Soul of the Sorcerer - Part Three: Daughter of the Dragon (15 page)

Edala sat with her sisters around a small brazier next to the caravan. Tomorrow morning they would return home to Oldwealth. The imperial market had seen them clear out, with a little bit of haggling, the remainder of their stock and they had a very healthy purse to take home and help support their charitable functions for many a week.

Edala had relayed to them, in full, the story of what had happened in the Imperial Palace, their silence and shocked glances at each other, during the part describing the rape, relayed how deeply disturbed they were by what they had heard.

“How can we be sure this Themisia is a relation of ours, you said yourself that even this Ebony Being had a touch of silver in his aura as well?” Umaia asked.

“Her aura was far more like ours, that’s all I can say” Edala replied.

“Well based on father’s shenanigans over the years, it should be of no surprise to find a child who could possibly be the daughter or granddaughter of one of our sisters, there have been many more than just us five over the years...I remember being the youngest once” Maria finished with a smile at Edala.

Finally, after much thought, Amelia too decided she had something to say, surprising the others because she was the most timid of the five when it came to expressing an opinion. The tall girl lifted her head from where she had been staring deep in thought at the flames within the brazier, her blue almond shaped eyes, had a determination about them that Edala had never seen before. She then ran her fingers through her fine close cropped hair,

“My sisters, if this Themisia is indeed some distant relation of ours, then we must provide our aid and deliver her from the hands of those who abuse her!”

Edala smiled appreciatively at her sister.

“I am willing to go back and try and rescue her but I doubt I will be able to go in the same way” she offered.

“You are probably right Eadie, they will no doubt be watching the roof vents” Justina said, her face deep in concentration, “I suppose we could try the sewer pipes feeding into the river?”

“Absolutely not!” Edala replied, raising hands in protest, “after Seadawn I am never going anywhere near a sewer again!”

Maria, the eldest of the sisters, broke her silence “Perhaps some distraction at the front gates of the palace may buy you and Justina time to fly in from the rear?”

“Me?” Justina asked, but not in any way that was in protest to being involved.

“Yes sister, because it seems that me, Umaia and Amelia cannot even see these midgets you have spoken of” the older sister replied.

Umaia also nodded in agreement, “ So you seem to be implying that we will provide a distraction, while Edala and Justina slip in around the back?”

“No,” Maria shook her head, “I will provide the distraction, Amelia and Umaia will have the wagon ready on the hill overseeing the city”

Edala sat thinking this through, “So what are you going to do as a distraction?”

Maria stood and walked to the brazier, she then looked around and was relieved to see that very few wagons remained and of those that did there were no signs of life. She undid her dress and it dropped to the floor, followed by her undergarments, to reveal a surprisingly trim and firm body for an older lady. She then looked at her sisters with pride and thrust her arms into the brazier with a scream of great pain.

Lloyd, Bethany and Allen sat about a mile away from the southern wall of the Crescent Empire. The sandstone barrier ran east and west filling the northern horizon as far as the eye could see. In front of them sat one of the three great keeps which guarded a large gateway to the empire beyond.

The three friends sat on a patch of light brown grass finishing a light meal of dried meats and biscuits. Allen took a swig from his water skin and looked towards the two mages, a quizzical look on his face, “And you two think we are going to walk right through that gate without any questions?”

“Yep!” Lloyd and Bethany replied in unison.

“Dressed like that?” Allen grinned eyeing the other two up and down.

Lloyd and Bethany immediately looked down and then at each other with shock, each having completely forgotten that they were in clothes from Earth.

“Bugger!” they each said, again in unison.

“I don’t suppose our mage robes would be much better either?” Lloyd mused.

“Nope,” Allen smiled “I don’t think you two are as clever as she thinks you are sometimes!” The young soldier then reached across and grabbed his sleeping blanket, which he then folded neatly in two before piercing it with a dagger at the halfway point and then making a slit large enough for a head to go through.

“Here” he said tossing it to Lloyd before repeating the process with one of Bethany’s blankets; soon the two mages wore ponchos to conceal their Earth clothing underneath.

“It’s nice to know that you will have tailoring to fall back on as a career when you retire as a soldier” Bethany said with a friendly punch in the young man’s arm. Allen smiled and winked back at the redhead.

Lloyd noticed that Allen was not blushing as he normally would. “Careful Beth, he’s not blushing, I think you might have a bit of a game on your hands” he said with a grin. Bethany threw Allen a cautious glance and then she blushed when he firmly held her gaze. “Okay my soldier you win…” she shrugged nonchalantly and turned to face the gate, “right, let's get through those gates!”

Lloyd and Allen grinned at each other before starting after the redhead, who was stomping quickly ahead.

Once they had reached a distance about fifteen feet from the gate, Lloyd started to find it more difficult to take every stride, it felt like there was something pushing against his shoulders and arms.

“You feeling that Beth?” He asked, she was a good five feet in front of him.

“Yes, but I can press further” she responded and took another two strides before she could no longer move against the invisible force. She then gasped and looked around her and Lloyd. “Turn on your soul vision!” she said.

Lloyd stopped trying to move any closer to Beth and activated his special sight. All around them were curved silver beams of energy; these were emitting from foundation stones about four feet square in size located every fifty feet or so along the base of the wall. Currently these beams curved out from the two nearest stones either side of the gate and coalesced around the two mages like lines of magnetic flux around the poles of a bar magnet. As Lloyd and Bethany tried to push forward, the lines fluxed and pushed back. Lloyd was impressed that Bethany had managed to get closer to the gate than he. Looking towards the east and west he could see that the magnetic like beams arched from stone to stone with finer lines arching up into the sky and disappearing to the north.

“YOU DOWN THERE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” A gruff guard’s voice sounded from the keep above. Lloyd jumped as there had been no sign of life as they had approached the gate.

“Hello my friend, I am Allen son of Frank, The Kalanan Ambassador from Seaguard, we are just on our way to Kon” Allen shouted back from where he stood near to Lloyd.

Lloyd and Bethany slowly eased away from the wall until the silver beams no longer reached for them.

“Well, it looked to me that your two friends there, Allen son of Frank, were struggling to enter the Empire, probably because they are mages” the guard replied. He was now joined by two more guards on the wall, each carrying a bow; these they armed with arrows to point at Lloyd and Bethany.

“We mean you no harm and will retreat” Lloyd offered

“So, you are mages?” the guard asked. Lloyd did not notice Allen shaking his head.

“Yes, what of it?” Lloyd replied.

“RUN!” Allen shouted at the same time as the guard shouted “LOOSE!” at his archers.

“Bethany, as ever, was faster to respond than Lloyd and she hastily threw up a wind wall, but because they were separated by a few feet she focussed it on Allen and Lloyd who were closer together. The arrow which had been heading for Lloyd flipped in the air when it hit the wall of solid air, before dropping to the floor in front of them. Lloyd turned to see Bethany collapse to the floor, an arrow penetrating her shoulder.

His temper flared; “Quadraplanus, Primuspower!” he opened his four portals in readiness and pulled first on the very familiar power of air. He first decided to bring down the guards with a familiar air spell; “Zephyrair, Zephyrmight, lightning storm arrow flight!”  he said directing an arrow at each of the guards. His heart sank, however, when the arrows dissipated several feet from the guards, the energy seemingly absorbed by the ward stones.  He could see the guards beginning to reach for another arrow; his anger deepened and he knelt to the floor to attempt a spell he had seen in the forbidden tomes. Oh how he would make them pay!

“Quadraplanus, Primuspower, Elemental Tempest, Opposing Befall!” He said with a grin. It was a spell intended to destroy large structures; in peace it may have been used to demolish a building ready for something new to be built; in battle its purpose was far darker.

Lloyd knelt and gently placed his hands on the floor, rivulets of energy then began to feed into the ground and also into the surrounding air, a swirling vortex of wind surrounded them protecting them from every arrow that the guards above unleashed below. Lloyd fed more and more power from his four portals until a huge crack suddenly appeared with an explosion in the floor below and then leapt with ferocious speed into the wall and the keep. The vortex of wind stifled the sounds of the screams from the dying men, as the keep collapsed around them. A huge burst of water then lifted the debris from the wall and keep up into the air where it all spun in a huge swirling mass of destruction, just twenty feet from the companions.

“LLOYD RELEASE IT, YOU’RE GOING TO BURN OUT!” Beth shouted, from where she was now kneeling on the floor, holding her arm where she had already snapped off the arrow and pushed and pulled it right through.

“I can’t Beth the power has me!” Lloyd pleaded.

              Allen moved quickly towards Lloyd and punched him firmly on the jaw “Sorry your Highness” he said as he helped the dazed Sorcerer back to his feet. The tower of material was already collapsing behind them and they each held an arm in front of their eyes as water containing bits of broken wall splashed over them. Lloyd, vision cleared of Sorcerer Wrath, witnessed the scene of the destruction he had caused and his stomach sank. As well as the bodies of the guards that had attacked them, there were also other bodies…the residents of the keep. Although it had not been the largest of structures, it was large enough to house another twelve guards, some of their families and the serving staff who fed and catered to their many needs. There were bodies of both women and children among the ruin and Lloyd sank to his knees in despair.

“When I am angry and the power takes me I do not even consider the wider consequences of the powers I use”

Bethany came and knelt beside him. “I can think of no words to comfort you, but I am glad to be alive”

Allen too came and knelt on the other side of Lloyd.

“Your Highness, as a soldier in defence of Seaguard I have committed, in my eyes at least, atrocities that no man should witness, let alone actually do with their own hands. I remember facing a Daemon possessed child and can still see that moment when her mind returned the very second my blade took her head from her shoulders. I will not deny that there is something terrible about you when you are angry and use your magic...but I support Bethany in her statement; although I believe that these men were not inherently evil and that they were following orders to shoot those who use magic, if you had not fought back we would be dead.”

Lloyd lifted his gaze from a boy's body covered by debris, its eyes glazed with dust and mouth open in a final moment of terror. He looked to be about nine years old and Lloyd imagined, on the child’s behalf, the many years of life he would have lived had he not had the misfortune to run into a Sorcerer.

“Allen, Beth, your words are kind and well meant but I cannot hide from my crimes, I am a murderer, no matter what the intent and lack of motive on my part. I don’t know what it is when I get angry, but I always on instinct open the four portals and not just one...it’s almost like the four sit on my shoulder whispering in my ear, use me...kill them”. Tears swelled in his eyes as he glanced at each of his friends, “What’s worse is that I can feel part of me revelling in the death I have caused!”

Bethany moved in front of Lloyd and took his face in her two hands “Look at me you stupid man! Yes it is bad what you have done and we will work night and day to find a way to help you. But answer me this, is it by the will of Lloyd Brook that this happens? Is it our friend who would sacrifice his life to spare ours that does this? Or is it something that comes from the magic?”

Lloyd thought for a moment before replying “It is not by my intent, I can hear myself screaming in my head when it happens”

“Then your Highness you must not punish yourself” Allen responded.

Lloyd wiped his eyes and took a deep breath, “No, I will not punish myself, but if the time comes when I must pay for these crimes, I will face it honestly as a man who lives with regret for the deaths he has caused. Now let's get to the other side!”

He stood with determination and marched forward again; within ten to fifteen feet he met the opposing force.

“For fucks sake I can’t believe this!” he said and angrily opened his soul vision. Although he had decimated both the keep and wall which it had guarded, the ward stones still remained in place along with their silver beams of energy, which still pushed against them when they tried to move forward. Lloyd noted, however, that Bethany still managed to progress much further forward than he.

They all withdrew and slumped to the floor back where they had been moments before.

“Why is it I can get closer than you?” Bethany asked Lloyd.

He thought for a moment before an idea occurred to him, “Maybe you have more silver blood cells than I do? We had to produce so many to save your life that I spent a lot of time feeding energy into you”

He focussed his soul vision into his friend’s blood stream and did a quick tally of the silver cells and red cells in an area. “You seem to have about one silver cell to ten red cells”.

Bethany nodded and then focused her attention on him, “And you have about one silver cell to twenty!” she said.

Lloyd nodded and then with some reluctance opened his four portals; at least this time it was not in anger with a friend’s life at threat. He then gently fed energy from the four portals into Bethany’s bone marrow, picking out, with much concentration, those areas that made silver cells. He continued to do this for about fifteen minutes until he determined that the ratio of silver to red in her blood was about one to eight.

“Try walking through now” he asked. The redhead stood and marched off with determination towards the place where the gate had been. This time she reached the very point where a silver line of energy formed a very definitive border between the empire and the southern plains; before she then had to put greater effort in to progress any further.

“I think I am going to be able to do it!” She said between gritted teeth as she forged ahead one slow leg at a time. Finally, after another minute, she stood on the other side and waved victoriously.

Lloyd was still too upset to smile in return; he instead focussed his energy into replicating his own silver cells. It was nearly an hour later before he determined that the ratio of silver to red was about the same as it had been within Bethany. He slowly stood up on his feet and started to walk forward, at the first sign of a bruised and torn corpse he lifted his head and focussed his attention on Bethany who stood in the clear on the other side.

When he reached the centre point the pressure was almost too painful to fight against, but he clenched his teeth and with sheer determination, and just a small degree of anger, lifted one foot up and forward at a time.

Finally he stood directly in front of his air mage friend and she reached up with her right hand and grabbed the end of his beard.

“Well done you!” she said.

Allen also ran over and slapped the young Sorcerer on the back. “So what now your Highness?”

Now I will see if I can scry Edala’s location. He reached into his pack and fetched his small crystal ball and also the razor blade his love had used on many occasions to shave him. He hoped the fact that she had held it far more than he, meant that it would work.

“And there was me thinking that this was some expression of undying love! The not shaving I mean” Bethany said.

Lloyd could not help but smile. “I know that this makes me look ruggedly good looking, but it is a sacrifice of necessity as I did not want to taint this” he said waving the razor.