Spellshift

by Allen Snell

  “Well, I could try to describe it, but you’ve got a pretty clear view from right here.” Garen turned away from Micah and faced the windy expanse. Beneath their balcony, the rest of Spiredal stretched out, a pristine palace of white stone. The city’s center was still in an uproar trying to house people indoors. There wasn’t a single levitrans in the sky.

  Garen squinted, trying to survey the horizon. Beyond the city walls, hundreds of little estates dotted the countryside. Some were far enough in the distance that he could only see billows of smoke rising. A few were close enough that Garen could see swarms of Apatten. The mass of starving creatures sacked the homes and storehouses for all they could devour.

  “Have we been able to push them back at all?” Garen asked, still taking in the destruction laid out before him.

  “Garen, this is not an invading force we can meet on equal terms. We’re estimating nearly ten thousand of these creatures. We knew about the ransacked villages along the relay, but riders came pouring in for the next two days with reports from more towns. Right now, they’re scattered around Kalyx like a plague, destroying everything they encounter. They have no visible command structure to strike. Just sheer numbers. They would consume Kalyx’s two thousand organized soldiers, guards, and mages if we sent them beyond our fortifications.”

  “But Morgan told you what we learned at Kartik, right? The Apatten go up in flames like dry parchment. And we have a goffing Fire Spellsword now.” Garen felt calm and in control, but he had to shout over the howling wind. He feared Micah would tell him to cool down, but he seemed to understand.

  “We evacuated surrounding townships two days ago. We have everyone south of Helix safely inside the walls. The city is flooded with terrified families, but they’re safe. That’ll give us time to let these Apatten group together before we exploit anything about them.”

  “But Morgan—” Garen insisted.

  “Is one person,” Micah shook his head. “I cannot send her to fight a war for us. We have to learn from our loss of Drake.”

  For the first time, Garen felt the same fear Micah did. Before this week, he’d regarded Naia, Drake, Morgan, and even himself as untouchable. There was no scenario their gifts couldn’t blast their way out of. Aethis changed that for Drake. She took his magic from him and eventually his spirits. Garen would hate to see her do it again before he could stop her.

  “So, we wait for them to strike?” Garen asked. He was still dissatisfied with their outlook, but he assumed there was more planning taking place inside.

  “I’m just waiting for them to come closer. They’re scattered for now, but they’ll have to condense as they collapse toward us. We have a surprise ready to even the odds once the timing is right.”

  A muffled voice spoke from the band on Micah’s wrist. He recognized it as Amiri’s. “If you’ve cooled off, brother, we could use your input.” Micah let out a frustrated sigh, and Garen saw the layers of tension weighing him down. He was impressed how well Micah was handling it.

  They stepped through the double doors of the balcony. A pair of guards swapped places with them. Inside the spacious tower room, a dozen men and women stood around a raised table, locked in conversation. Two figures stood out. They wore leather armor instead of formal robes. Morgan noticed him and smiled. She held up a hand to stop the conversation across the table and stepped toward Garen.

  “I’m glad you made it,” she said, no jest or trace of sarcasm. Her attention turned to Micah before he could respond. “I need you to convince these idiots to hold their air assault until troops either reach the wall or begin to tunnel. They don’t seem to understand the limits of what I’ve put into those geonodes.”

  “I’ll advise as I can, but that decision rests in their hands. If they insist on striking early, convince them they’ll need to secure more or larger geonodes for you. The cost may persuade them more easily than the tactics.”

  Morgan nodded and turned back without wasting another word. Garen slid between the two sisters and leaned against the elevated table. Naia took notice but continued her conversation with an elderly gentleman. She detailed the size limits of barriers she could create. Garen waited for a pause in their conversation. He found one as the man contemplated what she’d described. Garen leaned forward and whispered, “Did Belen come with you?”

  Naia shot him a glare and went back to her conversation. “It’ll be different if they approach near the riverbank. Instead of holding them back, I can wipe them away like a stain. Well, for one side of the city, at least.”

  Garen realized his question was a little out of place, but he didn’t feel like he was asking too much for a “yes” or “no.” A man in a formal blue robe decorated with gold insignias asked Naia a question from across the table. She shrugged and recommended against it.

  Garen tried to lean in closer. “I just want to talk to him before this gets ugly.”

  “Excuse me,” Naia said to the gentlemen and faced Garen with a cold stare. “Please leave. You are not part of this discussion.”

  “It’s alright,” Morgan said. She placed a hand on Garen’s shoulder, guiding him to take a step back. “We left Belen with the Central refugees. You should probably stay with Micah until we know your role in this battle.” Garen looked to them both, confused and a little insulted. Between Naia’s contempt and Morgan’s dismissal, he didn’t feel like a fellow Spellsword. He felt like a child. Garen had spent four days imagining his triumphant entry. Now, they were arranging for his supervision the same way he felt about Belen.

  “Yeah, okay.” Garen folded his hands on top of his head and backed away. He wondered if they could tell how much it bothered him.

  “This way,” Micah spoke over the table, and Garen strolled away from the sisters as casually as he could. He followed Micah into a room that resembled the grand relay chamber at the base of Spiredal. This one had no glowing blue column at its center. Instead, small tables ran along the outer circle of the room. Relay geonodes lit dozens of stations in much smaller pulses of blue light. Scribes sat at each desk. Some patiently waited, others wrote on parchment as quickly as their hands could move.

  “Micah,” Amiri called out from a table in the center of the room. The bearded king sat behind an orderly stack of the reports. He stood as he finished reading one and placed it meticulously onto the stack. Amiri noticed Garen had joined their company, but if it surprised him, he hid it well. “Glad to have you both. I’m in need of assistance.”

  “And we are your most qualified servants?” Micah asked. The bitterness of some prior incident colored his tone.

  “Save the petty jabs until after the war. I promise you are,” Amiri glared.

  Garen could hear Micah holding back his frustrations with long, bated breaths. Micah smiled cordially until Amiri continued. “We’ve still received no message or envoy from the invading force. I won’t have these beasts crash into us without a proper attempt at talking their leader down. Micah, may I request the aid of a Spellsword to help locate someone of rank among the Apatten and escort them to us?”

  Micah looked to Garen and weighed his options heavily. Garen felt like he was standing on one side of the scales. He couldn’t tell what he was being weighed against.

  “If I send you,” Micah began hesitantly, “you will make me a promise. This is not the kind of promise I will ever forgive if broken. Do you understand?”

  “Everything except for what you want,” Garen tried to lighten his mood.

  Micah was resolute. “You will attempt to find someone leading the Apatten, someone capable of delivering their intentions and demands. You will not engage them in battle for any reason. If they become hostile, you will retreat and return to us.”

  “I understand,” Garen said, hoping it would appease his lack of trust.

  “I need more than your understanding. I need your promise.” Micah insisted.

  It didn’t make sense why Micah valued his word. Garen knew his reputation, especially how unreliable Naia tho
ught he was. Still, there was no avoiding the demand. “I promise.”

  Amiri arranged for a small levitrans to meet him at the balcony. He wished Garen the best of luck. Reluctance in Micah’s voice betrayed the meaning, but he said the well-worn words regardless. “You have my full confidence. Stay safe.”

  Garen flew out of the city and kept the levitrans high above the ground. He leaned over the frame looking out at the countryside. On a cloudless day like today, he could filter in light all the way from the ground while remaining a speck in the sky. So far, he saw nothing but clusters of Apatten swarming the fields. At this distance, they practically looked human. The creatures were much less imposing when they weren’t towering over him with their stone-and-ash skin and their glowing purple eyes.

  “Garen,” a voice spoke into his ear. He snapped his head to see who was suddenly in the levitrans with him. The adjacent seat was still empty. He searched in every direction and found nothing. It was possible he was simply hearing the spirits. But the male voice wasn’t raspy enough to be Ampelis.

  “Garen,” it said again. “If that’s you up there…I need your help.” It was the sound of a weary and beaten man. The tone was familiar, but his strain made it hard to place. “There’s an estate you passed over. Meet me there.” Garen turned the levitrans around immediately. He was increasingly certain he recognized the voice.

  It had to be Drake. He tried not to get his hopes up. The same wind magic that could speak on the wind might be able to fool him, too.

  Garen was willing to risk being lured into a trap if it meant knowing who was responsible. He landed at the stone stairs leading up to the estate’s entrance. One of the wooden double doors creaked open. A timid, solemn expression peered through it. His straight brown hair was disheveled. His red tunic and silver cloak were covered in dirt. But Drake was alive.

  Chapter 31

  Garen rushed up the steps. Drake motioned him inside the vacant estate but kept his distance. Garen wanted to embrace his friend. The overfamiliar, hugging personality he’d seen in Drake lately was gone. Garen tried to mirror the cautious expression, but as he spoke, he couldn’t contain the excitement he felt. “I thought you were dead!”

  Drake nodded. “Because I didn’t return.”

  “Well, yeah,” Garen said, “and I looked for your soul’s thread in the Spirit Realm. I could have sworn it wasn’t there. I guess I’m still new at this.”

  Drake gave his words twice as much consideration as usual. The pause was unnerving. “There could be more to it than that.”

  “Like what?” Garen asked. “Don’t tell me you’re back from the dead. Unless that happened, then definitely tell me.”

  “No,” Drake said. “I’ve been alive…in most ways. But I’m worried I gave Therov too much control for a while. And it’s getting harder to separate his thoughts from mine.”

  Garen didn’t have any trouble matching Drake’s expression of dread, now. “What do you mean ‘control’? Why would you give anyone—?”

  “I don’t mean full control,” Drake cut him off. “I don’t think that’s possible. But there are feats of magic Therov can achieve that I can’t. He was the one who told me he could revitalize the Western soil. All I had to do was show up and let him do the work.”

  Garen wanted to yell at Drake again for listening to the spirit, but he actually knew the kind of control Drake was talking about. He’d let Kallista work the healing magic in his body, even while he slept. She’d never tried to control anything outside of his body, though. Garen wondered what he would have said if she’d asked.

  “I wasn’t a fool,” Drake continued. “I tested how easy it was to take back control of that gate. And until this week, I had no trouble.”

  A thought clicked in Garen’s head. “Is that how you lost your spirits? Did they choose another host on their own?”

  Drake squinted in confusion. “I have both the Wind and the Earth Spirit, Garen. No one has taken them.”

  Garen questioned all he’d seen in Kartik. The earth magic was on an impossible scale for anyone but a Spellsword. That magic had guided the Apatten through tunnels and crushed dozens of Centralians in the fray of battle. “How could you still have them? Aethis told me…”

  “You shouldn’t worry about her. She answers to me, now.”

  Garen’s spine stiffened. “That doesn’t make any sense. Then why are the Apatten here?”

  “Because I commanded them to,” Drake answered, less hesitant than before. “I’m using Aethis and the Apatten just like I wanted to use Sarkos. We can force Amiri’s hand this way. It’s no different than before.”

  Garen felt the dryness in his throat. “And it was a terrible idea then. You can’t control an army this size. You saw what they did on their way here. You saw what they did in…” Garen tensed up, aware the eyes he was looking into had created that disaster “…Kartik.”

  Drake didn’t share the growing horror. His boldness compensated for Garen’s fading calm. “You don’t know how restrained I kept them in the West, how many resources I spent to keep them hidden and fed. My only regret is the pillaging they needed to survive on a march across the kingdoms.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have done it!” Garen shouted. “Why would you keep that from us?”

  Drake maintained his bold frown. “I knew how Micah felt about it. He thinks we’ll find another way to convince the guild to end their crimes. He didn’t grow up watching the greed and stubbornness of my family. He didn’t spend the last year pretending to have obligations back east to spy on the guild and expose them someday. I’ve known all along it would take an army to bend their knees. I don’t know why everyone else is so hesitant to use exactly what we need, and a soulless sacrifice at that.”

  Garen was shaking. “I don’t care that they’re soulless! I marched two hundred soldiers with very real souls to their death fighting them. And I can’t count the lives they’ve ruined along their path. How can you think it’s worth it?”

  Roles reversed. As Garen’s tone pushed, Drake withdrew a little. He stared at the ground as he answered. “I’ve tried to weigh the costs. A tragedy of lives at once or the ongoing cost of slavery? I thought I’d be willing to pay anything.” Drake took a deep breath. “But Kartik was a revelation to me. I realized I wasn’t the one paying. You were laying down your life. And for me, no less. Despite my obsessions and how much I kept telling myself I’d do anything, I couldn’t imagine doing the same. It was the first time I recognized how many justifications in my head weren’t my own.”

  “You should have told me,” Garen said, far more sympathetic than he wanted to be. But he realized this was the best outcome he could ask for. Drake was aware of the outside influence, and that would make it easier to convince him to accept help. “I thought we had more time, but we need to get that spirit out of you, now.”

  Drake shifted uncomfortably. “I think we have higher priorities to deal with than my soul. There are a lot more lives at stake. I need a friend, someone Therov can’t influence, to stand by me and keep me in check while we finish this.”

  “Finish this?” Garen wanted to overturn every piece of furniture in sight to show his frustration. “Drake! I’m not helping you march those creatures any closer!”

  “Is leaving truly an option?” Drake had the look of a rancid taste in his mouth. “You’d throw away every sacrifice that brought us here?”

  “If it means getting you back, then yeah, I might.”

  “You have to understand,” Drake said, “that you’re not just choosing to save me. You’re saving me instead of the slaves in that tower. Would you make that trade? Their lives for mine?”

  Garen tried to swallow the stone in his throat. “We shouldn’t have to choose.”

  “But we will,” Drake said with conviction. “I’m willing to give up my life and my sanity to set them free. You taught me that in Kartik.”

  Garen hated the options. Nothing felt right about helping Drake use the Apatten. And yet,
a voice of reason whispered in the back of his mind. There was so much to be gained. He imagined setting the starved prisoner he’d met free. He could picture Belen running to embrace his sister. If Drake was right, the threat of invasion might be the least bloody way to free them.

  Garen probed for more information as cautiously as he could. “What is it you want to do?”

  “Amiri thinks he’s safe behind his walls. It’s his smug sense of superiority we have to break through. We need to show him how real our threat is. Once I open a breach for the Apatten to pour through, he’ll negotiate much differently. That’s when we make our demands.”

  “I don’t think it’ll be that easy,” Garen warned. “They have an abundance of defenses prepared.”

  Drake shook his head. “That’s why I had to bring every Apatten Sarkos created. Their crossbows can take down as many as they please. I know there will be plenty of Apatten left standing to instill a proper fear.”

  “I don’t just mean crossbowmen along the wall. You’re facing Naia head on in a river city. And Morgan—”

  “No!” Drake’s eyes went wide. “She’s here?”

  Garen suddenly didn’t know what he should share, but he had an overwhelming question. “Does she know about any of these plans?”

  Drake tugged at a fistful of his own hair and mumbled nervously. “She had every reason to stay. I was so careful. I gave her everything. She didn’t want it. She doesn’t want me.”

  Garen took a step toward him. “Are you kidding? Drake, you asked her to marry you, and she practically said yes! How much clearer does that get?”

  Drake shook his head until it became a full body shudder. “It was the boldness of Therov that let me ask her. She never wanted my cowardice.” Drake bent down and pressed both hands against his head. “He’s doing it again. I can’t keep reliving that pointless memory!”

  Garen took hold of Drake’s arms and pulled them away from his head. Drake didn’t stop flailing. It was the struggles of a child, not the trained fighter he expected. Drake’s face was contorted in pain. Garen couldn’t think of anything to say that would snap him out of it. So, he used his fist. Garen rapped him against the temple hard enough to daze him but held him standing in place. Drake stared back in shock.