Chapter 11
The Sea of Magic was even worse than Marci remembered.
It was still black, still nauseating, and still chaos, but there was just so much more of it. Even though her human eyes couldn’t process it, Marci could feel the weight of all that power pushing down on them like they were being crushed at the bottom of the ocean. It was even more terrifying now than it had been when she’d been dead, because while her soul was definitely firmer this time around, the safety zone provided by her spirit was much, much smaller, pushed nearly to her skin by the pressure outside.
“What now?” Ghost said, his terrifying face set in a nervous frown as he stared at the swirling magic above them.
“Find some spirits,” Marci said.
“That won’t be hard. They’re everywhere. But getting them to listen is another matter.” His frown deepened. “I’ve never seen them so worked up, and I was here for the madness that broke out once we realized the Merlins were cutting off the magic.”
“It gets harder, I’m afraid,” Marci said. “You heard what Myron said. If we’re going to make this thing work, we need all the spirits on board, and we need them fast. That means we can’t do this one by one. We need to talk to everyone, preferably all at the same time.”
“That’s impossible,” Ghost said immediately. “No one can talk to every spirit at once.”
“Just hear me out,” she said, flashing him a smile. “I’ve been doing some thinking about how you got me in here. One of the fundamental rules of all spirits is that they are strictly defined by their domains. Inside your area of influence, though, you’re basically a god.”
“Obviously,” the Empty Wind said. “I couldn’t have brought you here were it otherwise. But I fail to see how the Forgotten Dead can help us in this particular situation.”
“You didn’t see how they were going to get me over here, either,” Marci reminded him. “But we made it work. I’m pretty sure we can make this work too.” She waved her hand at the churning dark. “This is where our souls go when we die. From a human perspective, the Sea of Magic is basically the afterlife, and as a spirit of the dead, that makes it yours.”
Ghost shifted uncomfortably. “I think that’s a bit of a stretch.”
“Of course it is,” Marci said. “But that’s what humans do. We think outside the box and stretch things to make them work. You’re a human spirit, a concept. Unlike a lake, your borders are defined not by hard lines, but by human ideas. That makes you stretchy by definition.” She grinned at him. “You’ve called yourself a face of death multiple times now, and I know this place is death because this is where I went when I died. If both of those are true, then you should have special powers here that other Mortal Spirits don’t. Maybe even the power to make your voice heard to every other spirit inside it. I mean, you can speak to all the dead inside your wind, right?”
“I can,” Ghost said cautiously. “But only speak. I can’t make them do things.”
“That’s fine,” Marci said. “Talking is all I want. We’re not here to make anyone do anything, we only need to get their attention so we can explain the situation and hopefully convince them to act in their own best interest. Just give it a try. If it doesn’t work, all we’ve lost is time spent yelling into the void.”
Her spirit still looked deeply skeptical, but he must have had a lot of faith in her these days, because Ghost gave it his best. He set her down in front of the Merlin Gate with a bubble of magic to keep her from being swept away, and then he flew up above her, growing larger and larger until the dark of his body merged with the dark of everything else. Finally, when all she could see of him were two glowing eyes floating like stars in the blackness, Marci felt something shift.
That shouldn’t have been cause for comment. Everything in this place was constantly moving, only this time, it was all moving together. Slowly, like water being pushed by the wind, all the swirling chaos began to flow in the same direction. It wasn’t that the sea grew calmer, just that the violence had a new unity, the nauseating eddies and tangles flowing together like leaves blown on an icy wind Marci felt all the way to the core of her being.
It took a long time. The wind rose quickly, but the sea was enormous. Every time Marci thought they must have reached the end, Ghost’s magic redoubled, and the gale grew larger, blowing into every crook and bend of the surging sea. Then, when his magic was stretched across more of the Sea of Magic than Marci had ever dreamed existed, the Empty Wind spoke.
I am Ghost, he said, the words howling through the dark in a thousand voices. The Empty Wind, Spirit of the Forgotten Dead, bound Mortal Spirit of the first of the New Merlins, Marci Novalli. Algonquin has betrayed us, and the Nameless End is coming to devour all that exists. If you wish to remain eternal, come to the Merlin Gate and hear how we plan to survive. If you do not care, then stay where you are and learn how the deathless die.
His voice was like thunder by the time he finished. It shook through the magic, making the whole sea tremble. When it was over, Ghost collapsed into himself, sinking back down through the chaos to land beside Marci in a heap.
“How was that?” he asked weakly.
“Fantastic,” she assured him. “Just the right balance of threat and promise.”
“Spirits need threats,” he said, pushing back to his feet. “It’s easy to bury your head when you can live through anything. If you want them to act, you have to tell them what is at stake. I just hope it worked.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Marci said, lifting her eyes to the dark, which was already growing crowded. It was hard to make out details through the swirling ink of the unfiltered magic, but there were definitely things around them now that hadn’t been there before. Very big things, watching her from the shadows. She was trying to tilt her head back far enough to actually look at them when something spoke.
“Who are you?”
Chills ran down her spine. The voice sounded like a knife the size of a cruise ship rasping over a mountain. If Ghost hadn’t been right behind her, Marci would have turned and run. But he was behind her, his cold, comforting weight reminding her that she was not alone, and that gave her the courage to step forward instead.
“My name is Marci Novalli,” she said, speaking as loudly and clearly as she could. “Bound to the Empty Wind, Master of the Heart of the World, first Merlin since the return of magic, and I’m here to ask for your help.”
She reached down to touch the ground at her feet. Thanks to the swirling dark, it looked as black as everything else here, but she knew from what she’d seen in the Heart of the World that the smooth, hard substance beneath her feet wasn’t stone or congealed magic or anything else natural to this world. It was part of the Nameless End, one of the roots he’d set down, and it was everywhere.
“I’m sure you already know what this is,” she said, scraping her nails across the hard, black substance. “Algonquin’s Leviathan is a Nameless End, a devourer of worlds. He’s eating her as I speak, and when he’s finished, he’ll have a foothold in our plane big enough to keep him rooted while he eats the rest of us. He’s already dug in deep. If we don’t want to die, we’re going to have to work together to dig him out again before he ends us all.”
Marci thought that was a pretty compelling argument, but the powers above her seemed unimpressed.
“Why should we fight for you?” asked a growling voice. Then, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, a wolf appeared. Not a normal wolf, but a monster the size of a charter bus, its long tail lashing in anger.
“Why should we fight?” Wolf asked again, his yellow eyes flicking up to the much bigger spirits looming over him. “They are back, which means our world is already doomed. The mortal gods are even bigger than they were before. They will overrun us all!” He bared his bloody teeth. “Why should I fight for a future where I will be trampled?”
“You dare blame us!” cried the enormous, knife-scraping voice, and the magic above them jerked, forming into a painfully thin man covered head to toe in a long, red shroud. No, Marci realized, not a shroud. It was blood. The man was dripping with fresh blood as he stabbed his red hand at Wolf.
“This is your fault!” he cried. “We’d barely woken before you tried to tear us to pieces! I don’t even know my name yet, and you had your mongrel teeth on my throat! Why should we be devoured because your Algonquin could not control her fear? We are spirits just as you are!”
“You are monsters!” Wolf roared. “Fear, impulse, panic, the worst of humanity’s sins made flesh! All of this world’s problems lie at your feet. If you could control yourselves, Algonquin would have never turned to the Leviathan!”
“You attacked us!” cried a rasping voice as a new figure appeared beside the bloody man. A bent old woman wrapped in animal hides with a bushel of stinging nettles clutched in her bare hands. “We did nothing but wake,” the woman snarled, beating her nettles across the wolf’s nose until it yelped. “You are what is wrong!”
“The Leviathan is what is wrong!” Marci cried, shoving herself between them. “I know you’ve all got a lot going on right now, but who’s to blame won’t matter when we’re all dead. And make no mistake, we will all be dead if we don’t act quickly.” She turned to glare up at the giant wolf. “You’re the spirit of wolves, right? What do you think is going to happen to all those wolves when Leviathan wins? Because I’ll tell you right now, it’ll be a lot worse than anything they can do.”
She pointed at the red man and the old woman, but the giant wolf just snorted. “You know nothing, human. Your kind has already hunted mine to near extinction. Why should I tolerate your spirits as well?”
“I’m not asking you to tolerate them,” Marci said. “I’m asking you to help yourself not die. We’re not trying to solve thousands of years of conflict here. You guys have miles of legitimate reasons to be mad at each other, but if you let all that anger get in your way right now, there’ll never be a chance to fix anything because we’ll all be dead. So if you’re cool with dying stupidly, go on your way. But if you want to hear my plan to save everything, stop yelling at each other for five minutes and listen.”
That was not how one talked to gods, and Wolf’s glare made sure Marci knew it. But for all his big talk, the animal spirit didn’t leave, and Marci took that as her cue to keep going.
“I wouldn’t have come out here if I didn’t have a plan,” she said, pointing over her shoulder at the looming pillar of the Heart of the World. “We didn’t mean to let the magic out all at once like that, but having all of it active right now actually works in our favor. The Leviathan is a Nameless End, a scavenger who eats dying planes. But our plane is healthy, which means he’s not supposed to be here. The only way he was able to stay is because Algonquin let him, and now he’s using her magic to dig in deeper still. But the same thing that made his plan work is how we’re going to beat it. By filling himself with magic like a spirit, he’s picked up your vulnerabilities as well, specifically banishment.”
“What is banishment?” asked the blood-covered man.
“Ignorant,” Wolf sneered, causing all the Mortal Spirits to boil over in fury.
“We only woke a few hours ago!” cried the old woman.
“I remember nothing!” cried another, a giant shadow dripping with something she couldn’t identify. “Even my name is gone!”
“We are lost, lost,” moaned a third, who was so far back in the swirling void Marci couldn’t even see its shape. “We have no anchors, no help.”
“We’ll get you help,” Marci promised, giving the creature what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I know things are crazy, but this is actually the beginning of a golden age. There are more humans now than ever before, including millions of mages. That means there are Merlins enough for all of you!”
“You don’t have to be alone,” Ghost added, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I, too, was alone when I woke, but Marci found me. She calmed my rage and helped me find my purpose. Now we work together to serve the Forgotten Dead, and I am content. You can be too. We are human spirits, and humans are not meant to be alone. We are born in darkness, but we don’t have to remain there. The Merlins are here to help us.”
“The Merlins betrayed us!”
The shout crashed through the dark like breaking ice, and Marci froze. She knew that voice. As long as she lived, she’d never be able to forget it. Sure enough, the tall spirit who appeared from the dark beside Wolf was the same blue-skinned, seaweed-bearded Viking she’d seen when they’d ripped the black bag off her head in that interrogation room what felt like forever ago. He no longer had a weapon in his hand, but there was no mistaking the piercing eyes and hate-filled sneer of Vann Jeger, spirit of the Geirangerfjord, the Death of Dragons.
“You’ve been played for a fool, cat,” Vann Jeger said, sneering at Ghost. “The Merlins were the ones who sealed magic away to destroy your kind. She’s banking on your ignorance now as well, because her ‘plan’ won’t even work. She speaks of banishment as though it’s the end, but she and her pet dragons did the same to me, and here I am.” He pounded his fist against his massive chest. “I was banished by her hand for attempting to slay one of the dragon interlopers, but all she did was send me back to my vessel here. I was too weak to rise again at first, but when the magic came crashing down, I was refilled in an instant. The Leviathan will be no different.” He bared his black teeth. “She thinks she can make fools of us all!”
“I’m not trying to fool anyone!” Marci cried, stomping forward to face him as anger overwhelmed her fear. “I never said banishment was permanent. I said it was a solution to the Leviathan problem, because while he’s impersonating a spirit, he doesn’t actually belong here. You had a fjord to go back home to. He doesn’t. There is no Leviathan-shaped hole in the bottom of the Sea of Magic. If I banish him, all the magic he’s stolen will go back to Algonquin. She will rise again. He will not. Without Algonquin’s magic, he’ll have nowhere to hide, and our plane will kick him out like it should have done at the beginning.”
“A convenient technicality,” Wolf growled. “But why should we trust you?” He nodded respectfully toward Vann Jeger. “The lord of the Geirangerfjord speaks the truth. You Merlins started this mess when you stole our magic. You sent us all to sleep so you could keep our world for yourselves. Now you come with talk of unity because you need our help. Why should we believe a word you say?”
Because she was right. Because they were all going to die if they didn’t. Marci was dying to scream the truth in Wolf’s stupid dog face, but as justified as her rant would be, that sort of anger was how they’d gotten into this mess in the first place. If this was going to work, then Marci had to actually make them listen, and you didn’t get that by yelling. She was trying to figure out how she could get it when a black shape swooped over them.
“You can believe her because that’s how she became Merlin,” Raven said, flapping down to settle on Marci’s shoulder.
Wolf snorted. “Why am I not surprised to see you take her side, carrion eater?”
“Because I’m always on the right side of history, deer-breath,” Raven snapped back, turning his beady eyes to glare at the rest of the spirits hiding in Wolf’s shadow. “I was there when this human became the new Merlin, and I can tell you that she did so by fighting for us. Sir Myron Rollins, whom I know you’re all familiar with, wanted to seal everything up again. Marci’s the one who stopped him. If it weren’t for her, we’d all be stuck down here asleep again while the Leviathan ate our world at his leisure.”
“And we’re supposed to just believe you?” Vann Jeger growled. “Trust the trickster?”
“Yes,” Raven said, fluffing his feathers. “Because unlike you lot, I didn’t panic and surrender all of my authority to Algonquin. I kept my magic and thought for myself, which means I’ve been paying attention to this since it started. I’ve seen the Leviathan with my own eyes on this side and the other, and if you think there will be anything left of this world once he’s done, you’re all idiots.”
Wolf scowled. “Algonquin said—”
“Algonquin sold us out!” Raven squawked. “You saw her beg for your magic. You knew how far she’d fallen. Now she’s let her irrational hatred of Mortal Spirits do what nothing else in the universe could. She’s let it kill her, and she’s going to get the rest of us killed as well if we don’t do something.”
“And this Merlin knows how to stop that?” asked the red man.
“I think she does,” Raven said, turning his head to peer at the Mortal Spirit. “You’re awful rational for someone covered in blood. Which spirit are you?”
“I don’t know,” the man confessed, looking down at his gory hands. “I don’t know how I got here or why I’m covered in blood. I don’t even know if it’s my blood or someone else’s. I just…” His voice trailed off as his bloody hands began to shake, and then he raised them to cover his face. “Help me.”
The terrified sorrow in his voice overwhelmed even the metallic knife-scrape sound, and Marci’s heart broke. “We will help,” she promised. “As soon as this crisis is resolved, I’m going to start recruiting and training Merlins. One of them will be yours. Their entire job will be to help you. We can work it out together, all of us.”
She turned back to the gathered spirits. “My ancestors made a huge mistake. We were afraid, and in our fear, we took what was not ours. We stole the magic and locked it away because we knew we could live without it and you couldn’t. That was wrong, and on behalf of all the Merlins—past, future, and present—I am sorry.”
Her words were met with silence. Not angry silence or dismissive silence. Shocked silence. As it stretched, Marci realized with a start that no human had probably ever apologized for the drought. Not before, not during, and not since. But while she was certain one apology wasn’t going to be enough, the silence was the best reaction she’d gotten so far, so Marci kept going.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, lowering her head. “I’d give those years back to you if I could, but all I can do is promise to learn from my ancestors’ mistakes. They let fear push them into doing something incredibly stupid that hurt everyone. Now Algonquin’s doing the same thing on an even bigger scale. She’s let her hate of Mortal Spirits convince her to end everything, including us.” She looked at Wolf. “I know you have good reasons to be angry. The bad blood between the land and animal spirits and the mortal ones stretches back farther than human civilization. It’s impossible to reconcile something that big in one conversation, or even one lifetime, but if dragons and humans can work together for this, surely we can too. I’m not asking for peace or forgiveness. We can work on those later. All I’m asking right now is for you to help me ensure that there is a later, because the world won’t make it another six hours without your help.”
Marci held her breath as she finished. That had been her best shot. If an apology plus the threat of mutual annihilation didn’t change their minds, nothing would. Even Raven seemed nervous, hopping foot to foot on her shoulder as they waited.
“I will help,” said the bloody man, breaking the silence. “I have to survive, or I’ll never find out why I’m like this.”
“I’ll help as well,” said the woman with the nettles. “I don’t know what I do yet, but I will aid you if I can, Marci the Merlin.”
With that, all the Mortal Spirits began to nod. Some of them violently, some awkwardly, as if they still weren’t sure what they were agreeing to. But while many of the Mortal Spirits clearly weren’t all there yet, none of them walked away, which was good enough for her.
The other camp was less optimistic. Now that her eyes had gotten used to the dark, Marci could see just how much smaller the crowd of land and animal spirits was. They were still huge compared to her, but next to looming shadows of the Mortal Spirits, they looked tiny. Small and scared, their dark shapes huddled around Wolf and Vann Jeger, who were still the only two who’d come forward. But while the whispers from their group were angry, Algonquin must have been the only one who was truly willing to die to spite the Mortal Spirits, because a few minutes later, Wolf stepped forward.
“What do you need of us?”
It took everything Marci had not to collapse in relief. “Your magic.”
It didn’t seem possible, but Wolf looked even less pleased. “How much?”
There was no good way to say it, so Marci just spit it out.
“All of it.”
The words were barely out of her mouth before every spirit balked.
“All our magic?” the bloody man cried. “But we just got it back!”
“We’re not giving all of our magic to a mortal!” Vann Jeger yelled at the same time. “What guarantee do we have you won’t keep it and start the drought all over again?”
“Come on,” Marci snapped, glaring at him. “You, of all spirits, should know how much I like being a mage. Do you really think I’d give that up? Give up Ghost?” She scoffed. “No way. And yes, I really do need all of your magic. We’re talking about banishing something as big as Algonquin. That takes world-class power, and in this world, that means you.”
“But how will you use it?” the bloody man asked. “Where will we go?”
“The only circle big enough is the Heart of the World,” Marci said apologetically. “I know you just got out of there, but I swear it’ll only be for a moment. Once I’ve gathered your magic, I’ll cast the banish and blow up the Leviathan, scattering Algonquin’s power and everything else. Since you’re all immortal spirits, you’ll just fall back into your vessels to rise again once things calm down, but the Nameless End will be left high and dry. When that happens, our plane will shove him back out into the void between worlds, and we’ll all be free.”
The spirits began muttering again as they discussed this. Marci waited impatiently, biting her lip as the whispers dragged on and on. Then, as if he were just as fed up with waiting as she was, Vann Jeger threw up his arms and stomped over to Marci.
“No one ever won a battle putting off the inevitable,” he said, his words breaking like ice as he put out his giant hand. “When this is done, you shall again be my sworn enemy, dragon lover, but for now…” He trailed off, staring up at the pillar of the Merlin Gate with a mix of hate and resignation. “Show me where to jump.”
“Right this way,” Marci said, turning around so he wouldn’t see her triumphant smile. “Just let me see if Myron has the landing pad ready.”
***
Myron did not have the landing pad ready. Marci wasn’t sure how long she’d spent talking to the spirits—time flowed a bit wonky in the Sea of Magic, and it wasn’t as though her soul had a watch—but it felt like enough time to patch up a circle. When she returned to the Heart of the World, though, Myron and the DFZ were still elbow-deep in preparations. Soggy bits of spellworked leaves and rocks were scattered everywhere, making the island mountaintop look like a yard after a big storm. When Marci nudged one of the branches aside so she’d have somewhere to stand, Myron shouted at her, stomping over to put the branch back exactly as it had been.
“Please tell me you’re almost done,” Marci groaned, squeezing her feet into the one bit of clear mountaintop left. “I’ve got every spirit in the world lined up to help, but it won’t count for squat if they’ve got nowhere to go.”
“Sorry to lag behind,” Myron snarled. “But I’m doing my best to pull off the impossible here, and that’s hard enough without you stomping all over my matrices.”
“He’s in a bad mood,” the DFZ informed her. “His first attempt didn’t work.”
“If you want to be useful, get in here and help me hold all of this in place,” Myron said, gesturing at the interlocking maze of wet leaves he’d layered over the top of the broken seal.
Marci tiptoed through the chaos and put her hands where he pointed. “How much longer do you—”
“It’ll be done when it’s done,” he snapped as he laid down another layer. Sticks, this time. “I’m using the mountain’s existing spellwork to save time, but it took forever to gather materials with everything being underwater. Shiro was helping, but then he had to go deal with the situation downstairs.”
Marci frowned. “What’s happening downstairs?”
“The Leviathan’s tentacles are starting to creep into the base of the pillar,” the DFZ said, handing another armload of sticks to Myron.
“Are you kidding?” Marci cried frantically. “This place was built to be a magical collection chamber! If he gets his slimy tendrils into the Heart of the World, he’ll be able to suck all the power out of our plane like he’s drinking it through a straw!”
“Why do you think I’m working so fast?” Myron said testily, nudging the last stick into position. “There, that’s done. Now I just have to…” He spread his hands over the layer of leaves and twigs, closing his eyes as the green light began to rise from the maze of spellworked foliage. As it lit up, Marci felt the magic working through every part of the submerged mountain below, but it wasn’t until the stone itself began to shift that she realized what Myron had done.
“Holy—” She backed away, eyes widening as the leaves and twigs began to burn themselves into the seal, forming a patch over the crack that had split the stone circle. “You reordered the mountain?!”
When they’d first arrived, one of the things that had blown Marci away most about the Heart of the World was how everything—the rocks, the trees, the leaves, the grass, even the pebbles—was crafted from spellwork. The whole place was a giant circle, the biggest spell ever made, and Myron had just made it bigger. He hadn’t just taken spellwork from below and repurposed it. He’d woven his own school of labyrinth magic into the work of the ancient Merlins, adding new spellwork not just on top of, but into the finished matrix of an already functional circle. That was hard enough to do with normal spells, but Myron had done it on the most complicated magical artifice ever constructed. Even more impressive, he’d done it in hours rather than years, but the most amazing part of all was the fact that it worked.
The crack in the stone seal that had once held all the world’s magic was healing in front of Marci’s eyes, the labyrinth of leaves and twigs melting into the spellworked stone as though they’d always been part of it. When the green light finally faded, the stone circle at the center of the mountain was whole once again. Not perfect—the patch job was obvious—but it held together when Marci knocked on it, and she looked up at Myron in awe.
“That’s impressive.”
“I’m aware,” Myron said, brushing off his hands with a superior smile. “I am the world’s greatest mage.”
Any other time, Marci would have rolled her eyes. This time, though, Myron had earned his bragging, and she applauded accordingly. “Bravo.”
“Thank you,” he said, looking around. “So where are these spirits you were boasting about?”
Now it was Marci’s turn to show off. She walked to the line in the stone that served as the temporary Merlin Gate since the official entrance was underwater and grabbed hold of the magic that kept the barrier closed. The spellwork yielded easily to her now that she was officially a Merlin, allowing her to peel the bright air back like a curtain to reveal what was waiting in the chaos outside.
Raven flew through first, followed immediately by Vann Jeger. The bleeding man came in third, his bloodshot eyes wide as he looked around at the island in wonder.
“Is all of this yours?” he whispered to Marci.
“It’s ours,” she replied warmly, turning to Myron. “Did you remember to build an entrance into your seal?”
“Of course,” Myron said as he gave the giant stone circle a shove. “Hop in.”
Marci’s jaw dropped. The very first time she’d come up here, she’d thought that the circular stone at the center of the mountain looked like the cap on a well. Now, she saw that she’d been right. The giant seal—which had always felt as solid as the mountain itself whenever Marci had touched it—moved easily when Myron pushed it, sliding aside like it was on tracks to reveal a shaft that went straight down into the stone below.
“It was a well,” she said breathlessly.
“More like an access port,” Myron replied. “You don’t put water into a well. But this is by far the easiest way into the Heart of the World’s holding chamber. So, as they say in your country”—he pointed down the deep, dark hole—“Geronimo.”
“No Native American says that,” Raven chirped as he hopped to the edge of the pit. “It is big down there, isn’t it?”
“It held all the magic in the world at one point,” Marci reminded him. “But I promise it won’t be for long this time.” She turned to the doorway where the other spirits were waiting. “We won’t even put the seal back on. I just need you to lend me your magic for a few minutes, and then you’ll all be returned to your vessels.”
The dark shapes shuffled nervously, but Vann Jeger pushed his way to the front. “Enough coddling,” he growled, shoving Raven aside. “I am not afraid.” He glared down at Marci. “I am the immortal hunter, and I will be back to hunt you and your dragon again, in this life or the next. For now, though, I will do what must be done.”
With that, he stepped off the edge, dissolving into water as he fell into the dark.
Marci held her breath, waiting for the splash at the bottom, but she didn’t hear a thing. The spirit was simply gone, eaten by the mountain below.
“That was anticlimactic,” Raven said, fluttering up so the other spirits could see him. “All right, you all saw where the Geirangerfjord went, so let’s hop to! The world won’t save itself.”
“Who are you to give us orders, thief bird?” Wolf growled, pushing his way through the door. “If you’re so sure, let’s see you go in.”
“I was about to,” Raven said, fluffing his feathers as he landed at the edge of the pit. Then, as he was turning to go in, he paused to look up at Marci. “We’re betting it all on you,” he whispered. “Don’t fail us, Merlin.”
Marci opened her mouth to swear she would not, but Raven was already gone, the beat of his wings vanishing as he plunged into the dark.
After that, there was nothing else to be said. One by one, the spirits marched through the Merlin Gate, their huge forms shrinking to human scale so they could squeeze through the doorway and jump down the well inside. The bloody man went after Raven, then Wolf dove in, then the crone with the nettles, then a tree Marci didn’t recognize, then something that looked like an eel with a man’s face.
On and on they came like a silent parade of imaginary monsters. Some—the animals mostly—were easy to recognize, but most Marci couldn’t have named if she’d tried. Word must have spread while she’d been waiting on Myron, because there were even more spirits waiting outside than she’d seen while she was pleading with them. Hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of spirits tromped through the door she held open. Every time Marci thought that must be all, more would appear, and as they jumped one by one into the holding circle that was the Merlin’s mountain, the raging sea outside began to retreat.
It happened so gradually, Marci didn’t notice the change at first, but after an hour of watching spirit after spirit disappear down the hole, she looked up to see that their tiny island was no longer tiny, or an island, but a mountain once again. Down below, the cliffs were back, and the tops of the green trees were visible beneath the churning water. Bit by bit, the sea fell, retreating down the Merlin’s green mountain until she could see the white courtyard where they’d first entered, and then the Merlin Gate itself.
But it didn’t stop there. As more spirits poured themselves into the Heart of the World, the Sea of Magic sank lower and lower. By the time her hands began to burn from holding open the door so long, the water was shallower than Marci had ever seen it, leaving the Leviathan’s gnarled roots exposed like black worms across the seabed from horizon to horizon. She was trying to wrap her head around just how much of the Nameless End was down there when Shiro hauled himself up the now dry stairs looking like he’d just lost the fight of his life.
Marci handed the door to Ghost and ran to him. The shikigami fell over when she reached him, collapsing to the stone like a pile of wet cloth. “Are you okay?” she cried, rolling him onto his back.
“No,” he gasped, grabbing her hands. “I kept him out of the Heart of the World, but…” His dark eyes met hers. “He is bigger than anything I could have imagined, Merlin. Bigger than all of us. What we see here, what he’s done, it’s just a fraction. He will crack this plane open and eat us whole. We cannot stop him.”
“Don’t say that,” Marci said angrily. “We can still win.”
“Nothing can win,” Shiro said, shaking his head. “This pillar reaches to the very bottom of the Sea of Magic, its base anchored in the wall of our plane itself. When I went down to make sure he did not enter, I caught a glimpse of what waited outside.” He started to tremble. “I saw him, Merlin. Saw what should never be seen. And now—” He cut off with a shudder, his hands desperate as they grasped hers. “No one can beat this. He is the end of all.”
Marci cursed and looked back at the line of spirits, which seemed to be winding down at last. Below her, the pillar-shaped mountain of the Heart of the World stood as high and dry as a dock post at low tide, its spellwork stretched tight as a drum trying to hold all the spirits that had crammed themselves inside. There were still a few puddles left in the black-riddled seabed outside—spirits who’d been too afraid or stubborn to come—but for all intents and purposes, the magic of the world was here. The spirits had answered her call, and Marci had to believe that was enough.
“I don’t doubt what you saw,” she said, turning back to the guardian. “But you’ve been claiming things were impossible since I met you, yet here we are. I didn’t come this far to fail now. We will beat this, Shiro. We will banish the Leviathan and take back our plane, and there’s nothing anyone—not Algonquin, not the Black Reach, not even the End itself—can do to stop us.”
“I hope you are right,” Shiro said quietly. “I know you are not, but I hope.”
Marci squeezed his shoulder and rose to her feet, turning around to see Myron standing between the Empty Wind and the DFZ, the only two spirits left.
“So,” the mage said, looking down at the well, which was now filled to the brim with magic. “What now?”
“What do you mean ‘what now?’” Marci asked angrily. “We hammer the Leviathan.”
“That was the plan,” Myron said nervously. “But now that we’ve got all the magic, someone has to actually cast the banish, and I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to happen without one of us burning themselves to a crisp. We’ve got the most sophisticated casting circle ever constructed, but even the best spellwork still needs a mage to operate it, and no one’s ever handled magic on this scale before.”
Marci gaped at him. “Shouldn’t you have brought this up earlier?”
“I did think about it,” Myron said. “But to be perfectly honest, I didn’t think we’d get this far. And if we did, I figured we’d just wing it since casting the banish is by far the easiest step of this endeavor. Now that I’m actually seeing just how much magic we’re dealing with, though…” He trailed off with a shrug. “I have no idea how we’re going to do this.”
“I don’t believe it,” Marci groaned, sitting on the ground with a thud. “We finally built a hammer big enough to smash a Nameless End, and we can’t pick it up.”
“You can’t pick it up,” the DFZ said. “But we can.”
Marci blinked. “Say again?”
The city flashed her a radiant smile. “I’m the city of mages, remember? My entire Skyway system was designed to be a magic gathering funnel for Algonquin. I might know a thing or two about casting big spells, and it seems to me that what we’ve got is a bandwidth problem. The power’s there, but holding all of it even for the second it’ll take to cast the banish will kill you. But what if you didn’t have to hold it all at once? What if someone else could carry it for you? That way, all you’d have to do is point the magic in the right direction.”
“That’s impossible,” Myron said. “Humans are the only ones who can move magic. Spellwork helps organize and focus, but no matter how fancy you get, sooner or later, someone has to actually cast the spell. That’s why we don’t have spell-casting machines. Without humanity, magic doesn’t work.”
“That’s true,” Marci said, pushing back to her feet. “But she’s talking about holding magic, not casting it. Casting is just the act of pushing magic at a target, and you don’t have to be able to hold all of something to push it. It just has to be connected, and there’s nothing more connected than a Merlin and her spirit.”
The DFZ nodded happily, and Marci turned to Ghost, who looked as excited as she felt. “Can you do it?”
“I won’t know until I try,” he said. “I’d call it a long shot, but you expanded my horizons just now when you showed me that the entire Sea of Magic is a realm of death. That’s a lot of room to work with.” He nodded. “I think I can do it.”
“Better than I could,” the DFZ said grumpily. “I’m just a city. He’s a whole concept of mortality.” She kicked one of the spellworked pebbles that still dotted the ground. “Stupid Algonquin, making the smallest spirit possible. I’m the city of mages! This should have been our gig!”
“I’m perfectly happy to let Novalli hog this spotlight,” Myron said. “It was a good observation, though.” He smiled at his spirit. “Perhaps we’re not so badly matched after all.”
The city snorted. “I wouldn’t have accepted you if we were. But if the Empty Wind’s going to play capacitor, my work here is done.” She reached her hand out to Myron. He shook it gladly, giving his spirit a truly warm smile as she turned and began walking toward the well.
“Wait,” Marci said as the DFZ neared the edge. “What are you doing?”
“My part,” the spirit said. “Myron and I already talked about this, and we both agreed. I’m the DFZ, and that thing is right above me. Without my city, I’m nothing, so like everything else, I’m throwing my lot in with you.” She glanced at Shiro, who was watching them with a shocked look on his face. “He says it’s impossible, but mages do the impossible every day. I should know. My city is full of them.” She grinned, pushing her hood back to look at Marci with her bright, orange eyes. “It’s time to live up to your reputation, Marci Novalli. Pull it out of the bag one last time and save us all.”
She stepped into the well as she finished, her body dissolving into the bright, neon-reflected water that flowed through the gutters of the wilder parts of the Underground. For a split-second, her magic glittered beautifully. Then, like all the rest, it was gone, sucked down into the Heart of the World as the spellwork groaned.
Marci watched to the end with a lump in her throat. “Are you sure about this, Myron?”
“It wasn’t much of a choice, really,” he said quietly. “If you succeed, she’ll come right back. If you don’t, we’re all dead anyway, so I won’t be around to regret my decision.” His face grew sheepish. “Though if I may ask you a favor, Novalli, please don’t mess this up. I just got to be a Merlin, and I’d very much like to spend some time here when I’m not in a panic to save the world, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I’ll do my best,” Marci promised, putting out her hand to Ghost. “Ready?”
A cold wind was her answer. No sooner had she touched her spirit than his body dissolved, his magic settling over her like armor.
Ready, he whispered.
Marci nodded and leaned down, pressing her hand against the spellwork Myron had so miraculously repaired. There was so much magic packed inside, it practically leaped into her hand. Marci pushed it back down again, closing her eyes until she was certain of what she meant to do.
It didn’t take much. Boiled down, a hammer banish was just throwing magic at a spirit as hard as you could. You didn’t even technically need spellwork for that, but Marci still sketched it out in her mind, using one of the rocks Myron had brought up to scratch the spellwork equation for the hardest, densest hammer she could imagine into the plastic of her bracelet. When Marci was certain she had every bit of the spell right, she reached down again, leaning hard on Ghost’s wind as she plunged her hand into the condensed power of the world.