by Alec Hutson
With hurried grace the castellan stood, bowed again deeply, and then backed away. Jan rose as well and moved a few steps towards where she sat; the queen glanced at him and frowned, then beckoned him closer. He came to stand beside the pool, only an arm’s length from her. This close he could see that her skin was flawless, without any blemish or mark. She was dressed in a simple blue shift that echoed what she had worn that first day on the docks, though this one was obviously of much finer make, and she wore no jewelry save for the twisting silver diadem set with emeralds he had seen before in the feast hall.
“Look,” she said, gesturing into the pool.
The water was not as clear as he would have supposed: clumps of algae floated on a surface pocked by lilies, and the flower’s tangled roots trailed down into the murky depths. The queen was pointing at a rock with strangely colored striations – no, not a rock, a large turtle shell patterned with whorls. Its black head poked from the water, unblinking yellow eyes fixed on the queen. Jan tried to sense if she had it under a compulsion, but felt nothing.
“A handsome beast,” Jan remarked, unsure of what exactly he should say.
The queen laughed, high and free. “Handsome? I’m not so sure. This fellow is Belgariod, named by my great-grandfather after the river spirit of the Serpent. He’s lived in this fountain for almost a hundred years, by my reckoning.” The queen glanced at Jan, humor glinting in her eyes. “A fledgling, you must think.”
“Just a babe,” Jan replied, shrugging.
The queen studied him for a long moment, her face suddenly serious. “If a century-old turtle is a babe to you, what must I be? A mayfly on a summer’s day?”
“No, your Highness.”
“You say you are a sorcerer like me. We both share this Talent you spoke of. Does that mean that I could discover a way to arrest the ravages of time, as you have?”
She did not fence with words, Jan thought, shifting uncomfortably. Straight to the point. “Your Highness, I must admit my ignorance. I have a . . . condition, and there are gaping holes in my memories. I cannot remember the details of how I achieved immortality – only that it involved a great act of sorcery, and the combined strength of many wizards like us.”
The queen considered that, chewing her lip. “I see. Assuming that I believe your rather unlikely tale, you did say that there are others like us?” She motioned for him to sit, and Jan joined her on the lip of the basin.
“I know of only one other. It was she who sent me to you, so I might ascertain what you are.”
“You must tell me more more about this sorceress. But later. First, this condition you claim to have – how did it come about?”
Jan shrugged helplessly. “I wish I knew, Your Highness. I thought for decades that I was just a simple crofter, but then something happened that awakened part of me. And though I know now who I was and many details of the world, I can remember only a few random fragments from my past. Sometimes I feel strongly that I have been somewhere before, or tasted the same food long ago, but the sense is fleeting, and carries with it no real knowledge.”
“Is it possible that this other sorceress made you forget?”
“She claimed I did it to myself.”
The queen snorted. “As would I, if I had done it. Come here.” She patted the stone beside her, and Jan slid closer. “Let’s see if I can help.”
She reached out and lightly touched Jan’s temple, furrowing her brow in concentration. “I don’t notice anything strange,” she murmured softly as a warmth spread from her fingertips, making Jan feel lightheaded.
Suddenly she breathed in sharply. “Wait! There is something, like a dark stone rolled across a cave’s mouth. I would wager that behind it are the answers to your past.”
Jan tried to temper his excitement. “Can you remove it?”
The queen’s mouth thinned as she concentrated. “It feels like it gives a bit when I push, but not nearly enough. No, I think I would need some kind of lever.” She withdrew her hand, and the tingling sensation in his head gradually faded. “I will devote myself to this problem. I very much want your memories returned to you, Jan.”
“As do I, Your Highness.”
The queen suddenly stood, smoothing her dress. “Good. Now walk with me – oh, but first, I haven’t introduced you to Kwan Lo-Ren.” The Shan standing beside them bowed stiffly from the waist. “Kwan is the captain of my Scarlet Guard, the most elite warriors of Dymoria. He was trained at Red Fang mountain.”
Jan blinked in surprise. “Red Fang mountain? Is he still a member of their order? I didn’t think they swore themselves to anyone, even the Phoenix Throne of the Empire of Swords and Flowers.”
“No, they do not,” the Shan said haltingly. “I am not of the mountain anymore. In Shan I would be called a Tainted Sword, one who has left Red Fang in disgrace.”
“Oh,” Jan said, meeting Kwan’s glittering black eyes. “Then I’m sorry for whatever happened.”
The Shan’s expression remained composed, his voice even. “Do not be.”
Jan expected some further elaboration, but Kwan said nothing more. Finally, Jan turned back to the queen, who had watched this brief exchange with some interest.
“When I accepted Kwan into my service the one condition for his loyalty was that I would never command him to reveal why he had left the mountain. I’ve kept my part of the bargain, but I must admit to being a bit curious.”
The Shan warrior bowed again. “I am sorry.”
She waved away his words. “It is fine. How dull life would be without mysteries.” She glanced at Jan mischievously and winked. “Now, master Bard from lost Min-Ceruth, I have something to show you. Come with me.”
They left the garden and entered the palace again, the queen leading them down twisting passages of dark stone lit by gilded wall-sconces. Behind a few of the doors they passed Jan could sense strange sorcerous reverberations, and his skin prickled.
“My private quarters,” the queen said. “No doubt you can feel some of the artifacts I’ve gathered. My magisters have scoured the land looking for the magical detritus of the old world – books, weapons, jewelry, whatever has survived. It is a depressingly small amount, really. But there are a few wonders.”
They paused before a large door inscribed with the twisting dragon of Dymoria. The queen pressed her palm against it and closed her eyes and a moment later the door swung smoothly open, revealing a vast, darkened chamber. Another filament of sorcery leapt from the queen and a great glass sphere suspended from the ceiling suddenly brightened, bathing the room in a golden light.
“This is my homage to your people.”
Dazed, Jan stepped forward, his gaze traveling over the relics of the past. Of his past. There was a fragment of the Winding Stair, silvery steps lustrous in the globe’s light. Beside it lay a chunk of dark stone roughly carved into the shape of a dancing girl – the fierce sorcery bound up in this statue made his eyes water. Silver urns overflowing with rune-carved saga bones lined the walls. His eyes darted from wonder to wonder: there was a device that resembled a ballista, there a contraption made of glass tubes containing several glimmering blue sparks, there an ancient two-handed sword with a black blade encased within a block of crystal. And in the center of all these ancient artifacts was one of the holdfast thrones, a seat carved from the bone of a great dragon. Magic swirled about the chair like silt stirred up from the bottom of a muddy stream.
Cein approached the throne and gently lowered herself onto it. The sorcery seemed to settle around her, giving her an aura of radiant power. She watched Jan carefully. “What do you think?”
“I think . . .” he began, his mouth suddenly dry, “I think you look like a queen of my people.”
“Like the queen of Nes Vaneth?”
Jan shook his head. “No,” he said softly, speaking as if from a great distance, “she had golden hair, and e
yes like the ocean.”
“So you remember her?” Cein leaned forward, interested.
“I remember . . . something.” Jan sighed in frustration. “I am sorry, Your Highness.”
The queen set her elbows on the throne’s cracked armrests, steepling her fingers in front of her mouth. “Such an interesting pair we make. You, a relic of a glorious, vanished past, and I a harbinger of wonders that may come again.”
“Then you believe that our world’s twilight is ending? That sorcery will return to these lands in strength?”
The queen nodded. “I am certain of it. Just a few months past I sensed another like us, a young boy with great sorcerous ability. He must also be one of the Talents you spoke of.”
Jan blinked in surprise. “Truly? And where is he now?”
“I dispatched a magister to fetch him – I am expecting their return any day now. I received a bird from Theris that the boy had been found, and that they were returning along the Wending Way.”
Jan was silent for a moment, considering this. A single Talent appearing after so many centuries could be considered chance . . . but two? No – Alyanna had been right, the pulse of sorcery was indeed quickening once again. But why? What had changed in the world?
Slowly his gaze traveled over all the marvels the queen had gathered. “Your Highness, forgive my impertinence, but how did you learn magic? Who was your master?”
The queen studied him thoughtfully. “I had no master.”
Jan remembered the waves of power he’d felt in the queen’s audience chamber, tendrils of sorcery expertly woven together and lashed to her will. Such mastery required years of careful study at the feet of other sorcerers. No matter how strong her Talent, the queen could not have spun her sorcery out of whole cloth!
“I find that incredible, Your Highness. Apprentices might develop their own small, unique cantrip, or put some twist on a larger spell, but the great sorceries were far too complex to learn independently, and required the instruction of a master.”
The queen shrugged. “And where did the master’s master’s master get the ideas for his spells? Someone, somewhere developed the sorceries of the old world. After all, the magic is always there, formless, inside of us. We simply must be creative in how we use this infinitely malleable tool.”
Jan was stunned. She spoke as if it were as simple a matter as embroidering a blanket or painting a picture, but he knew that what she was describing was almost beyond belief. Cein d’Kara was creating her own unique school of magic, distinct from what had existed in the Star Towers or the holdfasts.
“And there are guides. I have found several spell scrolls and saga bones inscribed with ancient magics, and many other ancient books give descriptions of lost sorceries. With some effort I’ve managed to craft my own approximations.”
It beggared belief. Jan had assumed that there had been a coven of sorcerers that had persisted here in Dymoria, or perhaps that even there was another mysterious immortal aiding the queen. Instead he had found that she was laying the foundation for her own unique strain of sorcery.
He shook his head in wonder. “I am impressed, Your Highness. Truly you are a wonder of this age.” Something occurred to him. “Is that how you sensed my approach? I had been trying to hide my Talent when I was traveling to this city, yet still you noticed me. Whatever ward of yours I tripped was not a spell I’ve encountered before.”
The queen smiled. “Yes, it was one of my own devising. You had wrapped up your sorcery quite well – when you were performing in the feast hall I could feel nothing. But I had spent some time weaving spells into the roads running to Herath, so that I would sense even the most cleverly disguised sorcerer approaching.”
“And then what? You threw on some rags and hurried to meet me at the docks?”
The queen leaned back in the throne, chuckling. “I wanted to take your measure, it’s true. I’d never felt a power like yours before, and that’s why I spent some time watching you at the inn.”
Pieces slid together in Jan’s mind. “And the invitation to the palace – you arranged that.”
She nodded slightly, still smiling. “I’d seen enough. You were not here to assassinate me, and I wanted us to meet.”
“Magister d’Kalas should be a mummer,” Jan said, feeling slightly annoyed at having been fooled.
“If it’s any consolation, master bard, he was truly impressed with your playing.”
“Hmmm. And Selene of the Tides?”
“An old fiction. My father brought me here when I was very young, only ten years old. Before that I had lived in a small village on the coast of the Sunset Lands, spending my days exploring the fields and forests. The idea that I could not wander where I wished when I arrived in Herath was infuriating. Very soon the walls of Saltstone became like a prison for me. So I used to slip from the castle and descend into the city, exploring the alleys and markets and eating houses. Selene of the Tides was my disguise – I learned more about my future subjects on those excursions that a hundred history lessons in my father’s study.”
“There’s a song in that story, Your Highness.”
The queen laughed again. “Perhaps. I hope by the end of my reign that they’ll be plenty of songs to be sung.”
Keilan smelled the sea.
It slithered on the wind between the red-leafed trees pressing along the road, a faint briny sharpness that summoned forth memories of seaweed drying on jagged rocks, and endless breakers rolling toward a desolate shore.
The sense of home came upon him so powerfully, so suddenly, that Keilan almost thought that the forest around them would dwindle away as they crested a ridge, and he would gaze down on the mud and thatch huts of his village. He knew, of course, that they were instead nearing the Derravin Ocean, which was hundreds of leagues from the Broken Sea. But something clutched at his chest, a deep longing to see his father and Sella and the others in his village who had shown him kindness. Mam Ru, gnarled and ancient as the Speaker’s Rock, who had slipped him freshly-boiled cockles and told him stories as he’d sucked their salty flesh straight from the shells. And Big Benj, who had taught him how to tie a bowknot that never loosened and had gathered him into an embrace in the days after his mother’s death, something even his father had never done, and let him sob into his broad chest.
He had last seen them only a few months ago, but it seemed like a lifetime had passed. Would he choose to return to his village, if that was possible? Could he, after all that he had seen and done?
“We’re almost to Herath,” Vhelan said, smiling. The magister had donned wine-dark robes that looked of finer make that his other garments.
“I thought we must be. I can smell the sea.”
Vhelan breathed in deep. “You’re a fisherman’s son, so I’m sure you can. Me, I can smell sorcery on the breeze.”
Sorcery.
Keilan shivered at the word. The idea that he would be taught to become a sorcerer had seemed so remote during their travels. Now they were on the verge of completing their long journey, already well within the borders of Dymoria, and somewhere through these woods and over these hills waited the Crimson Queen on her dragon throne. Months ago she had sensed him, and sent for him, and now he had nearly arrived. What would he find?
“Cold, lad?” Vhelan asked, eyeing him carefully.
“No, it’s just . . . I mean, my whole life I’ve been told that sorcerers . . .”
“. . . are evil,” Vhelan finished, “and that they brought about the cataclysms that destroyed the old world.”
Keilan glanced at Vhelan uncertainly, shame flushing his cheeks. Hadn’t the magister shown him only kindness? How could he still doubt the motives of him or his queen?
Vhelan nodded slowly. “And, of course, there is your mother.”
Keilan blinked in surprise. “My mother?”
“She was murdered under
the suspicion of being a sorceress, by men you’d loved and trusted. They killed her for the crime that you are poised to willingly commit. Perhaps you feel some guilt about this?”
Keilan swallowed and looked away from the magister, his eyes stinging. “Perhaps,” he said softly.
“You have a choice, you know.”
“What?”
“No one can force you to nurture your gift, not even the queen. She would not want anyone to come fully into their power if they truly believed that the sorcery within them was evil. It would be all too easy, then, for the sorcerer to abdicate responsibility for their actions. To blame sorcery itself for the crimes committed.”
“I would not do that,” Keilan said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I know, lad. Or I think I do. Do you remember what Captain d’Taran said in the ruins of Uthmala?”
Keilan shook his head.
“He said that just as some men are good and some are bad, so the same is true of sorcery. But he was wrong. Sorcery is a tool, nothing more. Like a sword, it can be used to take from others, or to protect your family.”
“And I have a choice? If I fear what I might do with sorcery, then your queen would understand if I decided not to develop this . . . gift?”
“She would be disappointed, I’m sure, as we all would be. But she would understand. That is the difference between the sorcerers of Dymoria and the fanatics of Menekar. The Pure who took you from your village, who saved us from the spiders, he had no choice. He was Cleansed and filled with that poisonous light against his will. That is evil. Do you know what the paladins of Ama truly are? Or perhaps were would be a better word.”
“No.”
“They were gifted, like you and me. Children that were born touched by sorcery. The ceremony they suffer through does not simply cut away their magic . . . it inverts it. Where we may draw sorcery from the Void and fashion it to serve us, they leach it from the world and throw it back into the beyond.” Vhelan shuddered. “They are abominations.”
“Why does their god hate magic so?”
