Star Mage (Book 5) (15 page)

“What?” Nikulo felt his face flush from the heat of the flames. “I thought—”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, and leaned over to kiss him with the familiar passion he’d experienced on their nights together on the caravan. After she parted in a panting gaze, her eyes bright with longing, she raised a finger to keep him silenced. “One condition I have for you. You and the slaves will say my husband was slain by desert marauders, and that you saved us. And I will never speak a word of this again to you or anyone else. Do you understand me?”

Nikulo nodded, and felt like a puppy that’s been scolded by his master for peeing inside the house.

“How old are you?” Callith studied him with unconvinced eyes. “You have such a baby face, I can’t tell.”

“I’m sixteen…soon to be seventeen.” Nikulo frowned as she laughed riotously. “What’s so funny?”

“I can’t believe I’m actually older than you. You’re practically like my baby brother.”

Despite feelings of humiliation, he didn’t resist her when she plopped her small figure onto his lap and kissed him again. “I guess I have no choice but to stop hating you, chubby little brother. You did save the entire City of Ursula from destruction, and you are quite famous in Naru as well. I imagine I’ll have to keep you. Just don’t do anything stupid like getting yourself killed in Onair. I’ll never forgive you if you don’t return alive and well for our wedding.”

His eyes flared at the words and he almost stood and dropped her on the floor. “Wedding? Did I miss something? Like perhaps proposing to you?”

She rolled her eyes and gave him a pretty scoff. “Let me see, late at night in the desert, the four moon sisters shining outside, the ale flowing freely between our lips. I resisted, and you made so many sweet vows of love and promised to take me away and keep me safe. How that handsome mouth of yours babbled,
I love you, I love you,
so many times I worried the madness of the moons had overtaken your silly mind. You may not remember what you said, but I do and I believed you then, and I still believe that a part of you feels that way now. Or was that merely your member talking?”

At her gentle squeeze, he found a groan escaping his mouth and realized it was hopeless to resist her. “Ok, I give in…you win. Stop it, now, you little tart. We’re supposed to be
talking
in here not doing this. What if Yarin or Master Holoron came in and found us?”

“Oh, I highly doubt they’d be surprised, any fool can see the way you gawk at me with those hungry eyes of yours.” She placed a hand on her breast and assumed the noble face of one very serious. “He is such a beast, I tell you the truth, Master Holoron. What kind of a devil was he in school anyway?”

Nikulo pinched her and she squealed in delight. “I’ll show you what kind of a devil I am. Just be patient and wait until I get back from Onair. We won’t be long in dispatching those Jiserians.”

At the end of the next day, Master Holoron and Nikulo found themselves docking at a small fishing village just north of Onair. They ate dinner and had a few drinks with a local fisherman and his family who were kind enough to put them up for the night. The man’s beady eyes raged in fury as he told stories of the Jiserian invasion and the destructive waves that ravaged their city like it was a sandcastle. Their small village had escaped attention, but the streams of refugees and injured poured out of the city for weeks after the sorcerers and necromancers had imposed martial law and ruled the remains of the city in absolute tyranny.
 

“They never liked the fact that the wizards of Ursula gave them such a good fight.” The old fisherman wagged his head and guzzled some more frothy beer. “It was revenge, I tell you, revenge against the wizards for defeating so many Jiserian champions that had faced them in their sky duels. The young one here probably doesn’t know that Onair possessed a legendary school of magic with some of the finest wizards in the land.” He glanced at Master Holoron. “But I’m sure you remember the Order of Songs and their wild, frenzied dancing and contortions and singing, all to invite the divine through their magical castings. I witnessed it once and will never forget that powerful display of magic and music.”

“I visited the Order many times and enjoyed learning from their old masters.” The wizard stared off at the sea. “When I heard the news of the Order’s obliteration and the slaying of their wizards—both the old masters and the young apprentices—I felt my world was being slowly ripped apart. And then it happened to us in Naru. All our knowledge and power and history fared poorly against the dark, distilled clarity of the Jiserian magic.”

“And what have you heard recently of the Jiserians in Onair?” Talis studied the old fisherman’s eyes as the man furrowed his brow in worry.

“Tis a very complicated and difficult situation since it has been confirmed that the necromancers have fled.” The man scoffed and a flash of irritation crossed his face. “I suppose it is a good thing that the sorcerers cleared the city of the undead and purged the dungeons and the deep archives of those foul practitioners of the necromantic arts. But unfortunately the city is ruled by a strange order of magic from the City of Carvina, an order that mixes melee with the magical arts to augment their physical strength, speed, and their defensive capabilities.”

He looked to Talis as if grasping for help in finding the right words to say. “How would you call it…a kind of second skin, sort of like an armadillo or maybe a turtle? They wrap themselves in a tough, scaly skin that makes them almost immune to sword and dagger. Brutal beasts, they are. They came in after the wizards of the Order of Songs destroyed the first group of sorcerers. They gleefully fought every gladiator and challenger for miles around, luring them with a vast fortune of gold and gems. None of the challengers lived to enjoy the bounty.”

Talis glanced at the concerned face of Master Holoron, and waited for the old historian to respond, but he just finished his beer and stared in thoughtful contemplation at the sea. The fisherman excused himself for the night, and Talis was left alone with the wizard.

“Are you worried about what the fisherman said?” Talis kept his voice low and searched Holoron’s face for any signs of doubt. “How will we fight those warrior magicians?”

Master Holoron exhaled and pounded his fist on the table, causing Nikulo to jump in surprise. “We can’t fight them, they’ve been trained since birth to have a high resistance against most forms of magic. And even if you are a master swordsman, good luck in beating them in a fair fight. They are the champions of Emperor Ghaalis, the fanatical and ancient Order of the Dragons, the most feared fighters in the world.
 

“From my research into their history I’ve gleaned that the ancient founders of their Order made a blood oath to steal the beating hearts of every dragon in the world, and offered the hearts as a sacrifice to their cruel gods. Once they completed that horrific mission they perfected their magics with the aid and blessing of their gods. That is why there are no more dragons on this world, at least according to their lore, and I’ve heard no better explanation for the dragons disappearance.”

Nikulo thought to Vellia, and the vast horde of dragons from Ghaelstrom, and couldn’t imagine them all being killed. What nefarious minds were powerful and conniving enough to destroy all of dragon kind?

“You know there is a cult within the Order of the Dragons that claim that their members have gone weak over the years without dragon blood and hearts to sacrifice to their gods. They hold a great reverence for the dragons, and believe that their ancestors should have never killed all the dragons, but instead conquered them and bred them for repeated sacrifice over the years. They’ve sent scouts far across the seas and north into the mountains searching for any remaining dragons, but from what I’ve heard, none have been found.”

“I hope Talis never transforms into a dragon in Carvina, they’ll try and rip his heart out alive.”

Master Holoron thought about his words for a while, and shook his head in disagreement. “No, I imagine they might worship him as a god and raise him up as the most powerful figure on this world.”

“So what do we do about Onair?” Nikulo changed the subject, not wanting to picture Talis getting mixed up with such a strange magical order. “We’re stuck here now that the ship has gone. Unless we wait for another one going north?”

“I never said we’d give up on our mission. I merely meant we wouldn’t fight. There are other ways of winning than fighting. And here before us is a valuable lesson in the art of war. What is the goal we are seeking to accomplish?”

Nikulo thought about all the miserable refugees that had come to Naru after the destruction of Onair. If they couldn’t win in a fight against the Jiserians, then what was their real goal? “To protect the people left in Onair?”

“Think more carefully. To protect them would put yourself in a position of requiring to fight those of the Order of the Dragons. What is our real goal here in this situation?”

“Well, we wanted to go down and get rid of the Jiserians and free the city.” Nikulo felt himself getting frustrated at the wizard’s cryptic questions.
 

“Precisely, the goal is to get rid of the Jiserians and free the city.” Master Holoron bowed his head in respect to Nikulo. “And to achieve that goal, there is no reason for us to fight. We just need a way to assure victory for our goal without raising a finger to fight. And do you have any ideas on how to get them to leave Onair?” At Nikulo’s no doubt exasperated look, the wizard continued, “We know what they want, do we not? I’ve just told you they crave dragons to breed and use as a sacrifice for their dark gods.”

“So you are suggesting we offer them a way to find dragons? The dragons on Vellia? But they have no means to leave this world and journey to Vellia, Aurellia made sure of that by leaving. Unless there are others remaining in the Jiserian Empire that possess the knowledge? But without a powerful enough crystal, there’s no hope of succeeding in the casting of the world portal spell.”

“Ah, but there is someone in the Jiserian Empire who has such knowledge and holds a powerful crystal required to cast such a spell. You said it yourself.” The wizard leaned forward and Nikulo shuddered at the devious look on his face. “Your friend, Talis Storm, would he not be able to provide what those Jiserians desire?”

As they snuck through the silent streets to the house of their destination, Mara imagined the feeling of the twin daggers in her hands, blazing and slicing as she cut the criminals down. Master Goleth’s story had strangely affected her emotions and even now she found her arms shaking from the image of those horrible men hurting the Builder and his mother. She allowed Talis to lead the way so she could open her backpack and withdraw the daggers. The leather straps of the sheaths were perfectly sized to attach to each forearm, and the weight of the blades and the feeling of fury flowed into her mind at their close proximity.
 

I will kill those men myself with my own daggers,
she told herself, and she pictured the blood erupting from the old men’s necks.
Age demands no pity of me
, she thought, and as Talis pointed at a multi-storied house made of stone, she gripped the daggers and wielded them, a burst of bloodlust surging through her.

A quick glance from his wary eyes caused Mara to lower the daggers in caution, not wanting for him to recognize the design. “The door is steel and there are solid iron bars on all the windows. And I doubt at this late hour they’d open for someone knocking at their front door.”

“Use the map to show us any dangerous people or traps,” Mara said, and noticed the hesitation in Talis’s response.

“Is this really necessary?” Master Goleth said, and his eyes looked tired and fearful as he stared up at the strong house. “I mean what is done is done, and will killing two old men who committed a crime many years ago really help anything?”

“Of course it will,” Mara retorted, and frowned in response to his stupid words. Why was he being such a coward? They hurt and probably killed his mother, and he felt no rage against them? “What they did to your mother, they likely did to many other people, and from the look of this house, they probably continue to commit crimes every day. Let the Lord of the Underworld mete out his judgment for all their evil deeds.”

She took a step towards Talis and jutted her chin at the Surineda Map. Her eyes fixed on Master Goleth. “Stay out here in the street and suffer under your memories, Builder, but I’m killing those men tonight.”

Talis stopped opening the map and gaped at Mara in horror. “What’s come over you? I want to see those men punished for their crimes as do you, but it’s almost like you’re enjoying the thought of killing them. And where did you get those daggers? They don’t make blades like that in Naru.”

“You know as well as I do that we’re the only ones who can punish those men for what they did to Master Goleth’s mother.” She sighed in irritation and looked up at him with a pleading gaze, not wanting to answer his question. “His story really got to me, ok? We both have a mother and he had to grow up knowing that his mother had been hurt by those men. And his father refused to take him in… Can you imagine how you would feel if that ever happened to you? Those men are guilty. Period. End of argument. Now are you going to help me or not?”