The town unsettled me, too. And it was a proper town. Streets, lamplights, the works, even if the architecture was extremely diverse and a little hodgepodge. After two hundred years of mages and agents coming through here, working, the demand for support had built up houses and businesses. Yez had told me on the way in that over three thousand people lived here now and I had to wonder, would they stay after Toh’sellor vanished? Aside from the MISD’s agents, and the work they did, there was nothing worth staying in this region for. There were no products or trade they could do. That fact would be compounded when I was done, as the mountain valley would be a desolate wasteland when Toh’sellor vanished. I had a feeling that when all of this was over, this place would become a ghost town.
Our hotel did not face the mountain and sat nestled between two larger buildings—a restaurant on one side, a pharmacy on the other. I breathed a sigh of relief because if I had a window looking out over Toh’sellor I would not have been able to get any sleep.
Now that I had seen the situation with my own eyes, I understood better why Maksohm had never planned for me to do this in one shot. The scale of the job was too much; it would take several tries for me to get in there, to destroy enough of Toh’sellor to get at its core.
If it had a core.
We had no backup plan if it didn’t.
Dinner that night was subdued and even Chi didn’t seem in the mood to joke. We went to bed early, although I doubted anyone actually slept. I certainly didn’t, not more than a half hour at a time, and I wondered at one point why I bothered trying to go back to sleep. All it did was exhaust me further. I rolled out of bed feeling groggy and irritable. Yanking on clothes, I threw my hair into a messy bun before locking my door and weaving toward the front of the inn, where a small breakfast bar was supposed to be.
The buffet table didn’t have anything on it yet except a carafe of coffee and several mugs, ready for use. I disliked coffee so snarled wordlessly at it and plonked down in an empty chair. If I waited, breakfast would arrive. I just had to keep myself from biting off heads in the meantime.
I don’t know long how I sat there, foggy and out of it, before Bannen approached the table. He sat with a chair in between us, cautiously, like a man settling in front of an angry predator. In his hands he had two mugs, one of which he put on the table and slid to me with one finger.
Glaring at him, I leaned over just enough to peer into the cup. Oh! Hot chocolate. The morning looked up already. Taking it in both hands, I sipped at it and found it to be hot, but not hot enough to scald my mouth. Perfect. Humming, I sank into my chair and nursed the cup, not letting it get more than an inch away from my lips.
Chi sauntered in, aiming for the chair on my right, but Bannen waved him off and gestured toward the opposite side, away from me. Picking up on the cue, Chi shuffled instead so he could sit on Bannen’s side. “What?” he asked in a stage whisper.
“When her hair is thrown up like that, it’s a bad sign,” Bannen whispered back. “It means she hasn’t gotten any sleep. A sleep-deprived Rena is like a dragon woken out of hibernation.”
Giving a serious nod, Chi asked, “When is it safe to approach?”
I glared at both of them. “I can hear you.”
“Don’t try talking to her until she’s drained that mug,” Bannen counseled, ignoring me.
“Got it. Although I’m confused; normally she’s a morning person?”
“She is, actually, it’s just when she’s had a bad night. If she doesn’t get at least six hours, she becomes amazingly grumpy.”
“Still right here,” I grumped, and no, I wasn’t pouting. I took another sip of my chocolate and purred. He’d made it extra dark, just the way I liked it.
Chi looked me over with a twinkle in his eyes. “The feeding and care of Void Mages is apparently a delicate operation.”
“You have no idea,” Bannen stated dryly. Turning to me, he evaluated my face for a long moment before offering, “Braid?”
I could already feel the bun slipping because, let’s face it, I wasn’t good with hair. I didn’t want it loose around my face today as I tried to work, not with how windy this place was. “Braid,” I agreed and took another long sip. “And another one of these.”
“That I can do.” He smoothly left the table, heading for his room, no doubt to fetch a comb and something to tie my hair off with.
That left me with a beautiful opportunity that rarely happened. I sat with Chi, no one else to overhear us, in a quiet place. I pinned the agent with a look, an enigmatic smile on my face. “Chi. I want to ask you something.”
Despite being at least ten years my senior, he looked unnerved. “Ah, and, um, what’s that?”
“Bannen’s confided in you. I know he has. He’s hiding something from me and you know what it is, don’t you?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” My eyes studied his expression and body language with intense interest. I didn’t think he’d answer me straight on, but body language alone could tell you volumes, if you paid attention. “Does it have something to do with why he suddenly refuses to share a room with me?”
That was a stab in the dark but the minute flinch on Chi’s face answered a resounding yes. My eyebrows shot into my hairline. “You don’t say.”
“Rena,” he complained, pained. “Please. I’m violating the man code, here. And it’s very sneaky of you, making me answer questions when I’m not actually saying anything. Who taught you that?”
“Yez,” I answered simply. Four days of traveling and it’s amazing what bored spies will teach you. Not that I’d expected the lessons to pay off this quickly. “Does he have any intention of speaking to me properly about this?”
Chi’s mouth clamped mulishly shut.
“No?” I felt a wave of disappointment because that wasn’t the answer I’d anticipated. Bannen had always talked to me, often about things I didn’t really want to know, and we had no barriers between us. But apparently we did. I just hadn’t sensed this one until now. “Is it something that I need to speak to him about?”
For the first time, Chi openly hesitated and the look he gave me said yes. Yes, I did.
What on earth was Bannen keeping from me? “How serious is this?”
Blowing out a breath, Chi rubbed at his face with both hands. “How are the two of you so close to each other and so oblivious at the same time?”
That bad? I opened my mouth to ask another question but I could hear Bannen’s footsteps in the hall and I snapped it closed again. Now was not the time to press. Bannen had the hearing of a bat.
Putting the comb down on the table, Bannen tugged my bun free, working from bottom to top. It had gotten a little tangled with all of the tossing and turning I’d done last night. “Simple braid or complicated?”
“Up to you,” I answered, still thrown from what Chi had carefully not said. I found myself very glad that Bannen stood behind me, unable to see my face, because it would be a sure giveaway of my feelings.
He gave a thoughtful hum. “Apparently we have a little time to kill before breakfast is served. I’ll do complicated.”
I focused on my hot chocolate as I really didn’t know what else to do in this moment. This was not the time to sit on Bannen and ring answers out of his cryptic little throat. I’d have to do that later.
Chi blinked up at Bannen ingeniously. “Can you do my hair next?”
“Sure, Chi,” Bannen agreed and I could hear the laughter in his voice even if he wasn’t actually chuckling. “I have some pink and purple ribbons stashed somewhere, I’m sure they’ll do great things with your eyes.”
“They would, wouldn’t they? Let’s do that.”
“Because everyone,” Vee’s tone had a healthy dose of sarcasm in it when she entered the room, “should go into danger with pink and purple braids. That makes it allll better.”
Chi beamed up at her. “I’m glad you think so too. Morning, my darling.”
/> “Good morning, my lunatic.” Vee settled into the chair next to mine, ignoring the way the wood groaned under her weight. Peering into my mug, she gave a sniff. “Is that hot chocolate? Where in the world did you find that?”
“I didn’t,” I admitted easily. “Bannen did.”
“Pharmacy next door,” Bannen answered before she could ask. “They sell the supplies for it and the kitchen here let me borrow a kettle of hot water.”
“Really? I’m surprised. What else do they sell?”
I listened with half an ear as they swapped information back and forth about what goodies a determined shopper could find on the edge of the frontier like this. My mind jumped between the revelations I had from Chi and the sure knowledge that after breakfast I would be forced to get up, head to Toh’sellor, and at least breach the barrier enough to give everyone a better idea of what lay behind the layers of barriers. Right now, no one could venture in without being completely overwhelmed. It would take multiple teams to protect me long enough to do any sort of real reconnaissance.
My stomach tried to tie itself into knots and I carefully breathed in and out, forcing the nerves down. The hot chocolate helped. I’d taken dangerous jobs before but never on this scale, with this many people depending on me, and I could feel the tension ramping up. I couldn’t afford to lose my focus. I had to keep thinking.
I had to.
Bannen’s hands deftly tied the braid up and he ducked long enough to press a kiss against my temple. A little of my tension eased, his silent way of saying that he had my back.
I trusted the team, more than I likely should considering our short acquaintance, but it’s Bannen that gave me the strength to move forward. I wasn’t sure if I could do this without his support.
People from the kitchens came out with steaming platters, setting out waffles, muffins, eggs, sausage, the scents tangling in an appetizing waft in the air. My stomach didn’t know if it could handle food but my mouth watered, so I took it as a good sign that I could eat breakfast.
The arrival of food seemed to signal to the rest of the agents that they needed to be up and moving, as people drifted in quickly over the next few minutes. I counted heads as I went but we didn’t have a full fifty yet. Still waiting for people to arrive, eh? I got a plate and ate enough that I wouldn’t be hungry later, although not enough to put myself into a food coma. Everyone else did the same.
My eyes flicked around the room, taking in the strange atmosphere. I’d expected tension, and it was there, but not in a heavy dose. I saw it only in the stiff way people sat, the way a few of them couldn’t put their back to a door. But for the most part I heard only laughter, the rise and cadence of well told stories, a few outstretched hands as they greeted people they hadn’t seen in a while. It felt more like a reunion, held under unpleasant circumstances, but a good chance to catch up nonetheless. These people had faced Toh’sellor or other similar dangers so many times they didn’t show any panic. Maybe it was confidence, maybe it something else, but they moved like this was any other workday.
Puzzled, I turned in my seat, taking in each table in turns. A few people noticed my attention, and I smiled at them shyly, ducking my head in a greeting. The bolder ones took this as an invitation and came up, introducing themselves, professional and delighted to realize who I was. Their smiles lit up at the words Void Mage and they obviously recognized it, understood on some level what that meant. Our conversations never lasted for more than a few minutes, but each time they walked back to their own group with a bounce in their stride that hadn’t been there before.
My team watched this play out, some of them standing and crossing around the table to do the introductions when an agent they knew approached. I sensed something from these agents, something flitting through their expressions, only it took me a while to put a finger on it.
Hope.
After years, sometimes decades, of work they finally had an answer: Me.
I didn’t know if this revelation made it easier or harder to face today. But I did know that I would do anything, literally anything, to keep them all alive as we fought this monster back under the bed. I took in a deep breath and found myself startled and relieved when I let it out again, as I had a sense of resolve in me that hadn’t quite been there before.
Is this what courage felt like? Bemused, I pushed my plate away, took a moment to sit on this feeling, and found that I liked it. That might make me certifiable, actually, but meh. Sanity’s overrated. Bannen had taught me that. Looking around the table, I gave them a smile. “Everyone ready? Then let’s go.”
Nora leaned a little into my shoulder as we walked up the main street, heading for the barrier, whispering, “I expected Rena to be nervous.”
We had to sidestep around a bakery that jutted halfway into the street, because even the main roadway wasn’t a straight shot up, with all sorts of cricks and crooks in it. Between the natural obstacles of the street and the morning pedestrians dodging around each other, I found it a miracle we managed to move as a unit at all. Dropping back to Nora’s side, I shook my head minutely and whispered back, “She’s not the type to get pre-battle jitters. She’s fully confident in her combat skills, and mine; so as long as it involves fighting, she’s fine.” Tackling Toh’sellor itself made Rena nervous but I wasn’t about to say that out loud.
Accepting this with a nod, Nora backed up a step and walked along at my side.
Fortunately (unfortunately?) our hotel lay not far from the top of the rise, where the barrier began. The traffic thinned out sharply here and it became readily evident to me that the only people that cared to sleep this close to the barrier were the mages in charge of it. Homes and businesses lay boarded up and abandoned for the most part as people sought to put a healthy distance between them and it. Not that I blamed them. I wouldn’t be able to sleep this close to Toh’sellor either.
I’d bet anything the rent on this side of town was insanely cheap.
Looking ahead, I studied the barrier and even to my non-magical eyes, I didn’t think it looked quite right. Most of the time barriers contained this density, like solid sea water, but this version in front of me looked more like stained glass. It seemed imminently breakable and I didn’t like that impression at all. “Nora, is the barrier alright?”
Her mouth compressed into a flat line. “Not really. It’s part of why we hustled Rena up here so quickly. If we don’t do something about Toh’sellor soon, we’ll have to use every active mage we can to shore up the shield, which won’t leave us any to attack with.”
All defense, no offense. Yes, that would be a problem. “How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know,” the woman admitted unhappily. “Not a lot.”
I had a feeling it depended on how many of those shards lined up along the inside of the barrier, out of sight.
We reached what I deemed to be the watchtower, a two story structure of wood, which allowed mages an unfettered view of the barrier in either direction as well as shelter from the elements. Maksohm gestured for us to stay put, so we did, watching as he went ahead and spoke to three other agents for several minutes before coming back. I didn’t like the unhappy look on his face as he informed us, “There’s power fluctuations along this section and no one’s quite able to pinpoint the cause. I don’t feel that we should just charge in without knowing the situation inside. I want to do reconnaissance this morning, with a smaller team, a quick in-and-out so we at least know the lay of the land.”
It sounded sensible but I couldn’t help but ask, “We won’t get overwhelmed with a smaller team?”
“We don’t believe the minions gather in any particular place,” Maksohm explained. “They mostly guard the outside barrier or roam around inside doing deities know what. We’re not expecting a large concentration of them in this spot. I think if we take three teams, and try to be in and out in two hours, we’ll be fine. I just want a peek inside, is all.”
As long as it was not just us going in. I checked
with the rest, to see how they felt about this, Rena especially. She had her calculating look on again.
“Two hours will be enough for that?” Rena asked frankly.
“Maybe not,” Maksohm acknowledged ruefully. “But that’s what I’ve promised the senior agent here, because otherwise we’ll go in too deep, and extraction will be a nightmare. What I really want to verify is whether or not we have multiple shards near the barrier.”
Now that made more sense. “I’m all for a brief fight before lunch. Gets the appetite going.”
Not getting any refusals, Maksohm stated, “Let me coordinate with two teams, then, get us all ready to go. Rena, please do your initial attack through the barrier to give us enough breathing room to go through. We really can’t afford to drop a hole in the barrier for more than a minute.”
“I understand. Don’t worry, I’ll give us as much space as I can.”
“Thank you. Then wait a moment.” He turned and jogged back, speaking to a woman and man that I assumed to be the team leaders.
I could feel eyes staring thoughtfully at me and I had a feeling it was Rena. My ‘act normal’ attempt had obviously failed because she sensed something off about me. Whether or not she had already figured it out, I didn’t know. I’d make a terrible spy, as I couldn’t help but wear my heart on my sleeve, so the fact I’d made it almost two years without her catching on was really nothing short of a miracle. But the timing could be better.
Slender fingers caught mine, tugging insistently. “Stay close,” she murmured to me.
I sensed a talk looming in our future, which no one would look forward to. But if she wasn’t willing to push the issue now, I wouldn’t either. I managed a smile for her. “Always.”
It took more than a few minutes for the three teams to form up. Organizing twenty-one people to move at once takes some coordination. I stood right behind Rena, Maksohm right in front, ready to throw up a shield as soon as possible. An agent stood next to the barrier, two others on the opposite side of him, forming a doorway of sorts so we knew how narrow the opening would be. They waited on Rena’s nod.
The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 22