Advent (Advent Mage Cycle)

by Honor Raconteur

  Only a few candles and a fire lit the room inside. I gathered the faint impression of a large room with expensive furniture, but no details. My focus was more on the people, anyway. Vonlorisen went immediately to the fireplace and the two people sitting there. His thinning grey hair hung loosely around his shoulders. Even by firelight I could see dark shadows under his eyes, and the lines around his mouth were much deeper than usual. The only thing about him that didn’t seem tired and worn were those penetrating blue eyes that even now studied his late night visitors with almost predatory regard.

  Sitting in a chair was a man in his early thirties, blond hair pulled back into a simple ponytail, eyes dark with worry and suspicion. I recognized him from my visit last year with King Guin as Crown Prince Vonaudaxen, Vonlorisen’s son. In his lap was a little boy of about six or seven, dressed in very simple drawstring pants and a baggy shirt that looked grey in the poor lighting. Night attire, perhaps? His hair was in natural soft curls around his head, blue eyes almost grey in the dim lighting, with cherub features. I’ve rarely seen a child that beautiful—he’ll be lethal on the female populace when he hits sixteen.

  Assuming he lives to sixteen. Even across the room, I could feel the warm power of a Life Mage.

  “Magus.”

  I looked at Vonlorisen.

  “Thank you, for coming. We realize…” he took a deep breath, swallowing pride. “I realize that you have no reason to save one of mine.”

  I’ve often thought about this moment, and how I’d feel to see this proud man eating humble pie. I thought I’d feel more…victorious. Satisfied. Something. But all I felt was pity. With all of his power, his position, still he wasn’t able to protect the most important thing to him. “Power can be abused in many ways, sir. Withholding my help when it is desperately needed is as much of an abuse as using it to purposefully destroy.”

  From the look on his face, he didn’t know how to respond to that.

  I decided to change topics. “You were right, by the way. He is a Life Mage.”

  He didn’t look surprised. “I thought as much. Nolan.” With the ease of long practice, he lifted the boy from his father’s lap. “This is the man I’ve been telling you about, the Advent Mage.”

  Why does everyone insist on introducing me that way? “Garth,” I corrected with a smile at the boy. “I’m not a formal person. It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.”

  The boy smiled, and it was filled with such true delight that it seemed to light the room. “Thank you for the gift of your name. Will you call me Nolan?”

  I blinked at this request, surprised. “If you wish.”

  Nolan squirmed out of his grandfather’s arms and crossed the carpet over to Shad. “You feel good too,” he informed the Chahiran Captain with a pleased expression. “What is your name?”

  “I am Riicshaden, Your Highness.” Shad gave him a proper bow. “But please call me Shad.”

  The young prince bowed politely. “Thank you for the gift of your name, Shad.”

  Vonaudaxen stood, eyes anxious and suspicious. “Captain Riicshaden of Jarrell, by chance?”

  “The same, Your Highness,” Shad confirmed easily.

  Even Saroya was taken aback by this. Apparently he hadn’t known who exactly Shad was. “I was informed you were trapped in crystal,” Saroya stated slowly.

  “I was.” Shad jerked a thumb in my direction. “He got me out.”

  I flushed slightly under the incredulous looks that got me. “I am an Earth Mage,” I pointed out. “It wasn’t difficult. But let’s get back to the topic. Is the boy ready to leave now?”

  Vonlorisen nodded, eyes pained.

  “Father, I still don’t think this is wise,” Vonaudaxen protested, hands spread pleadingly. “Do you trust this man enough to take your own grandson?”

  Vonlorisen raised his eyes to mine. I held his gaze unflinchingly. “Yes, Audax. I trust him that much. This man holds the power to destroy us outright, if he so wished—and yet he stands here, waiting. That alone should tell you enough of his character.” Vonlorisen dropped down to one knee, gathering Nolan up for a tight embrace. The little boy hugged him back immediately. “Nolan, it’s time for you to go. Remember what I told you?”

  “You said that you’d make it safe for me to come back home,” Nolan whispered. His voice was thick with unshed tears.

  “Yes, and I will. Your father and I both will not rest until this is done. You can trust Magus Rhebengarthen with your life.” He passed the boy up, allowing Vonaudaxen to embrace him tightly as well.

  My heart went out to these two men. If the situation was reversed, if it was me that had to surrender my child to a strange Mage for an indefinite time, I’m not sure if I would be strong enough. I allowed them a few moments to say goodbye.

  When Nolan was finally released, Vonaudaxen gave him directly to me. I pulled Chatta’s amulet out of my pocket and dropped it around Nolan’s neck.

  He picked it up, turning the simple blue stone over curiously. “This glows.”

  I nearly dropped him. “Nolan…can you see magic?” I choked out.

  He gave me a puzzled shouldn’t I? look. “Of course.”

  There was a part of me that really didn’t want to believe that. “What color am I?”

  “Brown, with some green.”

  Busted buckets. “Nolan, how old are you?”

  “I just turned six,” he said proudly.

  Busted brass buckets!

  Shad caught my arm, peering at me intently. “Garth, what has you so spooked?”

  “It’s too early,” I groaned, rubbing at one temple with my fingertips. I could feel a headache coming on.

  “Do I have to strangle answers out of your cryptic little throat?” he demanded. “What’s too early?”

  “Magical children shouldn’t start seeing magic until they are ten or so years old. Mages usually don’t develop until fourteen or fifteen. Any younger than that, and it causes…complications.” Such as having fully developed child Mages.

  “But Trev’nor is five, and he sees magic!” Shad objected.

  “Trev’nor is the exception,” I corrected sharply. “He’s a prodigy in a world where there is no prodigies.”

  “So what does this mean?” Vonlorisen demanded.

  “It means you don’t have much time, if you want to welcome your grandson back as a fully trained Mage.” I looked both men in the eye, trying to imprint my words into their brains. “By the time he is eleven, perhaps twelve, this boy will be a Mage, with all of the training he needs.”

  Vonlorisen looked like he’d had the breath knocked out of him. “Five years…”

  “Maybe six,” his son winced.

  Nolan obviously didn’t see the problem. “So I can come home soon?”

  Vonlorisen took a deep breath, and drew himself up straight. “One way or another, Magus, I’ll hold to my promise.”

  Strangely enough, I believed he’d do just that.

  Shad sent a worried look toward the doors. “We need to go, we’ve been here too long.”

  I slung Nolan onto my back, his arms gripping around my neck. “Nolan, I want you to hold tight and don’t make a sound—that amulet will encourage people to ignore you, but if you make noise, they’ll realize something is wrong. We want to be sneaky, okay?”

  “Okay,” he agreed with a slight waver in his voice.

  Saroya went to the door, head cocked as if he were intently listening for something. “Magus, can you detect anyone approaching?”

  I sent my senses out, searching the immediate area. “No one from the direction we came in…” I froze when I went the other way. “Three Star Order Priests are coming from the opposite direction. I think they’re headed this way.”

  Saroya swore under his breath. “We need to go now. Hurry!”

  We darted out the door, practically on each others’ heels. Saroya didn’t slow until we were in a different hallway. Running in the Palace was a sure sign of something going wrong—a wa
lk was better to divert attention. I really wanted to keep running.

  It was late at night, but it was obvious that the Palace never really slept. There were some people up and about. Mostly servants cleaning or doing preparations for the next day. Although I did see a few people stagger out into the hallways, listing sideways as they left some midnight drunken soiree. The Palace in Del’Hain was the same way. Actually, all of Del’Hain never really slept. There was always some activity going on.

  My attention was divided in three ways: trying to keep track of our immediate surroundings, the little boy on my back, and all of the Star Order Priests in the immediate vicinity. I’ve always been fairly good at multi-tasking (as a Mage you have to be) but even then if it wasn’t for Shad, I might have blundered into the wrong hallway by accident.

  “Will you pay attention?” he growled in a low tone.

  “Sorry. I’m trying to keep track of the Star Order Priests in the Palace.” I detected two not far away, perhaps another hallway or so. At the moment, they were eating up most of my attention.

  Shad blinked, understanding dawning briefly over his face. “Got it. In that case, I’ll keep track of you, you keep track of them.”

  I nodded back confirmation. “We have two dead ahead of us, perhaps another hallway or so away.”

  Shad hissed out a curse under his breath. “Saroya, is there another way out?”

  Saroya gave a grim shake of his head. “Not without backtracking halfway through the building. And doing that will take us right by the main Star Priest Offices.”

  I winced at just the thought. No way did I want to tempt fate and saunter by that doorway.

  Shad apparently agreed with me. “Garth, how much trust do you have in that glamour amulet?”

  “A glamour, no matter how strong, won’t hold up to face-to-face scrutiny with another magician,” I denied, heart sinking into my stomach. “If they pass by us, they’re sure to know that something is wrong. They probably won’t be able to detect what, though.”

  “You’re in Special Forces uniforms,” Saroya pointed out flatly. “You’re not supposed to have any sort of magical affiliation whatsoever. Just seeing a magical aura on your back is going to bring down a lot of questions.”

  Shad nodded, unsurprised. “I thought as much. Well, then, I guess our options are obvious. Saroya, focus on getting them out. I’ll clean up the small fry.” He disappeared around the corner at a fast sprint before we could say anything more. I was grateful that we were temporarily alone in the hallways otherwise we’d have to explain why Shad was taking out Priests.

  Saroya took the lead, going at a fast walk. I had to scramble a bit to keep up with him. I tried not to feel oppressed by the eerie silence of the hallways. This hallway seemed newer than the first one we’d used to access the palace—or at least, the white plaster walls, carpeted floor and austere brass lamps jutting out of the wall spoke of another era. The fact that this place had nothing in it, no bric-a-brac or paintings or even any buttresses, just made the walk more surreal. From my vantage point, the hallway just seemed to go on in either direction for eternity without beginning or end. If Saroya had turned to me and announced that we were in some different dimension where no other people existed, I would have believed him.

  After several interminable minutes, Saroya shot me a questioning look. “You’ve fought with Riicshaden before, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.” And why are you asking me that now…?

  “Is he as good as legend says?”

  Ah, that was why. I couldn’t quite help but smirk a little as I responded. “Better.”

  “I find that hard to imagine.”

  “So did I until I saw him head straight into an area fortified and defended by magicians. He went in so quickly I almost couldn’t track him. And then he came out again, barely a scratch on him.” I shook my head at the memory, absently shifting my grip on Nolan as he squirmed a little on my back. “The wonder of it is he can train just about anyone to do what he does. I fully expect some intelligent commander to snatch him up at some point.”

  To this, Saroya only gave a thoughtful hum. I could tell his attention was ahead, and what might lie out of sight around the corner.

  “They’re down,” I assured him quietly. “Shad’s already taken care of them.”

  Saroya shot me another neutral glance, as if he wasn’t sure whether he believed me or not. Despite my confidence, he still went a few steps ahead to see for himself if the area was clear or not. I paused for a moment, holding Nolan up with one arm, and shifted my hair around to rest on my right shoulder. The way Nolan kept squirming, he kept pulling my hair, which meant my head kept getting jerked backwards.

  Comfortable again, I rounded the corner and was not surprised to find the hallway empty. Saroya looked around in puzzlement, not finding either Shad or unconscious Priests as he expected.

  “He stashed them in an empty room,” I jerked my thumb to indicate the precise room to my left, “and went ahead to clear the way.”

  Saroya didn’t ask how I knew, as I half-expected. He just inclined his head and kept walking. Apparently, he was taking my announcements and putting them under the heading of “Magicians Know Things” and moving on.

  We caught up with Shad two hallways and a short flight of stairs later. He was waiting patiently for us, not looking particularly mussed or tired. I hadn’t expected differently. He only gave us a smile of greeting. “Garth?”

  I answered the obvious question in his eyes. “They’re mostly behind us. A group of three is off to our left, but further on. I doubt we’ll cross paths with them.”

  “Good!” Shad beamed at us as Saroya took point again, leading the way.

  We’d crossed another hallway, and were going up another flight of stairs when there was a hail behind us. “Saroya!” a man called. “Perfect, I need to ask you about this evening’s report.”

  Saroya hissed something under his breath—tone was enough to tell me that I didn’t want to know what he actually said—and muttered to us, “Go ahead of me.”

  By the time he turned around, he had a polite smile on his face, heading back to the man that called to him.

  Shad and I kept walking, like we had our own business to attend to, until we were around the corner and out of sight. Then Shad stopped dead. “Okay, so which way?”

  I gave him a blank look. “Why are you asking me?”

  “Because you’ve been here before?”

  “That doesn’t mean anything!” I protested. “Shad, do you know what a maze this place is? The Chahiran Palace was never really designed. They just kept adding additions to the original. People who’ve lived here their whole lives still get lost.”

  “What is the good of being such a powerful Mage,” he demanded in a low tone, “when you can’t even avoid getting lost?”

  “Magic has nothing to do with getting lost,” I retorted, feeling the childish urge to stick my tongue out at him.

  “Obviously.” He rolled his eyes. “Can’t you at least find the team and use them as a reference to guide our way out of here?”

  I pointed to the wall. “They’re that way.”

  “…that was so helpful, Garth, thank you.”

  “Anytime.”“Remind me never to go on vacation with you. Well, what about you, Nolan?” Shad gave a hopeful look to the area Nolan’s head should be in. “You know how to get out, don’t you?”

  I couldn’t see him, but I felt him give a rapid and emphatic shake of the head. “Uh-uh. I don’t know this way.”

  Shad slumped slightly. “Garth, you weren’t kidding.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” I agreed dryly.

  Saroya came around the corner and came to an abrupt stop, regarding us with some confusion. “Why didn’t you go ahead like I told you?”

  “Because we were afraid of getting lost,” Shad responded wryly.

  Saroya blinked, as if this hadn’t occurred to him before, but only said, “Hmm. I see. Well, let’s go.”

&n
bsp; I gladly followed his back as we continued to weave our way out of the Palace. I lost all track of time as we went up, down, and over. If anyone had asked me to repeat that journey, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to do it without becoming hopelessly confused.

  I started to sense the capitol’s population immediately in front of me, so I had to assume that we were very close to gaining the outside. It was so quiet where we were, and so deserted, that I hoped we might actually pull this off undetected after all.

  KLANG. KLANG. KLANG.

  I jumped, heart leaping into my throat at this abrupt, ear-shattering noise. What was that?!

  Saroya snarled something under his breath. “They’ve figured out you’re missing, Your Highness,” he told Nolan grimly. “I’m going to have to show up and see what I can do to re-direct the search. I’ll buy you enough time to get out of the city.” Dropping his eyes to me, he continued, “Keep going straight down this hallway, then go right, left, and then right again. You’ll see the outside door at that point. Whatever happens, keep going.”

  I nodded firmly. “Understood. Good luck, Saroya.”

  With one last bow for the prince, he spun on his heels and took off at a dead sprint back the way we had come.

  Shad and I started walking even faster than before, heading for the outside. “What did he say again?” I asked him as we moved. “Down this hall, then left, right, and left?”

  “It was right, left, right!” Shad corrected with some asperity. “Don’t confuse me, okay?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re actually bad with directions, aren’t you?”

  “Terrible,” I admitted sheepishly. “If I wasn’t Jaunten, I’d be in serious trouble.”

  Shad shot me a sour look. “I believe that.”

  We started running across more and more people in the previously quiet hallways as they started responding to the alarm. I didn’t want them to take a close look at how my arms were positioned—without them actually seeing a person on my back, it would look odd—so I hooked my thumbs in my belt loops, acting like this was a normal position for me. Either they were too preoccupied to notice, or they didn’t care enough to stop me, but I gathered no strange looks as we passed them.