I frowned, “The key words in that were, used to look at me. He didn’t even spare me a glance in there. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway, it’s my own fault in the first place, now I have to live with it. At least he won’t be around long to rub it in my face.”
She shook her head, “Can’t you? Do something I mean?”
I smiled, “Sure, should I make him my zombie love slave?”
Her face fell, “I suppose that would be bad, wouldn’t it? Forget I said that. It’s really good to see you. I thought I’d die if I had to spend any more time in my brother’s brooding presence, or with the vapid princess from hell.”
I laughed a little evilly at her description of Lena and said wholeheartedly, “I knew I liked you.”
She smirked, “So I assume you don’t want to hear all about my month, since it’s all about my brother’s idiocy and a certain evil princess, or I could regal you about the weather, and what trees grow alongside the roads. So what’s been going on around here, and who was the young girl with you?”
I went backward, and told her all about my very new apprentice first. Then we spoke about all the other things that had gone on, and the concerns I had. It took hours, I didn’t leave anything out, and the concern I had about Timothy surprised her.
“I’ll talk to him. He’s always been quiet and solitary. Mom said he used to be more outgoing before father died.”
We hugged again before she left, it was getting late.
She said softly, “Don’t give up hope, I’m still hoping he’ll come to his senses. It’s really ironic that the one person I know doesn’t want anything from me but friendship is a mage, considering what I was always taught.”
I shook my head in denial, but I knew my traitorous heart wouldn’t give up until he was safely married and long gone. Even then, I’d probably still love him. What really bothered me was that Mendell had to be full of unfettered mages, even in court, so how was he dealing with that when he couldn’t deal with me?
Chapter 26
I clenched my teeth and wore my bitch face. Not angry, just cold and professional as I stood on the side of the dais. If I were a man, they’d say I looked serious and no nonsense. But since I was a woman I knew it came off cold and bitchy. Still, that was better than flighty, although I wondered how the queen pulled it off, she just looked regal.
It was morning court and the royal dais was once again full, and I stood at their side. The princess Lena sat with the nobles, I could only assume to see how the ruler of Lethia handled court, to give her a different perspective to how her parents did it? It was the only reason I could think of, because it was dreadfully boring, and I wouldn’t have been here if I didn’t have to be.
I kept surreptitiously glancing at the bastard… I mean prince Daniel, but he still refused to even acknowledge my presence, much less look at me. I sourly thought maybe him and his brother could start a club. The only good thing was that I noticed he didn’t glance at princess Lena very often either, not like he’d watched me the first time I was in court as a spectator.
I was so pathetic, and hope was an evil and twisted emotion. Damn Marie for pointing that out to me, it was obvious he was far from besotted with the foreign princess.
I tried not to scowl at Sir Andrew, as he waxed poetically about the urgent need for monies to upgrade his mansion. Apparently twenty rooms weren’t enough for a third child on the way, and a mother in law in residence who’d brought her own servants. He wasn’t asking for coin at least, just for more of the precious city square footage so he could get started on construction.
I amused myself by targeting various individuals with the shortcut glyph for the disarm, trip, and sticky spells. Even while paying attention, I was able to focus enough for six people at a time, which was twelve thoughts. I was improving.
I also had fun going over the memories from breakfast. Marie had caused something of a scandal by being so friendly with Bell and I when she joined us at our solitary table. Bell adored Marie almost immediately, which was a good thing. Her mother hadn’t tried to interfere with that at all, which meant… I wasn’t sure what it meant. But maybe good things.
Still, the other nobles, and Timothy clearly weren’t happy with it. Daniel I wasn’t sure about, he didn’t acknowledge it either way. I was getting the idea that Daniel had decided to just completely ignore me until he could leave again, which I found out was only a month away.
Bell was off learning spell glyphs and practicing in the work room right now, lucky for her. I couldn’t really tell through the link exactly what she was doing, but she felt content, happy, and very focused on something.
Maria’s voice jarred me back to the present, “Sir Andrew, I appreciate your difficulty, but here in the city we all have space constraints. I’d suggest perhaps that you build out in the country, or maybe you could build into the ground to add more servant quarters? But I’m afraid adding a new wing to your city mansion is out of the question.”
He looked like he might argue, but reluctantly bowed instead, “Yes your majesty, thank you for hearing my request,” and then he bowed again and left rather disgruntled.
A soldier jogged in and I tensed, he reported, “Sorry for interrupting your majesty. But there is a major attack going on in Fairmead.”
I frowned and opened a portal up against the eastern wall in view of everyone in the room. Fairmead was the closest village, just a day’s travel from here. The window opened from a thousand feet up and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There had to be a thousand of them, and that was just the mages.
There were usually about twenty to thirty mages in each demesne, and there were only sixty demesnes or so. Which meant I was looking about half of the mage population of Zual right now. I immediately changed my plans, against that many mages even my strong magic with the nine enchanted energy elementals would be suicide. Especially if a master mage was in control of all that combined power, he or she would swat me like a fly.
I closed the portal and cast a scrying glyph for the town at the same height. It came up just in time to see a house get demolished by wind and fire. A thousand demons were terrorizing the town and pulled women and children out of their homes. The elementals just stood there next to the mages that summoned them, and why not, it wasn’t as if they were needed.
This wasn’t a raid. This was a full out invasion force. But how did so many demesnes come together?
I adjusted the scrying with a thought, and the picture zoomed down toward the town. I saw a few mages with staffs, and zoomed in on each of them. Then stopped in shock when one master mage’s face came to be the focus. It was the one that had invaded my demesne and killed my master the day I escaped to Lethia.
Holy shit, had he conquered half of Zual so he could invade here? It wasn’t a sure answer, but it was the only one that fit for the moment. If he was tied into a thousand other mages’ magic, me being more powerful than him alone wouldn’t matter at all. He’d squash me like a bug.
Still, I had to do something.
I opened a portal to the parade grounds, and ignored the cries when my scrying spell died as I stepped through. The yard was full of knights running around.
Michael yelled, “Cassie! Open a portal so we can send reinforcements.”
I laughed, the sound a little unhinged, “No, it’s suicide. Form a defensive perimeter, I’m going to do all I can, to save people, but no one goes there.”
He looked startled for a second at my orders, but then started barking orders to form a defensive perimeter.
I opened a twenty-foot-wide by ten-foot-high portal about a quarter mile into the woods from the village. Then I used the enchantments and summoned the nine energy elementals with intent. They shot through the portal, even faster than an air elemental would be able to move.
Less than a second later, there were nine people being dropped in the midst of the soldiers, then they zipped away. Nine more, and then the third time just eight, then eight, and then seven.
The master mage was killing my elementals. I casted another manually in my mind, and it was back up to eight villagers a trip for the next six times, then it was back to seven.
“Evacuation?” Michael asked in a calm tone of voice. I knew he was horrified too, but he was calm and in command, and it helped to relax me.
I nodded in agreement, “There’s too many, a thousand mages, a thousand demons, and a thousand elementals. I’m pretty awesome, but not that awesome. I could take maybe… forty at most with my advantages, if they weren’t focused and working as one that is.”
We were down to four villagers every couple of seconds, my personal elemental had died so I recast the glyph. I couldn’t do it for the enchantments, the elementals would last for hours normally, if not more than a day, but after the enchantment is used it takes a few minutes to recharge it. Normally that isn’t a problem, but right now it was.
Two minutes later, and there were over four hundred villagers here, the problem was there should have been almost two thousand. I stared at my last three elementals as they stood there, obviously there were no more left alive.
My eyes blurred with tears as I closed the portal. I must have gotten dust in them or something.
I was back in the throne room, another scrying glyph and we all watched the town. Half of it was destroyed, probably because of the evacuation. I imagined many buildings and people died as my elementals had grabbed the villagers and stolen them away from the invaders, in the master mage’s efforts to destroy them.
There were about forty more villagers alive, captured and held by other elementals. Mine must not have been able to get to them. Most of those were women.
I said in bitch mode, “Most likely they’ll loot the town, avail themselves of the women, and then march here tomorrow.”
Daniel scoffed and said acidly, “They’re raiders, they’ll take their loot and the women you failed to save and go home.”
I stiffened like he’d hit me. I felt like a blade stabbed my heart, how was this my fault?
“That’s not a raiding force, that’s an invasion,” I zoomed up, and moved east until I saw what I was looking for, and zoomed back down to show a party of a few mages and their elementals heading in our direction.
“Those, are scouts, and they’re scouting this way. They are coming here despite your wishful thinking. And I didn’t fail, whose fault is it exactly there’s only one mage in Lethia to face this? Prince Daniel,” I said the title as sarcastically as I could.
He growled, “You bitch, how dare you speak to me…”
“Enough!” the queen’s harsh voice brought us both up short.
I looked around in embarrassment, we were hardly alone and were quarreling like children. At least he was talking to me now though, even if he did just call me a bitch.
Lena was looking between us with a suspicious look on her face.
The queen asked, “What can we do? We have a day, maybe two to prepare.”
I shook my head, “The Zual master can harness the magic of all of his apprentices. It’s a mind control thing they do there. There is no magic that could stand up to that, not just one mage anyway. I’ve never felt power like that before…” I trailed off.
I had felt power like that before.
There was no advanced combination spell or glyph that could match their combined magical power, but I remembered the enormous magical aura of the fountain when I’d used the weather ritual. It had that much power. Rituals weren’t used in combat, they were usually too slow, but an enchanted ritual would be fast enough.
I had to think this out.
“I might have a way, if you’ll excuse me?”
Daniel looked ready to object, but I left when the queen nodded, and went to the hideaway via portal. I didn’t actually have to go anywhere, but I wanted to be able to focus and couldn’t be distracted by stupid questions, or Daniel.
Daniel was a big distraction. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss him or kill him right now.
My first thought was a massively destructive spell, but one that would be strong enough to overpower the master with a thousand mages behind him would probably blow up half the kingdom.
I’d need to be subtler than that. Not only because of the possibility of damaging nearby things, like the capitol of Lethia, it also occurred to me that there might be some mages in that thousand that were like me. Dark mages, but not evil, those merely caught up in enslavement in a society that punishes free thinking.
I had to believe that out of a thousand, there had to be at least a few that hadn’t given themselves up to the darker side of humanity.
The beginning of the ritual was easy to form, since I just stole the first hundred glyphs of the weather spell. It was basically the power gathering part, and would be more than enough magic to end the threat of invasion. But, I wasn’t sure what to do with it yet, and it would take time to enchant, and I just had one day to do it all.
I had no time for doubts, so I got to work…
Chapter 27
It was probably around midnight, at least twelve hours later. I’d had to use the focus glyph a few times to finish the ritual, thank goodness it wasn’t nearly as difficult as the weather spell, and I had a good grip on syntax and how the glyph language flowed.
I used the memory writing ritual to add it to my book. I’d worked on it while meditating, breaking it up into manageable parts, knowing that my mind would keep it all straight. I went over it again, in its entirety, to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. Then I titled it, Judgement.
An hour after that, I was pretty sure I had it. I really hoped someone had taken care of Bell in my absence, but measured against the kingdom there would be times she’d be on her own. I was sure Marie would have seen to it, but I still worried.
Then I grabbed a staff, it was about five feet high. I didn’t bother with the illusion, or the earth elemental. I didn’t need it anymore. I used the memory writing ritual again, but changed the intents. Instead of a book, I chose the staff, instead of blank part of parchment, I used a smooth part of the wood, instead of transforming the glyphs to ink, I instead transformed the wood into the carved shape of the glyphs. It worked perfectly.
I still had to enchant it, which would take a few hours, but the invading army of mages was still in Fairmead. Still, I couldn’t depend on a march, I had a feeling they’d sent the scouting party to open a portal first thing in the morning. We were lucky that the mage that brought them over wasn’t familiar with the capitol city itself. I was just too tired though, I’d work on it first thing when I got up.
I released the nine energy elementals, with the intent to find and destroy any black robed mages between the city and Fairmead, maybe I’d get lucky and they’d have to march anyway. I should have done that earlier, but I guess I hadn’t been thinking clearly and had been overly focused on creating the scariest ritual in the world.
I took a portal back to my room in the castle, set a spell to wake me two hours before dawn, and passed out after a brief check to see if Bell was okay.
I felt a lot better, even with just four hours of sleep. After I casted the glyphs to clean up, along a refresh glyph to wake me a bit, I felt almost normal. The intense focus for twelve hours straight to build half of a ritual had taken a lot out of me. I went over to the library and started enchanting the already carved ritual, I’d be done right before breakfast…
Bell was glad to see me when I collected her for breakfast.
“Where were you?”
I grinned, “I created a ritual to conquer the world.”
She frowned, “No, really.”
I laughed, “Really, although not really as well. I limited it to a very narrow focus. Still, I bet we can take down Zual with this staff.”
I looked her up and down, she looked like a well-bred young lady.
“I see you mastered those glyphs, any others?”
I had her started on light magic first. Most of the damaging things were part of the neutral and d
ark magic, although even light had its place in battle, protections could harm an attacker for instance. I planned to move her to neutral magic such as elemental magic and enchantment later. The only exceptions to that were the neutral magic I already taught. The cleaning ones.
She replied in a mature voice, “Healing, I think. I also learned the truth glyph, and two protection glyphs.”
I nodded in satisfaction, “Good, I want you to study in the mornings, and practice what you studied in the afternoons. If you start to lose focus, quit for the day. I’d rather you cut your training short, than learn and adopt bad habits. Never cast a glyph without clarity of focus.”
She sighed, and I tried not to smile and looked stern instead. I knew why of course, I’d told her all that before, at least once a day. Repetition never hurt anyone though, and it was important. No doubt I’d be saying something very similar tomorrow.
I added in a gentler voice, “Perhaps after dinner tonight, we can go shopping?”
She stepped a bit livelier, “That sounds fun, what about the invasion?”
I winked, “It will be over by then I think, either way.”
Either they’d be dead, or we would.
I led Bell over to the table the royal family sat at, and took a seat.
Daniel said sharply, “Where did you disappear to for eighteen hours? I’d thought you’d decided to run.”
The queen gave him a sharp look and then turned to me, “Report.”
I replied, “They’re on the way, they’ll be here in two hours. I was able to take out their advanced forces to prevent a travel gate, but they can still move fast, they’re mages. I believe I have a way to defeat them, but I need a favor.”
The Rise of a Dark Mage Page 15