The Charmed Sphere

by Catherine Asaro

  Chime slid out of bed, her bare feet hitting the stone floor, her nightgown swirling around her calves. “He went north.”

  “Now why would he do such a thing?”

  “I don’t know.” Chime couldn’t calm her agitation. “How did you know I was dreaming?”

  Aria helped her into her robe. “You were acting muchly strange, Lady Chime. Your voice sounded wrong.”

  “My voice?” Chime stopped with one arm in her sleeve. “What do you mean?”

  “It didn’t sound like you.” Aria hesitated. “It was deeper. And you spoke a language I didn’t recognize.”

  Chime put her arm in the sleeve. “I don’t remember.”

  “It was eerie.”

  “All the more reason I need to reach Muller.”

  Aria regarded her sternly. “You can’t run off into the night by yourself.”

  “I have to warn him.”

  “About what?”

  “He could die.”

  “How?”

  Chime made a frustrated noise. “I don’t know.”

  “I think the dark mage haunts your dreams.”

  That gave Chime pause. The nightmares did have an odd sense, one that felt…oily. It reminded her of the presence she had touched in Croft’s Vale. She shivered. It was a desecration of spells to give nightmares instead of comfort. If a mage could invade her dreams, she would fear ever to sleep again.

  She regarded Aria uneasily. “To enter someone else’s dreams, especially from so far away, seems impossible.”

  “How do you know he is far away?”

  “King Jarid says he is in Harsdown.”

  Aria handed her the sash for her robe. “It be a bad time, milady. A bad time indeed.”

  Chime exhaled. “Aye.”

  “You cannot ride off with no plan or protection.”

  Chime knew Aria was right, much as she hated to admit it, but she had to do something. “Perhaps Jarid will send a messenger to Muller.”

  “To Jacob’s Vale?”

  “No. The Tallwalks.”

  Aria regarded her dubiously, but she made no further protest. Chime told herself that her fears were misplaced, that she was having wretched dreams because of the changes in her body due to her pregnancy. But she didn’t believe it for a moment.

  Despite the cold night, sweat soaked Muller’s shirt and hair. He tossed on his pallet, unable to sleep. Vague dreams always troubled him now. He recalled nothing specific, only a sense of threat that remained after he awoke.

  Night warriors, Drummer had said.

  For a while he lay on his back listening to the rustles, coughs and rattles of his sleeping men. Finally he clambered out of bed, fully dressed, and pulled on his jacket. Then he paced through the camp, past snoring warriors in bed rolls.

  At the perimeter, he nodded to Archer, who was on sentry duty. The lieutenant lifted his hand. Muller continued on—

  And jerked as a nightmare hit him, the same undefined sense of menace that plagued his dreams, but coming now while he was awake. With a gasp, he dropped to his knees and bent forward, his arms crossed over his stomach while he vomited behind a tree. Every rock, plant and tree seemed to loom over him, threatening and harsh.

  After Muller finished, he simply knelt, gulping in air while tremors shook his body. He had no idea what had spurred the waking nightmare, but the sensation was mercifully fading now.

  “Commander?”

  Muller raised his head to see Archer approaching. “Is everything all right?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Yes.” Muller climbed slowly to his feet. “Fine.”

  Archer’s expression clouded. “The feel of mage power be around here. It isn’t right.”

  “An eerie night.” Muller stayed noncommittal, afraid Archer felt his power. It would hurt morale if his men thought he had mage gifts that disrupted their ability to fight. He felt certain he could control his spells, but he wouldn’t know how to convince them. With rumors of a dark mage, he could even be in danger if the truth became known.

  He spoke awkwardly. “Seems I drank too much this evening, eh?”

  Amusement flickered in Archer’s face. “We all do now and then. Have a good evening, Commander.”

  Muller lifted his hand in farewell as Archer continued his rounds. Then Muller returned to his pallet and lay down. It was bad enough nightmares haunted his sleep, leaving him worn-out in the mornings. He didn’t know what he would do if they invaded his waking hours as well. How did he fight this formless threat that stalked his life? At least Chime was safe at Suncroft, untouched by the evil here in the north.

  He had to discover who—or what—was coming through the Tallwalk Pass.

  Chime stood on the balcony of her suite, bathed in the light of a Jade Moon, the gold and green layers of her nightdress swirling around her body, catching on her ankles. Her hair drifted in the wind. It wrapped her body and pulled toward the rail of the balcony where her hands rested, then blew back from her face. She raised her head to the night sky with its cold stars. The moon had turned the color of jade, perhaps from dust in the air or the filmy clouds, or maybe from the Saint of Halos, a spirit that surrounded the moon with a glowing nimbus.

  Chime raised her arm and opened her hand to the sky. An emerald orb lay in her palm, faceted with twenty sides, sparkling. She focused on it, pouring her power into the jewel. A sphere of light formed around her, blended with the moonlight, but a richer green, like leaves that unfurled from an apple tree in the spring, soft grass on the hills, or the water in a mountain lake shaded by ferns. She stood within the radiant sphere, gazing across the land that rolled away from the castle, the velvety slopes and curves of Aronsdale.

  Then she reached.

  She had neither Iris’s colors nor Jarid’s strength. She could teach like Della or rely on decades of experience, as did Skylark. But Chime knew now her gift; she could create spells of mood and empathy in a way no one else seemed to touch.

  The sphere of light rose into the air, leaving her on the balcony in the endless breezes. It floated above her, luminous, rippling in the air. It was only a mood spell, only encouragement, hope, nothing substantial. It might dissipate before it reached its goal.

  But still she would send this charmed sphere.

  Go, she thought. Go to them. To the warriors of Aronsdale deep within the hills and woods, uncertain what they face. To the women and men who stand on the borders and look toward the unknown. To my love, wherever he strides the land. Go to them. Give them succor.

  “Go,” she whispered. “Go to Muller.”

  The orb drifted over the land, spreading thinner and thinner, until only a faint emerald glimmer remained in the air that blended into the moonlight and the forever reaches of the starry sky.

  Jarid opened his eyes, aware of light, nothing more. Even now, months after he had regained his vision, he was still learning to see.

  Gradually his mind interpreted the scene. He had fallen asleep in Iris’s forest haven, the hollow where they spent their wedding night last spring. He felt gifted by the trust she had shown when she revealed this sanctuary to a man who, though her husband, was a stranger. Perhaps it had started that day she reached across Aronsdale and found him in the mountains.

  Jarid stretched and sat up, enjoying the hollow. The waterfall splashed like music. Some leaves on the trees had turned red and gold; others remained green. Summer’s warmth was fading into autumn, but he cared little about the cold. He and Unbent had endured far worse in the winters when they ran out of firewood.

  His unease came from another source. Foreboding had troubled him for days, invading his sleep and now intruding on his days as well. It exhausted him. He had come here to meditate, probing for the source of his disquiet. He hadn’t learned its cause, but at least he had slept well.

  Closing his eyes, Jarid wove power through the sphere. His spell made no outward light; it turned inward, within him, like red embers. He went through orange, then yellow. A sense of well-being spread o
ver him.

  For green, he deepened his concentration. As he had often done these past months, he sought Harsdown. Della claimed it was impossible to feel emotions over so great a distance. She believed such spells could extend no more than a few paces around the mage who created it. Yet he had always reached much farther with Unbent and now with Iris.

  So much else of what Della said made sense, it was odd she would be so wrong on this. Everyone seemed to share her conviction that what he achieved in his trances should be impossible. He had too few referents to interpret their response. Rather than endure their skepticism, he kept the full extent of his powers to himself.

  He had no idea if precedents existed for his gifts. None of the tales sung by bards answered his questions. Nor did the history scrolls in the Suncroft library help; he couldn’t read well. He had just begun to learn before he lost his sight. Now he had tutors, but the slow process frustrated him. So he searched as he had done these past fourteen years: with spells.

  Shapes filled his mind: bars, polyhedrons, circles, and spheres, always glimmering spheres, glistening, spinning, spinning. It puzzled him that other mages used objects or mosaics to focus; he preferred mental images.

  His spell flowed across the country and over Suncroft. He sensed its people as a pale wash of moods. Then he found Iris, visiting an outlying town, meeting the citizens who now called her queen. Her presence filled him with emotions he barely understood. It had taken him months to comprehend that he loved his wife; he had no idea how to tell her.

  He found Della next, who warmed Suncroft like a banked fire. Chime shed golden light over the castle, as did the girl-child she carried, another mage. Fatigue wore on Chime from her pregnancy and sleepless nights. He made a healing spell and offered it to her. She didn’t sense what he was doing and distance weakened his spell, but her mood did brighten.

  Jarid lay down in the grass, his hands behind his head as he increased his concentration. He thought of Unbent and his spell reached past Suncroft to the outlying farms. His father was plowing a field, content with hard work under a warm sun. He suffered none of the nightmares that tormented Jarid’s nights and apparently Chime’s also.

  It puzzled Jarid that he and Chime had such troubled dreams. He continued his search, reaching toward Harsdown. The more area he covered, the more diffuse his spell became, until he could barely identify individuals. Far to the north, he thought he touched Muller, but that made no sense. His cousin had gone south to visit Chime’s family.

  Jarid ranged farther, to the northern Aronsdale border, a fifteen-day ride northwest. His head throbbed with the strain…time to withdraw—

  Then he hit the true nightmares.

  28

  Decision

  “They are coming through the mountains.” Jarid strode down the hall of the castle, so fast that Brant, Fieldson, and Della had trouble keeping pace with his long-legged stride. He had run the entire way here from the forest.

  “Both armies are from Harsdown,” Jarid said. “One comes through the Tallwalk Pass and the other is in the Boxer-Mage Mountains.”

  “How can you be certain?” Della asked, out of breath. “It is too far.”

  Jarid stopped, and the others halted around him like water churning past a boulder in the river. He regarded them all; if one chose leaders according to wisdom and experience, they would rule Aronsdale. Heredity had chosen otherwise, but he had no illusions about his lack of preparation. He needed them. If he wanted their help, he had to convince them of his claims.

  “Iris and I reached each other,” he told Della.

  “You weren’t as far away,” she said.

  “We were a ride of ten days apart. What I sense now is about fifteen days away. Why should I manage one and not the other?”

  “Iris is also a mage,” Brant said. “A powerful one.”

  “You did it together with her,” Della said. “This time it is only you.”

  Jarid shuddered. “He was also there.”

  “He?” Fieldson asked.

  “The dark mage.” Jarid began walking, more slowly this time. “He comes with King Varqelle’s army.”

  “This isn’t much to go on,” Fieldson said.

  “Muller is on his way north,” Jarid added.

  Brant frowned. “He went south.”

  “Nevertheless,” Jarid said. “He now goes north.”

  Fieldson shook his head. “We need solid information. Evidence. Proof.”

  “Here.” Jarid had brought them to a tall set of doors with circular stained-glass windows on either side. Protocol dictated he should go to his own suite instead of this one and then send for the person he wanted to see, but he was tired of formalities. Had he grown up at Suncroft, perhaps he would have more patience with “proper” procedures, but as far as he could tell, it only made everything take too long. He didn’t have time.

  Today Brant didn’t argue; he just rapped on the doors. The circle-maid Aria answered. When she saw them, her mouth opened in an O. Then she remembered herself and bowed. “You honor us with your presence, Your Majesty.”

  Jarid didn’t feel like he honored anyone, but he kept that to himself. “I would like to see Lady Chime, if she is here.”

  “She is, Sire.” Aria moved aside so they could enter. “We will bring her immediately.”

  As Aria ushered them into the gold and ivory parlor, the maid Reed appeared. After a flustered greeting, she bustled off to find Chime. Jarid’s advisors settled into the upholstered chairs, but he felt too restless to sit. He paced by a tall window, through sunlight that pooled on hexagonal patterns in the parquetry floor.

  Jarid sensed Chime’s power as she entered the parlor. He turned to greet her, then froze, dismayed. She was trying to present a bright appearance, golden in her silk tunic and leggings, her hair shining, but nothing could hide her pallor or the dark cycles under her eyes.

  “Lady Chime.” He strode over to her. “Are you well?”

  “My greetings, Your Majesty.” She bowed. “I had a restless night, that is all.”

  “The nightmares.”

  Her voice trembled. “It is nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  She twisted the long sleeve of her tunic. “I am sorry if I have troubled you.”

  “Chime.” Jarid put his hand on her shoulder.

  For a moment she seemed ready to insist she was fine. Then her smile crumpled. “I dream Muller is dying.”

  “No wonder you are tired.” Jarid led her to one of the small sofas. “I have nightmares, too, but I remember so little. Only malice.” He sat with her, aware of his advisors around them in high-backed chairs.

  Della leaned forward. “But you remember this last vision, yes, Your Majesty?”

  “A vision?” Chime’s eyes looked larger than usual compared to her pale, drawn face.

  “I had one about Harsdown.” Jarid shifted his weight, restless. “I saw two armies. Varqelle has sent them.”

  Chime spoke slowly, her words guarded. “In my dream, I see Muller going north, to the Tallwalk Pass. Baleful spells stalk him. Meanwhile, the Harsdown army sneaks around Aronsdale, going through the Barrens to our north. They plan to attack Suncroft from our eastern border.”

  “Ah, saints,” Della said. Fieldson exhaled and Brant shook his head. When Chime gave them questioning looks, Jarid spoke. “In my vision, one army comes over the Tallwalks and the other comes through the Boxer-Mage Mountains even farther north.”

  Chime stared at him. “We cannot both be right.”

  Jarid grimaced. “We dare not be wrong.”

  “Could it be a trick?” she asked.

  That gave him pause. He knew he could be mistaking what he saw, but it had never occurred to him it might be a deliberate attempt to mislead him.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “My nightmares feel strange.” Chime glanced at Fieldson and Brant, then away.

  “You may speak in front of my advisors,” Jarid said.

  Sh
e reddened. “I’ve no wish to waste anyone’s time.”

  Jarid understood that hesitation all too well, having felt it himself on more than a few occasions. He spoke wryly. “If you worry they will find your comments strange, have no fear. I’ve already overcome them with the strangeness of mine.”

  Della laughed, then stopped when Brant scowled at her.

  Chime answered with care. “Aria said I spoke during one of my dreams. She said I sounded like another person. And that dream—it seemed rotted from within.”

  “Malignant.” Jarid spoke without doubt.

  Surprise flickered in her gaze. “Yes.”

  “I feel that when I awake.”

  Chime shuddered. “It is the Harsdown mage.”

  Fieldson was watching her closely. “You believe this mage seeks to trick you with dreams?”

  “I have wondered.” Chime twisted the cuff of her sleeve. “It could just be bad dreams, a wife missing her husband.”

  “I am not missing your husband,” Jarid said, smiling. “At least not that way. But I have the dreams, too.”

  Brant blinked. “He told another joke. That’s two in one night.” When Della glared at him, he raised his hands, palms out.

  Jarid took no offense. It was true, he hardly knew how to laugh. But since Iris had come into his life, his spirit had lightened.

  “We have one unit in the north,” Fieldson said. “Two, if Lord Muller took the Hexagons there. They will need support if Harsdown forces come through the mountains.” He shook his head. “But sending more of our forces into the north would leave this area undefended.”

  Brant rubbed his chin. “If it is a trick, it is effective. Make us believe invasion comes from the logical place, our northern border with Harsdown. So we send help. Meanwhile, they attack from another direction.”

  “What direction?” Jarid asked.

  “Suppose they have sent an army through the Barrens that lie to the north.” Fieldson thought for a moment. “If they cross the River of Stars and go south around our eastern border, they could enter Aronsdale through the Pyramid Foothills. From there, they could reach Suncroft.”