After the High Lord had left with Sarah, Kadeen dismissed the soldiers then motioned for Yeva to lift Emily to her feet. With an abrupt gesture of his left hand, Emily’s tattered garments dissolved to pink dust that drifted to the floor. He examined her closely as Yeva held her arms from behind and kept her in place.
“No. Please let me go,” Emily wailed. Kadeen’s demonstrations of power had completely unnerved her. She felt more naked and vulnerable before him than ever before in her life, and to be held firmly thus by another woman only added to her sense of betrayal and helplessness.
“Let you go? No, not yet, I think. You were a gift, my dear,” Kadeen purred, reaching out to caress Emily’s soft skin. “It would be most discourteous of me to discard Commander Bardon’s gift so soon after its arrival. Besides,” he added with an oily leer and a tweak with his hard fingers, “you really are a most comely young thing beneath all that dirt. Bardon has good taste. No we’ll have many hours together, my dear. You have much to tell me, and much to give. If you are a good and generous girl, your new life will not be too difficult. If, on the other hand, you are not a good girl,” he almost snarled, “you must be punished. Try very hard to please me, my dear. I fear you would not enjoy my punishments.”
Kadeen clapped his hands and two serving girls who had been kneeling unnoticed by the walls sprang to their feet. “Take her, bathe her and prepare her for me. I’ll want her ready to begin our discussions this evening.” The two young women took Emily from Yeva’s grasp and lead her from the room, still crying and begging almost incoherently to be released.
With a look of irritation, Kadeen turned from the comely sight of Emily’s departure, withdrew Commander Bardon’s report from the folds of his robes (at least he had managed to keep that from Adham al Dharr), and read it again, more carefully. He knew that in such reports, the way that some information was presented and other information excluded often revealed much more than the words themselves.
Apparently, the raid across the Akuaanguis had gone quite well, but Captain Saglam’s failure to acquire the Staff of the Winds from the Old Wizard was a great disappointment. The Baraduhne were growing desperate for the lands across The Deep as the Maragong pushed them relentlessly south. It was believed by most of the Order that a new equilibrium leading to an end of the war with the Maragong could be reached if they could eventually fall back and hold this mountain fastness in The Outlet, supplied by the rich lands and peoples they would acquire to the east. With the crossing of The Deep and the successful garrisoning of the fabled Carraghlaoch the Baraduhne’s plans for survival were well underway, but until The Deep could be drained and the trigitch banished from its dark waters they remained pinned like a butterfly in a glass case against their fortress in the snow capped mountains. And with each passing month, the case they were in grew ever smaller.
The escape plan of the Baraduhne was well begun, and the captured writings of Gilladhe would doubtless prove invaluable, but it was the Staff of the Winds that was key to Kadeen’s personal plans for the future. He could not match al Dharr in native strength and at best was only his equal in cunning and resolve. When al Dharr held the Staff of Inquiry, Kadeen was as a child compared to the High Lord’s power. Possession of the Staff of Inquiry was one of the primary causes of the seemingly endless wars that the Baraduhne fought with their neighbors. All knew of its existence in the hands of the High Lord of the Baraduhne, and while all feared its power, many lusted after it at the same time. Princes and Lords of the surrounding realms were often more than willing to throw the lives of the unskilled and the lesser skilled into war with Baraduhne in the hope of securing the ancient staff for themselves. A temporary alliance of four of the most powerful sorcerers of the kingdom of the Maragong was just the latest and most successful of those aspirants.
Throughout his own rise to power, Kadeen had often plotted ways to make the Staff of Inquiry his own, but between the power of al Dharr, even without the staff, and the incorruptible loyalty of the Watchers to the reigning High Lord, none of his plots held any reasonable chance of success. The only solution he could see was to take possession of the Staff of the Winds. The Winds was no more powerful than Inquiry, their uses were somewhat divergent; but used with subtlety, Kadeen had no doubt that the office of High Lord would be within his reach. And, the prospect of comingling the power of these two ancient artifacts was heady stuff indeed. One man using one of these staffs could not win a war, could not throw back the Maragong for example. But one man of sufficient capability, using the amplification both these articles of power provided, well might. Such a man could raise seas and level mountains.
With Saglam’s failure to secure the staff, or more properly the staff head for the staff itself had been shattered, Kadeen’s plans had taken a major step backward; but with Gilladhe destroyed and his apprentice safely controlled in the shielded dungeons of Carraghlaoch, the situation could perhaps be salvaged. Artifacts of focus, especially those of such immense potential, called out to persons of power. Kadeen had no doubt that if he could cross The Deep ahead of Adham al Dharr he would have no difficulty in locating and making the Staff of the Winds his own.
Therein lay the problem—how to make the crossing. If he waited for The Deep to be drained and the trigitch destroyed, he would find himself in a race with al Dharr. If he tried to cross using the arch, the proximity of his talent would likely enrage the trigitch so as to make his attempt an act of suicide. Unless he could in some way mask his power, or distract the beast long enough to make the crossing. Such attempts had been made in the past, of course, but only upon the surface of those black waters. All of those attempts had been spectacularly and fatally unsuccessful. With the separation from the waters provided by the high arch of blasted stone, perhaps it could be done, but the odds of success were very slim. This is what occupied his thoughts of late. What would hide him from Gilladhe’s vile creation? With possession of the Staff of the Winds, linked as it was to the trigitch’s summoning, a knowledgeable sorcerer could likely pass safely. Lacking that talisman, he would have to find another way.
It was always like this. For some reason, experiences in The Realm of Infinite Possibilities which centered around people that Yeva had never actually met were invariably less detailed, less clear; but once a meeting took place, experiences involving those people became much more accessible and more distinct. So it was with the two young women from the other side of The Deep.
Yeva had foreseen the arrival of Stangar with the girls, of course. Anything of that importance touching on the timeline of the Lord Kadeen would always be available to her nightly meditations days ahead of time. She had also seen the destruction of Stangar and the High Lord’s claiming of the auburn haired girl. She had forewarned Kadeen of all of these events, of course, and of their inevitability. As always, there were optional paths, some of which would have allowed Kadeen to retain both girls, at least for a short time, but they were low probability and all ended badly.
In her meditations that evening, Yeva pondered Emily, the blond and distinctly more feminine of the two young women. Her presence in the Realm seemed dominant compared to that of the darker haired girl. It was obvious that Kadeen would be keeping her close for the near future, no doubt far closer than Emily would have liked. She would be Kadeen’s possession and his plaything for some time. She appeared on many of the branches in the Realm, but it was not at all clear to Yeva what her role would be in shaping the future of the Baraduhne. None of her presences seemed to hold significant consequence. In contrast, the auburn haired girl seemed to be absent from the Realm, at least along paths in the near future. It seemed that the High Lord would be keeping her close as well, and therefore inaccessible to Yeva, which was interesting—the High Lord was not known for his dalliances, at least not with young women.
Following her usual pattern, Yeva explored the potentialities and prepared herself for the coming day. There were no critical junctures that she would need to manage. She paused to check
her guardian, then allowed herself to be cast free and drift on the currents the Realm provided. Initially, the times and events passed in a languid manner, with nothing of real significance catching her awareness. Gradually, however, the pace of events began to quicken; the currents becoming a flood that propelled her along. This was common, and not at all comfortable for the watcher—one of the main reasons that so few who delve into the Realm of Infinite Possibilities could maintain their indifference to the stream of possible events and manage to drift as she was doing without being quickly ejected.
Images were just beginning to coalesce when she was suddenly aware through her sentinel that there was movement in her room, the room containing her physical body. Snatching her mind from the depths, Yeva grabbed her knife from the floor, threw it quickly up into a general guard position, and executed a rolling leap to her feet that would take her several yards back and to her left. A sword slammed off of her blade in mid roll, modifying her momentum and causing her to stumble slightly upon rising. Her uncharacteristically awkward movements nearly cost her her life, as her attacker thrust for her chest and managed to scrape along the ribs of her left side. Ignoring the pain as her training had taught her, Yeva finished her leap away and grounded herself solidly, both physically and mentally.
Yeva quickly assessed the situation as her attacker continued to press her. She instantly recognized the man as Guild member Salanda. She still did not know whom Salanda represented, but whomever it was they clearly saw some advantage in having her eliminated. Yeva had known that when she explored the tunnels, opening the avenues in the Realm of Possibilities, she was creating a spike of her own presence in the Realm that was likely to catch someone’s interest, and interest when working among the upper levels of the Baraduhne not infrequently lead to violence. She had on several occasions crossed paths with Salanda during these exercises, and on each occasion had managed to avoid his notice in real time, but she had known that if Salanda had any skill in the Realm at all, he would know of her movements.
There were many questions in the back of Yeva’s mind regarding Salanda’s purpose and Salanda’s allegiances, but all of them had to be suppressed in the heat of battle. Salanda’s arms were longer than Yeva’s, and his sword was longer than her knife, but this reach advantage was balanced to some extent by Yeva’s greater speed and agility. Still, Salanda was impressively skilled, the space in which they fought was small, and his unrelenting attack kept Yeva on the defensive.
Salanda repeatedly tried to force Yeva back into a corner of the room, where his size and reach advantage could pin her in place, while Yeva used a dodging, darting defense that kept her blade flickering past Salanda’s defense and her body constantly moving around the center of the room. With razor sharp steel wielded with the skill of masters in their trade, wounds were inevitable and given and received by both combatants. Salanda seemed to be irritated, however by the unexpected skill of his opponent, a mere girl, and made the fatal mistake of overextending in a thrust to Yeva’s heart. Yeva managed to slip the blade, scoring her left arm in the process, while wrapping her blade around the wrist of Salanda’s sword arm, severing the tendons and opening both the radial and ulner arteries.
As Salanda’s sword fell from his useless hand, he threw himself at Yeva, trying to strike her in the throat with his left forearm. He had to twist his body to do so, and was just too slow. Before he had completed his motion, Yeva had thrust her blade into his gut and spun away. Salanda lost his balance and crashed to the floor.
“You’re going to die in a few moments,” Yeva said, keeping her distance from her still dangerous opponent. “Why are you here? Whom do you represent? Who sent you?” Frustrated, Yeva watched Salanda return her questions with a smile as his eyes slowly glazed over in death.
“Whoa!!” Owen exclaimed, throwing himself backward off the log on which he’d been sitting, and tossing the bronze hawk over his shoulder.
“What was that?!” Marian shouted, half rising from where she was crouching, “are you alright?”
Owen had been experimenting with what he laughingly called his “wizarding state”, relaxing into the awareness that allowed him to see the lines of energy, or whatever they were that seemed to make up and vitalize everything around him. He and Marian were in their base camp, deep in the woods north of Carraghlaoch, and Marian was warming up a pot of water over a small fire. They were tired and dirty from another day spent searching the woods in the neighborhood of the castle for the entrance to the bolt hole that Owen had seen in his vision. They had been unsuccessful, again.
Owen was more and more easily able to assume the ability to observe and interact with the energy, and he had been just passively watching the world around him, permeated with the red-orange lines of power. He became intrigued with the small fire that Marian had built, watching how the lines crowded and vibrated around each other in an excited dance. It occurred to him that a person should be able to induce the lines of flux to imitate that motion, and if they did, would fire appear? Unconsciously, he began to move the lines of force that emanated through the hawk-shaped staff cap within and in rhythm with the fire, causing it to grow. As he realized what he was doing, his eyes began to cross, and the locus of lines he was agitating flared up and began to converge quickly towards his source of control—the brass falcon’s head he held in his lap.
Owen was startled to see a ball of fire flashing toward him, and reflexively threw himself out of the way, falling backward off of the log where he’d been sitting. The fire disappeared as soon as he lost his concentration, and boy, had he ever lost concentration! “Well,” he sheepishly said to Marian, who had jumped back when the fire flared, “that was certainly exciting.”
“What the devil did you do? For a moment, I thought that sorcerer you are always going on about was attacking.”
“I think I just invented fire,” Owen responded with a sheepish grin.
“Great Cats, Owen, you just scared the crap out of me. Do you have to play with that thing when I’m around? Soaking me with rainwater was bad enough, but I think you just singed my eyebrows. You could have cremated both of us.”
“Oh come on, Marian, where is your sense of humor. That rain trick was funny.”
“Maybe for you.”
The two had been caught in a small fall shower three days before, as they were walking back toward their camp after one more unsuccessful hunt for the buried tunnel entrance, and Owen had been practicing his observation state to distract himself from the cold drops that seemed to be aimed at his head and the back of his neck. He noticed how the descending drops of water seemed to be tracking down faint lines of energy that moved with the winds through the air. As he walked, it occurred to him that he would be a whole lot more comfortable if he could just divert those lines so that they no longer converged on him. With a little concentration, he discovered that he could do just that, and soon he was keeping himself dry while the rain continued to fall all around him. It took a little effort to maintain his focus, but not really all that much.
Naturally, that success at diverting the rain led to additional questions, such as whether he could cause the rain to locally concentrate instead. Gradually, so that it wouldn’t be too obvious, he began to increase the density of lines of energy, and along with them drops of water, in the vicinity of his younger sister. Before long, Marian was struggling in a virtual downpour, holding the collar of her cloak tight around her neck with her left hand while she tried to use her right arm over her head to shield herself from the torrent. As she was about to comment to Owen about this unseasonably heavy rain, she looked over to her brother and noticed that not only did he seem to be walking along completely dry, but that he was also wearing a huge grin.
“Why you dirty…” Marian began, jumping at Owen and wrestling him to the ground. Soon they were rolling around, Owen laughing uncontrollably, as the cold gentle rain landed evenly upon them both. Owen finally had to surrender, weakened by his mirth, as his sister sat on his
stomach punching and tickling him, and they walked the rest of the way back to camp in relative comfort as the rain fell all around but no longer on either of them.
It had been more than two weeks since the McMichaels had tracked the soldiers from Baraduhne and the captive citizens from South Corner back to the ancient castle of Carraghlaoch. A week ago, a large party of soldiers and their captives left the castle, crossed the bridge over the river and turned south away from the arch across the Wizard’s Moat. When the wind was blowing from the right direction, they could hear the faint sound of trees being felled in the distance.
They had begun looking for the hidden entrance to Owen’s tunnel two days after Marian returned from tracking the departure of the gorn. And although Owen was still sure that the tunnel actually existed, his confidence that they would ever be able to find it after the centuries it had lain hidden, was waning. It had to have been subtly hidden to begin with, and a couple centuries of falling leaves, changing plant life, and the occasional violent storm certainly had not served to make the entrance more visible.
They worried too about Jack. They had expected his return with reinforcements at least a week ago. Had the gorn spotted him before he reached the village? Had he ended up butchered and eaten like the poor young woman that they’d discovered at the watch tower? If so, what were their father and the other farmers around South Corner thinking and doing? It was entirely possible, that they had mounted a rescue mission that had walked right into a trap at the tower where the boys first fought the gorn. They couldn’t help but feel desperately alone and abandoned to their own resources with winter approaching.
The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) Page 23
