by J. S. Morin
“No trick. I just outdrew the wall, and melted it with hurled fire,” Kyrus said.
Rashan laughed out loud. “You have a better sense of humor than the other Brannis ever did. I am going to enjoy having you around.”
“It was no joke. You only have four of those cells now,” Kyrus replied. “And I would not get too used to me being around. Once I figure out a way to find Tellurak again, I will be going back.”
“Hurled fire? If you think that is a solution to a problem like those cells, you have as much business trying transference spells as an ogre does playing the dulcimer,” Rashan snapped. “I have no idea how you managed to find your way to Veydrus or how you managed to survive channeling that much aether to make the trip. I would suggest you put any notion to trying that trip again far back into the reaches of your mind. Thank fate, gods, or what have you, for the luck that you survived it once, and do not tempt them again. With the power you have, someday you may unravel that mystery but for now, you are just a firehurler.”
“You are speaking of winters, not days,” Kyrus spoke softly, almost to himself despite addressing the warlock.
“Tens of winters, more like,” Rashan corrected. Kyrus swallowed, finding a sudden lump in his throat. “Come upstairs a moment. I wish to demonstrate something for you.” Rashan stood, and headed up the stairs to the Inner Sanctum.
Decades. I will learn life extension. Abbiley will grow old. Davin will pass away. If I ever make it back, what would I be going back to? In decades, what would Brannis be returning to, an old man, suddenly and mysteriously bereft of magic? If I cannot manage to return rather soon, I may not end up making the trip at all.
Kyrus blinked back his inner monologue long enough to remember that he ought to be following Rashan. He headed up the stairway after the warlock.
“This chamber is warded against violence, so it ought to be a bit safer. None of the others are around right now, so it is just the two of us,” Rashan said, standing in the middle of the room. “Come down here.”
Kyrus silently levitated himself down to the bottom of the chamber, where guests of the Inner Circle would present themselves. Rashan watched, shaking his head.
“It is like watching a blacksmith swing his anvil at a hammer to make horseshoes. I cannot fathom the amount of aether you waste with that shabby technique of yours. We shall work on that later but for now, a demonstration of the worthlessness of hurled aether,” Rashan said. Kyrus saw a shielding spell spring to life around him. “Even the simplest of shields thwarts it. You may have been able to destroy a wall with it, once you drained it of aether.” Rashan shook his head, still incredulous about Kyrus’s claim. “But any construct of aether will stop it entirely. Now … if there is any mishap, stray fire ought not hurt anything in this room, due to the wards.”
“But I thought the wards prevented all violence within the Sanctum,” Kyrus said.
“Only in the Academy texts and the half-copper tours of Kadris. I killed Gravis Archon in here, and the wards did little enough to save him. The wards protect the Inner Circle; they do not protect against those so powerful as we.” Rashan looked meaningfully at the hole in the wall, still unrepaired after a season in power. The warlock had left it as a symbol, a warning. “Now go stand over there, and hit me with everything you can manage—just hurled fire, mind you.”
“Fine,” Kyrus agreed. He walked over to the supplicants’ entrance to the chamber and turned. He drew in some aether, and hurled it right at Rashan as fire. As promised, it turned harmlessly aside against his shield.
“Well now, someone thinks he is being clever again. You are not going to believe me until you see your best effort fail. Now try again, like you mean it! I was going to let Iridan and Juliana out of those cells in time for dinner tonight, but if you continue to try my patience, I just might leave them down there the whole five days,” Rashan snarled, goading Kyrus with what he hoped was an idle threat.
Despite seeing through the barb, Kyrus felt his heart begin to pound, and the edges of his vision grow fuzzy. So I am stranded here on Veydrus, most likely. I will never see Abbiley again? It falls to me to protect Juliana, just as Brannis would. Brannis, if you are watching right now, take care of Abbiley for me. Make her happy. Kyrus drew hard against the aether and Rashan’s eyes widened in shock.
A moment later, there was a second hole to the outdoors in the Tower of Contemplation, and the regent of the Kadrin Empire had been jettisoned through it. It had passed through from the lower Sanctum wall, through the warlock’s office, and to the open sky beyond.
Kyrus walked to the edge of the hole with growing trepidation. He had hoped to spend his anger against the warlock’s shield. It had not occurred to him that he would shred that shield, and blow the warlock through the building. He looked around to the palace grounds below, and saw Rashan, charred and nearly naked, rising unsteadily to his feet. In the aether, Kyrus was very interested to see that wisps of aether rose from the warlock’s exposed Source. As he watched, the aether flow slowed and ceased. The charred flesh regenerated itself. A makeshift wardrobe of aether formed about him.
Rashan walked unsteadily to the base of the tower, and looked up at Kyrus. “I stand corrected,” Rashan called up to him.
“I am sorry, I did not mean to—”
“No, no. It was my fault underestimating you. We will speak of it again, but I think I ought to head down to the dungeons, and see about releasing the newly married couple. Not sure what I was thinking … was no point locking them up as well …” Rashan trailed off, and then wandered away.
Kyrus found himself alone in the warlock’s office. Mischief was uncommon to his nature, but there was a heady feeling welling up in him, making him bold. He found a particular book, one that he had come to hate. It was a book of names—names of sorcerers and sorceresses. He found the entry he sought with little trouble: “Brannis Solaran. (F) Maruk Solaran, (M) Lyphaela Solaran (Sharniss),” the whole of which had been crossed out with a double line, accompanied by a notation in a different handwriting: “UNSUITABLE.” Kyrus took up a quill and ink—his preferred weapons—and crossed out the “UN.”
Chapter 20 - Reacquaintances
There could be no mistaking: Kyrus Hinterdale was actually Brannis Solaran. Wendell had been on the first ship to land, but he had panicked, and thrown on a false face before he had been recognized. He had been nervous enough approaching a neophyte sorcerer, but finding one he knew had spooked him.
I need to talk to him. I cannot let caution deter me. I have to find him alone, and introduce myself properly. It is Brannis, after all. How much danger could there be? I owe it to Jurgin to take on an apprentice to carry on his teachings but I no longer need this Kyrus. He was a bad idea from the first but he was all I had.
Wendell had not been blessed with as strong a Source as his twin Faolen. He had little recourse beyond simple trickery should he get himself in trouble. He had made a long habit of identifying and avoiding other twinborn. There were troubles with the knowledge of two worlds, and not everyone was so mild in their interests in the connection between them. Jurgin had told him tales about twinborn that set themselves up as warlords or gangsters, even just run-of-the-mill mercenaries. They used the skills they learned in Veydrus to act as hawks among the chickens of Tellurak. Wendell’s skills were useful—extremely useful—but he would not be able to put himself on equal terms with a Veydran sorcerer, should one be found on Tellurak.
I should tell him about the boy. I do not need Brannis’s twin as my apprentice but I could have his help in securing the twin of Jinzan Fehr’s son. It is in the Empire’s interest that I get hold of the Staff of Gehlen, even if I must buy it with service in this world.
Wendell resolved to approach Brannis’s twin, and reveal himself. He took a long, shuddering deep breath, and walked to the door of his cabin. He put his hand to the handle but the door would not open. His hand would not let him.
But he is incredibly powerful. What if he does not care
for what I have to say? He may want peace here, safe from the Kadrin Empire and all the burdens he faces there. If he sees me as intruding, I could not imagine he would have any trouble reducing me to ash, and sprinkling me over the ship’s railing, never to be missed. I could not even report the crime to Warlock Rashan without seeming a madman, and any vengeance would just as surely get me killed, successful or not. Brannis Solaran is too well placed to act against.
Having resolved not to cross the twinborn sorcerer with the mysteriously weak Source, Wendell sat down on the edge of his bunk. He sat in stillness for a time, but soon found that his leg had been bouncing up and down, belying his nerves.
I am being paranoid, he admitted. He is Brannis Solaran, whatever he is called in this world, as surely as I am Faolen. He will know me. He will share common cause with me. I might need to abduct the boy, and I could enlist his aid. I could get messages to Kadris via him. He could arrange aid with no one questioning his authority or whence his knowledge came. I would be a fool not to take this opportunity for the gift it is.
Wendell stood again, and strode over to the door, yanking it open before any part of his body took the opportunity to voice an objection. The plan worked, and he was freed from his prison of hesitation, for better or worse.
* * * * * * * *
“You do look familiar, now that you mention it,” Brannis replied. The wizened magician looked like someone he knew, but Brannis, for all his memory for the written word, numbers, dates, and magic runes, was awful with faces. Worse, Kyrus had never been one to socialize much. There were likely folk all throughout Scar Harbor who knew him by sight, but whose names the scrivener had never attempted to learn.
“If you are wracking your memory, let me give you a hint to jar loose any spare thoughts from the corners of your psyche. I traveled with you once, a few months ago, by horse. There were five of us.” Wendell knew that if that hint did not give him away entirely, this Kyrus Hinterdale was almost certainly not fully aware of Brannis. It seemed impossible how closely the two resembled one another, though. He had seen his own and Faolen’s reflections in enough mirrors over the years to know myriad differences, even before life extension separated their apparent ages by a decade or more: a cut that scarred just a bit, a shade deeper tan in the warm months, fingers calloused from working sleight of hand versus ones that did no work at all. Kyrus Hinterdale looked exactly like he had remembered Sir Brannis looking when last he had seen him.
Brannis’s eyes widened. “Faolen?” he guessed, sudden recognition spreading across his features. He looked the magician up and down. Wendell noticed how his eyes were drawn to the grey hair, the wrinkled features.
“Indeed. Here, though, I am Wendell the Wizard, worker of parlor tricks for coin. Faolen is off in Zorren at the warlock’s behest, but here I have crossed paths with you, and only partly by coincidence,” Wendell replied, glad that Kyrus and Brannis were aware enough to make introductions a simple matter of an exchange of names, with no need to delve into the mystery of the connection of worlds.
“What do you mean, ‘partly’?” Brannis inquired. Wendell knew for certain then that he had the right man. Brannis was ever one to pick out the bit to question, needing to satisfy his curiosity above nearly all other concerns.
“Well, I had heard of your exploits. I tracked you down hoping to take you on as an apprentice. Two things had been obvious: you were vastly powerful, and you were dangerously unschooled in magic. I am growing old, and I have a debt to repay my old master. I must pass on his teachings so that his legacy will live on. It seemed a long-odds wager, but I had hoped to find a bewildered young sorcerer in need of mentoring. I had no idea it was you I was seeking out.”
“Would that have made a difference?” Brannis wondered.
Wendell marveled that Brannis’s twin was so single-minded. There were a thousand questions he might have asked, but he doggedly pursued his first line of questioning, and would continue until he had been answered to his satisfaction. He had overheard him do the same thing to Warlock Rashan, and had nearly laughed aloud as he twisted the slippery-tongued demon’s words to get around Rashan’s constant evasions.
“I think so, yes. I had even considered bypassing this opportunity, even after paying dearly for a ship to fetch you off that island. You see, twinborn are troublesome creatures. Not all of them are quite the same person in both worlds. Circumstance and the age they awaken, so to speak, to their knowledge, can affect how much they differ. From what I can infer, you are new to this knowledge, but if you do not mind me saying, you are the very image and equal of Brannis Solaran,” Wendell remarked.
You have no idea, Brannis thought, smiling vaguely enough that he hoped he gave nothing away.
“So why did you, then?” Brannis asked. “There must be some reason. You must realize now that I have no need of a master. I have access to any resource in the Empire, with only a few limitations. I have even learned a trick or two from Rashan.”
“Why would Rashan teach you spells? He must know you cannot cast them. What does he think it accomplishes?” Faolen asked, ignoring Brannis’s question.
“Well, for starters, I seem to have been able to … move … my Source to the other world. You will find that I am not terribly capable as a sorcerer here now, and that I am quite a bit more so back home.” Brannis’s expression did not betray it, but he knew he had slipped in calling Kadrin “home.” He hoped Faolen—or Wendell, as it were—had not noticed.
“Are you serious? I realize your Source is weak, or appears so at the least, but I thought it a mere curiosity that it so closely resembled Brannis’s shabby Source—no offense. No, this is a jape you are having at me. I am too much the magician to take a tale like that at face value. You have some hidden trick to make your Source look weak. I cannot see it, but I can do much the same when I need to,” Wendell rambled, throwing up a wall of skepticism against Brannis’s best “plausible” lie. It obviously needed work.
“Would you believe that I worked a transference spell, and managed to wind up switching places with Brannis?” Brannis ventured. Wendell said nothing. He just raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms before him, and shook his head slowly.
“How about this one? I have no idea what I am doing. I cannot even see my own Source. I have pieced together a few workable spells out of books from the Tower’s libraries, but I cause havoc wherever I use them. For the time being, just assume I am a non-sorcerer; I will not risk burning the ship down while at sea,” Brannis tried.
“I can accept that one for now, I suppose, but I will get you figured out. Not to worry.” Wendell winked at him. “Now since I know you are just going to ask again anyway, I will answer your earlier question. I came to see you because I think you can help me.”
“With?” Brannis pressed.
Wendell was truly a showman, dramatic flair worked its way into his everyday speech, it seemed. He also drew things out, such as the pregnant pause he had just left hanging between them.
“I have found Jinzan Fehr’s son,” Wendell concluded, smiling as he revealed his wondrous news. Brannis seemed less than overwhelmed.
“Do you need me to tell Rashan or something?” Brannis guessed. “I did not know the boy was even missing. Is this somehow related to your search for the Staff of Gehlen? Are you trying to kidnap the boy to trade for the staff?” Brannis could hardly disguise his disgust at the last notion.
“No, not yet.” Wendell paused a moment to replay in his mind the order Brannis asked his questions. “Yes. Certainly not.”
“All right, then, what does this mean, and how do you think to involve me in it?” Brannis relented, taking the bare, literal answers to his badgering as chastisement.
“Well, first off, his son is like us, I have discovered. The boy hears voices in his head. They think him mad, but I was afflicted much the same as him in my youth. My old master, Jurgin, knew the signs, and helped me separate the two worlds in my mind. I know where the boy is, and I intend to pass the gift
along to him as well. It will be a better continuation of Jurgin’s teachings than taking you on as an apprentice ever would have.”
“Very noble of you, certainly. How does this relate to the staff? Is this just a side project for this world?” Brannis was thinking up questions faster than Wendell could answer them. If there was some remote corner of Tellurak that was overflowing with answers because they had run short of questions to pair them with, Wendell suspected Brannis's twin would be to blame.
“The boy stole the staff. He has been leading half the snoops and sorcerers of Zorren on a merry chase for days. He has been using it to kill folk who have tried to apprehend him,” Wendell said.
“But not you,” Brannis put in, playing along with Wendell's drama. Wendell appreciated the opening left to him to continue the story in his own fashion without being sidetracked by yet another question.
“No … not me. I bargained with the boy. I offered my help,” Wendell continued. His eyes had an almost manic earnestness to them. “I will get my apprentice in this world, just as I promised. In the other, I will have the staff when he is ready to give it to me.”
“You are assuming that the boy keeps it long enough for you to win him over. Eventually they are going to catch him and get it back, I would think. You may have hours, maybe days. They could have it back now for all you know,” Brannis said. He did not like Wendell’s plan, it was clear. And why not? It counted on a young boy with a powerful weapon outmaneuvering half a city’s dedicated defenders. Like them or not, the Megrenn showed every sign of being a competent people in the execution of their affairs, both financial and military. The plan was no certain thing.
“A risk, yes. But it is the risk of getting the staff from him or losing it and having to try again; weigh it against an attempt to wrest the staff from him by force or trickery, when failing means death at his hands. I will take the former. I would also have your help,” Wendell said.