by Kim Wedlock
The light in the office dimmed behind the gathering clouds. Arator sighed heavily and ran his hand over his tidy head. "We must find those responsible for the rebellion. The leaders. Whomever is inciting dissent. We need to regain order in our ranks."
"And then? That won't stop whatever it is driving a handful to destruction. They're causing greater calamity than the rebellion."
He nodded slowly, his eyes suddenly lost in distant thought. "When we come to it."
Delas's lined brow creased deeper in apprehension. Roane, too, displayed his unease. But neither put it to voice. They inclined their heads and vacated the office at the grand magister's bidding, leaving him to rise, wander, and find himself standing grimly at the window.
The capital city of Kulokhar spilled out all around the trio of towers, and from his position mid way up the tallest, he had a grand view. But today, he didn't see it. His eyes travelled further, past the city walls, around the scattered military encampments, across the forests and villages severed by the slow-moving cataclysm; he stared well beyond the realms of sight and off into space and thought, where the same weighty matters circled his mind like vultures, plaguing his waking moments.
The Order was under his command, and it was falling. What had he done to allow it? Where had he gone wrong? When had he taken the first step down the path to this, the beginnings of a collapse of an entire authority? For it had to be his fault, or surely it would have happened sooner.
And this magic...the pandemonium of magic that couldn't be, and yet was, and was now tearing the land apart. Voiland, Hin'ua and Ithen to the north had each been rent into pieces; Dolunokh was barely standing. The continent of Arasiin was riven, scarred by chasms and canyons that were reaching further and further south. They'd appeared in the north of Turunda already; Halen was the first to fall. And the Order, his Order, the body whose jurisdiction this precise predicament fell under, knew barely the first thing about it.
There was too much else going on, things the Crown deemed more immediate threats. He had spread his people thin trying to bend to the Crown's demands, and he'd neglected the magic because of it. He could spare too few. And that had left them blind. They were still blind, and as they groped about in the dark, the ground was collapsing beneath them.
He should have tried harder, but war could never be taken lightly. They'd kept out of it all for so long; even as surrounding countries fell into a blood frenzy, Turunda had remained untouched. It was inevitable that they would succumb sooner or later, and it was far from a surprise that Skilan had been involved when they finally did, even if they were merely high on their winnings. But Doana... Doana. They hadn't seen them coming. Even now the details, the motives, eluded him. But it was not his task to think on them.
And yet, perhaps it should have been. Perhaps, if...
No. No, second-guessing himself would never do. Once he started, he'd never make a confident decision again, and a leader couldn't be so crippled. It had been Sivaan Rosh's place to decipher the arcanised heralds of war, and if Doana had slipped past him, and slipped past General Moore - and slipped even past the Arana - then how could he ever have hoped to spot it?
No. He couldn't second-guess himself. He could only reflect and admit his mistakes and try to avoid making them again. He was at fault for ignoring the magic when it was still beyond their borders, for presuming it to be the result of foreign mages' hands in war. But that hadn't been an unreasonable conclusion - it had certainly been far more likely than what had been discovered since it had barrelled through into their domain. Spell chains, loose magic, broken elven spells that were collecting at magnetic sites rather than dispersing into nothingness... Such should not have been possible.
But, possible or not, it was there, and it had to be tackled.
But how could they tackle it if they were being blamed for it, and being set upon by the Arana's ghosts before they could reach such places to investigate? How many of his mages had been imprisoned on such work? Twenty? Twenty five? He'd been quick to assert his position and rescue them into his custody, but such interruptions made it impossible to learn anything.
And yet Rathen Koraaz...that most unfortunate child prodigy...he was out there. And if Owan, a long-ago friend and the scholar who had encountered him on a similar task - one of the lucky ones who had avoided capture - was to be believed, he also had the chance to work it out.
But...Rathen Koraaz had never been a scholar. His aptitude for learning was weak; he'd always been more of a...physical man, one interested in action and results, not theory and speculation. He was impatient. That was why he'd been drawn to the military wing, why he'd made Sahrot at the impressively young age of twenty seven and could have risen so much further, had fate been kinder. He wanted to do things, and to see the results of his actions immediately. Picking scrolls apart, constructing spells, analysing technicalities - such had never been his strengths.
How could a man like that ever hope to unravel this impossible dilemma? To present an end to its impossible results, the tearing of the land, the crippling of mages' minds, the strengthening of the underpowered?
Arator sighed and squeezed his arms about his chest. His head was pounding, and his guilt at the matter being so far out of his hands - like so many others whose shadows weighed like lead upon his shoulders - chased away the beginnings of hunger from the appetite that had been eluding him.
But he couldn't indulge nausea. Stress was no reason to starve himself. The Order would only suffer more for it.
He pushed himself away from the window and left his tidy office to fill the silent pit in his stomach.
Chapter 3
The sour taint of the forges was inescapable all across Emberton; day and night it thickened the air while the ring of hammer against steel drummed an incessant rhythm into the lives of residents, dictating all from their breath to synchronous footsteps. It wasn't quite as bad when a favourable breeze picked up, and though work in Turunda's smithing capital never ceased, its hardened residents made a point of pausing to savour the cleaner, clearer air the moment the smog relented.
One such breeze purified the town that afternoon, and the streets were more cheerful for it. The riverside docks were busy with children diving from the quays, the small fountain square was filled with the bouncing, spirited music of passing minstrels, and the dancing, clapping and foot-tapping it incited spread into the equally lively if equally small market, where even the unvaried produce on display seemed curiously delectable.
It was, in short, a pleasant place to be, and like all others around him, the returning smith wore a smile of enjoyment as he passed leisurely among the crowds. A stall cleared up ahead of him, the departing customers revealing a wealth of fruits made more vivid by the atmosphere. He stopped, fished around in his pockets, and purchased an apple patched in red and green, which he bit into immediately to silence the impending rumble of his stomach. He hadn't stopped to eat since breakfast, and that itself had been meagre.
He slowed his trek through the market, looking around as he wandered at the various displays of joy from the children to the elderly. But as infectious as their pleasure was, he had to fight to keep the smile on his face. Such celebration had become a rare sight lately, and for reasons everyone was aware of yet no one would speak of.
His heart weakened, and he moved on.
Nearing the edge of the market and the reach of the minstrels' pipes and drums, a small but sharp movement caught his eye. A casually dressed figure turned down a quiet street, a man who wore no distinguishing marks and yet one he recognised immediately. Tanner Erson - a mage, without his cloak. And he, too, was heading towards the forging district.
He slowed down, noting the path the mage was taking, and adjusted his own against it. A mage without his cloak could only herald trouble.
He discarded the core of his apple, having bitten it to the bone, and lightened his steps. He knew Emberton's streets well enough to guess at the route such a suspicious figure would take, as
well as chart another for himself that wouldn't overlap it, and he was soon passing through streets and lanes in parallel, half a beat behind so that he wouldn't catch the mage's eye. He took to wider streets rather than follow small mazes of alleys when a lane would later intercept them, or the main road when there was a fork up ahead that would take him the same way. At one moment he dropped to his knee and appeared to remove a stone from his boot when the mage's pace had slowed, just to hang back. He peered carefully around each corner before proceeding, but the mage continued to take the expected turns.
He didn't ease, however, and his predictions inevitably failed.
Following an unavoidable, twisting route between towering buildings where the noise of life had grown distant, he heard footsteps approaching. He leapt back on silent feet, slipping behind a corner, and peered around through the shade only once the footsteps had taken the lead once again. The mage had deviated.
He adjusted his route, but soon crossed him again. The mage seemed none the wiser, but on the third occurrence, in the middle of a straight lane devoid of shafts or corridors, he was forced to drop to the foot of a bottle-laden doorway, muss up his hair and pretend to be in a drunken stupor against the wall. The footsteps didn't pause. He rose again only once they'd faded around the distant corner.
And this time, he followed him.
He turned the bend and saw the mage take a left. He followed, silently. When the mage took a right, he continued straight on. When the mage appeared, crossing his lane on an intersecting path, he took the same direction at the nearest turning, tracking parallel once more.
A tavern was close; the air was tinged with ale and pipeweed. He slowed as he neared. He passed its back door, turned a corner and knelt to dislodge another stone. And listened.
He glanced behind him, back towards the tavern. He counted to three, then rose. And jumped.
The mage had no chance even to shout out in surprise. His head struck the ground, his mouth was gagged, and his fingers broken one by one before being dragged away towards the rear entrance of the building.
"Mm." The old man grunted in satisfaction, having correctly guessed the identity behind the impatient knock, and moved away from the door and its fine insect net draping to let his visitor in. "Can I get you a cup of tea?"
Salus's nose wrinkled against the odour of musk and fruit as he stepped into the dark, cramped room, but a smile still flickered as usual at Tom's tightrope of respect and familiarity. He shook his head, closing the door tightly behind himself. "No, thank you, Tom." His eyes drew through the torchlight, first across the various mesh cages lining the walls and the fist-sized moths that occupied them, before settling upon the cluttered table at the far end. "I just wondered--"
"I always pass on everything as it comes in, Keliceran, you know that. If it's not on your desk, it hasn't arrived." The master lepidopterist glanced up from chopping fruit at the silence that followed, and noted the keenness around his eyes. As well, belatedly, as his soot-dusted clothing. "Just get in, did you? Get him?"
Salus nodded as he peered into the nearest cage.
"Good - you stopped the attack before it happened, then?"
"This one, yes. But there are so many directions we're trying to look in that it's impossible to prevent them all..."
"Yes, well, little victories."
"Mm..." Salus straightened and nodded towards the old man. "Thank you, Tom."
"Of course, Keliceran."
He wasted no time in leaving the dank old cellar, and at the escape of the offending smell, he was able to breathe a little easier. Unfortunately his remaining tensions and their deep, steel roots proved far more stubborn, but he had grown accustomed to them.
His fingers flexed restlessly as he covered the short, torchlit passage, pausing only to emerge from the hatch secreted beneath the grand staircase of Arana House's foyer. His veins tingled as he darted around and climbed them, shaping intentions in his mind - light, heat, ball or flame - with every step, and his fingers twitched along with them, instinctively trying to relay those thoughts into signs. But he stilled them, restrained them and interlaced them, and focused his energy into intent alone.
For the past three weeks he'd been training his magic urgently and barely keeping at bay the regret that had seeded itself within him. He had killed Denek. He'd had no choice at the time, the mage - the elf - had become a rabid beast and lunged at him with his own intent to kill. Salus had simply protected himself. But now...what could Erran possibly teach him? An Aranan mage and powerful in his own right, certainly, but neither he nor anyone else could ever hold a candle to an elf. Nor even part-elf, like himself.
He had conjured that blue fire, the fire that had consumed and obliterated his teacher in seconds, summoning it from nowhere, on impulse, without any signs. Just like an elf. Just as Denek had taught him. He was capable of more than any ordinary mage, so what could any ordinary mage teach him?
A growl shook free from his throat when he reached the second floor, and his silent, motionless spells continued to go unanswered.
Whether he was capable of more or not, he had no choice but to stick with Erran's instruction - grudgingly, impatiently - because he was in no position to reject his help. Elven magic he may have had, but he had no idea how to wield it.
It had been three and a half weeks since he'd cast that cold blue fire, and his training had grown beyond feverish trying to recreate it. He was racked with fatigue, sleeping only when Taliel commanded it, and his judgement should surely have been impaired. But it wasn't. In fact, he was curiously alert; acutely aware of the blood in his veins, the beat of his heart, and capable even of calculating stolen time from the office to take on a handful of missions himself, securing their success with his never-forgotten portian training.
But, between the trifling matters of upholding the Arana's reputation, eluding Lord Malson and working around the Crown's ineptitude with every decision that needed making, it was yet more magic, and that of another, that harassed his sleepless nights.
Koraaz. He had gotten to the Zi'veyn first, and while he had no idea what they truly intended to do with it, it was a priority to keep it out of the Order's hands. Because while Denek had assured him that it would take elven magic to use, Salus had elven magic himself. And he just couldn't ignore the odds that, in a body of one and a half thousand mages, there could well be another in the Order.
Or that elves themselves were hiding amongst them.
Rathen Koraaz had elven magic, at the very least. Of that he was sure. Mages could cast illusionary spells - the Arana had begun work on altering appearances, and a handful within the rear- and advance-guard of the Order's military could conceal, but that was all. But Denek had transformed. By sight, strength and speed - tangible and impossible for anyone less. And his transformation matched perfectly the reports of Koraaz's attacks in Kulokhar eleven years ago, and again in Carenna just recently. He'd teleported, too, taking himself and his comrades to Dolunokh, just as Denek had done for him.
Yes. Koraaz, at least, had elven magic...and quite probably elven training for him to have been able to use it so easily.
And the Order had used that very same magic to move him out of sight; they'd orchestrated a catastrophe, drawing full attention to him and the resulting banishment, and soon reported him dead. All to conceal an asset. So that no one would notice him move into position when the time was right.
All of that meant that the Order certainly had the means of using the Zi'veyn.
So why hadn't they?
He all but sprinted up the final flight of stairs and along the corridor to his office. He was doing his best to make the most of the opportunity the Order's hesitance had presented. He had to get it away from them. But all he'd managed under Erran's instruction of magic were Aranan basics - moving things, conjuring fire, extinguishing light, and intensifying it to deepen shadows and divert attention. He was working on freezing people, certainly a valuable skill, but his expectations of his newly d
iscovered elven blood were slowing him down. He tried relentlessly to cast his spells without signs, and failed every time.
At present, he had neither the plan nor the skill to steal the Zi'veyn away.
Salus barely slowed as he reached the loathsome office door. He burst inside and provoked a vaguely startled jerk from the man sat behind his desk.
Teagan rose from the chair immediately and stared past the keliceran to the wall behind him.
Salus ignored the formality. Slamming the door, he marched across the room he loathed from the very bottom of his heart and took his place at the seat of torment behind the desk, which Teagan promptly vacated. But he didn't sit down. He leaned over and raked through the reports that his favoured subordinate had so neatly stacked, scanning over their varied concerns: the watch over Doana's scattered camps, the deterrent against tribes and non-humans, the weeding out of foreigners from Turunda's towns and cities, the continued observations of suspicious Order activity, and the quashing of anticipated attacks after the confirmation of such suspicions - to which he would add his own report, for the records.
Only once he'd soaked up every necessary detail with a practised if fervid eye did he drop heavily into the accursed chair, and he felt its shackles ensnare him. He puffed a sigh of resignation and looked up towards Teagan. The dark haired man stood now on the opposite side of the desk, impassive, gaze still fixed over his superior's head. Salus didn't bother to try to set him at ease. He looked back down at the reports, and the office remained silent for a long time. "Until we know which camps are being genuinely fortified," he said finally, barely a fraction above a hiss, "we can do nothing against Doana."
"They know we're watching them."
"And they're feeding us nonsense." He shoved the reports away, scattering them across and off of the polished walnut desk. Teagan didn't react to the collapse of his organisation. "Without that intel, the military is frozen. Doana may even be waiting for us to make the first move, to act rashly in impatience so they can strike from somewhere else while our back is turned! Skilan may have been a swift victory, but our military has been in action for three months, they have taken losses, especially with Rosh's damned internal strike! They cannot stand against a fresh force without intel!" He leapt hotly from his seat, but Teagan remained unaffected. "We've been hindered from the first step - they're being too careful, we can't seem to glean any of their plans - or perhaps we have, but there's so much disinformation floating around that it's impossible to tell just which it is! It's like a game of thimblerig! Infiltrating and replacing any of them isn't an option, and even a controlled provocation, a nudge, a poke with a stick could turn out to be anticipated!"