Creation Mage 5

by Dante King

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “I suppose that’s right.”

  “I’ll need a new vessel to hold them in Rick,” I said, glancing at my frat bro. “You reckon you’ve got the skills to knock something up in the couple of hours we have until the round kicks off?”

  Rick nodded his big head. His bright green eyes sparkled with the light of a challenge presented to him.

  “I’ll go now,” he said. “With Barry’s help, I can have something ready for you.”

  “Rick, you’re a freaking legend, man,” I said. “Hurry back as soon as you’re done.”

  Rick stumped away into the crowd.

  “Fuck you!” Reginald yelled simply as his last ball sailed inches wide.

  “Another year, another wasted fee, Headmaster,” Briar said gleefully.

  Reginald was on the verge of handing over some gold coins when he paused.

  “Hold on, wench,” he said. “I believe that my compatriot and I scored three coconuts between us. There is nothing in the rules that states that the three felled nuts need to come from a single tosser’s hand, is there?”

  “There ain’t any rules,” Briar said succinctly.

  “Then, surely, one of those pretty stuffed mermaids is mine for the taking?” Reginald said.

  Briar gave this due consideration.

  “No,” she said.

  “You blighted, swelling protuberance on the ass of Avalonia,” Reginald muttered darkly as he handed over his gold.

  Briar pocketed the money happily. “See you next Qualifiers, your Headmastership?” she asked brightly.

  “Of course you bloody well will,” Chaosane muttered. “I’ll crack this beastly game of yours eventually, foul temptress.”

  “Lovely to see you, sir,” Briar replied. “Good day to you.”

  “And to you,” Reginald said, and came to join our huddle.

  “Headmaster,” I said when Reginald had taken his place in the circle and restored his mood with a few drops of something that smelled like sardines.

  “That is I,” Reginald said solemnly.

  “The Blade Sisters,” I said aloud, musing over the problem of acquiring three souls.

  “I know them, yes,” he said. “I also heard from my dear cousin Leah why they are here. Unfortunately, I cannot extend my hand by expelling them when members of the Arcane Council have explicitly recommended them for the Qualifiers.”

  “I knew the Council would have been in on this,” I muttered.

  “Mayhaps, mayhaps not,” Reginald said. “I doubt they are yet aware of your true nature. Belgarath Academy is as rogue an institution as my own.”

  “In that case, would you feel averse to some of the Blade Sisters falling victim to a nasty accident during the dragon caper?”

  “So nasty that it is, in fact, terminal?” Reginald said.

  “I need three souls to break through and access the spirit inside my mother’s staff,” I said.

  “You should be careful about killing unprovoked,” Ragnar said to me. “There are things that can happen to a man’s soul if he becomes too reckless taking lives.”

  “Do you know what Leah Chaosbane found out?” I asked Ironskin.

  He shook his head.

  “The Blade Sisters are not actually students of the Belgarath Academy,” I said. “They are simply posing as such. The word is that they have been sent to find the Creation Mage that resides at the Mazirian Academy and capture him.”

  “Why?” Ragnar asked.

  “I can field that one,” Reginald said. “It is because these Blade Sisters, these bounty hunters, tapped and used up the last Creation Mage they had in their care. It is thanks to that poor mage that they have attained such vigorous spells.”

  “Why would you not tell me this, if you knew already?” I asked Reginald.

  The Headmaster considered this. “I wanted to wait until the opportune moment,” he said. “Which, as fate would have it, is now.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Anyway,” I said to Ragnar, “they’re bad news incarnate. Thinning that particular herd would not be such a terrible thing—especially not for me, seeing us they’re keen on taking me, dead or alive. Alive, I figure I’m going to become some kind of disposable sex-slave.”

  “Doesn’t sound like such a bad way to go, all things considered,” said Reginald pensively, “but, of course, going at all has never been high on my list of things to do.”

  The Headmaster clapped me on the shoulder

  “Do what you need to do, Justin. More importantly, if you can do what we need done, that would be even better. Get your mother’s staff from under the snout of the dragon that your waygate sends you to. I shall make sure that you are sent to the right spot.”

  Reginald began to move off, gesturing at Ragnar Ironskin to follow him.

  “Headmaster,” I said suddenly, “what will the… what will the staff look like? Will I know it when I see it?”

  Reginald winked at me, took another few drops of the pungent, sardine-scented oil on his tongue and said, ”It will likely be hidden by a glamor, and it won’t look like the staff. Do not worry about that though, for your connection to your mother should lead you to the right object in the hoard. Bring it back, along with as much treasure as you and your brothers can carry, and quickly.”

  “Do we get to keep the treasure?” I asked.

  “Why, of course!” Reginald said. “What good is hard-won treasure if you don’t get to spend it? How the hell do you think I’ve paid for all these blasted rounds on Briar’s coconut shy?”

  I nodded. “I won’t let you down, Headmaster.”

  ”Splendid!” Reginald Chaosbane said. “When the Arcane Council discover that the staff is missing, our little ploy will be up. This move will turn the hourglass, and the sands will start running against us. I imagine that on learning we have bent them over, metaphorically removed their trousers, and put their asses on display for the rest of Avalonia to laugh at, the Arcane Council will lay some variety of diabolical trap for us.”

  “You d-d-don’t seem too worried about that, sir,” Nigel observed.

  “No, I don’t, do I?” Reginald said. “I suppose that’s because a trap is only really a trap if you’re not expecting it. If you are, it simply becomes a challenge. Remember that, Mr. Windmaker.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  My fraternity brothers and I stood in the middle of the drastically reduced number of Qualifier combatants and waited while Reginald Chaosbane finished giving his usual invigorating pre-round spiel to the adoring, exuberant fans. Once more, the arena was completely full to bursting, with not a spare seat in the place. No one wanted to miss this. No one wanted to be the one person at the inn who hadn’t been there in person the day wannabe War Mages took on dragons. It looked like they’d all gotten over their brew flu after learning that this special round would be taking place.

  While Reginald whipped up the crowd, I looked about at the grim, set faces surrounding me. Roughly half of the mage teams that had made it through the first round had opted to bow out, rather than risk everything they had and everything they would ever have against a pissed off dragon.

  The boys had adopted a carefully casual formation around me, standing in a rough square. They had exchanged no words, but I knew that they were standing like this to protect me against the off chance that the Blade Sisters tried something even in front of this enormous crowd.

  I wasn’t worried about that. The Blade Sisters, and in particular Acer, seemed far too cold and calculating to do anything rash like try and kidnap me in public. They were going to strike only when the time suited them.

  I glanced across at where the five sisters were standing, steel-silver hair glinting in the early afternoon light. Acer sensed my eyes on her, turned her head slowly to face me, and gave me one of those enigmatic little smirks of hers.

  That cunning smirk had “trouble” written all over it.

  I twisted the ring on my finger. The ring that Rick had whipp
ed up for me in his forge. It was, because of the rush I had put on the Earth Mage, a crude thing, but it fit like a glove. It looked, to my untrained eye, to be fashioned out of a single piece of silver with an onyx stone set into it.

  “A black stone for black work,” Rick had said to me as he had slipped the ring to me. “The onyx will hold the energy of all three souls, friend.”

  To either side of me and my four frat brothers stood Leah Chaosbane and Priestess Mallory Entwistle—our two “freelancers.”

  Leah was fidgeting from foot to foot. Predictably, she was not the sort of person who excelled at standing still for long periods of time. Or for any length of time, really. When I mentioned this to her out of the corner of my mouth, the slender woman replied dramatically, “I’m a shark, cinnamonbutt, I’ve got to keep moving or I’ll die.”

  We had landed Leah as one of our freelancers by the expedient process of her being nearby when the boys and I had been talking about who we might possibly ask. She had signed up without any questions, simply saying, in that dreamy tone of voice, that she had nothing better to do and had never seen a dragon up close before.

  Mallory Entwistle, on the other hand, had been volunteered to us by none other than the Headmaster himself.

  When Reginald had appeared at my shoulder while I was waiting in line for a dragondog, I had wondered why he was so willing to let a fugitive and prisoner on this quest when she could escape or double-cross us. The Headmaster had impressed upon me, in no uncertain terms, that the disguised Mallory had to be one of our freelancers.

  “Why is that so important, sir?” I asked the Headmaster under my breath as Nigel ordered a dragondog with extra onions and lashings of bugbear hot sauce.

  “It is important,” Reginald muttered into my ear, “because this is how I see if Mallory Entwistle can be trusted. This is her test. The very reason that she is with us, why she came back with you to the Academy, is because she sent word to me that she had information I might be sorely interested in.”

  “What kind of information?” I asked. I recalled that Mallory had said that she had information for Reginald Chaosbane back when she’d first posited the idea that she would come back with me to the Academy.

  “Well,” Reginald said, “When I interviewed Mallory on the first night that she took advantage of your generous hospitality, she spun me a pretty yarn. She told me that your dear, sweet, deadly dangerous, and brillaintly brainy mother, Istrea, found out how to bring back magic—without the whole disagreeable genocide business.”

  My eyebrows threatened to rocket off into space, so quickly did they shoot up.

  “Yes,” said Reginald, “that was my reaction exactly, although I believe I managed to wrangle one eyebrow southward at the last minute and adopt a dashing detective-like pose.”

  He demonstrated the look. It was, as he had said, dashing.

  “It happened a moment before she was killed, or so Mallory says. Our good Priestess claims to have been with your mother at the moment of her death.”

  “And she survived?” I asked, trying to keep my tone neutral.

  “Indeed,” Reginald said lightly. “Not only that, but Priestess Entwistle told me that Mallory entrusted her with the knowledge of where her white staff would be located if she was ever killed.”

  “But Ragnar already found out where the staff was hidden,” I said slowly. The line moved forward, and I hurriedly ordered a dragondog with melted cheese and imp-fired peppers.

  “Is that what you mean by the test?” I asked as the woman behind the grill started whipping up my order. “Seeing whether Ragnar’s information and Mallory’s marry up?”

  “Yes,” Reginald said. “Ragnar Ironskin also found out where your mother’s white staff was, so this is the test of truth for Mallory’s words. We will see whether she gave me the right location. There is more though. Mallory not only knows the right location, but also more specific information. It was she who told me that the white staff is being guarded by an Amber Dragon.”

  I handed a few pieces of silver over to the woman behind the grill and took my dragondog. I noticed that she was wearing an apron with a cartoon barbecue, a sausage lying across its grill. There was a speech bubble coming out of the barbecue’s mouth which read, “Dawg, why you gotta get all up in my grill?”

  You can cross time, you travel through dimensions, I thought, but some things never change.

  “What happens if it turns out to be a load of bullshit, sir?” I asked as Reginald Chaosbane stepped forward, smiled at the woman manning the stall, and ordered a double dragondog with extra pickled marsh cabbage and a poppy seed bun.

  He looked around as the woman began fussing to make his order.

  “If it turns out that Mallory Entwistle is telling porky pies,” the Headmaster said, a slightly homicidal gleam in his eye, “I’ve told Leah to snuff the flame of her life out.”

  “Leah and Mallory seem to be getting on pretty well,” I said. “Do you think your cousin is capable of taking out someone she’s come to view as a friend?”

  Reginald had waved a hand at me then and turned his back on me. “Don’t you fret about Leah, Mr. Mauler. Her loyalty is to our cause and to me.”

  And that is how I found myself standing between the two attractive women, while Reginald Chaosbane wrapped up his speech with another one of his rousing toasts.

  “Mallory,” I said, stepping over to the disguised woman. Barry Chillgrave had worked more of his magic on her so her identity was hidden from anyone who might want to do her harm or collect the bounty that she now had on her head. “Mallory, are you sure you know where you’re going?”

  Mallory gave me a slightly surprised look. “Of course,” she said. “Why would I tell you I did if I did not? The dragon’s lair we seek belongs to an Amber Dragon. You will see. And we will find Istrea’s staff.”

  I looked away. The Priestess was almost impossible to read. The only time I had seen that cool exterior of hers crack had been the other night when she had been giggling away with Leah.

  “You ready, bro?” Damien said, squeezing my arm and then jumping on the spot to get his blood moving.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said. “You?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Damien replied.

  I grinned. “You ever notice how that never quite seems to be ready enough to see the shit that inevitably comes flying toward us?”

  Damien laughed. “Now that you mention it…”

  Headmaster Chaosbane had descended to the arena floor and was conjuring portals out of the air in front of the individual mage teams.

  We waited our turn. The boys and I were ready and raring to go. Damien polished the rings on his fingers, one of which was his vector.

  All of us were armed with the new blades that Onico Mozat had supplied us with as part of his sponsorship deal. Under my shirt, I wore Heroc Flaskgut’s mail shirt over a gambeson that Bradley had picked up for me in town on one of his produce excursions.

  Reginald finally made it over to us. He gave no sign that he was acquainted with all of us. He simply conjured the magical waygate in midair and then said, “Good luck out there. May you find the treasure you seek, adventurers.”

  Then, he moved out of the way, and we stepped through the portal.

  Walking through a waygate was something that I always found trippy. Not because it was an assault on your senses that turned you upside and down and inside out—although, occasionally, it did. It was more because that’s what it didn’t do. For a guy raised on fantasy books and films, you expected a sense of falling down the rabbit hole. Instead, our group of seven stepped out of a stadium full of tens of thousands of screaming fans and into a large subterranean tunnel.

  Instantly, as soon as we crossed the threshold, the noise of the arena was cut off. I looked behind me, as the others came through the waygate, and could still see the arena beyond them, but it was like watching the TV on mute.

  The passageway was as level as a road. The sides wer
e rough, but had clearly been widened and carved by many busy hands. Marks of shovels and picks and other tools marred the hard rock. My eyes ran up the walls, and carried on going. The ceiling was high above us, so high that much of it was lost in shadow. The light illuminating the breathtaking scene came in through holes cut high up in the rock. So high above us were these skylights that they looked like stars twinkling in a rocky sky.

  Huge statues were carved out of the bones of the cave. Statues of thick-limbed warriors holding pickaxes and double-bladed battle-axes. Although the statues were all about thirty feet tall, the figures looked squat and stumpy, and I imagined that they were probably pretty short in life—whatever and whoever they had been.

  “This is Dragonhold?” Nigel asked. His voice came out flat and small, the sounds lost in that vast underground space.

  Mallory Entwistle nodded. “These were once the halls of the Iron Dwarves,” she said, in her calmly self-assured voice. “They were an old race, who were actually Earth Elementals that specialized in the magic of Iron. They had the statures of dwarves, but shared as much culture with them as elves might, or ifrits. They were their own people.”

  “There’s a lot of past tense being used there, my lovely shiny thing,” Leah said. “Are we to suppose by your words that these Iron Dwarves are no more; extinct, wiped out, and vanished?”

  Mallory nodded. “Yes, they were lost long ago.”

  There was a whirring sound from behind us, and something shot through the still open portal.

  I tensed, my black crystal staff in my hand. My other arm was extended, ready to twitch and free my last chance blade that I had hidden up my sleeve in the way that Onico Mozat, the bladesmith, had shown me.

  I instantly recognized the flying object, however. It was one of the airborne, spherical, magical, camera-like devices that followed Mage Games competitors around and broadcast their adventures back to the audience in the arena.

  I relaxed slightly and breathed out. I felt the others do the same.