فصل 14

Chapter 14

IT WAS LIKE pictures Call had seen of the last Mage War, the one where Verity Torres had died on the field facing Constantine Madden.

Only now he was Verity, getting ready to die. Aaron had told Call about fearing he would die on the field like Verity had, a Makar sacrificed to the good of the Assembly of Mages. But it was Call who would die like that. Call, who the Assembly hated.

He was Verity and Constantine both, somehow. He thought about them as he marched ahead of the Chaos-ridden, Havoc at his side. He could hear their whispers in their strange dead language. They were asking him for instructions, asking what he wanted.

His flank was approaching the Assembly mages from the west. He could see Alex closing in from the east — Alex, wearing the silver mask of the Enemy of Death. He looked inhuman in it, half ghost and half monster. Call heard Alex shout and saw the Alkahest flash copper in the air as Alex gestured for his Chaos-ridden to attack.

They burst forward around him, and the Assembly traitors — all of whom had been put under Hugo’s command — surged forward, too. Only Aaron didn’t move. He stood where he was, a lone dark figure, the forgotten once-Makar, like a stone in the middle of a river as the Chaos-ridden streamed forward around him.

They slammed into the eastern flank of the Assembly mages and there was screaming. Call looked in horror for Tamara and Jasper, but he couldn’t see any students among the fighters. He hoped they’d been pushed to the back of the lines, where they’d be protected.

There was no longer any cleared earth between the two lines of fighters. There was only pandemonium — Jasper’s father exchanging bolts of sharpened ice with Master Rufus. Master Rockmaple fending off several Chaos-ridden with a curving alchemical sword. It sliced into their bodies and they collapsed and lay twitching.

Ravan hovered, wreathed in smoke, in the air above the Assembly mages, trading bursts of fire with Anastasia. Part of Anastasia’s uniform was scorched black, but she was holding her own.

“Call!” It was Alex shouting, furiously, over the smash and crash of the battle. “Call, attack!” Call took a deep breath. He knew what he had to do. With the Chaos-ridden under his command, Alex’s side might be able to overwhelm the Assembly’s mages. Without them, it would be much harder for Alex to win.

Call drew on the magic of the void to bind his will to the Chaos-ridden under his command so that they would understand his wishes fully. “You, who I have created!” he called. “Dance!” Immediately, like a flash mob, they carried out the synchronized moves Call willed. They kicked up their legs and spun around, moaning in time to a melody no one else could hear. They threw their hands in the air. They boogied. They got down.

It was totally ridiculous. It was so ridiculous that for a moment, everyone else paused. Even the elementals seemed curious.

A few mages even laughed.

But Alex wasn’t laughing. He looked absolutely furious.

“You idiot!” he shouted, flying toward where Call stood. “You’ve made a fool out of me for the last time!” The silver mask caught the light and Call saw his own reflection in it. Then Alex pulled it off. Underneath, his face had gone red with rage. The Alkahest gleamed on his other arm and Call had no doubt what he was planning.

At least Call was sure his Chaos-ridden were occupied and would be for a while. He had willed enough magic into his commands that they would be hard for Alex to disrupt, but it had left Call depleted even before the fight started. And given how his magic drained faster since he’d given away part of his soul, beating Alex wasn’t going to be easy.

Still, he didn’t need to survive to win.

Using his power, Call ripped a hole into the void. He could feel the Chaos there, cold and oily and pulsing with the promise of enormous power.

Alex brought up the arm holding the Alkahest and pointed it straight at Call. Call tried to draw on chaos, to send it at Alex, but he was too slow.

Havoc got there first.

The Chaos-ridden wolf leaped at Alex, biting down on his metal-covered wrist. The beam that should have hit Call hit him instead.

“Havoc!” Call shouted. But the beam had smashed into Havoc’s chest, lifting the wolf into the air. Havoc’s body went limp and he hit the ground hard.

Call stopped thinking about magic, about wars, about anything. Pushing past the pain in his leg, he lurched toward Alex and punched him in the face.

The older boy staggered back. His lip was split and he looked more surprised than anything else. Call’s knuckles hurt. He’d never hit anyone before.

With a sneer, Alex slammed the Alkahest into the side of Call’s head, sending Call sprawling in the grass of the field. He could see Havoc’s body, sprawled in the field a little distance from him. The wolf wasn’t moving.

Call stood as Alex aimed the Alkahest again. And then Aaron was there, wrenching it off his arm. The two of them struggled, hanging on to opposite ends of it.

“Chaos-ridden!” Alex shouted. “To me!”

Crawling to Havoc, Call covered his wolf’s body with his own and called on chaos again. It spiraled around him, dark with promise.

He fed it with rage. Rage at Master Joseph for taking his choices away, for kidnapping him and forcing him to be Constantine. Rage at death, for taking away Aaron. For taking away his mother. For taking Havoc. For leaving him with a torn black gaping hole of loss in the middle of his heart.

He fed the chaos with rage and loss, with grief, and finally with fear, the fear of his own death, fear of what lay on the other side of his sacrifice.

As he fed the chaos, he felt the energy pour out of him. Everything inside him was going into spilling out the power of nothingness. Alex was screaming as the heavy black coils circled him like the coils of a snake.

Call gasped. He felt the gravity of the earth pulling him down. He was weakening. He could see Aaron standing alone on the battlefield. The Chaos-ridden ignored Aaron’s presence: He was nothing to them, not a mage, and maybe, like them, not even really alive.

Aaron was staring at Call. He was shaking his head, and Call knew that it was because Call ought to be reaching for his counterweight right now. But Call didn’t have a counterweight — and even if he had, he wasn’t sure he would have reached out. This was too much magic. It licked at his soul.

Alex sent chaos back at him, a coiling choking cloud that drew him into it.

He thought of Ravan, of how she must have felt using so much fire magic that she became a Devoured of fire. He saw her now, flying through the air in a spray of sparks. No longer human. He didn’t want to become a creature of chaos. And so, with the last of his magic, he pushed the chaos away — thrust it all back into the void and thrust Alex with it. Alex fought, sending spiraling arrows of nothingness at Call, but Call scraped the very bottom of his own soul for power.

Alex’s face contorted as he realized what Call was doing. Before he could so much as scream, he was gone, pulled into the void. All across the field, his Chaos-ridden howled for him — one long horrible sound that hung over the battlefield. Then they clattered to a stop, like toys whose batteries had sparked and died.

Call glanced toward where Aaron had been, but he was no longer there. He turned to find him, to find someone, but he was having trouble focusing. He felt dizzy and his vision had gone blurry. Slumping down, he felt darkness close in at the edge of his vision. He wasn’t sure if he was falling into chaos or into something far deeper.

Stay awake, he ordered himself.

Stay alive.

“Callum!” Master Rufus was saying. “Callum, can you hear me?”

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed.

“Call. Please be okay. Please.”

It was Tamara and she sounded like she’d been crying, which didn’t make sense, since she’d been so mad.

Call tried to speak, tried to tell her that he was okay. He couldn’t do it. Maybe he wasn’t okay after all.

He cracked his eyes open slightly. Probably too slightly for anyone to notice. His vision was blurred, but he was right: Tamara was leaning over him, and she’d been crying. He wanted to tell her not to cry, but maybe she wasn’t crying over him. Maybe she was upset about Havoc. That made more sense. If he’d told her he was okay and she was crying about Havoc, it would have been embarrassing for both of them — especially because he’d probably start crying about Havoc, too.

“You did it,” she whispered to him. “You saved everyone. Call, please, please wake up.” At that, he tried harder to move, but he still couldn’t. It was as though every part of him was weighted down and even opening an eye fully felt like fighting against that heaviness.

“I’ll tell him something that will cheer him up.” Jasper’s voice came from his other side. Jasper was a dark-haired blur somewhere behind Tamara. If Call could have groaned, he would have. “Call, Celia and I got back together. Isn’t that great?” For a brief moment, Call entertained a brief fantasy that everyone would punch Jasper for him, but no one did. It wasn’t fair.

“He’s dying,” someone said. Master Graves of the Assembly, his dry voice unmistakable. He didn’t sound particularly displeased by his announcement. “He used far too much chaos magic for anyone to survive. His soul must be riddled with it now.” Master Rufus turned slowly, and even through the blur Call could see the rage in the look he turned on the other mage. “He did this because of you,” Master Rufus said. “You caused this, Graves, and don’t think that any of us will forget it.” There was a sniffing sound on Graves’s part and then Call heard another voice, closer. Tamara glanced up and stiffened. She didn’t move, though, or say anything as another figure drew near. Someone Call recognized despite the blur.

It was Aaron.

Aaron who knelt down beside him. Aaron who put a cool, calm hand on Call’s chest.

“I can help him,” Aaron said.

“What are you going to do?” Tamara asked. Call wondered if she remembered what she had said to him: that Aaron cared about Call because he had a piece of Call’s soul inside him.

Aaron was a blur with a halo of light hair. His voice sounded firm, almost like the old Aaron. “Call’s not supposed to die. I’m the one who should be dead.” Tamara drew in her breath. Call fought to open his eyes wide, fought to say something, to stop Aaron, but then he felt Aaron’s hand press against him, and something moved deep in his chest.

Suddenly, there was air to breathe again. Something was moving inside his rib cage. Something with a light touch, like fluttering wings. He felt it brush his soul.

The soul tap. Aaron was doing the soul tap they’d both learned. But how? Aaron wasn’t a mage anymore, wasn’t a Makar. And why bother? Did he want to know what it was like to feel someone’s soul wink out and die?

“What are you doing?” Tamara whispered. “Please don’t hurt Call. He’s been hurt enough.” Aaron didn’t say anything. Call felt it again, the touch deep inside his chest. His injured soul calming. The sense of something being restored to him, something he’d only now known he was missing.

He gasped and his eyes flew open. The blur was gone from his vision. In fact, everything was irradiated with light. His body jerked.

“He’s alive,” said Master Rufus in amazement. “Call! Call, can you hear me?” Call nodded; his head hurt, but he was no longer choking and dizzy. He stared up at Aaron. “What did you do?” he demanded.

“I gave you back your soul,” Aaron said. “The piece you used to bring me to life. I put it back inside you.” “Aaron,” Tamara breathed.

“Tamara,” Aaron said. “It’s all right.” There was a gentleness in his voice Call hadn’t heard since Aaron had died. It made him feel like something was expanding inside his chest, something so huge it might crack his ribs open and make him scream. He could almost see the invisible threads connecting him to Aaron — golden, silken-fine threads of soul that stretched between the two of them.

And the opposite of chaos is the human soul.

Master Graves was babbling. “But that’s impossible. It can’t be done. Souls can’t be traded back and forth like — like playing cards!” Call sat up. The battlefield was thick with smoke. Mages were moving back and forth, putting out fires, rounding up the Chaos-ridden and the traitors. Call saw Jasper’s father led away by two burly Assembly mages, though he didn’t see Kimiya anywhere.

“So I’m okay?” Call said wonderingly, glancing from Tamara to Aaron to Master Rufus. “We’re both okay?” But Aaron didn’t speak. He was very pale. He still had his arms wrapped around himself as if he was cold. “Call,” he said breathlessly. His lips were bluish. “It was never supposed to be me. I’m not the hero. You’re the hero.” Impossibly, he smiled, just the slightest crook of a smile. “It was always you.” “Aaron!” Call cried, but Aaron had slumped down between him and Tamara. Sobbing, she put a hand on Aaron’s shoulder and shook him, but under her hand, he was still.

Call felt his own soul thrash desperately toward the golden threads connecting him to Aaron. As though his own soul couldn’t bear to let Aaron go. For a moment, the feeling was so intense that Call thought he might pass out again. He concentrated on holding himself together, on pulling in all his energy and his power, on tugging the golden threads to him.

“Aaron’s gone,” Tamara whispered.

Call opened his eyes. Aaron looked peaceful, lying on the ground. Maybe this was what was best, maybe he was supposed to see it that way, but Call was horrified. The idea of losing him and losing Havoc, too, felt like almost too much to bear.

Call looked around for his wolf, but Havoc was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t where he’d fallen. Had someone moved his body?

He shivered. He wanted his father. He wanted Alastair. He felt gentle hands on him. Master Rufus, holding Call by the shoulders. He hadn’t remembered Master Rufus being so gentle, but there was nothing but kindness in his touch as he held Call while a group of mages approached with a stretcher and loaded Aaron’s body onto it.

The ache in his chest wouldn’t go away. His head buzzed.

There were other groups of mages out on the field, loading other bodies onto stretchers. “Be careful with him,” Call said raggedly, as they raised the stretcher with Aaron on it and began to carry his body away. “Don’t hurt him.” “He can’t be hurt,” Master Rufus said softly. “He’s beyond all that, Call.” Tamara was crying softly into her hands. Even Jasper was silent, his face streaked with dirt.

Call wanted to get up and run after the stretcher and grab Aaron off it, to bring him back to his friends. Which was ridiculous, because Aaron was gone. Dead beyond Call’s ability to call his soul back, even if he’d been foolish enough to make such a terrible choice twice. But Call wanted to make sure he got a real burial this time.

Even if Call was in prison again, unable to attend it. He thought about the walls of his old cell in the Panopticon. It wouldn’t be so bad to be back there now. Maybe it would be restful.

Then he remembered the state they’d left the Panopticon in. Well, he was sure there were other mage jails. Probably one of those would do.

“It’s all right, Call,” Master Rufus said, as if he could read Call’s thoughts. “He will get a hero’s funeral. Aaron’s name will never be forgotten.” A shadow fell over them all. “Callum, you’re going to have to come with me,” said Assemblyman Graves. He looked as though he’d been disappointed that Call had pulled through.

“Callum isn’t going anywhere,” Master Rufus said. “He saved us all and he nearly sacrificed himself to do it. If you try to arrest him, I will encase you in stone. Callum Hunt is a hero, just like Aaron said.” “Yeah,” said Tamara. “Touch Callum and I’ll burn your fingers off.”

Call looked at her in frank amazement. He thought that she understood that he wasn’t actually evil, but he figured he’d lost her friendship forever.

But when he gave her a wobbly smile, even though there were tears in her eyes, she smiled back at him.

And then out of the crowd came a barking. Call turned in time for Havoc to bound up to him. Call threw his arms around his wolf’s neck and buried his face in the warm fur.

“You’re okay,” he whispered.

Then he pulled back to make sure. And staring into Havoc’s face, he noticed that Havoc’s eyes were no longer coruscating. They were a deep, steady gold. The Alkahest must have struck Havoc after all, but instead of killing him, it had taken the chaos from him. Havoc was a regular wolf now.

A regular wolf that licked Call’s cheek with a pink tongue.

Master Rufus and Tamara helped Call to his feet. And as the mages flew over the battlefield, putting out fires and arresting the last of the renegade mages, Call and his friends limped toward where Ravan stood like a flaming column beside the other elementals being prepared for the flight back to the Magisterium.

They had almost reached her when Call heard it. A tiny whisper in the back of his head. A voice, fond and curious and friendly, so familiar it seemed to punch a hole right through his chest. So familiar he felt the echo of the soul tap all the way through him, and almost stumbled.

I think I really am back this time, Call, Aaron’s voice said. Now what the heck are we going to do?