After a little while, a woman with raven hair started playing the flute. Jez tried to get into the music, but he just kept seeing Barash’s face. The others seemed to share his feelings, and after only an hour, he called over Lufka. The innkeeper refused payment, and Jez tried to insist. It was an old argument, one that they’d been having ever since Jez saved his son’s life. Normally Jez won, but this time, his heart wasn’t in it, and he thanked Lufka for the meal and got up to leave. His friends tried to convince him to stay a little while longer, but he could tell they would be as happy as he would when this night was done.
He was halfway back to the tower when he realized what was bothering him. The Academy was supposed to be safe. There were wards and safeguards spread throughout the city, and there were even more in the Academy grounds itself. People got hurt sometimes, of course. The wards did nothing to protect against ordinary harm. Every once in a while, a rogue demon would escape from the summoner or a pyromage would lose control of a particularly volatile working, but it was never anything serious. Even the demon lord Marrowit had had his physical form destroyed when he’d attacked the Academy. Death simply had no place here. The fact that Barash had obviously been killed elsewhere seemed not to matter. This place had become home in the past year, and it shouldn’t have happened. Intellectually, he knew the sentiment didn’t make sense. Still, he couldn’t shake the thought as he entered the tower.
The building was unusually silent for so early in the evening, and he climbed to his quarters without seeing anyone. He pushed open the door and didn’t bother to light the lantern before falling into bed. The light of the full moon shone through the window, and Jez found himself staring at it, reflecting on the events of the past year. He practically jumped out of his skin when someone stepped between him and the window.
He rolled to his feet and called water out of the air, shrouding his right hand in it and imbuing the liquid with power. The water took on a blue glow and illuminated a man with tanned skin and eyes bluer than anything Jez had ever seen. His sapphire robes seemed to shimmer with their own inner light. The water at Jez’s hand splashed to the ground, and he almost bowed before he remembered this being wouldn’t appreciate the gesture.
“Well, you certainly are jumpy.”
His voice was soft, and some of Jez’s anxiousness drained away. He flicked his hand toward the lantern, and it sputtered to life. The amount of effort it took made him wish he’d used flint and steel instead, but he’d been too surprised to take his limited ability with fire into consideration.
The light illuminated a face that had seen more ages than a mortal mind could comprehend.
“Hello Sariel.”
One of the most powerful beings in existence inclined his head. “Luntayary.”
CHAPTER 4
The seven pharim lords had presided over the creation of the universe itself. Their power was beyond anything humankind could imagine. Each had an army of lesser pharim under their command. Together, they watched over reality, only interfering when mortals meddled in matters best left alone. The secret known to few was that the pharim Luntayary had been cursed by the mage Dusan, bound to human flesh for one lifetime. He had been born as a human child, as Jez. Luntayary was a Shadowguard, a protector and a guardian, and Sariel was the pharim lord over all the Shadowguards.
“My name is Jezreel,” Jez said. “I don’t remember being Luntayary.”
Sariel inclined his head. “Fair point, and it is with Jezreel that I wish to speak. This is a matter that requires mortal choice.”
Jez nodded. As powerful as they were, pharim were bound by strict rules that they could not violate. One of the most important was that they could not violate mortal choice. As a human, however, Jez was free to ignore that restriction, and at great personal risk, he could still draw on Luntayary’s power. That gave him options not open to most people, and he’d been forced to use that power a couple of times.
“What do you need?”
“You saw the dead student that the master of beasts brought.”
Jez nodded. “I didn’t think he was killed by a demon.”
“He wasn’t. An animal killed him, an ordinary beast of the field. It wasn’t even rabid.”
Jez blinked. “But Barash studied beasts. He should’ve been able to handle an ordinary animal.”
“He would’ve been if his magic had not failed.”
Jez pursed his lips and thought back to when the beast master had changed forms. Sariel’s face was completely still in the lantern light as Jez gathered his thoughts. “Master Horgar had trouble transforming. I thought I was imagining it.”
“All beast magic will fail, given time.”
“Why?”
“Aniel is missing.”
For a second, Jez just stared. Sariel met his gaze without blinking. Jez wondered if he was making some sort of cosmic joke. He shook his head. The very idea of a high lord of the pharim joking might have made him laugh if the situation wasn’t so serious.
“Aniel is missing?”
“Yes, as I said.”
Jez shook his head, sure he was misunderstanding. “What do you mean missing?”
Sariel rolled his eyes. Jez hadn’t known a pharim lord would do that. “It’s not a difficult word. You know exactly what it means. He is gone. He cannot be located. None of the Beastwalkers can be.”
“None of them?”
“None.”
“Where did Aniel go?”
“I do not know. No one does. If we did, he would not be missing.”
“But can’t you find him?”
“Obviously not. That’s why I came to you.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“I didn’t think that you did, but you can find him.”
Jez gaped at him. He had no idea how to respond, and in the end, he just spouted the first thing that came to mind. “How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why do you think I can find him?”
“Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we can’t find him.”
“But you’re...” Jez didn’t know how to finish his sentence so he just gestured at Sariel.
“Exactly.”
Jez took several deep breaths trying to make sense of everything, but his mind was racing. “I don’t understand.”
“We were created with a specific purpose, and we can step outside of that only loosely. There is no pharim who can interfere in Aniel’s affairs.”
“And I can?”
“You are mortal. You can choose.”
“But he’s missing. If you find him, that’s not interfering.”
“And if he doesn’t wish to be found?”
That made Jez pause. “You think he’s hiding?”
“Even his essence has vanished from the Keep of the Hosts.” Sariel let out a long breath, and the gesture made chills run down Jez’s spine. “He is hiding or he is held. I do not know which is more likely, nor do I know which scares me more.”
So many thoughts were racing through his head. Jez didn’t know where to begin. Finally, he just sighed.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I can only offer you limited advice. Normally, beast magic would be strong near Aniel, but that’s only if he’s free. If he’s been bound, somehow, beast magic might be disrupted, and those disturbances would center on him.”
“So look for places where beast magic is stronger than it should be or places where it’s weaker?”
“It’s an imperfect solution. More than any other school, beast magic wanes and waxes, but it’s the best idea I can give you.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Jez said.
“Thank you.”
He started to fade, but Jez called out.
“Sariel.”
“Yes?” his disembodied voice said.
“Could he have been destroyed?”
Silence stretched out for several long seconds, and Jez wondered if Sariel had gone.
“If Aniel has been
destroyed,” the voice said finally, “may the Creator help us all.”
He sounded afraid, and that, more than anything else, terrified Jez. It didn’t make sense for Aniel to hide, but the Lord of the Beastwalkers was one of the high lords of the pharim. What in all of creation could hold one of the most powerful beings in existence?
CHAPTER 5
Jez paced back and forth in his room for nearly an hour trying to think of what to do. He needed to talk to the masters about Barash, but they wouldn’t lightly discuss the death with a student, and he would have to think of a convincing reason to get them to do so. Telling them that Sariel had appeared in his room, and had told him to find a missing pharim lord, was more likely to make them think his mind had cracked than to get any sensitive information out of them. In the end, he decided to go see Besis. The protection master was one of the handful of people who knew Jez had been a pharim. He reached for the door but before he touched it, a loud crash came from the other side, shaking his room. Screaming erupted from the hall outside.
Again, he drew water out of the air and shrouded his hand in it. Then, he pulled open the door and froze. Four students, three of them mere acolytes, huddled at the other end of the hall. Between Jez and them stood a bull larger than any Jez had ever seen. At least eight feet tall, it would’ve towered over even Osmund. Its body was almost as wide as the passage itself. Its fur seemed black though in the dim light of the hall, it was impossible to be sure. Muscles rippled as it pawed at the ground, the motion cracking the stones beneath its hooves. It lowered its head and charged.
One of the students, a blue robed girl name Liandra lifted a hand. The ground groaned and a wall of stone appeared in between the students and the bull. The animal crashed into it, shattering the stone and shaking the ground. A few doors opened, and students poked their heads out, but as soon as they saw the bull, they retreated. The bull didn’t notice. It kept its eyes locked on the cowering students.
They were covered in dust. Liandra tried to call up another wall, but the bull stomped, shaking the ground and kicking up rock dust. Liandra sneezed, losing her grip on the working. An acolyte Jez didn’t know raised a hand. A ball of fire appeared but puffed out of existence a second later. The student closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, but he was obviously too afraid.
“Toden!” someone cried out.
A girl in a green robe ran out of a shattered hole in the wall and started running toward the animal. The bull snorted and looked back at her. For a second, Jez thought it would charge her, though he couldn’t imagine how it would turn around. After a few moments, however, it returned its attention to the four before it.
“That thing is a student?” Jez cried out.
The girl glanced at him and nodded. The bull lifted its hooves, but Liandra threw her hands forward and a piece of shattered wall as big as her head flew at the bull. The animal slammed its hooves into the stone. The blow reduced the rock to dust, and its hoof crashed into Liandra’s head. She went down, blood running down the side of her face, but the rock had apparently taken enough of the force behind the blow because almost immediately, she started to stand again.
Jez threw his hands forward, pulling water from anywhere he could find. He drew it from the stone and the air. The people provided a source too, though he was careful not to draw too deeply from them. He even reached into the bull itself. Tendrils materialized and lashed onto the animal. It strained, and Jez could feel its strength as it struggled against his constructs. His skin felt dry, and the air parched his throat. The bull groaned and slammed his head against the wall, snapping off the tip of its left horn. Then, it fell to the ground, held by bands of water stronger than steel.
The girl looked at Jez and nodded. Slowly, she went up to the bull and closed her eyes. Green light emerged from her hands as she held them against the bull’s side, but after a few seconds she sighed.
“I can’t change him back.”
“Get Master Horgar,” Jez said through clenched teeth.
He would’ve been sweating if he hadn’t used so much water from his own body to form the bands. The creature was just so strong, and Jez held himself on the cusp of tapping Luntayary’s power. The girl nodded and disappeared through the door leading to the stairway that ran around the inner wall of the tower.
Liandra hadn’t been able to stand but had managed to sit. She blinked several times and stared at the bull. Suddenly, her eyes went wide as if seeing it for the first time. She raised her hands and the bull sank into the stone a few inches. It struggled against it, but with Liandra’s earth working taking some of the pressure off of Jez, he could hold the creature much more easily. Rocks began to crawl up its body, partially encasing it in stone. The pressure against Jez’s bindings lessened even more. The three acolytes with her helped her to her feet and she staggered to Jez.
“The people on the floor beneath us are getting an entertaining view,” she said as she wiped away some of the blood on her face. She seemed to have trouble focusing.
“Won’t it fall through?”
“Eventually. It would’ve gotten free if I hadn’t done anything.” She inclined her head to him. “I’m impressed. I didn’t realize you were strong enough to hold something like that with water.”
“Neither did I.”
By then, other advanced students had arrived, and the bull was thoroughly tied up with various sorts of magic. Jez released his own bonds, and his arms suddenly felt very heavy. The working had drained him, and he had to lean on a wall to remain standing. One of Balud’s adjutants made the bull sleep, and several others who specialized in terra magic lifted it out of Liandra’s trap and laid it on the ground. Balud’s student was seeing to Liandra when Horgar arrived. The beast master wasted no time in attending to the bull. An aura of green light appeared around the animal. It shimmered for a second but otherwise remained unchanged. Horgar looked over his shoulder at the student who had brought him.
“Lacia, three horns.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. Horgar did the same. He opened his eyes a second later, and the light around the bull intensified. Slowly, the bull began to shrink under the master’s hand. It took a few minutes for the image of a sandy haired boy, only a few years older than Jez himself, to appear. Horgar lifted his unconscious form and placed him gently on the floor.
CHAPTER 6
It wasn’t long before the other masters arrived. With Balud directing his students, the injured were soon seen to. Liandra had a head injury that might’ve been dangerous if not for the workings of the healers, which stopped the bleeding and closed the wound. The chancellor ordered Liandra to be brought to the healing house, and the rest he sent to their rooms.
“You, and you,” Horgar said pointing to Jez and one of the acolytes who had come out to see what was going on. “Put Toden on a stretcher and carry him to my quarters. I will see to him.”
“He really should go to the healing house,” Balud said.
Horgar shook his head. “We’ve both seen this before. There’s nothing wrong with his body, and you know it.” The beast master clucked his tongue and turned to a female master in an indigo robe. “Rael, if you would come with me, I could use your help.”
The secrets master nodded. “Of course.”
In short order, they had carried Toden to Master Horgar’s house in the beast district. The beast master’s home was a single story building that took up half a block. Stables attached to it housed some of the largest horses Jez had ever seen. There was even one with black and white stripes. Jez had no idea where Horgar had found that creature. A nest of crows sat over the front door, and the birds cawed as they passed under the nest. The inside of the building held cages of birds and small rodents. They all started calling when the party entered but they went quiet at a wave of Horgar’s hand.
“Put him in here,” Horgar said.
He walked into a hall and pushed open a door. The room inside was plain, and had nothing more than a bed and a small table. Jez
and the acolyte put Toden on the bed and exchange glances. Rael put a hand on the unconscious student’s forehead. Jez expected to be ordered to leave, but Horgar just walked out. He came back a few seconds later holding a green crystal, no larger than a thumbnail, that hung from a gold chain. Jez stared at it. Focusing crystals were extremely rare and valuable artifacts. Even the masters didn’t know how they had been made. The crystals didn’t strengthen magic so much as they concentrated it and granted a greater degree of control, allowing a person to do more with the same amount of power. This one was attuned to beast magic, and it started glowing as Horgar held it over Toden. After a few seconds, Horgar let out a breath and looked at the secrets master.
“It’s no use. I can’t retrieve him. Can you do anything?”
“Beast mind?” Rael asked. Horgar nodded and the secrets master shook her head. “It’s been tried before. It doesn’t work.”
“This is no ordinary beast mind. He’s a skilled adjutant, and he was lucid this afternoon.”
“That’s not possible.”
“But yet it happened.”
“What happened?” Jez asked.
The two masters looked at him, each wearing a surprised expression. Jez found himself wishing he hadn’t spoken.
“You shouldn’t be eavesdropping adept,” Horgar said.
Rael laughed. “You can hardly call it eavesdropping if we simply forgot they were here, but Master Horgar is right. This is no place for you.”
The acolyte bowed and scurried out of the room. Jez looked at Toden. “But...”
“Go, Jezreel.”
The tone in her voice did not allow for argument. Jez inclined his head and left, but he sat against the wall of the house for a long time. He was so distracted by everything that had happened that he didn’t even notice Osmund and Lina next to him until Osmund tapped him on the shoulder.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Lina asked.
Jez just nodded.
“As bad as Sharim or Dusan?” Osmund asked.
Jez looked from one to the other. Dusan had summoned a nightmare demon that had threatened to put the entire world into a slumber so it could feed off their fears. Sharim had nearly toppled the kingdom, but this could be a disaster on an entirely different level. Briefly, he considered not telling them, but they had been through too much together. He nodded.
Beastwalker (Pharim War Book 3) Page 2
