“You can turn your back on the path ahead and hide from what you see, but think of what it has cost you to reach the end of your apprenticeship. You don’t really have a choice. Wizard Serannon.”
Tabitha rolled the Ring between her fingers. It had cost her everything. She slipped it on again.
“But if I am a wizard, then why am I so helpless against the tide of Dark which sweeps toward Stormhaven? Wizards have power! They are capable of magnificent things. The wizards of legend created stonewood and the Kingsbridge. They shielded Eyri from harm.”
“Which do you think is more wonderful—a run of rock, or a living butterfly? We each have talent in our own particular lore. Clear essence is what carries the magic, but the lore is your own, and you wield a great power.”
“But Twardy! When I sing the Lifesong, it does wonderful things, but when I am silent, I am just a girl. Not a wizard.”
Zarost grinned, and clapped his hands together. “You have true wisdom already! That is the way of all magic. It flows through us, we can guide it, but we do not create it ourselves. The sooner you know that, the stronger you can be.”
“I am the wizard?” She sat down heavily, so strong was the sensation of truth. “I am the wizard.”
“And so the battle within Eyri is your responsibility, for you have the greatest power,” Zarost said, stretching as if a great burden had been released from his shoulders. “It is the test which has developed around you and your Ring. Your success shall be the final proof.”
“I have to save the realm?”
“If you so choose. You’ve left yourself precious little time, Wizard Serannon, but then there’s a lot more in that mirror than you thought.”
Within the coil of the carved serpent, a determined face looked out at her, a woman with a red scarf, concealing two orbs—one of fading Light, the other of the deepest Dark. She had hidden them for long enough. If she was to be the wizard, she had to be clear and honest. She pulled her scarf aside. The stones hung free; the darker one seemed more ominous than its pale cousin.
“How can I stand against the Darkmaster, my Riddler?”
“Build on the knowledge you have gathered.” He was suddenly serious, his eyes intent. “A wizard can see truth in a tangled web of facts. You have knowledge of the Dark and the Light.”
“But the Darkmaster –”
“Cabal is dangerous, but never confuse him for a wizard! He failed to keep the Ring, he did not attain the sight. He cannot wield the clear essence, he is capable of doing only that which uses the Dark, and then only the spells which he has deduced. Most of those have their equal in the Light.”
What Zarost had proclaimed brought little comfort. With the shattered Source, Dark was the only thing left. Cabal had all the power, as far as Tabitha could see. Singing clear essence into butterflies wasn’t going to stop an army of Shadowcasters.
“How am I to change anything, when I know so little magic?”
“I believe the best magic is discovered within your own knowledge—not taught. You’ve seen something of the power of a mirror, not so? Well, there are many truths to be learned by reflection. For now, reflect on what it is you wish to change.”
“I don’t want –”
“No-no!” he exclaimed, raising a hand and turning his head away. “You are a wizard, now. You should begin to act like one. That means you can stare into the distance, and say nothing, and it is not considered strange. Think first. Speak only later.”
She bit back a retort. She had been about to say she didn’t want to become a servant to the Darkmaster. But Zarost was right—it demanded more than an impulsive answer. She might be deciding the fate of the realm. All Eyri would fall under Cabal’s rule, if nothing was done. The Sword would fight, but what hope was there when the previous battle had been such a disaster? The Darkmaster had amassed so much power, he had worked for years to turn the Light to Dark. There was no defence against so much dark essence. What was Zarost expecting of her? How was she supposed to use reflection?
“I don’t see it, Twardy. What do you expect me to do?”
Zarost hopped from one foot to the other. “If the Light can become Dark, why not the other way?”
A ray of sunlight touched the trees. The air didn’t seem so cold anymore. A world of possibility opened before Tabitha. She had been looking in only one direction, along the inevitable descent from Light to Dark.
Reflection!
Zarost was right—if sprites could be turned to motes, they might be turned back into sprites again, if the spell was reversed. There was hope, in the Turning spell. But just as that hope bloomed in her heart, it was crushed again.
“We’ll never find a Shadowcaster willing to give the Dark away,” she said. “The Turning spell needs a Lightgifter and a Shadowcaster.”
“Look in the mirror,” Zarost answered, dancing in tight circles. “You shall find both, and more.”
She understood at last. She was a Lightgifter, and a Shadowcaster. There was only one way to find out if she could be both, and yet be neither.
“Motes. I’ll need motes.”
“Ask the big bad bird,” Zarost offered, with a twinkle of mischief in his eye. “It has followed you well enough today.”
As if aware of their attention, the raven gave a hoarse caw from the tree above. The Darkmaster’s messenger waited. She needed it only for the motes it held, but it would bring more than just the Dark essence.
The grey sky was darkening again. The east wind had become icy, and it blew in fitful gusts. Tabitha stood, and steeled herself for what was to come. She reminded herself that she was a wizard, and that the Darkmaster was not. The path ahead was clear—the Darkmaster had taken everything, and she had nothing left to lose. A calm filled her as she found a place of strength beyond emotion. It was time.
She raised her arm.
“Alight, Morrigán, and deliver your word.”
There was a terrible moment where the bird looked too real to be a spell, and its swooping advance seemed to be the dive of a predator. The raven was ugly, with a heavy, sharp beak. It reached eagerly for Tabitha’s soft arm with gnarled taloned feet. As it landed, the Morrigán exploded into the motes of its spell, and the slippery voice of the Darkmaster Cabal was released.
“Tabitha Serannon, how good of you to acknowledge what you are. As a Shadowcaster you have a duty to speak the Devotion to me. You must know that the Dark shall win, and you shall see that victory, before a full day has turned.
“You choose to resist my service, so I must warn you. If you use your strange singing against me, I shall send all of the Morgloth. But not against you; against the Swordmaster. Ask yourself if you believe your precious Glavenor can hold twenty beasts with his sword, or thirty. Ask yourself if his life is worth your selfish defiance. Not one note of your song, or he will surely die. If you are silent, I shall use only the Dark essence in my claiming of Stormhaven, and you shall be spared the responsibility of many deaths.”
The motes showered to the ground, staining the grass black.
Tabitha tried to hold her purpose firmly in mind, but the planned experiment of the reversed Turning was swept aside by the dread which the Darkmaster’s announcement brought.
Morgloth. She had always hoped it was impossible to summon more than one, and that they had already killed it. A horrific image burst into focus—Garyll, holding three Morgloth at bay with desperate lunges of his sword, and behind him, a fourth beast descending from the sky, unseen. It was too real to forget.
She looked at the black stain of motes in the grass, like a dried pool of blood.
Selfish. It would be selfish, to resist the Darkmaster now, knowing what she did. To sacrifice Garyll would be too terrible to endure. She could not use the Lifesong.
Yet the Ring burned on her finger, urging her on, and she knew it was her duty to defy the Darkmaster. She could not abandon Eyri to the Dark. She was sure Garyll would feel the same, and there was something which the Darkmaster had not c
onsidered. The Turning spell was not part of the magic of the Lifesong. She did not have to sing, to turn the essence. She only had to perfect the spell which could take the power away from the Darkmaster.
She would meet his power with her own. She summoned all of the motes to her hand, and guided them into the twisted circle of the Turning. The Dark essence flowed, following the pattern in her mind. One of the orbs was cold against her throat. She was a Shadowcaster, in command of her small share of Dark power.
She reached for the memory of an innocent girl, the one who had sung the Morningsong with pure devotion, the part of her that was a Lightgifter. She reversed the current of the motes, guiding them the other way around the twisted circle. She guessed the spell’s words would reflect her intentions.
“Hold the pattern, round, and round, in the hidden turn, to the stronger Will be bound.”
There was a pulse of heat in the air before her, and a burst of brightness. Sprites glittered to the ground, a puff of radiant seeds upon the previously dark earth.
“Bejigerred if that isn’t a fine beginning!” exclaimed Twardy Zarost. “With reflection, you can achieve great things. Beware, Wizard Serannon, you have just become the Darkmaster’s biggest threat! Take care to keep that a secret, until you are sure of what you do.”
Tabitha summoned the Light to her hand. The sprites shimmered around her fingers. A haze of essence, barely enough to make a Courier. Or a Morrigán. Enough to stop an individual spell, maybe, but against the flood of Dark which was coming to Stormhaven?
She would hold the advantage of surprise once only. The spell had to be perfect the first time. It had to take all of the power from the Darkmaster, in such a way that he did not suspect what was happening, and could not stop it in time.
Tabitha turned to Zarost. “Is there any hope of turning even half of the motes the Darkmaster will bring?”
“The greater the darkness, the brighter the light can burn within it. I suppose we could build a better spell from what you hold in knowledge, if you’ve the mind for some riddling.”
43. NIGHT ON THE KINGSBRIDGE
“A hole can always become deeper.”—Zarost
They stood alert, an armoured wall against the dark night. The half-moon had abandoned the sky to the shredded clouds, and yet that lack did not fully account for the darkness which approached on the Fendwarrow road. The scouts had already retreated. Some of them had not returned.
The Dark was coming, in a viscous low cloud that hid whatever was beneath it. No villagers from Wendelnip or Vinmorgen farmers ran ahead of the advancing threat—not even a dog or stray pony—it had crept upon them silently, it had passed over the people undetected, and done its foul work in the secret of its own shroud. The blight crept towards the Swords with an agonising pace. The wind was cold, and bitter with fear.
Garyll noted how the men around him reached for their swords every time the Dark pushed closer, but their hands returned empty from their sides. He had ensured that the front line followed his orders to the letter. The second wave, massed against the barricade and one-hundred strong, would be the ones to use their swords. They watched the sky for the Morgloth that Garyll knew would never come. He was sure that many of the Swords wished to be with the archers on the other side of the barricade that held the Kingsbridge at their backs.
Garyll was without Felltang himself, to convince the men of his commitment. The other weapon, no one had questioned. He raised his bladed false hand before his face. It reminded him of his task. He prayed that the battle would soon be over, with as little killing as possible. Only two deaths were important. All the others could be spared. He wondered what the four blades would taste like, when drawn across his own throat. Bittersweet, he expected, if they were already coated with the Darkmaster’s blood.
He had to behave as Cabal expected, or his defiance would be recognised too early. Some men would have to be sacrificed in the subterfuge. He consoled himself by remembering that their deaths would not be for nothing. They would save Stormhaven. They would save Tabitha Serannon.
“Be ready for the charge!” he barked at the front line. “Make sure your restraints are at hand.” He had issued them all with strips of fabric, looped over their belts. Some of the men even believed they would be of use to gag and bind the Shadowcasters, and thus deny them access to their spells. They could not suspect the true purpose of those bindings.
The wall of Dark crept closer, yet it spread out as well, curving across the head of the Kingsbridge to form its own front line. Garyll felt a compulsion to lie down on the ground and surrender right away. Only his experience at Ravenscroft told him that it was the Darkmaster’s whispers which brought despair on the wind. There was so much Dark.
One by one, the stars went out.
Torches flared quickly along the front line. Every fifth man held his flaming brand high. Blinded by their own light, they could see even less of what was beyond the glistening blackness. Another aspect of an intricately laid plan.
“Front line, advance to engage!” Garyll ordered. The men moved, spreading out to cover the broader front. It would have been wiser to form a wedge and engage the front in one place. It would have been wiser to bring the second wave in closer, and not leave them stationed against the barricade. Garyll was thankful that soldiers did not question, once in battle.
“Charge!”
He ran with them at the implacable face of darkness. The night became colder. The wall of motes towered overhead, blocking out all of the sky. He knew he should not fear what was to come, and yet the tension corded his muscles. The moment of contact was a shock of cold, then complete darkness. The air was thick with motes, then partially clear again as he broke through the far side of the Dark wall. He came to an abrupt halt. He was not alone, and the sharp point of a sword pressed up against his throat.
He was about to swipe the sword away with his clawed hand, and slash the man’s stomach open, when he recognised the surge of Dark bloodlust in his own veins, and saw his opponent for who he was. He eased his blades down and away, and knelt in submission. The swordsman stayed close, his deadly blade held firm. Just another one of the men Garyll had led to disaster in Ravenscroft, turned to serve the Darkmaster. Garyll could not strike the man down. They were too much alike.
A woman stepped around the Darksword, and stooped to gather the strips of fabric from Garyll’s belt. She was cloaked in a dark robe, and she had a scent of wild spice. Garyll recognised her. Gabrielle had gone too deeply under his skin in Ravenscroft for him to ever forget.
She gagged him tightly, then bound his wrists behind his back, while the Darksword held Garyll on the blade.
“For appearances,” she whispered in his ear. “They mustn’t know your secret yet.”
Garyll noticed that two men of the front line knelt nearby on either side, held on the point of Darksword blades. Without weapons, their struggle had been brief. Beyond them, darkness swallowed the night, but the clash of swords told Garyll that not all of the men had been caught as easily. Some would die, if they fought. He doubted that any of the front line would escape from their charge. The second wave had been ordered to wait for the Morgloth, or a direct assault. They would watch the sky, and would not follow their comrades, not yet.
“Up!” ordered Gabrielle, then she breathed against his face. “The Master wishes to see you. When we are done with all of this, I shall wish to see you as well.”
He tried to ignore the strange anticipation she awoke within him. He concentrated instead on his plan. If he could get close enough to Cabal, much would be saved.
A tendril of motes stung his Darkstone through his collar, and Garyll lurched as pain raked through his nerves. The Shadowcaster’s grip was too compelling to refuse. She drew him after her.
“I have him!” she announced to the nearest Darksword. “Assist where you are needed, then ready the turned Gifters for the blind-run.” The man sprinted for the dying sounds of battle, and Gabrielle led Garyll away.
The air filled with motes again. The maddening whispers and gusty wind faded to a silence thicker than treacle. His skin crawled. Garyll knew what that meant. The Darkmaster was near.
It was so dark he could see nothing, not even his own shoulders. He was brought to a halt by a rough hand against his chest, then a sharp kick behind his knees took him to the ground.
“Always kneel before our Master,” Gabrielle rebuked. She knelt beside him, Garyll presumed, because he heard the crick of her joints and the swish of fabric there. Her voice sounded on a level with him.
“The front line is captured, Master. We are ready for the flanking.”
“Thank you, Gabrielle.” Cabal’s voice slithered through the air, coming from many directions at once. Garyll couldn’t discern the source. He guessed he wasn’t supposed to. He just needed one chance, to sink his talons into that heart. Garyll worked at his bonds, but his wrists were tied firmly. He tried to judge where Gabrielle faced, by the sound of her voice.
“Shall I give the signal for the turned Gifters and Darkswords?”
“A moment, Gabrielle. Their charge is—a diversion. If they die, I want it to be of use to us. The shroud has not spread enough to cover the flanking yet.”
The source of Cabal’s voice wandered, but Garyll discerned a soft footfall to his right, close by. He needed just one more utterance from Gabrielle to confirm the Master’s new location.
“I shall deepen the Despair spell then,” said Gabrielle, “while those at the barricade realise their comrades are not coming back.”
Garyll leapt. He crashed into somebody’s chest, and threw the figure off-balance. With a quick sweep, he hooked the figure behind his legs, and tripped him to the ground. He just had to twist and fall on the Darkmaster himself, and his bladed hand would burst through that chest and find the twisted heart.
The Riddler's Gift: First Tale of the Lifesong (The Tale of the Lifesong) Page 72