by Kim Wedlock
Garon narrowed his eyes, sensing she'd cut her report short. "And?"
"And," she obliged, "bounty posters. Of you all. You'll have to be very, very careful."
"He's put bounties on us?!"
"So much for Mokhan," Petra grunted, but Garon was already shaking his head.
"We now have our information," he declared. "Mokhan isn't necessary." He sheathed his sword and fixed the phidipan with another level stare. "When is he likely to move again?"
"I can't say. He's erratic. But your travelling is going to become harder, too. For all of us, in fact. He's just provoked Doana."
"This guy is becoming a serious threat to everyone," Anthis groaned. "A man so convicted and with that kind of drive and power is dangerous."
"Well we can't confront him," Rathen snapped. "We have no idea what he's truly capable of. He shouldn't even match a novice with what little training he's had, and yet look at what he's done! The only thing we can do is use the Zi'veyn to break the magic along the borders and hope it's enough to slow him down. And work out how to remove the damned magic once and for all."
"Remove it?" Taliel frowned, but Garon was quick to divert the subject.
"I hesitate to remind you all that it isn't just Salus we're dealing with. He has the whole Arana behind him, notably mages and portians. They are also a very real threat. We can't let one man distract us."
"Well clearly they're not all behind him," Anthis noted, but his gesture towards Taliel only earned her Garon's intense stare, shifting from its previous co-operation and almost willingness to trust into a deep and burning scepticism.
Slowly, his unspoken thought passed around the others. Fortunately, with a careful and observant approach, Rathen was the one to voice it. "Elle, how are you getting this information? Why would he divulge anything to you?" But then his heart knocked sideways and skin turned ashen as a thought ambushed him, striking him as hard as a hammer to the head. "Elle, please tell me you're still only a phidipan..."
Softly, she smiled, with a deep and sympathetic fondness. "Yes, my love, I am still only a phidipan."
"Would we even know if you were lying?"
Rathen sent the inquisitor a sharp look. Then another thought brushed him, and his suddenly pensive gaze searched her while he put it all together. "You're working with the go-between, aren't you? Lord Malson. He gets close enough to Salus, confers with him directly, and if he's working with you and probably others, there must be something set in place; you've taught him rudimentary snooping or something. Or you all learn little snippets and build it up together with his direct observations. That's it, isn't it?"
"More or less," she replied. "It's not perfect, but with thirteen pairs of quite underestimated eyes, we've been able to learn his plans. But it takes time."
"Which is why you can never tell us everything we need to know."
"Like I said: it's not perfect. But it's still the best any of us can do, and you, at least, are still armed with more than you would be without us."
"And what happens when Salus figures it out and starts feeding you false information?"
But the smile she gave Petra was steady. "There is only one of him. We will notice; things won't add up. Not even he will be able to pull the wool over our eyes so easily. We are of the Arana, and he has been the keliceran for eight years. He's out of practise. We are not."
"She has a point," Garon replied reluctantly. "Aranan operatives are all extensively trained, from phaeacian to portian. None of them should be underestimated."
"But are we not right now underestimating Salus?" Petra asked.
"No. For the simple fact that we recognise that we don't know what he's capable of. We don't even know what Rathen is truly capable of." The mage braced against the glances. "He's pushed the magic and lengthened the chasms. That should be beyond any mage's abilities. At the very least, we can trust that he will continue to surprise us."
"That's not as helpful as you think it is."
"But it's better than nothing."
"I'm not seeing the difference."
"Then look harder."
Petra snarled and snapped away. The others pretended not to notice.
"That's all I have," Taliel declared, dusting off her hands. "I'm sorry I can't offer more."
"It's more than you should be doing." She smiled as Rathen stepped towards her, and the rest recognised her abrupt dismissal - or, rather, the way her eyes had locked onto him and saw nothing else besides - and began to turn away and potter around, surveying their surroundings instead. Petra lured the reluctant Aria away with the promise of swordplay secrets.
"What you're doing," Elle said quietly after a kiss that Rathen knew Aria had scrutinised with a craning neck, "is incredible."
"Good to know I still have it."
"That's not what I meant," she chuckled. "I mean all of this. It's...beyond noble. After everything you've been through, to step up--"
"I didn't really have a choice. That man was going to hang on my door until the end of my days if I didn't."
"I suspect so - but I also suspect that you agreed before he managed even a third visit."
He grunted. "Or perhaps he simply made a good case. And I had something to gain."
Her soft, brown eyes narrowed and another smile played on her lips. "That may well be true. But it's not the whole of it, and you know it. Regardless, you are a hero. Again."
He kissed her firmly, and she leaned her whole self into it. But, more importantly, in that moment she wasn't calling him a hero. She sighed as they parted, and as their eyes locked, a familiar wash of heat passed through his chest. One he'd not felt since he was a much younger man. He pulled her close again and kissed her with a passion. This time, she was the one to break it, and her eyes shone with a heartache so strong and sudden that he felt the edge of despair creep into himself.
"Rathen, after all of this - when it's all over--"
"No, Taliel. I won't talk about this."
"But why not? Rathen, what you're doing - what you've done, clearly you've some kind of understanding of wh--"
"Understanding, control, present actions - nothing I do will reverse my sentence, Elle, you know that. Don't fool yourself."
"That isn't what I meant."
His eyes softened with regret. He looked down, avoiding her gaze, and took her hands in his. "I know."
"I would give it--"
"All up. I know. I haven't forgotten. I haven't forgotten anything. But I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it. I...I just can't, Elle. I can't risk jinxing it - getting my hopes up, or yours. We both know things aren't so simple, not with your profession." His gaze ensnared her. "People in your line of work don't retire."
A smile flickered. It was sad. Sorrowful. Heartbroken. It was rather more of a twitch, perhaps a quiver to keep from crying. But Elle wouldn't cry. She would grimace, but she wouldn't cry. Not with the others around.
She looked back up with sudden composure and nodded slowly. This time, she did smile. But it was not a phidipan's mask. It was still sad. "I love you, Rathen." Her hand slipped out of his. Lightly, her fingers travelled across his wrist, then up along his forearm. She stopped at the edge of his sleeve, beside the seam, then moved up one more inch. Precisely where, within the folds of the rolled up fabric, his wedding ring resided. "Don't forget it."
Then she turned and left, and Rathen couldn't bring himself to stop her.
Owan moved carefully through the forest. His every step was tempered, placed as lightly as it could be while he strangled back his haste. He was more than a little uneasy. He'd passed the boundary of magic a few minutes ago and had since been bombarded by waves of unnatural sensations. He discovered beauty in the smallest things, both wonderful and sinister, and felt a pervading sense of safety so artificial it was almost steeped in treachery. It was inescapable, oppressive, but as alarming as every peculiarity was, he forced his mind to remain steady and fixed upon the magic, probing it, analysing it, filin
g the details away in his memory and scribbling the most significant into his notebook. All the while the magic washed over him, he braced against its influence, even as every report of every ailing mage repeated themselves word for haunting word through his mind.
His heart lunged into his throat as his foot snagged briefly in a tangled knot of grass, and a startled oath barked free. He clamped his mouth shut immediately, and after casting a sneer at the offending knoll, he continued moving carefully through the forest. Very, very carefully.
Close by, the road meandered, veering eastwards to cross the river at its narrowest point which even now he could hear rushing by. The old bridge meant that there was no need for anyone to venture from the track, so no one ever did, which made this area, by chance, an isolated, inconspicuous location. And despite its insignificance, despite its emptiness, it was almost certainly being watched.
His footsteps became even more cautious as he spied the edge of a small clearing up ahead. A concealment spell or aversion enchant wasn't on the cards - not when nearby spell-casting seemed to so easily antagonise the already tumultuous circumstances. He was left instead at the mercy of his own stealth, and he was sorely aware that he was out of his depth.
The clearing was small, large enough for an oak tree to flourish had an acorn ever taken root, but was instead overrun with bluebells and delicate sweet woodruff, creating an unbroken carpet of blue and ivory but for a single rocky stump at the centre. But that stone was not a natural form. It stood too crooked and meticulously balanced, its faces were too smooth, and its underside was too abrupt and angular to be the result of natural weathering, especially in an area so unprone to flooding. Rather, it had been carved that way centuries upon centuries ago as an homage to Vastal, to intellect, philosophy and logic - to Doru, Her face of Mind.
Owan had learned that all such monuments were peculiarly shaped, though this was the only one he'd seen for himself, but while he'd visited this tiny grove uncountable times and become familiar with the stone's lines and corners, he had no idea what the tablet had once said. No one did. Its fragments were shattered and weathered smooth. But its presence and intent resonated with him - as did the unfortunate fact that the modest elven structure had long been broken, quite deliberately, by decidedly ignorant humans. But still, this remained one of his favourite locations.
Yet he entered it timidly.
Stepping through the trees with caution, a tight muzzle on his enthusiasm, he remained at the edge of the tree line only for his heart to take a sudden plunge. Though far from unexpected, the state of the grove was not as it should have been.
The most striking of the gathered travesties were the rends - narrow lines that scarred the sheet of bluebells like veins of poisoned blood - and the glittering puddles glowing between the leaves and blades of vibrant grass, the colour and luminance of the dusk sun. He stared at the magic for a long while, peering into its construction, before a precise and delicately built column of small pebbles caught his troubled eye from the edge. Like ants, as he noticed one, he discovered another, and then another would seem to appear from the trees. Each impossible tower was low, about knee-height but for the last to catch his attention, which must have stood at twice his own - about the same, he noted distractedly, as the height of his preferred study room.
His gaze tracked it up into the trees, and he noticed with a start that, beyond the roof of leaves, the sky appeared to be lower. He stared harder, certain despite impossibility that the clouds were closer, the sunlight brighter, and that even the azure of the atmosphere would be within his reach if he were to climb up to the highest boughs.
Sharply, he withdrew his gaze. The sight was enough to madden him and he couldn't afford the distraction.
The flower-riddled ground regained his focus and he dared a step away from the trees, casting a wary glance back over his shoulder before crouching quietly beside the nearest branch of the young rift. Nudging aside the grass, he found the rend wider than it had appeared, deep and black and harbouring a lake of undulating power, vast but purposeless. His blood tingled; he didn't dare stare at this for too long, either.
He looked then towards the pools of light and extended himself towards them. What he found surprised him, but it took only a moment of pondering before it began to make a curious kind of sense. 'A wash of light...and water.' Here were two chains of quite certainly different spells, but whose surviving elements were compatible enough, it seemed, for the two to merge together. He frowned as the logic behind the impossible matter evolved. 'Elven context - wash or wash - bathe or sweep... A spell for a 'wash' of light merges with another for 'water'...to create puddles of light...'
Lips pursed, his eyes flicked across towards one of the delicate pebble columns which he duly probed with equal diligence. Again, the chain was short and vague, but here its single instruction came as no surprise at all. 'Stack.'
But as he turned his attention skyward, the matter became more complicated. It took far too long to decipher its purpose, but once he'd finally begun to grasp it, a new thought began to take shape. Until a rustle in the forest overrode it.
Owan snapped around beneath a hot wave of panic. Notebook discarded in the long grass, a spell already hovered about his fingers, and while his ears strained over the sound of the river his eyes scoured through the shadows. But though the thumping of his heart honed his senses to a point, he found nothing.
Slowly, his alarm receded, and he turned cautiously back to the magic with one ear dedicated to his surroundings. He extended himself again, and his train of thought resumed.
Rising from the earthen crack, he crept low back into the trees, but rather than probing for the centre of the magnetism, he reached instead towards the furthest edges of its influence. With an idea of what to look for, it took little time to find - but it still came as a shock.
Along the edges of the magic, where there stood no visible sign of its presence, he found precisely that: edges. Boundaries. Restrictions rather than instructions, a command to end, to stay and remain. The magic itself provided its own containment; the chains could gather, could pass the boundaries, but they couldn't leave once within its command.
He blinked as another thought hit him.
Walls. Stacking. Intentional construction - and a roof. He looked up at the lowered sky. Put together, these spells could build something, and the disquieting sense of safety pointed towards a homestead. A home - built entirely out of magic.
His head swam at the impossibility of it, but logic continued to stitch itself together. Had such a place been built with magic as a tool alone, these loose spells would consist only of commands for interlocking, angle and direction - phrases as specific as 'roof' wouldn't appear at all.
But these spells hadn't been woven to interact with materials and objects around them, they'd been created inclusively and from scratch. Here were far more specific instructions, thick and numerous spells that filled every role - tool, wood and nail - magic itself was the material! And with so much weight to lose on these vast spells, a few had apparently retained just enough of themselves to function as if they had been intended solely as an instruction from the start.
...But where could such a place have possibly been? And how had no mage ever discovered it?
Owan shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut tight. As tantalising as the idea was, he had to focus. He hadn't much time.
He looked back to the invisible boundaries and turned his mind instead towards their details - most notably in search of a hint towards whatever dictated their positioning - and shortly cast himself back to the hidden grove. It was almost certainly radial. But if that was the case, and there were remarkably efficient boundaries in place to keep the magic isolated once collected, how did the magic manage to escape with the chasms?
He grunted. The answer was obvious, and a quick search of the containment commands confirmed it. They didn't pass beneath the ground level. If a chasm grew long enough to reach the edge, there was nothing to s
top it from burrowing below and leaving the surface to collapse under its own weight behind it.
But that discovery eased him. The boundary spells were simple but strong, and the greatest danger came from the growth of the cracks; boundaries meant containment, and that meant that affected areas could be evacuated and avoided. The cracks could not. But discover the nature of the reaction between magic and element and perhaps the chasms too could be contained.
Naturally, the fissure at his feet became his next priority, but as he peered into the magic that shattered the ground so readily, tempering himself against its influence, a chill passed at the edge of his senses, agitating his caution.
He spared no moment to turn and look. He dropped even lower and slunk into a huddle of trees and shrubs, peering back out into the forest from his hiding place. Far too soon, a figure appeared from the shadows.
Silently, she brushed past where he had been only moments before, drew to a stop and looked about the forest. But she didn't turn towards him. The blonde haired woman didn't appear to have seen him. He didn't sigh his relief. He sensed the magic within her, noted her attentive bearing and the even greater severity to her air, and the lack of any cloak about her shoulders. It was true that no such uniform presently weighed him down either, but while he'd illegally left his behind, he doubted she owned one at all.
Her back turned and she continued on. Quietly, holding back his tension, he slipped away in the opposite direction. He'd discovered the nature of the magic, and with it the very foundations of its interaction with the elements. But it was not enough to work with. It seemed he would be relying upon Rathen's unschooled expertise after all.
Chapter 29
For four days they'd travelled with eyes fixed over their shoulders, from sudden glances to open stares across the fields and sparse coppices towards the southern horizon, imagining Kulokhar hiding behind every hill. They'd swung wide and given the capital city ample space, but with no landmarks in sight, it was all too easy to confuse a yard with a mile, a matter made worse by the heat of summer. That very day the warmth made the tension almost palpable, even as they waded ankle-deep through fresh flood water from a diverted river - the fault, no doubt, of magic. But where Aria and Eyila seemed able to dismiss their inhibitions and wade barefoot quite happily, the rest were bound by adulthood, disgusted by the leak in their boots.
