Stolen Compass (The Painter Mage Book 4) (10 page)

“You sure you want to spend our time this way?” she asked.

“Need answers.”

Devan touched the orb softly, skipping over the next two patterns I was about ready to trigger. “What about this?”

I leaned forward to study where she’d touched and nearly lost all control of the patterns. There, hiding beneath her finger, was a pattern I had completely missed. It was a tiny crescent, barely more than a fingernail in size, and different from the others. And the way it appeared raised told me that it was an arcane pattern. Not like the ones I usually made, but arcane, nonetheless.

“Well, damn. I don’t know that I saw that when we made the other orb.”

“It probably didn’t matter then. Didn’t you add your own mark to it?”

That was what had allowed Adazi to use the orb. I hadn’t expected the orb to work for him, but then again, I hadn’t really known what the orb was for. Now I had some sense of why my father had crafted his crystal ball. I wonder if he’d used Jakes’s father to help him with his like I’d used Jakes to make mine.

“Yeah.”

Kacey prowled up alongside us and stuck her nose toward the orb. “Will it let you use it?” Her voice came out rough, half-shifted so that she sort of growled as she spoke.

“I think it’ll do more than that,” I said.

Then I pushed my focus through the arcane pattern. Doing it suddenly removed the strain of focusing through the other patterns. It was like lifting a heavy weight through water. Slower, but easier to move. Suddenly, I was able to finish the series and managed to reduce the power I pressed through it, lowering it to barely more than a trickle.

“Hold on,” I said.

The orb started to glow and power built within it. I aimed it at little Nik, pushing the tiniest amount of the power through the sculpture. At first, nothing happened. Then it started to tremble. I pushed a little more through, and the sculpture elongated.

That wasn’t what I wanted. I withdrew the power, and little Nik returned.

“What is it?” Devan asked.

“I don’t want him back to full size. I want him animated, but miniature. That way, hopefully anything that he attempts will be on a smaller scale, too.”

Devan lifted Nik and studied him for a moment. My medallion went cold as she did. When she set him down, she pointed to the back of his head. “Try this,” she said.

A tiny indentation was there, almost like the beginning of a pattern. I focused on it and pressed some of the orb power through the spot Devan had indicated. Little Nik trembled again and then shook, flopping like a fish out of water. With a little more energy from me, the flopping subsided.

Little Nik’s eyes flipped open. His tiny arms moved, waving toward me in a small motion that still moved in a bit of a blur.

“Shit.” I grabbed a pinch of ink and dusted a small circle around Nik. Infusing it with power took another division of my focus. Somehow I managed to do it.

Nik’s attempted attack battered at my barrier harmlessly. There was power in it, but like him, it was diminished. I released the power I pressed through the orb, and the glow eased.

Nik stood in the center of the circle, staring at me defiantly. I took the cylinder out of my pocket and held it in front of him. “Try that again and you’ll be back to Rock Nik,” I said.

He glared at me. “What’s this about, Oliver? You want to torment me now that you’re bigger than me?” His voice came out something like a whisper, higher pitched and softer than his usual voice, but still plenty easy to hear.

“I need the keys,” Devan said.

I glanced up at her, curious about what she was doing, and Devan nodded. “All right.” I grabbed the keys and tossed them to her.

Devan caught the keys out of the air. “Don’t release his circle until I get back.”

I gave her a look. “If you say so.”

Devan turned to Kacey. “If he starts to get out, eat him.”

Kacey growled. “Oliver? Or the mage?”

“Oh, come on!” I snapped.

Devan laughed and went running across the yard. I watched her as she disappeared.

“About time you two got together,” Nik said.

I looked back down at him, lowering my face so that I could watch him closely. He wasn’t going anywhere now that my protective circle was in place, but I decided not to chance it and made another pattern around the first, this one looping with arcane spirals. As I infused it with power, Nik watched me, a flat expression on his tiny face.

“Just in case you get any ideas,” I said.

“You think there’s anything I can do in this form?”

“You seem to think there is, so yeah, I guess I’m being careful until I know whether I have anything to worry about.” I glanced over at Kacey. “And if you try anything stupid, I think my wolf buddy here might be hungry. You’re small enough that I doubt you’d even hurt her as she swallowed you.”

Nik turned to look at Kacey. His body wobbled slightly, still not completely under his control. I wondered if I could change the focus of the orb to keep him from moving at all. All I really needed right now was for him to speak.

“I assume the Trelking still lives?”

“He lives. He even came here to thank me himself.”

“What are you doing, Oliver? You’re dealing with power beyond your ability. Send me back across the Threshold and release me. The Druist will be in your debt. And I’ll be in your debt. You know what that means.”

Magical debt was real and couldn’t be avoided. I actually considered Nik’s suggestion for a moment. If I sent him over, there was a real chance that he might delay whatever the Druist had planned, but there was a greater chance that the Trelking might come after us for the simple reason that I’d released Nik.

“You know I can’t do that. Besides, with as much time as I spent on the other side, I always wanted a little mage apprentice doll.”

Nik shook his head. “You’re a fool, Oliver, you know that?”

“I know that I’ve got you stuck in a little circle of power. I know that if you try to attack me again, I’ll send enough power through my father’s cylinder to trap you completely before I hand you over to the Trelking. I know that if I did that, the Trelking would see that you suffered for what you did to his Nizashi and your attempted attack on him.” I smiled. “Did I miss anything?”

Nik settled back on his heels and stared at me. “No. I think you’ve summarized my position quite well. What do you want?”

“Oh, not much really. I need to know what you’ve learned from the Druist.”

Nik laughed. That might be a bit strong. With as little as he now was, it came out something like a wheeze. “You can’t think to learn what I know by asking. I’ve spent five years practicing with the Druist. Five years learning only a fraction of what the Druist knows. You’d be better off swearing fealty and crossing the Threshold to learn yourself. Considering your father, you’d probably be accepted.”

“I’m not really the swearing fealty type,” I said. “And considering how the Trelking claims I’m destined to kill the Druist Mage, well, you can see how I don’t want to go running over to him.”

Nik hesitated. “The Trelking saw that?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know if it’s one of his visions or if it’s simply what he wants to happen. You know how it is with him. Sometimes he uses the visions he has to steer what he wants to happen so they end up being the same thing.”

Nik ran a hand across his chin. “And to think he feared your father the most.”

“The Trelking?”

Nik shot me a look much like Devan did when I was being particularly dense. “Not the Trelking. The Druist.”

“Sounds like there’s not much to fear anymore,” I said.

“He’s gone?”

“I don’t know. The Trelking promised to tell me what happened to him if I came up with a certain item of his that my father stored on this side of the Threshold. The shifters seem to think he’s gone.”

Nik started pacing around the circle, avoiding the edges of the pattern I’d made. He trudged through the grasses that were nearly up to his waist, somehow making it still look easy. I wondered how I would do if I were in his place. Would I handle the sudden power change quite as well as he seemed to be doing?

What had he been through for him to simply roll with this new circumstance? I had to admit that it impressed me to see Nik so comfortable, even when he was clearly outclassed. He hadn’t always been like that, which meant that whatever the Druist Mage had put him through had prepared him for weirdness like this.

“If the Elder is really gone, then we might be in trouble,” Nik said.

“I don’t know if he’s really gone,” I countered. “And that’s not why I unfroze you.”

Nik looked up at me, still pacing. “You think that I should teach you so you can keep your girlfriend safe. Is that about it?”

I sniffed. Behind me, Kacey growled softly. “Something like that.”

“The time you spent on the other side of the Threshold didn’t really prepare you for anything, did it?”

“And you think trying to kill the Trelking is the right answer?”

Nik stopped pacing and looked over at me to laugh. “You still serve him, after all that’s happened.”

“Do you even know what would happen were the Trelking destroyed?”

“Probably better than you.” He started pacing again. “Do you know what would happen were the Druist Mage destroyed?”

I didn’t, but Nik didn’t need to know that. “Who is he?”

“A powerful being. That’s about all there is to say. It’s a different kind of balance to the Trelking.”

Balance was the same word that Jakes had used. Was it by coincidence or an accidental slip that Nik now chose the same phrasing?

“Sort of how my father balances the equation from this side of the Threshold,” I said.

Nik stopped pacing again to look up at me. “You know about that? Maybe you’re not as unprepared as I thought.”

I smiled to myself that the gamble had paid off.

“So. What do you want to know first?” Nik asked.

“You’re going to help?”

“Do I have much choice? Seems to me that you’ve got a pretty solid plan in place for me if I don’t. I’m not interested in returning to the Trelking’s prison, especially now that you’re not there to see me to safety. So, you’re right. My options are either to help you learn what you need or be stuck in stasis. Pretty easy choice, don’t you think?”

The quick agreement bothered me. Nik had to be working on something, but I didn’t know what it was.

He started pacing again, making his way around the circle. This time, he went the other way, his eyes stopping and catching on Kacey as he went. She watched him with a hungry, unblinking stare.

“What’s the box the Trelking wants?” I asked. Given the time line we were on, it was probably best to start with the most immediate need.

“You’ll have to give me a little bit more than that,” Nik said.

“He called it a shardstone box. My father watched over it on this side for him, and the Trelking now wants it back. There’s apparently some sense of urgency, because he’s only given me two days to get it to him.”

Nik paused again and reversed direction, coming back toward me. “There are no more shardstones.”

That surprised me. “What are they?”

“They’re power. Tied to the fallen gods on the other side of the Threshold. The stones hold their power. I don’t think anyone has ever made a box out of one and if they had, I’m certain they would never send it to this side of the Threshold for safekeeping.”

“Why?”

“Because the Threshold changes magic. You know that, Oliver. It’s why Devan isn’t as powerful here as she is on the other side. It’s why the Trelking doesn’t risk the crossing himself, instead sending his agents like the Nizashi over. The Threshold is the reason magic exists in its current form.”

“Not all magic changes,” I reminded him.

He glanced over his shoulder at me from the other side of his circle. “Not all magic. Painter magic doesn’t change. Patterns don’t change. But no one really knows the reason why.”

There was more to it than that, but I didn’t know if Nik knew the same things that I had learned during my time with the Trelking and Devan. There was something about painters, something about the patterns we used and the power we pulled through with our painting, that persevered as we crossed over the Threshold. It was why my father was as powerful as he was. Probably the reason Nik had gained as much power as he had managed, even as a weak painter. Well, not so weak anymore.

“So you don’t know anything about the shardstone box?” I asked.

Nik shrugged. He had nearly finished his loop back around to me, and a smile started twisting on his face. “Nothing that would be all that helpful for you. If there was such a box, it would by necessity be heavily protected. Shardstones draw magic. They
are
magic.”

He took another step, the smile on his face growing larger.

It was then that I realized what he’d been doing, but it was too late.

The protection around him failed, dropping with a
snap
.

N
ik focused
on Kacey and waved his hands, twisting them in a strange sort of pattern as his power built more sharply than I would have expected from him in his current state. She fell over, as if hypnotized or stunned by whatever he did. Then he looked up at me.

“Sorry about this, Oliver.”

He moved too quickly for me to react, the pattern forming faster than I could reach to my pouch and pull out powder, faster than I could grab the cylinder sitting on my lap.

Then Devan slammed a metal box on top of him. I felt it as his magic struck the box and fizzled out. Relief washed over me.

“I thought I told you to hold him in place until I got back?” she snapped.

“You’re back now, aren’t you?”

“Barely. What would have happened had I hit traffic on my way back?”

I arched a brow at the idea of traffic in Conlin. “Thanks for being here.”

“Add it to your tab,” she said. “Any idea what he was up to?”

I shook my head. “Freeing himself, mostly. I thought he was only pacing and realized too late that he was disrupting the ink. It was enough to cause the barriers to fall.”

Devan glanced over at Kacey, moving over to her to touch her sides. Her chest still rose and fell, but she was out cold. Hopefully it wouldn’t be for too long. I could only imagine how angry she was going to be when she came around to learn that Nik had attacked her again, and this time, in his tiny form.

“She’s out.”

“Yeah, you going to help her?”

“Not yet. Do you know how he was able to do this to her?”

“Why don’t we find out?”

I pushed up to my knees and touched the box. It was octagonal in shape—pretty smart, really—and Devan had placed a series of depressions into the metal that added to the strength of the box. Any painting made within it would strike it and reverberate back to the painter. Given the shape that she’d used, it would probably work the same on all types of magic, not only painter magic. Nik struggled harmlessly within it.

I made another circle of ink around the box and infused it with my will. Once that was solid, I tipped the box right side up, holding Nik inside. The top of his head was visible. He stomped around inside the box, but he couldn’t get anywhere and, given the shape of the walls, any of the magic he attempted bounced back at him.

“Hey there, Nik,” I said.

He glared at me then shifted his attention to Devan. “De’avan. You are more skilled than I give you credit for.”

“Be thankful Ollie thinks he needs you. After what you tried the last time, I’d just as soon feed you to our friends.”

Nik stared at the box holding him. “This is effective, if crude.”

“You’re crude,” I told him.

He smiled at me, clearly pleased that his attack had rattled me. What did it say for my skills that a miniature Nik had managed to catch me off guard? What did it say for my chances with the Druist Mage if his apprentice almost outmaneuvered me when severely weakened?

Honestly, how had we managed to stop him in the first place?

Devan glanced over to me. “What did you find out?”

“Besides the fact that he’s a little more powerful than I expected? Only that Nik here thinks we should go to the Druist Mage to learn. I had to share with him your father’s plan for me and the Druist Mage and how that didn’t exactly fit with me swearing my fealty to him.”

Devan’s face paled slightly. “You can’t actually think that Ollie would do that?” she said to Nik.

Nik met her gaze. “Oliver seems to believe that the Elder is no more. That had never been the case before.”

When Devan glanced at me, I fought through the emotions I felt at the possibility. My father had been gone long enough that I’d mourned him already, but my time in Conlin had given me hope that I might be able to find out what had happened, maybe even find him. “Jakes thinks he’s gone. And what the Trelking said—”

“He said he would tell you about your father if you find the box.”

“Yeah, about that. Devan, Nik claims there are no more shardstones. But he said they were tied to the fallen gods on the other side of the Threshold and that they held their power. If that’s even remotely true, and if the box actually exists, I’m not sure we can simply hand it over to your father. There would have to be a reason for him to need that kind of power.”

I looked over to Nik, thinking I knew the reason. If the Druist Mage were to attack, the Trelking might need a little extra juice to hold him back. What better way to have the power he needs than to use power drawn from one of the fallen gods?

You see, the gods are real, at least they are on the other side of the Threshold. Maybe not in the way that the ancients viewed them—there wasn’t
really
a Zeus or Odin or anything like that—but those stories had their basis in some layer of fact. And the gods weren’t immortal. They had amazing power unlike anything else found in the world, but like anything else, Devan and me included, the gods could die. I’d be surprised if the Trelking didn’t already have access to that kind of power, but giving him even more didn’t really strike me as the best idea.

“What he’s describing are soulstones,” Devan said, “not shardstones. I don’t know what a shardstone is, but soulstones come from the hearts of fallen gods. And my father already has plenty of them. As far as I know, he’s never used them.”

Nik stared at her, a half smile on his face. “Plenty? Well, that would be news to my master. It would be worth keeping you safe, even, I would think. And the Trelking might have soulstones, but he can’t use them, not without a focus.” He waved his hands around him and then frowned. I wondered if he had attempted to use his magic again and failed. “It’s all very mystical. The Druist Mage would be much better at explaining this to you.”

“Not going to happen, Nik,” I said.

He shrugged. “Can’t blame me for trying.” He turned to peer over the edge of the box and meet my eyes. “You’re outmatched here, Oliver. You’re talented, skilled even, but what you’re dealing with are things that even I’m not comfortable with.”

That what he said impressed me was a measure of how much had changed between us since I’d last seen him five years ago.

“Have you even thought about what will happen once you get the power that the Trelking wants?”

“I’ve had the balance explained to me,” I said.

“Balance, but it’s balance on all sides. The Trelking gains power, he pushes out, and then what happens? What will be displaced?” He cocked his head, studying me and then Devan. “You don’t know, do you? Even De’avan doesn’t know the limits of the Trelking’s power, does she?”

“What are you playing at, Nik?” I asked.

“Only that the other side of the Threshold is more vast than you can imagine. You and I don’t have the capacity to understand that vastness, Oliver. That’s why it takes powerful beings like the Trelking, like the Druist, to keep order.”

“The Druist Mage doesn’t keep order. He’s pushing the war with the Trelking,” I said.

Nik snorted. “If that’s what you believe, then you have been too shielded. You really should have ventured beyond the limits of the Trelking’s power.”

I couldn’t imagine reaching those limits alive. Within the scope of the Trelking’s power, I was protected. I was his painter, kept safe by my service to him. Outside that barrier, I was simply another magical being in a world of them, and the power I could wield was nothing compared to what some of the others on that side could use.

Nik smiled at me, almost as if reading my thoughts. How had
he
managed to stay alive when he left the Trelking? He had reached the Druist Mage, but even that wouldn’t have been easy. It would have required him to travel through places that I couldn’t even imagine.

“What of the shardstone?” I asked. “What happens if the Trelking gets it?”

“Oh, nothing really. Only the unsettling of everything that has been established, a sort of magical makeover. His reach will expand, others will be pushed away. And where do you think they will go?”

“What are you saying? That they will cross over?”

Nik shrugged. “Path of least resistance, Oliver. Balance. They’re all related. You can’t have the borders pressed by the Trelking and not see another shift. We’ve been through something similar once before.”

Devan glanced at me, and I could tell from her expression that the idea troubled her. I suspected Nik meant the Druist Mage and when he came to power, but I hadn’t been on the other side of the Threshold for that, so I didn’t know.

“War returned where there hadn’t been any for centuries,” Devan said.

“Why didn’t it cross the Threshold then?” I asked. Even as I asked, I knew the answer.

“The Elder provided balance. He kept the doorways sealed, kept the crossings monitored. Because of the Elder, the war remained on the other side.”

Now I thought I understood why the shifters had become the guardians. Maybe they had been disrupted during the war. Maybe my father had offered them a chance to prevent it from happening again. But there were limits to their powers. We’d seen that with how easily Nik had put them down and how the Trelking simply crossed over. There were beings of greater power than the shifters.

I looked over at Devan. “I thought your father was part of the Protariat,” I said. “Why would he do that?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know his mind. He’s lived so long that I don’t think
anyone
can really know his mind. There must be something he’s seen that makes him think this is necessary.”

“Do you think my father actually stored the box for him?”

“Probably, but he might have deceived you about it.”

When she mentioned deception, I hesitated. We were taking everything Nik told us at face value, but what if
he
was the one who was lying to us?

I thought about what we knew. The Trelking wanted the shardstone box, whatever that might be. He had soulstones, great power from fallen gods that were probably related to the shardstone. He claimed my father stored the box on this side of the Threshold for him and that he now needed it back. And, if Jakes was to be believed, the Trelking was a member of the Protariat, a group of magical beings charged with keeping balance, so it didn’t make sense that he would willingly upset the balance.

But the Druist Mage had shown that he would. Nik served the Druist Mage, probably still did. I smiled and tipped the lid of the octagonal box closed, trapping Nik inside.

“Can he hear us?” I asked.

Devan tapped the top. The medallion I wore went cold. I didn’t know what she did, but then she shook her head. “Now he can’t.”

“Whatever your father’s after is important enough that he sent others here looking for it. I don’t know what the compass does, but I suspect it has something to do with what he asked us to find for him.”

“You’re not worried about what Nik was saying?” Devan asked.

“Terrified. But I don’t know that it’s your father we have to worry about. What if what he needs is to keep the Druist Mage from gaining even more influence? I mean, we’ve already seen what the Druist Mage will do, especially if he’s been willing to upset the balance. If he’s now got some new plan, I think we have reason to be worried.”

Devan looked at the box holding Nik as if she wanted to hurl it across the ground. “You think my father will wait if we fail to find what he wants? What are we doing wasting our time with him?”

“I don’t know that we’re entirely wasting our time. He knows about the Druist Mage. If we can figure out what the Druist might be up to, maybe we can avoid giving your father this shardstone box, even if we manage to find it.”

Devan didn’t look completely convinced, but she nodded anyway. “What are you going to do?”

I shrugged. “Ask him.”

I flipped the lid to the box back open. Nik glared at me from the opening, shifting his eyes from me to Devan.

“That was unnecessary.”

“Well, we needed a little snuggle time,” I said. “Tell me, Nik. What’s your role in all of this?”

“My role?” he asked.

I leaned forward, close enough to smell him. In this form, where he was still partially a statue, he smelled stale and dusty. “Yeah. Your role. You came here with the intent of attaining the cerys that would allow you to attack the Trelking. You don’t care about the balance anymore than the Druist Mage does. So tell me, what is
your
role?”

Nik grabbed the edge of the box and tried pulling himself up, but Devan had done something that made it slippery, preventing him from popping his head over any more than it was. “My role is to serve the wishes of the Druist Mage.” He looked at me with an intense expression. “You would do well to consider the same, Oliver. He would be able to provide you protection.”

“I’m not so sure I want the type of protection he’s offering. Besides, he wants to marry my girlfriend, so I’m going to have to object.”

Nik frowned at me. “You’re making light of what you should not.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m preparing for the fact that whatever the Druist Mage plans, it might be contrary to my own well-being. I don’t know that I want whatever the Trelking intends, either, so it leaves me with few options, only one of which is sitting in front of me. That would be you, Nik.”

I patted him on the head, growing more comfortable with Devan’s confinement solution. He might still attempt to escape, but there probably wasn’t much he could do to get away at this point.

“I’m not privy to his plans,” Nik said, his little glare growing more heated.

If he ever managed to get free of me, I didn’t doubt that he’d destroy me the first chance he had. But then, I had others interested in my destruction, too, so it wasn’t anything too new for me.

“Privy? Come on, Nik, you’re trying to sound like you were raised on the other side of the Threshold, but I know you were born in Russia and grew up in Michigan. You’re a tagger like me. You were the one who helped introduce me to what it means to be a painter on that side of the Threshold. You and I spent how many nights trying to figure out if we’d ever get back. Think about what we’ve been through, man. I helped get you free from the Trelking when he had you imprisoned!”