by Kim Wedlock
His eyes dropped back to the failed phidipan. His smile scarcely flickered. Like the others, she could still serve one small, final purpose.
She was lighter than he'd expected, and her lifeless body was easily moved, thrown into a more authentic position than those he'd arranged larger, heavier corpses into throughout his twenty-two-year career. Her knees scathed the ground, her back arched, and she dropped chest-first to the drowned mud. He dug his boot tips into the ground behind her with calculated pressure, a simple trip among a mess of fleeing prints, and after hauling himself back up into the saddle of the all-too-experienced mare, he cast a quick but astute survey of the surroundings, then formed the signs.
Fire exploded from his palm, streaming towards the corpse like a flurry of wasps. The sodden garments steamed on contact but the arcane flames easily took hold, while a second flare to the birch beside her scorched the bark, moss and lichen with even greater ease. The heat immediately dried the muggy air.
Then he cried at the top of his voice, rattled with panic and compelled by helplessness: "mages!" He snapped the reins and urged his mare west. "The rebels are back! Mages!"
The nearby village of Nestor burst into chaos; terrified screams rose from among the ashes of homes, weeping descended into hyperventilation. But Salus and his phantom assault were riding hard through the swamp, his eyes fixed on Morton, mind on his duties and the promise of swift messenger moths. The remaining hunters would be informed of the situation, the scouts and spies in the surrounding vicinities would be notified and all, he hoped, would act accordingly.
In the mean time, he had Doana to deal with - a matter that seemed to grow ever more tortuous and further beyond his control with every sweep of the wind.
Chapter 16
Rain fell as hard as arrows. The trees, too broadly spaced, offered little cover to break up the deluge, leaving hoods and cloaks weighted until the riders appeared as drowned spectres and surely just as miserable. Over three days the depressing mist of drizzle had transformed into hourly torrents that ended as abruptly as they began, while the bleak, unending clouds, when weather permitted them to look up, promised their imminent return.
Even the horses trudged with heavy hearts, meandering through the thick and sprawling swamp to avoid where they could the clouds of mist, fog and goodness knows what else that hung low over the pools, which themselves were now so vast and numerous that it was difficult to tell where one stopped and another began. Their every step was a mixture of caution and resentment.
With the fear of ghostly hunters on their tail they'd ridden hard from the reach of Nestor, and though over those three days there had been neither sight nor sound of pursuers, not one dared release their guard. Each time they stopped to rest the horses and dry what clothing they could beside a weak and shielded fire, the atmosphere was brittle, and the choice of suitable ground didn't help. Every night the risk of pneumonia grew.
But there were other factors to strain the tension.
A yelp, splash and equine squeal burst from the rear of the company, dragging them all to a sharp stop. It didn't take long to see that the brown had lost its footing; its rear hoof slipped from the slick and trampled mud to land hock-deep in the murky water, where it stuck without a hope of freeing itself.
Garon had already dismounted and rushed from the lead to help as Petra clambered, cursing, out of the saddle.
"Is Bark okay?" Aria called as her father moved to join them, warning her to stay where she was as he went, but she turned red and shrank as the duelist snapped a tart response. "Why is she so angry lately?" Aria murmured, hurt, but her eyes quickly flashed wide in panic at the thought that she may have overheard.
Rathen smiled sadly. "You'll understand in time. Leave her be."
While Eyila attempted to calm both Petra and the alarmed horse, who was slowly but steadily sinking deeper into the mud, the others pushed, pulled and lifted the heavy beast, acutely aware all the while of the strength packed into those rear legs. After minutes of struggle on all sides it was eventually freed, and calmed enough by the waving of Eyila's crushed herbs only to rear and whinny rather than attempt to bolt.
Finally, Garon turned to Petra who, despite having a knot of irritation in her jaw and a spark in her eye, stood still and silent. "Are you all right?"
"Fine."
"Good."
The corners of her lips turned down as he looked away, and she seemed, for a moment, to resent herself. But she didn't apologise, and neither did the knot loosen.
"The ground is only going to get worse," he declared, screwing his heel into the soft earth. "We'll have to pick our paths more carefully, which is going to slow us down." He looked up across the vast and unbroken mire that surrounded them, then glanced sideways towards Rathen. "Can you do anything?"
"I can," the mage replied tentatively, "but as I've told you, I'm not comfortable using sustained magic with the Arana so close. And if Salus has an elf in his ranks, there's no knowing what he's capable of tracking. If Kienza had appeared and teleported us all out of their reach then I might have been willing to risk it, but as it is..."
"And as for tracking," Anthis added, shedding his sticky cloak during the brief spell of dryness, "the ghost could have reported back before attacking us, in which case Salus may know we're on horseback. The horses are struggling as it is - would we not be better off it we left them and continued on foot?"
"You can't leave us!"
Silence fell at the sound of the gruff yet squeaky voice. All eyes shifted slowly towards the horses, two of whom were looking back around at them expectantly, flicking their ears about.
Anthis blinked. "Did...?" He looked doubtfully towards the others, unable to loose the words, while Eyila and Petra each nodded slowly, sharing the same clear bewilderment.
"We've been out here too long..."
"You can't leave us!" The desperate voice rose again, at which another of the beasts looked around and began stamping its hoof with agitation. "It's wet here! And cold! We'll never survive on our own! Kienza summoned us but--"
"Aria, you devil, stop it."
Only then did the others realise that the small child was no longer in the saddle, and not even Petra could help a smile of amusement as she stepped out from her hiding place among the beasts' legs. The girl grinned impishly as Rathen lifted her back where she belonged.
"Anthis is right," Garon declared, brushing the matter and especially his own foolishness aside, "but unless Salus is following the tracks himself, it's also likely that he thinks we've teleported away. I doubt he has any idea about Kienza's help; he'll have naturally presumed that any magical measures were executed by Rathen. And in this terrain, our prints won't be clear. In fact, if this storm continues, they'll be covered up in a few hours."
"We're exposed out here," Petra reminded him sharply, but Garon shook his head.
"Our exposure is their exposure; any trackers would be as easy for us to spot as we would be to them. And when we reach the other side, the horses will give us distance. However," he walked away to rejoin his beast, but didn't return to the saddle, "they wouldn't struggle so much if they weren't so heavily burdened. We walk from here. The exercise will do us good against the weather." He looked around expectantly. "Come on."
Anthis's ability to read and walk in any terrain seemed a continuous source of surprise, and so Petra was not so reserved about loosing a cackle at any time he slipped. He didn't react, though, and Rathen suspected it had little to do with trying to ignore her hostility. This tattered old book, a journal from one of the hidden caches by Rathen's recollection, though he was unsure which, absorbed him more deeply than any of the parchments Eizariin had given him. He wanted to ask him about it, wondering if what had gripped him so was helpful, but he presumed that Anthis would have let him know if that were the case.
And anyway, he had his own angles to ponder, and as he negotiated a particularly narrow stretch of ground between two vast pools, he set to doing just that - if just
to escape the monotonous trudge.
A cool and not unpleasant splash against his leg snatched Rathen out of his thoughts, and he shook his head as Aria glanced cautiously up at him from a shallow puddle. "Good to see you're making every effort to get as muddy as possible." But his humour vanished as an abrupt peace entered his heart and eased his senses, allowing him in the moment it took to recollect his bearings and steel himself against its immense power to realise that the terrain around them had changed. He tripped almost immediately, his toe catching on a stone, at which he recalled doing twice already.
Outcrops of rock broke through the ground which plants and fungi had taken full advantage of; trees, moss and lichen clung and sprouted from every hold they could find. Small cracks and narrow openings beneath them led down into limestone caves surely flooded by the rain, which seemed at present to be gathering itself for its next assault. Apparently the swamp had transformed some time behind them, though wide pockets of wetland still dominated between the miniature cliffs.
Lost in thought, he'd mindlessly followed the body in front of him, which he could have sworn had been Garon but now turned out to be Eyila. Her eyes were already distant and unseeing. Anthis was close in front, his reading forgotten as he kept a close watch on her, and his own face was creased with the same uneasiness as the rest.
Garon grunted. "We're almost there."
Rathen felt the claws of anxiety seize his gut.
For twenty minutes they navigated the labyrinth of pools and rocks, keeping close to the shelter of the looming trees, listening close and staring sharply against the thundering rain in search of hidden dangers. Discovering nothing didn't settle them; with a beauty so artificial, the air itself seemed to shake with danger.
Rathen could feel the Zi'veyn's presence hanging like lead in the saddlebag beside him. He focused himself on fighting the tingling in his veins and lure of the ethereal peace instead, though it proved to be even more difficult than the last time. Every time he stepped beneath the veil of magic it seemed harder to guard himself against it.
The trees' perches soon receded, spitting the group out into the rain's onslaught and the sudden glare of an ancient site. From the marsh rose a ring of stones like a maw of broken teeth, within which the ground had sunk, overhung only at the easternmost edge where yet larger stones were embedded within its face.
Barrows. This swampy realm seemed an all too appropriate haunt. And it would indeed have been eerie had a central plume of soft, golden sunlight not been radiating across every rock despite the thick and shrouded sky, had fingers of fog been anywhere to be seen, and had the ground not been at its driest in days.
But the sudden abatement of rain under the shell of the magic's influence seemed to escape the young historian's notice even as he stepped beneath it and lowered his hood, staring at the arrangement in awe instead. "Borer's Teeth. Barrows, short post-magic... I've never seen one so exposed..." He glanced about, noticing at last the absence of water despite the perfect depression. "The earth must have been washed away when the marsh drained..."
"Anthis," Garon snapped, but the young man ignored him, hurrying excitably on ahead with his flagging and irritated dun dragging along behind him. The inquisitor shook his head and picked up his own pace. "Keep together."
"I have a bad feeling about this place..."
Aria looked down questioningly from the saddle at her father's murmur, but when he only looked back with a smile, her expression saddened. "You'll do it this time, Daddy. I know you will."
"Thank you, little one." But that wasn't what was troubling him. In fact, despite everyone's expectations and the drive to prove to Garon that he was a capable mage, this time he felt something almost akin to...confidence?
Passing beneath the unseen shell and into the reach of the sunbeam, they stopped just short of the rings, and while the horses visibly delighted in the chance to rest on firm, dry ground, everyone else fell into their long-practised roles. While Anthis busied himself with the stone faces, Garon took up his watch on the far side and well within his reach, while Petra manned the other end, sword drawn and in sight of Eyila who sat on the ground and stared off in a trance.
Rathen, meanwhile, was trying to split himself in half, fighting away the sluggishness that kept trying to wrap itself around his mind while attempting at the same time to isolate the surrounding magic. He removed the Zi'veyn from his horse's load and belatedly noticed Aria sliding gracelessly out of the saddle. "Aria--"
"I just want to see the ruin!" Her muddy feet, bare, of course - what else for jumping in puddles? - touched the ground and she grinned at him appeasingly. "I won't go far - I promise I'll stay with Anthis."
His eyes shifted towards the historian for a long, evaluating moment. But as he watched him focusing as intently upon a menhir as a child might a butterfly, he felt a sudden pang of guilt at his lingering mistrust. Anthis had explained himself. And he did believe him. But...
But Garon was near enough.
"All right," he said with difficulty. "But stay where I and Garon can see you. And stay alert."
She beamed. "I will, I promise! Thank you!" And then she scurried away quite carelessly.
Rathen smiled, shaking his head after her, but his mood faltered as false sunlight glinted back from the Zi'veyn to catch the corner of his eye. He dragged his gaze away and out across the ruins. To normal eyes, there was nothing to see of the magic but its glowing manifestation. But to Rathen's, even in his distraction it was all-surrounding and pulled ever stronger at his senses, trying harder and harder to lure him into its bottomless well of lifelessness. It was a tug that grew stronger with his every exposure. It had succeeded with Eyila, the reason for which he only just grasped though certainly couldn't combat - but he was also stronger than she, and he had no doubt that it was for his elven blood. But he was still the only one aware of the peaceful undercurrent, though it seemed at that moment like a tidal surge, and he felt that, this time, he might just slip...
How he'd managed to steel himself against its potency in Khry's Glory was a thought he hadn't the strength to spare for.
Again, he thrust it out of his mind. He concentrated utterly upon his magic, focusing to touch on that which surrounded him, seeking out the centre of the magnetism. With trouble, he found it - unsurprisingly at the centre of the light and the stone circle, marked by a small altar. The burial chambers most likely extended a ways directly beneath it.
His eyes sank back to the Zi'veyn. He stood, pondered and fought in silence for a very long while.
Aria watched her father with measuring eyes. He was nervous. It was obvious. His knuckles were white. And yet, standing within the column of light, he seemed to her like a vision of hope.
She pursed her heart-shaped lips and turned away, not wishing to deter him by staring, and peered up at the enormous stone instead. Its face, like so many others that had grasped Anthis's attention, had been carved with all kinds of pictures, most of which she couldn't make out at all.
"What's this a burrow of?" She asked, looking about from one stone to the next and the dark cracks that opened between them.
"No, barrow," he chuckled, and paused his scrawling to trace a few particularly worn lines with his finger over the stone. "It's a...graveyard, of sorts."
"Oh." She looked back to the rock in front of her. Anthis glanced down at her before resuming his copy of the etchings, but noticed no discouragement in her eyes. "Of elves?"
"Short post-magic elves. They're still exposed to the earth, but the locations were marked by family. Before magic they were buried naked except for a thin shroud - like a blanket - and at a place that was important to the individual, usually unmarked."
"I remember."
"Only those with a strong relationship would visit the site, which would keep it quiet and untouched. Their bodies would feed the earth." He glanced down again, expecting confusion, but instead a sparkle of interest had settled in her eyes. He smiled and looked back to his work.
"Feed the earth how?"
He winced. "Uh, well..."
"They would turn into soil?"
"...In a manner of speaking."
"And animals would pick at their bones?"
"...Well..."
She traced her fingers over the lines just as he had, and moved just as carefully, but it was clear she was unsure quite why. "What happened to them when they died? Nug says Arkhamas go to sleep forever, and that the Lady takes their dreams and keeps them safe. I know what he means, but...I also don't. Do we dream when we die?"
His hand stilled; words eluded him. "Perhaps these are questions your father should answer."
"I don't think he would want to," she mumbled. She dropped her hand and moved on to the next stone. "Well, what happened to the elves, then? Did they go to their gods and dream?"
"Well, actually, before they were gifted their magic, they didn't seem to have any ideas of what would happen. They knew that death was inevitable, just another stage of life, but more importantly, they knew it would bring them peace. So they trusted the gods with their spirits."
"Didn't they wonder what would happen to them?"
"Undoubtedly." He smiled at her bewilderment. "But the gods weren't telling and they knew they'd find out for themselves in time. When they got their magic, though," he moved slowly after her, having finished with the previous menhir, "that started to change. This place is proof of that. Short post-magic, they were still buried in the ground, but they marked their graves so they'd be remembered even by strangers. It wasn't enough to simply pass on into the next stage anymore, they marked the ground and in some cases disturbed animals' habitats and hunting grounds with their barrows. In time they grew even more narcissistic - selfish - and started having prized possessions buried along with them, and eventually weren't buried in the earth anymore but in coffins and caskets and sealed inside tombs where nature couldn't--...where they couldn't give themselves back to the world." He shook his head. "Long post-magic elves feared death and tried to protect themselves even when there was nothing left to protect."