World's First Wizard Complete Series Boxed Set

by Schneider, Aaron D.

  Milo laughed, but the burst of sound made his head hurt.

  “You’ve certainly had a funny way of showing it,” he said, wincing.

  “If you send a report back to Berlin about Petrograd, the Reich will know, and that means the warlord will know,” Lokkemand said, his voice holding the flat certainty of a man stating facts.

  “His name is Roland, that warlord,” Milo told him as he held his head.

  Lokkemand’s eyes narrowed, and Milo could almost hear the wheels humming and the gears clacking.

  “Well, once this Roland is informed, I will lose my access to information about the Reich, and that can’t happen,” Lokkemand said, then he took a step forward, hands knotting into fists. “That can’t happen! You can’t understand the cancer those monsters in the Reich represent. If I miss this chance, there may be no stopping them from turning my country into something hideous.”

  Milo remembered the raw hate in the faces of the youths under Berlin’s streetlights.

  “I think I’ve got an idea,” Milo said. “But what you don’t understand is how dangerous Roland can be, especially if he’s sided with Zlydzen.”

  The fierce light in Lokkemand’s eyes still burned as he looked suspiciously at Milo

  “We’re not just talking Germany, Lokkemand,” Milo continued grimly. “We’re talking all of Europe.”

  Milo and the captain stared at each other, wills grappling over the muddy expanse between them.

  “My oath is to the Empire,” Lokkemand replied, looking away. “Not the continent. I’m not saying you are wrong; I’m saying I can’t sacrifice the soul of my country even in the face of Armageddon. If we act now, too much of the Reich survives, and chances are we won’t be able to stop them next time.”

  Milo found himself struggling not to see Lokkemand’s side of things. The threat that Roland and Zlydzen presented couldn’t be understated, but it was a nebulous doom to the captain, not like the disease he saw infecting the very fabric of his country. They needed some way to tie the two sides together, to provide information, or even better, evidence to damn them both. With such proof, they could catalyze the general staff and thus all of the Empire to attack.

  “So, you have contact with Roland?” Milo asked, feeling another mad scheme forming in his alcohol-addled brain.

  Lokkemand saw the madness in Milo’s eyes, and he gave the magus a wary look.

  “Yes, in a fashion,” Lokkemand breathed. “What do you have in mind?”

  A smile spread across the wizard’s face.

  12

  These Deceptions

  “This is a terrible idea,” Lokkemand muttered as he frog-marched Milo up the steps to the train platform.

  “Steady, Captain,” Milo murmured as he tried to keep from tripping over the shackles on his ankles while viewing the world through one bruised socket. Lokkemand had insisted they had to sell Milo’s capture and had thus proceeded to shackle and bludgeon the wizard. The fact that Lokkemand had been doing the binding and the hitting made Milo a touch uncertain as to the captain’s motive at being so thorough.

  Still, they were here now, and Milo was being led to a waiting train, with Ambrose being carried behind him in a pine box. Ambrose had traded his uniform for some tattered remnants smeared with the blood of one of the Soviets. It turned out the Red’s clothing hadn’t been burned; it was just that the guards were petty. Here they were, one captured black coat and one Russian spy’s corpse, all being served up to Roland. They just had to make it past some watchdogs first.

  “What is this?” asked the officer standing on the platform as he nodded at Milo with obvious disdain.

  He was a gaunt man with a long face with heavy brows over a pair of busy, worried eyes. He stood with arms crossed and foot tapping, trying to affect a stance of irritated boredom, but his eyes betrayed him. Nothing passed beneath his sight that was not scrutinized minutely.

  Milo’s stomach clenched, and his mouth suddenly felt dry. He hoped the man didn’t start questioning him, lest he give himself away with a careless word or gesture.

  “A gift for our Russian friend,” Lokkemand said in an enviably steady voice. “I thought you might drop him off since you were headed that way.”

  The officer threw a sour look at Lokkemand.

  “We’re not a parcel service.”

  Lokkemand laughed, a strong, genuine chuckle that made the officer wince.

  “Oh, Karl, always with the jokes,” Lokkemand said as though the two were old friends. “We both know you’ve got plenty of room, and this particular bit of cargo could prove very useful to our allies’ schemes and thus to ours.”

  As Lokkemand spoke, Milo gently reached out his will and prodded the officer’s psyche with the Art. To Milo’s eyes, Lokkemand’s jocular tone seemed to be putting the black coat on edge, thus putting the magus on alert. Was this all a grand deception, an excuse to put Milo in as compromising a situation as possible?

  “Even with that coat, he won’t be trusted near the men,” Karl replied, looking at Milo with a curled lip.

  Milo found the officer’s will to be incredibly responsive, and in an instant, he discovered why the black coat became edgier the friendlier Lokkemand was. Karl was insecure. In a flash of tangled emotions and memories, Milo saw that Lokkemand was everything this man wasn’t, and Karl knew it. Lokkemand’s friendly tone made him certain the captain was mocking him, and he was so fixated on that, he was paying less attention to Milo.

  “Oh, of course not,” Lokkemand replied. “I imagine a smart fellow like you’d want to stash him with the rest of the shipment, though I might assign a man to watch. He’s a clever little rat.”

  Lokkemand rapped Milo’s head with one large knuckle and chuckled.

  “Can’t be too careful with the beasts,” Lokkemand said with a wink to his fellow officer.

  “Yes, of course,” Karl simpered as he leaned forward to gloat over Milo’s humiliation. As he did, his eyes swung past Milo’s shoulder and settled on the box containing Ambrose. “What’s in the box?”

  “Oh, yes!” Lokkemand exclaimed with self-deprecating laughter. “How could I forget?”

  Lokkemand pushed Milo at a trio of soldiers standing to Karl’s right.

  “Mind him, would you?” he said in the off-hand way a man of authority gives a command phrased as a question. Lokkemand motioned for Karl to draw close as he moved to the box and lifted the lid.

  “Dear God!” Karl gagged as a wave of stench emerged from the box.

  Milo had ensorcelled some bits of meat and giblets from a butcher in Sergio-Ivanoskye to emit the putrid smell as they sat splayed across Ambrose’s stomach. It had been eye-wateringly convincing when he’d made it, and Milo was glad that the smelly mess hadn’t faded too quickly.

  “Yeah, I hate it when all the bits pop like that, but this one was run down as he tried to escape,” Lokkemand said before pointing at something within the box. “I think you can still see the wheel tread on that bit right there.”

  Karl turned from the box, his face pale and sweaty and one hand raised to his mouth.

  “What would the Russians want with that thing?” he demanded, his legs trembling as the other hand sank to brace his stomach.

  With his head bowed, Milo hid a devious smile. Being a true German of the Reich didn’t spare one from having a weak stomach.

  “Didn’t you see the uniform?” Lokkemand said, his voice pitched to suggest shock and bewilderment as his gray eyes pinioned his fellow black coat. “Surely, you noticed it was wearing one of the Reds’ uniforms, didn’t you?”

  Milo felt Karl’s will twist and squirm with fear as the insecurity bloomed into nerve-rattling terror. The man was terrified of looking incapable or incompetent, especially in front of Lokkemand. Milo subtly stoked the fear toward defiant anger.

  “Of course I did,” he replied brusquely, a little color returning to his face as his cheeks flushed.

  “Then I’m sure you know what this means when matched wi
th your other cargo,” Lokkemand said, his voice dropping to a low whisper as he nodded meaningfully at Milo.

  Milo, still using the Art to keep a thumb on the pulse of Karl’s will, felt unease and fear bloom again. Karl, it seemed, did not have a clue what it meant, but thanks to the anger, his fear of Lokkemand was growing into a vitriolic hatred.

  Lokkemand’s expectant silence stretched, and Milo became afraid that his manipulation of Karl might get out of hand. If the black coat decided to be spiteful to the captain because of his growing hatred, their whole plan could be thwarted, and things would become much more complicated.

  Milo couldn’t handle any more complications. He decided then and there to do something he’d never attempted before.

  Using the Art, he sent the suggestion of images dappling across the black coat’s will, but instead of trying to affect his physical senses, Milo tried to affect his mind. He wasn’t convincing Karl that he was seeing or feeling anything, but that he was thinking something. It was akin to what he and Rihyani did when they communicated wordlessly, but far more subversive and thus far more likely to go wrong as he pressed the fabricated thoughts into another’s mind, where they could change at the subject’s will.

  If the Art was a scalpel, it was like attempting to do surgery inside a body belonging to a living and active creature by touch.

  “Karl?” Lokkemand said, and Milo’s eyes snapped back to the physical world around him, his will retreating. “Captain Karl Franks?”

  The officer stood for staring at nothing, his expression slack.

  Had he gone too far? Had he damaged the black coat with his efforts?

  Milo’s hands began to sweat as he reached out to Karl again with the Art, but then Karl’s lip curled, and he gave a derisive snort as he turned to glare at Milo.

  “So he’s a traitor, then,” Captain Franks said, narrowing his eyes at Milo. “A filthy rat passing along sensitive information to the Slavs.”

  “Precisely,” Lokkemand said, hiding his unease. “Nothing gets past you, Karl.”

  Karl turned back to Lokkemand, still glaring.

  “How do we know they didn’t both work for the Russians in Petrograd?”

  Lokkemand leaned in, and Milo didn’t need the Art to sense the fearful revulsion. It was written across the insecure little creature’s face.

  “See, that’s the beauty of this,” Captain Lokkemand said in that same low, conspiratorial tone. “If he was, then it sends a nice message that we found him out. He kills the traitor to cover his tracks and is down an agent.”

  Karl nodded, his eyes sliding back to Milo.

  “And if he wasn’t?”

  Lokkemand’s smile became positively predatory.

  “Well, then we’ve turned over a spy to the one most likely to find who’s holding the strings. The Russian in Petrograd is better able to track down which Red he was talking to, and when he does, we get the glory for unmasking the scheme.”

  Karl was already nodding, his teeth glistening in a greedy grin.

  “Well, that sounds like something I could get behind,” he said with a chuckle that was too high and tight to be anything but painful to the throat and ear. “Good work, Captain Lokkemand.”

  Lokkemand smiled back, and Milo saw the flash of his white teeth beneath twinkling gray eyes.

  “I’m proud to be of assistance to the Reich, and of course, to a fellow officer.”

  Milo developed fresh respect for Captain Lokkemand as Captain Franks’ chest swelled with pride. The Nicht-KAT officer had played the Reich cretin’s insecurities like a virtuoso plays a violin. If Milo hadn’t fiddled with Karl’s emotions, it probably would have gone off without a hitch.

  This newfound respect for the man’s subversive talents struck a chord in Milo as the soldiers began to herd him onto the train, along with Ambrose’s box. If Captain Lokkemand really was such a maestro of manipulation, was he playing Milo too?

  * * *

  Things were not going according to his plan.

  They’d shoved Milo into a small compartment created by metal shelving units bolted and welded to the floor inside a freight car. Along with him was the large box that contained Ambrose. A pair of soldiers, one at each end of the car, stood watch, rifles at their shoulders.

  This was an expected complication, but nailing Ambrose’s box shut was not. Milo heard them muttering about the container spilling open and stinking things up, and he wondered if his putrefying magic had perhaps been a bit too effective. For good measure, they’d wrapped chains around the box and bound Milo to the crate with the excess of the chain. Every time he moved, his shackles tugged on the chain, which rattled against the pine box.

  More than once, as Milo had tried to surreptitiously reach inside his coat, the chain raised a racket, and he found both his wardens glaring at him. If he’d drawn the unlikely items necessary for the next bit of magic out of his coat, he’d be a sitting duck.

  He thought about using the Art to distract or disguise himself, but he was afraid anything that would find purchase in their mind as believable might provoke a response from the rest of those on the train. Illusions while under direct scrutiny were easier to maintain if they shocked the senses, relying on the befuddling effects of fear and anger to gloss over the imperfections of the projection of will.

  So Milo had stood there for some time, leaning against the crate, trying to decide what he would do. While wondering what would happen first, Milo heard a rap from within the crate. It was barely audible over the sound of the train, but it was certainly there, so soft Milo could only hear it due to proximity.

  Ambrose was up.

  They’d been traveling longer than Milo had thought.

  He’d fashioned an elixir for Ambrose to render him in a death-like sleep, and by the time it was done, Milo was supposed to have liberated himself and given the all-clear sign for Ambrose to emerge. Travel to Petrograd took seven to eight hours by train, so the plan was to escape inside enemy territory somewhere inside the six-hour mark. They needed to see Roland’s operation, but as scouts, not as captives. The Reich was only providing the necessary means to get them close enough without worrying about Hiisi or Russian patrols.

  Ambrose began knocking again in a slow rhythm, and Milo winced as one of the soldiers glared at him between the shelves. The man shook his head angrily, his mouth pulling into a tight line as he shook his head and patted his rifle.

  Milo bobbed his head apologetically and averted his eyes as his will reached out to Ambrose’s.

  Stop knocking, Milo thought, and to his relief, the sound ceased.

  Ambrose couldn’t respond to him, but he could at least hear him.

  I’m still bound, stand by, he sent as he felt a wave of frustration and anger ripple from Ambrose. It seemed he was quite ready to be done with his time in the box.

  Milo’s mind raced as he stole glances at his guards and then at the box. He needed something that would draw them in but not get one of them to go running for help. It had to not only surprise but intrigue them, something they didn’t expect.

  Start knocking again, Milo instructed as an idea came to him. Not hard, but make it erratic or frantic sounding.

  Milo felt Ambrose’s indecision, but the murky emotions hadn’t begun to clear before a soft, irregular thumping began inside the box.

  Milo pressed his will outward even as he noted the watchful soldiers glaring at him and the box. They were hearing something they didn’t expect, and that made the application of the Art much easier.

  “Help! Help me, please!” said a soft feminine voice inside the box. “They put me at the bottom! I can’t breathe! Help!”

  Milo forced his eyes wide and stared at the box, then looked at the soldiers with his mouth hanging open in stunned shock.

  “I think there’s someone in there!” Milo called over the hum of the train on the tracks. “Someone’s still alive.”

  The guards locked eyes across the compartment, but Milo interrupted the confer
ence with more illusory pleas.

  “Help! I can’t breathe! Help!”

  The cries were followed by pained retching and gasping.

  “I think she’s dying!” Milo cried, sending out a wave of the Art to stoke fear and concern. As the final spur, he drove in a flashing mental image of a little fair-haired girl with wide, tearful blue eyes trapped in a box of rotting meat. It was not delicate work as with Captain Franks, but given the emotional tumult he hoped to create, it didn’t need to be.

  For a second, Milo felt a lurch in his stomach as he wondered if the likes of Reich loyalists had enough humanity to be moved by a desperate young girl’s cries. His fears were put to rest as both men slung their rifles over their shoulders and scuttled between the shelves to where Milo stood.

  “Up against the wall,” one snarled at the magus, his eyes fixed on the box, where the knocking sound was growing fainter.

  “She’s getting weaker,” the other guard said, brow knotting as his eyes bulged. “She can’t last much longer!”

  “Get up against the wall!”

  Milo was thrown bodily against the wall of the compartment, but his chained arms played out the slack so they nearly came out of their socket. The tension dragged him hard to one side, and he lost his balance. Milo cried out with dismay a second before his head bounced off one of the metal shelves on his way to the floor.

  Thus distracted, it was only reasonable that his efforts to maintain the crying child staggered to a stop. The only thing that remained was Ambrose tapping at a frenzied pitch, and even dazed on the floor, Milo could tell the effect this had on the soldiers was dramatic.

  “She’s dying!” one cried in a wild voice that bordered on sobbing.

  “Shut up and help me!” the other snarled, and together they began hammering the padlock fastening the chains around the box with their rifle butts. Their frenzied beating became a strange counterpoint to Ambrose’s knocking, then with a sharp twang, the lock sprang open. They abandoned their rifles to begin hauling the chains off of the box, casting the excess behind them.