The Mage Wars

by Mercedes Lackey

  It didn’t sound as if there was anyone else there; he took a chance, braced himself, and kicked the door open.

  It crashed into the wall on the other side; hit so hard that the entire wall shook, and the two men sitting at a small, round table looked up at him with wide and startled eyes.

  Bluff, Drake!

  The room was well-lit by three lanterns, a smallish chamber without windows, it held the round table in the middle, some bookcases against the walls, and not much else. There were more things on the shelves than books, though he didn’t have the time to identify anything. The men had something between them on the tabletop—a ceramic scrying-bowl, he thought. So his guess had been right!

  “Put your hands flat on the table, both of you!” he boomed, using his voice as he’d been taught, so long ago, to control a crowd. He hadn’t used command-voice much until the journey west; now it came easily, second nature. “I am a special agent for Leyuet and the Spears of the Law! You are to surrender!”

  The two men obeyed, warily and not instantly. That was a bad sign…

  “We know everything,” he continued, stepping boldly into the room. “We have Hadanelith in custody, and he is being quite cooperative. You might as well save all of us time and trouble, and do the same. We know he was working for you; we also know that he was the only one who committed those murders. Since you didn’t actually commit the crimes themselves, His Serenity the Emperor might be lenient enough to grant you your lives if you show remorse and confess.”

  Was that a good enough bluff! Do they believe me! They still looked shocked and a bit surprised, but the signs of both reactions were vanishing rapidly. Too rapidly.

  At that moment, the last of the light faded behind him. Hadanelith was about to strike! He had to keep their attention off that bowl and on him! Or, eliminate the bowl itself—

  Oh, gods. What do I do if they try something? He repeated himself, nearly word for word, taking another step forward every few seconds. And meanwhile, he kept straining his senses, hoping for some warning if either of them moved, hoping to have an instant or two in which to act.

  And do what!

  * * *

  Skandranon felt a deep-in-the-flesh pain he hadn’t felt in a decade, and it radiated out from him badly enough to make Winterhart, Silver Veil, and anyone else sensitive wince. He had been starved and dehydrated, trapped in an unforgiving position for many hours—days!—regardless of his bodily needs, and then forced to fly and fight at a moment’s notice. His wingtips shivered with the strain of burning off his body’s last reserves.

  I am useless now, physically—I’ll be lucky to reach our quarters without collapsing. So all I have left is my mind and words.

  So he muttered about this and that while the last of the Eclipse Ceremony went on, purposely keeping his voice omnipresent. When at last it felt right, and Palisar was speaking to the assembled sea of people, the Black Gryphon caught Shalaman’s attention.

  “Amberdrake freed me to save you, before freeing himself,” he rumbled. “He may still be in great danger from Hadanelith’s accomplices.”

  Shalaman’s countenance took on a new expression, one that the gryphon instinctively knew as that of the King on one of his famous Hunts. To Skandranon’s amazement, he unclasped his ceremonial robes and let them fall, leaving only his loose Court robe, then snatched a spear from one of Leyuet’s men. “You tell me where,” Shalaman said, steely-eyed and commanding, while his personal bodyguards fell in behind him.

  The Black Gryphon nodded, then closed his eyes, reaching out with hope. :Kechara, Kechara, love—please hear me.: :Papa Skan!:

  The voice was there as clear as always, with only a little more than usual of the odd echo that usually accompanied fatigued Mindspeaking. :Papa! Are you having fun!:

  Skandranon couldn’t resist a huge mental smile. Kechara wouldn’t understand what was going on if he spent two lifetimes trying to explain it to her. What was important to her was “fun” or “not-as-much-fun.”

  :Papa! Are you hurt! You feel like you have an “ow.”:

  :Yes, dear heart, I got hurt a little. I’m very tired. Kechara, love, I need you to look for Amberdrake. Find Amberdrake and help him. Can you do that for me!:

  There was a pause, and then, :All right! I miss you!: Then Kechara was gone from his mind. King Shalaman straightened up and repeated himself. “You tell me where.”

  Skandranon met the King’s eyes and understood. It was The Haighlei Way. He opened his beak to say, “Follow me,” then stopped himself. No. That was not what a King would say to another on his own ground.

  Skandranon took a deep breath, refolded his wings, and summoned his last bit of endurance. “Run beside me, King Shalaman, as you rim in your great lion hunts, and I will guide you. But we must make haste.”

  * * *

  Amberdrake knew, as he flexed his grip on the silk rope and the bar, that his words and acting had failed him. The novelty of his speech was gone. Bluff or not, his status as just one man would catch up with him. Despite what history would show, for better or worse, now was the time for him to throw himself on fate’s mercy.

  He flung the coil of rope at the table, then pulled, twisting his body sideways with all the strength he could muster. There was a splash and a scrape, and a moment later, a resounding thunk as the scrying-bowl struck the floor. Amberdrake continued his twist and brought the iron bar down on the bowl to shatter it into a dozen pieces.

  That was it, Drake—your one move.

  He came to rest on one knee, looking up at the two.

  But at that moment, he heard—well, it wasn’t precisely a voice in his mind, and he didn’t quite hear it—

  It was a sense of presence, not words, just feelings, and the aura of boundless cheer and playfulness overlaid with weariness, but bolstered by endless curiosity.

  Kechara! he thought, hard, trying to project the image of herself back to her.

  Feeling of assent. Before he could respond, she sent him a new sensation; intensified curiosity. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she was asking, either. “What are you doing?” was as clear in feelings as in words.

  He was breathless with relief—dizzy with the feeling that he was, at last, no longer alone.

  But how had she figured out how to reach him? She was using his strongest Gift, that of Empathy, to speak with him without Mindspeech! Where had she gotten that idea?

  Fear rose screaming inside him. He didn’t have any way to explain what he was doing—not without words!

  Do what Skandranon would do, Drake—do without words—without focused intellect—let her feel it—let her in!

  He had never, ever, lowered his barriers completely with anyone but Winterhart, for an Empath always has to fear being lost in another’s emotions—but how could he ever fear little Kechara? There wasn’t an unkind bone in her body! He dropped every barrier he had to her, and let her come directly into his mind, just as the light began to creep back and the Eclipse to pass off.

  He felt his body slip away from him—felt his back and arms go limp—

  One of the two men at the table slid noiselessly out of his chair and seized something from a bookcase against the wall. As the man turned, he came fully into the lamplight, making what was in his hand gruesomely plain.

  Amberdrake’s stomach lurched, and he sensed Kechara recoiling as well, mimicking his reaction, though she couldn’t have any idea what they were both looking at.

  It was a wand, crudely fashioned from bone. It could have been made of animal bone, but somehow Amberdrake knew that it wasn’t. No, this was not just any bone, but a human bone, the large bone from the thigh. From one of the earlier victims? Probably. Probably the first. We’ll never know who, I suspect. Somehow that just made it worse.

  This grisly relic must be the mage’s primary power-focus, the place where he was storing all the power stolen from those Hadanelith had murdered for him, and all the people he had murdered on his own.

  Amberdr
ake stared at it, his gorge rising and bile collecting at the back of his throat. He couldn’t move; he couldn’t even think. He could only stare at the nauseating thing, as the mage took in his shock and paralysis, and smiled, slightly. The light strengthened, and the mage moved the wand in front of him, holding it between his palms, and his smile deepened. The other man leaned back in his chair and chuckled. That was when Amberdrake realized that neither of these two had been fooled for an instant. His heart and courage plummeted. They knew he was alone.

  This mage was about to level a magical blow at him—and he didn’t even have the defenses of a mouse.

  He tried to move, and discovered that he couldn’t; the bar dropped from his numb fingers and clattered on the floor. This was no spell. It was nothing but pure, overwhelming fear.

  I am going to die.

  It wasn’t even a guess. It was a fact.

  :BAD MANS!: Kechara screamed into his mind.

  He reeled and dropped to both knees beside his iron bar, momentarily “blinded” and “deafened” by her mental shout, so strong it was clear even to someone who was not a Mindspeaker. Both of the men facing him went stiff with surprise, as if they “heard” it too. Instinctively, he threw up his shields again—which was what she had been waiting for.

  :Bad, bad mans!: she screeched again, this time accompanying her angry scream with a building mental shriek, aimed at the two facing him. It came like a windstorm that would not stop building, filling his ears.

  The two conspirators were not expecting anything of the sort. Neither was Amberdrake, for that matter. He was so used to thinking of Kechara as a child, as a complete and total innocent, that he had underestimated her entirely. He had forgotten that she had more than enough experience to recognize a “bad man” when she saw one.

  Both of Amberdrake’s opponents collapsed on the spot.

  :Ow,: said Kechara, with a mental wince—and her presence vanished from his mind.

  Ow, indeed. For one moment, he took the time to shiver in awe at her power—and to be very glad that she had the guidance of all of her friends who loved and cared for her. Now he understood why Urtho had kept her locked up in his Tower for so very long. Her range in Mindspeaking was impressive enough to have made her valuable, but this demonstration of her full potential had been considerably more than impressive. With that kind of mental power, she could have been so dangerous—

  Danger. He hadn’t been mindblasted by Kechara, but he couldn’t move either. He had just experienced, with certainty, imminent death, and he could only sit among the pieces of broken pottery and stare at the still bodies of the two conspirators.

  “Drake!” a voice called from above, after an indeterminate amount of time. All he could tell, when such matters came to mind through the shock, was that it was fully light again outside. “Drake! Are you all right! Where are you!”

  “Down here, at the bottom of the stairs!” he croaked back. A few moments later, Skan, Aubri, and Zhaneel came tumbling breathlessly down the staircase, following the sounds of a great many hard-shod feet from the presumed direction of the outer door.

  “Drake!” Skan bellowed, as soon as he caught sight of Amberdrake, making him wince and shake his head as his ears rang. The gryphon grabbed him with both foreclaws, seizing him and staring at him as if he was afraid that Amberdrake would vanish or crumble into dust in the next instant. “Drake—Kechara said you were in trouble, then she just—just blanked out on us. We thought something had happened to both of you! We thought you were—”

  “Kechara was right, I was in trouble,” Amberdrake interrupted, before Skan could work himself up into hysterics.

  Not that he hasn’t earned a few hysterics. For that matter, so have I!

  With a dazed look he was certain made him look very silly—as if vanity could matter at a moment like this—he peered around at the people filling the area. That was when he recognized King Shalaman.

  “This one—” he pointed at the larger man “—is your bloodmage. He was just about to level me with a magical attack, when—I broke their scrying-bowl and they fell down.” Amberdrake shrugged. He and the gryphons exchanged hasty warning glances; they all knew Kechara was somehow involved, and they also knew about the prohibition on Mindspeaking. It would be a great deal better for all concerned if the Haighlei never learned about Kechara.

  Shalaman said nothing, staring unflinchingly through slitted eyes at one of the motionless—but still living—bodies.

  “Gods save us!” one of Shalaman’s bodyguards stammered. “That is the Disgraced One. The Nameless One.”

  “Who?” Skan said, “What? What are you talking about?”

  “This is the One With No Honor,” Shalaman said levelly. “My brother.”

  * * *

  The “Nameless One” was bundled up like so much trash, put under as many magical bindings and coercions as the priests could get to work, and then hustled off to some unknown destination. His compatriot was not even treated with the respect one gives sewage. Somehow, Amberdrake had the feeling that this was going to be the most pleasant portion of their experiences with the priests…

  Neither Amberdrake nor Skandranon were permitted to leave, although Aubri and Zhaneel were told politely to return to the main part of the Palace with Shalaman and his bodyguard, and wait for them. Amberdrake wasn’t particularly worried; actually, he was wearied, not worried. In many ways, he and Skan were the heroes of the moment; you don’t mistreat your heroes, not even when they’ve learned something politically delicate, so he didn’t have any fear that the “escort” was a thinly veiled guard. In the meantime, he leaned against Skandranon, resting in the glossy black feathers.

  Eventually, Leyuet himself arrived, and with him, Palisar.

  Skan pulled himself up to his full height as they came through the door, and leveled a stern eye on both of them. “All right,” he said. “I assume that we are still here because we now know something that is delicate. So you wanted to speak to us in relative privacy, with no other ears about but those of the Spears. So—speak. You can start with this so-called Nameless One, and what he did to get that way. The sooner we know, the sooner we can eat and bathe and sleep and climb our mates, in whatever order feels right at the time.”

  “I understand. I would rather not speak of this one,” Palisar said with distaste as he took a seat. “Hadanelith has already revealed to us that this piece of trash called himself Noyoki, which means No One, and we would all wish he had been no one.” Palisar’s brows knitted together as he frowned. “He is a blot upon the honor of his family. Still, you have earned the right to know all, and Shalaman has ordered us to reveal it to you. I will not swear you to an oath, but I would ask that what we tell you goes no farther than your respective mates. The fewer who know the whole of this, the better.”

  He looked pointedly at the two Spears still in the room. They took the hint, and left, closing the door behind him firmly. Amberdrake leaned forward, expectantly.

  “The ‘Nameless One’ is Shalaman’s brother,” Leyuet began, but Palisar interrupted him with a wave of his hand.

  “Half-brother,” the priest corrected. “Shalaman’s mother was King Ibram’s First Consort, and—let us continue to call him Noyoki—this man Noyoki was the last son of the Third Consort, who would be ashamed to have given birth to him were she still alive.”

  “She was a good woman,” Leyuet agreed. He rubbed his temples wearily; by now he must have a headache that matched Amberdrake’s. “There is no blame to her for giving birth to a creature without honor. Perhaps if others had the rearing of him—well, it may be that we shall never know. Perhaps he was without honor from the beginning. Perhaps he was born with some lack of understanding of honor.”

  Palisar raised a skeptical eyebrow but did not comment upon that observation. “Noyoki was selected as a child as one who had many powers,” Palisar continued. “He was sent to the priest-school, just as others of his kind have been and will be. He then misused his magical po
wers and supposedly was rendered magically impotent. Somehow this did not take place, and you may be certain we will find out what it was that prevented the removal of his powers, and why it was not discovered that he had been left potent.”

  “I should warn you, out of my experience with northern-style magic,” Skan rumbled, “Even if your priests had done their job, it is still possible that with enough will and focus, Noyoki might have been able to use the power released by blood-magic to work some kinds of spells.”

  Palisar sat up in alarm. “Tell me that this is not true!” he exclaimed.

  Amberdrake shook his head. “I wish I could, but that is something that is well known in the north. Even with minimal talent or none, some people can focus their will enough to make use of powers that they cannot now or could never sense, or could sense only dimly. With more refugees coming down from the north, eventually this knowledge will come to the Haighlei. This is one of the many things we would have told you, if circumstances had not gotten so tangled. Sooner or later, an unTalented blood-mage will enter your Empires, and he will teach others.”

  “We cannot stop it.” Palisar nodded grimly. “Very well. Then we must work to deal with it when it comes. Together. That will be one of the first items on our agenda.”

  “Noyoki,” Skan prompted. “I want to hear all of this.”

  “What made this man all the more dangerous was that he had not only possessed the ability to work magic, he also had one other, even rarer ability,” Leyuet said gravely. “One we had not seen in decades, even centuries, in this city.”

  “Which the priests were supposed to have blocked before they took away his magic,” Palisar continued. “I recall the day that I saw him demonstrate this very clearly. He was able to move things from one end of the city to the other with the power of his will alone.”

  Amberdrake nodded; now he had the whole picture. “I heard something about Noyoki’s story, although my informant would not tell me anything about him, when we were warned that the Haighlei do not permit the use of magic by anyone but the priests. But I would never have guessed this other ability of his. Was that what he had been using to cheat with?”