The scarab tensed inside his skin. Finster’s back muscles knotted between his shoulders. He twitched. Dizon’s firm hand steadied him. “I’m fine. Just another glaring side effect.” He glanced at the horse. “We can’t all ride the same horse, now can we?”
“You can ride the rocks,” Rinny suggested.
“No, I think we are going to use another mode of transportation.” He backed away from the tower. “Move back.” He stretched out his fingers and closed his eyes. Using the Founder’s Stone’s mystic abilities, he closed titanic hands around the tower. The blocks in the tower, though stone, were rich in ore that made them easy to manipulate. It was all part of a greater sorcerous design that he had not detected at first but had discovered recently. The ground trembled beneath the tower. With huge, invisible hands, Finster pulled the Black Tower out of the ground. Dizon and Rinny gasped. The horse whinnied. He opened his eyes. The tower, foundation and all, hovered ten feet above the ground. A stairway of rocks led inside. He made a wry smile. “Today, we don’t need rocks or horses for transport. We’re riding the Black Tower. Get in.”
THE SORCERER’S WAR – PART 5
CHAPTER 79
Alexandria, the High Executioner, found herself searching for the arch mage Finster with a much larger group than she normally traveled with. Back in the trading town of Portgul, she’d made an alliance with the River Knights from the kingdom of Rayland. Now, on horseback, on another hot and muggy day, they rode east with the host of knights, licking the road dust from their mouths. The knights’ leader was a seasoned and charming man named Osgald. After she had slept with him, he’d become a fountain of information.
Being the leader of the assassin’s guild called the Circle, whose vast network spanned the Seven Kingdoms, Alexandria was the sole beneficiary of the Assassin’s Shroud. It was an ordinary traveling cloak in appearance, made from chestnut-brown and dark-green cotton fibers tightly woven together. The enchanted cloak gave Alexandria the ability to disguise herself in the image of any person she imagined. It could cloak her with invisibility too. It made killing easy, perhaps too easy. Though she’d never part with it, she tried her best not to rely on it too much. Even though it enhanced many of her natural gifts, at the same time, it could take away the edge that made her what she was—the greatest assassin in the world.
Now, riding with three of her finest killers, a score of the world’s finest knights, and three mages the likes of which she’d never seen before, she found herself in new territory in two regards. On one hand, she’d never been so far away from the Seven Kingdoms, where the eyes and ears of the Circle’s networks kept her safe and informed. On the other hand, she had to play along with Osgald the River Knight in an attempt to locate the notorious sorcerer, Finster. The large group made the hunt messy, but it was imperative that she use the kingdom’s resources to advance her own agenda. It was up to her to recover the Founder’s Stone and locate the rings of power. That was what Rolem the Grand, the King of Mendes, had hired the Circle for in his quest to rule the Seven Kingdoms of the land—that and to avenge the murder of his love, Ingrid, the former Magus Supremeus, whom Finster and the blue-toe savage called Moth had killed.
Riding through the heat, on foreign soil, along cracked and dusty steppes, she contemplated her plans. The River Knights of Rayland, according to Osgald, were content to help the mages find the savage and the sorcerer. As for the mages, how they would handle a conflict with Finster would be a different matter. King Rolem and King Mather of Rayland, it seemed, had an agreement to bring down Finster together. King Rolem had made this agreement behind Alexandria’s back, not fully trusting her abilities. Even though she had tried to dissuade him from using others, she couldn’t blame him. She’d failed once to kill Finster in Rayland.
Now, posing with her assassins as common mercenaries who’d joined in the hunt for the notorious Finster and Moth, she’d cozied up to Osgald well enough to tag along. If they found Finster, she would be there, and she would be ready.
The group of riders came to a stop at the top of a slope that overlooked a valley in which the brown terrain turned green. Alexandria licked the dust from her teeth. Beside her, Holger, her chief assassin, drank from a water skin. His sweat-drenched tawny hair was plastered to his forehead.
Holger held out the water skin to her. “Drink?”
“No.” Alexandria’s eyes were intent on Osgald. Sitting tall in the saddle, the hawkish man approached from the group of knights who rode ahead of them. He had a stern look on his face. He stopped his horse just ahead of hers. “It seems that the magi wanted to stop.”
“Are their backsides sore from half a day of riding?” she asked in her stony voice.
Osgald wiped his face with a cotton handkerchief he kept tucked in his gear. “This platemail feels like it just came out of the furnace. It’s probably the only thing that I don’t like about being a knight—all of the encumbrances that come with it. I admit, on days like this, I envy sellswords like you.”
She stretched her arms outward, showing off her sinewy muscles and flexibility. “I would too.”
With a half smile, Osgald studied her fine frame and nodded. “Eh, well, the magic-wielding weasels require a bit of space as they prepare to engage in some spellcasting.”
Her horse nickered and snorted. It shifted underneath her. She leaned over her saddle horn. “What sort of spellcasting?”
Wiping down his eyebrows with the towel, Osgald said, “It’s something to aid us in finding this Finster. Our trail has gone cold since we left Portgul, and aside from riding about in the Fringe like wayward children, I don’t have a better idea at this time. Do you?”
She shrugged. “No. I say we see what these sandbags who call themselves magi can do. So far, all they’ve been are decorations in the saddle.”
“Heh!” Osgald laughed as he cast a stare over his shoulder toward the magi. “Yes, those showy robes are glaring.”
She moved her horse forward, passing Osgald. “Yes, almost as garish as your shining armor.”
He patted his chest plate over his heart and, half laughing, said, “You wound me.”
The three magi had dismounted and formed a large triangle among themselves. Each of them wore a set of well-kept checkered robes. Slight in height and build, each wore a different color—red, blue, and gold, accented with white tiles. They fished out handfuls of crimson sand from leather pouches, sprinkled it onto the ground, and together made a circle. When the circle was complete, they spread out equidistant from one another to form a triangle, closed their eyes, and started to chant.
A brisk wind came from the south, cooling Alexandria’s neck. She knew little about the magi who accompanied Osgald, and he had said that he knew little about them, other than that they were from the Violet Citadel. With the Red Citadel without leadership, another guild of peacekeepers had to step forward. These sorcerers had volunteered for it.
The wind picked up. The horse snorted, stamped, and whinnied. Hundreds of birds, black as crows and the size of robins, with beady red eyes and hooked beaks, appeared from what had been a clear sky moments earlier. They were carrion ravens, sometimes found in the cities, picking the streets like pigeons. Though small, they devoured flesh like vultures. They landed in the circle by the dozens, to the awe of the gaping knights.
Alexandria’s arm hair stood on end.
The birds gathered by the dozens then the hundreds before increasing into thousands. They filled the circle, one piling on top of the other, making unsettling squawking sounds.
The sorcerers’ weird chanting increased in volume. Fingers and hands gesticulated wildly in the air. The red sand they had poured became a ring of glowing fire that spread through the eyes and wings of each and every carrion bird. As quickly as the birds had come, they took flight again in a cloud of floating black and dispersed in all directions before vanishing into the sky.
Patting the sweat from his ashen face, Osgald said, “Creepy.”
Alexandria r
ubbed her neck. “I wonder what they have in mind for the carrion ravens.”
One of the mages approached. He was bald on the top, with fluffy hair around his somewhat-pointy ears. He wore the royal-blue-and-white-checkered robes. His deep, searching eyes seemed like they could see through the skin into the soul. Rubbing his hands together in a circular motion, he looked between Osgald and Alexandria. “We have several thousand hungry eyes that serve us now.” He spoke with a mysterious inflection. “They will find Finster. We will find the savage as well.” He looked right at Alexandria. “Our circle is bigger than all others now.”
“Now what, sorcerer?” Osgald asked.
“Magus Unus.” The magus looked onward to the other two sorcerers, who stood in their spots in a trancelike state. “Make camp. The time has come to wait.”
CHAPTER 80
Shepherds herding a flock of sheep that grazed in the prairie grasses stood agape. The Black Tower, like a cloud, floated toward them. The sheep paid no mind to the hundred-foot-high black rock tower that floated thirty feet above them. The shepherds were split. Half ran away at full speed. Others dropped to their knees, bent over, and prayed. One goodly boy stood with his back straight, waving a hand, until an elder shepherd pulled him down. With knees quaking, the remaining shepherds fell under the shadow of the tower as it slowly passed above them.
Finster stood on the roof of the tower between the battlements, watching the shepherds, with his hands on the outer wall. Dizon, Rinny, Moth, and the horse were all present. Rinny stood between the tower’s battlements, waving her hand at the boy.
Green veins rose like worms under Finster’s skin, pulsating with a glowing light of their own. Through his fingers, he could feel every block in the tower as if it was a part of his body. Oblivious to the renewed stares of the braver shepherds, he frowned. “I must look hideous.”
Beside him, Dizon said, “You are a handsome man regardless of the color of the blood in your veins. You need not think about it.” She peeked over the edge of the tower. “Look at those men. Their eyes are as big as their sheep. They’ll worship you like a king if you let them.”
“I don’t want to be king. I just want to get the kingdoms back in order,” he said.
Rinny climbed up to the top of the square-shaped battlement and sat down facing Finster and her mother. Scrawny legs hanging over the ledge, she said, “Can you make the tower fly faster? It seems to be moving very slow.”
“That’s because it’s heavy,” Finster replied. “But if you would prefer to walk, that would be fine.”
The tanned blond girl asked, “Can you make it spin, like you did me in the chair?”
“No,” he said.
Rinny leaned forward. “But can you do it?”
“Child, go away. Lord Finster needs to concentrate,” Dizon said.
Fearlessly, Rinny jumped from the top of one battlement to the other, with Moth watching from nearby. Rinny smiled at Moth as she did so, without a care that a stumble would send her plummeting more than one hundred feet to the ground.
The ravishing Dizon snaked her hands around Finster’s waist and hugged him from behind. “You need to rest. How long do you think you can carry this tower? We’ve moved from day to night to day again.”
“I have nothing better to do,” he said as he touched heads with her. The more Finster used his power to probe the stones in the tower, the more he learned about it. Each block had been laid carefully and marked with a rune. The magic used was centuries forgotten but still maintained an ancient enchantment. Finster couldn’t say for certain, but he believed that this journey was not the Black Tower’s first journey through the air. He suspected it had flown before. “Have you ever had that strong feeling that you were doing something that you had done before?”
“You are talking about déjà vu. Did you not think that I knew what déjà vu was?” Dizon asked.
“Actually, I was asking you, as I forgot what to call it myself. I’ve never given it much thought before.” Finster’s weary eyes tracked through the clouds that stretched along the horizon. “This is familiar. Too familiar.”
“Perhaps it is the blood of your ancestors that speaks,” she said. Her hands started up underneath his robes. Finster stiffened. “Be still. I need to check your wound.”
“Well, be gentle. Your hands are ice cold.”
“My cold hands are soothing on your burning body, are they not?”
“Perhaps I’m touchy today,” he said. “How does it look?”
“Aside from looking like you have been branded with a scarab, you appear whole.” She pressed her finger along the ridges that the scarab in his back had made. “Does it move when I touch here?”
“Ow!” he said. A piercing bite started inside the meat between his shoulder blades. “Please, don’t do that again.”
“I’m sorry.”
He let his robes down and took a seat on the wall in front of him.
Her gentle hand caressed his face. “Finster, please, set this tower down and rest.”
He took her soft hands and kissed them. “I’m very certain that I won’t be able to rest until this is over. And believe me when I say I want to rest.” His eyes drifted to the land below them. Looking down on the ground at the small, shaken, and hapless people, he felt like a god. “But I don’t want to give up the power. With the stone, I believe, I don’t need any rest. Perhaps it will sustain me forever.”
“Your body cannot sustain what courses through it. It is eating you alive. Do what you must do, and be done with it.”
He looked away from her. Dizon’s presence kept him in touch with reality. Without her, he might give in to the power of the Founder’s Stone. Inside, he wrestled against its efforts to take full control of his body and mind. The magic inside the stone had a hungry ambition of its own. He’d imagined what would have happened if Ingrid captured the stone. With the rings of power amplified by the stone, she would have been able to level kingdoms with a thought. No, Finster could not risk the stone falling into the hands of a magic wielder who would give in to its ravenous powers. Or the rings, for that matter. For now, he would have to use that power to restore order to the Red Citadel and destroy the threat to the kingdoms.
Finster cast a look toward Moth. The brute was walking over the rooftop with Rinny on his shoulders. The savage picked up speed and rushed down the stairs that led to the fifth level. Rinny, bouncing on his shoulder, squealed.
Finster’s shaking fingers balled up into a fist. “I need those rings.”
“What?” Dizon asked.
“The rings. I need them. The savage has them.” Finster couldn’t help but scowl. “And the barbarian suffers nothing for it!”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “We’ve both witnessed the wounds he’s suffered. That pain must be real.”
“Not a peep from the savage. I don’t think he feels anything.” He clutched her by the shoulders. “Do you know what I would give to not feel anything for just a moment?” He was speaking of the fire inside his back. “Just to have my thirst quenched. The rings of power can grant me that. Talk to your daughter. See if she can get them for me.”
Dizon recoiled. “You are hurting me.”
Finster’s fingers dug into her skin. He reeled her in so they were face-to-face. “You don’t know what pain is, woman!”
Dizon twisted out of his grasp and slapped him hard in the face.
The entire tower trembled. The horse reared and whinnied.
Finster scowled at her. “You dare! You filthy whore!”
Dizon backed away. Without thought, Finster tipped the tower, sending her sprawling to the ground. She hit hard on her knees and elbows and groaned. Finster stormed at her. She cringed.
Then his hardening heart softened. He dropped to his knees. “Dizon! Dear Dizon, I am gravely sorry!”
Dizon pulled away from his extended hands.
Moth and Rinny raced from the steps up onto the roof. Rinny screamed, “Mother! Mother! What ha
ppened?” She glared at Finster. “What did you do?”
“I… I lost my temper.” His heart sank the moment Dizon stood up and didn’t give him a glance. She took her daughter’s hand and led her down the steps. Finster found the sullen-eyed Moth looking down on him. The savage’s eyes narrowed the slightest bit. Finster stood up and stared back at Moth. “I think it’s high time we had a talk. And you aren’t going to like it.”
Moth turned his back. He walked toward the stairs.
Finster pulled stones from the floor, forming a wall in front of the savage. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
CHAPTER 81
Moth faced a wall of stone. He balled up his fists and pounded the granite.
“Will you stop doing that?” Finster asked. “It’s a wall. You cannot just break it!”
Moth spun around. He had a wild look in his eyes like that of a caged animal. Glaring at Finster, he knitted his eyebrows together and started forward.
With a thought, Finster pulled more stones up from the roof on which they stood, forming a ten-by-ten roofless room that closed them both in together. Now it was Finster’s turn to glare back. “Listen to me, Moth. You’ve saved me, and I’ve saved you. But now the time to communicate has come.”
Moth dug his fingers between the stones. He started to climb.
Finster made the stone slimy, loosening Moth’s strong hold. “Be still, savage! I’m no fool. I know that you understand me!”
The mute sneered at Finster for a moment.
“Ah,” Finster said, raising his already-pointy eyebrow. “That was an acknowledgement. I know that you might not speak, but you definitely hear. I saw how you handled those wenches in the taverns with those apish arms draped over their supine figures. You know what they whispered in your ear. Now you will hear my whispers.” He pointed at Moth’s hands, which were newly scraped up from hammering at the moving wall. “You know full well what those rings are doing to you. The question is, will you part with them or not?”
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