Chapter 26
Time
“Huzzah Devonshire!” cried a tall woman, as she led her horse into the outpost stable. Her dark blond hair was stuck to her head with sweat, and marks of a helmet were still bright on her face. Lanky hunting dogs frolicked around her, jumping up her sides and getting their muddy paws all over her arming tunic. “What brings thou down to stable?” She hauled off her horse's saddle and slung it over the fence.
Devonshire hopped down from the fence and held a flagon up to the woman. “Good meet to you, Eadwyn. How was the patrol?” She was the oddest of the mages in the Academy. She had been a career mage in the Army at the peak of the Empire, several hundred years ago. In the original 9th army, before it was lost. They had been stationed beyond the great forest in the outer waste, on a fool's errand trying to cut off an enemy that didn't exist. They had to contend with overstretched supply lines, regular irate barbarians, and the occasional magical vortex storms.
It was these storms that caught Eadwyn's heart. She had bent Devonshire's ear, and anyone else who would listen, about them all the time. Their power, their raw energy, her theories on their origin, creation and control. Weird things happened in and around them. Magic occurred spontaneously and didn't work quite right. Units who had been overrun by one had nightmares for weeks. She, however, was quite happy to volunteer to study them and explore ways to either deflect them, or bring them into the arsenal of what the army could control.
Apparently she did not always see eye to eye with her command about priorities. But, since they hadn't much to do but march up and down anyway, discipline was lax. Until one day a storm took an unusual course change and overcame her. And when she walked out of it, several hundred years had passed.
Eadwyn took the flagon, drank liberally from it, and poured and equal amount over her head and down the neck of her tunic. She blew out her cheeks, looked at it puzzled, and shook her head. “I'm forgetting the magic of it!” She upended it, pouring out far more than the volume the vessel reflected, over her dogs and into their water dishes. “It was more the hunt than the patrol. And more the exercise than the hunt. Nothing stalks this weald.” As the dogs leaped onto the dishes with ravenous abandon and she sat heavily on a hay bale.
“I've got some ideas I want to run past you”, said Devonshire after Eadwyn had caught her breath.
“Oh, aye?” said Eadwyn. “Hast thou become keen on vortices?”
“Oh, I am”, said Devonshire. They were quite an interesting phenomenon. Although they weren't her passion, she did sympathize with Eadwyn for having her own passion. “I think they are the ultimate expression of the raw forces of nature. But I haven't had the leisure to explore that.”
“Leisure is something that has been sorely wanting”, said Eadwyn sadly. “This would be about the hellions aggrieving our army then?”
“Yes”, said Devonshire simply. The two of them often saw eye-to-eye. So there wasn't much point beating around the bush. She came around and sat on the hay bale by Eadwyn. The dogs had finished their water and were lying on the ground, panting. “I've been studying the images and patterns from the encounter. Also had a long talk with Miasma yesterday, who was on the ground in the fight against it.” She shook her head. “It's quite the horror.”
“A thousand heddes and a thousand hands to wreak its wroth”, quoted Eadwyn from something.
“Not quite a thousand”, said Devonshire. “Miasma captured at least fourteen distinct patterns. We don't have good numbers, but our best guess makes it a medium sized demon.”
“May the gods have mercy on our souls”, said Eadwyn somberly.
“Souls is what I'm getting at”, said Devonshire. “What grimoires we've been able to lay hold of theorize that most major demons are aggregate creatures possessing many Souls. That their power comes from this.” Eadwyn made a distasteful face. “But maybe it's not that. We've never seen any sort of creature that had more than a single Soul. So it seems a bit of a stretch to assume they are easy to aggregate. What if, instead, it was just one Soul, but one that had the barriers between its past lives ripped apart.”
Eadwyn pondered. “Such a Soul might manifest many conflicting Wills. But seems natural that would nay have an additive effect on the Animus, but a detraction.”
Devonshire shrugged. “We think the New Magic has given us so much, until we're hit with something like this. Then it’s back to the old superstition ridden manuals we've disdained.”
“Seems more a simpleton Soul, with no past lives, would be easier to wrest into such a noisome creature. Didst ye interrogate the sundered souls? Were there elves among them?”
“Not as far as we can tell”, Devonshire said. “That could just be probability. There aren't that many Elves to begin with. But we are pretty sure it is only the non-Elfin gods that traffic with the Demons.”
She pointed her finger at Devonshire. “Which should be reason enou to go back to reincarnation!”
Devonshire nodded enthusiastically. “Yet another reason.” Eadwyn got up and started combing down her horse. “Demons, gods, they all traffic in Souls. We're only in this mess because the people who originally discovered the New Magic did this to the world. I wish the Academy would focus more on using it to put things back to right.”
“Thou knows I'm with you on this”, said Eadwyn.
“Thank you”, said Devonshire. “It's just one distraction after another though.”
“I never have a mote of time for my vortices”, lamented Eadwyn. “Now there is power to rival Soul hoarding!”
Devonshire nodded. “If we could harness that we could fill the strategic mana reserve. A better alternative to upgrading the standard Army kit to include contributions from each soldier. That's the first step down a slippery slope to where the gods went.”
“Time!” exclaimed Eadwyn. “I barely clear my mind riding and it’s back to work.”
Devonshire pursed her lips. “Unfortunately that's why I'm here.”
“Oh, aye. I know”, said Eadwyn, despondently. She motioned to a stable hand to take over. She gave a final pat to her dogs and walked out of the stable with Devonshire.
They crossed the town on the main road. Carts converged on the road. Most carried heaps of bark chips collected from the ironwood trees, rich in raw iron drawn up from the ground. Troglodytes pulled them towards the roaring forge with its natural smoke stack. Conversation was impossible until they passed.
“And your son, is he still here? Will I make his meet?” asked Eadwyn.
“He went back yesterday”, said Devonshire without emotion. “I won't see him for another six months.”
“’Tis hard”, said Eadwyn.
“Yes”, said Devonshire, with a hard face. “And I'm not doing a good job of it.” Eadwyn looked at her quizzically. “He's just... growing up faster than I can keep pace with.” She waved her hands in exasperation. “I've lived my whole life amongst humans. You would think I could cope. He's off in exile most of the time. I'm hellishly busy. I just never get a chance to catch up.” She shook her head. “Did you have kids? Before?”
“Nay”, said Eadwyn. “Soldier my whole life for the Empire.”
“Then you ended up here”, said Devonshire, with sympathy. Completely randomly they had found Eadwyn roaming the outer waste. She was half starved and babbling in an accent they could barely understand. That expedition had brought her back to Scioni since they didn't know what else to do with her. He, himself, had been displaced from an earlier time, though through a different means. This had been while he was pursuing the political front in Romitu and he had ready access to the old archives of the Empire. They recorded everything. Including several reprimands for absence from duty, and a final dismissal for desertion to a trooper named Eadwyn in the 9th army's mage squad. Devonshire had seen the ancient record herself. It was kind of spooky, but it corroborated her story.
Eadwyn shrugged. “Leastwise I can continue to study them vortices. Leastwise occasionally.”
/> Devonshire smiled grimly. “We've got to get through this. So we all have time.”
Red Queen Page 26