Free Vicious Magick by Jordan Baugher Page A

save them, but I need your
help. I need your crew find me every book on this ship about
songspells.”

    People in the streets are positively freaking
out, swarming merchants to purchase supplies so they can barricade
themselves in their homes, fleeing to the countryside, fleeing to
the city from the countryside. In the midst of all of this
simultaneous, undirected fleeing, rumors fly of an army of daemons
killraping and murderslaughtering their way across Upper Kleighton,
seemingly headed towards…Arcania.

    Somewhere within the scurrying masses, a few
plucked notes make their way into the general noise, nearly
unnoticed. Rassamander leads his procession towards the central
tower complex that governs both the city and the magical academy of
Arcania, the King’s New Omimagic Tower, long since referred to as
‘the Knot’.

    It should be noted here that Arcania never
had a king, as it had always been ruled by the Wizard’s Council,
which is led by whichever wizard has the tallest hat. At the
moment, Rassamander is that wizard.

    The King’s New
Omnimagic Tower
    The Knot is a squat, thick building which
started as a stone box with a tower atop it and swelled out with
annexes and smaller towers and tunnels and connecting skyways until
it became a supercomplex mass of rooms and spaces and corridors
navigable only by its cleaning staff, who were given immortality
because it was easier than training new people to find their way
around.

    Today, the Knot covers a square half-mile,
stretching an average of twenty stories into the air and some
unbelievable number of levels underground. There’s a rumor that
some of these lower levels are actually heated by magma pumped up
from below the planet’s crust.

    This is, however, probably just a rumor.

    Within the crowd, a strange thing is
happening. Instead of running around in anxious circles, some of
the people are skipping in the rain, moving their bodies in time
with the lutist. A woman carries a giant pitcher of water, swinging
it around like it’s her dancing partner. She almost hits Varello.
He leads them through throngs of serious-looking wizards, and when
he draws near the rolling wooden platform, there’s a subtle shift
in tempo, and the melody changes.

    It takes a few seconds, but once the melody
has run its course, Varello sees Novanostrum’s eyes unfreeze. With
his eyes, Novanostrum indicates the staff of the wizard marching
nearest the float. Without skipping a beat, Varello kicks this
wizard, grabs his staff, and tosses it to Novanostrum.

    The other two are starting to snap out of
their stupors, and Novanostrum is blasting the confused wizards
with fireballs and lightning.

    Rassamander conjures a shock wave, knocking
his own wizards off the street and into second-story windows and
awnings, but Novanostrum swings his staff like a bat and deflects
the energy toward a philosophers’ guild, which explodes in a shower
of wooden planks and sophistry.

    At the bottom of the crater, two bearded men
sit at a table smoking pipes.

    “The worst thing is,” one of them says,
“we’ll never know for sure what caused this explosion.”

    “How can you be certain an explosion even
occurred?” his partner asks.

    A few seconds later, a stray fireball crashes
down upon them and knocks them to the ground, burning and writhing,
trying to put their beards out.

    Rassamander pulls his staff into two
identical staves and crosses them, sending a barrage of meteorites
showering down from the sky. Just before impact, Novanostrum pulls
a tiny knob on his wristwatch, and the celestial projectiles stop.
The rain hangs in midair, confused about the sudden lack of
gravity. The people stop moving. Next to the float, a paused bolt
of lightning looks like a giant tower, a tree of light. Novanostrum
massages his temples.

    “Still have your father’s watch, I see,”
Rassamander observes.

    “Comes in handy sometimes.”

    “And yet, even with that trinket, he was
perpetually