The Swordmage Trilogy Bundle, Volumes 1-3 (49 page)

Tia watched in horrified fascination as Wynn doused the magical flames on his staff and laid it on the stone by his feet. He folded his hands across his chest, closed his eye, and bowed his head. He stood still as a statue and both Zarfensis the wraith closed on him.

“Wynn! No!” Tia screamed, her throat raw with the support of the sound. He gave no indication that he heard her. As Zarfensis and the wraith reached the quintessentialist, Wynn's head snapped up, his eye blazing brighter than she had ever seen it. He opened his hands, as if welcoming an old friend.

The explosion from the courtyard blew Tia up against the wall of the hospital. The rush of hot air seemed to suck the breath from her lungs and Tia had to fight to remain conscious. She struggled to her feet, stumbling into the courtyard, tears streaming down her face.

Wynn was crumpled in the center of a charred circle, but the wraith was gone. Streaks of blood on the fieldstone pavers showed the awesome force of the explosion, which had picked up the heavy stone benches and tossed them up against the building like a child's jackstraws.

Running to the spot where he lay, Tia fell to her knees. The ground was still warm to the touch. A few wisps of steam still climbed with lazy turns into the night air. Tia choked back a sob.

His skin was black, his robes a tattered mass of singed cloth. His staff, the weapon he had carried since Tiadaria had met him in Ethergate, lay shattered on the ground where he had laid it. The heavy ironwood staff had been reduced to splinters.

Reaching into his robe, she laid her fingers on the side of his neck, reassured by the faint pain of link shock. If he was still a vessel for the power of the Quintessential Sphere, that meant he still lived. She found his pulse and it fluttered against her fingers.

Tia rolled him over. The force of the explosion had ripped his eye patch away, showing the hollow socket and the deep scars that seamed his otherwise handsome face. Her throat closed over and the tears that had formed in her eyes now streamed out in a torrent she couldn't control.

Whatever relief she might have had at knowing that Wynn was still alive was cut short by powerful hands pinning her arms to her sides. Tiadaria realized that her scimitars, the weapons the Captain had given her, were probably still laying among the bushes against the wall where she had fallen following the explosion.

The acrid tang of seared fur told Tiadaria who her captor was before she even craned her neck to get a glance at the ruined face of the High Priest. Tionne walked into the center of the courtyard, stepping around Wynn as she did so. Tiadaria struggled against the Xarundi's grip.

“Tionne! Help me, please!”

A slow, sardonic smile played across the girl's lips.

“Why would I do that?” Tionne asked sweetly. “When I'm the one who managed to draw you here?”

“What?” Tiadaria stopped struggling in her shock. “How?”

Tionne laughed.

“Didn't you find it curious that there was a wraith practically waiting for you when you left in the inn? I figured you'd go and see my former Master. From there, it was just a simple matter of leading you to the right place.”

A shout went up from the corner of the building as a group of guards came into view. Tionne fired a magic missile in their direction and they scattered.

“What about the vermin mage?” Zarfensis growled.

“Leave him. She's the one we came for. Let's go.”

Tionne led Zarfensis to a shattered side gate. The bloodied hulks of two corpses inside the wall told Tiadaria that Tionne had planned the abduction well. They'd laid a trap for her and she'd walked willingly right into it.

Outside the hospital wall, Tionne whispered a few words and brushed her fingers over Tiadaria's eyes. The world went black.

#

Something pungent and unpleasant roused Wynn from his fitful sleep. Hands were holding him down against a stiff board under his back.

“Don't try to move, Wynn. You nearly blew yourself up.”

The voice was familiar and the quintessentialist struggled to place it. All that registered was that it wasn't Tiadaria, which was who he was most concerned with. His condition didn't matter. He'd seen the Xarundi High Priest in the hospital grounds and knew that she was in grave danger.

“Where's Tia?” he managed to croak.

Speaking hurt. It felt as if his throat were on fire. Wynn knew he'd be burned following the stunt he'd pulled, but he hadn't counting on hurting so much in so many places.

“I don't know,” the almost familiar voice said. “She wasn't with you. I've got people out looking for her. What happened, Wynn?”

“Wraith,” Wynn managed, licking blistered lips. “Xarundi and Tionne.”

“What? Tionne! Where?”

The puzzle piece finally snapped into place and Wynn knew that Faxon was there with him. How had he not recognized his own Master's voice for so long? Wynn managed to open his eye and look at Faxon's worry lined face. Even the feeble lamplight hurt his head.

“Tionne was there, at the hospital. She was with the Xarundi. Zarfensis.”

Faxon sank to a nearby bench, running his hands through his greying hair. He looked at Wynn and shook his head.

“That's not possible, Zarfensis is in prison and Tionne couldn't possibly abide by the Xarundi. Not after what they did to her family.”

“You're wrong, Faxon,” Wynn's voice was too weak to convey the full force of his observation. “She was there and they were working together. They've taken Tiadaria. I know it.”

Wynn struggled to sit up and the healers held him down. Faxon leapt off the bench and was standing beside the table Wynn was laying on the next moment.

“You need rest, Wynn. You can't go after her, not now. Not like this.”

“He'll kill her, Faxon. You know that. Zarfensis will kill Tia and then he'll probably kill Tionne too. Is that what you want?”

“No!”

“Then why are we wasting time? We need to find them.”

Somehow, Wynn found the strength to wriggle out from under the insistent hands that were holding him down. Once he was sitting up, he understood why they'd held him down. The room spun around him and threw him into the clutches of vertigo. Faxon had the presence of mind to grab a bucket and hold it in front of the younger quintessentialist before Wynn's stomach emptied itself.

He drew the back of a singed hand across his mouth and looked at Faxon. Faxon looked back at him and it was easy to read what was so plainly written on his face.

“You don't think I'll make it to the door, much less to find Tiadaria,” Wynn said. He saw Faxon wince at the bitterness in his voice.

“You're in pretty bad shape, Wynn. Why don't you let me go and look for her? She'll understand...”

“No. I'm going.”

“Young Master Wynn will need to go on his own, I'm afraid,” a voice said from the door. Both Wynn and Faxon looked in that direction and saw Adamon standing in the doorway. The healers had moved on to another patient, leaving the three of them to work things out.

“Not a chance, Adamon,” Faxon said, nearly shouting. “He can barely stand upright. He's not going up against a Xarundi and...”

“And?” Adamon raised an eyebrow at Faxon as he trailed off.

Wynn knew that Faxon didn't want Adamon going after Tionne until he'd had a chance to sort things out. While he wasn't sure that was sound reasoning, he didn't really care what Faxon's motives were as long as they found Tiadaria before something happened to her.

“Nothing,” Faxon snapped. “Either way, Wynn and I are going together.”

“I'm afraid not.” Adamon slipped a rolled paper from inside his robe and handed it to Faxon. “The Head Master has given me authority to conscript any of those who might be beneficial against the blood wraiths. They're spreading through the city like wildfire.”

Faxon scanned the note and thrust it back at Adamon. Wynn had the feeling that he'd rather have balled it up and thrown it at him.

“So I suppose you're going to conscript us both then?” Faxon demanded.

“No. Master Wynn doesn't look like he'd be much use to me in his present condition. You, Master Indra, will report to me outside. There is much to do.”

Adamon turned and walked out the door before Faxon could respond. Faxon balled his fists and Wynn imagined him chasing down the Grand Inquisitor and giving him a sound thrashing. Instead, the elder quintessentialist turned to him, putting his hands on Wynn's shoulders.

“Find her as quickly as you can, Wynn. If Adamon gets wind that Tionne is involved, it could end badly for both of them. I'm not sure Adamon doesn't already suspect about Tiadaria. Finding them both together would give him an opportunity to claim collusion, unchallenged.”

“What happened to me not going alone?” Wynn asked, both amused and disgusted by Faxon's sudden change of heart.

“I'd go if I could!”

Wynn waved him off and watched with sullen detachment as Faxon slipped out the door to join Adamon on his wraith hunt. He slipped off the makeshift bed he was laying on and managed to remain on his feet even though the room swam around him, making him dizzy. Unsteady steps took him to the door, where he looked out on the courtyard that was still smoldering from his ill-advised blast. They hadn't needed to carry him very far, at least.

Taking the smooth marble steps down into the courtyard one at a time, Wynn tried to remember exactly where Tiadaria had been standing during the final confrontation with the blood wraith. He went and stood in the center of the char mark on the cobblestones. Looking down, he saw the slivers that remained of his staff. He felt naked without it, but there was no time to craft a new one. Though his connection to the Quintessential Sphere would be weaker without the talisman, he'd have to make due.

There was screaming outside the hospital gate. Obviously Adamon hadn't been exaggerating the depth of the problem. He shook his head, willing his concentration to turn to the matter at hand. He had a limited time to find Tiadaria. Slipping into the Quintessential Sphere, Wynn peeled back the layers of recent memories. He hadn't been unconscious for very long. A few hours at most. The psychic imprint of the High Priest and Tionne were still strong in the ether.

Staying attuned to the Sphere but turning his eye to the physical realm, Wynn traced the echoes of Tiadaria's kidnappers to the side of the hospital building where he'd been taken. There was a shattered gate there, obviously torn off its hinges by the powerful Zarfensis. Blood stains inside the gate indicated that bodies had laid there before they were removed.

Outside the gate, the psychic imprint blurred. Tionne and the High Priest had made a passable attempt to hide their passage, but it was clumsy and not very effective. It was almost as if they wanted to be found, Wynn thought. Or maybe they just didn't care if they were found or not. With the city in panic, it was unlikely that they had much to fear from anyone who might stumble upon them.

Something skittered out of the dark in front of him and Wynn stepped back. The blood wraith was tiny, obviously newly split from a larger host. It extended quivering tentacles toward him. Wynn summoned a ball of flame without thinking, holding it suspended in the palm of his hand in upturned fingers. The wraith hesitated. Wynn had a better idea.

Flattening his hand, he allowed the ball of flame to dissipate and instead called on the forces of time and energy deep within the Quintessential Sphere to freeze the wraith in place. Cocooned in an invisible web of energy, the wraith pulsed in agitation, throwing tentacles against the invisible walls of its floating prison. Wynn lifted it to eyelevel, peering in at the paranormal creature. It looked back at him with menacing black eyes.

Through those darkened orbs, Wynn projected himself. Though enough of him was left outside the wraith for him to find his way back, he found himself consumed with the primordial need for food. The hunger was overwhelming. Only blood could sate the hunger and make him whole.

Ignoring the urge, he pressed deeper into the thing's limited mind, tracing its connection to the Quintessential Sphere to the point where it had originated. There! Wynn saw what he was looking for. A thin crimson thread snaked out from the wraith, showing him everywhere the spirit had been since its inception.

In a sort of trance, Wynn followed the thread through the Quintessential Sphere. It was slow going. There were many places the wraith could go, both in the physical and the ethereal realm, that Wynn wasn't able to pass. When he reached those blockages, he'd have to puzzle out where the wraith had gone and then find another way to pick up the trail. It was several hours before he found himself across the street from a seemingly abandoned inn on the outskirts of the city.

At a hoarsely whispered command, the web Wynn had cast around the wraith contracted, compressing the wraith within it. There was a single moment in which the spirit issued a piercing scream, then it imploded and was gone. This inn was where they were keeping Tiadaria. He was sure of it. The protective magic around the building was thick, a roiling blackness that made him recoil in instinctive self-preservation.

Now what? He was certain that Tiadaria and the others were inside, but what could he do about it? He was one quintessentialist against a powerful Xarundi priest and a rogue mage. He might be able to hold them off for a time, but it would take a considerable amount of luck. He wasn't feeling particularly lucky. He needed Faxon, or even Adamon. Wynn wasn't at all confident in his ability to mount a heroic rescue. He didn't feel like a hero. He felt small and insignificant.