by T P Sheehan
“Magnus…” Alavia’s voice blew over as a whisper… a warning. The sky, the snow and Alavia’s eyes began to burn white, blinding Magnus for a moment. When his vision returned, Magnus was standing alone in the snowfield, now a forest of birch trees stripped of their leaves and iced over in winter frost.
Magnus’s heart ached and he choked on his emotions. I miss her…
“Magnus, are you okay?”
Magnus opened his eyes and blinked away tears. He saw the concern on Catanya’s face.
“Yes, yes,” enthused Marsala. “Now cast the sticks across the table. Let us see.”
Magnus did so, sending the twelve sticks scuttling across the top of the table. The sticks rolled and spun over one another before coming to a stop.
“Now…” Marsala studied the arrangement of fortune-telling rune sticks. Her eyes carefully moved from one stick to another and back again. She spent quite some time examining the arrangement and then cast her hands over the sticks and whispered a spell—a spell Magnus thought was in gypsy tongue. However, midway through the spell, her voice faltered and a shocked expression washed over her face. Magnus looked from her to the sticks, wondering what the problem was. The sticks were changing. They were starting to form ice on them and soon they were frozen over, just like the birch trees in his daydream. Marsala’s face turned even paler than normal. Magnus watched on, unsure what to do or say.
“Marsala!” Catanya shouted.
Marsala blinked herself back to attention. Then, in one violent swoop, she wiped the table clean of the frozen rune sticks. The black cat arched its back and hissed. Marsala jumped up on her chair, distancing herself from the sticks that were scattered across the floor. Magnus and Catanya looked on in disbelief as the sticks turned luminous white then shattered like glass into a million pieces. Magnus felt a pang of cold shoot through his entire body making him jolt forward from his chair.
“What just happened?” Catanya asked.
“A future kept untold to keep a veiled truth!” Marsala raised her arms, splaying her fingers. Her eyes were as wide as the cats. “But the spell itself is revealed.” She looked to the cat, which hissed again. Marsala nodded and hissed in reply.
“What are you saying?” Magnus asked, shivering from the persistent chill.
“You’ve a spell on you!”
“To keep a veiled truth? There’s no truth to me the whole of Allumbreve will not soon know.”
“What we saw just now was not a spell of fire.” Marsala jumped to her feet and paced about the room, her eyes still wild with wonder. “Frozen, shattered rune sticks,” she mumbled. “That was a spell of the Ice Realm! What truths are hidden, even from you?” Marsala’s accusing finger pointed at Magnus this time.
“I have always been of mixed-blood,” Magnus said.
“Until your blood was replaced,” Catanya added. “Your blood is Thioci’s blood now.”
“Perhaps…” Marsala mumbled.
Magnus felt himself begin to succumb to a familiar sickness—that of ‘Anunya’. He grunted and looked at Catanya who sighed and gave a nod, for she knew what he was going through. Magnus’s vision began to fade. The strange, shooting cold he felt before was quickly washed away by more familiar flushes of heat and nausea, dizziness and perspiration. Through the delirity of Anunya he heard Catanya appeal to Marsala for assistance.
Before long, Marsala was pushing a cup to Magnus’s lips, which he drank from greedily, hoping that whatever she was giving him would work as well as the elixir Eamon had given him back in Ba’rrat. It did, and his faculties returned quickly. Magnus rose from the ground, surprised to see Marsala kneeling in front of him. She lifted his chin and stared deep into his eyes. Magnus did the same, examining the mystic’s bright green eyes—eyes that reminded him of the ‘Meliae’—the seductive creature of the trees back in Froughton Forest.
“Rhuderburry,” she said. “That’s done the trick?” Magnus nodded. “You have been getting sick like this ever since receiving the bond?” Marsala had a serious tone in her voice.
“Aye.”
“That is not right… even for the Electus.” Marsala continued to stare. “Your body should have adapted long ago.” Marsala scratched one of her coloured, matted locks of tangled hair. She turned quickly to Catanya. “Pretty-priestess, when did Anunya subside for you?”
“My fever broke on the fifth day,” Catanya said.
“And you—six months or longer?” Magnus nodded again. It felt like an eternity to him. “Too long… even for the Electus.”
“Then why does it persist?” Catanya questioned. Magnus felt like a child being examined by a healer with a concerned mother asking after him.
“There is a fight within you.” Marsala jabbed a finger toward Magnus. “The blood of the dragon should have taken control by now but something fights back—Something that stakes a claim over you.”
Marsala got up and ran around the room, checking the spines of her books. She searched feverishly, mumbling as she went. Eventually she returned to the table with a large, thickly set book and placed it on the table. Its leather cover was pale blue and embossed with silver glyphs Magnus recognised as ‘Iceralma’—the realmish language of the Ice realm. Magnus knelt by the low set table and studied the book closer as Marsala opened it and leafed through the pages feverishly, licking her index finger every third or fourth page.
“This is a copy of the ‘Iceralem’. It is the almanac of the Ice realm. It was gifted to me from a cousin of mine. Tell me, what do you know of your mother’s ancestors? Which clan was she of—Imnf? Weíra? Rhyder?”
Magnus was most curious as to the relevance of her line of questioning. “She is of the Rhyder clan. None other survived the wars of the north. Her father was an elder. ‘Hasledom’ was his name. He was one of the Rhydermere, as were his sons.”
“And his father before him? Do you know his name?” Marsala seemed to be growing impatient, flicking quickly through the pages toward the end of the book.
“I do not know,” Magnus said. He had no recollection of his mother talking about her grandfather.
“Think!” Marsala insisted.
“I do not know his name, Marsala—I swear to you.” However, he did remember Sarah’s ‘history’ lesson back in the dungeons in Ba’rrat. Sarah said his great grandfather was… “He was the youngest of four sons.” Magnus said.
Marsala pushed a finger firmly into a page of the book. She began to read from it—
“Iisilée, Female Ertwe Ice dragon of the third age.
“Bonded to Hasdereq, the youngest of four sons of the Rhyder clan. Iisilée deceased.
“Hasdereq had one son of his own named Hasledom.
“Hasledom had three sons of his own and one daughter.
“Hasledom’s sons are not named…” Marsala looked at Magnus who realised now what she was alluding to. “Neither is his daughter.”
“You are thinking my great grandfather was Hasdereq? The daughter… is my mother?”
“Indeed—and inheritor of the bond of Ice from Iisilée. Which means you, Magnus, have two powers struggling within you.”
ALAVIA
“Stop.”
The Rhydermere cavalry drew to a halt in perfect formation along the cliffs of the Western Margins. One hundred fifty Astermeers, thrice as many Wardemeers together with their Rhyders, formed a mile long entourage. From beyond the cliff tops the sea winds blew, tugging and furling their dark blue robes and long blonde hair. Calmly, they waited.
Leading the cavalry, Alavia alighted from Isêr—her newly sworn Astermeer. She glanced over the cliffs to the impenetrable storm-grey waves of the Neverseas. The waves slammed against the vertical cliffs with an explosive roar of foam. Alavia drew on the ocean’s salty scent and felt it’s formidable strength permeate her body. It was different to the Ice Seas of the north. It was more temperate, more… forgiving. Even so, she welcomed the ocean’s strength and manipulated it to suit her body’s needs, allowing a curt chill to cours
e through her body.
Alavia turned eastward to look across the J’esmagdlands. Holding dark thoughts at bay, she addressed her first in command—“Remain here.” Her intense, sapphire-blue eyes conveyed her conviction. Such conviction made all but the most steadfast of the Rhydermere take a step back. It was the steadfast among them Alavia chose as her ‘Rhydermaël’—her commanding Rhyders.
Isêr ran.
The Astermeer moved as a white spectre. She carried her foresworn toward the homestead ruins. Isêr possessed flighty energy. Her youth gave her agility. Alavia knew over time such traits would mature into the fortitude Breona had. They arrived at the gravel-strewn courtyard before the burnt carcass of her former home. Beside the still-intact stone well, Alavia alighted once again.
Isêr trod tentatively. Alavia sensed the mare had found Breona’s scent as she sniffed about, paying particular attention to the soot-tainted horse trough. Alavia drew a pale of water from the well and placed it before Isêr to drink.
“Thank you…” Isêr shared her thoughts.
Alavia was hardly listening, but Isêr’s thoughts served to remind her once again of Breona. Alavia learned months ago that an Astermeer had died and was found in the Valley of Shadows. She knew it was Breona. She had experienced an overbearing sense of loss some time before this, when her connection with Breona, which was distant and remote since they had parted ways, had come to a sudden end.
Alavia’s eyes were intense again, staring at the well. Her long fingers reached for a folded towel that still rested on the well’s stone wall. After all these months the towel still held her son’s scent. Her heart skipped a beat. She drew her shoulders back, gripped the pommel of Iisfael—her Icerealmic sword—and drew a terse breath. This was not the first time Alavia had visited here since escaping the Quag prison carriage months before.
Many months before, in a Quag prison carriage headed to Ba’rrat…
‘I beg of you, Alavia,’ Bonstaph had insisted. ‘We have stood together. We do not need to die together. Find our son.’
The prison carriage was in the middle of the Southern Wastelands, beyond the Corville Mountains. Ganister had explained how he rescued Magnus from their burning homestead. She was relieved, until he explained further how he had put Magnus to task—sending him to Guame to get help. As night fell, the merciless Wasteland winds gave over to the cold, northern ice winds.
The night was cold. Conditions were perfect…
To escape, Alavia would need to draw on powers long hidden. Bonstaph knew this and knew what it meant for Alavia to draw on a power she swore long ago to never reveal. But Alavia agreed. She withdrew into a corner of the carriage and began the process of creating a ‘negating’ spell. It was a spell to undo a spell and it was complicated. Alavia had crafted the masking spell many years before when Magnus was only two years old and had just started to exhibit traits of her power. She had been thorough with its execution. No stone was left unturned in creating an untraceable spell to mask her past and Magnus’s inheritance of it. Alavia’s negating spell would lift the mask for her but keep it in place for Magnus. After hours of manipulation, she wielded the spell. It took but a moment to take effect.
Alavia then braced herself for what was to come. A searing chill coursed through her, plummeting her body’s temperature as low as an Ertwe Ice dragon’s. She held firm to a steel bar of the prison carriage and it iced over, cracking the steel through. With a twist of the wrist the bar snapped clean. She had her way out. Alavia gave Bonstaph a final embrace. The cold of her body had shocked him.
“Do what ever you have to do,” Bonstaph said.
“I will do far more than that…” Alavia promised.
Bonstaph and Ganister created a distraction. They targeted one of the Quag warriors, ridiculing him to the point of eliciting fury. Other Quagmen moved in to diffuse the situation. Alavia then lowered her body temperature ever further and created a ward to mask her scent. In the dark chill of night, she was untraceable to the patrolling wyverns.
She slipped away.
Alavia had then headed directly west to the coast and followed the goat tracks along the cliff faces of the Western Margins. Cloaked in darkness and cold as ice, Alavia encountered several wyverns patrolling the coast. They were unable to feel her heat, unable to draw her scent. Once Alavia was safely north of the Corville Mountains, the wyverns no longer patrolled and she was able to lift her ward and breathe heat back into her body. She then walked overland to the J’esmagd homelands. The lands had been abandoned by the Quag—their job done and the fighting shifted to the Uydferlands.
Alavia had sat on one of the collapsed hardwood beams that lay brittle on the foundation of her destroyed home. She reflected on the fact that this was the second time her family had been destroyed. Alavia screamed long and hard, way beyond the point of pain, stopping only when her breath was depleted. She coughed blood. An ice chill rose from her chest and washed over her throat making her shudder as it healed the wound. Alavia swallowed hard, pushing the chilled blood down her throat and in its place she embraced an icy demeanour.
Sweeping debris aside with her boots, Alavia knelt to the stone foundations, beneath which her path was hidden. It had always whispered over the years like a ghost of the past, waiting for such an occasion. Even so and even now she refused to see it as inevitable. Nothing writes the fate of the Rhydermere. Nor even the fate of their Electi. Alavia’s gaze focused on a specific stone in the ground. It was the very stone from which she had averted her attention for eighteen years. She gave no pause for reflection on what it meant and what she was about to do. Instead, Alavia recalled the gypsy enchantment Sarah had shown her to keep her past hidden beneath the earth—“Lif letta.”
The stone rose an inch. Alavia drew the stone out with fingertips, revealing the hidden chamber beneath. She fed an arm into the chamber and removed three packages wrapped in suede and bound tight with fine, silver rope. A second spell was Icerealmic—“Sho-ve-aal.” The silver ropes flashed a white light, releasing their hold on the packages. Unwrapping them, Alavia was immediately confronted with her Icerealmic past. The first package contained her tailored Rhyder outfit in storm-grey with pointed grey knee-high boots. The second contained her long, azure robe. The remaining package she had kept wrapped.
Alavia had then carried her belongings to the stone well. She drew a pail of water and removed her clothes, washing herself clean, paying special care to her long, blonde hair. She dried with a folded towel that still rested beside the well—it smelt of Magnus… He must have used it to wash when last he was here…
Alavia had then dressed in her Rhyder outfit, her boots and her robe. She wrung her long, straight hair free of water and brushed it out, leaving it to hang over her robe where it fell to her waist. She then reached for the third package, hesitated, and cast her eyes once again at her destroyed family home. This had been her second chance at life. It was a new beginning with a fate unwritten. It was a beautiful life.
Alavia threw back the wraps from the long object and stared at it—a five-foot sword carved from the purest of fleu-steel. Its name was ‘Iisfael’. It was an Icerealmish longsword that belonged to her father. The sword was named after an ice dragon as all Icerealmic swords were, and Iisfael was Iisilée’s mother. Alavia had inherited it as the sole survivor after her father’s murder and the subsequent murder of her siblings and grandfather. And now, perhaps, her son would not survive to inherit it, or the powers of his forbearers. In her ice-cold mind she had assumed the worst. History was being repeated and hiding from it would no longer suffice.
Alavia wrapped fingers about the grip of Iisfael’s pommel, felt the texture of the white leather, and drew it from its matching scabbard. A flash of pale blue light had danced about the hilt of the sword and across Alavia’s hand—as if familiarising itself with her—before spiralling down its blade and dissipating. “Not good enough,” Alavia whispered. She gripped harder. This time the blue light built, at first from the pores in
the back of her hand then creeping along her fingers and down the length of the sword. The Icerealmish steel of the blade revealed Icerealmic glyphs that blazed a bright ice blue. She had then walked to the horse trough and thrust the blade deep into the water. With an eerie crackling sound, the water froze over. Alavia drew Iisfael from the ice and sighed a long, deep breath until the blade had calmed, mellowing back to its resting state of white.
Alavia had then heard movement behind her. She spun the sword about and pointed it toward a pair of dark eyes that were staring at her from behind. It was ‘Staeda’—Bonstaph’s brown Wardemeer horse. Staeda stood, waiting for her response. Alavia sheathed her sword. “Come.” Staeda came as told, walking out from the half-burned stables, still wearing a saddle across his back. Alavia gathered the wraps from her parcels and rest them over the well’s wall. She folded the towel again and drew one more time on Magnus’s scent, placing it where she found it. She then climbed into Staeda’s saddle and charged northward to the Ice Realm and the lands of the Rhydermere beyond the Ice Breach.
At the homestead in the J’esmagdlands again, a full winter, spring and half a summer later, Alavia replaced the towel for the last time on the stone well. It would indeed be the last time she would stand here—that she was certain of. The sound of horses galloping from the west drew Alavia from her reverie.
“I said to remain where you were,” Alavia said as the approaching Rhydermaël and two flanking Rhyders drew their steeds to a stop.
“A messenger brings word, Ma’am—from the south,” the Rhydermaël spoke.
“How far south?”
“Ba’rrat.” The Rhydermaël alighted and came to Alavia with a scroll.