Brechalon by Wesley Allison Read Free Book Online

didn’t know why, but he felt
compelled to find out all he could about her. The prison didn’t
have any open records and asking the warden would have invited
dismissal, so he had quizzed the other guards and the south wing
prisoners. From the former, he hadn’t gotten much—only that she was
an extremely dangerous, extremely powerful magic-user. From one of
the latter though he had gotten a name—Zurfina.
    “ Zurfina,” he called out. “Is that
your name? Is that who you are?”
    Slowly, very slowly, the head came up until he
could see the two grey eyes peering from between the dirty, blond
hair like the eyes of a tiger looking out of the jungle—filled with
hatred.
    “ Are you Zurfina?”
    Slowly the fire in the eyes died, and the eyes
turned glassy. Then the head dropped back down. Though he called to
her several more times, prisoner eighty-nine gave no more
indication that she heard or understood. Eventually he gave up and
made his way back to the south wing, so he didn’t hear the words
that came from the cracked lips.
    “ One thousand nine hundred sixty
eight days. One thousand nine hundred sixty eight days. One
thousand nine …”
    One thousand nine hundred sixty eight days
before, Zurfina the Magnificent had been moving through the throngs
of people in Marcourt Station. She was not dressed as the other
women in the station, or anywhere else in the United Kingdom of
Greater Brechalon. High-heeled leather boots and leather pants
matched the spiked leather collar around her neck and the
fingerless black leather gloves on her hands. The black leather
corset, worn as a shirt, left her white shoulders bare as it did
the two inch star tattoo above each breast. No one noticed the
bizarrely clad figure though. Zurfina was a master of obfuscation.
To everyone else at the station, she seemed nothing but a
non-descript brunette in a brown dress with an appropriately large
bustle. To almost everyone else.
    Zurfina had her ticket on the B511 out of Brech
to Flander on the south coast, where she had already arranged to
meet a boat that would take her to a ship bound for Mirsanna. There
was no way that she could stay in Brechalon any longer. The
government had refused to accept her independence. They would have
her join the military or they would see her destroyed. They had
already sent a dozen wizards and two sorcerers against her. But
Zurfina was the greatest practitioner of sorcery in the Kingdom and
was more than a match for any wizard.
    A man in a brown suit stepped out from behind a
pillar. To the other people in the station, he seemed nothing out
of the ordinary, but to Zurfina he glowed bright yellow and was
surrounded by a sparkling halo. She didn’t wait for him to cast a
spell. She pointed her hand toward him and spat out an
incantation.
    “ Intior uuthanum err.”
    Immediately the man doubled over, wracked with
uncontrollable cackling laughter. But before Zurfina could smile
appreciatively, she was thrown from her feet as the world around
her exploded in flames. She had been hit in the back by a fireball,
and only the fact that she had previously shielded herself
prevented her from becoming a human candle, as four or five
innocent bystanders around her now did. Rolling to her feet and
turning around, she found that she faced not one, but four wizards.
The one who had evidently cast the fireball was preparing another
spell, while the other three were casting their own. Her shield
protected her from the lightning bolt, and the attempt to charm
her, but one of the four magic missiles hit her, burning her
shoulder as though it had been dipped in lava.
    “ Uuthanum uastus corakathum paj--
Prestus Uuthanum.” Zurfina ducked into a side alcove as one of the
wizards turned to stone and her own shield was replenished. Several
more magical bolts struck the stone wall across from her, creating
small burnt holes. Peering quickly around the corner, she saw the
four wizards just where she left them, the three trying to