“Come on,” Jinaro crooned. “I know you’re down there. Come fill me up!”
“Fill you up with what?”
Timo spun at the same time as Jinaro. Inigo stood a few feet away, the guard behind him.
“Fill you up with what?” Inigo repeated. He looked up at the mage light that hovered over Jinaro. “How did you manage the light?”
Jinaro shrugged. “My magic is returning, that’s all.”
“Really?” Inigo said.
As he stepped past Timo to reach Jinaro, the pure power that coursed through Timo
arced
to Inigo. The Mage stopped, startled, as power swirled around him. Timo struggled to control the power surge, cutting the link between Inigo and him, but it was too late. The Mage raised a hand to his face in wonder.
“I can feel the power,” he said softly. “I can feel the magic. What just happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Jinaro said. He stared at the ground where Timo stood.
He raised his hand to cast a spell, and Timo relocated himself a dozen feet away.
Jinaro’s spell hit the ground, and a blast of rock and dirt spewed up. Inigo, who had been standing close to the spot, whirled on Jinaro. He swept a hand out, and a spell hurtled towards the other Mage.
Timo hid behind a hedge. A ragged crater stood where Jinaro had been but the Mage was alive, hovering a few feet in the air. Pure power now streamed from the hole in the ground—one thick river leading to Jinaro and a second to Inigo. A third, smaller stream wound its way to Timo.
“You always were planning on killing me,” Jinaro yelled as he let another spell fly. “You couldn’t just leave me alone.”
Inigo, fueled by hatred and pure power, rose into the air, deflecting the spell. It smashed into the ground a few feet away, at the feet of the guard. The man was swallowed up in the explosion, and a pit was left where he’d been standing. Neither Inigo nor Jinaro seemed to even notice that the guard was dead.
Frantically, Timo tried to sever the streams of pure power leading to the two Mages, but it was too strong. The best he could do was siphon some of it to him.
Inigo and Jinaro continued to battle, screaming at each other. Both Mages hovered in the air, shielded by white mage mist so thick that Timo could barely tell them apart. Blast after blast damaged the garden until there was nothing left except ragged pits and craters and burning shrubs and trees.
The stream of pure power was growing weaker, and Timo wondered if the Guildsmen who were unwittingly supplying it were unconscious—or dead—from fueling the fight between the two Mages. It’s what he’d expected—why he’d decided he had to destroy Mage Guild Island.
The flow of pure magic dwindled to a trickle and then finally stopped. The Mages didn’t even notice as they continued to fling less and less powerful spells at each other. When they had only tiny amounts of power left, Timo reached a hand towards each Mage, drawing what was left of their power to him.
The pure magic fought him, and he was sweating by the time the thin trails of power reached him.
Inigo tried to cast a spell but when nothing happened, Jinaro laughed.
“You fool,” Jinaro said. “You’ve used up a power source you have no idea how to reproduce.”
“And you do?”
“Yes,” Jinaro smiled. “And once I replenish my power, I will kill you. I’ll have to since you will never leave me alone after this.”
“I’m Primus now,” Inigo said. “I’ll have you detained and tried for treason.”
Timo took a step back. Now that the fighting had stopped it was safe for him to return to the tunnels and figure out how to
undo
Mage Guild Island. With his eyes on the Mages, he took another step. He stumbled into a crater and pitched backwards with a cry.
“Who’s there?” Inigo called out.
“It’s them,” Jinaro said. “I thought someone else was here. That’s who I was aiming at but then you tried to kill me.”
“Who is it?”
Unsteadily, Timo rose to his feet. The pure power was surging towards the two Mages again, and he fought to control it.
“It’s the Valendi brat,” Jinaro said.
Inigo stepped towards him, and Timo, desperate, relocated himself a few steps away.
“He shouldn’t be able to do that,” Inigo said. “He’s stronger than we were told.”
“I can feel the power he’s holding,” Jinaro said. He took a few steps towards Timo. “I want it!”
“Why?” Timo asked. “So you can drain the life out of more Guildsmen? How many died for this?” Timo gestured to the destroyed garden. “Twenty, thirty?”
Jinaro paled, but he reached an arm out to Timo, calling the pure power.
“If Guildsmen died it was because it’s their place to serve us,” Inigo said calmly. “Those with lesser talents always sacrifice for those with greater ones.”
“No one deserves to die to fuel a fight between Mages who think they’re better than everyone else,” Timo said. “You’re supposed to take care of Guildsmen!”
“You sound like your friend Santos,” Inigo sneered. “Wanting to help the lesser Guildsmen.
We are not all created equal
, despite what Gyda’s teachings say.”
“No,” Timo agreed. “We’re not. But that doesn’t mean those with less exist to serve those with greater abilities.”
“You’re so young,” Inigo said. “So naïve. Your mother was smart and ambitious. She understood what it took to get and keep power.”
Inigo took a step towards Timo, who retreated carefully, keeping both Mages in view.
“Is that why you wanted her dead?”
“She was in my way,” Inigo said. “I couldn’t become Primus with her still alive.” He snarled a grin. “But she was keeping secrets, wasn’t she? She and Rorik. Not the fool I thought he was, but he’s dead all the same.”
“Because you cursed him.”
“A spell I learned from your father,” Inigo said. “One he learned off Santos himself, so he told me.” Inigo chuckled. “I do like the symmetry of that. You triggered the spell, of course, but don’t blame yourself—he would have been dead by Founders Day.”
“I don’t blame myself,” Timo said. “As soon as I saw Rorik, I knew what had been done to him. And by whom.” Inigo seemed eager to talk, and if it would allow a few more people to flee to safety, Timo was inclined to let him.
“You know he won’t allow you to live,” Timo said to Jinaro.
The Mage was still edging towards him, his hand outstretched. It was as though he’d forgotten about anything other than the pure power.
“He doesn’t care,” Inigo said. “He’s intoxicated by the power. I can feel it in you but you barely seem to notice. Why is that?”
“I’ve always been surrounded by magic,” Timo said. “For every single waking hour that I’ve spent on Mage Guild Island, I’ve seen magic. It’s all around us. All I have to do, all I’ve ever had to do, was call it to me. This isn’t so much different.” He shrugged. It was different—more pure, more powerful, more volatile—but he wasn’t about to tell Inigo that. “And I can control it.” At least he hoped he could.
“To what end?” Inigo asked. “I can give you political power beyond your imaginings. I can make you Secundus to my Primus. At sixteen! It’s unheard of! You could do whatever you liked with those who tried to harm you.”
“Except you,” Timo said.
“Except me,” Inigo agreed. “No one would follow you without me there to vouch for you.”
“It’s not what I want,” Timo said. “That’s something even my mother never understood. Power, Mage Guild, living on this island—none of it’s what I want.”
“Of course it’s what you want,” Inigo said, smiling. “What else is there?”
He swept his arms out, and Timo thought he was simply showing the island; instead, a cloud of mage mist sped towards him. Timo stood his ground, and redirected the spell so that it swept past him.
“How . . .” Inigo started. “What did you do?”
“Not much,” Timo said. “That’s the thing. I don’t need to do very much in order for magic to shy away from me. But I can
call
it. And then I can control it.
All of it
.” Now it was Timo’s turn to sweep his arms wide. This time he sent all nearby residual magic spinning away into the night until there was one simple mage light left hovering overhead. The lack of magic surrounding them jolted Jinaro, and he stumbled to his knees.
“What have you done to it?” Jinaro asked. “All that lovely power. It was mine, it called to me.”
“It belongs to the guild,” Timo said. “And the Guildsmen it’s been bled from. And now I’ll use it to give them the only thing I can. Freedom from Mage Guild—freedom from the guild that should nurture and protect them but instead harvests them—steals their power and their lives.” Timo sank to his knees and placed his hands on the broken landscape of the garden. He wove a quick spell of protection around himself and then closed his eyes and
reached
out to the magic. All of the magic. Slowly, like something being woken up from a slumber, he felt it responding to him—felt Mage Guild Island responding to him.
There was a ping against the shield he’d built.
“Why can’t I touch him?” Inigo asked. “What’s he doing?”
“I think he’s doing what he warned us his sister would do,” Jinaro said. “Destroying Mage Guild Island.”
“That’s not possible,” Inigo replied. “Get some guards. Guards! Guards!”
Timo felt the flurry of fists beating against his shield, and then he was lost in the vast web of spells that made up the island. Years and years of Mages had used power from Guildsmen—alongside their own magic—to create the buildings and passageways of the island until it was more than a lump of earth that floated in the sky. It seethed with the joys and ambitions and despairs and needs of those whose life magic had imbued it with power.
He stumbled and fell to his side. A guard raised a fist to him, but before he could do more than cock his arm, Timo had relocated himself out or reach. He rubbed a hand against a sore temple. He must have dropped his shield wall while he was immersed in the magic.
The guard flailed at thin air, recovered, and scanned the garden.
“Over there,” Inigo said, pointing towards Timo.
Sword drawn, the guard started forward. Jinaro fell to his knees in the spot where Timo had been, his hands scrabbling at the earth.
“Stop it!” Inigo kicked Jinaro, and he fell onto his side, his hands still weakly digging into the earth. “Any magic here is mine!” Then the head of the Mage Council knelt and reached down to the ground.
Timo cast a protective spell just as the guard reached him. The man slashed at him with his sword but the blade bounced off the spell and plunged into the soft dirt. Straining, Timo drew a tiny bit of power from the ground beneath Inigo, taking magic out of the man as well.
The new Primus sagged briefly, before straightening.
“You won’t be able to stop everyone,” Inigo said. “I’ll order hundreds, thousands of guards and Mages to attack you. And they will.”
“If you can find them,” Timo replied. He looked up at the guard who glared at him from the other side of his protective barrier. “Didn’t you hear the bells? It was the signal to get off the island.”
The guard looked over at Inigo and shrugged before meeting Timo’s eyes. “I was told it was a drill, a test. No harm’s coming to the island.”
Timo sighed. “Does this look like no harm?” He gestured to the ruined garden around them. “A man named Callub assured me that people would leave.”
“Callub you say?” The guard sent a nervous look towards Inigo. “I weren’t told Callub rung the bells. Where is he?”
“On his way off the island,” Timo said. “I hope. That’s what he said he’d do. You should do the same.”
Timo stood up, his protective spell stretching around him. He’d delayed as long as he could. Inigo was right. With enough people—guards and Mages—pursuing him he wouldn’t be able to complete his task. It was time he found a safe place to work with the island’s magic.
Once invisible, Timo closed his eyes and concentrated on sealing the tunnel and burying the remnants of pure power that still called to him from deep under the earth. Then, to keep Inigo and Jinaro from accessing any power, he forced all magic in the area away, towards the outer edges of the island. The island shook for a moment, and then settled. The buildings nearby went dark as mage lights were extinguished.
He set off towards a small garden on the other side of the library. His mother’s garden, although he’d rarely seen her in it. She’d once told him that it reminded her of the mountain home she’d grown up in. At the time he’d thought it had pleased her but years later he’d come to understand that she despised the garden, just as she despised having been born in a rural mountain villa. Inferior—that’s what she thought it said about her. Timo grimaced. Now he knew her bloodline—the talents passed on by her—were superior, not inferior.
KARA SCANNED THE
grounds just outside the gate. The last of the crowd was being ushered down to the boats.
A while ago the bells had stopped ringing, and later the island had finally stopped trembling and shaking, but that hadn’t been a comfort to her. Was Timo still alive? They couldn’t wait for him even if he was. He would have to find his own way off the island. Kara wiped a tear from her eye. She’d only just found him!