Sons (Book 2) (135 page)

Daybreak faded quickly from my face as I stood before Lucian.  Dad looked up at me when he saw the two-inch privacy shield encircling us with a ten-foot diameter.  He stepped back anxiously, letting his anger show finally as the rest of the room disappeared.  “Stand up, Lucian,” I commanded, loudly, in that voice that could not be ignored.  This was Pact magic; I could feel the Lock shifting with purpose to my will.  Lucian scrambled up, using the wall for support until he stood wavering in his silk bathrobe.  “Lucian, did you cause the dimensional rift into the Pacthome to be opened?”

“Yes, Seth, asked that way, I do have to admit to that,” Lucian said sadly.  “She made me do it, you know.  You saw that, too.  What she put me through.”

“No, you sick m—” I couldn’t bring myself to say it in front of my father.  Ain’t that sad?  “You don’t get to blame any of this on her.  This is all you.  You are a traitor to the Pact and guilty of genocide.  Why?”

“Because everything we’re doing is wrong!” Lucian snarled.  “We can’t keep hiding and waiting for the elves to make a mistake.  We’ve hidden too much magic away from the world and we need to put some back.”

“And how does murdering everybody get that done?” Dad asked.

“That way I can add who I want to the Pact and possibly change the binding,” Lucian said gloating.  “Make a true mark for our people!”

“Lucian, for the crime of revealing the Pact to outsiders and submitting to black magic that endangers your soul and your Pact’s connection,” I said, but the voice that rang through the privacy shield didn’t sound like mine.  Even Dad looked a little spooked by it.  “You have lost the right to carry a Pact and you are branded a traitor to our kind.”  I removed the Pact using functions within the library that had never been used.  Weren’t ever supposed to be used.

“Yes!” he hissed.  “That’s all I ever really wanted.”  He had his arms spread out against the wall, his movement jerky and spastic.

“I really draw out the psychotic in them, don’t I?” I muttered, then carried on, that voice “from above” following me.  “Further, you lose all knowledge of any magic learned while under the tutelage of the Pact, including its existence.  For the genocide of your people, I pronounce your life null and void.  Anyone can kill you, and should kill you, at any time.”  I paused to let that sink in.  Exactly how much magic would he have left once the Pact Lock shut down his memory?  I didn’t resist checking and wasn’t surprised at the damage.

“Dad?” I asked softly, turning to look at his back.  “This isn’t exactly an honor, but do you want to be the one?  Of all of us, you’ve suffered the most egregiously because of him.”

Behind the privacy screen, Dad let a crack show, a hint of the murderous rage he’d kept locked up till now.  He turned on Lucian, ready to yell and vent his anger.  “You took his Pact?” he asked instead, shocked.

“Yes, it’s a never-before used function of the Librarian.  There are several areas that no one has ever used for good reason.”

Dad paused, then asked what would happen if we allowed the ceremony to proceed, so I quickly outlined what would happen in best case and worst case scenarios.  Glancing through the shield, I saw Kieran and Peter negotiating with the leader of the mercenaries for Marchand’s release, or more realistically, stonewalling the leader.

“Why don’t we let them finish their rite, then?” Dad asked.  “Let them take care of each other for us.  That way, we can be right where we need to be to destroy the blood rites whatever the result is.”

“And smack in the middle of an army of mercenaries and battle mages,” I reminded him.  “There’s a lot that can go wrong with that idea.”

“Yes, but that’s the same position we’re in now,” he said, waving a hand around us vaguely.  “I rather like the irony and I still get the kill the son of a bitch.”

Chuckling at my dad’s sense of revenge, I said, “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

Kieran talked them into it.  He could be particularly charming when he wanted to be, especially since the subjects of the discussion were so heavily fascinated at the time.  He convinced the mercs to delay long enough to fake a magical battle with them as the winners.  Shortly the foyer was full of men with automatic weapons and bad attitudes and I was letting wizards reach for power again.  Yeah, no way any of this could go wrong.

Marchand gloated behind his altered memories and slightly hazy reality.  He slipped right into Kieran’s plan and slapped a containment field around us, ranting about our incompetence and inability.  He ignored the mercenary leader’s pleas to shoot us and be done with us.  It was nerve-wracking for us to watch our ploy play out in front of us, knowing it shouldn’t work.  Apparently, my fascination and Kieran’s lead were strong enough to force Marchand to overcome the suspicious nature of the mercenary.  Within ten minutes, we were following Marchand and his group of magicians down a dark path with torches, a dozen guns in our backs and confined within a weak containment field generated by two of our four greeters.

Just outside the mercenary encampment, a small squad of battle mages swerved into our path and surrounded us.  They formed their own confinement and containment fields, relieving the other wizards of the task and freeing them for the ceremony ahead.  There were eight of them holding it and it was stronger and more compact.  No less breakable, but stronger.  The mages were extremely nervous and anxious, and rightly so.  At the end of this long dark path was a temple building filled with dark, roiling energy and they’d been warned repeatedly to stay away from it.

Even Marchand was quiet after the mercenary camp.  No one spoke for the fifteen minute walk to the temple, except to grunt or groan about a tree limb in the face or a root in the path.  The way seemed to narrow and darken as we got closer and the energies around us got less appealing to feel.  To me, it felt like being close to Dieter, just plain creepy.  A trio of priests stood in the center of the clearing when we finally broke clear of the path about a twenty yards before the temple.  They greeted Marchand formally in an old Persian language.  Our guards ushered us to an out-of-the-way place and waited while Marchand spoke with them.  Then everyone went inside the temple, leaving us alone with the mercenaries and the battle mages.

Silence reigned for ten minutes while we watched the magic of the temple begin to focus then relapse into chaos.  Ethan laughed.  “This could take a while,” he muttered.  “Should we offer to help?”

“Shuddup in there!” growled a man in front of our “cages.”  He hit them with a long, thin knife, causing a cascade of energy through the containment field that would have hurt if we were connected to them.

“Nah, they got another hour, hour and a half before they’re ready,” I said, stepping out of the cage beside the camouflage-wearing Australian.  “We’d rather talk while we’re waiting.”  His head swung sharply to me when he realized where I was standing.  His head swung the other way when Peter stepped out the other side.  When he looked behind him, he saw his companions doing what they were supposed to be doing—supporting the confinement of their five prisoners.  It just so happened that Kieran was operating a perfectly valid elven fascination of his own and had dozens of guards within visual range believing we were still in their grasp.  I didn’t know he could do that, but Shrank called him the “Free Lord.”  I should damn well believe it!

“I knew this was too much like an action movie,” the Aussie muttered.  “Did they explain their dastardly plan for world domination right after they captured you?”

“When did they capture us?” I leaned past the man to ask Peter.

“Who are you, then?” he asked.

“Ah, that really doesn’t matter, does it?” Peter asked.

“I’d like to know who I’m fighting,” he said, letting his accent lilt, picking something up in Peter that I just didn’t see.  The man’s aura peaked with arousal, but thankfully even Peter was bothered by that.

“Dude, that’s just creepy,” Peter answered, shaking his head.  “And the people you’re planning to attack aren’t given engraved announcements ahead of time, are they?”

“Why don’t I particularly feel like attacking either of you right now?  That would be my natural inclination and training,” he asked calmly, still brandishing his knife but always pointing down.

“Our brother is being subtle,” Peter said, slyly adjusting his… position to our talkative non-captor.  Shameless, my brother was shameless.

“We were wondering, Mr. Creely,” I started asking my question mostly to draw his attention away from Peter, but he proved to be an interesting diversion with Kieran’s fascination.  “Why exactly are you here?  Why are you part of this army?”

“Huh?  We’re leading the mercenaries through magically-defended and even heavily-defended areas,” Creely explained distractedly, glancing over at me quickly.  Kieran imbued quite a willingness to serve and Creely’s imagination supplied a huge fantasy with a little prompting.  I’m pretty certain he wanted to try bondage for the first time.  The brief image I got didn’t quite seem anatomically probable, but…

“That’s
what
you’re doing.  I want to know
why
.  Is it simply for the money, like the other mercenaries?  Or is there some political statement that you’re making in helping this idiot?” I tried explaining.  Peter just tilted his head ever so slightly and looked sternly at him.  Creely spilled his guts then.

“Hard question to answer,” he said to me, nervously.  “Some of us, it’s the money.  Not many of us can hold down normal jobs.  Just about everything involves equipment that tends to malfunction, even explode around us.  Some of us feel that the people we’re attacking have done nothing through the years to alleviate this problem, even though they have the resources.”

“Oh, boo-hoo,” I snapped, startling Creely.  “What have any of you done about it?  What makes you think the people you’re attacking aren’t having the same problems?  These are excuses that I’m not willing to accept, especially when it’s my family and friends that you’re attacking.  What it comes down to is, every damn one of you has got a screw loose in some way, you’re thrill-seekers, and this is a convenient way get money while merging the two.”

“Yeah, that about covers it… Sir,” he said, cringing at the conflict between Lords Kieran and Daybreak.  Pulling back on my influence, I looked at Peter for his opinion.

“Sad as it is, I agree with you,” Peter said.  “And they knew the risks going into this.  Just like we did.”  He looked over his shoulder at the temple sadly. 

The building itself was creepy enough to keep the human mercenaries away unless ordered to be there, like now.  Kieran had them field stripping their weapons in pairs.  The battle mages were playing a complex game of patty-cake in teams.  Kieran walked up, grinning, with Dad and Ethan.

“This gets easier when you use it,” he said, his emerald eyes ablaze with wild energy.  “Feel the burn.”

Grinning at his enthusiasm, I had no idea what “pushing” him in faery magic would do and I really didn’t want to wait an hour or more while these idiots figured out how to read Sondre’s spellbook.  “Would y’all mind if I hurried things along?”

“As long as you don’t become involved,” Ethan murmured beside me.

Letting my attention rush into the wretched gray stone building, I started aligning their seals on the ethereal planes.  The ceremony room was harder because they needed more space, so the angles were tighter and there were more of them.  The priests had their sacrifices waiting in the smoky back room.  The drugs and herbs wafting through the musty air already had their minds muddled.  Chants from baffled side rooms committed more ambiance to the ceremony room.  I imagine the drugs were the most important part for everyone but Marchand, considering he was the only one that was supposed to come out alive on the other side.  The priests, low on Sondre’s totem pole since we’d devastated her “parish,” began consecrating the primaries for the ceremony.  If they didn’t get out of that room soon, they’d be too stoned to stand up, too.

“Nobody seems to be trying too hard, do they?” Ethan asked quietly, watching the temple with me.

“You’re right.  I wonder why that is…” I mumbled at his very good question.  Maybe a change of perspective would help, I thought, and rose up over the cloud on the temple and looked down.  Dark scratches scored the earth through the forest around us in a devious binding.  Manufactured by the mercenaries using shovels and maps with care and precision, the battle mages were about to try a “Hail, Mary!”  I couldn’t see who was directing them, or how they talked the mercenaries into helping out.  Obviously, their relationship was different than I thought.

“Kieran, just put them to sleep,” I said loudly.  “We’ve been caught in a snare, a pretty good one, too.  Mr. Creely, who owns this property?”

“Mr. Murrik, I believe, is the owner, sir, though he allows Mr. Marchand free rein,” Creely answered as he gained confidence from the knowledge his comrades were fighting for them.

“Yeah, I figured he’d be the only one who could of pulled all this off,” I said grinning at him.  “I can handle the trap, but it’s going to drain me momentarily and I’ll be wide open during the mercenaries’ rush.  The Stone and the Day aren’t going to stand for that, which will strip protection from Dad.”

“What’s going to happen?” Kieran asked, sending sensings out and seeing the buildup of men with weaponry in the trees well beyond a normal staging range.  “Full scale military attack?  What’s the magical attack?”

“A ley bomb, more or less,” Ethan said.  He pointed up the slope and continued, “They phase two spells around their conduits that tug on that cloud, only they don’t know that part.  When they’re ready, they put all the energy they can spare into the conduits to fry us as much as they can.”

“Then the gunman come running in, overwhelming us,” Peter finished, looking out into the jungle.  “All right, Kieran, what do you want us to do?”

“Ethan, protect Seth and watch Dad’s back,” Kieran said quickly and authoritatively.  “Dad, yell and taunt the temple for anybody to come out, but don’t go in and stay close to us!  Pete, you take that side and I’ll take this side.  Seth… Be careful, little brother.”

“I’ll scream if I have problems.  Shrilly and loudly, probably like a girl,” I said grinning.  My only thought was to short circuit the energy and the only way I could do that was shorten the path it had to follow.  Grabbing a sense of a decent volume of space around us, I added, “Just be ready for me to drop us out of reality for a moment or two.”

I started shifting the edges of the space apart from their natural realm to grab them in a hurry.  Once again I was in the center with Kieran and Peter on either side of me with Ethan basically circling me.  Dad was in front of me facing the temple and Creely paced off in the distance on Peter’s side. 

We didn’t have too long to wait before the attack started.  Two violent waves of clashing energy that couldn’t quite jump the gap of the path and the trees.  Forty battle mages poured their reserves into this attack and when it hit the transforms in the forest, the resulting energy form would flood in and fry us all.  I tied a much smaller volume of space to the edges of the one I’d just removed and we dropped out of reality for a moment.  Playing games with chance and quantum entanglement was actually rather exciting.  By definition, I really didn’t know the outcome; I just
felt
like this is how it should be.  Then it was.

The explosion was gigantic, a purple firestorm of violent jagged-edged energy flaring in the field around us.  It burned hard and fast, but my patch held.  Once the energy washed into the background again, I let the tiny twist of space return to its original position and released the rest of its trapped energy.  The battle mages weren’t too happy with it since it caused a minor explosion of light and sound in their midst.  I didn’t feel too badly since they’d just killed fifteen of their own men trying to get us.

We stood on the only plot of grass within a hundred yards.  Their trap worked well to be so big.  Holding such a large volume took a lot out of me.  All I could do for a few moments was watch as the next wave of their plan took place.  They timed it well, too, as the mercenaries with long-ranged weapons began a barrage of the field while others with more conventional weapons ran for the treeline, closer to our sensory limits—what they believed them to be, anyway.  Peter and Kieran watched the sky and batted explosive rounds and incoming RPGs out of the air as fast as they appeared.

Ethan flared with energy and a thin webbing of shield energy appeared around all of us, then another and another.  Fifteen levels of energetic protection, none of them strong enough by itself to stop a bullet, but woven together, it was magical kevlar and dense enough for a tank round.  Dad was yelling at the temple and throwing thunderous hexes at the building to shake up everyone inside.  Kieran and Peter had to change tactics then as the attack from the trees started.  Bullets ricocheted off Ethan’s shield, eating at the scorched earth around us.

My energy and concentration levels were returning quickly now, so I checked the temple for survivors.  Surprisingly the attack was surgically precise but Dad was doing more damage than the attack did.  Almost everybody was alive.  I found the one fatality—murder, really, but who was I to complain—in the back of the ceremony room.  Marchand wasn’t supposed to end up with his guts on the floor in one place and his head hacked off into another.  The priests and the chanters were huddled in the floor of the steam room, locked in and likely to suffocate soon.  That left Murrik, Lucian, and their four buddies somewhere in the building.  Two of the battle mages working in concert masked all of their auras while the other two worked to camouflage their physical appearance.  Murrik dragged Lucian along at gunpoint and acted as lookout from the middle.  They were nearing an outside exit door through a long, dark hallway that was made to be hard to see into.  Well, well, Phil got pissed about being a murder victim and decided he’d finally had enough of Marchand.  ‘Bout time.