Creation Mage 4

by Dante King

  “Yeah, I thought I saw something,” I responded, my eyes back on the windows. “Just when I was feeling the most at peace I’ve felt in… well, must have been at least twenty-four hours—not bad for life at the Academy.”

  A noise at the kitchen door drew my attention from the windows. It was Idman Thunderstone. He was, sadly, no longer in his elaborate grandmother disguise. He was looking as put together and frigidly reserved as ever I had seen him. He glanced at me, then began moving cautiously toward the back door.

  “Barry told you about our uninvited guest?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Yep, and I was just saying that whoever it is just wrecked the tranquility of the morning for me,” I replied.

  “Well, keep that staff up, Mauler,” Idman said. “Your morning might get a whole lot less tranquil yet, if there is something or someone out there with malice on their mind.”

  “Barry, you sensed there was something out there,” I said. “Can’t you sense what sort of thing it is?”

  Barry shook his head, and the feather on the top of his tricorn hat waggled this way and that.

  “No, captain,” the poltergeist said. “Seems like this snooper, whoever it may be, is implementing some sort of cloaking spell. A powerful one at that. I can’t get a feel for his corporeal signature.”

  Idman was just bearing down on the back door when, startlingly, there was a crisp knock from the other side of the heavy oak.

  “Polite snooper,” I said, making a face at Idman.

  Idman nodded and moved silently to the door. He drew a wand from his jacket, stood to one side of it and then, in a sudden movement, flung it wide.

  A man stood with his back to the opening, looking out over the pool area. He was swathed from shoulders to boot heels in a long black cloak. His hair was a shocking, albino white, sticking out in all directions as if he had just stuck a fork in a toaster.

  “By the gods…” Idman muttered.

  I noticed that the tenseness had left the body of the former Warden of the Eldritch Prison and that he was standing agog.

  The man turned. He had a chiseled face; all clean cut lines and smooth forehead. It was a face that might have belonged to a man ranging anywhere between twenty and forty. The only unusual thing about said face was that his pale blonde-white beard was in the mutton chops style—narrow at the top and broad and rounded toward the bottom, with no mustache or goatee.

  But those dark, thoughtful eyes… if I didn’t know any better I would have sworn that the man was—

  “Chaosbane,” Idman said as he slipped his wand back into his coat and held out a hand. “Mortimer Chaosbane! By all the demons that were ever spawned, it has been sometime since I last saw you!”

  I let out a little noise of disbelief.

  Another goddamn guy from the Chaosbane clan?

  I almost said ‘there goes the neighborhood’, but I rather thought that the neighborhood had gone when Reginald showed up. What with Igor, and now this Mortimer guy, the neighborhood was most likely so far up Shit Creek that it had probably made it to the source.

  Mortimer Chaosbane’s dark eyes flickered with the speed of a dragonfly from Idman to me to Barry and back to Idman again. He extracted a pale hand from inside his cloak and took Idman’s. The two mages shook hands.

  “Yes,” he said, “it’s been a while, hasn’t it, Idman, my old friend.”

  The guy’s voice was soft, polite, and measured. His words clipped. I got the impression that each and every utterance of Mortimer’s was weighed and checked before it was allowed to be set free from between his lips.

  Knowing the two other Chaosbanes, if someone had come along and said to me, “Justin, there’s another one of these guys out there, what do you predict he’ll be like?” I would have replied that he would be a certified lunatic, just like the other two.

  However, this latest Chaosbane specimen was—and there was no other way to put it—creepily sane. This might sound like a derogatory description, but just because the dude was creepy did not mean that he was without a certain style, without a certain panache.

  “May I come in?” he asked. His tone was so mild and so polite, but I couldn’t escape the notion that it was the voice the Big Bad Wolf would have adopted had he been just a bit smarter about getting to those three little pigs. There was something inherently dangerous about the man.

  Idman turned to me, his eyes flipping down to where I still held my black crystal staff at the ready.

  I relaxed and allowed my staff to dematerialize.

  “Sure,” I said, “come in and pull up a pew. Any relative of Reginald and Igor is a friend of mine—not to mention a probable fire danger and walking alchemical accident waiting to happen.”

  Mortimer stepped over the threshold. Outlined in the doorway for a moment, I could see that he was tall. He moved with the precise and measured movements of a tiger, every motion calculated and efficient.

  He unfastened his cloak as he stepped through the doorway, and I definitely caught the glint of metal under there. A glint that hinted at daggers and knives and other sharp, dangerous things fastened to the inside of the cloak.

  The rest of his attire was made up of black on black on black. It was very trendy in a way. Tight black pants, black travel-stained boots, and a flowing black shirt that was darned and stitched in odd places. He would have looked quite at home at one of those pretentious cafes where all the baristas have neo-traditional tattoos and wear flatcaps, and where the furniture is all perfectly mismatched and artfully dilapidated.

  The places on Mortimer’s shirt that had been repaired were not the usual spots you would think that a mage would wear through.

  Looks more like slashes to me, I thought. Looks like the spots where someone has attacked him with a knife or sword.

  “So, you’re another Chaosbane, huh?” I asked the newcomer, indicating a seat at the wooden table.

  “Indeed,” Mortimer replied, sitting.

  “A cousin of Reginald and Igor?” I said.

  “A distant cousin, twice removed on my mother’s side.”

  I’d have to take his word on that one because I thought it’d have to be on his father’s side to share a surname.

  “Can I get you a coffee?” I asked the pale, white-haired man.

  Mortimer regarded me from out of the same eyes as his cousins. “Yes,” he said, “but just a small one. I’m not much for stimulants. I prefer to maintain a natural equilibrium.”

  “Sounds like a blast,” I said. “Idman, you want a cup of Joe?”

  “Please,” Idman said, seating himself next to this long-lost buddy of his.

  I poured the coffee, sat down at the table with the other two guys, and handed round the beverages. Barry floated nearby, his eyes fixed on Mortimer.

  “So,” I said, “I guess I should introduce myself. The name’s—”

  “I know who you are, Justin Mauler,” Mortimer said, cutting smoothly across me.

  It seemed that eyes weren’t the only thing that the Chaosbanes all had in common. This guy too could take command of a room or a conversation.

  “I’m not going to lie to you, Mortimer,” I said, “you look like the sort of motherfucker that turns up in the blackest part of the night with nefarious deeds in mind. What the hell are you doing coming to my house first thing in the morning, huh?”

  “Mortimer,” Idman said, leaning forward and fixing me with a serious eye, “is a Chaos Mage, and one of the foremost bounty-hunters in all of Avalonia.” Idman clapped the Mortimer on the shoulder.

  This was such an out of keeping show of affection from the former Chief Warden of the Eldritch Prison, who was often described as having ice-cold basilisk venom running through his veins, that it made me loosen up a touch.

  Surely, a dude whom Janet’s father trusts can be trusted in turn? I thought.

  My face did not give my thoughts away, though.

  “Right,” I said, “and how did you two fall in love?” I motioned from one man
to the other.

  Idman’s face turned stony, but Mortimer only regarded me with that same, slightly unnerving interest. It was the sort of expression that a cat who had a mouse pinned by its tail might wear as it watched on and waited to see what the mouse was going to do next.

  “Mortimer used to do a bit of freelancing for me when I first opened the Eldritch Prison,” Idman said.

  “And freelance is, interestingly, quite the fitting word,” Mortimer said. He took a tiny, sharp sip of coffee, so rapid that the Ifrit coffee must have turned to vapor as it passed his lips. “It comes from the ancient Avalonian vocation of free lancing—which was what men and women used to call themselves when they rode about the land hunting down villains and rogues for money.”

  “And that’s what you are, is it?” I asked, suddenly intrigued despite my suspicions. “A killer for hire?”

  Mortimer gave me a humorless grin. “I think, on reflection, I prefer ‘freelancer.’”

  “Mortimer was particularly skilled at bounty retrieval and information extraction,” Idman said.

  “Still am,” Mortimer added quietly.

  “That,” I said, “sounds like tea-room talk speak for saying that he’ s got the skills when it comes to kidnap and torture.”

  Mortimer’s face remained impassive. If he was bothered at all at the not-so-subtle insinuation that he was a torturer, then he didn’t show it.

  “We-ll,” said Idman expansively, opening his hands as if to say ’apples and oranges’, “it wasn’t so much torture, not in the way that I think you mean.”

  Mortimer took another clinical sip of coffee. “I utilized my skill in Chaos Magic to help winkle information and confessions out of the more recalcitrant and tight-lipped criminals. My particular speciality lay in vanishing an individual’s limbs—quite painlessly, I assure you—to galvanize them into speech.” He took another sip of the hot, dark brew. “You’d be astounded at the rapidity with which a prisoner becomes loquacious, when he sees you vanish his foot or his nose… or his phallus.”

  I considered this. “You know what? I don’t reckon I would be astounded at the fact that a guy turns all chatty once you magic off his spooge rifle.”

  Mortimer gave a little shrug that could have meant anything.

  “So, why did you two old pals stop working together?” I asked Idman. “Seems like a partnership made in paradise; a guy who owns a prison and a man who is a hot tamale when it comes to tracking down societal scum.”

  “Mortimer became too bloody good,” Idman said. “Too expensive. There were too many men and women that I needed to get my hands on and not enough gold in the coffers in those early days of the Eldritch Prison’s conception.”

  “Which begs the question, Mortimer,” I said, “what the hell brings you to my door at this early hour.”

  Mortimer finished his coffee and set the cup carefully down on the table.

  “That was adequately tasty,” he said.

  “Great news,” I said, “but what brings you here?”

  “I was called here by another old acquaintance,” he said. “She told me that there was a job which lent itself to my particular skills. A job that would potentially involve teaching you a few of the more basic tricks of my particular trade.”

  “You’re talking about Odette Scaleblade?” Idman asked, and Mortimer nodded.

  “You’re going to help me with knocking off these three criminals that I’ve been assigned to bring to justice?” I asked.

  Mortimer inclined his head the merest fraction of an inch. “I wonder, could I have some more coffee?”

  As I poured another small coffee for the trippy pale man, Idman said, “Three criminals? What three criminals do you speak of?”

  I listed off the names.

  “Vakash the Vile, Ratfink the Thief, and Priestess Mallory Entwistle,” I said.

  “Vakash the Vile,” Barry muttered. He looked like he would have chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully, if he had still been in possession of it.

  Idman seemed to mentally mull over the names for a moment or two. Then he said, “Vakash the Vile and Ratfink the Thief are known to me, aren’t they just. Priestess Entwistle is a mutual acquaintance. She is a resourceful and cunning woman. Not evil as such, but she certainly has no problem with using evil for her ends. Not unlike your parents, I suppose.”

  “Have you got any idea where we might be able to find Vakash?” I asked. “Odette is planning this whole enterprise, but she hasn’t mentioned that she might know where to find these guys.”

  Idman grinned sourly. I wouldn’t have liked him to be smiling like that if someone had said my name to him.

  “Yes, I believe I could point you in the right direction,” he said. “Though, if I did, I would like it if you were to allow me along too. Barry’s company can be a bit… abrasive, and I would enjoy getting out and about a little. The Arcane Council will not think to look for me where I am going to take you.”

  I waved my hand. “Sure man. You’re a big boy and can make your own decisions. Where might this Vakash be hiding out?”

  “Vakash, as I’m sure Mortimer here could probably tell you too, is nothing if not predictable,” Idman said scornfully. “He’s a pirate, kidnapper, and smuggler, feared by those who know him. He, like many bullies, has long allowed his reputation to lure him into a false sense of security.”

  “The file said that he had a bit of a prevalence for brainkiller grog, or something like that?” I said.

  Mortimer smacked his lips appreciatively after taking another thimbleful of coffee. “There’s only one place in Avalonia where you can buy that brew. Igor has mentioned it to me once or twice. If I recall, he told me that it hits your brains like a ton of bricks.” A small frown appeared between the dark, clever eyes. “Although, having seen someone crushed by a ton of bricks, I would say that this is not accurate in the slightest.”

  “Yeah. Okay,” I said, scrutinizing the latest addition to the Chaosbane menagerie. I turned back to Idman. “And this place is where?”

  “Buccaneer’s Finger,” Idman said promptly. “It’s a coastal city, set upon a peninsula that thrusts out into Hardfought Bay. It’s the sort of place where murder, rape, and pillage might be jotted down in the ‘pros’ column for moving there. It is a place where sudden death is not so much a risk, as a guarantee.”

  “Not exactly known for its law-abiding citizens, you mean?” I asked.

  Idman chuckled mirthlessly. “Ah, Mr. Mauler, I doubt that there’s been a law-abiding citizen on Buccaneer’s Finger for decades.”

  “Aye,” Barry said, suddenly speaking up, “what Idman here says is true, captain. It’s a pirate town right enough.” A wistful look came over the poltorgeist’s face. “A flea-bitten, violent place floating on a sea of strong drink and loose women. It was my old stomping ground when I would bring my ship down from the sky to make repairs at one of her floating docks.”

  “Wait, so you could moor your flying ships there too?” I asked.

  “Oh aye, sir,” Barry said. “The flying armadas of the old days could moor up to the floating docks, and the vessels that plowed the briny deep could tie up to the piers located at one side of the headland.”

  “Might’ve changed a little bit since your day, Barry,” I said.

  Idman cleared his throat. “On all accounts, Buccaneer’s Finger has not changed for hundreds of years. It is, according to the villains and wrongdoers that I have had captured there and subsequently interviewed, the same festering, disreputable, shabby, riotous, thuggish haven for all those men and women who are on a first name basis with the bottom of the deck.”

  To my amazement, Barry wiped a spectral tear from the corner of his eye. Then he sniffed and straightened.

  “Aye,” the poltergeist said, “it’s a grand place, right enough.”

  “Barry, man,” I said, “how about you come along with us too?”

  Idman let loose an audible groan, but Barry paid him no heed. Instead, the poltergeist swell
ed visibly. Another tear of happiness trickled down his fleshless face and into his straggly beard.

  “It’d be an honor, sir!” he said.

  “Good man,” I said. “Remember though, you were obviously a famous face back in the day, so you’re going to need to go incognito, yeah?”

  “Not a problem, sir! Not a problem at all. Mr. Thunderstone here can attest to my skills at concealing one’s identity.”

  Idman’s face was reminiscent of a doberman licking piss off a nettle.

  “Just one thing, sir,” Barry said.

  “What’s that?”

  “With me being away galivantin’, sir, the other young gentlemen won’t have me around to help them with their dungeon training.”

  I considered this.

  “If I know the lads,” I said, “they’ll be snoozing for quite a few hours yet after the big day of training they had yesterday. With any luck, we’ll be back in Nevermoor before they’ve finished their afternoon breakfast. Shouldn’t be a problem, Barry.”

  Barry gave me one of his skeletal grins. “Excellent, sir,” he said, doing a little caper in mid-air. “I’ll leave a note on the dungeon door though, all the same.”

  It was still early, all things considered, though the sunlight had lost that raw, unfaded quality. However, early as it might have been, it seemed that it was a day for early-risers.

  There was a knock at the door.

  I looked questioningly at Barry.

  “Two lasses, sir,” the pirate poltergeist said. “There’s a sense o’ purpose about them. I’d dare to venture that they’ll be looking for you, and looking to cast off from here.”

  I nodded. “Okay,” I said, “let’s not waste any more time, eh?”

  I ushered everyone from the room, and we made our way across the silent entrance hall, our booted footsteps echoing from the wood-paneled walls.

  Chapter Eight

  The spirit of adventure smoldered in my eye and in my heart, and there was a determined smile on my face that I couldn’t have wiped off if someone had paid me a million bucks.

  I was going to go bounty-hunting through a town that sounded like a real-life Port Royal or St. Mary’s Island. I mean, if that wasn’t the epitome of living a boyhood dream, then I didn’t know what was. It was like being given a pass to Dodge City or something like that—you just knew that some shit was going to go down, it was just a case of what kind.