The duelist 9, p.1
The Duelist 9, page 1
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Chapter 1
I pulled back from embracing Amaya, Zoie, and Shay to appraise the smoldering pile of dust that had once been Aiken, Rogue mage of the Order of Mercedes.
Horus, who was still cradling Anwaar where she sat on the floor of the ballroom in our Manta Ship, eyed the ash with similar distaste.
“He might be dead, but magic that powerful should still be treated with caution,” Anwaar told us in a faint voice. One of her hands was around Horus’ bicep, and the other rubbed at her temple, just below her elegant ibex horns. “Part of the reason for augur-mage pairings is to keep one another stable, in check. Unchecked magic… well.”
She gestured unnecessarily to the pile that had once been Aiken, and I took a step away from it and pulled my wives with me as I did.
“Speaking of an augur-mage pairing,” I said, and I squeezed Amaya’s hand fondly. “Do you two need a minute? That was all pretty intense.”
I wasn’t a mage, or an augur, or anything close, but I was sure the two sisters would benefit from a moment to consolidate their magical bond. After having so much foreign magic screwing with their heads, they no doubt needed to touch base.
“I… think that would be beneficial,” Amaya said with a nod. She sounded dazed, like the events of the past few days hadn’t quite set in yet. Maybe they hadn’t. Things had been pretty crazy.
The oryx-woman moved away from me and toward her sister, though I kept hold of Amaya’s hand until the last moment since I was reluctant to let her go so soon. After so long without seeing her and only now officially bringing her into our growing family, I wanted to savor every moment I had with her.
Shay and Zoie each reached for me like they could read my thoughts, and even without Amaya’s strange mind-sharing abilities, I could tell my wives were just as loath to let her go as I was.
Meanwhile, Anwaar reached for her sister even as her other hand kept a firm grip on Horus’ arm. The two women murmured to one another in low voices, so low I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but a few moments later Horus, who seemed just as reluctant to let go of Anwaar as I had been to let go of Amaya, moved away and gravitated toward his own sister.
I knew the bond between augur and mage was sacred, and it was made all the stronger for how the pairs were normally related to one another. Watching Amaya and Anwaar move into one another’s space was like watching two halves of one whole refamiliarizing themselves with each other.
“Your mind, sister,” Amaya murmured. “He tried so hard to…”
She trailed off, but evidently she didn’t need to finish, because Anwaar understood what she meant perfectly.
“But he failed,” Anwaar murmured back. “And your power, sister.”
“He failed there, too,” Amaya muttered. Their expressions had taken on a distant, glassy sort of look, like they weren’t really looking at one another’s physical forms, but instead at something in their minds’ eyes.
I wondered if augur-mages could physically see magic, the way some people could smell it.
Then Amaya pawed at the air slightly, like she was sensing some kind of bubble around Anwaar, some cocoon of magic. Aside from my time-trance ability, I didn’t really have any magical skill, but even I could feel the charge in the air, the anticipation of something important, impressive, and very powerful.
After all, Amaya had been assumed as the Prophetess because of her enormous skill and power as an augur. I remembered Gavlain telling me about how, when Amaya was tested for augur abilities, she’d utterly obliterated the test by prophesizing the arrival of a ‘Savior who will defeat the Darkness in the coming days.’
Now, I could see that. Not that I’d ever doubted her, but it was a different thing to behold the reconnection of an augur-mage pairing. The more Amaya pawed at the air around Anwaar, the more I could actually kind of see the magic in the air. It rippled and glowed like a heatwave, and the faint white light that enveloped them both pulsed with a similar kind of power to when Shay used her Incarnate abilities.
Thinking of my phoenix-wife, I glanced over at her, since I was curious to see how she was reacting to this even as I myself was intrigued by the two sisters and the power they were currently displaying. Shay’s green eyes were wide with pure fascination, and she was gripping Zoie’s arm as if to say ‘Look! Look!’
I turned back to Amaya and Anwaar, who were standing before one another now, with their hands outstretched as if they were each holding a large, invisible bowl. Wisps of pure magic wove between their splayed fingers and were still only half-visible to me, but from the gasps Shay kept making, I was sure she could see it more clearly, could see the full effect of the sheer power wrapping around the sisters.
The light surrounding Amaya and Anwaar grew brighter and brighter even though I still couldn’t see much of the actual magic. It was like their very skin radiated light, turning them into angels. I tried to keep my eyes open for as long as possible, but I didn’t have sunglasses or anything to stave off how intense the light was, and at last I was forced to close my eyes, just for an instant.
The second I opened them again, the light was fading. Like the magic had been waiting for me and the others to look away. It was still a private ritual, even though it glowed distractingly brightly.
Technically, Amaya and Anwaar didn’t look at all different, but nonetheless something had changed. The way they moved when they hugged one another, or something in Amaya’s smile as she turned to face me, or the tiniest zap of static-like energy when she brushed her fingers over my arm. Something had shifted, and undoubtedly for the better.
“You looked radiant,” I told the oryx-woman before I turned to her sister. “As did you!”
“You did,” Horus agreed as he stepped forward and nuzzled Anwaar’s neck gently. “Like a true agent of Mercedes.”
“Mage power is strong, but hers is especially potent,” Amaya said with a proud smile, and I grinned at the pink flush on Anwaar’s cheeks. “That’s why… Rogues like Aiken are so dangerous. No one to keep them balanced unlocks incredible power, but it’s also dangerous.”
“I remember,” I said a little grimly, but then I smiled. “But he’s gone now. And we’re going to figure out how to get both of you out of the Order properly.”
I still didn’t understand everything that went on in the organization, but the corruption went deep, possibly even all the way to the top. I wasn’t about to abandon my wife or my sister-in-law to a fate like that. I wasn’t even going to let Vel-Rala be abandoned to a fate like that. The cockatoo-woman was actually kind of nice, now that she was no longer married to a supreme asshole.
Also, I would be a supreme asshole in my own right if I abandoned a woman to a life where she was just a tool for some faceless organization, literally incapable of feeling love, just because she’d been a bit of a bitch.
“We can’t thank you enough, Alex,” Anwaar said, and her usually flat voice was uncharacteristically earnest. “If not for you and yours… I fear to think what would have befallen my dear sister. And me.”
Her brow furrowed in contemplation, and I had to sympathize. If Amaya had been forced to accept the role of Prophetess, that would have left Anwaar forever separated from her augur partner. Or worse.
I had the sense that obsolescence in an organization like the Order didn’t usually end well.
“You don’t have to thank me for anything,” I said firmly. “I’m just doing what’s right. And honestly, you could even argue I’m being selfish. I’m doing it to save the people I care about, my Crew.”
“You’re part of the Crew now,” Horus added with a grin, and he nuzzled Anwaar’s neck again. “You have no choice, love.”
Anwaar laughed and pushed him away, and I laughed at his overdramatic pout. It didn’t last long, though, and a moment later the smile was back on his face. After so long separated from the ibex-woman, and after worrying about her so constantly, I could tell it would take a lot to bring down Horus’ mood.
Unfortunately, I reckoned that was exactly what I was about to do.
“Not to break up this happy moment, but we do have other things we need to think about,” I said to the group at large, and I pulled Shay, Zoie, and Amaya into my arms since I was suddenly feeling protective. I was only going to speak, but words could cut almost as sharp as a knife sometimes. “We need to fix Jenner.”
“Oh, yes,” Zoie said as her cat ears flattened mournfully against her head. She, too, must have momentarily forgotten his sorry state in the wake of Amaya and Anwaar’s beautiful display. “He won’t last long if we don’t do something soon.”
“What’s wrong with poor Jenner?” Amaya asked, and her rain-colored eyes went wide with concern.
“It happened while you and Ani were away,” Horus explained. “But he has some… curse in his head. At first it was just innocuous, really. He’d forget things. But we soon realized… his brain is basically a time bomb, ready to self-destruct when his thoughts turn to something they shouldn’t.”
I remembered how Horus and I had tried to get a read o n Jenner’s mind. I recalled the red tendrils, the cracks in his Mind Diamond, the angry orange color of it. If not for my time-trance and Horus’ alchemist abilities, Jenner probably would have already sprung that horrifying curse trap and shattered his own mind.
“We were hoping you would have some idea on how we could fix him,” Horus then said to Anwaar, and even through the concern he had for our koala friend, I could see the sheer awe and adoration in his expression as he looked at the ibex-woman. He had no doubt she would have a solution, and that conviction was so intense I found myself believing the same.
Anwaar was a talented mage by any metric, and very well-educated. I trusted her with Jenner’s life as surely as I trusted her with Horus’, or my own.
I was so lucky to have such a reliable Crew. If I hadn’t been terrified for Jenner’s sanity at that moment, I might have teared up from sheer appreciation of them. As it was, I held my wives that much closer to me.
Anwaar tapped two fingers against her lips in concentration, and I could practically see the cogs turning in her mind as she ran through her extensive knowledge in the hopes of finding a viable answer. Even though she was just thinking, something about her singular focus had me watching raptly.
Until my attention was pulled away by a small cry.
“Mate!”
Nova appeared as if from nowhere, dripping wet, with her clothing sticking to her skin. She didn’t seem to notice or care she was soaked, though, as she rushed toward me and pulled me into a hug. I barely had time to reciprocate before she’d let go and hugged Shay, then Zoie, who hissed at being hugged by someone so sopping wet but tolerated it anyway.
“You slept through all the interesting stuff, Nova!” I laughed. “Sleeping in the bathtub must have muffled your hearing!”
I knew the siren-woman missed the lake that had bordered her old home, so she’d taken to sleeping in the tub in the last few days, which thankfully kept her out of view while we handled Aiken and Luhrmann.
Nova grinned at me, but she stopped short when she saw Amaya, who was staring right back at her. The siren-woman cocked her head in a curious gesture, and Amaya looked at me expectantly.
“Oh!” I suddenly remembered. “Amaya, you haven’t-- this is Nova. She’s the last of the Lakuna Children. And the latest addition to our little family.”
“Growing less and less little by the day,” Zoie remarked with a knowing smile, and when I looked at her, I saw something glitter in her blue eyes, something that had me making a mental note to spend some proper time alone with her as soon as possible. Something more than a quick fuck before a daring, desperate plan that could get me killed.
“Nova,” Amaya repeated as she looked the siren-woman up and down. For a moment, I was worried she wouldn’t like the green-skinned woman, but I brushed that aside at once, because Amaya was one of the kindest, sweetest people I knew.
And, sure enough, a moment later, she grinned.
“Aren’t you a vision?” she said, and Nova trilled happily and reached out to take Amaya’s face in both her hands.
“Maya,” she said firmly, and Amaya giggled.
“Close enough,” she said, and she reached up to wrap her fingers around Nova’s wrists and squeeze her hands fondly.
I laughed a little, but this was cut off when a weight then slammed into my side, and I turned to see Rylan with his arms wrapped tight around me.
“I heard noises!” he cried. “I saw-- you and Uncle Horus-- you-- I wasn’t sure if I should come to help, but-- but--”
“Hey, hey,” I said gently, and I turned in Rylan’s grasp so I could hug him properly. “It’s alright, everyone’s okay. Everyone’s safe. Look, see? Everyone’s here. Even Amaya and Anwaar are back!”
Rylan only then seemed to actually notice how many people were standing around us, and some of the tension in his skinny frame relaxed as he took it all in. But it was back a moment later.
“What about Mr. Jenner?”
“We were just discussing that, actually,” I admitted, and I looked over at Anwaar, who was watching Rylan and me with a fond, wistful expression. “Do you have any ideas then, O Great Mage of the Order?”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Anwaar said with a laugh. “But I know enough about some magical theory that I could… approximate something.”
I spread my hands in the universal gesture for ‘please continue, you have the floor,’ and Anwaar did continue.
“Well, Jenner’s curse has been planted inside his mind,” she said. “It’s a mental… it’s a metaphysical construct. It lacks a corporeal form. It literally only exists inside his head. His mind, really. The mind and the brain are connected, but they are separate entities.”
I nodded while trying to look thoughtful, but I wasn’t super interested in a lecture on the philosophical differences of mind and matter when one of my friends was on the brink of total mental collapse, with only a temporary induced coma keeping him safe.
“Normally, the only way to fix a curse that doesn’t have an explicit completion requirement is to get the person who first planted it to undo or remove it,” the ibex-woman went on.
“Which obviously isn’t an option,” I said flatly, but then I wondered what the ibex-mage meant by ‘explicit completion requirement.’ Maybe ‘true love’s kiss’ like from those fairytales. But somehow I doubted true love’s kiss would do anything to help Jenner right now, sweet as it might be.
“It’s not,” Anwaar agreed. “So, perhaps we can… get around the problem of the curse being incorporeal. We make it corporeal, and remove it. Like surgery.”
“What?” Zoie frowned, and I could tell she was just as invested in Jenner’s state as I was. He had been one of the only people to be kind to her back when she’d been a prospective wife and slave-in-all-but-name to Dagmar, the bastard I’d killed soon after arriving in this world.
“We make it corporeal,” Anwaar repeated. “By taking Jenner into the Dark Realm.”
“What?” I echoed Zoie from a moment earlier. “But-- we can’t! He doesn’t have Traveler blood!”
“It’s the only solution I can think of right now,” Anwaar said as she shrugged her slender shoulders apologetically. “Maybe if I had several months, and access to the Order’s archives, I could find some other way to lift such a tenacious curse trap from inside someone’s mind, but we don’t have the luxury of those resources right now.”
“My love,” Horus said to her. “I trust you. With my life. Do you swear you think this will work? It’s not just…”
“I do,” Anwaar promised him, and she raised her chin to look at the rest of us. “I might not know Jenner as well as you all do, but I value him, and I value his life. I swear to you, I think this will work. Alex’s Traveler blood is strong. I believe he can will Jenner to join him in the Dark Realm.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “So, what exactly do you plan to do with the Dark Realm?”
“In the Dark Realm, you can… manifest constructs,” Anwaar explained. “It is a space of energy, of dreams, really. Nothing there is solid. But you can make them solid. You can turn pure mental energy into physical things, pull them out into the material world. So, I propose that you and Rylan travel into the Dark Realm with Jenner, and try to… to give the curse a physical form to remove it from his head.”
“Like removing a tumor?” I asked. Now I understood what she’d meant by surgery.
“What’s a tumor?” Anwaar deadpanned.
“Like a… growth,” I said. “Your cells are supposed to kill themselves automatically when they get too old, but if they forget to do that, they turn into a tumor that can kill you by taking up space and resources from healthy cells in your body.”
I wasn’t a biologist by any measure of the term, but that much I remembered.
The ibex-mage looked intrigued by the concept, but that didn’t matter right now.
“It’s not important,” I said and waved this aside impatiently. “The point is, I think that might work! It’s certainly worth a try.”
Anything was worth a try, if it would save my friend. Jenner had been one of my very first friends and allies here in Aventoll, and I wasn’t about to let him die or lose his mind without putting up one hell of a fight.
“We can’t just let him die like this,” Shay agreed with a firm nod. “He has done too much for us. He’s part of our family.”
