by BJ Hanlon
“I think we should find our own accommodations.” He said seriously.
A moment later, Sinndilo burst from the inn’s door with general in quick toe. He looked around, saw Edin and Rihkar standing over the four downed men. “What in the name of the Underworld happened! Master Yaultan?” Sinndilo said.
“Nothing to concern you, my lord,” Edin said with a soft bow. He’d liked Sinndilo when he first met him at the man’s psychotic brother’s estate. The new duke seemed practical and not at all wicked like his older sibling. “I believe we will find different accommodations.”
“Probably not a bad idea. A man named Dorset is inside. You may wish to talk with him before you go.”
Edin bowed again. “I will, my lord.”
Sinndilo turned to his other men. “Alright, if we’re done trying to fight each other, we’ve got to stuff four to a room here. Two on beds, two on floors.”
Merik appeared as well from the door. “Por Fen, we will stay at the church.” He turned toward Edin. “When you see your big friend, tell him I’d like him to meet me there.” He walked off as Sinndilo and Oporius came toward the big bearded man on the ground. “Arsholnol, I thought you were strong and could fight.”
“The abomination is fast, my lord.” He swallowed and Edin hoped he was swallowing blood. “Terrin fast.”
Sinndilo looked at Edin again with a raised eyebrow.
Edin shrugged but said nothing. The duke shook his head, “you surprise me.” He said and then he and everyone else went back inside inn as the Por Fen disappeared down a street a few blocks over. Only when everyone was off the street did they enter to find his old roommate.
It was much the same as it’d been on their last trip here. Stone tables with chairs flipped over, no food on the stove, and the old man standing behind the bar.
Edin walked over to him to say hi but as he approached, he saw the man didn’t recognize him. Then he thought it was probably a good thing.
In the back corner, watching the guards file past, Dorset sat with his hands beneath the table. He looked to be ready to pull the entire building down on these men should they decide to attack although Edin wasn’t certain that they knew he too was a magus.
Next to him, big as ever and with a hand engulfing his mug was Henny. They both grinned broadly when they saw Edin, then both leapt to their feet, Henny nearly toppling the marble table.
It seemed he had healed from the stabbing. Then they rushed over, their feet pounding the floor.
Henny threw his giant arms around Edin and hugged him, then let go as Edin gave Dorset a good wrist shake, then hug. Henny turned to Rihkar and his face went slack.
“Well if it ain’t a ghost from the past,” Henny said. “Rihkar Harlscot.”
Dorset tensed but Rihkar just nodded.
“Are you Hennear, the Beast from the East?”
“Beast from the East?” Edin asked.
Henny nodded with a coy smile.
“He was from Brackland and a beast,” Rihkar said but Edin gave him a blank look. “They don’t have the matches anymore?”
“Not many,” Henny said.
“Matches?”
“Fights really, some of the mundane lads on the isles used to set them up. They didn’t use weapons or anything like that. They’d use strength and technique to try and throw men to the ground and pin them. Hennear was the champion when I left.”
“We called it wrestling,” Henny said.
“I heard about those,” Dorset said. “They were banned when I was a teen, weren’t they?”
Henny nodded. “When Pharont took over, yes. He thought we mundanes shouldn’t learn to fight… we should learn to farm and sow and make weapons and finery for our betters.” He left the word hanging there with a hiss of resentment.
He meant the magi.
“So Pharont took over the Praesidium? I always hated that blotard,” Rihkar said changing the subject.
“The feeling was mutual,” Edin said. “Believe me he hated me as well, threw me in prison for a while.”
Rihkar clenched his jaw. “I’m going to kill him, that—”
“Wait, does he not know what happened?” Dorset said interrupting. “He doesn’t know about the isle?”
“Not a lot. We were looking for the Rage Stone.” Edin paused, “which the dematian king now has. I kind of forgot to catch him up and he was also unconscious for quite a few days.”
“I had my arm torched off you ungrateful little punk.” Rihkar said but there was a joviality in his voice and for some reason, Edin felt it too. He had a father.
“Always heard the Harlscot clan were fighters, especially within their family,” Dorset said. “But Pharont is dead, Casitas is now the FAE.”
“He is damn near calling himself king.” Said Henny.
“There goes my idea.” Rihkar said. “You know you could’ve told me when I brought it up in the convocation,” he said looking at Edin.
“What plan?” Dorset asked. “What convocation?”
“After the Battle of the Northlands,” Rihkar said, looking at Edin. “It’s what the men are calling it.”
“There was a battle? Wait where’s Yechill?”
“I don’t know.” He sighed, “there’s a lot I have to tell you, and a lot I have to figure out.”
It was then that they got ales from the innkeeper. Many ales and eventually Berka rejoined them.
Edin recounted the last few weeks or so. He spoke of the journey over the tundra, the wyrm, the dwarven city, and the Rage Stone. It culminated with the battle a few nights previous and the death of the thunderwyrm.
“So you’re now a tosoria, too?” Dorset said. “This is insane!”
“Wait, what?” Said Berka.
Edin opened his mouth but Rihkar cut him off. “Berky,” he said, it was a nickname Edin remembered. Something this uncle of his used to call his friend. “Edin is not a normal magus.”
“I could’ve told you all that, I have known him his entire life.” He said matter-of-factly.
Edin began to smile, but he knew where this was going. A worry began to grow in him, something he’d denied for a long time.
He had five of the six. Spirit, water, lightning, wind, and now fire. One more remained for him to become it.
The last was the talent over the earth. The talent the two magi in front of him had which struck him as odd. Was it a coincidence that they were both terestio?
“He does not have just one magus talent.”
“I knew that, there was the water on the beach when we met the Foci. A glasorio,” Berka said, “and a philios. When the crillio attacked, I remember the culrian and the shaft of light. I remember being unable to move or think straight but I remembered it. That blasted cat’s attack ruined me for so long…”
Edin saw tears beginning to form in Berka’s eyes and he threw a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“We’d both be dead if you weren’t an…” A half a moment passed before he looked up and stared into Edin’s eyes. “I wouldn’t have met El and I like her and you.”
“I like you too buddy,” Edin said.
Berka looked at Dorset and Rihkar. “I’m sorry to both of you as well. I’m sorry I ever joined the Por Fen. I’ve lost faith in the gods. They can all die and go to the underworld for all I care.” He growled.
“Don’t say that,” Rihkar said quickly. “It’s not the gods who wrote the Book of Truth, it was man, more aptly, mundane man.”
“I do not care. I’ve fought the dematians. It doesn’t matter if you’re mundane or mage. Those demons are here to wipe us all out and we need to end this. Kill every one of those beasts and hopefully save our world.”
“I agree,” Edin said.
“So wait, where were we?” Dorset said. “I’m so lost— the Por Fen are now our allies? I saw some of them outside, another in here though he barely looked at me.”
“Yes,” Edin said. “For now, and I believe Rihkar was trying to tell Berka that I am the Ecta
Mastrino.”
“The what?” Berka said as Dorset started to grin.
“Ecta Mastrino,” Rihkar said. “The one destined to hold all of the talents. Like Vestor. The first mage.”
“Vestor wasn’t a mage, the Book…” then Berka began to laugh, a soft chuckle at first but it grew. He wiped tears from his eyes as he looked around at the others.
No one else was laughing, they were all looking at him like he was a nut.
Edin caught his eye and nodded. He understood what Berka was going through, his belief system was being shattered, the Por Fen were based on a lie. The lie that said Vestor was mundane and not the mage that he truly was. At least Edin hoped that is what he was realizing.
“Vestor wasn’t a mage.” Berka chuckled. “He helped defeat the magi that summoned the wyrms and other monsters of old.”
“Rihkar just told you, your Book of Truth was written by man,” Edin shook his head. “The one you’ve read is one of lies. I’ve seen one from more than a thousand years ago. A copy that tells the truth.”
“Any from before the purges were lies, it was the powerful mages stomping on the mundane. That’s why Vestor had the real Book hidden in the shadows for so long. That’s why the normal people had to wait until we, I mean they, had a weapon to combat magi lies and corruption and evil.” He looked at Edin, his face aghast as if thinking, why would you even believe something so stupid as this.
“It isn’t.” Said Dorset, “remember, I’m a scholar, I have seen communications, I have seen letters written by your Great Duke Restican and other threats he’d made if his demands weren’t met.”
“It’s lies.” Said Berka but then he looked down at the froth on his ale. Or whatever was left of the froth.
After a few minutes of all of them staring at their ales, all of them not wanting to interrupt Berka’s meditation, Henny said “so you’ve got five talents now—”
“Wait,” Berka interjected again, his mind seeming to come back after the quiet period. “I’ve heard of magi with two talents, none have ever had more than that.”
Rihkar said, “you didn’t see the wall of flames during the battle?”
“What wall?” Berka asked raising an eyebrow.
Edin held out his hand and felt the energy in the room, he let it flow into him for a moment.
Rihkar leaned closer. “Let it flow through you, be the water in the gutter.”
He felt it flowing, all five of the talents. He pictured each, the ethereal light, a ball of flame, another of ice, a miniature tornado, and a ball of lightning. They appeared in a circle above his hand, none touching the other, none diminishing in any way.
Berka gasped, his hand flew to his mouth as he watched. Then Rihkar slammed a hand on Edin’s forearm and the balls of talent disappeared. Rihkar nodded toward the bar and Edin turned to see a pair of Por Fen walking past the old man and up the stairs.
“I don’t like the way that looks,” Henny said. They all nodded agreement.
2
The Time to Go
There were no other inns in the town, nor did anyone willingly open their homes to magi and their friends. But there was an abandoned building. One with beds and slight fire damage from a nearby blaze nine months ago.
Edin said nothing about the blaze as they took up residence in the two-story building. Despite the second story, they were forced to stay on the bottom.
The building had a torched roof with holes and rot and mold. That was unfortunate because it also held the only two bedrooms.
The group of outcasts spread out on the floor of the living room and dining room. Henny and Dorset, who had previously been residing at the inn, moved to the house where they wouldn’t be murdered by people under the same roof.
After they’d gone inside and each found their own places for which to set up their bedrolls, Rihkar headed to the dockmaster in search of passage despite the port being empty and the look of the sea.
The ocean wasn’t a field of ice, but the dark blue was dotted with small and large bergs. There were animals out there too. Edin spotted the giant spout of a black and white whale shooting out water for what seemed like a hundred feet into the air.
He hoped Rihkar could find a boat to take to the isles, maybe something in a dry dock currently waiting out the winter ice. That was doubtful in a small town like this. Any ship that could make the journey could afford to dock somewhere south for the winter.
And then Edin thought of the sea the open ocean and he felt the yearning and desperation in wanting to flee these people and begin searching for Arianne.
But he couldn’t. Not if he wanted to keep them all together.
At the Convocation, Rihkar was given leave to search for passage to the isles, to attempt to get powerful recruits, allies in Sinndilo’s head, though not in his generals or many of the other people in the army.
Edin didn’t get the same leave and now he had to stay within shouting distance. After he settled in with his blanket, one he’d taken from the inn, he had nothing to do.
He picked up a bottle of whiskey, also from the inn, and sat down on the small table and popped the cork.
“What are you doing?” Berka said stomping over and ripping it from his hands. Dorset and Henny looked up at them.
“What does it look like? I’m having a drink. It’s not like we have anything to do.”
“Get that out of here and stop drinking. We’re at war. Whiskey will do nothing but turn you into a blotard.”
“Come on, it’s just a drink. Just—”
“He’s right, Edin,” Dorset said. “You’ve been drinking like a man from the desert since I’ve known you, any chance you get. Ale is fine—”
“Guys, it’s just a bit of whiskey.”
“You don’t need it,” said Berka. “You remember Ulson? We’d laugh at him; we’d laugh with him. It was great fun, right? Have you ever talked to him when he was sober?”
“No.”
“I did, in my father’s jail. He told me not to drink, told me he’d lost his wife and his kid ‘cause of the booze. He was a pitiful thing Edin and you’re beginning to act that way. You lost your woman. Are you going to drink yourself to death?”
“She’s not—”
Dorset interrupted. “Stop. We need you alive. You’re the only one that can save the world. And if you do believe the elves can help, we need to find them. And to do that, we need to convince the Duke. You cannot do that sloshed.”
“Do they really exist?” Berka said.
Edin nodded.
“Then we recruit them.”
“Unless Sinndilo lets us leave, I’m a glorified guard.”
“What do you mean lets you leave Edin?” Berka said. “Just walk out of here. If someone chases you just knock them down with a wind or something.”
“What will that do to our alliance then? What would he do to you guys?” Edin said. “Even so, I don’t want to search for the elves until I know where Arianne is.”
“We saw her fall,” Henny said solemnly. “She’s not coming back…”
“She’s not gone.” He paused. “I dreamed of her; I saw her. I think maybe it was from Suuli’s vision powder. If I could get some of that, maybe I could figure out where she is.”
“Edin,” Dorset said solemnly, “that was just what they were, visions. I dreamt about Mersett. I thought I saw him as well when Suuli gave us the Hocooaltius.”
Edin looked up at him, there was nothing in Dorset’s expression that said he was lying. He was as serious as if he were trying to teach him another spell, a spell that could save his life.
Edin felt suddenly sick again. Like he had after he saw it, after he saw her fall. Edin shook his head.
“No,” Edin said. “She was in another underground city. She was running from dematians and draugrs. They were fighting. There was a river that ran through the city and it was lit by a weird blue glow from the ceiling.”
“She’s not—” Berka said but Edin slammed his fist on the tab
letop and nearly leapt from his chair.
“You guys say what you will, I’m leaving. Do not follow me.” He eyed them one at a time, Berka, Dorset, and then Henny. Then he snatched the bottle from Berka. “And I’m taking this.”
Edin pushed past Berka and as the large lad tried to wrench it back out of his hands, Edin summoned a culrian and stopped him. A few moments later, he was out the door and walking down the road.
After walking quickly and not looking back, he began to relax a bit. At least in his gait, he started moving slower, easier and he began to notice things.
Out here, in the evening sunlight, in the real world, he heard voices. Not many of them and then he saw there were women and children about. Life.
A boy, probably about two, wearing only a large tunic ran out an open doorway. He had short blond hair and wide gray eyes that looked happy. He was playing and hadn’t a care in the world. The kid stopped as he saw Edin taking a drink from the whiskey and dropped a small wooden stick that was in his hand.
Edin swallowed the harsh liquor. The stick clattered to the ground and bounced a few times and then it rolled within a foot of Edin’s boots. Edin bent down and picked it up for the kid. As he offered it back, the kid ran back through the door yelling for someone, probably his mother.
Edin dropped it again and continued. He held the bottle by the neck loosely between his thumb and forefinger as he strolled down the stone road.
To the right, he spotted a small road, one that looked to be the same that he and Arianne had fled on all those months ago. The shrubs to the sides of it looked overgrown and untended. As he looked more carefully, much of the town seemed that way. There was little in the way of noise and movement.
How long could they expect the city to survive when its men were gone?
Then toward the sea he caught sight of the lighthouse. It stood in the shade of large tree covered hill to the west. The flame up top was out and then he noticed that the sun was going down. At any moment, he was certain it’d be lit.
Edin wanted to watch that.
He found an empty cart stuck on chocks and not going anywhere. From the rusting metal bolts, it looked like it hadn’t been moved in a long time. Edin hopped on the back and it squeaked. He took a drink and watched the lighthouse. When would that man, the stranger that let the two vagrants stay for the night, appear? When would the beacon burn bright for all who approach?