The Painter Mage: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Or it could be Adazi,” I said. “If your father learned he was here, and what he was after, he’d send the Nizashi after him, wouldn’t he?”

  “Maybe,” Devan said, but I could tell from her tone that she didn’t believe it.

  “We always knew the Trelking would find you, Devan. That was part of the reason we came here. We thought there might be something we could learn of my father’s that would help keep you safe.”

  “Yeah, and we thought we’d have a year or so. That’s been taken from us, Ollie. Her coming here made both of us a target.”

  Devan turned and stomped away from the kitchen, leaving Taylor staring after her.

  “She’s right, you know,” I said.

  Taylor pulled her eyes away from the hall and looked back at me. “He didn’t know where you went?”

  “Oh, he might have known. At least suspected. But finding us on this side of the Threshold isn’t easy. You have any idea how hard it was to get Devan through?”

  She shook her head.

  “You saw how much magic the Nizashi threw around last night? Well, imagine that doubled. Getting one of the Te’alan across the Threshold is no easy feat. It weakens them in some ways, shifts their magic.”

  “That thing last night was weakened?”

  I shrugged. “With the Nizashi, it’s hard to know. Their power is changed, making them stronger than the rest of the Te’alan.”

  “Which is?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone other than the Trelking really knows. Like you, they’re modded in some way.”

  “Is the difficulty in crossing why the Trelking doesn’t come for Devan?”

  I glanced back toward the front of the house. I couldn’t tell if Devan had left the house completely or simply went to sulk in the living room. She’d hate it that we were talking about her, but I needed to know what Taylor knew to keep Devan safe. That meant sharing a little.

  “The Trelking doesn’t need to cross over. He’s got others he can send. And even if he did, I don’t know how much weaker he would be. His power is different from any of the other Te’alan.”

  “What was she like? Over there, I mean.”

  “You want to know what Devan’s power would be like on the other side of the Threshold?” I asked.

  “Well, you said it weakened.”

  “It does weaken it in some ways, but it also changes it. Devan is still pretty damn magical, even after crossing the Threshold, but as to what she was like on the other side?” I paused as I considered the answer. “It’s hard to say. It’s not like she lost a whole lot. She is the Trelking’s daughter, after all.”

  I went to the faded oak cabinet set along the wall near the fridge and pulled it open. Inside was my collection of inks. Most were in clear glass jars, the lids sealed tight to keep any moisture out. A few were already packaged in satchels so that I would only have to grab one if the need arose. There were other items stored here, as well. The charms Devan made for me, a collection that had grown during our time back in the house. It kept her from being too bored, plus I think she liked the challenge. A pair of figurines was stationed on the top shelf, both facing out. One looked something like a goat man, and the other was a man shape with a single thick horn jutting out of the center of his head. Unicorn man.

  “What does that mean?” Taylor asked.

  “It means she’s got a lot of reason to stay on this side. It means she’s plenty pissed that the Nizashi showed up. And it means she’s blaming you for it happening, even if the Nizashi came here for some other reason.”

  Taylor studied me for a moment, and I realized I might have said too much. I didn’t want her getting the idea into her head that I’d discovered the reason the Nizashi had come. Whatever the cylinder was, it was something of my father’s. That alone was reason to keep it from her.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said.

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “What are you going to do?” Taylor asked.

  I glanced toward where Devan must be sitting. “I’m going to do what I promised her I’d do. I’m going to keep her safe.”

  “What does that mean?”

  I turned back to Taylor. “I don’t really know, but it probably means doing something stupid.”

  7

  I don’t know what I expected when I answered the knock at the door late in the day.

  I still hadn’t figured out what we were going to do next, and my attempts to pull power through the cylinder had failed. I could get the patterns to flash with color, but every time I tried more than that, I felt an enormous surge of energy. That kind of energy was dangerous, especially if you didn’t know what the patterns were meant to do. Each time I tried, Devan eyed me and shook her head. I finally gave up, realizing that whatever the damn thing was, I wasn’t meant to use it, at least not safely. I might destroy myself trying.

  When I heard the knock, I headed for the front door and pulled it open, thinking that maybe Jakes had come with an update on the couple that had died. It wasn’t Jakes. It wasn’t anyone I had expected to see again, but given what had happened the last few days, I probably should have.

  Nik had long blond hair and stood with his fist raised to knock again. A wide smile split his face. His eyes hadn’t changed, still the same compassionate expression he somehow managed while we were on the other side. It was what had bonded us. I never worried that Nik would try to double-cross me, not like so many who worked for the Trelking.

  The last time I saw him, I didn’t think Nik would survive getting away from the Trelking. That he’d survived—and somehow managed to cross the Threshold—was impressive. Now, here he was. In Conlin.

  I scanned him, looking for signs of the mods he’d used. From what Taylor had said about Nik, he had learned some pretty powerful mods. I couldn’t find anything, nothing like the blue ink worked through Taylor’s hair or the tattoos and piercings other modders used. Overall, he seemed no different from the last time I’d seen him.

  “Nik?”

  He turned toward where Taylor crossed the yard, likely coming from the park again. She wore a thin T-shirt borrowed from Devan, some strange swirl of color across the chest. Her blue-streaked hair was pinned behind her ears. She held her notebook in one hand and clutched a jar of ink in the other.

  “Taylor. You are here.”

  Taylor glanced past Nik and met my eyes. Her face flushed slightly. Had she expected him or had the couple that had died let him know where they were going? Or could it be that Nik had sent her here? I had too many questions, and no real answers.

  Nik hurried over to her and cupped her cheeks between his hands and kissed her lightly.

  I laughed to myself. Seems Taylor had undersold the relationship between her and Nick. It shouldn’t have surprised me; Nik always had a way with women, much more than I ever could manage. Devan might give me shit about my relationship past, but the truth was I never really had a past. Not while serving the Trelking. Anyone I might get involved with ran the risk of getting used to force me into performing whatever whim he had at the time. It had always been better for me to keep my distance. Safer for others, too.

  Devan glanced out from the garage where she was getting Big Red ready. The medallion she’d long ago given me, the one that somehow let me know when she worked with her magic, went slightly cold against my chest. When we first came to Conlin, she’d forced me to wear it, but I’d grown accustomed to it now. After what happened with Adazi when I had lost contact with her, I was thankful for the renewed connection.

  “Well, I see you two know each other,” I said. “Come in. No use standing around outside.”

  They followed me into the house, and we settled in the kitchen. “Need a beer?” I asked Nik.

  He looked at Taylor, and I could see the affection in his eyes. “I’d love one,” he said.

  I grabbed one of the local brews, Yellowridge Wheat, and popped the top off of it before handing it to Nik. I took one for myself and dropped into
a chair at the table. “So. You’re not dead,” I said.

  Nik snorted. “Not dead. And thank you for that.”

  “How?”

  He glanced again at Taylor. “That’s a long story, and one that I’m afraid isn’t as interesting as you’d like.”

  I glanced from Taylor to Nik. She had a strange look on her face, and I couldn’t tell if she was excited to see him or simply surprised. Or maybe she was worried about what I would say, especially after our last conversation.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  I had the same question, especially with the dead Nizashi and the couple that had died, but I let Taylor lead.

  Nik smiled at her and his eyes flickered with a hint of uncertainty. “When I got back, you were gone. You know I didn’t want you to leave.”

  “You didn’t give me any reason to stay,” Taylor said. “And you were gone for nearly a month! Why would I stick around when you were gone like that?”

  Nik looked over at me before turning his attention back to Taylor. “You know I had something I had to do.”

  Taylor sat, shaking her head slightly. “That was the problem, Nik. I didn’t know what you had to do. You were gone all the time, and you knew what I was after.”

  He glanced at me.

  “He knows,” Taylor said.

  “You found it?”

  Taylor made a point of not looking at me. “I found it. There’s not much there. Some new patterns that are interesting. A few statues made by the Elder, but not much else.”

  He tried to hide the disappointment on his face, but failed.

  I looked over at Taylor, forcing her to meet my eyes. It was almost as if she made a point of not telling him about my father’s basement. Or the shed. Or anything else that had happened. Was there a reason for it, or did she simply not want to elaborate in front of me?

  Had Devan and I read her wrong?

  Nik shifted in his seat and took a long draw from the bottle before setting it down on the table, already finished. “I’m afraid it’s my fault that Taylor sought you out, Oliver. She came to me looking for knowledge. I told her there were a few things I could teach her”—Taylor flushed as he said it—“and that there was another who might know more. I didn’t know that you’d come back.”

  “Well, you know what he’s like,” I said. I didn’t need to clarify that I meant the Trelking. Nik and I had both served him, though Nik never managed to reach the same level of favor as I did.

  His face hardened for a moment, looking nothing like the Nik that I once knew, then it faded, leaving him with the relaxed smile back on his face. “I’m just glad to be back on this side of the Threshold.”

  “Me, too,” I said.

  Nik grunted. “How did you get away? I thought he kept you pretty well under surveillance. You were his favorite painter, the future mage come to learn from the Trelking.”

  I snorted and took a drink. Yellowridge was a craft brewery set up on the edge of town, and aimed to be a full-service brewery. Hell, they grew their own hops and everything. The beer wasn’t too bad, especially when you got it cold, and cheaper than most everything else in town.

  “I’m no mage,” I said. “Just a painter with a few other tricks.”

  Nik studied me for a moment. It seemed like power built, the skin on my arms tightening, but it faded, leaving me wondering if I had only imagined it. Besides, Nik never had much power. He was a tagger, like me, but hadn’t mastered enough of the arcane patterns to really make himself useful to the Trelking. As it was, he was just another of the Trelking’s underlings, assigned even more useless tasks than I would get. Maybe modding had changed him, but from what I could tell, it hadn’t changed him that much.

  Nik was lucky, though. He’d never gotten the real assignments working for the Trelking, not like I had. He never had to use his paintings and pray to the gods that he would return. Without Devan’s support, I might not have.

  “And I had help getting out,” I answered.

  He smirked at me. “What was her name?” he asked.

  For a moment, it felt like we were back on the other side, the two of us outsiders, painters with magical power but different from and weaker than any of the Te’alan. Nik and I had commiserated together, often staying up and drinking the Trelking’s ale until late in the evening. I’d learned a lot from him about what it meant to be on the other side of the Threshold, though had never really learned how he ended up there in the first place, just like I’d never really told him much about myself. Not until the end. When I’d freed him, something I had said had revealed that I was the Elder’s son. Even there, that carried power and a certain weight to it. It was probably why the Trelking was so patient with me—as patient as he could ever be considered—when teaching me what he knew of the arcane patterns.

  “That’s a long story,” I said.

  It wouldn’t do to go into everything about Devan, the reason we’d chosen to leave or the timing. It raised questions—too many questions. Like why wouldn’t Devan simply marry the Druist Mage and seal the peace bargain with the Trelking. Or why I had chosen then to separate from the Trelking, after a decade spent serving him, especially given what I knew of the Trelking and what I’d been asked to do. He had once nearly killed Nik, had nearly killed me several times, though each had been considered “training,” for whatever that was worth. But as long as the Threshold remained secured, Nik needed to know none of that. Even as a modder, he would never be powerful enough to face the magical power that threatened to cross through the Threshold were the Trelking removed.

  “Don’t I know it,” Nik said.

  “I hear you modded Taylor.”

  Nik glanced over at her and tipped his head. “She told you that, did she?”

  “I’m not sure she really wanted to, if that’s any consolation,” I said. Taylor gave me a forced smile, and I finished my beer before pushing back from the table and standing. “I’ll let you two talk,” I said. “Then maybe you and I can catch up, Nik.”

  “I’d like that, Oliver.”

  They sat in silence as I made my way to the garage to find Devan working in the shop. She held one of her charms over a grinding wheel, sending sparks flying as she did. The air held the charge of burning metal and powdered ink. She wore thick, plastic eye protection that looked too big on her face. When she realized I was standing there, she flipped off the grinding wheel and looked up at me.

  “I thought you were getting Big Red ready,” I said.

  “You’re going to like this one, Ollie. It’s like the charm you wanted me to make, only this will get you three shots. Even you can’t miss three times.”

  I took the charm when she offered it to me. Like most of the charms she made for me, it was a simple shape, but complex in design. This one had three flat sides, each with a tiny opening where the ink would come out when triggered. There was the faint marking on the surface of the charm, the pattern I’d use to power it. If this was like the single-shot charm, then she was right: it would be useful.

  “It’s almost done, so don’t go stuffing it into your pocket yet. I’m trying to get a few of the burrs off it so you don’t go cutting up your pretty hands when you use it.”

  “Aw, you think my hands are pretty?”

  Devan grabbed the charm and took it over to the bench where she started running a thick band of leather over the top of it. “You’re an idiot, Ollie, you know that?” I shrugged and offered her a wide smile. “So. Who’s here?”

  “Did you sense something?”

  “Not really. Was I supposed to?”

  I guess that answered whether or not Nik had used any of his magical ability around me. Not that he had much. For all the time that he’d spent working for the Trelking, in many ways he was weaker than I was. At least, he had been before he’d gotten into modding. I didn’t know what affect that had on Devan’s ability to sense magical ability.

  “Well, Taylor’s boyfriend showed up,” I said.

  Deva
n glanced over her shoulder at me. “That must have been awkward for you, the way you’ve been fawning all over her.”

  “I wouldn’t call it fawning. And there’s nothing between Taylor and me.”

  “She turn you down?” Devan asked, turning back to her work.

  I stared at Devan’s back, not sure what to say. Don’t get me wrong; Taylor was beautiful. With her olive skin and her dark hair streaked with blue, she had this exotic appearance, but I didn’t think there would ever be anything between us. With me, other things seemed to get in the way. With Taylor, there was a little bit of a trust issue.

  “So who’s her boyfriend? Anyone you know?”

  “Actually, it’s someone you know,” I said. She stiffened and stared straight ahead, waiting for me to continue. “Nik.”

  I leaned against Big Red and waited for Devan’s reaction, but she didn’t say anything.

  The door to the house opened, and Taylor led Nik out of the house and across the yard, making their way toward the park behind my house. Nik glanced over at me as they passed, nodding his head.

  I gave a half-hearted wave and turned back to Devan.

  She flipped the finished charm over to me and I caught it. “I even loaded it with ink. Careful with it, though. I used black.”

  “Thanks.”

  Devan leaned against the truck next to me. Her arm brushed mine, and we stood there, a part of me unwilling to break the connection our touch provided. Since I’d nearly lost her to Adazi, something had changed between us. I couldn’t exactly put words to it, and knowing Devan, she’d tell me that it was all my fault, but the idea of losing her again tore me apart in ways I hadn’t expected.

  “Why do you think he came?” Devan asked.

  I looked toward the park where they’d already disappeared from view. “I don’t really know. She seemed a little tense that he was here. There’s something between them, but I don’t quite know what it is.”