Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles (40 page)

“They’re back,” Nicolas said. “And if Caspardis doesn’t prepare for an attack
right now
, they’ll appear outside that wall and tear it down.”

The guard furrowed her brow. “That’s not possible. That wall is solid Religarian sandstone.”

“They have weapons that make yours look like…”

This would never work. He could stand here arguing with a low level city guardswoman—only to have to explain himself all over again to someone of higher rank—or he could talk to the one person who ran this city.

The man he’d hoped never to see again.

The magistrate who’d had him flogged and executed.

An idea started to form. Maybe there was a shortcut.

“Kagan,” Nicolas said. “Does Caspardis know you’re dead yet?”

Corporal Bennet’s eyes widened.

“I would expect all of the Shandarian Union and Kingdom of Tildem to know by now,” Kagan said. “It’s
possible
Dar Rodon knows, though all formal communication was severed the moment I died. Information has flowed in one direction only—from Religar to the Pinnacle.”

Nicolas swore. He’d hoped if the magistrate recognized Kagan, the man would be more likely to follow orders instead of waste time asking questions.

So much for
that
idea.

“Tor, I need you to do something for me,” Nicolas said. “Stay here at the gate and keep an eye out for the Barathosians. Aelron, you too.”

Aelron winced and looked around the plaza.

Why is he acting so jumpy?

“Where are
you
going?” Toridyn asked.

“That fortress beyond the plaza,” Nicolas said. “The guy who runs this city is there. Kait, I’d feel better if you came with me. I don’t like the thought of us getting separated in this place.”

Kaitlyn shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Had Nicolas heard her correctly? He thought for certain she’d want to stay close to him.

“If the Barathosians
do
show up while you’re away,” Kaitlyn said, “Toridyn and I are the only magic users here. I may be new at this, but I can do more than one of those
spear carriers
on the wall.”

As much as he didn’t want to hear it, she was right. Caspardis needed all the help they could get.

“Keep an eye on him, will you?” Nicolas nodded toward Aelron, who was looking around the plaza like a secret service agent expecting an assassination attempt.

Kaitlyn grabbed his hand. “Stay safe.”

“Corporal Bennet,” Nicolas said. “I need you or one of your guards to take me to the magistrate. I’d rather not waste time convincing someone to let me into that fortress.”

“Yes, Archmage,” Corporal Bennet said. “Thomas! You’re in charge until I get back.”

Nicolas squeezed Kaitlyn’s hand, then followed Corporal Bennet into the plaza.

“This isn’t a walk, Corporal,” Nicolas said. He jogged ahead of her. “Let’s go!”

Nicolas cut a path through the crowd, narrowly avoiding the merchant tents. Corporal Bennet overtook him as they exited the plaza onto the main boulevard.

The fortress dominated the street beyond a large open courtyard.

Nicolas remembered that courtyard well.

More importantly, he remembered the two flogging posts at its center. The posts he’d been tied between and scourged, losing consciousness only to be awoken by buckets of water.

He pushed the thought out of his mind. There were larger concerns now. He took a quick inventory of his power and realized he had sufficient necropotency to summon a penitent. The knowledge gave him a boost of courage, but he cursed himself for not obtaining a
siborum
—the small portable sources of power used by cichlos necromancers—before leaving Aquonome.

Something tugged at the periphery of Nicolas’s consciousness. Someone was watching him. He was certain of it. He wouldn’t have even noticed if he hadn’t focused on his necropotency.

But whoever or
whatever
it was, there was little he could do about it now.

They entered the sandy courtyard beneath the circular fortress, and Nicolas tried—and failed—to avoid looking at the two flogging posts. Each post had a metal hoop at the top, to which a guard would secure a prisoner’s wrist before scourging him. The ground between the posts, though stained red by the blood of countless torture victims, was dry.

At least there hasn’t been another scourging recently.

The fortress, with its crenelated parapet, had been falling into disrepair the last time Nicolas had seen it. Sandstone slabs had split and sections of it had been strewn about the courtyard. But now, those sections were either repaired or stood behind scaffolding, where construction workers smoothed grout and shaped stone, replacing the old larger slabs with sandstone bricks.

“Which way?” Nicolas asked. There was a simple stone door at the base of the fortress, but when the rangers marched him through it a year ago, it led to the dungeons.

“Here,” Corporal Bennet said. She jogged toward a small stairway that led to a pair of wooden double doors.

The double doors led to a wide hallway with an arched ceiling. As far as he could tell, there were no guards. It seemed like this was little more than a government building, like every other government building he’d seen. Some facets were different. The walls were sandstone instead of drywall. And the ceilings were high and arched instead of low and flat. Sconces decorated the walls, but natural light flooded through wide doors spaced evenly apart along each side of the hall. Men and women in matching purple robes came and went through the doors, carrying documents and scrolls. Those who weren’t dressed in purple sat on stone benches against the walls.

If it weren’t for the Renaissance fair clothing and preindustrial architecture, Nicolas would think he was back at the Travis County Tax Assessor’s building in Austin.

A guard emerged from one of the rooms ahead, and Corporal Bennet picked up her pace.

“Sergeant!” she called.

The man faced her and furrowed his brow.

“Bennet,” he said. “For your sake, you’d better have caught her. That or you’ve come here to tell me I won the general’s lottery.”

“No sign of the escaped prisoner yet,” Bennet said. “But there’s something you need to hear.”

“Who is—” the sergeant dropped to his knee. “Archmage.”

These chains of office come in handy
.

The sergeant glanced at Nicolas without lifting his head.

Oops!

“Rise,” Nicolas said.

The sergeant stood.

“Can you take me to the magistrate?” Nicolas asked.

“Court began a few minutes ago,” the sergeant said. “I’m not sure what the protocol is here.”

“The enemy army my predecessor stopped before they could destroy us is back, and they’re about to invade Caspardis,” Nicolas said.

“Forget protocol,” the sergeant said. “Court room is at the end of the hall.”

They ran toward a pair of whitewashed wooden doors, ten feet high beneath a sandstone arch.

Two guards stood post on either side of the door, but they lodged no complaint when the sergeant pushed the doors open by their golden handles and stepped into the courtroom.

Nicolas couldn’t say the same for the men sitting along a stone table on the other side of the room, however. One of the men, dressed in purple robes trimmed with gold fringes, stood and stared with wide eyes.

“This is a closed session!” the man said.

Nicolas had been here before. This was the very room he’d been sentenced to death in.

And the old man sitting at the center of the table, reading from a large, hidebound book, was the man who did the sentencing.

The feelings of anger and desire for retribution returned, but Nicolas pushed them aside. It was a good thing Aelron had slapped that figurine out of his hands. There was no telling what he’d have done if he were still under its influence.

As Nicolas walked down the long, downward-sloped center aisle toward the magistrate, the old man looked up from the book and stared at Nicolas.

“It can’t be,” he said.

“Magistrate,” Nicolas said. “Is it safe to assume you recognize me?”

“But…
how
?”

“I’d like to say I don’t hold any grudges, but that would be a lie.”

“Forgive me, Archmage. I was doing my duty.”

Nicolas chuckled. “Do you have any idea how much evil in the multiverse has been justified with those very same words?”

The magistrate blinked rapidly and stood.

Nicolas waved for him to be seated. “I didn’t come here for your
hide
. I came here for your
help
.”

The magistrate sat with a grunt and gestured toward the hidebound book.

“I’ll help in any way the Shandarian Justice Protocols allow,” the magistrate said.

“A very powerful enemy is about to ring your western doorbell,” Nicolas said. “They destroyed Tur and they’re on their way here. They have weapons that can punch through solid stone. They’ll turn your city wall into rubble and march right on in. You’re in charge of this city, right?”

“To an extent, yes.”

“A large enough extent to order every guard you have to the walls? Not
on
the walls, mind you. The walls are as good as gone. In fact, you need to pull the guards
off
the wall as soon as possible. They need to be prepared for the street fighting that’s going to happen.

The magistrate smiled and waved at a nearby guard. “Take the prisoner back to the cell. We’ll reconvene shortly.”

The guard saluted and escorted an elderly woman from the court room. When the door closed behind them, the magistrate spoke once more.

“Archmage, please. While your very presence here is enough to convince me that miracles are possible, I’m not dimwitted. I have scouts traveling all roads coming in and out of Caspardis for more than a hundred miles in each direction. If I needed a list of every man, woman, and child on the road between here and Blackwood, it would be placed in my hand within hours of requesting it. Caspardis is safe because there
is
no army on their way here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a city with a particularly high crime rate to govern.”

“I’m the archmage,” Nicolas said. “Does that mean
nothing
to you?”

“Certainly,” the magistrate said. “I have the utmost respect for your position as shepherd of humankind. And when you become the duly elected Chancellor of the Shandarian Union, I’ll be more than happy to take orders from you on secular matters. Until then, please confine your concerns to
religion
and leave state matters in the hands of state officials.”

Nicolas took a deep breath. Frustration was clouding his thoughts when he needed clear thinking the most.

Kagan, why isn’t the magistrate following my orders?

Why should he? He answers to the Chancellor, not you.

And the Chancellor answers to me, right?

Of course not,
Kagan said.
You’re the archmage.

Then would you kindly tell me what authority I
do
have? How did you get everyone to do what you needed them to do?

Forging the words of a god was particularly convincing.

This was getting him nowhere. What good was being the
pope
of a new world if—

That’s it! The pope!

Popes throughout history wielded two of the most powerful political weapons of all; interdict and excommunication. If a king refused a pope’s request, interdict would prohibit priests from performing the sacraments in that king’s country. And if the king remained stubborn, the pope would threaten excommunication.

And no one liked the idea of burning in hell, particularly a bunch of rich men who’d grown accustomed to their lifestyle.

I
do
control the religious orders and temples, don’t I?

You do,
Kagan said.

“Magistrate,” Nicolas said. When the old man looked up, Nicolas turned and started walking back up the sloped aisle. “You
will
order your men to the walls, and you will do it
within the hour
.”

“I’ve already told you—”

“And if you do not, I will close every temple in the Shandarian Union effective immediately. I will recall the Orders to the Pinnacle and expel the Shandarian ambassador. I’ll leave it to you to explain the reasons to your chancellor.”

Nicolas left the room and Corporal Bennet caught up to him.

“Are you really going to close the temples?” Corporal Bennet asked.

Nicolas glanced at her. She was staring at him.

“Is the magistrate a religious man?” Nicolas asked.

“Very.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Nicolas walked back out into the courtyard with Corporal Bennet behind him. It was time to head back to the wall.

By the time Nicolas and Corporal Bennet returned to the west wall, three detachments of soldiers stood in the plaza in formations of six columns each.