by Lisa Shearin
“Everything is normal here,” I agreed. “It would have to be on the Mid end of the connection.”
That didn’t reassure any of us.
We knew what had happened the last time a mirror connection going to and from Mid had malfunctioned. Exterminating the spiders once didn’t mean there couldn’t be another Khrynsani--spawned infestation.
The crewmen that had made it through were standing in a group, completely still, their attention on their captain. Phaelan’s reaction would govern how they would react. Right now they were elven pirates who had just been ordered to step through a mirror into the goblin capital, and to top it off, the exit mirror was in a warehouse sharing space with fire-breathing dragons. I didn’t know which one had scared them more: the mode of travel, the destination, or the welcoming committee. I was suddenly feeling exposed. Yes, I could handle the pirates who had already come through, but I’d have to use some nasty magic to do it, which would make an already bad situation critical.
The elves knew who I was and what I could do. They were heavily armed and so was I, but Jash and I would be woefully outnumbered. We could even or better those odds with magic, and they knew it.
This was Phaelan’s move to make.
Phaelan’s eyes were on mine, and mine were on his.
We had a standoff.
Our mirror mage broke the tense silence. “Sir, I’m trying to contact the Guardian mage on the other end to find out what happened.”
I nodded once, my eyes still on Phaelan’s.
“Allan?” Phaelan said, not moving.
“Aye, Captain?”
“Contact that Guardian telepath, what’s his name…”
“Ben.”
“Contact him and find out what the hell is going on.”
“Aye, sir.”
The elf, who I assumed was Phaelan’s ship telepath, braced his feet, closed his eyes, and bowed his head. Seconds and then minutes passed, and the only sound was the shifting of the sentry dragons in their stalls.
Allan guffawed and raised his head. “Captain, Bart Vane was skittish about stepping through a mirror. Some of the boys got their hands on him, but he broke away, tripped, and…”
“Let me guess,” Phaelan said, “he broke the mirror.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Colorful cursing arose from Phaelan’s men, though it was aimed at Bart Vane and not at me. I started to breathe normally. Phaelan trusted me only to a point. I didn’t know what that point was, but I suspected we’d all come entirely too close to finding out.
Our mirror mage cleared his throat. “How many more men do you have to come through, Captain Benares?”
Phaelan took a glance back at his crew. “This is only half.”
The mirror mage winced and glanced at me. “Sir, it’ll take the Guardians’ mages at least twelve hours to set up another mirror to transport that many men.”
Phaelan and I locked eyes again.
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Phaelan said before I could.
I shook my head. “No, we don’t.”
An explosion shook the building.
Screams and shouts erupted from outside, dragon roars from inside.
A second explosion rocked the floor beneath our feet, toppling the mirror, shattering it to bits.
I ran for the door, Phaelan at my heels.
A black cloud from the explosion roiled into the air, and fire engulfed the dock where the Wraith had been.
The Wraith was gone. Only bits and pieces of wood and flaming debris remained.
Very often survival depends upon immediate action. To delay, even for an instant, could mean death.
I knew this, and still I stood in that open doorway and stared for a good three seconds. Someone could have picked me off, but the people who didn’t want an expedition going to Aquas had just administered their killing blow, and were probably standing in the crowd that was gathering, to admire their work.
I didn’t ask myself how anyone could have discovered that the Wraith wasn’t being provisioned for a trip down the west coast, how this voyage was any different from any other. A secret could be kept, but when your enemies were masters of black magic, plans could be discovered, secrets uncovered, and your cover literally blown.
“Stay here,” I told Phaelan, quickly shielding myself.
“Like hell.” He turned and shouted to his men. “Stay put and hold this building.” He paused a beat and added, as if he couldn’t believe he was actually saying this, “And protect the flying lizards.”
Chapter 22
The remnants of black magic swirled with the oily smoke high into the morning sky.
My skin prickled and the hairs on the back of my arms and neck stood up as if I had been too close to a lightning strike. The sky was clear with no clouds.
I’d seen and personally experienced enough Khrynsani black magic attacks to know it when I saw it. This was Khrynsani work. I had no doubt.
How they had done it was something else entirely. The Wraith had been guarded day and night. No one and nothing had been allowed on board unless they and it had been thoroughly examined first.
This entire end of the waterfront was chaos.
I ran toward where the Wraith had been. I shielded myself and extended it to include Phaelan. I didn’t use a glamour. I needed these people to obey me without question. To do that, they needed to know who I was.
The buildings closest to the Wraith had been flattened by the concussion from the blast, and others were pocked with smoking, blackened holes where the debris had hit as if shot from a cannon. They were mostly wood. If one of those buildings caught fire, the entire waterfront could go up. If that happened, the city could be next. Perhaps that was what the arsonists had planned. Their primary target was the Wraith; Regor going up in flames would be a welcome bonus.
It was the middle of the day, so the waterfront was mostly deserted. The curious onlookers might have been awakened from their beds, but we quickly put them to work operating manual pumps to get water from the harbor, using hoses to spray down any structure that may have caught fire, or have been hit by debris. Phaelan had been seen by my side, and only a few had tossed a questioning glance at me before they started taking orders from him as well. I imagine Phaelan had had plenty of experience putting out fires caused by flying ship debris.
None of the crew who had been on the Wraith at the time of the blast needed a healer.
There had been no survivors.
“Vaporized.” Imala was shaking with rage. “Instantly vaporized. Every man and woman on board. They were my people, my agents.”
She had arrived on the scene within minutes. I wasn’t the only one not getting much sleep.
She was covered in soot from head to toe. She looked as if she had personally searched the wreckage for each and every one of her missing agents. They were dead, blown up with the Wraith, but that hadn’t stopped Imala from searching.
Slightly less than half of the crew had been sleeping onboard, including the captain. It’d been a last-minute decision. We didn’t know how long we’d be gone, so the captain had ordered those with families to spend their last night in Regor with them.
For those on the ship, it had been their last night alive.
“They destroyed the Wraith to keep you from going to Aquas,” Imala was saying. “I hope they enjoyed waking up this morning to set those charges, because I will do everything in my power and the power of my office to ensure they never live to see another sunrise.”
I wanted to put my arm around her shoulders and pull her close, but I couldn’t. Imala was here as the director of goblin intelligence and the secret service. In the aftermath of terrorist violence, she couldn’t be seen as anything other than completely in command and control.
Anyone who had been in the immediate vicinity of the Wraith had been injured by flying debris from the blast. A few were in serious condition, none critical. It was nothing short of a miracle that there hadn’t been more deaths.<
br />
“This wasn’t a bomb,” I told Imala. “It couldn’t have been.”
“The crew checks anything brought on board, and anyone, but you know as well as I that devices can slip through.”
“I know that. That wasn’t what I meant. The Wraith was targeted—from outside.” As I worked through this in my mind, it sounded more and more likely. Telemetric conjuring wasn’t necessarily black magic, but when it was used to strike and destroy a ship and everyone on her it wasn’t only black magic, it was murder.
Phaelan appeared at my side. “What are you talking about?”
“Telemetric conjuring. In magic, it’s performing a spell in one location to affect a result in another.”
“So whoever did this wasn’t here when it happened.”
“I seriously doubt it. They would need a quiet place where they could focus, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have anyone here to ensure it worked as it was supposed to.”
“The harbormaster closed off the harbor immediately after the blast,” Imala said. “They’re questioning everyone and getting names before releasing them.”
I didn’t need to say that some would get through, and more than likely those would include any Khrynsani mages or observers. Imala knew that well enough.
“I don’t like it either,” she said, “but it’s the best we can do. If this was telemetric conjuring, how was it done?”
“They would have needed a piece cut from a larger part of the Wraith. For example, a beam, mast, or yard. Though it would have been more reliable if it came from a part near or below the waterline. The spell would evoke a reconnection between the piece in the mage’s possession and the part of the ship it was taken from. The mage would then destroy the piece they had, triggering the same in the ship.”
Phaelan was incredulous. “That’s possible?”
“I’ve heard of it being done. I’ve never witnessed it myself—until today.”
It would take an incredible amount of power and focus.
Just like the amount of power Agata and I had experienced last night from that mage. And while her ultimate plan could encompass more than Agata, I didn’t think she was responsible for what had happened here. Telemetric conjuring on this scale would have taken days of preparation. She had the power, but I didn’t believe she had the motivation. This was Khrynsani work. The who, how, and why could wait. What couldn’t wait was finding another ship.
“A Khrynsani dark mage could have done it?” Imala was asking.
I nodded. “There were about half a dozen who were strong enough.”
“I take it not all of those six have been accounted for.”
“Only three.”
“Dammit.”
“Agreed.”
There were still Khrynsani, their agents, and their sympathizers in the city and throughout Rheskilia. Just when we thought we’d found them all, someone would turn over a rock, and more would scurry out.
I wasn’t surprised that there might be both Khrynsani and their sympathizers still in the capital. What surprised me was the boldness of the attack. They knew what the penalty was should they be discovered and captured: interrogation to ferret out any accomplices, and then death. With the black magic talents of many of our prisoners, allowing them to live meant a constant threat hanging over the new king and queen, and the government we were building. Failure was not an option for us; therefore, mercy wasn’t an option for them.
They knew they would be killed if they were caught, but with the Khrynsani temple taken and its leadership either dead or on the run for the first time in their history, they had no other choice. Kill or be killed. They had lost everything except their lives, and without power, those lives were worthless to them. They had nothing left to lose, and everything to regain.
As I had said on more than one occasion when Sathrik and Sarad were still in power—it’s not treason if you win.
Destroying the Wraith didn’t necessarily take a Khrynsani mage, just Khrynsani gold.
“What’s to stop them from doing the same thing to your new king and queen?” Phaelan asked.
I nodded toward Imala. “Her.”
“So she’s supposed to check all their furniture, so the thrones don’t explode under them?”
“Done at least three times a day,” Imala said, her sharp eyes continuing to scan the crowd.
“The same can be done with hair, nails, or blood,” I told him. “Precautions are being taken against that as well. When I leave, I’ll take this trouble with me, or at least the target that’s on my back. My parents and Nath will be back later today, Imala. Ask for their help. They’ll be more than glad to do anything they can.”
She almost smiled. “Between the three of them, they ran the entire goblin Resistance. They can do quite a bit. We’ll find those responsible and they will pay.”
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be here to do the finding, but I had no doubt that Imala would locate those responsible and extract the appropriate retribution—after she extracted the name of who had hired them and supplied them with a piece of the Wraith. By “name” I didn’t mean Sandrina Ghalfari. Her involvement was a given. I wanted any Khrynsani who had eluded our local purge, as well as any Khrynsani-sympathizing civilians.
“You’d better come back,” Imala said.
I smiled. “You’ll miss me?”
“You’re leaving me here to hold back chaos by myself. What do you think?”
Chapter 23
I didn’t have a ship, or provisions, or a full crew. Sandrina was far enough ahead of us. We couldn’t afford any delay.
We were in the warehouse, regrouping, and taking stock of our situation, which didn’t take that long considering we were an expedition without transportation. The Wraith and her crew were to have been more than my transportation and guards on the way to Aquas. They were to have played the critical role of mission backup, security, and support for me and my team in Nidaar. In addition to being seasoned sailors, they were some of the best agents that goblin intelligence had. Being chosen for duty aboard the Wraith was considered to be a great honor.
Now half of those men and women were dead.
Phaelan was as soot-covered as the rest of us. He took a seat. “How many men are you taking with you?”
“An incursion team of myself and five others. Jash is one of the five. There will also be Agata Azul, a gem mage.”
“So seven.”
“Yes.”
“Thanks to two broken mirrors, I have only half a crew. Thanks to the Khrynsani, you have only half a crew, and no ship or provisions. The Kraken is waiting out there with no crew and fully provisioned.”
“You’re proposing an alliance?”
“I don’t see as we have much choice. Not going is not an option, right?”
“Right.”
My smile had grown with each reply. Raine had said that when it came down to it, Phaelan would be all business, and that he had hauled her out of trouble more than once. Trusting him had never been an issue. I realized something and chuckled.
“What?” Phaelan asked.
I told him what I’d said to Raine about my misgivings concerning him. To his credit, Phaelan sat sprawled in his chair, not in the least bit offended. In fact, he seemed to find it amusing.
“If I had a kugarat for every time someone underestimated me, I’d be even richer than I am now.”
“I didn’t exactly underestimate you,” I said.
“I didn’t even enter into your estimation at all. No offense taken. I’m a pirate, a very good pirate. What most people don’t realize is that you have to be very proficient at many things to be a successful pirate. How to avoid being trapped on land after your ship has been blown to smithereens is one of them.”
“This has happened to you before?”
Phaelan narrowed his eyes in thought. “Four…no, five times.” He grinned and spread his hands. “I’m here and whole, meaning I escaped every time.” The grin vanished. “I made sure my best men ca
me through that mirror first, just in case something went wrong. The Guardians’ mirror is broken and now so is the one here. I don’t even want to think about how much bad luck we had dumped on us when that happened. The crew I’ve got is what I have, but they’re not enough to sail the Kraken across the Sea of Kenyon. Also thanks to the Khrynsani, you have no ship, and half of your crew is dead. From what Raine told me, you and your people put a big dint in the Khrynsani population, nearly wiping them out.”
“Not nearly close enough.” I thought of Sandrina, her inner circle, and the Khrynsani mage who had vaporized the Wraith and nearly fifty men and women.
Phaelan stood and slung his sword belt into position. “Then what do you say we cross that oversized pond together so you and yours can finish the job?”
*
We weren’t waiting until tomorrow to leave. High tide was in three hours, and we would be sailing with it.
Once again my survival depended on getting out of Regor as quickly as possible.
The Kraken stayed right where she was—moored near the entrance to the harbor along with the Raven and the Sea Wolf. We weren’t about to risk bringing her any closer to shore. She could be destroyed by any number of means, but those were all mundane. Storms or cannon were all I wanted to worry about, and those were normal concerns for any ship going to sea. No one had carved a chunk out of the Kraken’s hull, and no one would get the chance.
Since we now had only three ships, one sentry dragon and its pilot would return to their squadron. I left that choice to the senior officer, Calik Bakari. The other two dragons’ pilots had saddled and prepped their mounts. Calik would follow on his dragon, Sapphira. They would fly them out to the ships and land them in the holds. The dozen firedrakes would be rowed out separately, four per ship.
My team had arrived. They were cloaked, hooded, and masked. If they were seen, they would be marked. Their identities couldn’t be known to the public. Not yet, possibly not ever. I’d been forced out of Regor. They had been forced into hiding. We had the same impetus—a reason from our pasts to bring down and destroy the Khrynsani. Plus, they all had military backgrounds.
