The Arclight Saga 2-Book Set

by C. M. Hayden

“Just a few minutes, please. I’m begging you.”

  Taro would’ve continued speaking, but the Sun King held up a finger, silencing him instantly. “One condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “At no point will you be alone with her. You’ll be escorted by a magister.”

  Taro clasped his hands together in a prayer. “Thank you, Your Majesty. You have no idea how much I—”

  “Magister Kyra will accompany you,” the Sun King added.

  Taro looked like a surprised deer. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  “Those are the terms. I’m afraid I can’t budge on this one. After what you’ve done for me, I don’t doubt your loyalty, but Vexis is too dangerous to leave you alone with her. Even with that monstrosity of a prison they built for her.”

  “It’s just that me and your daughter aren’t on the best of terms.”

  “I know that all too well,” the Sun King said. “That’s precisely why I want her to be the one that accompanies you.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lock and Key

  TARO HAD HEARD OF the Carcerium before. After Vexis’ defeat, Magister Briego decided that prisoners with knowledge of magic should be kept far away from the Magisterium. The Carcerium began as a military barracks and had been re-purposed into a stockade.

  As Taro approached it by carriage, he was astounded by how much had been completed in such a short amount of time. The prison sat in the middle of a wide clearing two miles away from the Magisterium, but still well within the city walls. There were small woodlands around it and the dirt trail that lead to the main gate.

  The Carcerium wasn’t exactly a secret, nor was the fact that Vexis (and several other powerful sorcerers) were imprisoned within, but it was kept well out of view of common folk.

  The carriage ride didn’t take long, but sitting in silence with Kyra felt like an eternity. Every time Taro almost spoke, he stifled his words at the last moment. She wouldn’t care what he had to say.

  As the carriage rattled passed the tree line, a sharp jolt shook through Taro’s body. It was as if someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart.

  Taro placed his hand on his heaving chest. “What the hell was that?”

  Kyra was obviously affected by it as well but took it much better. As Head of the Artificium, she’d worked a great deal on the Carcerium with Magister Briego, and Taro reasoned that she’d experienced the feeling many times before.

  Kyra’s eyes were hard as stone. She was sitting in the seat opposite him, idly staring at the passing trees.

  “It’s a warding field,” she said, not looking in his direction.

  “Warding field?” Taro asked meekly.

  Kyra kept her eyes on the passing trees. “It suppresses templuric energy. A larger, less powerful version of the magistry cuffs. It makes casting and manifestation more difficult.”

  Taro held his hand up briefly and attempted to summon his templar but found it was as she’d said. Trying to make even a brief spark was like trying to lift an iron anvil over his head.

  Two warders stopped the carriage at the gate. The coachman stayed behind, and a warder ushered Kyra and Taro out. They were searched and their inscribers confiscated. Despite being a magister and the Sun King’s daughter, Kyra was not exempt from this.

  The head warder introduced himself as Lord Commander Linos, and he fished through Taro’s pack, ruffled through the pages of all his books, and confiscated a quill with a metal tip that he said could be used as a weapon. When this was done, he returned the pack to Taro and led them through the imposing wrought iron gateway.

  “Where are we at on capacity?” Kyra asked the warder.

  “Twelve inmates, all secured,” Linos said. “Room for another fifty if needs be. No major issues outside of her.”

  Taro didn’t have to guess too hard at who they were talking about.

  “Have the modifications been working?” Kyra asked.

  “Well-enough, my lady. She’s been in solitary since her last incident with Bilgar.”

  “Has he recovered?” Kyra asked with mild concern.

  “We had to take him into the open Arclight to get him healed. Even with it, I don’t think he’ll ever walk again.”

  “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Kyra said coldly.

  As they continued into the Carcerium, the true magnitude of the precautions they’d taken was apparent. This wasn’t just a prison, it was a fortress. The outer walls were two feet thick, stone and steel, and there were three separate iron doors that could only be opened one way. They’d have to wait in a vestibule until they were allowed to pass by a warder on the other side.

  Beyond these doors was a circular room that descended three stories into the ground. A spiral metal walkway went along the perimeter and descended into near total darkness.

  “As for you,” Linos began, giving Taro a hard look as they walked. “The Sun King may have authorized you to be here, but you’re going to abide by my rules. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” Taro said, appropriately humble.

  “Number one, stay away from the bars at all times. There’s a lethal enchantment on them that’ll fry you like bacon. Touch them and you die. It’s that simple.” He pulled Taro a bit closer. “Number two, if I get an inkling that something’s not on the up-and-up, I’m kicking you out, and you can whine to her dad all you want.” He nudged toward Kyra.

  “Understood,” Taro said.

  It was curiously quiet for a prison and extraordinarily dark. As they passed rows of cells, Taro couldn’t see far into them but could feel eyes staring back at him from the darkness. When he crept a bit closer and peered into a cell, an arm reached through and grabbed at his face, just grazing his cheek. The warder seized his baton and smacked the hand away, and it disappeared.

  Lord Commander Linos grabbed Taro by the shirt and shook him. “Stay away from the bars,” he repeated, then smacked Taro upside the head.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Be smart.” He put his hand on the top of Taro’s head and ruffled his hair. “Karkarog would’ve torn your pretty little head clean off your body.”

  “Karkarog?” Taro said, pulling away. The name sounded familiar.

  “They called him the Butcher of Celosa,” Linos said. “One of our more friendly inmates.” As they continued down the path, the Lord Commander listed off the inhabitants of each cell. “Zerina the Mad, Azgal the Cannibal, Magister Barrish, Bilgar the Blind, and…finally—” They stopped at the very end of the hall. There were stairs leading down further, and it was almost completely dark here, but for a single magistry lantern hanging from the door. “—Vexis the Shadowmancer, our bright and shining star.”

  Taro tried to take a step forward, but Linos extended his baton and blocked him. “There’s no guarantee she’ll talk to you. She hasn’t said a word since she got here.”

  “That’s not like her,” Taro said to himself.

  “You would know, I suppose,” Kyra said sharply.

  Linos ran through his keyring and found a large ivory-colored skeleton key which he used to open the door before them. As he did, Taro could hear a hundred mechanisms in the walls clicking free of the door. The inside of the cell was an enormous triangular room with a wrought iron cage in the middle. Along the walls were long circular tubes pointing directly at it.

  Before Taro could ask what they were, Kyra answered.

  “It’s a weight mechanism,” she said. “If the weight is taken off the floor of the cage, the tubes expel enough fire to incinerate her. If she somehow were to find a way to leave, the room would be engulfed in fire.”

  Taro asked the obvious question: “What if she jumps?”

  “Then she’ll save us a lot of trouble executing her,” Linos answered.

  Taro walked closer to the cage. Beside it was a bench, apparently for visitors, just out of the reach of the flamethrower pipes.

  “Vexis?” Taro called.

&nb
sp; The cage was pitch-black, and Taro didn’t see any movement. When he looked back at Linos, he was assured that she was indeed inside. Linos left and shut the door; Kyra stood with her back to it, listening intently.

  “It’s me. Taro,” he continued. When no reply was forthcoming, he sat on the bench and started to unload his pack. “I was hoping that you could help me with something.”

  Still, there was no answer.

  “It’s about my sister. Nima.” Taro fished out the two-way parchment. “I was wondering if you’d ever seen one of these before. It’s a type of paper that allows for long-range communication.”

  The only noise was a few stray drops of pitch dripping from the ends of the flamethrower pipes.

  “I did some research,” Taro continued, “with the asylum that your sister was in, St. Aldor’s. I know they probably don’t give you much information in here. Well, I have some for you. I can tell you if Kadia’s still there, and if not, where Dr. Halric sent her.” He lowered his voice a bit to emphasis his next point. “But if you don’t help me, I’ll pack up right now and go.”

  A loud exhale sounded from the cage, but no words. After a pause, Taro stood up and started toward the door. “If Kadia’s not worth a few words, then I guess I’ll leave.”

  A weak, feeble voice called from behind the bars. The voice was so faint, Taro wasn’t sure he’d heard it. When he glanced back, he saw two eyes staring at him from the other side of the cage. They were dangerously close to the lethal bars, practically burning with a light of their own.

  Vexis coughed into her sleeve. “She leaves first.” Vexis pointed to Kyra.

  “No deal,” Kyra said sharply.

  “Then his sister dies,” Vexis said.

  Taro almost lost himself and was going to step toward the bars, when he remembered the enchantment that covered them. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean,” Vexis began in a sing-songy but still weak voice. “There are only a handful of places Dr. Halric would send her. And all of them end in death. I’d honestly be surprised if she was alive right now, the poor dear.” She thumped her fist against her chest and coughed again. “Sorry, I’ve had a bit of a stomachache ever since our little bout by the Arclight. Indigestion, I expect.”

  “Tell me what you know,” Taro insisted.

  “Not until she leaves,” Vexis repeated.

  Taro looked at Kyra, but before he could even ask the question, she shot it down.

  “Absolutely not,” she said.

  “Fine,” Vexis said, and receded back into the shadows. “I’ll be sure to send flowers.”

  Taro hobbled to Kyra and stopped short of grabbing her by the sleeve. “Kyra, please, this is my only chance. I just need to talk to her for a few minutes.”

  Kyra yanked free. “In all the god’s below, why should I care? Why should I do anything for you?”

  “Don’t do it for me,” Taro pleaded. “Do it for Nima.”

  “Am I supposed to care about your sister? A Vexis co-conspirator at any rate.”

  “She was not.” Taro tried to calm himself, and exhaled hard. “Just five minutes, Kyra. Five minutes!”

  Kyra grimaced, glanced at the cage, and then back to Taro. Their eyes met for a long moment. “Five minutes. Not one second longer. If I get an inkling that something’s up, I’ll raze this whole prison, warding field or not.”

  Taro put his hands together in a prayer-like motion. “Thank you.”

  “I’m not doing it for you,” Kyra said. She slipped out the door and just before it closed added: “Five minutes.”

  Taro returned to the bench and sat forward. His eyes adjusted somewhat to the darkness, and he could now see Vexis’ tiny frame more clearly. She sat cross-legged on the floor. Her cage had no bed or furniture in it, no blankets or sheets to sleep on. It was at that moment he noticed that on the floor outside of the cage was a tray of food: boiled carrots, mushrooms, steak, sugar rolls, and a glass of wine. It was just out of Vexis’ reach.

  When his eyes passed over the food, Vexis spoke.

  “It’s a little game the guards like to play,” she rasped, remaining completely still. “They always eventually get to feeding me.”

  “That’s awful,” Taro said. He stepped forward and nudged the tray toward the cage. When he did, Vexis’ scrawny hand reached out and pulled it inside.

  Despite her voice being fairly calm, she ate with ravenous hunger. There was no silverware provided, and she simply shoveled the food into her mouth with her bare hands.

  “Helia,” Taro said. “That’s where they sent Kadia. The nurse said Dr. Halric released her a few days earlier.”

  Vexis gulped down a large chunk of steak. “So the old codger was telling the truth. I’ll be damned. What’s the juicy bit, though?”

  “… ‘juicy bit’?” Taro said.

  “You’re a clever kid. You wouldn’t spill all the info you’ve learned before I gave you something first. It’s just not good business, is it?”

  “Maybe I just think you’re more inclined to be helpful in your twilight hours? Tick-tock, Vexis. There’s not much time.” Maybe it wasn’t wise to antagonize her, but he needed her to hurry.

  Vexis rolled her eyes. “Endran courts take forever. I’ll be in here for a good long while. Helians are so much smarter; you get your judge, jury, and executioner all in one city guard. Now that’s convenience.”

  Taro gave her an overly dramatic chuckle. “Oh, they haven’t told you yet? And here I thought you were omniscient.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “The dragons are here.” Taro pointed his forefinger toward her. “And they’ve got only one thing on their minds. They want you, and the Sun King is more than willing to let them take you.”

  Vexis straightened her back a bit. Her voice was still peppy and confident, but Taro could hear a twinge of dread hiding beneath the surface. “Sounds like a grand ol’ time.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. They have a rather nasty way of dealing with monsters. Apparently, it involves tearing their souls apart. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  “I have,” Vexis said.

  “If you had some relatives you were planning on seeing in the afterlife, it might not work out so well.”

  Vexis’ eyes glared out at him. “Is this all about me? Taro, I’m so flattered that you care. I guess I’ll give you something in exchange. Let’s see.” She tapped her fingers on her chin as she feigned a thoughtful look. “Halric either said he was taking her northeast to Helia or...was it southeast to Mordin? Or was it west…?”

  Taro shot her a particularly nasty look.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” she said, waving her hands in front of her. “It was definitely Helia. I think.” She smiled wickedly.

  “I’m sure glad you’re enjoying this. I don’t think you’d be so coy if you knew what happened to Kadia.”

  Vexis perked up, and her fanciful demeanor faded. “Tell me.”

  “Tell me first.” Taro folded up the two-way parchment and shoved it through the bars. “Tell me everything you know about this bit of Helian magic.”

  Vexis looked legitimately surprised by it. “Where in the world did you get this?”

  “They pulled it off Mathan’s corpse.”

  “Dead?” Vexis said, surprised. “That’s too bad. I was rather fond of the fat, pasty bastard. He didn’t get it too bad in the end, did he?”

  “Sikes splattered him across the walls of the Magisterium,” Taro said.

  Vexis ruffled the parchment and ran it between her thumbs. “There’s not much to say, really. You already know it’s Helian magic. What more do you need?”

  “How does it work? Helians don’t have templars.”

  She pointed to the tiny runes on the edges of the paper. “Every-one has a templar. And templars can draw on power other than that of the Arclight. The Arclight is one source of templuric energy, but we Helians have our own source.” She pushed the paper back through the bars. “In the past, many drew th
eir power from the nether. They were tolerated for a while, until the Shahl came to power.”

  “Ross mentioned the Shahl,” Taro said.

  “Then I’m sure she mentioned what a king-high bastard he is. The treacherous snake is the sole reason there are so many displaced Helians in Endra. All those who practiced the Old Ways were forced to run or die. He declared the use of magic to be an affront to the Old High Gods whilst at the same time employing his own Inquisitors who, paradoxically, used magic to hunt down heretics.”

  “Is there any way to track where the other page is? If I can find that, I can find Nima.”

  “She’s in Helia, that much I know.”

  “Helia is enormous. I need something to point me in the right direction. Is it possible?”

  Vexis exhaled hard. “Divine the location of one paper using the other? Maybe.”

  “Can you do it?” Taro asked insistently.

  “Well, not with the contents of my ass.” Vexis lifted her hands, pointing out the empty cage around her. “Dowsing is hard enough as it is. I’d need an inscriber, a ley rod, and more importantly—” Vexis stuck her hands through the bars and rotated her wrists. Around them were thick bracers etched with complex Class S magistry runes utterly incomprehensible to him. He recognized them as cuffs that suppressed magical ability. For the person wearing them, they were impossible to remove. “I can’t do it with these on. Care to lend me a hand?”

  Taro ignored her request. “If you want to know how your sister’s doing, you’re going to teach me how to locate the second page.”

  “Impossible,” Vexis said. “Your little Endran brain is just too small. You and the Sun King are pals, right? Get him to intercede.”

  “The Sun King hates you.”

  “Little ol’ me?” Vexis shrugged. “I guess oblivion won’t be so bad. The afterlife was never going to agree with me anyway. It’s a shame about Nima, though. I’m the only person for a hundred miles who knows enough about Helian magic to do what you want done. It’s a shame I’m stuck in here.” She winked slyly at Taro.

  “How do I even know you’re telling the truth about being able to locate the second page? For all I know, you’re screwin’ with me.”