Usually Senrid enjoyed these lessons. He reveled in being skilled, and fast. He had to be fast, if he was to defend himself against a grown man, and he usually came out of these sessions less weary than exhilarated, muscles aching enough to free his mind for the day’s tasks. But that smarmy lie stayed with him, souring every movement.
He was glad when the watch bell rang and he returned to the residence side, in a thoroughly vile mood.
And there sat Jilo in his study. Senrid nearly stumbled. He’d actually managed to forget all about Jilo during that practice session.
He strove to sound normal. “Breakfast should be along soon. I hope you liked yesterday’s, since it’ll be the same. Did you sleep well?”
“Your food is much better than ours.” Jilo’s face was a lot less gray. “Slept very well.”
There wasn’t any talk during the meal. Both were too hungry. But as soon as his plate was empty, Jilo thumbed his eyes. “Maybe I should stay away for a time. My head’s clearer when I get distance.”
“Distance from Wan-Edhe’s magic chambers?” Senrid asked.
“From the castle. Maybe . . . maybe from the capital.” Jilo’s gaze strayed to the study windows.
Senrid exclaimed in surprise, “You could leave that long and not come back to find one of your commanders on the throne and an assassination team waiting for you?”
Jilo’s gaze returned. “I worried about that. At first. But they know now that Wan-Edhe was taken by Norsunder.” He looked down, his embarrassment clear. “They expect him back any day. After eighty years of Wan-Edhe, no one believes he’s gone for good. Won’t, until his dead body is seen. But I think, from my walks in the city, they only want to get on with their lives. They fear the castle. No one wants to go into it, and risk being his first target when he does return.”
Senrid was on the verge of saying, Why don’t you just walk away?
Jilo went on in his painstaking, monotone mumble. “I think . . . I think I need to find out what they expect from the castle, besides fear. Wouldn’t that be what a king would do, find out? One who wasn’t Wan-Edhe?”
Senrid said sardonically, “If they’re like people anywhere, one person will say the king ought to lift taxes. The next one will say the king should improve roads. The third will say better patrols against brigands, the fourth will demand exports of Bermundi rugs.”
Jilo nodded unsmiling on each point. “Yes, but eventually the demands will repeat. Won’t they? Then won’t I see how many want the roads, and how many are worried about brigands, and so forth?” He ran his fingers through his lank, unkempt hair. “Won’t that give me an idea of what I should be doing?”
“If you have big numbers demanding this or that, isn’t rebellion more likely?”
“Maybe.” Jilo shifted on his chair. “The way I see it, their idea of the king is in his castle. Doing what kings do. So as long as I’m pretending to be a king, shouldn’t I try to be the king they want, and do what they expect me to do?”
Senrid stared at him. It sounded so simple. Simple-minded, even. Tdanerend would have said so.
He could suggest Jilo just walk away, to which Jilo could retort the same to Senrid.
He could do it. If he got up from the table right now, walked through the castle, saddled a horse, and rode for the border, nobody would stop him. Maybe (if they figured out what he was doing) they might even chase him, like the stories about his Uncle Kendred. Senrid still didn’t know whether they’d chased Kendred to capture and kill him, or if they’d run him over the border. As always happened to displaced Marloven princes or kings, Kendred had been eradicated from the most accessible records, as if he’d never existed.
Senrid squirmed. He couldn’t bear the idea of running. Of being anywhere else. This was where he belonged, the only place he felt like himself. Even if he died staying.
He thought of older writings, the few not destroyed, in which one of his ancestors had defined kingship as an idea shared by the many minds a king ruled. Or he would have to spend all his time forcing his own idea of kingship onto them.
They just want to get on with their lives. Senrid’s gaze fell on the book, and he shifted uncomfortably as he recollected the headlong plans, images, and thoughts of the previous day. Sickness churned inside him at the awareness of how close, so very close, he had come to following his uncle’s path. He knew exactly how it would begin, how you convinced yourself what you were doing was perfectly justified. Sensible. Self-protection. And the only thing that had stopped him was wondering how he could find enough time in the day to check the book.
“Everyone follows the law.” He had to stick to it. He’d seen what happens when you don’t . . . the seniors at the academy had been extraordinarily subdued ever since the senior revolt in spring, during which Ret Forthan, the best of the seniors, had broken the rules and used steel on the worst of the seniors. The entire academy had been humiliated by the sight of Forthan, the most popular boy, tied to a post and caned before the entire school, though everyone knew his action had been justified.
But that was the law.
The scars on Senrid’s back crawled. How he hated remembering watching that, knowing exactly how Forthan felt. All these months later fury still burned in him, and beneath that a sense of failure, though he knew it was not his fault. That senior revolt was a direct result of his uncle’s lies and playing of favorites among those boys’ fathers.
Senrid forced his attention back, and pointed to the book. “Listen, Jilo, I don’t know how your king managed to make that thing, but you’d better keep it tight.”
“I will.”
“I mean really tight. Don’t tell anyone about it. I wish you hadn’t told me. But if word of that gets out, you’re going to have every mage, light or dark, hunting you down.” He shook his head. “I don’t even know how that king of yours drew enough magic to make that thing. The magic on it is stronger than most kingdom wards.”
Jilo’s eyes widened. “But I told you. Didn’t I? The chamber. I did tell you. You said it was killing me. And you’re right. I think I’d be dead if I hadn’t made these wards.” His fingers clutched the medallion on its dirty string hanging around his neck.
Senrid leaned forward. “We got to talking about the book, and got stuck there.” Or I did. “What exactly did you find in that chamber?”
“The source of Wan-Edhe’s power.” Jilo’s complexion blanched again, his cracked lips thinning. “He’s using the life force of the palace inhabitants. That is, everyone’s but his own.”
Senrid’s head rang as if struck by a bell clapper. “You’re sure about that?”
“As sure as I can be. No one has a sense of time passing. And yet they’re aging faster than time is passing outside. I asked a guard, one I recognized. Not much older than me when I first met him. He didn’t know the date. Or how old he was, but he looks old. Too old. It’s like time . . .” He groped. “Inside the castle, we forget time, but they age fast. I believe their lives are being sucked out of them.”
Senrid had felt all day as if he were on a rough ride, but Jilo’s words sent him tumbling over the metaphorical horse’s head. “He what?” He’d already known that there was some kind of weird time distortion in that castle, but that happened naturally in some places around the world. “That king of yours is using lives to recreate a simulacrum of Norsunder-Beyond, right there in that fortress.”
Jilo mumbled, “I don’t know where to begin to fix it.”
Senrid said slowly, “This is way beyond me, too. Way beyond.”
“I guess I ought to go.” Jilo sighed.
“Wait. Wait.” Senrid rubbed his eyes, realized he was trying to rub an awareness into his head that wasn’t going to come, and dropped his hands. “Is it okay with you if I bring in someone else? Not about your book. You better hide that thing, and pretend it doesn’t exist.”
“‘Okay.’ The Mearsieans say t
hat,” Jilo observed, oblivious to the advice about his book; hiding it was too instinctive. He blinked rapidly, then said, “Who?”
“Her name is Hibern. She knows more than I do about lighter wards, though I suspect she won’t know what to do about yours. But maybe she knows the right archives to search in.” When Jilo shrugged, Senrid dug around on his desk, and recovered his notecase.
He found a paper inside, scanned it—from some Colendi stranger about Clair’s alliance—and tossed it to the desk to be dealt with some other time. He scribbled a note to Hibern and sent it.
“What is that thing?” Jilo asked, pointing to the case.
Senrid stared in surprise. “You mean to tell me, you’ve managed to discover a pocket Norsunder, and survived, but you’ve never seen a notecase for letter transfer?”
Jilo said, “Who would I write to?”
Senrid laughed.
* * *
—
Hibern listened in stomach-cramping shock, and remembered Erai-Yanya saying, I know you prefer to solve things on your own. I’m that way myself, or I wouldn’t be living alone in this ruin. But some problems are beyond you, and recognizing that is part of solving. If that happens, Tsauderei explicitly told me that you could contact him any time. Promise me you’ll remember. And Hibern had said, I promise.
She looked up. “I think I know what to do.”
“Over to you,” Senrid said.
Hibern gave Jilo a doubtful glance. He looked like he’d been sick for months. “Jilo, shall we go to someone who might be able to advise us?”
All he cared about was the possibility of help. “Yes.”
She didn’t think he had the strength to perform transfer magic, so she spelled the transfer token she always carried for an emergency, gave it to Jilo, then fixed on the Destination Erai-Yanya had taught her for reaching Tsauderei.
This Destination was located far from the valley where Tsauderei lived. It was a first line of magical defense. Their pending arrival alerted the old mage, who passed them through his secret wards, and permitted them direct access.
All they experienced was an extra-long and bumpy transfer, then they found themselves standing on a grassy patch outside of a round stone cottage.
Tsauderei opened the door. “Come in, come in,” he began, then halted when his magical sense, honed over a lifetime, sustained a tidal wave of toxic dark magic.
The source was the pallid, slumping black-haired boy in his mid-teens, who stood next to Erai-Yanya’s student Hibern. Tsauderei spoke swiftly, activating several protections, which caused a startled, uneasy glance from Hibern. The boy just stood there wanly, looking as if a strong breeze would topple him.
Hibern gazed at Tsauderei in question. “Erai-Yanya is gone. Out of contact. She said I should bring emergencies to you. I think this is one.” She repeated Senrid’s words.
Tsauderei’s sense of immediate alarm diminished slightly, but by no means did he relax.
As for Jilo, he was still struggling against transfer reaction. Words jabbered over his head as he gazed at a tall, thin old geezer who at first reminded him unpleasantly of Wan-Edhe. As the transfer reaction slowly dissipated, he recognized that the only characteristics the two had in common were white hair uncut for decades, a tall, thin form, the corrugated face of age, and the old-fashioned robe, popular all over the southern continent a century ago, like beards.
But where Wan-Edhe, with his protuberant, mad stare, had been unkempt, often wearing the same robe for years, this Tsauderei dressed in fine velvet with embroidery at the cuffs and hem, and his beard was clean and braided. In one ear he wore a diamond drop that sparkled with deep lights within, probably magical. His eyes were alert, thick brows quirked at a sardonic angle.
Tsauderei thought rapidly. Chwahirsland and its problems were far beyond his reach, or understanding. The sense of dangerous magic permeating this Jilo so disturbed him he had no idea what to say, so he decided that nothing was safest. “Thank you, Hibern,” he said when she finished. “You did the right thing. I’ll take it from here.”
Hibern stared. Just like that, she’d been dismissed. She wanted to protest. If she’d been talking to Erai-Yanya, she would have protested. But she didn’t know Tsauderei well enough, and his reputation was daunting. So she said, “I’d like to learn what happens, and how.”
“So you shall,” Tsauderei promised, and thinking that it was best to get Jilo out there as soon as possible, leaned forward to touch the boy’s scrawny arm in the worn black sleeve.
Transfer wrenched Jilo once again. When he came out of it, black spots swimming before his eyes, he tried to blink them away, and discovered that he was shivering. He seemed to be on another mountain plateau, and next to Tsauderei stood another man, this one huge and powerfully built, with a thick, curly black beard and long black hair.
Jilo’s head ached. Though the black spots had faded, the mental fireflies were back, each thought flaring and flying wildly, making it nearly impossible to connect one to the next. He knew that Tsauderei was important. He was Wan-Edhe’s enemy. His name was in The Book. That did not necessarily make him Jilo’s ally.
Jilo tried to blink the blur from his vision as he took in his surroundings. He sat in the middle of a grassy space in front of a sturdy cottage, high on a cliff. In the hazy distance, meandering streams and canals of gleaming blue stitched farmland in rich shades of gold and green. This could not be any part of soil-poor, parched Chwahirsland, and yet the wind from the west brought familiar scents of old stone, dust, rusty metal, moss.
He was subliminally aware of Tsauderei speaking in a low, rapid voice to Curly Beard, who stepped close and bent down, elbows out, huge rough-palmed hands on his thighs. He peered into Jilo’s face.
Jilo’s limbs tingled unpleasantly as life returned. He glanced southward at the farmland as he struggled to get up. “Where is that?”
One of those strong hands took hold of his upper arm and lifted him to his feet. Though his body felt heavier than stone, and far more unwieldy, Curly Beard seemed to expend no effort, as if Jilo were as light as duck down.
“That, my boy, is Colend. To be precise, yonder land westward is the duchy of Altan, and there, eastward, lies Alarcansa, two of the greatest jewels in the Colendi crown. The targets of your ancestors, and your king, many times over. And to the north lies the Land of the Chwahir. We are perched on a cliff in the mountains between.”
“Border,” Jilo murmured, trying to blink away the blur.
“I think he’s confused,” Tsauderei said from the side, where he sat on a stone bench. “Perhaps you ought to show him.”
Curly Beard chuckled, the sound resonating in that mighty chest like a rockfall. “We can call it the border, but it really isn’t. Do you see the actual border?”
His hand had not loosened its grip on Jilo. He found himself swung around, so he faced north, and the ranks of mountains, like serrated knives rising up and up. “What do you see?”
“Mountains.” Jilo tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry, and the lingering effect of transfer magic made him slightly dizzy.
“What do you see in those mountains? Look closely.”
Jilo blinked harder. Gradually detail resolved: the barrenness of the stone, blurred by rare, twisted trees, black with age and . . .
He drew in an unsteady breath. “That’s the border.”
“Yes. Burdened with magic so strong that very little survives. You know what an Emras Defense is, right?”
A flare of resentment burned through Jilo. He’d sought help, not this interrogation, or this iron hand gripping him like he was about to be tossed off the cliff. “Of course I do. You learn of it in your first year. Strongest ward in dark magic. Spell fashioned some four centuries ago.”
“Strongest because it finds the exact balance between light and dark, so this doesn’t happen.” Curly Beard’s fre
e hand swept northward. “But your king scorned that balance, and has spent decades layering more wards over wards. One of the virtues, if you can call it that, of your dark magic.” And when Jilo didn’t answer, he turned his head. “Tsauderei, your turn. Show him.”
Tsauderei held up some kind of cloth. Jilo couldn’t make out the details, as his vision was still blurry, but he suspected it didn’t matter what it was, as Tsauderei said slowly, “This is a piece of my clothing, with a personal ward over it. As far as the border magic is concerned, this shawl is Tsauderei.”
He laid it down, put a transfer token on it, and whispered over it. Then he glanced up. “I am now sending my substitute to your capital city.”
The shawl vanished. Light flashed over the mountains to the north, followed by a thunderous voom! Hot, metallic air buffeted Jilo’s face, stirring Tsauderei’s long hair and beard.
Then, as Jilo gawked, fire rolled from mountaintop to mountaintop in both directions. The firestorm lasted no more than a heartbeat or two, but when it vanished, it left a thousand tiny fires as the twisted trees, scraggly bushes, and tough grasses burned to ash.
Jilo stared, appalled. “The entire border?” he said in his own language, knowing that they understood—that in fact their version of the Universal Language Spell was better than the dark magic equivalent.
“No,” Curly Beard said, letting go of Jilo. “But only because Wan-Edhe was a single person, and hadn’t the time to traverse your entire border laying that spell, and also run the kingdom. The wards are worse over the old roads, and lines of transfer to your capital. But as you can see, it’s bad enough. If anyone had been on the road below that point, they would be dead. No matter who they were, which includes Chwahir patrollers.”
Jilo finally managed to swallow. “That’s terrible.”
“Yet you’ve done nothing about it.”
“I didn’t know.”
“How long have you been in Narad?”
The blur was getting worse. Jilo covered his face with his hands. “Time isn’t the same,” he mumbled through his fingers. “Why I asked for help.” He sat down abruptly. The dizziness had also worsened.
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