by Kim Wedlock
But here his validation lay in dust.
Finally, despair dropped him to his knees while broken sobs cut through his shivers, and he slumped against a fallen wall, exhaustion and cold racking his body. He looked down at his hands. They were mottled red and white, and shaking violently. He'd left his blanket behind in his rush to escape. But he wondered if that would really matter all that much.
He cursed sluggishly as water seeped through to his skin, and he discovered that the snow had frozen to his shirt. He pulled himself free, but the compacted snow came with him, as well as a clump of frozen soil, roots and moss. It was by chance that he was still capable of noticing that the stone beneath it was bare.
He frowned and sat up, breaking the snow off of his shoulder, then pulled at another patch from the broadest surface. Another sheet of humus broke away. And there were etchings beneath. Unfamiliar etchings. Etchings that had been embedded in a soil mound, a mound into which many thought the stone had been intentionally embedded like so many others. Not a mound that had built up against it over such time only the gods could account for.
Suddenly, the cold was forgotten, and he desperately began pulling, ripping and digging the snow away, resorting even to using the edge of his notebook to scrape off the more stubborn patches.
Quick, light footsteps padded swiftly across the ground. He turned at the very last minute and instinct ejected a blast of energy from his palm, hitting the speeding shape directly and throwing it backwards.
Panic tore his eyes wide, and a curse tumbled from his numb lips. It was a sword after all.
With frightening speed, Petra was back on her feet. A fury of red, she fell upon him again, led by the tip of her sword, sharp, glinting and driven by a hand free of any restraint. Not a sound crossed her lips as she descended. But her eyes screamed for blood.
"Rathen told you..." He scrambled away, throwing another clumsy spell out behind him, and kicked up as much snow in his wake as he could. But she easily side-stepped the strike, which crashed and splintered a tree, and stormed on through the billowing snow. He found his feet at last and dashed witlessly back towards the chasm. She caught him before he made three steps.
"It's not what you think!" He cried, hitting the snow with a thump. "I'm so sorry! Please! Please, believe me!" He flipped over to find her standing silently above him, her sword raised, as dark and obdurate as a revenant. With a pathetic gasp, he threw himself immediately to the side. The tip came down right beside his ear. He heard the force of its impact reverberate through the steel. His blood turned to ice.
Desperation threw another blast into her left leg, and he rolled away to the right as she crumpled beneath her weight. She growled a curse and set after him again, but swore as she stumbled and pain shot through her inner thigh. The murder in her eyes darkened.
"Oh, Vastal save me..." He wheezed, turned and sprinted once again for the chasm, reluctant to fire a fourth ungainly strike and risk stoking her bloodlust. The rend was within sight.
The rattle of chains clinking through the chill air sent a sudden heat of alarm through his limbs, and panic threw him swiftly to the side. But he was too quick. Only after his adjustment did the repetitive whooshing and rattling end, and he processed it too late to evade again. The chain wrapped itself heavily about his legs.
He hit the ground hard and skidded a few feet further across the snow, stopped only by the reversed impetus of his own confused direction of magic towards the edge of the hidden chasm.
But the next strike didn't come.
He shoved himself quickly to his feet while the foulest oaths tore free behind him, and discovered her suddenly restrained. One arm barred across her chest, another about her waist, she thrashed, howled and kicked, but Garon remained as firm as a statue, his arms locked and immovable. Her sword was on the ground. His own was still in its sheath.
"I heard you telling him!" She was screaming even as she slipped her arm down and behind herself for one of the daggers at her back. "I heard the lies!" Garon pulled her tighter against himself. She may have had the blade, but she couldn't free it from its sheath, nor her hand from its entrapment.
"They weren't lies!" Anthis explained quickly, desperately, wrestling his legs free to run if Garon's hold failed. "Your father was a killer! He murdered people, Petra!"
"No!!"
"Yes!" He stepped towards her imploringly, foolishly, then jumped back as she began kicking savagely at the air in front of her, using Garon's sturdy frame to her advantage. "He was an unknown bounty - I had a hunch, so I followed him, I watched him, I waited - I wanted to make absolutely sure! And I s...I saw him do it! There was no mistake, Petra, I'm sorry!"
"LIES!"
"They're not!" He pressed, eyes fixed to her entrapped hand. "He didn't enjoy the fight, Petra, he enjoyed choking the life--"
"Anthis."
His pleading eyes flicked quickly towards Garon. He was giving him the chance. He couldn't waste it. "He wasn't the man you thought he was."
"He was a good man!"
"To you!"
"An honourable man!"
"Beneath an audience!"
"Anthis." Garon's voice was steady. "Leave. Now."
He stared at Petra helplessly. She hadn't stopped thrashing, and her eyes were bestial. There was nothing he could say that she would hear. And the moment she escaped the inquisitor's grip, she would kill him.
While excruciating shame twisted knots in his gut, he turned, and he fled.
"How much did you get for him? Huh?!"
"He didn't turn him in," Garon said calmly. "He had no physical proof." Trapping the crossguard with his hip, he pulled her dagger hand free, but she whirled on him before he could grasp her shoulders. Screaming and crying in rage, she hit him relentlessly, her fists tightly balled, but he braced against every strike and lifted his chin away to protect his face. She fought him zealously as he tried to steady her, and forced her instead to the ground.
She spat in his face while he pinned her legs and held down her wrists. "You bastard." Her voice was venom. "You knew Anthis had done it. You lied to me when you said you didn't know back on that damned island! You knew! You knew!"
"I didn't know, not then--"
"Oh-hoh - so you worked it out, did you? When? How?!"
"I read the reports of Durhan's murder, I recognised the wound down the length of the arm. But as for Anthis, it wasn't until he gave you back your locket. I saw the look on his face when he saw the picture. But his claims weren't unfounded - the murders stopped after your father's death."
But she had stopped listening. Though she speared him with a caustic glare, her thoughts moved clearly through her eyes. She was recalling the horrendous sight of her father's slashed body, and seeing, perhaps for the first time, the long, insignificant cut down the inside of his forearm. Her eyes softened in disbelief. "It was in front of me all along..." The poison returned. "And in front of you, O Wise Inquisitor."
"All right. Say I had known sooner. What would it have done if I'd told you?"
"Why? Because we 'need' his skills?"
"It has nothing to do with that. You would kill him for vengeance."
"I still will!"
"Petra! You must know that I - none of us - can let that stand! For his safety and yours! You can't let hate and vengeance consume your existence! You can't let yourself be defined by it! Life is so much more than that - you are so much more than that!" He said nothing while she laughed, and let her kick herself free. He stormed back onto her once she found her feet, gripping her tightly by the shoulders. "Laugh all you like, but you've been screaming these kinds of sentiments at me for long enough. I'm doing my best to create some kind of existence alongside my work, and I'm doing that for you. Because, as irritating as you are, I knew that you were right. Just as you know now that I'm right. You can spit on me, you can kick me, you can drive your blade right on through me, but that won't change the facts. Vengeance doesn't quiet the heart, Petra. It consumes the soul."
He sighed to himself when she turned and ran off, but she'd headed in the opposite direction to the camp. He let her go, counted to ten, and walked on after her, following her tracks. People got hurt in the cold. He wasn't about to let it happen under his watch.
Chapter 57
Salus grunted as the August sun bounced in through the window from the snow-blanketed city and blinded him out of his thoughts. His foul expression darkened. With a restless sigh, he ceased his agitated pacing. "A rescue is too big a risk. Doana will have planned for it. But leaving him there is absolutely not an option."
"Grant is a portian. He will not speak."
"Teagan," he snapped with the same pestilent irritation that had fringed his mood all morning, "Doana knows about us. They know how to kill us, how to deceive us and how to capture us. They will also know we won't be broken so easily, and if they employ the same kind of tactics we do in response to that, willingness will have nothing to do with it! Doana cannot be underestimated again!"
"And neither can your subordinates." Teagan didn't flinch beneath the bristling look. "What are you proposing?"
"We need to remove him."
He stared for a moment in disbelief. "You mean dispose of him."
"It's the only way we can keep Doana in the dark and avoid losing any more of our own."
"And what of the others? He isn't the only informed agent out there - the others haven't been captured, but what will you do if that changes?"
"They've not been captured because they've not made the mistake to learn from," he growled. "But that one mistake could be as good as handing over our war plans and the key to our back door. Grant has made that mistake. He will have to be their lesson."
"Sir, after all he's done--"
"And all he's learned--"
"This is his first mistake!"
"And it will be his last! We can't risk them extracting his information!"
"So you wish to kill him?"
He speared Teagan with a venomous look. But as his next words formed on his lips - the reminder that he was Keliceran, and they were his decisions to make - another voice spoke up in his mind. A familiar voice, considered, archival; a voice that rang with detachment and truth. It repeated an ancient thought. A bygone conclusion. A conclusion he had reached himself in the bitterest moment of his life. '...done too well...perfect record...inevitable...threat to the safety of the country...'
'You give the order of death to the guilty and innocent alike.' The voice had changed. He realised with horror that it was his own. 'And even to your own kind when they've outlived their usefulness, or if they may possibly become a threat. And yet you believe that I am the one who is dead inside.'
He swallowed hard.
Suddenly, for a terrible moment, he understood what Elina had done. He saw the necessity of his predecessor's actions because, this time, he was the one making that very same decision.
'But with one difference,' he was quick to amend, 'Grant has already been captured. I had not.'
He could feel the wideness of his eyes and looked up quickly to find Teagan staring past him towards the wall. But he was a perceptive man. He'd seen it. Salus wondered what he was thinking, as Teagan had once been the one tasked with such a duty, and had refused to do it.
He swallowed again, forcing his horror aside, and straightened in defiance to the past. His was the right decision. "We do what must be done."
"Of course, Keliceran." Teagan's voice had steeled. Perhaps he had reached the same conclusion.
They both snapped around at the sudden knock on the door, then Taliel burst inside and thrust a tiny scroll into Salus's hand. "Word from Stoke Rass," she explained quickly. "They're heading to Sagestone."
His anger collapsed to fervour. Salus pulled open the parchment urgently, a glint of mania in his eye. "How can Dana be sure?"
"She overheard it," she replied, even as he read the shorthand. "The inquisitor asked the bartender if there was any talk of trouble around Sagestone - specifically magic. The bartender was wary, asked why he wanted to know. Made out that he was following a lead on the rebellion, heading off an impending attack. The bartender believed him and talked."
"Overheard? That was clumsy..."
"Or was it intentional?"
Taliel glanced nervously towards Teagan while Salus descended back into harsh-eyed thought. "No," he said a moment later, "they'd have made more noise if it was intentional. As it is, it's too subtle. An accident brought about by distraction. From Rae's reports, they're preoccupied with fighting amongst themselves. Whatever they're up to, it's putting a strain on them."
"That doesn't mean they're heading to Sagestone."
"They wouldn't have asked after dangers if they weren't, Teagan."
"What if this is just another case of mistaken identity? Why would they slip up now?"
The look Salus gave him was deadly, but brief. When he turned back to Taliel, the volatility in his eyes had shifted towards excitement. "We know where they're going to be, and they're distracted. This is an opportunity. Get me a report on Sagestone, as detailed as possible - then I can get out there and stop them in their tracks."
"Go up against Koraaz yourself?"
"Perhaps we should consider this further before--"
"Quiet!" The pair obeyed in a heartbeat. "I remind you that they've thwarted everyone else I've sent after them - even killed a portian. But for once, we are a step ahead, and I'm not going to lose this chance by leaving it in someone else's hands! Whatever he and the elves are up to, it must be stopped immediately!"
"Forgive me, sir," Taliel appeased hurriedly, "but at the least, you mustn't go alone."
"I don't intend to. Koraaz is strong, and if he's working with the elves, there's no telling what tricks he's learned... No, I won't be going alone." His eyes flicked deliberately onto her, and for a moment, dread crashed like a wave over her face. He smiled apologetically, affection softening his eyes a frightening degree. "Don't worry, I would never put you in his path. But you've been asking to help, and now I think you can. And it's important." He moved towards the desk. "I want you to go to Gennith's Point and plant this." He withdrew a small and strikingly ordinary pebble from a drawer and placed it in her hands. She frowned down at it in open confusion. "Erran created it for use against the Order. It will react to the presence of others' magic, but not to mine. Place it like you did the surveillance spells and then look around. I want to know if anyone else has been sniffing around - Koraaz or otherwise."
"A trap?"
"Gennith's Point is crucial, Taliel. I can't risk it being compromised. It may not react to Koraaz, but if the Order or his pet tribal goes near it, it will trigger."
She turned it over in her hands, peering closely at its weather-smoothed surface. "What will it do?" She looked up when Salus didn't reply, and found his lips tight. Whatever it was, he didn't wish to explain. Her eyes sobered. "Very well. Consider it done." But he caught her arm as she turned to leave.
"Not yet. Wait two days, until Sagestone. Then we'll know for sure he's nowhere near and you can plant it safely. I won't risk him teleporting on top of you."
"Yes, Keliceran." She turned and began to leave, but again Salus caught her and spun her back around. He kissed her firmly. Her heart jumped, her cheeks burned and her blood raged for the endless seconds it lasted.
"Thank you," he said when he released her.
She forced the colour to leave her cheeks and inclined her head respectfully. "I'm only doing my job." Forcing herself into composure, she turned again and was allowed at last to leave. The door clicked shut quietly behind her.
"What do you plan to do?"
Salus's mood darkened again as he returned to Teagan. "I will kill him."
"You will need mages."
"Yes...mages..."
Teagan looked around from the window at the musing note in his superior's voice, but his
eyes were following his thoughts. Neither noticed the concerned crease in his own brow.
"Mages I can trust. Mages who are loyal..." He began again to pace. "We're in the middle of unusual events...perhaps it's time to change the mould and ensure their loyalty. The Order's rebellion is on a tightrope, and when it finally snaps, whether I like it or not, I'll need mages to handle it. And it will snap. And soon..."
"Your mages are already loyal," he said carefully. "None of them are of the same mind as the Order."
"That's not where the danger lies," he snapped. "There are so few of them...and they're all phidipans..."
Panic flashed behind Teagan's eyes, and he couldn't stop himself from taking an urgent step forwards. "No, Salus, mages are too powerful to be given that kind of conditioning - think of the destruction they could wreak! And what if it doesn't take properly? Portians aren't trained to reason, they're trained to obey - they don't think of 'right' or 'wrong', only their orders exist. Completing them is all that matters! If a--"
"And yet," he replied absently, still absorbed in his own frantic thought, "that is not so for you. Which is why I keep you around. You're able to balance that necessity with reason..." His lips turned down further in decision. "It's the only way."
"But--"
"I want all available mages in here now." A sudden thought dragged his eyes towards the window, then spurred him purposefully for the door. "In three hours. Call them in, as many as you can. See it done."
The door closed with Teagan's objections wedged firmly beneath the lump of panic in his throat.