Metal Mage 7

by Eric Vall

  Deya crinkled her brow at the thought. “I know, I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

  I sent the beautiful elf a grin to let her know I wasn’t too upset, but then Aurora’s sword slid from its sheath to derail my attention completely.

  I almost barreled right into her as she came to an abrupt stop, and the Baroness stood between us and the dock.

  Her inky arm was propped on her slender waist, and she had a bag dangling from her other hand.

  Aurora leveled her sword at the woman’s throat, and the Baroness curled her lip as she held the half-elf’s gaze without concern.

  Then she glanced at Deya.

  “You forgot these,” Nulena informed her, and she strolled past the lengthy blade to drop the bag into the elf’s arms.

  I trailed the Baroness’ every movement while she passed us by, and she didn’t bother to look back as she spoke again.

  “Safe travels, my friends,” she murmured. “Be careful near the water.”

  Aurora narrowed her eyes, but I reached out to keep her from following the Baroness as I settled Cayla on her feet once more.

  “What is in the bag?” the princess immediately asked the elf.

  Deya shifted the bag and looked inside, and her brow furrowed slightly.

  “My books,” she said with some surprise.

  Aurora sighed. “Fucking books,” she hissed, and she stowed her sword as she stepped onto the dock. “The boat guy’s gone, of course. What do we do?”

  “Shit,” I cursed.

  We looked along the bank for any sign of the boat or the elf who ferried it across the winding lagoon, but there was nothing to help us in crossing, and the clanging of bells began to rise up somewhere in the ancient structure of House Orrel.

  “We’ll swim,” Cayla decided, but Shoshanne eyed the princess’ leg.

  “You can’t swim like this,” she told her. “We’ll go around.”

  “We don’t know how far the inlet reaches,” Aurora pointed out. “That could take ages.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” I decided. “Shoshanne and I will help Cayla along.”

  The women nodded their agreement, and I looked across the lagoon into the dim shadows of the gnarled trees.

  Unlike the last time we’d crossed, fog was rising up from the waters and obscuring the view, but with the voices hollering louder all the time from the house, we stepped to the edge of the dock.

  Shoshanne dropped down and slipped her legs in, but then she gasped and yanked her blistering thighs up to her chest.

  “It’s too hot,” she told me.

  I furrowed my brow and crouched to stick my hand into the lagoon, and the water was practically boiling.

  When I quickly ripped my scalded hand back, Aurora cursed loudly.

  “What the fuck is with this water?” she growled. “I’m so sick of water.”

  “The Baroness?” Cayla muttered in a low voice, but my mind was already racing through everything we’d been through the last few days.

  My gut began to churn as I looked out across the steaming lagoon, and I pulled Dragir’s map from my pocket even though I already knew what I would find.

  There were no red X’s marking this area of map.

  “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Aurora asked.

  “There’s no X,” I mumbled mostly to myself. Then I quickly pulled Cayla over to hitch her over my shoulder again. “Get to the jungle, get away from the water.”

  “Wh-what?” Deya stammered. “Is it the students?”

  “It’s no elf,” I assured her, and the women promptly followed as I led them further from the bank to leave a wide berth between us and the lagoon, and Aurora quickened her pace to come to my side.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “The water,” I told her. “The Baroness was right.”

  “Did she enchant it?”

  “No, she’s a Tenebrae Mage,” I muttered back, “but it’s just like you said. What the fuck is going on with the water lately?”

  I held Aurora’s gaze for a moment, and her emerald eyes widened as she caught up to my meaning.

  “You don’t think … ” she mused.

  “I do,” I told her, and we rounded the back edge of the inlet we’d been running along. “Which means things are worse than we thought.”

  We scaled a steep hill as the jungle became denser, and the thick steam from the boiling lagoon sifted through the trees around us.

  “What are you talking about?” Shoshanne asked nervously, and I slowed to a stop to be sure no one had followed us so far.

  Cayla winced as I helped her to her feet, and Aurora and I both began to scan the area.

  “First the tide, then the tsunami,” I muttered as I summoned my Terra Magic and sent it out through the soil. “Now the lagoon.”

  “What does that mean?” Deya demanded, and she looped her hand in Cayla’s.

  “It means the Master’s been busy,” Aurora told her while she trained her ears carefully to the jungle.

  “A Flumen Mage … ” Shoshanne breathed, and I nodded.

  “He’s branded mages before,” I explained, “but only when he was after Illaria.”

  “They must be somewhere close by,” Aurora said as she squinted through the steam. “They have to be if they’re controlling the water.”

  “You don’t think the Master’s been working in Illaria while we’ve been in Nalnora, do you?” the healer asked uneasily.

  “Let’s hope not,” I said, but my focus hitched on something I was sensing in the soil to the west. “There.”

  “You’re sure?” Aurora asked as she lifted her palms at the ready.

  “They’re a ways away,” I told her, “but there’s someone standing in the undergrowth. I can feel them.”

  The half-elf immediately sprinted into the trees to find whoever was affecting the water in the lagoon, but before she’d made it ten feet, a low gurgle bubbled at our backs, and I flipped around as a geyser shot up from below.

  “Move,” I ordered and looped Cayla’s arm over my shoulder as we all headed for the cover of the trees.

  Boiling water pelted down around us and scalded my neck and shoulders, and Aurora sparked her flames as she veered off to head directly west.

  “Leave them,” I called out to the Ignis Mage. “We need to get out of here before Luir sends someone after us.”

  Another burst of water sprayed up as I spoke, and Aurora eyed the onslaught as a wall of steam billowed out.

  Then the bubbling became louder, and as I slowed my pace and looked back, I saw the water of the lagoon begin to rise.

  “Faster,” Shoshanne warned.

  Cayla cringed as she hobbled beside me, and I caught her behind the crook of her knees to lift her into my arms.

  “Get to the Mustang,” I commanded, and the women made an all-out sprint through the jungle.

  Deya swiftly scaled the felled logs, and we followed her trail to weave around ferns and trunks as another geyser erupted to our left.

  Cayla masked her face as the boiling water pelted us in heavy drops, and Aurora sent a stream of flames back to create a barrier along the hillside just as the water line swelled to run out across the ground.

  I couldn’t tell how far the road was as we blindly tore through the jungle west of House Orrel, but my boots began to slosh as the water caught up to us, and Deya led us further into the jungle to get out of range.

  Then we skidded to a stop at the edge of a cliff that dropped about sixty feet to the canopy below.

  The women gasped and stepped back, and Aurora sent another wall of flames out behind us to try and barricade the water.

  The enchanted fire sizzled angrily against the force of the Flumen Mage’s power, and all of us stared as Aurora’s flames were extinguished and overrun with a flood of boiling water.

  I quickly whipped around and raised my palm, and as my veins began to pulse with power, I carved a steep path into the cliff face and sent it down to th
e jungle below us.

  “Don’t look back,” I ordered as I caught Shoshanne’s arm, and the women hesitated as they all looked down on the treacherous drop.

  “Go!” I ordered once more.

  Aurora pushed past to begin the long descent, and rocks rolled and fell from the edge as we skidded down the path as quickly as we could.

  I expected the water to wash over the edge of the cliff at every moment, and I summoned my magic to raise the ground and form a wall along the ridge.

  None of us stopped for even a second while we barreled down the rocky path, and mud began to trickle down beside me.

  Cayla clutched at my back as I held her over my shoulder and pushed through the branches of the canopy to continue downward, but then I heard the rush of water above.

  “Jump!” I called to the women, and we all leapt from the path to tumble through the trees and land some twenty feet down.

  I softened our fall just before we crashed into the undergrowth, and then I dragged Cayla up from where she’d landed as the women rose and ran.

  I glanced back and saw the boiling flood pouring through the wall I’d formed and coursing down the cliff’s edge, and it washed the path away in an instant.

  My magic sparked as I scanned ahead of us for the Mustang, and when I sensed it to the east of us, I directed the women to it while Cayla braced herself in my arms.

  When we finally came to the road, the Mustang was waiting right where we left it with the trunk still open, and we chucked our weapons in the back before I resealed the steel.

  Then I laid Cayla in the back with Shoshanne and Aurora so the healer could tend to her injuries before I dropped into the driver’s seat with Deya beside me as Bobbie roared to life.

  The ancient archway of House Orrel stood peacefully in the hazy glade ahead of us with the stream flowing gently from the base, and I took a last admiring look at the dilapidated and overgrown stonework before I turned us to the south.

  “Mason, we need to contact someone at the Order,” Aurora decided as she leaned over the seat. “They need to know a mage has been possessed. There could be others.”

  I nodded my agreement as we sped down the dirt road.

  “Fucking figures,” I muttered. “Wyresus is a sniveling shit, he’s not going to be able to protect the Order if the Master’s set his sights on Illaria again.”

  “Who is Wyresus?” Deya asked.

  “He’s the head of the Order of Elementa,” Aurora explained. “He replaced our last head mage after …”

  The half-elf trailed off, and I could tell she still struggled with admitting the truth on the subject.

  “The last Head of the Order was a mage named Abrus,” I told Deya for her. “He was a very talented mage, and he trained Aurora when she was studying at the Order.”

  “Why has he been replaced with this Wyresus?” Deya asked, and she glanced with concern toward Aurora.

  “He was working for the Master,” the half-elf said quietly, and she sat back in her seat as she turned her attention to the jungle instead.

  “I’m sorry,” Deya said, and she reached back to place her hand on Aurora’s leg. “You must have been disappointed.”

  Aurora nodded, but she didn’t respond, and I decided to steer the conversation away from Abrus for her.

  “Wyresus is the new head now,” I told Deya. “Let’s just say, he’s less than qualified in my book.”

  “He means well,” Shoshanne allowed as she rummaged through her healer’s bag. “Mason dislikes his approach to teaching, though.”

  “He locked you up with a hundred books the moment you arrived,” I cut in. “How the hell is any mage going to realize their potential sitting in that library with a guy like Wyresus flipping through page after page of useless--”

  “Wow, you really don’t like him,” Deya giggled.

  I sighed. “I have no problem with him,” I said with a casual shrug. “But if he’s too busy staring at a shelf to notice he’s lost a Flumen Mage to a mad man, then I think the situation speaks for itself.”

  Aurora snorted.

  “You’d probably like him, Deya,” she teased.

  The beautiful elf smirked and pulled the bag in her lap a little closer.

  “Books are important,” she said tersely. “I can’t believe the Baroness gathered them for me.” Then the elf glanced at me. “Who’s side is that woman on?”

  “Fuck if I know,” I sighed, and Aurora leaned forward once more.

  “Do you think Luir will come after us?” she asked in a low voice.

  I wished I had any kind of answer for her, but I honestly didn’t know where we stood anymore.

  I’d hoped he might come around eventually now that he knew I had the scrolls, but after Deya shot him, I couldn’t guess what might happen.

  “We’ll see,” I told Aurora with a shrug.

  “You should have let me kill him,” Deya grumbled.

  I smirked. “The thing about killing people is you have to consider the scope of repercussions,” I told the beautiful elf. “You kill Luir, and that army of his is set loose on all of Nalnora. He’s the only one who can control them. Not to mention, he’s the only elf who’s lived long enough to be able to decipher the elven scrolls.”

  Deya’s eyes widened as she realized I was right.

  Then she dropped her face into her hands. “Gods,” she groaned. “I can’t believe I almost killed him.”

  I chuckled. “He definitely deserved it,” I allowed, “but unfortunately, we need him alive. For now, anyway.”

  “Fine,” Deya said as a mischievous glint came to her eyes, “but in three years, I don’t care what anyone says. I’m the one who gets to kill him.”

  “Not if I get there first,” I countered with a broad grin.

  Shoshanne tended to all of the women’s injuries by the time we began to near the sinkhole that had nearly trapped us on the cliff, and the coast looked indistinguishable from when we’d left it last.

  The tsunami had uprooted most of the trees, and the cliff was torn away in several places so the earth collapsed in deep grooves that spilled down toward the oceanside. Much of the undergrowth had been dragged out to sea as well, but it made navigating inland easier while I drove us around what remained of the quicksand.

  “Stop here,” Deya suddenly said, and she leaned out the window to give a loud whistle.

  We waited for a moment while Bobbie idled, and I grinned as the heavy footfalls of the wolfish beast pounded through the trees to the west.

  Ruela had apparently been roaming wild since she’d vetoed the trip north, but when I unsealed Deya’s door to let her in, she leapt up with a gaping grin.

  Her snout and chest were just as bloody as they’d been when she’d defended us from the Wendigo, and I leaned back a ways as she laid out and thumped her sable tail in my lap.

  Deya cooed to the wildish beast as if she wasn’t covered in dirt and who knew whose blood, and I shook my head as I continued on through the jungle.

  The tsunami hadn’t hit further south, so we were able to travel back along the grassy cliff’s edge to bring us to the path that led to Nemris’ cove, and the moment Bobbie was parked, I quickly came around to the back to help Cayla out.

  The princess smirked and let me pull her to her feet, and I stooped to check the bandages around her knee.

  “I’m fine,” she assured me with a chuckle. “Shoshanne says it’s just a bone bruise.”

  I ground my jaw as I grazed my hands along the bruises blooming around Cayla’s porcelain thighs.

  “I really should have killed that prick,” I growled.

  Cayla hooked my shirt with her fingers and pulled me up, and then she looped her arms around my waist as I gently pinned her against the Mustang.

  Her icy blue eyes looked up at me with amusement. “Elven scrolls, Wendigo, knees heal … ” she reminded me with a smirk, and I couldn’t help but chuckle at her carelessness.

  “You sure you’re alright?” I asked,
and Cayla sent me a curt nod.

  “Of course,” she purred, “but I love when you nearly destroy things that have lasted thousands of years for us. It’s sweet.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Now,” Cayla said as she set her jaw back to business. “Where’s that bazooka you promised me?”

  I grinned and let the princess pull me into a fiery kiss, and my hands slid to the ribbons knotted at her back as I silently thanked the gods for the cool-headed woman.

  “There he is,” Aurora called from the other side of the car, and Cayla released me with a giggle as she looked out toward the cove.

  Then she sent me a giddy grin. “I get first pick,” she informed me, and I nodded my agreement as I looped her arm in mine to help her down the path along the cliff face.

  Dragir was sitting far out near the end of the jetty, and he didn’t hear us coming until we’d begun to make our way along the rocky embankment.

  He stood and grinned as Deya trotted out to jump into his arms, and the two were talking in Elvish when we joined them.

  Dragir wasn’t grinning anymore, though, and he turned his angry eyes my direction.

  “You let her shoot Luir?” he demanded.

  I sighed. “You know damn well I have no control over that woman,” I muttered.

  “Why would you give her a gun?” he countered. “She knows nothing about operating this weapon, she could have--”

  “Hold up,” I said and raised my arms at my side. “She stole the fucking gun from me, and I have no intention of letting it happen again.”

  Dragir’s eyes flared as he looked back at Deya, and the beautiful elf blushed under her brother’s furious gaze.

  Then he took off on a lengthy lecture which I couldn’t understand a word of, but I could appreciate the sentiment at least. He was clearly as unnerved as I was at the thought of Deya attempting to use weapons she didn’t have a clue about, but after he’d gone on for well over a minute with no sign of stopping, I casually cleared my throat.

  Dragir sighed and sent his sister a solemn shake of the head before he finally turned to me.

  “How did it go with Luir, otherwise?” he asked tensely.

  “It could have gone better,” I admitted. “How did it go with the bazookas?”