Winter Mage

by Tim Niederriter

  “Thank you, son of Jurgat. Bless you and your wife both.” He nodded to them with a solemn flourish of his hand. “I cannot live here, but now I can live on. As can both of you.”

  Edmath’s weariness had gone. He turned back to Chelka, offering her a hopeful smile. She wrapped her free arm around him and they walked toward the door together into the cold.

  Snow blew through the village square outside Kassel Onoi’s lodge. Edmath shivered despite his heavy cloak as he and Chelka made their way into the village square. In spite of his elation at being free of the accursed sphere, he groaned as he walked. The villagers surrounding the lodge turned and stared at him and Chelka as they passed.

  She tightened her grip on his shoulder as they walked. At first, the warped villagers did not move to allow them past, and Chelka’s hand strayed to her stethian. A moment later Kassel Onoi appeared in the doorway of the lodge. The misshapen crowd parted, all eyes fixing on the Worm King. They emerged from the circle of villagers. Edmath and Chelka stopped by the arched-roofed wooden temple on the other side of the square.

  The wind moved cold air from south of the lake and the clouds in the distance over the plains opened up. Edmath’s hands shook in the cold. Kassel Onoi leaned down and spoke quietly to a stocky village man who approached him from the side, back bulging with red and black protean-flesh.

  “Are you alright, Ed?” Chelka asked.

  “Yeah.” Edmath couldn’t help but keep staring at Kassel Onoi as the Worm King raised his hands over the villagers. He wanted to say something else, to reassure Chelka, but his attention remained fixed on the strange man whom his father had known. The man who had accepted the protean sphere so gladly. Finally, Kassel spoke.

  “People of Beliu,” he said. “The time has come to leave this village behind us. Find every man and every woman, and gather every child. Before sunrise, we must empty this village and begin our march west before the High Emperor can catch us.” He took a deep breath and lowered his hands. “I can only lead you if you will follow me. Will you follow me?”

  The villagers let up a cheer, bestial and wild. The sound died away as Kassel Onoi descended from the entrance of the lodge and walked into the crowd. Chelka turned to Edmath with a small smile.

  “He seems to have inspired them.”

  Edmath couldn’t shake the queasy feeling in his empty stomach as he watched the crowd break up. “As long as they leave and do not return, I will be pleased. Of course, that’s a given if all goes to plan.” Edmath looked down at Chelka’s fingers constricted around his shoulder. “We should return to Brosk as quickly as we can.”

  Chelka craned her neck and looked out to the plains beyond the village to the south. Thick gray clouds moved in where the light had only recently appeared.

  “You are right. A blizzard is on its way.”

  She led him away from the temple and through the villagers milling around Kassel Onoi in the square. They had passed the lodge and had turned toward the lake when a loud cry came from the villagers behind them.

  Edmath turned back, following the gazes of the villagers to the crest of the temple’s high, slanted roof. Three figures stood there, white and green imperial cloaks flapping in the southwest wind. Edmath squinted through his glasses, making out the young face of Keve Zasha amid her streaming yellow hair. On her right, a bald, flint-faced man Edmath didn’t recognize stood on the roof’s slope, his dark skin apparently impervious to the cold. The long white hair of old Morior Lem marked him as the man on Keve’s left. His hand rested by the sphere of Keve’s stethian, keeping it pointed down.

  “You have attempted to slay my master,” Keve shouted. “High Emperor Vosraan Loi demands you repay him, Kassel Onoi!”

  The men on either side of Keve drew small rings and struck the air. Magic poured forth. Kassel Onoi stared at them from the center of the square, surrounded by a ring of villagers, with more approaching from every side.

  “You don’t know what’s at stake, child!” His hand fell to the sword at his belt. “Emperor Loi is blind to the true danger!”

  Edmath took a step back toward the square. This was a dangerous moment. All his training told him how impossible it would be to intervene, but all his instinct screamed that he must. He broke away from Chelka, but she caught his wrist.

  “This isn’t our fight, Ed.”

  He looked back at her, seeing the same beautiful face as he had all the years he had known her. Nothing could change what he needed to at that moment. He didn’t strain against her grip.

  “They’ll kill him,” he said. “I owe him my life.”

  Chelka bowed her head, the hood of her coat falling over her face. She released his hand.

  “Don’t give it up now.”

  Edmath’s breath caught in his throat. She was right. If he failed in this he could be killed. He might lose his good name, his position. He could be—

  Keve Zasha waved her stethian and the bald man vanished from beside her. He appeared in the square beside Kassel Onoi, a grin on his face and a dagger in his hand.

  “We finally caught up with you, Onoi. I must say, I was looking forward to this.”

  Kassel Onoi made no move, but stood with perfect composure, as if no one had threatened him. He looked up at Keve Zasha.

  “Your vendetta is misguided, good Saale. I am leaving this nation this very night and I have promised never to return.”

  Edmath looked from the Worm King to the Saales on the rooftop and then back again. He clenched his fists as the wind cut through his light cloak and chilled him. The gibbering villagers around Kassel turned as one to face their king, the man who would sacrifice his own humanity to be with them. Edmath gulped.

  “Chelka,” he said. “Please understand. Give me a striker.”

  She took his outstretched fist in her hand. She gently unfolded it, not trying to hold him back. He looked back at her, as her hood fell back revealing her tumbling black hair, her narrowed eyes, and her set jaw.

  “I trust you.” She pressed a single ring of bone and sinew into his hand. “Don’t destroy our lives for this.”

  “I won’t.”

  Edmath struck the air, splitting the physical curtain with a hiss only audible to a Saale. Whatever dwelt beyond the curtain, the spirits of magic, flowed out, guided in a spiral around him by a current previously invisible to his eyes. Reaching out with his open hand he drew in the magic, feeling the energy pulsing deeper into his skin. He closed his eyes as Chelka stepped back from him. He needed to distract these Saales, needed to stop this confrontation.

  He pressed the tips of his index fingers together, touched the tips of his thumbs. As magic flowed into him, he completed the sign, touching all his remaining fingertips to the end of their opposite digit—his sign of the great seed.

  He fixed his eyes on a spot between the Worm King and the temple where Keve and Morior stood. With any luck, this distraction would be all it took to dampen this situation. Releasing the magic from his mind even as he took in more from the world around him, Edmath gritted his teeth with the focus. The snowy ground cracked as the growing seed burst from beneath it. Snow turned to water in a ring all around the seed even before it erupted with roots and trunk.

  Edmath broke the symbol in half, tearing his hands away from each other. The seed split and its growth accelerated. A trunk shot up before the temple directly in front of Keve Zasha and Morior Lem.

  Keve shouted something and swung her stethian before she vanished from sight behind the tree. The Saale beside the Worm King glanced back at the temple. Kassel Onoi shoved him backward with a shoulder. The dagger fell from his hand even as Kassel’s gleaming sword emerged from its scabbard and poised above the fallen Saale’s neck.

  Keve appeared beside the bald man on the ground, touched his shoulder, and then vanished again along with the man. Edmath scarcely believed he’d seen her, the movement happened so fast. The tree stopped growing at about a story higher than the temple roof
and Morior Lem appeared from over it, riding on a greater moth.

  Chelka cried a warning. Edmath looked around for the danger. Keve Zasha appeared a few yards ahead of him with the fallen bald Saale at her feet. She saw him and closed her eyes.

  “Saale Edmath Benisar,” she said. “You are healed, I presume?”

  Behind Keve, the ring of villagers broke and charged toward her and the fallen Saale. Edmath took a step back to stand behind Chelka. The Saale picked himself up from the ground as villagers surrounded his and Keve’s back.

  “You’re out of power, aren’t you?” Edmath sagged with the effort of his last spell. “You can’t teleport so fast without striking again.”

  A ripple of movement passed through the villagers as they murmured in the accent of the borderlands. Shapes split and twisted as they revealed their protean spheres. Red and black flesh emerged from men and women all around the semicircle. Keve opened her eyes and glared at Edmath.

  “Correct, Lord Benisar.”

  The Saale beside her twisted his shape, flesh hardening into scales, tail sprouting from an opening in the cloak on his back, and eyes slitting like the serpent he now resembled so well. Another dagger fell into the man’s hand, a striker ring hanging from the chain at its hilt.

  “Lord Savnon,” she said. “Be ready to slay these beasts.”

  “As you wish, Lady Zasha.” The man called Savnon’s serpent-eyes moved from Edmath and across the circle of villagers as he turned slowly to face opposite the way from Keve.

  “You won’t last long against my people,” Kassel Onoi said from the other side of the villagers. “You’d best call this off, Saale Zasha.”

  Edmath took a step through the snow toward Keve, letting his striker fall from his fingers. He raised his hands.

  “Yes. Of course, we will ensure you’re safety as long as you do not choose violence now.”

  Keve looked over her shoulder at Stark and Morior Lem. She gave a frustrated sigh and turned her gaze back to Edmath.

  “Fine. Otherwise, we appear to be in trouble.”

  Kassel Onoi stopped a few paces back from the semicircle of warped villagers and gave Edmath a satisfied nod.

  “What he says is the truth. Leave now and we will not pursue.”

  “Alright.” Keve glared at Edmath. “Humiliation does not suit me, Edmath Benisar. Someday…” She turned to the Serpent Tribe Saale Savnon. “Let us go.”

  Her glare turned into a grin as Kassel Onoi called the villagers back to let her past. Edmath felt her strangeness almost as much as he sensed her hostility. She must have arranged this herself. The High Emperor would not have sent her to fight. She was still a child.

  She walked to the base of the tree Edmath had grown in front of the temple and, with snow falling in her hair, placed her hand on its trunk. Morior Lem descended to her on Moth wings while Stark followed past the villagers. She glanced at Kassel Onoi as the two men struck on either side of her.

  “It doesn’t matter what I do. That mirache and its rider will overwhelm you without my help.” She swung her stethian and vanished into the frigid air, leaving magic flowing all through Beliu Square. Edmath turned to Chelka. Her hood had been pulled back by the wind, and her hair streamed around her face. Still frozen in their warped shaped, the villagers turned to Kassel Onoi as he walked between them.

  “This is a strange turn,” Kassel said. “To be so pursued.” He came to a stop before Edmath, calm, but clearly ready for action. He sheathed his sword. “Have you seen any sign of the Roshi, Edmath?”

  Folding his arms, Edmath tried to keep from shivering.

  “We encountered on the lake. We drove him back, but he must not have stuck to his word.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Ursar Kiet, the champion of Akalok Roshi.”

  Kassel Onoi’s hand fell back to his sword hilt. Beside Edmath, Chelka drew in an audible breath, but the former worm king did not draw his weapon. Kassel whistled and shook his head.

  “He is a man who lives to kill.”

  Edmath’s fingers twitched reflexively.

  “Of course, we will not let him find you,” he said. “You saved my life, King of Beliu. Thus I cannot let you die.”

  Kassel bowed his head like a servant.

  “I am no king. Not anymore.”

  “It’s good you understand that.” Chelka scowled at Kassel. “We have to move quickly. Confronting Ursar Kiet will not be easy.”

  “And of course evading him may be impossible,” Edmath said. “He could slay many villagers, no matter how fearsome they are. Only a Saale has any hope of defeating him.”

  Kassel Onoi raised his head and grimaced as a spasm ran through his body. The protean sphere must have taken root. Already it was changing the former king. The tremor passed, and Kassel straightened his back.

  “You sound as though you have a plan, Edmath.”

  The snowfall intensified and the wind picked up, howling over the rooftops and through the square. Edmath shivered, his stomach gnawing at him, a personal famine.

  “I’m sure you’ve thought of it too,” he said. “You used your worm tosh to copy yourself at Niniar, did you not? Why not use a decoy here as well.”

  The smile that had spread across Kassel’s face when he’d started speaking disappeared in another spasm that passed through his body.

  “No.” He gasped in pain and clutched his stomach. “I cannot do it now. The change is too fast. I will not be able to use my tosh.”

  Edmath rubbed his chin with his fingers.

  “This complicates matters.”

  “The Roshi wants only me.” Kassel turned his back on Chelka and Edmath. He walked back through the crowd of villagers, which parted around him. Reaching the steps of the lodge, Kassel shrugged his shoulders. “I will send them away, as I planned. Then I must face him.”

  Edmath followed Kassel with Chelka at his side. The villagers would not allow him past but stood as a silent wall against his movements. With a frustrated grunt, Edmath fell back a step.

  “You cannot survive that fight.”

  Kassel stopped at the door of the lodge.

  “No one can take my place and do better.”

  Edmath felt a hopeless hunger in his stomach and threw himself at the wall of villagers. They pushed him back without malice. He lost his footing. Slipping in the snow, he fell to his knees.

  “My father died to protect you,” he shouted at Kassel Onoi. “I cannot let his sacrifice be in vain.”

  Kassel turned back to Edmath, his face twitching with another spasm.

  “What in the name of the creator who ordered all things under man would you do to save me?” He threw back his cloak, revealing black and white wicker armor over his chest and an amulet of blue stone and gold trim. “I am prepared to face him for the good of my people, and I will not suffer your death on my behalf after I betrayed you.”

  “I may die,” Edmath said. “But you surely would. There is no time. You must depart if the mission you insisted on is as important as you professed.”

  Kassel hung his head for a moment but then motioned for the villagers to part, allowing Edmath past.

  “I will listen to your plan, son of Jurgat.”

  Snow continued to fall as Edmath and Chelka made their way across the icy surface of the Dreamwater. Their cloaks had grown heavy, wet with snow. The black cloth felt as though all the fire in the world might not be enough to dry it. Edmath shivered in the wind as it passed over his feet. The carriage and Orpus Lengbyoi came into view in the center of the lake, ringed loosely by villagers.

  Brosk climbed out on a tree branch in his Whale Tosh as Edmath and Chelka approached the Orpus. Edmath crossed his arms and squinted at Brosk. The whale prince raised his arm and waved them closer.

  The trio of villagers standing around Orpus Lengbyoi looked up at him. One of them floated off the ice on his protean sphere. He was a young man. His protean sphere had not reached h
is face, which was fair, though his back bulged disgustingly. The other two, an old man and a middle-aged woman, bowed to Edmath as he approached.

  The old man’s eyes gleamed as he looked up at Edmath.

  “I am Hinath the village elder. My lord sent the message of your approach to us through our connection.” Hinath waved up to the tree. “We will escort you off the water.”

  Cold wind touched Edmath’s cheek and tugged the hood of the cloak around him. He turned his back to the breeze.

  “Elder, if you know the plan then you know this is dangerous work. Of course, you also know it is necessary.”

  Chelka slipped past Edmath. She put one hand on his shoulder and then let it drag across the wet fabric as she passed. The elder stopped her with a raised hand before she reached Orpus Lengbyoi.

  “We cannot go directly back. That way lies closed to us.” He gestured to the young man and to the woman. “We will travel west with you until we come to the edge of the lake.”

  The wind howled across the ice, unkind and full of white flakes. Edmath shivered, hunching his shoulders. Snowflakes fell across the lenses of his glasses and immediately began to melt. His stomach ached. His sandaled feet burned with cold.

  “Chelka,” he said. “Help me up to the carriage.”

  She turned to him. The wind blew back her hood to land snowflakes in her hair. Her hands found his and she led him across the ice with their warmth. “Ed, we’re already moving too slowly.”

  “I know.”

  “Really? How?”

  Orpus Lengbyoi’s root wrapped around Edmath’s waist and lifted him into the carriage. Chelka dropped down from another root beside him. He glanced at her.