Страница 51 из 67
“Someone has cracked my i
“That is not possible,” the woman who met him at the portal said, appearing next to him, her shift gone, her luminous energy brightest of all.
His urgency wavered once more, knowing that he couldn’t even bring himself to use their names anymore. For one mind-numbing moment he thought he detected movement out of the corner of his eye, as though she were on the verge of touching his arm. No one touched him here, especially her. But he only imagined it. He knew she would never violate such a dictum. Yet he still jerked upright-now on the other side of the table-and forced his iron will to control his mind and force it back to the task at hand.
“It is possible,” he spoke, relieved at the same even tone as ever. “There is no other explanation for what’s occurred. There’s another magus.” Saying it aloud was still astonishing. “And that magus ca
While his followers rarely spoke without a direct query, their silence almost deafened. They would never gainsay his word, but an unbound spirit could be a thing of horror if even the smallest mistake in the summoning occurred.
He began thinking of the needed ritual objects and tapped the worktable, each appearing from their stored locations throughout the warehouse with each finger strike. Yet despite trying to focus on the work of constructing a perfect summoning, the itch that rode the back of his mind became a furious burn. Something wasn’t right? What wasn’t right?
An Olmec statue appeared on the table. Two thousand years old, its ornately carved jade a pulsing green of the living energy fused with the stone by the magus that crafted it mille
In mid-thought-leap, he froze as he caught a hint of the wrong essence, as though a wolf passing through the scent trail left by prey. He unleashed more energy to focus his senses as much as possible, the force becoming painful as it hammered through the statue, on the verge of incinerating the irreplaceable item.
Zeroing in on the trail, it finally led back to Martinez. Confusion sundered his concentration, and the energy drained away, the dust of the vaporized statue drifting u
“No,” he finally managed.
“Oh, yes,” the man spoke, voice a complete octave lower then his normal range, the teenage-boy-in-a-man’s-skin ma
“How? You were never initiated.”
A bellowing, mocking laugh ripped from the man’s large chest. Adrian started, another shock stabbing further into his ability to handle the situation as the astral plane nearest Martinez responded violently to the emotion. He can’t be a magus!
“Ah, you’ve finally figured it out. Watching you flit about like a mad fairy was most amusing. Almost made up for the shit I’ve had to eat at your hands for the last year.”
“But it’s not possible,” Adrian continued stoically, unable to get beyond the obviousness of the man’s presence in astral space, in Adrian ’s own sanctum. His mind worked furiously, and an idea emerged from a text read long ago. “You have to be bound by another magus. You’ve never revealed the slightest hint of potential. Nothing to convince those around you so you can draw power from their belief. These followers are mine, bound across most of a decade. You ca
Martinez shook his head, smile as condescending as any Adrian handed out. In another time, another place, Adrian would’ve bristled. But here it terrified. Where was the man drawing his power? Another, even more horrific, thought surfaced. Had the man managed to bind an unbound spirit? He’d read of such acts in only remnant pieces from ancient books filled with the art as black as the deepest cave. But to fail, to be dragged off to suffer torment for eternity? Not even a madman would risk such, despite the continuous flow of power that would render all the hated charades meaningless.
“You still don’t get it, Adrian. Your grasp of the arts is intuitive and even masterful. But the foundation of your art is mind-bogglingly limited. When I first met you, I did not believe it possible to construct such limitations and reach the height of your art. I certainly didn’t believe that you’d managed to craft an i
The pieces, despite the lunacy of the image they created, began falling into place. The strange astral print he couldn’t identify… the filth the man poured into his system. His mind simply refused to accept the possibility, despite it staring him in the face. “You murdered that man,” Adrian continued, unable to voice the painful truth of his own arrogant blindness. “After this much time you know me well enough to have crafted such a snarl that I couldn’t see anything.” As he spoke, he carefully began to cha
“I already told you. I couldn’t believe you’d managed to gain such knowledge and power with the shackles you’ve given yourself. We’d heard of you and finally managed to track you down. But we had to be careful. Had to approach you in a way that wouldn’t endanger us.”
Despite the situation, Adrian couldn’t help the words as they slowly dragged out of him. “What… are… you… talking… about?”
Another giant belly laugh. “You think others must believe you are a magician for your power to work. The more powerful that belief, the greater magic you have; hence all your silly public rituals. It’s rubbish. All rubbish. Power is power, and you’ve shackled yourself with meaninglessness. If one of my pupils taught you in this fashion, I would have him killed for such stupidity. Who taught you, Adrian? That’s what I’ve wanted to know all along. What we must know. Why I’ve put up with your insufferable arrogance. Your teacher is twisting magic learning and twisting minds in the process. Who knows what effect that might have on the meta planes? I can already see what you’ve rendered here through actually using other human beings as part of your rituals. Do you have any idea of what you’ve done to them? Who knows what other damage you might be wreaking on the natural order of things?”