I was hoping it would have the same disorienting effect it had had on the God-Empress’s soldiers back in Colosse, but I wasn’t able to look around to see because I was too preoccupied with not being shaken free by the leader. He was disoriented enough that he dropped his sword and leaned down to beat at me. I squinted hard and exerted all my will to see him, his arm flailing around, and switched my grip to his wrist and let myself go limp.
I had about half a second to realize this was a bad idea before he tumbled off his horse and landed atop me, knocking the wind from me and making me lose my concentration and turning us both visible again.
Terror at being pinned and helpless gave me the edge I needed to recover first, and I shoved him and scooted away only to have him grab my upper arm and pull me back. We struggled for a bit, but he was a lot bigger than me and soon he had me pinned again. “What are you?” he said, breathlessly.
I’d like to say I came up with something clever like “Your worst nightmare” or “Retribution,” but all I did was stammer out, “None of your business” which sounds even stupider when I write it. He scowled and said, “I think the God-Empress will want to know about you. Thank me for sparing your life.”
“Oh, she already knows about me,” I said, “and you’re a fool if you think I’m in any danger from you.” (See, I can be witty and clever. Sometimes.) Then I spun out a string of fire and looped it around his neck, crossing it in back like a garrote and drawing it close enough to singe his skin. He started to jerk away, came up against the fire, and froze. “Let me go,” I said, “or I tighten the noose.”
He wasn’t stupid. He let go of my arms and knelt in the street, holding perfectly still. I rolled to the side and stood and looked around. To my surprise, the fight was nearly over—and the Viravonians had won. They’d taken losses, but more soldiers than villagers lay dead in the street, a couple of women were controlling the horses, and Jeddan was coming toward me, limping a little but otherwise unharmed. “I didn’t know it could look like that,” he said, nodding toward the line of fire.
“It took a lot of hard work,” I said. Then I returned my attention to the leader, who looked furious now. “Is the God-Empress with the army?” I said. He ignored me. I tightened the noose fractionally. “You know, that fire will burn a long time before it kills you,” I said. “Besides, think of this as a chance to brag about how she’s going to bring her army down on this village and burn it to the ground.”
“This village is nothing in God’s eyes,” he grated out. “She has greater conquests to make.”
“Really? What conquests?” I said.
“She is God. She will rule this land, Castavirans and invaders alike. You think you’ve won today, but you have only delayed the moment when she drags every person in this village into the street to peel the flesh from their bodies and feed it to the dogs.” He looked as if I would be first and he would hold the knife.
“That does sound like something she’d do,” I said. “Where is she now?”
He glared at me. I said, “Fire. Neck. Lots of pain.” (I was bluffing. I’ve only just been able to bring myself to burn flesh, and I don’t think I could do it in cold blood. But I’m a really good liar and he didn’t know I wasn’t serious. I feel sick thinking about it now, like I was a child playing at war without understanding what it meant.)
He clenched his jaw, then said, “There is an invader city some three days northwest of here. It is to be her first conquest.”
I briefly considered my mental map. The only “invader” city anywhere near here was Calassmir. That scared me. Calassmir is on a couple of major trade routes, and the Royal Road and the southern trunk route both converge on it. If the God-Empress could take Calassmir, she could move her army easily through Balaen—I mean, along the Balaenic highways to any Balaenic city and probably a few Castaviran ones.
“What’s the size of her army?” I said. He clenched his teeth harder and looked away from me. “Talk,” I said, but he said nothing, and I had to either make good on my threat or give in. So I gave in. I dismissed the fire and shoved him toward Jeddan, who held him fast as easily as if the man had been a kitten. Jeddan’s got shoulders like a lumberjack. He might be a lumberjack. I still don’t know what he does for a living.
I hadn’t really thought about the God-Empress until then—too busy surviving. When she’d disappeared in Colosse, we had no idea what had happened to her, though as I wrote before I was fairly certain she wasn’t dead. So whatever that th’an was she did at the end there, it seems it took her to Viravon, to her army. All I know about the army is it’s about a third of the combined Castaviran armed forces, but since I don’t know how big that is, it doesn’t really tell me anything. On the other hand, if she’s attacking Calassmir, her army has to be fairly big, because Calassmir isn’t a small city. I wonder if she has any war wagons, or if Vorantor gave them all to Aselfos?
I’m stalling, aren’t I? Because I really don’t want to write what came next. Maybe I’d feel different if I were Viravonian, because I know some of what the army has done here, the atrocities they’ve committed against helpless people, and even if the Viravonians don’t want revenge (which they do, true God help them) they have to be ruthless to survive. But I’m not Viravonian, and I can’t kill a man in cold blood, so when the black-bearded villager took the leader’s sword and drove it into the man’s stomach, I turned away and threw up. I am never going to forget the look on that man’s face for the rest of my life.
Jeddan came to stand next to me, thankfully not saying anything inane like “are you all right?” and held my shoulders so I didn’t fall down. I vomited until I was wrung out and empty, then I wiped my mouth and stood up straight. None of the villagers would meet my eye. That’s small comfort.
I walked away down the street so I wouldn’t have to see more killings. Jeddan followed me, still silent. He’s good at quiet, which makes him a comfortable companion. I think we might become friends, even. At some point, I stopped, and looked into one of the shop windows, though I don’t remember what I saw, and then I said, “Let’s go,” and we walked away from Erael without looking back.
We had to dodge Jeddan’s village on the way north. I asked him if he wanted to get anything, and he said no, so we just kept going. Around sunset we stopped and made a fire; it’s starting to get cold at night, and I wish we’d thought to equip ourselves for sleeping outside, but not enough to go back. We ate, and then I started writing, and Jeddan asked about the book and was satisfied with the answer I gave him, which is that it’s a record of my journeys. Eventually he fell asleep, but it’s been another hour or so since then and I’m still not done.
The truth is I’ve been thinking about the God-Empress, and Calassmir, and the army, the whole time we’ve walked today. Calassmir does have an army detachment, because it’s only another fifty miles to the southern border of Balaen and there’s always been a lot of bandit activity down that way, what with the trade caravans traveling from the jungles where they harvest medicinal plants. But I don’t think their army is very big. If the God-Empress came on them unawares (and why wouldn’t she) they might not be able to put up much of a fight. And, as I wrote, capturing Calassmir puts her in a position to drive deeper into the heart of the combined countries.
The southern trunk route leads to Garwin, where the Myrnala branches south and west, and the Royal Road is named that because it goes all the way north to Venetry, the capital city. Either highway would put her in a position to conquer more Balaenic cities, and I have no doubt her ultimate goal is to rule the new world.
I just don’t know what to do. Time for a list:
1. I could warn whatever city is her next target. Both Garwin and…actually, I guess Hasskian would be the next city north of Calassmir…anyway, they’re both defensible and have military presences.
2. I don’t know what her next target is. If I guess wrong, it would be catastrophic.
3. I could keep going to Colosse. Those cities are defen
sible and they probably don’t need my warning.
3a. i.e. I could take the cowardly, selfish way out.
4. I could find out what her next target is and warn them.
1 and its corollary 2 aren’t sensible options. If I guess wrong, I’d be wasting my time in addition to risking catastrophe. And much as I want to run to Colosse as fast as I can, I’d hate myself for taking option 3.
But 4…I’d have to sneak into the God-Empress’s camp, and hope to find some kind of drawing or plan because I can’t read Castaviran, damn it, and that’s incredibly dangerous even with the pouvrin. And I certainly can’t ask Jeddan to risk his life over this, so I’d be doing it alone. And even if I did succeed in learning the God-Empress’s plan, I’d still have to find a way to convince whatever city she’s attacking next that they’re in danger from someone they’ve never heard of, at the head of an army they’ve never seen.
So that’s settled. I’m going west to Calassmir. And I’m hoping the God-Empress’s army isn’t so enormous they’ll have taken the city before I get there.
Chapter Four
21 Coloine
To look at him, you wouldn’t think Jeddan was very restless. He’s so big and calm that he looks stolid, like nothing moves him. But when I explained to him this morning what I’d decided, he said, “We should get started, then, if it’s three days away.”
“You don’t have to come,” I said.
“What else is there for me to do?” he said. “Go back to my village, back to a life of hiding what I am, never able to learn anything new? Travel somewhere else, alone, and get hopelessly lost because I’ve never been farther than twenty miles from my village? I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. At least until you teach me those pouvrin.”
I thought about protesting further, but I discovered the idea of traveling alone again, after being surrounded by friends for so many weeks, made me feel incredibly lonely. So I just said, “You understand it’s dangerous and we could be killed.”
“I know,” he said, “but I’ve been in danger of being killed for years. This is just a different kind of fear. And it doesn’t seem so terrible. Maybe that’s crazy, but it’s how I feel.”
It was crazy. And I completely understood. I’ve taken so many risks for the sake of my magic over the last ten years that the idea of risk, in general, doesn’t frighten me. I’m not deterred from acting just because something bad might happen. Not that I’m terribly reckless; I like living, and I carefully consider my actions before I take a wild leap. Mostly.
Anyway, we packed up our few things and headed west. I think we made good time. It’s been a while since I’ve been this far south, and while I know I kept us on the right course, I wish I had a map. We’re going to run out of food by the time we get there, so there’s something to add to the list of things to do in Calassmir, if we can. It’s going to be a busy trip.
We talked about pouvrin while we walked and discovered we perceive them very differently. I see pouvrin as three-dimensional shapes given form by memory and sense. Jeddan says to him it’s more like being shaped, as if he’s altered to be something that can, for example, walk through walls. The only thing we both agree on is you have to bend your will to meet the pouvra, that force does nothing but make it slip from your grasp.
We discussed the walk-through-walls pouvra a lot. Since we can both do it, there’s a chance each of us understanding how the other does it will be the key to learning from each other. Jeddan’s intelligent and comfortable to be around. I wonder if the other mages are like him? I hope we don’t all have different ways of understanding pouvrin, because it could take forever just to be able to speak the same language.
22 Coloine
I dreamed of Cederic last night. It was a very intense dream, so much so that when I woke up to nothing but bare ground it was so disorienting I had to go for a walk so Jeddan wouldn’t see me cry. I’d resolved to stop dwelling on the possibility that something bad has happened to Cederic and all my friends, to be strong instead of weak and tearful, but I could feel his arms around me and his lips on mine, actually feel it, and when he wasn’t there…. I hope I don’t dream like that again.
Today there was more walking and more talking about pouvrin. Sometime around noon, after we’d eaten and rested for a bit, Jeddan said, “I’m going to go insubstantial for a bit. I want to try something.”
I nodded, and watched him go in and out of that state. It’s hard to tell someone is insubstantial, actually, because it’s not like they turn misty or pale or resemble any natural object that’s capable of slipping between things. It’s more in the way they move, as if parts of them get to places before the rest of their bodies. Jeddan can hold that state longer than I can, longer even than I think he’s capable of holding his breath, but we haven’t talked about that so I don’t know how he does it. He can’t talk while he’s insubstantial, though, and he does start to fall through things if he stands still long enough, though again it doesn’t happen as soon as it does to me.
After about half an hour, he stopped walking, went solid, and leaned over to put his hands on his knees and breathe deeply. “I got dizzy,” he said.
“That’s happened to me when I use that pouvra too often,” I said. I waited for him to rise, and then we walked on, though I was impatient to find out if he’d learned anything, or even what the point of that exercise had been.
“There’s definitely a shape there,” he finally said. “It’s like…a cage, maybe? Or a mold for iron or bronze? But I’m on the inside, not on the outside as you seem to be.”
“Can you describe the shape?” I said.
He shook his head. “Eventually, maybe,” he said. “I just think discovering we are doing things the same way is important. I was afraid our magic was too different for us to learn anything from each other.”
“I think Castaviran magic is easier in some ways,” I said, “since each th’an is clear, and you know when you’re getting it wrong because it just doesn’t work.”
“But you said you’d learned to create a pouvra using th’an,” he said.
“Yes, but I don’t know enough th’an to make that a practical method of learning magic,” I said. I did the binding pouvra then, with no results—I practice it occasionally, hoping to work out what it’s for.
“If the two countries can learn to coexist, maybe you’ll have the chance,” he said.
“Do you think that’s possible?” I said. It was something I’d been thinking about, off and on, between wondering what we’d find at Calassmir and what the God-Empress’s next target might be.
“It’s either that or the strangest civil war anyone’s ever seen,” he said. “Two countries invading the same piece of land at the same time.”
“But maybe war is inevitable,” I said. “Balaen and Castavir can’t remain autonomous; their lands overlap too much. One of them has to come out on top.”
“Just so it isn’t your God-Empress,” he said. “You’re lucky she didn’t have you killed.”
“I know,” I said, and then we both ran out of things to say for a while. With Jeddan, that’s not awkward or uncomfortable; he’s good at quiet, and so am I, so we went a couple of miles before I picked up the topic of pouvrin again, this time talking about things I thought might be possible. We went back and forth coming up with ideas until it was time to camp for the night, and now I’m sitting by the fire across from him. He’s watching the logs. I wonder what he thinks about.
23 Coloine
Another dream, more intense this time. This had better not be a pattern, because I won’t be able to bear it if it keeps happening, night after night.
We reached the edges of the God-Empress’s army about an hour before sunset. It’s big, but not as big as I feared, and while there’s smoke coming from Calassmir, there’s none of the noise you get when a city is being overrun. I can’t explain the difference, but I think of it as being more…terrified, I guess. That could just be me putting my own interpretation on it, but
that’s how I see it. There was a lot of shouting and screaming, though, and occasionally we heard these deep thunderclaps I didn’t recognize, but they couldn’t be anything but battle noises.
So the army is clearly attacking, but we don’t know more than that because we decided to rest and come at the problem fresh in the morning. The good news is Calassmir doesn’t appear to be in immediate danger of falling. I hope I’m right about that.
24 Coloine, noonish
I didn’t get far scouting the army this morning. For one, Jeddan wasn’t happy about being left behind, even though he had to agree I’d move faster if I didn’t have to hold his hand to conceal him. For another, there are still a lot of people in the camp even though the siege was going strong, and I had to depend as much on my stealthiness as the pouvra to keep from being detected.
It looks like the Balaenic military camps I’ve seen in my journeys—lots of dull canvas tents, lots of cookfires where people were having breakfast, lots of people grousing about the bad food and the bad weather (it was drizzling a bit, typical southern winter weather). I guess there are only so many ways you can organize an army and still have it be effective. The only unusual thing, to my eyes, was the presence of female soldiers as well as male. The Balaenic Army is entirely male. I don’t know what goes into that kind of decision, and I don’t really care.
The point is, despite those problems, I was able to infiltrate the camp deeply enough to find their command center, and that’s where I ran into different problems. That’s why I’m back here and writing while Jeddan is hunting for our lunch (we ran out of food this morning, and decided he should try to gather more while I was gone, just in case).
It was easy enough to identify the command center, since it flew the falcon flag from its highest peak, and just as easy to sneak into the tent with the walk-through-walls pouvra, and easy to stay concealed, though at that point my fingertips were pretty numb. It’s big, though not the biggest tent in the camp—that honor, naturally, goes to Her Godliness Renatha Torenz—but bigger than any I’ve ever seen before. It has several tent poles holding up the roof and they put rugs down to cover the ground so it doesn’t get muddy.
The Wandering Mage (Convergence Book 2) Page 4