by C. Night
But the screaming horses panged Rhyen, and he glanced down at his poor Cinnamon. He let go of the spell and the fire went out as quickly as it had started. The soldiers yelled and turned their steeds back toward the gate, kicking them again and again, pressing them to run faster. Rhyen suddenly realized what he had almost done: His Opposite had nearly consumed him. He nearly burned two men to death. He had burst the heart of another. He felt sick.
But there was no time for that now. Rhyen pushed his feelings aside. There were still more soldiers than the two who had just fled. Rhyen looked over at his master in time to see Cazing fling his hand out to a nearby well and glare at it. The water fountained up in a spectacular wave, up and out of the well. Cazing held up his hands to the soldiers. As the sorcerer commanded, the water flung across the street and surrounded them so that they were suspended in a blue orb. The water compressed around them, and they struggled as they were plunged entirely in the mass. Cazing was breathing heavily as he kept the water enclosed over the four of them, and his fingers were spread so widely on his hands as he struggled with the mass that they looked as though they might split from his palm. Rhyen watched with horrified astonishment. For the first time, he truly appreciated that his master’s affinity was Water.
The blue orb was hanging in the air, and Rhyen couldn’t tear his eyes away as, inside, the men were swimming, trying to find a way out of their suffocating hell. They kicked and pushed, and the horses tried vainly to turn over, but Cazing’s hold was complete. They floated helplessly in the water, their movements growing more frantic by the minute.
There was a shout to his left. Rhyen turned sharply to find Liem still fighting the first Zirite, their swords thrusting and clashing, their horses rearing at each other and biting viciously into flanks and necks, blood streaming from their bared teeth. Another soldier moved forward to help his companion, and Liem was forced back against a wall, trapped under the assault. Rhyen started forward to help him, but Caliena screamed from behind him and he whipped around.
Five more horsed Zirites charged the two gnomes and the woman, their swords drawn and raised. Rhyen roared furiously and sprinted forward—his companions were unarmed. Faster! His magic streamed down into his long legs, giving him speed. But it was not enough—he would never make it in time. The first horseman had nearly reached them—
But Avarek, as it turned out, was armed, and withdrew a hidden knife from somewhere on his person, and flung it with expert skill at the closest rider. It speared through his neck, between his breastplate and helmet, and red splattered down his silver armor as the blood gushed forth from his jugular. He scrabbled at his neck vainly, losing control of his horse, who veered off and crashed into its fellow. The other rider was flung off, his sword clattering away as his momentum rolled him. Rhyen held out his hand and didn’t even need to speak. The sword flew to his palm just as the Zirite found his feet and lunged at Rhyen.
He yelled as he swung the blade down and, with a sickeningly satisfying feeling, he felt the blade sink into the soldier at the shoulder. Rhyen used all his strength to wrench it further, and he and the Zirite crashed into the wall. The soldier, severed from shoulder to lungs, vomited blood as his back met the wall. Flecks flicked all over the sorcerer, and Rhyen, though he didn’t want to, looked into the Zirite’s eyes. He saw agony and horror staring back. Rhyen shut his eyes, but he couldn’t shut out the memory of the mutilated soldier. “I’m sorry,” he gasped. He twisted the sword, and heard the soldier draw his final breath.
Rhyen let go of the sword and backed away, gagging. It was too much, too terrible. He wanted nothing more than to vomit, or to die himself. How could he have done such a horrific thing? But there was still no time for that. He staggered around and saw the final three horses steps away from Caliena and the gnomes. Both Respen and Thom’s horse were raring in fright, their masters struggling vainly to turn them. But the horses didn’t respond to the tugging on their reins—they were made wild by the smell of blood and the noise of crashing swords.
Rhyen held out his hand. “Trip!” One horse suddenly fell forward, losing its footing. It rolled with a sickening crunch over its master, and the Zirite’s yells were cut abruptly silent.
But Rhyen wasn’t fast enough. The other rider crashed into Respen, and the Zirite leapt from his horse and tackled Caliena off her mount. She screamed while falling, but the air was pushed out of her lungs as he landed heavily on top of her. His silver helmet rolled away from the force of their fall, but he ignored it, bearing down on Caliena with a wide grin visible even in the blackness of night. The Zirite flipped Caliena over onto her back and pressed his armored bulk into her so she was trapped between him and the street. She struck out with her fists and he grabbed her right wrist, slamming it into the ground above her head.
Rhyen was yelling for her, racing as fast as he could, his vision almost completely obscured by his rage. His Opposite was rising again. “Get off her!” he bellowed, and he threw up his hands, intending to wield the soldier into a million pieces, to destroy him so thoroughly that nothing could mend him back together, but before he could, something grabbed his feet and he tripped, falling hard into the street.
He was on his stomach, and he flipped over to see a chain, with a heavy weight on either end, wrapped tightly around his legs. It was intended to trap him; the Zirites wanted him alive. He glared at the chains, and they broke before his gaze. He staggered to his feet. The Zirite who had thrown the chain reined in her horse, staring at him with awestruck horror.
Rhyen was livid. His Opposite was clamoring for her blood, her slow death, but Rhyen wanted only to save Caliena. He was almost out of time. He let the magic flow through him as he wielded. The heavy weight that had been attached to the chain leapt from the ground to his hand and he chucked it, wielding it straight, until it bashed the soldier in the face. She flew backwards off her horse, her face completely broken and bloody from the metal weight. She moved no more.
Rhyen heard Caliena scream from behind him, and he turned in time to see a flash of silver in her left hand—her knife. She jabbed upwards into the Zirite’s face. The blade sunk in through the soft flesh at the temple until only the hilt protruded. He died instantly, flopping lifelessly on top of her. Rhyen was viciously proud of her, and yet horrorstruck. She struggled under the soldier’s dead weight and blood, and Rhyen held up a hand, wielding him off of her. She struggled on to her hands and knees and was horribly, violently sick.
Rhyen was almost to her, but then a blur out of the corner of his eye made him turn and look instead at the gnomes. A final Zirite rider ducked and dodged Avarek’s second knife, and with a lurch crashed into the red roan, and both Avarek and Rhyen cried out in horror as the Zirite thrust his sword into Thom’s belly. The soldier barely slowed, and impaled the old gnome on his sword.
“Father!” Avarek leaped furiously from his horse onto the Zirite’s, and, though the gnome was half his size, he tackled the soldier to the ground. The Zirite let go of his sword as he tried to push off the gnome, but Avarek snarled like a wild animal and clung to him, burying his face into the human’s neck and sinking his pointed teeth into his throat. The Zirite screamed and pounded on the small back, but Avarek mercilessly continued to ravage him, tearing his throat to shreds.
Caliena pushed herself to her feet and ran to Thom, who was laying face up on the ground, his abdomen sliced upwards in a vicious gaping slash. “Thom!” she cried, trying to cover the wound with her hands, but it was too long and too deep. His organs, pulsing and punctured, were visible even through the cascading blood that billowed up through the jagged skin. Her tears fell like rain and splashed over the wizened brown face. Rhyen reached them seconds later and fell to his knees over his friend. Little bubbles of blood were forming in the gnome’s mouth, and he blinked rapidly. His breathing was shallow and uneven and so guttural he sounded like a baying animal.
“I can’t get the sword out!” Caliena m
oaned, fluttering her blood covered hands around the slash, unsure of what to do.
Rhyen looked at it—a black blade that flashed wickedly in the firelight—and grasped the handle. The sword was wedged into the vertebrae of the spine and wouldn’t budge. Just touching it that much made Thom splutter and screw up his face in pain. Rhyen instantly let go. He saw the blood gush from within his friend.
“Heal him!” Caliena begged. Her tears were making treks through the Zirite blood that covered her face.
Rhyen shakily held up his hands over Thom’s stomach, but he knew it would do no good. Thom’s was a mortal wound, and no spell that Rhyen could wield over him would buy him more time on this earth.
Thom seemed to know it too, for he painfully jerked his head. “No,” he gasped to Rhyen. “Save your strength.” The red froth streamed in foamy rivulets over his lips. “Avarek,” he coughed, and his son was instantly at his side, blood flecked over his sharp little teeth and running like a red river over his chin.
“I’m here, Father,” he said, his voice cracking. Rhyen moved away to give them space. He grabbed Caliena and lifted her aside as well. She clung to him and sobbed, and he wrapped his arms around her, tears streaming from his eyes too.
Thom reached out a trembling, heavy hand and rested the back of his fingers on his son’s cheek. “You must go, my son.”
“I will,” Avarek chokingly replied.
“You know what you must do?” Thom asked, breathless. His voice was faint.
Avarek nodded, and the first tears spilled over his angular eyes. “You taught me well.”
“Then leave, and guide them out.” Thom closed his eyes and coughed. “Go now.” Blood dripped from the corners of his mouth and gushed steadily from the gaping wound in his stomach.
Avarek gently put his hand on his father’s forehead. “Farewell, Father.” He lurched upright and turned away from the dying gnome. Without looking back, he stumbled over to Caliena and Rhyen. His face was set and his chin raised, though his eyes were narrowed and tears stood bright in them.
“Come with me,” he said quietly. He reached up and took hold of Caliena’s trembling shoulders and pulled her along with him. He looked at Rhyen. “Get the others,” he ordered softly, his voice creaky.
Rhyen nodded at him. Avarek resolutely led Caliena into the shadows of a dark alley, barely noticeable between the wide merchant buildings. The gnome whistled as he passed his white steed, and the horse followed him willingly. Avarek grabbed the reins of Caliena’s Respen and pulled the paint along too. They disappeared into the shadows.
Rhyen looked back up the street. Cazing released the orb of water, and the creatures inside fell to the earth. They were dead. The water ran down the street like a waterfall, ruddy from all the blood mixed with it. He saw Liem cut down one of the soldiers, the other already slain behind him. How could this have happened? The sights were too much, the memories of his actions too near. He fell to his knees, giving way to his nausea, and wretched.
He had killed four people—people he knew nothing about. He had chosen his life over theirs… who was he to decide such a thing? How was one life more valuable than another? How was this for the greater good? Which is the lesser evil: doing something bad for a good reason or something good for a bad reason? Did it even matter? Wasn’t evil evil, regardless of why it was done?
“Rhyen,” came a thin, drowning whisper from behind him.
Rhyen looked back. Thom was still alive, but only just, and he was looking at the sorcerer through cloudy eyes, his fingers feebly waving from the palm up hand, wet upon the ground. Rhyen crawled over to him and grasped his hand.
“I’m so sorry, Thom,” he moaned, tears springing to his eyes. “I should have closed the gate.”
Thom weakly shook his head, dismissing his words. “It must be you, Rhyen.” He was choking, slowly suffocating as the fluid filled his pierced lungs.
Rhyen cupped his other hand around the gnome’s domed head. “What?” His throat was so painfully tight with grief that he could barely speak.
Thom blinked. “You are the Eighth Born. You are the only one who can do it.” He tried to swallow, but his throat was no longer functioning.
Rhyen vigorously shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean!” he cried. “Do what?”
Thom’s eyes were growing dimmer. “It must be you,” he whispered gutturally. “Only you…”
As Rhyen looked into the black angular eyes, his grief filled him, his rage and Opposite so near the surface of his numb mind, and suddenly he felt a dizzying spinning sensation. The bloody street disappeared as it whirled around him, and to his great dismay he saw a wide green meadow beneath a bottomless blue sky—the Sorcerer’s Plane.
Chapter 29
He was going into the Sorcerer’s Trance—he tried wildly to stop it, but didn’t know how—and suddenly he was kneeling in Thom’s house, watching the gnome and Cazing as they shuffled papers around on the great table. The gnome looked much younger—his head was covered with hair as black and curly as Avarek’s, and the thick hair that ran down his arms and the back of his hands was black also instead of the white, tufty hair that Rhyen knew. Cazing looked as he always did, and they both bore serious expressions. Rhyen braced himself, for he knew what came next: The settling sensation came over him, and he was Thom, seeing and feeling how the gnome did.
“There are two possible sets of parents right now,” Thom reported. He felt tired.
Cazing blew out a puff of smoke. “Wasn’t there another family? What happened to the third set?”
Thom shook his head. “They’re expecting another child.”
Cazing smiled. “That would rule them out.”
Rhyen felt Thom smile back. What the gnome counted for a smile Rhyen would only call a softening of his wooden expression. “I have my contacts keeping an eye on them all.”
“Waiting is the hardest part,” Cazing muttered, scratching his chin.
Thom shrugged. “We’ve waited this long. What’s a few more years?”
The room spun around, and Rhyen clenched his teeth. When he settled again, he saw Thom was at the same table, only he was much older. Gray had begun to set in on what little hair remained to him, and his face was more lined. Darkness shone outside the windows. Cazing was nowhere to be seen. Then Rhyen was seeing through Thom’s eyes. The gnome was holding a quill. He had been penning a letter, and he was now reading it over.
Cazing of Avernade,
I have what I hope is good news. One of the possibilities looks to be quite promising. They have just had their eighth child, and the second born sister is already showing signs of magic. Perhaps our long search is over. I trust you are ready, if it is.
There is movement in Zirith. Their young queen has begun to issue strange proclamations. I believe it will happen soon.
Ta’ae Sayni Chavfu
Thom’varDa
Rhyen registered the strange symbols scrawled just before Thom’s signature, but he had never seen a language like it. It looked beyond ancient. On his own, he would have had no luck reading it. But this was Thom’s memory, and he was reading it as Thom did. It did not translate well to words, though Thom understood it to read “The Order of Eternal Vigilance.” However, Thom did not linger over it, and so Rhyen had no idea what it meant.
But he had no time to puzzle over it, for the room spun again. When it stopped, Rhyen saw that it was daylight, and Thom was yet again in his great room, though now the sun that peeked through the windows suggested early morning, and Thom was not alone. A human was there with him. Rhyen was astonished to see that he recognized the person as one of the letter carriers from Yla. Rhyen had seen the man almost weekly throughout his childhood. What was he doing in Corna, and with Thom?
Then he was Thom and asking, “What news do you have?”
The letter carrier was grinning. “I think we’ve fin
ally found him. The sister received a letter weeks ago from the Academy in Ikha. She’s a wielder.”
Thom smiled his wooden smile. Rhyen felt his triumph at the carrier’s words. “Well done, Frainco. And not a moment too soon. Taida has considerable pull now over Zirith’s queen.”
The letter carrier nodded. “He’s getting stronger, then?”
“Unfortunately,” Thom sighed. “He must have many pieces already.”
Frainco frowned at the gnome, and Rhyen felt Thom’s spirits droop. “When does she start?” he asked.
“She leaves in two months, on her tenth Name Day.”
Then the room spun again, and when it finally stood still Rhyen saw that Thom was at his front door, hastening forward to open it. His hair was grayer still. Then Rhyen was opening the door with long-fingered hands. It was pouring out, and Frainco was there again, sopping wet and smiling.
“Come in!” Thom said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“It’s him!” Frainco whooped. He shook his wet hair out of his face and blinked through the streams of water that ran into his eyes. “He just saved a little girl by exploding the well, and blasting the water a hundred feet into the air! I saw it with my own eyes!”
If Rhyen had been separate from Thom, his mouth would have dropped open. They were talking about him—he had done that, the very first time he ever wielded. The well had blasted water high into the air, and he’d caught Breya as she tumbled down the spray. Half the town had been there to witness it. And his second oldest sister, Amyalda, had left six years before to study at the Academy…
Thom grinned wider than Rhyen had ever seen before. “Then it lines up.”
Frainco nodded. “They share the same blood, the same Name day, the same family situation—”
“Then there can be no doubt, my friend,” Thom said at last. “We’ve finally found him.”
Rhyen sensed that Thom was deep in thought, and felt his slanted brows pull slightly together. “Will you deliver a letter to—”
