Magic Zero Read online

  “I heard your cries,” he said, his voice like the growl of a great, jungle cat. His skin, now a deep forest green, seemed to glisten wetly in the dim light thrown from the ghostfire candles on the walls.

  “They’re Nimib assassins,” Timothy explained breathlessly, glancing back up the way they had come. “I think they want to kill me.”

  “You think they want to kill you?” Edgar asked incredulously as he flew above their heads. “What could possibly have given you that idea?”

  “Quiet, bird,” Ivar commanded, studying the two cloaked men who were descending the stairs toward them, weapons in hand.

  The Nimib stopped when they saw Ivar and held their knives before them. “We have no fight with you, great warrior of the Asura,” the older Nimib said with a courteous bow of his head. “Step away from the boy so that we may complete our sacred mission.”

  Timothy gasped as Ivar stepped back, exposing him to his attackers.

  “What are you doing?” he exclaimed.

  “It is a holy mission,” the warrior answered. “It is not my place to stand in their way.”

  Timothy stared at Ivar in horror. “So you’re not going to stop them from killing me?”

  They were on the stairwell landing, the Nimib coming down toward them. A corridor led away from the landing, deeper into SkyHaven, and from the corridor came the glow of ghostfire lamps, their light gleaming off the bald pate of the Asura as he shook his head and cast a hard look at Timothy. The wisdom that was always in his eyes was joined now by mystery.

  “No. You are going to stop them from killing you.” He offered the boy his staff.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Timothy asked as the Asura placed the intricately carved wooden staff into his hands. He could see the calm in Ivar’s eyes, the confidence there, and he knew that his friend had no doubt that he could defend himself. But Timothy was not so sure.

  “I’m glad you believe in me. Really, I am,” the boy said. “But what if you’re wrong about me? What if I can’t beat them? What if they kill me?”

  Ivar shook his head. “I am not wrong. I am your teacher. I have taught you many things. Now it is time to see how much you have learned.”

  Timothy turned to face his grinning attackers.

  “Ivar, do you really think this is wise?” Sheridan asked politely. The Asura only frowned at him.

  “Of course he thinks it’s wise!” Edgar cried. “Caw! He thinks everything he does is—caw!—wise! That doesn’t mean he’s always right!” The rook touched down on the mechanical man’s shoulder. “Those leeches are going to kill our boy.”

  “Quiet, bird,” Timothy heard Ivar say. “The Nimib are used to killing with magic, their physical combat skills should be on par with Timothy’s. It will be a fair fight.”

  Staff in hand, Timothy stiffly approached the Nimib assassins. Dragon-face snickered, his eyes turning to slits as he lowered his body into a fighting stance. “What you are sickens me,” he spat, and lunged.

  Timothy dodged, but the curved blade passed dangerously close to his throat.

  “Remember what you were taught,” Ivar coached. “Choose your first attack wisely.”

  He began to replay the Asura’s endless lessons on self-defense through fevered thoughts, and for once wished he had paid closer attention. The younger assassin was next to move. The crescent scar on his face gleamed as he darted forward, feigning an attack to the left, then switching to the right. Although Timothy made a valiant attempt to block the knife slash with the staff, he was hesitant, his reaction time too slow, and the blade cut a nasty gash through his nightshirt and the tender flesh beneath.

  Timothy hissed in pain and stepped back. Sheridan and Ivar had stepped out into the corridor, leaving him to face the two assassins on the broad stairwell landing by himself. If he let himself be forced down the stairs, he knew that they would have an advantage over him.

  The shallow cut stung and he could smell his own blood.

  Ivar sighed. “Choose your first attack wisely,” he repeated, stressing each word.

  Timothy took a few deep breaths, holding the staff up warily, the two assassins eyeing him, looking for an opening. In those precious seconds, the meaning of Ivar’s words began to gradually sink in. Timothy’s anger tempted him to strike out at the younger assassin, at the one who hurt him, but he guessed that the Nimib with the crescent moon tattoo on his face was the lesser of the two fighters.

  Timothy lunged toward the grinning boy, who seemed eager to continue their conflict. Then, abruptly, the un-magician changed his direction and swept the staff out, catching the older assassin by surprise. The dragon-tattooed man grunted as the staff connected with his face, spinning him around, baring his back. Timothy brought the staff above his head with swiftness born of years of practice, and cracked it down upon the assassin’s spine.

  The younger Nimib, seeing his comrade in danger, attacked again, but carelessly this time. Timothy blocked the young assassin’s wild attack with ease, following through with a satisfying roundhouse kick to the boy’s tattooed face.

  “Oww! That’s going to leave a mark!” Edgar cawed.

  Timothy wanted to laugh, but the older sorcerer had recovered.

  “The Asura has passed some of his skills on to you, boy,” the killer said as he switched his razor-sharp dagger from one hand to the other. “It saddens me to think that valuable knowledge will be gone when you are no longer breathing. Such a waste.”

  The Nimib lunged again, this time the knife poised to pierce Timothy’s heart. The boy stepped to the side and drove the staff into the assassin’s gut, then rapped his skull with it, driving the Nimib to the ground, unconscious.

  He spun away from his fallen foe, well aware that the battle was not yet done, preparing to meet the attack of the second assassin. The younger Nimib crouched, circling the landing warily, knife in hand. Their eyes locked, and Timothy could feel the cold hatred radiating from his opponent. Never had he experienced such intense, savage emotion.

  The young assassin came at him again, the shriek of a wild animal upon his lips. The crescent-scarred Nimib slashed out with his dagger. But this time Timothy was quicker, and he struck the young assassin’s wrist with a swift blow from the staff. The boy screamed, clutching the injured wrist to his chest. He scrambled to his partner’s side. The one with the dragon-tattoo moaned as he began to regain consciousness.

  Timothy watched them, his gaze unwavering. “Why?” he asked, abruptly losing his taste for combat. “What have I done to you?”

  The older Nimib shook himself awake and rose to his knees, his hand slowly reaching inside his cloak. The assassin removed a glowing orb from within his cape. “Our magic could not kill you, but perhaps if we bring this whole structure crashing down into the ocean . . . then we would succeed.”

  The Nimib held out the sphere of crackling energy. “Our kind do not fail. It is inconceivable.” The sphere began to emit a high-pitched whine, growing louder, as if the dreadful magic within it was building to a critical state. He held the sphere above his head. The crescent-scarred youth clasped his hands before him and gazed up at the shrieking object in awe.

  Timothy’s thoughts were in turmoil. If he tried to grab the sphere, would he be able to cancel out its explosive properties in time? He started forward, about to lunge for it, but he froze as a whipcrack of rolling thunder boomed through the hall, as if the storm outside had somehow touched down within the building. Above it all, a voice bellowed in rage.

  “How dare you!”

  Timothy spun to see Lord Nicodemus descending the stairs toward them with Alastor in his arms, a roiling cloud of supernatural energies drifting behind and above him. Clothed in an intricate dressing gown of gold and emerald green, the aged magician scowled.

  The Nimib reacted immediately, hurling the screaming ball of magic at the Grandmaster.

  “You are too late, mage,” the dragon-faced one cried madly, over the deafening churning of supernatural forces that fille
d the stairwell and seeped off into the side corridor. “Your secret weapon shall never be unleashed against your brothers in magic.”

  Timothy backed toward his friends, amazed at the speed with which Nicodemus reacted. The ancient mage dropped his cat to the floor and extended his arms. Arcane words spilled from his mouth and the orb of energy paused in midair, its momentum interrupted, hanging frozen before the sorcerer, a miniature sun, blazing brightly.

  “You endanger my houseguests, and now you have the audacity to threaten my home?” Nicodemus bellowed, his anger terrifying to see. “That will be all from you, I think.”

  A sound like ripping fabric filled the air.

  “Well, what do you know?” Edgar muttered in wonder from his perch on Sheridan’s shoulder.

  The air before the mage shimmered and ripped apart, a fissure opening in reality, a window to a red-skied, storm-churned dimension. Timothy was familiar with the concept of alternate dimensions—had lived most of his life in one—but he had never witnessed anything like this. The Nimib’s energy sphere was sucked into that red-skied world, and as quickly as he had torn it open, Nicodemus sealed that fissure in time and space with a dainty flourish of his age-spotted hand. The stairwell was disturbingly quiet, only the sound Alastor’s affectionate purring as he rubbed against his master’s leg and the whir of Sheridan’s gears interrupting the silence.

  The Nimib assassins sprang to their feet and pulled their cloaks tight about their bodies. Timothy could hear the spell they uttered and watched with wonder as they began to gradually fade away.

  “Oh, I think not,” Nicodemus whispered ominously. He extended his arms and silver, fluid magic flowed from his hands like liquid metal, engulfed the assassins. Tendrils of silver magic wound about the assassins’ heads, gagging their mouths, preventing them from uttering any further spells.

  “Are you all right, Timothy?” Nicodemus asked, his tone heavy with worry.

  “I—I’m fine,” he answered, staring at the captive assassins, his gaze locking on the younger Nimib’s terrified eyes. “Maybe just a little scared.”

  Alastor sprang up into Nicodemus’s waiting arms. “And so you should be, my boy,” the sorcerer said, stroking the hairless head of his pet. “If they would dare send assassins into my home . . . well, action must be taken. This is simply unacceptable.”

  “What are they so afraid of?” Timothy asked, gazing at the two helpless assassins held in the grip of Nicodemus’s magic.

  The old man wandered closer to the struggling Nimib, studying the men who dared to invade his home. “They are afraid of what you may become,” he said, looking away from the assassins, his pale blue eyes connecting with Timothy’s. “You’re the world’s first un-magician, boy. You could hurt them, if you wanted to. That’s why they fear you.”

  A little laugh of amazement and disbelief bubbled up out of Timothy’s lips before he could stop it. He shook his head. “Me, hurt them? I don’t understand.”

  “Think, Timothy. The guilds that comprise the Parliament of Mages work together in public, but in private there are suspicions, there are grudges, and quiet power struggles always in play. They spy on one another. And they fear you because they realize that your uniqueness makes you the perfect spy, capable of evading their glamours and exposing their nasty little secrets.”

  The words amazed Timothy. He had never even considered that he might have a role to play in the politics that his father and Leander had always been involved with. A spy? It seemed ridiculous. And yet a part of him was thrilled by the suggestion.

  “Who sent them? Which of the guilds?” Timothy asked, studying the struggling captives. Even though there wasn’t the slightest possibility that they could escape Nicodemus’s magic, still they tried to fight it.

  “Their sort never reveal such things,” Nicodemus said with a snarl. “That is one of the reasons that the Nimib are still thriving after so many centuries. Their secrets die with them.”

  “There is honor in that silence,” Ivar spoke up, his golden eyes intense as he stared at the ancient magician, his flesh gleaming damply in the corridor’s torchlight. “It is a shame that there are not more that hold honor in such high esteem.”

  Nicodemus glared at the warrior, his nostrils flaring as if the very act of his speaking was an insult. “Such wisdom from the mouth of a primitive.” He scratched a wrinkled area of pinkish flesh beneath Alastor’s ear. “Perhaps the anthropologists studying your people were correct all along. Perhaps the Asura were smarter than other animals. If only slightly.”

  Timothy felt Ivar tense beside him, and he placed a calming hand on the warrior’s muscular arm. The two of them stood with Sheridan just inside the corridor, off the stairwell landing. Edgar was perched atop the mechanical man’s head now, and they all stared at the tableau before them, the horrible sight of the sorcerer assassins writhing in the grasp of Nicodemus’s magic.

  “What will you do with them?” Timothy asked, trying now to avoid the gaze of the young Nimib assassin. “Give them over to the Parliament?”

  “No,” Nicodemus answered abruptly, turning his attention back to the assassins. “Those who sent these two into my home must be taught a lesson.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Edgar whispered to Sheridan.

  “Nor I,” the mechanical man concurred.

  Nicodemus again dropped his cat to the floor. He cracked his knuckles and wiggled his fingers, an amused grin spreading across his features. But his eyes were cold.

  “What are you going to do?” Timothy asked uneasily.

  The sorcerer did not answer, instead beginning to weave a spell that consisted of exaggerated flourishes and the uttering of an incantation that sounded more like the breaking of glass than a language. From behind their gags of magic, the Nimib assassins began to scream.

  “What are you doing to them?” Timothy shouted anxiously. He started to advance toward the mystic master, wondering if his ability to negate a spell on contact would stop Nicodemus, but Ivar’s rock hard grip fell upon his shoulder.

  “That would not be wise,” the Asura warned.

  The Nimib assassins’ muffled shrieks continued, and Timothy watched in horror as they writhed in agony.

  “This is awful,” Sheridan said. “I think I’ll turn my eyes off.” And he did; the additional light they provided winked out and left only the gloom of the corridor’s ghostfire lamps to cast their illumination into the stairwell landing.

  “I wish I could do the same,” Edgar whispered, and his wings fluttered softly.

  The assassins’ bodies began to shrink, their clothes swallowing them up as their plaintive cries became nothing more than grating, high-pitched squeaks.

  “Is it over?” Sheridan asked, his head swiveling around, searching for somebody to give him an answer so that he could again activate his visual receptors.

  “It’s over,” Timothy rasped, his own eyes wide with shock. “They’re . . . gone.”

  Nicodemus turned to look at them. “Gone?” he asked. “They’re not gone at all.”

  It was then that Timothy noticed that the piles of clothing were moving. He stepped closer. “What have you done?”

  “I’ve changed them into something more befitting their true nature,” Nicodemus answered haughtily. Alastor sat at his master’s feet, tail twitching eagerly.

  A pair of white-furred rodents emerged from within the garments. Timothy gasped in shock as he saw the tiny tattoos upon the faces of the rats. The small creatures sniffed cautiously at the air, and Timothy wondered if they were even aware of what had happened to them.

  “Word of the Nimib’s failure will soon get back to those who acquired their services,” Nicodemus said slowly, squatting down beside his pet, who watched the rodents with unblinking attention.

  “Then . . . then they’ll leave me alone,” Timothy said hesitantly, pulling his attention away from the rodents to the sorcerer. “Right?”

  “On the contrary, boy,” said the master of
the Order of Alhazred. “It may very well compel them to pursue you with even greater vigor.”

  Timothy felt his heart sink. To have to endure another night like this might be more than he could handle. “What are we going to do?” he asked, dreading the response.

  “The only way to keep them at bay is to make them even more afraid of you than they already are. They fear you. Show them that they have reason to fear you, even greater reason than they know. Show them what you can do to them if they continue to pester you.”

  Nicodemus smiled. “Become exactly what they feared you would become.”

  “A spy?” Timothy asked.

  Nicodemus snapped his fingers and Alastor leaped from his master’s side with a flick of its naked tail and an eager hiss. Timothy could only stand and stare, stunned, as the cat pounced upon the squealing rodents—ending their lives with needle-sharp fangs and tearing claws.

  The sorcerer nodded his head, a smile upon his thin, bloodless lips as he watched his pet dispose of the rats in his house.

  “A spy, yes. And so much more.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Timothy did not sleep well the rest of that evening. What dreams he had were fraught with horrid images of cloaked men with charred fingertips and tiny creatures with needle-sharp talons bent on taking his life, slicing him open. Disturbed by these nightmares he rose with the first light of dawn but did not wake Sheridan or Edgar.

  The rook was perched atop the headboard, his beak buried under one wing. Timothy thought he could hear the sound of light snoring coming from beneath the bird’s feathers. Sheridan was simply off, powered down, no lights in his eyes and no steam coming from the release valve at the side of his head. It always disturbed Timothy to see his friend this way. Sheridan was so much a person, so much an individual, that at times Timothy forgot that the mechanical man was not actually alive, and he hated to be reminded of it.

  He stood at the window and gazed down at the ocean, at the sun glinting off the tips of the blue waves, and across the gulf that separated SkyHaven from the mainland. Arcanum at night was beautiful, extraordinary. Its lights made it ethereal after dark. Yet Timothy had been here only days and already the city by daylight seemed ordinary to him.