Necromancer Falling: Book Two of The Mukhtaar Chronicles (5 page)

Nicolas woke to the sound of Kaitlyn crying out.

Moonlight poured in through the large window at the foot of the bed, casting everything in shades of blue. The gems in the wall-sized map of the Three Kingdoms shimmered like stars on the wall next to him.

Nicolas sat up, but Kaitlyn was still asleep.

“Kait,” Nicolas said, putting a hand on her cheek. She was bathed in sweat.

Kaitlyn groaned and turned away.

“Kait,” Nicolas said. “Wake up. It’s just a dream.”

“Archmage, are you all right?” a deep voice said from the other side of his chamber doors.

“Kait!”

Kaitlyn stirred and grabbed Nicolas’s hand.

The chamber door burst open, sweeping the dark room with golden torch light.

“Archmage!” a large man with a sword said from the doorway. His voice sounded like it reverberated in a fifty-gallon drum.

“I’m okay,” Nicolas said.

“Forgive me, Archmage,” The man said. “When you didn’t answer, I…I didn’t—”

“It’s fine. She was dreaming.”

“Cool ren faire,” Kaitlyn said. “I want a henna tattoo.” She rolled over and laid her head back down.

“We’re okay,” Nicolas said. “What’s your name?”

The towering man drew back. “Archmage?”

“Gonna be confusing if we’re both called
Archmage
, don’t you think?”

“Uh…Diggins, Archmage. Hartwood Diggins, sergeant-at-Diggins. I mean
arms
! Sergeant-at-arms! I’m Diggins, not arms.” Diggins took a deep breath. “Hartwood sergeant—”

“Yeah, we covered that, Sergeant Diggins. You can be…as you
were
?”

“Archmage?”

“At ease?”

“But I’m not at attention.”

“Look, I have some things to learn around here. What I’m trying to say is, would you mind if I went back to sleep for now?”

“Oh! Certainly.” Diggins turned to leave, but stopped. “Dismissed, Archmage.”

“Excuse me?”

“The word you were looking for.
Dismissed
. Say that and we’ll get the point.”

“I prefer to ask politely. Will that work too?”

Diggins shrugged. “I suppose it will, Archmage.”

Diggins closed the door behind him, casting the room into moonlight once more.

“
What
do you have to ask politely?” Kaitlyn asked.

“You’re awake? You scared me for a minute.”

“How?”

“Well…it’s nothing,” Nicolas said.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s nothing. Just—”

“Nicolas Murray.”

Nicolas grabbed the back of his neck. He was sure it was nothing. Hell, she’d stepped through a portal to a different world earlier today. But there was no way she was going to go back to sleep now.

Not when she’d called him
Nicolas Murray
.

Nicolas picked up the
Shrillers and Adda
board from the nightstand and carefully placed it on the mattress between them, standing three of the adda pieces up when they toppled over. Whenever Kait felt anxious or sick, board games always seemed to cheer her up. He’d spent an hour or so teaching her the basics earlier in the evening.

Kaitlyn sat up and glanced at the board.

“You screamed,” Nicolas said. “You’ve never done that before. I’m not gonna lie. You scared the bejeezus out of me. Your turn, I think.”

Kaitlyn placed two shriller pieces on the board and counted to five, then removed them.

Nicolas pursed his lips.

“I remember having some kind of dream,” Kaitlyn said. “It was odd, but every time I remember something specific about it, it slips away.”

“Well, I’m sure everything’s fine.”

Nicolas moved the larger adda pieces until they formed circles around the smaller ones, careful to avoid the crag spider nests and hunters.

“I don’t know,” Kaitlyn said. “What was Tithian saying about you being born forty years ago?”

“I know you need answers, Kait. I just didn’t want to overwhelm you. I had the mother of all freak outs when that
thing
pulled me through the portal. I just assumed you’d be doing the same. I guess you’re a lot stronger than I am.”

“You
were
all alone.”

“True.”

“I understand you’re trying to be thoughtful, but that’s not how it’s coming across. Can you just tell me everything tomorrow? I’m okay with playing tourist tonight. But you need to start talking tomorrow morning.” She moved one of her pieces on the board. “Oh, and
checkmate
. Or…whatever you’re supposed to say when you win.”

Nicolas stared at the board with wide eyes. “That’s not possible.”

“You play this like you play chess. You can’t save all of your pieces all of the time.”

“Is that your professional opinion,
chess master Kaitlyn
?” He smiled. “Tithian would say—oh crap. I forgot.”

Nicolas remembered the installation service he had to be a part of in the morning. He’d forgotten to tell Kaitlyn.

“Tomorrow morning there’s some kind of ceremony I have to go through,” Nicolas said. “No one but Council magi are allowed in the Council chambers, so you can’t be there with me. It’s a stupid rule, but I can’t do anything about it until
after
the ceremony. You could check out some of the shrines. I think you’d love the architecture here. Maybe let Toby meet some of the locals. As soon as the ceremony is over, we can have that conversation. How’s that for a plan?”

The moonlight provided ample light to see she didn’t think much of his
plan
.

“I swear I’m not forty years old.”

“Why do they keep calling you
Archmage
?”

“Because that’s who I am here. I’m the archmage. My birth father was the old archmage, but he was an evil bastard and I forced him into early retirement. So they gave me the job.”

“Safe to assume you’re not going to introduce me?”

“No need to. You already met him.”

“Tithian?”

Nicolas laughed. “No. The dead dude with the broom.”

“The
what
?”

He hadn’t meant for it to slip out that way, but there was no way to put that particular cat back in the bag.

“I told you you’re safe here, remember?” Nicolas said.

“Stop talking to me like I’m five. I don’t need you to keep telling me I’m safe, ass!”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“Oh…my…god! Tell me it’s going to be okay one more time. I
dare
you!”

“I don’t know what you want from me!”

“I want to know about this secret world of yours. I want to know about this life you’ve lived away from me for…however long you were here. I want to know you’re the same person that left me in that apartment. For God’s sake, Nicolas, your father, Doctor Murray, just died, and you haven’t even mentioned him.”

Nicolas shut his eyes and lowered his head. “A
year
ago, Kait. Dad died a
year
ago. I can’t explain why because I don’t understand it myself. It was a
year
for me.”

“You were a scared college student who couldn’t tie a neck tie last time I saw you. And now you live in a palace? You have guards? People serve you? You think it’s normal to be surrounded by dead things?”

Nicolas shook his head. He had no idea where to begin.

“And what does all this mean?” Kaitlyn asked. “Are we ever going home? What about school? What about finals? Are we ever…ow!”

Kaitlyn grabbed her temples.

Nicolas put his arm around her and settled her back down on the bed. At least he could do that much.

Kaitlyn wiped beads of sweat from her forehead and rested her hand over her eyes.

“It’s going to be okay,” Nicolas said.

“I swear to god, if I didn’t have a marching band in my head I would
knee you in the nuts
.”

“I’m sorry, I just…I’ll leave for a bit.”

Nicolas swung his legs over the side of the bed, but as he began to stand, Kaitlyn tugged him back down.

“Tomorrow,” Kaitlyn said. “You tell me
everything
.”

“I will. And I’ll introduce you to Mujahid, if he’s around here. You’ll like him…well…if he’s not being all crotchety like he can be sometimes. But I’m sort of his boss now. No, wait…he said I’m his postulant. So is he my boss? How can anyone be the archmage’s boss? What the hell does the archmage do, anyway? Oh God, I’m so screwed.”

“Nick.”

“What?”

“It’s going to be okay.”

He sighed. Sometimes she knew exactly the right thing to say.

Aelron’s fate had been decided by
The Moot
, the court of elders at the ranger mother house, and there was nothing he could say to Captain Jacobson to change it. Still, there was a growing anger inside. His pulse thrummed at his temples. There was nothing he could do except stew in an impotent rage that would only get him killed if he didn’t get it under control.

He took a deep breath and looked out at the desolate countryside.

It was as if they’d ridden into one of the hells. The fragrant pine forests of the north ended abruptly, giving way to a dead land, devoid of even a blade of grass. The rangers traveled light, only packing water. Food was something they could hunt for with ease. But the lack of game trails worried even Simmons, their best hunter.

The terrain of the northern region of the Shandarian Union grew flat as the rangers made their way inland through a torrential downpour. They’d stopped and donned Arinwool, making sure to cover their adda-ki as well, rendering them invisible to all but each other.

Aelron couldn’t see them, though. Being
unmoored
meant he didn’t share a mystical bond with an adda-ki, and so he didn’t have the creature’s heightened agility or keen eyesight.

Aelron donned his as well, but when he asked why they were traveling with stealth, all Jacobson said was “We’re not ready to meet with our southern brothers just yet. Best we give that some time.”

Several hours into their journey, soaked from rains that slowed but never stopped, they emerged from the near-barren fields onto a muddy road that, according to Jacobson, ran between the capital city of Shandar and the city of Caspardis.

Aelron recognized the names. He’d even been to Caspardis once. But he was five when his father sent him to live with the rangers. After forty years under the dome, he doubted those cities existed as anything other than ruins anyway.

His opinion changed when he spotted crops growing a few hundred paces up the road. A herd of domestic adda grazed there—shorter versions of the adda-ki. Muscular, hooved, less agile. More a source of food and transportation than a weapon of war. Could there be survivors? Someone must have tended those fields and shepherded those adda.

And there was smoke rising from nearby thatch-roofed buildings.

Aelron thumbed the silver ring Master Nigel, his blademaster, had awarded him. It was set with a stone resembling the cat’s eye symbol of the Shandarian Rangers, and was only supposed to go to a moored ranger. But Nigel had made an exception.

“Whoa, men,” Jacobson said, pulling his mount to halt at the head of the group.

Aelron could see Jacobson’s outline, but only because he knew what to look for.

The rangers formed up around him.

“This is as far as we take you,” Jacobson said.

“But Captain,” Orvin said. “Our agreement was to take him to his father.”

Jacobson struck Orvin with the back of his hand, and Orvin grabbed the pommel of his saddle to steady himself.

Striking a subordinate without cause was forbidden, and from the looks on the faces of two of the other rangers, they intended to do something about it.

They urged their adda-ki forward. But before they reached Jacobson, Simmons rode between them and waved for them to stop. He whispered something Aelron couldn’t hear.

“Simmons!” Jacobson yelled and nodded toward Aelron.

Simmons spun his adda-ki and shoved Aelron off the back of Orvin’s mount.

Aelron landed hard on his side, splashing mud and water up around him. Rough hands tore at his Arinwool until he was visible.

“Don’t forget the medallion,” Jacobson said. “We don’t want people getting the wrong idea.”

Aelron cursed. He’d hoped they’d forgotten about it. Without the medallion it would be difficult, maybe even impossible, to convince people he was a ranger. And without that, he was nothing more than a vagrant. A drifter.

And
that
violated the Shandarian Justice Protocols. Was that what Jacobson wanted? For Aelron to get arrested by a local ranger patrol and tossed in jail before he reached his father?

The medallion lifted off his chest and disappeared into the pocket of whichever ranger was doing Jacobson’s bidding. They hadn’t removed their Arinwool, so he couldn’t see who had taken it.

Whoever it was hadn’t thought to check Aelron’s cloak, or he would have discovered a small piece of Arinwool tucked away for safety. Aelron thanked the gods he’d had the presence of mind to hide some earlier. It wouldn’t be enough to render him invisible, but it
would
render him immune to magic. Any spell cast against him would either reflect back toward the caster, or else be absorbed by the Arinwool itself.