Human Mage: Book Three of the Highmage's Plight

by D. H. Aire

Juels swallowed, uncertainly, “I’m going with you?”

  “That’s what I said— now, let’s go!”

  They ran.

  The “tracker” wiggled another finger free as Terhun offered the urchin lads water. Blood dripped down the tracker’s fingertips, yet he was grinning beatifically, unheeding of anything now save the trail he sought.

  He actually wheezed in surprise. He could almost smell the jewel’s nearness, even masked, which had he been sane might have given him cause to wonder.

  The madman’s hands were suddenly free, yet he remained as he was. Terhun touched Colvin’s ribs gently, “I promise to find you a good healer. All either of you need do is tell me where I can find that damned jewel.”

  There was a thud and Terhun quickly turned, noting the smile of relief on the urchins’ faces. “I take it there is a particular jewel you seek,” asked the lithe lad standing atop the crooked stair. At the urchin’s feet lay one of Terhun’s guards.

  Terhun said the elvin word that placed the enchanted dagger in his hands. “I commend you on finding us, lad, and I am very much interested in a particular rather nondescript jewel.”

  “How much you willin’ to pay?” asked the lad.

  “Two Gold Imperials.”

  “You speak of a piddling amount, after what my friends have been put through for it.”

  “It’s here!” the tracker exclaimed.

  Terhun’s other guard moved toward him, then cried out as the tracker broke free and hurriedly grasped the guard’s throat, throttling him. The man moaned, struggling to dislodge the hands upon his throat.

  Meanwhile, the madman casually glanced up at the lad, “It’s here! You have it! Give it to me!”

  Gallen gaped at the scraggly figure, who reminded him of someone that he could not quickly name. The tracker released the barely conscious guard, dropping him to the floor and began to march toward the stair.

  Terhun raised his blade; the tracker said a word of unadulterated elvin power. The enchanted blade vanished from Terhun’s hand in a blaze of blue white fire. Gasping, he cradled his numbed, chilled fingers, to his chest.

  The tracker paused at the foot of the stair as the urchin shouted to someone else. A second lad descended easily along the half hung banister. Juels raced cautiously past Terhun to Ruke and Colvin.

  “They’re all right!” he shouted.

  Gallen nodded, saying to the madman moving halfway up the stair. “I will give you the jewel.”

  The tracker halted, called to heel by an unseen master. The charm, a small amulet, hanging from his neck, glowed. Then, for the briefest moment, the madman looked at Gallen with recognition. “Gaellyn,” he muttered.

  Gallen paled.

  The tracker trembled for a moment, insanity welling, the charm glowed white hot. He groaned, “Give me—the jewel!”

  Gallen, any other plan forgotten as recognition passed between them, reached inside his pouch and took out the nondescript stone. The Firestone blazed up in Gallen’s hands. The madman trembled, the charm about his neck beginning to smoke and char his flesh. “GAELLYN... JEWEL... GAELLYN!” he shouted swaying on the stair, the charm shattered, bursting into flame.

  The tracker was gone, freed from his appointed task, but not from the one that reshaped his very life. With clear, certain eyes, he beheld Gallen, who was trembling uncontrollably. “Leave me alone,” Gallen whispered.

  The madman laughed, “Curse you forever for doing this to me!”

  “I didn’t!”

  In maniacal glee, he raced up the steps, arms outstretched. Gallen shoved the jewel toward him. The instant it touched him, it flared black. There was a roar of sound just as it exploded. Gallen was knocked aside by a tawny beast that leaped from the floor above.

  The madman fell backward with a cry, striking the bottom steps hard. The wood shattered sending him completely through to the floor beneath with a wail of, “Gaellyn!” then silence.

  The beast quickly left Gallen to sniff at the top of the stair and look below as a black robed figure raced to the top of the stair, then rushed to help Gallen, who was crying uncontrollably and struggling to rise. “It’s all right now, child. He’s dead and finally at peace.” The beast bobbed its head as if in agreement.

  Juels had led Gallen up the tree that branched over the old stone fence and if you were nimble enough allowed you to alight by a second story window. Gallen had whispered to him to go back for help as soon as they had spied Ruke and Colvin bound below. A guard had come out of one of the rooms down the hall at the noise their passage made. The man was distracted by the tapping of a bird on the shutters. He turned back and Gallen signaled for him to immediately go out the way they had come.

  Even at the window, ready to go back out to the ledge, Juels felt a terrible foreboding. He could not leave Gallen here, alone. Juels squirreled back to the hall and watched as Gallen chopped his hand to the guard’s neck. He dropped with a resounding thud, which Gallen found himself not strong enough to gentle.

  Juels presence then caught Gallen’s attention, and in that moment Juels almost thought Gallen was relieved he had not gone.

  Then all Hell Broke Loose.

  Cle’or had watched as Gallen and Juels flitted inside the dilapidated house. The fate descended from the sky only after the two had reached the interior. She easily climbed over the wall and found the tree just as convenient a means of ascending to the bedroom window as the urchins did.

  Once inside, the figure hung back, trying to evaluate just what was going on here. Terhun seemed almost comical, yet he had presumably bound the tracker far good reason. He might not be totally culpable for the wrong done here, which bore thinking upon.

  The beast came in through the window behind her, rubbed its furred neck against her arms. Juels went scurrying down to the others at Gallen’s shout, then what could only be termed a duel of enchantments began.

  The shattering of the tracker’s charm left the madman full reign. There seemed to be no time to think at all as daggers came to Cle’or’s hand and the beast was racing to clear Gallen out of their deadly path. As abruptly as it began, it was over.

  Terhun had grabbed up his half conscious guard’s fallen dagger, gaping as the scene ended with the madman’s death. Cle’or held the urchin Gallen’s shoulders comfortingly, then from the top of the stair looked down at her. “Terhun, what have you to do with this foul business?”

  “Cle’or?”

  “Hello, Master Terhun. Fancy meeting you here.”

  Terhun frowned, gripping the dagger anxiously, remembering just how fast and precise that woman up there had cast a blade.

  He looked at the beast and shook his head as Raven’s tongue lolled.

  “Uh, I think, Master Terhun, you had best negotiate the restitution you intend.”

  “Restitution?”

  She knelt and picked up the darkened jewel from where it precariously lay on the topmost step. She threw it down to him. He caught it and frowned.

  “That is what you came for.”

  “I, uh,” looking at it, he knew it was now worthless. There were cracks up and down its length. He hastily added, “Uh, restitution, certainly.”

  Restitution

  9

  Gallen had many questions about this so called, “restitution.”

  Ruke looked at the dagger in his hand as Cle’or directed him to cast it at the target Terhun had raised. “Throw it!” she demanded exasperatedly.

  So he did. The blade struck wildly off center and bounced off the wooden plank. Terhun remarked, “Not as bad as I feared, Cle’or.”

  She grunted, “He has no sense of balancing a blade or how to use his wrist.”

  Chagrinned, Ruke glanced at Gallen, who had had quite enough of this little arrangement. The urchin marched over and retrieved the dagger, went back to Ruke and said, “Ignore them.” He then spun and cast the knife at the target.

  There was a remarkable thud as it burst through the plank to its hilt. Cle’or simply g
azed at him, while Terhun gaped. Gallen said casually, “Ruke has never wielded a properly balanced blade in his life. Time and practice are all he needs.”

  “You seem to be talking from experience, lad,” muttered Terhun.

  Gallen shrugged, “So, I’ve stolen fine daggers in my time? Ruke’s skill will improve quickly enough, after you let him keep that dagger with him to become comfortable with its feel, that is.”

  Cle’or nodded, turning back to Terhun, “Give a blade to Colvin, Andre, and Juels, as well, if that is all they will need... How are their other lessons coming along?”

  Terhun glanced at the two glaring urchins, “They can thieve with the best of them. They have a rudimentary knowledge of hand signals and a rather good skill at reading and writing.”

  “But can they spy?” she asked.

  Gallen threw up his hands, “Of course, we can spy! All he seems interested in, though, is whether we can go unnoticed!”

  Grinning, Terhun replied, “That is precisely what I am trying to teach them— but just look at them!”

  Without a word, Cle’or did just that. She took a long measuring look at Gallen and Ruke, then Andre. She smiled, her scarred face looking fiercely alien. “I’ll have suitable clothes brought here tomorrow. They should be able to pass easily enough, even with their hair cut as short as they wear it.”

  Ruke glanced at Gallen, who scratched his head, “I’ve taught them manners enough that they should be able to play foot servants reasonably well.”

  Sighing, Terhun muttered, “What have I gotten myself into now?”

  Bryan the Merchant was pale as he knelt before Mage Meltran. “Master! The loss of your tracker was not my fault! My man said he was insane! That the charm about his neck took fire and burned out!”

  “Impossible!” the mage cried. “That tracker was worth ten times that jewel you so stupidly lost me!”

  “Please, Master!” Bryan cried as the mage began to chant darkly. The Merchant’s hands clutched at his chest as his lips began to turn blue. The mage grew quiet as the merchant gasped, falling upon his face.

  “Is that any way to treat your help?” asked a voice behind Meltran.

  The mage turned, “The fool lost me the Firestone, then had the added misfortune of losing my ‘tracker’ from Llewellyn.”

  Grendel’s eyes widened in astonishment, he abruptly shouted, “Release your spell this instant or you are a bigger fool than this stupid merchant!”

  Meltran paled and instantly complied, shouting an elvish word that negated his spell.

  Convulsing, Bryan gasped for breath like a fish out of water before he rasped, “Thank… you… Lord.”

  Grendel knelt in front of him, “How precisely did you lose the tracker?”

  “Lord?” Bryan rasped.

  “How?” I said.

  Swallowing anxiously, he replied as hastily as he could manage, “According to my man, the urchin who stole the Firestone threw it at him after the charm had burned out, M’lord.”

  Grendel helped the man rise, “Leave us quickly before Meltran decides that you serve no future purpose.”

  Desperately, the merchant fled the chamber as Meltran shrugged, “Was that particularly wise?”

  After the door slammed shut behind the fleeing Bryan, Grendel turned and replied, “That charm could not have failed to focus his madness, Mel. You know that as well as I.”

  “That is why I know he is lying.” Meltran held out the burned out Firestone, “Look at this, my friend. It is absolutely ruined!”

  Grendel shook his head, “You are blind. The nature of charms is to be what they are purposed to be, nothing more. For the charm to ‘burn out’ as that fool said, could only mean one thing.”

  Meltran blanched. “But that is impossible!”

  Grendel muttered, “I’ve been seeing a great many impossible things lately, Meltran, as you well know.”

  “But for him to have regained his sanity?”

  “I know...”

  The merchant glanced at his whip. His two apprentices hastened to do his bidding. There were a great many things for them to take back to Lyai by caravan, once the festival came to its finale.

  He almost wished that Jeo, his suddenly chief rival, would have proved less astute among the Capital’s Craft Seniors. Migael took the whip from the wagon and stroked it in his hands. To lose Lyn’s tapestries at the Lyai Auction had been a serious blow to the bribes he had thought so cleverly spent.

  How this foreigner, Jeo, had managed to get the Lyai’s attention, even that of the Lyai Mercantile Guild, was beyond logical reasoning. “The man brought hardly anything at all!” he muttered to himself. “There must be something I can do about this debacle!” Migael threw down the whip and exited his stall. He needed information. Jeo claimed that he did not intend to dog them back to Lyai, but who could trust to that?!

  “A test,” Gallen mumbled to himself. “I’ll show them just how good a spy I can be!”

  The urchin chief was not one to wait upon others directives. It was such a simple thing to “liberate” some proper clothes and not those of footservants. He was better than that, though, for Ruke and the others that would pose quite a challenge.

  He entered the merchant stall and studiedly ignored the guard beast that glanced up at him in seeming astonishment, as a creature could really have such intelligence.

  “Interest you in something?” the merchant asked, alone but for his guard beast. The man was seated upon a leather mat of some sort which Gallen could not name, offhand.

  “Yes, good merchant... My master was wondering if you might be interested in any wares to take back to your Province.”

  He frowned slightly and rose, leaning forward on his staff, which lay across his lap lengthwise. “Perhaps, what is it your master sells?”

  Gallen grinned, “Books— he sells the most wondrous of books.”

  The merchant’s eyes gleamed, “Is that so? How Very interesting... What kind of books?”

  “Oh, he has little about magery, good merchant. After all, such things belong only to elfblooded magelings. But if you are interested in the histories, the almanacs, and dictionaries of all the Provinces and beyond— my master is rich in such things.”

  The tent flap opened as the merchant considered Gallen’s words. Gallen glanced back and smiled at the merchant’s partner and apprentice, who carried a rolled yard of patterned cloth.

  He rose to greeted his companions, “It looks like you found just what you sought, Se’and.”

  “Of course, I did... The Weavers Guild was quite accommodating. They will be delivering the rest later.”

  “You should have heard her bargaining, my lord,” the apprentice stated, warily watching Gallen.

  “I can imagine... but back to business, lad. You say your master has many books. Would he, by chance, have Arlen’s Fourth Magister on Imperial Law?”

  Gallen grinned, “Arlen only wrote three such Magisters, good Merchant. But I doubt you were unaware of that.”

  Laughing loudly, the merchant nodded, “I do believe I was so aware.” He was silent then. Sean and Farrel found tensed, uncomfortable with whatever game was being played.

  The Merchant regarded the seeming apprentice cautiously, knowing that the lad was trying to seek information from him, which might possibly benefit his master. Yet this talk of books made him wonder— and there was something just not right about the lad.

  He had been very careful not to probe his patrons during the Festival, but there were times he felt he had little choice since his life, and those of his companions, might very well be at stake. He frowned, seemingly tired, and closed his eyes.

  At that moment his staff gave off the faintest glow. Gallen swallowed hard and paled, feeling a strangeness; a fey presence suddenly come alive. The hair at the nape of his neck began to rise and this game suddenly lost all its luster. Anxiously, Gallen realized he had to get out of here. He needed to get away from this uncharacteristic merchant from a foreign land. />
  He concentrated on his fear, fostered it— used it.

  George gasped and swung his staff defensively before him. Raven, hackles raised, abruptly growled and strained at her leash, instinctively rushing forward the moment that Gallen seemed to vanish into thin air.

  Startled, Se’and drew her dagger and Fri’il did the same. Se’and quickly took a position beside Je’orj, whose staff had taken flame with a brilliant white light, which ran up and down its length.

  “Scan!” the merchant mumbled excitedly.

  :Scan negative,: whispered Staff in the man’s mind.

  “Enhance,” he muttered, giving Staff total access to his human senses.

  Raven continued to quietly growl and sniff the air, then whimpered suddenly and sneezed uncontrollably, which the merchant found himself doing as well. The whiff of scent brought tears to his eyes, while Se’and and Fri’il looked at each other mystified for the briefest instant. Whatever was affecting Raven and Je’orj, bothered them not at all.

  Momentarily, just out of the corner of his eye, George detected movement, which passed through the tent’s flap, then displaced air brushed his enhanced and sensitized skin, providing the only real evidence that anything had truly occurred.

  Other than the fact that Raven relaxed and now lay back down, as if there had been no danger, that is.

  :That was done quite skillfully, George,: Staff observed.

  “That was not magery,” the merchant muttered, seemingly to himself.

  Se’and quickly checked the entry and saw no sign of the lad, who had been with them one moment but not in the next.

  “Where did he go?” Fri’il asked in concern.

  Frowning, George replied, “I believe he must have had pressing business elsewhere. It would seem he was not as interested in verbally sparring with me as he was leading me to believe.”

  “Have we been found out?” Se’and muttered anxiously.

  With a glance at the unconcerned guard beast, he shook his head. “To judge by her it would appear we’re quite safe.” Raven met his gaze with a very uncanine intelligence. You know something, don’t you?”