“What?” Vagner lurched forward, leaning over the trunk and trying to look fierce. Very difficult in this form, he sadly noted. “But you swore if I helped you capture him…”
“I swore nothing,” Tane said with a sneer…
“You said if I did as you asked…”
“We do not know yet if he truly possesses the knowledge I seek,” Tane said. “So the debt for your folly has yet to be paid in full…”
“Yet to be paid!” Vagner shrieked. “Were it not for me, manling, the Greenfyn would have defeated you! You would be nothing but a memory, were it not for me! I saved your wretched life back there! You owe me my freedom and my form!”
The harsh back-hand blow caught Vagner by surprise. In true form, it would have felt like nothing more than a puff of a breeze caressing his cheek. But this child’s flesh had no resistance to physical pain. The cruel slap burned and threw Vagner across the carriage so he struck his head against the wall. Sickness seized the demon’s stomach. He coiled into a wad in the far seat and fought the urge to sob and gag. Tane reached across, snagged a handful of the golden hair, and forced the child’s face up.
“If you dare provoke me with such a tantrum again, creature, I will curse you by your True Name to wear this form for an eternity! Then I will sell you to the first drunken Haxon I find and let him teach you the humility of this useless flesh you wear. Do I make myself clear?”
Vagner nodded as best he could. The grasp on his hair broke with an abrupt snap that dropped his face into the seat cushion. He dared not move as Tane slowly reclaimed his own place, body stiff with superiority. The bloodmage stretched his legs, resting them atop the trunk and smiled.
“Good,” he said.
Only then did Vagner rise and cringe in the corner of the carriage. He did not dare meet Tane’s gaze.
But through it all, the demon vowed that by one means or another, he would have revenge.
~
Once Etienne saw Fenelon into Mistress Miranda’s care, she fetched Shona and went back to the house. Two calm heads, in Etienne’s opinion, were better than one, and two skilled at scrying would require less time to cover the territory. Besides, Etienne had already determined Shona was developing strong feelings for Alaric. Etienne had seen the looks the young lass cast Alaric’s way, and had overheard Shona confessing to Katriona that she found Alaric sweet and polite and very handsome. That youthful passion alone would sharpen Shona’s skill and desire to assist in finding him now. And this would be excellent practice for Etienne’s star pupil.
They gated back to the manse, stepping through Etienne’s spell door. The place felt more devoid of life than it had on her last visit. This, she thought grimly, was not good. What if they were too late to locate any hint of magic that would tell them of Alaric’s fate? What if the young mageborn was already dead? A twinge of guilt slipped through Etienne with that thought. She had not been on her kindest behavior towards Alaric these last few days. I was as much to blame for his reaction that night as he. If she did not wish for him to look into her bodice, she should have tied up the laces before leaning over him. Even now, she felt rather foolish over having been so callous over such a trivial matter.
“At least he only looked,” had been Fenelon’s amused response when she fumed about the matter later on. “I would have been more tempted to touch…”
Etienne shook those thoughts away. More important work lay at hand. She glanced at Shona who summoned a globe of mage light and attached it to the head of her own staff. Shadows scampered away like mice as the warm flicker of light grew strong. A good light, Etienne thought. Not harsh at all. Some apprentices conjured mage lights so bright, they hurt the eyes and were useless.
“Shall I start up or down?” Shona asked.
“Up,” Etienne said. “I want to examine the battle scene myself.”
“All right then,” Shona said and made for the stairs visible down the length of the corridor.
“And call out if you sense danger,” Etienne said, watching the younger lass’ progress. “I don’t want to have to take you to the infirmary as I did Fenelon.”
“Little chance of that, mistress,” Shona threw back. “Magister Fenelon will be all right, won’t he?”
“Don’t worry,” Etienne said. “Fenelon is too hard headed to be otherwise.”
A giggle floated down from the end of the corridor. Etienne smiled and stepped back into the great hall where the battle of magic had taken place. She stopped in the center of the room and closed her eyes, letting mage senses travel around her. The awareness spread, gliding like fingers across the currents of the air. Fenelon once told her he thought of using mage senses as being a lot like sitting in the center of a great web, and any vibration of a single strand, no matter how slight, would be felt. Etienne thought it more akin to finding patterns in the stars. One moment, they were bits of light, the next, pictures would form. Each mageborn felt such things differently, in her opinion. No two mageborn were alike in any way, be it strength or skill. There were mageborn whose senses were almost useless without serious focus and concentration, while others were sharp enough to know if a single speck of dust had been disturbed or a spell was being cast several leagues away.
“I should be so sensitive,” she mused as she examined the remaining hints of power.
Fire magic, to be sure. Fenelon had a fondness for dangerous pyrotechnical displays of power. His quicksilver aura filled the room, but so did another. The second held a strong blood taint. The mysterious Tane Doran, no doubt. Etienne pulled bits of his essence, giving it a thorough sweep so she would know it if she came across it again. She’d never had Fenelon’s privilege of meeting the man, and only knew of his reputation through the few clashes she’d heard Fenelon tell.
Hmmmm, she thought. Fenelon’s magic was far stronger in the chamber. By all rights, he should have won this battle. His essence dominated the struggle.
But there had been another, one whose essence did not feel right.
Frowning, Etienne opened her eyes. The third aura was not an aura at all. Merely something that existed and should not have. She wished there was more of it to test, but alas, its actions were overshadowed by all that occurred, and its true essence lay carefully hidden from her probing under a heavy cloak of almost non-perceivable spells.
“Mistress, come see what I’ve found!”
Shona’s voice floated down from quite a distance. Etienne had to brush the entire manse with mage senses to locate her pupil. Shona’s soft aura ranged higher above Etienne than a single flight of stairs. Still frowning, Etienne left the hall and made for the stairs. She climbed several flights before she found Shona standing over a place in the corridor, one hand stretched. The floor at her feet harbored a smattering of sticky blood.
Blessed Brother be merciful, Etienne thought, reverting to an old vow. She put her own hand out. Not Alaric, thank the gods, though a hint of his essence was here, laced through with pain and fear. Poor lad, she thought. Curiosity drove her to wonder whose blood it was. Not that of the unnatural thing she had felt below. Just that of a mortal man. Etienne signed with relief.
“There’s more in here,” Shona said, and gestured towards the door that held court at the end of the corridor. “Come and see.”
Etienne followed the lass into a circular room. To her right, a smashed instrument lay scattered like a ravaged carcass. Shona knelt and picked up a piece. A psaltery.
“It’s not Alaric’s,” Shona said, sounding relieved. “But he was here, and he was frightened.”
Frightened was putting it mildly in Etienne’s opinion. Raw terror filled the chamber. Heightened emotions always left strong traces of essence, which was why bloodmages stole lives to feed their craving for the essence of others when their victims were at the apex of fear, anger or passion. But Alaric’s essence had not been stolen, and she found no immediate hint of Tane’s presence here either, though bits of the unnatural creature were present. This did not mean the bloodmage ha
d not been in this chamber. Merely that he had hidden himself and the magic in this place.
Etienne’s gaze fell on the center of the room. A chair lay overturned and beside it, a lute. She started forward to examine them, mage senses stretched to the fullest. And stopped when she felt the power that ranged in the stones at her feet.
“You see it now too, don’t you,” Shona said. “It’s marked and cloaked to keep him from knowing it is here…but he felt it anyway. They underestimated his sensitivity to such things.”
“You sensed all that child?” Etienne said.
Shona’s cheeks flushed as she nodded. “Alaric was here…he was terrified…and then he just…disappeared. As though he’d been swallowed. Like he had stepped into a void or some sort of gate that’s gone.”
“That’s not possible,” Etienne said. “Alaric does not know how to cast a gate spell yet. Fenelon had only begun to teach him the very rudiments of that spell.”
“It’s not really a gate spell,” Shona said, frowning in concentration. “It’s something smaller…different.”
Etienne nodded. Shona was right. Alaric did seem to have just disappeared into some sort of hole.
Fenelon was not going to like hearing that.
TWENTY EIGHT
Tane waited until they were half a league out of Caer Keltora before ordering the carriage off the road and into a wooded copse. Only after the bloodmage had stepped out of the carriage did Vagner dare move. The demon stroked the trunk as though offering reassurance to its occupant then crawled out and stretched stiff legs.
Tane ordered the bandits about as though he were their general. They hurriedly dragged the trunk out of the carriage, nearly dropping it.
“Careful!” Tane shouted. “Don’t damage that!”
Vagner wondered if it was the bard’s well being or the value of the ensorcelled trunk that invoked Tane’s anger. Those spells had taken much time and effort to set, for Tane was thorough. The demon waited out of the way, arms crossed over the tiny chest, frowning. A wind cut through the trees. It fanned the demon’s hair and sent a shiver racing across pale, furless flesh. Vagner refused to complain, but a blanket would have been nice just now.
Tane closed his eyes and drew essence to open a spell gate. Vagner could see a courtyard in ruins, an overcast sky and the moss splattered stones of a keep. An old tower, long ago abandoned to stoats and ravens, it had served as a bandit hole before Tane discovered it. He had been putting it to personal use for years before he ever summoned Vagner. Most mageborn would have avoided the place, for its cellars held a void. Tane, however, found that anomaly useful, especially where mageborn prisoners were concerned.
The bandits ambled through, taking the trunk and the horses. The carriage, they abandoned. It was stolen anyway. Vagner took his time. The demon did not want to be too far from the trunk, but neither did he want to be anywhere close to Tane. The temptation to attack the bloodmage from behind sat hard in the demon’s stomach just now. Better he did not give it credence. He trailed along at the end of the procession with slow, deliberate steps, tiny fists clenched at his sides. If Tane noticed this angry posturing, he gave no sign. He seemed more concerned with telling the bandits where to take his prisoner once he had closed his magical gate.
The bandits tracked into the keep. Some stopped to bed the horses in the stalls while others began to set up in the lower hall. Tane shouted “Loisg” as he passed the fire pit, and flames rose to birth heat and light among the dusty shadows which did not benefit from the gloomy grey casting its feeble light through small upper window slits. Two bandits struggled to haul the trunk along in the bloodmage’s wake. He headed for the circular stairs at the base of the tower. One set rose to his private chambers. The other set descended into the womb of the earth. Tane chose the latter route, and Vagner brought up the rear of this small parade, ever curious to see what was about to happen to their precious cargo.
The bandits swore under their breath as they struggled to make the narrow turns with their cumbersome burden. Tane called mage light, for all the good it did. But at last, they reached the lower steps and followed him through an equally narrow corridor, requiring the tallest among them, including Tane, to stoop. For that moment, Vagner felt grateful to lack his true size, though for a demon, that mattered very little. They could shift size according to need and space.
At the far end of the corridor stood a small door. Tane pushed it open and stepped inside, straightening up. He moved aside so the bandits could come through. Vagner stopped in the door to watch.
This chamber was set up on two levels, consisting of a dais and a pit. Stairs descended into that depth. The lower area was three times as large as this ledge and twice a man’s height below its edge. In the glint of magelight, Vagner could see shackles on nitre-coated walls. The odor of rotting vegetation and ancient piss choked the air. Not the most pleasant place in Vagner’s opinion, made more so by the fact that the whole area of the pit was a void. No hint of essence or magic could be found or used there. The perfect prison for detaining one of the mageborn.
“Well, now,” Tane said as the bandits gingerly lowered the trunk to the dais. “Let us see how our little songbird has fared. Be ready. He may come out fighting like a hawk.”
Tane touched the lid. It possessed no obvious latch, but as he whispered his spell, the lid opened readily when he raised it.
Nothing happened. No explosion of magic. No shouts of rage. Only tiny whimpers such as a terrified child would make. Vagner dared then to sidle over next to Tane and peer inside.
Alaric Braidwine lay coiled into a human knot. His knuckles were bloody and his flesh was damp with fever. His eyes were closed. He did not move, save to breathe and shudder like a dreaming dog.
“Interesting,” Tane said. “Lift him out of there.”
It took work. The young bard remained limp as a rag puppet, never once opening his eyes. Tane frowned, touching the youth’s forehead.
“Very interesting,” the bloodmage said. “He is in shock.”
“Shock?” the demon blurted. “Is he dying? Shouldn’t we fetch a healer?”
“He’ll recover,” Tane said, giving Vagner a sidelong glance of amusement. “You need not worry like a woman just because I am keeping you in the guise of one.
Vagner frowned and backed away, not pleased to have that reminder thrown his way. Were I myself…
“You,” Tane said and pointed to the larger of the two bandits. “Pick him up and take him down there, and you go fetch a couple of blankets and some bandages and salve. I won’t have him catching his death before I am through with him. Vagner, you will stay here in the cell and keep watch over our guest. He will not be able to escape the pit—my spell will see to that—but I will not underestimate him again.”
“I’m hungry,” Vagner said.
Tane frowned. “Then I’ll have a sheep sent down to amuse you.”
The larger bandit hauled Alaric over one shoulder and carried him down the steps while the other rushed out of the cell to fetch the blankets and bandages. Tane walked along the top edge of the stairs, laying a ward attuned to the young bard’s essence and left.
Vagner sighed and watched the larger bandit leave as well before the demon settled into a corner to do as he was bid.
He hoped they wouldn’t forget his sheep.
~
Etienne and Shona returned to the infirmary to find Fenelon up and pacing the ward like a trapped wolf.
“Well, what did you find?” he said, practically leaping on both women as they came through the door.
“So glad to see you too,” Etienne said with a smile.
Fenelon rolled his eyes. “All right! Hello, my love. Now what did you find?”
“Practically nothing,” she said. “It’s as if he simply vanished.”
“I should go see for myself,” Fenelon said. “You may have missed something.”
He started for the door, only to stop and step back with an agitated glower.
/> “Do you mind?” he said and gestured to the opening with one hand.
“Has Mistress Miranda released you from her care?” Etienne asked.
“Look, I’m fine!” Fenelon said. “There was no need to lock me in here like a prisoner.”
“Oh, yes there was,” Etienne said and crossed the room to touch the door frame and whisper the names of the warding glyphs in proper order to banish them before turning back to him. “Had I not done so, you would have worsened your injuries.”
“It would have been worth the risk,” he said and hurried out of the room. “For Alaric’s sake…”
“And what good would you be to poor Alaric if you had bled to death, Fenelon,” Etienne said, following him as he marched down the corridor and made for the infirmary exit. “Our flesh is mortal. We may live long, but we can die of foolish injuries and blood loss as easily as any of the mortalborn. Besides, I did what I did because I know that under roguish exterior lies a kind and generous man. I know how much you have come to care for Alaric himself, even if you are not terribly good at letting him know it.”
“He’s a friend, Etienne,” Fenelon groused. “Of course, I care for him. He’s bright, intense, intelligent. He’ll make a great Master Mage, an excellent addition to the Council. I want to see that happen, and not just because he is my first apprentice and it would be good for my reputation…”
Etienne smiled. “Yes, we must always consider your reputation, must we not?”
He stopped abruptly, turning back to face her. One sharp look from those blue eyes shot in Shona’s direction. “Go find yourself something else to do until we send for you,” he said.
Shona blinked, looking amazed.
“Go to the gate circle and wait for us,” Etienne said in a more soothing manner. “We’ll meet you there shortly.”
Shona curtsied and hurried away, her cheeks high with color. Etienne watched the girl go before meeting Fenelon’s angry stare. “All right,” she said, crossing her arms and letting her staff stand on its own. “Have your say.”
Dragon's Tongue: Book One of the Demon-Bound Page 23
