“Dammit!” I cursed. “Where are Penny and the children? Have they reached the apartments upstairs?”
Walter frowned as he focused upon the many people moving within the castle, trying to identify them. “They’re close to the fighting. No… wait, the Countess is fighting.”
The next few minutes were some of the worst of my life, as Walter quietly relayed the events unfolding. My heart was in my throat as he told me of Penny’s fall, and her subsequent close call with death. When he began describing the events with Elaine and the children upstairs, we both grew tense.
“I can’t sense the children any longer, she’s hidden them with a stationary invisibility illusion… and she’s created an empty shield, probably as a decoy. Clever girl!” said Walter with pride. “They can’t tell where she is hiding. She’s managing multiple illusions now, and maintaining the invisibility around Rose and the children. When did she grow so skilled? I doubt I could manage all that at once.”
“Where’s Penny?” I said tersely.
“She’s coming up the stairs now… Oh my! Fire whips? Where did she get that idea? Did you teach her that?” asked Walter.
“Entirely her idea,” I responded.
“She’s facing them down now, but…” Walter’s voice trailed away as he trained all of his attention on the fight between his only daughter and the warriors trying to find my wife and children. “No!” he shouted suddenly, and my heart leapt into my throat.
“What?!”
“She’s down! One of them got to her!” cried Walter. The man was already on his feet and heading for the door. I was right behind him. The rest of the world could go to hell, if it meant my family would suffer for it.
He stopped before opening the door, concentrating, and then he relaxed. “She’s alive!” he said as I looked at him with concern.
“And the others?” I said worriedly.
“Safe, your wife took the last two of the enemy from behind, but Elaine is badly wounded. She seems to be unconscious. The last of them fell over her after your wife cut the top half of his head off… when did she get so strong? She fought like a demon!” said Walter, with some surprise.
“I’ll explain that later. Tell me what’s happening,” I told him impatiently.
“My daughter is definitely unconscious, they’ve dragged her out and it appears that Lady Rose is tying her leg up… it’s a terrible mess. I think she’s made a tourniquet. Your wife doesn’t have much of a dress left, they used one of her sleeves for it,” he explained.
That brought a smile to my lips for a moment. If only I were there to give her some encouragement, I thought. “Such a wanton…,” I said quietly. I didn’t bother saying it loudly enough for Walter; he wouldn’t have gotten the joke. “Are there any more of the enemy near them?” I asked.
“No,” replied the older wizard. “They’re almost to the door now. The countess is carrying Elaine. Her leg looks to be a mess. I don’t think I can heal something like that,” he admitted. “She might not walk again unless…” he looked at me before looking away.
Unspoken was the fact that if it required a complex act of healing, I was probably the only wizard alive that could manage it. “We have to survive this before we can think about anything else,” I told him.
“If we don’t…” he began and then paused for a moment before continuing, “Her wound is bad. I’m not sure she’ll survive for long without some sort of healing.”
“They can send word to George, if we don’t survive,” I said to reassure him. “And if by some miracle we do, then you can help her, maybe.” I slid back down to rest on the floor. The cold stone felt good. It helped distract me from the nausea. “How is the barrier holding up?”
“No real change,” said Walter in a quiet voice.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I never meant to put this sort of burden on you. I always intended to do this alone.”
“Don’t apologize to me,” Walter replied in an angry tone. “You always do that. It isn’t fair.”
“Do what?” I was curious. Walter rarely showed his irritation.
“Take responsibility for everyone else, and then apologize when you can’t do it all by yourself. How do you think that makes the rest of us feel? I’m a grown man. I may not be able to move mountains and bring gods to heel, but I can damn well do my best to protect friends and family… so don’t apologize to me for not being able to do everything for me!” he snapped back.
I lowered my head, “You’re right. I’m sorry, Walter.”
“What did I just tell you?” he barked back, but as I looked up his eyes held a glint of amusement.
I laughed, “Alright, I don’t know how to answer that, but you have a point. How is the barrier now?”
“Why do you keep asking that? You do realize I will tell you the second it breaks don’t you?” he answered.
“I should have been clearer. If possible, I want to open the barrier before it breaks. That’s why I keep asking. If you detect a weakness in it, we should turn it off then,” I explained.
“Even if the people aren’t finished evacuating?”
“Yes.”
Walter frowned. “I thought the idea was to buy as much time as possible. Why would you give up even a half a minute to them?”
“Because if it fails, the feedback might destroy more than the barrier enchantment, it might undo the enchantment that keeps Celior contained within the gem,” I replied. “That could make our situation significantly worse.”
My friend put a hand over his eyes. “You really should tell me these things sooner.”
“I don’t really know for sure,” I said. “It’s just a worry I have.”
The older wizard’s eyes lit with understanding for a moment, “Ah ha!”
“What?”
“Now I understand the ‘Ironheart Chamber’ a bit better. All that iron never made sense to me. You didn’t need it for the concealing enchantment, you needed it to help contain Celior if the gem failed,” Walter declared.
I had been watching him carefully from the moment he mentioned the Ironheart Chamber. It probably didn’t matter at this point if he knew the purpose, but I still relaxed once I heard his theory. For a moment, I almost corrected him, but I held my tongue. If one of the gods gets another crack at his mind, it might spoil our last chance, I thought.
That led me to another uncomfortable realization; without my power, how could I protect my own mind? Ignoring Walter’s sudden ‘insight’, I asked him a question instead, “What do I look like to you?”
“How do you mean exactly?”
“My aura, my mood… I can’t shield my mind. Can you read my emotions? Do I still look like a wizard?” I said, clarifying my question. Normally, if I wasn’t careful to shield myself, not only would another person with magesight be able to sense my emotions but they could also get a relative feel for the strength of my power.
Walter’s look was one of sympathy, or perhaps pity, “I’m sorry Mordecai. I don’t sense anything around you, other than a very faint aura, just enough that I can tell you’re still alive. Your power is gone… not just your sight.”
His description was disheartening. I had half-hoped that perhaps my problem was simply being unable to sense or ‘feel’ my own aythar, as well as the aythar around me. Still, there might be one bright side to my problem. “When you say ‘faint’, how faint?” I asked.
“Like Dorian,” he said bluntly.
Dorian Thornbear was what the wizards of old had called a ‘stoic’, meaning that he was completely dead to magic. He could neither manipulate it, nor sense it, and likewise he could not be affected by it, except in a purely physical sense. “Try to put me to sleep,” I suggested.
“Huh?” said Walter with a confused look.
“When you were fighting the influence of that god a few minutes ago, I couldn’t feel a thing. I think, for all intents and purposes, I may be like a stoic now. Put me to sleep, or paralyze me, anything… see if you can touch my m
ind,” I explained.
We experimented for several minutes before coming to the conclusion that I was indeed, essentially a stoic now. “Congratulations,” Walter told me. “Your theory was correct and you are completely powerless. I fail to see why you are even slightly happy about it.”
“Sometimes it’s the little things that matter,” I replied. “I may not have my power, but at least I don’t have to worry about them picking information out of my head, or fighting against their overwhelming compulsions once he… or they, do get in here.”
“They… do you think it’s more than one?”
“I hope not.”
Walter snorted, “It doesn’t really matter. I’m no match for one, two would just be overkill.”
“We still have some hope… if it is just one,” I suggested.
“I really wish you would tell me what you have planned. It would be a lot easier to help you,” retorted Walter.
“You can be my hands, but if you want my secrets, you’ll have to pry them from my mind,” I said tapping my head.
“Hmmph,” grunted Walter, “Not even your wife can get through that dense skull of yours.”
“Exactly, my friend. Exactly!” I crowed.
“You seem to be feeling better at least,” observed the other wizard.
The nausea had in fact faded to some degree. “I think you’re right. Perhaps I’m not dying after all?” I suggested hopefully.
He shook his head sadly, “From what I learned, you don’t start the bad part for a few days. You’ll turn yellow first before going slowly mad with pain and hallucinations.”
“Yellow?” I said incredulously. “You didn’t mention anything about odd color changes before. That hardly seems realistic.”
“Not bright yellow,” Walter corrected, “I think it’s more like the color some old drunks turn before they get really sick.”
“Jaundiced?” I asked.
“I couldn’t think of the word, but that’s it,” agreed the older wizard.
I was beginning to wish I had paid more attention to some of the things I had read in the past, regarding illnesses and the physician’s art. No I don’t, I thought suddenly, as it stands now, any knowledge I might have learned, would probably just have frightened me more. “Let’s talk about something else for a while,” I suggested. “Like our impending struggle… how is the evacuation progressing?”
Walter’s eyes unfocused for a moment, as he concentrated on things beyond our physical sight. After a few seconds he answered me, “They’re getting close to finishing. Most of the people have been moved. I think soon they’ll be able to start on the soldiers.” He cocked his head to the side a bit, as though he were listening to something before continuing, “The barrier feels different now. The ‘pitch’ of the vibration seems higher when it’s struck.”
“That’s not good,” I told him. “It’s getting close to breaking.”
“What do we do now?”
“Can you project an image where Harold is? He’s supposed to be in charge of the evacuation at the circle building,” I asked.
“Easily,” said Walter. “I am a Prathion after all.”
The Prathions were known for their facility with illusions, as well as their ability to become invisible. I could sense things almost two miles distant… well, I had been able to, but projecting an image was much more difficult, because of the level of control and finesse required. Before my poisoning, I could have sent an image that far, but I had never tested Walter to see his own limit. I had just assumed it would be a shorter distance than my own range.
“Good, place it close to Harold and tell him that the barrier is coming down in one minute. Your son should take his last group and remain in Albamarl,” I instructed.
“Dorian is there. Should I direct the message to him instead?”
“Sure, just make sure he knows they only have a minute to get those who are left inside the keep,” I said.
A long moment passed before Walter responded again, “Alright, I think they understood. They seem to be moving everyone left toward the keep now. What’s next?”
“Shhh,” I said abruptly, as I counted under my breath.
“Huh?”
I waved my hands at him, “I’m counting.”
“Oh!” he said in sudden understanding.
I tried to keep my pace slow, as I mentally worked my way up to a count of one hundred. I’d have just counted to sixty, but I was afraid that nervousness and adrenaline might have affected my sense of time already. Once I reached my mark, I asked the question, “Where are they?”
“It’s a mess,” replied Walter, “Most of them are in the courtyard trying to get into the castle. They don’t have enough time. There are probably three hundred people or more out there, between the soldiers and what’s left of the townsfolk.”
“And the Knights?”
“Cyhan and the others have the main entry doors open, as they try to usher everyone inside. Dorian and Harold are out in the yard, trying to keep the soldiers from pushing past the few remaining citizens,” answered the other wizard; his face was drawn with anxiety.
“Can you cover them with an illusion?” I was desperate to find a way to protect them.
Walter shook his head, “Not from here, not that many people.”
An idea struck me then, “Can you project an image of me on the wall, near the gate? I may be able to delay them.” I had never tried to project an image of someone besides myself over such a distance, so I was unsure if Walter would be able to make the illusion believable. I had disguised myself as other people before, and I had projected images of myself on occasion, to deliver messages, but I had never tried to do something quite that complex before.
To my surprise, Walter responded positively, “I can project your appearance and voice there, but I won’t be able to imitate your aythar at this distance, nor do I have any way of hearing their responses from here.”
“Really?” I said with all the wit I could manage. “You could imitate my aythar?” That was an aspect of illusion that I hadn’t really considered before. In times past, Walter had shown that he was able to make himself invisible to magic, just as he could to visible light, but it had never occurred to me that one might make an illusion that encompassed magesight to create such an effect.
“I am a Prathion after all,” he said somewhat proudly, “but even I have limits when it comes to illusions.”
I stared at him mutely for a moment. “Could you project an image of me that would fool even them?” I asked.
He nodded, “I think so, but not at this range and I wouldn’t be able to duplicate the strength of your aythar.”
“As far as the present situation, I don’t think it matters. They won’t be able to sense it through the barrier… but if they were here now, you could create an illusion that would seem as though I hadn’t lost my magic?” I said, hoping for clarification.
“It wouldn’t have the same apparent strength or brightness that you usually possess,” he reiterated.
That might not matter, I thought silently, to one of them, even my normal strength is feeble in comparison. They might not notice the difference. “Let’s focus on the present,” I announced. “If you can, have an image of me walk out onto the top of the wall and stare down at them. Once we have their attention, tell them this…”
* * *
Atop the wall, between the two towers that guarded the castle gate, a man appeared. Dressed in fine clothes of grey velvet and soft furs, there could be little doubt as to his identity. Mordecai Illeniel, the Count di’Cameron, stood looking down upon those who had come to assault his home. He did not look pleased.
“Would you mind explaining to me what you think you are doing?!” he shouted down in an imperious tone.
Karenth, known as the Just, paused in his efforts to break the magical barrier that protected the castle. “The time for discussion has passed, mortal. You well know the reason I am here. Lower this shield and I will make your p
assing swift, though I cannot promise it will be gentle,” answered the shining god, showing perfect teeth in a feral grin as he spoke.
Mordecai leaned forward, cupping one hand behind his ear, as though he were having trouble hearing. “You aren’t supposed to be here for another week!” he shouted, as though the distance between them was too great for a normal tone of voice to carry. “I haven’t finished making my decision yet!”
“Do not play coy with me, human. I was not taken in by your ruse, and you only insult your dignity, by pretending that you actually believed your own lie,” said the shining god calmly, though his voice held hints of a great anger barely held in check. “Soon I will be inside, and you and your people will pay in blood and suffering for imprisoning my brother Celior.”
The Count di’Cameron’s face held a look of confusion while he turned his head from side to side, as though trying each ear in an effort to hear better. Finally he gave up and shouted down, “What?!”
Karenth’s anger skyrocketed, as he realized his foe had not heard him at all. Shouting in a thunderous voice, he repeated himself, “Once I am inside, you and your people shall pay in pain and unimaginable torment! You will beg for death, before I see fit to allow you to die! All this will be your punishment for imprisoning my brother!” The sound of the god’s voice was so loud that it sent vibrations through the ground and even those within the castle could hear him, though his words weren’t intelligible at that distance.
Mordecai squinted down at him. “I’m sorry! It must be this damned barrier spell! I think it is blocking sounds as well. Perhaps if you spoke a bit louder… I could almost hear you.”
Karenth uttered a scream of pure rage and frustration, which shook the walls and put the birds of the forest for miles around into sudden flight.
Before his scream was done, the Count put his hands up, waving them apologetically at the apoplectic god below. His mouth was moving as well, and Karenth cut off his own primal scream so that he could hear the wizard’s response.
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