by Andrea Höst
There was a little silence, a weirdly upset pause, and then a shadow between the two tents behind Rennyn resolved into Captain Faille.
"What time do you wish to be woken, my Lady?" he asked.
"Midnight, I suppose. Three hours ahead should be safe enough."
Kendall was impressed that Captain Faille had managed to give Rennyn an order, just by not giving it to her. As soon as she had gone into her tent, everyone who had been lingering about shifted away, some only a short distance to stand guard and the rest to the busier end of the camp, where the noise immediately dropped to furious whispers. Kendall, retreating obediently with Sukata, considered the rearrangement appreciatively.
"It's like she's got a hundred nannies. The scariest woman in the kingdom, and they all tiptoe around her like she's made of glass. She doesn't strike me as fragile."
Sukata didn't respond, heading for the cliff's edge. She was obviously upset, though Kendall had only begun to be able to spot the signs. It was in the way she held herself, and the fact that she wasn't being so proper and correct. Kendall held off prodding, and peered cautiously down. The water had moved, the beach growing to half again its width, and the Sentene had found a way to pick their way down the cliff to the water, where they were conjuring balls of light.
"Going into the Eferum here is already risky," Sukata finally said. "Going into the Eferum when obviously in need of a full day's sleep is courting disaster."
"She probably has nightmares," said Kendall, who had suffered enough herself in the past few days. "Why is it so risky going into the Eferum here?"
"The ocean is said to be like the Eferum – cold and dark and full of currents. When travelling between two such similar places there's a danger of missing your direction."
"She didn't seem that worried about it. Was what she said about Thought magic right? How come people do this Teremie stuff, if it means you get all messed up? Is it really that hard to do?"
The Kellian girl sat down on the cliff's edge, which was more than Kendall was willing to do. "Force magic – too often children died trying to master it. The accepted wisdom is that it is simply not worth it. What can it accomplish that a well-constructed Sigillic cannot? It wears on the caster far more, and the danger of interruption or lapses of concentration is considerable. The basis of the Teremic approach is that a dead mage can't cast any kind of magic, and the speed of something as crude as Force magic doesn't balance the risk."
"Then why did everyone act like she was welcoming Fel to dinner? Hearts in boots and trying to put a brave face on it."
"There – there has been a great deal of debate over how much of what Lady Montjuste-Surclere does is Force magic. During the Asentyr incursion she was seen to use highly advanced Sigillic circles culminating in a Symbolic summoning, but much of her casting must be either pre-prepared or not Sigillic. I'm not sure she even carries a slate. She is powerful enough to maintain a number of pre-cast spells, it is true, but that casting after the palace incursion–"
"What casting?"
"You remember, an hour or so after sunset, there was a wash of colour? And then some lights in the sky?"
"I didn't see the lights."
"It was a casting which altered Asentyr's main circle so that it would pinpoint any Eferum-Get within its bounds. And it revealed two, both of them guised as the larger had been. Spies. Eferum-Get spies." Sukata's voice dropped with the enormity of this idea, then lifted again. "From what I have been told, Lady Montjuste-Surclere went to the place the Eferum-Get attack had been most destructive and set up an 'idea' of what Eferum-Get are like, and then used that idea to call to her a Life Stealer to cause a reaction with the shield. During all this she simply chanted three words which might count as Sigillic magic except she didn't write them on anything, and the names of sigils alone do not constrain Efera. Which means that the spell was almost entirely Symbolic and...Thought."
"So, more than just lifting things."
"How do you describe red to a blind man?" Sukata asked as she fidgeted with the hem of her smock, another sign that she was really upset. "Sound to the deaf? That is the lesson we've just learned: that Force – Thought magic can be used to say what words cannot. It has only been considered crude because we have not used it with any level of skill. She just told us that none of us are real mages."
"Do you think Rennyn's cruel?" Kendall asked, after a moment. "Nasty, just for the sake of being nasty?"
Sukata stared at her blankly, then shook her head.
"If she thought it was impossible for you to learn Thought magic – properly – she wouldn't have told you to try and pick up the bowl. Besides, it sounds to me that the thing that kills would-be Thought mages is being distractible or just not able to think in whatever way it is you're supposed to think. You don't exactly strike me as the scatty type."
"I have spent years developing my strength," Sukata said, her thin voice dropping so Kendall had to strain to hear it. "I would not be encouraged to take such a risk."
"Pft – far as I can tell from what was going on back there, we were allowed along because everyone else wants to listen in on these so-called lessons. If they have that much respect for her opinions on magic, are they going to argue about what she tells you to do? And there's plenty of empty fields in Tyrland to practice in."
"I–"
"Afraid you'll die?"
"No."
"Afraid you'll fail, then."
Sukata curled her fingers shut. "And you?"
"Dunno. Might give it a few more days."
"You are very pragmatic."
"Even if I can only use it to move things about, it seems worth trying to me," Kendall said, shrugging. "Could earn some money rescuing kittens from trees."
"Worth trying," Sukata repeated, then looked down to the darkening water, where her mother stood directing groups of mages to stand about writing on slates. Even though Sukata wasn't smiling, Kendall could tell that she'd made her feel better.
This needed to stop. She was letting others mind her business, and worse still she'd started minding theirs. Where would that get her?
Annoyed with herself, Kendall found a pebble and made it hop.
Chapter Eighteen
Rennyn stepped into the Eferum in a blaze of power. Until she discovered a better way to hide, her approach would be to play on her strength, and it gave her a good deal of satisfaction to send deadly bolts shooting in every direction hoping one would meet her Wicked Uncle. She kept up a steady assault on the emptiness around her, chopping and changing between a number of pre-prepared offensive spells until Solace's focus warned her it was time to get down to business.
Relying on one last pulse of force to hold back immediate attack, Rennyn allowed her attention to be taken up by the attunement. Even as far back from the breach point as she was, the strength of the attraction between the focus and the Summoning dragged at her, but it was easier to resist when she was prepared for it. Done.
A small cluster of Eferum-get were approaching the breach, and she paused to blast them with raw power, incinerating them in a most thorough and final manner. Nothing like stopping an attack before it even started. But there was no wisdom in lingering in the Eferum congratulating herself, so Rennyn stepped back into the world.
Dawn. She'd managed to get in and out in only a few hours. The gentle hills to the east were picked out in pastel shades, with a hint of mist between clumps of sheep. Below, in the shadow of the cliff, the Sentene waited beneath their summoned lights for an incursion which would not come. A gull called, muted and distant.
"It went well?" Lieutenant Danress, standing at the very edge of Rennyn's circle.
"Uneventful. There were a few smaller Eferum-Get heading for the breach, but I had an easy chance to kill them. Duramoi, I think. They weren't carrying a shield-breaker this time, that I could see."
The faintest ring of metal made her turn. Captain Faille had drawn that overlong sword and was gazing out to the western horizon, his entire body taut with energy. I
n the delicately-tinted light he was a roseate gossamer man, and she saw in him an unexpected beauty. Dawn was the hour of the Kellian's creation, and would be the time of their greatest strength.
"Captain?" Lieutenant Danress asked.
The grim lines on either side of his mouth deepened. "Something is coming." He turned a fraction toward Rennyn. "Bring them up from there. This is another trap."
Wryly reflecting on Lady Weston's opinions about Kellian leaders, Rennyn obediently hoisted sixty people up a cliff. Since people and especially mages had an intrinsic resistance against Thought magic worked directly on them, this was not such an easy thing as throwing individual rocks about, and she was glad of Lieutenant Danress' steadying hand on her shoulder. She'd already used a lot of energy with her offensive spells in the Eferum, and had to take them in clumps.
"Arrowhead formation," Captain Faille ordered, underlining the command with a brief hand gesture. The Sentene rearranged themselves immediately, drawing the Hand mages with them so that only a small line remained on the cliff's edge and the rest spread back in a triangle. "Return to the camp, my Lady," he added to Rennyn.
Rather than divide his attention, Rennyn retreated: not to the camp, but back and to the left. Faral and Meniar shifted out to flank her. And they all waited. There was no sign of whatever attack was coming. The breach had closed, and Rennyn had killed the Eferum-Get before they'd even reached it. Still, she was learning to recognise that the Sentene trusted Kellian instincts for good reason.
Her world was growing more complicated. She wanted to protect them. A sense of responsibility for the Kellian had overtaken her, along with a growing attachment. It was exactly as she had anticipated and very much not wanted. She hadn't missed that they were all calling her "my Lady" now, and not just because it was a deal less clumsy to say than "Montjuste-Surclere". A return gesture for her grandstanding in the Hall of Question.
"There!"
Out beyond the shadow of the cliff, where the sea had lightened to stripes of oyster and pearl, a black shape had broken the shining lines. At first Rennyn thought it was a ship, but then it vanished, only to resurface a few moments later, much closer. Something very large, swimming.
It was moving at an incredible pace. If they hadn't been all staring out to sea from a cliff-top vantage there would have been almost no warning. As it was, Captain Illuma gave several curt orders and everyone moved further away from the drop to the beach. A few of the Sentene mages began writing on slates, but most of them had already cast their offensive spells, and were simply holding them on trigger till their target came within range.
The swimmer struck the rock below, ramming it like a goat in rut. The impact was enough to shake more than a few mages from their feet, and a large section of the cliff fell away. The thing made a booming, moaning noise and then rose so they could properly appreciate what they were facing.
A column of muscle, greenish-grey with a pattern of scales overlaid by a sheen of slime. It was well over fifteen feet in width, and would tower over every building and most trees Rennyn had ever seen. The head, rising well above the top of the cliff, was a massive wedge of streamlined bone, crested with a frill of yellow and green, and most otherwise mouth.
Sea serpent. For all the tales of them wrecking ships, Rennyn had never begun to picture the scale of such a thing. It dropped its jaw to make its drawn and mournful cry, and display fangs as tall as she. The stench was sickening: year-old fish gone well beyond fetid. Its eyes were long and dark and Rennyn saw in them a gleam of sorrowing intelligence before thirty battle-ready mages released their arsenals.
Flesh fountained in every direction and the massive head whipped back, then fell out of sight, crashing to the water below. Even the sea seemed to hold its breath, then Captain Faille gave a sharp hand-back signal and the Sentene hastily drew further away from the cliff's edge as the creature's long body began to thrash and spasm. Its death throes were brief but intensely violent, sending large sections of the cliff tumbling. Then – hush. The waves soughed, the gulls remembered their voices, and the Sentene approached the edge to look down at water churned to a bloody froth and coil upon coil of muscle relaxing in death.
The Sentene broke into squads: to recover their equipment from the beach, search out whatever was the source of the compulsion which had drawn the serpent here, and not incidentally shift a corpse. Unhappy to own the name Montjuste-Surclere, Rennyn walked back to camp. And here were Kendall and Sukata, eyes wide and weary. Her students. A study in contrasts and probably another thing she was going to regret.
"Did that come out of the Hells?" asked Kendall, for once more awed than pugnacious.
"No. Well, perhaps originally. As a rule a breach wouldn't be big enough or open long enough to fit something like that through, but it's likely it was Eferum-Get once. They adapt to this world after they reach it, just as we change if we stay too long in the Eferum. But nothing came out of the breach this time, so far as I could tell."
"Then how come–?"
"It was under a compulsion." One of the Hand mages, the stocky, short one whose name was either Intsen or Insen. He stalked up, scrubbing a hand across his face angrily. "Tell me, Lady Montjuste-Surclere, how is it that no matter what we prepare we are circumvented? Why are we always on the back foot?"
This was hardly answerable, and Rennyn only looked at him as others of the Hand and the Sentene Senior Captains came to join them: a council of war.
"Our opponent sees the advantage of constantly changing tactics," Captain Illuma commented neutrally. "We should not be surprised by that."
"Changing tactics is one thing," Magister Intsen said, setting his feet. "But this – how is what we saw today even possible for someone in the Eferum?"
"I don't know." Rennyn glanced at the lightening horizon. "The hurdles he has to overcome – we have days between each incursion, while he has only hours. And that attack was specific to the breach point being on the water's edge, which even we didn't know until yesterday afternoon. I suppose that unlike me he may be able to pinpoint the breaches ahead of time, but even with that, to bring that serpent here from outside the bounds of Tyrland–" She lifted her hands. "Perhaps he's come through a natural breach and is now operating in this world."
Not a comforting thought, and she wasn't the only one who glanced at the green hills around them, wondering if they were being watched. If her Wicked Uncle was no longer in the Eferum, the danger of everything coming undone had increased immensely. He could take Solace's focus and complete the attunement. Worse, he could decide to hunt Seb.
"Even if that is the case, he is likely to wait until the attunement is complete, and take the focus from you then," Captain Illuma said. "His current intent appears to be to reduce our numbers."
He was certainly taking a few pointed shots at the Sentene. Rennyn wondered how much of her Wicked Uncle's actions were within Solace's plans, and whether she could be fortunate enough never to meet him again.
Captain Faille signalled for the pull-down of the camp to begin, evidently not seeing much value in sitting around asking 'why?'. "We will no longer focus our preparations purely on attacks out of the Eferum," he said matter-of-factly, and headed back to the cliff's edge.
Feeling cramped, Rennyn went for a walk up the nearest hill, trying to pretend Faral and Meniar weren't trailing discreetly behind. She returned none the wiser as to whether her Wicked Uncle had an agenda of his own, but refreshed enough to face the coach journey. One of the Ferumguard handed her a steaming bowl of oats laced with honey and fruit, and she sat on the coach's step to eat.
"Is he a better mage than you?"
Kendall, eyes groggy from a night spent watching and waiting, had reverted to her usual charming self.
"Almost certainly. Just not as strong." Rennyn weighed the castings she'd experienced. "Though that, too, might have changed since our last encounter. If he's in this world, he can summon a focus, and I doubt he faces the dangers we do. The Grand Summoning may even im
pact focus-summoning, though hopefully not casting in this world."
She could see the girl methodically working through that one. "So, even if you stop the Grand Summoning, we might end up with some incredibly powerful part-monster running about trying to take over the kingdom? One that keeps Night Roamers for pets?"
"One that eats people himself, unless I miss my guess."
"What does he look like?"
"Human. Unremarkable. Like Solace, but with the Surclere colouring." With a curl of amusement, she considered the girl's cropped head. "Not like Seb."
The girl pulled a face, her now-familiar glower darkening her eyes. "So where are we going next?"
"South-east, into the forests. We'll be going past Sark."
"And Falk?"
"As near as is safe."
Chapter Nineteen
There was a valley where home used to be, flat and wide like some great round footprint. All the world which had been Kendall's for fifteen years was gone, had been stepped on.
Around the road they'd used, trees lay flat or splintered, radiating out from the heaviness' outer ring, where a crust of debris was oozing slowly up. At the centre a woman in white would still be lying. Kendall probably wouldn't have been able to see her, even if it hadn't been raining. Too far away. But the rain, a steady downpour, made it easy to judge just how big an area the heavy air now covered. It was huge, a grey dome where ordinary drops suddenly became a grey blur of needle-hard darts. They weren't allowed to go close enough to hold a hand into it, but Kendall could see the impact, the way those darts churned and stitched the ground. The whole of the world thrummed and was pulled by the weight of that air.
And everywhere were angry people. The cordon of militia, dripping and scowling as they blocked a road but not the fields beside it. The miserable clumps of townsfolk returning to view the wreck of their lives before the next expansion. The Hand and Sentene mages, faces hidden by hoods they'd attached to their uniforms, silently surveying a magical problem so immense they couldn't even go near it, let alone fix it. And the Kellian.