Magus (Advent Mage Cycle) (37 page)

Looking at him, the word "blockhead" came to mind. If ever there was a mind blocked from new knowledge, it was this one. And because of that, there was nothing I could do. I smiled slightly, nodded, and walked away.

Kartal had to jog to catch up with me, catching my sleeve as he did. "Why didn't you say who you are?" he hissed near my ear. "He's completely wrong! They all are!"

A mischievous impulse seized me, and I looked at him in innocent surprise. "But Kartal, these are scholars. Experts in their field. There's no possible way they're wrong."

"Of course they are!" he protested in exasperation. "And we both know it!"

"But they have facts!" I teased, fighting a smile. "They have pictures, data, charts, graphs!"

"Will you please be serious?" he growled.

"I've met people like them before," I told him quietly, my amusement fading. "They're the kind of people that will argue that up is down, just to argue. You can't teach them anything."

"And so you won't try to straighten them out?"

"Too much hassle," I denied with a shrug. "They believe they know everything. That's a dangerous belief, but once a person gets to that point, nothing but the most drastic circumstances will convince them otherwise."

“They certainly don’t know much about you,” he grumbled under his breath. “I mean, they couldn’t even recognize you on sight.”

“Doesn’t say much about their collective wisdom, does it?”

~*~

Fortunately for us, the people that Kartal took me to were not like those scholars. Lyra Doddridge was thin, neat, and very friendly. I dropped all formalities with her instantly. Her colleague was Adam Fawcett, a near-sighted man who looked like he dressed in the dark. With one arm tied behind his back. Still, he seemed nice as well.

“Well, this is amazing!” he exclaimed once the introductions were out of the way. “The Advent Mage, here.”

I winced at the title. So help me, if I ever figure out who spread that stupid, thrice-begotten title around….

“I came to ask a few questions,” I quickly said, diverting the subject. “What can you tell me about turning a scrying pool off?”

“I assume you mean a permanent pool?” Lyra’s dark eyes were bright with curiosity.

“Yes, tied to a ley line.”

“Hmmm.” Lyra exchanged looks with Adam. “What do you think, Adam?”

“How old exactly is the pool? Usually the magician that made the pool can take it down easily.”

I didn’t want to hear that. “They’re over two hundred years old. At least.” I wasn’t exactly sure on their age, but I knew they existed before the Magic War.

Their faces fell. “That long?” Adam muttered in dark contemplation. “Unless the ley line supporting it dries up, I can’t think of a way to turn it off.”

“Emptying the pool of water?” I suggested desperately.

Lyra shook her head immediately. “When a scrying spell is put on water, it holds the water in stasis. It can’t be changed or removed.”

Interesting. I hadn’t known that.

Adam eyed me in speculation. “Moving the ley line would work too. Surely you considered that.”

“Too dangerous,” I responded with a firm shake of the head. “Moving one ley line would be easy. But no ley line is alone—it’s always connected with a dozen others. It would be like pulling a string loose in the middle of a tapestry—the whole thing would unravel and knot.”

They winced at this mental picture.

“Then the only thing you can really do is put a capstone over the pool.” Lyra spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “That won’t really turn the pool
off
, but it will buy you some time.”

“In an emergency situation, that is definitely something to keep in mind,” I acknowledged slowly, thinking that suggestion through. “But for a permanent fix…for what we have in mind…that doesn’t really help.” It would only buy us time, and limited quantities of it. Worse, it would tip off the government of what we were doing, and that we had the magical expertise to know what we were looking at.

“I’m sorry,” Lyra sighed. “We haven’t been much help.”

“On the contrary,” I assured her sincerely, “you’ve told me what the limitations are. That helps, trust me. Otherwise I would be randomly stumbling around in the dark, guessing, and probably messing everything up.”

Adam had the most peculiar smile on his face. “Magus…you aren’t anything like your reputation.”

“My reputation,” I groaned, “is a
gross
exaggeration.”

“Yes, I’m beginning to see that.” That funny smile widened a notch. “Tell me, have you heard that there is a department in this building that studies you?”

I felt my face heat up. Kartal was trying to cover up a laugh with a fake cough, and not doing a very good job of it. I resisted the urge to punch him. “Um, yes. I, ah, ran across them earlier.”

“They must have loved talking with you!” Lyra exclaimed with innocent naiveté. “I’m surprised they let you go so you could talk with us.”

Kartal lost it completely at that point. He was nearly doubled over, howling with laughter. This time I
did
punch him, straight in the arm. “Shut up!” I growled at him.

It didn’t even faze him. He only slowed down enough to get out the words, “They didn’t…even…recognize…him!”

Lyra and Adam gave me incredulous looks. I shrugged sheepishly. “I saw the plaque and went in to talk to them. They wouldn’t even hear what I had to say. Like Kartal said, they didn’t recognize me.”

“Oh dear.” Lyra lifted a hand to her mouth, eyes going wide.

Adam started laughing, deep guffaws that shook his whole frame. “Oh…oh…
oh!
I’ve got to rub this in! The Advent Mage, right in front of their noses, and they didn’t even know it!”

There are times when I really wish I was a Wizard. This was one of those times. If I’d had the ability, I would have happily turned Kartal and Adam into toads.

~*~

We were halfway down the hallway, heading for the outside, when Kartal flung up a hand, stopping me.

“Garth, I think we should go back.”

I gave him a blank look. “Back to Adam and Lyra?”

“No, no, no.” He shot me an exasperated frown. “To that room with the Advent Mage study group.”

I didn’t trust that smile on his face. It reminded me eerily of Didi when he was contemplating mischief. “…why?” I asked cautiously.

“Garth, think about this for a minute. This institute is world-renown for giving answers to magical questions. If those idiots come up with some sort of reasonable-sounding explanation for why Mages exist, and how to create more of them, a lot of people are going to believe them. It’ll start an avalanche of mistakes.”

He had a definite point there.

“You’re the only person in this world with a prayer of derailing them,” he pressed on persuasively. “They’ll listen to the Advent Mage, once they know who he is. That’s obvious.”

As logical and reasonable as all of this was, it didn’t match that impish gleam in the man’s eyes. “In other words, you really want to rub in the fact that they didn’t recognize me on sight. Not to mention you feel the need to take them down a few rungs.”

His smile was not at all nice. A cat waiting to pounce on a helpless mouse couldn’t compete with his expression. “Well, that too.”

“Uh-huh.” Knew it. Still, despite his devious intentions, I couldn’t deny the validity of the original argument. “Are you sure that it will do any good? As I said before, they strike me as people who just love to argue.”

“With each other they love to argue,” he corrected. “But they can’t argue with
you
. You’re the expert on Mages at this point. No one can refute that you’re the expert on
yourself
. Not much, anyway. Besides, all things considered, wouldn’t you like to try?”

I wasn’t entirely sure I bought this, but there was a part of me that wanted to see if he were right. Besides, this was one of those rare occurrences when I could really enjoy rubbing my outlandish reputation in a little. I’d be a fool to pass up the opportunity. “Well, why not?”

“Ha!” He bounced in glee, grinning.

Nothing makes Kartal happier than the opportunity to razz someone. Maybe his enthusiasm was infectious—I was kind of looking forward to the opportunity as well. Knocking something arrogant down is a deep delight of the blood.

I let Kartal lead the way back to that room. Nothing had changed much since we left it—four grouchy men were still gathered around the disorganized table, and they were still arguing with each other.

Kartal paused in the doorway, wolfish smile well concealed behind a bland expression. Clearing his throat, he waited until he had their attention. “Gentlemen, I feel the need to introduce myself. I am Roarke Kartal, Wizard.”

One of the men perked up instantly. “The same Wizard Kartal that was with the Advent Mage during the Hobendon Peninsula flooding?”

They were familiar with my taskings, at least. They weren’t
completely
shooting in the dark.

Kartal flashed his most charming smile. “Indeed.”

“Finally, an eye witness!” the portly Wizard cried. He pounced on Kartal and dragged him to an open seat. “I’m Audax Vertas, Wizard. You simply
must
come and tell us what you know.”

“Oh it will be my delight, I assure you.” Kartal’s grin widened a notch.

Seeing that this was going to take a while, I put my shoulders to the wall and relaxed, settling in for what promised to be quite the show. Kartal has quite the tongue on him—as good as any lawyer’s. I fully expected for him to wrap these men up in theory-logical knots.

Quick introductions were made all around. The man with wispy hair was Wizard Toplady, the one with the seemingly perpetual frown was Wizard Stott, and the combative Wizard was Coles. Since I was being very quiet and still, not drawing any attention to myself, they forgot I was even in the room, and Kartal didn’t introduce me. From the quick grin he flashed me, this was done on purpose.

Drama queen.

They fell into a discussion of magical bloodlines in exhaustive detail. I lost them about three sentences in, as I had no idea about any Hainian bloodlines. For that matter, I had no idea of Chahiran bloodlines, outside of my own. This was (thankfully) interrupted after a few minutes by Cole.

“Never mind the Hainian bloodlines,” he growled, flapping his hands. “Those obviously don’t apply to Chahir. In fact, I’m not sure that
any
bloodlines apply to Chahir, considering how most of them have surely been stamped out by now. What I want to know is why
now
? It’s been two hundred years since we’ve seen a Mage, until Rhebengarthen. Then after he appears, we get four more!”

“Five,” Kartal corrected. “Another Elemental Mage was brought into Del’Hain yesterday.”

There was a briefly stunned silence as they digested that.

“Five in two years…” Toplady mused, pulling at one ear in an absent fashion. “Almost unheard of, according to the histories. And all from Chahir. Why?”

“You can’t assume that only Chahir can breed Mages.” Kartal smiled when he got four challenging stares. “Think about it—the young Earth Mage, Trev’nor, is an unknown. We have no idea what nationality he is. He doesn’t look Hainian, but he could be from the Empire of Sol.”

I’d never thought about where Trev’nor came from—but Kartal was right, he obviously wasn’t Hainish. Actually…he rather looked like he could hail from Chahir with his fair coloring….I was diverted from the thought before I could trace it to its logical end by the argument at the table.

“There’s never been Mages from Sol before!” Stott objected.

“We didn’t get Mages from Chahir for two hundred years either,” Coles pointed out. “We’ve
never
gotten a Mage from Hain. There’s a first time for everything. You’ve met Trev’nor, Wizard Kartal?”

“Oh yes. I was with Garth when we discovered the boy.”

“Then the report that Trev’nor was initially raised by Tonkawacons is true?”

“Completely true,” Kartal confirmed. His eyes were alight with amusement—he was truly enjoying himself.

“But there’s no history of magic in Sol!” Stott reiterated, nearly wailing. “It doesn’t make any sense!”

“It doesn’t make any sense for Hain, who is so rich with magic, not to have Mages, either,” Cole snapped at him.

“Let’s focus on one problem at a time,” Toplady suggested. “Wizard Kartal, you’ve spent considerable time with the Advent Mage. Did he have any theories about how his Mage abilities came about?”

“Why yes, I believe he does know how,” Kartal responded blandly. Turning, he looked at me, as innocent as a cat with feathers sticking out of its mouth. “What was the theory again?”

Don’t ask me how, but I managed not to smile or chortle like a demented idiot. It was very challenging, as Kartal’s wicked amusement was tickling my funny bone badly. My face was hurting from the effort. Matching his tone, I responded, “There are three factors, actually. One of which is bloodlines—although it can skip several generations without showing—but it also takes a certain condition of the land, and the Mage’s proximity to ley lines’ power.”

Dead silence. I was the focus of many suspicious stares. I think, just judging from Cole’s face, that he was beginning to piece together who I was. He was torn between delight and horrified realization.

Vertas frowned impressively, which rather made him look like a bulldog. “Just what did you say your name is?”

“I didn’t.” Completely deadpanned, I gave a polite bow. “I am Rhebengarthen.”

I seriously thought Vertas was going to drop to the floor in a dead faint.

It took Stott three tries to get words out of his mouth. “You…are the Advent Mage.”

Kartal started laughing, mirth rolling out of his chest in waves. Apparently he just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Gasping for breath, he managed, “Yes, he is.”

“And just for your information, I hate that title,” I added wryly.

I don’t think anyone quite knew how to respond to that. Taking pity on their obvious bafflement, I took an empty chair at the head of the table. “Now, gentlemen, if you
truly
want to know how Mages are being born these days, I’ll be happy to tell you. I have my information confirmed with the Remnant Mages, so I can assure you it’s all accurate. Are you willing to listen to me this time?”