by D. H. Aire
Se’and soon urged the pair to take a bath and then get some sleep. Soon enough the pair was settled and she couldn’t help thinking again how much Revit reminded her of her brother, Vyss.
George repositioned his computer staff closer to the bathing area and picked up a towel for his own bath.
Se’and forestalled him. “Je’orj, there are a number of things I’m wondering about.”
“I’m not surprised. Certain things bother me, too.”
“You had Terhun search for the scroll to demonstrate that a member of the Court had to be involved.”
“That and I wanted to use the scroll as a trap.”
“All right… I understand Herald Lowell disapproving of Lord Senason’s relationship with the Empress. He also had access to the plans for the palace. The fact that he could discredit you by your being seen in the corridor made it even better, were it not for the fact that we were with the Empress herself, at the time.”
George nodded, thinking about the gold linked chain. “True enough… and Lowell chose an ingenious murder weapon to implicate me. A weapon he knew would not alert the wards, like something mundane which a human might wield.”
“But what is it?”
“A perfect assassin’s tool…” George replied, “a rather unusual enchantment, which forms the molecules of air into an extremely thin blade.”
“What of air?”
“Molecul… the enchantment created a filament for its blade. Aaprin actually heard it being activated. It creates a very slight crackling sound as the air oxidizes to form the blade... Properly wielded, it kills quickly, leaving no trace of residual magic in the wound itself. However, it does leave a trace in the spilt blood, an oxidized trace.”
“Fine, but I don’t understand all this about the man Aaprin thought was you and saw vanish. Is there a conspirator out there we’ve to still worry about?”
“Finding conspirators now that Lowell’s dead will prove difficult.”
“You’re not really answering my question,” she averred.
“Hmm,” he murmured, glancing toward the other room and the waiting tub.
“Well?”
He grinned, “Actually, I haven’t figured that part out... The moment Senason was murdered I felt something odd, though…”
:It matched the feel of the Gate activating,: Staff shared through their rapport.
George nodded. “It likely was the Gate, which would imply a real person vanished before Aaprin’s eyes.”
“But the Gate is sealed,” Se’and said. “Only the Highmage can even access it.”
He nodded, “So we’ve been told, yes.”
:You have such cheery thoughts, George.:
“Yeah,” he muttered and headed for the warm bath.
“Nothing’s ever easy with you around, is it?” Se’and whispered.
Epilogue
What took you so long?
I wasn’t in any particular rush to die, he replied as a shaft of his essence returned to him.
You two make quite a pair… Alrex, have you any idea what a mess you have made of things?
Who me? One moment the Demonlord was on the cusp of destroying the world, then things changed for the better.
You have merely delayed the inevitable.
You always were a pessimist.
Me? I was a realist, which is why they made such a lovely statue to memorialize me.
The price you paid as guardian twisted you, another presence said. Alrex, he was not always like this, you know.
So I read in the chronicles. He studiously did not think of the rather ugly statue of that particular former Highmage.
Who are you to talk, Faeryn… You changed! You were a traditionalist!
Laughter… I’m glad I don’t remember that timeline. I like what my supposed untraditional followers are doing here in the Empire… So, Alrex, tell us from your perspective more of this human mage you have championed…
He stared as a totally unfamiliar presence brighter than any of them abruptly appeared.
Hello, Alrex, you’ve wrought more changes than you know.
Who are you?
Alrex, he’s been insufferable since he’s returned. Ignore him for now and answer our question about this human candidate you have found.
The node beneath the capital city of the Aqwaine Empire suddenly pulsed as it had not in millennia. Tendrils of power fed into it from the city of Lyai, the Consecrated’s Tower in the north, and the long forgotten fortress of Niota, from which once ruled one of the Forty Great Elvin Families –– and would rule again even if the nominal lord was now a human. A tendril suddenly snapped back to life connecting the capital node to Rian’s Seat at the Great Way in the southeast. A weak flow also reactivated, connecting Llewellyn in the Northwest. Only the links to the provinces of Tane and Hayden were completely quiescent.
Beneath the capital, ogres danced in their warrens, hearing the ancient voices of their home thrumming with life as they had not in centuries.
In the distant north, the Demonlord sensed the change in the Empire and laughed. His long laid schemes were about to bear fruit in the Empire without a Highmage any longer –– an Empire that would easily tip into civil war, and better yet, never see what was coming next.
Continued in Highmage (Book 4 of Highmage’s Plight)
About the Author
D.H. Aire has walked the ramparts of the Old City of Jerusalem and through an escape tunnel of a Crusader fortress that Richard the Lionheart once called home. He’s toured archeological sites that were hundreds, if not thousands of years old… experiences that have found expression in his writing of his Highmage’s Plight Series.
He is also the author of a new urban fantasy series, Dare2Believe. The opening novel of the series, Dare 2 Believe, was published in 2015. Dare 2 Believe is the first book in an urban fantasy series with a Young Adult twist, which is related to Highmage’s Plight in a unique way you will need to see to dare to believe. Sample chapters are available on Wattpad.com, a free site for those who like to read on mobile devices.
D.H. Aire’s short story Crossroads of Sin appears in the anthology, RealLies, and Running on Selyn, Alone, appears in the first Sime~Gen anthology.
To learn more about this series and his other projects, visit the author’s website, www.dhr2believe.net.
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