by Kyle West
“I want no part of that,” Serah said. “And I don’t know why you’re telling us all this.” Her eyes turned to Lucian. “You don’t believe all this rot, do you?”
“No,” Lucian said. At least, he didn’t think he did. “But the Sorceress-Queen will help us find the Orb of Psionics. Or at least, that’s what she claims.”
“Lies,” Cleon hissed. “She wants the rotting thing for herself!”
“I don’t,” the Sorceress-Queen said. “Lucian is the Chosen of the Manifold. The prophecies of Arian stated that the Chosen would come to the world of Shantozar with a sacred Orb of Starsea in hand. I had dreams of Lucian’s arrival, and detected the Orb he held. I am the most powerful Psionic in the Worlds. If I do not believe in the power of my own prophecy, then I am lost. Therefore, I am only fulfilling my end. It is my role to help Lucian, and anyone who helps Lucian is my ally.”
“So, you’re one of the good guys?” Cleon scoffed. “Fat chance of that.”
“There is no good and bad,” the Sorceress-Queen said. “The sooner you get that notion out of your head, the better off you’ll be. The only good is that which you are willing to fight and die for. If you know that about a person, then you know them to the core. So, I’m going to tell you my dream, what I will fight and die for. I fight for a United Empire of Magekind, freed from the fraying in a future where all of Arian’s Orbs have been found. I believe Lucian, as Chosen, is our best chance of that happening.” She spread her arms. “There it is. That is what I want. You can use it to help me, or to destroy me.”
Serah looked at Lucian desperately. “Do you believe all this?”
All of them were looking at him for direction. Once again, Lucian was cognizant of the fact that Fergus was no longer the leader of this expedition. He hated having that burden. Especially because the Queen had him somewhat convinced.
They deserved a straight answer, even if it meant losing trust with them. “I understand your reasons for distrusting her. I do myself. But we have no choice. We would have died in the Darkrift. Even you guys have to see that by now. The Sorceress-Queen is offering to take us to the Burning Sands herself.” All of them were looking at him. It was hard to tell what they were thinking. “My point is, regardless of who she is or what she has done, this might be our only chance to get the Orb.”
“She’s just using you to take it for herself,” Cleon said. “She doesn’t believe that rot about uniting magekind. If she finds the Orb, then she will take you out. Then she’ll have two Orbs.”
“Once again,” the Queen said, icily, “I’m not the Chosen. The Chosen is the only one who can wield the Orbs.”
“That’s the thing,” Cleon said. “It’s your prophecy. You could’ve just made all that up.”
“I sense that you are especially against me, especially relative to the others,” the Sorceress-Queen said. “But you really shouldn’t be.” Her eyes sharpened as her full attention focused on him. “Cleon, is it?”
“Get out of my head!”
“I’m not in your head,” she said. “Mage-Lord Kiani reminded me earlier. You were one of his Mage-Knights who went missing. Cleon Coley. Your parents died during the Westland Rebellion, putting you and your sister under the charge of Mage-Lord Kiani.”
“What of it?” he spat.
“That sister married Kiani.”
Everyone watched Cleon with shock. Could that be true? If so, what was the story there?
“I was there when the Butcher of the Westlands ordered the slaughter of Kalm,” Cleon finally said. “Hundreds of men, women, and children, dead. And for what? For standing up to your unjust rule? And you forced my sister to marry him, like that was some kind of reward to me.”
“You are missing part of the story, Cleon. Should you tell them, or shall I?”
Everyone looked at him, stunned. Cleon hung his head in shame.
“Cleon is himself responsible,” the Sorceress-Queen said. “For if it weren’t for him, Mage-Lord Kiani would have never seen his sister as a viable marriage candidate.”
“I introduced them, so what? How could I have ever known what would happen from that?”
“You are not as innocent as you make yourself seem,” the Sorceress-Queen said, her smile triumphant. “You only regret that you didn’t get the posting you desired for the arrangement.”
“That was before the slaughter of Kalm,” Cleon said, blue eyes burning. “That was before I knew the kind of man Mage-Lord Kiani was.”
The Sorceress-Queen’s smile disappeared. “And still, you leave out another important part of the story. At the time of the meeting, how old was your sister? And how old General Kiani?”
At this, Cleon was silent.
“He was fifty if you need reminding. And she was seventeen. A man that old doesn’t marry a girl that young unless someone is profiting by it.”
“I made a mistake,” Cleon said. “We were desperate. I . . . thought she would be taken care of. We were poor, orphans . . .”
“Come off it. You thought you would win a nice prize for yourself. Perhaps the title of Mage-Lord, someday?”
He ground his teeth. “Yes, but only to save our family. It was wrong, but I did want her safe and at the time, I thought Lord Kiani was an honorable man. She hated me when I told her, but it was for her protection. But when I learned what he was really like, he exiled me.”
“He exiled you for challenging him to a duel,” she said. “And he would have given you it, but I forbade him. Mage-Lord Kiani is too . . . useful . . . to waste on one such as you.”
The Queen seemed to be egging him on to commit some fatal error.
“We just need to cool off,” Lucian said. “You’re talking about how we need to work together, but all you are doing is making Cleon angry.”
“Stay out of this, Lucian,” Cleon said. “Or should I say lapdog?”
“I’m no lapdog,” Lucian said. “I’m just trying to do the best thing for all of us. There are no easy answers here.”
“I trusted her once,” Cleon said. “If you do the same thing, then you’ll end up like me. Completely lost and broken.”
“I don’t trust her, and she knows that herself,” Lucian said. “I simply said we need her help to get to the Orb of Psionics. Nothing more or less. That’s the truth.”
Cleon shook his head, not wanting to admit even that. “I made a mistake. The worst mistake of my life. I ran from that mistake. But now, I want to do everything I can to rectify it. I’m done running.”
“Poor fool,” the Sorceress-Queen said. “Are you so naïve as to think you can come back from this? You’ve already stepped off the ledge. It is done, and if you still plan to kill Lord Kiani, my loyal vassal, that will not sit well with me.” Her eyes glinted. “Even a Queen has need of a Butcher. A Queen needs a tool for every occasion, but that’s something you would never understand.”
“You’re enjoying this far too much,” Serah said, coming out of her silence. “You want us to work with you, and you’re psychologically torturing our friend. Whatever trust you were trying to build with us is gone.”
“I’m only trying to show you one thing,” the Sorceress-Queen said. “There is no such thing as a good person. Even honorable men, like Cleon, have dark stains. However much they wish to clean them, some stains just don’t come off.” Her eyes grew cold. “So, let’s just drop this charade, right now, that you are good and I am evil. We are merely people, doing the best we can with what we have. We are people who must work together for the mutual benefit of all.”
“You’re talking about uniting the mages and starting a war against the League,” Lucian said. “Chosen or not, I want no part of that.”
Her violet eyes turned on him. “Willing or not, that is your fate, Lucian. You can either go into that conflict with a strong position, or a weak one. Much depends on your choices in the next few days.”
Fergus shook his head, seeming at a loss. “This has gone so far beyond me. I was only told to find the Orb and giv
e it to Lucian.” The large man looked up, though his broad shoulders were still hunched. “I’m with you, Lucian. Whatever you decide.”
Cleon cursed under his breath, while Serah just stared daggers at the Queen.
Lucian looked back at the Queen. “I guess we’ll see what your words are worth in the next few days. We will work with you. At least for now.”
“That’s all I ask,” she said, with a small, mysterious smile. “For now.”
36
In the following days, they did not meet with the Sorceress-Queen again together. Rather, Lucian met with her once a day for training. As much as he hated the prospect, he felt he had no choice but to comply.
He stood in her cabin, bathed and dressed in the rich vestments common to the Mage-Lords of her empire; tan breeches and fine, polished boots, a blue vest with silver trim, worn over a puffy white shirt. He felt ridiculous in it, but it was apparently the fashion. And it was her not so subtle way, perhaps, to separate him from his friends, who were not allowed in clothing as fine, though like Lucian, they were given their own cabins.
His first training session, the Queen asked him to stream each of the Aspects for her, sans Atomicism. As she followed each, Lucian’s skin crawled at the tingling sensation. She could see absolutely everything he was doing, and it was almost like being naked.
She shook her head. “It’s much worse than I thought. The only Aspect that’s somewhat pure, with the exception of Binding, is Psionics. You can learn to stream your secondaries and tertiaries more effectively, but it will take time, patience, and commitment. You can’t be known for being good at one thing, because your enemy will be able to counter it easily. As you get more advanced, you can learn to dualstream almost easily as singularly. And you can even learn tristreams and quadrastreams for the purposes of warding or branding.”
Lucian wanted her to elucidate further, but he also didn’t want to put himself in her debt.
It seemed, however, that the Queen sensed this reservation. “You should be asking more questions. I can tell when a pupil is lost.”
He hated being called that. “I’m not lost.”
“Except you are,” the Queen said. “You said you would learn, and you agreed that we need to work together.”
He repressed a sigh. “What do you wish to teach me today?”
Her gaze was icy, and her expression was forced patience. “If there’s any evidence that I think you’re the Chosen, it’s this. I would have obliterated anyone else by now.”
Despite himself, Lucian cracked a smile.
“You think this is a game?”
He was thrown against the wall, held there by a sideways Gravitonic force. He tried to peel himself from the surface, but the pressure only increased. The Queen stood close, an arm’s reach away, but Lucian was powerless to even move his finger.
“Let me go,” he said. He could feel the blood rushing from his head, his vision darkening.
“Can you extricate yourself?” she asked.
He reached for the Gravitonic Aspect and worked at the Queen’s stream with his Focus. At once, he could tell that it wasn’t much magic at all. So how was she holding him so strongly? He worked to unravel the stream, but his Focus kept slipping every time he tried. He tried streaming a greater amount of magic, but his Focus slipped even more. It was as if her stream were slicked with grease – a strange image, but it seemed accurate.
“How are you doing that?” he rasped. “I can’t cut it off.”
The pressure eased. He fell to the deck, gasping for breath. The Queen turned and left him there, flailing like a fish out of water. A few more seconds of that and he might have blacked out, or even had a stroke.
“Remember what I said earlier? You use brute force rather than finesse in your streams. I wasn’t using much magic at all, and yet it proved too much for you to handle. You were streaming more than twice as much as me. You should have tried warding yourself first before attempting to directly unravel my stream.”
He stood and brushed himself off. “How did you do it?”
“My Focus is stronger. My magic works twice as hard as yours because it’s streamed efficiently. Your Focus is what prevents Manifoldic toxin from polluting your stream. It works like a filter. The stronger your Focus, the purer your stream. You can do more with less.”
“So, I need to strengthen my Focus.”
The Queen nodded. “And that is something that can only come from experience. The Focus is the strength of a mage, not the size of your ethereal pool or the amount of magic you stream. I could feel your fear, Lucian. Some part of you believed you might actually die, especially at the end. Your Focus will insulate you from fear, from elation, from any emotion that distracts you. Emotion is the antithesis to a strong Focus.”
Lucian nodded. “Got it.”
“No, I don’t think you do. You are not diving deeply enough, Lucian. You are being lazy. You must fight that laziness with every breath. There is no short-cut to magic, even for the Chosen.”
She watched him for a moment, as if to see whether her point was connecting.
The lessons continued the next day, and each day after that. Under her watchful gaze, Lucian worked to deepen his Focus rather than stream more magic. At first, it was difficult knowing the Queen was right there, judging every move he made. But he needed to hold his Focus, even under pressure. He showed improvement in the next couple of sessions, but of course, he was far from being where he needed to be.
On the day they were due to arrive at Dara, during the fourth session, he couldn’t help but ask a question that had been hounding him.
“Doesn’t it bother you that you could be training me to challenge you someday?”
She considered a moment. “I’ve thought of that myself. But if you are indeed the Chosen, it’s in my interest to see you as strong as possible. And by that point, you should see me as an ally rather than an enemy.”
Lucian didn’t ever see that happening. But it did force him to wonder. Why go through the effort of training him if she didn’t believe him the Chosen? It made little sense to invest her own time and energy if she just planned to kill him later. Which left Lucian in the difficult spot of recognizing that the Sorceress-Queen was actually trying to help him. Just in her own way, where she had control. That was the part he took issue with.
“Are we done for today?” he asked.
“Almost. There is something I wish to talk to you about, first.”
Her violet eyes were soft, a rarity for the hardened Queen, though her expression was blank and neutral. “You are clearly a mage of great potential. And I don’t want that potential to be wasted.”
“It won’t be,” he said.
“I . . . have something in mind. No doubt you would be averse to it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to me.”
Why was she hedging? That made him nervous. A change was coming. Her mannerisms had gone from cold, regal queen to a woman in need of his help. What could a woman of her power ever need from him?
“What did you have in mind?”
“I hoped that we might speak of things . . . other than your training. I know you don’t trust me, but the Manifold dictates that we work together. Even you must recognize a certain level of trust is required for that.”
“I could never trust you. There’s something you’re hiding from me.”
“What am I hiding?”
She was going to make him go there. “How you’re still young after so long, for one. How exactly you plan to use the Orbs. To use me. I’m just a tool to you. Something for you to enact your final vision.”
“You’re not merely a tool,” the Queen said. “That is why I hope to learn about the person behind the prophecy.”
“Not until I see you care about something more than vengeance and power.”
Her face was like stone. “I care about the salvation of magekind.”
“But you’re willing to do anything to get there, no matter who gets hurt.”
/> “There is always a price,” the Sorceress-Queen said, softly. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Perhaps I’m foolish enough to hope that one day, you can.” She watched him, her eyes intense. “Do you honestly believe innocent lives won’t be lost on your account, Lucian? That you won’t have to make hard decisions, and harden yourself against them? How will the League react when they learn of you and your power? Even without me at your side, you are fated to tear humanity apart. A new Mage War is coming, whether you will it or not.”
“That’s not true.”
She shook her head sadly. “Stubborn. I’m only offering to make that transition easier. And yes, it will require some level of compliance and trust on your part. Without me, the goal to which you are committed will become infinitely harder.”
“How many times must we rehash this conversation?” he asked. “If I ever trust you, then I would be betraying my friends.”
“Perhaps so,” the Sorceress-Queen said. “But stay true to them, and you will betray your ultimate mission. Or perhaps they can be brought around to work with me, too. But you would need to be my advocate.”
Was she serious? He was at a loss for words. They would never go for that, and as soon as he mentioned it, they would lose all respect for him. Especially Cleon.
“I will say no more about this,” the Queen said. “I’ll let my actions speak for themselves. I’m taking you to the Burning Sands. I’m training you. I will give you everything you need to accomplish your mission, to rise to the mantle as the Chosen. But I can only do so much. You will not only have to meet me halfway, but rise to the occasion. I trust in something higher than you and me, Lucian. I trust in the Manifold. And the Manifold gets what it wants. Always.”