by T. A. Miles
“Perhaps her brother can explain that to us,” Bheld suggested.
All the while, Korsten simply observed Merran, who continued answering the officers’ questions and concerns. “Her brother is not the spy, if that is what you’re implying,” Merran said.
“Then how….”
Merran called for silence with an upheld hand. Eventually he said to Grisch, “The matter is currently too sensitive to reveal anything more to you. Proceed with your defense plans as if all were normal, for now. If Korsten and I cannot get this resolved by morning … it may be the outpost you’ll be wanting to evacuate.”
“I’ve always admired your flair for mystery,” Korsten was saying to Merran as they made their way through the upper corridors of the central tower, working their path gradually downward. “However, I’m not so certain our current allies appreciate it. What are we up to?”
“The first thing that I did when we arrived, after our opening conversation with Grisch, was visit the infirmary. There have been no major injuries acquired over the past several months and no major illnesses. Nothing indicative of the Vadryn’s presence. However, there have been at least twenty-two separate complaints of men feeling ill with nothing apparent being wrong with them.”
“The physician told you this, I’m assuming.”
Merran nodded as they descended a spiraling stairwell. “I requested the names of those men, and visited each one of them individually.”
“So that’s what you’ve been at all this time.”
“After invoking a Sleep spell on them, I performed my own medical examination,” Merran continued. “Every one of them has a minor, unhealed wound upon their bodies.”
Korsten thought that his neck began to throb at the base of it while Merran said that, in the exact place where he’d been bitten decades ago.
“The marks aren’t terribly conspicuous,” Merran said. “Mere scratches, some of them. Enough, though, for the Vadryn to draw what it needs and still keep the victim alive. Since it knows we’re here and has from the start, I healed the wounds to the best of my ability. That might delay things.”
“Delay?” Korsten frowned in wonder. “Why didn’t you seal the wounds?”
Near the base of the enclosed staircase, Merran stopped, drawing Korsten to a halt with him. When his friend was facing him, he said, “The feeding has been going on for months, at least. The victims are as unaware as their fellow soldiers.”
“Of what?” Korsten asked, very quietly, since Merran was practically whispering himself.
Drawing a quick breath, holding it for a space, Merran exhaled and let the words out. “Eighteen of those men are lost. They must have died weeks ago. Based on the manner in which the demon claimed them, slowly and by careful deception that would have hidden its identity from them, they must have passed and come back scarcely realizing the transition. Before long they’ll begin to need as their master does.”
Korsten’s gaze had lowered at some point, fixing on Eolyn as she clung stoically to Merran’s coat. His eyes drifted back up, matching Merran’s urgent stare. “Their master? You mean it will have control over them?”
Nodding, “It does, but I don’t believe it’s exercised that power yet. Korsten … the demon will claim every soul in this keep, long before Morenne arrives to take it.”
Without downplaying the severity of his colleague’s words, Korsten said, “Convenient for Morenne. Conspired?”
Merran took a step back, so that he was leaning against the wall of the stairwell. “It’s difficult to say,” he sighed. “Of course, it’s possible. And if so, imagine it, Korsten. Morenne and the Vadryn, working together against us.”
“What would the Vadryn have to gain in that?”
“The end of the Seminary,” Merran replied without having to think about it. “The end of mages; of us. They’ll have the blood lilies … and enough magic to turn around and kill every Morennish man, woman, and child in the span of a heartbeat. They’ll take all the magic that’s left in this world, the gluttons. And what will be left when they’re done?”
“Perhaps they haven’t thought of that themselves,” Korsten said quietly, feeling a strange lack of fear in himself while sensing it from Merran. He wondered at the conviction in his voice when he added, “It doesn’t matter anyway. Ashwin will never allow them that victory, if it comes down to him as the last mage to stand against them.” While Merran just looked at him, Korsten lifted a hand to the other man’s shoulder. “But we won’t let it come to that. He sent us here because he believes there’s something we can do. I can’t say I know what that is at the moment, but if I know you half as well as I think I do, you’ve already devised a solution to this dilemma.”
Merran continued to look at him. The ghost of a smile hovered over his firm chin. “In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you say a thing so positive.”
Korsten lowered his hand, offering a faint smile in return. “Does it worry you?”
“I haven’t decided.” In the next moment, Merran broke out of his mild trance. “Come along anyway; there’s someone who wishes to see you.”
Korsten followed and they completed their descent, coming to a passageway that eventually led them to a moderately sized room that was shrouded in both darkness and sheets of webbing thick enough to serve as drapery. A dim white spell-light hovered above the bowed head of a very young man. He sat hugging his legs in a high-backed chair cleared of dust. When he heard the two mages enter the room, he looked up and beamed openly for just a second before barreling out of the chair and straight at Korsten.
Trev ran smack into Korsten and flung his arms around him. He stood just tall enough to press his face against Korsten’s chest, which meant that the rest of him was … the rest of him … wasn’t a boy.
Korsten instincts were to get away. It was reflex almost, but shock restrained him. “Father of the gods. You’re not a … what is she doing here?” Those last words were directed at Merran, but it was Trev who answered.
“I’m sorry I lied,” she said. “I had to. I couldn’t just wait anymore. I had to come and find out what happened to my brother.” She lifted her face just enough to look up at Korsten, who could see the rigid serving girl from the tavern in Lilende now. “We’re twins, Trev and I. He’s always been a bit small for a boy and I’ve always been skinny … everywhere.” Even in the dim light Korsten could see her redden. And then she said, “We both look a lot like Father, in the face. I knew if I cut my hair, and wore my tunic loose enough, I could look exactly like Trev.”
“That’s … all very well,” Korsten replied, gently but determinedly prying the girl off him. “And where is your brother?”
Accepting the space Korsten put between them, Trev’s sister answered in the meek voice she’d been using while acting as her twin. Korsten could almost imagine her as the boy he thought he was getting to know. “He’s sick … at Osley’s.”
“The tavern,” Merran supplied when Korsten glanced to him for explanation.
The girl continued, her tone hardening, confidence returning. The illusion of Trev was gone again; the gruff tavern girl was back. “He’s dying, I think … after some evil touched him. I’m sure of that. Weeks ago, he came back to Osley’s to see me. I don’t know if he’d been given leave or if he ran off because he was scared, but he was more than scared when he got to me. He told me things … nightmares he’d had while he was up here and….” Her eyes glistened in the light. “It gave me chills to listen to him whispering such things at me. Osley said it was mages behind it. He told me how they used to serve the Old King, and then how they turned against him, and killed him and all his family. He said they’ve been tryin’ to rule Edrinor ever since and that they took people’s life out of them and put it into themselves somehow, and that’s how they live so long. Osley said that Morenne’s coming to help us, that killing off the mages will help them as we
ll, so why shouldn’t they? He told me that the Vadryn belong to mages and that they turned them loose on Vassenleigh a long time ago to show everyone what they could do. They haunt the fortress there, like ghouls. They haunt other places, too, like this keep. That’s what Osley told me, but….”
The girl flung herself at Korsten again, and began to cry. “I don’t believe it! Not since I met you, Master Korsten. I saw you at Osley’s and thought that you looked sad. I didn’t know what to think when I saw you here, but … demons can’t be sad. They can’t have feelings. They don’t feel anything. I believe what you said to me about helping people who’ve been stolen by the Vadryn. Please help my brother. Please….”
“She’s agreed not to go back to Osley’s tavern for now,” Merran said. “He told her to find out what she could about what’s been going on here, but I don’t believe he expected her to come back.”
“No?”
“I believe this Osley character was using Trev as his informant, since there was suspicion of one long before Serra’s decision to impersonate her brother. More than likely, Osley needed her to replace her twin for the very purpose of fending off that suspicion. Particularly once he knew mages were arriving. Trev’s disappearance from the outpost would have drawn investigation toward the man who fostered both him and his sister after the death of their parents. None of the soldiers venturing into the tavern on leave would notice the absence of a girl who spent most of her time in the kitchen. It probably wouldn’t have occurred to them that Trev even had a sister, if they didn’t know him personally.”
Korsten slipped his arms free of Serra’s crushing embrace. He placed his hands lightly upon her shoulders and waited for her to look up at him once again. “Trev didn’t have a lot of friends, did he?”
“He had a lot of bigger, older boys knocking him down all the damn time,” Serra answered, scowling through her tears. “They kept on doing it when they all became soldiers up here. I learned that when they did it to me straight away at practice. I thought about wailing into them with my own blunted weapon, but then I thought about how Trev wouldn’t have, and I was supposed to be him. So I didn’t. I just let them keep hitting me, thinking how awful it must have been for Trev….” Her features softened just then. “You treated me decent, thinking I was him. You’d have treated my brother decent. I can see that you care about people. And I….”
“Merran,” Korsten said, deliberately stopping her. It was becoming difficult to listen to. She was wrong anyway. Korsten didn’t like to see people hurt, but it wasn’t for people that he did what he did. Everything he had been doing for the past thirty years, including living, was for Renmyr. He wasn’t the compassionate soul she seemed to think he was and therefore there was no justification for her sudden adoration. She was simply scared and confused, Korsten decided and said to Merran, “If Osley is our spy from Morenne and this girl his unwitting informant … or the replacement for his unwitting informant, meant to decoy us … where’s the demon?”
“Osley isn’t from Morenne,” Merran corrected. “He probably wants to defect. Maybe he wants to get others to do so as well and save Lilende by promising loyalty to its conquerors.”
“I had wondered about your sudden cruel streak in overlooking an evacuation,” Korsten said somewhat dryly. “So you believe it’s safe not to be concerned with Lilende because of Osley’s possible rallying against his own country. Where does that leave the keep?”
“Direct targets of both the Morennish army and the Vadryn.”
“The Vadryn being?”
“Someone twenty-two young men trust a great deal, or at least whose regular beating on them won’t make anyone suspicious of wrongdoing.”
“Bael,” Korsten answered at once, completely surprised at how he’d overlooked the man, entirely. And then it occurred to him. “That would explain the overall lack of morale hanging over the troops, all of whom train under him at one time or another during the course of their daily routines. He can grin all he wants to, but that won’t change what he is behind the grin, will it? Still, I didn’t see it. I wouldn’t have seen it. Why?”
Merran offered a slight shrug. “As you said yourself; your talent for—” Korsten halted the word before it formed with hard eye contact, and Merran rephrased in midsentence after glancing at Serra. “Your primary talent has yet to attain Ambience.”
“I thought you said that wouldn’t make a difference.”
“I said that Ambience would not be necessary where the topic of gaining trust is concerned and, barring Grisch, that has proven to be accurate.”
Korsten’s humorless smile just then called his fellow mage a familiar name, not the one given him at birth, and then he said, “What are we going to do? The Morennish army is coming. We can’t have those unfortunate soldiers awakening to the truth before they get here … or when they get here, for that matter. The chaos within will be enough to forget the threat from without altogether once it starts.”
“Bael has to be stopped tonight,” Merran decided. Korsten nodded agreement and Merran added, “I have enough experience at this to handle the tainted soldiers, even if they should awaken. We both know that you do not.”
Korsten couldn’t disagree with that. However, he didn’t know if he could agree with the alternative, either. “You’re leaving Bael to me?”
“You know how to perform the Release spell.”
“I’ve gone through the motions, but never actually….”
“There’s a first time for everyone,” Merran replied seriously. “Yours is now.”
Korsten felt tense suddenly, apprehensive about this sudden unavoidable call to duty. Merran needed his help after all. He couldn’t do it alone. Well, perhaps he could, but there would undoubtedly be more loss as a result, of both life and time.
“He isn’t a Master,” Merran said, as if he knew. Korsten believed that he probably did. His mistake where Renmyr was concerned was something entirely different. “I’m sure that you can free the man from the demon, without killing the man.”
“And the demon?” Korsten asked in a low tone, hoping to mask the tremble in his voice.
“Eviction from their chosen hosts always makes them testy,” Merran said, and while Korsten frowned at his poorly timed humor, he added, “It may try to reclaim Bael. Attempting to Release the same individual twice is rarely successful. Take it down quickly, Korsten, then finish the Release. Banish it from this world.”
“What can I do?” Serra asked, reminding Korsten of her presence.
Korsten looked at her, knowing what needed to be done without asking Merran. He slipped his hand beneath her chin and gently lifted her face, simultaneously invoking one of the few spells that required no gesture so long as physical contact was made with the subject. “You’re a very brave young woman, but the best way for you to help us is to wait here.”
Serra might have protested, but her greenish eyes fell gradually closed and erased the argumentative frown from her face. She slumped against Korsten and he lifted her into his arms, carrying her back to the chair she’d previously been seated in. Merran’s Lantern followed as he had cast it for the girl. After placing her in the chair, Korsten glanced about, finally recognizing what manner of room he was in. A twinge of grief and annoyance struck him at the sight of stacks of neglected books heaped upon shelves draped in webbing. “What a fine waste this is. And why do I believe that this library is the only room at the keep Grisch lacked the ambition to clean?”
“His predecessor probably lacked that ambition first,” Merran pointed out.
Korsten decided to leave the subject alone. Stepping back from Serra, he asked, “Will she be safe here?”
“I’ll put a Binding on the door,” Merran said.
“Trev’s been infected, hasn’t he?”
Merran nodded. “Yes. And it’s dangerous for him to be at that tavern. He may feel a little tired or ill now, but
soon he may discover how to make himself feel well. Osley may not be a loss for us to be concerned with, but two tainted souls is even more dangerous than one.” In a moment Merran added, “I’ll go back to Lilende once I’ve put the infected soldiers to rest. When she wakes up, provided this all works out as easily as I’ve planned it, I’ll explain to Grisch about her while you explain to her about Trev.”
“What makes you think I’m qualified for such a task?”
“Her feelings for you qualifies you.”
“They aren’t genuine feelings, I’ll remind you. It’s nothing more than girlish infatuation. And she seemed to trust you well enough to have let you lead her down here for a full confession.”
“Her options were limited,” Merran said. “Since my examination discovered her secret; that she wasn’t Trev, who had previously been one of the soldiers who’d been complaining about weariness.”
Trying not to imagine how awkward that situation must have been, Korsten finally agreed to be the one to explain about Trev, realizing that dealing with Grisch was even lower on his list of desirable options.
The only way to bring himself voluntarily near to a demon was to not think about the demon. Korsten went to the armory looking for a man, one who would not be alone while the outpost prepared for the impending battle. Performing a Release spell in the presence of others was not an option. Korsten recalled too well what had happened to Hedren. So the only question remained how to separate Bael from the soldiers? He thought back on the training sessions he’d attended. The man was as friendly as Grisch accused and very open to hearing what others had to say. The man was and so the demon had to be. It could act like Bael, but it couldn’t alter the effect of its presence on the soldiers, particularly the young men it had been siphoning life essence from. It couldn’t prevent them slowly dying, lingering due to the poison the demon had fed to them, that had replaced their souls but not their minds. They were dead and didn’t know it. Undoubtedly the demon had refrained from enforcing its will upon them because that would bring them around to the dismal fact of the matter and alert everyone else to the reality of the rumors they’d been hearing and passing around. The demon didn’t want that until it had taken all it could from this small pocket of humanity.
