“I have a cousin, though, who unlike me developed an early interest in the political machinery that drives the upper classes. In my absence, he took a place at my father’s side, becoming in the eyes of all concerned his apparent successor. However, according to a dependable source, in a final effort to rein me back in, my father made known to my cousin his intention to formally name me as next in line. Enraged, my cousin had my father murdered. Since no one else knew of my father’s plans, my cousin was recognized as his heir and conferred the rightful Lord by the Assembly.”
Even those in the lowliest stations knew something of the treachery and conflict innate to life within the aristocracy. However, the idea of family members resorting to such tactics disturbed Niel, filling him with an unanticipated sadness. “So that’s what you meant that you’d lost,” he said.
“No easy feat,” Arwin replied, “misplacing an entire homeland, wouldn’t you agree? Apparently my dear cousin’s first act as Lord was to hire an assassin to make sure I didn’t have a change of heart and show up to undermine his claim.”
Sadness quickly chilled to apprehension. Assassins.
Niel had heard tales of the shadowy cabals and other mysterious brotherhoods of thieves, spies, and trained killers that prowled the night. Parents often used them to convince rambunctious children to stay in bed and go to sleep. But he’d never known anyone directly connected with an assassin; few outside the aristocracy had wealth enough to afford such services.
“You mentioned a dependable source,” Niel said. “I’d think that kind of information would be fairly hard to come by.”
Arwin nodded. “And you’d be right. Good fortune, I suppose.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Niel pressed, “how did you find out?”
Arwin slipped a finger out toward Peck. “He told me.”
Peck pressed a knuckle to his forehead in a cheery salute.
“Then I guess the next question is: how did you know about it?”
“That’s an easy one,” Peck replied. “I’m the person sent to kill him.”
What Niel had considered a firm grasp on the conversation faltered utterly. “You’re…”
“An assassin, Lord Elder,” Peck finished.
Niel’s stomach went icy. He lowered his forehead into his palms for a moment, then wiped his hands down his face and considered his companions. “I know I’ll regret this,” he said, “but how did you convince your assassin not to assassinate you?”
Arwin smiled. “As it was explained to me, Peck happened to know my father, and for reasons between the two of them, owed him a debt. No small matter in Peck’s cabal. Like I said: Good fortune, I suppose.”
“I was looking for a change of vocation anyhow,” Peck said. “Adventurer seemed promising. Wandering the world aimlessly, enduring society’s scorn holds a certain appeal, don’t you think?”
“And you’ve never gone back home?” Niel asked Arwin.
“I’ve considered it. More than once.”
“I don’t mean to be indelicate,” Niel said, “but your father was murdered, Arwin. Didn’t that—”
“—bother me?” His face turned grim. “Don’t be foolish, Apprentice. Of course it did. To say the least. Most people where I’m from think me a coward. Most people in my family think me a traitor, that the very meaning of the word ‘honor’ is lost on me.”
“That’s why you hit me,” Niel said. “When I accused you of arranging my being robbed.”
“In part, perhaps.” Arwin smiled a little, but it lasted only a moment. “No, when the time comes I’ll make my displeasure known to all parties involved with my father’s death. And it will be part of an agenda of my own making. Not anyone else’s.”
Niel put his forehead down on his arms again. “This is all so insane.”
Arwin stood abruptly. “It is never insanity,” he said, “to do the best you can with what you have. That’s another lesson you’d do well to learn quickly.”
With that, he strode off into the darkness.
Taken aback, Niel turned to ask Peck what had upset Arwin, but Peck had vanished as well.
***
The night did not pass with ease. Peck reappeared once more, long enough for a bite to eat, then crept back into the night to resume his watch. Jharal snored like a legion of woodsmen sawing for their lives. Niel’s own fitful sleep eventually came, filled with terrifying dreams. First, bloody and mutilated dolphins screamed for him to save them from the crimson stew in which they swam, only to flail away when he reached out his hand. Then, the more familiar shrieks of a deranged and grotesquely feminine-looking Biddleby:
Never, ever ask that again, boy…
***
Niel had read of the enormous, crumbling temples scattered throughout Lyrria, erected in the distant days when humankind still strove to lure the gods back into the affairs of the world. He had admired drawings of them in various journals—designed by the most renowned architects of their day, built by the most skilled craftsmen, and adorned by the breath-taking works of the most gifted artists. For all their magnificence, none compared a tenth to the splendor of the Great Forests of Aithiq.
What at its outskirts began as a common, uninspiring wood had become to Niel a realm so wondrous he could scarcely contain the reverence that welled inside him. Trees broader than castle towers and easily thrice as high soared above and leaned slightly in from either side of the path like arches in a cathedral. Their tops ascended so far overhead no individual leaves could be seen, only a uniform ceiling of greenish-black. If he didn’t look directly at the ground, Niel could easily imagine he and the others were the size of field mice.
Save for the occasional errant shaft of yellow piercing the dense canopy, the forest veiled everything in perpetual twilight. Even so, colors blared with extraordinary richness, as if someone had just finished painting the scenery before him and nothing had yet dried. The air soothed him with its delicious, peaty perfume, but at the same time crackled against his skin with the life teeming all around but out of sight.
Niel suddenly sympathized with the Galiiantha. With every step, he and the others delved more deeply into someone else’s home without being invited. Well-read though he was, he couldn’t recall a single story where much good ever came of that.
***
No one would mistake him for a master strategist, but that did little to dissuade Niel’s conviction that stopping in the middle of the path was less than wise, particularly if they’d arrived at their destination as he suspected.
“Arwin…” Niel whispered as quietly as he could—
—but obviously not quietly enough. Cally’s saddle creaked as she turned and leveled a scowl. Arwin frowned as well with a shake of his head and a finger across his lips. Jharal hadn’t looked back but did hang his head in a brief but unmistakable show of exasperation before resuming his watch.
Before breaking camp that morning, Arwin had mentioned that going forward there would be no talking. Though the wagon had been hidden and left behind, the scuffs and snorts of their horses would make listening to their surroundings difficult enough.
They’d been waiting for Peck for what felt like hours, though. Surely if anyone lurked nearby they’d have seen or heard something already.
A disgusted voice off to their left startled Niel. “Mother’s beard, people.”
Peck appeared with the silent suddenness of a ghost.
“How about next time we bring along minstrels with drums?” he said. “They’d be as quiet, I think.”
Because Peck smiled, Niel smiled, until he caught a glint of something deep in Peck’s eyes, something he’d never noticed despite having seen the same expression a dozen times already. Ruthlessness. A well-honed, carefully restrained savagery.
Niel’s smile dropped away.
“Something you’re helpless to express, Lord Elder?” Peck continued, his eyes unyielding. “The grandeur of the Great Forest has moved you to song, has it?”
Niel r
eplied with a slow, humiliated shake of his head.
“The ruins are about an hour’s walk from here,” he said to Arwin, without releasing his gaze at Niel. “Best to leave the horses.”
“I take it the way is clear?” Arwin asked.
Peck faced the swordsman. “Actually, no. A couple dozen half-starved Galiiantha are waiting to pounce on you with napkins around their necks and eating prongs at the ready. When I told them how big Jharal was, a few of them fainted from anticipation.”
Arwin swung down from his mount. Cally and Jharal followed suit—but not before Jharal offered Peck a crude gesture as retort. Niel slid from his saddle last.
“Well,” Arwin replied as he stretched his back, “whether they’re weak from hunger or doubled over with the trots from eating Jhar, they shouldn’t be too much trouble. We’ll meet you there.”
“Try not to pick up any other minstrels, if you don’t mind,” Peck said as he dissolved back into the trees.
“Apprentice,” Arwin said, “I need a word with you.”
***
The lack of evidence of the changing seasons meant Niel had to remind himself constantly of the lateness in the year, that despite the bold, spring-time hues surrounding him, outside the forest was thinning to early winter.
He followed Arwin a short distance down the path, away from Jharal and Cally. He knew the gist of what Arwin had to say but appreciated the privacy. It would give him a chance to speak his mind as well.
“Niel, was I in any way unclear about the need for quiet?”
Expectation did little to dull the sting of embarrassment. Niel felt like a child again, standing before a disappointed Biddleby. For reply, he offered a simple, “No.”
“I know this is hardly a situation you’d have chosen for yourself. But you’re here now, with us, deep in Aithiq and preparing to trespass into an area that could mean difficult times if we’re discovered.”
“Yes,” Niel replied. “I know.”
“Good. Then you’ll keep in mind there are four others who’ll bear the consequences of your actions.”
“Actually, consequences were more or less what I wanted to talk to you about.”
Arwin sat back on a large, mossy rock and gestured to him to proceed.
“As we’ve been traveling, have you taken a good look around?” He glanced up at the treetops in admiration. “I thought the ocean was the grandest thing I’d ever seen, but these forests—I’ve never even imagined such a place.”
“They’re indeed something to behold,” Arwin agreed. “I felt much the same when I first saw them.”
Niel looked down again. “Has it occurred to you the harm we could be doing by leading others here?”
“It’s occurred,” the swordsman replied. “But between you and me, I think the Galiiantha can take care of themselves, let alone anyone else they decide not to have around.”
Niel frowned. “I wasn’t thinking specifically about the Galiiantha. But the whole point of our trespassing, as you say, is to make it easier for others to venture in even farther and trespass even more, right?”
“That’d be one way to look at it.”
“You’ve seen what colonization has done to the northern coastal area. Knowing that you’re playing a role in ruining all this, don’t you feel any responsibility to prevent it?”
Arwin’s smile looked just shy of patronizing. “I’ve long believed the only actions a person’s responsible for are his own. What others might do here in my absence isn’t on me.”
Niel frowned again, unconvinced.
“Let me put it this way,” Arwin offered, walking over to the massive base of a nearby tree and patting the huge trunk. “Say I told a friend of mine about this marvelous specimen here. Let’s say I insisted that he come see it. Then I find out that after seeing it my friend cut it down. Does that make me culpable in its demise?”
Niel folded his arms. “It does if you know your friend’s a lumberjack.”
Arwin chuckled as he mimicked Niel’s posture and leaned sideways against the coarse, canyon-like bark. “That’s a pretty piece of moralizing, Apprentice. I wonder how your principles would withstand a test in reality. Say, where survival was at stake.”
“I think they’d do well.”
“Truly? As well as your stance on adventurers as a whole? Or what about theft?”
Niel suddenly felt not so confident in his confidence. “That’s not the same thing. No one—”
“Ah, but it is,” Arwin interrupted, holding up a finger. “Circumstance dictates your principles, and the worse your circumstance, the fewer principles you can afford. I’ll wager that before boarding the Alodis, you’d never have given someone like me the time of day, nor would you have ever been a party to stealing from anyone, bloated merchant or otherwise.”
“Stealing?” Niel said. “I never—”
“Your disapproval was plain enough in Trelheim when you realized where Peck got those coins and that gem. If you were so offended, you could have left. Yet, here you are.”
“That’s not fair. I had nowhere else to turn.”
“Things are rarely fair, Apprentice, but you don’t have to justify yourself to me. Like I said the other night, you’re doing the best you can with what you have. I tried to tell you there are times when it’s all you can do to stay alive for a few more moments in hopes those moments will reveal an opportunity to escape. I think it’s always better to live to debate the virtue of your actions than be dead and unable to apologize for whatever offense you might have caused.”
Niel had always thought himself unselfish, going about his life with a steady awareness of others. Perhaps selflessness came more easily when the riskiest aspects of your life included crossing the street during Harvest Festival or peeking at a forbidden piece of parchment before your teacher got home.
“I still don’t know if I like the idea of profiting from what we’re doing here,” Niel said.
“I can appreciate that,” Arwin replied, “but you’ve already profited from this excursion more than anyone.”
“Oh? And how is that?”
Arwin crooked his mouth. “I’m told it’s a rarity for an apprentice magician to possess his very own spell book.”
Niel opened his mouth to reply, then closed it.
In the short time he’d been with Arwin, Niel had already begun teaching himself one spell, something he wouldn’t have been able to do until at least his second year at the College. Because that one spell came from a volume of dozens more, he had access to knowledge he couldn’t have realistically expected until well after his confirmation.
By accepting the book from Arwin—from Lodell—Niel for all intents had pledged his help to the group. But what of his growing conviction that the Great Forest and those who called it home had the right to exist free from intrusion? He couldn’t imagine anyone being content to let him walk away because he’d changed his mind and oh-by-the-way-thanks-for-the-spell-book-see-you-later. Especially not after the way Peck had looked at him.
Still, Niel knew he hadn’t fallen in with some vulgar band of cut- throats. In their own ways he thought them decent people, despite the occasional, not-so-subtle differences in ethics. So he’d take Arwin’s advice—compromise to survive, then hope an opportunity presented itself to see that as little harm as possible resulted.
“Apprentice?”
Niel’s focus returned.
“Do we understand each other?”
He could see Arwin wanted to know whether he could rely on Niel when it came to the safety of the others. For the first time, he appreciated the responsibility Arwin had taken upon himself, how he cared about those he led.
“Yes,” Niel replied. “We do. Thanks for letting me say my piece.”
Arwin shrugged. “Least I could do, since we’re all about to be devoured anyhow.”
Niel sighed. “That’s not very funny.”
Arwin clapped him on the shoulder as they started back. “I know,” he said, much t
oo grimly to be serious.
Niel forced himself not to smile. Or rather, he tried.
***
The thinning branches overhead marked the location of the ruins; high above, leaves glowed like a vast, open crown of yellow in stark contrast to the protective dim shade with which Niel had grown quite comfortable, like being wrapped in a blanket.
The site itself contained a conspicuous lack of the structures normally associated with a city. In fact, it contained a conspicuous lack of anything. According to Arwin the city had been abandoned for centuries, yet the overgrowth of vines and brambles proved hardly impassable. Scraggly and sparse, for Niel the vegetation brought to mind a once grand garden allowed to grow wild for a few seasons. The area seemed nothing more than a great vacant lot, leaving Niel unimpressed, even dissatisfied.
Arwin stepped up from behind with a nudge to Niel’s arm. “Well,” he whispered, “what do you think?”
“What do you mean? There’s nothing here.”
“Looks that way,” the swordsman granted with a subtle grin, “but what say we go explore and see if you’re right?”
Niel shrugged. “I’ve got nothing else to do today.”
Arwin chuckled, and the two of them walked back to where Jharal and Cally waited.
***
Biddleby had never held a high opinion of women, not even those within the ranks of the Membership whom the College considered his equal. Witches, he thought them. Temperamental imps who sullied an otherwise exalted calling.
Niel saw little need for distinction based on gender within the circles of magical study or otherwise. Physical limitations might make a woman less suitable for some particular tasks, but that was logistics, not misogyny. A short person would be ill-suited for grooming horses for similar reasons—he simply wasn’t built for it. Personally, Niel suspected a woman’s gender might actually be of overall benefit when it came to working magic. With the little he knew of what females endured each turning of the moons, he wouldn’t be surprised if a woman’s physiology made her better equipped to handle the strenuous demands of magic on the body.
A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) Page 13
