by Kim Wedlock
Owan forced himself not to nod his fervent agreement. Arator, too, concealed his smile behind his hand. But as he dropped it to the desk, his visage was perfectly proper. "We are jumping to romantic conclusions. It may well not be Rathen's doing. It could, though I fail to understand how, be some of our own. We have some incredibly intelligent minds in the Order, but not all of them are predictable. It is possible that someone has worked out how to affect magic. For good or ill; they haven't come forth about it either way.
"Discovering why the magic has fallen quiet could be of use to us - should it be natural, we may be able to replicate it in other places. Should it be the work of mages, we are capable of the same thing. And failing that...discovering how it's winding its way into the elements will be key in combating progression."
Owan's heart all but leapt from his chest in anticipation as the grand magister's eyes turned wholly upon him. "Permission granted - but you must wait, just for a few days. We will try to find a window so that you can leave with as little attention as possible."
"If he goes out there, he will be detained and the Order--"
"I don't need to hear it, Lord Roane, believe me, I am more than aware." He continued to fix the scholar. "And utilise the sparrows."
"Sparrows?" But the sahrakh was ignored.
"Find out where he is and if he did in fact have a hand in it. And remember: he is a second pair of eyes. Do with that what you will, as I shan't permit a second excursion."
Owan reined in his excitement and bowed low. "I understand. Thank you, Grand Magister." He bowed again, to each in turn, not all of which were genuine, and spun on his heel to leave.
"Imelia."
He froze.
"She is due in two months?"
"Seven weeks," he looked over his shoulder.
Arator nodded. His eyes were shudderingly grave. "Be careful."
"I will." Then he left, enthusiasm duly shattered, a strike of solemn comprehension rising in its place.
The door closed. Roane stared after him, arms folded over his broad chest. "Is this wise?" He asked quietly.
"When all is weighed...I don't know." Arator sighed. "Only the results will tell."
"And you believe he can get them?"
"You don't?"
Roane's jaw tightened. "...I do. I just hope he gets sufficient chance."
Chapter 26
Though perpetually cool and still, Blackbrush's habitual solitude seemed infinite that night; the gnarled and towering trees shuttered out the weak sliver of moonlight so absolutely it was as though one walked beyond the reaches of the world. Space was endless in spite of the density, and the only evidence of living creatures were the ghostly hoots of unseen owls, guarding the forest from mice and moles. The air was eerie, but peaceful, radiating a calm and tranquillity impossible to find in the city.
Unfortunately, Taliel didn't feel it.
Salus had been quiet for a long while, brooding in silence beneath the cold light of a magical orb that turned the outlying darkness abyssal, his arms tightly folded and walking within the turmoil of his own private storm. Far from distancing his troubles, he'd seized nothing but the opportunity to fuse himself amongst them.
And this diversion had been her idea.
She sighed gloomily to herself, and in an effort to escape the ever-shrinking cage she'd trapped herself in, she forced a soft smile, moved up closer alongside him, and placed a hand gently upon his shoulder. "Salus--"
"This could have been avoided," he suddenly burst, shattering the stillness like the roar of a woken beast, "it could have been avoided if I had more than one sodding surveillance spell in action!"
"But would you have really put--"
"It was a grumpy old man and his mop-headed son!" He shook his head, lips curling into a mad and stupefied smile. "How can anyone make such a mistake?!"
"Mistakes happen--"
"Increasingly often! But this was by a phidipan! There's no excuse, Taliel! I can't--I can't--I can't--"
"Red Heath," she stepped around in front of him, grasping his frantic hands and blocking his path, "is surrounded by evacuees. Mistaken identity in grumpy old men isn't unreasonable."
But he was still shaking his head. "Among common people. And no one who answers to the Arana is 'common people'."
"Why thank you." But her smile was met with a distinct lack of amusement. She sighed and let it fall, stepped aside and allowed him to return to his trudge. His face was quick to collapse back into a pensive knot.
"These spells are a priority. This can't happen again."
"Then you'll need to send people out to place them for you," she sighed.
"I know. And I will. In every city and crossroad town. The more the better. Then this won't happen. If someone says they've seen Koraaz, we can bloody well make sure of it." He grunted to himself then, his eyes unmoving from the ground ahead. "And posters."
"Posters?" She frowned. "Bounty posters? We would be bombarded with mistaken identities - even deliberate fraud!"
"Not if the reports are sent to the guards."
"And if they're found, they'll have fled by the time it's passed on to us."
"There will be none to reach us. One sight of the posters and they'll avoid the cities all together. Separated from the populace, there will be no room for mistaken identity."
Taliel cast him a careful look. Her stomach turned at the rancorous curve of his lips. She looked away again, expressionless. "And if they're not as smart as you think and someone genuinely finds them?"
"Then we would have seen them, too. It's just a matter of getting these spells up. And quickly. They'll need to stop and get supplies at some point. Then we'll have them. Then we'll have them..." He descended into another silent frenzy. Taliel sank into fret. Then he returned with an abrupt and fearsome growl. "What are they up to?!"
"Hmm?"
"Wrenroot, Borer's Teeth - it's all gone quiet, like the magic has just vanished. Is he going around and gathering it up? Or is he suppressing it? Letting it build up to blow further down the line? But why?!"
"He is a rogue, you said so yourself. There's no knowing what he's planning. But, with everything else you're dealing with, why do you let it get under your skin?"
He dove suddenly in front of her, eyes wild, his sickening, incredulous smile unrelenting "Because now he has succeeded. And we still, still have no idea in what! I can't not let it get to me, Taliel!" A thought flashed through his eyes, luring his gaze into the endless blackness behind her as his mind tumbled away. An owl hooted vapidly. "Traps. If we trapped the areas, anywhere else affected, anywhere they could be about to go - magic, or ambush - anything that can stop them--"
"Salus, we have to deal with Doana, mages, mage hunters and...ugh, just so much more - you would really go to such an extent just for one man?"
"Yes! This 'one man' could be trying to undermine everything I'm trying to do!" Another flash, another haze, and a snarl snapped free. "And the king."
"The king?"
He whirled away and stomped onwards through the forest, leaving her to hurry after him. "To think I have to protect this country from itself," he hissed. "He's ordered us to withdraw from the Pavise Mountain Pass. Apparently, the Crown has been 'reviewing our activity' and are 'dissatisfied' with our results. They want us to withdraw and redirect our efforts because they've decided that the border is quiet and too low-risk to 'waste' resources on!"
"What?! But Kalokh were under Skilan's thumb not three months ago!"
"That's exactly what I said, but Malson hit back with 'there's no hard evidence that Skilan are looking our way again, nor that Kalokh are under their control'. When I reminded him that we did have evidence he just scoffed and said it was only enough to encourage suspicion. None of them understand the importance of what we do! How can we uncover evidence if we're being impeded at every sodding turn?! He even shrugged off the tribes when I reminded him of the three different camps on this side of the mountains alone! 'They've not been seen
in a month', 'they've long moved on'!"
"Surely the Crown can't be that uninformed, not with reports from the military and the White Hammer?"
"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But that's not all: when I re-issued my request for an audience with the Crown, Malson just asked if I thought dissolving the Order was really necessary. Malson. The man who has gone as far as to make his own requests of the Arana against that very faction!"
"Well it is an extreme step--"
"It's also necessary. They need to be broken up and imprisoned before they can do any more damage." But he waved that subject away. "But Malson's ambition doesn't end there - just today he countermanded the Crown's orders with the suggestion that we move further north of the pass and try to deflect Ivaea and Kasire's war back out of Ivaea and across into Kasire. The Crown isn't worried about it moving closer towards us, he says, but he can 'see further than they can', then alluded to sharing my own foresight. Which rankled, but didn't surprise me, the foolish old coot..." His pace had finally slowed, but his eyes continued reeling with notions and conclusions. Taliel drew him to another stop and slipped her arms around him. He didn't seem to notice. "The Crown's ignorance is increasingly surprising, though not unexpected. But Malson's dissatisfaction and willingness to move against it is alarming. He becomes more suspicious with every pass of the sun, and for the life of me I can't think what he's possib--"
She caught his lips in hers, and his rigid muscles dropped and loosened in a single satisfying instant. The atmosphere evaporated like mist; the chill serenity rushed back in. His hands finally unclenched and sought her hips, where they rested with intent equal to the sudden passion of his kiss.
He broke off without warning.
Taliel staggered and stared up at him, perplexed, then followed his gaze around to the left while her heart thumped up into her throat.
A woman, skin as silver as the moon, hair as black as a magpie's feathers, stared back at them from the trees in silence. Her eyes were biting, unbefitting their soft, lavender colour, and they lingered on Taliel the longest.
Salus didn't even sigh at the intrusion. He straightened, released her hips, and stepped towards the arrival with resolution. "I might be a while," he said with a fleeting smile of apology, but she could see that some other matter had already consumed him. She nodded and smiled back. Her eyes returned immediately to the woman.
Salus didn't notice the stare between them. And a moment later, they were gone.
His stomach leapt into somersaults. He thought he'd been ready for the teleportation, but it seemed that even when he knew it was coming it still turned him inside out. "Did I interrupt?" He heard the elf ask, to which he gave the quickest answer he could while steadying his nausea with deep and careful breaths.
"I didn't think so. You were quick to dismiss her. I'm glad you have your priorities straight."
A frigid realisation pierced his heart. He whipped around, searching the darkness behind them, but of course Taliel was nowhere to be seen. A regretful sigh rounded his shoulders, but the moment was done. And he was sure Taliel understood.
Smothering the renewed wash of dizziness, he looked around himself instead. He quickly found nothing to see but grass dotted with scattered trees, clusters of rocks and dry straw.
And an abyss yawning open inches from his toes.
He blanched and staggered backwards. "I thought we were going to Halen."
"Yes," Liogan replied lightly, peering into its depths like a child into a bucket. "This is it."
He stared at her, searching for any signs of tasteless amusement in her foul eyes, but he found nothing but a chillingly detached observation. The abyss stole back his attention.
She was mistaken. She had to be. Though badly rent, the old village still stood, albeit in ruins, but here there was nothing but a few piles of stone and frayed bundles of what could perhaps have been thatch, and the chasm itself was much too wide. An ominous, burning glow even rose in the near distance. They were close, perhaps - the familiar scent of farmland, heat and the grass of the northern steppes coloured the warm breeze, as well as that same strange, familiar peacefulness. But this...
Even so, his eyes grew in averse comprehension. "It can't be."
"Oh but it is. Now come along." The elf stepped away and followed the crumbling line of the chasm, leaving him to trail absently behind her as he peered over into the depths. Slowly, the slivered moonlight revealed the trophies wedged in the endless darkness: first, the same weathered rubble and thatch, then whole fragments of wall, of floor; fractured doors and what could have been a wardrobe lodged where the chasm narrowed or turned. His blood chilled. And it was all still far too little for a village of three dozen.
He couldn't drag his eyes away, even as a burning fury set his heart alight. "When did this happen?"
"About three days ago. But that's not important." She drew to a short stop, folded her arms with both elegance and self-importance, and cast her gaze down the length of her fine nose towards him. "To business: stand here. Now concentrate on your turquoise ripples." She waited first for the ire to leave his face, then the struggle. "Push them." Her hand raised at the sight of the words forming on his lips. "You know how."
A growl rattled in his throat, but he squashed down his irritation and closed his eyes.
The magic hummed around him; he'd found the ripples in moments, and it took only a little more concentration against the turmoil to locate their edges. Now he had only to cast against it. Anything would do, the magic needed only a catalyst. It was simple. He just had to release his magic.
In that moment, the matter became infinitely more complicated.
Doubt bustled in, dragging the gravity of his task behind it to drown any avenue of sense he could make. His jaw clenched, his mind clouded, and his concentration twisted and thundered onto nothing more than trying to ignore it. But all the while the voice grew only louder.
The sudden brush of the tranquil breeze coiled around him as softly as silk. Almost immediately, his tensions began to ease. He fell into its comfort willingly, his heart growing lighter with every slackening beat - until something foreign snatched him and evoked a sudden and unnatural warning in the depths of his gut. There was a sharp edge to the breeze, faint but sinister, and he realised that in the passing of his doubt, his attention had fled with it.
With effort, he dragged himself out of the lull, pushed the serenity away, and locked his mind squarely onto his impossible task.
No. No, not impossible. It was simple. Simple. He knew how to do it, and it had to be within his capabilities or Liogan wouldn't have brought him here yet...unless of course she sought to embarrass him in order to make a point. About distractions, most likely. She'd certainly picked her moment to arrive...
No. Now he really was letting himself get distracted. And the longer he took to act, the worse the burden became and the nearer that unnatural peace slithered back towards him.
A spell. He needed a spell. ...What spell? Any spell? Light? Fire? Heat? Would something so small and simple really work against such potent magic? Surely it needed something grander... A thought slipped in, an outrageous idea: could he possibly draw the land back together?
He stalled. As wrong as it felt, as heinous, though it grated against every thread of his principles, he knew that he needed these rifts left open. Turunda needed them. Sealing them wasn't an option.
But that in itself presented him with a route of action.
He steeled himself and silenced the chatter of his sabotaging spectre, raised his hands and began contorting his fingers. He did what he could with the signs he new, weaving pieces from the few relevant spells he'd learned and released them with as much confidence and focus as he could find. But he had no way of knowing if his attempt to break the land had succeeded, for the earth began to shake too immediately to follow the thought.
He heard the ground beside him crumble, felt the daunting chasm widen, and watched with his mind's eye as a new crack began to form
, splintering away from the main body and snaking north-east at speed. His heart lurched in alarm.
"Temper it," he heard her command.
"How?!"
"You know how."
He snapped a strangled curse but immediately tightened his focus, refining the power, flow and intent of his spell to wall in the sides of the escaping ripples. There was no time to panic nor entertain his doubt.
"Now get ahead of it...that's it..."
The walls moved ahead, leading by an inch, paving a gulley that funnelled back into the chasm. Stubbornly, the magic tried continuously to regain its freedom, to spill over, surge back ahead and veer off to wreak its own destruction. Sweat rolled down his jaw and his pulse began to throb in his skull, but Salus managed to keep it in check.
"Now steer it."
"Where?" His voice was strained.
"Ausokh."
He barely managed to maintain his hold. "Ausokh's alread--"
"Which makes it perfectly receptive. Now steer it."
Dizziness gripped him, spinning behind his eyes. More splinters broke away from his channel, but there was nothing he could do. He could only just maintain his concentration on the main body, which, slowly, began at last to move east.
The tremors of the ground deepened beneath him.
"Weave your magic into it."
"Ho--"
"You know how. Encourage it, reinforce the momentum, create an undercurrent - anything to keep it moving."
'Weave it in... A command to keep moving...'
But his mind was slowing in fatigue. He could feel his strength waning - and in noticing it, it crumbled. A hot surge of panic seized him as he fought to get it back, and it took him a long while in his struggle to notice that the chasm had continued unerringly on towards the east without his guidance. Then, above the tremendous rumbling, came Liogan's grunt of approval. He wasn't completely sure what he'd done, but in that moment, exhaustion triumphed and his efforts finally shattered.