The Deadly Magician (The Memory Stones Series Book 2) Page 18

  “We have a new guest,” Donal rumbled as he gestured with a hand. Theus heard the door close behind him.

  “This one is a special guest,” Donal addressed the chained audience in the room. He began to stroll, walking towards the people who were chained in a line.

  “This guest may be able to do what all of you together are doing, and he seems able to do it without suffering any consequences,” Donal spoke as though he were lecturing a class. There was a shuffling and murmuring in reaction to the comment.

  Donal reached his hand to touch the first of the chained slaves, an elderly woman who wore exotic attire that fitted her thin frame poorly, sagging and drooping to reveal the spotted and wrinkled skin of her torso. The woman shrank from Donal’s touch in fear, but his fingers simply grazed across her shoulder, and he continued to walk on past her.

  “As you all know, you are the donors who surrender your life force to me, so that I may have the powers to fulfill our king’s wishes,” he continued to lecture, though his eyes were trained on Theus as he took slow, ponderous steps and spoke.

  “And the small price you pay is to surrender a few years of your life each time you surrender your gift to me,” Donal said. He reached a second elderly woman, and stopped beside her, his hand resting atop her head as she squirmed and cried.

  “Look at this good woman,” he spoke directly to Theus for the first time. “Do you know how old she is?” he asked.

  Theus silently shook his head.

  “What? You don’t respect her enough to give her your time?” Donal asked mockingly.

  “She is approximately the same age as you,” the magician told him.

  Theus cocked his head skeptically.

  “Go on, tell him,” Donal’s hand wagged the woman’s head, prodding her to respond.

  “I’ll be eighteen at my next birthday,” she told Theus is a weepy voice. “If I reach it,” she added in a lower voice, then began to weep.

  “That’s enough, dear,” Donal said with mock affection. His hand shoved the girl’s head cruelly as he walked away from her.

  The magician walked down to a middle-aged man, one whose back was stooped, as he sat disconsolately on a stool.

  “This fellow is hardly any older than you. How long have you been helping me, Furrel?” Donal asked.

  “Two months, my lord,” the man said in a low voice. “Will my service be finished soon?” he hesitated, then asked.

  “I can make it sooner,” Donal sneered in a threatening tone.

  “This young thing,” he walked down to a girl who looked nearly the same age as Theus, “Just arrived last week. She’s hardly begun to enjoy my company, have you my fancy?”

  “My lord,” she looked to Theus, not to Donal, “set us free, I beg you, my lord!”

  Donal reached down and grasped her shoulder in a vicious grip, his fingers digging into her flesh like talons of a bird of prey. He closed his eyes, and the girl released a scream of agony, as a glow formed around her. She passed out, and the glow crept up Donal’s arm and enveloped him, then faded.

  “That was bad form,” Donal announced as he released the girl and let her slump heavily to the floor.

  “But you,” Donal began to walk towards Theus, “you are different.”

  “When I touched your companion in the restaurant, you held her hand. I should have been able to collect the bounty from both of you at the same time. I felt her life force ready to come to me, but then I felt yours.

  “And after a moment,” Donal said, as he stepped closer to Theus, “I felt yours do something I’ve never encountered before. It felt as though the flow of energy came not from you, but through you. You seemed to simply be a well that tapped into an underground stream.

  “Until you pulled some trick and ejected me, that is,” Donal’s voice turned darker as he reached Theus’s side.

  “You are a puzzle,” Donal stated. “I have learned a great deal of dark magic, a very great deal. But nothing I have learned has taught me about how to handle a strange anomaly like you.

  “I discovered the dark lord Ind’Petro in my dreams when I was in exile in the southern mountains. The other magicians thought that my ethics were too vile even for their unsavory company,” the magician chuckled as he reminisced. “But Ind’Petro led me to his ancient, abandoned temple, and he showed me darker powers than anyone else alive had ever imagined, powers that allowed me to do this,” he swept his arms towards his aging victims.

  “And so now I labor in Ind’Petro’s name, ready to lead our nation to greatness and control of the world. In return I’ll restore Ind’Petro to prominence, and raise temples to his cult in all the nations we conquer, and see that sacrifices are made to raise him back to his place among the gods,” Donal was filled with his own imagined images of glory and power.

  “But in the meantime, I have these plebeian tasks to perform,” his voice lost its tones of grandiosity. He lowered his gaze, and stared silently at Theus for a moment.

  “There is much to learn about you. I look forward to the study. That is why you and she,” Donal indicated the unconscious girl on the floor, “will travel with me on the ship in the invasion fleet that sails to Steep Rise. I’ll need your energy, among others, and I’ll perhaps find time to study you.”

  Donal reached a hand out before Theus comprehended what it meant, and the man latched his strong grip onto Theus’s shoulder, then he closed his eyes.

  Theus felt the same horrible feeling again that he had felt when Donal had assaulted Torella the first time. He felt the naked vulnerability of his soul being exposed, then the headwinds that blew against him and around him and past him.

  Then he heard the voice again. Against this, I will give you all the protection I can.

  There was heat and a blinding flash, and then Theus realized he was sitting on the floor, dazed, while Donal also sat on the floor, many feet away, also looking unsettled by the encounter.

  “I should kill you!” Donal screamed, as his senses returned and he looked at Theus.

  “What are you doing? How do you fight?” the man demanded.

  Could he do the unthinkable? A wild notion exploded in Theus’s mind. Perhaps now, while the magician was rattled, he could be susceptible to a simple, old-fashioned assault, not one carried out with magic, but with fisticuffs and weapons. He rocked himself forward and up on his heels, then rose and sprinted towards the magician.

  He raced forward in the hopes that a tackle and a punch, and the striking of the magician’s head against the flagstone floor of the room, might render the man unconscious. And once the evil power wielder was knocked out, Theus would be able to lift him to a window and roll him out to his death on the pavement many feet below.

  Except that Donal wasn’t so befuddled that he didn’t recognize the danger he faced from Theus’s sudden charge at him. Donal lifted a hand and pointed it at Theus, emitting a soft beam of light that made the air around him grow thick and difficult to pass through, similar to what he had experienced in his vision during Donal’s theft of energy from him.

  He couldn’t reach the magician. The man kept his hand pointed at Theus, while he scrambled backwards. From his fingers flew a series of glowing darts. As each hit Theus it inflicted a wildly burning pain, and they knocked Theus backwards, making him land flat on his back, while Donal managed to rise to his feet. The magician circled around Theus to the door, then jerked it open.

  “Come! Come now! Come take this creature from my sight!” he bellowed.

  Theus felt overcome with pain. His hand touched his body, first at one spot, then another, expecting to find blood welling from open wounds. But at each spot there was no evidence of physical damage, only the grievous pain that resided in Theus’s mind.

  He shook his head. The tramp of boots echoes from the hallway, and two assistants arrived in the circular room as Theus managed to roll over onto his stomach. He began to push himself up onto his hands and knees when a boot suddenly appeared and kicked him in the f
ace, snapping his neck back and making him collapse on the floor once again.

  Two sets of hand grabbed his arms and pulled him upright.

  “I’ll have a great deal of fun with you when the work of this invasion is over,” Donal sneered at Theus. “You’re going to wish you’d never met me.” He motioned at the attendants, and they began to drag Theus away.

  He weakly struggled to make his legs move, to help him propel himself forward as the attendants moved forward. He became more aware of his actions as they descended flight after flight of steps. Then, to his surprise, he was taken outside and chained in the bed of a wagon. The vehicle began to roll forward, and an hour later Theus found himself at the water front, being driven up a plank and onto a large ship, then led down into a low, dark, moldy hold, and chained in place down where he could hear rats scrabbling across the planks of the ship’s internal structure.

  His head hurt badly, but he soon passed out, and so was blissfully spared feeling the pain. When he awoke hours later, he felt the motion of the ship, and he recognized that they were sailing out at sea. Donal had made good on his promise, and taken Theus along on the invasion. Theus too had made good on his pledge, though much less successfully. He had managed to leave the palace.

  Chapter 13

  Theus received two cups of water a day, and a bowl of cold porridge each day. For two days he was left abandoned in the ship’s hold while the vessel sailed north towards Steep Rise. On the third day the filthy and disheveled prisoner was unshackled and brought up to the deck of the ship, blinking from the exposure to the bright sunlight once again. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that Donal and a group of officers stood along one side of the ship, looking outward.

  Beyond them, Theus saw a mountainous shoreline on the horizon.

  “Come here, slave,” Donal spoke casually as he observed Theus on the deck.

  Theus was led by one of Donal’s assistants to where the group stood. From their vantage point Theus saw that dozens of other ships were in the surrounding waters, all part of the Southsand fleet sent to invade the small nation of Steep Rise, a neighbor to Southsand.

  From the looks of the shore line he observed, the name Steep Rise seemed an appropriate title. Although to the north, the land appeared to level out, directly east of the ship, and to the south, in the area where a ship’s officer was pointing, the landscape was mountains and fjords.

  “We’ll lead the fleet towards the harbor,” the captain was explaining to the group. His turned his attention back and forth from the landscape they were approaching to the group of officers, and mostly to Donal. “And just before we get close enough for the Steep Rise officers to start to raise the alarm, that’s when his greatness,” the ship’s officer nodded towards, Donal, “will unleash his magic that will neutralize the memory stones in the city.”

  Theus’s head jerked up, and his senses sharpened to three times their attentiveness before. Memory stones!

  Donal had some claimed power to neutralize memory stones? What could the evil magician possible think he could do, to neutralize the stones across an entire city. And what would be the point?

  “And why is harming their memory stones so important?” an officer from the group of army leaders asked. Theus realized that it was Montuse.

  “You shouldn’t dare to question me!” a flash of anger rose in Donal, unused to being questioned.

  “I’m sending my men into this harbor, into the face of defenses that are known to be the most effective in the world. Our men are going to drown because Steep Rise can hurl vast boulders a half a mile through the air with their strange ‘catapult’ machines that protect them from just such an invasion force as this,” Montuse responded strongly.

  “His majesty claims that you can protect us from those defenses, so that our ships can sail into the harbor and unload our invasion. But I want to know now – now that we’re on the very cusp of the battle – how you will protect is from those machines the Steep Rise forces own,” Montuse was insistent.

  “I’ll tell you how,” Donal had tamped down his annoyance. “The Steep Rise forces do control the ancient machines that give them the greatest defenses in the world,” he agreed. “But the defenses only work if they know how to use them. These machines were created centuries ago, and there is no one alive today who truly understands them.

  “The officers of Steep Rise have never faced a true invasion, because their reputation protects them so well,” Donal seemed to enjoy telling his story. “And so, I realized, we did not need to worry about how to avoid the catapults at all.”

  He paused dramatically.

  “You’re saying they can’t operate these weapons?” Montuse asked in confusion. “But I’ve heard people say they’ve actually seen them operate; they’ve seen the boulders fly from the peaks of the mountains and travel over the ocean waters to hit targets. You’re not right!”

  “People have seen such demonstrations,” Donal said with deadly calmness. “But only once every two years. Only as a show. Never at the drop of a hat.

  “Because,” Donal said, “the army has to use the ancient memory stones that contain all the instructions on the operations of the machines. No one alive could even make those catapults spit a cherry pit ten feet if the officers weren’t holding a memory stone to their foreheads, giving instructions to their clueless crews about each and every step that must be taken!

  “Once my magic neutralizes the memory stones, there will be no way for the men in the city to operate their defenses. The city harbor will be wide open, defenseless to prevent our ships from bringing death and conquest directly to their front door,” Donal finished.

  “Does that satisfy you, army man?” Donal asked in a threatening voice.

  “I merely asked the question an officer should ask,” Montuse said evenly.

  “And I merely am tempted to invoke my powers to punish your temerity in questioning me,” Donal said just as evenly, thrusting himself forward toward Montuse.

  Theus suddenly began a coughing spasm, bending over as he coughed loudly, seeking to divert attention, before Montuse became a victim of Donal’s wrath.

  When he stood up, he saw that all eyes were on him.

  “Little trouble maker, what’s your problem? Should I have you thrown to the sharks, just to be rid of you?” Donal asked angrily.

  “I’m not used to the fresh air,” Theus answered defiantly.

  Donal’s face grew dark as his anger, first at Montuse, then at Theus, mounted.

  “When will you remove their memory stone powers from them” Montuse asked a question to divert Donal once again. “Is it a complicated magic?”

  Donal switched his attention back to the officer, ignoring Theus once again.

  “The magic to prepare was very complicated, and required a great deal of power. I’ve gone through twenty assistants preparing it,” he looked over at Theus. “All the friends you made in the tower are finished serving me,” he intoned.

  “Bring the boy closer,” he said to his assistant, who stood by Theus.

  “But now, the steps needed here are simple. We simply create a breeze that will blow this powder,” he patted a stack of barrels that rested beside him, objects that Theus had ignored up until then, “across the water and throughout the city so that every memory stone is touched and neutralized by my creation.

  “And then the ships sail in, and your men are released to rob and pillage and bring Steep Rise under our control. I’ll send Orcaze,” he indicated the assistant who was shepherding Theus, “to the palace to make sure we eradicate the royal family and seize the seal and crown,” Donal continued.

  Prepare those barrels,” Donal ordered. “Set the fleet in motion,” he instructed the ship’s captain. “It’s time to make Steep Rise a part of the Southsand nation, the first of many conquests.”

  The captain left the group, and sent sailors with bars to begin opening the barrels, under the supervision of Donal, while Theus was left alone with the officers briefly.
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  “Theus!” Montuse exclaimed. “What are you doing with the magician?”

  “He’s taken me as one of his captives,” Theus said through gritted teeth.

  “Oh Theus!” the officer moaned. “You really should have come as one of ours.”

  “I know,” Theus agreed. “He sent his men to capture me in my residence room. I had no way to get away,” he didn’t want to mention the fact that Torella had been held as a hostage to make his surrender.

  “That violates the palace covenants!” Montuse was angry. “But who’s going to press charges against the magician?” he asked philosophically a moment later.

  “Bring the boy to me,” Donal spoke loudly to his assistant. Theus looked over, and saw that the lids had been pried off the row of barrels, revealing bright yellow contents inside.

  “Good luck, Theus,” Montuse whispered.

  Orcaze the assistant grabbed Theus’s arm, and led him over to Donal’s side. Donal looked at Orcaze and nodded. The assistant pulled a red and yellow leather collar out of a hidden pocket, and fastened it around Theus’s neck.

  “That marks you as my property. If we become separated in the confusion, the soldiers will know to return you to me,” Donal said. “Now we can proceed,” he added.

  The ship was sailing towards the coast, and Theus could see the other ships sailing as well. Donal suddenly reached out and grabbed Theus’s shoulder, causing panic to erupt in the boy.

  “We’ll see if you’re better behaved this time,” Donal’s face was twisted in a snarl as he spoke to Theus with a threat in his voice. The magician closed his eyes, and Theus felt the horrible process begin once again. He felt the invasion of his soul and the fearful sense of something stalking him from inside of his own soul, leaving absolutely nowhere he could turn for safety or security. He felt panic, but then he felt as though a fence sprang into existence to help protect him from the enemy.