Magician Prince (22 page)

Riona did as she was instructed and showed
the drawing to Xander to make sure she had not missed anything. She
did not. “Very good,” he admitted, “Now you will learn the secret
to my immortality. Are you ready, my dear?”

“I am, my lord.” Riona stood proudly ready to
accept Xander’s dark touch. She had agreed to this in order to
learn his secret and with a little luck she would survive the
experience. A fat tendril sprouted from his hand and, almost
tentatively, embedded in Riona’s chest. She let out a soft sigh as
the sudden icy touch of his death magic slowly absorbed her life
energy and transplanted it into Xander, bringing her closer to
death with every passing second even as Xander grew stronger. Her
heart was slowing and she would have fallen if not for the tendril
holding her up. Finally, Xander withdrew from her and caught her
before she could fall. She was still conscious, but tired.

“Do not sleep,” he told her quietly, “You
must be awake to bare witness if you wish to learn this magic and
this is literally a once in a lifetime spell.”

She nodded, but was too tired to answer.

“What are you planning?” Byrn asked as Xander
approached his cell. There was still defiance in his voice. It was
a shame that things did not turn out differently. Byrn could have
been his son-in-law and the grand necromancer would have seen to it
that he was the one to sit on Aurelia’s throne as its rightful
heir; instead he will be just another fool to give his life for
Xander’s immortality.

Xander placed his hands on the stone bars of
the cell and willed them away so that they sunk back into the floor
and ceiling. Byrn attacked with his bare hands the moment the bars
were gone, but Xander batted him aside with a tentacle throwing him
into the wall. Four new tentacles sprouted from Xander’s hand, each
one grabbing one of Byrn’s limbs and lifting him into the air. He
hung like a pig on a stick, but as Xander examined him for injury
Byrn began to kick and punch the air in an ineffective attempt to
break free of the magic binds. Byrn’s blood was already beginning
to regenerate its source magic, but Xander sucked the energy from
him as quickly as it came.

“You look unharmed,” said Xander clinically.
His black energy pinned Byrn down in the middle of the giant rune
with each of his limbs and his head lined up with one of the
focusing crystals. To Riona, he said, “Pay close attention to his
placement in the rune and the alignment of the crystals with the
body. By passing my own magic through the crystals I can alter the
effects of the spirit tentacles so that instead of draining all of
Byrn’s power I can infuse him with mine.”

Riona watched in anticipation, though she
could still barely move. Her eyes shimmered as she took in every
detail. She was an apt pupil.

For a split second Byrn was released as
Xander’s tendrils were adjusted so they could pass through the
crystals, but they held him back down before he could move. The
tendrils turned from a deep black to blue where they passed through
the crystals and into Byrn. His arms and legs took on a
bluish-purple tint as Xander’s power infused every sinew of his
muscles all the way to the marrow of his bones.

“His body is becoming attuned to me and my
life-force as my body is becoming to his,” he explained to Riona.
“For a brief instant will be as one.”

The deep blue energy grew more intense and
Xander could feel his energy flowing out. His legs felt weak and he
let his body fall to the ground. He would not need it anymore.

Somewhere he could hear screaming and knew it
was Byrn. The pain was nearly unbearable and it passed into Xander
as well as his spirit was ripped from its body. When a woman
brought new life into the world she suffered an insufferable agony.
Why should this act be any different, because as Byrn and Xander’s
souls became intermingled they were both being reborn?

Now Xander was screaming with Byrn’s voice.
The pain suddenly ceased and that in itself was a welcome relief.
His muscles were empty of strength and magic, but he rolled from
his back onto his hands and knees. He felt like he would vomit, but
there was nothing in his belly, causing him to dry heave for a
minute.

“Grandmaster?” Riona asked.

“I am fine,” he said with a youthful voice
far different from his former elderly tenor. He stood, grabbing
onto one of the crystal stands and looked at his hands; so young,
so full of life. The grandmaster looked at the body lying outside
of the runic circle; a body that Xander had occupied for the last
sixty years.

Xander rolled over his old body and looked
into the eyes that now belonged to Byrn. There was the utter shock
that Xander had expected to see when Byrn first saw his former face
staring down at him. “What?” he asked as he tried to come to grips
with what he was seeing.

“What happened?” Xander guessed, “You took
part in a soul transference. I could get into the intricacies of
what just happened, but you will not live long enough for it to
matter. Know that you have given me not only the power to destroy
the kingdom’s army at our doorstep, but also made me the heir to
Aurelia’s throne once Janus has been taken care of. Your sacrifice
will bring about an era of magician rule in the kingdom and your
name will go down in history as the greatest king to ever sit the
throne.”

Xander held Byrn’s feeble neck in one hand
and began to squeeze the life out of him. Neither of them had any
magical strength left to speak of following the transference, but
Xander’s new body recovered far more quickly than Byrn’s aged
husk.

Byrn tried to pull Xander’s arm away, but his
own limbs were like wet noodles trying to move an oak. He gurgled
as he tried to speak. The words croaked from Byrn’s constricted
throat, but his message was clear. “Kill me and you’ll die too,” he
said.

At first Xander ignored his words, but as he
considered them, he had to know what Byrn meant. He dropped the
sorcerer to the floor. “Those are strong words from one who is in
no position to be making threats. Explain yourself.”

“You remember when I woke up in Baj and we
first met?” Byrn asked. He rubbed at his throat, trying to massage
away some of the soreness. “I got tossed in there, because I killed
a bunch of people on holy ground.” Xander remembered, but said
nothing. Byrn continued, “During that time while I slept for
several days I was visited by the goddesses of life and death. They
punished me for my sacrilege with a curse that if I ever take a
life, Kassani will claim mine as well. Now that curse belongs to
you,
necromancer
.” The title was almost like a slap to the
face. Byrn’s body was a source of unrivaled power and combined with
Xander’s knowledge of ancient magic he should have been
unstoppable, but death was either the fuel or the result of his
most powerful spells without them...

“You’re lying,” hissed Xander.

“I’m not,” Byrn assured him, “Ask Alia. She
knows the truth. She has known it since we first met.”

Xander stood from his crouching position over
Byrn and kicked him in the ribs. The satisfying crunch of bone and
Byrn’s gasp of pain made Xander feel a little better, but not much.
“You’re lying,” he said again, but his voice lacked conviction even
to his own ears.

“What about the army?” asked Riona. It had
been Xander’s plan to use Byrn’s raw power to destroy Aurelia’s
army, but if he could not kill, then that would be impossible.
Riona was just now recovering to the point where she could stand.
Normally the transference requires the sacrifice of a third person
to fuel the spell, but Riona was a potent master in her own right
and could spare the necessary energy and still survive.

“We must retreat for now until I can
determine my next step. There are some runes on the third floor
below us.”

“And what of him?” she asked, nodding at
Byrn.

“The Kenzai will take care of him soon
enough. He doesn’t have the strength to defend himself right
now.”

They left Byrn weakened and bruised as they
made their way down to the third floor. The sounds of occasional
fighting, apprentices who were unfortunately left to defend
themselves, still roamed the interior of the castle in a last ditch
effort to throw the kingdom and the Kenzai out. They took all of
the runes Xander had in the tower, not wanting to leave anything
behind that Byrn might be able to use should he manage to recover
enough to escape the tower.

Footsteps echoed from somewhere down below
and quickly grew louder. The necromancers prepared for whoever
might be about to come up the stairs and Xander made an effort to
think of a spell that could incapacitate without killing. Then
Tomlin dashed past their open door without a look in their
direction.

“Tomlin!” called Xander and ran out into the
hall after him.

“Byrn, is that you?” asked Tomlin returning
to meet up with Xander at the third floor.

“It is,” lied Xander, “and Riona is with
me.”

“What happened to Xander?”

“He died fighting the Kenzai,” Riona told
him. She looked to Xander and he gave a short nod of approval.

“So you came back to get Byrn? So did I,”
said Tomlin, “Great minds and all that.”

“Yes, well, it is time we left,” Riona told
them.

“Riona, do you feel well enough to transport
and take Tomlin with you?” Xander asked. “I have something else to
do on my own first.”

“Alia and Avelice have already left,” Tomlin
assured him. “Ryonus did as well, taking Kaleb.” Xander almost
asked who Kaleb was and why he should care, but then he remembered
the little “lesser” boy that Byrn took around with him like a stray
dog.

“That is reassuring, but not what I had in
mind.”

“I can transport us,” said Riona, answering
Xander’s question, “I just need a few minutes more.”

They waited for Riona to recover and Xander
marveled at the sheer energy that Byrn had held. None of Xander’s
previous bodies had this kind of untapped power except for his
original one. It was instantly maddening to have this kind of sheer
strength and not be able to use it to its full potential. If there
really was a curse, then there was only one being that could tell
him how to break it: his patron, Kassani, the goddess of death, and
there was only one place near Aurelia where a mortal could beseech
her to speak with him directly. She only had one temple and it
resided beyond Dragon’s Peak, the last sanctuary of the dragon
race.

Once Riona and Tomlin had safely vanished
into the void. It was Xander’s turn. He chose the rune that would
get him closest to the fabled dragon home, held it tightly, and
disappeared.

The exhausted desire to sleep was almost
overwhelming, but the pain in his broken ribs kept his mind from
knowing any sort of rest. It was a small kindness, because Byrn
thought that if he were overtaken by weariness he would never rise
again. He felt so tired in this body. It was a wonder that Xander
was able to function at all, let alone wield the most deadly magic
that anyone had seen in centuries. How much of the grandmaster’s
energy had been devoted to keeping his body functioning since his
escape from Baj?

A sharp sting pierced his side when he tried
to stand, causing Byrn to double back over. He had to get up and
move. The cannon fire he heard earlier had stopped. That could only
mean that kingdom soldiers were in the castle. If they found Byrn
now, they could easily run him through just as Xander had hoped
when he left Byrn here to die.

Byrn dragged himself to the stairs leading
down and out of the tower. His vision swam from the exertion and he
thought he might faint, but magic was slowly starting to flow
through this old man’s blood once more. He held his hands to his
ribs and pressed gently. Even that light touch was enough to garner
him a fresh wave of agony, but he concentrated on the source of
that pain and channeled what little energy he had into a healing
salve that found the injury and set and mended the bones. Then he
focused the power to heal the worst of the bruising and internal
injury. Up until then Byrn’s breathing had been shallow, but he
took a deep breath and found that he could do so without wincing.
Progress.

His legs were wobblier that those of a
newborn horse, but the sorcerer found that he could stand with only
limited assistance from the chilly wall that his left shoulder
rested on after a few minutes. He slowly worked his way down the
stairs as he became more accustomed to Xander’s body and its
limitations. Magic was returning to him and he found that by
channeling a good portion of that energy into strengthening the
muscles and bones, an action that would have given the young Byrn
increased strength and speed, he could walk without assistance and
move with some semblance of being in a hurry.

The third floor from the bottom was empty, as
Byrn had guessed it would be. By now Xander and Riona could be on
the other side of the kingdom and they had taken all of the runes
with them. There had to be more transportation runes within the
castle. Perhaps in the private quarters in the east wing, but that
would require going through much of the castle undetected. He could
make it, but it was a long shot and he truly did not know if Ashura
and Kassani’s curse was tied to his old body or to his soul. Before
it would not have mattered. He could easily have subdued a whole
battalion of men without killing them, but now the actual power
residing within him was much weaker and a good portion of that
energy went to keeping his feet moving.

Alia’s old workshop! It was much closer and
he could be there within a matter of minutes. Byrn moved as fast as
his legs would allow, which was about the speed of a brisk walk. He
made it through several adjoining hallways before he heard the
sounds of dozens of men marching through the castles. They would be
looking for survivors, but if their intention was to take prisoners
or not was the lingering question and whatever the answer Byrn did
not wish to find out.