The Laws Of Elios (Book 2) (34 page)

A few moments later Shane’s heal glyphs began to make a difference and the man began to stir.
“Captain D’roe. My name is Shane Chanson; we have your family safely out of Jehhet and in a place far away from the influence of the king.  It’s a place that your family legends call Coenor.” Shane said calmingly as they helped him sit up.

“What about Chy’nette” he asked with concern as he stood and glanced at the dead guards on the floor.  “How did you sneak up on them?  I’ve seen them kill just by a touch.  They were the king
’s special guards.”

“Your wife is fine,” said Ari.  “The king had some sort of magic placed on her but we were able to safely remove it.”

“You spin a good yarn, invisible man, but where’s the proof I asked for,” The captain said suspiciously looking at Shane.

No sooner had the captain spoken, a portal opened and Shew and Oscaar Junior entered the tent.

“Ren,” shouted his ebullient brother as soon as he saw him.  “You are not going to believe what has been going on today.

The five men soon caught each other up on the recent events.  Shew eyed Shane from the corner of his eye at his unusual silence when he retold about the sinking of the sloop.  “
Are you going to be ok with that boy?”  He asked.  “I know how you set store by your inventions.”

“Its only stuff,” Shane
answered unemotionally, “I can remake it if I have to – even better than before.  I’m just glad you guys are okay.  I’m thinking that I need to employ fail safes and emergency devices next for time.”

“Fail safes?” asked Shew. “What the enfer do they do,” he asked in his standard cantankerous manner.

“Just something I’ve been studying recently,” deflected Shane. “I’ll explain once I have a few set up to show you.  Meanwhile we need to come up with a plan to either capture, free, or enlist these soldiers; and then figure out whatever Allion is up to.”

Captain D’roe cleared his throat and interrupted,
“most of them,” he nodded towards the door of the tent,” need to be freed of their wristbands and let go.  They are not trained soldiers, just civilians enslaved and thrown into uniforms.” He paused for a mental calculation then continued. “Out of the four or five thousand out there, perhaps five hundred are actual soldiers.”

“Ari,” Shane turned to his future brother in law.  “Do you still have everyone glued to the ground out there?”

“Yes,” he replied with raised eyebrows.

“Good.  At least we won’t have them tripping over each other or trying to attack us for the moment.  The king can still see through their eyes so we need to get these bands deactivated
and off as quickly as possible.  We won’t have to but blue dots on them.  That was for the element of surprise.  Allion knows were here so I’m just going to unimbue the lot and then we will remove them all and destroy them.  I’ll start on that,” Shane said, “Captain D’roe, Ari is over our tactical planning and implementation as well as intelligence.  Shew is over our field work operations and works with Ari on intelligence as well.  Your brother is currently assigned to Shew.  We are not a military unit – we’re more of a magical planning group with key members of our team former military and intelligence experts.  To help ease things for you, if you have any questions work through Ari.”  Shane looked at Ari. “What should we do first?”

“How about this,” suggested Ari.  “I’ll, keep em glued until we get the wristbands deactivated and you put a parameter around the camp so that anyone that tries to leave will be repelled back into camp.  Once the bands are off you can unstick them.  Shew you and Junior move all of the civilians to the west side and Captain D’roe you move all of the soldiers to the east.

Before we get started,” Ari said looking at the captain.  “Do you have any idea where the main forces of the Infin army are?”

Captain D’roe shook his head and frowned.  “Not a clue.  My orders before we met were to go gather more conscripts to take
them to the stadium for something that they were needed for there.  We were just setting up the bivouac when we were surrounded by our own troops and I was incarcerated, beaten, and interrogated by the king’s special guards.  All I can think of, based on what I’ve learned from you and the questions that they asked, is that my family got away and the king wanted to know how and who was assisting them.  I lost consciousness somewhere along the way and woke up when you guys were working on me.  The only thing I can think of is that the entirety of the army is on its way north as an invasion force.”

“Judging by what Shew and
Junior saw on the sloop he’s is using the starblade, he may be able to knock down my barrier,” Shane said glumly.  I’m going to estimate it may take a day or two for that many soldiers to get into position so let’s mop things up here and then I need to see what it will take to shore up that wall or destroy that starblade.

As soon as we get the mess here in order, Shew you see what you can find out with your viewer.  Ari as you start separating soldiers and civilians, see if the captain can find any other officers that might know more of Allion’s plan.  I’m going to sit here set up the parameter shield and start pulling the lumen out of the wristbands.
”

As everyone left the command tent Shane pulled up the chair that the captain had been tied to and sat as comfortably as he could
.  Reaching out with his thoughts and envisioned a string of glyphs that would encircle the encampment with a sphere that used his repel glyph as the central focus.  The area was massive and the mastery would require a majority of his concentration to maintain. 
How did the lumen mages do it?
he thought to himself; they all have such massive enchantments and they obviously are able to concentrate on other things.  Then it dawned on him.  He knew.  He’d already done it.

The blue dot glyphs were true lumen mastery.  They were the embodiment of an instruction set given form and function – they were literally physical magic.  Now the question was did he have enough internal lumen to create a glyph that large.

Mentally rolling up his sleeves Shane concentrated on the structure of the shield and begin to imbue it.  The large shield began to pull lumen from him at an incredible rate; faster and at a volume one hundred times greater than when he had first created the blue dots.  Shane felt the pressure like he was being squeezed both inside and out.  He watched with his lumen sight and saw that the wall was nearly complete.  He needed just a few feet more.  With every last ounce of strength he gritted his teeth and with a physical lurch he felt the enchantment complete.

Shane found himself on a sand dune.  His lips were parched the sun was searing overhead.  He felt as if he were a human raisin; as if every drop of water had been pulled from his body
.  Overhead several vultures glided a deadly pattern; descending visibly with every rotation.  Shane tried to sit up but couldn’t move.  Turning his head sideways he saw a small blue dot.  As he focused he saw hundred and then thousands then hundreds of thousands of the blue dots.  Some had a glow of light blue with a deep blue border; some had a glow of blue with a deep blue but a slight rainbow tinge.  He reached for the nearest blue circle and touched it with his finger.  He felt a coolness enter his arm and then the rest of him.  He no longer felt as weak and dehydrates. Looking up he noted that the vultures while still circling they had ceased descending.  Slowly he reached for another of the blue circles; this one was tinged with the slightest hints of a rainbow.  As he touched the blue he felt a cautionary thought. 
This is not mine
.  As he withdrew his hand he heard the voice of Kuo’irus
…Singer Here art thy glyphs Lumen Mage.  The lumen contained therein is now yours to wield... 
gingerly he put his hand back into the rainbow tinges blue circle and one again he felt the increase of his strength as the circle faded away.  Shane no longer felt dehydrated and as he looked the desert was now littered with green patches of grass and the odd tree.  The vultures were now mere dots in the sky and there were noticeably fewer of them.  Able to sit, Shane plunged his hands unto two more nearby of the blue circles.  The refreshment was wonderful.

Shane opened his eyes; He had fallen off of the chair.  His face was on the ground
looking at the bag that Kuo’irus had given him as well as his smaller pouch of blue dot neutralizer glyphs; both had fallen loose and spilled a portion of their contents in front of him.  Shane sat up and retrieved the glyphs; carefully returning them to the pouches all except for two which he used his lumen sight to view them and carefully withdrew the lumen back into him-self.  Shane felt refreshed. And returned the chair upright and retook his seat.  Reaching out again he inspected the shield and saw that it was still in place and functioning.  Recalling the immense pressure and the lumen that he had expended to make the barrier he smiled.  If this worked like the blue glyphs it meant that he had just doubled his lumen capacity and the next time he did this it would be a lot easier – it also meant that when they were done with the shield he would be getting all of this lumen back.

Focusing back on the task at hand he began reaching out to all the lumen he could find throughout the camp in the form of the wristbands.  First one at a time then in multiples he began releasing the lumen from the corrupt devices.  An hour later the task was complete.  Realizing that the neutralizing blue glyphs wouldn’t be necessary now that the devices were deactivated he began pulling the lumen from each of the dots back into himself.  He had retrieved nearly half of them and he noticed that he was glowing brightly.  Carefully he increased his personal lumen shield and soon he was back to normal.  Noting that there were still several hundred unrecovered glyphs he tried to make an
extra-large blue glyph with the same neutralizing properties.  Like the large shield this required exponentially more lumen than the small glyph.  He felt the deletion of lumen from within himself but nowhere the massive amount that the repel shield had taken.  Looking down he saw a round blue glyph of nearly a third of a cubit in diameter.  Carefully he retrieved it and folded it and placed it into his pouch.  Returning to the still active glyphs that had been applied to the now deactivated wristband he began pulling lumen into himself once more.  When he had finally recovered the last of the blue glyphs he had made two more of the large size blue glyphs. And he had so much surplus lumen he had to increase his personal shield another time.

Venturing out of the tent he saw Shew, Ari and the D’roe brothers standing outside watching him intently.

Ari looked at him questioningly.  “You okay?”

Shane shrugged, “sure, why wouldn’t I be?”

Ari shook his head and looked at Shew. 

Shew
threw his hands in the air with a scowl.  “I may not be the brightest crystal in the chandelier, Sonny, but when a tent lights up several times on a dark night brighter than the sun and doesn’t burn down and then you walk out easy as you please – Usually something’s up.”

“Sorry,” Shane blushed with a sheepish expression on his face. “I was making the shield and it ended up as a learning experience.”  Shane saw that there were two officers standing next to the group silently restrained.  “What’s with these guys,” Shane asked.

Ari undid a set of glyphs that had them frozen in place and marched them forward.  These two are a pair of the king’s personal guards; both are Allyant possessed.  One won’t talk at all and the other has asked to speak with the lumen mage that created the protective wall to the north. So we brought them here.”

Shane took in the two stone faced soldiers.  Looking beyond the visible spectrum he saw that they were full of the lethal red lumen; nearly the lumen of fifty people
in each of them.  Shane was impressed at the amount of strength that they had and even more impressed at Ari’s strength that was restraining them.  “Well,” said Shane questioningly, “I am the one who made the wall.  What is it you want?”

The one on the left suddenly collapsed as the one on the right absorbed the others lumen and suddenly broke away from the restraints of Ari’s glyphs leaping at Shane with outstretched hands aimed at his throat.  Shane didn’t even flinch.  With hands less than an inch from his throat the
Allyant froze and was surrounded by a silver haze.  The man struggled for a few moments then stopped.  Looking at Shane the guard laughed.  “You are too late Lumen Mage.  I have my army of Allyant slaves within days of the border.  I am aboard my star blade and as soon as they arrive I will destroy your pitiful wall.  I will then bleed your precious Luion one by one and use their lumen to destroy the seed world that the Elios have made in vain.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Shane said with a look of more confidence than he felt.  “You forget that I have the strength of the star seeds at my disposal and the Elios at my back.” He bluffed.

“You cannot fool me glyph mage.  I have stolen the memories of your youthful spy Nuekirk.  I know that you have a ceremony yet to perform and from the glyphs of his ring I know where.  Until you seal the stars to this world they are not able to defend this system; without the magic of being sealed they are single and weak.  With the lumen that I have siphoned from the inhabitants of this world I have the ability to ensnare them and their magic and nothing, not even a lumen mage, can stop me.  As far as the Elios go they are all safely hiding in their nest of impenetrable lumen where I chased them five hundred years ago.  Don’t try and lie to me.  Your singer has fled, you have no Dernier Chanson, and your fellow Elios have abandoned you to a hopeless cause.”