by T. A. Miles
Ashwin’s disappointment could not have been more profound. At the same time, his fear for Korsten had only been more pronounced one time before. At that time Korsten had returned to them, yes, but nearly dead. It had taken weeks to recover him and Ashwin would have thought that the experience had tempered Korsten’s judgment. Ashwin knew in reality that it was what he would have liked to think. If he had truly believed that, he would not have responded so immediately to the possibility of Korsten Reaching when he detected his emotions drifting outside of the Seminary.
“Need we bother to search for him, Ashwin?” Jeselle asked, and by her tone she had asked it once before already. Understandably, her concern was rising.
Ashwin looked at her, withholding information regardless of knowing that. In part, he was ensuring that Korsten was no longer present within the Seminary walls before he declared him officially missing. He was also considering what recourses they had in light of this seeming abandonment. The Council as a whole would tend to compare it, even if only by sentiment, to the departure of Ecland centuries ago. Though it had taken some time for Ecland’s defiance to manifest in a threatening form, that threat had been considerable. Ashwin did not believe that Korsten had any intention of betraying them and that he would resist being made a tool of betrayal. He felt that those familiar with Korsten maintained the same belief. That would be enough to hold the Council for now, but it would create some strain on all of them.
“Ashwin,” Eisleth prompted.
And finally, Ashwin said, “No. There’s no cause to search. He’s no longer here.”
“Where has he gone?” Ceth asked, concerned more than offended.
“Looking for them?” another of the Council suggested. Looking for ‘him’, Sione might have been inferring. She had been among those who had detected Korsten’s extreme emotional state when he first arrived years ago. With her colors being green and brown, she had been an option for mentoring. Eisleth had been as well; his coordination with red might have solidified that option, but that Korsten had selected white to pair with his dominant red state of being. He had selected a spiritual focus and Ashwin, through spell touch, had selected him. Given Korsten’s state at the time it had been a beneficial decision—he required significant and immediate emotional healing—but perhaps it had seemed somewhat preemptive after the fact.
In response to Sione, Ashwin said, “I don’t know.” Before others could suspect he might have been withholding for the sake of his student, whom he loved beyond that role, he added, “When I interrupted him earlier, his focus was north. Of course, we have every reason to believe that Renmyr Camirey is in the east. Rumor that fits the description of the beast he has joined with have come from there almost exclusively since….”
“Since Mage-Adept Korsten was imprisoned and escaped from a northern stronghold,” Jeselle reminded. “After that, we stopped hearing accounts of his specific brutality for a time. They recurred in the east, shortly after Korsten recovered and continued his work as a hunter.”
“And his work did not carry him to the eastern front until very recently,” Ceth reminded. “So it is not evident that Renmyr Camirey is stalking—or politically courting—Korsten, or that Korsten would be responding in any way to such courtship.”
Jeselle inserted her presence and position as mediator immediately following Ceth’s words. “Before it is assumed by anyone that any of us fears betrayal from him, let us establish that it is primarily fear over his exhibited recklessness, paired with his current relationship with Allurance, and Song, that worries us.”
Ashwin was not in disagreement with that tone. He shared it.
It was in recognition of that, and of Ashwin’s ultimate role as perhaps their most accomplished member, sharing his ancientness with only his twin, that Jeselle looked to him directly and asked, “Now, what should be done?”
“We must find him,” Ashwin replied immediately. “We must find him, lest he bring disaster down upon himself and Edrinor.”
“Shall we have word sent to hunters in the northern and eastern parts?” Sione asked.
“The hunter qualified to locate Korsten is here with us,” Ashwin said, and looked to his twin, who was already looking back at him.
Eisleth’s expression indicated that he had agreed with that decision in advance.
Ashwin said to the Council, “Mage-Adept Merran will go.”
Night had fallen before I stopped, Merran remembered of his childhood flight. I was in the woods, just north and a little to the east of home. I didn’t know if the magistrate would send anyone to look for me. I determined to climb a tree and hide amongst the barren limbs in the dark, just in case. I didn’t want to fall asleep and fall back down to the ground, so I took it upon myself to eat a little of the food the mage had given me. I thought to ration it at first, but recalling the coins I also had with me, I decided to fill my stomach.
I didn’t know how long I would be traveling, but I knew I was headed in the right direction for now, assuming that the mage was headed back to Vassenleigh when he left the remains of my family’s house. There were neighbors in the area who would gladly give me some supplies in exchange for the silver. If I started just before sunrise, I could make it there by mid-afternoon. I didn’t think the magistrate would send someone that far to look for me. He would only make enough of an attempt to satisfy his conscience. I already knew that Lord Rauld would be happier without me as a burden.
Next I had to ask myself if the Seminary would see me as anything else. The mage I’d spoken to was kind enough, but maybe that was his duty. I didn’t have any special talents or, like Magistrate Owin said, the man would have taken me with him. I’d never heard about that before, that mages took and trained ordinary folk to be mages, but I believed that the magistrate knew what he was talking about. He was an educated man, who didn’t have any trouble accepting the fact that a mage had been in our area. Maybe he’d met mages before. Maybe he’d even been to the Seminary. I didn’t know, but I wanted to go there. I wanted to learn about what had taken my family from me and about the people who hunted such creatures, who used magic to do it. I knew I couldn’t be like them, but if I were going to be cleaning somebody’s stables, better theirs, I thought. Maybe I could learn something that way, enough so that when I was old enough, I could acquire a weapon somehow and hunt the Vadryn anyway, without magic.
That’s what I wanted. To see one of the demons myself. To look at it and know what it was. To kill it … and somehow forgive my father.
“But the demon’s poison was already in you,” the crone said as the ancient memory settled once again into darkness. “In all of you. Your kind and theirs fight among one another, but you are all the same kind, aren’t you?”
“No,” Merran said. “We’re not.”
The crone laughed loudly, then fell abruptly still.
Merran stared at the darkness in front of him. He watched it, as if he could see the presence he felt there. It was under that insistent watch that the face of the crone lurched out at him, wooden limbs flailing about.
He took hold of the light hovering where his hand had been—where it was, he determined—and he cast Fire. The crone’s last look was of abject shock as his spell encompassed her features and she erupted in smoldering splinters.
Merran opened his eyes to natural daylight. He recognized at once that he was in his room. Detecting that there were others in his room as well, he sat up slowly and looked to find Mage-Superiors Ashwin, Eisleth, and Ceth all stood within the vicinity of the bed. Each of them set their gazes upon him, waiting.
He assumed their pause was to allow him a moment to recover himself after his extended sleep. He opened his mouth to express that he was recovered enough, but he was silenced by the glint of light at his side … where his hand should have been. He briefly revisited the dream in that instant and felt a small panic in his chest before he noticed that it was his hand
… but encased in a peculiar glove. He lifted it slowly and examined the vaguely metallic texture. It required only a few moments to see that it was not a garment that he was wearing. In some way it was merged with his flesh.
His eyes lifted to the elders.
They spoke as if that was the cue they were waiting for.
Ceth first. “It will function precisely as your hand once did.”
“It will be stronger,” Eisleth said, both in support and contradiction to Ceth.
“How do you feel, Merran?” Ashwin asked.
“I feel tired,” Merran answered, looking down at his hand while he flexed his fingers experimentally. There was a difference to be felt, though he didn’t know that he could have described it in words if anyone were to ask it of him.
“Is there any pain?” Eisleth asked.
“No,” Merran told his mentor truthfully. And then he lowered his hand to look at them once again. “Has Korsten returned?”
The pause the question drew had only a moment to register for the disappointment and concern it represented in them and inspired in him before Ashwin was speaking.
“Yes, he has. He’s also left again.”
“To where?” It was almost as disheartening as finding Korsten not present to learn that the elders had sent him out alone, while Merran was evidently healing, well enough that they felt inclined to wake him. He suspected very quickly after the thought formed that Korsten had not been sent out at all.
“We don’t know,” Ceth said in confirmation to Merran’s suspicion, seeming to speak up in the weighted silence of both Eisleth and Ashwin. “We’d like you to find him.”
There was no telling the difference between northern Edrinor and what was, by right of the borders before the war, southern Morenne. The trees were equally as dense where they prevailed over the otherwise open hills. Korsten assumed that the towns in the region would also have greatly resembled Haddowyn in architecture, if not social tone. Korsten’s memory of Ithan’s map had kept him well clear of any traces of a human population thus far, so there was nothing to compare with, however. Perhaps in another time, a time when all of this warring had ended….
While he rode in relative isolation, Korsten slipped Zerxa’s pendant from his jacket pocket. He balanced it in his fingers, looking it over with no greater insight into just what it was than he had had when Sethaniel had given it to him. It was a key, the vision of his mother had said. A key to what?
He thought of how Ashwin had taken it briefly from him, then returned it. His mentor had spoken of memory. Memory of what? Had Ashwin some important experience with Morenne before the war? Or with Morenne during its violent revolution?
Undoubtedly, was the answer Korsten already knew. It was likely one more reason, on top of an already adequate amount of reasons, why Ashwin didn’t want his student, friend, and lately lover going beyond their borders. And, of course, there was the fear of Song’s independent will, or what must have looked like independence to those witnessing Korsten struggle with it. Or to those who had witnessed Adrea, or any other mage suffer for it.
It led him to thoughts on how he had disregarded his mentor’s worries. It was not what he wanted to do. He would have preferred to be in the library at the Seminary, reading books that would provide him answers if they existed, but he had a strong feeling that they didn’t. And even if they did, he suspected they were of a class that only the oldest of the Seminary would be able to open. With the climate of circumstances being what they were, Korsten wouldn’t hold Ashwin to opening any books for him.
He wanted to apologize. It was a need more than a want, but he was not ready to return to his mentor. He quite simply could not, not until he understood his inheritance, both from Adrea and from his mother. Oddly enough, he understood far easier what he had received from his father. He didn’t think he’d ever been in question over that, in spite of everything.
“I’m your son, Sethaniel Brierly,” he muttered in the quiet of the forest. “Retracing your steps into the unknown, it would seem.”
He looked at the heirloom. Once again, a small pulse raced through the interlacing pieces.
“Korsten.”
His name whispered through the still air and he knew with that, that he was on the correct course.
You’re his son. Watching Deitir stood so close beside Sethaniel now, it was what Ilayna wanted to say. She’d never felt the need before, and she didn’t think it was only because of Raiss. She knew that Deitir would always love Raiss as his father, natural or not. It must have been the circumstances … the strain of what she and her son had lost in the company of what either of them barely had. She supposed it also wouldn’t be fair to Sethaniel, to lay the circumstances onto him, as if it were a burden he was obligated by blood to pick up for her. She did not need anyone to help her with this. Her child was an adult and she was far too old to require much more from life than to be assured of the safety of that child.
She eventually came to the conclusion that it was sentimentality pressing her now, sentimentality that Sethaniel must have been feeling also, else he would not have come. He had come in the company of one son, to see the other. Perhaps it had been Sethaniel’s intent that brothers meet. Ilayna approved of that if it were true. Deitir knew nothing of siblings and it could only enrich him emotionally.
“Are you all right?” Cayri asked her just then.
Ilayna looked at her quickly, startled by the sudden question. And then she nodded. “Yes, I’m fine.”
Cayri accepted that in silence for now. She may not have been convinced, but Ilayna didn’t want to talk about it openly just now. If she started a conversation about family with the Lady Mage now, she might also enter into the subject of her son’s apparent and strong liking for Cayri. She doubted it was necessary for Cayri to hear. The mage, very likely, was already aware and in all honesty, Ilayna doubted that the woman of indecipherable age had any designs on playing that to any untoward advantage over anyone present. She trusted Cayri.
That said, she didn’t want to see Deitir align himself with any more pain than he had faced already, beyond what his new station required of him. Perhaps he’d been too content with his family; he’d scarcely shown any interest outside of it, with anyone for any reason. Ilayna wondered if she was to blame for that, not only for encouraging the enclosed life he had led with her and Raiss, but for keeping him away from the rest of his family.
“Governor,” Constable Rahl called into the room while he was entering.
Everyone gave the man their attention.
“What is it?” Deitir asked him.
“A unit is on the water, making way for the enemy ships.” Rahl seemed nearly to the brink of panic over it, which was not a common state for Rahl, but by the sounds of his report was quite warranted.
Deitir expressed that he shared Ilayna’s sentiments with his next words. “Are they mad?”
Rahl caught his breath—perhaps he had run up the stairs—and shook his head. “They were convinced that a direct strike on the water would surprise the enemy and press them further back.”
“By who?” Deitir demanded to know.
“A mage, my lord.”
Ilayna looked at Cayri, whose considering expression was on the chief constable, revealing nothing of any advance knowledge of what he had reported. It must not have been a plan she was aware of.
Deitir didn’t seem to know what to say. Perhaps none of them did. They all knew that the mages were there to help them, but this seemed suicidal.
And then Deitir said, “Can we get them off the water yet?”
“They’ve surely been spotted by now,” Rahl answered. “And if they haven’t, following them out would certainly draw attention.”
Deitir glanced toward Cayri now, perhaps in asking what should be done about one of her own.
That was when Sethaniel said, as if it were plain
and simple fact, “You have to either support them or let them die.”
Deitir didn’t seem to appreciate the input, regardless of who it had come from, but what Ilayna noted that perhaps no one else did, was that Deitir didn’t contradict Sethaniel. He very nearly ignored him, but then he briskly asked, “And which disaster would you choose?”
Whether or not Deitir expected an answer, Sethaniel was more than ready to provide one. “I’m not a military man,” he admitted. “My father was. He would have arranged for support, knowing that during a battle like this the risk of no action was as dangerous as poor action.”
Deitir had never appreciated talk like that, of any kind. He had been raised by Raiss. His present frown served as reminder to that fact.
“We’ll be blown directly off the water,” Rahl said, in a way that seemed only to satisfy that it needed to be said.
The other officers present seemed unsure what to say, though there were various murmurings, largely of disinterest in the danger. Sethaniel was watching Deitir with alert interest throughout.
Their son considered for several moments. Eventually, he said, “We’ve seen the tactics of the mages. We know that, within proper range, they can deal just as much damage as the enemy’s weapons in their own way.”
“Governor….” Fersmyn began, though whether for or against whatever Deitir was deciding, he wasn’t given the opportunity to finish.
