Mages path 3, p.32
Mage's Path 3, page 32
That stayed.
Suddenly, he was aware of it.
In his mana pool, many of the things that had come from his dungeon abilities were leaving him, but the red armor and black sword of Azhoth remained. So did his Guiding Light, and the element of fire. The armor—there was something about it…
He summoned the armor, applying it to himself as he fell. Red metal snapped into place around him, and his spear appeared in his hand. Golden wings appeared on either side of him, and this time the armor manifested a red helmet that clicked into place, protecting his head.
In that moment, everything changed. His mind had been drifting, flowing out with the calamitous destruction that was all around him, but now it snapped into place again.
He was flying, using his wings to propel him through the chaos of the demon realm, when suddenly he burst out into blackness. He turned, looking back and seeing a huge sphere of blue and black chaos behind him. He sped away from it, seeing the demon realm as a collapsing universe within the endless depth of black space all around him.
But it was not him.
“I’m not in there,” he said. “I’ve come through, and I’m alive! By the power of the red armor of Azhoth, I’ve survived the maelstrom!”
But he was alone. Below him, the collapsing demon realms were like a series of burning blue globes, boiling and churning in the endless blackness. He looked around. All was silent here, but in the distance there were lights, tiny points of lights like stars.
All the universes, he thought. All the universes ever created are here. But how do I find my way back to my own?
He thought of his Guiding Light spell and a laugh escaped from him as he imagined himself following the silver thread through all eternity, trying to find his way back to his own universe.
Back to Melinda.
It’s all I’ve got, he said. If that’s the only chance I have of getting home, I have to take it.
Laughing at the absurdity of it all, he conjured the spell, one of the only ones that remained to him. The silver light extended from his chest out into the void. He watched as it extended and extended and extended, gleaming through the endless vastness of the space between universes.
As he began to follow the line, something else caught his eye. Something closer. Something familiar.
A golden globe, made from many interlocking circles of golden light. It was not far from him, as well as could be judged in this strange place, and he knew exactly what it was.
It was the maze of Azhoth… and it had stopped.
The maze of Azhoth relied on the constant shifting of its outer circles so that the aether god trapped inside could never leave. As Jack approached it, he saw that all the outer circles had indeed stopped their motion. The maze was still a maze, but a solvable maze now.
They had thought that the maze of Azhoth was powered by the dungeons, but that must have not been right after all. It must have been powered by the demon realms, like so much of Nightvale’s magic. Now that the demon realms were ended, the maze was no longer running.
Jack withdrew his Guiding Light spell and recast it onto the maze.
He landed on the nearest outer circle, a golden set of steps that led into the heart of the strange maze. The light of his spell guided him swiftly and surely through the outer rings and into the inner circles, and in a very short time indeed he stepped from a doorway into a grimy, gray-skied garden with a little block of a stone house in front of him.
From the window, a red and black face gazed out at him. It was Azhoth, the trapped aether god.
There was no door in or out of the house, but Jack walked up to the window and put his fist through the glass. Without a word, Azhoth reached a red and black hand through and gripped Jack by the forearm, and Jack drew him out.
As the aether god’s feet touched the ground, a strange change took place. The red and black left his skin, draining away like ink flowing out of a cloth. Below the coloring, his skin was a mellow dark brown, the color of baked clay.
He dropped to his knees, holding up his hands in wordless thanks to Jack, his deliverer.
“You’ve… you’ve done it, lad!” Azhoth said as Jack took off his helmet and smiled at him.
“So it would seem,” Jack said. “But now it’s time for us to leave. And if I remember right, you have something in that house of yours that can help us do just that.”
“Of course!” Azhoth cried, leaping to his feet. He ran to the window and climbed through. “Now we must be able to leave through my seeing pool.”
In the middle of the house, the exiled aether god had created a magical pool through which he could conjure visions. In the past, Azhoth had managed to send things through this pool to appear in the world beyond—except himself, as he’d been blocked by the maze.
Now that had changed.
The pool glowed, and Azhoth leaned over and conjured the vision of the place Jack described.
Immediately, there appeared in the pool a picture of the battlefield—but the battle was won. Spark and Melinda stood in the clearing with the strange gray woman and a man that Jack did not recognize. Looks of surprise were on all their faces. The soldiers around them had frozen in place, and the red Grand portals had entirely ceased to send forth new enemies to the fight.
Jack could hear their voices through the seeing pool.
“We must find Jack!” Melinda was saying.
“You’re right,” said the man Jack didn’t know, in a familiar voice. “Guide us to the entrance to the demon realms. But Melinda, I fear he’s accomplished his task and perished in the process…”
Jack looked at Azhoth. Without his warlock coloring, he looked like any other old man. His face was wise and his eyes were bright, and his long beard was deep gray with flecks of black. His dark eyes twinkled from his dark-skinned face.
They reached out and gripped each other’s wrists, then stepped together through the seeing pool into the clearing.
“Jack!!” Melinda screamed in delight as he emerged into the clearing, clad in his red armor and holding his spear.
She threw herself into his arms. Then she kissed him on the mouth.
After all he’d been through, it was the most welcome thing in the world. In that frank, honest kiss, Jack felt the confirmation of all his successes. She had held herself back before—they had agreed to hold back, to wait until their task was done and done well before they would act on the love that had been growing between them.
Now, in that kiss, Jack knew that they had truly succeeded. He put his arms around her and let the love that was between them flow freely at last, drinking in her presence.
After a time, he broke the kiss and she smiled up at him.
He looked around at the others. The man who he had not recognized was standing with Azhoth. He looked at Jack and his eyes twinkled, and suddenly Jack understood who it was.
“Lachlan!” he cried. “But you’ve lost your red and black coloring! You look human again!”
“It’s not just my appearance that’s changed. I’ve also lost all my powers, except for a few,” Lachlan said with a smile. “But it’s a price I’m willing to pay. The demonic realms have been destroyed, the source of all evil magic has been ended. Through your work, Jack, and your perseverance. My warlock magic was based on the power drawn from the demon realms. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it is what I was. I think I put it to good use, at least.”
“You certainly did,” Azhoth said.
Lachlan gave the old man a funny look. “I still can’t quite believe it’s you,” he said, shaking his head. “And I believe that you’re not mad at me even less!”
Azhoth laughed. “It’s a long time ago,” he said. “And you were right to do what you did! I was mad with hubris and arrogance in those days, and I was a danger to myself and to the world. But that has changed now.”
He stepped up and slapped Lachlan on the back. “It’s good to see you.”
Jack took Melinda’s hand and looked at the others. “And who are these?” he said with a smile, gesturing to the monstrosities that Lachlan had rode in on. The huge, leather-winged creatures were clustered around Spark, chittering and growling affectionately. Spark himself was tussling with them, play-growling and batting at them gently with his great claws.
“In fact, don’t tell me,” he continued. “I think I can guess.”
“My children,” Spark growled with obvious pleasure. “My brood.”
“They’ve grown fast,” Jack said. “And so… err… handsome!” he added, looking at the nightmare insect faces of the strange dragon and stone beetle hybrids.
Everyone laughed, and the gray woman stepped forward. Jack looked at her. At first, he did not recognize her and then, with a sudden lurch, he thought he knew those gray eyes and that wise gaze. He had seen it before, when in communion with the tower.
“Hello, Jack,” she said quietly, and he knew that voice too.
“It can’t be,” he said, stepping forward to take her hands. “Maia?” She smiled, the wise lines of her strange, ageless face crinkling up around her eyes as she did so, and he knew he was right. It was Maia, the spirit of the Shadow Tower, manifested in a human body. “How has this happened?” Jack asked.
“Sheobeth helped me to manifest myself again,” she said. “And to understand who and what I really was, before the tower. I have learned much, Jack, but perhaps now is not the time for more explanations…”
Azhoth’s mouth had opened in surprise at Maia’s words. “Sheobeth?” he gasped. “Sheobeth was here?”
Jack was about to respond, but at that moment something unexpected happened. There was a crackling, humming noise, and one of the Grand portals began to glow. They had sat still, quietly humming since Jack had appeared with Azhoth, but now the runes whirled on the one to his left and flashes of fork lightning crackled around the edges.
“Look out!” Jack said. His spear was in his hand, and he took up a battle stance facing the portal.
A figure leaped from the portal, a long, gleaming sword in her hand and her dark hair streaming out behind her as she blinked in the bright afternoon sun of the glade.
“Hannah!” Jack cried, leaping forward with his arms outstretched. He enveloped her in a bear hug then let her go as more and more of the Nightvale rebels came leaping through the Grand portal from the land of Nightvale. They all took up their battle positions as they came through, mostly armed with swords, some with shields and spears, and some with heavy iron maces.
As they came through, they all looked around and saw that the battle was over. From the looks on the faces of the others, they realized that the outcome was good, and they dropped their weapons and clustered around Hannah, and around Jack and Melinda, asking so many questions so quickly that there was little chance of any of them getting an answer!
And then a last figure came through.
She was surrounded by an honor guard, the elites of the Nightvale rebels, and she was armed with a long sword and dressed in gleaming chainmail. Dark hair flecked with gray framed her battle-weary face.
Elena.
She looked around, saw the situation, and dropped her blade’s tip to the ground. She smiled. And then she saw Lachlan.
Her sword fell to the ground and she let out a choking cry, half a sob and half a laugh as she ran across the clearing and flung herself into his arms. All the rebels cheered, and Jack felt Melinda’s hand slipping into his. He looked around and met her eyes, and she smiled at him.
They had done it. They had won.
Chapter 22
“The Shadow Tower is no more,” Lachlan told Jack, as they sat around on the grass, resting after the battle. “When Sheobeth and Maia finally merged, the magic of the tower began to decrease, and quickly there was little left. Without the spirit at the heart of it, the tower fell into ruin quickly. There’s nothing there anymore except a strange, eerie ruin. There’s a great many books and papers of mine, however, and a few bits and pieces of yours that I managed to salvage, and I’ve left Ivan there to look after everything while we were gone.”
“So Ivan is still with you? I was afraid that he might have vanished too when the demon realms were destroyed.”
Lachlan smiled. “Thankfully not,” he said. “He misses the kitchens, of course, but we cannot begrudge Maia for her release. I’m very glad of it. It’s something that I always suspected but could never get to the heart of. Maia was a real woman, a human whose spirit had been trapped in a crystal by a malicious mage many years ago, and used to power the Shadow Tower. The mage died before I found the tower, and I was never able to find out the story of Maia’s origins.”
Jack looked at the gray woman, who was chatting in a friendly fashion with Elena and some of the Nightvale rebels. “I’m glad she’s freed too, though I’ll miss the strangeness of the Shadow Tower. But I guess much of the tower’s character was her character. So long as we have her around, we will not have to miss the tower too much.”
“Exactly,” Lachlan said with a smile.
“So where do we go now?” Jack said. “It would seem too strange to go back to my little village in the mountains. The Shadow Tower had become home. If it’s no more, where will we go?”
“I know where I shall go,” Melinda said firmly. “Back to my father’s estates at Wardlake. He was never very kind to me, but he sent me off to learn magic and make my fortune, and I think I can safely say that I’ve done both now.”
“But your magic has gone with the ending of the demon realms!” Jack said.
Melinda shook her head and smiled. She held out a hand and Jack saw to his amazement and delight that there was a flame in her hand, a magic ball of fire that danced and gleamed merrily in the palm of her hand.
“My magic has changed,” she said, “as yours has. But it’s not gone. In fact, I now seem to be able to conjure external spells just as easily as I always wanted to in the old days! The practice I had as a warlock has trained me to see magic differently, and I understand now that in the old days, I was the one obstructing myself when I couldn’t do external magic.”
She closed her hand, extinguishing the flame. “No, I think I’ve learned everything and more that my father sent me off to learn. I’m old enough to claim my portion of the estate, and I now have the confidence that I need to do so as well. You should all come with me. Perhaps in time we’ll go our separate ways, but for now, come to Wardlake with me and help me to claim my estate.”
Lachlan bowed low, but Jack hugged her. “Very well,” he said. “We’ll go and claim it together.”
The Black Hand mage who had followed them through the Yillin Grand portal had died, but his staff contained the machine that generated the portals. One of the Nightvale rebels had picked it up from the battlefield, and it was agreed that Lachlan should take it.
Elena would have to go back through to Nightvale for the moment, for the reign of the council of the Black Hand was now a thing of the past, and now an immense task awaited her and her people.
“When the power of the demon realms was ended,” she said, “many of the things that had been created with it in Nightvale fell. That included huge numbers of the soldiers in the army, who were automatons powered by the demon realms. But many things—the good things, mostly—have survived. Many of the machines are powered by crystals filled with mana, and the mana in the crystals is not used up by the machines. So our lights and our infrastructure still work well, but the evil parts of the Black Hand’s work have been undone.”
She smiled at them. “We found many Grand portal machines, and I’m happy to say that we will be able to keep the Grand portals open between here and Nightvale. In time, we’ll set up permanent Grand portals, for commerce and visitors, just like it was in the old days. Perhaps in future we’ll even find ways to open Grand portals to other worlds as well!”
“And I will come through to you soon,” Lachlan said. “Because I’m sure that the Wards which would have stopped me before will be broken now. I will go back to the ruins of the Shadow Tower and get Ivan, then I will use this staff,” he held up the Grand portal staff, “and come through to Nightvale.”
“I will not go,” Azhoth said thoughtfully. “I think I’d like to see this place you speak of, this Wardlake, if you don’t mind me coming along with you?”
“Of course not!” Melinda said. “I’d be happy to have you come along.”
“And I will come too,” Maia said. “After you’ve been lived in by people for a while, you’ll find that they kind of grow on you.”
So it was decided. Elena kissed Lachlan goodbye and then walked back through the Grand portal to Nightvale with her rebels. Lachlan, Jack, Melinda, Azhoth, and Maia all mounted the leather-winged offspring of Spark and Max, and flew back to the hill above Fordwatch, where the Shadow Tower had stood.
Ivan was there, sitting morosely with a box of treasure and doing his best to cook a meal on a campfire. Max was with him, and a few of the brood Lachlan had asked to stay behind in case protection was needed. They leaped to their feet, delighted to see the travelers returning.
Ivan welcomed them excitedly and was eager to know everything that had happened. Jack left Lachlan to tell the story while he, Melinda, and Maia walked up to the ruinous tower that topped the hill.
The grounds were gone, only the rough traces of walls remaining. The tower itself was in ruins. Ivy and trees grew out of the cracks in the masonry, as if it had been a ruin for decades.
“Will you miss it?” Maia asked them.
“Of course,” Jack said. “But that’s the way of life. Things change, and I’m sure that in future we’ll find new pleasures and new places to call home. For you, it was a prison, and I’m very glad that you’ve been freed. I’m happy for you, Maia.”
“But where is Sheobeth?” Melinda asked.
“I am her, in a way,” Maia said. “Her power had waned, and she used all that was left of it to release me from the crystal. She seemed to know that this was her last act. She said she knew her whole destiny. We merged, and I stepped forth, manifested in a human body again.”
