“But Calen wouldn’t really help him!” Meg said, exasperated. He wouldn’t. “He must just be . . . he must just be pretending. . . .”
“Maybe,” Serek said, then held up his hands in response to Meg’s darkening expression and added, “Probably. Almost certainly. But Mage Krelig can be . . . very persuasive. He persuaded Calen to go along with him in the first place, didn’t he? Who’s to say he won’t have ways to ensure Calen’s continued cooperation?”
“But —”
“I don’t believe Calen wants to help him. I don’t believe Calen is a traitor. But do I believe that he might be caught up in something bigger than he can handle? Do I believe he might not be able to avoid helping Krelig in the end? Yes, I think those things are possible.”
Meg clenched her fists. “But —”
“Which is why,” Serek broke in, “I think we need to find him and do everything we can to get him back. Soon.”
Meg forced herself to take a few deep breaths. Calm down, she told herself. He wants to help, so just calm down and listen.
“All right,” she said at last. “So how do we do that?”
“Magic!” Anders said, spreading his hands wide on either side of his head and waving them around dramatically.
Everyone ignored him.
“As I said,” Serek went on, “Krelig will be protected against any standard sort of location spell. So we’ve been trying to come up with alternatives that are more . . .”
“Sneaky,” Anders put in.
Serek paused, then conceded, “Well, yes. More sneaky. Something he won’t have anticipated or prepared against. And we think we have found a good approach.”
“It was my idea,” Anders reminded them.
Meg looked around the crowded study doubtfully. “You’re going to attack him with birds?”
“We’re going to use the birds to find Calen and try to communicate with him.”
Meg blinked. “You can do that?”
“Magic!” Anders whispered, waving his hands around again.
“We think so,” Serek said. “We believe that if we can infuse the birds with a strong enough sense of who Calen is and — most important — a strong enough desire to find him, they’ll be drawn to wherever he is. And once they find him, be able to give him a message. At least to let him know that we are looking for him, and that we want to bring him home.”
Meg didn’t quite understand the infusing part, but the rest of it sounded . . . well, it sounded a lot more promising than her plan of going out every night and having Jakl scan the ground for signs below them. “But how can I help with that? I can’t do any magic.” She glanced at Anders and waved her hands in the air experimentally. He grinned at her.
Serek rolled his eyes. “Don’t encourage him.” Then he looked at her seriously, leaning forward across the table. “You can help because you know Calen better than anyone. And . . .” He hesitated, seeming to search for just the right words. “Ability is important in magic,” he said at last. “Ability and power and knowledge: all of those are essential. But the most essential part of casting any spell is intention. Desire. The force of will that drives the magic to do what you want it to do. As much as I want to bring Calen home — and I do sincerely want that, very much — I think it is safe to say that no one wants to bring him back home more than you.”
Meg swallowed, feeling suddenly on the verge of tears. Serek was certainly right about that last part. She nodded, not quite trusting herself to speak. Pela reached over and took her hand under the table. Meg squeezed it gratefully.
Serek held her eyes a moment more, then sat back, apparently satisfied. He gestured to Anders, who turned and opened up the cage beside him. The crow quorked quietly and fluttered its wings a little, but otherwise seemed undisturbed by the sudden attention. Anders held it gently with both hands and carried it over to them, then placed it in the center of the table. The crow tilted its head and regarded Anders silently from its new location.
“Blackie seems to like you,” Pela murmured, smiling.
Anders blinked at her, seeming surprised. “Of course he does. Everyone likes me.”
Pela laughed, and for once Meg appreciated Anders’s strange good humor. She looked back at Serek, feeling more or less back in control of herself.
“All right,” she said. “How do we begin?”
CALEN TOOK A BREATH AND TRIED again to clear his mind. The spell wasn’t a difficult one — or, at least, it shouldn’t have been — but it was hard to concentrate through the pain.
You won’t be in pain once you heal yourself. Come on. Try again. He nodded, not caring how crazy it was to nod in response to something he said to himself inside his own head. He couldn’t spare the mental energy to care about anything other than focusing enough to cast this spell. He looked again at the angry red welts that lined his left arm. There were more across his back and the back of his legs. They pulsed excruciatingly with every heartbeat, some of them leaking blood at the places where his skin had been entirely stripped away.
Don’t think about that. Don’t think about anything. He tried closing his eyes, but he could still see Mage Krelig’s wild face, streaks of red magic flying from his outstretched fingertips, the last thing Calen saw before he recovered his wits enough to run. The mage had been in a foul mood all morning, but his sudden fury and lashing out had seemed to come from nowhere.
Because he’s a crazy person, remember?
I know.
Calen closed his eyes and worked at gathering the energy for the healing spell. He tried to will himself not to feel the pain, to imagine how good he would feel once the spell was cast and his body was healed. Slowly, he felt it beginning to work. Yellow and green energy materialized in a gentle cloud around his arm, penetrating the wounds and encouraging his skin to knit back together. He wanted to make it happen faster, but resisted trying to speed up the spell. It was hard enough keeping his concentration steady as it was.
Once his arm was healed, he moved on to his back. Then his legs.
Finally, exhausted but now suffering only the lingering memory of the pain, Calen relaxed. He lay back on his bed and gave himself a few minutes just to be still, breathing, relishing the feeling of not bleeding anymore.
Then he tried to think about what had just happened.
Not that it was always possible to make any sense of Mage Krelig’s actions — he often behaved erratically, surprising Calen with sudden anger or, almost as often, surprising him by not being angry when Calen expected him to be. But usually Calen could at least identify the trigger of the man’s rages. This time there hadn’t been anything at all.
Yes, there was. You’re still not learning quickly enough.
That wasn’t quite it, though. It wasn’t about the learning, exactly — it was about that great reserve of power Krelig seemed to think Calen had inside him. Power he thought Calen was willfully refusing to let out. But Calen had done everything right today — he’d mastered every spell, he hadn’t been slow — and then suddenly Krelig had just attacked.
I have to get out of here.
He knew that was true. But he didn’t like to think about it very much. For one thing, he had come to realize just how difficult it was going to be to get away. Krelig left him alone for hours at a time, but he always seemed to know where Calen had been. If Calen tried to leave on foot, he had no doubt that Mage Krelig would be able to find him without any trouble. Calen didn’t even try to make himself believe that his invisibility spell would fool Krelig for a second. It had fooled him once, briefly, but that was back when Krelig was still on the other side of the portal, and even then, he was able to sense that there was magic at work in the room. If he could sense that much while peering through a window from another world, he certainly wouldn’t have any trouble sensing what Calen was up to when he was right here.
Calen had thought about trying to steal a slaarh and ride it back to Trelian, but that idea had so many things wrong with it, he could barely count them a
ll.
The only idea that seemed to hold any promise was his jumping spell, the one he’d used to travel to where Maurel had been taken by Sen Eva. But he would only be able to go short distances at a time, only transport himself to spaces he could actually see before him, and the land around the castle was dense with trees. He wouldn’t be able to see very far at all. Which meant that it would probably be very easy for Mage Krelig to catch up with him.
There was one more option, but he knew it wasn’t one he should even think about. That was the idea of jumping all the way back to Trelian. He was pretty sure he could do it, in theory; he’d transported both Meg and himself a great distance that first time when he’d cast the spell by accident. But Serek and Anders had explained later on that Calen had been very, very lucky. That there were all kinds of terrible things that could happen when a mage transported himself to a place he couldn’t see. Not the least of which was that something else, or even someone else, could already be in the place you were transporting to. Which meant that when you appeared, you might . . . overlap. You could end up partially inside a wall. Or a person.
In his head, Calen heard Anders’s gleeful voice whisper: half-embedded. He shuddered.
No. He couldn’t try that. Even if he was desperate. Because even if he was willing to risk his own life, he couldn’t know that he wouldn’t be risking the life of someone else.
Unless he could know for sure somehow that the place he was transporting to was empty . . .
No.
Besides, he was pretty sure that Krelig had some sort of wards placed that would prevent him from transporting himself out of the castle. Probably also wards that would alert him if Calen just walked out. Calen had tried to detect any such wards, but so far he hadn’t had any luck. He could see his own wards when he cast them, but then even those faded into invisibility once the spell was done.
Well, you have to figure out something, he told himself angrily.
Of course, the reason he hadn’t figured anything out so far was also the other reason he didn’t like to think too much about leaving. He hadn’t learned enough yet. He was sure there was so much more he could learn from Mage Krelig — maybe once he learned enough, he’d be able to cast his way out. His way home.
He just wasn’t ready.
But you might not have much time. Not if he’s losing his mind completely. If he gets mad enough, he might just kill you.
I know.
Calen got up from his bed and went out to his balcony. Some of the little cheerful birds were there, perched along the outer wall. He’d started remembering to tuck away pieces of bread from breakfast, and he took one out now, holding it out in one hand toward the nearest bird. The bird hopped cautiously toward him, paused, then darted closer and snatched the bread from his hand before flitting back away. Calen laughed.
“I’m not going to hurt you, little friend,” he said. He watched it finish off the bread, then leaned his forearms on the wall and looked out over the treetops. A dark shape flying in the distance made him catch his breath for a second, but he realized almost immediately that it couldn’t possibly be anything as large as a dragon. After a moment, he could make out the shape more clearly: it was just a crow.
He watched it swooping in seemingly aimless patterns above the trees. Looking for good places to find a snack, maybe. Sorry, crow, Calen thought. I’m out of bread for today.
He went back inside. He was about to lie back down on the bed when he heard a deep ringing sound, like a bell, only he knew it wasn’t really a bell. It was something Krelig did to summon Calen to him when he wanted him.
Calen looked unhappily at the door to the hallway. He did not want to go back out there. But he had to. Disobeying was not really an option. Especially not when Krelig was already angry.
Maybe he won’t be anymore. That was a possibility. His moods shifted so quickly, after all. He might be all smiles by the time Calen reached him. And if he wasn’t, well, this time Calen would be ready, at least. He’d been caught too much by surprise earlier to do anything other than run. He thought that he could get a shield up in time to block Krelig’s attack for a few seconds, if he went in ready to do so. Long enough to get back out the door, at least.
Unless he’s really trying to kill me next time, he thought miserably. He didn’t think he could hold out even a few seconds against Krelig at full murderous strength.
Calen pushed that idea away and made his way down the hall and back toward where he could sense Krelig waiting. The bell sound was usually, as now, accompanied by an awareness of Krelig’s presence in a certain direction, so that Calen could make his way directly to where his master was as quickly as possible.
Never keep a crazy man waiting, Calen thought to himself, crazily.
He had to stop doing that.
You’ve been talking to yourself in your head a lot lately.
I know.
When he arrived at the right place, Calen cleared his mind and tried to be ready. Then he took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
“Ah, Calen! There you are, my boy.” All smiles.
Calen started to relax, but as he stepped into the room, he realized that Mage Krelig was not alone. Five other mages sat in chairs that had been arranged in a semicircle around where Krelig was sitting. They were looking at Calen curiously.
“Come in, come in!” Krelig said, gesturing at Calen enthusiastically. “Our guests want to meet you.”
Calen stepped cautiously forward. He hadn’t seen anyone other than Krelig in . . . weeks? Months? He had lost track of exactly how long he’d been here, he realized. It was strange to be around other people again. What were they doing here? For a second his heart seemed to stop inside him, caught in a sudden terrible fist of hope. Could they be here to try to get him out?
Then he remembered Krelig’s announcement about expecting company.
Oh. Of course. He was an idiot.
They were here to join Mage Krelig. Traitors to the Magistratum.
Just like you.
Shut up. I am not a traitor.
He studied them more carefully, as they were studying him. Three men and two women, their faces all marked to various degrees, identifying them as mages and reflecting their levels of experience and ability.
“This is the boy everyone was fighting about?” the younger of the two women asked. She had blazing red hair tied up in a loose knot behind her head. Calen guessed she was only a year or two older than he was, but the extent of the tattoos on her face was impressive. He’d seen mages much older than her with a lot fewer marks. He didn’t much care for her tone, though. And who was she calling a boy? She wasn’t exactly anyone’s grandmother!
“I know he doesn’t look like much,” Krelig responded infuriatingly, “but he’s quite powerful. Not able to access all of it yet, but we’re working on that, aren’t we, Calen?”
“Sure,” Calen said, his eyes still fixed on the others. A few of the mages seemed almost embarrassed to be there. Or to be seen there, maybe. They all seemed uncomfortable, anyway. Except the obnoxious girl.
Krelig went on, seemingly oblivious to the tension among everyone else in the room. Or just not caring. He spoke directly to Calen, as though the others weren’t sitting right there. “These few are just the beginning. More will follow soon. You will see.”
Calen nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“Mage Krelig,” one of the men said hesitantly, “what should we — what will —?”
Krelig glanced at him sharply, as if he’d forgotten the other mages already. “Yes, yes,” he said. “We will talk about all of that soon enough. For now, I think you should rest. You must be tired after your long journey.” He turned back to Calen again. “Take our guests upstairs and show them to their rooms.”
The obnoxious girl snorted. “Is he your apprentice or your servant?”
Krelig turned slowly back around. He looked at her until her smirk disappeared. Then he said, “He is whatever I need him to be.
You would do well to follow his example if you desire a permanent place in my little army, my dear.”
She looked down and away, not speaking. But she didn’t seem very chastened; her smile didn’t return, but her mouth twisted slightly, and Calen could see one of her eyebrows arched in a somewhat skeptical expression. He felt a mean little smile tug at his lips. That was definitely not the right response.
“Do you?” Mage Krelig asked softly.
Her eyes snapped back up. She looked around, confirmed that he was talking to her, and asked finally, “Do I what?”
“Do you want a permanent place here?”
“Sure. Of course.”
“Sure of course what?”
The other mages were beginning to look even more uncomfortable. Calen stood patiently, knowing he should be worried that the girl was ruining Krelig’s good mood, but he was too glad to see her getting taken down a peg.
She looked around again and uttered a defensive-sounding laugh. “I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to be here. It wasn’t easy, you know! I don’t really know what you expect me to say —”
She broke off with a gasp and clapped a hand to her arm. When she took her hand away, Calen saw a deep red line across the skin there. She stared at it, then back at Mage Krelig.
“Do you think I care what you had to do to come here? Do you think anything you had to endure could possibly compare to hundreds of years of exile, having to claw your way back to this world by casting across time and space and relying on the assistance of incompetent, unskilled, ignorant —” He broke off, seeming to recognize for once that he was sliding into a rant. He took a breath, then continued. “Now. I’m going to ask you one more time. Do you desire a permanent place here, Mage Helena?”
She finally seemed to start to understand. She glanced again at the red lash on her arm, then back up. “Yes. Yes, Mage Krelig. I want a permanent place here. I — I desire that very much.”
The Mage of Trelian Page 4
