To Challenge a Maestro Page 16

  Daniel smiled. “I can’t see a thing. I’m sensing the river and everything in it the same way I can find any object. I can steer with my eyes closed. By the way, our quarry is catching up on the port side; you may want to get ready to shoot some of them,” he said and then placed shields on himself, Tim, Sprinter, and Tremor.

  Tim grinned, grabbed his bow, and went to the stern, where he would get his first sighting. “Here they come!” he said and brought fletching to ear and let loose in a smooth motion. “Yes, one down, only a ninety-nine to go!” he shouted optimistically.

  A fireball hit the boat, splattered to nothingness against the shielded hull, and was followed by half a score more. Teams of Aakacarns and their Condemneds moved in adding their part to the assault. Serin Gell demanded Daniel’s surrender, promising direr consequences if he failed to do so. Condemneds rushed into the water, who knew they could swim, and so fast?

  Tim was drawing and shooting arrows up and down the slits, while Daniel fired the Death spell focused through his baton, killing twenty-two Aakacarns during the assault and scores of Condemneds.

  Loud thumping on the deck indicated the Condemneds were on the boat pounding futilely on the shielded planking, Daniel ignored them. The Wager suddenly stopped dead in the water. Daniel and Tim were thrown to the deck and both horses stumbled forward, but regained their footing, thanks to the shields, none were hurt.

  “You are now caught, cease hostilities and you will live,” Serin Gell’s amplified voice boomed.

  The Wager shook and Daniel could sense the vessel rising up out of the river and drifting towards the bank where the enemy forces awaited. “Tim, mount up, we are out of here,” he said while running over to Sprinter and swing up into the saddle.

  Tim vaulted into Tremor’s saddle and took hold of Daniel’s outstretched hand. Teleportation potential focused into the baton while Daniel pictured his former campsite in the Troas mountain range. Darkness enveloped them for three heart beats and then they were below a large oak tree half way up the mountainside. The forest was vast to the east, west, and south, but it stretched about five spans to the north and then grew sparse. The Ecoppian Blight was eighteen spans away and Dowman’s End was another twelve spans north of that, well into the desert. Mount Kelgotha, where lay Tarin Conn, was a mere fifty-three spans from where they sat saddle.

  “Where are we?” Tim asked.

  “On Mount Bessel, in the middle of the Troas range,” Daniel replied and dismounted. “Yes, I brought the remaining arrows,” he added when Tim looked as though he was about to verbalize the observation.

  Tim laughed and then his expression turned sober. “We have just over a hundred arrows,” he said and then patted Tremor on the neck. “That got a little ruff. I never thought they would pull the boat out of the water like that, though after seeing you do it, I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

  “I can make more arrows if you want some, but I think what we have is enough for now. I’m surprised they didn’t pull us out of the water sooner, but it probably required some of them to act in concert, which means, it was most likely Serin Gell who conducted the Melody.”

  “How many noses do you think we bloodied this time?” Tim asked and then dismounted.

  “I sensed we killed four hundred sixteen Condemneds and twenty-two Aakacarns.”

  “How many died by arrow?” Tim asked. “We did not have enough left from the first fight for me to have killed that many.”

  “You killed two hundred sixty seven Condemneds; I only killed one hundred forty-nine, which makes you the deadlier by far,” Daniel replied.

  “Right, I’m the deadlier of us two. How many Aakacarns were out there before we finally made our escaped?”

  “There were one hundred forty Accomplisheds involved in the fighting, twenty-two of which are dead. I don’t know how much time we have before they track us down again so I think we should fort up,” Daniel replied.

  “I think we should eat first,” Tim said and pulled a pack from his saddle containing beef jerky and beans.

  Daniel summoned potential, cleared a patch of ground, and made a small hole. Tim gathered sticks and Daniel started the fire. They ate lunch and both drank their canteens dry. They divided up the chores; Tim went looking for a stream which, according to Aakadon’s holographic maps, was located half a span due east, while Daniel worked on the fortification.

  The ground was level near the oak but the trail wound up a thirty degree slope sixty-two strides to the right. Daniel followed the path. To his left, the land slanted downward with trees dotting the landscaped. To his right was a cliff rising up at an eighty degree angle a good four hundred cubits above him. He stopped to take a better look. Of the twenty spells of the Stone Guild he had memorized, none would allow him to sense into the rock. He could shatter it the way he had Binkman’s Cliff, but that would not make a fort, unless he broke it down and rebuilt it, which would be time consuming. If only he could sense inside and shape the stone to his liking, affecting only what he intended to without disturbing the rest. Notes came together in his mind and a Melody began to take shape. He reworked the notes, changed the key, increased the tempo, and knew what he had composed would allow him to do both; see into whatever he wanted to sense and reshape it according to his will. He titled the new Symphonic, Fashioning.

  Daniel summoned the potential for, Fashioning, and placed both palms flat against the cliff. His mind sensed into the solid granite and he envisioned a chamber thirty cubits high, thirty strides wide, and thirty strides deep. He envisioned a network of shafts the width of his forearm running straight up through the granite and out into the open air to provide ventilation, then imagined an arched opening immediately to his left, large enough for the horses to be ridden into the chamber. Within the chamber he formed a table and chairs out of the stone.

  He could sense a difference in the granite. The area he displaced did not turn to dust or disappear; it actually increased the density of the surrounding stone, making it stronger and virtually incapable of caving in. He summoned a ball of light in the center of the ceiling, released the potential for Fashioning, and went inside to see his handiwork. The chamber was a rectangle the exact dimensions he had imagined and the ceiling, floor, and walls were perfectly smooth. The network of vents provided plenty of air.

  He went to the back wall, summoned the potential for Fashioning, and formed a smaller chamber with a hinged rectangular door. From the granite he envisioned a privy, bathtub about the size of a small pond, and sink, similar to those in Aakadon, plugs and all; except there were no gold fixtures, these were made of granite. He scanned for water and found an under ground stream two hundred cubits straight down. He formed three shafts the thickness of his forearm from the spouts and extended the stone in the shape of tubes deep down into the stream, then formed three shafts angled down, one from each fixture, intersected them twenty strides from the second chamber into one larger tube and then ran that out for several spans, creating a drain field. He ended the spell and drew water up the pipes using, Spout a Leak. The water cabinet over the privy filled and so did the tub and sink.

  He could hide a castle in the mountain if he so chose, but lacked the time and the inclination to do so. Tim entered the larger chamber and looked around shaking his head in wonder. “Just something you threw together in your spare time?” his voice echoed.

  “Yes, well I got carried away in the creative process. Come see the bathing chamber,” Daniel replied and motioned for his friend to come on back.

  Tim stepped into the bathing chamber and shook his head again. “At least we can be clean and comfortable. I sort of got used to seeing you destroy yetis, Condemneds, Aakacarns, and cliff sides, and healing people of terrible wounds, but I never knew you could create things on such a scale and in such a relatively short period of time.”

  Daniel shrugged his shoulders. “I prefer creating things over destruction and healing rather than causing injury or death. I’m gaining a better understanding
of the potential I wield as time goes on. Unfortunately, circumstances forced me to come up with the destructive stuff first and the healing stuff second, the creative stuff is what I hope to develop more of.”

  “True enough, Tarin Conn and Balen Tamm gave you little choice but to get destructive. I’m glad to finally get a good look at the creative side of your spell casting. Those few marks of sleep you got seem to have revitalized you quite a bit, you’ve been casting spells right and left, and can still string together a coherent sentence,” Tim remarked.

  “I am running on my reserves, probably all the excitement of battle and the need to fortify our camp has kept me going. If I go too long without anything vital to do, I just might fall asleep. I don’t really want to face Tarin Conn right now, even though our last meeting went fairly well,” Daniel told him and then sat down in one of the chairs at the table. The granite was smooth but hard. He created cushions of air for both chairs and colored them topaz blue so Tim could see them as well, and added a Da Capo tied to his life force so he did not have to keep running the Melody repeatedly in his mind.

  “Thanks,” Tim said and sat down. “This is comfortable.”

  Time went by and Daniel brought the horses into the chamber and sealed the entrance. It was late afternoon when harmonic ripples began again, the search was on. It probably took Serin Gell most of the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon to figure out there was no one in the boat. The marks of inactivity were harder to endure than the skirmishes and fortifying had been. Daniel had bathed, laundered his buckskins, and laundered Tim’s buckskins while the drummer took his turn bathing, created another five hundred arrows, and groomed the horses. He also modified many of the single line Melodies in his repertoire into Symphonics, giving him greater flexibility to modify and vary the amount of potential required; all in an effort to stay active. The constant ripples from the hundreds of Teleportation spells were impossible to ignore. Tim kept rubbing his arms as if that would lesson the affect, even after Daniel assured him rubbing did no good.

  Daniel cast the spell he titled, Find All, and scanned for every form of life within a ten span radius. He found three she bears and their cubs, a mountain lion, hundreds of squirrels, snakes, scores of bobcats and foxes, thousands of birds, perhaps millions of bugs, he did not have the time to count the amount of insects and arachnids. Tim was the only other human in the area and there were no Aakacarns or other minions of Balen Tamm.

  Two days later the ripples still indicated the guild was searching hot and heavy, not as heavy as Daniel’s eyelids, but they were working non-stop day and night. The hiding place was simply too good. Apparently it never occurred to the searchers that he would hide in the Dark Maestro’s back yard. Daniel decided to scan for his enemies and focused sixty spans to the north. There were several hundred Aakacarns, not in teams, scattered around Mount Kelgotha and one Aakasear deep beneath it. Even if the individual Accomplisheds did not sense his spell, Tarin Conn definitely would. Daniel kept the focus right where it was for a full tenth of a mark and then focused the same amount of potential in the other three quadrants. There were no Aakacarns in those directions, at least not within sixty spans, but that would no doubt change soon.

  It was about the middle of the night when the harmonic ripples stopped. Their absence was so profound that Tim woke up out of a sound sleep.

  “What’s happened?” he mumbled.

  “I believe our whereabouts has been discovered,” Daniel replied, and placed a shield on the entire chamber. He scanned a five span radius and discovered they were completely surrounded by hundreds of Aakacarns, thousands of Condemneds, and a legion of yetis, more than he had faced at the battle of Bashierwood, good thing he had no intention of battling them all, just bloody their noses some more and Teleport away. “We are completely surrounded with the largest force I have yet seen.”

  The drummer stood up and walked to the entrance. “Are you going to create openings so I can shoot, they may not realize we’re actually in the mountain, we may need to kill a few just to get them headed in the right direction.”

  Daniel created arrow slits in the granite seal so Tim could shoot unhindered, yet be able to duck, even though the personal shields were all still in place, unless Daniel happened to die; in which case Tim and the horses were in big trouble.

  Daniel took up his baton and stood beside Tim. Balen Tamm’s minions were not in view so Daniel summoned the potential for, Find All, and added a Da Capo. Granite was no barrier to his spell titled, Death. All he had to do was close his eyes and let loose the death spell on the forces of the Dark Maestro while avoiding killing anything else, including Tim and the horses. He also had nothing against trees, bushes, bears, lions, foxes, bobcats, or birds. So he aimed carefully.

  “Tim, shoot anything that approaches but stay where you are. I’m going to be focusing potential through the walls at whatever target presents itself,” he warned his friend.

  “Right, you do what you must. Hitting them with your death beam will be like kicking an ant hill; they’re going to get riled.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Daniel replied, and the killing started.

  Aakacarns began dropping to the ground dead, from their perspective; a blue beam of potential struck the person next to them, that person fell dead and so on. The beam always came from the same direction so they all headed that way; only now they drove the yetis ahead of them, letting the shaggy beasts do the dying. Daniel focused as best he could but was unable to strike behind the yetis to get to the Accomplisheds.

  “I am, Duroshur Beccar, surrender yourself. You cannot run forever it will only be harder on you in the end,” the amplified voice of the Accomplished boomed.

  Daniel could not identify one enemy Aakacarn from another through the spell; he would have to physically touch the person, even a hair or a fingernail would be enough, but he never personally touched any member of the Serpent Guild. He dearly wanted to let his potential respond to Beccar but would have to settle for killing whomever he could draw a bead on. Tim was shooting out of the slits and Daniel could sense the yetis and Condemneds fall as the arrows found their mark. It would not be long before he had nothing left to shoot with.

  Half a mark went by and the assault continued. Enemy Accomplisheds threw fireballs, walls of wind, lighting bolts, spells of all sorts, but the shield held and it was they who died. Daniel was whittling down the yetis, several thousand were dead and perhaps hundreds of Condemneds; he did not have time to count. Tim was out of arrows but Daniel did not dare stop to make more. The killing went on until day break.

  “We are bringing in another legion. You cannot win. Stop this foolishness and surrender,” the amplified voice of Duroshur demanded.

  “Should we stay or go? They can keep this up day and night but I am out of arrows and you are only one person, an extraordinarily powerful one, but still a man, one who has gone an awful long time without a decent night’s sleep,” Tim said, while staying clear of the baton and the blue beams firing from it in rapid succession.

  Daniel knew his friend was right he could not go on much longer. Had he offered enough resistance for them to take his surrender for genuine or would they think he gave up too soon and was up to something?

  “Daniel Benhannon, surrender now,” the voice was that of Serin Gell. “Stop casting those spells and cast a find spell. See if you can identify the man and woman next to me.”

  Daniel focused beyond the thousands of yetis and out of all the beings in the area there were only two ordinary humans in the middle of that throng, two humans he had touched on many occasions and could therefore identify; his mother and father. While the other teams had been searching for Daniel, Serin Gell must have Teleported to Tannakonna. It was actually quite clever.

  “Who do they have out there?” Tim asked.

  “He has my parents. We must surrender this time. I can’t leave them in his hands. The man has no mercy,” Daniel replied.

  Tim nodded acceptance. What else
could they do? It was time to take the plan to the next level.

  “Serin Gell, I know who you have. Don’t hurt them or my friend Tim and I will surrender to you personally,” Daniel amplified his voice.

  “Come out and they will not be harmed, so long as you continue to cooperate. Failure to obey will cause one of the three to lose a body part. Continued disobedience will eventually result in their deaths.” Serin Gell replied.

  Daniel summoned the potential for personal shields, placed Da Capos, took hold of Tim’s arm, summoned the potential to Teleport, focused the potential through the baton, and then pictured himself and Tim standing between Serin Gell and his parents. Three heart beats later he appeared, placed personal shields on Ronn and Miriam Benhannon, and then turned to face Serin Gell. His parents would be safe from ordinary harm but were still vulnerable to spell casting. It was the best he could do.

  The abrupt arrival startled Serin Gell and his minions, thankfully they did not seem to notice the shields, but they quickly recovered and drew their batons, aiming straight at Daniel. A shield on his potential slipped into place and he looked to see a short skinny man in black silks lowering his baton. The man had one golden lighting bolt on each shoulder. His skin was pale and his hair light brown. Daniel suppressed the urge to smile and frowned instead. The shield of a two-bolt Accomplished even with a level two crescendo could not hold the potential of a six-bolt.

  “I am Duroshur Beccar, I have you shielded. You would have done well to surrender when I gave you the chance. Now, you see, your parents are involved,” the two-bolt said in a deep voice.

  Daniel’s mother and father each had a Condemned at their backs. Their eyes widen at the sight of their son but they remained silent, probably due to some threat made by Serin Gell. Another pair of Condemneds moved up beside Tim.

  “That was impressive,” Serin Gell said in a gravelly voice. He had on a black silk cloak with gold braid on the sleeves and cuffs and a silver medallion circumscribed with a serpent. Two golden lightning bolts on his right shoulder and one on his left indicated his rank. He kept the features of his face well hidden under the hood of his cloak. A pointed nose and a crooked closed-lip smile were all that were visible. “You will surrender your baton to me at once,” he demanded and the Accomplished tilted his head, making it possible to see his gaunt features. He had greasy black hair, his amber eyes were sunken in, perhaps a result of using the teleportation spell so often, and the crooked smile widened on his pale visage revealing a mouth full of yellow teeth. His physical characteristics, gauntness aside, marked him as being from the northern kingdom of Pentrosa. “You are mine. Any attempt to cast a spell will result in the death of your parents and your mountaineer friend. Trust me in this, I would like nothing better than to filet your skin and leave you a dying bloody mass of exposed muscle and nerves for the vultures to feed on. Unfortunately, I must bring you to the Maestro in one piece. Your friend and parents, however, live or die at my whim.”