All Spell Breaks Loose (3 page)

I experienced a short, but oh-so-welcome, moment of relief. I hadn’t had many of those lately so I enjoyed it while I could. Maestro Ronan Cayle was the best spellsinger there was. If anyone’s ass needed kicking—mage, mundane, or demon—Ronan was the man to serve it up. He was also Piaras’s spellsinging teacher. If Piaras wouldn’t leave the island on an evac ship, knowing that Ronan would be with him was a comfort I’d gladly take.

“Is Talon staying, too?”

Piaras blew out his breath. “Oh yeah.”

“I understand he and Tam had quite the throwdown about that.”

“Heard by half the citadel.”

Talon Nathrach was Tam’s son. As former chief mage and magical enforcer to the goblin royal House of Mal’Salin, Tam was part of the team going to Regor. Talon’s mother had been an elf, which made Talon a half-breed, an abomination to both old-blood elves and goblins. The goblin court in Regor was packed to the walls with old-blood goblin aristocrats. From what I’d heard, they’d kill Talon on sight.

Talon becoming a Guardian cadet was Tam’s effort to teach his impulsive son responsibility, respect, and, above all, control. I told Tam he shouldn’t hold his breath.

“You can’t exactly blame Talon,” I said. “He just found his father, and now that father is leaving.” I left the “and maybe never coming back” unsaid. Piaras knew it as well as I did.

“Paladin Eiliesor ordered Talon to report to Sir Vegard for duty.”

I winced. “Bet that didn’t go over well.”

“No, it didn’t.” Piaras grinned. “Though walking back to the barracks last night with Talon tripled my knowledge of Goblin profanity.”

Just before the stairs that led down to the citadel’s lower levels, we passed several openings in the outer walls that looked over the harbor. I stopped, and Piaras and our two Guardian escorts did the same. It was a long way down to the harbor, but I knew crowds of people when I saw them. Students and townspeople—there had to be hundreds of them—being put on any ship in Mid’s harbor that could raise canvas, and get them off of the island. Hopefully to safety. There were merchant ships, Guardian warships, and five pirate ships belonging to my cousin and uncle—Phaelan and Ryn Benares. Father and son, who, between the two of them, were responsible for the vast majority of the high-seas crime in the seven kingdoms. Phaelan had brought me and Piaras to the Isle of Mid on the
Fortune
. Uncle Ryn had arrived later with his flagship the
Red Hawk
and three of his best fighting vessels to do what a father and uncle did best—protect the people he loved. Commodore Ryn Benares, the most feared pirate in the seven kingdoms, was a big softie. No one outside the family knew that, and to preserve the cooperation and resulting profitability that the Benares name instilled in every ship to cross our path, we kept that information to ourselves.

Uncle Ryn had originally come to Mid to protect me and Phaelan. But now the students of the Conclave college were in the worst kind of danger. Sarad Nukpana needed sacrifices to keep his transport Gate stable and working—magically talented sacrifices. The kids attending the Conclave college were the best of the best; they’d be the top mages of the next generation. Nukpana saw them as fuel for his invasions.

Uncle Ryn wasn’t concerned that heading up the student evacuation would damage his fearsome reputation. He’d told me that he didn’t give a shit what anyone thought; though
he could always claim that the Conclave paid him to do it, which they hadn’t. Uncle Ryn was helping out from the good of his own big heart.

The students were being evacuated youngest to oldest. Getting every student off the island would take time, time that the Isle of Mid may or may not have. The students least able to defend themselves—magically or otherwise—were being shipped out first. Due to the need to transport as many students as quickly as possible, each student was being limited to only one small bag, large enough for a change of clothes and a few personal items. Everything else would be left behind. The hope was that they would be able to return soon.

That depended on us, whether we succeeded in destroying the Saghred.

Or even lived long enough to try.

For a place that was the center of the survival chances for the
known world, the mirror room was amazingly non-chaotic. I wasn’t complaining. Considering that we were headed into the goblin capital, which was essentially under siege from within, massing an army for invasion, and in possession of a stone of cataclysmic power bonded to yours truly—I’d take all the peace and quiet I could get.

The mirror room itself was plain, but not the contents. I counted twenty mirrors, each taller than a tall man and at least twice as wide. They were mounted on massive wooden frames. Some were simple; others were ornate. All had runes or spells carved into the frames. At least a half dozen of the mirrors were mounted to the stone walls and were as wide as they were tall. The only reason I could see for having something that big would be to get as many fighting men from here to there as quickly as possible. And the room was big enough to do it. A hundred paces long and half that wide.

As much as I disliked and distrusted mirrors, I had that
feeling multiplied by a hundred for the elven mage standing in front of one of the smaller mirrors, hands extended toward the swirling surface, consumed with concentration.

Carnades Silvanus. Formerly second in command of the Conclave after the archmage himself. The former golden boy of the Conclave and the Seat of Twelve. Now the most famous jailbird on the island. He’d been caught with his fingers in the treason pie, and his signature on the documents funding the traitors’ and terrorists’ fun and games. Then there was also the small matter of the attempted assassination of a goblin prince. Carnades had been stripped of his title and position in the Conclave and on the Seat of Twelve. The elven government had frozen all of his assets. I’d been directly responsible for Carnades getting caught doing all of the above; as a result, he hated me with a passion bordering on obsession. He was also the one man who could get us to Regor in time to stop Sarad Nukpana’s rampage of world domination—and back again after we got the job done.

Oh yeah, I had warm and fuzzy feelings about that arrangement.

“I don’t like it,” Piaras said.

I didn’t have to ask what
it
was. I wasn’t the only one Carnades Silvanus had been gunning for since we’d arrived on Mid.

“Carandes is the best mirror mage there is,” I told him. “Plus, he’s the man with the mirror in Regor. If we had another choice, we’d take it, but we don’t.”

Piaras scowled. “You have to trust him.”

“Trust has nothing to do with it. This is about necessity, pure and simple.”

“Necessity might be pure, but Carnades sure isn’t.”

Truer words had never been spoken. “That’s why we’ll be keeping magic-sapping manacles on him as much as possible.”

“He’s not wearing them now.”

“Yeah, gives me the creeps, too.” I kept my voice level,
which was a nifty contrast to my galloping heart rate. That was the first thing I’d noticed when we’d walked through the door. Normally, a sight like that wouldn’t freeze me in my tracks like a mouse in a room with a sadistic cat, but being without magic was not my normal. If Carnades found out and managed to get me alone, all that would be left after the spell he’d sling at me would be a greasy spot on the floor. Piaras didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to tell him. If he knew, he’d worry. A lot. Staying on the island in the face of a goblin invasion was enough; Piaras needed to focus on saving his own hide, not worrying about mine any more than he already was.

Carnades’s elegantly long-fingered hands were extended toward the mirror before him, his posture one of extreme concentration on his work. I muffled a snort. Carnades was looking at the mirror, but his concentration was more than likely aimed at how to screw us over, either before, during, or after we stepped through his mirror into a cave outside of Regor.

“Carnades can’t tap his magic while wearing those manacles, and he needs his magic to get us through the mirror,” I told Piaras. I shrugged. “Or obliterate us all, jump through the mirror, and run like hell.” My tone was joking, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the bastard tried it.

“I think those gentlemen will have something to say about that,” said an amused voice from behind us. “As will I.”

As Guardian commander and paladin, Mychael Eiliesor was as ready as he could be to step through that mirror and into Regor. His usual armor was sleek, formfitting dark steel. What he wore now was still sleek, but matte black, and definitely not Guardian-issue. The two of us were going to stand out enough by being elves; Mychael didn’t want to announce that he was a Guardian, too. Of course, our goal was not to be seen at all. I didn’t let my mind dwell on how unlikely
that
was to go as planned.

Instead I let my mind dwell on, and my eyes enjoy, the scenery that was Mychael.

He must have felt me watching him.

Mychael looked down at me, his eyes darkening, his smile holding a hint of danger—the fun kind. “We don’t have time for that,” he teased.

“Time for what?” I asked, all innocence.

“Everything you’re thinking.”

Piaras cleared his throat. We were keeping our voices down, and he wasn’t standing right next to us, but there was nothing wrong with the kid’s ears. After all, he was an elf.

“Sir, do you want me to see what’s keeping Maestro Cayle?” he asked.

Mychael smiled. “Ronan knows where we are, Cadet Rivalin. As you were.”

The tips of Piaras’s ears flushed pink. “Yes, sir.”

Four Guardians were standing around Carnades—hands glowing with magic at the ready, weapons doing the same—just waiting for the elf mage to so much as breathe wrong.

I shifted uneasily. “They do look rather eager to cut loose on Carnades, don’t they?”

“Ready and all too willing,” Mychael assured me, the sparkle in his sea blue eyes saying he’d like to get to Carnades first.

A big part of Carnades’s evil-master-plan-gone-wrong had been to either disband the Guardians, or use them as his personal enforcers once he’d seized the archmagus’s throne. Mychael had been the man standing in his way. Carnades’s plan had Mychael standing before an executioner.

“They’re not the only ones,” boomed a voice from the doorway.

Archmage Justinius Valerian entered the room and crossed over to us in a sweep of formal robes that had to weigh as much as the old man’s lean and grizzled body.

I looked him up and down. “Aren’t you a little overdressed for an invasion?”

“I need to stand out, girl. There’s hundreds of panicked old coots running around this island in mage robes. I don’t want any of them to doubt who I am and how far I will kick the asses of any of them if they don’t do as I say. Immediately. I’ve told the lot of them to leave their egos at home, not to give me any lip, and we all just might live through this.”

Justinius had called an emergency meeting of the Conclave of Sorcerers early this morning to warn them of our situation and to tell them that Vegard would be acting paladin until he said otherwise. The Conclave was the governing body for every magic user in the seven kingdoms. In my opinion the only thing worse than a bunch of arrogant mages was a bunch of arrogant bureaucratic mages.

“How’d they take the announcement about Vegard?” Mychael asked.

“Exactly the way I expected them to. Started asking a bunch of questions that had nothing to do with the security of this island and the safety of our students, and everything to do with politics.”

“And they wanted to know where I was going,” Mychael said.

“And why. The less people who know about this mission, the better chance of success.”

“And survival,” I added.

“That, too. I didn’t take questions; just gave them all something to do. Any who have the strength and skill to take out a goblin black mage or a major-class demon and aren’t squeamish about doing it are now under Vegard’s command. The rest of them would just be in the way, so I ordered them home to pack a bag, same size as the students. They’ll be evacuated only after the last student is gone.”

“You’re Archmage Popularity right now.”

Justinius shrugged. “It’ll keep them off the streets and out of my hair.” He glanced at Carnades and lowered his voice. “Is he giving you any trouble?”

“He’s not an eager member of this team,” Mychael told him, “but he’s doing his job.”

Carnades’s job was to get us through the mirror to Regor—and safely back again. The last part was the carrot Justinius was dangling in front of the elf mage. If we all made it back safely, he wouldn’t be executed for his crimes, regardless of the result of his trial. The length of his prison term would be up to the Conclave or elven justice systems. Both were still arguing over who would get to try him first. But Justinius could, and did, offer Carnades a deal—if we lived, so would he. He might be behind bars for the rest of his life, but unless he had an “unfortunate accident” while in prison, at least he’d have a life.

“I trust Carnades about as far as one of my spindly legs could drop-kick him,” Justinius was saying under his breath.

The old man’s rangy frame might not be able to wrinkle Carnades’s robes, but Justinius Valerian was the strongest mage in the seven kingdoms. Period. Using his magic, he could kick Carnades to the far side of the farthest continent. I was grateful that he’d come to see us off. Even better, the old guy wasn’t alone. Being the archmage meant he didn’t go anywhere without his six huge Guardian bodyguards.

Carnades lowered his hands and took a deep breath that shook as he exhaled. Whatever he’d just done, it’d taken a bit out of him. Just as long as he had enough juice left over to get us to Regor. Mychael walked over and took Carnades’s magic-sapping manacles from one of his Guardians, but made no move to put them back on the elf mage. The other Guardians closed ranks around Carnades. I assumed it was too close to the time to leave to put them on again, so they were just going to go with close-quarters guarding.

“Is the crate through?” Mychael asked Carnades.