by T. A. Miles
Tears tried to escape again, but I wouldn’t let them. I looked out the window instead, and saw something on the glass that made me stare. For the second time on a cold autumn day, I was seeing a moth moving about as if it were summer. This one was brown also. In fact, it looked like the same moth. It was richly brown with small blue markings. I got up to look at it closer, but as soon as I touched the latch on the window, it fluttered away.
For some reason, I opened the window anyway. Afterward, I crawled up onto the sill. I couldn’t have said what I was contemplating just before I pushed myself down to the ground and took off running through the streets of Imerenne.
Korsten worked his way through the Seminary toward the lesser travelled gates that would lead to the stables. He moved casually, presuming that it was not alerted to all residents that he was expected at a Council meeting in the near future. It indeed seemed to not be public knowledge, as no one regarded him beyond simple greeting in the few instances he encountered anyone. He had managed not to come across any of the Superiors, but then he didn’t suspect that he would with them awaiting his attendance to a conference specifically over him. He understood their concern; Song was a dangerous talent. He was concerned with it himself, but he did not feel that it was so beyond his control that he should be rendered a ward of the Seminary in a literal sense. His concern was that leaving it idle would not only lessen his ability to control it, but during such neglect, he might become an accidental beacon, drawing the enemy to Vassenleigh prematurely and in such a way that by the time they had arrived at Korsten, they might also have arrived at a way to break the Seminary’s Barriers getting to him. He already felt as if he were somehow hosting the remains of the demons he had brought out to sea. He felt as if they had not stopped clinging to him, and at times that included Serawe.
Apart from that, there was his seeming madness. Even if it was nothing but memory following him so closely, it was memory that he couldn’t shake and that was affecting his ability to stay on proper terms with reality. Again, Ashwin’s actions were understandable, but Korsten would rather he wasn’t subjecting his beloved mentor to that level of strain. He never wanted Ashwin to feel that he was hurting him. He felt vile for hurting his mentor, as his leaving would plainly do, but he could not spend another three decades in seclusion from the rest of the world.
Once at the stables, Korsten went directly inside, and into the stall that was typically reserved for Onyx. He went by way of Erschal, whom he stopped momentarily to stroke. The lovely white beast with black mane welcomed Korsten with a nuzzle that was returned with a kiss upon the horse’s velvet forehead. “Take care of Merran when he awakes.”
Stroking Erschal’s strong neck, he looked about the area and noticed a pair of shears. He retrieved them and separated a small lock of his hair from the rest. The curling strands were cut, the shears returned to their place, and he spared another moment afterward to tie his lock of hair around Erschal’s bridle, in hopes that Merran might see that he’d been there when next he arrived to put the article on to Erschal. That would have to do. And before he became too emotional over it and risked the negating of another spell, or of himself again, he abandoned Erschal’s stall and carried himself into Onyx’s.
Onyx was not present. He took several moments cleansing his thoughts of stress over the find, and focused on Onyx specifically. He recalled the animal’s deep black coat and the white mark that set it off. He thought about Onyx’s coarse but pleasurable mane and the creature’s stoic, reliable nature.
A Reach was cast, one which Onyx waited on the other side of. Korsten stepped through and found himself at Irslan’s, which he suspected might have been the result. Still, he had opted not to waste any time. And now that he was again very far east of where he wanted to be, he was determined to not waste any more of it. Unfortunately, he felt the exhaustion Ashwin’s spell had left him in, in spite of having mustered the will to overcome it. He suspected he might not be able to do so again. Certainly, if he could, Ashwin would be aware of it now and take greater measures against him defying his wishes so blatantly. He felt free enough by the distance between them to feel tremendous remorse over his actions, but he could not turn back, nor would he. Fighting alone was not going to end this war. Recalling his vision of the sea spirits, it may have been that no mortal action was going to end it. This may have been beyond all of them. He didn’t know what connection his mother’s past might have had to any of it, but he felt strongly that there was a connection. He felt that it was something that was also connected to Adrea’s search and to Renmyr’s choice in involving him the way that he had. If Korsten had learned anything since leaving Haddowyn, it was surely that Renmyr had been lying to him. He knew now that it may well have been that Renmyr had not uttered a single truth to him in all the time he’d known him.
I have always been honest with you, Ren. Whether I knew what I was saying or not, I spoke what I believed was truth. I am not the one who betrayed you, or us.
Dacia sat up in bed. She swiftly looked all around her, expecting to find someone, though she found no one. That was often the case when she woke. But this time, the someone she had expected to find was Mage Korsten.
After a few moments consideration, she looked toward the window, then climbed out of the bed that was not hers at either Mother’s or Cousin Irslan’s. This was a strange and new place that she didn’t like at all. She suffered it for Irslan, who seemed to like it very much, though she couldn’t begin to know why.
At the window, she looked out toward the water. Still, the fighting carried on. It would last for quite a while, she imagined. Quite a long while, in spite of….
Her thoughts drifted while her gaze was drawn inland by the distant, yet near notion of a beautiful man in all white with red, red hair. She looked and looked over the streets splayed before her elevated vantage … until she saw what appeared a rider on the lovely horse Cousin Irslan had been keeping.
He’s leaving, said the voice the dwelled in her mind lately. It was not Father’s, but it did belong to a man, she believed.
In reply, she said, “Yes, he is.”
Korsten rode carefully through abandoned streets, toward the southernmost districts, where there would be the least activity. He regretted not announcing his return and rejoining battle, but he could not renege on his decision now. He had gone so far as to defy Ashwin over it as well as abandon Merran. He had ignored the Council and now he was disregarding a battle that direly needed as many to fight as Edrinor could spare. But what would it accomplish? This battle was key, but it seemed likely that winning it now would only put off Indhovan’s overtaking for the next time, when Morenne returned with reinforcement troops and more Vadryn. There was a greater source to all of this, and the only reason Korsten was bent on seeking it was because he believed he could track it. It occurred to him belatedly that he might well have been tracking Renmyr, but a time for that had long been pending as well. Even Ashwin had agreed with that.
That thought in no way comforted Korsten while he worked another Reach—the last he might be able to perform for at least several hours, given all he had performed recently and accounting for the lingering drain the Neutralizing spell continued to have. He made it easier on himself and safer by not considering Renmyr for the spell. He was not ready to go directly to him. He would begin by retracing their steps to each other.
Decided, he opened a Reach portal to Haddowyn and guided Onyx through it. The hazy atmosphere of battle-sullied ocean air was replaced with a cold, empty-feeling fog. A sensation of deep isolation followed the Reach portal’s closing. It was enough that Korsten looked over his shoulder, half expecting to see a door literally closing, leaving him sealed within this desolate space.
A look around showed him quickly that it was nothing at all the town he once lived in. The streets were broken and empty, draped with heavy gray air. The buildings appeared hollow and sunken on themselves, and the trees were b
arren and thin. Yes, the season called for it, but it seemed by the depressing look of them that these trees had been without life for quite some time.
“Dear gods,” he murmured to Onyx, who awaited further instruction without trepidation or any detectable stress. So there were none of the Vadryn immediately present, that must have meant. It seemed there were also no people nor any living beings at all besides the two of them.
Korsten tightened his hands about the reins and directed Onyx toward the house he’d arrived nearest to. He had no intention of stopping, but he looked his old home over thoroughly. He thought of the souls who had lived in it with him, who he hoped to this day had not been murdered within it. He couldn’t help but to think of Hedren, whose remains could well have been in the room where the man had died. Haddowyn’s constable had been the first witnessed killing on Korsten’s path. The first that he could not ignore or deny while the task was gruesomely performed by a demon before his eyes.
I’m so sorry, my old friend.
He rode past his house, remembering well what had happened the last time he’d been within its walls. It was not time for another such encounter, should the house itself be a means by which Renmyr could detect Korsten’s presence. He considered the manner in which the witches of Indhovan had arranged portals for themselves amid their dwelling and worship spaces in order to perform their version of a Reach. He did not know if the Vadryn had a similar system, but he couldn’t disregard the possibility. He’d learned that the use of magic tended to require a system of some kind, regardless of its environment of use, and that all of those systems were very similar in their method and function.
Korsten gave his attention to the town’s highest point, the manor, in which the Camirey family had been infected by the presence of a demon and murdered by that same beast. He did not let himself dwell on the panicked ride he’d made to the house many years ago, nor what he had found once he arrived there. Instead, he comforted himself with the fact that only bones would remain of any of the victims and those bones would be shrouded in dust. He need not look upon them in any fresh form and remember any of it in detail.
That thought didn’t make the gates any less forbidding when he arrived at them some minutes later. They loomed partly opened above the path, one side sunken of its hinges. A derelict guard tower looked down upon Korsten as well, and beyond all of it sat the manor. Fog clung to the structure like the shawl of dust and debris the crone had collected during her summoning. In his mind, a vision of the crone’s malformed smile and feral eyes were transposed over the façade of the house.
Yes, this was all connected.
Korsten put his thoughts firmly in the direction of the war and of Edrinor’s survival, and did not let the memories, whether recent or old, effect his resolve. He directed Onyx to the main doors, where he dismounted and instructed the animal without word, but only a petting of its muzzle, to stay calm and wait for him there.
Onyx flicked his ears, but otherwise planted his hooves in signifying that he had nowhere else to be.
Korsten left him with a helpless twinge of reluctance, and entered the house through the already open doors. The gray daylight filtered through broken glass and disheveled drapery. It illuminated heavy layers of dust and decay, some of which Korsten felt the need to brush away from the face upon entering. The smell of the building was off-putting, but it was a reek more of age than of death or rot.
Stepping further inside, the subtle sound of gravel turning beneath his feet set off an abbreviated series of augmented echoes. If he had alerted something or someone, he certainly didn’t feel the presence of anything stirring. He decided it safe enough to continue.
Along the way, Korsten eyed the grand stair occupying much of the front hall, but bypassed it. There was nothing to investigate here, save for one potential item. That item might well have been something he could have found within the library of his own house, but he had decided, on reasonable theory, not to cross its threshold. Why he had come to the conclusion that his theory did not apply to the manor was unknown and unexplored. He was decided to rely as much as possible on his intuition. If he put too much to logic or reason, it might lead him too soon back to the Seminary and whatever course of action Ashwin and the other Superiors felt inclined to take over his defiance and hazard.
Again, he felt remorse for his deed, but he put it out of his mind, focusing on his current environment. Though dilapidated and layered in dirt, the manor remained as Korsten remembered it structurally. He had no trouble making his way to Ithan’s study. There, he hesitated only long enough to remind himself not to look upon the governor’s remains beside the desk, then proceeded across the room to a frame on the wall. Age had dragged the article of interest to one side, but it had not completely fallen from its mount. Korsten took it down, turned from the wall, and laid the framed upon the floor. He then carefully pulled apart the frame, careful not to damage the brittle parchment within beyond what the years had already done to it. When it was free of its ancient wooden casing, Korsten drew the sheet up while he straightened to a stand and held it up to the light.
The map of the northern terrain was still reasonably visible. Undoubtedly, that had to do with the quality of the piece. That detail might also have justified his coming to the manor and avoiding his former home. He could only imagine the state his decades-neglected books had come to.
Looking over the details of Ithan’s map, he was chagrined to note just how differently the Borderlands were arranged when it had been drawn. The chart showed reasonable distance between the border and Haddowyn, which even by Ithan’s time as governor wasn’t entirely accurate. Everyone was aware, if somewhat unconcerned, that the Borderlands had been encroaching slowly over the years, but by now a map would have to illustrate the line not only much further south, but also encompassing Haddowyn itself. In that moment it occurred to Korsten that what he had done technically was to Reach beyond an enemy border. In doing so he had placed himself in Morennish territory. He had always intended caution, but arrest simply for being noticed seemed quite likely at this point, which meant that he would have to avoid everyone and all populated establishments of any kind.
With that in mind, he looked for a suitable route further north, deeper into Morenne, but clear of any significant towns or cities. There was a road out of the north side of Haddowyn that joined with an eastern path, one which Korsten and Merran had taken one time before while hunting earlier in the year. They had been further south at the time, naturally, but Korsten recalled Merran’s warning that they were tracking dangerously near to the border. That had been several months ago, before the summons for assistance from Indhovan. It reminded Korsten of just how much his training and growth period as a mage outweighed his field experience.
A series of settling sounds reverberated through the study wing of the house, drawing Korsten’s gaze away from the map. He’d seen what he needed to, so he lowered it, letting it fall gently onto the remains of its frame. He took careful steps to the study door and looked out into the hall. It appeared as abandoned as it had been previously and he detected none of the traces he should have felt of the Vadryn’s presence, regardless of whether or not he could see them. He briefly wondered if a vagrant might have been in the house or only just come to it, but again he didn’t necessarily feel a presence. Cautiously, he proceeded back to the front hall. Even if a person were to be occupying the derelict manor, he doubted it would be anyone to take issue with. And as the thought was forming, he considered a Morennish scout, or even a unit of soldiers passing through, sheltering from an autumn rain. He’d heard no horses, however, nor had he seen any. And Onyx surely would have kicked up some manner of fuss if a group of men approached the house within range of his senses.
So perhaps, then, there were still animals living in the area. It might have been rats, he supposed or even simple shed mice. He shook a memory of Penna in the kitchen of his former house, chasing rodents
out of what she had deemed her domain. Sentimentality had always been one of his weaknesses, he supposed. It was a weakness especially in regards to the Vadryn. It led him easily to depression, which only furthered invitation to the demons to engage.
A sound that was definitively of something stepping into the house or through its front hall ended all thought save to take action. Korsten immediately formed his sword and stepped to one side of the hall, making a careful approach as he came to the end of it. He detected presence now. If the first sound was indecipherable and distant, this one was clear and immediate.
Korsten paused with his back facing the passage wall, but not touching. Even that cautious intrusion upon the air stirred the curtain of dust that draped the corridor. Minor lengths of webbing and some weightless debris drifted over his hair and shoulder. He doubted it was anything someone in the front hall would notice, but he peered around the corner with caution anyway. His gaze was met with motion immediately, nothing rushed or assailing, but something surreal in the moment and, for Korsten, halting. He watched in stillness as a large stag prodded its way through the furniture that time had disgraced with both hoof and antler. For a moment, he was caught in the odd reality of a wild creature having wandered into what was once a place of privacy and dignity. The image of the deep brown creature of fantastic height seemed for an instant an invasion upon Korsten’s memory. And then it seemed a phenomenon of nature.
Korsten decided to put away his sword. In so doing, he stepped out from the hallway.
The stag lifted its head at once, setting a minor rush through Korsten’s limbs as its large dark eyes immediately took him in. It studied him for several moments, during which Korsten stood still and careful not to provoke through any challenging or unnerving behavior. The creature eventually deemed him not a threat and with a twitch of overlong ears turned its head toward the manor’s entrance and gradually stepped in that direction. Korsten gave it space, then made his own steps in the same direction, which inspired the hart to bound the last few paces. Relief came to Korsten; relief that Haddowyn was quite dead to everything but nature.