by Logan Jacobs
“What are you looking at?” Dehn barked with a scowl at the puca.
“What are you looking at?” Merlin repeated in a pitch-perfect mimicry of the halfling’s gruff voice.
“Argh, shoo!” Dehn waved his hand.
“Shoo!” Merlin repeated, and he leapt up and grabbed the dagger from the mount in his little raccoon paws before jumping onto the top of a nearby shelf.
“Hey!” Dehn shouted. “That’s mine!”
“Mine!” Merlin bared his teeth in a Cheshire Cat grin.
“You little rat, give that back!” Dehn grabbed the shelf where Merlin was perched and tried to shake it, but it was too heavy to do more than wobble, and the puca kept his balance easily. “Give it back!” Dehn demanded, his face flushed.
“Good luck with that,” Lavinia snorted.
“Merlin, come here,” I said firmly, and the puca turned to me with his long rabbit-like ears pricked up. He hesitated, obviously aware that I was going to put an end to his prank. “Come here now,” I amended, “or you’re not getting any apples for a week.”
That did the trick, and Merlin slunk over to me and climbed up onto my shoulder where he gave me an apologetic lick on the cheek. He’d left the dagger on top of the shelf, however, and Dehn had started trying to climb up to get it.
Maruk shook his head and picked up the halfling by the collar with one hand and the dagger with the other, and he set Dehn safely on the floor before he handed him the knife.
“I could have gotten it!” Dehn insisted.
“We know, dear,” Yvaine replied with a smile. “Shall we be getting along, then? I’m sure the horses are getting anxious.”
Yvaine was right. When we finally got back to where we’d tied up the horses, they had churned the ground up to mud from stomping around and pulling against their tethers. I couldn’t really blame them, though. The storm had blown in from over the sea, and the air was thick and heavy, the sky so dark it was almost like night. The sense of the imminent deluge was enough to make me uneasy, and I was glad we were getting away from this place.
We rode quickly in an attempt to escape the rain, but the storm followed us east to Ovrista, and by the time the city walls were in sight again, we were all thoroughly soaked. My mind drifted to thoughts of a hot bath, a good meal, and something warm to drink as we stabled the horses and started down the main street toward the Mage Academy. The cloud cover had made gauging the time difficult, but the marvelous clock tower above the city hall showed that it was already past six o’clock in the evening. In better weather, there would have still been a lot of activity in the market, but just about everyone had been driven indoors by the rain, and we were given a reprieve from having to weave through the usual crowds.
The reflective panels that covered the Arcane University tower sparkled in the rain, so that the whole spire seemed like a giant magic wand standing above the city. That didn’t really make it any less unsettling, though for once I was glad to go inside, at least to get out of the rain.
There were a few students gathered around on the couches and armchairs in the reception area on the first floor, reading or discussing their lessons quietly. The clerk at the desk was a young mage I recognized, a dark-haired elf who I thought was called Lain. He was one of the nicer mages here, I’d learned. At least, he never gave our guild the condescending looks a lot of the mages here did when we came in straight after returning from a mission, travel-worn and more often than not covered in dirt and blood.
“Just getting in?” he asked when we reached the desk. “This storm came out of nowhere, didn’t it?”
“Perhaps it seems that way to you,” Maruk replied sourly. He had just replaced his old pack with a new one of handcrafted leather, and he had spent the last hour and a half fretting about the damage the moisture had wrought. “It followed us here.”
“Oh,” Lain gave a sympathetic wince. “That’s a shame. Where were you all off to this time? Hunting down rogue mages?”
“Cultists, actually,” I answered as I dug the books out of my pack and placed them on the desk. “We have these to return.”
“Excellent,” the elf replied with a smile, and he slid the books over and began to catalog them in one of the massive tomes on his desk. “The Mage Academy thanks you for your service.” When he had finished, he wrote up a receipt and handed it to me. “There you are.”
Beside me, Aerin gave a nervous chuckle. “Um, not to be rude, but what about the reward money?”
“We’re processing payments through the city treasury now,” Lain explained. “Just take that receipt down to them, and they’ll see that you’re compensated.”
“When did that start?” Aerin asked with a frown.
“Just this morning, actually,” the other elf said. “It’s all part of some new policy, getting the Academy and the city integrated more.”
“Isn’t that just what we need?” Lavinia muttered.
A knot had formed in my stomach. I didn’t really know what all the implications of a policy like that would be, but I doubted it would end up being good news for me. It seemed like Eamon Maderel was trying to extend the Academy’s reach, and I had to agree with Lavinia’s sarcastic remark. The last thing we needed was for the Mage Academy to have even more of an influence in the city. Well, that was something I could worry about later, after I’d changed out of these wet, muddy clothes. Just as I began to turn away from the desk, however, Lain gave a little start.
“I almost forgot!” the elf chirped. “Archmage Murillo wanted to speak with you all as soon as you returned. He should be in his office.”
“Archmage Murillo?” I repeated as a cold trickle of anxiety moved down my spine. I didn’t know him. Of course, I actively avoided getting too familiar with any of the archmages, but this Murillo couldn’t have known us very well, either. My mind went immediately to the worst possible scenario, that he had somehow figured out that I was lying about being an air elementalist, that he’d arranged this meeting to arrest us, or to try to blackmail us. “Do you know why he wants to see us?” I asked Lain in as casual a tone as I could manage. Maybe I could just insist we were too busy. Would he try to come to us, then?
“I think he probably wants to hire you,” Lain answered, oblivious to the sudden tension his message had inspired. He leaned forward and lowered his voice, and his dark eyes sparkled with excitement. “Word is Maderel gave him some important assignment. I heard some of the other archmages talking about it. Apparently, there’s some rogue mage out there that’s got them worried. Murillo probably wants your guild to help track down whoever it is.”
I felt the blood rush to my limbs, and it took everything I had not to turn and run right then.
“Um, well, we just got back, and we’re all dirty,” Emeline said quickly. “Murillo could at least wait for us to go home and get cleaned up, I’m sure.” I was instantly grateful for the panthera woman’s quick thinking because my own tongue had become as dry as a desert.
Lain looked sympathetic. “He said he wanted to speak to you right away, but I can’t see what an hour or two could hurt.”
An hour or two. If Murillo did expect I was the rogue mage he’d been tasked to find, would he give us that long? Would he have already sent someone to our guild hall or the city gates in case we tried to make a run for it? Maybe it would be safer to sneak out through the old drainage tunnels...
I didn’t have any longer to form my escape plan, however, because at that moment, a gray-robed mage came down the stairs and strode over toward us.
“Ah, Shadow Foxes! Just the guild I’d hoped to see!” The man’s accent was Morelian, like Lena’s, and he smiled broadly as he held out his hand to me to shake.
I took it numbly, unsure of what else to do as my animal instincts screamed at me to flee.
“I am Archmage Murillo,” the mage went on. “You probably don’t remember me, but we met briefly after your guild returned from the Shadow Delves. I hoped you might help me with another mission.” Vagu
ely, I recalled the man’s long, curly black hair and cheerful brown eyes from the crowd at the banquet Maderel had hosted to celebrate our success. There was no hint of malice or suspicion in his face now, either, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. When he released my hand again, I managed to find my voice.
“Of course,” I answered and swallowed thickly around the dryness in my mouth. “Perhaps we could come back tomorrow to meet with you--”
“Oh, no, no, there’s no need,” Murillo replied with a wave of his hand. “It won’t take but a few minutes, and we’re all here now.” He glanced around the lobby. “It is a matter requiring some discretion, however, so if you’d all join me in my office.”
“Of course,” Yvaine said as she swept forward, “but you see, we’ve just returned from a long ride, and we wouldn’t want to track mud all over this beautiful tower.”
The noblewoman sounded perfectly sincere, as though there truly was nothing she cared about more at the moment than preserving the cleanliness of the stair runners, but we’d made too many excuses by then not to draw some suspicion, and Lain and Murillo both looked at us curiously.
“No need to worry about that,” Murillo answered with a chuckle. “Reeve likes to have his students scrub the floors for detention, it’ll give them something to do. Come along now, I insist.” He placed his hand on my shoulder, and I had no choice but to walk with him up the stairs to his office with the others all behind me. As we took the six floors up, my mind raced with desperate plans. I couldn’t just run. Would we have to kill him? Could we, in the middle of the tower, without attracting attention? Probably not, and Lain knew we were with him, anyway.
If he did suspect that I was a manipulator, he could have had me arrested the moment I set foot in the tower if that was his intention. Did he intend to blackmail me, then? At least, in that case, we might have a little more time to figure out how to deal with this, if we played along, but what if he wanted something I couldn’t give him?
Murillo opened the door to his office and ushered us all inside with a smile. The space was plush, with dark wood shelves filled with books and matching furniture. There were two sets of curtains on the windows, sheer gauzy ones to let the light in and deep, heavy red drapes to keep the light out. The latter were tied back with tasseled cords, but it was so dark outside that Murillo had lit the few wall-mounted lanterns anyway. Instead of candles, little orbs of mage-fire burned inside the glass.
A tall desk stood along one wall, with a few papers and books arranged neatly across it. A thick, patterned rug covered most of the floor, and the tufted-back chairs and couches were upholstered in some shiny fabric the color of a grapefruit. There was a tea set on the coffee table with nine little china teacups already laid out for us.
“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” Murillo said with a gesture toward the sitting area.
Merlin, disguised as a cat as he always was when we were in the city, dropped from my shoulder, and before I could make a move to stop him, seized the sugar bowl and hid under the couch with it.
“Merlin!” I started, but Murillo just chuckled.
“He knew what he wanted, didn’t he?” the mage said with an amused grin. “I had a cat as a boy that was always stealing oranges, though he couldn’t get through the rind to eat them. Don’t worry, I have more sugar. Go on, sit, have some tea. I’m sure you’re all in need of a hot drink.”
As he disappeared behind one of the doors, I threw a glance to the others behind me.
“We should go,” Aerin whispered urgently. “Before he comes back.”
“We wouldn’t make it down all those stairs before he sent someone after us,” Lavinia argued. “If he wanted to arrest us, don’t you think he’d have done it already? Maybe it is just about a job.”
Before the discussion could go any further, Murillo returned with another little bowl of sugar that he set on the tray and looked over to where we were all still gathered in the doorway.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, his thick brows furrowed.
“Fine,” I answered, and I stepped forward and took a seat on one of the couches. Lavinia was right, running now would just make us look suspicious.
The others followed suit, though Aerin was still as tense as a squashed spring when she placed herself on the couch next to me, and Emeline kept fiddling with her earrings.
Lavinia and Dehn were a bit better about hiding their concern over the situation, if they harbored any. Dehn swung himself up into an armchair with a grunt, heedless of the huge swath of mud that his dirty boots left on the seat, and Maruk gave him a disappointed look as he squished his own massive frame into the adjacent chair.
In an attempt to appear more relaxed than I felt, I took one of the teacups and filled it.
“So, what did you want to talk to us about?” I asked. I hoped I only sounded curious and not as on-edge as I felt. “Lain mentioned something about a rogue mage.”
“Did he?” Murillo shook his head ruefully as he sat back in the last free chair. “Ah, there are no secrets in this tower, that’s for sure. It seems as though the more you try to hide something, the more people know about it.”
My grip tightened around the handle of my cup, and I studied the archmage carefully, but he still seemed perfectly relaxed. Not like he suspected I was a manipulator and was planning to threaten or expose me.
“There is a rogue mage that has caught the Academy’s attention,” Murillo went on as he poured a cup of tea for himself and dropped a sugar cube into it. His spoon clinked against the china as he stirred. “He is a quite powerful mage, I’m told. The Academy has been tracking his movements very closely.
I glanced to Aerin, who was as white as a ghost, but her gaze was fixed on the archmage.
“Naturally, we don’t want a dangerous person like this to be in a position to threaten any of Ovrista’s citizens, and since you Shadow Foxes have proven time and again your dedication to this city and its people, as well as your skill in accomplishing difficult and dangerous tasks, it was my hope that I could enlist your aid in an assignment given to me by the High Mage.” Murillo smiled broadly at us. “You were the very first guild I thought of, you know, and it may please you to know that the High Mage himself recommended you all.”
It made me feel like I might be sick, and I resisted the urge to throw down my cup and get the hell out of here.
“So you want us to do what?” Lavinia asked without bothering to conceal the impatience in her voice. “Track down this mage and kill him?”
“Oh, no,” Murillo answered. “The Academy’s concern at the moment is simply to ensure that this criminal cannot become any more powerful.”
“Why is that?” I surprised myself with the question, and by the fact that I was able to ask it at all.
“You may have heard it said that the will of the gods is often a mystery to mere mortals,” Murillo replied with a slight grimace. “The same can be said for the will of Eamon Maderel. He does not wish to confront this mage yet. He wouldn’t even tell me what he knew about him. The High Mage, at least, knows how to keep his secrets.”
“So what is it that you need us for?” I asked. “How are we supposed to stop this mage from becoming more powerful if we don’t even know who he is?”
“I need you, Shadow Foxes, to recover the Shodra.” Murillo delivered this with great weight, and Emeline gave a little gasp, but I had no idea what he was talking about. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who was ignorant.
“What the fuck is that?” Dehn asked as he dumped the contents of his flask into his teacup. It was Emeline who answered.
“The Shodra are legendary,” she said, her voice tinged with awe. “They’re a collection of items that can amplify a mage’s power, but most historians claim that they’re just objects of myth.” She stared at Murillo, her green eyes wide. “You mean to say that they’re real?”
“The Academy has confirmed the existence of a few items that we believe do, in fact, belong to the Shodr
a,” the archmage replied with a smile. “The problem is how to retrieve them before they can fall into the wrong hands. That is where you come in. We need you to get them for us, quickly and with the utmost discretion.”
Merlin had finished his sugar and slithered out from under the couch to curl up in my lap. He bared his teeth in a catlike grin and trilled as if to tell Murillo that he’d come to the right place.
“There are four items for you to recover,” Murillo went on, and as he spoke, he took a book from the side table next to him and withdrew a sheet of paper that he unfolded and handed to me. I read over the list as he described it. “They are a gemstone, a knife, a candle, and a chalice. When you get all four, you are to bring them to Speir Peak, on the western edge of the Canterrose Range.”
“Why there?” Aerin asked. It was the first time she’d spoken since we’d sat down, but I suppose she’d calmed down when she realized I wasn’t about to be arrested. “Wouldn’t it be safer to bring them back here?”
“Unfortunately, this great city is not as secure as it seems,” Murillo replied. “Though I suppose you know that better than anyone, given your recent success uncovering that plot between councilors Adler and Previn. We here at the Mage Academy do not doubt your competence or loyalty, Shadow Foxes, but the same cannot be said of everyone in the city, or even in this very tower, and the Shodra are simply too precious to take risks with. Therefore, the decision has been made to keep them locked away somewhere remote, under heavy guard and an abundance of magical protections. There is a fortress on Speir Peak that High Mage Maderel has determined will be the safest place for them.”
I frowned. We’d gotten plenty of dangerous items for the Mage Academy in the past, and we never brought them anywhere but back here. I would have expected that this tower, with all its mages and the city with its walls and guards, would be more secure than some mountain in the middle of nowhere. I threw a questioning glance to Aerin, and she returned my look with a barely perceptible shrug, which I understood to mean that Murillo was telling the truth. Regardless of what I thought, if this is what Maderel and the Mage Academy wanted, that’s what we’d do.
