Moonstone, Magic That Binds (Book 1) (44 page)
Read Moonstone, Magic That Binds (Book 1) Online
Authors: Guy Antibes
Nothing protected Piroff’s door and Lotto easily moved the lock’s workings. They stepped in.
A dark figure sat in a large easy chair, lit up with the flickering light of the fire.
“Ah. You passed my test.”
Lotto didn’t place the accent, but he lit a ball of light in the room, revealing a man dressed in loose clothing. His black hair hung down his shoulders underneath an intricately folded turban. He looked at Lotto with dark hooded eyes and grinned. His white teeth showed the swarthiness of his skin.
“I am Peleor, the Emperor’s most trusted wizard and I have been waiting for you two to arrive.” He rose and stood nearly as tall as Kenyr and Lotto. “Now where is the Moonstone?” He threw Restella’s sword across the floor.
She put her hand to her neck and gasped for breath. The sheer terror that Restella felt nearly drove Lotto to his knees. He looked to Mander, Reallo and Kenyr to attack, but they were frozen into place. Lotto threw off Peleor’s attempts to incapacitate him as the Dakkoran wizard had done to his friends. The sword in his hand began to heat up and Lotto dropped it smiling.
The wizard wore cuffs of gold at his wrists and Lotto knew he could play the same game. He charmed the cuffs and they began to heat up and Peleor yelled in pain. Restella dropped to the floor, gasping.
“You have learned quickly,” Peleor said, breathing heavily. “However, Fessano was no match for me and I quickly showed him that his knowledge did not match mine. You are merely his pupil.”
“You laid a glamor on him, didn’t you? On all of them, Fessano, Piroff, Silver. Fessano didn’t really think clearly once you had him in your grasp and now he’s gone.” His demise now became tragedy and the unnecessary loss of the wizard cut into him. That was another count against the Dark Lord.
The wizard laughed as a wind pushed Lotto back.
Lotto thought of a shield and created one out of the air that rushed towards him. He couldn’t be bound with what spells he knew, but would have to combine them and use them differently as he did in Gensler and Happly. He pushed the shield ahead of him as fast as he could and reshaped it into a battering ram, slamming into Peleor and pushing him over the chair and into a heap on the other side.
A ball of flame shot towards him and Lotto did the simplest thing he could think of, he ducked and rolled, picking up Restella’s sword as another bolt of flame singed his left arm. He built another shield that stopped yet a third bolt. Mander and Kenyr remained standing like statues and Restella again clutched at her throat, fighting for breath. He could feel the terror echoed from her experience in Happly.
Time seemed to flow slowly as Lotto rose and shredded the clothes off of Peleor as he had Restella’s gag in the dungeon cell. The man gasped at his nakedness as the cloth fell off of his body and as the cloth of his turban turned into threads, his hair and the fibers fell down his shoulders and over his face.
Lotto ducked another fireball and threw a knife at Peleor. It hit the man point first, but was repelled by something and clattered to the floor.
“You can’t pierce my shield. Give up and I’ll reward you with more than you’ve ever desired.” Peleor gloated and threw some kind of compulsion spell at him
Lotto could feel the pull of the power on his mind, forcing him to accept Peleor’s offer. He resisted as much as he could and started throwing all manner of objects at the Dakkoran sorcerer. The spell let up, giving Lotto a chance to put a coating of something that he had just named ‘anti-magic’, the stuff that Peleor had been put on the lock in the dungeon around Restella’s sword and walked up to the wizard and plunged it into Peleor’s chest.
“I am protected, you can’t kill me!” Peleor said in obvious disbelief and began gasping for air. Piroff peeked around a corner and fled from the room before Lotto could do anything with his weapon still in Peleor.
Lotto twisted the sword and the dark eyes dulled.
Kenyr and Reallo both fell over as the Dakkoran’s spell faded. Mander ended up cutting his leg with his sword as he crashed to the floor.
“Did you see Piroff run away? It looks to me that he’s just discovered he made a bad mistake. We just took care of Daryaku’s creature.” Lotto said fighting for breath, fell on his knees and couldn’t keep his eyes open as his physical and magical strength left him.
~
The barest hint of dawn lit up the room. Lotto started and rose from the bed and felt his tightly wrapped left arm.
“You’re alive!” Restella said, leaning over and kissing him. “For a bit, I couldn’t feel you.” He could hear the hint of a sob.
“I didn’t dream either. I used up most of my power fighting that man. I don’t think I can even light a candle,” he said, trying to do so, but couldn’t. “What about Piroff?”
“He slid out the door when you fought the wizard,” Restella’s hand went to her throat. “Kenyr and Mander have men out trying to find him. Once the wizard died, a lot of the men realized that they had been put under a spell like Fessano. At least that will be their story.”
“You heard what Peleor said?” Lotto knew she did as soon as he said it.
Restella nodded. “Most of it. I could hardly breathe, but I heard. Silver probably had been put under a spell as well. Duke Happly, Forthwith, Ashdown and the king of Prola. That’s pretty potent magic.”
“It is and we’ll have to find a way to stop it. Perhaps we need to send a bird to Duke Jellas in Gensler and have him summon Shiro. The sorcerers of Roppon are as practiced as Peleor. I think we all have our different ways.”
“What is your way?” Restella asked.
Lotto shook his head. “I’m not sure. Bessethian magic has regressed over time. Peleor has his own tricks and so does Shiro and his Red Rose contingent.”
“I can’t imagine magic that will turn a man so quickly. Who can we trust?”
Lotto rubbed his chin. “I don’t think Peleor had to entirely put his victims under his spell. I’ll bet they all had weaknesses that the man exploited. Fessano’s books, Silver’s estates, Happly’s rule of Valetan.” Lotto laughed. “I’ll bet a bunch of them thought they’d rule Valetan. I think he just had to exploit what was already there.”
“We all wondered what you did to defeat the Dakkoran wizard?”
“I had to react and think quickly. Time seemed to slow up so I could think. I decided I would put a coating of, all I can think to call it is anti-magic, the spell that kept me from opening the lock of the dungeon. His shield didn’t work on the coated sword. Peleor showed me the way to defeat him. I had just about reached the limit with my power and had to risk it. I’m relieved that it worked, for I couldn’t have fought him for a minute longer.”
Restella smiled. “I liked your diversionary tactic removing his clothes. How did you think of that?”
“I couldn’t throw anything at him, so I remembered shredding your gag in the dungeon.” Lotto shrugged and they both laughed. “I can think of other uses for the technique.”
She looked alarmed. “No! I know what you’re thinking. No! At least not until we’re…”
Lotto stood up, strong enough to gather her in his arms. “We’re what?”
She hit his wounded arm. “It’s no fun when you can see right into my mind.”
He winced. “There are other ways to have fun,” and then kissed her.
~~The End~~
The Story Continues in Book Two of the Warstone Quartet:
Sunstone | Dishonor’s Bane
Table of Contents
Copyright ©2014 Guy Antibes All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the permission of the author.
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This is a work of fiction. The locations, places and characters it depicts are products of the author’s imagination including the use of fictitious names, places, and situations. Any resemblances to actual persons, locations, or places are purely coincidental.
Published by CasiePress in Salt Lake City, UT, January, 2015
www.casiepress.com
Cover & Book Design: Kenneth Cassell
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Print ISBN:
ISBN-13: 978-1503291997
ISBN-10: 1503291995
Thanks to my wife for putting up with my passion for writing.
With a lifelong passion for speculative fiction, Guy Antibes found that he rather enjoyed writing fantasy as well as reading it. So a career was born and Guy anxiously engaged in adding his own flavor of writing to the world. Guy lives in the western part of the United States and is happily married with enough children to meet or exceed the human replacement rate.
You can contact Guy at his website: www.guyantibes.com.
If you could, please leave a review of Moonstone where you purchased this book.
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B
OOKS BY
G
UY
A
NTIBES
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