Reah, it will be fine—you'll see. Ry was now weighing in.
Oh sure, you've done this a hundred times, probably, I said right back to them. Not that it would do any good.
Reah? Did you just say something? Tory sounded shocked.
Did you hear me? I was shocked, too.
I heard you. Ry's mindspeech was thick with disbelief.
Holy crap. I used one of Gavril's favorite phrases. I hadn't been allowed to see Gavril—I'd been handed a comp-vid and we'd said good-bye that way. Gavril had been about to have a meltdown, as was I. He said much the same thing Aurelius had, asking me to promise to come back. It was so hard, saying that good-bye. Now I tried something else. Bel, can you hear me?
Reah? Shock was a mild word—astonished might have been closer to the mark. You have mindspeech, Reah? He thought to ask the second question.
It seems so, I answered. What about Hish and Max?
Not all the wizards have it—Delvin has it too. Hish and Max don't.
Where is Delvin?
Keeping the High Commander happy with his shielding tricks, Bel muttered mentally.
Poor Delvin. I thought Hish was the only one who could shield.
Hish is much better at it—Delvin's shields are weaker and he can only protect himself and one or two others. The High Commander is only worried about his own skin.
So Delvin is good enough for that and Hish can risk his life elsewhere?
Yes.
You know the High Commander is a coward.
Reah, don't say that to anyone other than to me or Delvin. And then only mentally. Understand?
That sounded worrisome. Did Bel suspect some of his own Rangers? I was going to have to talk to Tory and Ry about that. I did. Immediately and at length. I told them about all the Ranger wizards who still lived, and what their talents were.
"Where are you going?" Wald asked. Edan was shrugging into his heavy coat; it was snowing outside. Edan's half-brother Wald didn't want to open the restaurant alone that evening.
"To the nearest constabulary station," Edan grumbled. He'd seen the vids, just as everyone else had. The name didn't fit, but he'd know that face anywhere. Reah had managed to get herself into too much trouble. It sounded as if she'd found a bad crowd after she'd been sent to who knew where by the idiot who worked for the Governor of the Realm. Edan had no desire to claim a daughter as his mother demanded. This was his excuse—he was ready to hand fabricated information to the constabulary and the ASD—that would absolve him of any responsibility where Reah was concerned. She was nothing to him, and he'd see to it that Addah Desh could never lay claim to her talents, either.
"Edan, there's someone here to see you," his assistant cook, Mardin, showed a man into Edan's office.
"I don't have time," Edan snapped, smoothing out the collar of his coat. He backed up quickly when an ASD badge was shoved in his face.
"Well, Edan, you managed to drag me into your little mistake, didn't you?" Marzi Desh hissed at her son.
"As if you didn't force me into it," Edan snapped back. The two had been left in an interviewing room together. Lendill was smiling as he watched the vid-recorder. They were about to give him everything he wanted and he wouldn't be forced to ask a single question. The rest of the family could be kept quiet if Lendill promised to keep this out of the news. He had an interview set up with Addah Desh the following afternoon.
It's time, Reah. I'd fallen asleep but Tory's voice in my head woke me.
All right, I said. Our escape had been carefully planned. Ry would provide the initial explosion—Bel said he didn't know if he could control his blasts well enough. We didn't want to breach the hull of the ship—that would come later, just for show. The whole ship shook anyway with the force of Ry's blast. Cell doors popped open. Only a few remained locked. Nods' door was one of those.
I was out of my cube quickly and running down the hall. Tory, using the strength any High Demon possessed, ripped off spelled cuffs—they held no power against him. I was immune as well, and ripped my own cuffs off. Ry didn't need Tory's help to remove his; he'd been the one to spell the cuffs to begin with. I hadn't known that until Norian Keef let it slip earlier.
Bel, Hish and Max were all glad to get rid of their cuffs—I could see that easily enough when Ry released them with a power-filled gesture and they dropped to the floor with a metallic clunk. The six of us had gathered in a designated ship's corridor while ASD agents shouted and ran toward us—we had to make this escape look as real as possible. The agents were randomly firing laser pistols at us, too, causing pieces of the ceiling and the walls to explode outward. I ducked as some of it came my way.
"Get us out of here!" Tory shouted at Ry. Ry didn't even blink as he folded all six of us away.
"The captured wizards were stronger than we anticipated," the Captain of the prison vessel declared in an interview. He was actually a mid-ranking ASD operative. The news vids were showing images of the blasted-out hull where all but one of the prisoners had escaped. That prisoner was shown as he was loaded into an armored vehicle before being driven to the local cell that awaited him.
"It is most fortunate that this particular prisoner did not escape—he is the reported gunman," the journalist noted. "As you can see, three ASD agents were killed during the escape." Norian watched the newsfeed—it had been a stroke of genius, finding three bodies to transport. None of his agents had been injured during the escape. The breach in the outer hull had been made by his own agents aboard ship, shortly before they reached port on Tulgalan. All on board were well away from the blast that created the hole in the side of the ship. Ry, Tory and the others had gotten away without mishap.
"Are you sure the compulsion will hold up?" Norian turned to Rigo, one of Lissa's vampire mates.
"Oh, yes. And no word will ever reach Mandil that we violated the treaty in that way. Nods will not reveal any secrets other than what he's told us already, after I placed compulsion to be truthful."
"Yes. I couldn't believe what came out of his mouth before you stepped in," Norian offered Rigo a grim smile. "The wizards who planted those lies in his mind were quite powerful, according to Lord Morphis." Norian turned back to the news on the vid-screen. Erland Morphis had also stated that no wizard or warlock could outdo an old vampire on compulsion. It was information Norian squirreled away. It might prove useful, someday.
"My Prince, we managed to escape with a little assistance." Bel indicated Ry, Tory and me with a quick gesture. "These were arrested with us and have agreed to help."