Issue #58 – Alert UMW: Mages
Part 4
They emerged in the front lobby of the building just as others ran in from the adjacent hall. Jennifer was forced to lean on Lisa to keep from falling due to the disorientation that made her head swim.
“What was that?” She asked, screwing her eyes shut.
“The astral plane. It’s how I teleport.” explained Lisa.
“You have to teach us that one.” Elle said, looking back to see if Morganna’s Knights were still following them. Then she noticed that the lobby was empty. “And where’s girl that’s supposed to be watching the front desk? It’s her job to stop people like that from getting in!”
“She wasn’t here when we got here.” Kay said, “Besides, what was she going to do? Yell at them?”
“Shouldn’t we be leaving? We should be leaving.” Jeremy edged toward the door. Theresa didn’t move, but she nodded her agreement.
“They’ll find you.” Lisa said gravely. “Just like they found you this time. We need to stop them—buy some time for the others to get here.”
Jennifer was finally able to stand on her own and used that oppurtunity to scowl at Lisa suspiciously. “Who are these ‘others’? Don’t you think you three and those three are bad enough?”
Lisa sighed. “I can explain. But you—all of you—need to promise that you won’t tell anyone what I really look like.”
Illusions on top of illusions, that’s how Lisa thought best to safeguard her identity. Whether the other young mages told or not, they’d be telling them about the girl she looked like now when other people ‘knew’ that Occult was a tall, muscular blonde with a braid that could moor a ship.
To that end, she didn’t even bother waiting for a promise before exchanging one glamor for another. The red and black robes and hood fell over her and her staff expanded into her hand.
Jennifer took a step back in surprise. “Oh my…”
“Is that who I think it is?” Jeremy stopped his slow migration to the door.
“Oh hell yes. And that means the ‘others’ are the Descendants!” Elle’s eyes brightened as she looked toward Kay and Kareem. “That means you two are—“
“Nope.” Kay cut her off.
“Then who—“
“Her research assistant, tech support, spotter, creative and costume consultant, supply representative, PR analyst, emotional and professional adviser, and receptionist. But I prefer the term ‘sidekick’.”
Occult groaned at the chatter and turned to Jennifer. “They’ll be coming. I’m not asking any of you to stay, but any of you have spells that can help… well they would be a big help. These three work for someone who is incredibly dangerous and they are very powerful.
Jennifer thought for a moment, then turned to her friends. “Elle, Jeremy; get out of here.”
“Say what?” Elle demanded.
“You heard me. I’m sorry, Elle; your powers are neat and all, but bossing squirrels around isn’t going to save your life when they come for us. And Jeremy, same thing—what can pushing and pulling do?”
Elle glared at Jennifer. “You bitch.” It wasn’t shouted, just stated coldly, bluntly. Then she turned and stomped directly out the front door of the residence hall.
Dumfounded at normally upbeat and copacetic Elle’s sudden turn, Jennifer stood watching the door as it slammed behind her. Occult reached out to comfort her, but she shied away. “No, I deserved that.”
Fighting to keep her composure, she looked over to Jeremy, who held up his hands defensively.
“Hey, I know I suck. No apologies needed.”
“It’s not that.” she defended, “It’s just that I don’t want you two to get hurt.”
“I know that.” said Jeremy. “Tell you what, I’ll catch up to Elle and make sure she knows too.”
Jennifer managed to give him a small smile. “Thank you so much.”
As Jeremy headed out, Occult nodded to Kay. “Sharon, go with him and watch out for both of them. They’ll still be targets and Morganna still has Inexorable unaccounted for.” Kay nodded and went with Jeremy, allowing Occult to turn to Kareem. “Keenan, you’ve been awfully quiet. That’s usually not a good thing.”
“It isn’t.” He said. “I’m not as in tune with the Astral while in my physical body, but there’s a disturbance going on.”
“Isn’t that what the two knights do?” Occult recalled Kareem’s earlier description of the astral ‘warping’ caused by the presence of the two former lovers turned villains.
“Yes, but this isn’t them. If it were, I would have a headache; I don’t.”
“So what does an astral disturbance mean?” Jennifer asked.
Kareem shook his head. “It could be anything; something massively emotionally traumatic or uplifting for a large number of people, the single creature in immense agony or ecstasy… but in the context of the moment, I would wager it was some large magical undertaking.”
“It would have to be.” Occult realized. “There’s no other reason Morganna would send her henchmen to a random college unless there’s something here she wants.”
He started to go, but hesitated. “Will you be alright here?” He had enough propriety not to add ‘by yourself’ or ‘with them’ to the end of that, but she knew what he meant and nodded.
“We should at least be able to keep them busy until help arrives. But that won’t matter if Morganna’s plan is already underway.”
“Of course.” He nodded. “I’ll find out what I can and relay it.”
Occult watched him go, then took a deep breath, looking to Jennifer and Theresa.
“How do we fight them?” Jennifer asked.
“I don’t know.” Occult answered honestly. “The one that talked with you: she isn’t human. She’s like a golem or something. I’ve guess that makes her strong and fast.”
“You guess? I was hoping you might…” Jennifer faltered.
“Know more stuff?” Occult asked. “Well here’s the terrible secret: Besides Morganna, I’m the most experienced magic user on Earth, but I’ve still only been at this for two years.”
Jennifer gave her a blank stare. She would never admit it, but she’d been expecting the number of years there to be somewhere in the low triple digits. That’s how she always imagined magic to work; the masters should be Old Masters with centuries of experience just waiting to be lavished on an eager mind.
On the other hand, it was liberating in a way. She didn’t feel quite as intimidated and that made her bold enough to once again act as decisively as she was used to.
“We need to get outside.” She said.
“No, closer quarters are better.” said Occult. “Otherwise, the other two’s speed would destroy us.”
“You don’t understand.” Jennifer heard a door slam down the hall where the stairwell was located. “There’s a floor below us; we’re not standing on firm ground. Theresa’s a geokinetic—she needs rock to control.”
The young woman in question nodded, looking nervous.
Every little advantage helped, so Occult gestured for the door. “Alright. Come on!”
They were barely out of the door when Dana kicked open the one leading in from the hall. She saw them running out onto the patio and grit her teeth. “Don’t you know that we tracked you here? We can find you wherever you go. We can just take out time.”
Ignoring her own words, she tapped her powers. Wayne had taken to calling their strange mode of high speed locomotion ‘slides’. It was pretty apt; there wasn’t any other movement beyond surging forward, feet sliding over the ground as if over a skating rink with zero friction. This was far faster than they could run, and due to the origins of their powers, even faster when traveling in the others’ direction.
Because Wayne came up with the name, Dana would be damned if she would use it, so instead of sliding after them, she slipped.
What she’d shouted after them was true; with Manikin there, they had a steady lock on the four they were after. But just because they could hunt them down at leisure didn’t mean she was willing to. The sooner whatever Morganna wanted was done, the sooner she’d be unchained from the Wheel of Resurrection and Wayne. Then she could get back to her normal life and forget that she’d ever known about anything with words like ‘Resurrection’ in their names.
Sword at the ready, she lunged through the door.
***
When Kareem first emerged on the astral, having hidden his sleeping body behind a decorative hedgerow lining the residence hall, he first thought he hadn’t crossed over at all. Normally, permanent structures were faded and lacking in detail when viewed on the astral plane. With emotional investment from the people who occupied them, they grew more distinct and detailed. Non-permanent or mobile objects, unless they held great meaning to a sentient being, didn’t show up at all.
But here, everything seemed to be represented in detail, from each individual building, to the cars in the parking lot, and the blades of grass. Kareem had expected a little more definition here than in most places; a college served as home, school or work to thousands, which necessarily meant more emotional investitures, but there had to be something more to it than that.
It took him only a few minutes to find the tower.
From the astral side, it was a transparent spire surrounding the form of the original bell tower. It reached ten stories into the sky with a crenelated observation deck at the peak. A blue-white light poured our of the base, and when he looked closer, he saw tendrils of silvery light reaching up from the depths of what passed for the ground on the astral to join with whatever was emitting the light. Not far from the light, he saw Inexorable’s astral form; a man standing within a mythical vehicle of the gods.
As he watched, the whole structure began to take on more solidity.
“Ephemeral to Team.” He mentally connected to the astral plane transceiver built into his comm to send to the others. “What does the Book of Reason have to say about towers? I’m not entirely certain of what I’m seeing, bit Inexorable is at the traffic circle near the administration building and he’s inside the source of the astral disturbance—something that looks very much like a medieval tower.”
“Searching.” came Kay’s out of breath voice. “Got it. Wow, they really are just called wizard towers, but it says here that they’re not just a base; they’re a focus for magical energy. You place this on a leyline and it… Well just from skimming, it’s a magic battery or capacitor. Leylines are like power lines and you build a tower where it connects to as many as possible so you can use the power to fuel big spells.”
“What kind of big spells?” Occult joined in over the sound of cursing.
“The examples aren’t good.” said Kay. “Permanent wards, constructs (and it specifically lists manikins), or even gates between worlds.”
“Does it say how to shut them down?” Both Kareem and Occult asked at the same time.
“Um…” they both heard her rapidly tapping on her palmtop to advance the pages. “Oh, here. There’s some kind of keystone called a tower seed. It’s driven into the ground to ‘grow’ the tower and if you pull it up, the tower doesn’t disappear, but it does stop working as a battery.”
“And as far as I can tell, that seed is guarded by Inexorable.” Kareem added.
“Because this wasn’t hard enough with the two ‘lovers’ and Manikin on us.” Occult said bitterly.
***
Jay gave one last swing and the ‘head’ of the artifact was driven even with the floor. The tower convulsed and grew one more time, leaving him in a barren, round room made of gray stone. There was a ceiling of the same material a few feet above his head with no visible supports. The stairs off to one side led up to that ceiling and through a hole cut in it up onto the second floor.
There were no doors on the ground level, but he knew from experience that Morganna and Manikin didn’t need doors and if they needed him to stay or leave, he wouldn’t either.
The end result of his labors was disappointing to him. He’d gotten so worked up over the very likely event of Morganna turning on him that he’d gotten an image in his head of the tower being something more sinister than a rock cylinder with some empty floors.
Resting the sledgehammer on his shoulder, he started up the stairs to get a look as his ‘accomplishment’.
Floor after floor was the same with no variation. It was only when he reached the ninth floor did something different reach his ears: a crackling electrical surging sound that came from above.
Rushing up the last set of stairs, he arrived in time to see a massive piece of stone emerging from a swirling, rose colored vortex. It was a shallow bowl wide enough for him to lay down in and carved from a single block of seemingly flawless white marble.
Jay remembered it from the lair in Chicago; it was one of those things, like the device he’d just hammered into the floor below, that Morganna routinely sent Manikin to retrieve and then seemed to promptly forget about. The construct had spent over a week carefully restoring it; chipping away the stone and ash it had been buried in and then polishing it until it was pristine.
“This is…this is the Truke Urraska—Cistern of Exchange.” Jay jumped as he realized that Morganna was standing directly beside him. He hadn’t seen her or heard her arrive. “I… am fortunate that it… it wasn’t destroyed.”
“Yeah.” He said, uncomfortable with her proximity. “Looks good.”
Ignoring his presence completely, she spoke foreign and ear-twisting words of power and held one hand over the basin. A deep, blue mist flooded from her palm and began to condense into beads of shimmering liquid on its surface. Slowly, the beads began to join and run together, pooling at the bottom of the cistern. The air was filled with the scent of ozone and a sharp, unidentifiable extra that defied the senses.
“The cistern will fill.” Morganna breathed to herself, losing her usual manic speech pattern. “The tower will charge it.”
With her free hand, she gestured, opening another portal from which her body, dressed in a simple, silk shift, emerged.
Looking at it made Jay a little sick. He’d watched it grow for weeks in a pool of foul sludge, but it seemed even worse now; a pretty young woman, her arms folded over her chest as if awaiting burial. Except, by whatever power Morganna employed, she—it—looked completely alive except for a lack of breath. And yet it had no soul or mind of its own. That knowledge gave it an uncanny valley quality that even the artificial Manikin could never match.
Slowly, gently, the body was lowered into the growing pool of vibrant, blue liquid, its hair floating around the head as if in a gentle breeze.
Morganna leaned over her body, one hand still manifesting the blue mist, her eyes regarded it without the compassion due a corpse, or the nostalgia Jay assumed she’d feel. Instead, there was nothing but dark avarice there.
“Mine again.” Morganna murmured. “Me again. Without her. And… and then I will be strong again… powerful again. And this… this time I will not be denied.”
About Vaal
Landon Porter is the author of
The Descendants and
Rune Breaker. Follow him on Twitter
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