Enchantress (The Evermen Saga, Book One)

by James Maxwell

  Ella felt a chill in her breast. What was Killian saying?

  "The Primate said you might be able to tell me the location of the Alturan Lexicon."

  "The location? How would I know? Only the High Lord and the High Enchantress know where it’s kept."

  Killian stayed silent. Ella felt lost, adrift. She took Killian by the hands. "Tell me!"

  "I’ll tell you," Killian said, regarding her with grave eyes. "You deserve to know." He gripped her hands in return.

  "Many years ago, there was a war between your house and Tingara. The Halrana fought also, and the Petryans."

  "The Rebellion," Ella said.

  Killian nodded, "It was when you were only a babe. The Alturan High Lord, Serosa, was captured by the Emperor at the end of the war. He was given up by the man closest to him, Tessolar."

  Ella looked into the distance, "They call him Serosa the Dark. They say Tessolar wanted to end the war, but Serosa wouldn’t listen."

  "Whatever happened, the Alturan High Lord was scheduled to be killed by Moragon, the Emperor’s executioner. In an attempt to save her husband’s life, High Lord Serosa’s wife visited the Primate to see if he could intervene."

  Ella looked up. This was a part of the history that she had never heard. "I didn’t know that. What happened? Did the Primate help her?"

  "He said he couldn’t help. So Serosa’s wife offered the Primate the only thing she thought might sway him. As the High Lord’s wife, she knew where the Alturan Lexicon was hidden. She copied part of the book and offered to give the Primate more if he would help her.

  "Her attempt was in vain. Serosa was executed. They crucified him on the Azure Plains, while his wife looked on from the walls of Sark."

  Ella put her hand to her mouth.

  "The Primate had no use for the information Serosa’s wife had given him, or so he thought. The templars had no lore, what would they want with it? Until one day Primate Melovar Aspen discovered a passage he’d missed earlier. It said that it was possible for a Lexicon to be destroyed. There was a method of changing essence into something else. The Primate came to a conclusion. If he could destroy all of the Lexicons, he could remove magic from Merralya completely.

  "The Primate investigated, spoke to the other loremasters, but none of the other Lexicons mentioned this new substance. He knew that the only place he could get more information was from the Alturan Lexicon.

  "So the Primate visited the woman, who was still traumatised by the death of her husband. He used her fatherless children to threaten her, but it was no use. There was a new High Lord, Tessolar, and the Alturan Lexicon had been moved."

  Killian took a deep breath. "The Primate gave the woman a choice. She was beautiful, you see. He told her that she had to marry Tessolar, and get the Primate what he needed, or he would kill her children."

  The pieces finally connected in Ella’s mind. "Lady Katherine," she whispered. She remembered the day High Lord Tessolar’s wife had died as clearly as yesterday. She must have cast her body into the Sarsen. Katherine had drowned in her slippers.

  "Yes, Lady Katherine. She was Serosa’s wife, and then she was Tessolar’s. She did what she had to, to save her children.

  "Tessolar didn’t want a reminder of his predecessor in his household, so he forbade her to speak to Serosa’s children, and gave them to the rearing of a soldier, who would ensure Katherine never broke her agreement."

  "Brandon," tears ran down Ella’s face.

  "Katherine’s children were threatened twice over. I’m sure your mother loved you, Ella, but she wouldn’t have dared speak to you. It must have torn her apart."

  Ella remembered the day Lady Katherine had come to her, fearful, saying goodbye. She remembered the connection she had seen in Katherine’s eyes.

  Ella cried at her loss, at what could have been.

  "Just remember that what she did, she did to protect you. She probably copied the Lexicon for the Primate in bits and pieces, believing that if she gave him everything he needed, he would kill you. In the end it must have been too hard."

  "I… I can’t believe it."

  "It’s true, Ella. I learned the tale from the Primate; I suppose he thought it might be useful to me. Your father was Serosa Torresante, High Lord of House Altura. Your mother was Lady Katherine. I’m sorry that you had to find out this way."

  Killian stood up. He walked to the window, apparently lost in thought. He looked outside for a moment.

  "What is it?" Ella said. "What’s there?"

  "Nothing. I’m going to go downstairs. I’ll get some food sent up. I might be a while. Ella," he turned. "I’m sorry, Ella. The Primate… Don’t feel bad. I think he’s using us all."

  He left without a word.

  Ella sat there for some time, thinking about all that had been said. She eventually wiped her eyes and sat up.

  Then Ella realised she was alone. Alone with the Lexicon. She was in a foreign city, a strange place where she had great difficulty fitting in, despite the hooded cloak Killian had bought to cover her skin and hair. It lay on the back of a chair.

  Ella looked at the cloak, and then looked at the window.

  She stood up. Then a thought occurred to her, and stooping, she rummaged through Killian’s bag. Her fingers found something. With a sensation of triumph, she withdrew one of her scrills, a moment later finding the second. Her heart hammering, she dug through the bag until she finally found her bottle of essence.

  She almost smiled. She’d had a feeling Killian would never have thrown them away. Ella had now significantly increased her chances of a successful escape. All she needed to do was escape Petrya and find the High Enchantress.

  Some of the matrices she’d seen in the Lexicon for invisibility were far more complex and powerful than anything she’d seen before. She picked up the book, feeling its strange slippery texture between her fingers.

  The door to the room suddenly burst open. Ella was completely blinded by a white light. A piercing shriek filled the air. She fell to the floor, screaming in pain, her hands over her ears.

  Then the noise was gone, the light vanished. She was still blinded. Ella heard a voice, a man’s voice. "It’s just the girl. The other one, he knew we were here. He’s long gone."

  "We have what we came for. Well done, bladesingers. Let us not stay a moment longer in this place."

  Ella knew that voice — she would know that voice anywhere.

  It was the voice of the High Enchantress, Evora Guinestor.

  46

  People of Merralya, I will be sad to leave you. I fear for the fate of the world when I leave it in hands that do not keep at arms length the gifts that have been offered to me. I hope the Tingaran Empire will long be known as a state of benevolence.

  — Memoirs of Emperor Xenovere I, 368-1, 381 Y.E.

  "AND then?"

  "And then he left the room."

  The High Enchantress gripped Ella firmly by the elbow as the bladesingers — their green armoursilk covered with grey travel cloaks — cleared the way. There were just the three bladesingers, no other soldiers. Ella couldn’t believe the courage of the High Enchantress, she’d entered an enemy city lightly guarded, with no idea of what she would find.

  Evora looked from side to side as she walked, her strides betraying her haste. "You truly believe he had a change in heart, and that was why he left you with the Lexicon? Could it have been that he was in love with you?"

  Ella blushed. How to explain her complex relationship with Killian?

  "I don’t know. I don’t understand myself really."

  "Ella," the High Enchantress said. She looked Ella in the eye, squeezing her arm. "You did well. You did very well. The promise I saw in you was no lie."

  Ella turned an even deeper shade of red.

  They pressed themselves against a wall as a throng of Petryans ran past to join the great crowd piling into the town square ahead of them.

  "Trouble ahead," one of the bladesingers said.

  The
y could see squares of armed men formed up, red and black colours decorating their heavy armour.

  "We need to get through the square," another said.

  "Find another way," the High Enchantress hissed.

  The bladesinger nodded to his two fellows and ran off. The other two pressed Ella and the High Enchantress behind them. Ella carried the Lexicon and her tools in her shoulder bag. Part of her wished the High Enchantress would take them from her, another part wanted to keep learning, to find out what she could from the knowledge within the book’s metallic pages.

  "Is it us?" Ella said in a small voice.

  "No, I don’t think so, Ella," the High Enchantress said.

  Ella looked out into the square. Someone was addressing the files of soldiers, a man dressed in the red robes of an elementalist. On his back was an emblem, the teardrop and flame raj hada. Voices suddenly rose up from the crowd, cheers and shouts. At first there was such a din that the words were indistinguishable. Then they became clear.

  "War! War! Death to Raj Halaran! Death to Raj Altura!"

  The two remaining bladesingers exchanged glances.

  "Nothing changes," the High Enchantress said sternly.

  The other bladesinger returned. "There is a way, follow me."

  They followed the bladesinger, almost running now in their haste. He led them through several alleys and finally to a small gate in the wall.

  "Urgh, what is that smell?" Ella said.

  "Refuse gate," said the bladesinger with a grin.

  "Well done, Bladesinger," said the High Enchantress.

  They passed swiftly through the gate. People were running in from the countryside to hear the news; long queues of drudge-pulled wagons were lined up outside the main gate. They soon lost themselves in the crowd and left the city of Torlac behind.

  "We will head south," the High Enchantress said.

  "South?" said one of the bladesingers.

  She nodded firmly. "It is the only way open to us. Now that we have the Lexicon back, we cannot afford to get caught by the Petryans, nor by whatever beast lurks in the darkness."

  One of the bladesingers spoke up. "But south means the Hazara Desert."

  "It does indeed. We’ll find water on the way there."

  "And the tribes?"

  "The tribes are the lesser of the evils. You heard. You were there. We are officially at war with Raj Petrya. The soldiers will be out in force, people will be on the alert for anything suspicious, let alone a group of strange travellers. We stand the best chance in the desert. The Lexicon must make it back to Altura safely. That is our priority."

  They entered a hidden canyon and Ella saw at least three dozen soldiers in Alturan green waiting for them. Evora seemed to breathe in relief — as if fearful they might not have been waiting.

  A worried-looking soldier ran up, a captain by his raj hada. "High Enchantress, what news?"

  The High Enchantress looked about the camp. Sensing an announcement, the soldiers stopped what they were doing and began to gather. Evora waited, letting the tension build until they were all standing below her.

  "Soldiers, hear this. You have come far from home. You have experienced trial and fear. But listen to me, and listen to me well. All has not been in vain." She whispered to Ella, "Show them."

  Evora turned back to the men. "We have it!"

  Ella raised up the Lexicon.

  The cheer was deafening. Ella could see broad smiles across the men’s faces as they slapped each other on the back.

  "The news isn’t all good, however," Evora continued. "We are now officially at war with Raj Petrya."

  The soldiers instantly sobered.

  "Now. Captain," Evora said.

  "Are we heading for Altura?

  The High Enchantress dropped her voice. "It will take days to renew the Lexicon. Time we do not have, not exposed as we are here. There is an army behind us and a strange beast dogging our steps. I fear now even more than I did before, for now that we have what we were looking for it is even more imperative that we return safely. We head south."

  "South?" he said incredulously.

  "South," she said firmly. "We’ll pick up water and head south. Into the Hazara Desert."

  Captain Joram quickly moved the men out. They marched throughout the night, every soldier thinking of the comforts of home. The touch of a missed woman. The taste of fine foods.

  They marched south.

  ~

  THE sun rose across the land, revealing a desolate landscape of tan and dark brown. The red in the rock was absent now. The boulders were not so massive.

  The Alturans had left the trees behind not long ago, and no more could be seen ahead. As the sun rose Ella felt the heat of it, and the day had barely begun. She could hear the groans and gasps of the already weary soldiers. The only ones who seemed unaffected were the bladesingers — as unperturbed as always — and the High Enchantress herself.

  Ella still hadn’t relinquished her burden. The High Enchantress seemed content to let her carry the Lexicon. Ella had transferred her essence and one of her scrills into a pocket in her grey dress, determined not to let them get away from her again. She didn’t have her green silk dress anymore though — it was deep in a lake somewhere in Petrya.

  She wrestled with thoughts and ideas. There was something in Killian’s ability that made sense. Something that had its place deep in the fabric of the history she had been taught. In the myths of the Evermen and the relics of the past.

  She thought of Evrin Alistair’s story about the man who healed the broken body of his love by drawing runes on her skin. Perhaps there was more truth to that tale than the old animator realised.

  The High Enchantress had quizzed her on every aspect of her time away from Altura. Ella had told her everything. Well, almost everything. She’d left out the personal details — her discovery about who her parents were, Killian’s life, his tender moments. She still didn’t know how she felt about him, but she couldn’t get the image of his blue eyes out of her mind.

  How could he have left her like that? He’d simply fled. Again. Ella didn’t know what to think. Where had he gone?

  The High Enchantress was anxious to get back to Sarostar and tell the High Lord of the Primate’s role in the theft of the Lexicons. Ella wondered if Evora also knew about her. Did anyone question what had happened to High Lord Serosa’s children? Or were they too afraid of Tessolar? Likely most believed Serosa’s children had come to some accident, and never made the connection with Brandon’s war orphans. Ella would be surprised though if Lady Katherine hadn’t told some of her closest friends to keep an eye on them — perhaps Rogan Jarvish, or even the High Enchantress herself. Ella would ask her, when the right moment came.

  There was complete silence now except for the wheezing breath of the soldiers and the stamping of their boots. The hours passed in a daze. Marching for a whole night and the entire next day simply seemed too much to ask.

  The scouts had come across an isolated wall of rock that would provide some shade from the burning sun. It beat down now mercilessly. Ella hadn’t known the sun could even grow so hot, it felt as if she was in a furnace. The heat radiated from the pebbled yellow sand. She knew without the thick soles of her boots she would never be able to walk on it.

  The party halted when they reached the rock wall, and one moment Ella was in the sun’s direct gaze, the next she was in blessed shade. She fell thankfully to her knees, simply content to be breathing and out of the scorching heat.

  A soldier passed over a water bottle and she drank deeply, letting some of the water run down her neck and trickle between her breasts. She handed the bottle back.

  The grey dress was hideously hot; it seemed to soak up all of the heat and hold onto it. Not for the first time Ella wished she was wearing white.

  ~

  "MOVE out!" a voice called. Ella’s eyes jerked open with a start. She’d fallen asleep. How long? It couldn’t have been more than a few moments. The soldiers aroun
d her groaned but shot up with alacrity — these were trained veterans after all.

  "Here," a soldier said, smiling. He handed her a hardened piece of bread and some kind of dried meat. She smiled her thanks.

  Suddenly there was a great noise in the distance — a terrible shrieking, snarling sound.

  It was the creature.

  "Quickly! Form up!" Captain Joram called.

  They moved into formation, the scouts on the fringes, the bladesingers in the centre flanking the High Enchantress and Ella. She felt much safer having them around her, but she’d heard the soldiers’ stories, spoken in hushed tones on the march. Whatever the thing was, it had faced a bladesinger and won.

  The pace grew even faster now. Even the High Enchantress began to look weary, unable to hold up her implacable exterior. The bladesingers still seemed calm, but their mouths were set in grim lines. They had a score to settle with the owner of those cries.

  Ella concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Rocks were becoming scarcer now, being replaced with dark yellow sand. Rather than remaining flat, the ground began to rise and fall like the waves of the sea, forming dunes that had to be climbed and then descended, uphill and then downhill, over and over. Looking ahead all Ella could see were dunes, one after the other, like a great sandy ocean as far as the eye could see.

  The heat finally began to slacken as the sun began to fall towards the horizon.

  "We’re on the edge of the Hazara now," Captain Joram said to the High Enchantress.

  She nodded, "Take us in. The creature may fear the open ground."

  It was nearly sundown when one of the scouts ran up, panting. Everyone heard him report. "Men, armed men."

  "Petryans?" Captain Joram frowned.

  "No. The creature, I think it’s with them."

  "Who are they then?" said the High Enchantress.

  "I think they are… Templars."

  "Templars? Here? How many?"

  "Yes, High Enchantress. Perhaps twice our number. The creature. It seems a part of their group."