“Where is Avelice?” she called in a frantic rage.
“One of the magicians got away with her! Tomlin is trailing them to Mollifas,” Byrn shouted back.
“So Tomlin has not betrayed me after all.” Alia half-smiled to herself, and then added, “It was Riona.” The distance between them was nearly closed now. “She took my baby while the others kept us busy.”
“Are you really Byrn?” asked Kaleb. He was rubbing his arm. There was a faint aura of magic there where Southernstar must have applied some healing magic to repair whatever injury Ryonus had given him.
“I am, Kaleb.” Then he spoke to Alia as well. “Then Sane has explained to you what is going on?”
“We already knew,” said Kaleb and Alia nodded.
“We only found out last night,” added the enchantress, “When my father revealed the truth to me. I am glad you are alive by the way.”
“You seem to be taking this well,” observed Southernstar to Alia.
Michal laughed at that. “Xander might disagree. She tried to kill him last night.”
Alia ignored him. “Seeing you like this is not that easy for me to get past. I know you are Byrn, but when I see you I still see my father and it is difficult for me to separate those two things.” She averted her gaze, and then after a moment said, “We do not have time for this. Does he know anything useful?”
“He has been uncooperative.”
The enchantress nodded. She started to approach Michal’s earthen encasement, but noticed the anti-magic rune drawn into the dirt. It was glowing faintly after having absorbed most of the fire magician’s magic. “How did you do that?” she asked, then immediately followed up with, “Never mind. I don’t really care.”
“Where is Riona taking my daughter?” Alia’s voice carried an almost hidden melody in her question. With his magic nearly completely drained it was impossible for Michal to put up an adequate mental defense to protect himself from Alia’s hypnotic charm.
“To Mollifas. Xander is probably taking over the castle even as we speak.”
“Why would he take her from me?”
“I do not know.”
With that the questioning was done and Alia let go of his mind. She aimed the blade of her staff at Michal’s face and thrust forward. However, his scream was cut short when Byrn grabbed the weapon and pulled it so that the blade missed his head.
“You don’t need to kill him,” Byrn told her.
“I don’t need to let him live. There is no value in saving him and I am not accustomed to leaving enemies at my back.” Alia pulled her staff free from Byrn who let it go at her efforts.
“It will take him a day or two to work his way out of that dirt mound and by then this will all be settled one way or another.” Byrn positioned himself between Alia and Michal.
“Then we will not be going to Mainor to find some Atmari crystals?” asked Sane.
Byrn shook his head. “We will be going to Mollifas to rescue my daughter. If we can subdue Xander long enough for me to retrieve the crystals, then so be it. Otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?” Kaleb asked. He knew enough from their tones to be concerned. Sane put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and shook his head.
“And what of your war?” asked Southernstar of Byrn. “It seems that both sides want you dead and you intend to confront them while simultaneously preventing them from destroying each other. I am most intrigued to find out how you expect to do that.”
“I haven’t quite figured that out yet,” said Byrn. “Can you fly us all to Mollifas in your dragon form?”
Southernstar thought about it and told him, “Your boy and woman would have to ride on my back. I do not like it, but will allow it under the circumstances.”
“Understood. Thank you.”
Southernstar’s human form shimmered and rippled like her body was being reflected in a pool of water. A bright light radiated from within her, shining forth from every pore in her body and even her red dress seemed to exhibit that glow. Kaleb, Sane, and Alia averted their eyes from the soon blinding light, but Byrn refused to look away. He was mesmerized by the interplay of magics that fueled her transmutation. Enchanting energy created the framework of the spell that forged an image for the body to take, then a massive amount of manipulation magic was forced to course throughout the body at ever increasing speeds until the very limbs and organs were properly molded into that shape. It was the lightning fast flow of magic that created the blinding luminescence of the spell. When the light died down Southernstar greeted the humans in her true majesty. Kaleb took a few steps back without thinking, but Sane put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and the boy faced the giant red dragon.
Alia reached out to touch her, then pulled her hand away. “May I?” she asked.
“Do as you will,” Southernstar’s voice echoed in their minds.
The enchantress touched the dragon’s leg tentatively. “Your scales are cold,” marveled Alia. Southernstar bowed her head and showed a toothy smile.
The dragon’s head turned to Byrn. “What are you doing?” she asked, her mental voice held an air of patience and interest. “You are trying to replicate my transformation. Do you wish to be a dragon?”
“I wish to be myself again,” Byrn told her. His concentration was all tied up in rebuilding his former body. Creating the enchantment framework was not that different than the disguise of Baryn that he wore when infiltrating the castle. It was summoning forth enough raw power to infuse every inch of his body and force the shape change that was proving to be difficult.
“You need more power,” observed Southernstar.
When Byrn did not answer Alia grabbed his hands and held them in her own. It was almost enough to break his concentration, but then he felt a sudden influx of magic coursing into his body. Alia was feeding him, willingly transferring her power into him. It had been so long since they last shared this mingling of magic that Byrn was at first surprised, but soon was reminded of the intimate connection they once shared. Byrn’s body felt hot and his muscles started to ache as his shape was minutely changing with every passing second.
Alia let go. The heat was too much for her.
Byrn’s muscles grew tighter. His hair darkened. Freckled spots on his arms lost their color and everywhere his skin tightened. He could feel his nose shrinking and his vision grew sharper. Then he fell to his knees and it was Kaleb that helped him to his feet and supported his weight.
Sane wore a mask of shock. His hand was held over his mouth to keep his jaw from dropping. “How do you feel?” the sorcerer asked in amazement.
“I feel weak, tired.” Byrn looked at his noticeably younger hands, turning them over as he did so.
“Your body is still old although you no longer look it. It is impossible to turn back the wheel of time once it has turned forward,” Southernstar told him.
“Never the less, it is good to have my old body back or at least some semblance of it.” Byrn held out his hand to Alia. She was sitting on the ground in shock. “Thank you for this.”
“It only seemed right that I help you,” said Alia. They looked into each other’s eyes and felt a spark of old passion. It was Alia that broke their gaze and turned to the others. “We must hurry to Mollifas and find our daughter.”
Chapter 34
Janus stood upon the stage built just for this announcement as he looked over the crowd gathered before him. Every law-abiding citizen of the capital must have been out there packed tightly together, filling the square and pouring into the side streets just to hear their king’s victory speech. He had succeeded in saving Aurelia from the magician rebellion just as he said he would. Or at least that is what they all thought. They were about to find out that the reality of the situation was much different.
In addition to King Janus, the queen-mother and representatives of the noble houses sat in places of honor around him. They wore reserved smiles and talked quietly among themselves. None of them suspected that they were about to
lose their kingdom to the very group that their pathetic king was planning to claim he had defeated utterly.
The king raised his hands in the air and the assembled masses cheered in excitement. Janus was dressed in regal purples and red silks. His golden crown, though lacking in adornment, was well polished so that it shined in the noonday sun. Janus reveled in the adulation being bestowed upon him and kept his hands raised high for an insufferably long time. Xander smiled from his place in the crowd. He would let the lessers have a few minutes more to bask in their supposed glory before it all came crashing down around them.
Finally, King Janus lowered his arms and the crowd’s roar fell to a series of excited murmurs. He watched them with satisfaction and finally Janus began to speak. “My people, I stand before you at the beginning of a new age. It is an age where we need not fear the machinations of magicians who are bent upon the utter destruction of our way of life! No longer must we worry about the pain and the misery and the death that follows in their wake!” The crowd exploded in cheers and applause while Janus waited a minute for them to settle down.
“The enemies of freedom known as the Magician Collective have suffered severe losses and been routed from their fortifications in the east.” Now the crowd’s shouts of approval were nearly deafening. Xander began to casually push his way towards the front of the crowd. Kenzai and various guards were stationed around the perimeter of the gathering with a concentration of soldiers around the dais and its nobles. “They are scattered to the winds, but we will not rest on our laurels so that they can rebuild their strength. Our goal is no longer to contain the magician threat as my father and his father before him did. From this day forward we will exterminate any and all magicians with roving bands of Kenzai warriors dedicated solely to that purpose.” Once again the crowd shouted its approval, but it was in significantly muted tones compared to their previous outbursts. Apparently genocide did not sit well with all of Aurelia’s citizens. Every family feared a magician being born in their line for the loss it would create, but they were more comfortable with sending their loved one to a domain rather than watching them be executed.
“This was a day that I wished my father would have lived to see, but I know that he is looking upon me from the underworld with pride.” Janus started to choke up at the memory of his father, but managed to keep his composure.
Xander was now only thirty feet away from the king. He wondered if Janus would recognize the face of his own brother and secretly hoped that he would. When it was discovered among the Collective that Byrn was a prince of the kingdom and he failed to return from whatever trial he had endured with that Kenzai they kept prisoner it was Xander who planted the seeds of doubt about Byrn’s loyalty. Even then he saw Byrn as a prime candidate for his next host body. The young man was already a master magician and showed great potential for becoming a grandmaster if he could acquire knowledge of the most powerful magics as Xander once did. His relationship with Alia was a difficulty that had the grandmaster seeking other potential hosts once he knew how far along their romance had proceeded. That was an entanglement that Xander would have liked to avoid altogether, but the advantages of being Byrn Aurel outweighed that one drawback. Alia hated her father now, but in time she might come to forgive him once she sees the kingdom become a beacon of freedom for their kind. He would tell her of his conversation with Kassani and why he had to have Avelice back to ensure that she becomes ruler of this realm once she is of age and Xander steps down in thirty or forty years after taking his next body.
Xander snapped back to reality from his musings. Janus was wrapping up his little declaration of victory. “From this day forward it will be the magicians who will be the ones to live in fear. They will be the ones to flee in terror when they see our Kenzai squads coming for them, knowing that they have no hope left!” Janus stopped to take a breath and the crowd let loose with more whoops and hollers of support. If not for the constant interruptions of the people assembled, Janus’ speech would have been only a few minutes long, but their constant interruptions had allowed it to drag on for much longer than it should have. That was enough. It was time.
There were about thirty people within a ten-foot radius of the grandmaster. That would be plenty of sacrifices for what he had in mind. Xander’s original plan would have led to a slaughter within the castle. Alia countered it with an admittedly smarter plan that would allow them to take the royals while limiting casualties on both sides in an effort to keep “Byrn” safe from his own curse. After her escape at the cabin, Xander decided a combination of their strategies would be in order. He would take the nobility prisoner with minimal fuss, but let them watch as he tore through a good number of citizens with ease. They should fear his reprisal so much that once he did have the reigns of power in his hands no one would ever consider attempting a revolt against him. He unhooked the staff beneath his cloak and held it in both hands as he channeled death magic into his staff and called forth the ancient dragon crest rune in his mind’s eye. It was a complicated design that would require a half hour of drawing on the ground for a master necromancer to cast it, should one even be fortunate enough to know the spell. He suddenly slammed the weapon into the ground. The earth shook for a moment at the weight of the impact and a black light began to grow around him in the shape of the dragon crest rune. Women screamed and men cried out in pain that were unexpectedly caught within the rune as it ate away at their bodies. Only Xander who stood in the center was unaffected.
At almost the same moment, shouts and shrieks came from all around as another eighty magicians all released their most powerful magic spells. The others were positioned to deal with the king’s guards stationed throughout the crowd and around the perimeter. Xander was vaguely aware of the surging of elemental energies and other creatures being summoned from beyond the veil all around him, but his focus was on his own casting. Summoning a dragon required an unparalleled amount of energy and concentration, but the power of the beast along with the sheer terror it would cause would be well worth it.
“Archers!” shouted Janus. His personal guards moved to intercept Xander even as Janus fell back. As commanded a plethora of bowmen appeared in second and third story windows all around the square. Their bows were at the ready and they began firing into the crowd at the magicians.
As the last of the people trapped within the rune was turned to ash a great black smoke began to form at Xander’s feet and quickly obscured him at the center of the rune. Soon the smoke spread out so that the entire rune was hidden. Then the roar of death came from seemingly everywhere and Xander could feel the ground shift under his feet. He bent down to one knee and placed a hand on the sleek, black form that was rising from underneath him. Its eyes glowed red and he knew that those in front of him, the king and his nobles, could see them through the smoke. There were several dull thuds as arrows struck into the darkness, but their aim was now too low to hit Xander and they bounced harmlessly off of the creature that he now sat astride. When the smoke dissipated the horror and shock of the people around him made Xander smile. They looked upon him as he sat, mounted on the back of a black wraith-dragon summoned from the deepest realms of the underworld. It was a beast of such power and terror that only the most powerful of necromancers could hope to summon and control it. It required most of the energy that Xander’s young body had to complete the summoning. The dragon’s strength was drawn from the lives sacrificed in the summoning and fueled by the lives of thirty able-bodied men and women this would be a powerful wraith-dragon.
People were now trampling over one another to get away from the beast and its rider. It was a mass panic as the throngs of people who had been so tightly packed together minutes before were all now trying to flee for their lives. Only the nobles who were at the front of the assemblage and had an unobstructed path to escape were having any luck at putting some distance between themselves and the chaos that was now exploding all around them. Unfortunately for them, they were the only ones that really mattered
and their escape would be short lived.
The black dragon blew a gust of fire out and over the king’s personal guard, burning and charring their bodies black in an instant before taking wing for a few moments and flying ahead of the fleeing nobles so that he could land in front of them and cut off their retreat.
“I am the magician prince, Byrn Aurel, and I have come to claim what is rightfully mine. My magicians are taking over this city today and the rest of the kingdom will soon be destroyed if they do not accept me as their leader,” Xander’s voice boomed so that all in the capital could hear him speak. Let all know what was happening in the square and that they had a new king. “First, in a show of good faith, I call upon the former king, Janus Aurel, and the representatives of all the noble houses gathered before me to bend their knees and swear their allegiances to me.”
“Byrn,” the queen’s voice cracked, “why would you do this?”
Xander ignored her.
“Never!” shouted Janus. His eyes were filled with such hate that if looks could kill, Xander would be as dead as the spirits he trafficked with.
A black tendril whipped out of Xander’s hand and wrapped around the throat of one the nobles. Xander did not know or care who the man was as he drained the life from him in a matter of seconds. The dead noble fell to the cobbled stone and Xander’s triumphant gaze never broke from Janus. “Try again. Maybe the next victim will be your mother.”
Chapter 35
Southernstar flew high over Mollifas when Byrn heard the screams rise up from somewhere down below. It did not take long for them to find the source of the cries. A battle was erupting in the middle of the city and it was a scene of total panic. People were running in all directions and those that could not flee were pushing against others in an attempt to get away. Kenzai flames and anti-magic weapons could be seen clashing against elemental spells and summoned spirits of all varieties. Regular soldiers were in the fight too. Some loosed arrows into the crowd while others took to the streets in an attempt to overwhelm the magicians. Byrn pointed to a flat rooftop not far away from the melee, “Southernstar, land there,” and the dragon complied.
Magician Prince Page 27
