Guardians of the Lost (63 page)

The three Dominion Lords looked like Damra and fought like Damra. The guards knew in their heads that two of these were illusion, but they also knew that the third wasn't. The third was real and so was her weapon. Even as one of the guards endeavored to slip past what he thought was an illusion, Damra's sword pierced his shoulder. The man gasped in pain, blood spurted from the wound. The power of the mind is potent. The wound looked real and it felt real. Blood flowed down his arm. It was all he could do to keep his grip on his sword.

Shadamehr jumped in front of the King. “Don't be afraid, Your Majesty,” he said swiftly to the child. “We're here to help you escape.”

He turned to face two members of the Royal bodyguard, who advanced on him, their swords drawn. Shadamehr blocked the cutting stroke of one with his poniard. He kicked the man in the groin and, when he doubled over, gave him a clip on the ear with his fist. The second guard leapt at Shadamehr, swinging his sword. His mouth and eyes opened wide in astonishment. He gave a gasp. The sword fell from his hand. He slumped to the floor. Jessan stood over him, a blood-stained knife in his hand and a smile on his lips.

Shadamehr cast a quick glance around the room. The Dominion Lord and her illusions held their own. Not being certain which was Damra and which wasn't, he left that battle to the three of them.

Catching hold of Jessan's arm, Shadamehr gripped it tightly and shouted at him. “Cover me! I'm going to grab the King!”

He didn't know if Jessan understood him or not. The young man's eyes were pale and intent as those of a wolf seeking prey. Shadamehr couldn't take time to worry about it. He turned back to the child.

Tasgall had his spell ready to cast, but his attention had been distracted from his magic by his need to protect the King. He launched his magic, but he was just a few heartbeats too late.

Griffith breathed out all the air in his lungs. A cloud of noxious green gas flowed over Tasgall, enveloped him.

Tasgall's body froze, motionless. His mouth was wide open, but no sound came out. He could not move his hands or his feet or his head. Paralyzed, Tasgall dropped to the floor. He lay there, helpless, his torso twitching and jerking as he fought to try to free himself of the debilitating spell.

The paralyze spell is not meant to kill but to incapacitate, to give the spellcaster time to move on to round two. The spell would start to wear off in a few seconds, and then Griffith's enemy would be up and dangerous. Griffith moved in to take his enemy out for the duration of the battle. As he did so, he spared a glance for his wife.

Damra fought the guards with her usual spirit and skill, but another enemy, a more potent enemy than any Royal Guard, sneaked up on her from behind. High Magus Clovis was calling on the magic of the earth to halt the Dominion Lord.

“Damra! Look out!” Griffith shouted.

Damra smashed her mailed fist in her opponent's face, sent him reeling and turned around to face this new threat. Damra believed the High Magus to be a Vrykyl. Against a Vrykyl, Damra would need more than her powers of illusion. Her eyes went to the candle that had been placed upon the desk for the convenience of the battle magus. Other magi could utilize Fire magic, as well. Damra jumped forward, ran her hand through the flame of the candle, and called upon the gods to grant her the power of fire.

A ripple of Earth magic caused the floor to buckle beneath
Damra's feet. She fought to keep her balance, but the magic was too potent. The Earth magic yanked the floor out from underneath her and she pitched forward to fall on her hands and knees. She felt a twinge in her wrist, a bone break. Pain shot up her arm and her fingers went numb. She dropped her sword, unable to wield it. Her magic slipped away from her.

Griffith saw his wife in trouble. He also saw the spell he'd cast on the war magus start to wear off. No time to do this right. Bounding to Tasgall's side, Griffith leaned over the human and spit into his face.

Tasgall screamed. Covering his eyes with his hands, he rolled on the floor, kicking his feet and legs in agony. The pain was intense. His eyeballs seemed to be melting in his head. Blinded, he could do nothing, was more helpless than the child he was supposed to protect.

Griffith turned to his wife, intending to cast his magic on the High Magus. Unfortunately, the young King stood between them. Griffith was forced to halt his spell-casting, for the spell had the potential for harm and he did not want to hurt the child. Ethical and moral considerations aside, nothing would play into the Shield's hands more than a member of the Divine's faction killing the young King of Vinnengael.

Seeing that the High Magus was distracted by her fight with Damra, Shadamehr swooped in and grabbed hold of the King.

“I will not harm you, Your Majesty,” Shadamehr said swiftly and earnestly, lifting the child in his arms. “I am your loyal subject. I will remove you to a place of safety—”

The High Magus cried out in fury. Searing pain glanced along Shadamehr's ribs, a pain that flashed swiftly, a pain he forgot in the sudden, riveting shock that drove all coherent thought and sensation from his mind.

Gasping, Shadamehr let loose his hold on the child. The King tumbled to the floor. Still staring at the child, Shadamehr stepped backward and collided with Jessan, who had obeyed Shadamehr's order to cover his back.

Jessan caught hold of Shadamehr, held onto him until the man could steady himself. Griffith had no idea what was going on. All he knew was that the young King had dropped to the floor and was safely out of harm's way. Griffith breathed the cloud of paralyzing gas onto the High Magus.

Clovis tumbled to the floor, lay there alongside the stunned child. The magic of the High Magus ceased. The floor quit shaking. Griffith helped his wife to stand.

“Shadamehr, are you hurt?” Jessan demanded, alarmed. The baron's cocky jauntiness had evaporated. He was white to the lips.

“We have to get out of here,” Shadamehr said, struggling to breathe. He pressed his hand to his side. “The door. Run for it.”

Damra looked at him, looked to her husband for an answer, but he could only shake his head. This was no time to bring the issue before a committee for a vote.

They ran toward the door, halted at the sound of shouts and running feet slamming down the hall.

“No good,” said Shadamehr. He looked swiftly around for another way out. His gaze fixed on the crystal window.

“I think some magic would come in handy about now.”

Damra guessed what he had in mind and looked to her husband.

“The High Magus will be paralyzed for only a minute,” Griffith warned.

“I can deal with her,” said Damra.

Lightning blazed in a blue-red arc over her head. She seized hold of the lightning. The bolt twisted and twined like a whip in her hand, crackled when she struck it against the floor.

“Take care of them, Griffith.” Damra gave him a fond smile. “And yourself.”

“No!” Jessan shouted, realizing suddenly what Shadamehr meant to do. Jessan struggled, tried to fight free. “You are mad! It's like jumping off the top of a cliff! I'll take my chances fighting—”

“Griffith!” Shadamehr shouted. “We're leaving!”

“There is a chance the spell might not work, my lord,” Griffith shouted.

“Oh, balls!” Shadamehr said angrily. He clasped his arms around Jessan with a grip like an iron band.

Giving a roar, Shadamehr lunged shoulder-first through the window, five stories above the ground.

A
lise paced back and forth in front of the palace, waiting and watching for Shadamehr. Alternately fuming at him and worrying over him, it occurred to her that she had spent much of her twenty-eight years waiting and watching for Shadamehr.

The daughter of a goldsmith, Alise had been born to privilege and wealth. She had been expected to earn her position by marrying one of the sons of her father's business partner or some impoverished nobleman looking for funds to maintain his estate. A good many men, both old and young, merchant class and noble, were quite willing to take the goldsmith's beautiful red-haired daughter off his hands—until Alise made the mistake of opening her mouth, as her mother said in exasperation.

Quick-witted and sharp-tongued, Alise found books far more to her liking than men. The Church was insistent that all children in New Vinnengael receive at least rudimentary schooling and so Alise had been taught to read and write. The Church had an ulterior motive in this. By issuing laws that all children attend Church-run schools, the magi were able to find out which children were gifted in magic. They immediately noticed Alise's intelligence
and magical power, and when she was of age, the Church began courting her as assiduously as the young nobles, albeit for a different purpose. They hoped to persuade her to enter the Revered Sisterhood.

Alise enjoyed her studies. The arcane art came naturally to her. She did not really want to become a magi, though, for she found the disciplined life of the Church too restrictive. Still, comparing that life to the boring life of a devoted wife, Alise decided that, all in all, the life of the magus did have its advantages. Over the tearful and vociferous objections of her parents, Alise entered the Church.

Once there, she was forever in trouble. She was caught sneaking out to go dancing, caught raiding the buttery, caught wearing pretty clothes in public, instead of the drab brown robes. Her glib tongue and her skill in magic saved her from being tossed out on her ear. One of her teachers, an irascible magus called Rigiswald, concluded that the girl was not really a troublemaker. She was bored. She needed a challenge and he was prepared to give her one. He recommended to his superiors that she be one of the chosen few permitted to study Void magic.

The Church had preached for centuries that Void magic was evil. The Church prohibited the unregulated study of Void magic. Unauthorized practitioners (usually hedge-wizards) were hunted down and either “persuaded” to discontinue the use of Void magic or face imprisonment or death. The Church did recognize (although not publicly) that Void magic had its place in the universe. Thus they permitted and encouraged a certain few of their own to study it, if for no other reason than that they could recognize it when they saw it and know how to deal with it.

Alise's teachers scoffed at the notion of the lovely young girl agreeing to work with Void magic, the casting of which takes its toll on the body. All elemental magic requires the use of an element to work the spell. A Fire magus must have access to flame, a Water magus must use water. The Void magus sacrifices a bit of his own life essence to work his magic. Void magic weakens a magus physically during spell-casting, pustules and sores appear on his flesh. Her
teachers said that Alise was far too vain to do anything that would mar her rose-petal complexion.

Rigiswald knew Alise better than they. The idea of studying forbidden magic intrigued her. She did not like the magic of the Void, but she found it challenging, in a repulsive way, and she soon became adept at its use.

Observing her skill, the Church recommended that she join the Inquisition, those members of the Church who actively seek out Void magic practioners and bring them to justice. Because the Inquisition works in secret and in shadow, searching for heretics both within the Church and without, they are the most feared of all the Orders. Alise refused to have anything to do with them.

The Church insisted that she join or face retribution, for she was now a skilled practitioner of forbidden magic. Rigiswald helped her to escape and smuggled her safely out of New Vinnengael. He sent her to seek help from his friend, Baron Shadamehr.

When she'd first met Shadamehr, she'd thought him arrogant and silly and insufferable. She now added reckless and infuriating to the list, as well as brave and compassionate. She refused to acknowledge the last two, however, just as she refused to let herself fall in love with him. He could never take anything seriously, including love, and she knew she would end up deeply hurt. Meanwhile, they were good friends and comrades, except during those times when she hated and detested him. This was one of those times.

Before arriving at the Palace, Alise had slipped unseen into the Bibliotheca, avoided the Temple magi. (She was considered by the Church to be a rogue magus, and there was a warrant out for her arrest, but that is another story.) Finding Rigiswald among piles of books, she had warned him that the pecwae were lost in the city and that Shadamehr had been hauled off a prisoner to the Palace.

Grumbling at being interrupted, Rigiswald had asked tersely what else was new and had gone back to his reading.

Alise left the Bibliotheca to take up watch outside the palace. Fortunately for her, the large crowd that was almost always in attendance
to gawk at the guards and stare through the iron bars was present this afternoon. Alise could loiter about herself and not attract undue attention. She kept her ears open for the sound of the penny whistles, but heard nothing and assumed that the pecwae had yet to be discovered. She paced back and forth, too restless to sit. For awhile, she tried to occupy her time by counting the columns, but she was too worried to concentrate and soon left off.

The sun dipped into the west, its red-hued rays seeming to melt the crystal windows into liquid fire. The crowds began to depart, heading for a warm hearth and cold ale. Alise was now one of the few people left in the street. She drew her hood up over her red hair, wrapped her cloak around her body, for the evening air was growing chill. Selecting a shadowy area near the iron fence at the north end of the palace, she stood against it, tried her best to blend in.

She had a pricking in her thumbs that something was wrong. Would they take Shadamehr and the others to the prison-fortress located on an island in the middle of the Arven river? She tried to remember what route the guards used to transport prisoners to the fortress. She wondered if she should post herself there or continue to wait here. She had about decided to leave, but she didn't.

Something kept her here, at the north end.

She had noticed before this an empathy developing between herself and Shadamehr, an empathy she disliked, for she could never make it work to her advantage. The empathy worked only to his. He never knew when
she
was in danger, but she always knew when something bad had happened to him.

She stared at the palace windows with an almost suffocating feeling in her breast and then she heard the sound of shattering glass.

Two bodies shot out of a fifth-floor window. Alise knew instantly that one of those bodies belonged to Shadamehr.

Alise could not move. Her heart ceased to beat. Her hands went cold, her feet numb. She knew he must die, his body broken on the stones, his head split open, and she could do nothing but watch in shock and in horror. She didn't notice the other person falling with
him. Her eyes were only for Shadamehr and in that moment that she thought he was going to die, she whispered to him that she loved him.

As the words left her mouth, Air magic reached out a hand and caught hold of Shadamehr by the scruff of his neck. The magic held him suspended in midair for an instant, then gently lowered him, his long hair floating in the breeze, the sleeves of his shirt fluttering. Shadamehr's feet touched the paving stones with a gentle thump. The other person, the Trevenici, landed next to him and almost immediately collapsed.

Alise's heart started to beat again, her terror changed instantly to outrage. He'd done this for a lark, never mind that the fright had taken ten years off her life and probably made her red hair go white.

“I take it back,” Alise muttered angrily, “I don't love you. I have never loved you. I've always despised you.”

She was not the only person to hear the sound of glass shattering or see the astonishing sight of a nobleman and a Trevenici drift to the ground like thistledown on a spring breeze. The Imperial Guards at the front gate saw and heard. As stunned as Alise, they were slower to react.

Shadamehr looked around and she knew he was looking for her, confident that she would be there when he needed her. She cursed him for being confident and cursed herself for being there.

Pressing against the iron bars, she waved her hand, but he had already spotted her.

“Get us out of here!” he shouted, helping the Trevenici to his feet.

Just like that. Get us out of here.

Alise ran through the catalog of Earth-based spells she had memorized. Even as she did that, she knew what spell she had to use and it wasn't Earth-based. She detested using Void magic. She disliked the pain and the weakness and sickness that went with it. To add to her trouble, the spell she cast would be immediately recognized as a Void spell. Any magus happening to see it would know it for what it was and would alert the Church authorities.

To save Shadamehr, she would hurt herself, make herself sick, and place herself at risk of arrest. But then, as Rigiswald had said earlier, what else was new?

Calling the heinous words of the spell to her mind—words that felt like bugs crawling around inside her mouth—she rested both her hands on the iron bars and spoke the magic resolutely.

The iron bars began to rust. The corrosion spread rapidly, running up and down the iron. Alise moved her hands to two more bars and spoke the spell again. A wave of nausea swept over her. Feeling dizzy, fearful she might lose consciousness, she was forced to pause until the sick feeling passed. She clung to one of the bars until it disintegrated and hoped that four missing bars would be enough. She lacked the strength to do more.

The bars corroded rapidly. A large hole gaped in the iron work with a pile of rust beneath. Alise tried to call to Shadamehr, but she didn't have the energy. He wasn't watching. He had his back turned, looking up at the palace. One of the elves, the Wyred, came flying gracefully out of the window, landed in a flurry of robes alongside Shadamehr. Last came Damra, the Dominion Lord. Her silver armor caught the rays of the setting sun, she was bright as a meteor falling from the heavens. She alighted delicately as a bird on a bough.

Shadamehr turned. Seeing the hole in the bars, he pointed at it, and the four began to run toward it. The guards had figured out by now what was happening. They broke into a run, but they were a good distance away, clear back at the gate that stood opposite the center of the palace.

Raising her penny whistle to her lips, Alise blew three long notes. Instantly, other whistles answered hers. Some were near, some were distant, but Shadamehr's men were listening and they were already on their way to his aid.

Looking back, urging them to hurry, Alise saw with alarm that Shadamehr was having difficulty keeping up the pace set by the others. He had his hand pressed to his side and although he ran gamely, his steps faltered. At one point, the Trevenici youth halted to see if the baron needed help. Shadamehr grinned and waved him on.

“This is no time to play the fool, my lord,” Alise growled in her throat. By the gods, did the man take nothing seriously?

“Can you do something to stop the guards?” Alise asked the two elves as they reached the hole in the bars.

The Wyred spoke his magic and waved his hand. The shattered glass lying on the paving stones lifted into the air, flashing red with the sunset. The elf made a motion with his hand, caused the glass to start to swirl. The glass whirled about, faster and faster. Another motion of the elf's hand sent the whirling cyclone of broken glass heading straight to intercept the guards.

Shadamehr reached the gate. He had to stop to catch his breath and then Alise saw that she had misjudged him. He had not been clowning. The side of his shirt was covered with blood.

“You're hurt!” Alise cried.

“A scratch, nothing more,” Shadamehr said, straightening and giving her his usual infuriating smile.

Five of Shadamehr's men came dashing up, penny whistles in hand.

“What about the pecwae?” Shadamehr asked immediately. There was an odd catch in his voice, as if he were in extreme pain. He pressed his hand over his side. “Where is Ulaf?”

“I ran into him on Glover Street, my lord,” one reported. “He said he was on the trail of the pecwae. They were only about a block ahead of him. I asked if he needed help, but he said no, they knew him and trusted him. He said that he would bring them to the Tubby Tabby and I was to meet him there, but that was over an hour ago. I waited for him at the Tabby, but he never came.”

“Damn,” Shadamehr muttered. He glanced back in the direction of the broken window, and Alise was alarmed to see a shudder run through his body.

“You're hurt worse than you think,” she said, putting her arms around him. “I could use my magic to heal—No, damn! I can't! Not after I've cast a Void spell—”

“No time anyway, my dear,” he said, and then caught his breath. Sweat broke out on his forehead. “Damra, you and Griffith go to
the wharves. I have an orken ship waiting there. The orks know you. We'll join you as soon as we recover the pecwae.”

“We don't like to leave you—” Damra began, looking at him in concern.

“I'm in good hands,” said Shadamehr with a smile for Alise, a smile that tore at her heart. His face was livid, he was gray about the lips. “You are in danger here. The magi will be searching for two elves and you must admit that the two of you stand out in a crowd.”

Damra looked as if she was going to refuse his suggestion.