Children of Prophecy (17 page)

“What do you mean?” Stret demanded.

“Do this for me and come to us,” she replied. “You will discover all you want to know about everything. Including yourself.” With that, Kor’tal’s eyes snapped shut again.

When they opened, he slumped back in the chair. “That is not exactly pleasant, you know,” he observed. “I hope you got what you wanted.”

“You’ll have to help me pack the carriage I’m going to have my men buy,” Stret told the other Mage calmly. “My books are rather dangerous for non-Magi to handle, and my retainers deserve at least some concern”

“Carriage?” Kor asked, his voice somewhat blurry.

“Well, I’m not leaving my books behind,” Stret said logically. “Plus, we’re going to need some way to transport our ‘rescuees.’“

Kor looked up from his slump to meet Stret’s eyes. “You’re coming then?” he asked.

Stret looked towards the eastern wall, towards the Waste and the
shek’maj’hil
. “Your mistress has intrigued me,” he admitted. “I’m coming.”

Stret’sar studied the Mage-fort-Academy as the carriage approached it. One hand guided the horses without much thought, while the other adjusted the heavy cloak he wore over his purple robes. He reached out with his senses to confirm that Kor’tal was ready, then flicked the reins, convincing the horses to go faster.

They reached the gates of the fort, and Stret glanced up. “Hello the gate!” he shouted up.

A Mage, probably an Initiate, appeared in the gatehouse above. “What is it?” he yelled down in return.

“Delivery,” Stret responded.

“Delivery of what?” the youth demanded. “Nothing’s scheduled.”

Stret paused for a moment. Once he made the next move, there was no going back. Ever. On the other hand, he’d made that decision a
long
time ago. This was merely confirmation of it.

“Chaos!” he yelled, throwing off the cloak.

As the Initiate gobbled, Bor’yets swung the carriage door open and put a crossbow bolt through the youth’s throat. The Mage toppled, the body falling from the tower to impact on the ground near the gate.

Stret gave the corpse a glance, and looked quickly away to the gate. It was three meters of ironbound wood, spelled against any attack. He shrugged, then blew it down with a chaos lance that overwhelmed its shield without even trying.

He leapt from the carriage to run through the ruined gate, raising his shields as he went. For all his studies, this would be the first time he had ever used his magic for real.

Fire blazed over Stret’s head as he rolled forward. He came up to his feet and saw the Death Mage who’d attacked him. He didn’t even bother to try and ascertain the Mage’s level, but merely sent a full power chaos lance across the courtyard.

It ripped through the Battlemage’s shields like they were tissue paper, and continued on to do the same to the Mage’s body. Gore sprayed across the group of students the Mage had been instructing, and Stret turned his gaze upon them.

Before he could identify the child he’d come for, fire hammered into his shields. He turned to find that three Magi, one of whom appeared to be an Initiate, – he didn’t have a staff – had appeared in the doorway of the main keep.

As Stret raised his hands to attack, he heard the twang of Bor’yets’ crossbow. One of the Battlemagi waved the bolt aside, freezing in shock as the bolt’s payload hit regardless.

Stret grinned. To give his retainer a chance against the Battlemagi he’d bound the bolts with chaos, which meant they temporarily disabled the magic of someone who used magic on them. The Battlemagi’s shields went down, and Kor’tal’s chaos fire burnt him to ashes as Bor’yets dived to the side.

Stret’s fire hammered the shields of the second full Mage for a moment before the shields collapsed and the Mage shriveled. He turned to the last Mage, to see a chaos lance slam into the Initiate’s chest.

The Drake Mage turned back to the children, but another group of Magi appearing distracted him. As he faced them, chaos fire suddenly flickered over their shields.

“I’ve found the boy! I’ll take these, you go get Jia’har!” Kor’tal’s yell was barely heard over the hissing of the exchange of fire between him and the three Battlemagi

Stret checked to be certain Bor’yets was out of the line of fire. He spotted his retainer concealed behind the carriage. The ex-bandit nodded at him. Stret returned the nod, and charged for the door.

Stret was perhaps ten steps into the main foyer when a voice spoke above him. “Greetings and defiance, Fallen One,” it said quietly, but confidently.

He turned at those words, to find himself facing a man of middle age in the formal robes of a Battlemage, slowly advancing down the stairs.

“Hail and ill met, Battlemage,” Stret replied, bowing mockingly.

The Battlemage inclined his head. “I am the Falcon Mage Jua’ran, master of this fort,” he said coldly. “Now, tell me your name, so it might be remembered after I kill you.”

“I am the Drake Mage Stret’sar,” Stret told the man with a cold smile, “and I think it is you who shall be killed.”

The formalities completed, both men launched their attacks. Jua’s white fire criss-crossed with the inconstant purple of Stret’s chaos lance.

The Chaos Mage shrugged off the older Mage’s attack, hurtling another chaos lance at the Battlemage. This time, Jua used Air magic to dodge the attack, flying through the air to land in shield contact with Stret.

Before Stret could react, the old Mage reached through both shields and sent fire flaring at Stret from within the younger Mage’s shield.

The fire split and scattered on the inner shield, a defensive spell Stret had created specifically to defeat this style of attack. His own hands reached out in retaliation, but he didn’t bother with magic. He merely locked his hands around Jua’ran’s throat.

The Mage slowly sank to his knees, his shields collapsing, as the air was cut off from his lungs. His hands scrabbled at Stret’s, but flicks of chaos fire burned them away. Stret tightened his grip until there was a sickening crunch, and the old man stopped breathing.

He dropped the body and headed towards the staircase the fort commander had come from. Most likely, the old Mage had been interrogating Jia’har himself.

No other Magi barred Stret’s path to the northern tower. He was close enough now that he could locate Jia by the sense of chaos. The man was alive and, so far as Stret could tell, unbroken.

That meant that the remaining Magi should be trying to bar Stret from reaching the spy. They appeared to either be in hiding, or headed for the courtyard. Battlemagi wouldn’t do
either
of those unless they knew that there was something barring Stret’s way. Something they thought he couldn’t get by.

But there was nothing. He paused at the top of the tower stairs, sending his senses through the door. Jia’har was there. There was no-one else there.
Too easy
.

He opened the door, and found that he was right. It had been too easy. In the center of the room, calmly facing the door, was a kneeling man in formal battle robes, carrying a staff. Around his neck rested an amulet of some kind, an amulet Stret would have sworn was familiar. His age seemed indeterminate, but he seemed to radiate power.

“Ah,” he said calmly. “Drake Mage Stret’sar. I’ve been waiting for you.” He nodded regretfully. “It’s a shame, really, that you came so far to achieve so little. But your intelligence on this little strike wasn’t entirely complete.”

“Oh? And what did we miss?” Stret asked, slowly trying to circle about the man.

“That the person who captured Jia’har was
me
, and that I was still here,” the man said quietly as he stood. “I am the Hawk Car’raen, Fallen One,” he said calmly. “And you are about to die.”

The Hawk Car’raen.
Now
Stret recognized the amulet. The Hawk Amulet, containing a millennium of stored knowledge and power.
Well, look at it this way,
he told himself,
now you get to find out if you really are the world’s best
.

Stret raised his hand, palm upwards. Chaos fire flickered over it. “Let’s do it,” he said firmly, letting the fire lash out from his hand, flickering over the Hawk’s shields.

He barely had time to raise an eyebrow, impressed at their strength, before a brutally powerful lightning blast slammed into his shields. Stret took a step backward, then another one, as the attack pushed at his shields.

Another step backward and then Stret took control of the part of the shield being attacked, turning it into a reflector. The lightning turned back towards the Hawk, only to die halfway to its creator.

Stret followed up the reflection with a chaos lance. It slammed into the Hawk’s shields and pinned the Mage for a moment. Then it simply broke apart, as it was suddenly overlain with order, shattering the chaos.

He barely managed to push up his shields’ power before the Hawk raised his staff to launch his next attack, an interlocking wave of lightning, fire and the deadly black light of order lances – an ability
very
few Death Magi ever mastered, from what Stret had read.

It took everything Stret had to hold that attack, which
had
to be everything the older Mage had, focused through the staff.

The Death Storm weakened slightly. Stret pulled what power he could from the shield, and reached into his own deep reserves, to unleash his own storm.

Chaos fire, ice, lightning and lances hammered across the small space between the two Magi. The Chaos Storm interpenetrated with the Hawk’s Death Storm. For a moment, the small space between them glowed with sheer power, and then both storms suddenly flashed out of existence.

Stret stared at his enemy in surprise. The Hawk had managed to interweave his spell with Stret’s, and collapse them both simultaneously. It seemed to have taken everything out of him, though. As Stret watched, the man slumped back against the wall.

Stret stepped forward, raising his hands to send lightning flashing at the man. It dispersed on the Hawk’s shield, but Stret could tell the shield was weaker now. He raised his hands to attack again, but Car’raen vanished before he could.

Stret walked forward to where the Hawk had been standing when he’d vanished. He waved a hand through the space, but there was nothing there. The Mage had teleported.

He grinned. He scared the ‘great’ Hawk Car’raen so much he’d run away – using the most dangerous and difficult ability known to Magi. Teleportation was Gray Magic usable by any Mage, but it was inherently untrustworthy. Difficult to use, it drained the user tremendously and, on top of that, there was about one chance in three that you simply wouldn’t survive the trip. Tired as he was, Stret straightened. He’d just faced the most powerful Battlemage alive – and
won
.

Stretching slightly, he reached out with his senses to find Jia’har. He walked over to the door the man was imprisoned behind, and touched it. Locked. It clicked, and that was no longer the case.

Entering the room, Stret faced the man he’d come to rescue. Jia’har was sitting in a plain wooden chair, bound to it by what appeared to be silver chains. Most likely silver-gilded iron, since silver prevented chaos magic being used on it, but was far too weak in itself to hold a determined man.

“Who the hell are you?” Jia’har demanded.

“I am the Drake Mage Stret’sar,” Stret said, as he took his knife to the lock on the chains.

“Drake Mage?” the imprisoned Mage questioned. “I don’t remember being told about you.”

“That’s because I wasn’t working for your people until they decided they needed me,” Stret told him. A simplified version, but true enough.

Years of experience of picking locks without magic made his task simple, and the lock quickly broke. “All right,” Stret told Jia’har. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” Jia said, his eyes looking around wildly. “The Hawk Car’raen is here. He’ll try and stop us getting away.”

“He already tried,” Stret said, grinning. “He failed. He ran.”

Jia’har looked at him. Stret continued to grin. The spy straightened up. “Well, in that case, shouldn’t we be going?” he asked dryly.

Stret laughed aloud as he led the way out the door.

By the time Stret and Jia had reached the courtyard, the exertion of his clash with Car’raen had caught up with the young Mage. He was having difficulty maintaining his shields and walking at the same time, but he kept them up nonetheless as he left the building.

The courtyard was destroyed. There was no better word for it. The stones of the paving had been shattered and broken. Some of them even looked
melted
. Scars from lightning and blasts of flame marked what few intact stones remained. Stret looked around carefully and found Kor’tal and Bor’yets.

The Chaos Mage held a small boy and had taken cover behind what
had
been the fort stables. It was little more than a pile of loose stones now, but it kept the blasts of flame from reaching him. Bor’yets, on the other hand, was still hidden behind the carriage, which had survived the entire battle completely untouched, despite the fire that flashed over it every few moments.