Chapter Four

Ice Witch

Marcus Vogel

The newly annexed Gardnerian province of Issaan

The Holy Magedom’s central continent

Vogel steps toward the center of the dais at the head of Issaan’s Sun Hall, its heathen sand-gold hue cleansed by the Magedom’s Shadow to gray, the taunting purple moons Or’myr Syll’vir conjured into being above this newly annexed land finally blasted away.

Yes, he’s received messages that more purple moons have burst into being over Valgard and other Gardnerian provices. The geomancy Or’myr Syll’vir sent through the Wand’s V’yexwraith has been surprisingly difficult to subdue, slyly embedded as it is, through the Shadow Wand’s huge network of branching tethers.

Let Edwin Gardner’s bastard rockbat of a son have his moment, Vogel seethes. He’ll inevitably be ripped to shreds by the Magedom’s Shadow.

Gratified by the thought, Vogel stills, lifts his Shadow Wand, and conjures a suspended, steel-hued voice-amplification rune to hover in the air just below his chin.

A sea of Mage soldiers stand straight-backed and silent before him in neat rows, several of his high-level commanders gathered around him in a semicircle, including Fallon and Damion Bane, the power in the room burning with euphoric, violent triumph. The Magedom’s huge black flag flaps above them, just beyond the hall’s domed glass ceiling, the Ancient One’s white bird sewn into its center.

“Most Holy Mages,”

Vogel booms, his voice shot through with zealous triumph, “our annexation of the continent’s entire center will soon be achieved.”

A victorious roar erupts, echoing off the curving walls of the domed interior. The sound triggers a silver blaze of excitement through Vogel’s power, the muscles of his back straining against it. He glances at the roiling slate clouds gathering above, his Shadow-portal journey from the stump of the Great Heathen Tree to newly conquered Issaan over in the time of a breath. His Shadow Wand’s new ability to conjure lag-free portals has been a revelation, new powers emerging as the Wand’s power grows, all of it further proof of the Ancient One’s blessing of the Magedom’s Holy Might.

And the Magedom’s unstoppable march east.

A disturbance sounds at the far end of the hall’s long, central aisle, drawing everyone’s attention. Vogel narrows his gaze at the black-bearded Mage stepping into view at the aisle’s distant terminus. Several Level Five Mages have closed in around the man, wands drawn, troubled murmuring kicking up.

“Your Excellency,”

one of the Mages calls out over the distance via his own hastily conjured amplification rune, “the Magedom’s agricultural advisor, Mage Warren Gaffney, seeks an audience. He refuses our order to stay back. Says he brings dire news that cannot wait.”

“Lower your weapons, “ Vogel benevolently commands as he beckons Warren Gaffney forward. “Approach, Mage,”

he prods, concealing the spite crackling to life through his power. This is the Mage who spawned the light sorcerer Sagellyn Za’Nor, mother to an Icaral demon and ally to the Stae’nen Witch.

Warren Gaffney’s gaze darts around as he heads down the aisle, the thud of his boots on the stone echoing through the silent chamber as he strides toward the dais and stills before Vogel.

“Your Excellency,”

Warren Gaffney starts, forcibly straightening. “I bring news of Gardneria’s food supply. The Shadow power cast over Amazakaraan has spread west. A dark cloud of Shadow now covers Gardneria’s northernmost reaches, blocking sunlight and raining ash onto Mage fields. And the Magedom’s Shadow sea military exercises in the Voltic Sea . . . our fishermen there are bringing in corrupted catches, the fish poisoned and inedible, many with multiple eyes.”

His eyes focus on the Wand in Vogel’s hand. “We’re starting to fear that if this contagion spreads, it will bring famine to large sections of Gardneria.”

A tense stillness descends, every ounce of elemental Magery in the hall shivering expectantly toward Vogel.

“A sacrifice,”

Vogel finally states, calm and final.

Warren Gaffney blinks at Vogel. “A sacrifice, Your Excellency?”

“A sacrifice,”

Vogel repeats, enunciating the word. “?‘The Ancient One’s own must walk through the Reaping Times’ Shadow before they can emerge into His Holy Renewal.’?”

A beatific smile lifts Vogel’s lips. “When the Reaping Times are over and the Prophecy has been fulfilled, all will be cleansed and transformed, as the Book assures us. The waters will run clean. The air will be purified and your fields, my Blessed Mage, will turn gold with grain.”

Warren Gaffney’s brow knits tight. “But, Excellency, if there isn’t enough food—”

“Where is your faith, Mage?”

Vogel quietly cuts in.

A dangerous silence overtakes the vast hall, fear flashing across Warren Gaffney’s face. “In the Ancient One above,”

comes his rattled reply. “But, Your Grace, how will the Prophecy be fulfilled with our Black Witch lost to us?”

Vogel smiles. “It will be fulfilled because the Magedom’s True, Blessed Black Witch has risen.”

Vogel turns toward Fallon with bright, predatory interest and is stopped short by her eyes . . . they’re bright as ice daggers, and they meet his without one speck of intimidation.

Vogel suppresses a shiver, overcome by the heady sense of Fallon drawing up her power, her lines churning with lethal wind and killing cold, her ferocious desire for vengeance begging to give way.

Good, Vogel thinks, approval searing through his lines. I need your thirst for revenge. To annihilate the Whore Witch and her Icaral demon.

“Show them, my Black Witch,”

Vogel charges, as his silver-dark fire aura strains toward Fallon. “Show them the power that is bringing the heathens to their knees.”

Fallon’s mouth lifts into a frigid smile before she unsheathes her wand, raises it, and murmurs a spell low in her throat.

A chill wind whips up to encircle her, buffeting her dark garments, her raven hair. A CRACK sounds, triggering a collective flinch, a shiver of excitement racing through Vogel, as ice blasts from Fallon’s wand to collide with the empty middle of the central aisle.

A huge column of ice bolts up from the point of impact, Mages nearby jolting to their feet to stumble away from it as the column rapidly branches out to form a gigantic ice tree, the air markedly cooling.

Fallon’s gorgeous icy-green eyes flash to Vogel’s before she murmurs another spell, and the ice tree’s branches slam down onto the side aisles in impaling sprays of gravel, shocked sounds erupting as the Mages near the collisions jump back. Smaller ice branches crackle into being at each impaling branch’s terminus, spindly soldiers made of ice forming and rising, higher than any human.

The soldiers crack themselves off from the branches, Fallon’s ice army encircling the hall now. As one, they look to Fallon with gray-glowing eyes, and the air turns even colder.

Vogel’s power shivers with excitement as it sizzles against Fallon’s frigid magic, his every line straining to send fire into perhaps the greatest Ice Witch Erthia has ever known. “My Blessed Black Witch,”

he intones, “My True Black Witch, the Prophecy rests with you.”

Vogel flicks his finger at Warren Gaffney, and Fallon nods once before thrusting her wand toward the Mage.

The ice soldiers leap clear over the crowd, carried on great gusts of wind power, and land around Mage Gaffney.

“No,”

Mage Gaffney pleads with Vogel. “Excellency, please . . .”

The ice soldiers thrust their finger-spears into Warren Gaffney.

“Aughhh!”

he screams, then gurgles, then is silent as his bugged-out green eyes shift to frigid gray, his body icing over before shattering into a pile of bloodied shards.

The hall rustles with agitated emotion, a combination of zealous satisfaction and fearful awe stark in the air.

“?‘Entertain not a disbeliever,’?”

Vogel intones before he raises his Shadow Wand, bolts out a blast of silver-dark fire at Warren Gaffney’s icy remains and quickly renders them to char.

Vogel turns to Fallon once more in unspoken command.

Nodding, Fallon thrusts her wand forward, and her ice soldiers and tree all blast into mist that’s absorbed, in a sweep of gray frost, into Fallon’s wand.

Vogel scans the now silent sea of Mages. Raising his free hand, he thumps his fist lightly against the white bird marking the chest of his uniform. “Pray with me, Mages.”

Vogel launches into the prayer—“Oh Blessed Ancient One. Purify our minds. Purify our hearts. Purify Erthia from the stain of the Evil Ones.”

The entire hall joins in reverentially, violence thrumming through the prayer, an ocean of unstoppable Mage power rising.

Vogel senses the ice-cold rush of Fallon’s approach before she sweeps into the Sun Hall’s command tower, a panoramic view of Issaan’s Shadowed expanse visible through the tower’s ring of huge floor-to-ceiling oval windows.

Seeking a private audience with his Black Witch, Vogel flicks his finger at the two glamoured pyrr-demon soldiers bracketing the hall’s arching entrance. The demons exit, shutting the grayed door behind them.

Vogel surveys his beautiful Ice Witch and breathes in her glorious scent of icy wind as she stills, her power increasingly grayed by the Shadow Wand’s linkage to her lines.

“You will deploy back south and annex all of Southern Ishkartaan for the Magedom,”

Vogel commands.

He can sense the glorious surge of anger through Fallon’s power as she chafes at this command, a sudden chill overtaking the room.

“I seek to move against the Dryad Whore and her allies,”

Fallon insists.

Vogel’s domineering smile is undimmed. “All in good time, my Black Witch. But we must wait.”

The room’s temperature dips, hoarfrost needling to life across the oval panes of glass. “Giving their power a chance to grow?”

she challenges.

Vogel narrows his gaze at her, silver fire flashing along the edges of his vision. “No,”

he counters, “to weaken. Let the Fae Witch and her allies have their shielded moment. Dryad power is seasonal. Linked to Light. And soon, my Ice Witch, the world will darken as your winter descends.”

Fallon’s eyes widen with evident surprise as Vogel closes his eyes and sends out a mental call. The papery sound of wings fluttering descends, a multi-eyed raven swooping down from the rafter overhead to alight on Vogel’s shoulder, talons biting in.

Images from his multitude of Shadow ravens flood Vogel, images the Dryad Witch can’t shield.

Vogel opens his eyes and narrows his focus in on Fallon once more. “My runic eyes are in the Dyoi Forest. I am watching the Dryad Witch and those trapped there with her. As the scale of power begins to tip more strongly in our favor, I will draw her to us.”

“How?”

Fallon demands.

Vogel pulls out a Shadowed stone, the Amaz rune emblazoned on it transformed into a steely clouded gray. Intoning a spell, he closes his eyes and forms a detailed mental picture.

A ripple slithers over his skin, and Vogel shivers then opens his eyes. A dart of glee spikes through him in response to the astonished look on Fallon’s face. She takes in the glamour he envisioned and the stone brought into being—a young Mage with vivid blue hair, kohl-lined eyes, a pierced lip, and a blue dragon tattoo running along the side of his neck, a blue lightning design encircling the column of his throat.

“Trystan Gardner,”

Fallon breathes.

Triumph courses through Vogel as he draws in a deep breath and concentrates on a new glamour, his form shifting to what he knows is that of a tall, purple-hued, young Urisk man with Gardnerian green eyes and violet garb, his features bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Dryad Witch’s.

“This must be Or’myr Syll’vir,”

Fallon murmurs, awe icing through her aura, “the staen’en witch’s abomination of a cousin.”

Vogel nods, then shifts to one more glamour, viper-focused on Fallon, his stare like a hot brand against her ice power. He can sense the pleasureable rush of gooseflesh breaking out over her skin in response as he morphs into a deep-blue Asrai Fae with a confrontational expression.

Fallon grins wickedly, her eyes narrowing with a sly light. “And this must be the little Water Fae whore, Tierney Calix.”

Vogel gives her a venomous smile. “The Magedom’s Shadow Wand is close to holding enough power to portal through any shield.”

His smile sharpens. “Once foliage season subsides and your winter descends, we’ll go after the Whore Witch. And I’ll draw her to us with bait she least expects.”