Wilder Mage (38 page)

Justus stood still, his head bowed. The prickling of his skin, like bees trapped, buzzing, crawling. He lifted his face to the sky, straightened his back and spine, and breathed in the warm summer air, pulling it into his lungs in slow, deep draughts. He extended his arms, his palms and splayed fingers turned up, and he reached for the swirling magic. As if impatient, the elements responded eagerly.

Hiding, avoidance, running; that game was played out.

Time for a new game, one with his rules. He settled his heels to the ground and allowed the final acceptance of his inheritance. He lifted his chin.

“I am a wizard,” he said softly.

He released the gathered elements of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth.

Fire shot into the sky from around him, splashing the undersides of the cloud with ebony. Earth joined him, thundering in the deep mantle of the ground, and the trees swayed in time to the music of the wind, Air. Light bathed the clearing, and Water sang in the deep bowels of the ground, ready to come to him.

Through the tumult, he heard the feminine laughter, delighted like a child at a puppet show. But in that sound, he heard the order given, and Justus dropped his hands. An echoing thunderclap reverberated over the clearing.

The bubble appeared as he envisioned it, but not an iridescent, fragile soap bubble of fear and avoidance. This was made of adamant, hard as diamonds and will. It grew outward, extending away from him into a soaring black circle, shot with glittering veins of gold and brilliant silver.

Reaching into the dull clouds, it pressed them back. It enveloped the trees and leaves and then left the growing things unharmed as it passed. The bubble was made of exclusion and forged of necessity; the elements chose the form. It noticed nothing of the world, harmed nothing of earth, air, fire, or water. All these, it ignored.

But the magic of the dull boiling clouds pulled away from it, and a concave dome formed in the surface overhead. A shout came from behind him in the direction of the house and then a delighted chuckle. But they could come no nearer.

The approach of the adepts from every direction halted with some flares of their weak, puny elements hitting the shield of his will with no effect. He tied it off and waited. For one slim moment, he hoped the bubble had separated Tiarra from her captive, but she was not a fool. In the flashes of light from the mages testing his circle of his clear steel, he could see Sable was under restraint. Tiarra’s hand was on her shoulder. Sable was kneeling, her luminous eyes on him. He could see no message in them or divine any emotion. Her face was alive, and in that small measure of time, he saw that Tiarra did not control her, not yet. She was not a full wizard, but the effort to hold her emotions in check was eating into her soul. The fight was plain to his eye. He saw her body shiver with sporadic trembling, but her face remained smooth, emotionless. Justus looked away to the one standing behind Sable.

They were in the center of the clearing, on the crown of the land, exactly where Justus had kissed Sable the first time, he noticed dispassionately. Tiarra stood with her head cocked, smiling, as if discovering something unexpected, something humorous. Her hair flowed over her shoulders, as if alive. The locks appeared like the darkest shadows of the night, but her face was glowing in the flashes of light from her frustrated adepts. Reflecting the magic like the pale imitation of a multi-colored neon sign, now red, now green, her lips curled up and she again laughed.

She looked him up and down. “Hello, lover,” Tiarra said.

He did not speak.

Without taking her eyes from him, she nodded at his dome. “Good work, that. It isn’t often I am outsmarted.” Her smile widened, her teeth white. The eyes were different, though. Hard. Furious.

She gestured at the bubble with her free hand. “That is rather clever.”

Inadvertently, his eyes flicked to the surface of the bubble, and a radiance of silver light hit his chest and threw him backward.

He twisted as he fell, throwing his arm back to stop him from rolling, and flung his left arm up, palm outward to Tiarra. Black molten Fire, a bar of seething element, shot from his hand. It met the silver of her Fire element, and the conflagration was of an electrical storm.

His hip struck the ground, but his eyes never left her crazed ones, and his left hand held steady as he regained his feet. The elements spat and hissed as they met at their intersecting point. His Air element had shielded and deflected her Fire element, but the impact was the same as a hammer to his chest, and breathing in and out took on a new meaning when pain stabbed his side. Justus felt something shift in his chest and wondered if it was a broken rib.

No. No pain. He couldn’t,
wouldn’t
have it now. Later. When there was time.

He silenced the agony and gripped the Fire element firmly in his other hand.

“First law of dueling: Don’t take your eyes off the opponent,” Tiarra said. She shrugged one shoulder, and her silver Fire wobbled from the line that arrowed straight to his heart. “Your warding must be with you still. How intriguing. But as much as I would love to hear the story behind that acquisition, I am afraid you will not have the chance to tell the tale.”

“Why is that, Tiarra? Do you have to leave so soon?” Justus’s bar of black Fire increased until it began to beat the silver back. It gained in increments, the juncture where the elements met, and it was getting closer to the woman. “You aren’t as strong as I am. You know that. And your little army cannot get through the shielding.”

Her eyes flickered and there was a small tightening around her mouth. “True. As I said, very clever, your shielding is. And it is staff, not an army. Well-chosen staff, of course. There are ways other than strength. You may have a warding shield, but I do as well.”

She angled behind Sable’s body and dropped her Fire element at the same instant. Justus threw his hand out and his element snuffed out. In the same motion, he clawed in front of his chest and Air shimmered around him. Earth rumbled in deep basso tones, but did not make him waver. Thick layers of Air formed a shield under him, cushioning him from the ground as it heaved and shook like a dog.

She released her Earth element. “Why do you care so much?” Tiarra asked. When he stared at her, she jerked her chin at Sable’s bowed head. “What is there about this
tener unus
that makes you wish to save her?”

He held his reply and did not answer her, but saw the first reaction from Sable. Her mouth parted and he saw her scrunch her eyelids down hard. Something flickered in Tiarra’s face, and her fingers bore into the shoulder of the younger woman.

“Your heart rate, my sweetling. You should learn to control it better.”

She gave a husky laugh and lightly caressed Sable’s neck. A shudder passed through the young woman’s shoulders. She did not speak, but clamped her lips together hard.

“Give it up, dear. You see, you will not win,” Tiarra said. With a small shock, he realized she spoke not to him, but to Sable. “It will go badly with him if you do not. He will die and it will be your fault. Give in, turn, and we will spare him.” She laughed again. “He will be yours forever.”

“Don’t give in, Sable. You know what she is and how she’ll use you. She’ll control you. She’ll control everyone.” Justus spoke in a low voice, but his eyes never left Tiarra. “Ultimate power in her hands will create a beast. An insane beast.”

Tiarra’s eyes gleamed at last, a glitter of emotion that made him wonder if even he could control her reaction. The light in her eyes whirled madly, but then settled again, shifted briefly to a point behind him.

She smiled.

He heard a harsh voice from behind him. “Get in there. Now, or by damn, I’ll hit you with it again.”

Other voices joined the first in rough laughter.

“Justus?”

The voice was low and wavering, and Justus felt bile rise in his mouth as the hesitant footsteps stopped behind him.

Bert would at last learn what it was to fear magic.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“H
umans can pass through your shield. Is that not so, Justus?” Tiarra asked. She rolled his name on her tongue, molding it to her will. “So that is your true name.” She smiled. “And what is your name, little boy?”

Bert didn’t answer immediately, and her features sharpened. She tilted her head and jerked her chin. Behind him, Justus heard a pained gasp of breath.

“Bert,” Justus said quickly. “His name is Bert.”

“Hm, so he is something you value.”

He didn’t answer. His stomach muscles clenched into a roiled mass.

“Child, do you know about the elements?” Tiarra asked.

“Yes.” Bert’s voice was low.

“Spirit. Do you know what the Spirit element is?”

Bert took hesitant steps to stand at Justus’s left side. “Yes,” he said again. “I know what the Spirit element is.”

When Tiarra smiled, Sable flinched under the savage grip of the fingers on her shoulder. It was the only warning Justus had, the young woman’s recoil as Tiarra focused her eyes on the teenager.

Bert shrieked, stumbled back, and fell, his body hitting the ground hard. He curled into a fetal position, his arms wrapped around the knees pulled up into his chest. Justus heard soft whimpers and cries from the boy.

Justus leaned, as if to go to him, but stopped when Tiarra’s eyes brightened for a moment. He held still and ground his teeth together. The hoarse inarticulate sounds from the boy tore into him.

Tiarra smiled as she watched. She didn’t spare a look for the boy, but her smile widened at his face. “And so...combat finally? You will fight now to the end?”

She bent to Sable and whispered into her hair, “See what you have done? Look at what only you can prevent. Your fault. Your fault.”

Sable’s eyes opened wider, her face pallid as she stared at the crying boy. Her body shuddered every few seconds, the trembling growing deeper and harder. Small lights like fireflies began to whirr around her. In a rainbow of colors, they called on more to join them, growing bigger and more numerous. She moaned in time to Bert’s cries.

Tiarra looked at Justus and tipped her head, waiting for his reaction. She did not have long to wait.

He released the pent-up breath and moved onto the balls of his feet, settling his weight forward like a martial arts master preparing to strike. She smiled as he moved and then lifted her hands from Sable’s shoulder.

But Justus spun to his left. He flung his hand at the downed boy, his fingers wide.

A mixture of four elements swarmed over the boy, trails of glitter forming an opaque blanket. The shield curled around Bert, nestling under his body to cradle him gently. The boy disappeared under the magic, and Justus’s movement brought him back in line with Tiarra. Her eyes widened as he completed his turn and threw the other hand toward her. She had extended her palms outward and prepared to return the counterstrike. But the hit was not at her.

A blast of the element of Air hit Sable, knocking her back out of her kneeling position. It flowed over her, a gray-blue color, the texture of pale silk cloth, and shielded her as it had shielded Bert. With one difference: Air not only covered Sable, but also filled her ears and eyes. Her swarming elements snuffed out.

His blast of Air was not gentle. Her head hit the hard ground and she lay still.

He could spare no more than a glance at her lifeless form. Tiarra’s only reaction was a quick glance and a low snarl.

“You kill the girl and save the boy. Odd. And a waste. She had a strong potential for the elements, and that is human excrement. It makes no sense.”

“You should know about that, Tiarra. Not making sense.”

She smiled and edged away from Sable’s still form. Another step away and then another. Justus mimicked her movements, like those of a fencer, keeping his distance.

He watched for the tightening of her mouth and eyes as the only warning he would receive. They stopped circling and now faced each other. Justus prepared himself, his hands splayed out away from his sides. He expected the attack, but the form it took surprised him.

She ran at him, and a solid bar of energy appeared in her hand. He stumbled back as she swung the bar at his head, dodging it and then her return strike. The tip of the bar flashed by his face as he pulled away and whirled backward, staggering.

He threw out his hand and called to his magic desperately.
Combat. Need something to strike and defend.

A molten bar of Fire appeared in his hand. It was cool to his palm and molded to the shape of his fingers. Black as a bottomless pit, with gold and silver chasing each other up the bar like small lightning bolts.

He held it like a fencer would a sharpened rapier, at the ready.

Tiarra paused, breathing heavily. She held her silver bar like a stick, not a sword, and with her next move, Justus understood why.

She feinted with the bar, and he extended to block her. But she whirled, knocked his bar out of the way, and struck his temple with the end of her weapon of elements. His shield of Air blazed and saved him from a crushed skull, but it did not cushion the strike, and Justus stumbled back, barely able to defend the rapid movements of her now-whirling bar of Fire.

Sparks scattered, elements of Fire and hot metals as their bars met repeatedly. Justus shook the sweat from his face when she paused to grin at him. Tiarra walked lightly, circling him with her bar held low, her grin widening as she watched him.

“You’ve had some training I see, some of the art of combat. But it won’t be enough. Not with me. Not now.”

“All it takes is a little common sense, and I’m a quick learner,” Justus said.

“You are an idiot.”

“Yeah, I’ve been called that,” he said mildly. He saw an indecipherable emotion cross her face and then vanish. “By the way, how are the nightmares? Did they ever stop?”

Her mouth tightened and she advanced, striking at the middle of his body. He blocked with the end of the black bar and then raised it into her face. It was her turn to stumble back and shake her head. It smelled as if something was burning, a smell like ozone.