Battle Mage Visions (A Tale of Alus Book 12) (22 page)

Remembering that some of those living on the island were descendants of the merfolk that still had a tribe in the water around them, Sebastian wondered how many the two parts of the tribe had between them. The merfolk had sent rune warriors with their tails to fight in the water near the island to help turn the tide against the emperor's black ships. Those confined to land had fought to protect their relatives from the east side of the island to the village.

Sebastian had to guess that many of the sea folk had avoided the village while his people had been waiting for Gerid to settle his affairs before traveling to Hala. If he had known portal magic back then, the mage thought that preparation would have changed to a much smaller amount of time. They could have offered the Grimnal transportation back to his island from the king's city that might mean preparing a pack for a week. The owl often wondered if he should have offered the option sooner. Surely King Alain and his advisors wouldn't have minded letting the immortal free access back and forth so he could sleep in his own home every night if they had truly wanted.

Falling back towards the rear of the column, Sebastian walked holding Ashleen's hand as the girl kicked at the sand with her bare feet or wriggled her toes in it. Serrena seemed like the only one to notice, but walked with Elzen instead giving the couple a little time to be alone.

Sebastian took a deep breath enjoying the salty air. Plants still grew this far south and he could smell the trees and grasses when the breeze died off from time to time.

"I forgot how warmth felt, I think," the blonde haired wilder exaggerated while she brushed at a stray lock as the wind caught the strand pushing it across her face.

"Winter definitely sets into your bones in Hala. A spring thaw comes pretty slowly and mixes in surprise chills before we get any warmth from summer," he said although Ashleen knew the facts of North's winters as well as he did.

"I prefer cheating on it like this," the girl said looking up at him holding her hair back on the right side of her face so it wouldn't whip at her as she talked. "Portal magic makes travel so nice. It took us a month to get here by ship."

Nodding at her opinion, the mage added, "We had a few stops along the way, but even knowing where the island is now, we couldn't cut down on the time by very much. Of course, that was just one way besides."

"How many miles have you traveled using the portals since then, I wonder? You've been to Sileoth and Litsarin several times. We made gates in every guardian city from one side of Southwall to the other and many other cities besides. If we traveled on horse and ship continuously, I don't think we could have made it to even half those destinations if we were moving every minute of the day since leaving here the first time."

The sun was barely above the horizon line now, the man noted, and realized that they wouldn't make it to the village before dark had fallen. He was unsure if the island would cool significantly at night. It was so different here from cities of Southwall that he was used to. During the spring, an evening could change the temperature by a good twenty degrees or more over night.

Summer in White Hall and Hala was less drastic. Unfortunately that often meant that day or night it was warm. In Hala so near the sea, that almost always meant it was likely muggy with the moisture that always seemed to be in the air.

"I should have brought you back here by now," he said thinking of the beauty of the island. The last time he had been here, Sebastian had been with another woman, however; so perhaps it could be considered tacky to have brought Ashleen here. Of course, the wilder had been here as well, but they had remained more distant as the girl had given him space. Once Yara was believed out of the picture, however, Ashleen had made sure that he knew she wanted to start a closer relationship with him.

While he had been a cadet at White Hall, Sebastian had rarely done more than dance with a girl on occasion in the dining hall. He hadn't had time to date, or so he believed. Now he was in his second serious relationship and couldn't imagine why he hadn't taken the time to see the girls around him while a student.

Elzen would have disputed his choice and certainly tried his best to find girls willing to do more even at White Hall as a cadet. Sebastian hadn't really pried into the younger mage's success or failure, but he had always assumed that it was more the latter. With Elzen's reputation as a prankster, many girls would see him approach warily.

"It's beautiful here. That is for sure, but you've been busy. We can't just hide from the rest of the world. Southwall needs you." Giving a little grunt that told him that she felt her words weren't enough, Ashleen added, "Even your country's allies need you these days. You speak with kings and immortals. You're not just an average falcon leading travelers from one side of Southwall to the other protecting ambassadors from the dangers of the road."

"Was I just average back then?" he laughed.

Slapping his arm lightly with her fingers as the girl leaned into him playfully, Ashleen said, "You know what I mean.

"You were a squad leader then, but I found you reading a wizard's magic book in the library of Falcon's Keep. I knew right away that you weren't just some common mage."

"And you were a girl teasing me with her fancy Kardorian robes that flashed her legs," he retorted jokingly.

"If it had been warmer in that castle, I might have shown you more right away," the girl laughed.

"Like I said, you were a tease."

"I still am sometimes," she grinned up at him.

"True," he agreed without making her smile shrink at all.

They were rounding an extension of the beach, which meant that they were past halfway, when Ashleen sighed again. "Do we really have to leave here again to go to Red Hall? I doubt that the school will be remotely as nice as this island. Even if we slipped back to Hala to sleep, I think it would be better than having to sleep at the school."

"I've put them off long enough. Besides, the sooner that I give them what they need, the sooner I can be back."

"The sooner WE will be back," she corrected. "You aren't doing this alone, you know?"

"I might have to stay there over night," Sebastian informed the girl. "You could go back to the inn in Hala and sleep in the same bed each night."

Wrinkling her nose in distaste, Ashleen questioned, "I'm not even sure how well I could sleep without you now? I've grown used to you next to me.

"Would you be able to sleep without me, if you have to stay in one of their dorm room beds?"

"Probably," he answered immediately receiving a stronger punch from the girl.

"Hey! You're supposed to say that you'd never be able to get to sleep without me," she complained.

Knowing the question for a trap in the first place, Sebastian couldn't help teasing her with the wrong answer. "You wanted me to lie? I'm a battle mage. Give me a rock to lay my head on and I can probably still fall asleep while in the field; but I have to admit that I have gotten used to you lying beside me."

Giving him a frown that she could barely hold as the girl wanted to laugh at him, Ashleen answered, "Well, I guess that I'll take what I can get."

Her eyes went to Ulia and asked, "What do you think should be done with those poor rune warriors?"

"If their people will still accept them, then once Garosh removes the controlling runes from the last one, they will probably live on as they did. Well, Ulia will need to be trained to control her magic, of course; but I assume that the shamans can handle that part."

"We could take her back to White Hall to learn to be a wizard," Ashleen suggested.

"It is a matter for her people to decide. I can offer the option, but she isn't from Southwall."

Pouting a little bit at the idea of writing the girl off, the wilder asked, "And what if they don't accept them? They were killed, so aren't they basically dead people?"

"Garosh and Hereseth make it sound like it is no worse than saving someone's life with healing magic. Bringing people back from the brink of death isn't necromancy, even if it would be impossible to do without magic sometimes. They were simply brought back in a different way."

"With blood magic and necromancy," the wilder stated with a bit of disgust. "Only someone called the Dark One would encourage such a thing."

"Magic pulls from our blood, flesh and even souls," he replied without judging the magic that most called black magic. "From what I gather, blood used from the caster adds power to a spell. When they sacrifice people to do it that is definitely where these necromancers cross a line."

She didn't try to counter his answer as they continued to walk closer to the village. They could see the lights from the buildings in the distance now. It wouldn't take long to return to the village where a battle for Gerid's freedom had been fought about half a year ago.

"You destroyed the stones that Palose used to journey here originally, didn't you?" Ashleen asked.

"From what Erik said, a ship brought Palose here. He used magic to travel from the boat to the island and set up his gate after killing the two sentries.

"I destroyed those stones when I removed his magic from them. Why do you ask?"

"How did he return if the gate was destroyed?"

Shrugging, Sebastian was less concerned. "I can find old gates that were removed as long as they are still on my map. Most of the ones I destroyed faded away, so I would need to use my gates or the ones established by Darius's couriers now; but for a time I could find them."

"If you expended magic on something other than stones, could you find your way to that instead?"

Looking at Ulia and Erik, Sebastian understood what she was suggesting. "You think that he used the rune warriors to find his way back after I destroyed his gate."

"It is a possibility."

He nodded. There were many ways that he could think of for finding his way back to a point, even after a gate had been erased. While the scent of Palose's magic lingered in the resurrection man and the girl, Sebastian hoped that wasn't the link that had brought him back.

Erik and his fellow sentry, Nolan, had been killed on Palose's first visit. Ulia had been killed the second time, but that was all before Sebastian had destroyed the stones. Had he been back since?

Walking faster, Sebastian quickly caught up to Erik and Ulia walking together near the center of the column.

"Erik, Ulia, has Palose been back since... his second visit?" the mage questioned avoiding speaking of Ulia's death and change on the second trip.

Ulia nodded. "He came back and said something about you. He had a curly haired girl with him. I remember being jealous that she was with him, but I'm not sure why now."

Ignoring the second part for now, though Garosh's slight smile gave Sebastian the impression that her feelings had stemmed from the runes that had been erased from the girl, he asked, "Do you remember what he said or did?"

The girl's bare feet slowed slightly as she thought back to that day. Ulia's memory was a bit foggy thanks to the runes Palose had set on her. Their removal didn't help matters, but the young girl managed to recall something. "He said something about knowing that you must be alive and asked me if the one who had changed my tattoos was you. Then he walked with the other girl a little further south of where he arrived. He had her put some stones on the ground in that direction."

Screwing up her face in thought, Ulia took another moment before she was forced to shrug and say, "That is about all I can remember."

"Well, he either used Ulia or his old mark to come back then," Sebastian mused. He glanced to Garosh and asked, "Do you know how to trap his stones so Palose won't know that we've found them? He obviously figured out when I destroyed his gates making him return to set them with this other girl's magic."

Garosh frowned at the last and replied, "I can set up a killing ward or seal it so that it can't be opened. That would strand Palose in the void for a time at least; but how do you know that he used this other girl's magic to set his gate?"

"I've run into her a couple times. The last time I knew that I had felt her magic elsewhere. I probably passed the new gates in the cities that he changed. Now that I know, I could use my map to chase them down and destroy them again; but that would just alert him to the fact that I know what to look for also."

Ashleen looked at him expectantly and finally asked, "Does that mean he's still been able to send more spies to the other cities as well?"

"It's likely," Sebastian responded.

Garosh offered, "I can teach you the trapping spells or come with you to set them, if you want."

"For now, we can settle on just making the gate on the island a trap that will throw him into the silver void," Sebastian decided. "We can wait until morning. There's nothing to tell him that we are here unless changing those runes could be felt from so far away?" the last was asked of Garosh again. With the memories of the Dark One's long life and mastery of the magic, Garosh could use magic that was beyond Sebastian's current knowledge.

"It should be subtle enough, though I suppose that it is possible," the giant answered. "You're probably right though. It is getting late. We will likely need some sunlight to find the new stones for his gate. I will be glad to fix it in the morning for you."