A Magic King (40 page)

And in that sickening riot of sound, she realized Steve was gone. She was alone in the hut.

She stumbled out the door, squinting into the brightness, adding her voice to the din. "Steve! Steve! Hell, boy, this isn't the time to go AWOL."

She scanned the world around her and got her first sight of war. It wasn't as gruesome as she'd expected. Certainly no more so than the videos she'd seen. Less horrifying, perhaps, because she couldn't see the faces of the taut people manning the walls. What startled her the most was their absolute stillness.

Despite the noise surrounding them in a deafening clatter, the men moved with an economy of motion. Every step, every gesture, even every breath was the efficient action of men pushed past exhaustion, but who still continued on. The torches wove and flared in the sconces. The wind chimes twisted and clanged, but the men remained almost relaxed, staring out at the empty fields beyond the wall.

Or were they really empty?

She caught a twist of a shadow, like a creeping animal across a field. It moved fast, scrambling like an insect. Was that a Tarvite? Apparently someone thought it was because in a moment a whirling fireball appeared, detonating on whatever it was, obliterating it before she could make out any details.

Jane smiled grimly, pleased despite her pacifism. It would appear the city of Toedo had acquired a wizard. And not too bad a one given the power and accuracy of the fireball.

She left her position just outside of her hut to silently walk the reinforcements looking for Steve. It took a long time because she tried to be thorough and inconspicuous at the same time. Despite Daken's almost casual care of her, she knew he'd be furious if he found her wandering around.

She didn't find Steve. Neither did she find the wizard who continued to obliterate one Tarvite shadow after another. She couldn't even satisfy her curiosity about the Tarveen. Despite her best efforts, she still couldn't get a good look at them. They moved too fast, and the fireball was too quick. She formed the vague notion of dark oval bodies, hairy legs and arms, and once she thought she saw claws. But that was all, and in the end she returned to her hut hoping to find Steve there.

He wasn't. So she huddled in the corner, clutching her knees to her chest. She pulled the cross out of her belt, the one she'd gotten from Kyree. She held it between her sweating palms while she prayed in fervent whispers. She covered her head with her hands and thought of Jesus Christ, her mother's God, and wondered if even God could hear her through the deafening clangor.

"Are you there?" she asked the blackness. "Or did you get exterminated with everyone else?" She heard the detonation of another three fireballs, and she bit her lip until she tasted her own blood. "If you're still there," she whispered. "If you can still hear me, now would be a good time to do something. Now would be a wonderful time for you to show me you still exist."

Nothing happened. Not that she expected anything. So she remained where she was, huddled against the wall in a night filled with noise and explosions, and with every detonation, every boom that wasn't thunder, she fought to suppress Dr. Beavesly's memories of fire and devastation. Of the last and almost total world annihilation.

She wondered if she had been saved from that holocaust only to land in the middle of another.

Finally, when the gentle rays of dawn colored the sky, she prayed for wisdom and courage. For the first time in her life, she realized just how little of both she possessed.

Chapter 16

They left the next morning. Daken came to her just as dawn tinted the sky, kissed her terrified eyes and held her gently for a few minutes. He looked tired as only a healer in a battle zone could. She snuggled into his arms, holding him as tightly as he held her.

They didn't speak. There was nothing to say. She knew he hoped what she'd lived through this night would aid his cause when they went back to the Council later. And, in part, he was right. After seeing what was left of Toedo, she understood why Daken wanted the Tarveen eradicated permanently. He would push again for an army, and now she would find it hard to say no. All she could do was pray for some divine inspiration, some miracle answer to make the decision unnecessary.

An hour later, they were ready to leave. Their escort of twenty men would see them to the edge of Lake Kree. Jane and Daken would then travel by ship up the Lake to Troit, the core of the Tarveen colony. There they'd infiltrate the main building, free the captives, and hopefully escape just as the twenty men arrived. Those men, as close to trained soldiers as Daken had, would provide the military support needed to get the prisoners and eventually themselves on board the ship. Then everyone, the theory went, would sail safely away.

That was the plan, and though Jane expected trained CIA agents would be able to spot all sorts of holes, she couldn't think of a single one. She waited silently by her horse as Daken arranged last minute details. But all too soon, the men mounted, Daken finished his last instructions to those left behind, and still Jane craned her neck around the square waiting for the sight of a familiar dirty blond head.

"If you're having second thoughts, Jane, you better tell me now," called Daken as he strode toward her, his face set into grim passivity.

"Don't be ridiculous," she snapped, though in truth, she'd been having second thoughts since the moment she'd first conceived this plan. "I can't find Steve. The dratted boy disappeared last night, and he hasn't come back."

Daken mounted his horse, his thoughts clearly distracted. "Steve? He's staying with one of the villagers until we return. I thought you knew."

She whirled around, turning the full blast of her frustration on him. "How could I know when none of you ever talk to me? He's all right then?"

"Of course, he's all right."

She nodded, immensely relieved to have at least one problem solved. Then a thought hit her, and she started worrying at her lip again. "Do you think he'll be all right? I mean as a mute..." Her voice trailed off, wondering if any pair of hands were welcome. Or if, even here in Toedo, he'd be an outcast mute boy.

Daken just laughed at her worried expression.

"They'll treat him like royalty. Probably better than royalty. Jane, he's a wizard and a gift from the Father for these people."

Jane felt her eyes widen with shock. "He's a what?"

"A wizard."

"And a gift from the God," echoed Jane, remembering her prayer of last night. She shook her head. "So the fireballs came from Steve."

Daken nodded, clearly amazed she hadn't figured it out before. "He's not so bad. I didn't think you could be a mage without words, but—"

"You don't need words," she said, recalling what Kyree told her. "It's a mental focusing." Her voice trailed away as she tried to simultaneously mount her horse and fit this new information to her image of Steve.

"He's good, too," Daken added, amazement in his voice. "I'd never have guessed it of him, but there it is."

There it is, Jane repeated to herself. The small frightened boy she rescued from Borit was a mage. How could that be? And if it were true, why had he kept it a secret? It was the way to instant respect, even in the college.

"I guess I don't blame him," commented Daken as much to himself as to her. "Given the prophesy about how he'd be a great wizard, he'd have to perform to greatness immediately. And then people would try to use him or abuse him. Jealousy, envy, hatred, it would all have been there."

Jane had forgotten about the prophesy surrounding the boy. And given Daken's experiences, she was sure he knew better than most about expectations and envy, but it still seemed a crying shame that Steve had to hide his ability from everyone. What a terrible secret for a boy. Or just another burden for an abused boy.

Jane shook her head. "At least he's showing it now. Perhaps he will get some of his self-respect back." Unable to do anything more for Steve, Jane focused on trying to readjust to sitting in a saddle. Although she had learned to ride, she still wasn't comfortable doing it.

Daken glanced at her, lifting an eyebrow as they moved outside of the village wall. "He's already got his self-esteem back. From you."

Jane jerked her attention back to Daken. "From me?"

"Haven't you seen how he wears those new clothes you gave him?"

"Everyone likes new clothes—"

Daken shook his head. "It's more than that. Have you seen him polish his belt buckle? The large circle—"

"Letter O," she corrected.

He waved it off. "He's got that look. I've seen it in men who get a plot of land for the first time. There's amazement, awe, a little fear, and a lot of pride all mixed together."

Jane smiled, wanting to believe whatever else she had done, her time with Steve had been for good. But reason told her different. "Daken, the boy's bright. And he's a mage. He would have made it with or without my help."

"But it was with your help. You saw something in him that took me a lot longer to notice. You had faith in him before any of us, and that's given him his self-respect."

"Maybe," she mumbled, her eyes already pulled to the horizon as they crossed into Tarveen-controlled land.

He followed her gaze, but his comment brought her attention back to the boy. "I hope you realize you've got a great responsibility to the boy."

"What?"

"Why do you think he's so protective of you?"

Jane shrugged. "I suppose because I'm the first one who ever really cared about him as a person."

"Exactly."

"What's your point? I shouldn't beat the boy or turn on him? I thought you knew me better."

Daken frowned at her. "No," he responded levelly, his gaze now encompassing the horizon. "You shouldn't take unnecessary risks with your life. How will he feel, experiencing love for the first time, if you were to suddenly die?"

Jane felt a lump close down her throat. Daken's words were delivered with such an even, unemotional tone she might have thought he didn't care. But she knew him better now, enough to realize he struggled with his own feelings, sorting through thoughts he probably didn't want to admit to. And that made her wonder if he spoke about himself or Steve. Did he think he was in love? With her? She could hardly dare to hope. As soon as she began grappling with the hunger sparked by that thought, the rest of his words seeped into her soul.

What if she died today?

Daken was right. She did have another reason to come out of their rescue mission alive. Her own hopes for a future with Daken aside, she needed to help Steve. Especially now that he openly revealed his abilities as a mage. She must be there to help him deal with pressures to come.

"I won't fail him," she said softly, speaking to Daken's stern profile. "Or you."

He glanced at her, his expression fierce, but his eyes bleak with a fear that tore at her as it must eat at him. "See that you don't."

Then he spurred his horse ahead to speak with the leader of his men.

* * *

It was noon by the time they reached Detroit, or rather what was left of it. The place was a wasteland, not from a nuclear warhead, although naturally that was the original devastation. The current problem was the Tarveen.

Up until now, Jane had clung to the idea that the Tarveen were human. She discounted Daken's protests that they were monsters as the propaganda of a man trying to eradicate a race. Even Dr. Beavesly's rather hazy memories of the Tarveen colony didn't damage her belief they were people. Mutants, yes. Cannibals, yes, but human in their core.

As they disembarked from the boat, she felt her first stirring of doubt. What human colony wantonly destroyed the very environment they inhabited? There was filth everywhere. She'd expected at least some cultivation of the land, a few crops maybe, something, but the land was completely stripped. No trees, no grass, nothing except mud and dirt and filth.

She looked around her, shock in every breath she took. "What kind of people are these?"

"I told you, they aren't people," Daken repeated for the thousandth time, readjusting her backpack on his shoulders. They decided hers was sturdier and the better pack despite its neon yellow strips. Hers was also waterproof, and therefore a safer carrier for the Tarveen Holy Book.