Children of Prophecy (16 page)

He pulled the key to the newly purchased chest out of his pocket and opened it. “Four thousand one-ounce gold coins, in this chest. There are three more chests in the wagon outside, if you will send men for them. Your fifteen thousand, and a one thousand commission for your services.”

Kih’lik, looking a little dazed, gestured to a man, then outside. The man nodded and vanished into the back. The merchant bowed to Stret. “You are most generous, my lord,” he said, gesturing to the papers that the chest had narrowly missed. “I have drawn up the papers to transfer ownership of the estate to you. If you will sign these.” He passed the papers to Stret.

Stret skimmed the papers, pretending to making sure all was in order. In reality, he had no idea what any of it meant, but he didn’t think Kih’lik would cheat him. The man was too afraid of him now. He signed.

“Now, there is one more service you can do me, Kih’lik,” Stret told the merchant. “If you do well, I may even decide your firm on a permanent retainer for when I need to deal with the city.”

“And what would this be?” Kih’lik asked.

“I want you to negotiate access to the town libraries for me,” Stret told him. “Complete, unlimited, access. Any fees they request I will be happy to pay, but I would like to pay the least possible. Can you do it?”

The merchant hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. “Most likely, my lord,” he said firmly.

“Good. Inform me when you have made the arrangements,” Stret told him. With that, he strode out of the office, leaving the lawyer behind.

The bandits made their appearance four days after Stret’sar moved in. They obviously had noted the arrival of the wagons carrying Stret’sar’s first set of purchases through Kih’lik, mainly books and weapons, and decided to see what they could acquire.

Twenty men, dressed in black and with ash-darkened faces, snuck into the courtyard. Stret watched them from the roof of the villa. Since he’d started using the magic heavily, he’d found his night-sight had weakened, but there was enough light reflected from the fire in the villa to show the thieves.

He waited until they were well inside the courtyard, and blocked the exit with a wall of flame. As the bandits panicked, drawing weapons and gathering in a small group, he lit the lanterns around the courtyard with flicks of fire.

Stret waited a moment more, allowing the effect to sink in, and then dropped off the roof onto the ground. He strode calmly into the light, his plain gray tunic blending in with the flickering light and shadow. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said softly.

Three of the bandits had bows. At the sound of his voice, they spun around and loosed arrows. None of the arrows came anywhere near him, but Stret burned the men who’d fired to ashes anyway. Their screams disturbed him, but they didn’t last very long, and it was necessary. Besides, they’d chosen their fate.

“Anyone else planning on being stupid?” he asked. Silence was his answer. “Very well. Who leads here?”

One of the men lowered his sword, and slowly sheathed it. He stepped forward out of the group of bandits and faced Stret. “I do,” he told the Mage.

“Your name?” Stret demanded.

“Bor’yets,” the man replied, shortly.

“Very well then, Bor’yets, get your men to lay down their weapons,” Stret told him. “Then perhaps we can discuss this.”

“Why bother?” the man said quietly. “I doubt we can do much against a Mage, but I’d rather die fighting.”

Stret grinned. “I may yet surprise you, Bor’yets,” he told the bandit leader. “Order your men to lay down their weapons, and you may yet live out this night.”

For a moment, Stret locked eyes with the bandit. Then the man looked away, at his men. “Lay them down boys,” he told them. “Lay ‘em down.” Suiting his actions to his words, he undid his own sword-belt and laid it down.

There was a soft clatter as his men followed. Stret was under no illusions that any of them were really disarmed, but the gesture had been made. They accepted that
he
was in control of the situation.

“So, Bor’yets, how is the banditry business?” he asked.

The bandit shrugged. “It comes and goes,” he said non-committally.

“It will permanently go if you don’t listen to me,” Stret told him with a cold smile. “As you can see, I am a Mage. As you may guess, I am not a Battlemage. Unless you are terminally stupid, in which case I have no use for you, you can work out what that means.”

The bandits cowered back. Bor’yets faced him solidly. “What do you want?” he demanded.

Stret shrugged. “I play the role of a nobleman, but noblemen need retainers,” he admitted. “I, obviously, need a different class of retainers than most noblemen. I am offering you a job, master Bor’yets.”

“I don’t think I’m interested,” Bor’yets replied. “I’m no man’s lackey.”

“I may point out, master Bor’yets,” Stret told him calmly, “that this is not a choice between working for me or continuing your existence as you have. It is a choice between working for me or not continuing your existence – at all. Do I make myself clear?”

The bandit nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said flatly.

“So make your choice, Bor’yets,” Stret told him. “If you serve me, you and your men will not find the task truly onerous, and there will be rewards. If you do not serve me, I cannot allow men who know my nature to walk free.”

Bor’yets was silent for a moment, then looked at his men, then shrugged. “A noble’s retainer is a higher class of man than a runaway serf, I suspect,” he said quietly. “I can’t speak for all my men, not in this, but I guess I’m your man,” he paused, and continued uncomfortably, “my lord.”

“Good,” Stret’sar said, then calmly turned to the remaining bandits. “Choose now. Service, or death. As your leader says, a noble’s retainer has a higher place than a runaway serf or a bandit… and a vastly higher place than a corpse.”

In the end, none of them declined.

The coughing sound came as a surprise. Stret left the spell he’d been practicing – a complicated but extremely powerful shield – active, and turned to find Bor’yets standing watching him.

“What is it?” he asked of the man. After several years they’d settled into a comfortable relationship, in which Bor’yets was still the definite head of Stret’s retainers, but was also Stret’s man. The former bandit had turned out to be surprisingly loyal to his master, even as his master delved deeper into chaos magic over the years.

“There’s a man at the door,” Bor’yets told him. “He refuses to give me his name, and demands to speak with you.”

Stret sighed and discarded the purple robes he wore when using magic for the simple blue tunic and hose he wore underneath.

“Did he give a reason?” he asked.

“No,” the former bandit replied with a shrug. “I think he may be a Mage of some sort, but I’m not sure.”

Stret nodded and made certain his knife was both concealed and rapidly accessible. “All right,” he said calmly. “Make sure at least one of the men has him covered at all times.”

“Already done,” Bor agreed with a nod.

With that, the Chaos Mage gestured his retainer away and opened the main villa door. The man outside was short and stocky, with dark brown hair and an aura of…
wrongness
. Or maybe rightness. Stret couldn’t tell.

The visitor faced Stret squarely and spoke. “Brother, I am the Raven Mage Kor’tal and I request your help,” he said formally.

The man was a Chaos Mage, and more, clearly knew that Stret was. The phrasing was traditional, a request for help that, theoretically, Stret could not refuse. If he did, he’d never be able to deal with the main body of the Chaos Magi. After a moment’s thought, he used an ability he’d learned – from books of gray magic, not chaos – to confirm the man’s statement of his rank. Not that it would matter. Stret had learned much over the last three years, and one of the things he’d learned was his own power, and hence rank, would be matched by few others. He was a
Drake
Mage, and perhaps two of those came along in a generation.

Stret hesitated for another moment, allowing the silence to stretch for a long moment. “You’d better come in,” he said finally, stepping back to allow the other Chaos Mage entry into his home.

They entered the living area, and Stret gestured wordlessly to a chair. Kor’tal obeyed the unspoken order and sat, while Stret took a seat of his own.

Stret steepled his hands, and looked at the other Mage over them. “Now, would you mind telling me what this is about?” he asked flatly. “Or should I just burn you and have the ashes buried?”

Kor’tal winced at the threat. “Mau’reek’s scrying told me there was one of us in the area,” he told Stret quietly. “It didn’t tell her – or at least, she didn’t tell me if it did – that you were so powerful.”

The younger Mage leaned back to hide his confusion. Scrying shouldn’t have been able to locate him, even if he
wasn’t
shielding – which he was – and would never have told someone that he was a
Chaos
Mage. “Mau’reek?” he asked calmly, allowing none of his confusion to color his voice.

Kor looked at him. “You don’t know who Mau’reek is?” he asked, clearly surprised.

“I remember the name from somewhere, but my connection with the Swarm is tenuous to nonexistent, Mage Kor’tal,” Stret said calmly.

“All right,” Kor’tal said slowly, looking quite shocked at the thought of a Chaos Mage
not
knowing who ‘Mau’reek’ was. “Mau’reek is one of the Four.”

“Now
them
I know about,” Stret said dryly. He could hardly
not
know about them. The Four loomed large in all literature about Chaos. They were the four Magi who, roughly four hundred years before the Twain were ever born, had destroyed half of the world and created the Waste and the Swarm from its ashes; and in the doing so, bought themselves immortality. The
shek’maj’hil
usually took up at least a chapter in any book. Four lives, four Magi, eternally bound to four pillars. The amount of Chaos involved in its creation had seared half a continent clean of life. The amount of Chaos involved in its
existence
mutated the animals and people who survived its creation into the Swarm. It was impossible to not know about the Four.

“All right,” Stret considered finally, “since we now both have some idea of each other’s credentials, why don’t you tell me why you’re here?” Simply having been sent by one of the Four made an impressive credential all on its own.

“We’re Chaos Magi. Death and destruction, why else?” Kor’tal said with a youthful grin. The man couldn’t have been over twenty-five, for all that he was older than Stret’sar.

“If you don’t get more specific than that, the death and destruction are going to be yours,” Stret responded coldly.

Kor’tal raised his hands. “Okay, okay,” he said placatingly. “Mau’reek sent me on a specific mission, with two targets.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Stret observed, shrugging. “Why do you need help to kill a mere two Magi? I presume they’re Magi.”

“There’s the clincher,” Kor’tal admitted. “Mau’reek doesn’t want them dead. She wants them brought to her.”

“Why?” Stret asked.

“One is one of ours, a Raven Mage like myself,” Kor explained. “He was one of the Fallen, and ran a good chunk of our intelligence network this side of the mountains. Mau’reek doesn’t want what he knows falling into the hands of the Vishnean suck-ups, and she figures his service has been worth a rescue.

“The second target is a kid at the local Academy,” the Raven Mage continued. “He shows a lot of potential, and Mau’reek thinks that if we grab him, she can do the whole ‘motherly’ routine and Turn him.”

“I guess I see the point,” Stret said after a moment’s consideration, “but I have two questions of my own. Firstly, why can’t you bring them both in on your own? And second, what’s in this for me? If I make this run with you, I look to lose everything I have here.”

“They’re both in the Academy,” Kor’tal told him bluntly. “To get to them, I’ll have to blast my way through nine Battlemagi. I’m only a Raven Mage. As for the other…” he suddenly stopped speaking and his eyes snapped shut.

A moment later they opened again. When he spoke, his voice was lighter and more melodious. “There are reasons, my suspicious young friend,” the voice told Stret’sar.

Stret glared at Kor suspiciously, and the voice coming from the Mage’s throat laughed. “No, this is not Kor talking,” the speaker confirmed. “This is Mau’reek. I believe you deserve an answer to your question of why you should participate in this.

“Kor’tal was right when he suspected that I did have an idea of how powerful you are,” she told him through the Raven Mage’s lips. “I did.”

“I’m still wondering how you managed to
find
me, let alone discover how powerful I was,” Stret said drily.

“One does not live a millennium and a half without learning how to make your magic as near to perfect as your power allows, Stret’sar,” Mau’reek told him, a tinge of what
had
to be amusement running through her voice. “You are the most powerful Chaos Mage I’ve sensed since Jai’tell. You are wasted in this little house in the woods.” A gesture took in the house around them. “I want… no.
We
, all of us, the Four, want you to come to us. You may be what we have been waiting for.”