Witches vs Wizards Read online

  She could see Tel now, their spells no barrier to sight. He was leaner now, and appeared older than she would have expected. It had only been a year, though in some ways it felt like no time had passed at all. Tel had grown a beard, dark like his hair. His eyes were the same, though; brown like cocoa, at the same time both penetrating and strangely vulnerable. Cathis had always loved his eyes.

  “It’s good to see you again, Cathis,” Tel said. He spoke softly, yet in spite of the wind his voice was as clear as if he’d been standing at her side; he was using a cantrip to project his words.

  Cathis was snapped out of her contemplation of her ex-lover’s face. His use of such petty spells had always irritated her. Magic wasn’t some party trick for impressing the country folk; it was a gift, one that should be used to help others and better their lives. It riled her to see it squandered like copper pennies at a harvest festival.

  Tel had never fully agreed with that; oh, he had always claimed to respect her beliefs, but she would always catch him using his magic to complete some mundane task or amuse himself. That always led to the same fight, the same pointless exchange of views that could never be resolved.

  “Don’t take it so seriously,” he’d say. “I only do it once in a while, and I won’t do it again.”

  Yet he would, of course, only he’d be more discreet, until she’d catch him again and they were back at the start of the same argument.

  Tel had always managed to find a way to mollify her, to break down her walls and get her to forgive him. But he never changed.

  He still hadn’t; the voice cantrip was proof of that.

  “Say your piece and leave me alone, Tel. We—I don’t have time for you right now.” Her words were sharp enough not to need magical enhancement.

  Tel looked hurt—an expression that came naturally to him—but Cathis thought there was a harder edge to the set of his mouth. Was it the beard that gave his features that cast? She had to admit that it suited him, made him appear less like an excitable puppy—ecstatic when he received attention, pathetically downcast when this was denied.

  “I’d hoped we could at least be civil—” he began.

  “After what you did?”

  The hard edge was in his voice now. “I truly regret what I did, and I apologise for it—as I did at the time.” For a moment, it appeared that he would say more, but he bit back the words.

  Cathis knew what they would have been. “As I did not, right? You still think I should be the one saying sorry—”

  His anger flashed. “We were supposed to share everything!”

  “What you did proves I was right not to tell you!”

  Once again, Tel swallowed whatever he’d been about to say. He took a deep breath.

  “I didn’t come here to repeat all the same things we said before.”

  “Then why did you come here?”

  “I thought you might be happy to see me.” At last, his emotions got the better of him, and he added, “I thought you might have moved on and let things go.”

  The baselessness of the accusation stung her. What the hell did he imagine she’d been doing? Sitting at home and nursing her grievances?

  “I have moved on, Tel. I’ve put you in the past. I just wish you were capable of doing the same.”

  “You always underestimated my capabilities,” he said, his voice low. “Perhaps today you’ll finally realise that.”

  “Tel, I’ve never—” Cathis began, but he had turned away from her, angering her once more with his petulance. Of course, he still blamed her for what had happened. Tel had never learned how to have a good hard look at his flaws.

  Their final argument, the fight that had broken them, had come when Cathis could not find her wand, which she had needed for a ritual of Dorvic rune carving. It was to have been the first step along the path that would eventually lead her here, to the heart of the Confluence. Even then, she had been preparing. However, when the time came to inscribe the runes upon a set of rocks, her wand was missing. Tel had taken it.

  Between mages, such things were not done; to touch another’s wand, never mind make use of it, was a show of disrespect that could easily be construed as a deadly insult. Between Cathis and Tel, things were different, and had been ever since they’d fallen in love as students under Archmage Mawlen. They had frequently combined their magic and made use of each other’s wands. At first, they’d always done so with scrupulous attention to respect and permission, but familiarity had added layers of casualness that their fellow mages, especially Mawlen herself, had looked upon with disapproval.

  Once, it had led to a storm between them, as Tel had borrowed Cathis’ wand for some petty conjuration. She’d been furious—using her wand to indulge that habit of his she deplored the most—and she’d let him know she would not tolerate it again. He’d promised that he would never do so.

  Of course, he’d broken that promise, and she’d caught him doing it that day. It had led to a terrible scene, in which Tel had tried to convince her that the matter wasn’t as serious as she was treating it.

  “It’s not like I’ve been fooling around with it,” he’d insisted. “I was trying something.”

  “Trying what?”

  “To control fire,” he’d said, adding almost proudly, “I think I’m getting the hang of it. Perhaps one day, I’ll be as good as Mawlen.”

  Fire was the most capricious of the elements—it had to be created, and was not found otherwise, save in the depths of the earth. Moreover, it was the only element that consumed. As such, it was the hardest to master. Of all the mages Cathis knew or knew of, only Archmage Mawlen could truly claim such power. Tel had been trying his best to control fire for a long time, sharing his growth and his frustrations with her as he went. At another time, his growing proficiency would have delighted her, but now he had gone too far.

  “You used my wand—you used up its power!” she’d raged at him.

  “Do you need it for something?” His look had been defensive, marred with a confusion that she’d felt sure he was feigning to deflect her accusations.

  “I need it to—” she’d said before she could stop herself, her anger getting the better of her.

  “To what?” Tel had frowned. “What were you going to do?”

  Cathis had not told him about her plans: the runes, the rocks, the Confluence—any of it.

  She might have pretended to herself that she wasn’t ready, that she wanted to surprise him with her new skill, but deep down, Cathis knew this wasn’t the case. This was to be a great work of magic, and Tel… Tel was too frivolous for such things. She didn’t trust him not to interfere, not to distract her. When Cathis had first conceived her plan, she’d agonised about whether to tell him, but it was clear to her now that she’d done the right thing.

  The truth had come out during the fight. She hadn’t been able to hide it.

  “You didn’t tell me,” Tel had said, and it became his crutch. Reproach him as she might for his behaviour, his transgressions, his attitude, and the use of her wand, for him it all came back to the fact that she’d been keeping secrets. It was an impasse he could not cross, he’d said, and he’d tried to use it to justify his demand that she forgive him. As their words had grown more bitter, he turned it into a worse offence than anything he’d ever done to her.

  At that point, there was no going back for either of them, and before the sun had set that day, he was gone. Had he left, or had she cast him out? It was impossible to say. They each claimed the moral high ground, each as firmly entrenched in their positions as if they had been made of stone.

  So it ended.

  Now they were here, with the winds strong enough to tear chunks of pale grey stone from the cliffs and the Confluence less than half an hour away.

  Even as her mind registered that fact, Cathis felt her protective sphere contract under the force of the wind. She was suddenly aware of the precariousness of her situation. She could spare no more time or thought for Tel.

 
She focused on her tasks, first reinforcing her shield, then beginning the ritual that would turn her river stones into receptacles of power. Cathis connected them one to the other, multiplying their collective strength, transforming them into a single vessel for the Confluence.

  Though she went as quickly as she dared, Cathis was confident in herself. Had she not gone over the steps of the ritual in her mind a hundred times over, learning each one until it was as familiar to her as the contours of her hand? She might have worked hastily, but she worked thoroughly, and throughout the whole process she was as calm as if she’d been reading her notes in the comfort of her study.

  Only when she had completed the last step and spoken the final words of power did she allow herself to glance at Tel.

  What she saw made her gasp in surprise.

  Tel was sitting cross-legged on the ground, in the centre of a pattern that appeared to have been scorched into the earth. His tattoos were glowing with a vivid orange light. In front of him flickered a sourceless fire, almost three feet tall and half as wide, the flames leaping and crackling despite their lack of fuel.

  Cathis couldn’t believe it. Had Tel—had he mastered fire? It has only been a year since they’d parted. Was such a thing possible?

  Tel was speaking over his living flame, but the winds tore away all sound. Even as Cathis gaped, a tree whirled by overhead, its roots ripped out by the approaching typhoons. Even though it missed her sphere by some distance, Cathis flinched.

  The unfortunate tree was just the first piece of flying debris. More soon came, and chunks of grass-topped earth. Rain lashed Cathis’ sphere like hail. She poured more of her magic into it, her tattoos glowing. With half an eye, she saw Tel’s own arm tattoos light up as he too strengthened his defences.

  She suddenly realised how dark it had grown. The sun had been enveloped by heavy clouds. The winds formed fists that battered at her shield, seeking to overwhelm it with brute force.

  Then all was still. All was quiet.

  The Confluence had arrived.

  ***

  Cathis felt a profound stillness. It was like the pause that comes after a great wave washes inland while the next one is gathering to break. It was the breath taken before tragic news is delivered to a loved one. It was the whole of creation hesitating, unsure what will happen next.

  Someone less prepared, less determined, might have hesitated—too awed, too intimidated, too afraid to act. Not Cathis. She knew that to delay was to lose her chance, and very probably her life.

  She spoke the words that began her ritual.

  Was it her imagination, or was Tel speaking as well? She didn’t have the luxury to check. Tel would have to hold his own now, as would she.

  Then the Confluence broke over them both, the hearts of the two impossibly huge storms crashing together. For a moment, it was the loudest noise Cathis had ever heard; then her ears failed her and all she could feel was pressure. Blood ran from her ears, but she did not notice it. Her sphere contracted, yet she ignored it. The headland was pounded to pieces about her, and all Cathis focused her mind on was her ritual.

  The tattoos on her arms glowed once more, but now with a blue so bright it was almost white. Her magic leapt from them, coruscating towards the line of river stones. The Dorvic runes on them pulsated with light.

  At once, Cathis felt a connection; the magic she had put into the stones called to the wildness above her, entreating it, begging to be made as one with the Confluence. And the storms responded—Like draws Like—rushing towards her trap.

  Cathis created a conduit for it, an opening in her sphere that permitted ingress to a tiny amount of the energy that now bore down upon her. In spite of this, the force was immense. It surged in like a victorious army breaching a fortress, like water bursting a dike. It almost broke through, and only at the last second did she manage to shrink the aperture to the size of a pinprick. Even so, it was all she could do to prevent the Confluence from widening it.

  Then, unexpectedly, unbelievably, the pressure lessened. It was still huge, but it was manageable. She could now make the power of the Confluence flow smoothly into the river stones, there to be trapped in the bonds of the ritual.

  Cathis didn’t understand why, until out of the corner of her eye she beheld an orange glow.

  Turning her head, she saw that Tel’s flame had grown, though it was wavering and guttering so that its form was indistinct and its size varied from moment to moment. It was like a fire struggling to survive on a night of bad weather, the wind trying to pull it apart as the rain threatened to drench it entirely.

  Which, of course, was exactly what was happening.

  Tel’s fire, sustained by his own magic—for she could see his tattoos glowing orange as he put his power into his creation—was not trying to absorb the might of the typhoons. It was challenging it.

  The scale of Tel’s ambition, of his arrogance, took her breath away. He too had provided a way through his shield, and into it howled the wind and rain, hurling themselves on the fire. Cathis couldn’t help but look closer, and she realised that Tel’s breach opened and closed at rapid, regular intervals, never permitting entry to more than his fire could handle. Each burst was consumed by the fire, the transferred energy keeping it alive and sustaining it in the face of each new assault.

  Cathis understood what he was doing. She had studied the use of fire, though she had neither Tel’s fascination with, nor his control over, it. However, there was one thing she didn’t understand.

  Why?

  Fire did not contain—it burned, leaving nothing behind but ash. Tel could not hope for any lasting advantage from his ritual, impressive as it was. So what was the point? Why go to all this trouble?

  She had to know. Cathis risked a mental communication.

  —Why are you doing this?

  His response, as before, was immediate.

  —Because I can. Because it’s possible—and I’ve shown it, I’ve proved it can be done. And because—

  —You’re insane! If your ritual should fail—

  —It won’t. I won’t. I—

  Cathis broke the mind contact. She didn’t care what Tel was doing. His thoughts had awakened a nascent fear within her. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted. In the brief moments she’d given him, her sphere had shrunk again, and her conduit was being pushed wider. She drew on her reserves of power to reinforce both. Her head was pounding and she felt the fatigue in her limbs. Cathis had never expended such power, and she knew she’d pay for it later—presuming she survived the experience. Having given so much of herself, she refused to fail.

  Now that she was concentrating on her ritual, she felt in control. It was working; the river stones were containing everything. It was then that Cathis started to doubt.

  Was it working too well? Was it all too easy? In spite of the pain she was in, she had expected worse, prepared for worse.

  Was Tel’s ritual taking too much of the Confluence away, siphoning it off and—her eyes widened—denying it to her?

  At first she pushed the doubt aside. Surely Tel didn’t have the power to do that, even if he had the inclination. Yet she could not ignore the thought completely. It worked both ways—he was able to maintain his own ritual only because she was also drawing on the Confluence. He’d known about her ritual; had he come here today in the knowledge that with her unwitting help he could succeed himself?

  Because I can. Because it’s possible.

  That was Tel’s motivation for most things; he did them because he could and because he wanted to see what would happen. Now he was doing it again, and worse, he was spoiling her own plans merely to gratify one of his own flights of fancy.

  Cathis felt her heart grow hot within her. No! I will not permit this!

  Slowly, carefully, Cathis widened the opening in her sphere, allowing a little more of the Confluence to come through. She expended more of her magic, giving the river stones the necessary capacity to hold the extra energy now flowin
g into them. The strain was almost enough to knock her to the ground, but even as her knees began to buckle, the forces assailing her lessened and she regained control.

  This time she knew what had happened, and a darting glance confirmed it. Tel’s fire had grown larger once more. He had matched her efforts, feeding more of the Confluence to his flame.

  —Leave off, Tel!

  Her mental message was a growl, and before he had a chance to answer, Cathis was widening the opening once more.

  Again, just as she was on the verge of being overwhelmed, Tel began drawing off more of the power—of her power.

  —Stop it, Tel!

  —Don’t you see—

  She broke off before he could finish his thought. She wouldn’t let Tel win. She had spent too long waiting, too long preparing for this moment. She’d already given so much of her life to Tel—he wouldn’t take this away from her as well.

  Cathis could feel him trying to establish a connection, but she refused to permit it. Instead, she gave him a mental shove. If he didn’t understand that message, there was no hope for him. It was the last one she intended to give.

  She let yet more of the Confluence in. Now she could truly feel its power. Her ritual bound her to the stones; they were linked by her magic. Cathis tried to grasp that power, use it for her own, but it resisted.

  Then it fought back.

  The shock was like a slap of ice cold water in the face, like a freezing gale chilling her to the bone and making her teeth ache all the way to their roots. For a moment, all Cathis could feel was pain, and that moment was all it took for her to lose her grip on the ritual. Had she not taken on more, she might have been able to recover, to wrest back control, but she had gone too far, used up too much of her magic.

  Her ritual began to fail.

  A river stone at the end of the line burst into fragments, exploding like a balloon filled with too much air. The energy it had held couldn’t be contained by the remaining stones, and Cathis was no longer able to use her magic to make up for the loss. The next stone along the line also detonated, and Cathis knew that she had failed. The stones would shatter one by one, and unless she could extricate herself from the ritual now, sever the ties between herself and the stones, all the power they’d been holding would pass into her—and tear her body apart.