Mage Dissolution Read online

  I gripped the catwalk railing firmly as I gazed across the room. This wasn’t just an operations centre – this was a war room. The thought sent shivers down my spine, but the evidence was insurmountable. I was looking at the evidence right now. It hung almost right before my eyes. A flag.

  The flag hung from the far wall at eye level. It was a simple flag, two bent lines crossed over one other, but the symbol sent chills down my spine. A swastika. This place was a Nazi army base. How old was this complex? Had it been left unused since the end of the war? It certainly looked that way. I walked down the catwalk stairs and onto the main floor. The dust was palpable and my movement caused it to be picked up and hang in the air.

  It may have just been my imagination, but the dust almost appeared to be forming human figures. It was only dust hanging in the air, but with the refracted light from my glow spell it wasn’t hard to see faces in the dust.

  What spirits lingered here? I grimly let my mind cast back to the holding pens I had seen on the way in, but didn’t particularly want to investigate that line of thought further. The conclusion was unappealing.

  I don’t know what happens when you pass on and I’ve never seen anything that would lead me to believe in life after death. In all my years and with all the strange fucked up stuff I’ve seen I’ve never found any evidence to support the theory of ghosts or spirits from beyond the grave, and yet standing there in that place I couldn’t help but feel that I was an intruder in a place left for the dead.

  I shivered slightly as I looked around the control room. It looked as if no one had stood in this room for at least half a century. It was hard not to be cowed by this simple fact: Victor had once stood here. This was what Marcus had sent me here to find.

  The realisation hit me like a truck. Victor had been alive during the Second World War. The wealth of knowledge and wisdom he must have accrued during that period of time must have been staggering. Was I a fool to stand against him? For the first time since I decided to leave his teachings I began to feel the cold clamour of real fear. I must seem like an insignificant speck to him, one that he could easy swat aside should I become too troublesome. I shook my head angrily. No, I was more than just an irritation. His actions thus far hadn’t been the actions of a man who could remove me at any point. He had refused to directly confront me though it would have been simple for him to find me. He had done everything in his power not to face me. What did that mean?

  I wandered throughout the control room trying to shake off the creepy feeling of the place. I found a series of offices on the far side of the room. The offices were even more creepy than the control room. At least in the control room I could see around me. In the offices my field of vision was limited. It wasn’t too hard to imagine someone sneaking up on me while my back was turned. Shadows from the glow spell in the main room played across the walls creating movements of light that couldn’t help but draw the eye.

  The offices didn’t yield much in the way of anything interesting until I got onto the second floor offices. These offices were a little more elaborate and grand. I went through them not really expecting to find much when I found something.

  It was obviously the office of the Commandant of the complex. It was larger and more luxurious than the others. It too was covered in the thick layer of dust but it was obvious that some care had been put into selecting the furniture. A small chill came over me as I noticed the violin displayed in the corner. This had been Victor’s office – I was sure of it.

  I set off a glow spell in the room to be sure. Now that I could see with clarity I was certain. This was definitely Victor’s office. Fortunately like everything else in the complex it didn’t look like he’d used it in a long, long time. There was a picture on the desk and I went over to it and wiped the glass. To my surprise a familiar face peered back at me. Renee!

  The woman in the photo was Renee. What the hell? From the look of the photo and the way she was dressed it had been taken sometime during the war. I staggered back slightly as the revelation overtook me. I knew that Victor was far older than he looked, but I hadn’t considered that Renee could have been.

  When I had first met Renee she had looked like she was in her mid-twenties. True, it didn’t look as though she had aged much in the six years since we had first met, but people don’t age that quickly, it was possible that I just hadn’t noticed.

  What did this mean? That Renee was also using the same sorcery that Victor did to extend his life? It just didn’t add up. I knew Renee, surely I’d know if she was doing something like that. No, it was impossible – the woman in the photo couldn’t possibly be Renee. The more I looked at the photo, the more I convinced myself that it wasn’t Renee. The lines around her eyes were different and that smile definitely wasn’t Renee’s. No – this woman wasn’t Renee, but she sure looked a lot like her.

  I sat down in the office chair and pondered my next move. This led to another dust demon rising vengefully from the cushioned seat and dissipating into the still air. On the far side of Victor’s office was a series of bookshelves. I hadn’t noticed them when I had come in. I quickly got to my feet and moved over to inspect them.

  It was what I had expected – tomes on Mana. In fact as I pulled the first one off the shelf I realised that I had already read these ones. The only difference was – I had read copies of these books. These were the originals.

  They were hand written pieces and loosely bound. To the right collector they would have been worth a fortune. I glanced around tentatively, I suppose they were well stored here. It looked dry and wasn’t likely to ever been affected by direct sunlight. They were as secure and safe as they could be made. Only a Mage could have gotten in here without some serious lifting machinery. They had been stored in what had been the perfect hiding place, at least up until now.

  I had read some of these books during my time under Victor’s tutorage. They had been written by his master sometime around the turn of the nineteenth century. I had only read a couple of them. Here was a whole bookcase. I wondered what secrets these tomes contained.

  I knew that Victor had skewed my training towards the skills and powers he would find useful for me. I knew that he had attempted to turn me into nothing more than a violent thug and personal assassin. What knowledge had he hidden from me?

  I thought about taking the books, but I wasn’t sure that I could get them all out of here in one piece. It was a long way back down the mountain. Once I was finished in this complex I’d return here and choose a couple to take with me.

  There were many to choose from. Many of them appeared to be simple bindings of hand written notes while others were properly printed books. As interesting as these were this wasn’t what Marcus had sent me here to retrieve. There had to be something else.

  It didn’t take me long to find it. It was another series of books. I pulled one of them from the shelf and checked the title. They were much different from the others. They were a lot newer for a start. Crisp gold lettering adorned their spines and the swastika adorned the top of each volume. As I opened the first book I immediately recognised Victor’s precise handwriting. I turned the cover over and inspected the title – ‘Die Lehre des Lebens durch Tod‘. The study of life through death. I shuddered.

  This was what Marcus had sent me to recover. I was sure of it. Victor had documented his experiments and bound his conclusions, just like any other proper scientist. It would be his undoing. As I flipped through the book I was presented with Victor’s neat writing, diagrams and even photos.

  It was macabre to say the least and left a bad taste in my mouth. The novel detailed experiments being done on living people or ‘subjects’ as it referred to them. The writing was clinical, detached and thoroughly unethical. There were hundreds of experiments being documented in this book alone, and there were five of these books.

  Towards the back the book I saw photos of what was obviously this compound and discovered that my search of this complex hadn’t been as complete as
I had thought. There was a whole wing I had missed.

  There was a trapdoor in the main parade ground that led into this wing. It wasn’t easy to see and I wasn’t surprised that I had missed it when I passed through that area. I remembered a pile of wood that I had assumed was the remains of a structure. The trapdoor was most likely underneath it. The photo showed the parade ground and the trapdoor. A small frame of wood held a sign over the door that stated ‘Krankenstation’. It was an infirmary. Why the hell was it beneath the main parade ground? This didn’t make any sense. I put the books back on the shelf and made my way back into the parade ground.

  I would return after I was done to recover the books and be on my way. I didn’t particularly want to linger here any longer than I needed to, but I felt that this was important.

  * * * * * *

  I found the entrance to the infirmary easily enough. I pulled away several beams of wood to reveal the iron door beneath. It was covered by a thick layer of dust and dirt and was relatively indistinguishable from the rest of the parade ground floor except for the two metal handles on the doors and an iron chain looping them together. Someone had gone to a lot of effort to ensure that no one got in here. The sign that had once been displayed over the entrance had been broken in two and now simply said ‘Kranke’.

  As I snapped the iron chain in two I had the sudden feeling that perhaps the lock hadn’t been put in place to prevent someone getting in, it may have been to prevent someone getting out. I shivered slightly and pulled on the right hand side door. It eventually gave, with a tremendous creak that echoed throughout the cavern. This didn’t help my nerves any.

  The doorway yielded a small ramp that headed down to a set of double doors. I cautiously crept down the ramp. As I got closer to the doors I could see that the frames to each door had been smashed almost to splinters. There was no way of securing the doors now, they had been completely destroyed. Something had come through here and hit this door with great force. I could only attribute this type of damage to one thing. Mana.

  One of the doors hung freely from its frame and the other had fallen down as the weight of time took its toll. I could only see several metres behind the corridor that lay beyond. A thick shade of darkness veiled the whole place. It was almost as if the light from my glow didn’t dare illuminate that corridor.

  That was crazy talk. I was getting myself all stirred up for no good reason. I shivered again as I passed through the shattered doorway and into the corridor beyond. I set off another glow spell and sent it a fair way down the corridor before detonating.

  It revealed a standard looking corridor. There was nothing creepy about it at all. Each wall was adorned with sterile white paint and the floors were a crisp white tile. It reminded me of somewhere I’d been before, but I couldn’t place where.

  A medical gurney stood against the wall just round the corner. A tingling sense of dread rose in my throat. I’d been somewhere like this before. It had been one of Marcus’s warehouses in Singapore were he had performed unnatural and evil practices – practices he claimed that he had learned from Victor. Had Victor used this facility to research and develop those very same dark arts? If so what evils were left behind after Victor had perfected his techniques?

  I shivered and gritted my teeth as I battled with my fear. I raised a shield around myself to steady my nerves. It actually helped a lot – it gave me a sense of invulnerability that helped calm me and allowed me to proceed. I am a Mage – short of another Mage I am the most dangerous person in this complex. I had to remind myself of this several times before I could continue.

  The sign at the end of the corridor marked that the way left led to the operating theatre. This seemed as good as any place to start. I made my way into a large circular room. Surrounding the room were several circles of chairs facing inwards. I went down a series of small steps onto the theatre floor. The chairs were covered in the usual thick layer of dust that everything else was covered in. No, wait. The floor wasn’t completely covered in dust. There were noticeable footprints in the dust – footprints that didn’t belong to me. They were easily visible even in this poor light. I couldn’t tell how long ago the prints had been left, but someone had been in here, and the dust had not yet settled.

  As I looked around the room I kept catching glimpses of something right in the corner of my vision. It kind of looked man shaped. It was beginning to freak me out. I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure if it was just my imagination going nuts or if I was being stalked.

  I knew for certain that it wasn’t invisibility. If I were being hunted by another Mage I would see their Mana aura – in fact the invisibility spell would make them all the more visible to my eyes. No, there was no one else in this room with me. It took me several seconds to reassure myself of this fact.

  I gritted my teeth again and shook my head. It’s funny how you can build yourself up into a state of hysteria. I would have felt more at ease if the threat were revealed and someone were physically assaulting me. At least then I would have known what the threat was and could have dealt with it.

  Part of me wanted to just get the hell out of here. Perhaps I should go back up to the parade ground get some air. The whole atmosphere down here was stifling. It wasn’t that I was running away – It was just a rest. I’d come back down here in a few minutes to finish searching this place. I’m so full of it sometimes.

  I made my way back into the corridor and was heading back to the trapdoor when I heard it. It began so softly at first that I wasn’t sure that I had heard anything. It was a kind of shuffling. At first I thought it was noise that I was creating – but that wasn’t the case.

  Eventually I saw it. It was human shaped and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was shambling down the corridor towards me. If it had noticed me, it didn’t give any indication. It reached the corridor T-intersection where the glow spell was in effect and it suddenly gave out a shrieking wail.

  I took several steps back – the voice wasn’t human. It may perhaps once have been human, but it didn’t sound human now. The thing was still shrieking as it attempted to cover its head. It looked like it was beating itself savagely over the head repeatedly.

  Now that I could see it better I revised my opinion that it was human shaped. A better term would have been that it had once been human shaped. I took another step back. This was exactly the wrong thing to do. My movement attracted its attention. It screamed again as it raised its head and looked at me. Its grimy face twisted in rage as it charged me.

  As quick as I was, I must admit this thing took me by surprise. Its fists impacted twice against my shield before I was able to react. The dull thumps of its strike all but unfelt through my shield. Its rage wasn’t spent by its apparent inability to hurt me though. It just kept throwing punches.

  They weren’t exactly punches either, they were more like it was throwing its fists in my general direction. In most cases it was the underside of its forearm that actually impacted. I took several steps back to get a better view of it.

  It had definitely been human at one stage, but it had shrunk into a tight wasted shell of a man. Its body was twisted with knots and blisters and grime. It shrieked at me and leaped to attack me again. This time however I didn’t let it strike.

  I aimed a telekinetic thread at its chest and flicked it away. The thread impacted solidly and sent it reeling. It landed further down the corridor with a thump, but shrugged off the strike and leapt to attack again. What the hell? That attack at that range should have broken every one of its ribs. It was tougher than it looked.

  As the wretch charged again, I could see that this was indeed the case. Its chest cavity had collapsed. Its unceremonious landing and scraped off some of the grime and dust and I could make out the tell-tale glow of a Mana signature. A Mana signature? This thing had a Mana signature? This thing was a Mage? Or at least had once been one. Why the hell wasn’t it attacking me with Mana? It didn’t make any sense.

  I hadn’t been able to s
ee it earlier under the collected filth on the thing, but now that it was visible it was obvious. I could see the Mana ebb sluggishly across its flesh, its path occasionally blocked by areas of grime too thick for it to be seen through.

  This didn’t make any sense, if it was a Mage it should have been attacking me with something far stronger than its fists.

  I looped a Mana thread around its torso and forced it back to the ground. Its whole body shook as it struggled, but it was unable to break free. I forced it firmly against the ground as a dark thought took me. I moved forward and tentatively scraped some more of the grime from its chest. Its skin was tough and leathery and felt more like wood than flesh. Stomaching away my distaste at the texture of his flesh to my dread I found what I was looking for. A small series of scars leading up to the centre of its chest.

  They were difficult to find, especially with the thing flailing beneath me, but they were definitely there. I’d seen these before. The only thing was the last time I had seen them they had been on a corpse. No, that wasn’t quite right. The scars had been on a Drone.

  I’d seen them in Marcus’s laboratory, on a corpse that Marcus was reanimating. But this didn’t add up. From what I knew of Drone’s they weren’t supposed to attack you. They waited like marionettes to be given orders.

  Maybe this thing’s last orders had been to defend this place? I wasn’t sure about that. It just didn’t seem right. The thing beneath howled with impotent rage as I pondered what to do with it. It was old, very old. Was it possible that this is what happens to Drones if left unattended for long periods of time? If so what did that mean?

  Marcus had claimed that the personality and will of the departed was gone. Yet this thing clearly was able to make some, if not warped, decisions. I don’t think it could reason or think rationally, but I could see it attempting to tear at the Mana bands that held it immobile. If it were completely mindless it wouldn’t do that.