Wedding Bells, Magic Spells (4 page)

“So…As to how you’re doing, you’re tired, but you know what your job is, and you’re determined to dig in and do it.”

“Damn right.”

That job would be one of the most difficult I’d ever heard of, but it was the one he’d picked, and he was the best man for the job.

So was Mychael.

After what had happened in the mirror room this morning, I didn’t know what I was best qualified for, but I suspected it wasn’t anything I wanted to do.

I glanced down at my hands. Hands that had been glowing dark red only an hour ago. Red with unknown power.

Or worse, a power that I knew only too well.

I needed to find my father as soon as I could.

Eamaliel Anguis had been bonded to the Saghred for nearly nine hundred years. His life had been lengthened by contact with the stone. Maybe soul-sucking rocks got lonely, too, but I knew the real reason—the Saghred couldn’t feed itself; it needed someone to sacrifice souls to it. My father hadn’t fed it a thing, so the first chance it got, the Saghred had slurped him up and used its wiles to try and trick me into eternal servitude.

If anyone would know what magical remnants the stone could have left with me, he would.

I lowered my voice even further than it had been. “Sir, did you hear what happened in the mirror room with Markus?”

Justinius kept walking by my side in silence for at least a minute.

I swallowed with an audible gulp.

“Raine, whatever you’ve got going on in there, you saved two men today—Mychael and Markus Sevelien. Whoever almost killed Sevelien and latched on to Mychael didn’t like whatever it was you did. In my opinion, that makes it good; I don’t care what color your hands were.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. I’m simply calling it like I see it.”

If word got out, other people would be calling it something else—something evil.

“I don’t give a damn what anyone else thinks,” the old man said. “And neither should you. You possibly still being more powerful than anyone else is their problem, not yours.”

I smiled a little. “Anything I can do to keep you from picking up my thoughts like dice on a table?”

“Nope. You don’t play cards, do you?”

“I try to avoid it—for just that reason.”

“Probably a good thing. For you, that is.” He gave me an impish grin. “But if you ever feel the need to play a few hands, promise you’ll let me know.”

“I’ll do that.”

We walked in silence for the next few moments.

The attack on Markus might be enough to postpone the peace talks. If it turned out the elven ambassador was dead, they might be scuttled before they even got started. Not to mention, what Justinius was trying to accomplish by getting rid of the Conclave’s corruption had never been attempted at this level.

“Sir, I don’t mean to be the voice of gloom and doom—”

The old man snorted. “Since when?”

I pressed on. “Do you really think this stands a chance of working? Especially now with what happened to Markus, and whatever may have happened to Ambassador Eldor and his staff.”

“This isn’t just about the elves and goblins agreeing to play nice and not enslave each other,” Justinius said. “The elven queen Lisara Ambrosius has always had a level head on her shoulders, and now that Carnades and Taltek Balmorlan and their treason-plotting cronies have been exposed to the light of day, that little lady’s taking a broom to her house, the same as I’m doing with mine. As to the goblins, I don’t know their new king—”

“You’re not missing out.”

“I’ve heard he’s about as easy to get along with as a boil on your backside.”

“Let’s just say that while he’s finally started showing some redeeming qualities, he’s not someone I’d choose to spend an evening drinking with.”

“Trust?”

“Depends on what’s in it for him.” I paused thoughtfully. “And his. I think he really does care about his people.”

“That’s what Mychael told me.”

“But I trust Tam and Imala and the people they’re putting around Chigaru, so I think he’ll turn out all right.”

“For a Mal’Salin.”

“That goes without saying.”

“It’s not the elves and goblins that concern me. They know what a thing like the Saghred can do, the level of destructive power. History says the Saghred fell from the sky. What are the chances of there being only one? Or what if there’s something out there waiting to be found that’s even worse?”

“I can’t imagine what could—”

“Your papa led the team that got the Saghred away from Rudra Muralin. The damage was limited. A thousand years ago when he was the chief mage for the goblin king, there were fewer people around for him to sacrifice. There are a lot more now. Every kingdom has several centers of population; cities are larger and packed with people. Another lunatic backed by a government with a grudge against another, or a group of zealots with warped ideology—”

“Like the Khrynsani.”

The Khrynsani were an ancient goblin secret society and military order, with even more outdated political ideas. The Khrynsani’s credo was simple. Goblins were meant to rule, and if anyone disagreed, they weren’t meant to live. Those who disagreed included every other race. Sarad Nukpana had been their leader. The night I’d smashed the Saghred and Nukpana had gotten himself carried off to Hell had essentially marked the end of the Khrynsani. I hoped.

The old man nodded. “If they get their hands on an object of power and the chance to use it…”

Justinius didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. I knew what could happen, what would happen when the next Rudra Muralin or Sarad Nukpana found a new magical toy and took it home with them. I also didn’t need him to remind me just how close we’d come to Sarad Nukpana unleashing Armageddon—and using me to do it.

“The elves and goblins—at least those in charge now—know that such power should never be allowed to fall into anyone’s hands,” he continued. “The other kingdoms have only seen such power from afar. They’ve never been threatened with annihilation. They see power that has never been theirs, respect that has never been theirs. Some people think respect and fear mean the same thing. Are their leaders, and the powerful and influential who support them, content with what they have under their control? It’s been my experience that mankind—and I use that to encompass all the races—is seldom satisfied with what they have. Most people’s striving is harmless, beneficial even. But there are those who strive for subjugation, having control over others’ lives, lives held in the palm of their hand.”

“A treaty won’t stop those people.”

“No, but agreement now will get the kingdoms off their asses to stop them. If you don’t help, you face consequences. Sanctions, embargoes.”

“So, we won’t like you or play with you anymore?”

The old man gave me a flat look.

I raised my hands defensively. “I’m simply playing devil’s advocate here. The kind of people who would use something like the Saghred as a weapon to kill or conquer won’t care about sanctions or embargoes.”

“Which is why the treaty will give the Guardians the authority to go into any kingdom and do whatever they have to do to secure that weapon.”

Silence.

“That could be nasty,” I said.

“There’s no ‘could be’ about it. And by signing a treaty, each kingdom promises to allow the Guardians free and complete access to their lands to secure that object. If they don’t want a Guardian army inside their borders, fine. Get the thing and turn it over to us. I know what the delegates are going to say. They’ll say that for the Guardians, and goblins, and possibly the elves, this ‘treaty’ is merely a means to secure all magical power for themselves and render the kingdoms unable to obtain their own object of power, like the Saghred, with which to protect themselves. They’ll claim to want it as a deterrent. Then their neighbor across the border will get their hands on something even stronger.” Justinius was silent for a moment. “Where that ends…It’s not anyplace any of us want to be, or leave to our children and grandchildren to deal with. That’s why I’m going to do whatever I have to do to ensure my Katie and your Piaras don’t have to go through any of this ever again when we’re gone and they’re in charge. That is what we must accomplish.”

There was no time like the present to tell the old man what I wanted to be when I grew up.

“Sir, speaking of the cadets and the talented children they were—and you wanting me to be a Guardian—I’ve got your answer and an idea.”

Justinius stopped in the middle of the corridor. I did likewise, and so did Vegard and the archmagus’s guards. One wave from Justinius and they all backed out of hearing range and went to attention.

I hadn’t meant to cause all that.

“Uh…First, I can’t be a Guardian—at least not in the usual way.”

Those intense blue eyes came to rest on me. Eyes that could make a battle-hardened Guardian stammer like a newbie cadet.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with being the first woman Guardian. I don’t have a problem with that.” I tilted my head down the hall toward the at-attention men. “Those men all went through years of hard work and training to get where they are. I can’t just walk in and pick up a uniform. Plus, I’m about to marry their paladin and commander. I’ll gladly fight beside them, but I can’t wear a Guardian uniform without earning it. And don’t say I have earned it. Getting a power infusion from a soul-sucking rock didn’t earn me anything.”

“So what do you want to do?”

I told him.

“There’s the Conclave college, but there’s nothing for younger children,” I continued once I’d covered the basics. “
That’s
when they need teaching and guidance—and protection. There needs to be a school for them. Here. I know the Conclave is shorthanded right now, but we would need mages who not only have experience raising and guiding young talents but who can go out into the kingdoms and recognize potential when they see it, and who know the signs that these children’s gifts are being abused or are at risk for abuse. Too many of the rogue dark mages the Guardians end up hunting started out as kids with more talent than good sense and guidance. Then there are the kids whose parents were duped into apprenticing their child with a mage who was really a broker or a procurer for someone like Taltek Balmorlan. Piaras was lucky. He has a supportive family who are talents themselves. He’s in the minority. The kids who go to the Conclave’s college have wealthy parents or families. Tam didn’t know he had a son until Talon was a teenager. When his mom died, he spent his childhood on his own. And you know what that kid’s packing and the trouble he can get into. And what about the poor kids? Or even the middle-class kids whose parents can’t afford qualified tutors or don’t even know how to find somebody who’s qualified?”

I wasn’t bothering to keep my voice down anymore. The Guardians could hear me. I didn’t care. It was a good idea. A needed idea.

“And being a Benares, my family has connections to people who would know who the brokers are and where they operate. It’d help find the kids who would otherwise fall through the cracks—or into the wrong hands.”

I stopped, mainly because I’d run out of air. I hadn’t said everything I wanted to say yet, but I’d said enough to get an opinion.

“What do you think, sir?”

“I think it would fit right in with finding those power objects. The nastiest thing about the objects and those brokers is that they both have a reputation for wanting young magic users to latch on to. I guarantee you, if you find one, the other will be close by. The same people who want to get their greedy hands on the next Saghred will be looking for talent to use it for them, and they don’t want someone like you—a grown woman who’s not about to let anyone make her do anything she doesn’t want to do. They want talent they can intimidate and manipulate.”

“Children.”

“The younger and more gifted, the better. It’s happening in every last kingdom, and I have long wanted it stopped. As much as I would like to do it myself, I can’t.”

“You have enough asses to kick here.”

“God’s own truth.” The old man grinned. “And I’ve known I would need someone I could trust and depend on to do it.” He slapped me on the back. “You’re in charge. Just let me know what you need.”

Unlike the mirror room, nothing in here made me want to
turn and run the other way. Anything that could come out of a crystal ball or scrying bowl would be small enough for me to stomp on.

I was thrilled that Justinius had not only approved my idea but put me in charge of it. I wanted to live long enough to get started.

The room had just enough light to keep the telepaths from bumping into each other. Each had a workstation consisting of a small desk next to a wide pedestal with a scrying bowl filled with water or a crystal ball mounted on top, depending on the practitioner’s preference.

Justinius made a beeline straight for a stocky, dark-haired Guardian. He was in uniform, but it looked like he’d slept in it. He probably had. Mychael and the old man had been keeping the telepaths busy coordinating the delegates’ arrivals—and gathering intelligence to use to ferret out any traitors with the mistaken impression that they’d escaped Justinius’s personnel purge. The old man was relentless and ruthless. I, for one, was glad of it. It meant he was going to do it right the first time. Not that I had any doubt.

Every other man in the room snapped to attention as the archmagus swept through the double doors. The dark-haired Guardian/telepath merely looked up from his onyx scrying bowl, his expression as worn as his uniform.

“I expected the paladin, sir.”

“Mychael’s busy, so you got me.”

The Guardian grinned crookedly. “Then I’ll make do, sir.”

“Still nothing?” Justinius asked.

“Not a word or image. I know the telepath on that ship. I’ve contacted him before, and I’ve spoken to him in person. I know how to reach him.” The Guardian’s face was somber. “He’s not with us anymore, sir.”

“Rest assured, Ben, whoever was responsible will be found and will pay.”

The Guardian nodded. “Thank you, sir. He’d appreciate that.”