Magus (Advent Mage Cycle) (44 page)

I couldn't disagree with that analysis. "I can put up a barrier around it," I offered.

"Something like what you did around Q'atal?" Xiaolang perked up, intrigued by the idea.

"Yes, something like that."

"This won't exhaust you, will it?"

Considering how I had collapsed when I last did this, I suppose the question and concern was valid. "No, not at all. This will be much smaller, just around the pool itself. It will take minutes to set up, and hardly any energy on my part."

Xiaolang thought about it for a moment before nodding firmly. "Do it now. Shad, wake everyone else up. We need to make some contingency plans."

Shad had far too much fun waking everyone up. He pounced on people, bouncing on their stomachs, messing with their hair—he pinched Hazard’s nose shut so he couldn’t breathe, which had the large man flailing awake in instinctive panic. By the time everyone was semi-conscious, they were all ready to kill him.

Me, I just sat back and enjoyed the show.

I have a twisted sense of humor—I’ve never claimed otherwise.

Taking pity on my friends, I cooked breakfast that morning. Hot food put everyone in a slightly better mood, and by the time they were done eating, Shad’s imminent death had been downgraded to mere dismembering.

Considering the high caliber of soldiers and magicians out for his blood, I thought Shad looked a bit too calm. But then, it was Shad. The world would have to be on the verge of cracking open before he started to really worry.

We were down to scraping the bottom of our plates when Xiaolang cleared his throat, calling our attention to him. “All right, now that we’re all here in body
and
mind,” Xiaolang cast everyone a dry smile, “let’s start thinking. Garth, can you give us a warning when the Star Order is coming?”

I paused, carefully phrasing my reply. “I can feel anyone from the Star Order from a distance, yes. I won’t be able to give you a very accurate account of how many soldiers are with them. Or how well they’re armed.”

That definitely gave Xiaolang food for thought. “Hm. Chatta?”

“I’ll have to do a scrying, of course, but I can show you exactly what we’re up against.”

“In that case, you search.”

She gave him a casual salute. “On it, Captain.”

“For the rest of you, our plans are still going to be shaky at this point, as we have little idea of what the enemy will react like. But I think we’d better start doing some contingency planning. Garth is going to put a barrier up around the pool to keep any unwanted visitors out.”

An unbidden thought popped up in the back of my head. “I’m going to need to send them some sort of message. Otherwise, if they start hurtling magical attacks at that barrier, it’s going to bounce right back at them.”

Chatta smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Argh, you’re right!”

“Not to mention they might have a heart attack if this glowing dome suddenly drops over them,” Shad observed in sarcastic humor.

That was another valid thought. “Right. Didi, I’m going to write a letter to them. Do you think you can dive through and deliver it?”

“Di!” Didi drew himself up in a cocky manner.

Chatta was studying her flying friend with clear worry written all over her face. “I’m not sure about this, Garth. I mean, he’s small and quick, but…they have some formidable spells over there.”

“Have you got a better idea?”

“Actually…I might.” She tugged a free lock of hair in and out of her fingers, obviously thinking. “We’ve been shown they have an excellent command of that pool, right?”

“Right,” I agreed, wondering where she was going with this.

“And they’re just as obviously keeping a very close eye on us.”

I made a noise of agreement, encouraging her to go on.

“So why do we need to go all the way
there
to give them a message? Why can’t I just scrawl something in large, glowing letters here, so they can read it?”

How is it that it’s always the simple answers that evade me? Is my brain defective somehow? “I like it. Xiaolang?”

“Make the letters at least a foot long, so they can easily read them,” he ordered. “And run it by me before you write anything down.”

“Right.” I rummaged in my pack until I found my hereto-unused map making supplies. Pulling a piece of paper free, and a pen, I set to it. Chatta looked over my shoulder, offering suggestions and corrections. After a few minutes of concentration and work, it came out to read like this:

To the people at the pool:

We are a team of magicians and soldiers from Hain, tasked by King Guin to rescue anyone with magical abilities in Chahir. We are aware that there are fifteen magicians at the pool now, and wish to help bring you safely out of Chahir and into Hain.

Right now, we suspect that the Star Order knows about you, and will be coming here soon. Either today or early tomorrow, we think. To protect you, we will put a protective barrier around the pool. This barrier will not allow anyone inside that means to harm you. The Star Order cannot directly attack you with the barrier in place. However, do NOT cast magical attacks through the barrier. They will reflect back on you. The barrier is meant to deflect magical attacks of all sorts.

“Anything else I should add?” I asked her.

“Hmm…I don’t think so. Xiaolang?” she called.

Xiaolang broke off the conversation he was having with Hazard and crossed to us. I handed him the paper, watching as he read it through quickly. “That’s good enough,” he finally pronounced. “But put it into Chahirese.”

I blinked, and then realized that I had automatically written it in Hainish. I hadn’t even thought about it. Granted, I had been speaking Hainish a great deal over the past two years, but still. Habit was a wonderful thing. “Right. Chatta, if you’ll do the honors?”

“Um…re-write it in Chahirese first?” She gave me a sheepish smile. “I don’t always spell everything right.”

As I had coached her more in being able to speak the language fluently than being able to read it this didn’t surprise me. I took it back from Xiaolang and rewrote it quickly.

When I was done, Chatta went off to the side, far away from the camp to have enough room. Writing that much with one foot long lettering was going to take up a
lot
of space.

Against the thick grass of the flatlands, glowing letters of blue light danced, highly visible. It actually looked sort of neat. Magic was absolutely brilliant sometimes.

All of the soldiers had their heads together, talking strategy and plans, which I would have very little to do with. My weapons were generally big rocks, after all. Oh, and sand. Sand is my friend. It's wonderfully easy to manipulate. That considered, I drifted over to Night, who was (unsuccessfully) attempting to open the last jar of peanut butter with his teeth. “How long should we wait for them to read this before I go put up that barrier?”

He raised his head, eyeing me thoughtfully.
“Ten minutes? Long enough for it to sink in, but not so long that they try to stop you.
”

That sounded about right. I was glad that I didn’t have to get any closer to that pool to raise the barrier. Trying to dodge attacks
and
do complicated magic was a sure way to get scorched.

“
Garth, I’m begging here. Please,
please
, open this.”

I slanted him an evil look out of the corner of my eyes. “You ate a whole jar. That one is
mine
.”

“
But I’ll need my energy soon!
” he wheedled.
“Please
?”

It’s true that we’d be going home soon, and I’d get more peanut butter then. And it’s also true that he carries me everywhere, and he’d need the extra energy later.

But busted buckets, I didn’t
want
to share.

Night lifted one hoof, eyeing it thoughtfully, and then turned that same look on the jar. I just knew that he was considering breaking the jar open to get what he wanted. That pretty much decided me. “Okay, okay, just don’t bust it open!” I said hastily, waving him down. “And you can’t have
all
of it, just half.”

He was so glad to get some of it that he didn’t have to lick off glass splinters that he agreed readily to this. I dug out some crackers—thankfully not smashed
too
badly—and started feeding him peanut butter. Sighing in pure bliss, Night flicked his tail and let his eyes droop, crunching away contentedly.

I watched him, exasperated and smiling. He really was a peanut butter addict. I never should have fed him the stuff.

“Okay, all done!” Chatta bounced over, snitched a cracker, and dipped it into peanut butter before I could stop her.

“
Hey, that’s mine!”
Night straightened in alarm. You’d think she’d just tried to steal his firstborn child or something.

“Don’t be selfish, Night,” she returned easily, happily munching through her snack.

I fed him another cracker to stop more wails of protest. “Now all we need to do is wait a few minutes.”

“That’s all you need to do,” Chatta corrected, “
I
get to do a scrying and see if I can’t find any Star Order Priests lurking about.”

“Yeah, have fun with that.”

Wrinkling her nose in aggravation, she went to fetch a canteen. “Garth, I don’t have a bowl handy for this. We used it for dinner last night. Make one for me, would you?”

“Sure.” That wasn’t a difficult thing to do. “How big do you want it?”

She ran her wand thoughtfully along the edge of her chin. “About two feet across?”

“Okay.” I focused on a clear spot, off to the side of the camp, raising hard bedrock up to the surface. When it was clear of grass, I melted it enough to change the shape, forming a shallow bowl two feet in diameter. “Like that?”

“Perfect, thanks.” She settled near it, pouring water in carefully.

While I was waiting, I fed Night one more cracker. He tried to get two more, but he’d already eaten half the jar, and I wasn’t encouraging his habit to eat like a pig. With the jar safely stowed away, I figured that it would behoove me to put a saddle and bridle on him. We might not have enough time to get ready later.

Judging that I’d waited long enough, I walked a few feet away from camp, just to put all of the distractions behind me. Barriers were tricky things to deal with—I’d only done it wrong once. The furniture hadn’t survived the experience. From that point on, I’d been
very
careful to pay attention to what I was doing.

Still, this wasn’t as difficult as the barrier that I had put up around Q’atal. I doubt anything could top
that
. I tapped into one of the more powerful ley lines to sustain it. I had debated with myself about whether I wanted this barrier to collapse soon or not—but then I thought, why not make it last longer? It would keep a powerful tool out of the Star Order’s hands. Besides, I wasn’t sure how many attacks that barrier was going to have to repel. Making it weak on purpose sounded like a recipe for disaster.

I raised it up all at once, forming a solid, perfect dome over the building. Even though it was smaller, it still required effort on my part. I was breathing a little hard, sweat dewing my skin by the time it was up and finished.

Eagle drifted up to stand beside me. “That didn’t take you long at all,” he observed. He sounded a bit bemused.

“It never does.” It just usually requires a
lot
more energy.

“Do all of your barrier glow green like this?”

I hadn’t thought about that until he asked. “I suppose they do at that.” I rubbed the back of my neck, thinking about it, but I couldn’t recall even one barrier that hadn’t glowed.

“Huh.”

We waited a long moment, neither one of us speaking.

“Garth, I can’t tell at this distance—
have
they attacked the barrier?”

“Not that I can tell.” I focused, trying to really pinpoint everyone at the pool. “I…think…they’re all inside the building.” I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of that, but the strongest feeling of magic was inside the building itself, and I didn’t detect anything outside of it. “I hope they heed my warning and don’t attack it.”

“How bad would it be?”

“Depends on what spell they use,” I admitted. “It could be minor, or major, depending on what they do.” Seeing that hadn’t alleviated his concern, I coached into terms he was familiar with. “It’s like the difference between a pebble and a boulder. If you throw a pebble at a wall, and it bounces back at you, it doesn’t hurt you much. But if you throw a boulder…”

He grimaced. “Let’s hope they don’t throw anything.”

“I’m good with that.”

Behind us, Chatta hissed, sounding like an enraged cat. “Xiaolang, they’re coming!”

The Ascalon captain moved so quickly he almost seemed to teleport to her side. “Where?”

“Maybe thirty miles to the south of us? They’re just outside of Praison.”

“That’s twenty-five miles,” Xiaolang corrected, brows drawing together. “How many?”

There was taut silence as they both counted the soldiers in the scrying pool. The rest of us waited with baited breath, waiting for that answer.

“I counted eighty soldiers, forty Star Order Priests,” Xiaolang said in a painfully calm tone. “You?”

“The same,” Chatta agreed faintly. “They’re moving at a pretty good clip.”

“They don’t want us to disappear before they can capture us,” Shield noted in dark confidence. “And they probably know that winter’s going to set in soon—they want this situation resolved before they’re caught out in the elements.”

Xiaolang nodded, agreeing with his lieutenant’s observations.

Shad came over to lean against Chatta’s other side, peering at the image in the water. “Beautiful, to your eyes, do any of them glow?”

Chatta frowned up at him. “They all glow.”

I groaned when I realized what that meant. “They’re all connected to each other, is that what you’re seeing?”

She didn’t take her eyes off the scried image. “That’s what it looks like. The magical aura over them is blood red. It seems to be in some form of personal shield, too.”