Wolfblade

by Jennifer Fallon

  She’s not going to fall for this . . . She’s not coming . . .

  And then he felt her approaching, on the very edge of his awareness, even before he heard the doors boom closed as someone entered the temple. She was drawing on her power, maybe in an attempt to intimidate him. Wrayan stared up at the large crystal of the lost Harshini and wondered what a Harshini would do in his position. Smile and do nothing probably, he thought. The Harshini were like that.

  “Hello, Alija,” he said, without turning around.

  Alija stopped behind him, her mind heavily shielded.

  “Wrayan.”

  “Come to beseech the gods for help?” he asked, turning to face her.

  She was wearing her formal black robes, the embroidered hem of her gown whispering across the tiled floor, her expression hidden by the dark hood she had pulled up to shadow her face. Alija didn’t wear her formal robes often. She was wearing them now, Wrayan was certain, to remind him who was the sorcerer and who was the apprentice. Wrayan hadn’t bothered to change into his robes for this. Besides being far too melodramatic, it was too damned hot in Greenharbour for the heavy woollen garments.

  “You might want to beseech them,” Alija suggested coldly, as she stopped before him. “You’re probably going to need the gods’ help by the time I’m through with you.”

  Wrayan forced a smile he really didn’t feel. “Being a bit dramatic, aren’t you, Alija?”

  “Do you want me to show you dramatic, Wrayan Lightfinger?” she asked, throwing back the black hood. There was something strange about her shielded power, some element Wrayan was unfamiliar with.

  “I’ve seen plenty of dramas, my lady,” he informed her, holding his ground by sheer force of will. Power emanated from her like a furnace. He could feel it pulsing with her rage. “There are some rather interesting dramatics going on in Tarkyn’s head, don’t you agree?”

  “You had no right to harm my slave.”

  “I didn’t harm him. He’ll be fine in a day or so.” Wrayan smiled. “Once the pretty lights fade.”

  “Do you have any idea of what I could do to you?” Alija hissed. “Do you know how many of the Sorcerers’ Collective’s laws you have violated, or can’t you count that high?”

  “Is Tarkyn Lye really the father of your children?” Wrayan countered.

  She hesitated, clearly disturbed that Wrayan had been able to penetrate her court’esa’s mind so thoroughly. “I will destroy you for this, Wrayan Lightfinger,” she promised, her quiet confidence more threatening than if she’d shouted it at him. “And then I’ll take that fool you call the High Arrion and bury him alongside you.”

  “You’d report my crime to the Sorcerers’ Collective?” he asked, deliberately trying to draw the conversation away from Kagan. “Knowing what I’ve learned about you? That’s an awfully big risk, Alija.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that too much, Wrayan. By the time I’m through with you, whatever is left of your pathetic little mind won’t be in a position to reveal anything.”

  “You’re that good, are you?”

  “Let’s find out, shall we?” she suggested.

  Wrayan braced himself mentally, reasonably certain he could survive anything she threw at him. Alija is bristling with unleashed power, but I’m stronger and more—

  The blast she let fly lifted Wrayan off his feet and slammed him into the base of the Seeing Stone, knocking the wind from his lungs. She blasted him again, hammering him against the black marble, cracking his head this time. White lights danced before Wrayan’s eyes.

  Alija wasn’t trying to be subtle, or even particularly clever. She was interested only in inflicting damage on her opponent, be it physical or mental. Between trying to fill his breath-starved lungs and the pain of the fractured skull he was sure she’d just inflicted on him, it was all Wrayan could do to keep his mind shielded.

  “Come on, Wrayan, why don’t you fight back?” Alija coaxed with an evil smile. “Too afraid to hit a woman?”

  With several deep, gasping breaths, Wrayan pulled himself to his feet. “I was waiting for you to get serious,” he managed to respond. It sounded brave, but Alija wasn’t fooled.

  “You can’t fight back,” she concluded with malicious delight. “Can you? You can’t do anything! All that power to burn and you haven’t got the faintest idea what to do with it.”

  “Believe whatever it takes . . . to make you feel better, Alija.” Wrayan was on his feet again, but his head was pounding and the white lights refused to go away. A dribble of blood trickled annoyingly down his neck as he clung to the base of the Seeing Stone for support.

  “Oh, you’ve no idea how good it makes me feel,” she told him, taking a step closer. “How frustrating it must be for you. You can touch the source. You can feel it. You can even draw on it now and again. But without training, you’re never going to be able to do much more than what you did to Tarkyn, are you? Kagan can’t teach you anything. He’s got no right to even call himself a magician. And the Library’s no good to you either, because anything useful in the Library about manipulating Innate power is missing, isn’t it?”

  “And there’s no prize for guessing where that information went, is there?”

  Alija blasted him again, just because she could, Wrayan thought, as his body was slammed against the Seeing Stone once more. She held him there, his feet dangling a few inches from the floor, pinned against the huge crystal, unable to move.

  “Ah, Wrayan,” she sighed as she stepped closer, changing her tactics abruptly to keep him off balance. “We could have been so good together, you and I. With my skill, your power . . . What a pity it’s all going to end with you being thrown out of the Collective with your mind burned to a cinder.”

  “That’s not the way the Collective works.” Wrayan struggled against the power that held him, but without dropping his shield there was nothing he could do to ward off her attack. He was quite certain he could hurl Alija across the temple if he was prepared to drop his defences. Of course, the moment he did, she would be able to see into his mind and the reason for this charade would become immediately evident. He had to give Kagan all the time he could.

  “It won’t be the Collective who destroys your mind, Wrayan Lightfinger.”

  “I don’t believe you’d do it,” he challenged.

  She stepped even closer, so close he could feel her breathing on him. She was no longer trying to cause him pain. Quite the opposite, in fact. “You don’t believe I’d do it?” she asked in a low, menacing voice. “Or you don’t believe I can do it?”

  He was still pinned against the Seeing Stone, his feet dangling just above the intricately tiled floor, as Alija stood on her toes and pressed her body close to his. Her breath was hot on his face, her lips like a silken whisper against his cheek. On the verge of panic, he tried to pull away, but he was held fast by her power. Alija’s tongue flickered over his lips, her court’esa trained fingers tracing a path of delicate torment along his inner thigh. Wrayan had braced himself for almost anything but this.

  “Come on, Wrayan,” she coaxed in a silky voice that seemed to have a magic all of its own. “We don’t have to fight to resolve this. There are . . . other ways . . .”

  “Alija . . .”

  “I can teach you, Wrayan,” she breathed in his ear. “Let me show you wonders you haven’t even dreamed of yet . . .”

  Wrayan’s shielded mind screamed out its silent defiance while his body gave every indication that Alija was winning this confrontation and winning it comprehensively. There was, he noted with a sort of detached academic interest, no physical connection whatsoever between those parts of his anatomy that hungered for Alija and his brain, which was fully aware of the fact that she was simply trying to coax him into dropping his shield.

  Alija kissed him then, with all the expert skill of a court’esa. Wrayan tried to fill his mind with thoughts of anything else as her tongue darted across his teeth and her hands set fire to his loins, but his trea
cherous flesh was far too interested in what it was being offered to care about what his mind wanted. Another voice in his head pointed out, quite reasonably, that his mission was to delay Alija. Distract her. And this was certainly distracting. It almost drowned out the voice screaming “FIGHT HER, WRAYAN, DON’T GIVE IN!”

  “Oh, gods!” Wrayan moaned as he grabbed at the notion of fighting like a dying man grabbing for a lifeline in a storm.

  He had to put an end to this. And he had to do it right now. With his concentration fractured into myriad pieces, he gathered what little reason he could muster and prepared to lower his shield, with every intention of pinning Alija to the ceiling, if that’s what it was going to take . . .

  She was waiting for him. The moment his shield wavered, Wrayan’s mind was invaded. Alija attempted nothing other than damage. She didn’t try to read his thoughts. She simply blasted her way through with a power Wrayan was certain had somehow been magically enhanced.

  In the split second between when his shield faltered and Alija’s blast, he had time to wonder how she’d learned to do that. Then Wrayan slumped to the floor, the pain beyond description.

  Alija stepped away from him, smoothing down her robes. She looked at his limp body with contempt.

  “Fool,” she said scathingly.

  The sorcerer stepped over his body and headed towards the temple entrance without looking back. He heard the hinges squeal as the massive doors opened and heard the doors boom shut behind her.

  And then he lost consciousness.

  chapter 39

  A

  s Wrayan had predicted, within a day Tarkyn’s “pretty lights” had faded. It took another day or two for him to recover completely, but it seemed Wrayan had done Alija’s court’esa no lasting harm. By the time Barnardo returned from Dregian Castle, Tarkyn Lye was back to normal and Alija had made the decision to say nothing about the incident to her husband. She wasn’t sure what to tell him anyway, because she had no proof of Wrayan Lightfinger’s treachery. She had nothing at all.

  Wrayan Lightfinger had disappeared.

  With the High Arrion’s apprentice defeated, lying unconscious on the floor of the temple (possibly even dead—Alija didn’t actually take the time to check), she had triumphantly hurried from the Temple of the Gods to fetch a witness to her victory. Kagan would have no chance of defending himself against her accusations with his apprentice caught red-handed, and she intended to make the most of this blatant disregard for the Collective’s rules.

  The obvious choice was Tesha Zorell, the Lower Arrion and one of Alija’s mentors during her apprenticeship. She had hurriedly explained what had happened between her and Wrayan (the carefully edited version, of course) as she all but dragged Lady Tesha into the temple to find the evidence of Kagan’s abuse of his power as both High Arrion and apprentice master.

  “I cannot believe the High Arrion was behind any attack on your court’esa, my lady,” Tesha Zorell was saying as the doors boomed closed behind them. “And to accuse his apprentice—”

  “Wait until you’ve interrogated Wrayan Lightfinger yourself, Lady Tesha,” Alija advised. “Then tell me I’m not the victim of the High Arrion’s deliberate campaign of terror designed to intimidate me and my husband.”

  They reached the Seeing Stone. Tesha looked around impatiently. “Well? Where is he?”

  “I left him right here.” For the first time, Alija began to feel uncertain. “He was . . . he couldn’t have . . . someone must have moved him.”

  “Someone must have moved him, eh?” Tesha asked. “Another of the conspirators who are out to get you and your husband, I suppose?”

  “I am not imagining things, Tesha!” Alija snapped at the older woman. “Wait until you see what he did to Tarkyn Lye!”

  “If your court’esa came home a babbling wreck, my dear, it probably just means he spent an interesting night sampling the delights of a yakkah-pipe.”

  “You think I can’t tell the difference between intoxication and deliberate interference?”

  “I think, Alija, that you are looking for excuses to blame people for things, to fit your view of the world,” Tesha informed her sympathetically. She patted the younger woman’s arm and added with a smile. “I know it’s been awkward for you, Alija, and I’d help you if I could, but if you haven’t got one of these alleged conspirators waiting for me here, I’d like to get back to work.”

  Alija didn’t know what to say. Tesha was her friend, but she was the Lower Arrion first and foremost. Her loyalty had always been to the Collective rather than any individual. When the Lady of Dregian wasn’t able to reply, Tesha smiled sadly and turned on her heel; her footsteps slowly fading into the distance followed by the squeal of the doors and the accompanying boom a few moments later.

  “This isn’t over, Wrayan Lightfinger!”

  Alija’s shout bounced off the walls, echoing around the empty temple.

  She looked around, unable to feel even a hint of the lingering magic she should have been able to sense had Wrayan been anywhere in the vicinity. Although she would make enquiries to see if anyone had seen him being spirited out of the temple, Alija knew in her gut that somehow, inexplicably, Wrayan Lightfinger had vanished so completely it was unlikely she would ever be able to find him.

  Barnardo was a little peeved to be recalled, but on hearing the news that Kagan Palenovar and the High Prince had left the city for some unknown destination, he quickly got over his initial irritation. The mystery deepened, however, when the dozen or so courtiers who had accompanied the High Prince on his journey straggled back into Greenharbour looking rather forlorn and unwell a couple of days after their departure. It only took another day for the story to circulate throughout the city that there had been an attempt to poison the High Prince the first night out of Greenharbour and the High Arrion had magically transported him away to a place where they would both remain until it was determined safe for the High Prince to return.

  Alija thought the rumour the most unbelievable nonsense she had ever heard. The symptoms of the poison that everyone seemed convinced had been used in this alleged assassination attempt sounded like nothing more than an overdose of stumbleweed, a purgative commonly used to clean the bowels. Nobody had even come close to dying from it. And she knew for a fact that Kagan had not “magically transported” the High Prince anywhere.

  Whatever Kagan was up to, he needed Lernen involved, and this ruse with the puking courtiers was probably an elaborate show to convince Lernen he was being poisoned and make him follow Kagan without question, wherever the old charlatan wanted to take him.

  By the time Alija got the news, though, Kagan had a head start on her of several days. She had no idea where he was. No idea where he had taken the High Prince.

  And Wrayan Lightfinger was still missing.

  Alija’s investigations into the inexplicable disappearance of the High Arrion’s apprentice had yielded nothing. Nobody had seen him leave the temple. Nobody had entered the temple while she was out fetching Tesha Zorell. Nobody had seen or heard of him since. His room in the Sorcerers’ Collective remained untouched. Nobody on the journey out of the city with Kagan and the High Prince had seen his apprentice with him or anywhere in Lernen’s retinue. It was as if Wrayan Lightfinger had vanished off the face of the world.

  Alija had tried searching for him using her mind, but had no luck there, either. Not that she was expecting to. She had blasted her way through Wrayan’s mind with no care or intention of saving him from harm. She was a little annoyed at herself for doing that, in hindsight. She should have taken the time to skim the surface of his thoughts, at least. Of course, that meant she would have given Wrayan an opportunity to retaliate and she couldn’t take that chance. It was hard to know how much power he had, and Alija had been fairly certain that, in a test of brute strength, he would prove stronger than she was. The only thing that had given her the edge in her battle was her speed and the scroll that had taught her the enhancement spell and given a p
owerful, albeit very temporary, boost to her own power.

  Looking up from the accounts she should have been paying, Alija glanced at the water clock, surprised at how much time she had wasted sitting here wondering about what Kagan and that sly apprentice of his were really up to.

  “Is something wrong, my lady?” Tarkyn asked, sensing her mood with unerring accuracy, the way he always did. He was sitting opposite her, waiting for her to read out the next account so that he could explain it to her. Tarkyn effectively ran the household here in Greenharbour so she always did the accounts with him present. It saved asking for clarification later.

  “I was just wondering where Kagan and the High Prince were. And Wrayan Lightfinger.”

  “You think their disappearances connected?”

  “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I’m beginning to think the whole episode with you and Wrayan was staged by Kagan to keep me occupied while he slipped out of Greenharbour with Lernen. But I don’t see how he could have been in the temple at the Sorcerers’ Collective helping Wrayan if he was halfway to the Sunrise Border by the time I confronted him.”

  They were interrupted by a knock at the door before Tarkyn could offer his opinion. Thinking it was Barnardo, Alija called permission to enter. Her slaves knew better than to disturb the lady of the house when she was alone with her court’esa.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, my lady,” Tressa said rather shakily as she opened the door and bowed low to her mistress. “But there is someone here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “A slaver, my lady. He says he has something that belongs to you.”

  “What does he have that belongs to me?” she asked impatiently. She’d bought no slaves recently.

  “Master Venira said to tell you his name is Corin, my lady.”

  Shocked, Alija jumped to her feet. “Corin is here?”

  “With the slaver, my lady. They arrived at the trade’s entrance about an hour ago, but I only just learned he was here. He said to tell you he knows he shouldn’t have come here, but what Corin has to tell you is too important to entrust to any other means.”