‘Do I know you?’
‘Yes…’ The man looked deeply into Cory’s eyes as if to search the inner reaches of his soul. ‘Well, perhaps you don’t remember. It has been a long time. Zeivite Quarntaker, Archmage of Valendo.’
‘I didn’t think we had an archmage. Grandfather said you were… damaged, ill, after the Battle of Beldon Valley.’ Cory called to mind the feel of that little blue triangle of wood from the briefing room table in the castle.
‘That is the story we have tried to spin. I got better… eventually.’ Zeivite turned to look towards the orange glow above the roof line, more visible than before in the failing daylight. ‘Isn’t anyone going to put out that fire?’
‘We gave up. Even hours of heavy rain won’t put it out. Pragius’ magic made the fire…’ Pragius was the brother with whom he used to practise reading with bedtime stories. He was the one who had helped him tie his shoes, learn to swim, saddle Sunny for the first time and talk about history. They had been so different in many ways, but as adults they shared an interest in history and wine. There was another thing Cory remembered doing with Pragius for the first time: getting drunk. Noble Pragius. The mass murderer. And worse.
‘You had better show me this fire. And you, young man,’ Zeivite said, fixing the young guard with a stare from his dark eyes, ‘stop looking at me like I’m the next thing you need to stick with that blade.’
‘Go home, report to your captain in the morning,’ Cory ordered wearily.
‘Sir, that’s my captain.’ The guard pointed at one of the better-preserved corpses lying on the ground, with its limbs arranged at unnatural angles.
‘Then report to the church instead.’
The guard left the plaza on the road to the church.
Zeivite started walking in the direction of the palace, his hard boots knocking splashes in shallow puddles on the road.
‘We can’t just leave the guards’ bodies here,’ Cory called after him.
Zeivite stopped, turned to face him and then lowered his gaze onto the broken bodies at Cory’s feet. ‘No, you’re right, of course.’ He looked up again and frowned at Cory’s expression. ‘Don’t judge me harshly, Cory. It feels like I have spent half my life on a battlefield. I’m afraid I’m not sensitive to scenes like this the way I used to be. Before long it all becomes normal. If you think about it, it has to be. Otherwise, we can’t do this job. What kind of monster does that make me?’ He paused, then added, ‘No don’t answer that. We’ll inform Ranold and he will see to their proper treatment.’
***
Tranmure darkened further as the sun set. Shutters on houses were pulled closed and lamplight from within squeezed through their decorative holes. Somewhere in the city, a violin sang a mournful melody, the sorrowful sounds washing through the streets. Cory wished for a more joyful tune as he walked, his armour clanking, in step with Zeivite in silent robes devoid of colour in the virtual blackness.
‘You’re running out of guards fast,’ said Zeivite.
‘I know. I’ve sent orders to Haliford, Halimouth and Ostenza for forces to report here. It will be at least four days before they get here.’
‘That may not be enough men.’
‘I don’t know what we’re facing, how I’m supposed to plan for it? I’m only a sergeant.’
‘Not anymore, by the looks of it.’
‘No one has appointed me any new position.’
‘Your grandfather left you his sword; he must have had confidence in you to be up to the task.’
‘I don’t think he imagined me trying to take on his job so soon, do you?’
‘You seem to have authority.’
‘A few guards. People respond to a prince anyway.’
‘It doesn’t matter why they respond, only that they do. Quain, your grandfather’s lieutenant general, is on the way. He can help and advise you.’
They arrived at what was once the perfectly manicured lawn in front of the palace. Crisp brown remnants of grass shoots in solid baked earth gave way to ash nearer the palace. The place was deserted and the heat from the fires surpassed any blacksmith’s forge. Zeivite eyed the scene. ‘How long has this been burning?’
‘Since about this time yesterday.’
Turning to the burning lodge, the mage raised his hands high, palms facing down. He spoke some sounds and swept his hands downward. The fire dwindled and died, starved of the magic that fuelled it. What remained of the lodge was no more than low-lying rubble and memories. Cory had promised himself he wouldn’t drag good memories into a time and place like this, but the lodge connected to so many of them. It pulled at them like a horse reined to so many carriages. Plain wooden carriages out of which stepped a girl in a floppy leather hat, which she soon removes. Cory tried to switch off the memory, but it was too late. Sky blue eyes fix him with an adoring look that ignited a bittersweet scalding in his chest.
‘Well, that’s the easier one done,’ said Zeivite.
He wasn’t wrong; the rest of Cory’s life burned in the other fire. ‘I hate this place,’ Cory muttered.
Zeivite performed his ritual again, in front of a fire that filled his entire field of view. The fire dimmed but did not go out. ‘There are two mage fires here,’ the mage murmured. ‘I’ll come back in the morning and deal with the other one. That’s enough for today.’ Frowning, he drew a deep breath and massaged his temples with the tips of his fingers. ‘Where can we go to rest?’
***
Now free from his armour, Cory led Zeivite into the church hospital. It was a large room with white painted walls. Windows down the two longer walls hissed and pattered in the rain. Four rows of wooden beds ran down the length of the room. A handful of them had occupants resting under grey woollen blankets. Two black-robed priests glided between the beds, clearing away plates. Jane was at the windows and Sebastian sat near her. ‘Sorry, no palace guest room available,’ whispered Cory, pointing. ‘We are having to make do sleeping in here for now. There is a bed and a chair you can use in the corner over there.’
Looking into the corner of the room, Zeivite froze. He blinked, calmed his breathing and felt a chill spread down his back. It felt like looking into the past. He searched the room with his gaze. The ceiling and walls were freshly painted and the windows cleaner than he remembered. It wasn’t just a bed and a chair Cory pointed to. Long ago it had been his bed and his chair. Nursing his aching head with fingertips once more, he closed his eyes and memories leapt out of the blackness.
Flames.
Long teeth.
Steel claws.
‘Is something wrong?’
Zeivite snapped his eyes open and looked at Cory like a deer surprised by a clumsy hunter. ‘No, Cory,’ he closed his eyes again and filled his mind with images of his wife and child. ‘I’m fine. I need a drink. Have someone bring me a kettle of hot water and a couple of mugs, will you?’
Cory made his way between the beds to the far end of the room.
Sebastian talked quietly to Jane while she continued to scrub clean windows with an agitated look on her face. Cory walked past them, focused on the stove at the end of the room. He found the kettle already filled and set it to boil on the stove. Watching Jane, Cory waited. Sebastian kept talking to Jane in a quiet voice. She moved to the next window, and then the next. The kettle whistled and Cory took it with two mugs back to the far corner of the room. ‘What have you got there?’ asked Cory.
Zeivite stuffed some flaked dried leaves into a silver infuser spoon, clicked its two cupped sections together, took the kettle, poured hot water into both mugs and dunked the infuser into one. An aroma rose out of the mug that seemed familiar to Cory, but he couldn’t place it. ‘It is herbal tea of sorts. It helps if I get a headache. It’s also calming, good before going to sleep. Are you going to try some?’
Cory nodded and watched while Zeivite refilled the infuser spoon with leaves from a pocket inside his robe and left it in the second mug.
>
‘Let it mix and brew for a minute.’
‘Unusual name, Zeivite.’ Cory lifted the mug, stared into the swirling brown liquid and breathed in its scent.
‘It’s an old Ruberan name,’ replied Zeivite. ‘My mother is from Rubera and my father, Emirian. I was, however, born on Valendo’s Green Island.’
Cory looked up at the mage who sat back in the chair, eyes closed, cradling the mug of tea in his hands. Now that Cory paid careful attention, Zeivite’s complexion did have a subtle brown tinge to go with the black hair and dark eyebrows. ‘There is something I don’t understand,’ said Cory.
‘There are many things I don’t understand, no matter how hard I try to comprehend everything,’ Zeivite replied.
‘How can magic make dead people move?’
Zeivite frowned, his eyes still closed. ‘You actually want to know how the magic works? Your grandfather never wanted to hear any sort of “magi-babble nonsense”, as he used to call it.’
‘The skeletons seemed to act with some intelligence or instinct. Or something. How can Pragius control them to that extent when there are so many? I don’t think he can see them all the time. We haven’t seen him since last night.’
‘Necromancy magic gives them the power to move and follow orders. They can recall simple instructions and be compelled to follow them even if the mage is not commanding them directly. The magic gives them, as you say, basic instincts, like an insect or a plant that knows to turn to the sun. And the bones remember being alive and how to move when the magic is there. It is… unnatural.’
‘Pragius is different, intelligent. People say his eyes burn with orange fire,’ Cory said.
‘Pragius is soul-bound,’ said Zeivite. ‘Because his soul is bound to his own body, he can remember everything. Though he is hardly the man he once was. If he has somehow learned the summoning magic for binding souls, he may make others. It was how the Rippers were made. Their bodies were constructed and souls bound to them to give them un-life.’
Cory stared into the brewing tea a while before replying. ‘I think the world would be a better place if no one learned magic.’
‘You have Bai-turo Samar to thank, or blame, for man’s discovery of magic,’ said Zeivite.
‘How can someone just “discover” magic? Even I know it has to be taught,’ said Cory.
‘It is a paradox, a “chicken and egg” circumstance. Which came first, the teacher or the talent? If you believe the church’s book, Philosophies on Life, much of which Bai-turo wrote, he discovered magic while in prayer.’ Zeivite’s tone changed as he recited a verse, ‘And his words of prayer were moulded by God into the divine, and the Father of Magic cast the Revealing Enchantment on himself. It is an enchantment I perform myself as the archmage on young men and women of around fifteen years. It enables the gifted to perceive magic as a light at the edge of their mind. Then we teach them how to call on and control it.’
‘Bai-turo performed the Revealing Enchantment, a work of magic, on himself, enabling him to use magic?’ Cory asked.
‘I told you it was a paradox. A fortuitous one at that. Bai-turo’s magic and that of those who apprenticed to him proved vital to Rubera’s liberation in the War of a Hundred Seasons.’
‘When demons walked the Earth and sent before them men with fire in their eyes,’ Cory recited.
‘So you have studied the Philosophies on Life?’
‘Some of it. I remember the exciting parts. It makes it sound like the demons had soul-bound warriors. Pragius has fire in his eyes.’
‘The book was written fifteen centuries ago and copied many times,’ said Zeivite. ‘I suspect many references are metaphorical or exaggeration. Evil men could be described as demons. Men with fire in their eyes could mean fanatical soldiers, filled with religious fervour.’
Cory removed the infuser spoon from the mug, set it down on the bedside table and tasted the tea. A combination of tree bark and dried summer flowers; not entirely objectionable, but hardly enjoyable. Zeivite chuckled and Cory realised the mage had opened his eyes to watch for his reaction.
‘What do you think of it?’ asked Zeivite.
‘Not sure really.’
‘You could get used to it.’
‘I’m not sure I want to get used to it.’
‘What did you think of beer when you first tasted that?’
‘I wasn’t sure about it.’
‘Still drink it now?’
‘Oh yes, I got used to it.’ Cory smiled for the first time in more than two weeks.
Sebastian continued to watch Jane and listened.
***
Almost amiable.
Klonag had his legs propped up on a stool, feet crossed over. Lounging back in the chair, he had a goblet of wine within easy reach and plucked finger food from the plate on his lap. The coal fire was running low. Magnar sat opposite, striking a more upright decadent pose enjoying the same fare.
‘You’re looking more pleased with yourself than usual,’ said Klonag.
‘I have received news from our child, Pragius. I have been right... for fifteen years I have been right,’ said Magnar. ‘He is not dead, sick or gone. He has been hiding. Garon’s last battle mage… Zeivite Quarntaker has been drawn out into the open.’
Klonag raised an eyebrow in reply.
Magnar ignored the response and continued. ‘Our child seems to think he has failed in his attack on the city. Less than a quarter of his embryonic army are left.’
‘Has he forgotten already that he has destroyed most of the royal family and the military command?’ said Klonag.
‘I don’t think he has forgotten… the past is just not relevant to him. He only looks forward into eternity, and doesn’t know which steps to take next.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Let him… dangle for a while. He still looks to the book for guidance. My guidance.’
‘I still want terror in the heart of Tranmure. Break them before we conquer.’
Magnar nodded. ‘I will see if I can inspire Pragius to come up with the right idea.’
Chapter 9
Homecoming and Failure
The second Battle of Beldon Valley 1849.
Kingdom Army of Valendo led by King-Consort General Garon Allus Artifex-Dendra.
Deaths: approximately 4100.
Kingdom Army of Nearhon led by General Magnar.
Deaths: approximately 5500.
— Excerpt from the War Histories of Valendo
Julia felt different, like a horse standing outside the herd looking inwards. She boiled with a barely suppressed inner fury. Her home for nearly all of her twenty years no longer felt like home. She twitched her nose and sniffed; the air was rank with the stench from the tanneries. Banishing them to the lake shore at the farthest edge of the city wasn’t enough. The wind blew in the wrong direction often enough for the odour to invade every street. It was not something she remembered noticing while she lived here. With few exceptions, the roads were not roads but stretches of compacted mud that became treacherous in the rain. When dry and hard, ruts cut by wagon and chariot wheels made an obstacle course fit for training soldiers. Julia and Pico walked arm in arm to support each other over the uneven surface, their faces concealed inside the hoods of leather travelling cloaks.
Pico had said little since leaving Tranmure behind, and Julia’s curiosity took over. ‘You’re quiet.’
Pico shrugged, a movement hardly noticeable under her cloak.
‘Why did you spend so much time at the hot house in Tranmure?’ Julia asked.
‘Oh, to visit a man who loves me,’ Pico replied, her eyes looking at the ground as they stepped over the next rut.
‘You’re a dark horse, aren’t you?’
They both smiled, neither able to summon a laugh.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Miles.’
‘Is he special?’
‘Yes.’ Pico s
ighed. ‘Very special.’
Julia was either content to leave it at that or didn’t want to drag up sad feelings with more questions. They walked on in silence. Pico had learned that if she left blanks, people would fill them in for themselves. Explaining Miles was too difficult, maybe even dangerous. Pico remembered Miles brushing aside the hair on her forehead with rough-skinned fingers, placing a soft kiss there and wishing her goodnight the night before she left Tranmure. She had known the name Miles all of her life but never known the man until the last few months in Tranmure. Clenching her jaw, Pico held back tears. Miles had blue eyes, dark hair salted with grey and the kindest smile she had ever seen. She wondered if there would be another time she could say ‘Goodnight, Father,’ when Miles would be there to hear.
‘Belt buckles, bag strap buckles, door hinges, door latches…’
‘Fine wool jackets, socks, blankets…’
‘Last two hides for sale, ladies and gentlemen, before I can pack up and go home…’
The many voices of the market vied for attention, all crying out from under rudely constructed wooden frames covered with waxed leather hides. Pico pinched a leather hide between her finger and thumb. It felt surprisingly soft and thin.
‘Let’s get something to eat,’ said Julia, threading a path through the jostling crowd of people. The delicious smell of meat grilling over a charcoal fire was a welcome refuge from the tannery odours. Julia rubbed her hands together in anticipation and for warmth as she surveyed what was on offer. They hadn’t eaten horse meat for some time. It wasn’t available in Tranmure where, for some, horses were considered members of the family. She pulled out coins from her jacket pocket asking for beef for them both. The stall holder laid several steaming slices onto two split loaves of bread, folded them over and handed them back. Julia took hers and licked the juices escaping from the bread in her fingers. They pushed their way through the thinning crowd to a boardwalk attached to the wooden buildings leading out of the market. Buildings hunched over the road on both sides, tired and grey like ancient beggars waiting for a copper coin. Julia and Pico sat beside each other on the edge of the boardwalk. Julia looked up at the building opposite as she bit into the beef filled loaf. The building was a small unmarked office which she now knew was the office for the Bandit Country Operators.
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