Battle Mage: Winds of Change (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 11) (49 page)

The lead wizard looked confused as well as disappointed to hear that they had waited in vain. "What will you do with these books?"

"Get them, or at least one for me for now, and I will show you. You three can continue with studying the runes you have for now otherwise. None of you have made a copy and you're barely able to push your magic into them. Even without me here, that should be your focus.

"Sitting in the inn all day isn't the best use of your time. You should be taking control of your time and making the best of it, unless you have reconsidered learning how to use these runes?" he finished basically questioning their motive and dedication to learning the magic. While Sebastian didn't doubt Helmar and Nefen's dedication, Ilira had begun to fall behind the men and seemed less inclined to push herself to learn the runes or how to use them.

Helmar stood up with a frown on his face and looked determinedly at the mage. "Of course I haven't reconsidered, but you're right. We have been wasting time just waiting for you. You've given us enough to continue our studies. After all, you had less to learn from before mastering the runes."

"I wouldn't say that I have exactly mastered them. I am still learning as well, but aside from learning to fight or at least defend yourselves with a good teacher, you have the basics. You know what you need to do, but if you'll get those blank books with maybe fifty to one hundred pages, I think I may have another way to add to your knowledge of the magic."

Nodding to the younger man, Wizard Helmar said, "I will head to the scribes and paper merchants to see what can be found. I will bring the books to you by the evening as long as I find them."

"You can give one to Ashleen and keep the others for yourselves. Come back for breakfast tomorrow and I'll explain later," Sebastian urged before turning to go back to his room. Ashleen was quick to follow as a questioning look chased his back.

Once back to his inn room, Sebastian pulled his map of portal locations from the oval rune and unfolded it before placing it on the spare bed. A second blank scroll was removed as well and placed on the pillows against the headboard. The mage examined the map and thought of the spell he had used to discover Palose's gates. The marks for Darius, Palose, the general points and his own marked the map with different colors for each to keep track of them. His mind felt the magic of each user or the gray feeling of multiple users and used the colors to guide him to a gate even if he had never been there before.

Now he placed his hand over the gate in the enemy's city and closed his eyes. The color turned pink and the mage began moving his fingers over the remaining map looking for the same feel. Southwall was the first area covered and he found new gates in New Harbor, South Point, Siltrene and Mariport. He felt both the pink and generic gray gates.

Opening his eyes, Sebastian frowned at the map.

"What are those new points? Some have changed to pink as well," Ashleen said noting the gate in the enemy city.

"I followed the gate to Palose's home or base this morning." Before the girl could rail at him about being careless or foolish, the owl continued, "Do you remember the dark haired girl you fought in New Harbor? This is her magic signature."

"She's making gates instead of Palose?" the wilder asked as surprise misplaced the need to scold him for his morning jaunt behind enemy lines.

Shaking his head, the man answered, "No, she's setting the points. Her magic is charging lodestones that Palose can use without me noticing; or at least until now anyway. He might try using one of the other wizards I found there after me discovering his place, but Palose might not believe that I can search for anyone I know well enough."

"You know her well?" Ashleen asked sounding slightly jealous in her expression.

"As well as those who made the general gates anyway," he replied.

"How did you manage to get in and out without being discovered, Sebastian?" the wizard questioned getting away from the mystery girl's part of the conversation.

"I did a test run with the light corrinuts. They worked perfectly. Four of the people there were still reeling from the light when I made it through and I put them all to sleep.

"The girl must have been in the other room, but I surprised her and put her to sleep as well," the mage said looking at Ashleen with a tight smile of accomplishment.

"You put them to sleep? Why didn't you kill them? You didn't kill them, correct? You aren't just using 'put to sleep' as a way to cushion the blow, right?" the girl asked as worry for the near strangers washed over her. While Ashleen was a lightning wilder capable of great destruction and could easily kill with her magic, she had a good and caring heart also.

"I used the sleep spell. I would prefer not killing anyone and I get the impression that they might not be able to tell anyone about my intrusion without getting into trouble as well. Since no one saw my face, I doubt that they will know for sure who entered the house.

"Since the gate lodestones have been changed, Palose might not even be able to guess that it was me. Even if he does, there is little that he can do about it now."

The girl looked at him trying to judge if he was being overconfident or not, but understood less about the gates so Ashleen couldn't dispute his beliefs. She just hoped that he wasn't wrong.

Settling into silence, Sebastian began to move his hand over the other areas covered by the map looking to see if there were more points with the young warlock's magic. When he found marks where Palose's gates had been closed previously, the mage frowned. When his hand reached the Grimnal's island and found a mark nearly on top of the one he had usurped there, his frown became a scowl.

"He managed to take back the other gates with her magic holding the places?" Ashleen asked though she comprehended the fact from the new marks on the map virtually overlaying Sebastian's replacement gates. Palose, or this girl he knew, had managed to place new gates in Southwall and the islands close to his own, but far enough away to avoid his notice.

"And I didn't spot them when the other gates disappeared," he managed to complain without sounding too disappointed. Portal magic could become a war of wills if both sides could discover their enemies' gates. Reinforcing the guardian cities was looking more important by the minute.

"Of course, Palose may have had both sets of stones there as back up just in case someone should find them, before this even started," Ashleen hazarded a guess that might make things seem a little better.

He could only shrug, but doubted it. The portal in Palose's home base was the girl's and his personal magic was no longer there at all.

Sebastian supposed that they were lucky that more redundant points hadn't been discovered. The former gates known of in northern Southwall hadn't been replaced. Darius had placed traps on those within Windmeer and at the fortress. Other gates, like the one at the Twins, had been moved or completely destroyed in an effort to both bait the emperor and prevent more invasions.

Once the owl felt certain that he had found all the gates that he was going to find this way, Sebastian folded the map and put it aside. The scroll of paper was about the same size as his map. Sebastian did his best to recreate what he had seen in Ensolus. The spatial relations of the capitol city of the Dark One would be important for making better entries on the map to return to the lodestones he had left behind. An extended oval basically, the mage recreated the pink point of Palose's gate before setting the five markings for the new ones that he had planted. The owl also did his best to draw in the sectors that he had walked that morning.

The cave opening and double wall were roughed in, but in time, the mage hoped to return and better understand the city. He drew in where he had felt other magic of significant strength. One that Sebastian felt the least certain of after his exploration was that of the emperor. The Dark One's power was supposed to dwarf any man's, but the mage had seen nothing more than strong auras. There was nothing to set any apart drastically, but the mage marked where he remembered feeling those on his map.

Finished with his map making, Sebastian took Ashleen downstairs to eat. The meal was still before noon and the owl mage hoped that by leaving early, he could reach Tarmand soon enough to see the king of Sileoth before it was too late for an audience today.

Giving Ashleen a kiss outside behind the Black Smith Inn, Sebastian stepped through a portal disappearing from her sight.

Chapter 25- Troubling Paths

The silver light of the so called Void came and went as the mage moved from the sunlit courtyard behind the Black Smith Inn to a dimly lit room in New Harbor. A safe house set up by the king's men and paid for with Southwall gold had been chosen due to a minimal number of windows set high on the walls and a fair amount of space.

Two figures moved in the shadows at his entry and the men looked at him warily until they recognized the battle mage. They were soldiers without magic. While they risked being overwhelmed by an enemy using the portal to New Harbor, the men would also draw less scrutiny from other wizard's senses. Most magic users could sense auras and having a full wizard, or even battle mage, might bring unwanted attention.

It was a sad state of affairs having to hide the portal from the locals, but with all the strangeness happening in the southern city the king and his advisors found trust in small supply. There were still rumblings within New Harbor in spite of the capture of the instigators from the Dark One. Even Count Terris, the king's cousin, was viewed with suspicion as spies from Hala worked to uncover the extent of the damage done to one of Southwall's cities by the Dark One's men.

"Falcon Sebastian?" one of the soldiers greeted as the mage's mind tried to catch up to the distance he had traveled so quickly. The change in light and blind entry made it easier for fewer soldiers to defend the small gate, but made it harder for Sebastian to reorient himself.

He nodded even as the new arrival rubbed his eyes a moment to adapt to the dim lighting.

"You drew a boring duty apparently," the mage replied giving the men a tight smile.

Shrugging, the first soldier stated, "Guard duty, whether in a warehouse or on a wall, still remains boring, at least until something happens. You're our first change in weeks."

"Well, that is probably a good thing, but do your best to keep an eye on it. Has there been any new attention on this building?" he asked assuming that there was little known to the people of New Harbor about this place. The squad Sebastian had worked with to capture the radicals of the separatist movement either remained in the city working out of the guild buildings or had returned to Hala. The environment at the time had made him feel like eyes were always upon him whether he was in disguise or in uniform.

Such a city of suspicion might have had eyes looking out for buildings with the kinds of coming and going that might be noticed from a gate point.

"Nothing too unusual as far we've seen," the second soldier replied.

Needing to keep his presence under the notice of the locals, Sebastian took precautions. "Dragon wings," he ordered the new spell before adding, "stealth."

The sight of his wings brought wide eyes from the two soldiers before the second spell made the mage disappear from sight as he bent light around him. Sebastian moved to the open doorway wishing that using one of his sense spells would have been useful while being nearly completely blinded by the stealth spell. New senses emerged from the magic of the spell to compensate for lost vision at least. His hearing and sense of smell were stronger, but the main sense was a strange shadow sight built into the spell.

Dimly sensing objects and people moving around him, the mage ventured out the door and tried to expand the reach of the short range vision. Sudden realization came to the owl mage as he noted nothing out of the usual as the soldiers had reported, his ability to ride the air would have let him see and still navigate his body. The control wasn't the same as being in his body completely, but he could have searched from the air.

It mattered little, the mage supposed. Searching the city wasn't his mission after all.

Feeling enough open ground to take flight without striking any pedestrians, Sebastian bent his knees before jumping up. His four wings thrust quickly making a dull buzz, which made several people look around for the source of the sound; but the mage was high in the air before anyone had a clue to his use of magic.

The invisible dragon fly lifted high into the air hoping the sound of his wings would be drowned out by the crowds of people below him enough to avoid having any stories of his flight noted. No one could see him, so other than the noise, no one should have a clue.

Heading southwest, Sebastian hurtled through the air quickly making his way out over the channel between Southwall and Sileoth. Letting his stealth spell lapse after sensing no ships near him, the mage followed the contour of the land for awhile. Though New Harbor was one of the closest cities to Sileoth and Tarmand specifically, there were other towns along the way which were closer. New Harbor was the largest and had a large natural harbor as well as access to the Caldene River, which led all the way to the Cadhalla branch and the north. It was a trading center, but as Sebastian remained out from the land enough to avoid notice from the locals, he could see boats and ships in the distance visiting the nearby towns.