The Lost Prince Page 24

  Cat’s hands began to shake. Her voice was trapped in her throat. As Kraten crossed the path toward her, she found its release.

  “Bree! RUUUUNNN!”

  CHAPTER 22

  A LEAGUE OF HER OWN

  1

  Lelani realized a second too late that someone had targeted her with a spell. She stood frozen in place, unable to help herself or her friends. Catherine continued to speak, unaware that anything had occurred; her voice came through muffled, as though her head were within a tin pot covered by a blanket. This stasis spell was a very costly lesson; Lelani failed to implement Proust’s third rule of engagement: Act first.

  Three men approached them from the woods: Symian and Kraten from the tenement fight in the Bronx and a third conspicuous man as big and pink as Captain MacDonnell. At the tenement, Lelani had implemented the third rule and took out the enemy sorcerer with the first blow. Now the roles were reversed. This spell was a little more advanced than she thought Symian capable of. She was embarrassed to have let a first-year washout get the drop on her.

  Cat had realized something was wrong and slowly approached Lelani. Collins’s body flew through the air and hit a tree just at the edge of the centaur’s field of vision. Cat screamed; Lelani saw it more in her friend’s strained, reddened face than heard it because of the muffled nature of sound in stasis. Bree ran crying up the path toward the castle. She fell and skinned her knee, but picked herself up and ran out of Lelani’s view. None of the men went after her.

  Cat pulled a pistol from her coat pocket just as Kraten came upon her. He swung his sword at Cat’s hand, and Lelani’s heart jumped, expecting to see her friend’s hand lying on the ground severed. But Kraten tilted the blade and struck her with the flat of the sword, knocking the gun from Cat’s still intact appendage. Cat lunged at him like her namesake, claws ready to tear. The swordsman grabbed her wrist with his free hand and punched Cat in the face with the sword still in his grip. She dropped like a brick.

  Symian approached, sporting a big troll grin bookended by his canine incisors. He gloated before Lelani, waxing poetic on a multitude of points she could not distinguish through the muffled hum of the stasis spell. As he spoke, he relieved her of her satchel and the mana tablets. Lelani was fairly certain he called her a witch several times, or at least something similar sounding. She was certain about the “itch” part. Symian had not cast a perfect spell; Lelani should not still be able to think in real time. She was grateful that the second of Lord Dorn’s sorcerers set against her was no better than the polyester leisuresuit–wearing fool upstate had been.

  K’ttan Dhourobi of Aht Humaydah had been a sloppy, lazy wizard. In fact most wizards were flawed wizards, and were really only skilled sorcerers undeserving of the title wizard. Proficient wizards have described wielding magic as the art of herding cats. It was far different than science, more chaotic because it included qualitative elements in addition to quantitative ones. The mood of a wizard could affect a spell beyond the components used to cast it. So could the position of the moon, the distance from a lay line, and many other archaic factors. Perfect magic did not exist. How could it? Magic wielders did not create the energy they employed in their art. It came to them from a far-off place. No one knew if it was a byproduct of some pan-dimensional equivalent of a star, or was in fact the blood of the gods as many clerics proselytized.

  Lelani began to construct the counter spell in her mind, shutting out Symian’s raging soliloquy at having been nearly burned to death at her hands a few days earlier. He launched into hyperbolic detail about his painful recovery. If he ever finished his rant, she was to “experience pain beyond her imagining,” et cetera, and so on.

  Symian pulled a silver knife from his coat and began to wave it in front of her face. The knife had strange writings on the blade and a pearl handle that was luminescent against the gray of Symian’s skin. Lelani needed another minute to call up the final components of the counter spell from her memory. Every component had to be placed in order just as if she were laying them out on a table, but all in her mind’s eye. The last swish of Symian’s knife nearly scratched her nose; Lelani was acutely aware that his boasting was coming to an end and her time grew short. But the counter spell was extremely difficult, and she didn’t dare rush it. It is normally accompanied by certain phrases and hand gestures with fingers in specific positions for focus. She would need to run through those gestures and say those words in her mind as she released the components of the spell organized in her thoughts. She had to coordinate three independent actions simultaneously, all in her head. She’d only succeeded at this once in Aandor out of five attempts. This was advanced spell casting, the type that made experts appear omnipotent because they could cause actions to occur with but a thought. It’s what separated those with sensitivity to magical energy from those with the capacity to become great wizards.

  Kraten approached Symian from behind with Cat trussed up over his left shoulder. He wore that oily smile he always had, the kind that only those born into entitlement are issued at birth. They were discussing the most horrible ways to demean and kill her. Centaur parts were in high demand to some conjurers: centaur tail, a hundred Krakens; centaur nipples, five hundred Gryphons … Kraten waved the point of his sword at her—beside Symian’s knife, it looked like a contest of manhood, with Kraten the clear winner.

  The henchman behind Kraten was less enthused by the murder game. He is not going to go far under Dorn, Lelani thought. She needed several more seconds, but when Symian raised his arm for the killing blow, she knew it was time she would never have. Lelani couldn’t even close her eyes.

  The left side of the big pink henchman’s head exploded.

  Whatever did that was outside Lelani’s field of view. Symian put up a shield. Bullets ricocheted off, lodging into the ground and chipping pieces of tree about them. The hail of bullets grew intense, Symian and Kraten backed away until they were into the brush. Lelani cast the counter spell. Normal sounds returned. She dropped her arms as the stasis spell peeled away.

  Malcolm approached with his team. Tom Dunning checked the brush where the attackers fled. Kara, the redheaded security woman from the hotel suite, leaned over Collins checking for a pulse.

  “Are you okay?” Malcolm asked.

  “Yes, thanks to you.”

  “Collins alerted us just before they got him.”

  “Is he…?”

  “We’ll get him to a hospital. Where’s Cat and the girl?”

  “Bree fled up the path toward the castle entrance. Cat is a prisoner. I must reach them before they leave this park. I can track well through woods. You find Brianna!” she entreated, pointing at the castle and bolting into the brush after Catherine.

  “Wait!” she heard Malcolm yell behind her—but Lelani was already through. She had, at best, ten minutes before they hit the streets of this city and disappeared without a trace.

  The area just south of Belvedere Castle is known as the Ramble—a lush forest in the middle of a sprawling metropolis. When Lelani first arrived to this world, she lived in the Ramble until she could get her bearings, procure money, and confidently mingle with the inhabitants of this reality. When she was anxious, at her lowest energy, she would always think of this woodland as her oasis on this strange and alien world … she praised the people who preserved such beauty against the encroaching city in her daily prayers.

  Kraten and Symian were in a mad dash to get away with their prize, and as such left a stumbling, bumbling mess of a trail that even a child centaur could follow. It was a desperate move for them, but a strategically sound one—with Cat as their prisoner, Captain MacDonnell was effectively neutralized. If Cal found the prince first, they would offer an exchange. There was no doubt Dorn would kill her without a moment’s hesitation. The problem was … would Cal trade the prince for his wife? Was his fealty to his prince, his family back home, greater than the one to Catherine? Lelani realized the irony of her doubts … they were the very same one
s Catherine had been feeling since she’d entered their lives—doubts made even more uncertain since learning of Chryslantha.

  It was near dusk; soon it would be hard to differentiate people as they turned to silhouettes. Lelani had crested the summit of the Ramble and now headed downhill through brush and trees toward the lake. She spotted them at a steady trot ahead of her on a path that would take them to that old bowed bridge that reminded her of Valentino’s Crossing in Aandor. Lelani hit the lakeside path and ran toward the bridge at a centaur’s speed, preparing the same stasis spell that had been used on her. The bridge was a popular spot for people to take wedding photos, and it was crowded with Asian people in tuxedos and gowns this evening. One of the bridesmaids, alarmed at Lelani’s inhumanly swift approach, cried out, alerting Symian to the centaur’s charge. She cast the spell at him, but Symian deflected it with a show of colorful sparks that ruffled the lake’s surface. The wedding parties panicked and scattered off the bridge.

  Symian stood sentry with Lelani’s stolen satchel hanging across his shoulder. Kraten crossed over the bridge with Cat and ran to the left toward Bethesda Terrace. Cat was the centaur’s primary goal, but to sidestep Symian would leave her vulnerable from behind. She had to keep the troll in front of her and give him her undivided attention. She knew of Symian during his time at the academy in Aandor—how could you not notice a troll in your midst. He was half the sorcerer she was then. Studying with Dorn had bolstered his confidence. He showed no fear and looked eager to demonstrate his prowess. She couldn’t conceive of Dorn as a patient teacher. Much of what wizards studied required repetition and refinement. If the stasis spell he cast on her was any indication of Symian’s skill level, then the troll was overconfident.

  “Why do you align yourself with Farrenheil?” she asked. “They despise your very existence.”

  “Everyone despises my existence!” he shouted. “Was I treated any better at the academy? Dropped after one year. At least Farrenheil pays.”

  “You lacked proficiency and focus,” she said.

  “The instructors withheld their knowledge from me. What little I learned I did so on my own. Dorn would not suffer a fool of an apprentice.”

  “Your stasis spell was shoddy. Surrender.”

  Symian yelled as he launched dozens of sharp, pointed ice crystals at her. Lelani made a splashing motion with her hand and a large surge of water rose from the lake and deluged the troll and his ice barrage, knocking him to his knees. He rose quickly and launched a second attack, this time a column of fire, which Lelani thought was reckless considering the flammable oil that covers his skin. Lelani motioned with her other hand, bringing a second wave from the other direction. Symian dropped his flame attack to deflect the column of water toward the centaur. Lelani stuck her arm out as though to shake hands with the wave and the column of water split down the middle, each side falling over the rail, except instead of returning to the lake, Lelani directed both halves along the side of the bridge back toward the troll and walloped him from both sides as the ends of the columns came together.

  “You’re all wet,” she said.

  Symian’s rage intensified, made all the more comical by his unorthodox appearance of grayish skin and yellow where the whites of his eyes would be. He was soaking wet and exhausted. To her incredulity, Symian commenced a second attack of the same fire spell, in serious breach of Proust’s sixth rule of engagement: Never use the same attack twice in a row if the first time failed. Although the sixth rule did not apply to defensive measures (that was the twelfth rule, and it spurred much debate among those who felt switching a defensive spell that’s already proved itself was inviting an uncertain outcome), Lelani was concerned about water getting into her satchel and drenching her scrolls and notes.

  She waved her arm, palms toward the flames. They met an invisible barrier a few feet in front of the sorceress. Symian poured it on, perspiring, straining with effort to break through the centaur’s shield—steaming the water off the age-old bridge’s floorboards and singeing the railings black. Lelani realized he could not break her—he was completely unfocused, using rage and anger as a crutch to propel his sloppy spells. She was fortunate that so far Dorn’s minions were middling talents at best. Her placid veneer conveyed her indifference to Symian’s rage, despite the effort it took to maintain the shield. She would show no hint of effort or struggle, determined to eradicate his confidence.

  Lelani was her old self again: The test of wills she relished back in Aandor, mock battles, war games, conflicts that determined dominance among the students. With the lay line so close, she could cast spells with no fear of depleting her magic. Her confidence surged—and as Symian’s began to wane, she redoubled her efforts and pushed her shield back toward him across the bridge. Soon the fire would blow back on him, his own flames licking his clothes and the highly flammable oils on his skin. He ceased his attack and fell back on his haunches.

  A curtain of gray smoke and white steam wafted from the floorboards between them. Through the haze, she said, “If you surrender, I promise mercy.”

  Symian’s eyes communicated more panic than rage now. He hastily pulled two silver daggers from his coat, the one he threatened her with earlier and its twin. Her first instinct was to deflect them, but in the micro second it took Symian to reel his arms back for the throw, it occurred to Lelani that her foe knew what she was capable of. What then was the point? Unless Symian believed the attack would succeed because of something she didn’t know.

  Proust’s twelfth rule nagged at her even if it was overly cautious. In that nanosecond, Lelani decided to cast a dangerously ambitious spell she’d only just read about in Proust’s book—after all, she had all the magical power she needed in Central Park, and Symian simply wasn’t advanced enough to fathom a countermove this unexpected. Symian released the knives. As they flew toward her, Lelani arched her arms out and channeled a generous amount of magic to tear a small opening in time and space in front of her. The rip generated a thundering boom that bounced off the lake and echoed against the skyline around the park. The lake-lined trees bent away from the epicenter same as they would acquiesce to a gale force wind, the bridge shook, and a towering cloud of thick black brimstone, like animated black yarn, billowed from the spot. Lelani fell through the opening and, causing a second boom and quake upon the overpass, reappeared behind Symian. Symian spun around, abject fear written across his face—the look of a sorcerer that realized he was outclassed. This was a magic user’s worst nightmare … to find out one was in the midst of a duel with an opponent that far excelled them. Symian could not even begin to counter a spatial displacement spell. Though it took all of Lelani’s effort to cast that little jump across only a few feet, and she was exhausted for it, she didn’t show it. The move was more psychological than practical. Symian’s ignorance had him believing she could drop him into the bottom of the deepest lake or into an active volcano at her whim. Frozen in place, he struggled to think of his next move. He’s brain locked, she thought.

  Lelani called upon a spell the tree wizard, Rosencrantz, recently taught her. From the lake around her, green vines flew at her opponent like bolts from a crossbow, ensnaring Symian’s arms, legs, and torso. Lelani moved her hands like a puppeteer, controlling the offshoots. The vines dragged Symian toward her. He’d forgotten spell casting altogether and dug his troll’s nails into the wooden planks of the bridge, but to no avail. Eight bloody claw marks in the bridge’s singed wood chronicled the drag.

  She pulled the vines back to immobilize Symian, spread eagle, before her. Lelani grabbed her satchel and his own bag of tricks with one hand and broke Symian’s nose with a jab of her fist. He squealed, and then his head drooped down.

  A glint down the bridge showed where one of the knives he’d thrown had landed. She jumped over him to retrieve it. It was as she suspected … faerie silver. Not silver really, it was in fact a form of enchanted platinum brought about by a light exposure to certain naturally occurring radiation;
the dwarvs who forged it coined the name faerie silver because they thought it had a nicer ring. This was one of the most rare metals in Aandor and its chief property was complete neutrality to magic. It would have ignored any spell or shield she put up. Worse, had the knife broken skin, minute traces of the metal in her blood would have rendered her magically inert until they had worked their way out of her system. She would have been unable to cast spells and been completely at the troll’s mercy. The other dagger was out of view—she should search for it, but Kraten was getting away with Cat. The fight had eaten precious minutes, and dusk had set in. If only she had a sample of Catherine’s blood, skin, or hair.

  Symian had passed out. Lelani nicked him on the wrist with the knife, rendering him magically inert for the better part of a day. She took the dagger’s sheath from his coat and secured her new weapon. Kraten’s course took him toward Bethesda Terrace. She made it as far as the fountain, still exhausted and light-headed from that teleportation spell. There was no trail to pick up upon the bricks and concrete of the square. The terrace reminded Lelani of Aandor’s many piazzas. Even in the chill of the evening it was crowded—street performers on the stairs and pickpockets pilfering the tourists’ wallets. No sign of Kraten lurking among them; Cat was gone.

  2

  Lelani returned to Bow Bridge. Symian had slipped his restraints. The coward had faked unconsciousness. Her pursuit was a complete failure. She fingered the sheath of her new dagger and thought, Maybe not a complete loss. As she trotted back to Belvedere Castle, the inevitable battle pushed its way into her thoughts. So far, she’d been lucky that Lord Dorn was only able to recruit lesser talents. Perhaps his ego was too brittle to feel secure around other proficient wizards. One thing was certain—if Lelani went up against Dorn, she would likely lose. She would be in the similar position Symian and K’ttan Dhourobi had found themselves in against her.