by William King
‘Your life is,’ she said with some certainty. ‘At this moment.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘No. I mean your path in life. I can teach you or I can report you to the Phoenix King’s palace and you will be restrained until after you have been tested.’
‘That is not fair.’
‘Life is not fair, Prince Teclis. I regret that you should have been introduced to this concept so young, but you are wise beyond your years so I am sure you will have no difficulty grasping it.
‘I do not require platitudes or irony.’
‘No. You require teaching – that much is obvious. You will experiment on your own if you do not get it or are not actively restrained. And to one of your power that could be very dangerous.’
‘I am not unaware of the dangers of magic.’
‘Fire will not hurt me, says the child who has never yet put his hand in the grate.’
‘I am not a child.’
‘Then do not behave like one and do not sound so petulant. You know nothing of the dangers of magic... Nothing! One of your power can so easily do so many things and do them wrong.’
‘Like what?’ He was more curious than angry now.
‘You could overdraw your power and burn it out forever. Believe me that is not a fate that anyone born to the Art would want. Death would be preferable.’
Teclis could see how that would be true, but he sensed a hesitation in her manner. There was something she was not telling him and did not want to. Of course, he had to know.
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘What else could go wrong?’
‘Is that not enough?’
‘There are other dangers you are not mentioning.’
‘And should not, not until your studies are far more advanced than they are now.’
‘How can I avoid a danger when I do not know what it is? You say you fear what I might do. Help me avoid that.’
She looked at him warily and with something more like respect. To her, until that moment, he had been nothing but a gifted adolescent. She had never considered the possibility of treating him like an equal although she must have known she was going to have to one day. She seemed to come to a decision.
‘Very well. For your own good I will tell you. Heed my words and heed them well – for not just your life but your soul might depend on them.’
He felt a thrill then, and not the one she expected him to feel. He was on the verge of dark and secret knowledge and he felt its unrelenting tug. It was something he knew had power over him and likely always would. Perhaps he thought this was how the Curse of Aenarion worked on him.
‘Speak,’ he said.
‘There is something about working the Art that draws the attention of daemons. There is something about the souls of those who can use magic that attracts them, something daemons desire the way an epicure craves larks’ tongues in honey. If your soul is not properly warded, if you cast a spell unthinkingly and without protecting yourself, you can draw their evil to you.’
‘That is the sort of superstition that humans believe,’ Teclis said.
‘It is nothing less than the truth. When you work the great high magics you will know it. You will sense the presence of Chaos and its minions around you. You will sometimes sense their hunger and their rage even when you work the slightest of spells. It is the way of things.’
‘You are saying this to frighten me.’
‘Yes, I am. And you should be frightened! For there are magics you will never work without placing your soul and the lives of everyone around you in peril. That is why what you did today was foolish and wrong. You risked not just your own being but that of your brother. You put me at risk and the guards who came to investigate. If something had reached out from the great abyss and taken possession of you, it could use your body and your talent to wreak great evil. The more natural power a mage has, and you have more of that than anyone I have ever encountered, the greater the prize they are going to be for the powers of Chaos.’
She spoke calmly and with authority and with utter conviction, and much to his surprise Teclis began to feel ashamed of himself. ‘I will not do it again,’ he said at last.
‘That would be wise. There will be many temptations placed in your path, Prince Teclis, some of them very subtle. It is best to be wary when you are a student of the Art. Always remember that. Always!’
‘I shall.’
‘Do so. There is something very strange happening in the world today. Daemons have come to Ulthuan once more and I would not like you to draw them to you.’
N’Kari felt strong. For the first time since he had escaped the cursed Vortex he was starting to feel like himself. He had fed well on blood and souls and agony and ecstasy. He had bathed in the blood of the Blood of Aenarion and feasted on their hearts and eyeballs then used their corpses for his pleasure.
His followers had grown to be quite an army. Cultists from all over Ulthuan had come to join them as word of what they were doing spread, a company of renegade dark elves had come to do homage, and a crew of shipwrecked Norsemen had been seduced and broken to his will. He had summoned more daemons and drawn more monsters to him. His legions could face an army in the field, but he was not quite sure that was necessary yet.
Of course, there had been the problem of food. The perennial problem of supplying an army on the move had arisen. N’Kari had solved it in the traditional way. Some of the captives had been used as pleasure slaves, some had been taken as recruits, others had become cattle to be devoured by his soldiers.
He had taught his followers the exquisite epicurean pleasures of the Dark Feast and he suspected that now they would have trouble going back to lesser foods, even if he let them. He had imbued the spiced elf-meat with some of his own dark magical power and was well-pleased that some of the mortals were starting to show the stigmata of mutation. They were well gone down the path of Chaos and would go much further before their adventures were over.
‘There are magicians within,’ said Elrion. The chief of his followers looked demented. His sanity had not been improved by the fact that his skin had started to harden on his arms and chest, providing him with some natural armour at the cost of some diminishment of his personal beauty. N’Kari rather liked the effect of his wild, staring eyes, and the crack that came into his voice whenever he tried to pronounce certain words. His teeth were becoming fangs and something was happening to his tongue and throat. N’Kari could hardly wait to see what.
‘Yes,’ said N’Kari. So much was obvious from even a cursory examination of the tower on the hilltop before them. It was wrapped in powerful protective spells and had a number of sophisticated wards in place. A few of those who waited on the walls surrounding it were mages. He could tell easily enough from the way they wrapped themselves in shimmering spells of illusion and battle. Their weapons too had enchantments placed upon them, as did the weapons and armour of the warriors. ‘And their flesh will taste all the sweeter for being spiced with power. Trust me there is nothing quite like the savour of a wizard’s soul when you devour it.’
‘I think the master of the tower is expecting us,’ said Elrion.
Of course, he would be expecting them, for he was a mage. He had probably seen their approach at leagues of distance through his scrying crystal. It was a pity the tower was not closer to the entrance to the elder paths; then they could have taken him completely by surprise. Then again that would have deprived N’Kari of much of the pleasure of battle and slaughter. One always had to take a balanced view of these things.
N’Kari doubted being forewarned would do the defenders much good in the end. His forces were too numerous now and there was no chance of reinforcements reaching the elves unless they used the same means as N’Kari did to transport their forces, and they had not the knowledge or the courage needed to do that.
Some of his troops possessed the wit and the skill to begin to construct crude siege machines – catapults and covere
d battering rams. They had cut down the trees from sacred groves to make them, and one or two of the cultists had even managed to imbue them with magic to improve their utility. It would only be a matter of time before the gates or the walls surrounding the tower were breached and his followers were within. All he had to do was give the order and the battle would begin.
N’Kari paused for a second to savour the moment. As he did so a tall figure appeared on the battlements and began incanting a spell. It was an order of magnitude more potent than anything being woven by the apprentices. The master of the tower had decided to take a hand. A ball of pure magical energy arced towards the nearest siege machine, blasting it to blazing fragments, searing the flesh from its crew and leaving only vitrified bones standing there for a heartbeat before they collapsed.
N’Kari was not amused. He had been about to give a rousing speech to his followers, to act the part of the great leader. It would seem their opponent for the day did not intend to give him time to play that role. So be it. He would find his amusement in other ways, by tormenting the soul of the one who had robbed him of that fleeting pleasure.
‘Attack,’ N’Kari shouted, shifting his form to something like his natural and most beloved one. He was rewarded by screams of terror from the walls. You could usually rely on magicians to recognise a daemon when they saw one. It seemed like some of those on the walls had some idea of N’Kari’s capabilities. Perhaps he would spare a few of the most abject of them, if they grovelled enough.
Then again, perhaps not.
‘You’re very good, doorkeeper, and you’re getting better all the time,’ said Korhien. He was actually breathing heavily from the workout. He leaned on the practice sword and he stared at Tyrion. ‘You have made a lot of progress in the past weeks.’
‘I’m pleased to hear you say it,’ said Tyrion. He glanced away. More and more porters were arriving, bringing decorations and food for the upcoming ball. ‘I feel like I am getting better but I have nothing to judge my progress against.’
‘I have,’ said Korhien. ‘And you can take my word for it – there have been very few warriors who have learned how to use a sword as quickly or as well as you have. You have an uncanny ability with weapons. It’s as if you were born to use them.’
‘Maybe I was,’ said Tyrion. ‘But I think that is true of most elves who live in these times. We are all born to use weapons whether we like it or not. It is an age of war.’
‘That it is, doorkeeper. Although I doubt that you have much of an idea of what that really means just yet.’
‘I’m sure that I will have before much longer,’ said Tyrion.
‘I hope not,’ said Korhien. ‘You’re a bit young yet to be going to war.’
‘It is what I have dreamed of since I was a child.’
‘You will find that the experience does not bear much relation to what you have dreamed about. These things never do. It is one thing to read about them in stories or to hear warriors tell tall tales around a campfire. It is another thing entirely to chop an elf into pieces or stick a sword through his body.’
‘You have done these things,’ said Tyrion. ‘And you do not seem to be any the worse for it.’
‘I have done these things and there are times when I wish I had not.’
‘And there are times when you’re glad that you have,’ said Tyrion. ‘I can tell.’
‘It is a complicated thing, doorkeeper.’
‘In what way?’ Tyrion asked.
‘Killing someone in combat is a complicated thing. It is not how you imagine it to be. It is wonderful and it is terrible and it is not at all what you expect.’
Tyrion looked at the older warrior. Korhien’s face was thoughtful and Tyrion could tell that he was choosing his words with care. He stared off into the middle distance as if remembering something that was important to him and which he wanted to communicate exactly.
‘It is like this,’ Korhien said. ‘When you kill someone in battle you have proven your own superiority over them. You are alive and they are dead and there is no more definitive proof than that. It is thrilling in a dreadful way. It is horrible and it is terrible but it is also thrilling. You feel more alive than you ever have before or quite possibly ever will again. You are very aware of the presence of death and how close it has come to you and that lets you know that you are alive in a way that nothing else ever will. Do you follow me?’
‘I think so,’ Tyrion said. ‘But what is so terrible about it?’
‘At that moment, nothing. But later you will find yourself thinking about what happened and about how you felt and about how the other person feels now.’
‘They won’t be feeling anything,’ Tyrion said.
‘Exactly,’ Korhien said. ‘They won’t be feeling anything at all and you will have ensured that. You will have made that happen. And after a while you’ll start to wonder about what you have done – was it justified? What right did you have to kill that person? Would it perhaps have been better if they had killed you?’
Tyrion could see that Korhien was not just talking in the abstract here. He had someone specifically in mind. He was thinking about things that had affected him deeply in his time. It was not so much what the older elf was saying that affected Tyrion. It was the way he said it.
Tyrion could not imagine ever regretting killing someone who had been trying to kill him. In a case of his own life or that other person’s, he would feel entirely justified in his victory. And yet something in Korhien’s tone gave him pause for thought. If the older warrior had found something in all of this that had affected him so deeply, at very least Tyrion felt it deserved his deepest consideration.
‘Do you wonder about such things?’ Tyrion asked.
‘All of the time,’ Korhien replied.
‘Why?’
‘I wish I knew. When I was younger they troubled me not at all but I have found that over the centuries I have thought more about them and I have found the easy answers harder to find.’
‘You are a warrior,’ Tyrion said. ‘It is your duty to kill the enemies of the Phoenix King.’
Korhien smiled. ‘I wish I was young again and everything seemed so simple to me.’
Tyrion resented that. ‘Have you heard any more about these attacks everyone is talking about? The servant girls seem to think Lothern itself will be besieged by an army of daemons any day now.’
Korhien shook his head. ‘It will not come to that. Not yet anyway.’
‘Then there have been more attacks.’
‘Yes. And many of them. Not a day passes without reports coming in by messenger bird, sending spell or word of mouth. The whole island-continent seems to be under attack by an army of daemons. And yet when our troops investigate, they find nothing. It is as if the attackers have vanished into thin air.’
‘The daemons are using magic,’ said Tyrion.
‘I see your genius for understanding military matters was not understated, doorkeeper,’ said Korhien sardonically. ‘Of course, the daemons are using magic.’
‘Why are they attacking the places they do? What do they want?’
‘No one knows and no one can see any pattern to it. Not even the cleverest of mages. The daemons appear out of nowhere, they attack, they slaughter like maddened wolverines and then they depart, taking nothing. It is a kind of madness, or so it seems.’
‘It is what you would expect from daemons,’ said Tyrion. ‘Who knows why they do what they do?’
‘Not I, that is for sure,’ said Korhien. ‘Nor anyone else at the moment. Nothing like this has happened for centuries. Panic is spreading everywhere.’
‘Perhaps that is the intention,’ said Tyrion. It seemed absurd to be thinking this way, watching tradesmen bring flowers and lanterns for the ball, and chandlers bringing in provisions for a great feast.
‘You are not the first to suggest that, doorkeeper.’
‘At least we are safe here,’ said Tyrion. ‘Lothern is the best defended city in Elvendom.’<
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Korhien nodded. ‘It galls my heart to remain here doing nothing while our land is ravaged,’ he said.
‘I am sure the time will come when you will be called on to fight,’ said Tyrion. He rather envied Korhien that chance.
Korhien smiled.
‘I will see you tomorrow night at the ball,’ he said. ‘I understand it is going to be a special one.’
‘No training tomorrow?’ Tyrion asked. He was disappointed.
‘The Phoenix King has called another council to discuss these attacks. I must be there. Some things take precedence even over your training, doorkeeper.’
‘Apparently balls are exceptions.’
‘Believe me, after one of these councils, we will all need a party to cheer us up.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Floating spheres of spell-woven light illuminated the great hall of the Emeraldsea Palace. An orchestra of the finest musicians played on a raised dais at one end of the room. Huge fans swirled in the high ceiling propelled by unseen magic. Hundreds of beautifully garbed and noble-looking elves crowded the room. They stood at the edge of the chamber in the shadow of alcoves housing enormous statues or round the tables on which a buffet of the finest elven viands lay. They chatted in dark corners or drank wine from carved crystal goblets or danced in the centre of the floor, performing the steps of the vast intricate ritual quadrilles demanded of this sort of social gathering.
Teclis had never seen anything like this. It was his first ever ball in one of the palaces of Lothern and it was, to say the least, impressive.
Tyrion stood on the balcony, watching everything and smiling easily and amiably at all who passed. He looked perfectly at ease in his beautiful clothes. His natural charm and good looks made up for any lack of formal courtesy in his manner. Teclis envied him all of these things. His own clothes felt too loose for his tall spare frame and no matter how often the retainers adjusted the cut and flow of them, they could never seem to make him look like anything but a gangling scarecrow.
