You’d think I’d just offered her a gourmet meal, complete with fine linens, silverware, candles, and music. The smile of unfeigned delight she wore put the sun to shame. “Strawberry?”
“Well, one strawberry, one melon.”
Between one heartbeat the next, she darted in and pressed a kiss against my cheek. A slow flush burned its way across my face, and I swear that the place where her lips touched me made my skin tingle.
“You’re the best friend in the world, Garth!” she exclaimed, nearly bouncing. “Which pocket is it in?”
I had to pull my scrambled wits together to answer her coherently. “Ah, right pocket, I think.”
She darted around Night, happily rummaging in my saddlebags.
I just stood there and watched her with a dazed smile on my face. I have got to do her favors more often, if this is the response that I’ll get.
Shad sidled up to my side, eyes dancing. “Garth, you’re blushing.”
I threw an elbow at his ribs, which he dodged, the rat.
Why did I get the feeling that I was never going to live this down?
“You’ve got to tell them about the Advent Mage study group,” Night encouraged with snicker.
Chatta paused with her treat in hand. “The what?”
I throttled down my own amusement, just thinking about her probable reaction—actually, the whole team was bound to be amused by this. “Let’s sit down,” I suggested. “This is a real doozy.”
I decided it was safer all around for me to finish dinner while I told the story. I had this hunch that Chatta especially would be rolling on the ground with laughter, begging for mercy, by the time that I finished this story. So I picked up the spoon Chatta had abandoned, stirring the thick stew over the fire, and waited until everyone was sitting down before beginning.
Sitting was the safest position for them to be in, after all.
“So I had to take everything we found in the cave to the Sojavel Ra Institute,” I started casually. “While I was in the building, I ran across a room that had a plate on it that read Advent Mage Study.”
Everyone choked, torn between shock and laughter.
“Kartal and I had no idea there was such a study,” I admitted. It was difficult to keep my face bland. “And as we stood there, just looking at that plate, one of the men in the room demanded to know what I was doing.”
“Did he know who you were?” Hazard demanded.
I shook my head. “Not a clue.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” Chatta held up a hand, her expression incredulous. “The group that is supposed to be the authority on the Advent Mage couldn’t recognize him on sight?”
“He really didn’t even give me a chance to introduce myself either,” I confirmed.
That set Chatta off into mad giggles. She had vast experience with the arrogance of Wizards, after all. Hearing them make such colossal mistakes was very entertaining for her. “Please, please let me put this into a memory crystal.”
I thought about that for a moment, but why not? The memory was a better way of showing them than my retelling of the story. “All right.”
Chatta scrambled around for an empty memory crystal, casting the spell to open it up. I pulled the memory of my encounters with the Advent Mage group to the front of my mind, which Chatta captured effortlessly and stored in the crystal. She hit it with another spell to broadcast the memory so that everyone could see it play in their heads.
I sat back and watched their expressions, reliving the moment with them, and laughing about it all over again. When the memory was over, Chatta and Shad were hanging onto each other, laughing so hard they were having trouble breathing; Xiaolang had one hand over his eyes, errant chuckles escaping from his mouth here and there; Eagle and Aletha were actually quoting their favorite lines to each other, chuckling dementedly; Shield kept rubbing at his lips to erase a smile, with limited success; Hazard was just rolling on the ground, arms wrapped around his middle and begging for mercy.
Watching them, I had this suspicion that this was one memory they were going to ask for an encore—probably as many times as Chatta was willing to cast the spell. Considering how entertained she was, it was going to be a while before she got tired of it.
If she ever did.
This might be a story that just never got old.
~*~
The next morning, I got up and bolted down a quick breakfast that Aletha cooked, and went to work.
This wasn’t like the normal scrying that I usually engaged in. For one thing, scrying pools like this one have a seal on the bottom of the pool. Part of it is to moderate how much power seeps into it from the ley line, but part of it is to keep Mages out. Don had actually warned me about this before we left Coven Ordan—no one wanted a Mage accidentally popping into a pool by accident, so they sealed the bottom of it to prevent such a thing from happening. I’m sure this was an excellent precaution under normal circumstances.
But these weren’t normal circumstances.
I slowly sank into the ground, senses heightened as much as I could do so. As soon as I got a good look at the ley lines under that pool, my heart sank.
This simply wasn’t feasible.
I combed the entire area for nearly a hundred miles in every direction, but I still couldn’t find a way to do this without tangling up ley lines past all redemption. Part of me was happy about this—an abundance of ley lines meant fertile soil—but for our purposes, it didn’t help one iota.
“Garth, you’ve been down for an hour now.”
Rats, had I really? I lost all track of time when I did this. With a mental sigh, I yanked back into my body.
And, as usual, I felt like I’d been thrown into an arctic pool. I was shivering so hard that I nearly bit my tongue. I really, really hate scrying.
“Garth?” Xiaolang knelt next to me, concern tightening the corners of his eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I h-hate sc-scrying,” I chattered back through clenched teeth.
His head cocked at a slightly amused angle. “That didn’t answer my question.”
“He’ll be fine in a few minutes,” Chatta assured him. She wrapped a blanket snuggly around me, which did help warm me up.
Shield reached around her, handing me a steaming mug. “Hot tea.”
My hands were stiff with cold, but I still managed to grab the mug with something like a death grip. “Bless you.”
The first sip scalded my tongue and throat. The heat was delicious. I graduated from sips to gulps, feeling heat seep into frozen muscles. Oh, that was so much better.
“I’m sorry, Garth.” Xiaolang was quiet, troubled, and his eyes were focused intently on the ground. “I didn’t realize this was so difficult.”
“The one part of magic I dislike,” I admitted. “But don’t worry about it. I know what’s going on under our feet now.”
“And?” Xiaolang prompted when I stalled.
“Too dangerous,” I sighed. “That pool is sitting on a very strong ley line, and it’s connected to two others that are equally strong.”
“Only three?” Hazard obviously didn’t see the problem.
“Three in the immediate area,” I clarified. “And those three are connected to other ley lines. Picture—” I paused and tried to put what I had seen into a visual image he could understand. “Try to imagine this. The three ley lines are like three strings braided together. Can you remove one string without tangling the whole braid?”
He frowned, considering this. “I see what you mean.”
Aletha was following this closely. “Is there anything we can do?”
“I can collapse the building on top of it. But they could dig it out again.” I spread my hands in a helpless shrug. That was the best option I could offer, under the circumstances.
“And it will tip them off that someone with magical abilities is loose, and knows what the pools are,” Xiaolang observed in a tired voice. “Too much danger, too little reward.”
There was no
condemnation in Xiaolang’s voice or expression, but I still felt like I had failed, somehow. Like I hadn’t met the expectations placed on me. “Sorry.” I stared glumly into the mug.
Xiaolang sank onto his haunches. His hand grasped my shoulder, giving me a gentle shake. “Garth, this isn’t your fault. None of this mess is your doing.”
I grimaced. That didn’t make me feel any better. “I know.”
“Somehow, I heard a ‘but’ in there.”
“But,” I gave him a dry smile, “we both know how much easier this will be without those pools. I feel like…I’m failing all of you by not putting them out of commission.”
“Garth.” Chatta rolled her eyes heavenward, as if she was praying for patience. “We’re not blaming you for that!”
I knew that. Intellectually, at least. But I still couldn’t shake the feeling.
“It’s not that you won’t do it. It’s that you can’t do it.”
I shifted to look at Shad, who was standing behind me. That statement had a wealth of understanding behind it.
Everyone was looking at him now, but it was Eagle that put the question out loud. “What do you mean?”
Shad’s eyes never left mine as he explained. “By moving or tampering with a ley line, he risks destroying the land. As an Earth Mage, the idea is abhorrent. It would be a crime worse than murder, wouldn’t it, Garth?”
I couldn’t have explained it any better than that. “Yes.”
New understanding dawned on their faces.
“Ah!” Xiaolang lit up, like a man who had just been handed an epiphany. “So that’s the source of it. Hmmm.” His eyes went vague, unfocused, as he thought on something the rest of us couldn’t detect.
“Ignore him,” Hazard advised good-naturedly. “He’s gone into deep thinking mode.”
“Well, what do we do now?” Aletha wondered. “Garth, do you need much time to recover?”
I waved this worry aside. “No, I’m practically fine now. We can move on if we need to.”
“Assuming our illustrious leader snaps out of it…” Shield casually smacked Xiaolang in the back of the head.
“Ow!” Rubbing gingerly at the abused area, Xiaolang turned a dark glare on his first lieutenant. “What was that for?”
“Daydreaming,” Shield drawled.
“You didn’t have to hit me!” he complained in a near whine.
“Oh, but I did.” Shield’s smile was not at all nice. “I really, really did.”
Xiaolang muttered something under his breath in Q’atalish. I was just as glad that I wasn’t able to understand it. Eagle’s understanding wince was enough to tell me that.
Hoping to divert a fight I asked, “So where to next?”
Still rubbing at his head, Xiaolang answered, “We go back to our original task. I think we should continue to head south, following the coastline for now. Are you sure you’re up to moving right now, Garth?”
“I’m fine,” I assured him.
Xiaolang nodded, accepting this. “Chatta, you used the pool earlier this morning. Did you see anything?”
She shrugged, her palms spread helplessly. “I found another Watchman’s Pool, but I couldn’t see inside. There’s a very strong glamour over the building. I think I caught a hint of movement near it, though. There might be someone hiding out in that area.”
“Then, people, let’s move.”
~*~
Once back on the road, I went back to searching. I was focusing more on it than I usually did, partly out of guilt, I admit. Despite my comrades’ understanding attitudes, I still felt like I should have done more, somehow.
Chatta has a sixth sense for when I’m sliding into depressing thoughts. It’s the only way I can explain why she knows when to come and poke me in the ribs.
I flinched and twisted to frown down at her. “What?”
“Stop it,” she ordered with a pointed look.
“Stop what?”
“Stop being needlessly guilty.”
Easier said than done.
“I mean it, Garth.”
What, she reads minds now? I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “How do you know I’m feeling guilty?”
“Because you get this little crease right there,” she pressed her fingertip between my eyebrows, “when you worry about something.”
She had me there. I blew out a resigned breath. How do you argue with someone when they’re right?
“Garth, remember what you always rant about when people call you the Advent Mage? You always say that you’re not a demi-god—you can’t do everything, or fix every problem. Remember?”
“That’s not it,” I refuted. She gave me a look that silently said oh really? “Well, that’s not entirely it,” I amended. “This is just the first problem that I’ve been given that I couldn’t solve, somehow. The feeling…rankles.”
She was trying not to smile, but one leaked past her guard despite her best efforts. “Surely you’re not arrogant enough to believe that you can solve all the problems in the world?”
Put like that, and it seemed absurd. “Maybe I spent too much time around Kartal.”
“Clearly.”
I was about to make some sarcastic remark when I realized that there was someone approaching us. I frowned, turning in that direction. How very…odd.
“Garth?” Chatta looked the same direction I did, puzzled. “What are you looking at?”
“Someone’s coming toward us.”
“Magical, not magical?” she pressed, curious.
“I’m not entirely…sure,” I responded slowly. “They don’t even really feel human.”
“Not human?” she parroted in surprise.
Apparently her response was loud enough for Xiaolang to hear, because he turned Hayate about and came alongside Night. “What’s this?”
“Someone is coming in our direction, someone strange,” I explained absently. “They don’t feel like anything else I’ve ever felt.”
“Animal, perhaps?” he suggested, looking very intrigued.
That suggestion struck me as wrong, although I couldn’t give a rational explanation as to why it was wrong. “No…definitely a sentient being. It has more…awareness to it.” That was as close as I could get to describing what I felt.
Xiaolang’s eyes narrowed in concentration. He normally wore that look when he was actively using his empathy. His range wasn’t that far—somewhere under a mile, or so he told me—but whatever was heading toward us was probably close enough for him to sense at this point.
“You’re right, that’s definitely a sentient creature.” He relaxed after a moment. Far from satisfied, he was even more interested now. “Everyone stop!” he called.
The team came to an abrupt halt, people twisting to look at the Captain.
“Garth, I’m getting the impression that whatever that creature is, he’s coming to talk to you. I think he’s also a bit shy, so we’re going to back up a few feet and give you some space.”
I nodded, playing along for now. “Did you get any hint of his intentions?”
“Not really. But he doesn’t harbor any ill-will, so it should be safe enough to approach him.”
Well, that was reassuring. Somewhat. I slid off Night’s back and approached the side of the road. We were in the middle of the Flats—a thousand or so acres of grassland that dominated this Providence—so the grass was waist high. It was difficult to see anyone or anything until you were practically on top of it.
I had the strangest sense of déjà vu, like I’d done this before—only instead of waiting for a person to come to me, I had gone to them.
The memory hit me hard, for a moment throwing me back almost two years into the past. This was like when I had found Elis dying in that no-man’s land. I could almost taste the smell of blood, and feel the heat of twin suns beating down on me. Adrenaline flooded my system as that long day and night flashed through my mind, when I was being hunted by Manookin and his gang.
“Garth?” Xi
aolang’s voice was sharp with anxiety.
Shaking my head, I pushed the memory back into the recesses of my head, sealing it away again. That was not one of my more pleasant memories. “Sorry.”
“Just a flashback,” Night reassured them quietly. “This place strongly reminds him of the time he was turned Jaunten.”
And the manhunt I had lived through afterwards.
Xiaolang was not entirely appeased. “We’ll talk on this later.”
“I second that.” Chatta’s voice was firm.
We didn’t have time to say much else. A moment later, our visitor arrived.
As soon as he cleared the grass, I felt nearly faint with disbelief.
A Gardener?!
None of the Solians knew what he was; I could tell by the puzzled sounds they were making. Chatta, Night and I, however, froze in recognition.
Most people regarded Gardeners as a myth, or some sort of backcountry superstition. We barely covered them at the Academy. They were reputed to be a race that understood the earth and its underlying power in ways that no human could possibly match. There were some people that claimed that this world would cease to properly function without their influence. I thought that a bit far-fetched, personally.
Some of what I had learned was correct—at least, this one matched the descriptions I was given. He was barely five feet tall with pale skin that was nearly snow white. His eyes were larger than normal, a shockingly deep blue with no iris. He didn’t really have hair, more like the fine down of a swan that flowed to his shoulders. He looked… unworldly, and strangely beautiful.
After a second of gaping, I kicked myself into action. With a very polite bow, I introduced myself. “I am Rhebengarthen, an Earth Mage from Hain.”
He smiled—which strangely made him look like a mischievous child—and extended a hand to me.
Hesitantly, I reached out to take that hand.
And the world as I knew it exploded into a riot of sensations.
Feelings, images, thoughts—all of it was passed on in one lump package. I vaguely felt the impact as my knees hit the dirt, but that wasn’t important enough to distract me from trying to unravel everything jumbling in my head. His hand—thankfully—only held mine for a moment. As soon as he stopped touching me, the tidal wave of pure information stopped.
Magus (Advent Mage Cycle) Page 30