Trail Of The Torean (Book 2) (5 page)

The Koradictine yelled and batted at it with both hands.

Garrick launched himself forward, doing his best to ignore the stabbing pain from his thigh. He ducked his shoulder to push the Koradictine into the wall. A shard of broken glass sliced his foot as he ran past, but Garrick ignored it, too, as he tumbled to the end of the hallway and scrambled pell-mell down the stairs.

A wall of heat and stale human sweat met him as he descended.

Every head in the gaming room turned his way.

The old man from this afternoon stood at the bottom of the stairwell, his mottled face gazing upward in anticipation. His expression fell, and a truth clicked into place—this man had sold Garrick to the Koradictine, he had succumbed to temptation and taken whatever small bounty there was on Garrick's head.

So much for good deeds.

Garrick had no time to waste, though. His foot left a bloody trail as he limped across the room, pushed through the swinging doors, and made his way to the street.

“Stop him!” the Koradictine yelled as he came to the top of the stairs, but Garrick was already gone.

A pair of drunks cursed at him as he ran through the dirt-lined street, and ducked into a black alley. Two rapid turns brought him to a shadow-draped alcove. He pressed himself to the wall and caught his breath before reaching down to remove the remaining shard of glass from his foot. Blood welled from the cut, and the pain was suddenly intense.

The Koradictine came to the mouth of the alley, and Garrick pressed himself more tightly into the shadows.

“Taroth?” the mage called as he wandered closer.

“I am here,” an amused voice replied from near Garrick’s hiding place.

A dark form emerged from the shadows, his gaze obviously on Garrick’s position. This second man wore a cape with its hood drawn back. His dark clothes merged with the nighttime to make him one with the alley. But he held up a ghostly finger, crooked into the shape of a fishhook. The sleeve of his robe slid down one arm, exposing a triangular scar that marked him as Lectodinian.

The robe was blue.

“If this is the best the Koradictines can do,” Taroth said, “then my order is in no trouble.”

The Koradictine stepped into the alley opposite the Lectodinian.

Garrick was trapped between them. Life force flared within as his gaze darted to each of his captors. Life force flared within him. He tried to fight it down, tried to focus on his link to the plane of magic and bring up spell work he knew he could control, but his anxiety ran free and he could not bring the proper discipline to his mind.

Concentrate.

Garrick could hear Alistair’s direction from across time.

“I’ll show you how this is done,” the Lectodinian said.

Garrick panicked.

As he set his links, Sjesko’s energy burned in his mind. He twisted his finger to set his spell’s focal point, and the gate opened—too soon, he thought—the spell points were not yet finished, yet magestuff poured forward and met an equal tide of Braxidane’s wilder magic. Exotic aromas of heat and steam slammed together. Power exploded in his chest. He felt the two mages more than he saw them.

Garrick spread his arms wide, palms open, one facing each mage. Then he clenched his hands into tight fists and let loose blasts of energy that lit up the alley with a blue-white strobe.

The air sizzled, and the honey-ripe smell of Garrick’s sorcery grew thick.

He breathed the night air through every pore of his body.

The mages’ screams combined into a single anguished tone, and they flew backward as if each had been punched by a great battering ram, their eyes bulging, their faces contorted with expressions of pain-filled terror.

Then, for one of those pure half-seconds, everything was perfectly silent.

Garrick sensed the life force of both mages separate from their bodies to float free to hang in the alleyway. Waiting.

He wanted to eat that power. He wanted to take it.

He wanted to breathe it in, just as he had breathed in the energy of the villagers before. But the power of Sjesko still burned inside him, and even with these last exertions the weight of that power was still too large, it still filled him beyond the point of need. He was sated, and his dark power was still unable to absorb more. He left the two souls alone to seep back into the fabric of the world like rain water soaking into ground.

Sounds of the night trickled back to his senses.

Footsteps. Distant voices. Perhaps music.

He glanced both ways and saw holes twice the size of the mages burned into the walls behind where they had once stood, the edges of these marks still flickering with flame.

He stared at his hands, eyes wide.

Garrick had never seen anyone cast such a spell, not even Alistair.

He gazed first one direction then the other, his mind taking in the full meaning of the two bodies. Torean wizards who killed mages of the orders rarely lived long thereafter. He had to get out of Caledena. He had to get his things now, and he had to leave.

He stepped from the alley to find an audience had grown in the streets, an audience that peered at him with eyes full of fear. He recognized the old gambler who stood on the hard-packed dirt of the street, shaking now with terror.

“I hope you got your ten copper’s worth,” Garrick said.

“I’m sorry,” the man whimpered. “I didn’t know.”

“I said, move!” a beer-hardened voice cried from somewhere in the crowd.

Movement came.

People parted, and a large figure pushed its way through.

It was Hersha Padiglio, viceroy of Caledena, complete with a pair of bodyguards behind him. He cradled a bowl of stew in one hand, and his other arm was looped around a frail young woman’s waist.

“What’s going on?” Padiglio said.

Then he gazed at the dead mages, and at the scorch marks on both walls, truth dawning. Finally, he looked at Garrick and raised his bowl in acknowledgement.

“You’re hired,” he said.

Chapter 6

Garrick didn’t notice that his foot had healed over until well after he disappeared into darkness, and until he had walked for considerable time through Caledena’s twisted alleyways.

He was anxious.

His energy was agitated, and it took him considerable effort to keep it under control. As he paced through shadowed streets, his thoughts collided.

Garrick once thought he knew everything that could be known about being alone, but he had never felt like this before. It was not just that he was afraid. It was that he was truly afraid of himself. He had lost control of his spell work twice now. The first time had cost a village its existence, and the second time had resulted in two human beings being literally dissolved from the face of the plane.

He had not planned either.

They had just happened.

He had no idea how to stop this strange magic when it got its head.

To make matters worse, Garrick felt another truth during this last casting. He had felt the end of this cycle coming. Sjesko’s life force, while seemingly endless now, would eventually be drained. He felt it. He knew it. And when Sjesko’s life force was gone, the dark hunger—that cold and irrefutable need to take—would return.

Garrick didn’t want to think about what he was capable of when this life force was gone.

To this he added the fact that he now had two firm examples of the orders working together. So it seemed clear that whatever else was going on, he was now in the middle of a full-fledged Torean mage hunt.

It was all very confusing.

The only thing he knew for certain as he walked the shadow-draped alleys of Caledena was that he wanted more time to think about things, more time to work out how to use this mixture of magics he carried within himself.

And time was not something he was sure he would get, even if Hersha Padiglio’s offer turned out to be genuine.

Chapter 7

Morning dawned overcast and gray as Garrick approached the viceroy’s manor. He wore a pair of riding breeches and a new, blue tunic he bartered from a stand in the maze of alleys.

News of his nighttime display travelled fast, and he smirked as the city parted before him.

Their acquiescence made him feel strong. He had a job to do, a mission to undertake. And the idea that people might actually fear him, well, it was all very new, but admittedly he could get used to it.

The viceroy’s guards brought him to the stables.

“Good morning,” Hersha Padiglio said.

The viceroy sat on a bench, black robes settling around him like a tent. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair still unkempt. A playful smile rested on his lips.

“I hope you’re rested,” he said. “I understand you had a late night.”

“I don’t need much sleep at times,” Garrick replied

The viceroy motioned to a pair of horses standing in the yard, one of which carried a man who was hunched down and attending to his stirrups, his back to Garrick.

“Let me introduce you to Darien J’ravi.”

The man straightened.

It was Mustache, his adversary from the day prior. The young man wore riding clothes of brown and dull russet. A sword was attached to his riding harness.

Darien proffered an open hand.

“When Hersha told me he had hired a mage last night, I thought it might be you. You created quite a stir.”

Garrick took Darien’s hand, though he did not wish to.

“You’ve met!” the viceroy said.

“Yes,” Garrick replied. “We’ve met.”

Darien gave an impish smile. “The dragongriff table was good to us.”

“Excellent! Friends make the best traveling teams.”

“I don’t need a partner.” Garrick said.

“The creed of a true Torean,” Padiglio replied. “But this job’s too risky to send just one man. Besides, with the orders looking for wizards of your kind, you might appreciate an extra midnight sentry.”

“I won’t need an extra sentry.”

Darien chimed in. “What the viceroy is trying to say, my new friend, is that he has an investment to protect, and he’s sending us both to ensure the other doesn’t pull the old double-cross and run off with the package. Don’t make him actually say it or you might just lose the deal.”

Hersha gave a deep laugh. “You should listen to your partner in these matters, Garrick. His politics may be a bit transparent, but he’s sharper than he looks.”

Garrick grimaced at the way Darien’s scraggly mustache curled upward. That grin would fade if he knew what happened when Garrick’s power took over.

“I can’t travel with anyone,” Garrick said.

“Then you don’t go.”

Garrick paused. Last night’s brooding had convinced him of only two things—he needed to get away so he could get rid of this curse, and he still needed the fee that would come with this job to make that happen. He touched Sjesko’s life force as he glanced at Darien. Was there enough to make it there and back?

“Fine,” Garrick said. “I’ll need twice the gold, though.”

The viceroy’s gaze filled with sardonic humor.

“Two hundred?”

“That’s right.”

“Each,” Darien said.

“One-fifty,” the viceroy replied, his voice suddenly jovial.

“Each?” Darien replied.

“Of course.”

Both Garrick and Darien nodded.

“Done,” Hersha replied with gusto. “Your hard bargaining has already made my day.”

Garrick pointed to the second horse. “Is that my mount?”

“Assuming he meets your needs.”

Garrick inspected the animal.

He loved horses. Galloping on a strong horse was like being atop the world.

This was a young animal with firm muscles and a sleek form. Its coat could shine a bit more, but its teeth and gums were good, its eyes clear, and its hooves unmarked and sound. It was saddled, and a bedroll and provisions were already attached.

“Disposition?”

A boy spoke up, entering the clearing from the stables.

“He’ll keep you out of trouble.”

The kid was maybe ten or eleven years old with a shock of ratty hair. He was covered with stable grit, and his eyes were big and round. Garrick guessed the boy had been responsible for the horse. His own years of working in the stables of barons and other men of business gave him an instant kinship. Perhaps it was this kinship that helped him understand the expression on the boy’s face was one of deepest concern for the animal.