by Kim Wedlock
"Against murderers like--"
"Stop it, you two!"
At the joint bark of mage and inquisitor, Anthis, finally bristling, quickly bit his tongue. But while Petra thundered to her feet, she did not fall silent. "Handle this cultist, Inquisitor," she snarled. "We have the Zi'veyn, he's outlived his usefulness. Why hasn't he been locked away yet?"
"You know, you throw that word around a lot, but have you ever seen me lighting candles? Drawing signs on the ground? Smearing blood on my face, rolling my eyes to the back of my head and speaking in reverse with three voices?"
"I've not seen you do anything."
"Oh, no, of course not, you're just flinging conjecture and judgement based on nothing but other people's assumptions. Why are you here, anyway? What exactly do you contribute?"
"Enough!"
Silence penetrated the camp like a frost.
The pair stared daggers, daring the other to be the first to defy the officer's demand. But when the tension came to a head, Petra turned and stormed away, chillingly voicing neither word nor snarl.
Regret finally barrelled down and snuffed out Anthis's ire. "Petra, wait," he called, kicking dirt over the flames in his hurry to rise after her, "wait, I'm sorry!"
But she didn't wait. She didn't cast him a glare or even curse him out beneath her breath. She vanished in silence into the trees.
The camp remained rigid until Eyila rose to follow her, silently regretting having spoken at all.
Anthis puffed in defeat and slumped back to the dirt, where he found Garon's steely gaze boring into him. He braced himself for a reprimand.
"We cannot afford to make a scene," the officer informed him glacially. "Pull yourself together and keep your distance from her."
"I know. I will."
"Good. Perhaps you should get back to work." And then Garon left, too.
Aria peered after them for a long moment before turning her confusion upon the others. "I don't understand. Why did Petra get so upset?"
"Because," Rathen smiled sadly, "it matters to her."
"What does?"
"All of it."
"Why?"
"Because."
Her big eyes narrowed in thought, slipping slowly back into the trees. "...I see..."
A breeze passed through the camp. Rathen poked at the half-covered fire, drawing the flames back to life while the young man's head dropped heavily into his hands. He dropped his voice low. "I wouldn't worry about it."
"Oh?"
"She's just confused. She doesn't know what to believe. According to the Temple, there are two gods, one good, one evil, and the elves were killed by Zikhon because Vastal grew weak when their faith in Her waned, replaced by a high opinion of themselves, apparently. Yes, don't look so surprised, I do know the stories. I didn't always live in the woods. But according to you, there are five gods, all of whom turned away because of that very arrogance and obliterated them, bar a handful saved by the god we know as Death, and now no one is left to listen to any prayers or grant anyone strength. And you have far more evidence to support your claims than the Temple does theirs."
"And yet that's been the case for centuries and nothing terrible has come from it!" Anthis protested wearily, watching the flames come back to life. "Because everyone's strength is their own. Especially hers... But, I suppose none of it really matters, does it? No harm has been done - and we could never tell anyone what we've learned, could we? No one would believe us. We could even be killed for it, and certainly ruin our careers - even a duelist's. Either no one would want to fight her, or they'd try to kill her instead. There's no harm being done with things as they are..." But the wistful sigh that followed betrayed his desire for the contrary, a desire to share the truth, to enlighten the world, to correct their beliefs and put strength into their own hands rather than relying upon gods who, it seemed, were no longer there. Or perhaps it was for professional credit. Rathen decided to favour the former.
The mage tapped the scrolls that lay open in front of him.
"Yes, yes, of course, of course." Anthis sighed and moved them over where he could clearly see them, safe from the reach of drifting embers, while Aria moved around to wriggle in between them, refusing to miss anything else. "You've tried pointing it, willing it, and powering it with magic - something you worked out for yourself, but I've also found written in these scrolls. Is it possible you're giving it too much?"
Rathen shook his head. "I worked over something similar when Kienza helped me affect the magic in Halen. If I was over-feeding it, I'd know."
"All right, so we'll assume you're not over-powering it. In which case--"
"Can I hold it again?"
Rathen fished the palm-sized relic out from the bag beside him without a second thought, while Anthis, startled by Aria's sudden and enthusiastic outburst, looked on in concern. Rathen heard him wince as she dropped it a few harmless inches to the ground. "She's fine. Go on."
"...Right...yeah, uh...so if you're not...over-powering it, then it's fixed, it's fuelled, but it's just not responding. So...how do we...turn it on?"
Rathen watched Aria rotate it in the light of the fire, hypnotised by the reflections that danced over the deep black surface. His eyes dropped purposefully to the scrolls, but of course he still couldn't read them. "There's really nothing in these? Or in your notebook? You found so much in the Wildlands and Ut'hala - what if--"
"If it's anywhere, it's in these scrolls." He chuckled sardonically. "I suppose that's something. Despite the mass of information Salus stole from us, none of it is of any use to him..." He fell silent for a long moment. Rathen waited. Despair flickered briefly in his eyes. "No. No, forget the rest. This is my priority. It's too great for anything else to compare."
"Too great indeed. Uncovering the Zi'veyn, proving a myth a reality...I owe you an apology."
"...Actually I meant the situation is too great, but thank you. Though you're not the first to question my methods. I'm used to it. My peers often mock me."
"And yet your name is spoken of highly in intellectual circles."
Anthis smiled, either modest or careful. "Pardon my asking, but how could you know?"
"Because Kienza is an intellectual circle all by herself."
"Ah, yes, of course she is... She's something else."
"She really is. And she knows it. Which makes her impossible. She has all the answers but makes you work them out yourself."
"How could something ever be an achievement if it were just handed to you?"
Rathen grunted. "It must be an intellectual thing. I remind you that I'm not looking for achievements, only a solution."
"Of course. To work, then." They both fell silent and watched Aria stare at the artefact's crowning lotus. "Maybe you have to will it differently."
"So 'please work' isn't enough, then?"
"It appears not."
"Suggestions?"
"Well I don't know much about the technical workings or application of magic..."
"I do, and I'm stumped. I'll take any help I can get."
"Maybe you need to show it where you want it to go. Direct it. Lead it."
"I've tried that, but where do I lead it when there's nothing to lead it to? The magic isn't in anything, it's all-surrounding."
"Well perhaps you need to...not steer it, then. Just let it be."
"Which I have also tried."
"All right...well, what happens to it when you power it?"
"Nothing. It just swallows it."
Something flickered over his face. "It just swallows your magic? ...You--"
"The thought had crossed my mind, but I doubt it. Otherwise victims would have to volunteer to have their magic stolen, and I just don't see that being an effective weapon."
"...Well then, perhaps it's because the magic is sedentary. Try encouraging that power out, give it a nudge, let it know you want it to move...?"
"It's magic, not a goat."
"A goat?"
Aria giggled.
>
"Never mind. But...perhaps you're on to something... Nudging it..." His mind trailed away, back to another evening when he'd peered over the edge of the rift that had freshly split Halen in two, when he'd assaulted the tumultuous magic with his own, first drowning it, then focusing the stream, finding the edge of the chaos and pushing, finally pushing, until the magic moved. A smile almost twitched, and he sat a little straighter. "I can do that..."
But as he snatched out his notebook and lost himself in his pondering, Anthis to his reading and Aria to the intricate onyx brushwork revealed in the writhing light, none noticed the lightest of footsteps approaching from behind. Nor indeed when they increased with the effort of a stomp. In fact it was only after the impatient clearing of a throat that anyone looked around, and they were even slower to leap up in alarm. But the figure didn't move to take advantage of their sluggishness, and as Rathen loosened his fingers and Anthis withdrew his dagger, each closing Aria behind them, the mage quickly discovered why.
"Elle..."
The woman - beautiful, slender, pale skin warm in the firelight, a head of dark brown curls through which shone a gentle yet focused gaze - smiled.
Rathen's dark eyes widened and his guard dropped in an instant. Anthis cooled only a fraction, but his grip on the dagger tightened when another form stepped out from the shadows and broke the stillness with the drawing of his blade. Despite the inquisitor's vigilance, it seemed the Aranan phidipan had slipped all too easily behind him.
But Elle ignored Garon's arrival and returned the fierce embrace Rathen surged forwards to deliver. Only then did Anthis lower his dagger. Garon, on the other hand, remained rigid, while Aria peered around the historian with the greatest curiosity her eyes could possibly display. They observed the pair warily for a long and increasingly uncomfortable minute.
When Rathen finally released her, any smile he'd worn had vanished. He regarded her then with solemn resignation. "You didn't come all this way for a social call. The stakes are too high and you surely know the Arana is after us. You can't be seen - you shouldn't even be here."
"I know," she mirrored his sobriety, "and if I thought I was at risk, I wouldn't be. But I know that the nearest of the operatives converging on Korovor are still half a day away - and," she added, glancing past them towards the beasts pegged on the far side of the camp, "they don't know that you have horses. They won't be looking for the tracks, and you can easily outpace them."
"How did you get here?"
She turned her attention briefly upon Garon, whose stern, fixated eyes had turned to steel with suspicion. She straightened. "Translocators. I was sent out from Headquarters on a mission, and no, this is not it. This is from Lord Malson. A delay due to the weather, if I were to record it."
There was no telling if the inquisitor believed her or not. His sword remained poised. "Speak."
"Fair enough. But first..." Ignoring the glint of his sword, she stepped forwards and dropped a bag from her shoulder, a worn, old, leather satchel which she handed to the cautious historian. The light had barely fallen over it when his eyes erupted in the sheerest joy. He snatched it keenly, caution forgotten, and hefted its weight in delight. "But the Arana--how did you--"
"Salus has finished with them. He has little care any more for elven ruins and relics. He's focused on other things..."
She then told them everything, and though they listened, some more sceptically than others, little she divulged came as any true surprise. News of Salus's efforts to create spells of surveillance, though extreme, seemed unfortunately appropriate from the head of a faction of spies, and his suspicions that Rathen had first been working with the Order and had now gone rogue also seemed suitably paranoid. His continued hunt for them and the confiscation of the Zi'veyn wasn't really news at all, and confirmation of his vicious campaign against non-humans and his hand in the stirrings of growing racism were equally inconsequential.
But when she reached the final item in her catalogue of bleak tidings, jaws dropped at last.
They looked at one another for a long, dreadful moment, until Rathen was the first to speak. "He was clearly planning something," he mumbled, though still lost in thought, "but...surely you're joking?"
"I wish I was. But this is only a recent development."
"He possesses elven magic and some degree of elven blood, and has an elf - and not the first, it seems - helping him to wield it. He..." Rathen sighed dejectedly. "If a thing such as moving Turunda is possible, he's quite possibly in a position to manage it. Vastal save us."
"I wonder if that phrase is still appropriate..."
Rathen brushed aside Anthis's passing remark and fixed the woman with severity. Her face, even with its somewhat bewildered wrinkle, would have enraptured him and frozen his heart had circumstances been even remotely different. "Is Salus capable of this?"
"I really don't know. He's driven enough. Presently, he's making slow progress despite training his magic obsessively, but once he starts to get comfortable with it, it will no doubt speed up. And with an elf's guidance..." She could overlook her confusion no longer. "Why are none of you surprised by this?!"
"Rathen is also half-elf."
"What?!"
He shot Anthis an unappreciative glare, and despite Garon's immediate command to tell her nothing at all, shared an obligatory summary of their experience on the mist-enshrouded island.
"Then Salus wasn't just guessing..." For the briefest moment, her startlement fled and her eyes transformed into wells of fathomless sorrow, seizing Rathen's heart with an aching regret, longing and fury. And as they turned upon him from their gaze through the ground, he suddenly felt nothing but shame. It lingered long past the forced return of her composure. "It was only following Denek's transformation and attempt on his life, which I admit I didn't see, that he came to the conclusion about you - but how did you come to--"
"Salus transformed in Dolunokh." Rathen's lip curled and eyes glazed for a moment in chilling recollection as the inconceivable sight crashed back to the front of his mind. "Just outside the doorway. It was far from complete, but there was no way I could miss even that little after what I saw on the island. Bone-white skin, thin cheeks, sharp teeth, black eyes. I don't know what he usually looks like, but no human could look like that..."
"What can we do against this?" All eyes turned onto Garon as he returned them to the matter at hand, and Anthis quickly gave voice to the only idea to present itself, the thought they were all reluctant to speak and exactly the last thing Rathen wished to hear.
"Turn the Zi'veyn against him."
"Do please tell me how."
"Moving the land," Garon looked towards the historian. "Is such a thing possible? Could the elves at least have done it?"
"The notes the ditchlings gave us in Tarun say so," he replied, earning a bewildered frown from the phidipan, "but just how, I can't imagine."
"How much trouble would it be to expand on their findings?"
He sucked air in through his teeth. "It's awfully specific, and probably too small a thing from an elven perspective to have documented beyond the event itself - they were more interested in results than the science and workings behind their intuitive abilities. We can try if we find out where they got them from, but I think even then it will be an enormous waste of time..."
"Then he won't find anything easily, either. Otherwise, we're back to the Zi'veyn. Is there anywhere we can find more information about it?"
"No. Not quickly, anyway - we lucked into it on a number of accounts, and now we have the Zi'veyn itself, we have no leads even with these books back unless we turn tail and try to head back to Kasire. Otherwise, I can go over everything again and see what I come up with..."
"Did Eizariin give you nothing?"
"Not on this, no. I doubt he has any idea how it works either - why would he? It was made and sealed away centuries before he was born and their history covered up with it."
"Except for those caches. The rebels. There could well b
e more."
"Yes," Anthis replied with increasing hesitance, "there could, but where, and how long would it take to find them? And what would happen in the mean time? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I don't think it's worth it." He gave Rathen a passing look of apology and tried to ignore the meaningful and menacing look he returned. He returned to the inquisitor. "I'm confident we have all we need. We can do it. We just need to think."
"This all feels impossible," Rathen grumbled. His eyes rose back to Taliel's and his misery-lined face creased in desolation. The corners of her lips pulled downwards. "Is it still all on us?"
"I'm sorry. We've seen no trace whatsoever of anyone else moving against it. Even the Order is keeping its distance. They're already under immense suspicion." Her heart dropped as his gaze sank to the ground. In an instant she was teleported back fifteen, twenty years to his ordeals under the weight of the Order's expectations. She didn't speak, and as his every increasingly resigned thought passed over his face, neither did anyone else.
Finally, he straightened, armoured in resolution. "Then we'd better get the Zi'veyn working."
"From what Taliel has said, he won't succeed so soon."
"No," she agreed, considering the inquisitor, "but he has an elf with him again. It seems they're seeking him out."
But Anthis was already vigorously shaking his head. "I don't believe that." He ignored their dubious looks. "Just think about it: elves wouldn't need him, anything they wished to do they could do themselves. The first elf to help him was a prisoner--"
"Who, as it turns out, stayed willingly."
"The elves on that island weren't to be trusted," Rathen declared. "Eizariin seems different, I grant you, but that doesn't mean they're all either as friendly and inquisitive as he is or as frosty and self-important as Tekhest. Some could be far more dangerous.
"We know what he's trying to do. If we knew how he intended to do it or what the elf has told him, we could get in his way."
Anthis blanched. "In the Arana's way?!"
"The stakes are high enough," Garon mused. "We have to do what we can - but we will need more information. I'll continue reaching out to contacts, but otherwise..." It clearly took a great deal of effort for the inquisitor of the Hall of the White Hammer to swallow his pride enough to turn squarely towards the curly haired Aranan operative, trim his scowl and, with what was almost a degree of tolerance, speak the words: "we need your help."