The Eighth Born: Book 1 of the Pankaran Chronicles

by C. Night

  Rhyen answered right away. “Because it is hardest to wield against another living creature. To manipulate a human, even an ordinary one without magic, is difficult. So the medicinal ingredients supplement the spell?”

  Cazing beamed at Rhyen. “Right-o, Rhyen! But I suppose you are wondering how exactly it works, suspending the magic inside the ingredients like that?”

  Rhyen grinned. “You know me so well.”

  “It’s all in the mechanics of the spell,” Cazing said excitedly. “You don’t actually put the magic into the potion until it is entirely composed and in the bottle, so the actual spell is the last thing you do, then you seal it inside. See? You have to find the right words to transfer your spell into, let’s say, this bit of holly. And to do that, you have to take into account the thickness of the leaves, which even if we melt them down or ground them into powder, will have a certain consistency—try to set the magic right in the middle…”

  Rhyen, like his master before him, became fascinated with potions, and was surprised to learn that he was a talented potion maker. After a few months, his concoctions worked almost as well as Cazing’s, and they certainly lasted longer. The two sorcerers happily worked exclusively on the sixth floor until spring, which arrived some time later without their notice.

  * * *

  Shortly after the last of the snows melted and the frigid ground began to thaw, a delivery arrived for Cazing. It was a thick chest, bound in rich iron chains, and was delivered by four armed Sun elves. It was from Rode. The elves smilingly declined everything the two sorcerers offered: coming into the Tower for a hot meal and drinks, resting for the night, a large tip for the delivery that Cazing tried to press into the leader’s hand.

  “We must get back, but thank you, Sorcerers.” His accent was strange to Rhyen’s ears, falling in an unfamiliar meter and, though the words were spoken perfectly, they were formed oddly, as if the elf did not often speak the language of the humans.

  “Well, open it!” Rhyen urged once they had retreated back into the kitchen.

  Cazing held up his hand, his favored alternative to speaking when it came to focusing his wielding, and glared at the chains. They fell apart instantly. Rhyen helped Cazing pry the heavy wooden lid open. Inside was a large pile of gold and other coins as well as a few pieces of Goldenmere—two helmets, two breastplates, and two sets of complete dinnerware.

  “That’s an unusual combination,” Rhyen remarked, holding up one fork and one helmet to show his master. Cazing, who had keenly grabbed the thick wax-sealed letter, was sitting down, his face confused.

  “What is it?” Rhyen asked quickly. Cazing shook his head and handed the first page to Rhyen. Rhyen snatched it eagerly and scanned the letter from Rode, hastily written, though the script was beautiful and elaborate. Rhyen reread the first page twice. “What?” he wondered, confused. Cazing handed over the second page and leaned back heavily in his chair.

  When Rhyen finished the letter, he too sat down. “How is this possible?”

  Cazing slowly lit his pipe. “I’m not sure,” he finally said, not meeting Rhyen’s eyes.

  Rhyen shook his head. “I didn’t even know there were Zirite garrisons in Wyda.”

  “There aren’t. Or, at least, there weren’t,” Cazing replied, his brows furrowed. He sucked on his pipe, perplexed.

  Rhyen looked down at the pages in his hand. “Maybe I misunderstood this—”

  “You didn’t.” Cazing interrupted. “Rode was as clear as day. A legion of Zirites forced the sale of the Goldenmere mine. Rode didn’t have a choice. He was forced to sell. The mining rights as well as the area were purchased—and below market value, too!—and the owners and inhabitants forced to move. The mine, despite being in Wydian territory, is now under Zirite control.”

  “But,” Rhyen almost laughed, it was so absurd, “what would Zirite soldiers want with a mine in Wyda?”

  Cazing exhaled. “More importantly,” he asked slowly from within the cloud of smoke, “why would the elves give up their land and mining rights to Zirith?”

  Rhyen frowned, thinking. He was flummoxed. Why would the Zirites show an interest in an elven mine? The Goldenmere was too rare to yield enough armor for the massive Zirite army. An ominous feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

  Cazing sighed and was once again lost in the smoke. “It was such a profitable investment. To think of all the money we could have made,” he said mournfully.

  “Well,” Rhyen said, nudging the crate of gold with his foot. It was so heavy it didn’t move at all. “You have all this to comfort yourself with.” He looked unsympathetically at Cazing.

  “But imagine what it would have been if we didn’t have to sell below market value,” Cazing moaned. Rhyen rolled his eyes and looked at the letter again. He had a very bad feeling about all of this.

  It was as though the coming of Rode’s news was the opening of the floodgates. Hardly a day went by after the arrival of the chest that Cazing didn’t get at least one letter, and most days he had several. He let Rhyen read most of them, and they all bore the same frantic message: The war was starting at last.

  Cazing had letters from friends all over the human kingdoms as well as the nonhuman ones. They were all equally concerned, for if the humans went to war, the others would be forced to choose sides. Zirith, it appeared, had been planning their strike for years, and not a land was left that had not been dealt a blow or ultimatum. Cazing and Rhyen read these messages with growing alarm.

  “Has the war really started?” Rhyen couldn’t hide the panic in his voice. Out of nowhere, he found himself thinking of his home village of Yla. There was a Zirite garrison just on the outskirts… Had the soldiers revolted? Was his family safe? Were they even alive?

  “I don’t think so.” Cazing looked more worried than Rhyen had ever seen him. “Not yet. There will be no doubt when the war truly begins. But Zirith is moving their pawns—the board is being set.”

  “Should we do anything?” wondered Rhyen. He knew, as sorcerers, that they must do something—surely this was a time to interfere?

  Cazing thought for a long moment, his brow furrowed, eyes searching the letters splayed before him, before responding. “Yes, we should. Pack your bags, Rhyen.”

  Rhyen sprang up and headed for the ladder. Then he paused and turned back to his master. “Where are we going?”

  Cazing lit his pipe as he regarded the letters now spread across the entire table. He looked up at his apprentice and smiled. “Well, it seems that at long last you are going to get your lifelong wish: We are going to Corna.”

  Part III

  Corna

  Chapter 19

  They left the next morning in the first gray light of predawn. Rhyen could tell the situation with Zirith was serious when Cazing woke only moments after he did in the dark early morning hours.

  “You’re up,” he said with surprise. Cazing was as alert as he, and the ominous feeling that had been heaving in Rhyen’s stomach since the arrival of the chest stirred.

  “We’ve got to leave at once,” Cazing said by way of reply. There was a nervous air about the Tower as the two sorcerers bustled about, gathering supplies and carrying out last-minute tasks.

  The horses knew something was afoot, and for the first time Rhyen had difficulty controlling Cinnamon. There was some white in her dark muzzle. Both she and Brefen were in their teens. They tossed their heads nervously, rolling their eyes around wildly so that Rhyen could see the whites. “Settle,” he said soothingly, but Cinnamon reared up and whinnied. Rhyen saddled Brefen while Cazing was busy upstairs, and the old golden stallion behaved no differently. Rhyen eventually placated them with several hands of the sweet oatmeal he had intended for his own breakfast, and though their ears still twitched apprehensively at every sound, Rhyen was able to get them both ready. He had finished cleaning the frogs of their hooves and checking their shoes
when Cazing appeared in the doorway.

  “Ready?” he asked curtly.

  Rhyen wiped his hands and looked at Cinnamon’s saddle. He had some clothes and bedding and a few other incidentals—nothing that would be too heavy for the old horse to carry on the long trek to Corna. “Just have to tie on the food stuffs and water skins.”

  “I’ve already got the food,” Cazing replied, patting his magical bag, which was, as always, slung across his shoulder. “There’s just a little one of dry food I thought you could lash on—stuff we can eat as we ride, you know. Easy access.” Cazing nervously opened his bag and peered as though to a great depth inside.

  Rhyen knew that war must be very close indeed if Cazing would willingly give up a hot meal. “I’ll put it on now. Do you want me to fill you some water bottles?”

  Cazing was too preoccupied to answer, so Rhyen sidled past him into the great room to gather the last bag and fill the skins. As the water was running coolly from the faucet into the large bladders, Rhyen looked around him fondly. The Tower had become more his home over the past ten years than anywhere else he had ever lived. Rhyen was going to miss it—the snowy winters spent beside the enormous fireplaces, watching the leaves fall in autumn and scatter colorfully across the lawn, seeing the sun creep over the mountains from the roof. As he gathered everything in his arms and marched slightly frog-legged from his burdens, Rhyen felt a sense of loss. Cazing appeared over the half door from the stables into the great room and spotted the heavily laden Rhyen hurrying across the layers of rugs. He swung wide the door and relieved his apprentice of a few water skins.

  Without a backwards glance, Cazing snapped the door to the inside closed and hit the lever, opening the concealed stone entrance of the stables. The two men led the horses out and, before he mounted, Rhyen closed the heavy doors. The seam all but disappeared when they closed with a muffled thud. Rhyen again sensed the feeling of loss, as though a chapter of his life were forever closed behind him. He hesitated before swinging into his saddle. Cinnamon flicked her ears back to him as if to ask him what was the matter.

  “Everything all right?” Cazing asked from atop Brefen.

  Rhyen shook his head. “I’m fine. I just… I get the feeling I won’t see this place again.”

  Rhyen looked over at Cazing. His expression was unfathomable. Rhyen took one last look at the great Tower Avernade, the black stone rising high into the sky, the grass, the pale green of spring, encircling the base in a wide meadow. The fresh leaves on the trees that edged the grass were shaking in the breeze, and cottony white clouds raced across the blue sky. Rhyen’s feeling of trepidation grew, but he resolutely tore his eyes from the scene, and squeezed his knees into Cinnamon, urging her onward next to his master. He didn’t look back.

  Cazing was preoccupied as they journeyed. He wore a nearly constant worried frown that creased his forehead, and he smoked non-stop, going through even more tobacco than usual. Rhyen pushed the worried feeling to the back of his mind and put all of his energy into enjoying springtime in the mountains. Everywhere he saw signs of life: birds chirping as they swooped through the branches with bits of twig and straw clamped in their beaks, intent on nest building; flower buds just opening, strewn about the grasses in little nips of color; pale berries splashing the new green leaves of the trees with reds and pinks; a fawn, spotted and long-legged, very still, watching them pass from the dappled shadows beneath the trees. It was quite a different adventure from the one leading into Avernade.

  Rhyen frowned, remembering, and suddenly asked, “Cazing?”

  The old sorcerer grunted as he was pulled from his thoughts. “Hmm?”

  “Do you remember our trip to Avernade all those years ago?”

  “I do,” Cazing replied, showing the first signs of interest in their surroundings. “It’s nicer this time.”

  Rhyen was not to be deterred. “Why did we spend all the weeks in the mountains hungry?”

  Cazing snorted. “That’s a stupid question. Our supplies were disintegrated when the packhorses were struck by lightning, don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, I remember,” Rhyen said indignantly. He clearly recalled the constant gnaw of hunger as they travelled endlessly with little food. “Which is why I’m wondering why the hell you didn’t just put all the food into that clever bag of yours, like you did this time!”

  Cazing blinked, then roared with laughter. “I never even thought of it,” he finally gasped. “The Academy provided us with the packhorses, and Rode’s people had them ready and loaded. I suppose I didn’t see any reason to change it up.”

  Rhyen chuckled and rolled his eyes skyward. “Are you telling me that your laziness is the only reason we almost starved?”

  “No!” Cazing exclaimed. “There was also my lack of foresight.” He grinned impishly. “I didn’t expect that lightning bolt.”

  “Ah, well, I don’t suppose we’ll have to worry about it this time,” Rhyen replied, glancing happily upwards. “We’re already past most of the rains. Late spring is a great time to travel.”

  “That it is,” Cazing agreed, looking around again. “Pass us something to eat, would you, Rhyen?”

  * * *

  They went through the mountains without incident over the next few weeks. They were headed southwest, and the mountains shortened into nothing more than rolling hills within only a few days of Avernade. There was a village every few hills, and so almost every other night they were able to stop at an inn. Rhyen no longer felt guilty when Cazing groaned at the price of rooms; he knew that his master had replenished his considerable supply of gold to his magic bag before leaving, and even Rhyen had had the sense to fill a bag and hide it tangled in a pair of trousers at the bottom of his rucksack. They kept to themselves, although once people heard “Cazing of Avernade” they clamored around the two sorcerers. Rhyen found that he was not yet used to his master introducing him as “Rhyen of Avernade,” but kept his face smooth and responded easily in the affirmative when people asked him in awe if he, too, was a sorcerer. At the the first few inns his voice had cracked with nervousness at the title, but it was growing easier with every passing introduction.

  Gradually they came to the end of the hills, and the country leveled out into an endless deciduous forest with massive trees, stretching up to the early summer sky so that all was green and mossy at the ground, and it was pleasantly cool beneath the canopy of leaves. There was a village, sometimes two, every day, and every so often they passed a town as well. Though the villages and towns were small, they were well travelled between and, with signposts clearly marking each crossing, the sorcerers never came close to losing their way—Cazing and Rhyen only had to follow the wide road, yellow and dusty and beautiful, through the forest.

  Cazing told Rhyen a little of the people in the southern forests of Conden. Mostly, he explained, they lived as farmers or lumberjacks. Farms in the south were nothing like the large commercial acres to the north, in places like Ikha. Ikhan farms focused on wheat, barely, corn, and hay. These farmers only had a few acres to themselves, and instead of wheat they grew many earthy vegetables, like radishes and lettuces and carrots, as well as fruits such as blackberries and strawberries—all things that thrived in the rich soil and the half-light that flitted down between the trees. Rhyen had never eaten so many mushrooms as he did travelling through the Low Country, as it was called. They put mushrooms in almost all of their dishes, and Rhyen grew to be quite the connoisseur. He also enjoyed the jams from the sweet forest fruits and the honey collected from the native bees, which made their nests high up the old trees, well away from the heads of even tall travellers. But Rhyen’s favorite Low Country fare was syrup. He ate the sweet sticky nectar with almost everything—acorn patties, breads, pancakes, and all manner of desserts. Once again, Rhyen blessed the fast metabolism that came with the physical effort of constant wielding, for otherwise after only a few weeks in the forest he would hav
e outgrown his pants. He had thought he would never enjoy a place more than Avernade, but Rhyen grew to love the Low Country.

  The villages, Rhyen gathered, were not only well connected by orderly roads, but also by a series of streams and rivers that flowed in a network to the west, down to the sea. Lumber was the largest trade of the Low Country, and was sent down to Corna by the largest river, the Deameos, primarily to be used in shipbuilding. Rhyen liked riding by lumber camps and smelling the sweet sawdust floating on the breeze. Cazing did not enjoy this part of their journey, as, despite more than a hundred years of heavy smoking, he was sensitive to the dust, and still grew watery eyed and runny nosed at each camp, and mostly sneezed his way past the loggers.

  Rhyen was intrigued to find that the trees grew in orderly patterns, like the roads. He asked Cazing about it one day, but the sorcerer, grumpy and red eyed, merely shrugged and pulled a handkerchief over his nose. Rhyen trotted Cinnamon up to one of the lumberjacks and hailed him.

  “Good afternoon! May I have a moment of your time?”

  The lumberjack, a burly fellow whom Rhyen privately thought looked like he could fell a tree without the saw, put down his tools and made his smiling way over. “Can I help you, Sorcerer?” he asked, bowing his head a little.

  Rhyen was taken aback. Usually folks knew he and Cazing were sorcerers by their titles, for only sorcerers dropped their last name and used their home instead, such as “Rhyen of Avernade.” He was surprised that the lumberjack knew his profession without an introduction. Rhyen momentarily forgot his question and instead wondered, “How did you know I was a sorcerer?”

  The lumberjack smiled. “I’m a wielder myself,” he said. His voice was calm and low and somehow suited his large muscly bulk. “Just a magician. But I can feel the magic radiating off of you.”