Read Online Alex Verus Novels, Books 1-4 (9780698175952) by Benedict Jacka - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Benedict Jacka
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passed them in the mist and left them to fight it out behind me. But their leader was fast, already throwing up shields, shouting orders, and I knew I’d never make it through the door. I made a snap decision, jinked right, ran across the Great Court into the west wing, and just made it into the doorway before one of the other mages evaporated the mist to nothingness with a surge of air magic.
I’d been forewarned in time to freeze in the shadow of the door, my mist cloak gathered around me. The mages were clustered around the main entrance, defensive spells glowing around them. “Where’d he go?” the leader snapped. He was a tough-looking man in his middle years with iron-grey hair.
“Can’t see him,” another mage said, scanning the court. “Didn’t feel a gate.”
“He couldn’t have made one that fast…”
“We don’t know that,” the leader said. “Ward the door, we need to push up.”
With care and persistence, you can track down even someone in a mist cloak. I knew that the mages of the response team would be able to find me given enough time. I also knew they weren’t going to get it.
The air mage who’d blown away the mist heard the sound of running footsteps first and called a warning to the others. The response team swung their attention to the top of the staircase just as the three Dark mages appeared at a dead run. Even at this distance I could see that Cinder and Khazad’s clothes were smoking. The leader of the Councilmages started to shout something up at them, and the ensuing conversation would have been very interesting if the elemental hadn’t followed them out a second later.
Elementals are living, sapient manifestations of the building blocks of our universe. They’re not usually all that smart, although calling them stupid isn’t quite right either—
limited
is a better word. Either way, one thing they’re not is weak. Take Starbreeze—she isn’t particularly powerful as elementals go, but she could still transform you into air without breaking a sweat. She could also, should she feel like it, scatter that air across so many thousands of cubic miles of atmosphere that your body would be in every time zone at once. With that in mind, you can see why mages avoid picking fights with even lesser elementals.
The elemental hovering at the top of the stairs was definitely not a lesser one.
Standing upright it would have been maybe twelve feet tall, a rough humanoid shape with two arms, two legs, a body, and what could have been a head, every part of it crackling blue-white electricity. It didn’t walk so much as fly, blazing a jagged path through the air to light up the Great Court with dazzling light, staring with brilliant eyes down upon the mages facing it.
Ah
, I thought.
“Lightning man.” So that was what she meant
.
The leader of the Light mages shouted something, but no one was listening to him anymore. About five of the Light and Dark mages hit the elemental at the same time, fire and wind and earth slamming into it as one. The elemental hit back, and a lightning storm blazed outward from the top of the stairs, bolts slamming off shields to crackle down into the floor.
By this point I was running again. For a diviner like me, a two-sided battle is more than dangerous enough. A three-sided battle isn’t even worth thinking about. By my count there were now
four
sides: the Dark trio, the Council reinforcements, the elemental, and me. My curiosity wanted to stick around and see who won, but it was outvoted.
The only problem was that the free-for-all I was runningaway from just happened to be right between me and the exit. I sprinted past the Rosetta Stone and Assyria, took a right at the Nereid Monument, and ducked into a corner in the Greeks and Lycians displays. Pulling out my glass rod, I channelled a thread of magic and whispered urgently. “Starbreeze, friend to the air and—no, wait. Lady of the wind, dancer of, friend to, um…oh, hell with it,
I’d been forewarned in time to freeze in the shadow of the door, my mist cloak gathered around me. The mages were clustered around the main entrance, defensive spells glowing around them. “Where’d he go?” the leader snapped. He was a tough-looking man in his middle years with iron-grey hair.
“Can’t see him,” another mage said, scanning the court. “Didn’t feel a gate.”
“He couldn’t have made one that fast…”
“We don’t know that,” the leader said. “Ward the door, we need to push up.”
With care and persistence, you can track down even someone in a mist cloak. I knew that the mages of the response team would be able to find me given enough time. I also knew they weren’t going to get it.
The air mage who’d blown away the mist heard the sound of running footsteps first and called a warning to the others. The response team swung their attention to the top of the staircase just as the three Dark mages appeared at a dead run. Even at this distance I could see that Cinder and Khazad’s clothes were smoking. The leader of the Councilmages started to shout something up at them, and the ensuing conversation would have been very interesting if the elemental hadn’t followed them out a second later.
Elementals are living, sapient manifestations of the building blocks of our universe. They’re not usually all that smart, although calling them stupid isn’t quite right either—
limited
is a better word. Either way, one thing they’re not is weak. Take Starbreeze—she isn’t particularly powerful as elementals go, but she could still transform you into air without breaking a sweat. She could also, should she feel like it, scatter that air across so many thousands of cubic miles of atmosphere that your body would be in every time zone at once. With that in mind, you can see why mages avoid picking fights with even lesser elementals.
The elemental hovering at the top of the stairs was definitely not a lesser one.
Standing upright it would have been maybe twelve feet tall, a rough humanoid shape with two arms, two legs, a body, and what could have been a head, every part of it crackling blue-white electricity. It didn’t walk so much as fly, blazing a jagged path through the air to light up the Great Court with dazzling light, staring with brilliant eyes down upon the mages facing it.
Ah
, I thought.
“Lightning man.” So that was what she meant
.
The leader of the Light mages shouted something, but no one was listening to him anymore. About five of the Light and Dark mages hit the elemental at the same time, fire and wind and earth slamming into it as one. The elemental hit back, and a lightning storm blazed outward from the top of the stairs, bolts slamming off shields to crackle down into the floor.
By this point I was running again. For a diviner like me, a two-sided battle is more than dangerous enough. A three-sided battle isn’t even worth thinking about. By my count there were now
four
sides: the Dark trio, the Council reinforcements, the elemental, and me. My curiosity wanted to stick around and see who won, but it was outvoted.
The only problem was that the free-for-all I was runningaway from just happened to be right between me and the exit. I sprinted past the Rosetta Stone and Assyria, took a right at the Nereid Monument, and ducked into a corner in the Greeks and Lycians displays. Pulling out my glass rod, I channelled a thread of magic and whispered urgently. “Starbreeze, friend to the air and—no, wait. Lady of the wind, dancer of, friend to, um…oh, hell with it,
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