Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept (19 page)

He called out to the first adept, imploring him to respond, begging for his help, but to no avail. Only the song of c
reation answered. He returned to his body and stretched his legs, sitting on the edge of his circular table with his face in his hands.

“I take it things didn’t go well,” Jack said.

“No, I’ve tried two of the three suggestions the sovereigns had for reaching out to Siduri. Both nearly killed me. Worse still, the third way starts by killing me.”

“What!” Anja said.

Chloe spun into a ball of light.

“I was on the brink of death when I first found Siduri in the firmament. It’s the only time I’ve gone there physically. So I guess I just have to figure out how to die without dying.”

“No!” Anja snapped. “You need to stop this. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Perhaps she’s right, Lord Reishi,” Jataan said. “If Siduri were willing to help, he would offer it.”

“Maybe, but I can’t help feeling that he’s the key to this whole thing.”

“
You
are the key, Alexander,” Jack said. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but the world rests on your shoulders. Most people don’t understand that, but we do. If you fall, we all lose.”

“No pressure
, huh, Jack?”

The bard shrugged helplessl
y. “Deal in what is.”

Alexander snorted. “I seem to recall hearing that somewhere before.”

Chapter 14

Ratagan launched off the ramparts, his wyvern gaining altitude with each powerful stroke of its wings. Southport slid past until they were floating over green fields. Alexander caught sight of the road leading to Highlands Reach and thought of his childhood home. He had always dreamed of going back there, building a house overlooking a rich, green pasture and raising a family. He realized that he hadn’t thought about that in some time. Now that he did, he understood that it was just a dream, nothing more. The reality of his life had placed very different demands on him, demands that he had an obligation to live up to.

As much as he longed for the peaceful, simple life of his dream, he understood now that his duty, the purpose of his life really, was to ensure that others could live that simple, quiet
, and profoundly rewarding life. It struck him as odd that so many people thought of power as something to aspire toward, something noble and worthy, when in reality anyone with a soul would flee from it the moment they realized the truth of it. Power was about bending other people’s free will, making them comply and obey. Good people didn’t think in those terms, which made the avid pursuit of power a vocation for evil people.

Worse still
was the certainty that evil people would never stop trying to lord their will over others. And the natural result of that truth was that evil people would always gravitate toward government while most good people would avoid it at nearly all costs.

Government wasn’t a necessary evil, it was necessarily evil. It couldn’t be otherwise given the nature of those who yearned to be a part of it. Balthazar Reishi
had understood this fact of human nature and committed himself and his family to protecting those who just wanted to be left alone to live their lives, protecting them from those who craved power over them.

Whether he liked it or not, that was Alexander’s lot in life as well. He’d come to accept that he was
the Reishi Sovereign and champion of the Old Law. His wants mattered far less than his duty. He smiled to himself as he took one last look at the road that led to his old life before looking forward.

As much as he wanted to test his new sight, he was wary of overexerting himself. Rake was nearing Blackstone Keep. Odds were good that Alexander would find himself in a battle before the sun set and he wanted to conserve his stren
gth and his magic. That left him with plenty of time to think.

Twice h
e’d failed to reach out to Siduri. While he might eventually find success along either of those paths, he doubted it, and both presented dangers that were beyond his understanding. It was frustrating that the one person who could help him gain that essential understanding might only be reachable through the very understanding he had to offer.

That left the one last path, the one that began with his death, the
only one that had ever succeeded. Aside from being potentially lethal, he didn’t relish the pain he was certain he would have to endure. Objectively, he knew that pain was manageable, he knew he had the capacity to withstand nearly any degree of agony, but that didn’t make it appealing. That kind of suffering always provoked a little flutter of fear in his belly.

And yet, he knew deep down that he would attempt to re
-create the experience that had led to his physical transition into the firmament. How could he not? His friends doubted the value and feared the risk, but they hadn’t been there, they didn’t understand.

Siduri
had called Alexander “one with source.” His understanding of just exactly what that meant was becoming clearer, though by no means complete. He needed Siduri to teach him. He needed a mentor who understood. And he needed Siduri to end the shades. He shook his head with frustration. He couldn’t even make contact with the first adept, never mind persuade him to teach Alexander what he needed to know and then willingly sacrifice himself to the Taker. Alexander hardened his resolve—that there was a chance was what mattered.

The
Great Forest floated beneath them, green and lush. The steep barrier peaks of Glen Morillian rose in the distance to the west. Far to the east, the Pinnacles were just barely visible poking up through the haze shrouding the horizon. For a time, he let his mind wander, watching the world go by beneath him, but then a thought occurred to him. If his sight had changed, perhaps his illusion magic had changed as well.

He focused his mind and visualized a ball of light, bright and white. Nothing happened. He tried to re
-create the state of mind he used while in the firmament to project his magic, but again nothing happened.

His mind wandering again, he returned to Siduri and his experience in the construct created by the first adept. He couldn’t help but wonder just how real it had been. Was it in fact a separate reality? If that was the case, the possibilities were endless. More likely, it was just an elaborate illusion designed to deceive even its heartbroken creator.

But if it was an illusion, it was a very real one. So real that it had substance. Alexander’s mind wandered down that path of speculation, lost in a thousand what-ifs until he heard Ratagan curse. His mind snapped back to reality.

At this height, Blackstone Keep had just come into view, nothing more tha
n a black protrusion on the edge of the world. Three bright points of fiery light trailing streamers of yellow and orange fell from the sky. They seemed to move very slowly at first, rapidly accelerating as they neared the world, causing the air itself to ripple and shimmer around them.

Alexander held his breath, waiting with a growing sense of dread for the falling stars to make impact. Trailing streamer
s that reached to the heavens, the three points of light hit Blackstone, one after the other. Each created a flash of light brighter than the sun. It was an odd sensation the see such power unleashed with no accompanying sound. The air seemed to condense and spread out from each impact, racing away in every direction at terrible speed. Smoke and fire rose into the sky, forming a cloud, black and hot.

Then the sound hit.

It was a crack like thunder, only infinitely louder. The wyverns flinched, barrel rolling into a dive, instinctually seeking the refuge of the trees below. Alexander focused his sight on Blackstone, trying to see the extent of the devastation, somehow thinking that if he looked long enough it might undo the damage, but finding that it only served to confirm his fears.

Blackstone
Keep had been destroyed.

What had once been a great
fortress, home to the wizards of old, was now a pile of broken and fused rubble blasted apart by a spell of such power that Alexander understood with perfect certainty why Mage Cedric had placed the weapon capable of such destruction in the last of the Bloodvaults. No one should possess such power. It was beyond reason to wield a thing capable of that much devastation. Alexander was equally certain that Rake would use it again just as quickly as he could.

New Ruatha would be his next target, and there was no power in the
Seven Isles capable of withstanding such an attack. Once again, Alexander was in a race. Ratagan leveled his spooked wyvern and looked back to Alexander for guidance.

He pointed toward New Ruatha.
“All possible speed!” he shouted over the wind.

His mind cleared of all what
-ifs and speculation about his magic. He needed to focus on what he was going to do next. Malachi had said that Cedric could only use his falling-star spell once per day. Blackstone was about a day’s ride from New Ruatha. Alexander had to get to Rake before he was ready to strike again. Countless lives hung in the balance.

The weight of his duty pressed down on him
… and he embraced it. So often before, Alexander had lamented his responsibility as Sovereign. Today, he wouldn’t have it any other way. Rake was a criminal who had just forfeited his life and Alexander meant to collect.

In truth, Blackstone had been destroyed by Shivini months ago. It had become nothing more than a cold, lifeless, hollowed
-out mountain. A tomb for ancient magic and breathtaking treasure … and also for the Rangers that Erik had left to man the bridge.

T
he aerie at New Ruatha was a flurry of chaos, wyverns launching off the walls as others landed. Handlers were rushing about, working to clear returning wyverns from the yard while preparing others to launch. Ratagan followed a narrow, very fast descent to avoid the patrols. His wyvern dove through the chaos, breaking its fall with a frenzied series of wing beats and landing hard enough to knock Alexander’s wind out. He slipped to the ground, opening his Wizard’s Den with a gesture. Ratagan dismounted a moment later.

“
Be ready, we’ll be leaving soon.”

Ratagan saluted grimly as he signaled to a nearby handler to bring food for his steed.
Horst landed nearby.

“Jack, go figure out who’s in charge here and tell them we’ll be mounting a coordinated attack
. I need them to prepare all available forces.”

“Will do,” Jack said, heading for the door.

Jataan followed him to the threshold of the Wizard’s Den, stopping precisely under the arch of the door, hands clasped easily behind his back.

Alexander
went to his magic circle and sat down to meditate.

Moments later
, his mind arrived in Erik’s encampment, west of Blackstone. The Rangers had sustained heavy damage from falling rocks. Alexander was relieved to see that Erik was alive. Nearly a thousand of his men couldn’t say the same. The landscape was pockmarked with impact craters, large and small. Where larger rocks had struck soldiers, there was often nothing more than a red-tinged hole in the ground.

Alexander appeared in front of Erik.

He looked exhausted and horrified at the destruction, but he was working to get his unit organized, identify his wounded, and mobilize the rest. He seemed startled when Alexander spoke.

“Alexander
—” he said, his voice trailing off.

“
I’m so sorry, Erik. You’ve suffered too much already. I know this is hard, but I need you to ride. How many men do you have?”

Erik blinked a few times
, then looked around at his fallen, nodding absently.

“Erik
—”

He seemed to snap back to the moment, taking a d
eep breath and facing Alexander squarely. “I have three thousand Rangers without injuries, but only half as many horses.”

“Prepare those who can fight to ride, keep the rest here to tend to the wounded. I’ll send help.”

“Thank you, Alexander.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

He released his illusion and floated above the ruin of the Keep. It was utterly devastated. All of the buildings that had encrusted the surface of Blackstone’s peak were crushed, broken beyond any hope of salvage. Where the falling stars had hit, fissures ran away from enormous craters, penetrating deep into the bowels of the mountain, one opening a hundred-foot hole that exited out one side of the mountain near the ground. Alexander passed into the Keep, searching the depths of the broken fortress. It was a shambles. Some corridors remained intact, but there were so many collapses and so much structural damage that physically traversing the interior would be nearly impossible and probably fatal.

He
penetrated into the very foundation of the Keep and found the treasure room. It was caved in. Only the tiny domed vestibule just outside the door had withstood the collapse of the ceiling under countless tons of stone. At least it hadn’t been destroyed. He had hopes of using the wealth in Blackstone’s treasury to rebuild the Seven Isles. As for the rest of the place, it looked like a total loss.

He thought of Rake.

The thug was riding a mangy but powerful-looking horse. Two wizards rode beside him, one on either side, with several well-armed and armored men just behind them, all with colors that said they liked killing. Three wraithkin occasionally flashed into and out of existence as they kept up with the horses. Rake’s version of a royal guard, thugs, cutthroats and strong-arm criminals, rode in a cluster a hundred strong around him, and the remaining ten thousand formed a loose, undisciplined cluster around them all.

The sun was just setting, casting long shadows across a landscape torn apart by cataclysmic forces.
Rake seemed inordinately pleased with himself … he also seemed determined to get somewhere. He was pressing his army to keep up with the cavalry and it was becoming strung out.

Alexander rose high into the sky, looking for the path that Rake’s army
was marching. He expected it to lead straight toward New Ruatha, when in fact, it led directly toward the ruins of Old Ruatha, the capital city of the isle before the Reishi War, destroyed during the later years of Malachi Reishi’s reign.

Some said it was haunted, others said it was cursed … people took the stories seriously. Few ventured into the ruins, fewer still returned.
Those who did, spoke in hushed tones of darkness and madness. Most importantly, rank-and-file soldiers would not willingly march through it. Rake could use it to limit his exposure to attack.

He
wasn’t heading directly toward New Ruatha … he intended to capture the city rather than destroy it. Certainly a more strategic move. New Ruatha was built atop a giant plateau, making it more easily defended than most cities, and it sat along the river that ran between Northport and Headwater, a waterway that served as the primary trade route for northern Ruatha. If he were to gain control of the city, his new weapon would make him unassailable by any sizable military force.