With a sound like the very fabric of reality tearing, a slash of light split the air above her, like a bolt of lightning that stopped in midair. Then another, and another. The slashes widened as feathery cracks began to spread out from them, each splitting into finer and finer cracks. In mere moments, what hung above her was like a thorny wreath of pure white light. She closed her eyes against the brightness. A distant cry grew suddenly louder. Even with her eyes shut tight, Myranda could see the brilliant pattern in the air.
With a tumultuous crash, the light suddenly vanished. Myranda opened her eyes. Before her, in a heap, was a young man with unkempt brown hair in a gray tunic. Beneath him were the twitching remains of a now-destroyed creature. The inexplicable newcomer groaned in pain, and slowly recognition forced its way through shock, fear, and confusion. She knew this man. He was a young wizard she’d met in a place called Entwell. It was a place of learning, tucked away on the other side of a treacherous cave. She’d spent time there, what seemed like a lifetime ago, learning the ways of magic. He had been her teacher, her mentor--and, above all, her friend--but she’d had to leave him behind in that paradise. His name was Deacon.
She’d reflected upon their time together more times than she could count in the eternity since she’d left. Now, with no explanation, he had returned, and his appearance had crushed the beast that had been threatening her.
A thousand questions and a dozen emotions fought for Myranda's attention, but one pressing matter defeated them all: the other creature. Before she could draw breath to shout a warning, a second gash in the sky opened and a small white bag came tumbling out. It landed with a force far too great for its size, directly atop the beast that was only steps away from bringing the unexpected reunion to an all-too-swift end. Thus, in the most unlikely of ways, the crisis was ended.
Myranda looked down upon her ailing friend. The fall, and more so what he had fallen upon, had taken a rather severe toll on him. He groaned again and rolled to the ground, rising to his hands and knees, then finally, unsteadily, to his feet. Suddenly, his clenched eyes shot open.
"Myranda!" he cried, as though he had just remembered the name.
The wizard's eyes darted around; finally, he found Myranda. He rushed to her.
"Myranda! Heavens above. It is a miracle! Are you well?" he asked, crouching at her side, his own injuries instantly forgotten. "No, no, you are not well at all! My crystal! Where is it?"
"Deacon . . . Deacon. Deacon!" Myranda called, finally with enough of her wits about her to appreciate the appearance of her old friend.
"Here, yes," Deacon said, scooping up his crystal and rushing to her side. "What requires healing most urgently!?"
His voice was insistent and desperate.
"Please, Deacon calm down. Thanks to you the danger is gone. Now, where did you come from? How did you get here?" Myranda asked.
"From Entwell, directly," he said, calling to mind his long neglected white magic teachings and beginning to restore Myranda's ailing legs.
"But how? It is so far. When did you leave? How did you find me?" she asked.
"I left a few moments ago. I've been watching you as best I could. It has been . . . well, part of a recent change in focus for me," he said.
"A few moments ago?" Myranda said, confused.
"Yes. Instantaneous travel. Transportation. It flirts with a number of techniques we have forbidden, but the principles were there. It just took some digging. Some innovation. A few weeks," he said, finishing up on the injuries he could see before beginning on his own.
In Entwell, Deacon had been the resident master of a field of the mystic arts known as gray magic. It was a catchall, dealing with anything that did not explicitly heal or hurt, and was not based on the elements. He’d devoted the whole of his life, since before he could speak, to mastering these arts, and thus they were second nature to him, an afterthought that he understood so thoroughly he often forgot that there were those who did not.
"How could you have been watching me?" she asked, trying to stand on her restored legs.
"Well, distance seeing is actually rather low magic. Penetrating the obscuring effect of the mountains required that you be exerting yourself mystically, but that was hardly a rarity for you. It took a bit of diligence, but I was able to pinpoint you rather frequently," he answered, his voice beginning to waver as he began trembling.
"Is something the matter?" she asked.
"Nothing at all . . . I am just . . . Is it always this cold?" he said.
Myranda realized that he was in no way dressed for the northern weather. The same light gray tunic he had worn in Entwell was all he wore now. It was scarcely enough to ward off the freezing wind.
"Good heavens! Why didn't you wear something warmer?" she asked.
"I-I haven't been thinking very clearly of late. Not s-since . . . Never mind. I have some things in my b-b-bag which might h-h-help," he said.
Shakily, he made his way to the crater that contained his bag and the remains of the second creature. When he spotted it, he jumped back.
"W-w-what is th-this?" he asked, clearly having just noticed the beasts he had saved Myranda from.
"I don't know, they just came out from the walls. Something Demont dreamed up, I'm sure," Myranda answered.
"Demont . . ." he mused, as though somehow he knew the name. "F-fascinating. I've not seen something crafted in s-s-such a way."
"You can study it later. You need to warm up," Myranda reminded him.
"Indeed," he said.
Deacon grasped the cinched-closed end of the bag and tugged at it, but it barely moved.
"B-b-b-blast it. I was afraid something like this would happen. The transportation damaged the enchantments," he said. "Won't t-t-t-take a moment to fix."
He held his crystal unsteadily over the bag. A pulse of light and a flex of will later, and the bag seemed to rise up, as though it was no longer heavy enough to compress the broken creature beneath it. Sure enough, Deacon grasped the bag once more, this time lifting it as though it were empty, which it indeed seemed to be. He began to paw through it clumsily. As he did, the sound of much clinking and jostling could be heard from within.
"Sh-sh-sh-should have organized this better," he said, suddenly beginning to cough a dry, hollow cough as the bite of the cold finally got the better of his lungs. When the fit subsided, he cast a harried eye to the door behind them. "Is it warmer inside, p-p-perhaps?"
"I wouldn't risk it. There was some spell on the door that released those creatures," she said.
"If it was placed there, it can be removed," he said, gathering the bag closed and rushing to the door.
Myranda watched anxiously as he inspected the door. He looked it over, even without his crystal at work, seeming to follow lines and patterns that weren't there, until his eyes settled upon the door sill.
"Here. R-r-runes. I don't recognize them . . . but . . . it would seem they are spent. If we can manage to p-p-p-pry the door, the spell will not activate again," he stated with certainty.
With that he heaved a shoulder at the door, bouncing off painfully. He then raised his crystal. Another pulse of light and the door burst open so forcefully that it was nearly torn from its hinges. He rushed inside. When the door did not slam shut again, and no more creatures appeared, Myranda followed, shutting the door behind her. Deacon was beating his arms and looking desperately for some source of heat. Finding none, he raised his crystal once more and released it. The immaculately clear, egg-shaped focus stone took on a warm orange glow, and almost immediately the room's temperature rose to a comfortable one. He settled against the wall, sighed with relief, and slid to the floor.
"We need to move on from here as quickly as possible. This is Demont's workshop, I believe. I do not wish to be here if he returns," Myranda warned, nervously scanning the room once more.
"Duly noted. A wise decision," he agreed, as he rummaged through his bag once more.
The satchel was by no means large. Stuffed
to capacity, it looked as though it might be able to hold a tightly-balled blanket, and it was hanging quite loose. Yet he pulled one full-length white cloak, and then another from it. Dropping the bag on the ground, he hurriedly put the cloak on. It was not ideally suited for the northern cold either, but perhaps in addition to the tunic he wore it would be enough. He then presented the other cloak to Myranda and helped her to put it on.
"How did you fit those inside that small bag?" she asked.
"It is quite large inside. A little trick traveling wizards use. I could make one for you, if you like, but it would take a bit of time," he said, showing her the bag.
When he opened the top of the bag wide, the inside looked to be mounded with vials, books, tools--indeed, the entire contents of Deacon's hut. They had not become any smaller, either. Looking into the bag was like staring into the mouth of a deep pit.
"That is quite all right. Deacon . . . I . . ." Myranda began, fumbling for the right words. "How long will you be out of Entwell?"
She wanted desperately to tell him how often her thoughts had turned to him, to tell him how much she valued their time together, but the words wouldn't come. It was as though it had been so long since she'd had someone like him in her life that she had simply lost her ability to express herself adequately.
"For quite a while . . . quite a while," he said. "My actions prior to my escape have soured attitudes toward me. I'm not certain I would be welcome."
"What did you do?" she asked.
"It doesn't matter," he said, his eyes beginning to wander to the contents of the workshop. "The important thing is that I managed to reach you in time. You say that this workshop belongs to Demont. He is . . . one of the generals, yes?"
"He is," Myranda said.
"Then . . . I think anything we might do to delay him is useful to the cause," Deacon remarked distractedly.
"I suppose," Myranda replied.
"To that end . . . I think it prudent that I take samples . . . remove pieces of his puzzle, as it were," he said, beginning to pour over the shelves and tables.
"If you must, but do it quickly. We need to rejoin the others. And be careful," she relented.
Like a child given permission to raid the shelves of a candy store, Deacon began greedily plucking up artifacts, sheets, and vials. After a cursory glance that somehow assured him that it was safe to do so, each was dropped into his seemingly bottomless bag. There was a case filled with crystals that he dropped in its entirety inside, and book after book followed it. Finally, he pulled down a large map that had been affixed to one wall, folded it, and tucked it inside.
When he was done, the shelves were near bare, and the bag did not even bulge. Myranda smiled at the utter enthusiasm in Deacon's face as he shuffled the things inside his bag, reaching down into it nearly to his shoulder to pull up things he was interested in looking at first and positioning them at the top. When he was satisfied, he cinched the bag shut and hung it effortlessly from the tie of the tunic beneath the robe.
"Well, I suppose that I am prepared to brave the weather again. Are you certain you are well? It has been some time since I last practiced the healer's art. I may have missed an injury," he said, suddenly realizing he had been ignoring her.
"I am well enough. Let us go, quickly. There is no telling how far the others have gone," she said.
"Then by all means," he said, bracing himself for the cold before opening the door.
The instant that the harsh wind touched him, he knew that the thin cloak was not nearly enough. After briefly considering coping with the cold, he decided that further action was required.
"Just a moment more," he said, shedding the cloak and clutching it in one hand as he held his crystal in the other.
He closed his eyes briefly, as if remembering, and then cast a spell. In addition to the swift, clean pulse of light from the crystal that signified his spells, a wave of light swept up the cloak from bottom to top. A glow trailed behind it, lingering briefly before fading. He stepped into the wind again, this time seemingly unaffected by it.
"What did you do?" Myranda asked.
"I imbued the fabric of the cloak with an enchantment that counteracts the cold by preventing any of my own heat from--" he began.
"An enchantment against the cold. That was answer enough for me," she said.
"Of course," he replied, clearly a bit disappointed at his explanation being cut short.
"Is it really so simple to cast an enchantment?" she asked as she stepped out into the cold, her layers of protection and years of experience making a similar treatment unnecessary.
"Well, normally no. The strength and complexity of an enchantment that a garment or other object will hold is . . . We make our cloaks specifically to ease enchantment," he said, catching himself.
"Thank you," Myranda said with a chuckle.
The pair stepped outside. The terror of Myranda's previous venture through the doors had been so overwhelming, she'd scarcely noticed where the door had led her. They were on the edge of a steep, icy slope. The weak glow of the morning sky cast light on a sparsely-treed countryside. The memory of their trip was faded by her ordeal, but she was certain that she was nowhere near where she had entered the fort with the other Chosen.
Nothing her eyes told her gave her any indication of where she might be. After a few moments of straining her eyes, trying to find something unique about the countryside, all she knew for certain was that the fort was somewhere to the southwest. An endless column of black smoke stretching high into the gray sky betrayed that.
"Where do we go?" Deacon asked, marveling at the sheer size of the countryside. He had no memories of any place but Entwell. Tiny and perfect as it was, it was his world. The rolling hills and mountains of white, the scattered, snow-capped trees, the tiny flickering hints of far-off fires . . . it all had a scope that was dizzying and disorienting to him.
"We have to find the others. They were headed south, for the Tressor. I . . . I don't know which way they are, or how far they've gone. Can you find them?" she asked.
"I can't, but I can help you to do so. Of the group, I've only met Lain. I certainly do not know enough of his soul to pinpoint it, but I could empower your own search," he explained.
"Very well," she said, immediately closing her eyes and raising her broken staff, weakly spreading her mind.
A moment later, she felt Deacon's warm fingers close about her hand. Instantly a cool, steady clarity swept over her mind, like that brought by a focusing stone, but far more substantial. She began to reach out, but as she did, his hands left hers and the steadiness withdrew from her mind as quickly as it had come. She opened her eyes to see a nervousness on Deacon's face.
"You must never do that. At a time like this, it is the worst thing you could do," Deacon warned.
"What?" she asked.
"Cast your mind far and wide," he said.
Myranda blinked. "I know of no other way that I might find them. What danger is there?"
"To do so is to send up a beacon for all to see. You may find who you seek, but those who seek you will most certainly find you," he explained.
"Then what shall I do?" she asked.
"I will demonstrate," he said.
He took her hand and both returned to their concentration. Deacon spoke, his voice as clear in her mind as in her ears. He told of the very same means he had used to find her. It was more direct, more targeted, and virtually undetectable. Before long, she felt the presence of the minds of the others, as clearly and as strongly as if she were standing beside them.
"I feel them. I know where they are," she said. "Ivy . . . she is . . . I can feel her sorrow. She thinks I am dead."
"She will know the truth soon enough," Deacon said.
"No . . . you do not understand. Her sadness is as much a hardship for the others as it is for her. I need to let her know I am alive," Myranda explained.
"It would not be possible with the others--they have minds far too strong to perm
it a message to be delivered against their will--but at the moment it would seem that . . . Ivy . . . is susceptible. I will link you," Deacon said.
She felt a flex of his will and suddenly the physical form of Ivy seemed to manifest itself in Myranda's mind. The malthrope, a half-human/half-fox creature, stood before her, seemingly real enough to touch. Her stark white fur and muzzle, her inquisitive pink eyes, her pointed ears and tail--they all seemed vivid as life.
"M . . . Myranda!?" Ivy cried joyfully.
"Ivy, I am glad to know that you are all right," Myranda said.
"You are glad!? I thought you died. The fort fell! You were inside!" Ivy gushed tearfully.
With their minds linked, the emotion was like an earthquake. Myranda had to fight to remain connected.
"Listen, Ivy. I just want you to know that I will be with you soon. Tell the others. And be careful," Myranda said.
"I will, Myranda," Ivy said, another surge of joy finally shaking the bond that connected them.
Slowly, Myranda allowed her concentration to wane, the cold whistling of the wind returning to her ears. Deacon's grasp lingered for a moment before he lowered his crystal.
"That was remarkable," Myranda said. "Is that how you searched for me?"
"Each and every moment of my waking days. With those blasted mountains between us, it took a measure more effort, but I found you, so it was all worth it," he said, his eyes staring at the hand that had touched hers. As his gaze wandered up and locked briefly with her own, he tried to continue. "I-I knew that I had to help you. Your cause, it--it is far too important. Are you confident that you know where the others are? Can we reach them soon?"
"I know where they are, but I still am not certain where we are," she said.
"Navigation . . . navigation spells. I . . . never truly pursued them. They exist, but in a place like Entwell, there is just no need. Foolish of me. All spells have importance. One moment; I will turn one up," he said, scolding himself under his breath as he rummaged through the bag again.
The Book of Deacon Anthology Page 88