Mage Hunter (Lost Tales of Power Book 8)

by Vincent Trigili

“Do you know something you’re not sharing?” he asked.

  “We are about to put the most dangerous mage currently in custody in front of the Emperor. I couldn’t think of a more foolish thing to do if I had a thousand years to try.”

  “You think he’s going to try to kill the Emperor,” the captain said.

  I nodded and turned back to my work.

  “He is cuffed and hooded, isn’t he?” he asked.

  “Yes, but he’s planning something. I just don’t know what it is yet,” I said.

  There was a long silence as I worked. I didn’t know what was running through his mind, but I was sure he was conflicted. I was in his territory and I really should have cleared it with him before I did anything, but I needed this done before many people noticed. It would only work if it was a surprise to Prisoner 5439.

  “For what it’s worth, I agree. We’ll just have to make sure that we can minimize the damage when it happens,” he said, then returned to organizing the guards.

  As I finished my work, a message came in signaling the arrival of the prisoner. I waved to Captain Rodriguez, and when he came over I told him, “The prisoner is here.”

  “Showtime, then. Bring him in,” he said.

  Engage combat level two. Everything slowed down a little around me as my senses went into a heightened state. “Send him in,” I sent back over datanet to the team escorting the mage.

  Prisoner 5439 was as compliant as ever. He allowed himself to be led to the podium and then secured to it, standing there with his hood on without complaint. Magi and guards alike were on edge; the horrors he had perpetrated had once been headline news.

  Captain Rodriguez came up next to me and said under his breath, “That is downright creepy.”

  His weapon was holstered according to protocol, but it was set to maximum power and the safety was disengaged, which was distinctly against protocol. I doubted anyone cared about safety regulations right now.

  “Spread out, just in case,” I said quietly and moved to the other side of the prisoner.

  Fifteen tense minutes passed until the arrival of the Emperor. In the back of the room, a massive set of double doors opened and the Black Guard emerged in full battle armor. They were the elite bodyguard of the Emperor, cyborgs of the highest tech level. It was rumored they had class six tech, but so much about them was clouded in secrecy that it was hard to believe any of the stories.

  “All rise!” came an impossibly loud voice. Everyone in the room was already on their feet, but the stillness that resulted made the room feel like a crypt.

  The Emperor walked in, flanked by more of his Black Guard. Traditionally, one would bow in his presence until he said to stand, but there was no way I was bowing with that prisoner in the room. I needed to be ready.

  The Emperor was old. I didn’t know his age, but he looked at least five hundred years old. Despite having access to the best medical technology in the galaxy, he walked with the aid of a cane and his hair was completely gray. He was thin and looked frail, except for his eyes; those were clear and spoke of power and control.

  When the Emperor was seated, a clerk came forward and started reading the charges against the prisoner. I tuned him out and continuously scanned the room for threats. What was the prisoner’s game? He had to have one. Did he have help in the crowd? A traitor who would set him free at a crucial time?

  “Please remove the hood,” said the Emperor, breaking my concentration.

  “Honored one, I don’t think that would be wise,” said Captain Rodriguez.

  “I did not ask for your opinion; remove his hood so that he can present his case,” responded the Emperor.

  “Yes, sire,” he said. He turned to me, and I moved my hand to my weapon as a sign that I was ready.

  Captain Rodriguez approached the prisoner from behind and carefully removed the hood, then took a step back. He was tense and ready to spring.

  Engage combat level three.

  I could feel strength building inside me, and it was becoming difficult to stand still. My body rebelled at being at such a heightened state and standing to attention.

  “That is an improvement. Now present your appeal,” said the Emperor.

  Everything happened at once, starting with a smile on the face of Prisoner 5439: the most dangerous smile I had ever seen.

  Engage maximum combat mode.

  I’d barely sent the order when Prisoner 5439 called out a command word and his bonds came free. Moving with impossible speed, he raised his arms and called out another command as I launched myself into the air. As I flew I drew back my arm, readying a punch that would end the problem of Prisoner 5439 for good.

  Lightning leapt from the prisoner’s hand and headed toward the Emperor, but the field walls I’d put in place before he arrived snapped up and drew the lightning to themselves. Even magical lightning will seek the easiest path to ground.

  I took a good look at his face and the smile was still there; despite his spell being foiled, he wasn’t worried. I was in the air for less than a second, but with my enhanced awareness it felt like ages. As I came within reach, I fired my hand forward with enough force to shatter any defensive fields he might have put up and drive right through his primitive skull. I’d definitely be reported for excessive force for this one.

  Just as my hand was about to connect with his face, I froze. I was still in the air from my jump, my arc perfectly lined up so that my fist would connect with maximum momentum behind it, but I was just floating there and unable to move. My fist was just shy of his nose.

  I pushed with all I had in me, trying to break free, but nothing happened. I couldn’t move.

  “That is enough, officer,” came the Emperor’s voice from behind me. “Stand down.”

  Confusion set in. I was trapped in the air, a mere instant from ending the threat, and I was being told to stand down. My internal systems were caught in loops trying to make sense of what was happening.

  “That is an order, officer; stand down,” said the Emperor again.

  I exhaled slowly. I was frozen in the air, and pushing harder was not working. I stopped fighting and tried to take in what was going on around me. The prisoner was frozen also, as was everyone in the room whom I could see.

  I was slowly moved backwards through my arc to my original take-off point, but remained frozen.

  “Good. Now drop out of combat mode,” commanded the Emperor.

  My mind was running through millions of computations, and the most likely scenario was that a magus working for the Emperor had control of the situation. Still, I didn’t like the idea of standing down just yet.

  But the Emperor himself had given the order.

  Disengage combat mode.

  I sighed as the stimulants were cut off, my heart rate slowed and my sense of pain returned. It was not a pleasant transition. My entire body ached from the tension, and a slow shiver passed through me as my systems struggled to regulate my temperature again.

  I felt dull and slow as I was slowly released from whatever had held me. Everyone else was still frozen in place. I turned to the Emperor and was surprised to see Grandmaster Vydor standing next to him with a smile on his face.

  “Stand down, everyone,” ordered the Emperor. “There is no danger here.”

  With Grandmaster Vydor present I knew that the Emperor was safe, and it also explained why he had been willing to risk this meeting. A little advance communication would have gone a long way to easing my worries.

  “All forces stand down. Situation is under control,” I sent out over datanet.

  It took a few more minutes to restore order and release everyone from their frozen state. I turned my attention back to the prisoner, who was no longer smiling. He wasn’t frozen, but he was not trying any tricks either. There was no emotion on his face at all. Perhaps he was resigned to his fate now that he had tried and failed.

  “In light of current events, I am denying your appeal,” said the Emperor.

  One of the Bla
ck Guard moved forward and approached Prisoner 5439, who stood straight and looked right at me as the guard touched his neck. The prisoner slumped to the ground as his heart stopped. What had the guard done to him? Was it some kind of fast-acting poison? Whatever it was it must have been painless, as I detected no spike in his vital statistics before he dropped. He’d had a better death than he deserved, far better than he had given to others.

  5

  02-02-0065 - Lyshell

  The Emperor, Grandmaster Vydor and their staff had left, and I was supervising the dismantling of all the extra equipment we had brought when Captain Rodriguez walked over.

  “Yes, Captain?” I said.

  “That was impressive, officer,” he said.

  “What was?” I asked.

  “You started to move before the prisoner began his attack. That shows good instincts,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said, wondering what he was getting at.

  He looked across the room to where my team was packing up the last of the equipment.

  “How many scenarios did you plan to cover?” he asked.

  “Every one that had a probability greater than thirty percent,” I said. I had wanted to do more than that, but my time and resources had been limited.

  He nodded. “How do you like your job? You’re listed as a recovery officer. Is that the kind of work you enjoy?”

  A recovery officer was a nice way of saying my job was to track down the most dangerous magi criminals and bring them in, dead or alive. Most often dead, as they rarely surrendered.

  I shrugged. “It pays the bills.” I actually did enjoy the hunt, as much as someone like me could enjoy anything, but the mountains of paperwork and restrictive polices drained the little enjoyment that I got from my day. I had learned not to admit that I enjoyed hunting people, as primitives were easily offended by such things. It was just another deception in the web of lies I weaved.

  “That is probably the most common answer to that question. Well, if you want a change of scenery and perhaps a career that does more than pay the bills, look me up some time,” he said.

  “What — ” I began but was cut off by the opening of the back doors to the throne room: the doors used only by the Emperor and those connected to him.

  “This ought to be interesting,” the captain whispered as a member of the Black Guard entered the room.

  The guard walked directly towards us, and everyone fell back out of his way - or hers, or possibly its. It was impossible to tell. If the stories were even half-true, then their bodies were so far enhanced with cybernetic implants that gender may have lost its meaning.

  A shiver ran down my back as I realized I wasn’t far from that same fate myself. I still had gender, but no ability to love or reproduce, so what difference did it make? I might as well have been a machine.

  “Officer Lyshell, the Emperor requests your presence,” said the guard as he approached. The voice was distinctly masculine but that may have been for intimidation, rather than any real indication of what was inside that armor.

  I looked at Captain Rodriguez and said, “If you’ll pardon me, it seems I have been summoned.”

  “Certainly. Look me up sometime and we’ll have a drink or something,” he said, then left without saying a word to the guard.

  I sent a message across datanet to my team to tell them to finish without me and then head back to the station. I didn’t know how long I’d be, but I suspected that it would take some time.

  I turned back to the guard and found he had already started walking back. I moved quickly to catch him up while setting up one of my subcores to search for the proper protocol for meeting the Emperor.

  The guard led me through a twisting maze of dark corridors that would have completely confused any primitive. My internal navigation array had no problem building a map, which was probably a bad thing. There were no maps of this building in any database to which I had access, which probably meant I didn’t have the proper clearance to see them. I suspected I would have to report this and have my memory purged of the map, but that was a problem for another day.

  The guard silently led me into a large oval room. In the center was a large desk, accompanied by a sizeable throne. Seated on the throne in his full Imperial robes was the Emperor, and Grandmaster Vydor was sitting on the corner of the desk in the same ceremonial robes he’d worn in the courtroom a little while earlier.

  I bowed low to the Emperor and waited in silence to be addressed.

  “Leave us,” he said.

  The members of the Black Guard filed out in silence. Behind me I heard the door click shut, presumably by the guard who had led me here. They were out of sight but I doubted that they’d gone far. Most likely they were just on the other side of the doors, monitoring everything that happened in here.

  “I know you are a busy man, Officer Lyshell, but I wanted to thank you personally for saving my life today,” said the Emperor.

  “Thank you, honored one, but Grandmaster Vydor saved you, not I,” I replied.

  “As it happened, yes, but your plan worked flawlessly. Had I not been there the outcome would have been much the same, albeit somewhat messier,” said Grandmaster Vydor.

  I had not thought to look up the proper protocol for speaking directly with the grandmaster, so I decided to remain silent. When speaking with such people, one false word could sink your career permanently.

  The Emperor nodded. “Yes, your plan was very effective. I might not even need to ask my old friend to come next time.”

  I opened my mouth to say that that was stupid, then snapped it shut as I remembered to whom I was speaking. One does not call the Emperor stupid.

  Grandmaster Vydor chuckled. “Do not worry, officer; he is not so foolish.”

  “Officer Lyshell, you are no doubt wondering why else I brought you here. Grandmaster Vydor wanted to meet you and make you an offer.”

  “An offer, honored one?” I repeated.

  Grandmaster Vydor nodded. “Yes, you did well today so I wanted to reward you. Name your reward, and if it is within reason I will grant it.”

  “Thank you, but I was just doing my job, sir,” I said. He was an old navy vet, so maybe ‘sir’ was the correct form of address. I hoped so.

  “True, but you did it with excellence. Surely there is something that I could do for you?” he asked.

  Jessica Jallison’s face came unbidden to my mind. There certainly was something, but could I really ask the grandmaster wizard for such a minor thing?

  “Ah, I see it in your eyes; there is something,” he said.

  “Sir, it is a small thing, but if you could send a wizard with me it would bring a smile to a little girl’s face,” I said.

  “This little girl wouldn’t happen to be Jessica Jallison?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, but how did you know?” I asked.

  The Emperor chuckled. “He has been reading up on you all day and watched the news clips of you both on the train at least a dozen times.”

  “He is exaggerating,” said Grandmaster Vydor.

  The Emperor stood and sighed. “I must take my leave. I’ll leave my personal staff at your disposal, Officer Lyshell, to escort Vydor to the hospital.”

  “Now, old friend, I have not yet said I am going,” protested Grandmaster Vydor.

  The Emperor shook his head and turned to leave. “It was good to see you again, Vydor. Please bring Kellyn next time. Perhaps a dinner soon?”

  “Certainly,” said Grandmaster Vydor.

  I stood silently watching as they exchanged parting words and shook hands; then the Emperor left.

  6

  02-02-0065 - Lyshell

  After the Emperor left, one of his attendants came in and took over. Before I could even ascertain what was going on, Grandmaster Vydor and I were loaded into a private shuttle and on our way to the hospital. It was then that the Emperor’s comment finally clicked.

  Grandmaster Vydor himself was going to visit Jessica.

&n
bsp; “Grandmaster, I did not intend you to pay the visit yourself,” I said.

  “Nonsense,” he said as he waved off my remark. “I wanted some time to talk with you alone, so this suits me nicely.”

  “Why is that, sir?” I asked.

  “I have been watching your career for some time now and have been impressed. You have done well despite all your implants,” he said.

  Despite my implants? I didn’t know how to respond to that. Those implants were why I was successful. “Thank you, sir.”

  He smiled and rubbed his hand on the armrest. “You know, I rarely ride in a shuttle anymore.”

  “Why are we in a shuttle, sir? Couldn’t we just gate?” I asked.

  “Gates require exits,” he said. He looked out the window and continued, “I have never been to this hospital, so I have no exit ready there.”

  “So if a mage opens a gate to a location, that means he has been there before?” I asked.

  “Yes, or another magus placed a marker for him to hone in on,” he said.

  That was good to know. I didn’t yet have a use for the information, but any data on the limitations of magic was bound to be useful.

  “As I was saying, I would like you to join my kingdom,” he said, jarring me out of my current train of thought.

  “Sir?” I asked.

  “My people could train you far better than the Empire can. We could help you unlock your true potential,” he said.

  Was this a test to see if I was loyal? “Sir, I appreciate the offer, but I’m no — ”

  A loud beep cut me off, indicating our arrival.

  “Ah, we are here; and it looks as if news of our arrival has already leaked out,” he said.

  I looked out the window and saw a crowd of news reporters. “Wonderful,” I said sarcastically.

  He held out a glass bead. When I had taken it, he said, “Think about my offer. You could be so much more than you are now. If you decide someday to hear more, break the bead.”

  Before I could reply he got out of the shuttle on the wrong side, the side away from the entrance to the hospital, with no reporters.