Changing Of The Guard (Book 6) Read online

  “Something someone said.”

  - Someone

  Who Did Something

  The Saga of the God-Touched Mage includes:

  Glamour of the God-Touched

  Trail of the Torean

  Target of the Orders

  Gathering of the God-Touched

  Pawn of the Planewalker

  Changing of the Guard

  Lord of the Freeborn

  Lords of Existence

  Other Work by Ron Collins:

  Five Magics

  Picasso’s Cat and Other Stories

  See the PEBA on $25 a Day

  Chasing the Setting Sun

  Four Days in May

  Links to these and more of Ron's work

  Follow Ron at

  www.typosphere.com

  or his twitter feed: @roncollins13

  Subscribe to Ron's Ramblings (*)

  (*) We promise not to spam you with anything beyond information regarding Ron's work!

  Copyright Information

  Changing of the Guard

  Saga of the God-Touched Mage, Volume 6

  © 2015 Ron Collins

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Rachel J. Carpenter

  © 2015 Ron Collins

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Images

  © Prometeus | Dreamstime.com - Magic Warrior Photo

  © Unholyvault | Dreamstime.com - Fantasy Landscape With A Tower Photo

  © Clearviewstock | Dreamstime.com

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All incidents, dialog, and characters are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Skyfox Publishing

  http://www.skyfoxpublishing.com

  For Tim, Mike, Jackie, and Ken. And of course, for Lisa.

  Table of Contents

  Book 1: The Aftermath

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Book 2: Lectodinian Uprising

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Book 3: Nestafar

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Book 4: The Koradictine Play

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Book 5: Changing of the Guard

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  Acknowledgements

  About Ron Collins

  How You Can Help

  Book 1: The Aftermath

  Chapter 1

  Darien stood before the gathering of the Torean mages, dressed in doeskin leggings and a tunic of Freeborn black. His battle helm from Dorfort’s army was placed on the table squarely before him. Reynard stood at his side.

  Garrick, the Toreans’ god-touched mage, had disappeared from before their eyes a week before, and now, earlier this morning, Will, Garrick’s apprentice, had been kidnapped in an audacious gambit by the Koradictine order.

  Clamoring voices made it feel like all the air had been breathed out of the meeting hall. Every Freeborn mage in the city was here, nearly ninety in total. They were men and women who had come from various stations of life prior to taking up their sorcerous trades—fishermen, farmers, and woodsmen among others. A few were barely old enough to be out of their apprenticeships.

  “What is the news of Garrick?” a voice called.

  Garrick’s disappearance had happened in the very worst of circumstances, literally while he was addressing the Torean collective.

  “Nothing new,” Darien replied, knowing that answer wasn’t good enough. “We still have mages investigating his disappearance, and I have the guard out scouring the countryside. But nothing is known at this moment.”

  The mages grumbled.

  “Reynard and I agree, however, that we can still get Will back, so that’s the course of action we will pursue. Reynard will lead a party to scour the north—the most direct path to the Koradictine homelands, and I will lead a group to the west where we know they last camped.”

  Reynard broke in.

  “Those who wish to be in my party should come to this side of the room.”

  The hallway erupted in movement, every mage standing to move toward Reynard.

  “Halt!” Darien called. He leaned over the table. “I said, halt!”

  The Freeborn came to a grudging quiet.

  Darien fought the urge to cast a foul glance at Reynard. How dare he stir them up at a time like this?

  After the room quieted, Darien spoke.

  “Everyone on Reynard’s side of the chamber will go with him. I will take the group directly before me. The rest will stay here and protect the city. I’ve asked Amanda to manage those who remain behind.”

  He motioned at the young woman to Reynard’s left. She smiled, but did not look happy. Amanda had made it clear she would prefer to be out hunting Koradictines, and only Darien’s desperate plea that he needed someone he could trust to stay behind had kept her here. And, make no argument, Darien did need her here. Amanda had been at God’s Tower. The mages knew her. She could keep them in order.

  The gathering grumbled further.

  “I want to go north with Reynard.”

  It was Trista, a youthful mage who was new to the Freeborn.

  “We must use our resources in the most expedient fashion possible,” Darien replied. “Don’t you agree, Reynard?”

  “Yes, Superior. We need to work together. We’ll do as we’re told, and we’ll do it well.”

  If not content, the mages were at least appeased. They settled back into their seats and waited.

  Darien let go of a breath.

  Earlier this afternoon, as he had walked into the chamber, he had actually considered letting the Freeborn choose their assignments. It was a bolder move, a move a true leader might make to motivate people to greatness. One who chooses his task will rise above it, as his father once told him. But that idea would have been a disaster. The entire troop had moved toward Reynard. The mage’s expression was the clearest I-told-you-so Darien had ever seen. He was embarrassed and hurt, his dignity wounded.

  “That’s it, then,” Darien said. “Everyone is dismissed to prepare. We leave in an hour.”

  Chapter 2

  Darien wrapped his cloak over his shoulders and shivered in the chill of the overcast evening. The woods around his group smelled of a hard winter coming. The wind was a constant shiv against his exposed neck. It had taken them considerably longer to leave Dorfort than he expected, but once they were started they made good headway. Until, of course, it came time to scry.

  Which they were doing now.

  The mages were gathered in the clearing, using their wizardry to search for signs of Will or the Koradictines.

  Watching them work together was the supreme test of Darien’s patience. They talked in circles, covering the same points over and over in excruciating detail, arguing over fine points of finger position, or vocal inflection, or phrasing with such vehemence as to make even his teeth hurt. The day was growing short. And for all this work—ride an hour, dismount, cast spells, then do it again—they had gotten nowhere.

  He should have just asked his fat
her to send the Dorfort guard, who would have thundered directly down the path until they found the Koradictines.

  Simple, and direct.

  Simple and direct, that is, if his father were actually well enough to be able to make such a command.

  The down time was what made the whole thing so excruciating. While the group moved he could keep his mind occupied, but as they stood here whiling away the daylight Darien had nothing to divert his thoughts from his father, lying on his pallet, frail and failing of health. But he was the Torean commander, now. And among other burdens, this came with the need to do things at least partly their way. And that meant interminable waits while the mages tried their best to figure out what was happening.

  He fiddled with the seam of his gloves, then shifted his sword for what had to be the tenth time.

  “Are you finished yet?” he asked.

  The wizards broke their spell.

  “We are now,” Carvil, a mage from the grasslands, replied.

  “And?”

  “Nothing, Superior.”

  Darien sighed. He heard the edge to Carvil’s use of the word Superior.

  “We’ll try again next stop,” he said.

  Carvil didn’t reply, but his expression was easy to read. It would go better if you weren’t hovering.

  What did they expect, though?

  They knew he wasn’t a wizard when they accepted him for this post. He was trying. Trying to bring the Freeborn into the world of the public, just as Sunathri had envisioned. But all he was getting for the effort were the insolent glares of kids barely out of their schooling. Surely, anyone could see how important it was to keep the Freeborn in Dorfort, that an order that held the confidence of the greatest power in the central section of the plane was an order to be dealt with.

  He looked into the darkening sky and hoped Reynard’s group was being more successful than his.

  “All right,” he said. “Mount up. We’ve got time for at least one more pass.”

  Reynard was certain that the Koradictines would travel north—as certain as he had been about anything—and he was the type who was certain about almost everything there was to be certain about. He was leading his team now, riding point through the pass. They had traveled most of the day, far enough they would need to make camp in the woods rather than return to the city. But they had found nothing. It was annoying, and the fact that the mages’ enthusiasm had waned as they realized they were in for a night out in the cold did not help anything.

  He smirked, wondering if Darien’s troupe was faring any better. More than anything, Reynard wanted to be the one to bring Will back.

  It would be the last straw, the act that drew away the few stragglers of the Freeborn who remained loyal to Darien. The guardsman was a fine man at heart, but he was no mage. And, no matter what Garrick said, mages could not be led by someone without magic. If Reynard were the one who recovered Will, then even Darien would no longer be able to deny that the Freeborn wanted him to be their leader.

  All afternoon Reynard had dwelled in daydreams of parading the Koradictines down Dorfort’s streets. He imagined Ellesadil honoring him, Darien backing down, and the Toreans cheering.

  Now it was growing dark, and the rest were as tired as he was.

  Reynard brought his horse up in a clear meadow ringed by towering white birch trees, and waited for his mages to catch up. They could build a fire in the leeward corner of the clearing where the trees would protect the blaze from the wind.

  “We’re not going to find a better place to stop,” he said. “We’ll camp here for the evening, and start fresh tomorrow.”

  Yes, tomorrow they could hunt again.

  Chapter 3

  Neuma sat quietly on the bench seat she had drug into Ettril’s tent. The space inside was large enough to hold twice as many as the four of them, but suddenly seemed much smaller. For the first time since Ettril accepted her plan, things were not going her way.

  Yes, they had succeeded in taking the Torean god-touched’s apprentice. The boy, Will, lay in a deep corner, incapacitated by Ettril’s sorcery. But Garrick himself had not been there, and Quin Sar, the second-ranked mage of their order and a life-long friend of High Superior Ettril Dor-Entfar, was now dead. Neuma had, of course, killed Quin Sar with her own hands and then made it appear as if a stable boy had surprised them. But none of the rest knew that, and she had no intention of letting them find out. The remaining Koradictines had gathered at the established point and made their way to this safe camp under the cloak of Ettril’s spell work, which served to protect them from scrying eyes. No one could get near without him knowing.

  Now, with things settled, the high superior wanted to know the truth.

  “What happened to Quin Sar?” Ettril said, his crystalline blue eyes staring her down with birdlike intensity.

  “I don’t know how to explain it,” Neuma said. She spoke the words exactly as she had practiced them throughout most of their hastily beat retreat. “The boy surprised us.”

  “You’re telling me that one of the strongest wizards in the order was bested by a stable boy?”

  “You’ve said yourself, sir: no matter how good the spell, a knife in the gut can spoil a perfectly good day.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Hirl-enat said.

  “What do you believe?” Neuma snapped back. This was Ettril Dor-Entfar’s interrogation, which was bad enough as it was. She wasn’t about to let Hirl-enat make it any worse.

  Hirl-enat glared at her.

  Perhaps she could use his anger to her advantage.

  “Go ahead and say it,” Neuma said. “You think I killed Quin Sar myself, don’t you? Go ahead and say it if that’s what you think. At least then I can respect you for speaking your mind.”

  “I wouldn’t be the only one who thought it.”

  “Enough!” Ettril said, his lips drawing into a tight line. He had been close to Quin Sar, and the loss was obviously difficult to bear. “I’ll not have this argument now. Quin Sar is dead. And you can believe me when I say that I will get to the bottom of what happened, and that I will take whatever steps are required.”

  Silence ensued.

  Neuma finally spoke. “It seems we have a bigger problem to solve now, though, Superior.”

  Ettril Dor-Entfar nodded. “Yes, we do.”

  Hirl-enat stewed.

  Fil, as usual, remained neutral.

  “Where is Garrick?” Ettril said, staring at Neuma.

  “I don’t know any better than you do. I can’t believe he wasn’t there. Perhaps he’s on an assignment? Did either Darien or Ellesadil have anything to say about him?”

  “No, they did not. And they were each uncomfortable at my questions regarding him. I think his absence is as much a quandary to them as it is to us.”

  Neuma, happy the conversation had shifted, scratched at her cheekbone and thought about the problem. She had been counting on the Torean god-touched to remove Ettril from the picture—and Ettril to weaken Garrick enough that Neuma might best him by herself. Worst case, even if Ettril could not remove Garrick, the superior’s fall, combined with Quin Sar’s death would have left the superiorship open for the taking. But Garrick was gone, so that part of the plan was in trouble.

  She nodded unconsciously.

  “Garrick will come as soon as he discovers the boy is gone. I’m sure of it.”

  “Don’t we have an even more immediate issue?” Hirl-enat said.

  “And that would be?” Ettril replied.

  “The vigilantes from Dorfort are gathering. I suggest we need to get away as soon as we can.”

  “I agree with that,” Ettril said. “I cannot maintain this cover forever, nor can I keep the link isolating the boy going for much longer.” He had spent the past several weeks creating a holding chamber for their captive, tying it to himself such that any damage done to him would be equally performed on the boy. This, he felt, would pull Garrick’s attention away and give him free reign to deal with the god-touc
hed on his own terms. But it was a difficult spell, requiring constant upkeep of the link. The effort slowed their progress.

  “We’ll have to do something else,” Neuma said.

  Ettril gave a grunt and nodded.

  “We need to get rid of those who follow us,” Fil added. “Sooner is better.”

  “I have a plan,” Neuma said, glancing at Ettril and seeing an edge grow on his gaze. “That is, I have a plan, if anyone would care to hear it, of course.”

  Chapter 4

  Braxidane must pay, Hezarin thought as she crashed through the currents of All Existence, flinging herself forward and letting energy scour her body as if it were a sandstorm. The flow burned through the sheerness of her span, and sizzled with a golden boil. She veered, barely noting the anomaly she would have run into had she not made a last moment adjustment.

  It was a game she had played since the days when she was a newling. She loved the wildest streams, the ones that boiled and churned with their fury. She searched them out in the most remote zones of Existence, where she could be alone to enjoy the glorious now that grew from standing against the raw nature of life itself, letting it flow through her, getting caught in its eddies, its sink holes, and its crashing rapids.

  It was a dangerous game, but one that made her feel alive.

  And today she needed to feel more alive than others.

  Braxidane must die, she thought.

  It was Braxidane’s mage who had ruined her plans, and it was Braxidane who refused to do anything about it.

  Yes, she thought, Braxidane must surely pay.

  She stretched herself even more thinly, daring the current to split her if it could. Then she collapsed into a ball and let herself be carried into a temporary stasis lull. The flow of life force raced past, whispering in calls that rasped like a shower of boiling oil, a million voices that Hezarin let roll through her senses for just the briefest of moments.