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  <> Ruth exclaimed in exultation as her daughter-in-law’s face rose in her mind’s eye.

  There was a shock of recognition, and a scattered, joyous thought, <> before a brilliant flash of light exploded in the room and Ruth collapsed onto the floor.

  Chapter 19 – Consequences

  Planet – Borachland Castle

  To Troyer, the abrupt flash of light was blinding. The little boy could not see through his streaming eyes but obedient to his grandmother, stayed in his chair and waited. Hoping to hear his grandmother’s voice, he grew more concerned as the seconds ticked off. The worried child was not reassured by the sounds in the room.

  What had been a quiet room before now was filled with the skittering sound of blowing objects and a wailing cry of circling winds. Unwilling to disobey his grandmother, Troyer huddled into a small frightened ball of child and waited.

  << <> >>

  Pawlik was thoroughly enjoying his breakfast with his old crew members. It had been a while since they had last gotten together and watch it happen since then. Catching up on the details of their lives and trying to explain what was going on in his, Pawlik luxuriated in the feeling of just being himself. There was no need to be the noble here, no need to be responsible for anybody. It was just a breakfast between friends.

  “Captain, you are looking a bit tired. Either being mated is harder than you expected or the Lady mage is more demanding than we thought,” joked Sgt. Gray.

  “The being mated part is far better than I ever thought. And my Lady mage is not very demanding. Although, I have to admit, that sometimes I feel like I’m’s sprinting behind her trying to keep up.”

  “Seriously, sir, we were all very lucky that she happened to be on the ship with us. I am thankful every day that she saved us, although the price that we all paid was pretty horrific.”

  “I agree, old friend. And I would drink to that.”

  Smiling at each other, the six men around the breakfast table raised their glasses of ale in salute and drained them. Pawlik smiled to himself, thinking of how Ruth would react to being toasted with ale at breakfast. In some ways, it was the little things where their cultures clashed. Something that was perfectly acceptable in Arkken society would have been totally unacceptable in the culture that Ruth grew up.

  Thinking of the differences between cultures set a cold finger of concern down Pawlik’s spine. His uneasiness with Ruth’s action this morning came crashing back to him. There was something there that he should’ve understood and didn’t, something that was going to be a problem. He just didn’t know what it was yet.

  Shaking himself to throw off the somber mood, the nobleman realized he was extremely tired. He felt like he had been running in all day March, or helping to unload one of the cargo holds. It was very annoying, especially since he had gotten a good night’s sleep the night before. Right now, he just felt drained. Straightening in shock, Pawlik gathered his wits about him enough to realize he was being trained. Something was going on that was pulling his energy out, and it was being drawn through his mage bond. What was that blessed woman doing?! he thought to himself.

  As if thinking about Ruth drew their bond tighter, Pawlik was suddenly slammed with the echoes of Ruth’s collapse. Ripping through the Mage bond with slicing pain and the sound of a laboring heart, he knew that his Mage was in danger. He knew he had to get to her.

  Dropping his empty cup onto the tabletop, Pawlik jumped from the table so fast that his chair went flying back. His old crewmates jumped to their feet looking around in alarm, trying to see where the danger was coming from.

  “Captain? What’s wrong?!” yelled Sgt. Gray.

  “The mage! There’s a problem at the castle!”

  Pawlik charged through the restaurant at a flat-out sprint. Had anyone gotten in his way, they would’ve been bowled over, but self-preservation instincts cleared his path as he ran like an Earth-style football running back through the crowded restaurant. Smashing past the door, Pawlik emerged onto the main street of Borachville. Stumbling slightly in his haste, Pawlik all but dove into his waiting car.

  “My Lord, what’s wrong?” called his driver, Peter.

  “The castle. We need to get back to the castle immediately!” Pawlik answered.

  When the Peter started to move into his normal seat, the nearly frantic nobleman blocked his way with a forearm and said, “Get in the other seat. I am driving.”

  The automatic protest of the driver was stillborn after one look at Pawlik’s face. Moving rapidly, Peter threw himself into the passenger seat beside Pawlik and slammed the door. Before he could even fasten his safety restraints, Pawlik had yanked the vehicle around and was heading for the castle under maximum acceleration. Almost unable to breathe, Peter began to pray quietly. When Pawlik’s rapid turn scraped the edge of the vehicle against a bridge’s stone abutment, the intensity of prayers increased, and the supplanted driver closed his eyes.

  Rather than keep the vehicle on the ground, Pawlik engaged its flight capabilities and set course for the castle, changing the bouncing and speeding drive for a low-level flight that shoved both men back against the seat supports. Pushed to breakneck speed by fear and the pain that echoed through his mage bond, Pawlik was focused on getting to Ruth irrespective of whatever else was in his way.

  The drive would have taken 20 minutes, but their flight took less than four. Pawlik was only semi-aware of Peter’s use of the radio to warn the castle guard to open the gates and get out of their way. Later on, Pawlik would appreciate the forethought exhibited, but right now he was a man obsessed with one goal. Get to Ruth.

  The few minutes back to the castle felt like hours to Pawlik and seconds to Peter. The castle gates were wide open, and access to the entry had been cleared away. Pawlik slammed the shuttle into the ground without consideration for his passenger or the air car. Even before the vehicle had slid to a stop, Pawlik had unbuckled, shoved the door open and scrambled out.

  Yelling questions all the way, the frantic Mage Anchor charged up the steps and into the main entryway. A confused garble of noise made no sense to him as multiple people attempted to answer his urgent questions. Finally, Pawlik roared them all into silence.

  Spying Margot, Pawlik demanded, “Where is the Lady Mage? Something is wrong, and we have to get to her! Who has bodyguard duty on her right now?”

  Margot responded, “No one has that specific duty right now, my Lord. The door guard reports that she is not left her quarters.”

  “Check immediately!” Pawlik ordered.

  Only a few seconds had elapsed before Margot touched her hand to her left earpiece, paling as she listened to the report. “You’re right, Sir. She’s not in her quarters,” the security captain exclaimed.

  “Blast and damnation! I should’ve followed up when she sounded so strange. Where on earth could she be?”

  Anything else that they might’ve said was bitten off into sharply indrawn breaths of surprise as Hunter materialized between Pawlik and Margot. The mental command of the four-footed warrior slammed into the minds of everyone in the room. << She’s in the tower room! Grab on! >>

  Immediately, the nobleman and the security captain clutched Hunter. As Pawlik felt the catog begin to teleport, he noticed that one of the other Marines had reacted quickly enough to grab hold of Hunter’s tail. I have to remember that man! He thought in the back of his mind.

  << <> >>

  Hunter’s teleport delivered them to just outside the tower room door. The rapid and violent transport send waves of nausea over all three of his passengers as his mental voice informed them, << I can’t get through the protections on the room. You will have to deal with it from here. >>

  As the young Marine fell to his knees and retched violently onto the floor, Margot dove for the door, attempting to open it. There was an intense splash of purple light as the bodyguard captain was smashed away from the door and into the opposing wall. Shaking her head in an attempt to clear the conc
ussive damage, Margot tried to get to her feet.

  As fast as she was, she was too slow. Pawlik was already in motion toward the door and determined that nothing was going to get between him and his Mage. He grasped the handle of the door. Sheets of purple light exploded around him, ruffling his hair, and singeing his clothing. Dimly, he realized that it was painful, but Anchors were used to pain. He swatted away the agony as inconsequential, ephemeral, and insubstantial. He needed to get to Ruth, and he needed to get there NOW!

  Roaring in defiance, Pawlik yanked on the door so hard that it ripped from the hinges. The force of his action flipped the heavy door over his shoulder to slam into the wall next to Margot. He made it only one step into the room before he was caught short by the internal protection wall that Ruth had so carefully constructed. Only desperation allowed him to penetrate the wall, inch by painful inch.

  It was like walking into a wall of fire or searing acid. The resistance of the wall was substantial, but he and his mage were bound together. At some level, the protection wall recognized that Ruth and Pawlik were, in essence, the same person. It did not prevent Pawlik from pushing through the barrier but instead resisted him, even as it would have resisted Ruth should she have attempted the same thing.

  Pawlik could feel the heat against his skin and erosion of his clothing as it became brittle with fire damage. He didn’t care. Inch by inch, step by faltering step, he pushed through the pain and against the power of the wall. Nothing was going to stop him.

  It seemed like forever, that journey through what felt like an endless distance, but Pawlik fought his way through the two-foot protection barrier. As he emerged from the width of that zone, he stumbled, falling to his knees. Gasping in deep shuddering breaths, he called Ruth’s name with all the strength that he had. His Mage did not answer him, but someone else did.

  “Grandpa! Grandma fell down after the big light, but she made me promise not to leave my chair no matter what happened!” the little boy sobbed.

  Scrambling to his feet, Pawlik headed for Ruth at a stumbling run only to be brought up short by an abrupt collision with the circle barrier. Snarling in frustration, the Anchor tried to gather his scattered wits and evaluate the situation. Rapidly, he took in the candles, incense, and inscribed circle on the floor. He noticed Ruth’s body positioning and the visible protective light around Troyer. This was beyond any experience he had, and without his mage awake, he was hampered by inexperience and lack of certainty.

  Trying once more to get through the second barrier, Pawlik was faced with the knowledge that he was unable to get to Ruth as the situation stood. He could feel her failing energy through their bond, and his urgency rose sharply. Not knowing what danger he was placing the child in, he saw no option but to try to enlist the little boy’s help to save Ruth from certain death.

  “Troyer, you have to leave your chair,” he said.

  Sobbing even more, Troyer responded, “I promised Grandma. I won’t do what she made me promise not to do. Both you and daddy told me that I always have to keep my promises.”

  Pawlik was at a loss. His experience with talking with small children was not extensive, and he had no way of either forcing or encouraging Troyer to disobey his grandmother and to break a promise. His dilemma was interrupted by the sound of Cal’s voice yelling Troyer’s name and rapidly coming closer.

  The little boy was so distraught that he did not hear his father at first. Frightened by the collapse of his grandmother and intimidated by the urgency of Pawlik’s demands, Troyer huddled down further into the chair and hid his face in his folded arms.

  A flare of purple light lit the doorway as Cal rushed to his son. Whether the protection had been weakened by Pawlik’s successful penetration or the drive of a parent to protect their child overwhelmed the power of the spell, Cal blasted through the barrier accompanied by a massive emission of flame and heat. Looking like a derelict with partially singed clothing, Cal ran headlong into the same spell circle that had stopped Pawlik.

  “Troyer! Troyer, are you are right?” Cal frantically called.

  “Daddy! I’m scared, Daddy. I don’t know what to do. Grandma told me I had to stay here no matter what happened, but Grandpa wants me to move.”

  Cal spun around looking for Pawlik. In his rush to get to his son, he had totally ignored the presence of the older man. Grabbing Pawlik by the front of his shirt, Cal demanded, “What should we do?”

  Pawlik explained to Cal that they would be unable to get into the circle until someone on the inside broke its integrity. Since the circle was inscribed on the floor, there would have to be a dissection of the line by something other than scratching a section of the line out. At a loss for a solution, the two men looked at each other numbly until Margot’s voice rang out.

  “Hunter says for Troyer to tip the chair across the circle!”

  Quickly, Cal turned back to face his son. “Troyer, I need you to carefully get off the chair. Once you do that, please push a chair close to the edge of the circle. Then take a deep breath and tip the chair over so that it goes across the circle line. You can stay in the circle, just like you promised Grandma.”

  Trusting his father, Troyer straightened up and climbed down off the chair. As both Cal and Pawlik watched intently, Troyer did as his father had asked. As the chair hit the ground, spanning the inscribed circle, a cacophony of jarring notes resounded in the room. The child screamed and dropped to the ground, grabbing his ears in pain. The two men were able to weather the breaking of the circle better than Troyer, simply grimacing in pain and continuing to watch.

  Once again, Pawlik attempted to push through the protective circle on the exterior of the spell area. The barrier still held. The frightened child was going to have to help them once more, or they would not be able to save Ruth.

  Cal set himself to convincing Troyer that it was safe to move outside of the circle and that his grandmother needed help. It took him five precious minutes before the child inched his way on hands and knees across the floor and moved out of the inner circle. The lack of sound when he did that reassured him. Struggling to his feet, Troyer made a headlong dash toward his father.

  Before Cal could warn him, Troyer charged out of the spell circle and into his father’s arms. As soon as the child’s body broke the plane of containment, the blue walls disappeared. Almost hurdling the child’s body as he moved, Pawlik ran over to Ruth’s motionless shape. Cursing in the accumulated languages of decades of spacefaring, Pawlik set about determining what was wrong with his Mage.

  Urgently examining Troyer for signs of damage, Cal assured himself that the little boy had not been physically hurt. Relieved, fear turned to another emotion and Cal grabbed his son by the shoulders, demanding, “What on earth were you doing? I couldn’t find you and then everybody was saying your grandmother was hurt. Somehow, I knew that you were here. What… Did… You… Do?!”

  “I heard Grandma wanting me, and I knew it was just for me. So, I told Techla and Hunter that one of the dogs had her doll. They went out to get it, and I ran up here to help Grandma.”

  “Why did your grandmother want you?”

  “She wanted me to call in my mind for Mommy.”

  Cal drew a hard, hurtful breath. Guilt washed over him like a searing flood. He remembered the previous day when he had cried on his mother’s shoulder, grieving the loss of his wife and other son. He wondered if he had been responsible for his mother’s death.

  Steeling himself to go on, he resumed questioning his child, “Then what happened?”

  “Grandma did something that made me feel like she was stretching a rubber band. I thought she was going to break it, but she didn’t. All of a sudden, I heard Mommy from really far away. Then Grandma said in her mind really loudly that she found Mommy, and…” Troyer broke into sobbing tears.

  Gently, Cal drew his son to closer, cradling him next to his heart as he asked, “And what? What happened then, Troyer?”

  “I heard Mommy’s voice. She calle
d out to Grandma, and I could almost touch her. But then it felt like the rubber band broke and there was a really bad bright light. Mommy was gone again, and Grandma fell down and didn’t move.”

  Cal flinched as if someone had punched him in the sternum. His heart gave a sudden leap, and he had difficulty breathing. Staring at his son in astonishment, Cal asked, “You heard Mommy? Really?”

  Troyer nodded his head, his lower lip trembling as his eyes filled with tears. As the tears started to spill down his face, the child whispered in a shaking voice, “Yes, it was really her. And Daddy, she sounded really sad.”

  Lost to the rest of the world, father and son held each other in shared grief and loss, hope trembling on their tears.

  Chapter 20 – From the Abyss

  Planet – Borachland Castle

  Pawlik was so focused on Ruth that the interaction between Cal and Trevor did not even register. It was if he were in a tunnel racing toward the Mage’s unconscious body. Dropping to his knees, Pawlik reached out with trembling hands to touch Ruth’s throat and the center of her chest. The faint drum of her heart, slightly irregular and less strong than usual, filled him with both relief and concern.

  The Mage Anchor was operating on instinct now. Nothing that he had been taught or read gave him any idea what he was supposed to do to help his mage when she had overextended herself so badly. Their mage bond was faint, weakened by the low level of power left in Ruth’s unconscious body. Pawlik squashed down the bubbling panic that threatened to burst loose of his controls and instead concentrated.

  Drawing on the harmonics of his home world, the Mage’s mate drew the song of the planet into his soul and pushed it gently through the conduit that ran from his essence to Ruth’s. There was a resistance to the bond that seemed to originate from a protective layer around Ruth. To help his mage, he had to find a way to get past that threshold.

  Pawlik could feel the hum of the planet, the smell of the air, and the sounds that echoed through the building and crept in from outside of the chamber. All of these combined to make the song that was uniquely Arkken.