Wrath of the Dragon Czar: Aegis of Merlin Book 5

by James E. Wisher

  They fell in behind Kai and soon enough found themselves in the luxury portion of the palace. Gold-framed art covered the walls and lush white carpet silenced their footsteps. The witches lived in their own area of the palace, each with her own bedroom.

  “I’ll start ferrying this lot back to Talon,” Sasha said.

  “There are three more scattered in this area,” Kai said.

  “We’ll handle those and meet you at the portal.” Conryu followed Kai out of the living area and down another hall.

  Halfway to the end Prime stopped. “Master, I sense powerful magic behind this door.”

  “We have little time, Chosen.”

  “A quick look won’t hurt anything.” Conryu tried the handle and found the door unlocked.

  Inside it looked like a museum display. Fifteen pedestals held up small artifacts under glass domes. Each one had a rectangle under it with writing.

  “Elf artifacts, Master.” Prime floated in. “I’ve only seen this many in one place once before and that was over a thousand years ago.”

  “We can’t leave them here. God knows what sort of mischief someone might get into with these. Kai, find a bag. I’ll gather them up.”

  She disappeared down the hall without comment. She didn’t seem thrilled, but this was too important to leave to chance.

  “Reveal.” The artifacts glowed in his magic sight, but the glass and pedestals didn’t. There should have been defensive wards on something as valuable as these artifacts.

  “Do you sense anything, Prime?”

  “No, Master. Perhaps with the witches unconscious the magic protecting them has failed.”

  “Maybe.” Conryu opened the first case and took out a ring set with a ruby the size of his pinkie knuckle. Even if it wasn’t magic, the gem alone would be worth thousands.

  He’d collected eight of the artifacts and was on his way for the ninth when he spotted an empty display. He frowned and tried to read the caption underneath. It must have been written in Russian because he couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

  “Can you copy this? I want to get Anya to translate.”

  Prime drifted down even with the placard and after half a minute of staring said, “I have it.”

  “Chosen.” Kai had a little satchel made of a folded cloth. “This is all I could find.”

  “It’ll do.”

  They gathered up the rest of the artifacts. Kai tried to hand him the satchel, but he shook his head. “You hang on to these for me. If anyone saw me with them, it would lead to questions I don’t want to answer right now.”

  She tied the satchel tight around her waist. “I’ll guard them with my life.”

  Conryu sat up with a gasp and stared around the clearing. The last thing he remembered was opening one last portal and slumping across Cerberus’s back. All around him white-robed bodies lay on the ground as if awaiting burial.

  At least his backlash headache was gone. Nothing like a good day’s sleep to set a man to rights.

  “Back to the land of the living?” Anya walked over and sat on the ground beside him. “You had everyone a little worried last night.”

  “Sorry, I’ve never cast that many spells in such a short period before, not even the day of the attack on Sentinel City.” He groaned and spun to face her. “What time is it and more importantly, do you have anything to eat?”

  She smiled. “You’re in luck, some of Lord Talon’s people showed up a few hours ago with plenty of food. If you can wake our guests at least they won’t starve. As to the time I’d guess early afternoon, but there are no clocks out here.”

  Story of his life. Everywhere he went there were no clocks. “How many did we end up with?”

  “One hundred and thirty. The one you woke up, Nosorova, seems to be doing well, though she still can’t remember anything about her life as a White Witch. It’s strange talking to a woman in her thirties who thinks she’s eighteen.”

  He scrambled to his feet and followed her over to a tent someone had set up. Prime floated along beside them, mercifully silent. No doubt the scholomantic would get around to chastising him for his rash behavior later.

  “Where is she anyway?”

  “Nosorova? Out checking on her unconscious sisters. Why?”

  “I found a testing stick at the palace and I was curious to see if she still had wizard potential. Do you think she’d be willing to try it?”

  “It couldn’t hurt to ask.” Anya brushed through the tent flap and he followed along behind.

  Inside the tent waited a table lined with coolers. Conryu flipped open the first one he came to and pulled out a bottle of water. The next one held a selection of fruits. He kept going until he reached one packed to the top with sandwiches. He took the first one he laid his hands on, unwrapped it, and dug in. The first sandwich vanished in short order and he started on the second.

  When he finally came up for breath Anya asked, “Do you have a plan for our unconscious guests?”

  “Assuming I can wake them all up, I figured we’d try to find their families. I imagine they’d be eager to see their daughters again, however long it’s been. Once we know their names and where they used to live, it shouldn’t be too hard to track them down.”

  “It might not be that easy.” Anya had a bottle of iced tea and took a sip. “The Empire is liable to be in chaos, maybe for a while.”

  Conryu shrugged and finished his breakfast. “Maybe, but we’ll still do our best. Listen to me, assuming you want to help after everything you went through to escape. I’ll be happy to take you back to school with me and you can resume your classes.”

  “I’m not sure I want to go back at all and since no one’s after me now I could just as well stay here with Mom. I don’t know, I’ll talk to her tonight and see what she thinks.”

  “Cool.” Conryu tossed his empty bottle in a handy bin. “I need to head back and talk to Dean Blane and St. Seraphim. Assuming Maria doesn’t kill me, I’ll be back before dark.”

  Anya nodded. “I’ll be here.”

  “Master, the translation,” Prime said.

  “Right.” He’d forgotten all about the placard Prime had copied. “Could you tell me what this says?”

  Prime flipped open revealing the text he’d copied.

  Anya looked it over and said, “Broken elf artifact, function unknown. That’s not very helpful, is it? Sorry.”

  “It’s fine, thanks,” he said. Inside he cursed his luck. He’d hoped the information would give him some hint about what the Society intended.

  Conryu left the food tent and opened a Hell portal. He felt neither pain nor dizziness. That was a good sign. He doubted it would be necessary to fight, but if he had to he didn’t want to faint in the middle of it.

  As soon as he entered Hell Prime said, “I thought for a moment last night you really had killed yourself. Why risk so much for complete strangers? Do you have some sort of mental defect?”

  “If you call the inability to see someone in trouble and not look the other way a defect, I guess I do. Those women had no choice about what was done to them. They deserve a chance at something resembling a normal life.”

  “You want to give them what you can’t have,” Prime said.

  “No fair reading my mind.”

  Cerberus trotted up and barked. A moment later Kai appeared, the satchel of elf artifacts over her shoulder.

  Cerberus licked him with a long black tongue.

  “I’m glad to see you too. Kai, are you well? We can go back for a sandwich if you’re hungry.”

  “I’m fine, Chosen, thank you. We’re trained to go long periods without food. As long as I spend most of my time here, my bodily functions are suppressed.”

  “I didn’t know that. Prime, did you know that?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Of course you did.” Conryu flew up on Cerberus’s back and when Kai had joined him he said, “Take me to the academy.”

  Cerberus barked and they were off.

&nb
sp; Kai put her arms around him and laid her head on his back. “You are a strange one to be Chosen by the Reaper. I’ve read the histories. The previous Chosen were cruel and indifferent to others’ suffering. They used their power to satisfy their hungers without a care for anyone else. Basically the total opposite of you. Do you know why the Reaper marked you?”

  “To tempt me, I suspect. He wants me to use his power to kill people, preferably lots of people. He whispers in my ear every time I put on that stupid cloak. If I had another option, I wouldn’t even bother with it, but it’s too useful a defensive spell to ignore. So instead I do my best not to pay attention to his suggestions. So far it’s working pretty well.”

  “I’m pleased that I was selected to serve a Chosen like you.”

  Cerberus stopped and let out a bark. They climbed down and Conryu gave him a pat on the flank.

  “Do not hesitate to call me if you run into trouble.” Kai bowed and backed away.

  “Thanks, you’re a good friend.” Conryu opened a portal and stepped into his room.

  Lady Wolf breathed a sigh of relief when she emerged from the realm of water. The Le Fay Society’s primary base of operations was an old Victorian mansion in a remote corner of Wales that had survived the Elf War with minimal damage. As she approached the wrought iron fence, the gate swung open as if welcoming her home.

  When Conryu had captured her, she’d feared for a moment that she wouldn’t be able to escape, but the fool had left her with nothing more than simple stone bindings holding her in place. It ended up being only a few minutes’ work to transmute them into mud and free herself. His inexperience saved her.

  She climbed the three steps up to the porch and approached the whitewashed front door. Like the gate, the doors opened at her approach. The foyer held only a simple table and coat rack. No sound broke the silence. That didn’t surprise her. Most of the time the members were out on missions of one sort or another. Lady Wolf was looking forward to a few hours, or if she were fortunate a few days, of peace and quiet.

  At the far end of the foyer a long staircase led to the second floor. At the top stood a silent Lady Dragon. Lady Wolf’s heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t noticed her superior’s approach.

  Lady Dragon crooked a finger and walked back toward her office. It didn’t take a genius to recognize the silent summons. Lady Wolf was a few weeks later than expected so she’d been anticipating a dressing down. She’d also hoped to delay it, but maybe it would be better to have it over with.

  She took the stairs two at a time and met Lady Dragon in her office. The plain room wouldn’t have looked out of place in any business woman’s home. Bookcases and a cherry desk dominated the area. There was no sign of magic present. To a casual visitor the whole house would be at worst considered eccentric, but in no way alarming.

  Lady Dragon sat behind the desk. “Where is your mask?”

  Lady Wolf blinked. Of all the things she expected her superior to say, that wasn’t it. “I lost it to the abomination. I’ll create a new one after I’ve rested.”

  “No, before we do anything else we’ll complete the Ritual of Severing. It would be far too easy for a skilled wizard to follow the psychic link between you and the mask here.”

  Lady Wolf had forgotten all about the risks of losing her mask. She’d been so eager to escape she hadn’t even tried to retrieve it. “My apologies, Mistress.”

  Lady Dragon waved her hand, dismissing the issue. “The artifact fragment?”

  She hastened to get the item out of her pocket. When Lady Wolf put the semi-circle of metal on the desk it hardly looked like anything special.

  Lady Dragon ran a finger along its rune-inscribed surface. “At long last. This success makes up for a multitude of sins. Well done, Lady Wolf. Lady Tiger is completing her research as we speak and will join us in the next week or two. All our efforts will soon bear fruit. I can feel it.”

  A shiver of excitement ran through Lady Wolf. Their long-held dream of seeing Morgana free would at last come true.

  The portal had barely closed behind him when a gust of wind swirled around his neck before solidifying into a tiny girl. The pixie pressed her cheek into his and he smiled. It felt like he’d been gone for more than two nights. Though they had been very eventful nights.

  “Hello.” It was one of the few words in the language of air he’d learned. “Did you miss me?”

  The pixie nodded and hugged his neck.

  “Have classes started? I need to talk to Dean Blane.”

  She nodded again and tugged him toward the door. Conryu allowed the pixie to pull him into the hall and up the steps. They crossed the campus to the main building and went straight to the dean’s office. The secretaries only glanced at him before looking away. Was he in that much trouble? Considering everything he’d done, he probably was.

  Oh well, he wouldn’t change any of his choices. He’d done what he thought necessary at the time. Conryu knocked and the door opened.

  Dean Blane got up from behind her desk, stalked around, and drew a deep breath. He braced himself for the coming tirade.

  Instead, he got a hug.

  “I’m so glad you’re safe,” Dean Blane said. “Sit down and tell me everything.”

  Conryu did as she asked, leaving out only the elf artifacts he’d liberated from the czar’s collection. No way was he telling anyone who might pass it on to Malice. The crazy, power-hungry old woman with a dozen artifacts wasn’t something he wanted to think about.

  “Anyway, I’ve got a hundred plus unconscious women I need to wake up and doing it one Touch of the Goddess at a time will take too long. I was hoping St. Seraphim might have a different spell I can use. Or maybe she could just come back with me and lend a hand.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Dean Blane said. “The teachers are all official government employees and if we got involved in foreign affairs and someone found out it would be like giving official approval. We could end up fired at best and on The Lonely Rock at worst.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think it would really work, but I wanted to ask. Speaking of the wizard prison, what do you suppose the artifact Lady Dog—”

  “Wolf,” Prime said.

  “Whatever. What do you suppose it does?”

  Dean Blane shook her head. “No idea. With elf artifacts the sky’s the limit. You can bet whatever they have planned it won’t be good for us.”

  “I almost forgot.” Conryu took the crystal-studded wand out of his inner pocket. “Do you know how to make this thing work? It doesn’t seem to react to me.”

  He tossed it to her and she muttered a spell he didn’t recognize. “You need to charge it with light magic to get it started and keep it from reacting to your own magic. Are you planning to use it to test the former witches once you wake them up?”

  “Yeah, I wanted to see if they still have wizard potential. Assuming any of them want to pursue that path.”

  “Why don’t you take one of our testers? It’ll give you a more accurate reading.”

  “Cool, thanks. Assuming any of them are interested, can I offer them places at the academy?”

  “We only train Alliance citizens. You could ask Malice for special permission, but I don’t know what price she’d extract.”

  “Not to mention she basically told me to stay out of the Empire’s business. No, that’s not going to work. I didn’t free these women from one master only to give them another.”

  “You really don’t like Malice, do you?” Dean Blane asked.

  “Do you?” Conryu countered.

  She grinned. “No comment. I think St. Seraphim is free first period. Do you want me to call her here?”

  “That would be great.”

  Fifteen minutes later the head of light magic studies breezed into the dean’s office. Her white eyes settled on Conryu. “You’ve been busy I hear.”

  “Very busy. I’ve over a hundred unconscious women I need to wake up. Touch of The Goddess works great, but I don’t th
ink I can cast it enough times to wake them all before they die of dehydration.”

  “Touch of The Goddess works on pretty much everything and if there’s no physical damage to go with the psychic is complete overkill. How did these unfortunates come to fall unconscious?”

  Conryu gave her the short version of what he’d told Dean Blane.

  “So, it’s backlash from the czar’s death. My guess is their minds are stuck in a negative feedback loop. You just need to break them out of it.”

  “Great,” Conryu said. “How?”

  “Simple, there’s a spell called ‘Mass Alert.’ It’s designed for military applications. Basically it uses light magic to cause a person that hasn’t gotten enough sleep to feel fully rested for a short time, say the length of a battle. Anyway, in your situation, it will alter those women’s mental patterns, thus breaking them out of the feedback loop. They’ll feel a bit hung over for a few hours, but other than that there are no side effects.”

  “Perfect. Can you teach it to me?”

  They spent the next two hours going over and over the spell until Conryu had it down pat.

  St. Seraphim left to prepare for her afternoon class, seeming no more perturbed than when she arrived. Nothing seemed to faze her and he found that very reassuring.

  “Are you going straight back?” Dean Blane made no effort to try to stop him which he appreciated.

  “No, I have one more thing to do. Lunch is about to start, isn’t it?”

  The cafeteria was about half full, a little bit bigger audience than he wanted for what he had coming, but that couldn’t be helped. He spotted Maria and Kelsie at their usual table. They hadn’t seen him so he eased his way over to approach Maria from behind.

  Kelsie noticed him, but other than a widening of her eyes gave nothing away.

  “Is this seat taken?” he asked.

  Maria leapt up and wrapped her arms around him. He sighed and held on until she started to pull away. The moment the hug ended the glare began. “I’ve been worried sick. What were you thinking, sticking your nose into a war for goodness’ sake? You could have gotten killed. Did you even think about that?”