by Kim Wedlock
"You forget that the White Hammer has been brought in to handle it. It isn't our concern. Our people may not be able to handle beasts, but city spies are more versed in human behaviour. They will be able to work around it."
"Only to a degree, and what will happen in the distraction? The Order, Koraaz, Doana; any of them could use the chaos to--"
The air rang. Salus lifted his fist from the splintered wood. His eyes were venomous. "You seem intent on looking for defeat today, Teagan. It's a problem."
"I merely offer counsel--"
"When it's wanted, it will be asked for."
Teagan's lips formed a tight and silent line. But Salus's stare didn't break.
"You doubt."
"No."
"You do."
"I am simply providing argument. An alternative side."
"That you think I'm unaware of?"
"Absolutely not. It is my job to ensure all sides are actively weighed; my mention of them is simply a means to ensure it."
Salus rose and fixed him with an ever harsher gaze. Teagan didn't move. "I am aware of every side," he pressed. "I don't make these decisions lightly, Teagan, but they must be made, and my choices present the best result in the long run. We're dealing with something bigger than mage hunters and unrest or inconvenience. We're trying to prevent the Order from tearing our home to pieces! Foreigners from moving in, imposing their ideals and eradicating us as a people and a culture! People can deal with inconvenience now if it means they'll still be alive in ten years! We're trying to preserve our world!"
"I understand tha--"
"Do you?"
"We're all fighting for the same thing. I apologise if I have upset--"
"Upset?" He scoffed. "You haven't upset me, Teagan. I don't get upset. I've been trained, just as you have, to suppress my emotions and keep them from dictating my actions. What I am right now is confused. That is not an emotion. It is a state, and one that can be rectified with reason. So I suggest you provide it, rather than 'argument'."
Salus watched him closely, but Teagan's bearing didn't change. He remained obedient, stolid but capable. He'd never presented himself with anything less. Even now, beneath the keliceran's burning stare. And so he shouldn't. For he was portian.
"I apologise," he declared just as steadily. "You are correct, of course. We are preserving our home and our people. Inconvenience is a minor price to pay for victory."
Salus stared at him for a long moment, then snapped angrily back to the desk to continue filtering through the folders, kicking the matter out of his mind.
He ignored agents' faces, ages, birth origins - some of which were unknown even to the individuals in question - and focused intently upon skills, strengths and achievements. High-profile assassinations, noted not for their results but for the tidiness and nature of their execution and the success of the act's disguise; intel-gathering, not solely for the information but the ease and speed with which it was delivered while avoiding personal suspicion; spying under a variety of identities and their ability to slip seamlessly from one to another and improvise without breaking cover. These were the most valuable skills, denoting individuals who could not only succeed at the task given, but maintain a position of trust in every scenario even once the job was done. Only these were worthy of keeping, and with a promotion to phidipan and the conditioning it entailed, the cruciality of their every task could increase along with their chances of success.
But there were so few to whom the honour could be extended.
A sudden sigh, airy and quite uncharacteristic, sent him whirling back around, and he started at the sight of the silver-skinned face, twisted in mock disapproval. He noticed only in passing that Teagan had disappeared as suddenly as she'd arrived.
"Tisk tisk, Keliceran," Liogan chided in her strangely lilting voice. "You're getting a little testy."
"Where is Teagan?" He growled menacingly, but though his hands were already instinctively raised in preparation, he knew his magic would slip just as easily over her as his ferocity. She merely smiled and rolled her lavender eyes.
"He's just popped out. Don't worry, he won't be long. Just long enough, I should think." She wandered around the desk, peering down at the papers he'd been so absorbed in a moment ago, and dropped casually into his seat. She ignored his bristling and extended a long, slender finger. "You're getting distracted."
"I'm doing my job."
"If that's what you call it. Looked to me like you were taking your inadequacy out on your faithful subordinate." She grinned as his face turned crimson with rage and waved it away with a languid hand. "There you go, getting distracted again. Would you please focus on my presence?"
"I would but I fear I might never eat again."
She laughed, then. He didn't like it. There was hatred in it. It sounded inherent, as though even her most genuine and joyful expression would be underlined with enmity. She rose back to her feet and meandered towards him in her usual leisurely way. "Oh I do like you, Salus." She slapped his cheek as they levelled - a little too hard to be playful, unless that, too, was inherent - and her tone dropped as she continued to wander past him. "But I'm not here to play. Tell me," her freezing eyes crashed back upon him, "of your progress."
"My progress?" He allowed the slightest curl of his lip to linger if just to demonstrate his own disdain, but kept his hand from rising to his cheek. He tried to stop it from turning red, but he had no idea if he was succeeding.
"Yes. Your progress. With the magic, the chasms and puzzle pieces."
"I haven't had--"
"The inclination? Drive to succeed? Strength of devotion to the safety of your people? To the 'preservation of your world'?" She smiled again at this most recent flash of anger. "Oh I did enjoy that little bit about 'upset', by the way. Very funny. Though I suppose that portian training you're so proud of is the reason you're so volatile. After all that suppression, when it finally snapped, you had no idea how to deal with the flood of spirit and passion that came with it, did you?" Again, she waved away his maddened bluster. "But we're getting distracted again." Completing her circle, she dropped back into his chair. "How about your magic? You train often enough, I suppose, but how are you utilising it? Aside from burning the corpses of your people."
"You're spying on me," he growled. "Why?"
"Because you are the key."
He blinked, then regarded her closely. He scrutinised her imperial eyes, eyes that saw everything, eyes that advertised knowledge of so much and yet masked every detail. Eyes that told him absolutely nothing, except that there was something to tell, but that nothing in any realm of human or elf could ever persuade her to reveal it.
He decided not to indulge her. "You're not here to play riddles."
"I might be."
"Get to the point. I'm clearly not working fast enough for you, so say what you've come to say and leave."
Liogan's eyes narrowed, but her insult was glancing. Instead, and certainly in retaliation, she made herself more comfortable, lounging across the chair, sleek legs entangled in the skirts of a dark and finely patterned dress resting upon the desk. "I'm sure it's exasperating. When fury, fear and the base need for survival powers a spell from your very core, it's impossible to revert to signs. I would assume, at least. Oh, they seem so cumbersome. How can you ever get in touch with your heart when your fingers are bending and breaking like that?" She made some coarse gestures and dropped her hands in abandonment. "Ugh!" She leaned back further, but her eyes had changed when her gaze returned to him, and they weren't searching for reaction. Though they were no less forceful. "However...you have made progress. You can't do much, but you're cunning in its application. You're smart, Salus, dear, which is why I'm here - but you're of no use to me until you can do more than boil tea--"
"I can do more than--"
"Oh you really let yourself get baited, don't you? For the very last time: stop getting distracted and listen to me. Magic takes concentration - I already told you, did I not, th
at magic isn't black and white? But while it takes concentration, it shouldn't be strangled. Don't focus so much that you can't react with your heart, but don't relax so much that it doesn't notice you're trying to use it."
"You speak as if it's sentient--"
"Don't interrupt. I've told you that before, too, haven't I? If you can't learn such basic manners, how do you expect to learn magic?" She sighed in torment and shook her head, then sat forwards, clasping her hands neatly upon the desk, and fixed him with intent. She looked every bit the figure of power she thought herself to be. A fact at which he bridled. "Do not over-think things," she continued just as importantly, "but do not be so deceived by your oh so wondrous blue fire that you under-think it. You've been told this by another intelligent woman, I believe. Fancy that. Such wisdom in so inferior a race. Oh don't snarl, you're not quite an animal. Perhaps you should apply to your practice what we both have told you. Instinct is one thing, but creating a spell is quite another, and you are not an elf. So very far from one that it's sickening, but you possess this ability all the same."
"You disdain me this much, and yet you seek my help."
"I do," she lamented, "and make no mistake, it sickens me as much as it sickens you. But it's the way things must be. And if you are to succeed, even to your own end of protecting this beautiful land, then you must tolerate me as I must tolerate you, and put your pride away. Your mages are not enough to help you. I, on the other hand, am far more."
"Then help me! Don't just appear in here as and when the fancy strikes you, deliver a few riddles and vanish without a word! It's no wonder I've made no progress if you don't stick around to make sure I've even understood a word you've been telling me!"
"Oh, my dear keliceran, you do understand. Don't insult yourself. But..." she squinted in thought. "Perhaps you're right. The original suggestion wasn't enough, and the rather thinly veiled hint at connecting the rifts wasn't either. Perhaps I really do need to hold your hand for your first few steps." She rose to her feet and straightened out her dress, a purposeful movement that made him take a step backwards and his hands rise in preparation, though the whole action, he knew, had betrayed his nervousness.
She was unaffected, of course, and strode forwards with her sharp chin held high, drew to a stop right in front of him, pursed her lips, regarded him harshly down the bridge of her nose, then raised her hand and tapped him lightly upon the forehead.
The world spun.
"There," he heard her say, and as a thought he was sure was not his own twirled around in his head, he saw through a haze that she had grinned and stepped backwards, "that should help to hurry things along. Now--look, stop gawping, pull yourself together and listen."
He tried, even as she dragged him dizzily back towards the desk and spread out what he guessed was the map, but it took a long while for the lines to sharpen enough to recognise that she was pointing towards Fendale. "The magic is reacting to spells cast nearby, yes? Well, it is - that suicidal fellow in Trinn triggered the chasm in Fendale to grow and quite unintentionally. By that logic, if you were to cast a spell of any description within the reach of such a place, you would be able to lengthen the chasm. Shush. Now, if you were to specifically cast into or against these streams of - what was it you said? Turquoise ripples? Then you would catalyse the magic and make the matter worse even if the spell's intention had nothing at all to do with it. But, if you could control the feed against that reactive magic and temper its response, then you could also control its angle, focus and epicentre, and direct the chasm wherever you wanted it to go."
His frown tightened as he followed a thought. "Push it..."
"Steer it towards the next. Link them up."
"...But these chasms are miles apart."
"Yes. But you can handle it, can't you, Keliceran?"
The door burst open before he could answer, his head snapping up in startlement as Teagan came barrelling inside and slammed to a short and sudden stop. With a single puff, he recovered breath and bearing, but confusion had settled firmly on his face as he stared back at Salus, who shared in his frown when he noticed that Liogan had vanished. Again.
"What did she want?" Teagan asked, closing the door behind him and looking deceptively briefly about the room.
"The usual. Where were you?"
"She sent me to the forest. I returned as quickly as I could." He studied the keliceran as he stared back down at the map. It wasn't difficult to see the distraction in his eyes, nor the idea unfolding behind them. He looked away. "Did she offer anything?"
He looked back when he failed to reply, and found that his eyes had grown even wider in rapture. Unease set in. And reinforced when Salus moved past him and made for the door. He didn't ask where he was going, nor to elaborate on what he'd meant by 'I can do it'. He left with urgency, and that told him enough: he wouldn't be held up, and wouldn't be dissuaded.
The door closed with an absent bang. Teagan's eyes travelled towards the map. Mistrust set his feet in motion, and he soon peered down at the familiar topography, at the marked locations dotted along the borders, and the new lines that were still forming like inky blood welling up to the surface to join every point, forming a bruised and deathly ring around the country.
The sight evoked a shudder of dread in the depths of his chest, and his eyes flicked dubiously back onto the door.
Chapter 21
Despite his immediate disdain, the contempt and loathing that rose as sharp and strong as instinct at the very sight of her, his heart had lurched almost buoyantly at Liogan's appearance.
The conceit, the self-importance, the knowledge that she was, and would always be, the most powerful person in the room seemed to be counter-balanced by the elicitation of hope that tailed her brazen arrival. But it was a peculiar hope, one that flickered like the shadows cast by a candle, first taking one form, then another, leaving him ever uncertain of its true shape. All Salus knew for certain was that the existence of that hope relied on him just as the shadow relied on the flame. It was his action to take; Liogan was merely providing the means, pointing the way - casting the shadow.
He had no idea how she'd done it, but he had no doubt that she had. With that tap on the head, knots began to unravel. Things began falling into place, connections so obvious that he felt positively sick with himself for not making them sooner. But before they had the chance to settle into anything close to clarity, his thoughts had billowed ahead so fast his fingers almost shaped the spells as he bounded through the corridors.
There were few figures within the gilded training room, all of whom were startled out of their concentration as he burst inside. Their attention quickly diverted, as was proper, but he paid them not the slightest notice anyway. Nor did he mark the fact that neither Erran nor his apprentice were among them. But Salus hadn't been searching for them.
He veered to the left where, among the paintings and ornaments displayed purely to make the room less bare, an ornate mirror was hung. With a golden frame flecked with onyx inlays and fingers of silver that rose out from its topmost edge like the tines of antlers, it was a piece as much to be looked at as in. But these details were lost as equally as the handful of mages who sent him brief and curious glances.
A mirror. It was the only suitable thing he could think of at the time. It was childish, in the vein of fairy tales, but vases, chalices, tapestries - none of them were right for the job. But a mirror was, by definition, a surface in which to view, but through which a gaze couldn't return. And it was this mirror he had marked as a receiver.
Every time he'd stared into the accursed thing he'd been filled with promise. 'This time,' he had always thought, 'this time it will work.' But it never had - not for long enough to call a success, at any rate. But now, promise disintegrated, and in its place had come something more robust. Was it certainty? In truth, he barely dared to name it.
He took a deep breath. Time slowed. His heart shuddered, but the determination didn't waver. His hands rose, fingers twitched,
and slowly they began forming the signs he had learned well enough to shape in his sleep. But this time, things were different. He felt fetters of intricacy growing beneath the intentions, subtle links that anchored and multiplied eightfold with every twist of his fingers where before there had been only a single thread. But despite the complexity, the room for so much to go wrong, he felt no need to look closer and ensure he was doing it right.
The links were simple when taken on their own, each representing a single detail, coming together like a list rather than a description, a chain rather than a twisted length of string, and the very fact that they had formed at all was enough to assure him that he was on the right track. Even during his briefest magical victories, he hadn't experienced such certainty.
The fire flickered at the far end of the room. The mages at the desk beside it looked up, sensitive to the shift of his magic, and cast what began as careful glances in search of its results. But while Salus watched their interest fix and grow - the increasingly open turn of their heads, the deepening of their frowns, the lengthening of their stares - they didn't correct themselves beneath his gaze. For they were looking at him from his right and down the length of the room, while he viewed them directly in the mirror where his own reflection should have been.
But his breath was bated. There was no celebration. He waited for the spell to crumble. Every second dragged, uncertain, precarious. He re-assessed everything he viewed, shifting every few heartbeats to ensure he wasn't staring at his own reflection after all, blind to a sight so expected he looked straight through it. But nothing beyond the mages and flickering flames moved. A minute passed with no change.
It was only after another half that a flurry of butterflies burst into life and somersaulted in his stomach, fanning a sudden spark of triumph into a whirling blaze, and a smile tugged at his lips. A smile he didn't think to hold back despite a lingering breath of doubt. But it was born only of disbelief, and he couldn't deny what was laid before him. He had - yes, he dared to think it - succeeded.