A Single Candle

by S. J. Varengo

  With that the men and boys began to stand and disperse. Ban felt as though he had better bring this information back to Slurr, but he waited before attempting to leave the camp, both in hopes of overhearing additional talk and in maintaining his cover. As the unit leaders began moving deeper into the outpost, Ban saw them walk up to other warriors, selecting them to join their platoons. Knowing the composition of these groups would be helpful, he decided, and so Ban watched the mustering. Much to his surprise the boy warriors selected as many adults as they did other children, and the men did not seem resistant to following the juveniles. Likewise, the adults selected as many boys as they did those of their own age. They don’t care, Ban realized. They don’t care who they follow, and they don’t care who they pick. I guess they are without hope or future.

  Although his spying mission would end up being a brief one, he was comfortable with the scope of the information he’d gathered and he began to look for a likely place to sneak out of camp. However, he quickly saw that Yarren was, for all his questionable talk of God and miracles, absolutely on point with the more pragmatic details of this mission. Getting away was definitely going to be more complicated than entering had been. For as the raiding units began to take shape, all of the new platoons started to move toward the perimeter of the outpost, the better, Ban supposed, to light out when the time came. So he was met with the dual challenge of selecting a point of egress and not getting himself picked to join one of the parties. Doing his best to look inconspicuous, he kept moving away from any place that held a concentration of fighters. Twice he heard calls of “Hey you! Over here,” but pretended not to hear. He didn’t know for certain if the voices were even talking to him and he calculated that if he ignored them and kept walking, the caller would just tag the next closest Stygian. Whether they thought he was deaf or just disinclined to obey, his refusal to answer didn’t seem to bother anyone too egregiously.

  After fifteen minutes of nervously seeking out a quiet place at the edge of the camp, he found his way back to the two boys who he’d encountered on his way in. When he’d arrived at the encampment they had indicated to Ban that they were sentries. Now, as they continued to sit with their backs to the perimeter they were ostensibly guarding, Ban realized that brains were not the dominant characteristic among even those tasked with keeping the outpost safe. Deciding his plan of action, he strode up to where they sat, then started to walk right past them.

  “You again!” one said. “Back to mess yer pants some more?”

  Ban laughed stupidly. “Have ya et the slop they’re feedin’ us? It goes right through!”

  The other guard laughed as well. “Stick to the bread. It’s moldy, but it’s safer’n the stew.”

  “Go out further this time,” said the first. “It stinks enough from where they dump the animal crap.”

  Ban didn’t answer, but made his way quickly to the edge of the clearing. Just before he ducked into the thicker forest, the first boy called to him.

  “Hey, did that wizard fella show up?”

  “Yeah,” Ban called over his shoulder. “We’re fixin’ to sneak up on Trakkas.”

  “Yer getting’ all the fun while we sit here and wait for nuthin!” the boy replied.

  “Fun. Yeah,” Ban answered, then as casually as possible he disappeared into the thicket. Once he was comfortable that they weren’t watching him, which was pretty much assured as they never faced away from the center of the camp, he began silently running to where Yarren and Valosa were waiting.

  Cerah had insisted that Tressida stop and rest on a small island that they’d spotted from some ways off. She’d asked Tress to fly low and make a circle around the small dot in the sea, to look for any signs of inhabitation. They found none. Most of the island was densely vegetated, but the southern-most end boasted a sandy beach. Tressida landed there, digging her claws deep as she touched down.

  It was early evening, and they’d been flying non-stop since late the night before, when they’d stopped briefly on Ceekas. The small continent was almost completely covered in thick vegetation. It had been here that Kern had found Zayan, living alone in the jungle, and had convinced him to join the struggle. They rested for a short time, ate, and then headed off again.

  Now they were on an island too small to appear on any charts, planning to follow the same itinerary. The loneliness of the place did not bother Cerah. She had always loved being around other people as a young girl, basking in the lantern light of Kama Cove, where she had first learned to dance. Now that she had fully assumed the mantle of Chosen One, however, she found occasional solitude to be more and more therapeutic. Often when she went off alone, (although, she realized, never truly alone, as Tressida was always with her when she did so), it was to seek the guidance of Ma’uzzi. But sometimes it was for the sole purpose of not having to do or say or think anything. No one to ask questions, no one’s actions needing her approval. Just quiet time, under the watchful eye of her match-mate, who appreciated Cerah’s need these periods of seclusion.

  As they rested, Cerah let herself slip into that sense of detachment. Leaning against Tress as she stretched out in the sand, she looked at the stars, anticipating the rising of Antera, the smaller of Quadar’s two moons. But even as she closed her eyes, enjoying the fragrant smoke of the burning driftwood that Tressida had ignited for her, she realized that something was different now. The quiet was good, but after the utter emptiness of the realm of Between, through which she’d spent so much time passing, the solitude was not quite as desirable as before. Even the rising and falling of Tressida’s breathing wasn’t enough to purge the stark memory of that vacant plane.

  It was true that she had not been by herself the entire time she was Between. Her mother’s spirit had visited her, much to her delight. But she had also finally faced Surok there, brief though the encounter was. The vast majority of her time Between, however, had been aimless wandering in a featureless void broken up only by the occasional shimmering portal and even rarer, the sad, dead trees. Isolation had lost some of its luster.

  Still, she was intentionally resting Tressida in places she knew she would not encounter anyone. After the trauma of passing through both the Under Plane and Between, she was not ready to face the humans it was her duty to save. She had decided that the first faces she would see, aside from that of her beautiful match-mate, would be those of wizards on Melsa.

  As Tressida’s snores let Cerah know that the queen was again sleeping soundly, she found herself growing increasingly introspective. It had been nearly two years since she had left behind the scar that had been Kamara. For the first twelve months of that time, she had felt that the defining characteristic of her life had become a state of constant, life-altering change. The irony of the steadiness of constant change was not lost. Time and time again she’d found herself thinking about how everything she saw or learned or encountered in some way closed door after door upon her past, propelling her into an uncertain future through new doors that ever challenged, and, if she was honest, frightened her.

  The more recent months had seen this perpetual unsettledness diminish, although in her growing personal consistency, the world around her was plunged ever deeper into turmoil, creating a new changeability. Time was spent planning for weeks on end, then moving to the next anticipated battlefront for an additional stint of preparation followed by the brief but frenetic chaos of battle. Or not, if they had again misjudged Surok’s intentions and sailed the army to a place that darkness had not reached. Their handful of victories were the only light in months of stagnant gray. Still, being the Chosen One had become a constant, if grim, way of life. She no longer felt every day brought an ending to what she’d been before. Instead it seemed as if she’d been waging war for ever.

  But now as she watched Antera paint its signature on the shimmering water of the Mayduk Ocean as it began to push above the horizon, she realized that she was undergoing a greater change than any she’d encountered before.

  Her
burning desire to return, if only for a short visit, to Melsa, made her realize that although she had been born of human parents, and had been raised in human society, though she’d fallen in love with and had married a human, and though she was the prophesied protector of the Free People of Quadar, the total of humanity, she now identified far more with the wizard race.

  Cerah was quite sure that during the months she spent working one on one with Parnasus, he had striven to not only teach her advanced magic, but to instill within her the wizard’s servant heart. He had been successful in doing so, and while that enabled her to reach out her love and protection for all of humankind, it also drove a subtle wedge between her and her birth-race. For since assuming leadership of all forces opposed to Surok she saw, on a wider scale than had been her experience in Kamara, that there was much in the human heart that was not to be admired. Even among the warriors of the Army, who had fought bravely and selflessly when conflict arose, there would often be seen bickering over petty disagreements, boasts about who was stronger, faster, smarter, or had killed more monsters. Cerah had overheard men speak of the riches they expected to receive when the war was won. Even the Riddue craftsman Zayan, who had become a fast ally and an indispensable member of the side of the Light, had initially reacted to her carnally. She had never told him she knew this, and now that he was a true friend to both herself and Slurr, she never would. But she had known. And, more than anything else, it had disappointed her. It still did.

  The human race, she had decided, was a vastly disappointing people.

  And all of this was to say nothing of the Stygians. She was unable to form any other opinion than the most obvious which presented itself: this was an entire population predisposed to evil. In Kern’s youth, they had first allied with Surok, becoming stained by his own twistedness, though he himself could not yet move among them. In the two hundred years since, they had not changed. They had not realized that the defeat of their king had presented them an opportunity to turn away from darkness. Instead they held an epoch-long grudge against the rest of Quadar, and most specifically against the wizards of Melsa, whose aid had turned the tide of the conflict against them.

  Perhaps, she found herself wondering, the purge of humanity was the best thing that could happen to Quadar. Immediately upon completion of the thought, however, she felt a sharp, almost painful jabbing within her. She knew it was the Greater Spark, pricking her conscience.

  “I don’t judge you for thinking such thoughts, darling,” came Tressida’s sleepy voice. Cerah’s somewhat nefarious notion had roused her from her slumber. “I have seen much about humans that falls short of the moral standards of both wizard and dragon. Still, you must realize that there is much good in them as well, though it often must be coaxed out.” The dragon paused, then added, “And the fact that you would have such a frightening thought makes me think that the dark magic that touched you that night in Onesperus lingers yet, and wishes to gain ground within you. You have come to terms with the scar which marks your forehead, but do not always guard against the scar that marks your spark.”

  She didn’t reply. She knew that Tressida was right. Still, although Cerah knew the heart of Ma’uzzi intimately, perhaps better than any living being on the planet, she did not understand why humans were so beloved by him.

  But He does love them, she thought. He loved them enough to create the wizard race to serve them, and he loved them enough to bring me forth to conquer the greatest evil they have ever faced. My opinions are of little consequence.

  So, she would go to Melsa, and would fly to Quarada and climb to the mouth of Onesperus, there to seek answers to the questions that she had brought with her out of the Under Plane.

  And then she would climb back down and return with Tressida to the pursuit and inevitable destruction of Surok. She knew this without question.

  It was what would come after the end of the war that was unclear to her.

  11

  Visiting Melissa

  As Yarren heard approaching feet he stepped in front of Valosa and pointed his staff forward. Wizard hearing was vastly superior to that of humans, dragon hearing even more so. The steps were still far off; maybe two or three minutes away, Yarren reckoned. Val had become unsettled five minutes sooner. Whoever comes has a light step, he thought. I doubt any Stygian could tread that lightly and move that fast. Could Ban be back already? Yarren had assumed that Ban might have to linger in the Stygian camp for a day, maybe longer, before hearing anything useful. But a moment later he heard the boy loudly whisper, “Silver!” It was the agreed upon call-signal.

  “Gold,” Yarren replied, and Ban stepped into the clearing. “Back so soon,” the wizard said. “I had expected it would take longer to come away with anything useful.”

  “So did I,” Ban said. “But our timing turned out to be very serendipitous.”

  Yarren was caught off guard by the boy’s vocabulary. Ban had to be the smartest street-zankrat that walked upon the Green Lands he supposed. “How so?” he asked him.

  “Well, after slipping into the camp, and walking past the two most laughable sentries ever posted, I wandered around for a little while, pretending to make myself useful, before coming upon a group of about fifty men and boys who were seated on the ground. I got the impression they were waiting for something or someone, especially since the man who stood at the front of the assembly kept looking at the sky. After a while I saw why he was doing that. A wizard on a green dragon landed in the clearing. He said his name was Zenk.”

  “Zenk!” Yarren all but shouted.

  Ban was taken aback by the venom in the wizard’s voice as he spoke the name, and the darkness which fell over his face at hearing it. “Not a friend of yours, then?” he asked.

  “Zenk is a traitor to the wizard race,” the young sorcerer said. He went on to tell the story of Zenk’s treachery, his abandonment of the Light, and his alignment with Surok.

  “Wow!” Ban exclaimed after the account. “That explains a lot. I will tell you that within seconds of seeing him I formed a very negative opinion, and when he started talking my assessment was pretty much confirmed. He is altogether unlikeable.”

  “He is far worse than unlikable,” Yarren countered. “But enough about his repulsive character. What did he say?”

  “He told the group, who it turns out were pegged to be unit leaders, that Surok wanted them to begin sneak raids upon our most outlying forces. He wants them to cause as much death and havoc as they can, without mounting any real frontal assault. They are to strike from hiding, then return to the encampment with any intelligence that can gather, although saying ‘intelligence’ when talking about these people is almost criminal. They seem like they’ve all attended a school whose doors never opened.”

  Despite his mention of Zenk and the news of the next phase of Surok’s assault, Yarren had to laugh. “I haven’t had the pleasure of speaking with any Stygians, but facing them in battle had led me to similar conclusion.”

  “If we were fighting a battle of wits, we’d have won by now,” Ban said, causing the wizard to laugh again.

  “Very well, my friend. Let’s climb on Val and head back. This is vital information, even if it was quickly garnered. Knowing in advance that surprise attacks are coming should almost completely nullify them,” Yarren said. “Slurr will be pleased with your success.”

  As Valosa lifted off and turned to head back to Trakkas, Yarren asked, “When are these raids set to commence?”

  “The units were instructed to head out at nightfall,” Ban answered. His answer triggered another thought and he said to Yarren, “I was very surprised by the composition of the units that they began forming. I actually lingered a while just to watch. As I told you there were both boys and men seated when I joined them, and when they began selecting their platoons, the children called upon men and other boys to join with them. The men seemed to have no qualms against following ten- and eleven-year-olds into combat. And while the adult leaders likewise sele
cted both young and older fighters, it bewildered me a little less, as I knew already that they’d dragged children into the fray.”

  Yarren thought for a moment, then said, “I suppose it doesn’t really matter who leads the unit. I don’t think there is any tactical expertise expected from any of them. From the sounds of what you saw, and from what we learned when facing them in the Zursh, the men or boys at the head of a platoon merely become the first to be struck down.”

  “It almost seems as though Surok is just using us to help him kill off the Stygian population. It doesn’t appear, even though they’ve allied with him, that he cares one whit for their survival.”

  The wizard, seated behind Ban, smiled at the insight. “That is a most astute observation. I agree, Surok cares not about the Stygians. Ultimately I don’t believe he cares about any of the beings fighting in his name.”

  “You’re right,” said Ban. “I mean, you’ve told me that both the Silestra and the Silumans feed upon people, correct?”

  “It is a horrid truth,” Yarren replied.

  “Well what happens if all the humans are exterminated?”

  This had never occurred to Yarren, and he said, “I suppose they will devour the domesticated animals, then the wild ones. But I do not see any of Surok’s monsters having the potential to maintain the animal populations. They don’t seem like they’d be very good herders, do they?”

  “Not at all,” Ban said.