by Kim Wedlock
"But--"
The door closed behind him.
Smooth. Seamless. Perfectly structured. Entirely devoid of the force, compression and hard edges of human casting.
A force, compression and hard edge that had only been illuminated by identical incidents in the first place.
But these incidents were anomalous; enigmatic. The sudden spikes in the surrounding network of magic, the aura that pulsed from every mage with every spell they cast - neither followed the phenomenon. Even the poorly-understood magic that gathered at sites of magnetism emitted a near-constant disturbance. But this, whatever it was, was almost undetectable, noticed only by its shockwave, though the term was far too dramatic for what equated to the ripple of a raindrop in the ocean. It could be easily missed - and perhaps that was why the phenomenon was so little-understood, over centuries to its most recent occurrence two days past. Perhaps they caught only the largest of ripples, perhaps smaller spells slipped through their nets absolutely, along with anything that might identify it. But...surely such marks would be greater in these larger spells...
"'Preternatural arcanial phenomena'."
Startled by the voice beside his ear, Owan sat bolt upright and folded over his papers, staring with wide eyes at the woman who moved around from behind his seat and dropped elegantly into the luxuriously padded chair opposite, rolling her eyes with a weary groan. He sighed in what he squashed into mild irritation. "Don't sneak up on me like that," he grumbled, settling himself back down in the previously quiet corner of the lantern-lit study chamber. "And don't read over my shoulder."
"I apologise. But why ever are you wasting your time on this again? These anomalies pop up from time to time and always in insignificant places, they have done for...well, ages, and never once have they given us even a trace of substance to work with. Where was the last one? Mosshorn? Pointless." She shook her head, loosening her blonde hair, and smoothed down her bodice in her usual sign of dismissal. "They're nothing. Don't waste your time chasing after them."
"If everyone thought that way, we'd still be reeling from the disappearance of the elves."
"No, we would be further along than we are now because time would have been spent working on things that could actually move forwards and get somewhere."
Owan looked up from the parchment and regarded her with bemusement. "That's not how advancement works."
"I'm sure you would know." She waved her slender fingers. "Do continue with your vital distractions."
His eyes narrowed impatiently. "Shouldn't you be out repairing something?"
"No. I'm waiting for everything to degrade just enough that the city is on the verge of total collapse and everyone is sent into a panic."
"You don't need to neglect spells to do that," he replied regretfully despite her sarcasm, his gaze drifting out through the tower window, "just step outside."
She was silent for a while. Expectation drew him back to find she'd followed his gaze, staring out across the city bathed in the late evening light, her chin in her hand and a gentle crease to her brow. She spoke before he could begin to guess at her thoughts.
"Do you think they'll achieve anything?"
"Who?"
"The rebels," she replied distantly. "Do you think this uproar will actually get us the respect they say it will?"
He stiffened and looked back to his work, attempting to disconnect himself from the subject. "I think it will incite a greater aggression which will crush us out of existence."
"Really, though? I mean, we have magic. How could anyone without it pose a threat to us? What could they honestly do to stop us?"
"Magic can only do so much."
"And that is a great deal more than what we can without it." She raised her chin and sat back in her seat, but her gaze didn't shift from the city. "Surely the populace realise this?"
"I daresay that is exactly the problem. They're all equally disadvantaged and they're banding together. There is strength in numbers, especially when those numbers are enraged, and against which, as I've said, magic can only do so much." She didn't respond. He could have left the matter in that silence - his desire was pressing enough - but necessity, he found, had already turned his gaze over the top of his papers to hold her with veiled suspicion. "Why do you mention it?"
She shrugged. "I wouldn't mind a little respect."
"Respect?" He challenged, carefully. "Or fear? Because that's all they're going to achieve. Attacks on towns and villages, the razing of homes and businesses - there's nothing in that to endear themselves to anyone. And even if they were to succeed in frightening everyone into submission, the nature of that 'respect' would inevitably incite rebellion - and in such circumstances, I'm certain they wouldn't hesitate to spill blood in the face of magic."
"Mm...but don't you think--"
He all but lunged across the table, his work suddenly forgotten. His voice fell low and harsh, grasping for privacy against the other scholars nearby. "What is this about, Clarilla? Because you sound as though...you...as though you're actually considering joining them!"
"Well--"
"You know, you've always been irrational, but this--this is--even for you, this is--"
"Owan," she cried in a whisper, grasping his hand, "for the love of Vastal and all of Her effigies will you please calm down! I am not joining them!"
He stalled, face still twisted in alarm, heart still hammering in disbelief, and studied her eyes carefully. After a long moment, understanding settled and his shoulders sagged in defeat. "Orders?"
She smiled apologetically. "Orders."
Relief dropped him heavily back into the depths of his chair, from where he regarded her first with irritation, then evaluation. "Can I take it, then, that I don't need to subject you to the same round-about interrogation?"
She grinned. "You do not." But then her blonde eyebrows drew together in an almost familiar challenge. "I've 'always been irrational'?"
"Yes," he replied, unruffled. "Always. And your sister agrees with me."
"Well I suppose it's nice to know that I've brought the two of you together in more ways than one." Clarilla's gaze travelled back out of the window as Owan slipped absently back into his parchments, and the concerns that sat at the centre of every other mage's mind were quick to consume her in the lull. "Have you made any progress?"
Owan looked up at her distant tone, but found in place of the expected soft thoughtfulness an expression so grave it could have shattered the glass she stared through. It left no room for misunderstanding; anyone who glanced at her could have read it and empathised. "It's impossible without being able to get close enough to analyse it," he replied regretfully. "Stonton wasn't enough, and I've not been permitted field research since. And with the recent surge of power coinciding with the rebellion, we're all under even closer scrutiny. The Elders won't risk letting anyone get close to it right now."
She shook her head hopelessly. "Our hands are tied by the very people we're supposed to be serving."
"The situation is arcane in nature, so it's not at all unreasonable for everyone to assume that mages are responsible. But if they see us gathering at arcanised locations, their suspicions will have even greater grounds and the tentative relationship we have with the populace will escalate even further. But something will be done about it. Of that I'm certain."
Her narrow eyes slipped onto him from the flickering lanterns of the still-bustling city below. He didn't seem to notice her calculating stare as he continued his reading. "You discovered something while you were out there. I know you did. Imelia won't tell me anything but since then you've been more hopeful about the whole thing. And more open to distractions..."
"I am a scholar--"
"You're boring, yes, I know."
"There's a difference between 'boring' and 'intelligent'."
"Only in a manner of spelling." She sat forwards, catching his eye. "What do you know? What did you find out there?"
He exhaled a deep, slow breath and consider
ed her for a long moment. She stared at him pleadingly, her usually careless demeanour broken in her private desperation for some kind of reassurance. He sighed again, then, after glancing around and noting the distance of the nearest person, leaned forwards and lowered his voice to barely a whisper. She moved closer in response. "It's classified."
"Oh!" She moved to slap his arm, which he snatched out of her reach with a chuckle, and sat back in irritation. "You are so...boring! My niece is going to be boring, too, isn't she?"
"She'll be marvellous. And I'm sorry, but--no, don't try giving me that look. I can't, really. Nothing. Nothing...except that a handful of people are taking an active interest, and you didn't hear it from me."
"Hear what? There was nothing to hear."
He gave her a flat look, and she sighed wearily. "All right. An interest, you say. So they're boring, too?"
"An active interest, and no, not in the slightest. But they do know what they're doing."
She nodded slowly, absorbing his words. "Active interest - since Stonton to now?"
"I have no reason to believe otherwise."
"That doesn't sound reassuring."
"Perhaps not, but I'm certain in their dedication."
"...Why? You know them, don't you?"
"I...know the nature of one. And he's stubborn. He'll put an end to it, or die trying."
"Why are you smiling?"
"No reason."
"You're awfully confident in these people. From my perspective, the recent empowering of these places suggests they've already failed."
"And I would say it suggests they've made progress."
"Tell me, is intentionally making stupid conclusions just a scholar's way of providing work for himself?"
"For something to have changed, something has had to affect it. It may have gone wrong, or it may be part of some complex plan - the matter itself isn't exactly conventional - but the point is that something or someone has had an impact on it. Otherwise, nothing would have changed at all."
"...All right. But what if it's the rebels?"
"If it were, I daresay far more would have come of it by now and we would definitely have detected a greater shift in the network. It's not them."
She held him with calculating eyes while her fingers drummed thoughtfully on the tabletop, until she finally sighed in defeat. "You're boring, but you're smart, and I haven't the first clue about any of it. I have no choice but to trust your judgement."
"I'm honoured."
"You're agitating." She rose gracefully from her chair, smoothed down her dress, and moved around to kiss him on the cheek. "I'll never know what my sister sees in you. Anyway, I'd better go and change - I'm due for city patrol in half an hour."
"Be careful."
"I'll be fine. But in case I'm wrong, please make sure my niece knows that she had an aunt."
Owan frowned with sharp disapproval. "Don't talk like that, Clarilla. It's not funny."
She gave him a lopsided smile. "It wasn't meant to be. Good night."
The corner of the study chamber fell quiet again, but it didn't rest lightly, and the innate, warm comfort that guided concentration had been replaced by a cold, clawing and debilitating web of fret concentrated right above Owan's seat.
He believed what he'd told her - when Rathen set his mind to something, he made sure it happened. Eleven years may have passed since his banishment, and many more since they had been close friends, but one look in his eyes had assured him that that, at least, had not changed. And with a child in his care, that drive had been augmented. And he doubted that the inquisitor nor the celebrated historian in his company would let him give up on the matter either - not that defeat had ever been an option from Rathen's outlook. In fact, beyond the initial shock, it hadn't truly surprised him to find that he'd survived all these years, nor that he was breaking his sentence by pursuing a matter the Order was too shackled to address.
But...there was always room for doubt in such obscure or unusual things, and Owan was cursed to study that doubt, that question, from all angles by his very vocation. His very nature.
Just once he wished he could hand that analytical trait over to someone else, and then he could be the one to say 'I haven't the first clue about any of it. I have no choice but to trust your judgement.' And leave the matter at that.
He couldn't help a smile. 'What a boring life that would be.'
His eyes dropped back to the parchments. Script of countless mages noted the sparse details of the strange magical occurrences, the little the Order had ever uncovered about the centuries-old phenomenon. A phenomenon, he was certain, that had nothing at all to do with any arcane torment that presently ailed either land or person, and that had indeed last occurred in Mosshorn, and four weeks before that near White Rapids.
He might be 'wasting his time' by studying them - though there was too little to study to waste more than an hour with the turning of every moon - but there was equally little he could do towards the things that mattered while the Order was forced to bend to the suspicions of the uninformed.
It was all on Rathen Koraaz.
For though Owan did have the first clue, he had nothing to extrapolate it with.
He had no choice but to trust his judgement.
...But...surely there was something more he could do...
The thought struck him like a four-horse wagon.
Study doubts and questions from all angles. As was his very vocation. He didn't need to leave the Order House to do that.
He scrambled together the parchments and left the study chamber in a frenzy, his mind bent on the matters the Order as a whole was too shackled to deal with - the things that would actually get somewhere.
He couldn't keep the fervent smile from stealing over his face.
Chapter 8
"He's rogue, I'm certain of it!" Salus threw open the office door and stormed out into the corridor, startling the meagre few with business in the surrounding rooms. "Koraaz has no intention whatsoever of taking the Zi'veyn to the Order. Drop points or no, he could have teleported it there in an instant, but instead he's running around with it like it's a new toy..."
"Perhaps," Teagan offered, unruffled as they made for the staircase, "the Order doesn't wish the relic within their walls. It would be too obvious - they know we want to keep it from them."
Salus growled. "It doesn't feel that way..."
"If Koraaz has gone rogue, what does that mean for his companions?"
"Well with Karth still with them, they're definitely up to something... Perhaps they need more than just the Zi'veyn. Or maybe the Zi'veyn itself needs more. There are places out there just swimming in magic. Whatever the case, they're not finished. Not by a long shot."
They left the stairwell at the second floor and swung around into another corridor lined with yet more pointless paintings. The two individuals they passed averted their eyes. The halls were emptier than usual.
"This is alarming. They need to be stopped before whatever plan they have can reveal itself. Whatever they were looking for in Fendale, they didn't find it. We can't let them get near Korovor... Reroute more to the southern roads, everyone nearby - and don't tell me 'to stop and think about it'. We don't know what the Zi'veyn could be capable of - if all it could do was stop magic, he would have it secured by now. He would not be running around with it at the risk of it falling into someone else's hands. And the Order - you're right, of course, Teagan, they know we've been hunting it - they would have wanted it locked up tight the moment it was retrieved."
"They could--" A growl of realisation silenced him.
"But even if we sent orders immediately, they're all still too far out and no one can leave their posts until their replacements arrive. No, no, no, it will take too long. We don't know what they're doing, what they're looking for or where they expect to find it - and even when we do uncover something, when we have enough information to launch a precision strike and stop them in their tracks, we'll still be too short-manned
to make it quickly enough..." Another growl rumbled deep within his throat, but he was too absorbed in the cascade of counter-thoughts to hear Teagan's reassurances. "While I'm here, trapped in this damned place - I could respond the moment the reports come in, I could use the translocators, be out there in an instant and put a stop to them once and for all--"
"And what will we do when Doana finally gives themselves away and you're unreachable?" Salus spared him a brief, irritated glare. Teagan didn't waver. "Forgive me for saying so, but you are underestimating the value of your leadership, as well as the capabilities of your subordinates. Everyone near and around Fendale and the southern roads have been alerted to his presence. They will be hunting him, actively, as dictated by their standing orders."
"But--"
"Rerouteing any more will sacrifice our position and endanger Turunda. The country will be exposed to the other elements and we will have to abandon this avenue altogether if we're to recover from it."
"That--"
"There are already a more than sufficient number en route - any more and we risk forcing them under one another's feet, then we'll lose Koraaz through our own negligence."
"All right." Salus trudged to a stop beside one of the many elaborately gilded doors and sighed, rubbing the edge of his eye sockets. His desperation had culminated in another concentrated headache right behind his eyes. "Perhaps...you have a point. 'Too many cooks', 'patience is a virtue'... I--...we can't jump in without a plan, and the element of surprise can only carry us so far..."
He shook his head and opened the door, exposing the vast and sparsely furnished room beyond to the excessive torchlight of the halls. The great fireplace at the far end, one of the estate's grandest, offered only necessary illumination, but the glinting decor amplified its brilliance. The two mages hunched over a desk beside it, though certainly aware of his arrival, didn't look up from their work.
But Salus hesitated at the threshold, still in the grasp of lingering thoughts. "I had a feeling last Yule that this wasn't going to be an easy year."
"I recall."
"But I never could have imagined it would involve protecting the country from its own people. The borders, at least, are to be expected...but even though we chased Skilan out with its tail between its legs, there's already evidence that they're looking our way again, which is the last thing anyone needs. And Doana is actively tainting Turundan soil..."
