Shades of the Past: The Morcyth Saga Book Six (33 page)

James nods silently in agreement as they
continue to follow Jiron south. The incident with the scout isn’t
repeated and after little over an hour, Jiron slows down and has
the others join him. “I think we’re past whatever sentries and
patrols were watching Korazan,” he says. “Now, just where are we
heading?”

“Two days to the southeast lies Ki,” he
replies. “According to the intelligence Lord Pytherian’s agents
gathered, there’s a large iron mine in the mountains close to it.
It’s a relatively small town and doesn’t have much of a
garrison.”

“Going to do the same thing there as you did
at the island?” Jiron asks. He remembers how James had utterly
destroyed the Iron Mines at Sorna when he caused a massive volcanic
eruption to completely engulf the island. Intelligence gathered by
Lord Pytherian said a whole chain of eruptions sprung into being
and have since played merry hell with shipping in the area.

“Hardly,” he says. “Going to try to collapse
it, make it unusable for quite a while. If they lose the iron from
there, they will only have one other mine of any size in operation
or so the reports said. The other one is too far south for us to
reach and have any success in making it back to Madoc again.”

They ride for another hour or so before
coming to where the road forks to the southeast. Skirting around
the town that sits across the juncture, they move to follow the new
road to the southeast.

Throughout the night, they continue to follow
the road. Other than them, no one else is traveling so late in the
evening. Two hours before sunup, they come across a small village
straddling the road. Little more than huts with goat farms, there
is at least an inn.

“We should stop here,” James says when the
inn comes in sight.

“Are you sure?” Jared asks. “If we’re found
out, it’s all over.”

“I doubt that will happen,” Jiron says,
joining the discussion.

“All you have to do is go in and get us a
room,” James tells Jared. “Tell them we’ll send someone down in the
morning to let them know when we will want breakfast sent up.”

“Alright,” says Jared, a trifle
skeptical.

The inn has a lone lit candle in the front
room. They pull up to the rail outside where James and Jiron wait
while Jared goes inside. He isn’t long in returning and indicates
he’s obtained a room. They take their horses around back to the
stables. Only one horse is all there is within the stables and they
have their choice of stalls. They pick three close to the entrance.
Once their horses are settled in, they take all their bags with
them up to their room.

As they reach the door to their room, James’
orb appears. Opening the door, the light from the orb reveals a
single bed. They both look at Jared. “Sorry,” he says
apologetically. “It was all they had.”

“All they had?” responds Jiron in amazement.
“The stables are nigh on empty and this place hardly seems a major
stop along the road.”

“It’s okay,” assures James as he enters
through the door. Once the door shuts behind them, they stack their
bags against it as an alarm.

“You take the bed,” Jiron offers James.

James nods and takes a seat on the edge while
the others make themselves comfortable on the floor. “It’s a couple
hours until dawn,” he says. “When it’s light enough, someone may
realize I am no longer with our main force. Things could get
interesting when it does.”

“How will we know if they do?” Jared
asks.

Jiron chuckles and says, “Believe me, we’ll
know.”

Before getting comfortable James removes the
two crystals he had in his pocket as well as another from the sack
of crystals. The power stored within these three crystals will aid
him to ward off detection in the event an attempt is made to locate
him. Setting them on the bed next to him, he lays down.

“Good night,” Jiron says from his position by
the door.

“You too,” replies James as the room plunges
into darkness with the vanishing of the orb. Only the glow from the
crystals remains.

Crack!

Jared comes awake at the noise and quickly
looks around the room. The light from the rising sun is just
beginning to shine through the room’s window. Jiron is sitting on
the bed next to James who is surrounded by a faint glow.

“What’s happening?” he asks as he gets to his
feet. Coming over to the bed, he discovers a glowing crystal
gripped in James’ right hand, another lies on the bed next to him.
His other hand moves to the edge of the bed and drops a plain white
crystal to the floor where it breaks into two halves.

“They’re trying to locate him,” whispers
Jiron.

“Is he okay?”

“So long as the glow remains, he’s fighting
them,” explains Jiron. “Keep an eye on the door, wouldn’t want
anyone coming in just now.”

Moving to the door, Jared puts an ear to the
door and listens. “No one’s out there,” he says.

“That’s a relief,” mutters Jiron.

“Why?” Jared asks as he returns to the
bedside.

“You see, when mages work magic, others who
are nearby can sense it,” Jiron explains. Gesturing to James, he
says, “This has been going on for awhile and if there had been one
near, they would have been here by now.”

“You mean he could attract a mage from the
Empire?” he asks.

“Yes.”

They watch him as he lays there and combats
those seeking him. The glowing crystal in his hand gradually loses
its glow until…

Crack!

…its glow completely disappears and shatters
in his hand. After dropping it on the floor with the other, he
takes the remaining crystal in hand and the battle continues.

“Doesn’t look like much is happening,”
comments Jared after several more minutes.

“If they knew exactly where he was, it would
be more dramatic,” Jiron replies. “Now they know he’s missing and
are trying to punch their way through whatever deception he’s got
going.” Turning to gaze at Jared, he continues. “Think of it like
there’s a pebble hidden beneath a large blanket and you have to
keep poking the surface of the blanket until you discover where it
is hiding. Once you locate where the pebble is, then you use all
your force to tear through the blanket until you have the
pebble.”

“I don’t understand,” he says.

Jiron smiles at him and says, “I didn’t
either at first. But he’s explained it to me often enough that I
think I get what he means.”

The glow from the crystal in James’ hand
flares as the light within begins to drop dramatically. Muscles in
James’ body start to twitch as he struggles against the power of
those searching. His breath becomes more labored as sweat beads
across his forehead.

“What should we do?” Jared asks, the sight of
what’s transpiring on the bed is starting to unnerve him. Battle
hardened though he is, magic is an altogether different matter and
has always unsettled him.

“Wait,” replies Jiron as he grabs a cloth and
begins dabbing the sweat from James’ brow.

Suddenly, another loud
‘crack’
is heard as the last crystal shatters completely.
“That’s not good,” mutters Jiron.

Jared picks up James’ sack and begins to open
it thinking to get him another crystal.

“Don’t!” yells Jiron as he snatches the sack
from his hands. “We don’t know which ones he can use. Take out the
wrong ones and you could kill us both.”

Gulping, Jared stares at the sack as if it
contained live vipers.

A moan escapes from James and both turn their
gaze to him. Sweat is now streaming down his face, breath coming in
ragged gasps. It doesn’t look as if he’ll be able to hold on for
much longer.

A cry, a massive spasming of his muscles and
then he flops back down only to lie still. Whatever was going on
has obviously stopped.

“Is he dead?” Jared asks in a shaky
voice.

Moving closer, Jiron lays his ear to James’
chest. After a brief moment, he hears the lub-dub of his heartbeat.
Glancing to Jared, he says, “He’s alive.”

Sighing, Jared comes forward. “Thank
goodness,” he breathes with relief.

“Go downstairs and have them bring food and
ale up to us,” Jiron tells him. “When he wakes up, he’ll be
ravenous.”

“Okay,” he replies and then exits the room,
closing the door behind him.

Jiron rests on the bed next to his friend,
still worried about the outcome.
Did they find him or not?
Have to wait until James comes to before he finds out. Getting up,
he moves to the window to keep an eye out.

High atop the Tower of the Magi, Kerith-Ayxt
stops his impatient pacing as Aezyl, Mage of the Third Circle
enters his tower. “Well?” he asks.

“He’s nowhere to be found milord,” Aezyl.

“How is that possible?” he shouts in
anger.

“We do not know,” the mage replies, head
bowed in submission. “Twenty slaves died in the attempt, but we
were unable to find him.”

“Fools!” he cries as he moves across the room
to the window overlooking the School of the Arcane. Not so much
seeing as thinking, he tries to come to grips with Aezyl’s failure.
A Mage of the Third Circle is no meager practitioner of the art,
but someone of great power. Few ever manage to ascend from the
Second, most who make the attempt fail to survive the tests.

A rogue mage on the loose, and one who is
able to counter whatever they have to throw at him.
Where did he
come from?
That’s an answer many would like to know. A number
of Mages of the Fourth Circle have already fallen to him, and none
of the others wish to challenge him.

The last three he sent to kill him were but
Mages of the Second Circle, though each had great talent. They were
promised ascension to the Third if they killed this mage, this was
to be their test. He witnessed the battle which had taken their
lives and couldn’t believe the relative ease with which his mages
were dealt with.

Since the disastrous battle at Lythylla when
their forces were completely annihilated, he’s had a mage keep a
constant eye on him. It cost the life of a slave every six hours to
maintain the magic necessary, but slaves he has in plenty.

Until this morning, all was going well. Then,
when the sun rose over Korazan, he was gone. Black Hawk and his
army were on the move along the north road, most likely heading
back to Madoc. But where the mage was is anyone’s guess.

“Milord?” the Mage of the Third Circle
asks.

Turning back to face Aezyl, Kerith-Ayxt says,
“Convene the Assembly of Masters.”

“Yes milord,” he says with a bow. Backing
from the room, he leaves to carry out his master’s command.

Once Aezyl has left the room, Kerith-Ayxt
says a word of power and a wall disappears revealing a room on the
other side. Moving into the room, he crosses over to the far wall
where several shelves are lined with aged tomes. Removing one
extremely old tome whose cover was made from the skin of a king, or
so the story goes, he places it on the small table beneath the
shelves.

Sitting down, he creates light with a thought
and takes great care when he opens the fragile tome. Yellowed pages
that have survived millenniums turn slowly under his fingers until
he finds what he’s looking for.

Aekion, the Seeker. A powerful being from the
plane of fire that has done the bidding of the High Lord Magus in
the past, though not during the reign of Kerith-Ayxt. His
predecessor had told him the tale of the last time the Seeker had
been summoned centuries past to deal with a grievous threat to the
Empire.

The summoning of such is not without its
risks and never to be undertaken except in the direst of need.
While the Assembly of Masters gathers in the Great Hall, he commits
to memory the words and gestures of the spell. Even the smallest
slip and the summoner will be taken as Aekion returns from whence
he came.

He studies the passage until the bell tolls
signifying that the Assembly of Masters have gathered in the Great
Hall. Closing the book, he returns it to the shelf and then leaves
the room. Speaking the word of power once again, the wall
materializes.

He makes his way down to the bottom of the
tower and crosses the courtyard to where the Great Hall lies on the
far side. The summoning of Aekion takes three days. First the Hall
must be prepared to hold him. Second, the plane of fire is accessed
and a way created for Aekion to pass through. Lastly, the summoning
of Aekion.

Each task takes its toll from the summoner
and he must rest between each. For to attempt to summon Aekion in a
tired or weakened state would surely mean the death of the
summoner.

Entering through the massive door, he finds
the masters and those of the Fourth Circle who are about to attempt
to become full masters assembled. His footsteps echo through the
massive rotunda as he passes through their ranks to the center of
the Hall. Coming to rest on the Sigil of Power, he turns to the
assembled mages and says, “We have work to do.”

Regaining consciousness with one dilly of a
headache, James shields his eyes from the light coming in through
the window. The palm of his right hand is bandaged and aches.

“You okay?” Jiron asks as he comes forward
from across the room.

James turns his head and sees him
approaching. Upon the table in their room are stacked several
plates of food as well as a pitcher and three mugs. “A little
thirsty,” he says, his voice rasping slightly.

Jared takes one of the mugs and fills it with
ale from the pitcher. Bringing it over, he hands it to him.

Taking the mug, he props himself up against
the wall at the head of the bed and takes a sip. “Ahhhh,” he says
after downing the entire mugful of ale. He hands the mug back to
Jared and says, “Thanks.”