by Guy Antibes
Whit untied his friends and got them into the action. Without magic, Gambol, Fistian, and Zarl were more effective fighters than Yetti, Razz, and Argien. Once the guards were tied up, Whit removed the gags and bindings from the rival team members.
“Why did they tie you up?” Whit asked Barine.
“The pixies were talking about killing you!” Sedge said. “Deechie and Professor Porch didn’t object. We tried to convince them that the expeditionary contest wouldn’t allow killing. Deechie laughed, and he said that he would do whatever he could to win, and then he tied us all up.”
“Letting me live through the night was their biggest mistake,” Whit said. “Why did you join up with the interior minister?”
Barine snorted. “Cheating is allowed during an expedition,” she said, “but the interior minister saw you as a threat to his plans to take over Perisia and decided to have you removed.”
Jonny laughed behind Whit. “Plans that will never come to fruition. Lulu finally went over the line, and we are here to capture or kill the minister.”
Whit sighed. He didn’t want to get into the middle of a political fight, but here he was. It looked like he had chosen the right side, however. “You can stay here or follow us. I don’t know which is safer.”
“About the same,” Jonny said. “Come with us. At least we don’t have to go searching for Whit’s friends.”
“No, you don’t,” Gambol said finishing up helping Jonny’s men. “The minister’s men won’t be fighting us. We tied up their hands so tight, they won’t be able to use them until tomorrow.”
Zarl growled. Whit was surprised by the sound. “They weren’t nice to us,” the ogre said, “and threatened Yetti. That was unacceptable.” He slammed his fist into his other palm.
Whit looked over, and a few of the guards were out cold with bruises starting to blossom on their faces.
Jonny grinned. “Don’t stay behind, Zarl. We can use you.”
The rest of the building had clusters of guards, including the jailers, and soon, the satchels of Jonny’s men were emptied of magic-killing ropes.
“I found some more,” one of Jonny’s men said after rummaging through a storage room in the jail’s guard room.
“One building more, and our main objective is complete,” Jonny said. “Let’s go to the lord’s tower.”
Jonny led them to another, taller building.
“The ceilings are higher on every level. This is the lord’s tower,” Jonny said.
Although Jonny’s men operated with relatively bloodless efficiency, they began to see bodies on the floors. Jonny sent half his men down into the basement while he led the foreigners and three of his people higher.
They met fighters on the next level. Magic was being thrown around until Jonny took one of the rolling magic-killers out of his satchel and stopped that. Without magic, the pixies began to wrestle with each other, but Whit could see their training on hand-to-hand combat was inadequate as Jonny and his men closed in on the remaining Interior Ministry guards. Zarl, Fistian, and Gambol joined Whit, and soon the room was pacified.
Jonny’s technique wouldn’t work on a battlefield, but in close quarters, he ended up saving lives. Some of the king’s guards ran over to the jail building to watch the incapacitated enemies, and others stayed to monitor those newly defeated.
The next floor was a repeat of the first, but someone had already invoked a magic-killing spell on the top floor, and the whole level was filled with pixies fighting hand to hand. Whit led his fighters into the melee. Zarl ended up sweeping pixies aside with his heavy, muscular arms. His problem was the pixies quickly learned how to duck, so the ogre began kicking the pixies three or four paces ahead of him.
Whit spotted Lullan Gastian with his guards clustered around him. The minister’s group had gone from one building to the other, and now he was trapped at the top. The fighting was fierce, especially with Fistian and Gambol using the gnome fighting technique to perfection. Whit did his share, until a bolt of pixie lightning hit him in the arm. Someone entered the room after the magic was killed.
The bolt spun Whit around, but he kept turning until he spotted the magician, a pixie dressed in a royal uniform hugging the side of the room. A traitor! Whit fell to the ground, but the bolt hadn’t done much damage. He extracted the magic-killing wand. No one would suspect him of having magic.
A few fighters obstructed the attacker’s view giving Whit time to act, He didn’t need the wand to project a thin stream of fire from a wood elf spell. The fire splattered against the chest of the guard and forced him back and through the window behind. The scream was heard above the fray. Without the magic to fly, the guard magician plummeted to the ground below.
“Stop the fighting now!” Whit yelled in the room.
All eyes turned toward Whit. “King Quiller’s guards have won. There is no reason to continue to fight.”
“What does an elf know?” Lullan Gastian said, sneering.
“He knows when your guard is defeated. Do you want it obliterated?” Jonny Evia said. Gastian’s pixies began to fight again. The struggle intensified as Whit reached the interior minister. “Do you give up?” Whit asked as he fought with the interior minister. The pixie was beginning to weaken.
“Never, until you are dead!”
“Why do you want me dead?” Whit said, and then he took multiple blows from the minister, now joined by two more of his guards pushing Whit into a corner.
“If you don’t know, I won’t tell you!” Lullan Gastian said.
The minister and the guards pulled out knives, making Whit back away. Confronted by edged weapons, Whit pulled out Varetta’s wand again. One of the guards threw his knife, but Whit deflected the weapon with the metal wand. Whit realized that he couldn’t defeat three pixies with two knives. He punched a flaming hole through each of them, and with Lullan Gastian dead, the fighting truly stopped. In his mind, he apologized to Varetta for using her wand as an instrument of bloody justice.
He looked out the window at the body below, and then he saw the light of a fire reflected in the trees on the other side of the wall.
“Fire!” Whit said. Pain ran through his injured arm, but he ran down the stairs, pushing off those who wanted to wish him well, including his teammates. When he reached the flames, their two carriages were burning brightly in the night.
Royal guards stood around, but there wasn’t any water to douse the fire. That wasn’t an issue for a sky elf. Whit began to spell water onto the carriages, but they were too far gone. However, the fire was catching on the vegetation, so Whit ignored their transportation and concentrated on the bushes and trees.
When he was finished, exhausted from all the magic and the exertion, the pain began to worsen.
Gambol came over, holding his hand, and directed Fistian and Razz to see if anything of value remained. Luckily, they hadn’t brought much with them on their decoy mission.
“Deechie’s work, of course,” Fistian said. “He found all the compartments. You can see that in the wreckage.
Whit dangled the purse he had taken. “At least I salvaged this before we attacked,” he said.
~
“It was too easy,” Whit said, as he sat on the running board of Pin’s carriage, being seen to by Fanni.
“Too easy!” Jonny snorted. “Pixies lost their lives. The bolt that Fanni is treating would have killed a pixie,” Jonny said, looking over Fanni’s shoulder.
“And the knives would have stopped an elf,” Gambol said, waiting in line. He had broken a couple of fingers toward the end of the fight.
Whit pulled out Varetta’s wand. A straight furrow from the knife had bitten into the decorative scrollwork. The wand had saved Whit’s life, just not in the way Whit would have guessed. He stood and worked his arms. He had made it through the fight and had ended the life of an unrepentant antagonist, if the minister’s last words were to be believed.
A guard reported to Jonny. “One of the carriages left during
the fight.”
Whit already knew that. “Is the remaining coach road worthy?”
The guard nodded.
“Deechie and Paros Porch fled, at the least,” Whit said.
“We think they are headed to Garri,” the guard said.
“And so will we,” Jonny said, “after we report to the king. Come with me, Whit.”
They walked to the king’s carriage where King Quiller stood over a litter carrying Lulu’s body.
“You were the one who killed him?” King Quiller asked.
Whit was taken aback by the accusation, but he nodded and told the story.
“I saw the burning body fall from the lord’s tower,” Quiller said. “He was one of Minister Gastian’s closest officers. He killed one of my guards and exchanged uniform tunics. That pixie deserved to die as he did. There are witnesses to your fight, and their accounts match yours. Minister Gastian had begun to try to unite with my prime minister, but she wasn’t in the mood for betrayal. Opposition is not the same as rebellion. You’ve saved us an unpleasant trial.”
“I did what I could to stay alive—”
“And defend my crown. You have truly brought honor to the Order of the Valiant. Gastian didn’t like you showing up Deechie, whom he had sponsored, and he thought the easiest way to make sure Deechie won was to kill you,” the king said.
“I’m headed to Garri to find Deechie,” Whit said.
“Go ahead. It’s about time for you to leave, but you have enabled me to put the kingdom back together. Ritta Misennia is helping me respond to the requests of the younger ministers. The prime minister, at the end, was loyal to Perisia, if not to me. Go on.”
“There is the matter of the destroyed carriages,” Whit said. “We can commandeer the remaining one, but that leaves the rest of us without transportation. Deechie left three of his team behind so there are now ten of us.”
“I’m sure you are creative enough to get everyone to the capital. If I return to Garri before you leave for Ayce, be sure to see me,” King Quiller said.
Whit took that for a dismissal and bowed to the king before leaving for Pin’s carriage.
“We can carry two on the driver’s box and another inside. I’ve decided to accompany you to Garri,” Jonny said after Whit related his conversation with King Quiller. “I’ve got my men patched up, so they can act as our guard.”
The king decided to spend the night in the now-pacified castle as his guard cleaned up the site of the battle. The interior minister didn’t own the castle, the crown did, Pin told Whit as they headed toward Garri in the darkness lit by magician’s lights produced by Jonny’s men. Razz and Zarl would drive the remaining magic college carriage while Fistian and Yetti rode inside with Barine, Sedge, and the other student.
“Let me see that wand,” Pin said. Whit looked it over before handing it to his pixie friend. “The gash will hurt its value as an ancient relic.”
“I don’t care about the relic part. It saved my life, and that is more important to me at this moment,” Whit said.
“I don’t blame you. It’s time to relax while we head for Garri. For once, there aren’t any more strategies to think of,” Pin said.
“Deechie,” Gambol said from his corner of the carriage. “He might try to finish what the late Lullan Gastian started, and he has to know we are staying at the mansion.
Pin looked at his friend, who was not the owner. “Is an attack on the mansion likely to succeed?” he said with a smile.
The friend laughed. “If this Deechie fellow gets too rambunctious, he’ll get a taste of pixie anger!”
The pixies in the carriage laughed uproariously. Whit smiled, and Gambol grinned, but Whit had learned to never underestimate Deechie.
Chapter Thirty-One
~
W hit never thought of Garri as home, but it came close to feeling that way when they rolled into the mansion courtyard. Whit didn’t have any possessions to take up to his room. He took a bath and laid down on his bed, trying to let all the tensions of the last few days sink into the mattress below him.
The ploy really was a diversion even though Pin’s pixie friends had a traitor in their midst who sent their protection off in the wrong direction. Lulu was dead, and Pin thought that would stabilize the entire country. With Ritta advising the king, the angry young faction had surrendered when the king offered clemency, and Whit’s only obstacle to leaving Garri might be Greeb Deechie hatching up some unexpected plot.
Someone knocked on his door. Barine and Sedge surprised Whit when he opened the door to see who was there.
“At least you didn’t desert us,” Barine said as she barged in and sat in a plain chair in the large bedroom.
Whit sat on his bed, and Sedge took the easy chair.
“Did you want me to?” Whit asked.
“No,” Barine said. She looked nervously over at Sedge. “Go on, cousin.”
Sedge smiled a little uncomfortably. “You know I didn’t want to be shoved into Professor Porch’s expedition.”
“I know that,” Whit said.
After looking at his cousin, Sedge turned to Whit. “Can you let us join you, instead?”
Whit pursed his lips. “As agents for Deechie?” he asked.
“No. He wanted to have the minister kill you,” Barine said. “He was very frustrated to learn Gastian had put you into a cell rather than take your life. The minister wanted to toy with you before taking your life.” Her face looked a little pinched as she talked. Whit guessed she was having a hard time with leaving the magic college team.
She continued. “Deechie wanted the minister to empty the castle to search for you, so he could kill you as soon as possible. The minister objected but sent half of his men into the countryside. Deechie convinced Professor Porch that your death was the best outcome for our team.”
“And half the team did too,” Sedge said. “Three of us were left tied up with your team.”
“You told me that.”
Sedge blushed. “We did, didn’t we? But we didn’t ask to join you. After traveling to Garri with your teammates, we realized that you really do have a chance to find the Augur’s Eye.”
“The parts to the Eye,” Whit said, correcting Sedge. “It is a dangerous device.”
“Deechie said it could change the world, and until you gave the college your proposal, the professors didn’t think it was possible to resurrect.”
“It might still be impossible,” Whit said. “We don’t know.”
“What will you do now that Deechie has the parts you found?” Sedge said.
Whit shrugged. “I suppose that is up to Deechie,” he said, not ready to trust either of the pair. “They are probably headed to Herringbone, and that will be our next destination once we leave Garri. I have to take you back as well as your other teammate. Gambol is hopeful he can duplicate the parts if he has to.”
Barine looked relieved. “Deechie suspected the artifacts weren’t real. He didn’t think anyone would leave them around like you did, but Professor Porch said he couldn’t imagine anyone could make such excellent copies.”
“I didn’t expect our ‘advisor’ turning into a burglar. Did they give you rooms to stay?”
“I’m sharing with Tory,” Sedge said, “but Barine is by herself. This is a fancy place.”
Whit nodded. “I am going to see if Deechie is still in Garri. I want to retrieve my parts,” he said continuing to play along that the human took the real artifacts.
“Why were you sleeping, then?” Sedge said.
Whit chuckled. “Did you even know I was injured in the fighting? I was hit with a pixie bolt.”
“And you survived?” Barine asked.
“You might survive too. The bolts work on someone pixie-sized, but we are bigger and can better sustain a hit. The injury still hurt, and I needed a healer’s attention,” Whit said and got to his feet. “If you don’t mind, I’d still like to get some rest. My allies in the capital are out looking for Deechie and Porch.�
��
“Of course,” Barine said, blushing.
“We can talk later,” Sedge said, a bit more confidently.
Whit wondered if Sedge had more to say outside his cousin’s hearing. He laid back down, but the moment when he needed some peace and quiet had ended. He left his room and searched for Pin, but found Gambol wandering around the mansion, looking at pixie objects of art.
“I told Barine and Sedge that Deechie has the real artifacts,” Whit said.
“Good! Fistian and Yetti said the same thing to them. I just found out and was going to tell you, but I was distracted by all the decorations. Pixies live quite differently than gnomes, and their art and objects show it.”
Whit followed Gambol around for a few minutes, patiently listening to the gnome describe what Whit could see for himself.
“What are you going to do if Jonny’s people find Deechie? He was trying to kill you.”
Whit sighed. “It would be easy to have Jonny’s men attack him, but I can’t do that. I stirred up more than I intended when I proposed to find the parts. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t have made the proposal and would have gone off by myself. I’m sure my mother would have told me to do everything in secret. Barine said that the magic professors had dismissed the Augur’s Eye until my proposal came along.”
Whit didn’t verbalize that part of what drove him was proving himself to the College of Magic and it had inadvertently put everyone at risk. He knew he wasn’t alone in that. When they went to seek more parts, Whit vowed to make sure everyone knew what they were getting into. But he still ended up concluding that they still had a contest to win.
“And the magic professors and the Herringbone Magician’s Circle are the same thing?” Gambol asked.
