The Four Realms (42 page)

She was starting to tire as well, though despite numerous spells her plants remained in bountiful supply.

"Nearly there," Joseph reassured her as they entered a wide alley.
 
On one side, grey railings cordoned off a construction site, little more than scrub land with a few steel beams poking out the ground.
 
The back of a terrace of properties ran the length of the other side, which given the piles of palettes and rubbish accumulated outside their back doors – some as tall as her - she assumed to be shops.
 
Maureen looked out beyond the troll and could see the spires and the central dome of the Friary looming over the rooftops.
 
They couldn't be more than a couple of hundred feet away.

There was a sense of relief, that if she had managed to hold off the elves for this long, they could make the final distance.
 
Maureen found herself physically relax as she let out a sigh of relief.
 
Just one more street and they'd be safe.

Joseph increased his pace again, but this time Maureen found it impossible to keep up with him.
 
Not that she was too worried, she could now see where she was heading.
 
If he got ahead, so be it, Maureen could hold the elves at bay for another couple of hundred feet.

She never saw Gardpoul jump out from behind the a stack of palettes.
 
She'd been looking behind her, watching to see if Psyninius was close, unaware that Gardpoul had not been with him for some time.
 
Indeed, the first she was aware, was as he swiped his sword.
 
It must have reflected light as it was the glint from the blade that caught her eye.

She turned to see Joseph crumple and fall to the ground.

"No," she yelled, sending a dragon-headed fireball Gardpoul's way.
 
It caught him off-guard, his attention having been on the troll, not Maureen.
 
It hit him in the chest, lifting him up and propelling him up the alley.
 
He landed hard in one of the puddles that dotted around the alley and Maureen watched without remorse as he rolled in it, trying to put out the flames.

Maureen ran to where Joseph lay face down in a puddle.
 
Even from several feet away and with poor light, she could see he was staining the water red.

"Joseph, oh Joseph," Maureen fretted, as she tried without success to turn him over.

What could she do?
 
What could she do?
 
There was no way she could carry Joseph to the safety of the Friary and there was no way she was leaving him.

At least he was still breathing and had fallen such that he wasn't going to drown in the puddle.
 
But that wasn't the point, she told herself.
 
Here was her only living friend, dying in a dirty, disgusting puddle, and she could do nothing.
 
Some magic user she was.
 
She felt useless, and more than that, guilty.
 
This was all her fault, and whilst she didn't know if she could put it all right, she would darn well try.

She stood up as Psyninius entered the alley behind her.

I'm not going to run
, she told herself.
 
You can come for me if you like, but you'll find a fight on your hands
.

Psyninius caught sight of the burnt Gardpoul rolling on the ground to put out the last few remaining flames.

"Gardpoul," he cried, then looking at Maureen asked, "what have you done to him, you abomination?"

Maureen could do nothing but just stare, watching for any hint of a spell.

"You heathen," he screeched, uttering a spell that sent a five foot high wave of water toward Maureen.
 
There were better insults, including a few choice ones she'd like to use in response, but instead, she cast a firewall, and watched the wave collide and disappear into steam.

Psyninius didn't even wait until the flames of Maureen's firewall had died down before casting his next spell.
 
It was one that Maureen was unfamiliar with, a giant serpent made of water that slithered toward her.
 
She was so mesmerised that she almost forgot it was a spell cast against her.
 
She uttered a spell, and a gust of wind sent the liquid snake back to its owner, wrapping around the elf's torso.

"So you wanna play, huh?" Psyninius chided her.

Maureen eyed him coldly.
 
"If you are going to hurt my friends," she said placing her handbag on the ground, "then I suppose so."

Maureen realised that she was about to go up against an elf, something even a trained wizard with years of experience behind them would have worries about doing.
 
She could cast a few spells and had pockets stuffed with plants but she was hardly more than an amateur.
 
Probably not even that.
 
A wizard would know which plant to use for which spell, know how to make the most effective use of his stock.
 
Look at the elf
, she told herself.
 
Can you see his pockets bulging with plants?
 
And he'd still be able to outlast you in a fight.

But what was the other option?
 
To turn and run?
 
There was no way she could do that?
 
Not with Joseph bleeding into a puddle behind her.
 
If loyalty was going to ultimately be her downfall, then so be it. She would not leave the troll.

When it came, it came quickly, two firebolts followed by an earthquake.
 
Maureen hardly had time to throw up a waterfall - which had she not been so late in putting up would not have caught the second firebolt - before the earthquake knocked her off her feet.

"Ha, all too easy," the elf laughed, not pausing to wait before he cast a spell that caused roots to grow out of the ground and tangle round her ankles.
 
She couldn't afford to be pinned to one place, and used a starburst to counter the spell.
 
She rolled out of the way as another fireball came in. As she got unceremoniously to her feet, she threw an airwall that caught the elf off-guard, picking him up and slamming him against the construction yard’s railings.
 
He giggled as he envoked another spell that shot trees up out of the ground.
 
Maureen found herself jumping from spot to spot as she tried to avoid the erupting shoots growing from seed to fully grown tree and then to dust in mere seconds.
 

He's trying to wear me out, she thought to herself as one tree sent her spinning.
 
I need to always be casting
.
 
Lots of spells in rapid succession
.
 
You can do this Maureen, she told herself, ignoring the beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
 
This is for Joseph; for Ernest.

She span round from behind the trunk of the tree and threw a fireball, an iceblast and an airblast, one after another.
 
Bam, bam, bam
.

The elf absorbed the fireball with a waterfall, but the iceblast turned the waterfall into a sheet of frozen ice and the airblast shattered it, sending shards flying at the elf.
 
He cowered from the bombardment.
 
And if he is cowering
, Maureen thought,
he's not casting
.
 
That's the way to do it.
 
No let up, just one move after another, trying to get your opponent on the defensive, like some rapid game of chess with split second decisions and moves.

She hit him with an earthquake, unsure of what her strategy should be now.
 
He countered with a spell that sent a ghostly bird, so vapid Maureen had a hard chance making out what it was until it flew in front of her and tried to claw at her eyes.
 
She threw up an icewall but immediately realised her she should have cast a firewall, as the bird passed right through.
 
A quick airblast blew it far enough away that the spell would not have chance to get back to her before it dissipated.
 
She didn't give herself a breather, instead repeating her combo of fireball, iceblast and airblast.
 
This time the elf was prepared, using an airblast to push the fireball back so that when it froze and shattered, it was Maureen and not he that took the effects.

While she shielded her eyes from the blast, Psyninius let loose an earthquake that rumbled toward her and knocked her off her feet.
 
He followed this up with a fireball.
 
Maureen tried to cast an air shield but she was just too late and had to roll out of the way as the blast impacted the ground where she had been.
 
A split second later and it would have hit her.
 
Even so, it managed to singe her sleeve.
 
A second fireball was caught by the airshield just before it petered out.

She couldn't keep this up.
 
The sweat was pouring off of her and she was bruised and dirty.
 
Yet the elf looked as a fresh as a daisy as he hopped from foot to foot in glee.

"Your magic is so basic it's laughable," he told her.
 
"Only the elves have been shown the art of mana by the holy Mother."

He was just toying with her.
 
Do something, she told herself.
 
Cast some spell while his attention is diverted.
 
Something...
 
anything.
 
She couldn't, she was exhausted.
 
Just the thought of casting one more spell was beyond her.

"Go on," she panted, deciding that if she couldn't beat him she would at least be defiant until the very end.
 
"Do your worst."

"My worst?
 
My worst?
 
Oh you have no idea of my worst."

He talks too much
, thought Maureen.
 
She struggled to stand, but the curse of defeat weakened her to an extent that she had trouble getting up.

"Holy Mother," he began to preach.
 
"Gardpoul has been vanquished by this heathen.
 
Take his spirit into the ever after, where he may join the eternal river.
 
Let its banks overflow, become not a river, but a tide, and give me the power that I may vanquish his death."

Maureen crawled toward Joseph and collapsed, back against his bulk, lacking the energy to do anything but watch.

Psyninius muttered words under his breath and at first Maureen thought nothing had happened.
 
But then she saw rubbish from the alley blow toward the elf.
 
She'd have thought it a breeze were it not for the fact that it blew in from all directions.
 
Rubbish collected at the feet of Psyninius.
 
The items were small at first, twigs and crisp packets, but then getting bigger, palettes, barrels and bins.
 
They seemed to be piling together, a refuse pile some twelve foot high.
 
Maureen wondered if this was some funeral
 
- or worse, sacrificial - pyre.
 
Then she saw it pulse.

It started to move, limbs built of trash unfurling and stretching.
 
Two green fires ignited in what Maureen eventually made out to be eyes, and then the creature stood.
 
It was twenty-foot tall and a humanoid made entirely of New Salisbury's rubbish.
 
Broken railings and metal piping made deadly fingers, and when the creature let out a tortured roar, it was from behind teeth of broken glass.

The creature took a step forward, unsteady at first, but then more assured.
 
It gave another roar and swiped at the rear wall of one of the buildings that back onto the alley.
 
It disintegrated into masonry and dust, and had Maureen not - more by instinct than design - put an airshield around Joseph and herself, they would have been pummelled by the debris.

Fatigue gave way to fear, and Maureen cast a fireball at the creature.
 
It hit the creature on the arm, and ignited it.
 
But the presence of a burning arm did not seem to bother or hinder the creature in any way.

She threw an icebolt at one of the legs, but whilst it connected and froze the leg, the spell wasn't strong enough to reach above the knee.

Psyninius laughed.
 
"Your magic can't stop it."

He was probably right.
 
Maureen turned and tried to rouse Joseph but he was still passed out, or dead.
 
Oh God
, she hoped he wasn't dead.
 
Even so, she wasn't going to leave him.
 
Every step of the creature caused the ground to shudder, and Maureen closed her eyes, not wanting to see how close the creature was getting.

Think Maureen
, she thought to herself.
 
You can't let it end here.
 
There must be something you can do?
 
But the elf was right, what little magic she was able to conjure was no match for the golem of trash before her.

How she wished things could have been different.
 
She wished she could regret her decision to investigate Ernest's death, but she could not.
 
Knowing that it ended here, she'd still do the same again.
 
No, this was the logical end.
 
Better to die here in magical combat that in some old people's home.
 
Her life had never meant much until a few days ago, and she wouldn't have changed the last few days for anything.

She opened her eyes and saw the golem towering above her.
 
It lifted one huge arm, stretched its steel fingers wide and in one swift movement brought the hand crashing down on top of Maureen and Joseph.