I’d lay odds the idiot that tried to press them wasn’t a mage himself. People who didn’t have the same experience often misjudged and pushed things they had no business sticking their noses into. “Maksohm doesn’t seem as consumed by the idea of revenge. Or is it something else?”
“Not sure what they feel about it,” Yez admitted, “but Dah’lil’s just as obsessed. He’s quieter about it, but why do you think he latched onto Rena so quickly? He’s been looking for her for two years.”
A few comments that Maksohm had made lined up to form a very different picture in my head. “I can see that.”
“He’s not going to be reckless with Rena,” Yez assured me. “Neither of them will. They’re not the sort to lose control and they will not, under any circumstance, put a mage in the position where they could lose their familiar. They don’t wish that pain on anyone.”
“I feel better hearing that,” I admitted to him frankly. “Not everyone can keep in control with that kind of history.”
Yez gave a hum of agreement. “I’m stretched enough. You?”
“Not as much as you, but I’ll be fine. That move yesterday where you nearly took my head off with your thighs. Show that to me, would you? Slowly.”
“You’ll have to kneel, I can’t reach you when you’re standing,” Yez responded, a wide, innocent look to his eyes.
“Oh ha ha like I believe that for a second. And seriously try to leave my head on my shoulders. I’m strangely attached to it.”
Yez laughed, which let me tell you, was a rather alarming sound coming through the device, as it sounded like a train trying to go off the rails. I felt a tingle of anticipation race through me, as Yez was one of the finest hand-to-hand specialists I’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. Having him to myself for a few hours would be immense fun.
Leave Rena to the numbers and magic. I had bruises to collect.
“Are you a complete and utter moron?!”
I paused outside the meeting room door, completely taken aback. I had never, in all the years of knowing her, heard that tone out of Rena. She sounded completely disgusted, livid—like she wanted to flay the person alive for their crass stupidity. Even at her worst the only thing I’d seen her do was punch someone dead in the face. What by the deities was going on?
Alarmed, I double-timed it through the door, taking in the situation as I did so. Salvatore stood near the table, Nora and Maksohm slumped in chairs, and—well hello, when did Magus Trammel arrive? I hadn’t seen him since he did that study on us two years ago. The man looked rough, like he had spent the past two weeks traveling and camping out, and the expression on his face made me think of torture chambers and mother storms.
I put his arrival aside for a moment, immediately going to Rena before she could bring the building down around us. With the mood she was in, she might. The bond quivered but not out of a reaction to danger. I stopped just shy of touching her, for once not sure if I should, or if I would have a hand left if I tried it.
Rena stood ramrod straight, shaking with anger, face flushed, and her whole body sparking as if with static. But I knew her magic by feel. Whatever had set her off made her usually excellent control over her magic fray paper thin. I glanced across from her and found Salvatore and Maksohm staring back at her, both alarmed; Maksohm more than the director as with his magical sight he could see how close Rena was to losing it.
My bond with her felt red hot to the touch and I could sense her in a way that I never had before and never wanted to again. I felt like a bonfire had been poured directly into my chest, and believe me, the only thing I wanted to do was turn tail and run. If I thought it might help, I would have.
The director unwisely opened his mouth. “Magus, we had no choice—”
“No choice?” she spat out and the word sounded like the filthiest curse a person could utter. “Your stupidity has cost thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands of acres and more property damage than I care to think of and you didn’t have a choice?”
Not wanting to interrupt but really needing context, I mouthed to Maksohm, What’s going on?
Maksohm winced.
The reaction caught Rena’s attention and she speared him with a glare. “Tell me you knew better than this. Tell me you said something, that you at least argued with him.”
“Everyone in the Maksohm family said something to me,” the director answered, as if she’d addressed him, and wow, he had no survival instincts, did he? “The barrier is always stronger when shaped as a ball, I know that, but we couldn’t afford to keep the barrier in that shape around an entire mountain range. We didn’t have that kind of manpower. It’s a matter of resources and logistics, Magus Rocci.”
Her anger became cold, chillingly so, and I honestly wanted to duck under the table for cover. It was never good when a woman’s expression does that. “So you prefer to spread out that manpower over seven different locations instead? Or is it eight now? Do your resources and logistics cover thousands of lives because Toh’sellor wasn’t properly contained?”
“What?” I demanded of her.
“Trammel just gave us his report after spending three months studying Toh’sellor,” Rena didn’t take her eyes off the director as she rapidly filled me in. “Trammel said the reason why Toh’sellor is branching out is because—” she abruptly cut off, took in a breath and rephrased, “—short and simple version, the barrier around Toh’sellor goes from sky to ground, and no further. Because of that, there’s no protection underground and Toh’sellor has been acting like a tree, sending roots of itself deep underground and following the path of least resistance until it could branch up again. That’s why it’s able to create shards all over the world.”
For a moment her words didn’t make any sense. None at all. I felt a little dizzy, distant, and the words were just sound buzzing around my ears. Then they did make sense and I felt my own rage punch me in the chest. “You mean to tell me this all could have been avoided if they had just properly put a barrier underneath as well?”
“Yes,” she answered, the word clipped and short.
“You know, I was going to talk you down before you brought the whole building around our heads, but now I’m not so sure.”
The grin she shot me was feral, not a smile at all, wicked and gleaming like a shark after new prey.
Trammel cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, Renata, this blunder might very well be our salvation.”
Her eyes cut to him and I was honestly surprised he didn’t disappear into a fine dust. “I still have horrific nightmares over the last two shards I was forced to deal with,” she said in a mild tone that sounded like the silence of a graveyard. “Be very careful what you say next.”
“No one likes to think of how much this has cost us, least of all me,” Trammel responded with a very disturbed frown. “But unfortunately, the truth stands as this: the shards gave me, gave us all, two different answers that we desperately needed.”
I knew this man. I knew him to be a genius, a thinker that saw things in ways no else could, someone that was true to data and information but not to people. If he thought that, then he had very good reason to. Trouble was, I didn’t know if Rena had the right mindset to really take in what he tried to say. I held up a hand. “Pause, Trammel. Give us a minute.”
Rena snapped around, an argument ready, and I met her look for look. Carefully, I put both hands on her shoulders, stroking gently up and down. “Rena. I need you to hear him.”
“I’m listening,” she snarled, bristling like a wet cat.
“You’re really not, you’re listening only to respond, not to understand. You know this man. We know he researches and studies until he has answers. He has information we need.” I dared to come in a little closer as frankly she scared me right down to my toes right now, and it took a certain amount of courage to stay this close when her magic threatened to fly out of control. I put our foreheads together. “Breathe,” I murmured. “Find your center. Then listen.”
> She took in a shaky breath, then another. “If I don’t like the answers, I’m flaying them alive.”
“Of course,” I responded as if there was no doubt of that. “I’ll help, even.”
Rena took in another breath, syncing with me, then stepped just far enough away that she could turn and face Trammel. As a precaution, I pulled her back against my chest, as she needed that contact to stay calm and in control. “Alright, Trammel, I’m listening.”
Trammel eyed her warily for a moment but he apparently saw what I felt—she’d regained control of her magic. For the moment, at least. “Because the shards exist, I was able to approach them and study the energy of Toh’sellor in a way that I could never have managed at the original source. It gave me data, and when you went in and destroyed them, it gave me another insight into how your magic works. You’ve become much more efficient, by the way, how did that happen?”
“There’s a mage like me in Turransky, she trained me,” Rena answered concisely.
Sensing this was not the moment to get more answers, Trammel let that suffice for now. “I discovered two things at the shard. The first is how it came out from the mountain range, how Toh’sellor navigated around all of those barriers. Tracing them back to the source confirmed it. The other is equally disturbing but enlightening—Toh’sellor’s energy is partial chaos, undefinable by any measuring system, but the rest of him emits an almost magical signature. And that magic-like energy is equivalent to your magic power.”
She stared at him for a taut moment that had everyone in the room holding their breath. “My magic is similar to that thing?”
“Not similar, well perhaps you are, but not in the way you mean it. His energy deconstructs, like yours does, although he re-creates it as well. The base line of energy resonates like yours does, not completely, but after a fashion. I’ve got extensive notes on the signature readings I got up there so you can see for yourself. What I’m trying to say is this: I believe that you have the power and destructive force to handle him, but I also believe that you are almost immune to him.”
No one seemed to know how to respond to that. I certainly didn’t. I stared at him and for the first time honestly thought the man insane. How could she possibly be immune to him? Half the reasons we went near a shard with shields was so that the energy of Toh’sellor couldn’t turn us inside out!
Nora dared to break the silence with a hoarse voice. “You think she can waltz in there without a shield and be unaffected?”
“I would bet my left eye she could do so,” Trammel answered steadily. “It’s not something that we want to try, of course; this still remains in the realm of theory and no one wants to gamble with her life. But the point is, her energy, her magic, is uniquely designed for this problem. I’ve often held the belief that all magic, all life force in this world is crafted as a balancing act against everything else. After two hundred years of chaos and destruction, Toh’sellor’s arch nemesis has been created. Rena’s unique magic is inherently suited to destroy it.
“And we would never have learned that,” Trammel looked Rena dead in the eye, “if the shards didn’t exist. Because you never would have gone near Toh’sellor itself, not of your own initiative.”
He was right. I stared at him, flummoxed, and hated him for being right. I never would have let Rena anywhere near Toh’sellor on our own accord, and she wouldn’t have fought me on it, because we had no idea that her magic would be able to bring it down. We would have gone on with our lives, taking on smaller and more manageable jobs. Like Mary and Gill. Like their predecessors. It literally took the shards appearing near a Void Mage before we even made the connection.
Rena vibrated under my hands and I honestly didn’t know if she was going to laugh or cry. Disregarding our audience, I wrapped my arms tighter around her. She’d said once that she felt Toh’sellor might be one of the reasons why she had such strange magic, but wondering that and having it confirmed? Two very different things.
“Trammel.” Rena had to clear her voice and start again. “For once, I want to see you and you not turn my world upside down.”
“Sorry,” he apologized with a sad excuse of a smile. “After we met two years ago, I kept wondering why your magic appeared, kept searching for that answer in between other projects. I didn’t quite expect this to be the answer.”
Letting out a shuddering sigh, Rena lifted her hands up to my arms, holding onto me tightly enough to leave bruises. “Director.”
“Yes, Magus.”
Her eyes burned like hellfire when she turned to look at him. “I’ve not forgiven you for this. While this did work in our favor, you had no way of knowing that it would, and you should have listened to your people.”
Salvatore didn’t respond. Wise, as anything he said at this point would have sounded like an excuse and started up the argument all over again.
“I want your full cooperation on this,” Rena stated (threatened?), “and if the shards don’t disappear when I defeat Toh’sellor, I will continue to have your full cooperation until every trace of this monster is gone.”
He stared at her for a long moment, eyes weighing, calculating, but for whatever reason, he dipped his chin in agreement. “Understood. You have it.”
Did she just threaten the Director of the MISD? And get away with it? I stared down at the top of her head, and though some part of me should be alarmed I felt mostly awed. She seriously became more amazing and terrifying every year. Right now I was between pissing my pants or proposing.
Rena turned up to me, still vibrating with anger, eyes snapping, beautiful and lethal all at once. “What?”
“You are sexy as sin,” I informed her seriously, mouth dry. “Marry me.”
Okay, so apparently I’d landed on proposing. Thanks for that, mouth.
Her ire faded enough that she grinned at me. “You have the strangest taste in women.”
“I know it.” I also knew that she wouldn’t take me seriously, but that was fine. That was alright. I could handle that. “Now that we’ve got that settled,” I regarded Trammel with a smile that I hoped didn’t reflect the twinge of pain in my chest, “Trammel. How are you?”
“I’m well,” he returned, still a little wide around the eyes. “All those years ago I never would have suspected that…well. Glad to see you, Bannen.”
I think he meant that whole-heartedly. “You too, Trammel. I feel like I’m entering the second act of a play, here. What have I missed?”
“Quite a bit,” Trammel admitted.
“Have a seat,” Maksohm invited. “Let me start from the beginning.”
Feeling like I’d entered a briar patch, I pulled up a thorny chair and sat. The tension in the room could be cut up with a knife and served on bread, but the fate of the world might just rest on me sitting here, keeping my mage from flipping her lid even more than she already had. So I sat, looked calm, and kept an arm around Rena’s shoulders so that she didn’t give into impulse and de-bone the director.
“Trammel has already said most of what you need to know, on the magical front,” Maksohm stated, leaning a little in his chair away from the director. It might not have been conscious, but he seemed aware that Rena wanted to flay Salvatore and didn’t want to be caught in the backlash. “There’s two things he’s reported I hadn’t been aware of or hadn’t had confirmed until now. The first is that Nora was right, Toh’sellor seems to be creating shards near the barrier. He’s tried it once outside the barrier already, right next to it, and we managed to contain that one, but he’s also apparently doing it just inside as well. How much, we don’t know. We only have two confirmed sightings and they’re on opposite ends of the ridge.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. “He likely has more than just the two.”
“We believe so,” Maksohm agreed heavily.
“Because we’re not sure, we’re not sure what to plan for,” Salvatore piped up and did I imagine it or did he look sideways at Rena for a moment? “I only have fifty agents
that I can send on this, our manpower is stretched very thin at the moment, which means you’ll have to get up there and get creative on how to infiltrate the barrier.”
I did not like the sound of that. “Maksohm, is fifty going to be enough?”
“I honestly don’t know but we’ll have to make do.” He carefully didn’t look at his superior. “The situation gets more complicated because I do not believe that we can make it to Toh’sellor in a single day, not like we did with the shards. He’s too far inside the barrier. Judging from how long it’s taken us the previous times, we’ll have to make a base camp at a halfway point, rest, and then try again the second day.”
My eyes crossed at the insanity. “Are you seriously suggesting that we set up camp and sleep inside the barrier?”
“No other option,” Maksohm responded with a helpless splay of hands.
Nora gave a sour grunt of agreement. “It’s not possible to clear a path and have it remain clear for more than an hour, you know that. We’d be fighting our way inside, covering the same ground again and again, if we tried retreating.”
Well, I know, but—
“It will take nine shield barriers, working three at a time in shifts, to keep a sufficient barrier up around us to house twenty-four people,” Rena stated factually, eyes narrowed in that look that spoke of calculating at high speeds. “And even then they won’t last more than three days, four on the outside, before they need to be rotated out completely or face burnout. Three days for that half-way point base to remain stable enough for us to use.”
“Which means, Magus Rocci,” the director locked eyes with her, “that you have three days once you’re inside to defeat Toh’sellor.”
The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 19