Pawn Of The Planewalker (Book 5) (9 page)

Ettril Dor-Entfar, High Superior of the Koradictine order, entered Dorfort via the central road, riding in a carriage Lord Ellesadil had sent. He peered through its shuttered windows to find the street lined with on-lookers eager to get a glimpse. The ride came to a halt outside the government center. The press of people fell away under the Dorfort guard, then the carriage door swung open.

He motioned to Fil, and the younger mage made his exit first.

Then Ettril emerged from the carriage, resplendent in a bright robe of crimson, and carrying a staff made from a crooked span of gnarled driftwood from the ocean outside de’Mayer island. He wore enough jewelry to dazzle the most active socialite, and he had combed his busy beard so that it flared with silver fire in the afternoon sun.

Darien and Reynard waited for Ettril and Fil to reach the top of the stairs, then made formal introductions.

“Can we get you anything, High Superior?” said a member of the wait staff.

“Nothing for me, please. But my aide might be interested in a tour, or maybe even lunch.”

“Lunch, sir?”

Fil gave a warm grin.

“That would be nice. It was a very early breakfast.”

“I imagine it was.”

Darien stepped in. “Please do have Daventry arrange something. I’ll ask Harol to meet him at the kitchen to escort Fil through the grounds after he’s eaten.”

“Thank you, Commander J’ravi.”

With that, Fil was taken by the elbow and led away, and Darien and Reynard escorted Ettril to the central hall. Darien purposefully slowed his gait to match the Koradictine’s. The walk was cool and awkward.

“I hope your carriage was satisfactory, High Superior,” Darien said.

“It was marvelous.”

Reynard remained silent as their footsteps echoed down the hallway. Eventually they came to the meeting chamber where Ellesadil sat waiting.

“Lord Ellesadil,” Darien said, “please meet Ettril Dor-Entfar, High Superior of the Koradictine Order of mages. High Superior, please meet Kandor Ellesadil, Lord Governor of Dorfort.”

The two clasped hands.

Ellesadil was dressed in green and blue, wearing a thin shirt of polished chain mail under an overcoat marked with the insignia of the Dorfort guard. He greeted the High Superior with a cordial calm.

“So,” Ellesadil said once each member of the party had been seated. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

Now, all eyes were on Ettril.

“I expected the Torean god-touched mage would participate in our discussion,” the Koradictine said.

“Garrick is unable to join us,” Darien replied. “But I’ve asked Reynard of the Freeborn to sit with us so he is conversant with whatever issues we discuss.”

Ettril nodded. This was interesting. The Torean god-touched mage was unavailable. Ettril wasn’t sure what to make of it, but one thing was certain—something was amiss with the Torean House. Garrick would not miss this if he could have attended. This could bode well.

Ettril began.

“I’ve come,” he said. “To see what can be done about mending the damage my order has done throughout this plane.”

Hirl-enat stood in the dining area of the inn across from Ellesadil’s government center, and watched the parade. When Ettril left the carriage, he stepped with unhurried gait back to the room he had taken the day before—a small compartment on the inn’s second floor.

He shut the door behind him and closed the latch. Then he went to the window and pulled a pair of frayed curtains more fully shut. Thin light penetrated their linen sheen, but nothing else.

Hirl-enat was alone and ready to cast his spell.

He lit a candle and put it on a ceramic plate on the floor at the center of the room, then he pushed the bed and a nondescript secretary to one corner. From the secretary, he removed two containers of paint he had prepared the night before. In short order the floor was covered with runes.

He left the jars by the water pot.

The chambermaid would be upset when she came tomorrow, but by then it would be too late.

Hirl-enat placed smaller candles at key points of his pattern, then used the central candle to light them. He stepped carefully to avoid smudging his work. It would be disaster to rub out a rune with a poorly placed foot. The diagram was a half circle that filled most of the floor, open toward the manor. Looping sigils twined along the outer edge, representing the chaos that would exist outside the shell. Straight lines radiated from the focus of the half circle to denote stability within.

If he cast this spell correctly, it would hide all sorcery made within his range. And the range he had set out last night would cover the government center, enough that Fil’s casting could be made unobserved by those outside the area, giving them time to extract themselves if the plan worked.

And Hirl-enat saw no reason it shouldn’t work.

His casting was old magic, filled with structure and componentry, and an elegance that made his mind settle. It was magic taught to him back in his days of youth by his superior, a crotchety old man named Kass with a similar passion for structure and a love of tradition. Hirl-enat was Kass’s last apprentice, and the old mage had demanded nothing but the best of him.

He laid the spell out in methodical perfection.

Today’s magic relied more often than not on short bursts of power rather than controlled processes like these. It was a change that scared him. Of course, he had—throughout his life—found some in his order considered his thoughts to be Lectodinian in nature. When he was younger such accusations caused him to blanch, and he would sometimes prepare intricate revenge. But he was older now. He understood certain truths he hadn’t understood then. Nothing about Lectodinian politics made any sense, but that didn’t preclude them from being right in one fashion. Sorcery should be an art rather than a convenience.

He licked his lips then. They were dry and chapped, an old man’s lips, he thought. When did he get old man’s lips?

Hirl-enat shook his mind of these ruminations and began instead to prepare himself.

Not everyone could hold the encapsulation for long enough to complete the kidnapping. Ettril would understand this fact. If the exercise succeeded he would be in the High Superior’s favor for a very long time.

He took his place in the diagram and spoke his words of old magic, stepping across the floor in a dance-like pattern. The room filled with the gloriously bloody smell of Koradictine magic. And Hirl-enat threw his head back to enjoy the rapture of magestuff as it burned through his body.

Across the manor yard, an invisible shell formed over Dorfort’s government center.

Chapter 15

The guard leading Fil to the kitchen was young, and trying perhaps too hard to impress him. He went out of his way to talk about each of the tapestries that hung on the walls, giving the full history of both the artist and the stories behind the artwork’s origin. Fil thought them merely over-wrought.

A wave of heat that smelled of baking bread hit before they arrived at the kitchen. The smell of fresh diced celery and stewing onions came next, a combination that did tricks inside his stomach. For the briefest of moments, he forgot he was nervous.

“Good afternoon, Daventry,” the guard said. “This is Fil, mage of the Koradictine order. He is in need of a quick lunch.”

The cook stood over an open grill and wiped his hands on a clean rag. Three others chopped vegetables and cleaned cook pots. Lunch would be served in the royal hall, and dinner would come soon enough, so this request was additional work in a room full of people who had plenty to do.

“It was a very early breakfast,” Fil explained, in hopes his apology came through.

“All right, then,” Daventry said. “Let’s see what we can rustle up.”

He was a cheerful man with ruddy redness in his cheeks and a bare wisp of hair that was damp with sweat. His cheeks were made for a man bigger than himself. They spilled over his jawline like those of a bulldog, but a grin seemed to be perpetually pasted to his face.

The kitchen was laid out in the shape of a letter L.

The central nook consisted of a long grill and an open pit with a kettle and a roasting stand. A large hood opened to a chimney, its stone and mortared surface blackened by years of greasy smoke. A row of working ovens belched heat from the shortest wall. A longer counter was cluttered with rows of pots, pans, graters and other utensils that looked like implements of torture.

Fil’s eyes strayed to the bay windows that opened to view the manor.

“Those are Lord Ellesadil’s stables,” the guard explained.

“How many horses does he keep?” Fil asked. He wanted to keep the guard talking.

“It varies with the time of year. Ellesadil’s policy is that any man who needs a horse can have one. But he must give his word for its return. So, early in the summer season, we’re often left with a bare few. This time of year, though, the stables are nearly full.”

The building across the manor was large. There were four others of similar size. Two guards per building. Ten people. Each would need to be unconscious for as much as half an hour.

“I had heard of your lord’s generosity before,” Fil said, “but was never sure if the stories were true or not.”

“Oh, they’re true, all right. I would follow Lord Ellesadil anywhere.”

“That speaks volumes all to itself.”

The guard smiled.

Fil lowered his voice. “Before your cook finishes gathering my meal, would you be able to show me to a privy?”

The guard’s smile widened.

“This way,” he said, leading him out the doorway and to a small room adjacent to the stables.

In order to avoid the guard’s most intense scrutiny, Neuma and Quin Sar had entered the manor yard in the dark hours of early morning. They were simply dressed, merely two citizens come to the manor to barter with the blacksmiths, farmers, and tailors within.

Now they stood in a gathering bidding on pigs.

As hands raised and voices called prices, Neuma watched the guard lead Fil to the privy.

With a sideways glance she saw Quin Sar’s eyes glitter and watched a smirk cross his face. That smirk gave Neuma an understanding of something important. Quin Sar hadn’t actually believed Fil would be able to get into position to cast his spell. He hadn’t thought the plan would work.

Neuma’s mind spun.

Quin Sar stood with a steely gaze. Only a few lines marked his cheeks and the corners of his eyes, and only a single brown age mark appeared on his jawline under his left ear, but he was older than his face let on. She had never considered Quin Sar’s story much. He was a given, Ettril’s second, his right hand—a man who had risen to his peak with careful application of loyalty. But this single expression brought her a new insight. If the superior’s second had considered Neuma’s plan a dog, why would he let it go forward without comment? Did Quin Sar have plans that she hadn’t taken into account?

Her veins ran cold. Maybe she should consider alternate plans, maybe send Quin Sar in alone? No. It was too late to swap horses now. Quin Sar may have plans of his own, but Neuma would press on and play whatever angle she was given when the time came.

This clarity calmed her nerves. She could handle anything as long as she had a plan.

Their angle gave Neuma a good view of the stables, good enough to see the boy, Will, anyway.

He was tall for his age, gangly. His body was mostly elbows and knees. He was assigned to the primary stable, and had gone into and out of the hay room several times with pitchforks full of straw. The boy was concerned for something, though. Neuma could tell it by the way his round-eyed gaze kept returning every few minutes to a specific window high up on the manor.

Quin Sar noticed it, too.

Neuma wanted to know what was in that room, but she couldn’t see into it well enough to get any ideas.

In the distance, Fil left the privy.

She looked immediately to the guards who had been seated just inside the stable. Both lay back, heads lolling against the wall in relaxed sleep.

“Come on,” Neuma said, touching Quin Sar on the thigh, feeling the pressure of the wrist sheaths under the sleeves of her shirt. They stepped away from the gathering, and went to the stable.

Now she was concerned only that Hirl-enat’s part went well.

“Thank you,” Fil said to his escort. “I feel much better.”

The guard proffered a plate of tuna and cheese. “I understand completely. If you would like, you can eat this as we walk.”

“That would be excellent,” Fil replied.

The truth was that Fil felt considerably more anxious now.

The spell was cast. Now the rest of his role consisted of waiting and hoping he didn’t hear the excited exclamations that would mean the plan had failed, for if it failed, things would get difficult quickly.

Daventry hated the idea of giving any Koradictine mage access to the kitchen, better yet a plate of tuna. But Ellesadil had been clear about how they were to greet these visitors. He mopped his forehead with a towel, glancing at the doorway the mage and his escorts had just disappeared through. The door still swung on its hinges. This mage was an odd one, as if any of them weren’t. But this one seemed to be particularly on edge. Understandable, he supposed. Walking into an adversary’s city had to be unnerving. But the mage’s gaze was like a water bug, never seeming to stay anywhere for long.