by Gideon Mills
Brink Mage
Gideon Mills
Contents
1. Scouting
2. Fixing a Failure
3. Francis Richard III
4. A new Job
5. An Ambush
6. Evening Out
7. A night to Remember
8. Breakfast
9. Gareth Stone
10. Chaos
11. Proclamation
12. Mysterious Adventure
13. The boring planning part
14. An unexpected sight
15. The Mysterious Lady
16. A late night Stroll
17. Holy Fuck
18. The Wyvern Boys
19. A Reputation
20. Prepping for Battle
21. A battle for the Elves
22. Aftermath
23. An unexpected visitor
24. Nothing ever goes Smoothly
25. Monster Gem
26. Gillian Arbor
27. A Way In
28. Fashion Show
29. A Grand Ball
30. A dance
31. A quickie
32. An Answer
33. A Surprise
34. The Last Battle
35. Holy moly
36. Looking To the Future
Epilogue
Author Notes
Also by Gideon Mills
About the Author
Acknowledgments
Copyright © 2020 Gideon Mills All Right Reserved
Typography by Dark Cover Designs
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, whether by electronic or mechanical, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations for reviews.
For my friend, TS Paul, that left us too soon.
Missing you.
1
Scouting
The streets of Imlay were cluttered with both people and an abundance of filth. Wyatt Ryder both loved it and hated it. He had a job to do, and the people got in the way, and the trash, well that just annoyed him. Though the more people out the more likely he would be able to slink away unseen.
In many of his jobs, being able to complete them without being spotted was essential. This was one of them, and Wyatt didn’t want to disappoint. He was one of the few private investigators in the city and the only one that would take jobs from all the races. This one was for a goblin and not a very pleasant one.
If the person that the goblin wanted investigated, or rather wanted to steal from, wasn’t such a douche, Wyatt might have refused the job. That was just how vile this goblin was, reminding Wyatt more of an orc or a huge troll. Wyatt shivered just thinking about the one and only time he’d had to deal with a large troll. The small ones were okay, courteous and friendly, but the big ones. They just liked to eat people.
The cobblestone street was like any other in the city. Any of the stone buildings could be the one that Wyatt needed. But the mage knew where he was going and who he needed to steal from.
It hadn’t been that long that the people of Imlay and the rest of Urgan had enslaved the goblins; some still attempted to hold to the old way, and the man Wyatt was after was one of them. When the enslavement didn’t work, he stole the only thing of value.
A rich man stealing from a poor goblin was something that Wyatt would never tolerate. He paused at the corner of the street he needed. The house he was going to rob was the biggest one on the block.
“Why is it always the wealthiest?” Wyatt mumbled to himself. That was a bad habit he had; one he tried to stop over and over.
A person bumped into him from behind. Wyatt turned to see an elf, with long silver hair and the brightest magenta eyes he had ever seen. Her outfit left very little to the imagination. The elf had curves in all the right places. Wyatt enjoyed women of all the races and let them know, not caring if they saw him looking.
“Pardon me,” she said.
“My apologies, ma’am.”
She was on her way down the street in a blink of an eye. Wyatt watched her walk the whole way, her hips swaying as she went. Her bronze skin was shining in the sunlight. Then she was gone, and Wyatt had to return to the job at hand.
He looked up at the estate that was home to Count Hamlin. If Wyatt weren’t a mage, this would have been hard. Maybe even too hard, and that was why he was the right man for the job. None of the others that were in the line of work were mages. There were only four of them in the city, a goblin was his main competition, and then there was that elf who had just started.
The goblin that hired him for this job said he went to the others as well. That, at first, had irritated Wyatt, but he let it go. Just because the goblin was trying to make sure he had all the PIs on the case, shouldn’t mean that Wyatt would be wasting his time. It wasn’t like this job was going to be paying all that much; this was a principle matter.
It was time to focus on the task at hand. Wyatt watched the house for too long and knew that the noble—the count—wasn’t home and wouldn’t be for a long time. Wyatt knew full well that he was out at one of the many brothels that catered to men like him. Ones that enjoyed being rough to the women and enjoyed all the races.
Wyatt clearly didn’t mind the latter, but the former was something he didn’t like. One should treat women with respect. It wasn’t the idea of the brothel that bothered Wyatt either; he had been to his fair share in his lifetime. It was the easiest way for one to find the company of another, and many people in the city visited them.
Knowing Count Hamlin’s routine meant that Wyatt only had a certain amount of time to complete this task. He was wasting too much time as it was and needed to move. If one of the others beat him to this task, all his time and research on the count would have been wasted. Not that it would hurt Wyatt in the long run.
Everyone knew that he was the best PI in the city, and maybe even the whole country. That didn’t mean some other land didn’t have one as good as him. Wyatt wasn’t that cocky. The world was a large place, and there were bound to be some that were his equal.
Going to the house, Wyatt reached into his mana. One of the things that allowed him to succeed was his magic. There weren’t a lot of mages in this part of the world. Wyatt had heard from people that lived in other countries, and they wanted him to come train with them since he was powerful. That was the last thing Wyatt was going to do. He could read between the lines and what they wanted was to control him and use him for their own gain. He wanted nothing to do with that nonsense.
With his magic flowing into him, Wyatt wove a spell. Only he could see the magic working around him. To the rest of the world, he was just a guy standing on the cobblestone street.
The spell he wove would reflect the light around him, and make him mostly invisible to everyone around him. Some thought that magic could make a person disappear entirely; that wasn’t the case. It was more like a super stealth power, but he could be seen.
With the spell in place, he put a knot into the flow to make it stay in place. There were many ways that the magic worked, and he had to work two spells for this one, and that meant he had to tie this one in place.
The next one he worked was to make him faster and stronger. It wouldn’t make him as powerful as a giant troll, but close to an ogre. That was enough to get this done. With both bits of magic in place, he was hard to see and moved as fast as an ogre or elf. That meant he could get into the home and search for a bit before people saw him.
He leaped over the ten-foot high fence that guarded the manor that Count Hamlin lived in. On the other side, Wyatt took in the staff that worked here. Many of them were clearly former slaves, goblins, and smaller trolls. The cute trolls that Wyatt had long talks with on how magic worked. The
y didn’t have magic, but for whatever reason knew more about it than any other race.
None of them saw him or batted an eye at the light that clearly was bouncing off him. A trained person knew what that was: magic at work. Wyatt was playing the card that none of them knew what was going on.
He moved with speed to the rear of the place. It was one of the largest yards that didn’t belong to a duke or the king. How a lowly count managed it, Wyatt didn’t know. Good chance it was from all the slaves.
Wyatt gritted his teeth and went on, jumping to a third story rear balcony and barely making it. He would need to learn how to give himself more speed and leaping ability. Maybe some training with the other mages would be useful. Letting that thought go, Wyatt focused on the task at hand.
He walked into the room that he was sure was the count’s. It wasn’t what he thought. The room was a complete mess as if someone else had beaten Wyatt to the punch. “Son of a bitch,” Wyatt mumbled to himself.
Even though it was clear to the PI that this place had been searched by another, he wasted his own time looking. He didn’t find the goblin amulet that he was searching for. It had to be the elf that just opened up a PI business in the city. She had to have already searched today and found the amulet.
Wyatt was only mildly angry with himself. He had let this job go through the cracks for one too many days. That was on him, and he knew it.
Thankfully, the magic let him search at a breakneck pace and be out of the house empty-handed in less than ten minutes. Yet he was angry with the waste of magic and time.
2
Fixing a Failure
Later that evening, Wyatt was back at his office in the heart of the city. He refused to have his place in the upper level that was home to the nobles, and the higher-end merchants that had enough money to pretend they were nobles. Even though the vast majority of his clients were from there. Nobles hated other nobles and the wealthy merchants moving in on them. It was such a joke to Wyatt, and he enjoyed the company of the regular people. And did his best, like today, to take jobs from the ordinary people.
His office was also part of his home. The first floor was for work, and the second floor was his apartment. It wasn’t much compared to the lavish place that the Count had. But compared to homes in the areas where people lived out in the country, it was magical. None of the people that truly made the country work would be able to comprehend how the people in the city lived.
Though they might relate to the part of the town that the elves and goblins lived in. That was indeed a shit hole, and even Wyatt didn’t want to spend much time there. It was a fucking shame the way that humans treated those that they felt more powerful than.
Wyatt took out the bottle of old mead he had on this desk in the office. He needed a drink and wasn’t looking forward to talking to the goblin that hired him. If the goblin bothered to come and see him. There was little doubt that the elf, or the other guy, already talked to him, and he wouldn’t bother coming in.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a client didn’t make an appointment with Wyatt. Though it would be the first time that is was because Wyatt failed to get the job done. That was annoying, and Wyatt took a deep drink of the bottle. The mead was refreshing and soothed him. Wyatt didn’t drink all that much and didn’t smoke tobacco like many thought he would. Where they got the idea, he didn’t know.
Hours passed, and the moon was shining through the window of his office. The door opened, and the goblin walked in. “Sorry,” the man said. He was just over four feet tall, like most of them were, and his skin was green, with hair that went every which way.
“I’m guessing one of the others got it for you.” Wyatt was on his feet.
The goblin nodded. “They did, but according to them, they only beat you by a few minutes.”
The goblin clearly thought that might help take away from not getting it done, but it only made it worse. The sting of that statement went deep into Wyatt and rubbed him the wrong way. Only a few minutes, just like he thought. If Wyatt hadn’t pussyfooted around, he would have gotten the amulet and the coins for it. Not that it was too many coins. This was one job for which, in many ways, it didn’t matter if it was Wyatt or another. All that really mattered was that the Count no longer had the amulet.
“I’m glad you got the amulet,” Wyatt said. “Just out of curiosity, who got it?”
“The elf, Cat,” the goblins said.
Wyatt nodded. “I thought as much.”
The goblin did give him the name of the elf. That might come in handy, and Wyatt scolded himself for not checking out the competition already. That was a rookie mistake and one he needed to correct. Wyatt had been in this game for long enough to know better than that. He was no King’s Guard man that needed to be told what to do or how to act.
“I am sorry you wasted your time,” the goblin said.
Wyatt shrugged. “No big deal. Just glad you got it back, the count won’t be happy.”
The green-skinned goblin shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, me and my kin are leaving the city.”
“All of you?”
Wyatt hadn’t heard of any of the goblins organizing, or anything like that. He had many contacts throughout the city and in the countryside as well. None of them mentioned it.
“Not all of us,” he said. “But most that worked for the nobles.”
That wasn’t going to sit well with the people in the inner city. They liked their cheap labor and wouldn’t want to have to pay more for the humans, or even the elves. “Good for you.”
The smile on the goblin was probably supposed to be friendly, but with his razor-sharp teeth, and how crooked it was, it didn’t work. “Again, thank you.”
“Be safe,” Wyatt said. He watched the man leave and go about his night.
Sure enough, in the next few days, many of the goblins departed the city in the middle of the night. Rumors spread like wildfire in the town as to why. As did the news that Count Hamlin had been robbed, and a few other nobles too.
Wyatt was in the middle of looking into what was going on with the other nobles. Right now, it was high noon, and he was standing in front of one of the many blacksmiths in the city. This one was run by a man that was twice Wyatt’s size, with arms as thick as tree trunks from years of working the smithy.
“What do you want?” Herbert asked. His face had a permanent look of anger on it whenever Wyatt appeared. That might have to do with the fact that the mage only came around when he needed something. The need for actual blacksmithing wasn’t common for him. And there were cheaper ones to shoe a horse.
“You know anything about the thefts in the city?”
Herbert’s eyebrows narrowed. “Why would I know anything about that?”
They both knew that the blacksmith would use stolen goods to make many of his products. Melting down the metal, and using it and selling it back to the same nobles that lost the item. It was a brilliant scam, and Wyatt only found out about it after being hired to find the thief. He thus learned of Herbert, but failed to mention that part of it to the man that hired him. It was just too useful to give up.
“Come on, Herbert, old buddy.”
The giant of a man glared at him. “I’m out of that business.”
The force that the man used almost made Wyatt believe him. Almost. Looking around the shop told him otherwise. What it did tell Wyatt was that someone scared the man, and more than Wyatt did. The blacksmith might be twice as big as Wyatt, but he didn’t have magic like Wyatt. They both knew that if push came to shove that Wyatt would be able to make quick work of the man. One fast spell to increase his strength and speed, and he would overpower him. Not to mention the fact that Wyatt could just conjure a ball of fire or the like.
“Come on,” Wyatt said. “Give me something.”
The man glared at him. “I can’t, the longer you are here, the more danger I’m in.”
That was all but admitting someone was behind this and had scared him. Wyatt didn’t want
to cause his old informant any trouble. “All right.”
Wyatt left with more questions than answers. That frustrated him. What had he gotten himself into? Wyatt should just leave it alone and move on to another case. It would be the prudent thing to do, but he just couldn’t give up a good mystery. It was sort of his thing.
3
Francis Richard III
All the informants that he could find were the same. Not willing to talk and scared out of their minds. Some just ran when they saw him. That had never happened before. The city was pure chaos. At least in the world that Wyatt walked. Most of the peons that lived in Imlay didn’t even notice.
Very few even mentioned the goblins walking out and leaving. It was astounding just how far they would go to pretend that things were fine and well. That nothing was afoot in their precious city. The signs were written everywhere that Wyatt looked. The goblins. The thefts. Not to mention the increased patrols of the King’s Guard.
Many of the upper-level nobles had also hired mercenaries to work for them. That wasn’t uncommon, but usually it was in times of war, or when the line of succession to the throne was in question.
That was not the case. Not to Wyatt’s knowledge; last he knew the king was healthy, and so was his child. They might not be liked, but were firmly in place. Wyatt didn’t like all that he was learning and wished he had someone to go to figure this out.