Ice transformed into sand and rock. Clouds parted to reveal a swirling void. Chunks of earth were ripped from the ground and swallowed into it. Not a hair on any of our heads moved. I wished my friends away from this crumbling madness. They faded, leaving only Soulless Gustav and myself.
"I am a god here!" growled Soulless Gustav.
"God of a dream. A master of glass and shadows. Lord of nothing." I laughed. I shouldn't have, but I was too amused. "Here, in this place, your power is at its greatest. But here, in this place, your power is at its most vulnerable. Out there, in the true world, your illusions touch reality, and through that, gain substance. A man killed by a phantom gobling dies because even death can be fooled when the sorcery is potent enough. But here, death is merely a dream. To be accepted or disregarded at one's whim. And I don't accept it. I deny it all."
I clasped my hands together and released a wave of magic and unbelief. Soulless Gustav's universe ceased to exist. It was too fragile to stand against even the smallest skepticism. Soulless Gustav had foolishly allowed me in, and it was far too easy to unmake it from the inside. It was like waking from someone else's dream. Black surrounded us. A tiny fountain of colors stood between us. The legendary sorcerer was reduced to his normal stature, a little shorter in fact. A dull aura of power surrounded him, far less than godhood. He knelt beside the fountain.
"This is all the magic of your realm," I explained. "This is the well of life from which your universe drew existence. Everything else, even your godhood, was merely a delusion. Delusions stacked upon figments piled upon fancies on the shoulders of phantasms. A house of cards."
The sadness on his face stirred my sympathy "Your first mistake was allowing me inside. Your second was in bringing the others. I was prepared for my death. I would've believed it, but I couldn't accept it for them. Their deaths, false though they were, showed me the truth."
I passed my fingers through the fountain and pressed them to my lips. The raw magic tasted of blood and lemons. The fount was just a trickle, a drop borrowed from the real world to fuel a shattered cosmos. I almost felt sorry for Soulless Gustav as I plugged it with my toe and starved away the remnants of his world.
The darkness fell away. We stood amid the field of his impure sorcery, that place where reality and illusion mingled. A flood of power filled me when we crossed the threshold. Soulless Gustav hadn't lost complete touch with true magic. It swelled around him, but he was a broken man. Dreams he could no longer believe in surrounded him, and he wept.
My companions stood by my side. None could look at the fallen sorcerer save Newt.
"Do you want to kill him? Or can I?"
"There s no need."
"But your vengeance. Surely, you're not going to let him live."
"Death would be a mercy. Now he lives, forsaken and miserable, without hope or joy or even the hollow fantasies of such. This is my vengeance."
"Now that is just cruel." He smiled at me. "The mistress would be proud."
"And what about this place?" asked Wyst.
"I could unmake it, but there's no need. It will fade on its own in time, and the world will never know it was here."
I cast one last glance at Soulless Gustav, sobbing. My vengeance was more than I could bear to witness any longer. I turned and planned on walking away without looking back.
"You dare turn your back on me!" He growled. His voice cracked. I felt the surge of magic as he called upon it. "You won't be able to unbelieve death here, witch."
My companions moved to my defense. Their protection was unnecessary but appreciated.
All Soulless Gustav's subtlety was gone. His anger made his sorcery an obscene, vulgar effort. He molded it into a beast of fangs and claws and glaring red eyes of no discernible form. It was too hideous to be genuine, too grotesque and shapeless to be accepted by the universe. It was the final phantom, the stinging bite that woke the dragon. Soulless Gustav unleashed his own doom.
I'd only meant the dragon as a metaphor, but the magic must've enjoyed the notion. The earth trembled as a black and red serpent parted the clouds and filled the sky. It couldn't be seen entirely in its vastness. It opened terrible jaws and a cleansing, white flame washed across the sorcerous kingdom. Save for the rumbling earth, it made no sound. The purifying blaze burned without even a crackle. The scorched landscape turned to ash, then nothing. The fire seared my companions without touching them. We were real. I didn't even feel its heat. Soulless Gustav wasn't so fortunate. Twisted and blackened, he lay on the barren earth. Soulless Gustav was soulless after all. He'd been living among illusions too long. Somewhere along the way, he'd become a phantom himself.
He drew an agonized breath. "I curse you, witch with the unspoken name. From this day forth—"
"Oh, do shut up."
His eyes widened. It was a breach of etiquette to interrupt, but the death curse I now carried was quite enough.
"Well, how rude."
He crumbled away. Penelope couldn't help but sweep his ashen remains into a neat pile.
The dragon disappeared. A portion of one massive golden wing was the last to fade. The figment of space was the last illusion to fade from Soulless Gustav's realm. The field of bare earth shrank and shrank until it was but a patch barely two feet across, the last monument to the foolish dreams of the greatest sorcerer that had ever lived.
"That's all it was?" asked Newt.
"Doesn't seem like much," agreed Gwurm.
"Just because it became this," I said, "doesn't make it less than it was."
A gust carried away the ashes.
"So that's it?" said Newt. "It's over?"
"Not quite."
I knelt low and put a palm to the earth. Fresh green grass sprouted over Soulless Gustav's monument.
"Some dreams are best forgotten."
29
I'd hoped not tohave to do this final thing. Truth be told, I'd expected to be dead and not have to. Every victory comes at a price, and this was mine. I took Wyst away where the others couldn't overhear. Nothing had changed between us, but everything else had.
"I should be angry with you." He took my hand. "But you saved my life."
I smiled. "No. You saved mine."
He took me in his arms. It felt so right, so perfect, but it could never be.
"Wyst..."
He held me tighter. "We were meant to be together."
It was a romantic notion. I would expect no less from a White Knight. A force beyond our control had indeed brought us together. Her name had been Ghastly Edna. But another power kept us apart, and his name was Nasty Larry.
"I'm never going to let you go," he whispered.
I listened to his heartbeat. I could feel every throb of veins, every gush of blood. His embrace was a wonderful fantasy, and I enjoyed it just a moment more. Then I pushed him away. He couldn't hold me. I was much stronger than he was.
I wanted to hide my eyes, but I looked him in the face. "We are what we are, Wyst. We can't be anything else."
"I can."
"No, you can't. You are a champion of righteousness, and this world needs you far more than I do."
He put a hand on my shoulder. "This world will get along just fine without me."
"This can only end badly, Wyst. I am accursed. Every day my appetite grows. One day, maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now, I will devour you. Or you will be required to kill 35 me.
"I could never kill you."
"I know. That's why this can never be." I put a palm against his chest to keep him from drawing closer. This was harder than I'd fathomed. "One day, I would kill you, and I would become everything my curse intended me to be."
Wyst cupped my chin. "You won't."