“He fought because he didn’t agree with the Lion taking rule,” Xan said. “I’ve read copies of the Eagle’s letters that aren’t archived in the library. He believed King Andrew bungled the situation horribly and blamed the nobles as much as he did the Lion.”
“He did not!” Dylan yelled.
Brant fell back and inserted himself between the two of them. “I don’t know much about magic, but the law never made sense to me.”
“How so?” Dylan said.
“The law is supposed to be because magic users are too powerful, right?” Brant said. “The accounts of the war don’t discuss tactics much, but I figured some stuff out. An arrow will kill the strongest mage. They can be sneak-attacked or assassinated. In battle though, one could take out scores of well-armed soldiers.”
“You’re proving my point,” Dylan said.
“Let me finish,” Brant said. “During the Battle of Hunton Creek, a single mage destroyed two entire battalions of heavy cavalry. Though he eventually wore down and a spear through the gut killed him, only a few sent against him survived.
“At Rutler’s Field, a mage from the Eagle’s side and five of his guards went up against an enemy mage who was supposed to be more powerful. The Lion’s lackey got run through with a sword without killing any soldiers. See?”
Dylan shook his head.
“A single fighter can take out a mage if he’s occupied.” Brant took a swig of water from his wineskin. “Having magic users on both sides makes each less important. They counter each other.” He paused. “In today’s world, though, a lone mage is considered a huge threat worthy of sending thirty trained men after. Doesn’t that prove the law is stupid?”
Dylan rolled his eyes. “So what, we’re going to overthrow three governments and establish new laws? I’m sure the four of us will have no problem accomplishing that.”
Xan ran his hand through his hair. “If that’s what it takes!” He took a deep breath. “Look, They want to kill me just because I’ve gained a measure of power. I don’t want to die. Is that so wrong?”
“If I thought you deserved death, I wouldn’t be here, but it’s the law, Xan. What are we if we don’t follow it?”
“You propose what then?”
“Let the magic go. Brant, Lainey, and I will keep you alive. We’ll even help you find this girl.” Dylan’s voice changed from angry to pleading.
Xan frowned. Knowledge was good, no matter the subject, but in the case of magic, did it put his friends in more danger? “Sensing Ashley dreaming is the only way to find her. Lay off until I figure out how to do that, and I promise to stop there.”
Dylan agreed, albeit reluctantly, and he and Brant rode ahead to leave Xan to his thoughts.
The sun, still below the horizon, announced the coming dawn with a glow to the east, and the landscape brightened with each passing minute. After another quarter hour of riding up an inclined trail, a sliver of the light broke the horizon to their right. Further up the mountain, the path cut sharply to the left into deep shadows.
“Once we pass that boulder,” Brant said, “we’ll be in view of the town. No one will likely be pointing a glass up here, but it could happen. Hug the cliff and ride fast.”
When he passed the stone, he increased his pace to a fast trot.
In the valley, darkness obscured much of Eagleton even as the slumbering town stretched its arms. Lights appeared in windows as the citizens woke and lit their lamps. What was Justav doing? Surely, he was fooled by the measures Brant had taken. The guardsmen would waste a day, maybe more, searching for tracks. With that kind of lead, Xan and his friends should be able to escape.
With Brant’s skill at soldiering, Dylan’s knowledge of traveling, and Lainey’s way of keeping them from all killing each other, they’d make it to Ashley. They had to.
What about those huge horses Justav’s men rode, though? Compared to Honey’s plodding pace, they’d fly over the terrain. And guardsmen made their living tracking their quarry. Xan shouldn’t have made that promise to Dylan. If they were found, magic might be his only chance.
And what did it mean that Justav could sense magic? Master Rae had admitted having magical ability, which implied one had to be a mage to determine if the potential existed in another. It seemed logical that sensing magic use was similar to sensing potential. Did that mean Justav was a mage?
Had the nobles lied about everything?
15.
Xan’s head tilted toward the ground, and his body started to follow. He jerked awake and flailed his hands until he caught hold of the pommel. His heart thudding as he righted himself.
The third time he’d nodded off. The third time he’d almost fallen.
Brant, Dylan, and Lainey rode together a dozen yards ahead, all napping on and off. None of them seemed to have any problems. Xan was the one who needed sleep the most. Why did he have to be the one so supremely uncoordinated he couldn’t manage dozing while riding?
He nudged Honey faster until he caught the others. “How much of a lead do we have on Justav?”
“Days.” Brant grinned. “Picking up our tracks isn’t going to be easy.”
By the sun’s position, it was late afternoon.
“Let’s stop soon, then.” Xan had to get some rest, and the few measly hours he was going to get before nightfall seemed scant to see him through the next day.
Dylan glared at him. “Regardless of what Mr. Overconfident over there thinks, we should push as far as possible. Are you sure you can’t sleep at night?”
“I wish, but if I dream with Ashley, it’ll be like lighting a signal fire for Justav. And it would make me even more tired.”
“There’s no way to stop it?”
Xan shrugged. “Sorry.”
Dylan rubbed his temples. “This just keeps getting better.”
Less than an hour later, Brant found a campsite. “This is perfect.” He pointed at surrounding cliffs, obviously pleased with himself. “We’re shielded all around, so we don’t have to worry about anyone seeing our fire. There’s grass for soft beds and a stream for fresh water.”
The blowhard was getting way too full of himself, and Xan should, as was his moral obligation as a friend, knock him down a peg or two. He just couldn’t find enough energy to care, though. While the others tended the horses, he collapsed onto his bedroll.
A hand on his shoulder woke him, and he opened bleary eyes to see Lainey’s face in the light from the campfire.
How long had he been out? Seconds? All he wanted was a few more minutes.
But the full black of night painted the sky. She shouldn’t have let him sleep as long as she did.
Lainey stifled a yawn and half heartedly suggested she keep him company. She looked as miserable as he felt.
How was he going to stay awake all night alone? He almost accepted her offer. “It’s going to be a rough week. Get some rest.”
Lainey turned and stopped frozen in mid motion for a moment. She shuddered and continued as if nothing had happened.
What had caught her attention? Nothing stood out in the shadows, but something definitely troubled her. Should he ask?
It was late, and she needed sleep.
Ahh. Sleep.
Xan closed his eyes. How long had he been awake? A full day, with the exception of bits of dozing and the last couple of hours.
It would feel so good to lie back down.
No. That would lead Justav right to them. Rest was not worth the lives of Ashley or his friends.
Brant and Dylan’s snores taunted him from across the campsite. Xan had to do something.
Pacing the site didn’t help much. Bad idea or not, he needed the seeds. Maybe someone had packed the contents of his work bag. He dragged his saddlebags to the fire and searched, finding all manner of apothecary supplies but no seeds.
“Probably for the best.”
It was just so easy to think when he took the drug. Xan liked the feeling—a good sign it was time to stop using it. He con
tented himself with chewing a pinch of shaved variegation bark.
Another bag yielded a coin pouch with ten triads and another gold’s worth of silver. Even if he had worked in Eagleton for another ten years, he wouldn’t earn that much. Who had ever heard of a starter gift that large? Master Rae had given him enough to open a shop.
At least, Xan had options. Either settle as an apothecary somewhere or learn to use magic and see where that life took him. He sighed and pulled out the ream of paper on magic instruction.
Some of the sections were well-nigh incomprehensible. Like one that read:
IMPORTANT: The mage, except one with the power of death, commands his flesh but eschews that which lives of others.
Others seemed more straightforward:
After compiling data of generations of recruits, Erick Flame Sword concluded candidates’ attributes are not distributed equally among the ten powers, even given the difficulty in testing for some types. The alchemist occurs most frequently, followed by the kineticist, the masser, and the death mage. Fortunately, the blighter is rarely seen. No causality is extrapolated to explain this phenomenon.
Excerpts written in different hands continued on papers of varying size. Though he found the material mostly irrelevant, Xan read for hours, pausing only to add wood to the fire when needed, because the parts that did apply fascinated him. He made it halfway through before growing frustrated at the lack of specifics.
All the references regarding how to use magic were vague at best. Like:
The novice oft tries to repeat his success with the Surge by utilizing the same method. Such attempts are mostly doomed to failure.
Great. Exactly what he needed if he were trying to learn how not to do magic.
The successful teacher must impress upon the student the need to concentrate both on the flow of magic and on the desired outcome. This instruction is facilitated by having the pupil remember his Surge.
Better, but Xan had no memory of his Surge other than that it happened.
Another hour of reading yielded absolutely nothing of any substance, and he could barely keep his eyes open. The only way he was going to learn magic was to try it. He used the campfire to light one end of a small stick. Just make the fire go out. That’s all he wanted to do.
But what could Justav sense? Would even a tiny experiment give Xan’s position away? There was also his promise to Dylan to consider.
Xan ran his hand through his hair. He had to find Ashley. She could be trying to dream to him at that moment, drawing a catcher closer by the second. If he didn’t get to her soon, she’d be hanged.
To find her, he had to sense her dreaming, and using magic surely would bring him closer to sensing it. Okay. The justification was flimsy, but technically, it didn’t break the spirit of his agreement with Dylan. Which left Justav sensing the experiment.
Xan shrugged. Even if the catcher had the ability to detect an insignificant use of magic, he’d probably be asleep.
So, what to do next? How did Xan concentrate on the flow of magic? Xan visualized the flame dying. Nothing happened. He tried again. And again. After a good half hour of trying to make the fire do anything at all, he discarded the stick.
Ashley’s life depended on him. “I’ve got to get this.”
If he could just remember what the magic felt like. He searched his mind much like he used his tongue to feel around his mouth. A weird bulge.
Xan lit another stick on fire. The flickering mesmerized him. He nudged the odd protuberance. His mind split. Part of him remained plain old Xan, grounded in reality. The other became a conduit to unimaginable energy.
Grow.
The bulge exploded open.
Power flowed through him. Power filled him. Power became him.
A fireball erupted from the branch, and a wave of heat forced him back. He stumbled and fell, landing on his backside with a hard thud.
The pain distracted him, and he lost the connection to the magic. Emptiness replaced the power, and the flame on the stick died back to its previous level, but the light diminished only a little.
Xan looked up. The canopy of leaves and limbs above him blazed.
“Blast it!” He scrambled to his feet and carried the cookpot to the stream. By the time he got back, the fire had doubled in size.
Brant, still rubbing at sleep-crusted eyes, yelled, “What the rads happened?”
Xan hunched his shoulders. “Fireball.”
Dylan glared at him. “You used magic? You untrustworthy, lying, worthless piece of horse dung.”
Brant seized the pot from Xan’s hand and sent water flying. A tiny portion of the blaze died. “Figure out how to put out a fire.”
A burning limb gave way and swung downward. It collided with the branches below it, setting those aflame as well. A mass of dead leaves caught, and that crackling added to the low roar.
Xan had to get the thing stopped before he announced their presence to the entire duchy. He focused on his desire to extinguish the fire. Nothing happened.
While Dylan stamped out embers that fell to the ground, Brant sprinted to the stream with the pot followed by Lainey, who held a pan.
It was Xan’s fault. He had to do something. Where was the magic source? What had it felt like? His body shook with effort. As his friends dashed back and forth claiming small victories, he concentrated uselessly.
Brant’s arms propelled water to the upper reaches of the canopy. Dylan, using the pan, targeted the worst portions. Lainey climbed the tree and smothered the flames on the lower branches with a horse blanket. A half hour later, the three gathered breathlessly under the smoking branches while Xan stood to the side.
“That got it,” Brant said.
Dylan pointed to a section that glowed faintly orange. “What about there?”
“It’s fine.” Brant yawned. “Xan can throw another bucket on it if it flares.”
Dylan snorted. “Like I’d trust him to do even that much.”
“Fine,” Brant said. “You keep watch. I’m going back to sleep.”
As Brant and Lainey returned to their bedrolls, Dylan glared at Xan.
“Look, man,” Xan said. “I’m sor—”
“Just shut up.”
Dylan had every right to be mad; Xan had put them all in danger. Not only had he almost started a forest fire, but anyone could have seen the flames. And the fireball had used way too much magic. If Justav were paying attention, he couldn’t have helped but sense it.
Xan returned to poring over the pages and, hours later at the bottom of the stack, discovered a portion of an instruction manual for catchers. The section detailed the way to determine a person’s magic potential, how to get that person to surge, and how to sense magic.
Why would the manual for officially sanctioned catchers give detailed instruction on surging?
Xan clenched his hands. Proof that the nobles trained mages.
Every decision the nobles made served to add to their wealth and power. Sure, Duke Asher paid for a militia in Eagleton to defend against attacks from the tribes, but that militia served as a training ground for his army. When it came to rebuilding the palisade, not only did the duke not make it a priority, he seized the money the town saved for its construction.
Why would the nobles do anything different in regards to magic? Support that which benefits them. Destroy what benefits only the people. Train their own kind born with ability while killing any peasant who dared seize the tiniest bit of control.
Xan shook his head and read on.
The next section revealed that, out of every hundred people, two or three possessed innate magical ability. Most of those could connect to the source but lacked the ability to control the flow, leaving them only able to sense use and potential. The remaining small sliver of the population was a mage—one who can use magic to manipulate energy.
Xan wanted to slap his forehead. What a blasted idiot! It clearly wasn’t illegal merely to have a connection. To be sentenced to death, one mu
st be able to manipulate magic.
There’d be no reprieve by revealing a vast conspiracy by the nobles. That plot didn’t exist. On the plus side, if sensing didn’t require flow, Justav couldn’t detect Xan experimenting with it. He glanced across the fire. Dylan’s eyes were closed and his chin planted firmly against his chest.
Xan focused on finding the bulge in his mind and, after a good half hour, finally sensed it. He quested toward it. The protuberance led to a tunnel connecting him to the magic source, and he flowed through it to an ocean of pure power, just like the pages had indicated. He examined the boundaries looking for outward flows that indicated use but found nothing.
Xan sighed. He’d hoped that Ashley would be dreaming. If she wasn’t, how would he ever find her?
Perhaps, she was already awake. Perhaps, she didn’t stay in the dream if he weren’t there with her. Perhaps, he had no blasted idea what he was doing.
He sighed and quested again into the vast ocean. A half hour later, dawn approached. A hole opened at the edge, and a burst of power surged out exactly like the manual had described.
Ashley!
Considering the penalty, there couldn’t be many people using magic. The surge had to be her. He grinned. Soon, he’d be with her soon.
His physical body faced almost due north. When he turned, the ocean and the flow maintained their orientation, allowing him to determine the real world bearing. Northeast.
All in all, it had been a productive night, the screw-up with the fireball notwithstanding. Xan prepared breakfast, rousing his friends to the smells of bacon frying on a flat rock and honey-sweetened porridge bubbling in the cook pot.
How to tell them about his discoveries? He didn’t want to alarm Dylan but owed them all the truth of the situation. Maybe someone would tell a joke or something. If everyone’s mood were light, it’d make the news easier. Best to wait.
As they ate and broke camp, however, everyone’s spirits remained low. No help for it. Xan urged Honey into their midst.
Rise of the Mages (Rise of the Mages 2) Page 7
