Fallen Magician (The Magician Rebellion) (12 page)

“
I am sorry,” Alia said with a somber note to her voice. She put her hand on Byrn’s shoulder to comfort him, but he barely noticed. “The gods work mysteriously at times, but if you think about it maybe that was the best thing that could have happened to you. If not for that event, you may have never discovered your true potential.”

Byrn continued as if she had not said anything, lost in his own memories. “For the longest time I felt cursed by that day. It seemed that fate had conspired against me to take everything I cared about away, but now,” Byrn paused looking for the right words, “now I still feel that loss, but I could no longer imagine myself as being anything other than I am now. If the ogres never attacked, then I would have moved away from Colum as a journeyman courier. At the time it seemed that a life where avoiding the occasional bandit would be all the excitement that I would ever need, but at some point doing the fantastic- things that I never thought were possible- has become commonplace. Spending time with you and others like us in a community of magicians has made me feel at ease with who I am and if things had unfolded differently, then I would not have grown into the person you see before you. Does that make sense?”

Alia only nodded. Her mind seemed to be in another place.

After a time they made their way to the lake although the term “lake” did not do the body of water justice. It was a great lake, larger across than many rivers, and would take a full day for them to reach the opposite end on foot where they guessed the sewer tunnel was located. The side they were on was often trafficked by Colum’s residents and as Byrn had never seen anything like a sewer tunnel emptying out on this side, then it must be on the opposite side of the lake where no one ever went except on occasional hunting expeditions when food was scarce.

Byrn calmed his mind easily focusing his thoughts dispassionately on his outward magic so that instead of generating fire as was his natural tendency he dropped the temperature in the air several degrees and froze a portion of the lake before them large enough that they could walk out on it. Byrn was the first to test his icy construct and, finding it satisfactory, held his hand out for Alia who took it as Byrn helped her aboard.

“
Hold on to me,” he told her, releasing her hand and offering his arm in its place.

“
What for?” she asked.

In answer a powerful gust of wind blew across the lake that nearly pushed Alia off her feet on the slippery surface and she instinctively grabbed onto Byrn’s outstretched arm as their impromptu ice raft pushed away from the shore.

Alia shivered and pulled her cloak tightly around her slender body, but Byrn barely felt the cold touch his skin. “I’m going to summon another wind to push us along more quickly,” he told Alia and she responded by snuggling into his arm to his gratification.

“
Do you mind,” she asked nudging closer to him, and he indicated that he did not. “You’re so warm,” she said and pressed her body against him, which only seemed to intensify his own inner heat. “It must be a perk of being a master of fire.”

It was, but Byrn did not tell her, preferring to let her draw her own conclusions.

In this way, Byrn and Alia made their way across the lake in about an hour instead of the day it would have taken to walk around it. Alia appeared happy to disembark from the ice raft, but the ride was over all too soon for Byrn.

From this point the pair of magicians would need to search on foot for the sewer’s entrance. They did not speak much as they spent the next hour or so moving up and down the shoreline that was in the general direction of Baj. The view of the prison was largely obstructed due to the tree line that blocked their view. Each magician reflected on the events that transpired in Colum four years ago and their decidedly different roles in that fight.

The sun was setting while the magicians continued to search along the edge of the lake looking in any area that had an overgrowth of plants or forestation leading into the lake, believing that the sewer entrance must be hidden, but the tunnel’s entrance still eluded them.

The moon grew fat in the sky overhead. It was a cloudless night and the moon’s reflected light in the lake helped to light the night as the hours passed. It was hours later and they were discussing where to set up camp for the night when Alia found the sewer run off hidden behind some large bushes and an overhang of rock and dirt. The pipe was large enough for a single person to enter hunched over, but was blocked by a metal grate. Byrn tested it and found that it was held securely in place.

“
I was beginning to doubt that it was here at all,” Alia told him. The relief in her voice was undeniable and Byrn did not have the heart to tell her that he was thinking the same thing.

Instead, he simply agreed, “It was very well hidden.”

“
Can you burn through the bars?” Alia asked looking over Byrn's shoulder as he examined the grating.

“
I think so, but maybe we should wait until morning. The flame or smoke could draw someone’s attention.”

Alia considered their options. “We should do it now. If we burn through the bars now, then someone might see the glow of the flames, but if we wait then we run the risk of being spotted by any patrols that might pass through here.”

“
I do not relish the idea of being caught unaware or staying awake all night and being too tired to properly defend ourselves should the need arise,” Byrn conceded, “Can you move back by the bushes? I don’t want to risk accidentally burning you.” After Alia moved a safe distance away Byrn created a fire dagger and pressed it against the top of the middle bar. He held it and moved it slowly against the bar as he willed a constant flow of magic through the construct. Unlike an actual dagger there was no resistance as the fire construct licked against the bar, but it still took a minute before the top of the pole was melted through. Byrn was pleased to see that only a few small clouds of smoke were created by his cutting and he hoped that no one would see them rising.

Byrn was halfway through the bottom half of the bar when Alia reappeared from the bushes. “There are some people approaching in a small boat. How close are you?”

“
Not much longer. Did they see you?” Byrn kept working on the bottom end.

Alia considered the question briefly, “I don’t think so. It is probably the glow of the fire that is attracting them.”

The bar fell into the sewage tunnel with a loud clang. Alia hissed at the sound and sneaked a peek through the bushes. “They are looking this way,” she whispered. Then added, “They are paddling towards us.”

Byrn looked out. The men were still far away. It would take them a quarter hour or more to get to the grating even at a full row. “We still have some time. If we make no more noise and replace the grate, they may think that nothing is amiss.” Byrn squeezed through the opening and smiled wryly at his cohort. “Are you coming?”

Alia climbed through with much less difficulty. “Let us continue.”

“
Not yet,” Byrn told her. He squeezed past her so that he was at the grating and grabbed the bar and held it in place with one hand while he touched the top end with his staff. A small but intense flame sprang forth and lightly melted the bar back in place. “Now if those men do make it here they will see nothing out of the ordinary.” He did not speak the new fear that suddenly sprang to his mind. What if there was an entrance into the sewers from within the prison?

Byrn led the way through the tunnel. A soft glow emanated from his staff lighting the way ahead of them. Although it hardly mattered as they traveled for miles before coming to the first point where the pipe split. They stood in front of three possible paths. Alia placed her hand against the wall and said, “Come forth, Sprite Alphene,” and when she removed her hand a bright gold sprite sprang forth as if she had been hiding under Alia’s palm the whole time.

“
This place smells!” exclaimed the sprite covering her nose. Her golden head twisted back and forth taking in her surroundings. “Is this a sewer?” Alphene screeched. Her tiny, high-pitched voice sounded overly harsh.

“
Alphene, I need you to find my father, Xander Necros.”

The sprite flitted from one tunnel to the next before returning to the magicians. To Alia she said, “You owe me a great favor for this,” and wiggled a tiny finger in the woman's face. “I want a bushel of lavender, honeysuckle, and jasmine the next time you summon me.”

“
You have my word,” Alia told her without hesitation and Byrn guessed that Alia found Alphene's demanding attitude as endearing as he did the sprite, Lauralee's sweet nature, such was the nature of such magical contracts.

Cheered for the moment, Alphene flew down the center tunnel. “This way,” she yelled back as her faint glow quickly started to shrink down the tunnel. The magicians followed, but found the going got more difficult the further they went. The tunnel rose at a slight incline that made it difficult for the humans to traverse through the sludge.

After a half hour the smell was so strong that Byrn covered his nose by pulling the side of his hood so that it covered half of his face. Alia pinched her nose shut and covered her mouth with the palm of her hand. Alphene kept repeating several words that Byrn did not recognize fiercely which he was fairly certain were swears in the sprite tongue.

An hour passed and the trio started heading up a steeper slope and each magician took to one side of the cramped tunnel to avoid the grime that flowed past them. They used their staves for purchase to keep their footing for the long climb until it finally started to level out.

Byrn began to feel safer that the men who were crossing the lake were not pursuing them, since they had heard no signs of pursuit from the tunnels behind them and he would have breathed a sigh of relief if it would not have required inhaling a lungful of the fecal smell that was intent on finding its way into his nose.

Alphene flew up a tunnel to the right with Byrn and Alia not far behind. When the magicians caught up to her she asked Alia to carry her through the next tunnel, because the sprite was feeling nauseous. “We are not far,” Alphene's voice was soft as a whisper and she put her little hand to her forehead theatrically.

A half hour more and Alphene called a stop announcing, “We are here.” She flew straight up into a small hole in the tunnel ceiling, but lacked the gusto she had a few hours earlier. A shout of surprise came from up the opening. Alia looked to Byrn hopefully and he nodded, recognizing the voice of Xander Necros. He was a mere dozen feet above them.

Alphene returned. Her golden light was a dim shimmer of its former bright glow. “He is going to stand as far away from the privy as he can.” To Alia the sprite said, “I have stayed far too long. The smell of human dung will probably never come out of my hair!”

“
Understood,” Alia took the sprite's hand gingerly with her finger in a sign of appreciation. “You have my deepest thanks, Alphene. Rest assured I will repay this debt to you with the loveliest flowers I can find.” The sprite grew bright for a second and vanished for her long deserved rest.

“
The rest is up to us,” Byrn said unable to completely mask his nervousness. Everything was going as planned, but he could not shake the feeling of dread that lingered being so close to the prison. He lifted his staff up so that it touched a piece of the stonework just to the right of the opening leading to Xander's cell and Alia did the same on the left side. They joined their free hands in the middle and began to chant so that their minds were centered as one. Energy poured from their staves and filled the opening. After a few minutes the hole began to expand, slowly at first as the elementalist and the enchantress worked the manipulation spell, but growing rapidly so that the hole expanded three times its size, nearly two feet wide when they were finished.

“
I am coming down,” the hushed voice of Xander Necros echoed down the shaft. The faint sounds of scratching and exertion came from up the tunnel as Xander tried to brace himself as he descended. A shout came from the tunnel and a few seconds later Xander came crashing down into the tunnel, landing hard in the filth with a heavy grunt.

Alia abruptly stopped the spell and the tunnel became a small hole once more. She hugged her father ignoring the flow of refuse around them. Xander looked to Byrn with an unasked question and he mouthed
Alia
causing the old necromancer's eyes to grow wide in surprise. He pushed the young lady away to look at her, “My darling, Alia? Is it really you?”

“
Yes, daddy,” she said her voice trembled with emotion. Tears ran down the woman's face and she hugged her father, the man stolen from her seventeen years earlier, all the more tightly.