Dragon's Mage (An Advent Mage Novel), The - Raconteur, Honor (16 page)

It didn’t appear to have any sinister purpose, per se, although I didn’t like the look of those narrow windows on every side. They were spaced just right for archers. In fact, if you put a dozen men on each tower, they could effectively suppress anyone from marching an army through here. Were these some ancient battlements, left over from a long forgotten civilization? If so, why were they activated
now
?

“Kaya, let’s go back to the city,” I yelled grimly. “
Now
.”

~*~

We made the flight back to Mellor in record time. We landed outside of Mari’s office, a crowd almost instantly gathering around us, all of them shouting up questions at me. In the din, I could barely make out more than a word here and there. I barely had the buckles undone on the saddle when Mari climbed up Kaya’s leg and grabbed my arm with an iron grip.

“Krys, what are those things?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand why they appeared when they did, either. I can tell you this—they’re solidly built. There’s no one around them at this point, so whoever constructed them is either long gone or hasn’t arrived yet.”

The mayor elbowed his way through the people enough to reach Kaya’s head. “What do they look like? Are they battlements?”

“Could be,” I admitted uneasily, glancing in that direction. Even from here, the towers looked formidable. “There’s these narrow windows at the top, pointing in every direction. If you put archers up there, they’d have a very good command of the area.”

The people around me started muttering to themselves about that.

“I didn’t see any sign of life up there, though,” I hastily added. “And aside from the windows, nothing about it looked war-like to me. The towers might have a different purpose altogether.” Although I had no idea what it could be.

“Are they magical?” Mari asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

“They’d have to be.” I turned to look at her as I answered. “Nothing mechanical could have made them rise from the ground that fast. And those towers are in
perfect
condition, almost as if there’s a long-lasting preservation spell on them.”

“But you don’t recognize them?” At some point, Captain Lang had arrived on the scene. He looked a little out of breath, as if he had sprinted straight here. Maybe he had.

“Mages are notoriously uneducated on most spells and magical constructs,” I explained with an apologetic shrug. “We don’t need to know about most of it because we’ll never be able to use any of it. Is it magical? Yes, I could see that with my magical senses. What does it do? I couldn’t begin to tell you. But if you wish, I can certainly call in some magical experts who can figure it out.”

“I think you should,” the Mayor agreed. “But first.” Uh-oh, I didn’t like that look on his face. “Magus, I want you to go back up there and make
sure
that they pose no threat.”

Yes, I knew I wouldn’t like this request. He had a point in sending me, though. If it truly was magical, the only person that could safely go investigate would be me. With Kaya’s quick reflexes, she could fly me up and away from any danger within seconds.

That didn’t mean I liked it.

Grudgingly, I nodded in consent. “All right. But if
anything
goes wrong, and I don’t return, immediately contact the Strae Academy and report to Magus Rhebengarthen. He’ll know what to do.” Hopefully.

Mari’s head turned between me and the mayor several times, an unhappy expression on her face. “But if it’s that dangerous—”

“Just a precaution,” I assured her, already praying it was just that.

She finally nodded in acquiescence and slid back down to the ground. Giving Kaya’s neck a pat, she ordered us both, “You be careful. Don’t poke at those things too hard.”

Didn’t have to tell me twice. “Yes, boss.” I flashed her a smile and salute.

“Will,” Kaya promised, already spreading her wings in preparation for takeoff.

People rapidly backed out of the way to get Kaya room. As soon as she had it, she launched herself into the air with practiced ease before flipping around and heading for the towers. As we flew, I really debated whether to call for help or not. Well, I’d be calling for help regardless but should I do that now? What would I even say? “There’s giant towers popping up out of the ground, help!” Suuure. That would be less than helpful.

No, the mayor was right. We needed to know more about the towers before I contacted anyone. Right now, Garth wouldn’t know who to send to help me. I didn’t think there was such a thing as a ‘tower expert’ in the magical community. Besides, trying to talk to anyone through a mirror while on dragon-back didn’t work. The sound of the wind rushing basically garbled anything said. It would cause more worry than good. Better wait until I had a good look at the place.

The first tower sat very near to Paswater’s shores. We reached it within minutes and Kaya circled around it as she climbed upwards, gaining altitude so that I could see it from all angles. Until we reached the top, there was nothing to see. Just tightly fitted stone, slowly slanting inward as we flew up. But at the very top, the conical shaped tower abruptly ended in a circular room. This close, I could almost see inside through the windows. It looked pitch dark in there, though.

We glided around to the northern end, finding a previously unnoticed patio. It sat right above the windows, actually carved into the roof itself. No one had meant for it to hold more than a person at a time, judging from the narrow construction. I couldn’t quite figure out the purpose of it, either. Aside from a narrow railing, and that half-circular floor, nothing was there.

“Kaya, land on the roof.”

My familiar let out a grumble of protest.

“No, I think it’s safe,” I assured her slowly. “There’s no one here, and I can’t see any weapons or anything. But that section of the roof was built for someone to stand on, and I want to know why. Staring at it from a distance isn’t telling me anything.”

She gave me a glare over her shoulder that said in no uncertain terms what she thought of this idea but obediently banked so that she could land on the roof. It had more than enough space for her to do so—in fact, the edges of the roof curved upwards in a perfect angle so that she could grip it and balance herself. Reassured at her solid landing, I unbuckled myself and slid downwards to the roof. On this flat, slick surface I expected to have to fight with my balance to maneuver to that patio, but as I landed, I saw little grooves cut into the surface, perfectly spaced for a man’s boots. As I fit my shoes into them, I walked easily to the patio, finding a ladder of sorts carved into the wall that aided my descent down.

Any doubts I had about this area being built for a man disappeared. Although I still couldn’t see why.

Frowning to myself, I eased over the edge of the roof and climbed slowly down to the patio. Kaya extended her neck so that she could peek over and keep me within her sight. If anything happened, she could grab me within a moment and take off. Reassured by her presence, I looked around.

The view from here was spectacular. Only a dragon rider had seen vistas like this. In fact, I think only a dragon rider would be able to climb up here and not get a bad case of vertigo. But aside from the amazing view, I still didn’t see the purpose of the tower.

Turning to the wall, I started looking for some writing, or niches carved into the stone. Hmm? Under a light coat of dust and dirt clumps, did I see lines? I used my hand to brush away the dust, trying to see beyond it. Yes, writing had been carved into the wall here. I kept brushing, faster now, revealing more and more words. Words I couldn’t read. Well, hardly surprising. These towers were ancient, after all. So old that no one even remembered them in legends. Of course that long ago civilization had used a different language.

I gave one last brush against the wall, knocking off more dirt. I wish I had brought up some paper and a pencil to—wait. That rumbling noise. What was that? It sounded like it came from deep within the tower, and it made the stones under my hand vibrate ever so slightly.

Like a shot, Kaya launched herself off the roof, grabbing me up with her forearms as she moved, taking us away from the tower so fast that it almost knocked the wind out of me. She barely got more than ten feet or so away when from those narrow windows, water started spewing out in every direction.

Water?
Water
? I twisted my head about at an almost painful angle so that I could look at the other towers. One by one, they all started doing the same thing, water gushing out in a steady stream from all of the windows.

Wait, so this was…a giant, complex irrigation system? All right, granted, in this desert land you needed some kind of water system to get anything to grow, but wasn’t this overkill? Just what had that long-ago civilization
grow
, anyway?

“Krys,” Kaya said in a worried voice. “City.”

City? I turned sharply around to see Mellor. Ohhhh shrinking
hinges
. The tower had enough range that it was spewing water directly over the city. With that kind of water pressure, it would no doubt actually flood the city given enough time!

I really, really wanted to panic at this point. But no good ever came from panicking. “Kaya, set me down.
Fast
.” I had to report this to Garth and ask for immediate help. Hopefully he knew someone that would be able to shut these things off.

As Kaya headed for solid earth at an insane, reckless speed, I swore to myself I would never wish for an interesting day at work ever again.

Chapter Eleven: Water Problems

My no-good, awful, very bad day at work had taken a turn for the worse after I got a good look at the countryside. Garth had me go up on Kaya’s back so that I could take a look at the damage the huge water towers were causing. I hadn’t liked what I saw.

But the part that I didn’t like the most was this moment, sitting in the mayor’s office with Mari on my right and Captain Lang on my left, reporting to my superiors of everything going wrong. At least the office didn’t have enough room in it to hold too many people at once. The mayor sat behind his desk, fingers steepled in front of his face, and the rest of us were in three chairs squeezed into the remaining space in front. Of course, the door to the office was wide open with people piled into the hallway, all of them shushing each other and trying to hear what we said.

Perhaps the mayor saw my reluctance as he gave me a reassuring smile and nod. “Give it to me by the numbers, son. I won’t blame the messenger.”

So he said, but I felt responsible for this, somehow. I took in a deep breath, let it out, and started from the top. “The towers are, I believe, an ancient irrigation system. They’re using a form of magic that’s similar to ours, in a way, but just different enough that I can’t figure out how it works. There’s writing up at the very top, so if we can get an expert on dead languages up there, maybe he can figure out how to turn it off. Right now, I don’t dare mess with it. I have a bad feeling that me being up there is what turned the water on, actually. I think something up there recognized me as a magician and when I touched the wall, it turned on.”

Mari came instantly to my defense. “But you don’t know that it was you. It’s just a paranoid guess, right?”

“Well, yes,” I was forced to admit. I still think it was me, though. “At any rate, the water is not just flooding Mellor at a steady rate it’s also impacting the highways. Worse, with all of the loose dirt out there, it’s causing mudslides. I could see it from Kaya’s back. Even if we could get volunteers from other cities to help, they wouldn’t be able to get to us.”

Captain Lang looked up at the ceiling, listening to the water hit the roof in a rhythmic way that a natural rainfall would never do. “It doesn’t show any signs of stopping, either.”

Unfortunately. “I’ve already called Strae and told them of what’s happening here,” I continued, glad to finally report more positive news. “Garth has already dispatched several mages to help us deal with the damage. They’ll arrive sometime tomorrow, I think. As for the expert we need to shut down those towers, he wasn’t sure who would be best, but he’ll send out a message to the magical community and find someone for us.”

“You can’t do anything?” Captain Lang asked, tone neutral.

I shrugged apologetically. “Fire Mages are useless in situations like this. The best I can do is ferry the expert up to the towers once he gets here on Kaya.”

“Do what you can.” Mayor Hartmann leaned back in his chair to look out the window, which from here gave him a clear view of several towers. “Let’s hope those things don’t suddenly activate some other feature that will do even more damage before your expert can get here.”

~*~

It was only moments like those, when the world was falling down around me, that I realized just how limited mages were. Despite how awe-inspiring our power could be, we were very useless at times. I spent a good majority of the day in the air with Kaya, mapping out the most damaged areas and the spots that needed to be dealt with immediately when my fellow mages arrived. But when night fell, I couldn’t even do that anymore.

Feeling frustrated and a little depressed, I finally dragged myself home and tried to get a good night’s sleep. I’d need the rest in order to help everyone tomorrow. Kaya didn’t have any problems with finding dreamland. After a full day in the air, more or less, she fell asleep and started snoring the roof down before her head even touched the ground.

It took me a little longer.

At dawn, we were up in the air again, surveying the land. The damage had doubled overnight. The roads were now flooded with several feet of water, some of them buried under mudslides. Mellor had a solid foot of water on its city streets, only the higher sections of town fairing any better.

Kaya banked a bit under my direction, coming around the lake’s shoreline once more, just avoiding the worst of the spray. We couldn’t avoid all of it without being high up in the cloud line, which meant I couldn’t see the ground well at all. Because of that, we necessarily got wet.