The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books) (76 page)

Alhmanic did not believe a word that came from Klaus’ mouth, but he was not going to give the priest any pleasure in seeing his discomfort. Not from what was being said, nor from the fact that Klaus had seemingly forgotten to ask him to sit down instead of having him stand there like some acolyte-in-training.

That
thought set Alhmanic fuming inside.

“I am sure the Anointed Lord, heavens shine upon her, will find the most useful place for me within her designs. She,
above all,”
he made sure to stress those words, “knows the depths of my loyalty.”

“Which brings us to why you were called here,” Klaus said quickly, straining to reach across his desk to snatch a handful of papers from one of the stacks. “A new mission for you. Very important.”

“I stand ready to serve.”

“Of course. Now, certain texts retrieved from an ancient site have recently been deemed sacred because of their content.”

“Which site?”

“That’s not important,” Klaus said, showing himself a little irritated at the interruption. Alhmanic could translate that perfectly well – someone had decided he should not know. He had a nasty feeling that the person in question was Klaus himself. A further thought occurred to him.

“And you can assure me that these orders come from the Anointed Lord herself? Blessings upon her,” he quickly added.

Klaus pursed his lips and was silent for a few seconds, as if he were choosing his words carefully.

“I can assure you that the Anointed Lord will want success in this mission,” he finally said.

Klaus was all but telling him that the mission, whatever it was going to be, had come from Klaus’ own desk and quill. Damn him, the man must be laughing inside to have this power!

Keeping his anger bubbling just below what he hoped was the surface, Alhmanic kept his voice low and even.

“What am I to do?”

“Once the texts were declared sacred, proper translations of them could begin. It turns out, we found some rather exciting information. I will spare you the details – here, I have transcribed as much of the texts as was permissible for you to see,” Klaus said, handing Alhmanic a handful of papers. “We believe an artefact of most ancient design lies within the southern Anclas Territories. You are to find and fetch it.”

“It has not been located yet?”

“We have done as much as we can here,” Klaus said. “Now it remains for someone of different skills to actually hunt it down and retrieve it. That would be you.”

“I can assume I will be given a contingent of men?”

“Of course! Life in the Anclas Territories can be dangerous, so I am told, and we cannot risk anything happening to the mission.”

That was Klaus’ not so subtle way of telling him that the mission was being regarded as important, but few people would care what happened to the Preacher Divine. They could have it their way, thought Alhmanic. He would endure these trials, as the Great Saints had endured their own struggles in the past. He would succeed in this test, and the Anointed Lord, praise her, would see what a valuable servant he was. Then he would revisit Klaus and every other lackey within the administration for a little divinely inspired justice. Even now, he saw Klaus in his mind’s eye, straining to move a rock-filled cart deep in the mines below the cathedral. The thought almost made him smile.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll need a full regiment, with attending cavalry.”

“Oh, I am afraid that will be entirely impossible,” Klaus said, now adopting the posture of some quartermaster who everyone makes too many demands of. “The bulk of our forces are needed... well, elsewhere, I am sure you understand. There will be a half-company waiting for you at the city gates upon your departure. Which will be as soon as we are finished here.”

“I see,” Alhmanic said. “Anything else I should be aware of?”

“I believe you have everything that you will need. It just remains for me to wish you luck.”

Alhmanic gave him a grim smile, before leaning forwards, planting his fists on the desk between stacks of papers as he towered over Klaus.

“I know what is going on here,” he said quietly. “Don’t think this is over.”

Klaus looked up at him, and Alhmanic was a little surprised to see a spark of defiance in the man.

“Let us first see how you perform in this task. If you are successful, I am sure you will be permitted to keep your title of Preacher Divine. If not... well, I would advise you to remember that no Preacher Divine in the past has ever been relieved of his post,” Klaus smiled up at him. “They have all, without exception, died in service to the Final Faith. One way or another, I believe you will find the Anointed Lord is a traditionalist in this matter.”

Seeing no use for further confrontation, Alhmanic kept his face expressionless as he stood upright and turned for the door. As he placed his hand on the handle, he turned round to face Klaus once more.

“She will get her artefact, Klaus. And you... you will get what is coming to you too.”

CHAPTER THREE

A
S THE RAGING
ocean smashed against the huge, towering monoliths that protected Turnitia’s harbour, the waves expending their energy in an endless cacophony that could be heard practically anywhere in the city, Lucius glanced at Adrianna out of the corner of his eye. The last time they had both been at the top of the cliffs that looked across the calm waters of the harbour, she had tried to kill him, and had very nearly succeeded.

If Adrianna was thinking the same thing, she showed no sign of it. Lucius had still not figured out whether she felt any shame for the terror she had brought to the city when their master, Forbeck, had been killed by the wizards of Vos, whether she had done her best to forget the incident, or whether she simply saw it as the natural path to her ascension to head of the guild of Shadowmages. He was not sure whether any of those options would make him feel comfortable in her presence.

She was still dangerous, in command of a great deal of magical power, and Adrianna now held sway over every other Shadowmage in the city and, probably, beyond. That was enough to make anyone nervous.

“We no longer have the forces of Vos here to pit you against,” she had said as they had walked through the streets of shattered buildings, burnt out wrecks that stood as testament to the power of a Shadowmage unleashed. The baron had started a new public works program to rebuild the areas of the city that Adrianna had destroyed, but human effort alone would not repair the damage for another year at least.

“It would not be politic to set you against the Pontaine occupiers, not that I think they would put up much of a fight anyway. We have to create our own challenges for you, Lucius.”

So, they had walked to the cliffs on the edge of the city, bedecked with lifts and cranes that worked to bring cargo from docked ships in the harbour to Turnitia above. Lucius’ training under Adrianna continued, as he had promised it would, but there were times he regretted it.

Forbeck had been a demanding master, constantly pushing Lucius to explore the depths of his powers and also reflect upon the nature of the Shadowmage’s art. Adrianna was different – she was less interested in the whys and concentrated on honing Lucius’ mastery of magic into a finely tuned weapon. Whereas Forbeck’s lessons had been tough on both a mental and physical level, Adrianna’s were downright dangerous at times.

Using shadow magic to cloak them from the casual gaze of the workers in the harbour and those labouring on the cranes, Adrianna had told Lucius to scale the cliffs, searching for cloth pennants she had placed earlier. At least, that was what she told him. Lucius could not help but suspect the pennants had been placed by another student in an earlier lesson.

This was something that, with the right tools, he could have done without magical aid, but Adrianna soon demanded greater and greater speed from him. Clinging to a rocky outcropping with one hand, trying to ignore the hard surface of the harbour far below, Lucius stretched for a green pennant that lay snagged just below him. It was a tantalising few inches out of his reach.

“Don’t strain your muscles,” Adrianna’s voice floated down to him. “I have few concerns for your physical shape. Use the magic, that is why we are here!”

Not replying, Lucius took a short breath and summoned the forces of magic to himself, seeing them twist and turn in his mind’s eye. The cloth twitched as an air current tugged at it and then, with a quick ripping sound, it tore itself free from the rocks and leapt into his outstretched hand.

Quickly tucking it into his belt, where it sat with three other pennants of various colours, Lucius smiled to himself, and then cast about looking for the next target. He saw it immediately, a blue flash of cloth just a few yards across from his current perch. Setting a foot down, he pushed hard, and felt himself buoyed up by a magical force that lifted him clear of the rock to float him across a deep gash that burrowed into the cliffs.

“I told you, I wanted to see speed!” Adrianna said.

Lucius started to draw more magical power within himself to give a boost to his progress but then sensed a build up of energies above him. With barely a second to spare, he refashioned his spell and as he floated to the blue pennant, he swiftly brought his hand above his head, as if to ward off a blow.

The bolt of magical energy was invisible to the naked eye but Lucius could feel its presence, could sense the raw power Adrianna had focussed into it, and he felt it shatter against his hastily improvised shield. He landed back onto the rock, gripping the surface with both hands even as he summoned another current of magic to snatch at the blue pennant. When it floated in front of his face, he quickly snatched it out of the air and tucked it into his belt. Taking another breath, he wiped the sweat that had formed on his brow.

“Better,” Adrianna said. “You improvised well enough and spared yourself a painful lesson.”

She seemed oblivious to the fact that, had her bolt of energy actually struck him, Lucius would have been dislodged from the cliffs and would have likely fallen to his death without time to recover. He was becoming rapidly convinced that Adrianna now operated on a different level to everyone else, and that the life and death of others was of little moment to her. Even him, who had known her the longest. That, allied to her great mastery of the arts, was what made her so dangerous.

They continued the lesson, with Lucius gradually making his way along the cliffs until his belt was stuffed full of the coloured pennants, all the while fending off the occasional attack from Adrianna. Each was intended to keep him on his toes or force him to use his magic in different ways, and each was potentially life-threatening.

When he returned to the top of the cliffs, glad the lesson was over, he saw Adrianna nod once at him.

“You are somewhat improving. I might even go as far to say you are approaching adequate.”

Lucius hid a smile. From Adrianna, that was about as good a compliment as he could expect.

“Tell me,” she continued. “What did you make of that... wizard in the baron’s keeping?”

He frowned as he thought for a moment. “Tellmore? The baron seemed pleased to have gained his services. The mage seems quite accomplished.”

The clicking of Adrianna’s tongue alerted Lucius that he had said the wrong thing.

“Don’t you dare, Lucius, don’t you dare be impressed by
that
. The wizards of Pontaine, and those of Vos for that matter, build great monuments to themselves and their own ingenuity. You have heard of the Three Towers?”

Lucius nodded. “I visited Andon once and saw them.”

“The wizard guilds in Pontaine spend their time building themselves pretty palaces, while they hoodwink from the nobility ever greater amounts of silver and gold so they can continue to live a life of luxury. They don’t know proper magic, Lucius. Not like us. Not like the Shadowmages. Forbeck always suspected we were the first practitioners of magic, far back in history, and I have begun to learn that he was right.”

Again, Lucius nodded, dutifully this time. He did not know where Adrianna was going with this but he wanted to avoid awakening her wrath.

“This play-wizard of the baron,” she continued. “He may have some pretty titles awarded to him by fools who know no better. But I’ll tell you this, Lucius; he has none of the skills and knowledge I control, and none of the power you can summon in an instant.”