Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 1) (23 page)

Something was very wrong. He turned his head away violently. “Why can’t I move my arms and legs?”

Crestfallen, Fri’il backed away filled with despair. Tears filled her eyes. 

“You had to be bound for your own safety,” she muttered as she disgustedly removed her livery and drew her knife while tears streamed down her cheeks.

As he stared, she put the knife to her bodice strings and sliced them open, leaving her bosom bared. 

“Am I so ugly? Why can’t you love me as a Lord of Cathart ought?”

“Fri’il,” he muttered, feeling nauseous, “cut my bindings!”

She shook her head, her eyes glazed. The knife in her hands gleamed in the light. She turned it toward him. 

“Why can’t you love me?”

Cle’or waited just long enough to see Se’and pick the lock and slip out to drop into the pit.

Raslinn muttered a word as he heard the faintest sound of warning and saw Se’and’s escape. He turned in a blur and caught the thrown dagger from the stands and yelled. 

“Guards! Guards!”

Raven spun on her heels as Se’and landed on her back and brought the odd blade down on the collar. It instantly sizzled then burst apart as Raven dodged aside. She then leapt forward and shimmered into bird form.

The goblin mage stared in disbelief, “No!” He dove forward and grabbed something obscured as a blast of supernatural energy shot unerringly toward the freed were.
 

The ogre stared, then raised a thick fist to slam the new intruder when he heard Thomi cry, “No, Walsh! They’re friends!”

Cle’or drew her sword and fought back two of the guards. She cursed as Raven was knocked from the air. Other guards raced around the circumference of the pit as pandemonium broke out among spectators eager to flee. Cle’or dispatched her first opponent then cast a dagger underhanded at the second. 

Raslinn turned and stared, “Another Cathartan. Quite impressive. Now kill her!”

The remaining guards were nearly upon her then one cried out having a sudden seizure. The goblin turned as a second cried out.  Balfour stood in the main entry his hand upraised, sweat beading his brow as he stared at the falling guards.

The goblin gaped, having felt no magery being wielded. He heard a squawk and narrowly dove aside as Raven returned to the attack. A thick hand clasped the edge of the pit before him and the goblin paled.

The ogre’s other hand got purchase. The goblin hastily fled.

Se’and caught the rope that Me’oh and the woman who had previously tenanted the pit threw down to her. Raven shimmered and returned to beast form, then raced after the retreating goblin as the ogre reached the stands.

“Ras-linn!” he shouted as Thomi raced after him.

“Where are Je’orj and Fri’il?” Se’and shouted.

Me’oh shrugged, “We didn’t see them on our way here!”

Thomi’s mother said, “I know where your friends are.”

Balfour and Cle’or reached them as they rushed from the chamber.

“Fri’il, free me from these bounds!” he muttered, struggling against the cords that bound his wrists and ankles, suddenly feeling the haze lift around him.

She looked back on him wanly, holding the knife threateningly. “Why won’t you love me? I will bear you strong daughters!”

“Release me and we can talk about it!” he said with some concern.

Then the door was flung wide and George stared in shock as a figure occupied the doorway. Staff was pulsing darkly in the being’s hand.

“You’re awake? I would have thought she would have dosed you insensate by now.”

“A goblin? You are certainly far from home.” He concentrated and tried to link with the staff, yet nothing seemed to happen for a moment.

‘Geo-rge, he-lp me.’

The goblin mage smiled thinly and breathed rapidly. Something momentarily wrung the breath from him. He slammed the door firmly shut then barred it behind him. 

“No matter, perhaps it will be better this way with you awake and knowing you have brought this doom upon yourself.”

“Why don’t you love me?” Fri’il rasped inconsolably as the goblin laughed.

George looked at her as she brandished the knife. “Fri’il, it is not a matter of love. I cannot do this. I must return to my world.”

“Hear that, my dear,” Raslinn practically cackled in delight. “He will not sire the children you must bear to secure your house. He means to betray you! He has always meant to!”

“You must love me!” she pleaded. “Your life is here with us!”  She gestured at her bosom. “Am I not pleasing enough?”

George swallowed hard, wondering how he could make her understand that he could not accept what she offered. He had to go home. This was not his world. This place had no right to just summon him and thrust him into a fate he could never have imagined. 

“I can’t…” he muttered in frustration.

She slumped forward sobbing and the goblin mage laughed. 

“So the augury has foretold!” He began to sing the spell chant and the staff flared with dark energy.

‘George!’ screamed the computer staff distantly.

He blinked and saw a stygian blackness well from the staff. It was death personified, born of the goblin’s maniacal hatred and Fri’il’s heart-wrenching, innocent agony. It reached out toward the knife in Fri’il’s hands. The darkness touched it and she rose stiffly, a dread anger blazing in her eyes.

With a sigh, George closed his eyes and said, “Fri’il, I do love you.”

Her eyes widened and her hands trembled as the goblin mage gasped, “That’s a lie! You know in your heart he will never give you what you most desire! He kills your house aborning!”

Yet deep within her George’s words echoed, ‘love you,’ and they awoke the power of her duty.

“Kill him!” the goblin cried.

Fri’il’s hands trembled yet she made no move to obey.

Furious, Raslinn screamed, “So be it then!" He raised the staff over his head and chanted to the stygian emptiness that lay growing on the blade.

The darkness inched up her arms. It would have a soul just as the goblin had promised.

The ogre took the stairs several at a time knocking aside several guards. Raven howled as she reached the doorway with the unmistakable scent of the goblin. She struck the door with her shoulder, only to be cast backward as the warding flared, rebuffing her.

She struck the far wall and shimmered back to human form. The ogre stopped and stared at her, peering down at her. “Me…fought…only…little girl?” he muttered.

Raven shook her head as the ogre offered her his hand and helped her to her feet.

“Need Father’s…dagger,” Raven explained. “Warded.”

The ogre glanced at the door and pounded on it with his right fist. A blast of energy snapped out, stinging his hand. He shook it and grimaced. It had given not the smallest sound of impact. Raven turned and heard running feet. Thomi was only steps ahead of Se’and and the others when the boy paused and stared at her. He blinked, wondering where this naked girl had come from. His mother screeched at him and abruptly covered his eyes. 

“Mother!”

Raven shook her head and shouted at Se’and, “Dagger!”

Se’and handed it over and watched Raven run to end of the hall, the ogre curiously following. The unshuttered window was high up and narrow. Putting the dagger between her teeth, Raven gestured for Walsh to help her up. He held out his arms uncertainly. Raven hopped up to take a quick look out the window before scampering onto the ledge.

Thomi caught a brief glimpse of her vanishing back. “Who was that?”

Se’and shook her head, “That is my foster daughter,” she said proudly. “Be prepared everyone. It shouldn’t be long now.”

Cle’or smiled thinly, passing daggers to Balfour and Me’oh, and tossed another to Se’and. “I’m always ready.”

Raven moved carefully along the ledge. It had crumbled in places but she was remarkably surefooted even as a human. She listened by the window and could detect nothing. The room was completely warded. She sighed, fearing the worst then took the knife in her hands and slammed the discolored blade into the shutter. The ward shattered as she threw herself within.

There, the goblin was smiling as Fri’il stiffened and turned the dagger toward her own bared breast, even as the window shattered and a naked form burst across the room.

“The bindings!” his prisoner cried.

A blast of fey energy flicked out from Raslinn’s fingertips at the were-child sought to reach the goblin before he could finish chanting his grim spell of death. 

Raven ducked as the blast struck the wall at the same time that the door behind the mage thudded with a terrific impact, no longer warded against harm, but stout enough to hold for a time.

Raven slashed with her blade at the nearest binding restraining her foster father as she saw the darkness ebb up Fri’il’s arms to her shoulders.

Fri’il looked at Raven sadly, “Look after him for me, Raven.” 

She raised the knife to thrust into her own heart as George shouted, “No!”   

White fire flared from the computer staff amid the black energy, and seared the startled goblin’s hands.

Fri’il screamed as the blackness flared with opposing white light. She swayed as the dagger began to glow. Raven cut George’s other hand free then threw George’s dagger with all her might at the goblin.

Raslinn added a word of warding into his chant, which should easily block a thrown blade. His eyes widened as the blade sailed undeterred, then he choked. Uncomprehending, he looked down at the knife sticking from his chest. 

The door splintered but still held under the ogre’s battering. The ogre redoubled his efforts to break it down at last.

The staff flared pure incandescent white as the goblin mage sank to his knees.

‘George!’ staff mentally shouted through their link.

“Je’orj!” Fri’il cried in the distance, lost and far away.

Save her!
the Summoning willed.
Do what you must!

George’s hands trembled as he grabbed at Fri’il’s hands as the tip of the blade clove her heart. Blackness welled around them as white flame fought against it. 

Blood fountained as George cried, “No!”

Raven stared as the two of them were engulfed in the heatless white flames.

Concentrating, George plucked the knife out and dropped it to the floor as he concentrated and healed Fri’il’s gaping wound. Yet he could feel the threads of darkness taking Fri’il’s soul as the light burned around them, unable to cast the darkness away.

It fought him while Fri’il fought him out of despair. The darkness was filling her soul. Her heart stopped, her gaze went glassy and she fell slack in his arms.

George heard himself shout, “No! You shall not have her! She is mine!”

He pulled her close and kissed her, breathing life into her as he willed her heart to beat. His breath poured into her stilled lungs, then he drew back and took another deep breath.

“Breathe, Fri’il!” He felt no return of his resuscitation. She lay lifeless in his arms, bathed in light. He kissed her again and again in silence.

Moments passed that seemed a lifetime. He felt her heart beat gently and she gasped a breath and inhaled. Her eyes opened wide and glowed with white fire. Her arms went around him and the darkness fled from her spirit in anathema.

Raven gaped as the darkness flowed to the floor, then pooled around the dying goblin. Raslinn stirred and gasped in horror as it claimed the soul of the one who summoned it and vanished, Raslinn with it.

Staff blazed, its light reflected in George’s eyes as he held Fri’il close. She blinked, then returned his kiss and in delight knocked him backward on the bed.
 

The bar to the door shattered and Se’and and Cle’or quickly edged past the tiring ogre. Raven shook her head at the gaping faces, and picked up Fri’il’s fallen dagger to cut the final binding from her oblivious foster father’s leg.

“Mmmm,” “Hmmm,” the unintended audience heard as they stared at the sudden lovers.

Balfour said, “Ahem, well, there must be someone around here who can use a healer, so if you’ll excuse me.”

Me’oh chuckled as she followed him.

“Well, Se’and, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a proper Cathartan lord,” Cle’or muttered.

“Uh-hmm,” she replied as Raven looked up and saw Thomi’s mother hastily covering her son’s eyes yet again.
 

In the fortress’s courtyard, Se’and confronted the prisoners, which offered her a much needed distraction, uncertain about how she was feeling. It was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

The surviving Niota guards were all old men, who blinked at her as if waking up from a dream. She knew that she had fought young vigorous men, but obviously Raslinn had been a truly powerful weaver of illusion.

The whole keep was in shambles. She listened half-heartedly as Thomi told the raggedly dressed refugees that Raslinn was dead. 

“He will haunt our lives no more!”