The Fire Mages' Daughter

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The Fire Mages' Daughter Page 38

by Pauline M. Ross


  And nothing that Ly-haam was doing fitted. Sending riders into enemy territory without troops on foot? Marching straight past a fortress filled with enemies? That was not how they operated. I didn’t understand him, that was the truth of it. Yet I was war leader, it was my responsibility to understand it, to plan for it, to counter it.

  My mind was empty. I had no ideas left in me. That made me a failure. All my life, I’d failed. Failed at being the independent daughter my mother wanted. Failed to become a mage. Failed at my attempts to escape Yannassia’s clutches. Failed to prevent this nightmare war. And Zandara – if only I’d made more effort to befriend her over the years. Now I was single-handedly losing the war. Kingswell was lost already, and it was only a matter of time before the Clans turned their attention to the rest of Bennamore, and the whole realm was destroyed. It was a disaster and it was my fault.

  I was lonely and miserable, and wanted Arran so badly it hurt. If I could just hide away with him in our apartment – no, better still, Zendronia or some other small town. Nothing to worry about except ourselves. No war, no role as war leader or Drashonor, nothing to do except read and be together. A little house, just the two of us, and perhaps some children…

  A tear trickled down one cheek, but I brushed it away angrily. I would not cry. I got up and paced back and forth. The room was small, with plain furniture that reminded me of my bedroom at home. There, I’d spent endless hours in bed, sleeping, waiting for the summer sunshine to perk me up, or for Mother to give me a little magic. Now, I only slept well when Arran was beside me.

  Such thoughts were futile. I had to focus my mind. If I could just think a little harder about it, some solution would pop into my head. Or perhaps tomorrow the mages would find a new spell that would help. Or the commanders would devise some way to…

  Curse Ly-haam to the roots of the earth! If only I could take his magic from him, then all this would go away. Until the next time, perhaps, but it would give us a respite. Give us time to recover, and find a permanent solution.

  Although at the back of my mind, I knew there was only one permanent solution. We would never be safe until Ly-haam was dead. I shuddered, not liking to think about that.

  But where was he? That was the question. He must be far, far away, since I could barely detect him from the fortress.

  And yet…

  That didn’t make sense. He was controlling all these creatures and riders with his mind, and they were right here in Kingswell. Maybe he was here, too? Hidden, somehow, or magically shielded. But if he was within range of his army, he must be within my range, too.

  I sat down, calm again. Here at least was something I could try. Clearing my mind, I reached out with my inner senses, all my focus bent on finding him. At first, I roamed nearby, ignoring the rats and cats in the Keep, and the eagles on the roof, stretching out. Beyond that, I could detect some of the riders, very faintly, but although I was aware of them, they were not close enough for me to take their magic. It was as if a gossamer-thin strand connected me to each one of them, too fragile for me to use. One pull, and the thread would break.

  Ignoring them, my mind floated free. Somewhere out there, Ly-haam directed his riders and filled them with his magically fuelled hatred. And every sun, his power must be growing, as his magic increased. Surely he couldn’t hide that power from me? Wherever he was, I would find him. I let my mind drift onwards, not consciously seeking Ly, but open to whatever connections might appear.

  There!

  Something just on the edge of my awareness, far to the northwest, instantly gone. But now I had something to look for, something to home in on.

  Again! And this time, I held on, pulled it towards me, opened my mind to it fully.

  The anger in him hurled me backwards so hard, I was thrust into the chair-back with painful abruptness. But I held on to him with grim determination. He was not going to slither out of my reach!

  Anger, boiling anger, that was the main emotion swirling through his mind. But beneath that, misery. Despair. Poor Ly. He was utterly exhausted. How much energy it must take, to control all those people and animals. One mind directing them all. And at first, they had travelled all through the night without rest. He was on the edge of collapse. But still the hatred roared through him, and he was helpless to prevent it.

  His magic was detectable, but even though I knew he must be a raging cauldron of magic by now, it was muted to me. Like the riders, I was aware of Ly, but the thread was too thin for me to take his magic, or even to reach into his turbulent consciousness and talk to him. He was beyond talking, I think.

  But I could see through his eyes. At first, just his knees, as his head drooped. Then he lifted it a little, and I saw a room, stone-built, with no furnishings. Ly sat on the floor, one knee bent under him. A stone oil lamp burned on the floor. By its light, I could see a great golden paw. Ly’s lion.

  Then, darkness. And a few heartbeats later, I lost him.

  He was asleep.

  ~~~~~

  For two suns I connected my mind to Ly’s as often as I could. Each time it was easier, but whether because he was becoming more detectable to me, or I was getting better at it, I couldn’t tell. It seemed to me that his anger was waning a little, as exhaustion caught up with him. He would fall asleep without warning, at any hour, but then he would be awake again soon after, he and the lion roaring in unison. Then his head would droop again.

  And he never left the room of stone. Nor were there any windows to give me a glimpse of his surroundings. Was he somewhere in the black-bark forest? Perhaps he was, for the stone room was like none I’d ever seen. But I would have given anything for a look at the terrain. How was I to find him, otherwise?

  And all the while the city burned. The air was full of smoke now, the first fire spreading to neighbouring districts, and two more separate fires springing up, turning the night an angry red. If only it would rain! Clouds loomed over us, dark with promising moisture, but not a drop fell.

  The beasts were seldom seen around the Keep now, driven away from the centre of the city by their fear of the flames. In time, no doubt, they would find their way into the countryside, discover the ready food supply in the fields, and then Bennamore would be lost.

  In desperation, I was driven to try talking to Ly-haam. I was afraid to attempt it, for the connection between us seemed so flimsy, and if I broke it, perhaps he would slip away from me. But then I was getting nowhere with it, so there was nothing to lose.

  I chose a time when he seemed to be at his most alert, late in the morning. I shut myself away in my room at the mages’ house, where I could be undisturbed.

  “Ly?” I whispered, feeling very foolish. Of course, nothing happened. “Ly, are you there? Can you hear me? Demons, Ly, answer me! You were quick enough to talk when you wanted me to go up on the roof. I didn’t want to talk to you then. Well, now I do. I need to know where you are. Ly! Answer me. Ly-haam!”

  The door crashed open, and the two mage guards who’d been watching outside my door came rushing in, swords bared. They looked around, bewildered. “Are you all right, Most Powerful?”

  “Yes, yes. I’m sorry, I was just… talking to myself.”

  They exchanged glances and, without a word, sheathed their swords and stumped out again. The door closed with a soft click.

  “Oh, Ly,” I whispered. “Why are you doing this? Do you hate us so much? Did we really do you such a terrible injury? We dispersed a few small villages, that was all. No one was hurt by it. You could have helped us to harvest the black-bark. We could have given you so much. We could have been friends.”

  The tears poured down my cheeks but I didn’t care. I was stretched beyond endurance, exhausted and miserable and terrified. I threw myself down on the bed and wept for all that might have been, that was now destroyed. It was too much, and I couldn’t take any more.

  I must have slept for a while, for when I next looked up the setting sun was painting the sky in myriad shades of red. Or perhap
s the fires were much worse, I couldn’t tell, and I had no mind to go up to the roof to watch the city burning.

  Automatically, I reached out for Ly-haam.

  “Demons, Ly, why by all the gods did you do this? You’re an evil man, and I hate you!”

  And something shifted in his mind. It was as if the clouds of his aggression had parted and let through a shaft of sunlight. Just for a moment, I was able to reach the real Ly, the man beneath the raging exterior.

  “Princess?” I felt his shock, but then a beam of pure pleasure. “Princess!”

  Somehow I knew it wouldn’t last, and I had to get something – anything – out of him before the clouds rolled back and he was lost to me again. “Ly! Where are you?”

  “Princess! Help me!”

  “Yes, but I need to know where you are.”

  A whisper in my head, no more than a sigh. “Island…”

  And then he was gone.

  ~~~~~

  “Island? What island?” Mother’s voice was sharper than usual. She’d been spending the afternoon with Cal and the children in their apartment in the mages’ house, but she’d nodded off and now she was tetchy from being woken abruptly. Sallorna watched her warily, her eyes huge at the adult talk going on around her. Markell had already been sent out of the room for chattering, but Sallorna sat as quiet as a cat. She looked as if she were trying not to breathe in case anyone remembered she was there and sent her away, too.

  “Ly-haam’s island, love,” Cal said gently. “You remember, the one he took Drina to when she was kidnapped. The one she escaped from.”

  “But that’s so far away!” Mother said. “How long would it take to fly there?”

  “I left in the middle of the night and arrived at sunset,” I said.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Mother said. “I can’t fly that far, not all at once.”

  “I’m the only one who needs to go,” I said. “So long as I have plenty of magic inside me to start with it won’t be so bad.”

  “Nonsense!” Mother and Cal spoke in unison.

  Cal went on, “You’re not going anywhere alone, Drina. And you’ll need Kyra’s power. And Kyra isn’t going anywhere without me.”

  Mother smiled tiredly at the fierceness in his voice. She knew there was no point arguing.

  “Well, we can take it in stages,” I said. “First to the fortress…” Arran! A bubble of happiness rose inside me at the thought. “Then on to somewhere near the forward camp. From there it is only a few hours’ flying.”

  “Three suns?” Cal said. “Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose.”

  “The city could be burned to the ground by then,” I said.

  “Most of the buildings are stone,” Mother said. “And the mages are working on rain spells. Haven’t you noticed all the clouds building up? There should be enough to try it tonight.”

  Rain spells! Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that?

  “You’ve been doing that in secret? When were you going to tell me about it?”

  “Only when we were reasonably sure of success,” Mother said, with a half-smile. “No point getting your hopes up if we couldn’t even move a few clouds. But that’s done now, so all we have to do is to make them rain.”

  But I knew how uncertain spells were. “Will it work?”

  “Naturally,” Cal said, proudly. “Your mother devised the new variances to direct the rain where it’s needed, and she scribed all the spellpages, so they will work at full power. We might have time to see them burned before we leave.”

  “Well – we hope it will work,” she amended.

  “I should like to watch.”

  “We will all go,” Cal said. “It’s about time we mages did something useful in this war. There’s not been much more than hand-wringing so far.”

  ~~~~~

  I loved watching spellpages being burned. There was something about the simple ritual that was more comforting to me than the endless readings in the Sun Temple, or the oddly discordant music of the Moon Temple. How many times had I watched my mother standing solemnly before the crucible, seeing her spells flame to life, knowing the magic was taking effect? It was awe-inspiring, and far more impressive to my childish self than Cal’s hand-waving and flamboyant poses. His thought magic had the same effect as a spellpage, but his antics drew attention to his own performance, instead of focusing on the majesty of magic, as it should be.

  We gathered in the spellarium of the mages’ house, which was just a room set aside for the scribing of spellpages, using the proper magically enhanced paper, quill and ink. There was also a large crucible, the metal blackened with age and countless burnings. In the centre of the room, a fire flickered and danced.

  We all stood in silence around the crucible. So many matters of life and death transacted here, so many people desperate for relief from pain or illness or injury. And lesser matters, too. Good crops. Safe travelling. The birth of a healthy baby. And yes, rain for the parched farms in summer. So many petitioners had brought their silver to the mages, and stood where I now stood, hoping the gods would smile on them and the spell would be successful.

  And when Mother scribed them, the gods always smiled.

  She stepped forward and placed several spellpages in the crucible, then recited the words: “By the sun, bring light and fire and colour; by the moon, enable the darkness.”

  Reaching for a shard from the fire, she lit the spellpages, which flared instantly to life. A whole rainbow of colours burst out into the midst of dazzling light, and were gone to ash before I could turn away from the brilliance.

  The spells were sent forth to do their work. There was nothing more we could do but pack for our journey and hope for the best. I tried to resist the temptation to rush to the window to check for rain, but eventually Mother grew impatient with me.

  “Weather magic isn’t instant, like healing,” she said. “It works in its own sweet time.”

  And she was right, as always. By the time our eagles lifted off from the roof of the Keep, close to midnight, the first fat raindrops were spattering around us.

  The eagles were happy to be flying again. They’d been restless sitting on top of the Keep, but it wasn’t safe to let them loose, even to hunt, in case they met up with their fellows again. We were less happy about flying. We were wrapped up in our warmest clothes, and well-fuelled with magic, but the night air was still frigid. We all carried packs on our shoulders with food and blankets, since we would need to camp for at least one night along the way.

  For hour after hour we flew, Cal in the lead, Mother in the middle, and me behind her, watching for any sign that she was tiring. We followed the faint, pale line of the road below us. Once we were clear of the rainclouds of Kingswell, there was enough starlight to guide us, although the moon had set. Here and there lamps flickered far below us, reassuring in the darkness. Even though the Blood Clans had stormed through here like a gale, there was still life down there, in the farms and villages and towns and wayside inns. People were picking themselves up and rebuilding their lives.

  As the night wore on and we flew further north, the lights became less frequent, and then disappeared altogether. I told myself that this part of Bennamore was less populated, but I wasn’t convinced. I’d heard all too graphic descriptions of encounters with the Clans on their march to Kingswell.

  Dawn brought a crisp autumn light to the scenery, but we were too cold and tired to appreciate the clarity of the air or the glistening hint of frost on the ground. We landed once to stretch our legs, and have something to eat, Mother pale but determined not to give up, and even Cal subdued. I was too numb to speak. My very bones were frozen, and my stiff fingers dropped the piece of cheese I was struggling to eat.

  Without a word, we remounted and carried on. Another stop late in the morning, and then onwards, endlessly, as the road unspooled below us, through moors and woodland and rolling hills.

  “There!” Cal yelled, pointing.

  The High Citadel at last, and
beside it the squat shape of the inn where I’d stayed on my first visit to the Clan lands. Not much further now to the fortress. My heart lifted at the thought of it. I would see Arran again, and spend the night safely in his arms. And there would be hot water, and decent food and wine, and fires to warm my bone-chilled body.

  I was so busy thinking about the delights to come, that I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings. It was only when Cal wheeled round and pointed towards the fortress that I realised.

  It was under attack. Swarms of beasts surrounded it, far more than in the original attack. Small puffs of fire showed that the mages were throwing firestones. A cloud of birds circled above the fortress, spinning and jinking about to avoid the archers. I saw them grab a figure from the battlements and carry it away. Then another.

  Arran! Oh, sweet merciful gods, let him be all right!

  Cal pointed away to the west, to the rocky hills there. I shook my head, and pointed frantically at the fortress. “We have to help them!” I cried.

  “Too many,” he shouted back. “Let’s land over there and rethink.”

  He was already diving down, Mother following. We passed over the first low range, and headed down into the narrow valley beyond.

  And then we were in the midst of chaos. The eagles screaming, arrows whirring past my head, Cal shooting flames. Sunshine spun on a wingtip and frantically struggled for height to get out of range, the great wings straining with each desperate beat. I caught another glimpse of Cal, flaming again.

  Below me, faces upturned, figures shouting, pointing. Uniforms. Bennamorians! Our own people shooting at us.

  And then Mother’s eagle screamed in pain. I glanced round, briefly saw a wing pierced by a crossbow bolt. The bird careered downwards at a crazy angle. Down, down they went, spiralling out of control, too fast, far too fast.

  I shrieked with fear, urging Sunshine to follow. But it was too late. Eagle and rider dropped below the hills, lost to my view.

 

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