The Kingdom of Eternal Sorrow (The Golden Mage Book 1) (4 page)

Nevertheless, even in her disarrayed state, she was intoxicatingly
beautiful—just as the prophecy claimed, he suddenly remembered, but that was
hardly proof, no matter that she was more beautiful than any maiden he had ever
laid eyes upon. Aidric wistfully wondered what color her eyes were, resisting
the urge to pull her eyelids up for a peek. He imagined them to be a shade that
he had never seen on another, just like her golden locks.

Perhaps rose—

A flash of light on her wrist suddenly caught his attention, jarring
him out of his ridiculous musings. He gave his head a sharp shake. He must
still be in shock.

Aidric cautiously bent over to examine the source of the flash. The
light proved to only be a reflection off the glass-like surface of a strange
piece of what he thought was a bracelet that she wore loosely on her wrist.

He gingerly lifted her wrist closer to his face so he could get a
better look and immediately dropped her arm in alarm when something inside the
glass centerpiece moved. He backed away suspiciously from the object and sent a
Probe of Inquiry down at the object to try to discern if the source of the
movement had anything to do with magic. What his probe encountered left him
puzzled.

It isn’t magical
, Aidric thought in confusion.
There is
energy about it, but it isn’t Mage-field or life-force energy. What, then,
could possibly be the source? Could this object have come from the Thrones
themselves?

Once again, he lifted up her wrist and inspected the strange object.
Inside the circular glass against a backdrop of swirling, green waves, a small,
pointed bar extending out from the center moved rhythmically around in a
circle. Around the outer edges of the circle lay a series of peculiar,
evenly-spaced symbols engraved into the background. Two similar bars also emerged
from the center of the circle, one shorter than the other, but they did not
seem to move.

Baffled, Aidric delicately tugged on the bracelet-like object until he
was able to slip it over her hand, and once free, he immediately banished it
into his magical storage plane to examine later. At the moment, the young woman
was his primary concern.

Her face was locked in a grimace of pain that distorted her beauty,
which was far more concerning than the sight of her blood. Normally, magical
trauma caused weakness and bleeding but nothing more painful than a prolonged wine
headache. Only a severe case would cause unconsciousness.

It isn’t magical trauma alone that ails her, then. Could she have
foolishly seared her own mind away?

He laid a tentative hand across her dampened forehead, closed his eyes in
concentration, and sent out a mind-probe to read her.

Pain!

Aidric recoiled and nearly lost the probe when his mind touched the
pain. He drew a sharp breath in and cursed. It was the same—the same pain he
had felt when her screams had filled his mind. Even though her screams had
ceased, her mind was still experiencing that terrible agony. Had she not fallen
unconscious, she would have been writhing in agony and probably half mad.

She was unconsciously reading the minds of every soul within the
borders of Lamia. The volume those millions of voices created within her mind
had never been meant for mortal ears to hear. Magical trauma and shock would be
the least of her problems if she didn’t receive the care of a healer, and soon,
not if she ever hoped to awaken from her unnatural sleep.

Through his probe, Aidric could also see the raw, untamed magic of that
miniature Mage-field that now surrounded them flowing wildly through every
particle of her body, causing every nerve ending to be alive with pain. He
withdrew his mind-probe with a shudder, unable to imagine the pain she was
enduring, but one thing was perfectly clear. She was untrained.

Though Aidric was a powerful mage, luckily for her, he was also a
powerful healer. The young woman needed treatment immediately from both types
of practitioners, or else the magical energies would consume her.

Gently caressing her troubled face, he eased her pain by placing his
own magical shields around her mind, blocking the stream of voices from
entering it and also blocking her ability to use her mage powers. He could
sense the wild energy pushing against the shields, but he was confident that
they would hold until he found the time to strengthen them.

Her face immediately relaxed from her grimace once he had relieved the
cause of the chaos within her. She sighed weakly in her unnatural sleep,
shifting her head restlessly to the side before she fell silent once again.
With the grimace gone, she looked even more beautiful to his eyes than before.

Satisfied that she was no longer in excruciating pain, Aidric shrugged
off his cloak and draped it around her body. Then he gathered her into his arms
and rose swiftly from the ground. She felt as if she weighed nothing in his
arms. She didn’t even stir.

Turning towards the direction where he had left Shadow tethered, Aidric
pondered over whether or not he should use the portal spell to transport them
to his quarters at the palace at once or to ride. The portal spell required a
tremendous amount of channeled power and concentration that usually left him
feeling battered and weary for several sand-marks unless accompanied by another
mage who added their own channels and strength to the spell.

He needed to begin healing the magical shock she was suffering as soon
as possible, but he knew that he would be too drained to tend to her if he
performed the portal spell. He could always ask the king’s personal healer to
tend to her, but the thought of letting another touch her made him feel
surprisingly uneasy.

No, it’s better for me to heal her since I already know her mind so
well
, he reasoned.
Besides, the fewer people that know of her, the
better.

He glanced down at the sleeping girl in his arms and said to her,
“You’re safe now, milady, and when you wake, I’ll discover if the old Golden
Mage prophecy has any truth to it.”

With those final words, he set out into the forest again, retracing his
steps back to the Lake of Tears path, resigning himself to an agonizingly long
ride back to the palace.

The palace grounds swarmed with the usual assortment of servants, mages
of every class, apprentices, bards, petitioners, and noblemen hurrying to and
from the huge, iron gates of the palace wall to whatever tasks demanded their
attention for the day. Aidric watched them from afar, tightly shielded from
emotion, hidden from view by a convenient clump of trees. He knew that if he
attempted to ride through the palace gates with the young woman in his arms, too
many curious eyes would see. Many questions would be asked, questions that he
had no answers for at the moment.

Aidric muttered heartfelt curses under his breath. There was no choice.
He would have to use magic if he hoped to slip into his rooms unnoticed,
something he would have rather avoided while the girl was still so raw and
damaged. The shields he had placed around her mind
should
keep her from
sensing any magical energy, but with the way the untamed power within her was
currently battering against those shields, he feared even the smallest hint of
magical energy would get through and trigger another burst of power and shatter
them just as she had easily shattered his own shields earlier.

Still, he really couldn’t risk anyone learning of his discovery just
yet, either. Those in power might see her as a threat to the safety of the
kingdom and order her to solitary confinement until they decided what to do
with her. He shuddered, knowing all-too-well how miserable the palace dungeons
could be. Most of the weaker prisoners never emerged alive again.

I’ll
not
allow that to happen to her!

Shadow would have to stay behind. Although the steed was as silent and
well-mannered as a horse could be, Aidric could not take the risk of Shadow
whickering at an inconvenient moment.

Aidric carefully dismounted and set the girl as gently as he could onto
the soft grass. Quickly, he tied Shadow’s reigns to one of the trees, giving
the horse enough slack to graze as he pleased. He would send one of the stable
boys for Shadow later.

He then closed his eyes and carefully began the spell that would ensure
all eyes that tried to look at them would see nothing but what they expected to
see, making them for all intents and purposes, invisible. The wave of magic
flowed from his hands and settled over the girl’s body like a thin film of
mist. He did the same to himself and afterwards, gathered her into his arms
again.

 Luckily, the line of people entering and leaving the palace grounds
had thinned somewhat, so the danger of bumping into someone and ruining the
effects of the spell was not as great. He kept to the edges, and after a few
close calls with children suddenly darting in front of him, Aidric was safely through
the gates.

Not one of the two dozen guards on either side of the gate glanced in
their direction even once. In fact, they eyed the travelers with a bored
indifference. Frowning, he wondered if that indifference was feigned or
genuine. The matter definitely deserved further scrutiny, but for the moment,
the light weight in his arms reminded him that he had more pressing matters to
attend to first.

It seemed to take an eternity for Aidric to cross the seemingly endless
lawns surrounding the palace before he safely reached the side entrance of the
palace that led to the Mage Hall where his private suite lay. The area was
currently empty.

Heaving a huge sigh of relief, he prayed to Seni that the main hallway
would also be empty as he awkwardly reached for the door handle, trying not to
jostle the girl too much, and cracked open one of the two tall, golden-bordered
marble doors. He saw none of his fellow mages as he peered down into the gloom
of the main corridor. Just to be extra sure, he sent out a Probe of Inquiry, but
it found no one still within the Hall.

Satisfied that they were alone, Aidric stepped into the hallway and dismissed
the invisibility spell. He hurried down the corridor to his quarters at the end
of the corridor that lay thankfully unlocked. He seldom spell-locked his door
since none of the mages ever worried about thieves entering their domain. Most
of the common folk believed that a dire spell would strike dead any potential
thief if he or she even attempted to enter the Mage Hall without permission. Completely
untrue, but the mages allowed the uninformed to continue believing it. If the
rumor kept their quarters safe from thievery, then the mages saw no reason to
set the record straight, and for once, Aidric totally agreed with them.

He quickly passed through the sitting room, ignoring the enormous
spread that a servant had left him on the dining table against the far wall for
lunch, even though his stomach began to growl in protest at the delicious
aroma. He carried the girl into his bedroom and gently laid her onto his
enormous feather bed.

She moaned softly as she sank into the coverlet and her head hit his
down pillow but otherwise, showed no signs of reviving. A mercy, really, since
she would be spared the misery of consciously feeling the shock-headache.

Aidric pulled his robe from her and replaced it with one of the thick
blankets that lay folded at the foot of the bed. There was a cold bite to the
air, and he had enough to worry about with her extreme case of magical-shock,
let alone the problems a chill could add to the mix. His bedroom, despite being
windowless, annoyingly could sometimes be quite glacial, the result of bad
architecture.

Satisfied that she was warm enough, Aidric bent over her and lightly
laid both hands onto her forehead to begin the healing. He closed his eyes and wove
slivers of his own life force through her mind, finding and healing the places most
traumatized by what she had done to herself in her apparent ignorance of her
mage powers.

He winced at the state of the natural magical “channels,” a type of
energy ley-line that wound throughout her entire body. It was worse than he had
thought. Her channels pulsed in some places with a type of inflammation. In
others, the flow of energy was disrupted, redirected, to the point of seeping
out beyond the normal flow as though through cracks in a barrier, causing significant
damage to the surrounding tissues that were never meant to be touched by the
energy of a Mage-field.

Aidric found it hard to believe that anyone would do this to themselves
intentionally, even a potential spy testing out her abilities against Lamia’s
Mage-general. Another sand-mark without treatment, and the damage caused to her
brain would have been irreversible, possibly even fatal.

A few moments later, he drew his hands and mental connection away with
a shiver of pleasure, her healing complete. The feelings that healing aroused
in the healer were very similar to those aroused by lovemaking. Aidric always
felt embarrassed after healing a patient because most were well aware of the
feelings of pleasure he was experiencing. Some even teased him about it, but
with his current patient unconscious, this time he was thankfully spared the
awkwardness. He listened closely to her rhythmic breathing without the usual
discomfort and determined that her sleep was now natural and not shock-induced.

For a long moment, Aidric stared down at her sleeping face and debated
whether or not to wake her or allow her to awaken naturally when she had slept
off the exhaustion. No one was expecting him anywhere for a few sand-marks, so
sitting by her bedside and keeping watch wouldn’t be a problem. However, he
wasn’t so sure any of them could afford to let the mystery of this powerful
maiden go unsolved any longer, even if she did need the rest.

Taking a deep breath, he mentally touched her mind and sent a
mind-thought that commanded her to awaken, hoping in the same instant that he
was not making a serious mistake.

***

She was dreaming of colorful lights of no distinct shape that danced in a
large circle around her, shimmering beings at least twice her height, gleefully
laughing at her because of her obvious fear of them. She turned from left to
right in a futile attempt to escape them, but they were
everywhere
,
slowly closing in on her as if they meant to devour her.

She seemed to be standing in a vacuum of darkness with the only source
of light being those dancing lights and the light radiating from herself. She
could hear their mocking laughter surrounding her as if it were wisps of fog
ready to squeeze the warmth from her body.

It didn’t take long for their persistent ridicule to finally anger her
enough to banish most of her fear and to rush at the nearest dancing light, the
energy emitted by her body glowing more fiercely, her mind focused on one
thing—to destroy it. God, she had never felt so
alive
!

However, before she could reach the offending light, the dream suddenly
faded, and Allison awakened to the unfamiliar sensation of something incredibly
soft enveloping her entire body. Disoriented, she tried to remember where she
was. She only knew that the bed she was sleeping in was not her own. It was
simply too comfortable.

Then, as sleep gradually left her foggy mind and remnants of her
strange dream returned to her, she suddenly recalled the brilliant rip of light
that had sucked her into its realm of madness and the strange forest that she
had found herself in after her terrifying experience moving through that
colorful realm of light. Had that been real?

Her eyes instantly flew open, and what she saw made her heart freeze.

A strange man loomed over her, staring down at her with a mixture of
curiosity and wariness evident on his face, but that was not what made her
heart begin to race in sudden fear.

He didn’t look altogether
human
.

He had a mop of hair as white as newly fallen snow that fell in soft
waves to the top of his shoulders, hair that should have belonged to an old
man, but this man’s face was smooth, young. He was no older than mid-to-late
twenties, surely. His eyes were a strange, but beautiful, pale-violet that she
had never seen on another human being—not even with colored contacts. His skin
was only a shade or two darker than his hair, as pale as any albino’s skin. He
was not incredibly tall, about six feet, but he still appeared to tower over
her like a giant out of myth.

His clothes looked as if he had just stepped out of the pages of a
history book describing the fashions of the past. He wore a long, full-sleeved
shirt the same color as his hair of a material that resembled silk but cast off
a brighter luster. It was laced together in the center with laces that seemed
to have been coated in real gold. Small jewels that appeared to be diamonds,
sapphires, rubies, and emeralds adorned the cuffs of the shirt, as well as the
shoulders and collar.

A cape of silky sapphire edged in gold fell down his back to come to
rest a couple of inches above the floor. It fastened around his neck by a gold
and sapphire brooch in the shape of a teardrop more beautiful than any piece of
jewelry Allison had ever seen.

The breeches he wore were of the same sapphire blue of his cape, tucked
into a pair of brown, leather boots that rose to just below his knees.

All of this, Allison took in with a single sweep of her rapidly
widening eyes.

She was suddenly very afraid.

After a moment of tense silence, near tears, she worked up enough
courage to ask, “What are you? Where am I?” She nearly choked on the words as
she all but whispered, “Am I—dead?”

The man frowned and shook his head. His whole demeanor seemed to become
suddenly agitated at her words. She instinctively shrunk back.

Oh God—maybe I insulted him when I asked him what he was
, she
thought in alarm as the stranger continued to frown, his pale-violet eyes
staring intently down at her own as though trying to see down to her very soul.

“
Mei agio nea legera ois ventia. Aut ois legera meis
?” he said
with a shrug, looking expectedly down at her.

Allison’s heart clenched painfully as a maelstrom of fear and confusion
thundered through her entire being, and she recoiled as far away from him as
the bed permitted, finally losing the battle to keep the tears at bay. She had
never heard the language that he was speaking. She only knew the few phrases and
words in French and Spanish she could remember from school, but neither of
those languages sounded even remotely like the words he had spoken. His
language seemed to consist of mostly vowels with a few harsh consonant sounds.

Where the hell
was
she?

The man took a hesitant step towards the bed and stopped when Allison
whimpered in fear.

I’ve got to get out of here!
she thought frantically, her eyes
darting wildly around the room until they settled on the wide-open door across
the room.
But—can I make it through before he can stop me?

***

Aidric looked down at the girl’s tears in dismay.

I’m frightening her. Although, I can’t say that I really blame her. Waking
up in a strange room with a strange man looking down at me—I imagine I would be
quite alarmed.
He clenched his fists at his side in frustration.
How in
the six hells can I make her understand that I mean her no harm when we can’t
even communicate?

The language she had spoken was totally foreign to him. It was a tongue
that resembled nothing he had ever heard uttered, even in the strangest of
dialects, much less was it amongst the dozens of languages that the Master
Linguist, Zenas, had magicked into his memory.

Even so, Aidric had hoped that she would at least understand Lamian.
Instead, she had looked at him as though his words had been the snarls of a
beast. He couldn’t even resort to reading her thoughts since touching a mind so
recently traumatized in such an invasive way could cause irreparable damage to
her psyche.