Age of War

by Michael J. Sullivan

  He stopped.

  * * *

  —

  Suri handed the steaming tea over to Arion. The two were at the top of the Frozen Tower. With the Spyrok gone, it was the nearest Suri could come to the out-of-doors. The closest she could get to feeling any kind of freedom. She’d always hated walls, and lately she had been confined behind a great many of them.

  Although no one could actually stop her, Arion could put up a good fight, but Suri didn’t think even she could do anything if Suri really wanted to go out. She had learned there were few things she couldn’t do if she really wanted to. For the last month, her education with Arion had dwindled to discovering not what she could do, or how to do it, but the few things she couldn’t. Flying was one, so was bringing back the dead—at least once they had crossed into that light, into the realm of Phyre. Another was pure creation—making something from nothing. These were all beyond the Art—well, sort of. Nothing was really beyond it. The Art was everything, the common thread that ran through existence, holding it together. Everything was part of the Art, but some things, like pure creation and raising the dead, were so complex, their cords so deep, no Fhrey or Rhune Artist was likely able to master the weaves or control the power needed. That was the realm of gods. The closest anyone had ever gotten—as far as she knew—was the creation of Balgargarath and the Gilarabrywn. Even they weren’t real, not actually alive; each was a force of power held together by artificial bonds, but independent of the Artist: an animated, self-sustaining, thinking thing that could feasibly continue to live even after the Artist who created it died. In that sense and by virtue of achievement, Suri was perhaps the most powerful Artist in the world, second only to the one who had created Balgargarath. Whoever had managed that feat had to be the greatest Artist, and only a little short of the gods themselves.

  Despite her hatred of walls, Suri remained indoors. She stayed because Arion asked her to. Arion was afraid something bad might happen if Suri left. What that was, Suri couldn’t sense or imagine. She had lived all her life in the wilderness among killer bears and hungry wolf packs, and that was before she could redirect the course of rivers and order the sky to rain. Suri also understood that Arion didn’t want to be alone. Suri had discovered a comfortable companion in her fellow misfit, Raithe, but in this place, at this time, Suri was all Arion had. In the span of one short year, the Miralyith had become Suri’s mentor, substitute mother, dependent child, and best friend. Even though Arion was fully recovered, Suri still worried about the Fhrey’s health, about her using the Art—not because of remaining symptoms, but because she could still see the scar on her head. The small white half-moon was always there as a reminder of how close Arion had come to death.

  “So, what am I not supposed to do today?” Suri asked as the two looked out at the waking world over steaming cups of tea. That was another wonderful thing about Arion. She, too, got up early and enjoyed saying “good morning” to the sun.

  “Same as yesterday—unless something unusual happens.”

  Suri looked down at the Fhrey camp being revealed by the growing light. “Yesterday they threw lightning and blasts of fire—what is it you consider unusual?”

  “Yesterday they didn’t know about the runes,” Arion said. “Tactics will change. I’ll try to counteract them. From what Nyphron told me, few of the Spiders survived. I think I can deal with those that remain. I don’t want to boast, but now that Gryndal is dead, I think only Kel Jerydd and the fane himself could best me.”

  “You’re Cenzlyor.”

  “That’s right.” Arion took a sip. “And you’re Cenzlyor of the Rhunes—ah, humans. Sorry.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  “When the first person to wield the Art names you Swift of Mind, the implication is that you’re the best Artist in the world.” Arion shrugged. “Honestly, I think it was just a pet name Fenelyus made up for me and had nothing to do with my skill, but the title impressed a lot of people.”

  Suri watched her standing at the wall resting, her cup on the edge while she was still holding it with both hands. Bright blue eyes looked out at the horizon, as if she could see something there. Suri had seen that look before.

  “I don’t think it was just a pet name,” Suri said.

  “Oh, really? You, who never met Fane Fenelyus, can tell me her mind?”

  Suri nodded. “Don’t need to know her—I know you. And I can see the same thing she did.”

  “Really? Okay, what does it mean?”

  “Swift of Mind.”

  Arion smiled. “Well, yes. Literally, sure, but it doesn’t mean I am the best Artist. Like I said, Lothian is more powerful; so is the kel. Even Gryndal—”

  “Gryndal was a monster.”

  Arion neither nodded nor shook her head. “And if Raithe hadn’t killed him, I’d be dead. But the question remains, why did Fenelyus choose to call me that? I clearly wasn’t the best Artist.”

  Suri looked at her curiously. “It has nothing to do with being an Artist. She wasn’t speaking about your skill in the Art at all, she was describing you. I can see the same thing. You’re a lot like Tura. A lot like Magda, too. I think Fenelyus called you Cenzlyor because she thought you were wise. That was why she wanted you to tutor the prince. Not to teach him the art of magic but the art of wisdom.”

  Arion stared at her with a look of shock. Then slowly a smile grew. “I suspect I’m not the only wise one here. You know what? You really are Cenz—” Arion looked out east with a concerned face. “Mawyndulë?”

  Suri felt the hair on her neck rise. She began to put up the shield, but before she could, Arion shoved Suri backward with an incredible force. She stumbled and fell down the stairs, banging her elbows, pain jolting up her arms. She tumbled down a dozen steps before stopping.

  “What was—” Suri began, when a flash of light blinded her and the whole upper portion of the tower exploded.

  Suri felt the heat and heard a sizzle. This wasn’t fire, and it wasn’t lightning. This was raw, naked power, concentrated and devastating. Stone burst to powder, wood incinerated. Everything above was gone, including the room they had tea in, leaving Suri on the stairs of the now shorter tower. For an instant, Suri thought the worst, then she spotted Arion. She lay sprawled across three steps. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t moving.

  She’s not moving!

  Suri was supposed to run to the safety of the runes below, but Arion didn’t even look like she was breathing. She was…

  Suri looked down from what had become the new top of the tower. Like a swan left a wake on a still pond, so, too, did the Art. Such a massive blast left a clear signature. This one traced back to Misery Rock. Filled with anguish and rage, Suri raised a hand and spoke a single word—nothing she’d been taught, nothing she’d figured out. It wasn’t even a word she knew. Just as in Neith, she acted without thinking, pure reflex.

  Power, she thought, and pushed out.

  A blast tore through stone, exploding Misery Rock.

  Suri thought she heard a cry or scream—not with her ears but along the same conduit that had sent the attack.

  She waited. Nothing.

  Suri reached out, searching, groping for the source. Power that strong should be easy to find, but she couldn’t. The wellspring had dissipated—or the caster was dead. The fight was over.

  From across the Grandford Bridge came the sound of horns. The second day of the battle was starting, but Suri didn’t care. She ran over to Arion, who remained exactly where she had fallen. “Arion!”

  Not a shudder, not a twitch, not a breath.

  “No!”

  Suri began chanting even before reaching Arion. She knew what to expect this time. She kicked the door to the spirit world open and leapt in. She dove head first into the waters of that awful river, dark and cold. She swam in search of Arion, calling her name as she went.


  Arion! Arion! I’m here! I’ll save you. Hold on, I’m here! Just hold on!

  She shouted the words into the void.

  But Arion wasn’t there.

  The river was empty. The dark waters clear.

  Her friend had already been washed away.

  * * *

  —

  Mawyndulë nearly killed himself on the trail coming down from what was left of the crag. The cliff-side path wasn’t built for running, much less a panicked dash, and now it was strewn with debris. He slipped three times trying to get down and banged his knee hard enough to make his eyes water. He raced blindly through the choking dust cloud kicked up by the oh-so-close explosion that had ripped the world a new hole.

  “What was that?” Mawyndulë shouted as he reached the bottom. He was no athlete, and he struggled to breathe, his lungs burning, his heart pounding. But he kept moving. He knew he needed to get away. “I thought we killed her!”

  Silence.

  “Jerydd? Jerydd, answer me!”

  I don’t know.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  Which word didn’t you understand?

  “You act like you know everything, and yet, I almost died up there.”

  I told you there would be risks.

  “But we killed her. I saw her die.”

  Yes. She’s dead.

  “Did she have some kind of trap on her? Some kind of defense that triggered when she died?”

  No. Such things aren’t possible.

  “Then what?”

  There was another person on that tower with Arion.

  “Just some Rhune. She couldn’t—” Mawyndulë remembered the death of Gryndal. How Arion had defended the Rhune and said, This one has the Art.

  Couldn’t what? Why’d you stop talking? What are you thinking?

  “The Rhune,” Mawyndulë said. “That Rhune has the Art.”

  That’s impossible.

  “I saw her before, when I was with Gryndal. She defied his silence. She has talent.”

  Talent is one thing; a knack is one thing, but a moment ago we were nearly hit by enough raw power to make me think Avempartha has a twin!

  “I was nearly hit. Not we, me! I nearly died!”

  You’re alive. It’s over. Quit making such a fuss.

  “A fuss? What part of ‘I nearly died’ don’t you understand?”

  You’re at war, not a tea party, and you wanted to go.

  “I’m a prince, not some common soldier.”

  Funny how death doesn’t discriminate. Makes you wonder about such privileges, doesn’t it?

  “I’m still running—or at least—walking very fast for my life here. Can you stay on topic? What does it mean if I’m right and a Rhune did that?”

  A long pause followed; then, as Mawyndulë crossed back inside the pickets, he heard Jerydd’s voice in his head.

  Then Taraneh is more right than even he knows.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Art of War

  The best way I can describe that day was like watching the world end with enough time to take notes—because it was, and I did.

  —THE BOOK OF BRIN

  The smithy had a cot, water, and tools enough to do anything. Better than Roan’s roundhouse in Dahl Rhen, it had more space, a big forge, anvil, trough, worktable with all sorts of tools, and no ghosts. That last amenity was particularly nice. Iver had never set foot here, and no part of Alon Rhist reminded her of him. Nevertheless, Roan still never slept on the cot. The cot had been mostly for show, a concession to Gifford and the dwarfs. Roan never knowingly used it. She worked until she dropped, sleeping wherever she collapsed, which luckily had not yet been while working the forge. She always woke up on the cot. The little men put her there, saying she was in the way. She believed them the first few times, then realized she always woke up covered with a neatly tucked blanket and with her shoes off.

  The foursome—whom everyone referred to as the Smith and Her Little Crew, the Lady and the Three Dwarfs, or most often, She and They—had grown close. All of them diligent, single-minded workers, the four never talked much, but that didn’t mean they didn’t understand each other. When they did communicate, it was in grunts or gestures. A tilt of a head meant add more coal, and a nod said pump the bellows. The little men slept as infrequently as she did—not because they didn’t want to sleep, but because if Roan worked, they did, too.

  The labor was hard and all-consuming but never enough. In the past, all Roan had to forget about was Iver, and hard work was normally enough to manage that. She hadn’t thought about the old woodcarver once, but it wasn’t because of her workload. For the last two days, Roan hadn’t touched her hammer—which she had named Banger the Heavy, and which she swore had developed wear marks that fit her hand. Since Gifford had left, she hadn’t stoked the furnace, hadn’t polished metal. Mostly, Roan sat in the corner holding the crutch he had left behind. Much of that time she spent crying. The rest she spent twisting her hair, biting her nails, or simply rocking in place.

  Most of Roan’s life had been spent in fear. In many ways, terror had become a familiar reassurance. She wouldn’t call it a friend, but certainly fear was a visitor she could always count on to show up. With Iver’s death, everything had changed. She now had the war, but that was as faceless and distant as worrying about famine or disease. Such things paled compared to being trapped in a small house with a huge man who had a propensity to torture. After that, she felt as if half of her life was missing. Part of her was gone, and that vacuum of fear had been filled with guilt.

  She had killed Iver. No amount of justification made that right in her head, no matter how hard she tried. From this seed came thoughts that she must have helped make him what he was. Iver was never cruel to anyone else. The rest of the Dahl loved him. So it must have been her. She brought the evil out. And if she could do it to him, she might do it to others.

  You’ll be a curse to anyone who cares about you, Roan. That’s what you really are, Roan, a curse, an evil curse, and you deserve what I’m going to give you now…

  Then, just as she was beginning to think she might be able to live without the throat-clenching anxiety that drove her to beat Banger the Heavy senseless, the fear returned. But this time it was different.

  She had watched from the parapet as Gifford rode across the bridge and through the Fhrey camp. She’d prayed to every god there was, and a few she invented, to keep him safe. And then he was gone. As horrible as it had been to live each day in dread of physical pain, worrying about Gifford was worse. There were precautions she was able to take with Iver. He wasn’t always predictable, but most times she knew how to steer clear of real trouble. She knew to keep things clean, which items never to move; she knew not to speak, but to answer quickly when called; and never, never to protect herself from a beating—that always made him hit harder. And when he slept, she was free to relax, to breathe free air. But she could do nothing to help Gifford, and there was never any pause, no relief from the smothering terror that he might already be dead, and if he was…one and one makes two, two and two makes four, four and four makes eight…

  She kept counting. The numbers distracted her, keeping her mind from wandering. When she lost focus, she started problem-solving. The challenge before her was the conundrum of how best to end her life. There was a vast array of possible choices, and picking the optimal solution wasn’t as easy as might first appear. But if there was one thing Roan knew she was good at, it was solving problems. She’d already worked out a dozen excellent choices. Poison was the best, but she was far from isolating the perfect one. All she needed to do was…eight and eight makes sixteen, sixteen and sixteen makes thirty-two, thirty-two and thirty-two makes—

  The smithy shook with a jolt. Dust kicked out of the corners, and all three little men stopped in mid–hammer sw
ing to look at each other. A moment later, a second blast shook the place, and all of them ran out into the courtyard in time to see part of the Frozen Tower shear away.

  Massive blocks of stone, sliced at an angle, just slipped and fell—mostly to the outside—but a few tumbled and rolled, smashing into the courtyard. One bashed through the roof of the woodshed, spitting a handful of split logs into the air.

  A crowd rushed into the yard, everyone in nightshirts. This confused Roan until she realized it was early morning, and only the dull suggestion of the light to come was in the sky.

  “What’s happening?” someone asked.

  No one answered.

  Roan guessed it was magic. She’d seen it before and had concluded that such things worked on different principles than ropes, pulleys, and wheels. Roan began wondering if magic wasn’t just another methodology. People thought the bow and arrows she made were magic. Maybe magic was just something people couldn’t understand. Perhaps, if she studied it, she might learn how magic functioned, how to harness its power in a practical, calculated manner. What a thing it might be if anyone, by the simple flipping of a lever, could illuminate a home with magic light.

  “Roan!” Padera called. The old woman hobbled up, pointing at the damaged tower. “Get your bag and follow me. Now!”

  Roan reached for her panic bag—a small satchel she kept filled with the most commonly needed emergency items—an extension of her pocket idea. Inside, she’d placed needle and thread, string, rope, a small but sturdy stick, salt, clean cloth cut in strips and some in squares, a tiny chunk of pure silver, willow bark, her bound knives, a tiny hammer—this one named Banger the Light—a cup, and a small saw. She grabbed it from the corner of the smithy and ran after Padera.