Free The Legend of Vanx Malic: Book 02 - Dragon Isle by M. R. Mathias Page A

the gall to try to subvert his will. For the most part, Coll had to agree with that. Very few would dare steal something from one of Parydon’s nobles or their wizards. Then again, very few had the mettle to do more than lick boots and follow orders.
    The last thought caused Coll to chuckle. He cast a detection spell on the worn but stout-looking iron-banded door. He was glad he did so, for there was the simplest of alarm spells set on its unlocked latch. Coll shook his head, growing more concerned with each passing second. Surely the old wizard hadn’t let one of his apprentices ward the Blood Stone.
    He dispelled the magical working on the door latch and opened it. Was the old man losing his edge? No, from what he had heard, just yesterday Quazar had driven back the ogres at the western gate in some wild display of blue lightning and wizard fire. Those were no easy forces to summon. Maybe the old man didn’t think the artifact was in danger of being taken. Maybe this was a trap, but for whom?
    No seasoned dabbler in the arts would have touched that ward without checking it first. Maybe…
    His thoughts trailed off when he sensed the power radiating from the real protective ward Quazar had placed over the Blood Stone. It emitted a force field of glassine lavender that encompassed the blood-red pebble in a crackling glow about as big around as a fat man’s waist.
    The stone itself was sitting like a droplet of blood atop a belt-high marble display pedestal on a white satin pillow. Coll knew better than to reach into the magical orb to grab the prize. If he did, one of several horrible fates would greet him: bone-melting heat, paralysis, a surge of heart-stopping voltage, possibly even being transformed into a pig or a goblin. It all depended on the power and creativity of the caster. Coll decided that Quazar probably wouldn’t go for anything imaginative. He’d be struck dead, or more likely charred to an ashy husk like the ogre they’d come across out in the Wildwood.
    The simplicity of the old mage’s warding on the latch and the lack of protection for the guards made sense now. One who didn’t understand the more powerful ways of the arcane might think that it was the stone’s power that was radiating the field around it and try to take it, especially after being able to just walk through the door. When the latch was opened, a trinket Quazar kept on his person was supposed to glow or get warm. Coll had deactivated that warning. Had he not, Quazar could have then spelled the tower’s exits.
    Coll laughed at the simplicity of it. It would work on just about anyone who didn’t understand magic or expect the unexpected. Even some of the more professional thieves might have reached for the stone if they had gotten this far, but Coll wouldn’t.
    He circled the pedestal slowly, taking it in through a spell of true seeing. It was the pillow, of course, that was enchanted to radiate the protective glow. The stone itself pulsed and shimmered like a glass of cool water before a man in the desert. Coll felt it pulling at him, calling him to reach out for it. These feelings only made him yearn for it all the more, for it had to be darkly enchanted to reach for and attract him in such a manner. It was as if it knew the deadly globe was around it and that he was there and lusting to possess it.
    No, Coll decided, he was just hungry for power. The stone was just there pulsing and throbbing and waiting to be used. It was his own lust doing the attracting. He let out a long sigh. Subverting Quazar’s trap would be no easy task, but he was certain that he could do it.
    He glanced about and for the first time took in the rest of the room in which he stood. There were two tall, narrow-arched windows, both heavily curtained. Against the dusty paneled oak walls a few other pedestals stood as if forgotten. Atop one of them was an old brass helmet with a plume of bright orange fur running over its crown. On another sat a rat-gnawed,