by Kim Wedlock
The fact that he'd wallowed in grief and 'self-indulgence' with the rest of them showed just how deep that care went. Too deep, perhaps, but maybe that was also a good thing. And that he should spare a few comforting words even for him, when it had been his fault that Petra had died... No one else would be so considerate. He knew he wouldn't.
Anthis rose and silently slipped away, making instead for the distraction of his satchel across the barn, until a quick movement of the statuesque figure outside the wall's splintered hole startled him. Both he and Rathen looked Garon's way. His head had turned. The campfire caught just enough - there was something new in his eyes.
Rathen rose, slipping Aria gently to his own folded blanket, and regarded the inquisitor nervously. "What is it?"
His gaze flicked onto him quickly from the eastern darkness. "We leave. Now."
Neither missed the wildness in his eyes.
They moved immediately, rousing Aria and Eyila each and collapsing the camp without a moment to spare. They gathered belongings, throwing them carelessly into bags, fired by the grim watchman's sudden animation. Something dangerous was close. Or someone.
Rathen's heart raced as he fumbled to strap a bag to his horse's saddle. Was it Salus? If it was, this time, he wouldn't fail. He wouldn't let him win. He wouldn't let another fall at his order.
His teeth grit against the adrenaline, and he steadied his nerves as he turned to snatch up Aria's bag. When he staggered backwards in sudden fright, the others fell equally still around him, and the horses reared in a panic.
At the centre of the barn, cast half in spectral shadows from the campfire at his feet, stood a man with dead eyes. He didn't wait for them to find their tongues. "I have a message," he said plainly in way of introduction. His voice didn't shake. There was no trace of any concern for his own safety, nor of any threat. Yet the way he stood, so still, so composed, warned that his tone was clue to nothing, and that he was capable of attacking so quickly that none would see him move until they were already struck down.
Yet Rathen's instinct to attack pre-emptively was frozen, dulled by the drowning of his heart. He stared at the passive man, his unremarkable face unknown to him or forgotten, and sought in it some suggestion that his conclusion was in error. But he found nothing. He did his best not to let his dread show through. "He's done it, hasn't he?"
"The borders have been cut."
Somehow, his heart sank further. A foolish hope against all rationality. And he could feel the truth in the words, the pride. It was not a bluff. He knew the others sensed the same.
"The king is dead."
These words didn't land as quickly. Shock had further slowed his mind. But he knew just as certainly as the last declaration that it was true, and also by Salus's doing. How he'd managed it didn't matter, but he tried to voice the question anyway. His tongue didn't move.
"Lord Elias Malson, is dead. Your alliance has been severed."
Now, Rathen's heart stopped. He was sure his eyes were wide, gripped by a terror that threatened to burst something inside him. But they were just as dead as the messenger's.
"And we know," his list continued, cold gaze passing briefly over those gathered behind the grim, black-haired mage, each reeling beneath the messenger's mental assault, "that one of you is not what you seem."
Alarm slipped seamlessly to confusion. Frowns drew over each face despite themselves. The previous declarations hadn't been unreasonable in the state of things, but this...this was nothing more than a sudden and desperate attempt to rattle them, to the point that the message as a whole was cast quickly into doubt.
And yet, no one was prepared to say it. If that brought any satisfaction to the near-lifeless messenger, it wasn't shown.
"What does he mean?" Anthis finally managed while the others stared at the man in silent vigilance. "One of us...isn't...what does he mean?" The man's eyes had returned emptily to Rathen. All others followed, and each realised at once that he was not talking to them, but exclusively to him. Anthis felt his heart leap in terror. "Rathen - Rathen, what does he mean?"
"What he said. That one of us..."
There was nothing in the man's face. "Is one of us."
Rathen continued to stare at him. He read what little he found, chewed over the delivery, and deciphered at least one thing as a certainty. 'He's not talking about Elle... They don't know she's involved or he'd have said so, said so by name...' He kept the flare of hope from his eyes. "What are you saying?"
"You know what I'm saying. You know something isn't right. You've known for a while. Otherwise you wouldn't have understood so quickly. You wouldn't have believed it. Trying to predict and out-think deceivers would lead inevitably to the conclusion that you aren't out of reach of it yourselves. But you've only briefly entertained the idea. Most of you have. But you've not voiced it, and you've not been able to work it out. You haven't tried hard enough, to spare yourselves. But you suspect each other, all the same." His razor-sharp eyes flicked then towards Garon. "Is it the one about whom you know so little?" Then onto Anthis, who flinched at the gaze. "Or of whom you know too much?" And then onto Eyila. "Or, perhaps, it's the most unassuming and mysterious of you all."
"This is absurd," Anthis announced fervently. "Of course we're not Aranan! None of us--you're just trying to turn Rathen against us, trying to split us up because you can't take that we've been ahead of you for--"
"Quiet, Anthis."
"Rathen, he's--"
"Be quiet."
"No! No, come on!" He looked across them imploringly, fighting against the suspicion that lay so openly in their eyes and fell inevitably then onto him. "No! None of us! It's all just lies to drag us apart! To keep us out of his way! You can't possibly believe him! Rathen!"
"Quiet, I said." The ferocity hidden within the collection of his tone silenced him at last.
Rathen stared at the messenger. A dark, pensive shadow had clouded his eyes, and he stood motionless as his mind moved faster than a loosed arrow.
The messenger's dead eyes followed his progress. They hadn't left him once. After a while, he broke the agonising silence. "You have it, don't you?"
Slowly, compulsion turned his head. His dark eyes were sharp. Any words on his companions' tongues were lost immediately. But it was not a speculative look. It was not suspicion or mistrust. It was realisation. Reluctant, but undefiable realisation.
The horror in his eyes chilled their blood, and the ferocity in his tone crumbled, a whisper steeped in disbelief. "It's you, isn't it?" The words stuck in his mouth. And Garon said nothing.
The others followed slowly, bewildered, sceptical, brows furrowed in the sheerest dismay. Still, he did not waver. The inquisitor held Rathen's stare, grey eyes as dead as steel.
The silence that dropped was filled with screaming questions their tongues couldn't shape. The moment lasted an eternity.
Rathen turned towards him. And Garon ran. He was out of sight in moments.
When Rathen spun back around for answers, the messenger, too, had vanished. Only he, Aria, Anthis and Eyila were left.
Anthis blinked towards the barn door. The fire crackled quietly behind him. "...Why did he run?"
"Because," Rathen snarled poisonously, eyes searing through the wood, fists balled tight at his sides, "he is guilty."
Anthis turned him a baffled frown and searched across the rest for comprehension. "What? No, no, look: that bastard was just trying to turn us against each other. No, we made a play of it, the wedge between us, remember? Salus is just trying to widen it--"
His voice caught as Eyila whirled, a brief but shredding breeze snapping around her and denting the wooden beams, tears of fury in her ice-blue eyes and a voice as tight as a bowstring. "Then why did he run?"
"No, no, you're--Garon's on our side!"
"If he was, he'd have told us who he was by now, especially after everything we've been through."
"Rathen, there's nothing to tell! He's been working against Sal--"
&
nbsp; "You're sure? Are you?"
"He's been hiding from him just like the rest of us. Why--"
"Because he was staying in character! Keeping us from getting suspicious! Anthis, he ran rather than even try to fight the accusation! He's guilty! Nothing less! Salus is probably calling him in right now!"
Anthis adamantly shook his head. "Rathen, you're confus--"
"No." He spoke firmly, turning square towards him and pinning him beneath ferocious eyes. Anthis shrank beneath his intensity. "No, Anthis, I'm not. He was right - I have wondered. A few times. How we always managed to keep ahead, how things were never quite as bad as they should have been - but I didn't want to look at it too closely, I didn't want to find issues because I wanted to stop the magic, and I wanted to stop Salus. But the fact is that he knew everything he needed to know about me - he told me that right at the start. And he found me. As skilled as the White Hammer are, the ability to track me down out there was a tall order even for them! He wasn't surprised about your 'condition' either, was he? He probably knew all about that before we even tracked you down. We were always near enough to a settlement when your 'needs' arose. He knew all of this before we even set out, he didn't figure it out along the way! He's known exactly who we all are all along! He probably worked out who Petra was as soon as she ran into us, too!"
"B-but Petra--he kept trying to--"
"Get rid of her - because she wasn't a part of his plans! She was dangerous, she would draw attention to us, maybe even ruin whatever he had planned! He was always in control! The point is, he knew everything! And--and Salus," his eyes widened and flicked past the desperate young man, "he was there at Khry's Glory--he was there right when we were! If you hadn't stayed behind and gotten us both trapped, we would have carried the Zi'veyn right into his hands!"
"It was chance," he blustered, "we managed to keep away from him at every other point--"
"When we didn't have what he wanted. When we hadn't found the Zi'veyn's location. When we hadn't opened the door to it. He was there in person only when he needed to be."
"But the messenger said he was working with Malson!"
"No, he didn't! He said that one of us isn't what we seem, and then Garon ran. If he was working with Malson, Elle would never have come to us; it would have put her and their association at risk! But she did, and she gave me her messages! She never once shared them with him! Because I am the only one who would believe her! And trust her!"
"But if he was feeding Salus information on us," he said with sudden confidence, "why hasn't he told him about her?"
Rathen's face paled. "She needs to be warned."
"Rathen, you're slipping."
"No, Anthis, you are! You're blind to what's staring you in the face! He ran! Explain why an innocent man runs!"
The young man's jaw tightened, and his eyes narrowed, coloured with frustration, anger, and steadily growing remorse. His voice was small when he finally spoke. "I can't. But it doesn't make sense...he's made so many mistak--the ditchlings, we stumbled--"
Rathen nodded zealously. "Right into them. And what perfect allies they've made. Telepathic allies, who can relay messages over vast distances very quickly."
"You're saying the ditchlings are working for Salus?!"
"No. That, I don't believe. But whatever his plans were, he knew we'd need more eyes and ears and thought they'd be more efficient and reliable than humans."
"Rathen, the ditchlings weren't going to ally with us, they wanted us gone, remember? They wanted nothing to do with us! We only cleared the air by saving one of them! And that only happened because Aria dropped her knife. That was the only reason we crossed the attack!"
"Dropped the knife she hadn't been using from the very bottom of her bag?"
Anthis shook his head again, squeezing his eyes shut tight against his own madness. "You think he dropped it? On purpose? What else are you going to pin on him? Getting lost in the Wildlands? Finding the elves? Every damned time you've lost control of yourself? Every time I have?!" He flinched as Rathen closed the distance between them in a flash.
"He ran, Anthis! Whether he's guilty of all that or not, he ran! If he was working with Elle, if he was working with Malson, he would have stayed and explained himself! Instead, he said nothing, turned and ran, and left the messenger untouched to slip away in the distraction!"
"All right!" He bellowed back. "Okay! Say you're right - what reason could Salus possibly have for telling us about him and blowing his cover after all this time?"
"Anthis, think. It's to shake us. Sow doubt. Mistrust. Widen the wedge - if it wasn't there before, it damned sure is now."
"And now? If Garon was sending him messages, Salus has lost his eyes among us."
"He doesn't need them anymore! He's succeeded! He's cracked the borders! And now he can't be stopped!"
Anthis fell silent. They stared at one another, Rathen at the reluctant curl of his lip, Anthis at the fervour in his eyes. The silence was filled only by the crackle of the fire and the heave of enraged breath.
And then Eyila's hard eyes crashed onto them, her fury and insult immovable, but accompanied now by some kind of condescension. Aria's eyes had shifted the same way, but she remained quietly trying to calm the horses. "You don't believe that, do you?"
"Why else would he--"
"No," she interrupted him smoothly, "I mean that he can't be stopped."
Her direct gaze squeezed the wildness out of him and pressed him into consideration. Rathen sighed as his shoulders rounded in defeat. "He's cracked the land," he replied calmly. "It's all linked up. The magic has been pushed and joined; it's probably coursing all around the country like a whirlwind. What can we do against that with the Zi'veyn?"
"Nothing," she shrugged. "We use the Sah'niir."
His gaze dropped and shifted. Her own didn't soften. "It's not ready yet."
"It's not? Or you're not? You can use it to break up the magic."
"No - Salus probably already knows about it. To play his hand now, he must have an ace up his sleeve! And it's already too late! He's--"
"He's cracked the borders, that's all." She stepped around, fur boots silent over the wooden flooring, and forced herself into his sight. Her eyes had truly turned to ice. "Rathen, we have a job to do. After everything, we cannot give it up. Whatever or whoever Garon is, whether that's really his name, whether he's working with Salus, Malson or even someone else - none of it changes the fact that Turunda won't move anywhere just because of a crack down its sides!"
"That's what all this is about?"
The three spun around as quick as lightning at the harshly cut voice, sorely prepared this time with loose fingers and blades. But the dark figure standing tall in the doorway wore a familiar face. Though that didn't make him welcome.
"He really is quite mad."
"Eizariin?!" Anthis broke away from the others and rushed towards him with a relieved grin, tucking his knife away in haste to eagerly shake the old elf's hand. The fire caught the shine of black-blue hair, half loosely gathered, the rest flowing free, and the lively curiosity in his pastel eyes that seemed to be a part of his natural expression. His robes, however, remained as grand as those he wore upon his first interruption on the mist-shrouded island four months ago.
Charily, Rathen and Eyila lowered their hands as the two historians greeted one another enthusiastically. "Can he do it?" Rathen interrupted, extending the elf's own absent discourtesy. "Is it really possible that he could move Turunda away from the rest of Arasiin?"
"If he's responsible for the destruction of your borders, then I wouldn't want to float too many raaohz on the idea that he can't." He approached, nodding and smiling in recognition of the others, though he peered curiously at Aria who stared wide-eyed from around the horses. "It's no mean feat."
"Which means we must stop him," Eyila concluded needlessly and quite for Rathen's benefit.
"That it does."
"Are you here to help us?"
"Certainly, Anthis
," he smiled, but a fraction of his good humour slipped away as he looked back towards Rathen. "But first, I'd rather like to know just how all this has been able to happen. You destroyed Khryu'vahz, so I assumed you found the Zi'veyn. But now it's snowing in August."
"I can't say I appreciate your tone," Rathen replied loftily.
"This was Salus's doing," Anthis explained in his place. "The Zi'veyn didn't go as far as we thought it would, it only silences the magic, it doesn't remove it."
"...Ah."
"...What do you mean, 'ah'?"
"Well I'm not exactly an expert on the thing," he replied with an evasive smile, "but even I thought it would be the perfect solution..."
"That's still an underwhelming reaction."
"You said you could help us?" Anthis asked, preventing any more of Rathen's dry remarks, and the old elf's geniality hesitantly returned.
"I can - but I warn you, I also can't interfere. If the others detect me, I'll be punished. And I rather prefer my hands this way up. I'm only here to put right my peers' own meddling." He began gesturing towards Rathen, waving his hand towards his right arm, but the mage stepped backwards instead. Eizariin tutted and rolled his eyes. His harsh elven voice became abruptly more pertinent. "Do behave, young man."
Suddenly Rathen's coat began to remove itself from his arm, and his sleeve rolled itself up as Eizariin stepped forwards to examine the silver cuff clamped about his bicep. "The magic is extremely dangerous right now," he informed them as he began probing the cuff, and Rathen watched with open concern while the elf's peculiar magic began to weave its way through the metal, "and my people still refuse to accept responsibility. And, as I said, I cannot interfere. Not here, anyway. But your 'Salus' fellow has thrown Turunda and outlying regions into elemental and magical chaos. His magic is strong to manage such a thing, and completing the linkage has been like tying a knot in red-hot steel. You will not be able to undo it."
"Then what can we do?" Eyila asked pointedly, and frowned at Eizariin's simple, handsome smile.
"Melt the steel."
"Is that possible?"
"Most things are, when magic is involved." He looked up from the cuff when Rathen started towards something behind him, and turned to find Aria moving tentatively into view. She froze when all eyes snapped onto her. Eizariin smiled again, then glanced around at the rest. "There are fewer of you. The red-haired girl--"
