The Zi'veyn

by Kim Wedlock

  "Why not?"

  "Because why would it still be where it was created? And why would it be hidden there? It's a bit too obvious."

  "But it could provide us with some information about the spell itself," Rathen suggested.

  "Not about the weapon, it wouldn't. That kind of information would be locked away, and tightly. They'd risk someone else making one and turning it on them if it wasn't."

  "I suppose you have a point..."

  "What can you tell us for certain, Anthis?" Garon asked, his commanding voice easily stealing the helm of the conversation.

  "Well, I've not figured out precisely where any of this points - there are three or four options - but one thing I do know for certain is that Bowden isn't necessary."

  "You couldn't have decided that earlier?" Rathen groaned.

  "It wouldn't have mattered," he replied regretfully. "I still have no real direction to give you."

  "What are these options?" Garon asked.

  "They're wide spread," he warned them, but all eyes were surprisingly patient. "Well, there's Tarun, the grandest of all elven cities, if the artefact remained under guard; Sunscale Lake, east in Qenra, where it's believed they were gifted their magic, if it was hidden away; Enhala, the elven cultural capital in Kasire, as an alternative 'place of magic', and finally Lofton down south, once famous for the metalwork that produced the artefacts."

  "I thought you said that wasn't worth pursuing."

  "Well I've only added that to the list because it will niggle at me otherwise. Make me feel like I've forgotten something. But, don't worry, I'll spend the night cross-referencing and have it narrowed down by morning. Then we can be on our way."

  The mage grumbled in discouragement but he chose not to voice it, then looked down to find Aria handing out the bowls of soup he'd neglected. He smiled softly as she took what she offered him, then handed it to Anthis. "Eat. You might as well take a break for now."

  "Wait..."

  He frowned as Anthis fished about in his pockets and withdrew a piece of metal so ornate that it took he and the others a moment to work out what it was. "A key?"

  "There was nothing in that box or in that room that even had a lock on it."

  Rathen nodded slowly. "It could be relevant. Keep it with you."

  "Believe me, I was going to."

  "Good. Now: eat."

  Aria started towards the pavilion with another bowl in her hands, but the inquisitor turned away. Aria pouted.

  "Are you not eating tonight?" Rathen asked as he watched him return to his attentive spot at the centre.

  "Not yet. You go ahead."

  Anthis returned to the seclusion of the chamber shortly after he'd finished, already lost in thought before he'd seen the bottom of the bowl, and Petra soon excused herself only to vanish behind the pavilion, sword drawn and rolling her shoulders as she went. Rathen didn't want to ask her what she was doing.

  Aria similarly turned into herself and began working in her sketchbook by torchlight, and in the silence, Rathen was left little option but to see to his own matters. But it was far from that simple. With his notebook open upon his knees, he made his notes, thoughts and guesses on the magic, crossed them out, made the same notes with different words and then crossed them out again. He kept at it for some time before finally giving up with a huff and tossing the book aside in frustration.

  "Having trouble?" Aria asked from a few feet away, nestled cosily in a nook between the foot of the shattered statue - of Feira, Anthis had needlessly told them - and the roots of a thick tree.

  "No."

  She raised an eyebrow at his waspish tone, and he sensed her disapproval. He glanced sidelong, certain that she was silently declaring him a liar.

  "It's just...difficult to know where to start," he amended.

  "What did Kienza tell you?"

  "...To stop getting bogged down in specifics."

  "Aside from that. I'm sure she gave you some kind of instructions. She knows a lot about magic - more, I reckon, than she lets us think she does."

  Rathen considered the eight year old. It was one of those curious moments where she sounded older and wiser than she should have, and on this occasion she even appeared to look a few years older given how elegantly she was sat, sketchbook on her folded legs and charcoal held like a fine quill. All accidental, of course, but he couldn't help wondering for a moment what she would grow up to become, and, not for the first time, if she would show any magical talent.

  His jaw tightened as defiantly as it had each time that thought had risen before, and he promised himself he wasn't going to give her up to the Order if she did. He could teach her the basics himself, and the rest she was smart enough to pick up on her own.

  "Yes," he replied, "she does...and she did."

  Aria smiled - a childish one that returned her to her true age, much to Rathen's relief. Sometimes he wondered just how much she'd learned from Kienza. If, for example, it didn't stretch beyond general knowledge, whittling and wrapping Rathen tightly around her little finger. "It's all right, Daddy," she assured him. "It's easy to forget things you've been told, no matter how many times you might hear it."

  He narrowed his dark eyes as a smile crept across his face. "You mean like when I tell you not to do something and then you do it anyway?"

  "See? It even happens to me!"

  He laughed and shook his head, then looked back down to his book of scratched-out notes. Yes, he had to stop over thinking it and just go back to basics. 'Try to affect it as a whole - push it, compact it, expand it.' That's what Kienza had recommended as a second step. He just had to affect it in some way - any way. So far all he'd really done was look at it, and he'd learned as much as he could by that means. Now he had to reach out and touch it.

  He straightened where he sat and released his grip from the cuff around his arm, suddenly aware that he was squeezing it in his thoughts, and forced himself to relax and embrace the flow of his own magic.

  Immediately the elven magic that surrounded him became sharper and clearer than before, bright to his senses though there was nothing to see. It had been impossible to miss even when he wasn't looking for it, but when he focused himself in such a way, it was as if it had become tangible.

  He was about to rush in and try to push it, but he managed to restrain himself before his certain, thoughtless failure and considered it instead. A general force push spell would be useless. Though it may have seemed it to him at that moment, this magic was not material and it wouldn't move by sheer force any easier than light shining on the ground. He needed to form a spell specifically to interact with it.

  ...But how? A spell to interact with disembodied magic just floating around like this? Such a thing had never been tried - no such opportunity had ever arisen! In spite of himself, he wished he was still with the Order. They might have had more details or theories, something he could use rather than being left in the dark with his own limited devices.

  Where was Kienza when he needed her?

  He frowned and silently chastised himself. He would do this himself. He couldn't keep relying on her every time he had a problem.

  He took a deep breath and refocused his mind. 'Don't get bogged down in specifics.'

  What if...the idea of a spell was just a distraction? It seemed an obvious step, even a necessary one, but what if it was just a red herring? What if he just needed to use his own magic, but unshaped? He could extend it as a sixth sense, it was that which enabled him to detect the puddle of magic that existed just a few feet in front of him while non-mages couldn't. Perhaps that's what was required. After all, this was just raw magic, like that which flowed within his veins. Why couldn't something so basic work?

  Hope suddenly overtook him and he didn't stop to think on it any further. He extended his magic as easily as he breathed and focused it upon the puddle, channelling his strength into it, assaulting the magic with his own.

  Nothing happened right away, but he wasn't discouraged.


  He applied more strength to the force, certain his own was washing over the other, but still he could see no change. And still he wasn't discouraged. It was such a simple thing, pure and uncomplicated. It couldn't not work. He just needed to focus more strength...

  Just a little more...

  A piercing pain sent a flash of light through his mind. A curse was torn from his throat, and as fire enveloped his arm, his efforts were shattered.

  And just as suddenly as it had begun, it receded, the pain lost as his magic settled.

  His jaw tightened and teeth barred in frustration. It hadn't worked. That couldn't be it. He'd looked at the magic, gathered what he could, but as for reaching out and touching it, it was like reaching out and trying to grasp fog. And that damned pain...this was the fourth time it had assaulted him, taunted him, and the second that very day after he'd set up the camp's protective spells. But why?!

  He sighed though it escaped as a growl, channelling his anger into that single breath as he sat fuming in hopelessness instead.

  "What is that cuff?"

  Startled first out of his defeatist thoughts, he was surprised again to find Anthis not in the chamber beneath the ruin but sitting beside Aria, who still expertly shielded her drawings from him even as she stared at her father in concern.

  His eyes dropped down to his arm as the question registered and he realised he'd been audibly tapping it. He moved his hand away. "It's nothing."

  Anthis lingered curiously at his blunt tone, but decided not to press. Instead he returned to trying to get a subtle peek at Aria's work, but she shortly huffed, got up and walked away.

  But as Anthis apologised and tried to encourage her to sit back down with promises that he wouldn't try to look again, Rathen's frown softened as the almost-forgotten thoughts the question had dug up floated to the surface. He even found himself feeling guilty at being angered by the cuff's presence. "Actually," he said a moment later, suddenly feeling the need to speak of it as if in way of apologising to little more than a memory, "it was a gift from my mother before she died."

  Anthis looked around at him, surprised for his answering while regretting his asking. "Oh, I'm sorry..." He sat back down as his curiosity got the better of him. "So that's why you hide it? Or keep it close?"

  "No," he smiled strangely, "it's because I can't get it off. Not that I would if I could, I suppose." His smile weakened. "Maybe."

  Anthis frowned. "You can't get it off?"

  "No. And there's magic to it."

  "Magic? How do you know?"

  "Well because I can feel it, for starters," he said, raising his sleeve to peer at it. "Then there's the fact that I've worn it for as long as I can remember - she died when I was three, and it's grown with me since."

  "I'm sorry..." But his careful interest was persistent. "So your mother was a mage, too?"

  "I presume so," he replied slowly, looking at the smooth metal band that was neither too tight nor too loose; a perfect fit. "My father never spoke of her. But then, he barely spoke at all."

  "Difficult childhood?"

  "I wouldn't know that, either." He lowered his sleeve as a chill passed over them. "My magic surfaced when I was seven so I was whisked straight off to the Order."

  "Seven?!" Anthis's voice was only just restrained to a rough whisper, and his eyes were wider than he'd ever seen them, but Rathen saw within them more than incredulity. There was also that same, tiresome conclusion that almost every other mage in Kulokhar had come to, including those who should have known better.

  "No," he said wearily, putting it to a quick end, "I am no prodigy. I was just unfortunate enough to have it surface early, that was all. It happens occasionally, and it's exciting at the time, but you quickly suffer for it."

  "High expectations?"

  "They went beyond 'high'," Rathen replied, his lip curling.

  Anthis frowned in thought. "Do you think all these older mages that are popping up could be the same thing? Just a natural phenomenon like yours, but later rather than sooner in life, and a number have just occurred, by coincidence, all at the same time?"

  Rathen shrugged as he looked towards Aria, and though she had only moved to the other side of the torch, she didn't appear to be paying any attention to their conversation at all. "I couldn't tell you," he replied, looking back to him, "but when is life that coincidental?"

  He nodded slowly in thought, then his musing frown deepened. He edged a little closer to the mage, noting Garon still sat upon the pavilion, and lowered his voice. "What do you make of the attack in Roeden? Truly? Could a mage really lose control of their magic?"

  "They could."

  "H-How?"

  His brow creased beneath his black hair, troubled, and he looked down at the notebook he'd tossed aside. He retrieved it and opened the most recent page of futile notes and ideas. "I don't honestly know, but...it has happened before."

  Anthis watched him as the page grasped his attention, and he nodded slowly in thought. "I remember there was an incident in Kulokhar when I was younger," he said quietly, glancing towards Aria to make sure she hadn't begun paying attention. "A highly-respected mage killed people in the market. But, the strange thing was, he shouted a warning first, before wrapping himself in some kind of spell and setting upon anyone too slow to get away..."

  Rathen nodded. "I am aware of it. I was in Kulokhar at the time."

  "Did you know them?"

  "Not as well as I thought, it turned out. But if you're asking whether or not I believe his magic went out of control, then yes."

  Anthis studied him for a moment. "Does that frighten you?"

  Rathen finally pulled his attention away from his notes, and the haunted eyes he turned upon him answered the question themselves. "Yes. It does."

  The young man decided not to pursue the matter further as he dragged his eyes away from the lock of his gaze, and Rathen did his best to push away the shadows that had suddenly clouded his mind. "Did, uh, did you find anything else? In there?"

  His young face suddenly brightened. "I did, actually! At the very least, I've decided upon a heading."

  "Already?" He turned to catch Garon's attention but the inquisitor was already making his way towards them, and Petra shortly from around the side, having certainly noticed him leave.

  "Tarun," Anthis declared once they'd all gathered. "As I suspected, that seems to be our best bet."

  "What brought you to that conclusion?" Garon asked, though his tone was neutral, searching for facts rather than challenge.

  "The mention of a 'place of magic'. I think that the grandest city the elves ever built fits the title nicely, and while I would usually entertain argument that the site of their gifted magic is equally as likely by description, the elves that created the artefact had given up their roots. Such a site would mean nothing to them."

  "Then why did they hide this here?" Petra asked, confused.

  "The elves that hid this here didn't hide the artefact itself, only what they had in regards to it."

  "Which included a key."

  "Which may not be relevant."

  "Anthis," Rathen suddenly warned him, "I promise you that I am coming to understand how much of your work requires making assumptions and asking questions, but your increasingly theoretical attitude isn't particularly helpful."

  He laughed nervously. "No, I suppose not. Well, either way, we should make for Tarun in the morning. If we turn around and retrace our steps out of here, we shouldn't encounter anything more than a few more rough nights' sleep. Assuming our luck holds."

  "Luck?" Petra scoffed. "Is that what you call this?"

  "We'll stay off the roads," Garon said, ignoring her. "We have enough food to last us the road out and we can catch what we cross beyond. It should take three weeks to reach Tarun given the rain in the north, and we should be more than safe by that point to risk a stop in Carenna to resupply."

  Petra's ears pricked, but Rathen's brow twisted doubtfully. "I don't think people hearing about wh
at happened in Mokhan is really our greatest concern in a place like that," he sighed dubiously, "but I suppose, if we really have no other choice..." He turned then towards Petra. "What about you?" He asked. "Will you follow us out of here and then take the fork around to Bowden?"

  "You forget that I have no money," she reminded them, "and no food. If I can't catch anything in the first few days after I leave you, I'll be in trouble. I'm better off staying with you for the time being and gathering as I go. There's nothing in Bowden that can't wait."

  Anthis and Aria shared a small and victorious smile while Garon looked away, grumbling in frustration, and Rathen's suspicious eyes narrowed ever so slightly. But he didn't question her. She was no hindrance to him. "All right."

  "For now, we should all get some sleep," Garon suggested, turning back to them while doing an adequate job of suppressing his irritation. "We know what's along the path; the better rested we are, the better time we'll make. And I'll be happy once we're out of this forest and further north." He turned away and started back towards the middle of the pavilion, but this time Rathen followed him, kissing Aria good night and leaving it to Anthis to put her to bed.

  "No you don't," he said as he reached the top. "You get some sleep. I'm taking watch tonight."

  "Rathen, I'm not--"

  "Go," the mage commanded, steering him unceremoniously by the shoulder towards the descending steps. The inquisitor stumbled along the way, and it was not because he was being pushed. "You've not eaten yet, either."

  He growled and began, belatedly, to object to his handling, but Rathen only groaned. "Shut up, Garon. I'm not usurping your authority, I'm just giving you some forceful, friendly advice. You're little use to anyone if you're dead on your feet." He gave him an encouraging nod as the officer looked around at him uncertainly, and he shortly sighed in defeat.

  "Fine. Just, wake me if--"

  "Yes, yes, yes. Good night, Garon."

  "Good night, Rathen."

  Chapter 23