She started toward it, and the dim outline rapidly took a more meaningful shape: a throne as grand as the room that held it. The seat itself looked no wider than her arms outstretched, but the throne’s back and encompassing ornamentation crawled upward and outward until it melded with the carved shapes that had greeted her at the entrance. The dais on which it rested was unquestionably larger than the one within the New Tower. Five steep steps led to its top, and a dark gemstone twice the size of a pumpkin hovered in place over the chair.
At long last, the Heart of the Sisters.
The moment Ennalen thought its name, the gem’s presence boiled in her marrow.
Instinctively, she climbed the first step toward it.
Who are you?
The voice sounded clearly in her head—clearly from in front of her, clearly old and weak, and clearly without the least bit of threat. If anything, it felt confused. Like a plea.
Something moved within the diagonal shadow falling across the throne. A barely visible, huddled shape sat shrouded within.
“My name is Ennalen,” she replied.
Why are you here?
She moved to the next stair, allowing her eyes to cut briefly to the Heart before returning her gaze to the concealing shadows.
“To help right a wrong left unavenged for far too long, Brother.”
Again, the figure in the darkness shifted.
You… will help me?
“Yes, Brother,” she answered as she took the third step. Deep inside, from chest to womb, the Heart pulled at her. “I wish to punish those who have taken from us what was not theirs. I wish to make suffer those who have caused us so much anguish.”
Punish… suffer…
“Yes, Brother,” she soothed. A tremor of warm anticipation pulsed through her as she climbed the fourth and final stair. The air grew thick with the Heart’s allure, like the warm breath of an insistent lover. “Tell me what I may do.”
Do...?
The intensity of tremors made her gasp. “Yes. Tell me how I can help you.”
You may…
“Yes,” she whispered, almost wantonly.
... look down.
The world stopped spinning.
Ennalen stood in place and read the wide, ornate letters of gold gleaming at her feet:
ANESE.
The dais on which she stood had not been erected for mere ornamentation. The immense chamber surrounding it was no meaningless temple.
It was a tomb.
Ennalen’s head snapped up. Like a monster breaking the surface of a murky sea, the horrible, decomposed face of Uhniethi emerged from the depths. Where eyes should have been blazed two murderous orbs of violet-crimson. Torn, black lips curled into a broad, demonic grin.
“You should take better care where you trespass, my dear Magistrate,” he said, his breath fetid with decay. “Your disregard for my love’s rest is most offensive.”
From the ancient magician emanated a baneful current of power so tremendous it threatened to wash Ennalen away in a river of insanity. Vileness filled the pores of her skin; foulness stung the back of her throat. Terror lay barbarous siege to her emotional defenses, an assault she knew she could not long withstand.
Ennalen backed down one step. “My apologies, Your Luminance,” she said with a trembling, deferential bow.
Uhniethi stood. He wore ornate ceremonial robes of cream and gold, elaborately embroidered with indecipherable symbols. Though he was tall, the skull-like head and gnarled hands that protruded from the garment gave him a frightening, disproportionate shape.
“‘When the subject of an investigation realizes the avenues of conversational evasion have been reduced from few to none,’” he hissed, “‘then physical escape is typically the final bid toward avoiding punishment…’”
Ennalen recognized the words. Her mind raced.
A quote? Yes! From one of her textbooks.
She took another step backward with little notion of what to do next.
Attack? Impossible.
“And ill-advised,” Uhniethi said as he glided to the edge of the stair above her.
The unnaturalness of his voice made Ennalen want to claw out her ears. She glanced behind her. The expanse made it clear that running would be foolish.
“Quite,” he chided. “I wonder if the look on your face is anything like the one I wore when the Elders took hold of me.”
Ennalen’s thoughts ran in panicked, ever-tightening circles as her fortitude deteriorated against the sheer magnitude of Uhniethi’s presence.
Then, from nowhere, she realized Uhniethi had left his quotation incomplete.
For whatever reason, he had shown her the way out.
No, not out. Through.
It was a test.
She forced herself to straighten her back and make as defiant a stance as she could.
“However,” she recited, “the truly disciplined mind, regardless how criminal one’s actions or intent, will steadfastly challenge and seek to defy a figure of authority even when all hope is lost.”
Uhniethi ceased his advance.
“Excellent,” he said. His nightmarish smile widened. “You may survive your indiscretion after all—”
A self-satisfied relief filled Ennalen.
“—for the time being!” he growled as his face crumpled into a hellish mask of hate.
With a flourish of Uhniethi’s arm, Ennalen flew from the stairs and high into the open room. Her arms squeezed to her sides with such force the pain and pressure prevented her from crying out. Her head snapped back hard as she flew with nauseating velocity back toward the throne where Uhniethi stood. She stopped so close to his face that had he anything left of a nose, it would have been touching hers.
“I will teach you what you wish to know,” he whispered. The rot of his words smothered her. “But I doubt you will find the cost at all to your liking.”
Succumbing to the relentless power exuded by the mage, Ennalen went limp in his grasp. “Yes, Magistrate,” she heard him say as blackness overcame her. “Sleep. You will have much to do when you awaken…”
34
Ignalius Potchkins was a madman. Friendly, clever, and endlessly endearing, but clearly crazed beyond any reach of reason. Niel could think of no other cause for the professor’s outrageous assertions.
The source of his good-natured exasperation with the professor was their banter that had ensued from the moment Niel realized he had woken before the others and poked his head above deck.
The conversation started innocently, with Potchkins wishing a good morning and inviting him to examine the bridge and the various instruments that made piloting the craft possible. A wide glass cylinder there caught Niel’s attention. Inside it clicked and turned an intricate array of gears and springs situated over a swinging pendulum. The cylinder itself sat mounted on an equally complex tray designed to keep the device level no matter what the vessel’s movement. According to the professor, the delicate, extremely sensitive mechanism aided in determining their position in relation to the world below.
“Wouldn’t it be simpler and more reliable to use magic?” Niel had asked—the last words he could remember getting in edgewise, because the question sent Potchkins tumbling down a long and winding stream of consciousness.
Niel sat patiently on the bench by the steering wheel as the professor spoke, facing him intently with one elbow propped up on the railing.
“The trouble with you magicians,” Potchkins prattled merrily, “is that when someone comes to you and says they’re hungry, not only do you feed them instead of providing them the means to feed themselves, but you give them such a delicious meal that they lose interest in ever feeding themselves. When they get hungry again, they’ll go find the nearest mage.”
Niel knew full well that magicians tended not to involve themselves with such charity unless they’d found something in it for themselves—but the professor’s metaphor made an interesting summation for a string of equally inter
esting points.
“So what would you have the College do?” Niel asked, baiting his new friend. “Ignore the needs of those who solicit their help?”
The tahlerig smiled. “Now you’re just being difficult. What I’m saying, what I’ve been blustering about all along, is that had the College never existed, then neither would the need for the College.”
“Then let me ask you this,” Niel said, gesturing to the ship in general. “If the College had never existed, would you have been compelled to build this?”
There came an unexpected, somber silence.
“Frankly,” Potchkins replied, “I think if the College never existed, none of us would be here, faced with what we are.”
Niel peered down at the expanse of sea moving dreamlike far beneath them.
“Well said,” he muttered.
While Niel felt the ship’s motion in his stomach, the tiny white crests on the waves below looked frozen in place, like an endless painting of an ocean scrolling by that he could reach over the railing and touch. He closed his eyes and lifted his face into the cold, steady wind.
For all the wonders available through Canon, Niel could not imagine any of them coming close to the glorious sensations of being aboard the professor’s ship. He breathed the delicious scents of sea and sky, surprised he could still detect the salty aroma from so high up.
Then Niel thought of that faraway day on the bluff overlooking the Nilfranian, and wondered on what side of Potchkins’s argument he had just landed.
***
That night the sky finally began to clear. Niel stood near the bow watching the moons as they gleamed beyond the patchy, silvery quilt of clouds—poor, blind Aial forever searching her skirts in vain for tiny Erbi, her mischievous child.
Arwin’s voice surprised him, but not enough to startle.
“In some ways it’s better than even the Forest, isn’t it?”
Niel gave a small smile of agreement.
Arwin approached, leaned back, and rested his elbows on the railing.
“Since Jharal’s out of earshot,” he said, “I need to ask you about what happened before Glernny. My keen sense for the obvious tells me the spell I asked you to learn didn’t quite take.”
“No,” Niel acknowledged. “It didn’t.”
Arwin’s brow wrinkled. “Do you know why? I mean, do you know what was different from the Light spell?”
Niel tapped with his fingers the pouch hanging beneath his tunic. “It has to be the stone. I can’t imagine another reason.”
“Any guess what it’s doing?”
Niel chewed at his bottom lip, then held up his wrist. “Before I left home, I charmed this rope bracelet. I made it to help me keep my balance so I wouldn’t get seasick. I’d never been on a boat before.”
Arwin arched an eyebrow. “Would your bracelet also explain your uncanny horsemanship at Hallen’s?”
Niel gave a scant smile. “It was slightly more effective than I’d counted on.”
“But at Glernny you fell getting off the horse.”
“Right. The charm I used on the bracelet was actually a simplified rendering of a larger spell from one of my teacher’s Canonic tomes. Funny now, I guess, to think he even had one. Anyhow, the Sleep spell was also from Canon.”
“And you learned the Light spell before meeting our Galiiantha friends.”
Niel toyed with the pouch once more. “My guess is that the energies in this aren’t exactly compatible with Canon.”
Arwin held up a finger. “But Lleryth said the College Elders use their own portions of the Heart.”
“Maybe they found a way to reconcile the differences. Or maybe their greater experience with magic made them better at using their cantles. I don’t know.”
“Or maybe,” Peck said, emerging from the shadows with a steaming mug cupped in both hands, “they’ve long since abandoned Canon in favor of the Heart.”
That time, Niel did jump.
“Could be,” he said, deciding not to bother asking how long Peck had been listening. He faced out toward the moons again.
“What are you thinking, Apprentice?” Arwin asked.
“I keep hearing Lleryth telling me how much hinges on everything that’s about to happen.”
“And what do you suppose is going to happen?”
Niel shrugged. “I suppose if we go along with the stories, then everything’s about to change.”
Arwin crossed his arms. “Hopefully for the better.”
Peck propped himself up against a wooden beam as he took a careful sip.
“That means,” he said, “the only thing left is to figure out how to do that—change everything. I don’t recall there being much written about what the Apostate is actually supposed to do.”
Niel didn’t reply. He grappled instead with the utter strangeness of the conversation, and then wondered how one normally discussed the possible fate of the world.
Arwin nudged him with a gloved fist. “You all right?”
“Like you said, I’m scared.” Niel looked toward the professor, still dutifully at the helm. Then he looked up at the moons as they slipped back beneath the steely cover of clouds. “But fable or not,” he said, “we do not want the Heart to be healed. We simply cannot let that happen.”
***
Dawn came as a bleak wince, a pallor that seeped into the horizon between the angry greys of the sky and the drab, jagged contours of the Peridehn Mountains.
Niel shuddered. The frigid wind racing at them across the Black Plains bit hard even through the protection of his cloak. He scarcely remembered the last time he had slept, though the steady pull he felt toward their destination provided sufficient counterbalance to his fatigue.
The others stood with him at the bow of the flying ship, each wrapped in a Galiiantha cloak as well. The few necessities they had packed lay in knapsacks at their feet.
Niel peered over the railing. The professor sailed close to the ground, making the dark, cracked surface of the Plains seem glacial. Ahead rose the ominous form of the Black Wall against the like-hued mountains, though the strength of the wind made it feel as if the ship moved diagonally rather than directly toward it.
“Well,” Arwin said, “I hope they’re home.”
Jharal crossed his arms over his huge chest. “I don’t.”
Niel looked at neither of them, unable to break his gaze from the forbidding shape growing ever larger in their path.
***
Potchkins offered to land the ship directly on top of the Wall to make disembarking that much easier, but Arwin decided against it. Not only could they not be sure of the structure’s soundness, but it wouldn’t take much longer to get under way from the ground than it would from atop the Wall. Plus, tucked down beside the Wall, the ship would remain at least somewhat concealed. Potchkins acquiesced, swung the vessel gracefully about and slowed to a gentle stop parallel to the enormous base of the Black Wall.
It had taken the ship little more than an hour to traverse the Black Plains. For a moment, Niel felt guilty for not having spent more time with the professor given the tremendous effort he had made to help them. But then Niel smiled to himself as he recalled how conspicuously the tahlerig had kept a distance from the group to ensure their privacy. He decided if future circumstances allowed, he would get to know Professor Ignalius Potchkins as well as he could.
During their farewells the professor gave Niel’s wrist an extra pat as they shook hands, and as Niel climbed down the rope ladder, Potchkins leaned over the railing to wave at them one last time.
“I’ll be waiting right here!”
“Believe me, Professor,” Arwin replied, “we’ll keep that well in mind.”
Niel watched the tahlerig nod and smile, then turn to busy himself about the ship.
35
She didn’t have to search her chest to know her cantle had been taken. The cold, engulfing blackness of its absence left no doubt. She spent what felt like several eternities huddled and wee
ping.
The very moment she accepted the cantle’s loss and began to calm, there appeared a light. First, she thought the light hopelessly distant. When it beckoned, however, she flew toward it without even the most errant notion of resistance.
After several more eternities of effort, she reached the light. Warm. Beautiful. She bathed in the fierce fire of the knowledge and comfort it provided, gorged on its nourishment like a creature crazed from hunger finally allowed to feed. Had she been permitted, she would have willingly lost herself in the bountiful oblivion of that light. Instead, as soon as it sensed she had taken in enough to sustain her, the light withdrew, though it remained tantalizingly near—a promise of reward should she again be found deserving.
Tell me, can you feel him approaching?
“Yes,” Ennalen said.
Very good. That pleases me.
“Then I am pleased.”
It pleases you as well that he intends to separate us forever? You will allow him to take me?
The idea flooded her with desolate hatred.
“No,” she seethed. “Never.”
What will happen to him when he tries?
Ennalen had to pause to prevent her churning rage from consuming her. She placed her hand on one of the small, nearby statues. Only then could she whisper her reply:
“Everything that can.”
36
The wind came, razor-cold and in shrieks, whipping their cloaks behind them as they stood and watched the vessel bob in place like a cork on water—another reason Arwin had decided against landing on the Wall. With wind so ferocious, starting from the ground and climbing to the top was much safer. The professor had apparently gone below deck.
“You know,” Arwin said, “we never asked the name of his ship.”
“I wonder if he’s given it one,” Cally replied.
“Surely he has,” Niel said. “I thought sailing a ship without a name is bad luck, isn’t it?”
“Oh, it must have,” Peck said as he turned away. “Otherwise our boundless good fortune would have come to an end.”
A Mage Of None Magic (Book 1) Page 26
