The Eighth Born: Book 1 of the Pankaran Chronicles

by C. Night

  “Alright then,” Cazing said. He squeezed Rhyen’s shoulder and started off down the hill. Rhyen watched him go, standing lifelessly on the hilltop. His teacher moved like an old man, bent and slow and shuffling. Rhyen felt like an old man too.

  The sun was brightly shining, winter birds were chirping merrily all around him. The sky was a perfect light blue, and the only clouds were lazy white things that drifted peacefully to the south. Rhyen heard the light tinkle of a stream rushing somewhere behind him. Though the air chilly and the temperature freezing, the sun was warm on his face. It was a beautiful day, but Rhyen felt only despair.

  He sunk down to the frozen earth. He was sitting on his knees, hands dropped carelessly in his lap. His fingers were cold. Rhyen let the cold seep through him, moving glacially up his arms, across his chest, over his shoulders, running like icy water down his spine. It radiated from the earth into his knees and up his legs. The chill spread through him until he was numb with it. As his body succumbed to the cold, Rhyen felt his mind freeze over too, until all thoughts of rage and despair and confusion and fear were also numb. He closed his eyes and savored in the emptiness of it all—no emotions, no thoughts of any kind. He was at peace.

  Gradually, Rhyen felt the pinpricks of winter settle softly on top of him as snow began to fall. When he opened his eyes again, his lashes stuck to his cheeks. The silent white flakes landed heavily on Rhyen as he loosely balled his hands, relishing in the stiffness in his fingers. He was grateful to the cold—it had numbed him, and numbed his madness, his Opposite. It had saved him.

  Rhyen was surprised to see the ruddy glow of sunset through the white rain. It had been morning when he started—where had the time gone? The day had sped past him. And it had taken the whole day to do it, but Rhyen’s head was finally clear. In the deep recesses of his mind, Rhyen felt the desire to wield and the nagging of his Opposite, but they no longer consumed him.

  He took his time standing. He felt the stinging, tingling sensation of hot blood pouring into his numb legs, which he now noticed had cramped from sitting on his knees for so long. He groaned and stamped his feet gently, grimacing as his legs regained feeling. The light was waning quickly, and Rhyen could already see a full moon over the horizon. He looked around on the white ground and located the dead, brown leaf.

  Rhyen stooped and picked it up, ignoring the prickling in his legs. He held it in his hands, regarding it. His Opposite, the madness that accompanied magic, reared up alongside the urge to wield, but Rhyen closed his eyes and imagined the cold seeping into his head. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. It had worked—his mind was clear once more.

  Rhyen imagined the leaf soaring into the sky. He imagined it weaving between the snowflakes, high in the air. He could see what he wanted as clear as a painting on the canvas of his mind. Rhyen opened his eyes. In a low voice, he commanded, “float.” And the leaf, just as he had known it would, rose steadily into the darkening sky.

  He smiled with quiet triumph. He kept his mind cold and the anger and desire at bay. And to his surprise, he found it easy. Rhyen watched the leaf twist and turn slightly in the air as snow fell upon it. Suddenly he realized he was terribly hungry, and very cold. He wanted to go home. Without breaking his focus, he stepped forward. The leaf moved in the air in front of him, keeping the same distance. Rhyen took another step, and the leaf moved again. Rhyen laughed softly. He was doing it—he was controlling magic. He was a wielder.

  He made his way down the hill, moving purposefully, careful to keep his concentration. The leaf danced in the air before him, always the same distance from him, always the same height above him. Rhyen’s feet slid in the snow as he arrived at the base of the hill. The leaf dipped ever so noticeably, but Rhyen kept it up. He couldn’t wait to show his master.

  When he was mere feet away from the heavy door, he stopped and stood still. He looked upwards at his leaf, hanging in the moonlight. He held out his hand, palm up. “Fall,” he ordered gently. At once the leaf tumbled down, cascading through the air, directly into his palm. Rhyen blinked. The leaf was green, as young and sprightly as though freshly picked in spring.

  The hairs on the back of Rhyen’s neck raised. He went still, listening. The familiar creeping sensation of being watched washed over him. He turned his head, eyes narrowed, searching for the hooded figure. The full moon gave Rhyen plenty of light to see by, but he could discern no dark rider in the empty expanse that surrounded the Tower. He peered into the darkness that was the forest, over a hundred yards away.

  “I know you’re there,” he whispered to the shadows. His heart was beating quickly. Rhyen scanned the landscape, eyes passing over the trees again and again. He knew the dark rider was there somewhere. He could feel the otherworldly eeriness that accompanied it. “Show yourself.” Rhyen was half afraid that the rider would.

  But the stillness was complete, save for the snow falling. And all was silent. Suddenly the feeling lifted, and Rhyen staggered backwards, gasping. He knew the figure was gone, just as he had known it was there. But his heart was still pounding, and Rhyen continued to scan the shadows that were the trees, looking for some sign of the dark rider.

  How had it know he was here, in Avernade? But even as that question popped into his head, Rhyen realized that he wasn’t surprised. The rider had always been there—in Yla, in Ikha, and now in Avernade. It had always been there, he recognized with a stab of fear, when something important had happened, some momentous occasion in his life. When he first accidentally wielded magic, when he had left for the Academy, when he had started on his apprenticeship, and now, when he first controlled magic. If he had stopped to think about it, Rhyen would have guessed that the figure would be there tonight. And Rhyen considered for the first time that the important question was perhaps not why the rider continued to haunt him, but how it knew when to appear.

  Rhyen took one final look around, even though he knew there would be no trace of the figure. There never was. Then he remembered that he was cold and hungry, and with a glance at his palm, he recalled that he was also excited—he had conquered his Opposite and cleared his mind, and he had wielded magic. He resolutely turned his back to the forest. He crossed the last few snowy steps to the Tower, pushing the thoughts of the dark rider aside and turning his mind back to his triumph, to the little leaf clutched in his hand.

  Chapter 13

  “So you came home,” Cazing said when Rhyen pushed open the door to the Tower that night. He looked quite relieved and more than a little pleased. “I was hoping you would.”

  “I’m starving,” Rhyen answered, snatching a roll from the basket on the table and shoving it in his mouth. “Why wouldn’t I come home?”

  “Good, I made your favorite. It’s in the oven, keeping warm.” Cazing said nonchalantly, ignoring Rhyen’s question and pulling a pan out of the oven. He magically sent it to the table and turned to the cupboard, pulling out dishes.

  Rhyen inhaled the scent of roasted goat with creamy potatoes. He could feel saliva building in his mouth, and his stomach roared. He dipped his fingers in the pan and, wincing at the heat, stuck them into his mouth.

  “Hey!” Cazing narrowed his eyes. “I have to eat that too! Get your grubby fingers out of it.”

  “Sorry!” said Rhyen hastily, more sorry about his burnt fingers than his lack of etiquette. “Why wouldn’t I have come home?” he repeated.

  Cazing finished piling food and dishes on the table. He stuck the serving spoon in the casserole, and Rhyen grabbed it and scooped half of the pan out on his plate. Cazing heaved a sigh. But it wasn’t until the old sorcerer was seated and served that he answered the question. “When I first learned about the terrible truth of magic, I’m afraid I ran away.”

  Rhyen swallowed a huge mouthful in his amazement. His throat immediately burned and he quickly gulped some cool water to sooth it. “It’s hot,” Cazing said unnecessarily, raising his eyebrows and smirking. “Yo
u watched me take it out of the oven a second ago, remember?”

  Rhyen shrugged, clutching his burned throat. Then he frowned at his master. “You really ran away? Why?”

  “It was very easy to feel overwhelmed and underprepared when your future contains a long, empty life and a madness that threatens to take you every time you lower your guard.” Cazing smiled at Rhyen. “I was afraid.”

  “You?” Rhyen was perplexed. Cazing was the bravest person he knew. “But if you were scared, why not stay with your master? He could have helped you.”

  “She, actually. And I didn’t have the best relationship with her. She was, I’m sorry to admit, a rather hard person, and borderline cruel in her dealings with her lessers.”

  Rhyen considered this. He and Cazing were quite close, so even when the rage threatened to overtake him earlier, and his master offered no help in containing it, Rhyen had still relied on Cazing. And he couldn’t wait to get home to show him his leaf, or to tell him he had cleared his mind and conquered his Opposite. Rhyen had not thought even for a second about going anywhere besides the Tower. His thought had been to get back to Cazing, who was his only family now.

  “It would be lonely to apprentice to someone you didn’t like.” He finally said. “I think I’d have run away too.”

  “Well,” Cazing said, “I’m glad you didn’t run.”

  “Me too. It’s good you’re my master. We get on, don’t we?”

  Cazing quickly looked away. When he spoke, his voice sounded thick. “We certainly do, Rhyen. And I’m very touched you think so too.”

  Rhyen suddenly felt embarrassed. He realized that he had been thinking of Cazing as his family since the desert, when Cazing had pulled down his hood and helped him escape the sun. But he had not intended to say as much and felt that the few words he had just uttered conveyed that anyway. Rhyen found he was very pleased that Cazing was just as fond of him, but still a little self-conscious about having blurted his thoughts so.

  “So,” Cazing said briskly, recovering himself. “Since you are back, and eating far more than your fair share of dinner, am I right in thinking that you completed your task?”

  Rhyen picked up his spoon again. Cazing had scooped out most of the remaining casserole onto his plate. “Yeah, I did!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “It took the whole day, but I was able to finally clear my head. I floated the leaf almost all the way home. I dropped it just before I came in the door, but I brought it in to show you. See?” Rhyen reached in his pocket and pulled out the leaf. It was fresh and vibrant green, and he handed it smugly to his master.

  Cazing took it, grinning, but his smile faltered when he saw it. Rhyen’s face fell. “What’s wrong, Master?”

  “Why is it all green and new? I thought the leaf I told you to float was dead and brown.” Cazing asked. His question was toned to be inquisitive, not accusing, and so Rhyen answered easily.

  “I don’t know. It was dead and brown when I started.” He shrugged.

  Cazing nodded and frowned, thinking, as he turned the perfect leaf over in his hands. “I see. Did you by chance think of anything besides ‘float’ while you were sending it through the air?”

  Rhyen thought. “No. Well,” he corrected himself, “I do remember thinking that I was looking forward to spring, and all the brown being replaced with green. But the leaf stayed up, so I don’t think I lost focus,” he added cautiously.

  Cazing broke the stem of the leaf. Juice stained his fingers. “It’s very fresh now. Just like spring…”

  “Sir?” When Cazing was quiet, he asked, “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, no you did nothing wrong, Rhyen,” Cazing mused. “I just think you did a complex bit of magic today, that’s all.”

  “Complex?” Rhyen almost laughed. “It’s only gone green, sir, it can’t be that big a deal.”

  Cazing pursed his lips. “Well, maybe so. In any case, it’ll be brown and old again tomorrow.”

  “Why?”

  “Spells only last for so long, Rhyen. If you change the manner of something by magic, once you drop your focus, it will return to its original state. So you’ve changed the color of the leaf to green? But you are not maintaining the spell, and so after a few hours the magic will wear off.”

  “I didn’t know that magic wears off like that.” Rhyen said slowly.

  Cazing nodded. “Unfortunate, but true. That’s why it’s no good to mend things by magic, because it will just un-mend itself once the spell wears off. If you want to keep something a certain way magically, you have to keep the spell maintained.”

  “Like the kitchen faucet? That requires magic to pull water from the well.”

  “Exactly. I maintain that. But it is easier to maintain something if you use it often, and one of us is almost always turning the faucet on. And, as you already know, even sorcerers can’t use magic all of the time. Wielding is exhausting, and it drains us. So for the faucet, for example, ever day or so I re-spell it, and it tires me somewhat. But the spell lasts for awhile, and so we have water until I wield again.”

  Rhyen shook his head. “I thought wielding would be more complicated than it is, and the spells more powerful. I thought if you mended something once, it would always be so…” He looked thoughtfully at his master. “It seems like it should be the other way round, doesn’t it? Harder to wield, but longer lasting results? Instead it’s relatively easy to wield but the spells don’t last.”

  The old sorcerer grinned. “Still, it’s handy, being a wielder. It might not be the glamorous life you envisioned, but I think, in the end, you’ll find it worthwhile.” He returned his attention to the young green leaf on the table. “But there is no mistaking—you wielded more than one spell at a time. You levitated it and changed its color. Clearly, it had something to do with letting your mind wander, so you’ll have to work on your discipline and focus.” Rhyen looked down. “But I’m very impressed, Rhyen!” Cazing continued, smiling. “You’ve managed to think two separate thoughts and channel the magic into maintaining two different things, which I hadn’t expected you to do for quite some time. You’ll be far more powerful than me, I think.”

  “Well,” Rhyen said modestly, trying to hide his grin.

  After dinner they sat around the table in comfortable silence. It was still snowing. Rhyen watched the fat flakes fall across the window. The wind started up again, and the flakes blurred and fell so fast that Rhyen dropped his gaze to the fire instead.

  “Damn, will the snow ever stop?” Cazing said. Rhyen looked over at him and saw that his master was actually happy about the snow. Cazing caught Rhyen’s gaze and laughed sheepishly. “All right, all right, I’m rather pleased about it. I’m hoping it will deter visitors from the village.”

  “Is that a good thing?” Rhyen asked, thinking about the voluptuous Dierdre of the village inn. He realized it would be mighty pleasant to pop down to the inn and have a pint, swapping stories or playing cards, all the while being waited on by the curvy barmaid.

  “Well, it is for me,” Cazing grinned, as though he could read Rhyen’s mind.

  Rhyen coughed and averted his eyes, hastily asking, “Why is that?”

  “Because it means less people will come to me looking for favors.” Rhyen remembered the steady stream of visitors Cazing had received when they first took up residence in the Tower. He nodded his head in acquiescence.

  They sat for a very long time, drinking tea and picking at the remains of dinner. Cazing, of course, was smoking. After awhile, Rhyen realized he was utterly exhausted and sat with his chin propped on his hand. He was more tired than he had ever been before—conquering his Opposite, and keeping it from overtaking him, had sapped him of his strength. But as he sat staring into the flames, his mind was pondering all manner of things. He was full of questions now and knew sleep wouldn’t take him until he had soothed some of his curiosity. He fished around in h
is mind until he found the thing he was most curious about.

  “What do you feel, sir,” Rhyen asked, “when you do magic?”

  Cazing reached over and stoked the fire. “My Opposite, you mean?”

  Rhyen didn’t have the energy to nod. He blinked his eyes instead.

  “My Opposite, unfortunately, is not so noble as yours, my friend.” The old sorcerer said quietly.

  Rhyen raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean, noble?”

  “You cannot fake your Opposite, Rhyen. It is what it is. And your Opposite is a true test to what your character really embodies. It is possible to know what a person is truly made of by looking at their Opposite.” Rhyen felt his master was talking in circles, but was too tired to protest. So he sat there, eyes on the dancing orange flames, and listened. “You feel anger and wrath and hate in your Opposite because you are so full of love and compassion. And that, Rhyen, is a wonderful thing—no, it is! The fact that your Opposite is so evil is a true mark of the goodness inside of you.”

  Cazing blew out a big cloud of smoke. “I am not so good. It is unmistakably evident in my Opposite.” Cazing wearily rubbed his forehead. Rhyen waited. “When I channel magic, I feel… I experience an overwhelming sense of regret, as though I have much to apologize for that cannot be forgiven. I feel regret and… weakness. And that tells me what sort of man I am. A man who is cocky and conceited and power hungry.” He spat into the fire. His eyes looked hollow.

  Rhyen stirred himself, compassion filling his heart for Cazing. It was obvious that his master was deeply troubled by this matter and had carried the burden for a long time. “No, Master. That is not what it means.” Cazing went very still, head tilted questioningly. “It means you are strong and confident. And those are by no stretch character flaws.”

  Cazing said nothing, but the crease in his forehead lessened somewhat. Rhyen tried to catch his eye, but the sorcerer stared resolutely into the fire. Eventually Rhyen gave up and returned his attention to the crackling flames. He felt warm and sleepy. He lingered only a moment longer before standing and, with many creaks and sighs, he slumped off to bed.