Wanderer's Song

by P. E. Padilla

  “They—”

  “Enough!” Tere Chizzit said. “There is no need for this. You believe differently. That’s fine. We will not argue with each other about it.”

  The two offenders looked at Tere, then at each other. Urun nodded, then Aila did.

  “Good,” the blind man continued. “Now, Aila, to answer your question, no, I was not wrong. Maybe you don’t have a full picture of history. You know what you have heard from your priests, but let me tell you what you have no doubt never heard before.

  “As I said, the pantheon of the gods was called the Voordim. It was a gathering of all the gods into one body. All in one. As you are probably aware, language changes as time passes. Over the centuries, the name Voordim morphed to Voordan to Vandan, and finally to Vanda. Vanda. The god who is all in one. The birth of your church can be found in the name of the group of the old gods you have disavowed. Think about that.”

  “No, you’re wrong,” she said, setting her jaw firmly and crossing her arms beneath her breasts.

  “Why are you here, Aila?” Aeden interrupted. “It certainly isn’t to talk religion.”

  “I just happened to be here and chanced upon you.”

  “Stop,” Aeden said, beginning to get a little heated himself. “You’re going to need to tell the truth, or you can just turn around and go back to wherever it is that you came from.”

  She glared at him for a moment, so different from the pleasant and talkative Aila they had first met. She let out a long breath. “I want to go with you.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re doing something good. You’re trying to get rid of those things that killed your family. That’s something I can get behind. It’s important.”

  “What’s in it for you?” he asked.

  She stiffened. “Why do you ask that?”

  It was Aeden’s turn for a loud exhalation. “Aila, you are in this life for yourself. It’s evident. You wouldn’t do anything without some kind of reward.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she said. “I do want to help. I know how it feels to have your parents taken from you. There will be others who will feel the same thing unless those creatures can be stopped.” She looked at him, eyes full of feeling. “Please let me help. I want to.”

  Aeden looked to the others. Aila kept her eyes locked on his face. Each of them nodded, Raki and Fahtin quickly, Tere a little more slowly, and Urun only after looking at her for a long minute.

  “Fine,” Aeden said.

  The woman moved to him and hugged him. “Thank you.”

  Aeden didn’t return the hug, but he didn’t push her away either. He wasn’t really thinking about her, which was saying something. The story and subsequent argument had given him an idea, and he was already formulating what he was going to do to increase his power.

  48

  Aeden got up before the sky even started lightening with the dawn. Tere Chizzit, who’d had the last watch, nodded to the Croagh as he went off into the trees so he wouldn’t affect the sleep of the others. He brought his swords, but he didn’t plan to use them unless some danger came upon him. No, this day’s task was something else.

  He had been thinking a lot about it, and he believed he could learn more about his magic, refine it. He needed to. Without being able to use it more effectively, there was no way he would survive the numbers of animaru arrayed against him.

  Something in Tere’s story struck a chord in him. When he had shown his power the first time, and when he had used it powerfully after that, it was always in conjunction with the Song of Prophecy. The blind tracker’s account of how Aila’s religion started was another piece of the puzzle. It seemed likely that through the centuries, people had lost sight of what was originally so important. What if it was so with his magic, too? What if his clan, even the Song itself, were missing key ingredients to make them effective?

  Aeden found a small clearing far enough away from the others that even if his magic flared to life, it wouldn’t affect their sleep. He stood in the middle of the open space and controlled his breathing, setting a slow tempo and relaxing his body. After four long, deep breaths, he closed his eyes and focused inward, picturing his body, visualizing the actions he need to take.

  Aeden began to sing the Bhagant, much more slowly than made sense for it. As he did so, he began the movements for the most basic of the clan magic, the first one he had ever learned: Dawn’s Warning. The spell was simple. It made a flash of light that could blind an opponent or be used as a signal. It also happened to share words of power with the first verse of the Song.

  Why had he never made the connection completely before? According to the story Tere told, and from what Dannel Powfrey told them of the Academy, Alaqotim was the language of power, of magic. Then why were the words of power for the clan’s magic in Dantogyptain? It made no sense. Unless at sometime in the past, the clans and the Gypta had cooperated, maybe worked very closely together. How would the clans react if they heard that?

  Aeden’s arms circled each other in time with the slowed-down Song. At the precise point where the words of power would be spoken, coupled with a particular gesture, he made sure that his movements were in sync with the Song. As he finished the first verse of the Song, a bright white explosion of light manifested right in front of him. It was so bright that it lit up all the trees in the area and even appeared to blow them back. Leaves and twigs rained on him after the light disappeared.

  What was that? He had never had that reaction when doing the spell. He remembered that even Master Solon saw the first spell as fairly useless. Aeden smiled. There was no doubt. The Song, integrated with the physical movements of his clan magic, increased his power a hundredfold. Or even more. If only the masters in his clan training had known.

  His smile was short-lived, though. A crashing in the underbrush announced the arrival of all his friends, weapons out and ready for battle with an unknown foe. They all stood around looking at each other, at a loss, when all they found was Aeden in a clearing grinning to himself.

  “I have something to tell you all,” he said. “It’s very good news.”

  After Aeden had explained what he had learned about his magic and the Song of Power, the others congratulated him and agreed that it was a tremendous breakthrough. They still had to get to Sitor-Kanda, but on the way he would take time each day when they stopped to work on his magic and determine how to create the choreography for the dance he was doing. For each new spell he learned—rather, for each spell he already knew but had figured out the dance for—he would have another weapon against his foes.

  The learning proved to be more difficult than Aeden thought. While he could feel the power there, lurking, waiting for him to access its full might, he had no teacher, no one who could even tell him if he was on the right track. The first spell was the simplest by far, but they became progressively more complex after that.

  He began to see a logic in the way the spells were set up. He had always wondered why they were taught in the order they were, but now he understood. He only really had the first two parts of the Song translated, but the spells seemed to follow it. Luckily, though the earlier spells seemed to be less complex, they were no less powerful for it, at least as far as the original clan magic was concerned. If the first two spells were any indication, the power of the clan magic was unlimited, based only on his gestures and the synchronization of the dance with the Song itself.

  It took him two days to figure out the proper way to integrate the movements of Pieces of Evil, the second spell taught to the clan warriors, with the Song. The spell had always seemed a waste of time and effort to Aeden. All it did was conjure up coruscating light that swirled around the caster. It could be very pretty, but served no purpose he could see. Still, in his progression through the spell levels, he determined the choreography and practiced it. With each spell he learned, he would become more familiar with the process, more efficient.

  “Ooh, that’s very pretty,” Fahtin said a
s he showed the spell to her. “Your dance is fascinating, too, but the lights, those remind me of the fireworks we saw in Shinyan.”

  They were stopped for the evening at an empty hunting shack they’d found. It was not large, barely enough to allow the whole party to lie down on the dirt floor, but it was out of the elements. Aeden, for one, didn’t feel like being rained on again. It was a simple structure, with rough log supports, smaller, straight branches laced together with rope to make the walls, and a thatch roof. It had one door and two windows on opposite sides so the breeze could circulate through it once the shutters were lifted on their hinges.

  Aeden was only half paying attention to Fahtin and Raki sitting there in front of him. The expanded motions of the spell were still new enough to him for it to require all his concentration. He stepped through it, looking as if he was slowly gathering something from the air, arms scooping and enfolding the invisible items and bringing them into him to settle in his belly. He thought it looked like a child picking thistle-down seed pods from the still air, moving slowly enough not to cause them to swirl in his movement, but insistently herding the light-as-air seeds for collection. As he did so, he pronounced the words of power, at the precise point in the choreography they were needed.

  “Voira. Tomut. Drikontam.”

  When he finished the casting, he stepped back and watched the lights along with his two friends.

  He had practiced the spell several times after he had figured out the correct movements, but this time things seemed different. The light sprang up as before, but brighter and more insistent. It swirled faster and pulsed as if angry. The swirling continued and then formed a wedge as large as Aeden, the point toward the southeast.

  The lights glowed brightly for a half a minute, changing colors from red to yellow to almost-white, then winked out.

  He turned toward Fahtin to address what she had said. “It never did that before. Usually, it’s just soft, muted colors swirling around. It almost seemed to be pointing toward something.”

  “Maybe it’s trying to tell us where to go, like a compass,” Raki said. “We still need to find a bridge or crossing to get on the right side of the river.”

  “It could be,” Aeden said, “but the spell is called Pieces of Evil. That doesn’t sound like a direction-finding spell to me. It sounds like something we want to avoid.”

  “Well, whatever it does, it’s pretty,” Fahtin said. “The world doesn’t have enough pretty things.”

  Aeden looked at her. “You’re such a girl,” he said.

  Fahtin smoothed her hair back over her shoulder while raising her chin. “I am. So nice of you to notice.”

  Aeden laughed.

  “We had better go to the others and get started with another day of travel. Maybe we’ll find that bridge today.”

  “I’ll bet it’s where the light pointed, even if the name of the spell doesn’t make sense,” Raki said.

  Aeden hoped so, but he didn’t really feel that would be the case. He thought maybe he was cynical because his foes were still out there looking for him. You could never be too careful, though. The three went back to the shack, and soon all of them were on their way again.

  Aeden walked along, caught up in his own thoughts. The others spoke softly with each other, but seemed subdued also. Aila wasn’t even taking part in conversation, just silently walking along. Maybe it was the constant travel without any recognizable progress. He didn’t know. He dwelled on the magic and how he could learn it faster. He would need it, he was sure about that. But when? That was the question. Would he be ready when he did require it?

  “We’re nearing the Tarshuk region now,” Tere Chizzit said. “I recognize the area.” Aeden came out of his reverie and looked around. He hadn’t realized it, but the trees had grown sparse. That was different than the last few days of picking their paths through the underbrush and trees growing closely together.

  Not only were the trees more spread out here, but they were stunted, too, the tallest only reaching twenty feet or so. That was small compared to the mammoth plants they had been traveling through. They had traveled from the domain of majestic oak and towering pine trees to that of the more moderately-sized bristlecone pine and dogwood trees.

  “Just to the southwest, about twenty miles from here, there is a bridge,” the tracker continued. “We’ll finally be able to cross and make our way toward the Academy. We should make better time after that. There are a lot of roads on the other side of the river, and even if we want to stay off them, the land is not as tangled as what we’ve been passing through.”

  The welcome news seemed to lift the others’ spirits. Finally, they would be getting back on track and moving directly away from the animaru.

  The Academy. Aeden hadn’t really thought before about what he’d find there. Would they take him seriously? Would they tell him he was this Malatirsay, or would they laugh at him and tell him to leave? If they helped him at all, what could they do? He wondered if the animaru would chase them all the way there. If they did, he could imagine a grand battle between the heroes of the Academy and the dark creatures. It would be nice to have more allies on his side.

  But he was getting ahead of himself. They still hadn’t crossed the river. There were sure to be other hazards on their way, black monsters or not. Best he keep his mind focused and stay wary.

  As they continued, Aeden saw Tere Chizzit glancing to the southeast more often than he did the other directions. When he did, his brows drew down and a half-frown came onto his mouth.

  “What is it?” Aeden asked Tere when he scanned in that direction and made that expression for the tenth time in three hours.

  “I don’t know,” the blind man said. “There is something that way. Something wrong. I can’t put my finger on it, but I sense it.”

  It was in the same direction Aeden’s lights had pointed when he cast Pieces of Evil.

  Aeden told Tere about the spell and how it had pointed toward that general direction. The tracker’s mouth turned downward into a full frown.

  “Everyone, keep your eyes sharp,” Tere said. “There may be trouble from that direction.” He pointed “It may be nothing, but be ready in case it’s not.”

  The terrain grew more rugged, and they were forced to travel farther away from the river. The cliffs and rocks conspired to move them in a way they didn’t want to go. Toward the southeast.

  Tere Chizzit found a winding pathway through the rocky outcroppings. It was barely wide enough for two to travel side by side. The tracker swiveled his head back and forth as if he expected something to jump out at them. Aeden could only think that this would be an ideal place for an ambush. A few archers placed on those cliffs, and there would be no way for the party to survive an assault. There were more dangers in Dizhelim than monsters from another world. Common bandits could easily take their lives without ever being seen.

  When the little canyon they were in started to widen out, Aeden breathed a little easier. Fahtin was pale and her eyes were half-lidded. Her mouth was pinched like she was going to be sick, and Raki’s eyes were wide and darting. Aeden was surprised that Urun seemed least nervous about where they were. Was he that brave and confident, or was he so out of touch that he didn’t feel the tension? He was singing one of those nonsense songs to himself again.

  Aeden began to walk more quickly, trying to get out of the canyon. They hadn’t seen bandits or anything else, but the sooner they were out, the better. Then it hit him. They hadn’t seen anything else. No animals, no birds, nothing. It could be that there were few trees and not enough food to sustain an animal population, but he had seen more rugged terrain teeming with life.

  He turned to mention it to Tere Chizzit, but the words never came. The tracker had nocked an arrow and was scanning the rock formations off to the left.

  “Prepare yourselves,” he said, white eyes glinting in the sun. “We have company.”

  No sooner had everyone drawn their weapons than a mass of animaru, eerily
quiet for such a large number, rushed out from behind them and to the left. Their foes, it seemed, had not only found them, but also set an ambush.

  49

  “Quickly,” Aeden said. “Bring your weapons to me so I can infuse them with magic that will allow you to harm the animaru.” He dropped his pack where he stood, and his friends did the same with theirs.

  The others drew their weapons and held them out to Aeden. He cast Light to Conquer Darkness on them to prepare them for the battle. When he cast this spell in the manner the clan had taught him, it infused items with the power of life magic.

  He had found that when he cast the spells exactly as he had been taught by the clan, there were different effects than when he cast with the choreographed movements while singing the Song. Different, and less powerful. He wondered what Light to Conquer Darkness would do when he worked out how to cast the more powerful version. But there was no time to think about it.

  Aeden drew his swords. He still wasn’t confident in his abilities to cast the magic in the way that would be needed. He ran his thumbs over the coarse cord wrapping on the hilt of his swords. The wooden peg securing the handle to the blade stuck out just a bit and was a familiar comfort. These small details of combat were old friends that made him believe he could conquer anything.

  Then he saw the masses arrayed against him as they streamed into sight around the rock formations. There had to be more than two thousand of the creatures, far too many for the little party to survive.

  “We have to run,” he said to Tere Chizzit.

  “Can’t,” the tracker said as he scanned the line of enemies for his first target. “They have us neatly bottled up. The ones coming up from behind have blocked our escape into the canyon, and those in front are a wall pushing us toward the others. There’s no river to jump into this time. We have to fight. I dearly hope you have learned your magic, or this is where our quest, and our lives, end.”

  Aeden swallowed hard, trying to force the lump in his throat down. Taking a precious few seconds to look at his friends, he hoped he had learned his magic effectively as well. Fahtin had two knives out, longer than her typical throwing knives. Aeden wondered where she had gotten them. She swallowed and, when she noticed him looking, forced a smile. Raki was barely visible, low to the ground and hiding to strike from the edges, as was his specialty. Aila, beautiful in her dark clothes, her hair tied into a ponytail, had those strange weapons of hers in her palms. Tere Chizzit, of course, had his bow raised and an arrow nocked. He put his right hand down to the long knives belted to his waist, nearly as large as Aeden’s own short swords, and made sure they were loose in the scabbards. Urun Chinowa met Aeden’s gaze, put on a small smile, and nodded. Then he closed his eyes, tilted his head toward the sky, and mouthed words Aeden couldn’t read on his lips. They were as ready as they could be. Was he?