JET 8.9: INTO THE MAW
“They behave as though they alone have access to a calculus of joy and sorrow which always tips to the latter and which none may gainsay. It is not a fact that there is more hurt in the world than bliss. And if you cannot determine the truth, will you go on to say that it is better to live as though the world is such? It hurts me that you are so damaged as to think all the world a wound. You forget your vitality. You forget the new evanescent experience. You have chained yourself then claimed all existence a prison. Choke forth the key! None can do it for you!”
– taken verbatim from ‘The Sermons of the Unbridled’ recordings, Mortifost 772 NE
The king’s corridors were filled with soldiers, almost all of them with the same dark eyes and hair, the same yellow-pale skin. Snooty-looking men wearing expensive fur hats on their heads were busily going to and fro – courtiers or envoys of some kind, I supposed – with their hands clutching scrolls, or even sheaves of true paper in some cases. They stood aside, gawping or sneering at me as our escort led us on. The place was hewn from rock but the walls, floors and ceilings were so expertly-smoothed that it barely gave me Zyger flashbacks. There was minimal wood or textile in use – a few drapes and paintings were scattered here and there, but most of the nooks and alcoves had been given over to carvings where there was space for artwork. Instead of Mund-style carpets the Telese seemed to favour sheepskin and otter-fur rugs, and even here in the royal household they seemed to be few and far between. What was even more noticeable to the outsider: not many of the lights in the High Hall were magical in nature, ordinary lanterns gleaming away in most of the rooms I glimpsed through open doorways. There was an ancient-looking light-globe hanging near the ceiling in the Hall’s entryway, and one illuminating the broad spiral stair we slowly ascended – that was it.
Finally the curving steps brought us into a huge room, in which the pure white radiance of ensorcelled globes was once again to be found. The window was the first thing I saw as we came up into the chamber – it was massive but fairly useless for admitting light. The glassless opening was three feet off the ground, a fifty-foot-long, six-foot-high wound in the wall, allowing the wind to howl at us, paw at our clothes. Such a huge hole seemed altogether stupid to me – it’d occurred to me as we climbed the stair that we must’ve been climbing almost to the peaks of the cliffs, now, only within the cliff-face rather than upon it. A curious location for you to choose to create your stronghold, where enemies could rappel down from above, entering your extremely-accommodating window… Though I supposed in a place like this, the majority of attacks would come from the reavers of the high seas, not overland. It was possible that the notion of bringing an assault force onto the tops of these cliffs was completely impractical, and we certainly had a brilliant view of Telior’s bay and Northril beyond. I had little doubt you’d have the perfect opportunity to plan a response to invasion from this vantage.
Still, I wouldn’t have placed the throne on the opposite wall if I’d been designing the place. Ship-mounted projectiles were pretty fearsome in most stories, and the dark elves’ harpoons hadn’t dissuaded me from that opinion – if there were pirates in the bay, you couldn’t have paid me enough to sit there, looking out on the hails of missiles. A volley of true-flight arrows would be your ending.
Perhaps we were too high up – or maybe it was just a sign of bravery on behalf of the Telese monarch. He certainly looked imposing enough to face down a fleet of enemy vessels.
The seat was a massive triangle of dark, glittery stone, a short flight of steps cut into its face to let King Deymar Northsword ascend – but it didn’t look as though he or his ancestors would’ve had much need of them. The man had to be seven feet tall, shoulders like barrels beneath the velvet robe he wore. Deymar’s arms looked to be as thick as my legs, and his black beard longer than my hair. His crown was gold and bronze; I saw as we came closer that it was inlaid with milky gems and flecked with amethyst stones. His eyes were not so dark as his countrymen’s, however, staring down glacier-blue at the sword-armed man giving him a telling-off.
Or, at least, what sounded like a telling-off. It was hard to tell what was going on. For the first time in a long time, I wished I’d taken some divination classes back in Mund when I’d had chance – I ought to have taught myself the cheapest spells for gaining the ability to speak unknown tongues. Even if I hadn’t been able to motivate myself to waste time on something that wasn’t sorcery or Emrelet, I could’ve stolen some appropriate potions before we left… what had I been thinking?
The king let the man finish his rant – it was quite an interesting watch, actually, with the supplicant shouting once or twice, even jabbing his finger at the king then down in the general direction of the docks. Deymar Northsword didn’t seem to react, and when the subordinate finished the king waited for a few heartbeats before replying in a measured tone, words again I couldn’t comprehend.
“You can get us out of here, right, Raz?” Jaroan spoke quietly, but he still snarled the last word.
“Of course.” I glanced at my shields – no one was so much as tickling them. Not yet, anyway. “We’re a hundred percent safe.”
“Heh-heh!” Jaid chirped, more nervous-sounding than amused.
I glanced at her, but the concern hadn’t quite reached her eyes.
Nothing new there.
I turned back, and tried to focus on King Deymar’s response to his angry vassal. For all his immense stature, for all that his voice was a rolling rumble, he seemed to be doing his best to pacify the man, not laying down the law…
“So, zis is ze demon-summer,” came a voice from my left, intruding on my concentration.
I turned to regard another dark-haired man, this one with curly ringlets framing his face. The quality of his clothing was surpassed only by the king’s, yet he wore iron-shod boots, and a blade hung at his belt.
He was looking at me derisively, and speaking Mundic for my benefit, but it was Sergeant Fyorin he was addressing, his silk-clad body planted right in front of the lead guardsman.
“He does not look all ze scary. Vhy does he not speak? Vere you to pull his teeth out of his head, Esvyl?”
“My lord, he has been advise by me to not speak until invited.”
I ducked my head, trying to make it clear I was willing to play by the rules, but I wasn’t going to actually bow before this ‘gentleman’.
“Ah.” Curly-Head glanced over my crumpled robe, then turned his eyes on the twins. “Oloesong kim ku brinjal… Are zese three igliaz, zen?”
Igliaz?
“Ku siiv helaigne, kur hool.” The sergeant looked back at us. “He ask if you are three orphans.”
“I am an adult,” I said, grateful for the opportunity to speak at last, “by both your law and my own. I’m eighteen, soon to be nineteen.” I hoped the twins kept their fortify faces. “These children are my blood, and my wards until they too come of age… And they’re in my wards, if you follow my meaning. You know what I am?”
“You are a saucer!” Curly-Head seemed affronted that I’d dare ask a question back, and drew himself up, putting his fist against his ribs dramatically so that his elbow was stuck out. Perhaps he’d been thinking of drawing his weapon, then thought better of it before ill-will sent him skittering across the room. “You stole from ze market, no? For zis alone ve vould take ze hands, but zen ze captain tells us of ze blagorach, ze fiends you –“
He was drowned out by laughter.
Not mine. Jaroan’s.
I had to lower my outer shields, knowing such mockery would only exacerbate the intensity of this situation – the nearby watchmen gripped their weapons in preparedness.
I slowly swivelled to face my brother, catching him panting for air.
“Oh, oh, oh please,” he gasped, “pl-please stop, just stop…” He finally seemed to catch his breath. “You, you know he’s a, a s-s-saucer, so just stop. I d-don’t even have the lux… luxury of telling you you don’t know who you’re messing with. You do. He fought off that ship of bones. He fought –“
“Silence,” I whispered.
Amplified. A whisper that slashed through every conversation in the room, rippling out to the walls and back again.
The worst part was, for all the impropriety of his giggling fit, for all that he didn’t understand the true import of his words – Jaroan was right. I wasn’t going to walk on eggshells here. If they wanted me to be a push-over, they’d have to actually try pushing.
“Cheers. For your attention, I mean.” I gazed around at my new audience: over a dozen noble-looking fellows were in attendance, leaving aside the various maids, servants, guards, whose eyes were also drawn to me. “I’m quite busy, and I was about to pass through your lovely tow- city…” I focussed my eyes on the king, who seemed if anything somewhat relieved by the distraction. “I thought I’d get to stop one night at least, but, if you’re this determined to be rid of me, just let me go. I won’t cause any trouble. But this one,” I indicated Curly-Head with a chin-thrust, “wants to take my hands. I need to let you know, that isn’t even remotely possible. The captain you’ve been listening to wanted to abandon ship, then kill me once I –“
“You be silence!” Curly-Head shrilled, and drew his sword – and a few of the nearby guards followed suit.
Causing a short series of green bursts of light (and a single purple one), I stepped forward with the twins into Etherium, entering a rather standard-looking cavern for this plane. The place was covered in glowing mushrooms and moss, a luminous waterfall trickling down one of the decidedly non-smooth walls –
“Oof!” Jaroan said, rocking on his heels with the dimensional motion.
Jaid said nothing, just clenching her fists and gazing about expressionlessly.
“I won’t be long,” I promised as I brought out my knife. “Who’s going first?”
I made the slices on the backs of their hands quickly, shallowly, filling them with a sliver of power – the twins hardly even seemed bothered. Both of them perked up, however, when I reached through Materium back to Etherium, dragging a dozen giant gold squirrels into the cavern and showering the twins in them.
I finished by bringing Avaelar and Zabalam through. “Keep the twins safe!” I cried, then thrust myself back into Telior’s High Hall.
Magenta light showered down on me for a single instant as I performed my trick, moving myself into the shadow-man even as I stepped into the air, bad leg first.
In total I must’ve disappeared for a good thirty, forty seconds – by the time I’d gotten back, the natives were in a state of complete disarray, and I tapped the wraith liberally, letting my shields fall.
My sudden reappearance in their midst, the ethereal foam and nethernal gloom dripping through the air – I couldn’t really blame the three or four guards who swung at me with their weapons.
But Curly-Head – despite the fact his sword was doing nothing he continued to petulantly press the attack, sawing the blade back and forth through my ninety-percent transparent robe and flesh.
Him I could blame.
I was about to point at him and fire an imp at him like a wizard fires a fireball, but then the king used his deep, rumbling voice to better effect:
“Bakar! Hold! Did I command his death?” King Deymar Northsword was on his feet, boots planted on the top step of the black stair, and imposing wasn’t even the word. “I ask the sorcerer here with the open hand, arms wide in fellowship! Come, sorcerer! I see your quest will not wait. I would speak with you now, and let you begone if you would afterwards.”
I raised my eyebrow. He had the Telese accent, of course, but mixed into the voice was something almost… Oldtownish?
My aggressors fell back, faces ranging from sullen to relieved, but I didn’t approach the king – not yet.
“What do you want with me?” I called, floating up slightly, almost onto his level.
He was smiling. “I am not stupid,” he called back, all eyes looking between the two of us. “I have heard the stories. I have been to Mund. I have spoken with a seer. I know who you are.”
What! I shrieked internally.
“Or what you are,” the king continued. “You are what they call arch-sorcerer. Is this true?”
I nodded slowly.
“Servants!” He clapped his massive hands. “Bring bread, and beer!” He smiled at me. “I have invited you here to offer you a job.”
* * *
“The man speaking with you earlier – he is Lord Marsk Torloy. His idea it was to use the words of the captain and the market-man against you, if you refused my command. He did not seem to understand, even when I explained there would be no command – only request. You would not be held against your will. I am glad the sergeant seems to have understood.”
I nodded, not looking at the king, just staring out at the ocean. “That man needs a promotion, I think.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps.” I could tell Deymar was smiling again. “So, you enjoy my view, Mundian?”
It was a little later. The twins were off exploring the caves beneath the High Hall with the other household children, invisible shields firmly secured of course. I was atop the Telior cliffs with their owner, looking down on the wooden warren sprawled about the semi-circle of the bay – looking out on the surf and storms of Northril. There were no walls about us, no roof above our heads now where we stood on the bare shelf of stone. The singing sea wind whipped his fur cloaks, tugged at his massive beard, but it barely even rippled my robe as I languished in the half-state.
“It could be your view too.”
“What, you’re planning on giving me your clifftop?”
The king chuckled. “I could make sure you have a… prime location, you know?”
I turned to look at him finally. The glacial eyes beneath the thick black brows were shockingly warm – and tired, oh so tired. These were not the eyes of some brutish conqueror or cruel highborn ruler. It was the weary gaze of a man beset with obstacles, problems contrived by forces beyond his control.
Behind him was the fortification that protected Telior from overland attack – a natural barrier I’d been unable to see from down in the water.
Frozen swamps, stretching off into the horizon.
“You went to Mund?” I asked. “You mentioned it, in the throne room. Your Mundic’s very good, you know?”
“Thank you.” He bowed his head at the compliment, and I raised my eyebrow in renewed surprise at his approachability. “I visited, as a young man. Five years, I lived in your city. Do you know the Gull’s Down?”
I shook my head.
“In Overbrent? I lived next door to it.”
“I know Overbrent.” I helped save a decent chunk of Overbrent from destruction… “But I don’t think I’ve heard of the tavern itself, sorry.”
“My father sent me.” For the first time, the king’s rumbling voice had a dark cast to it. “I was to study, and learn of the world, and improve our trade relations.” He almost growled the last two words, and I saw he was clenching his fist. “I do not mean to offend you, Raz, but the masters of Mund are no friendly folk. They do not like the outsider. They have much, but share little.”
“You aren’t going to offend me with that,” I replied. “If anything, I’m sure I hate them more than you.”
“So you are running away?”
I said nothing.
“Mund’s loss is my gain.” He gestured down at the city below us. “Look at Telior, Raz. Tell me what you see.”
I chewed my lip a moment. “Success, Majesty. It’s a dangerous world out there. You, your forefathers – you’ve made this work. It’s a testament to your perseverance.”
He was shaking his head. “You are too kind. This city, it is regressing. The dangerous world is inside already, I fear. The people leave, they do not come back. Ever since the Black Winter – the population, it ages and there are less young men to do the work of the old. My son will inherit a black rock, empty of life.” His eyes pierced me. “You can help me change that.”
“I keep hearing about this Black Winter… What am I missing?”
His eyes went distant, just for a moment, and his hands clenched into fists. “The dark elves. They have tolerated us for centuries – when they came, we gave with both hands. There was no shame in it, as we saw it. But, fourteen years ago – the fish were diseased, and the druids could do nothing, nothing to save the harvest. We were broken. We barely survived. And then… then they came.
“They took my people as tribute. Not just menfolk. Women. Starving children.”
There was no mistaking the anguish in his voice.
“So, that’s what you really want me for.”
Fighting off dark elves… I clenched my own fist. I’d probably have to be a bit less… next time, but it was hard, hearing what they’d done to the Telese. At least I had some experience navigating the innards of the slavers’ bone-ships now. Perhaps next time I could just go straight to the helm, eliminate the elven officers…
But he surprised me – by the sound of things, he didn’t want me for war.
“No, please, Raz. It is our… structure. How do you say it? In-fra-structure?”
I raised an eyebrow again and nodded.
“We have but few sorcerers in Telior,” he went on. “The summoning of what you call demons and fey, it is outlawed in my kingdom. Things have always been that way. The raising of the dead – this is only done under the strictest supervision, and those with the skill are shunned out of fear. The Night Order, they are called – you would call it a guild, I think?”
I was still nodding.
“Given the… taboo of such dark magery, only those who have some… talent or interest decide to pursue it. This in itself makes them suspect, you see? And so many of our young magicians who decide to go, for training in your city, they do not return, preferring to remain under the whips of their new masters. As you surely imagine, we have a problem in Telior. You have seen the old globes, in the Hall below us? We have no craft now to replace them, or even repair them. Emberwood will not grow in our lands, and so the price –”
“So you want me to fix your lights,” I interrupted.
“I want you to help me fix our kingdom,” he said. “Make it a place our young people want to live in again. Bring it closer to your Mund.”
I returned my focus to the sea, and he wisely quietened down, letting me mull it over.
I had to admit, the idea held appeal to me. I would’ve enjoyed living here, I suspected. Especially with the ear of such a cool-tempered monarch, an easy route to making money that didn’t involve facing demon-lords and arch-liches… helping people without having to wade in blood… making a difference with my powers, cleanly…
But ‘bring it closer to Mund’?
“You’re putting an awful lot of trust in a stranger.”
“The wrong kind of stranger wouldn’t still be here on this rock, thinking about it.”
I smiled at Deymar. “I wish it were so simple, but the real hurdle is my sister. She doesn’t like it here.”
His response was a grin. “Oh, really? Do you recall I mentioned a seer?”
I nodded, frowning.
“Come below.” He stepped towards the door in the rock that would lead us back to the stairwell, and banged his fist on it – a guard opened it from inside instantly. “There is a reason I sent your brother and sister off to explore.”
We traversed the smoothly-hewn corridors, plunging through the flickering candlelight that King Deymar wanted me to replace with cool wizard-radiance. The king’s guards went before us and behind us, two pairs of fierce-faced warriors. Soon, one of those guards opened a door onto a shadowed, cavernous expanse – at the bottom of a rocky incline, I could see the shapes of seven or eight children, half of them clutching torches as they splashed in a puddle.
We entered, and Jaroan came clambering up over the wet boulders towards me.
“Raz!” he whispered intensely as he reached my side. “It’s perfect! It’s just perfect.”
I looked into his face in the dancing illumination of the flames; there was none of the anger or frustration I’d become accustomed to seeing. That worried me.
“What? What is it?”
My brother smiled wickedly. “Shirya’s fallen in love.”
* * *
The prince of Telior was barely their elder at eleven, but the prodigious size that came of his ancestry made him a good six inches taller even than Jaroan. Lathenskar Northsword had the same keen blue eyes and long dark hair as his father, and a cool name to boot. He was clearly the leader of their little assembly, taking the newcomers on a tour of the nooks and crannies of the echoing caves, but the tall lad appeared to be paying special attention to Jaid, even taking her hand once or twice in a very gentlemanly manner as they skipped across streams or waded knee-deep into pools. Jaroan was getting a fair bit of attention himself. The three girls of Lathenskar’s company – well-dressed, petite little maidens all – didn’t seem fussed that the prince was paying them little heed, focussing their own powers on my brother, the mysterious outlander from the biggest city in the world.
Perhaps I’d have to speed up those talks.
I stood with the king and his men near the top of the rocky incline, not ten feet from the door back to the High Hall, looking down on the kids cavorting below.
“She told me that my son would wed,” his voice took on a sarcastically sinister tone, “the sister of the sorcerer.”
I looked at him, in complete and utter befuddlement. “A few hours ago, I was just passing through. Now my nieces and nephews will be Telese – I’ll have to learn Telese, become Telese… probably die here…”
He laughed, and I couldn’t help but smile, but I knew it was a wan, pathetic little thing.
“Look, before I get started – there’s something you need to know.” I glanced at the guards. “No offence, guys but – King Deymar, is there somewhere we can speak in private again?”
Within moments he was leading me into a small antechamber – the fire had already been well-stoked, and the dark wood-clad walls and rugs exuded warmth. I slid thankfully into a chair near the flames, shutting my eyes and sighing.
The king reached out for the door, murmuring a command that the guards should wait outside – but one of them, a young man with an exceptionally long chin, snapped something back in his own tongue.
“Aurvi Javen! You must speak Mundic for the benefit of our guest,” the king rumbled to his swordsman.
Long-Chin seemed reticent all of a sudden, looking shiftily between his ruler standing in the doorway and me lounging in the chair before the fire.
“Do go on, Sir Javen.” Deymar’s voice hardened. “Your king commands it. I know you speak it.”
“I say,” Long-Chin blurted, glaring at me, “vhy ve must vait outside, again, vhen you are dangerous!”
The king chuckled. “And what’s the answer to that, Lord Raz?”
It shocked me, hearing that form of address used at me – but at least it was Raz, not Kas, receiving the honours this time.
“Err…” I didn’t quite follow what Deymar was getting at. “The answer? You mean, because whether they’re in here or not won’t matter?”
“Thank you.” The king nodded to his youthful guardian. “You were there, Sir Javen, when the captain spoke. You heard what he accomplished. Do you think your blade will avail you – do you think your blade can accomplish his death? I warn you not to try! If he was an enemy, do you think either of us would be alive?”
I waved at him. “Come on, that’s enough. I don’t want them all having nightmares.”
“Majesty – how he speaks to you!” Long-Chin gasped, his pale cheeks flushed rose-red.
“Yet they must understand the balance of power,” the king continued, looking at me but ignoring both of us. “I will not ask you to demonstrate your magic. I know an archmage. I know what they are capable of. The knowledge – it is enough.”
He would be thinking of this ‘Orcan Finfaltik’, probably – the city’s wizard-teacher…
It was likely I was far scarier when I was putting my mind to it.
“I… shouldn’t demonstrate my powers, really.”
“I know.” He looked back to Sir Javen. “I appreciate your loyalty – now wait outside.”
The knight turned away. The king closed the door, sighed deeply, and seated himself opposite me.
“You have an injured leg,” he said at once.
I stared at him in surprise.
“I thought there was something,” he said, “and when I saw you sit down – this was confirmation.” He glanced at my boots, poking out from under the hem of my robe, then blinked as he noticed my left foot’s complete failure to be opaque. “I – is that safe?” he asked in something of a strangled voice.
I grinned at the huge, imposing king who couldn’t even look at an insubstantial foot without cringing.
Yes, pretty damn sure I’m scarier than this Orcan bloke.
“It’s quite safe.” What would be the best way to explain my injury? I didn’t want him knowing this happened since I gained my powers – that would make me look stupid – he was hardly going to know I’d had my powers dampened by the Inceryad-tree of legend, and I could hardly tell him… “Before I became an archmage – some idiot mashed my foot with a rock. But my powers let me take the weight off the foot – it’s sort of half-flying, half-hopping… I hope it doesn’t look too daft. I’m… Yeah.”
I nearly said ‘I’m still trying to get used to it,’ but that would make it look like I’d only just become an arch-sorcerer, wouldn’t it? Would that be for the best?
The moment passed me by.
“It isn’t too noticeable.” He looked away from my foot, back to my eyes. “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
I chewed the inside of my cheek for a moment, considering where to start.
“… The end of the world?”
His eyes widened, and I sighed, knowing I’d have to start from the beginning.
It turned out that they’d heard rumours in Telior, received word from sailors that things had gone particularly crazy in Mund. They’d even heard about Everseer’s ‘Crucible’, about the Return of the ancient dragons of the Dracofont – but they’d heard a dozen other things too, and, incapable of separating the sound from the noise, the Telese had been none the wiser.
“It’s one to take seriously,” I said. “I can’t let you carry on as if everything’s normal, when I know something you don’t, something important like this. I’m sorry. Please, don’t immolate the envoy.”
He frowned. “Is that something that happens?”
“Just an old-timey saying…”
“And you think this… this hell will stretch across the seas? To Telior?”
I heard the scepticism in his tone.
“I don’t know!” I probably let too much of my panic into my voice. “I don’t know what’s going to happen! I’m not – I’m no longer one of them. My friends…”
‘Friends.’
Irimar almost killed me by sending me to Zyger, but it was a dubious action at best. I could see the good will in it. In seeking to free me of my destiny, he forged it. Yet he forged it all the same.
Emrelet? Borasir? I was certain they knew nothing of his plans. They… hated me.
Tanra, though.
I missed Tanra.
“Your friends?” he prompted me gently.
Evidently he could tell I’d just rode a wave of emotion, and I felt myself blush.
“My… old friends. I’m sure the archmages I used to know have got a handle on things… I – I knew a champion of Mund, once.”
“Indeed? A champion…” He sounded appropriately impressed. “Let us worry about what we can worry about, and leave that which cannot be changed to the gods. If men survive this Crucible you speak of, they will need kings and lords to guide them. We must act as the adult. Although you know the storm will come, you know not when, and set the table for dinner in any case, no? You are a responsible man. You know of what I speak. We cannot wallow in despair.”
I stared at him.
I can’t stop the storm. But I could – if I were there – I could help stop the Crucible…
His mention of responsibility sickened me to my core.
But my hands were tied, with bonds no wraith could phase through. The twins came first. Always – they had to. My twins. Saff and Tarr, Arxine and Orieg, they couldn’t be my responsibility too. If I returned to Mund, the magisters would lock me away again. I had no special defences against their tricks. Sure, I wasn’t wearing Spirit’s amulet anymore, wasn’t giving him a back-door into my mind – but he or someone else would find a way in, disarm and condemn me in the same stroke.
No. It was beyond my reach.
“I will set my table all the same, and brace myself for the storm,” I murmured.
The king smiled. “A wise man, too.”
I sighed. “Tempered by misdeeds, believe me.”
He looked at me curiously.
“I mean – you aren’t born wise. You have to make mistakes first. I…”
– elven fingers, dripping in red paint, smearing crimson down a wooden wall –
“I’ve done things,” I concluded. “Things I’m not proud of. I… I want to do better again. I want to be myself, again.”
“And here I am, making you change.”
“No!” He was wrong. “No, it’s not that at all. I think you’ve helped –”
“Do not decide today.” King Deymar rubbed his beard in thought. “You are cold and tired. I will have food brought, and men to escort you back to your chosen tavern. Your board and breakfast will be paid. Tomorrow, return here, and I will assemble the Night Order for you. I will get the old wizard out of his roost, too. He has a… a winning personality, you say, yes? You can see what you think. If you still intend to leave, my men will not try to get in your way. But I hope – I hope you will stay.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how I can say no to that.”
“Good!” The king grinned. “My blow did not err, then.”
“Indeed… well-struck.”
I shook his hand when he offered it. His grip was firm, and, even with only the merest touch of my wraith active, I was fairly certain that his fingers literally sank into my flesh. He didn’t seem to notice, or care – presumably the former.
I caught myself half-bowing as I left his presence – not a full bend from the waist, but still more than a head-nod.
I left to gather the twins, towing a pair of sullen-looking guards in my wake, musing over the king. Deymar was perhaps the smartest highborn I’d ever met, flawlessly recruiting the new archmage – the promise of gold, of challenge and opportunity… But, even more so, it was through his personality. Even without the job offer and Jaid’s storybook romance – he’d successfully brought me, a stuck-in-the-drop Sticktowner, onto his side. A laudable feat, for one so noble of blood.
Was it even right to think of him as highborn? Surely, he came from a mighty lineage that cast him in the light of a latter-day hero, equipped with the sinews and courage of old. But, in truth, there was little by way of luxury apparent here. Little decadence. Deymar was just a tall man with a rumbling voice, desperately trying his best to maintain the order he’d inherited.
By the time I’d collected the twins and got out of the High Hall, I’d decided that I really did want to stay. See how things went.
Maybe even send for Xantaire, Xastur, Orstrum…
At least Jaid wasn’t making it harder. Love was taking it way too far – but infatuation? I’d accept that much. The change that came over her was remarkable.
“Did you see the prince’s ring? He called it a ‘signet’… Is that a Telese word? It’s not, is it? I know I’ve seen it. Did you see the dolphin on it? It was so pretty… I want to see a dolphin. Do you think we could, Ka… Raz? Oh, please. Pleaaaase?
“Oh, did you see when he helped me out of that pool! He almost fell in with me! That would’ve been so funny. Don’t you think? Jar? Sorry, sorry – I mean, Vin…
“And he said he’s the prince of princes. Like, all the other lords – thanes, whatever – a few of them even call themselves kings, you know? – but all of them are loyal to his dad, so all the other princes have to bow to him… well, someday… and he’s not betrothed yet… Kas, how do I get betrothed, exactly? Does he just ask me, and do I just say –”
I interrupted, my voice quiet. “If you could wait for us to be back in our room, before you continue, please, Shirya.” She was becoming far too careless, not even noticing when she was letting her tongue slip. “I think you’re forgetting how dangerous things can get, and how quickly. If we give it away – if they sent a team of you-know-whats –”
“Okay!” She was blushing, her eyes on her feet as we walked, but there was a strange kind of coldness, hardness to her features. “Okay… So, what does ‘signet’ mean?”
I frowned. Other than a noble’s ring…
“I don’t have a clue,” I admitted.
By the time we got back to the Flying Swordfish, she was losing her voice, and me and Jaroan were losing the will to live. The first time she left us alone, visiting the ladies’ room, I rolled over in bed and looked over at Jaroan.
“No regrets?”
He was sitting on his bed, looking out through the window at the sea.
“No,” he replied, not turning. “We’re home.”
* * *
“It’s changing!” Menild cried. “Look, Hool – Lord Raz!”
No matter how many times I told them to stop calling me ‘lord’, a few of them just couldn’t break the habit, even though we’d only just met. What was it that made a person so subservient, to bow and scrape, to call me their lord even as I refused to recognise it? Did they think they were ingratiating themselves with me, in spite of my words? It was beyond irksome. Menild’s tongue had slipped, using the Telese word for ‘lord’, ‘hool’, and when he’d corrected himself he’d gone on to supply the Mundic translation anyway.
The previous leader of the Night Order was a doddering fool, but his heart was in the right place, of that I was certain.
“Just Raz,” I said for what had to be the fourth time, skirting around my imps as I crossed the dusty chamber to Menild’s desk.
“Apologies, lord,” he mumbled, stepping back so that I could inspect his handiwork from all sides.
Was he that stupid? His Mundic was flawless, barely accented at all, and his work didn’t show a trace of the idiocy pouring out of his mouth in waves. The guy had to be four times my age – yet here he was, making himself my inferior with every word that came off his tongue.
Not that anyone here knew quite how young I really was.
Some people just like being lower down than you, I realised. Comforting, maybe…
“Nicely done,” I said, walking around the desk. “The force-lines seem perfectly attuned with the eighth core.” I raised my voice for the others in the chamber, not taking my eyes off the glowing azure pattern Menild had created – one of them at the back was trying to translate for the pair whose Mundic was poorest. “Has anyone here ever helped to create any infinity runes? Even partial ones?”
Aside from the occasional swoosh of my imps’ broom, I heard only the shuffling of papers, feet dragging under tables, robe-fabric twisting as my apprentices looked at each other. Even the translator’s mumbling ceased.
“No, m’lord,” Jaroan said after a few seconds.
I grinned at him. “Never mind.” I threw Menild a congratulatory nod as I moved away, and the old chap beamed at me. “We’ll get to it. Has anyone else finished their construct?”
Nafala’s dark, starry eyes met my own, then immediately her gaze sank back down to become a fixed stare burning holes in her desk.
“Let’s take a look, Nafala. Woah! Okay, everyone gather round. You can all still see this, right? Good. What you have here is actually the beginning of the half-infinity rune…”
I probably droned on a bit too long, but most of them seemed to be gazing at me, enraptured. Even my brother and sister appeared to be paying attention, now that they could actually see the blue forces with their own eyes.
“… Each one of the motions you see me make has its eleven syllables of invocation in Etheric, or thirteen in Netheric, as you like – the results are much the same. It’s the fifteenth line of the invocation, the fifteenth knot that sets it off. When the seal forms, only then can lock it to each vertex – five syllables, like so…”
I found these things far easier than they did, obviously. Tasks that required them to invest hours of research and practice came intuitively to me. I didn’t have to learn a single incantation, my mind alone supplying shape to the spell. My fingers contained the magic. I reached for the force-lines and they came to me, attracted by my gesture, my intent, knotting themselves almost before I touched them. Something my students could never hope to achieve.
Something I could never hope to teach.
“And there we have it,” I finished. “A completed half-infinity rune. At this point you can embed the structure – this way –” I pressed the magic into the duly-awaiting wooden block, its freshly-carved grooves “– and the spell’s taken hold, ready to absorb a wizard’s light. Now, if you wanted to make an enchanted –”
“But, Lord Raz, how do we put it in there?” Jaroan shrilled. “What you just did – it doesn’t fit!”
There was a murmur of agreement amongst my pupils.
I smiled thinly. He was going to get away with that one too, wasn’t he?
“Practice, I guess.” I shrugged, looking around at the nine faces surrounding me. “Look, there’s lots of things I don’t understand too. You all have to remember, it’s not like I trained to be a teacher… I’ve read far fewer books than I wanted to. When it comes to actually doing stuff, I don’t really have to cast spells like you do. The forms for them, the means of implementing them, comes naturally. Unfortunately you don’t get to cheat like me. But it’s a curse as much as a blessing, believe me. Virdut follows me wherever I go.”
This they seemed to understand, many of them nodding in appreciation.
I set them to work, reading up on their next tasks, and sat on the desk by the window, looking out through the smudgy glass at the wooden street below us.
Plenty of things I didn’t understand. Many more than I’d ever want to let on around those I was supposed be impressing.
I hadn’t told them my book contained the Infernal translations of the ensorcellment spells, but I’d had them try it in both Etheric and Netheric. And yet, whether they used the ethereal sap I’d gathered or the dead-men’s fluids from their own stores, the force-lines were always blue. Now, when the magic came from an arch-sorcerer – some creature born of Materium’s elements, bestowed with the suite of powers I enjoyed – I could understand the force-lines being blue. Evidently each plane had its own colouration – red, purple, blue, green… Amber or yellow, too, if you counted some of Kanthyre’s magical effects, celestial in origin… But surely when the Night Order of Telior performed their spells the lines should be green or purple, the energies drawn forth from the otherworld or the shadowland – at least until completed. But no. The moment a human drew the lines, they were blue. And the more I read, the less sense that seemed to make. I’d never questioned it, back in Mund, watching Ciraya and other sorcerers of her ilk at their work. Now? Now it troubled me.
What even was magic, in general? Where did it come from? How was it used by those untouched by the force that bestowed archmagery? What were these words and gestures – why did they do what they did? How were essences from the ground-up bones of murderers or the tears of a sprite used in the same spell? Why couldn’t they necessarily be used for a different one? What made one reagent different from another, if it was just energy? There were no answers, other than the old answer any child could repeat: the Five did it. The Founders created magic. They created it and let it spread across the seas, the plains. But I had a bit of experience under my belt now, and there was nothing in any arcane text I’d ever read to suggest how it was possible. There seemed to be so much we failed to question.
How in the Twelve Hells do druids shapeshift with their clothes, even their weapons and bags, without having the power to just… transmute objects?
Gristlehead appeared in front of me, his cloth raised to rub at the mucky window. I silently snatched the already too-dirty rag from him, then tossed it back at his chest – he dutifully turned away to give it a clean, his tail lowered and twitching in shame despite my lack of rebuke.
Why? Why all the arbitrary limiting factors? Why could wizards so easily manipulate stone, even raw metals, when forged iron confounded their efforts and true steel was beyond their reach? Why could enchanters touch the minds of eldritches sometimes, the sorcerer’s art, yet not animals, whose thoughts belonged to the druids? It still confused me, even to this day, yet it was the way it’d always been done, even in the oldest stories. No one ever seemed to even consider it – which was almost as interesting. Had a great working of enchantment been placed across the minds of all men? Had everyone fallen prey to the same mass-delusion, that sense could be made of things, that the Five Founders could just wave their hands and invent a process fundamentally opposed to the ordering of the planes…?
More likely, I just hadn’t brought enough books with me.
“R-Raz?”
Nafala barely raised her voice to call my name, but it still shocked me out of my reverie. The imps had been ordered to keep their mouths shut, and the room had been relatively quiet, broken only by low conversation. Even my brother and sister were keeping the noise to a minimum.
I crossed to her desk, smiling gratefully.
“Thanks for actually listening,” I said quietly. She was the only one so far who remembered to leave off the title.
She smiled back, but it was the dreamy smile of the over-awed, brown eyes wide and glittering. The girl was probably five years my elder, going off the way the others spoke to her, the way she spoke back – yet she was a tiny toy of a woman, barely five feet tall. Not slender, but heavy-looking in all the right areas. The long eyelashes and shapely dark-pink lips added to her overall alluring appearance. She wore her long, near-black hair tied loosely on her left shoulder, a shadowy river cascading down over the mage-robe, spilling over her chest.
“I – er – just vanted to check vot zis means…”
She swung the book around, pointing at a diagram summarising the wasted energies that came as by-products of transdimensional apertures – Nafala was skipping ahead, it seemed – but I answered her in a state of numbness, suddenly unable to focus my thoughts.
The girl’s shyness was a contradiction. The blush lighting up the pale cheeks. The eyes that couldn’t seem to rest in one place longer than a second.
Her voice. So similar.
The enchantment. The fake attraction that’d felt so real, attraction I’d reciprocated in my desperate, wilful naivety…
Emrelet…
“I don’t even know you, sorcerer! And you do not know me!”
I looked down at the floor, trying to stop my eyes from watering, cutting off whatever rambling sentence was falling in chunks from my tongue.
“Raz?” Nafala murmured.
“Raz, are you okay?” That was Jaid from across the room – she sounded unconcerned, but must’ve been keeping an eye on me all the same.
I looked up, forcing myself to smile brightly. “I’m fine. I’m – I’ll be right back. Everyone, keep working.”
I left the room, wiping my eyes on my sleeve and blinking as soon as I was out of sight. Heading up the ladder-like stair into the private sections of the tower I’d barely even glimpsed, I went out onto a balcony and stood there with my elbows and forearms on the rail, leaning over and gazing down at the glimmering sea.
She was out there, somewhere, platinum hair gleaming like the sunlit waves. Saving lives. Ending lives. Channelling the lightning.
I didn’t know whether I loved her or hated her, but I knew I wouldn’t be where I was, who I was, without her.
I sighed. It was a nice, rainless day, the clouds lying low like a mist upon the water, leaving the sky clear and sapphire-blue, giving the lie to Telior’s ugliness. The wind was cold, but not biting. As much as I’d cursed myself for bringing Wyrda with me across Northril, the spring also came in our wake, it seemed, even to the north of the world.
The little wooden tower I’d been granted for my own was more than I could’ve ever hoped for. I’d been in Telior a little over twenty-four hours, and already I had more going for me than in a decade and a half in Mund. It was situated just opposite the High Hall, one of the structures that would help obscure the palace’s pillars when viewed from the vantage of a boat in the bay. As such we would be afforded the best protections, here, with guards milling about all day and night in the street right outside. I wasn’t naive enough to believe it was all altruism, though. King Deymar surely wanted to keep a close eye on me – and that was understandable. He’d been more than magnanimous with his ‘captive’ magician.
I drew a deep breath of the cold salty air, then headed back inside, feeling miles better for some reason. I descended back to the ground floor, and in the corridor outside the makeshift classroom, I ran into Prince Lathenskar, flanked by a pair of ugly knights.
“Your Highness?” I inclined my head respectfully, regarding him with some confusion.
“Lord Sorcerer.” He inclined his back, his eyes very serious, his gaze intense.
I felt my eyebrow raise, but I was hardly going to try to correct him.
“My fazzer vould speak viz you. Ze Lord Vizard, Finfaltik, is ready to meet you.”
“And he sent you on messenger duty because…?”
The serious expression softened, just a whit. “I vould speak viz your sister – and your brozzer, of course, if zis vould not offend.”
I ducked my head. “Go ahead, I’m sure they’re dying to see you again.”
“Vot is zis?” He furrowed his brow. “Zey are dying, in seeing me?”
“I mean, erm –“
One of the knights spat something in Telese, cutting me off.
“Ah, I see.” The prince’s lips twitched in a slight, self-deprecatory smile. “Dying, indeed.”
I looked from him to the glowering knights (who clearly understood more Mundic than they were willing to actually use), then back again to the prince.
Did the boy know? That he was destined to wed a sorcerer’s sister? If he did, it didn’t look like he’d be sharing it with the ‘highborn’ thugs following him around.
I dismissed the class, and my pupils left the room babbling with at least some excitement in their incomprehensible voices. It was an odd feeling, watching them filing out of the room at my command, knowing that every single one of them was older than me, probably wiser than me in many ways – yet I was the master here, even amongst strangers.
Lathenskar, ‘Shirya’ and ‘Vintilar’ went ahead. The prince was holding my sister gently by the elbow in a very un-childlike move, as they ascended the stairs before the pillars and Wyrda’s open maw. With his free hand he was pointing to the statue of Ismethyl and swinging it like he wielded an invisible sword; he was surely regaling them with some tale from Telese myth, the story of one of his legendary ancestors.
I was happy to let them go ahead, and hung back with the knights, enjoying the way my immediate presence seemed to set their teeth on edge. I couldn’t sense it, but I could imagine it: the way their eyes must’ve kept shifting to glare at me – they were just behind me on my left and right, and I wouldn’t display any weakness by glancing back at either of them. I wore a smile on my face, knowing their distaste at escorting someone like me, knowing it would only increase their frustration to see me beaming when they caught my profile. Few shared King Deymar’s apparent enthusiasm for progressive sorcery.
Within a few minutes I was walking into the throne room, the prince and the twins nowhere to be seen – they were off playing somewhere together below the stronghold again, I could tell from their shields. I heard the knights muttering in their own tongue to one another as soon as they broke off in the doorway. I walked alone towards the throne, feeling the pleasant sea breeze coming in through the huge window behind me.
Orcan Finfaltik was there, standing tall and erect before the king, and he was nothing like I’d expected. For some reason when I’d heard the wizard was old, my mind had painted the image of a wizened, shrunken man, all scholar, no soldier. But for all his age – there was no way he was a day younger than seventy-five – he seemed strong, exuding an aura of confidence and power. Rather than a lined face, time had smoothed his brow and jowls, but his skin was almost mottled with spots and blemishes. He wore no whiskers and had shaved his head – the only white hairs on him were mixed with the black, in his eyebrows. His mage-robe was cut in the Telese fashion like those of the Night Order, shorter than their Mundic parallels and with less-spacious sleeves. But this one was dazzling with its patterns of green stones and glass, sewn like wave-surf into the fabrics; a spray of tourmaline, emerald, jade shimmering here and there across the breast and shoulder.
His gaze was less than welcoming, all of winter’s chill still lingering there in the dark-blue, icy irises. He was armed with the disapproving expression only the elderly could perfect, and he lashed me with it, up and down.
I lashed him back with a commensurate broadening of my smile. My shield’s boundary slipped over him without result. As much as Orcan seemed to loathe me before we even exchanged our first words, he didn’t want to harm me.
“Your Majesty.” I gave my slight bow, keeping my eyes on his wizard. “I received your summons.”
“Indeed. Lord Sorcerer – Raz –“ King Deymar was smiling faintly “– this is the Lord Wizard, Orcan Finfaltik, through whose power our city has endured these last years. I would have the two of you be friends.”
“Or you should not have this warlock at all,” Orcan said haughtily, his Mundic flawless.
“Indeed,” Deymar rumbled ominously – but when I looked over at him, the king gave me a surreptitious wink, cracked the briefest smile.
I returned my focus to the arch-wizard. I had to indulge my elder, whether I thought I knew better or not.
“Lord Orcan,” I said in my smoothest voice, trying to walk the line of subservience and equality by using his title and his forename. “I can only hope I can impress you, given time. What his Majesty has bestowed on me – I neither looked nor asked for it. But I hope to earn it.” Perhaps I could change the topic? “In fact, I’ve already engaged the Night Order in their first lesson. I hope that between our students – between us – we can outfit Telior towards a brighter future.”
The eyes lost none of their iciness, but the scowl wavered.
“What do you want, boy?” he groaned at last. “Money? Fame? Power? Why are you here?”
Money. Fame. Power. I had them. I lost them. I gave them up.
For this.
I looked past him at his king.
And I don’t even regret it.
“I’m here, because it’s home.” Slowly, stiffly, I performed the proper, low bow of a vassal before his liege-lord. “Because I have made up my mind. I’m staying. And if by my magic, my service, Telior can prosper – gods willing, so be it…
“My king.”
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