Taken

Once we were inside Anne helped Variam down on a chair and I pulled the gate stone from my pocket. The focus was dark in the shadows, the rune barely visible. “Anne,” I said, holding it out. “Do you think you can work it on your own?”

Anne looked at it for a second, then nodded. I placed it into her hand. “Get going. I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

“Wait,” Luna said. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. This is what I do. Just get that gate open.”

Luna’s eyes flashed. I knew she was scared but even so she wanted to fight. “I’m not leaving without—”

“That was an order, not a request,” I said flatly. “Stay here.”

“We won’t leave without you,” Anne said. She was clasping the stone in one hand and her eyes were steady.

I nodded and walked out into the duelling hall.

*  *  *

Onyx strode in one minute later. The darkness seemed to follow him as he moved, and his eyes were black slits. I knew he’d been fighting both Vitus and Crystal but he didn’t look so much as scratched. His eyes flicked from left to right, coming to rest on me.

“Looks like you’re getting your duel after all, Onyx,” I said. I was standing on one of the pistes.

“Nowhere to run?” Onyx asked. He walked into the room and stopped, turned slightly side-on to me, his hands ready by his sides.

“You wanted a traditional duel,” I said. “Bring it.”

Onyx tilted his head and studied me for a moment.

I was moving before Onyx threw his spell and the force blade hit the spot where I’d been standing a moment ago. Chips of wood went skittering across the floor as I ducked behind a pillar. “Run and hide,” Onyx said contemptuously, walking forward. He kicked one of the wooden splinters, sending it clattering into the corner. “What does Morden want with a coward like you?”

“Speaking of Morden,” I said, taking care not to poke my head out, “didn’t he tell you to work with me?”

Onyx just laughed. He started to circle the pillar at a leisurely speed, not taking his eyes off my hiding place. I moved to match him, keeping the pillar between us. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting rid of Vitus?” I asked.

“Vitus isn’t going anywhere,” Onyx said. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Yeah, I bet you have,” I said. “Remember our chat in the basement? As soon I saw that look in your eyes I knew what you were planning. I’ve seen it before.”

“Talk, talk, talk,” Onyx said. He was circling to a position where if I kept trying to keep the pillar between me and him I’d come up against a table. “Let’s see what you got.”

Just before Onyx could trap me I moved sideways and back. A second later Onyx came around the edge to see nothing but empty space. “What I figured,” Onyx said.

“You know,” I said from behind a second pillar, “Morden’s going to be quite upset if you miss Vitus because you were busy with me.”

“Morden’s not here,” Onyx said, and I could tell he was smiling. He started walking towards my new hiding place, following the sound of my voice. “You’re supposed to know everything, right? Know why I’m going to kill you?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact I do.”

“Yeah?” Onyx said. I could feel him lining up another spell. “Why?”

“Because you’re a murderous, egocentric asshole,” I said. “Because nobody beats you and walks away, even if you were the one who started the fight. You’re too aggressive to quit and too stupid to call it even. You’re just going to keep coming back over and over again until you’re dead.”

Onyx stopped, and I could tell he wasn’t smiling anymore. “Okay,” he said after a pause. “Enough talk.”

The plane of force was about the size and shape of an industrial saw blade, and it went through the base of the pillar in a spray of debris. I’d already gone flat and felt the breeze of the thing as it cleared my hair by six inches or so. The second force blade went through the top of the pillar. Cut at both ends, the pillar toppled and hit the floor with a shattering crash as I rolled out of the way and came to my feet. Onyx came into view a second later . . . and I hit him in the face with a staff.

This version of Fountain Reach didn’t have focus weapons, but I’d spotted the six-foot metal pole before Onyx had entered and I’d been letting him back me towards it. I didn’t know what it was made of but it was light and strong. Onyx was caught off balance—he’d obviously been expecting me to keep running, not close in—and I hit him with enough power to crack his skull.

Unfortunately it didn’t do the least bit of damage. The force shield around Onyx absorbed the blow effortlessly. It did make him flinch though, and the blast he’d been preparing went wide, tearing a chunk out of the wall. I pressed Onyx, striking again and again and pushing him out into the centre of the hall.

I felt the flicker of a spell and a swordlike plane of force appeared in Onyx’s right hand. To normal eyes it would have been invisible but to my mage’s sight it was a razor-thin line of smoky glass, and Onyx brought it around in a wide arc that would have ended somewhere in my rib cage. Letting that happen didn’t strike me as a good idea so I knocked the force blade up and over my head before landing the end of the staff in Onyx’s body, driving him back another step.

We fought in the shadows of the duelling hall, staff against sword. The inertial planes of the force magic made only a dull clack-clack against the metal pole and the loudest noise echoing around the dark room was our footsteps. The force weapon was sharp enough to cut the staff like paper but I kept parrying the flat of the blade, turning the edge away. As blow after blow got through Onyx’s guard it became clear that in terms of skill I had the edge on him. Onyx was fast—very fast—but speed alone isn’t a match for technique. The problem was that hitting him wasn’t actually doing anything. The invisible shield of force around Onyx had enough raw