She never got a chance to finish. Myron wasn’t listening, anyway. He just turned back to the door, tightening his grip on his spirit’s lead as he ordered, “Break it down.”
The spirit of the DFZ roared in defiance, a horrible amalgam of breaking cement and terrified human screaming. When it didn’t stop, Myron pulled again, yanking the rat-monster forward until the silver cord choked it, cutting off its roar to a pathetic, defeated gasp.
After that, the spirit didn’t fight again. It just cowered, looking more like a rat than ever as it obediently turned to the Merlin Gate and slammed its body into the door.
The crash went through the churning magic like a bomb blast, knocking Marci back even through the Empty Wind’s protective gale. She was still getting her feet back under her when the spirit charged again, attacking the door with claws and teeth that sparked like the muzzle flashes from gunshots in dark alleys. And as it clawed and bit and clawed again, the thick wood of the Merlin Gate began to crack.
“Stop!” Marci shouted, stepping to the very edge of her spirit’s protection. “This is stupid, Myron. You don’t even know what you’re doing.”
“On the contrary, I know exactly what I’m doing,” he said, raising his voice over the violent roar of his spirit. “You don’t rise as high as I have by taking no for an answer.”
“So you’re just going to force your way in?” she cried. “Smash and grab the Heart of the World?”
“If that’s what it takes.” Myron said, glancing back over his shoulder. “I’m a mage, Miss Novalli. Audacity is the base line for entry.”
Marci swore under her breath. She’d used that line so many times herself, she’d forgotten it was from one of his books. But while she absolutely agreed that a bit of recklessness was necessary to push modern magic to its full potential, this was insane. “Breaking something we know nothing about just so you can get what you want isn’t audacity. It’s selfish and stupid. What if you destroy something irreplaceable? It’s not like we know how to make another one of these. And even if you do break in, it’s not like Shiro’s going to suddenly change his mind and give you your Merlin ticket.”
“That’s not his decision,” Myron growled. “I’ve read enough to know a shikigami when I see one. He’s a clockwork, magic shoved into a binding net of spellwork that mimics human intelligence. But mimicry is not being. He may have been left as a watchdog by the last generation, but he said it himself: Merlins are the champions of humanity. He can close the door and lock me out, but I have more right to be inside that pillar than he does.”
“You don’t know that,” she said, exasperated. “You don’t know any of this for sure. All you know is what you’ve scraped up from thousand-year-old texts and stories. You say you’re the expert, but you have no more idea what’s actually on the other side of that door than I do.”
“Perhaps not,” he said. “But use your eyes, Novalli. Do you thinkthisoccurred naturally?” He pointed up at the perfectly smooth pillar of stone rising like a skyscraper from the flat floor of the Sea of Magic. “Of course not. It was made by the Merlins. Made bymen,not gods. And what man has made, man can break.”
“Why would you want to break this?” Marci cried as his screaming spirit slammed into the door yet again, sending anotherboomthrough the black haze of magic that was now frantically swirling around them. “You’ve found the place that makes Merlins, and you’re smashing in the door like a barbarian!”
As if to prove her right, the spirit of the DFZ chose that moment to slam its claws into the wood again, only this time, one of the boards cracked. It started as a hairline fracture then quickly widened into an inch-wide gap that sent the warm light from inside spilling into the dark.
“You see?” Marci said, dragging her hands through her short hair in frustration. “I know you want to be Merlin more than anything, Myron, but this is too far. You told me once that the Merlins were humanity’s hope. The power that would finally put our species on equal footing with dragons and spirits. Now we’re finally here, at the place where that happens, and you’repunching it down. How can you risk something so vital to all of us for your personal ambition? Are you really that selfish?”
That last part was a desperate play, and for a moment, it seemed to work. Myron actually hesitated, lowering the hand that held his spirit’s leash. But then, just when she thought that maybe she’d gotten through, he turned his back on her again.
“You understand nothing,” he said, voice shaking with fury. “You think I don’t know what I’m risking? I’ve dreamed of being Merlin since before you were born. I thought the Mortal Spirits were our salvation, our weapons. You were the one who showed me I was wrong.”
“Me?” Marci said, but when Myron looked back again, it wasn’t at her. He was staring at Ghost, and his eyes were full of fear.
“I thought I knew our enemies,” he said. “But Algonquin and the dragons are nothing compared to the gods we made in our fear. Humans have always been experts at finding fates worse than death, and when I saw your monster and his army of ghosts walking through Reclamation Land, I knew that the only way to keep us from destroying ourselves was to stop the problem at its source.”
Marci’s jaw clenched. “Youhavebeen listening to Algonquin.”
“I didn’t need to,” he said. “I already knew what had to be done. The only reason I played along with Algonquin was so I could get the Mortal Spirit she was building. Now that it’s mine, I’m going to do what I’ve always done.”
She looked pointedly at the cracked door. “Destroy things?”
Myron gave her a look of utter disgust. “Save humanity.”
He yanked his spirit’s leash again. When it cowered, he unclenched his right hand from the silver lead and reached out to place his palm over the glowing crack in the door. When it was pressed flat, he squeezed his fingers together, lining up the wide metal bands of his rings so that the intricate mazes engraved into their matte titanium surfaces matched up to form one continuous path. Marci didn’t know enough about Myron’s unique style of magic to say if the alignment was for show or if he actually needed the physical maze for his casting, but the moment the pattern came together, the labyrinth opened, and the dark magic swirling around them stopped spinning in circles and started pouring into him.
“What is he doing?” Amelia yelled over the roar. “I’ve never seen a human work magic that way.”
“No one else does,” Marci yelled back, grabbing hold of Ghost as the Sea of Magic rushed past them into Myron. “Labyrinth casting is a Sir Myron Rollins original. I’ve read all three of his books on it, and I’m still not sure how it works, or how he’s not burning himself out. I can’t even touch the magic here.”
“That’s because you’re dead,” the dragon said, anchoring her tail around Marci’s neck so she wouldn’t get swept away. “He’s not.”
Marci scowled. “Then how is he here?” Because if Myron had gotten in without having to pay the piper, she was going to bepissed.
“Because he is not bound to death,” the Empty Wind replied, his glowing eyes fixed on the rat cowering at Myron’s feet. “I don’t know how the DFZ brought him to this side, but she did it without killing him. I’m not sure where his body is, but so long as it breathes, he has protections you do not.”
“Great,” she muttered, glaring at the mage, who was happily pulling down fistfuls of magic that would have killed her, folding the power into complicated mazes that he laid down on the door in brightly glowing patterns of green and blue. She didn’t know Labyrinth magic well enough to know what these particular mazes did, but it didn’t take a genius to guess it wasn’t going to be pretty. A blasting spell, a cutting charge, maybe something nastier.
