The Unconquered Mage Read online

  “We’ve been practicing ever since,” Aelisa said. “We weren’t fully prepared for the fighting on the walls, before the cease-fire. In the sense of knowing what to expect. Ten of us were killed during the week we were fighting.”

  I’d tried not to think about how our numbers had shrunk. “We’ve lost seven,” I said. “Everyone else is still with the Army.”

  “We would have left sooner, but we needed more people who could turn the walk-through-walls pouvra on others,” Jeddan said. “It will take too long otherwise.”

  “Well, I’m not here just for you,” I said. “I have a friend who was captured before the fighting started. He brought a message to the King and then disappeared. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”

  “Are you sure he’s still alive?” Jeddan said.

  “No, but I’m not leaving until I’ve either rescued him or proved he’s dead,” I said.

  “What’s he look like?” Jeddan said.

  I described Terrael as I’d seen him last. Jeddan said, “He hasn’t been with the King or the God-Empress. If he’s alive, he’s in Solwyn Manor.”

  “That was my guess,” I said. It wasn’t a happy guess. I’ve never been inside Solwyn, but I know it’s a heavily fortified prison and prisoners only rarely survive to leave when their term is up. Terrael had been inside for almost two weeks.

  “So what do we do?” Jeddan said.

  “We get everyone out,” I said. “You’ll go through the north wall, out to the old training grounds, and swing wide of the Castaviran camp until you reach the new road, the one to Colosse. Then you travel as fast as you can until you reach the Balaenic Army.”

  “What do you mean ‘you’?” Jeddan said.

  “I have to get Terrael,” I said. “And I won’t be able to hide that he’s missing forever. Once the alarm goes up, the whole city will be alerted to the presence of an enemy, and it will be that much harder for you to get out. So you have to go first.”

  “You’re not going into Solwyn alone, Sesskia,” Jeddan said as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “We’ll get everyone out and moving, and then you and I will go back for your friend.”

  “Somebody needs to take charge,” I said, but I was interrupted by Keonn, who said, “We’re not infants, Sesskia, and some of us know how to find our way by the stars. You ought to worry more about finding us when you’re done with your rescue mission.”

  That made me feel ashamed, because I had been thinking of them as helpless without our leadership. Sure, Keonn’s not more than seventeen, but he’s confident and I think Nessan’s spy training has given him competence to match that confidence. “Sorry,” I said, “you’re right. How many of you can work the walk-through-walls pouvra on someone else?”

  It turned out three of them had the ability, which impressed me. We worked out a plan that drew from Jeddan’s and my freeing the Castaviran villagers from the prison camp. It means the mages’ flight will be discovered sooner than if they were all capable of going insubstantial, but we hope that means the guards’ attention will be drawn toward Fianna Manor and away from the prison. It’s more complicated a plan than I like, but there’s no help for that.

  Jeddan says we’re almost ready to go. Convenient, because I’m almost at the end of this entry. We’re going to subdue the guards on one side of the house, run across the open space to the hedges defining the manor grounds, then split into smaller groups to cross the city. Of course Fianna Manor would be on the southern side of the city, not by much but enough that it would be easier if we could take the southern route. But that side of the city is more well-observed, and this longer route is going to be safer in the long run. We’ve decided on a meeting place, and Jeddan and I will stay with the group long enough to provide a few more people who can make others insubstantial, then we’re going back for Terrael. I hope he’s there. I hope he’s alive.

  Chapter Two

  6 Hantar, not sure what time

  Terrael’s asleep finally. I’m not sure when he last slept, really slept without being

  It hurts to look at him. Damn the God-Empress for taking such pleasure in other people’s pain! I’d have no problem killing her if she were in front of me right now. If he’s permanently damaged, I might have no problem hunting her down and killing her in her sleep, never mind what Cederic says about me being no assassin. How can anyone do those things to another human being?

  Jeddan volunteered to find food so I could stay with Terrael. I don’t feel very hungry. My back hurts and I feel light-headed, and I think I have a fever. Nothing we can do about that except get out of Venetry as soon as it gets to be full dark. It didn’t occur to either of us that Terrael might not be able to walk out with us. Now I’m so glad Jeddan insisted on coming along, because I couldn’t have carried Terrael, and he needs to be carried. He’s so weak, and I don’t think they were feeding him hardly at all

  I can’t write and cry at the same time. All right. Jeddan and I knocked four guards unconscious and dragged their bodies to the hedge, then we saw everyone off—we had so much luck, all the way around, because one of our groups was actually stopped by a pair of guards in the street and Ellika had to do some fast talking to get them to leave them alone. But eventually everyone arrived, and we got them all through the wall with no problems, and Jeddan and I concealed ourselves and crossed the city to Solwyn Manor.

  It looks like a prison. I don’t know if it looked like a prison back when it was still just a noble’s manor, but to look at it now you can’t imagine it was ever anything else. It’s tucked away in a fold of the hill Venetry’s built on, which is no doubt why it was chosen when some long-dead King of Balaen decided he needed something to remind the citizenry of the consequences of crossing him. Nowadays people try to pretend it’s not there, and most prisoners go to Gabarek instead. I don’t understand why Solwyn is still even open.

  The windows on the lowest two levels have been bricked over, the windows on the floor above those are narrow slits, and the walls are all slick rounded stones I wouldn’t be able to climb, so getting in by way of the fourth floor windows, which are of normal size, is impossible. The grounds are broad and have been cleared of all obstructions all the way to the walls, which are also slick stone and twenty feet high. A grappling hook might get you over, but it would be a difficult climb.

  Almost immediately Jeddan and I had an unpleasant surprise. The night was clear, and cold, and there was a full moon lighting up the prison yard. And we discovered our concealment wasn’t proof against that bright light on the flat, smooth ground. Our shadows followed us into the yard, and while they weren’t the inky black a bright sun would have cast, they weren’t unnoticeable. I don’t know how we managed to go all those months without discovering this quirk of the pouvra, but it makes sense—the sun and the moon can’t be fooled into not seeing us.

  Crossing the yard without using the walk-through-walls pouvra wasn’t a problem, as the snow of the yard was trampled enough our footprints wouldn’t stand out. But to keep our shadows from giving us away, we had to walk drunkenly from one side of the yard to the other, ducking to obscure our profiles. We hoped the guards observing from the balconies of the second level wouldn’t figure out we were human. With luck, we’d look like small animals, of which there are a surprising number inside the walls of Venetry.

  I don’t know if it was because the trick worked, or if the guards were watching something else, or if they just weren’t very alert, but after about five minutes we managed to reach the side of the building and pass through. Then we took a few more steps because we’d walked into a sleeping person. She didn’t wake up, or die, fortunately, and we continued through the cell and into the corridor. We went down that hall, poking our heads through the cell doors, until we found an unoccupied one, which we used to make another plan.

  “I don’t like the idea of separating,” Jeddan said. “Sure, we’d cover more ground that way, but we’d have to find each other again, and that could was
te all the time we save.”

  “I agree,” I said. “I think we need to make a search of each floor until we find him.” I wasn’t going to say “if.”

  “And hope we don’t encounter any guards,” Jeddan said. “I can already feel my hands going numb from the concealment pouvra. If we can keep from using it, that’s better.”

  So we set off down the next hall, and the search took forever. Whatever the original floor plan was, and I’m certain this was not the original floor plan, it didn’t have narrow, mazelike passages in which the cells lay at irregular angles and intervals. We got turned around several times and I’m sure we looked in the same empty cells more than once.

  Finally we gave up and started marking the corners, down low where no one would immediately notice the marks. Jeddan used his pocket knife to cut scratches into the stone, and from then on we had better luck. There was a guard post near the stairs, manned by a couple of guards who were playing some card game that seemed to require lots of commentary, like “Shouldn’t’ve played the match” and “Be past time for the royal meld, you’re losing points,” but the guards were preoccupied with the game and never left their post. So we had no trouble sneaking past and getting up the stairs without being seen.

  That was the end of our luck. The second floor had guards patrolling, alert-looking guards who walked a tight overlapping pattern. I felt confident I could move around them if I was very careful, but there was no way Jeddan could do it without making noise. So we had to find an empty cell for him (this was difficult, most of these cells were occupied) and I borrowed his pocket knife and went out on my own.

  It took almost twice as long as forever for me to be certain I’d looked inside all the cells, and I accidentally brushed through a couple of guards, not their whole bodies, just their arm or shoulder. One of them just shuddered, but the other one became violently ill all over the floor and had to be helped away by another guard. I took advantage of that opening—and it gave me an idea.

  I went back to Jeddan and told him what had happened. “I think we can disrupt them enough to clear a path for ourselves,” I said. “They’ll have no way of guessing what the real source of the problem is, and any confusion has to be for our benefit.”

  “Unless it makes them more alert,” Jeddan pointed out.

  “They’re already alert enough we’re having trouble moving freely,” I said. “More alert isn’t going to make a difference.”

  Jeddan hesitated. “It’s not going to kill anyone,” I said. “You had to pass straight through that guard for him to die. And that’s never happened again.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Jeddan said, and we left our cell in search of the stairs.

  This time, we weren’t so careful to avoid contact. It was still slow going, because Jeddan will never be able to move quietly no matter how much he practices, and the whole strategy hinged on the guards not realizing intruders were in the prison. But we made it to the next flight of stairs, and the guard post, having made two more guards vomit and a handful of others look shaky and uncertain.

  The guards at the post, like all the others on this floor, were very alert. I solved that problem by sneaking up close enough that I could work the mind-moving pouvra on one of them, blocking the flow of blood to his brain just enough that he got dizzy. While his partner was helping him, we slipped past and up the stairs.

  The third floor looked more like the noble’s manor this used to be and was living quarters for the guards and, I assume, the prison warden. At least there was one little suite that was nicer than the other rooms, which looked more like barracks. One of the barracks rooms was full of sleeping men. The nice little suite was also occupied. There weren’t any cells on that level, and no guards, and the layout was much more straightforward: a large dining hall, a kitchen and store rooms, a couple of rooms full of things guards like to entertain themselves with (and a bookshelf, which surprised me, because I don’t think of guards as literate). We checked the whole floor and found nothing of interest. A wide staircase led up to the top floor.

  I’m having trouble describing what we found there. On the one hand, there were the cells—they didn’t really look like cells because the furnishings were nicer, but the doors had windows with bars in them and the locks were the kind I wouldn’t have wanted to have to pick to free myself. We couldn’t tell for sure because they were unoccupied. They’re probably for holding high-ranking prisoners before they’re executed or exiled or whatever it is they do with high-ranking prisoners. As I’ve written before, I usually deal more with ground-level law enforcement.

  That was one side of the fourth floor. The other side was taken up by the kind of rooms I’d always imagined would be underground, where what they do to people can be hidden away. I don’t know why I thought that. Maybe torturers want to see their handiwork in the clear light of day. With windows like those, you’d see absolutely everything. It was sunrise when we entered, so we sure as hell did. And maybe the screams are to unnerve the other prisoners, make them want to talk, if that’s why they’re in prison. After all, nobody cares what lower-class prisoners have to say once they’ve been convicted and locked away in Solwyn. And now I’ve thought too much about it, and it’s making me sick. Sicker.

  We found Terrael in one of those rooms, chained

  True God have mercy, why would anyone do that? Balaen is supposed to be civilized, why do we even have those rooms? I could see the God-Empress enjoying watching that, but those rooms were fitted for torture long before she seduced the King. It makes me furious and miserable and left me wanting to set the whole thing afire. The only thing that stopped me was knowing those guards would flee and leave all the prisoners locked in their cells to burn, and I don’t care how evil those prisoners are, that is not a death I would wish on anyone.

  So we freed Terrael, and I went and got some of the blankets from the nearest cell to wrap him in, and then we had to figure out how to get outside. The problem was, while you can work both the concealment and walk-through-walls pouvrin on yourself at the same time, you can only do one of those on another person at a time. So Jeddan could conceal them both, but if he tried to go insubstantial, Terrael would fall, and if they were both insubstantial but only Jeddan was concealed, it would look like Terrael was floating.

  I was furious at this point, and I got angrier every time I looked at Terrael. This is not a good state of mind for a thief. Angry thieves get caught. But the more I thought about the situation, the more I wondered if being a thief was really the best solution. It had gotten us in here, sure, but maybe something else was needed to get us out.

  “I have an idea,” I told Jeddan, and explained what I wanted to do. He looked at me as if I were crazy.

  “I think you’re crazy,” he said. “That’s going to draw all sorts of attention.”

  “If we do it right, it will be the wrong kind of attention,” I said. “And it will confuse the hell out of them.”

  Jeddan grinned. “It’s crazy, but I like it,” he said.

  So he gathered Terrael up, and his weak cry of pain made me so angry I felt filled with righteous fire as I led them down the stairs all the way to the second floor, all of us concealed but substantial. Jeddan waited a few steps up and out of sight (not that he was visible) and I went to stand in front of the men at the guard post. They were having some inane discussion about a woman they both knew, and the fact that it was a little obscene made what I was about to do sweeter.

  I whistled two notes—the sound a cleric makes just before conducting a funeral dirge—and, when they’d both perked up and looked around, said, “The true God knows your evil, and you will be punished” and knocked one of the guards unconscious. He folded up satisfactorily, and his friend leaped up with a shout. I gave him enough time to register what I’d done before sending him unconscious too.

  The shout brought another guard down the hall towards us, not quite at a run, but certainly in a hurry. “Claddik? What was that?” he called out, then cam
e to a halt when he saw the collapsed men. I leaned in to breathe heavily in his ear, went insubstantial briefly when he whipped around to strike at me, then went around behind him and said “You will be punished” and repeated the trick. It’s too bad it takes a few seconds to make someone unconscious that way, because he had time to scream in terror, but then he didn’t make another noise until his skull hit the wooden floor.

  “Let’s go,” I said. We went straight down the hall, not bothering to avoid the guards who were running toward us. I began keening “Punished!” in my eeriest voice, knocking out a few guards when it was clear they would run into us otherwise. Then someone saw us—I could see his eyes focus on me—and I started to work the (I don’t know what else to call them) assassination pouvrin. But the funniest thing happened: he choked, pointing in our direction, shouted “Harbinger! Death has come for us!” and turned and ran.

  That stirred up all manner of confusion. I can only guess he saw the barest glimpse of us before the concealment pouvra forced him to look away again, though why he thought I was Death’s Harbinger I have no idea. I’m not even dressed in white. But it helped clear the path to the first floor, so I didn’t think too much about it.

  The first floor was crowded with guards, all of them trying to get out, and getting past them was hard. At one point we stood there waiting for an opening in the mad rush. I was glad, at that point, that I hadn’t started a fire, because this was evidence that my guess about how they’d treat the prisoners in that event was right. Bastards.

  Eventually we made it to the place we’d entered by. In all the commotion, we could have walked out the door, but eventually they’d figure out nothing supernatural had happened, and I didn’t want to be around for that. So we risked being visible for the few seconds it took to go through the wall, and then we ran for it, not caring that our shadows, this time cast by the early morning sun, clearly marked our trail.