Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9) (49 page)

Gently lifting her chin with his left hand, Sebastian kissed her on the lips before replying, “It can last for days if I use enough magic or just hours. I can also just release it with a word.”

“Are you going to use the word or just leave me this way?” she chuckled knowing that he was teasing her, but it was finally in a way that seemed more playful than the girl had seen before.

“Well, this is an interesting pose. There is so much that I can do with you like this,” he stated tracing his forefinger from above her pants up to her neck.

A sudden shock as he neared her neck came as she began to laugh and squirm. The wilder part of her had been tickled enough to bring a defense, and as Sebastian shook his finger with a rueful smile, Ashleen laughed, “Serves you right for tickling me.”

His finger touched the blouse. “Release.”

Suddenly freed from the stone, Ashleen dropped her arms shaking them out a moment before she winced and complained, “Ah, they’re tingling already.”

“Heal,” he called the spell as his hand slid the blouse from her shoulders and down her arms. His spell eased the change of flow removing the tingling sensation.

Ashleen tossed the blouse onto floor before wrapping her arms around his neck. Picking the girl up momentarily to place her on the bed, he kissed her again. They would only need one bed this night.

Chapter 27- A Change of View

Palose found himself in the portal chamber inside of Ensolus. It was one of two large halls dedicated to the use of the gateways used by their warlocks. The portal chambers had been designated to just two points inside of the city for just one reason; if the enemy ever learned to back track the magic gates outside the empire to these gates, they would discover them well guarded at all times.

One of the weaknesses of a portal was that they could be seen before someone came through. There was no real way to sneak past someone waiting for a doorway to open and those using the gates could be killed or captured before they could comprehend their surroundings.

The chambers had been a source of a great amount of traffic over the last few weeks as Ensolus prepared to take Litsarin from Sileoth. It was an island of riches thanks to the mountain mines and the emperor’s people had settled the eastern side at the time of the Cataclysm. The island was also close to Sileoth, formerly a part of the mainland of the continent. Now a channel less than a hundred miles across separated the Sileoth from the rest of North.

Slightly more distant from Sileoth was Litsarin; but as their country settled and grew, it was a natural progression to settle western Litsarin as well as the smaller island of Sentrias between them. This was where the emperor had recently turned his attention, however.

Palose had discovered the connection between Ensolus and the eastern towns of Litsarin in the form of a couple gates. During the summer, the mizard, Sebastian, and his friends had found the linking stones and disabled the portal connections; but not before the empire was able to send warlocks with the ability to rebuild them. He had even watched as his former friend displayed his strength defeating an ambush of nearly a hundred wizard hunters in the town of Parik.

As much as he disliked Sebastian, in other ways he both respected and was jealous of the man. Palose had died and been brought back to life finding his magical strength amplified due the link between him and the warlock who had created the resurrection man. Even with his increased power and the library of Ensolus; Sebastian had dueled him to a stand still. If he was honest with himself; Palose wasn’t sure that, if their duel hadn’t been interrupted by that girl, he wouldn’t even have lost that fight.

Sighing as he looked at stone gates set in the wall before him, Palose wondered what more he could do to try and be better than the mage.

“There you are!” a feminine voiced cried and Palose nearly cringed.

Turning to see Acheri dressed in a flowing tunic draped to her waist over a skirt coming to just below her knees, the princess looked like she was ready for some walk through a market or perhaps a walk through some flowering tree orchard. Feeling the dark oppression of the stone walls around them, Palose wondered at her flaunting of practical clothing. They were going to some city that he had never been to, but he was pretty sure that such a stylish outfit would be lost on whoever they might meet there.

“Here I am,” he acknowledged the princess with a nod and noticed the approaching vanguard of the emperor. Two trolls led four orcs behind which trailed the black smoke hiding Kolban’s true appearance.

Once the emperor had hidden his visage to conceal the withered husk of an old man, but transferring his consciousness to a new vessel had brought a new problem for leading his people. A teenage boy, still not full grown, was hardly the powerful form his warlocks and soldiers expected; so the black cloud remained when walking through the city. Palose almost felt sorry for the emperor. It was oppressive enough living beneath a mountain of stone in a massive cavern. Living in the black ink cloud swirling around him would be nearly torture to the dark mage.

“Have you ever been to Ponfies?” the girl asked. Acheri was as young as Kolban’s new body. A side note to the creation of his new body had been the making of a female body in case the males proved insufficient. The emperor had chosen to keep an inferior male body and created his new brother, Lanquer. Bestowing a portion of his magical might and much of his memories and knowledge on the other vessels, Kolban had created his siblings.

Palose doubted that Acheri had ever been to Ponfies, but perhaps the emperor’s memories let her know more than he. Shaking his head, the dark mage replied, “I have not. I have wished to see the other cities in the empire. Ensolus might be its heart, but a single city hardly constitutes an empire, does it?”

Giggling as if he had told a good joke, Acheri shook her head. “No, a single city is hardly an empire, but my brother’s realm is made of several cities both in the mountains and on the plains north of this chain of the Dragon’s Spine. Of course, there are the towns of Litsarin as well and a few other places I can not discuss here.”

With a slight loss of humor, the girl mused, “Ponfies isn’t a normal city though. It is as much a mountain fortress as Ensolus in its own way, but part of it exists in a valley between the mountains as well.”

“So you have been there?” he asked.

Acheri frowned and wrinkled her nose at the confusion. “I have not. I only have some of the memories of Kolban’s visits from the past.”

“Do not give away all Ponfies’ secrets already,” a deep voice ordered in amusement from the dark cloud of the emperor. “Let Palose see it for himself and decide. Besides, you have not truly seen the city yourself.”

Acheri folded her arms across her small breasts and turned her head to give an annoyed sniff for her brother’s comment. She wanted to tell him that his eyes hadn’t seen Ponfies either, not with his current body’s senses at least; but the girl knew to hold her tongue in public. “The memories you passed to me are sufficient to know what it looks like, I think; but maybe it will surprise me a little.”

Gesturing to the four warlocks tending the stone of the door, Palose acted for the emperor ordering the men, “Open Ponfies for the emperor.”

The pale glow of the doorway soon formed between the stones and Palose followed the two trolls through the glow. After the brief glimpse of Silver World, the dark mage stepped into a chamber very similar to the one they had just left. It was a bit of a disappointment in truth, but to be expected.

“And here we have the inspiring gate chamber of Ponfies,” Acheri mocked nearly dancing as she spun in a circle with her arms raised to gesture at the dark hall.

Guards manned the walls and two warlocks stood next to the glow of the connecting doorway as the emperor and his guards entered from the gateway.

“I am surprised Lanquer didn’t join us,” Palose said quietly to the princess.

Her smile was kind as she replied, “Kolban has given our brother a large part in preparing for the invasion of Litsarin, or maybe I should say the invasion of the western cities Sileoth placed on his island. I think Lanquer feels better about himself now that Kolban has shown interest in him. He seems much happier than when he feared that he would just be some half forgotten guard.

“I suppose much of that is thanks to you,” the girl said with another brilliant smile. Palose noticed that for all the beauty of her smiles, for some reason the humor didn’t always seem to be reflected in her eyes. Acheri never appeared quite truthful. When she was nice to his face, he often wondered what the true meaning was behind the gestures.

“I merely trained him to use his power like a battle mage to become a better fighter. The rest of it fell to him,” Palose replied.

“But your training started it,” she determined raising her right forefinger to make the point.

“Lord Emperor!” a handful of warlocks called out in chorus across from the doorway. Palose could see a cooler light reflecting on the stones on the far side of the hall. The outside was beyond these men.

A white haired warlock appeared to be the eldest of the men and as such apparently was the spokesman, “Lord Emperor, we are blessed to have you in Ponfies. It has been too long since your magnificence visited our city... your city.”

“Enough flattery, Getraud,” the strangely altered voice of Kolban ordered the old man. “You know why I am here.”

Nodding over and over, the old warlock answered, “You came to hear of our tests and to see the new soldiers for your army. We have been testing them both here and in the field. Toban and Delever have come back from a recent test with a few notes. Not everything went well, but it is only because... well, there is a flaw in the urchins.”

“A flaw?” the emperor questioned imperiously.

The old man seemed pale and he looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in decades already, Palose thought. Thinking of the young man within the dark cloud, the mage wondered if the warlock would cower before the young teen inside the darkness. He doubted it.

Gesturing to two of the younger men; a rough looking warlock with a dark beard and unruly hair as well as a smaller redheaded man with bright blue eyes, Getraud motioned for them to answer. The dark man felt dangerous to Palose and like the others his magic seemed to be concealed to avoid showing his true strength.

The warlock known as Toban began, “We tested the shrikes and the amulets for change this winter.”

“During the incident with Malaketh,” Kolban interrupted. Palose had no idea who this Malaketh was, but the warlock nodded.

“Their wings can cut stone. They are fast and even resistant to fire magic; but flight is their biggest strength. During our test, a man shot them from the sky with wind magic like they were simple sparons,” he said referring to the azure colored birds which were common even in the mountains during the summer.

Palose wondered what kind of wind magic had been used. More importantly he almost felt like it was something Sebastian would do, but that was an unlikely coincidence. Surely the mizard was too important for Southwall to put in the field now. His contribution to their magic was likely to have the mizard locked away somewhere secret where no harm could come to him.

It would be a punishment the man would hate, Palose thought with joy.

Toban had continued and had changed his report onto a second creature during the dark mage’s musings. “The fire urchins were unleashed on one of the eastern nomad tribes. Using one of the shrikes to convey our sight of the prairie to us, we sent them through a gate and observed them destroying the warriors easily.

“We have heard that the tribes of the east use runes to ward their warriors against harm, but nothing they did stopped the urchins. However,” the warlock paused taking a steadying breath, “we watched as a platoon from Southwall joined the hunters to follow the path of the urchins to our gate. When we sent the urchins through to kill the mages and wizards with their soldiers and nomads, it looked like they would be unstoppable once more.

“We noted some strange magic among these people. Some of the mages wielded greater power than they should and used their swords to fling various spells at the fire urchins. Some did little. Some did more damage; but when they began to use the darkness spells the beasts’ fire seemed to be leeched away with the magic. If they avoid wizards knowing these spells, they are nearly invincible. Unfortunately the darkness magic can drain away their power and leave them vulnerable to attack.”

The man paused letting the emperor weigh in if he wished.

“There is more?” Kolban questioned as they began to walk towards the light leading outside of the chamber.

“We brought reinforcements to try and save the dozen urchins. The winged cats and shrikes were brought through a third portal. The man who shot down the shrike fought all that we brought with only a nomad and wizard helping him. His wind spells killed several more before the birds thought to attack him. With just the two others helping him, the shrikes didn’t have a prayer against them on the ground. It is another weakness, though I have seen the creatures train here and can’t believe a single battle mage or wizard would be a match for them. Certainly fifteen shrikes shouldn’t have failed against three.

“The winged cats were more of a success. Their screams slowed the enemy down and their tails stunned any without a magic shield. They are vicious beasts, though again these battle mages can fight well.”