The Lost Mage (The Age of Oracles Book 2) Read online

  “You carry a fine blade,” she said. “But raising it against me would be unwise.”

  “Why is that?” Raiden asked, his eyes flicking to her before returning to his examination of the tree line.

  “Because I could kill you,” she said. “I wouldn’t, of course, but it is still unwise to strike at an oracle with a paltry sword.”

  “They why did you come?” Raiden asked.

  “May I enter?” Elenyr asked. “The poison in my body makes travel difficult, and it was not easy coming here.”

  Red appeared in the shadows to Raiden’s right. “Nothing to the north or west,” she whispered. “But I don’t trust her.”

  “You don’t trust anyone,” Raiden said.

  On impulse Raiden stepped aside and gestured an invitation. “I suspect if you wanted us dead, you could have done it from afar.”

  She smiled faintly and ascended the steps. Raiden noticed her movements were carefully controlled, as if it required a great deal of attention to place her feet. She entered the room and sank into a seat with a sigh.

  “Red,” she said, “you do not need to keep your sword so close to my throat.”

  Red scowled and retreated, a little. Raiden pointed to the bedroom that contained the secret entrance to the lower level, and Red seemed to understand the unspoken order. She disappeared down the hallway to retrieve Devkin.

  The sound of a shattering mug came from below, then the thudding of a crutch on the stairs. Devkin stumbled in his haste to enter the room. He caught the wall to right himself and swiveled to Raiden, a desperate hope in his eyes.

  “Is it true?” he breathed, and then spotted Elenyr.

  Shock and guilt washed across his face. Elenyr too seemed surprised, but not at Devkin’s presence. Instead her eyes were on the stump that remained of Devkin’s knee, and the sorrow on her face was too real to be feigned. Then Devkin grabbed a table and dropped to his single knee.

  “I failed to protect Alydian,” he said. “My life is yours to end.”

  “You could not have protected her against Oracle Raine,” Elenyr said. “And you have no need to kneel.”

  His eyes bright with moisture, Devkin shook his head. “I swore to protect her and failed,” he said, his tone bitter.

  “As did I,” Elenyr said softly.

  The reply was laced with regret, and for a long moment the two mourned their loss, the sheer emotion reminding Raiden of his own fears regarding Alydian. Red helped Devkin to a chair across from the oracle but his eyes never left hers. Then Toron stepped into the room and shook his head in the negative, indicating they were alone.

  “You are the most powerful mage on the globe,” Raiden asked. “Why come to us—alone I might add.”

  “I’m sure you know that I’m dying,” Elenyr said. “And before my end I would see that justice is given to those who have shattered our peace.”

  “How can anyone poison an oracle?” Jester asked.

  Elenyr’s eyes shifted to him. “The council that betrayed Alydian betrayed me first, and added a magically crafted poison to my daily meals. The dosage was too small for me to notice, and so I thought my declining health was merely age—I am over eight hundred years old, after all. Now I fear the damage is done and my time grows short.”

  “You have our sympathies,” Raiden said. “If we can offer aid . . .?”

  “No,” Elenyr said. “My fate is sealed.”

  “Then why come to us now?” Jester asked.

  “Because we are both dying,” Elenyr said. “Me by betrayal, and you by the sword. Without my aid your Defiant will be dead in a month, and the Verinai’s triumph will be complete.”

  “And you think there is something I can do?” Raiden asked, gesturing to the dilapidated structure. “My identity is known, our hideouts are being discovered, and we have no allies to speak of.”

  Elenyr regarded him for long enough that Jester began to fidget. Her blue eyes seemed to bore into his soul, and abruptly he realized she was using her magic to examine him. He scowled, but before he could speak she silenced him.

  “The people may know that Raiden is the Soldier,” she said, her voice rising with force, “but they have not forgotten the Soldier’s sacrifice. Now is the moment the Soldier fights—because the war is just beginning. A hero is required, one capable of uniting the disaffected, the poor, the destitute. They are an army of dragons caged by fear and doubt, and you must call on them to awaken.”

  “The Verinai hunt you because they fear you,” she continued, rising and advancing upon him. “You foresaw an enemy that even I could not, rose up in defiance, and fought without ally or aid. As high oracle of Lumineia I call upon you to resume your place as the Soldier. You must unite commoners with kings, mages with men, and bring the Verinai to their knees.”

  Her prophetic voice echoed into silence, until Jester crowed with delight. “I like her,” he said to Red. “Can we keep her?”

  Raiden stared at the woman, realizing for the first time that despair had eaten into his heart, tarnishing his hope and defiance. He reached up and touched his face, ashamed to find stubble marring his smooth elven skin. Greasy and unkempt, his hair hung to his shoulders, while his striking features were hidden behind the shadow.

  He straightened and shook himself, the motion feeling like rising from the dead. To find Alydian he had to do more than survive, he had to fight. He clenched his jaw and accepted the rightful rebuke with a bow.

  “My apologies, oracle,” he said, grateful that the tinge of authority had returned to his voice.

  She nodded in satisfaction, the power draining from her face as she sank into a seat once more. Devkin lurched to her but Elenyr raised a hand to forestall his worry.

  “The poison attacks my magic,” she said. “With every use, it consumes more of my flesh.”

  “There must be something we can do,” Devkin said, his voice desperate.

  “No,” Elenyr said. “Not for me. But for my daughter . . .”

  “We cannot find her,” Raiden said. “But with your aid—”

  “No,” Elenyr said. “It requires all of my effort to prevent the other three oracles from finding you.”

  “A farsight duel?” Devkin asked, and Elenyr nodded.

  “I don’t understand,” Red said, looking between them. “What’s a farsight duel?”

  “I am fighting the other oracles for the future,” Elenyr said. “I decide on a course and they attempt to decide around it. Every time they do I must shift course again. Our constant decisions obscure the future until nothing is predicable.”

  “But you’re an oracle,” Red protested. “Can you not see everything?”

  Elenyr smiled wryly. “I fear we are far less powerful than many know. Every oracle sees the future differently, and I behold a wondrous tapestry. Millions of threads woven into infinitely complex patterns, and I could spend a decade examining a single life. By the time I was finished the pattern would have changed, and I would need to begin anew. I may see the future, but I cannot command fate.”

  “And you know nothing of Alydian?” Raiden asked.

  “She is alive,” Elenyr said. “But her thread stands apart from the tapestry, as if her choices have been taken from her.”

  “How is that possible?” Devkin asked. “How could they have trapped an oracle?”

  “Enough anti-magic can contain even an oracle,” she said, “but a prison of such magnitude would take decades to complete.”

  Her words echoed what Jester had said, and the assassin nodded as his words were confirmed. Raiden found himself wondering anew where the cell would be and guessed it was hidden in one of the three Verinai guildhalls. But which one?

  “Teriah may have been planning her betrayal for years,” Red said, “but even a large machine can be stopped by a single broken cog.”

  Elenyr cocked her head to the side. “A clever analogy.”

  “Then what is our plan?” Raiden asked. “As much I appreciate knowing Alydian is alive, it does nothing for us. Our position remains the same.”

  “We go to the Griffin princess,” Elenyr said. “Together.”

  “You want us to go to Terros?” Red demanded. “Are you mad? Princess Ora believes the Soldier killed her father—and the Verinai have assumed control of the city along with the rest of Griffin. The only reason she is alive is because the people would revolt if the Mage Empire killed her.”

  “She is seventeen,” Elenyr said, “and has inherited her father’s charisma and mother’s intelligence. She will listen to reason, and with her on our side the people will follow.”

  “You have no idea if this will work,” Red accused, stabbing a finger at her. “You just admitted your farsight is all but useless.”

  “Red,” Jester said, catching her arm, but Elenyr actually smiled.

  “Your companion speaks the truth,” she said. “I cannot know if this thread yields victory and unity . . . or defeat and death. But I have hope that if we ride into Terros together, the princess will listen.”

  “And the people will follow,” Raiden mused. “It’s a bold plan.”

  “This will end with our heads in a noose,” Red said, rounding on him.

  “We just agreed we needed allies,” Raiden said. “And bringing Princess Ora into our rebellion will make the entire kingdom of Griffin our ally.”

  Red released an explosive breath and folded her arms. “We’ll be dead before we get within spitting distance of the castle.”

  “Do you have a plan to get us inside?” Jester asked, turning to Elenyr.

  “I fear I do not,” Elenyr said. “I am gifted with strategy and tactics—but only with my farsight. Without it, I am as cunning as any commoner.”

  “A fool’s hope leads to a fool’s end,” Toron said.

  “Not if we have a plan,” Raiden replied.

  Red turned on him. “She just said—”

  “Not her plan,” Raiden said. “Mine.”

  Red glared at him, her features rigid with anger. Then abruptly she laughed and gestured to him.

  “Took you long enough to come back.”

  Raiden saw the spark of hope in her eyes that had been absent just moments before. Red would have followed him to the grave, but for the first time in weeks she didn’t believe that was her fate.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry for forgetting my place.”

  “None of us can shoulder your mantle,” Jester said. “But I’m glad you returned before they came for us.”

  “What’s your plan, Soldier?” Elenyr asked, her smile a striking reminder of Alydian. Before he could respond Toron frowned and stepped to the window.

  “We have a problem,” he said.

  “What do you see?” Jester asked, joining him.

  “Down the road,” Toron squinted. “A moving body gives off heat, and there’s enough heat to indicate a small army. I’d guess three patrols of soldiers galloping down the road. Eighty strong.”

  “Can’t be a coincidence,” Red said, flicking the sword she’d never sheathed.

  Raiden straightened, and his sharp elven hearing allowed him to catch the distant drum of hooves beating the road. He guessed they had only minutes before the Verinai reached the inn and surrounded them.

  “Empire soldiers?” Raiden asked, darting to the door.

  “That would be the Verinai,” Elenyr said.

  “You betrayed us?” Red demanded, placing her sword on Elenyr’s neck.

  Elenyr reached up and caught the blade with her bare hand, wrenching it from Red’s grip. Still in her seat, she sent it spinning into the wall, where it sank into the wood and quivered. When she spoke her voice was hard and clipped.

  “I warned you not to put a blade at me,” she said.

  “If you didn’t betray us,” Jester asked, “why are they here?”

  “They think you kidnapped me.”

  “And why would they think that?” Raiden asked.

  Elenyr’s lips twitched. “Because I told them you did.”

  Chapter 3: Raiden’s Gambit

  Stunned, Raiden rotated to face Elenyr. “You did what?”

  The oracle’s statement brought them all to a halt. Jester was leaning at the window, his sword half drawn. Toron remained next to the door, his hand halted on the way to the handle. Red seemed frozen in shock.

  “I sent a lightcast bird telling them the Soldier had taken me here,” she said.

  “Why?” Raiden demanded.

  “Because my sisters on the Eldress Council need to think I have been taken,” Elenyr said. “For now, they must believe I have been forced into captivity. They believe I am weak, and will not dispute the story.”

  She raised her hands and a thread of anti-magic blossomed into view, turning into chains that tightened around her wrists. Raiden spotted the hollowness to the bonds and realized she could break them easily, but he doubted the Verinai hunters would notice that.

  “You aren’t giving us much choice,” Raiden said, drawing his sword.

  Elenyr smiled innocently. “You should never have taken me.”

  Jester began to laugh, the sound rising and shaking his frame. He pointed a calloused finger at Elenyr as he fought to control his humor.

  “Such a clever oracle,” he guffawed.

  “What?” Red asked.

  “She can’t see the future, so she is playing all the angles,” Jester said. “If we die, she can claim she was taken. If we survive, the Verinai and oracles will believe she was captured, giving us the time to get to Terros and speak to the princess.”

  Toron growled and stepped to her. “She’s betrayed us.”

  “I don’t like being manipulated,” Raiden said with a scowl.

  Elenyr’s humor faded and she stood. “Alydian is my daughter. Did you really expect me to ally myself to you without a plan in case you failed?”

  “When this is over, we’re going to have a conversation about how you treat your allies,” Raiden snapped.

  He darted to the back door and swung it open, calling out orders to the others. Red grabbed Elenyr’s arm and forced her toward the back of the house, ripping her sword from the wall on the way. Jester helped Devkin limp away from the building while Toron brought up the rear, extinguishing light orbs as he left the house behind.

  With the sounds of galloping horses mounting, they hurried through the dark forest to a short cliff a hundred paces north. Raiden reached it first and began to climb. In the moonlight the stone appeared sheer, but Raiden had practiced the motions enough that he knew the cracks that afforded purchase.

  He reached the top and darted to a bush, pulling a rope ladder into view. With nimble fingers he fastened it to a tree and dropped the ladder over the edge, allowing the others to take hold. Red tossed Elenyr over her shoulder like a child, eliciting a squeak of surprise from the woman. A savage grin on her face, Red scaled the rope and dropped her against a tree.

  “I’m not a sack of flour,” Elenyr protested.

  Raiden guessed the oracle was speaking for the benefit of anyone watching. Still, her anger was unfeigned. Red smirked and turned away. Jester reached the rope ladder and helped Devkin begin to climb. Their ascent hampered by his absent limb, they reached the top just as light blazed to life at the cabin. They all dropped to the earth and Raiden pulled the ladder up.

  “Where’s Toron?” Red hissed.

  “He had to get the stonesap into place,” Raiden said.

  “What stonesap?” Jester asked.

  Raiden kept his gaze on lightcast birds swirling around the inn. “You didn’t think all those barrels were full of food, did you?”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Red demanded.

  “Impulse, not decision,” Raiden replied, and threw her a smile before returning to his scrutiny of the inn.

  His answer had been their mantra for years, and helped keep the oracles from discovering the Soldier. Perhaps with Elenyr as an ally he would be able to plan more carefully. Then he had a thought and glanced at Elenyr.

  “Since the day of upheaval the Empire has repeatedly failed to locate my Defiant.”

  Her lips twitched. “It’s possible the oracles were . . . misled as to the location of your camps.”

  Raiden should have been grateful that she’d saved so many, but Elenyr’s ploy to claim a kidnapping instilled doubt, making him wonder if he could trust her. Turning away, he watched the inn as light danced in the darkness.

  “I don’t like being kept in the dark,” Red growled. “You should have told us about the stonesap.”

  Raiden shrugged. “I always planned for this place to be a final redoubt.”

  Red’s scowl deepened. “Just how much stonesap were we sleeping next to? There must have been forty barrels in the cellar.”

  Raiden didn’t answer, and Red cursed before retreating from the edge of the escarpment. Produced and controlled by dwarves, the volatile stonesap could power a dwarven forge for a year. Or turn an abandoned inn into a crater.

  The Verinai surrounded the inn with practiced precision, marking them as battlemages. From his vantage point Raiden could see the clearing that contained the inn, and with the lightcast birds soaring around it he managed to make out their uniforms.

  In the last eight weeks they had become all too familiar. Grey and trimmed in green, the uniforms were those of Empire soldiers. Verinai had a shield of red on the right sleeve as a backdrop to the marks of their respective magics, while single talent mages were permitted green behind the mark of their magic. Empire soldiers with no magics wore darker uniforms without color.

  “They’re from Margauth,” Raiden said, spotting the skull tab on an officer’s collar.

  Jester nodded. “Makes sense. That Verinai guildhall is closest.”

  The mages kept their distance from the building, and the captain shouted to his lieutenants. Then the mages called on their magic and the earth began to flow. Swirling and rising into humanoid shapes, the golems turned into soldiers that resembled their casters. Blades of fire blossomed in their fingers and the silent entities grasped their weapons, swishing them through the air.