Authors: Edward Lazellari
Symian stood sentry with Lelani’s stolen satchel hanging across his shoulder. Kraten crossed over the bridge with Cat and ran to the left toward Bethesda Terrace. Cat was the centaur’s primary goal, but to sidestep Symian would leave her vulnerable from behind. She had to keep the troll in front of her and give him her undivided attention. She knew of Symian during his time at the academy in Aandor—how could you not notice a troll in your midst. He was half the sorcerer she was then. Studying with Dorn had bolstered his confidence. He showed no fear and looked eager to demonstrate his prowess. She couldn’t conceive of Dorn as a patient teacher. Much of what wizards studied required repetition and refinement. If the stasis spell he cast on her was any indication of Symian’s skill level, then the troll was overconfident.
“Why do you align yourself with Farrenheil?” she asked. “They despise your very existence.”
“Everyone despises my existence!” he shouted. “Was I treated any better at the academy? Dropped after one year. At least Farrenheil pays.”
“You lacked proficiency and focus,” she said.
“The instructors withheld their knowledge from me. What little I learned I did so on my own. Dorn would not suffer a fool of an apprentice.”
“Your stasis spell was shoddy. Surrender.”
Symian yelled as he launched dozens of sharp, pointed ice crystals at her. Lelani made a splashing motion with her hand and a large surge of water rose from the lake and deluged the troll and his ice barrage, knocking him to his knees. He rose quickly and launched a second attack, this time a column of fire, which Lelani thought was reckless considering the flammable oil that covers his skin. Lelani motioned with her other hand, bringing a second wave from the other direction. Symian dropped his flame attack to deflect the column of water toward the centaur. Lelani stuck her arm out as though to shake hands with the wave and the column of water split down the middle, each side falling over the rail, except instead of returning to the lake, Lelani directed both halves along the side of the bridge back toward the troll and walloped him from both sides as the ends of the columns came together.
“You’re all wet,” she said.
Symian’s rage intensified, made all the more comical by his unorthodox appearance of grayish skin and yellow where the whites of his eyes would be. He was soaking wet and exhausted. To her incredulity, Symian commenced a second attack of the same fire spell, in serious breach of Proust’s sixth rule of engagement: Never use the same attack twice in a row if the first time failed. Although the sixth rule did not apply to defensive measures (that was the twelfth rule, and it spurred much debate among those who felt switching a defensive spell that’s already proved itself was inviting an uncertain outcome), Lelani was concerned about water getting into her satchel and drenching her scrolls and notes.
She waved her arm, palms toward the flames. They met an invisible barrier a few feet in front of the sorceress. Symian poured it on, perspiring, straining with effort to break through the centaur’s shield—steaming the water off the age-old bridge’s floorboards and singeing the railings black. Lelani realized he could not break her—he was completely unfocused, using rage and anger as a crutch to propel his sloppy spells. She was fortunate that so far Dorn’s minions were middling talents at best. Her placid veneer conveyed her indifference to Symian’s rage, despite the effort it took to maintain the shield. She would show no hint of effort or struggle, determined to eradicate his confidence.
Lelani was her old self again: The test of wills she relished back in Aandor, mock battles, war games, conflicts that determined dominance among the students. With the lay line so close, she could cast spells with no fear of depleting her magic. Her confidence surged—and as Symian’s began to wane, she redoubled her efforts and pushed her shield back toward him across the bridge. Soon the fire would blow back on him, his own flames licking his clothes and the highly flammable oils on his skin. He ceased his attack and fell back on his haunches.
A curtain of gray smoke and white steam wafted from the floorboards between them. Through the haze, she said, “If you surrender, I promise mercy.”
Symian’s eyes communicated more panic than rage now. He hastily pulled two silver daggers from his coat, the one he threatened her with earlier and its twin. Her first instinct was to deflect them, but in the micro second it took Symian to reel his arms back for the throw, it occurred to Lelani that her foe knew what she was capable of. What then was the point? Unless Symian believed the attack would succeed because of something she didn’t know.
Proust’s twelfth rule nagged at her even if it was overly cautious. In that nanosecond, Lelani decided to cast a dangerously ambitious spell she’d only just read about in Proust’s book—after all, she had all the magical power she needed in Central Park, and Symian simply wasn’t advanced enough to fathom a countermove this unexpected. Symian released the knives. As they flew toward her, Lelani arched her arms out and channeled a generous amount of magic to tear a small opening in time and space in front of her. The rip generated a thundering boom that bounced off the lake and echoed against the skyline around the park. The lake-lined trees bent away from the epicenter same as they would acquiesce to a gale force wind, the bridge shook, and a towering cloud of thick black brimstone, like animated black yarn, billowed from the spot. Lelani fell through the opening and, causing a second boom and quake upon the overpass, reappeared behind Symian. Symian spun around, abject fear written across his face—the look of a sorcerer that realized he was outclassed. This was a magic user’s worst nightmare … to find out one was in the midst of a duel with an opponent that far excelled them. Symian could not even begin to counter a spatial displacement spell. Though it took all of Lelani’s effort to cast that little jump across only a few feet, and she was exhausted for it, she didn’t show it. The move was more psychological than practical. Symian’s ignorance had him believing she could drop him into the bottom of the deepest lake or into an active volcano at her whim. Frozen in place, he struggled to think of his next move.
He’s brain locked,
she thought.
Lelani called upon a spell the tree wizard, Rosencrantz, recently taught her. From the lake around her, green vines flew at her opponent like bolts from a crossbow, ensnaring Symian’s arms, legs, and torso. Lelani moved her hands like a puppeteer, controlling the offshoots. The vines dragged Symian toward her. He’d forgotten spell casting altogether and dug his troll’s nails into the wooden planks of the bridge, but to no avail. Eight bloody claw marks in the bridge’s singed wood chronicled the drag.
She pulled the vines back to immobilize Symian, spread eagle, before her. Lelani grabbed her satchel and his own bag of tricks with one hand and broke Symian’s nose with a jab of her fist. He squealed, and then his head drooped down.
A glint down the bridge showed where one of the knives he’d thrown had landed. She jumped over him to retrieve it. It was as she suspected … faerie silver. Not silver really, it was in fact a form of enchanted platinum brought about by a light exposure to certain naturally occurring radiation; the dwarvs who forged it coined the name faerie silver because they thought it had a nicer ring. This was one of the most rare metals in Aandor and its chief property was complete neutrality to magic. It would have ignored any spell or shield she put up. Worse, had the knife broken skin, minute traces of the metal in her blood would have rendered her magically inert until they had worked their way out of her system. She would have been unable to cast spells and been completely at the troll’s mercy. The other dagger was out of view—she should search for it, but Kraten was getting away with Cat. The fight had eaten precious minutes, and dusk had set in. If only she had a sample of Catherine’s blood, skin, or hair.
Symian had passed out. Lelani nicked him on the wrist with the knife, rendering him magically inert for the better part of a day. She took the dagger’s sheath from his coat and secured her new weapon. Kraten’s course took him toward Bethesda Terrace. She made it as far as the fountain, still exhausted and light-headed from that teleportation spell. There was no trail to pick up upon the bricks and concrete of the square. The terrace reminded Lelani of Aandor’s many piazzas. Even in the chill of the evening it was crowded—street performers on the stairs and pickpockets pilfering the tourists’ wallets. No sign of Kraten lurking among them; Cat was gone.
2
Lelani returned to Bow Bridge. Symian had slipped his restraints. The coward had faked unconsciousness. Her pursuit was a complete failure. She fingered the sheath of her new dagger and thought,
Maybe not a complete loss.
As she trotted back to Belvedere Castle, the inevitable battle pushed its way into her thoughts. So far, she’d been lucky that Lord Dorn was only able to recruit lesser talents. Perhaps his ego was too brittle to feel secure around other proficient wizards. One thing was certain—if Lelani went up against Dorn, she would likely lose. She would be in the similar position Symian and K’ttan Dhourobi had found themselves in against her.
Malcolm waited alone at the base of Belvedere Castle. Even the body of Dorn’s henchman was gone; it looked like nothing had happened.
“Lady MacDonnell?” Mal asked.
Lelani shook her head. She thought about whether Malcolm could be trusted with a conclusion she’d arrived at on her trek back. “They knew,” she said anyway.
“I’m sorry … Knew what?” he asked.
“That we’d be in the park.”
“Not possible,” he said. “Just bad timing. They use the same watering hole you do.”
“I had not told anyone of this lay line’s location, not even Catherine. Dorn’s people likely discovered it shortly after I left the Ramble in search of Seth Raincrest. I don’t deny we share this source of power in New York. But they knew exactly what time we’d be here. I do not believe in coincidences.”
Lelani remembered Symian’s pack and opened it. She shook her head in frustration.
“What now?” asked Malcolm.
“This is Symian’s satchel. Their mana batteries are not here. And I cannot figure out what spells he is collecting for based on these components. They had stolen irradiated material from Indian Point when we battled them in the woods. The only spells that accelerate magic using radiation are forbidden ones. Can Dorn really mean to use such magic? Radiation affects magical energy the way catnip affects cats—makes it erratic, wild … unpredictable. The spells react at volatile speeds. Once activated, it’s hard to shut down and the spell could expand exponentially and move beyond the caster’s control. Something bad is coming.”
“You can’t know for sure.”
“I feel it in my bones,” she said, shaking. She shook Symian’s bag before Malcolm. “Nothing good can come of radiation-fueled spells.”
Malcolm looked doubly troubled. “There’s another problem—a less epic one,” he said softly. “We haven’t been able to locate the little girl.”
“Gods!” Lelani said, exasperated. “And you wait until now to tell me?”
Lelani’s failure to protect Brianna’s mother would not extend to the girl. She walked to spot where Bree skinned her knee running away and carefully scraped blood and skin off the blacktop with her pocketknife. She pulled out a tube and a small wooden kit from her bag, put the scrapings into the tube and poured in liquids and powders from the kit after it. She cut some plants and weeds growing in the area and grinded bits of them into the tube and then put a drop of pond water in as well. She plugged the tube with a stopper and shook until the solution fizzed white. She chanted a finder spell, imbuing the liquid with magic and purpose—the solution fizzed even more and became a luminescent yellow. There were a few people left in the darkening park, but it was Lelani’s experience that New Yorkers were use to oddities in their city and mostly minded their own business.
“Watch out,” she told Malcolm. Lelani uncorked the tube. A radiant white mist shot out in an arc over the pond, heading west. A faint white trail, like a white monochromatic rainbow, shined in the air. A few of the park patrons pointed out the effect to their children, possibly attributing it to some type of firework.
Malcolm whistled approvingly. “Can Dorn do that?”
“Yes—and worse,” she said. “But he needs something of the prince. Let’s pray he does not find it. Head back to the hotel. I am much quicker alone and will join you shortly.”
“Wait,” he said, grabbing her arm. “One last thing. Do not tell MacDonnell his wife’s been captured.”
She yanked her arm from his grip defiantly and challenged him with a glare. “You would have me lie to him after I’ve failed Lord MacDonnell so miserably? I bear this shame … I swore to protect his family!”
Malcolm looked at her with the serenity of a professor lecturing an errant student. “One: Lady MacDonnell is not in immediate danger,” he pointed out. “She’s Dorn’s bargaining chip—insurance. Two: MacDonnell has enough on his plate just trying to reach the prince before they do. What do you think will happen to his concentration once he learns his wife is a prisoner? Bad judgment’s liable to get him killed. Three: If he abandons his quest to search for Catherine,
they
find the prince first, cut the boy’s throat, and kill Catherine anyway because she’ll be of little value at that point.”
Malcolm’s rationale was sound, even if lying to the captain ran against Lelani’s instincts. Was there no honor left? This mission poisoned the soul. Were Malcolm, Seth, Balzac, and Timian always this way, even in Aandor? Lelani was greatly nostalgic for her home in the Blue Forest at this moment. The centaurs did not favor guile—did not reward the craftiest liars or the best game players. They exulted the best hunters, the most artful musicians and poets. It was a simpler life.
“We’ll tell him when he returns with the prince,” Malcolm continued. “I’ll take responsibility.”
“Yes, you will,” Lelani said. She walked away, following the wispy trail, which had begun to dissolve like fairy dust into the lake. The trail took her over the castle and onto Vista Rock overlooking the pond and Great Lawn. The castle and vista made the centaur long for home. The luminescent arc descended into a nearby amphitheater on the other side of the lake.