by Elin Macsen
“That was seven years ago,” Philip said curtly. He sneered at the Felidae witch’s sentimentality. “It was in all the papers, but you two were children then. I’m sure there are copies somewhere—you should know what you’re up against. Styx, Cocytus, Phlegethon, Lethe, Eridanus… there could be others, still alive. If you, Victor, are the Victorious Gant, I am sure these are the rivers of Hell who bind the world.”
“In Hell Death’s reign ends, rising to the bounds of Heaven,” Victor recited the second half of the prophecy. He would not let it go.
Philip shook his head. “You tell us. You’re the hero.”
Evelyn excused herself and went to bed, but she could not sleep. No vision of hell she summoned seemed to explain the words. The grammar of the prophecy was precise yet impossible to understand. ‘Death’s reign ends’ was all very well: his dominion might cease, and the tormented shades of Hell might be freed, certainly. But how could his dominion ‘rise to the bounds of Heaven’ after such a defeat? This perplexed her.
She wrestled with the puzzle, but it was obvious that she was missing an essential piece. That night, her dreams were roiled by blood and death. The siege lasted until dawn; she hardly slept.
CHAPTER NINE
RETURN TO CAMBRIDGE
The Gant Estate
West Hall, Brampton
Cumbria, England
Impera under Imperium
July 30th, 1943
The month closed a week later. Brother and sister, mage and Sentinel practiced in pairs every second Victor was free. Evelyn realized at a certain point that they were just using her to hone Victor’s sense of competition, but she didn’t care. She would rather play along as a tool than be forbidden a wand again. When Evelyn came downstairs for breakfast, Lavinia stepped out of the dining room to meet her.
“We’ve a meeting in Cambridge next Thursday, the fifth,” Lavinia said. She was nibbling on a thick slice of bacon. “Yes?”
Evelyn wasn’t sure whether she wanted acknowledgement or assent. She nodded. “Yes.”
The glimmer of a smile reached Lavinia’s eyes. “Don’t tell your brother. It isn’t about him.”
Her heart began to pound. Was it—could it possibly be—a reconsideration after all? She slipped through the morning in a daydream, adrift in seas of forgotten hope.
Sparring with her brother after lunch, the undermage lost her concentration. A spell singed her thigh and brought her back to reality.
Victor jogged forward. “How did I get you so badly?”
She winced at the pain. “You’re getting better. Sorry, I should have thrown up a shield. It was stupid.”
Lavinia applied a salve to the burn, which provided instant relief and accelerated the healing process. Usually she chattered through every duel, but not today.
Philip suggested a break. He and Victor went into the fields, where Victor worked among the farmhands. The tall mage stood by a fence post, seemingly lost in thought. Evelyn watched from the window before she went upstairs.
The magisterial texts were gone. Either they were hidden, or someone had charmed them so she couldn’t find them. At first, she was obstinate in her belief that she ought to be allowed to study the texts. After all, anything she learned might help Victor. If it came to war, she would be wanted on the field. A soldier is a soldier, undermage or otherwise.
Now that the prospect of a return to study was on the horizon, she shrugged off the disappearance of the textbooks. The Sentinel Guard was entitled to protect its secrets. No doubt anyone outside their ranks was a potential enemy.
On the fourth of August 1943, Evelyn Gant and Lavinia Panthera departed from Carlisle on the West Coast Main Line. They had an overnight connection in London and a full day of travel to accommodate the journey. It felt strange to the young woman that they would depart without saying a word to her brother, but she would gladly relinquish control if it meant requalification.
They were not a minute from the grounds of the Gant estate before Lavinia turned to her in the broad backseat of the household sedan.
“You’ll have to hand in that wand, for now,” she whispered. Peter Gant kept his eyes trained on the road. “Don’t mention that you’ve been using it. They’ve never been able to track spells out here in the countryside. Don’t mention that, either.”
Evelyn gladly withdrew her wand from the slender pocket sewn into her skirt and handed it over to the Felidae Sentinel. Her heart brimmed with joy. “Lavinia, what can you tell me of this meeting?”
“You know as much as I do.”
Evelyn looked out the window to hide her indignation. Surely the Alliance had shared more details with her friend. If anything, Lavinia was too friendly and conversational for a Sentinel. It was unlike her to be reticent. The drive lapsed into silence.
At the station, Evelyn hugged her father.
“I’m not sure what awaits me in Cambridge,” she murmured. “Do you know?”
She felt him shake his head. When she pulled away, she saw a crease of concern marring his brow.
“What about the farm?” she asked.
“It will be all right. Go with Lavinia—hurry,” he said. “Your brother will prove himself. I believe you will too, in time. Think of us, Evelyn.”
Confused, elated, and breathless, she rushed after Lavinia. They boarded the train just in time and made their way to their seats as it pulled away from the station. A locomotive powered by steam has limits to its speed, namely, limits of engineering and physics, but Evelyn willed it along by magic as much as she dared inside the safe confines of her head.
Before long, Lavinia suggested a game. They certainly couldn’t draw their wands in public, but they could duel all the same. Each took out a piece of paper and wrote spells as fast as they could think of them, showing the other when they cast an offensive spell. A shield could block, if written in time. Each round ended after the third direct hit. It was a creative exercise. Not all shields could block all types of spells. A hex might sizzle on the exterior of a strong shield of the right type, or sail through and land given a weaker shield. One had to consider one’s strength—and one’s strengths. Evelyn avoided spells she had struggled with in sparring sessions, and Lavinia likewise preserved strength, meting attack and defense as appropriate.
Evelyn never won, but she enjoyed the intellectual puzzle. It took her mind from whatever awaited her in Cambridge.
As they strode across the grounds of Kingsvale College the next day, Evelyn found relief in a climate nothing like the fateful 30th of June. A cool breeze floated over her skin, raising gooseflesh on her arms. She couldn’t tell if it was the chill or nerves. Lavinia was again oddly terse as they strode into the familiar chamber adjoining Abner Sutton’s office.
“Here for Chancellor Sutton,” Lavinia announced as she strode to the secretary’s desk. Evelyn concealed a smirk. She knew the secretary preferred a meek approach. Lavinia’s candor irritated the secretary, who folded her hands over her typewriter. A smile twisted on her rouged lips.
“Have a seat, dear,” she finally managed. “Vice-Chancellor Sutton is in a meeting.”
Lavinia would not be told what to do. She paced back and forth in front of the desk. Evelyn perched in a seat so familiar to her outline that it was nearly worn into comfort. After minutes that felt like hours, the secretary’s receiver vibrated, and she took it in her hand.
“Officer Panthera, Miss Gant, the Vice-Chancellor requests that you join him.” Her tone had changed to one of reluctant respect.
Lavinia pushed through the door and reclined in a chair before Sutton’s desk without sparing a moment to regard the men before her. Evelyn advanced cautiously. She knew Sutton, of course. The man beside him was a stranger. He was a Felidae mage like Lavinia, but lionlike compared to her dark aspect. Though middle-aged, he was tan and flaxen-haired.
“Officer Panthera, a pleasure to meet you,” Sutton said rigidly. “Ah… Miss Gant, once a familiar visitor. It is a pleasure to see you again, I am sur
e. How have you found your absence from our grounds?”
She stalled for a moment, glancing around the office. There was a certain stillness to the room, as if the Vice-Chancellor had dropped in after an extended vacation. A clock ticked in the background. The Felidae gentleman wore a suit and seemed to move with the same entitled ease as her new friend.
“Thought-provoking,” she offered at last.
“I am sure it has been,” Sutton responded mildly. “Though you are to be commended for your patience. The report is favorable: no unlawful magic has been detected, nor any attempts to recover a wand. Officer Panthera and Mr. Park believe you are suited to rehabilitation, and I am glad to hear it. Knowledge is not the enemy, Evelyn. Improper application is your particular nemesis.”
“Yes, Vice-Chancellor.”
By now she was familiar with the former Alliance director’s patterns. He would make up his own mind in the end, and it would be a softer sentence if he was not rushed to a conclusion. She could help him along with agreement and decorum.
“Well, I shall turn this meeting over to Officer Claude Panthera. Sir?”
For the first time since they had entered the room, the Felidae man turned his attention away from his palm. He held an odd magical talisman and seemed more interested in its reactions than either of the two women as they entered the room. An emerald glinted within rings of gold and silver which seemed to move according to their own magic. The officer appeared to have divined some meaning from it. His attention snapped to Evelyn.
“Evelyn Gant, sister of Victor Gant, formerly of Kingsvale College, it is an honor. I learned of your expulsion after the prophecy. We would like to offer you an opportunity to sit for the license of a lower mage.”
Thrumming in her chest, her heart would not be still.
“I’ll do anything, officer,” she breathed.
“Just so. The International Magidae Alliance requires a young person about your age to undertake a mission that cannot be entrusted to a full member of the Alliance. There are certain reasons for this… and, of course, you are hardly qualified for membership, though your brother’s prophecy indicates some compulsion to assist our goals. You are amenable?”
“Of course. Whatever it takes.”
“Excellent. In that case—”
“What do you mean? That’s all you’ll tell her?” Lavinia exclaimed. “Tell her where she is going and why, sir. Tell her the mission. You can’t ship her to Antarctica without giving her that information.”
The leonine mage paused. He placed the revolving talisman on the edge of Sutton’s desk, where it hovered and spun, powered ingeniously by magic rather than clockwork. Evelyn’s lips parted. She had never seen anything like it.
“So be it, Lavinia. We are equals. Watch the jewel. There is another world affixed to our poles. Throughout our world, rifts exist like light shooting through the cavity of a lock. They join odd points. In Antarctica there exists an entrance. It is the only unguarded portal to this underworld. The doorway, if you can call it that, leads directly to Nova Sibersk, or what we would call Arkhangelsk, a Russian city on the edge of Europe. The climate of Sibersk is even more bitter and frigid. The geography is different: jagged mountains rise from the mouth of the estuary. One of these mountains shelters a school known as Monastyr Sibersk. There you may learn—and learn more than magic.”
As he spoke, the emerald glowed and burned. Its composition changed to amber, to ruby: it became different stones within the same setting. Always, the rings spun. They accelerated until she could no longer discern them, fringing the jewel like delicate lace. When he paused, the spinning stopped. It became again an emerald within a cage of rings.
Another world… a breeze alighted on her skin and she shuddered at the chill.
“Yes, I’ll go,” she said at once.
“Tell her,” Lavinia growled. Evelyn wanted to scold her tutor. What could be a greater gift than an opportunity to travel to another world? She would do anything to go there, no matter the cost. If only she could learn and practice magic again, she would do anything. “Tell her about the others.”
“Ah. What my friend—well, ally—means is that we have specific objectives for the mission. The Durov Circle operates in this world. It is lawgiver and judge. So, it is not exactly safe for an Imperian spy… However, the Durov government in Hesper, this other world, is limited compared to the perfect rule of Imperium, and your identity will be concealed through advanced spells. But… there is some risk, certainly. While you are there, your task will be to investigate the disappearance of two of our spies.”
“What happened to them?” She found herself asking the question to be polite. Did it matter? She was going to learn magic in another world. This was a thousand times better even than being readmitted to Kingsvale College.
“Well, they disappeared. We would like you to find out why.”
“Oh, sure,” she nearly sang. What bliss: there were worlds, truly, just like the prophecy said.
“As for your safety, you will be accompanied by Lavinia Panthera. An officer and a spy... I think you will make a sufficiently inconspicuous pair compared to your predecessors, the two young men and their Canidae officer.”
Evelyn could see that Lavinia balked at this. So, it hadn’t been negotiated beforehand.
“The order comes from General Woekoff herself,” Claude inserted before Lavinia could speak. His attention flicked to Evelyn. “Mr. Park will stay with Mr. Gant for now, and soon your brother will study with a more advanced corps of officers and sorcerers. Our world’s hopes are pinned on him. And now, you see, it is our world, pitted against another, that he is destined to save. You do your family credit, Evelyn.”
Abner Sutton clasped his hands together. “A fortunate outcome! One is pleased to see redemption in this world. Complete a final year in Hesper, my child, and the college will gladly sponsor examination and licensure upon your return. Lucky for all of us, I think.”
Normally, a thousand questions would have boiled in Evelyn’s skull. Now her thoughts were quiet, certain: I will see things nobody has seen before. Victor needs my help after all. Maybe it is not quite destiny, but Sutton is right: it is lucky for all of us. I wonder how the air tastes. I wonder if magic is the same there. I will be a mage, a full mage, and a sorceress in time. Now they cannot stop me—not if Victor fulfills the prophecy with my help.
She was dizzy as she rose to shake Sutton’s extended hand.
“I can only thank you,” she said. “I will prove myself, whatever it takes.” Determination rang in her words. Her eyes blazed.
Lavinia, meanwhile, glared at her equal. It seemed that her fate was sealed as well. “Evelyn, I’ll just be a moment.”
As Evelyn waltzed from purgatory to heaven, tears of pride and wonder gathered in her eyes. She was becoming sentimental, like Ivar. Ivar, Victor, dad— the thought occurred to her that she wouldn’t see them again before she left. That was all right. Victor’s birthday was coming up at the end of the month and she would miss it, but that didn’t matter in the greater scheme of prophecy and fate.
They were bound by more than blood. They were bound by words, and she, sister to the hero of Impera, would see the ‘worlds’ of the prophecy before he even finished his training…
Somehow, she knew she wouldn’t have time to say goodbye. But hello, hello to Antarctica, to Monastyr Sibersk, to Hesper… that made up for anything.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
If you enjoyed this prequel, continue the story with Mages and Men, which will is available for pre-order on Amazon and at elinmacsen.com. The release of Mages and Men (Book 1 of The Divine Worlds) is scheduled for July 15, 2021.
If you are interested in becoming an ARC reviewer, please contact me at [email protected]! ARC reviewers receive a free early copy in exchange for an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads. I sincerely appreciate your support. If you have read this far, I hope you loved the prequel as much as I loved writing it.
This story is ded
icated to G.H. Felice, who left our world in 2020.