The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [124]
Quentin kept running. His mind was clear and ringing with excitement. As he ran he blew into his hand and shook it to get another spell charged up. Not a moment too soon, because yet another man came pelting up the stairs, hurriedly tugging on gloves. Quentin stiff-armed him straight in the chest, which might or might not have worked anyway, but Quentin’s hand was amped up like a Taser, and the charge blew the man back down the stairs.
Quentin hurdled the groaning body and kept on running, out into the square in front of the castle.
It had four sides: the keep on the left, watchtowers on either end, ocean on the right. There was a small obelisk in the middle. A moment later Poppy came walking into the open air from the opposite corner. He hadn’t realized what he must look like, shirtless and bloody, until she saw him and he saw her expression. He waved in what he hoped was a cheerful and not moribund way. He was about to jog across to her when a stick clattered across the cobblestones next to him. He looked at it curiously, then scrambled violently backward out of the courtyard when he saw that it was an arrow.
Poppy saw it at the same time he did. She darted behind the pedestal, singing something in rapid-fire Polish, and a green tracer appeared in the air, like a green laser, connecting the arrow to the roof of the castle. She had back-traced its path through the air.
She didn’t faze easily. It must be an Australian thing. Probably she grew up fighting off snakes and dingoes and whatever else. He’d never seen her cast anything before, and it was amazing. He’d never in his life seen anybody move their hands that quickly.
“Oy!” she called, her back to the stone obelisk. “Are you all right?”
“I’m all right!”
“Eliot and Benedict are finishing in the tower!” she shouted.
“I’m going in!” He pointed to the keep.
“Wait! No! Bingle’s coming too!”
“I’m going in!”
He didn’t hear what she said next. He was overjoyed to see them, and somehow weirdly Poppy, good old Poppy, most of all, but he felt a surge of longing at the same time. This was his chance. If he didn’t stay ahead of them, if he didn’t get there first, he would lose it, and he didn’t want to be selfish about it, but if it was all the same to them he wanted this one to be his show. Quentin whispered a few words to his sword and struck it twice on the ground. It took on a golden sheen. Poppy was working on the end of the green trail from the arrow now. The end became a spark, and the spark raced along the trail like a lit fuse. It disappeared over the parapet, and there was a crack of thunder.
Quentin ran for the doorway of the keep. The feeling was absolutely glorious. He didn’t know how he knew what to do, but he did. With the others at his back, his last doubt was gone.
The doors were made of foot-thick iron-bound beams. He took a skip-step, wound up with the sword, and smashed it into them overhand. The spell he’d put on it didn’t affect the way the sword felt to him, but it acted on everything else as if it weighed about half a ton. The whole structure vibrated, and the wood cracked and split. More dust. The boom echoed out into the night. Another hit smashed the door halfway in, and another cleared the doorway.
Striding into the castle Quentin felt so full of power it was almost painful. It was bursting out of him. He didn’t know where it was coming from—his chest felt huge, its contents under maximum pressure. He was a walking bomb. Five men stood in the hall behind the broken door, pointing swords and spears at him, and a shout of wind rushed out of Quentin’s hands and blew them backward. He blinded them with a flash of light and then threw them bodily down the great hall. It was just so obvious.
He turned and put one hand on the ruins of door he’d just knocked out, and it began to burn. This seemed like a