Unlocking Void (Book 3) (2 page)

Ryker Slade displayed his control of the Element when he met Gabriel. He had appeared in a cloud of black strings and vanished just as easily. It was an art form of something called a
shift
. It was an ancient form of travel, and one Gabriel had found quite a few notes on. Sidestepping bent the fabric of the landscape to stand in one place and suddenly bringing in another. But shifting moved the world moved around the wielder. It took a little longer than sidestepping, but it required only one Element rather than five.

Gabriel made it very clear when he took the Head Mage Seat that he needed to learn Void in order to best Ryker. It had taken them over a month to acquire the books on his desk. Someone even found a tapestry in their rooms detailing a pattern that would put a man to sleep, but all of it was useless because no one knew how to unlock Void.

Void was the opposite Element of Spirit, and only Spirit Mages could use it, but its methods had been absent in their search. They knew that Spirit used kinetic energy to fuel patterns, and Void used the energy of the dead. It allowed a Mage to put one foot in the spirit world, the veiled existence hidden from the living. Where Spirit could heal the body, and its versatility fashioned clothes and formed weapons, Void affected the mind as well as the body.

Mikelle set the dishes on a tray, wiped off her hands, and assumed her seat beside his desk where she spent hours daily writing out everything he detailed.

“How many patters do you have written out?” he asked as he thumbed through a new book.

“Six.”

“Here’s another.”

“Set it with the others.”

He sighed as he sat behind the desk and picked up another book. “I wish I had staff to read all these.”

“You do.”

“Not these books.” He flicked his hand lazily and turned the page with a green Earth pattern. Head Mage Casimir had left him quite the collection of books meant only for his eyes. For every book he finished, there were another hundred waiting.

“You can trust me to read them?”

“I will when you become Head Mage someday,” he mumbled, slowly losing himself to the book and his thoughts.

Mikelle quietly scrawled in her book as she copied the fine print in the parchment, but out of the corner of her eye, she watched Gabriel. Her newest and most excellent friend, Queen Robyn enlisted her spying services weeks prior, but Mikelle had little news to report. Robyn was concerned Gabriel was thinking too much about his time with Nolen, but Mikelle knew very little of how the brain worked, and she did not know what to look for. He had nightmares, and sometimes he stared into space only to rapidly blink and return to reality, but everyone did that….

Still, the more time she spent with him, the more she wondered if he had not yet recovered from his time in the Castrofax. It was not fair to assume he had, but with all the demands placed on him, it was easy to forget he had a life before being Head Mage. She grinned slyly.
‘Head Mage.’
She often had to remind herself she was friends with the most powerful man in the world. No one could stand up to the title of Head Mage, and while his salutation protected him, he was
also
the most gifted and powerful Mage in his Elements. No one wielded more than two Elements, and none higher than a Class Six. To wield four at a Class Ten
and
to be a Creator, someone able to make new patterns, made him born out of his time. If anyone asked him to explain, he simply smiled in that suspicious way that meant he held a secret. He would reply that he was an Anomaly, the only word they had to explain him.

Mikelle was happy to report that his appetite returned. During his imprisonment, he had lost much of his will to do anything, but after a bit of nagging that he was too skinny, he finally began to put weight back on. He almost looked as he had the day she met him, lean but proportionally rounded where it counted. As she explained to Robyn, she finally had something to pinch.

She glanced at him again. His face was in the book, but his eyes did not move. Quietly, she reached a hand out and gently gripped his forearm. His head snapped up, and he inhaled sharply, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I was elsewhere.” He loosened his collar and seemed to realize the sleeves of his shirt were in the wrong place, so he hastily rolled them up mid-forearm. Mikelle noticed this was something he always did, and she finally understood why. He could not stand anything touching his wrists where the Castrofax once lay, and she often saw him strike a finger down his neck to make sure it was unbound. Mikelle was certain there was much going on in that head no one was aware of.

He may put on a bold face, but he was still wounded.

Chapter 2

Some people saw Atrox Manor as a refuge, a monolith to document the architecture of the Third Age, a hideaway perhaps, or even a prison. Ryker Slade saw it as home. In the height of his day it was filled with his followers, bustling with activity as they slowly took down the kingdoms to raise their own. Nowadays the manor was quiet. The main inhabitants were pretty Mages who saw to his orders, plucked from their homes and transplanted in his. He had taught them early on to not make a fuss.

His only guest was a quiet man who could be easily overlooked if he wished. Arch Mage Pike Bronwen was a brilliant man, a Creator, and wielder of Earth, Spirit and Void in a Class Ten. He rarely used Void except to travel. Earth was his best and most valuable Element. Pike was their defender in battle and the Creator of the Castrofax, Excellyons, and a dozen other objects of Elemental manipulation. While stories said Ryker made the Castrofax, it was actually Pike acting on Ryker’s idea.

Ryker strode into the great room, bombarded by the sudden glare the snow kicked up into the wall of windows. He blinked as he took a seat near the fire. Pike sat not far away with a set of thumb rings in his hand, twisting strings of Earth into them. Ryker thought of him as an excellent vintage of wine: he got better with age. He was handsome and rugged, with a neatly trimmed goatee flecked with white, dark eyes behind a heavy brow, and a constant collected demeanor. Pike had an arsenal of a thousand patterns and the strength to make them efficient. Each year he added to them.

“Have y’ ne found a torc yet?” Ryker asked and clicked his cheek.

Pike put a hand on his neck. “No, I have no’ made it t’ Aidenmar.” Aidenmarians of noble class distinguished themselves with a metal choker that almost touched in the front, braided or hammered, or set with precious stones. While it sometimes resembled a Castrofax, Pike had built a failsafe release into them and did not fear metal around his neck. “I migh’ go tomorrow.”

“Do y’ think your strength has returned?”

“Oh, aye, nearly.”

Nearly two months previous, Ryker had finally summoned the tools needed to raise a spirit. While he was exceptionally powerful in Spirit and Void, he needed unlimited power of all the Elements to do it. When the Gabriel boy fetched the Silex for him, he had the tools. It had taken him a month to find the bodies of Maxine and Pike, and with the bones as an armature, he could build muscles, ligaments, veins, organs, skin and even hair. As soon as a body was built, all he needed was to summon their spirit from the grave. Maxine had come first and easily, taking to her new body with her legendary grace and power. Pike, at least a score older than she, had not recovered as quickly.

Maxine had left them after two weeks to return to her mansion, a white colossus hidden in the Gray Mountains. Pike’s home had always been Atrox Manor, and the men remained behind to further their research. In order to raise a spirit, Ryker needed the correct bones to lay the foundation, and he had no success finding his remaining two Arch Mages. The only notation he could find was mention of Evony Mitexi who fell in Cendalisia, but there was no mention of a grave. Of Dorian Lark, his destroyer, there was nothing.

Pike clinked the rings into a pocket and withdrew a brooch from another, always working out new patterns. What he lacked was creativity, but Ryker supplied ideas when able.

“I tested the wards on Castle Jaden last night,” Ryker offered. Pike raised his eyes. “The boy added new ones.”

“Paranoid, tha’ one.”

“There is an unfinished wing in the south mountain dug straight int’ the rock, walled off, ac abandoned without much warding. I hoped the boy hadn’t found it, but he did ac set up a dozen new wards.”

“What kinds?”

“The kinds what connect t’ a person ac alert them when touched. No sneaking in there.”

“Doesn’t Maxine have a ring t’ get pas’ wards?” Pike asked.

“Nay, she says it was lost when she was mummified. Lost int’ someone’s pocket.”

Pike scratched his head. “All I could fashion would be another Unwind. I don’ know how the Creator did it.” Despite being brilliant, Pike had his limits, and contrary to popular myth, Pike had not created the Medallion of Unwind.

“Would y’ ring par Anabel?”

Pike drew strings of Earth from his chest and sank them into the floor, snapping two between his fingers. Somewhere a bell tinkled in the distance. They heard steps on the staircase moments later. Anabel entered in a loose dress of rust, a pinched expression on her face. She was a Fire Mage with brown hair falling to her collarbone, young enough to still be pretty but wise enough not to provoke them. Ryker pulled her out of her home in Aidenmar to be his cook, and though she tried to poison him at least once, she was excellent behind the stove.

“Tea,” Ryker stated. “Bring four cups.”

Her face was blank, and she nodded her head. Ryker knew she pinched her lips to not spill a tirade. She left behind two young children and a teen, claiming their father had died a year before. Unfortunately, she was still not broken.

“Will Maxine join us?”

“She ac Nolen, I think.” Ryker pulled threads of Spirit from his chest and laid a pattern that he quickly shot through the wall southward. Maxine appeared a few minutes later, towing the Air Mage with her.

Maxine was the loveliest woman Ryker had ever seen. She had a long slender figure, full hips and ample bosom with a pretty heart-shaped face. She was lithe and winsome, graceful and elegant, and the absolute best manipulator the Ages had birthed. Her color of choice was red, and she was almost always draped in a shade of it.

“Good morning,” she said in a smooth tone, her accent slight. “Pike, how well do you fair today?”

“Better, my dear,” Pike smiled and stood to give her a bow as was ancient Aidenmarian custom. “I have fashioned you a new bead.” He withdrew a cloth from his pocket and slowly unwrapped a dark green bead no larger than a pea.

“Delightful,” she smiled radiantly and unclasped the back of a gold necklace. “And Ryker, how fairs my lord?”

“Well,” Ryker nodded, watching her thread the bead onto the necklace that already contained two. “Nolen, what do you have for me?”

The ex-prince was almost dwarfed by Maxine’s power. The woman could enter a room and make one forget there was anyone else. However, while a weak Class Five in Air, Nolen had proven he had the skills and tenacity to capture, enslave, and break a Mage twice his Class. Nolen was a handsome man, and had he not been, he would not be in Maxine’s company. She had been sure to dress him in the best clothes that befit one of her consorts, and today he wore a tall-collared black coat trimmed in green.

One of Nolen’s fingers lay marked in the center of a book, and he lifted it when Ryker spoke. “I recovered a book that states Arch Mage Evony was captured in Cendalisia in 3213—”

“
When?
” Ryker cut in. “That is almost 300 years after the Mage Wars. I thought she died a year after them.”

“No, tha’ was me,” Pike muttered discontentedly.

Maxine shot him a consoling look, well aware Pike had been captured after the Mage Wars by Jaden and tortured to death.

“The book states she appeared in Cendalisia and began arbitrarily tearing the city down, but she was taken by their Mages. Upon discovering her true identity, she was burned at the stake, and her bones entombed in the…” he flipped the page, “Gerwin Graveyard.”

“Is there anything left of Cendalisia?” Maxine asked Ryker.

He shook his head. “It is ruins, like all the others.”

“At least we have a place t’ look,” Pike replied. Anabel entered carrying a tray of porcelain and began mixing their cups.

“My dear Maxine, I have a proposal for y’,” Ryker said as she took a cup. “I want y’ t’ get int’ Jaden.”

Nolen made a scoffing noise, but Maxine only smiled. “Through the front gates?”

“Do they know your face? Portraits are never quite accurate ac fade.”

She grinned wickedly. “And what would you have me do?”

“Politely introduce yourself t’ the Head Mage.”

“Oh, I would like that. Nolen has told me so much of him.” She smiled over her teacup, formulating plans behind her cold blue eyes.

“I want t’ know how the castle fairs under his control, how many people are within, ac what they know of us. While you’re inside, try ac snag a piece of the Head Mage ac tell him we send our greetings.”

“I could leave immediately.” She straightened and set her cup down.

“Just don’ get captured,” Pike offered.

“Aye, you’re alone if y’ do.”

She stood and swished her red skirts defiantly. “Dear men, I can talk my way out of anything.” She paid each of them a fond glance. “Keep Nolen busy while I am gone.”

She seized Void, and her tightly curled blonde hair turned white and seemed to lift up at the ends. Her eyes devoid of color, she laid a black pattern and vanished.

Ryker took a sip of his tea and looked up. “Nolen, see if y’ can find maps of Cendalisia in the library that mark the graveyard.”