Essence of Chaos

by Marie Andreas

  Ghortin wasn’t even trying to keep from grinning. “Did what? Oh. Is that for me?” Ghortin spotted the decorated parchment roll that Storm was flinging about in agitation. Storm jerked it quickly out of his reach.

  “Perhaps.” Storm pulled himself up to his full height and glared down at Ghortin. Never mind that he was just a few inches taller than Ghortin. “Do I have the honor of addressing Ghortin al Tarn, Mastermage of Traanafaeren?”

  The mastermage in question stomped his foot. “Damn it, you know who I am. Now let me have that paper.”

  “Easy, sir, I’ll remind you not to rustle the royal messenger.” Storm dusted off some imaginary dust particles from his tunic. Finally he looked back to Ghortin. “Much better, sir.” Holding out the scroll, Storm read in a clear, practiced voice. “The royal family requests your presence, and that of your household, at a royal masquerade in honor of the coming T’faren and winter.”

  Storm tossed the invitation to Ghortin, and then flopped down next to Jenna on the sofa. He was more than a little surprised that she hadn’t said a single word to him; she’d been so silent he hadn’t known she was there until right before he sat down. She looked like she was thinking hard about something. More than likely she was trying to keep from laughing at him in his ridiculous costume. “I’m telling you, Ghortin, I try to spend more time with them and this is what they do to me.” Leaning back, he noticed how wide-eyed and wild-looking Jenna was. She leaned close—examining the weave of his garments, it seemed—then leaned back and burst into giggles. He had expected her to laugh at him, but this wasn’t her normal laugh, it was an actual giggle.

  “Hi there, pretty boy.” She waved at him, then frantically pulled herself back up as the wave threatened to dump her off the sofa. The smile she gave him would have been seductive, or so he supposed, if she wasn’t listing badly to the side.

  Storm stared at her in surprise, then glared at Ghortin. “It’s the middle of the day and your apprentice is drunk? What did you give her?”

  Ghortin nodded toward her abandoned glass, and then sat down to re-read the invitation. Storm took a whiff that almost knocked him off the couch.

  “Gorgon ale-wine? What were you trying to do to her?” He looked in disbelief at the still giggling Jenna. Gorgon ale-wine was stronger than Fire Lake and never served in anything larger than a tiny glass. Jenna gave him a huge smile, winked, and waggled a lock of black hair at him. He would have been flattered if he wasn’t shocked she was still conscious.

  “Hmm?” Ghortin looked up from his reading. “Oh, I was concerned how she would take news of the recent events. So I thought she could use a spot.”

  Storm was vainly trying to keep Jenna from falling all over him. An upright position was no longer possible for her to maintain, and she seemed to be enjoying the feel of his tunic on her face.

  “A spot is one thing, a whole glass is another. I know sailors three times her size who wouldn’t be able to handle that much.” Storm propped her up, trying to get her eyes to focus on him. They focused all right, but it looked more like a leer.

  Ghortin frowned, pulling on his lower lip as he regarded Jenna. “I do suppose you’re right. She isn’t very big, is she?”

  Storm shook his head in disgust and picked her up gently, batting away her hands. Without saying a word, he turned and carried her down the hall.

  Jenna stayed awake, which in and of itself said a lot about her physical constitution. But she was definitely not going to be happy tomorrow.

  “Soh, you’re taking me to bed?” She pushed back the hair from his shoulder and was trying to reach the side of his neck. “Why, Storm, what will Ghortin say?” She found the side of his neck and was trying to aim kisses at it. Storm increased his pace and tried to dislodge her attempt.

  “Jenna, you’re not yourself right now—”

  With surprising coordination she cut him off with a finger across his lips. “Shhhhh, I can be whoever you want me to be. After all, I’m not from here.” She said the last in a conspiratorial whisper and her eyes remained closed so long afterwards he thought she was asleep. He was glad she probably wouldn’t remember any of this. He needed to keep her at a distance, there was too much going on, and he couldn’t get involved with anyone right now.

  They’d reached her room, and she still hadn’t opened her eyes. He gently laid her down on the bed, but her arm seemed stuck in his hair. As he tried to remove it, she woke up and kissed him solidly on the lips, “Goodnight, smexy.” Then she fell back into the bed.

  Storm gently untangled her arm. She might not remember this, but he certainly would. A second later a small army of elementals appeared and practically threw him out of the room. He shook himself off and headed out of the vortex.

  “Have you noticed how close she’s gotten to those misbegotten elementals of yours? I’d no sooner laid her down than a whole herd of them chased me off.”

  Ghortin smoothed his hair unconsciously. “Aye, lad, that I have. But not until it was too late. That minx used them to flush me out of my laboratory earlier. She wanted to know what was going on and wasn’t going to wait another minute for it.” He grimaced at the memory.

  Storm laughed as he resumed his seat.

  Ghortin folded his arms and glared. “And she used a command word.”

  The laughter died in Storm’s throat. Command words lay at the core of chaotic Power. Few magic users could tap into that rawness, let alone control it. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” Ghortin snorted in disgust. “She used it on me. And what’s worse, I didn’t teach it to her.”

  “Then how did she learn it?” He folded his arms and glared at Ghortin. “I told you the lessons were too rushed.”

  “And you know very well why they are.” Ghortin mindlessly fiddled with the royal invitation. “I can’t keep her in here forever, and dangerous things are happening everywhere out there. I fear none of us will be safe, especially her. The least I can do is give the poor woman a chance.”

  “And I still say that between you and me there’s more than enough protection. You’ve rushed her and now she’s throwing around command words.”

  “I know.” Ghortin gave in with a sigh. For a moment Storm thought his friend looked old, which, despite the mage’s extremely advanced age, was something he’d never looked before. A second later it had passed.

  Ghortin waggled a thick finger in Storm’s direction. “That’s no excuse for you to rub my face in it. I still say it had to be done. What if I’m not around? Things are changing quickly, more so every day. We aren’t seeing it all yet. At some point she may find herself on her own.” He shrugged. “I’m afraid her use of a command word is yet another mystery. I didn’t get a chance to ask her, but I gathered from her surprise she had no idea what she did.”

  “Like the night the ertin attacked. Afterwards she had no idea of what she’d said, or how she had done it.” Storm frowned. “Could someone be working through her?”

  Ghortin shook his head. “Doubtful. I thought of that when you first told me of the attack, so I checked. Anyone, even someone stronger than me, would leave residue if they were acting through her. I found nothing.” He picked up the wrinkled royal notice from where he’d crumbled it unconsciously. “Now about this ball.”

  Ghortin and Storm spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the upcoming masquerade and, more importantly, the meeting the royal council was calling between the flowery words.

  One the royal family didn’t want the public notified about. Others in Traanafaeren had begun to see a pattern to the deadly events of the past year as well.

  9

  Jenna looked bleary-eyed down the length of the cold, heartless floor that lay between her bed and the closet. With a groan, she let her head drag the rest of her body back to her pillow.

  “Someone please end it now,” she mumbled to the fuzzy ceiling. Normally she enjoyed the vagueness of the tan expanse overhead, but at present it was making her queasy.

&n
bsp; “Finally awake, are we? Now what was that about ending things?”

  “End my pain or my life, whichever is the quickest.” She struggled yet again to fall out of bed. Never had she had such a nasty hangover. Never had it seemed so far to her wardrobe.

  “Oh, come now.” Ghortin’s disembodied voice was less than sympathetic. “Normally I let my students wallow through such conditions; however, I realize that you may have had a lack of familiarity with the particular beverage in question. Consequently, I feel partially responsible. So, my dear, this one is on me.”

  An odd drink consisting of violently moving purple and orange swirls appeared on the floor next to the bed.

  Fighting back the urge to choke at the sight of the thing, Jenna forced herself to crawl over to it.

  “What am I supposed to do with this stuff?” She had an awful feeling she knew what he was going to say.

  “Why, drink it, of course. You could pour it over your head if you rather, but I doubt it would have the desired effect.”

  Was that smugness in his voice? The last thing she remembered was him giving her some sweet wine, and he was smug? If she ever figured out how to crawl out of her room she was going to give him a large piece of her mind. Preferably the part that was trying to throw up.

  “And what is the desired result? To kill me?”

  “My dear,” now Ghortin sounded peevish, “if you think you can pack and be ready to travel within the next two hours with your head coming out through your navel, then be my guest.” He wasn’t shouting, but the words were weighted perfectly, each one pounding like a stake through her battered skull.

  Mindlessly, she reached out and clutched the swirling glass. Her first tentative sip made her rethink keeping the hangover and she tried to stop. The drink, however, had plans of its own and forced its way down her throat.

  She threw the glass across the room and rolled to her feet sputtering.

  “It crawled down my throat.” She frantically looked around her sparse room for anything that could take away the taste of old tire rubber, swamp water, and fermented pineapples.

  Ghortin chuckled. “It has to be bad; otherwise apprentices would be off getting drunk all the time. Stop sulking, get ready, and come have breakfast. As I’ve said, we’ve plenty to do today.”

  Jenna growled all the way into the bathroom. But she had to admit, even if only to herself, that the sludge had been better than the hangover.

  Jenna pondered the current situation as she wolfed down breakfast among Ghortin trying to pack. She’d gotten a little worried when Ghortin had casually told her about the formal ball. Supposedly she had been there when Storm delivered the invitation, but she certainly didn’t remember seeing him last night. Most likely that wine had put her out before he’d arrived. What was more worrying was that this was her first introduction to this new society, and it happened to be a formal ball. She hated formal events in her own world; going to one in a completely foreign culture was almost enough to make her start looking for another glass of that wine. Ghortin had assured her that everything would be fine.

  He paused, studied her frown for a moment, and then pulled up a chair. “I didn’t want to tell you until we were on the road, but the reason we were invited is because the king’s advisors noticed the same things I have. A council has been called, and not an open one.” He was lost in thought, but didn’t share it. Finally, he pushed himself away from the table.

  “You need to go pick out what you want to take. Pack enough for a week as it’s better to be safe than sorry. Warm clothes too, you never can tell what the weather will be like down there.”

  Jenna tried to follow his mental leap from the end of the world to her wardrobe. Finally she shook her head. “I don’t have much to choose from.”

  Ghortin’s smile succeeded in making it all the way up to his eyes this time. “Ah, but you do now, lass. It dawned on me that a young lady couldn’t be making her royal debut dressed like an apprentice, even if she is one. I think you’ll be happily surprised.”

  Even with the welcome new additions, it didn’t take Jenna long to pack. Within an hour she was following Ghortin outside.

  She took a deep breath as they walked around the corner toward the two horses. She still wasn’t terribly fond of riding the big animals. They were beautiful, but they also scared the heck out of her. But Ghortin had pointedly explained to her that he wasn’t about to exhaust himself, and possibly her, by using a translocation spell. Besides, as he pointed out, two days to get there wouldn’t put too much of a dent in her posterior. She understood his point, but that didn’t mean she was going to enjoy this.

  Jenna let her eyes drift through the dark forest as they rode. Scattered streams of sunlight lanced in between the thick trees, lighting up small areas. The path was broader here, and she could make out one or two thinner trails within the path that showed where a single person, most likely Storm, had ridden recently.

  “You know,” Jenna wasn’t going to spend two days atop a damn horse without any conversation, and Ghortin was getting ready to dive into his gray book. “You never told me much about Lithunane or the royal family. I’m going to be a bit of an embarrassment if I don’t know anything about the capital city or the royals.”

  “You’re asking for history lessons?” Ghortin looked at her closely for a minute, and then shook his head. “Lass, you could never be an embarrassment. But I shall be pleased to tell you a bit anyway.”

  He carefully slid the ever-present gray book back into his pack. “Lithunane is a new capital city. Up until eighty years ago, Irundail in the north was home to the royals.”

  Now, that was intriguing. Much better than identifying plant life as they passed. “Why did they leave? Was Irundail destroyed?”

  Ghortin laughed. “Irundail? Not likely, lass. I’ve a goodly feeling that old monster will still be there when the world is long dead. No, the royals felt that after almost five hundred years of peace it would be safe to move to a more centralized location. Makes it quite a bit easier for me to visit as well. All of the royal family now lives in Lithunane, except for the third in line, Kaytine. She’s a cleric of Irissanta and lives with the priestess. Although, because of her religious leaning, she’s given up her place in the royal succession.”

  “Just how many offspring does this family have?”

  Ghortin looked up in the air muttering names to himself as he counted. “Resstlin, who is the heir, Justlantin, Kaytine, Corin, Lilltkin, and of course the twins. Seven, yes, seven in all. Although I prefer to count the twins as one. The sweet little things are too young to be a bother, even to me. All in all, Daylin and Areania have raised a good brood. Resstlin recently turned one hundred and fifty-two and is working on learning how to run the kingdom.”

  Jenna adjusted her seat on the saddle. “The royals are kelar, I assume?” Unless humans on this world were as long lived as everyone else.

  “Good, there’s hope for you yet.” He turned back with a wink. “Aye, they’re kelar. But it was the luck of the draw that they were that. Ah, now that’s an interesting tale, lass. I came that close to being king.” He held up two fingers a hair’s breadth apart. “Wouldn’t have been a particularly good one, not like Kralin, Daylin’s father. But, I could have been the king.” He stared off into the forest as he spoke. “Kralin was an adventurer like me. Excitement, travel, distant lands. Not like today.”

  Jenna thought of the odd and deadly things that had been going on, including her own arrival and adventures with the ertin, and shuddered. If he didn’t think the latest events were worthy of the past, she never wanted life to get that exciting again.

  “There were six of us on that last trip; Kralin, Llitaan, Toshia, Oshrae, Carabella, and myself. Oh, the adventures I could tell you.” His eyes were bright as he turned to her. Then he shook his head. “Another time, I think. But now we speak of that last adventure, the one that landed us here.” He rocked back in his saddle.

  “We’d made our home in a small
village between the Strann and Khelaran borders. We were coming back from a particularly horrible battle in the Markare which had left us magically and physically drained.”

  His voice took on a distant tone, softer, as if he was afraid the memory would disappear. “Didn’t think we were going to make it out of that last one. Not all of us did. Toshia didn’t. Llitaan almost didn’t.” He shook his head, but Jenna couldn’t see his face as he added softly, “Maybe it would have been better if she hadn’t.” He was silent for a few more moments. There was a distant pain there that hadn’t healed, even after all those years. He finally shook his head and continued without prodding.

  “I’m sorry, lass.” He turned toward her with mist in his eyes. “I guess some things are better left forgotten. Maybe someday I can tell you about that last battle.”

  A ghost of old terrors crossed his lined face so quickly that Jenna almost thought she’d imagined it.

  “As I was saying, we were beat, not literally mind you—even with our losses we still won the battle. Barely. We stumbled out of that desert on the wrong side, too weary to care. The land over here was wild and untamed. A land fit for the worst kind of monsters and outlaws. A few settlements struggled to survive, mostly in the midlands.”

  He nudged his horse forward; the big bay had almost come to a stop. Jenna swore the horse was listening to the story.

  “We decided that we had little choice but to stop and rest a while. There was no way we could have made another crossing in our condition. Unfortunately, we were in the far north when we had to cross the Dragon range. No one in known history had ever crossed the range that far north.

  “Although it would make for a better tale if I told you we went that way because we were brave, I shan’t lie. We had no choice. The Winds were starting in the Markare and we had to cross or be swallowed by them. In addition, winter had begun. If we didn’t make it over quickly, all the passes would be blocked. Struggling down from the mountains, we found ourselves in a magnificent emerald valley. Never before seen by civilized creatures. Now, winters up north are horrific at best usually, but within the valley it was almost spring.” His horse had drifted back a bit so she could see Ghortin’s face. The dreamy look in his eyes was something new to her. “The valley was amazing. Oh, don’t get me wrong. Irundail of today is truly a feat. However, when we first found it? Ah, lass, it would bring tears to the eyes of the harshest campaigner. We set up camp and healed for the next half of a year.” He took his water bag from his side, taking a deep swallow before going on.