Chapter 28

The four men sat staring at each other across the table, none of them saying a word. Ezza looked at the governor and said, “So when a battle goes to hell and turns into a rout, this is where the phrase “I’ve been wayturned” comes from?”

“So, it would seem,” the governor said. “Wayturned: we are facing a terrible calamity. We need a plan.”

“Six battlemages couldn’t kill him,” Ezza said. “How are we going to put down this abomination?”

Aden drummed his fingers on the table. With all eyes on him, he carefully peered into the box and poked around with his index finger. He touched the key with his knuckle and breathed a sigh of relief. Delicately he lifted the key out of the box and placed it in the middle of the table. Reaching into his pocket, Aden retrieved his key and placed it next to the one from the box.

“They’re different,” Qasi said. “How can they be different?”

“There must be another entrance,” Aden said. “An entrance that leads to a storeroom according to Captain Wayturn, which we have not found. This new entrance must be the route that the mages used to slip out of the city under the nose of the mad king.”

“We found the door,” Qasi said. “We didn’t have time to explore it, but we found it just before we came out here, another lifetime ago.

Ezza let out a mirthless laugh. “Do you expect to find our miracle in this mage’s storeroom, wizard?”

Aden placed both of his hands on the table palm down. He flipped his left hand, “My left hand is empty because the plans and actions of the Lord High Mage are missing. The report only describes what the mages did out of the captain’s view, and more to the point, after the fact. The captain was not an eyewitness to their actions nor was he privy to their plans. He was a minor actor in the play even though he was the best witness to the events.”

Aden rolled his right hand to face up, “My right is empty because the public and personal areas of the Hall are empty. The papers, journals, maps, and I hope, plans, must be in the concealed areas, where security-minded professionals who knew of the worst dangers of the world would protect them. The secrecy of the location of their plans was part of their security.”

“You must return to the Mage’s Hall,” the governor said.

“WE must return to the Mage’s Hall,” Aden said, snatching back his hands. “Unless there is a report as detailed at Captain Wayturn from the governor in the box, that governor removed himself from the events of the mad king. His cowardice has compromised your ability to govern in this crisis because he left you in the dark.

“Besides, If I fail, Governor, then you are the only one left to lead the fight.”

The governor sighed as he settled back in chair. His head nodded slightly as if he were reviewing Aden’s words in his thoughts. After a second moment’s reflection, the governor sat up straight and surveyed the room, as if seeing the men sitting there for the first time. He stood.

“You, sergeant,” the governor said, “will report to the Captain of the Guard and send him to the Mage’s Hall. You may fill him in along the way. You, my one-eyed, disreputable excuse for a soldier, will take my ring to my secretary and tell him to put the office on a war footing. He will give you more orders. Neither of you will speak of this to anyone, and I mean anyone. Finally, you, our now official mage, though it pains me to say such a thing, will accompany me in my carriage to the Mage’s Hall where we will investigate this hidden door of yours. We dock shortly.”

Aden could not stand the silence in the carriage as they drove away from the dock. “Why do I irritate you so much?” he blurted out.

The governor looked down his nose at Aden and pursed his lips. “You can be charming enough when you choose. However, you are a wizard, a mage if you will, and you represent chaos. You are the harbinger of chaos as the facts amply demonstrate.

“I am stability. My days are spent managing all the foolishness of this province and maintaining a balance and peace. Having given you weeks and months in my home, you have wreaked havoc. Bandits and smugglers are containable, a little violent persuasion here, a trial and execution there, and most of the nonsense can be kept in check. A wizard with wizard toys, though, is a recipe for destruction and the death of innocents.

“These people are not fine, upstanding citizens who offer you a hand or keep a benevolent eye on your belongings. They are a hard lot, but I’ve managed to keep them fed and housed with limited resources in an aged, expensive-to-maintain, city.

“Luring three gangs of thieves and cutthroats to one ship in order to sink said ship in short order, is an efficient and effective plan on paper. You are not a governor though, and you do not demonstrate the skill sets to comprehend the possible consequences. Forget this monstrosity rampaging through the city this morning for a moment and consider the vacuum you’ve created. What is going to fill it? I can assure you it will not be the kindness and benevolence of the inhabitants, nor can it be filled with government officials and bureaucratic processes. I don’t have the people and I don’t have the treasury even if I did have bureaucrats.”

“If you are trying to make me feel guilty, you are mistaken,” Aden said. “Clearly, these impoverished gangs had funding from your nobles because there is not enough money to sustain even one gang from the purses of the streets that I walked. Your nobles created the problem, I argue, and they should pay for the inevitable consequences of their poor bets on Kagan-cal’s lamentable thieves and cutthroats. Draft them to be your unpaid officials and let them address the earfuls of complaints in your stead.”

“I am trying to explain why you are a threat to my city and you answer me with naïve solutions,” the governor said. “No wonder Ezza has the continual urge to throttle you.”