Spells of the Curtain: Court Mage

by Tim Niederriter

  Edmath squeezed his eyelids tighter. The people, where were the people?

  Land levoths, the warriors of the worm tribe in the nearby fortress had four of the hybrid creatures. They hadn’t even known the village was under attack. The commander had been a cousin of the village elder. So they were both royals of the worm tribe, but who were they besides that? The fire in Edmath’s mind spread. He saw people running, people falling, a battle.

  A yellow-haired man riding beside the head of a great worm with teeth drove a lance into the heart of a soldier fighting on the ground below him. With a twist, he pulled it free, trailing blood. His name was Donroi too, just like Edmath and Edmath’s father. The fire burned. The name formed in his mind of the man with the lance. Jurgat Donroi, the name of Edmath’s father, a brother to the village lord of Beliu.

  Why did a man of the same family as the village lord lead an attack on the village? The question needed an answer. Edmath pressed his mind toward the fire. Edmath sought, but his own fear of what he might uncover began to intrude. Was my father a traitor?

  The fire lighted hot and painful in Edmath’s mind. He pulled back, distancing himself from the heat. Stumbling, he felt his physical body move. The augury had not been as clear as he had hoped it would be, though the information was certainly powerful as well as bizarre. He had known his last name belonged to the Worm Tribe, but this was the first time he’d heard or seen of another person with it that he could remember, and he did not like what he had seen. Jurgat Donroi. Father.

  Brosk came out of the augury beside him, eyes opening for a second before closing again to keep the searing light out. Edmath saw him only on the edge of his vision.

  “Ed?”

  “Yes?”

  “I think I got what we need.”

  “Good. I wasn’t so lucky.” Edmath looked down at his sweaty hands folded over his chest and thought of the man with the lance and his parent’s name killing his way through the village. Brosk, I’m afraid I can’t tell you about this. Not until I know more.

  “This is an uncomfortable place to talk,” Edmath said.

  The two of them walked out into the stairwell and closed the door to keep the sphere’s light at bay. They both blinked in the less intense sunlight from the window down the stairs.

  “What did you see?” Edmath asked.

  Brosk put a hand on his temple.

  “I saw Roshi troops marching over the border and approaching Dreamwater. They had a battalion of Crab Soldiers with them, and were led by a man from the worm tribe.”

  Edmath remembered learning about the way the Roshi haphazardly combined humans and animals, just as the ancient Zelians had fashioned the Enchieli of the palace, but with inferior skills. Crab Soldiers were common shock troops for them, mostly humanoid, with massive claws and hard shells.

  “Go on.”

  “Crab Soldiers came out of the Dreamwater in the night. They went into the village and carried everyone off. Those people, I think most of them are still alive.”

  “From what I saw, I agree,” Edmath said. “But this evidence is hardly enough to present any of the emperors without witnesses. After all, who will stand up for the village besides us?”

  “Even if there is no one else, I feel it is the right thing to do.”

  “Of course. I agree.” Edmath looked out the window. The towers and domes of the Imperial City were visible in the distance. “I am suggesting we look for more support.”

  “Cautious as ever, Ed, but you may be right. Let’s go take a look around. We came all the way here. We might as well see the sights.”

  They descended from the tower and spent a few hours looking around the temple. Edmath took some time to rest in one of the chapels that formed a semicircle around the monastery’s rear while Brosk went ahead to look for a fountain the monks had told them about. As he sat along the wall of one dimly lit stone room, Edmath began to think about the villagers. Five hundred people made a lot to transport overland, and the Dreamwater did not empty into any river that Edmath knew about. What’s more, the Worm Lords that controlled that area were well known for exploring underground. Tunnels would be difficult to hide from them.

  He tried to shake off the feeling that they were missing something more and decided to meditate for a while. He folded his legs under himself and locked his fingers together.

  After some time, he did not know how long, though it couldn’t have been more than an hour, a roar came from outside, animal and fierce. Curious, Edmath unfolded himself and stretched. He got to his feet, and then went to the door. He stepped outside just as a second roar burst through the air. Looking up, he saw the source of the noise circling over the monastery garden. He did not recognize it immediately from the bestiaries he’d studied as part of the animal arts back at Lexine Park. That in itself was strange. Brosk came running up to him, rega flapping against his chest.

  “Ed, what is that beast?”

  The great creature circled back around, and Edmath could see for the first time that the creature’s wings were different than ordinary bird’s wings. They were black as coal and made of, what Edmath saw with surprise, to be smaller bird’s wings, all beating in unison. As it finally faced them head-on, he saw all six of its great red-furred heads. Though it reminded him of the Enchiel from the High Emperor’s Palace, Edmath saw so many differences the comparison seemed more ridiculous to him by the second. The six heads resembled the pattern on the flag of Roshi Edmath. They were fox heads, red, with black chins. They sat on long necks that connected them to a body that was all but impossible to see through the massive wings of the beast.

  “That is a creature from Roshi, a greater animal, most likely.”

  “I could tell that by myself. But its a hybrid, clearly.” Brosk stared at the creature in awe and, what Edmath guessed was a bit of fear, for he felt that way himself. Brosk drew his striker chain. Reaching into his striker pouch, Edmath took out to of his small rings of bone and sinew. He’d picked them up only a few days ago, from a Saale’s shop in Diar’s market.

  “We’d best be careful. That creature is too large to be here idly.” Edmath started walking out from the chapel. “We must learn why it came this way. This could be dangerous.”

  Brosk nodded in agreement and then followed him out from the building, heading towards the monastery. The clack of their sandals on the stone tiles made Edmath nervous after only a minute or two of walking. They drew close to the statues of the Six Ladies of Chesh and Brosk looked skyward, along with the pilgrims gathered around the building.

  “That creature has a rider.”

  “You say what? It makes sense it has a rider. It would not come here alone.”

  Edmath craned his neck and saw a saddle on the creature’s back, in front of the wings and just behind the heads. The figure on it was impossible to make out in detail, robed in red from the neck down. Even as he watched it, the beast dropped into the garden at the center of the monastery, vanishing from sight. Edmath gave Brosk a quick look, and then he started toward doors at a fast walk. The Roshi creature could be doing anything in there. It must have had an eighty-foot wingspan too, which made him more nervous. It was almost the size of a sky levoth. Brosk followed, stopping beside him at the open doors to the garden.

  “You’d better know what you’re doing.”

  “I wish I did, but Brosk if anyone here can contend with that animal it is you and I.” Edmath rounded the corner. He slipped his thumb through the ring of one of his strikers and cradled another in the palm of his other hand. He might have to use one of them up immediately if there was a fight, and he could not rule out that possibility.

  The creature’s strangely sweet scent hit him full on as he trudged across the path toward it, watching it fold its bizarre wings-made-of-wings. It had four legs, like those of an elk but with paws like one of the untamed greater dogs’ native to the southern lands. One of its red-furred faces turned toward him under a wing. Terrified, sens
es railing at the bizarrely sweet smell that filled his nostrils, he stared the creature down, unable to contemplate fleeing like he so wished he could.

  Taking a few steps forward, he kept his eyes on the yellows of the beastly thing in front of him. It turned slowly, pulling a claw from a small bush and dropping it into a pool for an instant before pulling it back out in apparent surprise. Staring at him with all six huge heads, it was very clear now that the creature could tear him apart with even one of those monstrous mouths. He kept walking, slowly, impossibly, toward the creature.

  The red-haired woman riding the beast stood in her saddle and looked down at him from the creature’s back. “Stop there if you want to live. My mirache is a proud creature and does not suffer strangers.”

  Edmath studied her at this distance. She wore a short sword buckled on over her red robe, and her expression bore a hint of threat. Stopping in his tracks, Edmath lowered his gaze to the mirache. The eyes on one of its heads blinked languidly and a moment later all the others did the same. This was indeed a strange creature.

  “What is a Dawkun of Roshi doing here?” Edmath said. “You have come a long way.”

  “I am searching for a Saale.” Her eyes moved over Edmath’s strikers. “I see you belong to that order.”

  “I do.”

  “Then can you tell me where I might find Edmath Donroi? Akalok Roshi has bidden me return Donroi to the city immediately.”

  “Why? What’s going on now?” Could this be Akalok’s champion? Edmath forgot his fear of the creature for a moment and stepped toward it. Its nearest head reared and glared at him.

  The woman on the mirache’s back shook her head.

  “Where is he?”

  Edmath looked up at her, eyes narrowing. He closed his fingers over the striker in his palm.

  “I am he.”

  The mirache spread its wings so that one brushed a wall of the monastery. The woman stared down at Edmath as the beast advanced on him, all six heads now awake and alert. One of the necks curved downward lowering one of the central heads, as if in a bow that nearly brushed the ground.

  “Climb up,” the woman said. “I will take you back.”

  “Wait a moment, please. I should tell my friend.”

  “No. Your friend will learn soon enough.”

  He gritted his teeth.

  “You leave me no choice.” Edmath walked up to the mirache’s lowered head, eying its mouth. “I take it this is where I climb up?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry, Saale. He is perfectly trained.”

  The head before Edmath opened one eye and looked at him. Its mouth opened and it let out a laughing sound.

  “I might just eat him,” it said in what Edmath guessed was the fox language.

  The woman on its back laughed.

  “He won’t strike unless commanded, don’t worry.”

  Edmath hesitated a moment longer, but then climbed onto the head and walked up the thick neck. When he has passed between the wings, the woman looked at him sideways with gray eyes. Up close he saw how pretty she was, how even and refined her features, but her eyes were cold.

  “Hang onto the saddle. The flight won’t take long.”

  Without replying, Edmath put his hands a line tying the rider to her saddle. She turned to face forward. He looked at the impossible wings one either side of the mirache’s body as they started to beat, first the small wings, then the full ones. Bit by bit they rose from the courtyard and the beast soared away from the Temple of Fire, back towards Diar.

  The huge mirache circled the Imperial Palace once before landing in the cloisters just outside the High Emperor’s inner gardens. Edmath couldn’t see any of the Enchiel Guards through the surrounding human soldiers wearing the crest of High Emperor’s moth family and a second mirache with more black than red fur, already on the ground. The woman in front of Edmath stood up in her saddle and looked down as Akalok Roshi approached from the crowd surrounding them.

  “Tamina,” he called. “Excellent, you have Donroi. Now send him down here. I wish to speak with him.”

  Tamina tugged on Edmath’s arm. He stood up. The heads of the mirache stilled for a moment and she led him down one of them. His mind churned with thoughts. What was going on here? Akalok could not have bribed this many soldiers of any family force and certainly not of the Royal Moth Army. Surely as a bodyguard, he did not have the status to form this gathering on his own? Edmath and Tamina climbed carefully down the mirache’s back and dropped onto the ground.

  Vosraan Loi, the High Emperor, sat on a palanquin before them. Keve Zasha, his young Saale, stood on his right-hand side and Haddishal Rumenha on his left with Razili Nane behind him. An older woman wearing Roshi red stood beside the High Emperor’s palanquin, the ambassador, Kethina Nalondron. A squat, dark-haired man, also wearing Roshi red climbed down from the other mirache and fell on his hands and knees before the ambassador, Akalok Roshi and the High Emperor.

  “Thank you both, my lord and my lady, for allowing me to see the man I am to fight in advance.”

  Vosraan Loi gave a satisfied nod. The elderly ambassador Nalondron frowned, looking pensive. She said nothing.

  Akalok Roshi stepped forward and put a hand over his heart, near the place where Edmath’s tree branch spear had struck him during their fight.

  “When the request comes from within the order how can it not be honored. Tamina, bring Saale Donroi here.”

  Edmath heard the guttural laughter of the mirache behind him. One head whispered to the others just loud enough for him to hear.

  “He has come to this place not to fight, but to die.”

  His eyes widened. This cannot be right, he thought. Everyone is here, like in a nightmare, to condemn me. Part of him wondered in horror if it could have anything to do with the man he had seen in the sphere of fire, the man with his father’s name. He fell to his knees and looked at the High Emperor.

  “Your Grace, what is the meaning of this?” he called, bowing his head. “Surely you do not mean to sell out one of your own people to the Roshi?”

  The Crown of the Three did not move on the High Emperor’s head as he shifted on his palanquin. He did not look at Edmath, but rather at Akalok.

  “That is true, but nonetheless honor must be served. This man has a dispute with you, Saale Donroi. The laws of both his nation and ours are in agreement on this. A duel will decide your differences.”

  “Differences? What could he possibly want from me?” Edmath felt tears of rage welling up from within. He hated this, the way his emotions were getting the better of him, but he could not control his temper at this unfairness.

  “Hold your tongue and remember whom you address,” the High Emperor said. “You do not wish to dishonor yourself, Edmath Donroi. This matter is too important. I will hear no more appeals.” The eyeless white moth wings hanging from the Crown of the Three extended, hiding the High Emperor’s face.

  Soldiers picked up the palanquin poles and pale curtains were pulled to block him from view. Edmath climbed to his feet, staring after the high emperor as the soldiers bore the palanquin away. Keve Zasha followed them. Tamina walked past Edmath, joined Akalok and the short man who had thanked the High Emperor, the ambassador, and Akalok for summoning for Edmath.

  Haddishal Rumenha and Razili Nane approached Edmath.

  The Saale Emperor folded his hands.

  “I am sorry about this. The diplomat from Roshi has been insisting on this for some time. Now that Akalok’s champion is here, it is inevitable there will be a duel.”

  “A duel.” Edmath glanced at Rumenha. “I suppose he is my opponent. Do I have any options? What can be done to prepare for it?”

  Razili clasped her hands together and looked at Edmath with sad eyes.

  “First, relax a little. The date for it has not been set. Calm down a moment.”

  Edmath took a deep breath like Sampheli had taught him. He needed to find some way out of this. Yes, th
e man was short, perhaps even a little spare, but that only meant he would be a stronger Dawkun physical mage. After all, Edmath thought with a sinking sensation, if Akalok wanted him dead he would have brought the best fighter he could muster.

  The three guests from Roshi moved off, leading the still tittering miraches. Edmath put a palm to his head. He hated to think it out, but the duel would have to be fought, unless…Yes, there is an ‘unless’.

  “Excellency,” Edmath said, dropping his hand to his side and turning to Haddishal. “What is the matter of honor Akalok and I are concerned with?”

  “Strangers! Beware! Strangers!”

  The Enchiel moved in as the troops marched out of the area. The cries of the multi-winged guardians came from faces hidden behind brightly colored feathers. They clustered around the place where the mirache’s landing had crushed the grass down. Haddishal cleared his throat to be heard over their voices.

  “Akalok Roshi claims that your father killed his order’s highest minister during the last war’s peace meeting in Southern Meni. The Emperor used the Sphere of Humanity to prove it, and the feud goes back far longer than that. Akalok believes his order will be vindicated if you die in your father’s place.”

  “I never even knew my father, Excellency.”

  “I am aware.” Haddishal Rumenha bowed his head. “We can’t let incidents like this go. There could be another war unless this is settled somehow. It is for your nation that you must fight Ursar Kiet.”

  “Ursar is that man then, Akalok’s Champion. A physical mage I assume?”

  “Yes indeed. Apparently, he is among the foremost duelists in his nation, a killer trained from birth.” Haddishal met Edmath’s eyes with a sorrowful look. “I’m sorry this is happening, but I cannot defy the High Emperor and put my nation at risk without the support of the Council of Kings, which will not convene again for three more weeks.”

  “I understand, Excellency. Thank you for allowing me to serve you.” Edmath’s teeth clenched as he finished. He hoped his tone did not sound too bitter. “I suppose I will be dead before too long.”