Chapter 15

  We crouched in a small stand of bushes near the warehouse gate. Bend’s illusion spell wouldn’t last much longer and our bodies grew more visible by the moment.

  Both Mage Beacons blazed bright, activated by Bend’s spell.

  The beacon lights sent a panic into the soldiers patrolling the warehouse and the wall. They moved a bit faster, constantly glancing over toward the cavern entrance. A second troop consisting of four more men marched toward the entrance, on high alert, forcing us to keep still where we crouched.

  As Bend’s spell lessened in its power, the Mage Beacon’s light started to falter and slowly grew dim. We needed to move fast now. The soldiers who’d moved into the cave system could be back at any moment. This was our chance.

  The others looked at me as we tried to make ourselves small.

  “Give me a moment,” I grunted.

  Time slowed in my mind as I studied the problem. There was an open gate, but two men stood guard. There was at least one guard walking the top of the wall on this side of the warehouse. We could see two Mage Beacons, which removed the element of surprise if I used any spells at all. We could easily overpower the two guards at the gate with the weapons we had on us, but then we risked running into more soldiers, and who knew, maybe half a regiment on the other side of the gate. The odds of our escape without using magic were difficult to calculate.

  I thought I had enough energy for one more decent spell.

  “Bend, do you have it in you to weave another spell?” I whispered.

  He nodded.

  “You and I will have to weave at the same instant,” I whispered. “Once we do, those Mage Beacons will light up like a bonfire, so we’ll need to move quickly.”

  I gave him a copper coin and pulled out the gold bracelet.

  “Weave another spell of cloaking over all of us, just like before. I’ll take care of the rest,” I said. “Ready?”

  He took the copper coin, got himself ready, and nodded.

  “Alright, now,” I said.

  I drained the matter from the gold bracelet, holding the matter above me in the air. I needed as much power as I could get. Once that was done, I drained a piece of granite from the ground nearby, and then another one. One after another I added the matter of each and every rock I could find to the swirl of matter in the air above me. It was a delicate balance to keep the matter spinning so as not to lose any of it.

  “The beacon is glowing,” whispered the prisoner with the long, knotted locks of hair. Beside me, I could see Bend weaving his spell out of my peripheral vision.

  I looked to the wall, constructed from some kind of hardwood. I had been thinking about a spell I’d performed long before?—?a spell that disappeared matter for a few moments, then returned it just as it was before.

  Voices started shouting around us as the guards noticed the beacons gleaming bright again above their heads, and I heard a rush of men to the gate, which they now drew closed and locked tight.

  That might actually help us, I thought. We heard the cocking of several hybrid weapons, some of them clicking and whirring, some burping steam from the other side of the wall.

  “We’re cloaked,” Bend whispered.

  “Get ready to move,” I grunted to the rest, still working.

  I began forming the matter into a cast of temporary elimination. I focused the weave on two panels in the wooden wall in front of us, moving my hands carefully until the spell was complete. This part of the wall was far enough away from the gate that it might escape the notice of the guards. Finishing the weave, I walked forward quietly and laid my bare palms on the two beams of wood. This released the spellcast.

  The wooden panels wavered slightly, then vanished.

  I waved to the rest of the group. Let’s go!

  Due to the commotion at the gates, we slipped through the walls unhurriedly and moved into the forest on the other side. When we were a good distance away, I released the spell and the wooden panels in the wall returned with a slight flash, as if they’d been there the whole time.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Behind us the light of the Mage Beacons slowly died out, going dull again, and the guards scratched their heads, wondering what had happened.

  We hiked through forested hillsides for another hour, taking the long way around and back to the city. As happy as I was to have rescued Bend, the night had taken a toll on me. My head pounded with a low buzzing feeling, making me feel dizzy, weak—a particular feeling I’d not felt to this extent before—and my side throbbed painfully, and felt sticky under my shirt. I concentrated on keeping my eyes open, my legs moving, and on not passing out.

  As we walked, the small group of prisoners following me kept quiet. Eventually, Bend walked up next to me, his eyes facing forward.

  “Mage, thank you getting me out of there,” he whispered. “I’m not sure I would have lasted much longer. I have to ask: Who are you?”

  It was quiet around us, finally, and I didn’t want to interrupt the silence. We were far enough away from the guards now that I could speak freely, but I didn’t necessarily want to share my origins with everyone in the group. Not in this still foreign place that I didn’t know well. At the same time, what did I gain by holding back?

  “I came from far across the desert, from a city many leagues from here,” I said quietly. “I trained as a mage when I was very young and have watched our ways slowly die out in my own lifetime. I spent most of my years traveling and helping others, while avoiding the Motorized where I could.”

  Bend seemed to bite his lip, his mind chewing on this.

  “If you were trying to avoid them, then why are you here?” Bend said finally.

  We walked through what was once a heavily forested area, though the trees here were stripped bare, and of those still standing, most were dead. The ground we walked over was littered with downed trees, sand, animal bones, and the other dried out ephemera of the forest.

  I took a deep breath and looked over at Bend, catching his eyes for a moment.

  “Truly, I am here because I had no other choice. Nowhere else to go,” I paused. “Bend, the world is now more desolate than ever. It is free of cities and mages. There isn’t much left, maybe the occasional encampment or hamlet. Vale is the last place on the map.”

  Bend nodded, keeping his head down, watching his feet as we walked.

  “But you asked why I am here,” I said, looking back to see who else was listening in. We’d pulled away from the rest of the prisoners and were effectively alone. “Bend, at some point in his journey, every mage needs to pass on their knowledge. I was taught this is part of what keeps a mage healthy, shared was he learned over the years. Unfortunately, the knowledge I passed on to many mages in my life has not outlived me. I believe the mages I have trained are all dead.”

  I winced involuntarily as I stated the fact out loud.

  “So, you came to find me?” Bend asked, a flicker of hope in his eyes as he looked over at me.

  “Yes,” I said, meeting his eyes. “I came to find you. I’d heard about Vale for most of my life. This place is the center of the fight against all of magekind. Honestly, I came hoping to build a mage school, as I want to bring back The Way of the Mark, to see a new world come into being?—?but then I got here Bend. It’s worse than I ever could have dreamed. So, if that’s not possible—”

  “Who says it’s not possible?” Bend jumped in, a bit eager.

  I smiled. “Either way, I came to fight back, for as long as I have left.”

  “I think we can bring it back Mage,” Bend said, his voice steeled, looking straight ahead as he walked. “You need to pass on what you know. And I have much to learn.”

  “I came to the right place then,” I replied. Bend smiled and we walked on.

  The human and machine sounds of the city slowly began to overtake the calm and quiet of the forest. As we neared the outer walls of Vale, we all split up and reentered the city alone. Before we parted ways, I gathered them together and gave them a warning to share with others.

  “The Way of the Mark is alive and well,” I told them, as confidently as I could. “The Motorized have terrorized those of The Way long enough. Choose carefully who you will support in the coming war.”

  The prisoner with the knotted hair, whose name we discovered was Briar, asked if he could return with Bend and I, effectively choosing his side now.

  We agreed to let him join us.

  The three of us slipped into the city from the North, where the forested hillsides protected our approach. There were soldiers out patrolling in the dawn hours as the sun rose over the Eastern horizon, but they seemed fewer in number than I’d seen patrolling the streets on a normal night yesterday. I hope that was because there were too many soldiers searching for a rogue mage and digging out the crush of an avalanche of rock beneath the northern Prison Keep. That should confound them for another day or so.

  I removed my hat, and pulled up a hood, so as to draw less attention. We each moved through the gates individually, but walking close enough to watch each other, moving casually as if on an early morning outing to the market.

  Once deeper into the city, we came together, and Bend led us carefully behind a store to an outer basement entrance hidden between two buildings. We ducked into the basement quickly and then followed Bend down a secreted set of stairs in the back corner.

  The wooden stairs led into a pitch-black tunnel and as we took downward steps, I felt the earthen walls, with interspersing timber beams holding up the tunnel’s ceiling.

  I had no energy left for a spell, not even for a small light to guide us. The exertion of the night settled into me like a sickness, and exhaustion came with it. I stumbled through the dark tunnels, following the others as if asleep. I wasn’t as young as I used to be, and the pain of the wound in my side reared up in intensity now. I was nervous about what I would find if I stopped to check the wrappings. My breath caught as I tried to grit my teeth and muscle through the pain. I hoped all this effort, and the hard work that was to come, would be worth it before it was all over. Worth what? I didn’t know. However, I felt in my bones that the forces of Vale, most of which I had yet to meet, would retaliate with ferocity.

  Bend drew a lantern from somewhere and lit it, leading us deeper into the tunnels. My eyes grew heavier as we marched, and soon I was stumbling blindly behind, nearly tripping with every other step. I grew bad enough that Briar came up behind me and took my arm around his shoulders, helping me to walk.

  The last thing I recall before I passed out on a makeshift bed in a room somewhere deep under the city, was seeing Dirk enclose Bend in the massive hug of a father and son.

  I smiled as I settled in to sleep. In the morning I knew I would need to begin training up an army.