The Sorcerer Knight

by Robert Ryan

  After lunch, he and Ferla went out back again and got barrels ready for brining meat. They had just enough salt for the task, but they would be glad if the trader had more. It would be a long winter here in the valley, and they would need to work hard on building up a supply of food to see them through it.

  When that was done, their training with Aranloth commenced again. They went to their usual spot by the lake, and there the lòhren bade them sit down facing the still waters.

  He led them through the breathing training as he always did, and it was becoming more familiar to Faran. He felt as if he could begin to slow the frantic pace of the world down, and to capture some of that tranquility even during the sparring sessions that followed.

  When they were done with the breathing, Aranloth summoned the illusion of a warrior as he often did. This man was tall and thin, and he had long red hair and wiry limbs full of speed and unexpected strength. But he did not have the skill of the others Aranloth had conjured.

  Faran and Ferla sparred him by turns. That sparring turned into genuine-seeming fights as the session went on. But both of them beat him. He was fast and strong, but he left openings that they could take advantage of.

  As they continued, Aranloth would call out instructions. He would tell them to keep their blades higher, and when to attack and when to defend. He would cause the red-haired warrior to attack them again and again in a certain fashion so they could practice the appropriate counter move.

  Many of the movements they used were the same as the warrior’s, and Aranloth began giving names to them that neither Faran nor Ferla had heard before. Hawk Folds its Wings. Cherry Blossom Falls from the Tree. Tempest Blows the Dust.

  Faran found the names poetic, but often he also realized the names captured some essence of the move that was worthy of deep thought. And as always, Ferla was more graceful and skilled in executing them.

  When they were done, Faran was feeling good. He watched as Aranloth casually gestured and the red-haired warrior faded from view.

  “He wasn’t as good as the other illusions you’ve conjured for us.”

  Aranloth stood from where he sat on one of the log seats.

  “I try to give you variety. It’s not good training to do the same thing all the time, and you were due for an easy win. But you should know this. In life, that man died in his first battle. You will have to do better than him. Or at least be luckier.”

  16. Words Have Power

  The next morning they ate well. It was Aranloth’s turn to cook, and he grilled sliced venison over a rack on the hearth. The meat could do with more aging to tenderize it, but Faran still thought it a feast. It had been a while since he had eaten fresh meat, and he especially liked the lean and strong flavor of venison.

  It was just after dawn, and Jareck said he would be on his way soon. Early morning was the best time to travel, and once he had covered several miles he would feel good for the rest of the day.

  But before the old man left, he opened up the back of his covered wagon. Faran was amazed at the amount of things he had stored in there. Tools and cloth and jewelry were everywhere, but there were also preserved foods and spices and all manner of strange items. He seemed able to carry more in that one wagon than had been in every cottage in Dromdruin.

  He passed Faran several large sacks of salt. It would be enough to get them through the winter. To Aranloth though, he gave many tiny bags. They were vegetable seeds, and that would prove as useful as meat over time. The soil of the valley was fertile, and there was good water from the well and the lake. And it seemed as though a large area at the back of the cabin had been cultivated to a garden before. Vegetables were slow to grow, but they were far more reliable than hunting. At least, they would be with the good access to water they had.

  Then Faran realized he would likely be the one to have to dig the garden, and he was less pleased. Aranloth would probably tell him it was good training for a warrior and that it built muscle.

  Ferla and Kareste brought the trader’s two horses out from the lean-to stable at the side of the shed, and they helped Jareck hitch them to the wagon. Then they said their goodbyes and the old man managed to whisper some private advice into his ear.

  “Be friendly to all, but trust few.”

  It was good advice, and it seemed that the words were spoken with true knowledge behind them. Jareck was an old man, and he had traveled widely and seen many things. Then suddenly he was up in the wide driver’s seat. He held the reins and loosed the break.

  “Whoa!” the old man cried. “Off Strider! Off Sprinter!” The wagon lurched into motion, the two horses straining to pull it forward until it gained momentum and rolled easily.

  They watched him for a good while as he skirted the lake and then moved northward up the side of the valley. Faran hoped he took Aranloth’s advice and avoided even the outskirts of Faladir.

  “We have meat,” Aranloth said. “Now we can have vegetables too.” He held up the many small bags of seeds Jareck had given him. “But what we don’t have, yet, is a garden.”

  To Faran’s surprise, this was a task Aranloth had them all work at, including himself, though he was limited in what he could do with one arm in a sling. There were various shovels, hoes and digging forks in the shed, and he set to turning over the old garden.

  The work went quickly, for the soil was a good loam and had been dug before. In a short period they had it cultivated and raised into long beds. Then Aranloth planted a wide variety of seeds, knowing just by the looks of them what vegetables they were, and he marked the site of the plantings with small twigs.

  He straightened up and rubbed his hands free of dirt after the last was planted.

  “Time to water,” he told them. But both he and Kareste went over to sit on a bench by the side of the garden.

  “Looks like it’s up to us,” Faran muttered to Ferla.

  She winked at him. “If you haul the water up, I’ll get it on the garden.”

  For a good while after that Faran worked hard, bringing the water up from the well and pouring it into a trough made from a hollowed-out log. Ferla used her own bucket to transfer it from the trough onto the garden.

  They were allowed no rest when they were done though. Aranloth took them over by the lake to their usual spot, and he led them through the breathing ritual again.

  But this time he did something different. “Words have power,” he said. “All words do, but the older the language spoken, and the greater the will of the speaker, the more power they have. Some words can act as a spur for magic.”

  Aranloth paused then, allowing them to think on this. But he continued soon after, his voice dropping low.

  “Water is an example. That is your word for it, but eons before your ancestors traveled east and met the Halathrin, there was another word. Halakness. I want you to say that word, and feel the weight of it in your mind. Does it not give you a feeling of water itself? Does the word not roll and shift in your mind, just like water itself?”

  They both repeated the word several times. Faran thought he knew what the old man meant. The word was the thing. Halakness was water.

  “Now,” the lòhren continued. “Close your eyes. Keep your breathing deep and slow. Reach out with your mind and feel the essence of the lake nearby. It is made of water. Feel how the light of the sun hits its surface. Sense how it is warm there, but deep below it is cold. Sense how it moves and shifts. Feel the weight of it lying against the earth, and the wetness of it. It is Halakness. And you are one with it.”

  Faran felt the world come alive as the old man spoke. He felt not just the water, but the earth and the light and the air as well.

  “There are forces in the world,” Aranloth said. “Forces that move and substance it. In the beginning, there was only ùhrengai – the primordial power. But from this, two aspects developed. Lòhrengai and elùgai.”

  This Faran knew. Lòhrens used the force of lòhrengai while elùgroths that of elùgai. One was considered light
and the other dark.

  Aranloth’s voice became a whisper. “Keep thinking of the lake. You will feel something more in a moment. My mind will touch yours. Do not be afraid.”

  Faran did as he was told. He focused on the lake, and he found that the breathing exercise helped here. It enabled him to concentrate on one thing alone.

  But his concentration wavered. Suddenly he felt Aranloth’s mind slide over his own. It was like a glove going over a hand. It seemed to fit and it was comfortable, but it was disturbing at the same time.

  Faran’s focus on the lake wavered. Then it came back with incredible force. Suddenly nothing existed in the world but the lake, and he seemed to feel every drop as it moved and shifted in the great multitude of itself. He sensed also the two aspects of it. Deep below, where it was cold and dead, was elùgai. Up above, near the surface, where the light warmed it and the air touched it, was lòhrengai.

  Halakness, Aranloth chanted. And Faran chanted it too. Although both seemed one. But he also sensed Ferla, and heard her voice also like a whisper in his mind.

  Halakness. Their joined minds reached out and touched the lake. Halakness. The water seethed and shifted, towering up in a wave. Then the will of the lòhren let it go and withdrew.

  Faran knew in that moment that Aranloth had sped their training by years. Through him, they had perceived a different world, and one that they could not have journeyed to on their own save by massive effort and time. But also, he sensed the urgency that drove the old man to do it. Everything they did now was for a purpose, and their skills would be tested before they were ready, no matter how well they trained.

  17. A Thirst for Knowledge

  Spring moved on to summer in the valley, and the broadleaf trees were dark with leaves while the grass sprang tall in the fields.

  It grew quite hot during the days, and even the nights were warm. There were no windows in the back of the cabin where the bedrooms were positioned, and the room Faran shared with Ferla was hot and stuffy. Often, they sat together on one of the various benches or log seats outside well into the evening until it cooled down.

  The garden out back prospered, and vegetables thrived in the good conditions. This was due to the soil, but mostly to the water applied to them frequently from the well.

  Sometimes Aranloth, his broken arm from the battle in the tombs now healed, had them walk to the lake with buckets in order to retrieve water from the garden. Then he bade them do it running. This built stamina and balance he said, for if they spilled too much water he sent them back to refill again.

  Nor was that the only running. A warrior might be called upon to fight for hours, he told them. And he set them destinations and timed them with a sandglass from the cabin. He expected an improvement every week.

  Sometimes those runs were sprints. Here, Faran outpaced Ferla. But when Aranloth told them to run to the dead oak at the north crest of the valley, or the even longer distance to the beehive on the western rim, Ferla beat him home.

  Aranloth did not limit their exercise regime to running alone. He showed them various types of squats, two and one legged, to build lower body strength. For the upper body, he showed them the ancient hedgehog pushup, as he called it, with the hands and elbows close together and the body arcing down and then up. These Faran found hard, and once again Ferla beat him at that.

  But when it came to lifting large rocks from the ground and hurling them with both hands, Faran excelled there. This, the lòhren told them, trained all the muscles of the body to work in unison. For a warrior, he insisted, did not rely on strength of arm to wield a sword. It was the body that provided the strength, and the arm was an extension of that. So too, the sword was an extension of the arm.

  Yet it was the sword forms that were the pinnacle of their physical training. Sometimes Aranloth would summon the illusion of the greatest warriors, not to spar, but just to demonstrate techniques. When he did this, he would have them stand behind the illusion and copy their movements.

  Sometimes he did this slowly. Sometimes with speed they could not follow, but at least then they saw what was possible and what their goal was.

  Brand was his favorite to follow. The man moved with a grace and intensity that was magical. Yet it was not magic but practiced skill, and that gave Faran hope that one day he could approach such attainment himself, if he only trained hard enough.

  And copying the movements of these legends, both he and Ferla got better. Aranloth told them the names of new forms, and there were many of these. Nor did each of their summoned demonstrators perform the same movements in an identical fashion.

  “They have made the move their own,” Aranloth had told them. “These sword forms are not immutable. If your reach is longer or shorter, if you prefer a move for defense or for attack, if you are wide across the shoulders or narrower, these and many other things will change the movements slightly. Over time, you too will make these alterations as you discover and test the limits of your body.”

  Sometimes, there was no summoned illusion at all. Aranloth would call the names of sword forms in quick succession, and they would play them out at full speed as though in combat.

  “Clouds Drift Across the Moon!” he would call. “Now Wolf in Tall Grass!” and on it went, one form blending into another.

  And as the forms blended into one another, so too did the days of training blend into months. Faran grew stronger and fitter. His skill in body and mind ever increased.

  It seemed to him that there were no limits to knowledge, and though he progressed more slowly than Ferla, still he moved ahead. And though he loved the physical training, it was the mental aspect that he liked the most. The sharpening of his will and the slow growth of magic that Aranloth had woken in him.

  In this he excelled and outpaced Ferla just as she outpaced him with swordplay. But they each learned to calm their mind and summon magic with the aid of the words of power. Of those, Aranloth taught them many.

  There were times that Faran knew he was far, far behind the training of his enemies who were knights. But he knew also that Aranloth did not hold back his knowledge. He taught when they were able to learn, and he enhanced their learning by overlaying his mind on theirs. This, he told them, was not a thing that he had ever done with the knights. It was the way of lòhrens instead, and Faran wondered if the old man taught them more magic than ever he had with the knights. He hoped so, for the disadvantage of time must be made up somehow.

  One afternoon, as the long shadows from the trees up along the west ridge ran down the slopes, Aranloth had them spar each other. This they had done before, but never when one was blindfolded and the other not.

  Ferla wore the blindfold, and though they both wore their armor, for this exercise they used only wooden practice swords.

  What was strange to Faran was how often Ferla anticipated his moves and blocked a strike. She did not always do so, but it happened far more often than he thought chance should allow.

  “Listen to the sound of his stepping,” Aranloth had advised. Shortly after he instructed her to listen to her opponent’s breathing. A sudden intake of breath might indicate an attack.

  Faran knew all this was true, but he felt there was more going on. And then he had it. Ferla was also able to anticipate him because she knew what sword forms he favored and when he might most be inclined to use them.

  This got him thinking. As always, Aranloth’s training was two sided. It was not just for Ferla’s benefit, but his own. If she could anticipate his moves to some degree when blindfolded, how much more so if she were not? Without knowing it, he followed patterns. And a skilled opponent could test and pry and discover those patterns in a fight. That was knowledge that might make the difference between life and death.

  So it was that he understood unpredictability was an asset. Not just in a sword fight, but in any sort of conflict. From a blow to blow fight right through to the management of a military campaign involving multiple armies, the insight applied. Seek to discern you
r opponent’s patterns, and seek to disrupt your own. Be intelligently erratic.

  Their training continued as the weeks turned to months and high summer came and began to turn to the tail end of the year. Nuts and berries were in abundance, and the leaves of the trees lost their deep green hue and began to change.

  It was Faran’s favorite time of year. It was an ending that promised a new beginning to come. The cooler nights were soothing, and the still warm noontides comforting. It was a time to sit by the hearth and talk late into the night, and a time to be up early to feel the bite of upcoming winter snap at the air.

  And always, no matter the season or the tasks of the day, their training continued apace.

  Faran was happy here. Perhaps he was even happier here than he had been in Dromdruin. Aranloth was a hard teacher, but otherwise he was a kindly old man full of wisdom. Kareste did not involve herself in their training, but her loyalty to Aranloth was clear and she had risked her life for all of them. Her personality was the opposite of Aranloth’s, and he enjoyed the direct way she had of speaking.

  Then there was Ferla. He had been close to her in Dromdruin, but he was far closer now. Fate had bonded them together. He liked that closeness. He enjoyed it. And he wondered if she still thought of him like a younger brother. For though she acted to him like an older sister, he did not think that way about her at all.

  There were times when he felt guilty though. How could he be happy? Dromdruin had fallen to swords and fire, and the men who did that, and the king who ordered it, walked free over the earth. But spilled blood called for justice, and murder for retribution. And he and Ferla were all that remembered Dromdruin, or cared, or that were in a position to seek that justice.

  Or to try to seek justice, for how did one try to do that against a king, his knights, and the resources of a realm at their disposal?