by James Erich
“I’ve been craving it ever since you left,” Sael said a bit defensively, not sure if he was being accused of something.
“I know. So have I.” Sael knew the Taaweh would come for Koreh soon. The two young men had only been given the night together. If he thought it was possible for his body to cooperate, Sael might beg for one last bout of lovemaking, but he was learning his energy wasn’t inexhaustible any more than Koreh’s was.
“Have you missed me?” Sael asked, regretting it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. No doubt Koreh would think he was being childish.
But Koreh’s response was surprisingly gentle. He lifted Sael’s face with his right hand and raised his own head so their mouths could meet in a tender kiss. Breaking away, he said softly, “Of course I have, you idiot. I think about you all the time.”
Sael knew Koreh used mild insults as terms of affection, so he didn’t fret about being called an idiot. But he raised himself up on one arm as Koreh’s head fell back against the pillow. He gazed down into Koreh’s crystal-clear blue eyes. “I hate to think about anything but how beautiful you are right now and how good it feels to hold you again. But have you learned anything about what the Taaweh are planning?”
Koreh shook his head. “I have no idea. They don’t tell me anything. Nothing like that, anyway. They’ve been teaching me things….”
“What kinds of things?” Koreh slipped out from underneath Sael and climbed out of the bed. Sael hated to lose the touch of their bodies pressed together, but he comforted himself with the sight of Koreh standing fully exposed before him, the almost girlish softness of his pale, flawless skin made masculine by taut, well-defined muscles. Nowhere in Harleh or güKhemed had Sael ever seen a man so beautiful.
Koreh went to the large windows and drew the thick, red velvet curtains, reducing the light in the room to the single candle on Sael’s bedstand. Then Koreh returned to the bedside and blew the candle out. The room went dark.
“Why did you do that?” Sael asked with a nervous laugh. “I can’t see a thing.”
“Hold still.”
Sael did as he was commanded, and a moment later, he felt Koreh’s fingers under his chin, gently tilting his face upward.
“Close your eyes,” Koreh said. Sael then felt a gentle kiss on each of his eyelids, and Koreh said, “Open them now.”
When Sael opened his eyes, the room was brighter, everything illuminated faintly by a blue-gray light, as if the Eye of Druma was in the night sky, fully open. But that was impossible. Sael glanced at the windows again and saw the curtains were still drawn. Not that Druma had shone through the cloud cover since the battle at any rate. “What have you done?”
Koreh laughed and reached for the dark shadow robe he’d draped over a chair when he undressed earlier. “They taught me how to grant someone the same vision they gave me when you and Geilin and I were in Mat’zovya.” He slipped the robe over his head and shrugged. “It’s not a very powerful spell, but it can be useful. Perhaps it will aid you at some point.”
Sael supposed being able to see when others were blind might prove useful at that. “Thank you. But do you have to go already?”
“He gave me until dawn. If I wait any longer, he’ll probably pop in here to fetch me. The Taaweh don’t understand the concept of being embarrassed. I don’t have any privacy in Gyishya, not even to relieve myself.”
Sael smiled, but he could already feel the ache growing in his chest. Koreh hesitated just a moment before he confessed, “I love you.” “And I love you.” Koreh bent down to give Sael a long, lingering kiss. Then he straightened up, and in a flutter of cloth and shadow, he was gone.
KOREH didn’t really know where he was supposed to go. But he knew the Taaweh would find him, as they always did, and he hadn’t wanted his last private moments with Sael to be spoiled by visitors.
On a whim, he visited the castle garden where he and Geilin had once talked in the days before the battle. At this time of day, the garden was empty, so Koreh found the bench he’d sat on then and settled down to wait.
The garden had changed, he observed. Bathed in blue light from the small patch of sky that showed above the castle walls, everything naturally looked different than it had in bright-yellow daylight. But the light that bathed the valley not only sheltered everything from the all-seeing Eyes of the Stronni; it also fed the trees and plants to keep them alive. More than that, the plants in the valley were flourishing. The flowers in the garden were enormous now—some as large as Koreh’s outstretched hand— and the trees had grown several feet higher than Koreh remembered.
“It is time to go,” a voice said nearby. Koreh looked up to see one of the Taaweh approaching. This one was female and dressed in a black shadow robe. He didn’t recognize her, but he’d long ago given up trying to remember faces. He rarely saw the same person more than two or three times.
Koreh stood, and realizing how tired he was, said, “I’d really like to sleep for a while.”
“As you like.” Koreh dared to hope for a moment that she would allow him to return to Sael’s warm bed, but then he felt himself falling and darkness swept up to engulf him. When he emerged on the other side, he and the Taaweh were standing in the chamber he’d been given in Gyishya’s underground warrens.
It was a cave of sorts, with walls of stone and massive tree roots, but very clean and tidy. A never-ending stream of yellow-green glowbugs crawled along trails across the walls like phosphorescent garlands and milled about in alcoves, casting a dim light into the room. The bugs had made Koreh cringe at first, but he’d grown accustomed to them. They never ventured from the walls, and with his enhanced vision, he found the illumination they provided more than adequate.
He had a bed there that consisted of a hollow space between two tree roots carpeted with soft moss. He’d spent so many years sleeping in the forest that he found it perfectly comfortable. Fresh water cascaded down one wall—one that didn’t have colonies of glowbugs wandering across it—and in one alcove a small hole led down to an underground stream. On his first day there, Koreh had asked what it was for, and his guide had told him, “That is for your bodily excretions.” Koreh had been amused by that, particularly when he imagined how many shades of red Sael would have turned if he’d been there.
“You may sleep until evening,” the woman told him. “Then you will be taken to the mountains.”
“The mountains?” Koreh had never dared violate the taboo about venturing into the mountains. The Stronni resided there, and humans who climbed the foothills were never seen again.
The Taaweh nodded. “The Eye of Druma will be obscured tonight. And it is time for you to see where the Stronni have imprisoned the Iinu Shavi.”
The Iinu Shavi was… well, Koreh didn’t really know. She was both strikingly beautiful and immensely powerful. It was possible she was the queen of the Taaweh—her name meant something akin to “great lady”—but the only thing Koreh knew about her was that she had succumbed to an act of treachery by the Stronni a thousand years ago, and now lay in a deep magical sleep. Yet somehow she still spoke to her people—and sometimes to Koreh— in dreams.
“Why are we going to see her?” Koreh asked. Even without the Eye watching them, a foray into the land of the Stronni seemed foolhardy.
“Because it is what must happen,” the woman replied.
And before Koreh could ask anything further, she vanished.
Chapter 4
THE Eye of Atnu was just dropping below the treetops when Donegh declared, “We’ll stop here for the night.”
Father Gednon looked relieved. An encounter with a large poisonous serpent in the swamp they’d passed through after leaving Mivikh had rattled him. Even though Donegh had dispatched the snake with a deftly tossed throwing knife, the priest was still shaken. He was starting at every unexplained sound. That was why Donegh had decided it would be better to let the man rest before a comforting fire, rather than travel through the forest in the dark.
“Shall I build us a fire?” Gednon asked, his voice hopeful.
“Yes. I’ll gather some deadfall.” The ability to cast a very weak fire spell was one of the few magical skills the caedan were allowed, so by the time Donegh returned with an armload of dry branches, the priest had cleared a spot and built a small fire surrounded by stones. Gednon had spread his cloak on the ground and was now sitting on it, his upper torso bare. In the center of his chest was the shimmering gold Eye of Atnu tattoo that marked him as a member of the priest class. Donegh noted that, for all his coddled, city-bred ineptitude the priest displayed at surviving in the wilderness, he was muscular and appeared physically capable. Perhaps some time on the road would do him good.
Gednon’s eyes were closed when Donegh approached, which annoyed the assassin. The caedan had performed his morning prayers on the boat, and had even forced them to stop for several moments in the mist-shrouded swamp for his midday prayers while Donegh stood guard. Now it was obvious the priest was again engrossed in prayer, but he could have waited until Donegh had returned. The man needed to learn caution.
“I feel better already!” Gednon exclaimed cheerfully when he opened his eyes to see Donegh dropping the branches about ten feet from the fire. “It’s amazing how a warm fire can lift the spirits.”
Donegh merely grunted. “I don’t suppose you have any idea how far we still have to go?” the priest asked him.
“Didn’t you say you’d been this way before?” Gednon waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, that was ages ago. I scarcely remember it.”
Donegh knew the way ahead through the vision he shared with the ömem. It would be about a day of walking through the forest, hopefully unmolested, before they arrived at the imperial camp. He didn’t want to appear too certain, however. So he shrugged and said, “I’ve been told that Harleh is about two days’ travel from Mivikh, and crossing Harleh plain can take half a day. So I’d say we have about a day’s walk to get through the forest.”
Gednon made a sour face. “May the gods grant us an easy journey.”
SAELhadn’t seen Geilin all day, and he was growing concerned. If the Taaweh were with the wizard, they were no doubt caring for him, regardless of whatever difficulty he might be going through when the link to the Stronni was severed. But his worry finally led him to break away from his other duties and check on his old master in the vönan’s wing of the keep.
What he found was eerily reminiscent of a deathwatch. All the vönan in Harleh were gathered in the passage outside the closed door of Geilin’s quarters, held back by a lone guard. When they saw Sael approaching, several of the vönan rushed forward to meet him.
“Your Lordship!” a short man with a bit of a paunch exclaimed, stepping to the fore. Sael couldn’t be sure, but he believed the man was named Vosik. “Master Geilin is locked in his chambers, held prisoner as far as we can tell, by these… sorcerers that have infiltrated our valley!”
“As I understand it… Vosik, is it?” The short man nodded and
remembered his position long enough to bow this time. “As I understand it,” Sael continued, “Master Geilin is working with the Taaweh to find a solution to the malady afflicting our mages.”
“Your Lordship, if I may be so bold, the only thing ‘afflicting’ the vönan of Harleh is the—” He waved a hand in the air as he struggled to recall the word. “—‘Taaweh’ themselves!”
There was certainly some truth to that. Yet Sael had known when he made the decision to ally himself and the citykeep with the Taaweh that there would be no turning back. The Stronni were not known to be forgiving of those who disobeyed them. So there was little point in lamenting what could not be changed. If any help were to come, it would have to come from the Taaweh.
Sael turned to the guard at the door and asked, “What are your orders?” The guard had come sharply to attention the moment Sael entered the corridor, and now the man saluted. “Your Lordship! Master Geilin insists that no one be permitted to enter.”
“Not even me?”
The guard looked embarrassed. “Your Lordship is the exception, of course.”
“Then please let me pass.” The guard bowed and opened the door, stepping into the room and announcing, “His Lordship, Saeldönz Menaük!” as he held the door for Sael to enter. Sael stepped in, conscious of the men in the hall craning their necks to see over his shoulder. But the guard stepped out of the room again, closing the door behind him.
The chamber was small compared to the one Sael stayed in. But Geilin had always preferred modest accommodations. His one extravagance was books. Though he’d only been in the keep a matter of weeks, he had managed to amass quite a library, and wooden bookcases had been brought in to house all his leather-bound volumes and scrolls.
There was a single bed and a small table with two upholstered chairs on either side of it. It was in one of these chairs that Geilin now sat. Or rather slumped, because he was clearly having difficulty keeping himself upright. He looked small in his gold-and-white robes, ancient and wizened like a man twice his age. The shimmering golden eye tattooed upon his shaved head was faint, almost impossible to see.
Sael rushed to his former master and knelt before him, forgetting their recent shift in status. “Master Geilin!”
“I’m fine, Your Lordship,” Geilin rasped, not sounding fine at all. His eyes opened for a moment but fluttered shut again, as if keeping them open required too much effort.
One of the Taaweh—a woman— was standing silently to one side. She now stepped forward and addressed the dekan. “Iinyeh Geilin is at a critical point. Though he has proven adept at learning some simple Taaweh magic, it has increased the conflict tearing his body apart. The Stronni magic is deeply embedded.”
Sael was surprised Geilin had agreed to be trained by one of the female Taaweh. Vönan were always men, just as ömem were always women. That was the order of things, as decreed by the gods a thousand years ago. A woman could never presume to train a vönan— it was simply not possible. If the vönan gathered outside in the corridor knew of this, it was no wonder they were alarmed.
But Sael had more pressing concerns at the moment. Geilin appeared to be seriously ill.
“Perhaps you should rest for a while,” Sael told the old wizard.
Geilin opened his eyes again and raised them to look at Sael defiantly. “With all due respect, my lord, I have no intention of being defeated by some simple spells that any child could learn. Help me up, please.”
Sael knew Geilin would get up with or without his help, so he reluctantly offered his shoulder and steadied his mentor with an arm about the waist. “It doesn’t sound to me as if it’s the spells that are weakening you,” he pointed out.
“True,” Geilin responded, leaning heavily on Sael. “But I confess I’ve grown angry at the discovery that my body has been co-opted by the Stronni.”
The Taaweh said gently, “Stronni magic uses the human body as a vessel. Magical energy is stored by you until it can be used. While it is stored, it also maintains the body to a small degree. What you are feeling now is the loss of that small amount of sustenance.”
“It doesn’t feel ‘small’ to me,” Geilin retorted.
Sael was disconcerted by this, knowing the slight weariness and unease he’d been feeling over the past couple of weeks was caused by the same loss of energy Geilin was experiencing. It simply wasn’t as severe for Sael, since he’d been a mere apprentice. Other experienced vönan would be feeling ill as well.
“What about Taaweh magic?” Sael asked. “Aren’t you simply allowing a new form of magic to take control of your body now?”
“Taaweh magic works differently,” the woman said. “It flows through the body, rather than pooling there.”
Geilin frowned and said, quietly enough that only Sael could hear, “We’ll see.”
He stopped in the middle of the room and gestured for Sael to move away from him. Then the old wizard stood there, swaying unsteadily on his feet, as he looked down upon a sin
gle kanun seed lying on the floor before him.
Sael glanced down at the seed and asked, “What’s that?”
“The bane of my existence,” Geilin said dryly, but Sael caught a twinkle of humor in his eyes. “I’ve been attempting to get that seed to sprout since midday. But the accursed thing simply sits there, mocking me.”
Sprout? If this was Taaweh magic, it was certainly alien to anything Sael had learned during his apprenticeship. Not even the ömem could force a tree to grow. But Sael had seen with his own eyes the forest springing up from Harleh Plain during the battle.
“Unlearn the old ways,” the Taaweh woman said softly. “Do not try to force the energy to do your bidding. Simply guide it.”
Geilin closed his eyes and breathed deeply for several breaths, his shoulders relaxing. Then he opened his eyes slightly, yet still keeping them narrow and unfocused, as if he were in some sort of a trance. He gazed down at the seed.
For a long time, nothing appeared to be happening. The room was silent apart from Geilin’s somewhat labored breathing and Sael’s own even breaths. If the Taaweh breathed at all, Sael couldn’t hear it.
Then the kanun seed rocked just a bit. A moment later it slowly rolled to one side, and Sael was surprised to see what had moved it was a tiny green shoot that had pushed its way through a crack in the shell. Geilin barely moved, his eyelids flickering only slightly as the shoot began to elongate, but Sael felt his hair standing on end. It wasn’t so much from fear as the feeling that he was witnessing something miraculous. Even the Taaweh woman was smiling in encouragement.
Then something seemed to go horribly wrong. Geilin screamed and grasped his head with his hands, collapsing to his knees in apparent agony. The kanun seed exploded—or rather, green tendrils erupted out of it, splaying out in all directions and writhing like green serpents. The tendrils sprouted leaves and slithered across the floor so rapidly that Sael had to jump up onto Geilin’s bed to get away from them. They began to thicken and branch out until Sael feared they would fill the entire chamber.