Athaya felt her innards recoil as the Sage rose from the throne and approached her. “Deal with me?” she echoed. Time… she needed more time! Her dizziness was gone, but her magic would still be weakened to near uselessness; it was unlikely she could defend herself for long against the Sage’s newly enhanced spells.
“You needn’t fear me, Athaya. I simply want you out of the way until my dominion in Caithe is undisputed. The enemy always sags when it sees its banner go down, and you, my dear, are that banner. You would lend considerable strength to this conflict, and I do not wish to deal with the added inconvenience. Although,” he added wryly, “you are not particularly imposing at the moment.”
Athaya tilted her chin up a bit, but knew the gesture of defiance was futile. He had seen her condition upon arriving in the council chamber; it was no use trying to deceive him into thinking her spells were at full potency. At least he didn’t know about the corbals; a corbal, she knew, would likely be her only chance of escape.
If, of course, she had one.
The Sage drifted to her side and extended one hand, as if in silent invitation to a dance. “Without you,” he said softly, “this alliance will crumble and Delfarham will quickly fall to me. And without Delfarham, Caithe itself will do likewise.”
He placed one arm around her, waiting only for the music to begin, and reached out with the other. She tried to send up a shielding spell in one last gesture of defiance, but his hand passed through the feeble spell with ease, leaving only a few trace puffs of blue to mark his passage.
“Now, sleep, Athaya,” he whispered, pressing his fingers to her forehead. “Sleep until I bid you wake.”
Athaya had expected his magic to be strong, but she was not prepared for the force behind his command; this was no blanket wrapped gently around her thoughts, lulling her to rest, but a pillow pressed hard against her face, smothering her will into unconsciousness. She never even had time to struggle; her resistance was brushed aside like tendrils of smoke from a snuffed-out candle. And as she fell limply into his arms, unable to pull away, she heard the soft roll of triumphant laughter and felt the hot touch of his lips upon her cheek.
* * * *
Durek slumped broodingly in a high-backed chair on the dais, weighted down by the dire reports pouring in from all corners of his city. He sipped absently at a cup of lukewarm tea as he listened to the latest, delivered by an elderly priest from Saint Adriel’s who had barely escaped the city’s landmark cathedral with his life.
“The Sage’s men are using the choir loft as a court,” he explained. “Their captives are forced to swear fealty to the Sage or be cut down right before God’s own eyes! The priests and Justices weren’t even given a chance to swear fealty; they were killed outright. And the brutality of it! Beasts are slaughtered more mercifully. Oh, sire,” he wailed, sinking to his knees in the rushes, “we are undone! God punishes us dreadfully… but for what sin?”
Durek scowled in self-reproach as the image of Athaya’s forest chapel came to mind; he had a fairly good idea why his Lord might be upset with him and his Tribunal, but he wasn’t of a mood to voice it.
Drianna glided behind the king and added hot water to his tea to warm it. “I never knew he could be so cruel,” she said softly, as distressed by the flood of bad news as anyone in the Hall. “I used to believe that he would make a good king; now I can’t think of a worse fate for Caithe.”
Durek looked up to her, a small spark of hope in his eyes. “You knew the Sage… rather well,” he said carefully, glossing over the extent of that relationship. “Do you know anything about his tactics… anything that might help us to stop him?”
“I only know what he chose to tell me about his magic, sire,” she replied, shaking her auburn curls regretfully. “And not being a wizard myself, I didn’t understand most of it. Mostly, he told me what it would be like once he ruled here; he never spoke much of how he planned to go about it… at least, not to me.”
Durek grunted his dismay as Drianna silently withdrew to the kitchens to help prepare a small meal for the king and his council, all of whom would be awake throughout the night.
Lieutenant Berns approached the dais next. “Sire, the courtyard is almost full, and there isn’t an inch of space left in the barracks or the keep; we simply can’t leave the gates open any longer.”
“But we can’t leave them to the Sage!” Kale argued, who stood by his onetime comrade to argue the opposite case before the king. After two years in the company of Athaya and her destitute following, he was acutely concerned with the plight of Delfarham’s swelling number of refugees. The irony of the situation was not lost on Durek. This time it was not the Lorngeld fleeing the Tribunal, but the ungifted of Caithe fleeing the Sage. And he was now playing Athaya’s role as deliverer, sheltering Caithe’s refugees from slaughter.
Reluctantly, Durek nodded to his lieutenant. “Close the portcullis, then. There’s no help for it,” he added to Kale, sincerely moved by the look of despair on the older man’s face.
Although Kale had once deserted the guard to serve Athaya, Durek felt surprisingly forgiving toward him—even liked him. Too few of his soldiers had such soul-deep integrity. “We can’t house the entire city. The rest will have to find safety elsewhere.”
Secretly, however, Durek doubted that the citizens of Delfarham would be any safer within the castle walls than without; at his present rate of success, the Sage would reach the king’s fortress before the night was out.
As Kale dourly retreated from the dais, Captain Parr marched up to take his place. “Sire, thirty-two more of the guard have been brought back dead. And eight of DePere’s wizards,” he added grudgingly, the sour curl to his lips speaking his opinion that counting the number of dead rats in the city would be a far more worthwhile pursuit. “We’ve lost nearly an entire regiment of men in less than two hours. I suggest we call for reinforcements from Gorah; the Sage’s army already controls over half of the city.”
Durek scanned the Hall with knitted brows before replying. “Where is Lord Garson? Martrave is a half-day closer than Gorah; we can summon a regiment from there.”
The council lords traded uneasy glances at the suggestion, none of them eager to answer the king’s inquiry. “Lord Chancellor?” Durek said, fixing his gaze on a silver-haired man with the ill luck to be standing closest to the dais. “Where is the duke of Martrave?”
“Er… Lord Garson is not here, sir. He… er—”
“Just say it, Counley!” a younger, less timid man cried, jostling his way forward. “Garson’s turned traitor! He ran off to swear fealty to the Sage in exchange for keeping his lands and title.” The councillor spat his disgust into the rushes.
Instead of erupting with rage at the betrayal, Durek merely squeezed his eyes together and expelled an aggravated sigh. “Never mind Martrave… or Gorah,” Durek replied sullenly. “More soldiers aren’t going to do us a damned bit of good anyway.” Privately, he wished he had possessed enough foresight to remain on speaking terms with Osfonin of Reyka—at least some of his soldiers were highly trained magicians. Durek had already recalled the troops dispatched two days ago for Kaiburn, but knew they would make little difference in a war waged almost entirely by magic.
“We’re expecting help from Athaya’s people in Kaiburn,” he told his still-waiting captain, “but not for at least two days. Just do anything you can to hold the Sage’s men at bay as long as possible. Damn it all, where is Athaya?” he shouted to no one in particular. It was, he realized, the first time in recent memory that he would have far rather had his wayward sister at his side than otherwise.
In desperate need of a moment’s respite from the chaos battering him at all sides, Durek withdrew to his private audience chamber accompanied only by Jaren and Master Hedric. Hedric he had beckoned inside specifically; Jaren he tolerated simply because he knew Hedric would wish him to. And Athaya, too, he supposed.
“We can’t wait any longer,” Durek said, pacing to and fro before
his writing desk. “You heard what Captain Parr said—half of the city is lost already. We need her now,” he said accusingly to Jaren, as if it were somehow his fault that Athaya was not properly in tow.
Jaren touched his hand to the pouch of corbals tied to his belt, waiting for Athaya’s unique brand of magic to bring them to life and, with luck, surprise the Sage’s men into retreat long enough for the much-needed help from Kaiburn to arrive. “I’ll take a quick look and see if she’s on her way.”
He retreated to the bay window, turning his back on the storm-wracked waters of the Sea of Wedane, and put the rain and winds far from his mind as he called his vision sphere into his palms. He sat hunched over the glowing orb rather longer than Durek thought necessary, and when Jaren finally banished the sphere and raised his head, Durek knew something was very wrong. Jaren’s face was waxen—as pale as the mists into which he had just gazed.
“I can’t see her.”
Master Hedric clasped his hands tight around his cherrywood staff, threatening to crack it. He tried to hide the extent of his concern from the king, but Jaren knew him well enough to know how desperately alarmed he was.
“What does that mean?” Durek demanded. Fear made the words come out more harshly then he intended.
“It means,” Jaren explained, “that either she’s left Delfarham for some reason—and gone fairly far away—or she’s warded from my sight, or…” His pallor grew even more pronounced. He scrambled out of the bay window, eyes warily scanning the chamber as he moved to the king’s side. “Your Majesty, I fear the Sage’s wizards are already among us.”
Durek’s face went white.
“I have to get you out of here while I still can,” Jaren continued softly. “Before they realize we know they’re here.”
“You mean Athaya’s been captured?” Durek asked disjointedly, unable to believe that he had been robbed of his last, best hope.
“I’m not sure. But I can’t think of any other reason why someone within these walls shouldn’t appear in my sphere readily enough.”
“B-but how? How could they have gotten inside?”
“Cloaking spells, perhaps. Or maybe the Sage came through by translocation somehow—if he can do it. I’ll wager they’ve been here since before the attack on the city began… probably long before the wards went up.”
Durek clutched his head between his hands as if to shut out the clamor of his world crashing down around his ears. “But I can’t leave now. I—”
“You have no choice, sire,” Hedric urged him, quiet but firm. “If Athaya is missing, then it is almost certain that the castle walls have been breached. You must flee while you still can. If you fall to the Sage, Caithe will lose what hope it has left.”
It grated him to do so, but Durek surrendered with a nod. Hedric was right in this, as he seemed to be in so many things. “What about the others? The council? The servants? The refugees in the courtyard?”
“I shall pass the word for everyone to leave as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. It won’t take the Sage’s men long to realize we’re on to them, if indeed they are here among us, but at least some may be able to flee to safety. Those poor folk in the courtyard would have been better off staying in the streets,” he added sadly. “They are caged like rabbits here.”
As if the gravity of the situation had finally reached him, Durek suddenly went into action, hastily collecting items of importance that he didn’t wish to see fall into the Sage’s hands. The royal seal was an obvious choice, but though they said nothing, Jaren and Hedric silently marked what else the king chose to take: a toy horse crudely fashioned out of clay—a gift from Mailen, he had said—and the last letter he had received from Cecile.
“If I must go, then I’ve got to take Nicolas with me,” Durek added, tucking the precious articles into his surcoat. “I can’t leave him here; the Sage has done enough to him already.”
Jaren hastened him toward the door. “I’ll go with you.”
“No, no,” Durek said, visibly unsettled. “You needn’t bother. I can manage—”
“Your Majesty, it’s no secret that given the choice, we’d both rather be in someone else’s company,” Jaren said bluntly, perfectly aware of the reason behind Durek’s reluctance, “but I can’t leave you unprotected… not now. Athaya would never forgive me, and your guardsmen won’t do much good against the likes of the Sage. Besides, it’ll be safer for us to move about under cloaking spells from now on and you’ll need a wizard for that. I could go spread the word to evacuate instead of Master Hedric, but frankly, your court and servants are more likely to take his advice over mine.”
“I’ll try to find out what’s happened to Athaya while I’m at it,” Hedric said, as he hustled them both to the door. “Now hurry—you must get out of this castle as soon as possible.” And I suggest, he added to Jaren, keeping the thought safe from any as-yet-unseen Sarian wizards, that you take the king directly to the forest camp. When the Sage discovers that most of its wizards are on their way here—as I’m sure he will sooner or later—he’ll likely consider the camp not worth attacking. His Majesty will be safe there.
They split up with a mutual wish for good luck, and while Hedric hurried back to the Hall to sound the alarm as inconspicuously as possible, Durek led Jaren up a little-used staircase leading to the prince’s apartments. When they reached the upper hallway, Jaren angled a polished piece of brass down the corridor to catch a glimpse of any cloaked wizards skulking about—much like they were doing, he mused. Seeing no immediate threat, they reached the prince’s rooms in a matter of moments. The rooms were not guarded; per Captain Parr’s orders, all but the most meager contingent had been sent into the city to repel the Sage’s forces.
Once safely inside, Jaren followed Durek to the inner chamber, casting about with his mirror of brass and grateful to see no unexpected reflections there. He sloughed off the cloaking spell and approached Nicolas’s bedside—asleep through all of this!—but soon realized that the prince’s sleep was far from peaceful; Nicolas tossed fitfully and his forehead was slick with cold sweat.
Worriedly, Durek laid a palm across his brother’s forehead. “Hedric didn’t tell me he’d fallen ill.”
And that could only be, Jaren knew, with a sickly warmth curdling his belly, because this “illness” was very recent…
He whipped around, but it was already too late to flee. He and Durek had not been the only ones to slip into the chamber under a guise of magic, but the other had possessed the foresight to simply step behind a tapestry; a sanctuary from which no mirror would betray him.
“Your Majesty,” the Sage sang out in greeting. His courtly bow resonated scorn. “How thoughtful of you to pay a visit to your brother before fleeing for your life. You’ve saved me the trouble of coming to look for you.”
Durek lurched back toward the door, but it was already blocked by two uniformed men with swords poised. They did not wear the crimson livery of his own guard—no, thanks to his shortsighted captain, most of them were out in the city dying by the dozens—but the black and silver of Sare; the colors of night.
The Sage swept his gaze from Durek to Nicolas and back again. “Why, if Athaya was here, I would have the whole royal family at my disposal. But,” he added with a meaningful arch to his brow, “Athaya will not be joining us. I have seen to that.”
“What have you done to her?”
Jaren surged forward, determined to throttle the Sage with his bare hands, but Durek grabbed his arm and roughly wrenched him back. “Don’t be a fool! The man could kill us all with a gesture.”
“Not to worry,” the Sage said, waving indifferently in Jaren’s direction. “I’ve no intention of harming Athaya. Quite the opposite in fact,” he added with an insolent smile. “But I cannot say the same for you, so you’d best do as I tell you unless you wish to make a widow of your dear princess at such a tender age.”
Jaren glanced to the pair of guardsmen at his back; if they hadn’t been wizards, he and
Durek might have been able to slip past them with a bit of trickery, but he soon abandoned all thoughts of attack, resigned to the fact that the slightest move against them could well result in the deaths of one or both of Athaya’s brothers—not to mention himself. As for Athaya, the Sage seemed to have other plans for her… or so he would have them believe.
“I would suggest,” the Sage went on, pacing casually around the king like a tailor estimating how much cloth to cut, “that in the future, your gatehouse guards use the mirrors allotted to them. My men and I walked right past them and they didn’t even blink. Of course, there were so many refugees clamoring for their attention…”
“How many are here with you?” Jaren asked. He didn’t expect an answer, but perhaps if the Sage thought victory was assured, he might just get one.
The Sage’s smile was thick with malice. “Not as many as there will be shortly.”
He spun on a booted heel and strode to the window, throwing open the shutters and stretching out his arms to embrace the sky. Then, with a murmured phrase, a raw blast of power swept outward like a tidal wave, shredding Hedric’s potent wards in one brutal blow and leaving them in tatters, like fine silk rent by claws.
No sooner were the wards destroyed than there came another blast, equally raw and powerful. “Columen flammosum fac!” the Sage shouted, his magic giving birth to a column of fire that shrieked up from the courtyard and exploded into multicolored fireworks; a flare, Jaren realized, to signal his men to attack the castle in force. His next spell blew out the iron-rock flung through a stained glass window, leaving the gateway open to the Sage’s army.
“It won’t be long now,” the Sage informed them, reluctantly turning away from his handiwork. “Thousands march under my banner. The scattered few you sent against me were but a petty inconvenience. I will rule here by dawn. As for you, my little king…”
The Sage raised his palm and hurled shock waves of sickness at Durek. Durek crumpled to the floor like a cloth doll, clutching at the sharp cramps cutting through his belly and unable to resist the impulse to retch. Beside him, Jaren frantically began to weave a counterspell, all the while knowing that his mundane skills were no match against the Sage.
The Wizard King Page 26