Pawn Of The Planewalker (Book 5)
Read Pawn Of The Planewalker (Book 5) Online
Authors: Ron Collins
The Saga of the God-Touched Mage includes:
Glamour of the God-Touched
Trail of the Torean
Target of the Orders
Gathering of the God-Touched
Pawn of the Planewalker
Changing of the Guard
Lord of the Freeborn
Lords of Existence
Other Work by Ron Collins:
Five Magics
Picasso’s Cat and Other Stories
See the PEBA on $25 a Day
Chasing the Setting Sun
Four Days in May
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Copyright Information
Pawn of the Planewalker
Saga of the God-Touched Mage, Volume 4
© 2015 Ron Collins
All rights reserved.
Cover Art by
Rachel J. Carpenter
© 2015 Ron Collins
All rights reserved.
Cover Images
© Curaphotography | Dreamstime.com - Man Of Light Photo
© SpinningAngel | Dreamstime.com - Futuristic Tower In Golden Alien Landscape Photo
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All incidents, dialog, and characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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For Tim, Mike, Jackie, and Ken. And of course, for Lisa.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Braxidane felt his siblings’ presence before he saw them. He had been expecting them, so he watched from his node as Agar and Hezarin flowed through the gray space of connectivity between the thousand worlds.
“Sister!” he said as they entered. “Brother! How fine it is to sense you.”
“Give us our mages back,” Agar replied. His voice was a cold pulse in the media of Existence.
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly why we are here,” Hezarin replied in a tone that crackled with the odor of acid on metal. She was like that, Braxidane thought, always oozing exaggerated responses.
Braxidane pulled himself into a tight shape that might have been a sphere if shape had meaning here.
She was right, of course.
He did know exactly why they were here.
His siblings had been fighting over Adruin, a plane of barely moderate import, if that. Each was trying to strengthen their presence by controlling more of the plane’s flow. Agar had endowed his Lectodinian mage with his own form of draining magic, and Hezarin had given her Koradictine caster a burning energy full of fire and consumption. Their two champions had been full-bodied mages of great experience before receiving their god-touch, and were nearly invincible afterward. Yet somehow Garrick—Braxidane’s own champion, a mage barely past his apprenticeship—had managed to snare them in a loop of magic that would, unless Braxidane stepped in, last for eternity.
He shivered with delight. It served his siblings right.
“Don’t lay blame on me, sister,” he said. “Linking Parathay and Jormar was Garrick’s doing.”
“Semantics,
brother,
” Hezarin responded. “Garrick’s magic carries your touch.”
“Certainly.”
“So his work is your work,” Agar said.
“Come, now. None of us controls every action of any of the mages we touch.”
“We want our champions back,” Hezarin said coolly.
“Actions and consequences,” Braxidane said. “Both of you should have considered that before you broke the agreement.”
“It’s a meaningless plane,” Agar replied.
Braxidane flooded his essence with a hint of blue-green sweetness that said Agar’s defense missed the entire point.
“We agreed,” he said. “That none of us would disturb another existence without everyone’s acceptance.”
“It’s an agreement rarely followed.”
“I have followed it,” Braxidane said, flashing self-righteousness with purposeful intent.
Agar snorted. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“Enough!” Hezarin said. Her emotions flashed blue, and a curtain of gold filament floated around her. “Give us back our mages, or we’ll take every plane you control.”
“Dear sister Hezarin,” Braxidane said. “You’re always good for an ultimatum. Do any of them ever work?”
“Are you asking for magewar on Adruin?” she said.
“Do I detect hypocrisy, dear Hezarin? You’re usually so adamant about saving lives and protecting your constituency.”
Hezarin spewed orange sparks.
Agar moved to exist between them.
“Come, Braxidane,” he said. “If we’re to get resolution on this, we’ll all have to get past our jealousies.”
“I don’t see that we have any resolution to come to, brother Agar. My champion’s work is done. There is no value in adjusting it.”
Hezarin could contain herself no further, then. She lashed out at him, her tendrils looping around Agar’s barrier so quickly he could barely constrain her.
Braxidane raised his defenses.
“That’s enough,” he said. “You come into my node, demanding I take action for something I’m not responsible for. You insult me with accusations. And now you attack me physically. If you can’t behave, then get out of my node.”
He twisted his thoughts and pushed against her.
“You’ll regret this,” she wailed as she allowed herself to be swept away.
Braxidane waited silently.
His brother turned even colder than usual.
“I think that was a mistake,” Agar said with his usual reserved calm.
“Actions and consequences,” Braxidane replied. “I’ll take my chances.”
Chapter 1
Garrick rode hard atop a lathering charger under a blood red sunset. Fall was soon to give to winter. The air chilled his cheeks and seared his lungs. Hooves thundered against the hard ground of open plain as he bolted across the horizon, determination etched on his face. It was a face growing older than his years, now, a face that had seen more death and more pain than any should. The wind pulled tears from the corners of his eyes.
Hunger flared inside him.
That hunger was a pain, a gnawing flare that bloomed and raged. It was sacrifice and it was horror. It was subservience. He pushed himself harder, urging the horse to race faster, using pure speed and exhilaration to rid himself of the depths of this ache.
Tall grass rolled past in brittle waves, its color the browns and yellows of a dead fall. The animal’s muscles rolled beneath him, rhythmic and fluid, forelegs reaching, hind legs driving. Garrick pressed into the stride, driving with all his strength. The muscles of his shoulders and legs burned so boldly they blunted the darkness that had grown within him. The beast snorted a complaint, but Garrick responded by driving the animal harder.
Finally, they crested a hill and came to the edge of the forest, and Garrick, mercifully, brought the horse up. Its breath billowed with misty plumes in the evening air. Its coat was lathered to a sheen.
A hawk soared in the sky.
“It’s not going to work, you know?”
Garrick turned to his left. A tall gray heron with deep black eyes stood beside a large rock that protruded from the hillside. It was his mage superior, the planewalker who was the source of this wicked curse he carried.
“Braxidane,” he said. “I was wondering when I would see you again.”
The heron took a step forward with a motion that was all knee. “You shouldn’t fight your nature,” it said.
“I fight only what makes sense to fight.”
“And it makes sense to fight your true powers?”
“They kill randomly.”
“Randomly?”
Garrick said nothing.
Braxidane dipped his heron head.
“There is nothing random about your powers, Garrick—just as there is nothing random about your responsibilities.”
Braxidane was talking about the Freeborn, Garrick knew. The planewalker wanted to use him to control the new Torean House, but Garrick had no interest in such leadership. He had even less desire to give Braxidane any such boon.
“I never asked for that responsibility.”
“Nor does a coyote ask for his.”