“Good lad!” the supreme governor boomed. “You will work with my Master Mage Timien Deville.” He clapped the scrawny mage a stunning blow on the shoulder, and the magic user stumbled. “He will open the local gateways, and you will open the gateway to the new world.”
Max bit his tongue. “As you command, Governor.”
“Get well,” the pudgy man commanded. “There will be much to do in the days to come, and you will need your strength.”
Max frowned. “And will there be other magic users to open gates besides the two of us? The work could become tiring, and it would be handy of we could… work in shifts, so to speak.”
The supreme governor’s face hardened. “There are only the two of you.” His eyes blazed. “The others seem to have escaped.”
Max swallowed. “It’s actually a good thing, your governorship. An unwilling mage could have your troops traveling to the far side of the planet.” His forced smile was a total sham. “We, on the other hand, will take you just where you want to go. I promise you that.”
The mage nodded vigorously. “He speaks the truth, majesty.”
The supreme governor managed a thin smile, and the tension in the small room dropped noticeably. “Good. My army is getting restless, and a restless army is never good.”
“Will you be calling up the reserves from the other provincial governors?” Max asked as a sudden lightbulb went off in his mind.
Caius Cincius Livianus blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Max lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The fighting is apt to be quite significant, and if you could send someone else’s soldiers as shock troops, then they would bear the brunt of the casualties, leaving your own troops free to rape and pillage.” For a moment, Max felt as if he were reading a script from a comic book but had to remind himself that the supreme governor had ten thousand men at his beck and call.
Nodding slowly as understanding dawned on him, the supreme governor turned to his high mage. “Summon my honor guard, Timien.” The smile on his face was cruel. “We’re going to make a few house calls.”
Chapter 13
FINALE
The stars were just beginning to come out, a sweep of such sparkling magnificence as to put the Milky Way to shame, when Max heard a light tapping on the glass window. Only the richest families in Aeyaqar could afford glass windows, he had discovered. Lenora was standing on the stone sill, shivering. He swung the glass in, and the small nixie squeezed between the iron bars and stepped in gratefully.
“You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.” She shook her small head, blue hair swirling about her head and shoulders like a cloud. “I was here when they brought you in and cleaned you up. Are you aware that you were unconscious for the better part of three days?”
“No, I wasn’t.” Max grunted. “Three days…” He rubbed his chin and stared blankly at the sky. “Is Xia awake yet?”
Lenora barked a dry laugh. “Oewaelle literally had to sit on her to keep her from coming here to kick your butt. You might give some thought to running away when this is all over. She’s really mad.” She glanced first at the half-kilogram slab of untouched meat on his plate then up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Not hungry?”
Max looked at the pink meat, slightly mottled in places to gray. “It smelled wrong to my nose. I think it’s drugged.”
“Oewaelle sent these, just in case.” She held out three cubes of blood sausage.
“Thanks.” He ate one immediately and tucked the last two into a pocket of his robe. “From what the supreme governor told me, I may be leaving in three days for the city of Fashenor, where his army, and the gateway, is waiting. After that, things may move very quickly. It seems that I’m always trying to play catch-up to the pace of things.”
“Do you need me help?” Lenora asked in a small voice, her brogue strangely thick.
Max smiled. “Having friends stop by to talk with me and carry messages is more help than you can image, and your food and water probably saved my life. What more could I ask?”
The nixie’s cheeks blushed a rosy scarlet. “Thank you, Max. For a human, you’re all right.”
Max nodded graciously. “And for an overgrown mosquito, you’re not too bad, either.” Her laughter tinkled on the night breeze.
Max looked up from the book he was reading, a vain attempt to calm his ragged nerves, and set it on his bedside table as the supreme governor walked in, unannounced, of course. Max rose and nodded. “Your majesty. How did your recruiting drive go?”
The pudgy man sat down on the edge of Max’s bed with a sigh. “Quite well. I managed to get most of the forces from the larger provinces and a significant tithe from the others. The only province that held back was that of Wraniel, whose governor is currently involved in a war of attrition with the elves.”
Max winced to himself, keeping his face placid.
The supreme governor laughed. “There isn’t much to recommend either province, so I say let them at it. If they destroy each other, so much the better.”
Max gave the man a long look. “Stability in the provinces benefits the entire land, your majesty.”
The governor rounded on him. “Haven’t you gotten it through your thick head that I don’t give a flaming fart about Aeyaqar or its people? The people are simply baby-making machines for my armies.”
For a long moment, Max seriously considered murder, finally concluding that the only safe way of removing the ruling maniac was the plan he had concocted. He had to remove not only the head of the snake, but its body, as well.
Gritting his teeth until they threatened to crack, Max smiled. “Very good, your majesty. What can I do to help?”
Caius Cincius Livianus clapped a pudgy hand on Max’s shoulder. “Good man. Rest today, because we will be leaving at first light tomorrow.” He glanced dubiously at Max’s brown robe. “Would you like armor and a sword, perhaps?”
Max glanced down at his clothes. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a sword or armor,” he lied, taking advantage of the fact that Timien Deville wasn’t present to say him false. “A heavy brown cloak wouldn’t be amiss, though, and perhaps sturdy boots.”
The supreme governor rolled his eyes. “As you wish.”
Max was ready, robed, cloaked, and booted the next morning at first light when guards came to escort him to the designated assembly area. With a quill and paper, Max had figured it out the night before. In Canada, where they were headed, it was February, with temperatures ranging between minus ten and minus twenty degrees Celsius. With partially dressed troops unequipped for the weather, hypothermia would begin to set in within a few hours. After that, it was all downhill.
Working in tandem, Lenora and one other nixie had managed to get Max’s combat knife to him in the early hours before dawn. It made him feel better, at some primordial level, to have the heavy Ka-bar combat blade close at hand. That others thought him unarmed was… their tough luck.
Perhaps two hundred troops stood in gleaming ranks on the wide parade ground just outside the city walls when he arrived. Heavy-handed sergeants maintained discipline in the brisk ten-degree Celsius pre-dawn air, pacing up and down the ranks with nearly identical looks of grim resolve painted on their faces. A full five score battle mages stood in their black robes at the rear of the ranked soldiers, stamping their feet and rubbing their hands together to stay warm. A few innocent questions had informed him that battle mages were trained in offensive and defensive spells, along with spells of illusion, but could neither travel nor open gateways. That ability had to be inherited. The informant, one of the chilly battle mages, had seemed ignorant of the fact that vampires could be made, most with the ability to work with gateways.
There was a loud clatter of hooves, and with a blare of trumpets, Caius Cincius Livianus rode out through the castle gates on
his white charger, his burnished armor shining in the torchlight. Drawing his shining sword, he stood in his stirrups and shouted, “Onward to victory!”
Ignoring the pompous idiot on the horse, Max studied the sullen faces of the troops the supreme governor counted on to carry him to victory. If he were in the governor’s place, Max wouldn’t turn his back on the troops, no matter how brightly their armor gleamed.
“Timien Deville!” the governor commanded. “Open us a gateway to Fashenor so that we may begin our noble crusade.”
Max stifled his urge to laugh at the high school theatrics. The mage in question threw the man a resigned look and began drawing the runespell. Max noticed that the other mage mispronounced incaendium, the word for fire, almost sending them into the sun, rather than Fashenor.
A groom was waiting patiently on the other side of the gateway to assist the supreme governor maneuvering his mount from the rear to the front of the mile-long column of men and wagons. Under heavy, brooding skies, Caius Cincius Livianus glanced over his shoulder once, to make sure that Max was following faithfully behind the white horse. He drew rein ten meters from the front of a huge stone portal fashioned of two vertical standing stones seven meters tall, eight meters apart, capped by a third, equally thick and long. Drawn almost against his will, Max approached the stones, his palm out toward the gateway. He could feel the constrained power there—the power to bridge worlds. Swallowing, he turned to face the supreme governor.
“Your majesty,” he called out, “all is in readiness. Timien Deville and I will remain on this side, holding the gateway open for your vast host until you have all passed, and then we will follow you through, closing the gateway behind us. It will be safer for you that way.” Max raised his hand as if swinging a baton. “At your command, your majesty, and be aware that it will be cold on the other side.”
The governor snorted as he raised his sword. “Open the gateway!” And then he bellowed, “Forward the scouts!”
Max wove the runespell to activate the gateway, setting the destination to Canada, and at the same time, murmuring the words for spirit and air. The gateway shimmered to life, and two nervous-looking men in armor stepped through, swords drawn. They stepped back through the gateway a minute later, their cold armor steaming in the warmer air, and Max held his breath.
The first soldier bowed. “It is as we were advised, your majesty: wooded, empty of life, but bitter cold.”
The supreme governor smiled without warmth. “Coward, to let a little cold sap your courage. Today, we conquer a new world.” He raised his sword. “Forward!”
The phalanx of troops guarding the governor stepped through the gateway and vanished, followed a moment later by the governor’s white charger.
Max stood there with his head bowed humbly as columns of dour-faced men in armor clanked past, some armed with heavy swords and shields and some armed with long spears. All disappeared into the shimmering gateway. After what seemed like hours, a dozen heavily laden wagons followed, creaking as they crossed into the other world. Lastly, a contingent of several score bowmen, all clad in warm knee-length tunics and small fitted helmets of gleaming metal, crossed over. When the last wagon and soldier had passed, Max looked up, weaved a negligent runespell, and muttered a single word. The gateway shimmered and went dark with a dreadful finality.
Timien Deville gaped in horror at Max, his jaw hanging open. “What did you do?” He gulped.
“Prevented a useless war and saved this planet,” Max replied just as Lenora and two other nixies appeared in the air before his face.
“Hi, Max,” she said brightly. “Where’s his majesty?”
Max grinned. “Went pffftt, little one.”
“Will he be back?”
“Not likely.”
Lenora glared at Timien. “Who’s the stiff?”
Max gave the mage a sympathetic glance. “Just another out-of-work mage.” He paused then addressed the mage. “Do you have a home to go to?”
The man seemed to falter. “I did, but that was two years ago, when the supreme governor took me.”
“I’d say it’s time for you to go home.” Max sighed.
With a bemused expression, Timien drew the runespell, opening a traveling gateway, and stepped through. In the momentary flash through the open gateway, Max was sure that he saw mushroom-capped homes. With a weary groan, he sat down on a dropped bale of arrows and sagged, popping a cube of blood sausage into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully, enjoying the rush of energy the food brought.
“Are you all right?” the nixie chirped.
Max looked up at a hovering Lenora. “Yeah, I’m okay. I had to hold that silly gateway open for two hours.” A drop of cold rain splashed on his nose, and Max shivered.
The small nixie stared at the closed gateway. “You had to hold it open? What about the other mage?”
Max didn’t have the energy to snort a laugh. “All he could open was a traveling gateway, not a gateway between worlds. I kept him with me because he was the only mage the supreme governor had who could open a gateway, of any sort. Without him, the people in Canada are shit out of luck.”
The nixie nodded thoughtfully. “What do you think they are doing now, Max?” she asked in a nervous voice, as if worried the army would suddenly appear of its own accord.
Getting to his feet with effort, Max replied, “Coming to the realization that their supreme governor has just led them all to their deaths there in the cold wastelands. Soon, they will take appropriate measures.” He looked thoughtfully at the nixies. “Have you heard anything more from the elves?”
Lenora grimaced. “They are fighting for their lives—and losing—is what I heard.”
Max shook his head. “Where is my team hiding?”
“They were in Sloobork before we came here.”
“Sloobork it is then.” He drew the appropriate traveling runespell and said the activating word. He waved a hand. “Let’s go, ladies.” In a cloud of tinkling laughter, the nixies preceded Max through the glowing gateway.
Oewaelle looked up from the man she was bandaging and nodded tiredly to the tall man in a brown monk’s robe. His cowled hood was pulled low, hiding his face. “It is good to see you, brother. This man is beyond my help, and I was wondering if you might have something to make him more comfortable in his last hours.”
“Perhaps, dear sister,” the man replied, “if we were to join forces, we might yet save him.” Reaching down, Max touched her hand, and Oewaelle gasped as Max channeled as much etheric energy as he could spare into the tired woman. The dying man heaved, gulping in a huge lungful of air as his color went from deathly gray to a healthy pink. His brown eyes flew open, and Max removed his hand from Oewaelle, stepping back a pace to lean against the timbered wall of a burned building.
“You are all right now, my friend,” Oewaelle comforted the injured man. “Rest now, and soon, you will be able to get up.”
Smiling, the man sighed, falling almost immediately into a restful sleep.
The mage stood, brushed the dirt from her robe, and rounded on Max. “You idiot!” she hissed. “What the hell are you trying to do? Kill yourself again?” She wasn’t quite shouting, but her words echoed across the shattered buildings of Sloobork.
A familiar voice came to Max from the other side of a still-standing wall. “There is only one person in the world that can so piss people off that they sound like that!” Xia walked around the wall, stopped, her balled fists on her hips, her sapphire eyes smoldering. “I don’t know what I should do with you,” she fumed as the rest of the grinning team joined her.
Max pushed back the hood of his robe, noticing that the half dozen nixies were sitting along the edge of a wall to enjoy the show. He took two steps forward, until he stood no more than a meter from Xia, and he smiled. “I would do anything it took to save the
woman I love.”
Her sapphire eyes went wide for a moment then narrowed dangerously as her cheeks turned crimson.
“How are you doing?”
She opened her mouth, shut it, then laughed wryly. “Better than you, it seems. We’ve had you under surveillance, you see”—she glanced at the nixies—“and the stories they brought back were truly horrific.”
Moses clapped Max on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. “What’s with the monk’s robe? Have you gone all ecclesiastic and celibate on us?”
Max chuckled, unable to keep himself from shooting a quick glance at Xia. “Not at all. I figured that the chances were better of not getting my ass kicked if they thought I was a monk.”
“They?” Moses frowned. “Where did you leave his supreme governor-ness and his merry miscreants?”
“On Earth, in Canada, in the dead of winter, on an island.”
“Oh fuck.” Moses laughed unsympathetically. “You really are a bastard sometimes. So much for that problem.”
Max looked at each member of his team. “I understand from my spies that the elves are pretty hard put and are getting their asses kicked up north. Like to help?”
Casey grunted a laugh. “Are we going to pray the enemy to death, boss?”
Max smiled. “Not likely. Other than a few rounds here and there, and a couple expended on the dragon, I believe we still have a full load out, save the explosives. Before we go collect our paychecks, I think it might be nice if we mop up the last of the hoodlums, don’t you?”
Xia frowned this time. “You’re not telling us something important. There is more than one group of hoodlums on this world besides the supreme governor’s army.”
“All in Canada, eh?” He shot Mérilla Jalbert a thin smile. “It’s cold in Canada at this time of year.”
“You convinced the supreme governor to take all the other soldiers with him?” There was awe in Xia’s voice as Max nodded slowly. “Can’t they just get a magician to open a gate to somewhere, like Florida?”
Destiny of the Vampire (Adventures of the Vampire Book 1) Page 21