Trials (Rogue Mage Anthology Book 1) Read online

  I fled, stumbling away from the destruction. I don’t know how long I ran, but I stopped when the dust and blackness thinned and I could feel moonlight on my skin.

  I was spent. I had nothing left. I couldn’t even send my mind out to see if Anette was still alive in the middle of the shattered campus.

  I told myself I’d come back the next night and search.

  I never did.

  As I staggered into camp, the Moon had started below the horizon. It was still an hour before sunrise, but already my vision was growing blurry.

  Gary, Sandra, and Mack were loading the wagons. When they saw me, they rushed over and eased me into a chair.

  “Water,” I croaked and someone pressed a cup into my hands.

  Sandra caught her breath. “Your hand!”

  Mack cursed as I rinsed out my mouth and then took a long swallow.

  “Javi?” I asked, before he could say anything.

  “Back of the wagon,” Mack said. “Asleep. Elise—”

  I shook my head and scrubbed the dust off my face. Haltingly, I told them what happened. I didn’t mention the crystal. That was for the seraphs to deal with and I didn’t want any of my friends getting within a mile of that thing. I’d report it when I got back to Enclave.

  “Do you think she’s still alive?” Gary asked, as he and Mack continued to load the wagons. They had decided to head back to Houston at sunup.

  “I don’t know.” I got up to get more water and I tripped over something and nearly fell. My eyesight was never this bad this early, and it scared me.

  “I’ll get that.” Sandra took the cup from my hands and I tried not to flinch. I hadn’t seen her approach. The campfire was only a brighter patch in a field of blurry gray. I shivered.

  “Elise?”

  I jumped. “What?”

  “Here.” I turned in the direction of Sandra’s voice. “I brought another—” She gasped and I heard the cup hit the gravel.

  “Your eyes . . .”

  I couldn’t see Sandra, and as I felt the last of the Moon slip below the horizon the last of my vision bled away.

  “Power comes with a price,” was something that my old mentor and friend Raylene told me back in Enclave. Anette paid for hers. Was I paying for mine?

  “. . . they’re all white!”

  KEN SCHRADER is a science fiction and fantasy writer, a shameless geek, a fan of the Oxford comma, and makes housing decisions based upon the space available for bookshelves. Ken loves music of (almost) all kinds, books, the big sky off his front porch, Star Wars, Firefly, Blind Guardian (to which he writes almost exclusively), star gazing, jasmine tea, and the smell of rain on the air. Ken lives in Michigan, is co-owned by several dogs (especially the border collie), and is one of the rare breed of folk that enjoys mowing the lawn.

  Visit his website at www.ken-schrader.com

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  Day One

  38 PA / 2050 AD

  Faith Hunter

  Burkhold locked the bars on the windows while Sharia locked the doors and passed the keys out the mail slot to the waiting mule. Regina was a sterile half-human, half-mage; a longtime, trustworthy friend; the kind you could depend on when a mage-rut was scheduled.

  The couple was now sealed in together, safe from sexual approach by other mages and unable to leave the small house to join the mating frenzy that would soon take place in the streets among the unmarried. Regina would be back in five days to unlock the door and set them free. Five days of bliss and love unlike any ever known by the poor humans.

  He watched as Sharia moved across the living room and checked yet again that there was food and water enough to last them the full heat. Mages had been known to forget to eat or drink, almost dying of dehydration while caught up in mage-rut lust; having both ready to hand was wise. This would be their first rut since they’d come into their gifts, and Burkhold and his mate had been meticulous in their preparations. All their amulets were locked up in a trunk in the hall, and Regina had the key; there would be no unauthorized release of creation energy by one of them while caught up in the heat. Their weapons had been left at the dojo, under lock and key; there was no way for them to hurt each other—Burkhold smiled: except by wild and raucous sex.

  As if sensing the train of his thoughts, Sharia looked up and met his eyes. Warmth and excitement filled her face. And a bit of fear. “We’ll be fine, Sweetheart,” he said, understanding. “No one ever died from mage heat.”

  “No. But they did have to sit in healing baths for a month after,” she said wryly.

  Burkhold dropped a kiss on her forehead and checked the position of the pillows on the floor, careful to cover the hard wood. Rugs, pillows, and mattresses would protect their skin from damage should the rut take them away from the bedroom. He looked back over his shoulder at the bower they had prepared. The bed was made up with sage green silk and emerald green pillows. A comforter was folded at the foot and emerald mosquito netting fell from the ceiling in a drape. Illumination amulets—minor ones with little useable creation energy in them—were scattered about the room, ready to be activated.

  Outside, the sound of revelry was rising. Fireworks exploded against the Enclave dome overhead. Boisterous music blasted down the street from the house shared by five unmated mage men. They had been drinking hard all day, and had advertised a party, a mage-heat orgy. It had attracted several dozen unmated mages, mules, and humans. They were dancing and drinking, and several of the mages had already tossed aside their clothes. One mage woman was standing on the street corner, dancing; the men watching applauded. It had been five years since the last flyover, and the populace was eager.

  In all that time, no mage children had been born. For a mage female to ovulate, seraphs had to fly directly over the Enclave and hover close to the dome, wings beating. Such proximity would fuel both ovulation in the females and almost unbearable sexual heat in all mages. In the seraphs as well, but they were not allowed—by the Most High—to participate in the mage heat they stimulated. Instead they would hover until they could bear it no more, then they would fly back to the nearest Realm of Light, to be tended by seraphs until their own heat dissipated.

  In eight months, the litters of little mages and bigger mules would be born to the Enclave and be taken, squalling, to where mules trained for crèche duty would care for them, bringing them back to mage mothers as needed for mother’s milk and energy feedings. Hopefully Sharia and Burkhold wouldn’t have a litter after their first rut. They, along with twenty other mated couples, were testing a new birth control method. If it worked, female mages who wanted to could avoid the twice-a-decade childbearing. Mage population numbers around the globe were comfortably high, and the Enclave councils wanted to avoid future overpopulation.

  Burkhold felt a tingle in his fingertips and looked at his hands. Warmth shot through his blood, electric and arousing. The music in the streets fell silent, cut off in mid-note. A heated silence filled the air, expectant and eager. “They’re early,” he said. But Sharia was looking out the tall, barred window at the scene in the street. His blood heating, he joined her.

  He could feel the pressure building in Sharia’s belly as her body responded to the presence of seraphs, her ovaries swelling, her breasts growing tender. Desire like molten gold filled his veins, and he growled with his own need. He wanted. Angel tears, he wanted.

  From the window, they heard shrieks. Their hearts pounded, breath heaved. Excitement and power rose in them, intensified, gathered strength. Power leapt between them, fueling their shared release.

  The rut of mage heat had begun. And there were four days more to come.

  MONSTER

  38-51 PA / 2050-2063 AD

  Spike Y Jones

  38 PA

  “You know, Dam, the way you handle that sword, I think it’s right; you’re gonna end up a Steel mage. It’s almost like that sword’s
a part of you, or you’re a part of it.”

  “And what . . . would you . . . know about . . . sword play . . . Ike?” the dark-skinned boy replied, his words in rhythm with his feints, thrusts, and advances.

  “Not much,” the skinny redhead said, reclining on the levee, “but I know about prophecy. And yours says you’ll be made of steel.”

  “Which means . . . you don’t . . . know pro . . . phecy . . . either . . . spawn-for-brains.”

  “He’s right . . . Ike,” huffed the third, older, boy, as he retreated, his muscular parries barely blocking the younger boy’s fluid attacks. “Kibed . . . the Moon mage in my cohort . . . he says . . . prophecy is never straightforward . . . If the meaning . . . is obvious . . . then the meaning . . . is wrong.”

  Damocles launched a killing blow at Mosiah’s neck, followed by another at his groin, and then a third at his heart, all before the older boy could react even to the first.

  “Hey! You weren’t supposed to speed it!”

  “I got tired of waiting for you to make a move, Mo,” Damocles said, breaking into a cool-down kata to ease his muscles out of full-combat mode.

  “The Moonies make that ‘Look at me, I’m so mysterious’ stuff up. Without it what’ve they got? ‘You are feeling sleepy, very sleepy.’” They all laughed, and Damocles and Mosiah flopped down on the grass beside Icarus. “I mean, my prophecy was clear: ‘Heat—’”

  “Oh, we know your prophecy. ‘Heat of the Sun warms every heart, but wax wings that flyyyyyy tooooooo hiiiiigh melt’,” Damocles and Mosiah sing-songed in something approaching unison.

  “Which is why you don’t see me flying too high, working up a sweat swinging steel or memorizing workings, when I can just lay back and soak up my sunlight, keeping myself tanned and toned for the tesses.”

  “The only way a priestess is gonna fall for you is if she trips over you on her way to me.”

  “I think the both of you children are years away from having to worry about priestesses. You’ll be lucky to have hit puberty by the next overflight, and it may be another one before even a heat-crazed female’ll be willing to bed you.”

  “Not much longer for me,” Ike said, stroking the scattering of dark hairs on his upper lip that he referred to as a moustache.

  “Yeah. Right. You keep thinking that. But low-flying Icarus might have a point, Dam. I mean, ‘He shall be as strong as steel, but with a legacy more enduring’, does sound like the prophecy for a Steel mage.”

  “Or for a River or Air mage who just happens to enjoy working out,” Damocles countered.

  “Well, you better hope you end up a Metal mage, or else that chain you’ve been wearing around your neck for a decade is gonna be a lousy prime amulet,” Icarus pointed out.

  “They’re coming.”

  Damocles and Mosiah sprang up, and even Icarus got slowly to his feet and searched the sky in the direction Damocles stared.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Me neither.”

  “They’re coming,” Damocles insisted. “I can feel them.”

  Suddenly all noise from the city—the distant mix of music, people shouting, the explosion of conjures and fireworks the boys had been ignoring—stopped.

  “They’re here,” Damocles whispered, absentmindedly swinging his sword in a complicated slow-motion pattern, as much a dance as a battle exercise, just as two tiny figures appeared in the air above the city’s protective dome, seraphs hovering in midair, their presence awakening uncontrollable mage heat in every mature neomage.

  The two neomages were only eleven years old, born just before the Enclave was established, so the overflight wouldn’t affect them. Mosiah was seventeen, but as a human he was, of course, immune to mage heat. So the three had felt safe sneaking to a thicket springing up amid the ruins just outside of the Enclave, preferring to avoid both the adult revels in the streets of the French Quarter and the indignity of being locked up with the other children in the confines of human-run safe houses within the city.

  There probably would have been some opportunities for Mosiah in the city; the party atmosphere infected many female humans even without heat. But an offer to spar with Damocles wasn’t something to be passed up. Despite his youth, Damocles was probably the most skillful neomage savage blade user in New Orleans. There were adult mules who could best him, but mostly because they had muscle mass on him and the ability to channel creation energy into their efforts. Once Damocles grew into his oversized sword and came into his magical gift, those advantages would probably be canceled as well. Mosiah learned more in his tutoring sessions with the younger boy than the mage learned from the older, supposedly more experienced, human.

  Still, the rut would last for five days. They’d probably end up sneaking back into the city before it was over, if the food they’d brought ran out or if they got bored, and Mosiah could leave his neomage companions behind for some other company.

  “D-D-Dam? Guys? I don’t feel so good.”

  Mosiah and Damocles spun around to see Icarus glowing, light leaking out of his eyes and heat pulsing from his skin.

  “It’s the seraphs!” Mosiah exclaimed. “It’s your gift comin’ in! It happens sometimes if you’re just starting puberty. I heard about it after the last flight.”

  “It hurts! It hurts!”

  “Your amulet, Ike. Use your prime to control the energy. You can put the light into it.”

  Icarus clasped his hands around the crystal prism hanging from a thong around his neck. “It’s not working. I can’t feel anything in the amulet.”

  The waves of heat grew more intense and Icarus’ clothing began to smoulder. Flames appeared at his fingertips, and when he tried to shake them out, the flames fell to his feet, lighting the grass on fire.

  “Hellhole! He’s not a Light mage. Ike’s a Fire mage! Dam, what can we do?”

  “I don’t know! Everyone in the Enclave’s rutting by now. Maybe an amulet—a Control Power conjure.”

  “Where?”

  “In the school. They’ve got plenty of them in the school.”

  “But they’d be locked.”

  “I can’t hold it! I have to let it out!”

  A flash of light, a blast of heat, and an explosive concussion wave knocked Damocles and Mosiah to the ground. Icarus still stood, but trees, bushes, and grass in all directions around him burned. He turned in a slow circle, staring wide-eyed at the destruction that surrounded him.

  “Ike, you gotta calm down!” Mosiah yelled at Icarus, as the human levered himself off the ground. Then, more quietly, “Do the rhyme, Ike. Stone and fire, water . . .”

  “. . . water and air, blood and kin prevail.” Icarus’ voice quavered, but years of repetition had drilled the words into him, as they were supposed to. “Wings and shield, dagger and sword, blood and kin prevail. Stone and fire, water . . .”

  “‘Wings and shield. Wings and—’ Seraphs.” Damocles calmly stood up. “It’s happening because of the seraphs.”

  “Yeah, but so what, Dam?”

  “They caused it, Mo; they can fix it. Ike, don’t worry; I’m getting help,” and then Damocles ran a short distance along the levee, out of range of the flames. Lifting his sword to the sky, he pointed in the direction of the seraphs and called out, his voice ringing above the fire in a way no ten-year-old’s had a right to: “You! Seraph! You did this! Come down here and help!”

  Seconds ticked by and nothing happened. “Maybe they didn’t hear you . . . which would be good.”

  Then one of the winged warriors turned in the air and swooped towards the three boys at the edge of the city.

  The seraph came to a hovering halt yards above them. He wore no armor and carried no weapons. His robes and wings were purest white, his hair golden, and the light that shone from him the yellow of the Sun. His voice thundered, “Who calls the Hand of Purification? Who summons the Seraph of Chastity? Who would command Taharial of the High Host?”

  Mosiah fell to the ground, averting his eyes
and praying fervently. Damocles, though, stood his ground. “I called. My friend,” he said, pointing unnecessarily at Icarus with his sword, “his gift was awakened by your presence. He can’t control it. You gotta help him.”

  Taharial turned stiffly in the air to observe Icarus, the boy’s skin having taken on a reddish glow. The seraph then turned back to face Damocles.

  “There is nothing I can do for him, young mage. His condition cannot be ameliorated.” The seraph turned his face skyward and his wings began to flap harder.

  “No! There must be something you can do,” Damocles pointed his sword at Taharial again, the pink quartz crystal in the pommel glinting in the light shining from the seraph. “Do it!”

  “Hey, guys, I dunno—wings and shield—I think I’m getting the hang of this.” The glow from Icarus’s skin changed from dull red to orange.

  “Again you command me, mage, with a sword and wild magic in your hand.”

  “. . . dagger and sword—it doesn’t hurt anymore. It actually feels, I dunno—blood and kin prevail—I feel strong, full of power.” From bright orange to yellow-white. “I can control it—stone and fire—”

  Flames exploded from the Fire mage’s eyes, his hands, his skin, rushing hungrily outward to engulf Damocles, Mosiah, the Louisiana countryside—and were extinguished as they struck a dome of energy that sprang up around Icarus at a gesture from the seraph. The flames pouring uncontrollably from the pre-teen’s body grew in heat and intensity, and with a blinding flash of light and a roar of sound Icarus disappeared from sight.

  The seraph’s voice penetrated the ringing in the neomage’s ears. “But commanding a thing to happen is not always enough. There are some things beyond the power of even the seraphim.”

  Mosiah struggled to his feet, tears streaming down his face. Damocles slowly turned from the fire-blasted circle that marked the extent of the seraph’s now-dissipated energy dome and faced the seraph, still hovering in the air. The neomage began to speak, but the seraph cut him off.