Magus (Advent Mage Cycle) (7 page)

That was actually a cheerful thought. Surely I could put up with this ridiculous behavior for another two days. I had some control of myself, after all. "Yes, you're right."

"I usually am."

"Don't push it," I advised him dryly. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm quite comfortable. I'll miss sleeping with you, though."

"I won't," I teased him, already edging out of the stall. "You snore something awful."

He took a playful nip at me, which I ducked. Grinning, I ran for safety before he could catch me.

"Brat.
"

"Good night, Night!" I caroled back with an impish smile.

"
May your bed have many crawling visitors.
"

I snickered at that. "You too, my four-legged friend."

~*~

Two days, can, under the wrong circumstances, seem like an
eternity
.

"—that's so sweet of you to say, Keen."

Hearing Reschkeenen's given name out of Aletha's mouth, I winced. Keen had wasted no time in giving both women the right to call him by his given name. A privilege, I noted, that he had not extended to the rest of us.

"But it's really true, Aletha. I've never seen a soldier as beautiful as you are—”

Hearing that sly flattery behind me, I had to restrain the urge to turn around, grab the kid by the throat, and start shaking. If that flattery had been sincere, fine. But it wasn't, and hearing him gushing along these lines for a whole day was driving me up the wall.

And despite what Night might think, it wasn't because I was jealous. It was just disturbing to listen to. I know this for a fact, because I
wasn't
the only one reacting like this. Shield was right there with me. So was Eagle.

Hazard thought it was hilarious, but his amused expression was turning slowly darker with every passing mile. I was betting that he'd join us in being irritated soon.

The only people that could accept this calmly, so far, were Xiaolang and Night. Night, because he thought the drama around him was highly entertaining. I wasn't sure what Xiaolang thought of the situation. So far, he was just watching everyone with a thoughtful look, like his mind was a thousand miles away.

Actually, that might have been the case. Xiaolang spent a lot of time thinking. He was constantly tweaking or re-evaluating his plans, and often studying the map of Chahir he carried around.

Of course, right now he was probably wondering who it was safe to send Keen off with. The original plan had been to send Shield and Aletha off to deliver Keen to a nearby safe house, but Shield was ready to strangle Keen at this point. It was only because of the boy's age that he wasn't already "missing."

I didn't envy Xiaolang trying to make that decision. No one he sent would really be safe, except Aletha and Chatta. And even they might be tired of the boy's antics in another day or so.

"Might" being the key word. I hadn't seen any signs of that yet.

Eagle came up to ride beside me, doubtless to avoid being near Keen any longer. He looked rather…well, murderously frustrated. "I hope the next person we rescue is a girl."

Actually, I'm not sure if the situation would change all that much if we had rescued a girl instead of a boy. There were some pretty good looking men in this group. The roles would be switched, certainly, but history was bound to repeat itself.

I didn't feel it was wise to point that out to Eagle at that moment; maybe later, when he's had a chance to cool down. So instead I uttered a neutral, "Hmmm."

"Garth, I hope you don't mind my asking…" Something in his voice caught my attention and I looked at him closely. He really did look rather hesitant, visibly unsure if he should continue with his train of thought. "They say that you are the most powerful Mage in all of Hain."

I blinked at this. I had heard no such rumor. "Well, I was the first Mage discovered—”

"I'm not referring to that," Eagle corrected with a quick shake of the head. "I know how they call you the Advent Mage. But according to the information we gathered prior to this assignment, you are
the
most powerful magician in all of Hain."

This was definitely news to me. I blinked at him stupidly. "Ah. Well…um…I didn't know that. Did you bring this up for a reason?"

Eagle gave a nervous glance to the back of Xiaolang's head, who was riding a few feet in front of us. I cast a glance in the same direction. Whatever it was that Eagle wanted to talk to me about, he obviously didn't want Xiaolang to overhear. "Can you put some kind of a protective barrier around a whole country?" he blurted out.

I just stared at him like he had sprouted another head. Where
was
this coming from? I could tell from his expression that he was serious, and that he was desperate to know the answer.

I wasn't sure if I could give him one, though.

"Honestly, Eagle, I've never tried," I admitted slowly. I was thinking it over, trying to judge from past experiences whether it would be possible or not.

"
You should be able to,"
Night informed me. He turned his head slightly so that he could give me a thoughtful look. "
Other Earth Mages in the past have been able to do it. Of course, they normally had a little help, like another Mage assisting with the effort. With any large project, it takes a lot of power and control.”

Sometimes Night's knowledge of magic—and of my own abilities, for that matter—was much better than mine. It was the benefit of being Jaunten, and knowing everything that his mother knew. And considering that Advent Eve had been the mount to a powerful Earth Mage, she'd known quite a bit about a Mage's abilities. I was definitely intrigued by this information. "Really? Hmmm." I quirked an eyebrow at Eagle, who looked very excited. "What country do you want me to put a barrier around, anyway?"

With another nervous look at Xiaolang's head he answered quietly, "Q'atal."

Q'atal? My eyes drifted to Xiaolang's back, and I stared at him thoughtfully as I considered everything I knew. Xiaolang was Q'atalian. Q'atalians are notorious for not leaving their country unless
absolutely
necessary. I had always assumed that something very drastic had pushed the Captain out of his homeland, although I still had no idea what. Most exiles weren't fond of their homeland once they were kicked out. Eagle's question to me, however, indicated that Xiaolang might still care about his country.

But why a barrier?

My voice lowered automatically to match Eagle's quiet tone. "Why would Q'atal need a barrier?"

"Q'atal is a pacifist country, you know that, right?" I nodded quickly. That was common knowledge. "Did you know that it is illegal to kill someone there—under
any
circumstances? Even self-defense?"

That I hadn't known. "That's a little…extreme, isn't it? I mean, a person should be able to defend themselves."

Eagle's smile was wry. "Believe me, I agree with you. Still, that's the law there. If you break it, you're exiled. End of discussion. And it's because of that law that Q'atal is getting raided so badly."

"Raided?" I repeated, feeling like a knot was twisting low in my stomach.

"Raided," Eagle confirmed with a dark frown. "The bandits know that no Q'atalian would fight back, not facing the sentence of exile. So it's easy pickings. They wait until there's a caravan of goods heading out for the market. Then they scamper into Q'atal, ambush the caravan, and scurry out again before anyone can catch them." Eagle's forehead was furrowed, expression as black as a thundercloud. "They don't dare get in too deep. The Empire of Sol has a contract with Q'atal—we'll protect them if they'll come to our markets first to sell their goods. Still, we can't afford to constantly patrol those borders. Sometimes we miss bandits, and they're able to get in and out before we even knew they existed."

This wasn't painting a pretty picture in my head. I could see in my mind's eye exactly what he was describing. "So you want me to put a barrier around Q'atal, to protect the inhabitants."

"You can do that, right?" There was a trace of desperate hope in his voice. "Make a barrier that will only let Q'atalians in and out?"

"Yes, I can do that. Whether or not I can make a barrier large enough to go around a whole country? That I'm not sure about."

"
You can do it,
" Night assured me again. "
You'll be exhausted afterwards, but it's within your ability."

I was only marginally reassured by this. My idea of exhausted and Night's idea of exhausted might be two completely different things, after all.

"We'll be perfectly willing to pay you to do it," Eagle put in quickly. I think he knew by my expression that I was considering it. "The whole team is behind this."

"Except your Captain," I pointed out. Eagle was being too furtive for me to believe otherwise.

"No, no," Eagle corrected hastily. "He'll agree to it. It's just, well, we don't like to bring up Q'atal around the Captain. He's always quiet—” Eagle looked away, eyes falling to his hands on the reins "— and sad, after he's reminded of Q'atal."

I probably shouldn't have pushed it any farther than that, but I was dying of curiosity. A Q'atalian soldier was one of the greatest oxymorons in the universe; you couldn't leave a mystery like that alone. "Do you know why he left?"

Eagle nodded glumly. "The bare bones, anyway. That's all anyone knows, since he refuses to tell the whole story. His family are merchants, dealing in several things that trade well in the Empire. They were bringing everything in for the spring market—”

I felt the blood drain from my face, because I just knew what he was going to say next.

"—but the caravan was attacked by bandits before they could fully cross the border." Eagle's eyes were dark and unreadable when he looked up into my face. "The Captain fought back, and killed three of them before they broke and retreated."

I spoke through frozen lips. "How old?"

"How old was he, you mean? Eleven."

Eleven years old…
great ancient magic
. To be faced with that kind of horror at eleven; to be forced to choose between obeying what you were taught, or watching your family being slaughtered in front of your eyes, knowing that you might be next—I'm not sure I could have done it.

"He came directly to us, after his family was safe," Eagle continued without prompting. "He came to us and asked that we let him sign up in the military. That was the best decision the Ascalon Commanders ever made. He's the best Captain we've ever had in recorded history." Eagle let out a heavy sigh. "But you can see why it's painful for him to be reminded of home."

Yes, I could understand that all too well.

I wanted to help. Hearing that story, it was impossible
not
to. "I'm not sure that I'll be able to do what you have in mind, whatever Night says to the contrary," I warned Eagle. "But if I can't do an actual barrier, we'll think of something else."

Eagle gave me a smile so bright that it put the sun to shame. "Are you serious?!"

"Very much so," I assured him. After a year, nearly, of working magic for towns and villages, I had a handle on the politics involved when working magic. Still, I had a feeling that convincing a government to let me put up a protective barrier might be far beyond what I've done before. And it would probably take a while, too. Still, I didn't imagine that the Q'atal government would argue
too
much with this plan. Not when it meant protecting their citizens. "We'll need to confer with the government before I can do anything." I was pretty sure he knew this, but felt it was safer to mention it now just in case.

Eagle was already ahead of me. "Oh, it has been. Not you, precisely, but one of the things we were tasked with was to find out the exact abilities of magic and see if there was any way to protect Q'atal. The Q'atalians are for anything that will protect them without killing anyone else."

So I had groundwork laid for me already…good. "Maybe when we get up to the top of Chahir, we can take a quick detour?" I suggested. "It's only, what, a half day's travel by boat?"

"If we cut across the Dorrough Gulf," Eagle agreed. He was nearly rubbing his hands together in glee.

I couldn't help but be caught up a little in his enthusiasm. Still, I had to be practical. "We're going to have to warn Xiaolang of our intentions before we do any detours."

Eagle laughed ruefully. "I know, believe me, I know. And I better do it soon—the Captain hates surprises."

Considering his occupation, I don't blame him.

Chapter Four: Jailbreak

Finally,
finally
, the day ended. We made camp a little off the road, in a shallow depression that was surrounded on all sides by prickly trees. It was a fairly good campsite considering that there was a shallow stream nearby, and we were shielded from view.

The highlight of the day, in my opinion, was when Keen curled up and went to sleep. I liked the kid much better unconscious. After all, he doesn't talk in his sleep.

The heavy mood lifted as soon as he started snoring, and for the first time that day, every man in the group relaxed.

Night was nice enough to curl up on his side so that I could lean against him. It was the only warmth I had available, since Hayate was hogging the fire.

During the course of the day the temperature had slowly started to drop. For Chahir, we were still in the tale ends of summer. For Hain, it was like an early onset of fall weather, and the wind had a definite nip to it. Hayate, as a desert creature, felt the cold far before any of us did and had reacted like any other reptile would have.

He went straight for the only heat source in sight and started hogging it.

Hayate was literally wrapped around the fire, his head resting on the tip of his tail. He was like this organic fire-ring or something. We'd had to cook while leaning over him, because no matter what Xiaolang said, we couldn't get the Dragoo to budge one inch. He was warm (or at least, one side of him was) and he was going to
stay
warm, thank you very much.