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  "As we should be," said Edmath. "You should strike for all three of us. Oresso and I with our stethians will be more suited for fighting."

  "I see your reasoning," said Ninafi. "I'll handle it."

  Oresso grimaced as Edmath turned toward him. Edmath nodded.

  "I never imagined it either. You and me, shoulder to shoulder."

  "It suits me for now. Ed."

  "Likewise."

  Kana and Ninafi exchanged glances. Dortlain folded his hands before himself.

  "How wonderful," he said softly. "A new alliance is better than hostility."

  "You're full of wisdom, mouse warrior," said Oresso with a smirk. "I'd say it's time you put that sword to work so Kana can get inside."

  "If you need any help, make a loud noise," said Edmath. "And don't hesitate to run."

  Dortlain sniffed.

  "Why, my good mage, I hardly think that will be necessary. There appear to be only five warriors guarding the entrance."

  "Five?" Ninafi's brows rose. "You're one swordsman."

  "Have faith, good lady." Dortlain chuckled. "I think I'm getting the hang of these terms of address."

  Ninafi gave Edmath a bemused glance.

  Dortlain kept his hand on his sword and marched toward the gates of the palace.

  "If they have five guards at the front, how many will be inside?" asked Ninafi.

  "We can only guess at this point," said Edmath.

  "I don't like this one bit. You said it was a trap. Yet here you are."

  "Here we are."

  "Yes. Never cease to remind me of that. I owe both you and Chelka, but I'm worried, Edmath."

  He tightened his grip on his stethian's handle.

  "As am I."

  A cry came from the distance, followed by the clash of steel on steel.

  “Dortlain,” said Edmath.

  Lengbyoi and Kana moved in a flash. They reached the wall in a flash. Kana sprinted along the branch and dropped onto a parapet.

  Edmath peered around the corner to where Dortlain stood by the gates. Five guards lay at his feet. His tail shifted, tugging the chain and ring at the end of his sword.

  “He took them all down,” Edmath murmured.

  A slat in one of the wooden doors opened. The guard within stared at Dortlain as the mouse warrior cleaned his slender blade on the tunics of his fallen foes. A horn sounded.

  “Time to help him,” said Edmath. “We can’t let him fight the whole garrison alone.”

  Oresso shook his head, a snarl on his face.

  “No, Ed. We should use Lengbyoi and go over the walls. Then we can meet up with your mercenary and find Chelka.”

  “He’s right,” said Ninafi. “Besides, Dortlain can run if we’re not with him.”

  “You’ve convinced me,” said Edmath. “We must act swiftly.”

  “Certainly.” Oresso led the way as the three of them ran to join Lengbyoi by the wall.

  They climbed into its branches.

  “Climb the wall,” said Edmath. “And be ready to fight, my friend.”

  “I will,” said Lengbyoi.

  Ghosted roots swarmed out, effortlessly sliding through the stone of the fortified wall. The tree climbed up and over the fortification with ease, then descended the other side to the courtyard surrounding the Tidal Palace’s great ocean-side hall.

  Edmath and the others climbed down. Kana met them as they circled to the side entrance of the great hall.

  “I found Chelka. She’s alive,” said the mercenary. “Hyreki and Santh are guarding her along with thirty or forty royal warriors.”

  “That many?” Oresso whistled. “We’ll have our work cut out for us.”

  “There is one other man with them, an older mage with one eye in a robe. He has the same gloves as Hyreki. The silver-fingered ones.”

  “Another Muborque,” said Edmath. “Kiniloth, I would bet.”

  Ninafi furrowed her brow.

  “We should hurry to confront them while Dortlain has the perimeter guards busy.”

  “Quite so, Lady Daderon,” said Oresso.

  “Call me Ninafi, please,” she said.

  Oresso nodded and grinned, looking feral. The prospect of battle must excite him as much as it scared Edmath.

  They completed the circle in the courtyard. Leaving Lengbyoi outside a gate too low for it to use, they entered the great banquet hall with its long balconies overlooking the tide pools and rising waters of the southern bay. Orange sunlight scattered highlights on distant waves.

  Forty guards, all armored and dressed in Coral Tribe regalia turned in their direction, swords and spears in hand. By the balcony, the robed form of Kiniloth stood, holding Chelka’s stethian in one hand and both her wrists in the other.

  “Edmath?” she looked at him with wide eyes.

  “Lord Benisar, good to see you again.” Santh stepped forward from Chelka’s other side. Magic-eating daggers twirled in his hands. He smiled broadly, making his mustache bend at the sides.

  Hyreki detached from the shadows and joined him.

  “Admirable, you tracked us more quickly than expected.”

  Kiniloth’s scarred and twisted lips curled.

  “Time to earn your keep, warriors of coral. Take them.”

  The Coral Tribe warriors shifted into their toshes and advanced on Edmath and the others. Ninafi stepped back behind Edmath and Oresso, Kana guarding her back. She struck twice, then four times, a striker in each hand. Magic flowed into Edmath and Oressso. They readied their signs.

  A loud, high-pitched cry rang out from behind them.

  “Oh, that will be your tree,” said Hyreki. “We’ll take it with us as well.”

  Kiniloth sneered.

  “Choose who to help, Saales.”

  “Damn it.” Oresso’s coral spikes knocked down a handful of soldiers. “We can’t fight all of these and help your tree, Ed.”

  Edmath gritted his teeth. His vines and branches drove back some soldiers, but Oresso was right.

  “Good for us,” he said. “It will take more than one mage to capture Lengbyoi.”

  Another cry came from the tree, but no longer behind them. This time, the skylight of the great hall collapsed. Ghost roots cut through guards, and solid limbs hurled others through the air. Orpus Lengbyoi landed before Hyreki and Santh, blood flecking its bark in places.

  The coral warriors scattered. Kiniloth laughed out loud and struck like thunder. He enlarged the tear, tugging at its sides with silver gloves. Lengbyoi lunged at Hyreki, but she held up a sign Edmath could not decipher with both hands. Her eyes flashed.

  Lengbyoi’s roots rushed through the air, ready to impale Hyreki with lethal ease. Santh stepped forward, daggers readied. Roots darted in for the kill.

  Hyreki grinned. She, Santh, and Lengbyoi disappeared into the silver light of a vast tear spreading around them.

  The light faded. Kinoloth stepped forward, dragging Chelka with him by her wrists. His sneer made his one blue eye gleam.

  Edmath hurled a long spear-like branch from his stethian. Kiniloth raised the stethian he carried, eyes blazing and shattered the branch to splinters. Chelka pulled away from him, turning to avoid the spray of wood fragments. Shards of branch pelted both her and Kiniloth, too small to cause harm.

  She found a rush of magic streaming to her as Kiniloth cast a clawed feline creature at Edmath. The mystic beast slashed across Edmath’s forearm as he closed with Kiniloth. He staggered to one side, arm bleeding. The cat raced by, trailing bits of his sleeve, disintegrating into fur and bone as the magic left its body.

  Edmath hurled another volley of branches at the Muborque.

  Kiniloth grimaced and deflected them all, tripping Edmath with the length of his stethian extended by a bony limb that fractured and then faded in the air just after impact.

  Chelka surged toward Kiniloth in a martial stance, eschewing Saale survival arts for a warrior’s skill. Her
face glowed with fury.

  The man blocked, ducked, and retreated, all the while laughing. Chelka pursued him, bare hands flying, but no strikes landing, only driving Kiniloth back toward the balcony overlooking the rising tide.

  Edmath made a fist. He surged to his feet. His blow struck Kiniloth in the throat, cutting off the man’s laughter.

  The Muborque recoiled from his blow, but his eyes gleamed bright, despite the loss of his voice.

  “In the end. You granted me. My desire,” Kiniloth rasped, clutching his throat.

  He released a hiss of laughter. Chelka screamed in rage, forming a sign with each hand. She shoved flames at the scarred Muborque.

  “Chelka, you can’t kill him,” Edmath called. “You won’t have protection.”

  Chelka’s fury burned, her body glowing with magic within and without.

  Kiniloth motioned her forward with the stethian, then swept it out to deflect Chelka’s fire.

  She twisted her fingers, making the fire dart around the Muborque’s weapon.

  A rush of fire caught Muborque robes and leapt to one gloved hand. Kiniloth staggered backward.

  Chelka forced her burning beings further, driving Kiniloth with them. He dropped the stethian and it rolled to a stop against one wall. His cry of panic filled the bloody banquet hall.

  Kiniloth’s back splintered the wooden railing and he tumbled toward the tide pools below, unable to arrest his descent and burning all up his right side. Chelka’s ravenous flames spread across his every limb. He disappeared in a flare of light, ashes scattering over the water.

  Chelka sank to her knees, streaming ribbons of cursed magic rising from her extended arms and shoulders. The magic fled her in streams that rose and vanished into the air around her. Edmath staggered toward her, crying and clutching his wounded arm.

  All along her arms the bodily gates, which all Saales sealed to allow them to wield magic, broke open.

  Oresso greeted Dortlain with a wave of his stethian arm from the entryway of the hall. The mouse warrior sheathed his sword. Ninafi looked at the place Hyreki and Santh vanished with Lengbyoi, tears beading in her eyes. Edmath wiped his face with his hand as he approached Chelka. She took his hand. Gently as he could, he helped her to her feet.

  Leaning on Edmath, Chelka limped to the balcony overlooking the bay.

  Poised on the brink of war with Roshi, summer in Zel ended.

  No blood between the two great nations had so far been shed.

  Yet, in another, more private war, between the nations of the land, and the nations of the cloud, the first battle went mostly unnoticed by most of both sides.

  Edmath sat, watching the tide rise below him. Chelka pressed close to his side, their arms around each other.

  “We’ll find them,” said Edmath. “We’ll get Lengyboi back.”

  “We? My powers are broken, Ed. I can’t fight.”

  “I know,” he said. “You’ve protected me long enough.”

  “Not as well as I wish I could,” she said, tears beading in her eyes.

  “You need to heal. Let me protect you for a while.”

  Edmath and Chelka will return.

  Author’s Note

  This book grew in the planning, then shrank in the telling. My apologies for taking so long with it, good readers. It’s cold where I live. As I type this, I am shivering despite my layers.

  I appreciate you all for sticking with this story over these six volumes. I hope to have book seven, “Protector Mage” out this year, but if you don’t see it in December please expect it in January 2019.

  I am getting pickier with what I include as a writer. I wonder if you’ve noticed?

  Regardless, thanks for reading.

  Happy holidays to those who celebrate them.

  I’ll be back with more of this series and other tales soon.

  Tim Niederriter, November 2018

  Also by Tim Niederriter

  Spells of the Curtain Series

  Court Mage

  Battle Mage

  Winter Mage

  Garden Mage

  Traveling Mage

  Fire Mage

  Tenlyres Series

  Ilsa and Blue

  The Gray Lector

  The Lyre War

  The Root Conspiracy Series

  Memory Lost

  Mind Chase

  Image Storm

  Cell Cycle

  Other Books

  Rem’s Dream

  Find out more at http://mentalcellarpublications.com

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  Tim Niederriter has been reading fantasy and science fiction since he was five years old when his parents introduced him to the hobbit.

  These days he writes stories in science fiction, fantasy, and combinations of the two for himself and for others. When not writing fiction or losing at cards, he maintains a blog at dwellerofthedeep.wordpress.com, and you can find his personal website at timniederriter.com. He also talks on the podcasts “Of Mooks and Monsters,” and “Alive After Reading” available at mentalcellarpublications.com and wherever podcasts are downloaded.

  He lives in Minnesota for as long as the corn decides not to eat him.