Solyrian Conspiracy
The Rise of Magic™ Book Nine
CM Raymond
LE Barbant
Michael Anderle
This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2019 C.M. Raymond, LE Barbant & Michael Anderle
Cover by Mihaela Voicu http://www.mihaelavoicu.com/
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
A Michael Anderle Production
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LMBPN Publishing
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Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, December, 2019
ebook ISBN: 978-1-64202-661-0
Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-662-7
The Kurtherian Gambit (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2015-2020 by Michael T. Anderle and LMBPN Publishing.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Author Notes - CM Raymond & LE Barbant
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Books by Michael Anderle
The Solyrian Conspiracy Team
Thanks to our JIT Readers
Micky Cocker
Diane L. Smith
Jackey Hankard-Brodie
Dorothy Lloyd
Peter Manis
Nicole Emens
Paul Westman
Shari Regan
Dave Hicks
James Caplan
Lori Hendricks
Editor
SkyHunter Editing Team
Chapter One
“It’s beautiful. Freaking beautiful,” Hannah said, looking out over the bow of the Unlawful at the sun setting as they sailed over unknown lands. As each day passed, the girl from the Boulevard saw the breadth of diverse places the world had to offer.
“Aye, ‘tis.” Karl sighed as his eyes traced the pinks and purple exploding across the horizon, painting the rolling hills like a tapestry. “It makes me want ta—”
The ship lurched to starboard, and Karl instantly turned green. Lunging, he shoved his head across the rail and expelled his dinner, ale and all, directly overboard. Standing again, he leaned against the wood and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Hannah tried to stop laughing, but the look on the rearick’s face made it impossible. “You’re really touched by this sunset.”
“Scheisse! Lass, I’ll be good and damned if that kid doesn’t learn ta drive the bloody boat. I’d give a nut to get Gregory back behind them controls, even for just a day. Maybe both of them nuts of mine.”
“Not much of a sacrifice.” Hannah grinned. “It’s not like you use them all that often.”
Karl’s face turned from green to red.
“I’m just kidding,” she said, still grinning like a rabid remnant. “Aysa is doing just fine, Karl.”
“Aye. In fact, I’m pretty sure the little freak is just screwin’ with me. Ye know she gets off on that. She’s had it out fer me since the day we met.”
Hannah turned and looked back over the landscape. “And Gregory… We all wish he was here. Him and the others.”
Karl grimaced as he kept his eyes on the fixed land below. “Well, Hannah, I do always forget yer still a little green in the ways of war.”
“Funny, you calling me green, Sir Pukes-A-Lot.”
He waved her off and continued, “The members of a company come and go as needed. It’s the way it is in the life we’ve chosen.”
“Or that’s chosen us.”
“Aye. We should be nothin’ but glad fer Laurel and Gregory. They can raise that little bundle of joy they borned like he ought to be brought up. Not out here in gods know where. Their baby Zeke has a chance at somethin’ like a normal childhood in New Romanov. Anyway, with Lilith gallivantin’ the universe with ol’ Gray Beard, we need Gregory back there to keep an eye on that nasty old rift. Block them red-faced creeps out of our world once and fer all.”
“Again, who are you calling red-faced?” Hannah grabbed Karl’s shoulder for a squeeze. Nobody could handle deprecation better than the rearick, but still, it was important to her that Karl know she had nothing but love for him. “I know who you really miss.”
A grin spread on Karl’s face. Ever since the Bitch and Bastard Brigade had formed, he had been the veteran of the crew. There was only one other who had nearly as much experience in life and war. “Nah. The only thing a mystic is good fer is parlor tricks. But sure, I miss Hadley as much as ye do, I reckon. But ‘tis good he headed back to the Heights. That sonofabitch needs ta get his head straight, after all.”
Hannah nodded. Hadley was the closest thing to a brother she’d had since William was killed in the Boulevard. Hadley had trained her and walked her through the growing pains of developing all aspects of her magic, especially mental magic. But ever since he had melded minds with Laughter, the residue of her residence in his brain had never quite been wiped clean. Fever dreams had littered his sleep, and shadows marked his waking life. It had taken some goading, but finally Hannah had convinced him it was time to return home, to the mystics’ compound in the Heights, where powerful teams of magicians might be able to fix the deep cracks in his mind.
“Had will be fine, and we’re going to be just fine without him. I mean, at least we’ve got this guy with us.” She nodded toward the stern where two figures engaged in combat were silhouetted in the evening sky. One man advanced toward the other, who held a spear with a glowing blue tip.
“Ye mean yer little love bug or Cat Scratch Fever?”
Hannah laughed. “Well, I meant Vitali. But I hope they both make it through the journey. The way the two of them are sparring daily, I’m s
hocked neither have been cast overboard yet. But they’re getting tougher every bloody day.”
Just as she finished, Parker jumped back onto the cabin roof. With the ease of a gymnast, he leapt over the Lynqi’s head. Landing, he swept out his partner’s legs with a graceful spin. The furred fighter was back on his feet before Parker could advance for a finishing move.
“Aye, only difference between Vitali and a cat is that he’s got nine hundred lives.”
The edges of Hannah’s mouth turned up in a proud grin. “They’re getting good.”
“Aye. Real damned good.”
“Want to show them how to really fight?”
Karl rolled his neck. “Never thought ye’d ask. Let’s show them what—” Before Karl could finish, a crash resounded from below deck, and the massive ship creaked and tremored. “The hell was that?”
“Let’s go.” Hannah took off for the hatch, and Karl churned his short legs as fast as he could to keep pace all the way to the cockpit. Aysa looked up as the door slammed open.
“Everything’s all right up here?” Hannah asked.
“Fine as far as I know.” Aysa looked at Karl. “But you might want to keep an eye on your friend here. The rearick looks a little peaked.”
“Screw ye, Long Arms. I know what yer up ta. And when we land this thing, I’m gonna take that impish little smile off yer face and—”
“Down, boy,” Hannah said. She looked at Aysa. “What the hell was that crash?”
Aysa shrugged and pointed toward the back of the ship. “Came from back there.”
A knowing look crossed Hannah’s face, and she and Karl said in unison, “Sal!”
Taking their time, they walked toward the mess. Karl braced himself, a hand on either wall of the passage as the ship lurched. “She’s doing it again.”
Hannah ignored him and crossed the threshold into the mess. Everything was as it ought to be. The table that extended down one end of the hall. The dark kitchen off the back. The curtains were drawn over the windows, just as they had been last time she was there. Everything was as it ought to be. Everything except for the giant dragon in the middle of the room, lying on his back with his legs extended like stiff poles up toward the ceiling.
Hannah rounded Sal’s scaled body and made her way toward his head, which slumped to the side. The dragon’s eyes were closed, and his mouth gaped open, his long lizard tongue hanging from between his razor-sharp teeth.
“Looks like Sal’s dead,” Karl said. “Again.”
Hannah crouched by her dragon and ran a nail along his neck and up under his chin. She could feel his body quiver under her touch. Playing dead was a trick Sal had learned from a particularly large dog several hundred miles north of their present course in a small town they had stopped at for a few days. He now used it almost every day to get what he wanted.
She shook her head. “You think we should just toss him overboard?”
“Scheisse, lass. That would be a waste of a lot of good meat if ye ask me. He couldn’t have been down fer long. Imma guess the flesh ain’t gone sour yet. If I sharpen me axe, I could carve the old lizard into steaks before ye could say ‘the Matriarch.’” He paused, looking down on the beast. “How do ye like yer reptile? Medium rare? If ye roll him, I could get a mighty juicy tenderloin, I expect.”
“Hmmm.” Hannah narrowed her eyes. “I hear dragon is as tough as remnant meat and tastes even worse. Maybe we can revive the bag of bones.”
“Ye mean, magic?” Karl asked her with a wink.
“I mean the magic of the Dark Forest.” Hannah turned to the pantry and pulled out a pot holding the remainder of the kaffe they had brewed after dinner. Sal opened one eye and locked it on his master. The rest of him lay perfectly still. Hannah glanced at Karl and back at Sal. “I think it might just work.”
The mighty beast snapped both eyes open and rolled onto his haunches, his entire body trembling in anticipation.
“Chill the hell out, Sal,” Hannah told him. “First, a reminder of the rules.”
The dragon nodded, his tail wagging across the dusty floor.
“Ye must stay off the damned boat.” Karl grunted, and Sal nodded again in response. “Or no more kaffe fer ye. And I mean, ever.”
Hannah fought off her smile, feigning severity with her dragon. “No coming back onto the ship until you are sure the kaffe is out of your system. We don’t want a repeat of the last time. Gregory isn’t here to fix your destruction, and I bet he is still whining to Laurel about the hole you put in the stern.”
Sal wagged his tail more rapidly, his eyes darting between Hannah and Karl, pleading for the sweet, sweet nectar his blood craved. Hannah wished she could have made a creature without such an addiction to the druid’s brew.
“And if ye mess up this time, no more of the devil elixir fer a month or two. Got it?”
Sal’s head sprang up and down like bobber on a lake. Hannah tried not to laugh as she held out the pot. Her dragon’s chin tilted back, mouth open, as he waited for his fix. Pouring a little less than a pint in, she shot back toward a wall with Karl on her heels. In the middle of the room, Sal stood statue-still for a beat while the kaffe worked its way from his stomach into his bloodstream.
Karl took his last chance for an admonition. “Rules, dragon!”
Sal’s head tilted toward the deck before shooting up again. He began to spin like a dog chasing its tail.
“Scheisse, lass. Ye gave him a bit much.”
Hannah pointed at the door. “Out!” she screamed. The dragon shot for the door. Floorboards creaked as he chugged down the hall, up the stairs, and out into the evening sky.
Karl shook his head. “By me hammer, I’ve no idea why ye want ta give that overgrown lizard kaffe.”
Hannah shrugged. “A little jitter juice never harmed a thing.”
“Except the Unlawful’s hull, a grain elevator in Kaskara, a pauper’s oxcart on the road to Masteran, and poor old Ms. Sofya’s ninetieth birthday cake at what was probably her last party. So, sure, lass, I guess yer little pet never bothered a thing.”
“Karl, for a rearick who likes to drink himself under the table, you can be a real buzz kill, you know that?”
“Aye, well, ye never know what could happen to yer unnatural creation. There’s nothin’ more predictable than a piss-drunk rearick under the table, but a dragon? Well, ye sure as hell don’t know what—” A crash down the hall interrupted Karl’s rant.
“Sal!” he and Hannah shouted as they sprinted out of the room.
In the hall, there was no sign of the dragon. There was nothing but a booted leg lying across the threshold of the pilot’s cockpit.
“The bloody hell is that?” Karl asked as he trudged down toward the mystery appendage. “I know the freak from Baseek is huge, but that thar foot is monstrous.”
“Where I’m from, my feet are dainty,” Aysa said, stepping over the boot. “Nothing like that brute.”
“Aysa, who is that?” Hannah asked.
The girl shrugged. “No clue, but I think I surprised him. Oh, and I think we’re being boarded.”
Chapter Two
Vitali leaned back, watching as Parker’s spear passed mere inches from his face. There were risks involved in training with real weapons, but Karl always said spending too much time practicing with dull blades made dull fighters.
And Vitali needed to be the sharpest fighter possible.
He ducked and moved forward. Parker had the advantage of reach, but that advantage disappeared if Vitali could get inside the arc of the Arcadian’s spear. Then Vitali’s knives would prove to be the superior weapons.
It wasn’t as if Team BBB needed another fighter. Everyone on board could hold their own, and then some. Plus, their captain just might be the most powerful being on the planet. But Vitali hated being the weak link, and other than his claws, he had little to offer.
Aysa could pilot and maintain the ship. Parker was a tactical genius. Karl’s commands were as powerful as his hammer.
And Hannah…
Well, Hannah could move mountains.
But Vitali, what did he have to offer? Back in Kaskara, Vitali was a person of significance. The son of the village glavne, an influential warrior. But his village was small compared to the vastness of Irth. Out here, he was one blade among many, albeit, a much furrier one.
Parker saw the attack coming. He spun aside and swept outward with the butt of his spear, keeping his distance from the cat.
“Can’t catch me that easily.”
“Dance all you want, Arcadian,” Vitali purred. “I’ve got the patience of a river. A river who is about to sweep right over your ass.”
Parker smiled, holding his spear at the ready. “Then prove it, furball.”
Vitali knew Parker was goading him. Vitali’s usual style was to stay on the defensive and wait for his opponent to make a mistake, then slip in for the kill. Parker’s taunts never cracked the Lynqi’s thick skin. But today, Vitali decided to change things up.
With a snarl, he leapt forward, his powerful legs launching him like coiled springs. Parker, as Vitali had hoped, was taken off-guard by the ferocity of the sudden attack. He held his spear parallel as a shield, a move Vitali expected. He dropped his knives and grabbed Parker’s spear.