Gryphon (Rise of the Mages Book 2)

by Brian W. Foster

  A stroll about the castle wasn’t safe, though. The more he roamed, the more chance he had of running into someone else who knew Michal, and just because Tatiana didn’t think it likely a detector would be about didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

  Discovery that he was a mage meant discovery that he wasn’t Michal. Death. The end of his mission.

  Failure.

  Brant winced. Maybe he should just stay in his room. Have Tatiana go out for food.

  But that wouldn’t accomplish a blasted thing. He had to get information. Fast. And he wouldn’t get it laying abed all day.

  He thought hard as he walked toward the kitchen, planning how to get into Lord Numav’s office without being discovered. Not only into the office but into those cabinets. He didn’t know how to pick locks, though. And what if he somehow got access, and the documents were encoded?

  That would be just his luck.

  Of course, if they required ciphers to read, why lock them in cabinets inside a locked office inside a blasted castle? Wouldn’t make sense. And he couldn’t see Numav decoding a file every time he needed to read the stupid thing.

  No, they’d be readable.

  Hopefully.

  Brant sighed. Even with that being the case, how the blast was he going to search all those files?

  Taking any of the documents with him was out of the question. The information would be more valuable if no one knew he had it. Ideally, no one would ever know he’d pretended to be Michal, and the theft being discovered before Brant got away would be a disaster. Even Numav finding out afterward would mean troops after his team.

  Brant would need uninterrupted time to go through the files and take notes. A lot of time.

  Good grief but spying was hard. So many things to do and no idea how to do any of it.

  Tatiana, on the other hand, seemed more suited to that kind of thing, and she was supposed to help him. Maybe she could figure out something.

  That was it. He’d grab a quick bite, and she’d help him come up with a plan. All he had to do was get her in the mood.

  In the kitchen, he spotted just the thing. Perfect.

  When he got back to his room, he roused her by snuggling next to her. “Hungry?”

  A platter rested on a nightstand beside her, and she grinned when she saw it. “Breakfast in bed? And a flower?”

  “You like it?”

  “My lord is most thoughtful,” she said.

  He let her eat while chatting about nothing consequential. He told her about his father and his friends. She told him about her young sister, Viola, and how it pained her that she was destined for the same life.

  Brant grimaced. People in Bermau didn’t always have it easy, but no one treated even the lowest peasants like Dastanar did its subjects.

  She finished her meal and pushed the platter aside. “Ask me.”

  “Ask you what?”

  “Whatever it is you’re buttering me up for,” she said. “Not that I don’t appreciate the effort.”

  Sharper than his sword, that one. He would have to watch her. Of course, given how she was dressed, doing that was his pleasure.

  “Well?” she said.

  “I don’t know how to get in Numav’s office, much less his cabinets.” He tensed, expecting an angry outburst.

  Instead, Tatiana smiled. “As it turns out, the good Lady Numav is leaving the castle for a few days, visiting a local count, and our good Lord Numav has ordered me to his room for the time she’ll be away.”

  “Which helps us how?”

  “His balcony overhangs the garden in the courtyard,” she said. “I slip his keys out and toss it down.”

  “That’s … brilliant. As long as I’m quiet, there’s no reason I couldn’t have the entire night to study the files.”

  “You have to get the keys back before morning, though.”

  Brant nodded. “No problem.”

  She grimaced.

  “What?” he said.

  “You’re asking me to put a lot of trust in you. If you don’t get those back to me, it’s my neck.”

  “And it’s my neck if Numav finds out I ever had the keys,” Brant said. “It’s in my best interest to return them before he finds them missing.”

  She sighed. “This goes so above and beyond what I thought I’d be doing. It’s not just a whipping I’m facing.”

  “I know.”

  “You can really do this thing?” she said. “I can trust you not to just take what you want and run?”

  Brant met her eyes. “On my honor, I swear I will not get caught, and I will not leave Dastanar without you.” For once, he wouldn’t think only of himself.

  56.

  Brant fidgeted.

  He was not the type of man to fidget, but undeniably, he just did.

  Despite the coolness of the night air, the fragrant scent of flowers wafted. Weird that any still bloomed.

  Perhaps Numav used death mages.

  Brant frowned. Or perhaps, he was getting as bad as Xan about relying on magic. A good gardener and the surrounding brick walls staying warm after the sun went down made the growing season longer.

  For about the millionth time, Brant considered moving off the bench to a less visible location. Hardly seemed spy-like to sit out in the open where anyone could see you. Then again, the point was not to look suspicious.

  And what could look less suspicious than doing something as suspicious as sitting for hours for no clear reason?

  His head hurt.

  A huge bush nearby drew his attention. Weird orange and purple flowers looked like the heads of birds, and it was humongous. He didn’t even want to think about how much water the plants needed. Buckets and buckets of it.

  Slave labor sure made frivolous pursuits easier.

  His mind was drifting. Concentrate. If Tatiana ever threw down the blasted keys, he had to hear where they landed.

  Something made a noise. He jumped.

  A blasted cat leapt off a wall and scurried through the courtyard.

  Really? He was jumping at cats? Way to be a spy.

  That big bush would have made a great hiding place. Stick leaves in his clothes. Darken his face with dirt. He’d be impossible to spot.

  It would also be impossible to explain if anyone noticed. Whereas on the bench, he could just say he was relaxing. Yeah.

  Wait. Meditating. Didn’t they do that a lot in Dastanar? That was it. He was meditating. What better place than a garden.

  Truthfully, though, explaining why he was there wasn’t the reason for him being so jumpy. His life was in the hands of a blasted slave girl. What if someone asked about him? Dastanarians loved digging for secrets. An offer of a few coins …

  But Tatiana wouldn’t sell him out. Surely.

  Oh wait. She was loyal only to herself.

  Yes. Yes, she would.

  The gate opened, and Brant jumped from his seat.

  A guard stepped inside. “What are you doing here?”

  All thoughts of excuses fled Brant’s mind. “Enjoying the garden?”

  “Move it along,” the guard said.

  Brant only had one chance to access the office. If he missed those keys, the mission failed. He’d come up with a story. A good one. What was it?

  Ugh! Something about liking the smells or peacefulness or some shit like that?

  Great.

  Stokes had taught him that the best lies have an element of truth.

  “If I’m breaking some kind of rule or something, I’ll leave, but Lord Numav has me waiting around doing blasted nothing without even anyone to keep me company. If I have to sit in my room staring at the rads-infested walls for another minute, I’m going to scream.”

  “Those windows there?” The guard gestured in a sweep that took in the whole of the courtyard. “Those belong to the lords who run this castle. If they’re disturbed, it’s my head.”

  “No problem, sir. Quiet as a mouse, I swear.”

  “See that you are.” The guard turned and
left.

  Brant let tension drain from his body. That had been too close. Way too close. He sat once again, and a few minutes later heard another noise. Jingling. Metallic.

  He managed not to jump again.

  A soft thud.

  The keys hitting the ground.

  Finally!

  But nothing was ever easy. Foliage covered the area under the window, and with almost no light, finding the keys took just about forever. Or you know, around fifteen minutes. Still, that was an eternity when you were expecting guards to arrest you at any moment.

  Even once he had the keys, Brant wasn’t out of the woods. If he was the one setting a trap, he’d not spring it until the rat got to the office. Snap away victory at the last second.

  He had to be careful. As he walked toward Numav’s office, he moved like he had every right and reason to be where he was and avoided furtive glances. Luckily, he encountered no more guards in the torch-lit hallways, and none of the servants gave him a second look.

  Of course, if he was putting together a trap, he’d make sure the way was clear, too.

  He walked past the office door without slowing, listening for any movement inside, and didn’t stop until reaching the next connecting corridor. That was where he would have stationed guards for the ambush, but there was still no sign of anyone.

  Again, he walked past the door until reaching another corridor. Finding no one, he sighed. He couldn’t keep doing that all night.

  On the next pass, he stopped in front of the door and stood for a minute, listening, before fitting one of the keys into the lock. Wouldn’t turn. Another. Same thing. And another.

  Maybe Tatiana stole the wrong keys.

  Or she’d betrayed him.

  Still no sign of guards, though.

  He fit the fourth and final key in. The lock turned. He slowly pushed open the door, ready as his weaponless self could be for an ambush.

  Nothing. Just darkness.

  Silently, he shut the door behind him and, after giving his eyes a minute to adjust, lit a candle. The room had no window, but even that flicker of light might show through at the bottom of the door. He shucked his coat and blocked the gap on the floor with it.

  The first key on the ring opened the lock securing the first cabinet, and he spent a good half hour skimming pages of boring stuff. Some kind of accounting reports. One ledger listed the supplies purchased by the kitchen.

  Five thousand eggs? In one week? Good grief.

  Dylan might have found such information useful, but it sure wasn’t what Brant needed. He returned everything to its original position as best he could and moved to the next cabinet. It, too, was filled to almost bursting with paperwork. It, too, dealt with accounting stuff.

  Did they really need that many ledgers to run a blasted castle?

  Seemed stupid.

  Wait. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe they wanted him to think the documents were boring shit. Maybe it was a code.

  Brant sighed. If so, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Stealing it wasn’t an option, and he didn’t have time to copy enough to make a difference.

  Might as well move to the final cabinet.

  The first page mentioned towns, budgets for food, uniforms, slave girls, and all manner of stuff. Places they housed their mages? He copied as much that seemed important as he could.

  His blood still ran high at the danger of being discovered, but that part of the mission quickly became boring. Spying started to feel an awful lot like doing schoolwork.

  After an hour or so jotting down notes, he opened another ledger.

  Abram Sims, Death, Uadraro

  Albert Pugh, Heater, Osmarhan

  Aurelio Butler, Masser, Sadilon

  The list went on and on for pages, naming individual mages, their type of magic, and a town. Since each of the places had been listed in the previous sheets, he figured it indicated where each person was stationed.

  If so, that was exactly the information he was after. Specific quantities. He just needed to make sure.

  Brant thumbed through the pages until reaching “I.”

  Ivie Hayes, Death, Uadraro Truna Missing

  His breath caught at seeing her name, but the entry confirmed his guesses. He’d never be able to copy down all the information, though.

  Brant counted the names on the first sheet. Twenty-five. Then the number of sheets. Forty-nine. He wasn’t the best at doing figures, but using his fingers, he came up with over twelve hundred.

  That quantity quickened his heart beat. There was no way for Duke Asher to stand up to so many mages, but surely there was something that could be done. Assassins? But after the first ones succeeded, King Barius would be ready for the next. An elaborate plan to have the attacks happen at once?

  Not his worry at the moment, though. Finish gathering information and get out.

  Brant skimmed through more documents. Lots of good stuff about catchers and ranks and leaders, but time ran short. No help for it but to ignore it. Just check through a few more pages, first.

  The last stack held dispatches, reports from the field, and orders. Brant read them with interest. The assassination attempt on Xan had failed.

  Good that. Xan being the duke’s enemy didn’t toss more than a decade of friendship out the window.

  An order followed the report, though. One hundred mages had been sent to Eye Lake to kill Xan.

  Brant’s heart leapt to his throat. Xan had dealt with a single mage and five regular men. A hundred mages, though? No way he had enough of his own to fight that many. He’d be slaughtered.

  If only there was a way to send a warning. That magic dreaming thing Xan and Ashley did? But where to even start with that? Would Ivie know? Brant would ask her.

  His eyes returned to the order. It was issued the previous day, and the mages had been dispatched immediately from near the border. They’d move quickly, no more than two or three days travel to Eye Lake. By the time he got out of the castle and to Ivie, it would be too late to save Xan.

  Brant hung his head. Lainey was going to kill him.

  He couldn’t think about any of that, though. There was a mission to complete. The next pages in the stack were more orders. Mages were slowly positioning themselves to attack. The plan was to hit Asherton, consolidate, and move on to Escon.

  And they weren’t waiting until spring, either. Duke Asher had two months, three at best, to prepare.

  Brant jotted down the most important details, grimacing as he did. If caught with his notes, he’d be tortured and executed, but the risk was worth it. The information was so valuable he’d surely be named Marshal of the Mages once he got it back to the duke.

  Brant smiled. He owed Tatiana big time. Forget an apartment somewhere with a small stipend, Duke Asher should give her a blasted title and lands.

  If you know, Bermau survived another six months. Dastanar had more mages than anyone thought possible, which made sense considering they found every potential mage.

  Brant really needed to learn that trick. If he could even do it.

  Xan probably could. Maybe, it would be best if someone else—someone more powerful—was made Marshal.

  Brant frowned. He needed to stop that kind of thinking. Whatever shortcomings he might have, he’d overcome by working harder than anyone else.

  He’d be the Marshal, and he’d figure out how to defeat twelve hundred mages, though how the blast he would do that, he had no idea.

  Brant grimaced. Their only real hope was to ally themselves with Xan.

  Of course, there were a hundred blasted mages on their way to attack Eye Lake, so it wasn’t like Xan would be alive much longer, anyway.

  57.

  Xan slouched on his throne.

  The plain wood chair wasn’t even as fancy as the ones Master Diwen used around his kitchen table. And talk about uncomfortable! At some point, they’d have to scrounge up cushions for it somewhere. Other than a sore behind he fixed with a burst of magic, things were going as well a
s could be expected.

  Tina had returned with over twenty mages, dropping them off and, after a day’s rest, heading back out again. His force stood at sixty-five, enough to send an additional four mages with her and Kennan. They’d exhausted nearby villages, though, meaning she had to range farther to recruit.

  The lack of neighboring sites also meant Xan spending the night away from Eye Lake if he went out himself, a prospect that gave him pause. Both he and the town were more vulnerable apart than together. With his access to all ten types of magic, however, he recruited much faster than anyone else, and they needed as many mages as they could get.

  Hmm.

  Xan decided he didn’t want to risk going himself and instead assigned another team of six mages to the task. With any luck, both groups would be as successful as Tina had been the last time. Once the team he’d dispatched to retrieve more gold returned in a few days, he’d still have over fifty mages plus him to defend Eye Lake. Surely that was a larger force than anyone outside of Dastanar possessed.

  As he considered the matter, his hand trembled, a side effect from not eating seeds for a while. The door opened, and his eyes darted to the person entering.

  Robyn.

  He pressed his hand against his leg to still it.

  “A visitor, my lord wizard.” She didn’t normally announce people, and she was grinning.

  Odd. Nonetheless, he straightened himself in the chair. Good posture was important for a ruler.

  Marco trudged through the door, his shoulders slumped. He looked for all the world like he’d rather be anywhere but in that room at that moment.

  Xan watched him approach, curious.

  “My lord … pa said I had to come and tell you that I’m sorry.”

  “I see,” Xan said. “For what?”

  Marco pursed his lips.

  “It’s okay,” Xan said. “Please tell me.”

  “Pa says … he says I’ve been …” Marco squirmed as he stood before the throne. “Pa says I’ve had a bad attitude toward you and that I wasn’t being fair to you and that I needed to say I’m sorry but he doesn’t understand that I’m mad at you because you have barely come around at all since we got here and when I tried to tell Pa that he said that you had a lot more important things on your mind but I thought friends should be important and it’s not fair!”