She could only hope things would go well.
Yeah. Hope. Great.
49.
Xan’s mouth salivated.
Rows of corn surrounded him. Though they reached only his ankles, his mind fixated on how good they’d taste.
Man, was there anything better than roasted corn on the cob slathered with butter?
Of course, they had too few cows to provide enough milk for everyone yet, much less to churn into butter. Still, one could dream. First, though, he needed the corn. Which was why he stood in the middle of a field lit only by moonlight.
As he opened himself to the magic source, his head swam, and he almost lost his balance. How long had it been since he’d slept? Two days? Three?
No matter. He popped a licuna seed into his mouth, and nothing happened until he poured magic into the reaction inside him. His body jolted, and euphoria overwhelmed him. At least, he’d learned to control himself so as not to rise into the sky.
Once the elation faded, he reached out, sensing the surrounding area. Life flowed into all living things, and he focused on the currents coursing into the plants near him. He poured magic into them, enhancing that energy.
More. And more.
The stalks in a dozen yard radius grew a foot. Two feet. Three.
Xan stopped. There were many, many more crops to enhance, and even he had limits. He’d sped the process by a month, which was good enough. By the time the sun crested, he’d finished the entire field. He grinned. One more night and he’d have his corn on the cob.
Anything he wanted, he’d have. He was, after all, the most powerful man alive. Quite probably, the most powerful man who had ever existed. Unfortunately, he wasn’t free to enjoy his power since there was always something to do.
So many people depended on him! The total population of Eye Lake approached six hundred, and the food being created each day barely matched that being eaten. On the bright side, they’d found a mage among the people straggling in, and since the recruit, Constance Roland, was a death mage, she was put to work growing crops.
In another week, production should exceed consumption by twenty-five percent and increase from there. Those numbers could get even better when Tina returned. Considering she’d been gone a week and half already, Xan expected her to return with at least a half-dozen magic users.
Another positive was that Porter and Gregg were doing as well as could be expected with the militia and the mages respectively, but that brought up another to-do item. The two forces had to unite at some point, meaning Xan needed to appoint one of the two men as general.
That choice took little consideration. Magic was, by far, more important to the overall fighting effectiveness of his army than were a group of farmers with hastily forged swords. Besides, the former mercenary was much more trustworthy than the former highwayman.
Xan flew over the newly constructed bridge to the island and found Gregg eating breakfast in the also newly constructed meeting hall. “May I join you for the meal?”
“Of course, my lord Gryphon.”
Xan waved to one of the serving women, and she brought him a bowl of porridge. “How would you feel about being my general, in charge of the entire army?”
Gregg frowned. “I was never an officer, my lord Gryphon. Low born and all. A platoon leader twice, sergeant once.”
“I’ve watched you train the mages. They can use their abilities well and block their sparring opponent. They’re fighting together as a team. You’re doing a good job as captain.”
“Thank you, my lord Gryphon, but … leading others …” Gregg paused. “Give me a task and I’ll get it done or die trying. An officer … Every death is on you, you know?”
“I do know. Believe me.” Xan sighed. “The fact is, though, there’s not a better candidate. I can’t make you do it, but I need you to.”
Gregg winced. “How about I take the position until you find somebody else, my lord Gryphon?”
Xan grinned. “Deal.”
They discussed training and personnel for a while. Since Tina and Robyn had other duties, Gregg suggested Sherry Vargas, the musician harken, be appointed mage captain, and Xan approved the choice.
“There is one other issue, my lord Gryphon, though I’m not sure it’s worthy of your attention, yet.”
“Probably best to let me be the judge of that.”
“I have no proof, but I think there’s a spy in town,” Gregg said. “From Dastanar.”
* * *
Xan stood before a brick wall.
The early afternoon sun illuminated the craftsmanship. Not bad considering how quickly the workers had gotten the barracks erected. A few odd-shaped bricks here and there. Cracks. No holes, though.
But he wasn’t there for an inspection.
He enhanced the noise from the building. A man’s voice came through, talking about beets and the best way to prepare them. In Xan’s opinion, there was no good way to prepare a beet, so there could be no best way. Still the man went on, arguing with another man.
The conversation was, perhaps, the most mundane one possible.
“That’s him, my lord Gryphon,” Gregg whispered. “His name is Ty.”
“Let’s try your plan, then.” Xan sighed, feeling silly, before raising his voice loud enough to be heard inside. “According to Tina’s message, things are coming together. I expect a hundred more mages from Kaicia and Bermau to join us before the end of the week. Finally. I worried they’d never come.”
If Gregg were right about Ty being a Dastanarian agent, he’d listen closely to the state secrets being so helpfully spilled right where he could overhear, and he’d want to report to his handlers fast, giving Xan a chance to catch him in the act.
“That’s fantastic news, my lord Gryphon. You can be sure I’ll whip them into shape quick as a lick.”
Xan rolled his eyes. Quick as a lick? The man might be a decent soldier, but he’d never make an actor.
“With that many mages,” Xan said, “I’ll be ready to move on Dastanar’s border.”
“Sounds like a fantastic plan, my lord Gryphon.”
Xan’s body craved sleep, so with the trap set, he went to take a nap. Sherry and a half-dozen of Porter’s best trainees kept watch over the barracks with instructions to follow Ty and alert everyone should he try anything suspicious.
In the middle of the night, Sherry’s call came, the harken’s dis-embodied magical voice waking Xan in his room. He rushed to meet her, Gregg, and the militiamen near the woods on the other side of the fields.
They followed Ty into the trees and watched as he tied a tube to a pigeon’s leg and launched it.
Xan drained life from the bird until it lost consciousness, and he kinetically guided it to a soft landing near Ty’s feet.
As the spy gawked at the fallen creature, Xan ignited several of the surrounding treetops for light, and he and his team emerged from hiding.
“Let’s see what we have here.” Xan flew the bird to Sherry, who removed paper from the tube.
“My lord,” Ty said, “I can explain.”
“I have no doubt you have a likely story at the ready.” Xan said. “What’s on the paper?”
“It’s encoded, my lord Gryphon,” Sherry said.
“Take him into custody, Gregg.” Xan hunched his shoulders at what he was about to say, but it had to be done. “Do whatever is necessary to get him to talk.”
Without waiting for a response, he made the flames he’d created extinguish and launched himself. Once far enough away, he popped a seed and enhanced its effect, losing himself to the oblivion of euphoria before heading to the corn field.
The next morning, he summoned Gregg to the throne room.
“He confessed, my lord Gryphon, but he knew nothing about Dastanar’s tactical or strategic situation.”
Made sense. Ensuring a spy didn’t have useful information to reveal was what Xan would do if he sent one into enemy territory.
“What are your orders concernin
g the prisoner, my lord Gryphon?”
Xan’s first impulse was to hang the man, but executions without a trial set a horrible precedent. Calkirk was bad enough. He wouldn’t start that inside his new nation. “Assign a prosecutor and find him an advocate. Both will present arguments to Hosea. Abide by his decision as to guilt. Hang Ty only if he’s convicted.”
Ultimate responsibility for the man’s death would still fall on Xan, but at least he’d given someone else a chance to declare innocence.
“Yes, my lord Gryphon.” Instead of turning to leave, he hesitated.
“Is there something else?” Xan said.
“This incident highlights our lack of border control, my lord Gryphon.”
“Go on.”
“This place was built to defend, my lord Gryphon. Absent kineticists flying over the mountains, there are only three entry points, but those features do us no good if we don’t even post guards.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“A squad of a half-dozen men and three mages stationed permanently at each pass, my lord Gryphon.”
“Eighteen men and nine mages! Each person we put up there will be taken away from training and other tasks. Even if we rotate them out every few days …” Xan shook his head. “No. I’m sorry but no.”
“An enemy force could be on us before we even knew they were coming, my lord Gryphon. Do we have a choice?”
“We always have a choice. Even better, we have magic.” Xan grinned.
Gregg looked confused.
“First, we prioritize construction of the castle’s highest tower, where we’ll post one harken and one glamour.” Which was perfect because they had no other compelling use for either of those types of mages. “Then, we set up tiny mirrors along each path. The harken will listen for intruders while the glamour watches using the mirrors. Considering the tiny amount of magic each of those tasks requires, they’ll be undetectable, and tying two mages up is better than nine.”
“That … that’s a clever idea, my lord Gryphon.”
“We’ll be stretched thin at first, of course, since there’s only one harken and one glamour in town. Ideally, we’d have three of each to work them in shifts.” Xan shrugged. “It’s a start.”
They needed to recruit more mages. Besides security and building and everything else he was using magic for, the forces of both Asher and the queen likely exceeded his, even with his ten powers added. And who knew what kind of force Dastanar had.
Robyn, Gregg, and Hosea would have to run the town for a while. Xan had to turn his attention to more important matters.
50.
Xan hovered high above a village.
If his map was correct, it was called Neverburn, and from the size, it held maybe five hundred people, meaning at least two mages, three if he were lucky.
Lauren flew beside him with an ecstatic expression.
“What?” Xan said.
“This, my lord wizard. Flying.”
Xan grinned. He knew what she meant. Nothing like wind on his face. The views. Feeling like he could do anything.
“Enjoy it,” he said, “but be careful. Besides being fun and giving a tremendous advantage in speed, it’s dangerous.”
“In what way, my lord wizard?”
“Gregg has had you practicing blocking and being blocked, right?”
“Yes, my lord wizard.”
Xan cut off her access to the magic for an instant. She dropped ten feet before recovering, her face panicked.
“When a mage can kill you just by blocking you, that’s dangerous. So is me being away from Eye Lake with just you as backup. Let’s get on with our mission.”
The magic he and his mages had been using had to be acting like a magnet to draw in his enemies. His greatest protection was that it would take a long time for an attack to be organized and travel to him. Given that he’d arrived in the area almost two weeks ago, his buffer was due to expire.
With the sun not far above the horizon, the village stretched its arms. Few people had yet emerged. Scanning each of those outside would be easy, of course, but he’d have to wait until more exited to get the results he needed. He might have to stay above the flyspeck all day to test everyone.
Too long. Way too long. He needed to find ten mages in a day, not two or three.
There had to be a better method. Think!
Xan reached out with his life sense and knew instantly where each villager was. Hmmm. Did he need to see them to test them?
“Lower yourself to the ground on the other side of that barn.”
“Yes, my lord wizard.”
Once she’d landed, he sensed her with his life magic and sent a burst of kinetic magic into her. It resonated. Perfect. That resolved having to draw everyone from their homes.
Using enhanced sound, he ordered her back to him.
The solution did little to help with the time issue, however. He’d still need to run through each of the ten types for every person.
How to speed the process? Maybe target more than one person at a time. Since he could use his magic on multiple people, he saw no reason the same wouldn’t work for testing.
A house with thatching that sorely needed repair had four other homes clustered close by. Xan’s life sense told him that each building held people, combining for thirty-one altogether.
“Hover over the house with the bad roof,” Xan said, pointing.
“Yes, my lord wizard.”
He pulsed kinetic energy to the area that encompassed both Lauren and the five houses. He felt her affinity but none other, meaning none of the occupants were kineticists. More importantly, his method worked!
Xan rose until the entire village was in view. Starting with several houses in the northeast corner, he conducted his test for each of the ten types before moving on to the next set, increasing the number of bursts he tried at once. Fifty made him dizzy, so he settled on thirty as a quantity he could handle for a long time without tiring.
His first success was a glamour inside a barn on the outskirts of town. He directed Lauren to approach the potential mage and continued scanning.
Instead of taking all day, his new method let him test the entire village in less than an hour, finding a bolt and a heater besides the glamour.
Three mages!
How to get them back to Eye Lake, though? Hmm …
51.
Xan landed on a mountaintop.
A long day had followed a long day, and though sunlight remained, he and Lauren needed a break before continuing to the next village.
He’d chosen the highest peak for their rest. Smaller mountains and many canyons stretched before them, covered in glistening ice and creating a scene as breathtaking as anything he’d seen around Eagleton.
Being a mage had its perks.
And peaks. He chuckled.
“Fantastic view, huh?” he said.
“Yes, my lord wizard.”
So formal. Despite their two days of constant companionship, she hadn’t loosened up at all. That bothered him, no matter how much he tried not to let it. He wanted to be liked by his followers.
Of course, Hosea would tell him that decorum being maintained was good. Respect and having his orders obeyed without question were more important than being seen as a friend.
They sat in silence for a while, her clearly not comfortable enough to initiate conversation and him knowing any question would lead nowhere. Perhaps, he should just accept that he’d not have the same relationship with everyone that he did with Robyn.
Xan peered toward the east. He and Lauren had worked their way from the north, staying within a couple hours’ flight of Eye Lake. If they continued around the mountains without skipping, they’d hit large towns in Kaicia, and any of them would take longer to scan than he had daylight.
To the south lay two small villages on the Bermau side of Dastanar. He could check both those off his list and still make it back for dinner.
He remembered, however, that he still
hadn’t dealt with the forts guarding the mountain passes from the south and northeast. Instead of more recruiting, he could quickly take care of those and head back to town.
On the other hand, clearing the forts sounded like a great training mission, and finding mages was a better use of his time. Yeah. He made a mental note to instruct Gregg to take care of them.
That decision made, he returned his concentration to determining which direction to go. Hmm. Starting a town and not finishing likely meant not testing everyone. Hard enough to track movements doing an entire place at once. Better to go to the smaller villages.
Besides, that option gave him his best chance of getting to Eye Lake in time to enjoy Ada’s cooking. He smiled. South, it was.
“Daylight’s wasting,” he said reluctantly. “We should get a move on.”
“Yes, my lord wizard.”
With Lauren close behind, he launched into the air. He’d used his magic to split logs and form iron ore into bands to fashion a crude frame. After buying a few fishing nets to drape around the sides and bottom, he had a transport capable of carrying a good two dozen mages.
Not that he was having that much luck, especially the last few hours. Since dropping off the morning’s haul at lunch, he’d not found a single recruit.
No use dwelling on momentary failures, though. For all he knew, the next village could have ten. Okay, that many was doubtful, but he hoped to find another three to match the total of eight he’d found the previous day.
He lifted the transport behind him and flew toward the nearest village, and as was his habit, he scanned for anomalies. Temperature fluctuations. Signs of life where there should have been none. Magic use. Anything out of the ordinary.
Radiation emanated from a cave mouth.
Trace amounts were found just about everywhere but nothing like the huge quantity coming from the cave. That certainly qualified as unusual.
Curious, he touched down outside the opening.
Gryphon (Rise of the Mages Book 2) Page 29