Madness and Magic- The Seers' War

by Greg Curtis

  Baen would have said something – he certainly wanted to. But instead he was left staring at the silvery light forming on the side of his building. It wasn't just getting brighter, it was becoming more solid and stretching out. And in the distance he could see another silver glow just like this one.

  And then unexpectedly, both glowing silver lights reached out to one another as though they were shaking hands, and became solid. Suddenly a road of silver stretched out across the tree tops.

  “Great Uncle Mortimer?”

  “I told you. Silvery roads of moonlight reaching out over the forests. Your home's roof is now joined to the roof of the local Trading Mission. And this fool is planning to do the same throughout the rest of the Realm. She intends to build magical pathways in and out of cities, bypassing walls and other fortifications. It will allow armies direct entry into the very hearts of the cities. It’s also a clear violation of the Golden Concord.”

  “But?!” Baen spluttered.

  “Didn’t I say she was stupid!”

  Baen didn't know how to answer that. But given he could see a squad of Fae on their riding wolves setting out across the new silver road between rooftops and heading toward him, he guessed it didn't matter.

  “Why are they're coming?”

  “To arrest you boy!” His great uncle responded angrily. “Are you as dim witted as your father? You've been upsetting Duke Barnly. He wants you stopped! So he's got this fool woman to do his dirty work for him.”

  “Oh shite! Not again!” Finally Baen woke up. All that had been said didn't matter any more. Not when he had people coming to arrest him. People who had no right to do that. And no reason to either. He had helped them! “I'll get my staff!”

  “Don't bother!” The High Priestess snapped at him. And then she waved her hand and suddenly he found himself bound hand and foot by magical restraints. “It would have been kinder to you if you’d fallen under the sleep spell I was preparing as what happens next is going to hurt. A lot! But you must be stopped. No mere human will escape me!”

  The meeting had been a trap Baen realised as he struggled against his bonds. But it was too late. There was nothing he could do. The binds stretched a little, but not enough. And they didn't allow him to free his hands or cast. Not that he even knew what spell to cast. His great uncle was right – the woman was not to be trusted. Unfortunately he had done so and now he was paying the price for that.

  “I've done nothing to you!” He shouted at the ghostly woman.

  “But you will! You damned humans should never have been allowed in our land! Not a single one of you!” Her face was screwed up with more than anger. She looked like she hated him. And still the soldiers she'd sent on their riding wolves were getting closer. “Thanes! What a ghastly jest! They're just humans with magic. Being taught by us. Stealing our knowledge and our magic. Destroying our lives and our ways! And worst of all sharing our beds! Raising half breeds! No more!”

  “You think I don't know that Metea served the Duke?! Of course I do! And through her he serves me. He just doesn't know it!”

  “He wants the throne of Grenland. He can have it. But by the time that happens it won't be worth much. That piss pot will rule over a Realm of ashes. And there won't be a single human with a gift left standing. By all the wild spirits, there won't be a city either!”

  Baen pulled against the bonds with all his strength, realising that his great uncle had just made a mistake. He had believed what she'd said at her trial. That she had been misled by Metea. But it wasn’t exactly uncommon for defendants to lie. Most criminals claimed innocence. Few of them actually were though. Which meant that she was still going ahead with her plan, one lying traitor getting ready to stab another in the back. And while his great uncle was right and she would likely lose, it wouldn't stop her.

  But then maybe this time things would be different? After all, she was once again looking to change her future, maybe in this one there would be no trial because she would win! And it would be Grenland that would fall. Except that he couldn't imagine that the Duke would allow that. because that would mean his throne – the only thing he cared about – would be lost.

  The wolves began howling as they galloped across the silvery road among the tree tops and Baen's blood ran cold. He was in trouble. And he couldn't think how to escape it.

  Unbinding! The memory came to him. A spell of unbinding. And while he couldn't make the gestures to enchant himself with it, he still knew the words. It would have to be enough.

  “Onda mai ter da –.” He began the enchantment even as he saw the wolves and their riders cross the halfway point in their journey. And while his heart was racing and his mouth was dry, he thought he was doing a good job.

  “Forget it! Metea told me what you'd try!”

  A heartbeat later Baen found himself picked up off the ground and hurled through the air to smash into the floor. The impact drove the air from his lungs and sent his thoughts spinning. And after that he didn't know quite what to think. He was in intense pain and the smell of his own blood was almost overwhelming. It was difficult to concentrate.

  But he tried to get back up, to shake his head clear. To stop the roaring in his ears. And then from out of nowhere an answer came to him.

  “Break the circle!” he yelled to his great uncle with what was left of his strength. Because if his Great Uncle did that the High Priestess would no longer have a connection to this place and her spirit would be thrown back into her body, wherever that was. Her spells would fail. All of them.

  There was no answer. Baen turned as much as his body would allow him to, looking for his great uncle. There was no sign of him. Where had he gone?!

  Even as he looked for his great uncle Baen discovered that it was too late. Wolves howled in his ears and strong arms grabbed him. Then a woman yelled out, louder than before.

  “Brand him! Now!”

  Baen screamed as he realised what she meant. But there was nothing he could do. More hands ripped his clothes off and then held him down before he felt the touch of the red-hot iron on his back.

  He burnt and he screamed some more, as his back turned to fire. But even as he did so a little voice in his head was whispering to him that this was only fair. It was what he'd done to the Duke and Estor. It didn't matter that he had done it because they had been evil.

  Eventually it was done, and he could feel his magic burning like his back. But now it felt separate from him. He could see it and feel it, but it was as though it was on the other side of a pane of glass. He couldn't touch it.

  “Get him up!” The High Priestess yelled, sounding somehow triumphant. Strong arms then hoisted him to his feet and he was held there as his legs could no longer support him. And the only thing he could think through his pain was that this wasn't fair! He had done nothing to this woman. He didn't even know her!

  “Take his head!”

  Bean stared at her, unable to believe she'd said that. That any High Priestess would say such a thing. But as he stood there, staring at her, he saw the fury in her black eyes and knew she had. Just as he knew what the soldier beside him, drawing his sword from its scabbard, intended to do with it.

  Terror raced through him, granting power to his legs, and even though he was still bound, he somehow broke free, running with all his strength away from them. Trying desperately to get away. But there was nowhere to go. He was on his rooftop. And there were soldiers waiting for him by the stairway housing, weapons already drawn.

  He had to jump!

  Baen ran for the railings and then leapt out over them, a difficult feat given that his arms were bound and so couldn’t provide the balance he needed for the jump. But he did it, wondering all the while if there was any chance he could survive the fall. But it didn't matter. He knew he couldn't survive having his head chopped off.

  Something sharp buried itself in his back even as he began to fall, and he knew it was bad. But then he hit the trees and forgot about it as branches began smashing him in t
he face and everywhere else. He was falling through a forest and despite all the other pain he was suffering, it still somehow seemed to add to it. Each impact was its own very special piece of torment.

  Until the final one when he found himself smashing into the ground.

  He could hardly move after that and wondered what to do. The soldiers in his house would soon descend on him. He had to run. But the problem was he could barely get off the ground. And even that was only by rolling onto his knees and then leaning against a tree trunk.

  Still, they were coming for him and when they got there they were going to cut his head off! Fear lent him the strength he needed even through the pain. Enough that somehow he got to his feet, his hands still bound to his sides, and managed to start a slow shamble deeper into the trees, away from his home. But he knew he wasn't going to get away from them. Babies could crawl faster than he could walk. And they knew which way to go.

  Suddenly hands grabbed him and a woman called out.

  “I've got you.”

  After that he didn't know much at all.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Voices woke him, though “woke” wasn't really the right word. They pulled him out of the darkness, but they certainly didn't bring him all the way back into the light. Still he was awake enough to hear what was being said. Even if he wasn't alert enough to understand it.

  A man and a woman were talking and though he couldn't quite place who they were he knew he trusted them. Enough at least that he didn't need to run. He didn't even need to open his eyes.

  “By the Lady, you didn't say it would be this bad!” the woman complained.

  “I didn't know it would be!” the man retorted. “Everything's in flux. Nothing is certain, least of all my memories. Every time I turn around some of my world shifts out from under me. But I knew he would live. Those memories were solid. Mostly.”

  “Go! Make some tea!” The woman ordered him. “The orange tin with the blue tit on it! Make it strong!”

  “It is actually tea?” The man asked dubiously. “Last night you said it was tea and it was stewed grass clippings!”

  “Nettles! They're very good for you!”

  “It had earthworms in it!” The man objected strenuously.

  “They're nutritious! And this is what he needs,” she snapped back at him. “Now get going you old fool!”

  Baen heard the man march off angrily, his feet making heavy sounds on the floorboards, and then the touch of the woman's hands on his arm.”

  “Now to get rid of this thing,” she murmured to no one.

  He would have asked what she was talking about, but a second later Baen's world was filled with searing light as his entire body burnt from the inside out and he found he didn't care. His very bones felt like they were on fire. He tried to scream, but his throat had locked up and nothing came out.

  And then he fell back into the darkness.

  It was much later when he returned to the world. It felt like years – and yet he still felt tired. But someone – a woman – was pulling him up, pushing pillows behind his back and telling sim something about how he needed to drink. He didn't understand that. But he did when she put a hot mug of some brew against his lips and started trying to force it down his throat.

  Whatever it was it was foul! Worse than anything he'd ever tasted in his entire life. It was poison! And he instinctively tried to choke it back up. Anything to get it out of his mouth! But she kept pouring it down his throat and he had to swallow it if he wanted to breathe.

  “It's good for you!” The woman told him. “Imogen's Elixer. It's good stuff. It'll cure almost anything. Lots of nettles in it.”

  She had to be lying. Nothing that awful could possibly be good for you no matter what she said! But at least it was gone. Doing whatever terrible things it could to his insides, but it was no longer in his mouth. That was what mattered. Not what the woman was telling him about how much good it would do him. Or that he was doing well. Not what was happening. Not even that she promised him he was going to make a full recovery. Only that he couldn't taste it!

  In fact he thought as the darkness returned for him once more, it was the only thing that had ever mattered.

  More time passed before he returned to the world – he had the feeling it was days rather than hours. Time spent running through a terrifying darkness being chased by monsters he couldn't see. But eventually he returned to the light once again. But this time when he came back, he was more awake than before. Clearer in his thinking. And his memories were returning too. Memories of that monstrous High Priestess and what she'd tried to do. Memories of falling from the roof of his building. But mostly memories of pain!

  But the pain wasn't with him any more. Just a dull ache throughout his body. And when he tried to move, just his arms at least, the pain only worsened a little. Even when he opened his eyes and the light burned into his skull, it was bearable. It didn't tell him anything because his eyes were filled with tears and the world had turned into a blur. But he could withstand it.

  More importantly he was alive! How that could be he wasn't completely sure. That fall had really hurt him. He also couldn’t remember who had helped him. Only that someone had picked him up from the ground. And then he'd been dragged. He couldn't have made it on his own.

  Slowly the watery film in his eyes began to clear and he could make out details of the room he was in. But the details didn't make a lot of sense.

  It was a nice room with white plastered walls and thick carpet on the floor. But there was a tree in the corner of the room. Actually the tree was the corner of the room! The walls met up perfectly with the thick trunk. And one of the branches coming off it went straight through the plaster ceiling almost directly above him. That couldn't be right?! But the more he stared, the more he realised it was. The tree was a part of the house.

  Then he laid eyes on the bed post by his left foot and almost stopped breathing. It moved! How could a bed post move?! Except that he finally realised when it turned around to face him, that the bed post hadn't moved at all. It was just that there was a rat sitting on top of it! A rather large rat. And it was presently staring at him with its little red eyes.

  “Shite!” He cursed quietly when he had regained control of his tongue. He was in a bed chamber with a rat! And a big one at that. The little beast had to be the size of a small cat!

  But eventually, after his heart had started beating again, he realised where he had to be. Trees growing through walls and pet rats – there was only one place that could be. Aunt Millie's. This had to be the inside of her house. The one place he'd never ventured.

  “Go and get your Mistress,” he ordered the rat, and it seemed to understand him. Or at least it turned around and started climbing down the bed end before finally disappearing from view.

  Once it had gone he relaxed a little. He started to look more closely at his surroundings. To wonder at what he was seeing.

  The inside of the house was strange, but now that he looked at it more closely he realised it wasn’t quite as terrible as he’d imagined. The tree aside of course. Unfortunately, the view outside the window wasn't so good as branches and leaves grew right up against the window pain. But still, it could have been so much worse. There was no damp. No rot. Impossibly the room felt almost light and airy.

  Baen tried to sit up a little more in bed, and finally discovered real pain. It felt like he had barbed wire bands tightening in his chest. That suggested to him that his ribs had been broken. But after a fall like the one he'd suffered, that was the very least he could have expected. There was also something in his chest that burned like a red-hot poker when he tried to lift himself up with his arms. That would be from whatever had stabbed him he guessed.

  Somehow Baen kept himself from crying out. He was a man after all; not a child. Besides which, he'd suffered worse.

  But then he saw the blood starting to seep through his bandage and had to wonder just how bad the injury was.

  Instead of
continuing with his attempt at sitting up, Baen concentrated on his breathing and waited for his aunt to come in. He assumed she was coming. Just as he assumed she had been tending to his injuries. But he hadn't realised until now that she was a healer – with a helping of sadism! He'd thought her gift was just with plants – and rats!

  And the man's voice he'd heard – that had belonged to his great uncle. So somehow he too had escaped from the High Priestess and the rooftop. That was good. Though he couldn't help but think that his great uncle could have been more circumspect with his tongue. Maybe then the High Priestess wouldn't have been so determined to chop off Baen’s head. For a man who could remember the future, dressing her down hadn't been a clever thing to do. But then he should have warned Baen that talking to the High Priestess would be a mistake in the first place!