by Alec Hutson
Alyanna was silent for a long moment, lost in thought. “Then that must be how she knew about the Bard.”
“The Bard is also in Herath? And his true nature has been revealed to the queen?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I have felt her touch upon the barrier in Jan’s mind that separates him from his memories.”
Demian rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Then it was you who took away his past. I suspected as much.”
“The partitions in his mind that I constructed were done at his behest a long, long time ago, and if I had not agreed to his wishes then he would have surely ended his life already. There were two layers to the spell – the outer one shielded him from any recollection at all of the past, essentially turning him into someone else, while the inner only protected him from the truths he was trying to avoid confronting. The outer layer degraded slowly, memories seeping through gradually, and over the centuries I’ve had to repair it many times, in each instance essentially giving him a new mortal life to live. The inner has never been breached in a thousand years, although I suspect that some reverberations from these hidden memories have indeed trickled into his consciousness. Surely that would explain his recurring fascination with women who bear some resemblance to Liralyn.”
“Why do you not dreamsend to him, Weaver? If the queen has discovered the Bard, then surely a conversation now could illuminate much about her intentions and capabilities.”
Alyanna dismissed the idea with a wave. “No. The spells woven into Jan’s mind make that idea untenable. It would be like trying to cross a room high in a burning building, where the floor has been weakened by fire. Everything could collapse at any moment, and I do not want his memories flooding back while he is in the Crimson Queen’s clutches.”
Demian crossed his arms. “Then why send him to her in the first place, Weaver? What if she manages to tear down the walls in his mind and learns about us? If what truly happened a thousand years ago becomes common knowledge in the world we will be hunted down and destroyed . . . Dymoria, Menekar, Shan – all the powers of Araen would unite against us.”
Alyanna sighed, shaking her head. “My simple friend. Of course I expect her to breach the spells holding back the Bard’s memories – though, to be honest I did not expect her to make as much progress as she has so quickly. But now that you are there the game can well and truly begin. Do you remember what I told you to do?”
“Of course. You said that the Pure and I were to sneak inside Saltstone using my powers. Then we will follow the paladin’s senses to the boy Keilan, and escape with him. You promised there would be a distraction to keep the queen and her servants from pursuing us.”
“And what else?”
“I was to bring the riftstone with me and use it when I was within the walls.”
“Good.”
“Weaver, how will I know when to enter the fortress? Will you send a signal?”
Alyanna smiled. “Yes. Keep watching Saltstone. When the signal comes, you will know it.”
The magister who came to fetch Keilan the next evening seemed familiar. He had high, aristocratic features and a dark pointed beard that had been stylishly forked, and he carried himself with the casual arrogance of high nobility. Keilan thought that he had seen him sitting at the royal table during feast days, and only a few places removed from the queen herself. Magister Kyrin, he believed was his name, a high-ranking sorcerer in the Scholia, and a scion of one of the most powerful families in Dymoria. Belin had pointed him out, as well as many of the other men and women at the high table, since being from Herath he was familiar with most of them.
When Kyrin arrived at Keilan’s door in the apprentice’s quarters of the Scholia he frowned and arched his eyebrows.
“So you’re the boy who has impressed the queen?”
“I suppose so, my lord,” Keilan replied softly, his eyes darting to the two warriors flanking the magister, both tall and stern-looking and wearing red cloaks.
“You are summoned now. Follow me.”
Keilan barely had time to mutter “Yes, my lord,” before the magister turned on his heels. The two guardsmen stayed behind, waiting for Keilan as he hurriedly donned his robes, and then fell in beside him as he scurried to catch up with the magister’s long strides.
“My . . . my lord,” Keilan managed between gasping breaths, “pardon me, but where are we going?”
The magister did not glance at him. “The queen is preparing some sorcery in Ravenroost. She has requested your presence, although how you could be of any help when she has several magisters of the first rank in attendance, I have no idea.”
Ravenroost. The tallest tower in Saltstone, and according to the whispers among the apprentices the one where the queen pursued her own magical studies. No one save the most senior among the magisters, the Scarlet Guard, and a handful of older servants were allowed within, but still rumors had trickled out of rooms filled with strange and ancient sorcerous artifacts, stairs that led into walls of solid stone, and even the ethereal presence of demonic spirits that the queen had summoned to give her counsel.
Nothing of the sort presented themselves to Keilan or the magister as they made their way up the tower’s great spiraling staircase. At each landing there were several very ordinary-looking doors, and though Keilan strained to see inside one that had been left ajar he glimpsed only in the light of a candle an elderly servant folding cloth and placing it in a basket.
Possibly the rumors were exaggerated, he decided.
The stairs ended in the middle of a great room that filled the entire top floor of Ravenroost, its soaring domed ceiling crowned by a cupola. The queen was there, dressed in the same simple blue robes Keilan had last seen her wearing, bustling between several long tables strewn with strange silver instruments and opened books. Globes filled with softly glowing mist hung from rafters by glimmering golden strands, and they illuminated so well that it was almost as if the night outside had turned to day. Several other magisters were assisting her. Keilan noticed Magister d’Terin speaking softly at the queen’s side, and he was the first to turn his milky eyes towards them as Keilan emerged from the stairwell into the chamber.
“He is here, Your Majesty,” Keilan heard him murmur to the queen, and she set down the silver sphere she was examining.
“Ah, good. Thank you, Kyrin, for bringing him, now go assist Eleria with the preparations. I want those tinctures ready in case he starts to wake before we are finished.”
Kyrin bowed smoothly to the queen and moved over to where a woman with a bandage wrapped around her head was measuring out some liquid into a small metal flask.
“And Keilan, come to me. We should discuss your part in all this.”
Keilan hurried to attend the queen, and when he had moved around the tables he saw what had been hidden from him: the man from the queen’s study, Jan, lay upon a raised stone dais, covered by a red blanket. His eyes were closed and his hands clasped upon his chest, which rose and fell in the slow steady rhythm of sleep.
“Is he all right?” Keilan blurted, and the queen smiled.
“He is fine. I had him drink some nightblossom tea laced with shaelinic extract – given what we are attempting, I thought it best if he was in the deep dreamless sleep of the moonflower. Nothing will wake him for several hours.”
“What are we attempting?”
The queen picked up a small, thin stiletto from the table beside her. She gently pressed her thumb against its tip, testing the sharpness. “Surgery.”
Keilan glanced from the knife to Jan lying motionless on the dais, his eyes wide. The queen saw this and chuckled.
“Not surgery on his physical body, Keilan. On his mind. Someone or something has imprisoned his most personal memories behind a dark barrier, and together we shall destroy those walls and restore Jan to who he was before.”
The queen approached Jan holding the stiletto and a glass vial, beckoning for Keilan to join her. “Do you remember what happened in my study? Jan claims you are special, a Talent like he and I. And by his account, Talents can share their strength when they need to achieve some great act of sorcery. Jan has explained to me how the process works, and you will have to do nothing save open yourself, and allow me to draw upon the power within you. Hold this.” She passed him the glass vial, and then pressed the stiletto’s blade to her lips, frowning.
“Your Majesty? What is the problem?”
“I’m trying to think where it would be best to cut him.”
Keilan nearly dropped the vial. “But, Your Majesty, you said we wouldn’t be doing the surgery on his body!”
The queen crouched down beside Jan and took his hand in hers. “I did. And we won’t be. But an opportunity like this – the chance to harvest an immortal’s blood – is simply too good to waste. Who knows what secrets it might contain?” She pricked his forefinger with the stiletto’s point, and Jan murmured and shifted in his sleep. “Be careful,” she said, “don’t let any spill.”
An immortal’s blood?
Hurriedly, Keilan positioned the vial so that the blood welling from Jan’s finger dripped inside. A fleeting look of discomfort passed over Jan’s face, but the queen pressed a hand to his forehead and whispered something soothing, and he quickly relaxed.
What sorcery could be done with someone’s blood? This was like the stories in the Tractate of wicked sorcerers, who used black magic to summon demons or bind spirits to corpses and bring them to life again. Keilan felt a creeping unease watching the falling drops collect at the bottom of the vial.
Finally satisfied, the queen wrapped the finger in gauze, then motioned for Keilan to pass her the vial. She studied the blood for a moment, holding the vial up to the light of the hanging globes of mist, then carefully she placed it in a small black pouch and slipped that inside one of her shift’s pockets.
“Now,” she said, placing her palm on Jan’s brow and beckoning Keilan closer. “Let’s see what we are capable of.” She took Keilan’s hand, lacing their fingers together, and closed her eyes. Keilan gasped as he suddenly felt the queen’s power, a vast roiling sea plunging down into great depths, a sensation not unlike when his sending had hung suspended in the waters of the Broken Sea. The queen was there, far below, an immense presence that waited and watched in the calm of the Deep, just as the Ancient had, while far above the surface above was lashed by rain and lightning. He gasped as a tendril of her sorcery slipped inside him, and he felt his own strength flow into her, a river of power that fed into the churning maelstrom that was Cein d’Kara –
Jan lay on a bed under a shimmering silver cloth. Above him motes of light floated through the air like stars tumbling slowly across the night sky. He watched them etch faint patterns on the chamber’s ceiling, seemingly in accordance with the spare, ethereal notes playing somewhere far away.
His side hurt, and gently he traced the puckered scar that curved along his ribcage. How could he have been so foolish, blundering into a wyvern’s nest? He’d been lucky he hadn’t ended up as meat for screeching hatchlings – lucky, really, that his display of power had caught the attention of the others here in their hidden mountain fastness.
At least it seemed to be healing well. The fallowmancers of Vis must have made some advancements in their restorative sorceries, if the spell Querimanica had laid upon him had taken such quick effect. He tried to sort out what exactly had happened, but his memories were hazy, obscured by the veil of pain that had descended over his thoughts after the wyvern had scored his side with its barbed tail. He remembered clambering over tumbled boulders, excitedly following the faint scent of sorcery he had caught that morning after weeks of searching. Then the stone had shifted beneath him . . . except it hadn’t been stone, but the pebbled hide of a sleeping wyvern. Pain had lanced his side, and he had fallen; he had forced himself to his feet, Bright singing in his hand as he had desperately tried to keep the beast’s snapping jaws at bay.
He had slain that one, but others had come, drawn by their mate’s death cry. He had struck out with dreadfire, turning the largest male into a blazing comet that had crashed into the cliffs above, which had started a cascade of stones that smashed into his flickering wards and driven him to his knees.
A red mist had seeped across his vision as he had fought to keep himself conscious, and he had been sure that his death was upon him, that his fate was to be torn to shreds atop this barren mountain.
But then they had arrived, clawing the wyverns from the sky with their glittering sorceries and sending the beasts fleeing deeper into the Bones. She had been foremost among them, lashing out with blazing strength, her long black hair dancing in the charged air. Alyanna. The one he had come to find.
Then, darkness. He could faintly recollect a few moments of clarity after that: the tall, gaunt Visani sorcerer straining to staunch his wounds and knit his broken bones, a great door carved into the rock of the mountain swinging open, warm broth dribbled between his lips by a young servant girl.
But, in truth, he had little idea of where he was or how long he had been asleep. Was he a prisoner, or a guest? He would suppose the latter, considering the chamber he found himself in . . . though when sorcery was involved, of course, a prison did not require iron bars or manacles. There could be all manner of restraints waiting to be tripped if he tried to leave the room.
A faint tapping came from the chamber’s door. “Enter,” he said, sitting up in the bed.
Alyanna slipped inside. She wore a flowing white dress hemmed by silver, and her long black hair was bound up in the latest Kalyuni fashion. The floating motes of light brightened as she approached his bed, a few drifting down to dance around her head.
“What an unexpected surprise this is, Jan. Welcome to my hall.”
He shifted, grimacing from a sudden stab of pain. “Alyanna. Thank you for rescuing me. How long have I been asleep?”
“Three nights and two days. I was afraid you might never awaken, but Querimanica has a rare talent for healing.”
“So that was Querimanica. I recognized him, but I also thought I might be delirious. I’m surprised he’s joined with you.”
Alyanna nodded. “He is here, and Hepheus and Demian and Xillia, among others. I’ve gathered the greatest collection of Talents since the Pure put the court of the Warlock King to the sword.” She raised her thin eyebrows. “But I had not thought you would come. You never answered my invitation.”
Jan put a hand to his temple as a wave of dizziness washed over him. “Your message was quite cryptic, as I’m sure you intended.”
Alyanna sat on the edge of his bed. “So now you think you know what we are doing here?”
Jan nodded. “The note you sent was a puzzle, but after I’d picked apart the meaning I realized you were asking me to join you in some great endeavor, the purpose of which could be found in your writings. I was intrigued, so I gathered all the books of yours I could find – your canon really is quite impressive for one so young.”
Alyanna smiled, the motes dancing around her head flashing. “Too often those of us with Talent rely solely on our natural gifts. True power comes from knowledge, and I find researching and writing books gives me the clarity I need to make new discoveries.”
“Then you’ve done it.”
“I believe I have.”
“How? It has eluded the greatest sorcerers throughout history.”
Alyanna shrugged. “Perhaps I am the greatest sorcerer in history.”
Jan
shook his head. “If you are right . . . then you very well might be.”
Alyanna ran a finger along the shimmering silver blanket, tracing the outline of Jan’s leg. “So I can assume that your presence here means that you’ve decided to join us?”
Jan tried to ignore her touch. “I was intrigued enough to spend weeks searching for where you’d hidden yourself. Whether I decide to – ” Jan swallowed and shifted as her fingers traveled up his thigh – “to join you will depend on the . . . the details of what you are attempting.”
Alyanna leaned closer and he caught her familiar smell, spices and lilacs and that other, almost animal scent that had so inflamed him a year ago. “I still think of our night in Kashkana, Jan, after your performance in the crèche. Tangled together in the Lesser Gendern’s own bed, with the stars swirling above us. It was why I invited you here.”
Jan put his hand on hers, stopping it from going any further. “I am heartsworn to Liralyn. That night was a mistake.”
Alyanna pinched him lightly, but he saw a slight hardening in her eyes. “A mistake? It was a beautiful night. How can you be heartsworn to a queen who is forbidden to marry? And doesn’t she have a daughter from some high lord?”
Jan tightened his grip on her fingers. “That is our way, Alyanna. Providing an heir with the proper bloodlines is more important than any personal desires.”