Danica raised the sword. “I don’t know how we can ever hope to repay you.”
The spirit’s eyes flicked past Danica and her smile melted.
Danica’s hackles shot up. The prickle of spider’s legs rushed up her spine. She bowed her head and sighed. She turned about. “My brother warned me you’d be coming, Mordum.”
Mordum threw off his cloak to allow himself greater freedom. “Your memory, and your instincts serve you well,” he said, not unkindly.
Danica snorted, her wrinkled face turning up in a half grin. “I hadn’t expected you to be quite so pretty, but Elias’s description does own you. You’ve a haughty tilt to your eyes, as he said.”
Mordum smiled warmly at her, a gesture foreign on the countenance of any fey she had encountered thus far. “You could surrender, Archmagus. I’d take you anywhere. Any time.”
Danica tilted her head and looked him flat in the eye. “You knew my brother?”
Mordum smiled. “A little, yes.”
“Then you know my answer.”
Mordum nodded and straightened his waistcoat. “Are you ready?”
Danica raised Elias’s sword in both hands. “Come.”
Mordum launched his assault without so much as raising a hand, his will pouring from his blanched eyes. A crimson pulse of energy tore through the air. Danica caught it on the blade of the sword and recycled it back at him with a moment’s thought, but Mordum was gone.
He stepped out of the air inches to her right, a black dagger clutched in his fist. She raised a shield as soon as her peripheral vision detected him, drawing upon a lifetime of countering arcane attacks as easily as drawing breath. Her shield halted his advance, but it did not repel him as she had expected. The fey was strong.
For a score of heartbeats they stood in a deadlock, Mordum gaining not a millimeter, yet she was unable to repel him, or drop her focus to weave an offensive spell. A long minute later, and he crept a hair nearer. His face was a tranquil mask, absent of the evidence of his hard labor.
Danica knew that she couldn’t resist him much longer, and she still had a task to complete. A quick glance revealed that Atya still awaited her, her delicate features crumpled in grief. Danica winked at her.
She withdrew her shield and funneled all her power into hurtling herself through the air toward the tree. Elias’s sword sank into the trunk, passing though the bark with the ease of cutting hot wax, even as Mordum’s knife bit into her back. She fell to her knees, and willed the sword to push the remainder of the way inside the tree. The hilt disappeared beneath the bark, and the fissure closed after it with, sealing in a burst of green light.
She blinked and found herself lying on her back, resting against the gnarled roots of the tree. Atya knelt at her side, looking down on her with shining eyes. Danica smiled up at her. “I’m glad I’ve come to the end. I’m tired and long has it been since I’ve seen Bryn, or Lar, Phinneas, old Ogden—any of them.” Tears collected in her eyes. “My father, my mother.”
Mordum pulled a strand of white hair from her face. “You died well. It won’t be long now.”
Danica blinked and her tears fell. “Elias is still out there, fighting. He hasn’t crossed to the other side yet. I can feel it.”
“He’s in another time. You’d never know.”
Danica chuckled. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’d know in any place if his story had come to an end.” She pushed herself onto an elbow and grasped Mordum by his collar. “And besides, Elias is outside of time now. He is beyond your reach.”
Mordum’s face lost a little of its color, and his easy smile faltered.
Danica fell back against the tree. She was growing light. It was something like falling asleep after rolling over in the middle of the night. A strange energy coursed through her, like nothing she had ever felt.
Mordum leaned close. “What do you see?”
“Something that will be denied you for a very, very long time,” Danica said and then died.
Chapter 24
First Marshal
Danica knuckled her eyes. She feared that she may have just dozed off sitting up. Her eyes flicked to Bryn, whose attention was fixed fast on the book opened on the desk before her. If she had drifted off, the princess seemed none the wiser.
She and Bryn had been scouring the catalog for hours, looking for any clue on dream magic or the fabled lore of the time mages. They began with arcane treatises and philosophies from out of Aradur, for it was in that land that Olaf the Red first learned of the secret Arcanum.
As Danica hunkered down over yet another tome a breathless page burst into the room, with a perplexed Leoman at his heels. “What in Agia could this be about,” said Bryn, “surely they didn’t miss us at the palace that much.”
The page leaned over and gripped his knees as he sucked in gulps of air. “Trouble...at Lucerne...”
Danica stood and rapped him on the back. “Easy goes it, fella. Catch your breath and then tell us what’s happened.”
The page nodded, wheezing. “Attack... in the royal wing... by a serpent. Two dead. First Marshal...First Marshal...”
Danica seized the reedy youth by his shoulders. “What about Lar?”
“He fell.” The boy swallowed a lungful of air. “Blackwell says...Lady Duana...they need you.”
Bryn grabbed the stupefied Danica by an arm and pulled her toward the door. To Leoman she said, “We need horses, coursers, and a handful of your best medics and arcanists, and we need it twenty minutes ago.”
†
Lar stormed down the central corridor of the royal wing. Both Danica and Bryn had turned up missing in the morning, no doubt off on some fool’s-errand, but he had been charged with keeping them safe, and he was damned if he was going to explain to Elias that he had shirked his duty if anything were to happen to either of them. That’s what he told himself as he made his way toward Bryn’s chambers, but if he was honest with himself, he had begun to despair that he would never see Elias again.
He pushed the dour thought from his mind. While it was troubling enough to worry that ball of yarn by his lonesome, he was acting First Marshal and he couldn’t let anyone see him ruffled. The Marshals were a fledgling order, and weak leadership would see it crumble before it was reborn. Lar owed too much to Padraic and Elias to see that happen.
Lar heard the screams as soon as he rounded the corner of the royal apartments.
He cleared his sword in the scabbard and sprinted down the hall, inanely remembering his mother’s admonishment not to run with sharp things. Bryn’s door was ajar when he skidded to a stop before it. He drew his sword fully and nudged the door open with his foot. The scene he encountered made his hands go numb.
A soldier in a brown coat lay in the far corner. A streak of blood lay across the floor, pointing to his crumbled form like a giant red arrow. Two Redshields squared off against a hissing, fiendish creature. Their opponent had the torso of a man but in place of legs it had a black-scaled serpentine appendage. In a black-fingernailed hand he wielded an obsidian saber, and as his tail whipped around Lar saw that it was barbed with a wicked stinger.
The snake-man feinted at the closest Redshield with his saber, while he whipped his tail around his flank and punched his stinger through the back of the hapless soldier’s breastplate. With a hiss, and a mighty flick of his tail, the snake-man threw the impaled Redshield to the floor. Recovered from his shock, in a manner of speaking, Lar stepped warily into the fray.
The snake-man fixed yellow, serpentine eyes on him. “What a pleasssant surprissse,” he purred. “I thought all the northmen were dead. I’m going to enjoy this—unless you tell me why you brought me here and then send me back home.”
Lar adopted a high guard. “I don’t know how you got here. Some kind of portal has formed here, but we don’t know how it happened.”
The snake-man narrowed his eyes. “You don’t look like a magus, but your blade is a fey-killer, made of the old, high magic. No, I don’t think I be
lieve you.”
The snake-man spun away from Lar and raised his free hand. A beam of blue energy speared from his palm. Reflexively, Lar brandished his sword and met the blast with his steel. Waves of cold radiated through his hands and into his arms and his blade frosted, but the ancient sword held. The snake-man screeched, then charged.
He feinted with his black-bladed saber, but Lar had seen him use the same tactic on the unfortunate Redshield, who now lay bleeding out. Lar sprung back instead of engaging the snake-man and brought his sword high. When the creature whipped his tail around, Lar threw his weight into a slanting overhand stroke. The swing unsteadied him, and if he missed it could have proved his undoing, but miss he did not. His blade caught the snake-man inches below his stinger, severing the tip of his appendage.
Hot blood spurted over Lar and arced across the room, painting the wall, floor, and ceiling alike as the snake-man snapped back his ruined appendage. Lar pressed his advantage at once, making a low, rising slash at his opponent’s exposed torso. The fiend hissed and snaked backward to avoid the blow, but found only the waiting blade of the remaining Redshield who had moved into a flanking position.
The snake-man thrashed momentarily, but then went stiff and pale with shock. His mouth worked soundlessly, as he looked stupidly at the three-feet of steel protruding from his chest.
“Leave the sword alone,” Lar barked. “We need him alive.”
The snake-man crashed onto his side, black blood dotting his lips and chin. “I don’t think that’s likely,” he said tonelessly.
Lar took a knee by the dying man’s side. “Hold on there. We’ll get a healer.” He looked up at the Redshield. “God’s-teeth, man. Go find Danica Duana!”
The snake-man gave Lar a red smile. “You’re not much of a gate-mage at all, are you?” He laughed wetly.
“No,” replied Lar. “I don’t know how you got here. Do you?”
“Hell of thing,” said the snake-man, his eyes going glassy. “Go treasure hunting and end up on a sword, the elder powers alone knows where. Should have listened to me sainted mother and become an apothecary.” The snake-man exhaled a blood-frothed laugh, and died.
It wasn’t long before the Redshield returned with a score of his compatriots and Captain Blackwell. Lar looked up briefly, but his eyes returned to the mysterious half man. He felt grateful to be alive, but felt pity for the creature, who, while strange and horrifying in appearance, seemed as possessed of faculty and emotion as any man. He could only imagine how he would have reacted if he had fallen into a vortex, or whatever it was, and ended up in a different world. His heart dropped into his guts as realized that one person didn’t have to wonder what that was like—Elias Duana.
Someone grasped him by the shoulders. He looked into Blackwell’s round eyes. “Lar, are you injured? Mitchell said you were hit by a spell. Can you hear me?”
“Aye.” Lar pushed himself to his feet. “I’m fine. Fit as a fiddle.”
Blackwell didn’t look convinced. “If you say so.”
“You shoulda seen it, Captain,” Mitchell said. “He blocked it with his sword, just like Duana does, and that thing just went berserk.”
“Mitchell here says that if it wasn’t for you he would’ve been finished,” Blackwell said. “If that thing got loose in the royal wing it could’ve gotten real ugly real fast.”
Lar sheathed the sword that Danica had dubbed Kyan. “Lucky ‘s all.”
“What is it I say, Mitchell?” Blackwell asked.
“That you don’t believe in luck, Captain,” replied Mitchell.
“That’s right,” said Blackwell. “Well done, Marshal.” Blackwell turned to address the throng behind him. “Look sharp, Redshields. You know the drill. Operation Red Veil. Lock this wing down and send word to the Blackshields. We are now in a state of high alert. Fly the flag.”
The Redshields fell into rank and swept into the corridor, but the senior officers remained. In short order Ogden, who bore a staff, and Phinneas, who bore a medic’s satchel, swept into the crowded room, with Lord Antares and Lord Oberon on their heels. Lar surmised the commotion must have disturbed the Council of the Six.
Ogden fixed his attention on Blackwell at once, while Phinneas went quickly to examine the fallen. “Captain, report,” said Ogden.
Before Blackwell could begin, Oberon stepped up and said, “As the highest ranking official in the absence of the queen, I will take your report Blackwell. I am ready to summon my household retainers if needed. Now, report.”
“I’m sure you are,” said Blackwell dryly, though his features retained the practiced bland expression of a soldier. He turned his attention to Ogden. “Marshal Fletcher was the first on the scene, Sir. With respect, I believe he better suited to report than I.”
“Very well,” said Ogden. “Marshal, report.”
Oberon bristled and waggled an index finger. “Now wait here. Who are you—”
With alacrity belying his age, Ogden raised his staff and hammered it onto the floor. Pale blue sparks pinwheeled from the base of the staff, then winked out as fast as they had come. Oberon’s jaw fell agape, showing pairs of gold-capped molars in the back of his mouth. Ogden leveled his staff at the stunned High Lord. “Who am I? Who am I? I am Ogden Vandrael, Archmagus, master of the Deep Arcanum, the first among a fraternity of arcanists that have kept your lands safe for centuries.”
To his credit, Oberon composed himself momentarily, though twin spots of crimson dotted his cheeks. “A clandestine agent among us? This is treason.”
“Careful,” growled Blackwell, whose hand reflexively crept an inch toward his long-blade.
Ogden’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You shouldn’t concern yourself with levying accusations, but with whether or not I’m going to incinerate you for perpetrating the same crime you have so glibly thrown at my feet.”
Oberon blanched but held his ground. “You’ve not heard the last of this, Seneschal.”
“I dearly hope so.”
Lord Antares, who had watched the exchange mutely until now, laid a hand on Oberon’s shoulder. “Come now, Geoff, let us report to the queen and leave them to it.”
Antares locked eyes with Ogden and offered him a barely perceptible shake of his head, before setting out the way he had come.
Oberon glared at Ogden a beat longer, but lost his courage when his compatriot was gone. He turned heel and stormed from the room, leaving a pregnant silence in his wake.
Phinneas broke the silence by snapping shut his medic’s bag. “Rest in peace, boys.”
“Simmons, Faulk, Michaels,” Blackwell said, “cover this thing and drag it to the examination room where we took the assassins last year. You remember?”
“Aye, Captain,” said one of the Redshields.
“Good,” said Blackwell. “Then come back for your fallen comrades. The rest of you, take up post in the bedchamber. That’s where this business began.” When the remaining Redshields filed out of the room, Blackwell turned his attention back to Ogden. “Was that wise?”
Ogden leaned on his staff, and in that moment looked his age. “Probably not, but with all the business that’s happened in the last year and all the strange things that are happening in the ether now, it’s become more and more difficult for me to hide my abilities. If I’m going to be outed, better that it be on my terms, where I can put my enemies on the guard instead of the other way around.”
Blackwell grunted and gave a nod. “When you’re in too deep, the only way out is to push on through to the other side.”
“Mr. Duana used to say that,” Lar said.
The trio turned their attention back to the green Marshal.
“Then your Mr. Duana was a learned man,” remarked Blackwell.
“He was a lot of things,” said Lar. “He was like a father to me. I think maybe that’s why Elias and I became friends. I had lost my father, he his mother.”
“I never knew him,” said Blackwell, “I was a child when he retired from service, but
I was weaned on his legends as a boy.”
“Perhaps it is time you gave that report, Lar,” said Phinneas.
“Aye,” said Lar. He quickly detailed the brief melee and his short interaction with the snake-man before he died.
“Hmm,” said Ogden as he wet a finger and smoothed his eyebrows. “So this creature was somehow accidentally drawn into what he believed was a gate-portal.”
Phinneas grabbed Ogden by the arm. “Think of the wurm Bryn went up against. Is it possible this vortex is a portal to another realm entirely?”
“We are left with few other conclusions,” Ogden said, “as neither of these beings are known to exist on our world. One species unheard of in all academia is possible, but two within a week’s time? I think not.”
Phinneas tugged at his nose. “I was taught that the Racine Council destroyed all known portals in the time of King Vogras.”
“As was I,” said Ogden. “Also that they destroyed all recorded knowledge of the art and forbid any wizard from passing on any such Arcanum. It was deemed too dangerous after the Aradurian Empire fell, but there’s always someone who doesn’t play by the rules.”
“The single person that had access to that peerless art would be all the more powerful for it.”
“Just so.”
Ogden and Phinneas fell into a debate on the particulars of portals, and Lar’s mind wandered. His eyes found the fallen Marshal Initiate. He never knew the man, never saw his face. His appointment to acting First Marshal was farcical at best, he knew, but he owed it to those who had worn the shield before him to do his utmost to act the part. The best way he could honor the memory of Padraic and Elias was to act in their stead.
A commotion drew Lar from his musings. He looked up to see that Danica and Bryn had burst into the room. He resisted the impulse to laugh at once, for they struck a comic picture, red-faced, breathless, and with wayward hairs poking from their ponytails in wild halos.
Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle) Page 21
