Oddly, the odor was weaker here, near what must be its source, as if most of it was already gone into Laria. Blind Seer scrabbled with his front paws to free enough of whatever it was so that he could grab hold with his jaws. It tasted of metal and rotting leather so that he wanted to gag, but he gripped it tight and hauled with powerful neck and shoulder muscles to drag whatever it was free of the sucking mud.
Then strong arms, as familiar as love, gripped Blind Seer around the barrel behind his forelegs and hauled with him. Together they dragged the dripping slime-coated thing out of the watercourse’s grip. Heaving themselves up, soaked and muddy but triumphant, they pulled themselves and their prize onto the stream bank.
The scene had changed in those few minutes. Ranz now held Laria, who lolled unconscious but breathing against his sodden chest. Wythcombe stood close by, examining with narrowed eyes the magical aura that invaded the girl. Farborn circled above, steadily watchful so that those below could afford to be distracted. The Meddler stood a few paces from Ranz, his cooking spoon in one hand, his attitude one of purest consternation.
Once Firekeeper had climbed up onto the bank to stand at his side, Blind Seer dropped his burden onto the grass and stepped back to get his first clear look at it. Beneath the slime and water weed was a scabbarded sword, a yellow-green gem glinting on its hilt like a serpent’s watchful eye.
When Firekeeper and Blind Seer emerged from the stream, Wythcombe was leaning on his staff as he bent to examine Laria.
“Did you need to hit her so hard?” he asked Firekeeper, his tone acrid.
“I did,” the wolf-woman replied calmly. “If she was harming me, then Ranz could not have held her. Blind Seer needed me. I am sorrowful, but I hit her as hard as was needed.”
Wythcombe snorted and said something he probably thought she couldn’t hear about crazy women and wolves. As Ranz shifted the unconscious Laria into a more comfortable position against his shoulder, Firekeeper couldn’t help but think it was a pity that the younger woman wasn’t awake to enjoy the experience. Firekeeper and Blind Seer hadn’t missed how Laria looked at the young man, even if Wythcombe and Arasan had seemed oblivious. She wondered if this was because their own fires were cooling with age, or if they still mistook Laria for a child. Probably a bit of both. She suspected that the Meddler, at least, kept his own fires kindled, but even he would not touch one he thought of more as a daughter than a woman.
“What did you drag out?” Arasan—no, definitely the Meddler—asked, lowering his cook spoon and taking a step closer.
Blind Seer growled unmistakable warning.
“I’m not going to steal your prize,” the Meddler said indignantly. “Fine. Haul it around in your jaws if you’d like. Just don’t complain to me if you chip your teeth.”
“Firekeeper can carry it,” Blind Seer said, clearly not caring if the Meddler could understand or not, so Firekeeper didn’t bother to translate. “The desire within it seems exhausted, dear heart. I think you will be safe.”
Firekeeper bent and picked up the sword. Once the scabbard had been wrapped in leather. Now the underlying metal—suspiciously unrusted or corroded, although definitely discolored by who knew how long underwater—was exposed to the air. Other than the showy gem on the pommel, the sword seemed practical enough. She was about to draw it when Wythcombe interrupted.
“Please. Restrain yourself. If—as I am certain it is, since Blind Seer went after it with such distinct purpose—that weapon is the source of Laria’s problem, I would like to examine it first. Some magical weapons are dormant—or mostly dormant—until unsheathed.”
“I bow to your wisdom,” Firekeeper said, “and will remember the lesson in future. But I will hold it for now, if you agree.”
“I do,” Wythcombe said, and the quick glance he shot Arasan made the wolf-woman think that sooner, rather than later, the Two Lives would need to tell the ancient spellcaster a little more of how their existences intertwined.
Blind Seer’s coat was nearly dry, Firekeeper and Ranz had dried off, and Farborn had come down for a rest before Laria came around. When the young woman awoke, she was entirely herself again and, as even Firekeeper’s nose could tell, terribly shamed by the trouble she had caused.
“Feeling better?” Ranz asked, handing Laria the mug of honey-saturated tea he had been spooning into her as soon as she was alert enough to swallow. The young adept had been horrified when he realized that Laria had been under assault a few feet away from him, and he’d been unaware while Blind Seer, who had been a fair distance away, had scented the odor of alien magic.
“My head aches and my muscles are screaming,” Laria said, accepting the mug, and bowing her head over it. Her voice dropped. “And I feel dumb.”
Wythcombe, who had been examining the sword, inhaled deeply and asked in a soft voice that was worse than any snarl or shout, “I did tell you all that we were going into a very dangerous place, didn’t I?”
There was no answer to that, so no one offered one. Ranz shuffled his feet. Laria bowed her head, her hair—loosed from its braid so that it would dry—spilling like a curtain around her face. Arasan stirred the contents of his cook pot and looked mildly interested.
“So what,” Wythcombe asked, “were you youngsters doing down by the stream without either of you on guard? And what did you”—he looked hard at Laria— “get up to that awakened this artifact? I believe we are all owed an explanation.”
Laria didn’t raise her head, but spoke bravely enough. “You know I have a talent. Well, sometimes when I’m tired or distracted, it gets away from me. I guess that’s what happened there.”
“Your talent,” Wythcombe said, “as I understood it, is for sensing latent impressions, the more vivid, the stronger your vision.”
“That’s right.”
Laria clearly wasn’t saying everything, but Wythcombe didn’t push her. Ranz had gone to get more tea. He walked among them, filling mugs. When he paused in front of Wythcombe, for the first time he lost the almost cringing deference that had been his toward his new teacher.
“Actually, you did tell us that this place is dangerous. And the stories I heard when I was growing up, about the tasks set to senior apprentices and journeymen, those made the unhealed lands seem very dangerous. But until now, until this, I’ve found our surroundings pretty safe. I’d thought maybe we weren’t even into the dangerous areas.”
Wythcombe heaved a deep sigh. “Did you ever consider the company you have been keeping? There is a gigantic wolf—one who is a mage, however partially trained. There is Firekeeper who is… Well, Firekeeper. There is a falcon who guides us from above. There is even me who—although I have not dressed myself in robes embroidered with arcane symbols, nor donned the honors and awards which are my due—have been considered a spellcaster of some power in my time. Should I have led us into danger so that you would heed my warnings?”
Before Ranz could sputter the angry reply clearly forming on his lips, Firekeeper cut in.
“Not lead into, no, but show, to warn. Perhaps Blind Seer and I should have spoken more of some of what we have glimpsed while scouting. It is hard, for me, not knowing what is common in Rhinadei, what is less so, but we have seen some things that we—great hunters that we are—would have avoided even if we ran with a full pack. Before we follow this trail farther, I think we all need teaching as to what we should avoid, what we should not do.”
Wythcombe paused to consider Firekeeper’s words, giving Ranz a chance to calm down, which had been Firekeeper’s intention.
“That seems sensible,” the old spellcaster admitted. “I have forgotten how little all of you—even Ranz—know of Rhinadei.”
“I have two questions of my own,” Arasan said. “First, what happened to Laria, and how can she—and perhaps the rest of us—avoid something similar happening? Second, I think the time has come for you to tell us why you’ve brought us here. If we’re deeper into danger than some of us realized…”
“Not hi
m, I would wager,” Blind Seer said with a growl Firekeeper felt but did not hear.
“…then isn’t it time for us to know what you have gotten us into? Well and good to talk of senior apprentices and training, but this journey is more about you than them, I think.”
“Well, Blind Seer said he didn’t want any make-work.” Wythcombe’s reply didn’t quite admit that Arasan’s comment was on the mark. “Before I can explain what happened to Laria, I’m going to need to examine that sword. As for your second question, Arasan, that involves a story. Is dinner ready?”
“Nearly so.”
“Then I’ll tell you while we eat.”
Wythcombe was as good as his word, delaying only to get a few bites into him. Farborn perched where he could keep watch while listening. Since Blind Seer was not interested in sharing the humans’ meal, he moved to where he could share the watch and yet still hear the tale.
“Long before any of you—except possibly Arasan Two Lives—were born,” Wythcombe began, “I had a friend who became interested in learning more about the anathema arts. Yes.” He patted the air as if to quiet protests that hadn’t been offered. “I’m sure you’ve been told by Orten, Bordyn, and the rest that we’re all too busy here on Rhinadei to spare a thought for the arts our ancestors left behind, but that’s the official line. The truth is more complex—and to many of my associates, more frightening. Every generation, no matter the eloquent testimony of destruction that surrounds us, no matter the cautionary tales we learn from the cradle, someone—or ones—often among the most talented of our number, becomes certain that we here on Rhinadei could employ blood magic without falling into the excesses of the past.
“My friend, Kabot, was one of these. We grew up in a small village on the frontier, near lands that had been declared safe only shortly before our births and which were still being healed during our childhoods. Unsurprisingly, many of the children in our village showed exceptionally high magical potential, for those who elect to work on reclamation projects are usually people of great talent and ambition. Rhinadei social custom has always dealt with these by putting them where they can have both a relatively secure place for their families, as well as ample challenges to keep them from getting stale.”
Ranz stopped in the middle of cutting his meat, his mouth opening as if he had been about to ask a question, then wondered if it were appropriate. Wythcombe saw him, took a swig from his mug, then nodded.
“Yes, Ranz. That was the case with your parents—although you might be surprised to learn that your mother, not your father, was considered the greater power. Nonetheless, your father was no slacker. The highly talented are drawn to extremes—either someone who will not challenge them, or someone who is their match or more. This was the case with your parents, and why you were born and raised not in a populous city, as you might have expected given their evident talent, but in a small village on the edge of nowhere.”
Ranz nodded, and starting cutting his meat again.
Wythcombe picked up a piece of journey cake, then continued. “Kabot was always wildly curious about the ruined lands. He was always saying things like ‘If those long-ago sorcerers hadn’t gone too far.’ ‘If they’d understood moderation.’ I guess I was an idiot, because I didn’t hear the rest of that—the unspoken, ‘I could do it better.’ But whatever his flaws, Kabot honestly loved and respected Rhinadei. When he grew older and realized that no matter how eloquently he argued in favor of a return of blood magic—moderated, of course—he began to consider other options.”
“Going back,” Firekeeper guessed aloud, “to the Old World, where blood magic, so he would have thought, was still being done. Is that so?”
“That is so,” Wythcombe agreed. “When Kabot and a small group of acolytes vanished, attempts were made to trace them. In a heap of rough sketches left by a young woman with more artistic talent than sense, they found images of a gate and some rough magical rotes. After that, figuring out what Kabot was planning, where he might be going, became easier. As I told you, many of our ancestors had studied in a university in Pelland…”
“Azure Towers,” Arasan said. “Yes.”
“We believed this may have been his destination. By this time, Kabot and I had grown apart. I think that once he realized I would not support his cause, he distanced himself from me so I would not be hurt by association—or have the means to betray him. Nonetheless, we had continued to meet for meals, to go fishing, and such. Ironically, this wholly innocent friendship was why I was among those recruited to pursue him. Later, I began to suspect that I had been recruited so that an eye could be kept on me, in case a misplaced sense of loyalty might lead me to warn Kabot. Our pursuit led us through these very lands, and more than once my knowledge of Kabot—especially my belief that he remained essentially good at heart—saved us from false leads and other delaying tactics.”
“Did you catch up to him?” Firekeeper asked, the thrill of the chase quickening her blood.
“We did and yet, in some sense, we were too late.” Wythcombe gestured in the distance where the broken ground of the forest through which they had been traveling rose and became ridged and rocky. “You may wonder why Kabot and his allies came into this area, why they didn’t just make their gate closer to home.”
“I assumed,” Arasan interjected, “that they dreaded the energy of their gate being detected. At home in the Nexus Islands, we have those who can feel when a gate is operating.”
“That may have been one reason,” Wythcombe said, “but they had a better one. Portions of the unredeemed lands are saturated with mana. Tapping this would enable Kabot and his allies to make their gate relatively quickly—at least as such tasks are measured. Eventually, we traced them to what the cartographer for our expedition dubbed Mount Ambition.”
“Ask him what happened to Kabot? Was he slain?” Blind Seer prompted Firekeeper.
Firekeeper translated.
Wythcombe made a seesaw motion with his free hand. “It’s complicated, Blind Seer. As we labored up Mount Ambition, we could feel the thrum of an active spell. We believed that we might catch them in the process of making the transition. We hurried then, taking risks we should not have. What we found was a makeshift gate: no frame, only a large slab of rock inscribed with complex rotes. Within the slab was a swirling vortex.
“Within the vortex were trapped human forms, some closer, some more distant, some hardly more than shadows, caught as within a whirlpool. The closest to us was recognizable as Kabot, arms and legs flung out as if he was tied to a wheel, his features distorted as if he had been frozen in the middle of a particularly violent spin. Some of his companions could be glimpsed further down the vortex. Although the vortex’s energy was in motion, the humans were not. Whether they were dead or only paralyzed we could not discern. What we did determine over long days of experimentation was that we could not reach them without risk of destroying them entirely.
“Until recently, I assumed, as did my associates, that the reason the gate spell went awry was because we caught up to them faster than they thought possible, so that they rushed. Now, however, given what we have learned from you about conditions in the Old World, I wonder if there is another explanation.”
His silence invited speculation, and Arasan offered it. “Querinalo? If Kabot and his associates caught querinalo, then they would have been unable to complete the spell. If they were caught within a partially completed gate when they did…”
He trailed off. Wythcombe picked up his mug, swirling the liquid within, staring as if he thought he saw his lost friend caught in the eddies.
“That is indeed what I have wondered. As I said, Kabot hung within caught in mid-motion. Most assumed he was dead, although none was prepared to terminate the spell in case in doing so we terminate the casters. Instead, wards and guards were put in place around Mount Ambition. Kabot and his cohort became yet another cautionary tale. And so it ended.”
“Ended?” Firekeeper echoed, astonished. “But ice mel
ts. Seemingly dead trees come back to life. Turtles put out their limbs when the pup grows tired of rolling their shell.”
Wythcombe laughed, but the wolf-woman heard little humor in the sound. “We stayed for a moonspan setting up the wards and guards. Nothing changed during all that time. By then—not having stealthy wolves and farseeing falcons to hunt for us—our supplies were running thin. We departed but, in three moonspans, a group of which I was a member made the journey again. Finding no change, we departed, but I came back periodically. My excuse was to be sure that no one had breached the wards we had set up. As for Kabot and his friends, I suppose I gave up… What did I give up? Both hope and being concerned for their fate. I went on with my life.”
Blind Seer said, “Not entirely. I can smell his sorrow.”
Firekeeper studied Wythcombe. “It is not only chance that Bordyn and Hanya and those thought of you as a teacher for Blind Seer, is it? Too many times does blood magic coil itself into your story.”
“Not chance, nor merely as a lure to get me to return to public life,” Wythcombe admitted. “I never could bring myself to believe that Kabot’s arguments were not worthy even of discussion. Indeed, I thought that the outright rejection he met with was what made him believe that his only choice was to leave Rhinadei. I didn’t take up the anathema arts myself, nor did I encourage experimenting with them, but I let it be known that I was someone who could be talked with about the subject—someone who wouldn’t condemn curiosity outright. I hoped that by being open to discussion, I would forestall another such disaster.”
“But after what happened with Payley,” Laria said softly, “you had enough. There was no tolerance, no understanding, even though he was just trying to save his wife and his unborn baby. So you became a hermit.”
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