Revealed: The Taellaneth - Book 2

by Vanessa Nelson

  The spell fell away, replaced by a mass of darkness. Not surjusi. A tumbling mass of smaller things. Tainted creatures, shapes making no sense in the second world, simply snippets of energy too fast for her to identify, swarmed forward, in vast numbers, tens, then hundreds, eager cries filling the world.

  Around her the warriors flickered, their bright wards dimming under the onslaught. Tiny sparks of light flew through the wards, cutting into the dark mass, Erith arrows deadly accurate. Some of the creatures fell, dozens more took their places.

  Shoving her sword into the earth, drawing the kri-syang, Arrow sliced open one palm and called mage fire, throwing it in small, rapid bursts, mage fire sticking to the unclean magic it encountered, pulling down more of the creatures with it.

  “Can you make a sheet?” Kester’s voice asked from the first world. He sounded calm, slightly out of breath. Glancing aside, Arrow saw he had moved a pace forward, careful to keep to one side of her, his form dancing in the second world, shimmering sparks of amber denoting his blades as he cut into the creatures.

  “Step back. Everyone.” She called more mage fire to her hands. Her mind threw up a slew of objections. She had never done this before with mage fire. But she could send her power out in a sheet, she told her inner voice sternly, and pushed down her doubts, calling more power until she was blind in the second world. When she could not contain anything more in her hands she bound a banishment into the power and sent it out, shoving hard enough that her ribs protested, bright silver sheet slipping free with apparent glee, tumbling over the mass of darkness.

  She lost hearing and sight for long moments, huddled to the ground, making herself a smaller target to avoid impeding the warriors. Her chest ached. She coughed, dislodging something from her throat. Coughing again, she spat on the ground, heedless of manners, and found her first sight returning. There was a hard grip on one shoulder, and the world was trembling.

  The hard grip resolved into Kallish, and the trembling stopped when Kallish stopped shaking her, lips forming urgent words. Arrow shook her head, pointing at her ears, still deaf. The warrior brushed back hair from Arrow’s face, fingers coming away covered in blood, and turned aside, the warrior’s lips moving again. A silver flask was held in front of her. Both hands needed to hold it, small sip, taste of copper blood on her tongue. She rinsed her mouth and spat again, bright blood staining the earth until it soaked in. A few sips and her sight cleared, vague sounds returning to her ears. Whatever Kallish had given her was laced with restorative of some kind, power returning as she stayed huddled on the ground.

  “Area is clear.” The words were muffled, but audible. Arrow glanced up to find Xeveran reporting to his captain. Xeveran had a long rent along one sleeve, dark stain that had to be blood creeping into the cloth. The warrior was slightly ruffled, cheeks lit with silver, and Arrow frowned, looking at Kallish again. The warrior was also slightly ruffled, skin dusted with silver. Looking around, Arrow saw that all the warriors had some glints of silver on their clothes and skin.

  “Can you stand?” Kester was kneeling in front of her, eyes bright with power, amber a sharp contrast to the silver dusting his high cheekbones.

  Feet. Underneath. Knees. Unfold. Sword used as a crutch. After that it was easy. She kept hold of the flask, taking another few sips as her hearing cleared, ringing fading. Ribs ached as she tried to take a deeper breath and she pressed a hand to her side, using the recovered power to check her injuries. Broken. Yet again. Too much power shoved out. Something to be careful of in future. She tested the weight of the flask. There was plenty left, so she used the power she had recovered, sent it through her rib cage and forced the bones back together. There was a dull crack as the ends met, and a searing pain that had her back on her knees again, vision fading, until the healing took, and she could breathe.

  “You are wounded, again,” Kallish said, disapproval radiating.

  “Ribs again. They will hold.” Arrow breathed deeply, unable to suppress a smile as no sharp tug or dull ache met the movement. She got to her feet again and drained the flask, handing it back to Kallish. “My thanks, svegraen. That is a remarkable potion.” The warrior’s mouth twitched in what might have been a smile.

  “Our young journeyman has his uses.”

  “One of Gilean’s recipes,” Orlis confided, eyes wide, bright red and amber colour swirling with agitation. “Do you know what you did, Arrow?”

  “What?” Arrow asked, realising that Orlis was also dusted with silver.

  “We were overwhelmed, and you banished the lot of them,” Orlis told her, something like awe in his face and voice. Arrow blinked, looked around.

  The ground around them was littered with ashen remains, the vaguest shapes of bones sticking up, and silver dust everywhere.

  “What did you do, mage?” Kester asked.

  “I am not sure,” she said honestly. She took a step forward and knelt by the nearest fallen remains. “They look burned. I did not send fire. At least, I started to, but I do not think that is what happened.”

  “You did not,” Orlis confirmed, kneeling close by, eyes still bright. “You sent your power out in a sheet.” He threw his hands wide, demonstrating. “I have never seen anything like it. Wherever it touched the creatures it burned them.”

  “We were overwhelmed,” Kallish confirmed. “There were hundreds of those things. They were through our shields in moments.”

  “But you are not tainted, svegraen. None of you are.” Arrow moved too quickly, head spinning as she looked around the warriors, making sure for herself. A few smiles met her searching gaze, confusing her.

  “Whatever you did banished the taint,” Kallish confirmed, eyes bright, before she held up her hand, “although we now seem to be decorated.”

  “I am sorry, svegraen. I have no idea …” Arrow broke off as the warrior smiled, too astonished to continue.

  “A little dust is nothing,” Kallish clapped Arrow on the shoulder. “Far better than the alternative. Come, the area is clear of creatures, but there is more to explore.”

  “Of course, svegraen.” She sheathed her sword, the web of spells settling happily across her back then went to fetch her bag before following Kallish’s straight back, careful to follow the warrior’s path through the ashen remains.

  “Do you want this back?” Orlis asked, holding out the armoured coat she had been wearing.

  “No, thank you.” Arrow wrinkled her nose. It might be foolish, but the coat was more a hindrance than anything else, and her personal wards were intact.

  Orlis seemed happy to carry it. She thought it was only a matter of time before the journeyman was asking for his own.

  “What were the creatures, svegraen?” she thought to ask. Kallish shot a frowning glance over her shoulder.

  “You did not recognise them?”

  “I was in the second world,” Arrow answered, the warrior’s confusion clearing.

  “They were rallestren.” The warrior slowed, walking beside Arrow, Xeveran and his third spread out in front of them.

  “So many? And so close to the borders? That is not good. Are they all gone?” Arrow looked around, imagining with dismay the international incident that could be caused by the vicious Erith predators running amok in Lix. They might be the same size as human rats, but more than made up for their lack of size in determination and venom.

  “We are checking, but at the moment they are all dead,” Kallish confirmed.

  “Will you request prevention measures on the way to Lix, svegraen?” Arrow asked. Kallish nodded once, seeming to find the suggestion sensible.

  “They swarmed at us,” Orlis confided, still shaken, “I have never seen so many acting together like that. I mean, we come across nests from time to time, but nothing like that.”

  “It was not a natural grouping,” Arrow agreed.

  “The rogue magician?” Kester asked.

  “Indeed, svegraen” She stepped over a final, charred corpse and onto bare earth. “The conce
alment spell was his work.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Any sign of Lord Evellan?” Kallish asked.

  “A trace of him within the spell, but simply as if he had been there.” Arrow looked around with her sight overlaid, trying to make sense of what she could see. The dense forest and tangled undergrowth had given way to a small clearing, within which sat a small, wooden hut, the door ripped off its hinges and lying a short distance from the entrance. “He went in there,” Arrow started forward, held back by a firm hand on either shoulder, Kester and Kallish of one mind.

  “Wait here,” Kester ordered. “Orlis?”

  The young mage’s expression slackened as he dipped fully into the second world. “No wards or concealments that I can see, but there is someone inside.”

  “Xeveran, watch her,” Kallish ordered, freeing her sword, and gesturing her third to move forward with her. At Xeveran’s frown, Kester waited with Arrow.

  Arrow waited, unable to assist with Xeveran’s armoured presence at one shoulder and Kester at the other, impatience mixed with concern, as Kallish’s third circled the hut slowly then disappeared inside. At length Kallish appeared in the doorway and gestured them forward. Arrow managed a brisk walk, not a run, across the distance.

  “The mage only. There is little room,” Kallish instructed, stepping aside for Arrow to go inside.

  Despite the missing door, the hut was dark inside, lit only by a tiny glimmerlight one of the warriors had created, settled on the floor beside a filthy pallet of straw and blankets, on which lay an unmoving, familiar figure.

  “Preceptor.” Arrow knelt beside him, careless of the filth. He was so still she thought for a moment he was dead, even without the sweet scent, but then she saw his chest move slightly, heard a harsh, rattling sound that she realised was his breathing.

  “Arrow?” His voice was the barest sound.

  “Yes. You are wounded, my lord.” She overlaid her sight, seeing a worryingly large patch of darkness across his stomach, tendrils snaking down his legs and up his chest, threading into his heart and lungs. There was no surjusi presence, just the lingering aftermath of one.

  “Tainted,” he whispered. A flash of purple in the darkness caught Arrow’s attention and she almost missed his next words. “Careless. Arrogant. Could not stop him.”

  “Stop who, my lord?”

  His lips moved, face a map of shadows in the uncertain light, but no sound emitted.

  “He is gravely wounded,” Kallish said grimly, kneeling close by. The silver dust on her skin was shining, too brightly to simply be a reflection of the limited light available.

  “He is. And tainted.”

  “We need to get him to healers,” the warrior said.

  “I can remove the taint,” Arrow answered the unspoken question. “He will need a litter.”

  “Easily done.” Kallish rose, stepping aside to give her orders.

  A deep breath in for balance, then Arrow opened her power even as the stench of the surjusi taint coated her lungs, along with the filth of the place. The pattern of the rogue magician was everywhere in this rotting hut. Whatever else he might be, he had no talent of hygiene, Arrow thought, calling the strongest cleansing spell to mind.

  She spread her hand on the Preceptor’s abdomen, trying not to feel the way the cloth rasped against her skin, brittle with dried blood, and spoke the words of the spell, silver runes forming in her second sight. When she was satisfied that the spell was correct she released her power into the prone Erith lord. His body shuddered under her light touch, and a flood of fresh, damp warmth rose under her palm. The stench of taint lifted, cleared away, a shower of silver dust coming to rest on his abdomen.

  “He is bleeding again,” Arrow said, rising. “A stomach wound of some sort, I believe.”

  “We dare not move him much,” Kallish agreed, and gave quiet, apparently calm, instructions to the third who had followed her. The senior third of the other cadre, Arrow saw. In short order, Arrow an interested observer standing close to one wall, the third had a makeshift litter made of branches and one or two armoured coats for additional padding, and the Preceptor very gently transferred across, his stomach covered with clean cloths coated with warrior’s healing salve. The warriors carried him out of the hut and as the better light fell across him, Arrow drew in a sharp breath, surprised he was still alive. His face was hollowed with pain and the after effect of taint, bones standing out in sharp relief, clothing filthy with earth from the hut’s floor and more blood than she had thought one body could hold.

  “The healers have been alerted,” Xeveran appeared at the door, “but wish to be assured there is no risk.”

  “There is no more taint in him.” Arrow was still in the hut doorway and hoped the darkness would hide her curling lip. This was the Preceptor. Whatever he may have done in the last few days, and however angry she was at his barbed gift of the book, he had selflessly placed himself into danger time and again to aid his people, and his people were hesitant about healing him.

  “Svegraen.” Kallish addressed the leader of the second cadre, her voice stern. “Ensure that he is healed. Remind them, if you have to, that her majesty has a particular fondness for this lord and will be most displeased if he does not receive all due care.”

  “Svegraen.” The cadre leader acknowledged Kallish’s command with a small smile that was nearly feral, similar expressions on many of the warriors. Arrow wondered what the healers had done to so annoy the White Guard in the past.

  “Arrow.” The Preceptor’s voice sounded, startling them all. She went forward, slipping between the stretcher bearers, bending over him.

  “Lord Evellan.”

  “You must stop him.”

  “I intend to.”

  “You are the only one who can.” He made a restless movement, reaching for her. She caught his hand, a contact she would not normally have dared, or have sought, his skin fever hot and dry under her own. “You found the book.” It was not really a question, and her brows lifted.

  “I did.” She paused, gathering calm. Now was not the time to shout, however angry she was at the pages fluttering restlessly inside. “How did you know?”

  “The dust.” The fingers of his free hand twitched, indicating something beyond her. She looked around, seeing the warriors lit with silver.

  “That was in the book?” Dismay ran through her, wondering what else the book had taught her that she had used unconsciously.

  “Not exactly.” There was the faintest touch of acid in his voice, a tone she knew well from her student days.

  “The teaching method leaves something to be desired.” She returned his acid, thin-worn patience cracking. Even half-dead he was still obscure. His lips, cracked and bleeding, twitched in a smile.

  “You think too much.”

  “So you have told me, often enough,” Arrow squeezed the hand within hers, capping her temper. “The Lady Vailla is most anxious for your return, my lord.”

  “She is well?” he asked, gripping her fingers.

  “Very well. It was some effort to persuade her not to follow you,” Arrow told him and saw by the faint smile that the Preceptor was quite familiar with his vestran’s stubborn nature. “You need healing, my lord. Is there anything else you wish to tell me before you go?”

  “Look. Things are rarely what they seem,” he said, grasp slackening, apparently fading into unconsciousness. Arrow found she was glaring after his disappearing form, carried by a quartet of warriors, the final member of the third leading the way.

  “Is the Preceptor always so cryptic?” Kallish wanted to know, line between her brows.

  “Cryptic? That was positively transparent,” Arrow snapped, then sighed, tugging her hair behind her ear, careless of the drying blood. “Sorry, svegraen.” She made a slight bow.

  Kallish’s lips twitched and she inclined her head slightly, accepting the apology.

  “We have found no obvious trail from here,” she said evenly, returning to bu
siness as they walked out of the hut, “unless you can find one?”

  “Me?” Snapped out of her irritation with the Preceptor, and the book insider her, Arrow heard her voice squeak. “I am no tracker.”

  “Gilean said that the Preceptor said you have the best sight of all his students,” Orlis put in, doubtless thinking he was being helpful.

  “Did he indeed?” Arrow muttered, wondered what other snippets the Preceptor had seen fit to share with his long-time correspondent and confidant. She would like to have many words with the Preceptor when he was strong enough.

  “The rogue magician was here, then?” Kester asked, breaking through her foul temper.

  “He was,” she confirmed.

  “Where, precisely?” Kallish asked. Arrow frowned slightly, opening her second sight.

  “Nearly everywhere. A moment.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a pouch of chalk powder. “If you would give me some space, I will try to highlight the areas.”

  She blinked at the speed with which the warriors and Orlis removed themselves from the hut and indeed back a fair distance around it. Glancing down at the chalk powder she realised she had selected a vivid yellow. Doubtless, already lit with silver, the warriors did not wish to be painted again.

  Mentally rehearsing the spell, drawing power in a slow curl from inside herself, she triggered the spell, breathing out across the powder, sending it out into a lazy trail. Another slow, careful breath and the trail extended, chalk particles hanging in the air.

  “Where does he go?” Kallish asked.

  Arrow repeated her slow breaths and scattered the powder, from the door of the hut and across the clearing. The rogue, whoever he was, had not spent time exploring. There was a deep pool where he had paused, but his trail ended at the edge of the small, unnatural clearing.

  “He just vanished?” Orlis asked.

  “Unlikely.” Arrow tied off the pouch, now nearly empty, and stuffed it back into her bag. Extending her senses, she could not find any trace of the magician beyond the clearing. All his spell work must have been cast from here.