Pawn Of The Planewalker (Book 5) (3 page)

Garrick sighed.

Will, too, seemed to deflate. Darien’s father had kept Will at the manor during the battle at God’s Tower, and the boy had grown close to the commander.

“Is he going to be all right?” Will said.

“The physician cannot say, sir. But there are rumors that Commander J’ravi may be seeing his last.”

Garrick’s heart dropped further. If Darien were to lose his father now it would be a great blow, and one that would hit double–hard with the stress of keeping a house of mages together.

“Well, Will,” he said. “It appears we’re going to spend some time in a city after all.”

Will, who had been enjoying their trek through the wooded countryside, gave an empty grin. “All right,” he said. “If nothing else it’ll be nice to have Imelda and Daventry’s cooking for a while.”

Chapter 4

“Do I have your full attention?” Ettril said.

Four mages nodded, each glancing at Iona’s body, which was tacked to the wall with iron spikes. Ettril sat at a low table that held a single sheet of paper and a quill on its polished surface.

The four mages were Quin Sar, a sharp, experienced wizard who had been in the order since he was a boy, Fil, a legacy mage from a line in good stead, Hirl-enat, an elder—passed over again and again for his final trigger, but who spent his days watching the goings on within the order like an ancient buzzard, cackling with glee at the occasional carcass but content to wait until others had finished before feeding on them himself—and then Neuma, a young woman of obvious ambition who had been climbing the ranks swiftly—perhaps too swiftly, Ettril thought.

They were in a chamber under de’Mayer Island, a room large enough to hold three times as many sorcerers. Blood–tinted magelight provided illumination. The mages sat, wrapping robes over their shoulders to ward against the chamber’s unremitting chill.

“We are now the core of the order,” Ettril said.

“Do we have enough mages left to even be an order?” Neuma asked.

“There she goes again,” said Hirl-enat.

“What’s that supposed to mean, old man?” Neuma snapped.

“It means you’ve been able to step over other mages by exposing their weaknesses,” Hirl-enat said in a crusty voice, his bushy brow twisting like a wooly worm. “But I think you’re making a mistake trifling with the superior. Unless, of course,” he glanced at the young woman, “you intend to
be
the superior?”

“I would never—”

“That’s enough,” Ettril said. “We have an order until I no longer draw breath. Have no mistake about that.”

The mages quieted.

Neuma sat in a silent huff, and Hirl-enat gave a satisfied snuffle. Fil merely shifted about nervously.

Quin Sar, however, stared with distracted indifference. Ettril knew how dangerous it was to mistake Quin Sar’s expression, though. The mage had not come by his powers randomly. Quin Sar saw and heard all, and he possessed a sadistic streak that provided him with intuitively divine and considerably effective ways to expose weaknesses.

Ettril scanned the four of them, his hand resting on the ivory ball at the end of his staff.

“Neuma’s question is fairly made, though,” Ettril said. “The Koradictine order is suffering the greatest peril of its long history, and it’s up to us to take action now.”

“So, what do we do?” Neuma asked.

Ettril twisted his hand over the ivory orb. A translucent map appeared in the air before him, de’Mayer Island far to the west, the mainland looming eastward, the Daggertooth mountains to the north. Badwall Canyon sat on the mainland’s western coast, Dorfort commanded the central and southeastern plains. The wildlands of Whitestone, Warville, and Crystal Island lay to the far south.

“The Lectodinians were not damaged at God’s Tower as gravely as we were,” Ettril said.

A rune symbolized the solitary mountain where the orders had recently clashed. Captain el’Mor was supposedly trapped there, locked, if rumor was true, in a loop of magic with the Lectodinian god–touched mage.

“They have a stronghold somewhere here, in the Vapor Peaks.”

An area to the north glowed with green enhancements.

“Where do we still have people?” Quin Sar said, his voice smooth as water over worn stone.

“Scattered,” Neuma replied self–assuredly. “Our communications have broken down, and we don’t have a power base we can count on.”

“Neuma,” Ettril said, fighting the urge to strangle her.

Hirl-enat’s accusation of Neuma’s ambition had a strong vein of truth to it—she
was
ambitious, and the order was in chaos. It would not be beyond her to seize such an opportunity.
I should kill her now,
he thought. But he needed her for what would come next, and if he let his emotions get the best of him now, his order would be done.

Neuma sat upright under Ettril’s questioning gaze. “Did you not want the truth, Lord Superior?”

“I
see
the truth,” Ettril said, making his voice sharp as a stiletto and his gaze sharper still. “Never doubt that.”

The young mage sat quietly, her mouth firmly shut but her gaze placed just as firmly on Ettril’s.

“After the fiasco at God’s Tower,” Ettril said, turning briskly back to the map, “our people
are
scattered. Our first task will be to gather them up again.”

Quin Sar spoke. “They won’t follow unless we have something to give them.”

“What do you mean?” Ettril asked, knowing he could count on Quin Sar to lead the conversation where it needed to go.

“If our mages trusted our viability, they would be here already.”

“You’re right, of course,” Ettril responded. “We need to show them we are still powerful, we need to show them we can create a dominant order.”

“Yes,” Quin Sar said. “They need to know we can survive.”

Ettril stifled a knowing grin. Quin Sar, for all his idiosyncrasies, was a man who had come far and would go further. Unlike Neuma, he had opened the door for his superior to step through first.

“And for that we need to rid the plane of the one force who can truly stand in our way,” Ettril said, pausing for effect. “We know now that Garrick, the Torean god–touched mage, has returned to Dorfort. I will travel there, and I will bring back his head.”

“I think that’s a mistake,” Neuma said.

“Do you?” Ettril said, stepping precisely to cast a dark shadow over the younger mage. “Do you think I am too old to suffer such a trip? Or maybe too far removed from the arts to be able to cast against the god–touched? Do you take me for feeble?”

“No, Superior,” Neuma replied, her gaze suddenly unable to meet Ettril’s. “I did not say that.”

“Then I suggest you speak clearly.”

“I was in the east before the mage war,” Neuma said. “I chased Garrick across the plane, so I know a bit about him. I’ve seen him slip away from powerful mages. I’ve seen him kill. I’m not suggesting he would best you, Lord Superior, but I think direct confrontation in Dorfort is a losing proposition.”

“And you have a better suggestion.”

Neuma hesitated.

“Perhaps it’s not a better suggestion. But I have an alternative you might want to consider.”

Ettril nodded, smirking inside. The young woman could learn. That was good. He straightened.

“Then let me hear it.”

“Among the reasons Garrick was able to defeat our god–touched mage, as well as the Lectodinian’s, was that he chose the battleground, and he selected a place where he could separate our mages.”

Ettril remained stoic.

Quin Sar nodded.

“As powerful as you are, Superior, we should not lose the fact that Garrick is god–touched, and should not be trifled with. I think we need to dictate the events of your meeting.”

“How do you propose we do that?” Quin Sar asked before Ettril was forced to.

“Garrick has a weakness,” Neuma said. “We should use it to bring him to a place of our choosing, and at a time of our convenience.”

All eyes were definitely on Neuma, now.

Warming to the attention, the young mage spoke of her time in Caledena, and her experiences with Garrick. When she was finished, Ettril Dor-Entfar, Lord Superior of the Koradictine order, had a plan that would make the statement he so desperately wanted to make, and a plan that would make Garrick come to him.

As they broke their session, Ettril let his gaze fall over Neuma. He had not gotten to his position without sensing the depths of his membership, and his gaze took in a woman of action, a woman of intellect, and a woman of political acumen.

Not at all, he thought, like Iona.

He realized, now more than ever, that Neuma was a woman to be watched.

Chapter 5

Garrick let loose the arrow, and the bow gave a satisfying twang. The bolt flew with a wobble, burying itself into the farthest edge of a target thirty paces away.

“Hoping you can best your apprentice, Garrick?”

He grumbled, and turned to face Reynard. They’d been in Dorfort less than a week, and already he was feeling restless.

“Will is not my apprentice, yet. I am not teaching him any magic.”

Reynard shrugged. “Either way, the boy’s still a better shot than you’ll ever be.”

Garrick rested his hand on the tip of his long bow.

He wore a black jerkin that was slightly too large for him, and breeches tucked into boots that came to mid–calf. Sweat glistened from his brow and brought him a chill despite the unseasonable midday heat. A pair of guardsmen fought a practice bout at the edge of earshot, grim and silent during their skirmishes, but jesting loudly between. Garrick was fighting a headache due to a lack of sleep, and the effort he expended fighting the power inside him did nothing to help.

“I came out here to get away from the meetings and the arguments,” Garrick said. “What did you come here for? As if I can’t guess?”

Reynard and Garrick comprised Darien’s Council of Sorcery, ostensibly set to make policy for how magic would be developed and shared among members of the new Torean House. But Darien and Reynard were scuffling over every nuance of how the Freeborn should be run, both thinking their way was proper, and neither willing to give any space for nuance.

“We need to discuss your friend,” Reynard said.

“There is nothing to discuss.”

“The man knows nothing about magic.”

“Darien is doing what he thinks is best.”

“He is shackling the Torean House.”

Garrick glanced forlornly at the target, and pushed against the long bow, feeling its bend against his palm.

“The mages voted unanimously,” Garrick said.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Garrick.” Reynard pointed his finger at him. “You in particular should understand how that vote was made in the heat of battle. And after Sunathri …”

Garrick waited while Reynard collected himself.

Memories came to him. Sunathri’s voice, soft yet firm, her eyes blazing with commitment, the touch of her hand as they joined in spell casting. Garrick, like all of the Freeborn, was here because of Sunathri’s vision, and because of the power of her beliefs. Yet her memory also made his hunger twist. It was a hunger he was learning to control, or at least to exist with, but it was still a blackness, dark and malignant, that still seeded his dreams with images of the two women he thought he had loved, both now dead because of him. And it was a hunger that was growing as restless as he was.

“Sunathri is dead,” he said.

“And if she wasn’t, then what Darien is doing to her order would surely accomplish the job.”

“Do you think she would have wanted us to be bickering like this?”

“Sunathri would do what it took to drive her vision.”

“No,” Garrick’s reply was, perhaps, too sharp. “Sunathri would do what it took to keep the Freeborn together. There is a difference.”

“If we use Darien’s plan, nothing will ever get developed.”

“Darien’s structure is a tightly reined approach,” Garrick admitted.

It was, in fact, a bureaucratic nightmare that he and Darien had argued over in private for each of the past three nights—an argument that contributed to his headache this morning and hence his jaunt to the practice range. The fact that Garrick had healed Darien’s father—to the extent possible, anyway—had not given Darien any mind to bend from his position. He believed the people of Dorfort needed to see the order as being constrained or they would never accept the Freeborn as a full partner in their midst.