The Sah'niir

by Kim Wedlock

  He could use the chasms to his advantage and direct the magic through those lines and strike him with deadly intent. But he would have to be at one of those chasms at the time, and it would have to be one he'd linked up - or another formed at random that he was waiting at the other end of.

  Or he could try to manipulate the magic beyond inciting and directing it - try, perhaps, to weave some of it into a spell of his own and send that along the chasm chain - or just plant a spell and wait for him to wander within range. But just where he was going was a mystery, which would make predicting it near-impossible and downright dangerous to anyone else who might get caught in his place... But just how would something like that even be achieved?

  He hadn't seen Liogan since she'd dragged him out to Halen nearly a month ago, and there was no knowing at all when the wretched harridan would return. He'd have to work it out on his own.

  A nerve-shattering crash ripped him out of his deliberations and his eyes bolted up into the aged face of fury.

  Malson slammed the door behind him without breaking his blistering stare. "I thought you were watching the cities!" He yelled with no regard at all to Teagan's presence. "Why didn't you see this?! It's your advanced intel that's supposed to stop things exactly like this!"

  "My lord," he replied tightly, "it happened outside the--"

  "And your vast resources can't climb over walls?! Step through the gates?!"

  It took more power than Salus had to control his outrage. He only managed by channelling the majority of it into his feet as he rose dangerously from behind his desk, but the insolence that met him, smouldering in the man's eyes, threatened to break that flimsy restraint. He found neither strength nor will to even attempt a soothing smile. "The perpetrator wasn't within the walls. He never was; there was nothing for us to see. There were no stirrings of an impending attack, let alone anything this elaborate."

  "We both know you're watching the mages," he hissed accusingly. "You must have heard something - unless it slipped by you."

  "My lord, nothing slips by me if it is there to be seen. This was kept quiet."

  "Plans of this magnitude could never be kept quiet. Do not take me for a fool, Salus. You've slipped up, again. The Crown will call for both of our heads at this rate."

  The two held each other's gaze for a solid minute, until Salus felt a faint and derailing twitch of his eye. "Was there anything else?" His pleasure at the curl of Malson's lip didn't reveal itself.

  But then the old man straightened and adopted a strange look of almost genuine regret - almost, if not for the slightest, most negligible smirk that hovered just beneath his grimace. "Your funding is being cut." His certain pleasure at Salus's paling didn't reveal itself, either. "The Crown has decided to concentrate finances on the military and sustaining the refugees. And you're to send more agents out towards the forces holed up in Glensmoor. Doana has poisoned their water supply with blackbane, most likely in an attempt to provoke them. It was caught quickly, but General Moore won't risk acting on it. Not until he knows exactly what they're planning."

  Silently, Salus raged.

  "Search for how they did it - how they got into the camp, how they crossed the moors without being seen, and how they managed to leave only the single smallest yet clearest clue behind them after taking all that care." His eyes burned again, and the accusation was clear. But Salus held his stare without emotion. Malson waited, but Salus offered nothing.

  A knock at the door snatched the focus of the room's near-tangible strain, and at a bark from the keliceran, the woman stepped inside. She inclined her head to the liaison then fixed her gaze stolidly past the others, approached her superior and dropped a roll of parchment upon the walnut desk.

  Malson barely spared her a glance. He fired Salus a final look of warning, then turned away in a flurry of rich, blue robes and left the office with the words 'get it done' falling as heavily as lead behind him.

  The moment the door slammed shut, Salus's brittle restraint snapped. Teagan and Taliel waited, still and silent, their eyes fixed rigidly, almost desperately to the furthest wall to avoid glimpsing his abrupt, ghastly pallor, raven-black eyes and monstrous, fanged expression while he raged and thrashed in his torment.

  With a single, deliberate sweep, the neatly stacked papers were cast clear of the desk. Candles followed, extinguished by the force of their displacement, and spilled their wax over the dark rug while quills and inkwells added yet more black stains to the aged collection. Paperweights landed with a dull thud and rolled out noisily onto the wooden floor.

  He kicked the desk; he threw his chair; the teapot set safely upon the sideboard at the edge of the room shattered, it seemed, even before his malicious contact. And he yelled. He cursed. He vowed that, in the end, he would come out on top, and that all Turunda's enemies would crumble under his hand, be they man, elf or king. He vowed it to Teagan, to Taliel, to himself, to the stars that twinkled indifferently outside the window. He would see it done. Whatever it took.

  Exhaustion forced him at last to stop. He leaned over his desk, bracing himself against the dizziness while his body continued shaking in fury, and he stared through the wood grain for an explanation.

  His spells couldn't be failing him. They couldn't be. He hadn't seen anything preceding Koraaz's strike, but he couldn't be in that room watching those mirrors forever. It could only have been one of the handful he'd left in charge of it - because the accursed old coot had gotten one thing right, at least: someone must have heard something.

  Unless the elves were using their magic to keep Koraaz's movements hidden, in which case his arcane eyes could never have caught him. And they never would.

  His fingernails, as sharp and tapered as claws, raked deep into the polished wood. He forced himself to breathe. It was only a theory. If the elves were concealing him so dearly, why had he ever been spotted at all? It could be tactical, but too often he'd been spotted and followed with no ill consequences, which suggested that the elves were either doing a poor job of hiding him, or weren't hiding him at all.

  His fingers relaxed a little.

  But whatever Malson had gotten right, he was remarkably incorrect in his assumption that it had been an act of the Order. Koraaz - he was now certain - was not working with the Order. He'd seen enough from Liogan to know that he was disdainful to her. Fully-human mages - or as close to human as one possessing magic could be - would be too far beneath her to even be looked at. He suspected most elves would feel the same. Which would explain why Koraaz was never seen around another Order mage. He was working within a whole other league.

  But allegiances aside, it seemed that Koraaz and the Order alike were about to be joined by a new internal threat. Like an old man whose stubborn convictions were finally revealed as little more than a mask for his own fear and elderly confusion, General Moore was proving himself more fool than wisened tactician. At this rate, if Doana did finally make the first strike, he wouldn't move until they were already razing the palace.

  And Malson seemed almost pleased that he hadn't taken Salus's poisoned bait! Did he want this to drag out? Or was he just naive enough to believe that all was well while no blood was being shed?

  He exhaled tightly. Moore would need yet another push - something far more direct.

  As his heart returned to a near-normal rhythm, he pushed himself away from the desk and lifted the ink-spattered roll of parchment from beneath the disarray of folders and reports. He didn't cast either subordinate a look, and so he didn't notice the fright within Taliel's wide eyes, nor the edge of uncertainty that had creased Teagan's face into an expression of concern.

  He read for but a moment before his rampage resumed.

  "Fools!" He bellowed finally, screwing up the ripped parchment and hurling it violently to the ground. "The magic couldn't just 'deplete', not just like that!"

  "How can you be sure?" Teagan asked, lifting the missive from beside his foot and glancing over the contents.

  "Because I hav
e felt it, Teagan," he hissed. "I have touched it. No. It isn't so simple. It was Koraaz, it had to be. He appeared in Ferna out of nowhere, he could just as easily have been at White Barrows, too. Why not?! He's been teleporting around since Dolunokh!"

  "And another strike by non-humans." Teagan cocked an eyebrow at the parchment while Salus swore disdainfully. "Harpies and ditchlings, together. Again."

  "And that surprises you? Nothing we do stops them! They hide in trees and holes in the ground, well out of sight! How can we ever be sure an area has been cleared without burning the trees and flooding every hollow?! They're like rats! They're everywhere, hiding just out of sight! And they've killed another of my men!"

  "Perhaps we're underestimating them?"

  "Evidently," he replied dryly. "They've been getting bolder since they started working together. It's proving successful for them, and they recognise that. For those that lack intelligence, there is strength in numbers..." His eyes searched the air, and the hard edge to his face, human once again, softened as thought descended. Both Teagan and Taliel sent him a brief glance, each successfully concealing their own private concern. His expression brightened for a fleeting moment, the darkened once more. "Burn and flood the forests."

  "Sal--Sir," Taliel stammered in shock, "forgive me, but that would--"

  "Not at the same time," he growled tediously. "Flood some, burn others - whichever will have the smallest impact on the nearest settlements. We have to keep them apart!" His searing gaze dropped to his bare and splintered desk, then to the mess that surrounded it. He uttered not a sound of irritation as he gathered the papers from the floor and dropped them back onto the table, sorting through them quickly, filtering out the folders bound with white string and those bound in brown. The phidipan and portian waited in silence while he compared and discarded, made notes and muttered curses beneath his breath. Then, finally, he handed a selection to Teagan and fixed him with his still-searing eyes. He seemed not to carry the same fret as his colleague. "See it done."

  The portian inclined his head and left.

  Taliel eased only slightly when the door closed behind him, and Salus sank, defeated, into his straightened chair, covering his face with his hands. When he finally dropped them, he found her gathering up the rest of his things. "Leave it," he said more coarsely than he'd meant to, and she rose swiftly, placing the map, inkwells, quills and candles she'd already collected carefully back upon the desk. But when he looked up, expecting an empty expression, he found her looking right back at him, her beautiful face twisted in worry.

  His heart jumped and softened in an instant, the memory of the first such look she'd given him only a few months ago rushing back to strangle him into shame. His eyes slipped away. "Don't fret about me."

  "You're stretched too thin," she said softly.

  "I'm fine."

  "Have you looked in the mirror? And I don't mean your enchanted ones - you have new lines on your face, you have shadows under your eyes, your jaw is rough, not to mention you're not thinking clearly--"

  "I'm fine." He smiled in an attempt to offset his waspish tone. "Really."

  "No, you're not." She reached out and brushed her fingertips gently over his stubbled cheek. He flinched at first, but didn't pull away, and let her lean in and kiss him. He discovered only then that he'd been yearning for her touch all day. The moment her lips met his, he felt the shadow that had been hanging over him since morning vanish like a fog.

  Every knot in his muscles released. His fingers slipped into her hair and he breathed in her scent - the faintest trace of golden juniper, he finally placed, but not of perfume - and lost himself in her.

  Until a detached, dutiful voice spoke up in the recesses of his wandering mind.

  In a heartbeat his fingers pulled free and he pushed her back, and he rose to stand over his desk, dragging the map out from among the things she'd gathered to stare over it with sudden purpose.

  He heard her breathe the softest sigh of frustration, but he didn't let himself look up.

  "Why won't you let me help?" She asked softly. He heard the helplessness in the back of her voice, like a shadow beneath her words, but he didn't let that move him, either.

  "It's distracting."

  "If your mind can wander so easily, perhaps it's trying to tell you something."

  "Like what?"

  "That you're exhausted. You can't concentrate, you haven't properly rested in a month - you need to take time out. If you keep ignoring what your body is telling you, you'll make yourself ill."

  "Old wives' tales."

  "Steeped in truth nonetheless."

  "I'll sleep when Turunda's safe."

  "I didn't say 'sleep', I said 'rest'." She stared at him, willing him to meet her eyes, but he didn't even lift his head. Disappointment bloomed in her chest like a thistle. She moved around to the other side of the desk, and though he didn't show it, he was acutely aware of her every step. His mood dampened further at the crispening of her tone. "You've not sent me out in twelve days. You've given away my previous station in the palace. What are the others doing that you think I can't?"

  "It's not like that." Again his voice was involuntarily sharp. "It's too dangerous."

  "I will be fine."

  "Non-humans are killing operatives, Taliel, Doana are spreading distractions, the Order is attacking, and now Koraaz is..." He didn't have the words. He growled and let it drop. Her slender hands slipped into view as she leaned intently upon the desk.

  "I can handle it."

  "No."

  "Salus, I'm trained to--"

  "I said no!" His gaze tore free from the map at last and he fixed her with a powerful, scalding look that warned her sorely against challenge. But she didn't flinch back from him, and her brown, copper-ringed eyes were equally as forceful.

  "I understand what you're trying to do, but, Keliceran, it is my job. I have been trained. I am capable. My record doesn't have a scratch. And not all of your subordinates have been so reliable as of late. Your attention is being pulled in too many directions and yet you're not using the Arana's full potential. Count me among those pinpointing the non-humans' homes and burrows and you can rest assured of results." She held his stare for a long moment and watched him weigh the odds. She'd been a phidipan for near a decade - she was capable, and he knew it. He had no reason to keep her trapped within the walls of Arana House.

  No rational reason.

  She watched him until his gaze dropped again. "I need you here."

  "No, you don't. You have Teagan. I am not an advisor. I am not a doll. I am a phidipan, Salus! For the love of the goddess will you let me help? You're doubting others, you're under pressure, and the world is trying to race ahead and out of our control! This isn't the time for being protective, Salus, it's a time for doing what you must! And who can you trust if not me?!"

  His mouth opened to respond ahead of his aggravation, but no sound made it out, and her steady, challenging stare flustered him all the more until his shoulders sagged and he shook his head with a rough sigh of defeat. "You're right." He said it quietly. "Fine. But, please, be careful."

  "I am never anything but." Then she moved back around at his reluctant gesture and pored over the map beside him, observing various locations while he outlined the regions most likely in need of cleansing.

  Lanterns and torches flickered ominously about the city. The tension in the room seemed to escape through the windows to deepen every shadow, and that blackness seeped back inside like a pestilent cloud.

  A great sigh heaved in the dark. "We have no idea what he's up to."

  "And no communication?"

  "None. Not since the first."

  Another exhalation, feminine but no less troubled. "Mage hunters will have a field day with this. He needs to be stopped. He needs to be brought in."

  "And he should be so easy to find?"

  "He may be, if we go about it the right way. We could always try asking..."

  "He wouldn't do it, Delas.
He thinks we turned our backs on him, and there's also the very simple fact that he hasn't come to us for help with the matter, even though he must have realised that it is far beyond his capabilities."

  "What if Owan asked him?"

  "He would see through it."

  "So we're going to abduct him?" Her voice was thick with scepticism. "You really think that's wise?"

  "Not at all. But I suspect we will have some time to work it out. We can't do much until we know where he is."

  "The sparrow seemed to find his companion well enough. A simple beacon attached to--"

  "And when the sparrow flies too near an arcanised zone and the hills crack for miles around?"

  "Blast. Has Owan discovered a way we can deal with those yet?"

  "Not yet. He's working himself ragged with it. Just yesterday I had to order him to take a few days off."

  "And I expect he bowed and agreed, then scurried off and stitched himself right back into his work."

  "As it happens, he did. His wife is watching over him now."

  Delas chuckled. "Poor girl. She's about to have a baby and now she has to chase around after her husband to make sure he does what he's told. It's good practise, I suppose." She sent Arator a steady look. "I will send word to preservers. They will search for Rathen outside the cities. He won't show his face again so soon."

  "No, he won't." The old grand magister met the elder's gaze. "As soon as possible, Delas."

  "As soon as possible."

  Chapter 45

  The tamer woods of the Eswolds were no less virile than the Wildlands to the south. Thick boughs dominated the stifled air at head-height, the light was smothered, the dense, green ceilings were filled with the heavy scent of damp wood, fungi and moist earth, and the shadows by the calls of predatory beasts that didn't quite conform to any known profiles. But though the inescapable sense of a watchful presence reached even this far north, it was neither as potent nor as ominous as that which had previously dogged them, and the forest itself impeded in no way out of the ordinary. Three days of difficult trekking passed uneventfully but for crossing paths with a kvistdjur, who dismissed them after a quick assessment, and a run-in with an indignant wood-grouse which Rathen was very insistent about keeping their distance from, to the ends of moving their camp ten minutes from its territory.