The Laws Of Elios (Book 2)

by R N Skye

  “Just something I’ve been studying recently,” deflected Shane. “I’ll explain once I have a few set up to show you. Meanwhile we need to come up with a plan to either capture, free, or enlist these soldiers; and then figure out whatever Allion is up to.”

  Captain D’roe cleared his throat and interrupted, “most of them,” he nodded towards the door of the tent,” need to be freed of their wristbands and let go. They are not trained soldiers, just civilians enslaved and thrown into uniforms.” He paused for a mental calculation then continued. “Out of the four or five thousand out there, perhaps five hundred are actual soldiers.”

  “Ari,” Shane turned to his future brother in law. “Do you still have everyone glued to the ground out there?”

  “Yes,” he replied with raised eyebrows.

  “Good. At least we won’t have them tripping over each other or trying to attack us for the moment. The king can still see through their eyes so we need to get these bands deactivated and off as quickly as possible. We won’t have to but blue dots on them. That was for the element of surprise. Allion knows were here so I’m just going to unimbue the lot and then we will remove them all and destroy them. I’ll start on that,” Shane said, “Captain D’roe, Ari is over our tactical planning and implementation as well as intelligence. Shew is over our field work operations and works with Ari on intelligence as well. Your brother is currently assigned to Shew. We are not a military unit – we’re more of a magical planning group with key members of our team former military and intelligence experts. To help ease things for you, if you have any questions work through Ari.” Shane looked at Ari. “What should we do first?”

  “How about this,” suggested Ari. “I’ll, keep em glued until we get the wristbands deactivated and you put a parameter around the camp so that anyone that tries to leave will be repelled back into camp. Once the bands are off you can unstick them. Shew you and Junior move all of the civilians to the west side and Captain D’roe you move all of the soldiers to the east.

  Before we get started,” Ari said looking at the captain. “Do you have any idea where the main forces of the Infin army are?”

  Captain D’roe shook his head and frowned. “Not a clue. My orders before we met were to go gather more conscripts to take them to the stadium for something that they were needed for there. We were just setting up the bivouac when we were surrounded by our own troops and I was incarcerated, beaten, and interrogated by the king’s special guards. All I can think of, based on what I’ve learned from you and the questions that they asked, is that my family got away and the king wanted to know how and who was assisting them. I lost consciousness somewhere along the way and woke up when you guys were working on me. The only thing I can think of is that the entirety of the army is on its way north as an invasion force.”

  “Judging by what Shew and Junior saw on the sloop he’s is using the starblade, he may be able to knock down my barrier,” Shane said glumly. I’m going to estimate it may take a day or two for that many soldiers to get into position so let’s mop things up here and then I need to see what it will take to shore up that wall or destroy that starblade.

  As soon as we get the mess here in order, Shew you see what you can find out with your viewer. Ari as you start separating soldiers and civilians, see if the captain can find any other officers that might know more of Allion’s plan. I’m going to sit here set up the parameter shield and start pulling the lumen out of the wristbands.”

  As everyone left the command tent Shane pulled up the chair that the captain had been tied to and sat as comfortably as he could. Reaching out with his thoughts and envisioned a string of glyphs that would encircle the encampment with a sphere that used his repel glyph as the central focus. The area was massive and the mastery would require a majority of his concentration to maintain. How did the lumen mages do it? he thought to himself; they all have such massive enchantments and they obviously are able to concentrate on other things. Then it dawned on him. He knew. He’d already done it.

  The blue dot glyphs were true lumen mastery. They were the embodiment of an instruction set given form and function – they were literally physical magic. Now the question was did he have enough internal lumen to create a glyph that large.

  Mentally rolling up his sleeves Shane concentrated on the structure of the shield and begin to imbue it. The large shield began to pull lumen from him at an incredible rate; faster and at a volume one hundred times greater than when he had first created the blue dots. Shane felt the pressure like he was being squeezed both inside and out. He watched with his lumen sight and saw that the wall was nearly complete. He needed just a few feet more. With every last ounce of strength he gritted his teeth and with a physical lurch he felt the enchantment complete.

  Shane found himself on a sand dune. His lips were parched the sun was searing overhead. He felt as if he were a human raisin; as if every drop of water had been pulled from his body. Overhead several vultures glided a deadly pattern; descending visibly with every rotation. Shane tried to sit up but couldn’t move. Turning his head sideways he saw a small blue dot. As he focused he saw hundred and then thousands then hundreds of thousands of the blue dots. Some had a glow of light blue with a deep blue border; some had a glow of blue with a deep blue but a slight rainbow tinge. He reached for the nearest blue circle and touched it with his finger. He felt a coolness enter his arm and then the rest of him. He no longer felt as weak and dehydrates. Looking up he noted that the vultures while still circling they had ceased descending. Slowly he reached for another of the blue circles; this one was tinged with the slightest hints of a rainbow. As he touched the blue he felt a cautionary thought. This is not mine. As he withdrew his hand he heard the voice of Kuo’irus …Singer Here art thy glyphs Lumen Mage. The lumen contained therein is now yours to wield... gingerly he put his hand back into the rainbow tinges blue circle and one again he felt the increase of his strength as the circle faded away. Shane no longer felt dehydrated and as he looked the desert was now littered with green patches of grass and the odd tree. The vultures were now mere dots in the sky and there were noticeably fewer of them. Able to sit, Shane plunged his hands unto two more nearby of the blue circles. The refreshment was wonderful.

  Shane opened his eyes; He had fallen off of the chair. His face was on the ground looking at the bag that Kuo’irus had given him as well as his smaller pouch of blue dot neutralizer glyphs; both had fallen loose and spilled a portion of their contents in front of him. Shane sat up and retrieved the glyphs; carefully returning them to the pouches all except for two which he used his lumen sight to view them and carefully withdrew the lumen back into him-self. Shane felt refreshed. And returned the chair upright and retook his seat. Reaching out again he inspected the shield and saw that it was still in place and functioning. Recalling the immense pressure and the lumen that he had expended to make the barrier he smiled. If this worked like the blue glyphs it meant that he had just doubled his lumen capacity and the next time he did this it would be a lot easier – it also meant that when they were done with the shield he would be getting all of this lumen back.

  Focusing back on the task at hand he began reaching out to all the lumen he could find throughout the camp in the form of the wristbands. First one at a time then in multiples he began releasing the lumen from the corrupt devices. An hour later the task was complete. Realizing that the neutralizing blue glyphs wouldn’t be necessary now that the devices were deactivated he began pulling the lumen from each of the dots back into himself. He had retrieved nearly half of them and he noticed that he was glowing brightly. Carefully he increased his personal lumen shield and soon he was back to normal. Noting that there were still several hundred unrecovered glyphs he tried to make an extra-large blue glyph with the same neutralizing properties. Like the large shield this required exponentially more lumen than the small glyph. He felt the deletion of lumen from within himself but nowhere the massive amount that the repel shield had taken. Looking down he saw a rou
nd blue glyph of nearly a third of a cubit in diameter. Carefully he retrieved it and folded it and placed it into his pouch. Returning to the still active glyphs that had been applied to the now deactivated wristband he began pulling lumen into himself once more. When he had finally recovered the last of the blue glyphs he had made two more of the large size blue glyphs. And he had so much surplus lumen he had to increase his personal shield another time.

  Venturing out of the tent he saw Shew, Ari and the D’roe brothers standing outside watching him intently.

  Ari looked at him questioningly. “You okay?”

  Shane shrugged, “sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

  Ari shook his head and looked at Shew.

  Shew threw his hands in the air with a scowl. “I may not be the brightest crystal in the chandelier, Sonny, but when a tent lights up several times on a dark night brighter than the sun and doesn’t burn down and then you walk out easy as you please – Usually something’s up.”

  “Sorry,” Shane blushed with a sheepish expression on his face. “I was making the shield and it ended up as a learning experience.” Shane saw that there were two officers standing next to the group silently restrained. “What’s with these guys,” Shane asked.

  Ari undid a set of glyphs that had them frozen in place and marched them forward. These two are a pair of the king’s personal guards; both are Allyant possessed. One won’t talk at all and the other has asked to speak with the lumen mage that created the protective wall to the north. So we brought them here.”

  Shane took in the two stone faced soldiers. Looking beyond the visible spectrum he saw that they were full of the lethal red lumen; nearly the lumen of fifty people in each of them. Shane was impressed at the amount of strength that they had and even more impressed at Ari’s strength that was restraining them. “Well,” said Shane questioningly, “I am the one who made the wall. What is it you want?”

  The one on the left suddenly collapsed as the one on the right absorbed the others lumen and suddenly broke away from the restraints of Ari’s glyphs leaping at Shane with outstretched hands aimed at his throat. Shane didn’t even flinch. With hands less than an inch from his throat the Allyant froze and was surrounded by a silver haze. The man struggled for a few moments then stopped. Looking at Shane the guard laughed. “You are too late Lumen Mage. I have my army of Allyant slaves within days of the border. I am aboard my star blade and as soon as they arrive I will destroy your pitiful wall. I will then bleed your precious Luion one by one and use their lumen to destroy the seed world that the Elios have made in vain.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Shane said with a look of more confidence than he felt. “You forget that I have the strength of the star seeds at my disposal and the Elios at my back.” He bluffed.

  “You cannot fool me glyph mage. I have stolen the memories of your youthful spy Nuekirk. I know that you have a ceremony yet to perform and from the glyphs of his ring I know where. Until you seal the stars to this world they are not able to defend this system; without the magic of being sealed they are single and weak. With the lumen that I have siphoned from the inhabitants of this world I have the ability to ensnare them and their magic and nothing, not even a lumen mage, can stop me. As far as the Elios go they are all safely hiding in their nest of impenetrable lumen where I chased them five hundred years ago. Don’t try and lie to me. Your singer has fled, you have no Dernier Chanson, and your fellow Elios have abandoned you to a hopeless cause.”

  “You expect me to believe that every soldier in Infin is on the road to invade Luion,” taunted Shane. “I find that a little hard to believe.”

  “Believe what you want,” the Allyant spat. “The only soldiers that remain are those that I left behind to delay you while I destroyed your magically enhanced watercraft. Without your artifacts the Luion Navy will be at the bottom of the ocean, sunk by my armada and the lumen weapons that I have enhanced them with by day’s end tomorrow.”

  Shane looked at the Allyant and then at Ari and Shew. “Did he just tell us his whole plan?” Turning to the Allyant he asked, “Did I misunderstand something or did you just tell me your entire plan?”

  Ari shrugged, “I think he did.”

  Shew nodded. “It sure sounded like it to me.”

  Turning back to the Allyant, Shane sighed. “I feel sorry for you. With all of your planning and all of you scheming you forgot the most important thing.”

  “I have forgotten nothing. Your overconfidence is nothing more than a bluff,” retorted the Allyant.

  “If you say so; not to worry you though, but I have a guy named Stafford on my team and everything you are doing, he saw it coming. See you tomorrow at the border.” With a thought Shane sealed off the contact that the Allyant had with its host and slowly bled off the stolen lumen. When the host lumen was finally removed along with the residue all that remained was a corpse brought down by the magical abuse of the Allyant.

  ~~~~~

  The sun was beginning to rise in the east by the time the civilians had been released to find their way home. When all was said and done there were only four hundred regular soldiers left. Captain D’roe insisted that he stay behind and use the military to help stabilize the civilians and maintain order in Jehhet. He was given a comm so that he could contact them if he needed any magical assistance.

  Ren embraced his younger but not littler brother, patting him loudly and firmly on the back. “You sure you want to go with them?” he asked with sincerity as they pulled apart. “These guys are heading straight into a battle and not just swords and knives. From the sound of it there is going to be magic that hasn’t been seen in over thousands of years. It’s going to worse than fishing giant hull fish in a typhoon.”

  “No I need to go,” Junior said with conviction. “This has been the most fun I’ve had since my last brawl at the ox,” the younger brother joked, “and the guy leading us is the guy that beat me at arm wrestling.” Suddenly serious Junior added, “Don’t worry too much, I’ll be okay. As far as the magical stuff, Shane has my back; he proudly showed off his rings. Besides I’m going with Shew to help the navy guys out against the Infin Armada.”

  The two brothers parted and Shane opened a portal out from the shield to let the last of the soldiers out. He had decided to leave the shield up as it was more lumen than he could absorb to reclaim it and at the moment he didn’t want to just let it go in case he ran low in the upcoming battle. Using fire glyphs they burned the last of the wrist bands; the smoke causing a haze in the early morning light. With just Shane, Ari, Shew, and Junior remaining they went into the still standing command tent and began to plan.

  Chapter XII

  Pechor viewed the screens from the cockpit of the lumen filled star blade. They showed him that the craft was at ninety percent fuel. Too late he realized he had used nearly five percent senselessly blasting the magical ship that the lumen mage had constructed – but it had been so cathartic; teaching that insignificant back world mage that he was nothing compared to the might of the Allyant. Besides he would be moving every ship in the Infin Navy to destroy Lu Y Onton harbor in the morning. Even still, the star blade had used far more power operating within the gravity well of the planet than it did traveling faster than the speed of light between stars; he would need to siphon more lumen after he captured Luion.

  He landed the craft near the border near the Infin side of the magical barrier. All he needed to do is put a breach in it and he would march his army into Luion and begin distributing wristbands and fully fuel the ship and the rest would go into him. His Army had been marching all night. He had only a couple of days until the Elios ceremony. He needed to capture the star seeds before the Elios sealing magic could occur if he were to still have any possibility of capturing the star seeds.

  His thoughts continued to trouble him and it angered him that he had not been able to keep the Infin kings memories longer; one of the side effects of a lengthy hosting was the eventual loss of the host’s original m
emories. While he could still vaguely recall Stafford, the memories of the king were mostly faded. That Stafford was still alive piqued a cautious feeling but failed to cause any resurgence in the memories of the former king of Infin. The only memories of the former king that remained were now so faint that he could only recall the name and a feeling of dread regarding the former assassin. A thought that did keep surfacing, and was definitely far more troublesome and a risk to his plans, was that of the unknown lumen mage. He was still reeling from the evening dialogue with the lumen mage and now he was worried even more so at the way the Lumen Mage that had so easily contained his lumen slave. The slave had had the lumen of nearly one hundred men and he had been stopped without the lumen mage even blinking.

  His super soldiers, as he had called them, were all used up. Those that had been destroyed at the camp across the river outside of Jehhet had been his last. Pechor had used all of his current seeds and he had not taken the time to make more. His paranoia was increasing the closer he got to the completion of his plans; every noise and shadow caused him a jolt apprehension, to the point that he only felt safe within the confines of the starblade.

  The body of the former king of Infin was the most powerful slave that he had ever had host him. He would wear it until it was ready to die of old age; to host a body of Elios decent even if it was a half breed of the non-potent Luion, was a sign that Pechor was meant to be an Allyant Great One. Due to its large capacity and natural ability to produce lumen it was perfect for his needs.

  The one item that still needed his attention was the slave Nuekirk. He needed to find a way to activate the ring so that he could discover the location of the ceremony. Distressed as he was about the destruction of the Elios artifact activator at the king’s facility, he knew that there was another. It was in the building of the former Thoreau artifact manufactures building. He had caused all of the employees of all of the artifact makers to be moved to the king’s facilities and be dedicated to making the nearly one million wrist bands that he had needed for his army; he had left that device behind as it was un-needed. Now it was needed.