Trail Of The Torean (Book 2) (9 page)

He poured energy into her and felt bone draw together.

She sighed, taking a deep, pain-free breath.

Their faces had drawn together as he worked. She was so close. He could kiss her. He could taste her lips and wrap himself around her. He could draw her in and …

His hunger rose through the depths, dark and cold and already ravenous. He felt his hand reaching toward her. He felt …

Garrick pulled back, blinking with horror at the thought of what he had been about to do. His heart thudded in his chest, and his palms were suddenly clammy.

“It’s all right,” Suni whispered.

But, no. It wasn’t all right. It wasn’t all right at all, and there was no way he could explain to her why this should be. She would have kissed him. He knew that. She would have placed her life directly into his hands. And it would have been a disaster.

For all of her self-confidence, this was one area in which Sunathri most definitely did not know what she was doing.

Or did she?

Had he noticed a sense of expectation in her expression?

He moved away. They sat, staring at each other.

“What do we want to do about him?” Darien said, oblivious to the exchange. He pointed at the Lectodinian who lay tied up on the ground.

Suni broke her gaze.

Garrick glanced at Darien, then back at Suni. “You said you were looking for us?” he said.

“No, I said I was looking for you.” She gave Darien a quick glance. “No offense. I admit I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m Darien,” he said, proffering a hand.

She took it.

“Darien. Right. Darien. Good to meet you, Darien,” she said as if trying to memorize the name.

“Why were you looking for me, then?” Garrick asked.

“Don’t be dense.”

Garrick raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“I want you to join my order,” Suni said.

“Ah,” Garrick replied. “So you’re the one causing all this trouble?”

“The orders are causing the trouble,” Suni said. “The Freeborn just want to exist. But, admittedly, the orders don’t want anyone cutting in on their business, and it scares them when we give magic to the common lot better than they can.”

The Lectodinian gave a contemptuous sound that was half laugh, and half grunt.

Suni took two quick steps, and kicked the Lectodinian high up on the thigh.

The mage groaned.

“Stop it,” Darien yelled. “We don’t mistreat prisoners.”

Suni backed off.

“Sorry,” she said with no real signs of remorse. “The bastard deserved it. My horse broke its legs because of him.”

“I said,” Darien replied more firmly, “we don’t mistreat prisoners.”

“Too bad the orders don’t see it that way.” She turned back to Garrick. “So, are you in?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I had heard rumor of your order while I was in Caledena.”

“It’s no rumor, Garrick. We’re the real thing.”

He waited.

“The orders have always kept independent wizards at bay, right? They hunt us when we get too powerful or too rich—just like they’re doing now—they probably consider it culling the herd. It’s never been right, but until now no one has much cared about a dead wizard here and there.”

She gave Garrick a crooked smile that took his breath away.

“But we’re changing things—economics, agriculture, entertainment—everything. We’re helping the people of Adruin, and the orders are so afraid we can win the hearts of the people that they’ve actually banded together to stop us. They know if they don’t do it now, we’ll be too powerful to stop later.”

Elman didn’t say anything this time.

“You think you can challenge the orders?” Darien asked.

“If I get a group that’s large enough and talented enough.” She leveled a crystalline gaze at Garrick.

He suddenly felt angry.

She was recruiting. That's all this was.

They had been so close earlier, so intimate. He was attracted to her. How could he not be? And she had been ready to kiss him.

But the truth was clear now.

Sunathri was just like everyone else with power—a person of position who wanted to use him for her own purpose.

He backed away.

“I’ll be back,” he said. “I want to be alone for a moment.” Then he stepped into the darkness of the night.

It was perhaps a half-hour later when Garrick returned to camp,

Darien stood sentry over the Lectodinian, and Suni, healed but worn, was sleeping in her bedroll. He smirked at Garrick’s return, but said nothing.

Garrick thought he might be too anxious to sleep, but he was tired, drained, and uncomfortable. Having healed twice tonight, his reservoir of life force seemed wooden and lifeless.

He sat back against the hard rock and closed his eyes.

Chapter 13

Black dragons swooped in, carrying horses with broken legs. He poured himself into the horses one by one, but still the dragons came.

A mage with a triangular scar on his hand stood to Garrick’s left, and another who smelled of blood stood to his right. They judged his performance with each horse—hands raised for well done, lowered for disaster. Both mages’ hands were now down, and yet still the dragons carried a river of freshly wounded animals to him.

“Make it stop,” he pleaded.

But a dragon placed another horse before him. The animal screamed in pain and lay on its side. Its eyes were black pools of panic. All four legs were broken.

He healed it, but several more dragons wheeled about in the pink sky above.

The Lectodinian mage laughed as he lowered his hand farther.

“Faster,” he said. “You’ll never catch up at this rate.”

Garrick was empty now. The undeniable essence of hunger crushed him. It was a burning blackness inside the pit of his stomach. He had to feed.

Another dragon landed—this one carrying a unicorn, bright and pure with a coat gleaming of opalescent glory. Its horn was a swirl of blue and silver. Its eyes were filled with intelligence.

Life force within the animal called to him.

No, he thought. Please, no.

Garrick’s fingertips grazed its mane, and the unicorn screamed in agony.

He tried to pull away, but his hand wouldn’t let go.

He inhaled the animal in great gulps. It filled him, its magic rushing through his body.

Then the unicorn was a withered husk on the ground, its mottled fur covered with maggots, its horn charred and broken.

Bile rose in Garrick’s throat.

The judges’ arms rose, and smiles appeared on their thin lips.

Above him, a hundred dragons circled, carrying horses that dripped with fresh blood.

Garrick woke in a cold sweat.

Suni slept on her bedroll. Darien lay slumped over the ring of stones, clearly in a sorcery-laden daze. Empty coils of rope lay where the Lectodinian had been, the knots still tied.

The mage was gone.

Chapter 14

“This is very good work, Elman. Thank you for your research. We shall speak again soon.”

“You are most welcome, Lord Superior. I look forward to it.”

Zutrian Esta shut down the communication spell, and gave a frustrated sigh.

He gazed around his laboratory.

He had just finished grounding a mixture of cobalt and eagle feathers that he had planned to boil into a solution of pure spring water. Then he would have added the marrow of the underplane demon that sat in the flask nearby and that smelled so strongly of tar.

The components were ruined now. Elman’s call had broken his experimentation. At least this time, however, the news had been worth the loss.

Zutrian gathered the braziers he needed.

After months of negotiations and planning, he could now do this magic in his sleep, though the lack of sophistication of the Koradictines’ casting still annoyed him. He found Ettril Dor-Entfar’s magic to be undisciplined and wasteful, no different from any other Koradictine, really. They had no foresight, these mages. Their castings lacked elegance, and they used the magestuff of Talin as if it would last forever.

It made him angry when he thought about it.

He made the proper artwork and set the necessary components in their places.

When the work was done, the Koradictine’s face appeared in the liquid circle.

“To what do I owe this
unanticipated
pleasure?” Ettril said.

“We have an
unanticipated
problem,” Zutrian replied, ignoring the distaste that rose into his throat at the mere sound of the Koradictine’s voice.

“Tell on, my friend.”

“One of my order has discovered a Torean with unaccountable powers.”

Ettril’s lips pursed.

“Such as?”

“He has healed, and he has killed. He is said to have destroyed two of our mages with a single spell.”

“Interesting.”

“It gets more so when you learn that the Torean in question is said to be an untriggered apprentice. And one’s interest grows even deeper when you find that his path has crossed with that of the leader of the Torean vagabonds we have been searching for.”

A cloud crossed the Koradictine’s face. Zutrian waited for the other mage to come to the most obvious conclusion.

“The Torean House has a god-touched mage.”

“That is what my scout has reported.”

“We
both
assumed it was a possibility.”

Zutrian gave him a gracious nod.

“Who is this Torean?” Ettril asked.

“His name is Garrick—once apprenticed to Alistair, a Torean who fell during one of our assassination runs.”

“But we gave orders to take all apprentices?”

Zutrian shrugged to hide his annoyance at the question. He was tired of having to lead the Koradictine through these simple logics.

“Garrick apparently had the good fortune to be away during the raid.”

“We need to take care of this.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Of course I have a plan. That’s what I do all day. I sit here in my war room and I plan for what will happen next. Perhaps it is a Lectodinian thing.”

The Koradictine did not rise to the bait.

“What are you thinking?”

“Garrick appears to be travelling toward Arderveer. I think we should divert our armies to that city.”

The Koradictine furrowed his bushy brow. “I think it is too early to deal with Takril.”

“Sometimes life takes unexpected paths.”

“Jormar and Parathay have not yet captured all of the western half of the plane.”

“That is true,” Zutrian replied. “But our forces are progressing better than we planned. I suggest we leave our god-touched mages to finish their efforts, but direct each to send half their army to Arderveer.”

“Half an army each? Will that be enough to take a god-touched mage?”

“A full army fronting a collection of mages of proper strength should suffice. Garrick is only an apprentice, after all. If we take him now, we can keep it that way.”

Ettril nodded, contemplating.

“All right,” he finally said. “It’s worth the risk to eliminate the Torean before he becomes a larger problem. Let me take it to my planners. I will respond this evening.”

“Until then,” Zutrian replied.

The Koradictine’s face faded from the circle, leaving behind a cloying mist of blood-tinged steam.

Chapter 15