by Jean Johnson
Pelai whirled to face her former superior. “He is banished, Elder, not imprisoned! Those who are banished are permitted to take what they can of their belongings, up to whatever point that Anya’thia has outlined in her commands. Or do you seek some way to bend and break the law yet again?”
Dagan’thio bristled. Having enough of his father’s madness, Krais shoved to his feet. “Do we need to check what marks remain on your wrists, Disciplinarian?”
“How dare you?” his father snapped, setting his mother aside to move toward his sons.
Krais stepped between him and Foren, determined to protect his brother in what little way he could. “—How dare you? This is likely the last time you will see your second son alive—and you won’t even get to see Gayn! Your own flesh and blood, the sons you tried to raise to be just like you! Yet you scorn them for it, and you spurn them for all the things they learned how to do from you?” Raking his father with a contemptuous look, Krais defended the brother he loved while Dagan’thio slowed and stopped, frowning at him in disbelief. “If you denounce Foren and Gayn as your sons, then I will denounce you as our father.”
“Krais!” Karei protested. “You can’t do that! Both of you, calm down!”
Krais leaned over so that he could eye his mother past the bulk of his father. He even arched an eyebrow at her. “ . . . Really, Mother? After you clearly tried to attack your own sons not more than a few moments ago?”
“You are a penitent, and you will know your place!” Dagan’thio ordered his son.
“He stopped being a penitent the moment I assessed him,” Pelai’thia countered dryly. She lifted her black-banded wrists, palms outward, inviting him to question her right to the marks of a Disciplinarian. “The Goddess Herself told me so . . . and I am willing to have my marks tested by my fellow Disciplinarians as to whether or not they are still there. Whatever ideas of vengeance for their failures that you’ve been clinging to so tightly for the last six months, Menda Herself has judged as wrong.”
“I will stand witness to that, as I commanded her to repeat that judging while I observed by my powers as Elder Librarian,” Anya’thia confirmed. “Now, recover your dignity, Dagan . . . and stand aside so that the law is obeyed. The Puhon brothers are entitled to their belongings under the weight of that law. As I have so judged, under the full authority of my hierarchy.”
“Rise, Exile Foren, and follow me,” Krais murmured to his brother. Foren pushed awkwardly to his feet, sniffing to clear his nose of his tears. Touching his sibling on the shoulder, he guided Foren around their father and mother by several lengths, until he could walk his brother into their home. Their former home.
“You stood up for me.” Foren murmured, sniffing again as they crossed the atrium, albeit with a detour around the two spirit trees. “Father . . . He won’t let you forget that.”
“I won’t let him forget you or Gayn,” Krais told his middle brother. “Every time he sees me, he’ll be reminded of how he lost you. Consider it my little gift of vengeance for you.”
“Why?” Foren asked, his voice dipping low with rough emotion.
Krais rolled his eyes and nudged his brother up the stairs. “Because I love you?”
“Gayn and I stole from you,” the younger male pointed out.
“Yes, and I still owe you for putting a dog turd in my hand,” Krais retorted.
“When did I put a dog turd in . . . oh,” Foren muttered, eyes widening in remembrance.
“Yes. Oh. That time when I was eighteen and you were thirteen, and I fell asleep on the lawn of the gardens out there, and the two of you thought it’d be funny to fill my hand with feces.” He lightly smacked the Foren’s arm with the back of his hand. “I still owe you both a little bit more vengeance for that. One day, I might come to collect . . . but don’t you ever forget that I love you, Brother. You and Gayn both. You tell him that.”
He wanted to say more, but forced himself to refrain. They reached the rooms set aside for Foren and entered. Foren looked around at the bits and pieces of his young life scattered across the shelves, toys from his childhood, mementos from his travels, and sighed.
“I guess most of it will have to be left behind . . . and sold. I can’t carry most of this out of here—I can still feel my magic being suppressed,” he added glumly, “so it’ll have to be a back-sack and whatever I can stuff into it—a knife, a blanket, a canteen, some cord, spare clothes . . . the bare basics for Gayn, too.”
Krais had forgotten his brother did not have access to his own magics. “I’ll carry whatever you need. Just point to it, and I’ll float it out of here. I’ve had access to my own magics for days now. To most of it.”
“You will?” Foren asked him. “I . . . can’t carry most of these things anyway. But . . . a bag for my spare armor, since I can’t access my tattoo-stored clothes. Which also means extra clothes, extra tools . . . extra coins, if you promise not to tell anyone . . . ?”
“Why would I bother?” Krais asked dryly. “Hurry up and put everything you want on the floor, along with some bags and boxes. Don’t bother to pack it. I’ll do that. But do hurry, and keep in mind that you’ll have to carry it by hand the nonmagical way until your various magics are unsuppressed.”
Nodding, Foren forced himself to move, and move quickly, assessing his belongings like he would have done had this simply been a hastily assigned mission, the kind where leaving within the hour was the plan. Krais followed his middle brother, doing everything he could to absorb his sibling’s features. Storing every single last-moment memory that he could.
One of you, he thought, is going to walk away from humanity. We’ll likely never see that one again. I don’t know where you’ll go, what wild places you’ll hike into. The other . . . and I still don’t know which one of you it’ll be . . . will not just turn his back on, but will actively betray, humanity.
I can only hope the one who walks away will look back on all of this . . . and be proud of me for saving humanity.
* * *
* * *
Deep in the stacks of one of the least visited yet most heavily guarded, highly restricted archives in the entire breadth of the Great Library of Mendham, a beam of light seared through the walls and the shelves and the books all alike. That golden light smacked into the head of a tall, taga-clad, brown-skinned man pouring over a book that glowed with a deep, crackling violet light for several seconds.
The target of that glow hissed and clamped his hand over his eyebrows, then dug quickly in his pouch for a tiny scrying mirror. Getting it up to his eye just as the golden brand started to fade, the magically reshaped body of Torven Shel Von glared at the ominous two-bladed axe coloring his Mendhite-darkened brow.
“Dammit,” he whispered in a language spoken on an entirely different continent far to the east. He had heard of this particular brand, the mark of banishment from the Great Library. In tandem with the light of it winking out, he felt the already strenuous pressures of the Library wards constricting even tighter around his personal shields, threatening to collapse them and crush his body. Just what he didn’t need.
No time left for subtlety. Grabbing the four innermost quire sheets from the section he needed, he ripped them from the tome, slapped it shut, shoved the book back on the shelf, crammed the papers into his pouch, and used half of his remaining magical strength to force open the free end of his one-mirror Gate—a very difficult twist of magic that not every mage could master. A trick he had learned while working in the Tower, half the world away. That forced aperture took him from the depths of the Forbidden Annex located underneath the home of the Elder Librarian to his room at a dockside inn just two miles away, the limit of the aether today. Soaked in sweat from the effort, he turned and caught up a jar of Gate powder, chanting and casting it at the open surface caught within the cramped mirror-frame.
As soon as it sealed, he grabbed another jar, this time a mirror-shrink
ing paste, and used it to un-stretch the mirror, frame and all, back down to a size that could be stored in a small keepsake box. That short little bastard, Kerric Vo Mos, had no idea just how much Torven had learned of mirror-Gate magics in his time in the Tower’s maintenance crew.
Grabbing a pen and an inkpot, he pulled out the pages, still cracking with dark violet energies, and set them on the slanted surface of the writing desk provided in his rented room. A murmured spell, a dip of the pen to the pages he had torn free and the pages of a half-blank book on the desk, and he moved pen and ink back and forth, back and fourth, copying the contents of the eight sides of those four sheets. As soon as the copies were complete, he tossed his writing gear into a carrying chest, stuffed the chest and the notebook into his bag—kept ready to go at a moment’s notice for just such a moment as this—and cast another spell.
This one had been designed to obfuscate his departure. Not to create a true illusion of invisibility, since such things could be tracked fairly easily from how they shed splashes of magic, leaving a sort of warm trail one could sense if they were trained for such things. Instead, this one simply formed a compulsion for people to look elsewhere. To think they heard a noise off to the other side. A little gust of extra wind that curled dust up into range for a sneeze. A stinging pluck like the bite of an annoying insect, turning an observer’s attention either selfward or away.
Such things took far less energy to create than bending all that visible light with such skill and complexity that a person could no longer be seen. Far less energy meant all lingering traces would be that much faster to dissipate. So as men and women at the inn turned their heads and sneezed, or blinked and rubbed at watery eyes, or jumped a little and slapped at the backs of their necks, the greatest information thief in Mendhite history strode out of the inn, down to the docks, and asked around for the next ship leaving port in such-and-such direction.
Picking the fourth of the five answers he got, Torven approached the berth for the ship . . . and saw Mendhite soldiers and Disciplinarians herding shackled prisoners onto the ship’s deck. Prisoners he recognized, though they did not recognize him in his magically reshaped body. A glance off in the other direction, toward one of the other ships close to being ready to depart, showed more of the ex-Mekhanan priests and their acolytes being prodded onto that oceangoing craft.
“Perfect,” he muttered tersely, this time speaking in Mendhite. “I can’t seem to escape those idiots!”
The Aian mage had initially decided not to rejoin the others when he reached the city of Mendham. If they found what was needed on their own, that would be good. Torven, however, had different plans. Contingency plans for ensuring that the draining of their summoned demonic target could not be stopped . . . and further plans for transferring all of that power into himself, to make him a living God . . . the usual sort of plans. Stretch goals, the Adventurer’s Guild back in Penambrion had called them. Goals above and beyond what should normally be possible, suitable motivation to make sure those normal goals would be reached and surpassed, even if he never hit his target. Which he would.
By the way they kept rubbing their foreheads, those ex-priests were apparently being banished, too. In fact, Torven realized it was the other way around: his banishment branding was probably just a side effect of whatever they had been up to, one of those mass-targeting spells that simply swept up in its grasp anyone within so many miles who wore a bright blue undergarment, as a random example. Only in this case, it was probably targetted at those researching whatever those fools had tried to find, and anyone closely associated with their plans.
He wasn’t sure how much longer he’d have before the brand came back, burning hotter and hotter until he left the ground from which he was now formally banished. The sooner he got onto a ship leaving within the hour, the better.
With any luck, the fourth ship—the swiftest on the schedule to depart—would leave and get him out of range before his forehead would glow. So many outlanders being banished all at once, plus a Mendhite? Suspicious. But it wasn’t as if he had that many choices left. Hefting his bags a little more comfortably over each shoulder, he approached the gangplank, and saw a flock of . . . floating bags?
In their center, a Mendhite in a dark red kilt and matching vest tried to touch the shoulder of another Mendhite, this one with his hands bound in shackles. The shorter, stockier male jerked his shoulder away, then awkwardly grabbed a couple of the bags floating at shoulder height and stalked up the gangplank. A few more bags followed him. Another male, a little taller than either of them, paused to hug the touchy fellow. They embraced for a long while—how touching—then the taller, leaner male trudged up the gantry, the rest of the bags floating in his wake. He did not have shackles on, but was not treated with much dignity by the crew.
Torven changed his mind. There were too many Mendhites on board that ship, and some of them were crew. He had no desire to be stabbed in his hammock because one of the sailors chose to love the sanctity of books a little too well, and took the offense of Torven’s branding a little too seriously. Moving on down the docks, he eyed the second fastest ship to depart of his five choices, noted how none of the crew were Mendhites . . . and how most of the prisoners were youths, easily impressionable young men. Rolling his eyes, he found a crew member on the dock, tapped her arm, and negotiated with the suntanned woman for passage to the fabled island city of Senod-Gra . . . via five months at sea, since they had a dozen other cargo stops to make first, but oh well.
According to the information he’d found in the wake of some of the Mekhanans’ efforts, spying on their research efforts, he had six months to go before the next window of extra-dimensional Gating opportunity came along. And Senod-Gra was rumored to be rife with various magical sources. Why plan to steal just one, when he could lay contingency plans to steal several?
He’d have to see just how far away those prisoners were being taken before deciding whether or not to reveal himself to his former demonology pupils. If they were simply banished, he’d consider taking them to Senod-Gra. He had found some very interesting spells on harnessing unusual sources of magic that could be put to good use there, during his weeks of research here in Mendham. If they were being banished to a specific place . . . he might consider freeing them. If he decided they could be of enough use to him once again.
As it was, he was still on deck almost an hour later, his forehead covered by a thick scarf and a leather band on top of that to mute any hint of a light, when his skin started to burn. Since the ship had already set sail, he only had to endure the pain for about five minute before it eased. A few minutes after that . . . an explosion in the distance proved how dangerous the Library’s defensive spells could be. Particularly ones compressed by a stasis spell, slowly eroding over the span of a few hours by the forces of the pressures caught within its shell.
Plenty of time for a highly trained mage to copy what he needed and flee. Still, the force of the explosion caused by just four filched pages was quite impressive, visible from over a mile away under the bright midday sun. If there were more than two intact boards left of that whole dockside inn, Torven Shel Von would be shocked. Anyone caught in that kind of a blast . . . well, it would be mercifully quick, at least.
Every spell had a weakness, and that very same exploding trap spell had been all too vulnerable to time-slowing magics, thus Torven had not been the one caught up in it. That was all that mattered to him. Most importantly, with a blast that huge, there would be no trace left to reveal that it had been caused by spellbook pages stolen from the Forbidden Annex’s shelves. No remnants to trace meant no knowledge of and no way to counteract his plans. The defenses of the Great Library simply had never been tested to the same depths as all of the tricks, traps, and puzzles he had studied while working in the Tower.
Almost amateur, really.
* * *
* * *
The explosion caught everyone off gua
rd. Chunks of wood and plaster slammed up into the air, accompanied by a peach-hued cloud of debris, the remnants of shattered bits of ubiquitous padauk wood and plaster dust. Pelai flinched and crouched with an arm over her head, the reflexive movement activating a protection tattoo, throwing up a shielding sphere around herself. Consciously, she unleashed the power of the Fountain, flinging up a greater shield above the shrieking, terrified crowds on the docks and wharves. A good thing, too, as those chunks came slamming down, bouncing off and tumbling across the invisible layer the power of the Fountain had wrapped around all of the surviving buildings and placed over everyone’s heads.
All of that came from reflex, tattoo-prepared magics, and swift-thinking will, but Krais beat her in terms of reaction to the cause of the explosion. Whipping around, he oriented on the source-point, the center of that cloud of dust, and sprinted through the scared, scattering crowds. Pelai followed as fast as she could finish collecting her wits. It helped that most of the people in those crowds fled away from the epicenter, bolting for a safe spot to hide, a solid object to shelter behind in case it happened again.
Reaching the thickest parts of the dust, Krais slowed, coughed, and cast a spell to wrap his head and shoulders in a dust-filtering spell before he could choke on the stuff. Several men and a few women staggered out of the cloud of pulverized debris, eyes so wide in shock that the whites were visible all the way around.
Very oddly, absolutely none of them were injured. Or even dusty. Every single one of what looked like sailors, lower-class merchants or traders, and local Mendhites was absolutely clean, even with the dust still floating in misty clouds. Fumbling for the viewing lens—the real one, confiscated from his youngest brother half a dozen docks away—Krais slotted it into place over his left eye. Pelai ran up to him, slowing to try to see what had made him stop. She, too, stared, blinked, and then stared, activating her own means of extraordinary seeing magics.
