The Galactic Mage (27 page)

She knew he wasn’t listening as much as she knew that he was not concerned with whether he got hurt. But the calm in her voice helped her pretend that maybe she actually was. She neared the pipe she was going to have to step over. She stared into the shadows at Duval, wondering if he knew that she was there in any vague sense at all or if he was already gone. She raised her foot and stepped over the pipe.

He leapt at her. “No more fucking corned beef,” he cried. “It’s all gone now. And the yoyo too. There’s nothing fucking left.” He tackled her, one hand gripping her neck, the other arm wrapped around her waist. With the pipe behind her knees, she tripped over it and went down hard on her back against the metal deck. The fall knocked the wind out of her and banged her head with stunning force. Duvall tripped over the pipe coming after her and he went sprawling too, his fingernails scratching a long cut into her soft throat as he groped to maintain his hold. Orli struggled for consciousness as the sound of a single shot rang out. She saw sparks as a bullet hit the boiler where Duvall’s head had been a half a second before he fell.

Duvall stood up as a cloud of foul smelling steam began spraying out from the tank where the bullet had gone through. He began to scream as scalding liquid scorched the side of his face, but he lunged at Orli just the same, still yelling about the yoyo and its missing string. A second shot rang out just as he dove at her, his body suddenly twisting in the air as he flew. She scrambled against the tank, out of the way as he crumpled to the floor. She rose quickly and turned to see him getting to his feet. He lunged at her again. This time, she stepped neatly to the side and thrust the hypodermic needle into his back as he staggered past. He tripped over the knee-high pipe again and went down hard once more, landing back in the corner where the struggle had begun. This time he didn’t get back up.

She went to him and saw that Morgan’s shot had hit him in the ribs, passing through his body and out through the chest. His breath came in ragged gasps. He looked up at her, his eyes wide and terrified. Orli wondered if it was the fear of yoyos and corned beef or if it was the fear of standing at the brink of death. She heard boot steps clanking on the deck coming around both sides of the boiler by which she crouched. She wanted to find a way to conceal the ragged wound in Duvall’s chest. At least that. Something to spare Morgan’s conscience from carrying the guilt of this man’s death with him for the rest of time—or however long he had. But it was too late, Morgan had already seen. The look on his face told her that he knew.

Duvall started to choke, and Orli looked back down at him just in time for him to cough a gout of blood into her face. And then he died.

Chapter
28

A
ltin’s standoff with the coconut-colored spot went on for quite some time. It made no further attacks with its large battering ram, and Altin wasted no more energy on fireballs that the coconut was clearly going to dodge. And since there was no point in even thinking about the lightning spell, the two of them just stayed there for what turned out to be nearly three entire days; Altin was far too stubborn to leave. He was not going to be run off by a giant, hairless coconut. That simply would not do. So he stayed right where he was. He sent his crate back for more food and water while he waited, and he made some adjustments to his shield. He was able to modify his stasis spell to keep the tower oriented on a target of his choice; his new version would keep him from having to look around to find it after every pass. He even attached an activation word to the spell to make the two elements of his revised edition match. He was actually rather proud of his new spell and decided to give it its own name, “Combat Stasis.” And it was just as he finished penning the new title in his rapidly filling notes that he looked up and saw that two more of the coconuts had arrived.

One of the newcomers was at least twice as large as the original that was still floating a few hundred paces away, and he’d decided that the first one was roughly the size of a country church, which meant that the new, giant ball had to be at least as large as a good-sized inn, if not as large as the entire block upon which an inn might sit. The third one was roughly the size of the original, if perhaps the slightly larger of the two, and between them all there was a considerable amount of mass. Altin wondered how long it would be before the three of them attacked. He was fairly certain that Combat Hop would be up to the task, but he thumbed his amulet unconsciously as he watched and waited to see what they would do.

It turned out they were only waiting on a fourth one of the giant spots to arrive, slightly smaller than the rest, and then the fight resumed. They encircled his tower, hovering slightly higher than he stood and no more than an eighth of a measure off. Once in place, all four spots came streaking in at an alarming rate. Altin grimaced and wondered if he were about to die as all four of them released their giant battering rams at once.

And then he was somewhere else, roughly eighty paces away. He laughed. Combat Hop was up to the task of four. “Maybe next time,” he mocked. “Try again.”

They did, but this time with a different tactic. They came in waves of two, and from slightly different altitudes. But still their attack had no effect, and so they tried again, all at once and coming out of a large formation that started out roughly as a square. Altin laughed and bade them bring it on.

This time, the largest orb held back, slightly behind the other three, and it delayed in releasing its shot a half-second after theirs as well. When the first three released, Altin’s Combat Hop blinked him off to one side, but just as the fourth orb let its missile go. The large stony beam struck its mark, likely only random chance, but still a blow so brutal that Altin was nearly knocked out of the tower as he tumbled over the crenellated wall.

The force threw him over the parapet, and it was only by some luck of his own that he managed to grasp the wall before he fell the forty feet to the ground below. With strength born of terror, he pulled himself back over the wall. Once more he considered teleporting himself back home. He couldn’t afford for these spots to get too many more lucky shots like that. And even as he thought it, the orbs came in for yet another pass. He knew he didn’t have time to scry out the corner of Calico Castle to see if it was safe to bring the tower back. He was less familiar with Luria, but he could get there without looking if the coconuts didn’t knock him over the wall in the middle of the spell. But he didn’t want to run. And that’s when inspiration struck. The thought of having to scry out the castle to see that it was safe gave him the most obvious of ideas. He was a teleporter after all. He could try to use his best skill against them in defense. They’d already proved they had no honor and so relieved Altin of playing by the rules. Sing a song for the siren, as the saying went. Granted, they’d started the music already, but Altin was ready with some lyrics of his own. Magic ones.

Though he had no idea of their emotional state, he assumed they were intelligent and so possibly resistant to his intended method of attack. But they were rather large. Perhaps if they were hollow at all, they might be moveable by the nature of the “enclosed or encapsulated” portion of the Teleport Other spell. Unwilling subjects can be teleported if they’ve been stuffed inside a box; the mage merely has to focus on teleporting the box rather than the person stuffed inside—this technique was especially useful for the movement of prisoners between penal facilities on Kurr. Altin’s intent was to discover if the spots were indeed like coconuts, round “boxes” with occupants inside, or like a snail that’s pulled inside its shell. There was only one way to discover this for sure.

Altin closed his eyes and began the chant with the inflection he had used to move the shielded goat and his crate of food through space so many times before, focusing on the spots as if they were containers rather than living things. He channeled the mana with a bit of malice too. When he had enough gathered, a monstrous amount, he slung the shimmering darkness around the first spot like an enormous lariat. Then he sent the other end of his mana stream out and wound it round the other coconut that was similar in size. So connected, he focused his mind on the strand between them, willing it to powerful elasticity, and allowed it to retract like a stretched spring, snapping the two coconuts together into one.

The newly formed mass split open as both spots were forced to occupy the same space at once, an impossible thing to do and yet maintain a physical status quo. The sudden combination of their bulk caused the accumulation to burst open and sent a spray of glowing orange ichor jetting out, spewing forth as if a round and lumpy volcano had just erupted into the night. Altin let out a hoot of rapture as he watched the sundered blob go spinning off into darkness. He wasn’t sure if his success was due to the “container” idea or the spots not having the intelligence to resist, but whichever it was, his tactic worked.

He began to chant again, the rhythm of the magic evaporating his emotion into the focus of the spell. He took the smaller orb of the remaining two and once again teleported it into the center of the largest one. Despite the size difference, Altin was confident that it would be enough to do the trick, and it was with great expectation that he opened his eyes after the spell’s release. His confidence was well placed, and the merge ruptured a huge segment of the larger spot’s side, opening a massive hole in it like a blown caldera, and spraying more of the glowing goo out against the backdrop of the stars. The wounded spot immediately moved away. Not a drifting death, Altin gauged, but clearly in retreat. He watched it go with a look of grim satisfaction on his face until the orange light it left in its wake had vanished from view. That would show them, he thought. You don’t mess with a teleporter.

Jubilant in his victory, and now released by it as well, he wanted nothing more than to rush home and tell Tytamon that there were other things living out in space—albeit hostile, angry and aggressive things, but still, something besides the races of Prosperion. The discovery was much too exciting to keep to himself, so, with the thrill of combat still pumping in his veins—and the stench of burnt fur and wood stinking up the top of his Polar’s dome—he decided it was time to take the tower home.

After a quick glimpse into the scrying basin to make sure the area was clear, Altin returned the tower to its place, filling the gap in Calico Castle’s wall. Once the tower was settled, he released the shield, letting the cloud of foul smoke drift into the sky just as Kettle’s scream echoed off the gray stone of Mt. Pernolde.

“She’s gone, she’s gone! Nipper, she’s gone!” came the kitchen matron’s piercing wail. Altin had never in all his life heard her make such a sound as that, a shrill cry of terror that pierced his body and chilled like a well-cast ice lance spell. His nerves, still tingling from his recent battle, were pulled taut once again. He ran down the stairs, taking them four at a time as he rushed out into the courtyard.

Kettle was still screaming as he cast his gaze about, looking for her while trying to pick her voice out from the echoes of it bouncing off the castle walls and looming cliff. Her cries were coming from outside and seemed to be moving as if the woman were running towards the hills. He ran through the gates and saw her rushing around the corner of the castle at a speed unexpected from a body as stout as hers. He sprinted after her.

He caught up to her a moment later as she was coming past his tower and running along the stone face of Mt. Pernolde’s sky-high cliffs towards the north. He caught her by the arm and dragged her to a stop. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?” he gasped at her.

Kettle’s eyes were wide and hysterical. “Pernie,” she screeched, “they took mah Pernie away.”

“Who? Who took her?”

“Orcs,” she said. “It was orcs. An hour, maybe less. Ya have to get her back. Ya have to get her back.”

Tytamon emerged around the corner just then, running towards them with his robes pulled up above his boney knees as if he were a maiden who’s just seen a mouse. “What’s with all the fuss?” he demanded. His face was filled with the contagion of Kettle’s screams.

“They took Pernie,” Kettle moaned and staggered a few steps forward in pursuit. “Just snuck right in and took my baby away. There were footprints all around the yard.” Her body was exhausted, and raw emotion took its toll. She collapsed to her knees. “Get her. Please, get her. Gods. Someone bring her back.” She was overcome with grief and could no longer speak through the violence of her sobs.

Tytamon looked askance at Altin, who could only shrug. The ancient mage glanced around briefly noting the tower’s return. His expression grew dark, but whatever it was immediately went away. “I’ll divine her,” Tytamon said, “since a telepath she’s not.” With that the old sorcerer chanted the words that teleported him up into his tower. There was no time for courtesy in a crisis such as this. Divination took long enough as it was.

Too long, by Altin’s way of thought, and Taot
was
a telepath in an animal kind of way. He sent the dragon an urgent call, and the dragon’s reply came immediately back. He was on his way.

It took the dragon a few agonizing minutes to fly to Altin’s tower, and in moments they were in the air. “Which way did they go?” he called down to Kettle as they took off.

The sight of him on the dragon’s back seemed to give her a ray of hope, and she pointed towards the east.

“I’ll find her,” he promised.

“You better,” was her reply.

There was something feral in her eyes, a ferocity that sent a shiver down his spine as he urged Taot towards the nearest pass. What was that all about?

They soared along Mt. Pernolde’s edge until the cliff dwindled into something resembling a passable incline. There were hundreds of narrow crags that the orcs might have used to climb up into the treacherous terrain, and Altin had to hover above every one, squinting into the shadows hoping for a glimpse of anything that moved. Altin queried Taot if he could recognize Pernie by her scent. The great beast acknowledged that he could; her scent was often on a morning meadow breeze.

They flew back and forth in long sweeps, searching every crevice and every crag. Altin marveled that the orcs could have gotten so far away in such a short time, but once they were in the undulating steepness of the mountains, with all its boulders and scrubby brush, they were in their element and out of his. But Taot knew it well enough, and he communicated to Altin’s mind what was essentially an image of a maze as he flew off deeper into the range. They flew for several minutes until Taot brought them to a place where he stopped and hovered in the air. He sent Altin an image of a portion of the land far below, a rocky section of trees slightly to the north with a growth of scraggly woods masking the dark expanse of a narrow canyon. Shrouded in shadow, the canyon was too dark for Altin’s human eyes to see inside, so he urged the dragon to fly nearer to the edge. The dragon refused, however, forcing Altin to cast a seeing spell instead.

In the concealment of the canyon lay a small orc village of perhaps thirty huts and two larger buildings made of logs. Altin had had no idea that the orcs had settlements this close to Calico Castle, much less within the realm of Crown. The Queen would not be happy to know that the orcs were once more beginning to encroach.

He scanned through the huts one by one, using his magical sight to look for any sign of Pernie, although he knew that she could not possibly be here yet, not if Kettle’s estimate of time was right. There was no way that the orcs would have gotten here so fast, even if this was where they were planning to bring the girl. But still he looked, trusting to his dragon that this was where the orcs would come.

It took him several long minutes to rush his sight through all the buildings, and he was surprised by how many orcs were living there, at least sixty or so of the large brutish males and perhaps half that again of hideous, fang-faced women and scrapping little brats, all of whom were filthy and covered with mud… and worse. The place was slovenly beyond all comprehension, and they’d barely seen fit to scratch a trench through the middle of town, down the slope, and through which their waste and excrement mostly drained. As he saw his way through the village, Altin was glad that seeing spells did not have the gift of smell. It was an awful place, and Altin could not imagine chatty little Pernie being there.

But she was not there now, and he sent a message to Taot encouraging him to sweep the area and work back down the trail, perhaps they could catch the raiding party when it emerged from whichever hidden path the orcs had used. The dragon’s reply was a simple sense of predatory patience, and he did not move from where they were.