Changing Of The Guard (Book 6)

by Ron Collins

  “The two of you share a bond,” Ettril said with clear distaste. “So, to prove I can be accommodating, I’ll take both of you at the same time.”

  Ettril sang a phrase, and magic swirled in the clouds above him.

  Garrick took the moment to grab what little energy he could, and he threw a bolt at the disk where Will lay. The leather around the boy’s wrists scorched, and the bindings around his arms burned away.

  “Run, Will,” Garrick said.

  The boy rolled from the disk, wasting no time. He ripped the gag from his mouth as he ran, falling once, then getting up to run again.

  “You think I won’t be able to find him later?” Ettril said, turning back to cast his spell.

  A black cone struck Garrick full in the chest, and every muscle in his body clenched.

  An avalanche of cascading pain crushed him.

  His heart stopped. Bones ground against bones. His teeth gritted with the bloody taste of calcium and saliva. He fell, gasping for breath and groaning with distended sounds he had never heard from himself before.

  The ground was hard against his cheek and forehead.

  Shards of the city lay around him—broken panes of glass and metal, a blackened piece of cloth, scraps of wood that had once been a chair or a bed or maybe just a table.

  After all this, Garrick thought, he was going to die alone on a distant plane. Fitting, he supposed. He crawled toward the Koradictine, his bleeding fingers pulling himself along the ground. It hurt merely to breathe, but he wanted to give Will time to run.

  Ettril strode forward until the hem of his robe filled Garrick’s vision.

  “You are weak,” Ettril said.

  “Uhhh …” was all he could manage in response.

  Then he saw Will, sneaking up behind the mage, holding a jagged piece of metal in his grimy hand, his eyes hard and cold like no child’s should ever be.

  No! he thought to Will. You’re supposed to run! You’re supposed to get away.

  But the boy did not turn to run. Instead, Will crept farther toward the Koradictine.

  So Garrick did the only thing he could. He pressed against the ground, lifting himself to stand before Ettril Dor-Entfar.

  “You are pitiful,” the Koradictine said.

  Will raised his makeshift weapon and aimed for a place between Ettril’s shoulder blades.

  He was too late, though.

  The Koradictine’s energy rose. Ettril whirled and faced the boy, his expression an evil contortion of humor and disdain.

  “You didn’t actually think I would give you my back, did you?” he said, raising his arm to cast his death spell.

  Garrick went red with rage.

  “Nooooooooooo …”

  He rose up, then. He forgot about Braxidane, or about sorcery, or about Talin. He ignored dead muscles and biting hunger. He rose up, arms and legs screaming with pain—rose up, wailing like the demons wailed as he entered their plane of blue. He rose up, lifting a rock the size of Ettril’s head, a remnant of a wall, or perhaps a bank, a shop, a brothel, a tavern, or a bench that once served as a place to rest, or, perhaps maybe just a cornerstone to what had served as the home of a simple family. He rose with a rock from Nestafar that became an extension of his arm. And he hefted it, swinging it as if there was nothing left in the world but that chunk of granite. And he released it, his arm swinging forward, his muscles stretching with satisfying ache.

  The rock flew through the air with natural grace.

  It crashed into Ettril’s skull as the Koradictine’s spell hit its leverage point. Bone gave with a sickening crunch. The odor of Koradictine sorcery rose and then fell.

  As that stone fell, a pair of voices screamed, one the voice of age, the other of youth. And as it fell, Ettril Dor-Entfar’s magic went astray and exploded against a stone wall in the distance.

  Garrick tumbled to the ground.

  Then there was silence.

  Chapter 9

  Garrick opened his eyes to see white clouds sliding across the sky like smoke. For the first time in forever, it felt like he was warm.

  Strange, he thought. So strange.

  Something speared his kidney, though, and his foot felt like it was being crushed under a mountain. He clenched his fist, and gasped with pain that pierced his entire being. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought he had been taken apart piece by piece.

  A warm sensation picked at his mind.

  Then he saw Will.

  The boy lay like a rag doll against a stone wall. Ettril Dor-Entfar was facedown a distance away, a trail of blood running from his head to form a clotted pool in a bowl-like depression at his side.

  Garrick groaned.

  His hunger stirred. It strained against him, drawing him toward Will’s life force. It urged Garrick to stand, to walk, to crawl, to do whatever it took to absorb this fresh power. He bottled that hunger, though, he was stronger that it now.

  It laughed at him from its depths. It would have its way sometime, he knew. But that sometime would not be today.

  He crawled to the boy’s side.

  Will’s breathing rattled in his chest. His skin was clammy, but he was alive.

  “Braxidane!” Garrick yelled aloud. “Braxidane!”

  His superior could help if he wanted, but the planewalker had made it clear that the cost would be too great.

  Actions and consequences.

  Yes, he thought.

  He knew what Braxidane could do with his actions and consequences.

  He looked for anything that might help. He rummaged in the debris, his strength coming back in bits as time passed. If he could find something that would get him back to Existence, he thought. Anything. But the city was a wasteland, and with no store of life force Garrick didn’t think he could make it to Existence on his own.

  Will groaned.

  The boy’s eyes flickered open. They were dark and dilated.

  Garrick tasted bile. Ettril was right about one thing.

  This was his fault.

  Sunathri. The Dorfort dead. Darien struggling at the helm of the Freeborn—they all happened because he had been too afraid to take his role when he should have. And even now that he had agreed to take the Freeborn, he saw his reasons had been faulty. He had chosen to lead the order to spite Braxidane and the planewalkers, rather than from any real desire to help. Yes, doing so could ensure Adruin was free. But Garrick could not lie to himself. He had decided to take the Torean House purely so he could stand in the way of the planewalkers.

  He cursed his short-sightedness.

  It was all his fault.

  And now Will lay here dying because Garrick had been too protective to teach him enough magic to defend himself—even a simple bolt of energy might have been enough. “Garrick, sir,” Will whispered, his teeth flashing white in the gloom. “I’m glad you’re alive.”

  “I say the same for you. And you can still drop the sir, all right?”

  Will swallowed with a bird-like movement. “I’m not sure … for how much longer I’ll make it, though.”

  “None of that, now.”

  “My belly hurts,” Will said. “Inside.”

  Garrick’s hunger twisted like a caged tiger as he felt the pain in Will. He needed to get the boy home, or heal him, or face the fact that he was going to watch Will fade away before his very eyes.

  His hunger moved inside him like a shark.

  It gave him a thought that scared him.

  He had grown comfortable channeling the wild energy from Braxidane’s power through the gates of his standard sorcery, but he had never tried it the other way around, he had never used standard magestuff to drive his hunger. Could he use magestuff as he used life force? Ettril was dead now. The gates to the plane should be open. And if he was right about the essence of the two magics being the same, it might work.

  He had no other ideas.

  He set leverage points, and opened his link. Energy poured over his gates. He thought back to the beginni
ng, back to Arianna lying in the wooded creekbed as he poured magestuff into her. It hadn’t worked then, but it was different now—his hunger was there inside him, and rather than merely dousing Will’s wounds with pure wizardry he latched this stream of standard magic into his hunger, and then called on the hunger to rise. He drew more mage stuff into him, overloading his body, filling the repositories that fueled his standard magic and letting the rest pour through his body.

  Braxidane’s dark magic pulsed. He kept pushing. Heat rose. The hunger grew to a boil.

  Finally he dropped the gates that controlled the intake all together, dropped the gates that protected a mage from the rush of Talin’s magestuff.

  And it was like …

  … drinking a lake in one, deep draught.

  He breathed it in until he couldn’t breathe further, then he kept drawing. Power engulfed him. Surrounded him. Scrubbed him from the inside. He was drowning in magestuff, and he felt the hunger inside become sated and fade as it belched upward in to the flow of magestuff.

  The hair rose on his neck. His skin tingled.

  Energy flowed inside him, swirling, feeling cool and calm, and tasting so sweet, and so similar to the life force that drove Braxidane’s wild magic. More energy flowed. His body stopped aching, and his muscles smoothed out. His ankle grew stronger.

  Garrick turned to Will with magical fire flickering at his fingertips.

  He wrapped his hands around the boy’s head and sensed a cracked skull. Garrick pressed his mind into Will’s body. He molded energy around the fracture, then moved to the boy’s chest and innards. He poured energy, raw and free, into Will’s injuries. Pancreas, spleen, liver, intestines. Every cell in Will’s body was a separate entity that registered in Garrick’s mind. He took his time, building them back instinctively, letting the life force have its way.

  Finally, he pulled back and let his link free.

  And Will’s eyes flickered open.

  Chapter 10

  “You healed me,” Will said.

  Garrick gave a smirk and, in a slow movement, tousled the boy’s hair. The gesture brought a sense of reality he desperately needed. He felt Will’s heartbeat throb against his hunger. It was powerful and pure—the only thing other than himself that was alive on this plane.

  “You didn’t think I would leave you here, did you?”

  Will didn’t respond, but his thoughts colored his face. The boy had seen Garrick’s dark magic work, and he knew Garrick had been drained of power just a few moments ago. So, when Garrick had reached toward him, Will had clearly expected to die.

  “Come here,” Garrick said, motioning the boy closer. “I’m going to get us home.”

  The boy came along, regardless of any fear he may have.

  “This is going to be strange, but don’t do anything surprising. Just relax, and I’ll take care of you.”

  “Promise?”

  Garrick gave a chuckle. “Yes, I promise. But I’m serious. I don’t know if I can manage the process if you don’t stay still, and I need to get it right or we could both be in a lot of trouble.”

  Will nodded.

  Garrick put his hand over the boy’s shoulder, and Will wrapped an arm around Garrick’s waist. He reached for his link. Magic flowed. He spoke a few words, and an orb formed around them both. Then Garrick grabbed a fold in the fabric of the plane, and slipped through.

  Will gasped at the essence of All of Existence.

  Garrick enjoyed the sight of the boy’s face as shifting hues of raw energy reflected off his cheekbones and glimmered in his eyes.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  Will’s mouth worked, but no words came out.

  Garrick grinned and moved them through the flow.

  He felt Braxidane’s presence somewhere in the distance. If he paid attention he could feel planewalkers everywhere, though the concentration that effort took was immense. He could easily confront his superior if he wanted, but he didn’t trust himself with Braxidane right now. He didn’t understand what Braxidane was doing with him. And on top of that, he knew what Braxidane would say.

  He had a bargain to uphold.

  So instead, Garrick pictured Adruin, and Dorfort. And he flowed Existence’s energy into his spell work, letting power run through his body, picking at it, and giving himself time to recharge. He could do this again and again, couldn’t he? When his hunger rose to its greatest heights, could he just step into Existence, and fill himself up? Did that mean that perhaps he would never need to kill again?

  The idea made him laugh out loud.

  Then it brought tears formed of a harsh mixture of joy and shame that burned in the fire of this place. Energy hissed, and the curve of their passage flowed.

  “Are you all right, Garrick?” Will asked.

  “Yes, Will. I am fine.”

  Garrick gritted his teeth, though, as his thoughts turned to Darien and the Freeborn.

  This had been coming for a long time. He had known it somehow even before he had promised Braxidane to take control of the Torean House. But he thought about Darien, and imagined his friend’s reaction as he took that control.

  In so many ways, taking command of the Freeborn would be the hardest thing he had ever done.

  Book 4: The Koradictine Play

  Chapter 1

  The energy required to magic her way back to de’Mayer Island taxed Neuma greatly. She arrived numb from two nights without sleep, and in a mood that would scare off a planewalker’s demon. But at least with Hirl-enat and Fil traveling to the Vapor Peaks, she had time to recover.

  A little, anyway. Enough.

  Badwall needed to be addressed—as did the entire western plain, for that matter—but that could wait until she had secured the island itself. Everyone with half a thought understood that the Koradictine order would survive as long as the island was held firm, and that meant ensuring loyalty of the few wizards who remained.

  She went to her basin to find it full of stagnant water.

  “Hess?” she called, but there was no answer.

  She stormed into the hallway.

  While the Koradictine castle itself was an edifice that towered over de’Mayer point, the stronghold was a labyrinth of halls and rooms carved into the volcanic cliffs themselves. Befitting her age and experience rather than her power, her room was far from the interior, hence the hallways were longer and darker than many others.

  The path was familiar, though.

  Her fatigue served to feed her anger as her stride picked up a steady rhythm. Her footsteps gave a staccato ring against the stone. The door to the kitchen was cracked open, allowing voices to leak out. The apprentices and adepts were eating together, or playing dice, or some other game of randomness that each would attempt to influence with the creative use of magestuff.

  She remembered those times in her own past, but was in no mood for games.

  “Hess?” she said, stepping into the chamber.

  Conversation came to an abrupt stop.

  “Lady Neuma,” Hess said, sliding his backside off the table where he had been holding court with, knowing him, some overblown tale of wonder.

  “We were just on break, Lady Neuma,” Hess said, bowing with submission.

  “You’ve been on break for so long that you’ve forgotten to refresh my water?”

  “We expected you back much later,” he replied.

  “Things change,” she said. “It will go best for you if you anticipate that from now on.”

  “Yes, Lady. I’ll get to the water right away.”

  Hess stepped past.

  Neuma glanced at the remaining apprentices, thinking about Ettril and Hirl-enat. She was so close to the end game. So close.

  “Things are changing around here,” she said to the apprentices. “You had best prepare, too.”

  Chapter 2

  Fil stopped scanning the woods to look at Hirl-enat.

  The elder mage was riding on the bench seat beside him, his eyes closed, his
head swaying with the motion of the wagon. He was younger than Ettril, but not as powerful. And his ability to see things for what they actually were was limited. He played things cautiously, never daring too much—unlike Neuma, whose ambition was worn like a garish streak of blush across her cheek.

  He pulled his blanket up over his neck. How long would Hirl-enat last?

  Though the weather had held reasonably fair, it had been a long trip—over a week’s passage to the Vapor Peaks alone. It would be good to get this resolved so they could get home.

  The party came to a halt, and Hirl-enat’s eyes slid open.

  Lectodinians, three of them, blocked the passage.

  The lead figure was draped in the telltale blue of the order. A quick spell revealed several more mages scattered across the hillside. He had sensed Lectodinians often over the past two days, so this was not surprising. It was good, after all. It was why they had decided to travel so openly, hoping their transparency would draw this very opportunity to parley.

  “What are you doing here?” the leader said.

  Hirl-enat stood, brushed what wrinkles he could out of his robes, and stepped down.

  Fil followed.

  “We wish to speak to your Lord Superior,” Hirl-enat said.

  “I am sure he is occupied.”

  “I believe he will be unoccupied when you tell him we are interested in discussing a merger.”

  The mage gave a perceptible pause.

  “Go ahead and contact him,” Hirl-enat said. “We will wait.”

  Fil observed everything, storing it away.

  He noticed how Hirl-enat’s eyes danced with humor at the Lectodinian’s reaction to the idea the Koradictines might surrender, and he noted the way the Lectodinian’s hands shook with more than the cold of winter as he entered his communication spell.

  Fil was impressed with Hirl-enat’s composure. His was the key role in this charade. He had to sell the decoy, had to be believed when he promised Koradictine service to the Lectodinian agenda. Neuma’s plan was a good one if Hirl-enat could do this part. Without a quiet span over the winter months, the Koradictine order may well be destroyed, so it was imperative his tone be convincing. And, so far, he had played the part to perfection.