Victory and Defeat: Book Five of the Restoration Series (4 page)

Warren
stopped moving, and motioned to the bookshelf on their right.

It took Aaron a moment but he realized what the Fae was telling him. The sounds were coming from the other side of the bookshelf. Aaron nodded and retraced their steps about ten feet. He had noticed a gap in the bookshelf
, and he leaned through and peered up the library aisle.

Two people were on the floor
- a man and a woman, both young. They were lying on a thick blanket and both seemed to be enjoying themselves, but Aaron had been able to tell that from the sounds they were making. He waited for a moment, trying to see if he could recognize either person. He wasn’t worried about being spotted; the two had their attention squarely focused on each other.

After a minute or so, the pair rolled over and Aaron pulled back, just to make sure he wasn’t accidentally spotted. Once again, he needn’t have worried. He probably could have walked over and poked the two with a stick and they wouldn’t have noticed. He caught a glimpse of their faces this time, though, and it was enough. He pulled his head back through the gap and motioned for
Warren to follow him.

They headed
to the front of the library and out into the main passage.

Warren
held his tongue until they were several hallways over before he spoke. “Did you recognize them, or are you one of those who just likes to watch?”

Aaron snorted a laugh and glanced around to make sure no one could hear them. “I wanted to see their faces
, and I’m glad I did.”

“Why?”
Warren asked, curious now.

“The young man was Prince Danal.”

“Really?” Warren asked in surprise.

“Y
es,” Aaron answered with a grin. “I guess he does like women after all.”

They left the library and Aaron gave Warren a rough idea of the layout of the castle. They grabbed some dinner in the kitchens and then Aaron took Warren on a meandering tour. It would, of course, take the Fae many days to get comfortable walking the castle hallways by himself, but now at least he knew the castle’s basic design.

After several hours of wandering the palace, they once again stopped by the kitchens, but this time they left only with a couple of pitchers of water. No one paid them the least bit of attention;
it would seem that in the right clothes everyone took them for servants and completely ignored them.

With the pitchers in hand, they returned to the less used part of the castle and back into the secret passage. They were a bit surprised to find everyone still awake.

“You’re back rather early, aren’t you?” Dagan said in surprise.

“Yes,” Aaron replied with a smile, and he held
up the water pitchers. “And as you requested, we brought water.”

“Great,” Dagan answered
. “Put that down and let’s talk.”

After setting their pitchers down, the group gathered in a small circle, each sitting on their blankets, except Atock who insisted on standing.

“What did you learn?” Dagan demanded.

“There
is at least one guard assigned to each of the royal chambers, even for those who aren’t even in Telur,” Aaron answered, then he grinned. “I did confirm Cassandra’s belief that Prince Danal likes women.”

“And how exactly did you do that?” Cassandra asked, looking interested.

“Well, I remembered Flare mentioning to me that Danal always liked the library, so after discovering that his quarters were guarded, I thought we should scout the library.”

“Good thinking,” Dagan said
. “I’m surprised. I wouldn’t have expected such a good idea from you.”

Aaron scowled at the old man, while several of the others snickered. “Anyway,” he said loudly, trying to drown out the laughter,
“Danal was in the library and he wasn’t alone.”

“Please tell me that he isn’t sleeping with that dam
n countess,” Cassandra said dryly.

“My dear Cassandra,” Aaron said in an oily tone, “is that jealousy I hear in your voice?”

Silence settled on the group and Cassandra’s eyebrow shot up and began twitching.

Aaron swallowed hard, realizing that he
might have gone too far. One should never anger a magician, especially a king’s magician.
Fool!
he thought,
don’t ever insult a magic user!
Aloud he said, “Uh, sorry, but no, it wasn’t the countess.”

“Well, d
on’t make us guess,” Dagan said. “Tell us who it was.”

In the blink of an eye Dagan’s normal grumpy tone had disappeared and he was smiling serenely. The old goat seemed to be enjoying watching Aaron squirm. Aaron glanced around the room and realized everyone was taking delight in his predicament. He ground his teeth for a moment
, and then answered, “It was a young woman who I have never seen before.”

“That’s good news,” Dagan said, looking pleased. “I don’t
know if Danal can help us or not, but at least we can speak to him without worrying about the guards.”

“You’re assuming he’ll be there again tomorrow,” Holgar said. The dwarf look
ed unsatisfied.

“Of course he’ll be there again tomorrow. That boy always loved the library and if he’s found a young woman who’ll let him bed her,
then he’ll keep going back as often as he can.”

Holgar continued to look less than happy
, but most of the others chuckled at Dagan’s comment.

“So what do you suggest?” Cassandra asked.

“Tomorrow we go and speak to the prince,” Dagan answered.

Chapter
6

Heather stepped out of the doorway and shivered. The doorway wasn’t a normal opening, but an opening made in the air by Wizardry. She nearly cried at the thought. Wizardry had always been spoken of in low whispers, something used to frighten small children, and now they were using it to travel halfway across the known world. Flare had also saved her very life with his new wizard talents and the very thought just about made her sick.

Adel
, help us!
she prayed under her breath. She had a deep respect for Flare ever since he had held Fort Mul-Dune against overwhelming odds. He had saved her life more than once, but the fear of wizardry was so pervasive, so engrained, that she still found her herself fighting with it. Whenever Flare got too close, she had to fight the urge to pull away, making excuses not to be alone with him. She suspected that Flare had noticed, but he hadn’t said anything or given any obvious sign of recognition.

A large pack hit her in the shoulder and she grunted, not so much in pain but
from the impact.

“Sorry,” Enton’s deep voice called out quietly
. “Didn’t see you.”

It really was her own fault. They had come through the wizard’s doorway several hours after midnight.
It was dark, and she should have been more careful about getting out of the way. The moon was little more than a crescent and provided very little light, but that was part of their plan. By coming through at such an ungodly hour, their hope was that no one would see their sudden arrival. It was still chancy, as they were arriving in the middle of one of the busiest roads in Telur. There wasn’t any fear of people moving along the road right now, but large caravans often camped along the road and they always posted guards.

Luck, or perhaps d
ivine intervention, was on their side, and the field that she stumbled in to was empty. With the exception of Belgil the Dwarf, they had all been in this field before. It seemed like so long ago when they had led a small force of green recruits to reinforce Fort Mul-Dune. So much had changed since then. They had paused in their long trip from Telur to the fort and taken their lunch in this very field. That had been important to Flare; he wanted their destination to be familiar, a place where they’d been in the past. He seemed reluctant to talk about it, but Heather and Mikela had refused to give in. He finally admitted that wizardry only allowed a wizard to travel to a place that he had been to before. They couldn’t go straight to Elem, but instead they had to travel to a point on the West Road, and then walk the rest of the way to the abbey.

The
West Road ran from Telur in the east until it forked into two branches. One branch ran northwest to Fort Mul-Dune, and the second branch ran in a meandering path to the southwest and eventually arrived in Elem. Flare could have taken them directly to the fork in the road, but as that was a common place for the caravans to stop, he thought it would be safer to try this field. It was a half-day’s journey to the east of the fork, but still reasonably close.

Heather could
tell the field was deserted without being able to see. The absence of any smell of smoke was an obvious sign, as was the lack of horse sounds.

Heather closed her eyes and let the breeze blow over her. She had thought that she was to die under the ruins of the Dwarven mine of El’alador; it felt refreshing to feel the wind on her face and hear the night sounds again.

The sound of a deep and gruff cursing caused Heather to sigh; the moment was ruined. She opened her eyes again, not that it helped much, and turned back toward the wizard’s door. She could just make out the outline of the door and the shape of a small figure lumbering though - Belgil the Dwarf, no doubt. The dwarf, like Enton, carried several packs, but he moved rather too noisily for Heather’s taste. The dwarf seemed all right, though he kept to himself and was not the friendliest.

Another form stepped through the
portal, and this one was taller and more slender. The magician Mikela followed the dwarf, but she only carried a single pack. Heather was proud of the way Mikela moved silently, or as near to silent as any non-woodsman could. Her time in the Guardians had been good for Mikela; she was now so much more than just a clumsy bookworm of a mage.

Flare was the last one through
, and he seemed to almost blur into the night. In addition to carrying Ossendar, he now wore the black dragon armor Nerandall, which almost made him invisible in the darkness.

Now that they were through, the magical doorway collapse
d in on itself and disappeared.

Heather looked to the east and west and could make
out the West Road that lay just to the south. There didn’t seem to be any signs of a caravan in their immediate vicinity; on this dark a night, they surely would have had a fire, or at least some torches. The only sound was the wind blowing through the trees that were a bit farther to the north, well, the wind and the muffled curses of the dwarf.

“Which way?” Mikela called out quietly.

A rasping sound came before anyone answered Mikela’s question. Heather knew what that sound was; it was Flare returning Ossendar to its sheath. He had come prepared for a fight, a fight that had not presented itself. Heather realized that she still had her hand on the hilt of her short sword and she reluctantly let go of it.

“Let’s just wa
it for daylight,” Flare said. “If we try and walk in this darkness, we’ll only break a leg.”

Heather heard the unmistakable sound of packs hitting the ground and she knew that the others were making themselves comfortable. As the first one through, she had been the group’s scout and she carried no pack.

“Heather?” Enton called out quietly.

“I’m going to the trees,” she
whispered. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

She didn’t wait for Enton to acknowledge her but instead
started walking to the trees that were just to the north. They had come through the portal at a point that was maybe fifty yards from the trees, but she had to go slowly due to the dark. So many caravans and horsemen had made camp in this very field that the ground was cut up and full of ruts.

She was pleased to be alone and feel the soft breeze again but the pleasant thoughts
and feelings did not last long. There were too many things that weighed on her. Flare was one of those things. She liked him and trusted him, or at least she had. She wasn’t so sure anymore. He was doing things that no man was supposed to do and it concerned her. What he had said about him and Zalustus both trying to restore the Dragon Order made sense in a way, but it still went against everything that she had ever known. Somehow, Flare had learned wizardry. Wizardry! The very word still sent shivers running down her back, and regardless of how much they’d insisted, he refused to tell them how. That very same wizardry had been used to save her life. If for no other reason, she knew the church wouldn’t stop until she was dead. As far as they were concerned, she had been touched by a wizard and that would be enough for them.

Heather stumbled on a torn-
up stretch of ground and paused only long enough to take a deep breath before continuing.

She wasn’t sure what to do about Enton
, and that was bothering her too. She found herself thinking about the lout at the weirdest times and it was maddening. She knew that Enton watched after her, but she also knew he was trying to be careful and not interfere with her. It was as if he wanted to be there if needed, but he was trying very hard not make a nuisance of himself.

She liked Enton, she really did, but she didn’t harbor any foolish notions of settling down and raising a brood of children. They both were warriors
, and either of them could die before the sun came up. She knew better than to think Enton would leave soldiering and Adel help the bastard if he asked her to stop being a Guardian.

She pulled up sharply at the edge of the trees, that last thought running through her head over and over.
Stop being a Guardian!
He didn’t need to ask her to stop, as they had already outlawed her. The other Guardians and the king’s guard were most likely searching for them right now. Sadness welled up within her. She had always wanted to be a Guardian. Until just now, she hadn’t realized that she wasn’t one anymore. She swallowed hard and blinked back tears.

She started forward again but only went a short way before sitting down behind a particularly large tree. Grass grew right up to the tree trunk and the ground was soft. She rested her head in her hands for only a moment before the tears really came.

Flare got them moving even before the sun was fully up, but there
still was enough light to see by. They crossed the field and emerged onto the West Road. It was already warm and the day promised to be scorching. Strangely, the armor felt cool against his body, not uncomfortable at all. He had put on a loose fitting-shirt and trousers over the armor to help keep him disguised.

A good disguise was important
. The Telurian army, not to mention every city guard, would be on the lookout for a red-haired half-elf. Flare’s hair had grown long and it hung over his ears. It would help to hide some of his elven features, but the red hair was a bit uncommon. They needed a solution, and for that they turned to Mikela.

They stopped for a break after
only about an hour of walking. None of them were tired, but they had stumbled onto a small stream. They followed it into the trees, just to be out of view from the road. Then Mikela mixed up a foul-smelling concoction, which she rubbed all through Flare’s hair. She made him wait for a quarter of an hour or so, then he rinsed the mess out of his hair. When his hair dried, it was the darkest black.

Enton also tended to stand out in a crowd
, and Mikela helped there as well. She rubbed a salve all over his left arm, chest, and face. After a few moments, little white spots began to break out over the skin. By the time Flare was washing his hair in the stream, Enton was covered from left hand to forehead with scars, and he looked unrecognizable.

“And you’re sure this can be undone
?” Enton asked, his tone betraying the nervousness that he felt.

Mikela chuckled and punched the man playfully. “Quit whining!
It’s a good look for a warrior - very intimidating. And besides, I’m almost certain that I remember how to change it back.”

  “Almost
certain?” Enton asked, looking panicky.

Heather burst out laughing
then Mikela and Flare joined in. After a moment, Enton scowled. The affect with his new scars was truly frightening. “Humorous,” he said in a dry tone, and then he climbed to his feet to go wash in the river.

Flare blinked in surprise at Enton’s back.

“What?” Heather asked, noticing the look that Flare was giving Enton.

Flare checked to make sure that Enton was out of earshot before he spoke
. “I’m just a bit surprised. There was a time when Enton could not stand being the butt of a joke. He seems different, changed somehow.”

“We all have,” Mikela
answered, and there seemed to be a touch of sadness to her tone.

Flare heard the melancholy tone in Mikela’s voice and dropped his eyes. “I appreciate you coming with me, but you don’t have to.”

“Oh,” Heather said, feeling angrier than she should. “And what else would we do? Join Dagan in Telur?” She shook her head. “No, that’s even more foolish than going to an abbey that’s packed full of zealots.” She climbed to her feet and hurried away, farther into the trees.

Mikela sighed.
“She’s upset.”

Flare
remained silent as he watched Heather walk away. Guilt weighed heavily on him; he felt he was the reason they were all in trouble. Finally, he quit watching Heather and turned to find Mikela staring at him. “What?”

“She’ll get through this,” Mikela replied quietly. “You’re not the only one responsible for this.”

“Oh?” Flare said in surprise. “Who else do you blame?”

“Well, if
we’re blaming others for our current state, then it would seem to me that the Gods deserve the biggest piece of the blame.”

“The Gods?” Flare repeated, confused
. “And why would you say that?”

“Well, surely you agree that the Gods influence this world?” Flare had no choice but to nod his agreement. “Well, if they’re in control, then they must take more of the blame than a couple of humans and
a half-elf.”  She smiled at him, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

Flare cocke
d his head to the side. “You don’t seem to be too troubled by these things, I mean …” He paused and then hurried on with the words that were causing everyone so much angst, “My using magic and such.”

Mikela smile
d, “I’m a magician. When we’re taught, we are told an enormous number of rules and laws, but the further you advance in magic, the more you realized that the early laws no longer apply. The rules that are so sacrosanct to an apprentice no longer apply to a master. It’s a matter of perspective. Perhaps that makes me more comfortable in breaking a few rules.”

Flare snorted.
A few rules indeed!