The Silent Blade

by P. S. Power

  One of them, the oldest, though none of them were ancient by any means, growled at them.

  “What is happening here?” He crossed his arms, a naked blade in his right hand, as if to strike them down if he didn’t enjoy the answer provided.

  Anders just nodded, and let Kaidan Sett speak.

  “There was an attack, on Princess Sweyn and her friends! Assassins. Dumo Brolly here and these others used magic to subdue them. All the deaths were Dumo Brolly, I think?” The man went wide eyed, as if that was the wrong thing to say.

  Anders simply agreed.

  “That’s correct. Self-defense. We were set upon by, I think, twenty killers? Blades of the Goddess, I imagine? I... Don’t recognize any of the faces...” He frowned then, looking at the dead, then at one woman who was hanging upside down. “Wait... Can we set this one upright?” He pointed, rudely, at a woman who looked slightly familiar to him. After a fashion. He expected that to fade when she was flipped over, but after thirty seconds, when Eltha made that happen, he got who she was, and rolled his eyes.

  “Liasa? I did apologize for making fun of you, didn’t I? This seems a bit over the top, just for making a seeming of a man you liked. Also... Is he here?”

  The woman, instead of acting angry or like a possessed zealot, made a soft noise, deep in her throat. It seemed mildly amused, rather than upset by the fact that several of her friends were dead. Five of them lacking heads, which was why he’d asked about her friend.

  Her voice was calm. Nearly friendly.

  “Of course not, Prince Anders. He’s in Barquea, where he lives. I was nearly undone by that, but thankfully you didn’t see through my disguise. The Goddess provides.” She held up a small silver bracelet, and then slipped it off, her hands unbound.

  Allowing her face to melt, transforming her completely, into a different woman. One also named Liasa. Ander frowned.

  “Well, that’s not what I expected. How many... Is it just you?”

  There was a head shake, then a soft smile.

  “No, Anders. Did you think you could come from a different land and take over Barquea? That no one would try to stop you? There are hundreds of us, turned against you. These others just wanted that one girl killed, for some reason. Eltha? They didn’t really say why. They gave us charms though, made by their evil spirits, I think, to help us vanish from your thoughts and hide from you. You... I’d mock you for missing that, but you’re actually very good with magic, so that would be an obvious lie.” She went silent then, and shrugged, looking at the others who were there. “Forgive me, Princess Sweyn. You’re standing too close. You... won’t survive this.”

  It took Anders a second, to understand what was taking place. Each previously masked person and three of the bodies of the dead, started to glow. An energetic white coloration, that hummed in the air.

  Anders screamed. It wasn’t a good manly bass at all, but it got the job done.

  “Run!” He didn’t know what was going to happen, but it was kind of clear that something was going to. He took off, calling out as he did it.

  “Selva, Eranth, Tithin, Clee, fla ere ot ere, fen!” Anders waved in the general direction of the people he’d named, and pointed at a far-off spot, that looked to be about a quarter of a mile away. He sought the correct zone with his mind and held it as well as he could in the moment. Then he fell to the ground, not seeing what happened, the whole of the world going black.

  He woke up with two men, one of them not a person he knew at all, just a passer-by, carrying him at a quick walk, trying to get away from whatever was happening. It hadn’t yet.

  Getting his feet on the ground, he tried to run. Not well, but it allowed the group to speed up, one of the Modroc men, Conrath, holding his left arm still.

  “I don’t know what’s happening. They’re all just standing back there, not moving, or trying to escape...”

  They were looking away, when the world went white. It was intense, and painful to see, even with it being at their backs. People screamed in pain, as their flesh seared. Anders and the others with him were far enough away that they could keep going, but from the pain, he was burned all the way down his back. More than that, he was on fire. He couldn’t reach it, directly. They were all smoking, though still on their feet.

  “Clotha nota ro, fen.” He pointed, at everyone around him, the energy leaving his body making him ache as he stretched out mentally, trying to put out the fire on any cloth he could, even in the distance.

  Meaning, for the second time in some few moments, he passed out again. Pressed too near death already that day to do much of anything without a few more moments to recover.

  As he opened his eyes, which were untouched, he found himself naked, lying face down, with a man behind him. That nearly had him jumping up, ready to fight, but the fellow wasn’t touching him, and from the muttering, it was Prince Erold, who had no strange desire for his flesh.

  “I can heal the burns. Some of the... There’s coal on your back, in places. I don’t know what to do about that.” He gasped a bit, but kept going. The pain was already gone, for the most part, at least. Ten minutes later, Anders finally used his own wizardry skills to look at his own back. Then he saw the problem. There were seven patches of differing sizes, on his back and lower legs. The flesh was gone in those spots, healed over, but with thick scars under the black areas.

  The rest was fairly well healed, which was nice.

  “Good work. I can handle the scarring there. Later. I need... At least trousers or something to wrap over my...” He didn’t go on in that vein, a tattered bit of shirt being tossed at him by the prince.

  “There are others to help, if you’re going to live?”

  “Go. I’ll... See what I can do.”

  It was a lot of little things, mainly healing pain and doing enough to keep bodies alive. For the moment. People stared at him strangely, as he moved from person to person, doing what he could. Erold wasn’t the only other person doing that, either. Sweyn, Eltha and Clarisse were as well. Others, regular men and women who had come after the attack, whatever it had been, the burning, brought water and tried to do what they could to make everyone comfortable. Eventually, what felt like several hours later, a train of horses and wagons came. They had fancy barding and symbols on them, but Anders didn’t recognize any of it. Sweyn did, and called out.

  “Help, from the palace.” She pointed, helpfully. It took him a while to understand that she hadn’t done that because she was stupid or scared, either. It was so that he, or possibly Erold, wouldn’t start fighting, fearing further attack.

  Not that the Prince had been targeted for anything. Thinking about that got him to sigh. Liasa had even used her own name, and spoken with her own voice, when they’d met before. He couldn’t even recall if he’d noticed that part as being familiar to him. He’d touched her mind and not linked her to Barquea, at all. He’d looked for her heart’s desire and, apparently, had found it.

  If she could be trusted, then a lot of people from that land hated him. At least, they wanted him out of the way. Out of the line of possible succession. Even though he kept telling people that he wasn’t trying to be the Sula there. That, as he kept telling everyone, Naveed was the better choice for that. Everyone really was, since he simply lacked a good understanding of that land.

  For instance, it had never occurred to him that anyone would be trying to kill him to get him out of their way like had been tried.

  Sighing, he sat down, since everyone he might aid had been helped already. Then, thinking intensely, feeling too tired to go on, he created a message. One sent to ten different people, all at once.

  “Attack by assassins in Billeth, Capital of Modroc. Led by Princess Liasa of Barquea. She claimed that it was meant to kill me and Eltha Tennet. Large magical attack, hundreds burned. Unknown number of dead. Several in our party injured. Will update, when possible.”

  Two of the people that had been sent to were right there, with him, which had Sweyn and Erold w
alking over to him. Since the Princess did that, a group of twenty or so armed men moved at the same time, seeming ready to end his days, if he moved wrong. He was too stiff, from the new scarring, for that.

  Before they got to him, Anders felt at least three, possibly four, minds reaching out to touch him. None of them recoiled from what they found, but two of them examined the wounds and scarring, fairly intensely.

  He simply held to the idea that he could fix those, and would be doing that, as soon as he could regain his bearing and composure. That meant dropping into a trance, as everyone closed with him.

  “That... I heard her words, but... I can’t believe Barquea would attack you! Here, as well, in the heart of Modroc. Over seventy people died already. Nearly three hundred are wounded enough that they can’t work, even with the healing provided. What... What are our plans now?”

  Sweyn seemed darker than he’d ever seen her before, as Anders swallowed.

  “I don’t know? This might not be everyone from Barquea. They were working with a group from here, so we can probably call that even enough to prevent a war, at least. You’re all well? I couldn’t get everyone away. Did that work? I passed out, trying it.”

  Erold laughed. Darkly, and as if he knew a war was coming from the actions of that day. It was, of course. Too many had died for others not to follow. The trick would be in choosing who died and how many would be enough to make it worthwhile.

  The Prince closed his eyes, as if in pain, even if there were no obvious wounds.

  “Oh, it worked. I don’t know what really happened, but... It worked. We were standing there one moment, there was a sense of the world spinning and suddenly we were standing well away from the area the threat was in. Four of us at least. Kaidan Sett was burned. He ran early though, so his wounds weren’t too bad. Conrath told us that you put out all the clothing, on everyone in the area who was on fire. All at once. Then you went dark?”

  Anders shook his head.

  “That was the second time. I’ll need some time to heal and regain myself, after all of this. Then we’ll need to find out who did this and if we’re going to be allowed to stop them from doing it again. I need to... Well, I sent that message to several people. King Matheus, Sula Darian and Prince Naveed. Prince Robarts and Prince Alpert... Depak and Tolan. Also Martya and Hoatha.”

  He frowned on the last two names, because he had to figure, given the power of the amulets that had been used, and their nature, that one of those two had to be behind it. Not that he had evidence of that, or proof. All he could hope for though was that whoever had done it hadn’t selected him as their target, personally.

  That... Probably wasn’t going to end up being true. Anders had gone to find Ganges, and stop his plans, then let himself be led into thinking that both of the people behind the troubles had, if not given up, decided to hold their hands for a while. Which, if they didn’t care about Farad Ibn Istel after fifteen hundred years, and there was no reason for them to really do so, they didn’t have a reason to see to at all.

  Hoatha hadn’t even said goodbye, when he’d left.

  Which could mean anything, of course. From the man secretly hating him, to simply not wanting to bother with things like that after a life so long that Anders couldn’t truly understand the concept of what it would mean to the mind of his old student and friend. The mind of a boy was very different than an old man, after all. The difference between Farad and Ganges was likely to be even more impactful, that way.

  He was too tired, exhausted of magic, to think clearly, of course. He tried to work out what to do next, but one of the guards who had come, dressed in light purple, but with shining curved swords and fancy head dresses, much like what the local guards wore, strode forward, and nearly bellowed at them. It was a bit rude seeming, even if the man seemed a bit uncertain about what to do, himself. Nerves could cause people to act untoward, so Anders tried not to hold the noise against the man.

  “Into the carriages and wagons! Back to the palace, the Sulat has ordered this. Hurry, Princess. Your consort and these others as well, if they can travel. Protect the Princess!”

  Those words had Sweyn physically picked up, by the arms, and dragged to a nearby carriage, by two sturdy looking men. Several more did that with Erold and Clarisse Sett. Eltha moved on her own, and when several men came at him, Anders stopped them, with a smile. One that probably looked like death, since the large fellows, all of them at least two heads taller than he was, froze in place.

  “I ride with the wounded. I can heal them, if I go slow. I don’t have a lot left, but... I can do something. The worst ones first.”

  Finally, after a few moments, one of the men waved, rather forcefully.

  “You four, ride with him. Do as he says. Hurry though, boy and use your strange magics well. Go!”

  They moved, Anders ignoring how rude the man in purple had been to him. He’d gotten his way, after all, and he was fairly certain that the man didn’t have a clue who he was. Possibly not even if he was with the group who needed the palace at all, really. His blue eyes and pale skin might give that away though, being strange there.

  The men who were supposed to stay with him tried to prop him up, physically, which wasn’t needed.

  So he nodded as he shook them off. Gently. It was clear they weren’t trying to harm him after all, just get him to the wagon.

  “Not yet. I pushed myself earlier, so... I might die, if I do too much now. I have a report out to several people, using magic. I’ll recite a better one to you, as I work, in case I fail?” He meant die, but they were heading to a wagon filled with half a dozen moaning and singed people. One of them was Kaidan Sett, who was, as had been said, blackened along the sleeve of his loose, colorful, clothing. Having been on fire, if lightly, compared to many of the others. His wounds, where they showed, were merely red though and not even blistered.

  “Sett. Good. Aid me as I work?”

  Then, slowly, as they moved over rough stones, jolting them as they traveled, Anders did his best to repair each man there fully. The work took most of an hour, as he gasped in effort and pain, even while not doing that much at all. Then, he awkwardly, stiffly, climbed out of the moving wagon and moved to another one. Hobbling after it at his best speed, trying to catch up. That had the men with him, his guards, or possibly jailors, moving their horses to bracket that one, and even if he’d said not to before, two of them got down and physically moved him to the next set of wounded.

  Then the next. He managed to move a little faster, but was grunting by the end, holding nearly fifty people under a spell to control their pain. That had to be let go of, as soon as possible. Most of them were fixed, thankfully. The last person he did, even after himself, was Kaidan Sett.

  Not out of hatred. The man had actually insisted on going last, not being that injured.

  The spell he muttered let go of all the other spells he held, allowing some bit of balance to restore itself to his system. He sighed then, after catching his breath, about a minute later.

  They, all of the wagons, were pulled around a circular smooth stone drive, that vanished underneath the ground at a mild incline. The horses actually walked in, which spoke of special training on their part. Normally it was hard to get such animals to do things like that. Their own horses, including Juniper, followed along, even if their nerves had to have been stressed that day.

  The stone cavern was lit with reflected light from above ground, but along the way, in places, were torches, or rather very large lamps, with metal reflectors, to light their way, since whatever light the sun provided wasn’t truly enough, it seemed.

  When they stopped, the first guard, the loud and slightly pompous seeming fellow, called out again. So far that had seemed to be his main occupation there. Yelling, rather boldly. Anders had to admit, the man did a good job of it. The whole thing was almost theater, really.

  “Unload from the wagons, if you are able! We will go into the palace from this entrance. Carriages away as soon as you
r passengers are out!”

  Anders climbed out himself, still mainly naked, since he’d either had a choice between dressing himself or healing the others there. Anders was, embarrassingly, aware that parts of his pale behind was showing, as he moved. No one there so much as blinked at the idea.

  Several others were in a similar state, with their clothing being mainly gone, thanks to the flames that the intense white light had created. The searing pain and scent of burnt flesh. The screams...

  Anders tried to let that line of thinking go, focusing on what was around him, instead. He was too tired and lacked the raw physical material, to make better clothing, at the moment. Probably the energy as well, unless he went very slowly and carefully. He supposed that a small skirt of some kind could have been arranged. He simply didn’t have that much energy left in him, at the moment. It was hard to even move. He, oddly enough, wasn’t tired.

  Not in a way that meant sleep was a good idea. He felt more like he’d run and run, for most of several days, and now his arms and legs just didn’t want to move any longer. Being too heavy to force to do anything useful.

  Thankfully, no one required that of him at all. He was taken, after a long walk and many well-constructed stairs, to a room, where he was, it seemed, to be stored with the other men. It was nice, but a barracks of sort, it seemed. Holding ten beds. The room wasn’t that large, but it was about the same size as the place that the men had been put when they were in Istlan, so that worked for him. Complaining that it wasn’t good enough, after them having been kept in a very similar and not as well decorated, of a space for over a year would be too foolish of a mistake for him to make.

  Instead, he took a bed, and smiled when a rather plain young woman pounded on the door and came in, barking at them rather firmly.

  “We have food and clothing for you. Be grateful. My suggestion was storing all of you with the dogs in the kennels.”