Sword of Shadows

by Karin Rita Gastreich

  The undergarments and dress they brought were simple but finely woven, the skirt and bodice a deep shade of blue. After a moment, Eolyn recognized the gown. It was one of several left behind years before when she had refused Akmael’s proposal and embarked upon her journey south. The realization that he had kept it all this time surprised and moved her in ways deeper than she cared to admit.

  Yessenia took great care with Eolyn’s hair, weaving a string of river pearls into an elegant braid. The extravagance made the maga uncomfortable, but she did not protest, because Yessenia’s touch relaxed her, and she liked the happy whisper of the pearls. Stones born of water and life, theirs was a light-hearted song, never bogged down by the deeper moods of their more ancient and ponderous kin.

  Once she finished, Yessenia stepped away to admire her work. “Have you nothing else, Maga Eolyn?”

  Puzzled by the question, Eolyn frowned and shrugged.

  “Other jewels,” Yessenia explained, “to grace your appearance.”

  “Oh.” Eolyn’s hand rose to the base of her throat. The silver web had slipped from her fingers last night, somewhere between Akmael’s kisses and his bed. “Yes, I have a necklace, but I don’t know what became of it.”

  A brief search revealed the amulet on a small table next to the bed. Yessenia furrowed her brow, as if it were not quite what she had in mind.

  “It was a gift from the King,” Eolyn said. “I assure you it is most appropriate.”

  “Of course.” Yessenia nodded. She fastened the clasp behind Eolyn’s neck, then retreated and gave a brief curtsey. “Is there anything else you desire, milady? Beg your pardon. Maga Eolyn.”

  “No. Thank you.” Eolyn’s hands worked restlessly against each other. She glanced around the room, uncertain what to do next. “Where is the King?”

  “He meets with his advisors.” She gestured to the wide heavy door that led to the rest of his apartments. “He asked that you seek him out, when you are ready.”

  Eolyn nodded and started toward the door. Yessenia ran to open it. The maga paused in the doorway, wary of the muffled sound of men’s voices floating down the passageway.

  Be cautious, Corey had warned. Be prudent.

  “Is there another entrance?” Eolyn asked.

  “Another?” Yessenia looked as if she had just been asked to solve an impossible mystery.

  “Yes. Some other way that I might enter the King’s audience. A servant’s route, perhaps.”

  “It would not be proper for you to enter like a servant.”

  “But I can’t…” Eolyn bit her lip. She knew not who waited in the presence of the King, but if she entered like this they would all know exactly where she had come from.

  “Is the Queen with him?”

  “No, Maga Eolyn.” Yessenia arched her brow in a friendly, conspiratorial expression. “The Queen is indisposed.”

  Of course, Eolyn remembered. The miscarriage.

  A need to visit Taesara, to attend her illness and comfort her mourning, surged in Eolyn’s heart, though she knew that would not be possible. Not now. Drawing a deep breath and straightening her shoulders, Eolyn started down the hallway.

  Her entrance into the council chamber brought all conversation to a halt.

  More than a dozen men were gathered around the long table that occupied the center of the room: noblemen in elegantly embroidered doublets, knights in armor, and High Mages in flowing robes of forest green.

  Eolyn recognized several of Tzeremond’s old adherents, among them, gracious old Tzetobar, the long-faced Lord Herensen, and Corey’s friend, High Mage Thelyn. These same men had sent the magas and all their allies to the pyres. They had forced Doyenne Ghemena into hiding, imprisoned Briana of East Selen, and erased centuries of proud history. They had tortured Eolyn’s mother, sentenced her to death, and watched her burn. Now all the laws that had once prohibited women’s magic were lifted, yet here these men stood, wielding the same power they always had and watching her.

  Anxious for a maga’s next mistake.

  “Maga Eolyn.” Akmael, standing at the head of the table, acknowledged her presence.

  Eolyn gave him a deep curtsey. “Forgive me, my Lord King, for interrupting this audience.”

  “This is no interruption. We are all most anxious to hear more of your trials in Moehn.” Akmael extended an arm toward her. His face was expressionless, as was his custom when he met with his men, but Eolyn could see that her appearance pleased him. “Come.”

  She approached, occupying a space created by shifting bodies.

  “High Mage Tzetobar.” She nodded to the rosy-cheeked mage across the table, who even in the most serious of moments managed a kind spark in his blue eyes. “It is good to see you again.”

  “I assure you, Maga Eolyn, the sentiment is most heartily shared,” he said.

  “And you, High Mage Thelyn. Lord Herensen.” Eolyn met the eyes of each man in turn, greeting all assembled, apologizing to those whose names she did not remember, and making note of new faces that had appeared.

  “This is Lord Penamor.” The King intervened when she came to a man at the far end of the table. “The new ambassador from Roenfyn, and uncle to the Queen.”

  Eolyn hoped her expression did not betray the quickening of her heart. Penamor was a tall man with stiff shoulders, a long face and shrewd eyes. His wore a slate gray cloak, and his doublet bore the sigil and colors of his king, a sheath of silver wheat on a sage background.

  She nodded. “Well met, Lord Penamor. Welcome to Moisehén. I regret that we must receive you under such trying circumstances.”

  “As do I,” he replied, with a cold unblinking stare.

  “Maga Eolyn.” Akmael drew forth a large map of the southern provinces and laid it out for her to see. “We have received word from Sir Drostan, who obtained information about the invading forces from a refugee met on the road to Aerunden. He intends to stall the army at the pass until we arrive.”

  “You will meet them in Aerunden?” she asked.

  “We march at dawn.”

  Eolyn frowned and studied the map, troubled by this news for reasons she could not quite capture. The men resumed their conversation. Their talk of arms, supplies, and levies flowed like the murmur of a stream behind her thoughts, until the danger she sensed unfolded like a dark rose in her mind.

  “That may not be wise,” she said.

  Everyone looked at her as if they had already forgotten she was there. Eolyn bit her lip, uncertain whether she should have spoken at all. She glanced around the table until her eyes met Akmael’s.

  “Please, Maga Eolyn,” he said. “Speak.”

  She drew an unsteady breath. “My Lord King, it has been but three years since you met Ernan’s forces in the Valley of Aerunden. Many people died that day; the curtain between the world of the living and the world of the dead is still thin. If the Syrnte intend to summon Naether Demons on the battlefield, then that valley could be the ideal place for them to do so.”

  There was a shifting of feet and clearing of throats, accompanied by looks of doubt, curiosity, and scorn.

  “I dare say Maga Eolyn has a point,” Thelyn said with a lift his dark brows.

  “Yes,” agreed a mage warrior called Galison, a fair-headed man with a broad face. “But we cannot, at this juncture, hope to meet the Syrnte in Moehn. Not without incurring great loss. So enter the Valley of Aerunden they must. And when they do, they will summon the Naether Demons and send them after us, no matter where we are.”

  The men nodded and voiced their concurrence, only to fall into renewed silence when Akmael asked, “What, then, would you recommend, Maga Eolyn?”

  She faltered under expectant gazes. “Well, I…I’m not certain, my Lord King. There is much we do not yet know about the Naether Demons, or the power the Syrnte hold over them. I would think their time in our world is constrained by the integrity of the breach they use to enter it, and the potency of the magic given them.

  “So, while the Syrnte
may be able to summon Naether Demons in the Valley of Aerunden, I do not believe they could travel far from the place where they emerged, except perhaps by some extraordinary magic, a power beyond anything we have yet conceived.”

  “They may well have that kind of power,” Galison said.

  “I don’t believe so,” Eolyn replied.

  “Why not?”

  “Well…” Eolyn paused, for her initial response had been based more on instinct than on logic. “If the Syrnte had magic that formidable, they would not need to summon Naether Demons. They could simply crush us, and be done with it.”

  “Maga Eolyn.” Thelyn addressed her now, long fingers working against his staff of polished cherry wood. “I understand it was Mage Corey who was sent to retrieve you. Why is he not here?”

  “This device,” she touched the silver web at her throat, “can only carry one practitioner at a time. Mage Corey insisted I use it to return to the King.”

  “Where did you leave him?”

  “Just south of the Pass of Aerunden.”

  “He could fly out, then,” Thelyn concluded. “Cross the mountains into Selkynsen, and be in Rhiemsaven by the day after tomorrow.”

  “I am sorry to say that is not his plan,” Eolyn replied. “Corey intends to help Sir Borten look after my student Mariel. They will find a way out of Moehn together if possible, and see Mariel safely into hiding if not.”

  “We have need of him.” Thelyn turned to the King. “There is no one who knows more about Syrnte magic than he.”

  “If there is anyone who can escape an occupied province, it is Mage Corey,” Lord Herensen said drily. “Survival is that man’s greatest talent.”

  “But will he escape in time to be of assistance to us?”

  “Mage Corey understands the gravity of the threat we face,” Akmael said. “If he sent Maga Eolyn in his stead, it was with full confidence that she would be as great an asset to our efforts as he, if not greater.”

  “Mage Corey asked that you take me to Tzeremond’s quarters, Mage Thelyn,” Eolyn said, “that we might decipher the ward to the Master’s library. Corey is convinced Tzeremond had records that can help us defeat the Naether Demons.”

  “We’ve been trying for years to open up that library,” said one of the other High Mages, a bent old man with a thinning beard and gravelly voice. “It is impossible. The Master wanted no one to enter, before or after his death.”

  “Every ward can be unraveled,” Eolyn countered, “even one cast by Master Tzeremond.”

  The statement was met with grim faces and shaking heads.

  “We must try,” she insisted. “It could be our only hope.”

  Their murmurs of objection continued, but Akmael cut them short. “High Mage Thelyn, you will accompany Maga Eolyn and assist her with this task. Anything you find that can help us must be communicated to me at once.”

  “As you wish, my Lord King.” Thelyn bowed. Eolyn thought she caught a wink in his eye.

  “Maga Eolyn,” Akmael continued, “you have shared very useful information and insights, but you have yet to answer my question.”

  “My Lord King?”

  “What do you recommend with respect to the Valley of Aerunden?”

  Again Eolyn frowned, searched her thoughts, and put them in order. “I would send mages at once, as many as possible, to begin sealing the breaches that remain in the valley. It will not be enough, of course. There isn’t sufficient time, as you well know; closing all those doors requires planting new life, allowing it to grow and thrive. But there are wards that could block the way temporarily. We can at least make the task more difficult for them.”

  “What if you are wrong, Maga Eolyn?” Sir Galison said. “If the Syrnte are able to march forth from Aerunden with an army of Naether Demons? What then?”

  It was Herensen who stepped forward and said, “Perhaps there would be a way to harry the Syrnte, to force them out of the valley before they make camp, so they do not have the opportunity to work their magic there.”

  “Harry them or lure them forward.” Akmael clasped his hands behind his back, brow furrowed in concentration. “To cede another inch of land after they have taken Moehn and the Pass of Aerunden seems foolhardy at best, and yet, if we are to be truthful with ourselves, we must consider the fact that the information we have about their army is not reliable, only the account of an injured and frightened boy. By letting the Syrnte march north towards Rhiemsaven, we would give our scouts the opportunity to better estimate their numbers, men and demons alike.”

  “My Lord King,” Galison objected, “I urge you not to consider allowing them to advance any further than Aerunden.”

  “I will consider it, Galison.” Akmael responded with a tone that put an end to all discussion. “Though I have not yet made my decision. Mage Seldon?”

  “My Lord King.” The mage who stepped forward had a ruddy face with a bulbous nose and a thick yellow beard.

  “See to it that thirty mages are dispatched at once. They are to ride to the Valley of Aerunden with all haste, and there set to work sealing whatever breaches they can find. You must also send a message ahead of them to the magistrate in Rhiemsaven, that he may put his own mages to the same task.”

  “As you wish, my Lord King.”

  “With all due respect, King Akmael.” Lord Penamor, the ambassador from Roenfyn, spoke. “This is unacceptable. A woman sitting at a war council? Her advice heard and heeded?”

  Akmael let the question hang in the air before responding in even tones. “You would do well, Lord Penamor, not to question who sits on my council.”

  A heavy silence followed.

  “My Lord Penamor,” High Mage Tzetobar interjected with conciliatory tone, “this is not just any woman. She is a High Maga, trained in the tradition of Aithne and Caradoc. The only one left to our people. Her knowledge is as vast as it is unique. She is as well respected as any High Mage.”

  “She alone among us has met the Naether Demons,” Thelyn added. “And if I understood my Lord King’s recounting of her tale, has already defeated them. Twice.”

  “What you say is true.” Eolyn said, conscious of Akmael and Penamor, whose gazes remained locked on each other, like stags preparing to charge. “Though I would not have overcome them without the assistance of Sir Borten and Mage Corey.”

  “You must tell us what spells were used, what proved most effective.”

  “Why of course, Mage Thelyn.”

  The charged silence between Akmael and Penamor choked off any further words. Resentment billowed over the council room. Eolyn’s skin prickled. She felt as if lightning were about to strike the table in front of her.

  “That is enough for one morning,” Akmael said tersely. “You have your orders, all of you.”

  Penamor was the first to leave, anger in his stride. The others broke off in twos and threes, conversing quietly as they departed the King’s presence, some with more haste than others.

  Thelyn made his way toward Eolyn, circling the large table and slipping through moving bodies. A handsome man, always meticulously groomed, he had not aged in the least since Eolyn last saw him. His cherry wood staff was adorned with a crystal head of andradite.

  “Maga Eolyn.” He bowed when he reached her side. “You must be very worried about your ward, young Ghemena.”

  Ghemena. Eolyn brought a hand to her forehead and rebuked herself silently. In truth, she had not thought about her student all morning. Such was the spell of the Mage King; even her wits had remained in his bed. “Yes, of course, Mage Thelyn. Where is she?”

  “She has been entrusted to me. Had I known you were returned to us, I would have brought her with me this morning. As it is, she is studying magic under the tutorship of Mage Veroden, along with other children of her age.”

  “Other girls studying magic? Here in the City?”

  “No, not girls. There are no girls studying magic here. Or rather, there weren’t, until yesterday.”

  “This is m
ost irregular,” Eolyn said doubtfully, “to have a girl studying among mages.”

  “Perhaps,” Thelyn replied. “Or perhaps the first mistake of our predecessors was to separate the boys from the girls.”

  “High Mage Thelyn.” Akmael’s stern command interrupted their conversation. “You are dismissed as well.”

  “Of course, my Lord King.” He bowed in deference and said to Eolyn, “I will take advantage of this brief respite to bring Ghemena to the castle. She will be delighted to learn you are safe and well.”

  “Thank you, Mage Thelyn. I am most grateful.”

  He nodded and was gone.

  “All of you as well,” Akmael said to his servants, “leave us.”

  They disappeared without word or sound, closing the heavy doors behind them.

  Eolyn turned to Akmael, “My Lord King, there is something of great importance we have not yet—”

  He closed the distance between them and cut her words short with a kiss, heated, insatiable. When she gasped for air, his lips released hers, only to course without reprieve down her neck.

  “My love,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around him, overcome by the sudden ecstasy of his touch.

  Eolyn intertwined her fingers in Akmael’s hair. He lifted her up on the table, pushing back her skirts until he found what he sought. His thrusts were demanding and deep, tinged with anger; she clung to him with vigor, muffling cries of pleasure against his shoulder, dizzy inside his voracious desire, until she heard his groan and felt his release shudder through her.

  “My love,” she murmured, feathering his neck with kisses.

  They remained intertwined, their breath keeping rhythm with the fading pulse of his heat. Akmael’s brow was damp, and Eolyn’s dress suddenly stifling.

  His fingers sank into her hair. Gently he pulled her head back to expose the arch of her throat, caressing it once again with his lips. Loosening her bodice, he bent to taste the salty dew that had gathered between her breasts.

  How did I ever find the strength to walk away from this?