by Kim Wedlock
"It seems--"
"The Order hid him," he decided fervently. "They hid him all the way back then precisely for this. That's why he's out there with Karth right now, helping him look for the artefact! If everyone thought he was dead, no one - not us nor anyone else - would notice him missing from the Order while all this is going on!"
"That's--"
"How could anyone even work alongside him?!"
A knock came at the door.
"What?!"
The arrival didn't hesitate. The door opened, the operative stepped inside, and silently extended a wrapped bundle of parchment without her gaze once brushing him.
Teagan noted Salus's abrupt reaction. His mouth closed despite having been gripped by a snarl, his back straightened and his contorted brow relaxed. His cheeks may even have turned the slightest shade pinker, he wasn't sure.
"Taliel, thank you," he said, catching himself immediately and returning at least to a brusque formality, and took the folder she offered. He didn't dismiss her as he untied the catch and leafed through the papers, and his scowl shortly returned with its original severity. "Sahrot Rathen Koraaz; banished, presumed dead; no body recovered." He shook his head in disgust. "Either this is a major cover-up, or the archivists are idiots." He frowned as he read on. "Married; wife deceased. How and when?"
"One of his victims," she replied.
Salus grunted. "I suppose that's what they call poetic justice." He turned over to a list of those victims and his revulsion intensified. "Three of them were children under five. How can he live with himself?" He flicked through the final few sheets then dropped it onto his desk with more force than he'd intended, and turned his eyes upon his subordinates. "How is the Order? What are they doing?"
"They're quiet," Teagan replied.
Taliel nodded. "They're not reacting."
"Then this attack was part of their plan - which also suggests that your theory of few being involved in this uprising is incorrect. There would be some kind of surprise otherwise." His gaze shifted off of Taliel and onto the wall behind her, his eyes becoming sharp, precise, though still a touch wild. The office was smothered under a heavy silence as he thought. "We won't approach them," he decided. "The Order wants the artefact, though for what purpose, we don't yet know. Perhaps to prevent it from being used against them, or to use its magic themselves. Either way, they have Karth on their side and they're surely making more progress with him than we are with Drassa. We'll let them continue and they can lead us right to it. I suspect Drassa's leading us in circles anyway."
"What makes you say that?"
"Aside from the distinctly opposite techniques he and Karth are using in their search, there's the likelihood that the Order has had this lined up for a long time. They had Koraaz on the sidelines and got to Karth before we could. It's just as likely that they reached out for the second most logical choice, knowing we would turn to him eventually, and paid him off to delay us."
"What do we do about him if that is the case?" Teagan asked mildly.
"He has to deliver us some kind of information, but he's no doubt holding back and giving it to us as slowly as he can without raising too much suspicion. But that means he can still be useful, so if we let him continue to believe he's leading us along, the Order will believe it, too. They'll ignore us while we continue to track Karth and Koraaz. But..." His expression became puzzled. "But why did he attack Carenna? He's only drawn attention to himself..."
"That could well have been the point," Taliel supplied. "With the war, we're already stretched thin. Perhaps they wanted to distract us with yet something else."
"Baiting us to use up more resources trying to stop him rather than chasing the artefact, or to keep us from realising they're after it too." Salus nodded firmly. "In fact the artefact could well take care of him more easily than we can... Perhaps we should ignore him."
"Keliceran?" Teagan frowned in surprise.
He raised his hand to reassure him. "Not truly ignore him. Hower has already caught up with them, he'll--"
"I'm afraid you're mistaken, Keliceran."
Salus frowned at Teagan, who looked back vaguely confused himself.
"Once they left the city gates, they seem to have vanished. There were no footprints to follow - it did state as much in the report..."
Salus closed his eyes and tried to breathe away his boiling frustration. It didn't work. His jaw knotted and he spoke through his teeth. "It did. You're right." He sighed again, then stopped in thought. "Observing Karth is already a standing order. Add Koraaz to that - now we know who the mage is, he'll be difficult to mistake. Hower is an expert tracker, but if he doesn't manage to find them himself first, someone else will. We don't need to devote more than that."
"If we ignore him, won't the Order think it suspicious?"
"Not if I say the right things to Malson. It'll get back to the Order one way or another." His lip curled. "You can count on that."
Another knock came at the door. It was still early - too early for Salus to reasonably occupy the office, but in recent weeks it seemed that no one particularly thought of that. Unless his office door was always under assault at dawn and only recently had he been in to notice it.
He called to enter and a messenger stepped in, a phaeacian who carried himself notably weaker than Taliel - though in fairness she carried herself with almost the grace and focus of a portian. In fact, she could well be due for a promotion soon.
The idea of ridding her of emotions sent a curious note of distress through him. He decided to push the thought aside for now.
"Keliceran, your presence is requested in the cells," he announced rigidly.
"At this hour? Why? What does Nolan want?"
"It regards the mage; he didn't otherwise specify."
Salus hung his head. "Thank you. Dismissed." The young man managed to turn and leave without making his relief too obvious. "I feel like I'm being pulled in a thousand directions," he mumbled, already feeling the impending pressures of the day, then turned to the others and spoke up. "I've got some questions for our guest that might just rattle something out of him. This early in the morning, a single reaction could be enough." He pushed himself away from the edge of the desk and straight towards the door, but hesitated just behind Taliel. "You're dismissed, phidipan."
She didn't seem to notice his softened tone as she inclined her head and turned to leave ahead of them, but Teagan did. As always, however, he said nothing, and followed the Keliceran out.
"Has he still said nothing?"
"Not a peep," Salus replied as they moved down the hallways. "We don't even have his name. Perhaps that's what this is about, perhaps Nolan has finally broken him."
"I'm surprised it's taken this long. Nolan is brutal."
"I wouldn't be too impressed. He probably placed himself under some kind of spell - stilled his own tongue so he couldn't talk, or numbed his body so he had no dying need to give in."
"He doesn't believe Nolan would truly kill him."
"Well I certainly wouldn't authorise it unless he was about to blow this place sky-high, but Nolan has had three 'accidents' in the last two years by pushing prisoners too far."
"Or so he claims."
He nodded, though the slightest smile touched his lips. "Or so he claims. Still, the uncertainty among his team in such circumstances could only help. Prisoners pick up on that."
"The intelligent ones."
"I think this mage probably falls into that category."
Salus's pace increased impatiently once they reached the tunnels, and when he all but ran into the steel-barred cellar with Teagan close behind him, keeping up with little trouble and no lapse at all in composure, Nolan was inside waiting for them. He was a young man, a phidipan, and fiercely dedicated to his work, but there was a disconcerting glint to his eye that suggested the presence of a severe violent streak. Brutal though he could be, however, especially with stubborn prisoners, he seemed able to keep a curiously tight control over it
and himself. And he had a true talent for reading people - he seemed to know precisely how to work his assignments to present the most efficient results. He was the lead breaker for a reason.
But this mage, it seemed, was another matter, and at that moment the interrogator looked far from impressed.
"Has he said anything?" Salus asked as he reached him and the two Aranan mages who stood on either side of the locked alcove.
"In a manner of speaking," he replied flatly.
"You're in a humorous mood."
"The pun was not intended, Keliceran." Nolan gestured a leather-wrapped hand towards the cell. "He wants to speak to you."
Salus's brow knotted as he peered through the steel bars towards the mage. He could still feel the hum of the spells that coursed through them, as, no doubt, could their prisoner.
The mage stood at the centre of the small, stone cage. His face was taut, very much the countenance of a man who generally said little, though there was a degree of expectation in his focused and equally pale blue-grey eyes. His dark hair was still neatly tied back and braided in places, and the plain clothes they'd given him when they'd confiscated his rich robes were still quite clean. Somehow the dust and grime of the place hadn't touched him. Salus found that that irritated him, but his aggravation was satisfied by the sight of bruises across his sharp cheekbones.
Salus nodded to one of the guards, and the cell door creaked open. Teagan was about to protest - he heard him inhale - but he silenced him with a gesture and stepped slowly inside. "Close the gate."
He fixed the mage with imposing supremacy as the steel clattered shut behind him, the same look that made almost everyone who stood before him shift uncomfortably. But this mage, like one or two of the others, didn't seem at all affected. Instead, he gave Salus a close and studious stare in return, the same dauntless look he'd given him on every other occasion he'd come in to speak to him himself - even on the ride back to Arana House following his arrest. It revealed a great deal of intelligence, so sharp and analytical that it could have belonged to an Aranan operative. The fact that the Order had people like this unsettled him.
"You need my help."
The words took a moment for Salus's mind to process. He'd first been distracted by the slightest lilt to his voice, an unidentifiable accent that set him on edge. He'd never heard it before, but the only thing this man had ever said in his presence was 'why'. Then he'd noticed his inflection. Accent or not, the gravity with which he'd spoken couldn't be missed, nor the fact that he'd delivered the statement as news rather than a shared truth.
Salus's fair eyebrows twitched. "Why?" He asked, his voice carefully unaffected.
"If you have to ask, you must need it all the more." The mage continued to stare, unmoving until his strange eyes narrowed a fraction. "You can't feel it, can you?"
"Feel what?"
"The magic."
Salus glanced around at the bars. "Yes, I can," he replied, turning back. "I ordered it put there to keep you detained."
"I don't mean these rudimentary spells," the mage scoffed. "I mean that which is swelling in your heart, mingling with your blood."
"What are you talking about?" His voice had yet to break its careful mask of indifference.
The mage seemed to smile dangerously, but his bruising prevented it from truly taking hold. "Your veins burned, didn't they? When? How long before you captured me? A week?"
Salus straightened. He could see what he was doing, and he wasn't about to let his questioning become waylaid by this nonsense. The mage finally felt like speaking and he would get from him what he needed. "Are you with Turunda's Order?"
"That is irrelevant," he replied, brushing the question aside with his increasingly irritating arrogance. "I have no intention of turning you over to them for training. I can do that myself."
"How did the Order hide Rathen Koraaz? And why?"
"I haven't a clue - you seem to be missing what's important here--"
"Is Anthis Karth working for the Order?"
"I don't even know who he is!" The mage's composure fractured and he took a sudden and exasperated step towards him, but motion outside quickly caught his attention. His eyes snapped towards the two mages whose hands had raised in preparation, and he halted his advance. "Salus," he said brazenly, "I've felt your magic growing every day since you've shut me down here, and if it continues to do so, and remains untamed, there will be trouble for everyone."
"Enough!" Salus's mask shattered, and his bellow reverberated ferociously through the stone chamber. "I will not fall for the Order's tricks. Answer my questions or you will lose your fingers - then at least I won't have to worry about the Order taking you back. You won't be much use to them if you can't cast any spells."
The mage narrowed his eyes with a flash of abandon and stepped towards him again, but this time he ignored the mages outside as they began forming and releasing their spells. Not one made it through the bars.
Quicker than Salus could think to stop him, the prisoner contorted his fingers and pressed his palm firmly against Salus's chest.
Heat spread. His eyes tore wide open, and a choked gasp escaped his throat. He couldn't move. If he did, the mage would surely rip his heart out. He was certain he had a hold of it; he could feel his fingers wrap around it, feel him squeeze it - and yet, somehow, it didn't hurt. But even had he been inclined to try to escape, his body was in shock. It wouldn't had responded.
The mage withdrew after only a moment, but he didn't notice the cool wave of relief. He was gripped instead by the glowing image that vacated his chest, following the mage's palm.
"Why aren't the suppression spells working?" He heard Teagan demand in his usual authoritative, dispassionate voice, but he sounded distant. Salus didn't turn to check. He stared, stunned by the blue light. It was a heart - beating, pumping more luminescence out through the arteries to vanish in the air. Was it his heart?
He became acutely aware of his pulse, the thump of his blood throughout his body.
The mage drew his finger across the image and cut it neatly in half. He had expected pain, or to experience another curious sensation at the least, but there was nothing at all.
The image rose, floating away from his palm to hang in the air between them, and the mage looked back to him, ignoring his pallor. "Your heart has five chambers, Salus. Look closely." The smallest chamber, nestled at the centre of the cross-section, began to glow brighter than the rest. "The magic forms here, and enters the blood as it leaves the ventricle and pumps into the aorta." He pressed his hand then to his own chest and pulled out a similar image, though this heart seemed a touch broader. When he cut it open, the fifth chamber was equally enlarged. He looked at him imploringly. "Our hearts are the same."
Salus finally found his feet to take himself a hurried step backwards, and his expression had turned from alarm to rage. "The Order truly is desperate to keep us distracted," he snarled.
The mage's hand dropped, and the two lucent projections vanished. "You won't believe me, will you?"
Salus had already turned curtly on his heel and made for the cell door, which opened in time with his stride. He raised his hand as Teagan started towards him. "I'm fine." He turned to Nolan, his lips pulled into a bitter snarl. "He's all yours. Make him talk."
"Of course, Keliceran."
"By any means."
The young man smiled. "Of course, Keliceran."
He stepped ominously into the cell at his superior's passing, but Salus didn't turn to see the mage's reaction.
A growl rumbled free from the depths of his throat as he stormed through the cellar with Teagan close behind him, his jaw knotting, eyes a blue inferno. "He knows a great deal," he spat once they'd stepped back into the tunnels. "I could see it in his eyes. He's undoubtedly involved."
"What was he talking about?"
"Who knows?" He shook his head and folded his arms tightly across his chest, feeling for the reassuring thump of his heart. "But he must truly take us for fo
ols. Untrained magic is harmless - useless, even. Everyone knows that. He's only trying to distract us with this nonsense..." His eyebrows drew even tighter together. "But why, when Koraaz has already struck?"
"He likely doesn't know," Teagan suggested easily. "He's been in here for almost three weeks."
"True...though I can't help but notice that he hasn't made any hint towards regaining his freedom...and what concerns me all the more is that he could have broken himself out. Those spells were in place around the cell, even while we were in there just now, but he was still able to conjure that...heart..."
"How do you know the spells were still in place? He could have broken them. Order mages are far more proficient than our own, and generally stronger."
"No, they were still in place, I could feel them." He shook his head again and puffed a long sigh. "Perhaps the Order does know he's missing and this is just another part of their plan..." He grunted. "We're not going to fall for it, but if the Order is going to let him stay, we will be obliging hosts. We'll break him yet - he might just have to witness more brutal treatment first...which means we need another prisoner to make an example of."
"The city's notice board is covered in bounty posters. It would take no more than an hour for a phidipan to track one of the criminals down."
"It's not standard practise, but they certainly wouldn't be missed...and we'd be doing the city an extra favour..." He nodded his approval. "Get it done."
"Of course - but may I make a suggestion?"
Salus turned to him expectantly.
"Evidently, the Order wishes to distract you with the notion that you possess magic. They cannot prove it to you, and without training, you wouldn't be able to cast a spell anyway - and it's worth remembering that not all can truly grasp that training. They may well be relying on your unyielding sense of responsibility above anything else, trusting that it will lead you to embrace the suggestion that you have magic with the intention of using it to protect the country. Then they will waste your time trying to teach you to wield it when there's nothing there to wield. Eventually they will 'give up' on you, or you on them; the matter will be closed, and they will be further ahead of us."