Blades? As in swords? Oscar almost laughed as he pictured the beamcasters carried by the city’s wardens, not to mention the anti-aircraft turrets that could fry an Orglot in the blink of an eye.
“If you won’t trust my words,” Oscar said, reaching into his pocket, “then I will show you with pictures why a war against Theus is hopeless.”
He took out the Araband, fit it across his forehead, and tapped the crystal.
“A weapon,” Ukril shouted at the sudden spark of light.
He whipped a dagger out of his loincloth and flung himself protectively in front of his father, as did the other warrior they had brought along. Ruk sprang to his feet, pushing them aside. He roared his next words.
“You would betray us using a magical weapon, Speaker? Prepare to be crushed!”
“No, wait!” Oscar stepped back from the bars. “It’s a magical device, yes, but it’s not a weapon. It shows me things. I can show you Theus. You’ll gain valuable information, I promise.”
Ukril turned to his father. “If it was a weapon, he would have used it to escape.”
Ruk considered this. “Explain yourself at once, Speaker. What is the nature of this device?”
“I already told you. It draws pictures. Moving pictures that can show you the clan of Theus as it exists today.”
The glowing marble drifted in front of Oscar’s face like a lightbug.
“It draws shapes?” Ruk said, squinting at it, still unsure. “Without hands?”
“Yes. You know much about the outside world, Master. Clearly you understand the nature of magic.”
Ruk tipped his head back arrogantly. “I understand more than you will ever know, Speaker. You will show me these drawings. But if you attempt an attack, I will know at once. My hands will crush the life from your bones.”
Relief swept over Oscar. He would show Ruk “moving pictures” of things the Orglot had never dreamed possible. But then what?
“The drawings can only be painted on the biggest wall you possess,” Oscar said.
Ruk raised a hand and made a twisting motion. Ukril went to open the gate.
“Show us your village, then, and how best to raze it to the ground. But heed my warnings, Speaker, for the fires of my wrath, once sparked, could consume this entire mountain.”
Ukril tossed in a collar. Oscar obediently put it on.
CHAPTER 6
Somewhere in downtown Theus, a back door opened into an alley.
A pleasant night had fallen. Humming to herself, a young woman stepped into the dark space between the two buildings carrying a plastic bag full of trash. Her shift was almost over. This was her last chore for the night, and then she would turn off the lights in the restaurant, lock up, and look forward to not working for the next two days. She headed toward a metal trash receptacle at the end of the alley.
“Across the sky,” she sang, “we flew forever, our feathers capturing the stars…”
Her name was Akkara Liparth, and tonight was going to be a good one. She had made plans after work to visit Willem, a Sargonaut boy she had been dating now for four months. He had promised her dinner, which he would cook himself, and a bottle of extravagantly expensive wine made by the monks of Leaubeau Abbey. Truthfully, Akkara cared little about having a man spoil her. What she wanted more than anything was to be in his arms, which were hard as steel.
She threw open the lid, grunting from the effort, and tossed the trash bag inside. The lid slammed shut. Akkara wiped her hands against her shirt and turned back the way she had come.
A shadow, cut by the dim light of the moon, appeared at the alley’s mouth.
Akkara stopped and studied its maker. She could tell it was a man, but it was too dark to identify him. His face looked unnaturally black, as if he had dipped his entire head in black paint.
“Can I help you?” she asked him.
He simply stood there, hands resting on his hips. The black silhouette of a tail hung between his legs—limply, like a dead thing, its tip resting against the grimy concrete.
“We’ll see,” he said.
The tail scraped against the ground as the man approached. Something was wrong here. No Feral would drag his tail like that. It was unheard of. Was the man drunk?
“Who are you?” Akkara said, backing away.
The man continued his confident stride toward her. Then he stopped, tilting his head as he stared at her. She felt naked and vulnerable beneath that gaze.
Akkara took another step back, lifted her right hand, and cast a simple spell that made bluish light burn from her palm. Her father had taught her that spell and one other, meant to defend against men like this one, who might see a girl like her—all alone at night in a dark alley—and get certain ideas about horrible things they could do to her.
When the light revealed the man’s face, Akkara cried out in terror.
His skin wasn’t black at all. Instead, his entire head was covered in a wool mask, just like in the Wanted posters all over town. Exactly like the posters.
“Oh, no,” she said.
The kidnapper nodded. “Oh, yes.”
“My boyfriend,” she said. “Will—Willem… He’s meeting me here. He’s a Sargonaut.”
“I know he is,” the kidnapper said. “I saw him earlier tonight. Big, strong guy. Not bad looking, either. Let me ask you a question. What’s the best way to kill a Sargonaut and hide the body so no one ever finds it?”
The light shivered as Akkara’s hand began to shake. She had to keep the spell going. If the light went out, she was done for. Something about the man’s dead-calm voice told her that.
“I’ll answer for you,” he said after a pause. “You gas them so they fall asleep and can’t fight you. Then you make them ingest poison. And yes, there are poisons strong enough to disable a Sargonaut briefly, though I’ve never come across one that could kill them outright. Hardy bastards, they are.
“But that’s why you have to drown them afterwards. A Sargonaut can hold his breath for as long as eight hours. Did you know that? But the poison I like to use keeps them breathing, even after I’ve dumped them into the ocean. No one finds them after that. Sargonauts sink like stones, an unfortunate side effect of all that rock-hard muscle.”
Akkara shook her head wildly. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” The kidnapper took a step toward her. “That was some good wine he had ready for you. Expensive. Exactly what I would use to get a girl drunk enough to share my bed, though I’m sure you don’t need spirits to give that sort of thing up very easily. Not a low-class hussy like you.”
“Help!” Akkara shrieked. “Someone, please, help me!”
She aimed her right hand at the kidnapper, fingers clawed. The spell shifted, and the light changed from blue to silver as a crackling bolt shot toward the man. Akkara had only ever used it once before, and that had been on her father, for practice. He had woken up afterwards with a terrible headache, and he had been so proud of her…
The bolt disappeared somewhere at the other end of the alley.
She hadn’t missed—the kidnapper was simply gone.
Vanished.
Akkara froze. Had it worked? Had she scared him away? She had heard that some Ferals were fast enough to disappear in the blink of an eye. Or maybe he was hiding somewhere, waiting for her to drop her guard. Either way, this was her chance to run.
Before she could move, a hand clamped around her mouth.
He was behind her, pressed against her body in a way that sickened her. Before she could fight back, a sharp pain bore into her side. She heard a sizzle, saw a flash of red light, and passed out in the kidnapper’s arms.
CHAPTER 7
“M eet me at Starpoint Station in an hour,” Milo told Lily using his Ara. “There’s something I want to do. It would be great if you could come.”
“Can you tell me what it is?”
Milo shook his head. “It’s a surprise.”
It was Solaceday morning. Milo stood in the courtyard of
his dorm complex. It was beautiful outside, sunny with a cloudless sky, and a salty breeze that poured in off the ocean.
Lily must have noticed the perfect weather behind Milo, or she genuinely wanted to hang out with him, which gave him a guilty thrill. She smiled and clapped her hands in delight.
“Be there in fifty-nine minutes,” she said.
Milo showered and changed clothes, spending extra time at the mirror to make sure his hair looked all right and his uniform wasn’t wrinkled, and then he packed the two lunches he’d smuggled out of the dining hall. He had been contemplating this idea for days after watching a pair of students—a boy and a girl cadet who were obviously dating—do something similar.
When he met Lily at the station, she threw a questioning glance at the backpack hanging off his shoulder.
“You’ll see,” he told her.
She shook her fists and gave a girlish growl. “Oh, you jerk. I hate suspense. Kidding! I actually love it. Let’s go, pal.”
They sat next to each other and stared out the window as the train circled the campus. Sunlight breathed sparkling life into the campus’s many colors. The mixture of modern, glassy buildings and ancient, stony ones bestowed a unique sense of character that reminded Milo of a theme park, like Disney World back home, and the train suddenly became a rollercoaster in his mind. His heart fluttered.
“I love it here,” Milo said, intensely aware of Lily’s presence next to him.
“Sometimes,” Lily said, “I wake up and think I’m back at the ranch, that the academy was just a dream. Then it hits me that I’m really here…” She sighed wistfully. “Ascher would love this place.”
Milo was about to respond when Lily seized his arm. She jabbed her finger at the glass, pointed at something in the distance.
“Look!”
She pointed out a glittering lake. At one end, a group of levathons bathed in the water, a few gingerly stepping out to shake their coats dry. The mist puffing off their bodies caught the morning light in sparkling bursts.
“Levathon Pond,” Milo said. “It’s beautiful.”
“We could go back to the dorms right now,” Lily said with a dreamy smile, “and this trip would have been worth it.”
“Not for me.” Milo grinned at her. “The best is yet to come.”
“You’re killing me.”
They got off at Halcyon Station, the closest one to the levathon stables, and had the elevator float them down. This part of campus resembled a rustic countryside, with ranch-style buildings housing the Combat Wing program. Here was where the more advanced cadets came to practice flight and aerial tactics—under strict supervision, of course. Even now, on a Solaceday afternoon, a dozen riders swooped overhead.
The old woman at the front desk was obviously trying not to stare at Milo’s eye patch. It was clear she pitied him, but today, Milo didn’t care what other people thought of him. He was the luckiest kid on campus.
Or so he thought.
“Are you qualified to fly, young man?” the woman asked after Milo inquired about borrowing a mount.
He pulled out a wad of cash. “It’s for personal use.”
The woman frowned at him. “I hope you’re not trying to bribe me, cadet. First years can’t reserve mounts for any kind of use, unless they have a special pass from a school administrator.”
“She’s right,” Lily said, tugging at Milo’s sleeve. “Let’s go watch the others fly for a bit.”
“I’m not leaving.” Milo glared at the woman through his good eye. “I’m Milo Banks, and this is Liliara Breezewater. We fought Kovax Leonaryx and Iolus Magnus at the Battle of the Ranch earlier this year. If that doesn’t qualify me for one ride, then I don’t know what will.”
“He can speak to levathons,” Lily added, tapping her head. “Mentally.”
“That’s not possible,” the woman said.
“It is if you’re a demigod,” Lily assured her.
Finally, recognition dawned on the woman’s face. “You’re Professor Emmanuel’s nephew, aren’t you? Yes, I’ve heard of you. Your uncle left a request with our office to pair you with a suitable mount. I was wondering why you hadn’t come by. Then again, communication in this office is so slow, it might as well be done through sightstones.”
“Pair me with a mount?” Milo said. “What do you mean? Like, for good?”
“A levathon to call your own, yes. You can house it here at the stables if you wish, but that’ll cost you a monthly maintenance fee. I trust your uncle paid for that as well.”
Milo and Lily stared at each other in amazement.
“This day just got a whole lot better,” Milo said.
“Damn right it did,” said Lily.
The old woman introduced herself as Fransa and summoned an assistant to take her place so she could lead Milo and Lily through the back doors. The first room they entered was enormous, with a glass ceiling that allowed sunlight to pour down into the aisles and stables. The air was warm and spicy with the smells of hay and animal fur.
“Ascher would have loved this place, too,” Milo said, to which Lily nodded sadly.
“Asceranon was indeed very fond of these stables,” Fransa said.
Lily gasped. “You know Ascher?”
“Most of us old-timers know him quite well.” She reached for the nearest levathon and brushed her fingers down the length of its snout. The animal snorted with pleasure. “He was here for only a semester when war came knocking on our door. Your father recruited him because of his talent with these finicky creatures.”
“My father?” Milo said.
Fransa gave him a reassuring smile. “Maximus was a god among men.” Then she sighed wistfully, looking off into the distance. “I used to keep a painting of him in my bedroom as a girl.”
Catching herself, she smiled in embarrassment at Milo and hurried forward. “Come, now. I have to get back to my desk at some point today.”
“Thank you, Fransa.”
She led them through an aisle, past rows of identical mounts.
“Do we get to choose any one we want?” Lily asked the woman.
We? Milo was surprised by that. They must have sounded like a married couple from Earth, shopping for their first minivan.
“The choice is Milo’s to make,” Fransa said, “but I’m sure he’ll value your input. That’s what a good boyfriend does, right?”
She gave them a feisty grin. Lily blushed.
Milo stuttered a reply. “Um, we’re not really—”
“Oh, shush,” Fransa said. “I was only joking. Look at this one.”
She presented a levathon with a coat as white as fresh snow. Remembering his very first ride at the ranch and the connection he had felt with Vastanon (a demigod’s natural mount is the levathon, he had read somewhere, and he can command it as he sees fit), Milo tried to connect with the creature as he had done that day. He touched its snout, tried to project a command (Easy now, boy) and had to yank his hand back as the creature chomped at his fingers.
Milo shook his head. “Definitely not a fit.”
“Ooh, how about this one?” Lily said, darting across the aisle to a levathon with pink streaks in its hair. “She’s so pretty.”
Milo winced. “Pink hair? Way too girly.”
“A real man wouldn’t care,” Lily teased him, to which Fransa agreed with a nod and a chuckle.
They continued the tour. Milo petted each levathon, trying to feel a connection he worried had only existed with Vastanon.
“I guess I have to pick one,” he said. “Can’t stay here all day.”
“You’ll find the right one,” Lily said. “Besides, this is fun.”
A grunted command turned their attention. A gruff-looking handler had entered through the building’s side, leading a restless levathon forward by leather straps tied, a little too restrictively, around its neck and rib cage. He yanked the creature forward, sighing in frustration.
“Gimpy bastard,” he said. “Come on.”
The slender creature snorted in protest as it hobbled forward, wings folded over its back. Milo saw what was causing its awkward gait. One of its front legs was missing.
“Where are you going?” Lily asked.
Milo barely heard her. He approached the handler, stepping directly into his path. The man gave him an irritated look.
“Out of my way, cadet. This one might fall on ya’, stain your pretty uniform.”
“What happened to him?”
The handler glanced at the spot where the levathon’s front right leg should have been. “What, this worthless sack of feathers? Lost the leg in a battle. Stepped right on a landmine. Been grumpy ever since.”
Milo stared into the levathon’s weary brown eyes. Its nostrils flared anxiously in response.
“Does he have a name?”
The handler shrugged as if naming animals were the least important part of his job. “I’m sure he does. Thing is, I can’t remember it for the life of me. I just call him Gimpy.”
Lily shot the handler a sour look. “Did you ever think that maybe he doesn’t like that name? How would you like it if someone called you Grimy, or Smelly?”
“Hey now,” the handler said, jabbing a finger at her. “Only my wife, Frumpy, gets to call me that.”
Lily chuckled despite herself. Milo ignored them. He and the levathon had locked eyes, and Milo felt that he could hear the creature’s pain like ocean waves lapping on an empty shore.
What’s your name? he asked it without opening his mouth.
He placed his hand on the creature’s forehead and slid his fingers down the length of its snout. Its wings opened in a powerful burst that knocked the handler to the ground.
Fransa went to help the man. Milo and Lily simply watched, astounded, as the levathon underwent a complete change in attitude.
With its wings spread open all the way, the creature lifted itself on its back legs. It raised its solitary front leg in what appeared to be a salute. Then it landed with a long, satisfied whinny.
Milo took a step back, his hand raised. The levathon reared up on its hind legs and gently touched the hoof of its solitary front leg to Milo’s palm.
Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series Page 84