She was halfway through the motion of making a flame spew from the staff when she pulled up short so that only a trickle of fire flew forward and with a whip of the staff the flame shot up and to the right of its target.
Kaleb shrieked and dodged behind the half demolished wall he had just stepped out from when he saw the approaching flame. “Stop it, Alia!”
“Gods, Kaleb! I’m sorry,” she apologized, but felt like her words were not enough to make up for almost flash burning him. “I didn’t know it was you. Please come out.”
“Why would you do that?” he asked. His voice was shrill and caked in fear. He did not step back out from behind the wall.
“I didn’t know it was you,” she told him again and had to suppress an urge to be short for having to repeat herself.
“Why would you do that to anyone?”
“I have to protect myself… and Avelice,” Alia defended her actions, but her words were empty. She was in no mood to argue with a child. “Just come out.”
Cautiously, Kaleb stepped out. He viewed her warily not unlike a kicked dog wary of abuse. Alia dropped her staff and went to him. Pulling him close, she hugged him tightly with one hand. Kaleb was tense at first, but soon relaxed and returned Alia’s hug, encompassing Avelice. Hot tears ran down the enchantress’ face. She tried to hold them back, but once they started there was no stopping them. Kaleb squeezed her tighter and only then did she notice how strong the boy was.
“Why are you crying?” he finally asked with concern once their hug had ended. His eyes appeared impossibly large and innocent as Alia met his gaze.
She laughed a little, thinking that she must look quite the sight. Everyone thought that she was so strong and fearless. For a time she believed it too, though deep down she knew the truth. Alia cursed her own weakness. She would never let any of the others see her like this. The shame would be too much. It had not been her intention, but maybe that was why she ended up here of all places where she could be alone to grieve in private.
“My father is dead,” she finally said and had to fight back a fresh rounds of tears at hearing those words escape her lips. “I spent so much time trying to get him out of prison and building the Collective only to have them both ripped away from me in the course of two days.”
Kaleb nodded. He understood all too well what it was like to lose everything in a moment. Her father had killed Kaleb’s family and nearly everyone he knew. “I don’t mean to mourn him in front of you,” she added.
“Because he was the one who killed my family,” Kaleb suddenly blurted out.
She was taken aback by the boy’s directness, but maybe that was the province of children to be so candid. “Byrn told you?”
“I figured it out when he fought Byrn. He told me to run and I did, but not far. I was worried about him and Sane, so I went back and saw the black snakes that killed my family come out of your father.”
The black snakes, as Kaleb called them, was a high level magic skill possessed by necromancers. Any one of those masters could use them, but there was no point in explaining that, because Kaleb was right about her father.
“If you knew, then why did you come to me when you needed aid?” she asked, thoughtfully. “Why trust me?”
Kaleb shrugged and she thought that would be his reply, but then he answered her question with one of his own, “Who else would have helped me?”
Alia was torn between feeling insulted that the reason Kaleb had come to her was because he could find no one else to trust and honored that she alone was someone that he felt he could turn to. Faced with both options, she chose to take his words as a compliment, because he never did anything to warrant her assuming the worst of him. The boy shook a little, though the air was not cold and he averted his gaze from hers just then. How she longed to know what his thoughts were at that moment. She wanted to tell him that it would be all right and that his feelings, whatever they were, were natural. A moment of clarity dawned on her that she realized that as she mourned her father, this little boy whom she had come to care for in a short time was torn between sadness at her loss and relief that the man who killed his family was dead. It was disconcerting to suddenly realize that someone she looked up to was a true monster in the eyes of others. She knew that there were some who viewed all magicians in that way and in its own manner that did not bother her. There were those who were bigoted against her kind, but she considered that to be a flaw within them. Kaleb may have been raised with some of that belief as most children were, but he loved Byrn, who was a magician, and he thought that he might love her too. For him to view her father as a thing best left to a child’s nightmares or campfire stories broke her heart with the truth of it.
“Now that you are back among lesser- non-magic users you have no more need of my protection,” she steeled herself to say the words, because she feared what Kaleb might say. “Perhaps it would be best if you stayed in Lion’s Landing. There is an orphanage here and in time they could find you a loving home. It was very irresponsible of Byrn to haul you halfway across the kingdom as he did, anyway.”
At her words, Kaleb turned his face away and would not look at her. Alia stepped around him so that she could see his face, but he turned away again. He did not want her to see his tears. Instead of pressing the matter, Alia put an arm around him and herded the boy over to the weather worn staircase. She sat on these steps many times as a child and wondered that they suddenly seemed so small compared to her memories. They sat together for a time and they watched the sun setting behind the trees. Alia placed one arm around him and Kaleb laid his head against her shoulder while she cradled Avelice who was thankfully still sleeping soundly.
It would be too dark to travel back to Lion’s Landing with a boy and a baby to care for, she decided, and gently pried herself away from Kaleb asking that he wait for her at the bottom of the steps while she explored the upstairs. Darkness had already crept in, giving the partially destroyed cabin an ominous feel, but Kaleb agreed to wait without complaint.
Darkened splotches of wood where blood had soaked in from the massacre here almost two years ago could still be seen in the dark. Alia walked past some of the rooms to the one that had been her bedchamber as a young girl. It was a grim sight. Even now the room was stained in dried blood and there were several overturned beds where children that must have been living here were hidden. For a horrifying instant she could see the children that must have been in this room cowering under those beds as fighting was going on just outside their door and then the men who had come to kill them busted in…
She banished the images from her overactive imagination and left the room. She turned and entered the room that would have been her mother’s and found it for the most part intact although it had suffered what must have been a cursory ransacking. The bed sheets were long gone and dresser drawers had all been pulled out so that the contents lay dumped on the floor, though most of those possessions were long gone either to the Kenzai who cleaned up the site during the aftermath or to roaming forest dwellers, but there was no blood spots anywhere or other signs of violence.
Alia returned to the top of the staircase and called Kaleb up. She asked him to fetch her staff that she had left lying on the floor earlier and he brought it with him. “We should rest,” she told him and gestured to her mother’s room.
Once inside she faced the door and placed the butt of her staff against it so that the blade scratched a small, rudimentary symbol not unlike a scarecrow into the wood. She then infused the tiny rune with some of her magic that would place a ward upon the doorway. If the door were opened as they slept, it would sound a mental alarm that only Alia would be able to hear and wake her from her slumber. In that way they could rest with some measure of peace.
The night was not cold with the coming of summer, but Alia unfolded her traveling cloak and wrapped it around Kaleb and herself with Avelice lying between them. She suddenly felt very tired and realized that she was emotionally exhausted. It only took momen
ts for sleep to claim her.
***
The next morning Alia woke to find the two children still nuzzled against her. Morning’s light brought a new hope and freshness to the day and she lay there for a while, not wanting to disturb either of the children wrapped up in her cloak.
Avelice was the first to stir and Alia carefully unfastened the cloak so that she could get up without disturbing Kaleb. She should have brought some food with her when she left the Hasty Rider yesterday, but thankfully Avelice was still nursing and could eat. The growing baby was voracious, but it was not an unpleasant experience as Avelice sucked the milk from her. She was at the age where she could begin to eat soft foods, but Alia was still producing plenty of milk and it felt good to have that pressure released from her body.
A sudden buzzing in her head caused Alia to jerk and she turned suddenly to see Kaleb exiting the room. He had left to give her some privacy while Avelice ate. It may have been awkward for him to see the baby feeding and so he left silently, but Alia could not help thinking that his silence indicated that he was still upset over their talk the night before. She wanted to call for him, but decided to let him be. Perhaps if he spent some time outside, the fresh air and gentle sun would improve his spirit.
Her words had hurt him more deeply than she had thought that they would. Good sense told her that leaving him in the care of the orphanage would be best for him. Alia and the others would be marching into danger just as surely as they had just escaped it. It was unfair to put him through that when it did not have to be that way. That was her rational mind talking, but the rest of her knew it would be difficult to let him go and it did not help that Kaleb clearly did not want to be left behind.
“I’m not his mother,” Alia quietly reminded herself. Avelice stopped sucking for a second to look up at her before resuming her meal. The unwanted thought that Kaleb had no mother intruded on her thoughts, but she pushed it away.
Once Avelice had finished eating Alia went downstairs and found a bowl full of berries and some apples. Kaleb sat at the table waiting for her. He was still sulky, but tried to present the sparse pickings with a thin layer of cheerfulness. It was almost as if he was saying, “See what I can do. I can be helpful to you.”
“This is very nice, Kaleb. Thank you,” she said, putting on her own happy mask. She hated herself for suggesting that he stay behind, and suddenly knew that she could not bear to make him stay someplace if he did not wish it.
“I could hold Avelice for you,” he offered and gratefully took the contented little bundle that was seeing the bright greens of the trees in the new day’s light outside with a furtive interest.
Alia sat next to Kaleb and they began to eat. He looked at her with renewed hope, but did not say anything. She realized then that he always seemed eager to hold Avelice. Little girls tended to want to hold babies often, but boys were less likely to want to hold them preferring to play at rougher games. Did Kaleb have a baby sister before her father destroyed Colum? That could explain his protectiveness over Avelice.
“Kaleb,” Alia began cautiously, “we are going into a very dangerous situation. I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that, but I need you to understand that there are no guarantees that any of us will survive the next few weeks. That includes you and Avelice if you decide to come with us.”
Kaleb pulled the baby to him and held her just a little tighter. “Then I will protect her,” he said with a confidence that astounded the enchantress and caused her to smile.
“Then from this moment forth you will be known as Kaleb…” Alia paused as she considered a sir name to give him. He had no sir name from his family and it seemed wrong to give him the name of Necros, considering what her father had done to his family. Finally she settled on, “Shieldbearer,” and Kaleb nodded in agreement eagerly. “And your duty will be to watch out for Avelice and keep her safe from harm. Can you do that?” Alia made the suggestion, thinking that if Kaleb felt like he had a role in her group, then he would not feel like he might get left behind.
“I can,” he agreed. Any sign of the morose boy from the night before was suddenly gone. “Will I get to learn how to use a sword?”
“In time,” said Alia. His smiled was contagious. “You could have no better instructors than Tomlin and Ryonus. You know Tomlin was not much older than you are now when I took him on as my apprentice.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
They talked then for a while and the tenseness of the past few days melted away from each of them. It was a new day and even in the face of tragedy there was reason to find hope.
Chapter 23
Flowers of all colors and species, some of which Sane had never seen before were underfoot. He had been lying amongst them for so long that he could not recall how much time had passed. The sky was an azure blue and there was not a cloud to be seen for miles around. The flowers stretched out before him until they eventually met and merged with the sky in a light purple hue at the limits of his vision. The sorcerer did not know where he was, but this was a place of peace.
Am I dead? He was surprised that the thought did not alarm him more. He had expected the underworld as the name implied to be a place of darkness like an underground cavern, but this place was so beautiful that he could not imagine a more wonderful place to spend all of eternity.
A hand offered to help him up and he took it. It was an old man’s hand not that much different from his own. He had expected it to be clammy and cold, but it was warm to the touch. The hand belonged to an equally old looking man with a white beard and hair. He dressed in a scholar’s robe that shimmered in pastel colors as he moved. “Sane of Aurelia, at last we meet,” the old man spoke affectionately, but there was an underlying sense of authority to his voice that made Sane want to bow, but he resisted the urge. “Where you come from I am known as Learion, but among my brothers and sisters I am simply called Wise.”
The god of intelligence stood before Sane and he was awestruck. It never occurred to him even for a second to question the truth of Wise’s words and that was a sort of proof as well. Finally he managed to form some sort of a polite response and said, “It is an honor to meet you, Great One, but if I might ask how did I come to be here?”
“That answer is simple,” said Wise, “You are here, because I have need of you and no simple vision will be enough to set the world back on its proper course. What was the last thing that you remember before waking here?”
“I was being chased,” said Sane hesitantly. The images were all a jumble in his head and he was having difficulty picking them out and recalling the order of events. It was not unlike trying to remember the details of a dream hours after waking. “Byrn was there, but… No, I was trying to find Byrn, because…”
Wise reached out with a gnarled finger and roughly poked Sane in the forehead. The images aligned in an instant, leaving Sane to wonder how he could have been so confused a moment before.
“I had a vision of Xander using Byrn like a puppet. Xander was trying to stop me from getting to Byrn, but I found him anyway and a fight broke out. Xander summoned some- I have to assume they were fire elementals although I have never seen the creatures before.”
“They were,” Wise confirmed and nodded for Sane to continue.
“Our combined magic was having little effect, but Byrn was starting to take control of them when Xander attacked him from behind.” Sudden disdain welled up inside the sorcerer as he recalled the mental image of Xander latching onto Byrn with his tendrils and sucking the energy out of him. Then he felt a rush of shame by what happened next. “I fled.”
“You would have died, had you not,” assured Wise. His tone was conversational, but not quite condoning or admonishing. “You transported into the place you call ‘the void’ without one of your little wood pieces to guide you back to your own world.”
“Why wasn’t I expelled from this place?” Sane wondered. “The runes determine where we exit, but even without one
I should have been forced out of the void naturally.”
“And you would have, had I not intervened. You would have been thrown out into an ocean or the side of a mountain and then what would be the fate of your kingdom? Dead: Consumed by Xander Necros or Byrn Aurel depending on how you look at it.”
Byrn Aurel? That was a strange choice for Wise to call him considering that Byrn had never claimed that name for himself, nor had it been bestowed upon him unless things had changed since coming to the void. “How long have I been here?”
Wise shrugged. “Time is relative. A day to your kind is like a few moments to a god. Suffice it to say that more time has passed then you would have liked.”
“What happened to Byrn?” Sane demanded, speaking more harshly than he had intended.
“Think better of your tone, mortal,” Wise warned, “You have my favor, but only just so. I can always make more seers.”
“Please forgive me, Lord Learion,” Sane said solemnly and hung his head in reverence as decades of serving under King Kale kicked in. “I spoke out of turn.”
“Your pursuit of knowledge is commendable,” Wise waved off the apology, “but time grows short. Soon Byrn Aurel and Xander Necros will clash and without your aid your prince will lose.
“You must scale the Dragon’s Peak and collect a tome that is hundreds of years old. It is a black grimoire written by Xander Necros, though he had a different name back then. You must get that book to Byrn.”
Sane bowed deeply to Wise and thanked him, then said. “If I may ask you one more thing before you send me away: Why do the gods seem to care so much about the affairs of Byrn Firemas? First, Ashura curses him. Now you ask that I help him.”
Wise smiled underneath his beard, “We don’t, or more precisely, we no longer do.”
“Then why-“
The garden of the gods swirled around the sorcerer. Wise’s bearded grin seemed to bend and twist as the world enveloped Sane and suddenly he was in the pure white light of the void that existed between worlds. A feeling of being pushed forced him through the void and he knew it was Wise directing him. His body flew at an ever-growing pace until…
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