by Kim Wedlock
"And now, you are Keliceran." There was a flicker of something in Teagan's voice, a hard edge that compromised his usual indifference, and it stunned Salus for a moment. The portian, however, recollected himself easily. "You are our leader. It's too dangerous for you to step out onto the battlefield. You do more than well enough leading from here. Don't forget that it is, after all, your decisions that protect the country."
"Not well enough!" Salus roared. He slammed his fist into the top of a chair, but its rich and padded upholstery puffed an unsatisfying thump. "Look at what's happening around us! The Hall of the White Hammer only concern themselves with internal matters, the Order is trying to break the country from the inside, and the military is out dealing with what remains of Skilan! All prevention is left to us, and we're being torn in all directions trying to deal with it while our own countrymen work against us! We can't afford to hold any assets back!"
"You are not being held back, Keliceran. You're no longer allowing even the Crown to deny your actions."
But Salus had already dismissed his assurances. Teagan didn't understand. He should have known that by now, just as he should have expected his tiresome doubt. But it didn't matter, because he was right: he tended to the Crown's orders only because he agreed with them, but anything else, anything necessary that he wasn't officially tasked with, he saw to anyway. There was no longer any time to entertain the Crown with the days it took for them to make the big decisions, and too often lately those decisions had proven poor, with the lives of civilians, guards and soldiers needlessly lost as a result.
But he had nothing but desire, a need to protect Turunda and all its people with his own hands. He had no ideas - none fully-formed enough to act upon - and little opportunity to think any up. But when he did, he would enforce them immediately. That, he swore to himself.
The discordant chime of the old bell rang from a mile or so away in the city, humming through the air and seeping in through the open window. Salus instinctively glanced outside towards it, though it wouldn't have been visible even had there been no other stately houses around.
Denek would be expecting him.
He straightened and returned to the table without a word, tossed his cutlery and cold, ruined food back onto the tray, then righted his chair and tucked it back in, casting Teagan a polite nod in farewell before moving towards the door.
Once again his focus had clearly shifted; his mood swinging abruptly from rage to passive thoughtfulness as it was now prone to doing. Teagan watched him critically as he left, picking the fact apart, but neither of them caught the fine, tight line of disapproval on the portian's lips as he bowed his head in return, and neither did Teagan notice the unease which edged in every time Salus went to visit the mage. Instead he remained purely analytical as he rose to his feet and followed him out, maintaining a few paces' distance between them before branching off towards the stairs and, ultimately, the office. Because, once again, the duties of the keliceran fell to him while Salus learned to wield the latest of the Arana's assets. And what a great asset it would be. What power, what unstoppable, absolute things it could accomplish, what lives it could save, what wars it could deter.
...And yet, with every step, the small voice at the very back of his mind still felt the need to assure him that everything Salus did was for the good of the home and country they both sought to protect.
Muffled screams drifted through the narrow stone corridor, breaking up the otherwise dense silence that perpetually weighted the stale air. But the desperate cries went unnoticed by the guards and breakers, as they always did; only those few who maintained a more isolated residence paid them any heed. The doors and walls were just thick enough - or perhaps thin enough - to conceal any shape of words. Instead the screams arrived as nothing more than muffled agony and terror, revealing no trace of either defiance or defeat.
Salus, too, barely noticed them, just as he barely noticed the guards stand to attention as he passed. But as he stopped outside of the mage's cell, Denek's usual, arrogant smile landed immediately. He didn't bother to feign one in return. With a gesture, the nearest guard stepped forwards to open the gate.
"Just as cheerful as usual, I see," the mage sighed, rolling his eyes and wandering deeper into his cell as Salus stepped in behind him. "You'll get ill, you know."
"Because I don't walk around grinning like a fool?"
"Did your mother teach you nothing?" Denek stopped and turned back to face him, his fine lips already pursed in thought. "No, probably not, or you wouldn't be 'keliceran', would you?" He gestured vaguely for him to sit on the bare ground and settled himself in the spot opposite. "So," he began lightly as Salus obliged, "how are things?"
"Fine."
"And just as social as usual. You'll have to give me something, you're the only person here who talks to me." He gave him a suddenly half-cocked smile. "How's the lady?" His smile suddenly broadened as Salus's cheeks flashed red, but he held his tongue. Evidently, that involuntary reaction had been all he was after.
Salus glared but managed, somehow, to bite back his embarrassed irritation. The mage, satisfied with the confirmation of what could only have been a particularly astute assumption, straightened and took up the familiar position of relaxed attention, and Salus duly mirrored it. Without another word, the two slipped into the stupor that dominated their sessions, Denek's unusual consciousness linked, somehow, to Salus's, allowing him to keep track of his progress. It was a technique he greatly wished to learn himself - the Arana could surely benefit in some way from its usage.
But otherwise, an hour passed uneventfully, touching, turning and squeezing the light of the magic within him upon Denek's internal instruction, without any hint of his tutor's approval or frustration. Despite his definite presence, Salus felt so disconnected from him that he couldn't help - though actively hid - the certainty that he was being taken for a fool.
"Your control is improving," Denek said aloud after the silent suggestion that they take a break, surprising Salus for a moment, though that, too, he successfully hid.
"Good," he said instead. "Then you can teach me another spell."
"I said your control is improving, I never said your control was perfect." He gave him a sideways look of disapproval as he rose to his feet to stretch his long legs. "Don't rush ahead."
Salus growled as he followed. "This is tiresome. We do the same thing every day."
"And I said you're improving. You mustn't overlook the importance of this preliminary training, it's vital that you learn to feel your magic - to gain an understanding of how it moves through your blood, become familiar with its extents and learn to keep it subdued." Again, that irritating, haughty look of disapproval. "You are too passionate, and magic will take advantage of that."
"You speak as if it's sentient."
"And you speak as if you consciously created it." He folded his arms regally, but an imploring softness suddenly coloured his pale eyes, catching Salus momentarily off guard. "You can't rush this."
Even so, he easily kept the suspicion from his eyes. It wouldn't do to let him know he was on to his deception. "How much longer?"
"Salus, I know the spells you wish to learn. Trust me: you're not there yet. They're too complicated. You'll either injure yourself or apply the wrong signs and intentions and create something too powerful for you to control." And then, from nowhere, that superiority returned. "Do you want to protect Turunda, or be the cause of its destruction?"
Salus's teeth clenched. It was probably just as well he couldn't yet cast the kinds of spells he wished to, or at that moment, Denek would be little more than a pile of ash. "Very well," he managed tightly, retaking his seat. "Then we continue."
Denek studied him carefully, but Salus closed his eyes, eager to resume the task and caring little to know his thoughts. The mage slowly joined him on the ground.
Salus tightened further, however, at the sound of hurried footsteps, and waited impatiently for the approaching interruption.
But Salus was already rising to his feet, and stepped through the gate with weary patience. It clattered firmly shut behind him. "Go on."
"We've lost Karth and Koraaz."
A portian's lack of hesitance, he sharply reminded himself, should never be taken as a suggestion of severity. "What?!"
"They've set out towards the Roquna," he replied, quite unaffected, as usual, though his voice lowered against any eavesdropping prisoner-mages. "Enhala was their heading; they presumably intend to enter Kasire via the coast."
"Or have they found inspiration or made some other discovery in recent days? Tell Hower to get after them!"
"They took the only sea-faring vessel. As it is, they can't be tracked until they've made landfall." His voice dropped lower still as he glanced past him to the pale mage, who remained on the floor where Salus had left him, his eyes closed and expression neutral, as if he was in some kind of trance and quite unaware of the thickening atmosphere and sharp, hushed tones. "I suggest we continue to work with Lucinda and find what we need for ourselves. We have all of their notes and she's been able to translate both elven and Karth's--"
"And if they've found something more?! What use are these notes then?!"
"Sir--"
"No," he hissed, managing, somehow, to shout while whispering. "They've been three steps ahead of us for too long. The artefact cannot fall into their hands! There will be no way to compete with them! Turunda will be finished! They're already tearing the land to pieces!"
"We know where they're heading--"
"Think," he snapped, his eyes similarly darkening with unnatural menace. "You think you know where they're heading."
"Sir, they are nothing but a distrac--"
"Don't interrupt me."
Teagan stared at him, his lips abruptly closing and stiffening into a fine line as he watched the keliceran's face gain a wolfish quality, and he felt a familiar, irrational terror rise slowly from the pit of his being.
"I'm getting quite tired of all these reported failures," he told him tightly, his tone deceptively calm for such dangerous, dark eyes. "How exactly am I supposed to keep on top of the country's security if my own people can't do their jobs? If they can't even keep a conspicuous group of people in their sights? I can't issue orders without all the facts, damn it, and the Crown is constantly standing behind me, expecting immediate results! The military can't do what we do! The Hall won't! And the Order has already revealed their true damned colours! So tell me! Please! How am I supposed to keep this country safe if I can't use my own two hands and have to rely on all of you to do it?!" He stared at his favoured, his eyes penetrating the portian's, and Teagan stared back in absolute silence. His eyes were wider than usual, almost imperceptibly, but Salus took a small degree of satisfaction from it. He didn't notice the similar sideways gazes from the surrounding guards, nor that even the screams had stopped buffeting the walls. "Pull Hower out if he can't handle it. Send someone else. Get people out on that water, up along the Ronar coast and get Karth away from them. We shouldn't have wasted our time with Drassa, we should have snatched Karth as soon as we'd found him. The Zi'veyn will not fall into the Order's hands."
He spun away from the silent operative without a word of dismissal, and stormed through the gate that creaked back open ahead of him, a beat later than it should have. But still he didn't notice the shock and fright on the face of that guard, nor his colleagues. He returned to his seat on the floor, opposite the curiously tranquil mage who appeared to have continued the session without him.
As he listened to Teagan's receding footsteps, he felt the tension that had coiled around every muscle in his body. The brief interaction had released in a moment all that he had successfully suppressed for days, and he knew it would be no simple matter to shut it back away.
But he tried. He gave shaking it off his very best effort, to relax and return to the task at hand. It was no sad matter that Denek was unwilling to teach him any further spells, but Erran had told him he needed to keep up this tedious training even if he was to teach him himself. And he knew that, while the kinds of things Aranan mages could teach him were on a whole other level to that of the Order, if it took the same preliminary training, he had no choice but to take it seriously.
But he couldn't help his eyes from flickering back open and looking closely, critically, at the mage sitting before him. He hadn't been interrogated for quite some time. He hadn't provided any information to begin with, and Salus hadn't wanted to risk him withdrawing his services once he'd discovered what lay within himself. But things were beginning to change; now he had his magic, he felt it might be worth the risk.
But not yet. Not just yet. He needed to make sure - from Erran - that he had learned from him all he needed before he burned that bridge...and there was bound to be a technique or two he could pry from Denek first. If the mage wished to maintain his own deception, he'd have to teach him something else soon or Salus would grow suspicious.
But the mage wasn't suspicious.
Indeed, Denek was unlike any of the other mages they'd held, and Salus had the strong impression that an interrogation would only be successful if he himself was present. Denek believed that he had been in full control of Salus's tuition - that all Salus had learned of magic had come from him. Which meant he underestimated him. And that could be used to their advantage.
As Salus's eyes closed, Denek's flicked open. Despite the poorly disguised conversation he'd easily overheard, his concerns were being pulled in quite an unexpected direction. Though at that moment his captor appeared physically normal, he knew as a fact that what he'd just seen hadn't been imagined. For a moment, at the height of his anger, Salus's skin had grown paler and the definite, all too familiar foreboding had crashed through the air around him like a tidal wave. His back had been turned to him, but each of his subordinates - even the portian - had stared at him as if he had physically become a monster, and when he finally turned away from them, Denek had caught as it receded the blackness that had filled even the whites of his eyes, and the definite sharpening of his features as they began to soften. They had been so mild and fleeting that there was no trace of them by the time he'd settled back down in front of him, but Denek knew he could never have missed something so familiar.
His sharp, perceptive eyes narrowed for a moment, his jaw knotted, then his lids finally lowered again.
Now he understood everything.
Chapter 54
The smell of smoke and alcohol hung heavily in the air, and even though the nearby bell tolled for only four in the afternoon, raucous laughter was already swelling from the tavern below. The Cockatrice had grown more lively in recent weeks, with war and magic driving people to drown their worries away, and with barmen's increased duties came an equal demand on the guards'. The laughter was frequently punctuated by a smash of glass or shattering of wood, few social concerns remaining to inhibit either rage or passion.
But though the public was too distracted to see who entered the tavern, nor where they went and with whom they spoke, these few still hid themselves away in the private room on the upper floor, its door concealed behind a curtain and blocked by a perpetual drinker, where their own concerns dwarfed the tensions outside.
Eight stood in silence, each lost in uneasy thought.
"All right," Malson began quietly, dragging the lost and distant gazes back onto him. "We can all agree that Salus's progress is alarming."
"He can't do much with his magic yet," Vari agreed tepidly, "but its presence is much stronger than it was a week ago, and what he can do, he can do well."
"And as for the artefact," a middle-aged phaeacian added, "call it shrewd planning or good fortune, but he easily obtained all of Anthis Karth's work and has an operative with a great deal of time on her hands assigned to picking it apart. He's losing nothing by keeping her focused on it."
"We're achieving little," he replied regretfully. "He's been isolating himself; no one delivers anything directly to him anymore, everything goes through Teagan. There's no opportunity to make any suggestions or try to lead his thoughts because he doesn't see the reports. Altering their information or delaying them only affects Turunda's security."
"Can Teagan himself be used?"
"No." The others nodded with equal certainty. "He's too loyal. Working as closely with him as he does, I'd wager he shares in Salus's mistrust of magic, and though he probably questions his sudden chasing of it, he's been convinced for too long that Salus knows what's best for the country. I have no doubt that he would die for him."
Again the others nodded, and Malson sighed as the possibility scratched itself from his mind. "He's portian. I didn't have much hope. In that case, hinder whomever is working on Karth's notes. Slow her down."
"Easily done."
"Good." He turned his lively and expectant gaze onto another young woman, one who bore a greater astuteness than most other phidipans. "Marie?"
"Interception is also proving fruitless," she replied promptly. "He has too many operatives out in the field and too much information coming in. The moths are being run ragged and we can't keep on top of it. By the time we've screened five reports, fifteen more have come in, and only one of those five contained anything we might want to keep from him. We risk delaying something truly urgent in our attempts to hinder his search."
"That's no matter. He's confusing himself by expanding his attention and resources so far. Leave him to it - it's no doubt already working for us if just for stretching him too thin. He's already close to breaking point." He looked, then, to Taliel. "What about hindering his other operatives?"
She looked at him slowly, her eyes returning from distant thoughts. "It's the same thing: too many, too far, doing too many things, and there are too few of us to handle it."