The Golden Game

By Brian Rush

Part 3 of The Star Mages. A hundred years have passed since the Sword was banished, and now the Star's plan is complete. Angée's door is opened and conflict between Star and Sword is fought to its finish. Once more caught on the pivot between love and power, Angée must again make a terrible sacrifice in order to save everything she holds most dear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Rush
• Release date: Apr 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458153401

Brian Rush

Brian Rush has been writing compulsively in one form or another for many years. He has been a student (one is always a student) of the occult for just as long, and has published articles and taught classes on the subject. He has lived on both coasts of the U.S., never far from the sea, and currently resides in northern California.

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The Golden Game

Book 3 of The Star Mages

A Novel

By Brian Rush

Published by Brian Rush at Smashwords

© 2011 by Brian Rush

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons is entirely coincidental.

Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.

– William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Then said the prophet and apostle of infinite space . . . let men speak of thee not as One but as None . . . None, breathed the light, faint and faerie, of the stars, and Two. For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.

– Aleister Crowley, Liber Al Vel Legis.

Chapter One

Falcon

When the first shots rang out and the crowd started to scream, I knew we were in trouble.

It happened just as the obelisk, a concrete construction with a steel core about ten meters tall and two in diameter, topped with a replica of the Star in gold, rose into place and dropped into the hole prepared for it under the influence of my mind. Three other Star Mages assisted. I could have done this part all by myself, but they were needed for the activation ritual and spells of protection that would follow. As things turned out, I was glad to have them with me for other reasons, too.

A crowd had gathered to watch, as I had expected. They lined the rope barrier put up to keep people at a distance. We were erecting this particular obelisk, one of thousands all over the world, on a cleared vacant lot in downtown Chicago. Naturally we attracted gawkers, one of the side-effects of the end of secrecy that I hadn’t anticipated, although Dolphin had.

You have never been famous before, Falcon, she told me. I can still remember what it was like. You will need to disguise yourself wherever you go, if you don’t want to be mobbed by fans, and others.

I was more concerned about the others today than the fans. The revelation of the Star Mages had provoked outcries, astonishment, wonder, media attention, controversy, hope, the formation of fan groups, and outraged hostility. Religious fundamentalists of several flavors saw us as the agents of Satan. Conspiracy theorists saw us as the Illuminati they had always feared. (In that, of course, they weren’t far off.) Opposition to the Global Federation had been simmering among such people ever since it was formed. Now they knew that the Star was the impetus behind the Federation, and that brought the simmer to a boil and provided a target. I’m certain that the opposition would have been much stronger if not for the purpose of these obelisks. That it existed at all meant that not everyone believed us.

I had a particular feeling about today, as well. It was one of those feelings, the kind every mage learns the hard way never to ignore. I mentioned my suspicions to the others, and we all put up strong shields against any sort of physical mayhem.

That’s why the shots from multiple modern laser-guided assault rifles with micro-explosive rounds took us by surprise. They weren’t shooting at us.

The shots came from several locations, triangulating on the crowd. Bullets ripped into bodies and exploded. Even missed shots caused serious injuries as the tiny charges of ultra-high explosive detonated on impact with anything solid. Rounds that hit their targets blew bodies to fragments. Rounds that missed tore off limbs and tossed people like softballs. In the few seconds we took to recognize what was going on and react, dozens of people were killed or injured. The unharmed panicked and began to flee, trampling one another in their desperation and causing more injuries.

I quickly extended my shield to protect the crowd as well as myself. The bullets bounced from it and struck no more soft targets, but the people were still panicking and injuring one another. What to do about that? I amplified my voice and yelled, Stop running! We’ll protect you from the shooting. Now everyone stay where you are until we can put down the marksmen.

That only helped a little. "Thad, see if you can find those shooters and stop them. Don’t kill them unless you have to. Linda, Tran, try to stop the crowd from panicking without using magic on them directly if you can help it, but first of all save lives."

Thaddeus Stevens smiled and said nothing. He morphed into a golden eagle – the pretentious twit – and flew towards one of the locations where the shooting was coming from. Linda Malenski and Tran Nguyen, the other Star Mages with me on this project, moved to intercept the fleeing spectators. I concentrated on protecting the crowd from the gunfire. In a few seconds, the first gun had fallen silent. Another quickly followed, then the third and fourth. Thad appeared on a rooftop and waved me an all-clear. Linda and Tran had begun to restore order but things were still hectic.

That moment was when the Crystal Mages attacked. This time, they went for me.

A pair of spells emerged from two people who had been invisible up to that point. One was a simple fireball, and the other some sort of death spell, nothing terribly imaginative or hard to block, but it was a near thing just the same due to surprise. My shields were up and my katana in hand as they advanced. I didn’t recognize either of them.

I threw a quick and simple spell myself, one I call the Kraken’s Noose. A pair of invisible tentacles reached for the throats of my two opponents. I didn’t expect that to work, but it might buy me a little time. While the Crystal Mages were shriveling the nooses in bursts of fire – I was right, it didn’t work – I stamped my foot and summoned a force of Earth with the motion. The ground trembled. My attackers found it difficult to keep their feet. I moved quickly towards them, my speed enhanced by the Star’s power and my own footing in harmony with my magic and sure. They solved their problem by levitating. I let the tremors die out. We were back to square one.

The Crystal Mages descended and closed with blades at the ready. One carried a rapier, the other a big two-handed claymore. This was going to be tricky. I found myself on the defensive within a second or two, and the bad part is that defending against a claymore requires totally different tactics than defending against a rapier. The claymore is big, relatively slow, and hits with a lot of force behind it, while the rapier is light, agile, and quick. I tried using a Burst of Light spell against the rapier-wielder, but his intuition must have warned him and he closed his eyes for the necessary second or two and backed up to avoid getting slashed or skewered. At least that took him out of the fight for those few seconds, during which I concentrated on the two-hander. He was big and dark. He was also fairly competent with a blade. I put him on the defensive (I’m a bit more than competent) but was unable to get through his guard before the rapier guy, who was smaller but equally dark, returned to the attack and I had to retreat again.

I could imagine what this fight must look like to all the mortals watching it. With our speed and strength boosted by Star and Crystal, the three of us surely seemed a blur of motion too rapid to follow. Gasps of astonishment and screams accompanied our moves as people did their best to keep out of our way. I had managed to protect myself so far, but was getting desperate. I saw no opening that would allow me to even the odds. I tried to think of a spell I could use for the purpose and could cast while in the middle of a two-on-one sword fight. I couldn’t.

At that moment, to my great relief, Thad descended in eagle form and joined the fight. The rapier man saw the shadow of the bird and dodged just in time to save himself from its talons. Thad resumed human form and landed on his feet, cavalry saber in hand. I knew how good he was with that blade, so I left him to fence with the rapier guy while I concentrated on the claymore-wielder.

Now that it was one-on-one, my opponent was in considerable trouble and he knew it. After retreating several steps, he panicked and turned to run. Bad move. I hamstrung him. He fell to the ground with a scream. Now I had the leisure to work some magic, and I bound him in conjured shackles that also kept his mind from touching the Crystal. I turned back to the other fight in time to see that Thad had disarmed his opponent and was holding him at sword point. I treated the second Crystal Mage the same as the first.

After that we spent some time healing the people who could be saved, as the sirens blasted and the police and ambulances arrived. And after that there were statements that had to be given and promises to appear in testimony. All in all, it was a good three hours before we were able to complete the ritual activating the obelisk, putting us well behind schedule.

And all for the sake of a sadist’s fading dream, Thad said. Too bad when the Star let us operate in the open, the Crystal Mages came out of hiding, too. It would have been more convenient if they’d stayed in the closet.

Yes. I don’t know why it worked that way. Maybe the Star had no choice about it. The Crystal is her own dark half. Maybe it’s all or nothing. Or maybe she did it just to keep us on our toes.

These people paid a high price for that lesson in alertness, if so.

I didn’t altogether trust Stevens. I knew him too well from vision and pretended dream. I had seen him for the first time years earlier in a vision of a possible future given me by the Star. In that vision, he was a Sword Mage, probably the Sword’s guardian. Later, I met him in the flesh during my own brief rebellion against the Star under the Sword’s influence. I summoned him to the Background Realm, telling him he was dreaming, which was a lie but necessary to preserve secrecy. I made a deal with him. I wanted to send him to the alternate Earth at the end of the Stairway to Nowhere to retrieve the Sword, which I was forbidden to do myself by a magical oath. I turned from my rebellion to save Dolphin’s life, I never called Thad back, and in the end my daughter Angée was the one who retrieved the Sword. But from those early views of Thad, I knew how strong and insidious his dark side could be.

Thaddeus Stevens seemed these days to be an ideal Star Mage, conscientious and brilliant. But I kept the Star’s vision in mind at all times when dealing with him. I knew from personal experience as well as what happened to Dragon how easily a Star Mage could go bad.

I sent Thad, Linda, and Tran to report to Dolphin about this mess. Then I took the two mage prisoners to the Crystal’s mansion via the Background Realm and handed them over to Jaguar, the Crystal’s guardian.

I materialized in the courtyard of the mansion to find Jaguar talking to another Crystal Mage that I didn’t recognize. Jaguar was sitting at the garden table with a beer. The other mage, a small woman of Asian appearance, stopped talking and looked at me. Jaguar followed her eyes and smiled. Then he noticed my prisoners and his smile faded.

We’ll continue this tomorrow, he said to the other mage. She nodded, opened a Background gateway, and stepped through.

What happened? Jaguar asked me.

An assassination attempt as we were erecting one of the obelisks in Chicago. Four mortal snipers killed a lot of bystanders before we took them out. Then these two came at me.

Two against four, with you one of them and only mortals with guns for back-up? Not terribly clever. I’m a bit disappointed in you, Marcos, he added to one of the prisoners. Marcos, the former rapier man, said nothing. He spat at Jaguar’s feet and missed. Jaguar waved a hand casually and a dark mist flowed from it to settle on the two Crystal Mages. Without fanfare or any other noise, the men stopped breathing. Jaguar opened another Background gateway and levitated the two bodies through it into somewhere or other in the dream world.

No sacrifice for the Crystal? I asked him, feeling a little queasy.

The Crystal has stopped asking for blood. Not much point to it now, Falcon. It doesn’t have much longer. As soon as the obelisk project is finished, it will be over, for me and for the Crystal, too.

So soon? I sat down in a handy chair. I went in an instant from queasy to dizzy.

Eventually anything becomes soon. What year did you and I meet, do you remember?

It was 2056, in that Background Realm replica of the Great Pyramid where we gathered before our adventure with the Shade Lord.

Yes, I remember the circumstances but I wasn’t certain about the year. So it was a hundred years ago, almost. The month was October, wasn’t it?

Yes, that’s right.

And it’s July now. We’ve known each other almost a hundred years, Falcon. When I was a boy, a hundred years was longer than I expected to live. He laughed. Of course, there were times when I didn’t expect to live another week. I could easily have been right, too. He shook his head and sighed. I was born in May of 1899. As of two months ago, I was two hundred and fifty seven years old. I have lost count of how many people I have killed during those years, killed in self-defense, killed in duels, or sacrificed to the Crystal. Their faces blur together in a montage of rage, fear, and despair. Something is wrong with that, Falcon. I should at least be able to remember how many people I have murdered, but I can’t. It’s a glorious new world you are building, you and Dolphin and the Star Mages. There is no place in it for a monster like me.

You’re not a monster, Jaguar.

You’re a good friend, Falcon, but you’re wrong. I am the very definition of a monster, the template by which one judges monsters. My role was necessary and I hope I have contributed to the Star’s success, but it’s time for me to go. Well, nearly time. Finish this one project, open the way for every man and woman to become a Star Mage – including my loathsome Crystal adepts if the Star will have them and if they are willing – and then I will gladly give that nasty piece of rock one more sacrifice. Not my blood, mind you, never that again, but certainly my life. And then it will go silent at last and this long horror will end.

I said nothing. What could I say to that?

Falcon, do you have some time? I have a favor to ask of you.

Whatever I can do for you, Jaguar, I’ll do gladly.

It’s a terribly onerous task, I’m afraid, my friend. I would like you to play the role of a priest and hear my confession. Will you do that?

I felt my throat tighten. I nodded.

Forgive me, Gods, for I have sinned . . .

I don’t know how long Jaguar’s confession took. Several hours anyway. At the end of it I should have been in shock. Instead, I was in tears. I hugged him and left contemplating the price of the world we were building, not least in the darkening of a great heart.

***

Two weeks later, all of the obelisks were in place, seven thousand of them carrying the influence of the Star to the far corners of the world. The image atop each obelisk of the Star– a meteoric rock about the size of a football, wrapped in gold wire with twelve precious stones about its circumference – made a magical link with the talisman. To be near an obelisk was in effect to be near the Star itself. The number of Star Mages had been increased to over five thousand in order to do this prodigious work of magic, both erecting the obelisks and consecrating them into a global web of power.

Four Star Mages gathered to witness the activation of the final spell, and the last step in a transformation of human society that had taken six thousand years from the Star’s beginning in ancient Jericho until now. Dolphin, the Star’s guardian and my wife; Angée, our daughter, the Child of Paradox – no longer a child; Memnos, a legendary former guardian of the Star from Roman times and Angée’s lover; and me, Falcon, the guardian’s heir. We were gathered in the Star’s temple in the house in Ajaccio where Dolphin and I lived. We would not be performing this spell. The Star would do it all herself. We were here only to witness and share in the triumph.

The Star appeared in the illusory form I had seen in a vision from the time of her creation, a beautiful naked woman with night-black hair and black eyes. The moon sailed through her hair as through the night sky and her eyes shone.

She danced in a whirl into the center of the temple, into the midst of the four of us, arms over her head, skin shining in the moonlight that poured in a pool about her feet. She stopped. My friends, she said softly, "the time has finally come. For six thousand years you have struggled and suffered and died for me and for the Earth’s future. For six thousand years I have waited patiently and moved in the shadows. Many of my Star Mages have doubted at times, because it is difficult to see so far and endure so much for a promise that is so hard to explain and understand. But now it is done. Now we will take the final step, which is also the first step of the next dance.

I know that you have doubts still, some of you. As we stand on this bridge to wonder, speak to me, tell me your thoughts.

I took a deep breath. You know that I’m always doubtful. It’s my nature to question.

She smiled. I know, Falcon.

Not like Dragon, though. I understand why we needed to remain secret until recently. What I don’t understand is why this step couldn’t have been taken a long time ago. You could easily have made every human being a Star Mage from the beginning. Why wait until now?

She nodded and turned to Memnos. You know the answer, don’t you, my old friend?

Yes, Memnos said. Falcon, if we had done this when I was the guardian, in Roman times, it would have meant carnage beyond description. There was always war in those days. There was always war somewhere from the beginning until only about ten years ago. I think of the Romans, or the German barbarians, or the Muslim Jihad or the Crusaders with deep-tier magic and I cringe. Humanity had to embrace peace before they could embrace the Star.

That is why, the Star said. It was not merely the advance of technology, but also the advance of the human spirit, that required thousands of years.

Angée bit at her lower lip.

You have a concern as well, the Star said to her.

Death is the engine of evolution, Angée said.

Ah. I understand. But it is less a concern than you might suppose.

What are you talking about? I said.

Well, Papa, if everyone becomes a Star Mage, everyone will be immortal, right? But won’t that freeze us into a fixed mold? How is it that the human spirit has advanced, as the Star put it, over the past few thousands of years? People have died, that’s how! The old have been replaced by the young. It’s the only way. Old farts are too conservative. Minds get fixed. Capacity to learn is limited. She smiled at Memnos. With an exception here and there. Death is the engine of evolution. If everyone is immortal –

Then the world dies of Medusa’s glance, the Star said. But no, most people will not be immortal. Not yet. They will not grow old and tired and sick and feeble, but the minds of most people cannot accept life without end. They might have been able to in an earlier age, an age when things changed only slowly, but in these modern times human beings have become addicted to progress. That is another reason why this step needed to wait until now. New technologies are unleashed in a steady stream, everything changes as a result, and those without flexibility of spirit can endure only a century or so. Lives will lengthen, old age and its infirmities be banished, but the generations will continue to cycle – until the world is ready for yet another transition.

So we are not finished yet, Dolphin said.

The Star laughed, a sound like chimes tinkling in a frost. Is there such a thing as being finished? Do you think you will ever stop growing and learning? Would you ever want to?

Dolphin smiled. No. And that is why utopia is a fable.

A myth, the Star corrected her gently. Myths are lamps in the darkness, drawing the mind forward along a path the eyes cannot see clearly. This is not the end. But it is an important step. It is the end of something that began six thousand years ago, and the beginning of something that will last for ten times six thousand years – if all goes well.

Better than the past, I hope, said Dolphin. These millennia have been cruel.

Sadly so, said the Star. I have had to be ruthless. I split myself in two, and my harsher self became the Crystal and committed great crimes, to spare my Star Mages from that stain on their souls. It had to be done. The long dance had to be danced to its finish.

"So what is the