He wanted out.
Bell frowned. “I can get Asp to brew another batch, but it will take a while.”
Picc turned back to Drynn with a sigh. “I can watch ’im, I guess. I’ll take ’im back to the cart. The chain will slow ’im down until we figure the rest of it out.”
Iron. The metal rope.
Drynn stumbled back. No way was he going back in there. Not with Picc. Not with anyone. “Stay away from me. I’ll-I’ll use my magic.”
Kol had said some humans were afraid of him, but Picc didn’t look scared. He grinned, stepping closer. “Really? And wot does your magic do?”
“I . . .” Drynn spun around wildly.
The path to the window stood open. Birds perched on a nearby tree. He couldn’t reach it before Picc caught him, not with his movements still painfully slow. The humans were always accusing him of magic—from the way he healed himself or climbed or talked to rats or dogs or . . .
That could work. He focused on the small brown birds, singing at the first rays of morning. According to his dream, Lady Starrillaylee had a fire bird. For him, these would have to be enough.
“Help me. Please.”
Picc scowled at his Elven. “He still drunk or wot?”
A small brown bird dove off the branch and in through the window. Bell squealed at the sudden movement, but Picc swung at Drynn without pause. The elf swerved and let the human stumble forward without making contact.
The other birds started through the window as the first bird veered right into Picc’s face, chirping loudly. “Wot in the—?”
Bell screamed again, now fighting to untangle the birds that were pulling on her hair.
Drynn smiled. It was time to go.
Slowly, he started edging past Picc and toward the window. Two more birds had joined in the aerial assault on Picc’s head. Drynn wasn’t even sure if the boy could see him through all the feathers. The brown bird seemed much more aggressive than the other two, using its dives to scratch at Picc’s face instead of just flying in circles around it. One of Picc’s swats made contact with the small bird and flung it into the nearby lamp.
It crashed over the leaky ale barrel. Smoke rolled and fire blazed.
Drynn shouted at the birds to escape and leapt through the window.
Picc cursed and fought the growing blaze, but Bell just stood there frowning at him. “Drynn, it really is dangerous out there. Where will you go?”
Kol had awful friends and awful taste in women. Drynn held on to the window ledge, ready to lower himself down. “Away from here.”
He dropped and ran into the street.
CHAPTER 23
A HAND PUSHED against Kol’s neck, feeling for the pulse. He thought about knocking it away—or, at least, trying to knock it away—but it wasn’t worth the effort. No more war. Everything hurt, every muscle radiated pain as he slipped in and out of consciousness.
Sorren clicked his tongue, his voice coming as if muffled behind a door or under water. “You really would die for him, wouldn’t you? Seems I’ve been going about this the wrong way.”
The hand clamped down on his shoulder. Maybe it burned, maybe it didn’t. His shoulder was already burned past feeling, and he was ready for Sorren to kill him. It would be a relief at this point. Then the wind picked up. It would strike him again in a moment.
Instead, the cold stone under him gave way to something soft. Maybe carpet. Kol thought about opening his eyes, but he doubted he could trust them.
The wind retreated, and the wizard let go of him without another flash of pain. “Oh good, you’re home. I thought you might be off on one of your extracurricular trips again.”
Kol couldn’t make sense of the words, couldn’t grasp the idea of someone else being in the room until a distant voice spoke up. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“You should talk. You’re a long way from your post, Sorren.”
Kol opened his eyes then, but it only made him want to retch. Bright colors surrounded him. Rugs and woven tapestries bedecked the floor and white walls, nothing like the barren gray walls of Sorren’s fortress. Sorren must have brought them somewhere else.
“I can teleport,” Sorren said, confirming Kol’s unspoken thought. “I’ll be exactly where I’m needed, and if I want to sleep in my own bed occasionally, what difference does it make?”
“Your bed maybe,” the new man said. “It doesn’t give you an open invitation into my rooms.”
“I’ll be gone in a minute, but I thought you might help me with a pest control problem I had.” Sorren’s footsteps retreated a ways.
After racing from the other side of the room, the new man dropped to kneel at Kol’s side. “What were you thinking? You could’ve killed him.”
“Yes, but I didn’t. Which I thought was rather generous of me as he attacked me in my home and deprived me of something rather valuable.” Sorren’s voice held so much malice that Kol flinched, waiting for another blow.
Instead, the new man ran his hands over Kol’s chest, which hurt almost as much. Then the man pulled back, as if startled. “Wait a moment . . .”
“Come on, Xavian. It isn’t like I want you to heal him all the way. He’s got to learn respect somehow. I just need him well enough to present to the council.”
“That’s not it. I’ve seen him before. He’s a street performer—uses wind magic on his daggers and has a lot of control for someone untrained. I wouldn’t have noticed him at all if I hadn’t been looking for . . . someone else.” Now Kol knew where he had heard this man’s voice before, the undercover wizard he had met on the street.
Two wizards. One was bad enough.
Sorren shook his head. “And you think the boy would confirm this? Are you attempting to challenge my claim?”
“Your claim? You’re going to present him to the council?” Xavian asked, as if the words hadn’t penetrated the first time.
“It’s the protocol.” Sorren shrugged, leaning back against a chair. “I doubt he’s got a house to claim him by blood, so as the first to discover his magical ability, I have first right. I’ll present him there, and begin his training immediately.” Sorren scanned Kol over again. “How old do you think he is? Sixteen? We could say fifteen, and that would give him two years as my ward. Not a lot of time, but we should be able to make some progress by then.”
Sorren let the words hang, obviously playing for the new wizard’s sympathy. Kol knew it and even guessed Xavian knew it too, but still couldn’t suppress a wince as Sorren reached for him, nor his relief when Xavian blocked Sorren’s way. Why couldn’t they just let him die in peace?
“You would kill him. You nearly did already.” Xavian held Kol as he tried to roll. “I’ll not heal him for that, but if you renounce your claim, I’ll take him off your hands entirely.”
“You would claim him? Don’t you already have two apprentices?”
“Arius can claim him.” Xavian squinted back at Sorren. “You never wanted an apprentice before. Consider it a favor. Unless you have some other reason for wanting to keep him?”
“Now why would I want that?” Sorren smiled. Somehow he had won again. “We could discuss it more—”
“After I heal him. Move back.”
Sorren sighed loudly before his steps retreated. “If I could figure out how you do it just by watching, I would’ve done it a long time ago.”
“Even so.” Warmth trickled through Xavian’s hands. “Do you know his name?”
“Wouldn’t even tell me that.”
Sorren had never asked him that. Maybe if he had, and added a please, Kol would have answered. Then again, he might have just tried to spit blood in the wizard’s face.
Again.
Xavian shifted back on his knees. Kol’s head still swum, but he moved his arm without wincing and saw more than dark blurs. The undercover wizard knelt over him, now dressed in moss-green robes over a silk tunic. Sorren stood a few yards away in the same sitting room.
Kol pull
ed out his dagger, staggering to his feet.
Xavian’s blue eyes widened, and he glanced back at Sorren.
The wizard shrugged, fingering some books on a table. “I pulled a bunch off him, but he keeps getting more. He cloaks them or something. I told you not to heal him all the way.”
“How’d he figure that out on his own?”
Sorren looked up from the books and stepped forward. “Give me a minute, and you can ask him. See if you have any better luck.”
Kol slammed into the stone wall, air so thick around him he could barely breathe, let alone throw his dagger. Sorren was going to trap or burn him again.
Flames filled his vision. He would kill the wizards first. Burn them before they burned him.
“Sorren, no,” Xavian said. “Put him down.”
Kol fell and threw his dagger. It struck thin air with a loud crack, like hitting a wall, and skidded to the side. He found another blade.
Sorren scowled at Xavian. “What would you suggest? Those aren’t the easiest things to block, and I’m not going to hang around here casting shields all day. It really isn’t my specialty.”
“Maybe if you didn’t beat him in the first place!” Xavian balled his fists.
“It wouldn’t make a difference. He came at me first.”
Kol glared. He had attacked after the wizard had thrown him across the room and went for the elf. Kol doubted the wizard would say anything about the elf now and risk having to share its magic with the rest of the Tower, but that suited Kol as well.
The fewer wizards who knew about the elf, the better. The fewer who would try to beat the answers out of him. He threw his dagger and watched it strike air.
Xavian shook his head. “He must’ve built up a good store somewhere, but he’ll calm down—drain himself out, and then Arius can talk to him.”
“Right. And in the meantime, let’s hope your shields are stronger than mine.” Sorren grabbed Xavian’s shoulder. The wind built into a sphere. Books and paper whirled about as the wind sphere shrunk, pulling in everything within a five-foot radius.
The wizards faded out seconds before Kol threw his next dagger.
It hit the wooden door with a thwack.
Kol’s wind coursed around the room. He had no desire to hide it. The damage was already done. He was in the wizard stronghold. He might die, but not without a fight.
Wind built into a funnel, gathering up all the loose objects in the room and striking the door. It buckled on its hinges, but remained in place.
Kol called to the wind again, flames dancing in his head, the memory of the wizard’s words mocking him. So he didn’t know what he was doing, but Sorren had succeeded where The Lord failed. The boy was gone, finally beaten out of him.
He was the bandit, and not knowing what he was doing wouldn’t stop him from trying.
Another blast. And another.
The floor rocked under him. His head spun. The air barely gusted at his call.
Kol fell to the floor and blacked out.
When Kol woke up, his face was planted in the rug. His muscles ached, but no wizards hovered over him. He called to the wind, and it barely responded. Drain himself out, that’s what the wizards had said he would do. Well, he was thinking clearer now, and had managed just fine without touching his magic before. No reason to rely on it now. At least not completely.
His ribs still ached, but not so urgently. He sat up and searched his surroundings for the first time. His prison was surreally peaceful. Loose books and papers littered the floor from his and Sorren’s windstorm, but everything else seemed perfectly pleasant. Plush armchairs flanked the round rug. A desk sat in one corner, and an empty fireplace in another. Open doors, thinner than the one he had struck with wind, led to other rooms of the wizard’s apartment. Tapestries decorated the stone walls.
And a window.
He stumbled toward it, running his hand over the opening. A warm energy shimmered in the corner of his eye—same as the energy blocking the windows at Sorren’s fortress, but it seemed stronger. More solid somehow.
Kol pulled out a dagger, but even if he could break the seal, he was at least ten stories up—large unfamiliar gardens and a courtyard below him. Trying to climb that without a rope or an elf just wasn’t smart.
He tried the front door. The doorknob didn’t move, and there was no lock to pick. Hands on the wood, he felt the same energy as before. It reinforced the door, cementing all the cracks. He scraped at the edges with his blade, chipping through the energy.
It flaked off like splinters of wood.
Minutes passed. His arm ached as he worked, gnawing at the seam until it burst. He pressed against the door without resistance.
It opened to a long hallway filled with more doors and windows.
Halfway down the hall, a blond boy around the same age as Kol stared at him. He wore off-white robes tied with an orange-red cord. When the boy frowned, his narrow features left creases over all his face. “Isn’t that Xavian’s apartment? What were you doing in there?”
Apparently not many blond boys walked around here in blood-stained rags and bare feet.
“Good question.” Not like he ever asked to be put in there.
“Did you take something?”
Kol rolled his eyes. “Search me if you like.” He held out his arms, waiting.
The boy stepped up. Kol punched him, pushing him into Xavian’s rooms behind him. He pulled off the boy’s robe before closing the door. They thought Kol was a robe? Fine. He would be a robe. At least long enough to get out of here.
He draped the robe over his clothes—falling long enough to cover his bare feet—when the door buckled against a sudden gale. Kol braced himself against it, holding his ribs.
He might have overdone it again.
Another door opened from across the hall. An older blond boy walked out, a brown cord around his waist. “Is the half-breed still slamming the door? I thought he tired himself out a long time ago.” He spoke with the same nauseatingly prim inflection the first boy had.
Wizards were everywhere. Kol kept his brown eyes down and copied the other’s drawl. “Xavian has a half-breed in there? I thought it was an earthquake.”
“Yeah, he’s a real wild one. No point talking to him until he settles down a bit. How’s the shield?”
Wind slammed the door again. “I think he’s almost through. Can you do something?”
The older boy nodded. “Move.” Kol shifted over. The boy squinted at the door, running his hands over the cracks. They burned with energy. “You’re right. Clever for a bastard. No wonder Arius said he’d take him.”
Kol checked his scowl. It was biologically accurate, and he had been called much worse. “You got it?”
“For now. Thanks for the help.”
Kol stepped away. “No problem. I’ll look for Xavian.”
Bye. Kol waved the mini wizards off silently and went down the hall, running as soon as he turned the corner. No one else in the hall. He found some stairs and walked down them until they stopped. It was an annoyingly long walk. Why hadn’t the great and powerful wizards thought of a better way to travel?
On the ground floor, he passed several dark-haired men in servant livery, but none of them looked him in the eye. Not even the common guards standing by the front door. Just a lot of nodding, bowing, and even ducking quickly in the opposite direction.
All the stories he had thought up to cover his flight were never used.
Outside, cool air greeted him. Beautiful.
He cut through the side of the grounds where the gardens were, away from the main road and the entrance to the castle. He had never been to Kalum City before, never realized the buildings shared the same courtyard, but he had no time to be a tourist. He was getting out.
He crashed against a solid mass of air.
Kol staggered, catching a glance of his feet. The wall might have been invisible, but a line ran in the ground announcing its presence, separating the uniform grass and square
hedges of the wizard’s gardens from the mud of Kalum’s streets. He ran his hand across the invisible wall. Power radiated from it, and a sudden sadness.
It was the saddest invisible wall he had ever seen. Or didn’t see.
And he was going to kill it.
Kol slammed a dagger against it and fell back several feet. Ow.
He rubbed his ribs without getting up. They would never heal completely at this rate.
No one ever showed you the dome before?
Kol sprang from the grass, looking for the source of the voice he heard only in his head. The running fountain, trimmed fruit trees, and stone vases overflowing with two-tone lilies of the Tower’s gardens were empty except for a red-scaled reptile the size of a small rabbit staring back at him. It perched on a pear tree, its tail wrapped around a branch. “And wot are you, its keeper?”
The creature flapped his wings in an impression of a shrug. Quite the opposite. Do you mean to hit me with that?
“Sorry.” He put the blade away, brushing off the mud from his clothes.
I’m over it. It preened at its scales like a bird, scratching with the goat-like horns on the back of its head, the picture of indifference. I just hoped you’d display a bit more intelligence. Hitting a dragonet with a knife? I mean honestly. Though Javar is now reminding me of his last companion’s attempt to attack him with a flyswatter, which makes you look much better in comparison.
Kol frowned, trying to make sense of this apparition. “You’re magic. The robes trapped you here too.”
Yes and no. I came in on my own and never gave the “robes” the pleasure of examining me, but I do want to leave. We are getting ahead of ourselves, though. The humans call me Vernack. I’ve been a companion of the Kalmic kings since the title was created. I’m now at a bit of a loose end, so when I saw you down here, playing with the dome, I decided to investigate. Am I right in thinking you are not an apprentice?
An apprentice? An apprentice what? Kol remembered his robes taken from the younger wizard in the Tower, now browner with mud than its original off-white. Ugh.
The Queen's Opal: A Stone Bearers Novel (Book One) Page 23