Color Mage (Book 1) (39 page)

“Your Majesty,” Callo said. “I will not help you invade Ha’las.”

“Why? Grown to like your father?”

Callo felt uncertain. The color magery died down, receding until it was no longer visible.

“Yes,” Sharpeyes said. “We planned it together, Si’lan and I. You would be the heir to both lands, stopping this endless Watch and the unceasing raids. We planned peace, the ku’an’an and I! At least, he planned peace. I planned to take you for my own and raise you as a
righ,
knowing your duty to your king. I knew that one day, when you came to your full potential, you would know how to repay me.”

“You betrayed him,” Callo said.

“Betray! You will learn that word has no meaning for a ruler. My duty is to guard Righar. I care nothing for that puny, frightened island and its few distorted ku’an—so worried about their private pleasures that they cannot rule the land. Besides, the old King died before his time, and left that travesty Ar’ok on the throne.”

Ar’ok was a travesty. Callo agreed on that. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, beginning to feel confused. He was very tired, and the color magery skirled along his veins, making it difficult for him to think.

“So will you join me, Nephew?” asked King Martan, all warmth and support, his hand stretched out to Callo from across the room.

Callo looked at Arias, but Arias sat on the floor with his head in his hands, still battling with whatever the sudden release from the Collar had done to him. The guardsmen were ranged to the side of the King, screening Ha’star’s body from his view. Callo felt the color magery curling through his body, seeking release. He shifted on his feet. It was hard to think while controlling the energy, and it would not be forced down with his nerves in the state they were.

“I can help you with the color magery,” the King said gently. “You need a mentor.”

That rang wrong. A mentor? Sharpeyes? Callo looked away from the King.

Then Kirian was at his side, her hand on his arm. “Callo,” she said. “You have done what you came for. Remember?”

He knew she was trying to ground him. Her touch on his arm was warm and comforting. He took a deep breath. “No,” he said. “I cannot be your heir.”

“What else would you be?” Sharpeyes said. The lamplight gleamed on his circlet and lit his gray hair to dignified silver. The King had always been the only source of stability for Callo, as a child rejected by his mother, as a boy educated in the palace, to a young man gifted with his own holding. It was hard to spurn the King’s offer. Then Kirian tugged on his arm, and Callo remembered the King’s malicious laughter as he told Callo of his Ha’lasi parentage. He looked at Arias, also Sharpeyes’ nephew, and also the victim of the King’s manipulations.

“It doesn’t matter,” Callo said. “I won’t do it. Let us leave here, Your Majesty.” The magery grew stronger yet somehow less distracting.

“Why would I let you go, to offer your power to another?” Sharpeyes gestured, and the guards moved, shoving Kirian away, circling Callo. One took his sword and belt knife and threw them into the corner of the room. “If you will not come willingly,” Sharpeyes continued, “Then you will come by force.”

“It will do you no good,” Callo said.

“You might be surprised,” Sharpeyes said. He smiled, a most unpleasant expression. “We can persuade you, I think.” He gestured and a rope of energy flew out to encircle Kirian again, lashing her arms to her body. She cried out in pain; this was no gentle restraint, the King was hurting her, scalding her. Her voice acted on Callo like a spur. He dropped his internal barrier and, fast and powerfully, flung out a stream of somnolence at the five guards, dropping them on the floor in a welter of mail and arms as they simply sat down, drooping against the floor or wall. Perhaps it should have been fear, he thought, and they would have run away—but then the Castle would be roused, and all the other guards upon them, and Callo did not think he could manage that.

With the guards temporarily disabled, he leaped across the floor and grabbed his sword from where the guard had thrown it. Then he waded across the inert bodies of the guards, heedless of treason, to strike back at Sharpeyes and free Kirian from his uncle’s powerful magery.

That is, until he felt another sword, hard at his chest, its point pushing into his tunic and stopping him cold.

He looked away from the King, his vision fogged with rage and the effort of maintaining the ku’an influence on the guardsmen.

The sword at his chest was held by Chiss.

Chiss held the sword steady, with no sign of wavering. The point had run through his tunic and broken the skin; blood trickled down his chest under his tunic. Shocked, Callo froze long enough for Chiss to remove his own sword from his grip, and fling it once more across the room.

“Chiss?” he asked. Unbelieving.

“My lord.” There was nothing but calm in Chiss’ voice, as Callo had heard it hundreds of times—as if the man responded to Callo’s request for a new tunic, or to be awakened at a certain time. Except this time he was poised to murder Callo.

Kirian gasped. The King’s restraints were burning her. Callo’s level of desperation rose. The color magery flickered in the corners of his vision. He felt, more than saw, Chiss grow tense as the other man caught it too.

“Let her go!” Callo ordered the King. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, trying to suppress the resurgent energy inside him, then re-opened them to see that Sharpeyes studied him with a calculating look.

“I don’t think you can do anything about it,” Sharpeyes said. “You are mine, Callo. Born by my will, raised by my plan. You are too full of power to ignore it. You have no choice but to use it.”

“I plan to use it,” Callo said. “If I don’t—bad consequences. But I won’t use it for you.”

“Then what of
her?
” The King gestured. There was an odd limpness about Kirian. She had fainted, but she did not fall; she was held upright by the King’s magery. It wrapped around her like a fiery vine, lighting the room.

Of course, Sharpeyes would use her. That was the point of all this. And if Callo refused to acquiesce in the King’s plan, Kirian would die. If he tried to break the King’s color magery or attack him, Chiss would kill him. Chiss, his mentor, who had protected him during the years when he learned to hide his ku’an abilities.

“All the gods, Chiss. Why?”

Chiss did not answer. The King did.

“He has always been mine, Callo. I hired him with the understanding that, if you were ever to threaten me with your magery, he would kill you.”

Callo tried to move away, but the sword moved with him, taking a layer of his skin with it. It seemed that Chiss was serious. Still fighting the color magery lest it force an uncontrolled and probably catastrophic escape, Callo was still.

He saw a movement in the corner of his eye—not the magery. It was a dark and furtive motion. Callo forced himself not to look in Arias’ direction. Then a blaze of golden fire arced like lightning and struck Chiss in the chest, knocking the man away from Callo. The sword clattered to the floor and Callo swept it up, leaping over Chiss and raising the weapon to strike at the King.

Fire met his strike. The rope of energy holding Kirian vanished with an audible crack and rematerialized, snaking toward Callo. A shield of energy forced Callo’s sword back. He could not touch the King. With a gasp of relief, Callo finally let go the seething color magery and let it escape. It crackled around his hands. He flung it, with no subtlety, toward the King.

The King’s hands were glowing with the power in him. He met Callo’s color magery. Sweat dripped down Callo’s forehead. Somewhere in the room someone shouted, but he could not tell whom. He lost his hold on the five guards, and expected them to join the fray at any moment as they awakened from the ku’an influence. Light flared elsewhere in the room, and Callo realized Arias had set up a shield of sorts around the guards; they were unable to move past the curtain of energy. But he knew Arias would never attack the King—no matter if Callo was dying at his uncle’s hands.

Callo moved a little backward and his foot struck a limp form on the floor. Chiss. Anger at his betrayal claimed him again, and the color magery intensified. Sharpeyes flung up his other hand as if to ward it off and staggered back.

Then Kirian was at the King’s back, holding a sword. She wavered on her feet, but she gave Sharpeyes a solid club with the hilt. Sharpeyes jerked in pain. His mage shield faded.

Just like that, Callo grabbed onto the color magery with all his will and hauled it back in to himself. It burned coming back in, as if it wanted to be loosed for good, but Sharpeyes was swaying and defenseless now, and Callo would not murder his King.

Kirian stepped back. He could not see her through his fight to restrain himself. Brilliant floaters rotated in his field of vision. The power fluctuated, getting bright, and then faded a little as he struggled.

“Callo! Try harder!” said Kirian right behind him.

He could not respond.

“Your Majesty!” called one of the guards, still stuck behind Arias’ shield.

Sharpeyes regained his balance. He stood, hand on his head, for one moment with his gray eyes riveted on Callo’s struggle. “Go ahead – destroy yourself,” he said. “I do not care whether you live or die from it.”

The King turned and walked out of the tower room.

Kirian came to him. “Callo, Callo, we must go. He may call more guards. Come now; you can follow me.”

“I’ll help,” Arias said, almost groaning as he levered himself off the floor. He still maintained the shield that barricaded the guardsmen against the wall. One eye still on them, he said, “Chiss, before me.” And he drew his sword.

“Don’t kill him, Arias,” Callo said.

“I don’t know why not. But—as you wish.” Arias gestured. “He can walk before me, and if he tries to do anything to you, I’ll kill him then.”

“There will be no need. I will do my lord no more harm.” Chiss got up from the floor, wavering on his feet, and placed himself before Arias. He did not look at Callo.

Callo took a deep breath and silently repeated the invocation to Jashan. He felt the color magery become more manageable. His vision returned to normal.

As soon as it was safely buried, along with the psychic magery, behind his wall, he staggered. The world looked dark, the people in it shadows.

“Come on, my love,” Kirian said, her hand on his arm infusing him with warmth. “Stay on your feet. Several flights we have, if I remember, and the King may have roused the guardsmen.”

“All the gods,” Callo said. It was half a prayer, half a curse. He needed rest. His head swam. Kirian, still not recovered from her own ordeal, was his rock. Shame at his weakness threw new steel into his shoulders, and he pulled away from her and lay his hand on his sword hilt. “I’m fine. Stay back. The King will have roused the Castle, and I must be on guard.”

“Gods, poor Ha’star,” Kirian’s voice broke on the words.

Callo went down the stairs first. He knew Sharpeyes would not give up so easily.

Chapter Seventeen

Arias grabbed a sword from one of the fallen guardsmen and held it at Chiss’ back, forcing the manservant into the lead. Callo followed, then Kirian. The stairwell plunged down into darkness. Arias used his magery to light a beacon, which floated just above their heads, lighting the way with a red glow.

Kirian sighed in relief. She hated the darkness.

“Arias,” Callo said, “The King will have roused his guard.”

Arias nodded. “My guess is, we won’t see them until the second floor.”

They tensed at the bottom of the stone tower stairs, but all was quiet. There was no sign of any attempt to obstruct their way. Kirian began to feel a little seed of hope that they might actually get out of this – but where were the King’s men? Surely he would not let them go so tamely, when Callo was so instrumental to his plans. They went faster down the next two flights. Callo hissed a warning at Arias as they approached the door where Ha’star had killed the guard. They rounded the landing with caution, but there were no guards there, and the body of the slain guard was gone.

Kirian had just passed the door when it swung open and men boiled into the stairwell.

She shrieked and ducked, hand fumbling at her belt dagger. Callo struck over her head, and a man dropped his weapon and fell at her feet, gushing blood. Scrambling out of the way, she saw the color magery light the stairs as both Callo and Arias loosed the energies they controlled. Two more men were flung back, screaming as the color magery burned their skin. She saw Chiss standing below Arias on the stairs as if he had all the time in the world, making no attempt to escape while the color mages were distracted. He stood against the wall, watching. Kirian crouched and made herself as small as she could, and winced away from the swords and the sizzling bolts of magery.

Then the noise faded, and five guards lay dead on the landing and top few stairs. Callo leaned over one man and said “He wears the raven. King’s man.”

“Good,” Arias said. He grinned. Kirian decided she could not help but like him, since he was so recklessly happy in the face of this disaster. Arias grabbed Chiss’ tunic and hauled him back up and over the bodies. “Back into the second floor,” Arias said. “More King’s men will be downstairs.”

“How many?” Callo asked.

“He brought a score. Some are outside. I have several of mine on this floor, if they haven’t run down to see what the fuss is about.”

Callo peered through the door and gestured them in. They were in the old section of the castle, with its stone floors and tapestry-hung walls. The long corridor was lined with doors, resolutely shut. A lamp, burning low, sat in an embrasure in the wall. The hallway looked deserted. The nobles here were staying out of it, behind their doors, though they must be well aware there was a battle going on. Kirian saw no guards; she thought they must be downstairs or inside the rooms with the nobles they were responsible for guarding. Arias slammed a hand into one of the doors and said, “Sim, are you in there with Forell?”