by Unknown
Xiaolang’s eyes closed in a pained manner. “You’re going into southern Chahir on a rescue mission to bring back the last possible Weather Mage, and you want just one person?”
“I promise to bring her back in one piece,” I promised faithfully, hand over my heart.
“Shad, be serious!” Eagle protested. “This isn’t a two-man mission. I’m not sure if it’s even a two-squad mission!”
I dropped into a more somber expression. “Right now I need speed, not manpower. If I can get to the girl fast enough, I can take her away before anyone realizes what she is. That’s the impression I got from the Gardener. I don’t feel like I should go in there alone, without any backup whatsoever, but more than two people will attract unwanted attention.”
As the two men thought that over, I spun on one heel and went down to a knee, taking Aletha’s hand in one of mine and looking up with star-struck eyes. “Gorgeous, my dearest, will you be my wife, to have and to hold, for the duration of this mission?”
Not missing a beat, she put a hand to her heart and exclaimed, “Why, Shad, I thought you’d never ask me! Of course I will.”
Xiaolang looked about two seconds away from banging his head against the desk. Repeatedly. “Shad. Your undercover story is to be a married couple traveling through Chahir?”
I shrugged agreement, bouncing back up to my feet. “If we can pretend to be a married couple on the way out of Chahir, we’ll avoid a lot of trouble.”
“He’s right,” Aletha admitted.
“And do you even have anyone else to spare?” I asked Xiaolang, almost rhetorically, as I already knew the answer. “You’re due for another mission near the Q’atalian coastline tomorrow, aren’t you? You’re having to borrow people from another team just to cover everything.”
Xiaolang started pacing the length of his office in agitation. “Is Garth going with you?”
“He’s on his way now to get me,” I answered, carefully omitting the fact that Garth wouldn’t be able to join in either. He had a whole academy of students that needed his attention.
“Well, that makes me feel a little better about all of this…” Xiaolang trailed off in a mutter. “Alright, fine. So, pretend to be a married couple, eh?” He had that empaths-are-scary smile he sometimes wore as he looked at the two of us.
I blinked and shared a look with Aletha, but she clearly didn’t understand why Xiaolang would look at us like that either.
“Something you want to share with us, Captain?” she asked him with mounting suspicion.
“No,” he denied, smile widening. “You’ll figure it out, between the two of you. Aletha, go with him.”
I think she wanted to sit on Xiaolang until she strangled some answers from his cryptic little neck, but she thought better of it and simply nodded in agreement before turning to me. “How much time do I have to pack?”
“Garth said he would come to get me in about an hour, and that was a good twenty minutes ago.”
“So, five minutes to pack.” She didn’t look particularly disturbed by this. A veteran soldier, she knew how to prepare in a hurry. With a salute to Xiaolang, she exited the office quickly.
With a gamine grin, I waved at the two men. “Wish us luck!”
“Just don’t get killed?” Xiaolang pleaded. “I don’t want to have to do the paperwork for it.”
Some friend he was. Laughing, I shrugged the concern away before following after Aletha.
We waited outside the city gates for Garth, as he tended to cause mass panic in the streets when he popped up in the city. Aletha and I both had our horses with us, packs on their backs, and the clothes that we’d worn while on our missions in Chahir. We’d still attract attention—mostly because of Aletha’s dark hair and olive skin—but since I was obviously Chahiran, hopefully people would buy the ‘we’re married’ story and not give us trouble.
Well, maybe. I did a mental evaluation of my appearance, frowning thoughtfully as I realized I didn’t look purely Chahiran anymore. My skin was a swarthy tan after spending so much time outdoors training people. My hair had become pure white after being turned Jaunten, making me look a decade older than I actually was. After so many years of serving in various militaries, I had the bearing of a soldier stamped into me. Would my countrymen look at me and automatically assume I was one of them? Now there was the question.
I glanced at Aletha. Beautiful and exotic-looking as always. Being a natural infiltration specialist, she had changed out of the black and red Ascalon uniform and into clothes that would blend in better with Chahir’s fashions. She knew enough Chahirese to get by, but she would never be confused for a native. Not with her obviously Solian looks and military bearing. No, it might be better for both of us to stay out of sight as much as possible.
The ground melted to either side not five feet in front of us, and Garth slowly rose to the surface. He still had on the dark brown robes of a professor, so he obviously hadn’t bothered to change before coming to get us. I silently blessed his speed, as we needed it.
“Ready?” he asked, already walking closer to us.
“Yes,” Aletha answered, expression strained. Oh, right, she hated traveling by Earth Path. I’d forgotten that.
“Then let’s go.” So saying, he whirled the earth around us like it was nothing more than putty in a sculptor’s hands, bringing us down into the earth itself. It was dark, smelled slightly dank, and the walls glowed with magic. Just like the last dozen times I’d been down here. I’d never in a million years understand why Garth liked it underground.
I glanced at Aletha. She looked pale, as if the blood had just drained out of her face, and her eyes were screwed shut. I felt a twinge of sympathy for her. Part of me thought I shouldn’t have brought her along since she hated earth-traveling so much, but really, she was the best person to bring in this situation and I couldn’t regret it.
Hoping to offer a little comfort, I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. Her hand closed around mine and she held on as if I were a lifeline.
Garth looked down, noticed our linked hands, then his eyes took in Aletha’s face. “Ahhh, right, you don’t like it down here.”
“Hurry,” Aletha requested in a thin voice. “Please.”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” he assured her.
I reexamined Aletha’s expression. Despite the death grip she had on my hand, she still looked almost unbearably terrified to be down here. I didn’t share her fear of underground spaces like this, but I could relate, after spending two hundred years in a space so confining I couldn’t even twitch a muscle. Having sympathy for her, I put my free arm around her shoulders and pulled her into my side.
She slit open one eye to look up at me askance. “Yes?”
“Aren’t you supposed to take advantage of situations like this?” I responded, lips kicked up on one side. “What do you think husbands are for, anyway?”
“An excellent point,” she agreed before latching her arms around my waist. The grip was bruisingly tight, although she left me enough room to breathe.
“Ahhh…” Garth trailed off, staring at us with a dumbfounded expression. “Husband?”
I had my mouth open, ready to take him for a ride, when Aletha beat me to it by explaining, “We’re playing the part of a couple on this mission.”
His suspicions immediately disappeared. “Oh, I see.”
“Spoilsport,” I muttered to her, making a face.
“Behave, hubby dearest. You have a lot of important information to give to Garth before he drops us off. We can’t afford for you to go off on one of your teasing tangents.”
She was unfortunately right. I turned back to him. “Can I talk to you as you go?” Sometimes Garth could handle conversations while he navigated. There were times he couldn’t, though. It depended on how well he knew the area.
“Yes,” he assured me. “Tell me in detail what the Gardener said.”
“Before I do that, brace yourself,” I requested cheerfully.
Garth’s eyes cut
sideways. “That smile you’re wearing is scaring me. Shad. What did you forget to mention to me?”
“Forget?” I responded, putting a wounded hand over my heart. “Nonsense. I just wanted to see your reaction in person.”
His eyes narrowed, tone growling in warning, “Shad.”
He was sooo fun to tease. “I mentioned I’m going after a mage. Guess what kind.”
It took him a second, then his lips parted in wonder. “Don’t tell me. A Weather Mage?”
“You’re quick,” I approved.
Garth’s expression was a mix of delight and nervousness, as if he couldn’t decide whether to be glad that a whole line of magic hadn’t died out or not. Then again, it would be his job to train the new mage, and no one in the world could help him. No one really had remembered there were Weather Mages until I’d reminded them.
Swallowing hard, he choked out, “You’re sure?”
“Oh, quite sure.”
Aletha grabbed a good inch of flesh around my ribs and gave me the mother of all pinches. “Ouch! What was that for?”
“Shad,” Aletha requested mildly, “start from the beginning and tell us everything.”
“Use your words, wifey, violence is unbecoming. OWW! Fine, fine, stop pinching me.”
I faithfully retold the story, trying to be as close to verbatim as possible. They listened attentively, without interrupting, until I finished.
“He actually said that they’d awakened a mage,” Garth repeated, voice shaken.
“That was the word he used,” I confirmed. “Which means that the theory you had about the Gardeners directly interfering with the magic in Chahir was dead-on.”
Garth let out a low whistle. “I’m glad to have that confirmed, though. Before, it was just a gut feeling. But it’s obvious, too, that the Coven Ordan magicians, Aral especially, was right in their theories. They thought it took a certain talent to be a magician, that you had to have the predisposition for it, in order for your magic to awaken. What the Gardener said makes me think they were right. Otherwise, if it was solely up to them, then they could awaken as many Weather Mages as they wished to.”
True. “I wonder why they’re doing it now. I mean, isn’t she too young for mage abilities?”
“I’m still wondering why they awakened Nolan and Trev’nor when they did,” Garth responded with a brief frown. “They were even younger.”
Oh, right. They had been, at that. “Any chance they’d explain that to us?”
Garth gave me a look that spoke volumes.
I let out a sigh. “Right, I didn’t think they would. Just a hope on my part.”
“But wouldn’t it have been better to send us to fetch the girl before they awakened her magic?” Aletha looked a little strange participating in this conversation with her eyes screwed shut like that. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at her.
“I’m assuming they had good reason to do what they did,” Garth responded with a shrug. “They always do. It might have been a simple matter of timing. She was in the right area of the country to be influenced by the power of the ley lines around her, so they had to awaken her then. Or it could’ve been that they knew no parent would give her up unless her magic was active, so in order for us to take her out of Chahir, she had to be a mage first. I’m offering purely human theories, mind. I have no idea what they were thinking when they did it.”
Yes, that was the fun part about dealing with the Gardeners. They rarely gave you an explanation of what was going on. We typically got just enough information to work with before they disappeared.
Garth caught my eye. “When you do find her, head directly east and get out of Chahir. Don’t try to travel through it. Chatta’s notifying King Guin right now and sending magicians to the old safe houses. They’ll help relay you to the Isle of Strae.”
Sound advice, and more or less what I’d already been planning to do. Vonlorisen had ordered his people to disband the Star Order and accept magic again, but a two-hundred-year-old prejudice was not so easily abolished. I had no intention of staying in Chahir any longer than we needed to.
“But don’t stray too far into Hain, either,” Garth cautioned, an odd note of frustration in his tone. “I’m still struggling with the Trasdee Evondit Orra when it comes to the mages. The witches and wizards born in Chahir they won’t fight me over, but since the only mages born are in Chahir, they seem to think that they can have half of them.”
I blinked, incredulous. “That’s….”
“Ridiculous?” he finished sourly. “Tell me about it. Even now, they think of mages as some sort of commodity more than anything else. I’ve even argued this point with O’danne and Doss. I did ask Guin covertly for help, but if they get wind of an awakened Weather Mage, I’ll have a full-blown fight on my hands. We must get her to Strae before they find out about her; otherwise we might lose her to Hain.”
“We can’t!” I objected. “The Gardeners awakened her for Chahir’s benefit, not Hain’s.”
“I know. Which is why you have to be careful. I wish I could stay, help you find her,” Garth fretted, brows furrowed. “But I don’t dare leave a handful of instructors up there with a school full of students. We’re just barely managing as it is, and they can’t afford for me to go off for several days.”
“I know,” I assured him. “I never expected you to stay. Besides, if the situation needed you, then I’m sure a Gardener would have come to see you too. But I’m the one they asked, so I must be sufficient.”
He nodded with a long, resigned sigh. “That’s the only thing that makes me feel better about all of this. They never give anyone a task they can’t manage. I suppose while you’re busying finding the girl, we’ll go through the archives and figure out how to train her.”
As the only living Weather Mage, she’d be forced to learn from books and conjecture instead of real-life instruction. Poor kid. But Garth had done the same thing and came through it fine, so hopefully she wouldn’t accidentally destroy the world while she figured things out.
“Garth, one more thing.” I waited until he looked at me before saying, “I meant to say this before I got the surprise visit, but I’ll take the position you offered as Weapons Professor.”
Aletha jerked in surprise, her eyes snapping open. “What?!”
“You will?” A grin stretched over his face from ear to ear. “Phew, I’m glad! You’re really the best fit for the job. I couldn’t think of whom else to ask.”
“I wanted to, but it turns out I’ll need to anyway.” I looked at Aletha out of the corner of my eye as I said this. I probably should have said something to Xiaolang and the rest before telling Garth, but I’d had no time for a debate before, and they would have demanded explanations after I’d more or less set up a life in Ascalon. “When the Gardener said ‘go protect her,’ he didn’t mean short-term. I felt it when he said it. He meant for a lifetime. I can’t leave her alone once I find her.”
Aletha’s hands clenched my shirt. “I understand that she’s precious, irreplaceable, and has to be safeguarded, but…a lifetime?”
“I wouldn’t choose anyone else to protect her,” Garth said frankly. “Then, you’ll take the position and stay throughout her schooling?”
“At least,” I agreed. “After that, who knows? It depends on what she needs to do.”
Aletha dragged a hand roughly over her face. “How is it that you never take the easy road? Every time, you take on the impossible tasks, the ones that no man really wants to do.”
“Now, Gorgeous,” I chided with open amusement, “where would the fun be in taking the easy way?”
To Garth, she groaned, “I can’t figure out who’s crazier. Him or me for following him.”
He just shook his head, eyes twinkling. “And to think, I’m the one that set him loose on the world again.”
“Oh, that’s true.” She snapped her fingers, as if only now remembering this. “I can blame you for letting him out of the crystal if anything goes wrong.”
“It’s all the better if you have a scapegoat handy,” I agreed, trying not to laugh.
“That said, try to keep a low profile?” Garth requested of us both. “I can’t give you a mirror broach or any way to contact us if something goes wrong. You’re truly on your own down here.”
I dismissed this with an airy wave. “We’ll be fine.”
Garth dropped us well out of the sight of a decent-sized village on the border of Darlington and Farless Province. I could tell he wanted to stay and help, but almost before we could rise above ground, Chatta contacted him by mirror with a problem that involved a gaping hole in the wall. How a student had accidentally destroyed part of the academy already, I didn’t know, but from the way that Garth failed to react to this news, I figured it wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Just how dangerous was it, anyway, teaching people to use magic? I’d thought it would be a fairly tame job, but it just might keep me on my toes.
He left in a hurry, and so did we. Aletha and I had packed for this trip, but we hadn’t gone shopping for the necessary food supplies before Garth came for us. We’d put that off for a reason. We needed information as much as food for the road, and it was best to get both at the same time.
With that in mind, we entered the town of Visela. We came in at a trot but had to slow the pace once we came to the main road that bisected the town. There was enough foot traffic, street vendors, and carts to make the road somewhat difficult to navigate. I looked around with interest as we entered. This seemed to be something of a trading town, as I saw signs of all different types of merchants and wares out for sale. I also heard different dialects being spoken, ranging from a Jarrellan accent to a Kaczorekan one. I doubted that Aletha could tell the difference—she hadn’t used any of her Chahirese since we’d stopped searching in this country almost a year ago. She was sure to be rusty and out of practice by now.
She pulled her gelding in tighter to me so that she could speak without shouting over the din. “I don’t think we’re going to find a lot of information here.”