by Ron Collins
“I’m glad you can laugh about it, Garrick. There is hope for you yet.”
“There is that.” Garrick hesitated, knowing he was coming to the hardest part of his tale. “Once I saved her I discovered that the spellwork left a gap inside me. A hunger. Very deep. I discovered then that I needed to take another’s life to fill that opening.”
For a moment the only sound was the clopping of hooves on hard-packed ground.
“So, you’re in a cycle? You steal life force, use it until it’s gone, then steal it back again?”
Garrick nodded.
“And how are you today?”
“Filled to the brim and spilling over. Magic is almost too easy.”
To prove his point, Garrick waved his hand at the path before them and cast an absentminded spell. A rose plant sprung up, complete with crimson flowers. The plant would die quickly in the desert heat, but now it was fresh and its aroma flavored the air.
“That seems unfair. Did you know you would be in this fix when it all started?”
“Of course not. Though, I suppose I could have thought it out. I would have agreed to anything to save her, though.”
“It seems an odd coincidence that Alistair was killed the very night of your … adventure,” Darien said. “There’s got to be something going on. The orders are involved somehow, and I’m sure you’re aware that politics between the orders are more blood than sport. What do you think this means?”
Garrick shrugged. He was unhappy in the heat, and this conversation wasn’t helping anything.
“I don't know. I’ve been thinking about it all night, but I admit I have no idea how it goes together.
“Add the fact that Braxidane has triggered my first barrier—which means I am now also a full-blooded mage—and you’ve got a puzzle that’s bigger than I can comprehend.”
Darien did an actual double-take. “You have a god as a superior?”
“Braxidane is no god.”
“What is he, then?”
“He is a planewalker—simple as that, one of the creatures that live in the spaces between the planes. That makes Braxidane powerful, but it does not make him a god.”
“Does the difference matter?”
“It does to me.”
An awkward silence rose.
Garrick shaded his eyes and scanned for scouts. “Why are they not hunting us?” he said.
“Let’s not be upset by good fortune.”
Garrick chuckled. He was surprised to find he felt better.
“Regardless of anything else, Darien, this means you need to be careful around me. Braxidane’s magic has a will of its own. As my reserves fall, the beast gets hungry. I can calm it, but after a point I will lose control.”
“I thought as much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you think you’re particularly cunning about that?”
Garrick reddened with the accusation. “Yet you’ve stayed around?”
“There is something about you, Garrick. I felt it the moment I met you. Using sorcery at a gaming table is not a normal thing to do.”
“I told you, I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me, Garrick. I smelled it. Your spell work was unmistakable.”
“I was healing the man next to me,” Garrick snapped.
“Healing?”
“Yes, healing.”
Darien broke out in an obnoxious guffaw that dredged up memories of young boys who poked fun at him as they trudged to their studies and he went off to the stables.
“Healing? At a gaming table? You may be a full mage by power, but only an apprentice would be idiotic enough to use magic at a gaming table and not try to fix the odds.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I’m sorry,” Darien said, still grinning.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be broken, do you, Darien? You don’t know what it’s like to be without?” His anger spilled over him then, and he let it roll off his lips. “You know exactly who you are. You know who your father is. You know what your brother did. You have an entire history behind you, and yet you despair over something as trivial as whether you will rate against that same brother. But, let me tell you about not rating, Darien. Let me tell you about not having anyone to turn to, about growing up away from your mother because your baron owed coins to a sorcerer, or about cleaning stalls, or about not letting yourself grow close to anyone because you’re just going to leave again soon.”
It felt good to say these things out loud for once.
It felt freeing.
It gave him a new sense of power.
“I’m sorry,” Darien said softly. “I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
Garrick nodded then, gathering himself together as his anger wound down.
“It’s all right,” he said to Darien. “I just needed you to know.”
Darien's beard bristled at his chin as he pursed his lips. They rode in silence for several minutes before coming to an opening that led to the opposite side of the range.
“This way,” Darien said, pointing.
“About time,” Garrick replied.
He wiped his brow and guided his to follow his friend into the pass.
They emerged several hours later on the eastern side of the mountains. It was cooler here, and green everywhere. It smelled of the forest, of peat, leaves, and wet rain. He had forgotten how much he liked the color of trees.
They made camp in a copse of sycamore and elm. Darien built a fire that warmed them, and they cooked the quail that Darien had taken shortly after they stopped. Garrick ate for taste and companionship rather than for hunger, though he had to admit the bird was delicious.
“It feels good to be out of the desert,” Garrick said.
Darien nodded.
On the other side of the mountain, a rose plant covered itself against the nighttime chill.
Chapter 3
A fortnight later, Garrick and Darien came again to the rolling hills at the outskirts of Caledena.
The journey had remained strangely quiet. They discussed this often as they made camps, and Darien had finally talked himself into the position that the orders’ appearance at Arderveer had been an action against Takril for some issue both unknown and unknowable to those outside the orders. In other words, he had convinced himself that their arrival in Arderveer just as the orders had convened there had to have been the most strange of coincidences.
“No one can be sure of anything that happens behind closed doors,” Darien explained. “But as long as everything else is quiet, I guess no one should care.”
Garrick didn’t argue, but Darien had not seen the damage the orders had done to Alistair’s manor, Darien had not seen the inhuman glow in the eyes of his superior after Garrick had so unwisely given the thing its new life, and Darien most definitely did not understand exactly how unusual it was for the Koradictine and Lectodinian sects to have actually banded together. To Darien’s mind, histories were full of enemies in one battle merging to face a common foe, then splitting again.
So, no, Darien did not understand that the orders of sorcery had schisms that were sharper than a honed blade and that ran deeper than blood. They would not work together for something as frivolous as the destruction of a single Torean mage—powerful though that Torean might be.
Neither Darien nor Garrick, however, were going to be upset about it now that they had made their way back to the city.
The passage of spring into summer had turned the surrounding trees bold with green. The breeze blowing through knee-high grasses smelled of ragweed and wild strawberry, and the fields outside the city were now tilled and planted. But, as Garrick and Darien entered the city, it became clear that Caledena was still the same dog’s breath of a town it had always been. Ale houses and gambling rooms still ringed the outskirts of its limits, and its open marketplaces were still chaotic mills of people trading their goods, services, and sometimes their bodies. The streets were
as dirty and unkempt as before, tainted by the smells of smithy fires and human refuse.
The people of the city stared at Garrick, whispering and pointing, diverting their glances as he turned to them.
“Your legend precedes you,” Darien said.
Garrick sat straighter.
Let them whisper, he thought. It was best they fear him.
He let the essence of his magic flow over the city, and found an edgy cacophony of energies, a mix of emotions that were equal parts hate, hope, pain, and joy. It made him anxious. Caledena was a working town full of people who were just trying to hold on as each day trickled by, but Caledena was also a city of dangerous people who were not above taking advantage of situations that might open to them. He struggled to separate one from another.
As they made their way through the city, the leather bag with the viceroy’s egg in it weighed against his thigh.
He looked at Darien.
His partner had been pensive the past few days, more quiet than normal. When he did speak, it was mostly about the politics of Dorfort, the orders, and even about Sunathri and the independent Freeborn House she had created.
Darien liked the idea behind that order.
“It’s unlike you to be so quiet,” Garrick said as they neared the end of their trip.
Darien ran a hand over his horse’s neck.
“What are you going to do now?” he replied.
“Return this box to Hersha Padiglio, collect my payment, and buy this horse.”
“I mean after that?”
“You want to know if I intend to join the Freeborn?”
“It seems a practical thing for a Torean to do.”
“It's nice to see you’re worried about me.”
Darien smiled. “After seeing what the orders did in Arderveer, it just seems like the safest bet.”
“I thought you were of the mind that says the orders aren’t going to be a problem?”
“They’ll still be looking for Toreans.”
“I’ll deal with them soon enough, then. But I see no need to align with the Freeborn to do it.”
“You’ll be a one-man vigilante, then?”
“I prefer to call it remaining neutral.”
“Typical.”
“I don’t play well with others.”
“Your thinking is shortsighted,” Darien said. “Regardless of what the orders do or don’t do, your god-touch gives you a destiny. Sunathri seems a good leader, and the Freeborn seem to be a good group. The people could like them, or at least tolerate them better than the orders.”
Garrick chuckled. “That will be the day.”
“I could even see Dorfort aligning with the Freeborn someday.”
“Spoken like the son of a politician.”
Darien grumbled.
“You are a true visionary, Darien. But I have enough trouble sorting out my own destiny without worrying about the rest of the world.”
“Perhaps they are one and the same.”
Garrick looped his horse’s reins in his hand.
“All I want to do right now is to deliver this egg and get out of this town.”
Darien shrugged, and the two turned the corner that would lead them to the viceroy’s manor.
“Hold,” Garrick said, raising a hand and narrowing his gaze. Something bothered him.
“What is it?” Darien asked.
“I don’t know.”
He closed his eyes and focused on the essence of the city. He sensed the same brittle edge to Caledena’s aura he had felt from a distance.
“Something’s different,” he finally said.
“I don’t notice anything,” Darien said.
Kalomar nickered.
Garrick put his hand on the horse’s flank. The animal had grown important to him—he was bright and reliable. Garrick trusted Kalomar instinctively, and the horse was worried, too.
Still he could see nothing wrong.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Garrick finally said.
They spurred their horses forward.
Moments later Kalomar pinned his ears back, and Garrick’s gaze flashed around the area.
“There are no guards in the street,” Darien suddenly said.
Garrick nodded. Now that he had seen that one element, the rest of the pattern fell into place. Broken glass ringed several windows, and ragged parchment flapped from others. The normal throng of street derelicts was suddenly missing.
“We best leave,” Garrick said, reaching for his link.
But a wave of Lectodinian sorcery grew suddenly strong, and just as suddenly, Garrick found himself unable to move. He struggled against magical bindings, but got nowhere. He let his energy rise, but with his arms and legs locked in place there was little he could do with them.
Darien, too, had been so restrained.
“Welcome to Caledena,” a familiar voice came from behind.
Lectodinian mages came to his view, the leader wearing a loose-fitting tunic with leather drawstrings that dangled to his chest. His hair was short, and a cowlick stood up in back.
“Elman,” Darien said. “I thought we had seen the end of you when you ran away back in the mountains.”
Chapter 4
Lectodinian mages surrounded them, the strength of their binding spells far greater than the sum of their parts. It reminded Garrick of the magic he had fallen prey to in the depths of Arderveer—that, too, had been the result of many mages working together.
“You’ve learned to bring numbers,” Garrick said to Elman.
“Of course. Lectodinians may have a certain vanity about us, but you would be a fool to confuse vanity with weakness, or a lack of intelligence.”
Garrick did not reply.
Elman leaned in close, and the smells of tobacco and lemony magic grew strong.
“Things are a bit different from the last time we met, aren’t they, Garrick?”
“We intend you no harm,” Garrick replied. “We just want to see the viceroy.”
Elman stepped back. An amused smile crossed his face.
“Do you hear that, my friends?” Elman bellowed to his compatriots. “They intend us no harm!” He strolled around the ground before Garrick, his elbows spread wide and his chest thrust outward.
The mages chuckled with mirth.
“My Torean friend,” Elman said, his smile growing bolder. “You are looking at the viceroy of Caledena.”
Darien’s lips thinned.
“You are a fish in my net, Garrick. You struggle and squirm, yet your efforts serve only to entangle you further.” Elman turned to the rest of his mages. “We will have a little parade, eh? Show the people what happens to men who defy our commands.”
The mages took their harnesses and paraded the horses toward the manor.
People of Caledena looked out their windows, staring with big eyes and lost faces. It was a fear Garrick knew well, a fear that drove compliance and spoke of understanding one’s place.
He glanced at Darien but saw no expression.
They passed the viceroy’s manor, and Garrick saw its stone walls were scorched black, and that glass from the windows lay shattered on the ground. Its drapery was torn and tangled, and had been left to flutter in the breeze. The gateway leading to the stables was ripped from its place.
How had he missed these signs?
He would learn from this. He had felt discomfort within the city, but ignored it. It wouldn’t happen again.
Garrick scanned the stables, looking for the boy who had given him care of Kalomar. He was nowhere to be found. If the orders had hurt the boy, Garrick was going to take special joy at this vengeance, whenever it came.
They took him to a mud-brick building that had once been a gambling hall but was now apparently their headquarters. The building was built low to the ground with a row of windows facing outward. Sheets of blue and red fabric draped the outside walls, each marked with Lectodinian triangles and Koradictine flames.
Mages and apprentices stood
before the entrance, the expressions on their faces showing exactly how uncomfortable they were with the idea of being too near him.
“Bring them in,” Elman said before disappearing into the building.
They took Darien first, then Garrick.
It took two men to pull him from Kalomar. His life force stirred at their touch, but Garrick controlled it with an ease that surprised him.
“Hurt my horse,” Garrick said, “and you will each die.”
The pouch with the box swung precariously free as they moved him. Several mages worked to carry his rigid frame into a small room that had earlier served as the proprietor’s office.
A short table and a businessman’s desk sat toward the window. A painting of a nude woman covered one wall, and an over-stuffed bookshelf decorated another. The room smelled of mold and burnt tallow.
They placed Darien at one end of the table, Garrick at the other.
A pair of Lectodinian mages entered the room, sorcerous concentration etched on their faces. These two were the focal point of the spell that bound them. He tried to remember them, but could not tell if they had come from Arderveer or not.
He expected they did.
Other mages filed into the room, their closeness and their numbers were an ostentatious display of power that seemed unnecessary as long as the two critical Lectodinian casters kept their concentration properly focused. That was something that annoyed Garrick about the orders—they thought image was as important as truth.
Perhaps he could use this to his advantage.
Elman’s boots clacked against the wooden floor.
“So,” the Lectodinian said, peering down at Garrick as he came to the other side of the table. “What do you think my superiors will think of me when I show them your head?”
Garrick merely raised his eyebrows.
“What’s that? You think they will give me a promotion? Why, thank you. You are far too kind.” Elman waved a hand in mock humility, then bent low to put his face directly before Garrick’s. “I understand we have a mutual acquaintance.”
“I’m certain I don’t know anyone you know, Elman.”
The Lectodinian mage laughed.
“Don’t be so quaint, Garrick. Does the name Alistair mean anything to you?”
