First Apprentice

Chapter 27 Part 1

Amit's mahogany mantle clock ticked down the seconds until the thirty-minute hold the head archivist slapped on my Article Fourteen declaration expired and the Archives seals automatically sent it to every office and outpost.

Once registered, the Seven and the Border Guard Chief had thirty minutes to override the archive seals. It only took one clan-owned member of the Seven to place my entire office in administrative limbo for the next month — a sadistic little game that featured heavily in Grandfather's bedtime stories.

Once upon a time, Grandfather owned the head archivist. He reported to Uncle Manfred or whomever Grandfather had at Headquarters with a communication seal. They contacted Grandfather. Grandfather left camp, summoned a gate, and arrived just in time to override the archive seals. Then he held whatever it was over his opponent's head for the next month or two, withdrawing his opposition only after they agreed to his terms.

He called it politics. Endellion called it extortion.

I knew the game. Thanks to Grandfather, I also knew Amit murdered the head archivist twenty years ago and the Pundarikam Clan replaced him with their own creature.

My gates did not have another month. My people did not have another week.

Twenty-two minutes down; eight minutes left. Eight little minutes for the Pundarikam Clan's bought archivist to contact Amit. Pity he was occupied.

Last night while I was drawing up the declaration, promissory note, and all the other papers Helen said I needed, I handed Tylar another task.

"Find me a way inside Amit's office. He must see me immediately. The meeting must last for thirty minutes," I said.

Two hours later, he emerged from the testing chamber with the forged order that sent them into the mountains wounded and ill-equipped. Devadas had it in his pocket the entire time and no one mentioned it.

The forged signature of the Central Keystone's primary maintainer and the supervising master sealer for twenty-nine gates...Grandfather couldn't have crafted a better excuse.

Four-hundred-years ago, a well-timed and well-executed forgery of Terry's signature sent a small team of sealers, including Joel and Grandfather, to meet a large caravan on Daneus. Joel summoned the Central Keystone while Grandfather and their apprentices organized the wagons — all standard for high-value shipments like sentirus and gold. The ambushers left Joel for dead and captured Grandfather. Uncle Manfred broke several dozen laws getting Grandfather out, beginning with the prohibition on guardians fighting when their gate isn't under attack and ending with several laws regarding the treatment of captured commanders and war chiefs.

With Grandfather's stories ringing in my ears, I registered the declaration and teleported straight from the archives to Amit's office. There I slammed the forgery on Amit's secretary's desk and informed her that I would see him immediately regarding a threat to my gates. She cleared his schedule, told me and Kevin, whom I brought as a witness, to leave our swords outside the door, and sent us in. No further questions asked because the gates come first. A threat to the gates is a threat to us all.

The minute hand swept around again. Two minutes to go. Magic rolled off Amit in waves. Washed-out sky blue like his aura and just as weak, it coiled around mine and squeezed like Endellion did the few times she demanded both my attention and my obedience. I absently flicked it aside, breaking the connection as easily as a hawk flying through a spider web.

Grinding his teeth, Amit shifted in his chair. Apple green slash marks streaked with bile — smug amusement — flared in his aura, overtaking the girlish rose red slashes he probably assumed showed a violent edge...if he could see auras. Considering how he acted toward me, I doubted it. The ring I wore underneath my deerskin fingerless gloves, one of a dozen pairs Grandfather had custom made to hide my aes burns, only made my aura look more Marstow than Dracon. It swapped flames for stars. It didn't change my base color. Three marker colors were almost as much of a warning as a dark base color, which meant Amit was either blind or an idiot. Likely both.