The Mage-Fire War

by Modesitt. Jr. , L. E.

  In that instant, he added another layer of shields, dropping the full concealment … and hoped they’d hold against the conflagration racing from the exploding chaos-fireball that had been Erhlyn. At the same moment, the door opened.

  A wall of white rushed over Beltur, followed by a momentary blackness.

  At least, he thought it was momentary, but there was silence as he struggled to his feet in a chamber that held only ashes … and him.

  He could sense that the wave of exploding order and chaos had overwhelmed the white who’d stood in the open doorway, and thrown the troopers away from the door. He managed to throw a concealment around himself, knowing he couldn’t hold both shields and concealment, and judging that, if he weren’t seen, he wouldn’t need the shields.

  Then he laid the single sheet of paper in the doorway and stepped away from the troopers who were running toward the audience chamber, keeping himself against the wall as, slow step by step, he made his way to the service stairway he’d used to get to the second level. Once inside the stairway, he sensed no one near and dropped the concealment, knowing that he didn’t have the strength to hold it long and that he’d need it more later. And every moment he wasn’t carrying shields would allow him some additional time to recover. Even if he were to be seen, he doubted any servants behind the walls would actually confront him.

  Once on the first level, he used the concealment to leave through the bailey gates, then dropped it as soon as he found an alcove to step into. From there he walked through the square, carrying the lightest of personal shields, simply because he didn’t feel like getting robbed, then used the side entrance to the inn and reached his chamber undetected, where he quickly packed everything into his duffel.

  A glance in the mirror showed that his face and hands were reddened, as if he’d taken far too much sun, but there wasn’t much he could do about that.

  Unfortunately he ran into the hall porter just outside his chamber as he was leaving, duffel in hand.

  “What happened to you?” asked the porter.

  “There was a fire in the palace. I was too close. I’ve been told to take quarters at the post. Immediately.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It’s not.” Beltur pressed a silver on the porter. “Thank you for taking care of my uniform.”

  “My pleasure, Captain.”

  Beltur hurried down the staircase carrying his duffel, wondering if he should have let himself be seen. But you’ll need the concealment later.

  In less than half a quint, he’d saddled Slowpoke and was riding out of the Palace Inn. He glanced across the square at the palace, but nothing seemed changed, nothing at all.

  He couldn’t help but wonder at why there weren’t more people scurrying around. Are they all so stunned that no one is quite sure what to do? That could be, Beltur reflected. He’d just removed the Duke, his heir, and the top military officer. But that quiet won’t last all that long.

  Another half quint passed before he was through the north gates and riding west toward the marshaling post. When he did reach the post, the guards barely glanced at him as he rode through and headed in the direction of the barracks that Turlow had described.

  He had just reined up outside what he thought was the right building when a trooper in greens gestured from across the street that ran through the center of the low-walled post. After a moment, Beltur recognized Turlow and rode over to meet the trooper.

  “Ser. Everyone but me is in the big barn here. The squad leader has had one of us watching since noon,” said Turlow. “He managed to get us on stable duty. No one likes that so it wasn’t hard to make the switch. Everyone else in the squad is there.”

  “Good. We need to leave immediately.”

  “All the gear is in the stable. Gustaan thought that might be what happened.”

  “He did?”

  “Ah … yes, ser. Something like that.”

  Meaning you’re not about to tell me. “Just lead the way to where he is.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Beltur followed Turlow into the east side of the spacious barn, less than half of which seemed to contain horses, and toward what appeared to be a tack room. Inside it, several troopers looked to be cleaning saddles. Presumably they were Beltur’s men, although he couldn’t see them clearly enough to determine that.

  “Squad Leader,” called Turlow, with a grin.

  Gustaan stepped out of the tack room, then smiled broadly. “Ser! It’s good to see you.” He frowned. “Your face looks burned, or you got too much sun.”

  “It’s even better to see you, but we need to get out of here now. I’ll explain later.”

  “We’ll be ready to go in less than a quint.”

  “Will the guards protest if we just ride out?”

  “No, but the captain in charge of the stable will. He’s been watching us closely. We managed to get the gear here from the barracks early this morning, but he keeps checking on what we’re doing. He’ll likely be here in a few moments.”

  “Then we’ll need to tie him up and stash him somewhere he won’t be found for a glass or so.” Beltur paused. “There’s one thing. I really could use some ale, or something to eat. It’s been a very long day already … and I can’t do much magery.”

  “Then you’ve done a lot already today.”

  “More than I planned.”

  Gustaan looked past Beltur and asked casually, “Can you put a containment around the captain. He’s coming to see why you’re here, interrupting the work.”

  Beltur turned in the saddle and waited for the graying captain to reach him and Slowpoke.

  “Might I ask what you’re doing here, Captain?”

  “I came to say goodbye to my old squad leader before I left Hydolar.” Beltur smiled. “Is that a problem?”

  “Couldn’t you have waited until after duty hours?”

  “By then, I’ll be long gone, Captain,” replied Beltur.

  The older captain frowned. “It’s most irregular.”

  “I know. The entire day has been irregular, what with the fire in the palace.”

  “A fire in the palace?” The captain looked shocked.

  Gustaan looked only surprised.

  “Haven’t you heard? No one knows who did it. Some say it was a Certan mage, and others think it was a Montgren mage that set it. You might want to check and see if you’ve gotten a dispatch about it. There was something about the marshal, but no one would tell me. They just told me to proceed.”

  “I suppose I should. You’ll be gone, I gather, when I return.”

  “I’ll be gone in a small fraction of a quint,” agreed Beltur.

  Once the captain was out of sight, Gustaan gestured. Seemingly, from nowhere, the rest of Beltur’s half squad appeared, leading out mounts already loaded.

  Beltur couldn’t quite believe that the older captain didn’t even run into the street as the twelve riders and the spare mount headed toward the main gates, but he didn’t.

  Nor did the gate guards even ask anything as Beltur led his men out of the marshaling post. Once they were well away from the gates, Gustaan handed Beltur a chunk of bread and a water bottle.

  “It’s got ale. Not much better than Bythalt’s, but it’s ale.”

  “That sounds wonderful.” Beltur uncorked the water bottle and took a long swallow. The ale even tasted good.

  LXXX

  Although Beltur half expected Hydlenese pursuit of some kind, nothing of the sort ensued, but that didn’t keep him from looking over his shoulder and sensing back toward Hydolar continually for the next five days, as he and his half squad rode back toward Haven along the way that they had come almost two eightdays before. None of the innkeepers or locals in the towns in which they stopped showed any more interest in them than they had on the trip to Hydolar. All were polite and took Beltur’s silvers and golds, but evinced no obvious interest in the apparent Hydlenese troopers, almost as if they wished them to depart without any fuss. And that
was fine with Beltur, although he was very aware of the fact that they well might be riding just ahead of the news about the Duke.

  It might be hard to connect twelve troopers and an apparently wounded captain with a mage-fire in the palace, but Beltur didn’t intend to stay in Hydlen any longer than necessary. So it was a relief when in the early afternoon on threeday he and the others turned east off the road to Hydolar and onto the road to Haven that eventually led on to Lydiar.

  Part of that relief was his sense of a strong ordered presence ahead, confirmed when he finally saw a silver-haired figure in Haven blue, accompanied by two men, also in the same blue. For a moment, he blinked, because he’d been looking for Jessyla as if she still had red hair.

  “We’ve got a welcoming group, it seems,” declared Gustaan.

  “I’m glad to see them.”

  “Not as glad as she is to see you, I’d wager,” returned the squad leader.

  Beltur wasn’t about to take that wager, and he couldn’t stop smiling as he rode toward Jessyla, Therran, and Dussef. The three swung their mounts so that Therran and Dussef rode beside Gustaan, who had slowed his horse to allow Jessyla to ease the mare in beside Slowpoke.

  Jessyla’s eyes went to Beltur’s face. “You got your skin burned. Is that all?”

  “You can sense that’s all that happened to me.” In turn, he ran his senses over her, but could discern nothing amiss. “You’re out here to meet us?” He grinned. “We haven’t been gone that long.”

  “Long enough, but I also didn’t want people in Haven shocked by a squad in Hydlenese green riding into town, especially since I knew that none of you took other uniforms.”

  “That would have been too dangerous. Are Daaskin and his squad still here? How is the town patrol working out? And Tulya and Taelya?”

  She smiled. “So many questions. Dussef here has done quite nicely running the patrol. He and Graalur have also been training the new patrollers. Tulya and Taelya are fine. And Daaskin and his squad are still here. He said he wouldn’t leave until you came back. I think he really meant until he knew whether you’d been successful.”

  “Successful … yes … after a fashion. Things didn’t work out quite the way I’d planned.”

  “And?” Her voice was anxious.

  “Duke Massyngal is dead. So is his heir, and so is the current marshal, well, the man who was marshal when he perished. Also, one very strong white mage and one weak white mage. And I left a message outside the audience room full of ashes and little else that said a similar fate would await any ruler of Hydlen who again attempted an attack against either Haven or Montgren. Then we sneaked away, and no one even chased us.”

  From behind them, Gustaan added, “That’s because they never even knew how it happened. We didn’t, either, until he told us.”

  For a moment, Jessyla said nothing.

  “You told me to be careful, and not to do anything that I couldn’t safely carry off. Delivering a message in person would have been much more dangerous.”

  Abruptly, she laughed. “Only you … only you would find a way to deliver such a message.”

  “I did my best to follow your directions,” Beltur said. “Five deaths are much to be preferred to another battle like the last.”

  “Very much. I’d think that would give the Duke’s successor pause.”

  “I think it will, but,” Beltur shrugged tiredly, “at the very least, it will buy us more time. Quite a bit more, I think. The death of the ruler, the heir, and the marshal should have gotten the attention of their successors. And I also realized that there’s likely only one white mage left in Hydolar, and possibly in all of northern Hydlen. If that doesn’t send a message,” he grinned raggedly, “we could do something like that again.”

  “I doubt that will be necessary,” she said dryly, “especially if they couldn’t even figure out how you did it.” Then she added, her voice even, “I … we … got a letter. Yesterday.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “It’s from Johlana.” Abruptly, she broke into a wide smile. “She and Jorhan are leaving Axalt. They’re coming here … to stay, and to open a factorage. They’re bringing Mother…”

  “And?”

  “Auntie’s coming, too.”

  Beltur shook his head, with an expression between ruefulness and amusement. “They’ll need houses.”

  “I know. I’ve already talked to Jaegyr.”

  “You seem to have everything well in hand.”

  “Everything but you.”

  “Oh … you have me very well in hand.” Beltur couldn’t help smiling, once again.

  She returned the smile. “Now … we need to get you all back into town and out of those awful green uniforms.”

  Beltur could agree to that … and to being home.

  LXXXI

  Much, much later, as Jessyla and Beltur lay side by side in the bed that Jaegyr had made for them, Jessyla asked quietly, “Are you awake?”

  “I am. Why?”

  “I was thinking. Everything—the defeat of the Prefect in Spidlar, the corruption of the blacks in Spidlar, the deaths of Barrynt, Emlyn, Sarysta, massacres, the death of Massyngal … all of it happened because the Prefect killed your uncle. Haven will become Fairhaven, and the entire history of Candar will be changed. Yet a hundred years from now, no one will know that the murder of a white mage in Fenard led to the destruction of an entire Hydlenese army and the beginning of a city that may change Candar even more.”

  “Most people don’t know that now, and no one will recall anything more than the Duke died in ten years,” replied Beltur.

  “In ten years?” Jessyla laughed warmly. “More like ten eightdays. That doesn’t alter the fact that you changed history, just so we could find a place where we could live and be accepted.”

  “Whatever the future brings, I didn’t do it. We did. You, me, Lhadoraak, Tulya, and Taelya, maybe even Korsaen, Maeyora, and the Duchess. And don’t forget the lesson of Elshon.”

  “Elshon?”

  “The renegade white mage, the one who had the vision of the white city rising from Haven. His dream wasn’t what he thought it would be … and ours likely won’t be, either.”

  She eased her arms back around him. “That’s for the future to judge. We can only do what we can.” Then she drew him to her again.

  TOR BOOKS BY L. E. MODESITT, JR.

  THE SAGA OF RECLUCE

  The Magic of Recluce

  The Towers of the Sunset

  The Magic Engineer

  The Order War

  The Death of Chaos

  Fall of Angels

  The Chaos Balance

  The White Order

  Colors of Chaos

  Magi’i of Cyador

  Scion of Cyador

  Wellspring of Chaos

  Ordermaster

  Natural Ordermage

  Mage-Guard of Hamor

  Arms-Commander

  Cyador’s Heirs

  Heritage of Cyador

  Recluce Tales

  The Mongrel Mage

  Outcasts of Order

  The Mage-Fire War

  THE COREAN CHRONICLES

  Legacies

  Darknesses

  Scepters

  Alector’s Choice

  Cadmian’s Choice

  Soarer’s Choice

  The Lord-Protector’s Daughter

  Lady-Protector

  THE IMAGER PORTFOLIO

  Imager

  Imager’s Challenge

  Imager’s Intrigue

  Scholar

  Princeps

  Imager’s Battalion

  Antiagon Fire

  Rex Regis

  Madness in Solidar

  Treachery’s Tools

  Assassin’s Price

  Endgames

  THE SPELLSONG CYCLE

  The Soprano Sorceress

  The Spellsong War

  Darksong Rising

  The Shadow Sorceress

  S
hadowsinger

  THE ECOLITAN MATTER

  Empire & Ecolitan (comprising The Ecolitan Operation and The Ecologic Secession)

  Ecolitan Prime (comprising The Ecologic Envoy and The Ecolitan Enigma)

  THE GHOST BOOKS

  Of Tangible Ghosts

  The Ghost of the Revelator

  Ghost of the White Nights

  Ghost of Columbia (comprising Of Tangible Ghosts and The Ghost of the Revelator)

  OTHER NOVELS

  The Forever Hero (comprising Dawn for a Distant Earth, The Silent Warrior, and In Endless Twilight)

  Timegods’ World (comprising Timediver’s Dawn and The Timegod)

  The Hammer of Darkness

  The Green Progression

  The Parafaith War

  Adiamante

  Gravity Dreams

  The Octagonal Raven

  Archform: Beauty

  The Ethos Effect

  Flash

  The Eternity Artifact

  The Elysium Commission

  Viewpoints Critical

  Haze

  Empress of Eternity

  The One-Eyed Man

  Solar Express

  Quantum Shadows [forthcoming]

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  L. E. MODESITT, JR., is the author of more than seventy books—primarily science fiction and fantasy, including the long-running, bestselling Saga of Recluce and the Imager Portfolio, as well as a number of short stories.

  Visit him online at www.lemodesittjr.com, or sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Characters

  Maps

  Chapter I

  Chapter II