Warrior Prime, page 30
part #1 of Ink Mage Legacy Series
Torchlight. Somebody was coming up the canal toward the dome.
Peyne turned over to wake Maurizan. She wasn’t there. He turned the other way. Jaff wasn’t there either. Peyne was alone.
Well, that’s just fucking typical.
He squinted down the length of the canal. Two men tromped through the shallow water. Peyne swallowed a lump of fear as he realized one of them was the huge bearded bruiser from the Last Village.
Peyne stood slowly, looking around for his sword and boots. Damn it, they were back in a pile with his shirt near the boiler chamber. He’d stripped it all off to shovel coal and then—
An iron grip around his throat yanked him upward until Peyne was standing on tiptoe gasping for breath. He looked up into the grinning face of the huge ink mage they called Hak, his hard eyes glinting in the torchlight coming up behind Peyne.
Peyne tried to pry the fingers from around his throat. He might as well have been trying to bend iron.
“The others?” Hak asked the men behind Peyne.
“No sign of them.” Peyne recognized the brute’s voice.
Hak’s eyes slid to Peyne. The ink mage’s predatory grin widened. “Never mind, Klamud. This one will tell us. How about it, little man? Where are your friends?”
Peyne opened his mouth to say something but could utter only a strangled squawk.
Hak released his grip on Peyne’s throat.
Peyne flopped to the ground, coughing and gasping for breath. He glanced up at the ink mage looming over him. Peyne had seen the power of the tattoos, had seen Zayda outmatch men twice her size. There was no chance he could take on this giant. A scimitar hung from Hak’s belt. His tunic was sleeveless to show off tattoos Peyne didn’t recognize. One of the little control scepters sprouted from his sash.
He doesn’t have a handler. Probably ate him.
Hak went to one knee to get eye level with Peyne. “Now, I believe you wanted to say something.”
“They’re dead,” Peyne said. “No water. I barely made it here myself.”
Hak grabbed Peyne’s hand, took his pointer finger. And bent it.
Snap.
Peyne’s eyes shot wide, mouth falling open as he took in a ragged breath, pain shooting through him. A cold sweat broke out across his face, mouth falling open, a disbelieving groan.
“You’ve got nine more,” Hak said.
Peyne shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Hak moved to the next finger. Snap.
This time, Peyne screamed.
“Please,” Peyne said. “They were here but gone when I woke up. Maybe they heard you coming. I don’t know where—”
Snap.
Another scream. The world spun, and a second later, his head hit the ground. He convulsed once, twice, then vomited.
“Maybe he really doesn’t know,” Klamud said.
“That’s fine too,” Hak replied.
Snap.
Meddigar was forced to pause every time Venny stopped to gawk at something. Her delicate hands flew over the sketchbook, trying to draw everything at once. She’d said she wanted to wait for daylight to draw the great domed palace. But the statue of the armored man caught her attention on the way inside, and she stood looking up at it with the same wide-eyed awe she had with everything else in the city.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” Meddigar said. “Normally, I’d indulge you, but we’re in a bit of a hurry.”
“Someone’s been here,” Priya said. The ink mage pointed at a trail from the statue to the palace’s main entrance where the sand had been disturbed.
Once the tracks were pointed out, the trail was obvious. In this particular case, one didn’t need Krokett’s tracking skills to see someone had passed through here recently.
It has to be Maurizan, Meddigar thought. He regretted suddenly not bringing Hak along. Maurizan was formidable. She’d demonstrated that already. Surely Meddigar and Priya together could handle her.
He hoped.
Meddigar noticed the two women were staring at him.
“Come,” he said, trying to sound confident and decisive. “I remember the way.”
He was pleasantly surprised to discover it was true. He led the two women directly to the workshop of the ancient wizards. The door stood open, but the interior was dark.
“Someone’s been here,” Meddigar said.
He readied a spell and entered, Priya and Venny following closely.
The globe of light flickered and brightened overhead, startling the two women.
“It’s normal. Don’t worry,” the wizard told them. “One of the many miracles to be found here. I think it’s a spell triggered by movement.” The wizard scanned the room quickly. No sign of Maurizan.
“Amazing.” Venny’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Priya lingered near the doorway, examining the floor and the tracks in the dust. “Lots of coming and going.”
“Which set of tracks are the freshest?” Meddigar asked.
Priya shook her head. “That’s a question for Krokett. Not for me.”
Meddigar scratched his beard, pondering. He didn’t like the idea of Maurizan lurking around out there, ready to pounce at any time. “I need you to find her.”
Priya nodded.
“Do not engage her,” the wizard said. “Just find her and report back. I don’t want her sneaking up on us.”
“She killed Pinni. My sister,” Priya said. “If I find her, I’m going to—”
“She’ll destroy you,” Meddigar said flatly. “Find her. Stay hidden. If you find nothing in an hour, come back.”
Priya held the wizard’s gaze for a long moment, eyes intense. Reluctantly, she nodded.
“You have a torch?”
“If I’m trying to stay hidden, then a torch is a bad idea,” she said. “Don’t worry. I’ll find my way.”
She turned abruptly and left.
“She’s hot tempered,” Venny said a moment later.
“You’re good at reading people,” Meddigar said.
“I am. But you don’t need to be for her. She’s liable to go for blood, in spite of what you told her.”
“Then she’ll die.”
Venny looked around. “And this place?”
“The workshops of one of the city’s wizards.”
“One of the wizards?”
“I don’t know anything for certain,” Meddigar admitted. “A bit of history. A bit of legend. A lot of guessing. But scholars believe there was a great Fyrian wizard with many apprentices. Each of these apprentices was a master wizard in his own right. On my last trip, I made a careful examination of everything in this workshop. They’re almost exclusively items connected with ink magic. I believe this was the workshop of an apprentice assigned specifically to the task.”
“Then the workshop of this great master wizard is still out there somewhere,” Venny said.
A wan smile from Meddigar. “If it is, I didn’t find it.”
Venny walked past the shelves, eyeing the various jars and vials. “These are ingredients?”
“Yes. For ink mostly. I must confess I’ve only barely started figuring it all out. With food and water in short supply, I was forced to head back to civilization.”
Venny paused to squint at a jar filled with what looked like small, dried bat wings, leathery and black. “These are . . . interesting.”
“Come this way.” Meddigar gestured she should follow him. “The really interesting things were kept under lock and key. Here, I’ll show you.”
He approached the little alcove and swept the curtain aside. “The needles and specialized—shit!”
He stepped back as Zayda emerged from the alcove, his hand going toward his pocket.
The tip of Zayda’s scimitar was underneath Meddigar’s chin in an instant. “Don’t.”
The wizard froze.
Zayda’s eyes flicked to Venny. “I’ve no quarrel with you. Just stay back.”
Venny took two large steps back.
“Thank you.”
Very slowly, Zayda leaned in, reaching into Meddigar’s pocket, the other hand keeping her sword tip against Meddigar’s throat. She came out with the jeweled scepter and took a step back, the scimitar never wavering.
“Say one word I don’t understand, and I’ll assume it’s a spell and run you through,” Zayda said.
“You don’t want to kill me. You could have done that straightaway.”
“And I still can whenever the whim strikes me,” Zayda said. “But if you can be helpful, you might live.”
They stood that way a moment while he considered. If he began a spell, she’d skewer him. And he no longer had the scepter. His options appeared limited.
“How may I be of assistance?” Meddigar asked.
“The chair makes the collars, yes?”
Meddigar’s eye went to the chair, then came back to Zayda. “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s rather complicated. I’m not sure—”
“Use small words.”
The wizard cleared his throat. “When you pull the first lever, the rods with the coils move in around the subject’s throat. They create . . . uh . . . a field. A disturbance in the air.”
Confusion on Zayda’s face.
“You know how the air feels different during a lightning storm?”
A pause. Then Zayda nodded.
“Similar,” he said. “The liquid metal flows down the tubes. The rods create an energy that alters the structure of the metal, changing it from liquid to solid. The person in the chair gets a new collar.”
“There was no chair for me,” Zayda pointed out.
Meddigar grinned. “I had to cheat a bit. The chair isn’t exactly portable. I managed to create a spell that duplicated the effect.”
Zayda took a deep breath, then asked, “Is it reversible?”
A long pause. “Yes.”
“Show me.”
Meddigar hesitated.
The pressure of the sword tip on his throat increased just enough for Zayda to make her point.
“Very well,” he said. “The final lever makes the rods spin the other way. I deduce it somehow reverses—”
A flash of metal tumbled through the air toward them. No one in the world but an ink mage could have reacted quickly enough.
Zayda wheeled, her scimitar striking the flying dagger out of midair with a sharp clang.
Priya was already running along the tops of the tables, rattling beakers and vials as she went and drawing her own scimitar as she aimed a flying kick at Zayda, a look of intense focus on her face. Zayda ducked beneath the kick and popped back up just in time to block Priya’s sword thrust.
Meddigar stumbled back, hand automatically going to his throat, relief flooding him. He readied a spell, intending to spray Zayda with fire, but stopped himself. He couldn’t strike one ink mage without hitting the other.
The workshop rang with the flurried swing, block, thrust, parry of their blades. The movements were almost too fast for Meddigar to follow. Venny pressed her back flat against the wall, trying to make herself small, watching the duel wide-eyed, mouth agape.
Priya thrust, and instead of blocking it, Zayda sidestepped and brought her other hand around, smashing the jeweled scepter against the side of Priya’s head.
Priya grunted, her other hand coming up to grab Zayda’s wrist. She twisted.
Zayda grimaced and let go of the scepter.
Meddigar followed it with his eyes as the scepter bounced on the nearest worktable, rolled, and fell off the other side.
The wizard went for it.
In the corner of his vision, he saw Zayda thrust her scimitar into Priya’s belly, angling the blade upward. Disarming Zayda of the scepter must have left her open. Likely it had been Zayda’s ploy all along. Priya shuddered, mouth falling open. Then a cough, blood flecking over her bottom lip. Priya slid off Zayda’s blade and crumpled to the floor with a lifeless thud.
Zayda was already leaping across the table at the wizard.
Too late.
Meddigar activated the scepter.
Zayda fell out of the air in midleap, screaming. She crashed against the table, rolled off, and hit the floor hard, air whuffing out of her. Meddigar activated the scepter again. More screams as she writhed on the ground, agony shooting through her.
Meddigar moved around the table, putting himself between Venny and Zayda, scepter still held aloft, ready to unleash punishment again in an instant. “No need to worry now, my dear. Everything is under control.”
Venny nodded dumbly, mouth still hanging open.
“You had me worried there for a moment,” he said to Zayda.
Zayda tried to lift her head, tried to focus her eyes.
“I believe you’ve illustrated beautifully the need for these collars,” Meddigar told her. “I thought it cruel at first, but ink mages are dangerous. Useful tools, yes, but dangerous, and precautions are necessary. Thank you for helping reinforce this point. However, you, young Zayda, I have deemed more trouble than you’re worth. Time to say goodbye to the world.”
The wizard activated the scepter again. If possible, Zayda’s screams were even more agonized, back arching off the floor, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
Peyne cradled his right hand against his chest, four fingers and a thumb broken. He curled in a fetal position, feeling dizzy and sick, the ink mage, bruiser, and other soldier standing in a little circle looking down at him.
“He doesn’t know,” Klamud said.
“They’re around here someplace,” Hak insisted.
“Or maybe they don’t like him. Left him behind.”
Peyne wanted to object to that but worried if he moved, he would vomit again.
Splashing and the clank of metal in the distance. All three men froze.
“Somebody’s out there,” Hak said.
“Trying to sneak away maybe.”
Hak thought about it. “Go out there and take a look. Both of you.”
The other two men looked at each other, and then Klamud said, “Us?”
Hak scowled at them. “Just take a look.”
The two men left the dome, skulking along the canal.
Hak made a slow turn, attempting to peer into every shadowed corner. It was quiet except for Peyne’s low groaning.
“Something’s odd,” Hak said.
Go fuck yourself. Peyne wished he’d had the balls to say it out loud.
No, I don’t.
Hak examined the group’s belongings. “The waterskins are still here. They might leave you if they were running away, but they wouldn’t leave those. Where are your little friends hiding, eh?”
Peyne closed his eyes, pretending he’d passed out.
A moment later, he opened his eyes again. He couldn’t help it. He had to know what the big ink mage was doing.
Think. There’s a way out of this. There’s always a way.
Except that wasn’t really true, was it? The first rule of luck was that it eventually ran out.
He watched as Hak moved toward the open doorway to the aquifer. “What’s this then? This where the water comes from?”
It used to.
Hak climbed up through the doorway, then stood at the edge of the gaping hole leading down into deep darkness.
And then suddenly Maurizan was there.
She must have been hiding around the corner within the aquifer chamber the whole time, standing totally still, waiting for her chance.
Peyne would have cheered, if he’d had the energy. He lifted his head, and seeing her in action sparked hope in his chest.
She’d launched herself at Hak, a flying kick that landed in the small of his back.
Peyne struggled to one knee. He had to see this. His hand throbbed, but he grinned.
Hak flew forward, hands flailing, over the side into the dark drop below.
To the center of the world with you, you son of a bitch!
Hak turned in midair as he fell, face utterly calm. One of his hands shot out and grabbed the edge, supernaturally strong fingers sinking into the metal for purchase.
Peyne’s triumphant grin fell. No!
Hak pulled himself up, but Maurizan was already on him, stabbing a dagger straight toward his face. His free hand shot up with impossible speed, catching her blade three inches from his nose. Hak’s arm had turned to gray stone up to the elbow. He twisted his hand, and the dagger blade snapped with a ting.
Hak swept the stone hand in a wicked backhand toward Maurizan’s knee. She backflipped out of the way, landing in a fighter’s crouch, shifting her remaining dagger from her left hand to her right. Hak was already climbing out to face her.
He stood with legs apart, drew his scimitar, and grinned.
Maurizan bent slowly, never taking her eyes off Hak, and drew a short knife from her boot. A poor substitute for the broken dagger but better than nothing.
“I’d hoped we would meet again, Maurizan,” Hak said. “Your glowing friend is not here to save you this time.”
The world was a blur of pain.
The wizard was saying something again, but it was all a muffled chatter beyond the haze of agony. Zayda tried to lift her head and failed. All she could do was writhe on the ground and wait to die.
And then suddenly the pain stopped.
Zayda’s eyes creaked open. A line of drool had spilled down the side of her face to drip on the floor where she lay. The blur looming above her gelled into the figure of Meddigar. He’d come forward to gloat one last time maybe, the jeweled scepter held tightly in his fist.
“You’re made of stern stuff. I’ll give you that, girl.” Meddigar thumbed a dial beneath the scepter’s little globe. “But I think one more good jolt on the highest setting should finish things, don’t you agree? A shame it had to come to this, but—”
Meddigar’s eyes shot wide. Face twitched. He sucked in a sharp breath. Then turned to look behind him.
Venny stepped back, pulled the thin stiletto from the wizard’s side. Blood stained two thirds of the blade.
Meddigar’s face twisted in pure astonishment. “Why?” His voice a weak whisper.
Her answer was another sharp thrust into his gut. Blood washed over her hand. She pulled the blade out and stabbed again.
