Chapter 10 #2
“I’m fine up here.” Lord Elal smirked. The fact that he had only one organic eye made the smirk more dramatic.
Gabriel Phel had forcibly removed the eye, which Elal had later replaced with a mechanical version: a device no doubt made by House El-Adrel.
Possibly custom designed and built by his dear old maman. Double hmm.
“Got something in your eye?” Jadren twirled his finger at the device. “Looks like you’re having some discomfort.”
“What are you blathering about, you unregistered idi—ah!” Piers clapped a hand over the mechanical eye, squealing in pain in such an undignified manner that Jadren might’ve indulged in a bit of smirking of his own.
Elal’s familiar, anxious and upset, tried to assist but he pushed her aside.
Not enough to lose physical contact, though.
Seliah slid him a questioning look, but said nothing.
“Malfunction?” Jadren called solicitously.
“I could probably assist with that. Come on down and I’ll take a look at it.
” He used his El-Adrel wizardry to heat up the metal a bit more.
His own eye-orbit throbbed in sympathy. Yeah, he’d had similar instruments installed.
Amazing how much the inside of your own skull could hurt.
Elal bellowed with rage. “You common street rat of a bastard wizard! I know it’s you doing that.
” He reached up and tore out the mechanical eye, ripping it from his skull and eliciting a gout of blood.
Jadren hadn’t expected that move—and he had to admit it was impressive for the sheer brutality. Talk about drama.
Seliah made a gagging sound, her magic dimming a little. “Don’t look,” he told her. “That’s what he wants. Intimidation factor.”
“It’s working,” she replied weakly, but staring steadfastly at the ground.
“You’ll pay for this,” Piers Elal roared. “Where is my daughter?”
Well, now that was odd. Surely he knew Alise couldn’t be far away?
Or maybe he didn’t know. All he had to go on was the broken-down Harahel carriage back near the border.
Alise and Cillian were hidden from sight, inside the El-Adrel carriage which, come to think of it, looked the same coming or going.
For once he blessed the El-Adrel historic obsession with symmetrical design.
It could look like he and Seliah had been traveling to Elal.
Also, Piers apparently hadn’t sent any spirit spies to check out the interior of the carriage.
Hopefully that was because he couldn’t divert his intention from the barely tame spirits holding him aloft.
“You’re looking for Nic?” Jadren asked, deciding to go with being infuriating, as it was one of his strengths. “At House Phel, I imagine.”
“Don’t toy with me, boy,” Piers snarled. Very impressive with blood and other… things dripping down his face. Why wasn’t the pain unbearable? Maybe Jadren hadn’t had a bad enough feeling. “Alise. My heir. Where is she?”
Fortunately, playing dumb was also one of his strengths. “I thought she was with you. We were on our way to Elal for a cozy visit. Didn’t expect this kind of greeting. I’m honored.”
Piers Elal made an incoherent, choking cry of rage—or that could be the blood going down the inside of his sinuses—his magic amassing in the air.
The familiar crumpled, clearly being tapped for the increased magic, and Jadren considered that maybe he’d miscalculated.
He drew on Seliah’s magic, not at all sure what he planned to do with it, but wanting to be ready.
He felt more than heard her sigh of relief.
Spirits appeared all around Piers and his wilting familiar, a nimbus of malevolence.
Okay, so, that answered one question: whatever Elal had done to power his flying platform with spirits, they were bound there by previous magical work, which pretty much cemented the blood magic theory.
Demons and djinn were supposed to be useful for that sort of thing, creating lasting, stable enchantments that outpowered anything else.
Too bad you had to court pure evil that wanted to eviscerate wizards as much or more than they were inclined to serve.
Maybe that’s why plucking out his own mechanical eye didn’t seem to bother Piers very much. Having your guts chomped on by a demon likely hurt worse.
Jadren didn’t have the luxury of mulling over the riddle, however, as the array of half-manifested spirits dove for them with fully manifested weapons. All aiming for Seliah.
Smart. Piers probably knew something about Jadren’s ability to heal—and he certainly could safely assume Jadren needed his bonded familiar’s power to last through any kind of pitched duel.
If Jadren could even figure out how to fight this kind of shit.
He should have made Seliah wait in the carriage.
For funsies, he tried his dismantling power against the plummeting hoard.
Yeah, as he’d thought: no such luck. They weren’t even substantial, much less organic.
He drew Mr. Machete, the moonsilver weapon that had served him so well for so long.
Good for non-magical fighting, for unskilled bozos like him.
He thrust Seliah behind him at the last moment—really all the moment he had—parrying some of the blows intended for her and absorbing the ones that got through.
It hurt like a sonofabitch. He tried to replicate Elal’s crazed rage and apparent imperviousness to pain.
But for all Jadren’s considerable experience with it, pain still felt really shitty.
Seliah buried her face in his back, trembling with the need to fight, restrained by her obligation to feed him magic.
This wasn’t going to end well. “Are you out of your cursed mind?” he screamed at Lord Elal. “This is an unprovoked act of war.”
“You trespassed!” Elal shrieked. “And abducted my daughter. And—” His tirade abruptly cut off as he lunged for his familiar, who’d nearly fallen off the floating platform when she passed out. The spirits attacking Jadren and Seliah abruptly vanished, thank the dark arts.
Piers Elal crouched in his misty cloud, blood-streaked face contorted, shaking the poor girl who was at least blessedly out of it. “You’ll pay,” he shouted at Jadren. “You and all your wretched friends will pay for this.”
“You need better lines,” Jadren informed him, holding himself up through sheer force of will. “Let me know if you want to replace that eye. Should be still under warranty!”
Piers growled something incoherent, then spun in place, the mist rising to cover him and his familiar, then they all blended with the sky. Effectively invisible to the naked eye. Jadren, however, with a fix of his wizard senses on them this time, tracked the slight distortion of their presence.
And he made absolutely sure they were gone before he allowed himself to collapse.