Bryn climbed the staircase and said, “I’m at the foot of the temple.”
“Excellent. At the far end of the temple a mirror hangs on a wall between two braziers.”
Bryn climbed the steps of the temple and entered the structure between the two central columns. A crimson carpet trimmed in gold bisected the single, great chamber. She walked down it and approached the mirror, which hung waist-high and was half as tall as she. She stopped a couple of arms lengths from its silvered surface and peered into it with no small measure of surprise. “I’m looking into the mirror, but I can’t see my reflection. Actually, it seems to reflect nothing in the room.”
“Quite right,” said Phinneas’s disembodied voice. “This isn’t a mirror in the traditional sense, but a looking glass.”
“Aren’t all mirrors looking glasses,” Bryn said dryly.
“Some call them such, but the term looking glass was first coined in reference to wizard’s scrying mirrors, which they used to see things far and wide—even as far away as the future or the past. This mirror, my dear, is Arcanum of the highest order.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“I want you to focus on Elias. Picture him in your mind. Hold him there, and will the mirror to show you when you last were with him.”
Bryn did as Phinneas bid. She focused on the mirror and pictured Elias. Images tore through her mind in rapid succession. Elias sitting by her bedside wringing a damp cloth. Elias running through a moonless night, an inky, amorphic figure fast on his heels. Elias face-down on a rocky shore, blood trickling from his ears.
She felt herself floating through the colored void again, but she blinked and willed herself to return to the temple. A crystal knowing that Elias was in grave trouble filled her. She needed to find some answers. She needed to discover what magic had torn them apart.
A sharp pain bit into her palms. When her vision cleared she found herself back in the temple, inches from the mirror, her hands clenching its silver filigreed edges. She peered into its depth. Show me Elias!
“Bryn are you there? What do you see?” Phinneas’s voice sounded higher than usual, doubtless from feigned nonchalance. Someone murmured behind him.
“Nothing. Only a grey vortex.”
Bryn studied the pulsating arcs of energy that churned in the mirror. They fell in on themselves without terminating, spinning in and out at once, in some incomprehensible illusion.
“It’s oblivion,” she said, her voice resounding coldly in her ears. “No beginning, no ending.”
“Bryn, listen to me.” Phinneas’s voice was resonant, deep with command. “I want you to turn around and walk out of the temple.”
“I think I see something forming in the vortex...”
“Leave the mirror. Go back the way you came.”
“It’s indistinct but its growing sharper. It’s moving. Wait? What? Did you hear that?”
A whir of motion attracted Bryn’s attention from her periphery, but she was engrossed in the waxing and waning images in the mirror. All of her attention, all of her focus, was drawn into the swirling energies in the looking glass. The vortex went white accompanied by a high-pitched, reverberating tone. An incandescent pain furrowed between her eyes. The white, the terrible, formless white, filled her field of vision until it was all she could see...
†
“You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.”
Bryn blinked. She had become lost in a reverie, but try as she might she couldn’t remember what had so captured her thoughts. She must have over-indulged in wine, she concluded.
Her eyes focused on the picture window. An involuntary smile lit her features as she saw the spectral silhouette of Elias reflected in the window glass. He had retired his Marshal attire for the evening in exchange for a dress military uniform. “You look good in House Denar crimson, Marshal.”
A wry smile played across his features. “I feel out of place.”
“Nonsense.” She turned to face him. “You look like a genteel captain of the guard.”
Elias’s teeth flashed as his smile broadened. “I think Blackwell might have a thing or two to say about that.”
Bryn extended her arm. “I presume you have come to ask me for a dance.”
“Me? No, I’m all left feet.”
“I’ve seen you sword fight and beg to differ.”
“I believe the prince of Miria has been chasing you all evening for the honor of a dance.”
Bryn took a small step toward him. “In that case I insist. Save me, again?”
Elias hesitated but momentarily before reaching out to take her by the hand. She led him at once to the dance floor and when she pulled his arm taut she rebounded toward him in a spin, parodying the risqué dance step that was all the fashion in Phyra. Elias took the avant garde step in stride and sidled back on quick feet when her back came to rest against him, lest decorum be breached within full eye of all the court. Still, she felt the momentary heat of his breath on the nape of her neck and hot blood rushed from her heart and she blushed from bosom to cheek.
The dancers on the floor parted out of deference to the royal heir. Presently Bryn found herself in the center of the dance floor while the courtiers surrounded her and Elias in a loose ring. She felt the hard-eyed stare of Sebastion Requix, the Mirian Prince, but she ignored him. She pulled her hand from Elias’s hip and raised it into the air as she fixed her gaze on the string quartet. “Play something Southern and more upbeat, in honor of the Marshal. It’s the Solstice after all, and cause for celebration, and I grow weary of all these maudlin tunes.”
Bryn returned her hand back to Elias’s hip, an indelicate gesture, for it was considered unseemly to be so familiar in a formal setting, where dancers as a rule touched only hands. She waited for the quartet to tune up. She felt the weight of all the gazes of all the court upon her, but she had eyes only for Elias.
The quartet struck up, the violinist cantering away in a saucy fiddle strain. Once more breaching decorum, Bryn led Elias into a quick and gliding dance. A rare smile bloomed on his face, and Bryn felt a joyful laugh bubble up from her stomach. She raced away from him, and he followed chase, his alacritous feet keeping pace with her own. For many beats they danced alone, whirling like dervishes across the floor, before one-by-one other brave souls joined them, and soon the greater portion of the dancers had returned to the fray.
“It seems you have won over more than a few hearts tonight,” Elias said as he observed the festive spirit Bryn had sparked.
Bryn’s expression turned coy. “There is but one heart to win, and it is the measure of all the others.”
Elias’s eyes smoldered like coal. “I knew your tongue was sharp, but also silver it would seem.”
“You haven’t the foggiest just what my tongue can do.”
Elias skipped a step and Bryn fell into a fit of bright laughter.
Bryn’s mirth fizzled as she felt eyes upon her once more. She turned to find Eithne sitting alone in her high chair, watching her with a guarded expression.
Without warning, a molten, white pain cut through her skull. She teetered as the world began to dissolve in the all-encompassing white void. Hands grasped her fast about the arms, but she couldn’t see them...
†
“God’s blood, Bryn, I’m losing my hold on you!”
The naked panic in Phinneas’s voice snapped Bryn from her directionless, timeless drift through the white void. She suddenly found herself back in the temple gazing into the looking glass. She tore her eyes from the mirror to encounter a new horror.
The columns of the temple wavered and ran, as if melting. She turned back to mirror to find it deformed, folding in on itself. She startled and at once found it hard to stand, as if she wasn’t sure which way the earth pitched.
Without hesitation Bryn turned and ran. She leapt down the temple stairs and slid down the hillock. Shadows began to crowd the forest and she couldn’t see more than twenty paces to either side.
“Everything’s disappearing,” she cried, hating herself for the shrill trill her voice made in her own ears.
“Run! Stay on the path!”
“Already there,” Bryn breathed and she threw herself into a dead sprint.
She told herself to focus only on the cobblestones before her and ignore the dissolving world around her. Fear threatened to numb her legs, but she cursed it. She thought of Elias, shackled in Treacher’s Tower. Elias who had escaped to turn back the shadow of the Scarlet Hand. Her heart squeezed into her throat, and she pounded the path all the harder, until she couldn’t feel the granite beneath her. She flew up the stairs.
“There’s a gateway at the top of the stairs,” Phinneas cried, but she was already diving through it.
Bryn sat up, a silent scream on her lips, as her lungs strained to draw breath. Unable to tolerate a moment’s darkness, she ripped the sleeping mask off, and threw the sweat-soaked garment to the floor. She stood up on shaky legs, with a compulsory need to feel the ground beneath her.
Bryn Denar fixed fever-bright eyes on her companions and said, “Who said make-believe couldn’t kill you?”
†
Lar Fletcher slid his back foot in an arc across the floor to rest perpendicular to his front as he thrust his sword along Captain Blackwell’s. This resulted in him turning his body away from Blackwell’s stab as he offered the Captain his profile, while sneaking in his own thrust even as he parried.
“Well done,” said Blackwell. “Now hold the stance. Straighten your back, keep your shoulders square. Good.”
Lar felt ridiculous as he stood to his full height, his feet squeezed together, like an ox trying his hand at ballet, but he had promised himself that he would absorb all that Blackwell and his elite Whiteshields had to teach him.
Blackwell circled him and tapped the flat of his blade on the back on Lar’s leg. He grunted in what Lar imagined was satisfaction, for no correction was forthcoming. “Again,” said Blackwell. “Assume middling guard.”
Lar sighed inwardly and withdrew, placing his weight on his back foot. He drew the pommel of his bastard sword to within a hand’s-span of his left hip and held the blade diagonally across his body. He waited on Blackwell, and as the Captain attacked he thrust. They fell into an easy rhythm, as the surefooted Blackwell lead the exercise with slow, deliberate sword forms.
The captain may very well be the equal of Elias, or Padraic Duana for that matter, Lar thought.
Lar had sought Blackwell after lunch to outfit him with armaments, but the clock now read hours past dinner. After he had explained his business, Blackwell looked him over and tapped a finger on his chin, as if evaluating a steer. “Well, what weapon should we outfit you with from the prestigious royal armament?” he had asked. Before waiting for a response, Blackwell went on to explain that many of the weapons from the royal armory were enchanted, which is why House Denar was so stingy about consigning them. He then told him the story of how King Peregrine himself had gifted him with an Aradurian long-sword after he had defeated a would-be kidnapper of Eithne in Mathias Square, when he was but green Blackshield.
“You are certainly strong enough for the halberd or the greatsword,” Blackwell had said to him. “But they are often impractical, such as in close alleyways or indoors. The bastard sword, or hand-and-a-halfer as the Blackshields call them, may be the ideal weapon for you—versatile, while still playing to your strengths.”
Not one to rely on conjecture, however, Blackwell had insisted that they try the full range of melee weapons before making a decision. Lar feared the Captain would keep him until well after midnight before electing to take him into the coveted royal armory. To his credit, Blackwell’s initial hypothesis had proven accurate. The bastard sword allowed Lar to capitalize on his superior strength without compromising agility. Although, as Blackwell was quick to point out, albeit not unkindly, Lar’s footwork needed a great deal of work.
Lar had only allowed his mind to wander for a moment, but he presently found himself disarmed. He looked at his hand and then at Blackwell, stupefied as to how the significantly smaller man had disarmed him with such seeming ease.
“Strength is no substitution for technique, Marshal,” said Blackwell, with an easy grin, “although it does help. Come now, my friend, I believe that if we find our way to the kitchens, we may just find some leftovers as yet unclaimed.”
Lar decided that the rumble in his stomach offered answer enough, and followed his zealous tutor out of the Whiteshields’ training chamber.
Chapter 10
The Lichlor
Elias drew Leosis’s cloak tight about him and stepped out into the predawn light.
It took him some time to find the sturdy Black Ironwood tree limb he had stashed in the bushes on the far side of the glade. He had told himself it would make a good walking stick, but in his heart he knew the purpose it would likely serve. He produced a stone knife from Teah’s kitchen and began whittling the stave.
It took the better part of an hour to peel it of bark and create the rough approximation of his father’s sword. He wrapped a rag around the thick end of it to create a makeshift hilt. He examined his work in the spare light. It wasn’t much, but he was satisfied the hard stave would offer him some measure of protection, however scant.
As he turned it over for inspection an idea occurred to him. He recalled how he and Lar had blackened the tips of play spears they had whittled in the fire when they were children. The result was a sharper, harder point. Elias held up the stave and summoned his magic.
Harnessing the temperance that Teah had tried to teach him with regard to channeling his power, Elias fed a trickle of heat into the Ironwood. He willed it to harden the wood, sharpen its edge. The makeshift blade began to hiss, then steam, and slowly darken to an ashen color under his effort. He waved the stave in the air to cool it.
The blade had shrunk a minute amount, but had become denser. When it cooled he tested its edge with his thumb and grunted in satisfaction. He wasn’t sure how long the play sword would hold its edge, but it would cut, if not well.
A step sounded behind him. Elias tensed and tightened his grip on his new weapon. He hurtled into the void, within a reach of his magic and his warrior’s focus.
“You move with greater stealth than one would imagine, but you should have known that using your power within close proximity of my house would have alerted me, asleep or not.”
Elias relaxed and turned to face Teah. “Not the first mistake I’ve made recently.”
“I see you’ve a new a toy, but one would think it is hardly necessary considering your natural arcane gift.”
Elias studied Teah in the false light. Her expression was as unreadable to him as her tone. “I am more familiar with this than with the arcane.”
“You plan to kill with that thing?”
Elias shifted under her gaze. “No. I plan to defend myself, it comes to that.”
“Against the Lichlor?”
“You said they were abominations.”
“I’ve no right to stop you, but I do insist on accompanying you.”
“You’re going to fight?”
“No, but I will protect you as best I can and haul you back home if you survive.”
Elias wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or not, so he settled for flashing her a grin. “Shiny.” Elias hesitated as he read the resolve in Teah’s aura. “If anything happens to you, who will look out for Nyla?”
“If I can’t make this problem with the Lichlor go away, she is lost already.”
They set out for the ruins of Lucerne, side by side, each alone with their thoughts.
As they wound their way through the Hartwood Elias reviewed what he had learned about the Lichlor from Teah last night as Nyla lay sleeping by the hearth. The Lichlor were considered abominations by Teah’s people, having being created by the Dark Fey, or what the Enkilder called the Darkin. Teah explained that the White Fey had
begun to call their wayward cousins the Dark Kin, which eventually was shortened to Darkin.
Long centuries ago, a gate was opened to the fey realm and the fey returned to Agia, led by the forces of the Obsidian Queen, an elder fey rumored to be millennia old. A lengthy conflict was born between mankind and the Dark Fey, known as the Gate War.
After years of embittered struggle the White Fey joined forces with the humans against the dark for fear that the world would be torn asunder. The Darkin began experimenting with new Arcanum to try to turn the tide in their favor. One such experiment resulted in the Lichlor.
The Lichlor’s genesis began with the timber wolf from the northern climes of Agia, which were then twisted and corrupted with fell magic. Some said they were cross bred with other fearsome Darkin creatures, but no one really knew one way or the other. Whatever the secret of their creation, the result was a wolf-like predator of uncommon intelligence, agility, and ferocity. Perhaps the beasts’ most notable characteristic was an inexorable instinct to track and kill any arcanist they scented.
“They can scent magic, particularly the arcane signature of any White Fey,” Teah had said to him. “Once they have a scent, no thing will capture their attention until they have their quarry.”
If Mordum learned that the Lichlor had tracked Nyla to their haven, Teah feared what he would do. Teah had explained that violence of any kind was forbidden by Enkilder High Law, as was leaving their domain, which they called Illedium, without the express permission of their Elder Council.
Elias was quick to decide that the Lichlor must be driven away, by one way or the other, and he had prepared himself to seek them at once. Teah had told him in no uncertain terms that it would be tantamount to suicide to face them at night, for they were nocturnal hunters. Legend held that the red of their eyes was all you saw of them before they ripped out your throat.
So Elias had waited until dawn.
They reached the edge of the wood and Elias crouched within the cover of the tree line, scanning the half-mile of open ground between them and the ruins. Shadows and mist ruled the plain, for the morning was overcast by a leaden sky that stretched from horizon to horizon and a predawn fog yet lingered in the humid air. He saw nothing in the false light, but he felt a vague pressure in his mind when he peered in a particular direction. “I think they’re holed-up near the Wytchwood.”
Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle) Page 8