The Archmage Unbound (12 page)

As I got closer to the king’s personal
rooms I noticed a much larger number of guards. Men had been tucked into every
available corner and at every doorway along the hall. It hadn’t been like this
the last time I had come here. Of course on that occasion I had been slightly
intoxicated, answering a summons from the king and walking with James
Lancaster. It was entirely possible I had missed noticing them, but I doubted
it.
Cyhan must have delivered my message
, I thought with a smirk.

As I went I also noticed the guards
stood straighter when they saw me coming and whatever small talk they had been
engaged in ceased entirely. That gave me all the information I needed
regarding Ruth’s possible role here. I put a bit more confidence in my stride
and boldly met the eyes of any guard who dared to look at me. In every case
they met my gaze calmly and without question. I had no more doubts, Ruth was
their superior, or at the very least much higher up the food chain.

I stopped before the door leading into
the private audience chamber, the same one that King Edward had met me in over
a half a year past. Two men guarded it and they seemed worried when I
stopped. Protocol for a guest would have been to have them call for the king’s
chamberlain and request an audience, or at the very least announce my
presence. Ruth was not a guest however and I got the distinct feeling they had
expected me to enter without pausing for permission or waiting for the
chamberlain.

“You!” I snapped at the man standing to
the right, “Has anyone entered or left in the past hour?” I was hoping to
cover my hesitation with questions.

“No milady!” he answered loudly.

I brought my hand up to rest a finger
against my lips and the man visibly flinched.
He thought I might strike
him!
Whoever Ruth was she clearly led an interesting life. “Very well,” I
told him, “Open the door for me.” I wanted him to do it in case there might be
a secret signal; one never knew when it came to guarding royalty. If I
attempted to open it myself without following whatever the proper protocol was it
would be a dead giveaway.

He leaned over and opened the door. If
there had been a secret knock or other signal I saw no sign of it, and I wound
up feeling a bit foolish. I didn’t bother looking at him as I entered. I
already knew there was only one person inside, the chamberlain unless I was
mistaken. Let me correct that, there was only one person ‘within’ the room.
Two hidden side doors had several guards waiting behind them, watching the area.

The chamberlain started as I entered and
rose quickly from the chair he had been resting on. “I hadn’t expected…,” he
began.

“Don’t bother,” I told him. “Is he in
his rooms? I need to talk to the king right away.” I was already walking
toward the doorway that led toward what I presumed was his Majesty’s private
living area. That was my first mistake. Apparently Ruth didn’t outrank the
chamberlain… I should have known.

“Ruth! Stop! What do you think you are
doing?” he exclaimed indignantly. I could sense the men behind the hidden
doors tensing.

The time for subterfuge was over. I had
sincerely hoped I could reach King Edward without kicking up a fuss, but it
seemed my wish was not to be.
“Shibal!”
I said loudly, putting a good
deal of force into it. The chamberlain went down immediately, as did three of
the men behind the hidden doors. The fourth was either a stoic or had
something shielding his mind, for he never even faltered, the door he stood
behind slid aside and an arrow was already in flight toward my head before I
had finished putting his comrades to sleep.

I hadn’t been in any sort of serious
conflict since the end of the war with Gododdin two months past, yet it that
time had left its mark upon me somehow… for I found myself enjoying the
adrenaline. I smiled as the arrow shattered against my shield, savoring the
look on the bowman’s face as he realized he was in more trouble than he was
ready for. Since the man was immune to mind affecting spells I spoke again,
sealing the door he had just passed through with another shield and as an
afterthought I repeated the process to seal the doorway I had entered through
as well.

I walked toward the guard… still
smiling. He tried another arrow and seeing that fail drew his sword. With a
flick of my wrist and a whispered word my magic ripped the blade from his grasp
and sent it spinning through the air, only to have it return, pointing at him,
scant inches from his face. “Turn around please,” I told him calmly. “Put
your hands behind your back, I’d really rather not have to hurt you.”

The poor fellow was so unnerved he
obeyed immediately. Drawing my dagger I cut the belt from his waist and used
it to bind his hands. “Lie down on the floor,” I added and he readily
complied. “Look, I understand you’re in an awkward situation here,” I told him
conversationally. “You’re the only one conscious and now you’ve been tied up,
uninjured and unbruised. It might look bad when they free you later. Would
you like me to rough you up a bit? I’d rather not get you into trouble if I
can avoid it.” I honestly meant every word as I said it, but apparently it was
a bit too much for the guard. He moaned in an entirely unmanly manner and a
moment later I smelled a distinct odor of urine.

“Aww… what the hell?” I said in dismay
as I saw the stain spreading on the rich carpeting of the floor. Ignoring his
loss of bladder control I took a moment to shatter his sword and rip up his
clothes… perhaps that would be enough to keep him from being flogged later. I
felt distinctly bad about it though as it only served to frighten him even
further.

I left him then and headed through the
doorway leading into the king’s private demesne. It led into a long corridor,
richly decorated and with multiple doorways leading off in every direction.
More guards were already heading my way, but none of them were stoics and I put
them to sleep before they got anywhere near me. Since my disguise was no
longer effective I dropped it.

Taking a second to focus I used my
arcane senses to examine the rooms around me. The king’s quarters were a
veritable warren of chambers, gardens, baths and bedrooms, but it took me only
a moment to locate King Edward. He was waiting in his bedroom, sitting calmly
at a side table. I have to give the man credit, he might be on the verge of
assassination but he faced it with remarkable aplomb.

I followed a circuitous route to reach
his bedroom door. I was tempted to knock down some walls and cut a direct path
but I figured I should be more diplomatic. There were four men standing in the
ante-chamber outside of his room but I didn’t let that worry me, they weren’t
armed and seemed to be wearing nothing more than plain robes. I calmly opened
the door to the sitting room and stepped inside. That was when all hell broke
loose.

My eyes immediately confirmed what my
mage-sight had already told me; these men were not armed or armored, but as
soon as I entered light flared around them. Each one gained an aura, though
they varied in color… silver, lavender, greenish gold and blue, these were
devotees of the four shining gods.
Channelers, great.

I was temporarily blinded as their power
slammed into me, encasing my shield in coruscating light and nearly crushing me
with its force.
I should have expected something like this,
I thought
suddenly. Why hadn’t I brought my staff? I was trapped… it took nearly all my
strength to keep my shield intact. As my senses adjusted I realized only three
of them held me, while the third was concentrating on something. The look in
his eyes told me it would be something unpleasant and I immediately remembered
the spell I had once used to cut through my opponents shields. If he used
something like that I would be cut in two.
Shit.

Individually none of the channelers were
powerful enough to be a real threat, but together they were perhaps more than I
could handle. I had one advantage though, while they were used to handling
power only on rare occasions, I dealt with it on a daily basis. As the free
one focused on his spell I changed my shield from a spherical to a tear drop
shape, using the force of my opponents grip to send me hurtling sideways.

I wasn’t a moment too soon, a flickering
beam of green light sliced into the space where I had just been a moment before
and cut through the stone walls behind me. As I went flying sideways the three
who had held me were disoriented and lost their grip. That was all I needed.

The moment the forces against my shield
let up I diverted my strength into a new spell, “
Pyrren ni’Tragen.”
Flames
exploded outward to engulf the entire room. Two of the men had been using all
of their power to pin me, leaving them unable to maintain a shield to protect themselves.
Their fate wasn’t pretty. The other two had been better able to balance their
use of power and were instead merely flung backward by the force of the
explosion.

One of them lost his focus and his
shield disappeared after he struck a wall. Meanwhile I was already rising from
the other side of the room where my shield tactic had tossed me. I didn’t
bother to waste my power, I already had a stone in my hand and as I stood back
up I breathed upon it sharply, “
Tielen striltos,”
I said and it streaked
across the room. The unshielded man’s head flew back and bits of blood and
bone stained the walls.

I walked carefully across the room to
the last man who was struggling to focus his power into an effective shield.
Something about the clumsy way he wielded his magic made me laugh and a sickening
laugh escaped my lips as I approached him. I focused my attention and encased
him in a crushing bubble of pure force, much like the one they had used to pin
me a moment before. His face went white with strain as he struggled to keep it
from killing him. “You’re not having a very good day,” I told him with a
smile.

He grimaced, “You cannot win. The gods
are united against you.”

I increased the pressure on him a bit.
He obviously had too much energy left for talking. “So they have decided to
support the king against me?” I glanced around the room, noting the symbols on
their robes… Doron, Karenth, Millicenth… all of the shining gods were
represented here. Looking back to the man before me I saw the golden flame of
Celior on his chest. “Why?” I asked.

The light of madness was shining in his
eyes. “You are an abomination,” he said between clenched teeth. For a second
I wondered what my own face had looked like as I had killed his three
companions… at a guess I’d bet it hadn’t been much prettier.
I am little
better than them. Threaten me for a moment and I turn effortlessly into a
merciless killer,
I thought. A feeling of disgust passed over me but I
didn’t lessen the pressure against his shield.

“If Celior has any messages for me now
is the time to pass them along, you won’t get many more chances after this,” I
responded emotionlessly.

His eyes shifted then and I could see
them un-focusing as his god came to the fore. Simultaneously the strength of
his shield increased three-fold, Celior wasn’t pulling his punches. “You bear
Illeniel’s Doom mortal. You should die now and save yourself from suffering,”
he replied. His voice now held the dulcet tones of his god.

“You’ll ruin your puppet if you push too
hard Celior,” I rebuked him. Sweat was standing out on my brow now as I
redoubled my effort to keep him pinned down.

“His life is mine to use as I wish,” the
voice of the shining god responded. Blood was running freely from the man’s
nose and ears now, as he was pressed far beyond his limit.

“You’re just like that bitch Millicenth
aren’t you? No concern for the people who support you. Why are you really
doing this? You should be helping us against the shiggreth, aiding us against
the dark gods, against Mal’goroth!” I ground the words out from between
clenched teeth.

Celior’s pawn was now wrapped in golden
flames as the force of his god’s power overwhelmed his body’s limits. “You
broke the accord, child of Illeniel; you will get no aid from us now. You must
die before Illeniel’s Doom destroys us all.”

The power being forced through the man’s
poor body was simply incredible but he was dying already. I felt myself
trembling with effort as I kept him trapped and just as I thought I would
surely collapse from the strain the god’s power fell off sharply and
disappeared. I managed to stop myself before I crushed the channeler but it
was a useless gesture, the man was already dead. His deity’s power had burned
him up like a candle, thrown into a furnace; he had been spent in an instant.
The sight of his body filled me with anger that we should be so carelessly used
and tossed aside. It could have been Marcus just as easily as this man, lying
here dead.

The anger was good though, it kept me
strong. My struggle with Celior had left me exhausted in a way I hadn’t felt
since the end of the war with Gododdin, yet I couldn’t afford to collapse here;
I still had a meeting to attend after all.
What the hell is the ‘Doom of
Illeniel’?
I wondered. It had sounded like doom with a capital ‘D’ when he
had said it.
I never get any good news from deities. It’s always absolutes
and ultimatums, no wonder no one invites them to fancy dress balls,
I
thought to myself.