The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Read online

  It was the logical conclusion. “That sounds like a sure bet to me, and I don’t take those. My real question is, are they going to be content with you taking on just the shards?”

  Her grey eyes went wide. “Surely they wouldn’t expect me to take on the real thing!”

  “I’m paranoid enough to where I suspect they might, yeah. But let’s worry about that when we come to it. I mean, surely even the MISD isn’t completely insane, and you’d have to be insane to want to tackle the real thing. Likely it’s your help with the mini versions they’ll want.”

  “Bannen, kindly do not say things that will give me heart failure,” she scolded, a palm pressing to her chest.

  “I’d apologize, but this is good payback for you bouncing on my bed this morning screaming like a banshee, so I distinctly do not feel the need to apologize. At all.”

  Far from looking abashed, she grinned at me. “I, of course, have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Naturally you don’t,” I agreed in the same tone, rocking back and forth on my heels. “Just like I won’t have any idea when I get my revenge. Why do you take such evil pleasure in startling me out of a sound sleep, anyway?”

  Rena pondered this with a deep frown, brows needled together. “I have no idea. Because you’re teaseable?”

  “I’m pretty sure that isn’t a word. Absolutely positive of it, in fact.” Evil, sneaky little mage of mine.

  Woods returned, cutting our banter short. Behind him followed two people dressed in dark blue uniforms, the MISD silver and black patch on their chests, but they didn’t look like a ‘standard’ agent. One of them absolutely had to have a giant somewhere in her family lineage. I had to crane my neck to look up at her. If she was shorter than eight feet, I’d eat my boots. The definition of her muscles showed through her clothing, sharp but lean, and I had this thrill go through me at the idea of sparring with her. It’d be hugely fun until she, y’know, broke several of my bones. She had a staff lounging against one shoulder, one that had every earmark of being a magical artifact, so I assumed her to be a mage of some sort. Her dark brunette hair lay over one shoulder in a workman’s plank, and I liked the look in her eyes, golden brown and friendly, and I smiled up at her without really thinking about it.

  Her companion had to be human, as he stood only a little taller than me, with short sandy blond hair and a dark tan. He also had serious muscle definition, his arms especially, although it didn’t look like he dealt much with hand-to-hand combat like the giantess did. The only weapon I saw on him was a bow with a full quiver of interesting looking arrows.

  “Specialist Chinnadurai Franklocke, Mage-Specialist Violet Taberwood, this is Magus Renata Rocci and her companion, Bannen Hach.”

  “Familiar,” I corrected, offering a hand to Franklocke. “We meet as friends, Specialist.”

  “Chi,” he offered with a smile. “Pleasure, Bannen, and do tell me that you’re pulling my leg. A human familiar, really?”

  “Not pulling anything,” Rena assured him, also offering a hand, although it was stretched up to the giantess. “Hello, Specialist.”

  “Hello, little magus,” Taberwood said in a surprisingly light voice, carefully returning the grip. “This is Seton, my familiar.”

  Rena didn’t even blink, just looked at the staff and said, “Hello.”

  The staff lit up along the center, an array of lights flashing in the dark, polished wood. His mage smiled and translated, “‘Very glad to work with you,’ he says. I understand you’re going in to fight the shard of Toh’sellor? Yes? Then after we deal with that, let’s sit and have a drink, the four of us, and we can hear the story of how you called a human familiar.”

  “Five,” Woods corrected with a sharp look at us. “I definitely want to hear this as well.”

  I saw an opportunity here and wasn’t above exploiting it. “You buy, I’ll talk.”

  “Deal,” Chi agreed instantly. “Woods, who else is going in with us?”

  For some reason Woods found this question funny. “You think you need more people?”

  “Well, no, but sometimes you send junior agents in to get the experience. I can be nice and babysit for you.”

  “This time, I want you focused on how Magus Rocci is dispatching Toh’sellor,” Woods informed him, “so no babysitting duty for you.”

  “Excellent.” Chi actually looked relieved, which made me wonder, how hard was it to keep track of junior agents? He must have caught my look as he explained sotto voice, “The paperwork you have to fill out when one of the babies gets a boo-boo is no joke, let me tell you.”

  “Is that why? Then I’m relieved as well.” I looked between the two of them and didn’t want to step on any toes, honestly, but someone needed to clarify. I volunteered me. “In situations like this, it’s better if we have someone that goes first and pulls their attention.”

  “We call it pulling agro,” Taberwood informed me, “and that’s my job. Chi’s support.”

  “I like it.” I was relieved as well. That familiar-staff she had in her hands meant her reach was better than mine. “We waiting on anything?”

  “Not a thing,” Chi denied, already shucking off his coat. “Woods, hold this for me, would you?”

  Good idea, having someone else hold it. “Mine too? Thanks, Specialist Woods. Let’s go, then.”

  The onlookers seemed to realize something would happen soon, as the sound of conversation picked up behind us. The minions made all sorts of crashing, heavy breathing, crackling wood noises, heavy on the ears, so for the conversation to grow loud enough to override that surprised me. It had been buzzing for a while, not difficult to ignore, but this rise made me glance back. We had quite the crowd, at least fifty people, all watching our every move avidly. I felt strangely like a celebrity although I knew soon their full attention would be on Rena.

  Rena seemed to realize we’d garnered some interest, because she glanced around, eyebrows quirked in bemusement. As usual for her, she didn’t pay it any real mind and took point, at least up until the shield itself, where she nearly stood nose to barrier with it. Apparently realizing at the last second that while these two knew of her, but not everything, she turned her head and warned, “I can clear out an immediate path for us so they can lift the barrier enough for us to go through, but my incantations take a minute, so don’t expect me to react fast to anything.”

  Taberwood gave her the most confused look. “I can see that your magic is very…different, Magus, but why would you speak an incantation? And how do you plan to work any magic through a barrier this strong?”

  Rena opened her mouth, closed it, and looked frustrated. She wasn’t the type that knew how to talk about her work. “Just watch,” she finally said, turning back to it.

  Staring hard at the minions, she started speaking in that low, sing-song way of hers. I loosed my weapons, unsheathing both swords, and settled to her left, ready to move when she did. She had three animal—cow?—minions, a half-dozen tree-types and at least one bird-type that looked diminutive and weird compared to the rest, so I figured she would need more than a minute to destroy all these in one go. Her incantations had to factor in all of the elements from each type, after all, making them hideously complex.

  To everyone’s surprise but mine, the minions poofed out of existence just as the last syllable left her lips. In fact, I think Chi invented new cusswords on the spot. I made note of a few of them. Grinning to myself, I cast a quick look over my shoulder. “That’s why. Questions?”

  “More than a few,” Taberwood gasped, eyes wide as saucers. “And not enough alcohol for the conversation. I’ll save ’em for later.”

  “I can’t give us any personal shielding inside,” Rena said apologetically. “Agent Taberwood, if you don’t mind?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Taberwood assured her, still a little bug eyed. “Personal shields for each of us, so we can move freely, I think.”

  “Good choice,” I approved. “Well, Miss Agro, sha
ll we?”

  Someone—I think it was Woods—opened the barrier and the giantess strode through, her staff a blur in her hands. I took a second to appreciate the beauty of such speed and precision, then I went to work as well, keeping anything and everything away from my mage. Rena wasn’t idle as we went forward, focusing on points farther ahead, out of our immediate reach, and taking the minions down as we went.

  It took me more than a minute, as I honestly had my hands full, but eventually I turned so that I had a good line of sight on Chi. What I saw made my warrior heart flutter.

  Chi was amazing.

  Taberwood had mad skills as well, no mistake, but Chi’s form was flawless. He pulled arrow after arrow out of his quiver, usually four or five at a time, and they flew with perfect precision. He never missed. He hit exactly what he needed to. The arrows weren’t just broad, flat tips either, but some combination of magic if my eyes didn’t betray me, as quite a few of them blew up on impact.

  I rotated in and around Rena, stabbing forward, falling back, using my legs to fight with as much as the twin swords in my hands, keeping everything off of her as we searched for the shard, and because of that I saw how smooth the precision was between Chi and Taberwood. Taberwood would dart forward, Seton a blur in her hands, knock two or three enemies down, then fall back for a breath. The moments she took that step back, Chi would shift forward, covering her with a brief flurry of arrows, all released one after another in a steady stream, letting his partner catch her breath, then he would step back, reaching for more arrows as Taberwood advanced forward again. They were like Rena and I—in perfect sync with each other, the partnership a seamless balance. How many years had they worked together to be able to fight like this? It felt almost intimate watching them.

  We went forward, fighting and working our way toward the center for about an hour. The barrier on the outside hadn’t seemed that large, not compared to the other shards we’d tackled, so where was this thing?

  “Ah-ha!” Rena made the victorious sound with a bounce on the toes. “Found it.”

  “Distance?”

  “I need to be a little closer,” she stated calmly. “Taberwood, Chi, another fifty feet, please.”

  “Your wish is my command, princess,” Chi called to her, still firing off arrows.

  No one said anything else as frankly, we didn’t have the breath for it. The minions always became as dense as moss on wet stone when we came this close to a shard. This one didn’t look like the others, but it did at the same time. It didn’t have the same size—barely a story tall—although the way colors and wind and light flickered in and around like a distorted flame left no doubt as to its true nature.

  There didn’t seem to be much variety of minion, mostly cows and trees, but what they lacked in variety they made up for in number. It might be a new shard, but it had been busy, creating enough minions that I had my hands full, as did the agents. Despite that, I could still intensely feel their concentration on what Rena would do next. The question hovered in the air, a doubt on their parts on whether she could do this or not. I smirked and let them wonder. They’d see soon enough.

  Rena stopped, but we didn’t stop with her, forming a barrier around her to keep the minions off. I didn’t have to tell the other two to stay out of her line of sight, they did that automatically. As Rena worked out the spell, speaking her incantation, I couldn’t help but compare this to the first time she’d done it. Then, she had been awkward and fumbling, half-successful. This time, she knew exactly what to do, no hesitation in her voice.

  It took precisely three minutes.

  The shard exploded into a multihued mist of colors, dissipating in the air. Every minion we faced instantly died with it, poofing dust into the air. “Good job,” I praised her, smiling at Rena’s smile, then turned to see Taberwood and Chi’s reactions.

  Taberwood’s eyes were crossed, mouth agape, but then as a mage she could see exactly what Rena had done. I recognized that reaction. Chi stared at the spot the shard had been with such astonishment he actually plopped down on the ground, stunned speechless.

  Startling people just never got old. “So. How about that drink?”

  We retired to a café not far away that served excellent fried food and a mild ale that was more like hard cider than anything else. Bannen refused to drink anything alcoholic, which didn’t surprise me, as he never would in a foreign country and with people he’d barely met. I’ve never been sure if it was just Bannen’s natural caution or if the bond demanded such of him, or some mix of the two. Woods joined us, of course, and as the five of us settled around the table, he called out an order toward the front of the restaurant for fried fish and baskets of chips. He had the air of a regular, so I let him order. He knew what was best here.

  Besides, judging from the smell, nothing could possibly be considered ‘bad.’ The scent was heavenly—fried fish, layered with hot oil lingering heavily over everything. It was not an established, grand place, more like a hole in the wall café with eight tables crammed into a small space. From experience, I knew the best foods would be found in a place like this.

  Woods turned those dark eyes on me, penetrating and astonished. “Well, Magus. Please do tell us how you did that.”

  “I’m a Void Mage,” I explained with a splay of hands. “Normally this magic is seen in Turranskan mages, but for some reason, I’m the exception to the rule. I come out of Corcoran.”

  “I saw what you did,” Taberwood offered with a deep frown, “but I couldn’t follow it.”

  That didn’t surprise me. “Most can’t, so don’t feel bad. In essence,” I paused, stumbling, still not sure how to explain this, “a Void Mage chooses what she wants to erase.”

  Bannen shot me an amused look and jumped in. “Basically what’s she doing is she’s mapping out the schematic of something’s physical structure with her eyes, cataloguing all of the elements that forms the whole, then informing her magic exactly which elements she wants to disappear. She’s destroying its very foundation, hence why her incantations can’t be inscribed in a book, as they are tailor made for every job she does.”

  It wasn’t the first time Bannen had explained for me, but I appreciated it every time. “It’s official, you need to handle my explanations from now on.”

  He just laughed.

  “You’re not good at describing your work, are you,” Chi guessed with a knowing smile.

  “Terrible at it,” I confessed easily. “Fortunately, my handsome familiar has hung about me long enough that he understands at least the basics and can explain things for me.”

  “Which I don’t think was originally part of my job description,” Bannen informed me. “I think all I was supposed to do was protect you and look pretty. Can I have a raise? I think I deserve a raise.”

  “How about a bonus?” I retorted. “I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “Free food? I’ll take it.”

  Chi snorted a laugh. “You’re that easy, Bannen?”

  “Hey, I never turn down free food.”

  Woods cleared his throat, redirecting my attention. “But how is it that you called a human familiar? That, too, is something I’ve never heard of.”

  I did not, in any way, shape, or form, want to explain why I had a human familiar. Even after two years, the reason did not sit well with me.

  Bannen, again, came to my rescue, his tone light and easy. “Actually it’s standard for Void Mages to call human familiars. Because their incantations are so long, they’re more vulnerable than any other type of mage. It takes a human intelligence to be able to truly protect them.”

  Taberwood’s expression suggested that she knew there had to be more to it, but thankfully she was polite enough to not press the matter. Instead, she said: “Corcoran has very strict laws when it comes to what is ‘acceptable’ for a familiar. Did they not object?”

  I fought a brewing headache as I groaned, “Yes, you could say that.”

  “We don’t have enough alcohol or time
for me to fully answer that,” Bannen groused.

  “That bad, huh,” Chi snickered. “A story for later, then.”

  I felt it was time to turn the conversation. “Agent Woods, you automatically recognized me earlier, said that the MISD had been trying to track me down. To tackle all of these pieces of Toh’sellor that’s been popping up?”

  “That’s the main reason,” he agreed, pausing to finish off the last of his chips. “We have other problems too that call for your expertise, however, so I’m not quite sure what my superiors will offer you. To be sure, Toh’sellor will be your priority as you’re the first person to have any impact on it. Our main goal was to find you and ask if you would accept a short-term contract to demolish the shards that are popping up all over.”

  “I certainly can, and will be interested in seeing the terms of the contract,” I answered, trying to tamp down on my inner greed. I knew for a fact that MISD paid well. “How many instances do you know about?”

  “Five at last count, four after what you just did.” Woods gave me a sharp look. “We are still investigating why Toh’sellor is able to spread his influence past the barrier.”

  Bannen paused with a fish halfway to his mouth. “That was my next question. No ideas?”

  “Suspicions,” Taberwood offered, “but nothing concrete yet. Chi and I escorted an expert up there about a week ago and he’s been sitting there muttering to himself ever since. If anyone can figure it out, it’s him.”

  “I’d like to talk to him and compare notes,” I offered, “as I’ve now dealt with five of these things, maybe I’ve observed something helpful?”

  “We’ll put you in contact with him soon,” Woods promised and then paused, eyes darting to the storefront.

  I twisted about to see what had caught his attention and saw four men—somewhat inebriated from the looks of it—picking a fight with two other men in the MISD blue uniforms.

  Taberwood growled out something that could have been a curse before scraping back her chair and stalking for the front, each footstep heavy and ringing, like a war drum going off. Chi immediately followed, and I wasn’t sure if he even thought about why, his movements were so automatic. They cleared the door in near tandem despite the fact that Taberwood had to duck and twist a little to clear the entrance.