by D. H. Aire
The black clad warder glared back at him. “Well?”
“We’re working on it,” Terus said. “What do you think?”
“More to the left… now, slightly to the right,” Revit said, standing directly behind the warder.
The warder shifted position around the blinding pulsing red sun with cords of light streaming into it from half the Empire. There was a proverbial “click,” followed by another.
“Masters,” warder said, “your turn.”
Revit and Terus looked at each other, then each placed a hand on the warder’s back and shoved. In the next moment, they were falling through the now changing tapestry which had once graced the Academy until they had collapsed into the Old Academy with it. The warder cried out and they all found themselves floating in what appeared to be a sack of emptiness.
“Really, Terus?”
“You could have warned us,” the warder rasped in another mind voice.
“Oops, sorry,” Terus said, grinning, trying to swim through a thick mist of vapors.
“Hey!”
“Um, sorry, Revit…”
From elsewhere, “Uh, that wasn’t me.”
“Oh…. You all right, Revit?”
No answer.
The vapors pulsed.
“Ter, I found it.”
They could suddenly sense each other and reached out their hands and took hold. Their feet were instantly grounded. They turned and saw one of the warders stuck in what looked like liquid amber. Eyes wide with fright as the amber pulsed.
“Revit, breathing in there could be a problem.”
“You want me to do something about it?”
“Well, I haven’t the faintest idea what to do,” Terus said.
“Right, what am I supposed to do? Breathe some life into her?”
Terus didn’t reply for a moment. “Huh, that could work…”
“You think you can pull me back out?”
“Um, of course.”
“Do something!” the warder begged.
“Oh, for the love of the Empress,” Revit muttered, took a deep breath and using his right hand touched the bubble, which sucked him halfway in. They reached for each out as Terus grabbed his legs and he found himself desperately pulled close and pressed his lips into the cowl. He exhaled.
Terus pulled him free as the trapped warder turned and reached deeper into the node, seeking to establish a channel. “Ready to give it another go?” Terus asked.
“Um… uh… why don’t you do it this time,” Revit stammered.
“Me? I’m an elfblood, you’re not. It could make, um, all the difference.”
The warder cried, “No arguing! Revit, just take deep breaths and get back in here!”
“Fine.” He took several deep breaths feeling unseen eyes watching him as Terus grabbed his ankles. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Revit said, gulping another deep breath, then dove back in. He let the draw pull him and grabbed the warder’s hips. They adjusted, craning their necks and “kissed” as he exhaled, feeling the world go “pop.”
Magic poured through the hole the warder had made in the Great Node.
Terus yelled as he was shoved backward as the magic founted. Revit and the amber coated warder shot past them. “Congratulations!” Terus shouted. “You have made it to the top of warding school!”
Well, I suppose that was one way of doing it, the disembodied voice said.
Making themselves part warder mage was not exactly the solution I would have recommended.
Well, their lives are going to become rather complicated as it is… and it’s not like the boys aren’t already doppelgangers.
And that warder is… imbalanced, I suppose, best describes it.
A third voice said, Their bond to the other warders is not working as it should.
With the Highmage being human you expected anything less?
The storm roiled in the distance as Carwina slept fitfully in the neighboring guest suite to the Empress’s apartments. “Father,” she muttered, still feeling terrorized by her assault, which almost became far worse.
“Wina,” her half-sister said, sitting beside the bed.
She woke, “Oh.”
“You are safe,” she said, not wanting to admit that might be a temporary truth.
The floor suddenly glowed.
“What?”
Carwina sat up and frowned, “Pappa?”
Always.
The glow vanished.
The Empress wiped tears from her eyes, “I heard him.”
“He loved you,” Carwina said.
“I never… really knew him.”
“Your lady mother felt it best.”
She knew that. “I will never do that to my child. She will know her father and siblings.”
Remembering her father’s pained looks at times, Carwina understood.
“I’m so sorry,” the Empress said. “I should have never allowed you to pretend to be me.”
“It was… my honor, Your Majesty.”
That’s when the Empress leaded over and hugged her estranged half-sister for the first time and both women wept.
Esperanza frowned, sensing something had changed as she and every scryer in her network sought to breach the wards of the Haydenese mage and get a better glimpse of their army marching on the city.
The still waters splattered upward as magical energy welled, drenching not just her, but every scryer. “We’re blind!” someone cried, which brought Terhun running toward her.
“What happened?”
Wiping water from her face she shook her head, “We’re blind. The entire network’s disrupted.”
Chapter
40
“Lord Hayden,” his aide-de-camp said as he gazed across the cropland his men and mounts were trampling at the gray tiered walls of the Imperial capital.
“The city does not look particularly majestic, does it?”
“Milord?”
“In the stories the bards boast of its brilliant white walled tiers, which no assault will ever breach.” But the reality was that the walls of the Seventh Tier were dingy and gray, covered by soot from the many chimneys the city now boasted. “We shall breach those walls and the city, the empire, shall be mine… any word?”
“None from Archmage Kolter or any of our mage allies since their last report yesterday.”
“Then they are likely in position as planned… excellent; and the Llewellyns?”
“That’s what I came to report. The scouts returned. A small Imperial force, the Lyai’s legion, is heading this way with the Llewellyns in pursuit with that fey storm harassing their rear.”
“The famed magestorm’s risen as Kolter warned it would, meaning the human has not gained control of the Gate.” The elflord clapped his hands. “Soon our friend Grendel shall take his rightful place as Highmage and Consort, putting that fool woman in her place.” And the Empire will be mine in all but name, he thought.
Lord Winterhil, formerly the retired general of the First Legion, knew Hayden’s scouts and scryers were focusing on the detachment of Lyain legionnaires racing toward them, who would now be seeing…
A Haydenese scout was riding pell mell back toward his lines. “Yes, do pass on to Lord Hayden the good news.”
“Um, General, the storm,” his Llewellyn garbed bodyguard muttered.
He turned and saw the storm blocking sight of the city and now beginning to move closer, “By the Gate, charge before the storm cuts us off from Raymar’s men! Charge!”
His cavalry charged behind him as he spurred his mount, racing up behind his lead detachment, which was supposed to be bait. He glanced over his shoulder and muttered, “Je’orj, be the Highmage!”
The storm moved slowly across the Seventh Tier, moving southeast to southwest. The rain pelted Grigg’s reformed mounted legionnaire detachment, best described it. It took nearly an hour for them traverse even the nearly empty streets of the now deserted Tier.
When t
hey approached the barred Southwestern Gate, Lucian was waiting for them.
Lonny ran through the storm as the human Highmage held his staff high, a field of blue light shielded them from rain and worse, as the static charge grew greater and greater around them. Lightning struck the shield.
Se’and screamed in his ear, “Do you know what you’re doing?!”
Lightning struck again and again, the shield flaring.
:George, I do not know how long we can withstand this barrage.:
“If we can, the Haydenese surely can’t,” he muttered, knowing the storm was as much within him as around them. :Lonny, run faster, please.:
:A lot faster, please: Staff pled.
The battle steed, eyes wide, did, drawing on all the magic in her bones and blood, hoping the storm wasn’t about to wipe out all the Empress’s allied forces at any moment.
Inside the weathered, worn, and pitted gray stone of the Second Tier wall, pulsed light as the warder reached deep into what George would term its molecular bonds deep Underhill and suddenly connected with an affiliated elfblooded soul. The node was bursting and, now, the energies had outlet and flared upward through the oval shaped Second Tier wall. Abruptly the energy welled into the First Tier wall and that of the Third Tier.
The Empress cried out in her palace, losing her balance, dizzied as her city… breathed that which it had yearned for so long.
The Fourth Tier wall abruptly pulsed as the storm cut the capital city off from view like a veil from the invading Haydens.
Grendelsteed raced through the Fifth Tier gate with the girl upon its bare back as she cried in delight, “Yes! Yes!”
The lone Imperial guardsman protecting that gate simply gaped, then felt the cobble stone beneath his feet grow warm. He stared down and saw bubbles of light appearing within the stone, which flow to the left and right, infusing the Fifth Tier wall and rising around the archway of the gate. Looking about him, he saw one of the pesky vines they pulled everyday abruptly withered and fell away.
He would have called for his sergeant or even Captain Yates, but his fellows were all manning the Seventh Tier wall or the Six Tier gates.
Lord Hayden grinned and shouted to his men, “The city is ours!”
The Llewellyn cavalry driving the Empress’s loyalist, the bastard storm at the back of the brought them together on a field that Hayden knew was of his choosing and not the pathetic remnant of the Legion’s. The Imperial capital vanished behind the storm and then they were fighting swords swinging, the Lyains looking desperate.
His mages fell to the rear. Many dismounted and quickly formed a circle, while the remainder remained stiff in their saddles, holding the wards that both obscured any chance of scrying and formed a protective shield over the Haydenese troops.
The Llewellyn cavalry hit the rear most Lyians and there was a blind series of flashes of lightning followed nearly instantly by a roll of thunder that nearly unhorsed him as his mount reared.
Lord Hayden blinked, seeing afterimages as his entire charge if not the entire battle was disrupted.
“How am I to explain this to Lady Carwina?” the old servant wondered, examining the damaged door.
There was a thud, following by another and cries of “Ouch.” “Hey!” “Look where you’re going!” and “Get out of the way!”
The man gaped as mage after mage appeared. “Uh, hello, Terrel.”
“Master Donnialt?”
“Sorry about the intrusion,” he frowned seeing the damaged door. “We’ll fix that. I promise.”
“Master?”
“Oh, yes, Terrel, would you happen to have a dozen loaves of bread in stasis, lots of cheese would come in handy, too.”
“Uh, bread, Master Donnialt?”
“Yes, we hadn’t planned on being gone quite so long. The pantry is rather bare back there.”
The servant nodded, knowing he would never understand magery, but feeding guests, that he understood. “Bread, cheese, we have jam – Master Alrex loved jam.”
“Good, you lot go and help him and set it all out. We don’t have all day on this side of reality.”
Thomi had brought the prisoners into the city without incident, passing the duty onto a mixed group of hammer and shovel wielding dwarves and a small detachment of the Imperial Guard.
He wanted to immediately ride back out, but Walsh’s overly large left hand blocked him, “NO.”
“Aw, common, they’ll need our help.”
“NO.”
Thomi, if you so much as set foot out of that city, I’ll… I’ll…
Wincing, he muttered, “Amira, I’ll be fine.”
You are a boy in a man’s body is what you are!
He shut his mouth, telling her he was man enough for her apparently, wasn’t something he ever wanted to say to her again… And if she cried again, he didn’t know what he was going to do.
His ogre friend gave him a sympathetic look, then pointed to the top of the Seventh Tier wall.
“Fine, we’ll watch, but if this whole plan fails, I’m going to lead reinforcements!”
Amira did not say a word in reply. Had Thomi thought about it, he would have understood. Dwarven children marched the prisoners away, whacking the recalcitrant hard with their shovels. The city had very little in the way of reinforcements to spare. What defenders there were stood atop the Seventh Tier wall, most were drenched from the fey storm’s rain.
Behind them, Thomi didn’t notice the Sixth Tier wall beginning to pulse with light and glowing with a white light, but the girl riding Grendelsteed, through the Seventh Tier, did.
The Haydenese and the defenders alike cringed back as the storm’s lightning lashed out again and again like a long forgotten artillery barrage. Winterhil knew shouting was useless, his ears ringing. His eyes filled with tears and he muttered a scrying spell.
He tried to link with Lady Esperanza and failed.
My lord, may I be of assistance? said what felt like a young feminine mind voice.
“Amira?”
No.
“Who are you?”
A friend of the Empress and Lord Je’orj, who can relay your commands to your troops… What are your orders, Sir?
He paused a moment, then shaking his head told her.
“Je’orj!” Se’and screamed in his ear.
The storm dissipated around them as the energies that had fueled it no longer fed it and the barrage of lightning expended itself. Revealed before them the Haydenese and Imperial troops alike were in disarray, most still struggling with their mounts. Raymar’s Lewellyns dressed legionnaires suddenly drew back as did General Winterhil’s force.
His temporarily deafened forces reformed, Winterhil raised his right arm high, waved his sword as the Haydenese began to stare at the Capital, whose Seventh Tiers were suddenly pristine white and basking in magery.
“What?” Lord Hayden cried, glimpsing the city as he had never seen it. His ears still thundering, his mount under control, he craned about and muttered, “Where are our mages…”
Where his mages should be, repeated lightning strikes had clearly shattered their wards. Smoke rose around charred blackened forms. He turned away, unable to help himself and… ducked.
The Elflord grinned, “Ah, Lord Hayden!”
He slashed with his sword only to collide with a bane sword of ancient name forgotten, save to its retired general of a wielder.
The swords clashed and Hayden’s shattered. The backlash knocked him off his mount. The general looked down at him and said loudly, “Surrender or not, Hayden. Live another day or die now, which do you prefer?”
The elflord stared up from the ground. “I… I surrender.”
“Very well…”
Hayden rose and gestured to his people, then knelt, and the battle ceased around them. Winterhil never let his eyes wander from Hayden, not trusting to his honor, a lack which brought him with an army nearly to the gates of the Empress’s now gleaming city. Truly it was a gleaming city as even the
rooftops of the buildings in the Seventh Tiers shone as if they were new.
One of his mages rode forward and made a warding gesture as two of the Lyian soldiers arrested the traitorous lord.
“Ahem, General.”
Winterhil frowned, hearing that voice with a clarity that cut through the soft ringing in his eyes.
“It looks like you have this well in hand.”
Winterhil nodded to an exhausted looking Lord Je’orj, whose staff was now quiescent, the black liveried Lady Se’and riding double behind him. To Winterhil it looked as if she was propping the Highmage up in the saddle, preventing him from falling off. She shook her head, the hem of her livery smoldering.
“Yes, Highmage, apparently… What exactly did you do to the city?”
“Me? Nothing… chalk that up to the warder mages.”
“Warder mages…” Winterhil laughed. “You apparently have things more than well in hand, too, I see.”
The human mage nodded, “It, uh, pays to have friends… who I’d best check on. I’ll be off to the city, then.”
The general saluted as his men rounded up the prisoners. “Highmage,” they chorused.
Hayden, soon to be former lord of Hayden, knew at the moment as the tall battle steed raced away that all his plans had come to ashes and he should have chosen a quick death at the general’s hands.
Lord Hayden’s herald, Isap, stared as the storm cleared, saw the battle lost and the suddenly gleaming capital, where the city node should by now be shattering its every tier. He stood pale and cursed. Archmage Kolter would be displeased, very displeased.
He was not a brave man.
Heralds walked a razor’s edge, representing their lords often under truce, which offered them protection… at least when both parties were honorable.
He quickly mounted and instead of riding to the Southwest back toward Hayden, he rode southeast toward Rian and the Great Way, where he hoped the Caravan Road might provide him the best option to flee the Empire for a life in one of the Crescent Land’s wealthy city-states.
