Lost Magic (The Swift Codex Book 3) (24 page)

Secrecy must be foremost in my considerations, for though no one may destroy this book nor read in it ill-intent owing to the various charms which have been worked upon it, it will alarm any casual observer by its strangeness. I shall take a pilgrimage. I shall say it is to attend one holy place or another but in truth I will follow the path of those whom I have either saved or damned by my grace or folly.

“This is the start of the separation between our worlds,” Mordon said. “And now we have our answer for why you found this book so easily.”

“Which is?”

“This is Aethel's book. Her essence is within it. What other book matches that description and also found you?”

A wash of white-shock ran through my veins. “
Skills of the Thaumaturge
. And when I met Thessen, he … he liked me on sight, do you remember? And he knew that book. Why is this all coming to me?”

“That is a question you should try to uncover, but do not expect to ever know the answer.”

Anna began to wriggle and my own stomach growled.

“Shall we return home?” Mordon asked. “I think the streets have quieted so we can identify followers easier.”

“Yes. I'll carry the books. Will they fit in the diaper bag? Good. That way one of us will have free hands.”

We had just set foot on the walkways in the market when I heard a shrill shrieking noise which seemed to come from everywhere. It took us a little while to realize that it was an alarm.

“Barnes was talking—” I started to say but realized it was too loud for Mordon to hear. “A test? A drill?”

Thunder filled the market, making me jump until I saw the noise was from security doors rolling down the doors of the various levels. Before we could go back, heavy bars slammed down the library front, locking us out. Mordon leaned out towards the open spaces in the market, then looked back at me. He took me by the hand and set a quick pace.

The clatter and clamor of the roll-down doors shook through the walkway beneath our feet. Stalls stood deserted, some of them packed up with little nick-knacks remaining, others not packed at all, just as if someone had asked their neighbor to watch the stall while they got a bottle of water. Those who sold in the market didn't need to take their evacuation notice from a drill. Whenever there was danger in the area, they were quick to spread word as if it was as easy as passing a cold. I'd watched them migrate and leave before and was glad to have missed this show.

While we walked I thought of my used trinkets and considered my best tools should we be attacked. The wind brushed against my legs and I knew that I hadn't yet exhausted all my magic yet. If it were more powerful! But it would never be as strong as average. In one sense that was a good thing because people stood to underestimate me. Still, I wanted to rely on it as a last-ditch effort. Mordon would be my first line of defense. After him, I did have the trinkets. The fact that they were occupied would be as much of a trouble to those around me as to me myself. So long as I didn't release the bogart.

The wind swirled around me and for an instant I closed my eyes and trusted Mordon to lead me where he would. I let the magic act as an extra sense, a little like intuition, a little like touch, and I floated through it down and throughout the market. Its range was extensive. By spreading thin, it could cover a third of Merlyn's area. Now what was in that area was the concern. People. Perhaps a dozen, it was hard to be sure, grouped into four clusters, standing guard at the exits.

Very quickly I realized this was a trap. The people who would help me had been evacuated, the alarm triggered to cut off escape routes. The way out through the armed men. I put my lips to Mordon's ear.

“Have to hide!”

“Trouble?”

“People. Lots.”

Mordon's lip curled and I felt his skin thicken with the impending shift to his dragon form.

“Don't. I can't. Anna.”

His eyes flickered down to the bundle which was red with anger. Belatedly I realized I could cushion her ears from the noise by making the air stop moving. Sound was vibration. Pressure carried through the wind. Soon she calmed, and I made a similar cushion of air for Mordon and myself. The sound became a dull alarm. The disadvantage was that all noises were muffled, but what else was to be done about it?

Mordon reached down my neckline and I withdrew, surprised. He smiled and showed me that he'd been grabbing my necklace which I wore against my skin. A second later, he held up my invisibility ring and motioned I should wear it. While I was working it off the chain, Mordon disappeared. When I next saw him, he was in his red dragon form and cutting through the air.

As far as dragons go, drakes are small by comparison. However, Mordon was on the large side of the drakes. He was skillful on the wing, which was all that allowed him to fly in between the walkways in Merlyn's. Had he been any larger or even a bit less experienced, he would be in considerable danger of either taking out the walkways or having a walkway take out him. Which is why I fumed and shook an invisible fist at him.

I hadn't been sure if the ring would work on Anna, too, but it did. A trinket was always worth whatever was paid for it, and this ring had been expensive. I slunk against the wall where I could watch the area for people coming. My skin itched, thickening, threatening to become scales. Some of the drake women could pack their infants around in their mouths, but I didn't want to take the chance that I would grip Anna too tightly. Taking care of her in human form was hard enough.

Mordon hadn't made his move yet, but just sitting and waiting was frustrating. Particularly when this was about me. I'd never been good at keeping my nose clean, nor at doing the sensible thing. Which compounded my frustration because Anna needed me to do both. But more than that, I couldn't keep still. I paced, paced, paced. Mordon was going to get into a confrontation and a growing part of me needed to be beside him.

By the time I had found an ideal perch in the center of a floating platform where a confectioner and candy-seller had abandoned their sweet-salty-spicy merchandise Mordon had engaged his first group. Four figures, blurry from the distance, were casting spells and dodging back from Mordon's tail and flaming breath. I took aim and started to toss the pebbles which held bodachs. If the pebbles would survive, or if they would hurt Mordon if they struck him, I didn't know. But several seconds later, dark streaks started to cause their mayhem. They'd be a pain to track down, if any of them decided to stick around.

The problem took care of itself when reinforcements arrived and the people brought the bodachs down with brutal ferocity. I winced to see this, and Mordon appeared to be taking greater caution when he saw their fate. Once I was out of the pebbles, I decided to keep hold of my actual trinkets. They were worth more than the chance at hitting anything from this height.

They appeared out of no where. Four big men in heavy leather armor surrounding me. I'd been blind to their presence, and even as I stared at them I wondered if they were there at all or if they'd been nothing but an illusion.

For a split-second I knew I could dive off the walkway and hope that my wings shifted before I crashed, but I couldn't risk Anna's life like that.

Before they could press in against me, I faked a run for one of them and dodged instead under the seeking arm of another. They were fast with their spells and one struck my leg. Instantly all my muscles stiffened and I could not move, trapping me.

Terror welled in my stomach. I wanted to yell for help, but even my throat locked. Taking my last hope, I sent my magic to Mordon, hoping he'd get a message. What happened was the air screamed out my distress.

For a second the men clapped their hands over their ears, then one of them took a gloved hand and boxed me on the back of the head. The noise stopped. My stiffened body tilted to the right and started to fall, tipping off the walkway soon to go down into the nothingness between us and the next deck below.

Another man snatched me roughly and planted me upright, then he turned on his companion, withdrew a pistol, and shot him point-blank. I didn't see that, but I saw the aftermath when the man who'd hit me fell by my feet.

Where the bullet had entered was smoking, and as I watched there came more and more smoke. A sting hit my thigh, a hypodermic needle. I winced. The shooter said, “Walk or you'll be like him.”

I found I could nod and move, but so slowly, and so stiffly. Every step felt like I was tearing muscles and ligaments. I shuffled.

Down with Mordon the fight was still going on, even more frantic now. He'd gotten my message. Unfortunately so had my captors and they wanted to complete their task before they had an enraged fire drake breathing down their necks.

I had a humiliated feeling of being caught doing something stupid. I was in the center of these men, and I hadn't even gotten off a spell on one of them. Not even a trinket. Except for the wind whistling in a tempest around us, I was defenseless.

The men wanted me to go faster but I couldn't—and a part of me realized that I needed to drag my feet as long as possible. Mordon was roaring from the lower decks.

The market was shuddering. Even the roll-down doors were shaking. People were trying to get back in. They knew what was happening and were watching.

But it was too late for interference. All around me the men had given up on hurrying me and were now drawing a circle and symbols. Making a portal, right there at my feet. Even if Mordon reached me within a minute, they might have the portal going and the best he could do was try to follow.

To an average magic-user, to be so defenseless, so constrained would break their will and inspire submission. These men, whoever they were, hoped on such a response. They made their living on it, if I were to judge. In those seconds when they were holding me and doing their portal, I took in every detail I could, engraving it into memory.

Their armor was thick, too thick for any normal hide, yet it bent as though alive. Wyvern scales. Had to be, I'd seen dragon and drake. Weapons on their belts, each had a pistol, I'd have to research them later, and a curved sword with matching knife. Mordon had books on the topic. No identifying mark on them, except one small symbol behind the ear. All identical buzz-cuts on their heads. They moved as trained soldiers would do, each with his own task. None were surprised that one of their own had been killed as punishment. The worst about it was he was smoking all over now. Incinerating.

Beats of wings filled the air. Mordon rushing to help. One man took aim.

People on the other side of the roll-down doors were yelling. Rattling. I saw the man tighten his finger on the trigger. The final symbol finished on the floor.

Then I struck with everything I had, all at once. I knew it would be dangerous. It would draw from my already worn energy reserves, put me all too close to black out. I knew this. But what was more, I knew that my odds of survival would be far worse if these men got me to a secondary location.

I poured everything into the wind, compressing it into hard and slender lengths with a pointed tip. I shot them like bullets, riddling the chalk portal at my feet with heavy breaks. Gritting my teeth I aimed the others to strike the arms and necks of my attackers. It would have been easier, so much easier, to do a single cluster through their eyes. Killing them. But I wanted them alive.

The man squeezed the trigger as the ball of compressed air knocked his aim wide, the bullet streaked by Mordon's jaw. The man holding me stumbled as his feet swept out from under him, his grasp on me tightened. As he fell he took an egg out of his pocket and started to clench it. I'd had an egg like that, too, they stored spells. As I tumbled to the ground and I heard the egg crack, I broke free of his grasp, then I was ducking the third man as he fell, diving under him.

His armor brushed against my back, then I was loose, staggering to my feet and running. The gun-wielder aimed at me.

Mordon's head lashed out. The man went reeling through air.

The other two grasped one another as the egg-spell unleashed and brilliant light flashed, blinding. I ran without sight, by the feel of the air.

I knew Mordon's talons had caught the falling man, and I knew when the other two disappeared with an emergency portal spell. It sucked at everything nearby, snapping the boards in the walkway and drawing them down into an eddy. It tore at Mordon's wings and for an instant he was pulled towards it.