The Threads of Magic by Alison Croggon (best ereader for pdf and epub .txt) 📕

Before Lamir’s appalled eyes, King Oswald slowly stepped out of the mirror. Only it wasn’t King Oswald: he had put away his earthly form. Now he was a skeletal Specter, Oswald-Rudolph, his form glowing in the shadowed room, his robes flickering with tongues of cold flame.

“Rudolph,” said Lamir. His mouth was suddenly very dry. “How . . . delightful to see you.”

“An informal visit, merely,” said the Specter. His urbane manner was completely incongruous with his demonic appearance. “I thought you’d be relieved to hear that I am on my way to pick up Princess Georgette.”

“You’ve found her?” Lamir said, attempting a smile. “That is excellent news.”

“Indeed. I am fortunate in that I have some skill with primitive location spells. There are certain witch techniques of which you could have taken more notice. There are many things of which you should have taken more notice.” Oswald floated toward Lamir, transfixing him with his empty eyes. “So unfortunate. One mistake after another . . .”

The cardinal’s eyes narrowed. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“To think it was your most loyal servant who betrayed you. So sad. I’m afraid I had to get rid of Ariosto. Such a talented man. And yet . . . so frail in the end.”

Lamir blinked. Even in his wildest dreams, he hadn’t imagined that Ariosto might turn against him. He had nourished the boy from childhood; he had given him everything . . .

“Alas,” said King Rudolph. “Betrayal breeds betrayal. And I do not countenance disloyalty, Lamir. However, you had your uses. On one point I agreed with you: now is the time to take power.”

Lamir snapped out of his shock and stepped menacingly toward Rudolph. “I am thinking that this disloyalty you speak of isn’t mine,” he said. As he stood up, his form dissolved, and now two Specters faced each other, rippling with cold fire. “You know as well as I do that servants are prone to lying.”

“Your assassin wasn’t lying,” snapped Rudolph. “I could see his thoughts. As I can see yours, despite your pathetic attempts to hide them from me.”

Out of nowhere, a black-tongued sword appeared in Lamir’s hand. Before Rudolph could react, the cardinal swung the blade in a wide arc at his rival’s neck. There was a flash of red light, a crack of bone, and Rudolph’s head fell onto the patterned carpet with a dull thump and rolled beneath Lamir’s desk.

Lamir relaxed, thinking for a moment that he had triumphed, but a low snicker echoed through the room. The skull kept rolling, out from beneath the desk and then around the room in ever-increasing circles, faster and faster. The headless skeleton seemed to be watching the skull with interest. As it orbited Lamir, the walls of the office wavered and vanished.

Lamir slashed viciously at the skeleton, but it caught his blade in its bony hands. The cardinal flinched back as if the weapon had shocked him, letting go of the hilt, and the black sword wavered and dissolved into a wisp of smoke.

By now the skull was moving so swiftly it was barely visible, and its cold laughter was the only thing Lamir could hear. He spun wildly, trying to keep his eyes on it, speaking words that tumbled one into another — spell words for death, destruction, maiming — but they seemed to have no effect at all on the nightmare head.

Then, quite suddenly, the skull stopped in midair, its empty glare focused on Lamir. Its stillness was even more dreadful than its movement. The cardinal watched as it moved slowly toward him, closer and closer, until it was a hand’s breadth from his face.

“I know you have it, Lamir,” said the skull softly. “I want that spell.”

“I don’t know which spell you speak of.”

“The spell that unlocks the power of the Stone Heart. The key to your grimy little dreams.”

“I . . . do . . . not . . .”

The skull floated even closer. “I had hoped that, out of our long friendship, you would give this knowledge to me,” it whispered. “But no. Lamir, fool that he is, thinks he can resist even me.”

The flames around Lamir’s form flared up in a sudden blaze, as if he were making one final, supreme effort. But even as the blaze lit up the darkness, Rudolph’s skull melded into Lamir’s, the two heads becoming one: and the flames of both Specters were snuffed out, vanishing into the darkness of complete void, where even time doesn’t exist. And in the void, Rudolph devoured Lamir’s memory.

After an unmeasurable moment, a light reappeared: the flames that clothed the headless skeleton flared up redly, illuminating the shelves of Lamir’s library. Rudolph’s skull was back with the rest of his body, studying the man who slumped before him: Lamir, stripped of his Spectral form, his face drained of all blood, his eyes wide with horror.

“I am grateful for your assistance, Lamir,” said the Specter mockingly, “however reluctantly given. But now, I fear, this is the end of our long alliance.”

Lamir lifted his arms in one last gesture of defiance or despair, but even as he did he could feel his bones dissolving, his hands crumbling, his torso collapsing inward. His face hung in the air for an instant and then trickled down to the carpet in rivulets of dust.

Rudolph walked to the mirror without looking back at the small heap of dust and vanished through its shimmering surface.

There was a long silence, as if the chamber itself were holding its breath. It was broken by a tiny snap. A crack appeared in the center of the mirror and began to lengthen across the glass. And then there was another, and another, until the entire surface was a spiderweb of cracks.

Finally, with a musical tinkle, the mirror ballooned outward and collapsed from its gilt frame, covering the floor with thousands of tiny glass splinters.

IT WAS A LONG TIME SINCE HE HAD USED HIS