The Empress and the Acolyte

by Jane Fletcher

  Mavek ignored her. He placed one of his huge hands on Tevi’s head. With the other, he drew patterns in the air, spell-binding his victim. The effect was less dramatic than the previous magical assault. At first Tevi did no more than shudder. Then she gasped loudly and her eyes closed. When they reopened, they were utterly blank and devoid of life.

  “Last night, when you left Uzhenek, what were your plans?” Mavek demanded.

  “We were going to kill you.” Tevi’s voice was an apathetic monotone.

  “And what did you do with the talisman?”

  “Jemeryl sent it off to Lyremouth with Klara. She would only call Klara back if you died.”

  Mavek swore and shoved Tevi away. She fell limply, without any attempt to save herself and then lay, unmoving, where she landed.

  “You’re going to call it back.” Mavek snarled the words at Jemeryl.

  “I don’t even know if can. By now, Klara should be halfway through the Barroden Mountains.”

  “If you can’t, you are going to regret it. I swear. You will regret it.” He loomed over Jemeryl, pinning her against the central support post. His voice softened. “I won’t harm you. But I’ll hurt her.” He pointed at Tevi’s unconscious body on the floor. “I’ll hurt her so much that she’ll beg for death. In the end, you’ll kill her yourself as an act of mercy. And then I’ll leave you to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life. Do you understand?”

  Jemeryl nodded, appalled by the intensity of anger in his eyes.

  Mavek continued. “I’m going to get Dunarth in here and get her to take your poor sweetheart over to the far side of camp with a large escort. You’re then going to have five minutes to establish contact with your familiar and get her to return. If you don’t, or if you attack me so I can’t send Dunarth the right message, then I’ll make sure that she has some suitable instructions to implement. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you agree?”

  Jemeryl could feel tears forming in her eyes. She looked at Tevi, who was starting to stir. At that moment, their plans were irrelevant. Everything was irrelevant except Tevi’s safety. She dare not risk further defiance; she could only hope.

  “Yes. I agree.”

  *

  Jemeryl gasped in relief as the whirlpool of forces around her head dissolved.

  Mavek stepped back, holding the open iron collar in his hands. “Hurry up. You don’t have long. And I’m going to be monitoring what you’re doing, so you’d better get back in contact with your familiar and don’t try anything clever.”

  Jemeryl nodded. Any show of aggression on her part would be futile. Apart from Dunarth holding Tevi as assurance of her good behaviour, Ranenok and Kharel with two dozen witches were just outside the pavilion, armed with a selection of weaponry. They would spot any attempt to overpower Mavek.

  However, Jemeryl wondered if they had noted that a sorcerer who could so spectacularly defeat Bykoda needed such elaborate protection against her. And what conclusions might they draw? However, there seemed little hope that they would come to her aid or mount their own challenge to Mavek.

  Jemeryl knew that she was on her own, and she had to make sure that she gave Mavek no grounds to further mistreat Tevi. A show of instant obedience was wise. She closed her eyes and started to focus her thoughts, opening pathways through the upper dimensions. Her projection shot along waves in the ether, as she sought the small avian aura that was intimately bound to her own.

  The blacksmith’s aura was a shadowy presence, skittering around the edges of her search, but Jemeryl knew his claim to be monitoring her interaction with Klara was a bluff. The blacksmith, with his weak grasp on the fifth dimension, could not hope to follow her. Even Dunarth would have found it impossible. The bond between sorcerer and familiar was the strongest that magic could forge and impenetrable to anyone else. In a very real sense, Klara was her. As long as they were both alive, the ties between them could not be broken.

  The bonds reformed and she melded with Klara enough to sense her surroundings and know that the magpie was not flying, but underground.

  “No!” Jemeryl jerked back, ducking as if from a blow.

  “What is it?”

  “Klara. She’s been attacked.”

  “By what?”

  “An eagle, at the edge of the Barrodens.”

  Mavek leaned across and grabbed Jemeryl’s jaw in one hand, squeezing in her cheeks. He forced her head up and his eyes searched hers. “You’re playing tricks with me.”

  “No. I swear it.”

  He let go of her. “And?”

  “Klara. I...I think her wing is broken, but she managed to escape. She’s in a rabbit hole, hiding. We have to get to her.”

  “Has she still got the talisman?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  For a moment, it looked as if Mavek would strike her, but then he snapped the collar back around Jemeryl’s neck and pulled her forwards until their faces were mere inches apart.

  “All right. We’ll go south. After all, time isn’t an issue. But if you’re playing games, then you will end up being sorry. I promise you. Death will be an easy option.”

  Chapter Sixteen—Calling in the Stakes

  Dry coughs rasped in the woman’s throat. Her fingers were curled like birds’ claws over her chest. Her body contorted in the fight to draw air into her lungs, but it lacked the strength to succeed. As Jemeryl watched, the woman’s battle ended. Her last breath escaped in a sigh and her fingers relaxed. Another dead soldier.

  Horrified, Jemeryl fixed her gaze on the horizon. The scene was being repeated all around Uzhenek. The effect was so much more pitiful in that the soldiers died quietly, without thrashing around or screaming for help. They had no reserves of energy left to carry them through the period of the drug’s withdrawal.

  Jemeryl’s horse tossed its head and shuffled nervously, unsettled by the scent of death. The orderly who was holding the reins swore and gave a sharp tug. The action was far more forceful than was necessary to stop the horse wandering. Jemeryl guessed that the young man was feeling on edge. How could he not be? He was an ungifted soldier who for some reason had been spared the fate of his fellows. His survival was probably due to nothing but chance. The officers needed cooks, stable-hands, and lackeys to perform various menial tasks, and therefore a few common soldiers had not been given sleepstop.

  The orderly’s eyes were locked on the horse’s neck. Was it a deliberate attempt to ignore what was happening around him? Was he feeling guilty about his good luck? Or was he dreading spotting someone he knew and cared about?

  Jemeryl’s eyes shifted back to the soldier who had just died. In witnessing the unknown woman’s end, Jemeryl had been angry at the cruelty, despairing at the pointlessness, and saddened by the tragedy. But somewhere there must be people who had loved her. For them, she would not be just a dead human being. They would remember the person she had been and the hopes for what she should have become—the parents, waiting for their daughter’s return, and close friends and lovers, who had wanted the dead woman to be a part of their future. To them, she would have a name, and when they learnt that she was gone, their grief would burn with raw agony.

  At the thought, Jemeryl’s jaw clamped shut. She had only been playing at sympathy. She forced herself to look at all the bodies littering the ground. This time she made herself remember how she had felt when told that Tevi was dead and then tried to imagine the same scene played out ten thousand times, when the news of the dead at Uzhenek was carried back to the homes they had left. Jemeryl bowed her head as the mental picture constricted the pit of her stomach, and sudden tears burned her eyes.

  “I’ll take charge of the prisoner.” Mavek’s voice made her flinch. She had not heard his horse’s approach.

  The orderly handed over the reins and scurried away. Jemeryl looked up. The remains of Mavek’s army were mounted and ready to depart, formed up in four columns. She and Mavek were at the head of the largest. Te
vi was also in their section, although positioned well towards the rear. Ranenok, Kharel, and Dunarth each led one of the columns. Their prominent roles were in keeping with their status, but Jemeryl suspected the main reason was to give none of them a chance to talk to the prisoners.

  The other two acolytes, Anid and Yenneg, were not present. In total, Jemeryl estimated that the reduced army consisted of about one hundred and fifty witches and a couple dozen ungifted orderlies. The huge war machines were being abandoned and would doubtless soon be used as building material by the townsfolk of Uzhenek.

  Mavek urged his horse forwards. Jemeryl’s kept pace beside it, and the rest of the column followed on.

  “Why did you do it?” Jemeryl asked, once a small gap had opened up between them and the two riders behind.

  “What?”

  She indicated the dead and dying soldiers. “Why did you even bother to bring them? They’d have been no use in catching me.”

  Mavek shrugged. “They might have had a role to play.”

  “You murdered them on a faint off chance?”

  “I didn’t murder them.”

  “You ordered then to take a drug that killed them. Isn’t that murder?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Jemeryl turned and stared at him. “You can’t believe that.”

  “Once I get the talisman, then none of this will have happened. They’ll all be alive, so I won’t be guilty of anything and neither will you.”

  Mavek’s careless disowning of his own actions stunned Jemeryl. Even if the talisman worked, no mere artefact could bestow such total absolution from guilt. “No. I’ve made mistakes. I regret lots of things I’ve done. But fixing things so that I never had the chance to go wrong won’t change what I am, or what I’m capable of. I’ve done what I’ve done, and that is what I must accept the blame for.”

  Mavek snorted in derision. “Now you sound like Anid.”

  “She was right.” Jemeryl glanced over her shoulder. “What happened to her, by the way?”

  “Dammed fool.”

  “What did she do?”

  “Not her. Yenneg.”

  Jemeryl frowned. “What did he do?”

  “He killed her.”

  “When?”

  “That night...at the...after the guard post exploded. Before you...” He was struggling for words. Tears formed in his eyes.

  Jemeryl hung her head. Mavek was clearly more focused than when she had spoken to him via the message orb at Redezth, but he was still not healed from the assault she had inflicted on him. He probably never would recover completely, and regardless of what had caused her to do it, she was guilty of a crime.

  “Yenneg lay in wait for her with the golems?” Jemeryl suggested to help him out. Now that she thought about it, she could remember the sound of fighting from the north, just after Anid had left her.

  “Yes. Bykoda always used to keep the military commanders at each other’s throats. Anid and Ranenok didn’t let it overcome their common sense. But Yenneg...stupid oaf.” Mavek snarled and then continued muttering under his breath.

  “What did you do with him?”

  “I...um...he’s locked in a cell in Tirakhalod.” Mavek’s eyes drifted away, as if he had lost interest in the conversation.

  They rode in silence for a few minutes while Jemeryl held her eyes on the plains ahead and tried to plan out her words. Eventually she turned to him again.

  “Mavek, I’m sorry that I attacked you at the guard post. It was very wrong of me, and I regret it. I’m ashamed and angry at myself. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish I’d been a better person. I’ll try to be one in the future.”

  Mavek’s shrug looked more like a nervous twitch. “It doesn’t matter. Once I get the talisman it won’t have happened.”

  “It matters.”

  “Not to me.”

  “But it matters to me because it tells me something about myself that I don’t like.”

  “And you want to live with this self-knowledge?” Scorn underlay Mavek’s voice.

  “Yes. It’s a question of morality.”

  “What’s so moral about leaving a wrong un-righted when you have the chance?”

  “It’s to do with lying to yourself and pretending that your actions aren’t evil.”

  “You think I’m an evil person? I’m not. I never hurt anyone if I can help it. If I didn’t know that I could undo the deaths of those soldiers back there, then I would never have given them the sleepstop.”

  “The talisman won’t work.”

  “It has to. What’s wrong? Do you want Kenan to stay dead? Don’t you—”

  Jemeryl interrupted gently. “Mavek. I understand how you feel. I was once on the point of using the talisman myself—back when I thought that Tevi was dead. And I’m even more ashamed of that than I am about attacking you. Please believe me. You shouldn’t try to use the talisman.”

  Mavek reined in his horse and sneered at her mockingly. “Do as I say, not as I do?”

  “Just because I sound hypocritical doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

  “You’re lying. You used the talisman to get your lover back.”

  “I didn’t. Please believe me. The talisman will rupture if you try to use it. It’s unstable, but even if it wasn’t, you shouldn’t use it. From seeing the changes in you, I’ve realised that the whole concept of the talisman is wrong. We have to accept the responsibility for our actions, here and now. If we can deny the consequences of what we do, then we can deny guilt and blame, and without them, there is no way to measure good and evil.”

  “Nothing noble about living with your mistakes. The talisman just gives the chance to make things right. I’m going to get Kenan. We’re all going to be happy. It’s all going to be all right.”

  Jemeryl shook her head. “When Bykoda told me about the talisman, I thought so too, and the only problem was that it had become unstable. But now, I think it is evil—not in itself, but in its effect on people. You didn’t used to be heartless. But you’ve let the thought of the talisman blind you to the truth of what you’re doing. It’s made you think that right and wrong don’t matter. It’s destroyed the good person you used to be.”

  Mavek held Jemeryl’s gaze for the space of ten heartbeats and then spurred his horse forwards across the plains, heading south.

  *

  By the seventh day, the Barroden Mountains were filling the skyline ahead of them. White capped peaks stretched across the horizon. The grasslands rose and fell in waves, leading up to the foothills.

  They stopped at midday to rest the horses. Jemeryl stood in the spot directed, fingering the iron collar. Adding to her loathing of the device were the raw sores it had chafed around her neck. The mayhem in the higher dimensions no longer disturbed her quite so much, but she was still at the level of the ungifted. In a fight, she would be unable to hold her own against a third-rate witch.

  Whenever Mavek was elsewhere, a detail of witches stood guard on her. Supposedly, they were to prevent her escaping or attempting to remove the collar. Jemeryl suspected that their true purpose was to prevent any of the other acolytes from having a private talk with her. She had noted that a similar guard was kept on Tevi.

  On all sides, the witches milled around, stretching their legs, or gathered to talk in small groups while the ungifted orderlies prepared lunch. Jemeryl scanned the crowd, trying to pick out Tevi. They had not been able to speak since leaving Uzhenek. As far as she could tell, Tevi was not enthralled and had recovered from the magical assaults on her aura. On the one occasion that she had got close to Tevi, the eyes meeting hers had been alert and focused, and a ghost of the familiar smile had touched her lover’s lips.

  Finally Jemeryl spotted Tevi walking a few dozen yards away, surrounded by her guards. Tevi’s head and shoulders were slumped. She looked tired and dispirited. Jemeryl hoped that nothing other than the long journey was to blame and that Tevi was not being subjected to any abuse.

  As if in answer, just then,
one of the witches cuffed Tevi around the head and she stumbled to her knees. The witch drew back his foot for a kick. Despite the iron collar and her escort, Jemeryl would have rushed over, but Ranenok’s voice rang out. The army commander strode over to the group around Tevi. He looked nearly as furious as Jemeryl felt. She was not near enough to hear what was said, but from the demeanour of the witches, Ranenok was leaving them in no doubt that he did not want to see his ex-captain mistreated and was keeping a protective eye on her.

  Jemeryl had barely calmed down when another angry voice was raised. She turned around. Mavek was bearing down on her.

  “How much farther to this rabbit hole?” he screamed

  “Not far.” Jemeryl wondered what had provoked the query, although Mavek was still volatile enough that the cause might be nothing at all noteworthy. Perhaps he had just seen a rabbit.

  “You seriously expect me to believe that your magpie flew all this way in a single night?”

  “It’s only about two hundred miles, and I enhanced her speed and stamina.”

  Mavek came close and glared into her eyes. “You better not be playing tricks.”

  “What trick could I be playing?”

  “Thinking you can escape and flee over the Barrodens.”

  “This is where they are highest. There is no way that I could manage it. Even if I got this off.” Jemeryl indicated the collar.

  “So where is the talisman?”

  “It’s not far. I’ve only got the brief impression from Klara to go on, but I’ll recognise the spot when I see it.”

  “One day away? Two?”

  “Two should do it, I’d hope. But I can’t say for certain.”

  Mavek grabbed her shoulder and pulled her closer still. His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “You better hope. You’ve got your two more days. If I haven’t got the talisman in my hand by then, I’m going to see if I can find a way to improve your memory.”

  *

  Tevi sat on the ground, flexing her neck and shoulders as much as her bound hands would allow. It had been another long day in the saddle. Her back ached and her thighs felt like they had been kicked. She hoped she would be allowed a decent night’s sleep, but it would depend on whoever had guard duty. Most witches acted as though she was unworthy of notice. Unfortunately, there were a few who had evidently been affronted by her previous status as a captain and were now venting their spite. So far, she had suffered no serious injury, nothing more than a few bruises and petty humiliations. But were it not for Mavek’s orders that she be kept safe, and Ranenok’s protection, Tevi knew that things would be far worse.