“That was a close thing, Master Hallow,” said Tygo, who stood bound next to Hallow. The younger man eyed him as if he were a rare flower. “I thought for sure you would destroy Lord Lyl, and perhaps the entire army.”
“Master Hallow has more sense than to do something so foolish,” Aarav said from Hallow’s other side, where he, too, was bound. He gave one of his annoyed (and annoying) sniffs, but even that failed to stir anything in Hallow but an abstracted thought that he’d be forever grateful both men had answered his call.
“Master Hallow is no more,” Lyl said, storming over to them, his face red with fury. “Hallow of Penhallow, late of Kelos, I claim the title of Master from you, and name you outcast. Your standing with the Arcanists’ Guild is stripped. You are no longer recognized by me or Bellias.”
Hallow felt as if his horse had kicked him in the gut, and stumbled backward at the words. Tiny invisible ties that connected him to all other arcanists seemed to snap off and wither away, leaving him—for the first time in many years—with the sensation of being utterly alone in the world, with no connection to anyone else.
But he had Allegria now, even if he couldn’t feel her presence.
Lyl turned to Tygo, his expression indicating just how unimpressed he was. “What is your name, arcanist?”
“Tygo Starcaller,” he answered, giving Lyl a bow made awkward by the rope that bound his hands to a bit of standing stone behind him.
Hallow slid him a quick glance, a bit startled by the surname. Starcaller was the name of a highborn family, one with ties to the queen. He’d had no idea Tygo had such illustrious roots, but it explained why Lyl, with a curl of his lip, said nothing more before moving on to Aarav. “And you? Who are you?”
“I am Aarav, son of Aaram,” that individual replied with a haughty tone that Hallow was coming to think was ingrained in him. “I come from the region of Dimwatch, but I was trained by Exodius, the Master before Hallow.”
Once again, Hallow found himself taken aback by the men who had aided him. Exodius, Thorn had told him, had taken on only three apprentices in the centuries he had been Master of Kelos, and evidently Lyl had been one of the three. That Aarav should be another was surprising. Could it be just a coincidence, or was there a connection between the two?
“The time of your punishment is at hand,” Lyl said, gesturing to one of the guards who stood in a line behind him.
“Punishment?” Tygo asked, glancing to Hallow and Aarav. He licked his lips. “Why are we being punished? We have committed no crime.”
“You both have acted against me in the assistance you gave Hallow,” Lyl pronounced, listening when one of the guards spoke softly in his ear.
“Hallow was Master when we answered his call,” Aarav pointed out. Hallow had to give him full points for appearing almost bored by the situation, but a suspicious part of his mind pointed out that if the man was connected to Lyl, then he had little to fear in the way of punishment. “As Tygo says, we have done no wrong, and have, in fact, been treated without respect or honor by you and your men. As an arcanist of good standing in the Guild, I demand that you release us.”
Lyl watched him for a moment before turning his attention back to Hallow. “Since you feel so abused, I will remove you, too, from the Guild rolls. Henceforth, I name you outcast. You are no longer blessed in Bellias’s eyes.”
Aarav jerked, just as if he, too, had been struck a blow.
“This is poor payment for all the help you’ve given me,” Hallow told him softly. “You have my apologies for how things turned out, and my promise that I will do everything I can to reinstate you with the Guild.”
“You are Master no longer,” Lyl snapped. “You cannot help him any more than you can yourself. But I am willing to barter with you.”
What was this? Lyl was willing to negotiate for the control of Kelos? Hallow gave a mental head shake. It made no sense. “What do you want of me?” he asked.
Lyl half-turned and waved a hand toward the tower. The captain of the guard had disappeared, but the door to the tower stood closed despite the four men clustered around it, attempting to use a massive stone to break it down. “You did something to the tower. Sealed it, I suspect, although I have never seen a seal like that before.”
“It’s one of my own design,” Hallow answered, wondering what Lyl was up to. He was able to focus again now despite his exhaustion, his mind calm with the knowledge that Thorn was helping Allegria. “And you might as well tell your men to stop attempting to break down the door. Nothing can get through it until I remove the spell.”
“And that is the crux of the matter.” Lyl moved until he stood a few inches from Hallow, obviously attempting to intimidate him. “Open the tower, and I will release your friends.”
“The captain of the guard?” Hallow asked, confused for a moment. “Or Tygo and Aarav? Never mind—it doesn’t matter. The captain will return when he has regained his energy, and my compatriots are well able to take care of themselves, although I do apologize to them both for the treatment you have shown us. For a man who professes to be the head of the order of arcanists, you appear to have no respect for gifted practitioners.”
“Just so,” Aarav agreed, while Tygo nodded vigorously.
Lyl’s face turned red. He shoved it into Hallow’s, little bits of spittle flying out when he snarled, “Sooner or later, I’ll get into the tower. And when I do, I will throw you and your friends into the depths of the crypt that lies beneath it, where you can molder away to dust.”
Hallow considered his options when one of the soldiers ran up demanding Lyl’s attention for a few minutes. Without the staff, Hallow had lost much of his power, but he was not helpless.
Despite being bound, his fingers started drawing symbols in the air behind him, symbols that he linked together in chains. Although the summoning of Thorn had left his arcane abilities depleted, he drew on the bond between living things, the changes that were wrought in them, and the complex links that formed a net of connections. There was power in those connections, magic in the links, and just as he pulled strength from them to make chain after chain, he picked through his tired thoughts.
Though he’d never sought the position of leader of the arcanists, he’d be damned if he just handed over the responsibility without so much as a by-your-leave. “I believe, on the whole,” he said thoughtfully, when Lyl dismissed the soldier, “that it would be better for me to leave. The spirits can retreat should you become too obnoxious, and the tower is safe, at least for the present. Yes, I think it’s reasonable for me to leave this situation to be handled at a later time. My wife is far more important to me and the future of Alba than you are. I would move the stars and moons themselves to protect her.”
If he’d thought Lyl was angry before, his words seemed to trigger apoplexy in the man, leaving him sputtering with rage.
“My lord!” one of the men behind him called, pointing. “The arcanist—he’s making magic behind his back.”
“Spells? He’s drawing spells?” Lyl shook his head. “That’s not possible. You must see a spell that’s being drawn. Everyone knows that.”
Hallow sighed to himself, his fingers creating barely remembered symbols that he’d learned from the blood priests on Eris. He could feel the warm glow of the chains building up behind him, the magic in them contained, stored, waiting for him to release it.
“No, it’s not arcany. They’re…red. Long red strings of symbols,” the man told Lyl. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Lyl narrowed his eyes on Hallow, then moved behind him to examine the blood magic.
“Aarav, Tygo—” Hallow gave them each a quick glance. “I will not ask you to join me. The journey to find Allegria, and what will follow, is not one I would wish on anyone, and I will ask no more of you. But you will always have my gratitude and thanks.”
“Where you go, Master Hallow,
so I will go,” Tygo swore defiantly, his gaze skittering away from Lyl when that man screamed an oath, spinning on his heel and gesturing wildly at the soldiers.
“He is attempting to bespell us all! He wears bands on his wrists and ankles giving him power!”
“I am a solitary man by nature,” Aarav said calmly, his voice expressing no interest whatsoever in the sight of Lyl raging before them. “And I’m certainly not one to swear allegiance to anyone in such a dramatic fashion as my colleague Tygo. However, in this, I am in accord with him. I have no other pressing business at the moment, and can lend you aid recovering your wife, Hallow.”
Hallow was warmed by the words, touched that both men would defy the leader of their order, and made a mental promise to repay them for their kindness once the situations with Allegria, the Eidolon, and ultimately Nezu, were dealt with.
“Remove the cuffs!” Lyl demanded, pacing before them. “Break them off him if you must, just get them off.”
For a moment, Hallow’s fingers grew still. “Oh, you really do not want to do that,” he told Lyl. “You are not going to like me if you take off the cuffs.”
“He admits it!” Lyl crowed, shoving forward a couple of the guards who had moved hesitantly to comply with his demand. “He admits that the cuffs give him this strange magic! Take them off him and bring them to me. I will examine them, and ascertain just what it is he has bound into them.”
Hallow’s shoulders slumped for a moment, feeling as if the weight of the world was bearing down on him. But then the quirky part of his mind pointed out that Lyl’s reaction to his unleashed chaos would be entertaining, at least.
“Run,” he said softly, just loud enough that Tygo and Aarav could hear him. Two guards knelt before him, pulling off his boots and fumbling with the iron pins that held the cuffs closed around his ankles.
“What?” Tygo asked in a whisper, his gaze skittering around.
“Run,” Hallow repeated, his gaze not on the men at his feet, but on Lyl, who continued to pace. He gathered up the chains of blood magic, imbuing them with his intentions, as he’d been taught, charging the magic to transform destruction to protection.
“But—we’re bound—” Tygo started to say.
“Where?” Aarav asked. Lyl marched around behind all three of them when two guards started to work the cuffs off Hallow’s wrists. Inside him, chaos surged as the first of the ankle cuffs fell with a metallic clink.
“Frosthaven,” he answered, naming a town a day’s ride to the north. He had no idea where Thorn would bring Allegria back into the mortal realm, but Frosthaven was almost directly in the center of Genora, and would make a good setting off point to wherever she was. He raised his voice to add, “I give you all fair warning that you should move back. If you are too close to me when the confinement runes are removed, I may not be able to protect you.”
“Confinement runes? Those aren’t confinement runes,” Lyl said, a sneer evident in his voice when he stomped around to face Hallow, the first ankle cuff in his hand. “It’s magic, some strange magic that I have not yet learned. But I will, Hallow of Penhallow. Fear you not, I will learn all the secrets you hold.”
The second ankle cuff came off, and Hallow clung tight to the blood magic in his hands, not wanting to waste it controlling the chaos, instead calling on Bellias, using the power arcany gave him to leash the red haze that started to dull his vision. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, Lyl. This is my last warning. Get back, well back, because I only had a short time to learn from the blood priests, and my skills with their magic aren’t as great as they are with arcany.”
“Blood priests?” Lyl’s eyes narrowed, looking at the second cuff when it was handed to him. To Hallow’s amusement, the guards, after a moment’s thought, slipped his boots back onto his feet. He would try to protect them with part of the net of chains he’d woven, and which even now glowed and pulsed in his hands. “You’ve had dealings with blood priests? But you’re an arcanist! How did you learn of such things?”
“Now?” Aarav asked just as the cuff on Hallow’s left wrist fell to the ground with a thump.
“Pick it up!” Lyl demanded. “Let me see it. It clearly holds much power—”
Hallow felt his knees buckle, and struggled to keep them stiff even as he fought the chaos within him. The red in front of his eyes grew in great splatters that leeched across his vision, his breath coming hard and rough while he fought. “Now.” The word was ground through his teeth at the same moment he felt the last cuff loosen and fall from his wrist.
He had no time to worry about the arcanists beside him, for the chaos, freed from the control of the runes inscribed by both Allegria and Deo, filled him with rage, a fury that demanded the death of all things surrounding him. It caused him to jerk forward, snapping the rope binding him. He had just enough presence of mind to fling wide the chains of blood magic a scant half second before chaos erupted out of him, exploding outward in a wave of death and destruction.
His aim was a bit off, he noticed a half minute later, when his vision returned. He stood panting, the magic within him sated and quiet now—at least for a short while. Around him, bodies lay in a circle, with him at the center, red chaos covering everything and everyone, seeping into the gray of Kelos until it was absorbed. The bodies moaned and made short, uncoordinated movements. Hallow noted that one or two of the guards behind him lay still, too still. They were dead, and he was truly sorry that his chains of magic had failed to protect them. But the bulk of the people…Lyl, the guards, and the soldiers who had been moving in and around the ruins, were alive.
Tygo and Aarav were gone. Hallow smiled to himself, collected his four cuffs, and slipped them on again before picking his way across the moaning, twitching bodies to the stable.
“I hate to leave Kelos in the hands of a man so clearly mad, but it can’t be helped,” he told Penn as he fetched his saddle. Penn snorted, shook his head, then looked pointedly over to where Allegria’s mule stood in the pasture, her head over the fence, her watchful eyes on Hallow.
“No,” he told the mule, aware that people were starting to sit up, shaking their heads and groggily asking what had happened. “There is no time, and you are safer here. I will tell Allegria that you are concerned about her welfare.”
The mule continued to stare at him. Penn nudged his back in a manner that had him stumbling forward a few feet. Hallow thought of pointing out to them both that he was master, but that word had a taint to it.
“For the time being, at least, but I’ll cleanse it once we return. Fine, come then, but don’t blame me if you have to walk across all of Genora!”
Five minutes later he rode out of Kelos with the mule’s reins tied to Penn’s saddle, the sounds of voices calling to each other drifting on the air after him.
Chapter 8
“Why did you really come here?” Idril lay across Deo’s chest, which was damp beneath the harness, and heaving from the exertion he’d just made. She spent a moment in admiration of that exertion, her body humming with delightful little quivers of remembered joy at their joining. Truly, there were many things that annoyed her about Deo, but his skill in bedsport was not one of them.
Without opening his eyes, he pinched her behind, immediately rubbing away the sting with a hand that was made rough with callouses, and yet still managed to touch her with the gentlest of caresses. “Do you suddenly believe that your charms are not enough to draw me to your side?”
She smiled a smile filled with satisfied feminine knowledge. “No. I know you crave this, as do I. We have been too long parted for sexual congress to lose any of its attractions.”
“We wouldn’t have been apart for so long if you hadn’t insisted on wedding my father,” he answered.
She froze for a few seconds, her fingers stilling where they had slid under the leather and silver bands that crossed his chest in order to stroke his th
ick pectoral muscles. “You know that was not my choice.”
“I know your father pressured you into it, but the marriage could not have taken place without your consent.”
She sighed, not wanting to ruin the pleasant interlude, but knowing that she’d have to address the issue with him sooner or later. And she’d much rather deal with the fit he was bound to throw in privacy. “About that…”
“And in the end, what good came of your marrying him? The Tribe was only in the Council of Four Armies for a handful of years before your father imprisoned mine, and claimed his lands. It makes me wonder if you didn’t wed him simply to goad me.”
Idril made a face that, thankfully, Deo did not see.
“I am not a jealous man, Idril. You of all people should know that,” he continued, shifting her to a more comfortable position across his body. She stopped stroking his lovely big chest, and started drumming her fingers on it. “There was no need to wed my father just to enrage me. I am here because I wish to be here. With you.”
The very idea that Deo thought himself above jealousy when he was the most jealous man alive was beyond comical, but she couldn’t point that out to him. Not now, when she had to dance around a delicate subject.
“But let us not waste our time talking about your marriage to my father. Let us instead talk about our wedding. My mother will wish to be present, so we had best do it today, before I have to return to Starfall to oust this Lyl,” Deo said in a matter-of-fact tone that always annoyed Idril. He said the most outrageous things in that tone, ones that were sure to prickle on her skin like a biting insect.
“Today? Are you insane? We can’t be wed today,” she protested, thinking quickly.
“Why not?” he asked, opening his eyes to give her a quizzical look.
“Because—” She snatched at the first excuse that came to mind. “A wedding takes much preparation. There is the feast to be organized, and the pilgrimage to the temple, and the bounties given to the people.”
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