by T. A. Miles
“What do you remember, Dacia?” Korsten asked her.
“Little,” she replied truthfully. “Running toward home … and then a fire. I think it was a fire. Did you pull me from it?”
Korsten studied her gently, letting her know in that silent moment that her accounting was not quite accurate. Though he confused her somewhat by saying, “In a way.”
“You were possessed by one of the Vadryn,” Merran told her, rather indelicately for a physician. She could see in Korsten’s tilting of his head and the slight raising of one fine brow that he shared her sentiment. It was scarce amelioration for Merran to add, “Briefly.”
“Possessed?” Dacia echoed and the word offset her inside. Her mind spun a little and her stomach gave a nauseating protest. She’d had peculiar, even disturbing dreams in the past, but possession….
“A Release spell was performed,” Korsten said to further educate her and in that furthering she felt more detached and unable to process.
“A spell?” As the words came out of her, Merran’s hand fell carefully onto her shoulder.
“Lie back, Dacia,” he instructed, guiding her to do just that.
Her head came to rest upon thick pillows and she looked up at the ceiling; timbered and spacious. “I have to get home,” she remembered, feeling Merran’s touch against her forehead once more and letting go of the thought.
Dacia was a very pretty girl, in a practical sense. She had a moderate to fair skin tone, large brown eyes, a proportionate nose with definition, a smart set of the mouth and brow, thick waves of medium brown hair, and a slim frame that was perhaps just slight of athletic. She appeared to have a fair amount of common sense and a good instinct for survival. The only real mismatch Korsten could see was how her apparent common sense allowed her to be out in the deeper hours of night alone in a city that was not ignorant to its recent dangers.
“You’re thinking loudly,” Merran informed him while in the midst of another brief checking over of his patient.
“What do you suppose she was doing out at night, aware of the danger of a lurking murderer?” Korsten lifted his gaze from Dacia’s sleeping face and was met with Merran’s blue eyes. He had come to love those eyes for their color; they were the most expressive part of Merran.
“Awareness of danger doesn’t always facilitate sense or reason,” his fellow mage answered.
Korsten heard the underlying words. He, of all people, should not have had to ask. However, he did ask. He asked because while he wasn’t arrogant enough to assume that only he had ever felt so driven by his personal attachments and feelings to behave in complete disregard and contempt for any and all consequence, he did like to think that others wouldn’t be quite so willing to make asses of themselves as he had been. Of course, looking back he had the ability to see the foolishness of his past actions. Clearly, Dacia was still young.
“She’ll be fine,” Merran eventually declared, rising from the bed. “Her system is in a mild shock over both the possession and the Release. Rest will recover her.”
Korsten’s head lowered in a nod and he unfolded himself from the window, stepping around the bed and the girl in it. He followed Merran out the door and made sure to shut it quietly as they moved into the hall.
“We should pay a visit to the Cambir household,” Merran was saying. “One of us should accompany Dacia back to her home.”
“While the other investigates the whereabouts of any other Vadryn,” Korsten added, alert to Merran’s plan as it formed. “Which would you prefer to take on?”
“The Vadryn,” Merran answered easily.
And as simply, Korsten said, “I should not have asked.”
The girl ate with alacrity. Irslan watched her with a sense of bemusement as she cleared her plate in efficient portions. A side effect to the Release, perhaps.
“This is all very good, thank you,” Dacia said, managing to fit the words between mouthfuls of food.
Irslan gave a nod in return, gesturing to what remained of a dish of sweet bread. “More?”
The girl’s expression was at first welcoming to the idea, but then her features squinted in better thought and she shook her head with a smile. “No, thanks.”
Irslan hesitated to be sure she was decided, then let it rest, giving his attention to Korsten. The redhead sat in quiet observation of the girl, who’d been brought down to breakfast shortly after Merran’s departure to carry on with the mages’ investigation. Korsten seemed rapt enough in the task of observing that he ought to be left alone to carry it on. The intensity of that study was how Irslan knew that there was something unusual to this situation.
The sound of knocking at the front door carried easily through the quiet, abbreviating Irslan’s thoughts. He looked over his shoulder, but didn’t rise to answer, leaving the task to his servant, who he could hear performing the duty in the hall beyond. Irslan’s gaze returned to Korsten instead, who had now taken his brown eyes from the girl and was himself looking to the dining room’s entrance.
Within a few moments a thin, black-haired man of a demure bearing put himself in the doorway and politely excused himself for the interruption. The interruption of complete silence, but still Irslan gave a nod, permitting the man to proceed. Caution over every action had been Stacen’s way since he arrived at the house, back when Irslan still considered himself young.
“Sir,” Stacen said. “A gentleman and lady are here to see you. Mages Vlas and Cayri of Vassenleigh.”
Of course, they couldn’t be from anywhere else, but Irslan nodded all the same. “Thank you, Stacen. See them in, please.”
Stacen inclined his head and departed.
Irslan looked at Korsten, who seemed curious and attentive, to the point where he was the first of them to stand when the newcomers were ushered in. The red-haired mage gave them an affable nod and a smile.
While the woman—blond and green-eyed, wearing brown riding garb—returned the gesture, the man, who was also blond but with blue eyes and wearing tones of blue to match, opted to speak. “Hello, fellow mage,” he said to Korsten, neither with a smile nor a frown. It was simply acknowledgment, and it fell equally impersonally upon Irslan. “Master Treir.”
“Hello, and welcome,” Irslan returned with a smile to let them know they were, in fact, quite welcome. “Mages Vlas….” When the man confirmed by putting his hand out, Irslan shook it, then carried the gesture to the woman. “And Cayri. Wonderful to have you in my home. Please, join us.”
Cayri moved to a seat as Irslan gestured toward the vacant chairs. Vlas took his time getting to one. The man appeared—appeared, Irslan enforced to himself—quite young and carried all the airs of a man caught up in perpetuated youth; attentive, ready, couldn’t be bothered to sit…. Contrary to her companion, the woman looked very balanced. She was also quite beautiful. Irslan couldn’t put an age to her face—neither young nor old—and he could see that, as with Korsten, she was among the mages who took on a hue of the magic itself, wearing it like a veil of otherworldliness that marked them no longer among the masses.
“I’m Korsten,” the redhead was offering to their guests while he returned to his seat.
“Mentored by Ashwin?” Cayri guessed and Korsten’s nod indicated that it was accurate.
“I’m working with Merran currently,” the white mage proceeded to inform them.
“Yes, I know Merran,” the woman replied with a small, but rather fetching smile. “Dour fellow.”
“At times,” Korsten answered. The smile edging onto his own lips suggested that she was actually quite accurate in that assessment. He gestured toward the girl, who sat decidedly finished with her plate at the opposite end of the table from the newcomers. “This is Dacia Cambir. Another guest of Master Treir’s.”
“Dacia,” Vlas acknowledged simply, either unaware, or aware and ignoring how set the girl’s gaze instantly came to be o
n him.
Cayri offered Dacia a polite smile and a nod in greeting.
“Hello,” Dacia said, and proceeded to study the pair, mainly Vlas.
“We’ve been sent to address strategic concerns,” Vlas informed, in an obvious bid to change the subject and in a duty-minded fashion that neither of his fellows appeared to take lightly. “Morenne’s strategy.”
“Our details have been given to us primarily by Mage-Superior Ceth,” Cayri let Korsten know and by his expression and nod, it was no surprise to him.
Irslan always found himself entirely compelled by these conversations, however infrequently he’d been witness to them. Most often, he excused himself or a mage suggested subtly that he should do so. Here he did not feel so inclined, and no one else seemed to be either. Perhaps it was because the war was everyone’s concern and by now all of them had to admit that. Even Dacia was permitted to stay and observe in her very openly curious manner. Her dark eyes went back and forth between the speakers.
“Has Morenne’s strategy evolved much beyond inexorable overtaking?” Korsten asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Vlas’ expression, while Cayri issued a nod and statement. “We’ve been further north for much of the last several years. Agents of Morenne have been gathering with interest beyond the border there, encroaching on the coast. They’ve been bolder.”
“Spies and assassins?” Korsten assumed, and Irslan couldn’t help his own subtle nod in agreement to that line of thought.
“Yes,” Vlas said. “But not men or women. The Vadryn themselves are these agents.”
“The Vadryn,” Korsten replied, not as if it were a fool’s notion, but as if it were a familiar topic never quite put into this light, or diligently overlooked.
Irslan knew that even among the mages there were different views on the precise nature of the Vadryn, which were one of the world’s darkest mysteries to most outside of Vassenleigh. The legends were abundant, the truths lesser known.
The redhead continued, “Of course, Morenne has been utilizing them as a convenient resource, but more in the way one channels water, I’d always thought. The Vadryn have very basic requirements, mainly to satisfy their hunger. I….”
Vlas didn’t wait for Korsten to finish, rolling his eyes like one who had been expecting precisely what was being set in front of him. “Oh, you can’t be serious. You can’t still be laboring under the archaic belief that the Vadryn are so simple anymore. They’re tools of war, weapons. These are not random strays, but assassins and instigators. Their actions are tactics, formulated by the Morennish strategists. Stop thinking like hunters.”
“We … are hunters.” Korsten tipped his head a little just then in hesitation. “Merran is out hunting as we speak, in fact. But what I was saying, Vlas … Cayri … is that I understand the convenience that the Vadryn have proven to be to Morenne. I understand also that there are Masters making themselves more aligned to Morenne’s cause, with genuine interest. But the lesser demons I hadn’t considered as such deliberate … or maybe conscious players on the board.”
“You’d be wise to start considering it,” Vlas concluded. “They’ve started taking over more difficult hosts, under more difficult circumstances … risking exposure and working together.”
Korsten’s brow drew together at that comment, and his gaze could scarcely be taken from Vlas, even as Cayri added to his words.
“Ceth and Ashwin both agree that that is the reason mages such as yourself and Merran have been so often away from the Seminary tracking them,” the woman said. “Because they’ve been less subtle, reported or detected more frequently.”
Korsten nodded permissibly. “Yes, it’s true Merran and I have scarcely rested foot within Vassenleigh’s walls for more than a period of days before heading back out.”
‘You see?’ said the raised eyebrows of Vlas, a very expressive man. Irslan found him enjoyable.
“Working together,” Korsten murmured, and then his dark eyes ventured toward Irslan, who gave a nod because it crossed his mind in the same moment; their earlier conversation about the possibility of three Vadryn in the city, though with one dispatched, it would be only two now. The mage’s attention returned to his colleagues. “Merran will need to be given this information once he returns. If he does so before I do, you needn’t wait for me.”
Vlas gave a nod that spoke for both he and Cayri, and then asked, “Where are you headed?”
Korsten was standing when he replied with a hand held out to Dacia. “I’m escorting Miss Cambir home.”
Vlas’ expression seemed to simply say ‘Oh.’, while Cayri smiled gently at the younger woman.
Dacia looked for a moment as if she hadn’t planned to be addressed or considered at all, but then got to her feet, absently disregarding Korsten’s hand. “All right, then,” she murmured and didn’t quite smile while she made her way around the table. “Nice meeting you all. Thank you for the rest, and food.”
Irslan smiled at her with a welcoming nod. The other two were settling into quiet conversation between themselves, which had Dacia snatching another look at Vlas before Korsten ushered her to and out the door.
“Master Treir,” Vlas said shortly afterward. “Ceth may have mentioned to you in a letter that he hoped we would be able to meet with the governor. Can you arrange it?”
Irslan raised his own eyebrows now as he felt immediately pinned by the polite demand. Ceth had indeed penned that hope. “Not I,” he said honestly, then smiled at his guests—two more mages to his home in less than a week’s time. “However, I will happily introduce you to friends who may be able to oblige you.”
Vlas approved with a nod and as the weight of the past hour lifted somewhat, Irslan attended to something lighter in his drink.
Indhovan began on a cliff and fell, like the arm of a sleeping body, down toward the rim of its bed, fingertips just dipping into the sea. From the vicinity of Irslan’s home, Korsten could see the cliff side of the city above him and the ocean end below his vantage, to the west and east respectively. It was a much larger city than he had anticipated, one that had grown since his childhood days in Cenily, which lay just south and to the east. He recalled visits to Indhovan, to a town that was spreading, but still easily contained within the eyes of a child. Those visits had occurred near half a century ago, he had to remind himself. While Korsten wasn’t among the mages who more literally cloistered themselves at the Seminary—not since his initial stay—somehow the world had still slipped out from beneath him without his notice, expanding itself even in Edrinor, where it had long seemed more diminishing occurred than growth. The thought offered some hope against a war that had been ongoing for many years, but that had been at its worst within Korsten’s lifetime. It had escalated to the border, which rapidly eroded against the crashing efforts of the Morennish army within Korsten’s younger life and by now, as he moved toward the sixth decade of a life that held no recognition for youth, or for true aging, there was a cloud of inevitability looming along the horizon. He wondered how clearly the younger generations saw it, or whether one needed a vantage like the Seminary and magehood to be offered the full view.
Dacia seemed a young woman with concerns for her everyday life and little for the warring that actively went on to the north and west of her home. The last border Korsten had been to did seem very far away from Indhovan. Regardless, Vlas and Cayri’s presence had him reconsidering the distance. He hoped to speak more with them on the topic later. If they had been sent by Ceth, then he easily believed that Ceth and Ashwin had intended the four mages beneath them to work together during their stay. It amazed Korsten how a council of twelve Mage-Superiors could so intimately know the various ranking mages living at the Seminary, people who at times could scarcely know one another.
Vassenleigh housed nearly three hundred Apprentices, Mages, and Adepts. Each of them were assigned to one of the Superiors, who would become a me
ntor to guide them and offer support along their unnaturally extended life, to ensure that the necessary learning and adapting occurred in the grooming of a mage who would be qualified to operate as needed either within or without of the Seminary. It was a life more solitary than one might have considered. The mages did not operate as a unit or force, but dispatched emissaries and hunters, strategists to assist those remaining loyal to the idea of a safe and unified Edrinor, and to protect those innocent of the growing plague that was the Vadryn. Throughout their training and careers as mages, they rarely convened or socialized in mass. Their lives in regards to one another was typified in brief crossings and lingering acquaintances where daily habit enabled it. Korsten had been assigned to Mage-Superior Ashwin when he arrived at Vassenleigh, but he saw much more of Merran and had from the start. He had been prepared then to expect to one day work alone, but he had done so rarely since earning Adept status. While the Seminary did not always plan to partner mages—given the small number of them in comparison to the need since the massacre that had occurred well before Korsten’s birth—their numbers had recovered even since Korsten’s arrival at Vassenleigh. More mages were slipping into pairs to better ensure safety as well as the amount of accomplishment to be had in assignments.
Truthfully, Korsten preferred it this way. At one time in his life, he may have wanted nothing better than to work alone, but he and Merran had surely formed a bond with one another since their meeting years ago, back when Korsten’s mind had revolved around what he realized now was a very small place in the world. How foolish he had been to think that he ever wanted to return to that place, that very wrong shelter, which he had been all too willing to accept as a younger person. He had Merran to thank for escaping what was in actuality no shelter at all, but a prison; a prison he had had a hand in making with the skillfully applied encouragement of an enemy he didn’t recognize at first, and should have.