The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) Brad Magnarella (ink book reader txt) 📖

that what you want? Your power is undeveloped, your soul of no use to the effort, and yet I’m offering to safeguard it, to make you a god.”

“Why?” I challenged.

“Because it’s my role, Everson. I may appear different, but in many ways, I am still Chicory. I am still the one who looks after you. The only reason I kept you in the dark—all of you in the dark—is because I didn’t want to see you destroyed. As head of the Order, I’m responsible for you.”

Something like pleading took hold in his hideous eyes, and I hesitated. Lich actually saw himself as a parental figure.

“It offended me to learn that your mother and grandfather cloaked their powers from me,” he continued, “that others faked their deaths and went into hiding. It offended me deeply. If only they’d listened.” His voice faltered, as though threatening to regress to the little brother he’d once been. “If only they’d trusted me.”

I saw an opening, however slim, and lowered my sword slightly. “I know you believe Dhuul’s arrival is inevitable,” I said. “I know you believe the bargain you made is the only way to spare the Order, but it’s not.” I thought about the Word my father and the others had spent centuries cultivating. I thought about them battling Dhuul’s creatures below. “Please. Release the souls from the portal, and help us cast Dhuul out. It can be done.”

“And what would become of us?” Lich challenged.

“There’s a chance we won’t make it,” I admitted. “But the magic-users you’ve watched over these years will survive. The Order will survive. Isn’t that what you want?”

I was trying to appeal to his paternal instincts, and for an instant, I believed he might relent. But his jaw clenched suddenly, molars bulging through the skin of his cheeks. Dark energy stormed around him as tentacles sprang from his back. “Die then!” he shouted.

The creatures, which had been shifting and murmuring while Lich and I talked, rushed forward, scimitars flashing. I battered the monstrosities with force blasts and slashed my blade at those who came too close. I didn’t hold back. If this was to be my final fight, there was no sense in conserving energy.

But as a second wave of attacks commenced, my vision began to waver. I was still suffering from the blood loss. How much longer before Thelonious came swooping in?

“The Banebrand was meant to prevent the ruination of the Order,” Lich said from behind his horde. “It’s ironic, then, that you and the others intended to use the weapon to bring that ruination about. To destroy the only member of the original Order strong enough to still be standing.” He was no longer the father figure, but the gloating youngest child.

I grunted as I swung my sword through a fish-man’s neck.

“Your grandfather found the Banebrand, yes. But he did a poor job concealing it. The weapon remained in the vault after his death. I acquired it—a handsome stiletto, I’m sure you’ve been wondering—and cast it into the pit. The Banebrand is no more. I cannot be destroyed.”

I refused to let his words bury my will.

Flinging the last of the dragon sand at him, I used what strength remained in me to ignite it. Red-orange fire swallowed him, but Lich stepped through the burst a moment later, unscathed. He strode from the flames and his army of creatures. I backed from his glowing eyes and writhing tentacles. Tripping over the glass pendant, I fell against the back wall.

“I cannot be killed,” Lich said, “As far as you are concerned, I am the Death Mage.”

The tentacles seized me and wrapped me around. A smell of rot and death came off them. When Lich’s withered face clenched, muscles inside the black appendages bulged. I grunted as my ribs crushed around my heart and lungs. With the pain, red lights slashed over my vision.

A blast from the sword repelled him once, I thought weakly. If I can just summon enough power…

My sword arm was pinned to my side, but my hand and wrist were free. I cocked them up until the blade was aimed at Lich. With the breath of air I had left, I prepared to utter the invocation … and then stopped.

The stiletto Lich had recovered in the vault.

The symbols Grandpa had written on the wall and made permanent through magic.

A gift he had left me long ago.

In an instant of insight, the pieces snapped together. I wanted to laugh at the obviousness of it. Instead, I grunted as the ribs down my right side cracked in a goring line.

I know what they mean, I thought through the pain. I know what the symbols mean.

And with that knowledge, my sword stiffened in my grasp and began to sing in a high and powerful note. Lich’s eyes canted downward. His tentacles softened and writhed, as though in distress.

I drew a choked breath and uttered, “Vigore.”

Rose-colored fire exploded from the blade and plumed against Lich’s chest. He screamed as the force sent him into a backward roll, tar-black blood spilling in his wake. I fell to the floor at the same moment he landed against the far wall. The tentacles that had been torn from his body twitched and slapped over the burning floor between us. The sword was still in my grasp, still glowing.

The creatures fled, while Lich moaned and tried to push himself upright.

“There’s an ancient Hittite story,” I grunted through my jagged breaths. I staggered in a circle in search of the glass pendant I’d kicked with my heel moments before. “Known mostly to scholars … mythologists. Goes like this. Poor farmer raises prize ram. Greedy king wants ram for himself. Farmer coats prize ram in mud, then cleans and festoons common ram from his stock. King’s soldiers come and take common ram. Farmer gives prize ram to son.”

Lich sat against the far wall, a tarry pool spreading around him. I spotted the glass pendant behind a table and used a foot to drag it out