Unus (Stone Mage Saga Book 1)

by Raven Whitney

  Though this tiny, secret copse was beautiful, it looked more like library porn than a storage vault. Maybe I was in the wrong place, but if there were only more books here, why bother to hide it so well? There had to be something I was missing. I decided to check the tree on the off-chance that it was another invisible door.

  I approached the water's edge and reached in to test the temperature. One of the koi fish in the pond startled at my approach and tried to dart away. It ended up swimming right into my hand instead. Startled at the cold and sharp-sandpaper feeling of the fish's scales, I jerked my hand back and inadvertently took the little fish with it. It went airborne and perhaps it was a strange combination of extreme stress, starvation, dehydration, and exhaustion, but I could have sworn for that split second, that pudgy little fish was an engraved, golden-handled dagger. When I looked for that dagger in the water, all I saw were more fish and tadpoles that had fled to the other end of the pond.

  Maybe Octavius had hidden the loot right under any would-be intruder's nose in this bad acid trip of a castle. Could those little fish be all of the stolen belongings? Without a thought for my boots and pants, I waded into the water and dove in after the fish, trying to catch anything I could with my bare hands, but they were too small and fast.

  This wasn't working and I didn't have the time to waste. I had to find something more effective at catching fish. Looking around, I didn't see much. I suppose I could try to carve a makeshift spear from one of the oak branches, but that would take too long and who knew if they were even real to begin with? A brilliant idea popped into my head and I shrugged off my soaking wet, holey camisole.

  I tied off the bottom end and any holes that were big enough for a fish to slip through. Dragging my shirt through the water like a net, I tried to scoop up the tricky koi. The water couldn't pass through the fabric very well, so it turned out to be more like scooping fish with a cup, but within a few passes, I'd caught one!

  I pulled my heavy shirt out of the water and set it on the grass before the thin fabric tore open again. I grabbed the squirming fish with my bare hands and brought it into the open air. Once it was out of the water, the fish instantly became a beautiful jeweled necklace, with a rectangular emerald pendant almost the size of a pack of cigarettes. It was absolutely extraordinary and must be worth enough to buy a house, but it wasn't what I was looking for. So I tossed it onto the grass next to me to keep from catching it twice.

  There weren't any fish left in my shirt, but there were a handful of tadpoles. I scooped one of them out of the water and it became a jade hairpin. Also not what I was looking for. I up-ended my camisole onto the grass to pick through the rest of them.

  The next netting was two koi and another dozen or so tadpoles. Again, I sifted through each of the little fish, finding enough swords, jewels, and other expensive valuables to buy the Mona Lisa, but no diving watch.

  The pressure of a ticking clock made me frantic as I dragged my jury-rigged net through the water. I had to find the watch soon before the guard made his rounds through the cells and noticed I wasn't there. Only three tadpoles were in my shirt this time. It was a disappointing yield and I wanted to go back for more, but I had to stop and take the time to check each of them anyway.

  A battle ax, a sapphire the size of a kiwi, and a diamond bracelet later, I stared down into the pond at the remaining treasures, which were trying to hide in the tall grass. There was no way that I could sift through each and every little fish in the pond before somebody caught me. That was probably another layer of security. Soon enough, somebody would come in here and I would be busted.

  Even in the face of a certain, horrific demise, I had to keep going and dove back into the waters to net another catch of tadpoles. Everyone in the tower was counting on me to find the—

  “Watch!” I exclaimed with shock and uncontainable giddiness. The tiny tadpole in my hand had become a man's diving watch matching Liam's description. This had to be it!

  I lurched to my feet, dropping the shirt/net and running for the exit to the library. I didn't think to peek through the invisible door before leaping past it, but fortunately, I was still alone. On my way past, I kicked the edge of the rug back over the other floor tile. Looking down at my feet, though, I realized it was kind of pointless to try to cover my tracks since I was dripping water everywhere.

  I had to get the hell out of here fast, then, before someone noticed my trail. I ran back through the library, office, and back into the bedroom, where I realized I had a bit of a problem now. How was I going to get back into the access tile, which was fifteen feet above me? Looking around, I couldn't see a ladder. I could try climbing the St. Andrew's cross, but the wood was slickly polished and there weren't any hand-holds. If I climbed up the bedpost closest to the chandelier, I could grab hold of it and try swinging myself up into the open tile. I would have to pray that the chain would hold my weight, but there wasn't any other choice.

  The sound of footsteps approaching down the hall injected icy fear directly into my veins. No time to figure it out. This had to work. I scrambled up the naked dead woman, still managing to feel strange about putting my hands on a statue's rotting breast. Disgusting though it may be, it made a perfect hand- then foot-hold since it made a near ninety-degree angle from vertical as it was carved sloughing off from her body. It elevated me just enough to grab the edge of the chandelier.

  The footsteps were getting closer now. I could hear whoever it was pause in the library, probably looking curiously at the trail of water on the floor. I was in the air as I swung myself as hard as I could by the time the footsteps entered the office.

  I grabbed the edge of the ceiling from the opening of the access tile and used the top corner of the St. Andrew's cross to launch myself up what must have been a seven foot span. I dragged myself through the crawlspace as quickly as I could on my stomach, uncaring of the burns the scalding pipes made on my now more exposed back.

  “Intruder!” I heard a male voice call out from below. He ran off to get help, yelling that word over and over.

  Tears pricked my eyes, and the hot, humid air weighed heavy in my lungs as I made a mad dash for the leaky pipe. Please, dear God, let me have enough mimic magic left to make it back to Liam in one piece. This whole thing would be for nothing if I died in the damn pipe!

  Several loud voices barking out orders sounded from the bedroom behind me as I reached the leaky pipe that had led me here. They were right on my heels. I had to get back into the pipe, but I didn't have the time to sit there and meditate on turning into water this time.

  I frantically touched my hands into the near-boiling water dripping onto the bottom. Come on, come on, turn into water. My fingers hit the burning pipe and my body simply wasn't there anymore. I felt no pain or fear. I was flowing.

  This time, it was a shorter journey back through the maze of piping since I knew the way. Down the spout of lukewarm water and into the cold cistern I went, when a huge earthquake rocked the entire castle. But I was safe in the water. I went down through the pipes bringing water to the prisoners, until I found my pipe and Liam.

  As soon as I dripped back onto the floor, I became myself again and the panic hit me with renewed force. Liam ran to me from where he'd been sitting on the cot. He grabbed me and held me up when my knees buckled. I think he said something, but I couldn't understand through the haze of terror clouding my mind. There was only room for a single thought.

  “Hit the button!” I exclaimed, shoving the watch into his hands.

  “What the hell happened?” he demanded as he fiddled with it before tossing it to the side. I dove for it and thrust it back at him. How could he just toss the only thing that could save our lives?

  He reached for me instead. “Calm down. I already sent out the signal. Backup should be here in twenty minutes, tops,” he assured me in a soothing voice. He pulled me into his arms and patted my bare back. “Tell me what happened,” he repeated.

  “I couldn't get out without leav
ing a trail of water behind me. The guards noticed and I barely made it out,” I sobbed through my hyperventilating breaths. My voice was shaking almost as much as the rest of me and I couldn't stop a flood of tears from pouring out of my eyes against his chest.

  Liam then pulled back enough to look me over, finally noticing that I was dripping wet. “As soon as they check the perimeter for another intruder, they'll be coming for you,” Liam said, his voice grim. He cupped my face in his hands and made me meet his intense gaze. “Help is coming. My friends will get us out of here. When they get here, find a corner and hide until the fighting stops.” He spoke slowly and carefully, as if giving orders to a child. “I'll find you, I promise,” he vowed, and in that instant, I had no doubts that he would come back for me.

  Suddenly, the volume in the tower dropped from a loud din to eerie silence. My heart leaped into my throat. I knew what was headed for me now.

  Liam knew, too, and he pushed me behind him as the door to our cell blew clear off its hinges with a booming clang that echoed through the tower. I flinched and cowered behind Liam as the mad nightmare approached.

  Liam was flung sideways into the wall with so much force that the stone behind him crumbled into a divot. Instinctively, my head jerked up to see if he was okay. But the second my eyes left the floor, they came to meet Octavius's vibrant blue eyes inches from my own, nearly vibrating with a palpable fury.

  “What did you take?” His crystalline voice boomed so loudly that it echoed through the tower, enunciating each syllable and showering my face in spittle.

  My mind and body completely froze in the face of my imminent death like a deer in very bright headlights. Even had I been coherent, there was nothing that I could have said in the face of that much pure insanity and rage to save myself.

  From somewhere, I could hear Liam's angry protests and struggles against the invisible force which restrained him. But there was nothing he could do to stop this.

  Octavius's hand, pale and cold as death itself, pressed softly over my heart and slid up my throat so lightly that I could barely feel his fingertips tickling the baby-fine hairs of my body. The utter gentleness of his touch was somehow even more disturbing and terrifying than his raw, psychotic fury.

  “You violated the sanctity of my home, my bed. You invaded my chambers and took something of mine,” he hissed as his luminous blue eyes bored into mine, almost glowing with wrath. His voice and touch may have been muted and soft, but there was no mistaking the barely contained hurricane roiling inside him and the promise of creative retribution. “What was it?”

  Still frozen, I couldn't respond. Octavius turned his head to face Liam and he reached his right arm out towards him.

  “No!” I shrieked. I would not lose another friend in this nightmare.

  “Princeps,” the brown-haired guard called out, rushing into the cell like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.

  Octavius ignored him, clenching his hand slowly into a fist, and I could see the pain on Liam's face and his struggle not to give Octavius the satisfaction of crying out. Through his stoic silence, the sound of distant shouting reached the tower. A smile curved Liam's pursed lips, and Octavius frowned.

  “What?” Octavius bit out, not taking his eyes off Liam.

  “Pax forces have penetrated the outer wall,” the guard responded, taking an involuntary step back.

  Octavius' face mottled with red, and he let out an unholy roar that made the whole castle shiver. The hand that was still at his side shot upwards to the guard, who immediately took on the pallor of a dead fish.

  For a long moment, nothing happened. Then a slight dribble of red dripped slowly down his forehead. The guard tentatively reached up to touch it, whimpering pitifully when he saw the blood on his fingertips.

  The whimpering turned to shrieking when, before his own eyes, his hand began to liquefy into a puddle that splashed at his feet. His face drooped dramatically and, in desperation, his remaining hand flew up to his face to try to hold it up, making him look like The Scream. His screams went silent a fraction of a second before the rest of his body exploded like a popped water balloon, coating everything in the cell with blood.

  Unperturbed, Octavius shoved me back into the wall hard enough that I heard something crack, but I was so full of adrenaline that I couldn't feel it. Liam fell to the ground as Octavius whipped around on his heels and marched out of the cell, bellowing commands in Latin. Behind him, the cell door slammed shut so hard that it rang like a tuning fork.

  I crawled to Liam to check that he was still breathing, even though I knew that he— like all mages— could only be killed by decapitation.

  “The cavalry has arrived,” Liam announced, a wicked smile on his pain-reddened face.

  12

  In the long minutes after Octavius had stormed out, the occupants of the tower were still completely silent. All ears were listening to the approaching battle, anxiously trying to find out which side was winning.

  Liam grabbed my arm and made me look at him. “Once my men get close enough, they'll take down the spells blocking the flow of magic and repressing the strengths of the captives. When they do, the shit will really hit the fan. Some will fight, some will flee, some will take advantage of the chaos and take slaves of their own— not everyone here is a nice person.

  Once the magic returns, I'll blow off the door to our cell and join the battle. When I do that, I want you to go find a hiding spot somewhere out of the war zone.” He grabbed my face in his hands and made me meet his gaze. “What am I going to do after the battle is won?”

  Something in my eyes must have made him doubt whether I was really in here anymore or if I'd mentally checked out because he repeated himself.

  “Find me,” I answered.

  “Yes.” He nodded. “We're almost out of here. You just need to keep your head for a little while longer.”

  The screams of both rage and agony crescendoed, echoing louder and louder through the tower. The battle was drawing closer. The silence was broken when, from floors above, a man began shouting what sounded like a cross between a chant and a cheer in a foreign language. I realized that, even through all of the noises I'd heard in the tower since I'd been here, that these were the first actual words I'd heard any of the other prisoners say. Before, everything had just been noises— shouts, cries, murmuring. Slowly, more joined him, crying out their frustration and bloodthirst in a myriad of languages and primal roars.

  “The spells are weakening already. People can talk between the cells again,” Liam observed. He tried to stand up, but winced and couldn't straighten himself to vertical, curling forwards to support something broken in his torso. I put my shoulder under his and pulled his left arm behind my neck to take some of his weight and steady him. “When you're looking for a hiding place, don't be afraid to use your magic. With the flow of raw magic restored, your stones will be able to recharge. I don't know how long that'll take, but don't be stingy with it.” He stumbled. He may not have cried out from the pain, but it was obvious from the way he tensed.

  “Are you sure you're in any shape to fight?”

  He nodded. “I'll be fine.”

  Without warning, a vibrant sensation poured through me like water cascading down a waterfall. It was not hot, not cold, not painful. It made every nerve in my body sing like a tuning fork struck by the voice of the purest angel. Feeling it vibrate in the very center of my being made me want to move, to sing, to dance, to do anything but stand still.

  Liam closed his eyes in bliss, raising his face to the sky. In a voice breathy with a mixture of reverence and awe, he whispered, “Magic.”

  No sooner did the word leave his lips than a chorus erupted through the tower of deafening screeches as the doors to all of the cells were torn from their hinges and teeth-clattering clangs as they landed. It was so loud that I nearly dropped Liam as my hands instinctively flew up to cover my ears.

  But Liam didn't need my support anymore. Through the din, I cou
ld barely discern that Liam was chanting something in Latin and standing fully erect all by himself. His face was alight with a mixture of excitement and rage.

  “Are you injured?” he asked, clearly trying to restrain himself.

  “Not much.”

  “Good. Now go.” He raised his left index finger to point at the door. A flick of it sent the solid, wrought-iron bars sailing through the air. Once the path was open, he ran from the cell and leaped over the balcony to the first floor of the center of the tower, disappearing from sight.

  He wasn't the only one skipping the stairs. Hundreds of people and creatures were raining down from the floors above to get to the bottom more quickly. I couldn't take that route and instead ran along the path and down the stairs to the main level.

  There, a flood of people thicker and more desperate than the horde of people fleeing the bulls of Pamplona met me as thousands of people were trying to fit through a single entrance. The frantic shoving of a panicked crowd was almost as frightening as the wendigo that ate me. But I called on a thread of calm and heeded Liam's orders, trying my best to blend in and go with the flow of traffic. Tamping down my panic was almost impossible since I couldn't see farther than the thrashing back in front of me. I had to fight even harder and in tighter, nearly claustrophobic quarters just to keep myself from getting trampled by the trolls behind me.

  It seemed like ages had passed in the chaotic push and pull of the crowd before we finally reached the exit. The enormous, heavy wooden doors separating the tower from the rest of the castle were reduced to splinters on their hinges, with the rest scattered in chunks through the hall. Once through it, the castle was much wider and everyone could spread out of the bottleneck.

  In the broader space, the people in the crush began to lash out, attacking the guards charging us. From behind me, a sharp blow nearly sent me to the floor. By now, I'd learned that thick, deep sensation as being from a gash. The sound of a blade hitting my right hip bone reverberated through my flesh. I managed to avoid falling and being trampled, but the force from the blow pushed me down a dark and sparsely occupied hallway to the left.