by Kim Wedlock
Then, she looked down at the waist of his shirt.
He frowned, confused, while an outrageously unlikely conclusion began flying around in the back of his mind. But that idea was quashed as her eyes rose, filled with a strange sort of consideration. One tainted, if only by a drop, with mistrust.
His mood collapsed immediately.
"How are you feeling?"
"Fine," he replied shortly, rising just as abruptly to his feet and tugging looser his shirt, beneath which his daggers lay. "Thank you for your help. I appreciate it." He walked away without another word. He regretted it later, but he was in no mood for judgement or explanations.
Eyila sighed as she watched him approach the saddle bags and begin rifling through his own, a little too long to have been truly searching for anything in particular. But she brushed it off, stood up and turned towards Garon as he entered the camp from his patrol.
He took one look at her and adjusted his path to take him back out into the forest as seamlessly as he could.
Eyila didn't fall for it. "It's your turn, Inquisitor."
"I'm fine, thank you," he called back, gait unbroken, but when Petra spoke up, he stalled in spite of himself.
"You should let her have a look," she said mildly. "It could be worse than ours."
"If I'd sustained a serious injury, I would know about it."
"Unless your pride gets in the way."
"You have no right to talk to me about pride," he grumbled, resuming towards the trees. "Or self-preservation."
"And you have no right to put yourself so far above the rest of us. Your insignia only means so much, and it doesn't make you indestructible."
"I never said it did."
"No," she sighed patiently, rising, "but you act like it does." She reached out and grasped his arm before he could move out of reach. He glanced back into serious eyes. "Let her take a look."
He quickly snatched himself free and all but hissed as he turned away to resume his original, urgent pace. "I am fine." He was gone in moments.
"No, you're infuriating."
"Why even waste your energy on him?" Anthis asked, but she didn't respond beyond another exhausted sigh.
She returned to tending the food the ditchlings had given them - eggs and meat of some description, though all presumably too small to have once belonged to harpies - but looked up at a sudden high-pitched 'hyah!'. A smile broke as she watched Aria demonstrate her sword techniques to the ditchlings, their game of stick-flipping forgotten.
She wasn't nearly as clumsy as she had been, but the few movements she'd taught her had been practised religiously ever since. The rest was all flair. The ditchlings, too, had retrieved their sticks from the pile and were copying her every movement. That may not have been wise, she thought, given the tentative truce they had only just managed to broker, against all odds, but she wasn't going to stop them. And as she glanced towards Rathen, who watched with half-closed eyes and an affectionate smile, she knew he wasn't, either.
"Did anyone notice," she mused, turning back to the fire, "that no one thanked us for ending their feud?"
"Are you kidding?" Rathen forced himself to his feet at the sizzle of flipping eggs and stretched himself as he approached to join them. "We're lucky they were in the mood to talk at all. Now at least we can forget about them hounding us." He sat heavily beside the fire, keeping Aria in his sights, and rubbed the drowsiness from his eyes. "We'll fix their homes as and when we pass. In the mean time, we should focus on Salus."
"And what do you expect to do about that?" She cocked a brow. "He wants to move the country. He's unhinged."
"He is, and if he has elven help, he could probably do it, too. They're malicious; whatever their reasons are for wanting Turunda moved, we can only assume that it won't be in our best interest."
"They're almost certainly just taking advantage of him," Anthis grunted from beside his own tree. "They'd have done the same to Rathen if Eizariin hadn't gotten to us first. They don't want to get their hands dirty so they're making someone else do it."
"Which suggests they think he's powerful enough to achieve it..."
Petra shook her head and shoved the tomatoes about the pan. "I say again: what do you expect us to do about it? We don't know how he plans to achieve it so we can't get in his way - if that's even possible - and we aren't in any kind of position to just go charging in and use the Zi'veyn on him or his elven friends."
"We need--"
"Information. Yes. I know." She sighed tediously. "Then it's still on to Mokhan?"
"I see no other choice."
"We'll be seen."
"I know we will."
"Then we'll need a plan."
A soft yet poignant clearing of a throat drew their attention towards Eyila, who was suddenly regarding them all with thinly veiled impatience. "I understand the position we are in," she announced, "with Salus, the Arana, and promises to the harpies and Arkhamas - but need I remind you of your promise to my people? To me?" Her eyes sharpened formidably, and yet the change was so slight, so graceful; it was as though a tempest had always roiled beneath her surface, its presence only now revealed. "When will we be returning to Ut'hala?"
"We haven't forgotten," Rathen softly assured her, "but it's...quite out of the way..."
"He means it will take us a long while to get there and there are other things we have to think about in the mean time." Petra smiled easily. "We will get there, but it might take a while."
"How long?"
They exchanged a look.
"Not too long," Rathen decided. "We just need to stabilise things here first."
"That could take months," Anthis grunted from the sidelines, which earned him sharp glances from the others. His lip curled, and he resumed his poring over large, loose parchments that certainly hadn't come from any of his books. No one wanted to look closer.
Eyila's eyes, however, had narrowed further. "He's right."
"Yes, perhaps, but last I checked, Anthis didn't have a crystal ball."
"That means he can't see the future," Petra elaborated, at which Eyila nodded in understanding.
"Salus is campaigning against non-humans, but it's only a matter of time before he starts targeting the tribes too, especially with their conflicts moving so close. It might not affect far-flung and isolated tribes like yo--liiike those out in...far-flung places, not right away, but it will eventually. He's devoted to his convictions - obsessed with them. If he begins to target the tribes along with the harpies and the ditchlings, there's no telling how far that will go. We need to stop him - or at least sufficiently hamper him - before we can travel so far out of reach."
"Where we would be safer."
"We're being hunted by the Arana, Anthis, nowhere is 'safer'. Don't be a fool." Rathen ignored the muttering and looked imploringly back up to the young woman, barely an adult and yet carrying and nursing the honour of her entire tribe with remarkable strength. "I understand your frustration, but this is bigger than any one place or promise - I don't suggest that anywhere sacred to your people or to anyone else is the same as a single carved rock in a forest, but even that doesn't compare when the lives of your people - of other wind tribes - are at risk."
She stared at him for a long, calculating moment. Rathen didn't blink. Finally, her shoulders stooped, her weight shifted, and she nodded reluctantly in concedence. "I hadn't thought about that."
"It's all right - it's not something that should have to occur to anyone."
She nodded again, her lips pulling into a sad smile, and apologised before walking off towards the spring that rose among the enormous roots of an ancient tree, rubbing her salve-coated fingers into her palms uncomfortably.
Petra leaned towards him with a baffled frown. "That was a bit grasping, wasn't it?"
"I don't think so." He watched her kneel beside the water at the edge of the light's reach and dropped his voice even lower. "He's already at it."
"What?!"
"Shh! Elle mentio
ned it when she was last here, but we didn't want to say anything in front of her. I only mention it now in the hope of preparing her in case we find any...evidence..."
"Why would he do that? To get to her? To us?"
"I doubt it. The popular consensus is that the tribes are dangerous, war or no, and Salus is obsessed with protecting the country from anything he considers remotely unsavoury. Or different."
They fell silent as Eyila rose, and Petra began dividing up the food as she took a spot by the fire, all the while sending the tribal girl brief, distracted glances.
Owan shifted under the scrutiny.
The sahrakh's gaze was particularly agonising. Cavalier, obstinate, self-certain; even the elite bearing with which he held himself rubbed him the wrong way. Owan had always found the soldier type unbearable but this was something else, and he had no doubt that his position as the highest rank to remain behind while the rest of the military wing had marched off to war had something to do with it.
He straightened himself against it, refusing to submit to the lieutenant general's pomposity.
Lady Delas, on the other hand, was a welcome presence. She, he had found, was always willing to listen, and while preservers were not typically called upon for tactical advice nor an intellectual point of view, she was a considered woman and had an air of command about her that was known to subdue many of the highest ranking soldiers and silence quibbling scholars. She alone seemed to balance out the soldier, and he breathed a little easier.
And between them both, like the pillar of the scales, was the grand magister, watching him with equal thought and patience that somehow only further settled and unnerved him. But while Arator was the only one among them that shared his academic calling and thirst for knowledge, his position as head of the Order enforced restraint over enthusiasm and a conservative approach instead. And it was his decision that mattered the most. The others could do little but advise.
Arator dropped his hands from his mouth. Owan seized up. "You've identified the source?"
"Dolunokh," he replied as calmly as he could, "as was expected - but it isn't that simple. I've been unable to identify where in Dolunokh it could have been; nothing correlates to any notable sites, and with everything shifting in its devastation, readings are even murkier. And the flow itself seems to have stopped for the moment."
All eyebrows rose. "Stopped?"
"Perhaps the source has been depleted," Delas offered, but while Owan shook his head, even Arator appeared unconvinced.
"We don't know where precisely it came from," Owan said, "nor how, nor why. We can't presume that those details are now redundant, and as it happened so suddenly in the first place, we also can't presume to say that it won't happen again. Someone could well have released it from something, either deliberately or not."
"From what?" The soldier scoffed. "A box?"
"Or perhaps it escaped. What could contain spells but another spell? Even enchanted objects are sealed. And even those spells degrade."
"I couldn't say to either. I've been unable to glean any clues from the spells themselves; none of them seem to share a purpose. In fact the sole commonality of each studied location is a disturbing, displaced beauty. Otherwise, from what information has been gathered, there's little else the spells have in common."
"And you're presenting that as a discovery?" Roane asked with even greater cynicism.
Owan didn't let it ruffle him. "Yes. They're so different, it's probable that they never had a link." He watched the soldier and preserver frown with varying degrees of doubt, but the grand magister, nodding slowly, appeared to appreciate the answer. "Above all of this, however, remains the fact that we still have no idea how it's weaving into the surrounding elements and causing the sheer destruction that it is. This is something we must focus on. But until someone actually goes out to study that particular detail, we can't possibly divine anything."
"You are correct, of course. But this isn't news. We are well aware of the situation."
"Not entirely, I suspect." He ignored the flash of insult across the soldier's face. "There has been a new development: two places - Wrenroot and Borer's Teeth - have suddenly gone quiet."
Delas shifted, crossing her legs and leaning forwards with a sudden sparkle in her blue eyes. Just as he'd expected. As a preserver, the practical applications of magic would intrigue her the most. "A cumulative effect? They've reached their end? The magic has lost its potency, perhaps?"
"I doubt it, my Lady. These two were nowhere near as bad as those further north, let alone those beyond the borders, and they're all continuing to grow steadily worse. There is something unnatural about the way they've ended."
She nodded slowly. Then her eyes changed. "Why have you presented this to us?"
He paused in confusion. "Because it's a drastic cha--"
"No, why have you presented this to us?" A suspicious smile was playing on her lips. "What are you scheming beneath all of this, young Owan?"
"He wants to go out there."
Roane grunted. "Absolutely not."
"I quite agree," added Delas, somewhat alarmed.
"Good Lords and Lady, we can't keep turning away from this..."
"Under other circumstances, you'd be right. As it stands, our priorities have been re-evaluated."
"Consider at least the personal risks," the old woman implored, "if you get caught by the Arana? Or by mage hunters? What then?"
"They'll do nothing more than imprison me - regardless of where custody lies, I can still think and piece together what I've found whatever cell I'm in."
"Assuming you get the chance to find anything at all before they pounce. You could get as little as two minutes before they snatch you off."
"Lord Roane is right, of course. I understand your enthusiasm, Owan, but things are not as simple as you might wish."
"No, they're not, my Lady, but these are just two sites while the rest are getting worse, and many of those have already resulted in evacuations, and others in deaths. We need to know how it's affecting the elements and we need to know as soon as possible so that we can prevent any further fatalities!"
"And what do you intend to do? The magic has dissipated - there is nothing left to see."
'Pig-headed brute,' Owan thought to himself as he bit down hard on his tongue and centred his efforts on keeping his sentiments from crossing his face. 'Not even Rathen would make so foolish an assumption.' "It can't have entirely dissipated, not so suddenly. There will be remnants."
"And from those, you hope to see...?"
"An explanation. A cause."
"What do you suspect has happened?" The grand magister spoke up in a tone far too calm and collected, tripping Owan as he calculated how best to answer.
He settled for nescience. "I really couldn't guess." But he had taken too long. The grand magister fixed him with unchanged eyes, yet it was a stare that saw right through him. As it so often did.
"I don't believe you. You're an intelligent man, Owan. You couldn't observe all of this without developing theories, and neither would you even consider going out in the field without an angle on how to approach it, a plan of some kind."
The others looked at him expectantly. Ignorance hadn't worked, so he settled for the next best thing: vagueness. "I suspect that something has had an effect on it."
"'Something has had an effect'? Such as?"
Then Delas straightened, sitting tall, her elegant skirts shifting without a crease while a knowing smile played on her slender lips. She cocked a well-groomed eyebrow. "Something like a banished sahrot?"
Roane immediately flared. Arator sighed wearily to himself. "Rathen Koraaz is a dangerous man."
"Oh pish - you don't know what you're talking about, boy."
"You all seem to have forgotten what got him banished in the first place! There is a reason he stayed away rather than appealing his punishment. Whatever happened to him, whatever magics he played with, Rathen Koraaz has as good as admitted his guilt!" In tha
t moment, Owan was sure he saw him stand even taller. Like many from this soldier's class, a generation too late to know any better, Rathen was little more than a shameful footnote to the Order's recent history. But Owan suspected that Roane's present position of superiority of sahrakh over sahrot equally had a hand in his disdain - even if it was but a single rank's difference. Pride snaked its way into everything.
"He played with no magic."
"Then you have an explanation, Lady Delas?"
"I do not. But I would advise you, as politely as I can while you dance upon my wearing nerves, to hold your tongue when your knowledge on the matter extends no further than hearsay."
Roane's lips formed a hard line. "I apologise, of course," he replied, and it was almost convincing but for the tightness of his tone and the speed at which his acrid eyes shot back towards Owan. "What could Rathen Koraaz have possibly done to this magic? You're suggesting that a mage has had a direct effect on magic - not masked it, not counter-spelled, but modified the chains themselves - elven spell chains - and perhaps even removed them! The whole situation is already preposterous--"
"So why could a preposterous solution be so very unlikely?"
He flashed back onto Delas. "What?"
"Check your tone, young man. You heard what I said. An impossible problem requires an impossible solution. We don't know what Rathen has been up to, and in such unusual company. Who is to say he hasn't stumbled upon something in his freedom? Aside from his contradicting disposition." Her gaze turned fully onto Owan in that moment, an incredulous depth to the creases around her eyes. "You're sure it was Rathen Koraaz?"
"Positive, my Lady."
"If," the sahrakh continued impatiently, "against all odds, he has discovered something, why should that mean that he was also the one to execute it? He was a soldier, not a scholar; if he'd found something he would bring that information to someone with the know-how and the strength to--"
"If anyone among us has the strength for such an impossible task, it's him." The venom in the preserver's voice pealed the room into silence. Her eyes flared in a blue inferno. Roane's lips tightened. Even the grand magister seemed to shrink. "That boy had a fierce power buried within him, and to have survived his wounds without the aid of the healer granted to him shows, if nothing less, his stubbornness. He was always devoted to his duties as a protector, and I would never believe anyone who said he had given them up. For a man to fix this it would be neither safe nor easy, and if he has found a way, he would see it through himself if just to ensure no one else was put at risk. Then," she added with even greater acidity, "perhaps he might also be redeemed in the eyes of ignorants like yourself, Sahrakh Forlin."