by Tim Stead
“I’m just a clerk really. I spend most of my time pushing papers around a desk. The law is its own master, but it does need a servant.”
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but at that moment Serhan arrived. It was difficult to believe that the Mage Lord had been asleep. He was neatly dressed in black trousers and boots, an immaculate white shirt and a silk jacket. His hair was tidy and his manner alert, as though he had been up for hours. He sat at the table.
“Captain Bellar?”
The captain stood to attention while he delivered his brief report. It was accurate enough, but he had seen nothing. The frozen guards had awoken shortly after he had arrived, and they also had seen nothing. When he had finished Serhan turned to Felice.
“Faer Karan? Why do you believe this?” he said.
“The guards were frozen, like statues. He answered to the name of Kalnistine,” she replied. There was a look of alarm on the general’s face and Borbonil moved closer. Serhan frowned.
“Kalnistine of Stone Island? How did you know to call him by that name?”
Felice took a deep breath. Now she was going to alienate the most powerful people in the world, but she hoped, and it was a thin hope, that they would understand.
“I cannot lie to you, my lord,” she said. “So I am afraid that I cannot tell you.”
“What?” This was clearly a surprise. “Cannot or will not?”
“Cannot, my lord. I am bound by oath.”
“To whom?”
“I cannot tell you.”
Looks were exchanged around the room. “You know how this appears, Felice, that you are somehow shielding the Faer Karani that attacked you?”
“That is not my intention, my lord.”
“And yet it did not kill you. It had time. Why is that?”
“It fled in terror, my lord.” She felt that it was all right to say this. It was true. It revealed nothing of the Ekloi, nothing of their existence, their powers, the one identity that she knew. The others in the room were again taken aback by her reply.
“From you?” the general asked. He was smiling, but it was an expression of disbelief.
“No, general.”
Serhan was not smiling. She could see that he understood that she was limited by her oath. He was thinking.
“Someone, or some thing else was there,” he said. “Something that frightened the Faer Karani.”
“I cannot tell you, my lord.”
“So I gather. Borbonil, what are you afraid of? What would make you flee in terror?”
The Faer Karani seemed to consider this, but after a while he shook his head. “Exile, my lord,” he said. “Nothing else comes to mind.”
“Think back further, faykin,” Felice said. She knew that she was stretching the point, using the word, bending her oath to breaking point. She had never heard anyone but the Ekloi use the term. It had the desired effect. Borbonil’s head snapped round to her like he’d been slapped and he stared at her. His reaction didn’t escape anyone.
“Borbonil?” Serhan looked at him. “Faykin? I do not know the word.”
“It had been a long time since I have heard it, my lord,” the Faer Karani replied. “I had hoped not to hear it again.” He had not taken his eyes from Felice. “It is not you, Felice Caledon. I would know if it was you.”
She said nothing.
“Are you also forbidden from speaking, Borbonil?” Serhan demanded.
“No, my lord, but they are words that I do not wish to utter. There is one thing that would indeed cause Kalnistine to flee in terror, and the word has not been spoken for four hundred years. It is something from the past, before we came to this world.”
“Tell us.”
“The Ekloi, my lord, are a brotherhood of great mages. They have the ability to walk between worlds, and they enforce the will of a greater creature. It was that creature’s will that the faykin, for that is how we were called, should be confined to a poor world where magic is dried up and gone. They, and they alone have the ability to kill us, to cause the real death. The four hundred, those of us that came to this world, escaped that place.”
“And how many Faer Karan are penned on this world?” General Grand asked.
“Six, maybe seven thousand, but it is a world of men, like this one, and because we are weak we are forced to hide.”
“How is it that I have never heard this tale before?” Serhan asked.
“I apologise if has disadvantaged you, my lord, but it is a time that we all chose to forget, and you never asked.”
“Are they a danger? To us? Will they attempt to seize this world?”
“I do not think so, my lord. It is not their way. In some ways they are like your own guard. They obey orders, and they value their invisibility. Even where we were imprisoned they did not show themselves more often than they had to. They are secretive.”
“So why are they here?” He looked at Felice, but she did not speak.
“It is their way to move slowly and in small ways, my lord,” Borbonil said, filling the silence. “I would guess that they had followed us here, but while the four hundred ruled there was no subtle path for them to take. They would not wish to intervene, to be so obvious to all, but now that the Faer Karan return piecemeal and in secret they feel able to remove them one at a time. It is how they would prefer to work.”
“Are you in danger?” Serhan turned and looked at Borbonil. Felice could see that he was concerned, and it surprised her that he should be. Borbonil was an enemy, a vanquished and enslaved thing, but here he was an ally, even a friend. Was this how Serhan inspired loyalty? Was Borbonil loyal? It had not occurred to her that he might be, given a choice.
“I do not know,” the Faer Karani replied. “I am still a public figure. I would be missed, so there is a likelihood that they will not move against me, but I do not know.”
Serhan turned to Felice. “Do you know?”
She shrugged. “No. But I think it unlikely. It would cause too much of a stir.”
“So what do we do now?” Serhan looked around the circle. “Do we seek them out – try to speak to them? Do we fight them?”
“Ignore them, my lord.” Felice said.
“Ignore them? How can I ignore them? Their existence is a threat to everything we have done, everything we are.”
“My Lord,” Borbonil spoke slowly. “I think that there is wisdom in the suggestion.”
“Explain.”
“You cannot fight them. They are many, though there may only be few of them in this world. They are strong. If you fight them you will be defeated. If you ignore them they will remain the same, and you will grow stronger. If you seek them out they will not feel constrained by secrecy as they do. They will be more open. They will interfere more.”
“I do not like it. There should be something that we can do.”
“Indeed, my lord,” Borbonil said. “You can use the time to increase your own power, and to build an army of mages to oppose them, though they are old and have great power. It is possible that they have a weakness. You did this once before.”
“Yes, I did.” There was a half smile on his face, as though Borbonil reminding him of his triumph amused him. It quickly disappeared. “But we know very little about them, and our best source of information on their current activity is mute,” he glanced at Felice again. “So we must begin to gather information at once. And we still have the immediate problem of Kalnistine.”
“If I may make another suggestion, my lord…?” Felice ventured once more.
“Of course.”
“Allow me to leave the school tomorrow. I will seek out Kalnistine, and I have confidence that I will not be alone when I find him.”
Serhan frowned. “It is a risk,” he said.
“It is a greater risk if it is believed that I have broken my oath. I need to reassure those that might believe it is so.”
“You believe that they will resolve our problem?”
“I am certain of it, my lord.�
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“And you are willing to put yourself between two great powers, neither of which may be well disposed towards you?”
“It is my best course.” In truth Felice did not like the idea, but if the Ekloi knew that Kalnistine was trying to kill her, and he did, then she would be the ideal bait. She would find a way to survive, and helping the Ekloi would give her some credit to bargain with. Serhan didn’t seem to like the idea much, and looked to the others for alternatives.
“It’s a sound idea,” the general said. “If you trust the girl. No offence intended, Ima, but we barely know you.”
“Ima Caledon is correct,” Borbonil said. “It is a good strategy, and though it carries some risk it has a balance. If she helps the Ekloi it may feel well disposed towards her, and believe her version of events.”
Delf Killore simply shrugged.
Serhan looked at the table for a few moments. It was a characteristic of his, she realised, that he would stare vacantly at a convenient object for a few moment when a decision was called for, his eyes unfocussed, his head slightly bowed and tilted to the right.
“It is what I would do,” he said.
22. Execution
How could you feel sympathy for something evil, entertain feelings of remorse at the death of someone who had tried to kill you? Felice had no answers to these questions, but asked them anyway, asked them of herself, because she did feel sympathy, and she did feel remorse. It shouldn’t be like this. Nothing had prepared her for it. She felt that it was a kind of weakness, a flaw. In the normal course of her life it should never have been revealed, but on the wild ride that her life had become every part of her was pulled and strained and beaten until it threatened to break. She tried to think of the two candidates who had died at the point of the creature’s knife, tried to feel what they felt, but it was no use. She had not known them, would not miss them.
There was the guard, too; the guard that Kalnistine had taken just to have a body; just to have a vehicle for his will, a cloak for his dagger. He had been a man with hopes and ambitions, perhaps a family. He had been someone that Felice might have nodded to at a camp fire somewhere, someone who had helped her or protected her. And before, long before her birth Kalnistine had killed and caused the death of thousands with impunity; farmers, guardsmen, anyone who had raised a voice of dissent, and even before that there were mages and kings, nobles and soldiers, all dead, all killed without mercy because the Faer Karan and Kalnistine had wished to rule. He was a monster.
Sympathy certainly seemed out of place. And yet she could not imagine the courage it took for an immortal being to choose death, as Kalnistine had done.
It had all gone as planned. She had left Woodside at first light, following the path indicated by her enchanted blade, and within an hour she had come across the Ekloi, sitting on a log by the side of the track, waiting for her. She did not ask how he had come there, or how he knew where to be. He would not have answered anyway. Instead they had walked together, following the knife, and after a while they had begun to talk. It was a conversation of little consequence. They discussed food, the weather, the value of trade. It was easy, pleasant talk, and it passed the time. They walked at a steady pace, but Felice could sense that the Ekloi was doing something, casting some spell as he walked so that the ground they covered bore no relation to the steps they took. He had confided his name, which she was certain was a breach of protocol, and equally certain that it had been permitted by a higher authority. He was called Shako, and he really seemed to have no sense of humour at all. He was, she believed, consumed by a notion of duty that overwhelmed everything else, and he would follow that duty to any atrocity it dictated, even to his own death. He was also very young, and believed as only the young can believe, before life teaches you the price of unfettered trust. She was younger than this high mage, she was certain, and yet in this respect she felt older and far wiser.
It took only a few hours to catch up with Kalnistine. They found him in a small camp in the forest, alone with a tent and a small fire, a small supply of food, the necessary things to protect and nurture the body that he possessed. He had been surprised, shocked even by their arrival, had leapt to his feet and tried to use the same escape as before, but Shako had somehow blocked it, and the black door would not open.
The Faer Karani had hurled fire and light and rocks, broken trees, he had screamed abuse at them, but Shako was impervious to it all, able to shield both himself and Felice from all the power that the creature could unleash, and apparently not too troubled by the task. He had produced that blade again, the moon white blade with dancing fires, and advanced on Kalnistine.
“You must come with me,” he said.
“I will not!”
“Then you will die. You know that I am authorised to end your life if you refuse to return with me.”
Kalnistine threw his own useless blade to one side and stood tall before the Ekloi. His eyes were burning with hatred and pride. It was a sight Felice knew that she would never forget. The man the creature inhabited was tall, but now he seemed taller, and his expression was almost noble.
“It is the real death, Kalnistine,” Shako said. “You will not rise again from this blow.” He seemed reluctant to strike, and the two of them stood face to face for a moment, no more than three feet apart, their eyes locked together. Felice held her breath. Would he volunteer for death? Could he bring himself to take that dark road with so much still to lose? The Faer Karan were immortal, or at least incredibly long lived. Surely there was some chance that he would escape again, that he would be free? Even if it were a thousand, two thousand years in the future it would be worth suffering for.
“Strike your blow, Ekloi,” the creature said. “For four hundred years I have ruled, I have spoken and all have bent with fear at my words. It is what we are destined to be. I cannot go back to that dark, soulless place. Not for another day. You dull and witless creatures do not understand what it is to be alive. I know. I have lived. I will not go back.”
There was a moment more of stillness, and it stretched to the point where Felice was sure that Shako would stay his hand, would not strike, but at that same moment he did, thrusting the pale blade into Kalnistine’s chest with a sudden, swift motion.
She was unprepared for the noise. She had never heard a man shriek before, and Kalnistine shrieked, over and over. It was not an easy death. She clapped her hands over her ears, but the noise seemed to go on and on, how she imagined torture would be – intolerable for both parties. Kalnistine’s eyes bulged with the pain. His mouth distorted, and he writhed on the end of the blade like an eel pierced through. How this could be any sort of justice escaped her.
She reached for Shako, to force his hand, either to a killing movement, or to withdraw, but the look on his face told her that he was as transfixed as she, more so perhaps. He had not expected this, and was shocked to the quick by what he had brought about. He flinched away from her hand, but her motion seemed to wake him again, and he twisted the blade, lifting it up through Kalnistine’s body and out through the top of his head. The Faer Karani dropped to the ground, and Felice was at his side in a moment, kneeling by the corpse. It was quite dead, or course, but curiously unmarked, as though the blade had cut only what was within. There was no blood at all. She felt for a beating heart, laid her head against his chest to listen for it and put her fingers across his mouth and nose to feel for any breath.
“Dead,” she said. This was the moment when the remorse came. To end any life was a terrible thing, even one such as this, so stained with innocent blood. He could no longer be punished or corrected or taught the error of his actions. All that he was had ended here, in a remote clearing in a distant woodland, in a squalid little camp, and she had conspired to this end.
She had insisted on burying the guardsman’s body. He was a victim, even if he had, for a while, been the face of their enemy. Shako did not help her. He stood nearby and watched in silence. She thought at first that he was impat
ient to be going, but after a while he spoke.
“Why are you doing that?” he asked.
“Respect. He would prefer to be burned, I believe,” she replied. “But it would put the forest at risk.”
“And what does the man care about this? He is dead. He has been dead since the faykin took his body.”
“That is true, and I am sure that he no longer cares, but for those who remain alive, some of whom may have loved this man, it will be a comfort to know that we thanked him for his life in this way, by showing respect.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. What else could there be?”
“I cannot imagine,” Shako said, but she had the distinct impression that he had been fishing for something. He thought, perhaps that there was some other reason for what she did.
They left the grave and the little canvas tent, and everything that had been there just as it was among the wreckage of their one sided battle. Felice had no idea how far they travelled before darkness threatened, and Shako conceded that they must make camp for the night. In truth, she had no idea where they were, or even where they had been, only that it was all forest, and the air was cool, so she guessed they had not gone southwards.
Shako had brought food with him, and insisted on preparing the meal himself, which surprised her. Men of power still expected to be looked after, in her experience, but she willingly acquiesced, and was surprised again at the success of Shako’s efforts. He was a fine cook. The food was better than good and she ate with more relish than she had anticipated, given the events of the day.
It would soon be time to go home, to see her father and mother again, and live in that pleasant house in East Scar, far away from the trouble and pain of this other world. There was only the matter of Karnack to be concluded, and she had been promised that it would be taken care of when Kalnistine was no longer a problem.
He was, of course. Both destroyed and still a problem, but the problem was all inside her head. She had not enjoyed seeing him die, and though she accepted that it was necessary with part of her mind, there was another part that said it had been a terrible thing, a wrong thing. She could not shake the feeling that she had been part of something evil. It was nonsense. Of course it was. He had been a murderer, and before that a tyrant, a butcher, a creature for whom the lives of men meant nothing. But how are we, the whole of mankind, better? True enough, the Faer Karan had started things, had struck the first blow, the first thousand blows, but how different are we? As soon as they were gone an army of men had attacked Pek and Samara from the East. Another group had built ships and set out to massacre the Shan. These evil deeds had been prevented, but only by the will of one man who had both the power and the conscience to stop them. Even then the loss of life had been terrible. Those ships that had sailed to Cabarisa had not returned, and the men on them were never seen again. On Samara Plain the entire Saratan army had been wiped out in a few moments. Thousands had died.