THE MAGE SCROLLS:
Book 2, The Gift of Mage

THE MAGE SCROLLS: Book 2, The Gift of Mage Preview:

DISTRICT SIX

1ST NOVEMBER, YEAR 139 FPD

“And so, the planning for the Great Conflict begins. The WAR between the Innocents and the Gifted Ones. The ‘We Are Right,’ which also means the other side is Ultimately Wrong. Many Great Leaders of the World have chosen violence, leaving them to Wonder if there could have been Another Way. But the Ultimate Question is: Which side do you chose? Because you must Choose…”

~The Mage Scrolls, excerpt

 

Aith crossed into D-6 and immediately felt the heat of the inferno raging in front of him. Flames licked high into the night sky. Central Market was held in complete chaos. A woman ran toward him, face with a ghostly pale covering of ash, her hands shaking; legs making spastic contact with the dirt-packed alleyway. She screamed something to Aith—a warning—but he couldn’t decipher her words.

          How many minutes had passed since he lit up the night with a single bullet? A bullet that brought the biannual Cleansing of the Carriers to a fiery end, saving the lives of the kej’ids. Black Hawk, if he survived, would be going out of his fucking mind right now.

          A stampede of people followed. Women ripped the scarves from their heads, holding them over their mouths and nose, and over that of their ba’bes. Men carried small children in their arms. Entire families fled on foot. Jo’maas, with eyes wide and faces frozen in terror, shrieking, crying. Jo’paas yelling at him, not to him, but AT him.

          “Run, Mzd’r Bullet! Run!”

          “Get away while you can! Hide!”

          “There was an explosion! People are dead!”

          “They are coming. They have rifles.”

          A blanket of calm came over Aith. Decision time.

          Options were always a good thing, but there was more of an adrenaline rush walking toward the inferno than away from it. As he approached the central market, the heat became unbearable. In the distance—gunfire, followed by more shrieks from the people fleeing on foot. Ducking into buildings, running down alleyways, or dropping down into the maze of tunnels under the streets.

          The glass frontage of a local business exploded in front of him—faces and bare skin were shredded by shards of window pane—more panic. Aith made an instant decision. The best place for him to be was up high.

          He sprinted down Central Market Avenue, which led into the busiest section of D-6, almost over-running the street he searched for. At the last minute, he made the left, feet pounding into the pavement until he came to the middle of the block. In front of him an abandoned telecommunications building, blown out long ago in a bombing during one of the civil unrests.

          Almost at the exact same time that Aith entered the building, someone burst in behind him, slamming the door back on its hinges. An older man, dressed in black CDUs with a rifle slung over one shoulder. A rifle that looked really familiar. In one swift movement, the man grabbed Aith by the shirt and rammed him up against the door jam.

          “Are you forgetting something, Bullet?”

          “This has been one busy night, hasn’t it, old man?” Aith was face to face with the elderly door watch from the Rebel meetings. Aith grinned at him. Not a friendly grin, but more of a condescending curve of his lips.

          “You have a contract with us, and it’s not finished. I’m here to assure the Resistance that it will be.”

          “So, they sent you, an old man.”

          “Yep. I’m here to make sure you’re on your way. To the kill point.” The man glared at him—held him tight against the wall in a hold that was both forceful and strong as hell. That of a man that had power. In his eyes, Aith saw something that he hadn’t noticed in the past.

         The Look.

       Threatening and confident. Daring Aith to refuse. Waiting for a confrontation, because the consequences would be so much fun.

          He once was one of us. It was Aith’s first thought—an A-Class.

          “We need the KISH.” The long-range kill shot. Who the fuck are these people? “It’s nearing half past twelve. You should've been at the kill point ten minutes ago. You can’t go AWOL—or whatever the hell you were planning—until your contract with us is completed.”

          The old man swung the rifle off his shoulder and shoved it into Aith’s hands, further pressing him against the doorframe. That’s why it looked so familiar. It was Aith’s favorite. The one he thought had been well hidden. Only one person, in all of Pronea, would’ve had the slightest suspicion of where it might be hidden, and that du’de was long dead. What? Forty or more years have gone by. But when someone shoves a rifle in your hands and asks you to make a long-range kill shot, there was only one thing to do.

          Ride the wave, bébé, ride the wave.

          “Get out of my way, old man.”

          Aith shoved his way past the Elder and passed through an opening that probably had once been the entrance to a grand hallway. He took the steps three at a time. When Aith reached a point where the building was badly damaged, he climbed through the debris, carefully sidestepping gaping holes in the floor, pulling himself up through the twisted and wrecked metal bones of the structure. 

          It took him mere seconds to reach the top floor and make his way out onto the roof. Finally, he was high enough to see the fire raging a few blocks over—people scattered through the streets below him like mice through a maze that was rapidly filling with water—the possibility of drowning becoming reality with every passing second.

          It looked like Coronel Black Hawk had ordered barricades to be set up in every street, making it impossible for motorized vehicles to pass.

          No one could get in or out of the Northwestern Districts, and Aith wouldn’t be surprised in the entire Outer Circle was blocked off. It was right at that moment that his PCD cracked to life.

        “Where are you?” It was Tige, screaming into the transmitter. Mass chaos could be heard in the background. Black Hawk was barking out orders, A-Class soldiers yelling to each other, the rat-tat-tat of military rifles firing in short bursts. Screams, efficiently silenced by the guns.

          “What the hell is going on?”

         “You were supposed to be at your post at midnight. All hell is breaking loose down here and you’re fucking AWOL. That’s what’s going on! Where the fuck are you?”

          “Up high, Tige, doing what I do best.” He made sure his response was controlled. Someone has to remain calm during this shite show. He had positioned himself in a good spot to put an eye to scope and to get the long-range shot. “Do you want me to take out the driver?”

          “How do you know what happened here?” Tige snarled, his voice heavy with suspicion.

          “I can see things better on higher ground, Tige.”

          A different perspective. He smiled at the thought of Tinder, but he was quickly losing his patience and almost out of time. “You know the truck that drove off with the kej’ids that are hopefully still in that cage? Right now, I’m at the highest point in the Outer Circle. I climbed up here after the explosion and witnessed what happened from six stories high. I’m good with the KISH—and I’m the best you got. Do you want me to take out the driver before he gets into the northern mountain ranges...or not?”

          It was a realistic question. He had the truck in his crosshairs as it fishtailed from side to side down the roadway creating a cloud of dust in its wake. All of a sudden, Black Hawk was on the PCD.

          “Do you have the truck in your site, Grade One A-13?” He barked the question.

          Funny, Aith thought. There’s only been one A-13 ever in the history of the A-Class Elites and Black Hawk still insists on starting with ‘Grade One’ and using my formal title.

          “Yes, Sir,” Aith answered him. “You have thirty seconds to make a decision. After that, the truck will follow around into the mountains and will I lose my sightline.”

          There was a long pause on the other end of the phone.

          “The truck is outside of our perimeter?” The Commander’s voice shook with anger.

          “Yes, Sir.”

          “I want the driver alive. He needs to be questioned.”

         “Your choice, Sir,” Aith responded, never taking his eye off the scope of his rifle. “However, you will miss the opportunity to stop the truck and possibly recover the kej’ids, if they’re in there. And that’s a big ‘if.’” Another deep silence. Aith started to count down the time he had left to make the shot. “Thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine…”

          “Affirmative, A-13. Take the fucking shot.” Commander Black Hawk screamed so loud that Aith had to pull his ear away from the PCD. The kill shot? Just over two miles. He squeezed the trigger.

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JOLEIGHA

“Parts must be Sacrificed for the good of the Whole. Is there a Moral Obligation that all should Perish when Sacrificing a few will save Thousands?”                            

~The Mage Scrolls, excerpt

 

 

In her dreams, she heard an explosion. Screaming. No, children screaming. A primal fear tore through her body, her heart constricted in her chest making it impossible to breathe. The heat from the blue-orange flames that flirted with her window, was so real she sat bolt-upright in the bed. Her eyes could only make out vague images in the darkness. A chair, lone and solitary on the far wall, held neatly folded clothes.

          Her clothes.

          The black dress, with the spaghetti straps and sequined bodice, lay neatly folded on the chair. Lace panties, silver shoes. Where was her shawl? Her stomach roiled; her head felt like someone had taken an axe to her skull and split it in two. Pain pulsed behind her eyes. Vomit rose in her throat.

          Suddenly, she realized she was lying naked in a strange bed, a thin sheet covering her body. What had happened? Sitting up made the nausea worse. Bile crept up her throat.

          The space in the bed next to her was empty and cold. She glanced around the room and started to remember bits and pieces of the night before. Aith kissing her, his fingertips caressing her in intimate areas that no man has ever touched. That she had never dared to touch. Didn’t the Book of Cardinal Law state that was immoral? No, amoral were the written words.

          The memory—now a blur in her mind— of laying on this bed with him. His lips caressing hers, his tongue entwined with hers, his fingertips exploring her body. Her mouth, tasting his, exploring his body—oh, by the goddess behind the stars! She threw the sheets off her in a panic, her lungs barely able to take a breath in.               

            Something terrible has happened.

          Where was Aith? What time was it? How could she get back to the barracks where they had been staying? Her head splintered as she stood. She ran to the bathroom and vomited into the sink. With her stomach empty, she turned on the spigot and wiped her mouth. Cupping her hands together, she splashed water on her face. She cringed when she finally looked up into the mirror.

          She looked like death.

          Her face was paler than the moon's light, mascara smudged under her eyes. The red lipstick that she had carefully applied earlier was now smeared beyond the contours of her mouth. She splashed cold water on her face again. Then, gathering her dress—that silly stitch of clothing she thought she had looked so sexy in—she ran out of the bathroom, throwing the garment over her head and shivering in the cold, empty cabin. Joleigha tugged her panties up over her hips and then picked up her heels in one hand and held them tight.

          I have to get out of here! Figure out what's happening outside of this room. Find Aelle and Zeta, she told herself. Keep them safe.

          Goose bumps rose on the flesh of her arms, so she searched for a covering—anything to keep from shivering—when she found a shirt that had fallen between the bed and the wall. Shoving her arms into the sleeves, she stumbled to the front door, still locked tight, slid the bolt back, and drew it open. The night was an inky black around her. She breathed a sigh of relief as she noticed that the path she had walked up earlier was now bathed in moonlight.

          She tripped unsteadily through the trees and down the narrow dirt path until she came to the outskirts of the central markets Outer Circle. The stars lit up the sky now, the screams getting louder. People pushed past her, sprinting in the opposite direction that she headed in, shrieking in fear, yelling at her.

          “Turn around! Run!” One man shouted, a dusting of soot covering his face and shoulders.

          A woman grabbed at her shirt, blood running down from a large gash in her forehead. “Run as fast as you can! They’re shooting at us, murdering the people of our Caste right where they stand!”

          “Who?” she grabbed his arms in a panic. “Who’s shooting at people?” The man tore her hands off his shirt and continued to move away, his eyes wide with fear as he glanced back at her.

          Another woman ran up to her, clutching a toddler in her arms. “Them!” The woman screamed at her. “Run away before They get you too.”

         More followed, passing Joleigha in the frenzy to flee, but she ran on towards the center square, her bare feet being cut to shreds by the dirt road, heeled shoes in her hand, shoving people out of her way. Her stomach flipped over; the sense of impending doom crawled beneath her skin.

         I have to find Aelle and Zeta. She slowed down as she approached the center square. Fire burned high into the night in front of her. The tables were covered in ash. The shacks, outposts, and banners that had hung through the streets for the festival; were riddled with bullet holes. Then she saw other recruits wandering around the square like apocalyptic zombies, some crying, some mumbling incoherently. Joleigha headed directly into the chaos, screaming their names.

          “Zeta! Aelle! Tomast, Kaize, Traye! Nersta!” she yelled, hands up to her mouth. She took in the carnage around her. Why did I leave them?

          “Aelle!” Joleigha’s voice was now hoarse. “Zeta!”

          She stood, alone in the central square. Now empty save for the flames burning high into the night; the heat from the inferno unbearable. Dead tired—her beautiful dress hanging in shreds. Voices around her turned hollow. A blur of activity—the A-Class and Elite’s best—swarmed like wasps. She was numb. Lost in the chaos, the kaleidoscope of colors, and the cacophony of sounds.

          Ash fell, covering her head and staining her clothes. She looked down into the dusty ground that had been the center of the Harvest Moon Celebration, and there, at the tips of her shoes and trampled into the dirt by several boot prints, lay the bracelet Aelle had bought just that afternoon in the central market.

          A glint of gold and turquoise amongst the ruins.

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