The Mage of Trelian (3 page)

He looked at Krelig. The mage was nodding. “It should have hit a little sooner than that. Good. Try it again.”

They continued for the better part of three hours, experimenting with speed and slowness. Calen was fascinated. He’d never thought about trying anything like this before. When Krelig finally declared the morning’s lessons over, Calen was exhausted but exhilarated. He loved this feeling; despite the circumstances, despite everything, he loved it. It was like coming around a corner and discovering a whole new world, full of possibility. Every time.

“We’ll be having company soon,” Krelig said, just as Calen was about to head back down into the castle.

“Company?” he asked, turning back.

“The first of those mages who are choosing to join us.” Krelig was leaning on the battlement, looking out at the surrounding countryside. “The first of those ready to cast off the shackles of the Magistratum and help to bring about the new order.” He glanced at Calen and laughed. “Don’t look so shocked, boy! There are more discontented mages than you might imagine. Some will be too afraid or beaten down to admit it, even to themselves, but others will see that this is their chance to change everything. To remake the world into a place better suited for our kind.”

“What — what will happen to those who don’t choose to join?” Calen knew perfectly well what would happen to them, but he wanted to see what Krelig would say.

Krelig’s voice went very mild, and Calen was instantly sorry he’d asked. “What do you think, Calen? Do you think it will be safe to leave our enemies free to walk among us? Do you think we can all agree to live in peace together? Do you think they will stay safely locked in their cage of a fortress while we do as we wish with the rest of the world?” He turned back to look out over the wall again. “You are not that naive, my boy. Don’t waste my time asking questions you already know the answers to.”

“Sorry, Master. Do you know when they’ll arrive?”

“Soon, I think. I’ve been . . . sending invitations. I believe that some of them have been accepted.”

He fell silent, and Calen crept quietly away before he could do anything else to annoy the mage or draw back his attention.

He had known that Krelig planned to assemble whatever like-minded mages he could to join him, but somehow Calen had thought that wouldn’t happen for a while yet. Did this mean Krelig was getting closer to starting his attack against the Magistratum? Calen hoped not. He wasn’t ready.

I need more time.

He was learning so much, every day. Getting stronger, and better, and quicker. He wanted to leave, more than anything, but he had to stay long enough to make it worth it. The more he learned, the stronger he got, the better his chances of being able to help bring down Mage Krelig. Of stopping him from carrying out his evil plans. Stopping him forever, so none of them would ever have to worry about him again.

Because if they didn’t, Krelig would take them back to the days before the Magistratum existed, when mages were free to use their abilities for whatever purposes they wished, without any rules or constraints of any kind. He would stand atop the rubble of the broken Magistratum and the fallen bodies of his enemies and demand that all nonmages bow to his will. That all kingdoms recognize his authority over them. And if they refused, he’d destroy them, too.

And he could. Calen didn’t know if anyone realized how incredibly powerful Krelig truly was. Calen hadn’t been able to imagine many mages willingly joining Krelig’s cause, but he knew — firsthand, didn’t he? — that Krelig had ways of convincing people to do what he wanted. And even a small army of mages under his control would be more than any kingdom could stand against. But most of them would probably try anyway, because who wanted to submit to rule by a sadistic, crazy, evil mastermind? Trelian would certainly not go down without a fight.

But it would still go down. And Meg and everyone else he cared about would go down along with it.

He had to learn enough to save them. He hated it here, hated Mage Krelig and hated being away from Meg and hated thinking about what the others must believe of him now, but the learning would be worth it.
Was
worth it. Worth the pain and the punishment and the loneliness and everything else. Or it would be, once he was ready. Which would be . . . soon. But not yet.

Not quite yet.

There was still too much left to know.

“A
GAIN.”

Meg was on her feet before the whole word was out of the captain’s mouth. On her feet and racing toward where Jakl was waiting, ready to run this drill a hundred more times if that was what she wanted. As soon as she touched his back, the dragon launched himself forward and shot into the sky. Meg let him go for a few seconds of pure, blissful speed before turning him back around toward where the soldiers waited below.

“Not bad,” Captain Varyn said gruffly once they were near enough to hear him. Meg couldn’t help grinning. She knew by now that “not bad” was about as close to a compliment as she was ever likely to get from the man. And besides, she could tell that that had been their fastest time yet.

Meg couldn’t imagine when she might actually be called upon to leap up from the ground like that and fly away on Jakl’s back on a moment’s notice, but she supposed the Commander of the King’s Army wanted her to be ready for anything — and he’d never had a dragon to work into his plans before. So they practiced running, flying, leaping, hiding, sneaking, diving, carrying, and every other thing Captain Varyn and Commander Uri could think of. Meg didn’t mind. She was still just so glad that they were letting Jakl and her fight at all. Well, that they
would
let them fight. So far it had just been drills, and practice, and training. The war had already started, but not for her. Not yet. But soon.

It had better be soon.

Not that she was so eager to put herself in danger — she wasn’t
crazy.
But every day they waited, more of their soldiers were fighting. Fighting and sometimes dying. Adding a dragon to their forces would be a huge advantage. She couldn’t understand what they were waiting for.

The past couple of months had been an adjustment for everyone, but she thought that the soldiers were getting a bit more used to having a dragon in their midst. They had already been used to seeing him around the castle, but that was different from seeing him up close. Or from being expected to ride on his back, which Captain Varyn had required most of them to practice (with Meg’s assistance) at least a few times. And a few days ago, he’d had Jakl practice plucking soldiers from the ground and flying short distances with them dangling from his claws. That had been kind of fun. Well, not for the soldiers, probably. But Jakl had enjoyed it.

The best thing about training was that it helped her not think about other things. Like, for example, her supposed best friend, who had abandoned her and gone flying off with their very evil and terrible enemy for reasons no one could begin to understand.

But she had to let herself think about him sometimes. Because she had to find him. She had to find him and get him back home, where he belonged.

Captain Varyn dismissed them for the day, and Meg sent Jakl off to nap and get something to eat. She wanted him rested and fed and ready for later. She was going to do something very foolish. She didn’t want either of them to be tired, or distracted by an empty stomach.

She gave her practice armor to Devan, who smiled shyly at her and gave her a quick little half-bow when she thanked him, as he always did. She smiled back and then shook her head at him as he jogged away. Sometimes she thought the soldiers were almost as perplexed by her presence as they were by Jakl’s. There weren’t any other women in their ranks, let alone princesses. For the most part they seemed to have settled on sort of intentionally forgetting that she was a princess during training, which suited Meg just fine — it wouldn’t do for anyone to waste time trying to be polite and deferential to her in the middle of a battle! But once training was over, they remembered again and had trouble figuring out how to behave. She trusted they’d get it all sorted out eventually.

Pela, ever the perfect lady-in-waiting, was standing patiently beside the castle steps, today’s stack of important papers in hand. She gave Meg a summary as they walked inside.

“I have the latest reports on the war; your parents want you to be prepared to discuss them at breakfast tomorrow morning. There’s the usual pile of petition letters and”— she gave Meg a sympathetic glance before continuing —“your history tutor sent over a new list of reading assignments.”

Meg made a very unprincess-like face. Her parents had agreed to cut back on her lessons during the current crisis, but not to stop them entirely. Meg usually liked history, but although she understood her tutor’s inclination to shift their current focus to studying other wars and conflicts, she was getting a little tired of endless reading about death and destruction throughout the world’s past. There was more than enough of that happening right here in the present.

Pela went on, relaying a few more notes and messages, but as soon as Meg’s door closed behind them, she dropped the hand holding the list and looked at Meg beseechingly.

“Princess, this plan is very foolish.”

Meg sighed. “I know, Pela.”

“Are you certain you will not reconsider?”

“Yes, I’m certain.”

Pela nodded, but managed to convey a vast amount of disapproval along with the acceptance. “Very well. In that case, I have laid out your clothing and arranged for your evening meal to be brought up to your rooms.”

“Thank you,” Meg said. And she meant it. She wasn’t sure how she would have gotten through the past several weeks without Pela’s quiet, able assistance. And kindness.

“Please — just be careful,” Pela added.

“I will. I promise.”

Pela’s mouth twitched in a very interesting manner, but she had it back under control again so quickly that Meg couldn’t really be sure what she had seen. She presumed, however, that Pela did not quite believe that Meg was capable of being careful.

It was probably not such an unreasonable opinion.

Pela helped her change out of her training clothes and then ducked back out, leaving Meg to spend the remainder of the afternoon going through the letters and other documents that her parents had sent for her to read. Training to fight in the war was one thing, but they still expected her to keep up with her responsibilities as the princess-heir as well. Meg understood, but she wished that the news weren’t so uniformly grim and discouraging. Lourin and its allies were advancing steadily, and every day brought more reports of Trelian’s soldiers falling back. They were outnumbered, waiting on reinforcements from Kragnir that hadn’t yet arrived, and they were losing ground. Meg knew that her father had still not abandoned all hope of negotiating an end to the fighting, but she didn’t think it was likely to happen. Meg suspected that lingering hope was the main reason she and Jakl hadn’t yet been allowed to join the war effort. She thought they had waited long enough, but it wasn’t her decision to make. She had her orders, and currently those orders were to continue training and nothing more.

And you always follow orders, do you?

Meg tried to ignore that voice she kept hearing in her head. The one that pointed out how her current plan was a direct violation of everything she had promised her parents about being more responsible and less impulsive and able to follow orders and do what she was told.

It’s not impulsive,
she told herself.
I’ve given it a great deal of thought.
That was true. But somehow she didn’t think that really made much difference. She knew, she
knew
it was almost certainly the wrong thing to do. But she didn’t know what choice she had. Mage Serek refused to do anything. She’d pestered him relentlessly, cajoling, pleading, demanding, screaming . . . until he had finally banished her from his quarters entirely. Banished her! For trying to make him do what he should have been doing anyway. Well, if he wasn’t going to try to find Calen, then she would just do it herself.

Even though you know it’s a terrible idea,
the smarter, more responsible part of her added silently. That part always sounded a little like her older sister Maerlie. Maerlie, who was far away in Kragnir, married to the prince there and far more sensible in every way than Meg. Meg missed her terribly. Having Calen in her life had helped her not feel Maerlie’s absence quite so strongly after she left. But now she had neither one.

“That’s what I’m trying to fix,” she said out loud. She didn’t know if it was worse to have conversations with yourself out loud or silently inside your own head. Either way, she didn’t want to listen. She’d made her decision. And it wasn’t really
that
much of a risk. She would be careful. She’d take Jakl up so high that there would be no danger of being spotted by enemy soldiers. She just had to start looking. Jakl’s eyes were sharp; he’d be able to see even from a great distance. So they’d start going out and looking for signs of where Calen might have gone. And once she found him, she could start figuring out how to get there, to bring him home. It would all depend on where he was, she supposed.