Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (8 page)

Retrieving my string of wards, I loop them around myself and close the silver clasp. The spells activate at once, a momentary flicker of magic that recedes into a faint hum barely detectable even to me. I wait, listening for any sound of alarm
.

Nothing.

Perhaps this task will be easier than I’d hoped. I set to work on a series of charms, half listening for movement. The shield built into my wards should keep the vibrations of my magical workings from reaching the mages back at the portal. Regardless, nothing I’m making should be a great enough casting to be noticeable. No doubt some of the charms used daily by the locals would draw more attention.

Still, I work as fast as I can. I finish within a quarter of an hour, scoop the charms into my pockets, and disconnect the wards.

It takes me nearly an hour to visit the three rooftops I’d chosen from among the buildings across the garden from the portal. On each I leave a small pile of charms and smokers. By the time I finish, my feet drag and my head feels heavy. I make my way around the garden by back streets, returning to the rooftop I’d used to spy on the portal. From this vantage point, the gardens lie quiet, the last of the vendors packing up their carts and heading home. The mages still guard their gateway, though they no longer stand. Instead, they sit with their backs against the stone, legs stretched out.

Now would be a good time to put my plan into action, but I’m already weary from a full day’s travel on almost no sleep. Better to rest a few hours and make my attempt when I have enough energy to run, and keep running. I stretch out, using my pack as a pillow. If the mages who rode to Stormwind’s valley return, the ward I set at the pine should alert me with enough time to try the portal before they arrive. I’ll have to trust in that.

I wake with a start while the sky is still dark. It takes me a moment to identify the sound that alarmed me. Then I flip on my side and spot a cat prowling through the broken bits of furniture piled along the roof’s back wall. Not my ward at all. It takes a little while for my heart to slow.

It’s time to move.

The mages are still on guard, sitting with their backs to the stones, though it looks as though the one facing my direction may have nodded off. I’d have to stand beside him to activate the portal, though, which I’m not about to do. Just as well I have a distraction planned.

Downstairs, I press against the wall of a teahouse, closed for the night, and peer around the corner to the portal. No change. I reach out with my mind, letting my magic ride the faint breeze, high and light and easy over the rooftops until, just there, I find the first small pile of charms.

I take a deep breath, listening to the quiet of the night. The first birds have begun to chirp, but the houses remain dark — at least for now.

With a single twist of power, I activate the charms. They explode in rapid-fire succession, sending pinwheels of green and red and orange flame twisting through the sky, their sound ricocheting off the buildings around us. The display might warrant irritation from the mages, but the blanket of black smoke swirling down from the rooftop will assure their prompt attention.

The guards at the portal pivot to stare. A third mage, hidden until now behind the low boundary wall, leaps to his feet, shouting to the other two. A moment later, the pair departs, racing toward the far end of the square. The remaining guard rubs his face and goes to stand before the gateway, facing the direction of the disturbance. I smile tightly. One is better than three.

As the windows of the teahouse brighten, I reach out again, setting off the second set of fireworks and smokers. Dark smoke roils up over the far buildings, lit from within by bursts of heat and light. The remaining mage takes a few steps away from the portal, his back to me.

Already people are pouring out of their houses, men shouting questions as they gain the streets, women pulling their children back inside. I step into the road and move briskly past a knot of men staring up at the fading conflagration, letting those who race forward to offer help speed past me. As I walk, I weave a shield around myself that’s faint as the first light of dawn, the flimsiest of protections but something I can easily strengthen.

A few paces from the back gateway to the portal, I reach out a final time, carefully now — so carefully, because the mages will be watching for magic — and set the last stash alight. Screams ring out in the park as smoke engulfs a third rooftop.

A group of men converge on the mage at the portal, shouting at him across the barrier of the enchanted wall. He snarls back at them, one hand on the sword at his side, the other held before him in warning. The men’s faces look sallow in the early light, their voices hoarse with anger and panic. I feel a twist of guilt at the fear I’m invoking, but it’s too late now to change my course.

Three more steps and I reach the gate to the portal enclosure. I set my hand on it, guessing that the lock will be spelled. Mages would hardly be bothered to keep a key for each portal they wish to travel through. Thankfully, the sigil for
open
glows in my mage sight. I trace it quickly, keeping an eye on the guard.

He shouts at the men, gesturing for them to stay back, his attention so complete he doesn’t notice the faint breath of magic as the sigil releases the gate to me. I step inside, leaving the gate open, and pad over to the portal, moving slowly even though I want to run. It’s vital that those who see me think I’m not inside the enclosure, that I’m on the other side of the wall. That there’s nothing for them to see here.

Gripping a smoker in my hand, I approach the stone sides of the portal, using their bulk to shade me from the mage’s sight. I inhale and gather the magic I’ll need to activate the portal — the age-old air, pine-scented and river-damp, the growth of moss on the stones underfoot, slow and sure.

“You!” A glance shows me the mage turning toward me, hand extended. Behind him, the group of men stares at me, mouths agape. “Halt!”

I smack the smoker against the side of the portal, smoke enveloping me at once.
Now.
Sensing the sigil glowing pale blue in the stone, I pour my magic into it as I trace the lines as fast as I can, my eyesight clouded by darkness.
Open
, I command — and it does.

A force smashes into my shield, tearing through it and knocking me sideways against stone. Swallowing a cry, I push myself off the arch and stumble through the portal.

The world disappears. I’m floating, suspended in night, portals shining all around me like distant stars in foreign constellations. I find the one to Fidanya with hardly a thought. The spider-silk path between us beams bright and strong. It has obviously been traveled by more than a few mages recently. And another one about to come in after me, no doubt.

Tightening my focus, I lean forward. The magic of the portal grips me at once, pulling me along until I’m spinning through a vortex of flickering lights — doorways and their pathways racing by, perhaps even other travelers. I’ve experienced this rush before, a lifetime ago when Blackflame sent Kol and his retinue through a portal to their home. Then, it shimmered past me and I barely caught more than a flash of dizzying lights.

Now, though, I need to concentrate. The mage will likely have entered behind me. Like me, he’ll have identified which path was last used. The moment after I step out of the portal, he’ll follow me out, and I won’t be ready to defend myself. Not against a warrior trained to attack. I need to escape him before then.

As I careen forward, I widen my focus, pressing outward with my mage senses. Three more paths cross mine before my destination. The first hurtles past before I can assess it. The second is bright and shiny — but the last, to my left, glimmers pink so faintly I almost miss it. I swerve onto it with a magic-fueled leap that nearly sends me flying into darkness, the light around me devolving into tangled strands that pull at my body. My bones slam against the sack of my skin as if they might rip through.

I scream into the void, pain obliterating my concentration. Black spots streak across my vision. This is why portals are dangerous. I can feel myself sliding, the route as slippery in my mind’s grasp as fine thread.

No.
I cling hard to the portal with its ancient path, push back with all my force, ignore the pain, staring wide-eyed past the darkness that blurs my sight. For a single agonizing moment, I teeter on the edge of a nightmare precipice. Then the momentum of my new direction sucks me in, steadying me as it pulls me forward into a new vortex of light twisting around me.

The open portal flashes before me. With a gasp of relief, I tumble through it. But there’s no city on the other side of this portal, no crowds to lose myself in or alleys to flee down. There is only sun and dust and the broken walls of a forgotten fortress, silent as a tomb.

I take two shaky steps forward into the debris-strewn courtyard. Agony ripples out from each strained joint, tendons and muscles pulled nearly to snapping.

I gulp down a breath, assess my surroundings. The stone portal stands at the center of an interior courtyard, littered with broken tiles and stones from the surrounding walls of a great fortress. The sun is already bright overhead. The air tastes of dust, hot and bereft of moisture. All around stretches a vast quiet: nothing moves, no bird chirps, neither leaf nor cloth rustles in the wind. This is hardly a welcoming land.

My first concern, however, is the mage following me. I don’t want to be standing here if he steps through the portal.

The main entry to this inner courtyard has been made impassable by the collapse of the buildings that must have once towered over it — but there’s one other option. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I stumble toward a vaguely door-shaped hole in the wall behind the portal.

Halfway across the open ground, a ripple of magic slips past me, faint but unmistakable.

I turn in time to see the mage stagger into sight. He bends over, hands clasping his knees, eyes squeezed shut. My eyes catch on his boots, barely visible past the fall of his cloak — deep brown, polished to a shine, with a curving symmetrical design cut from light blue leather and sewn over the ankle. Rich boots for a wealthy man.

He gasps, shakes his head. He’ll recover enough to search for me any moment now. I’m too close to use a smoker effectively, and anyway he could easily disperse it with a wind. The rubble makes moving silently impossible. I’ll have to shield myself and try to talk my way out of trouble. Keeping my gaze on the mage, I reach out with my senses to gather magic to myself.

My breath stutters in my lungs. There’s nothing there.

I cast about blindly, closing my eyes as if I might sense magic more easily that way. I focus on the energy that should be pulsing through this land, through the very stone around me, through the scorching air.

Nothing.

With a quiet scrape, jarring in the overwhelming silence, the mage takes a step forward and swivels, surveying what’s visible of the courtyard. I swallow hard, eyes wide. He still has weapons he can use — the sword at his side, whatever martial training he’s had. I have no time to pull out my string of wards and connect them, and besides, they’d only trap me here. My best weapon is my voice.