The Castrofax (9 page)

“Find your horse, ac we’ll leave. I can drop
y’ halfway t’ Kilkiny Palace, so they won’t suspect y’.” Ryker
quickly drew threads of Spirit from his chest and laid them in the
familiar cloth-pattern to alter his clothing. Rapidly, the threads
of fabric melded and moved as if a child had its hand in paint and
twisted to and fro.

Nolen scanned the horses for Shibaler,
throwing tack on him and swinging into the saddle. Ryker finished
with his cloth change now garbed in a short dark coat speckled with
gold buttons, and long gray trousers. In their escape the lace from
his blouse disintegrated, but a reformed undershirt peeked from
under the coat. Nolen had always envied Spirit Mages who could
transform cloth in a moment. With it he could have stripped someone
naked in a second, or dress Prince Balien in a gown faster than he
could tear it off.

Ryker put a hand on his boot, and instantly
Nolen’s vision once again changed to a blindingly bright world. The
reeling sensation that his last meal may surface lingered. Shibaler
gave a start, but Nolen reined him in to keep him steady. This time
it took a minute before Ryker released him, and the sounds of
crickets chirped his ears.

“Autumn,” Ryker whispered and drew in a fresh
breath. In the moonlight he looked ghastly pale and wan, his skin
paper-thin. “Go on, Princeling.”

He vanished in a twist of blackness leaving
Nolen to gather his surroundings. He heeled Shibaler east and
wondered,
‘What will be worse, finding a rumored legend Class
Ten, or releasing one?’

Secondhand Lael of Castle Jaden had a strong
reputation for being the model of calm, which was ideal for a man
in a tremulous position. Handling the Head Mage’s schedules, the
Council’s positions, and Jaden’s affairs were arduous and required
a great deal of multitasking. But Lael managed them all and was
often the face of Jaden when the Head Mage was occupied elsewhere.
Lael was most often behind his desk with a stack of papers or an
open book which he read in his down time. He obtained a reputation
for knowing everything though that was far from the truth.

This was one of the few times in his career,
that instead of bedding down with a tome, he ran through the halls
of Jaden as if fire was on his tail.
‘Fire would be better,’
he thought, skidding around a corner and slammed against a
banister. There were footfalls behind him, but he was not being
chased. He took the stairs two at a time, thankful for his youth.
In all his days as Secondhand, he could never remember a moment of
such urgency.

The ring around his middle finger had sent a
jolt of warm pain up his arm as he slept, lurching him into the
waking world, for somewhere a ward tripped. He wore more than one
ring, and it took him a moment to sort through which ring pulsed an
alert.

Lael burst through the doors to the Head
Mage’s quarters. The large oval anteroom branched into two separate
apartments and he headed towards the right, pushing through the
door that led to a wide hall. He dashed through the long study,
snatching a flame from the smoldering coals in the hearth, but
Casimir was already awake in the study as he tied a robe around his
waist.

“I felt it pull,” he said quickly. “Who
attempted it?”

“No attempt. Ryker Slade is gone,” Lael said
breathlessly. “The guards are dead. I just went down, and Ryker is
gone.”

The Head Mage took the news with the calm
dignity his office required. “Who else knows?”

“Councilman Galloway.” Lael bent a little at
the waist to breathe easier.

“Assemble the Council at once. Tell no one
else, or there will be mass panic. Do we have enough Class Sixes to
sidestep?”

“Not in the castle.”

“Then send a rider to Lady Aisling and Queen
Challis—I do not trust a pigeon with this information. Have someone
bring Councilwoman Selene and Councilman Kieran in.” Casimir
gripped the edge of a small writing desk in the corner and sank
into the accompanying chair. He took a deep breath and closed his
eyes.

“Lock up the gates. Admit and release no one
until we can attain more information.”

“People will suspect something is amiss.”

“Yes, but they will have to be content for
the time. We cannot keep a secret like this for long, and the
sooner we can welcome Mages here for their safety, the better.”

‘
Provided Ryker is not still within our
walls,’
Lael thought, knowing the Head Mage thought the same.
Once people learned of the Arch Mage’s release, Mages would flock
to the castle for protection. It was the safest place in the
continent—unless Ryker was still within the walls.

“Casimir, what do we do if he attacks?” Lael
asked his voice just above a whisper.

The Head Mage shook his head and smoothed
back his white hair. “I have said it once, and I will say it again:
I need Mage Gabriel here with me. I have no time to spare, and I
need him here all the more now. He is all we have to hold Ryker
off.”

Casimir had been searching for the boy for
months now. “Yes, but Ryker is legendary for being powerful, and he
has years more experience than Gabriel.”

Casimir shook. “What gave Ryker his power
were his elite four Arch Mages and the fear they brought with them.
Strip that all away, and he is
still just a man
.”

“A man unusually powerful for his time,” Lael
inserted as Casimir strode to his dressing room. “No one knows
where Mage Gabriel is. Last word was he vanished after his father
died.”

“Mage Cordis went missing,” Casimir
corrected. “I do not know Mage Gabriel’s location, but Aisling may
have remembered something since last we spoke. Send her a pigeon
and ask for anything she may offer.”

“If we were to get word out of Ryker Slade’s
awakening, Gabriel may come to us.”

With a gaze of reckoning, Casimir met his
Secondhand’s eyes. “Let us do precisely that.”

Gabriel sat across from Robyn at a table in
their back yard, basking in the afternoon sun with a mug of cold
ale in one hand and a black tile in the other. Robyn peered at the
black and white tiles before them, twirling one in her hand that
was black on one side and white on the other. It was an old game of
chance and strategy called Divided Kingdoms, or more simply Tiles.
Two players built a kingdom of black or white tiles, each with
lines or circles that interlocked with other pieces. While Robyn
played as the white kingdom, she could play a white tile on
Gabriel’s black side and mess up his strategy. The two kingdoms of
black and white interlocked in the center, and black was slowly
gaining ground on her.

Robyn put a white piece with a right-angle
line on it next to the ‘wall’ he was building. His direction cut
off, he gave a low
huff
. She was very good at the game; as
well as she should be if she wanted to be a good Queen.

Robyn drew a new tile from the box and turned
it over in her hand. She swirled her tea with the other, a habit
she did subconsciously. Gabriel placed a black tile trying to gain
some ground.

“You are going to lose,” she said slowly,
eyeing the board as she held the tile delicately between her thumb
and index finger. “You’re too focused on expanding and not
defending.”

“I do it my way; you do it yours,” he replied
and swigged his ale.

“That is why you lose.”

He looked at the tiles again. The game ended
when tiles ran out or when the player could no longer place one.
The rules said tiles must be placed in sequences of forward then
back, except when a tile was placed on the opponent’s board. She
pointed to the piece in his hand.

“You have to put that in a forward position,
and you have none.”

He grimaced. The last piece he played was on
her kingdom, and rules said he had to now play on his own, but as
she so correctly pointed out, he was out of spaces. He conceded and
leaned back in his chair. “What would you ask of me now?”

She put a slender finger on her lip and
looked up as if thinking, but he knew she already had a question.
Since they never played the game for money, they decided long ago
the winner would be allowed to ask one question, and the loser had
to answer truthfully.
‘A right dangerous game,’
Gabriel
thought.

“I can’t decide,” she sighed and tapped the
finger. He knew this ploy too. She would play sweet and innocent,
and he would let her ask two questions.

“The eve is young. I am sure you’ll win
another round,” he replied with a grin. She hid her disappointment
well, being one to usually have her way.

“How many maidens have you kissed?”

Gabriel choked on his drink and wiped his
mouth with a sleeve. “What kind of a question is that?”

“Ha!” she exclaimed and pointed a finger at
him. “Answer it!”

He brushed off the front of his shirt. “Look
what you made me do.”

“Answer it, or I get to ask another
question.”

“Three,” he replied. “Each one prettier than
you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she grinned. Without
a word she collected the tiles, leaving the two red starter tiles,
and put them back in the box. They began again, each tile carefully
laid. He felt Robyn’s eyes on him as he thumbed a piece, planning
his next move. He knew she wanted something more.

“When I win this round, I want to hear the
story of when you received your Class.”

He smiled. “
If
you win, and you’ve
heard the story before.”

“Yes, but not in years. I heard bits of it
when you returned, but that was nearly four years ago.”

“When
I
win, I will answer your
question if you give me a massage,” he said and flexed his
fingers.

“Then I will let you win,” she quipped and
put another piece on his side to form a road.

They played until the pieces ran out and
tallied up the points: two for every finished castle, one for every
road, army, settlement, forest, lake, and river larger than four
tiles, and an extra two for every wall surrounding a castle. He
won.

She stretched out her hands. “What will it be
today?”

He rotated a wrist at her. “Hands to the
shoulders.”

She nodded and gestured him to take his shirt
off. He did gladly and draped it over his leg. Moving her chair she
took up one of his hands and began working on it. Before Gabriel
turned sixteen, Mage Dagan whisked him off to Castle Jaden. They
expected his training to be no more than two years, but three years
later Gabriel returned with thousands of patterns in his memory and
left a physical toll on his body. The constant use of his hands
left him stiff. If not loosened every few weeks, the strength of
the Elements often knotted up his muscles. Robyn’s handler Beatrice
taught the Princess everything she could about the body. When
Gabriel returned from Castle Jaden, a Spirit Mage accompanied him.
After Lady Beatrice accosted her in the hall and pleaded for her
information, the older Spirit Mage taught Robyn the skills of
massage.

She held his wrist in one hand and ran her
thumb over his forearm, twisting the arm to get around his elbow.
The muscles were tight, unwilling to release, but after enough
passes they loosened. He winced every now and then.

“The story,” she prompted. “And with details
this time.”

“Right, let’s see. It was four days before my
twentieth birth anniversary….”

A Mage prepared for their Classing as soon as
they came into their Elements. It was usually after puberty, and it
was never taken lightly. Once given by the Mage Council, a Class
could never be changed. Their training was usually kept quiet to
prevent bias, but the Council was full of intelligent men and
women. They were not blind and usually knew a story or two before
Classing the Mage, some having trained the Selects themselves. A
Mage-Select spent years training and studying at Castle Jaden to
absorb all the patterns they could to display their skills.

Gabriel traveled alone to Jaden, a two-day
trip on a fast horse. His old Earth teacher Mage Dagan had been
given a Council seat years before. Other than he, Gabriel did not
know if the Council knew his full potential. It was important that
each Mage-Select come to the Council unblemished and unbiased as to
not sway the vote.

On the day of his Classing, he dressed in a
pressed white shirt, a handsome black vest, long black trousers,
and simple canvas shoes. Mage Aisling met him at his door. He knew
her well, having seen her several times in his childhood and, and
spending much time with her when he trained in Jaden. She was a
noble woman if ever there was one, and she had a lovely calm energy
about her.

She wore a fine high-necked dress of white
suede and blue velvet. Her hair pulled up in her signature twist,
and she gave him a warm smile. They spoke as she led him to the
testing room, explaining what to expect.

“Be yourself,” she told him giving his arm a
thoughtful squeeze, and she slipped through the doors to take her
Council seat.

The doors opened with an Air pattern minutes
later, and he stepped into the large circular room. Lit torches
lined the walls, two water fountains bubbled to his sides, and
numerous potted trees and plants stretched out their energy to his
senses. The room had a large hole in the roof to give access to the
winds, and the Council willingly let the Mage-Selects use their
energy for Spirit manipulation.

In the center of the room the ten Council
Members and the Head Mage sat at a large oval stone table. Head
Mage Casimir Brynmor was a kindly older man with a tightly-trimmed
beard and full head of white hair. The smile lines around his eyes
placed him well into his sixties, but his youthful personality made
him seem younger. He draped in the white Mage cloak reserved only
for Head Mages and bore two thin white ribbons around his forehead,
symbolizing the narrow path of the leader of Mages. He stood and
gestured for Gabriel to stand at the opposite end of the table.