The Making of a Mage King: White Star

by Anna L. Walls

  He headed back to the fire where he found Mattie preparing to start breakfast. “Mattie, I need your help.”

  She looked up at him in astonishment, glancing him over, expecting to see some hurt; she certainly didn’t expect what he asked.

  “Mattie, I need you to shield me.”

  “What? I can’t shield you; I’m not strong enough, not even a little bit.”

  “I know, but you made me sleep before; you do it different somehow. I want you to try the same thing; the stones might help. You’re the only one here with the right kind of magic.”

  She frowned. “I’ll try, but I heard you tell Hélène that she didn’t stand a chance of shielding you and she’s the strongest healer I know.”

  “Hélène and I…” Sean didn’t want to go there. “Just try, and I’ll try very hard to let you.”

  She looked at him as if gauging him, then she busied around the fire, turning the cooking duty over to one of the men who had shown up early for breakfast. Then she rounded up a chair and had Sean sit. After that, she had him heat a cup of water for tea, which she had him drink. While he was sipping the hot tea, she went to her tent and returned with her pouch. She kept all her healing herbs in that pouch, so Sean assumed that she kept the stones there too.

  She took his cup tea from him and sprinkled a pinch of something into it, then she swirled it around before handing it back to him.

  “What was that? You’re not going to drug me, are you?” I can’t afford to be drugged.

  “Just drink it,” she said.

  The tea was cool enough, so Sean just downed the rest of it. Then she stood directly behind him and pulled him back to rest his head on her breast. He was surprised. What if Cordan saw? What would Armelle say?

  “Relax,” she said. “Close your eyes and relax.” Her words were soft and her fingers were raking through his hair and brushing his face. It was soothing, quieting. Her fluttery touch felt like a heartbeat.

  He listened to the heartbeat until he forgot why he was there. There was just the heartbeat and her warm hands and slow moving fingers…then the magic was gone.

  Sean opened his eyes with a start. She hadn’t said a thing, and he hadn’t felt a thing. Her fingers were still now, holding him still as well until he could control the impulse to find the missing magic. He leaned forward out of her hands and Jenny handed him another cup of tea, made the more conventional way.

  “Thanks,” he said, and found his hands were shaking.

  Mattie came around in front of Sean. “Are you all right?”

  Sean could see the genuine concern in her eyes. “I’m fine.” He closed his eyes. “Mattie…” He looked at his shaking hand again. “Mattie, have I been weakened? Am I strong enough to do this?”

  She steadied his hand back onto the cup. “As far as I can tell, you’re stronger than ever. You’re just a little tired physically. The drug I gave you will wear off in a couple hours, then you won’t feel so shaky.”

  Sean stood up and looked around. He spotted Laon watching him and realized that not only was his world washed out and dim, but the man no longer glowed red. He was truly shielded, but Mattie’s shield was like a soap bubble; he would have to be very careful in order to remain in tact.

  He went over to Laon. I need his help; he’s the only other mage of any strength in the camp, not counting my uncle, and I’m not about to use him. “I’m going back into the city. If you can manage to let Mattie shield you, you can come with me.”

  The look of ill-concealed horror crossed his face before he could hide it completely. “Shielded?”

  “Mattie’s not very strong, so she won’t be able to do it unless you cooperate, and I won’t let you come with me unless you’re shielded. The choice is yours. I’ll take Cordan with me if you can’t do this.”

  Laon looked from Mattie to Cordan then took a shaky breath.

  “She’s really very good,” said Sean, trying to reassure him.

  He went up to Mattie moving stiffly, and she smiled and touched his cheek sympathetically, then gently she guided him to the chair Sean had just vacated. She busied herself with little things allowing Laon calm down, then she did much the same thing she’d done with Sean.

  Watching what she did was almost as relaxing as feeling it. Sean found he’d paused in eating his breakfast as he watched Mattie soothe and quiet Laon until the drug took effect; it looked like he was about ready to fall asleep. Then he jumped; he had just realized that Mattie’s shield was in place. She had slipped it in on him just like she had done with Sean.

  Just as he was about to panic, Sean knelt in front of him. “Leave it. Pull yourself together and think about us going into town. We have a job to do and I need you.”

  Laon was breathing heavily already, but he took a shaky breath and nodded, accepting another cup of tea and gulping its hot contents without tasting it.

  By the time they finished their breakfast, they were steady enough to walk a straight line so they headed into town on foot. What had taken Laon about a half hour to cover with the horses took them easily half the morning on foot; Laon hadn’t spared himself or the horses much, though you wouldn’t have noticed just by watching him enter the gate.

  Before they reached the gate, Sean picked the broken wire from Laon’s sheath and sword then slung his cloak off his claymore. Sean’s other two swords were still wired.

  The guard who searched them at the gate was a different man than Sean had talked to yesterday, but then it might have been a different shift.

  “What you bringing such a big sword into town for?” he asked as he wired the hilt.

  “I brought it in to be reground.” Since the guard never examined the blade, he didn’t know that it was in no need of regrinding.

  He eyed the heavy ball that reached higher than Sean’s head. “I ain’t seen a sword that big before. What do you use it for?”

  Sean just smiled at him. “It has its uses.”

  He shrugged. “You know the law?”

  “About fighting? I remember. Can you direct me toward the mage’s guild house? My uncle is staying there and I’d like to visit him while I’m in town.” Sean didn’t need directions, but he did want to see the man’s reaction.

  “You don’t want to go there,” he said.

  With mock concern on his face, Sean said, “But my uncle…”

  “Take my word for it, boy. You don’t want to go there. Move along…and stay away from the guild. The blacksmith will re-secure your sword when he’s done with it and he’ll give you a paper. Make sure you present that paper to the guard at the gate when you leave; they’ll notice the difference.”

  Sean didn’t stay away from the guild house, though he did take the longest route he could find to get there.

  He eventually found the place by following men dressed similarly to the way Nord had been dressed, only the color was black and these men had shoes. He pulled Laon aside and out of sight into the mouth of an alley. “How are you doing?”

  “I won’t let you down,” he said. He was pale and sweating profusely.

  Sean started to unwind the wires around their swords. “Leave the shield alone until we are well within the building. In fact, we probably should leave it alone right up until we need to use magic. You should be able to shrug it off easily enough. Mattie isn’t very strong, she’s just really good.”

  Sean noticed Laon’s face relax at the memory. “She is good, isn’t she?”

  “My intent is to shield every person we come across in there. No questions, no fuss, I hope. With luck I’ll be able to weaken them substantially before they figure out where we are. After that…” After that, things might get interesting.

  Sean and Laon watched the entrance to the building for more than an hour. Men were coming and going, but by the way they hurried, Sean figured they must be servants or messengers. He toyed with the idea of waylaying a couple of them and using their robes as a disguise, but that would leave them without their swords, and though their mai
n weapon might be magic, they couldn’t afford to be so disarmed.

  Sean led them around to the back of the building and watched that entrance for a while. There was far less traffic here and next to none of it came and went from the building itself, not for more than a few feet anyway. Sean slipped up to a small, dirty window and peeked in. Lit only by the light from the window, it was difficult to see inside, but it appeared to be a storeroom.

  The door opened again and a portly man stepped out with a large bowl of slop. Before he could sound an alarm, Sean slipped up behind him and gave him a none-too-gentle tap on the side of his head with the pommel of his dagger.

  He cut the man’s apron into strips and used them to tie and gag him, then after dragging him a little farther down the alley, they went back to the door and into the kitchen where they found two more men, as well as four women. All but one of them froze in terror at their appearance. That one darted for an inner door and nearly decapitated herself when she almost didn’t stop in time to avoid running into Sean’s sword that was suddenly lodged in the doorframe in front of her. Master Mushovic would have been incensed, but surely he would have appreciated the precision, even if he would never admit it.

  While Laon quickly bound and gagged the others, Sean tried to question the little rabbit, but she only shook her head in terrified horror. Then he realized that none of them had uttered a sound. I wonder if they’ve been silenced to keep them from telling anyone about guild doings.

  Sean searched the adjoining rooms methodically before moving on and found a boy sleeping in one of them. He reminded Sean of Charles, only he was younger and thinner; perhaps he was the son of one of the kitchen helpers. After he too was secured, Sean and Leon headed for the front of the building. Sean was tempted to wait inside the front door and waylay everyone who entered, but there was no telling how closely tied these people were to the mages he was looking for, so instead, they followed the first man they saw coming in.

  Oblivious to being followed, the man led them up a flight of stairs. He saw them as he turned at the landing, but it took him a moment to identify them as strangers. The tip of Laon’s sword silenced him before he could make a sound; whether he was merely going to question them or sound an alarm was impossible to tell. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  Sean vaulted over him and onto the second floor of the building, though the stairs went on up. He opened the first door he came to. The room was barely big enough to hold the bunk beds, and other comforts were slim to say the least. A tiny table with a single candle, a single chair, and a couple hooks on the wall for clothes that weren’t there, was all there was besides the narrow bunks. There wasn’t even a window to vent the stale air. Laon dumped the body on the bed and pointed up.

  “One more door,” whispered Sean. The floor looked to be full of small rooms, but he wanted to make sure. The next door he opened was also a bedroom, but there was a form in the lower bunk. Sean shed his shield and slipped up beside the bed. The boarded up window didn’t let him see whether the form was a man or a woman, young or old; all he saw was the glow of magic, so he rested a hand on the shoulder and shielded him, ensuring that he continued to sleep at the same time.

  They went from room to room, Laon keeping watch on the hall. Men continued to come and go on the stairs, and every time, Laon kept them behind a door until the men passed, but no one came onto their floor, not yet anyway. The hall they followed went to the end of the building, turned right for a short distance, then right again before heading back to the stairs. There were thirty or forty rooms on the floor, and they found at least one sleeper, and sometimes two in almost every room.

  The next floor was the same, which surprised Sean. If this was just the barracks, where was the main gathering of the guild? His ‘ping’ had indicated that all the mages were in one location. They had to be here somewhere.

  Their stroll through the building wasn’t to go unnoticed much longer, however. A little better than halfway through the second floor full of rooms, they were found. It felt like they had been hit by a ping the size of a Mack truck. Where Sean’s ping had been the merest touch of a finger to the surface of a quiet pool of water, theirs was the strike of a fist with all the force of a powerful arm behind it.

  Laon dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, and Sean didn’t do much better. He was able to protect them from the brunt of the attack, but only just. Clinging to the doorframe of the room he had just quit, Sean barely managed to retain his footing. He pulled at Laon to get him to stand too. Half a dozen figures stepped out of their different rooms in front of them.

  “Go back…sleep,” said Sean. For the first time in a long time, he missed the magic. Cisco had always warned him not to use his hands to signal his intentions, but this time he needed to. He reached his hand out. He pushed his strength through the shield and got a fingernail into the magic. “Go back to sleep,” he compelled, and watched the people in the hallway drop to the floor like Laon had done, though not quite so violently.

  Laon swayed, wiping blood and tears from his face. It looked like he had broken his nose when he hit the floor.

  Sean had the two of them under his own shield now, but he still felt the pressure. The manipulator was used to looking for blatant mages, not someone hiding under the magic. And since there was so much magic all around them, their shield was well camouflaged. But as soon as they figured out how to identify Sean’s particular shield, their reprieve would be over.

  Sean drew his twin swords and Laon hefted his again with a grim expression on his bloody face. Sean braced himself for the battle he knew he had to face, and he figured the smaller swords might be easier to hang onto than the big claymore, the halls were too narrow for it anyway. Laon led the way this time as they headed toward the stairs, intent on going up into what could only be the attic of the building. It was all Sean could do to remain standing as he pushed against the searcher’s barrage.

  When they reached the stairs again, three of the men they had seen coming and going earlier were passing. At the sight of drawn swords, or perhaps Laon’s blood, they turned to run. “Freeze,” Sean compelled, then regretted it as their momentum carried them the rest of the way down to the landing in a broken heap after their feet stopped functioning.

  With the stairs clear for the moment, Laon and Sean pulled themselves up and through the narrow door at the top. Now that they had line-of-sight, the battle was truly on. Sean was highly reluctant to kill, but he had all he could do to keep the two of them on their feet. He moved forward into the large room, leaving Laon to guard the door.

  Since the only attack that came at them was bashing into his shield, he had a moment to notice what was in front of him. Sitting on the floor in small groups, each holding a lit candle in front of them that they stared at to the exclusion of all else, was what was supposed to be a human representation of the royal flower.

  Three women who were shrouded in a dirty white cloud, sat opposite six men who were steeped in shadow. Four men glowing fiercely red, sat across from five men and a woman who glowed dark blue. And five men glowing pale blue, sat across from four men and two women who glowed green. In the center, the only person sitting on a chair, was what could only be an albino.

  The closest thing to an albino Sean had ever seen before was his uncle, but Ludwyn wasn’t a true albino, since his eyes were very dark. The malice that radiated from these red eyes rivaled Ludwyn’s, but perhaps due to their color, seemed worse.

  Despite the lack of color in his features, the man on the chair radiated so much black magic that the darkness around him was almost palpable. He was Sean’s target. Cut off the head of the snake and the snake ceases to be dangerous; kill the caster and his spells will be broken, at least that’s what all the books said. He hoped there was some truth in those books. He wished for someone to ask, but it was certainly too late for that now.

  Sean took another step into the room. He heard Laon engage someone at his back, but he had to rely on him now; S
ean had his hands full. He forced another step forward into the battering onslaught, and the albino stood up. Three of his people gasped and went limp, and soon after another handful fell.

  Sean took another step and the man tried to pull more magic from those around him that still endured. Magic was the only weapon he had and he was almost as strong as Sean, but he was burning it up on a tactic that wasn’t working.

  Sean forced yet another step forward and drove his two swords into the floorboards in front of him; it felt as if he was using them like claws to hold him against the onslaught. By the door he heard Laon, still holding off men who fought with more conventional weapons; he was taking full advantage of the narrow door.

  Feeling like he was swimming in cold molasses, Sean drew his ancestor’s great sword from his back and gave it an experimental swing. He felt the albino redouble his attempts to batter through his shield and another handful of his people collapsed, robbing him that much more of his power base. The standoff was killing his people. Sean gave his sword another swing then launched it directly at the albino. He saw no other option; he simply could not take another step. He was running out of time, as well. They may have been comparable in power, but the albino had the combined energy of his ‘flower’, or what was left of it. Given time, he would have won.

  The albino’s life and his magic were snuffed out so quickly that all those who composed the flower collapsed, and Sean was left clutching the two swords he had stuck in the floor for support. He quickly snuffed the candles that threatened to catch clothing on fire, then gathered himself and turned to assist Laon, but that fight had evaporated too.

  Sean took one look at the men gathered outside the door looking suddenly helpless, directionless. Using what seemed like the last of his energy, he compelled them to come into the room and kneel in the corner.

  While Laon tied them up, Sean went through the prone figures of the flower that littered the floor. Of the thirty men and women who had been gathered here, nine were dead and another twelve no longer had their magic glow. He shielded the remaining nine.