by David Ekrut
“How would getting yourself killed change any of that? You need to get out of here. I have work to do, and I can’t have you getting in my way.”
Landryn raised his chin in childish defiance, but whatever he’d been about to say vanished in an expression of shock. She followed his gaze to the end of the alley, where four armed men approached.
“Too thumping late.”
Jesnia drew her bow and two arrows. She killed the first two and advanced up the crates. The other two were smart enough to dive for cover, but they were too slow. They fell a pace away from their comrades.
“Dragons take me,” Landryn said. “How’d you do that?”
“Lots of practice. Now get back to the ducklings and wait for me.”
She climbed up to the window and peeked in. As expected, most of those carrying weapons ran toward the front. But a woman in rich garments was at the back. She stood over a table, gathering leaflets of long vellum into a leather binding. Once she was done, she ran to one of five boxes filled with stones and pulled a metallic object from her cloak. It was a balancing scale, no bigger than a hand.
After placing the scale on the stones, she closed her eyes and spoke in a commanding voice. Jesnia could hear the words, but it sounded like gibberish.
As the woman’s voice crescendoed, she pulled a glowing orb from her cloak. A modicum of light spilled from the orb like water and seeped into the stones. Slowly, the scale lowered, and the rocks changed. Their surface shimmered, reflecting the torchlight. After a few seconds, they became round. Familiar symbols appeared on each golden coin.
Jesnia could only gape. She’d turned the thumping rocks into thumping gold.
The woman opened her eyes, and she stumbled, catching the crate to stable herself. She motioned to the men standing to the side, who hurried to lift the crate.
Coin, Jesnia held no doubt of the woman’s identity now, moved to the next box of stones and began the ritual anew.
Drawing her sword, Jesnia bashed the window in, clearing the glass with a few swipes. As she knelt to climb in, Landryn yelled, “Jesnia. There are more of them!”
She glanced down the alley to see men with crossbows peeking around the corner.
“Why are you still here? Never mind. Get inside. I’ll deal with them.”
Jesnia stabbed her sword into the wooden crate and sent a barrage of arrows at the soldiers, more to force a retreat than to maim any of them. Still, a few missiles hit their marks. She heard the clatter of swords below and cursed. Throwing her bow over her shoulder, she yanked her blade free from the crate and dropped into the warehouse, rolling when she hit the ground.
She sprung to her feet and sheathed her sword. She flicked two daggers into her hands as she advanced.
Landryn swung his sword against two men. His defense was not terrible, but without intervention the boy would soon be overtaken. Jesnia threw her daggers, taking one man in the throat and the other in the cheek.
“Take cover,” she spat at Landryn as she ran toward Coin.
The woman was leaning over the third crate, which was now filled with gold instead of coins. As she reached for the artifact, Jesnia drew another dagger and let loose. Coin screamed as the blade pierced her hand. She leapt backward, staring at Jesnia in shock.
Jesnia pulled her bow and aimed an arrow at her bounty. “Call off your dogs, and I’ll let you live.”
“Wait,” Coin said, holding her good hand up. The men halted twenty paces from Landryn. Half-a-dozen remained, armed with crossbows. The boy had the good sense to move behind a crate.
“I can pay you,” Coin offered.
“Sorry,” Jesnia said in earnest. “I would love to work for you, but I already have a contract. My reputation is worth more than anything you can offer.”
“The Lenders cannot pay you. They are nearly ruined, because they no longer have this. Now that you know their secret, they will kill you. The moment you bring them the artifact, you are dead.”
“So all this time,” she said, moving to place Coin between herself and the crossbowmen, “the Lenders have been making their gold.”
“And platinum. You can make rubies and diamonds as well.”
“Why would you do that?” Jesnia asked. “You’ll destroy the value of all wealth.”
Coin shook her head. “Before the war began, they stopped lending. They have been hoarding the wealth to drive up the value of the goods they control.”
“Bain has been making war for at least two decades now. I’ve seen them give out coins.”
“Not that war. The magi are going to eliminate all the elementalists. The dragons are their weapon. I know that better than anyone. I was the Keepers tool, but that is over now. The world is changing, Jesnia. You are on the wrong side.”
The woman wasn’t bluffing, but that didn’t mean she was right. After all, this misguided fool had stolen from the Lenders. And her tone did not scream of mental stability. But wait …
“How do you know my name?”
“I am a magus, and you have been hunting me.”
A feeling of apprehension swept through her. Suddenly, this felt like a trap.
“Step back from the crate,” Jesnia ordered.
“You are making a mistake.”
Coin looked at the artifact, now covered in her blood. Jesnia put an arrow in the crate and had another arrow to the string before the woman could move.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Jesnia warned. “The Lenders want you dead or alive. Lucky for you, I get a bonus for bringing you in alive.”
The crossbowmen raised their weapons.
“The Circle of Makers will not let you live after what you have seen here. They have joined the Keepers.” There was a tinge of madness in her laugh. “After my years of pleading, they joined. Please. I am the only one who can stop them. Let me go. Keep the gold. It is more than the Makers are paying you. And—”
“I don’t know anything about this circle business or these makers or whatever. And I’d already planned to keep the gold. And that artifact. Where’s that orb you were carrying a moment ago?”
Coin’s eyes glanced to the scale, resting atop the gold. After taking the dagger in her hand, she’d stumbled a few paces away from it.
As she took a step, Jesnia raised her bow. “Don’t make me put another hole in you.”
She froze, eyes calculating. At last, she deflated and mumbled, more to herself than to Jesnia, “I’m no thumping incanter.”
“That’s it. Now hand me the orb and drop to your knees. Slowly now.”
Resolve filled the woman’s expression. Coin pulled the orb from inside her cloak. Judging by the bulge, there were others. “You want this? Fine. Catch.”
“Stop,” Jesnia warned. “Don’t you throw that—”
Coin lobbed the orb up in the air, while speaking the foreign tongue. Jesnia aimed for her leg and shot. The woman vanished. The arrow thudded into the floor and skidded to the far wall.
“—thumping thing,” Jesnia finished.
She dove forward and rolled behind the crate, fully expecting bolts to fly. Nothing happened.
Behind her, the orb struck the ground with a thud. She’d expected it to shatter, but it didn’t even crack. Ignoring it, Jesnia dropped her bow and unsheathed her touched weapons. Though she doubted it, the woman could be veiling herself with the Elements. She could not feel any taming through the curved blades. The woman was just gone.
Peeking around her crate, she saw the rest of Coin’s crew retreating.
“What in the abyss?” Jesnia asked.
“They are afraid of you,” Landryn said.
“No. Something else is going on here. She tried really hard to recruit me, and she knew I was coming. I could see it in her eyes.”
“Are you going after her?”
Sheathing one blade, Jesnia pul
led the scale off the stones and looked at it. Symbols covered the underside of the scales. She put it in her pocket and retrieved the glowing orb. There were no eloiglyphs on it, and a strange substance swirled inside.
“Maybe I won’t have to. Come on. Get as much of this gold as you can carry.”
“What about the rest of those men? Surely, they’ll—”
“Nope,” Jesnia said. “Did you not hear the wagon leave? Either they know about their boss’s vanishing trick, or they are leaving her for dead. Either way, they are a problem for another day.”
Landryn grabbed a fistful of the coins. “Dragons take me. There is so much of it.”
“Aye. And its ours now.”
“Ours?”
“Normally, I wouldn’t share, but seeing as how I could never hope to carry it all, we can come to an agreement.”
“Half.”
Jesnia snorted. “If you had stayed in the forest where I left you, I would have five chests instead of three and a wagon to carry it all. Count yourself fortunate for anything I give you. Look. Grab that sack and help me fill it. Actually, no. Go get the ducklings.”
“You mean mules,” he said with a frown.
“Aye. I mean mules. And be quick. We need to be clear of this city before Donavin gets here with his army.”
Trumpets sounded in the distance.
“Curse my thumping luck. Run, boy. Thumping run.”
As he left, Jesnia turned back to the crates. Curse it all, she would need more packs. There was a small cabinet next to a modest writing desk. The cabinet had a few small bags and meager food stores. She gathered all the useful items, filled them with gold and waited for the Landryn and the ducklings.
“What in the abyss is taking them?”
She paced over to the desk and rifled through the papers. Nothing mentioned what Coin was planning or why she needed the gold. Rather than an amount, measurements were logged by weight and something called Berats, whatever in the abyss that was.
There were a few partially written letters signed by Ricaria Beratum, beseeching the Keepers to stall waking the rest of the dragons.
“What in the ninth circle?”
A crash resounded somewhere far to the south. She heard a man’s muffled screaming and remembered the man she’d tied up. If she left him, most likely the undead would eat him or whatever undead did to people.
“Dragons take me,” she said, running for the exit.
She reached the door to the road as Landryn and the ducklings came rushing in.
“Where are you going?” Landryn asked.
“Just get the gold. I’ll be right—”
Another loud crash filled the air. Above, two dragons circled the city. Screams and fighting echoed through the streets from the south. Her window to escape without fighting her way free was rapidly closing. She considered leaving the man to his fate. He’d probably die anyway. But she’d given her thumping word.
“Curse it all,” she said, shoving Landryn into action. “Just go.”
And she turned toward the house across the street, drawing her blade as she ran.
Chapter 51
The Ire of Dragons
Partial Spending, Day 645 of experimentation.
I have created what I am calling, an Orb of Holding. Each is able to hold just short of 5,000 Berats. I keep them in the aerie above my manor with the Orb of Incantus.
Other magi have become jealous of my rise in status. The traps I have set into the pedestals are as much for brethren as they are for treasure-seekers. I have destroyed my incantia containing the incantations I have discovered, and I have stopped waking the dragons. The incanters have attempted to replicate my words, but so far, they have failed.
I do not understand why they have suddenly turned against me, but if I die, my secrets die with me.
~Ricaria Beratum, 2997 A.S.
~
“This one is mine.” The voice was like thunder.
When the gold dragon turned to face off with the two new dragons, Elwin shared a look with Jax. He nodded in the opposite direction. For once, he and Jax were in agreement.
Slowly, he began to back away. He moved far enough, maybe he could incant them away without being stopped.
The other two dragons landed a hundred paces off, which might be a single step for the colossal creatures. Both had darker scales, one with a red tint, the other with blue. Aside from the color, there were subtle differences in their shape as well. The red dragon had short spikes along the ridge of its spine, and the blue’s were smooth with ridged edges.
“You can make no such claims,” the red one said. “Galthiadronus has placed a price on your head.”
“Has he,” she said as if unconcerned. “Fortunately, it is Althimorphianus who rules. He will be most displeased with your treatment of our people.”
“The awakened have palavered and agreed upon a new pantheon. If Althimorphianus rises, he will be banished to the forgotten realm. All of his followers will go with him.”
“Do not be a fool. Can you not smell his blood? This is the descendant of our enemy. We cannot be divided in this. Or do you wish our sleeping kin to be enslaved to the one who forced our slumber?”
“Get us the abyss out of here,” Jax whispered, “before they kill each other and take us out with them. Do that magick folding thing for Life’s sake.”
Daki and Daren nodded vigorously.
Elwin took in the images of all of them, including Taego. He had never tried to incant them to somewhere he’d never seen, but they needed to go east. He thought of a cobbled road, spoke the words, and spent his will.
“Who he is matters little. We have our orders. All eleme—”
The dragons’ voices vanished, and he felt the familiar loss of his physical senses. He focused on standing alongside the cobbled street in a field. Nothing happened at first. A growing panic took hold of him. What if he was trapped in this void forever? Is this what happened to those two outside of Wishing Well? He felt the power, his will dwindling. He could no longer say the words. He had no lips to speak them.
Pushing his doubts aside, he continued to center his thoughts on the far east. He kept the incantation in his awareness, thinking through the syllables as he willed them away from the dragons and east. A portrait became clear to him. The cobbled road cut a path through the forests whose trees covered rolling hills and hugged tightly to mountains far to the north. His awareness passed towns and villages. He focused on the road south of the mountains. Settling on a field, he forced his awareness to stillness.
The lands stopped soaring beneath him. He felt himself and his companions in the place between. They were intangible, joined as a single glob of energy. Elwin imagined himself separate from the others. One by one, he separated his friends from the mass and imagined each standing beside the road in the small clearing. He spent his rapidly vanishing will and forced his vision into reality.
Elwin felt warm and cold at the same time. Something painful slammed into his back. Then he could hear Daren’s wordless shouts. After several minutes, he could see white. Then green. After a moment, he saw Daki’s face hovering over him. Then Jax appeared next to Daki.
He was prone, he realized.
Jax offered Elwin his hand. “You all right, kid?”
Taking the help, Elwin sat up but dared not stand. His head spun from the movement. He had to close his eyes and swallow to keep from becoming ill.
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“That was different than before,” Daki said.
“Yeah,” Jax agreed. “Where in the abyss are we anyway?”
“East,” Elwin managed to say, before vomiting.
The dry coughing sent waves of agony through him. His shoulder, back, and all the aches Daki had half-healed seemed to hurt at once. When the spasms stopped, Elwin braved open
ing his eyes. The ground still spun but less than before. A few paces away, Daren cradled his knees and rocked back and forth.
“I hate to sound insensitive,” Jax said without an ounce of sympathy, “but we should get out of here. Those dragons might be able to follow us, or Tessaryn for that matter.”
Daren’s eyes were wide, and he stared at nothing.
“Curse it all,” Jax said, snapping his fingers in front of the warrior. “Wake up!”
Slowly, Daren looked up to Jax. He stuttered as he said, “We were in Reanya’s Pit.”
“Bah.” Jax waved a hand. “Don’t be so superstitious. We’re fine. But we won’t be if we don’t get out of here.”
“I fear he is correct,” Daki said. “We should go.”
With Daki’s help, Elwin stood and took a few shaky steps. Daki moved alongside him, but Elwin could see the wobble to the other man’s gait as well. Even Taego stumbled as he stood, and it took all three of them to get Daren to his feet.
Once they began walking, the world around him felt more tangible. That was what had shaken him. Even once he’d emerged from the space between, he’d doubted reality. Perhaps that was what had made the transition so difficult. But the road was just to the north of them as Elwin had imagined.
After a few minutes of walking, Jax said, “Can anyone make sense of what those dragons were saying?”
“Aye,” Daren agreed, voice far less shaky. “It looked as though they were fighting for him.”
“The dragon wars will begin anew,” Daki said. “It seems three thousand years of slumber did not mend the factions.”
“There are factions?”
“Of course,” Daki said. “Wherever there exists two sentient beings, there will be two opposing views of reality. In the case of the dragons, one sect believes the peoples of Arinth are beneath the mighty dragons and should be left to their own devices. Another faction believes we should serve. The last and smallest faction wishes to protect our kind. Before Abaddon caused their slumber, Althimorphianus of the third faction led the dragons. It seems he has been usurped by this other, whose name was unknown to me until now. As I have mentioned before, I am not well-versed in my dragon lore.”