Artemis greeted me as I neared the lobby. Speaking for a moment with Melody, I realized that now I was falling behind the others and hustled to catch up.
We were in the truck before Retanei broke the silence. “I wanted to talk to the two of you away from the others,” she admitted. “I have an odd feeling about it being a diversionary tactic, but I don’t know the Arcane College or the order of paladins that well. I need more information to try and track these bastards - no matter how far-fetched.”
Stretching out in the backseat, I leaned against the cold window and contemplated for a moment. “I can tell you it wouldn’t be common for an Archmage. But Brown has tried to divert us prior. I don’t know what his end goal is.” Artemis plopped her head on my lap and my hand automatically went to petting her. The motion soothed my strained control.
“How about you, Silver? Is there anything at the church a necromancer might want?” Retanei asked and quickly glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.
Silver sat quietly for a moment and from my position in the back, I could not see his face. He then said, “Maybe. The texts might contain some information. I can’t really think of anything that would be of much interest. Though…”
Retanei was busy driving and I wondered if I should have insisted instead given how exhausted she was. I watched a few buildings go by, patiently waiting for Silver to continue. I could not stand the silence any further and asked, “What is it?”
“My mentor has been acting very strangely recently. He lost his path when his wife passed a couple of years ago, but the last month or so it has been worse. I have been trying to guide him back toward the Light since his abilities as a paladin had waned. I know he has been receiving many missives lately, but has always burned them immediately,” Silver added, “I’m not sure if that is helpful at all.”
I chewed on my bottom lip at this piece of information. The story sounded awfully familiar to what Archmage Maewon told me. I found myself hoping it was only coincidence. Though Silver said nothing about his mentor taking up the arcane arts, and with his divine abilities waning, it did not sound like he would have the prerequisites to take up necromancy.
Retanei pursed her lips before saying, “Good enough to give me something to go on when I go hunting again tonight. What is your mentor’s name?”
Silver seemed reluctant to give up the information. I could only imagine how hard it must be for him to think his home might be the next target. He quietly told her, “James Sutton. He hasn’t been attending prayers, but you will likely find him at his wife’s grave at almost any hour. Maria was his life.”
Chapter 13
The drive back to the office was quiet after we parted ways with Retanei. Even I could tell Silver tried to cover his worry by asking Retanei about herself. His cheerful tone sounded forced.
And now he was silent.
I was certain he was genuinely interested in getting to know Retanei, but his mind was noticeably elsewhere at the time. What I did not understand was why Retanei would not involve Savanas in the conversation. Savanas was lead after all. Unless she already told her and was simply not involving the others. I could not decide which thought made more sense.
I thought about asking my friend, but it did not seem right to question her judgment. If she had not seen fit to fill me in, there had to be some reason.
“Ketayl? Is something wrong?” Silver’s quiet voice startled me out of my thoughts.
I said, “I’m not sure yet. Things aren’t adding up and I haven’t figured out if it’s real or if I just haven’t been doing the math right.”
“Math?”
“Figure of speech. How are you holding up?” I took a moment to try and figure out where that came from. I generally did not ask questions and worried I was being too forward.
Silver tried to smile, but even from the driver’s seat I could tell he was forcing it. He said, “Worry not for me, m’lady. I am a Paladin of the Holy Church of the Sun. The Light will soon guide us to our answers.”
That was a leap of faith if I had ever heard one. Silver’s attitude might be something I needed right now - let the answers come. Being that passive did not sit well with me though.
“I wish I could have faith like that. I feel like I’ve been running in circles,” I admitted. Sure, we knew who we were searching for now, but the Archmage’s actions made no sense. There was no benefit - no reward. For an Archmage, this test of power not be enough.
“You don’t worship any of the Gods?” Silver asked, confused by my statement.
Again, I quickly regretted not checking every statement before I spoke. I found some relief as we pulled into the underground parking garage for the office. I started this awkward conversation so it was only fair I answer, “I’m not allowed to as an Arcane College mage. I wouldn’t know where to start anyway and I’m usually buried in my work so…”
“Well, if you have time after all of this is over, I can give you a basic introduction to the Gods. Books can only tell you so much,” Silver offered. He continued to surprise me in his openness toward the fact I was essentially his polar opposite.
“I’d like that.” It would be something new to learn and frankly, I could use another friend. I had not called Kitteren again and Retanei had been busy working. Until now, I did not realize how much I came to rely on even just their presence.
~*~
Savanas and Darius pulled Silver into the conference room as soon as we got upstairs. I was not sure what was going on, but he was our divine consultant on the case. A field I knew nothing about.
My mobile phone decided to ring, ending any further thought on the matter.
I dug it out of my pocket quickly. The caller ID told me it was from the main office, but not who. “Ketayl,” I answered. I still thought it odd to answer with my name.
“Heya, Ket. Thanks for having your phone on,” Lockonis’ cheerful voice greeted me. She also knew my bad habits regarding my phone. “Is that paladin friend of yours around?”
Maybe she needed to speak with him. I told her, “No, Savanas and Darius just pulled him into a private meeting. Why?”
Lockonis’s tone changed slightly, “Perfect, what I need to tell you is not for his ears. I’ve already filled in the others. You’re the hardest because he seems to have really attached himself to you. Weird - I thought his type didn’t like mages. You know, the heathens that we are.”
I managed to balance the phone between ear and shoulder, shedding my coat while she went off on her short tangent. It was common and I found it was simply easier to indulge her.
Sitting down, I powered up the computer, waiting to log in. I relayed what he told me, “Silver says he takes a more balanced approach given his study of the scriptures.”
Lockonis said, “Hm, interesting. Anywho, I’ve been digging further into these ‘Ancient Gods’ Brown was going on about. The group, or rather cult - very fanatical - tends to be nomadic, moving from town to town looking for more followers. Occasionally they might get some idiot to believe their rhetoric, but for the most part, they are fairly quickly driven away.”
I absently started pulling up my messages while I waited for Lockonis to get to her point. It looked like I was going to have a bit of a backlog to catch up on when I returned to the main office.
“About six months ago, a number of them split off and moved from the Human Territories to Elven and have pretty much stayed outside of Ocean’s Edge. It’s probably the longest they’ve stayed in the impact area of any city or town. They also don’t usually stay near some place as large as Ocean’s Edge.” Lockonis said a lot and nothing at all. It was one of her quirks I supposed. I knew very little about her even after two years and others seemed to know about as much after decades.
Leaning back in my chair, there was not much I could do about the requests until I got back to the lab. I decided it was probably more prudent to keep an eye on the conference room door. I asked, “Are they connected to the Archmage?”
&n
bsp; “Yes, I was just getting to that. You could tell me better how Brown might fall in line with these morons, but the group worshiping these ‘Ancient Gods’ and claims one day they will return and remove the blight upon our land. Then they will take their place as the rightful rulers of the world. You know, the usual crazy stuff. How familiar are you with the Great Historian?”
Sometimes following Lockonis’ train of thought also required a suspension of one’s sanity. Eventually you would get the whole picture, but until she brought all of the parts together, you could drive yourself mad.
I admitted, “Not much. Wasn’t the Great Historian banished Earth-side at the end of the Racial War roughly 50 years ago?”
I pulled up my own mental records of what I knew about Earth. It was a copy of Terra, only it was predominately inhabited by Humans. There were a few of the races native to Terra that made their living trading back and forth through the portals linking the worlds. For the most part, I thought Earth-side was oblivious to Terra’s existence.
Lockonis corrected, “More like a forced retirement. See, Kage - by the way, that’s the name those of us that knew her would call her - made a deal to end the war and move there. The war was not as much racial as it was trying to control her. Except that no one can control her. Seriously, if she wanted to, she could rule both worlds without breaking a sweat and no one would have the power to stop her. It’s not like the guards at the portal entrances even matter if she decided to come back.”
“How?” I asked. It just did not seem possible for one being to have the amount of power Lockonis was implying.
“You’ve never met Kage. She’s old. I mean really old. Like she makes Vince look like a baby old. Kage is sometimes called the Keeper of Atlantis, which is what this group wants access to. Actually, they were the main reason for the war, though you will never find any of this in a history book,” Lockonis said, “Most people believed it to be racial so that was the easiest way to write it.”
Well, now I had even less reason to like them. But Atlantis? I believed the lost city a myth.
Lockonis continued, “It’s just that they’re splintered now. They never were popular with the general public in the Human Territories where they held power during the war. You can only imagine what happened after they were removed from power.”
I was having a hard enough time trying to keep up with all of the new information. But one thing did click and I said, “They have information, and information is the most important thing to any Arcane College mage. With him being an Archmage, he would value power just as equally.”
“Exactly what I was thinking, but I wanted your input,” Lockonis said, “I’m guessing they offered Brown access to information on necromancy and a place of power once these Ancient Gods, which, they actually do name, come back and essentially kill Kage and take over the world, granting them access to Atlantis’ knowledge and power.”
Something in that caught my attention and I quickly found a break in her story to ask, “The Ancient Gods are named?”
Lockonis continued, “Yeah, I’ll tell you later, but you know about the whole names have power thing, right? That’s why the widely accepted Gods are not named even though there was a push a few decades ago to use the Earth-side equivalents. It’s rather interesting diversion, but one I shouldn’t get off on a tangent about right now.”
Well, that was a first for Lockonis to talk herself out of a tangent.
“The reason this cult hasn’t been on our radar for a while is because of how quickly they are typically driven from gathering more followers. Plus they’ve kind of gone off the deep end: claiming responsibility for natural disasters and the like. This is the first real threat they’ve posed in over half a century,” the speed at which Lockonis was rattling off information was almost too fast for me to keep up, but now I had the whole picture she was trying to describe.
I also had a little more information about the former Warmage.
I found it interesting that Lockonis did not seem afraid of this Kage at all. The Great Historian was known to have untold power, which I also thought a fable. Come to think of it, at no point in time had I heard of her taking control over anyone. But there was one better question: “Why did you not want Silver to hear this?”
“Because his order backed the war at the time,” Lockonis said matter-of-fact.
That was like a fireball in my face. Why did I suddenly feel betrayed?
I had no words as I stared at the closed conference room door. Was he hiding something? Is that why he was being so nice to me?
“Ket, I can hear your mind churning. Stop it. It’s only speculation at this point. The leaders of his order at the time were held accountable for their transgressions and in more recent years, have actually been a lot easier to deal with as the old guard passes on leadership to the younger generation. Not to mention, he’s Elven. Humans aren’t exactly trusting of their darkest secrets to us. How old is he anyway? Savanas never sent over his file, but it should be in your local system.”
It was enough to snap me back into action. I fumbled, “Um, give me a minute to try and find it. The way he talks, he was also an orphan of the war. His mentor’s father took him in. Blaise? Blaise Sutton I would guess if I remember how family names work in most Human communities.” Genealogy was not on my list of things to study. “Found it, Silver is 60 years old. I can send you the file if you want.” He was only a couple of years older than me.
“Do it,” she ordered.
I fumbled for a minute trying to get the file sent.
While she waited, she said conversationally, “So he’s a baby like you. Too bad, I like them a little older, but there aren’t many left in my generation.”
“Lockonis!” I had never heard her talk like that before. A confirmation of the file being received popped up on my screen.
“I’m just teasing, Ket. Lighten up. Now, is Blaise spelled the same as Silver’s family name?”
Recalling what Silver had told me, I said, “I think so. He said he was first named after the color of his hair and then his mentor’s father’s first name.” That was a mouthful.
“Well, that’s one way of naming a nameless kid. It’s not surprising given how many orphans there were on all sides. Did Savanas ever tell you how she got her name?” I could hear Lockonis typing in the background so I guessed she was just idly chatting at this point.
I paused, not sure why it was relevant, but said, “No, I can’t say she did. I’ve met her father though. They don’t share a family name.”
Lockonis said, “Because when he named her and her brother, he wanted to give them what sounded like Elven names, but he had this overly romanticized idea of Elven culture that was clouded by the naming conventions of the orphans at the time. Lou’s a sweet man even if he’s a little nutty. Ah, here we go.” I was not even sure what she might be searching for. “Blaise Sutton, deceased, had only one son, James Sutton. I take it that’s Silver’s mentor?”
“Yes,” I said. Silver still managed to tell very little about himself. “Silver’s been worried about him since he lost his wife.”
“Awe, how sweet. Got anything else?” Lockonis asked. I was not sure if the first part was sarcastic.
It felt wrong telling Silver’s secrets to Lockonis and I had a feeling I knew what she was doing. I also knew she would badger me endlessly until she was satisfied I had given her as much information as I could.
I said, “Not really. Other than James Sutton has been acting strangely and Silver can’t find out why.” I was losing time - that door would open any second.
“Well, it’s worth looking into. I should let you go…”
“No,” I cut her off and then realized I just rudely interrupted the second in command of the TIO. This would have consequences, but I had to know. “Please, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Sure.” I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief that she took no offense. Even two years later, I forgot that the people I now worked with
were far from the easily angered mages of the Arcane College.
Even though I was the only one in the main part of the office, I dropped my head and my voice. “What is the Arcane College’s involvement? Why did they want me off of the case?”
There was a long pause and I wondered if I finally crossed the line.
I was about to retract my questions when Lockonis said, “Well, I suppose now is as good of a time as any, though I would rather have told you in person.”
I did not understand what she was getting at. The TIO had been open with me about things up until now.
After a deep breath, Lockonis continued, “It was my call to intercept all communications from the Arcane College. They didn’t want to give you to us in the first place.”
Wait, what? I still did not understand how this answered my previous questions. Being over the phone was making this conversation difficult so I said, “I don’t understand. Archmage Donovan…”
“Archmage Donovan did want an Arcane College mage at the TIO - one of his choosing. The Circle of Magi had been trying to send us a liaison for I lost track of how many years,” Lockonis’ voice had an odd sound to it - almost like she was tired, “He dragged me and Vince in front of the Council to force the issue. I made the arrangement that we would only take you. He fought the condition, but was overruled by the Council. I have a copy of the Council proceedings, but I don’t think now is a good time.”
I just stared at the screen on my computer. What made me special? Why would they keep this from me? Why would Archmage Donovan act like it was his idea to send me?
“Ket?”
Why was Lockonis intercepting communications from the Arcane College? Why would the Arcane College care about losing a Researcher?
“Ketayl!”
That made me jump and I squeaked out an apology.
“Ket, I had known about you for years before that,” Lockonis admitted, “Curiosity got the better of me and I would follow Kitteren and Lindale when they visited you. You, I knew I could get out of there, and I also knew that there was something different about you. It wasn’t until Magus Engelil evaluated you that we found out you were an Arcanist and that’s probably why the Arcane College was not happy to let you go. If there had been any communication that didn’t involve trying to recall you, I would have let you read it. It wasn’t just my personal grudge against the Arcane College.”
Twisted Magics (Terra Chronicles Book 1) Page 14