Essence of Chaos

by Marie Andreas

  The black sword of his opponent flew with unnatural speed. Storm found it almost impossible to keep up and missed a block. The sword slid into his left arm, and the light, magic-enhanced armor he wore was the only thing that kept it from severing the limb completely. Storm pulled back in pain, sweat stinging his eyes. He made a desperate swing back, but pain ripping through his wound made him misjudge the blow. The gray-haired kelar snarled and raised his bloody sword.

  Suddenly a small dark shape flung itself from the ground onto the assassin’s back. The tip of a derawri dagger jutted out from the gray-haired kelar’s breast before he could react. With a strangled gurgle, the black sword dropped from his numb fingers and he slid lifelessly to the ground.

  Crell grinned without humor. “Thank you for letting me take your kill. Your father is in that tower; we killed everyone who was running toward it.” Without waiting for an answer, she jumped from the horse’s back and into the melee.

  Storm gathered five fighters with him; no more could be spared until the fight was better contained. After doing a quick field dressing on his arm, they made their way toward the tower near the cliff.

  The tower was ancient, of a design that Storm wasn’t familiar with. It was no more than twenty feet high, with one small opening that was being guarded by three edgy-looking men. They must have realized that their reinforcements weren’t coming, and that they would have to fight alone.

  The two thin ones on the ends looked ready to bolt, but the bear of a man in the middle grabbed both of their tunics before they could move. By the time he’d finished dressing them down, Storm and his people were upon them.

  Storm stayed in the lead, and he singled out the heavier man as the most obvious threat. Fighting on horseback would only give him a marginal advantage against a foe that hung close to a building, so he slid off his horse, and ran to meet the huge human.

  His people made quick work of the other two. The man Storm faced was a good fighter; he wore a tattered uniform from the Strann army, and he was well trained. But there was an unstable gleam in his eyes that told Storm how far the man had gone from his days as a soldier.

  Even with his injury, Storm was able to get the large swordsman off balance enough to defeat him. It took longer than it should have, and if his opponent had been sane, perhaps he would have had a problem. As it was, Storm was exhausted by the time he managed to get a killing blow in.

  After dispatching the other two, his people had held back, knowing that the prince would want to be the first to go inside. Silently, Storm limped to the tower door and, surprised to find it unlocked, he shouldered it aside.

  The small room at the base of the tower was musty and unused. At first Storm’s heart fell as he believed it to be a trap. Then he saw a thin trail in the dust that led up the narrow stairs. Motioning for the men behind him to stay at the bottom, Storm made his way up the curving staircase. The first landing was empty, with nothing disturbing its coat of dust but the trail that continued upwards.

  The top landing ended at a heavy door, and Storm felt the hair on the back of his neck go up. Not only would this be a perfect trap, it had a feeling of wrongness about it. He tried, but couldn’t narrow it to anything beyond a general feeling of unease.

  He finally took a deep breath; wincing for a moment at the surge of pain the movement brought his battered body. Then he slowly eased the heavy door open.

  The floor of this room was clean, with a few odd whirls of dust to imply that the cleanliness was due to movement rather than actually being cleaned.

  As the door swung farther open, Storm let out his breath, just realizing that he’d been holding it. Ahead of him lay a shabby cot, with manacles coming from the legs. Sitting on the cot, too weary to look at what he most likely thought were his captors, was the king. With an inarticulate groan, Storm stumbled forward and fell at his father’s feet.

  As the battle began, Jenna watched the charge forward. Storm’s long hair flew behind him like a banner as he led them into a clash of steel with the guards of an odd gray tower.

  Once Ghortin had pulled free of his horse-riot incitement, they launched a full-scale magical assault on the mages within the other group. Jenna was a little surprised to find that while there were over twenty of them, none of them were very Powerful. They’d been able to use Keanin because he was unprotected and they had worked in a tight formation. In her mind, she felt them scrambling to pull their magic together in such a formation again.

  Thinking hard about a puzzle flying apart, she directed a burst of chaos into the forming nucleus of the enemy mages. Their dismay was tangible as they were suddenly without their tight formation.

  Opening her eyes, she took a quick look at the field. People were down in bloody heaps, skittish horses from both sides were running off; the war-trained ones standing still, but lashing out at anything that moved too close. She could make out Storm fighting in the middle of a cleared area. His opponent was a large man who moved like a kelar. Jenna sucked in her breath as the swordsman got a full blow to Storm’s left side. She almost broke off to help him, when a small shape flung itself at the enemy swordsman.

  “Don’t lose your concentration now,” Ghortin growled behind her. “They may not have much strength, but they’ve still enough to cause problems.”

  Jenna shook her mind free of Storm’s situation; for good or ill, she couldn’t help him now. Two of their own mages had fallen to the ground, one no more than a blackened husk, the other moaning softly. Jenna traced the killing magic from the dead mage and found a trio of attackers at the opposite end of the enemy’s camp. The formation was almost an exact duplicate of the one that had attacked the queen in Irundail.

  The Power of this triad was so tightly linked that she couldn’t force it apart. It was as if they had merged into a single being. She lashed out at what was the weakest link, only to receive a major attack on her shields. She held on through the attack, firing back a searing bolt through the magical link they had. She was rewarded with a stunned jerk as the bolt hit home. But her relief was short lived. They hadn’t released the line to her, and they were coming back.

  Fear dug in as she realized she was trapped; they were going to do to her what they’d done to that blackened mage on the ground, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

  Suddenly, there was a new presence at her side; two actually, one fighting with the other. She forced her eyes open to see Ghortin struggling to hold back a distressed Keanin. Keanin seemed to be in great pain as he reached again for her.

  Ghortin clearly feared this was part of some compulsion that had been planted in Keanin’s mind. Jenna didn’t think that was the case, but she knew she was doomed without his help. Reaching past the others, she grabbed Keanin’s hand.

  A renewed burst of energy hit her. Power, pure and raw, flowed through her. Modifying that Power, she sent it slamming back along the link that led to her would-be executioners. She was rewarded with a mind-numbing scream as the trio burst into flames, taking down a dozen of their guards.

  Jenna enjoyed the vengeance for a brief second before she crumbled to the ground.

  38

  It hadn’t taken long for the remaining troops to disperse the enemy regiment. However, it took a bit longer for some of the main participants of the battle to regain consciousness.

  Ghortin rushed forward when Jenna collapsed, intent on prying Keanin’s hand off of his apprentice, even if he had to cut it off. But as he reached forward, he felt a strange tie between the two. Somehow, Keanin had formed a crude version of that odd, and potentially fatal, link the trio of enemy mages had used. Feeling better about Keanin’s role in whatever had happened to Jenna, and unsure of the best way to separate them, Ghortin satisfied himself by carefully dragging both of them a safe distance from the fighting.

  At the far end of the plains, Storm awoke slowly, blood loss, exhaustion, and shock leading to his collapse. He opened his eyes, half afraid that his father wouldn’t be there. That it
had been nothing more than a cruel trick.

  But it wasn’t, or if it was, the illusion was still with him.

  “Father?” The king was battered and had more gray hair than he’d had before, but it was him. At first the king stared at him blankly, then he gave a jerky nod, and a tear broke free.

  Storm engulfed his father as well as he could considering his injuries, and held him until Crell found them.

  “And so we found them, each one too weak to stand, and both denying it completely.” Crell finished her tale with a wry look at their royal faces. Father and son had never been closer than they were right at that moment.

  They were lying in a makeshift hospital tent, surrounded by equally damaged subjects. Jenna smiled at the sight of the two headstrong kelars trapped in their cots.

  She and Keanin had come out of their battle without any lasting damage. They also had what Jenna could only equate to the grandfather of all migraines.

  Keanin was complaining to all who would listen that he wanted nothing to do with magecraft in any form. All it did was give him the worst hangover he’d ever had, without the enjoyable trip getting there. He wasn’t sure why he had done what he did, let alone how he did it. Jenna herself found it difficult to think of anything more complicated than her name without her mind threatening to scream out of her ears.

  Ghortin had held still while Crell recounted her finding of Storm and the king, but he resumed pacing soon after. “I don’t like it. This was too easy.”

  With indignation, Keanin gave a groan as he made an aborted attempt to sit up. “Easy? I’d like to know what you think is hard. I’m not sure what I did, but those people were about to kill Jenna. I’d not call that mess ‘easy’.”

  Crell looked thoughtfully at the auburn-haired noble. “I think that those who died would agree with you, Keanin. And their lives were not given in vain. However, I also agree with the mastermage. Why go through all that trouble to get the king, and then just have a few hundred men guard him? Even if they had more coming, they shouldn’t have been so unprepared for this. I think we’re missing something.” She shook her head and sat down next to the injured king.

  The king gave a slight grimace, and then forced it into a weak smile for the derawri warrior. “My thanks to all of you. You could be correct. I think the mage who grabbed me—I regret I never got a clear look at the villain—was trying to hide something in the Markare. He vanished a week ago, and from what I heard, that was where he went.” He nodded toward Jenna. “Those mages you fought were highly regarded by him. It took a long time to get them to function as a unit. I believe he counted on them to either slow you down or destroy you completely. Once he realized I wouldn’t help him in his plans, he decided I would work as bait.” His weary eyes looked into Ghortin’s. “Think about it, old friend, it makes sense.”

  Ghortin rubbed his chin. “Well, I suppose it will have to do for now. We haven’t come up with anything else.” He turned to Crell. “I’d like you to take command of all the troops. Sweep the area for any stragglers we may have missed. I’d like at least a few live ones, if you can find them.”

  Crell nodded, bowed to the king, then she was off.

  Storm struggled to rise. “I should go with them. She’s going to need help.”

  Ghortin forced him back onto his cot with nothing more than a glare. “Not from you. All four of you have managed to pull through this, but you need rest, or all of Healer Otillin’s work will be undone. Trust me; none of you want an irate derawri healer on your hands. Now sleep.” He turned toward the door, then back again with an evil grin. “Or shall I fix something for you?”

  By the grimace on the king’s face, even he hadn’t escaped Ghortin’s concoctions.

  Ghortin smiled, knowing that all four were sufficiently cowed. “That’s better. Oh, there will be a guard out front. For your own protection, you see. And he’s under orders to refuse all royal commands. Sleep well.”

  The king gave a weak chuckle. “I think we’d better follow orders. I never could overrule him.” With that he rolled over and drifted off to sleep. Within moments the rest of them had followed suit.

  Jenna woke with a start a while later, a sticky feeling filled her mouth and she couldn’t sort out where she was. She was coming out of a strange dream that had hovered on a nightmare. An odd, dark-cloaked man had been reaching across a great gulf to find her, and at first she couldn’t see his face. Then it became her father, then, as she looked harder, it became Ghortin, then Storm, finally settling on a twisted version of Keanin. Or rather, someone who looked like him. As she looked closer, she realized it wasn’t him, but someone who was close enough to be his cousin. The figure was linked with two others, and they were calling great Power. Power that could rip open the universe if completed. She was about to yell a warning, although she wasn’t sure whom to, when she awoke in a cold sweat.

  The king and Storm both appeared to still be asleep. At first she thought Keanin was as well, he was laying so still. Then she realized his huge golden eyes were locked open.

  “Keanin?” she whispered.

  The handsome kelar jerked with a start, then slowly turned toward her. Relief showed on his face once he realized who had called him. “Thank the stars. I was afraid they’d finally learned my name.”

  Jenna looked around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Who?” she finally ventured.

  Keanin flushed. “It was a dream.” He gave a shudder. “I’d rather not talk about it right now, if you don’t mind. Maybe later when we’re warm, safe, and far away from the Markare.” He sat up slowly. “Do you think they’d let us out now? It’s either dusk or morning.”

  Jenna rose. He was right; the light coming through the slightly open flap was faint. “I’d say if we’ve slept the entire night away, they couldn’t stop us.”

  They stole to the tent flap and poked their heads out. There was a guard all right, but it was also clear that morning was almost upon them.

  “Where’s Ghortin?” Jenna whispered to the dozing guard.

  He jerked himself awake. “Asleep in his tent I would think. Now you get back in there.”

  “I’m his apprentice, it’s vital that I see him now. You wouldn’t want to interfere with a magic crisis, would you?” Jenna did her best to sound extremely worried.

  The guard wasn’t awake enough for serious thinking. “No. You can leave for that. But why is he going?” He woke up enough to nod suspiciously at Keanin.

  Jenna leaned forward with a whisper. “He’s the magical problem I’ve got to talk to Ghortin about.”

  The guard pulled back, looking at Keanin like he’d grown fangs. He stepped aside. “The mastermage’s tent is on the far side.”

  Jenna hid her smile as they slid by the now fully awake guard. “See, I told you they’d let us out,” she said smugly.

  “True, you got past a sleepy guard. But what about her?”

  All the self-congratulations went out of her sails. Crell was bearing down on them. “Damn. Think she’ll fall for the same thing?”

  Keanin sadly shook his head as the derawri warrior came to a stop in front of them. “Now I know you two wouldn’t have snuck your way out against orders, would you?” She tilted her head up as she looked intently at them.

  “It was all her fault. She made me go.” Keanin shrugged at Jenna. “Sorry, Crell has methods of torture you couldn’t imagine.”

  Jenna shot him a withering glance. “Actually, we thought that we’d get some fresh air. And Keanin wanted to tell me how he knew I needed his help yesterday.”

  Crell raised one deep red eyebrow at them. “I don’t believe either of you for a second. But as it turns out, your little escapade yesterday is what Ghortin would like to go over with you.” She gave Jenna a questioning look. “That and something about his book. He’s waiting for you in his tent. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be going to mine for a rest.”

  Jenna and Keanin said their good nights, or mornings as the case was, and
walked over to Ghortin’s tent.

  Jenna kept a tight grip on Keanin’s arm after he almost wandered away a few times. She could sympathize with her friend; he was obviously terrified of his odd ability. That made it all the more necessary for them to explore what his limits were and get him trained.

  Ghortin was settled on a folding camp seat, sipping sage leaf tea when they came in. He motioned for them to take up seats on the ground before him. “Very prompt. I’d thought it would have taken Crell a bit longer.”

  Both of them wore innocent looks and Jenna nodded. “We came as fast as we could. We were anxious to learn what you found in your book.” She decided she’d give Keanin a chance to relax before Ghortin started magically dissecting him.

  “Ah, yes.” He set his cup down, then reached under some covers on the cot, and pulled out the gray book. The one that they now knew was one of the three Books of the cuari.

  “I still haven’t recalled it, or what I knew of it. Which strikes me as damnably odd. You’d think one of their offspring wouldn’t forget something so important. Anyway, I did manage to break the spell on the cover, although I can’t get past the first page.”

  Something clicked in Jenna’s mind. “I think that could be the problem, you are of cuari blood. The cuari can’t remember anything about what happened during the before time. Including the books.” At Ghortin and Keanin’s continued blank looks, she elaborated. “Your non-cuari blood was able to understand it when you initially were working with it. But when you were pulled out of your body, your cuari blood, the part of you that couldn’t have anything to do with the book, erased its existence in your mind. As you’re returning to your former balance, you’re able to deal with the book.”