The Wandering Mage (Convergence Book 2)

by Melissa McShane

  He grinned as he said that. He has very white teeth that shine in the moonlight, so he looks like he’s nothing but a canine smile. It’s eerie. I don’t know what about my performance during these exercises told him I’m a thief, but it’s comforting to have his professional respect, one sneak to another.

  Nobody got caught, though Relania came close because she came through the wall into someone’s cot and panicked at passing through flesh. I panicked a little when she told us about it, remembering Jeddan’s experience, but nobody died, and we all went to bed tired but triumphant. I wonder what Nessan’s got in mind for me.

  3 Seresstine

  I have no idea if we’re making good progress or not. We also don’t know where the God-Empress’s army went after leaving Hasskian. Our scouts say it looks like she turned east, which fills me with dread; suppose she decided to go to Colosse instead of Venetry? It’s already chaos out there, and her army might be able to plow through the countryside and take Colosse unawares. If we have to chase her eastward…I don’t know what that would mean, strategy-wise, but assuming Aselfos managed to solidify his claim to the throne of Castavir and controls the army, I can’t imagine he’d be happy to see the Balaenic army thundering down on Colosse behind the God-Empress. He might even think we’re her allies.

  It’s been snowing all day and everyone is miserable. You’d think riding in a wagon would at least be better than walking, but we all get cold because we’re not moving, and the wagon has no roof. Paddrek had the idea of spreading a thin layer of fire to cover our heads, melting the snow before it reaches us, and we’ve been taking turns maintaining it, but it creates this fine mist so we’re all damp and cold. Better than being soaked by snow melting on our hats and coats.

  Mattiak talked enthusiastically about strategy at dinner tonight, and I nodded and tried to keep up with him. Eventually he figured out I wasn’t fully committed to the conversation, laughed self-consciously, and said, “Sorry. I sometimes get carried away.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “I understand something of the individual units’ roles, I just don’t see how it all fits together.”

  “You have other skills,” Mattiak said, “and what matters is that you understand how the mages’ pouvrin can be used in this fight.”

  “I don’t know how I feel about that,” I said, and told him what I’d been thinking about the flitting pouvra (which is hard to use in a snowstorm) and magic as a weapon, and how uneasy it made me. “I see the necessity, because the invaders want us dead, but I don’t like it,” I concluded.

  “Nobody sane seeks out war as the first option,” Mattiak said. “I hope I don’t seem callous in my enthusiasm for planning strategy. Sometimes we lose track of the fact that these marks on the map represent men, and the strategy is meant to kill them. But I’ve seen too many soldiers fall to ever completely forget the purpose of war is achieved through death.” He took my hand and squeezed it briefly. “I don’t think you’re a killer, Sesskia.”

  That reminded me of the bandit mage, and I couldn’t help shuddering. “I hope you’re right,” I said, but now I’m back in my tent I can’t help wondering if assassinating the God-Empress might be the best use of my talents. I could get close enough, though I might not be able to get back out—so would I be willing to sacrifice my life and my soul to end this conflict?

  I can’t. I just can’t. I know what I wrote earlier, about if I had to use those pouvrin to protect the people I love, I’d do it, but I just can’t. I’m weak and selfish and I’ve been trying to comfort myself by saying the God-Empress has generals who won’t abandon their course of action just because she’s dead. If Aselfos was interested in becoming Emperor, I can’t imagine there aren’t more high-ranking officials who’ve thought the same thing. So killing her wouldn’t solve anything.

  I’m going to lie down and try to calm myself while waiting for Nessan to come. A good challenge is exactly what I need right now.

  4 Seresstine

  I’d meant to write about Nessan’s exercise when I finished it, but it was nearly dawn when I did and I barely got back without being spotted. I met him well after midnight, and we ran the perimeter of the camp, dodging our sentries a little too easily—Nessan was annoyed about it, and when we were finished, he said, “I’m going to do something about that. Here.” He handed me a knobby sack and said, “You have three hours to put these back in the exact places where they belong. Same rules as before—insubstantial only to walk in and out of things, bonus points if you don’t use the pouvra at all. If you’re seen, you fail.”

  “What’s the penalty if I fail?” I said.

  “I mock you for the rest of the week,” Nessan said. “Your three hours started one minute ago. Move.”

  The sack contained five objects I’d noticed many times before around the camp and one I couldn’t remember seeing before. I considered not using the walk-through-walls pouvra just to show off, but realized as I was about to return my first item (General Drussik’s pipe with the enormous carved bowl) I should use every advantage I had, and the extra challenge was one of Nessan’s tricks to distract me from my goal. I set the pipe on Drussik’s table and was off with the second item.

  It took me about half my allotted time to place the five objects I recognized. Then I had to find a hiding place so I could examine the sixth. It was a pocket watch on a silver chain, complete with fob that wasn’t much more than a lump of silver; expensive materials, not very good workmanship. I examined it more closely. No, it was made to look plain, but a lot of effort had gone into achieving that effect. There were no initials on the case or inside it, no engraved sentiment. The owner had had it for a long time, judging by the fine scratches on the case that indicated ordinary wear over the years. I opened it and looked at the innards again. Very old work. No, this was a family heirloom.

  It was familiar, and Nessan wouldn’t have given me anything I hadn’t seen before, though his definition of “seen before” might encompass a wide range of observations. I thought about what I could surmise about the owner. Male. Someone who had enough wealth to use this daily as opposed to keeping it safely out of harm’s way, as a poorer man would. Someone not interested in drawing attention to that wealth. This was narrowing down the possibilities quickly. Probably not noble, because almost all noblemen marked their jewelry with their names or personal sigils as an anti-theft measure. Hahahaha.

  That left me with about seven members of the general staff, plus Colonel Ivalys, but he and two of those staffers were off with other Army regiments. Five men, all of whom I’d seen regularly since we started training with the army, none of whom wore pocket watches. So which of those men would bring along a valuable watch and then not wear it?

  It took me ten minutes to reach Mattiak’s tent and then stop in dismay, because a tiny light was burning inside. Sneaking past him would be almost impossible; he was observant enough that he’d seen through the concealment pouvra, something even Cederic had trouble doing. And he was awake. And I wasn’t sure where he normally kept his watch. I checked that watch and discovered I had less than an hour before I’d have to endure Nessan’s taunts for the rest of the week. Then I concealed myself again and went as quietly as I could over the snow to the side of Mattiak’s tent, and peeked inside.

  Mattiak was seated at his table with his sleeves rolled up, writing something in a book. I think it might have been a personal record, like this one, and I was seized with a tremendous desire to read it. Then I was ashamed. I would hate it if he read this book, so was it fair to read his private thoughts?

  I set the desire well to one side and surveyed the room. He has a bed and table and chair that aren’t more ornate than mine, so either he’s a humble man or our furnishings reflect the highest standard of living the army can provide. There’s a trunk at the foot of the bed and a totally incongruous skinny coatrack next to it that holds his uniform jacket. The light came from a small lantern that swung above his head.

  As I watched, he laid the
pen down, stretched, and began unbuttoning his shirt. I withdrew quickly and moved around to the front of the tent, near the trunk, and waited for the light to go out. Then I waited some more, hoping he was quick to fall asleep. I had half an hour left when I finally poked my head back into the tent, then dropped to my knees and crawled, so slowly, toward the trunk.

  Mattiak doesn’t snore, but I can tell the difference between someone who’s actually sleeping and someone who’s faking it, so I kept crawling until I was right next to the trunk, where I stopped to take a few deep breaths. I worked the see-through pouvra and took a look at its contents. A note read BRING THIS BACK WHEN YOU’RE DONE.

  It amused me so much I let out an incautious snort, and Mattiak stirred in his sleep, rolled over, and then sat up. I sat perfectly still as he looked around, then went to light the lamp and looked around again. I was running out of time. With the pocket watch in my left hand, I carefully slid my arm inside the trunk, not looking at Mattiak—I’ve written before I think if I meet someone’s eyes, the pouvra won’t be able to conceal me against them. So I had no idea whether Mattiak had seen me or not, except if he had, he probably would have grabbed me.

  Insubstantial, I couldn’t burrow between Mattiak’s neatly folded clothes to hide the watch, so the best I could do was open my hand and let the watch fall out of it, becoming substantial as it did. Whatever noise it made was muffled by the wood of the trunk and the clothing inside, and I carefully turned Nessan’s note insubstantial so it wouldn’t rustle and withdrew, a little too rapidly because I was starting to feel lightheaded.

  Mattiak moved then, walking toward the tent flap, and I could only kneel there and pray he wouldn’t try to open the trunk, because he’d walk right into me. But he just stood there, so I quietly shifted toward the wall—and he spun and reached to grab me as I threw myself backward.

  I scrambled to my feet and sidled along the edge of the tent where the snow hadn’t fallen so I wouldn’t leave footprints for him to follow. Seconds later he burst out of the tent and rounded the corner, scanning the ground for those footprints I wasn’t leaving, but I’d already reached the far end and was bolting through the camp back to where Nessan waited. I slapped the note into his hand with three minutes to spare.

  “You weren’t spotted?” he said.

  “Almost,” I said, “but what matters is I wasn’t caught.”

  “You plan to tell the General it was you in his tent?” he said.

  “I plan to make him believe it was his imagination,” I said. “I take it the spies are all safely asleep in their tents?”

  “With plenty of witnesses to say they were there all night,” he said. “Nice work.”

  “You don’t even know I put everything back correctly,” I said.

  “Don’t have to,” he said. “If you’d failed, you’d have told me.” He started to walk away, then stopped. “Could you kill a man in cold blood?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Think about it,” he said. “You may have to.”

  It felt as if he knew my secret ability, even though I know he doesn’t, no one does except Jeddan. I think Nessan isn’t training me to be a spy. I think he’s training me to be like him, and I’m certain Nessan wouldn’t think twice about assassinating someone. I feel even more of a stranger to myself than ever.

  I couldn’t convince Mattiak it was his imagination, because he said, “My watch was missing, and now it’s back. Did you decide you couldn’t sell it easily, all the way out here?” He was smiling so I’d know it was a joke.

  “Why would I steal from you?” I said, with calculated innocence.

  “I’m sure you’d have some reason,” he said. “And someone was in my tent last night, I’d swear to it. Is that a habit your husband knows about?”

  “What, sneaking into men’s tents? Which I would never do,” I said.

  “I hope not,” he said. “You might give someone the wrong impression.”

  That flustered me, and I had to change the subject, which he let me do with a look that said he knew I was doing it on purpose. I hope Mattiak doesn’t think I’m the kind of woman who’d go looking for male companionship simply because she was missing her husband. Damn Nessan and his training exercises.

  It was, in fact, a very long day of travel. By dinner time, Mattiak seemed to have forgotten last night’s incident and we talked as usual about our progress and where the invading army was. One of the army’s divisions has headed almost directly east and we’re getting messengers back, reporting on forests that weren’t there before and a lake they had to skirt, but no sign of an army passing. We’re continuing south tomorrow.

  Chapter Nineteen

  5 Seresstine

  We’re camped near the destroyed crossroads where the Royal Road intersects with that Castaviran highway, and you can feel the excitement, because we picked up the God-Empress’s trail. It’s excitement tempered with anger, though, because the news came from men who escaped the slaughter near Binna, and Mattiak looked grim when he found out about it.

  I wasn’t there when the soldiers arrived, but Mattiak sent for me to come to the command tent before he let the soldiers tell more of their story than the basics: their division, the one that went east, encountered part of the God-Empress’s army, there was a vicious battle, and our division was routed, though not without inflicting terrible casualties. The soldier who repeated all this for me looked terrible. His head and left leg were bloody, and he and his two companions were filthy and exhausted. All three of them were sitting on camp stools looking like men who’d been defeated, which they had been, but it was more than that—they looked completely demoralized.

  “Start at the beginning now, Corporal,” Mattiak said. “When did you first see the enemy, and where?”

  “We’d just passed Binna—Major only stopped long enough to talk to the elders and see if they’d seen anything of the invading army. Which they hadn’t,” the corporal said. “Then our outriders found theirs. They ran, and we followed, came over a rise and saw them. The invading army.”

  “So they were headed west when you encountered them?” said Mattiak.

  The corporal nodded. “Captain said we were in a good position and we outnumbered them, and our company was going to move around to the north to attack their flank, try to circle them.” He coughed, hard, looked like he wanted to spit but swallowed instead.

  “Our front line crashed into theirs—they don’t fight like we do, got strange swords and knives ‘stead of fighting with sword and shield, no rifles—but we were doing all right. And then…” He shuddered. “That was when the fire started. Lots of big fires, actually, all over the place, but mostly in a line that cut our front lines off from the rear. Then the officers’ horses started screaming and rearing up like they was being stung all over by horseflies the size of a man’s head. Lot of officers fell. Some of ‘em were crushed underfoot. Signalman sounded the advance for us, and I swear, General, we didn’t back down.”

  “I believe you,” Mattiak said. “Go on.”

  He coughed again, and I reached around for a flask of water and gave it to him. He was so miserable he didn’t even react to my having used the mind-moving pouvra to do it. He swallowed, passed the flask to his comrade, and said, “We cut into their flank pretty deep. They’re fierce fighters, but they depend on that knife to do the killing while the sword keeps the other man busy, and they didn’t know what to do with our shields. So we were thinking their evil magic wasn’t enough to save them…

  “I heard Captain shout something that was cut off in the middle, and I looked up because he was right near and saw his face was gray and he had his hand to his throat, like he couldn’t breathe. Then he fell. And more of our officers fell. Then a man next to me…I couldn’t do anything for him. We were still fighting, but now they had the advantage, and there wasn’t anyone to tell us what to do. It was down to my sergeant, and he told us to fall back toward the main army just before he went down too.”<
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  “Did you see what happened to the rest of the army?” General Kalanik said.

  The soldier shook his head. “Not until they were running too. We didn’t know what else to do. Can’t fight magic. The fire, and the choking, and big rocks flying through the air to sweep a line of men and smash them to bloody pulp. We couldn’t do anything else.” He was pleading, and I wondered if he was afraid he’d be in trouble for escaping what sounded like an impossible situation. But Mattiak didn’t look like he was in a mood to blame anyone but the Castavirans.

  “You did right, Corporal,” he said. “No sense all of you getting killed and leaving no one to pass the word. Thank you all for your service. Go see the camp surgeon now.”

  The three men saluted (the Balaenic salute is two fingers to the forehead and a bow at the waist, deeper the higher the rank of the man you’re saluting) and left the tent. Mattiak sighed and said, “That’s not the way I hoped to find our enemy.”

  “They’re headed this way, sounds like,” General Drussik said. He waved his pipe around, gesturing the way he did when he was feeling some strong emotion. “But where’s the rest of their army?”

  “Could be that division was coming here to slow us down while the main army rips eastward through Balaen,” General Kalanik said.

  “But there’s nothing there,” General Bronnok said, sounding frustrated. “Garwin’s much farther south and Barrekel is four weeks east across nothing but plains. And they’d have to cross the Myrnala.”

  “What if they’re going to one of their own cities?” I said, unable to be more specific, but thinking If they overrun Colosse and then being unable to finish that thought.

  That made them all look thoughtful. “Could be anything there,” Kalanik said. “And we haven’t gotten news from the heartland for six weeks. If they’ve got more troops out there….”