by Kim Wedlock
But everything he overheard was either old news or logical conclusions he'd already anticipated - which, itself, was also to be expected, and a fact that usually proved the value of knowing rooted individuals who couldn't keep their ears to themselves, especially when there was something in it for them.
Even without the chimney-beacon, the inn was not hard to find; a storey taller than any other building and at least twice as expansive, it would challenge even the simplest folk to miss it. Not to mention the noise, the tell-tale combination of ale, beef and smoke drifting from the open windows, nor the near-constant swing of the door with all the comings and goings.
Its creak announced Garon's arrival, and while half of the patrons looked up nervously, which they surely did on every occasion, it earned him little more than a cursory glance from the keeper behind the bar. It was clearly habit rather than interest. He probably heard it so often it had a place in his dreams.
With neither cloak nor tan, Garon was dismissed immediately and left to seek a table out of the way by himself. There were few to choose from that wouldn't invite strangers to fill the empty chairs, but he soon found a small two-seater beneath the stairs, far from any of the dusty windows and with a clear view of the entire public house.
He settled quietly and removed his jacket. To keep it on would suggest impatience, as though he was preparing for a quick getaway; it was all too easy to draw attention to oneself in such uncertain times, and to be noticed was the last thing he needed. Though the Arana was widely dismissed as stories designed to frighten people straight, the imagery of 'ghost' assassins, while ludicrous, was unfortunately apt: ghosts could pass through walls unnoticed, move among people unseen and unheard, while they would see and hear everything themselves. And that's precisely how the Arana operated. Looking around, Garon couldn't know if anyone present in that tavern hall was working for Salus, the leader of that shadowy faction. And he couldn't discount anyone from suspicion, either, for the Arana was even known to utilise children as young as seven years of age, if they were receptive to the basic levels of training. And who would ever suspect them?
But, after a careful survey disguised as collecting his bearings, the inquisitor decided that he was not being observed.
His shoulders eased only slightly, and he looked up with the same interest as the rest of the patrons when the door whined again. A young mother with three children and an elderly man stepped in, each carrying a bag on their backs, the children's almost dwarfing them. All faces were fatigued, exhausted by stress and fear. They, too, were shortly disregarded and hurried to find somewhere to sit. They ended up separating - the mother with two children, the grandfather with the third - several tables apart and craning their necks to keep each other in their sights.
Garon had seen many families like these in recent weeks, refugees who had left ahead of evacuations, fearing magic, tribes, and Doana's hidden camps; children whose eyes were haunted by worries they were too young to understand, sights they were too young to have seen, events no one of any age was able to comprehend.
He looked to the alemaid as she stepped in front of him - the daughter of the keeper, Garon surmised by the matching squint to her eye - and requested a draught of the local brew.
He looked across the tavern as she left. Children, elderly; loners, families - everything in between. People. All of whom he had devoted his career to protecting. And protect them he would.
The ale was as expected. Passable. But after the initial mouthful, he didn't touch it again. He was not there to drink, he was there for information, and he needed a clear head if he was to recognise the important details, let alone remember them. So he leaned back in his chair and waited.
He made a point of not checking the time, resting with his arms folded and chin on his chest as if asleep. He ignored the door, reading the reaction of the room rather than opening his eyes, and for the most part it was nothing. Only once did silence fall and the air grow denser than syrup, and he found when he looked up that it was no mage that had offended the collective, and, likely, no Aranan either. The woman had olive skin, an undeniably Antidian trait, and one difficult to miss even despite the poor tavern lighting. She seemed fully aware of that fact, for she tugged at her sleeves, too long for the season, to cover her hands and tried to hide her face in her dark curls. She seemed to debate whether taking another step inside was a wise idea, and when whispering picked up in a corner, she turned around and hurried back out. Another woman, certainly Turundan, called what was presumably her name and followed her in concern.
Garon lowered his chin and closed his eyes again. He'd seen plenty of racism circulating, too. With attacks coming from both the east and west, and residential foreign nationals being responsible for the success of a good many wartime conquests, it was to be expected. But dealing with it was not in his task description. He didn't condone it, of course not, but it wasn't a matter he could presently afford to take onto his shoulders. There were plenty of others in a better position to deal with it than he was.
Time passed through the buzz of unending chatter, and for a long while Garon was left quite undisturbed - up to the moment that someone rapped their knuckles brusquely against the top of his table.
He opened only one eye at the scrape of the chair pulled out from beside him and the dragging of the heavy tankard across the table, but received in return only an impish grin for the theft of his privacy and questionable beverage. He opened the other and raised his chin, regarding the young woman as she helped herself to his drink, pausing to make a sour face before raising the mug once again. She'd seen through his act; she'd known he hadn't been asleep.
"Eeesh," she sighed at last, placing the half-emptied tankard back on the table before dabbing at her rouged lips with a kerchief in a bewildering attempt at refinement. "It's no Eline Red, but it's better than water. Anyway, I'm surprised you found me - how'd you know I didn't follow the rest to Morton?"
"Because," he replied simply, "it doesn't conform to your business model."
Her slender, made-up face pulled into another suspiciously friendly grin. "That it doesn't. So: what is it you need? I can get it, whatever it is, you know I can."
"I know you can. And it makes me itch just thinking about where you'd 'source' it."
Her sudden offence was quite effective at erasing the deceptive amity. "Pardon me, sir, but I am a respectable business woman."
"Tess, you're a black market trader."
"I am a conveyor of hard-to-find goods."
"Purveyor."
"And anyway, when else but in a time of crisis is anyone truly in need of a little luxury? I'm just doing my bit to boost morale!"
"With a fourfold mark-up? That's once more than your rates during peace."
"'Peace' is a matter of perception." Her dark eyes shifted away and thin lips twitched. "And, anyway, no one's making them buy it."
"Not with steel, but your silver tongue is almost as good as magic."
"You don't know the half of it," she chuckled, "although," her sharp gaze returned to him while a suggestive smile crept over her lips.
Garon's eyes darkened immediately. "I have enough on you to get you put away until the day this ditchwater wins the Aleca Vitis award, so don't test my patience. Now," he sat forwards and fixed her severely, "what have you heard?"
She stared at him for a while, lips pursed, pensively gathering her thoughts. Garon chose to take that as a promising sign. Then, as expected, she shook her head. "Payment first." He handed her a folded piece of paper sealed with a hammer insignia, which she took listlessly. "An I.O.U.? Seriously?"
"Redeem it at any post; you know--"
"Yeah, yeah, I know you're good for it." She tucked the paper up into her sleeve, grumbling beneath her breath, every word of which he caught, then sat forwards as her attitude took a sudden shift. "The mages are planning something," she told him gravely. "They're going to strike Trinn. Why this little old village and not Morton while it's overflowing with terrified
'fugees? I reckon because they know we'd be expecting it. People here are frightened, but they reckon they're safe because they're insignificant, the mages wouldn't bother with them - which, I reckon, is precisely why they are bothering. Are you familiar with the term 'terrorism'? I take it from that smacked-arse look that you do. Well they don't want anything from anyone but fear. They want to sow chaos and frighten their way to the top, overthrow old King Thunan and sit in his chair, casting their spells willy-nilly at anyone who opposes them. Their attacks haven't had any sort of obvious plan behind them otherwise." She lifted his tankard again. "It'll be soon - in fact it's just as well for you you found me when you did. I'm out of here tomorrow, gonna set myself up in Kruuz or Nestor - they're stuck in a swamp, my services would be mightily appreciated there, I'm sure."
"I'm sure. How did you come by this?"
"I'd say 'the usual' except I've spotted a few things for myself as well. A couple of fellows walking around looking both high and mighty and shifty at the same time. No cloaks, though, so no one else really noticed them. They don't look further than that. There are no fanatic mage hunters here, though, so they wouldn't know the signs to look for - mostly the mage hunters have sprung up in the cities. Where they reckon they're most at risk."
"You said soon?"
"Next few days. No sooner than Thursday."
Garon nodded, mentally mapping the surrounding land. "Anything else?"
"I'm afraid I don't have their privy schedules."
"I meant have you seen or heard anything else - suspicious individuals, strange occurrences, or people who seem remarkably average?"
"Like yourself in your I'm-not-suspicious peasant jacket? No, nothing else. Oh, well, except the military moving further north to surround Doana's sneaky little camps, and savages making war on our doorstep, but I reckon you're familiar with that. It's not like it's a secret. Otherwise, that's all I've got."
He nodded silently, his thoughts hidden, but he found her suddenly frowning at him anyway.
"You look troubled. More than usual." Her eyes narrowed. "I reckon it's a woman."
He darkened. "Steady."
"That's a yes, then. Whatever it is, say you're sorry, take full responsibility, and give yourself an easy life."
"Speaking from experience?"
"Both sides," she sighed, draining the tankard. "And for that matter, men can be just as bad."
"Well, thank you for your advice, as unsolicited and uninformed as it may be, but things are far from being that simple."
"Yeah, that's usually the case where matters of the heart are involved, but sometimes women are worth the trouble."
He said nothing as she winked a smoky-lidded eye. His shoulder rolled, fist clenched. Then the atmosphere shattered and Garon's pondering was silenced along with the surrounding chatter.
A shriek pierced the air from somewhere outside. It sounded at first like a screaming horse, but it didn't whinny down, and it came again at a higher pitch before a third followed in quick succession. And then the situation was explained in a single word, one bellowed at the top of a guard's lungs, a warning rather than a terrified declaration.
"Zikhon's arse," Tess cursed as the tavern burst frantically into life, the two of them leaping from their seats with the rest, "they're early..." She glanced towards Garon, though she was already making her own exit. "Pleasure doing business with you - now get out of here and save that gruff, handsome face of yours before a mage replaces it with a donkey's."
"And you?"
Another flash of an impish grin. "As I said: Kruuz or Nestor. I'm sure you'll find me when you need me." Then she slipped into the frenzied crowd, managing, somehow, to remain untouched in all the pushing and shoving, and disappeared. "Good luck!"
Garon cursed, but with the burning casks of Stonbridge still fresh in his mind, he joined the crowd in their escape of the distinctly flammable tavern. Outside, he dared to pause in the middle of the road while everyone else crashed past him, collecting the scene with an attentive eye, sieving through the chaos of people running this way and that with no aim but to find shelter. But such was impossible in the face of riled mages. And he soon discovered something even worse. Even disregarding the single point further down the street from which everyone seemed to flee like roaches from a flame, he spotted the antagonist by light rather than deduction.
Crackling blindness, pops and flashes like localised lightning; threads of flame, arcing and spinning like a dancer's ribbons; multicoloured orbs of pure energy, bursting and imploding around the single figure trapped inside a cage of magic. And then, rising above the crying, yelling and shrieking and cursing, there came maddened chuckling, cackling, sobbing.
Garon's blood ran cold. Flashes of the accursed Ivaean desert invaded his mind.
This was no demonstration of discontent, no act of rebellion. This was something far worse - and an issue he could do even less about. Once it had started, it couldn't be stopped. The mage's mind had snapped.
In an instant, the ropes of fire swelled, and in that single pulse began lashing out from their hypnotic loops, snapping at the people who fled past in search of safety deeper in the village walls. The lightning, too, grew in its rage, penetrating the ground and provoking the earth to respond. The road cracked around the mage's feet as he cackled and wept in its grip, erupting shards of itself upwards and sending shockwaves thundering out around him faster than the blink of an eye. Buildings began to shake.
Garon's teeth clenched, shoulder rolled, fist tightened and searched for the hilt of the sword he'd left behind. He swore. But even if he'd had it, it would have been little use. The guard that attempted valiantly to put the aggressor down by leaping upon him from behind proved that, consumed near immediately by the full focus of the elements. He dropped as an unrecognisable black, smouldering mass.
There was no defence against this, nothing but distance. But the people were already enforcing it, their guard already raised against the potential arrival of dissentious mages. There was nothing more to be done. So, as the streets began to empty and walls and roofs began to collapse, Garon, too, turned and fled, ignoring the flash of white hot pain that blinded him as something very heavy fell and struck either his head, back or shoulder, and disappeared through the gates as facelessly as the masses.
His pace slowed only once he'd scrambled back up to the top of the slopes and into the cover of the trees, leaving the screaming village beneath and behind him, marked in the centre by a moving point of light that grew in intensity with every passing second, surrounded by plumes of dust. He made straight back for Fendale, his jaw knotted in anger, impotence and regret. His thoughts were focused exclusively on what the others had accomplished in his absence.
But he found, after a little while, that though he'd escaped the deranged mage, the magic had followed him.
The gashes that sprawled out from Fendale had stretched and snaked their way closer to Trinn, for he encountered them sooner along his route than he should have, and witnessed two in the very act of extension. But whether it was a direct result or a coincidence, he couldn't know; the only certainty was that the Zi'veyn could put an end to both, if they could get it working.
He didn't notice his pace pick up, feet pounding over the fields.
The matter grew worse as he neared the sundered town. The consistent tremor he'd first noticed ten minutes before intensified the closer he got to the boundaries, a disembodied wailing had replaced the gentle music, and the warm glow of fire illuminated buildings that still managed to peek over the walls, though just what could have caused them was more than he cared to think on.
The debris that had obscured the eastern gate had shifted, leaving it entirely blocked off, but the now violent quaking had also crumbled the wall beside it. He darted through with ease.
On through eerie pockets of stillness and others of cataclysmic seizures, he soon reached the old oak tree - whose boughs weren't even tousled - where the mage and historian were hastily slinging bags
onto their backs with alarm in their eyes. They looked towards him with relief, but were disinclined to offer explanation.
"I'll go and get the others!" Anthis yelled over the mournful bays, but Rathen stopped him immediately and headed off instead, shouting something back about Petra and spite. The historian conceded, but Rathen had managed only four paces when the red-headed duelist appeared from around a corner herself. Her eyes were just as wide, brow furrowed with horror, and she looked across them all for explanation, her sword gripped tightly in her hand.
"Later!" Garon shouted. "We're leaving!"
She turned and raced off without a second to argue, dodging around a quickly spreading puddle of curious golden light. She returned in moments with the tribal girl in tow, rushing along on her own two feet with some kind of clarity in her blue eyes right alongside fear and the ever-present distraction, and the five of them fled with not a moment to waste.
"What's happened?" Two of them asked simultaneously once they'd passed through the inexplicably flaming stone walls, but no one answered until the town was well behind them and the quaking had diminished to a shallow vibration.
Then Garon slowed and turned to Rathen. "When did it start?"
"About...fifteen minutes...before you...arrived," he rasped as they finally stumbled to a stop, fighting for his breath in exhaustion. "It was gentle first, but...it got worse...steadily, there was no...warning..."
Anthis nodded his agreement, equally winded.
"I was in Trinn. A mage lost control of himself." Garon overlooked their apprehension. "I believe he was just close enough to Fendale for his magic to have an effect on it - like yours did in Khry's Glory, if delayed over distance. But if that's the case, this situation has suddenly become much more serious."