Jaygee’s grin spread further, parting his lips and revealing his golden canine teeth. ‘This is what the special operators were made for. I have kept up the full complement of thirty men.’
Quain spoke through a mouthful of apple and looked at Zeivite. ‘What an adventure this will be. It’s been a long time since we were last in Bytper.’
‘You’ve encountered Klonag before?’ Cory asked.
‘He wasn’t at home, unfortunately,’ said Quain.
‘I am not permitted to leave home ground,’ said the warrior priest ‘I’m a defender of the people, not a weapon of war. I will stay and defend the castle.’
One of the black-robed men turned around from his place at the window and looked out from under his hood. ‘And I’m far too busy helping the sick and wounded to notice what you are doing,’ said Sebastian.
‘And I think I’ll be helping him,’ Xolt’s stern voice filled the room while he continued to watch out of the window.
Cory and Sebastian exchanged a smile, then Sebastian faced the window once more. ‘How will we defend the castle without Valendo’s archmage? I assume Zeivite will go with you?’ Sebastian asked.
Zeivite reached out onto the briefing room table and picked up the blue wooden triangle. Turning it over in his hand a few times, he set it down again in front of him. He pointed a finger at the block as if to make an accusation and with a crackling word a small white beam of energy split the block down the middle. ‘They are young and not battle hardened. But they are smart and brave, and can be here in hours,’ he said, reaching into his robe and pulling out two stone ornaments, each set with a different coloured stone. ‘They will stand with you and help defend the castle.’
Greg shifted in his seat. ‘Thirty-three men will really be able to take on the Kingdom of Nearhon?’
‘We could never supply a whole army all the way into Nearhon, never mind get them through Beldon Valley right now. I’m thinking of finding a way to get to Klonag and Magnar. A small group on horseback is faster and less noticeable,’ said Cory.
‘What do we do with the undead army in the valley?’ Greg asked.
‘They stand because of necromancy magic. We have to destroy Pragius,’ said Zeivite, still staring at the split wooden block.
‘How? He’s too strong. You’ve already tried,’ said Cory.
‘Weaknesses. He can only be in one place at a time, and his magic, though strong and limitless, is no different from another mage’s. If he is not nearby, he can’t raise the dead or have his army execute complex commands. We… I must think of another way to defeat him. If this is what we are all resolved to do?’ Zeivite looked around the table at each man in turn. When it seemed like there were no objections, he rose to his feet. ‘I will need to think about this for a while. Alone.’ He strode out of the room and the door closed behind him with a clack.
***
Zeivite wore an impassive expression as he examined the artist’s copy of his face crafted in coloured oils on the canvas. Why did he have to make it so ghostly and pale beneath the blue-green hood? He was a dark patch in a painting full of bright fire, claws, teeth and the brightly armoured Garon confronting the blazing Ripper. Mid-morning sunlight streaming through the windows of the Great Hall worked its own art, painting bright shapes across the tables and onto the picture. Zeivite tried to remain ambivalent to the scene, but the flaming Ripper reached out to him. Quain had described the painting to him before, but seeing it for the first time was different. Leaving the Great Hall fifteen years ago, he was different. Zeivite closed his eyes the way a priest might begin a prayer and remembered…
Sitting in the chair in the corner of the church hospital room. Looking at the peeling paint on the ceiling. Looking at the ceiling because it cannot possibly be hiding there. It’s a safe place to look. There is no terror stalking there. He stares deep into the crack made by the peeling paint, searching for a meaning he shouldn’t search for. The crack silently splits and opens like an egg shell. Yellow light like the sun shines through. The crack expands and snake’s tongues of fire lick through, probing for prey. A dagger, no, many daggers pierce the crack and it widens further. Not daggers — it is the flaming claw of the monster. The ceiling splits wide open from the crack. The sky can be seen behind the burning Ripper with its maw wide open showing long teeth, gleaming and sharp. It drops into the hospital room, crushing a bed under its weight and using its claws to break the fall. The creature rears back, opens its mouth again and silently claws the air. Why does no one else see it? Priests continue moving between the beds, washing injured patients and renewing their soiled bandages. The flaming beast starts swatting beds out of its path. Patients are beaten against the walls and up against the ceiling like children’s rag dolls. Bedding catches on fire. Flaming blankets tumble back to the floor like autumn leaves. The creature’s sightless eyes fix him with a dead stare and it stumbles forward, swiping a priest aside.
It’s coming for him.
Terror grips him and his mouth opens but he doesn’t scream, despite the strain constricting his chest and the knifing pains in his head.
Something hard and insistent digs into his right thigh. He winces and flinches as the hardness walks its way up his thigh and he blinks…
The hospital room is orderly and quiet. Priests calmly tend the patients. There is a weight on his right leg and there are no monsters. An aromatic smell of tree bark and flowers wafts to his nose and the child sitting on his right leg opens a book and starts talking excitedly about the story. He isn’t sure what the child says. He can’t focus on the words, so he loses himself in the sounds and drifts into a peaceful sleep.
‘You’ve been up here a while. Thought I’d bring you some hot water for tea.’ Cory nudged Zeivite’s arm and the mage’s eyes opened.
‘Oh yes. Thank you. I’ll sit by the window with it. I need to… meditate for a while.’
Zeivite took the mug of hot water Cory offered. Slipping his other hand into his robe, he pulled out his infuser spoon and a pinch of dried leaves. He walked to the window, sat cross-legged on the floor and placed the mug in front of him. With both hands now free, he brought his full awareness to stuffing the dried leaves into the silver infuser spoon and closing it with a satisfying click. He paused for a heartbeat, watching the steam curl up from the surface of the hot water, then dunked the infuser spoon in. He drew the familiar aroma into his nose, swirling the spoon around in the cup. Lastly, he took it out with a tap on the side releasing drips and set it down on the flagstone floor. A small damp patch on the stone quickly formed around the spoon. Staring straight out of the window at the view over the valley, he sipped the tea, closed his eyes again and opened the double doors wrought of silver into the imaginary palace in his mind.
In the arched entrance to his palace, he placed the problems — no, the challenges — to be overcome. Klonag, Magnar and Pragius. He kept Magnus and Pragius away from Klonag. Make Klonag the warriors’ challenge to overcome. His challenge is slightly simpler: how to destroy Pragius and deal with Magnar? He left Klonag behind as he walked down the grey stone arched corridor. Magnar and Pragius followed two paces behind him. The palace was simple and uncluttered with ornamentation, but complex and overflowing with the memories of past battles, magical incantations and other knowledge. Down passages that ran from the main corridor, there were wooden and metal doors painted in every colour of the rainbow. A red door made of iron was the nearest and the largest of them all. It swung open at Zeivite’s touch, revealing a passage of many doors coloured in shades of red. Some were painted in glistening wet blood. Zeivite entered each red door in turn and relived every past encounter with Magnar, located every piece of knowledge he had ever obtained about him. Magnar the battle mage, the necromancer, the summoner and enslaver of souls. There truly were worse fates than death when dealing with Magnar, and Pragius knew it most of all. Magnar, who prized his scout network, would make grand plans and revel in his own brilliance; he never u
nderestimated his enemies. Never underestimated Zeivite and always brings to bear his most powerful assets before allowing an engagement with him.
‘How can I destroy Pragius?’ he muttered to himself. ‘An undead mage possessing all the knowledge of the man he once was added to everything Magnar can teach him about being a battle mage and a necromancer… and with a limitless ability to use it! What will it take to destroy him… and set him free?’
Experience and instinct, with the face of Magnar himself, threw an idea at him, goading him to take it. But it was preposterous, tenuous and risked too much. If the plan for winning the last Battle of Beldon Valley was far-fetched, this was… He hated the idea. He hated it because his experience spoke to him in a comforting voice, telling him he was a brilliant man capable of resolving complex problems with apparent ease. He created a new black metal door on the corridor of red doors, pushed the idea through it and locked the door to someday be forgotten.
He went back to the beginning, back to the first red door, and quickly went through each red door in turn, formulating and stacking ideas. Failed ideas. Back to the first door once more. He ran down the corridor entering the doors in a different order, stacking the ideas differently. Make them stand up and work. Please! The ideas toppled and fell.
Bursting out of the large red door, he ran back to palace entrance, desperately searching around with his eyes. All the old ways will fail. Where are the new? Anywhere but the black metal door.
Sprinting down the central corridor of his memory palace, he took every passage in turn, hunting through the whole spectrum of coloured doors with other experiences and places. He travelled from the jungles of Avaria, to the deserts of Rubera and all the islands of Valendo. However he stacked and combined ideas, they fell like houses of cards in the wind. He conjured spells to ward off the winds, but the winds were tricky and toppled the cards of his ideas anyway. He growled, ‘Everyone has a right to protect themselves too, don’t they?’ He was trying to justify the idea behind the black metal door to himself.
There was nothing he could do to escape the truth. Destroying Pragius was going to take the two most powerful mages he knew, and one of them currently ranted and ran down the corridors of his own memory palace, a cry of ‘Nooo!’ echoing off its imaginary walls. He burst back through the large red door; hurled himself down the corridor to the lone black door at the end.
Magnar leant against the wall by the black door, arms folded with a mocking smile on his face. ‘I knew you would be back,’ he said.
Zeivite kicked open the door and grabbed the black idea within, strangling it with his irrational hatred. It was the only idea he could think of that had any kind of chance. He stared at the idea that contained fear greater than the flames of a burning Ripper. Then he lovingly and tenderly embraced it.
His tear-filled eyes in the real world popped open with a start and he flinched, suddenly blinded by the late morning light. ‘What have I done?’ he exclaimed aloud. He had made a decision. And now that it was made, it was already too late to change it.
The General’s Legacy concludes in
Part Two: Whiteland King
Sample Chapter 1
The Woman in Black… or Blue
The heel of a black boot struck the gangplank. The ship’s captain looked up, his attention drawn by the sound. A second boot followed. Silver studs and buckles decorated the perfectly stitched pair. Where each boot ended soft black leather trousers continued, clinging to unmistakably feminine legs like a second skin. The trousers were topped by a black silver-buckled belt.
The woman’s father had given up reminding her how little such clothing left to the imagination. She chose every detail of what she wore for her own reasons and satisfaction. Besides, the black velvet traveling cloak she wore flowed down to her calves and preserved the mystery of what lay beneath. The almost all black ensemble continued with a black cotton shirt done up with more silver buttons under a waist-length black leather jacket. A black, broad-brimmed, waxed leather hat kept out all weathers. She had a matching backpack slung over one shoulder. Tumbling curls of long black hair framed her pale face and fell halfway down her back. A bright red sash tied around the hat provided a hint of colour.
The woman lifted her head to see her way up the gangplank and her red lips parted as she drew breath. At first acquaintance, some were mistaken for believing the woman permanently pouted. However, there was nothing petulant or pouting about her. She was calm, and she moved with the grace and confidence of an Arvail jungle cat, a black predator the size of the men that feared it. Her deep brown eyes carried wisdom beyond her years. For the few that tried to look into those eyes and determine what she was thinking, they would only find the deepening and branching mystery of an intellect that outpaced her own father’s ability to follow it by the time she was seven years old; even a father considered a genius in his own right. It had always been difficult to teach the girl anything; it was best to just give her the method, open the doors and let her find her own way. Where her peers were taught to find a place in their memory palace in which to store knowledge, she needed no such aid. To see, or to experience, was to remember.
In the company of gifted students, she had set herself apart as different and above them without ever intending to. And they had resented her for it. She had got used to their rejection and learnt to cherish her own company. When she was away at her special school and wanted to talk, she had used her memory to create the kind of conversation she wanted to have, like the thing some people do if they have lost or are separated from a loved one and still wish to talk to them.
‘Father, I’m bored. We’re learning the sounds for making things glow with white light. By lunchtime on First-Day, I had made a song that created a white dolphin at play in the sea and they have allowed the whole of the week for this exercise.’
This would be followed by the answer she knew she would get. ‘Then spend the time practising that which you find difficult. Practice defensive magic.’
‘But that makes my head hurt,’ she would reply to herself, but no excuses would be accepted. Such was her solitary life until a late summer day in her fifteenth year, when something had changed inside her mind — though it had taken her a while to recognise it.
A new teacher had arrived. He had been young, maybe only in his twenty-first year, but his completely bald head made him look older. Its bone structure could have been carved from white marble by the legendary Ruberan artist Dimitri Salizan himself. God may well have chosen not to spoil it by covering it with hair. The teacher had always worn black robes, not unlike priests, but church was a place he rarely visited. The thing that had really made people pay attention to, and even fear, the man were his brown eyes that were filled with a mysterious intellect similar to her own. Danger had lived in those eyes; they had seen things and known things boys and girls should not. And yet he had been just a handful of years beyond boyhood himself. Before long, she had caught him looking at her, and when she met his eyes she felt a growing warmth that came from outside herself. She had often sensed that strange warmth, only to turn around and find he was there quickly shifting his gaze elsewhere. Her fifteenth year had been a confusing time, with a muddle of emotions surfacing within her that she could not understand or explain. She had been the only girl in a small school full of boys who were trying to figure out why the beautiful girl they didn’t like was hard to ignore. She had escaped to the gardens every day to dance and avoid their snide comments, but sometimes they would follow and stare until she gave up and moved on. Why hadn’t they left her alone?
Her father had visited and she felt a warmth again, so different from what she had sensed before. When he had criticised her choice of clothing, which typically caused her to roll her eyes in frustration, she sat and stared as she sensed his fear. When he had asked how she was getting on with mastering defensive magic, she shrugged her shoulders dismissively, complaining again that it made her head hurt, and sensed a greater fear.
As they were saying their parting farewells, she had sensed again the warmth that was outside herself — stronger, coupled with a feeling of loss and it brought a tear to her eye.
‘Father, why do you fear for me?’ she had asked.
‘Because there is nothing in my world as precious as you, my one and only child. What makes you ask this now?’
‘I think I have started to sense… some of what others around me feel.’
In that moment a new connection between father and daughter formed and he became aware of that advanced wisdom behind her eyes. Now when she danced, she did it on the secluded shores of the island that was home to the school. Whenever the dangerous steely gaze from that perfectly bald head fell upon her, a gaze that instilled fear in others but washed her in that curious warmth, she had looked back, met his eyes, gave a small smile and felt the warmth move within. His stern expression would soften into a smile of his own. In under a month he had left the school. No one had seen or heard from him since.
The woman in black leant on a wooden rail and looked out over a dark sea as the ship bucked and cut through the waves. The night sky was full of stars, like an infinite scattering of tiny silver buttons on a cloak of black velvet. Near the horizon, the stars faded and mixed in a milky cloud the wind could never touch. It was not an ideal time to travel, but the bright moon, not men, controlled the tides. She wondered where that striking bald-headed man might be. After more than seven years, she was frustrated that her mind had not brushed away this memory. But then her memory was like that. It had been important at the time, so it had stuck in her memory, with so much else stacked on top since and so much stacked under it before. She had learned to tune out and stop the feelings of others invading her mind if she didn’t want to listen, and had new ways of avoiding unwanted attention. Of that, she had become a master. The sailors on the ship, who were inclined to whistle at almost any girl, never even glanced in her direction. All was peaceful. She thought of her father and had the kind of conversation she wanted to have with him in her mind.
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