his opportunity. He was still weak and cold, but enough strength had returned to him that he was able to command his muscles again. He let himself sag against the clutches of the shadow wraiths, then planted his feet firmly on the floor. Though he felt their dreadful darkness filling him where the magic had been drained, he had not been left completely powerless.

Across the room, Sheridan ran at the other acolytes. Steam hissed from the valve in his head and his red eyes glowed fiercely. The young mages had been shocked by his arrival
and by his appearance as well—to them, Leander realized, Timothy’s creations were their own sort of sorcery—but now they were recovering. Sheridan reached out and grabbed the nearest acolyte and thumped him against the wall. The man slid to the floor, disoriented. A mechanical arm with a buzz saw blade whirred to life as it jutted from his chest, and then another machine appeared from that same hollow in the metal man. This one fired sharp metal projectiles—what Timothy called nails—and two of the acolytes screamed as they were hit.

But there were too many of the Grandmaster’s servants in that room. Nicodemus himself stood in the center of the chamber, eyes wide, his long mustache giving him an air of austere severity that only scratched the surface of his cruelty. He pointed a finger at the open door and it swung closed. Sheridan would not be leaving the room.

From across the chamber came several men draped in green, hooded robes, each with the emblem of a green eye woven into the chest. They did not run, but rather flew across the room, levitating. Leander had no idea when they had arrived—in his haze of pain he had not seen them enter—but these were no mere acolytes. They were full-fledged Alhazred sorcerers, like Leander himself. They raised their hands, flesh tinged green like their robes, and spheres of magical power burst to life around their fingers.

“Do not concern yourself, Grandmaster,” one of the hooded mages said, and his voice was a whisper that made Leander shudder to think what faces hid beneath those hoods.

Sheridan fought bravely, but the hooded ones were going to destroy him. They flew at the mechanical man, fists crackling with magic.

“Damn you, no!” Leander roared.

He tore himself away from the wraiths and felt their mouths and fingers ripped from his very soul. A cry of anguish escaped his lips but his pain did not slow his attack. Leander had hoped to attack Nicodemus directly, but with Sheridan in peril he had no choice but to alter that plan. He thrust out his hands and chanted a small string of words. Leander knew he did not have the power to defeat the hooded ones, but he could delay them for a moment.

They froze in midair, paralyzed in time.

But even as Leander stopped the veteran Alhazred sorcerers, the Grandmaster’s young acolytes got the better of Sheridan, grabbing hold of him tightly from either side, avoiding the dangerous tools that jutted from his chest.

“Enough!” Nicodemus snapped, and with one long-taloned finger he sent a bolt of black light arcing across the room. The hex touched Sheridan’s skull, and a moment later the mechanical man simply fell apart, limbs, trunk, and metal skull clattering to the floor in a heap.

The light went out of Sheridan’s eyes.

“No!” Leander shouted, but he was exhausted and fell to his knees in the center of the room.

The Grandmaster turned toward him, sneering once more, and glanced at the wraiths.

“Shall we begin again?”

The wraiths moved in, mouths latching on to his flesh, shadow claws digging into him. The Grandmaster did not hesitate now. He was no longer in the mood to toy with Leander.

“The boy is here,” Lord Nicodemus said. “I believe I am done with you.”

As he reached out to touch Leander’s chest again, the far wall of the chamber exploded in a torrent of fire. At last something warmed the chill from Leander’s flesh.

*  *  *

When Verlis had left his home to seek the aid of Argus Cade, he had never imagined his quest would lead him to the devil Nicodemus himself. But even with his family waiting for him, knowing that he was risking everything, he could not have refused Timothy his aid in this battle. Nicodemus was vile. Had he turned his back on this opportunity, no matter the cost, he would have shamed his entire tribe. Indeed, Verlis was here to help Timothy. But it was hardly a favor, for he would have relished the opportunity no matter what the circumstances.