God of Magic 4

by Logan Jacobs

  I turned back, and sure enough, the wispy column of white smoke had quickly become a dense, charcoal-gray pillar in the sky. Lavinia was right, whatever was burning over there was big, so I flicked the reins and spurred my horse into a gallop.

  “Let's go.”

  I felt a knot form in my stomach as we rode. It had to be the bandits' hideout, there wasn't anything else out here. But why was it burning?

  The smell of smoke was thick and heavy in my throat, and the horses snorted as they ran, their ears angled back in a show of displeasure. I wondered if they were simply reacting to the smell, or if they sensed that something else was wrong, but there wasn't much time to speculate, anyway, because in just a few minutes the forest opened up before us into a clearing, and we pulled up short before the inferno. It was impossible to say what the structure might have looked like before since all that was visible now was the blackened skeleton engulfed in a twenty-foot-high wall of flame. The building, or what was left of it, was two stories tall, about the same size as our guild hall, but a section of the wall had already collapsed beneath the flames, and I knew the rest wouldn't hold much longer. A beam broke as the fire ate through it and fell in a shower of sparks, and my horse squealed and backed up a few steps as a wave of intense heat rolled over us.

  “Gods of the Vales,” Aerin breathed as she stopped beside me.

  “That's no natural fire,” Lena said in a hushed voice. “It's too hot, burning too quickly.”

  “Who would have done this?” Maruk asked.

  “Can we put it out?” I scanned the clearing for anything we might be able to use, water, sand, something, but aside from some discarded weapons, there was nothing but the grass and the fire. I threw a hopeful glance back at Emeline. If there was even a chance that something survived that we could use, we needed to try to find it.

  The panthera mage stared at the fire, her face pale. “Starting fires is more my expertise,” she replied, but when she realized that we had no other options, she set her jaw. “I'll see what I can do. You'd better stand back.”

  She dismounted and followed the rest of us back to the edge of the clearing while the dark-haired mage approached the burning building. I didn't know how she could stand the heat, even from thirty feet away it was almost unbearable, but Emeline didn't stop until she was a mere ten feet from the building, close enough that the embers flew out around her, and raised both of her hands up to the flames.

  The light of her mana surged as bright as the fire in front of her and coursed down her slender arms, and the mage twisted her hands as she fought to control the blaze. There was a sharp crack, audible even above the roar of the flames, and one of the walls sheared away from the rest of the structure and streamed tongues of fire as it collapsed into the grass.

  The horses snorted in terror and backed into each other, desperate to run from the clearing, and we struggled to keep them from bolting while Emeline focused on controlling the fire. She hadn't even flinched when the wall had fallen, and I could see now that the flames didn't reach as high as before.

  “Keep going, it's working!” I shouted.

  She didn't answer, or if she did, it wasn’t loud enough for me to hear over the fire. I watched, a little awed, as the flames slowly but steadily continued to shrink under Emeline's control. The fire was no longer in danger of spreading to the grass and the rest of the forest, and the roof, though blackened and crumbling, was no longer on fire. Now that she'd started, Emeline seemed to be getting the hang of manipulating the flames, and within minutes, she'd brought the blaze down to the size of a campfire. Finally, she brought her hands together and the last tongues of flame were extinguished altogether, and all that was left was the charred skeleton of the building.

  “That was amazing!” I slid off my horse and as I approached the pyromancer, I realized she was trembling slightly and wrapped my arms around her to support her. “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah.” Emeline nodded and gave me a small, reassuring smile, though she looked drained. I must not have looked very convinced, because she added, “Really, I'm okay. I think the smoke just made me a little dizzy.”

  Now that she was no longer using her magic, though, I could see how much her mana had been drained by the effort and knew it wasn't just the smoke that was bothering her.

  “Sit down, rest for a bit,” I told her gently, and I guided her over to the edge of the trees and got her to sit down. “We're just going to look around here and see if anything useful survived.” Slim chance, I knew, but the bandits might have had a cellar or enchanted storage that could have survived the fire, and at least we could figure out if any of them escaped and find clues to how the fire began in the first place. I didn't expect that the bandits would have torched their own headquarters, and given the weapons that were scattered around, I suspected there had been a fight here recently.

  Emeline nodded and took a sip from the canteen I passed to her, and I turned back to join the others, who, except for Yvaine, had already begun to sift through the ash. The noblewoman had elected to stay on the perimeter, and she was poking around at the discarded weapons that were strewn across the grass. I walked up to her.

  “Look here,” she said as she heard me approach, and she stooped to pick up a scrap of cloth. “This seems to be rather rich for bandits, don't you think?”

  I took it when she held it out to me and examined it. It looked like the edge of someone's cloak, and it must have torn off. The sky-blue fabric was embroidered with silver thread, and there was a bit of blood splattered across it.

  “It does,” I agreed. Had another guild gotten here before us? I looked back out at the mess that surrounded the remains of the burnt building, but it was hard to read. A steel sword stuck out of the grass at an angle, and a few feet away was a broken wooden bow, snapped in two and smoldering slightly. Neither had any noteworthy qualities, nothing to hint at who they'd once belonged to.

  Aerin, Lavinia, Maruk, Lena, and Dehn looked disappointed as they made their way back toward us, kicking up clouds of cinders with every step. Lavinia caught my eye and shook her head.

  “There's nothing left,” she reported. “Just bones.”

  “What did you find?” Aerin asked, and I handed her the scrap of cloth Yvaine had found.

  “Look familiar?” I asked. She knew the local guilds better than I did, if this had come from one of their uniforms, Aerin would be able to tell.

  The redheaded elf frowned.

  “I wonder...” Yvaine said suddenly, and we all turned to her. “I wonder if that didn't belong to one of Count Orso's men.”

  “I thought dealing with bandits wasn't his thing?” Lavinia asked.

  “It wasn't,” Yvaine replied, “but perhaps he decided enough was enough. We could go pay him a visit, anyway, and see what he knows.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” I said. We certainly weren't going to get any further here. “Which way is his estate?”

  “Due east from here,” the noblewoman replied. “We should have no trouble riding there directly.”

  We mounted our horses again and started east, and it wasn't long before we saw figures in the distance. Six armored men on horseback, and a group of four people walking along behind them. I exchanged a look with Yvaine, then spurred my horse forward to catch up. The other party slowed and stopped when they heard us coming after them, and one of the men on horseback raised his hand in our direction.

  I held the reins with one hand but kept the other low as I curled it into a fist and quelled the mage's mana before he could even begin to cast his spell, and his horse took a nervous, prancing step back as its rider lurched forward and coughed.

  “Who goes there?” another of the armored riders called out as he drew his sword. Yvaine responded before any of us had the chance.

  “Orlando, is that you?”

  We were near enough now that I could see the look of surprise on the man's face as he lowered his weapon.

  “Oh, Lady Yvaine... er, good d
ay,” he spluttered and he gave an awkward salute when we stopped alongside his party. The six guards were all outfitted in armor and matching capes of sky-blue. The dents to the metal and the mud and blood on their capes were evidence of their recent battle, and one of the men had a tear in his cape that matched the scrap of fabric Yvaine had found. It wasn't difficult to guess, then, who the four people on foot were.

  The bandits' hands were tied in front of them, and the four of them were tied together and were being towed along by two of the riders, who had to be Orso's guards. The bandits, dirty and bloody and defeated, watched us sullenly but didn't dare speak. I ignored their glares as I looked them over and tried to determine who among them was the leader, but no one stood out.

  “Orso sent you to capture these bandits, did he?” Yvaine asked.

  “Uh, yes, milady,” Orlando answered. He had a thick mustache that quivered when he spoke, and he seemed nervous to be speaking to Yvaine. “We're taking this lot back to the count to face justice.” He threw a glare back at the bandits.

  “We need to speak to them first,” I said. We hadn't found anything in the wreckage, but perhaps these survivors knew something about the heist that could help us.

  Orlando frowned. “My orders are to bring them back to the count's estate.” He didn't bother to try to hide his suspicion as he regarded me.

  “Of course, you must do that,” Yvaine interrupted before I could reply. Her tone was perfectly cordial. “We wouldn't dream of keeping you from your duty, but my friends here are the Shadow Foxes, you see.”

  “Oh.” Orlando's eyebrows shot up. “I, er, I apologize, I didn't recognize you.” I could tell that he was lying, but I didn't really care if he knew who we were or not, I just wanted to see what his captives knew about the heist.

  “We just want to speak to them about a bounty we're pursuing,” I explained.

  “It will only take a moment,” Yvaine added with a brilliant smile.

  “Right, yes, er, go right ahead,” Orlando stammered. “Friends of Lady Yvaine are friends of ours.” He offered the marchioness a nervous, appeasing sort of grin.

  I nodded to Aerin before I slid off my horse, and the healer joined me on the ground as I took out the two copies of the heist plans that we'd gotten from the Fire Birds and the Shrikes and held them out for the bandits to see.

  “Do you recognize these?” I demanded.

  One of the bandits, a fairly young man with choppy brown hair and a scar on his cheek cocked his head.

  “Maybe,” he said coolly. He cut his eyes to his captors. “Maybe not.”

  At once, I knew he was going to try to negotiate the information for his freedom, or a lesser sentence, but I didn't have time for his games. I drew my dagger and brought the point of the blade to the man's throat.

  “I'm not going to ask again,” I said in a low voice.

  The bandit swallowed. “We were gonna do a job,” he said quickly. “A bunch of us. Some mage organized it, made all those notes.”

  “What was the mage's name?” I asked. “What did he look like?”

  “We just called him Cygne,” the man answered. “Never saw his face, he always wore a mask.”

  “What happened to your group's copy of these plans?”

  Again, the bandit's eyes cut to the guards on horseback.

  “It was back there, our leader had it.” So, it had burned up. My frustration must have shone on my face because the bandit went on quickly, his eyes locked on my dagger at his throat. “I know what it said, though. We were supposed to meet at sundown in the Sunken Caverns, the night of the blood moon.”

  “The message we decoded mentions a masquerade,” Aerin said. “What do you know about that?”

  “I don't know anything about a masquerade.” The bandit shook his head slightly. “I just know we were all supposed to go to the Sunken Caverns at sundown. That's all, I swear.”

  “He's telling the truth,” Aerin informed me, her expression grim.

  “We appreciate your cooperation,” I told the bandit as I lowered my dagger. He looked relieved until he caught the glares that his companions were giving him, but none of the others dared to speak up.

  As Aerin and I got back on our horses, Yvaine said farewell to Orso's guards, and they led the bandits away to face the count's justice.

  “The Sunken Caverns are right outside of Ovrista,” Lavinia said then. “I'd be willing to bet some of those underground tunnels we slogged through lead to them.” The ranger shook her head. “We were so close. That bastard was practically next door the whole time.”

  “There are only three days left until the blood moon,” Lena reminded us.

  “Then let's not waste any more time,” I said. “We need to get back to Ovrista.”

  Chapter 10

  The quickest and most direct way back to the city meant crossing through a portion of the Wilds, but going around by the main road would lengthen our journey by almost half a day, even with the horses, and we didn't have time to spare. We spurred our horses to run as fast as we dared on the narrow, wooded paths, and the animals' panting breaths seemed to give voice to the urgency we all felt.

  The bandits' revelation repeated over and over in my mind as we rode. The mastermind behind the heist was a mage. I wasn't as worried about his magical abilities as I was about the fact that this felt like another loose end. First, we found out that the swan stamp was the seal of Lucius Previn, but he couldn't be involved, he had died years ago. Now we learned about this mage, but of course, he went by a code name and even the people who were working closest with him had never seen his real face. Was it simply a coincidence that he had chosen to mark the notes with Lucius Previn's seal? Was it meant to be a tribute to him somehow? Perhaps they'd been friends, all those years ago.

  I knew I could come up with a hundred possible explanations, and I had the time as we rode, but I also knew it didn't really matter who this Cygne was. All that mattered was stopping him and the bandits he'd roped into this heist.

  We rode quickly, but even this shortcut through the Wilds couldn't get us back to Ovrista before nightfall, and as the sun began to sink in the west, we slowed and started to look around for a place to camp. For the most part, the woods were uninterrupted, and there was little difference from one potential camping spot to another along the trail we'd been following, but Lavinia saw a clearing large enough to be drawn on the map just another mile or so ahead, and we decided to press on and camp there. At the very least, we wouldn't be forced to set up our tents right on the edge of the road, and with any luck, there might be some sort of shelter there.

  No one spoke much. Even Maruk and Lavinia didn't seem to have it in them to keep up their usual banter after the day's hard riding, and so the only sounds were the steady plodding of our horses' hooves on the packed dirt and the droning of the forest's insects as we continued on. Without the warmth of the sun, the forest cooled quickly, and the hairs on my arms stood up as goosebumps prickled my flesh. The half-bare tree branches looked like grasping fingers against the indigo sky above, where the nearly full moon shone down like the bright eye of some gigantic creature. Somewhere in the woods, an owl started up a haunting call, and I couldn't help but think that being here felt like being on the set of some classic Halloween movie. I imagined us, the weary heroes, finding some old haunted house to spend the night in until we were chased out by an axe-murderer or a werewolf or some other monster of the week.

  I was surprised, then, when we finally came to the clearing that had been marked on the map and saw, silhouetted in the silver moonlight, a dilapidated old estate surrounded by a twisted wrought-iron fence, like something directly out of a Stephen King novel. I gave myself a little shake, in case I'd nodded off while we rode, but no, I wasn't dreaming. The creepy old house remained at the end of the drive, desolate and haunting. The horses slowed of their own accord before the open gate and flicked their tails with nervous swishes as we all stared up at the house in the distance.

  The
place was enormous, almost as large as Yvaine's home, but it hunched against the sky with a sinister sort of disposition that ruined any other comparison to the noblewoman's estate. It was hard to make out much at a distance with only the moon for light, but I could tell that sections of the roof had caved in and some of the old windows had been smashed. Lengths of dead vines were still caught against the outer walls and their dry leaves whispered in the breeze. There was even a fountain at the end of the road, just before the house itself, but of course, it wasn't running, and the stone figure in the center was broken in half.

  “Goodness,” Maruk breathed. “You could contract tetanus just looking at it, couldn't you?”

  “I've never heard of this place,” Yvaine said, her voice pitched up with curiosity. “I make a point to know all of my neighbors, you know, but I can't imagine who must have lived here.”

  “The Addams Family?” I suggested as I stared up at the high, pointed tower roof on the building's western side and the crumbly stone arch over the doorway. I half expected bats to come flying out of the eaves or something. What the hell was this place?

  “Addams?” the marchioness repeated. “I'm not familiar with that name. It doesn't sound Ovristan. Where are they from?”

  “Oh, it was a joke,” I told her quickly. “Sorry, don't worry about it.”

  “Well, no one's been living there in a long while,” Lavinia pointed out. “Are we setting up camp there or not?”

  “It doesn't look all that safe,” Aerin said hesitantly. “I don't want the roof to fall in on us in the middle of the night.”

  “I second that,” Emeline said.

  “I wouldn't mind exploring,” Lena put in thoughtfully, “I'm sure whoever lived there left something interesting behind. At least, there's probably some fungus worth collecting, but I don't want to sleep there, either.”

  “Pfft,” Dehn snorted. “You're all a bunch of pansies. It's just a house, it's not going to hurt you.”