The Mage of Trelian (17 page)

She stood perfectly still, staring back at him with too-wide eyes. Calen concentrated. And then — he moved her three feet to her left.

She blinked and looked around, seeming surprised to find herself still there. Krelig snorted. “Well, yes, technically you transported her,” he said. “But let’s try for a little distance next time.” He pointed to Mage Barbaryn, an older woman who had arrived just a few days earlier. “You. Do someone else.”

She nodded and picked out one of the others — Mage Neehan, a rotund little man with an impressive array of tattoos covering his small, round face. He gulped visibly and closed his eyes tightly and stood there looking like he was waiting to be kicked in the stomach. Barbaryn, perhaps overly influenced by Krelig’s criticism of Calen’s lack of scope, gazed at her victim, squinted, then looked through the open window, apparently intending to transport him all the way out to the half-visible road that led to the front gate. Neehan vanished but then reappeared with a yelp just beyond the window.

Then began to fall, screaming, toward the ground.

Krelig shook his head, and a second later Neehan rematerialized in the center of the room in a heap, still screaming. Once he realized where he was, he stopped, blushing furiously.

“I don’t understand,” Barbaryn said in a frightened voice. “I was aiming for the road, but it was like there was a wall . . .”

“Yes, yes,” Krelig said. He still seemed to find the whole thing amusing, which was a relief. “You get credit for ambition, but as you can see, you overshot a little. Let’s keep our transportation inside the castle, shall we?”

Neehan had gotten back to his feet. His face was still red, but he seemed otherwise all right.

The rest of the mages took their turns, transporting their victims down the hall or to other locations in the castle. Krelig didn’t seem to care if they transported each other to locations they couldn’t see, although he did remind them that he didn’t want anyone killed by accident during practice, and so they’d better be careful. And they were, although Mage Madali still ended up reappearing with one foot impaled by a table leg. She screamed as she became visible again, clawing at herself and trying to get free. Krelig transported the table away from her, and she collapsed, whimpering. Her friend Allicynth, who had performed the poorly executed spell, ran over to try to comfort her, but Madali, understandably, pushed her away. Allicynth continued to hover nearby, wringing her hands and muttering endless apologies.

“She’ll be fine,” Krelig said dismissively. “Good object lesson, though. And of course, you can do that on purpose to your enemies. Not many things render someone too distracted to attack you quite as well as transporting him to appear with a piece of furniture running through his head.”

Calen was sickened to see many of the mages nodding at this, as though it were a helpful tip they were filing away for later use.

But at the same time, he was thinking about Neehan hitting that invisible wall. He was remembering exactly where the wall had been. Very close to the outer walls of the castle itself. Not the road. Not the gate. Maybe only five feet past the window. Maybe not even that much.

After practice, when he had some time alone, Calen stood by a window where he could see the front gate and looked out to where he thought the barrier might be. He looked, and tried to see. If he’d been able to see Serek and Anders’s spell on the bird, then it stood to reason that he might be able to see other spells after they were cast, too.

Was that a slight shimmer cutting through the air? He couldn’t tell if he was really seeing something, or just convincing himself that he was.

Calen gripped the edge of the windowsill and focused as hard as he could. He sent the tiniest sliver of white energy; he didn’t want anyone else to be able to tell what he was doing. The shimmer might be real. Might. But he had to know for sure. He tried to remember what he’d done to be able to see the spell on the bird.
You commanded it,
the voice in his head reminded him.

Right,
Calen thought.
Okay, then.

He stopped straining to see. He looked out at the seemingly empty air and widened his sliver of white into a fine spray that radiated out from — not his hands, he realized; he wasn’t using his hands. From his head. From his mind.
Show me!
he demanded. He knew it wasn’t the words themselves that mattered, just the power behind them.

He waited, watching the white energy fly outward, carrying his will with it. And then he saw it illuminate the magic barrier. Which was suddenly, faintly visible. A shimmery black and orange and white curtain, paper-thin, but impenetrable to whatever it wanted to keep inside. It surrounded the castle, only a few feet beyond the walls and windows of the upper levels, but much farther out near the gate and along the outer perimeter on the ground. In fact . . . he squinted and saw that the gate itself had several layers of protection. Krelig had known the second that Cheriyon passed through the gate and had been able to catch him before he reached the outer barrier. So just walking — or even running — far enough away to be able to transport wouldn’t work. Not down there.

People could pass through it nonmagically, but not without alerting Mage Krelig.

Some magic could pass through it; he and Krelig had both sent magic into the air far beyond the castle during lessons, and Calen had been able to send his information-gathering spell at the crow. And the crow itself had been able to pass through, even while carrying Serek and Anders’s spell. But people being moved by magic ceased being moved by magic at its boundary. Which made sense, since surely the whole purpose of it was to prevent any of Krelig’s recruits from leaving via magical means.

So all he had to figure out . . .

Suddenly someone’s hands were on him, yanking him back from the window and up against the wall.

Krelig — I’m caught —!

But it wasn’t Krelig. Calen had a glimpse of Helena’s fiery red hair and dark eyes and then she was suddenly closer and then —

And then she —

It took his confused brain several seconds to put it together.

She was
kissing
him!

He tried to push her away, but she blocked his hands and kept her mouth on his. And part of him, he realized, wasn’t really trying all that hard to make her stop. It was . . . interesting, the kissing. No one had ever kissed him before.

It was not precisely unpleasant, either.

But it’s Helena!

He thought that he should try harder to push her away now, but then he heard Krelig’s voice from behind her and the kissing stopped as abruptly as it had begun.

“Really, Mage Helena. I must ask you to stop terrorizing my poor apprentice.” Even through his confusion, Calen could tell that Krelig was still amused. Not angry. Thank the gods.

“I didn’t hear him complaining,” she said, just defiantly enough to avoid being outright disrespectful.

“He looked like he was about to faint.”

Helena shrugged. “I thought he deserved a reward for not crashing me into a wall or impaling me on a table leg earlier,” she said.

Calen finally found his voice. “I was not about to faint!” he said. “I was — it was —”

They both turned to look at him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of how to finish that sentence, and after a moment they went back to ignoring him again.

“It’s nothing to me if you like each other,” Krelig said. “And alliances can be useful, when you’re fighting in and against groups. Just see that it doesn’t interfere with your training. And that it doesn’t become annoying.”

Calen tried again. “There’s nothing — we’re not —”

They didn’t even turn to look at him this time.

“You fight well together, and that’s something I can use,” Krelig went on. “Just remember that your first loyalty must always be to me.”

“I know, Master,” Helena said, all traces of defiance gone. “Your will above all.”

He nodded, satisfied.

“But —” Calen began.

Krelig rolled his eyes and walked away.

Calen turned to Helena, furious.

“What —
why
?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t like it,” she said. But her eyes were straight and serious on his, and she held his gaze intently. “And I meant it about you deserving a reward. You’re powerful, Calen. I’d rather have you on my side than against me.”

“But —”

She glared at him, but her voice stayed lightly teasing. “Maybe if you help me work on that transporting spell a little, I’ll kiss you again.”

Calen stopped trying to interject any sanity into this conversation. It was clearly impossible.

She turned to glance behind her, then leaned in close. But this time instead of kissing him, she only whispered. “He was coming this way. I don’t know what you were doing, but I didn’t think it was anything you wanted to be caught at. Was I right?”

“Oh. Yes. Uh — thank you.” He paused, then added, “So you didn’t — you weren’t . . . ?”

She smirked at him. “I suppose I did want to thank you a little. But mostly I just wanted to save your skin. You’re the only one here I can stand besides myself. If he kills you for ‘making him wonder about you,’ who would I practice with then? Lestern?” She made a face.

She studied him, then asked, “So what were you doing?”

“Nothing,” he said immediately. “Just — thinking.”

“Hmm.” She looked skeptical, but didn’t press him. “Well, I wasn’t kidding about wanting help with the transportation spell. Would you practice with me a bit before dinner?” She smirked again. “Don’t worry — I promise not to kiss you.”

He shook his head to clear it and pushed away from the wall. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go back downstairs.”

She started walking and he followed, trying not to think about how her last comment made him feel vaguely disappointed.

Calen sent the bird back with a message that said he needed more time.

He knew they didn’t have a lot of time. More mages were arriving every day. And while Krelig was still sometimes relatively normal — as normal as he ever got, anyway — his violent outbursts seemed to be getting more and more common. He’d set one of the mages on fire the other day for failing to correctly perform a new spell quickly enough. And not just his hand or foot — his whole body. The man had been screaming, the rest of them frozen in fear and horror, and Calen had been on the verge of putting out the fire himself when Krelig had suddenly seemed to come back to some semblance of sanity. He had appeared momentarily surprised to see the man burning to a crisp in front of him, then waved a hand and put him out.

Calen had seen the colors for both the fire and the quenching a few seconds before Krelig had cast them.

It had been happening more and more often, at first sporadically and then more regularly, until he was seeing the colors early nearly all the time. In fact, his biggest challenge at practice now was trying not to react to the early indications of what someone was about to cast. Mage Krelig thought he knew what Calen’s special talent was. He
had
known. But now — now Calen seemed to have another special talent. Or a new manifestation of the old one. Or something. Maybe because of the new levels of power he could access now. But whatever it was, he knew it was vitally important that Krelig not find out. No one could find out. Not even Helena.

Because if Calen ever did get out of there, this new ability could be the key to defeating their enemy.

If nothing else, it would give the good mages an advantage that they sorely needed. No matter how much Mage Krelig taught his recruits — and they were still learning at an incredible rate, every day — the older man still knew a million times more than all of the rest of them combined. And he was so
strong.
Serek and Anders and the rest of the non-traitor mages were going to need all the advantages they could get in order to have a chance. Calen had to get back in time to help them.

But he also had to learn enough to make sure he was able to really make a difference when he got there. Seeing the colors early wouldn’t matter unless he was able to use those extra seconds to cast the right spells.

Sometimes when he had those thoughts, the little voice in his head asked him when that was going to be, exactly. When would he know that he’d learned enough? Maybe he should take what he knew now and leave before it was too late.

And that was probably good advice. But . . . what if the next thing Krelig taught them was the spell that ended up being the one they needed? What if the next group practice revealed some other mage’s self-invented spell that shed new light on something Calen had never considered casting before? What if the next piece of essential knowledge was right around the corner, and he left just one crucial day too soon and missed learning what he needed to learn?

You could keep saying that forever, you know.

I know.

Calen decided that when the crow next arrived, he would set the date and confirm the location for his jump. He was pretty certain that he knew how to do it. He was terrified by what he would have to do, but he thought it would work. And the voice in his head was right. He couldn’t keep putting it off.

But then the next day at practice, Krelig taught them a variation on shields that Calen felt sure he would never, ever have thought of on his own.
See?
he said to himself.
There’s still so much to learn! How can I leave now? How can I ever leave?

What?

Wait. Wait, I didn’
t —

The voice in his head didn’t say anything. But it didn’t really need to.

He did not feel that way. He did
not.
He wanted to leave more than anything. No amount of learning would be worth staying here with Krelig. Not ever.

Calen took a deep breath and forced himself to focus on the lesson. He couldn’t let anyone see how shaken he was.

Clearly, he had to get out of there as soon as he possibly could.

When the bird came again, Calen calculated how long it would take it to get back to Serek and then return with confirmation, based on the time between the bird’s previous visits and how much faster he might be able to get it to fly with a little extra magical help. Then he picked his date. Six days from now. No — no, seven. Seven days. Or would eight be safer?