Dance of Destinies (The Galactic Mage Series Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page A

alien that had been looking into the device pulled itself back up toward the big mass out of which the prongs and all the translucent hoses ran. It stared into the dim glow coming from up there again. Three of its tentacles were moving about on the top of the machine where Altin was. Orli had no way to know what they were doing to him.
    Then the alien’s whole body turned blue, bright blue like the sky on a clear Prosperion day. It flashed three times, and right after, the first alien did the same.
    Altin’s spacesuit helmet came bouncing over the edge of the machine a moment later. Orli barely had time to realize it—she hardly noticed something so small moving in such a place of massiveness. She saw it as it fell, realizing what it meant. She ran for it, jumped the corner of two gaps in the grate, trying to catch it. It bounced on the beam directly across from her, rolled down its length, and spun there. She jumped the corner of that gap and dove for it just as a gust of wind blew it over the edge. She watched it fall until she lost it in the darkness.

Chapter 4
    R oberto appeared in Calico Castle, near an old suit of armor on a pedestal. It was placed in the corner of a massive dining hall, in which he’d eaten numerous times before. The high vaulted ceilings above him were lost in darkness, as was the long table at the center of the room, most of it, anyway. The double doors across the way were open, and light came in from the hallway beyond, illuminating the high, arcing backs of three chairs at the end of the table and making pitchfork silhouettes of the candelabras near that end, none of which were lit.
    He let go the breath he had held back on Yellow Fire’s new red world, a long and potentially final one drawn as he had pulled his helmet off. It was nice to know that it hadn’t been his last. He glanced to the shattered remnants of what was once a pale sapphire and shook his head. Altin called them “fast-cast amulets,” enchanted gemstones that held a single teleportation spell. Roberto called them lifesavers. He only hoped his would be enough to get Altin and Orli help. He didn’t think they were going to be in a position to use the ones they wore right away, not while being stuck in some kind of alien goo.
    He ran out of the dining hall, helmet still in hand, and headed out into the courtyard. He cast his gaze about, but there was no one there. He called for Tytamon as loudly as he could. The doughty old kitchen matron, Kettle, came waddling out of the castle, wiping flour from her hands on equally flour-dusted skirts.
    “What’s with all that racket, now?” she asked, looking ready to scold him for it regardless of the contents of his reply.
    “Where’s Tytamon? I need a ride to … I need … crap, I don’t even know where I need a ride to.”
    Who could he get to help that could do anything about Altin and Orli’s predicament? He could go to Little Earth, a forty-acre base that the War Queen had provided for the Earth fleet’s use when it first arrived on planet Prosperion. But then what? It’s not like the fleet had any way of getting to Yellow Fire—not without a wizard. Not without many wizards now, given Altin’s circumstance.
    “Calm down, lad,” Kettle said. The frenzied look in his eyes had turned her irritation into something more useful to them both. “Think a bit, now. Where is it ya need ta go? Tell me now, an’ we’ll see ta gettin’ ya there quick as ya like.”
    “ Citadel ,” he said. “I need to get to Citadel . Those aliens that landed on Yellow Fire have captured Altin and Orli. They took them into the ship.”
    “Oh, sweet Mercy, not again,” Kettle cried. “Do ya all got nothin’ else ta do than go about the stars tweakin’ the nose of ever’ new creature ya run across? Weren’t it enough what nearly done fer us last year?”
    Roberto let out a long, slow breath. He could see Kettle working herself up into a fright, which wouldn’t serve anyone. It was