The Mage War

by Ben S. Dobson

  She had to prove they could trust her. And she could only think of one way. “You’ve all heard of the Magebreakers. I work with them. Tane and Kadka gave me this.” Her hand went to the glowing talisman in her shoulder; the image in the sky mirrored the motion. “It protects me from the effects of the siphon, the spell you’re all feeling right now. The spell draining the life out of you.” She closed her fingers around the artifact.

  Cestra gasped. “Tinga, no!”

  “I have to,” Tinga said quietly, and her illusory double echoed the words for all of Porthaven to hear. But she didn’t move, not yet. She just looked Cestra in the eyes, and waited.

  And Cestra understood, just as Tinga had known she would. “Alright,” she said. “Alright. But not alone.” And she clasped her talisman in her own pale fingers.

  Tinga pulled her talisman free. Beside her, Cestra did the same.

  The force of the siphon rushed in like a flood of ice water, chilling her heart, filling every space inside her, down to the ends of her fingers and toes. She’d felt it before, the weakness, the dimming of color and light, as if the world was becoming a colder, darker place. It never got any easier.

  But she wasn’t going to let it stop her. She held the talisman high, and shouted, “I won’t ask you to take a chance I’m not willing to take myself!”

  And now the crowd responded. A weak half-cheer picked up, hobbled its way from person to person.

  It’s a start.

  She stuffed the talisman in her pocket, and lifted her chin. The words were starting to come a little easier. “I won’t need an artifact to save me, if everyone who hears my voice just comes together! Come to the waterfront! The more of us, the better! If we listen to the people trying to separate us, if we hide, or try to run, we’ll only fall faster. But if we slow the siphon down here, we slow it down for everyone! For all the people they’re keeping from reaching us. For all the people too weak or injured or sick to come themselves. For our families, and our friends, and our neighbors, we can hold the line!”

  More cheers at that, and stronger. She heard the goblin teen who’d backed her up before shout “Yes!”

  And it wasn’t just them. People were coming, out of the streets and alleys that opened on to the waterfront. Only a handful, at first, but they were coming, crossing the park, gathering on the promenade.

  The siphon was still burrowing deeper; it was already hard just to get the breath to keep talking so loud. Tinga did it anyway. “They have magic on their side, but we have each other! There are more of us than them! They can’t control thousands of us!”

  More and more of Porthaven’s people poured out of the streets as she spoke. Goblins and kobolds, humans and dwarves and gnomes and sprites—even a few elves, and the occasional ogren towering above them all. Young and old, parents and children, alone and together. Many were already weak enough that those with them had to help them walk, but still they came. And as more gathered, Tinga could feel the siphon growing weaker. Not reversing; not giving back what it had already taken. But weakening. The cold spread slower now, and the outward flow of her strength ebbed.

  It was working.

  But she was attracting the other kind of attention, too. Black-clad figures filed in along the waterfront on both sides. Across the mouths of several streets, silver shields flashed into existence, blocking off the people trying to reach her. Some failed under the weight of enough bodies; others held. Shouts and cries echoed from all around as people pushed back against the mages trying to stop them.

  From one of the rooftops across the street on the other side of the park, she saw a flash of silver light. She barely had time to turn before the wave of spellfire was rushing at her, flowing from the outstretched hand of a cowled mage. Not a random attack at the crowd—this was targeted, sent right at her where she stood atop her pillar.

  Just over her head, a silver shield flashed into being. The spellfire crashed against it with a bright flash.

  “I’ll cover you, kid,” Lefty grunted, his hand outstretched toward the shield. “Keep goin’.”

  And from all around, throughout the crowd, “Hey! Leave her alone!” and “If they’re trying to shut her up, she must be telling the truth!” and “Don’t let them keep us apart!”

  A warmth grew in Tinga’s chest that was almost enough to push away the cold of the siphon. “That’s right!” she shouted, her voice echoing over the water and across the district. “They can’t separate us if we don’t let them! We can’t get through this alone, but we can do it together!”

  Across the harbor, even the Belgrian ships were turning to shore, following the Audish and the Rhienni. They can’t all have heard me—I’m not even speaking the right language. That must be Tane and Kadka’s doing. But hundreds of people who had heard her were gathering all around her now. Maybe thousands, filling every inch of space along the promenade, overflowing into the parkland and the street beyond. And more were coming. The sound of their voices was a growing roar. Dispersed among so many, the siphon’s hold on Tinga felt weaker than ever—still there, still terrible, but less with every new arrival.

  The Knights of the Emperor were gathering too, though, more every minute. Marching down the streets and along the rooftops overlooking the promenade, hundreds of them. And not just them. With the mages, there was something new.

  Nine-foot tall figures were joining the knights, but these weren’t ogren, and they didn’t wear the black garb that the others did. Sunlight gleamed off of brass bodies. Golems. Like Endo’s Mask of the Emperor, but not just one. Dozens. They marched into the throngs of people flowing out of the streets all around and walled off the flow of bodies with huge brass arms, hurling anyone who came near back into those behind. Silver light flared up and down the sea wall as the knights brought their power to bear, answered here and there by the few mages among the Porthaven populace—not nearly enough. Lefty was still shielding Tinga against attack, but he couldn’t protect everyone in the growing crowd, or take on so many mages by himself.

  “Hold on!” Tinga shouted. “People are coming to help us! We just need to hold on a little longer!” She looked at Lefty and made a chopping motion with her hand, signalling to end the amplification spell. She’d said what she had to, and if he was going to be any use, he couldn’t afford to concentrate on any spell that wasn’t holding off the knights.

  Cestra was still clutching her hand tight. “You are amazing, do you know that?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Tinga replied. Her head was spinning; now that she was done, she realized how much it had taken out of her just to give her speech under the drain of the siphon. She leaned against Cestra. “It hasn’t worked yet.” She looked up and down the promenade, watching the Knights of the Emperor close in. “There’s… a lot of them.”

  “Looks bad,” Lefty agreed. “More of us, but they have more magic. Don’t think we’ll last long like this.”

  The knights and their golems had stemmed the flow of newcomers almost entirely, blockading streets all along the waterfront. Those who weren’t holding back the tide turned their attention to the bulk of the crowd, began to close in from all sides. From somewhere in their midst came a magically amplified voice. “The Emperor will not be defied! This ends now! Any who resist will face the consequences!”

  Tinga squeezed Cestra’s hand, braced herself for attack.

  And then, just ahead, the blockade across one of the streets exploded in a burst of silver. Knights of the Emperor scattered in all directions. People poured through, and they weren’t like the rest. These weren’t weakened men and women desperately fleeing to the water. These people were armed, and they had magic. Silver flashed in the air, and huge shield-spells glimmered across the promenade and the park and the street in either direction, blocking the path of the approaching knights.

  A new voice rose above all the noise, carried by magic, and as soon as Tinga heard it, relief bubbled up out of the cold in her chest.

  It was Indree.<
br />
  “It’s not over just yet. We’ve got you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  _____

  KADKA STEPPED OUT of the shimmering silver-blue portal and into the Silver Dawn’s Porthaven shelter, just inside the front door.

  The first thing she saw was the people. Dozens of them, sitting propped against the walls or lying on the floor, most of them very old or visibly injured. Though they were of all sizes and races, they shared a common look—the sunken eyes, the sweat-drenched clothes, the bloodless pallor. Few moved much, even to look at the portal that had just spat a half-orc into their midst; the siphon had taken too much of their strength. Silver Dawn agents moved among them, administering what care they could, some with Carver’s talismans glowing at their shoulders. A few of them did look up at Kadka’s entrance, but they didn’t let it interrupt their work. They’d clearly been warned; the area around the portal was clear for a few feet in every direction.

  Kadka moved aside to give the others space as they came through behind her: Carver, Lady Abena, and a pair of Mageblades—a human man and a dwarven woman. The dwarf was last; she’d been the one to open the portal. Apparently she’d been to the Porthaven shelter before as part of a security detail during the worst of the pro-magical rioting that had followed Endo’s initial attacks on Thaless. As soon as her feet touched the floor, she ended the spell, and the portal disappeared.

  A half-second later, the front door swung open behind them. A kobold man wearing a glowing talisman entered, pushing an older human woman in a wheeled chair. She didn’t look any better than the rest.

  “There’s room over here!” A voice from further inside, high pitched and nasal. Kadka knew it even before turning to look: Gurtle, the goblin woman who acted as Iskar’s chief administrator. She’d come in from the hall on the other side, beckoning to the kobold pushing the chair. She pointed him down the hall, then turned her attention to Kadka. “We’ve been bringing people in since Tinga appeared in the sky. The ones who are too weak or injured to go to the harbor. Since your friends provided us with a few of these”—she gestured at the glowing talisman jabbed into her shoulder—”we can at least offer some help, and protection. Feels wrong to have them when so many don’t, but we’re no use to anyone otherwise.” She beckoned for them to follow. “Iskar’s in the back office. Come on, he’s expecting you.”

  The office office was just as full as the rest of the building. A big desk had been pushed aside to clear space, and people lay on the floor and against the walls with whatever makeshift bedding was available. Iskar himself was kneeling at the side of a gnomish man, helping him drink from a canteen the man was apparently too weak to manage himself.

  He acknowledged Kadka and the others when Gurtle led them in, but didn’t stand. “Just a moment, please.” When the gnome had drunk his fill, Iskar straightened and wordlessly offered the canteen to Gurtle, who took over bearing it around the room. When he turned to Kadka, she saw the talisman glowing against his silver-scaled shoulder. “My love. I cannot say how good it is to see you safe.” There was relief in his voice, but he made no move toward her. “When Indree told me that you had turned yourselves over, I feared the worst. Until she told me you were coming here.” His sapphire eyes flicked sideways to Lady Abena and her Mageblades. “And why. I am not certain that I can give you what you need.”

  “Is… much to ask,” Kadka said gently. This wasn’t something she was willing to force, even with so much at stake. “I know. Is risk I would not take, but…”

  “But you’ve seen what’s happening,” Carver said, and gestured around the room. “Look at these people. They don’t have much time. We need to get up there, and an airship is just going to get burned to scrap. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Kadka took Iskar by the hand. “You know dragons more than us. Is there other way?” She didn’t have much hope, but it was worth asking.

  Iskar sighed. “To match the power of the dragon Endo stole? I fear not. And that poor thing is my responsibility. It was my failure to protect my mother’s clutch. But not theirs. If we let the world see them… Let her see them…” Again, he glanced at the Lady Protector. “Nations have a habit of misusing such power. I understand why you brought her, but I wish you had not.”

  Kadka didn’t argue, just nodded her understanding. She’d known how he would feel, and she’d come anyway. “I am sorry. But I trust her, or I do not bring her.”

  “Mister Estiss. If I may?” Lady Abena stepped closer. He acknowledged her with a small nod. “Though Miss Carver and Miss Kadka have been somewhat evasive, I am given to understand that you can bring dragons to our aid. I would not have believed it from anyone else, but I have come to understand that these two have a talent for producing… unexpected solutions. We need your help, and we have little time. I asked to be here so that I might address your fears. How can I make you trust me?”

  “It is not only you, your Ladyship,” said Iskar. “I appreciate that you have been… accommodating to the Silver Dawn, more so than your predecessors. But the history of dragonkind is not a peaceful one where it concerns the other sentient races. If people know, they will be afraid. And fear often turns to violence.”

  Lady Abena inclined her head. “A reasonable concern, and one I wish I could address better. I cannot change the past, nor guarantee the future, but I can promise you that this choice, and any after, will remain yours. Should you refuse, I will speak nothing of this meeting or your secrets to anyone.” She lifted her eyes, then, and stood tall. “But right now the future of the Protectorate depends on you and your dragons, so I must ask. If you decide to come to our aid, I will see to it that you and yours are protected from any who would do you harm for as long as I hold the power to make it so.”

  “I believe that you mean that, but I…” Iskar’s great silver wings flexed at his back, and he looked to Kadka. His voice trembled. “They are still so young.”

  Kadka pulled him into her arms, squeezed him tight. “I know, my dragon-man. I know. You lose so much already, and fear losing more.” She thought of Vladak—another loss he didn’t even know of yet. She had to tell him, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to. Not here, not like this. Instead, she just said, “I fear this too.”

  “It’s not only that, Kadka,” Iskar said against her shoulder. “When they see their own flesh and blood used in the way Endo has… I do not know if I can resist that rage, and they have never been tested.”

  “You can.” Kadka drew back, met his eyes with hers. She needed him to see that she believed it, beyond any doubt. She’d seen him in the dragonrage before, consumed by the furious need to protect his family, lashing out at friend and foe alike. And she’d seen him beat it. “I see this strength in you, even if you do not. To ask this of little ones feels too much, I know. But I look at them and I know they are strong, too. Strong, and good, and brave. They learn this from you. And what happens up there now is what you always fight against. Why you make Silver Dawn, yes? If we do not stop it, thousands are riven. World Endo makes, after… world without you, or me, or so many they love, is not world they want. If they are only ones to stop it, they should know. Have chance to make their choice. Is what I would want.”

  Iskar stared back at her for a long time, silent. And then, at last, his shoulders fell, and he inclined his head. “We can… explain the situation, and what is being asked of them. But it must be their choice.” He looked to Lady Abena. “And with respect, Lady Protector, I ask that you and your mages remain behind. I will not allow the possibility that you might use magic to try to force the issue.”

  “Of course.” Lady Abena agreed without hesitation. “My attention is needed elsewhere, in any event. Inspector Lovial and the others at the waterfront will need reinforcements, and the rest of the city must be prepared for the coming of this siphon as it spreads. I trust this to you, Magebreakers. I very much hope you are able to make my preparations redundant.”

  “Wait,” said Carver. “One more thing. The p
lace we’re going is outside the city, past the edge of Greenstone. We can’t afford to take the long way. We’re going to need a portal.”

  The two Mageblades behind Lady Abena exchanged a look.

  “We can’t open a portal to a place we don’t know,” said the human man.

  “Iskar knows it intimately, though.” Carver rubbed nervously at the watch case in his pocket. “It’s… not ideal by any standard of magical safety, but in theory, you could use a sending. Let him share his knowledge with you.”

  The dwarven woman frowned. “There’s a reason we don’t do that. The chance of failure—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Carver interrupted. “Right now, we just don’t have a choice. The people at the harbor are slowing the effect, not stopping it. If we’re too slow, Endo wins and half of Thaless is riven, same as if we get absorbed by the Astra or eaten by a wraith. Makes no difference. So we might as well try.”

  Lady Abena gave the Mageblades a sharp nod. “Mister Carver is right. Do as he says.”

  Carver turned to Iskar. “Will you let them? I know it’s meant to be a secret, but we’re running out of time.”

  Iskar nodded. “I understand. I am willing. If Syllesk and Nevka do not wish to reveal themselves, there are other places we might go.”

  “So be it,” said the dwarven woman. “But we’re going outside first. This is dangerous, and I’m not going to risk letting a wraith loose in the middle of all these people. Come on.”

  _____

  For the second time that day, Kadka floated through a world of Astral silver, stretching forever in all directions. It might have lasted an eternity, or just an instant.

  And then it was over, and she was stepping out onto rough stone. A vast cavern below the earth. No sun overhead, just the blue tinge of magelight against rock. The portal had worked; she knew the place instantly. And even if she hadn’t, she knew that familiar warmth in her chest, that pleasant tingle over her skin: the presence of the two silver dragons staring at her, just a few feet away. At her, and at the shimmering gap in the world behind her.