“We both know I can do nothing to stop you,” Jordan said with a shake of his head. Leo’s heart sank at those words before the man continued. “But your weakness doesn’t involve you, does it, Tazuranth.”
“I’ve had centuries to plan for every eventuality,” the mage boasted. “I was an Archmage before your grandparents were born, and the spells that power sanctuary are flawless. You can do nothing to stop me from harvesting this light, but even if you could, you wouldn’t because you know how badly the night sky needs more stars.”
“You might find some twisted words that explain to me why we need to sacrifice one child to save the world,” Jordan agreed, “but certainly not 12 of them, and certainly not Leo. I personally picked him off of a cursed battlefield. He didn’t survive that ordeal just so you could—”
“Enough,” Tazuranth spat. “Lunaris is on her deathbed, and I must prepare for what comes next. Move aside, and I won’t strike you down.”
Jordan only smiled at that because that was what caused the rest of the children to charge the Archmage. Of course, that probably wouldn’t do any more than Jordan’s words, but it still warmed his heart to see the boys and girls he’d fought and played with for so long besides trying to save him from certain doom.
Then, with a wave of his hand and a few words, the Archmage produced a faint, hazy cloud that wafted over the crowd, instantly dropping most of them to the patchy crabgrass where they’d been running.
Toman held his breath and ran the farthest, which made Leo smile a bit. Despite everything else that was happening, he was getting stronger, and Leo could respect that. Still, moments later, when everyone was asleep or dead on the grass, all Leo could do was struggle at his bonds and glare at the mage. “If you’ve hurt them, I’ll—”
“You’ll what,” the mage laughed, “I might have to deal with my misguided apprentice before he damages something. But the rest of you… After I’m done siphoning the light from you, I’ll repeat the same with your friends, and if you survive the experience, well, maybe we can do it over again and…”
The mage’s words trailed off as an arrow suddenly arced through the air over the heads of all of them.
“No!” the mage yelled as he suddenly understood Jordan’s threat, even if Leo still didn’t. He had no idea what would happen next, but at least now he knew where Cynaria had been.
She’d been at the archery butt more than she’d been at the beach lately, getting better and better with her short bow. She’d said it was to give other people a chance at winning, but that rang hollow to him. He didn’t know what it was she was aiming at, but whatever it was, the first arrow must have missed because she fired a second.
This time, he and the Archmage both saw her. “Little brat,” he growled as he pulled out a wand from his robes and aimed it at the sky, causing the wispy afternoon clouds that dotted the blue sky above them to begin to darken and rumble.
Leo knew with certainty that he was going to strike her down. He was going to call fire or lightning down from the heavens and annihilate her in a single blow, and there was nothing he could do to stop the man, no matter how hard he struggled against his illusionary bonds.
Then, there was the sound of breaking glass somewhere in the distance. Leo didn’t have a chance to wonder what it was, though, because his full attention was taken up by the ripples that traveled across the sky. The shield… the dome that had hidden them from the world for so long… it was fading. No, worse, it was collapsing.
Leo had seen that magic for a long time now. It was a familiar sight that was always in the background of everything they did, and now it was vanishing. That could only mean one thing. He reluctantly tore his eyes from the ripples and looked to the Archmage.
Now that the barrier he’d built so long ago was gone, time was flowing in, and the mage was drowning in it. It was hard to see the details exactly because he was so covered in shadows, but Leo could see him drop the wand even as he clutched his chest and fell over.
The transformation was clearer in the other residents of Sanctuary. Each of them aged decades in seconds, and by the time they fell to the ground, they were already shriveled corpses. Those graying, shrinking corpses didn’t stop aging when they died. Instead, they continued to rapidly decay until they were only skeletons wearing the clothes of the living.
It was an impossible thing, and he doubted that everyone else would believe it when they woke up, but he’d seen it, and he could not doubt what his eyes showed him. Really, they should be grateful that they hadn’t had to watch, he thought as he watched the last of the dust that had once been the Archmage blow away, leaving behind none of the darkness that had poisoned the man’s soul.
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Even as he saw Cynaria running toward him from across the field, part of him expected the tower to collapse, but whatever strange magics the Archmage Tazuranth had women seemed only to affect the living, and they were all gone now. Well, all of those that had been sheltered by time for more than a few years, anyway.
“By the gods, Leo, you’re safe. He didn’t get you!” she said as she hugged him so tightly he thought she might crush his ribs.
It was only when Cynara reached him and hugged him tightly that he realized he was not unaffected either. He was taller than her now. Only by a few inches, but still, that was all the height in the world for someone who had been waiting for years not to be the shortest of his group.
At that moment, Leo felt ashamed for the selfish joy that he felt, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling it just the same. He’d finally gotten something he’d wanted, but at what cost?
“How did you know?” he asked finally. “To shoot, I mean? Did Jordan tell you?”
“Not exactly,” she said, stepping back self-consciously. It was easy to see that she’d grown up, too, but it was even easier to look away and pretend she hadn’t. “One day last year, I asked him about this spell, and he… well, he pointed to that little crystal right on top of the spiral and said that it powered the whole thing and that if anything ever went wrong, all someone would have to do was break it, and the tower mage would lose all his power over us.”
She looked around at all the skeletons, and until that moment, he wasn’t sure that she understood that she’d done that, but when she began to cry, it was obvious that she knew. “But I didn’t know… I didn’t think…” she sobbed, embracing him a second time as she cried into his shoulder.
Leo had no idea what to do with a crying girl, especially not one that had suddenly become so pretty. So, he just held her as he took in the scene, not sure what else to do.
With the mage gone and his magic failing, everyone started to stir once more. However, the mood was one of confusion, not celebration, and it wasn’t until Jordan woke up and started to explain things that they made any sense.
“He’d been planning to use all of you for some time,” Jordan said, “I wish I could have taken you far away from here to prevent this, but it was much too dangerous before now outside of the protection of his spell.”
“But aren’t we all outside the protection of that horrible man’s magic now?” Jenna asked. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Jordan agreed. “And the world is a lot more dangerous than what it was the last time we were out there. That’s true, too. But we’ll do whatever we have to do next, it will be okay.”
“Okay?” Cynara practically shouted as they all gathered together among the corpses. “Okay?! How can you say that? I killed everyone. The townsfolk didn’t deserve this. How… why would you want me to do this?”
She was in control of her tears now, but only because of her anger. They were all getting used to these strange changes. No one looked the same as they had before, and everyone’s clothes had gotten too small and tight as they’d each aged almost 4 years in a few seconds.
“You didn’t kill anyone,” Jordan said calmly. “You saved Leo. Everything that happened to make that happen is Archmage Tazuranth’s fault. If you hadn’t stopped him, then once he was done with Leo, he would have come for the rest of you, one at a time, until you were the corpses that decorated the ground.”
“But—” she started.
“No buts,” he chided her. “This is how it had to happen. There was simply no other way forward from here. Everything will move much quicker from now on, and you must be ready for it.”
“But the harvest,” Sam protested. “Surely we must…”
“We will pick what we can, and then we will move before the Lich can find us,” Jordan answered. “It is overwhelmingly powerful, but it is not omniscient, and a moving target is much harder to surround and prepare for.”
The conversation continued on for a long while after that. It was like the mage thought this would be the last time they talked or something. Jordan was often very patient with them, but today he was especially so, and he talked until the sun set before they decided it was time for dinner, even though the conversation mostly went in circles as different children asked him the same questions in different ways.
How could they not, though? People were dead, and everyone was changed. Leo had been the shortest for years and years, and now, in a single afternoon, everyone was changed, and the playing field that they’d all known for so long was equalized and distorted.
At that moment, more than anything, Leo wanted to battle so they could all test themselves and learn what their older bodies were capable of. Instead, as everyone went back to the barn that had become their home all this time, he walked to the cliffs and looked out at the nighttime sky and tried to make sense of it all.
With the spell of Sanctuary shattered, the weather had gotten worse almost immediately, and it was chillier now than it should have been for this time of the year. The miasma of the outside world had also started to leak in, but he couldn’t do anything about that. All he could do was look out over the ocean with its barely visible white caps and listen to the sound of the waves. Then, just as he went to go back and join everyone else, he saw something.
Even from the cliff, he could see something glimmering down there in the nighttime seas, not so far from shore. If the moon had been out, he would have thought it was nothing more than a reflection. As it was, though. The night was pitch black, and it was only his glowing eyes that let him see as he started to pick his path down to the shore to investigate.
Leo had no idea what it was they were supposed to do next. He did know one thing, though. He knew that he was never going to leave an unanswered question behind again.