"Mage: The Awakening; chapter 6"

"Mage: The Awakening; chapter 6" 

By;fernand jiro

Free Mage

The ritual was the most complicated thing Quinn had ever seen. She was amazed at the amount of power required, though she wasn’t really surprised — separating a body and putting it back together was complicated, and the human body, being the most complex physical structure, was very difficult to separate or join.

“Use my power,” she offered. “If this Free Magic creature is going to break free soon, and is as powerful as you say it is, you’ll need all of your strength. I don’t have the training to fight something that powerful. I learned that when I captured Silk.”

“Well, I’m glad you realize it,” Zephyr told her. “And we accept your offer, but we will leave you enough power to defend yourself if something goes wrong.”

“We’re ready,” Mikaze declared.

Ken pulled Quinn aside. “I don’t know how much influence I’ll have when I’m joined with the others, so I might not get this chance again.” He paused, then he pulled her tightly into his arms and kissed her long and sweetly. For once, Mikaze didn’t protest.

“Are you ready?” Quinn asked, feeling a twinge of fear for the four of them. In his own way, each man held a kind of charm; even Arashi, whose violence appealed one’s the more animalistic side, the side that always wished it could be as uncaring.

The four looked at her for the last time as separate beings. Clearly, none of them wanted to disappear, but their bodies longed to be one, to be as they were before.

Quinn stood several feet away from them, her feet just touching the complex pattern they had traced into the ground. They symbols would help concentrate her powers and amplify them as well, making sure that she remained in control.

“Oh spirits that govern all life, hear me,” Quinn chanted, spreading her magic around in a great circle around the four through the symbols under her feet. “Lend me your power. Here stand four parts of the same whole. Let them be as they were meant to be.”

Her magic poured out of her in a great rush as she continued to chant, her magic streaming through the characters on the ground. Zephyr yelled for her to stop it, to reign in her power before she was consumed by it, but she didn’t seem to hear him. She dropped her barriers, letting all of her magic flow. The four men cried out, fearing for her, but were unable to move as they were drawn irresistibly toward one another.

Just at that moment, there was a terrible rumbling sound. Quinn’s magic stopped on its own, drawing back within her like a frightened dog. The four were surrounded by an intense darkness.

“What’s going on?” Quinn yelled over the roaring wind and grinding stone.

“It’s the creature,” Arashi yelled back. “It’s breaking free! Run, Quinn! Get out of here!”

The darkness swallowed them. All trace of them — their aura, their thoughts,everything — disappeared. But they were still alive. Quinn could feel them, somewhere in the darkness.

Determinedly, she strode forward.

“Mistress, no!” Silk yelled, springing from the crystal to block her path. “They are fine. They do not need you. They are only using you. Do not throw your life away.”

“I don’t believe you, Silk,” Quinn said harshly. “They can’t beat it while they are separated. They need to be joined. And I won’t abandon them!” She threw herself into the darkness.

*****

For a long time, Quinn felt the cold pressure of the shadows squeezing all around her. She couldn’t feel her hands or her feet or her face. She felt as though her body had been destroyed and all that was left was her mind, floating in an endless void. Slowly, she became aware of someone calling her from far away. She opened her eyes.

She was lying on her stomach in a field of magenta grass. The sky was of a sick red, and the clouds were khaki green. Five men were standing in its centre.

Zephyr, Hariken, Mikaze and Arashi faced the fifth man, all four of them looking fierce and grim. The ritual had failed. They had not joined. They couldn’t win.

“Foolish mortals,” said a strange voice, velvety like a lover’s caress, and harsh like a gunshot. “Did you really think you could defeat me? I have enough power in one cell to destroy the entire planet!”

In a blur of unreality, the man who was a Free Magic creature attacked. He hadn’t moved from where he stood, but his soul, or his spirit, or whatever it was, lashed out at the humans while its body crouched, becoming an animal. The four men went sprawling in the odd grass, and did not get up. Quinn felt the intolerable pressure of magic pressing down on them, choking them.

“No!” she screamed, throwing her magic out to try and help them. Normally, when she released her magical barriers, her powers would go wild, often causing major damage; at this point in time, that was what she wanted to happen. However, the Free Magic creature’s power was immovable. It was as though she was just a breath of wind that wasn’t even worth paying attention to. It also didn’t help that she was already extremely weakened from the ritual.

“Silk!” Quinn yelled, crying bitterly. “Do something!”

“What would you have me do, Mistress? While I am locked in this crystal, my powers are contained. I cannot do anything for your friends. They will die.”

“No! I won’t let that happen! I know they said you would kill me as soon as you got the chance, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take! I know you’re stronger than him! I don’t care what happens to me, but save them!”

Zephyr shouted a warning, but Quinn didn’t listen. She grasped the crystal tightly in her hand and threw it at the Free Magic creature with all her might, releasing a surge of power that shattered the orb into a thousand pieces. Power flared triumphantly from Silk as he materialized in all his glory. Power sizzled along his long, slender limbs. For a terrifying moment, he stared at Quinn with a hungry expression on his face.

“Silk, please,” she whispered.

Whether from the lingering effects of his seal or from some form of affection for his former Mistress, Silk turned his attention to the Free Magic creature.

It towered over Silk like a lion over a mouse. It looked more like a beast than a man. The one who had created it had probably thought of it as more of an animal companion than a human companion like Silk’s creator had. It snarled at Silk, showing its fangs, raising the massive spikes and quills on its back, its eyes glowing menacingly red.

Silk was unimpressed. With the power he had built up in his crystal prison thanks to Quinn, Silk vaporized the creature instantly. Just a brilliant flash and it was gone. Poof! Without a trace.

Quinn sighed with relief, falling to her knees.

But it wasn’t over. Now they had a second, more powerful and spiteful Free Magic creature to contend with. Menacingly, Silk advanced on Quinn.

The girl watched him in fear but didn’t try to run. She knew it would be no good; she would never be able to outrun him, and she was too drained to fight back. She looked helplessly up at him as he stopped in front of her.

“Dear, sweet Harlequinn,” he said silkily, touching her face, fingering a bead in her hair.“I always knew you would set me free.” He yanked viciously on the braid, forcing Quinn to her feet, bracing her hands on his chest. “And once I get rid of the competition, you will be mine,” he hissed.

Quinn stared up at him in fear and confusion. With a wicked grin, Silk pulled her against him and kissed her hard. Quinn made a muffled protest and tried to push him away, but to no avail. Silk’s magical body was as unyielding as iron.

Silk threw her away from him, sending her tumbling head over heels in the sharp grass. He watched her warily and possessively for a moment, then turned to the four men who were still lying on the ground.

“Silk, no!” Quinn called. “Please, leave them alone!”

“Not this time, Harlequinn,” Silk replied softly, cruelly. “This time, they all die. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me. They do not understand you as I do. They do not know why you only wear boys’ clothing with long sleeves. They have not seen the scars covering your entire body from where you were brutally tortured by your own family. They will never know you as I know you.”

He had almost reached them. Quinn’s mind reeled in panic. What could she do? She had to seal him again. But how? She didn’t have a crystal. She didn’t have the skill. And at the moment, she didn’t have the power.

Silk reached out to Mikaze.

“Varsh koran thrymu shlosc!” Quinn shrieked suddenly,desperately.

Silk laughed in disdain. “Foolish human! Do you really think you have the power to—” He faltered. In her hand, Quinn held a simple stone she had picked up from the ground. She didn’t have the power and she didn’t have the right equipment. But her eyes were glowing.

Power spilled form her every pore, snaking around her arms, billowing through her suddenly pitch black hair. Her true heritage as a Free Mage — as the last Free Mage — was finally surfacing. Silk knew he was doomed.

He shrieked with disbelief. He was so close! He had almost had her! How could a mere child defeat him so easily?

With one final cry of a condemned creature, Silk was locked away once more, this time in a vulgar pebble.

Quinn’s hand closed loosely around it as the alternate dimension they had been in evaporated, leaving them on the front lawn of the school, right where they had been before.

Zephyr, Mikaze, Hariken and Arashi watched, dazed, as Quinn spoke the words of the ritual once more. There was a great flash of light and a roaring of power as they merged together.

Quinn’s flow of magic was cut off abruptly as her eyes stopped glowing. She managed to catch a glimpse of a man running toward her before she lost consciousness.

*****

When Quinn woke up, it was nearly dark. She was still outside, lying in the tall grass she had been in when she first met Mikaze. She sat up a little groggily, putting a hand to her forehead, trying to steady the whirling she felt in her mind.

“Mistress, are you all right?” came Silk’s misty voice. He was trying to get back into her good graces. But at the present moment, with the heavy pounding in her head and the aching of every muscle in her body, Quinn didn’t think she had any.

“Yes, I think so,” she told him, looking around. “Where is he? The joined form of the four?”

“He has left you here, Mistress,” Silk said greasily. “He didn’t need you. He used you.”

“I don’t believe you, Silk,” Quinn said for the second time in only a few minutes. She somehow managed to get shakily to her feet. “I’ve heard enough from you. Be silent.”

Grudgingly, it seemed, Silk obeyed. Quinn walked steadily toward the school. That was the only place she could think of where he would be.

I don’t evenknow his name, she thought ruefully.

“Kaze,” said a strange yet familiar voice from behind her. “You can call me Kaze.”

Slowly, Quinn turned around. Before her stood the man. He was tall, with a slender figure, and highly toned muscles. He had long black hair that he had tied back in an elegant horsetail; his face was the exact shape shared by his four quarters. His eyes were captivating, swirls of royal blue and emerald green, the two colors blending together perfectly to create the most breathtaking eyes imaginable. Little did Quinn know, that was the exact same impression people got when they looked into her eyes.

“You can read my mind as well?” Quinn asked breathlessly. She had never been so dumbfounded before. She hastily emptied her mind so that Kaze wouldn’t see her shock.

“Yes,” Kaze replied, smiling as though he knew exactly what Quinn felt. “It would seem that unnatural beauty and telepathy are the norm for Free Mages. They all had it, it would seem; just look at Silk, who was created to be the mirror image of his master.”

“I’ll be happy if I never have to look at Silk again,” Quinn said softly. “I knew he would turn on me, but I can never forgive that he would take it out on you.” Glaring at the pebble she still held, Quinn’s eyes flashed briefly gold. The pebble vanished suddenly, spirited away deep within the cave in which she had originally caught the creature.

“It’s over now,” Kaze told her gently. “The students and the teachers can come back.”

“They won’t be too happy about that, I think,” Quinn said with mild humor.

Kaze smiled. “If that creature had been allowed to roam free, it doubtlessly would have destroyed the planet. But thanks to you, the world is safe.”

“Me?I almost got it destroyed, remember? Silk would have been no less dangerous.”

“That’s true, but it all worked out in the end. Either way, if you hadn’t released Silk, we would have been done for anyway. You took a chance. Luckily, it all worked out fine.”

“Still.”

“I know. But you still saved the planet.”

She turned toward the school. “Yeah, well, it’s not like anyone will know about it.”

“I will know about it.”

Quinn started a sa pair of strong arms firmly circled her waist. She practically melted against the hard chest as Kaze rested his chin on her shoulder. His breath tickled her cheek.

“I will never forget it,” he whispered.

“So, which part of you do you think is the most prominent?” Quinn asked somewhat slyly.

“Right now?” Kaze asked, a mischievous grin on his lips and a mysterious twinkle in his eyes. He turned her in his arms to face him. “I would have to say Hariken.”

“I’m glad,” Quinn murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck as he tenderly pressed his lips to hers.