The Mortal Mage, page 4
part #3 of The Mortal Mage Series
“Why must I choose?”
“Because I am a fair king. The suggestion of a foreign princess might be valuable.”
“What would be more valuable is a discussion of trade. We have food we can get to your people so they need not be killed off, and your older citizens can live without fear.”
The crowd stirred, hopeful energy buzzing.
“What food?” the king asked.
“We can bring grains, rice, and animals to be milked or slaughtered.”
“And when will you bring these to us?” Karoltow spoke as if he didn’t believe her.
She thought quickly. It was unlikely she had the power to get any of the things she was promising, given her brother’s order for her head. But if she somehow did manage to return to Basen, then she and the headmaster could find a way to obtain what these people needed. Then all it would take was a portal to get the supplies here. But was she supposed to keep Basen’s ability a secret from these people?
“Answer me, and do not lie!” Karoltow made a fist as his arms rested on his stone throne.
“I don’t know the exact amount of food or how long it will take, but we will return with all that you require. I only ask that you provide us with eppil vines in return.” There, she had finally gotten out the details of the trade.
Many members of the crowd spoke to one another in surprise. The king turned his attention toward the loudest group and they quieted. The rest settled down immediately after.
“Was it Basen Hiller who sent you here?” Karoltow asked her.
She still wasn’t sure if a psychic was present, but she didn’t see the need to lie in this moment. “Yes.”
The king seemed like the kind of man who would put his people and himself through a great ordeal to use someone like Basen for his portal-making ability.
“We can speak more about this when you have time,” she suggested.
The king blew out his breath. “I will as soon as you choose one among these criminals. Who deserves to live the least? The young man, the woman, or the old? You must pick one. Then I will speak to you about food and eppil.”
She fell silent. What could she say?
Leaving with nothing would suffice at this point, so long as she didn’t have to choose.
“Who does Kyrro value the least?” Karoltow prodded. “Thieves, whores, or the useless?”
Thieves was the answer to a question phrased in such a way, but it was not the right answer for this trial.
He slammed his fist onto the armrest of the throne. “All three will be killed if you do not pick one!”
She swallowed bile as she turned around to look at each of them again.
“Speak your thoughts!” the king ordered hastily in a shrill voice.
It was clear by then that her delays had not and would not work.
He’d spoken of eppil as if he had it and would be willing to get rid of it. And why wouldn’t he? It sickened everyone who came close. There had been no known uses for the poisonous plant until Beatrix and her group had witnessed the Marros drop clusters of it past akorell metal so it would absorb a tremendous amount of bastial energy and eventually explode. Now everyone with power in Ovira knew what it could do: the Elves, the Wind Knights, Beatrix’s brother…but did the king of Tenred know? Now was not the time to wonder. She had to take a life.
She cursed Karoltow inwardly. He would pay for this. It might not be this year or even the next, but when she returned to Kyrro and settled everything that had gone awry at the start of the war, she would figure out the right judgment for this cruel king.
There was only one person she could choose and still find enough inner peace to sleep at night. She might see his wrinkly face for the rest of her life, but he was already in pain. He was ready to die, even if he was afraid and the most innocent.
“The old man,” she said apologetically. “If I must make a choice, it is him, but I do not believe he should be killed. The old should be treated with—”
“Enough, foreigner. You insult us by claiming to know more than we do. Axe, come here.” Karoltow said something quiet to his executioner.
Beatrix didn’t want to look back at the old man, even though she knew it was right to at least show him her face. A tear rolled down her cheek. She gathered her strength and turned her head. He already had his eyes on her, nodding as if to forgive her.
She couldn’t look a moment longer without a budding weep escaping. She straightened out and stared at the floor as the executioner walked past her with his ax.
The armored guards followed the executioner carrying three blocks of stone, each with a smooth chunk missing, and told the prisoners to put their heads in position. Beatrix still couldn’t look. The king had yet to decree who would die, but she knew it would be the old man. She could feel from Karoltow’s energy that he had awaited her answer eagerly. If it wasn’t going to matter, he wouldn’t have cared as much.
The fear of the prisoners was overwhelming. Beatrix could feel nothing else, not even her own emotions. But somehow, everyone remained silent. Neither the young man nor the woman let out so much as a whimper. Perhaps they, too, knew they would be spared.
There was a soft singing of metal. The crowd gasped as the ax sliced through the old man’s neck.
Beatrix still wouldn’t turn around. She heard the woman prisoner crying. She had been in the center, close enough to the horrible act to be sprayed by blood.
Her crying intensified. Soon she was screaming, “No! No! N—”
Her voice cut off.
Beatrix spun around as the woman’s head rolled away from her body. On one side, the old man was being pulled to his feet, his head still attached. But the young man…his head was collected in the same bag as the woman’s by one of the guards.
“Turn around and face me, Princess,” Karoltow ordered.
He’d killed the other two! Why had he done this?
She didn’t spit at the king, only because she didn’t have the saliva in her dry mouth. He smiled—smiled!—at seeing her expression.
She seethed. “This amuses you?”
“I am not amused by their deaths. Your face, Princess—you act as if you’ve just watched your own siblings die, yet you know nothing of these wretched people.”
And you know nothing of me or my siblings. Beatrix forced herself to calm down through psyche and took a deep breath.
“Shall we discuss our trade privately now that the trial is over?” she asked. “I’m sure your people have better things to do than stay here and overhear matters you will handle on your own.”
She could feel his surprise at her demeanor change. He lost his grin for a moment, but it came back as a crooked twist of his mouth.
“Tell me something first, Princess.”
It bothered her how he kept using the word as if he didn’t believe who she was. Her father may be dead, and her brother, the king, might put her in the ground as well eventually, but she was still an Estlander.
“What could you want with a poisonous plant?” Karoltow asked.
“I don’t want the vines for myself. Basen Hiller requires them for something he’s creating, a test of some kind. We cannot find eppil in Ovira because the Slugari destroy them, so we’ve come here.”
“Because the Hiller knows that I can get anything anyone requires,” the king boasted.
Except adequate food for your people.
“You still haven’t explained what Basen plans to do,” Karoltow continued. “What kind of test could require eppil vines?”
If he found out about the explosions, a fourth kingdom could be involved in this war—the Elves being the third, after Kyrro and Tenred.
She tried to think of how to answer.
“Say it,” Karoltow demanded.
“I don’t know the test myself,” she lied, hoping no psychic was there to detect it. “He sent me before telling me.”
The king asked the crowd, “Does anyone know of even a single use for eppil vines that doesn’t involve making a man sick?”
No one spoke up.
“Anyone?” Karoltow prodded. “A goat to the first person who suggests something believable, that’s all I ask!”
There were murmurs, but no one answered.
She took the chance to speak in a near whisper. “Please, Sire. Let us speak in private.” Where I can manipulate your energy easier.
The king continued to speak loud enough for the crowd to hear. “If you mean to poison someone, there are countless ways that are better than eppil. Tell the truth, Princess. This is your last chance.” There wasn’t much anger in his tone, but she could feel it strongly from his energy.
She needed time to think. “If you refuse to meet privately, I will take my officer and leave.”
The king slammed his fist down on the armrest again. “It’s easier to put you in prison and have your father bring something to trade for you!” He stood and pointed at his guards. “I don’t want to see her again until she’s ready to cooperate.”
“No one, not even my father, will come for me if I do not return!”
The armored men put their hands on her. She had half a mind to pain them, like she’d done in front of her brother’s army when trying to get to the truth. Remembering how well that had turned out—they’d taken her to the torture chambers and nearly killed her—Beatrix decided to cooperate this time. She wouldn’t flee this place without Kirnich anyway.
“A message will be sent to your father if you do not cooperate, and I will deal with him from now on.”
They still didn’t know she was a psychic. Perhaps she might be able to use that to escape. The king did seem to know the whereabouts of eppil vines, and they obviously meant nothing to him. It was likely they weren’t in the castle but somewhere she could reach with Desil and Kirnich.
She just had to get out of here. Beatrix tried to explain to the guards practically carrying her out of the throne room that her father was at war and sick. He wouldn’t be able to come here to negotiate her release.
“I will cooperate with Karoltow, though,” she added. “I will speak to him whenever he has time.”
When they did speak, no agreement would be met, and she would leave. They just had to have the meeting.
The guards didn’t say a word as they led her through the corridors. It wasn’t long until they came to prison cells that hardly seemed separated from the rest of this place. Ten doors without windows, five facing each other, made up a hallway that appeared no different than the others. One guard unlocked a door and the rest pushed her inside.
“Does anyone in this place have the decency to do something about an injustice!” she yelled as they slammed the door.
She heard them walk off, even as she continued to yell. “Where is Kirnich?”
She waited, but there was no reply. She checked her new surroundings.
Her cell was small. She could only take four steps in any direction before reaching a wall. There was a bed of straw with a grimy bucket beside it. A barred window was too high for her to see out of until she climbed onto her bed. She went up for a look.
“Beatrix?” It was Kirnich calling to her from somewhere nearby.
“Yes, where are you?”
“I think I’m in the cell next to you.”
Beatrix tried to look down out the window, but she wasn’t tall enough. All she could see was sky and mountains.
“How high are we?”
“Not very. We’re on the ground level.”
She could hear hope in his voice. Desil would come for them eventually, but first he had to figure out where they were. How long would he wait in that cave before he decided to come for them? A day at least, she figured.
It was cold in the cell, and she was already suffering from hunger and thirst.
It’s going to be fine, she told herself. The king would make sure she was fed.
But fear crept up as the hours passed by without anyone coming to check on her.
“I am ready to cooperate!” she announced several times after explaining to Kirnich what had happened. “I wish to speak to King Karoltow, and we require food and water.”
“Beatrix,” Kirnich said eventually in a dire tone. “He’s doing this on purpose. You should save your strength. Rest if you can.”
“He’s not going to leave us here to die.” She spoke both of the king and of Desil. “But I suppose resting is a good idea, nonetheless.”
She closed her eyes and prepared to put herself to sleep with psyche. She’d been manipulating her own energy too much since she’d come here, possibly creating a dependency, but she didn’t see how else she could fall asleep through her terrible hunger and thirst.
It was night when she awoke. She wasn’t able to see a thing. She crawled around her small cell, hopeful that someone had come in and left a tray of food and water, but there was nothing to find on the cold ground. She was shivering by the time she got back in bed. There was no blanket, no pillow. The wind had picked up, fighting to enter her cell as it screamed past her window.
It was her thirst that bothered her the most now. Her throat was full of needles.
She would put herself back to sleep again, though she would wake soon from the discomfort. She wanted to call to Kirnich, to see how he fared. But he was right that they would need their strength. Besides, she wasn’t sure she could make a sound loud enough for him to hear over the wind.
She wanted to kill Karoltow. Her heart trilled as she thought that it might actually be possible. If she could convince him to meet, she could certainly find a way of obtaining a knife, paining his guards, and stabbing him until he was dead. That should be easy. Escaping would be the hard part.
She fell asleep to the comforting thoughts of thrusting a blade into the king’s fat chest.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was tempting for Desil to walk to the citadel and ask about Beatrix and Kirnich, but this would be a foolish decision for a number of reasons. If they had been killed, then Desil’s wish to free them could be taken as a threat. He would be killed too. But if they were still alive and only imprisoned, the risk was less. Desil would either be sent away or imprisoned like them. Unless of course the people of the citadel decided to kill him.
Beatrix and Kirnich had tried to keep the portal they’d taken here a secret, in case it wasn’t supposed to be known, and for all Desil knew they had succeeded. However, if Desil showed up right after Beatrix and Kirnich, this might cause the people in the citadel to be suspicious as to how Desil got there so quickly. It normally took three days by boat to cross the sea between Ovira and Greenedge.
There were too many unknowns for Desil to take the risk of approaching.
He decided he would observe what he could before he came to a plan. That required climbing somewhere high—not usually a problem—except it was in this weather. His armor and his cloak protected him some against the wind, but he still might freeze without a coat. But what else could he do? He’d been through this cave enough to tell that there was nothing here he could use for warmth.
Out of ideas, he ate his breakfast of uncooked beetles and set out with nothing but his cloak and leather armor, a flask of water, and the small hope he wouldn’t freeze. His two comrades had already been in the citadel for a day, making him wish he’d done this earlier. He refused to believe they were dead, though the thought did enter his mind many times as he left the cave and started up the side of the mountain.
Snow had collected in the natural handholds, so Desil was forced to create his own by softening the rock and shoving his gloved hands and feet into it each step of the way.
His teeth chattered. The wind was ice made air. It was hard to keep his concentration, but his fear of falling helped.
He panicked when his foot slipped out from one of the holes. He cursed himself as he flailed. He’d made the rock too soft. His foot had pushed through as if the rock was mud. His power over the mountainside surprised him. Normally the softest he could make the rock was still so hard that he hurt his hands stabbing them into the jagged texture. But now he had to hold back or his limbs would slip through.
He found the right level of manipulation to continue without worry and eventually came to the top. The rock was flat in many places here, where hard snow had collected. Desil tested each step before putting his full weight down, ensuring there were no hidden holes. The snow fell into a crevice as he prodded an area with his foot. It was so deep and twisted that Desil was nearly certain he would break a leg if he fell. He kept his distance from it as he walked around and soon found the best vantage point to observe the citadel.
The mountain Desil had chosen was just taller than most of the citadel, but he still couldn’t see over its enormous towers. The place was a fortress. So the field of bones must’ve had to do with a battle after all, for this citadel appeared to be built to withstand an attack. Its walls were thick, with many slits for archers to shoot from. A long and thin bridge was easy to defend. Even if attackers made it to the huge doors that appeared to be the only entrance, there were countless places from which to shoot arrows and fireballs down onto them as they tried to ram it.
The citadel received a number of visitors, Desil saw. There was a slow trickle of people either headed across the bridge, toward the doors, or on their way back. It seemed they were all attempting to get inside, as if they sought the protection of these walls.
The cold was getting to Desil, making it difficult to think. His feet felt numb as he stood ankle deep in the snow, his shivers turning violent. He made himself ignore it as he tried to figure out this place. What else could these people want by visiting the citadel if they didn’t seek shelter?
He watched them for what felt to be an hour and eventually noticed a pattern. Those with cargo, always on horseback, were let in, while those who apparently had nothing were turned away. It seemed to him that these people were offering payment.
