The Castrofax (33 page)

Gabriel met her pale greenish eyes and forced
himself to smile.
‘She could be the woman. She looks enough like
Robyn,’
he thought dismissing the idea quickly. She had a
heart-shaped face, a small chin and straight nose that turned up a
little at the end. Like all the Arconians, she was slender and
graceful as she walked up to him, smiling broadly. She had a pretty
smile and straight teeth behind little pink lips.

She took one of his hands up in both of hers
and clenched it as she beamed up at him. She was shorter than Robyn
by several inches. “It is my great pleasure to meet you,” she said
in Arconian. She spoke as though her mouth was too small for her
words, making her all the more adorable. “The palace is aflutter
with stories of you, I can hardly decide which is true and which is
concoction.” She giggled a little and bit her bottom lip. Her eyes
wandered from his face and ran down his coat. “Mikelle no doubt has
many a great story.”
‘Oh I bet she does.’
“She and I
are…very close friends.”

Gabriel’s shoulders unknotted as a true smile
came to his face. “It is a pleasure to meet you as well.”

“Enough,” Nolen muttered and grabbed black
fabric off the back of a chair. He tossed it at Gabriel. “Put it
on.”

Gabriel caught the large piece of fabric and
expected it to be some humiliating instrument, but it was a Mage
cloak. Castle Jaden issued a Mage their own cloak after a Classing,
but Gabriel had left his hidden in Urima Manor. He looked to the
insignias stitched over the right breast and found them to be
accurate; the star of the Spirit, the double-hooks of Fire, the
twisted leaves of Earth, and the single-edged blue ring of Water.
Once, he would have been thankful to hold such a cloak, but now it
was only a sad reminder.

He slung it around his shoulder and buckled
the two silver clasps. “Hood up,” Nolen snapped, and Gabriel pulled
the black hood over his head. Lace took a moment to adjust the hood
and smooth the fabric over his chest with a little smile bubbling
over into a giggle.

“Let us be going,” Nolen cut in and stood
beside them. He ripped Fire from Gabriel’s chest and clumsily laid
a pattern, leaving Gabriel dazed for a moment as the energy left
him. Lace laid the same pattern in a far more fluid fashion, and he
realized it was the sidestep-pattern. A sidestep was a pattern as
old as the first Mages, designed to move the space between places.
It required all five Elements wielded by a Class Six or higher.
Anyone weaker could not move correctly, and the folly could kill or
maim. It was rarely used nowadays because there were so few Class
Sixes. It was the fastest way to get from one spot to another
without moving.

“Where are we going?” Gabriel asked. Nolen
raised his hand, and Gabriel flinched, but Lace lashed her hand up
and grabbed Nolen’s wrist.

“Focus,” she said. “Straighten that line and
loop this circle more southward.” She spoke with a little accent,
and as her fingers pointed, gems on every digit sparkled. A net of
pearls capped the top of her head, and a necklace studded with
sapphires graced her slender neck. She was both educated and rich,
and she must have known someone in power to be in the Arconian
group.
‘Dangerous,’
Gabriel decided.

Nolen’s eyes darkened at the girl half his
size. When he was done with Fire, he drew Earth, yanking it from
Gabriel’s chest sharply that left his head spinning. Elements could
not be drawn too quickly or too deeply, for it would unbalance the
mind and body, leaving some dazed and others unconscious. After
almost five years as a Classed Mage, Gabriel never had problems
with drawing, but Nolen was unfamiliar with the strength of a Class
Ten.

“Gently,” she whispered as Nolen drew. She
took up Gabriel’s hand and Nolen’s forearm. “You lead.”

Nolen took the remaining four patterns and
pushed them together in a column around Lace’s. The pattern fueled,
and Gabriel felt lightheaded. The surroundings slowly changed as
though a fog blew through and brought with it new sights. The salon
faded into a dark tan background, and sharpened into a wall with
blue sky above it. Faintly, they heard someone give a shriek, and
it grew louder as the new world thickened and Kilkiny Palace faded.
Someone ran passed them, dressed in odd garb, and several others
backed away.

Structures sharpened, and Gabriel saw a
magnificent building in the foreground made of dark tan stone,
stacked high in a spiraling fashion. Similar spiraling pyramids
came to view in the background, and painted a variety of colors.
Gabriel knew each pyramid was a house, and as he looked about, he
saw more ranging in height and angle. They were in Cinibar’s
capital city Viorica.

Sounds of horses trotting and people shouting
reached his ears as the last of the salon vanished. Nolen and Lace
cut the patterns and looked about. Someone shouted at them in a
sluggish, full-tongued Cinibarian accent and pulled his middle and
index fingers across his forehead in a crude gesture.

A man on a simple garron trotted up wearing
the dark-and-light blue uniform of Cinibarian soldiers; a sturdy
tunic banded with a black sash. His rank was sewn down the chest in
white. Gabriel did not know what the crescent-shaped markings
ranked him, but the man was older and carried himself with a
distinguished presence.

“You,” the soldier declared and saw the Mage
markings on Gabriel’s coat. The man smoothed and looked at Nolen.
His face fell slack for a moment. Gabriel had not noticed the
silver coronet on Nolen’s head before. The soldier dismounted
swiftly and bowed. “You gave us a right fright, my Prince,
appearing out of naught. What business do you have with us
today?”

As Nolen gave orders to the soldier, Gabriel
looked around. It was evident he was in a courtyard, and he judged
the largest red stone structure to be Telmon Palace, but he had
only seen sketches of it before.

He felt a tug on his cloak and realized they
were moving. The Prince and soldier spoke to themselves, so Lace
reached up under Gabriel’s cloak and found his elbow. “How do you
know Mikelle?” he asked after a while.

“We attended the Mage Academy together,” she
answered in Arconian. “We have been friends since before our
Classing.”

“You test for your Class earlier than we,
don’t you?”

“We test at seventeen. The Headmaster of the
Academy decides at the end of our schooling, along with his Quorum
of Seven.” The Headmaster acted much the same as the Head Mage but
had less power, answering instead to the King. The Head Mage
answered to no one but his Council.

“Does your Head Mage not know about these?”
she asked and touched a nail to his wristlet. He found it
interesting that no Mage would touch them with their skin.

“He knows.”

“You have an excellent grasp of our language.
Have you been to Arconia?”

“Not yet. I studied Arconian when I was
younger, and my instructor refused to speak anything but his
tongue.”

“We are required to learn your tongue early.
Nearly everyone speaks it if they come from a highborn family.”

“I am woefully unpracticed,” he answered in
his mother tongue, and she tittered.

“You will learn it well enough by the time we
leave.”

“When will that be?”

She patted his arm. “As long as it
takes.”

‘
Robyn will be twenty in a few weeks. I
just have to hold out until then. Then we’ll see if she will let
the Arconian Queen leave with her skin attached.’

The air was warmer than in Anatoly City, and
Gabriel could feel beads of sweat forming on his brow under the
hood. They walked through the main doors standing wide open. The
Queen was holding court this morning.

The halls inside were a warm cream with deep
blue marble tiles paralleled either side by little brown tiles.
Cinibar’s wealth came the best fabric dyes, oils, wine, fine
leathers, and tropical fruits; however, she was best known for her
production of strong blades. Cinibar had a dozen mines that
produced fine metals and had hundreds of master smiths. Gabriel
remembered General Calsifer had a Cinibarian blade, wrought with
the decorative handle of a master smith. While each kingdom
produced their own weapons, a Cinibarian blade would hold out far
longer than any other, and it would not need to be sharpened as
often.

Cinibarians had dusky skin and darker eyes
with brown or dark red hair. They were of average height and build,
and most bore the signature bold nose of their race. Their
bloodlines came from Shalabane many Ages before, and years of
generations had bred out the droopy eyes, wide mouths, and faint
mustaches both Shalabane men and women bore.

Cinibarians were also known for their bold
women, and their willingness to bed whom they pleased. As he passed
women in the hall, those who caught his eye gave him a hot look. A
few made passes at Nolen, and he responded back with a playful word
or well-placed pat. A passing solider smiled at Lace, and she
pulled Gabriel’s arm closer giving him a sharp glare.

The doors to the throne room were open, and
people milled about waiting to speak with the Queen. The room was
smaller than Kilkiny’s and less decorated, but regal nonetheless
with tall overarching supports and blue tiles creeping up the
walls. The Moon Throne sat on a long dais on the far wall. The
chair was made of a single block of white wood carved into a full
moon with a crescent inlaid of gold highlighting the Queen sitting
in the center. A thousand lit candles stood behind her on the walls
like twinkling stars, and above the chair hung the yellow banner
with two black gloves holding the sword of her house, Du’Bray.

Mage Queen Challis wore a beautiful blue gown
with a tight bodice revealing the shoulders. Atop her head was the
Moon Crown; a burnished silver coronet with a center piece set to
look like a crescent moon on its side, surrounded by twinkling
diamonds to mimic stars. She had not aged since Gabriel last saw
her almost five years ago. Her long brown hair was done up and
curled into one coil hanging down her left shoulder. It was the
same style he first saw her with.

To her right sat a man in green writing on a
tablet, and to her left sat a pretty young woman in pink who looked
bored as she played with the folds of her dress. Their entrance
stopped her fidgeting. Nolen marched up the center of the aisle,
pushing peasants out of his way and raising several protests. Queen
Challis looked at the commotion and straightened in her throne.
Pinching her lips she held a hand up to the man standing before her
to silence him.

“You have some nerve, Mage Prince Nolen,” the
Queen said reproachfully.

Nolen put a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder in
what Gabriel thought was almost friendly, until he pushed all his
weight down and forced Gabriel to a knee.

“And you have information I want,” Nolen
replied sternly. “Where is my sister?”

Challis put a brow up. “What makes you think
I know?”

“You will tell me,” Nolen barked.

“You have manners to learn, Prince.” Challis
snapped and stood. Guards immediately flooded from the wings with
raised halberds and unsheathed swords, but she put a hand up to
stop them.

Nolen tightened his fingers on Gabriel’s hood
and pulled it back with a fistful of hair. Challis looked at him
for a moment before the recognition passed over her eyes. “Mage
Gabriel?” Her eyes flew to his neck and wrists and returned to his
face. “No,” she whispered and clenched her fists into her divided
skirts. “I thought the note from the Head Mage to be a forgery, for
no man would knowingly put another in a Castrofax.” Her eyes
snapped to Nolen’s. “You dare set foot in my city! Are you here to
threaten
me
?” she yelled. “You know our kingdoms have
long-standing alliances.”

“Your Grace, you need us more than we need
you,” Nolen replied haughtily. “Now, my sister’s location and we
will leave.”

“You
will
leave, Prince Nolen.” She
looked at Gabriel. “I had hoped your father would marry you to my
eldest daughter, Celise, or one of my other two daughters,” she
gestured to the young woman in pink who watched the show with
interest. She had lovely eyes like her mother’s with a nose not so
bold as most Cinibarians. “I am sorry, Mage Gabriel, I cannot have
your power here uncorked. You must leave.”

Gabriel lowered his eyes. She could not help
him, and a little hope ebbed from him.

“Councilwoman Selene, you, and my mother are
the only people who know Kindle’s location.” Nolen stated. “I know
this because Selene voiced it.”

“Have her tell you.”

“She cannot. She is dead.” Challis stiffened.
“Arch Mage Ryker Slade killed her,” Nolen said, and Challis threw
up a palm.

“Do not speak his name here.”

“It is no secret. Your people should know of
this.” He turned to the people around him who had moved well away.
“The great Arch Mage who started the Mage Wars has awoken and
escaped Castle Jaden.”

“You taint this room with your very breath,”
Challis snapped. “I will not have a servant of Ryker Slade
here.”

The guards moved into action without an
order, rushing forward with brandished swords and spears. Gabriel
felt the power leech out of him as Nolen laid a pattern and threw
it out. The soldiers buckled and screamed as their knees shot
out.

“Go ask your
mother
where your sister
is!” Challis yelled as people ran from the room.

“I would rather not kill her or destroy
her
palace in the process.” Nolen replied and drew deeply
from Gabriel’s stamina. As a pattern fueled, Gabriel felt the
tiniest weakening of the energy in the room. Someone died. Challis
screamed at him to stop as one by one pinch-patterns and light
shards shot through the pushing crowd. Nolen had learned the
patterns quickly, and though they were sloppily laid, they were
correct. Ryker must have instructed him. When the people were gone,
half a dozen laid dead on the floor.