by Sean Hinn
A pleasant mystery, he decided. But there were more important mysteries to be revealed on this day, not the least of which was the degree of power he might face should his conversation with Mila go as expected. Sartean had decided he would not force a confrontation; perhaps she would see reason. Perhaps she had already formed a plan to manage the phenarril crisis. Perhaps… but not likely. She had not written her master. She had not informed him of the collapse of the containment fields, a fact Sartean had confirmed through reports the previous day. Either she cowered in fear or had fled, anticipating his wrathful arrival (unlikely); she had worked out a solution but decided to leave Sartean in the dark (nonsensical); or she planned to make a stand against the wizard.
Were it anyone else, he would have dismissed the third possibility out of hand. But Mila Felsin was unique, and she knew it. Those possessing unique gifts would always test their limits; it was a fact of human nature Sartean had seen play out at Kerhlia for decades. Mila will test herself, he believed, and to do so, she will need to test herself against me, for none other could challenge her. But he remained optimistic. While unlikely, the possibility remained that the woman would recognize she was outmatched, and submit to her master’s will. Such was the preferred outcome, to be sure, for Sartean wished to keep to the current course if at all possible. Replacing Mila would be difficult, and thus if he were forced to destroy her, he would necessarily find himself in a precarious position upon his return to Mor. So, Sartean had decided, he would not return to Mor, not until he had solved the phenarril problem himself. The delay would prove an annoyance to King Halsen, but no more than that. Halsen needed Sartean, and if the day should ever come that the vile man felt otherwise, Sartean would deal with him in the same manner in which he might soon deal with Mila Felsin.
The wizard left his library and descended the stairs to the grand foyer. He rarely made the descent on foot, but this day he wished to walk the halls of his tower, to take in its grandeur, to remind himself that only one such as he, one who commanded the very elements, could ever possess such majesty. When he reached the bottom of the stair, an Incantor approached.
“Master. I was just coming to see you,” the man said.
“I know. And you wish to tell me about the commotion at the palace.”
The Incantor blinked. “Ah, well. Yes.”
“And you have. Carry on.”
Sartean continued walking without breaking his stride, leaving the perplexed Incantor gaping. The wizard smiled as he visualized the scene that would play out at the palace. Three birds, he imagined. Two, at least. A flash of thought from the wizard opened the enormous iron doors of Kehrlia, and Sartean emerged onto the steps of the great tower. He glanced briefly north and east, to the cataclysmic lightning storm at the mouth of the great volcano Fang. The wizard could not have imagined a more fitting presage to the day.
Sartean D’Avers withdrew the emerald from his cloak and vanished.
XXXXII: THE FARMLANDS
Earl sat at Mila’s desk, absently fondling the small brilliant gems. He had never been so bored. Mila, Sienni, and Yano lay in wait in a tent just beyond the tree line on the southern side of the farmhouse, as they had been doing for three consecutive days. Occasionally Mila would come visit, seeing if the wagon loader needed anything, but he never did. There was plenty of food and water, and Mila had left him several books to read. Earl was not the best reader, but he took the quiet opportunity to practice. The problem was, all the books were about magic, and quite technical. As fascinating as they might have been to Mila, Earl found them equal parts terrifying and nonsensical.
Magic. Earl shook his head. Who woulda ever thought up such a thing.
Earl did not so much despise magic as he quite simply resented it. The idea that some – but not all – of the people in the world should command such power was, to him, a grave injustice. He had grown up separate from magic; in Mor, there were roughly two classes of people: those who had access to magic, either through their own power or though the retention of those who employed it, and those who did not. Earl’s family belonged to the latter class. Sure, there were subdivisions, but when it came down to it, the wealthy had magic, and the poor did not.
Magic could slay. Magic could wound, or grant one stealth. Most of its uses, to Earl’s mind, were designed to give one person advantage over another. The phenarril operation was a perfect example: the magic of dozens used to enslave and control thousands. More, if Sartean D’Avers were to have his way. Yet for the first time in his life, Earl began to see that magic could also do battle against those who would use it for evil. That being true, Earl could not fault magic itself – clearly, it was the intent of the wielder that determined magic’s potential. He could not shake the idea, however, that the world would be a better place if it simply ceased to exist.
Yeah, but then those with swords will rule those without ’em, he pondered. Perhaps it was just the way of things; some ruled, some didn’t. Some were evil, some were good. Earl was not particularly religious; his parents certainly were, subscribing fiercely to a belief in the Twins. Lor was good; Kal was bad. Lor created; Kal destroyed. Earl could not quite reconcile the idea that two big shiny celestial orbs controlled the fate of humanity, but he could not deny the existence of good and evil. His father used to say one could almost see it on a person, if one looked hard enough. Good people radiated an unmistakable goodness; evil people left a trail of sorrow in their wake. Earl believed it was more complex than that. If he were to take up with a faith, he supposed that he would be more inclined to believe what the elves did: some god, the First Father maybe, long ago breathed life into Tahr, and for the most part, now let the world evolve on its own. Perhaps he rewards those who do good deeds or believe in him. But Earl found flaw with that idea, as well. If a creator cared one way or another about the concepts of good and evil, why allow evil to exist at all?
Earl sighed. The circular argument was one he had contemplated many times throughout his life, and he still found himself lacking a definitive answer. One thing he knew for certain: Sartean was evil, and when he came through that door, Earl had no qualms about doing his part.
But he did not come. Three days, nothing. Not that Earl was eager for his arrival; the three wizards spent their days building what they called “wards,” and as Mila told it, the more time they had to prepare, the more defenses they would have in place when the wizard finally came.
Earl’s task was simple. Keep the gems in his hands at all times. When Sartean entered the room, he was to say a single word. Mila said she had chosen the word because it was one Earl was unlikely to say aloud, even if he mumbled to himself, but Earl recalled the vision. The meaning went far deeper. When he uttered the word, Mila promised, the sapphire he held would whisk him a thousand paces south, to the edge of the tree line that separated the farm from the Morline Way, ensuring he would be protected from harm as the three confronted the wizard. The ruby would do something quite different.
Earl stood, stretching, needing to dispel the tedium. He walked from the office to the living room, intending to begin a bit of exercise. When he crossed the threshold of the door, a tall, thin man in the blackest robes he had ever seen stood passively, facing him.
Earl’s heart skipped a beat.
“Rain.”
~
Mila sprang to her feet.
“Now!”
The three ran from the tree line to the clearing surrounding the farmhouse. Sienni immediately began chanting, weaving her hands gracefully in complex patterns. Yano stood beside her, forming different patterns, reciting different words. Mila centered herself, crouching, gathering her will. Her green eyes glowed intensely, casting brilliant torrents of light over the garden on the rear side of the building.
A pale, shimmering blue radiance enveloped the farmhouse on all sides, diffusing its outline as if a great source of heat lay between it and the casters. Through a window Mila could see the imbued ruby doing its work. Torrents of rushing wate
r roiled and splashed against the glass panes, but none seeped through the cracks; Sienni’s containment fields were holding. Mila listened intently, magically enhancing her senses to a state of uncanny acuteness, for any sound emanating from within the building, any clue as to how Sartean fought against the welling indoor storm. She could make out his heartbeat; she knew he had not escaped, but by its slow, steady tempo she knew: the powerful wizard was scarcely stimulated by the threat.
Mila listened. She watched the water level rise above the window ledge. It would be to his chest now. Still the wizard’s heart pulsed at a steady rhythm. She felt Yano’s wards encircle her, enhancing those they had been layering upon themselves over the course of the past three days. Invisible to the naked eye, the magics were nonetheless powerful, capable of deflecting and absorbing vast degrees of both magical and physical forces. As time wore on and Sartean’s heart continued its unhurried pacing, Mila began to wish they had been granted more time to reinforce their wards.
The walls of the farmhouse vanished into thin air. For the briefest of moments, a transparent facsimile of the building retained its form, thousands of barrels of water suspended as if frozen solid. Through the water Mila could make out her black-robed enemy. He lifted his arms. The water rose with them, forming an immense orb that hovered high above Sartean’s raised hands. Furniture, books, and other debris swirled within the spinning sphere. Sartean turned and met Mila’s gaze. Awed by the sight, she did not react in time.
A crimson stream of light flashed from the wizard’s fingertips, instantly boiling the waters within the churning orb. With barely a gesture, Sartean propelled the steaming mass at the three wizards. Yano’s wards held; the three avoided a scalding death, only to find themselves trapped within a globe of oppressive steam.
Mila looked to Yano and Sienni, witnessing their rising panic as they gasped frantically to inhale air that did not exist. The wards prevented the boiled vapor from blistering their skin and entering their lungs, but did nothing to address their desperate need to breathe. Within moments, Yano fell to his knees. Sienni slapped at the steam as if she were fending off a swarm of insects. Mila struggled to maintain consciousness as she turned to see an arrogant smirk take shape on the dark wizard’s lips.
I cannot die like this.
A fiery loathing for the dark wizard had long ago replaced Mila Felsin’s own heart. That hatred had sustained her throughout her entire life, fueling her single-minded quest for revenge with an otherworldly degree of obsession. The twisted man that stood before her, grinning, had taken everything from her. Her life’s pursuit was to be achieved this day, but within moments, she knew, she would cease to be, and her pursuit of justice would die with her, forgotten, dismissed as easily as the lives of her parents. Mila scowled at Sartean, her green eyes boring into the very soul of her vile foe. The wizard cocked his head, and his smile widened. Mila imagined she saw a flash of recognition in her enemy’s eyes.
“Ah, Mila Felsin. You look so very much like your mother.”
A shard of icy rage pierced the fog of Mila’s waning consciousness. It crystallized within the sorceress, solidifying, forming a concentrated pellet of frost that chilled her veins, froze her very bones, extending its wintry tendrils into every corner of her being. In less than the span of a hummingbird’s heartbeat, the boiling, gaseous cloud that enveloped Mila and her companions hardened into a globe of solid ice.
Mila Felsin screamed.
The globe splintered. A thousand slivers of frozen death hurled themselves at her enemy. The Master of Kehrlia turned away in shock, shielding his eyes within the crook of his elbow. A blizzard of shattered ice exploded violently against the dark wizard’s wards, but Mila did not relent. She drew the frozen fragments back into herself, formed new spears of icy death, and redirected them through her outstretched hands back at the recoiling Incantor with steadily increasing force.
Mila shrieked to her companions. “Help me!”
The two had just regained their feet, desperately sucking air into their burning lungs. Yano knew what was needed. With a flourish of his hands he initiated a chant, drawing invisible particles of moisture from the air, feeding scores of airborne streams of water into Mila’s very pores. The sorceress cried out, the sensation beyond any pain she had ever imagined. But the sight of the cowering wizard fueled her wrath, and as her rage intensified, so did her icy assault.
Sienni also proved her value. As the blizzard bore down on the now-screaming Sartean, she formed a containment field around the streaming column of ice that blasted from Mila’s fingers, compressing the torrent, focusing the icy deluge into a sharp, thin line no wider than a fencer’s blade.
Sartean fell to his knees as he struggled to withstand the bombardment. Were he facing fire, or water, or even a shower of swords, the Master of Kehrlia might have manged to resist the onslaught. But not ice. The cold sapped his strength, dulled his senses, stole his wits. He was not trained to defend against it; a frozen assault such as this was not within the capabilities of any ordinary wizard. The technique existed in no textbook, nor even any legend. The energies required were beyond measure, beyond fathoming.
Mila sensed that his wards were failing. She redoubled her exertion, drawing deeper from the wells of fury that the wizard had awakened within her at the mention of her mother. It was time to finish this.
“Yano, the wards! Attack his wards!”
Yano nodded; Mila had access to sufficient fuel to continue her assault. His hands began to trace a mirrored reverse of the tessellated pattern he had initially drawn to defend the three. This new composition would gradually, inexorably break down the defenses of the Master of Kehrlia, and when they finally splintered, Sartean D’Avers would die.
~
“Trellia!” Shyla called ahead. The Vicaris did not hear.
“Trellia!”
Trellia turned in her saddle and held up a hand. Aria noticed the signal and called the halt to Mikallis. The companions slowed to a stop.
“What is it, Shyla?” asked the Vicaris.
“Something’s wrong.” Wolf whined plaintively.
Lucan voiced his annoyance. “If that blasted mutt has to pee again–”
“I said, something’s wrong!” Shyla gently smoothed Wolf’s fur, but the animal was inconsolable. He shook with alarm.
Trellia could tell the gnome was not exaggerating. “What do you sense, Shyla?”
“He’s upset, Trellia. Real upset.”
“Can you tell why?” Aria asked.
Shyla shook her head. Wolf sang a sorrowful howl. “Canna say fer sure, but he sure as stone ain’t happy ’bout somethin’.”
Mikallis and Trellia exchanged a glance.
The captain spoke. “Nishali would say to trust the instincts of those who possess them.”
Trellia nodded. “She would. And she would be right. Unstrap him, Shyla. Let him lead us.”
J’arn helped Shyla with the leather straps. As soon as they were unfastened, Wolf bounded from Spirit’s back and ran directly north, straight into the woods.
“Ah, for Tahr’s sake, I’m too tired for this,” Lucan complained.
“Mikallis has not slept in three days,” Aria chided. “I do not hear him protest.”
Lucan did not miss a beat. “Mikallis is an elf, and an idiot to boot. I am a man, one that is too tired to go running–”
“We will follow Wolf,” Aria declared, dismounting Sera. The others followed suit.
Lucan shook his head, rolling his eyes as he dismounted Hope.
“I’ll get the horses, I guess,” Lucan said, gathering reins. Aria moved to help him tie the horses.
“I know you are tired, Lucan. But I trust in Trellia.”
Lucan sighed. “Yeah, I do, too. But whatever this is, when it’s over, I’ll be taking a nap.”
Aria nodded. “Fair enough.” She turned to follow the others, who had already rushed into the forest at a run. Mikallis turned and slowed, allowing Aria to approach.
Aria continued to run. “Nor to you.”
Lucan was the last to break through the tree line. When he did, what he saw stopped him in his tracks.
“What in Tahr…”
Wolf huddled beside Shyla, growling, as the six companions took in the scene. Several hundred paces ahead, three wizards stood with their back to the tree line, assaulting a fourth person, dressed in black. The man was cowering, screaming. One of the attackers was casting a continuous stream of… of something… at the victim. The other two seemed to be supporting the assault, though it was not clear how.
“We have to help him,” Lucan stated plainly.
“Easy there, hero,” Trellia warned. “We do not know what this is.”
“It be murder, is what it is!” J’arn pulled the axe from his back.
“These are citizens of Mor,” Mikallis argued. “This is not our affair.”
“What’s that matter?” Shyla asked angrily.
Aria faced the companions. “Stop! All of you. Trellia, what do you think?”
Trellia eyed her princess. “What do you think, Aria?”
