‘Damn you, Ash,’ Dividian groaned, still splayed out on the floor. ‘The Circle will not forgive you for this. You will die the most horrible of deaths!’
‘So will you,’ Ash said and tipped the head of the Elder Staff at Dividian. A fury of magic sprang out and turned the old man to thrashing flames. ‘Wonderful!’ Ash declared, but Dividian continued to roll around as he burned, wailing and shrieking hideously. ‘Damned Magician! You can’t even die properly!’ he said and sent more beams of fire out over the old man until Dividian was only a flaming pile of matted bones.
The presence of the Great Spell forming in the room had kept Samuel’s mind reeling, but now, with the spell spent, Samuel could begin gathering power of his own. As Ash had his attention set on Dividian, Samuel had cast a spell of Lifting and began readying one of the huge bookshelves into position over Ash’s head. He only hoped the man was too busy to notice.
‘Perhaps this will take some getting used to,’ Ash spoke to himself, turning the Staff of Elders over in his hands as he scrutinised it. He then looked to Samuel with satisfaction on his face. He tipped the Elder Staff forward and power burst forth. Samuel leapt aside as the energy struck the wall with a piercing shriek, releasing his Lifting spell as he did. The hovering shelf dropped down and smashed Ash to the floor, spilling books all over. A protruding twisted arm was all that could be seen of Ash, still gripping the Staff of Elders tightly in its hand.
As Samuel dusted himself off, the shelf fell aside and Ash clambered to his groggy feet. Samuel gritted his teeth as Ash checked himself over. The man’s face was brimming with jubilance as he realised he was still alive.
Ash laughed. ‘How magnificent! The power of the Staff protects me, Samuel. And I have not even begun to draw on all power it contains. I was foolish to underestimate you again, but I cannot go on until you are dead-I know that now. I can sense all kinds of incredible things and I feel now that it was our destiny to meet here, but I cannot have you distracting me any further.’
‘Such magic will destroy you, Ash!’ Samuel called out. ‘It takes a lifetime of experience to wield such power. Such a burden will be the end of you.’
Ash laughed aloud. ‘We shall see!’
A deadly beam of heat struck out again and this time it struck true, piercing Samuel through the middle, blackening the stone wall behind him. Ash gave a triumphant yell, until he realised that Samuel was still standing unharmed. The young magician was actually grinning in defiance of Ash’s attack.
Another Samuel stepped from the curtains. Ash again raised his staff and blasted this second Samuel. He, too, remained untouched by the fire, even as the curtains behind became flames.
‘Damn you!’ Ash roared. ‘Such insolence!’
With that, Ash raised the Staff of Elders and closed his eyes in concentration. Only a magician should have been able to call such ancient magic, but Samuel could sense the Argum Stone pulsing into life, acting as a conduit between Ash and the Staff of Elders, channelling power into the man-not even a magician-against all known laws of magic. The air began moving within the room and loose pages on the floor slowly rolled over and began to brown and smoulder before the spell had even begun. Ash brought the Staff down to strike the floor and opened his eyes once again, igniting his spell with wild fury. A storm of sparks burst into being and swept around the chamber, scorching everything they touched. The room filled with a hurricane of intense flames and swirling smoke, howling madly with a deafening noise. As quickly as the spell had appeared, so too it faded. Everything not made of stone had vanished-even the walls were scored and covered with blackened marks. All the shelves and ancient books that had lined the chamber had been turned to glowing embers and blackened residue, smouldering and settling in the corners of the room. Even Dividian’s charred remains had been swept away and obliterated. There was nothing left standing except for Ash. In moments, everything had been utterly destroyed.
Samuel lay panting, gripping the outside wall of the tower with all his resolve. Smoke billowed in plumes out the window through which he had just barely managed to escape. His robes were burnt and singed at the edges. He could hear Ash laughing inside and could feel the energy, ever mounting, as Ash opened himself to more and more power from within the Staff of Elders. Samuel’s heart was thumping in his chest in steady rhythm to the pulsing, grinding power that was emanating from inside. It was too much power for any human to wield so quickly. Soon Ash would not be able to contain all the magic he was calling and something very dire would happen. At the very least, the man would be incinerated by wild mage-fire as it burst from within him. Hopefully, that would happen before too much damage was done.
Ash’s laughter slowed and stopped and then his voice carried clearly out the window. ‘For a moment, I actually thought I had killed you, Samuel, but now I feel very glad that you are still alive. I wish you could feel what it is like to have this power. I have truly become more than I could ever have dreamed, and with every passing moment-’ His voice was changing. It seemed to be echoing from the air all around. ‘-I become even more.’
Samuel cried out as a shrill ringing filled his head. It was an unbearable pain, as if his mind was skewered with pins. It finished as abruptly as it had struck and, as he recovered his senses, Samuel had a strange feeling of motion and he could hear the wind whistling in his ears. He opened his eyes to see the ground flying up at him. His spell had broken and he was falling like a stone towards his death. It took a moment for him to recast his wall- walking spell and he desperately pushed his hand out to touch the tower wall. The spell formed true on contact with the stone and Samuel’s descent began to slow, with his hand brushing the smooth stones until eventually, and with a sigh of relief, he finally came to a halt. He hugged the tower with all his will while his heart slowed its feverish pace. In a few fleeting seconds, Samuel had dropped nearly half the height of the tower.
The sun was setting now, and the sky to the east was in twilight, leaving only the west still hung with a hint of daylight. Looking up, Samual saw an unnatural silver light beaming out from Ash’s window and a vast crowd had amassed in the palace grounds far below. People were filling every available open space, staring up at Samuel and pointing at the awesome display of light from Ash’s window. This was more than just magic. Samuel could feel something terrible happening up in that room.
Samuel took one last determined breath and started back up the tower wall, spider-like, and an audible gasp rose from the people below. He still had no idea of what to do or how to defeat Ash. All he knew was that he had to stop the man. If he could even delay him for long enough, perhaps the others would finally arrive to help; or perhaps Ash would make some crucial mistake. Perhaps his flesh would finally fail under the strain of all his newfound power. Perhaps with the Lions, Lomar and Master Glim together they had a chance of stopping the man. He only hoped the others were somehow on their way to help.
Laughter was still emanating from Ash’s chamber. The man was giggling like a child now. He had opened himself entirely to the Staff and magic was gathering into him at a terrible rate. The pattern itself seemed to be shuddering in trepidation.
‘Ash!’ Samuel cried into the window. ‘You have all that you wanted and yet still you have not destroyed me! What good is all your power if you can’t even kill one insignificant magician?’
The smoke within the room had thinned enough so that Samuel could peer in and he saw Ash’s face slowly turn towards him. Ash raised a charred sleeve and wiped the dribble from his lips. He opened his mouth and a dark, coiling vapour ran out and down his chest. It was blood, boiled and fused with magic so that his flesh could no longer contain it. Samuel was horrified.
‘Ah,’ Ash gasped slowly. ‘Ah, the power. I can feel it in every part of me.’ He held his hand up before his face and turned it over, as if scrutinising it in wonder. ‘I am but a shell of flesh.’ The man’s very words echoed with magic. Samuel could feel it rattling against his skin like splashes of rain.
A spell formed and Samuel rolled aside as the window exploded out, leaving a gaping hole. Chunks of dust and smouldering rocks dropped far below into the grounds.
Ash slid out and hovered beside the tower. ‘Now I am coming for you, Samuel. Run.’ he whispered. His voice was hollow and echoing, his lips were parted, yet unmoving.
Samuel realised he was in desperate trouble and scampered away from Ash and around the tower, still maintaining the same height. He lay panting with his back against the hard stones of the wall, looking left and right for any sign of the abomination that had been Ash.
Curiously, a tight white beam of light appeared out of Samuel’s middle. It shone out far to the hills like some form of signal and, when it had ceased, Samuel found a neat smoking hole at the centre of his robes. The pain followed and Samuel screamed out loud. His body had been pierced right through by an intense light, so hot that it had cooked a path from his back out through his chest. The pain was unspeakable, causing him to shriek wildly until he could throw enough spells into himself to dull all feeling. As a result, his vision began to blur and darken at the edges and his head felt thick as tar. Inside him, flesh and organs had been baked and crisped.
