Balancer (Advent Mage Cycle) Page 3

  “Magus, a moment.”

  I paused in mid-stride, turning back to face the king. Vonlorisen’s eyes were crinkled slightly at the corners as if he were fighting a smile.

  “Magus,” he took great care with his words as he said them, “after all that you have done for Chahir, and for me personally, I had thought to reward you in some manner. Because of your power and reputation, it had crossed my mind that you might be well suited to become Dom of a Province. A marriage to the daughter of a ruling Dom would not only be a personal reward, but quite the political statement.”

  I stared at him in unadulterated terror. Nonononono!

  “But I now see that my thinking is perhaps in error.” His eyes glinted in amusement at the–no doubt panicked—look on my face. “Witch Delheart is dear to you, isn’t she?”

  Stop thumping, heart. I might be able to wiggle out of this yet. I cleared my throat to make sure it would actually work before trying to speak in a normal tone. “Yes, Your Majesty, quite dear. I just gave her father an Oath of Promise.”

  “Ahh.” The glint turned into an outright twinkle. “Then I shall have to think of some other reward instead.”

  Phew. Got out of that one. Before he could think of some other outlandish reward, I gave him a bow and beat a hasty retreat.

  Chapter Two: Reconnaissance

  We’d been put up in a building that actually stood separately from the palace, even though it was in the same compound. It rather reminded me of the Hainian Embassy just because it had the same construction to it. The building stood four stories tall, with a variety of rooms inside. I had a suspicion that once the Remnant magicians arrived they would be housed here. The place had enough room for two hundred or so people.

  Chatta put up a ward on the building as soon as we arrived. Her barriers were very different from mine, and wards were entirely different than barriers, so we were fairly confident that it would repel any Priests who tried to enter. Still, if nothing else, she would definitely feel it if someone did breach the wards. It let us all get a sound night’s sleep.

  ~*~

  We all drifted down to the main level for breakfast. The sweet scent of warm food acted as a siren’s song, drawing us into the large main room. It held a long table that someone had set up with a buffet style meal against one wall, another table in the middle of the room with places set. Abundant windows let in the soft morning light enough that no lamps needed to be lit.

  Saroya met us for breakfast. He looked rougher than the last time I’d seen him, when we’d rescued Nolan. Dark smudges under his eyes, and deep lines around his eyes and mouth aged him ten years. His uniform was impeccable, as always, but the general air of fatigue around him made me think he was subsisting on two or three hours of sleep a night.

  Chatta took one look at him, reached into her pocket, and drew out a small vial. He took it from her in bemusement. “What is this?”

  “Rejuvenation potion,” she answered with a searching look. “It’s no substitute for real sleep, but it will keep you from dragging around in a haze of exhaustion.”

  Old reflexes made him hesitate, but he looked down at her worried expression and whatever reservations he had faded. With a nod of thanks, he pulled the stopper and downed the vial in one go. His nose scrunched up in distaste and his mouth worked for a moment.

  “It must be effective. Like all good medicine, it tastes awful.”

  Chuckling, I handed him a glass of water.

  He quaffed that down quickly. “Phew, better. Thank you. Now, let’s get down to business.” He took a seat at the head of the table, a plate mounded over with food. He didn’t touch any of it, though. He let out a sigh, shoulders slumping. “At this point, I’m afraid to say that we know very little. One of my men reports that he’s seen Priests sneaking into Darlington Province’s manor house in the dead of night. They were apparently dressed in farm hand’s clothes, but he recognized one of them. We can only assume that those with him are also Priests. That is the one confirmed trouble spot we have. The rest of them are sightings from citizens in practically every other Province. Jarrell and Habbick are the exceptions. I haven’t heard anything from those two.”

  I winced. Every province but two? That’s practically the entire country!

  Shad let out a soft whistle. “Well, that just made things challenging. Any chance we can borrow Coven Ordan’s pool and let them do the spying for us?”

  Chatta shook her head before he could get the full question out. “It might help, but I’d lay odds that any scrying pool would be useless at this point. Anyone that could find a safe place has already gone to ground. They’re not going to leave their hidey hole until it’s safe again. A pool can’t see through a building’s walls.”

  “We’re going to have to do this the hard way,” Xiaolang agreed, stabbing at his food with more force than necessary.

  “That will take weeks,” Shield groaned. “Even with our Priest-detector.”

  I pointed a finger at myself. “You don’t mean me, do you?”

  “Of course I mean you!” Shield responded acerbically.

  “Shield.” I blew out a breath. “If they seal their power within themselves, I can’t detect them, remember?”

  From the look on his face, he actually had forgotten that. Burying his face in both hands, he let out a low groan. “Great guardians, that’s right. So how can we know?”

  “I think…” Aletha leaned back in her chair, eyes on the ceiling, a thoughtful frown narrowing her eyes. “I think we’re going to have to be creative on this. Garth, you can feel how many people are in a place. Can’t you tell if there are too many people in a household? Or if there’s a large concentration of people in an odd place?”

  I quirked a brow at her, intrigued by this notion. If there’s thirty people lurking in someone’s basement that would certainly catch my attention.

  “Well, yes. That would be a good indicator.”

  Saroya watched this back-and-forth with growing interest. “We can’t arrest them for simply being in odd places, though.”

  “No,” Aletha agreed, head turning to look at Chatta. “But can’t you capture the memory of someone who knows the Star Order well? Perhaps several someone’s. If we have a reference on hand, say in a crystal, of what every priest in the Star Order looks like…”

  Chatta’s eyes lit up in feral approval. “Aletha, that’s brilliant!”

  “And workable,” Xiaolang agreed with an enigmatic smile. “Saroya, do you have people with that knowledge?”

  “I can think of a few people. I’m not sure if it would be a complete accounting,” he added in an almost apologetic tone, “but it would be close to one. Witch Delheart, this memory-catching process…is it difficult?”

  “No, not at all,” she assured him. “All anyone has to do is bring the memory to the front of their mind, and I draw it out from there. They still retain the memory of course, and there’s no ill effects. I imagine that it will take a good day to do this, if not more, though,” she warned the rest of us.

  I thought a day wouldn’t be enough time, but then, I’d never done this before.

  “The other problem is, once we find them, what do we do with them?” Hazard posed the question almost rhetorically, still eating breakfast as if this whole planning session didn’t impact him. “No offense, Saroya, but even your Special Forces are going to have a hard time restraining Priests.”

  Saroya gave a grim nod. “A fact I’m well aware of.”

  “We really do need to call in the Remnant,” Chatta observed to the whole table. “For one thing, if we have at least a few teams, the search will go that much faster. It will take a Wizard or Witch to use the crystals anyway. If we have several magicians per team, they can hold a circle and strip them of their magic right there.”

  Saroya looked at me expectantly. “Magus?”

  As Vonlorisen’s magical advisor, I suppose I was the logical choice. “I’ll arrange it.”

  “While you do that,” S
aroya turned to Chatta, “I’ll gather everyone up that we need for your crystal memory device. Should I bring them here?”

  “That would be best,” she agreed. “Garth, before you go talk to Raile, I need you to make me a few crystals.”

  I apparently had my marching orders. “Yes, dear.”

  ~*~

  After making Chatta a handful of crystals, I went apart from everyone else into a quiet corner of the outdoor garden. The inside had too much noise and activity going on for me to concentrate. Besides, this particular garden held nothing more than a small fish pond in the center, a few fruit trees just now producing, and thick grass. Unlike most Chahiran gardens, it didn’t have flowers and shrubs crammed into every corner of it. I found it relaxing.

  I went to a nice sunny spot of grass to stretch out in. Settling comfortably, I let the scent of flowing water, earth and budding fruit fill my head before digging out the mirror broach. Time to get to work, I supposed. With a sigh, I called up Raile. “Raile?”

  A few moments passed, then I heard a grunt before Raile’s raspy voice said, “Garth, do you know what time it is over here?”

  “Sure,” I answered easily. “I’m not worried about waking you up, though. Old people don’t sleep.”

  He chuckled outright. “Can’t argue with that. I’ve been up for hours.”

  “Then what are you grouchy for?”

  “You interrupted breakfast. Now, what are you calling about?”

  “The Doms-harboring-Priest problem. We think we have a plan.” I gave him the working details, such as we had, ending with, “I know you said that several magicians wanted to come here. How many do you think have the experience to deal with renegade Priests?”

  “All of them, I would think. Don’t forget, we cut our teeth on mountain bandits and rogue criminals here in Bromany. Now, how many per team?”

  “Now that’s a question I hoped that you had the answer to. It takes, what, at least three people to form a circle?”

  “Well, yes, but that’s if you’re only stripping one person of magic. You might find a dozen in one place. I would think you’d need at least six.”

  Six, alright. “One of those magicians will have to be a Mage that can transport large groups of people.”

  “Now wait a moment, Garth. We don’t have that many Mages. I don’t think that’s feasible. The best you can do is have one Mage on standby for transport duty.”

  It would be more cumbersome that way, as the team would have to babysit whatever Priests they discover, but I supposed it was a workable enough plan.

  “Alright. Then, let’s say we’ll have three teams and then a few magicians to augment my team. Whatever magicians you send over will be working with the Special Forces here as well to make this all nice and official.”

  “That sounds workable enough. When do you want them?”

  “Chatta thinks she’ll be able to pull together a crystal by the end of the day, so…”

  “You want them by tonight,” Raile finished dryly.

  “We do have to organize them into teams and assign them areas to search once they get here,” I pointed out wryly.

  “Then I best finish my breakfast and prod people into motion. Garth, I do have one question. If a Dom is found harboring Priests, what will happen to him?”

  “With Vonlorisen in this mood? I shudder to think about it.” Exile would probably be the lightest sentence handed out.

  “I think I’m glad I don’t have to deal with the politics on this one.”

  “You and me both.” I put the mirror back into my pants pocket and heaved back up to my feet. I retreated back into the building, nearly running into Shad on his way out. I normally wouldn’t have thought much of it, except he had this air of anticipation around him and that smile…only a fool would trust that smile. I stopped dead in my tracks and eyed him sideways. “Shad, where are you going?”

  His smile grew another notch wider. “Saroya asked me to train with his Special Forces and show them the tricks to fighting Priests.”

  Those poor saps. They wouldn’t know what hit them. If there’s anyone in the world that can keep up with Shad, it was probably Special Forces, but…it might be a near thing. “Shad, just remember, we need them fighting capable by tomorrow.”

  He raised a fist in a victorious clench. “I’ll work ‘em hard.”

  For the love of…I quickly rephrased. “In other words take it easy. They won’t be able to fight tomorrow if you drive them too hard today.”

  He just laughed and gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder as he bounced at the door. “You worry too much!”

  I watched him go, shaking my head in resignation. Chatta’s going to need some more of those energy potions. I could just see it now.

  “Garth?” Xiaolang rounded the corner in front of me, stopping when he saw me standing inside the doorway. “There you are. What did Raile say?”

  “He’s sending people over tonight.” I walked toward him. “We think at least six magicians per team should be enough to handle everything. We’ll need to coordinate at least one person that can transport large numbers of people at once, though.”

  Xiaolang rubbed at his jaw thoughtfully. “I’d rather that person isn’t you. I like to keep you handy for emergency contingencies. We’ll see who Raile sends over and make a decision from there. For now, help Eagle. Saroya had all of the citizens’ reports sent over to us and Eagle’s trying to comb through it and see how much of it is valid. He’s having a hard time deciphering some of the handwriting.”

  I just bet he was. “I’ll help. Where is he?”

  “Front room. We’re turning it into our planning room.”

  Since it had been built to be a large conference room it did seem to be the most logical choice. I headed towards it with firm plans to deviate long enough to snag a headache potion from Chatta. If I took a headache potion before reading the, often undecipherable reports, it would surely prevent my head from splitting open, right?

  At least, I certainly hoped it would.

  ~*~

  Somehow during my talk with Raile, the conference room had collected boxes of, illegibly written, reports, maps, two more tables and a small reception desk near the door for people that trickled in with information. Aletha handled the reception desk, although a time or two she snagged me to come talk to an informer. Her Chahirese was good, especially after travelling all over the country for over a year, but some of the accents I heard…well, even as a native I could barely understand them.

  Most of the morning, however, I sat with Eagle in one corner, going through report after report and making notes of sightings. Eagle told me sotto voice that if there were more than five reports for a specific area, it might actually have something there worth investigating. Otherwise, it could be nothing more than someone wanting to get a little attention. Or even an attempt at misdirection if the person was loyal to the Star Order.

  Behind me, at the main table, Xiaolang took the information we handed to him and started marking out areas. Shield stood at his elbow, his voice quietly rumbling as he offered suggestions. Chatta was in a different room entirely, still working on that memory crystal. I wasn’t sure which one of us had the harder job. How can any being write this slanted? I turned the paper sideways on the vain hope that doing so would make the report readable. Somehow, it made it worse.

  “Oh.” Aletha sounded startled, her chair scraping back as she hastily stood. “Welcome, Your Highness.”

  “Sergeant Saboton,” Vonaudaxen greeted in a civil tone. “I wish to speak with—” his head turned until he spotted me “—ah. Magus, I would like to join in this search. There are political ramifications here that I’m afraid you are ignorant of.”

  I regarded him in frank amazement for a moment. Did he truly want to help or was he afraid we’d blunder and make a mess of things? Well, only one way to find out. “We’d be pleased to have you, Your Highness. Xiaolang has been thinking up political questions for me all morning, and I didn�
��t normally have an answer for him.” I stood from my chair and walked toward the head of the table, near where Xiaolang stood. “Your Highness, I don’t think the two of you have been formally introduced. This is Captain De Xiaolang of the Red Hand. Xiaolang, Vonaudaxen, Crown Prince.”

  They exchanged bows of greeting. Xiaolang had a pleased expression on his face, so either he felt something good from the prince or he really had wanted those questions answered. Hopefully that half-smile denoted both.

  “Please, join us Your Highness,” Xiaolang invited with a wave toward the maps on the table.

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  Chapter Three: Allies

  The Remnant magicians arrived late that evening, well after dinner. Most of them were strangers to me, but one I knew—Tyvendor, Air Mage, and the one that had hunted me down to talk after I put a barrier up around Q’atal. It had been months since I’d last seen him, but he hadn’t changed. He still had that large, solid build to him with wildly curling dark hair and light blue eyes. He normally had a smile on his face, but this time it held a wicked edge to it. I had a dark suspicion on the cause, too. The people he had transported here looked wild around the eyes, as if they had just survived a harrowing experience. Just how fast did he go…?

  “Ah, Garth,” Tyvendor greeted as he strode through the front door. “Raile said you’d be here. Well, here we are. Nineteen magicians at your service, including yours truly.”

  Nineteen? An impressive number to pull together in one day. “Excellent. You’re all very welcome.” I gestured to the stairs behind me. “Most of the rooms on the first floor are taken, but pick any one that you wish from the other two floors. I can have someone bring dinner…” I trailed off when a few people turned green at the suggestion. “Well, just let one of the staff know if you want something. We’re still in the process of going through intelligence reports and making plans, but we do have a few areas that we want investigated. Captain De Xiaolang and I will put you into teams tomorrow morning. Please be prepared to work after breakfast.”