The Making of a Mage King: White Star (17 page)

“Was your son an albino?” asked Sean. He had to know.

Baldwin looked up at him. “I saw the body.” He took a deep breath. “How did you get close enough?”

“Let’s just say he tangled with a flying dragon,” replied Sean.

Baldwin’s eyes riveted back to the half-exposed sword as if he were looking for some sign, some trace of his son’s death on its blade.

“It’s an instrument of death,” said Sean gently. “It’s very heavy and very unforgiving. My aim’s not too bad, either.” He didn’t bother to tell him that he’d actually missed, but the sword had killed him anyway.

Baldwin looked up at Sean’s words; he had loved his son. “I suppose there was no other way.”

“I couldn’t see any,” said Sean.

Baldwin looked at Sean from across the table and he could see the man’s mind shift from the death of his son to the breaking of the guild. He was, after all, a leader, and leaders must deal with loss all the time, even the loss of a son, and he had lost his son a long time ago. “You must have gone in there with your whole army. By the moons, how did you manage to spare so many? How many did you lose?”

Sean corrected his assumption. “I snuck in there like a thief with only my bodyguard. I was able to shield more than half his mages before he found us. After that, it was head-to-head, especially after we came eye-to-eye. I didn’t lose anyone.”

Everyone at the table gaped at him, with the exception of Berck. Sean watched him as he downed the rest of his milk and crunched on his ice. “Listen, gentlemen. You’ve convinced me. The city is yours. You should see to the rest of the district as soon as possible. There are garrisons with demons and they need to be handled. If you will excuse me…”

They rose to leave. “What are we supposed to do with demons?” asked Guet.

“It’s difficult, but they can be redeemed. You should try. You may not be able to help the horses. I’ve had some success, but I don’t have the time to visit every garrison and take on every unfortunate creature stabled there. Do what you can, I’ll be in touch.” As the men filed out of the inn, Sean gave Berck’s sleeve a little tug with air magic earning a sharp look, but he hung back.

When everyone was gone, Sean asked, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” he replied. His voice sounded steady, but carried a harsh edge, especially for a boy of only fourteen.

“Do you want the magic back?” asked Sean.

His eyes darted to Sean’s face again and his jaw shot up. “No, I
never
want it back. I
never
want to feel like that again.”

“Those weren’t your feelings, you know. They were his. You all functioned under one man’s mind. It’s to be expected that you would have his feelings too.”

“Can you make me forget them, then?” He was holding his shoulders very rigid.

Sean thought of Cisco. He had made her forget, but in the end she had remembered, some things anyway. “I can do that, but remembering can help you know what
not
to do in the future.”

Berck’s shoulders were shaking with tension, his hands strangling each other under the table. His eyes turned red as his gaze shifted around the room before coming back to Sean. “I…did…things.
Please
take it away. Please, I don’t
want
to know…”

Sean sighed. “I’ll take it away, but not very far. I still think it’s important for you to remember.”

Grasping at straws, the boy nodded, his eyes glistening as they shifted furtively without quite looking away.

Sean pushed himself away from the table. “Come over here.” He used the time to figure out exactly what he would need to say. Berck was tender and just the age to not appreciate his saying so. He pushed a chair out and waved him into it so they sat knee to knee. Sean gripped his cold, clammy hands in his own and wove a filament of black magic. “
All the thoughts, all the feelings, and most importantly, all the commands that came from your user will be as if they came to a hammer. You will not feel them, you will not think them, they did not come from you and they will not haunt your dreams. You will know that they happened, but they are past now, and they happened to the hammer, not to you
.” Sean let him go, and in the process, he slacked up on his shield. Someday, he might want to reach for the magic again, and Sean wanted him to be able to. Just now, magic was very unpopular here, but someday…

Guet stuck his head back in the door. “Berck?”

Berck sat up and squared his shoulders. He stood to follow his father, but before leaving he said, “Thanks. It’s better. It’s less than I had hoped, but it’s better.”

A short time later, Sean was picking at the plate of meats, planning on how he might do much the same with the other kids, when Laon strode in with an odd expression of pissed off wonderment on his face.

“Did you find your horse?” asked Sean.

“The blockhead found himself a mare in heat. The blacksmith wanted to shoot the beast, but was afraid he might belong to one of us. The owner of the mare wasn’t too happy, either. He wants me to buy him another plow horse. He says the mare won’t be much use to him pregnant.”

Sean was grinning. “So, buy the man another horse. Maybe he’ll use the extra stock to expand his fields. Maybe he’ll like the breed and start to sell them.” Sean stood up and staggered. Laon was at his side in an instant.

“You need to sleep; we should be ready to go in the morning,” said Laon. His look said that this sudden weakness frightened him.

Sean didn’t remember much about the departure, even after eighteen more hours of sleep, he was still mostly running on fumes, and there weren’t many of them. He did manage to shove his brain cells back together when Guet and his brother, Baldwin came up to them with four men toting a large chest.

“We haven’t paid our due taxes for fifteen years, so we rounded up what we could.” Baldwin waved a hand at the chest.

“That’s very generous of you,” said Sean, “but I’m not going to begrudge you taxes withheld from my uncle. Keep it; use it to take care of those demons. We’ll talk taxes due when I get back to the palace.”

Cordan leaned over to catch Sean’s sleeve. “My lord, you shouldn’t tell him something like that. He might think to take advantage…”

“He wouldn’t dare,” Sean said back to him, making a conscious effort to ensure Baldwin would hear, seemingly by accident. Sean turned back to the gathering of citizens. He could see that Baldwin had indeed heard; he was pale. “Plan to attend a meeting of district leaders sometime this winter. I’ll let you know exactly when, as soon as I’ve finished cleaning up my uncle’s mess.”

The men backed away, nodding and bowing low as Sean and his men rode out of the gates.

The trip back to the camp was a blur. All Sean remembered was that it was already packed up and ready to move. He asking for his map and it felt odd that he couldn’t find his table to spread it out on. He was, of course, still on his horse.

Jenny distracted him by asking what he thought about what the girls were wearing. It took him a minute or more to figure out what girls she was talking about, then he had to ask her to repeat her question.

Eventually, the concept that they were on the march again sank in despite Jenny’s efforts, and he clearly remembered trying to open a gate, though he had no idea where it was supposed to open on the other end. That was probably why the spell went wrong, or at least part of the reason; the other part being that he was half-delirious from exhaustion. The last of the fumes that were keeping his eyes open were finally gone and darkness closed in like a thick blanket.

Cordan turned their pace over to Seth with orders to keep them all moving through the night and the next day; they would stop only after dark that night. Sean was little better than a sack of potatoes until late morning; of course, being awake didn’t mean that he was all that much better than a sack of potatoes, but at least he wasn’t delirious.

What woke him was Prince dropping his head to drink from a river. It was like reliving a half-remembered nightmare. The only difference was that his hands were tied to his saddle near his knees. After a moment’s panic, he realized that these bindings had likely been necessary to keep him in the saddle; it’s just that they didn’t let him sit all the way up, and with Prince dropping his head down to drink, Sean felt unbalanced. Laon was at his side a few seconds later, before he thought to use magic to free himself.

“My lord, calm yourself; you’re all right,” he said, as he gripped Sean’s shoulder to help support him as he moved Prince aside a few steps away from the water’s edge.

On his other side, Mattie nearly threw herself off her horse to run to his side as well. “My lord.” She gripped Sean’s knee while she studied his face, then nodded to Laon. “You can let him go, but if he tries to use any magic
at all
, you take him out. You understand? You knock him out,
hard
.”

“Mattie?” Sean couldn’t believe his ears.

She turned back to him. She was in a fury. “When
he’s
done with you, you’ll be
my
meat.”

“Mattie?” he asked again, as Laon untied his hands. He turned to Laon for an explanation. “What’s with her?”

“Collapsing the way you did scared her. She thought you’d killed yourself,” he said simply. “You might have even managed to burn yourself out. We’re not sure; only you can tell us that, but I
will
do as she says if you so much as twitch in that direction. I
swear
. I’ll hit you.”

“You’re my bodyguard, you said so. You’re supposed to protect me from this kind of thing,” said Sean indignantly.
They make me feel like I’m some five-year-old who just ate all the Halloween candy before it could be given out to trick-or-treaters.

“I
am
your bodyguard, my lord, but I’ve learned in my short time in that position, that sometimes that means I must protect you from yourself.” He stepped away and gave Prince a slap on the rump sending him into the river they were all crossing.

Burned out? Am I burned out? No, I’m not. Under Mattie’s shield, I hadn’t been able to see Laon’s red glow and I can, so I still have my magic, but why was Mattie so hostile? All I remember was being exhausted; hell, I’m still tired
.

Prince climbed out on the other bank and shook himself, causing Sean to clutch at the saddle that shimmied violently, totally distracting him from his train of thought.

When Prince was done shaking, he dropped his head for a mouthful of grass, so Sean looked around. For all the world, it looked like they were a herd of horses. Just because most of them had either a person or a packsaddle on them didn’t take away from the herd aspect. Most of the horses wanted to shake the water away, but Seth and his men were pushing again, so they strung out along the road once more.

Sean noticed the kids; he had almost forgotten about them. They seemed less withdrawn, more chatty, there was even some quiet laughter, but then they had something besides their lack of magic to think about.

He looked at his men; it seemed like everyone was doing all right. They all seemed to be in good health and good spirits. Sean looked ahead. “Where are we headed, anyway?” he asked Laon, who was glued to his side again as soon as he had retrieved his horse and crossed the river. “As a matter of fact, why are we headed anywhere? Who gave the order to break camp?”

“Cordan ordered camp broken because it was no longer hidden. He wasn’t comfortable remaining so close to the city, so we’ve been moving ever since we left day before yesterday.”

Sean looked at the road they had just traveled. Cordan had been concerned about someone being able to follow their tracks to the camp,  and here they were leaving the road looking like a newly tilled field. “So much for staying hidden,” he said.

“We’re moving fast enough for now,” replied Laon. “And Seth has riders on the horizons.”

Sean remembered when they’d first found his cousin; they had spread out to hide their trail. They had been a lot less in number, but with Cisco healing their passage, they had left no mark. “Relay the order. Leave the road and move apart; the only horse following another will be a packhorse that’s being led. Then bring Mattie here. Where is she anyway?” Sean twisted around and when he couldn’t see her, he reached to speak with her anyway. Laon must have been watching closer than he thought, and frankly, he had forgotten Mattie’s warning. The side of his head exploded.

Sean’s head was pounding. He pushed his eyes open and noticed it was dark, though he could pick out at least one campfire. He moved his hand and felt dirt. Prince pushed his nose down into his face and snorted, blowing dirt in his face.

“Sean…Sean, are you all right?” asked Larry, the urgency plain in his voice.

Sean tenderly pushed himself onto his hands and knees and heard himself groan. “I’ll tell you as soon as I figure it out.” He heard Larry move, probably to give him a hand, but Prince stomped over him with his version of a growl. His leg bumped Sean’s pounding head causing him to duck back down with a groan. He reached out and pulled the hair on Prince’s leg; the horse pushed his nose down at him again, then a moment later, he was lying down beside him. Sean gripped his saddle and said, “Up,” for him to pull him to his feet. He rested his splitting head against the cool leather of the saddle between his arms while he got his feet more firmly planted on the ground.