A Clash of Magics by Guy Antibes (read this if txt) 📕

must have been unexpected because Brother Yvan fell back into the room. Trevor tore his eyes away from his mentor and furiously fought the two magicians and two swordsmen. With his friends down, Trevor didn’t have to worry about the magicians injuring him, but the swordsmen weren’t amateurs.

Trevor plunged a sword deep into a magician’s thigh. The blade was ripped out of his hand as the man fell to the floor. A blow to his back was covered by the cuirass, allowing Trevor to twist and plunge the poker into a swordsman’s stomach. It was now an unarmed Trevor, a magician, and a swordsman with an injured wrist.

“Take this,” Volst said, sliding his sword across the hallway floor to Trevor.

The magician furiously threw every spell at Trevor but finally missed and threw a bolt into the head of the last swordsman, who crumpled to the ground. Trevor didn’t waste a second before he plunged Volst’s sword into the chest of the magician.

Trevor was bleeding from many wounds, but he dragged himself to his room to retrieve his Jarkanese sword and the satchel with the messages from King Worto. Snowflake would have to wait. He helped Volst into Brother Yvan’s room. “I don’t know if this is going to work. Give me all the magic you can,” Trevor said.

In the blink of an eye, they landed in the ancient room. Volst and Brother Yvan collapsed, but Trevor staggered to the corridor and began shouting.

In moments the three of them were carried upstairs and placed in the headquarters infirmary. Trevor could barely move. Every muscle, ligament, and bone cried out in agony. Taking two magicians to Collet had almost killed him, he thought as he could do nothing but let others care for him.

A few healers tried to spell him to sleep, but that didn’t work. Trevor whispered to them that magic didn’t work on him, so they filled him with alcohol, and that did the trick.

He woke up in the same bed. He had expected tugs from stitches and bandages, but he was able to sit up. Brother Yvan still slept, and he didn’t see Volst anywhere. A healer walked through the ward. “You are awake.”

“Your eyes haven’t failed you yet,” Trevor said with a weary smile on his face. “We were attacked by assassins.”

“Your friend is with the head seer. Yvan is still asleep, but he will wake soon. Considering what Linwood Volst said about your fight, I expected all of you to be at death’s door, but you seem to be the only one with any persistent injuries.”

Trevor didn’t even remember how badly Brother Yvan was injured. All he could do when the fighting stopped was to get them to a healer. “They were after me,” Trevor said. “We were—”

The healer patted Trevor’s upper arm. “We have already sent a team to the boarding house. The prime sent her people as well to identify the assassins and retrieve your horses and your possessions.”

Trevor’s body rebelled at teleporting two magicians. He leaned his head back and realized that he had no option.

Volst walked in with Lister Vale. “They said Yvan needed rest more than anything. His burns miraculously healed, but he is still drained.”

“You will identify the culprits?” Trevor asked the head seer. “I’ll bet Presidon hired them.”

“I won’t take that bet,” the head seer said. “We retained the ambassador once we received word of the assassination attempt. She was captured as she was approaching the Presidon border.”

Reena walked into the room and went straight to Brother Yvan’s bedside. “He is still asleep?” she asked one of the healers.

Trevor heard a loud snore from the cleric.

Reena fidgeted, and then she looked at Trevor. “What was the fight like?”

Trevor entertained the head seer, Reena, and Volst with an action-by-action description of the ambush.

“Those poor innocent people,” Reena said.

“I agree, but I’m also partial to poor me and my friends,” Volst said. “It is a bad business all around.”

“If I hadn’t gone to the stable to groom Snowflake, I’m afraid you would be standing over some dead bodies,” Trevor said to Reena. “We are also lucky since the teleportation spell, or whatever it is, does a great deal of healing during the transfer.” He didn’t tell her that there was less healing for him on this trip since Trevor dragged two magicians along with him.

~

“Do you feel well enough to meet a few Dryden dignitaries?” Brother Yvan asked. He said he woke up feeling better than Volst or Trevor.

“I suppose so.”

“We will walk across the square to the Dryden Cathedral,” the head seer said. “You will be meeting with the pontiff. You see, he is my counterpart as overseers of the Dryden faith in the world. I work with the seers, and he counsels the clerics. We would have taken you to meet them before, except for the emergency on the border.”

They stepped into an office at least twice the size of the head seer’s and sat down on plush seats. The outward-facing branch of Dryden’s church in Ginster seemed to live by different rules. A cleric dressed in white opened the door and announced the Pontiff of Ginster.

The pontiff wore a starched hat with a tall double peak. His robes were white with an intricate gold needlework design. Another cleric, wearing a purple robe with the same needlework design in white, followed him in.

“The Bishop of Ginster!” the same cleric who announced the pontiff introduced the bishop. Trevor thought it was pretty silly.

They remained standing as the pontiff and the bishop walked the few steps to the pontiff’s massive desk as if they were performing some kind of processional.

“You may be seated,” the announcer intoned before Trevor, Brother Yvan, and the head seer sat. His chair was behind everyone else’s.

“Why do I have to sit back here?” Trevor