War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Damn right,” Piran said. “What exactly were we going to do, locked up in Valshoa? Take up stargazing?”

  “Quintrel didn’t expect the Wraith Lord to force Dolan to help you leave,” Lowrey replied. “He thought he could count on the Knights to keep you prisoner. When you left, it meant that the key to magic slipped out of Vigus’s control. And he is a very competitive man.”

  “All well and good,” Ordel said impatiently. “But what about the impact on Blaine?”

  Lowrey paused, and Blaine reined in the impulse to shake the truth out of the eccentric mage. Lowrey was clearly relishing his moment on center stage. “He wants to get Blaine to ally with him, and in exchange, he’ll share what he’s discovered.”

  “You mean, hold Blaine hostage under threat that he support Quintrel or die?” Piran rose from his seat with outrage. Niklas waved him down.

  “And you’re saying the rumors are true that Quintrel has an alliance with Rostivan?” Niklas asked.

  “Yes,” Lowrey said. “Quintrel needed an army, and Rostivan needed mages.”

  Kestel exchanged a glance with Blaine that let him know she questioned Lowrey’s truthfulness. I wouldn’t put it past him to have made up the whole story just to get us to take him in, Blaine thought. Except that the part about the magic draining me strikes a little too true to be a complete invention.

  “I’m concerned about the effect that anchoring the magic is having on Blaine,” Ordel said. “I’ve healed him on more than one occasion, and his energy has… shifted. It feels ‘older’ than it should for someone of his age and health.”

  Zaryae nodded. “Three times I’ve dreamt of Blaine as an old man on his deathbed. At first, I took it as a good sign, that he was destined to live through these troubling times, with many decades ahead of him. The second time, I wondered if his future self had a message for us. The third time, I took it as a warning.”

  “It is consistent with some of the aftereffects we’ve seen of the ‘new’ magic,” Dagur added. He gave an apologetic shrug. “We’re still figuring out how magic works since the restoration. It’s not reliable, fades in and out, and as you’ve seen, it can be volatile.”

  “What’s that have to do with Blaine?” Niklas asked.

  “The mages who are working with the artifacts have to limit their time, because the magic drains them so badly,” Dagur replied. “We nearly lost a young mage who worked too long at a time with the artifacts. When we found him, he looked as if he’d been starving in a dungeon for weeks, but it had only been a few candlemarks.”

  “One mage, working for a few candlemarks with an artifact, and it does that to him?” Niklas said. He stared pointedly at Blaine. “And you’ve anchored all the magic on the Continent.”

  “What’s our option?” Kestel asked. She turned on Lowrey. “You said Quintrel had figured out the secret. How do we get it?”

  Lowrey spread his hands. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. Quintrel wouldn’t tell anyone else.”

  “We’ll keep working with the artifacts,” Dagur said with a sigh. “Maybe something will turn up.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Piran snapped. “If the drain is getting worse, then how long until it puts Mick flat on his back—or worse?”

  “It will take the time it takes,” Blaine said. “And in the meantime, we’ll figure out how to respond to Quintrel. At least now we have confirmation that I’m having a reaction to anchoring the magic.”

  “And until we’ve figured out how to protect you from it, we need to keep you away from powerful magic,” Kestel said.

  Dagur shook his head. “No, you don’t understand,” he said. They turned toward him. “It’s magic itself that’s the danger. How close it is won’t matter soon.” He looked at them in turn, worry clear in his face. “The bond is growing more powerful. Pretty soon, magic anywhere will take its toll on him. And if it kills him before he can find a new anchor, we’ll live through the loss of magic all over again.”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  THESE STONES ARE THE KEY TO THE FUTURE OF magic in Donderath.” Vigus Quintrel whisked away the cloth covering the top of a worktable to reveal thirteen glowing amber-colored crystals, each about the length and width of a man’s hand.

  “What are they?” Carensa asked, puzzled. She leaned forward for a better view. “They look like… rocks.”

  Quintrel chuckled. He was a short man in his middle years, with a balding pate. “Sometimes, important things hide in plain sight,” he said. He looked out across the four mages, his most trusted inner circle of advisers. These were the best of the scholars and magic-users who had followed him into self-imposed exile in Valshoa before the Great Fire. The gray-robed mage-scholars peered at the crystals, each roughly the size of a thick candle, trying to figure out what made them glow from within.

  “Presence-crystals,” Quintrel replied dramatically.

  “Those are just old legends,” Guran said, giving the glowing crystals a wary look. “No one has been known to use a presence-crystal in centuries.” Guran was one of the senior mages, and before the Cataclysm, he had been one of Quintrel’s fellows at the University in Castle Reach. Carensa and Jarle nodded their agreement, but Esban, the fourth mage and Quintrel’s second-in-command, said nothing.

  Quintrel’s smile broadened, with an expression that cherished knowing a secret. “You’re right. But the Valshoans knew about them—and we found their notes in the archives to make them our own.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jarle said. He was in his middle years, similar in age to Quintrel, with graying dark hair and perceptive blue eyes. “How do the presence-crystals affect magic?”

  Quintrel’s eyes were alight. “Because they are the way to take back control of the magic from Blaine McFadden and anchor it so that it cannot be taken from us again.”

  Carensa resisted the urge to look to either Guran or Jarle for confirmation that she had heard correctly. To her relief, Guran asked the question that sprang to mind.

  “I’m afraid you’ve skipped ahead of us a few steps, Vigus,” Guran said. “I’m not following you.”

  Quintrel began to pace. His face held a manic intensity. “Blaine McFadden was the last living Lord of the Blood. He came here, to a place of power, a place where the meridians and nodes intersect, and he was able to work the ritual and bind the wild visithara magic to become controllable, hasithara magic.”

  “I was there, Vigus. We held the wardings that helped him do it. But these crystals weren’t part of the working,” Guran said.

  “Yes, yes. Be patient,” Quintrel admonished. “When McFadden bound the magic, it required an anchor. He became that anchor. One man. The last time, and the time before that—and perhaps always—there were thirteen Lords of the Blood. That’s why the magic is brittle. Its mooring is shaky, held only by one man rather than solidly anchored in the bloodlines of more than a dozen lineages.”

  “That part I understand,” Guran said. “But what do the stones have to do with it?” Carensa hid her smile. Guran was enticing Quintrel to explain himself in the way he was least able to resist: being the expert with a clever discovery.

  “The obsidian disks that McFadden brought with him had belonged to the original thirteen Lords of the Blood,” Quintrel said. He paced faster, and his gestures were quick, almost manic. “They stole those disks when they left us.”

  They took the disks with them when they escaped, Carensa thought. Fair enough, considering that they brought them in the first place, except for the one Vigus found.

  “And?” Guran prompted.

  Quintrel turned abruptly, his eyes wide. “Don’t you see? The disks explained the working to bind the magic. They were a cipher for the maps, and a key to the power.” He dropped his voice conspiratorially. “But I had a chance to study the disks before they were taken. And I suspected that they might hold the secret to the biggest challenge to anchoring the magic—how to deal with the fact that twelve of the original lords’ blood
lines have died out.”

  Carensa chafed at Quintrel’s roundabout revelation. It was one of her mentor’s less admirable traits. In the months she had spent with the mage-scholars in Valshoa, Carensa had come to realize that Vigus Quintrel was a cipher himself.

  “And the crystals?” Guran asked, eyebrows raised.

  “The Valshoans understood about binding magical energy. And they knew that anchoring it came at a price. The thirteen hosts were needed, or the magic would be too much for them to bear. Anyone who anchors the magic is more closely bound to it. In a way it flows through them like the nodes and meridians. Some gain new powers; others grow stronger in what they already had. But too few people anchoring and all that magic burns them up,” Quintrel explained.

  Carensa caught her breath. That was something she had never heard before, and it meant that Blaine McFadden had paid a price for bringing the magic back under control far beyond the immediate drain of the working. “Can the anchor be transferred?” she asked.

  Quintrel nodded. “That’s the point—the manuscripts I found tell us how to do that, and the crystals are the key. I’ve had a team of mages working out the details. There have been some… setbacks… but we’ve figured it out, and you see the outcome in front of you.”

  “Setbacks?” Jarle asked.

  Quintrel made a dismissive gesture. “The magic is unstable. There were injuries. But think of what we’ve discovered,” he said, his expression aglow with excitement. “We can transfer the anchor, make it stable, and assure that our mages are the lynchpin for magic for generations!”

  “And how, exactly, will we do that?” Jarle’s voice was patient, attempting to get Quintrel to focus. Of late, Quintrel had been distracted, prone to wild mood swings, and more volatile than Carensa had ever seen. No wonder the mages of his inner circle had taken to handling him gingerly.

  “The crystals have been prepared to accept the imprint of twelve new masters. Twelve new Lords of the Blood,” he replied, with a triumphant look. “We’ll get Blaine McFadden to return to Valshoa,” Quintrel said, agitated with enthusiasm. “Then we’ll use the crystals to place twelve of our own as the new Lords of the Blood. Our lineage will bind the magic. It will be as it ought—mages controlling magic.”

  “I don’t think you’ll easily convince McFadden to return to Valshoa,” Guran said. “What if he refuses?”

  Quintrel’s expression grew hard. “Then we force him to come.” He looked to all of them with the fervor of a prophet. “Don’t you see? We stand at a crossroads of history. This is our chance to choose the new Lords of the Blood, the families that will anchor the magic—and have a stake in its binding—for centuries to come.”

  “You’re going to kidnap Blaine McFadden?” Jarle repeated incredulously. “What about his army? His allies? And his assassins?”

  Quintrel made a motion as if swatting away flies. “Those concerns are of no regard. I have an agent of my own in place. We’ll incapacitate McFadden, spirit him away, and impress upon him the need to cooperate with our plans.”

  “And once you’ve used the crystals and created a new quorum, then what?” Guran asked. “Do you just expect McFadden to go about his business as if nothing happened?”

  Quintrel frowned. “That’s where it gets complicated,” he said. He sighed. “We know it’s possible to keep the binding if one—or several—of the original Lords dies without an heir. What happens next is really up to McFadden,” he said with a shrug. “We may be forced to keep him here until he agrees to an alliance,” he said matter-of-factly. “And if that’s not an option, I’m afraid we’ll be forced to end his line.”

  Silence fell as Quintrel gave them a moment to consider his last statement. “So much for McFadden,” he said finally, as if his last comment was of no particular import. “We’ve got Rostivan to handle.”

  Torinth Rostivan was a warlord, and he was Quintrel’s newest ally. Carensa was skeptical of the alliance, but she knew Quintrel well enough to keep her reservations to herself.

  “You still haven’t explained the terms of our new alliance,” Guran said warily.

  Quintrel’s smile broadened once more. “In short, Rostivan does our fighting for us. As he gains power, so do we.”

  “Why would he fight for us?” Jarle questioned, frowning. “And what makes you so sure he’ll include us once he has the power he wants?”

  “Because I have a hold over him,” Quintrel said simply. He reached into a leather satchel that sat on the table behind him, and withdrew a glass orb. It looked like a scrying ball, with one hideous difference. Preserved in the middle was a mummified human hand clenched in a fist.

  Guran’s eyes widened and he stared at the orb. “What in the name of the gods is that? Vigus, what have you done?”

  Quintrel’s smile grew brittle. “I did what I had to do to ensure us a future in the new order,” he snapped. “This artifact puts Rostivan under my control. He is unable to defy me—and with mages to be my eyes and ears, he won’t be able to make a move without my knowing it.”

  “Where did you find that… thing?” Jarle asked, his voice a horrified gasp. Carensa peered at the orb with a mixture of fear and fascination. The glass appeared thick and quite solid. The hand was withered and gray, though not as fragile as the old bodies Carensa had seen in the tombs. Instead, the hand looked like it had belonged to a very old, wizened man, preserved as it might have been when it was severed.

  “It was buried deep in the Valshoan catacombs,” Quintrel replied. His mood had soured, and Carensa guessed that he was not happy at the reaction from his senior mages.

  “Perhaps it should have remained there,” Jarle replied. “Such things are not to be meddled with, even for mages.”

  “We are above such superstition!” Quintrel shot back, his face coloring with anger. “It’s a tool, nothing more.” He held the orb in his left hand, and his right hand smoothed over it, as if he were petting a cat. Quintrel did not seem aware of the motion.

  “How did you bind it to Rostivan?” Carensa asked, doing her best to look like the attentive student she had been when she had first won his favor. Quintrel quieted, and managed a thin smile.

  “A very good question. We had to experiment, and with the magic as it is, the price was dear,” Quintrel replied. No one was willing to face his wrath by asking, but Carensa was certain they were all thinking the same question: How dear?

  “Although the glass seems solid, it can melt when the hand wills it,” Quintrel said. “With the proper incantation, offering, and ritual, it will accept a token of the intended target. In this case, I had managed to gather a lock of Rostivan’s hair. That hair is now clasped in the hand, and until it is released, Rostivan will be under my influence.” Quintrel was quite pleased with himself, but there was a cruel glint in his eyes that Carensa found disturbing, and new.

  “When the hand wills it?” Guran echoed. “Vigus, that’s not a bound divi, is it?”

  Carensa’s eyes widened. She had heard of divis, old spirits that were neither god nor mortal, stronger than wraiths, far more powerful than ghosts. Spirits that had existed since before the world was formed. Long ago, mages had hoped to bind divis to their call, hoping to amplify their own magic through the power of the captive spirit. Legends abounded of the horrible fates that such mages met. Divis, as Carensa recalled from her studies, tended to extract a price for their services, higher than anyone wanted to pay, and the divis thrived on chaos and destruction.

  “There’s nothing to fear,” Quintrel said. There was a mocking undertone in his voice. Carensa looked closely at him, and saw that he wore a small orb on a strap around his neck. The orb glowed with a faint yellow light, and Carensa was willing to bet it was also part of the divi.

  “The divi—or whatever animates the magic of the artifact—is quite assuredly subordinate to my will,” Quintrel assured them. “As is Rostivan.”

  Something Quintrel said earlier finally made an impression on Carensa. She smoothed a hand over h
er short red hair, pushing a strand behind one ear. “Vigus,” she said, intentionally keeping her tone nonthreatening, “what did you mean about mages being your eyes and ears around Rostivan?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I’ve arranged for six of you to accompany Rostivan back to his stronghold in Torsford, and to be his mage-advisers as he wages war,” Quintrel replied in a tone that suggested his announcement was no more controversial than speculation about the weather.

  Guran and Jarle both spoke out at once. “We are not battle mages!” Guran argued.

  “Vigus, such things ought to have been discussed before committing us,” Jarle chided.

  Quintrel’s eyes darkened with anger. “My first concern—my only concern—is the welfare of this community of mages. We were tools of warfare under King Merrill, and the Cataclysm was the result of placing mages under the control of non-mages. That is why in Rostivan’s new order, we are equal to the generals. And that is why I—not Rostivan—am in control.”

  “You want to use Rostivan and his army to gain political power,” Carensa said quietly. Once, she had been one of Quintrel’s most promising pupils. Perhaps, she thought, she had learned her lessons too well. “Instead of a warrior king having puppet mages, you intend to have a puppet warrior.”

  Quintrel’s smile was more of a snarl. “Very good, Carensa. You were always quick with your lessons.”

  “How are we to be your eyes and ears if we’re in Torsford?” Jarle asked. It was clear to Carensa that the older mage was treading carefully, although with Quintrel’s temper of late, it was difficult to know what might send him into a rage.

  “You’ll be going to Torsford, to set up the new University there,” Quintrel replied blithely. “When Rostivan has need of you to accompany his troops, you will go with him—and report back to me. Rostivan will be here tomorrow to gather you and your things. Take everything; you probably won’t be returning to Valshoa.”

  “Why not?” Carensa asked, trying to hide her confusion and alarm.

  “Because I intend for our mages to return to the outside world and claim our rightful place,” Quintrel said. “Oh, I’ll leave a few here to maintain Valshoa in case we should need access to the meridians and nodes here, but I don’t believe we’ll need to hide here once Rostivan secures power—and we have a new anchor for the magic. With a stronger anchor, the magic should lose its brittleness, and our power will be secure,” he said with a triumphant smile.