CHILDREN OF AMARID

by DAVID B. COE

  Without another word, Baden turned with a swirl of his cloak and ascended the steps back into the Great Hall. Trahn lingered for a moment and placed a sympathetic hand on Jaryd’s shoulder. “I understand your disappointment, Jaryd,” he offered in a gentle voice, “but I’ve never known Baden to deprive a friend of something without cause.”

  Jaryd nodded curtly and, with a quick glance at the Hawk-Mage and an unsuccessful attempt at a smile, he stomped off toward the old town commons and the footbridge back to the forest. As he made his way blindly through the mass of people wandering the streets, and past the crowded shops and markets, Jaryd seethed with an anger that overwhelmed his disappointment at missing the feast. He was, he decided, in the charge of a despot, who cared little about his feelings or his needs. Baden could have no justification for exiling him on this of all nights. Here he was, hundreds of miles from his family and friends, being forced to miss one of the Four Feasts. It was completely unfair. And, as he approached the first of the bridges that led across the Larian and into Hawksfind Wood, it suddenly occurred to him that he could turn back. He did not need to be with Baden to attend the feast; Jessamyn had invited everyone in the chamber. She would welcome him, as would Sartol and Radomil. They seemed to like him, and certainly they would understand his desire not to be alone on Duclea’s Night. He halted at the edge of the bridge, and even started to walk back toward town. But then he stopped. Trahn was right, of course: Baden wouldn’t have told him to go to the forest without a good reason. Moreover, defying Baden in this way would have ramifications far beyond tonight’s feast. Sighing heavily, Jaryd turned for a second time and crossed the bridge into the forest. As he did, he felt his anger sluicing away, leaving him dejected and just a little bit lonely.

  Absorbed in his self-pity, he did not notice the two strangers on the trail until one of them had grabbed him and locked an arm around his throat. Jaryd struggled to get free, but the man had a grip like a vise.

  “What have we got here?” the other one asked, taking Jaryd’s dagger from its sheath and holding it to Jaryd’s throat. “It’s a bit late to be alone in the woods, don’t you think, Velk?”

  The man holding Jaryd laughed and tightened his grip.

  “You better leave me alone,” Jaryd warned in a trembling voice, knowing as he did how ridiculous he sounded. “I’m a mage,” he bluffed, “so you’d better let me go.”

  Both men laughed, and the one with Jaryd’s dagger, a short, wiry man with a scruffy beard and small grey eyes, shook his head and grinned, revealing yellow, crooked teeth. “I don’t think so,” he countered in a voice low and dangerous. “I don’t see no cloak or bird.” He looked at Jaryd’s hand. “But I do see a gold ring that I like very much.” His expression hardened. “Take it off,” he commanded coldly.

  “But it was a gift from my brother,” Jaryd pleaded, struggling again.

  “I don’t care if it came from Arick himself. Take it off!”

  Reluctantly, with tears welling in his eyes, Jaryd tugged at the ring. It wouldn’t budge.

  The man glanced passed Jaryd’s head to the one named Velk, and shrugged. “Hold him still,” he instructed. And, grabbing Jaryd’s hand, he moved the dagger to the base of Jaryd’s little finger.

  “No!” Jaryd wailed in desperation, and in that instant, unsure of why he did it, Jaryd closed his eyes and formed a vision of fire in his mind. A split second later, the man in front of him howled in pain. Opening his eyes again, Jaryd saw that the man’s overshirt was engulfed in flames. Velk threw Jaryd to the ground and ran to his friend, flailing urgently at the fire. That was the last Jaryd saw of them. He grabbed his dagger and then sprinted into the forest, following the trail and running as fast as he could until the shouts of the bandits had faded entirely.

  It was nearly dark when he finally stopped at a small tributary of the Larian. He decided abruptly that it would be a suitable place to spend the night. Certainly, the bandits would not come after him again. And, as he bent over, trying to catch his breath, it finally dawned on him that he had used the Mage-Craft to escape. Somehow, he had used the Mage-Craft. He thought suddenly of Royden’s shirt burning in the room they had shared in Accalia, but he knew that this had been different. This time he had done it consciously. He didn’t know how, but he had. A sudden wave of giddiness passed through him, and he quickly gathered several pieces of wood and made a small pile on which he could test his newfound power again. Closing his eyes in the gathering darkness, and drawing on the skills he had gained from the exercises Baden had taught him, he emptied his mind of all thoughts save for an image of fire. And as he did, he felt something flow through him, cold and swift, as if his blood had become a mountain stream. At the same time, he felt a presence in his mind, and, for a strange, disorienting instant, he saw an image of himself as he might appear to someone watching him. He seemed both close and far away, brighter and clearer than he should have been, given the lighting in the woods, but flat and slightly distorted. Then the feeling was gone, replaced by the smell of smoke filling his nostrils, and the soft crackling sound of burning wood. He opened his eyes to see the kindling blazing brightly on the ground in front of him. His anger at Baden a distant memory, his fear of the bandits gone, Jaryd stared with wonder at the fire he had shaped out of the twilight. “I’m a mage,” he said out loud. And then he shouted it, for the entire forest to hear. “I’m a mage!”

  He found another piece of wood and, closing his eyes again, tried to shape it as he had seen Baden do. Nothing happened. He tried it a second time, and, though the strange presence touched his mind again briefly, the appearance of the log did not change, and he started to feel dizzy. Placing the log on the ground a few feet from the fire, he closed his eyes once more and, for a third time that evening, tried to conjure a blaze. There was the presence again, and, once more, Jaryd felt something coursing through his body. A river it was, stronger than the stream he had felt a few moments before, but still cool and brisk. In a few seconds, the log burst into flames, although Jaryd’s dizziness increased. “Well,” Jaryd said to the night, grinning broadly, “it’s a start.”

  He stared happily at the flames for a long time, trying to remember the sensations that had come with the use of his power. Finally, long after the last vestiges of light had vanished from the sky, he realized that he was hungry. He stood and searched the area around him for some of the edible plants and roots Baden had taught him to recognize so many weeks ago. When he had gathered enough for a meal, he carried them to the stream and cleaned them. Returning to the light of the fire, he ate his modest dinner and settled back comfortably onto the fragrant pine needles to try to sleep. I’m a mage, he thought again, smiling like a child.

  7

  Calbyr stood alone at the edge of the clearing, watching and waiting. His hood was thrown back, letting the light breeze ruffle his sand-colored hair, but his eyes were fixed on the impossible darkness of the forest to the east of the clearing. He could hear the others behind him, whispering softly in groups of two and three, and he had an urge to silence them. It would have taken a single word, perhaps even a silent glare. They were afraid of him, he knew. They’d do as he ordered. But there was no sense in it, really. They weren’t making a lot of noise, and it wasn’t their fault that the mage was late. Venting his frustration on his men might make him feel a bit better, but it wouldn’t accomplish much.

  He hated to be kept waiting. He prided himself on his own punctuality and the precision with which he carried out his plans. Lateness was a result of incompetence. And incompetence could get a person killed. That they were waiting for a mage made it even worse. That they were waiting here, in this forest, so close to the city and to the Children of Amarid, who had gathered there, made it nearly intolerable.

  He knew that their proximity to the city was necessary. If they wanted to maintain the illusion that the mages were responsible for the attacks his gang had carried out, they had to strike quickly after the Gathering ended, and they had to do so w
ithin a believable distance of the city. But he preferred to keep moving, and it made him nervous having his entire band together for any length of time. It carried too many risks.

  He glanced back over his shoulder and surveyed the clearing. If someone came across them now, Calbyr and his men would have little choice but to kill the unfortunate passerby. Chance encounters with the land’s people were to be expected, but on an individual basis, not en masse. Not with fifteen of them together in this small clearing, all of them carrying the same bright crimson stones and the same huge ebony, golden-eyed birds. Even the most ignorant of Tobyn-Ser’s citizens would know immediately that something was not right. And he or she would have to die. Not that Calbyr was averse to killing—that was, after all, why they had come. But he had made plans, and they had to be carried out carefully. A random killing at this particular time would do more harm than good.

  Calbyr himself had insisted that all members of his gang carry red stones. At the time, he had believed that they would allow his men to recognize each other with greater ease, even from a distance. Perhaps they did. But they also made gatherings like this one far too dangerous. It had been the one significant flaw in their meticulous preparations.

  He turned back toward the forest, his eyes straining to catch a glimpse of the mage’s glowing stone in the blackness. Seeing nothing, he spat a curse under his breath. At times Calbyr wondered if the mage did this to him on purpose; neither he nor the Child of Amarid had made any effort to hide their mutual antagonism. Actually, their belligerence was convenient in a way, because it allowed Calbyr to conceal the other emotions that the mage brought out in him. He would never have admitted this to the others, but the Child of Amarid made him uncomfortable. In Lon-Ser, surrounded by the reassuring clarity of the Nal, immersed in the comfort of technology, he had been taught to distrust superstition and mysticism. Magic existed solely in the games of children, and dreams were no more than fanciful images that troubled his sleep at night. But here, in this strange land, dreams held glimpses of the future; at least that’s what the mage had told him. And magic was real. He had seen it himself.

  Calbyr did not fear many people. There was Cedrych, his Overlord back in Lon-Ser, he reflected, absently tracing a finger along the thin white scar that ran from his left temple to the corner of his mouth, and he had once been afraid of his father. And like everyone else in Bragor-Nal, he did his best to avoid the Sovereign’s security forces. But that was all. From what he knew of the Order, he believed that the Children of Amarid were pompous and weak-willed, complacent and inept. This mage—hismage, he amended, smiling at the thought—was no exception. But by betraying the Order and joining forces with Calbyr and his men, the Child of Amarid had exhibited a ruthlessness that Calbyr respected. And Calbyr had seen the mage, with no more than the wave of a hand, do things that challenged everything Calbyr knew to be true. He wouldn’t go as far as to say that he feared the mage. But the power that the man wielded, and the imposing bird that he carried, made Calbyr uneasy.

  He still remembered, with a clarity that he found deeply unsettling, their first surprise encounter with the mage. Calbyr and his men had gathered in the foothills of the coastal mountains—the Seaside Range, they called them here—to discuss strategy for the commencement of their raids. Indeed, it had been a night much like this one: warm and clear, with a light wind that carried a scent like distant rain. They had, of course, learned much about the Children of Amarid. The spies that Cedrych had dispatched to Tobyn-Ser had brought them detailed descriptions of their appearance, their customs, and their history. How else could they have hoped to impersonate the mages and implicate them in the crimes they would commit? But none of them had ever actually seen a mage. Until that night.

  Calbyr recalled that he had been struck by the irony of it, even as he had felt his heart leap into his throat: they had managed, up to that point, to avoid all encounters with natives of Tobyn-Ser. Only to be discovered, all of them together, by one of the mages. The Child of Amarid had seemed surprisingly undisturbed by the sight of them. He had paused at the edge of the clearing, surveying the scene with a slight smirk on his lips. If he was shocked to see them, with their identical stones and birds, he showed no sign of it.

  Calbyr and his men—there had been sixteen of them then—had stood absolutely motionless. Their stunned expressions must have seemed comical to the mage. Or perhaps he had been too focused on their strange birds to notice. It had been hard to tell. And then Yarit—of course it would be Yarit—had panicked, thrusting out his weapon to fire at the mage. He never got the chance. So swift had been the Child of Amarid’s response, and so bright had been the fire that exploded from his staff, that Calbyr did not realize what had happened until his man fell to the ground, his cloak, hair, and bird a whirlwind of flame. Calbyr had used a variety of hand weapons in his life, and he had been very impressed with the firepower of the thrower, disguised as a mage’s staff, that he now carried. But none of them matched the force of what the mage had conjured up in that moment with, it had seemed, little more than a gesture.

  The Child of Amarid had then bared his teeth in a fierce grin and turned to Calbyr, knowing somehow that he was the group’s leader. “Tell them to drop their staffs or I’ll kill all of them!” he had demanded in Tobynese. After a moment, Calbyr had nodded once and given the order in Bragory. His men had complied, though reluctantly, and never lowering his staff, the mage had proceeded to ask who they were and why they had come. Even as Calbyr replied to the questions, carefully measuring each word in the strange language so as to give enough information to satisfy his inquisitor without giving away too much, he had realized how lucky he and his men had been. It was clear from the mage’s tone and manner that he was not about to kill them or have them imprisoned. He listened to Calbyr’s responses with the air of a man appraising the qualities of a newly purchased weapon. And in those few minutes, in a forest clearing lit only by the blood-red stones of his men, and the bright yellow crystal of the mage, an alliance was forged. Uneasy, to be sure, made unnecessarily difficult by the rancor that quickly came to characterize Calbyr’s interaction with the Child of Amarid, but born of a potent mutual need.

  The alliance had served Calbyr well over the past year. There was no disputing that. But at times like these, when the mage kept him waiting, or addressed him with the arrogance and disdain that seemed to come to him so easily, Calbyr found his growing dependence on the man galling. Feeling uneasy around him was one thing, but to need him like this . . . Calbyr shook his head. When all this is done, he promised himself grimly, I’ll kill him.

  The thought calmed him, and, when at last he saw through the trees the soft yellow glow of the mage’s ceryll, he noted with satisfaction that his nerves remained steady.

  “He’s coming,” Calbyr announced.

  Immediately, the other figures in the clearing ended their conversations and stood to face the approaching light. In another moment, the mage stood before Calbyr, the glow from his ceryll mingling with the red crystals of the others to light the clearing with a strange orange luminance. His bird seemed small and pale as it surveyed the clearing and hissed at the black creatures on the shoulders of Calbyr and his companions.

  “Your bird seems frightened, Child of Amarid,” Calbyr said, a note of mockery in his voice. “Do we make the two of you uncomfortable?”

  “You mistake distaste for fear, Calbyr,” the mage replied icily. “Errors like that can be dangerous.” He allowed himself a smile and gently stroked the chin of his bird. “Besides, my familiar can’t be faulted for being discriminating; she merely prefers the company of real birds.”

  “And what about you?” Calbyr asked in the same tone. “Do you prefer the company of real mages?”

  Again, the mage smiled, although his eyes betrayed no hint of mirth. “I prefer to work alone.”

  They stood for some time in silence, glaring at each other, the space between them seemingly charged with their belligerence.

&n
bsp; At length, Calbyr broke eye contact. “Well, what tidings do you bring us from your Gathering?”

  “I bear good news,” the mage replied smugly.

  “Our work is having an effect?”

  “Oh, yes. The Order is worried; today’s session was as unruly a meeting as I’ve ever seen in the Great Hall. Mage accusing mage; Hawk-Mages and Owl-Masters at each other’s throats. I must say I found it quite amusing.”

  “I’m glad you were entertained,” Calbyr remarked dryly.

  The mage held up a finger. “Ah, but I haven’t even told you the best part,” he said, a malevolent grin spreading across his features. “Thanks to Baden, we literally have them chasing ghosts.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Baden believes that your attacks have been orchestrated by the unsettled spirit of Theron,” the mage explained, barely containing his glee. “And I believe he’s managed to convince quite a few of the others.”

  “Theron,” Calbyr repeated to himself, as if trying to place the name.

  “Of course, you don’t understand,” the mage commented impatiently. “I sometimes forget that you’re not of Tobyn-Ser. Listen then, and learn.” The mage briefly explained the history and meaning of Theron’s Curse, and the plight of the Unsettled. “If Baden sways the rest of the Order to his view,” he concluded, “they will undertake a journey to Theron’s Grove to confront the Owl-Master’s spirit.”

  “And this will buy us more time?” Calbyr asked, still not fully comprehending the mage’s excitement.

  The mage threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, it will buy us much more than time, Calbyr. No one has ever survived a journey into the grove. This is our opportunity to rid ourselves of Baden and the old hag who leads the Order.”

  Calbyr smiled venomously. “Ah, Child of Amarid, if your friends in the Order could only hear you now.”

  The mage’s laughter ceased and his voice, when he spoke, was shockingly cold. “I have no friends in the Order.”