There were noises that were louder and closer outside the seal room; Theus reached for the sunlight, and resumed invisibility. A moment later, a squad of four guards opened the door and entered the room.
“The advisor is down!” one of them exclaimed. The group hurried to reach the man and bend over him.
“He’s dead!” Theus heard a surprised voice speak.
“The seal is gone!” another observed a moment later.
Theus stood in the sunlight, letting the energy sustain his invisibility, as he tried to assess the situation. He needed to escape. He needed to find and stay in sunlight as long as he could while he was trapped in the palace; his own energy was low, and needed time to restore itself. His recollection was that the hallway outside the room he was in was windowless hall, but windows existed in the corridor beyond, and once he was there, he might be able to stay safe in enough ambient energy to maintain his invisibility, and escape.
He took a breath, then walked at a quick pace to the still-open door to the room, and slipped out. He found a number of guards loitering in the hallway, causing him to slowly wind his way among them, avoiding contact until he came to the closed doorway that exited from the hall.
When he opened the door, numerous eyes turned to look, and as he slipped out, he heard several murmured questions about the inexplicable movement of the door.
There were guards in the hallway he entered, but servants too, and most importantly, there were windows. Theus stepped over to the wall by the windows, and let the full stream of sunlight relieve his stress. He felt a lighthearted joy, a belief that he was nearly free.
He was right. By noon he had woven a trail out of the palace grounds and back into the city. He cut through an alley and released his invisibility, then emerged as a non-descript person on the street and walked back to the Blue Coach tavern, carrying the palace seal in his pack.
Both Alsman and Eiren were seated at a corner table when he arrived in the mid-afternoon.
“Where have you been? What took so long?” Alsman asked.
“There was a magician at the palace!” Theus hissed.
“Did you get the seal?” Eiren asked.
Theus lifted his pack and opened it, then partially pulled the seal out to display it to his companions.
“Did you hear me?” he asked them sternly. “There was a magician in the palace. And Donal was able to see me using some black magic powers!”
“Who is Donal?” Alsman asked.
“He’s the supreme black magician, and he’s the head of Ind’Petro’s evil worshippers. He’s from Southsand. And he hates me,” Theus told them in a voice that hinted at his fear.
“Are we in trouble? Will the magicians attack us?” Eiren asked.
“I think we’re okay,” Theus said. “As long as there aren’t any other magicians in the city.” He waved to the waitress and ordered food; he was famished, he realized.
“You killed one; can’t you just use your magic to kill others?” the girl suggested.
“The one I killed I did with my staff,” Theus patted the long weapon beside him, “not with magic. I don’t have magical strength equal to theirs,” he said. As he said it though, he wondered at the truth of the statement. With access to the energy of sunlight, he speculated, he might have more power than the black magicians, at least within the limited range of magical functions that he knew.
But he also considered the possibility that Donal might be on his way to Greenfalls. Theus had learned to travel great distances in quick time, and perhaps Donal and the black magicians would be able to do the same.
He drew a sharp breath as he considered the possibility.
“What is it?” Alsman asked.
“If Donal decides to come here, we’ll all be in trouble,” Theus said.
“Should we give up now, or hurry up and carry out our plan?” Eiren asked.
Theus froze for a moment as he tried to weigh the consequences of the alternatives. He thought about what might happen to his own life, and the lives of Eiren and Alsman, then he thought about the impact to the city. Then his mind seemed to expand, and he found himself thinking about all that might feel the results of the battle to cleanse Greenfalls of corruption and foul leaders – Limber, which sat isolated from the rest of the world, except via roads that must pass through Greenfalls, Stoke the wealthy capital of the kingdom, through who Greenfalls’s own purloined riches passed, and from where Greenfalls’s corrupt governor and black magician had perhaps come. Theus even found himself thinking of Great Forks and Coriae, and the ways in which the girl’s life depended on the decision he had just been asked to make.
“We’ll fight,” he said grimly. “We ought to move fast, and try to win control of the city swiftly, before Donal gets here and consolidates power, if he is on his way,” Theus decided.
“How fast can we make this happen?” he asked.
“I just sent notes this morning,” Alsman protested.
“I can have a mob ready to go first thing tomorrow,” Eiren responded positively. “Let me take that seal to a place I know, and we’ll have copies of offensive proclamations up before night fall.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Theus asked.
“No, I want you to figure out how you can immobilize the palace defenses so that they can’t fight back when we attack,” the girl replied.
“Well, if you’re determined to do this so prematurely, I need to get to the nobles’ mansions along the northern slopes across the river, to make sure we’ll have nobles who will join our cause,” Alsman bowed to the apparently inevitable conflict. “They can provide resources and leadership and weapons; if they persuade one another that a coup is needed, they’ll stay out of our way and help us when we need them.
“I’ll go start talking to them now,” he stood up from the table.
“I’ll go start getting broadsides printed with the seal of the palace on them,” Eiren said.
“I’ll finish my lunch,” Theus noted the plate of food that had arrived. “Then I’ll go see where I can make it easiest to break into the palace tomorrow morning.”
His two companions left the tavern together, and Theus started to shovel food into his mouth, then left minutes later. He walked back to the vicinity of the palace, then once again collected the energy of the falling sunlight and turned invisible. And for the next hour he walked around the inside perimeter of the palace walls, observing where the gates and the guards and the defenses were.
That evening, when the three conspirators met again, they concocted their plan, and then separated to go inform their followers one more time about the details and the timing of the events planned for the following day. Theus went back to the palace to sneak inside the walls once again, and he secretly disabled the lock on a little-used gate he had found in the back of the palace grounds.
When he returned to the inn, he arrived at the same time as Alsman, and the two walked upstairs together.
“It’ll be good to get a couple of hours of sleep,” Alsman admitted.
“Come knock on my door when you wake up,” Theus suggested. “Just to make sure I’m awake too. I’m in the room with the blue door.”
“I’ll do that,” the priest agreed. “Should I knock on Eiren’s door as well?”
“She’s sleeping in my room,” Theus said without thinking about the implications of the comment.
“Oh,” Alsman said in a softer voice. “I didn’t know it was like that between the two of you. She’s a fine companion for you – I find that I admire her greatly.”
“No, no, no,” Theus immediately corrected the mistaken assumption. “It’s not like that. There was only one room left when we checked in. No, she wouldn’t have me as a mate, I’m sure, and my heart still is hung on another hook,” he admitted.
“That’s good to know,” Alsman answered with inexplicable cheeriness. “If, you both feel comfortable with it,” he added in an apologetic tone.
“Good night,” he reached his
door and entered, while Theus continued down the hall to enter his own room. Eiren was lying on top of her side of the bed.
“I’m exhausted,” she spoke as he lay down next to her.
“Me too. I told Alsman to be sure to knock on our door to wake us up in the morning,” Theus informed her as he raised a foot to pull off a boot.
“You told him we were sleeping together? You idiot!” she punched his arm angrily.
“No! I said we weren’t like that; I told him you wouldn’t want me,” Theus tried to mollify her.
“That’s better,” she said, mollified. “I wouldn’t want him to think poorly of me.”
“What’s so poor about liking me?” Theus asked, partially with hurt feelings, partially out of sheer curiosity.
“Oh, you know, nothing really. It’s just that you’re who you are, and we’re different. When we first met, it might have seemed likelier – we were closer to being the same type of people, but we have different directions to go now. We’ve gone in different directions,” she tried to vaguely explain. “If there were some girl I knew and really was close to, and she said she was falling in love with you, I’d tell her there wasn’t a better man in the world for her than you.
“And I mean it,” Eiren seemed to feel that her rambling excuse was a positive spin, though Theus felt little comfort.
They quickly fell into uneasy states of sleep, and Theus awoke before dawn, aware that he needed to head to the palace. He dressed and shook Eiren.
“I’ll go open up the gates; everything will be ready when your group arrives,” he pledged.
He left the room and walked down the hall, just as Alsman’s door opened.
“Already on your way? Good! Is Eiren awake?” the priest asked.
Theus didn’t know why, but he felt that he needed to let the priest awaken Eiren again.
“Go give her door a knock and push it open; I left it unlocked,” Theus advised, and then he hurried on his way.
He went to the palace, hurrying through the streets in the darkness before dawn. There were few others on the streets, and he casually cloaked himself in invisibility while on the plaza outside the main palace gate, a gate that remained partially open throughout the evening and morning. He quietly passed through the gate, then began to circle around to the rear of the palace. He went to an unmanned gate and unlocked the doors, then went to make sure the gate he had disabled the night before was still unnoticed. Finally, he went to the main gate in the back of the palace campus, an opening that was large enough for wagons to easily enter. Or mobs of attackers, Theus thought to himself.
He climbed a tree, settled into place, then released his use of his energy while he waited for the attack on the palace to begin and for the sun to rise. He thought about the brief exchanges with Alsman and Eiren the night before. He had admitted to himself that through the emotional ups and downs of the recent weeks, he found himself still holding on to some hopeless dream of Coriae.
And he thought that he had detected some level of interest by both Eiren and Alsman in the affairs of each other. Perhaps he had read too much into the tones and facial expressions he had detected, he told himself, but perhaps not. They were an odd couple to consider, separated by age, background, and temperament, he thought. But he and Coriae had seemed just as unlikely, and for a while, they had meshed well.
The sun was giving a pink glow to the eastern horizon, he realized some minutes later as he continued to brood over his lost love, and then he saw movement in the distance, at the gate he had promised to disable for the rebel forces that Eiren had raised. Theus reached out and gathered together as much energy as he could from the faint pink rays of light, then added his own power, and slipped down from the tree. It was time for him to move into action
“Please Lord Limber and Lady Currense, let us find success today without great losses,” he whispered the prayer, then began to move towards the guards on duty at the gate for the wagons.
Theus placed himself between the guards and the infiltrating rebels, then approached the unsuspecting guards with his staff lifted, ready to swing it as needed. Two guards were soon unconscious before the other two even realized something was amiss, and then the other two lost their consciousness from swift blows delivered to their heads by the unseen assailant.
Theus regained his visibility, then opened the wide doors, and waited for the bulk of the men Eiren had recruited. Within moments she arrived and led the group into the palace.
“I see you’ve done your work,” she spoke softly. “Well done so far.
“Now come with me in the lead. We’ll follow Alsman’s directions about the layout of the palace and try to take the governor captive. And you watch out for magicians and defeat them for us if you see them,” she commanded him. “I want to deliver this palace to Alsman as quickly and bloodlessly as possible,” she explained, then started walking towards the palace.
“I may not be much good against a black magician,” Theus warned her.
“I’ve seen what you can do. You’ll win,” Eiren dismissed his worries.
They entered the palace with dozens of men behind them, and dozens more spreading over the palace grounds to take control of the stables and gates and other facilities. When Theus and Eiren led their men into the palace, they quickly overran any opposition, and soon had control of the palace, with no magician involved, and the governor captured and chained before noon.
“Send for Alsman and his nobles,” Eiren instructed one of her aides she had recruited from the docks, as she and Theus were surrounded by their supporters in the governor’s throne room at midday. “We’ll let him make the decisions about what comes next.”
Alsman arrived an hour later, with a dozen members of the nobility around him.
“Where is the former governor?” he asked Eiren.
“We’ve locked him in the prison cells below the palace. We also set several men free who we found there,” Eiren reported. “We’ve sent guards to secure the treasury as well.”
“Send men over to the temple of Currense,” Alsman ordered. “Take the high priest Bened under arrest, and bring him back here to be put in jail with the governor.”
“We’ll do so immediately,” Eiren promised. “In the meantime, there is a large crowd gathered outside in the plaza, wanting to know what is happening in the city. You should go address them, my lord,” Eiren advised.
Alsman and the nobles, accompanied by Eiren and Theus, made the trip to the palace walls and climbed to the top, so that he could make a speech to the assembled population, promising fairer treatment and a better future for everyone in the city.
When they returned to the throne room they received the news that Bened the high priest of Currense had escaped from the temple and ridden away from the city in a hurry when the first reports of Alsman’s ascension to power reached the temple.
By evening, the city was calm and the palace was firmly controlled by Alsman, his nobles, and the impromptu guard of waterfront ruffians Eiren had raised.
“You need to go find a room and get some sleep,” Alsman interrupted one of his conversations with the nobles to tell Eiren, as he saw the girl yawn.
“If you’re still awake working, I will be too,” she replied.
Alsman smiled at the response. “I won’t stay awake much longer. We’ve about wrapped up our work for today. We just need to hold a prayer vigil and give thanks to Currense for the great fortune she granted us today.”
He led the prayers to the goddess, and then dismissed most of his advisors and guards.
“Theus, you’ve been quiet today, but I know you helped make this incredible success possible,” the new ruler of Greenfalls commented.
“I’m glad we didn’t find any more magicians,” Theus said in a tired voice. “There is a favor I have to ask. I need to depart for Great Forks as quickly as possible. I need to take as many fighters as I can. Can you give me a force that can fight the invasion approaching Great Forks?”
“We�
�ll provide as much as we can,” Alsman looked at Eiren as he spoke. “Can you arrange forces to help our friend?” he asked.
“First thing tomorrow morning,” she pledged.
Chapter 28
By the following nightfall, Theus was leading four river barges loaded with fighters down the Landwide River. The members of the force were a mixture of men from Eiren’s recruited force of muscular men from the docks, as well as several of the regular guards of the palace, who were eager to face the opportunity to fight in a true war, especially after the confusion of seeing control of the governor’s office unexpectedly flipped over.
Theus was named as leader of the outing, with a captain of the Greenfalls palace guard assigned to assist him. He found that his youthful appearance forced him to have to prove his worth over the next few days of the journey down the river, but his magical powers, along with his competence with the sword and staff, soon persuaded the warriors to accept his leadership, as he told them of the prophecy that Limber had given him, of an invasion by Southsand forces.
Theus described the evil nature of the Southsand regime, especially Donal, and warned the fighters of the dangers they would face, thought he couldn’t describe any particular details before they arrived at the city and learned the facts on the ground first hand.
The trip down the river had taken Theus three weeks when he had experienced it as a barge hand on board the Surprise, as that ship had stopped to pick up or drop off goods in a variety of towns along the river. Captain Jack had sparred with Theus at swords, and an older crewman named Kiltik had tutored Theus in the ways of the world.
And Theus had learned a bit of history, knowledge that carried a faintly ominous tint during his second voyage down the river.
“This valley is called the Battle Valley,” Theus explained to the palace officer who was his nominal second in command. “There used to be wars fought by armies from Greenfalls, Great Forks, and even Limber and Stoke, all along this valley,” Theus described the peaceful terrain between two mountain chains.
Unpredictable Fortunes (The Memory Stone Series Book 3) Page 26