Stones Unbound (The Magestone Chronicles Book 1)

by Richard Innes

  She was a little put off by the abrupt dismissal, but shortly after she had sat down at the indicated table, a server came by with a platter of warm bread, sweet meats and roasted vegetables; mainly carrots, parsnips and turnips, and asked after her preferred drink. Her drink was brought to her table relatively quickly as she counted out the six copper coins to cover the cost of her meal. She dug into her meal absently, barely tasting any of the flavours, as her mind continued to go through the events of the past week. Nothing was making sense.

  ---o---

  “What do you mean he hasn’t come back?!” Celia stammered out after Hicks had relayed her story. She had showed up just after eighth bell as the red bearded man had said, a little flustered and unkempt. “It’s been a week!”

  “Why do you think I came to see you?” Hicks responded angrily. “You and Salrissa were the last to see him, as far as I know, and she won’t talk to me!” She put her head in her hands, looking down at the table. The serving girl had brought her a meal too, but it sat untouched at the side of the table. “I was hoping you would.” She looked up into Celia’s eyes questioningly. “What happened that night?”

  Celia told her, watching over Hicks’s shoulder as Marsen fidgeted nervously with his mug at the third table over. He was obviously concerned for the time, but Celia wasn’t about to budge. She glared at him until he noticed, and then looked away ashamed as he settled himself to wait.

  “Well that explains why Salrissa won’t talk to me,” the blonde woman stated. “I suspect she thinks it’s her fault. Stupid woman.” She finally pulled the tray over and began pulling off small chunks of bread and eating them. ‘Explains why Goralon closed the border though.”

  “Could she actually help? I mean, what could she do? The Empire has him captive in The Depths, and as far as I have heard, no one has escaped from that dungeon.” Celia pondered her own questions. If Salrissa could get in the same way she got Celia out of the tower, that might explain a lot, but how did that all work?

  “Not sure. Don’t really know her that well, but she seems pretty sneaky, and is easily able to avoid me. Not that I’m hard to avoid, apparently” she chided Celia.

  “I told you, I don’t know why the clerks didn’t try harder to find me. The embassy that the Emperor provided us with is not that big after all. I suspect they didn’t think to look for me in the archives vault. Wait, did you say Goralon has closed the borders?”

  “Yes. Rumors say it is a direct result of the attack on the Goralon Merchants' Guild by Imperial forces. Other rumors seem to imply a variety of other things, but I suspect the first is true. Somehow, the King of Goralon has been informed and has taken it a slight against his country and is retaliating by closing off trade.” Hicks sighed as she picked up her mug and took a drink.

  “The warlock.” Celia muttered under her breath. This seemed like something he might want, some sort of chaos in the Empire, but why? Relations have always been strained between the Empire and the Kingdom of Goralon ever since Randramas had crushed the Goralonian forces in the eastern provinces eighty-something years ago. She had thought things would get better after the Imperial garrison had left Karvesh and returned to home soil, leaving the Goralonians to their own self-destiny over a dozen years ago.

  “Do you believe Salrissa can help Hoyle?” Celia asked the other woman.

  “I think she has already tried, and has failed. That is why I think she won’t talk to me; that is, until she is successful at finding him. Why do you ask?” Hicks looked at her curiously.

  “Because she just returned to her room,” Celia stated matter-of-factly.

  Hicks turned and surveyed the room. “How do you know?” she asked.

  “Magic,” Celia answered with a wink as she stood. She noted that Marsen stood as well, so she gestured him over.

  “What’s he doing here?” Hicks asked, apparently alarmed at the appearance of a city guard.

  “He’s my escort, a chaperone to make sure I behave myself this time. He’s actually not a bad chap.” Celia patted his arm like she was petting a faithful hound.

  “You’re not to leave without my presence.” Marsen stated gruffly, puffing up his chest in his standard-issue leather armor.

  “I know. That’s why I gestured you over. You might come in useful this night.” Celia started for the stairs to the second floor, the trace spell she had cast almost a week ago still clinging to Salrissa’s armor, though just barely. She had only been able to sense it the moment she had arrived in the building. Otherwise she had not been able to track her for the last two days, which was actually much less distracting than feeling the ‘jumps’ in her head each evening. “Are you coming?” she threw over her shoulder at Hicks and Marsen with more confidence than she actually felt.

  They climbed the stairs with Celia in the lead, and followed the balcony hall around the common room spread out below. Celia could still feel Salrissa in the room that they had planned in just a week ago. As she approached the room, she cast a spell, completing it just as she touched the door handle. She could feel the mechanism unlatch inside as the magic of her spell activated.

  “It’ll be locked –“ Hicks began, as Celia turned the knob and pushed the door open – to find Salrissa in a battle stance with knives drawn. She began to move before she recognized who was at her door, black leather rippling in the candlelight from the room and firelight from the fireplaces below, but stopped her knife a handspan short of Celia’s throat.

  Celia gulped quietly. She had not thought through what Salrissa, a trained assassin, might do if surprised. Stupid, stupid! she thought, I have to do better. She gathered herself in the space of that moment, and arched her eyebrow at the assassin and inquired with a lilt in her voice she had heard other women use to taunt, “A little on edge, are we?”

  “What do you want?” Salrissa demanded quietly, still blocking the doorway into the room. The band played still another jaunty tune in the background. Her gaze swept the three of them standing in the hallway.

  “We want to help. May we come in?” Celia requested dryly, “Or should we discuss what we need to discuss out in the hall where anyone could happen by?” She was getting a little perturbed by Salrissa’s reluctance for help. Again she arched her eyebrow, which the other woman mirrored.

  “You’re getting good at that,” Salrissa remarked as she stood aside, knives still in her hands, and gestured the trio into the room.

  “At what?” she asked, genuinely confused.

  “Getting others to do what you want,” the assassin offered. She eyed the city guardsman uneasily. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be better if he waited outside the room?”

  “Probably, but I promised him I wouldn’t be out of his sight all night. And since I have kept him past when he was supposed to return me, he is going to be in some trouble, so I owe him some sort of reason why. Besides, I have a suspicion that he might prove useful in the future. Also, if he gets us into trouble, I will cast a spell to make him a deaf-mute until the end of his days, so I suspect that he will cooperate. Yes?” The last question was directed at a now pale Marsen as he took the stool Celia sat on last time and moved it near the door. Celia had no such spell, nor was aware if one existed, but Marsen didn’t know that. She was shocked at her own boldness.

  Marsen nodded briefly and sat on the stool against the wall beside the door. Hicks moved over and sat on the bed, while Salrissa remained standing, looking like a caged Valkiiran leopard Celia had once seen in a travelling menagerie when she was a small child. She shrugged and moved to the wooden chair by the desk. At least this one had a small cushion. She turned the chair to face the room and sat.

  “Okay, when we last parted you indicated that you were going to ‘assist’ our friend and that you needed help from no one. Correct?” Celia asked of the assassin, who nodded her head once. “Now, based on what I know, and that’s not a lot, you have been all over this city looking for him, and have obviously not found him since he would be sitting here with a
silly grin on his face and a sarcastic remark. Or at least a sarcastic grin and a silly remark. So do you still insist that you do not need anyone’s help, freely offered?” she asked quietly.

  Salrissa paced back and forth a few times. Yes, a Valkiir leopard indeed. “What do you have in mind?” she finally asked reluctantly.

  “First, tell us what you know for certain, and then we can formulate a plan.” Celia strategized.

  “All I know, and it’s little at that, is that he’s not in The Depths.” At the mention of the name Marsen sat straighter and opened his mouth to speak, but Celia cut him off.

  “Our friend was caught in the raid on the Goralon Merchants' Guild last week, there upon some unrelated business, and we have been trying to locate him since,” she directed in Marsen’s direction. Celia couldn’t actually say he wasn’t a criminal. That would be lying. And she had a code about lying. Omitting a portion of the truth was occasionally necessary, but lying – objectionable.

  “I have checked with all my contacts, and no one has heard from him. I have searched The Depths, and he is not there. None of the Goralonians would talk to me, no matter how much I tried to ‘persuade’ them. Most knew nothing, or at least professed to, and I was inclined to believe them. It’s not like we were obvious in our visit.” Celia nodded at that comment. Salrissa continued, “Those that thought they knew something had a greater fear of Kartem, whoever or whatever that is, than I.” Salrissa stated, frustration evident in her voice; a voice normally as cold as the glaciers of the Icewall Mountains to the far north.

  Marsen made to speak again, and Celia raised a finger in his direction. He was fidgeting something fierce as he settled himself down on the stool.

  “Since then, Goralon has closed the borders to trade.” Hicks offered into the momentary silence. “So obviously the King was made aware of events happening in Tala’ahar, and had reacted.”

  “The mirrors,” Salrissa muttered under her breath as she stared at Celia, who could only shrug in reply.

  “Yes, they must have acquired a magemirror, or possibly more. Or they have some other way to talk over long distances.” Hicks summarized. "There’s nothing to be done about that. The question is what do we do about our ‘friend’?”

  They simmered in silence for a few moments until Marsen finally spoke into the void. “I know where your friend might be, but I’m not sure you can get to him. I’m not sure he will even be alive.”

  All three women turned to the guardsman, who recoiled slightly from their stares. They said nothing, and he fidgeted under their glare. He finally continued, “I was there last week, on the raid I mean. We – me and my partner – didn’t get past the second floor. Orders were to find the magemirror and make sure no one got a chance to use it. We found it in a room on the second floor, and decided to smash it, but those things are impossible to break. Wore us out trying, so we just guarded the room until we were told the tower was clear. Once all the Goralonians were rounded up, we escorted the prisoners to Parr’ador. Two prisoners were killed trying to escape; most of the rest went to The Depths. Two went topside.” He stopped talking, like his explanation answered all their questions.

  “Topside? You mean the sky citadel?!” Hicks asked incredulously, looking pale.

  “Yes, the sky citadel.” Marsen stated plainly. “Even if he was as innocent as you say, they have ways of getting information that would cause most to confess, just to stop the pain. Of course, that assumes he was not one of the two that tried escaping.”

  “So how are we going to find out if he is alive or dead?” Hicks asked into the quiet room.

  “We ask.” Celia stated. The others looked at her incredulously.

  ---o---

  It was fully dark when Celia and Marsen left the Red Rooster Inn, heading back to the Embassy. Marsen seemed to be in a mood, so Celia let him stew for a while before engaging him in conversation. “How much trouble will you be in when we get back?” She didn’t like reminding him of a future fate, but it was her fault they would be late getting back, and she felt a little guilty.

  “Maybe a little, but you didn’t sneak off, and I’m returning you healthy and whole. So it won’t be too bad,” he paused for a long while, “but that’s not what I’m upset about.”

  “I suspected as much,” Celia responded quietly. “What bothers you?”

  “I guess I am a little bothered by the fact than an innocent man may be tortured,” the guardsman said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t call him innocent, exactly,” responded Celia while still watching the shadows to either side. They were taking one of the wider avenues now with oil lamps two spans high, lit every five or six spans. All this did was to make the alleyways appear darker.

  Every once and a while, they would see a city guard night patrol walking with their maces in hand, looking for trouble to break up. They had serious faces on, all mean men with hard eyes and scars, and standard issue leather armor and skull caps. Each team consisted of eight men. Each time they passed one, Marsen would bow his head, in submission or respect, Celia couldn’t tell.

  “So why was he at the merchants' guild tower that night?” he asked her, looking at her sideways in the light from the lanterns. She noted that he had one hand on the pommel of his mace, and it appeared that it had been so all along.

  Just as she was trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t implicate Hoyle, distant bells began to cry out in alarm. She and Marsen stopped where they were for a brief moment to determine their origin.

  “The sky citadel!” cried Marsen. “I have to get you back to the embassy as fast as possible m’lady. We’re going to have to run the remainder of the way.” He started to drag her down the Trade Way.

  She pulled back. “Just a minute! Why do we have to hurry? What’s the danger down here if alarms are going off up there?” Celia demanded gesturing to the flickering lights floating above the sleeping city.

  Marsen stopped tugging briefly while he explained. “If there is a problem up there that’s important enough to ring those bells, then the streets down here will be flooded with troops in less than half a bell. And you do not want to be on the street once that happens. All Tala’aharians know to close up their doors and windows, and get off the streets if those bells begin to ring.” He gestured around him with his free hand, still hanging on to her arm with the other. His free hand returned to the handle of his mace.

  Celia looked around, and could now see people hurrying about, many ducking into the Inns or Taverns fronting the Trade Way, others hurrying past. They were the only ones standing still on the avenue. “Okay, let’s go, but stop dragging me!” she said exasperated, “I can run on my own.”

  They set off east towards the embassy at a jog, crossing the wide bridge over the Aerilynn River as the road dipped into the shallow, wide valley the river made as it entered the bay. The bridge was made of stone, with life-like weathered statues of various creatures lining both sides of the bridge. It was said that this bridge was the collaboration between elves and dwarves millennia ago, before the Elf-Orc war, and the dwarves retreated into their mountain homes, the elves to their forests.

  She hardly had time to admire the bridge this night, as the oil lamps spaced evenly between the statues flickered, giving them false life, turning them into scary monstrosities to be avoided. They jogged across the bridge and up the gentle incline to the east, noting that troops were starting to disgorge from the tower barracks that littered the city. The problem they faced, now that she thought it over; was that the Imperial Sky citadel was roughly located just off the Trade Way that they were following. It hovered over the Palace, which was located on a small bluff looking down onto the wide avenue. They would almost have to run right underneath the thing to get back to the embassy.

  As she looked closer, passing the barracks closest to the embassy, it seemed that though the troops were amassing outside their barracks, but they appeared to be awaiting orders. She guessed those would come via magemirror to the comm
anders in each tower, but must not have arrived yet.

  They turned the corner onto “Friendship Way”, the road that many of the embassies were located on. They arrived to find two new guards in front of the door to the embassy. They proceeded up the steps as Marsen gave greeting to his peers.

  “Thank you guardsman,” Celia offered to Marsen as she waited for one of the clerks to answer her knock. If all else failed, she could cast her spell, and enter the building, but protocol stayed her hand.

  “You’re welcome m’lady,” Marsen responded.

  “There’s Seven Hells to pay, I’d wager,” offered one of the guards without prompting. “Julgasar mentioned to tell ye that once you returned.”

  Just at that moment, a troop of at least twenty city guards turned the corner, and proceeded up the road that ran past the embassy. The leader was ringing a brass bell of warning that must have some specific meaning to the city folk. Marsen gestured to her to get inside, and the three guards stepped to the top of the stairs, blocking her from their view.

  Celia decided that protocol be damned, and began her unlocking spell. At just that moment, the door opened and Wendinard gestured for her to enter. He closed the door crisply upon the scene unfolding outside as the troop of guardsmen had reached the embassy. He made a gesture to be quiet, and they listened to voices on the other side of the thick oak door. The voices rose in pitch, and then died off. They waited for a few minutes, and then they heard three taps on the door from outside.

  “That is the ‘all clear’ signal m’lady. It is safe to go to bed now. The guards outside have dealt with any issues that might have arisen if you were seen.” Wendinard declared. He must sleep in his dress uniform, since Celia noted that he was still impeccably dressed even though it was close to twelfth bell, and everyone else would be asleep.

  She thanked Wendinard, and proceeded to her room.

  ---o---

  Waking the next morning to knocking at her door, she opened it to find Puralina staring up at her with her piercing blue eyes.