Crown of Crystal Flame

by C. L. Wilson

  A Tairen Soul’s first instinct when threatened was to attack, to kill to protect the pride. Even now, he could feel his tairen Eras hissing, growling, unsheathing his claws in preparation for attack. Tairen did not trouble themselves with morality. To them, there was only survival or death. So when a threat arose, they eliminated it—swiftly and conclusively. There was no word in tairen speech for remorse, nor any word for mercy. There was only strength and weakness, predator and prey, survival or death.

  But as Rain looked out over the turbulent—and growing—knot of attackers who wore the faces of his allies, he thought of Cann, standing on the ramparts of Kreppes, Elfbow drawn and aimed at Rain, trying to kill him.

  A tairen’s first instinct might be to kill, but Rain was more than tairen—and these people were friends. Some of them were Fey, blade brothers. No matter how fiercely his tairen half urged him to scorch and shred them, his Fey half rebelled at the thought.

  The five bond-threads he shared with Ellysetta warmed with golden brightness, infusing him with warmth. Her voice, as calming as a tranquil summer sea, washed over him in soft waves.

  «Las, shei’tan. Ke sha eva ku.» I am with you.

  He closed his eyes, absorbing her Light, drawing her gentleness into his soul and knitting her proffered strength into the ragged threads of his self-control. When he was calm once more, he told her what was happening.

  «Gaelen believes it’s an ensorcelment that’s somehow being passed like a contagion,» she told him. « Bring some of the affected to me. If we can figure out how the spell is controlling them, we may be able to counteract it.»

  Rain hesitated. They didn’t know what this evil was or how it spread, and he was loath to let a single possessed combatant within a tairen-length of Ellysetta.

  His hesitation must have given him away, but Ellysetta wouldn’t permit his over protectiveness. «Rain, we don’t have a choice. If I can’t figure out what this is and how to stop it, the Eld will just use it against us again and again.»

  «One,» he capitulated with ill grace. «One only. Under heavy guard the entire time and slain at the first hint of danger to you. And don’t bother trying to negotiate. It’s that or nothing. I won’t risk you, shei’tani.»

  «Very well,» came her grudging agreement. «Send me your one… but hurry. We’re getting more reports from elsewhere in the camp. The contagion is spreading.»

  “My Lord Feyreisen?” Bonn prodded. “What are your orders?”

  Rain opened his eyes. “We will try to save as many as we can,” he told the Celierian. On the new Warrior’s Path, he gave the command, «Fey, do whatever you must to immobilize them, but don’t kill them unless you have no other choice. And shield yourselves. Until we know what this spell is and how it is passed, do everything you can to minimize your risk of being affected.»

  A moment later, the weaves spun out like ropes of lightning, vivid green and lavender and silvery white, shining bright in the darkness of the night.

  Weaving enemies unconscious was much easier when those enemies did not include Fey warriors bombarding you with red Fey’cha and countering your weaves as quickly as you could spin them… especially when you were trying not to kill the ones thwarting you.

  In the end, Rain sent three quintets after each ensorcelled Fey, one to stop his weaves, one to stop his weapons, and the last to render him unconscious. Once all the ensorcelled Fey were contained, the lu’tan made quick work of immobilizing the mortals.

  “Careful, Fey!” he called, as warriors rushed towards the mass of limp bodies. “Don’t touch them. Whatever this is, we don’t know how it’s spread. Use weaves only to bind and move them.”

  Turning back to Bonn, he said, “Can you point out one of the ensorcelled men who you know is not Mage-Marked? The Feyreisa is going to try to counter the spell that has addled their minds, but I won’t take the chance of sending a Mage-claimed to her.”

  As the Fey lined the still-living magic-bound soldiers on the ground, Bonn searched through the rows of unconscious warriors until he came across a face he recognized. “This one. He’s one of Avis’s men. He was one of the first vel Serranis checked.”

  “Kabei. Take him to the Feyreisa.” Rain gestured to the Fey, who hoisted the man onto an Earth-weave stretcher and carted him off the field towards the shining dome of magic where Ellysetta waited.

  “What shall we do with the wounded, Feyreisen?” the Fey commander asked.

  “Have the Fey do what they can to keep them alive, but don’t send any more of them to the Feyreisa until they’re free of this ensorcelment.”

  Rain regarded the carnage grimly. Hundreds lay dead and dying. Hundreds more were useless to the allies until a cure could be found. The Eld could not have devised a more effective attack. Using the allies’ own men against each other had dealt twice the damage of any conventional attack—and all without the loss of a single Eld life.

  He bent over one of the fallen to bind his limbs and seal the deep slice in his side. The puddle of blood that had gathered beneath his fallen form shone like black oil in the waning moonlight. A faint, exotic scent made Rain’s nostrils twitch.

  “Do you smell that?” he asked the Fey closest to him.

  “What?”

  “That smell… a sweet spice… very faint.” Rain lowered his head closer to the unconscious Celierian.

  On the ramparts of Kreppes, an armored man lowered a small brass spyglass and turned to hurry down the stone steps to the yard below. Though he wore the colors of the King’s Army, the pallid skin that had never seen daylight belonged to no Celierian. The man crossed the yard and ducked into the common room of the large barracks, where a blue-robed Primage and a trio of red-robed Sulimages stood waiting.

  The soldier bowed to the Mages. “The Fey have contained the infected, master. They have rendered them unconscious and are binding them now.”

  The Primage accepted the news without expression and waited for the soldier to bow again and exit before he turned to the Sulimages. “You know what to do.”

  The dome of magic surrounding Ellysetta and the allies’ command center parted to admit the Fey carrying the unconscious body of the ensorcelled Celierian. They deposited the man on one of the empty tables set up for the wounded. Unwilling to leave Ellysetta’s safety to anyone else, her primary quintet closed around her protectively, and their magic swirled around them and her in visible auras.

  When she started to reach for the bound man, Gaelen blocked her. “You mustn’t touch him. We don’t know what this is or how it’s passed,” he said.

  She stifled a sigh. “Give me a little credit, Gaelen. I wasn’t planning to touch him, but I can’t examine him from halfway across the room.”

  Unchastened, Gaelen reluctantly stepped aside.

  Ellysetta moved closer and began to examine the unconscious man carefully. He was soaked in blood, both his own from numerous deep cuts as well as splatters that clearly had come from other donors. Gaelen checked him for Mage Marks, just to be on the safe side, before Ellysetta spun protective weaves around her hands and began checking the man’s body for clues as to what had taken over his mind.

  “We’ve already ruled out Azrahn and Spirit,” she said as she worked. “So how else could a spell of this sort be invoked? “

  “Potions or totems are the usual vehicles,” Rijonn said.

  “If it’s a potion, it was most likely added to their food or drink,” Tajik suggested.

  “But different areas of the camp were affected at the same time,” Bel said. “Which means someone would have had to slip the potion into all the cookpots—and if they did that, why would only some of us be affected? “

  “If the spell is tied to a totem, the totems could have been hidden in various parts of the camp,” Gil said. “The spell could affect anyone within a specific distance of the totem.”

  “If that were the case, Rain and the others would have been affected when they got near it,” Ellysetta said.

  “We know
the spell affected different areas of the camp, which means there were multiple points of origin, but not all occurred at the same time. Whatever it is affects Fey and Celierian alike, and it spreads.”

  “It could be darts,” Gil suggested. “Delivered by finger-bow, wristbow, or even blowpipes. They’re tiny enough to be easily missed, and could deliver a potion or poison directly into the blood.”

  “Or insect stings,” Rijonn added in his rumbling voice. “I remember Lord Shan telling us once about a Feraz witch who used an army of buzzflies to attack her enemies.”

  “I haven’t heard anyone talking about darts or swarms of insects,” Gaelen said, “so I think we can safely rule those out.”

  “It burns,” Bel exclaimed. Everyone turned to look at him. “When I was scanning their thoughts, looking for what was controlling them, I heard a couple of Celierians thinking about something burning them. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I thought the Fire masters had spun a weave on them.”

  “Burns how? Their eyes, their throats—ah!” Ellysetta gasped as a sudden chill, like the poisonous bite of an ice spider, raced up her spine. Her legs went weak, and she had to grab the edges of the table to keep from falling.

  “What is it?” Gaelen asked with quiet urgency. “Is it the poison?”

  Before Ellysetta could gather her wits enough to respond, a cry rang out across the Warrior’s Path.

  «Portals opening! Fey! Bote’cha!»

  Rain leapt to his feet, away from the bodies of the unconscious, as gaping black maws opened up across the encampment. Barrages of sel’dor and Mage Fire poured out of the openings, clearing a path before brightly colored fezaros leapt out of the Well on the backs of their tawny zaretas, swinging not swords but strange pierced pots on long chains.

  Fey’cha flew. Most of the fezaros and their fierce cats fell quickly, but not before dozens of Fey and Celierians around them went strangely still, then turned on their brethren, crying, “Save the king!” and “For Celieria and King Dorian!”

  «It’s a potion of some kind,» Rain spun the news to Ellysetta and her quintet as his blades flew. «Feraz are dispersing it, so their witches are most likely the makers. The potion appears to possess whomever it touches on contact.»

  More fezaros leapt through the openings, now protected by growing rings of ensorcelled allies. And behind them, staying to the center of the growing rings, came black-armored Elden archers, and blue-and red-robed Mages. Sel’dor arrows, invisible against the night sky, rained down upon the allies, and everywhere they fell, cries of “Save the king!” soon erupted. Possessed Fey turned on the unconscious infected warriors and began unweaving their bindings. Within scant chimes, the enemy numbers had mushroomed.

  “Fey! Five-fold weaves! Get those portals closed and take those flaming archers out! Don’t let the arrows strike you!” Rain leapt into the air, Changing and diving for the closest portal. Though he hadn’t wanted to fire the field when the only enemy was ensorcelled friends, now that the Mages had made an appearance, it was a different story.

  Tairen fire erupted from his muzzle, blasting a knot of Mages and searing the opening to the Well. The Mages threw up protective weaves to save themselves, but the magic of Rain’s flame enveloped the archers around them. Lit up like candle lamps and screaming in mindless agony, the archers ran in frantic circles until they dropped. The gaping black maw of the Well winked shut.

  Roaring in triumph, he dove after a second knot of enemies.

  “I’m fine,” Ellysetta assured her quintet who had dragged her away from the healing table and her bespelled patient.

  “Ellysetta.” Gaelen’s voice was stern, but his eyes held only concern. The other four warriors of her quintet straightened from their attack stance and sheathed their bare red Fey’cha steel, but like Gaelen, their level of tension remained high.

  “Nei, really. Whatever it was, it’s already gone. I’m fine.” It was true. The ice-spider sensation had receded almost as rapidly as it had come. “It wasn’t the spell. The same thing used to happen to me in Celieria City all the time. Bel can tell you.”

  “She’s right,” Bel confirmed. “We never found out what it was or where it came from, but it never seemed to hurt her.” “I don’t like it,” Gaelen said.

  Abruptly irritated, Ellysetta scowled at him, and snapped, “I don’t either, but it’s the least of our worries at the moment. Our brothers are killing each other. Whatever this Feraz potion is, I need to figure out how to cure it. That’s what’s important.”

  Gaelen instantly clamped his mouth shut, and Ellysetta turned her attention back to the ensorcelled man on her table.

  Half a field away from the blazing hundred-fold weaves of the healing tents, Rowan vel Arquinas bared his teeth in a feral snarl. His Fey’cha flew like lightning. Scores of men had already fallen to his blades. Scores more yet would… and all of them clad in the colors of Great House Sebourne.

  In Rowan’s mind, each man that gasped and fell with a shudder as tairen venom shut down his body wore Colum diSebourne’s face. He killed the arrogant, murdering rultshart again and again and again, as he had not done when it would have mattered, when it would have saved his brother and Talisa.

  The memory of Adrial and the sound of his mother’s voice echoed in his mind, driving him with whips of Fire. You must always look out for your brother, Rowan. Protect him. But he had failed, and Adrial had died. And despite Ellysetta’s many kindnesses and her shared love and calming weaves, Rowan’s heart was a desert, cracked with pain and guilt and shattering grief.

  He channeled that grief into Rage. All he lived for was vengeance. To kill every Sebourne, as he’d not been able to kill the one he hated most. He hated them even more than he hated the Mages. He fed on that hate, gorged on it, thrived on it.

  His red Fey’cha flew, finding target after target. And when his Fey’cha harnesses were empty, he simply spoke his return word—which called each blade back to its sheath in pristine condition—and began again.

  He didn’t even have to foul his hands with Sebourne blood.

  * * *

  Rain strafed the encampment, looking for knots of Mages and Eld, burning them where he could. Scores of fezaros were rampaging through the rows of tents, swinging their pots of mind-altering poison. Mages, secured in their protective rings of archers, sent globes of Mage Fire soaring across the possessed into the ranks of the uninfected.

  Sel’dor burned in his chest and wings. He’d developed a workable initial pattern of attack—dive for the knot of Mages, Change to avoid the barrage of arrows, then Change back to Fire the group—but they’d adapted. Now arrows and Mage Fire filled the air in a constant barrage. He’d given up the dodge-by-Changing technique and started taking the flights of arrows and Mage Fire head-on. Tairen fire consumed the bulk of what came at him, but he still took a few good hits.

  One of the Water masters or the Celierians had opened the aqueducts to let the waters of the Heras pour into the field. The battlefield became a swamp of mud and blood. Worse, whatever the Feraz potion was, the waters of the Heras did not neutralize it. Instead, the madness seemed to be spreading more quickly.

  «Rainier-Eras!» In urgent tones, Steli sang an image of a bowcannon bolt racing at him from behind.

  Rain tucked his wings and rolled right just as the bolt whooshed past. His spine curved, wings spread, and he emerged from the banking roll to wheel sharply about. Tairen eyes scanned the battlefield, where several bowcannon were emerging from portals across the field.

  The Eld were getting down to business now. They’d brought in the artillery.

  Feral magic flared in Rain’s body and he bared his fangs in a savage growl. Time for killing.

  Why couldn’t she figure this out?

  As Ellysetta worked on the body of the unconscious, ensor-celled man, she wished Gaelen’s sister Marissya were here. A powerful shei’dalin, with over a thousand years of healing—and combating enemy poisons and potions—Marissya would have a much
better idea of what to do than Ellysetta did.

  The bulk of Ellysetta’s training had come from those few short months with Venarra v’En Eilan in the Fading Lands, and none of what they’d covered included how potions worked—or how any non-Fey magic worked, for that matter. Give her a warrior suffering cuts, broken bones, bruises, even mortal wounds and missing limbs, and she could knit his broken body back together. Give her a dying warrior whose soul was halfway to the Veil, and she could hold him to the Light and call him back to the world of the living.

  But this Feraz potion magic… she didn’t understand it. And she didn’t have the first clue how to stop it. She’d already done everything she knew how to do. Rain said the potion infected the person on contact, but a detailed scan of her test subject’s body revealed no traces of any suspicious liquid on his skin. Not, of course, that she would have been able to isolate it even if there was such a thing. The man was covered in blood and cuts and bruises and abrasions. His body looked like it had been used as a battering ram.

  She’d spun a weave of Water and Air to wash and dry his skin, hoping that removal of the battle grime might shed some light on his condition, but to no avail. Desperate, she sent a probing weave of pure shei’dalin’s love into his body, healing everything she could find wrong with him, but when her quintet lifted their sedation weave, the man went wild.

  Concentrating was becoming more difficult. The battle was worsening, and despite the efforts of her lu’tan, the pain of the wounded and the dying was trickling through their shields—as was Rain’s increasing battle Rage. Her head was aching, and her skin felt tight, making her short-tempered and snappish. She wove what peace she could on Rain while she worked, but that made it even harder to focus.

  All the while, she was intensely aware that, with each passing moment, more Fey and Celierians fell to the Feraz potion or a possessed ally’s blade. And though no one would come right out and say it, everyone was looking to her for answers when she had none to give. She was terrified she was going to fail, and thousands would die because she couldn’t figure out a way to save them.