Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy)

by J. S. Morin

  Making a circuit of the room, he laid out an array of blank pages, using any available flat surface he could find, and setting a quill and ink pot down next to each. By the time he had cleared enough space to work on all the playbills at once, his tea was done steeping. He poured himself a cup and went over to stand by his writing desk, where he had one of the sets of quill, ink, and paper, as well as the instructions on how to compose the advertisement.

  Setting the cup down, he spoke, “Haru bedaessi leoki kwatuan gelora,” sweeping his arms together and up, and the quills rose in unison along with them.

  Just at that moment, there was a great crash. The door burst open and three men rushed in, one in the plain coveralls of a laborer, the other two dressed in the uniforms of the constabulary.

  “Surrender, by decree of the king’s justice!” one of the uniformed constables shouted.

  Kyrus stood agape, frozen in sudden fear as he looked alternately from the intruders to the floating writing implements and back again. The men carried clubs, and both uniformed constables had shackles hanging from their belts.

  The constables looked shocked as well, seemingly unsure how to proceed through the cluttered maze of tables and papers without having to touch one of the bewitched quills. The constables’ resolve mustered itself first, however, and they charged across heedless of the tiny floating obstructions.

  “Whoa, wait!” Kyrus said, but quickly changed tactics as his startled exclamation failed to halt the oncoming lawmen. “Haru bedaessi leoki kwatuan gelora,” he said as quickly as he could, casting the levitation spell again.

  They were by far the heaviest objects he had lifted, but in his panic, he drew in aether to spare. Up rose the tables from the floor, and Kyrus sent them tumbling at the constables.

  Papers flew and ink spilled, the constables cursed, and Kyrus ran. He knocked over his tea as he made for the kitchen. There was a back door that led to the alleyway behind the shop where old stews got dumped and chamberpots were emptied. Overturning cookware in his wake, he crossed the kitchen in two strides and pulled the door open. He grabbed the door frame as he ran through to make the turn down the alley quicker, but slammed into something solid.

  Another two constables had been waiting around the back entrance of the shop, and he had just plowed into one of them. The constable grabbed Kyrus as they collided and, with a shift of his weight, brought both himself and Kyrus to the ground as they overbalanced.

  Kyrus hit the cobblestones with the back of his head leading the way. Had he been conscious by then, he would have heard the second constable tell him that he was being arrested for the crime of witchcraft, and that he ought not to resist.

  The second, at least, was no issue, but Kyrus would have to wait until the morning to learn of the charge against him. Brannis Solaran, however, would have to wait until the following night to find out, as he was startled awake from a terrible dream before finding out how it ended.

  Chapter 20 - I Am Indeed Me

  Brannis awoke suddenly, gasping in shock. He felt the throbbing beat of his heart in his chest, and his breath came raggedly. He threw off the bedclothes as he sat up and looked around the room.

  It was his bedroom, but moments ago, it had not been. He had just been in an alley, behind a scrivener’s shop. He was being chased by constables—city guardsmen—and was about to be apprehended.

  It was such a nice dream up until the end. He remembered everything, from the meeting with the nobleman client to the shared jug of wine by the seashore. He had even gotten another indulgence of his secret desire to work magic. He closed his eyes as he recalled the clean, fresh feeling of aether cascading through him and into those quills.

  Just the very last bit was fuzzy. It seemed safe enough to presume he had lost consciousness in the dream. He hoped that was all that it was. It ended so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that he wondered if the man he was in his dreams had just been killed. The thought chilled him.

  He had been experiencing his dreams so vividly of late that it seemed much like a second life that he resumed upon falling asleep. He could recite the names of dozens of people in a city he had never visited. He knew stupid little details of complete stranger’s lives, from the guests at a nobleman’s “headsman’s wedding” to the going rate for spiced crescents made by a local baker. He had seen so much of this other life that he had grown attached to it, as if it were his own.

  Brannis was worried.

  * * * * * * * *

  Brannis dressed and made his way down to the dining hall for dawn feast, worries about this Kyrus fellow gnawing at him. The worst part was that it was such an odd thing to be worried about, he did not know to whom he could look for counsel.

  Father, there is a neophyte sorcerer in my dreams who has gotten himself in trouble. I do not know what has become of him and would like to lend him aid. What would you advise?

  Well, that certainly would not pass muster.

  Brannis reached the main dining hall as much of the family had already finished their meal. For all his abruptness in waking, Brannis had overslept, and by some hours, it seemed. The productive members of the family had all departed for their daily business, leaving only his cousin Danil—short for Danilaesis—and his grandfather, once High Sorcerer of Kadrin, but now too infirm to use his magic for anything but life extension.

  “Uncle Brannis,” Danil screamed when he saw Brannis enter the hall.

  Danil was of an age when he was looking for a guiding male presence in his life closer to his own age than his father, and Brannis had been anointed. The small bundle of excess energy leapt from his chair at the dining table and sprinted headlong across the room to crush Brannis in a hug around the waist.

  “Good morning, Danil,” Brannis greeted him as he absorbed the impact. “Have you been good while I was away?”

  “Yeah,” the boy replied, though Brannis suspected otherwise.

  Danil was seven autumns old and a whirlwind of mischief. He was the youngest son of Brannis’s uncle Caladris and his aunt Felia, who were both rather too busy and important to look after him. Danil was left mostly to tutors and servants, and occasionally overseen by his grandfather—the latter being the likely cause of his free-spiritedness. While the tutors lacked the authority to truly punish the boy—seen as a potentially great sorcerer one day—his grandfather was both doting and growing in senility; what behaviors his grandfather did not outright allow, were often permitted through neglect or obliviousness.

  “Brannis, my boy?” his grandfather said to him from across the room. “If that is you, then come here and let me have a look at you. Each day passing I expect to be my last, and you have been away too long.”

  The ancient and infirm sorcerer’s eyesight had deteriorated to the point where he rarely bothered with it anymore, preferring the indistinct view of the world through aether-sight over the blurry view that normal vision offered. Aether-sight used the eyes differently, though, and through it, Axterion Solaran was able to manage despite his normal vision having been nearly lost to cataracts.

  Brannis obliged the old man, walking the length of the fine polished oak table that took up most of the room. He knew that his grandfather’s view of him in the aether was poor due to his own rather closed Source. Axterion would have to make do with seeing his grandson in the light if he wished to see him at all.

  “How have you been, Grandfather? Has Danil been causing trouble?” he inquired.

  Axterion had always been kind to Brannis, even in his disgrace of failing out of the Academy. Axterion was unable to work magic anymore, lest his failing health give out on him, so he could at least somewhat understand Brannis’s plight, though he was coming at it from the other end, after a long and distinguished career of magic.

  “Hmph, that boy can cause no trouble. He can scarcely draw aether properly. His parents worry too much about him. He is a small boy, and in my experience, he is doing precisely what they are supposed to do.” The old man chuckled at his own observation. �
��But, Brannis, I hear there is true trouble come to call. Your father and uncle both say that you brought back a demon with you, who claims to be Rashan.”

  “You hear truly. I met him in Kelvie Forest, on an assignment. We were fleeing from a battle and came across him living in the woods as a hermit,” Brannis replied.

  “None of that sounds like the Rashan I knew. You found him in the direction opposite a battle? Living in squalor, with no one around to command? No, not like him at all,” Axterion mused, seemingly almost to himself.

  “But, Grandpa, what about that big boom, when the floor shook?” Danil piped in. “I could see smoke from my window, coming from the palace.”

  The boy might have been young and a rascal, but he was no fool.

  “Indigestion, nothing more,” Axterion replied, apparently not entirely grasping what the young boy had said.

  “What ‘boom,’ Danil?” Brannis asked.

  “Just before you came down to dawn feast, you must have heard it,” Danil insisted. “The whole floor shook, too!”

  “Sorry, but I was soundly asleep, I fear,” Brannis told him. “No one has said what it was?”

  “It is probably an invasion! With dragons and warlocks and ogres and forest spirits and wyverns and—”

  “Enough, boy!” Axterion snapped. He muttered something under his breath to the effect of “not raising a blathering idiot,” then continued: “If that is a demon you brought back with you Brannis, Rashan or no, I suspect that to be the cause.”

  Brannis’s heart sank again. If Rashan—or whomever he turned out to be—was an enemy of Kadrin, Brannis might bear responsibility for whatever had just befallen at the palace. He was now unsure whether he was worse off in real life or in his dream life.

  “I should go, then, and find out,” Brannis said, then turned to leave.

  But his grandfather caught him by the arm. The old man’s grip was feeble, but Brannis was too respectful—and careful of his grandfather’s health—to pull free.

  “Sit. Eat. You may command soldiers, boy, but you are just a pawn here. The Inner Circle knows of your involvement, and if they wish to consult you on the matter, they will send for you.

  “Cook,” Axterion called out. “Bring out more mutton and eggs. We have one more left for dawn feast.”

  Reluctantly Brannis sat down. Axterion was still head of the family, though he exerted his privilege infrequently. Brannis had a lot of leeway to disobey, given that his advancement in the knighthood had little relation to the Circle’s politics, but he also knew that his grandfather was in the right. While he might offer some assistance to the Inner Circle, he would have to wait for them to call for it.

  Brannis tried to enjoy the mutton and eggs the cook brought out, but was too preoccupied to appreciate them properly. On top of it, he had developed a headache. It felt as if something had hit him on the back of the head.

  * * * * * * * *

  The expected summons came an hour or so later. Brannis had gone back to his room and dressed properly for a formal visit to the Tower of Contemplation, and buckled on Avalanche at his hip. To bide his time until the messenger arrived, he had been playing with Danil, something that few in the household had patience for.

  The messenger arrived on horseback and had gotten the grooms of the Solaran stable to saddle one of their horses and ready it for Brannis. The message itself was curt to the point of rudeness: “Your presence is required in the Sanctum. Be quick about it.” The messenger was clearly uneasy, though Brannis could get no details. When he pressed for answers along the way to the Tower, the best answer he got was: “They shall explain when you arrive.”

  There were a number of guards at the gate when they arrived, far more than the token presence the Tower of Contemplation usually warranted. Upon entering the building, there were sorcerers milling about everywhere; it appeared that most of the Circle who lived within Kadrin were waiting in the entry hall of the tower.

  The messenger took the stairs, and Brannis followed, wondering if there was any particular reason they were taking the slower way up. All eyes turned to follow him as he walked up, keeping pace with the briskly ascending messenger.

  The messenger was short of breath by the time they gained the top landing. Brannis had gotten used to traveling in armor, however, and without it, he felt a bit lighter of foot and not quite so quick to tire. Both men took a moment to gather themselves before approaching the Sanctum. Brannis then followed the messenger up the short steps to the chamber itself.

  “Sir Brannis Solaran,” the messenger announced him, then quickly withdrew. He brushed past Brannis on his way down the stairs, his eagerness to be elsewhere clearly apparent.

  Brannis walked up into the Sanctum with some apprehension, which only heightened as he observed the daylight streaming in. His worry changed to confusion when he noticed that it was Rashan Solaran, and not Gravis Archon, seated in the high sorcerer’s seat directly opposite the entrance. Brannis entered the chamber and found Iridan there as well, along with his sister Aloisha, and a young sorcerer he did not know by name.

  “Good morning, Brannis,” Rashan said. “As you can see, there have been changes made this morning. Now that all of you are here, I shall explain this just once.

  “Gravis Archon is dead, by my hand, on the charge of treason against the Empire.”

  As Rashan spoke, Brannis took quick stock of the Inner Circle. There were two empty chairs, not including the one that Rashan now occupied.

  “Yes, Brannis, I see you checking. Your father Maruk Solaran was complicit as well, as was Stalia Gardarus. Both are dead, also by my hand.”

  Brannis stared at Rashan in shock. He hated his father, but in a way that many boys do. He resented and quarreled with him, and sought his approval for so long that he had given up trying to achieve it—though always secretly hoping he would find it regardless. He had not wanted his father dead—perhaps chastened, but never dead.

  “What had they done?” Aloisha asked, ever the practical one. She was tall and slender, as were most of the Solarans, and resembled Brannis enough that no one would doubt their relation.

  “There is no emperor,” Rashan stated simply and then paused, letting the reality of that brief sentence settle in. “Some forty winters ago, Tameron the Second died of a sudden illness. His successor, Dharus, was a young and sickly boy, and he died not long after. Rather than seek out the next closest in line for the throne, those dead today conspired to replace the imperial line with puppets of naught but aether, controlled by the sorcerers handpicked by the high sorcerer.

  “While I know that others were most certainly aware of this arrangement …” Rashan glared around the room at the remaining members of the Inner Circle. “… I will not further weaken the Empire by seeking out and executing everyone who knew about the plot. For those still breathing, there is a second chance. I am forgiving this transgression, but I shall not forget it entirely.”

  “So what now?” Iridan asked quietly.

  Brannis noted that Iridan did not seem fearful of Rashan but still seemed disturbed by the events that had taken place.

  “We will do what the Inner Circle should have done in the first place,” Rashan said. “We will search through the royal bloodlines and find the rightful heir and have a coronation. It will be a new dynasty, but it shall be a legitimate one. In the meantime, I will act as regent.” Rashan let that last part hang, awaiting a challenge, should anyone offer one.

  “By what right would you rule, if you just struck down Gravis for the same offense?” asked Dolvaen, perhaps foolishly. He was ever the righteous one among the council, claiming that he was not beholden to a bloodline family and was thus more free to speak and act by his conscience.

  The others in the room collectively held their breaths, wondering if there soon would be a third empty seat in the Sanctum. Rashan glanced about the room at the reaction, frowning slightly.

  “Three today were killed for treason, and I have already said that those r
emaining were to be given a second chance. Whatever my reputation has become over the past century, I do not slay sorcerers of the Empire for asking questions.

  “I have no more right to the position than Gravis Archon. That much I will grant. His treason, however, was not that he stood in regency over the Empire, but that he was complicit in supplanting the dynasty in the first place. Had the imperial royal family died during his tenure as high sorcerer, it would have been fine for him to seek regency until the succession could be resolved,” Rashan said.

  “And how do we fit in?” Brannis asked, spreading his arms wide to indicate himself and the three sorcerers with him in the middle of the chamber.

  “Well, Jurl is just here to act as herald. Many things will need to be explained and announced, and I was made to understand that Jurl has a rather excellent memory,” Rashan told them. “As for the rest of you, there are changes to be made. The Empire is in need of a bit of upheaval.

  “I find that the warning we had given regarding the goblins in Kelvie Forest has gone largely unheeded. While the threat was acknowledged, the generals of the army seem to have decided that there are sufficient troops in the region, and any potential reinforcements would not make it so far in time to matter. They are leaving the western reaches of the Empire to their own resources.

  “We have apparently been making a habit, these past few decades, of relinquishing lands we conquered, as we are driven out of them. Megrenn is free and sacking our outposts, and we have done nothing substantive about it.

  “Brannis, I am putting you in charge of the Imperial Army. You have the mind for it, and I know you can be trusted. The latter cannot be underestimated, given that I may face challenges from within, should my largess regarding amnesty be taken advantage of. This current crop of knights feels weak to me, as well. I have heard little so far, but what little I hear is enough to turn my stomach. We have bred a generation of tower guards and called them knights. You fight to win. When we are finished here, Jurl will accompany you to army headquarters, where you will relieve whoever is in charge these days.”