Battle Mage: Dragon Mage (Tales of Alus) (47 page)

“Is something wrong, master?”

He shrugged watching the couple return to the dance floor. At first he missed the change, but soon he could see that Cheleya’s balance looked a little off. “Those drinks must have been alcoholic and strong.”

Lystheir looked at him appearing ready to rush to the girl’s side, but her father put out his hand patting the air and keeping the che’ther in check. “You don’t wish to remove her from here?”

“She’s growing up and, if Cheleya remains trapped as a human, she will mature much faster than as a che’ther. If she wishes to dabble in the ways of humans, then she will have to learn from her mistakes,” his eyes seemed darker even before Cor’Dargan leaned into the shadow between the lamplight. His look told the story of a father wanting to protect his child, but knowing that he couldn’t always do so.

Chapter 28- Distracting Marbles

Cheleya awoke to a prodding of her arm and a banging in her head. Her blond hair covered her eyes in a spider web of sunshine and the girl began to be thankful for the silky shade as she noticed the true light of the sun coming through the window. She couldn’t remember returning to the inn last night and wondered what had happened to her dance partner, Ardost.

“What happened?” the girl asked softly and thought she sounded hoarse to her ears.

“You, my friend, drank way too much,” Colbie laughed at Cheleya’s confusion and disheveled appearance. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look out of sorts before, but you are a mess this morning, my dear.”

Struggling to turn from lying on her stomach to sit up against the headboard, Cheleya made a face as her tongue licked the top of her mouth. Both felt like she had been chewing her pillow, though the item looked fine save for a little drool. She tried to remember the drinks consumed the night before and the perum came to mind.

“I drank how many perum again?” she asked aloud rhetorically trying to remember.

Colbie laughed and shook her open palm at the little dragoness. “You proudly told me that you drank this many,” her green eyes sparkled with mischief. “Now you get to pay the price for drinking.”

“I thought it was juice,” responded the girl raising both hands to lay her finger tips against her temples. Leaning forward made her head throb more and Cheleya quickly brought her head back smacking the headboard irritating the pain even more. “Ow, ow, ow,” she moaned pitifully.

  Showing some compassion for her friend despite the obvious amusement the mage received from her misery, Colbie rubbed the back of her head as she encouraged the blond to remove her legs from the covers. Sitting on the side of the bed, the mage offered the girl a couple tablets. To the questioning green eyes, which looked less sparkly this morning, Colbie replied, “We take these when we drink too much to relieve headaches. Do che’ther ever drink alcohol in Mar’kal?”

Quickly swallowing the pills in the hopes of relief from her pain, Cheleya started to shake her head before realizing that only made things worse. “No,... well that is to say that, if they do, I have never seen any. As a magician in training, it has always been discouraged and I never thought to worry about finding any to try.”

Again her friend giggled at her misery as she helped the girl stand. Her legs were steady, but her stomach was beginning to become unappreciative of the movement.

“I don’t feel very good,” Cheleya said placing her left hand over her stomach while Colbie assisted on her right.

“Try to keep your stomach in check and soon you’ll feel better. Trust me. Now let’s get you into the tub to clean you up for the day. Tilana and Orlerin have already gone down for breakfast. She’s the first match of the day after her win yesterday,” Colbie said as she started the girl towards the foot of the bed to turn her towards the bathroom. Lystheir sat in her chair looking a bit tired, but she remained quiet in the face of Cheleya’s discomfort.

To the young dragoness, the trip to the bathroom seemed longer and more arduous than before. Once inside, Colbie pushed the door most of the way closed before helping pull off the girl’s top and
bottoms. Steam was in the air from a tub already filled with warm water, but Cheleya spotted her image in the mirror and realized that she looked the way she felt. She had never been sick before, so this was completely new to the dragoness. It was also a feeling that she wished she had never discovered.

Slipping into the warm water, Cheleya’s stomach eased and either the water or the pills began to ease the pain in her head. She closed her eyes before sinking below the water a moment as she held her nose.

“Feel better?” Colbie asked with a combination of worry and bemusement.

A pair of splashes heralded the other girl stepping into the bath. At Cheleya’s questioning gaze after she opened her emerald orbs to see the bare mage sinking into the water, Colbie responded, “Since I’ve had to baby you this morning, I am running late now myself. I wasn’t sure if you would get sick on me so I hadn’t bathed just in case.”

“I’m sorry, if I have ruined your morning.”

Laughing happily, Colbie shook her head drawing a little envy from the dragoness whose head felt heavy and became dizzy doing such simple movements. “Oh, you haven’t ruined it. You’ve been pretty amusing so far actually, but we do need to hurry a little bit or we’ll miss her match.”

With her hair already lathered with shampoo, Colbie knelt to lean forward and wash the other girl’s blond hair. Cheleya enjoyed the feeling of her fingers running though her hair, which was one of the surprising things about being human. Touching and teasing her hair was one of the girl’s favorite feelings. It was something no scaled che’ther with their thick skin and scales could imagine.

Sitting back, her work done, Colbie tossed a wash cloth to the other girl before going to work on her own skin. “Hurry up, Cheleya, or you won’t get any breakfast.”

Smiling as she found the bath returning her towards her normal self, Cheleya managed to nod without pain and took the soap too as she had been shown the other night. This was one of the times that the dragoness had come to cherish. The quiet and peace of a simple, warm bath would be missed if she could never be human again.

With a contented sigh, the dragoness hurriedly cleaned up before dressing for the day.

Cheleya and Colbie were still finishing their breakfast when Fa’Elenek came hurrying into the restaurant of Two Circles. He looked worried and moved quickly to Cor’Dargan’s side.

“They’ve placed trackers on both of the inner gates,” the dragon stated quietly with a frown.

Strangely calm despite the news, Cor’Dargan simply nodded as he replied, “They were bound to think of that sometime. I am actually surprised that Malaketh didn’t try it sooner.”

“Does that mean I have to stay here, father?” the little blond haired dragoness looked the epitome of a human girl being told that she was grounded. Colbie noted the disappointment on Cheleya’s face and wondered if her father was going to make her miss supporting Tilana, who was only competing because they had come here for Cheleya. “I would hate to disappoint my friend by not showing up to cheer for her.”

Knowing that such things as competitions were of little importance compared to her safety, everyone expected Dargan to tell her she couldn’t leave for now. Instead the dragon gestured to Lystheir, who drew out a small pouch. Pulling the draw string to open the little bag, the wizard emptied a dozen rounded stones. Glossy and smooth as marbles, the stones were all a pale pink.

“What are those? Are you going to summon a golem army?” Evantus asked sarcastically, but somehow Colbie thought he might be serious.

Cor’Dargan shook his head at the notion and stated, “We need to distract the trackers to sneak out of this part of the city. Cheleya will cast a charge of her magic into each one. Then we find women similar to her shape and age to plant them on so, as they move through the arches, they will draw the mar’goyn’lya away. None of them know what you look like, but will be chasing your magical aura.

“Give them something to find and they will desert their posts long enough to slip their trap.”

The plan seemed worthwhile to try but, as Cheleya worked to imbue the stones with her energy, Colbie suggested a revision to his plan, “You don’t actually have to just give them to women. If men or children were to be carrying the stones, they might believe Cheleya was trying to slip by using a stealth spell.

“You do learn invisibility and stealth magic. Don’t you?” the mage added realizing that one of the standard spells a battle mage would learn wouldn’t necessarily be something that the school in Mar’kal would teach as basic magic.

Nodding in her distraction over the marbles, Cheleya mumbled as she finished the fifth stone, “Most beginner classes teach those spells, yes. Using people they wouldn’t expect might very well confuse them more than young women, especially if Malaketh and Mor’treya are watching. They would know my face, since I have always looked like this as a human.”

Dargan nodded to Lystheir. The tracker appeared intrigued by the idea as well. Her magical skills were normally used for hunting animals, but hunting people with magic was proving to be the ultimate challenge. She was on the defensive, but the creativity of Dargan and the mages of Staron was making an intriguing game of cat and mouse.

“Done,” Cheleya announced placing the last marble on the soft leather of the pouch to prevent them from rolling off of the table.

Colbie thought of another part of the equation and asked, “Do your trackers use anything to communicate with each other over long distances? Like do they have something similar to the lodestone Cor’Dargan gave to Fa’Elenek to find him in the city?”

Lystheir considered the question and replied, “Hunters often use devices similar to those used for locating gates or clear crystals like magic lodestones. They stroke them with a flow of their magic and the others will see the one activated to follow the signal. We brought them along, just in case, so it is likely that they might use them to alert the others when they find you.”

“So they would know if someone thought they had spotted her and come running. Should we load our distractions towards the far side of city or do we risk having someone we bug lead them to us by accident?”

Evantus sat looking unhappy with the whole situation. “If they are separated, we could just capture them individually and turn this whole thing around,” he grumbled. “I mean, they are separated to cover these gates. At most, two will be together in any location.”

“And how will you explain that to the local police and wizards?” Colbie retorted in disbelief.

In a calmer voice, Cor’Dargan added, “Your friend is most likely correct. They have papers to enter the city and track down their quarry. The council said that Malaketh was chasing thieves to bring back for trial. I doubt that anyone will dispute their validity and we would be the ones in trouble for attacking them.”

Sighing irritably, Evan cast his hands out in exasperation, but Colbie knew that he would follow the plan. While the younger mage could be disagreeable to those in authority, once on his mission he never deviated from accomplishing what he set out to do.

“So will we find people to carry these or just plant them on someone without them suspecting?” Colbie asked wondering at whether planting a magic marble on someone could be construed as a crime.

Cheleya answered first, “Perhaps a little of both.” At their looks, she expounded on her idea.

Taking a deep breath, Evantus released it again as a big sigh. As a battle mage, he could be stealthy or fight, but playing these spy games was a true bother. The man often wondered why he let Cheleya and Colbie talk him into these things. Well, he had to confess, maybe there were a few obvious reasons.

“There by that farm stand,” Fa’Elenek stated pointing at a large man leaning against the side of a building half obscured by the inclined tables covered in vegetables and their canopied roofs above. His dusty brown hair covered his eyes with haphazardly hanging bangs as he chewed on a stick waiting for his quarry to show. “That is Ev’erelias. He isn’t their smartest or strongest in magic though he is physically powerful. If you have to use his name, you’ll probably have more to worry about than remembering his name.”

A pair of marbles was placed in the mage’s hand.

“So I just walk past him?”

With a nod, Elenek replied without taking his eyes from the other tracker, “Once you are clear of my masking field, they will become noticeable to his senses. They only know Cheleya by her magic and scent. If this works, head down to the next market area and plant the marbles. I’ll catch up to you if he falls for it.”

“Alright, let’s get this over with quickly. I still need to run all the way over to the duel ground to see Tilana fight,” the mage stated moving into a brisk walk towards the inner city gate.

Trying not to look in the direction of the mar’goyn’lya in his human guise, Evantus simply acted like he was in a hurry and moved towards the open gate. Though it was a gate, this wasn’t one that required any actual guards and there were no check points to wade through. Simply walking through the open gate, the mage was quickly heading down the street towards the next set of vendors a couple blocks away from the wall.

His senses were heightened with a spell of his own and Evan knew when the tracker slowly took the bait. He had hesitated seeing no one like the description of the girl as told to him by Malaketh. The mage didn’t hesitate or slow. Knowing how a tracker would work what he felt into the rationale it would take to get him to follow the bait, Evan knew it would only take a moment before he would worry that his quarry had slipped past him and was moving quickly away.