by T. A. Miles
“In Adrea’s case,” Jeselle said. “She might have crossed too many thresholds, too quickly, and after too great a period with many of her talents laying barely Ambient while she learned. There was too much for her to take in when it finally came, and in spite of her ability to tap into such power, it was too much to maintain. It overwhelmed her.”
A note of depression had Ashwin agree in silence. The Vadryn were drawn to her, and had killed her. It had happened to others before her. Realizing that made him want to rethink his previous conclusions. Perhaps Allurance and Song were not inviting at all, but daring. Defying the ability for anyone to touch them at all. It may have been that such talents were in actuality not to be mastered, or tamed. But they were accessible. If they were accessible through Emergence, then they were tools provided by the Spectrum.
Jeselle’s voice brought him back to the conversation at hand. “And now Korsten has traveled his course as quickly, if not quicker. He has crossed the same boundaries.”
“But he’s gone further,” Ashwin said. “He’s drawn the notice of three archdemons, and survived.”
“Three archdemons?” Jeselle inquired.
Ashwin nodded once. A vision of last night’s dream wraiths passed across his mind before he said, “Caras—or Serawe to the people of the coastal realm—had taken up residence on an island. It was taken in by Korsten’s Siren spell and expunged by him afterward.”
“He expunged an archdemon?” The disbelief in Jeselle’s voice was clear and understandable. It was an ordeal for any of them at that table to bring the most ancient demons down to that degree, to virtual non-existence. The demons could reform, but it was such a lengthy process that it removed them as a threat in a crucial way, sometimes for generations. The demons knew that, and they fought viciously when they were old enough or powerful enough to recognize their age and their power.
“Song diminishes their will to fight,” Ceth determined.
“Possibly,” Jeselle said of his theory.
“It draws them,” Eisleth said. “Allurance is a resonating energy from the blood. It lures the Vadryn to the blood itself. Paired with Song, whether Dormant, Ambient, or Resonant, it attracts to the spirit as well. I submit that it draws them with unspoken promise, the glimpse of a soul that it wants to recognize as somehow kindred.”
The words drew an immediate frown from Ashwin. “Kindred?”
“Yes,” Eisleth replied. “I believe that Song is the same as speaking to the Vadryn in their own language.”
“And that forms the beginning of a deeper connection than attraction,” Ceth considered. “But when they are drawn near enough, they find that the priest is no relation to them.”
“And murders them,” Ashwin said. “Is that how you believe it happens?”
“It’s a fitting theory,” Eisleth replied. “With what we know of the red talents, and what we’ve seen of both Allurance and Song…”
“You yourself have Allurance as a talent, brother,” Ashwin reminded.
“On only the merit of the blood itself, and of my understanding of its energy currents and my natural synergy with that aspect of the Spectrum. It enables me to translate others as does your Empathy, but it does not speak to the souls of others, or to demons. It stops well before the manifestation of Song.”
Ashwin knew that, but he was reluctant to leap to conclusions all the same.
“Remember Ecland,” Jeselle said calmly. “He also had a strong talent for Allurance, and while we did not witness Song or the possibility for the Siren spell in his Emergence, it was nearer in that direction than it was to Eisleth’s.”
“Ecland became associated with the Vadryn easily,” Eisleth reminded all of them. “And he betrayed us. Easily.”
“We don’t know that it wasn’t a struggle for him,” Ashwin said, casting a less patient eye on his brother at that last remark. “However, I do see your point. It can invite the Vadryn and leave the priest dangerously exposed.”
“Ecland must have given in,” Ceth said. “While Adrea fought. In either case, incompatibility was the ultimate problem.”
“Incompatibility?” Ashwin could not be settled with the tone of this discussion, no matter how he tried to be. “Are you suggesting that a priest with such talents might be compatible with the Vadryn?”
“I believe Ceth meant that the priests have been incompatible with their talents,” Jeselle mediated.
“But imagine if one were to be compatible with the Vadryn,” Eisleth carried on, in spite of mediation.
“I would have imagined that to be Ecland, since he joined their cause.”
“He had no control over his relationship with them. He was controlled by them.”
“I can’t help but to feel that you don’t know whether or not that’s true.”
“Regardless of whether or not it is,” Jeselle inserted with a sterner tone, one that reminded them they verged upon fighting with one another. “Regardless of anything that’s true or isn’t in this conversation…Korsten is at risk, be it of Vadryn control over him or of death. We submitted to pushing him toward seeing his talents to Resonance, all of them.”
“Suppression of talents, especially where red or white are concerned is harmful to the priest potential,” Eisleth reiterated, to remind them of their conversation decades ago, their first such discussion over one of their youngest Priest-Adepts.
And that was what reminded Ashwin to be more at ease over all of this. “White,” he said to his colleagues. “That’s where he differs from Ecland and Adrea, and any of his predecessors in this specific matter. He’s chosen to focus on white as a secondary medium. White has opened him up to Will as a talent, one which has Resonated. Spiritual resilience is in his favor.”
Jeselle nodded as the near past was recalled. “That was what we determined initially, and why he was assigned to you, Ashwin. However, he is still at tremendous risk and through him we all may be, if we don’t find a way to better grasp all that his talents entail. I think it for the best that he returned. I suggest that we don’t send him back out into the field right away.”
Ashwin did not feel compelled to argue that. In fact, he agreed with it. “He’s been having disturbing dreams since Caras, of the manifesting type.”
“Wraiths?” Ceth said for clarification.
Ashwin nodded. “I think it’s best to let him fully recover from that encounter.”
A brief period of silence settled with that determination. They were all agreed, for the most part.
Eventually, Jeselle brought another subject forward. “It may come that Vassenleigh is attacked directly once again. The war surges to either side of us and our losses have been heavy. We know that the Vadryn will not stop until they return to the Source and once more attempt to take it.” Her light eyes met with Ashwin’s gaze purposefully. “In spite of all that has happened and how any of this has come to be, it was you who stopped them claiming that a century ago. Whatever fault you believe you had that day, it was rectified in that moment. Our losses then were catastrophic, but yet Edrinor survives.” Her gaze moved over all of them. “It must continue to survive. That is our goal. A new era will come, as new eras have come in the past. We cannot allow the tone to be one of oppression and of darkness.”
“We’ve moved the Source from the Old Capital,” Ceth said. “I suspect the Vadryn know that.”
“Not all of it,” Ashwin said to Ceth.
Ceth appeared reasonably confused. “I assisted in its transfer myself.”
“Not all of it.” Though the words had come from Eisleth this time, they sounded the same to Ceth undoubtedly, and they garnered the same expression from him.
And now Jeselle sat back in her seat. Her fine black eyebrows lifted marginally and she looked sharply at each of them, though there was a note of suppressed dread behind her eyes. “What have you two kept secret from us?”
And that was perhaps the most important question she could have asked them.
In the wake of the b
attle’s unexpected conclusion, Vlas sat upon the slope observing the spread of bodies and the inlet below them. The water was clouded with the movement of soldiers across it, and with the reflection of an overcast sky.
“We’re quite glad that you arrived,” Lerissa said over her shoulder to their ally—the Priest-Adept and warrior answered to the name Evin—while she collected bolts that were retrievable from the steep hillside.
“It’s only because I’ve been to this city before that I was able to Reach here and assist so quickly after my mentor’s request,” Evin replied, standing beside his horse—a brown steed with black mane and tail. “I brought another with me. We each took a separate path from the Treir house, following the sights and sounds of the battle.”
“We’re glad you did,” Vlas said. He was also glad for the Treir family’s hospitality over the years. “Are more of us coming?”
“There will be others,” Evin promised. “They’ll set off conventionally from Vassenleigh at first, as messengers to priests in the field. As they’re found, they’ll be instructed to come here or to return to Vassenleigh for reassignment to the western front.”
“All right, well we’d best be keeping at it then,” Lerissa said, slipping the recaptured silver darts into their assigned slots at her belt. “We have an unusual Morennish magic user on our hands, as you’ve seen.”
“They’re not so unusual in battle,” Evin told them. “They’ve been referred to as plague carriers by people in the north.”
“Plague carriers?” Vlas questioned, looking up at him.
Evin returned the look, and nodded. “They supposedly use their near empty vessels to stow several lesser beasts among the Vadryn, unleashing the demons upon vulnerable populations, or in this instance onto a battlefield.”
“So, when he took them in, he was replenishing his cargo,” Vlas said.
“Yes,” Lerissa replied, making sense of it easily. “And that’s why the sudden purge of the soldiers, to both release demons from his own men since they weren’t accomplishing what he wanted them to and also to supply more life energy to the dislodged demons.”
Vlas made sense of it easily as well, and found it wholly disturbing. “What an uncomfortable spell.”
“There tend not to be more than one or two of them in any given area,” Evin offered, perhaps in consolation or perhaps simply to inform them. He seemed a relatively straightforward individual. “Their own method can tend to disagree with them.”
“I imagine it so,” Vlas said, then sighed and pushed himself to his feet. “Let’s regroup, then, shall we?”
Sleep was had very minimally. Deitir had no actual desire to be asleep during the siege on the city, but he did understand that he could not serve Indhovan with no rest at all. Knowing that, and with assistance from a spell Cayri had cast to help calm him emotionally, he took rest for only a brief time. Returning to the office, he could see that his officers seemed to have done the same, whether or not it came with assistance from their near-resident priest. He hoped that the troops engaged had also found some method to replenish their stamina.
“Governor,” Fersmyn greeted upon his arrival, and the others followed through with similar acknowledgments. He couldn’t be disturbed by how swiftly the transition had gone from his father, only because the hour commanded it so. Discord among them now would be their end.
“The withdrawal of the Morennish forces at the east side of the city seems to still be in effect,” Fersmyn informed.
Deitir took the morning information with a nod, one which transferred to Cayri as he stepped by her on his way to the side table and the breakfast offered there.
“Their ships are still in the harbor,” Alledar continued.
Deitir loathed the picture that came to his mind of them looming in the morning light, reengaging themselves for further strikes against the city with their damnable fire tactics. He shook the image from his mind. “What of the wall?” he asked.
“Our forces held,” Fersmyn answered. “If by peculiar circumstances.”
Deitir turned from the plate he was preparing for himself to look at the officer. “What do you mean?”
Fersmyn referred him to Cayri with a nod.
“There was a magic user present on the Morenne side, I’ve been told,” she explained. “The individual was inciting the Vadryn against us by spell, though it came with consequence for Morenne.”
“The sacrifice of a large measure of their own men,” Alledar confirmed, seeming both startled—though the news was not news to him—and also morbidly satisfied with the idea.
Deitir could relate to that sentiment as he was feeling something similar himself.
“It cost some of ours as well,” Fersmyn continued.
“Two other priests have also arrived in the city,” Cayri informed. “One assisted at the wall and the other has ventured to provide support at the waterfront.”
“And Korsten?” Deitir asked, not entirely certain or willing to consider why the white-clad priest leaped to the front of his thoughts so immediately. “Did he return with them?”
“No,” Cayri answered.
Deitir didn’t really have much more response to that than to nod. Again, he wasn’t entirely certain why he asked beyond the matter’s strategic worth. Except that it also crossed his mind that Master Brierly might be disappointed by that. Or perhaps he wouldn’t. Perhaps he was resigned to the likeliness that he would not see his son again before all of this was over. Or at all.
“We must replenish our forces at the wall,” Fersmyn pressed. And rightly; it was an urgent matter. Deitir knew.
“We’ll do so with civilians, if we must,” Deitir told the elder, “but it will be done.”
“Civilians have been accepting arms from the constabulary,” Alledar said. “I doubt we’ll have any trouble getting them to fight for their homes.”
“That’s good,” Deitir commented. He completed a small plate and carried it to the main table, looking over the room, primarily of his own officers; it seemed that the manor’s guests and his mother had retreated to obtain better rest. “Let’s see it done,” he said to his officers.
Cayri looked at him, and he back at her. There wasn’t a smile on her lovely face, but he could still see support for him there. He hadn’t slipped so far as he felt he had been immediately after his father’s passing. He would do his best to continue to hold his head above water, no matter how erratically or violently it churned.
The night had been long and stressful. Oshand felt certain that Morenne had been making its clinching move when the guard tower was destroyed. He rushed to rejoin another unit, suspecting that he might not get there or that when he did he would find the location destroyed as well, or overrun with Morennish soldiers. But it wasn’t. They had yet to experience another direct assault as what had been set against the tower. Everyone waited restlessly after Morenne’s retreat, assuming that it was a ploy of some kind. Sleep was not to be had, though Oshand had tried on his rotation. It wasn’t until the morning meal that he learned that it had been the work of priests that had seen to the destruction of weapons the enemy had brought to shore. And it was that which inspired Morenne to draw back.
Unfortunately, all it could do for their own forces was to give them the opportunity to catch their breath. They had no reinforcements. Oshand felt that Morenne hadn’t even revealed all that they had brought with them yet.
An older man whom Oshand didn’t recognize immediately seated himself beside him at the table. After taking a longer look at his features, he recalled him from the governor’s manor. He recalled him with an injured arm. Now there was no trace of any such detriment.
“What is our plan of action?” the elder asked him.
Oshand looked up from his plate of morning meat and buttered bread. “It’s still in consideration,” he said. That was true, and not. He was still considering and had not come up with anything yet.
“We should take advantage of the lull,” Firard suggested.
“Yes, but how? We don’t have enough information.”
Firard nodded, but it was only to acknowledge the statement Oshand had made, not to agree with him necessarily. “We know that they had designs on sweeping over us with their weapons. Now that the weapons have been compromised, they’ve pulled back. That suggests that we also have an advantage over them.”
“The priests, you mean,” Oshand guessed.
In the same moment a woman whom he could only assume by her manner of clothing and the way she carried herself was one of the priests entered the room. It was not Priest Cayri, so that could only mean that more had arrived. This one looked all of them over, eyeing up strangers it appeared, until her gaze located Firard. The woman who appeared too slight to have held herself in any battle walked across the room as if she would perform the duty of any one of the soldiers present twice over.
“I’m going out to the ships,” she said to Firard, and Oshand nearly dropped his fork at the words.
“Going to the ships?” Oshand repeated back at her before she had finished speaking. His mild outburst drew the attention of other men.
The priest looked at him directly and said, “Yes. Coming along?”
Oshand wondered if she was serious.
Firard informed him that she was by asking, “Are we?”
“No,” Oshand said. “We’re not. “It would be a blind maneuver.”
The woman was not willing to discuss or argue. She looked at Firard again. “I’m going. Another from the Vassenleigh Order arrived during the early hours. A fellow warrior by the name Jhac. He’s going to assist.”
“Let me also assist,” Firard said, lifting the remainder of the bread from his plate while he stood to follow her.
“It’s dangerous,” the priest informed as if that might deter.