Wilder Mage

by CD Coffelt

  “You and your woman convene with me as soon as I can arrange a meeting place.”

  Quick and to the point, Dayne thought. “Has the wilder’s position been triangulated?”

  He heard an irritated sound. “Yes. Somewhere approximately three hundred miles from your tener unus. You are in the vicinity.”

  “Close. Huh. What do you want done about the surveillance on Sable?”

  “Sable.” Tiarra’s voice sounded guttural, uttering the name like a curse. “The tener unus is being dealt with. She is no longer your main concern.”

  “Dealt with? What do you mean?”

  “She is being escorted even now to a rendezvous point so that I may take her myself.”

  “How? I told you she has some magic now. She could zap someone and defend herself. It isn’t like she is without the means to escape.”

  He heard her laugh. “That has been taken care of. Take my word for it, the tener unus is under control and even now is being held without harm to my operative.”

  “What about Sable? Has she been hurt?”

  Again, he heard her chuckle, with real humor this time. “I am sure she is fine. My operative will contact you with the time and location of the drop off.”

  The line went dead.

  For a moment, he stared blindly at the opposite wall. When he looked at Macy, her narrowed eyes were on him, judging and assessing his conversation.

  “You heard?” he asked.

  “I heard enough,” Macy said. “She had someone pick Sable up, take her against her will, and is transporting her to a location to be delivered directly to Tiarra.”

  “Yeah, I’d say you caught the gist of the conversation,” he said wryly.

  A shadow crossed her face. “This isn’t right, taking that girl like this. What kind of people are we, allowing a despot like Tiarra to control every aspect of our lives?”

  Dayne stepped back from the hard look on her face, stunned by Macy’s fervor and passionate words. Was there something to it?

  A thumping ache began in his skull, and he automatically rubbed his temples. Macy seemed unaware, lost in her own anger. Her eyes came up to his and her face cleared. Macy’s vehemence smoothed into concern.

  She rolled her eyes as she patted his arm. “Don’t worry about me; it’s just my way of dealing with all this.” Macy swept her arm at the chaos around the room.

  “Hey,” Dayne said. “Why don’t you get something to eat? I’ve got to meet with my team, and I want you there when I do.”

  “Did you want me to bring you back a sandwich?” Macy asked.

  “Yeah, that’d be great. I can make some calls, and we’ll picnic right here in the meeting room.”

  She cast a dubious eye around the paper-strewn area, laptops and folders scattered among adepts answering cell phones. In the midst of the smell of burnt coffee and stale pastries, it had been a madhouse in their motel suite since the eruption from the wilder. They had fielded panicked calls from other adepts, asking the same questions.

  “Who was that?”

  “What are you doing about it?”

  Adepts with the ability to calm agitated people manned the phones. Their abilities were more of a human quality than magical, a soothing voice and manner.

  The Imperium’s wizards had clawed for their phones to call in the wilder. Every one of them believed no one but they had sensed the outlawed use of magic. It worked as a tips hotline for wizards who were out of control. But it was narcissistic to a degree. His staff answered every call, recorded, tabulated, and pinpointed the adept calling.

  Macy gestured at the subdued chaos. “Picnic. Really.”

  He was happy to hear her laugh. It was one less problem to worry about. She glided past the organized bedlam and out the door. Only later did he realize his headache had eased away as well.

  By late afternoon, after their sandwich and chips on the sofa, the turmoil had slowed. Dayne stretched, easing the ache in his stiff back muscles, his joints cracking as he did. Three mages remained in the meeting room coordinating different locations, but clearly, the day was winding down.

  Macy tapped her fingers on the low table, her eyes far away. After their earlier light conversation during their impromptu meal, her mood had shifted to something darker, pensive. Waiting, he decided, holding secrets. Even as this thought came to him, his cell phone rang and Macy pounced on it.

  A silent snarl transformed her face as she listened without speaking, the cell phone pressed firmly against her ear. He stretched his hand out to take it from her, but she shook her head and pulled out of his reach.

  “Fine,” Macy told the speaker and then cut the connection.

  Her hard face surprised him.

  “It is Wesley. He is Tiarra’s operative,” Macy said. “That piece of shit took Sable. He’s holding her, and we can’t do anything about it.”

  A fierce stabbing pain shot through his skull as Dayne tried to make sense of Macy’s words.

  Street Fair - Wallagrass @ seven pm

  The candy-apple red letters across the whiteboard caught his attention every time he happened to glance up. Notifications went out to the appropriate adepts, and all seemed ready for the transfer in three hours.

  Macy had simmered in anger since the message from Tiarra, but did not give her reasons for her mood. The regrettable circumstance of Sable’s—he corrected himself—the tener unus’s behavior had no other outcome. Wilders and the magic of stubborn adepts fell under the jurisdiction of the Imperium.

  His subs prepared their reports and strategy. He patted the shoulder of one adept who delivered several flashdrives Dayne had asked for. The fellow was obviously running on fumes, his face gray with exhaustion. He looked up when Dayne spoke words of encouragement. The man smiled wanly, but squared his shoulders. A little commiseration went a long way. And his team needed it.

  Dayne turned back to the three men sitting at the table. Their sharp-eyed posture differed from the clerks and assistants. Emotionless, hard-jawed, they sat in varying degrees of fierce attention as they listened to Tiarra’s words coming from the speakerphone.

  “But not until I arrive,” she was saying. “Don’t touch the human. Don’t reveal yourself to the tener unus. You will remain out of sight unless she breaks away from the human. Until she escapes.”

  One man frowned. “But you say the human has fixed magic that negates the girl’s. Can she break it somehow?”

  “Yes. It isn’t foolproof. Or idiot-proof, as in this instance. This human is below even their usual level of low intelligence. The girl will eventually break out of the animal’s shielding device. If she kills him, fine. If not, Conor, you will provide clean-up detail and take care of the human. Tie up that loose end.”

  The guard examining his immaculate manicure glanced up. “Of course, Tiarra.”

  “Until the moment I take her or she breaks free from the human, my orders stand; observe, blend, do not interfere unless I or my Imperator instructs you differently. Stay out of sight.”

  She cut the connection.

  “Well, this is an interesting assignment, but it’s not like I’ll be breaking a sweat over this one,” said an adept. The beefy thug laid both hands on the table as he stood and then stretched. “We are to go there now and wait for this fool to show up with Tiarra’s prize, and then she will take over. Doesn’t sound too hard.”

  Another man stood and shrugged. “Sounds like overkill to me.”

  “Nevertheless, it’s time for you to get the move on,” Dayne said.

  The third man flexed his muscles, and the sleeve of his red polo shirt rode up his arm. He laughingly declared that he would be the one to turn the tener unus. Knowing Sable as he did, Dayne thought the sweat-rings under the burly guard’s armpits would not impress her. Dayne elected to remain silent as the three men joked, crudely making bets on who would be the one to bring the tener unus to see the light.

  Uncharacteristically, Macy didn’t react to their jests. Whether he met with his
accounting staff or thugs, she had kept to herself, listening intently. Her emotions bloomed as the guards entered the elevator. She motioned to Dayne, and he followed her into their private room away from the clerks and chattering equipment.

  “Dayne, what if…” Macy paused and swallowed. “What if this adept—”

  “Wilder,” he corrected. “An unrestrained, dangerous wilder.”

  “Wilder. Okay. So what if he isn’t?”

  “Isn’t what?”

  “Nuts. Crazy. A megalomaniac. What if he is just like, well, like Sable, just trying to live his life?”

  He shook his head and started to reply.

  “No,” she said. “You. Aren’t. Listening to me. What if he is just like us?”

  He stepped back, surprised at her ferocity. Her eyes blazed in a way he had never seen before, and because of that, he paused before he gave her a glib answer. This was Macy, his love. Dayne stopped his automatic response to consider it for a moment and…

  What if it were true?

  What if the mage wasn’t evil?

  As a supervisor and leader of the Imperium, Dayne had exercised his power of observation and deduction skills in many circumstances, as an investigator and in the field. It came naturally to him, the methodical reasoning applied to the facts of a case. But when he tried to apply his training to Macy’s question, his thoughts seemed to slide to other cases.

  The sound of a phone ringing in the outer room made him start and think he should answer it. He shook his head to clear it; what was he thinking? He had assistants delegated for that duty. They reported to him, not the other way around.

  What was he thinking?

  He looked at Macy, confused when she continued to look at him steadily. Why was she here? And…

  He remembered. The wilder, questions about the…

  A fierce headache bloomed behind his eyes. He needed aspirin. Where did he put the bottle? He should go get it now…

  A hand touched his knee, and Dayne looked at her. Why was she here…and the wilder?

  Now she held his face, cupping her hands around his cheeks and looking at him intently. When his mind began to shift away, Macy shook him and his eyes came back to her. Dayne tried to focus on her alone. And the question.

  What if?

  The training dictated this process, cataloguing the pros and cons of every argument.

  He tried to consider the facts, focusing on what he knew from Tiarra.

  Years ago, she had attempted to bond with a powerful mage.

  The mage eluded her and remained free.

  He was highly dangerous. Restraining the wilder by any means necessary was the only answer, only common sense.

  His headache sharpened into hot spear points, pounding in time to the beats of his heart.

  Dayne closed his eyes and tried to focus. It was like stepping into heavy clay. He needed to follow the facts logically, but he had to pull free of the mire with each step. He tried to force his mind to his will and felt it slide away again.

  Macy shook him violently, and fresh pain surged through his skull. He sucked in a breath and tried again, holding Fire in his hand.

  In the time since the adept escaped from Tiarra, the unsuspecting world had suffered no catastrophes traceable to a wild mage.

  Distantly, Dayne realized he was sweating and his heart thumped strangely. He gritted his teeth and ignored them as well as Macy’s clinical expression.

  The wilder was benign, posed no threat to the world or the Imperium.

  With that thought, white-hot needles pierced his skull, and Dayne groaned in agony. Somewhere in his normal world, arms held him and murmured into his ear.

  “No more for now,” Macy said softly. “Don’t try to force it. Let it go.”

  He panted, surprised he was on the floor. His dry mouth tasted of copper. He wiped his chin and stared uncomprehendingly at the blood on his hand.

  “You, all of the adepts she has touched, Tiarra left something in them that demands absolute, unqualified obedience. Even to think about defying her makes you ill, doesn’t it?” Macy said.

  Dayne stared at her, but couldn’t answer. Even to think about nodding made the sweat break out on his forehead.

  “Do you see?” she said quietly. “You can’t fight it alone.”

  Macy leaned over him; he felt her reach for her elements Air and Earth. Dayne didn’t think she was even aware she had done it. “We carry Tiarra with us. We pay a price to that bitch every day and every minute of every day. It’s an offering left for a savage god.”

  She gestured at the closed door and the clerks behind it. He felt her two elements swarm around the room as she threw her hand, gesturing. “All of them. We are all in an invisible prison.”

  He struggled to speak. Her face shadowed when he pushed her hands away and stood. For a moment, he stared down at her, and she bit her lip, the start of tears in her eyes. Then he offered his hand.

  She started to speak, but stopped when he put his finger over her lips. Dayne sat on the chair beside the window and let his mind wander as he stared at the floor. Macy took the other chair and waited.

  “There was this woman once,” he began. He stopped and grinned when he saw her shock. “Not like that. It was a promotion I wanted, a regional supervisor for the eastern area. I had this woman in mind.”

  He looked down at the black denims he wore and rubbed the material over his knee, thinking of that day. It was a cloudy memory, but at least it wasn’t painful now.

  “She was funny, but competent, knew how to lead and allow her subordinates to do their jobs without micromanaging their every move. Pam was everything I wanted for that position, and when I took her to meet Tiarra for the first time, I knew there was nothing she could say to change my mind. Nothing.”

  After the meeting, he didn’t know what he had seen in the woman. Now he understood.

  “I walked into the meeting with absolute confidence that Pam was my next supervisor. All I needed was the final signatures and her next assignment. But Tiarra took one look at her, smiled, and then made subtle disparaging comments. Just like that, I looked at Pam and wondered why she was even in the same room with us. I promoted another mage, a man Tiarra fancied. He’s an idiot, but she likes him.”

  Macy remained silent, searching his face. She nodded, as if she saw something she needed to know.

  “I’ll ask you again, what if he is like us and only wants to live without shackles?” Macy said quietly.

  “He isn’t like us, Macy,” Dayne said.

  She started to argue, but stopped when he held up one finger and shook his head fiercely.

  “He isn’t like us,” he repeated. But this time, he nodded. The pain spiked, but then drained away.

  Macy’s eyes widened.

  “He will be caught.” Dayne’s negative shake of his head made her break into a grin.

  “By the way, how do you get around it?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then slowly drew a pendant from around her neck. The black chain was made of fine interlocking links of metal, and the stone itself was brown with flecks of green and gray. It was unremarkable. Until this moment, he hadn’t known she wore it.

  He took the stone into his hand and rubbed it between his thumb and fingers. Still warm from her skin, it was smooth as pliant wax, with no marks or etchings. Confused, he looked at her silently.

  Macy slipped the stone down her shirt again, hiding it carefully under her collar. “I met a stranger once while jogging that trail in the park. He knew my name. He knew your name. He knew things no one, not even another wizard, should know. And he was human, not another mage.

  “He gave me this—” she patted the hidden stone “—and told me about the bonding process. He gave me options. To ignore him and what he was saying and go along with all the lies. Or take the stone and see for myself what was happening. I chose the stone.”

  He studied her for a moment, then nodded. “It appears I can speak of it in general terms, but I canno
t…break out of it without some damage. Headaches. I think I get them every time I even think about straying from Tiarra’s path. You know something, though.”

  Macy sighed and nodded.

  “But if you tell me, I might not be able to break out of the bond before I give something away.”

  She started to speak and then stopped. Instead, she jerked her head into one quick nod.

  “Okay, well. I believe in this instance, I will get on with my business and you can get on with yours.”

  Dayne narrowed his eyes at her and smiled briefly when she nodded.

  She understood.

  “I need to leave for a while,” she said. She emphasized each word.

  He nodded and tried to ignore the stab of needles in his brain. “To get some coffee. Right?”

  The pain drained away.

  Macy looked at him without speaking and nodded. She immediately stood, swept her car keys from the bowl on the dresser, and walked out the door.

  He had his assignment and he would follow orders. Until she returned and told him…

  The pain made him squeeze his eyes shut. Coffee, until she returned with the coffee, he would continue his mission and hope the two did not overlap.

  But he didn’t think he would be so lucky.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Justus turned the key off, stepped out of his car, and paused to listen, searching with his senses for hunters. It was very quiet at the house, and he felt no one, Sable’s distinctive magical signature absent. The shop held nothing of her either. Justus had stopped there first, rattled the lock, and spun around to return to the still-running car. As he pressed the accelerator to the floorboards, he decided Sable had stayed secluded at the house. But she wasn’t there, the pickup gone, the house silent.

  Maybe she’d decided to hike the trails or take a drive, go to the store.

  By the time his feet hit the sidewalk, Justus broke into a run, clearing the steps in two jumps. He extended his senses into the house and then the surrounding yard, but there was no one near, human or mage.

  In the depths of the house, he thought he heard Zephyr trilling her displeasure. Except for the cat, it was stone-cold quiet, the silence a sentient being holding its breath.