by C. L. Wilson
He turned back to Sebourne and pinned the man with a hard gaze. “I flew to the Eld border last night, Lord Sebourne. I crossed the Heras and scouted five miles deep into Eld, and what I saw confirmed Gaelen’s claims. Those caravans bursting with produce you say you’ve watched pass by every day? They’ve been carrying more than vegetables. The Eld have been smuggling troops and armaments along the border, right under your noses. The villages have all been trenched and fortified. The Eld are preparing for war.”
Several of the other border lords sat up a little straighter. How many of them, Rain wondered, had also watched the caravans from their own keeps and thought nothing of them?
Sebourne would not be swayed. “If the Eld have strengthened their defenses along the border, Worldscorcher, it’s most likely because they learned that you”—he jabbed a finger at Rain—“are no longer safely locked away behind the Faering Mists!”
“That is a possibility,” Rain agreed. “But can you afford to take the chance?”
Several seats down from Sebourne, Lord Darramon, one of the moderates of the Twenty, rose to his feet. “Even assuming the Mages have regrouped—and that is an unsubstantiated assumption—and even assuming the Eld have built up their troop strength along the border, why would they attack us now? Celieria has shown no aggression towards the Eld in centuries. What cause have we given them for war?”
Before Rain could answer, Teleos surged to his feet. “Why have the Eld ever attacked?” he called out. “For conquest. For power. For the glory of the real Dark Lord, Seledorn, God of Shadows.”
“To destroy you and your defenses,” Rain stated baldly. “Because Celieria is all that stands between them and the Fading Lands.”
“Why have you ceased your devotions, daughter?”
“I—” Ellysetta stopped herself before she asked the archbishop why he was weaving magic. “What kind of blessing is that, Father?” she asked instead.
He frowned in annoyance. “It is the traditional blessing of the Solarus required before the initiation of the Bright Bell. Now direct your attentions to your devotions, and allow me to continue. We cannot begin the Bright Bell until the chamber is blessed.”
Ellysetta turned back to the altar and bowed her head. The familiar words fell from her lips by rote, but her attention remained focused on the archbishop as he circled the chamber.
She realized her mistake almost immediately. The archbishop wasn’t weaving magic. It was the scepter in his hand. Just as the Fey had long ago cast a Fire-spell on the lamps of the city and a cleansing-spell on the waters of the Velpin, the archbishop’s gold and crystal scepter—passed down through generation after generation of priests—contained magic. And the traditional “blessing” invoked the scepter’s magic.
«Bel. Gaelen.» She wanted to tell them what she’d discovered, to ask if they could sense the weave, too.
Only silence answered.
She opened her senses, forcing down her own natural barriers in an attempt to examine the scepter’s weave. What she found sent a chill down her spine.
Five-fold. The archbishop had enveloped the Solarus in a five-fold weave.
She was imprisoned in a cage of magic.
“Join me in the center of the room, daughter, so we may begin the Bright Bell of meditation and purification.”
“Remove the blessing from the room, Greatfather.”
The archbishop seemed genuinely surprised by the request. “I cannot unbless the chamber. And we cannot leave the Solarus until the Bright Bell is concluded. Now come, join me in the center of the room and prostrate yourself upon the Altar of Light.”
She stood and faced him. “Not until you remove the five-fold weave you just constructed around this room.”
Behind her, Lauriana gasped. “Ellysetta! Mind your tongue!”
The archbishop’s face darkened. “I? Weave magic in this sacred chamber? How dare you accuse me of such blasphemy.”
Her stomach clenched in a sick, terrible knot, but she stood firm. “Whether you intended to do so or not, Greatfather, you just wove a five-fold weave with that scepter. And I must insist that you un do it. Or give me the scepter, and I’ll undo it for you.”
He jerked the scepter back, well out of her reach. “You go too far, woman. Get yourself to the altar and beg the Bright Lord for forgiveness.” One steely hand clamped around her wrist and he yanked her towards the altar.
The touch of his skin on hers bombarded her senses with the fury of thoughts he was projecting. Ellysetta didn’t stop to think, she just plunged into his mind. Flinging open her senses, forging determination into an arrow of power, she forced past his deliberate barrage of thoughts and laid bare his mind.
Thoughts and memories assaulted her. Mama weeping, begging the archbishop for help to save her daughter’s soul. His determination, his certainty that magic was evil and must be destroyed. His burning zeal to forge the young Fey queen into a beacon of Light for the Fading Lands. But first, he must strip her soul of the Dark Lord’s magic. He must exorcise the demons from her soul.
A scraping groan of marble shifting on old, hidden tracks made Ellysetta’s heart clutch. She spun to face the altar as its massive white bulk rolled backwards and slid into a deep pocket behind the marble wall to reveal a small, dark chamber at the top of a secret stair.
Greatfather Tivrest grabbed her in a tight, unyielding grip as three men in the hooded scarlet robes of exorcists stepped from the darkness into the white light of the Solarus.
“No!” She fought to escape the archbishop’s surprisingly powerful grip. «Bel, Gaelen, help me!» Her Spirit weave dashed against the barriers enveloping the room and dissolved. She struggled furiously. Around the room, the flames in the sconces roared to life, leaping high, licking with angry, useless hunger at the marbled walls and ceiling.
The archbishop cried out, “She’s burning me!”
One of the exorcists leapt forward and threw a dark rope round her shoulders. She cried out in pain as the hot rush of her magic curdled into agony. Sel’dor. The rope was threaded with it. She struggled, trying to free herself from the archbishop and the rope.
The second exorcist threw back his hood, revealing a stern face. “That’s enough, girl,” he commanded. “I am Father Lucial Bellamy, head of the Order of Adelis. We’re not here to harm you. We’re here to save your soul. But we can’t have you endangering us all with your demonic powers.” He pulled a pair of black metal cuffs from one pocket and approached.
“Mama!” Ellysetta cast a frantic, pleading look over her shoulder. “Mama, get help!”
But instead of looking shocked, her mother stood weeping, hands clasped tightly together.
“Mama?” Realization dawned too late.
“Don’t fight them, kitling, please. Let them save your soul.”
Ellysetta turned desperate eyes to her best friend. “Selianne?”
“I—” Selianne glanced at Lauriana, who shook her head frantically and grabbed Selianne’s arm as if to stop her. When Selianne turned back, her face was set in a grim, fatalistic expression. “I’m sorry, Ellie. The Fey have bewitched you. This is for the best.”
The exorcist snapped the sel’dor around Ellysetta’s wrists. Pain drove her to her knees.
“The Mages no doubt still remember how an alliance of Fey and Celierians once defeated them,” Rain continued in the lull of silence, “and they will not want to make the same mistake twice. Why do you think they sent their ambassador to you with his offer?” He cast a long, sober glance around the chamber. “If they can convince you, our allies, that Fey magic and Fey might, which have always been used for good, are somehow more evil and threatening than the Eld; if they can convince you to accept their lies and false friendship and throw open your borders, you will soon find yourselves worshiping Seledorn and surrendering the souls of your children to the service of the Mages. They won’t have to raze a single village to conquer you.”
“Ridiculous fear mongering,” Sebourne sneered. “Fabr
ications void of any hope of reliable proof. You lied about Gaelen vel Serranis. You lied about the murders in the north. You’re lying about this as well. Your motive is obvious. Celieria has grown independent in your absence. We’ve become powerful in our own right. Your baseless claims and scare tactics are part of a pathetically transparent scheme to keep Celieria subservient to Fey power.”
Teleos surged to his feet. “You fool!” he cried. “Have you not listened to a word he’s said? We are in danger! The Fey do not lie! The enemy is at the gate, sharpening his blades!”
“The enemy,” Sebourne replied sharply, pointing a finger at Rain, “is right there! This Tairen Soul has already shown himself willing to break Celierian treaties, manipulate Celierian minds, and murder his allies.”
“Here, here, Sebourne,” Morvel applauded. “Celierians won’t cower in fear from Fey tales and bogey stories.”
Rain stared in disbelief at the men leading the opposition. Had they forgotten so much? Had the last few centuries of peace erased the hard-taught lessons of the past from mortal memory? Fire sparked in his eyes. “I stand before you, a living witness to the Mage Wars and to the vast, unrepentant evil of Eld, and you call me a liar and dismiss my warnings as Fey tales and bogey stories?”
Show them, Ellysetta had urged. Make them see Mage evil for themselves.
His fingers curled tight. He’d already failed her once. He would not fail her again. Magic gathered in a painful rush, burning his veins with its intensity. “Since I cannot make you listen, perhaps I can make you see. Behold! This is the past I remember, the past I lived.”
Rain swept out his hands. Light shot from his fingertips, undulating beams that formed a glowing, expanding mass. The sounds of battle rose. The smell of burnt flesh, fresh blood, magic, and human sweat. Long-dead men and women—Fey, Celierian, Elf, Danae—unfolded in vivid, masterfully created life. Shei’dalins in flowing red veils worked beneath bright tents to save the wounded and weave peace upon the dying.
He could have simply immersed them all in the past, but he let his weave move slowly across the Council Chamber, enveloping the Celierian lords one by one until each of them stood on that ancient battlefield, every sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound re-created with breathtaking clarity. And as the Spirit weave took each lord, he poured into the man’s mind vivid memories of all the events leading up to Mage Wars: the Eld machinations, the subtle corruptions, all culminating in the shocking brutality of a royal assassination, Gaelen’s vengeance, and finally the ravaging ferocity of open war.
A blast of Mage Fire shook the earth. A score of pampered lordlings cringed in fear.
A fierce battle was under way. Several thousand Eld soldiers and two dozen Mages were defending a captured Celierian keep. Thick flows of dreadful magic rolled over the castle walls, forming a toxic, deadly mist that oozed across the battlefield towards the approaching army. Celierian soldiers shrieked as the mist enveloped them and their flesh literally fell from their bones. Armor tumbled in clattering heaps as the oozing, bloody bones of what had been men took one final, staggering step before crumpling in puddles of stinking slime. Not even the hungry demons howling across the battlefield would touch the foul soup that remained.
Fey, Elves, and Danae warriors raced towards the front line, magic sparking around them as they blew the acid mist back towards the keep and its surrounding dark armies. A hail of arrows dropped half the reinforcements as they bravely stood on the field and spun their defensive weaves. Demons consumed another two dozen in mere instants. On the ridge, trebuchets flung fiery missiles over the castle walls, and several hundred Elvish archers launched their own deadly accurate volley of arrows into the black-armored enemy ranks.
A deep, terrible roar sounded overhead. A shadow swooped over the warriors, bringing a hot, dark rush of air that carried the scent of tairen and fire and magic. Immense wings, spread wide as a city block, swept low over the battlefield as the giant winged cat dove in for his attack.
Rolling clouds of flame spewed from the tairen’s great black muzzle, engulfing the line of robe-clad Mages. Shields sprang up around the Mages, but high-pitched screams erupted from the unfortunate unshielded soldiers nearby as flame clung to flesh and consumed with voracious appetite. Wings pumped, and the great cat reared back, holding the roaring jet of fire on the knot of shielded Mages.
A massive ball of Mage Fire shot towards the black tairen from his left flank.
“Rain! Behind you!” The shout came from several men all at once, Celierians and Fey, fighting together near the front of one allied line.
A second black tairen as large as Rain Tairen Soul swooped down, and a blast of tairen fire consumed the deadly Mage Fire before it reached Rain. The magnificent creature joined Rain, adding its powerful flame to the attack. Moments later, the Mage shields gave way, and half a dozen burning figures raced in frantic, futile madness from the inferno.
Eld horns sounded the call to retreat. Enemy soldiers poured over the keep walls and fled in chaotic disarray. A dozen tairen flew after the remaining Mages, flames licking at enemy heels, while Celierian and Danae infantry pursued the fleeing soldiers. From the surrounding forest, a hail of Elvish arrows filled the sky, raining down upon the fleeing troops. A black and silver line of Fey warriors blocked off the only remaining avenue of escape.
Scarcely a chime or two later, it was over.
In the ensuing silence, mortal, Fey, Elf, and Danae walked the battlefield, gathering fallen friends and comrades. They helped the wounded to the healing tents, and laid the dead in neat lines at the edge of the forest.
The two black tairen swooped down from the sky, metamorphosing at the last moment into tall, black-haired Fey warriors. Rain Tairen Soul and his father, Rajahl.
A Celierian wearing gold-chased silver armor wiped the blood off his sword with the hem of his blue cape and sheathed the blade at his side. Every Celierian in the Council Chamber recognized the crossed blades and crowned hawk of the Torreval royal family crest.
“My Lord Rajahl. My Lord Rain.” Dorian II reached out to clasp arms with the two Fey. “Well fought, my lords.”
Half a dozen mounted, mail-clad Celierian soldiers galloped in from the battlefield. One of the riders broke off from the group, guiding his horse towards the king and the two Tairen Souls. He pulled back on the reins and slid from the saddle with lithe, almost inhuman agility. His chest plate bore the Teleos family crest, a golden tairen rampant on the white field of a rising sun, honoring both their blood ties to the Fey and their devotion to the Church of Light.
“Your Majesty.” The rider, Shanis Teleos, approached his king. He removed his helm, revealing Fey eyes of vivid green, shining bright in a face dark with blood and grime. Shanis dropped briefly to one knee in a swift, smooth bow. “The enemy is routed, sire.” He straightened and turned to the Tairen Souls. “My Lord Rajahl, Rain.” A smile flashed in his battle-grimed face as he and Rain exchanged handclasps. “My thanks for your help. We could not have claimed victory without you. Give us a quarter bell to recover our dead and wounded from the field before you burn the Eld.”
“Be quick, my friend,” Rain said. “An Elf scout spotted a suspicious caravan not two leagues from here. If there’s a Primage or a Demon Prince among them, they’ll soon be close enough to summon the souls of the dead. We don’t have enough warriors to fight this army again in demon form. A quarter bell, and we fire the field.”
“Understood.”
“Sire!”
Dorian turned, a smile breaking over his face as he caught sight of the approaching knight. “Pellas! Cousin! I am glad to see you well and unhurt.”
Lord Pellas, the king’s cousin, didn’t return his royal kin’s smile. “I’m unhurt, yes, but our uncle’s son Theron wasn’t so fortunate. Come quick, sire. He lies near death. The shei’dalin does not think she can save him.”
Dorian began to run.
As Dorian neared his waiting cousin, Lord Pellas’s eyes darkened and the hand at his sid
e curled tight around the long dagger at his hip, yanking it from its sheath.
“Sire! Beware!” Shanis cried the warning and leapt towards the king’s cousin, blades flashing. He separated the assassin’s head from his shoulders even as Rain and Rajahl’s red Fey’cha thunked home with deadly accuracy in the man’s chest.
“Pellas?” The king stared in horrified disbelief at the still-twitching, headless corpse of his cousin and at the blade still clutched in the dead man’s hand.
“Did you not see his eyes just as he started to strike?” Shanis said. “They went black as night. I don’t know how the Mages managed to turn him, sire, but he was Mage-claimed.”
“I don’t believe it. He’s close as a brother to me.”
Shanis pried the blade out of the dead man’s hand. “This is a Feraz assassin’s knife, sire. There is a hollow, poison-filled vein down the center of the blade. The tip is designed to break off inside the victim to release the poison.” He planted a boot heel on the knife and snapped it in two. Three small drops of green liquid spilled onto the ground. The soil sizzled, wisps of smoke rising. Several handspans of trampled grass around the spot turned rapidly brown, then black.
“But…how is it possible? How could I not have known?”
“Do not torment yourself, King Dorian,” Rajahl said. “’Tis likely the Mages stole his memories so he was not even aware himself. There is no warning of who is Mage-claimed, until they strike.”
The Spirit weave faded. The ancient lords of Celieria melted into mist, and Rain turned once more to the nobles gathered in Dorian’s Council Chamber.
“The Mages have returned. How many of them, I do not know. But I do know this: Where there are Mages, there are Mage-claimed. They could live among you, break bread with you, celebrate the marriage of your children, and share the most intimate moments of your life. And the instant the Mages call upon them, they will murder every member of your family while you sleep—slit the throats of the smallest sleeping babes—to please their masters.