Kreg chilled at the thought. He had been about to ask for information about the events in Aerioch, or maybe on the condition of his friends. He thought again. "I need to know how I might end the Chanakran changeling armies, all of them, to send back the demons inhabiting them, without regard to distance."
Baaltor laughed again. "And so the child has asked better than the graybeard. Had Shillond asked that question, the war would have been over long since. Or perhaps not. I might yet have been able to thwart him. But you, human, you amuse me. I will tell you a way. I will even grant you sufficient power to cast the spell, once only. Power such as a fledgling spellcaster would not have."
Kreg frowned. Something was not right here. He dismissed the thought. Whatever happened to him, the changeling armies would be gone. Whoever survived would be free from their destruction even if Kreg never again set foot outside the dungeon.
Baaltor paused and Kreg could not help imagining a smile on the demon’s face. A moment later, Baaltor said, "Draw a circle an armspan across on floor or ground with salt water. The salt water need not be pure, but it must be essentially salt water. Within it write the name, also in salt water, of the one who is now. Lastly, say these three words." He spoke three guttural words. "When all that is done, with the rising of the sun the Chanakran armies will vanish and the demons inhabiting them will be freed to return hither."
Kreg nodded.
Baaltor cocked his head to one side. Then growled and said, "One final thing, human. You possess now the magic of this world. Using the magic of this world, with power you have won from me, will sever your tie to your own. No longer will you be immune to spellcraft. Never again can you hope to return to the world of your birth. Your fate will lie here forever henceforth."
Kreg nodded. He repeated softly to himself the three words Baaltor had given him, memorizing them.
An instant later the process of arrival reversed itself. Kreg found himself back in his cell.
As Kreg stepped from the pentagram and looked around the cell he realized the trick the demon had played on him.
"Salt water!" He slammed a fist into the wall. "Damn you, Baaltor!"
In the back of his mind, Kreg fancied he could hear a faint hint of laughter. "Damn me?" he fancied he heard. "I'm already damned, human."
#
Kreg sat on the straw, sucking on his scraped knuckles and regretting his outburst of temper. He thought he might have cracked the bone in one of his knuckles, he had hit the stone that hard. His knuckles bled slightly and he could taste the blood.
Kreg jerked upright. The taste of the blood. The salty taste of blood. Of course.
"Baaltor, you may have just outsmarted yourself."
Kreg grinned as he began to collect his pebbles. Blood was mostly plasma. And blood plasma was essentially salt water. Baaltor himself had said that the salt water did not have to be pure.
Kreg began to rap the pebbles he had gathered smartly together as hard as his bruised hands would allow. Finally he succeeded in striking a chip from one, a chip with sharp edges.
He held the chip in his right hand and took a deep breath, steeling himself. He swiped the edge of the chip quickly against his left forearm. As blood welled from the cut, Kreg twisted the edge of his sleeve to squeeze his arm and partially block the veins. The blood flowed more freely, running down his arm.
As the blood flowed from his arm and dripped from his hand, Kreg traced a six-foot circle on the floor. He stepped back and considered. Baaltor had called for him to write the name of "the one who is now" within the circle. Rather cryptic that comment except Kreg remembered what Kaila had told him about the Three First Gods. Eranah, whose power comes from what is not but will be. The Nameless One whose power comes from what was but is no more. And Jandak, whose power came from what is, whose power is “now.” With a smile, Kreg stepped forward and, still using his own blood, wrote the name of Jandak within the circle.
With that done, Kreg stepped out of the circle and used his sling as a bandage to staunch the flow of blood from his arm. Then he raised his arms and spoke the three words that Baaltor had given him.
Kreg felt a burst of light and heat explode within his solar plexus. It spread through his body, burning fire along his nerves, then rippling outward from him in almost visible waves of energy.
A second surge hit hard on the heels of the first. This one hit even harder. Kreg could not suppress a cry of pain as he fell to his knees. His strength drained out of him, leaving him even more drained than his worst workout with Kaila.
Kreg sagged against the wall, closing his eyes to rest. Only for a moment, he thought. Only...for...a...moment.
#
Kreg woke to the sound of something scraping at the door to his cell. The sound was different and higher up, than that preceding his meals. He lay watching the door with a curious lightheadedness. His left arm ached where he had cut it.
The door started to open. Kreg glanced at the bandage on his arm. Now that he no longer had the sling, they had come for him. Oh well. He doubted he had the strength to stand, much less fight.
The door finished its slow creaking. Kreg looked up at half a dozen crossbows aimed at him. Behind them a man in mage robes stood.
"Bring him," the wizard said.
Two of the guards set down their crossbows and came into the cell. They grabbed Kreg's arms, one catching Kreg exactly at the cut, and dragged him out of the cell, not giving him a chance to even try to stand. As they dragged him down the corridor, Kreg caught glimpses of other guards opening other cells, collecting other occupants.
Kreg's escorts dragged him up a flight of stairs and down a hallway, never once allowing him a moment to regain his feet. As he bounced up a second flight of steps, Kreg thought the pain of the jarring likely to drag his arms free of his shoulders. Finally, the guards tossed him into a large hall.
Four others followed him just as unceremoniously. Finally, the wizard swept into the room, his robes swishing along the floor.
Kreg took a moment to gather himself and look over the others with him. As he suspected, they included Kaila and Shillond. The other two surprised him: King Marek and Keven. After the fiasco at the square, Kreg had been certain that they were already dead.
“Leave us,” the wizard said to the guards who had brought them.
“But, Illuminance,” one of the guards said, “the prisoners...”
“I am the High Mage of Chanakra!” he shouted. “Do you think I fear four pitiful men and a woman? Leave us!”
The guards bowed and backed out of the room.
"One of you," the wizard said, "has destroyed my army. Which of you was it?"
Instead of answering, Kreg took a closer look at his companions. None of them seemed in any better physical shape than he and Shillond's eyes had a glazed look as if he were drugged.
"So your armies are gone," Kreg said. "Too bad."
"How think you we could be responsible?" Kaila asked. "Think you we escaped your dungeons, flew upon the winds to Aerioch, and then returned hither with the task accomplished?"
Kreg grinned. Their imprisonment had not removed from Kaila any of her spirit.
"A spell broke the changeling spell," the wizard said. "I traced its source to the dungeons. One of you is responsible and I will know who."
Kreg laughed. "If we had known how to do that, don't you think we would have done it long ago and saved ourselves all this trouble. But no. Then we wouldn't have had the pleasure of your hospitality."
The wizard stamped over to Kreg and grabbed him by the collar of his tunic. So threadbare was the fabric that Kreg felt he could, even in his weakened condition, tear free at will. At the moment, he did not want to.
"You know something." The wizard punctuated his pronouncement with a jerk that tore cloth. "Speak or I will burn you to ashes."
Kreg forced a slight smile. "You are welcome to try. But remember that I can stop spells. Shillond tells me that the feedback from trying is quite painful, and
that was with rather small magics. Imagine what something powerful would do to you."
Kreg had to fight to keep from holding his breath. He remembered only too well Baaltor's words. Since he had used the magic of this world he no longer had any protection from his own. If the wizard called his bluff...
He did not. "Then I will have your friends tortured before your eyes if you do not speak."
During the wizard's diatribe, Kreg had been letting his knees bend, shifting his weight slowly backward and hanging more on the wizard’s arms. This forced the wizard to pull away from him to keep the two of them balanced. Suddenly, Kreg hurled himself forward.
The wizard could not respond in time. They toppled to the floor but with Kreg on top. Kreg put all his weakened strength, all his reduced weight behind the forearm he laid across the wizard's throat keeping him from speaking any spells. He could not risk the quicker carotid choke for that would be to risk allowing the wizard to force air past vocal cords, with potentially disastrous results.
Even weakened as he was, Kreg found himself stronger than the wizard. He kept pressing until the wizard stopped struggling, then longer until he was sure that the wizard was dead.
Exhausted and shaking, Kreg shoved himself to his feet. Blinking, he looked around at the others. They had not been idle. Two guards lay dead on the floor, Kaila standing over one, Marek and Keven over the other. A tapestry torn from the wall revealed where they had been concealed.
"So intent were they on reaching you and the wizard," Kaila said, prodding the guard below her with her feet, "that they passed us by all unseeing."
"I had thought," Marek said uncertainly, "that I would languish the rest of my days within that dungeon."
“Only two guards?” Kreg shook his head. “This doesn’t make any sense. Was he really that confident, or that stupid?”
Kreg shook his head and looked at Shillond, who still stood unmoving, his eyes glazed.
Kaila joined him as he went to Shillond's side. "It is a spell," she said. "I have seen my father use it when we have had wizards imprisoned for crimes. It dulls the mind so one cannot work magic, but does no lasting harm." She took Shillond's chin in her hand and turned his head from side to side to examine him. "With yon wizard dead he should soon wake." She sighed and smiled at Kreg. "It is fortunate indeed that the wizard only thought Shillond and his magic a threat and thought not of the danger of your hands."
Kreg shrugged, his eyes drawn to the door to the room. "It can't be too long before we're discovered"
"Come they may," Keven said from behind them. "I for one will not return alive to their dungeons."
"Nor I," Marek said.
Kreg looked over at Kaila and shrugged. "Might as well go out fighting."
#
Kreg estimated about an hour passed before Shillond finally woke.
"What happened?" he asked predictably.
"To sum up," Kreg said. "We're in Chanakra somewhere, inside either a palace or fortress. We're no longer in our cells. The wizard who was holding us is dead. So far no one has entered the room so we haven't been discovered yet. Oh yes, the changeling armies are gone. If you want explanations of any of that, I don't think we have the time."
"The wizard?" Shillond asked. When they pointed him out to Shillond, he exclaimed, "The High Mage! This may offer us a way of escape."
"Escape, how?" Kreg asked.
"If you have aught to say, Shillond," Marek said, "Then say on."
Shillond stooped to examine the body. "I can cast an illusion, give--Keven I think, he is nearest of the size and already speaks Chanakran--the seeming of the wizard. Since it is the High Mage of Chanakra, he will be able to take us out past the guards."
"Which leaves us still in Chanakra," Marek said. He sighed. "But even that is better than in the dungeons."
"Our problem," Kaila said, "will be to find a passage from this warren."
"When I was brought hither," Keven said, "I was dazed but aware. I surmise that this was not the case with you?"
Kreg, Kaila, Shillond, and Marek all shook their heads.
"Then it may be that I can find a path through the corridors which will carry us outside."
"Great," Kreg said. "Let's do it."
Marek nodded. "Very well. If we may depart, then we should do so with all haste."
Shillond nodded. "I can cast the spell, but I'm afraid I will have little energy left. I don't know if I'll be able to cast any further spells after that."
Silence met his warning. Shillond drew a deep breath, then passed his hands over the High Mage's face and over Keven's. A shimmer, and Keven's features blurred into those of the High Mage.
"Did it work?" he asked. Even his voice was that of the High Mage.
"It has," Shillond said. "Make haste. I know not how long the spell will last."
Keven opened the door slightly and peered out. A moment later he slipped through and motioned the others to follow him.
One by one they followed Keven into the corridor. Keven led the way through the corridors, striding confidently whenever they met anyone, but mostly half-staggering in a way that looked as exhausted as Kreg felt. Occasionally Keven halted uncertainly at crossings before choosing a direction. Kreg hoped he really did know where he was going.
They were fortunate in that no one seemed to want to attract the "High Mage's" attention. Indeed, anyone they met scurried fearfully out of their path.
At long last, Keven's directions proved true. They reached the main gate of the building.
"Halt!" the guards called to them.
Kreg froze. Had they been uncovered?
"Do you seek to halt me, dolt?" Keven boomed with the High Mage's voice.
The guards paled. "Pardon, Illuminance, but our orders..."
"I give the orders," Keven said. "It would do you well to remember that!"
The guards paled even further.
"Well?" Keven said.
The guards backed away. Keven led the others through the doorway.
#
A couple of hours of rest had allowed Shillond to recover sufficiently that he could use magic again. A sleep spell had put a guard to sleep and Kreg had relieved that guard of his money. That selfsame money provided them with food, clothing, and a shared room in one of the more disreputable areas of the city.
Kreg looked over the five of them as they lounged in the room. They had lost much, all of them. Kaila had lost her mother's sword. Keven and Marek had lost a kingdom. And Kreg had lost a world.
Kreg allowed himself the hint of a grin. To all appearances, Shillond had lost nothing but weight.
His grin widened. While they had lost, they had gained too. Kaila had changed since Kreg had known her. No longer just a good-natured bruiser with a quick temper, she had revealed a keen mind that he would never have suspected when he met her. And Kreg? He had become someone that his self of a year ago would never have recognized.
"You smile," Kaila said. "I would hear cheerful thoughts."
"I was just thinking," Kreg said. "Five people now have to sneak back into Aerioch and raise a rebellion against the Schahi. While the death of the High Mage is likely to cause such confusion that Chanakra won't have much influence, these five people will have to escape the country, reach Aerioch, raise forces from somewhere with all the knights either dead or imprisoned or enslaved, and then throw the Schahi out of Aerioch."
Kaila seemed puzzled. "And this causes you to smile?"
"Of course," Kreg said. "The Schahi don't have a chance."
An Excerpt From :
THE REBELS OF ZANTOR
Forthcoming
by
David L. Burkhead
CHAPTER ONE
Kreg looked over the four people in the room with him. They had lost much, all of them. Kaila had lost her mother's sword. Keven and Marek had lost a kingdom. And Kreg? He had lost a world.
Kreg allowed himself the hint of a grin. To all appearances Shillond had lost nothing but weight.
Kreg's grin widened. While they had lost, they had gained too. Kaila had changed since Kreg had known her. No longer just a good-natured bruiser with a quick temper, she had revealed a keen mind that he would never have suspected when he met her. Kreg himself had become someone that his self of a year ago would never have recognized.
"You smile," Kaila said. "I would hear cheerful thoughts."
"I was just thinking," Kreg said. "Five people now have to sneak back into Aerioch and raise a rebellion against the Schahi. While the death of the High Mage is likely to cause such confusion that Chanakra won't have much influence, these five people will have to escape the country, reach Aerioch, raise forces from somewhere with all the knights either dead or imprisoned or enslaved, and then throw the Schahi out of Aerioch."
Kaila seemed puzzled. "And this causes you to smile?"
"Of course," Kreg said. "The Schahi don't have a chance."
In the corner, Shillond frowned.
“Shillond?” Kreg said.
“The High Mage was an idiot,” Shillond said.
“Be thankful that he was, father,” Kaila said.
“How did an idiot best Baaltor even once?” Shillond said. “How did an idiot gain the magical power to become High Mage of Chanakra? How did an idiot direct the conquest of so much of the world?”
Shillond frowned again and looked into his hands. “I fear that it was not the High Mage of Chanakra who was our foe. He was no more than a pawn. All of this was just one more deception within the deceptions.
The Hordes of Chanakra (Knights of Aerioch) Page 33