Changing Of The Guard (Book 6)

by Ron Collins

  Her skin crawled at the mere thought of his touch.

  It was his ineptitude that let the Torean god-touched mage slip away. Things would have been different if she were in command that day. As it was, she had re-deployed her Lectodinian mages all on her own. Otherwise, they may actually have lost Takril, the Torean ruler of the city, as well as the god-touched.

  Still, she was the one who paid for the loss with a stint in the underplanes.

  She would not forget that.

  Ever.

  Cara patted the weapon beneath her bearskin coat. It was a long dagger, magicked in her own laboratory with a sorcery augmented by black powers from those underplanes she was now so familiar with. It was attuned to Yorl’s body. That magic had cost her dearly—she would be paying the demon for months. But it had been worth it. The blade squirmed and made her stomach turn with its corruption. Maybe, she thought, she had done too good of a job on it.

  Dismissing the thought, she peered around the boulder.

  She reached for her link and gathered magical energy about her. As the magestuff flowed, Yorl’s castle lit up with wards. Cara pressed her mind to leverage proper points, and she molded sorcery around the foundation of his security spell. With a coordinated pull, she removed their linkages, and the Koradictine’s magic fell apart.

  The hardest part was over.

  She straightened and walked to the castle.

  The door opened easily. It was warm inside, and she removed her bearskin overcoat, leaving the weapon free and available for her left-handed pull. The steel seemed to throb at her side.

  Yorl Maggore was immersed in watching a pair of rodents mate when she found him.

  His first expression was surprise.

  Then, when recognition hit, his smile became its familiar leer.

  Her magic flared, showing him an image of her dancing before him, wearing filmy clothes of Koradictine red.

  Cara handed him her sword then, and stepped back to watch.

  The illusion still smiled, and still danced as it ran fingers through his greasy hair. It kissed him as he gripped the weapon closer with one hand and ran his other hand over her thigh. One of her illusion’s ghostly hands drew a line from his sternum, along his neck, and up his jaw bone to his chin. Then slowly, excruciatingly slowly, it lifted his chin skyward to expose the pasty white jugular.

  The blade flared purple as he raised it upon himself.

  The coppery smell of fresh blood filled the room.

  The expression on Yorl’s face when Cara left was pure horror.

  It made her very happy.

  Chapter 3

  Zutrian Esta stood before a map of the plane he had spread out over the long wall, listening carefully as the commanders’ reports came in.

  The plan was working even better than he hoped.

  He had been right to hold his mages back, to regroup and train, and to strike with guerilla forces in the dead of winter when surprise was on his side. A blue flag jutted from the map in each place where a Lectodinian had bested a Koradictine. The map was almost completely filled with blue. Over the past week, the raids had systematically removed over two-thirds of the Koradictine order from this side of Adruin.

  His revenge was nearly complete.

  He grimaced at the red flags pinned to de’Mayer Island. Only Ettril and his small collection of mages remained, so it was upsetting that he could not get a report on Ettril’s whereabouts.

  But, regardless of whether Ettril Dor-Entfar lived or if he died, the Koradictine order would never again be a power on this plane.

  So, yes, it was a very good day.

  But still, he wondered.

  Where could the Koradictine High Superior have gone?

  Chapter 4

  Hirl-enat spoke to Neuma with an icy edge to his voice.

  “Who do you think you are? Ettril is gone, and Quin Sar is dead. That leaves me in command here.”

  Neuma kept her cool and paused for effect, noting Fil’s watchful eye. Fil, sitting as always in silent examination, would ensure everything that happened in this tent would get out to what remained of the order. She hadn’t expected Hirl-enat to be this ambitious, but if she played this right, it could work out even better. Garrick would still take care of Ettril, Hirl-enat would be gone, and the order would be hers.

  Garrick’s absence from Dorfort changed the time scale, so she could be patient with Hirl-enat’s petty ego while he painted himself into a corner.

  “Who do I think I am?” she said. “I think I’m the one with the plan. But if you have better thoughts for dealing with the Toreans and the Lectodinians, then I suggest you put them forward now.”

  The older mage pursed his lips, his bushy beard bristling around his mouth. She took great delight in his pained expression. The elder wizard was one-upped, but didn’t want to show it.

  The three of them were alone. High Superior Dor-Entfar had disappeared. Worse, while searching for Ettril, they heard reports of mages who suffered scuffles with the Lectodinian sect. She worried about that the most. It meant the Lectodinians—who had emerged from the battle at God’s Tower essentially unscathed—had likely decided that the Koradictine order was at its most defenseless now, and that Zutrian Esta, High Superior of the Lectodinians, had begun to press his advantage.

  If true, it was imperative they get back to Badwall and hold onto the Canyons and their surrounding regions, or else the Koradictine order as they knew it could be swept away.

  Neuma’s plan was the best they could manage while they were out here in the middle of nowhere. In a nutshell, she suggested they split—one mage casting magic that would transport them to immediately to calm the disquiet in Badwall, the other two taking the several-day journey to the Vapor Peaks to request counsel with the Lectodinian leadership.

  It was a plan that put Hirl-enat in a difficult situation.

  With Ettril gone, Hirl-enat was the ranking Koradictine, and as such it was almost mandatory that he perform the role that met with the Lectodinians. Yet, the mage who went home to Badwall would be seen as a leader there, too. Hirl-enat would not want Neuma to have that task, but they both knew Fil was not strong enough to cast the magic required to perform the transport.

  So the gambit was forced upon Hirl-enat. Go to Vapor Peaks and let Neuma run the order in their homeland, or go to Badwall and let Neuma communicate with, and possibly conspire with, their bitter rivals.

  She wondered which poison he would choose.

  “The plan is good as far as it goes,” Hirl-enat finally said. “I suggest you return to Badwall while Fil and I work with the Lectodinians. But we will reconsider our path through the Mist Mountains. The directions you selected are inappropriate.”

  Neuma smiled, knowing Hirl-enat had picked on this portion of the plan merely because it was something he could change. His tinkering would amount to a few ineffectual adjustments based on topography that was probably out of date anyway.

  “I see what you mean,” she said, gazing at the map.

  They worked together for another half hour, refining the plan, then went to their bedrolls. It was time to sleep. They needed to be prepared tomorrow.

  And Neuma was tired. The battle with the Toreans had worn her out. But as they walked away, Neuma was uncertain if she would get much sleep at all. The essence of the plan was still her work. Fil would ensure the order heard the truth of that.

  And tomorrow would be a good day, she thought as she pulled her roll over her shoulder.

  Yes.

  A very good day.

  Book 3: Nestafar

  Chapter 1

  Garrick burst into Ellesadil’s chamber. A guard moved to stop him, but Garrick brushed past. He was angry, and the shove was harder than it should have been, but he didn’t pause to check on the guard or to apologize for his handling.

  “Where is the boy?” Garrick said.

  “Garrick?” The lord looked up from his paperwork with an expression of shock that swiftly settled to a reliev
ed smile. He looked old and tired. It was early morning. A bowl of cold cereal and a half cup of the ginger tea he was so famously enamored with sat on one side of his desk. “Where have you been?”

  “Am I to understand the boy is taken by the Koradictines?” Garrick growled, barely able to control himself.

  “Yes. You understand correctly,” Ellesadil replied. He sat up straighter.

  Garrick turned away, his mind on fire.

  He turned back to Lord Ellesadil, and in three steps had him by the throat.

  “How did you let this happen?” he said.

  He lifted the lord from his chair and pinned him against the wall.

  Ellesadil’s fear tasted cold and bitter against Garrick’s hunger. The lord struggled to breathe, but Garrick didn’t care. The boy was gone, and it had happened on Ellesadil’s watch. Ellesadil put his hands around Garrick’s forearm. His face turned pink.

  “I—” the lord couldn’t choke out the rest.

  “He was just a boy,” Garrick roared, pressing Ellesadil against the wall as heat rose within him. “How could you let this happen?”

  Ellesadil’s face grew even more crimson. The lord’s leg kicked meekly before Garrick’s rage finally collected itself and he dropped Ellesadil harshly to the floor.

  Garrick stood there, panting, towering over the lord with feet spread apart, his arms extended, fingers flexing. The guard came meekly in through the doorway.

  “Leave us,” Garrick said. “You have my word that Lord Ellesadil will not be harmed.”

  The guard hesitated, but Ellesadil sat up straighter against the wall, breathed deeply, and waved him away.

  “Where did they go?” Garrick said.

  “We don’t know,” Ellesadil replied, holding his hand to his throat and beginning to get his wits about him again. “Darien and Reynard have been patrolling since the boy was kidnapped.”

  “How long have they been out?”

  “Days. Where have you been?”

  Garrick closed his eyes, ignoring the lord’s question.

  His time in Existence had changed him. He felt it the moment he woke up in his chamber. His magic was bigger, more encompassing. He focused on his life force and felt the depths of the world around him with a connection he had never understood before. He smelled the aroma of bread from across town. He sensed a merchant's concern for his daughter who had woken to a fever. He felt how these two things depended on each other, how the fact of one was tied to the fact of the other in the invisible way all actions in all communities of people were tied. But in the same manner, he felt weary in ways he hadn’t. He was tired of the struggle, deadened to problems that seemed to never end and seemed, perhaps, to never have an end.

  “The kidnapping is a message,” he said.

  “A message?”

  Ellesadil stood up.

  “They want their revenge on me. This kidnapping says the Koradictines know of my tie to Will.”

  Ellesadil contemplated Garrick’s thought as he edged back to his desk and sipped tea. His unease with Garrick’s presence was a thing in itself. “That would explain much.”

  “The boy is a target because of me. I do not wish to imagine what they might be doing to him now.”

  “If you are correct, they will hold the boy safe to entice you to come to them.”

  “Perhaps,” Garrick said.

  But he had learned much the past year. He had seen the orders close-up, and had felt the disruptions that occurred when their power went astray. Garrick felt that same thing in his bones how—he had been corrupted by that power himself, after all. He had returned to Adruin to fulfill his commitment to wrest control of the Freeborn from the clutches of his best friend.

  Perhaps the change in him was brought on by exposure to the raw life force of Existence, or perhaps Braxidane—who was now his Mage Superior—had triggered his next progression. Whatever the cause, he was different now.

  He felt things more deeply.

  He understood the orders.

  And now he used these two things, spreading himself over the plane, searching for the magic of Ettril Dor-Entfar, Lord Superior of the Koradictine order, and searching for Will.

  He felt three guards as they walked their beat. One still smarted from having lost five crowns at a gaming table last evening. Another entertained his friends with stories of a woman. The third was dying of a blackness growing inside his liver, though Garrick was certain he didn’t know it, yet.

  A young woman bent to a mopping job.

  A fisherman cursed nets he had fouled the previous day.

  Garrick clenched his hands. His skin crawled, and his stomach swam in a turgid sea. He felt them all, men and women walking in the rutted streets. He sensed Torean magic practiced in the manor yard by an apprentice who was fumbling with a lesser spell, and he felt an adept named Creseda casting layered magic over a wooden wheel—simple work, being done for a paying customer.

  Then he felt what he sought.

  A mass of Koradictine magic so thick it nearly clogged his throat.

  Ettril Dor-Entfar. It had to be the Koradictine leader.

  He sensed more in the area. Darien’s trail, the residue of battle lust, and the faint casting of Torean magic that went cold. The Koradictine’s magic, too, seemed to snap off as if the caster had just disappeared.

  The Koradictine had clearly left the plane.

  He went to the window again in a distracted fog. His senses, still stretching across the land, felt heavy and damp.

  “Are you going to answer me?” Ellesadil said.

  “They’ll not find Ettril,” Garrick replied.

  His mind snapped back into focus.

  Ellesadil was fully recovered now. He stood behind his desk and rearranged his disheveled clothing.

  “I’m sorry, Lord. I shouldn’t have treated you harshly,” Garrick said, rubbing his temple. “What was that you said?”

  “I asked where you’ve been.”

  “I was pulled away by my superior,” Garrick said.

  It was not a lie. Braxidane had sent him to Rastella to break Hezarin’s hold on that plane and to save Braxidane’s own unborn champion. His work had been successful, and as a reward (or was it a lesson?) he had spent untold hours (or was it days?) immersed in the flowing networks of Existence, the connective tissue between the planes that were home to planewalkers like Braxidane and Hezarin.

  Will’s disappearance wasn’t Ellesadil’s fault at all, Garrick saw that clearly now. It wasn’t Darien’s fault, either. Or Reynard’s fault, or anyone else’s.

  It was his fault. All of it. His fault.

  Ettril was able to kidnap Will because Garrick, wasn’t here to protect him. And, the abrupt ending to Ettril’s path told him that the task of bringing Will back was all his, too. Neither Darien nor Reynard nor any other mage or warrior could follow the Koradictine’s path through the planes.

  “Much has happened while you were gone,” Ellesadil said.

  “We can discuss those things when I return,” Garrick replied, striding to the doorway. “But now I need to go find the boy.”

  “Your order is falling apart,” the lord said. “You should stay here and mend it.”

  Garrick gazed at Ellesadil, suddenly feeling more at ease than he could ever remember feeling. He could play the planewalker’s game as well as Braxidane could. Garrick had promised to take the Freeborn House from Darien, but there had been no timeline attached to that commitment.

  “The world existed without a Torean order for a long time,” he said. “I think it will manage to get by without one for a few days more.”

  Then Garrick left, his boots echoing in the hallway.

  Chapter 2

  Bare sycamore and birch trees stood as sentries over ground that had been recently trod upon. The wind had calmed to leave the area silent.

  Garrick was no ranger, but it took no expertise to make out the marks of hooves and boot heels that marked the Koradictine campfire. The rut of wagon wheel
s, and the prints made by the steady gait of horses left clean signs leading northwest. Toward the Koradictine stronghold.

  But that was not the trail that interested him.

  The trail he searched for now was the bloody taint of sorcery that he felt decaying like residue washed up on a beach. And, along with that blood-taint, the path he sought also felt of Existence, a sensation that hummed with the essence of life force, the power that gave Existence its very presence.

  The link told Garrick he was right, that Ettril had left the plane.

  Could he follow?

  The idea excited him. He felt the link as if it were a physical thing connected to his own sense of being, as if it were a vine or a tendril left behind that Garrick could latch onto with his own life force. Its whisper seduced him.

  If, as Braxidane said, a planewalker who steps into the realm of a plane opens that door for other planewalkers, would the same policy exist in the opposite direction? Could Ettril’s passage leave him room to follow?

  Garrick called on his link and drew sorcerous power from Talin’s reservoir of magic, channeling it through proper leverage points and letting it pool in his hands until his fingertips glowed golden hot. He molded life force into his magic, and he recreated the sensation of wearing the robe he had found on Rastella. A shell of energy wrapped about him, and when the moment felt complete, Garrick attached his spell to Ettril Dor-Entfar’s trail, then pulled.

  Wind whined with the dry rasp of dead leaves spinning through the air. The honey-laced aroma of Braxidane’s magic grew around him, as intoxicating and sweet as candy. Ettril’s trail grew thick. Its essence whipped suddenly around his wrist, attaching to him like a sea serpent’s tentacle. It ripped him from the plane, drawing him up and off the land, into a haze that grew dense and damp around him.

  This time he was ready, though.

  As he stepped into the raging flow of Existence, he drew the hardened mantle of his life force around him. The flow rushed past with a siren’s call of raw pleasure.