Key to Magic 03 King

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  Easily guessing what the men had been discussing, Mar told them matter-of-factly, "It was sabotage. There was magic in the heart of the fire."

  Rhel, lowering his voice, asserted, "I doubt that it could have been someone in our group, my lord king."

  "I agree. Whatever it was that exploded could have been placed aboard at any time while Berhl was having Number One renovated."

  "My lord king," Ulor declared earnestly, "this was an attempt to assassinate you and surely the queen as well."

  "It wasn't the first and won't be the last. The Brotherhood won't stop trying to get rid of me till we destroy them."

  "Should we plan to turn back to the Monolith come morning, my lord king?" Eishtren asked.

  Mar looked at Ulor. "How far did we come before the fire?"

  "Thirty-five leagues, by my charts. I held to a constant speed from the moment we left the Monolith."

  "How much of the supplies were damaged?"

  "We kept the fire from spreading to the stores," Truhsg replied. "The kitchen and everything in it is a total loss, though."

  "I don't want to head back then," Mar told the four men. "We're much nearer to Khalar and I think that I've a better chance to fly it there than to go all the way back. In Khalar, we'll have repairs made and then continue on."

  "Open magery might be ill received in the Imperial City," the quaestor warned. "Do you plan to take the city by storm?"

  Eishtren asked the question as if he thought it not merely possible that seventeen armsmen and one magician-king could capture Khalar but rather a foregone conclusion. Though on the surface the officer appeared entirely rational and composed, something in the magic that subsumed his bow -- the magic that had allowed him to survive the capture of the Citadel -- had, at least to Mar's mind, left him slightly off kilter.

  "No," Mar told him firmly. "We'll bring Number One in under cover of night. In the Lower City, there are warehouses that are more than big enough to hide the skyship. We'll get access to one -- somehow -- buy seasoned timbers and lumber from the yards where they build the barges, and hire carpenters and workmen. We should be back on our way in a matter of days."

  "We only brought two hundred silver in coin," Ulor pointed out. "Will that be enough?"

  "I'll informally requisition the rest."

  The subaltern half-grinned. "Of course, my lord king."

  Mar looked up to judge the time from the stars. It must be after midnight. The three Mhajhkaeirii officers and Fugleman Truhsg would see after the watch and he saw no need to remain awake himself.

  "We're isolated enough here to be relatively safe," he told them, somewhat abruptly. "I'm going to sleep." He again wondered if he would ever feel truly rested again.

  "Your tent is there, my lord king." Truhsg pointed, indicating one set slightly apart under a spreading white oak. The light of a lamp was visible through its white canvas.

  Mar had actually intended to curl up in the crook of the branches of some large tree, but did not see any reason why a tent and blankets would not do just as well. He bid the men a good night.

  Not having thought about it, he was slightly surprised to find Telriy in the tent, sitting on a blanket by the lamp as she brushed her hair. Nevertheless, he only nodded to her and forged to the back where a pallet of blankets had been made atop a square of canvas spread upon the ground. As he lay down, a stray thought wandering through his mind made him wonder if his boots and brigandine could have survived the fire. Not bothering with a covering blanket, he wiggled his back to find a comfortable position for his spine and hips, then let his breathing slow and cleared his mind. Moments later, his eyelids had already begun to droop when Telriy turned down the lamp, lay her brush aside and came over to the pallet.

  With an utterly calm expression, she loosened the fold that held up her quilt wrapping and let it fall to the ground.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Pushing obstinately through a juvenile moment of awkwardness, Telriy released the quilt, with the full expectation that the sight of her unclothed form would instantly reignite Mar's desire. She watched him carefully and noted the telltale physical signs of his arousal almost immediately.

  Within, despite the dictates of her rational mind, she felt trepidation. She had conspired shamelessly to bring him to her bed, driven by the secure knowledge of Gran's prophecies, but he would be the first man that she had known in an intimate fashion. Though Gran had explained the mechanics, sensations, and emotions of the act in exhausting and occasionally bawdy detail, Telriy's unwavering determination could not entirely extinguish her anxiety. There would some pain at first, and a bit of blood, but Gran had suggested that there would also be pleasure if she wanted it.

  She would sacrifice her Maiden's Companion and thereby lose one of her few remaining connections to Gran's magic, but she had always known that her possession of the ethereal blade was only transitory at best.

  After this, Mar, undeniably the most powerful magician that the world had seen in millennia, perhaps in all of time, would be irrevocably hers and hers alone.

  There was no conceit in this conclusion. She knew she was pretty in a youthful way, at least as much so as any average young woman, but she also knew that she did not have the sort of looks that would make men stop what they were doing and simply stare. Her nose was a bit too long, her lips some too thin, and her cheeks a bit too pronounced. Her breasts were not large, she was too tall, and she had worked too hard through her life to have the well-padded hips that many men seemed to favor.

  No, it was not her flesh that would forge chains to bind his soul to hers, but Mar's own desolate psyche that would cause him to need her with an overriding compulsion.

  She was certain that he had never been with a woman and had not seen him betray any physical desire toward any other than her. Most men, even those faithfully and happily married like Ulor, would glance at a comely woman as she walked by, if only for an instinctive and quickly extinguished instant. Mar, though, did not. Seemingly unaware of the reaction himself, he always looked away before even the minutest salacious thought could form. It was as if he had rejected life for so long that he was now incapable of living.

  He was a broken person, and the parts of him that might desire society and kindred were withered and dead. Though he had made efforts of late to be more comfortable in his interaction with the Mhajhkaeirii, she knew that he remained internally wary of his acquaintances and earnestly suspicious of people in general. Like the thief he would always be, he was still on the outside of a normal life, looking in.

  But she knew with equal certainty that he wanted her. From the very first moments in Khalar, though he had concealed it well, she had recognized that intense desire in his eyes. Now, as she lay down with him, he did not bother at all to disguise his passion.

  "Shouldn't we wait till a better time?" he asked her even as he reached for her, clearly making one last token protest in defense of his determination to reject his destiny.

  She laughed. "What? You thought I would let a little thing like an explosion, fire, and skyship crash deprive me of my wifely prerogatives?"

  Then she pressed herself against him and kissed him. Then, recklessly and wantonly, abandoned herself in the moment.

  Not until much later, after he had fallen asleep with his body wrapped, warmly, possessively, protectively, and -- she could not deny it -- comfortingly around hers, did her thoughts turn once more, as it was inevitable that they would, to the overweening purpose of her life.

  Finally, it was assured.

  The last necessary task had been accomplished.

  Her path to the fulfillment of her grandmother's visions and to the magic that would make her a wizard was irrevocably open.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Mar got up at dawn but waited until after he had had a breakfast of porridge and toast before borrowing Phehlahm's brigandine and flying the hundred armlengths out to the beached skyship. During the night, the spells holding her in position had bled away and she
had settled to a sixty-degree list to port, but still remained firmly lodged on the sandbar. The flattened, crescent-shaped spit, now fully revealed in daylight, was about forty paces wide and a hundred or so long, but only rose about an armlength above the water and showed signs that it had been overtopped recently. The river was down from its spring highs and he did not doubt that come next spring, the bar would shift or subside altogether.

  Hovering above it, Mar righted the skyship, then raised the stern -- not an easy task because of the weight of the water that had flooded in -- and brought her fully onto the sandbar, every seam and gap gushing. While the dregs of the water drained rapidly from the interior, cutting small streams across the sand, he raised the skyship up to two manheight so that he could survey the damage, both above and below. Though severe, it was not as bad as he had feared. True, a large chunk of the stern was completely gone, with only the charred keel, stern post, and some of the port side hull planking in reasonably good shape, but the forward part of the vessel was nearly unscathed. The stern did tend to twist and wobble when he moved the skyship, but with some temporary bracing, he thought it should be able to reach Khalar without further mishap.

  The interior had sustained some smoke and water damage and some of the supplies had, in fact, been ruined, but he had no doubt that everything that they had lost could be easily replaced in Khalar.

  With care and patience, he sailed the balking and shaking skyship over the river to the bank and left her hovering above an exposed gravel shelf, only an armlength between her keel and the skree.

  Quaestor Eishtren, Ulor, and Rhel had been watching under the shade of the trees on a raised, jutting headland, and Mar flew to them.

  "Will she fly again, my lord king?" Ulor asked.

  "With a few repairs, I can get her to Khalar," Mar told them. "If we get started today, we can leave by day after tomorrow, at the latest."

  "We will get right on it, my lord king," Eishtren promised.

  The repairs actually took three days. Mar assisted as needed, moving trimmed logs and holding them in place till fastened, but he left the actual carpentry work to the Mhajhkaeirii. He spent most of this time with Telriy, talking casually, sitting with her and the children while their mothers tended camp, helping her wash their clothes, strolling through the forest with the foraging Auxiliaries, and other such innocuous pastimes. While their nights were filled with unrestrained passion, their days were comfortable, quiet, and unremarkable, and he found himself enjoying the latter just as much as the former.

  On the evening of the third day, Mar took Number One for a brief test cruise in a large circle over the river and back. He could only generate a very modest speed before the vessel began to vibrate disturbingly, but decided that she would make it to Khalar without disaster, if aggravatingly slowly. When he returned, everyone pitched in to reload the skyship and then moved back aboard to sleep.

  With their stateroom destroyed, Mar and Telriy were obliged to temporarily take possession of the Auxiliaries' cabin. With unusually good humor, Signifier Aael herded his charges, who reacted to the change of quarters with only minor grumbling, to the lower deck, where they camped in the large compartment in front of the cargo doors. The Auxiliaries having hauled their gear and bunks with them, the cabin now had enough free area for the wide bunk that Ulor and Phehlahm had cobbled together for the royal couple. There was no mattress, but it looked comfortable enough with a stack of blankets and quilts.

  As Mar was preparing to close the door so that they could retire for the night, Yhejia appeared, bearing a basin of heated water and washcloths. Telriy, her apparent obsession on bathing undiminished, had told him on their second night in the tent that, "The rule is, everybody takes a bath everyday."

  With everyone occupied with the reloading of the ship, he had assumed the odd rule would be left in abeyance, at least until a normal routine was restored, but apparently not so.

  "Thank you, Yhejia," Telriy told the woman, taking the steaming basin and bearing it to a shelf built into the wall.

  After Yhejia departed, he sat on the bed, sinking into the folded blankets, and began to unbutton his shirt.

  It had become something of a nightly ritual for them to help each other bathe. This evening, he felt further motivated to expand the ritual by helping his wife -- and thus he did now think of her -- to undress. She submitted calmly to his attention, but when his hands began to wander, he slapped his arm lightly.

  "You're insatiable," she accused.

  He grinned. "You make me that way."

  She made a stern face, but could not hold it, breaking into a grin that mirrored his own. "Sit on the bed and turn around. I'll wash your back."

  When he meekly complied, she dampened one of the cloths, knelt on the bed behind him, and began to scrub his shoulders, not gently.

  Enjoying the attention nonetheless, he told her, "We shouldn't have to stay in Khalar long. I'd imagine we can get the stern rebuilt in half a fortnight."

  "That's good." She rinsed the cloth and started on his neck, using slow, almost caressing, circular motions.

  "How long do you think it will take us to reach The Mother of the Seas?"

  She stopped for a second, then resumed. "I'm not sure."

  "What's the nearest landmark to the city? I have a good idea of the country and maybe I can work out an estimate."

  After a long moment, she said, "The fork of the Ice River."

  He blew a puff of air out of the side of his mouth in exasperation. "No, I mean something farther out."

  Again, she did not answer immediately, but rather rinsed the cloth thoroughly and washed his back. "There isn't one."

  "Isn't one what?"

  "There isn't another landmark."

  He whipped around abruptly to face her. "What do you mean?"

  "The last line that I have is, 'And when we came to the place where the river divided, we spoke among ourselves at great length, whether we should...' That's all that I had read before Waleck forced me to burn the book."

  "Are you saying that you don't know where The Mother of the Seas is?"

  "Stop shouting, you'll disturb Ulor and Yhejia."

  "I'm not shouting!"

  She clamped her mouth shut and gave him a look that convinced him that she did not intend to say another word until he quieted.

  He took a couple of heavy breaths and let them out slowly. "Please answer the question."

  "I will if you keep your voice down."

  Restraining himself, he nodded once.

  "Not exactly, no."

  "Then what, exactly?"

  "Khavurst the Younger placed a lengthy summary, generally a full page or more, at the front of each chapter. There are some hints to the location in that preface."

  "What did it say?"

  "In which I relate the circumstances whereby our good company did forge north into the unknown wilderness of the continent, seeking --"

  "You memorized the entire thing?"

  "Yes, of course. Everything that I read in the book before you and Waleck caught me with it, that is. My grandmother taught me a memorization cantrap that lasts for almost a quarter of an hour. While the cantrap is active, I retain every word that I read."

  "And what's a cantrap?"

  "A cantrap is a very simple charm, usually only a single simple gesture or two and perhaps a short spoken phrase."

  "You didn't tell me about this cantrap before."

  Telriy shrugged. No doubt, there were a great many other things that she had not shared with him.

  "Alright, tell me what the book said."

  "In which I relate the circumstances whereby our good company did forge north into the unknown wilderness of the continent, seeking the source of this great waterway that we had encountered. Having made our peace with the gods after the terrible storm that wrecked us on the desolate shore of this vast, little populated land (as was related in the previous epistle), we resolved to make the best of our predicament and to explore and char
t the land for the everlasting glory of the Emperor and the Empire. Klosphees and Truhdys advocated a journey along the coast to the east, with the aim of eventually locating one of the Imperial trading outposts known to exist at the northern reaches of the Archipelago. Byndr, Schur, and I however proposed that we instead go north, following the great river, which, while it might present a marginally more difficult trek, would allow a much easier return journey, since all that would be required would be the construction of a simple raft in order to take advantage of the natural flow of the water. After a lengthy sojourn nigh unto the wreck of our gallant ship and other adventures with certain wild peoples of the close interior, which I shall hereafter relate in detail in a separate epistle such that our experiences might be of aid to future voyagers, all were agreed that we would first follow the river as far as we were able and then determine whether to fall back again to the coast or to brave a march directly through the wilds."

  "Khavurst was certainly long winded."

  Telriy frowned and poked him reprovingly. "Don't interrupt! The cantrap doesn't allow me to pick up in the middle. I have to recite the whole thing from the beginning!" And she did, repeating the entire paragraph before continuing.

  "As I will tell you, in the many months that we traversed the great forest, we encountered numerous villages where the people had no knowledge of the Empire or of civilized beings such as ourselves, hardly knowing the working of metal and ignorant of writing and scholarship. We made several notable discoveries, among them the branching of the great river at a place where we were compelled to erect a settlement to abide the coming winter of this second year of our expedition, a seemingly endless desert and the mysterious ruins that abound there, found when we resumed our travels, the merciless savages that make this waste home and their heathen practices and rituals, and beyond this worthless land the headwaters of the great river, a fantastic mountain of ice which we determined to name The Mother of the Seas."