Scholar of Magic (Art of the Adept #3) - Michael G. Manning Page 0,118

removed ten of the large jars—a small fortune if they contained as much white phosphorous as had been bought from the Alchemy Department.

The smaller vials made him even happier, for they were the result of someone else’s hard work. Each one was clearly labeled, ‘alchemist’s fire.’ There were twenty of those.

Last but not least, he extracted the leather sack. It jingled and clinked as he set it on the wood floor beside him. Will untied the bag and looked inside, where he saw the unmistakable glitter of gold crowns. Over the past year he’d had to handle large sums on several occasions, and he had begun to get a feel for such quantities. At a guess, there was somewhere between a hundred to a hundred and fifty gold marks.

He hadn’t come for the gold, but he wasn’t leaving it behind either. Will stored it in the limnthal along with the jars of phosphorous and the vials of alchemist’s fire. He had almost everything he needed now. Getting to his feet, he started to leave when he heard a noise through the wall. Someone was moving close by, just outside the building.

There were several possibilities, chief among them being more vampires or the king’s Driven. Either way, he didn’t want to give away his theft if they checked the building before he could leave. He closed the iron door, replaced the rug, then returned the desk to its original position. With that accomplished, he rechecked his prepared spells.

He still wasn’t sure who was outside, and while the odds were highest that it would be the king’s Driven at that point, he was more afraid of vampires. Still, he needed to escape. If he walked out and the king’s men tried to detain him, he would need a plan. An idea came to him after a moment’s thought.

Discarding the prepared wind-wall spell, he replaced it with a chameleon spell, but he didn’t cast it. He now had two illumination spells and the chameleon spell ready. He was tempted to emerge with a force-lance in hand as well, but if it actually was the Driven, they would probably see that as an obvious sign of hostility. Most of the vampires might not be able to see turyn, but the Driven were all sorcerers.

He walked out the main door without a single spell active, though his vision was optimized for the lighting. Will could clearly see the teams of sorcerers spread out around the building. They were clustered in groups of four with about ten to twenty yards between each group, and they appeared to encircle the entire warehouse.

Given the dim lighting, they probably assumed he couldn’t see them, and he was just grateful that they weren’t hiding in the ground again. Will walked directly toward the closest group. At twenty feet, they ordered him to stop and he did his best to act surprised. “Who’s there?”

“Servants of the king. Identify yourself.”

Will was nonplussed. “You don’t recognize me, yet you claim to work for my father-in-law?”

The leader of the group closest to Will moved nearer, stepping into a better-lit area. “You were reported as being at Wurthaven receiving medical care.”

He shrugged. “And yet I’m here. I came back to make sure there were none left. The place was crawling with them earlier.”

“Please lie down on the ground, sir. We will have to take you into custody until we can verify your identity.” The man pointed at the cobblestones to underscore his command.

Will held his hands out to the side in a friendly gesture as he continued to move forward. “Can’t we be more civilized about this? I’ll come quietly. I really don’t think my wife would be happy to hear that you forced me to lie in the street.”

The sorcerer backed up slightly, and his companions moved to encircle Will, who made a show of pretending to turn around and offer his hands behind his back. “You could cuff me just as easily like this,” he told them.

“Get down n—”

Their leader was shouting as Will released his first prepared spell, Ethelgren’s Illumination. The brilliant light blinded the men’s night-adjusted vision as he rushed forward and pushed one of the men aside, but he