Chained Adept

by Myers, Karen

  Penrys choked but held her grip on him. She dropped the mug and lifted his own hand, externally, using physical magic, while he fought unsuccessfully to pull it back down into his lap.

  She stopped, then. One more test. She pulled at his power, like sucking on a straw, and swallowed it into herself, somehow. As gently as she could do it, she felt his horror at the sensation, and she stopped before she’d drained him completely, as best she could judge.

  His face was white and strained, and she couldn’t look at it any more. She cast her eyes down and released him.

  Her vision was blurred, but she reached for the mug with her mind one last time and spun it around as though she were using a power-stone. That part worked, anyway. But at what cost?

  She sneaked a peek at Zandaril.

  A ghastly smile flickered on his face. It hurt him, of course it did. She leaned in his direction, forgetting their audience, to put a hand on his arm, and he… flinched away. She snapped her hand back and turned her head away. He sees me as a monster now, and he’s right. She shuddered.

  When she lifted her face and looked at the audience of wizards, no one would meet her eye, not even Vladzan.

  “I’ll be fine,” Zandaril said to her. His voice was remote and flat, to her ears.

  She stood up abruptly and turned her back to him. She motioned him away with her hands, and walked, almost ran, out of the hall.

  CHAPTER 45

  Penrys had no idea where she was going when she stumbled out of the hall, but the door to the street wasn’t far. Behind her she could hear the rising clamor of voices and she walked faster to put them further behind her, until she reached the door and opened it. Then she stood there at the top of the stairs leading down into the square.

  There was a stone bench to the right of the doorway, and she sank onto it and took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself.

  So, I can’t drink power-stones, any more than any other wizard, but that’s all right—I can drink wizards instead.

  Her stomach revolted and she concentrated on swallowing.

  An image of Chang came to her mind. A general can’t make friends of his soldiers, can he? Or how could he use them in battle?

  The door of the guild hall opened, and Zandaril stepped out. When he spotted her, his face lit up with a tired smile. He sat down deliberately next to her, and she shrank from him.

  Zandaril stretched out an arm, laid it around her shoulder, and drew her to his side.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes. *I am so sorry.*

  *Look at me. I already have a shield returning.*

  Penrys reached out tentatively. Zandaril was weak, and bruised, but it was true—he was able to raise a light shield. If there’s this much recovery in a short time…

  *It was worth it. We learned important things, and no harm done.*

  She sighed. At least he didn’t flinch away again.

  “They were worried about you, inside. I told them I’d come get you,” Zandaril said. “We have to go back. They need us, and they know it now.”

  She muttered into her lap. “That a wizard could do what I just did, over and over, and think nothing of it… I don’t understand such a man.”

  “We don’t have to understand him,” Zandaril told her. “Just stop him.”

  By common consent, they broke the classes and arranged to resume after the mid-day meal. Penrys was grateful for the chance to settle her thoughts, but she could only pretend to eat.

  They established some of the limits to what Penrys could do, before the next session wound down in the late-afternoon.

  She could steal the power of another wizard, if she could break his shield. While she couldn’t compel his mind, she could control his body from the outside, clumsily.

  She wasn’t sure where the power went, once she took it, if she didn’t use it immediately. Maybe she stored it in her chain.

  Vladzan tried to follow her example on one of the student wizards, but Penrys couldn’t feel any increase in his strength when she tested his shield afterward. Of course, the power levels were small, from her perspective, so she thought the test was inconclusive.

  You can’t put more power into a power-stone than it will hold. That’s why you sometimes need more stones.

  Maybe Vladzan can’t get any stronger than he is now, so if he doesn’t use the stolen power directly, it’s lost to him. That’s why no one’s exploited this already as a way to get stronger. Easier to just use power-stones.

  How much power can I hold?

  There was no way to answer that without experiment, and she was unwilling to drain a roomful of wizards to find out. She’d never felt a limit from the chain, but then she hadn’t subjected it to a deliberate attempt to exhaust it.

  Or had she? Why could I only shield three men in Chang’s tent, when I arrived? By the numbers we’ve been exploring, it should’ve been more. Was the chain the source of the power that moved me a quarter of the way around the world? Maybe there wasn’t much left afterward.

  “Vladzan,” she said. “Where are your power-stones? You must have a lot of them here somewhere, right?”

  He eyed her warily.

  She waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t need to see your armory. I want to try something. How many can you charge, each of you, at a time?”

  “Depends on the wizard. Students can do a couple of small ones, every day. I can do several.”

  “What happens if you do too many?” she asked.

  He stared at her.

  She shrugged. “It’s never happened to me.”

  Vladzan took on a thoughtful expression. “If you exceed your limit, you can feel diminished for a day or two.”

  “So, it goes from your own core to the power-stones, yes?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “That’s how we think of it, yes.”

  “You see, I don’t do it like that, m’self—I never thought to ask. I do it from here.” She tapped the chain around her neck. “At least it feels like that to me.”

  She continued, “So couldn’t you use the number of power-stones a wizard could charge as a rough test of his strength?”

  He nodded, seeing where she was going. “That would be more precise, and simpler, than testing against each other.”

  “Right. So, how many can I charge? Just me, with the chain?”

  Vladzan beckoned two of the senior wizards over and sent them away.

  They returned in a few minutes with two sacks each, larger than the ones Penrys carried in her pack. Word spread through the hall about the test, and Zandaril came over with the others to watch.

  Vladzan opened one sack and poured some of the stones out onto a table top where their facets gleamed dully in a variety of colors.

  Vladzan scooped up a small handful. “This would be about my daily limit,” he said.

  Penrys said, “If I’m about ten times stronger, then I should be able to do about ten times as many, right?”

  He nodded, and added nine more handfuls to the first one. Altogether, it was about a third of the sack.

  Penrys sat down at the table. “So, let’s start there,” she said. “Feel free to watch with me, everyone.”

  She felt the mental echo that told her others were watching.

  “One stone—that’s nothing,” she said out loud. She picked up a stone and powered it casually.

  “A handful…” She scooped up part of the little pile and powered it. “No different.”

  “What about the rest of them?” She laid her hand down on top of the heap and powered them all. They glowed vividly to her mind, but she felt no reduction in strength.

  She glanced at Vladzan with a question in her eyes, and he gestured at the remainder of the sack.

  “All right, let’s try the rest of them.” She picked up the sack, two thirds full, and powered the contents.

  She stood up, and she could hear her footsteps on the stone floor clearly in the silent hall as she walked over to the three unopened sacks. She took a breath, lai
d her hands on top of them and powered all the stones inside. She felt giddy for a moment, as if she’d taken in too little air, but she didn’t think she was actually weakened. The shock of the watchers was perceptible, and she raised her shield and thrust them out.

  She smiled uncertainly at Vladzan. “Well, there must be a limit, but maybe there’s no point continuing. It’s got to be the chain—that’s much more than I should be able to do with just my own power, even given the… disparity in our strengths.”

  “And if I can do it,” she said, “so can your enemy. That must be what he does with the captive wizards. He drains them for his own use, and keeps them drained most of the way. The more of them he can keep alive, the stronger he becomes.”

  Vladzan looked at the sacks of power-stones, one partially emptied out onto the table. “It’s a shame we can’t boost our own core strength directly from these, but it’s a one-way flow.”

  A commotion at the doorway disturbed the low conversations that had resumed, and a rider, dust-covered and weary, strode in. The servant who escorted him led him straight to Zongchas and he handed over a packet of papers from the satchel slung over his shoulders.

  Zongchas scanned through them quickly while all eyes watched. When he lifted his head the conversations stopped. “We’re out of time,” he said. “They’re on the move, east from Nakshadzam. Southeast, into Neshilik.”

  CHAPTER 46

  Penrys didn’t like the windowless mage council room any better this time, but at least Zandaril and she were no longer the focus of attention. A private dinner had been provided, but it didn’t appeal to her, not after that news.

  She noted the reappearance of Dhumkedbhod with an expressionless nod and withheld her reaction to his scowl. The others were the same—Zongchas, Vladzan, and the somewhat enigmatic Nyagchos, the man who had wanted to “see what would happen” when the first attack from the students was launched at her.

  Nyagchos questioned Zongchas. “They did not descend north of the Craggies to spend the winter in the farmsteads there?”

  Where the Kigali forces could be encouraged to confront them, with or without Rasesni assistance. Penrys ticked that prediction off her list.

  “No, it’s definitely down into Wechinnat, headed for the Linit Kungzet route,” Zongchas said.

  “They’re turning into Nagthari?” An agitated Dhumkedbhod rose from his seat. “To Dzongphan?”

  Zongchas patted the table in front of him. “Sit down. We don’t know that. It’s just the road into Neshilik. If they turn west, well, then… But that hasn’t happened yet.”

  Vladzan pursed his lips. “It’s more likely they’re planning to shelter here for the winter, in Neshilik itself.”

  He turned to Zongchas. “Any news about the state of the…force he’s bringing?”

  “They say the horde looks ill-nourished, but it hasn’t dispersed. They hoped it might, after leaving the mountains.”

  He glanced down at one of the reports. “His guard of Khrebesni has grown. Might be larger than Tlobsung’s army now, though I don’t imagine it’s as effective.”

  Zandaril muttered, “Tlobsung has no Voice behind him.”

  “No, but we have her.” Zongchas waved a hand at Penrys.

  Nyagchos asked, “But what will happen at the Gates if Tlobsung moves west to confront the Khrebesni? Will the Kigali squadron move right in behind him and bottle us up while he’s gone?”

  He looked directly at Zandaril. “Or will it help us fight?”

  Dhumkedbhod commented sourly, “Or will it leave us to do the bloody work while it bypasses the battle, preparing a way through to assault Dzongphan while we’re licking our wounds?”

  Zandaril just shook his head. “I can’t answer for the Kigaliwen. I don’t know their plans.”

  Penrys asked, “One thing I don’t understand. Why do those hill-tribes follow him?”

  Dhumkedbhod turned to stare at her in disbelief. “What better proof of their god’s favor than success at the hands of his servant, Surdo?”

  Vladzan added, placidly, “Some of them may hope for reward in this world, too.”

  “I’m getting tired of this ‘throw the foreigners out’ policy,” Penrys said.

  They stood in the hallway outside the mage council room. Inside, the meeting was continuing without them.

  “You know this can’t be everyone,” Zandaril said.

  “All the Rasesni wizards, you mean? You’re right, of course.” She began to stroll back in the direction of the main hall.

  “There had to have been wizards involved in getting the information in those reports, spying on the Voice, despite what Zongchas told us,” she said. “I wonder how many. Enough to make a difference?”

  “And is anyone training them?” Zandaril said.

  “You notice Dhumkedbhod reappeared. Where’s he been hiding?” She glanced at Zandaril. “I’ve been reluctant to go probing for him, to maintain the illusion of cooperation. Maybe that should stop.”

  “Where’s Veneshjug?” Zandaril asked. “That’s what I want to know. I’ve been looking for him since we got here, cooperation or not. Haven’t found him.”

  “Maybe he’s with the others. It’d be awkward to have him here, after all.” She paused. “Unless he doesn’t know about the deaths when I triggered his trap.”

  “Knows, and happy about it, I bet.” Zandaril muttered. “I’m going to find Dzantig and make him tell me whatever he can.”

  Zandaril peeled off in the direction of the main hall. Penrys stopped where she was and considered. The noise and clatter that meant the hall was still full of diners ruled out the more public places. She wanted someplace private to sit, but not her room. Out of doors for preference, while the weather was still mild, for autumn.

  What about the walkway, behind the colonnade? There must be some way onto that. Most of those rooms are empty, so it shouldn’t bother anyone.

  She passed the hall and took the main stairway up to the second floor, then she turned to the north corner of the floor as the logical location for an outer access. She hadn’t seen one near Zongchas’s office, in the south corner, but there had to be a door somewhere.

  It wasn’t in the corner, she discovered, but in the middle—an anomalous door in-between the doors of two rooms. She expected it to be locked, but once she had it open and looked more closely, she realized it was locked only from the outside.

  Wouldn’t do to get trapped out here. She winced at the thought, even if a simple mind-cry would bring rescue.

  It was easy enough to wedge a fragment of broken stonework into the mechanism to keep it from re-latching. She gingerly let the door drift shut, and her tinkering held. I’ll bring a bit of paper to use next time, if I come back.

  She stayed along the edge of the wall instead of up front, near the colonnade, to hide herself from the square, but the view was pleasant even so, with the lingering glow of the sunset behind the buildings across the square, and the sun-warmed stonework preserving what was left of the heat of the day. The presence of stone benches every few yards demonstrated that the architects had planned this as a place for people to linger.

  Well, things change in a few hundred years, I suppose. No one lingers here now, just as few are found in the corridors. This must have been quite a school when it was new, with several times the number of people that are in it now.

  The benches didn’t get the benefit of rain, sheltered as they were by the building floor above them. Wind could only do so much to keep them clean. Reluctantly, Penrys brushed a layer of dirt off of the nearest one, then sniffed her soiled hand and wiped it on her breeches as she sat down.

  Where were the other Rasesni wizards? Where would Dhumkedbhod vanish to? She scanned lightly in the direction of the mage council room and found no one. The meeting must be over.

  This time she looked seriously throughout the building trying to match his signature. With fewer than fifty people, it wasn’t hard, and she found him. He was shielded, but not successfu
lly against her, now that she was really looking. He must be relying on his shield, and it’s been working for him while I overlooked it. So, where is he?

  The answer startled here—he was quite nearby, on her level and straight south of her. That put him in the corner room of this walkway, and that was Zongchas’s office. Who else is there?

  She stood and crept toward the window at the end of the walkway while she looked. Zongchas, of course, and Vladzan. And one more. Who is that?

  She knew that mind, but this time it wasn’t riding away from her in the middle of the night. Veneshjug. Zandaril was right. It makes sense—they need everyone but they wouldn’t have wanted to parade him in front of Zandaril and me. Can I get near enough to listen without giving myself away? After all, their minds may be shielded, but not their voices.

  She suppressed her giggle and slunk along the inner wall as close as she could get to Zongchas’s window.

  “I tell you if you rely on her for defense you’ll regret it.”

  Penrys didn’t recognize the voice, and that made it Veneshjug’s, by elimination.

  “She’s just as dangerous as Surdo, maybe more so, now that you idiots have helped train her and revealed our own weaknesses.”

  Zongchas’s voice agreed, “She’s read your books, Vejug—she still has them, and your power-stones. Tell me again just why you felt you needed to set up that ridiculous mirror business, you and Vladzan.”

  Veneshjug defended himself. “Not my fault, who could have expected interference by two wizards, from the Kigaliwen? But what she can do with power-stones is unprecedented, Vladzan says, and if she learns how to make more powerful devices… I’m told she’s been wandering through the library, unhindered. Why is that, Zongchas?”

  Zongchas’s voice rose. “We need her to defeat Surdo—what choice do we have?”

  The querulous tones of Dhumkedbhod broke in. “Would you trade an old tyrant for a new mistress? What god does she follow? Tell me. Not my god, not yours.”

  “You’re all fools if you let her live a minute longer than necessary.” The crisp tone of Veneshjug’s voice sent a chill down her spine. “I don’t believe this tale about no memory for a moment.”