Devan Chronicles Series: Books 1-3 (91 page)

Mathius gasped as his tiredness was wiped away. He swayed where he stood. Lucius pushed him aside and tried to get Julia to listen to him. She touched him as she had Mathius, but Lucius was stronger than Mathius and better able to cope.

“You’re drunk, Julia!”

“I haven’t touched a drop!” she protested. Why did they always have to spoil everything? The pleasure was fading now, to be replaced with depression. She thought to draw a little harder upon her magic to make it all right again, but at that moment she remembered something. It was naughty to draw this much.

Keverin wouldn’t like it… Keverin… Keverin wouldn’t like it.

She released her magic all at once and collapsed as if someone had cut her legs out from under her. One moment she was fully aware, the next darkness.

Oh God, was this burn out?

“Shush, Julia. Here, take my hand,” a gentle voice said.

The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She felt herself reach and suddenly she was staring up at Lucius’ worried face. “That was silly of me,” she said contritely glancing around at all the worried faces. “I know better than that. I should have released more carefully.”

She rose to her feet with Lucius helping.

He was almost shaking in rage. “That was foolish! What ever possessed you to try healing more than one person at a time?” he said gripping her shoulders hard enough to bruise.

Julia shrugged him off. “I said I was fine!
God!
It just happened when they touched me. I didn’t make it happen!”

“You could have overreached. Your magic was
multiplying!
”

“Multiplying?” she whispered in puzzlement.

“Now do you see? You were healing five people there at the end. Five times your usual amount was flowing through you… you…
you idiot!
” Lucius was frothing in anger… no it was fear. Fear for her.

“I’m sorry!” she wailed. “But it was easy! I wasn’t near my limit… was I?”

She was suddenly unsure.

“If you have a limit, I don’t know what it is. I would have wagered anything you care to name that you surpassed it today, but you’re still alive, so I must be mistaken.”

Still alive.

Julia shuddered at Lucius’s matter of fact way of naming her stupidity. “I think that’s enough magic for today,” she said weakly.

Lucius and Mathius nodded emphatically.

Julia made her way back to the palace escorted by Brian and Udall. Moriz and Halbert were helping Jihan with his students. They were helping him demonstrate how the legions fight in formation. They had fought the Hasians at Athione just last year and were the most experienced men Keverin had here. Jihan had been approached by a number of the younger lords about teaching. While their fathers spent the time between council meetings politicking and making deals, they spent theirs with Jihan listening to tales of his adventures and trying to learn his skill with a sword. She had encouraged them in this. Those young men were the future lords of the realm. If Jihan could inspire them to become like him it would be no bad thing.

Her thoughts returned to her close call at the warehouse. Why had her magic decided to heal those people when they touched her? She snorted. Magic wasn’t alive, it couldn’t make decisions… at least she didn’t think it could. She had to consciously direct healing, but strengthening people was different. All she had to do was flood them with magic. Her magic must have responded to her unconscious desire to help everyone quickly. That must have been it.

Julia scowled and put the matter to one side.

She had other things to think about, Lord Ascol for instance. Ascol came across as a man who thought the world owed him favours. He thought he was untouchable, worse even than Meagan did. Julia knew she had let her dislike of him ruin their meeting, and she was angry at herself for that lapse, but she also knew that claiming his vote had been a lost cause from the beginning. Rowton had accepted her invitation for his own reasons. Whatever they were, he had never intended to vote for anyone but himself. He had listened to her proposals in silence with that irritating smirk on his face, and then he left—still smirking.

I know a spell that would fix that for him.

Gylaren currently held roughly forty percent of the lords, while Ascol had about thirty percent—a smaller group but one more powerful in the real world. Ascol was buying votes right and left. If things continued as they were, he just might have enough to force another vote through at Council. That was something she couldn’t allow. Not yet. Gylaren’s majority was narrowing by the day, and he would never stoop to buying votes. It didn’t matter really. Any lord willing to sell his vote wouldn’t sell it to Gy. They knew he was an honest man, and they didn’t
want
an honest king. They wanted a man on the throne that they could control, or failing that, one who could be relied upon to do them favours. No, Gy was an honourable lord and a good man, that’s why she was taking care of certain things for him—things that would probably have distressed him to learn. Oh, not favours. She had nothing to offer the lords and no way to bind him to her word even if she had. No, her persuasions lay in the other direction. Firstly, she threatened them with exposure as traitors, and then she used Jihan’s letters to pummel them into submission, but occasionally that failed, like it had with poor Robsort. Lucius won his bet with Jihan when Robsort failed to return for a pardon. That had surprised her, but what was even more surprising was seeing Robsort courting Lord Ascol as if they had never discussed Gylaren. It seemed that her threats had pushed poor Robsort deeper into Ascol’s clutches. She regretted that.

Why did she only succeed when she used her magic to hurt people? Shouldn’t she be able to persuade them with reasoned talk instead of threatening them?

One thing that was going right was Jihan’s friendship with the heirs. He had learned a lot about their fathers plans over the time spent teaching them his skill with the sword. Many of them were discontented and wanted adventures like he’d had. They would listen avidly to his tales of fighting his way to Athione, all the while imagining themselves in his place. Jihan was something of a hero to them. It was funny, but he’d been taken completely off-guard by their attitude. He didn’t really understand why they stood in awe of him. He had done what had to be done, and that was that as far as he was concerned. Still, his friendships with Deva’s future lords could only spell good things for the future.

The future, Julia mused, was uncertain. She hadn’t been here long, but it was already obvious to her that Deva needed a government. A Chancellor was simply insufficient. Deva needed something to ensure that no matter who sat the throne, the people would be cared for and safe. She would never have believed herself capable of singing the praises of bureaucracy, but it was an unpleasant fact that without one, a country the size of Deva would grind to a halt when the head of state died. Gylaren would need an organisation to run his armies, another to look after trade and the treasury, a third to police the city, a fourth to re-build the roads and keep them in good repair. Dozens of other appointments needed to be made to set the kingdom on a path to equal the empire being built by the Hasians.

The sorcerers had a strong system, one that would continue to produce a Mortain and Godwinson forever unless stopped. Although the sorcerers were harsh, their country was strong and their people were happy and protected, but Deva’s lords would never accept a system of governors to oversee the towns and cities like those the Protectorate used. She was sure the Hasian and Bandarian lords didn’t like it either, but they had no choice, not unless they wanted to face an angry legion with sorcerers in support. Deva needed a system that the lords would accept. One that would continue running the kingdom even during periods of transition such as the one occurring now.

The King would need mages to watch the political situation and help him anticipate what the neighbours were up to. They could ill afford armies moving without his knowledge. Travel was slow, and even with good roads it would continue to be slow. He needed to know about enemy troop movements ahead of time so that he could meet them with his own forces before they crossed the border. All this would take years to build, but if Ascol became King, it would be utter disaster. All he wanted was power, and damn everything and everyone else.

The first thing Gy needed to—

“Down!” Udall shouted desperately and shoved Julia to the side.

Julia sprawled onto the dirty cobbles skinning her palms, and crying out in shock.

“Ughh!”

Julia looked back at her guards. Udall was falling with an arrow standing out of his chest, an arrow meant for her. Brian was moving as if in a dream charging a group of rough men, but all Julia could see was her old friend falling… falling… and down. The clash of swords and the grunting of straining men snapped her head around in time to see Brian cutting one man nearly in two with a mighty swing of his sword. The scream of agony was short lived. With a snarl of hate, Brian spun to attack again, but the three remaining brigands were ready. They struck, and Brian fell beneath rising and falling daggers.

“Noooo!” she screamed reaching out as if to stay those wickedly sharp blades.

Craaaack!

Lightning smashed down and struck the raised dagger of a large bearded man. The brigand was blasted up the street blackened and smoking. The other two men turned to run, but before she could strike them down, yet another figure stepped out of the shadows and into the street. She watched as he expertly tripped one of the escaping brigands while stabbing the other in the kidneys. Before the first one could clamber back to his feet and run, Julia’s rescuer bent and cut the brigand’s throat with an economical and practised movement.

Udall gasped as Julia unbuckled his useless armour. The arrow was close to his heart. How was she to pull the horrid thing out with his armour on?

“You’re safe…” Udall whispered with a little smile.

Oh, God help me!

“You saved me Udall, you both did. I’m going to heal you, don’t worry,” she panted in fear for his life, but he didn’t hear her. “Udall,
Udall!
”

She threw herself into the healing realm, but it was too late. The tattered remains of his aura winked out even as she reached out to it. The spark she had come to believe was the soul shot into the distance and was gone.

Julia came back to the real world clutching her friend in her arms and sobbing her heart out. She shook him, and prayed for him, and cursed him for leaving her. She prayed for him to come back, but he was gone like the others. How many could she lose before going insane with grief?

“—still be alive. He won’t be for much longer I be thinking.”

“What?” sahe said choking back her tears. “What?”

“Your man, he be alive,” the scruffy urchin said nodding up the street.

Julia ran to Brian’s side and threw herself down next to him. He was unconscious, and she thanked God for it. There was a dagger in his stomach, and dozens of stab wounds. His cheek was ripped open, and she could see the skull like gin of his teeth.

“Boy!”

The urchin spun toward her angrily. “I ain’t no boy!”

“
Come here
!” she yelled, and he came a little closer. “When you see a golden light spring up around us, pull this dagger out as gently as you can.”

The boy stepped hastily back shaking his head. “I ain’t having nothing to do with witchcraft!”

“
I’ll pay you!
”

The boy stopped. “How much?”

“Ten silver? No don’t go!” she cried desperately. “Ten gold,
anything!
Just don’t go for God’s sake!”

A sly look came over the boy’s face. “You swear on your life to pay me?”

God, I don’t have time for this!

Maybe if she pulled the dagger out really quick… but what if she wasn’t fast enough? She didn’t dare risk it. “I swear on my life and by God to pay you what you ask, now hurry!”

The urchin came forward and knelt opposite her. He put his hand on the dagger and looked at her waiting for her to do something. She entered the healing realm and erected a ward. She couldn’t see the blade while healing. She had to hope the boy was honest enough to perform the task. She lost all sense of time as she healed one wound after another without pause.

* * *

Lorcan tried not to let the stares of the guardsmen unsettle him. Although his mother used to say that if he wasn’t good, a witch would come and get him, this witch hadn’t hurt him. He wasn’t so sure about the guardsmen though.

Lorcan had been stuck inside this… this
thing
, for ages. The witch hadn’t told him that would happen. He had pulled the dagger out carefully like she wanted and wiped it clean on her man’s shirtsleeve. It was a good blade, so he slipped it into his tunic, but when he tried to walk through the light, he found he couldn’t. It was just gold coloured light, but it was as solid as a wall! When he realised that he was stuck until she was finished, he had amused himself by drawing on the wall-that-was-not-a-wall with his dagger. He thought his horse was the best. The tail seemed to wave in the wind as the sparkles of golden light shimmered and moved. His banner was all right too. He had started to draw his mother, but he couldn’t finish. He had stopped halfway through. Her single eye was staring at him making him feel guilty. She looked as if she had pushed her face halfway through the not wall to scold him.

Why had he gotten involved with the witch? The fight had been none of his concern, but without thinking he had stepped out of his hidey-hole to help her. Killing wasn’t hard for him, he had done it enough times over the years that he no longer felt anything when he searched the bodies. It was survival. The guardsmen wouldn’t understand that, he was certain. They would hang him for sure. That’s what you did with murderers—hang them. He had until the witch finished whatever she was doing to plan his escape.

How long was that?