Dragonlinks (29 page)

The figure who emerged from behind the stone garden tiers near Daretor and Zimak was tall and
commanding in stature, yet had the slightly eccentric grooming often seen in those at the top of their profession. His robes were emblazoned with the symbols of a royal court's master Adept, and all were embroidered in gold. The black cloak that he wore was trimmed with raven down.

The King's court mage walked forward and stood before Jelindel. The prickly feel of being scanned for her Adept aura swept over her skin. Her recent experiments in the magical arts had built up a weak but adequate aura about her by now, so she did have the touch of a competent Adept.

‘Longrical, this is the Mage Auditor who arrived in the city yesterday,' the monarch explained. ‘Longrical has been keen to meet you,' he said as he turned back to Jelindel. ‘He is an Adept 14.'

Longrical looked Jelindel up and down, and something about his manner told her that the man was definitely not friendly. She decided that it would be a good idea to let someone else break the lengthening silence. Longrical obliged.

‘Someone has murdered my prime Adept since you arrived in the city,' the mage declared ominously. ‘Enchantment was used, even though the attack had all the markings of a lindrak's work.'

‘I hope you do not think that I was involved, Lord Longrical.'

‘Your reputation preceded you from the Valley of Clouds: a high Adept of few years, escorted by two very capable warriors. Might it not be that those two are lindraks and you are their tame Adept? Where have you been for the day and night past?'

Jelindel's heart sank. Her aura had brushed him in her searchings, so that he probably recognised her. Worse, she had been locked away alone while Daretor and Zimak were doing … what? She had not asked them – small talk was not one of her strong points.

‘We are here on a dangerous mission. Such is its importance that we are sworn to secrecy.'

‘Answer my question! Where were you?'

‘I was in my room at the Road's Haven hostelry for the whole time; it's half a mile from here. Yet … I was elsewhere too. I brushed against your aura once.'

‘That much is true,' the mage said calculatingly. ‘I recognised yours as soon as I walked in. Note that I am an Adept 14, I can project my senses just over a thousand feet, yet
you
claim to have projected to half a mile. Are you better than an Adept 14, boy, or did you brush my aura because you were stalking close by the very palace itself?'

‘I was nowhere near the palace, Lord Longrical. I was in my room. As for my abilities, I would not be a Mage Auditor if I did not have exceptional abilities.'

‘Demonstrate them,' he said shrewdly.

‘I already have.'

‘Demonstrate them here and now!' he thundered.

Jelindel took several breaths to calm herself. She hoped that her wide-eyed terror came across as outrage.

‘It is undignified to trade tricks like a couple of fair-ground jugglers,' she managed through a constricting throat. The man's anger was probably justified, but that did her little good.

‘Oh, but you're too modest. Come, let us see you escape a simple binding word!'

Jelindel knew that she could do nothing of the sort. She teetered on the verge of panic.

‘No, no, this is dangerous beyond imagining,' she warned, but the mage shook his head.

‘A little word of binding is quite harmless, except to false pride.'

The royal Adept spoke a strong word of binding, but instead of cutting off as they bound Jelindel, the blue coils kept pouring from his mouth and vanishing into the sheepskin jacket.

It was the mailshirt, she realised. It was somehow absorbing everything, then drawing even more out of the stricken mage. Longrical tottered and struggled, but the vast energies within him kept draining away in writhing, jagged blue traceries that played all about Jelindel without touching her.

He fell to his knees, his face drained white and his mouth still jammed open as weakening coils of blue drained his life away into the fabric of the mailshirt.

By now guards had stormed across the garden to protect the King and Princess, and the lepon was confronting Jelindel with bared fangs and a yowling roar.

Daretor and Zimak were seized and held, yet Jelindel paid them no attention at all. She was being enveloped by a fierce tingling that touched every nerve ending.

‘Stop it!' commanded the King.

‘I can't!' cried Jelindel above the crackling energies and the roar of the alarmed lepon. ‘I warned him but he wouldn't listen.'

The court mage was finally reduced to a kneeling husk, and he toppled forward to fall on his face. He was dead before he had even begun to fall.

Six silvery globes emerged from his mouth, one by one. They hung in the air before Jelindel's face, just as had happened when Thull died. They spoke together, and their voices were soft and whispery, like the scuttling of rats' feet that she had heard from the globes in the D'loom smithy.

‘We are thine to command, as you have vanquished our master,' whispered the voices. ‘Give thy word and we shall enter thee.'

Jelindel felt distinctly squeamish about the idea. She did not even know what they were.

‘And if I give no command, if I set you free?'

‘In two thousand years nobody has ever set us free. We have great worth, we are passed from Adept to Adept.'

‘Answer my question.'

‘Profound apologies, Lord Adept. If set free we would return to our paraworld, and there would be rejoicing within our flocks.'

‘They would know you still? Even after two thousand years?'

‘Time is different in our paraworld, Lord Adept.'

‘Then I command you to be free and return home.'

The globes began to move, darting about the centre of the group, throwing out coloured tendrils and sparks, and playing textured rainbow lights all over Jelindel. Gradually they faded, and then were gone with a whispered ‘Fare thee well, and retain our thanks.'

Total silence followed. Even the lepon was crouched quietly in front of the Princess, unmoving.

The King, who was by now surrounded by nervous guards, stood up and took several paces towards Jelindel.

‘Did you have to slay him?' the King asked evenly, gesturing to the dead royal Adept.

‘I did not kill him,' she replied. ‘He became entangled in one of my defences.
He
demanded that contest. As you are my witness, Your Majesty. I really did try to caution him.'

‘That you did,' the King conceded, his eyes still wide with shock. ‘That alone cannot be denied.'

The King looked to where Daretor and Zimak were being held, then glanced down at his dead mage. He locked eyes with the Mage Auditor. The youth was unsure of himself, but far more dangerous than appearances betrayed. He was certainly more dangerous than the King had been led to believe.

‘Do you have any idea how hard it is to kill an Adept 14, Mage Auditor?'

Jelindel guessed that it was probably difficult. ‘Yes, Sire, but an Adept's path is a dangerous one. His death was more his fault than mine.'

The King rubbed his hand over his eyes for a moment. Jelindel stood still and silent, guessing that something well beyond her comprehension had just taken place.

‘Adept 14 mages keep the peace in a very real sense,' the monarch stated, almost as if he were trying to explain something to himself. ‘The kingdoms and empires of this continent have been at peace for two thousand years, apart from minor border squabbles and a bit of piracy. That peace is based on five Adept 14s: one of them was the court Adept in Hamaria until his death last year, another guards a shrine in the far south and has not been heard of for some time. Two others have not been heard
of in centuries, and are rumoured to have become lost in other paraworlds. That leaves the man at your feet.'

Jelindel bowed and retained a grave, calm expression, although she was sweating with fear beneath her robes and concealed mailshirt.

‘Your Majesty is well informed and gifted with understanding,' she replied blandly.

‘There are difficult times ahead of us. I always told Longrical that we should have more Adept 14s, but he insisted that only a very special kind of person could wield such responsibility wisely. Sometimes I think that he and his peers were merely selfish, and jealous of young rivals.'

The monarch looked up from the corpse of the mage and past Jelindel to the door. ‘Unhand the Mage Auditor's men,' he ordered.

Daretor and Zimak shrugged off their guards.

‘Stay by the door,' Jelindel commanded firmly in Hamarian.

Both Daretor and Zimak exchanged angry glances, then Daretor whispered Jelindel's order in Skeltian for Zimak's benefit.

A physician finally arrived, and was ushered into the room by two footmen who were wide-eyed with terror. He promptly pronounced the royal Adept dead.

‘Accept my apologies for my Adept's behaviour,' said the King, who now seemed resigned and distant.

‘Of course,' said Jelindel, bowing yet again.

‘I shall order that every assistance be given you in your work. I am convinced of your power, and I must trust that your motives do not run counter to my own interests – for now, at least.'

My next royal audience will surely be easier, thought Jelindel as she watched him leave. Nothing could go worse than what's just happened.

‘This leaves the royal household in a difficult position,' the physician explained to Jelindel. ‘Over a single day the palace has lost an Adept 14 mage and his Adept 10 deputy. Only an Adept 9 now survives to oversee the palace defences, and that Adept 9 is me.'

‘I did not kill your court Adept deliberately.'

‘But you did anyway,' interjected the Princess, who was still lounging on the stone bench, her feet resting on the glaring lepon. ‘You have an obligation to us to guard the palace until Longrical's Adept 11 brother returns from his pilgrimage to Sunwell Temple.'

‘But Your Highness, I have a search to make.'

‘The palace guard can help with that. You might even find it faster than with just your two assistants.'

‘Your Highness is generous,' Jelindel replied, unsure of whether this was going to be a help or a hindrance.

‘
Royal
Highness, as of last night. My older brother was the Adept 10 who was murdered.'

Jelindel gasped. ‘I am deeply sorry to hear that.'

‘There will be a public announcement soon, and I shall be declared heir to the throne.' She inclined her head a little. ‘You don't like me, do you?'

‘Your Royal Highness, it is not my business to like or dislike anybody. That would interfere with the sort of work that I do.'

The Princess snapped her fingers and the lepon rose to its feet and climbed up onto the bench beside her. She stroked its glossy fur and caressed its ears, but it always kept a wary eye on Jelindel.

‘My brother was like you, always cold and calm, very serious about his spells, words of power and enchantments,' the Princess continued. ‘He even kept celibate to maintain his life-force at a higher pitch. It was very hard for anyone to be close to him. In fact even I have much trouble raising an appropriate level of sorrow now that he is dead.'

‘It is the way of the Adept calling,' Jelindel said.

The Princess did not reply. Instead she looked past Jelindel to Daretor and Zimak.

‘That little guard of yours with the wavy blond hair, sulky face and brown tunic,' she said, pointing languidly at Zimak.

‘Yes, Your Royal Highness?'

‘He's cute.'

I have a bad feeling about this, thought Jelindel. ‘He is not of noble birth,' she said tentatively.

‘That's all right, I like them witless and pretty.'

The physician came to Jelindel's rescue.

‘Your Royal Highness, we have need to arrange lodgings in the palace for the Mage Auditor.'

‘Of course.' She waved her hand airily. ‘You may all go.'

‘T
his will be quite a kingdom when the Princess is on the throne,' Jelindel commented as they inspected their new lodgings.

‘That Princess, she's just brimming with style,' Zimak said as he unpacked his few possessions on a huge bed.

‘Just you keep such thoughts to yourself or her father will give you an orchidectomy,' warned Jelindel.

‘I – what's that?'

‘They cut off your orchids.'

‘What orchids? I don't see – What! Oh no, they wouldn't, they couldn't!' bleated Zimak, his smile collapsing with dismay. ‘I'm a loyal citizen of Skelt.'

‘You're also a fugitive from Skelt travelling on false border papers,' Daretor pointed out. ‘Keep your hands to yourself and behave. And use those Hamarian phrases I have been teaching you. Use them whenever you can. It's
best not to advertise where we are from, for there are bounty gleaners about.'