by T. A. Miles
Vlas agreed with a considered and not unappreciative nod. After sufficient study, he handed back the blanket and his attention was directed by Rahl’s intentional gaze over his shoulder to the man who would assist him. Upon turning around, he corrected himself. Constable Imris was a woman. Of course, that shouldn’t faze him and it didn’t beyond a moment to wonder when the world outside the Seminary had conceded to the capabilities of women beyond a household, a business, or the odd political role by inheritance.
“Constable Imris,” Vlas greeted and by that considered himself in agreement with the arrangement of them working together.
She inclined her head, looking at him with gray-green eyes embedded behind a skin tone that helplessly, instantly, reminded him of Konlan Ossai. She may have even been slightly darker in complexion. Her black hair was arranged tidily at the back of her head, making it all the more apparent that her facial structure was unique … unique to Vlas at any rate, born and raised as he was, and having spent a good portion of his long life in the central and northern regions of Edrinor.
Before Vlas could begin to examine her as directly as he had Konlan at the activists’ meeting, the woman constable politely—and with a by now familiar accent—said, “Should we be off?”
“Yes,” Vlas said, and gestured for his new associate to lead the way out of Rahl’s constabulary.
Through the labyrinth of stone archways and lily beds, one of the edges of the Seminary lay along a wall; a part of the cliffs the city of Vassenleigh had been built up against and which the Seminary itself was built from. The ancient mages had put a facade onto a natural network of stone passages and caves, some of which were carved and fitted over the centuries into ornate hallways and chambers. The lily garden in part occupied an outcropping that overlooked the city and which the sun looked upon generously, though as it arced into evening, it pulled long shadows across the Seminary and its city, like gentle hands laying a blanket over a body. A sleeping body, Korsten knew, but one many still believed dead.
Beside Korsten stood Cayri, looking with him over the rooftops directly below, which spanned toward a wall that joined the natural wall around the city, successfully enclosing it. Beyond the lower manmade wall lay an expanse of plains hemmed in on all sides by forest and low hills. Korsten reached into his imagination to paint an image of battle out in those fields of grass and some few crops as well. He wondered as he was layering the image with men and horses, if he should have included demons. But the Vadryn didn’t walk in their natural form—which was more spirit—they inhabited the bodies of men. What he’d seen in Indhovan seemed to contradict that in some way that he couldn’t quite comprehend on his own. He felt it wise to have returned when they did. To carry on without counsel would be to stumble ahead in the dark when the cost of illumination was only a little time and energy.
They’d spent the day in conferences with their elders, not wasting the opportunity afforded them by the Reach and providing Korsten ample time to prepare himself for another. Together, he and Cayri had given the Superiors all the information they’d collected during their time in the distant coastal city. Korsten even visited with Eisleth for a time to discuss the peculiar physical situation of Vadryn. The mage who probably was the first ever to have mastered black and who also bore a talent for red requested information in exacting detail and Korsten felt tremendous relief in passing along such details to him. If anyone had a hope of understanding what new tactics the Vadryn may have devised, he believed very solidly that it was Merran’s life mentor. Thinking about his partner, Korsten hoped to be able to bring advice back to him. He had every confidence it would be properly applied.
“I wonder sometimes how this will end,” Cayri said to him, her voice pulling him gently out of his thoughts.
“You can only have been here a lifetime already,” Korsten decided easily. “You’re already scanning the horizon for a destination while I still seek to find my footing within moments that often feel directionless.”
Cayri said nothing.
Korsten looked at her, noting to himself the way her liquid green eyes caught flashes of gold from the waning sun. It reminded him that the gods had graced her with empathy and that all he was doing by slighting himself was harassing her, as she would undoubtedly detect where such sentiments were headed and where they were rooted. He felt for a moment that he should apologize, but instead he tried having a better outlook for both their sakes.
“I’d rather not consider that there is an ending,” he said. “Whatever comes of this era will be a transition into the gods’ ultimate plan for all of us.”
Cayri maintained her silence for a moment more, then smiled a little wryly. “Sometimes I wish that the gods would simply put us where they want us to be.”
“They have, of course,” Korsten said to her, and it startled him somewhat that he said it so readily. Maybe it was having Ashwin as a life mentor which inspired those words, but he believed them. He might not have considered it quite so literally before leaving Haddowyn, but since then he knew that—whether cruel or generous—his path was decided and had meaning. Even if he struggled along it, he would find himself precisely where he was meant to be at every stop or crossing. If that wasn’t true, he’d have succeeded in taking his own life or returning to Renmyr … which he despised admitting would have been a similar circumstance to suicide.
Cayri glanced at him and raised a hand to guide strands of her honey-colored hair away from her face. “I’ve been a mage for almost two hundred years. At times, I feel exhausted.”
Korsten nodded because he understood. Even though he was still within the realm of a normal age, by the standards he used to know, life should have been slowing down for him. Sometimes he still considered his library at Haddowyn, and having aged within it, wealthy in the written word and impoverished where an understanding of the world they pertained to was concerned. He felt exhausted as well when he considered how long his path might actually be, but he would not go back to his prior state of ignorance now. He would not return himself to a box of despondency and blindness. However ornate Renmyr’s lies had made it, his life in Haddowyn had been a cage.
“So, when we go back to Indhovan, we’ll go back to wherever Merran is?” Cayri asked, perhaps seeking a change in topic.
“Yes,” Korsten answered, scanning the rooftops of Vassenleigh. He studied the streets beneath them and the people, a population that existed in voluntary isolation … as much a myth to some as the mages they lived alongside. Perpetuating that belief would not have been difficult. There were no longer any roads that led to Vassenleigh. They’d been given back to nature, whose obscuring hand had passed over them with immediacy that could only have been inspired by magic. The Council had agreed to carry out Ashwin’s plan all those years ago; the city of Vassenleigh and its inhabitants were hidden away and rendered a legend to the rest of the world.
The Vadryn knew better. They knew that Ashwin and his peers would not have abandoned the survivors of that battle to the poison left behind by an army of demons. They pressed Morenne and the war onward and though Edrinor managed to renew its morale after the fall of its leading family, the enemy prodded the edges of realigned and newly fortified borders for soft places that would easily rot and allow them passage to the Seminary and the magic at its core … the Council of Superiors.
Korsten fleetingly thought back on the moment the cruel ‘child’ who had been one of his captors after the attack on Lilende had inquired of Ashwin. It chilled him to recall the vehemence with which that monster of a boy demanded to know whether or not his mentor was still alive. The panic Korsten had felt in that strained moment had betrayed him and given Alsaide his answer. Where that information had gone and to what end, he could only speculate and such speculations played particularly grim when he allowed them.
“I wonder where he’s found himself,” Cayri said, bringing Korsten back to their conversation.
He took the lure willingly. “We’ll soon find out,” he said.
It was not long after that when they were approached by Eisleth and Ceth. Korsten suspected their arrival was to send he and Cayri off again. He couldn’t help the pang of bereavement that passed through him with Ashwin’s absence. They’d had no time to speak privately and while he didn’t suppose there was a reason why he should require a more intimate audience with his mentor, he did suspect he had been spoiled by the attention he’d received from Ashwin over the last thirty years, beginning with the spell-touch the elder had performed which had cast a line between them, connecting their emotions very directly for a span. At the time it had been a preemptive decision on Ashwin’s part, a means by which to monitor the Seminary’s suicidal new arrival. Korsten felt embarrassed about that now and the effects of the spell had long since faded, but another bond had resulted; one of friendship and of attraction as well. They’d never acted on the latter, though Ashwin had encouraged it even while he’d been involved with another and even after Korsten and Merran discovered their intimate healing ritual. While a polyamourous lifestyle was not frowned upon at the Seminary, they did also entertain spousal arrangements. Korsten’s heart had been for one person and while he knew that person was lost to him, his heart still required closure. Somehow his close friendship with Merran didn’t disrupt him on that path—if anything he felt that it encouraged him in an odd way. But so did Ashwin’s patience, and his honesty. Ashwin had made no secret of how he felt or of what he wanted. Korsten could easily convince himself at times that he wanted the same thing, but he also had an inner fear that achieving that would forever change them … and his relationship with Merran as well.
He could think himself in circles about it, and after a few mental and emotional rotations, he typically resolved himself to the core of the matter. Renmyr had to be at peace and freed of his demon before Korsten would allow himself to rest. He would have to be strong enough to see that through, which meant that he direly needed both of them. Ashwin and Merran had become his dearest friends.
“Learn what you can of the coven,” Ceth said to both of them.
Korsten drew alert to the elder’s voice belatedly and almost didn’t catch the words.
The Mage-Superior continued. “In our initial investigations into them—before and after our working with Vaelyx Treir—they seemed innocuous. Yes, they’d counseled or convinced our outside agent to abandon us and our interest, but we’d gleaned no information that would suggest either he or they would be intent to work against us. We still have no evidence of that, however it’s important to understand better where they fit into Indhovan’s social and political structure. Especially now.” He looked to Cayri specifically. “You have a meeting with the local governor’s wife. Find out what you can from her, particularly whether or not the coven holds any sway over her husband. Discover whether or not they have an agenda in regards to that city and this war, and if so what it may be. Vlas can help you.”
While she was nodding in agreement to the elder’s instruction and engaging in further conversation, Eisleth spoke to Korsten.
“On the unusual appearance of the Vadryn, I can advise you very little at this time. You may have to resort to destroying their vessels and contending with the demon in its natural state.”
“Yes,” Korsten said, considering the instances he’d been faced with the wraith-like demons immediately following departure from a vessel. The blood from the possessed body tended to provide a surge in strength when it was discarded or destroyed. Banishing the freed spirit was never easy.
As if receiving Korsten’s thoughts, or his trepidation, Eisleth said, “Take care in your approach.”
“Of course.” Korsten nodded, then provided a more resolute statement because he felt himself faltering. “We will.”
Eisleth’s deep, dark gaze didn’t linger and Korsten’s own eyes caught on the long-tailed scarlet butterfly which drifted gracefully about the elder’s shoulders. It didn’t hold onto any given perch for long, which reminded Korsten of his Analee. Such a restless little friend, she was. He was aware of her crimson-cast wings in the corner of his vision as she loitered near his hair, but his focus shifted away from both soul-keepers, toward Ceth and Cayri as the elder of the pair was passing some small item into the younger mage’s hand. He wasn’t able to descry the object’s precise shape or even begin to guess as to its purpose. Though curious, he let the matter go. If and when it was essential for him to know, he would discover what it was then.
“As always,” Ceth said to both of them while he drew a step back from Cayri, “exercise good judgment and great caution. The hour grows increasingly more dire. The borders are closing in and our last one is verging on discovered as the northern coastal outposts fall. When that happens, we will have the Vadryn and Morennish soldiers on all sides, save the mountains to the south. It is a point of protection, but also a point of weakness, if it leaves us no escape.”
Korsten looked over at Cayri, who looked back at him. The severity of Ceth’s words were not lost on either of them.
“It will become our final stand, if it comes to that,” the elder concluded. “It rests on our mages and agents away from the Seminary to see to it that it doesn’t come to that. In spite of our ages and our levels of experience or alignment with the Spectrum, we could not put forward this fight alone. What all of you learn and do in the field is invaluable. Never forget that.”
Eisleth had nothing to add to Ceth’s words and withdrew in the moments his colleague was completing their delivery. Korsten watched Ashwin’s reticent twin return to the thick of the garden and toward the greater interior of the Seminary. Cayri touched his arm and he returned his full attention to she and Ceth, offering their senior a parting nod before stepping away with Cayri. He cleared his thoughts, setting them easily on Merran. Thoughts of his partner’s grim demeanor and how much grimmer it might appear with word of how they were possibly to deal with the Vadryn in Indhovan led to a series of articulate hand gestures and the formation of a portal. It appeared almost as if a rimless window offering a view of a place outside of the Seminary. Brief in manifestation, it seemed to move toward the mages as they stepped in its direction, drawing their destination around them as if a curtain, closing out the place behind them in the same few moments. The Reach spell was swift and unforgiving. Once begun, it always finished out, and the mage was put wherever he determined to be when the spell was begun. Performing one hastily was strongly discouraged. Performing one absently had landed Korsten in a very dangerous position once and he determined from that experience to always consider the spell and to avoid thoughts which could defy that determination.
“There he is,” Cayri said within moments following the transition from one place to the next.
A few paces ahead of them, along one of Indhovan’s streets which paralleled the canal, Merran was already turning to look back at them, slowing his steps while he remained partially occupied with surveying the area. The day had been mostly spent at the Seminary, so the city’s curfew was underway and its population tucked indoors, innocent of the seeming materialization of two mages.
“Our Superiors are well informed,” Korsten announced to Merran as the distance was closed between them.
“I trust we are as well,” Merran said and looked on him fully.
“As well as we can be,” Korsten replied. “Ceth has asked Cayri and Vlas to investigate the coven.”
“Where is Vlas?” Cayri asked on the heels of Korsten’s statement.
“I’d started him looking for Vaelyx Treir,” Merran answered.
Cayri nodded. “It’s just as well for now. I have a meeting with Lady Tahrsel.”
“I’m sure he’ll catch up to you at Irslan’s before morning,” Korsten presumed. He appreciated that they had a base from which to coordinate with one another in a city that might just as well have discouraged their presence without the all
iance of a man like Irslan.
“Follow the canal east for a mile or so,” Merran said to Cayri, which inspired her to look over her shoulder. “Irslan’s house is four streets to the south, to give you back your bearings.”
“Right,” she said. Looking back at her colleagues, she added, “I’ll be able to find my way. Good luck hunting.”
They both nodded and Cayri took her leave.
Korsten observed her leaving for a space, then said, “Eisleth suggested that we may have to destroy the Vadryn’s vessels and contend with the demons themselves afterward.”
He received no response from Merran and looked to find the other mage not beside him. His friend had wandered back onto the path he and Cayri had interrupted moments earlier. With a glance toward the canal wall, Korsten moved along after him. He was certain before too many paces that he recognized the area. This was where they’d confronted the Vadryn, which meant….
“I’ve surveyed the length of the canal from the natural wall to the gates near the ocean,” Merran said, drawing to a halt and waiting for Korsten to join him. “There’s no other route or entry that I can find leading into any peculiar alcoves. But there is a small door at the end of the canal barrier on this side.”
“Adorned with a crystal?” Korsten guessed.
Merran nodded. “I decided to wait for you—and for nightfall—before investigating it.”
The moon was rising, casting the illusion of crystals across the surface of the water that coursed through Indhovan and surely illuminating the coven’s identifying markers.
“I suppose there’s no further cause for delay, then,” Korsten said.
Merran’s response was to continue toward the cliff and the water draping from its steep edges.