Highmage (Highmage's Plight Book 4)

by D. H. Aire

  The Empress was planning details for the upcoming celebration now that legionnaires once more graced the capital, supporting the city guard. “We must honor the Aqwaine auxiliaries.”

  Lord Sianhiel frowned, “We were about to release them.”

  “Not yet, we have need of them and they are loyal,” the Empress replied. “Oh, and they must all receive bonuses and hazard pay.”

  Terhun choked, “Hazard pay for how long?”

  “The duration of their return to service.”

  Sianiel shook his head.

  “The bars and… well,” Terhun began, “are going to appreciate the extra coin, no doubt.”

  “So, will have a parade along the Great Way down the tiers, circling back through the Sixth Tier and…”

  “Would not the Seventh be more appropriate?” Sianhiel asked.

  The Empress glanced at her spymaster, who shrugged and replied, “Normally I would agree with using the Sixth rather than the Seventh, but I don’t think we have much to worry about from the residents of the Seventh. Lord Je’orj, well, has made a rather good impression.”

  “And between the dwarves and the Cathartans we’ve the equivalent of an entire legion in the tier as loyal as you could ever want,” Sianhiel added.

  “Not to mention we seem to have warder mages aplenty,” Terhun said, “which has made an impression on your Court and the Great Houses.”

  “Yes, we will have to honor Master Stenh and the Academy… Fine, the parade will continue through the Seventh and pass before the, uh, Cathartan Embassy,” she said, refusing to call it Je’orj’s home. Then she glanced up and shivered, “What?”

  “Hi, Andre,” Revit and Terus chimed as she found them chowing down at the kitchen table.

  “Where did you two come from?” Andre asked a bit disconcerted that they looked older than they had been the previous week, but more so by the cowled black robed pair beside them.

  Terus grinned, “We heard there was free food.”

  “Um, who is your friend?”

  “Um, you haven’t given our room away have you?” Revit asked. “Oh, these are…”

  “He means,” Terus said, “this is our apprentice.”

  “Ahem, I’m their warder,” the cowled and robed figure replied in an odd sounding voice.

  Andre nodded, “Good, finally someone to keep you two out of trouble.”

  “Right,” Terus replied as the black robed pair warder glared.

  The warder went back to eating and drinking as Me’oh paused in the entryway, “Oh, my, more mouths to feed.”

  “Hi, Me’oh, meet our apprentices,” Revit said, grinning.

  “Master Stenh’s gone mad. You’re journeymen?”

  “Sort of,” Terus said.

  “They are masters now,” the warder said in that odd voice, which was a cross between being too high and a muffled echo.

  “Making us responsible for them,” Revit explained.

  There was a commotion at the front door. Me’oh half turned, muttering, “Good lords… Bal!”

  The twins went back to eating, realizing their warder was downing twice the food they were, so they began working hard to catch-up.

  Dwarves and Cathartans guarded the house and grounds that night as the moon shone full in the sky. De’ohr paused, sensing something “building.” She frowned as Balfour and Cle’or returned and Je’orj’s apprentices Aaprin and Gallen were not too far behind. Je’orj’s too large horse was allowed to roam free and it paced the grounds as if on guard as well.

  She moved to follow them into the house, when she felt a presence. Do not interfere, Mother Shaman.

  Bristling, she mentally replied, ‘I do not interfere!’

  Yes, that’s what she claimed, too, and here we are.

  ‘Who are you?’

  Oh, I’m just an old friend of the family.

  Frowning, De’ohr tried to take another step toward the house and found she could not. Her eyes widened. She tried taking a step back and found herself rooted to the spot. ‘Who are you?’

  This time there was no answer, only a sense that something was about to happen and that the future of her Shattered House, if not the whole world, lay in the balance. Swallowing hard, she glanced to the upper floor, wishing she could see the window to Lord Je’orj’s room.

  “Uh, excuse us,” Aaprin said, moving past her.

  She wanted to respond, but she found she could not utter a word.

  “She’s rather rude,” Gallen said as they reached the front door and entered.

  “Cathartans,” Aaprin muttered.

  “Don’t let Cle’or hear you say that.”

  “Um, good point.”

  Staff suddenly flared, Fri’il’s eyes flashed with unearthly light as her anklet glowed beneath the covers. Se’and gasped, instantly awake, her anklet aglow, her eyes shone as she stared blindly. George groaned, his head thundering with pain as he heard, Hello, Je’orj.

  Raven shimmered and changed back to beast form and growled as Juels took a step back behind her.

  “Alrex?” he muttered.

  The wall across from the bed rippled and looked as if it were dissolving to emptiness.

  The Gate wishes to meet you.

  “What?”

  Se’and hissed, “Not without us, he isn’t.”

  Even bound as you are, the Gate must recognize him as Guardian only.

  He rose from the bed, disturbing Ri’ori, who began to cry. Fri’il glanced at Se’and, sharing the same fear. Only half dressing and ignoring his boots, he gripped his staff and walked toward the wall that was not one any longer.

  Raven edged forward, but Juels grabbed her scruff and wished, “It’ll be all right.” Turning her head, she nodded in reply.

  George reached out and muttered, “Scan.”

  :Negative, I read only the wall itself, not what you see.:

  His figures touched the unreality and passed through it. He glanced back, his eyes first meeting Se’and’s gaze, then very briefly Fri’il’s, before resting on his daughter, who was crying in her mother’s arms.

  Then he stepped through.

  Her anklet suddenly blazing Cle’or tripped and gasped as Balfour turned. “He’s gone,” she muttered.

  “What?” he replied, steadying her.

  Revit and Terus came running from the kitchen, “What was that?”

  Aaprin and Gallen were staring up the stairs. “That’s one big Ward.”

  The black robed figure ran up behind them and pulled them back, yelling, “Don’t go up there!”

  “Why not?” Revit shouted.

  “That Ward’s not completely keyed,” the warder warned.

  “It’s worse than the node was until it is,” finished the other. “Interfering is a real bad idea.”

  “Cle’or, what do you mean, he’s gone,” Balfour asked.

  “Lord Je’orj, he’s gone… crossed to the Gate.”

  “Well, well,” reverberated the voice out of the darkness of the Gate’s antechamber, a place outside of time, as he had stepped out of reality into this ether realm. Momentarily, he thought himself in almost Stygian darkness, then saw the pair of lurid red eyes poised before him.

  The staff in his hand flared, which was followed by a grim chuckle. Laughter echoed around him. “Oh, you have no need of that. Welcome, human.”

  “Demon.”

  “So formal… and I was beginning to think us, if not friends, at least respected enemies.”

  “I think not,” he replied.

  “Well, at least you are ready to return to your distant Earth.” The veil of darkness pulled back and stars appeared, one distant star in particularly drew his attention.

  “Have no fear. I will do nothing to stop your leaving this world.”

  George Bradley, the archeologist who had fallen across the universe and fought to achieve this opportunity to return home, gripped his computer staff, his knuckles white with strain. :If you are willing to abandon all you now hold dear,: Staff wh
ispered through their rapport.

  The Gate whirled, opening the way as a portal across the galaxy, beckoning.

  “Go home, human, or do you wish to join me? After all, there are already those calling you demon…” the Demonlord said, laughing.

  George stood there. The Gate glowing, mirroring staff’s light or vice versa, George thought, uncertain.

  “What are you waiting for Highmage? The way is clear. This is your chance to return to your world… and I shall never give you another.”

  :George?:

  Ri’ori’s crying echoed in his ears as he felt himself stepping forward toward the open gateway. Tears in his eyes, he muttered, “Goodbye…”

  A flash of light shot across the firmament toward the distant Earth

  Epilogue

  Herald Varian arrived at the house in the Seventh Tier, bearing invitations. The Cathartan looked rather grim and on edge, but let him pass. He knocked on the door. The dwarf, Tett, greeted him at the door. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Such a warm greeting.”

  “Master’s not, uh, in. Come back tomorrow or, better, next week.”

  “Not in?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  The dwarf bard was singing out a line, seeking to describe the recent battle only to be yelled at by Lady Cle’or demanding he stop his “caterwauling.”

  “I bear invitations for the Highmage to join the Empress for the parade,” Varian announced. “The Empress has proclaimed a full day of celebration.”

  Balfour came down the stairs. “We’re all rather tired and will be, uh, celebrating privately.”

  “Where is the Highmage?”

  “I believe he’s out.”

  “He hasn’t come back through the Gate?”

  That got everyone’s attention.

  “No, he hasn’t,” Se’and answered, coming from the kitchen.

  Varian swallowed, “Well, we can’t let anyone else know that. We need a Highmage.”

  Gallen came to the top of the stairs, privately praying she wasn’t being a total fool. “I, uh, can do something about that.”

  The parade worked its way through the Fourth Tier to cheering crowds. Legionnaires lined the Great Way, maintaining crowd control, as did dwarves and Cathartans.

  Musicians blowing horns heralded the fore of the procession. Dwarves marched behind, which was completely unlike tradition, where legionnaires normally led the march. The loyalty of the dwarves was clearly being honored by the Empress, which pleased the humans in the crowd, if not all the elfbloods, many of who were evaluating the fact that they now had a human Highmage.

  Two score black liveried Cathartans on black horses rode behind them followed by Sergeant Grigg at the vanguard of the Aqwaine’s Auxiliary Legion of his formerly retired comrades. Drummers followed them.

  A dozen cowled black robed warder mages, riding on white mounts, came next, then Lord Niota, his ogre pacing his battle steed mount, at his side. People gaped. Walsh just waved and nodded as a hundred Lyain legionnaires marched behind them. Imperial guilders marched next, weavers, tanners, crafters bearing the banners of their Guild, then, which drew some odd looks, Faeryn mages bearing the rearing unicorn stallion banner. More musicians with horns followed.

  From the tier walls mages and those of the elvin Great Houses watched among them Grendel’s mother, who had heard no further word of her son after his attempted, best to call it, coup. His scheme jeopardized her House and all their long laid plans. The fool! They had been so close.

  She stared at the upper level gleaming white Tiers, the magic flowing stronger through all their veins than it likely ever had apparently having been horded up in the node beneath the city for all too long. A child of my House shall reign after you fool Empress. This Empire will become what it was destined to be… one where humans know their place.

  The Empress was not amused. She smiled and waved at the crowd an illusionary Je’orj du Bradlei with a wooden staff in his hand, waving beside her. Se’and stood at his back, whispering, “You think this is funny, admit it?”

  Gallen nodded, “If I have to be Highmage, you can wear Cathartan black.”

  Glancing back, the look the Empress gave him was definitely not amused.

  “Keep smiling,” Herald Varian urged ever so quietly. “Just keep smiling.”

  “I am going to make him pay for this,” the Empress half whispered. “Oh, you owe me, Je’orj.”

  Esperanza with Terhun right behind her rushed across the chamber as a scryer cried out that the Consecrated’s Tower had gotten a glimpse of the Northlands. “What did they report?” she demanded as she poured a bowl, uttered an elvin word to key the spell as she passed her hand over it as it. The water went suddenly still and she bent over it.

  The elfblood gasped, shaking his head, “Gwire… the king and his family are slain. Fenn du Blain’s banner flies above the city.”

  Terhun cursed.

  Esperanza reached out to the Consecrated’s Tower and said, “Mistress, you’ve managed to repair the talisman?”

  ‘Lady, we have, but imperfectly.’

  “I’ll take that over nothing at all… now share what you’ve seen.”

  ‘It’s grim, Lady.’

  “Show me, nonetheless.” The Consecrated’s Tower had been her home before she married the Lyai. It housed and guarded the ancient talisman pool, a tool she had been taught they understood. They had not. The Demonlord had suborned the Tower over the centuries, blinding them to truth. Now the talisman fluttered back into focus again, her skin welled with moisture in sympathetic linkage. Her body suddenly flowed with rivers, then a lake as did the Mistress of the Tower. She glimpsed what the Mistress had, a view of the Northlands past the Demonlord’s illusions.

  She gasped as she saw the city of Gwire, the capital of their allied northern kingdom. The Legion fortresses to the north were smoldering ruins. In the camps set up around them Gwedian soldiers dragging thousands of bodies stripped of elvin mail, sword and dagger to blazing pyres, welling dark bitter smoke.

  If there were any survivors or of events further to the north or to the east to the curve of the Barrier Mountains, vision would not come. Gwire faded from view. She grimly reported, “Lord Terhun, the Legions in the north are no more. We have been betrayed.”

  “All?”

  “I glimpsed only the city of Gwire and the surrounding area around it… and the thousands of our dead.”

  “Ruke!” he shouted. “Get word to Lord Lyai. Tell him it’s begun!”

  Ruke, Mahr and Za’an, serving as an ever-present personal bodyguard, fled the Imperial Scryer’s Tower to the Legion’s Headquarters in the Second Tier, where Lord Lyai and General Winterhil now met to discuss plans, while the city had its spectacle, a distraction or respite before what was they feared was to come.

  Ri’ori was crying. “Shh, hush, little one.”

  Revit and Terus were arguing downstairs with their warder apprentice. Balfour and Cle’or were keeping De’ohr and her Cathartans out of the house as Tett and Spiro saw to the dwarves, who were feeding the scores that seemed to be taking up permanent residence on the grounds outside.

  Andre knocked. Juels accompanied her as they brought trays for the mid-day meal. The curtains were drawn, keeping out the sunlight and “Milady,” Andre said.

  “Thank you,” Se’and said as Fri’il came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, her wet hair wrapped in another.

  Sniffing the aroma, “Ugh, remind me never to do that again.”

  Juels bowed and stepped out as Andre gave her an odd look even as they heard Se’and say, “Fine, never go to the Gate again.”

  :Is this what a hangover is supposed to feel like?:

  “No, this is worse,” George said, rocking his baby girl as he paced.

  :He did seem rather put out when we sent that farewell message to Earth rather than you are going in person: said the freestanding glowing staff in the middle of the room.

  George muttered, “Can demo
ns have apoplexy?”

  :If I did not know better, I would think the Gate was laughing at him.:

  “Oh, Je’orj,” Se’and said ever so sweetly, “if you are going to forego eating, I suggest you really should read that invitation from the Empress.”

  “I think I’ll skip whatever she has in mind, thank you,” he said as Fri’il slipped back under the covers.

  “Why don’t you come back to bed?” she asked, opening her arms to take her daughter.

  With a rueful smile, he gave her Ri’ori and said, “Uh, I’ve been in bed enough, thank you.”

  As Juels closed the door she heard, Se’and say, “I would really advise you to read that invitation. You don’t want to miss your own wedding.”

  “Wedding? Wedding!” he shouted.

  Juels chuckled and practically skipped down the hall as Andre shook her head, “You must really love weddings.”

  “Oh, I do… I really do.”

  “Wedding?!” reverberated through the house.

  Continued in Well Armed Brides

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  About the Author

  D.H. Aire has walked the ramparts of the Old City of Jerusalem and through an escape tunnel of a Crusader fortress that Richard the Lionheart once called home. He’s toured archeological sites that were hundreds, if not thousands of years old… experiences that have found expression in his writing of his Highmage’s Plight Series.

  D.H. Aire’s short stories and a serialized version of Highmage’s Plight, Human Mage, and Highmage have been featured in the ezine Separate Worlds, as did an excerpt from Merchants and Mages. A collection of his short stories appear in the anthology, Flights of Fantasy, Vol. 1, also featuring the stories of Barry Nove. Aire’s story Crossroads of Sin appears in the anthology, RealLies. He has sample chapters of his forthcoming Young Adult novel, Dare2Believe and a Young Adult short story, Time Out, available on Wattpad.com, a free site intended for young adult readers.