by J. S. Morin
Shortly after Rashan crossed, sounds could be heard from inside the keep. It began with confused shouting and yelling, and progressed through clatters of metal on stone, wet crunching noises, and roaring flames. Throughout most of it, there was a lot of screaming—not battle cries or screams of fear, though some of those may have been drowned out in the din—but the screams of men dying less than quick deaths. The horrible fascination and surrealism of it made it seem like an eternity, but in quite short order, the sounds of battle ended, replaced by the rhythmic clanking of the hoisting mechanism for the drawbridge being released. There was no one standing on the far side to greet them when it finished opening.
No one moved. No one spoke. The silence coming from the open drawbridge was distinctly asking “Well, are you coming or not?” but no one seemed to want to be the first to cross.
Finally Brannis decided to assert his command and announced, “Well then, we cannot very well stand here all day,” and then stepped onto the drawbridge.
As he got halfway across, Iridan got up his courage and ventured onto it himself. One by one, the rest of the troops followed suit.
On the far side, Brannis began to take stock and realize what must have gone on during the hermit’s vicious assault. Bodies were flung against the walls like rag dolls, with limbs torn off and blood everywhere. One soot-stained stairway seemed to contain three or four bodies, but no one seemed to be of a mind to pick through the greasy mess of charred remains to get a good count. Swords and shields lay scattered about, the former being rather incongruously clean compared to most of the devastation around them. From the looks of the uniforms and what he could make out from the bodies, the men appeared to be from Megrenn.
Megrenn was a former part of the Kadrin Empire, conquered over a century ago, and which had regained its independence when Brannis was still just a small boy. There were a handful of regions like it, conquered during periods of particularly fierce expansion of the Empire, left to drift back to their old governments when a more peaceful emperor or more frugal high commander let control slip back to the hands of the locals. The Megrenn were a seafaring people from the northlands, and for a time, the bounty of their whaling fleets was much prized by the nobles of Kadrin. As shrewd Megrenn merchants took advantage of fads in kerosene lamps and scrimshaw knickknacks, petulant nobles began to consider cheaper alternatives. The cheapest they decided on was to annex the country. Of course, fads never lasted forever, and kerosene lamps fell out of popularity in favor of good old-fashioned aether, and scrimshaw gewgaws came to be viewed as cheap and tawdry, and Kadrin natives never quite developed a taste for whale meat. So when the Megrenn decided to revolt and oust the Kadrin garrison, they had little trouble about it. The garrison had already been cut to a skeleton crew, and the remaining forces were overwhelmed … and butchered.
The Megrenn were not amused by their time under Imperial rule. They had not been content merely with liberation; they sought reparations, and knowing that the Kadrins were not the type to go in for that sort of nonsense, they went about taking by force what they felt they deserved. Of course, their winters of subjugation had left them bereft of any real military might, but they made a nuisance of themselves, sending sanctioned bands of brigands on horseback, whom they referred to amongst themselves as the “light cavalry,” to harry and obstruct Kadrin traders traveling abroad and in the remote reaches of the Empire itself.
By all appearances, they had done quite well for themselves in taking over the fortress guarding Two-Drake Chasm. There were no signs of Kadrin remains among the fallen, so presumably they had been in control of the garrison for at least a little while and had set themselves up comfortably enough, with provisions and everything, as if it were actually under Megrenn command. Brannis had not counted the bodies but guessed that there were roughly two dozen men, all now dead, who had been stationed there. Certainly they should have been able to slaughter a small, weary, under-equipped command group, even one with a junior member of the Imperial Circle to aid them. But they had not counted on some strange, secretive hermit leaping the chasm and butchering them.
“Butchering … them …” Brannis murmured under his breath.
He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears, and his stomach went a bit queasy. He turned from his musings and set off down the eastern side of the pass before his better judgment could dissuade him.
Brannis did not have far to go. The hermit was sitting a short ways ahead, in the middle of the road. His knees were pulled up to his chest as he stared into the distance, his back to Brannis as he approached. The late-morning light streamed through the gap in the mountains, and Brannis realized that he had never really gotten a look at Rashan in full daylight. The forest canopy, the rain, the shadows of the mountains … but now brilliant, warm light cast a clearer picture as the hermit turned, sensing Brannis’s approach. His hair was not merely a platinum blond, it was snowy white, and the pale face seemed like smooth-polished ivory.
“I have missed it, you know.”
“You are really him.” Brannis tried not to sound accusing. “You are the Rashan. Warlock Rashan Solaran, who died a hundred summers ago.”
“Brannis …” There was a long pause. “If you could be a sorcerer, would you go back and try the Academy again? Iridan told me that you were popular there as a child, that you were the best student, until they tried you at real magic.”
“What are you talking about?” Brannis was caught off guard by the abrupt change from accusation to interrogation.
“Would you give up all you have now to go back and take the life you thought you were going to have? Could you face all the people who you left behind and act like nothing ever happened? If it turned out you could do it, would you want to be accepted back in?”
“I am not sure, I guess. I do not see what this is getting at, though. You are evading the question again.”
“Not really, this time. Yes, I am Rashan Solaran. I am probably some great uncle of yours a handful of generations removed. I thought the day would never come when I would return to the Empire. I am not even sure what is left there for me anymore. I do not know whether I am a deserter, an expatriate, a traitor, or merely returned from an unusually long sabbatical. One hundred and two winters is a very long time.”
“But you were not a young man when they say you died,” Brannis said as diplomatically as he could think of. “And you are still alive. You must be nearly 250 by now.”
“Who is the oldest sorcerer ever known to have lived?” Rashan asked.
“Umm …” Brannis searched back in his mind to academy history lessons. “Gelverick Archon, was it not—212?” he ventured.
“Not bad, but it was 218.” Rashan seemed rather pleased. “The text in third-rank history is off on the dates but a good reference overall. They have it right in Colverge’s Introductory Longevity, which I imagine you were not still around for in seventh-rank Practical Magic.”
Brannis’s mind was working in circles now. This was not the conversation he had been expecting at all when he came to confront the “hermit.”
“Come now,” Rashan said. “I taught for twenty winters and more at the Academy and attended it too of course, when I was a boy. But then, that was a very long time ago.”
Rashan fixed Brannis with a meaningful stare.
“All right, I will take your bait. What is the trick? Is there some magic potion to take winters off a body, or a place where the aether runs time backward, or are you just some sort of prodigy in life-prolonging, using all your powers on keeping young?”
“Almost spot on with the last one, excepting of course that it is hardly a drain on my Source to keep me vital. No, I am merely immortal. My Source is closed; I do not bleed aether like mortal creatures do. My own aether sustains me now.”
“But that is not possible,” Brannis said. “That is basic magic. They teach it the first day at the Academy. It is the first thing you teach small children about where magic comes from. The definition of a l
iving thing is that it gives off aether; anything else moving around that does not is some sort of undead abomination or a—”
“—demon,” Rashan finished for him, nodding. “Yes, as you understand it, I would be classified as a demon. The others find it casts them in too harsh a light and prefer being referred to as immortals, but I do not mind the term, really. It has a certain ancient authority about it, referenced in mythology and legend, fearsome creatures of magic and rage, eternal and mighty.”
“Others?” Brannis asked.
“Brannis, this is going to get long and complicated. The Megrenn had plenty of horses for your men. I left them all alive, so we can ride the rest of the way. It is only three days if we push ourselves a bit early and late in the days.” Rashan sighed. “I cannot return now, so instead I will go back. I shall answer what questions you might have as we ride.”
“Do you think you could stop talking in riddles? What do you mean ‘cannot return … have to go back’?”
Brannis found himself talking to the warlock’s back, as the little man—little demon?—strode past to where the horses were stabled.
“Probably not, but if you start listening in riddles, you might find your answers quicker.”
* * * * * * * *
“Well, you see, when something is immortal, the population of them tends not to shrink much.”
Rashan rode along, his horse even with Brannis’s at the front of the group. They were making good time, but without being able to change horses, they carefully managed the beasts’ stamina.
“Even if there were only one to emerge every hundred summers, you would still see the number of them grow. Mind you, demons can be killed, but it is not so easy. All demons are comfortable with magic, our bodies are sustained by aether, not reliant on flesh and blood to maintain life. Most also take the time to reshape and refine their bodies, making them stronger, or tougher, or more intimidating—whatever they wish. A smaller body is weaker physically, but takes less aether to maintain.”
“So what you are saying is that you reshaped yourself into the form you have now. You are physically weak but do not require much aether to keep yourself alive?” Brannis asked, intrigued by this more than he expected, and less horrified, though he realized he probably should be.
“Yes and no. This form is essentially my body from my younger days. By the time I was able to harness immortality, I was well along in summers, and despite my excellent age control, I was feeling the age of a non-sorcerer nearing fifty summers. I look, as best as I could recall, as I did just as I entered Imperial service. And as to the other half of your question, I could break your neck with hardly an effort. Strength is relative. If I had crafted a body the size of an ogre, I ought to be able to crush boulders in my fists and stave in castle walls. Why bother with that, though, when through aether I can accomplish all that and more, without the nuisance of looking like a monster.”
Brannis sat back in his saddle. He noticed he had been leaning in, rapt attention on every word Rashan had spoken, but he needed to digest this information. He had only seen the aftermath at the fortress, a result of angering this diminutive demon who had apparently once subdued half the continent through force of arms, but it was difficult to reconcile with the pale, frail, wispy young woodsman who sat atop the horse next to his.
Chapter 12 - Masterless Apprentice
Kyrus stared into the bluish glow lighting the lantern on his desk. It was a gentle, pleasing light, soothing and comforting, despite its other-worldliness. He had been practicing at length—hours a night—and had made progress in modifying the light to suit his desire. A bit of a change of inflection and he could adjust the brightness or the hue. Subtle changes to the way he moved his fingers could make it last longer or shorter, how close to him it formed, and whether it would stay fixed in space or follow an object as if attached to it. He was feeling rather proficient at it; everything seemed familiar once he tried it, and it came almost naturally to him.
Regarding his latest experiment, he scribbled some notes about how he had managed to light the lantern just so. He had already managed to get it in shades of white, yellow, and orange. Blue was the first one he had tried that had made it a color that he had never seen in a fireplace. As he finished his notations, he let his senses drift into that other place, where the aether was visible, and mentally tugged at the light. It went dark, as if a candle had been blown out.
He had been quite relieved to discover that trick, since as he performed the ritual more and more precisely, it tended to last much longer of its own accord. The previous night, he had left one aglow to see how long it might last and had fallen asleep before it so much as dimmed. It had been unchanged in the morning, and he had felt better snuffing it out lest anyone discover it, preferring caution over curiosity. Still, one day, he ought to figure out the limits of this magic, and to do so would require someplace more discreet than a scrivener’s shop on a city street.
By the light of a normal lamp, Kyrus gathered up his night’s notes in a neat pile and set them in a drawer, along with notes from his previous few nights’ work. Sooner or later, he thought, he would have to get them bound up, lest they become disorderly. A whole new world was opening up to him, he could feel, and he did not want to miss any part of it.
Kyrus went to bed determined to peer into that other world he saw so often but remembered so little from. Things had been getting easier to recall, though, the more he practiced with the lights. Something familiar to that world was making the connections to the rest that much easier. There were things there he wanted to see, to learn, to understand. There was more to magic than simple tricks of light; that he was certain of. It would be akin to learning a language by watching children play: haphazard, unfocused, and never certain of a correct example, but until he discovered a better way, he would watch and study.
If he were to dream instead of Abbiley, that would not be so bad, either. Alas, he saw naught but the same magical world, same as ever.
* * * * * * * *
The morning’s work seemed interminable. Kyrus scribbled his way through one page after another of the new bylaws passed by the Shipping Guild. He had finished two copies already and was midway through a third. Eight had been commissioned by Expert Harone, enough copies to allow each of his shipping masters to keep a copy. While he appreciated that Expert Harone had gone the traditional route, rather than bring such a repetitive tasks to the typesetters who specialized in such jobs, he was growing weary of it. The saving grace was that the shippers were not going to be as picky about the niceties of penmanship as some of Kyrus’s other clients; they just wanted accurate, legible copies of the document distributed among their membership.
And Kyrus was in a rush. He had woken up with a fresh memory of another bit of magic to try. He had seen and heard it quite clearly, across from a campfire: an incantation to lift and move small objects about.
“Haru bedaessi leoki kwatuan gelora.”
That was how it went, and the one who spoke those nonsensical words had also gestured at the same time. He had started with his hands out at his sides, then brought them together as if to clasp them, but at the last moment turned and lifted them instead, and the subject of his spell lifted off the ground a foot or so. After that, he had seemed to be able to control the movement of the objects—in this particular case the remnants of the campfire-cooked dinner—but Kyrus could not see how he had managed that. He could not wait to try, and to figure it out.
As Kyrus’s hand flew across the pages of the shippers’ bylaws, he could not help but notice that there were things written within it that he likely should not know. There were all the usual mundane procedural rules and whatnot, but couched within the otherwise trite old standbys were a number of rules they had set up, whereby they regulated the trade of the city and much of the kingdom. There were rates set within it that could not be undercut by any of the members, though they were free to charge more should they be able to get more money from a customer, keep
ing the prices higher than if they were at each other’s throats for business. There were lists of contraband items that could not be transported, but there were also notable listed exceptions for those with certain paperwork, signed by the proper officials, and who those officials were. There were lists of nations and their various tariffs, and brief lists of what they considered contraband in their own lands. It listed what nations were lax about enforcing these restrictions, and which were not. There was a notation about two nations, the Empire of Sak Qual and the island kingdom of Silk Waves, which only allowed their people to travel under certain restriction and with official permission. All told, it was not just the rules of the tradesmen, but an insight—albeit a commercial and nautical one—into the wider world beyond Acardia.
As the day wore on, Kyrus scribbled away relentlessly to get through the shippers’ commission. He was making more mistakes than usual, he knew, and was probably making it take longer than if he slowed down and did a more careful job, but he was unable to contain his excitement. He crumpled yet another sheet, walked across the room to the stove, and tossed it into the fire.
* * * * * * * *
When finally he penned the last line of the last letter of the last sheet of the last copy of the shippers’ bylaws, Kyrus let out a deep sigh. He would take them to the binder in the morning—a simple, inelegant job, just enough to hold the sheets together—but for now he was done. He set aside the eight stacks of paper and opened the drawer that contained his latest notes from his dreams.
He gathered them up and took a quick stop in the kitchen. He opened a drawer containing various culinary implements and selected a single spoon. Satisfied, he headed up to his bedroom, notes and spoon in hand. Ash, not usually the curious type, nevertheless followed him up the stairs, padding along silently behind.
Kyrus laid his notes out on the little desk by the bedside and sat down in the small, worn wooden chair. Scratched out hastily in the foggy aftereffects of slumber, the notes were something of a puzzle in and of themselves. The first part of Kyrus’s experimentation would be deciphering his own notes. Normally, if he had jotted something down in haste, he would have taken clues from the context to help him unravel the meaning of the words and identify wayward and misbegotten letters. These notes were different, though; they included a lot of nonsense, and intentionally so. The words Kyrus needed to remember were words that were not spoken in Acardia, or any part of Tellurak that he was aware of, and he suspected they might not be spoken in any land he had ever heard of.