“Since we’ve nothing else to try, I’m going ahead with my plan.” Farrell spared a brief thought to what had happened to the rest of Meglar’s force. Knowing his father’s tactics, the cloud had consumed the Chamdon. They’d served their purpose, and herding the few who would’ve lived long through the battle was more effort than it was worth.
What eluded him was the purpose of the cloud. A man walking at an average pace could keep ahead of the mist and its deadly lightning. Clearly it wasn’t meant to consume the defenders.
“Perhaps it is meant to test you,” Nerti said, and he realized he still had his mind open to her.
“That’s certainly a possibility. Another is that Tixel or even Meglar was going to direct it and could adjust its speed. Or maybe they were testing it for future use. Once it’s gone, we’ll likely never know.”
“Though not knowing the answer will vex you to no end, I can live with that result.”
Farrell laughed and closed the link between them. He noticed Miceral riding his way and finished laying out his stones.
“You need to make the circle wider, or else I will not fit inside,” Nerti said.
“You’re not going to be inside with me, so this will be fine.”
He was about to engage the spell when Nerti moved two stones farther out. “Stop that! I’m trying to raise the shield.”
When he tried to return them to their original spots, she stepped in front of him. “I’m staying, Wizard. If your scheme is safe enough for you to risk your life, it’s safe enough to risk mine as well. If it’s not, then neither of us will stay. There will be no further discussion. Expand the circle, or we should leave now.”
His stomach twisted as he reviewed the situation. It was one thing to risk his own life; he assumed he could get away. But risking hers changed the dynamic. If he left, however, and the cloud reached Trellham, he might not get another chance to try what he planned.
“Very well.” He flicked his wrist, and the stones shifted positions to create a larger area.
“Someday soon, lad, you need to teach me how to make these shields,” Erstad said. “If the other kingdoms had this, they’d be able to give Meglar a real fight.”
“You need to get back if you want to live long enough for me to show you.” He motioned toward the approaching mist. “You should have no trouble keeping a safe distance from the edge of the cloud. And please don’t try to assist me unless I ask.”
Farrell wove the strands of his spell until he created a miniature version of the shield that protected Belsport. Tweaking it for maximum protection, he was satisfied with its strength and integrity. He created the inner shield and linked it to the Source to ensure it wouldn’t fail.
Comfortable with their protection, he remounted and waited for the menace to arrive. The westernmost edge of the dark haze reached his position and broke against the shield. The wisps of smoky energy swirled around his protective wall and crept up the dome.
“Farrell! What in the Eight Gates of Neblor are you doing?” Miceral’s urgent plea was not unexpected. “Get away from there!”
“Sorry, Miceral. This is the best way I know to unravel this spell.” He gave Miceral a smile. “Don’t worry, Nerti and I will be fine. I have double layers of protection and promise to leave if my shields show any signs of weakening.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You have no idea what that thing is or how to stop it. You’re going to get killed.”
“Can you explain this to Klissmor?” he asked Nerti. “Miceral is more likely to listen to him than me right now.”
Nerti nodded. “Agreed.”
“No, we won’t.” He tried to sound as convincing as possible to ease Miceral’s fear. “I promise.”
Miceral’s panic mirrored Klissmor’s pace. His friend galloped hard toward Nerti and Farrell. They almost ran over the other three wizards, but Klissmor pulled up in time.
“Leave them be, Son.” Wesfazial held up his hand. “If you disturb his concentration, you may end up killing them both.”
Klissmor slowly backed away and joined the others in keeping well ahead of the cloud. Miceral watched the fog grow blacker until it surrounded and obscured Farrell and Nerti from sight. The first two times lightning flashed inside the cloud, he saw their silhouette. The third one revealed nothing.
“Why does he always do this?” Miceral didn’t address his question to anyone in particular.
“One of the most sacred responsibilities of being a ruler is doing whatever is needed to safeguard your people. Even when it creates anxious moments for loved ones,” Cylinda said. When Miceral looked at her, he saw the image in the portrait on the wall in his sitting room.
“You’re . . . you . . .”
“He knows who I am.” She smiled, but she didn’t look entirely happy. “I hope he can forgive me.”
A chill ran through his body. “He loves you enough to forgive this. And I’ll be there to explain what it cost you if he has any doubts.”
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you. This will mean so much to him.”
Another flash and he forgot about Zenora. Anger boiled through him. He understood what Zenora said, but Farrell rushing off to confront serious danger angered him.
“It’s his nature, old friend,” Klissmor said. “Nerti says to tell you they are safe. She would not have let him stay if she didn’t believe that to be true.”
“Yes, but why him? Why is it always him?” Miceral hadn’t meant to speak his thoughts out loud.
“He feels an enormous sense of duty to protect everyone from his father,” Zenora said. “You knew that when you met him. It’s as much a part of him as is his love for you. Maybe now that he knows I’m back, he’ll allow the burden to rest where it belongs—on me.”
“You can’t blame yourself for Meglar,” Erstad said. “He fooled everyone.”
Zenora shook her head. “Not you, Heminaltose. If we’d listened to you, he’d—”
“Have found another way to become the monster he has become.”
Miceral’s jaw hung open. “Heminaltose?”
The wizard he knew as Erstad nodded.
Looking at Wesfazial, he pointed, but couldn’t find his voice.
“Yes, lad,” the wizard said. “That makes me Sanduval. Did you really think we’d leave Farrell all alone to face that spawn of Neblor?”
Miceral shook his head. “Does Farrell . . . does he know?”
“Evidently,” Heminaltose said. “Called us a bunch of old goats.”
Miceral laughed despite himself. “That sounds like him.”
The cloud grew in size and intensity, and Miceral stared at it, hoping for a glimpse of Farrell and Nerti. No one said anything, but they inched backward to keep their distance. Twice Miceral looked over his shoulder to see how close they were to Trellham. Not on top of the mountain yet, but the distance was closing rapidly.
He searched for his army and saw only a small force standing guard outside the barely open gates. One door had been closed, and the other was open wide enough for only two people to enter at a time.
“Link up, everyone.” Farrell’s voice in his head made him jump. “We need some help, and we don’t have much time.”
Farrell held his breath when the first strike hit their outer shields. The wall melted where the energy struck, but nothing came through the hole. The opening disappeared a moment later as the shield regenerated. He watched closer when the second one struck. The lightning bolt hit the magical wall and spread out over a wider area. Where it covered his shield, the two forces consumed each other. What surprised him most was the creation of a hole didn’t collapse the entire shield. If the cloud could be contained and focused, it would cut through traditional shields like fire through a thin skin of ice.
Fortunately his new regenerating shields countered the effect with no signs of stress. With their safety not at risk, Farrell dealt with the cloud. Before entering, he’d theorized that each component had been woven together, much l
ike his shielding, to provide something greater than the parts. One spell to hold it together, one to move it, one for the mist, and one to discharge the energy. But he couldn’t find any of those individual lines.
“You seem troubled, wizard. Is there a problem?” Nerti asked.
“No. At least not that I can tell. But either something blocks my sight or my hypothesis is wrong.”
“Do you expect me to read your mind to find out what you’re telling me?”
“Sorry.” He examined their surroundings again. “Either I’m wrong about how the spell works or something is hiding it from sight.”
“How will you know which it is?”
“Test both theories.” He left out that he probably didn’t have time to test both, so he’d better pick the right one to test first. “My belief is, as complicated as this spell is, my—Meglar created it. If that’s true, then I should be able to see everything. Meglar isn’t skilled enough to hide components of a spell. That means I was wrong in how the spell was created.”
“Interesting.”
“What? Did you find something?” Farrell asked, unable to conceal his hopefulness.
“No, but I’m surprised you assume you made a mistake and not that Meglar was hiding something from you. Most humans would have assumed the opposite.”
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was a compliment. But accepting he was wrong wasn’t easy. “It’s just basic probability. It’s more likely he came up with something I didn’t think of than he found a way to conceal parts of a spell. Not that the latter is impossible, but it would be extremely hard.”
Starting over, Farrell considered how he might cast the spell. If he didn’t do it the easy way—breaking the spell into distinct subspells—he’d need to create one giant spell. And if Meglar had done that . . . He adjusted his vision and searched again.
“Great Holy Honorus! There it is!” He studied the spell for a way to disarm it but couldn’t believe the complexity. If Meglar had created this himself, he rivaled his late—Master Heminaltose. Probing deeper, he stopped and double-checked what he thought he saw. “There are no threads. It’s all one spell.”
“Does that make it harder to destroy?”
“No, it’s easier. All I need to do is drain the energy into something solid and dense.” And protect it from being blasted to bits by the cloud energy. “But it means I came at it the wrong way, and I didn’t bring the necessary tools to disarm it.”
“Can you create what you need or fetch something?”
“No and no. Creating a rock requires I turn off our primary shield, and that’s too dangerous to risk. And I can’t fetch something unless I know it’s there.” He could try to find something as a last resort, but he had a better idea. “Will you help me speak to my mother and the other wizards?”
“Speak and they shall hear you.”
“Link up, everyone.” Farrell felt the others open themselves to him through his link with Nerti. “We need some help, and we don’t have much time.”
“What do you need?” Zenora asked.
“A large rock. At least as big as a fat hog.” He felt their unease through the links. “Please look for one, and I’ll explain what’s happening.”
Farrell split his attention between explaining what he’d learned and checking the progress of the spell. Something he hadn’t noticed at first was that the mist leeched power from his shield. It was small and likely limited because the energy kept changing, but it was adding fuel to the cloud.
He’d almost finished explaining what he planned to do when Sanduval told him he’d found a suitable rock. Nerti allowed him to see through Sanduval’s eyes, and Farrell confirmed it met his needs.
Extending a tendril of energy, he let Nerti guide him to the stone. The storm immediately shifted its focus to his thin line of energy. He wrapped the rock in a dozen layers of shielding before he pulled it toward him.
Whatever the spell used to target the lightning, there was a small delay by less than a minute. It was enough for Farrell to get the rock in place and protect it. For his plan to work, however, the stone could not be shielded once he finished the spell. He had an idea how to fix that but waited until he set the siphon spell before addressing the shielding.
The spell itself was not overly complex; the trick was to exempt everything he didn’t want drawn in. If he failed to exclude something that was within the grasp of the spell, it would be siphoned into the rock with everything else. A wizard of even average talent could resist the pull, as the spell was designed to target inanimate harmful substances, but his shields were not sentient.
Nerti inched over to their right, and Farrell extended his staff. He’d positioned the stone inches from their shielding so he wouldn’t need to lower their protection to complete his spell. His concern was whether the lightning would strike his staff as he worked.
Tentatively he extended the metal end of his battle staff outside both shields. He held it away from the stone for a moment. Nothing happened, so he began the spell. As he recited the words, the end of his staff and the stone both glowed a pale green. Lightning strikes approached from all directions, headed for his staff and the stone.
Farrell immediately erected staggered layers of wide, flat energy and paused from his spell to create dozens of sheets around the stone. He hoped they would prevent the dark energy blasts from striking it. They also left open spaces for his spell to draw in the power and substance of the mist.
His counterspell might not be complicated to cast, but it was long. As he continued his work, the strikes increased in both frequency and intensity. Farrell tightened his spell-casting to minimize any seepage of energy the cloud could use against him. With still a bit to go, the cloud had destroyed enough of his layers that he would soon be without protection. He needed to create more layers, but the storm was growing stronger around him. If he paused to replace the destroyed sheets, he might find himself in a no-win fight. If the frequency of the lightning increased too much, they’d destroy his layers faster than he could create them.
Knowing he wouldn’t get a second chance, Farrell gambled on the strength of his regenerating shields. He moved his inner shield outside to protect the stone and the remaining sheets.
The strain of managing so many spells was giving him a headache. If any of the spells failed, he didn’t know if he could withstand the feedback. Now he was in a race to finish the spell before his outer shields collapsed. The strikes were coming faster, and they riddled the newly moved dome in a less than a minute.
Farrell used the time to reposition his layered sheets and work quickly to finish the countermeasure. The inner regenerating shielding took a few strikes but it easily recovered.
The outer dome was on the verge of failing when he completed the spell. He shut it down and feverishly created new sheets. As he feared, for every two he made, the storm destroyed three. Taking another risk, he erected a new outer shield and let it take a pounding while he increased the defenses around the stone.
A rapid barrage of hits nearly proved his undoing, but he managed to disperse his shield before it crumpled under the strain. Exhausted, he continued to replace the flat energy panes until he noticed their number had grown. The blows were coming slower and the intensity had abated some as well. Even the cloud seemed lighter.
“You did it!” Nerti sounded relieved. “The storm is noticeably weaker now.”
He slowed his layer-building, and then he finally stopped when he couldn’t find a place to put the newest sheet. The mist was thinning at an accelerated rate, and the lightning had stopped completely.
His friends inching toward them, with Miceral and his mother the mot anxious to get closer.
Farrell didn’t wait for the last of the mist to be absorbed before he lowered the remaining shield. He waved his staff and collected the rocks used to protect them. Pulling a bag from his endless pocket, he stowed the energized stones inside and sealed the pouch. “We can use these another time if we need them,�
� he told Nerti.
With the shield down, Nerti trotted toward their friends. Farrell’s heart pounded as he struggled to deal with the revelation his mother—and former teachers—were still alive.
Klissmor came alongside Nerti, and Farrell thought Miceral was going to lift him from his seat. Instead he reached for Farrell’s hand. “Are you hurt?”
“No, just incredibly tired.”
“I would think so,” Heminaltose said as he patted Farrell’s back. “That was quite an impressive bit of magic you just handled.”
Farrell had rarely received praise like that from his former teacher, but he brushed aside the compliment. He kept his eyes fixed on his mother. This time, instead of turning away, she smiled. Not meaning to, he ignored Miceral for the moment and slid off Nerti’s back. Zenora did likewise, and the two met in the open space between the unicorns.
“Hello, Mother.”
Chapter Eleven
Farrell kept his composure for a moment, but when a tear ran down his mother’s cheek, the flood of emotions burst through. She reached for him, and he pulled her into a hug. He didn’t know how long he held her, but although nothing had changed, everything had.
Zenora sniffed and pulled back. “Oh no.” She wiped the beads of water off his breastplate.
“Mother, please. I promise it won’t rust.” The small group laughed, and Farrell wondered how long before something intruded to ruin his happiness. He chided himself and banished the thought to concentrate on what he’d gained.
Squeezing her hand, he said, “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Halloran.”
“Halloran’s gone. He died the day Meglar forced you to send him to hide at Haven.” He hadn’t meant to be so morbid, but he would never feel comfortable as the son who might have been.
“No, Halloran never left. He came to see me every Summer and Winter Festival.” She started to cry again. “He made me proud of him every time I saw him.”
Farrell felt himself about to cry again. To hold off the tears, he led her to where Miceral stood apart. “I’m told you two met in Dumbarten, but allow me to formally introduce you to my life partner. Miceral, may I present my mother, Zenora, Queen of Yar-del.”
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