Twixt Heaven And Hell

by Tristan Gregory

  “I don’t know how you wheedled this assignment, little one. Or how you managed to win over Vorse. I may not be able to kill you before we leave, but if you get in my way during the battle I will snuff you like a candle at night. This mission is my path to the gold, and not even Vorse will save you from me if you ruin that.”

  Kray had no idea what Padraig was speaking of. Win over Vorse? No matter, whatever fancies Padraig had in his head affected Kray little. The same magic that held him pinioned to the wall was making it difficult to breathe, but Kray still managed to summon his defiance.

  “Path to the gold, Padraig? Are you so -” he gasped for breath. “- so sure that’s where the Warlord wants you?”

  The smile on his face grew as he remembered the Warlord’s hint as to Padraig’s usefulness.

  “’Crucial’ is what he said, imbecile!” Padraig almost shouted. “I am being given charge of a crucial assignment, and you see -” the man actually smiled at Kray, “I’ve already been given a lackey. A little half-sorcerer to cook my meals and fetch me women at night. Just stay out of my way.”

  Padraig turned and left, but Kray was not released. The whoreson bastard was keeping him pegged up against the wall even after he’d walked away, a puerile demonstration of his superiority. When finally the magic lessened to the point where Kray could fight him off, Padraig had been gone for a good two minutes. His power was truly impressive. Kray hoped he would have time to properly enjoy the man's death.

  Taking several deep breaths to be sure that Padraig had not cracked one of his ribs, Kray stood. Ignoring the guards that were attempting to watch him subtly from the corners of their eyes, he walked slowly, wandering without any true destination. His mind worked feverishly to understand everything that had just taken place.

  The Warlord had a high opinion of him. Thought him intelligent, and thought the facade he had maintained for so long was merely to protect himself amongst his more powerful peers. That had been part of it, to be sure, but hardly the most important part. He wanted to make Kray a general! Truly, that was a position that Kray had never even imagined holding.

  Perhaps he should wait? The harm he could cause in such an office was untold. It would require more planning, but just as Kray was sure he could do well as a general, he was also sure he could do very, very poorly – at just the right moment.

  Kray shook his head. No. He was allowing the grandeur of the position itself to blind him, to make him greedy for what he’d been offered. He had a chance, right now, to do everything he’d planned for so long and more. The Warlord had even delivered Padraig into his eager hands! That was enough. It was more than he ever dreamed would be possible. The death of a minor commander and a few dozen soldiers, that had been his original plan. That dream had filled his mind for years, sitting alone in the dust beneath the stars, with only his hate to warm him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Now,” said Balkan.

  As one, he and Darius began their spells. They were casting in concert, each coordinating his efforts with the other, an effort akin to weaving a basket with one hand each.

  On the desk before them was a rock. Much larger than the pebble Darius had initially experimented with, it was about the size of a grown man’s head. They’d brought it up to Balkan’s laboratory within the Crown only moments ago.

  The initial spell – the seeker, they had taken to calling it – crept out first. From its origin curled around the rock in front of them, it moved further from them, into the air, Further and further it stretched like the tentative hand of a blind man seeking bread, searching for the mark they had set it. When it finally reached its destination on the other side of the room, the real work began.

  The spell itself took shape quickly enough. Balkan and Darius were both well versed in it by now. The hard part was supplying the required power. It was difficult enough to require a buildup, an incremental increase of effort on the part of both wizards.

  Balkan stared on in calm concentration – Darius looked as if the rock had managed to insult him personally. Steadily they poured more and more power into the spell as one might strain against a great boulder for a time until it finally consents to move.

  Move the rock did. They crossed the threshold and suddenly it was on the other side of the room. The basic pattern of the spell had devoured the necessary power and done its work in half the space of a heartbeat.

  “Wonderful!” exclaimed Balkan. Then he sat down to rest, breathing heavily.

  Darius did not sit, though he looked as exhausted as Balkan felt. Instead, he paced. “Wonderful? Balkan, two powerful wizards, with all the strength they command, have managed to move a rock across a room. The Enemy can move armies across leagues! We’re not moving fast enough with this.”

  “There’s no way to predict how fast we will progress, Darius. Tomorrow some wizard may find the key to it all, and we might be able to do everything they can and more.”

  Darius shook his head unhappily. “May? Might? They’re out there now Balkan, planning our deaths. As well tell a starving man you may have food tomorrow, and you might give it to him then. We shouldn’t be trying to rediscover fire, in any case.”

  “We can’t study it if they aren’t using it. Face it, Darius. This is all we can do for now.”

  Darius had stopped his pacing and now stood looking out the small window. Both of the wizards could feel, all around them, similar events to what had just taken place in that room. Darius and Balkan had convinced the Council that the teleportation magic was of sufficient importance to assign other wizards to help research it.

  “We could be out there, waiting for them to use it. It’s just a question of when and where. There are only a few choices as to ‘where.’ In the meantime we can be studying the areas in which they have used the spell. There may be some clue I missed the first time, some variation that will show up.”

  Balkan reflected that, despite Darius’s distaste for research he had the basic ideas down very well. Observe, theorize, verify. Repeat until you knew what you set out to learn. His friend merely preferred the first step – and in a decidedly more exciting manner than was typical of wizards – and wanted to let others use what he discovered to complete the process.

  Balkan realized he’d been ignoring Darius when his friend spoke and he didn’t catch it. “Say again? I’m sorry, I was drifting a bit.”

  Darius turned to him, having spoken with his back to Balkan. “As usual,” he said with a smile. “I said, I’m going to leave Bastion and return to the field. It is high past time I discovered this technique the old fashioned way – by taking the knowledge directly from the Enemy.”

  Balkan returned his friend’s smile. “That certainly is more your style; but, Arric still forbids you to leave Bastion.”

  “Let him forbid,” Darius scoffed. “He can forbid me all the way out the gates. He can forbid me as I lose sight of the walls. He can forbid me as – “

  “Yes, yes Darius. I understand – you intend to defy him. I’m not sure I agree you should,” Balkan cautioned. Discipline, after all, was the cornerstone of duty. Darius, however, saw it as his duty to flaunt traditional discipline. Balkan couldn’t say he might not be right. Arric’s actions concerning his friend were hardly the height of rationality.

  Darius sat opposite Balkan, who was still seated on the floor. “You will continue the research while I am away?”

  “Of course. I intend to delve into this new technique you’ve brought up as well, with the soldiers; and of course, my work on Gabriel’s angelic runes continues.”

  Balkan sighed. “I really should lay one of these projects aside. I hardly see Maggie and Kaylie even when I’m at home now, I’m so often in my little workshop. The thing is just so intriguing! Maggie has begun mentioning the cobbler again. I fear he may actually exist.”

  Darius chuckled. “Let my discovery alone, then,” he advised. “For the time being. The teleportation has dire ramifications right this moment, and you have invested
too much time in the runes to just set it aside.”

  Darius truly felt that Balkan should spend more time with his family. Maggie and Kaylie were so wonderful, he felt it a shame that Balkan’s work – though important, even vital – should continue at their detriment. So few wizards had the blessing of a family. Balkan's curiosity, though, was nearly as powerful as his love for his wife and daughter. Few men would know a greater battle.

  ***

  Darius bid goodbye to his friend and left the Crown, returning to the barracks. He had asked Robert to have the men ready to go at all times, knowing that sooner or later he’d want to escape Bastion on short notice as soon as he found an excuse.

  Knowing that he was on his way out of the city invigorated him, and despite the tiring casting he’d just done he moved at an energetic pace. He swept into the building the Gryphons were occupying and started rattling out orders. Men leapt out of beds and dropped whatever they were doing to obey, happy to see their leader acting more his usual self.

  “Are all the men here, Robert?”

  “Nearly. It’s just past noon meal, and most haven’t had a chance to wander back out again, except for the lads who you’ve got sewing today.” That project had turned out splendidly. Every Gryphon now wore a suit of the superior armor. They had continued to help in its manufacture for lack of other tasks. “I’ll send some boys out to search the usual spots for those who are missing. They're finally letting you loose, eh sir?”

  Darius smiled slyly, and Robert grinned in return. He started calling out a few orders of his own, ordering the men to gather anyone missing and get over to the east gates. Much smaller than the massive double gates of the main road, it would help the Gryphons slip out of the city with less notice. When disobeying orders, it was often wise to do so quietly.

  An hour’s time found the Gryphons assembling by the gates. There were still some missing faces, but they were trickling in along with the soldiers who’d located and pulled them out of the taverns and companion houses. All the necessary supplies had been packed, and each man checked his kit to make sure it carried all the water, rations, and other equipment necessary for extended time in the field. Darius was not known for taking them out on short jaunts.

  They were still near the barracks, and the majority of passers-by paid them little attention. Soldiers came and went from Bastion all the time – especially Darius’s Gryphons, whose business was their own.

  Darius wished he could bring Arric around to that point of view.

  Apparently though, enough people paid attention for the news to reach the Crown before the Gryphons departed. Or, Darius considered, Arric had merely had someone spying on him. He sighed at the thought. More and more he was treated as a hostile figure in his own city. All the more reason for him to take the field.

  A messenger from the Crown ran up to Darius, characteristically out of breath. The boy was perhaps ten years old, probably an officer’s son. Without pausing to try and catch his breath, he gasped out that Council Leader Arric needed Darius to come to the Crown immediately.

  Darius smiled. “Return to Arric and tell him that I am quite busy right now with my preparations. If he wishes to speak to me, he can find me right here.”

  The boy hesitated for a moment, knowing that was an unfavorable reply. Then his little blond head bobbed in confirmation and he ran off again for the Crown. Despite his seeming breathlessness he made good speed.

  “Step up the pace, Gryphons!” Darius shouted to his soldiers. “The War waits on no man!”

  Darius was still missing soldiers, though. He could not very well leave any of his men behind. It was with dismay that he eventually looked up and saw Arric and another wizard by the name of Callos sweeping down the road towards him. With another sigh, Darius braced himself.

  “Darius! Have you lost what little sense you ever had?” demanded Arric. “I have repeatedly told you to remain in Bastion!”

  Darius flinched a bit – not at Arric’s ire, but that his soldiers had heard the beginning of the argument. He walked closer to Arric so that the remainder could continue at a lower volume.

  “And I obeyed, Arric. I obeyed as long as there was anything for me to accomplish here, and thus as long as your orders served any purpose.”

  Darius’s reply only frustrated Arric further “It is not for you to decide the purpose of my orders – the Council’s orders! It is for you to obey them. What would happen if we all did as we pleased? How long would we last in the face of our Enemy?”

  “We would fall very quickly,” Darius replied steadily. “But so too will we fall if I allow you to prevent the proper course of action now. Your personal dislike of me has blinded you, Arric, and I will not stand for it any longer.”

  Over Arric’s shoulder, Darius saw his final soldiers coming to join their comrades by the gate. Finally!

  “I am going back out into the field, Arric. I will not return until I have enough knowledge about the Enemy’s new magic to work a counterspell. That is my mission, and we both know it is vital. Why you want to prevent it I couldn’t say, but if you wish to stop me -” Darius lowered his voice still further, “If you want to stop me, you’ll have to arrest me by force. No more empty words, Arric.”

  The Council Leader was flabbergasted. Callos, too, looked shocked. Both stood, still as granite, as Darius turned away and returned to his soldiers. Within ten minutes they were gone, the gates had shut behind them, and Darius was once again away from Bastion and out of reach.

  The Gryphons had always been known for haste, but now they moved as if they had the wings of their mythic namesakes. Darius feared that the Enemy might strike again before they reached the border, rendering his insubordination useless.

  Darius first led his men towards Nebeth, where soon the diversionary attack would fall. While Bastion's gathering armies drew the eyes of the foe northward, Darius headed south. He hoped to avoid patrols long enough to find one of the points from which the Enemy had assaulted Nebeth.

  “I meant every word,” Darius told Robert as they Gryphons bedded down on night. “We'll not return until we can defend against this magic. It may be a lengthy absence.”

  Robert only nodded in response.

  Darius was practiced at anticipating the Enemy's moves – but nothing was certain when your enemy was as devious as the man named Mertoris Traigan. The Warlord's own soldiers were terrified of him, that was starkly clear from what little they managed to interrogate out of the rare prisoner they took. They thought he could read minds, kill with a glance, see the future, and any number of other things.

  Yet the man was not a sorcerer. This had been confirmed by every warrior they'd ever questioned. He was protected by something called the Thralls – some form of Demon, maybe – but he himself was no magician. The Enemy’s society was dominated (even more than their own, some wizards had acknowledged) by magic-wielders. Sorcerers made all decisions and were inviolate from the wrath of any but other Sorcerers.

  So how had Traigan taken control?

  Darius sighed. He had never, and almost certainly would never so much as set eyes on the Warlord. Yet Traigan, more than any other – man or Demon – was the true Enemy, faceless and formless and sinister.

  Darius brought his mind back to the situation at hand. Upon a low hill on the eastern horizon, a black circle marred the thick grass.

  “Gryphons, follow!” he called behind him. Darius took off at a trot, impatient to begin the work he had defied Arric to do.

  It was just as he’d seen in the Patchwork Forest. A perfect circle of fine black ash bitten right out of the ground. It was depressed slightly below the surface of the ground around it – the heat of the spell had annihilated even the soil. Darius knelt at the edge and ran his hand through the ash, feeling for some variation, some anomaly that would suggest this was anything but a natural phenomenon.

  There was no trace at all. As with any landscape there were magical forces in the area, but they were all natural. Even if a brush f
ire had caused this blackened area, it would have left some scant memory upon the local magic for some time. The land, however, held no knowledge of this very recent event. There was nothing to learn here.

  Darius thought that perhaps he had learned something after all – the lack of evidence could be purposeful. The Enemy had created a spell that destroyed all trace of itself, which was quite impressive.

  Darius wasn’t sure exactly what that told him, beyond the fact that the sorcerers whom had developed this spell were quite talented and men to be respected – and naturally, killed at the earliest opportunity. Darius much preferred to hold his enemy in contempt.

  A shadow fell over him, and the wizard looked up to see Robert standing nearby, looking at the ash in Darius’s hand.

  “It looks the same to me,” Robert offered with a wry smile.

  Darius returned the smile. “Quite astute, Robert. It is the same. The exact same, as near as I can tell. No sign that this giant circle of ash has not been here for years and years, just as it sits now.”

  Robert nodded. “What next?”

  “We find another, and then another, and hope something changes. We’ll keep heading south, circling the Fortress at about this distance. I have a feeling they’ll strike somewhere into the Shambles,” Darius said. The Shambles was a rough region of sandstone hills, and two important strongholds dominated the area. One of them had been built of stone in the style of Nebeth, and would make an inviting target.

  “Keep the pace, sir?”

  “Yes,” Darius glanced to the men who were lounging about amongst the tall grass. “We will rest for a few moments here. Have them take their supper early.”

  Robert nodded and headed off to give the orders. Before returning to his study, Darius looked north, and then south. To the north, past Nebeth, thousands of Bastion's soldiers prepared to retake the fortress. They would not succeed, in all likelihood. However, while the Enemy’s eye was drawn there, a huge army would be moving from its hiding place. Moving in the wrong direction, Darius thought, but there was no longer any helping that.