Unlocking Void (Book 3) (10 page)

Chapter 12

Pike hefted the circular medallion, “Thirty second lef’ on her, no more.” He said and tossed it to Ryker.

Ryker nodded and pocketed it. “Just enough t’ shift in.” The Medallion of Unwind had gotten Nolen through the wards around Ryker’s prison, but the boy did not know it had a time limit, and he had just about exhausted it. They had just enough to get into Castle Jaden, and getting out would cost them nothing. One chance to get in, and Ryker hoped they did not waste it.

They chanced exposure. Everyone knew Ryker was alive, and word might have gotten around of Maxine’s revival, but Pike was a tile Ryker was still able to play. He debated leaving the man behind or covering his face, but if they were going to make an attack, they needed to do it with all their strength. The Mages needed to know they were not safe, even with their precious Class Ten leader.

Ryker could have saved Unwind until he had built an army, and then he could deposit them all in the castle suddenly. But if Nolen was right, the Head Mage would do the work for them if prodded in the right direction. Under torture, the Class Ten revealed to Nolen two failed suicide attempts, and history was bound to repeat itself under the right pressure.

Madness always came with greatness. With Evony it had been the loss of common sense, with Dorian the loss of mercy, but Ryker had got to Pike and Maxine before they went mad and mended the Elemental stress on the brain. He kept his own madness at bay most days. A Mage as strong as he had to work very hard to maintain balance.

He made a sucking click with his cheek and felt the kinetic energy of a body walking nearby. Nolen entered a moment later.

“Do y’ be messing with mine servants again, boy?”

“Is Maxine a servant?”

The three men chortled together.

“I heard that,” Maxine stated as she walked in. Air Mages always did hear better than the rest. She wore a long red gown with a tightly laced corset that left her pale shoulders uncovered; a dress to make a point that she was beautiful and intimidating. The only jewelry she ever wore was the gold, beaded necklace, and today there was a new dark blue bead in the center. She had only been able to retrieve one of the Head Mage’s hairs, so she claimed. Ryker and Pike were unable to attain a piece of the Mage, but there would be other chances.

“Are we ready?”

Pike stood, dressed in a long dark green coat slashed with gray stripes—the color of Spirit and Void Mages. He was taller than both Arch Mages, but Nolen beat him by half a hand. Ryker wore a burgundy vest under a gray riding coat that fell to his heels. While Maxine and Pike would be there to give a show, Ryker would skirt the background unseen.

Nolen would also be attending, but he wore a cream-colored coat to show off the most important part of his garb: the Air Silex piece strung on a chain around his neck. Nolen was instructed to offer only defense assistance. His purpose was to simply be there; the Head Mage’s tormentor abusing his mind.

“Let’s welcome the Head Mage t’ his Seat.”

Gabriel shifted Lace home, leaving her in one of her family’s many estates: a lovely white mansion overlooking the Black Cliffs on the west of the island. He promised to visit, but she said he should not. His focus needed to be in Jaden, not Arconia.

He spent his days using Void during sparring sessions, but there was so little to show. He could put someone to sleep or move around quickly, but Void proved not to be useful in battle. The Creator in him tried to manipulate the shift pattern, and he quickly reworked the strings to rapidly shift from one spot to another within a thirty-foot radius, keeping his sparring partners confused.

He finally finished sitting for his portrait, a life-sized oil from the waist up. It looked remarkably true to form. Lael insisted he would need to sit for a bust to be carved, but Gabriel emphatically refused.

He found himself in Lael’s study one afternoon discussing treasury deposits. Jaden accrued money from their many exports including cloth, wine, crops, and most of all, Mages. Mages could be hired to purify water, grow crops, reinforce structures, or heal the sick and wounded. Jaden took a percent of every service, and the Mages did not have to pay taxes.

“Oh stars,” Gabriel suddenly gasped, spinning to the door. He brought his hand up, thumbing a ring.

“Is a tally wrong?”

Gabriel dropped the ledger and made for the door. “Someone just shifted into the courtyard.” Lael followed at a close distance as Gabriel rushed down the stairs into the foyer. He pointed a finger at a young man. “Do not let anyone out of this building.”

Gabriel pushed open the Lodge doors and marched out into the courtyard. The wind blew snow flurries from a gray sky, and the chill bit through his open coat. He expected to see Arding, the king-like man who had saved Gabriel’s sanity more than once; the man he suspected had rescued him from the summit. But his heart shot with adrenaline when he saw Maxine.

Her blonde hair flowed in the wind about her bare shoulders, and her arms clasped behind her back as if she was patiently waiting. Beside her stood a tall man with a goatee, his feet in a defensive stance. Gabriel stopped dead in his tracks when he saw another man beside him.

“Nolen.” Gabriel muttered with hate creeping through his veins.

The ex-Prince looked as pleased as a cat with a dead bird. His chest proudly displayed the unmistakable gray Air Silex piece.

An attack was imminent. Gabriel had no chance to warn the people in the nearby buildings or the few in the courtyard. He had no way to summon help, but there was no one he would ask to stand against two Arch Mages and the fool wearing a Class Ten Air piece. This was the reason he was chosen as head protector, and if he could not defend against two, he would die against five.

But he unlocked something they did not know about.

He laid a snap-pattern, a berg-blast, and a ripper pattern, and immediately seized Void after. He shot himself between them, fueled the patterns, and returned himself to the same spot. Explosions of fire, shards of ice, and chunks of rock burst around them, and the battle began.

All Mages held shields of different kinds, and while many shields extended into the ground around them, they did not protect the ground beneath their feet, the same ground Gabriel exploded. If the shield was a full bubble, as Air shields usually were, it would cause any flying rubble to bounce around until it collided with a softer force.

Nolen’s white coat was torn, dirty, and stained red in a few spots. Maxine and the other man—Gabriel could only guess was Pike—had few scratches. They rushed for him. Pike laid a Harlon-shot pattern, but Gabriel moved before it made contact and threw a Water pattern to make the blood vessels swell. Maxine deflected it with a condensing-pattern that compressed the air, and she brought her hands together in a clap.

Gabriel raised a Spirit shield a moment too late and felt the clap of air twine around him, pushing his stance back, and filling his ears with a deafening slap. He ripped the earth beneath her and tossed her back. He threw a buckle-pattern to Pike and caught the Arch Mage throwing him to his knees where he would be forced to stay for one minute. Gabriel punctuated the pattern with light-shards of glowing white energy, but Pike drew earth from the ground as a shield.

Maxine was on her feet and rushing towards him with a vortex of Air in one hand and an electricity-pattern in the other. She melded the two forming a dangerous horizontal tornado. Gabriel reached skyward and brought lightning down, causing her to miss a step. She flung the electricity, but this time her hair and eyes became white. Gabriel moved to deflect the electricity, but a blue tendril touched his elbow.

In every other circumstance, the pattern should have moved past and hit the ground, but
this
one stuck and shot a surge of white-hot pain through his body. His scream stayed behind his clenched teeth. Gabriel knew of how to deal with pain, and he reached out with a death-toss Fire pattern. It made contact with her hand, but she winked out of sight before it could consume her.

Gabriel shot three pinch-patterns and a spirit-clap to Pike, snapping his fingers to send more light-shards. Pike only had a moment to dodge, and he failed to raise a large enough shield to avoid the spirit-clap, similar to the air-clap but more effective. As soon as it touched his ears, the man fell unconscious while trying to raise a guardian-pattern.

Gabriel turned his attention to Maxine. She had reappeared not far off, molding an Air pattern he did not know as Nolen rushed to encircle Pike with his shield. At this distance he could reach Maxine with a water-coil in one hand and still be able to lay in the other.

He swung it around him once and drew his left arm back to flick it, snapping a fire-starter in his other hand, but something painful wrapped around his left wrist. Confused, he looked to see which of the three attackers he had missed.

He had not even considered Ryker.

The Arch Mage stood behind him, eyes and hair white as snow, just long enough for Gabriel to make eye contact. He grinned, and vanished. The water-coil crashed to the ground around Gabriel in a spiral of cold liquid.

Alarmed, Gabriel turned back to Maxine and readied a Tarmen-blast to shoot earth at her. He forcibly ignored the blatant pain in his wrist, and she stood there with a hand out holding a Spirit shield. He thought she had the smallest of frowns on her face.

She vanished and reappeared near Nolen. She took his arm while Nolen gripped Pike’s unconscious body, but rather than shifting out, she paused and looked at him.

‘What for?’

The sharp pain in his wrist demanded his inspection. He raised his arm, and all the color left his face, chilling him cold.

A Castrofax. A silver wristlet.

He looked at Maxine, horrified, terrified, not sure if the Castrofax or the idea of wearing one hurt more. “NO!” ripped from his throat. His attackers vanished, Nolen smiling in victory.

Gabriel immediately lapsed back to the moment Overturn was placed on him. He remembered despair, the absence of hope, and the horrifying circuit his mind took to replay what
should
have happened. He lost everything in that moment, so this moment should be the same.

Lael was the first to reach him.

“What happened? What is wrong?” his usually calm voice strung with panic. Gabriel grasped his left forearm as if holding a wound shut, and it took Lael a moment to realize the issue was not a wound, but a slender silver band.

How Gabriel managed to stay on his feet was beyond him, but deep within he knew he had to put on a strong face for his Mages. He stared at the silver piece etched with faint blue inscriptions he could not quite make out. It blurred past his vision, just like Overturn had.

Mikelle appeared running across the courtyard with several Council Members in tow.

“He is comatose, I cannot get him to move.” Lael said. Gabriel did not even know Lael was trying to pull him inside.

Mikelle grabbed Gabriel’s wrist and looked at the silver wristlet accusingly.

“Lewis,” Gabriel finally sputtered. “I need Lewis—and Aisling.”

“Aisling is in Kilkiny.”

A shuttering spasm of pain shot up his arm, and he shook tremendously trying to hold the moan inside. “It has to come off.”

“We’ll find a way. It’s just one piece and—”

“No,” Gabriel cut her off. “The hand.”

“
What
?” Mikelle exclaimed.

“I need your cloak. Do not leave without me,” Lael stated and ran back to the Lodge.

Adelaide, Galloway, and Dagan joined Mikelle, all breathing heavily. “Dagan, bring Lewis immediately.” The tone Mikelle struck turned the long-legged Mage around and shot him towards the infirmary.

Adelaide gripped Gabriel by his shoulders. “That was brilliant. I have never seen such fighting. You knocked the man out in moments! I have not given you the credit you deserve.”

Gabriel raised his eyes to hers. She was doing her hardest to distract and encourage. Her effort made him smile a little, but another spasm of hot pain shot from the Castrofax. Galloway looped an arm around his back to help him stand.

The Mages rushed around in his foggy vision, but his focus was internal. Pain and Castrofax were one and the same. He remembered every moment Nolen injured him. The four days he spent in the dungeons; tortured to the point he wished his body would just give up and die; Axa; strapped to a pillory and publically flogged; bound in Salt Fort so painfully he could not sleep, and the hundred times Nolen struck him for no reason. He trembled as his memories charged with
actual
fear. His legs were weak.

“Whoa, whoa, going down,” Galloway said as he took Gabriel to his knees. “Where is Lael with tha’ cloak?” Gabriel bowed his head as he shook, pain pulsed with his racing heartbeat.

“It is getting more intense.” Gabriel said, and Galloway snapped a pattern together and put a cold hand on Gabriel’s forehead.

Mikelle surprised Gabriel and took up his hand. “Tell me if this helps,” she said, and she looped her fingers around the wristlet and gripped tightly. Her anxiety and intense goodness flowed into his emotions as his own flowed into hers. But the pain did not abate, and she did not feel it. “What Castrofax is this?”