by Kim Wedlock
The water indented as he reached it, an imprint of nothing that grew deeper and deeper as he continued his descent, until the sea moved around him as though he were surrounded by a sphere of twisting winds that pushed the water safely aside. Then, ultimately, the sea closed over his sphere, and the convulsing surface was left without a trace of his passing.
With every nervous step the expanse grew colder, and while the shell diverted the worst of it, the predating hum that rumbled from the depths beneath him became only stronger. The seabed was moving, and violently, a reaction shared with that of dry land upon almost every other such occasion. But he steeled himself with effort against it, and against the knowledge that his own protective spell was antagonising it, and fixed his thoughts upon his task. There were none here to be injured, and he had no intention of letting the magic escape him again. He'd been obscenely fortunate that Toakh had already been evacuated.
An orb sparked into light against the enclosing darkness - a notably slimmer challenge than the first time he'd tried to juggle two spells - and cast a cold, deathly glow through the water. There was nothing to see but an abyss in all directions. If anything, it compressed the darkness.
Foreboding began to claw at the back of his mind, so thick and tangible that he turned twice to catch whatever was behind him. But there was nothing but the blooming fret of his spells' integrity. A fret that had sat upon his shoulders the last time, too.
And just like the last time, he beat it forcefully from his mind. There was no time to waste on panicking. He had a task to carry out, the most important task he or anyone else would ever be charged with, and one that stood, absolutely, for the good of all.
Doggedly, he followed the pull of the magic, and the seabed eventually loomed into sight. His feet shortly hit the swirling sand and he walked at last over a surface, shaking but existent. But he had not arrived, yet.
It was most disconcerting to feel none of the weight of the sea nor its current, but even with his glowing light, it was so dark that it was easy to imagine himself instead in a large, unlit and spacious room. His focus had become quickly rigid, as had his back, shoulders and jaw. He would not be beaten. Not by anyone or anything. Not so close to victory.
He began to move faster, running unimpeded, sand and seaweed swirling aside with the water, until the light at last began to bounce back from straight-sided stone. But it was not deliberate architecture; it was too vast and uneven to be an imbued ruin. It was the seabed, cracked and elevated, sheared in two, a pure black void gaping open into the barren vacuum between them.
Lights then began twinkling out of the darkness just ahead of him, drifting like marine snowflakes; fish scales, catching and reflecting the orb, and a single, colossal, ghostly eel surely the length of the palace road slipped languidly through the chasm, its undulating, ethereal form rising and vanishing beneath the lowest cliff top.
And the pressure of magic; the thrum of power excited in his own veins.
He had arrived.
Cautiously, he stopped at the cliff and peered tentatively over the edge. The eel had disappeared, and if anything else lurked beneath, it was invisible to his eyes and obscured by the void-black shadow his orb enhanced. Falling here, he knew, was impossible, but the bottomless gulf still sparked some echo of atavistic dread. But he had to remain close. The closer he was to the magic and the chasm, the more control he had over it. Surely, logically, that was the case.
But...if he was wrong, and his sphere shattered...
As his eyes turned unwillingly towards the distant surface, the voice of doubt - the voice of reason - seized him with so tight a grasp he felt that the seabed had suddenly closed around him. Whitemouth had been too close. He couldn't take that chance again.
Twisting his fingers, his heart racing and shuddering, his shell of swirling winds rose from the sands and carried him urgently towards the surface. Every second was an age; black turned much too slowly to indigo, then azure-tinted grey, and by the time he broke through to weightless air and the sweet, distant ceiling of snow-laden clouds, he felt weariness edging in.
Relief. And there was no time for it.
He collected himself swiftly and focused into his magic, reaching with it straight down, back into the blackness, and began to coax the wild magic before that weariness could coalesce into something worse. Because there was no time to succumb to it. Not now. No time to waste.
The magic responded eagerly, jumping and skitting like a young colt, leaping and bounding, ready to take advantage of the briefest weakness in his assault. But he wasn't going to let it get away from him again. Through magically-paved gulleys and channels, he steered the magic, controlling it through every crack and splinter, subduing its energy into obedience, pushing directly westwards from this easternmost border.
It was only minutes, though it felt like hours, and by the time the chasm had been tamed and collected, a muffling blanket of dizziness rolled through his skull.
He released the spell willingly before his vision could cross and double, and began to shiver. He was exhausted. And soaked. He looked down at himself, bobbing up and down in the water, and realised with some disconnection that the sphere had broken after all. But he found he had little strength to be surprised, relieved or alarmed, and turned his eyes instead towards the horizons. Shore was visible, but only just. He could never swim that far.
Fortunately, he didn't have to.
Almost immediately, the water beneath him turned to blissfully solid ground, a fact he appreciated after another passing of vertigo, but the chill was unremedied, and the snow and frosted stone were blinding. But at least it wasn't water. Here, it was possible to start and sit beside a fire.
There was no time for that, of course, nor for his briefest moment of gratitude to his past-self for pouring effort into grasping self-teleportation. He was alive, and staring into the face of the final step. That was all that mattered.
With a deep breath, he steeled himself against the cold and looked around, warming himself up by stamping his feet and rubbing his hands.
Gennith's Point. A ruin; a single, large menhir accompanied by little more than time-worn fragments of others, arranged randomly and pummelled by age and element into stumps. However they had once looked, whatever their significance, every surface had been beaten smooth by the salty coastal winds, and yet more had been lost to the sea. But the site's distinction had been renewed by clods of earth hanging suspended in the air, bare soil black against the snow, and rocks shaped like well-pruned topiary trees that seemed to have no relevance to the ancient stones at all. And the strange darkness that pervaded the scene.
He frowned as he looked up at the sky. No, not darkness, just...dim. Like evening. Like sunset. And yet the sun was still high, if obscured by the clouds.
Salus quickly turned away from it. He was wasting time. It bore no relevance. And the magic here was raging. His heart was raging. He was already exhausted, and his attention was slipping. Completing this would truly test his magic and his strength in a way he'd never anticipated. But complete it, he must.
His eyes pulled eastwards. He could feel the magic approaching, travelling at impossible speed, its progress hastened by a small modification to his gulleys, covering half the length of the southern coast in what amounted to eleven minutes. And it was almost upon him.
Again, he reached his magic out towards it, paving another gulley to steer it on its final stretch. Another chasm, filled with petulant magic, lay beneath the sea before him. He could feel it if he couldn't see it, and had only to join them up. Then...then...
The magic almost spilled. His guidance had slowed down.
'Focus.'
He was ahead once again. The distance was closing. Closing. The ends were almost within reach.
The ground shook violently beneath him. The cliff began to crumble, rock, soil, snow, then the outermost of the remaining stones slipped and plummeted into the roiling sea. Floating rocks fell, others rose, and a few began to spin
and whirl, dancing around the ruin and colliding with one another with a terrible crunch. Chance alone saved Salus's life, for he dropped to his knees in immersion just as one passed over him. But his focus didn't break. The two ends joined.
The ground ruptured. Earth and stone spewed into the air to land with a crash and shatter upon one another, firing even greater tremors through the ground. With an expended gasp, Salus's mind latched desperately onto the shaking of his bones, out of sync with the rest. Against the chaos surrounding him, how, he managed to wonder, was he still upright?
He wasn't for long.
He hit the ground as heavily as a horse, and a great warmth washed over him on impact in spite of the surrounding snow. He'd pushed himself too far. He knew he would, but it had been necessary, and he was certain that it was not a wasted effort. And he would survive the repercussions. He had to.
His bones ached. His head spun, his breath caught, but a smile crept over his lips, and a single thought reverberated through his being in the passing of the strain: it was finally coming together.
He was almost there. And he was ahead. Truly ahead! Nothing could get in his way now - nothing and no one. Malson, the king - they were redundant concerns, and the country was better off for it. People died - kings died - but the country had survived it each time before, regardless of the circumstances.
And as for Koraaz, that mongrel was far behind him. The distance was insurmountable.
Footsteps passed nearby, and he realised that his eyes were closed. Even when he opened them, it took him a few moments to realise that he stared not at the clouds but at the dark, vaulted ceiling of his office, and that the warmth he felt was not - at least in entirety - due to any sudden sickness or hypothermia, but to the fire that burned happily in the fireplace. A fire that burned for no one, for no one else was there.
Hurriedly, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked around. Indeed, the office was empty. Teagan was nowhere to be found. He struggled to his feet and immediately staggered sideways, crashing into the bookcase.
He cursed and steadied himself against the frame to look around instead. Teagan had certainly been in, as the desk, he could see from there, was meticulously tidy. Tidy, at least, but for a single report folder placed just so in the middle. He frowned at it. There was something significant about the placement, centred upon the leather blotter, but at a gentle angle, just off from perpendicular, favouring the left. Teagan wouldn't have left it like that...
His bearings were further from his reach than he'd thought. As yet more footsteps passed outside the door, understanding tumbled clumsily over him, and his juddering heart burst up into his throat. His smile returned in strength.
Taliel was back.
A ridiculous, guileless energy snatched him from out of nowhere, excitement, enthusiasm, subduing at least for the moment the spent shake of his bones. He had to see her.
He raced mindlessly for the door, and though he tripped twice, he decided to collect himself along the way rather than waste any more time. He had to see her right away. He would find her, he would hold her, he would kiss her, and he would tell her the good news. She would be so proud, so impressed! She would love him all the more! And she would know without a trace of doubt that he could protect her to the ends of the earth, just as he could protect Turunda.
He would find her, and he would tell her right away.
And...he would tell others. The distance was vast, that was undeniable, but it wouldn't hurt to widen it a little more. And he had just the thing.
Chapter 63
Every evening the August sun blazed the snow into gold. It was the single event to break the black and white monotony of the landscape and, for a blissful moment, enabled one to set aside their worries in favour of hope, even if that hope felt wrong, foolish or absurd.
But that phenomenon had passed an hour ago, and now the light was fading. Night was creeping in; the chill became sharper, the silence denser, but they kept moving, the horses only drawn to a stop once darkness had truly set in. Within the safety of an abandoned and overgrown barn at the edge of The Ghost Patch, Anthis handed out bowls of stew. It was thin, but warm, and was eaten in silence. Aria fell asleep almost immediately, cocooned in a blanket on the rotten-wood floor beside her father, exhausted by her ongoing grief. But while Eyila and Garon remained in their silent stupors, Rathen sat more consciously at the young girl's side. When Anthis collected their bowls, he discovered the mage fiddling with his daughter's wooden carving.
The need to break the torturous silence was overwhelming, and he cursed himself for his clumsy outburst. But, somehow, the whisper that moved like a roar through the chill went largely unnoticed. "How's it going?" He tried again, this time barely above the crackle of the fire.
"I don't want to tempt fate."
"That sounds promising."
"And that sounds like tempting fate."
Anthis turned to resume his desperately collected chores, until Rathen's next quiet words stalled him. His eyebrows rose in surprise. "Why 'thank you'?"
"For taking the lead. You're the only one of us that hasn't fallen into...self-indulgence, I suppose."
A sneer, thin but rueful, broke his confusion. "I wouldn't say that. I've just been trying to keep my mind off of it..."
"It's not been working."
"No, of course it hasn't." Even so, he busied himself with rearranging the stack of bowls in his hands, but succeeded only in spattering a few remnants of stew over his already dirty shirt. A tight puff of air escaped his nostrils and he abandoned the childish pretence, looking helplessly towards the mage instead. "Why did she do it?"
"Because," Rathen replied patiently, nodding his head towards a spot on the floor beside him, "she was a good person."
"But what I did--"
"Was beyond unforgivable." Anthis hesitated in taking the seat, but Rathen's stare didn't change. The hard edge that had been present in his eyes for so long had eroded away. "But," he continued softly, "not deliberately personal. Some part of her knew that."
His head dropped helplessly into his hands.
"Or," Rathen continued once again, "perhaps it was just that she knew we needed you. Or maybe it was just reflex. I can't speak for her, so you'll have to take from it what you will, but knowing her as we did, the answer should be obvious. She was a protector, despite the rest. Devoted, but not to just one single thing. Don't destroy yourself if she gave her life to save you. And my thanks still stands."
The pair sat in silence for some time. Anthis didn't lift his head from his hands and stared instead into his thoughts. He couldn't fathom how Rathen could be right in the slightest. What he did was unforgivable, and he didn't hesitate to remind himself of that.
When he finally raised his head from the suffocating heat of his breath, he found that Rathen had sunk back into his ponderings over the Sah'niir. Again, desperation charged his tongue. "Can I help?"
"I doubt it. It's a matter of magic, not elves. It's my problem."
"Oh..." he turned slightly at the arrival of another concern. "How's your...uh..."
"'Use it shrewdly', she said." He ran a thumb thoughtfully over the smooth wood. His eyes didn't once peel away from it. "I took that as 'only when it's necessary', but I think she meant the duration, not the frequency. If it's cast in quick bursts, nothing prolonged or channelled, I seem to be able to do it. But searching for that lackey in the woods, using the Zi'veyn..." he shook his head.
"...What exactly has been happening?"
"Honestly, I don't know. Tekhest, the elves, they did...something. I have more control over the transformations, but...everything else...seems..." He sighed, and his shoulders twitched in a feeble shrug. "It's come at a cost."
"But a cost that might have been worth it?"
Finally his eyes lifted from the figure of carven elm, but they had turned frigid as they stared into the flames, touched by doubt, by grief, and by purpose. He didn't speak for some time. In the end, he didn't speak at all.
Anthis quickly regretted the question. Perhaps it had been a subconscious decision that had restrained his transformation that hateful afternoon, not shock. But...would he really have made that decision, even unaware, while Petra...?
No. He couldn't believe that as a possibility. It wasn't in him. It just wasn't.
But he didn't say so. He followed his stare instead. "Can you overc--"
"I can. I am. I've already managed to--"
A soft crying interrupted the dampened stillness that surrounded their conversation, and in a single broken heartbeat, the ice melted from Rathen's eyes and the stone crumbled from his voice. He reached over and held the weeping child close against him, rocking her softly, hushing her, whispering promises that everything would be all right, whatever little comfort that offered. But she soon calmed, by his words or his hold, and fell slowly back to sleep.
Anthis watched them wistfully. No one had recovered. Over the two days since their abduction, any outward trace of Rathen's self-pity had vanished as suddenly as summer rain. He'd resumed the mantle of leader while Garon followed, lost in a daze behind them, and Anthis had been only too pleased to hand it over, even if it meant he fell deeply back into his own.
But it was still there. It was, he suspected, either his soldier's heart that had kicked him back into form, or the same heart that had him continue to whisper and rock comfort even while his daughter slept. He might wish to seem the careless, brooding, grudge-bearing outcast, he might threaten to abandon the matter and leave Turunda to its fate by man or magic, but it was all a front, a front that collapsed whenever things became serious - when someone needed to act. A soldier's heart, spurred into action by an imperishable compassion.
