The Sah'niir

by Kim Wedlock

  Time broke down to a crawl. Sound dulled, scent weakened, and even the tremors beneath his feet seemed to have grown distant. But as his eyes fluttered open, seeking grounding against disorientation, he was struck immediately by the ominous view of fire. The burning glow that rose from the bowels of the earth a quarter of a mile away had intensified and crept closer, and as his eyes focused with dread upon it, he discovered that the last few wretched remains of Halen had vanished.

  It couldn't have been saved, he knew this well; there was no way to reverse the damage and nothing enough of anything left to repair. But...it had been his own hand to cast the final strike. His own actions had eradicated the last trace of Halen from the map. A rush of guilt chilled his blood at the notion.

  And then a cold, calculating wonder moved in right behind it. His eyes dropped to his hands, and he pondered...

  "Well," Liogan interrupted, sparking immediate soreness, "as much as it physically hurts to have the words pass my lips, you have done well."

  He looked around in tempered surprise. "A compliment?"

  "An observation based on low expectations," she corrected with a wave of her hand. "However, you've not been using magic all that long - had elven blood not streaked your ancestry, you wouldn't have even been able to distinguish the magic from its effects for at least another year. So perhaps I was wrong to presume so little." She flicked her blue curls over her shoulder and straightened, exuding a sudden supremacy that was in no doubt summoned to repair the damage to her ego. "Now: come along."

  Salus wobbled as their bleak surroundings shifted again. But the ground was still riven, still shook, still rumbled; the night was still dark, the stars still bare. But the scent on the air had changed. It was cooler, moister. "East," he realised as his nausea settled, and cast Liogan a suspicious look. "Where are we?"

  "Ausokh."

  He'd suspected as much, but looked around frantically anyway, catching his bearings by the stars. The chasms were vast and the light even lower where the mountains hid the reach of the moon, but he was sure as he strained north-west that he could see something approaching.

  "A trick of the darkness," she said as though reading his mind, "but it is approaching. It will be here in a few days."

  "What do I need to do?"

  "Nothing; it will come." She grasped him roughly by the shoulders, her long fingernails sinking unapologetically into his flesh, and turned him to face the imposing line of mountains. "Do it again."

  He hesitated at the effortless drop of her words. "What?"

  "Again."

  "I can't."

  "You can - strength and willpower are not exhaustible. You have as much of it as you believe you do. Now do it again." She held his head still as it began to shake in protest. "Do you want to keep Turunda safe? Then do it again."

  He turned as she released him and again he surveyed her haughty visage for any sign of trickery. But, just as the last time, there was nothing but a cool expectation. He bristled. "Look," he snapped, "I might have elven blood, but - and as you never hesitate to point out - I'm not an elf. I can't do it again, not right away."

  "Are you so sure?"

  "Yes," he replied flatly even as he fought against a fatigued spasm in his leg, "I am." He didn't like the way her eyes narrowed in thought.

  "I find you a very strange man. You have so much strength in your convictions and so much certainty in yourself, and yet when it comes to magic, you falter."

  "What?"

  "You heard me. You doubt, you stall, you weigh and measure beyond what you need to make a decision. What is it? Do you not trust magic? Or do you not trust yourself?" She cocked her head. "Or is it just me you're afraid of?"

  His blood boiled.

  She sighed emphatically before he could find his tongue, and pouted like a child which just seared his veins all the more. "Well, that really is a shame." But she didn't sound particularly sorry, and turned to wander a few careless steps away. "Because, unfortunately, we're not going anywhere until you do. And I," she dropped upon a méridienne that appeared from nowhere and lounged comfortably across it, "have all the time in the world."

  Chapter 27

  White; ice-white, bone-white. Black trails, streams, rivers of blood; sharp edges, thorns, spikes. Pain. Mind-numbing, consuming torment.

  Fire burst, blinding, as bright and cold as the sun; skin seared, peeled, blood rushed to the surface.

  Cries closed in, surrounded, screaming in the blackness, begging, why, why, why didn't he stop himself, why did he let this happen?

  Agony. Thought obliterated, primal terror locked the tongue, strangled and smothered reason. Madness itched, scratching the edge of consciousness, clawing inwards, raking ever nearer.

  Flickers of brutal, bestial faces invaded the flames, the darkness, the abyss of terror; of light; flashes of silver, of black, of blue.

  Smiles, grins, grimaces; cackling, smugness, satisfaction.

  Torture, blood burst, skin ripped, shredded by bone, by claw, by madness, by magic. Flames danced over black veins, searing alabaster skin, hotter than a pyre, cold and white.

  Suspicion rode the madness, doubt followed the tracks.

  Had they planned this all along?

  Wailing, pleading, blame, betrayal, why, why, why didn't he stop himself? Why did he let this happen?

  Death and fury; bodies blackened, hair smoked; eyes wide, white and heartbroken.

  Aria's face.

  Consumed by fire.

  Rathen jolted back to the saddle.

  Dusk remained, but the air in the fells was distinctly still. The few trees to dot the gentle slopes stood indifferently around him, the invisible eyes hidden within their branches passing over him in disregard. There was no fire, no screaming, not even the song of a nightlark nor the chirp of a cricket. Nothing. All was calm. Sickeningly calm.

  A ragged breath of relief escaped his lips and his bearings tumbled back into place, but even so his heart continued to hammer so fast his stomach churned beneath it. His skin was soaked. And all from a memory. A memory as clear, fresh and chilling as the nightmare itself had been those two nights ago.

  He glanced around at his company. No one appeared to have noticed his absence. Coolly, he tugged his shirt from his sticky chest. Then faltered as Aria looked up and around at him. Her beautiful skin was smooth, perfectly clear of blood, burns or bruises, but there was a concern in her saucer-sized eyes, no doubt summoned from his sudden jerk but one that shocked him all the same.

  Instinctively, he reached out and embraced her. Concern dissolved into a smile and she recoiled with playful disgust, but wriggled back against him when he obligingly withdrew.

  Darkness was falling. He'd either been daydreaming for a long while or he hadn't noticed how late it had grown. They would likely stop for the night before long.

  But as noise rose in the near distance and firelight glowed as they crested a small hill, they knew their rest would have to wait.

  Refugees had little mind for anyone but themselves, a fact not unreasonable given their circumstances, and so they surely wouldn't notice the passing of a small group beyond a quick measure of their likelihood to cause trouble, which a child's presence alone would deter. But it was unanimously agreed - barring Aria, who was growing restless - that it wasn't worth the risk.

  Their course adjusted, avoiding the eyes of the refugee camp, they continued onwards for another hour before settling in the privacy of a deep but refreshingly natural gully somewhere between Red Heath and Attleton. Anthis vanished no sooner than they'd hitched the horses, which no one felt compelled to acknowledge, and Garon wasted no time in establishing a perimeter and seeking out whatever information that could be found in the vicinity.

  Among those remaining, it was Rathen's turn to assemble the food, and after three nights of easy bread and salted meat, everyone shared Aria's desire for something 'wet'. And so he set to the task immediately, grateful for the distraction - until the warmth of the evening, joined wit
h the heat of the entrancing flames, became more powerful than the obligation to turn, stir or cover, and he soon slipped back into daydream.

  He returned with another start to find Eyila sitting quietly beside him, watching Aria with a smile as she thrust about her toy sword beneath Petra's watchful eye.

  He played it off as though shifting his weight, but she must have noticed. The assumption was confirmed when she spoke a moment later, though it wasn't what he'd expected.

  "She could be saving our lives in no time."

  Rathen followed her gaze as the young girl thrust and leapt backwards in a single quick movement. It wasn't perfect, he could see that much, and Petra voiced it, but it was fluid enough that she maintained her balance and dove into another attack before parrying a phantom blow. He breathed a laugh, but his humour didn't last. "She doesn't need a sword to do that."

  "I would agree," she replied lightly, "but you and I both have magic."

  "And she has all of us. She should never be in such a position."

  "Which she surely knows. But it's not necessarily what could be ahead that would stoke such a determination..."

  His jaw tightened. "...No..."

  Eyila sent him a sideways look, and her white eyebrows knotted briefly. She offered him a smile. "I'm sorry."

  "It's all right, I can see what you're doing." He sighed as he looked back towards them, then returned his attention to the simmering pot. "I disapprove, but I'm not going to stop it. I just hope she never needs it - now, tomorrow, or in fifteen years."

  "Don't we all..."

  It took him a while to notice that her gaze had shifted onto him, and he stalled at the power of the concern in her pale blue eyes. And the speculation.

  His brow twitched.

  A curious thought appeared in that moment, and he then regarded the tribal mage with a speculation of his own, wondering if she could sense the depth of what was on his mind, if perhaps she recognised something - if, maybe, she'd experienced something similar herself and had kept it just as quiet.

  He looked away as the pot began to bubble. "How have you been sleeping?"

  She frowned. "Sleeping?"

  "Yeah, any trouble drifting off? Fatigue the next morning? Any...dreams?"

  "Why do you ask?"

  Now he saw suspicion in her eyes, and this time it was not one that hinted at understanding. He smiled offhandedly to defuse it. "Well, we do have magic, but we don't seem to be any safer for it. If this chaos has shown us anything it's that it has its own power over us."

  "It does seem to..." she sighed deeply and looked away in troubled thought. "No, I've been sleeping fine. Aside from being locked up in forests all the time. I miss the wind. The heat. It's cold out here. But no strange dreams. Nothing I...can't explain..." She looked up, then, and it was clear that her suspicion had resolved. "But you have."

  He scoffed a little too suddenly, earning a smile of victory. "What? No, not at all. I'm just making sure you're all right - the magic is having a powerful effect on you, I'm just trying to understand it so that maybe I can find some way to help." He held her gaze in an attempt to persuade her, and after a long, silent moment, she looked away, unconvinced but unwilling to fight it out of him. He wondered, then, how she could know him so well.

  "I'm fine," she replied at last, "while out of its reach. But when we draw close...I can feel something...pulling me. A promise of..." she hesitated, struggling to find the word, hindered by either language or her own comprehension. She soon gave up, and a distressed sorrow set in and coloured her voice. "A promise of all my problems and worries and sadness being taken away. And I feel a great yearning inside, but it's maddening, like I could never, ever run fast enough to keep up with it if I gave in."

  "'If'?"

  She smiled, but appeared only mournful. "What it promises is impossible. I know this. But in spite of that, there's something else inside me that responds to it, that desperately tries to reach it, but it's not...it isn't me. I've wondered if perhaps it's my magic, but I can't understand how that could be. It is its own being, but is it really capable of something like that...?" She shook the cascading thought away and hugged her knees into her chest. "It doesn't matter. But when I try to fight against it it feels as though I'm...surrounded by...something, I'm outnumbered and that it's only a matter of time before I can't fight against it any more...and each time I feel I become a little weaker. Or the yearning grows that much stronger."

  "Do you feel anything else? Anything of the magic around you?"

  "Yes." He straightened and tried to suppress his apprehension at the deathly drop in her tone. "I feel a frightening sense of belonging."

  "Belonging?"

  "That I should stay there. It's a...need, one stronger than I ever had at home, even before my magic surfaced, even when I was still in training. That I would be safe and happy there. Content forever. At peace."

  "At peace..." It was too familiar. He shifted and again attempted to conceal his anxiety, flexing his fingers and reducing the cooking flames to a meagre glow. "And, otherwise, you feel assaulted? That the magic is trying to...I don't know, smother you or something?"

  But her bronze lips pursed, and a thoughtful furrow creased her brow that both quashed his dreadful hope and fired his alarm. "No, no I wouldn't say that at all, just surrounded. Like it's all beckoning me close, and inching closer itself every time." Her frown turned onto him. "You look disappointed."

  "Hmm? Oh, no no, just thinking. Just thinking..."

  A light breeze rolled through the gully, rifling the embers. A gentle sigh passed beside him, as though the draft had swept away her troubles - something he deemed distinctly possible - but as she placed her hand on his shoulder, he felt his own diminish as well. "Thank you."

  "For?"

  Soft footsteps descending between the ridges snapped both of their attention, but neither rose at the familiar presence. Until a dark shape darted in from the other side and hurtled straight towards the startled inquisitor and his exhausted horse. But it didn't strike. Instead, it stopped quite abruptly mere inches from his face. And hovered there in the darkness.

  "A sparrow?" Rathen frowned, watching the little bird flit impatiently to and fro. "I thought the White Hammer couldn't help us anymore?"

  "No," Garon agreed, extending his hand cautiously for it to alight upon, but as he removed the message from the casing upon its back and moved towards the dying fire, his own bewildered frown set even deeper. Petra and Aria joined them from their tame duel and watched intently as he read.

  Then, when his expression had settled into stark perplexity, he handed it to Rathen.

  The mage blinked at the small fold of parchment.

  The others gathered behind him as he took and tentatively opened it, reading it surreptitiously for themselves over his shoulder. "This isn't the White Hammer," Petra quickly observed, looking in confusion towards the inquisitor. "Who's 'O'? And why is a White Hammer sparrow coming with a message for Rathen?"

  "What does it say?" Eyila asked while Rathen folded it with a grunt, and handed it to Aria who protested at not yet having finished. She proceeded to read it aloud for Eyila's benefit, but neither seemed to follow.

  "I know who it is," he said with a strange smile, "the rushed writing - an active mind running five miles ahead."

  "Anthis?" Aria asked, increasingly confused as she struggled through the abbreviations.

  "No - do you remember Owan, the man we met in Stonton? Him. And it looks like he needs my help." Aria handed the parchment back, declaring, unsurprisingly, that neither she nor Eyila understood. But before he could enlighten them, both mages spun around, hands raised, fingers loose and ready. Swords were ripped free of sheaths on instinct, and all eyes pierced the flickering darkness.

  Anthis stalled at the edge of the emberlight and shrank beneath the stares.

  A collective sigh of relief and annoyance eased the sudden tension, and Rathen was the first to glide past his return and the magical hum that surrounde
d him. "He wants me to analyse the magic," he continued, making room for the sheepish historian who approached with his usual compulsive interest even despite the euphoria in his eyes. "To find out just exactly how it's affecting the elements."

  "The wind, the marsh, the earth," Petra nodded. "But can't he do that himself?"

  "Given the state of things, no. And he wouldn't be asking me if he wasn't desperate." He frowned back down at the paper for a long, silent moment. "He must be trying to work on it from within the Order's walls..."

  "Can you help him?" She asked delicately. "I mean, you weren't a scholar, and this sounds kind of..." she let it hang.

  "Actually, for once, I think I can." He paused for another moment, until his eyes took on a cerebral colour more suited to Anthis if not for the touch of difficulty at the edges. "Magic is unique in its structure," he stated, clearly in the midst of gathering his thoughts. "There's nothing else like it in existence, just like rock, fire, air and water. And it's just as natural. But, unlike the rest, it's comparatively complex and should never form, nor be left, on its own... It isn't raw, like I'd first thought, but the chains have degraded in such a way that some of them are still powerful, they've just lost their subject, so they're replacing the original subject of their spell with something else around them, and it...from what we've seen, it seems that elements fit the bill...almost perfectly..."

  They waited patiently while he lost himself in thought, though he seemed now to be speaking only to himself. "Khry's Glory was void of elements - void of anything but magic...could it be seeking the closest thing to itself to fill in the gap? Something equally unique and natural?"

  "But he said it was weaving into the elements."