Battle Mage: The Dark Mage (Tales of Alus) (54 page)

It was very quiet in the room. Only the slow, heavy breathing of Garosh was consistent. The falcon would hear the scuff of a boot across the stone floor as one of the others would shift their stance or a light cough as another would have to clear a dry throat. Guard duty of this kind was perhaps the worst a mage could ever draw. At least when she was babysitting as a young girl, she could leave the room and return to a lamp lit area or even go to sleep if she wanted.

They weren’t there to sleep, however, only their charge was allowed to sleep as the silent guardians did their best to remain awake and quiet. Even the castle, as most were heading to bed or had been there for awhile, had gone nearly perfectly silent.

A star fell past the window fizzling away well above the height of the stone walls outside making her wish that the next squad would arrive soon. Such boredom as this wasn’t something any of them wished to last longer than needed.

Her stargazing ended as she thought that she heard a sound from the hallway beyond the doors. She didn’t know the exact time standing in the dark room, but it seemed a little bit early for the next shift. If they had come early to relieve her team, Rilena wouldn’t complain. Something metal hit stone in the hall. It was a single clang, so she wondered if one of the guards had bumped against the wall behind him, though they were wearing leather armor and should have had their swords sheathed while standing at the door.

Garosh’s light snoring stopped. Seconds later, a light, rapping knock came from the door, but the mage thought that the pattern was slightly off though it was still close. The two soldiers on either side of the doors moved to check who had come to relieve the team.

“You’re not...” the one peeking through into the lamp lit hall started before falling back with his hand to his neck.

The second soldier was knocked aside as both doors were thrown open striking the man in their violence. Shadowed men launched into the room, but Elzen and the other soldiers were there to meet them. Rilena moved forward to catch the first soldier in her arms and found his upper body covered in warm liquid. Understanding that he must have been slashed across the neck as these new intruders had entered, Rilena called out, “Jerrick has a wound to the neck!”

Elzen was busy, but the fallen soldier would be his priority once the assassins were stopped. Rilena lay the man down carefully even as she watched for any to break through. She was ready to fight, but hoped that all their lives could be saved.

A strong hand pulled her back as Garosh reached to the bleeding man. At first, Rilena thought that he was going to surprise her with some kind of healing magic. The giant had told her that he wasn’t a talented magician, but perhaps he hadn’t told her all his talents. Unfortunately for the Jerrick whose breathing sounded choked with blood already, Garosh stood once more and began casting with the blood on his hands.

“Garosh, what are you...?” the woman started to ask when a light began to glow in a rectangle before him. “No, I won’t allow you to escape!” she cried reaching for her sword.

Even in the dark room, she could see his eyes looking at her sadly before he grabbed her in his arms. “I’m sorry,” was all he said as the giant lifted her from the floor and ran with her into the glowing white portal.

As they moved those few steps; fire muted the glow of the gateway as it rushed into the room grasping for Rilena and Garosh. Wind whipped past the mage’s face and a silver light blinded her momentarily, before it was all gone and only darkness surrounded the two.

She knew the giant was still with her while he held her fast a moment. Gently placing the girl on a stone floor, he heard Garosh chant a new spell before a glowing white ball of light came to life causing her to blink rapidly. It wasn’t a powerful light, so the mage’s eyes adjusted quickly to see a stone room almost as large as the one that they had just left. This one held boxes and barrels along the walls or stacked on each other.

“Where are we?” Rilena demanded with her question. She was left unsure of whether she should fight him or thank him for pulling her away from the torrent of fire, but for the moment the girl held onto her sword waiting.

“The fortress, if I didn’t mess up the spell,” Garosh stated stepping towards a closed, wooden door set with thick wood boards around it. They were thick enough that they could have been used for beams, so Rilena wondered what required such strong wood to hold a door in place. “Come along.”

“Duke Gelan and the other leaders of Windmeer won’t let you escape for long,” she warned, though if the giant was wrong in his escape spell, then they might have more of a challenge. Even guessing that he might flee to the fortress wouldn’t be a given.

“At least I will be alive to pay the penalty,” Garosh replied as he tested the knob and pushed. It didn’t give at first, so the giant gave a powerful shrug with his shoulder driven by his legs. The solid door held fast though the wood creaked loudly under the stress. A second strike with his shoulder did little more or a third. “Someone placed the latch bar outside.”

“Why would they have a bar on the outside of a storage room? All someone would have to do is lift the bar to steal what is here,” Rilena asked incredulously. It made no sense to the girl at all.

“There’s a lock that runs through it that needs a key to prevent the orcs and goblins from doing that. They like to appropriate things left unprotected and unwatched,” he said evaluating the solid door as he debated how much harder he could hit it.

“You really aren’t much of a wizard, are you? How could you be so good at torturing people with your magic and not even be able to get yourself out of a locked room?” the girl asked pushing him aside to stand before the door. Trying a trick that she had heard Sebastian and others use effectively, Rilena ordered, “Shield.”

Aimed away from her, the shield was extended on edge directly into the door where she assumed the bar would be on the other side. Wood splintered and cracked as the blue energy split the door for three feet up and down above the door handle. Testing the door as she turned the handle and gave a push, Rilena felt the door wiggle as a board fell to the floor on the knob side.

The split was so precise, that the mage couldn’t make out which board remained, so she simply sent another shield through the crease between door and the board that the hinges held onto. A second sound of wood hitting stone floor came satisfyingly to her ears, before the girl pushed the door open with little effort. “There you go, big boy. The door is open, now send me home.”

“I’m not sure I can, at least not through a portal,” Garosh stated as he pushed past her into a stone tunnel. They faced the rock and he had to decide whether to go right or left. Studying the ground, he followed the incline figuring either he would find the exit and gain his bearings or he would find somewhere that he recognized in the direction he was going. Either way, up was better than following the tunnel deeper into the mountain.

“What do you mean you can’t? You just transported us here, didn’t you? I know that you know the spell to return me home,” she argued angrily.

“I know how to cast a gate, but returning you to Windmeer isn’t that simple. Since I was required to do no magic, I couldn’t establish a return point. Even if I could, the spell I use requires blood and pain,” he stated holding up his hand red with Jerrick’s blood. “I used his blood to paint the gate and there are touchstones in the store room that I used to return here. If you want to volunteer some blood, I might be able to find a way to send you to someone you know well, but even that is a risk. You could become trapped between worlds.”

“That white light...?”

“It’s a void we cross between points in this world. The emperor and his people were trapped in a similar place long ago. I have heard that Kolban was magically tied to the land and creatures subjugated by him. When he was cast out of the old world by the immortals led by the Grimnal, everything he possessed was drawn in with him and from the earth and stone, he created a place for them all to live.

“Unless you have a way to bring, food and water with you for an indefinite stay, I might recommend against it.”

Frowning in annoyance at the man as he walked before her in the tunnel, Rilena realized that at least she was in her world. Without snow, it would take less than a week to ride back to Windmeer. Even without a horse, as long as she was given enough supplies, the battle mage could walk the long distance as well. She would prefer a horse and would make the giant give her one for the trouble he had caused her.

As they walked a sudden realization came to mind. “You know who those assassins were, don’t you?”

“Not all of them,” he confessed brusquely.

“Well, of those you do know, who was it that made you run? You could have joined us and fought back. We would have protected you, even if we’re not all sure we should,” she reminded him.

“That was the emperor’s power that I sensed.”

“The emperor’s power? You are trying to tell me that the emperor himself snuck into Windmeer to kill you,” she stated sounding unconvinced.

He glanced over his shoulder and informed the girl worriedly, “The emperor had three new blanks that could hold as much power as my own or more. He invested them with a portion of his magic like he did with me. They are more powerful than any wizard in Southwall. The emperor wouldn’t even have to dirty his hands to bring such power to kill us all.

“My running might be the only thing that keeps your friends alive. Without me there, they might just use a portal and escape before an alarm is raised.”

“Elzen,” she breathed suddenly realizing that not only were they surprised by the attack, but they were all trapped in that room facing a very powerful wizard. Not only that, but now she and Garosh had left them to fend for themselves besides.

Garosh paused a moment looking at the beams running across a split in the tunnel. He seemed to recognize something and turned into the crossing hall.

“Are you lost in your own mountain?” she asked hoping to annoy him in turn. Since she couldn’t return to help her friends and teammates, Rilena figured Garosh deserved at least a little verbal abuse. “You gated to a storehouse. I would have assumed that you knew your way back from a place you entered anyway.”

“Verian or one of my men probably seeded the storehouse with a set of my touchstones. When I decided to surrender I hadn’t really had a chance to make preparations properly.”

That brought a new question popping to the fore of her mind and Rilena decided to see if her hunch was right. “Why did you surrender?” she asked slowly.

Garosh stopped and turned to face the girl. With a big sigh, the giant answered perhaps with as much truth as she had ever heard from him. “There were multiple reasons, but the main ones were these two: I decided to take my chances with Southwall in a bid to win my freedom from the emperor and second I was hoping to meet this battle mage that everyone keeps talking about.”

“Sebastian? But until we took you with us, no one had told you about him. Druick and Nereith were with me the whole time so I know that no one told you more than what your creatures told you, that there was another battle mage.”

His eyes betrayed that she had missed something, but in his sudden need to confess to her, Garosh gave her help as he replied, “You aren’t the only ones from Southwall that I have talked to, or more to the point, there is another who knew him well before he came to Ensolus.”

“The Betrayer!” the girl shouted causing the echoes to run through the halls.

Patting the air to quiet her voice as the man winced at the amplification in the small area; Garosh stated quietly, “It isn’t like he had much choice.”

Confused by the declaration about perhaps the most wanted being short of the emperor on Southwall’s list, Rilena couldn’t wait for him to beat around the bush and demanded, “What do you mean he didn’t have a choice? You decide for yourself who you help and who you don’t. The falcon,” she nearly spat his title at Garosh in her disgust, “chose Ensolus and released an army inside of Windmeer. He chose to kill his own people, including Sebastian, though he failed to finish either task thanks to Bas.”

“Which is why I wished to find this Bas.” Seeing that the girl was still stuck on his explanation about Palose, he continued, “Palose is no longer who he once was and yet he is. He is a resurrection man.”

“A what?”

“A resurrection man is someone brought back from death close enough to their death that their spirits haven’t moved far nor have they started to rot. When the necromancer brings back the subject, he can force memories or required actions on the resurrection man. Palose is both himself and what the necromancer who raised him has instilled in him. He will do whatever that man tells him to do.”

“Like if you brought me back, you could make me like you and serve you?” Rilena blurted before realizing that her words were more cutting than she meant, even if her current predicament was his fault and making her disgruntled.

Wincing at her comment, Garosh shook his head and declared, “A skilled necromancer could make you love and adore him. I could tell you to kill those you loved most just to please me and you would do it without hesitation.”

“But everyone says that Palose seemed exactly like he was before he left. His memories were intact and no one ever could figure out why he did it. Wouldn’t someone that was still themselves resist? I wouldn’t hear your commands and feel anguish or resist in some way?”