Gemworld

by Jeremy Bullard

  Strange, though, to think that an untrained granite could advance so far in his skills as to sense Nestor’s detachment. Granted, Nestor had almost a platoon with him—enough to produce a sizable aura, noticeable for leagues in every direction—but the rogue should not have been able to sense them, given his lack of education…

  “Chief General,” came one of the men under him. Achimas, his second.

  “Commander?” Nestor acknowledged.

  “Request permission to set up camp, sir.”

  “You do realize what it is that I am standing on?”

  The question was, of course, rhetorical, but Nero Achimas had never been one to take a hint. “Yes sir. It’s the trail of the rogue granite, running in the same general direction as the amethyst auras. But the men are tired, sir. We’ve been one with the earth for almost a full day without rest.”

  Nestor sighed, but said nothing.

  Achimas took this as a good sign. “The path is fresh, no more than half a day old. If we were to set up camp, and leave out after fourth watch, I’m confident that we could reach them by first watch tomorrow.

  Nestor leaned his head back and gazed directly at the powder blue moon, though he knew exactly what time it was. He just needed to look somewhere other than the mage that suggested he let the rebels go for one more night.

  “It’s first watch now, halfway to second. Set up camp, and order only one guard per watch.” He paused for a second, then added, “You take First.”

  Achimas faltered only slightly before replying. “By your command, Chief General.”

  Nestor smiled to himself as Achimas turned away. Try as he might, the Onatae hadn’t been able to hide his irritation at being handed such a menial task as manning watch. So much the better, Nestor thought.

  He cast his eyes around, and found a likely pair of trees near the center of what would soon be camp. As he leisurely made his way over, he felt the twinge and pull of long knotted muscles, and decided that Achimas’ suggestion was timely. He shouldered out of his pack and set it on the ground, untying the leather straps and pulling forth a linen tarp and a length of rope. He stretched the rope between the two trees at about waist level, then hung the tarp. He went around to either side of the makeshift tent, pulling the tarp to center, then wielded stakes into the edges. He examined the blue-black iron stakes, and when he was satisfied that they held the tent secure, he stretched out inside the tent and closed his eyes.

  “Chief General?”

  He sighed, and lay still for a second more before shuffling back out of the tent. “Yes, Jaeda?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. If you’d rather I come back...?”

  “No, not at all, my dear. Please sit.”

  “Thank you, sir. If I may be so bold, I noticed that you haven’t eaten yet. I wanted to know if you would share my dinner.”

  Nestor allowed himself a secret smile, but said, “You know the protocols involving Guards of superior rank, so I won’t quote them to you.”

  “Thank you, sir. I grow tired of being quoted rules that were meant for men and women who have no control of their own faculties.”

  “You are insubordinate, aren’t you, Jaeda?” he said, though his smirk belied his words. She said nothing, only offered a quirky grin and awaited his answer.

  “Yes, Jaeda, I think I’d like dinner. But only if you call me ‘Nestor’.”

  “Of course, Chief General,” she said playfully.

  ***

  Though they only at trail rations, Nestor felt as if Jaeda had prepared the meal from scratch, working love and attention into each bite. Dinner quickly gave way to small talk, and small talk in turn to deep conversation. They talked long into second watch, long enough to see the watchman circle the camp to wake his relief.

  “Have you never wanted for more out of life?” he asked his dinner companion, waving his hand languidly over the camp. “More than this?”

  “Absolutely,” she replied in earnest. “I can’t tell you the number of times I wished that I could just drop everything and take up a husband, make fat babies with him and live long and deliriously happy lives. But we were given... this,” she added with a sigh, raising her outstretched hand and forming a sphere with her granite magics. “Our lives are vastly different from those of the other Tiles. Only a granite can truly understand a granite, which poses the problem. Either you go rogue to follow your heart, or you run into ‘protocol’.”

  Nestor nodded his agreement. “You really are far more mature than most women I... procure to service my needs.”

  “I’ll wager that most women you ‘procure’ do not understand the granite heart. But then again, you are not ‘procuring’ me.”

  “Hah! I’ll grant you that,” he said with a laugh. “But I wonder, would such a request displease you?”

  Jaeda was silent for a moment, a strange smile on her face. She was indeed beautiful—as a granite might measure beauty—and growing more so with every passing moment that Nestor spent with her. She had such a vitality, such a spirit that spoke to his heart that he saw right past the orange skin, yellow underlying bone structure, black orbs rimmed with a brownish aura. He saw right down into her soul—a rare thing for one of his Tile—and he enjoyed the experience.

  “No, it wouldn’t displease me,” she answered finally, then quirked an eyebrow and added, “but such a request will not be granted tonight. My mother raised me better than that.”

  “I’m sure she did. If I declared my intentions...?”

  “I’m not so easily seduced, my lord.”

  “Of course,” he said, disappointed but contented anyway. My lord, she’d said. Yes, contented indeed.

  “Are you declaring your intentions, Nestor?” she added when he said nothing more.

  The question was so forward, so unexpected and yet so Jaeda, that he was taken aback. He’d never been put to the question, never been given pause by any woman. But as the thought formed in his mind, another came riding on its heels. Jaeda was not just any woman.

  “Yes,” he said confidently. “Yes, I am declaring my intentions, and to the Abyss with protocol.”

  “Good,” she said victoriously. “I was thinking you’d never come around. And I accept your declaration, Nestor, for better or for worse. May the Crafter bless our commitment, and see fit to bless whatever relationship comes of it. Now, if we may dispense with ritual...” Jaeda leaned across the ashes of their fire and kissed him, long and full in the mouth. Nestor was awash with the taste of her, the scent of her, the soft give of her lips and the solid, probing insistence of her tongue. The contact filled every sense, every thought, until, all too soon, it was gone, and he felt empty.

  “It’s getting late, and the end of fourth watch comes early. I need to be getting back to my tent,” Jaeda said as she stood, slowly yet deliberately. Nestor said nothing, trusted himself to say nothing, and watched her with a gnawing hunger to relive the past few seconds as she turned to leave.

  “And Nestor?” she said, pausing in her steps to look back over her shoulder. “Dream of me.”

  ***

  You can’t be serious! Gaelen tapped out to Jaeda.

  Absolutely, she responded. I’ll have him so tightly wound that he won’t know which way is up.

  Are you sure that you’re capable of betraying his trust? I mean, he’s not Keth...

  Stop that.

  ...but at the same time, you’re not entirely evil, even for a granite, he added jokingly. His concern was valid, of course. Jaeda had never been the type of woman to overtly manipulate a man’s heart. Even as a lass, she had the softest heart of any that he knew. It was the greatest irony that she would find herself attuned to Granite.

  I’ll be fine, trust me, she assured. Just make sure that your people target the south side of the line.

  Gaelen had felt the pulses of her magic for years, tapping out her messages to him, and he’d grown to where he could tell her mood by the quality of the pulse. And what he felt through all that bravado concern
ed him. She could say what she wanted, but she was invested in this man, Nestor. Even after only one night, one fraction of a night, her heart was his. How could she hope to betray him as she claimed? How could Gaelen trust that she would?

  Of course. South side of the line. I sure hope you know what you’re doing.

  He waited for long moments after that, but she never responded.

  Chapter 18

  “Aeden’s Garden,” Delana whispered with a mixture of awe and fear as she took in the enormous emerald vista that spread out before them. “Not so much ‘Lost’, eh?”

  Reit could only nod silently. He’d thought that he was above superstition, above believing the tales concerning the Lost Garden, but now that they were here—looking down upon the fallen kingdom of Lord Aeden the Cursed, the very center of Ysra tuk'sheol—he wasn’t so sure. He’d never seen such an expanse of unbroken green, even deep within the Vale. It was so full of life, and yet, so dark, as if the full force of the Crafter’s wrath still held sway. The only feature marring the verdant spread was a narrow wedge of pure white, jutting like a sword point toward the sky far to the northeast and sparkling brilliantly in the early morning sunlight. “What do you suppose that is, Delana?”

  “The Tower of Aeden?” she asked, following his gaze. “It’s anybody’s guess, really. I can only assume it’s a mountain, but...”

  “But what?”

  “Well…” she said, her voice trailing as she focused on the distant structure. “It’s almost as if… I don’t know… as if it has an aura. I can’t really see it from this distance. I just sense that it’s… there.” She squinted a moment longer, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we can holiday at the Tower once we overthrow the Highest,” she said playfully, dismissing her curiosity with such ease that it left Reit in awe. He spared the oddity one last glance, then ordered the wagons out of the Icebreaks and down into Aedenlee.

  It took most of the morning to cross the Aedenlee Foothills. By the time they crossed the boundary from foothill to forest, it was just past noon with the sun directly overhead. Even so, it seemed as if the temperature dropped at least by twenty points of mercury. In his mind, Reit knew that it was just the deep forest shading them from the summer sun, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the fables just might be true. He looked around the procession and saw his observation reflected in the faces of his friends. All except for Keth, of course, who had been quite distant and detached since Reit had spoken to him the night before.

  As he had many times since that conversation, he berated himself for a tyrant. How could he expect a man to give up on his friend? How dare he order a man to do such a thing? Oh, Keth had accepted the mandate readily enough, having just sworn fealty, but now the order didn’t sit well with Reit. For the hundredth time, he considered rescinding the mandate, but decided against it. Too much was at stake, and he needed Keth in the here and now. Maybe when the day was done...

  The trail they followed wound through the forest, drawing them deeper and deeper into the fabled wood. Tales of ghosts, dragons, mages gone mad, all came unbidden to Reit’s mind as the trail narrowed to barely accommodate a single file procession. Soon, the wagons came to a clearing of sorts, barely wide enough to contain the entire compliment of Caravan. The sun filtered down weakly through the green canopy high above the clearing, giving the space an ethereal glow.

  “This is it,” he called at the top of his voice. “Look alive, people. We only have a few hours at most before the granites are upon us.”

  At his command, the wagons poured into the clearing, filling it from tree to tree, leaving barely enough room to walk between them. Tents were staked, fires were built, trail rations were set to stewing in the cookpots, and all was made ready. To the outside observer, it would seem that the nomadic village had set up a semi-permanent residence.

  Reit looked around with careful satisfaction, and hoped that it would look that way to the granites.

  ***

  Nestor emerged from his loamy bed just outside the forest wall, once more separated from the earth beneath him. “What have you found?”

  “It’s them, Chief General,” the scout said, walking up to him along the trail that led into the trees. “They’ve set up camp in a small clearing not even a mile inside the forest boundary. They must think themselves safe in there.”

  “Indeed,” Nestor muttered. He wielded, sending a general pulse of granite magics outward from him. Instantly, the entirety of his granite contingent sprouted up around him, awaiting his instructions.

  “The rebel encampment is less than a mile down this path,” he said, addressing the troop. “Be wary. They know we’re chasing them, and will most likely be prepared for an attack, so take no thought of prisoners. If any do happen to survive long enough for the Highest to question, so much the better, but victory is our first priority.”

  That said, he turned to the forest, and wielded... nothing!

  ***

  “It’s working,” Japheth said, unsure of himself at first, then growing more confident. “It’s working!”

  “Excellent,” Delana said, her violet eyes flashing with as much bloodlust as exertion as they looked down at the confused invaders below. She was expending a good deal of mana to help hold the nullifying field stable, as were the other amethysts that floated high above the granite detachment with her. As one, the amethysts descended to a point halfway up the foothills and ceased their levitation, concentrating their full will into the nullifying field.

  ***

  “Now!” Reit shouted as he watched his wife and her amethysts descend. All around him, the sounds of battle raged as mundane warriors engaged the granite contingent, confused and hobbled by the loss of their magic.

  Reit pulled a sparking arrow from his quiver, nocked his bow, and released, all in one fluid motion. As he suspected, the electricity imbued into the arrowhead flickered and died as it entered the nullifying field, but the arrow was no less deadly as it struck one of the lead granites through the neck.

  His ragtag armies flooded into the granite contingent, and the clash of swords rang out a deafening counterpoint to the twang of Reit’s archers. One by one the granites fell, absolutely powerless within the field and caught utterly unawares by the mundane attack. Slowly they recouped, but by then, Reit’s armies had already cut their numbers by half.

  ***

  “To arms, to arms!” Nestor called, ripping his own sword from its sheath, barely in time to repel the attack of the rebel rush. He’d heard of the amethyst ability to nullify magic, but in all his time serving the Highest, he’d never seen the tactic employed. The wielding nullified all external forms of magic in the area, and not just for the ambushed. Many military leaders considered that too much of a liability, cutting of the magic of an enemy at the cost of his own magical force. Apparently, du’Nograh hadn’t studied his military histories. Apparently, du’Nograh was the better for it.

  He raised his sword above his head, ready to bring it down on the neck of one of the rebels, when he felt a steel point at his neck. “I can’t let you do that, Nestor.”

  He froze in place, his granite eyes went wide. Jaeda. How could he have been so blind! He should have known not to trust her, to care for her, and be damned the fact that she was Rank. Her brother was sworn to du’Nograh’s rebellion, and blood is thick, even for a granite. He should have known that she would not betray her own blood.

  For the first time in almost a hundred years, he felt the faint stirrings of panic in his soul, and he quashed them viciously. Powerless he may be, but he would not meet his death with cowardice. Screwing up his courage, he dropped his sword and turned to face his captor, hands still in the air, sneering in pure hatred. That sneer faltered only slightly as he saw the sadness in Jaeda’s eyes, the quiver in her lips as she held the sword with dead stillness at his neck.

  The din of battle slowly died as Nestor’s men fell all around him, until finally he heard nothing but the cheering of the rebels. Still
, he held only Jaeda in his eyes, her face a grim mixture of sorrow and steel. When he finally spoke, he was surprised at how broken his own voice sounded in his ears. “I trusted you.”

  Jaeda’s lip quivered all the more at his words, but her sword tip never wavered in the slightest.

  Suddenly, her eyes cut over his shoulder, and her grimace transformed, lighting her face in Nestor’s vision as much as his granite eyes would allow. “Gaelen!” she said.

  “Sister,” acknowledged a tall, bulky man with amethyst eyes. He brushed past Nestor with barely a thought and caught his sister up in his arms. Jaeda both laughed and cried as her younger brother twirled her around in circles.

  With the threat of cold steel no longer pressed into the flesh of his neck, Nestor cast his eyes right and left, looking for any means of escape. He barely had time to take his first step when he again felt the nip of razor-sharp steel at his neck. “Probably not your best move, mate,” came a confident purr from behind him.

  ***

  Jaeda stood at the door of the prison wagon—the same one where newcomers to Caravan passed the night in contemplation before the questioning, so she understood—waiting patiently as Marissa fitted the prisoner with an amethyst-adorned shackle.

  Jaeda shivered at the thought of the silver neckband touching Nestor’s skin. The amethysts on the neckband glowed dimly with restrained magics, waiting for Marissa to set the final clasp and activate the cantrip.

  Artisans like Marissa had been making shackles since the time of Ysra tuk'sheol They were very simple devices, really, using only a single activation rune—the magical equivalent of “no”, apparently—to do the same thing that the amethyst mages had that afternoon, only on an individual level. The mages of old originally employed the shackle as a safety measure, to void their own magic while they sorted out why the once-singular mana stream had divided into six, and how those six could be safely wielded.