by Kim Wedlock
"It is an unconventional situation," Teagan agreed calmly.
"And Doana is in full sodding control." He snapped away as a torrent of helplessness surged up inside him, seizing his muscles, spinning circles in his gut like a whirlpool. Sweat beaded on his skin, his heart thundered. The chair disintegrated beneath the power of his foot. "Why is there nothing I can do?!"
He scowled down at his hands as the air grew dense, tightening his fingers, staring at what moved in the veins beneath his flesh. He hissed and curled them into fists. "With this magic...I could obliterate them...but I have no idea how!"
"They don't seem to be doing anything--"
"Except waiting for us to attack! But we can't risk going first, so we're trapped in a deadlock!" He spun back towards his subordinate, whom he noticed flinch beneath his gaze. He brushed it aside. Then his voice dropped suspiciously. "The mages report nothing, either. But how can we trust them? They've thrown the country into turmoil themselves, and they're attacking openly now, in groups... The only ease we have over that matter is the apparent trend of suicidal mages moving alone. Groups are destructive, but they have yet to kill anyone...though that doesn't make them any less suspicious..."
He turned away again, leaving Teagan to release a very slow and uneven breath, and wandered towards the window. He peered out over the nearby estates and towards the city beyond, and the spiralling ebon towers at its centre, gilded in gold and silver, observing them so attentively it was as if he could see through the walls to their occupants' activities. "We're watching them, and yet seeing nothing. Whether they're hiding it all behind spells too advanced for us to detect, or they're just being that careful... But there are so few mages in the Arana's ranks...and so many have been sent out to protect the city from the mages that the Order House itself is thinly guarded... It feels counter-productive. Treating symptoms, not the cause..." He flexed his fingers again.
Rain clouds emptied in the distance, their edges blurred in the downpour. The sun shone intermittently over the city. The local clouds parted for one such stint of brightness, then quickly knitted themselves back together.
His thoughts cascaded. The room was silent.
"What of the tribes?" He asked casually, without turning. "They're moving closer, getting in the way - are we actually affecting their numbers? At this rate, we'll have more evacuations on our hands."
"They're not killing one another anymore," Teagan confirmed with a sturdy voice, no trace remaining of his previous disturbance. "Their numbers are dropping by the Arana's actions alone. They're wisening up to each other's tactics and traps remain untripped by their intended victims."
"No, instead by innocent people, honest hunters."
"They're paying no attention to boundaries; their arguments are spreading out of their terrain. There's no telling just how far out their traps have been set, nor what the traps themselves may be."
"Mm. One was impaled on a hinged barricade of sharpened sticks, the other crushed beneath a rigged boulder." Salus looked around from the window, his visage calmer, his eyes human. "Malson wants them lured away."
"I know. So I have issued the order to cease framing the opposing sides. It will only encourage them to remain beyond their borders with the intent of finding the responsible individuals. They will be removed instead, and we will set up our own blockades."
He looked back out of the window, watching a spider on the glass wrap a fly in its web as he chewed over his proxy's decision. Finally, he nodded his agreement. "But it will take time. The tribes are mobile - by the time we've raised defences in one area, they'll have moved off into another. They're strange like that, they don't hold advantageous ground, they just keep moving and lay traps behind them..." He cocked his head in thought, his tone growing even more distant. "Yes, they are strange creatures...neither human nor anything less...living in a culture of barbarism. Are they even aware of what's happening outside their little world?"
He grunted to himself. Yes, they were. Because there was one such barbarian travelling with Koraaz. For reasons as far from his understanding as the stars were from the soil, he had recruited into his band of misfits an untamed, savage spell caster from the Ivaean deserts. What was it that she could do that he could not himself? What could she bring him that Karth, an inquisitor, a duelist and a child could not?!
Just what was the Order planning?!
His knuckles thumped into the window frame, and he gritted his teeth against the blunt pain that spread through his hand. His eyes flicked hatefully towards the distant towers before he spun back to the dark and confining office. "The Order hasn't used the Zi'veyn, and we've had no hint of their intentions. We need to find Koraaz, now. Find him, find where he's taken it and imprison him so they can't."
"No one has seen him - operatives or civilians."
"Then follow the tracks in Dolunokh!"
"There were only three, sir - you have been informed of this. One limping, the other stumbling and heavily supported by the third. They rested an hour away, then moved off to the south towards the nearest settlement. Then we lost the tracks. Vague reports have since come in from eastern Turunda of an inquisitor with the correct build, and of rumours of the duelist, Petra Dalton, appearing in cities, but no one has been able to confirm either and any attempts to track them have been hampered by various factors of war."
Salus's burning, raging stare drilled into his core, but this time, Teagan didn't flinch. His brow didn't flicker even as Salus spoke, even though he had expected rancour and received instead a tone startlingly calm, even though his inferno was stilled only by the slow dawn of understanding. "They were injured... I saw five go in, but only three came out...and they lingered. There was no urgency, they...they were waiting..."
Salus wavered as if physically struck, his face empty of anything but shock as he steadied himself against the window frame. "That's why the Order haven't... Koraaz hasn't returned. They don't have the Zi'veyn." His wide eyes flicked towards Teagan for an explanation, but the portian was already shaking his head.
"We don't know what this means. He could be dead and the Zi'veyn itself destroyed, or he could simply be trapped."
"But the site--"
"Dolunokh is under surveillance across a fifteen mile square radius encompassing the point where they entered, where the tracks were discovered, and where they ended. If Koraaz returns, we will know."
"Who else is missing?"
"Karth. Two sets of footprints were booted, one bare; one of the booted was female, and the other matched those of the White Hammer uniform."
"Karth..." Salus nodded vigorously. "Good. That's good. Without those two, the rest are stuck...but we still need to find them." He straightened, professionalism abruptly reasserting itself and cooling his fever. "They teleported to Dolunokh, just like we did. They couldn't have gotten there so fast from Ivaea, not even by boat. So they probably teleported away afterwards, too. You didn't lose the tracks, they stopped. There is still a mage among the three who returned..."
"You believe a tribal mage could be capable of teleporting?"
"Don't be foolish, Teagan, of course not. She didn't do it alone. The elves created vessels for their spells, that's what the Zi'veyn itself is - perhaps Koraaz gave her something, a quick get-away to familiar ground... Why weren't those sightings followed up?!"
"They--"
"This isn't good enough!" His eyes flashed, and Teagan's immediately flicked away. "I can't train magic and juggle this place! I left you in charge because I thought you were capable of making decisions! Of handling whatever came up in my absence! And now I find that you've let them slip past us?!"
"S-Sir, the reports were--"
"Don't interrupt me!"
The walls shook, but Salus didn't notice. He thundered across the room in an instant, coming to a sudden stop a hair's breadth from the portian who wouldn't meet his eyes. Their quick, almost nervous shifting irritated him. His lip curled further, revealing even more sharp teeth through the mons
trous snarl. "I would expect this level of ineptitude from a phaeacian," he growled fiercely, "and quite possibly a phidipan. But never from a portian, and certainly not from you. You had better fix this, Teagan, and fix it fast, because if you don't the whole country will fall and I will hold you responsible, and if I can't rely on you, I can't rely on anyone. So get after them - with people who won't allow themselves to be interrupted by 'factors of war', because this is much bigger than traps and sodding barricades. If he gets out, Koraaz will join them - find them, and we will find him. They're still sticking together for a reason - but don't get too close. Send a portian. Watch them. Listen. Follow. I want constant updates." His black eyes narrowed. "Why are you shaking? Actually, no, I don't care. You have your orders. See to them. Now."
Teagan turned and left without a moment to lose, sparing no promises, no formalities, not even a nod of understanding. As though he was desperate to be away. But it didn't matter. At that point, all that mattered to Salus were results, and the ceasing of the pain in his head.
Once the door had swung shut, he dashed forwards to lock it and began to pace the office, forcing deep breaths into his lungs and shaking out the tension in his arms and legs. It took a while for his blood to cool, but as soon as his body began to feel familiar, he sat himself down on the floor, in the centre of the rug.
Closing his eyes, he straightened, raised his head, dropped his shoulder blades down his back, relaxed his face, and let his feet fall into the floor and the crown of his head float. His breathing came easier, and his thoughts began settling into some kind of order.
Koraaz hadn't gotten out; the Order didn't have the Zi'veyn. That was why they hadn't used it. But they were still up to no good, and the remnants of Koraaz's merry band could still prove themselves to be a problem, even without him or Karth. And if Koraaz did get out...
The man was too great a nuisance. He would get out, of course he would, and then Salus would confront him himself. It was pointless to send any Aranan mage after him; they could do nothing against his magic except get themselves killed, and that would certainly alert him to any tails. Then he would take hasty action - he may even teleport away again. Only Salus could oppose him.
'What are you striving for?' He heard Taliel's softly spoken question repeat in his mind. 'Absolute protection,' he had replied. 'But what does that mean?'
What did it mean? Did he even know? He wanted to protect Turunda, but its threats came from everywhere. How could he protect, absolutely, from things he couldn't foresee?
What was that old idiom? 'The roots of foresight are knowledge'.
Prediction. Preparation. Threats against a country did not occur on a whim. They were planned. And if they were planned, they could be prevented. He needed only to know what such plans were. And he had planted agents for that, observing towns and cities from the most advantageous positions, gathering valuable intel merely by listening.
But they couldn't have eyes and ears everywhere. Things would always slip past. Whispers and looks, the slightest of hand-offs. And how much would they catch but brush off as insignificant? Was such a judgement not the keliceran's to make? Or Teagan's? For even he was not usually so incompetent - though, evidently there was a first time for everything.
To protect the country, he needed to know when and where things were happening and exactly who was involved - every subtle glance, every polite marketplace collision, every hushed meeting in a corner of a tavern. How could he prevent calamities before they happened with anything less?
He wondered, abstractly, if he could trust all the eyes he had out there. Why could they not be his own? If he could see things unfold as and when they happened, observe the birth of every conspiracy, catch every step of a growing scheme...
Then a thought appeared, and he forced his racing heart back into check and seized control of his breath.
There had been tell in children's stories of elves spying on one another with seeing mirrors and scrying pools. Surely, if the elves could create a place made of nothing but magic, such spells would have been trivial...
His eyes flickered open as his thoughts tumbled away, but he swiftly caught himself and forced them shut again. He hadn't noticed his body grow rigid, nor his breath shorten.
There had to be signs that could form a foundation; in a body of spies, his mages had to know something of arcane surveillance techniques...
There were records, details of what his mages could do, a reference for assignments if magic was the only way, for matters out of the ordinary - records expanded upon whenever new spells were developed. Though trained by the Order once upon a time, his mages had long since been independent; Order mages were capable of so very much more than his, and without collaboration they had kept the Arana's abilities distinctly stunted - but the Arana had created many of the spells in those records themselves. Necessity had forced their abilities and knowledge to grow, and they had thrived beyond the condemning eyes of high magisters, both their power and creativity proving valuable assets to the country.
If those records noted no such spell of distant observation, his mages could certainly create it.
His eyes flooded over the spines of the hundreds of ledgers lining the broadest wall, following the bookshelves from one end of the room to the other, sparing not a moment to wonder at when he had abandoned his efforts for calm.
The shelves were fit to burst with accounts and reports reaching back for three and a half centuries, linens increasingly tattered and bindings more weathered the further in time they stretched. But though he knew the file he sought should have been nestled among the most recent of the extensive archive, it was quickly apparent that it was not there. And after almost twenty minutes of racing up and down the room, neither was it anywhere else.
The usual roar of frustration at the world stacking itself against him ensnared him, as did the subsequent victimisation of nearby inanimate objects. A second chair shattered, side tables collapsed, the teapot was actively sought out. It was only through the most fortunate of chances that the ledgers themselves were left untouched.
How was it possible to have such power, power no one but he could wield, and wield for the good of the entire country, and yet be so restrained by its technicalities that it rendered him no better a protector than a common guard?! All he wished for was the safety of his people, the people he had given his entire being to, his past, his present and his future, since he'd been little more than twelve years old! But it seemed the world would not allow it!
To have eyes and ears everywhere, to locate every threat - to be in two, three, five, seven places at once! To have the power and the reach to eradicate every threat, every enemy with a sweep of his arm so they might fall as easily as pieces on a chessboard!
To be rid of them, by blood or by chain, or even just raise the borders so they couldn't get in at all! Or--
He whirled as a rap on the door interrupted his mental ravings. He bellowed admittance, hoping instead to frighten them off, and his frustration pricked deeper when the handle turned anyway.
But the door didn't open. It took him a moment to recall he'd locked it, and an even longer back and forth to decide upon leaving it that way.
Until a soft voice, half a whisper, spoke his name from behind it.
What rage that gripped him evaporated as suddenly as it had formed. His feet moved long before he gave them the order, and his fingers fumbled with the lock - but at least the hammering of his heart, though still unwelcome, was fuelled now by something altogether more pleasant.
Finally the latch clicked out of place, and he opened the door to the brown haired woman, both plain and incredibly beautiful, standing to attention outside. Her fine lips were pursed in her resting thoughtfulness and her eyes stared past him to whatever lay beyond. But though she didn't smile, he saw a sparkle in her formality that he knew was meant only for him.
His expression remained equally neutral. He straightened and widened the door, stepping to one side to let her in,
which she did promptly and without a word. Only once the footsteps they'd both heard approaching from further along the hallway had passed did a change flicker across either, and only once the door had closed was it allowed to take any hold.
Taliel turned suddenly and threw her arms about his neck, and as his stomach fluttered, he embraced her in return, and the moment her soft lips sought his, he felt his every tension diminish.
Chapter 4
Twilight enshrouded the butchered landscape, though the golden sun hung only just past its zenith. The darkness smothered every rise, flooded every crevice, and what meagre slivers of light persisted cast deeper shadows beyond the colossal shards of stone that pierced the upturned fields, tangled further the knots and gnarls of tree roots that rose from the dirt like the claws of the dead. Forests were swallowed, hills had collapsed, and jagged, miniature peaks had been thrust up from the depths of the earth. Amethyst lightning shattered the sky, flashing in and out of existence but for a few violet streaks, inexplicably frozen in time.
And yet the air was near silent, stirred only by the intermittent rustle of dry leaves disturbed by a whispering breeze, and the constant hum pulsating in long, droning rifts, but weak, like the rumble of a most distant torrent of water.
