Em struggled to orient herself. She distinctly remembered the repeated blows from Tyrandel's fists, and while she knew an echo of that excruciating agony, she felt nothing now. That lack of perception frightened her, for surely only death could have relieved her from physical sensations. Her eyes flew open to blinding white light, and she squeezed them tight again to protect her vision, watching red lightning streaks arc across the back of her eyelids. What matters sight if I lie dead? she wondered. But then, if Tyrandel had killed her, why did she lie here thinking? Small comfort, but she grasped the hope that she still lived tightly.
She opened her eyes to mere slits, allowing herself to acclimatise to the light before opening them more fully. Tyrandel's great heft no longer pinioned her, and in fact she seemed to stand unencumbered by any weight, even her own, which puzzled more than alarmed her.
"She hasn't stepped out of the conduit yet," a second voice said. "Perhaps she's the one we have waited for after all."
Em blinked in the bright surroundings, tears washing her eyes as the light at last resolved into a pervading whiteness, as though she stood upon a giant snowbank, or swallowed amidst an enormous cloud that surrounded her on all sides. She peered around, trying to locate the speakers, finally coming face to face with a man and a woman, neither of whom she recognised.
"Who are you?" Em asked. She gazed past them and saw only white with no differentiation between ground and sky, which left her stomach twisting in knots as she looked down to find her feet resting on nothing. "Where are we?"
"She can see us," the man said on a sigh. "At last."
Em regarded the pair. The woman had hair the colour of pale honey, the man's curls a few shades darker. Each wore robes reminiscent of Wizard Castillo's from the Frontier School in Bakaana, though of an older style, the indigo hue startling in its stark contrast to their colourless surroundings. Deep lines etched their faces, giving the pair a haggard though somehow ageless appearance, and they bore enough resemblance to each other to suggest close kinship. Em frowned, an outlandish concept forming in her mind. Impossible, she chided her imagination. She had stood on the Fields of Erinnerung when Tyrandel beat her, near to the nexus, where long ago, kin had died to save their King and country. Coincidence, surely, that now she stood confronted by a likely duo in a fantastical yet featureless plane.
"We stand at the centre of an unfinished construct that my brother and I created," the woman said. "One that we hope you will help us complete."
Em stared at her, mouth agape. Surely not ...
"Constance?" Em squeaked, eyes wide in wonder and disbelief.
The woman jerked, obviously startled in turn.
"You know me?"
"Ah," peeped Em. She cleared her throat, unsure how to proceed in a conversation with figments from her imagination, for how else to explain the presence of those she faced now. "I read your journal."
"Of course." The woman studied her a moment, speculation deepening the creases around her eyes and mouth. "I wonder, will you share your knowledge with us?"
"What would you like to know?" Em asked, surprised by the question. What could these two want to learn from her?
"What you have gleaned from my journal, and what you have done with the information that has brought you here, where we may converse."
"Oh." Em considered, saw no harm in answering a few questions. After all, she had many of her own. "Certainly."
The pair stepped forward, each touching her elbow, startling Em enough to make her jump. A flash of the past months swam through her mind, taking no longer than a couple of seconds. They released her, retreating the pace they had taken, and regarded her with serious expressions. Have they just read my mind? Em wondered.
"So you know what we attempted," Alfred said. "When we braided together layers of power to help shield Dalasham."
"What you achieved," countered Em, unsettled by their casual show of strength despite their limitations on life. Do they now know everything I know?
"Yes and no," Constance qualified. Em stared at her aghast, until she realised the wizard referred to her spoken statement, not her unvoiced question. She hoped. “We have seen the effects of our Dual Great Magic from the limited capacity offered us in this limbo where we find ourselves," continued Constance. "We ended Henri's revolt, altered the course of magic, and kept Dalasham safe from arcane interference, but only until a wizard pushed aside her aversion at our borders and braved the discomfort of life at Dalasmar. Those who followed her have weakened our defences and placed you all in danger."
"But we've defeated Nathan and Tyrandel," Em objected. "Dalasham is safe again."
"Until the next wizard comes along," Alfred disagreed. "Your Enforcer can make an example of the trespassers, but how long will such dissuasion last? And if the Enforcers refuse to intercede unless called upon―whether from ignorance or indifference―they lack the efficacy required to keep any land lacking magic safe."
"We didn't sacrifice so much to hand Dalasham over to a different tyrant in a time beyond ours," Constance added. "Nor, I hope, have you come so far only to fall prey to those who understand what you yet do not."
Em regarded the older woman, wondering at what point she had stopped viewing this surreal encounter as a figment of her imagination, and seeing it for the truth: a chance to speak with figures from history whom she hadn't even known existed a couple of months ago.
"What do you suggest we do?" Em asked. "How do you propose we come to understand this magic you imbued us with?"
"As I said, we want you to help complete our construct," answered Constance.
Em shook her head with a frown.
"I don't understand."
"The Dual Great Magic which altered the flow of magic had a secondary stage," Alfred said. "But one which we, of necessity, could not implement."
"It also had the unintended side effect of strengthening Henri's insidious campaign of impugning the capabilities of women, weakening not only the efficacy of some of his strongest opponents during our struggle, but your voice now." Little emotion coloured Constance's words, but a deep and abiding anger darkened her eyes. "The effects of our spell meant to make Henri and his coterie lose their ability to touch magic―much like your own efforts to rob Nathan of his memory of how to cast spells―unfortunately twisted not only his memory, but somehow anchored his slanderous campaign in place. Instead of merely altering his memory of magic, it altered everyone's memory, latching onto his belief of the limited role of women which he had intertwined into his prowess with magic. Whether Henri accomplished this consciously as a final defence and revenge against our spell, or the magic mutated from some intrinsic part of his nature, we don't know. The end result, however, stripped the land of both the knowledge of magic and the knowledge of the capabilities and accomplishments of women."
"Furthermore," Alfred added with a grim frown, "that aspect of the spell spread beyond our borders. All records of Dalasham's ability in magic, and the role of her women, disappeared from history, and not just her history. The altered effects spilled over into other lands. While kingdoms like Bash and Moravin have long disparaged women, Dalasham and Kranor suddenly lost all recollection of the many achievements of women in their realms, their histories shrouded with an aversion to connect names with the appropriate genders. Haemat alone, with its unique magical presence, retained its independent thought in regards to the value of both sexes."
"But how could the spell have countered preexisting texts?" Em demanded. "Not only did the role of women here change, but Norbert cannot recall any instances where women stood equal to men in Bakaana either. How would your spell rewrite the histories of other lands too?"
"It didn't," Constance said. "But it somehow added an aversion to texts which might indicate the presence of magic in our land or disprove the fallacy that women stood inferior, creating a reluctance to research or remember Dalasham as once having magic or female practitioners, in essence negating the importance of women in any role, whether a
mong the rulers, the wizarding ranks, or the commons."
"We built a safeguard into our Dual Great Magic," Alfred went on. "Something that, if a time arose when Dalasham had the capacity to support the knowledge of magic once again, would restore the memory to the masses which we had to erase, and help them master the use of their Lesser Magic. We hope that, by implementing this final stage, we can also remove the unintended stigma our manipulation caused throughout many lands regarding women, thus removing the unnatural barrier that holds women to a lesser role. Unfortunately, we cannot risk simply imposing the truth as we knew it, for society and culture has changed too greatly to safely cushion a reinstatement of a notion that in truth no longer exists. Henri corrupted enough in his time to his purposes that those in power looking for any advantage adopted his mindset even before our spell unintentionally set that belief in stone. Too many minds would rebel at the behavioural shift now without someone first laying the groundwork for change. This means people like you and Destiny, even Princess Mantinou―every woman who seeks to rise above artificially imposed strictures―will have a great deal of work to make your voices heard again, but no longer will magic work to inhibit the world recognising your value. The original histories still exist, but someone must lead scholars and rulers to their presence and convince them that they contain many truths."
"And you can do this by modifying your original spell?" Em asked, hardly believing the complexity of what they discussed.
"The spell has a final trigger that will remove the cloud enshrouding the presence of magic and the aversion for magic wielders within Dalasham," Constance said. "Those with Lesser Magics will gradually come to understand that their gifts have a basis in wizardry or witchcraft, something they can hone if they so desire, or leave to fade away. It would behoove you to find those willing to teach basic control, perhaps creating some form of alliance with the Wizarding Schools as of old, or resurrecting the lessons the Universities of Dalasham once boasted. Magic itself may choose to remain filtered among many, or it might trickle back more strongly into a few in a couple of generations, no longer content to spread itself thin. A fickle creature, magic, and one wont to choose its own course once unfettered by our holding spell."
Em stared at her. Constance spoke as though magic had its own sentience, a concept so foreign, Em didn't know how to wrap her head around it.
Before she could demand any clarification, the white plane flickered, overlaying a scene of the battle ending in the Fields of Erinnerung where her body lay while her mind traversed a pocket of magic in the nexus. She felt the warm strength of arms encircling her, a hand gently brushing her hair. The coppery tang of blood lay thick on her tongue and the stench of death clogged her nose while the screams of men and horses drifted from afar to disturb soft words of comfort murmured in her ear. Darkness draped behind closed eyes, though she had the sensation of sunlight bathing her face, a strong source of life amidst Fields of death.
The white purity of what remained of Constance's world flickered back to fullness as Em forced her attention to return to her unearthly companions, but both Constance and Alfred glanced around the featureless landscape with new tension.
"Our time grows short and we have much to impart ere you can trigger our safeguard and give Dalasham back its best defence," spoke Constance.
"Wait," Em cried. "Me? You want me to trigger your magic? Why not Destiny or Norbert? I don't have any strength to affect something like your Dual Great Magic!"
"They can manipulate magic," Alfred explained. "But you can see it. Thus you can see us and we can speak now with you in turn. Furthermore, with your primary gift, you will retain the necessary information where others without your memory cannot hold such complexity in mind, and given the short time we have left, we cannot spare any extra effort to repeat the instructions. Neither wizard has these abilities.
"We must give you the knowledge needed in the language required, and you must then impart our instructions verbatim to your wizard friends who can complete our spell as we had always envisioned someone could. In this way, you will start to make Dalasham strong again, and give voice to all who might lead the kingdom into a prosperous future."
The language required? Em wondered, suddenly recalling a day spent at the library in Augsden with King Stefan and a discussion about whether magic had its own language. Perhaps Constance and Alfred intended to teach her some of that secret language now.
But instead of a lesson on vocabulary, syntax, grammar, or even basic phraseology, both wizards simply reached out, each placing a hand on Em's forehead; Constance's strangely insubstantial fingers to her left temple, Alfred's to her right, with both thumbs meeting in the crease between her brows. They regarded her from nearly identical expressions, faces fierce with intent and eyes unnaturally bright.
Images and words bombarded Em's brain, overloading her with alien concepts and powers she, despite all her book learning, had no experience to withstand. She could only absorb all they imparted, filing it into some semblance of order that her Lesser Magics might find a way to recombine later in terms Destiny and Norbert must understand far better than she.
And then the world exploded, and Em fell back into a reality that she recognised.
***
"She's coming to," Ambrose said, the relief in his voice almost painful for Destiny to hear.
Emily's eyes opened, and for a terrifying moment, Destiny feared Tyrandel had stolen her sight, for white filmed those orbs. Then Emily blinked, her eyes returned to their familiar pale grey. Emily stared up at the man who held her, tenderness and love written raw across his visage as he gazed back at her. She blinked again, gave him a shy smile, then struggled to sit up, one hand resting on her guard's arm as he helped her.
That put her even with the rest of them. It also gave her a better view of their surroundings, and Destiny sympathised when Emily flinched away from the grotesque form of Tyrandel, his raw wound payment for her pain and his discarded body slumped unceremoniously to the side. Nathan lay in an unconscious heap next to him, his head bleeding slightly from the welt formed by Norbert's boot. Norbert had bound her brother with cords of power to keep him insensate, and Destiny found only a sense of relief at Nathan's vulnerability. Before she could delve any deeper into her feelings, or lack thereof, for the man who had, in one form or another, tormented her for most of her life, Emily's hand reached forward to grasp Destiny's fingers.
Surprised, Destiny met Emily's gaze, saw that the librarian had also taken Norbert's hand. Emily opened her mouth to speak, and Destiny slipped from her crouch to her backside, staring at the other woman in shock.
Emily spoke to her―to them―in a language she couldn't possibly know; the language of magic. Destiny exchanged a wide-eyed look with Norbert, gratified to see that he appeared as dumbfounded as she. As the words took on meaning, Destiny understood that Emily spoke not just magic, but a spell, and she found herself frowning in deep concentration, trying to comprehend. When she grasped the intent of Emily's incantation, she gaped in awe. Glancing to Norbert again, she watched him shake his head in bewilderment.
"Incredible," he garbled out. Meeting Destiny's eyes, he swallowed hard. "It requires a great deal of finesse. And trust."
"It does," she agreed. She swept the area with a practised eye, seeing the nexus they knelt in as she never had before. Whether because of Emily's instructions, or the touch of the librarian's hand, Destiny discovered that she could now see the constructs of Constance's spell. And with this new trigger to an aspect of the spell they hadn't known existed in mind, she fully perceived the enormity of the Dual Great Magic that the siblings had created, and the final aspect left unfinished. The last component to a work that went far beyond anything she had attempted or envisioned; a humbling masterpiece meant to benefit all, not cater to the whim of the selfish. That wizards of another time now saw fit to entrust the completion of such a task to Destiny dried her mouth with dread, yet also elated some part of her psyche that she hadn't kno
wn hungered for something beyond herself. It didn't matter that Dalasham hadn't birthed her. The land had succoured her in her time of need, as had this unique woman holding her hand and consigning the fate of her kingdom to one who had once stood as her enemy. Destiny found she very much wanted to repay that service.
"This might take a bit of time," Destiny said. Norbert smiled at her, then extended his free hand. With a snort of amusement, she accepted his offering of food and bit into it hungrily, replenishing some of the energy she had expended thus far.
"We'll need a bit of sustenance, I'll warrant, given that neither of us comes to this fresh." He glanced back to Emily, his gaze also seeming to take in an altered awareness of the nexus. "For I suspect we'll find no better time than the present to enact this little modification."
"Constance and Alfred both feel all stands in alignment at this moment," Emily agreed. Hearing Emily speak of such arcane matters so matter-of-factly reminded Destiny of the many hours they had spent in the sitting room near her library, discussing history and spells and magic. But sensing an influx of mighty powers swirling about her―the mystifying presence of two ancient wizards suffused Emily's body like ghosts―put this encounter on a whole new and disturbing level. She wondered whether Emily suspected their presence.
"Then let us do this thing, my dear Emily," Norbert said. "Guide our hands, and we shall follow."
Destiny glanced at Lord Prichard, saw his inquiring stare, and realised neither he nor Ambrose would know what they discussed.
"The nexus and its ... guardians ... have given Emily an answer to the protection of Dalasham and the unlocking of the secrets of your Lesser Magics," she explained. "The spell they created long ago lacked one final component for its completion. They have provided Emily with that last step, for some reason wishing Norbert and me to trigger it using Emily as our guide."
Prichard frowned so hard with suspicion, she feared he might injure himself.
"It's alright Malcolm," Emily said. "If you trust me, we can put measures in place that will ultimately safeguard Dalasham from the likes of Nathan and hopefully usher in a new era of enlightenment."
The Forgotten Magic Page 29
