The Way of the Sword and Gun (16 page)

"I'm impressed," Malja said, and she could see Tommy's chest swell. He kept his eyes on Master Kee, but she didn't want to draw attention to the boy's pride. That much she had learned — leave the boy alone in situations like this. Besides, she didn't fully understand what an illusion spell meant nor what damage it could cause the caster. Best to keep quiet and observe.

Master Kee raised his head to get a better look at Malja. "Did you find the code?"

"I did."

He fell back. "Thank Kryssta. We're all safe now."

"Don't get too happy," she said. "There's still an army to deal with."

"They left."

"Left?"

"They saw we were all dead. Though they didn't know they had the book, they left because they had a means to get the book — their prisoners. Beyond that, the Order compound has no strategic value — we're far from anything other than the Library. Despite the numbers they brought, Queen Salia can't afford to leave anyone here — not when she plans to take Corlin."

Malja looked at Tommy. "If he can create illusions, maybe they can, too. Maybe their army isn't as big as I saw."

Master Kee closed his eyes. "That would be a gift from Kryssta. Just like you."

Malja tried not to laugh, and Tommy smiled. "No sleeping, Master Kee. We've gained some time, but they took Owl and Fawbry prisoner. They'll be tortured until eventually they'll tell what they know, which is more than just the book. Our enemy will find out what we've attempted to do. This isn't over yet."

Owl

Consciousness came and went like a tide within Owl's mind. All sense of time and direction floated on clouds just out of reach. He felt movement. He heard horses and shouting. He smelled manure.

When he woke and stayed awake, he was resting on a pile of hay in a cramped cell. Fawbry sat by a metal door, his arms wrapped around his knees. Slivers of light poked through slits in a boarded window high above.

"Where are we?" Owl said, his throat parched and sore. When he spoke, his side ached and he remembered being skewered by Brother X.

"What's it look like?" Fawbry said.

"I know we're in a prison, but where exactly?"

"Salia City, I think. We definitely traveled east, so if this isn't the city, it's somewhere close by."

"Malja?"

Fawbry shrugged and let his head fall back against the wall.

Owl put a hand on his wounded side and sat up. It stung like an animal bite but the damage was minimal. Far worse than the wound — he didn't have his coat anymore. "So, not only did I fail to defeat Brother X again, now he has my coat, and I probably didn't even give Malja enough time to succeed. This just says everything, doesn't it? Stupid ol' Owl can't do anything right." With a groan, Owl clambered to his feet. "I'm sorry. I really am. I thought I had been trained to be a great warrior, but I'm just a failure. And now, I've let Queen Salia have the power to destroy the whole country."

"You sure have an ego," Fawbry said.

Owl snarled. "I failed. I'm telling you I'm a sorry excuse for a warrior. How's that having an ego?"

"You really think the future of Penmarvia is all up to you? That losing a fight or two is the destruction of all the Masters' hard work training you? I know you're part of a great legend and all, but nobody's that important." Before Owl could protest further, Fawbry got up close and said, "If you had succeeded things might've been easier, but that doesn't mean all hope is lost. And besides, failure is good for us. It teaches us how to be better. Sometimes it opens us to opportunities we'd never have come across otherwise. By Kryssta, if I hadn't failed as a griffle warlord, I'd never have met Malja." Fawbry frowned. "Of course, that might have been better for me considering I lost my hand because of her."

"I appreciate what you're saying, but I have been raised for this one purpose — to protect the Order. Twice, now, I've been tested by the real world, and twice I have failed. There is no excuse."

"Stop worrying," Fawbry said, but Owl detected the nervousness in his voice. "So what if Salia has the thirteenth book now? She probably doesn't even know that's what your coat is."

"She's got plenty of brilliant minds on her side. They'll figure it out. And why even take the coat unless they already know?"

"Doesn't matter. She's not going to understand it. And if she does, so what? It's all useless without the code. She'll never get to use the other books."

Salia spoke as the metal door clanged open. "Not so," she said. Two guards watched Owl and Fawbry as Salia entered the cell. Fawbry cursed under his breath.

She looked harsher than when Owl had met her before. Not just because her blonde hair had been pulled back tight enough to stretch her scalp. No, she looked stressed. Tired. He wondered if that was just because he saw her as an enemy now or if the rigors of leadership had taken their toll.

"My magician-slaves," Salia continued, "are very bright indeed. They've already figured out that your coat is a map. There are a few symbols on the edges of the coat. Did you know that?" She walked closer to Owl, gloating as she spoke. "With that little bit, my magicians have deciphered the Order's pathetic code. A shame, really. I'd been looking forward to torturing the two of you for information."

Owl spat at her feet. "You're a liar."

Salia's face darkened and the entire cell seemed to grow colder. "Tomorrow, the two of you will join me and a few of my best soldiers. We will cross the Great Field and go to the Library. And I will use its power to save this world from itself."

"It's not possible," Owl said. "You're no magician and you don't trust their kind."

"I'm more than you know. And there's more than one way to cast a spell. There are all different kinds of magic power. Incantations that prime the air with magical energy. Musicians that can create spells by plucking their strings. And even powerful spells derived from the essence of life — blood."

Fawbry snapped his fingers as if he had caught her in a lie. "Ah, there's your mistake. Blood magic requires fresh blood. And for something like the Library, an animal would never do. You'd need the most intelligent, most dominant type of life. You'd need—"

"Two full grown men?" Salia said.

Fawbry's face dropped. "W-Well, no, not really. I misspoke. I meant you need a corpse. Blood magic is based on death not life. What you need is—"

"Stop babbling."

"B-But blood magic is more a fantasy than reality. Nobody can really do it. Not with any accuracy."

"I believe you and your slut warrior dispatched one of my best blood magicians in some little crap town in Corlin. How was his accuracy?" She turned away from them. "Regardless, we'll find out tomorrow when I cut your throats on the Library steps." She left the cell.

Brother X walked in next. His towering body had to bend over in order to fit. Owl glared at him but knew Brother X didn't care. He never really did. It all had been an act.

"First," Brother X said, holding his fist out towards Owl, "even though I never once cared about the Order, I did train in the Way, and I do believe in its tenants." He opened his fist. In his palm lay a single, red bullet. "If my sister did not require your blood for the Library, I'd gladly give this to you, so you could die properly."

"Aw," Fawbry said. "You're just a tender guy, huh?"

"You, I'd torture mercilessly."

Fawbry held back any further sarcasm. Owl, however, said, "Go away. We have nothing to say."

"Don't hate yourself for losing to me. While you and your brethren trained in your forms and your techniques, each one of you hoping to get a little better so you could win in controlled sparring competitions, I excelled in the Way. I studied you all, too. I observed everyone closely."

"You had to report to your Queen," Owl said, letting each word overflow with his hatred.

"Yes," Brother X said. "I also watched because I knew that someday, I would have to face the strongest of you all. It was no mistake that Chief Master chose you to guard him. After me, you are the best the Order has to offer."

Owl turned away. "I don't need your pity nor your gloating."

"I offer neither. As a matter for my own honor and peace, I wanted you to know that you never had a chance to defeat me. I know your moves. I know your strengths and weaknesses. I've defeated you twice because I've studied you. Our battles were never on even ground."

"Come, Brother," Salia called from the hall.

As he exited, Owl whirled around. Ignoring the pain in his side, he stepped forward, his muscles straining. He pictured leaping into the air, wrapping his arm around Brother X's neck, and slowly choking away the man's life. Instead, he watched the metal door clank closed and heard Fawbry let out a sigh.

Owl bowed his head. His entire body shuddered. "It's all over," he said. "We failed."

Malja

The sun fell, casting brilliant colors across the remnants of battle. Malja and Tommy stood on the wall and viewed the pitted earth. Swords and spears littered the ground alongside bodies and streams of blood.

All was quiet outside. Inside Malja, however, a storm raged.

She kept thinking over what Tommy had done — opened a portal while simultaneously shielding an entire building with a massive illusion. She kept picturing him with those extra eyes. The damage such magic would cause the caster nauseated her. But the fact that Tommy showed few aftereffects other than exhaustion terrified her.

At his young age, he should be a quivering mass of brainlessness. Magic that powerful should have robbed him of any hope of sanity. And yet, he seemed fine.

Perhaps that beast, Barris Mont, somehow had protected him from the inside. Back when they first met Barris Mont, he had told her that Tommy held the potential for great magic. And Tommy had shown that promise several times before. So why did she feel so filthy, so guilty?

Uncle Gregor often told her that guilt was the mind's way of policing itself. "We don't always listen to ourselves," he would say while slicing fresh-picked apples for lunch. "Often our bodies ignore our brains. Guilt helps us know when we've done something that, deep down, we consider wrong."

If Gregor was correct, she had wronged Tommy from the start. That couldn't be right though. She only wanted a good life for Tommy.

Together, they walked along the blood-stained ledge until they reached a small platform with a pile of unused rocks. Malja settled on the pile while Tommy sat lower down so he could wrap his arms around her leg and rest his head on her knee. She fought against the twisting in her chest and the welling in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said, and he tightened his grip on her leg. "Fawbry once told me that I endangered all my friends. I think he's right. I can't say you'd have been better off as a slave on that ship where I found you, but it might've been better if, after I had saved you, I left you with some nice family. All the magic you've been doing, all the spells that must be hurting you in some way, you only do them to help me."

Tommy wouldn't look at her, but she knew he listened.

"I should go after Fawbry and Owl," she said, her hand shaking as she stroked Tommy's head. "We've got the code now. Queen Salia is still out there. I know I should go. But — I don't know what I know anymore. I've always been so sure of myself. Even when I didn't have the answer, I could make a decision. After seeing what you had to do, though — keeping both powerful spells going — after knowing how that must have hurt you, I just don't know anymore. It's not fair to you."

Tommy got up and walked to the wall. He stared at the last gasps of daylight. When had he grown so tall?

Malja continued, "You can't go with me this time. You're still pale from those last spells. You're not ready to fight again. And you shouldn't have to. You're a kid."

Tommy snapped his head around, shooting a stern look at her.

"I know, but you really are young," she said. "I hate the idea of leaving you — here of all places. But if you come with me, if you continue to do magic . . . well, I hate that idea more. You're too important to me."

Tommy appeared to get an idea. He urged Malja to wait as he limped away. Malja watched, trying to recall when he started limping.
Just how strong was that magic?
she wondered.

Alone on the wall, she breathed in the evening. Though she wouldn't admit it, she enjoyed the mixture of clean, forest air with the ruins of battle. It smelled familiar and comforting. She understood battle far better than anything else.

Battle was like mathematics. In math, the answer either was right or wrong. Add two and two and there was only one answer. In battle, one either lived or died, triumphed or surrendered, dominated or was dominated.

If only relationships could be as simple. She might even figure out why she refused to tell the whole truth to Tommy. Because the full truth was that she couldn't stop thinking about that other world she had been in. She couldn't get it out of her head that they had mentioned another like her. She had seen such a person before — the woman who had reached out to her, dressed in an assault suit, from a portal Malja closed to save Tommy and defy Jarik and Callib. And remembering all of that saturated her with a desire to go home — to her real home.