by Ron Collins
It made him angry when he thought about it.
He made the proper artwork and set the necessary components in their places.
When the work was done, the Koradictine’s face appeared in the liquid circle.
“To what do I owe this unanticipated pleasure?” Ettril said.
“We have an unanticipated problem,” Zutrian replied, ignoring the distaste that rose into his throat at the mere sound of the Koradictine’s voice.
“Tell on, my friend.”
“One of my order has discovered a Torean with unaccountable powers.”
Ettril’s lips pursed.
“Such as?”
“He has healed, and he has killed. He is said to have destroyed two of our mages with a single spell.”
“Interesting.”
“It gets more so when you learn that the Torean in question is said to be an untriggered apprentice. And one’s interest grows even deeper when you find that his path has crossed with that of the leader of the Torean vagabonds we have been searching for.”
A cloud crossed the Koradictine’s face. Zutrian waited for the other mage to come to the most obvious conclusion.
“The Torean House has a god-touched mage.”
“That is what my scout has reported.”
“We both assumed it was a possibility.”
Zutrian gave him a gracious nod.
“Who is this Torean?” Ettril asked.
“His name is Garrick—once apprenticed to Alistair, a Torean who fell during one of our assassination runs.”
“But we gave orders to take all apprentices?”
Zutrian shrugged to hide his annoyance at the question. He was tired of having to lead the Koradictine through these simple logics.
“Garrick apparently had the good fortune to be away during the raid.”
“We need to take care of this.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Of course I have a plan. That’s what I do all day. I sit here in my war room and I plan for what will happen next. Perhaps it is a Lectodinian thing.”
The Koradictine did not rise to the bait.
“What are you thinking?”
“Garrick appears to be travelling toward Arderveer. I think we should divert our armies to that city.”
The Koradictine furrowed his bushy brow. “I think it is too early to deal with Takril.”
“Sometimes life takes unexpected paths.”
“Jormar and Parathay have not yet captured all of the western half of the plane.”
“That is true,” Zutrian replied. “But our forces are progressing better than we planned. I suggest we leave our god-touched mages to finish their efforts, but direct each to send half their army to Arderveer.”
“Half an army each? Will that be enough to take a god-touched mage?”
“A full army fronting a collection of mages of proper strength should suffice. Garrick is only an apprentice, after all. If we take him now, we can keep it that way.”
Ettril nodded, contemplating.
“All right,” he finally said. “It’s worth the risk to eliminate the Torean before he becomes a larger problem. Let me take it to my planners. I will respond this evening.”
“Until then,” Zutrian replied.
The Koradictine’s face faded from the circle, leaving behind a cloying mist of blood-tinged steam.
Chapter 15
They burned the bodies.
Black smoke curled into the sky, reminding Garrick of the dragons in his nightmares. He felt uneasy for another reason, too. Sjesko’s power was nearly gone, and the cold reality of the moment lay against his conscience like a firm dagger’s edge. When this power was spent, Garrick would feed again.
He watched Darien’s preparations. There was an air of professionalism about him, a spareness to his movements that spoke of experience. His past with Dorfort's guard was obvious now, so obvious that Garrick didn’t know how he had missed it before.
Sunathri attached her bedroll to her saddle, then came to him, her eyes on fire with the day’s early light. This was it. She was going to press him to join her order, and he would have to tell her no.
He saw no way to avoid it.
“We should have paid more attention to Elman,” she said.
“He’s just one mage,” Garrick replied.
“He knows where you are now, so you can be sure the rest of the orders will know, too.”
“Why would they care about an apprentice?”
“Don’t pretend, Garrick.”
“I’m not pretending. My superior never triggered me. I am just an apprentice.”
Sunathri smirked. “Have you heard the phrase ‘god-touched’?”
“No,” Garrick lied.
Her expression sharpened, and she glanced toward Darien. “You?”
Darien shrugged. “Can’t say that I have.”
“A god-touched mage is a thing of great power,” she replied. “It’s a thing of beauty in many ways, but terrible in others. They are aligned with planewalkers, so their magic is greater than others. It comes from connections to them.”
Leaves rustled in the mountain wind. A horse nickered with impatience. An embarrassed heat rose through Garrick’s chest and into his cheeks.
“That sounds somewhat familiar,” Darien said, giving Garrick a wry grin.
Sunathri snapped at him. “Beware of taking this too lightly, Darien. This clash of the orders and the Toreans may look to the world as if it is a simple mage hunt, but it’s more. Much, much more.”
“Let’s not go too far,” Garrick said.
“I’m not going too far.” She glared at him. “The orders each have their own god-touched mages, and each of those lead their own armies amassed to the west. A week ago they began methodically marching. It’s clear the orders intend to wipe out the Torean order, and then take control of the entire plane.”
“Why would they do that?” It was Darien. “The people of Adruin have always given the orders sway, why would they feel the need to go further?”
“That attitude is the problem,” Suni said.
“The average person thinks mages see things in the same straightforward ways they do. The average person does not understand that leaders of the orders are different. They move to their own rhythms. Do they seek power? Is it spite that moves them? Frustration? Pure dislike of Toreans? Sure. These leaders and the rest of their orders feel all of those things, but it’s mostly about control—with maybe a little sibling rivalry thrown in for good measure. The orders themselves even see things differently, differently enough to actually hate each other. And they both live by different structures, hierarchies in their approaches that are fundamentally different. What makes this so dangerous, though, is that they both believe are “right,” and if their way is “right,” it must be their way everywhere.”
“I don’t believe that,” Garrick said. “Te orders are not that senseless. Of course they have hunted Toreans before and will do it again, but I don’t see that it would make sense to go so far as to kill each other off when instead they could just slice up Adruin and each take a piece. That’s how it’s always been. The plane is big enough for them both.”
“I don’t know,” Darien replied. “I’ve seen it before. This need to control others can be quite powerful in some men.” He looked at Sunathri. “How do you know so much about these armies? I’ve heard nothing of them, and I tend to hear such news before most.”
“The Freeborn have ties to common folk that the orders overlook. Such news can travel quite quickly through such collectives.”
“I can see that,” Garrick said. He thought about the village of Sjesko and the warning that had arrived in their midst in enough time to save them, though it was not properly heeded.
“Good,” Sunathri replied.
“So, you’re telling us that Garrick is one of these mages?” Darien asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
�
�No,” Garrick replied. “Not only is it not obvious, it’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous at all. In fact, when I learned of the Koradictine and Lectodinian mages I wondered if we would find a Torean. When I heard of Garrick’s spell work in Caledena, I guessed you might be it. Seeing you last night confirmed it.”
“That’s insanity,” Garrick snapped.
She turned a powerful gaze to him.
“Deny as you will, but you are the Torean god-touched. The only question is whether you’ll accept that before the orders destroy you. They are quite serious about this, and I suggest it’s in your best interest to be equally so.”
Darien stepped up.
“If this is all true, why did you lead the orders to Garrick? You had to know they would be following you.”
“I didn’t think they would come out this far,” she snapped. “But it doesn’t really matter. It was only a factor of time before they would find him, anyway. You can’t throw magic around like Garrick has been and not draw attention.”
She turned to Garrick again.
“We need you.”
He shook his head. It was all too much.
His life force curled in upon itself and he knew the idea that he might be god-touched was not insanity at all. In fact, it would answer a lot of questions. But it would answer them in ways he did not want to hear.
“I’m just an apprentice,” he said.
Sunathri tightened her lips.
“I can’t join an order,” Garrick said. “I don’t trust them. Not even a Torean order.”
“Don’t think of us as an order. We don’t even think of ourselves as an order. We’re the Freeborn House.”
“And that makes a difference?”
“I know you’re afraid, Garrick. But don’t confuse the issues here. This is about right and wrong. It’s life and death. You need to stop feeling so damned sorry for yourself and start doing something that will make a difference.”
Garrick hesitated. Darkness stirred inside him.
“All I want is to be left alone to do my magic in peace. All I want is …”
Sunathri waited.
He wanted to tell her about the terror in Arianna’s expression, about the morbid sense of exhilaration that came when he ripped the Koradictine’s life force from its body. He wanted to spit out the torrent of bile that cut through his thoughts whenever he contemplated the depths of the burden he carried. He wanted to share it with someone who might actually understand.
But he couldn’t find the words.
And the idea of coming so openly clean scared him to his bones.
He couldn’t do this.
If he accepted her offer it would end in bloodshed and in souls of good men being stripped from their still breathing bodies. He couldn’t live with that. That was all he needed to know. God-touched, or not, he would deal with this on his own.
“I’ve accepted this task,” he finally said. “I cannot break that agreement.”
“You’re not seriously proposing that working for a crook is more honorable than saving Torean wizards from the wrath of the orders?”
“It’s always honorable to keep your word.”
They stared at each other, she prying, he defending.
“I see,” Sunathri finally said. She mounted her horse in a fluid motion and pulled the reins to turn the animal around. “The offer stands for as long as you live,” she said.
Then she spurred the horse into the woods and away from the mountain.
Garrick watched as dust settled behind her. For an instant he saw an image of Alistair’s eyes, stark and clear. His superior had never been one to include women in his business.
“I hope she’s all right,” Darien finally said.
“She would have just gotten in the way,” Garrick replied.
It was what Alistair would have said if he were here.
Chapter 16
It rained steadily over the remaining time it took to arrive at the pass to Arderveer—usually just a drizzle, but once it rose to a great storm that pelted the soil with drops that were thick and cold. It felt ominous to Garrick. As they approached the pass, he found himself even more anxious, and more edgy than he had been before.
His hunger was growing.
It was an acidic burn in his gut, a scrubbing in his veins. It played with his mind like a nearly intelligible whisper. He imagined it growing within him, sprouting vaporous tentacles, drifting around him, searching, exploring, hunting. At times he thought his hunger even wrapped itself around Darien’s warm presence, but he pushed that darkness away.
Perhaps he truly was learning to control this beast inside him, he thought when he made the hunger bend to his will, but, he could not deny that it grew more and more difficult as day passed.
There was so much he still didn’t know.
“Do you think you are god-touched?” Darien said at one point.
Garrick shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about it. “I doubt it.”
But uttering this made Garrick feel like a liar. It was possible. More than possible. Braxidane had called him an apprentice, after all.
“Why do you doubt?”
Garrick shrugged again, but didn’t say more.
Nothing felt right about this. How could he describe what Braxidane had done to him? And, if Garrick was Braxidane’s god-touched, why had the planewalker not contacted him since the laying of this curse? Why give him these powers, then leave him to his own devices? It made no sense. It was all so uncomfortable. Garrick hadn’t asked for this. He didn’t want it. And the idea of talking about it made him want to explode. Added to this was the fact that Darien had clearly been smitten with the idea of joining Sunathri’s gang of mages. It was the subject of the first hour of his running monologue during the morning’s travel.
Darien, apparently growing uncomfortable in Garrick’s silence, pressed on.
“Do you think the orders will take Adruin?”
“Who can say?”
“What do you think their rule would be like?”
Garrick looked at Darien.
“You think I should have gone with Suni?”
“I’m only asking what you think it would be like to live in a world run by the orders.”
“It can’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“The orders can’t work together, Darien. You would understand if you were a mage.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Then stop worrying so much. The orders have power enough today, Darien, and people with power don’t make decisions that leave them at risk of losing what they have.”
“I don’t believe that at all,” Darien replied.
“You should believe it. I know what I’m talking about. I’ve grown up around men who do nothing but tend their own personal pools of power.”
“And I haven’t?”
“They suck on it like babies on teats,” Garrick said. “They will do whatever they need to do to retain it.”
“Some, yes. But not all power corrupts. I’ve seen leaders stand for what is right. Those people make a difference. They change the world.”
Garrick actually laughed. “You do think I should have gone with Suni.”
“I’m just saying I’ve seen good leaders fight for just causes.”
“And many of them are dead for it.”
“Not all of them, though.”
They rode in silence for a moment.
“You speak the game of the downtrodden well, Garrick. But I see who you are. You could have faded into the streets like thousands of others, but instead you made a decision that brought you here. That has to mean something.”
Garrick did not respond.
A blanket of clouds covering the eastern horizon flickered with lightning and released a wave of thunder that rattled in Garrick’s chest.
They made their last camp on this side of the mountain in a small cave.
Darien removed his boots and bent to the task of roasting
a rabbit. Once he was content with the meat’s progress, he put his feet to the fire and relaxed. A dark beard was beginning to fill in over his face. It gave him a sense of worldliness, and he seemed somehow stronger than he had when they first met.
Garrick stripped his shirt off, and laid it on a rock to dry.
Rain continued to fall outside the cave, but the fire warmed them and made Garrick feel better. Tomorrow they would enter the mountain pass that led to the Desert of Dust, home to Arderveer.
“What’s your story?” Garrick said rather abruptly.
“What’s that?” Darien replied.
“If you’re so passionate about leaders and leading men, why are you here rather than following your father back in Dorfort?”
Darien looked at him askew.
Garrick waited.
“We’ve been traveling over a week and only just now you’re asking that kind of question?”
“Too soon?” Garrick said, grinning.
Darien laughed.
“My story’s probably the same as yours, Garrick. I want to be my own man.”
Garrick stared at his partner, using a trick Alistair had used on business partners with great success—say nothing, but focus all attention on the person you want to speak.
“My brother—Thale—died in the Rock Thorn Peaks,” Darien said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No reason to be sorry. He died protecting people from Aarot-Meexor, the Rock Thorn king. He wanted to make a difference, and he did. Aarot-Meexor would have been a tyrant.”
“Your example proves my point.”
“How so?”
“Lord Ellesadil controls Dorfort. He spent your brother’s life in pursuit of his goals, yet the lord is still sitting quite comfortably behind the walls of his beloved government central.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Sadly, I am not.”
“Garrick, the problem with people like you is that you’re so certain you understand everything that you miss the whole picture. You take two or three pieces of information, ignore everything else, and then you knit those pieces into a story you think is the truth but is really just your opinion cloaked in a few slanted events. And, in this case, you’re so wrong that I would find it humorous if it weren’t for the fact that we are talking about my brother.”
