by T. A. Miles
Korsten stood in the doorway, observing the loneliness of the room for the moment. No one else was present. Merran was the only occupant, and he was currently asleep. Crossing the room, Korsten half-considered getting into Merran’s bed with him, and simply lying by his side. Once at the bedside, however, he merely stood over his partner and looked upon his quiet features. Visually, he traced the shape of Merran’s mouth, the strong line of his jaw, the set of his brow, and the gentle shapes of his eyelids.
Eventually, he knelt down and leaned over to kiss those eyelids. They did not so much as flutter, which might have alarmed Korsten, except that he had suspected upon entering that Merran’s sleep was induced by spell. He was far too still and the bedding around him far too ordered. When naturally unconscious, Merran preferred to make a mess of things.
Sighing, Korsten began the task of looking his partner over more closely for sign of injury. He knew the most prominent damage anyone had mentioned had been to Merran’s hand, but he saved looking at that for last. A part of him disbelieved that such an injury would require this. The rest of him feared that, for Merran’s role, such an injury might have been the absolute most dire, beyond one that was literally a threat to his very life.
Finally, Korsten’s eyes found Merran’s bandaged hand, and he simply looked at it. He placed his fingertips on the bandaging gingerly, and a sting of tears assailed the edges of his eyes while it struck him that Merran’s state might well have been very severe, emotionally, for Merran. What if his ability to perform as a priest had been compromised beyond repair?
Korsten’s fingers began to slide around Merran’s, and then the sensation of presence in the doorway drew his gaze over his shoulder. The figure of resplendence, stood there in the gloomy light of a room barely occupied, captured Korsten’s breath for more reasons than one and none which allowed themselves to be isolated in the moment.
“Ashwin,” he whispered. He felt a renewed sensation of helplessness then, and simultaneously of elation as he hadn’t felt in years.
“I never tire of your entrances, my dear,” the patriarch said with the lightest of smiles.
In spite of the immense reconnection Korsten had felt with his return to Cenily and to his father, being once again within the walls of the Vassenleigh Citadel reminded him where home had come to be for him. He belonged at Vassenleigh, among the ranks of its priests.
The spectral invitations from his mother attempted to immediately contradict that thought by drifting back to the foreground of his mental landscape. It replayed several recent moments for him, rapidly and effectively enough that he almost began to doubt his having come to the Vassenleigh Order, which was naturally ridiculous. It may have been in regard to these frequent visions that he was especially justified in returning to Vassenleigh, and to his mentor.
“I anticipate that you have much to talk about,” Ashwin said while they walked, and aptly. The Superior did not anticipate; he knew. He knew because he was an empath of the highest rank among those priests whose talents fell to green on the Spectrum. And he also knew because he was as adept at detecting Korsten’s mental and emotional shifts, with or without his talents, as was anyone who knew Korsten well. Thirdly, Korsten at times wondered whether or not their initial spell-touch had remained active all these years and if that didn’t assist the depth and precision of Ashwin’s insights.
Whether or not it had or did, Ashwin gave no indication in either expression or word.
“There is much,” Korsten eventually confirmed to his mentor. He caught himself studying the splendor of the patriarch’s profile and gave his gaze instead to the stories’ tall passages of the Vassenleigh Citadel.
Ornate architecture vaulted overhead in warm tones that reminded him of the caves the citadel had sprung from, at first by nature and then by the hands of men. Men had constructed the sanctum for priests, inspired by the work of the gods. There were a great many instances of such inspiration in Edrinor, he was finding.
“Where shall you begin?” Ashwin wondered aloud.
Korsten had been delaying, yes. He drew in a breath, let it out evenly, then allowed his instinct to choose the beginning topic. “How is Merran?”
“For the most part, he’s in good health,” Ashwin replied, his expression suggesting that perhaps he might have simply begun there himself.
Korsten couldn’t feel remiss for that. His sentiments toward those he loved were never a secret, to anyone.
“You’ve noticed his hand, of course,” Ashwin continued. “And you’re naturally worried about it. It is due cause for worry; I don’t blame you.”
“Will it affect his ability to perform his duties to the Vassenleigh Order?” Korsten asked next, though it was likely the next answer Ashwin would have given regardless.
As if to acknowledge that thought and call for patience, the Superior’s hand lifted to Korsten’s arm and stayed there while he gave his words on the matter. “If left as it is, it would. It has been badly maimed and the blood flow is poor. As we all know, a lack of blood flow is a lack of magic flow as well.”
“Yes,” Korsten said. “So, the hand is virtually dead.”
Before the worded notion could distress him too far, Ashwin’s fingers pressed gently against his arm. “Virtually,” the elder said. “But it is not completely lost. We have hope, and a plan to put into action that will involve Ceth’s ingenuity.”
“Ceth?” Korsten considered the bead of magic element in his hand in the precise moment Ashwin’s hand slid down to join his. They turned his palm up together.
And Ashwin said, “Precisely.”
Korsten didn’t grasp Ceth’s capabilities in any precise way, but he had working experience with it, and it gave him hope for Merran.
“Now, I believe there’s another matter pressing,” Ashwin continued. “That being Song.”
Korsten realized that Ashwin had left his hand with him when his fingers tensed around it. “I scarcely know where to begin. It manifested such a short time ago, but it’s led to so much…”
Ashwin brought them to a stop in the passage, turning toward Korsten. “We all suspected you would come to this level of Allurance and that the talent for Song would follow suit. It’s no surprise to us. It gave you sway over an archdemon.”
Korsten nodded, presuming that Merran had told as much as he could about the matter before being put under Eisleth’s Sleep spell. “Yes,” he said. “And the lesser beasts come to me, like children. They…”
He became suddenly conscious of two other priests travelling the corridor and stopped himself.
Ashwin kept his green eyes on his student.
Korsten lowered his gaze and his voice. “They insist that I am a master over them.”
“The influence you have over them is powerful, Korsten,” Ashwin told him. “The weaker ones will submit to it easily, completely if allowed.”
“I can’t allow that,” Korsten said immediately, partly out of fear, but also partly out of the elusive sensation of pity that came and went whenever he was faced with such control over demons. He remembered them taking up his fight before, and then being destroyed by Serawe. The ancient demon cared nothing for them and they were too enthralled by Siren to care anything for themselves. As well he did continue to consider Adrea’s fate. What use could he be if he too became overpowered by his own spell?
Ashwin’s hand slipped beneath Korsten’s chin and the patriarch lifted his face. “It would be exceptionally dangerous to do so,” he said firmly. And then he lowered his hand onto Korsten’s shoulder and directed them down the passage again.
“I have dreams of them,” Korsten said after a few steps had been taken.
Ashwin nodded. “Adrea did also.”
“They speak to me.”
“Yes,” Ashwin replied. “They will. The ancient one did as well, did it not?”
“It did,” Korsten confirmed.
Ashwin’s eyes narrowed. Eventually he asked, “And what did it call itself?”
Korsten felt an uncomfortable weight with that question, and with his answer. “Her name was Serawe.”
“Serawe was a legend that began on the mainland.” Ashwin walked the lower library floor with a heavy book open in his arms while he spoke. “Caras was considered the Fire of the Depths, a beast of the Pit of Hell who challenged the Malakym of the Greater World.”
Korsten visualized his previous dream of the spirits of the sea. He listened to Ashwin’s telling from one of his comfort places—the spiraling library stair—where he occupied several steps while he leaned back, one elbow on the step behind him with his other arm draped across his middle. He’d hung his jacket on the railing beside him and from behind it, he watched Ashwin come in and out of view while the Superior was pacing slowly across the floor.
“This beast,” Ashwin continued, “had no fear of consequence and was, in fact, driven to greater transgressions by the imposition of consequence on it. It was chaotic and destructive; a force bent on overrunning this world and marching on to the one beyond it.”
“The Heavens,” Korsten said. “Is that what she was after?”
“Perhaps,” Ashwin replied. “It depends on one’s perspective of legend in relation to the factual events of our past.”
“History,” Korsten summarized. He recalled that at one time, he would have resorted to that first. With what he had witnessed lately, he didn’t feel foolish over the fact that he hadn’t. It was plain that history and legend were twin siblings.
If the world were a body, Edrinor and Morenne are twins...the lungs...one damaged and the other decaying.
The similarities between their current conversation and the one he had dreamt of having were unsettling.
“Yes,” Ashwin said, making no acknowledgment of Korsten’s internal considerations. “Much of this is a colorful reference to the beginning of our millennia war.”
Korsten had been intermittently rotating his ankle while he sat with one leg draped over the other. The motion stopped at the mention of thousands of years. His mind had been revolving around a century, their one-hundred-year war with Morenne. He realized quickly that Ashwin was referring to the many more years during which…the gods had been in conflict with one another?
“Mythology,” Ashwin said, perhaps to ease Korsten’s overactive subconscious.
“Yes, of course,” Korsten replied, without tremendous commitment to the concession. “Well, Serawe certainly fit her mythological counterpart, based upon what you’ve read.”
“I imagine that she did,” Ashwin said in return, and closed the book. Holding the tome in both hands, he looked up at Korsten on the steps. “How did you defeat her?”
Korsten hesitated to give his answer with any remorse, but he couldn’t help that some shred of it was present anyway. “The Siren spell. I lulled her and her followers, and took them out to sea.”
“By Reach?” Ashwin guessed correctly.
Korsten nodded. “Reach has become a peculiar reflex as of late. It only seems to require an unconscious connection between where I am and where I believe I want to go, or feel that I need to be.”
Ashwin studied him. And then he said, “You must work on that.”
“I know,” Korsten answered in earnest. He did know, and he meant very much to get control of the spell.
“Once again, you’re fortunate to have survived.”
“Isn’t that always the way, for every priest?”
Ashwin chided him very mildly with his expression and a small tilt of his head, just before he moved to return the book in his arms to its proper shelf.
Korsten didn’t apologize. Instead he waited silently in the absence of the vision of his mentor. In that span, he thought about the Reach to the ocean, the demise of Serawe, the conversation with spirits, and washing up on the shores of Cenily.
“Ashwin,” he began before his mentor returned into his plane of vision.
“Yes, dearheart?”
Korsten smiled a little at that. The expression wouldn’t hold while his mind and heart continued to be held by the recent past, however. He nearly told Ashwin in that moment that he’d encountered Sethaniel, but it seemed suddenly both too personal and irrelevant to mention. He said instead, “I came across Lerissa…and Sharlotte.”
Ashwin issued no immediate response that could be heard or seen by Korsten. Korsten feared he had reopened a wound, but it wasn’t as if talk of Sharlotte could be avoided now. She currently played a very active role in the fight for Indhovan, which was one of their greatest concerns. He reminded himself of that and still sat hesitant in Ashwin’s silence.
But then the patriarch stepped into his view. The beautiful elder’s expression was difficult to read, perhaps a mix of concern and gladness.
“They both stayed in Indhovan,” Korsten decided to say, looking into the depths of his mentor’s green gaze. “They’re both contributing to the battle. We need more priests there; that’s why I came back.”
Ashwin’s gaze had become somewhat distant while he digested the first part of Korsten’s statement. With the second, he looked at Korsten once again. “The western front has been under constant siege for weeks,” he said and the grave worth of that information was not lost.
Still…
Ashwin continued, “Still…it would do us no good to maintain one front and lose the other.”
Korsten agreed silently.
During that silence, an Apprentice arrived in her orderly layers of gray. “Lord Ashwin, the Council has gathered.”
“Thank you,” Ashwin said to the girl. And to Korsten, he held out his hand. “Come along, my dear. There’s much to be discussed and decided upon.”
Once again, Korsten stood in the presence of the twelve highest among the priests. Among them, he could only claim to be familiar or well acquainted with four of them. While it only seemed appropriate, given the nature of the Superiors’ duties over a body that greatly outnumbered them, he couldn’t help but to wonder of their deeper personalities and their relationships with their individual students, and among each other.
Jeselle had always appeared the most austere of them, her black hair and robes against her porcelain skin giving her a statuesque look. Her silver-light eyes were sharp when they looked upon an individual, as if she looked upon the soul itself.
“The city of Indhovan is currently under attack,” Jeselle said to her colleagues. She often was the one to lead and mediate their meetings. “To the west, South Meadows remains direly threatened by the incessant onslaught of the enemy. To the north, smaller towns and villages are being steadily corrupted and annexed into the borderlands. Morenne’s strategy is to smother the strength and the very life out of Edrinor. At this rate, they will succeed.”
Korsten withheld his urge to comment, understanding that the Superior’s words were merely an introduction to the topic. The direness of the situation could not be pressed enough.
It was then that Ashwin extended a hand in Korsten’s direction. He said, “One of our Adepts has returned from Indhovan, with news not only of the grim state the city is in, but also of the presence of two Adepts, who had at one time selected a path separate of the Order’s. By Korsten’s account, it would seem they have realigned with us. I speak of Priests Lerissa and Sharlotte.”
“Sharlotte,” Jeselle began in a stringent tone, “was voluntarily banished from this institution for dangerous antagonism toward a fellow priest.”
Ashwin nodded. “Voluntarily,” he reminded.
Jeselle was unmoved by the point. “She very nearly murdered a priest—your student.”
Korsten held himself as still as he could manage, both externally and internally. The external aspect was far easier. That meant that it was likely only one of the Superiors who immediately detected his unhappiness with the direction of the topic.
“Might we also remind you that you were not among her sympathizers during the inquest,” another of the Council said. Gwythanis, a man wearing intricately graduated tones of blue. His
hair was a bodied mane of black that gave him a fierce, yet mysterious aspect.
“At the time of her questioning, she exhibited no remorse and further intent to harm,” Ashwin said in reminder. “It would have been irresponsible of me, in my position, both personal and official, to show lenience. Her choice that day, and any day, had to be both voluntary and sincere. I believe that her current efforts in Indhovan demonstrate her current intent, which is to rejoin the Vassenleigh Order’s cause and to renege on her hostility toward another priest.”
“I agree with that,” Korsten put in, whether or not he was expected or even invited to speak just yet. He was the victim they were speaking of and he did not feel that Sharlotte had any further interest in harming him. Stepping away from designs to murder did not require her to be fond of him. In evidence, he offered what seemed the most important. “She worked alongside me in Indhovan, and protected me from an assailant. If she still harbored a dangerous grudge, there would have been her opportunity.”
A brief silence captured the hall.
It was Ceth who practically waved it and the current interrogation from the air with word and gesture. “That’s sufficient for me, and it should be for all of us. We are in need of allies and especially, we are in need of priests. Sharlotte is a tested warrior. She should never have gone to begin with, though I understand the circumstances that led to her break from us. I maintained the opinion throughout the recent years that it was hoped, if not expected for it to be temporary.”
Korsten felt his lips turn upward only a little. He realized just then that Vlas had very much taken after his mentor, as had Lerissa. Oddly enough, it was Eisleth who noticed Korsten’s mild expression in that moment, and looked at him. Ashwin’s darker-toned sibling shared none of the sentiment Korsten currently felt. By Eisleth’s expression, he was decidedly dissatisfied with something. As it wasn’t typically so plain to tell such things with Eisleth, Korsten felt immediately curious and concerned. He couldn’t help glancing to Ceth over the timing of it, and when he looked to Eisleth again, the Superior’s focus had gone elsewhere and his expression had gone placid once again. Korsten was accustomed to seeing that, but it did nothing to ease his mind.