Beyond the Mists of Katura e-3

by James Barclay

  ‘Our current success currently numbers four hundred and seventeen.’

  Auum gaped, he couldn’t help himself. He licked his lips, trying to frame a response, but his mind was struggling to comprehend the ramifications of that number. It was beyond his darkest fears, potentially catastrophic beyond measure. And all the while Takaar smiled at him as if he’d made a decision that would bring them peace for eternity.

  ‘It is truly amazing, isn’t it?’ said Takaar. ‘What do you say, Auum?’

  Auum felt his control slip and he had no desire to regain it. He reached out and grabbed Takaar by his collar, hauling him across the table. Papers and weights scattered across the stone warehouse floor. Takaar’s feet caught on the table edge, tipping it over to hit the ground with a resounding crack.

  Auum turned and pushed Takaar ahead of him, pushing him up against a wall with enough force to shake off dust and rattle the contents of nearby shelving. Takaar’s smile was gone now, replaced by an expression of pained confusion. Auum spoke quietly though he knew every eye in the warehouse was on them.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I say. I say that you have trapped more than half of your magical strength on an enemy continent an ocean away from here. Four hundred and more who you have promised to the defence of Calaius should the day come. I say that you have left our people vulnerable, and yet your answer is to send more of our defenders after those surely already lost.

  ‘I say that once again you have demonstrated your utter unsuitability to be in any position of influence or power. I am done with you.’

  Takaar laughed in his face. ‘You should be pleased, shouldn’t you? Four hundred of the adepts you so hate and wish had never been created, able to cast the magic you despise and deny can help us, are overseas. Now’s your chance to show us how the mighty TaiGethen alone can defend Calaius from what is coming.’

  ‘And what is coming?’ asked Auum. ‘No, strike that. I don’t want to hear any more from you. I’ll ask the question of someone capable of answering it.’

  He let Takaar go and the mad elf sank to his haunches, back to the wall. Auum turned on his heel and strode towards Drech, who was standing with Ulysan and a human: Stein. Auum ignored Takaar’s taunting and abuse and the angry stares of his acolytes.

  ‘Get him out of here,’ said Auum to Ulysan.

  ‘Got a point, though, hasn’t he?’ said the big TaiGethen.

  Auum shrugged. ‘Yes. Magic is damaging, as he proves daily. Those four hundred should be wearing the cloak of the Al-Arynaar, shouldn’t they? I wish they were not Il-Aryn but they are. And at the base of it all, we need bodies here when our enemies attack.’

  Another tirade of abuse struck Auum’s broad back.

  ‘I’ll find him a place to lie down,’ said Ulysan.

  Auum turned to Stein, appraising the human carefully. He was a confident man, confident enough not to be cowed by the presence of the TaiGethen. His bearing was proud and his features, bold and prominent, reminded Auum of his ancestor of seven hundred years past. But it was his eyes that truly marked him of the line of the first Stein. And it was the birthmark across his palm that granted him the right to speak.

  ‘Sorry about the altercation,’ said Auum. ‘Takaar and I have our. . differences. What is it?’

  Stein was smiling and he was shaking his head gently, musing on something.

  ‘I’m sorry. This may be hard for you to comprehend, but you and Takaar are elves whose tales have been told, whose names and deeds have been passed down through the generations of our family for hundreds and hundreds of years. And here you stand, free of the ravages of time, at least physically. For me it is simply amazing that you can have lived for so long. For you, of course, it is normal.’

  Auum thought for a moment before holding out his hand in the way he remembered humans did. Stein took it and shook it, a broad smile breaking out on his face.

  ‘If my history is correct, you would not shake the first Stein’s hand.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ve grown soft over the centuries,’ said Auum. ‘You risked your life to come here to warn us of invasion or worse. For that I thank you.’

  ‘Yes, but it isn’t altruism that brought me here. We need your help. We must have your help. And whatever else you believe about Takaar, he is right about the need to take ship.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you cannot beat what is coming on the shores of Calaius.’

  ‘And you’re honest too. Your elvish is excellent, by the way,’ said Auum. He glanced about him. Ulysan was leaning over Takaar, speaking quietly and firmly. ‘This is not the place for this discussion. We’ll go to the harbour master’s house. Drech, I need you too. Faleen, take the rest of the TaiGethen, find as many cloaks as you can. We need to quell the panic. Tais, my friends, we move.’

  Chapter 5

  Potential is as dangerous as it is exciting; a very difficult child.

  Septern, Master Mage

  Auum sat at an ancient pitted and scarred wooden table in the harbour master’s kitchen. The master had a cauldron of guarana and lemon-grass infusion on the embers and all three present had steaming mugs of the invigorating drink in front of them. Stein had eyed his with some suspicion but on trying it declared himself an instant convert.

  The harbour master having withdrawn and with Ulysan standing just outside to deflect Takaar after his avowed intent to join the meeting, Auum, Drech and Stein could talk openly.

  ‘If there was one thing you humans taught us during the decades of slavery it was that we cannot afford to kill each other,’ said Auum. ‘Yniss knows we struggle with this every day, but at last the threads work together and they have done ever since the filth of your past left us. In all the time your people were occupying my country, only two of you showed you had a soul. Garan, who I will admit was misunderstood in his dealings with Takaar, and the first Stein. You might be the third.’

  Stein nodded but could not keep the hurt look from his face.

  ‘I understand that the memories of our past atrocities are still fresh for you but you have to understand-’

  ‘I have to understand nothing. I have some respect for you, but I will not commit any forces to your aid unless I believe there is a direct threat to the elves. Takaar believes there is, and that worries me. Now you have to lay out the facts and convince me.’

  Stein held up his hands. ‘That is nothing more than I had expected to do.’

  ‘Good. Your war should have ended with your Sundering battles hundreds of years ago. Perhaps you should have learned our lesson, eh?’

  ‘Some of us did, believe me. And now we are forced into alliances much as you were.’ Stein paused to take a lengthy swallow of his infusion and looked over at Drech. ‘Before I start, how much have you discussed our magic colleges with Auum?’

  ‘I have never spoken about human magic with either Drech or Takaar. It is of no interest,’ said Auum flatly.

  Stein opened his mouth and then closed it again, getting a little edgy. Auum knew he was being confrontational but it did no harm for the human, however welcome, to understand where he was and in whose presence he sat.

  ‘Right,’ said Stein and a brief smile played over his face, masking his anxiety. ‘With respect, Auum, I think you need to know a little background before I can properly explain the magnitude of the threat that we, and as a direct result you, now face.’

  Auum shrugged. ‘If you must.’

  ‘I’ll be brief. The Sundering was the inevitable consequence of our differing approaches to magic, its learning and its casting. Four schools of thought, ethics and morals emerged over the course of time; then there are your old friends Ystormun and the Wytch Lords.

  ‘I doubt there would have been a battle, let alone a full-blown mage war, if the Wytch Lords had not been determined to cling on to Triverne. Obviously, that could not be allowed.’

  ‘Obviously,’ said Auum.

  Drech chuckled. ‘It was the location of the heartstone — the artefact that foc
uses all human magical power.’

  ‘Was?’ Auum felt cheered by the implication.

  ‘During the conflict Triverne and the stone were destroyed. It set back magical research and use by — I don’t know — three hundred years.’

  Auum bit back a childish comment and suppressed a smile too. Instead, he spread his hands.

  ‘Let’s skip to the outcome, or by the time you get around to our problems your enemies will be docked at wharf one.’

  ‘As was already agreed, each faction set up its own college, but there was no stone to split so we all had to make our own. They were the work of generations. But at least the Wytch Lords had been defeated, diminished and banished way into the west to dig dirt with the Wesmen.’

  Auum let the reference to Wesmen go. ‘So what happened? I had no idea Takaar was sending elves to Julatsa — your college, I presume? — but not even he would send them into the teeth of a breaking war.’

  Stein blew out his cheeks. ‘The first adepts arrived a hundred years ago, well before any conflict could be foreseen. But the latest arrived less than a hundred days ago. You’ll have to make your own judgement.’

  ‘I wish I could believe he wouldn’t ignore the warnings. If there were any?’

  Stein flinched under Auum’s bleak gaze.

  ‘There were warnings. But the tide rolled in so quickly. The Wytch Lords had been building their strength of magic and arms beyond the curtain of the Blackthorne Mountains, but their chosen moment to strike should have been foreseen.’

  ‘We are all guilty of not seeing the obvious at times,’ said Auum. Stein inclined his head. ‘What was the trigger?’

  ‘Our greatest mage, a man called Septern, created a spell to prove a theory. Once he’d announced his success to a four-college meeting it quickly became clear they would all fight to get it.’

  ‘Must be some spell,’ said Auum.

  ‘It is. It’s Dawnthief.’

  ‘That’s supposed to mean something, is it?’

  ‘Dawnthief,’ repeated Stein. ‘An extraordinary construct. Septern made the impossible possible. He demonstrated that, in theory, magic can do absolutely anything.’

  ‘I think that’s too great an assumption,’ said Drech, his enthusiasm for this debate only marginally less than Stein’s. ‘Dawnthief can, in theory, remove all light and air from an entire dimension. That does not prove that magic can, say, grow crops from seeds in a fraction of the usual time.’

  ‘What?’ said Auum.

  ‘It’s a matter of perspective,’ said Stein, turning to Drech, his hands making a globe, his fingertips together. ‘If you take our dimension as a single entity, then a spell that can remove all light, air and life from that dimension must, at its core, understand that life. Hence it could potentially give rise to any spell for any purpose you care to mention.’

  ‘What!?’ said Auum, hoping he was mishearing but knowing he was not.

  ‘That doesn’t follow,’ said Drech. ‘If my understanding of Dawnthief is correct, it merely, if I can use that word in this context, removes light and air and hence life. You do not have to understand the basis of the genesis of life to know how to remove it from something that is living.’

  The slap of Auum’s palms on the table overturned all three mugs and jolted Drech and Stein from their ridiculous discussion. Both looked at him like guilty schoolchildren, Stein’s expression instantly became anxious. There was silence but for the drip-drip of spilled infusion from the table to the floor. Auum’s face was hot with anger.

  ‘And there you both sit. Smug examples of exactly why magic is so dangerous and its practitioners must be treated with maximum suspicion. One of your own has developed a spell that, unless I misheard you, can kill everything in a heartbeat, and yet you sit there and discuss the finer points of the theory?

  ‘How can you have been so. . careless? Yniss preserve us, but I thought I’d heard it all. But in all the thousands of years I have enjoyed blessed life, I have never been so astonished, so furious, that another sentient being could do something so. . so stupid!’

  Auum pushed back and got up, unable to sit any longer. He walked around the kitchen, trying to get his thoughts in order and failing completely.

  ‘To be fair, we weren’t the ones who were careless,’ said Drech.

  ‘It’s the whole sorry lot of you!’ Auum shouted. ‘Don’t you understand? This is the curse of magic. It endangers innocent people all over Balaia and Calaius. I don’t care if you call yourself a mage or Il-Aryn, you are all complicit in this. Of course Ystormun and the Wytch Lords want Dawnthief. Why by all the gods of elves and men did you let this Septern create this thing and, worse, allow it to be announced to the entire dimension?’

  Auum rubbed his hands over his face as if that would cleanse him of this reality. But when he looked back at Drech and Stein his anger intensified.

  ‘Have you really nothing to say?’

  Stein had a sheen of sweat on his brow and was rubbing his hands together.

  ‘The spell is hidden. The Wytch Lords can’t get their hands on it.’

  ‘They are fighting a war to do just that,’ said Auum. ‘Clearly they think otherwise.’

  ‘They have no choice,’ said Drech. ‘They need to get to the spell before any of the other colleges.’

  ‘And are you lot going to fight for it too? Can any of you resist such power?’

  Stein didn’t reply at once, considering his next words carefully.

  ‘It is only natural that the colleges should seek the spell. Not to use for destruction but to analyse, research and to keep safe against those who desire its capacity for destruction.’

  Not carefully enough.

  ‘Do I have IDIOT tattooed on my forehead?’ demanded Auum, tapping it. ‘I must do if you expect me to swallow that cup of frog poison. “Not to use for destruction”? Yniss bless me, but Takaar is sending adepts to Julatsa to learn battle magic. It is what you do. And if you captured the spell that could devastate your enemies you expect me to believe you wouldn’t use it to gain more power?’

  ‘It’s a moot point,’ said Stein, shifting nervously. ‘None of us know where it is.’

  Auum had emitted a derisory laugh before he could swallow it.

  ‘Then praise be to all we hold dear, we’re all saved. Stand down the armies, go back to your homes and tell your children they are safe for eternity!’ Auum leaned over the table and shouted straight into Stein’s face. ‘How can you know that the Wytch Lords can’t find it if you don’t know where it is! In case you didn’t learn this in your history lessons, we had a hundred and seventy years to understand the tenacity of that utter, utter bastard Ystormun. And now all six of them are chasing the damned thing. It doesn’t matter if your precious colleges can’t find it, they will. They will never give up and they will never, ever stop. Not unless you stop them.’

  Auum half sat, half fell back into his chair, his energy and his ire well and truly spent.

  ‘Unless we stop them,’ he muttered. ‘Yniss save us all, but this is a nightmare.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Stein. ‘I wish it could have been any other message I carried.’

  Drech was frowning. ‘If Auum is right — ’ Auum growled, Drech smiled briefly ‘- and we must assume he is, why are the Wytch Lords fired up about invading Calaius? They should be focusing all their efforts on finding Dawnthief.’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ said Stein. ‘The Wytch Lords, even backed by Wesmen muscle, are by no means certain to gain the victories that would leave them free to search for the spell. And now they see an alliance between Julatsa and Calaius, they see you as a threat. They want to snuff out that threat.’

  ‘You’re saying that us sending Il-Aryn to Julatsa has led directly to the Wytch Lords planning another invasion?’ asked Drech.

  Auum shook his head.

  ‘Actually, I think it’s far simpler,’ he said. ‘We remain the resource-rich land the Wytch Lords need to fund their war effort. And Ys
tormun hates us with a passion I’m sure has remained undimmed across the centuries. It’s the simplest of equations. He’s been waiting for his chance and now you idiots and your precious Dawnthief have presented it to him.’

  Auum grabbed his mug, tossed out the few dregs remaining after the spill and refilled it at the cauldron.

  ‘Well, thanks for placing everything I’ve striven to achieve over the last seven hundred years at mortal risk. And on behalf of every innocent elf and human, thanks for creating the means to kill us all on a whim. Now I need time to think. Alone. One last thing: how long have we got?’

  ‘Until what?’ asked Stein.

  Auum blinked. ‘You really need me to clarify that?’

  Stein blushed. ‘No, sorry. They could be at sea now. We were attacked on our way to warn you they were preparing ships, ready for their strike. I’ve been here for three days, plus four on the wing. I think it’s safe to assume they’re either on their way or leaving imminently.’

  Auum nodded. ‘Go,’ he said.

  Stein was out of his chair with the speed of a panther. Drech stood too, but a little more slowly.

  ‘While you’re thinking, there’s something else you should add to the mix,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Auum. ‘Please heap on more reasons to hate you.’

  ‘It’s obvious we’ll have to travel to Balaia with Il-Aryn and the TaiGethen.’

  ‘Very obvious.’

  ‘We have to take Takaar with us.’

  Auum’s heart was stone. ‘Absolutely not. If I have to kill him myself to stop him boarding a ship, I will.’

  ‘I know how you feel about him, Auum, but without him, you will not bring half the adepts with you. You’ll be ignoring the extraordinary talent he possesses.’

  ‘He will undermine everything we try to do. He’ll undermine you, Drech, you know he will. And sometimes he won’t even mean to. He isn’t strong enough to fight in Balaia. Yniss knows I’m not sure I am. I don’t care that he’s the most talented, or that he’s your spiritual leader, we’re going to be sailing into the teeth of a massive conflict, and if he freezes or disappears inside his head at the wrong moment it could be catastrophic.’