Binding Spell (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms)

by Pope, Christine

  And then that night, the pull of his magic touched me again, and I rose from my makeshift bed on the divan and glided down to the cellars, silent as a ghost through the sleeping castle. It was bitterly cold; the first snow had fallen that day, blanketing the world in white. I had never seen snow fall before, and entrancing as it might be to watch from a high tower window, it also brought home to me how trapped I was here now. Even in the South I had heard tales of the winters in North Eredor, the blizzards that closed the mountain passes and the roads so that days and even weeks sometimes went by before they were opened again. True, I was here in the heart of Tarenmar, and not in some remote keep on the northern marches of Kadar’s kingdom, but even so my options now were far more limited than they had been a few days earlier.

  But those worries slipped away from me as I made my way to see the mage again — although I wasn’t so far detached from this world that I hadn’t stopped to slip on my fur-lined boots, or throw a heavy cloak over my nightdress and dressing gown. That made the chill around me a little more bearable, although I guessed I wouldn’t be able to stay overlong, unless Ulias cast some sort of spell to make his prison cell somehow warmer.

  It actually did feel almost comfortable in his cellar, although whether that was because of a spell, or the brazier that had been left burning outside the cell, I couldn’t say. Even so, I clasped my hands together under my cloak and wished that I had hunted up my gloves at the same time I had fetched my boots.

  “First snowfall, and already I miss summer in Marestal,” I said, as I once more took up the stool and moved it a little closer to the bespelled iron bars that separated us.

  “Ah, so it did snow. I thought I felt it, even down here.” Ulias rose from his seat on the bed and moved toward me, although I noted that he took care to keep a few inches away from the bars.

  “Could you — could you not keep it away?”

  “I could, but to what end? Winter is upon us, and in the North, that means snow. It does not do to circumvent nature and push and pull the storms to do our bidding.”

  “But…isn’t that what my father has done, all these years?”

  The faint smile that had touched Ulias’ somewhat thin lips disappeared then. “Yes, and no. He has always been careful when working with the weather. It is more a matter of coaxing the clouds to come a bit closer, so a parched field might get the rain it so desperately needs, rather than trying to send the clouds away entirely so everyone might enjoy week upon week of sunny days.”

  I thought about that for a bit, trying to absorb what Ulias had said. “Bending the rules, but not breaking them?”

  “Precisely. Too many mages met bad ends simply because they didn’t stop to consider the consequences of what they were doing. No power comes without its cost.”

  “And what is the cost to Maldis of this dark magic he is working?”

  Those grey eyes, cloudy as the skies above the keep, grew even cloudier. “His soul.” The words were spoken simply, with no hint of drama for its own sake.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “As I said, power has its cost. When you work with your power, and not against it, the costs can be managed — you may be wearied, may need to consume a great deal of food to replace the energy you have used. But when you use power in a way that runs counter to the laws of nature, it begins to eat away at you, to destroy your very mind in the end, if it is not checked. And because Maldis has no innate power of his own, but is stealing that of others to fuel his unnatural needs, well, the damage is twice as deep.”

  “Would that it might carry him away now, while he is on the road, so he might trouble us now more.”

  “Ah, now, Lark, you know it is never that easy.”

  I did not reply, but merely twisted my hands beneath the heavy wool of my cloak. “But perhaps — perhaps Kadar will begin to see the true spirit of the man, and will send him away.”

  Ulias shook his head, even as his mouth twisted in a mirthless smile. “You are very young, but I do not think you are so young as to believe a man such as Maldis would leave willingly. And the Mark, while a man of some talents and intelligence, certainly does not have the ability to drive his so-called advisor forth.”

  “Damn him,” I remarked, my voice heavy with bitterness. “If it were not for Kadar’s foolish ambitions, then Maldis would not be here at all.”

  “And neither would you,” Ulias returned dryly. “Do you wish you had never met the Mark of North Eredor?”

  I bowed my head then, for I knew I would be lying if I told him that I wished it so. True, I would have much preferred a more innocuous meeting — at some ball in the Imperial palace, or one of the great tournaments held in Sirlende where the nobles from many lands would gather to take their chance at great prizes. But to not have him in my life at all?

  I realized I could not bear the thought. “No,” I whispered.

  “So, then.” Ulias hesitated. “Be not ashamed of the truth of your heart, my child. It is no disgrace to have a loving soul. Love is the greatest power of all.”

  “It is?” Looking up, I saw that he had sat down, long pale hands clasped in his lap. Something about his posture spoke of remembered pain, and I found myself driven to ask, “So — you loved someone once?”

  “Yes.” He raised his head and met my curious gaze. “I promised you almost a week ago that I would tell you more of the source of your powers, once we had the opportunity to speak in person. Well, you are here now, and I have no way of knowing when such an opportunity will come again.”

  “You don’t?” I asked, surprised despite myself. “I thought the great mages could see the future.”

  “Ah, no. That is the one thing denied us, being the province of the gods, I suppose. We can make better guesses than most, as we have access to information that many others do not, but in the end we have no more of that ability than some granny-witch telling fortunes from the lines on your palm.”

  He spoke of such things with a hint of irony in his voice, but I did recall that one time when I had gone into Marestal with my mother, my friend Daris had tagged along, claiming she wanted to purchase more embroidery silks at the bazaar. We had gone off alone together while Mother conducted her business, but the silks only took up a small part of our time in the bazaar. After Daris had made her purchase, she dragged me to a shabby little stall at the end of the row of spice merchants, where one of those same granny-witches told fortunes. The old woman had looked at my palm and said that I would marry a tall, dark-haired stranger and go to live in a foreign land, which had turned out to be no more than the simple truth. So perhaps the granny-witches knew something that great mages such as Ulias did not.

  However, I did not think that he would much appreciate it if I related this story to him, so I merely nodded and said, “What is it you wished to tell me?”

  For a long moment he said nothing, but stared past me, as if seeing some long-lost vision in the damp rock of the cellar walls. “You asked how it is that your powers are so much greater than those who are yet mage-born in these latter days. It is because of your bloodlines. It is because of where the power originated in the first place.”

  He seemed to gather himself then, and the grey eyes, pale as morning mist, fastened on mine.

  “It is because it comes from me.”

  Chapter 13

  Stunned, I could only stare at him, at the ageless face, the fine, proud features that, if I were forced to admit it, were not that dissimilar from my father’s.

  I suppose I might be forgiven for being somewhat inarticulate, when faced with such a pronouncement. “I — what?”

  “I know it must sound mad. But I am your great-great — well, with so many generations lying between us, it is of little use to pronounce all those ‘greats.’ Many, many years ago, so many years that even I have stopped counting them, there was a woman who loved me, if only for a short time, and bore me a child.” He closed his eyes, and I saw the lines around them deepen for a few seconds before h
e continued, “And the child lived, and went on to have her own children in time.”

  Somehow I found my voice. “But how — that is you’re — you’re not — ” And I stopped in my floundering, for I could not voice what I had been thinking. You’re not even human…

  “I am not as other men, if that is what you meant to say.” An incongruous smile touched his mouth. “And neither were my compatriots. But we tried to make a life here, once we knew this place must be our home forever.”

  “‘This place’?” I echoed. “North Eredor?”

  He shook his head. “No, I meant your world.” A pause, as he seemed to consider his next words.“I have been here a very long time…but even as long as I have dwelt here, I still cannot call this world my own.”

  That statement didn’t make any sense to me. This world was not his? How could there be any world but this one? I stared at him blankly. “I don’t understand.”

  “And it will probably be difficult to make you understand, when these concepts are so foreign to you.” He hesitated again. “It is enough for you to know that there are many worlds besides this one, and many universes, so close to one another it is as if the thinnest pane of glass separates them. My people were experimenting with psi powers — ”

  “What kind of powers?”

  “Magic, for all intents and purposes. We used these powers to try to move ourselves between universes. Such explorations of course were not without their inherent perils, but this did not keep us from trying. All scientific advances have their risks, after all.” He fell silent then, and I prompted,

  “So you came here — ”

  “Yes, we came here, so long ago that there is no record of it. So long ago that Iselfex, the wonder of the world, was only a collection of mud huts, and men warred with bronze instead of steel.” Ulias lifted his head, once again gazing past my shoulder. I had the impression he was not looking at the grey stone walls, however, but something which now existed only in his memory. “There were seven of us, working together, minds linked, to bring us across the void between universes. As the strongest, I guided us through that void. At the time, we had no idea there would be no return journey.”

  My heart ached for the undercurrent of pain I heard in his voice. So he was an exile, only one so unimaginably far from his homeland that I could not begin to comprehend the distance. “What happened?” I asked softly.

  “The same thing that has plagued many pioneers. That first successful trial could not be duplicated. Whatever combination of power had managed to bring us here somehow did not work when we attempted to reverse the process.” Ulias made a restless movement with one hand, as if even now the hopelessness of the situation aroused his anger. “After some time — a decade or so, as your people reckon the passing of years — we gave up, and attempted to find some way to exist here.”

  So many questions crowded into my mind I didn’t quite know which to ask first. If his little group of explorers had numbered seven, and they were all but immortal, what had happened to the rest of them?

  It seemed I did not need to voice these questions, for Ulias said, his voice hardening, “We kept to ourselves for many years, trying again and again to return to our home. It is not in our nature to cast blame, but toward the end even we began to quarrel, to try to find some culprit for our terrible exile.

  “And that was not the worst of it, for when we were finally discovered by the local population, they thought us demons, unnatural creatures, and came at us with fire and bronze. We had our powers, of course, but we were caught unawares, and we lost two of our number that day. And we gave men more cause to hate us, as we fought back with storm and lightning. Our attackers scattered, but we five survivors knew they would return. They could not match us in magical strength, of course, since magic was unknown in your world. However, even the greatest of magics can be overcome by sheer numbers.”

  There seemed to be little I could say, so I only waited as Ulias paused, apparently gathering himself for the next part of his tale.

  “And so it was decided that we must split up, if we were to have any chance of survival at all — that we should flee to the four points of the compass, and go from the place men now thought of as haunted by demons. For of course they had never seen beings such as us before then, and had no other explanation as to what we could possibly be.

  “I went west, toward what is now Sirlende, heart-sick and footsore, traveling at night, using what glamours I deemed necessary to hide myself from the eyes of men. It was a wretched, ragged existence, one that I, who had once been a man of science, who had enjoyed comforts in his home world that you cannot even begin to imagine, had never thought I would have to suffer. And perhaps it was my wretchedness that allowed me to be caught, for after several weeks of this I was come upon by a hunting party, and barely escaped with my life.”

  He ran a white-fingered hand through his equally pale hair, and shook his head. “I sought shelter in a cave, bloodied by many wounds, so wearied that I could barely summon enough of my powers to slow the bleeding. It was there that she found me.”

  “She?” I asked, knowing somehow that this woman must be my long-ago great-great-great…well, as many “greats” as were needed to describe such a relationship…grandmother.

  “She was the daughter of a local warlord, escaping her wards to run free in the forest, one of the last times she would be able to do so, as she was the intended bride of another warlord, with the wedding to take place in a fortnight’s time. For whatever reason, she was more amazed by me than frightened. She tended to my wounds, brought me food. I healed under her care. And then…” He lifted his shoulders. “I do not think I need to tell you of what passes between a man and a woman. Our people are not so dissimilar that we cannot come together thus. What I did not know was that she went away bearing my child, and it was my daughter, and not her warlord husband’s, whom she bore some nine months later.”

  “Were there more?” I asked. “That is, it seems that once upon a time there were a great many mages in the world. They could not have all come from that one child, could they?”

  “As a matter of fact, they did not. I was not the only one to father a child, even though those children were spread out across the continent. After Lisara left me alone in the woods, I knew I must hide myself from the world of men. I did go to the agreed-upon meeting place, but none of the other exiles ever came there, although I waited for the greater part of a week. After that I made a home for myself far to the north, almost to the Bay of Ice, where I knew men would not come. But my brethren were not so cautious, and the others fell at the hands of frightened and superstitious men, until I was the only one left of my crew.”

  The only one left… I could not imagine the loneliness of being the only one of my kind remaining in the world. “Why did no one come for you? From your home, I mean.”

  “Because we were the only ones with the power to even attempt what we had done. Perhaps they tried — I know they must have tried — but trying to track exactly where we had gone was no easy feat. The universe is vast, Lark…far vaster than you can begin to comprehend. It would be like looking for a single grain of sand in all the beaches of the world.”

  I had no way of replying to that. Instead, I asked, “When did you realize that the children had powers?”

  “Oh, it came to me soon enough. I looked in on Lisara, to see how she fared, and the minute I saw her child through the far-seeing I knew the girl had to be mine. No wings — thank the Powers that those were not passed on — but the child had eyes like silver, and skin paler than any seen in Sirlende. She was thought to be cursed, and her father shunned her…but not so much that he did not sell her off to someone willing to overlook those defects, once she was of an age to be wed. And so it went.”

  From generation to generation, children passing on the powers of fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers they didn’t even know existed, until there were mages in every land, magic-workers who lent their talents to t
hose with the coin to buy them. It was a time of wonder and might — but, like all else in a world governed by men, that same strength became corrupted, until those powers were used for ill, and all collapsed, bringing the Black Time, the age of cataclysm, when the last of the mage-born were hunted down and killed.

  Or so the stories went. Obviously some had survived to pass along their powers, even in the great houses of Sirlende. I wondered then from whom my father had inherited them. His mother? His grandmother?

  Who could say?

  I ventured then, “This explains from whence my father’s and my powers come, but it still does not tell me why my powers should be stronger than those of poor Rogin, or Khaspar the Nimble, or anyone else who might possess them.”

  “Because you come from my line. I was the leader, the one with the ability to guide my small group from one universe to the next, so that we might come to a world whose air we could breathe and whose other conditions we could stand. It was a lonely burden, one that no one else could assume. The women of my world also possessed great powers, but not the kind that could open the bridge between worlds. A pity, for perhaps we would have fared differently if some of our number had been women. At any rate, all the members of my team were required to make the crossing, but my powers were greater.”

  He told me this simply, with no hint of vanity. Perhaps to him possessing such power was a mere accident of birth, like the color of his hair or skin, and so nothing in which he should take pride.

  “But why would you undertake such a journey,” I asked, “when you knew the risks were so high?”

  The silver-grey eyes, so like my own, regarded me gravely. “Did you hesitate, when your powers began to manifest in you? Did you stop to think that you should not pursue such a path, when it might end in ostracism or even death?”