“Yes, I am sure she is quite competent by academic standards,” Inquisitor Fennrick said, “but my people and I specialize in this sort of thing. No, I believe the girl is no longer in the city, and that is why I requested this meeting. Magus Allister, I understand you probably know her best. Have you seen or heard anything about her or her whereabouts?”
“No,” Allister replied shortly.
“Magus, I would remind you that withholding any information regarding the activities of any suspected rogue mages can result in severe punishment.”
“Are you threatening me, boy?” the archmage bristled.
“Not at all. I just would not want to see such an esteemed member of our order brought down because of misplaced sentimentality.”
Harvey cut in before Allister could respond. “I believe it is more natural obstinacy than sentimentality. He was equally unhelpful in my investigation as well. Had he been willing to work with me, this may well have been resolved by now.”
“That hardly seems likely,” the Inquisitor said. “It is my understanding you did manage to locate the child and she humiliated the lot of you.”
Harvey’s face flushed and anger spread through him with the heat of the desert sun. “This young woman has the Codex Arcana. Were it a simple matter of execution, I assure you, my people and I would have had little difficulty taking her to task. My orders were clear, and that was to recover the Codex. To do that, we needed the girl alive. Under those parameters, she had a distinct advantage.”
“Your excuse has some merit, I suppose. Fortunately, my people and I are able to perform even under such strictures, but that is neither here nor there. The issue at hand is locating the girl. I have reason to believe others may be aiding her by providing her with necessities such as food. I will need to question several of your students who know her best. I understand there is a wildling living in the forest near here who often pilfers food from your larders and is a friend of hers. I will need to interrogate him as well.”
Allister’s fury boiled over at the wizard’s audacity. “The hell you will! You will not interrogate any child in this school, especially that boy!”
Inquisitor Fennrick looked unmoved by the archmage’s outburst. “I remind you again of the penalties of interfering with inquisitor business.”
“You have not begun to see me interfere if you even think of interrogating that boy or these students.”
The three inquisitors standing with Fennrick shifted their posture as tension filled the room. Harvey stood up from behind his desk and tried to calm everyone before a battle broke out between the formidable archmage and four, highly lethal inquisitors.
“Please, let us all remain rational. Magus Allister, need I remind you I am now in charge here, and I will decide what will and will not happen on these grounds as it pertains to my students.”
Allister wheeled on the Headmaster. “Like you have done to their education? You have them repeating things they learned their first year! You are intentionally blocking their access to higher-level magic. Try to deny it!”
“I deny nothing. Until I am comfortable with their knowledge and discipline, our curriculum will focus on the basics, which have been largely ignored under yours and the deceased sorcerer’s guidance. The goals of The Academy are primarily scholarly, not militancy. Those who show a desire and adeptness for such can apply for further training with the inquisitors when the time comes.”
A knock at the door interrupted further argument. Harvey’s personal aide cautiously entered after receiving permission to intrude.
“Excuse me, Headmaster. A courier just arrived with a missive for Inquisitor Fennrick. He said it was urgent.”
With a nod from Harvey, the aide handed a folded and wax-sealed document to the lead inquisitor and vanished into the small reception room outside. A slight grin played across Fennrick’s face as he read.
“It would seem our young rogue has indeed left this region and is now stirring up trouble in Southport.”
“Southport?” Harvey exclaimed. “Why would the girl do something so incredibly foolish right under The Academy’s nose? Surely they have already apprehended her?”
“It appears they tried, and with as much success as you. You should feel more at ease with such a dilution of failure. It is apparent the fault is not just yours, but with the institution in which you were educated.”
“It is the same institution as yours,” Harvey forced through clenched jaws.
Fennrick smiled arrogantly at the Headmaster. “I exceeded their training a long time ago, Headmaster.”
Harvey waited for the inquisitors to leave the room before exploding. “What an infuriating man! I have never seen such arrogance!”
“I recommend you look closer at the mirror next time you shave or you might cut yourself,” Allister said and left the Headmaster to fume in his office.
CHAPTER 13
Fall was well entrenched and Ellyssa pulled the tattered blanket draped over her shoulders tighter. Although wearing the magical guise of a crippled beggar, she wore some of her warmest clothes beneath her illusion, but having to remain stationary still allowed the cold to seep through and bite at her flesh. It likely would have been unbearable were it not for a subtle ward used to protect her from the elements.
She had been in Southport for nearly three months. Her magic slowly returned to her, and within a week, she had recovered its full use. It was fortunate it had. Barely two weeks ago, a pair of wizards found her lurking in the Squatters’ Quarter in search of slavers on the hunt. She now understood why Azerick pushed his students to learn combative magic with which to defend themselves. The wizards she fought probably knew a great deal more than she did about magic, but their study was obviously geared toward the academic. Despite their greater knowledge, and even power, they did not have the mindset to use it properly in a down and dirty street fight.
Finding slavers in Southport turned out to be rather easy, but word quickly circulated of the Witch of North Haven now hunted the hunters and they were running scared. It had been days since she spotted anything more than some fencing and black marketing, but those people were not her concern. Not one of the slavers or pirates she got hold of claimed to know anything of Captain Jake other than he kept near the Black Sand Isles and their various pirate ports. Ellyssa figured he must have limped his way to a shipyard there instead of the nearer Southport. She did not like the idea of becoming part of a pirate crew so she could search for him in the Isles, but if things did not change soon, that was exactly what she would have to do.
It was late and Ellyssa was cold, bored, and tired. She made a show of struggling to her feet so as not to break character and hobbled on a crutch down the dockside street. Not until she rounded a second corner and ducked into the concealing darkness of a building’s shadow did she drop her illusive disguise.
Ellyssa was surprised by how much she missed Sandy, Wolf, Roger, and the others. Despite her aloofness and desire for solitude, having a physical distance between them made her feel alone. Likely it was the knowledge they were always there at the ready should she need them. She wondered if there would ever be a way for her to go home after all this was over. She doubted it.
She stepped out of the shadow and back onto the walkway, tapping her crutch on the wooden footpath. Ellyssa did not pause to ponder what danger approached when the hairs on her arm stood up. She ripped open a gate and dove through the same instant the storefront exploded.
“Tamara, please keep in mind we need her alive,” Inquisitor Fennrick cautioned.
“Of course, Fennrick,” the woman responded with a smile.
“Did you see where she went?”
Tamara looked up and down the dark street. “I think she gated away. She cannot be far. One of the others should spot her in a moment.”
Fennrick cocked an ear. “Do you hear that?”
The strange rhythmical whumping sound grew louder until a large stick or branch struck Fennrick’s ward and clatte
red to the ground. Had he not had his ward raised, it would have hit him right between the eyes. The Inquisitor reached down and picked it up.
“What is it?” Tamara asked.
Fennrick grinned. “The crutch the girl was using in her disguise. Cute.”
A feeling of electricity tingled across his hand and spread up his arm. He hurled the crutch away and it exploded just as it left his hand, knocking him and Tamara to the ground.
“When is The Academy going to learn to stop sending fools after me?” Ellyssa’s voice echoed down the deserted street.
The two inquisitors regained their feet and faced the direction of the voice. “They have learned, girl, which is why they sent for us. Why don’t you save yourself a great deal of pain and come peacefully?” Fennrick asked.
“So you can execute me after a sham trial? I think not.”
Another explosion rocked the block. “Fennrick, she’s over here!” Inquisitor Mills shouted.
“You and Forrest try to get ahead of her, and we will trap her between us,” Fennrick shouted back.
Ellyssa spotted the wizard standing on the rooftop just as he tried to crush her with a blast of force. She dove into the alley next to her as pieces of wood and chunks of dirt and stone rained onto her back. This time, she saw the wizard on another roof across the street before emerging from the dark alleyway. She called on the Source and wrapped the alley’s shadows around her body before stealthily creeping out onto the street.
Looking behind her, Ellyssa created a web of magic that would wrap an illusion of herself around the wizard she could hear running after her. Just like a spider web, the spell clung to the walls and waited for the wizard to run through it. She then turned her attention to the man standing on the rooftop and waited until she could hear the one from the alley getting closer. Just as the wizard in the alley ran through her web, Ellyssa cast an illusion of her image onto the man on the roof.
Inquisitor Forrest looked toward the alley and spotted the girl running out of it. Inquisitor Mills ran out of the alley and saw the girl on the roof. Both wizards began forming their spells, but Forrest was faster. Mills saw he was not going to get his spell off before the girl did and tried to dive away, but his realization came too late and the spell struck him in the side. His ward flared brightly as it tried to protect him. His shield saved him from severe injury, but the force of the impact left him dazed.
Inquisitor Forrest cursed when he saw the illusion wrapped around Mills come unraveled by his assault. “Beware your shots; the girl is using illusions against us!” Forrest spotted the girl when she moved and launched another, even more powerful force strike.
Ellyssa immediately recognized the spell and prepared to counter it. Instead of expending the energy to dodge it or block it with a spell of equal power, she simply opened a gate directly in front of her with the entrance and exit pointed toward the caster. Inquisitor Mills cursed once again as he realized what the clever girl had just done. He threw himself backward as his own spell obliterated the entire corner of the building upon which he was standing.
Motion out of the corner of her eye saved her life as Ellyssa dodged. Despite her quick actions, Inquisitor Tamara’s spell clipped her hard and spun her into the street. Ellyssa kept rolling even as she formed a spell. It was thankfully simple and she hoped it would buy her enough time to get to her feet. She rolled onto her side facing the inquisitor and cast her spell. The road in front of Tamara erupted upward in a wave of dust, soil, and cobblestones. The wizard hunched down and poured power into her ward as the wave of earth matter cascaded over her.
Ellyssa immediately leapt to her feet only to have the wizard on the roof blast her back off them. Rolling with the impact, Ellyssa stood, lurched drunkenly, and took off running, fueling the muscles of her legs with magic. She could hear the shouts and footfalls of the two mages racing after her. Ellyssa stretched her arms out to her sides and unleashed her arcane power.
The building fronts exploded into the street where a fierce wind created a vortex of swirling timber and stone. Every home and building front exploded inward, torn from the main structure by the massive vacuum and followed in her wake like rushing water. The fury of the tempest forced Inquisitors Forrest and Tamara to end their chase and reinforce their wards before the flying materials shredded them.
When the massive assault stopped, the two inquisitors found themselves near the end of the street facing the brick wall of a large building. The buildings and homes along the street were in ruins, their entire street-side walls lying scattered across the avenue. The two wizards looked in the only two directions the girl could have run.
“Well, she had to go left or right,” Inquisitor Tamara said.
“Unless I gated in behind you,” came Ellyssa’s cold voice directly to their rear.
Ellyssa struck before the two mages could turn around, the force of her strike hurling them through the air to smash into the brick wall a full thirty feet from where she stood. Seeing both inquisitors dazed beyond coherency, Ellyssa left the pair twitching and moaning as she ran down the street to her right.
She had barely taken half a dozen steps when something struck her from behind and sent electricity coursing through her body, numbing her limbs and senses. Ellyssa cursed through the pain and surprise at her own stupidity. She had made a fundamental error in any battle, losing count of the number of enemies she faced. There had been another man with the woman in the first contest and the two men in the street she tricked into striking at each other for total of four not three.
Ellyssa felt the ground lift up from beneath her and begin folding itself around her body in an earthen and quarried stone cocoon. She thought quickly. She needed to keep an arm free if she was going to have any chance of defending herself. The swelling earth raised her from the ground and pressed her against the side of a building. The dark silhouette of a man slowly resolved into Inquisitor Fennrick as he sauntered closer.
“I will give you credit. You are a very clever girl. A shame you wasted your talents on murder,” he said and stopped perhaps a score of feet away.
Ellyssa glared down at the man. “It was not murder! Every man I killed was a pirate or a slaver, and both warrant immediate execution under the King’s law!”
“As does your actions under Academy Law. The difference is you will get the trial denied those men.”
“They chose their fate when they chose their profession, just as you chose yours when you attacked me.”
Ellyssa cast her spell with a final flick of the wrist of her free hand. She opened a gate directly beneath Fennrick’s feet and placed the exit less than twenty feet over his head. The inquisitor let out a short bark of surprise as he fell, and fell, and continued to fall, picking up speed as he dropped through the portals. Within seconds, he was traveling at such a rate he had to close his eyes against the wind.
Without Fennrick focusing on the spell holding her against the wall, Ellyssa was able to dispel it. Her earthen shackles crumbled into loose dirt and stone and deposited her onto the street. She stepped toward the falling wizard and shouted so he could hear her over the wind blasting past his ears.
“I will tell you what I told those other fools: leave me alone before someone gets hurt.”
She then used her magic to give the inquisitor a nudge, making him spin on every axis imaginable. Ellyssa conjured another gate and disappeared onto a nearby roof.
Tamara and Forrest reached the scene a moment before Inquisitor Mills stumbled in, still trying to shake off his bludgeoning. All three looked upon the scene in amazed wonderment.
“By the gods, I never would have thought of that,” Inquisitor Tamara gasped.
Inquisitor Mills stifled a smile. “The girl is clever, I’ll grant her that.”
“If you all are finished gawking, get me out of this before I sick up all over myself!” Fennrick shouted then clamped his jaws shut.
The Sorcerer's Abyss (The Sorcerer's Path) Page 24
