Consequences (Majaos Book 2)

by Gary Stringer

  Phaer had to think quickly. He remembered hearing about these creatures from other rangers. Those who had survived at any rate. They were called Umchara and the only way to kill them was with a single, lethal strike. If the blood of a living umchara touched the ground, another would be spawned and the first would heal. And he had another problem: He was very, very close to the border of dark elf lands.

  While they were on this side of the invisible boundary, the dark elf guards would do nothing, but if they crossed that line Arrows everywhere, striking umchara, wounding umchara, bleeding umchara, spawning more umchara.

  “Dear gods!” Phaer breathed, blocking a blade-like umchara claw that came closer than he intended. “We could end up with an army of the things!”

  Trouble was, it had been so long since he last visited dark elf lands that he couldn't be exactly sure where the line was. Ducking and twisting under the slashing arms of another umchara, he quickly reversed direction so he could move the battle away from the danger zone. Now all he had to do was kill a hand of these things, each with a single blow. That was beyond his skill and he knew it. He'd been lucky to achieve two successive lethal strikes before and the way things were now, he might as well not have bothered.

  He had to be patient, analyse the enemy, wait for a clear opportunity. They were fast enough if they could simply charge in a straight line, he observed, but they were clumsy if forced to change direction rapidly. These creatures had no intelligence; only instinct. Phaer, on the other hand, was blessed with elven grace. He was used to the wilds, trained to observe instinctive behavioural patterns and he had stamina aplenty to see this through if he could play to his strengths. He couldn't fight the way the enemy wanted to fight or he would lose. He had to fight his way.

  He continued to use the terrain to put trees between them, or force them to come at him uphill. The umchara instinctively seemed to recognise a single leader and followed that one, always in a single line. The exact orientation of that line varied with the terrain, but the line was never broken. This, too, played to his advantage, Phaer realised. It made it easier to face only one at a time, and he needed to kill only one to break through their line. He wished he could put a little more distance between himself and the umchara - he was a better archer than he was a swordsman, but he couldn't see how that was going to be possible.

  In the distance, Phaer's sharp elfsight saw a majestic falcon dive to catch a small rodent in the grass, and a plan formulated in the ranger's mind. It was time to add a new dimension to this fight. He just had to wait for the right moment.

  Most humans would have long since given up on the idea, as they became frustrated with their own inaction, but Phaer possessed patience in abundance from his mother's side. Sooner or later, he knew his patience would be rewarded.

  Suddenly, one of the umchara - the one in the centre of the line - stumbled over an exposed tree root. Phaer seized his opportunity and launched himself at the distracted creature with blinding speed. Thrusting his right hand short sword straight through its heart, he allowed his momentum to carry him through the line, spinning and lashing out with the hilt of his left hand weapon to give him extra space. He sheathed his swords, jumped and in the same fluid movement caught an overhanging limb, swinging himself up until he was standing on it. Then he leaped forward and up to easily grasp a higher branch that was still thick and strong enough to hold his weight. He sat down on the branch, perfectly balanced, unslung his bow from his back and nocked an arrow. The umchara were clearly confused by this sudden, unexpected act. They seemed unsure as to what trees were - he had seen them slash them occasionally with their claws as if testing to see if the trees were some kind of threat. The way they had never once glanced upward suggested that the umchara had a two dimensional view of what was to them a strange and frightening world.

  At last, collectively, they looked up to try and find Phaer's location among the dense green leaves. Phaer had noticed their preference for shade and dislike of sunlight, and took full advantage with his choice of tree branch. Sitting there, he forced the umchara to look directly into the sun. The four searched as one and covered their eyes with their claws.

  An arrow struck one of the four umchara, and without shedding a single drop of blood, it dropped to the ground. Before the remaining creatures could react, Phaer dropped down out of the tree, landing with a loud impact on the closest umchara and thrusting a knife through its chest. Without stopping to retrieve his weapon, he ran on, though not quickly enough to completely avoid the slashing claws that raked his side. He cried out and frantically drew his swords to block the rapid claw strikes of the last two umchara. They were right on top of him and it was all he could do to defend himself. Especially when he didn’t dare fight back.

  Dammit but they were just too fast! His plan had almost succeeded and if only he had recognised the creatures for what they were in the first place, they would all be dead by now. But as it was, he knew he couldn't win, especially the way he was losing blood.

  The halfelf wished that his blood could do the same trick as umchara blood. “Another me would be very welcome just about now,” he said to himself.

  Phaer was astonished when his wish came true: there with him, guarding his wounded left side, stood another half-elf.

  No, Phaer corrected himself, not just any half-elf: another me! He had no idea how this could be - perhaps it was merely a hallucination brought on by loss of blood. Well, if it was a hallucination, the umchara were apparently having the same one. They seemed to take an instant dislike to his doppelganger, shifting the focus of their attack and ignoring the real Phaer completely. The hallucination made no attempt to fight, but seemed to be able to dodge more quickly than anyone alive. The umchara grew increasingly frustrated, which only distracted them further. Phaer chose to take the age-old advice about not looking gift unicorns in the mouth and he ran.

  After a while, Phaer was forced to stop and shut his eyes while he picked some sticky webbing off his face. “I think that trail must have been spider central,” he grumbled to himself. Clearly no-one had been down here for a while and he supposed he was a little sorry about destroying their painstakingly laid flytraps.

  His eyes snapped open. “Traps! That's it!” He caught a small money spider crawling down his right hand and held it up, saying, “You clever little thing. You don't try to fight the flies, do you? They're too fast for you to catch that way, so you lay your trap and wait. Once they are in your web, you can pick them off on your terms.” He placed the arachnid gently on a leaf. “There you go. You spin your webs and I'll spin mine.”

  He was on high ground, with enough visibility to have advance warning when they came for him, but hunkered down among the bushes as he was, at least they wouldn't see him. Even so, he knew he did not have any time to waste, so he just emptied the entire contents of his backpack on the ground and rummaged to find what he needed. He found them. Souvenirs, they were, from the abandoned mine at Marina Fells: bear traps - two of them. He thanked the spirits of his ancestors for such providence and added a brief, silent prayer of thanks to the people of that ill-fated village, that they would design these devices to capture without maiming. Like Phaer himself, they obviously knew how much pressure a bear's leg could take without injury...unfortunately he couldn't be sure how much pressure an umchara's leg could take. Too slack and the creatures would be able to free themselves and Phaer would die. Too tight and blood would be spilled, creating more of the creatures, so Phaer would still die. He needed to guess right.

  It turned out that the trigger mechanism on one of the traps had rusted, so he quickly had to remove it and adapt the one from Vorden’s strongbox. That delayed him just enough so that he was still working on the second trap when they appeared. Dear gods they were too early. No matter how fast he worked, it would not be fast enough, he knew. But he had prepared for this possibility in his mind, and he knew there was but one solution: he would have to leave out the safety mechanism and hope he wouldn't lose h
is hand while trying to set the trap. That thought had no sooner registered than the trap snapped shut and only Phaer's half-elven reflexes saved him. Sweat began pouring off his skin as he worked rapidly but without panicking. The umchara slowed, sniffing the air, trying to pinpoint his location. That bought him the time he needed to hide the second trap. He had briefly been tempted to shoot an arrow at one of them but had decided against it. That might alert the other that he was ready for them. Besides, he might miss the lethal strike and then he would have three. This way, unless he was extremely unlucky, he would have at least one stationary target, which he could guarantee to kill. Then he would have to take his chances one on one with the other. If he was quick, before the blood loss wore him out too much, and if he was lucky, he might just survive...long enough to attend his own execution at the hands of his people.

  “One problem at a time, Phaer,” he told himself. From the perspective of the umchara, the half-elf creature sprang up out of nowhere and started hurling small pebbles at them. Phaer's stones ran no risk of bloodletting; he just wanted to provoke the umchara. Phaer ran further up the hill and the pair of unchara charged as one. The first creature stepped right over where one of Phaer's adapted bear traps was laid. Phaer swore. The second cried out in shock and pain as its ankle was caught. One out of two wasn't bad. Phaer's keen elfsight could see there was no blood and it was with a sigh of relief that he loosed one of his mithril arrows. He only had a few - a gift from Taka that had already saved his skin once. They were too valuable to be squandered, but they were faster, truer and quieter through the air. The trapped umchara never knew what hit it when it died.

  The sole remaining umchara was so startled by its companion's sudden death that it hesitated, partially turned around and took a reflexive step backwards into the waiting metal jaws. Phaer smiled a dark smile: victory was his; time was his. The last umchara had no chance. None. The mithril arrow flew straight and true, piercing the creature's chest. It dropped, still and lifeless to the ground. Dead.

  Phaer, too, sank to the ground. Exhausted.

  Chapter 4

  She was a hunter. She had been hunting for hours. Surrounded by wood and leaves, hunting for the one thing that would silence the questions that filled her head. She needed to get her teeth stuck into something and this was the place to do it. The hard part was locating her desired prey within the many twists and turns of this draughty place. She was determined, though. She would track down what she had been sent for and return with the evidence. She would not, could not fail: too much was at stake. She had to prove she could be useful to the cause. It was here - it had to be; she could almost reach out and touch it. Perhaps magic would guide her attack, so she could take what she needed and devour it.

  “Then again,” Rochelle said to herself, “maybe I should just ask somebody.”

  * * * * * Rochelle had arrived at the barracks of the Knights of Paladinia on the outskirts of Merlyon, with Lady Hannah, on the back of the bronze dragon, Brash. They were welcomed, or at least Hannah and Brash were welcomed, while Rochelle had been politely tolerated. She couldn't fault the Knights for being wary. After all, although she was a druid dedicated to the balance, she was also a warrior trained by the Hand of Darkness Liberation Front. How could the Knights be sure where her loyalties lay? Bronze dragons were unusual in Paladinian barracks, but as a metallic dragon, he was a natural ally and revered figure, since the Knights believed the metallic dragons were the firstborn children of their All-Loving Father, Patrelaux.

  Rochelle hadn't stayed there too long; there was no sense in making everyone uncomfortable for no good reason. Besides, none of the Knights she met had any interest in her philosophical ponderings. They saw the world in very black and white terms: right or wrong, good or bad.

  Perhaps it's an effect of all that heavy armour, she considered silently. Surely the human body, especially the head, is not designed to carry such a load, so maybe after a time the brain gets squished. I suppose that could lead to a compacted view of the world and damage their ability to appreciate more delicate, peripheral thought.

  Of all the great wonders of Majaos, she concluded, there's nothing so firmly clamped shut as the human military mind.

  * * * * * Rochelle had been a little surprised, not to say disappointed, to find that Merlyon's streets were not, in fact, paved with gold. Not quite. It was still a stunning, sparkling city, though. Most of the buildings were made from magical sunstone, which had the property of absorbing the sun's rays all day, only to emit the stored light when it went dark. It was night time now - perhaps an hour before dawn - and all the buildings seemed to be glowing a different colour. Red here, gold there, midnight blue beyond that, and colours that the gnome did not know the names for. The main streets formed concentric rings and eight straight radial lines, reminiscent of both a wheel, and a fundamental magical symbol known as the Twin Circles of Life. In the central hub stood the Council of Magic the seat of all magical governance on Mythallen and perhaps the world, though the overseas lands were largely a mystery. According to legend, Merlyn himself had magically raised the Foundation Stone of the Council building. The building had been refurbished and extended countless times since the days of the first humans, but still the original Foundation Stone remained. At least, that's what the legend said. Merlyon was a magical city built on two levels, like one immensely huge two-storey building, all completely surrounded by a bubble or dome of magical energy, protecting Mythallen's capital from harm. The upper level was suspended magically above the second. There were a few physical supports, but they were merely ornamental, part of the overall design.

  The streets were bustling with activity, teeming with the wealthy and well-to-do. Central Merlyon, it seemed to Rochelle, was full of aristocrats and those who wished to be seen with aristocrats, as if being close to them could somehow cause the nobility's money and influence to rub off onto them. Those who were not dressed in robes - professional mages or clerics - were dressed in the finest clothes modern fashion could provide. The men wore tailored suits, perhaps with a top hat and even a cane for the highest noblemen. The ladies wore brightly-coloured closely-tailored dresses with flowers woven into their complex-braided hair, or perhaps a bonnet. A few, those above a certain invisible line of rank, carried a pretty and doubtless expensive umbrella. As an accessory, it was the height of fashion - completely pointless, since climatomagi worked tirelessly to ensure that it never rained inside Merlyon - but still the height of fashion.

  These people were apparently unconcerned about the war going on in the outside world; it was an excellent source of gossip, to be sure, but they were untouched by it here. All Mythallen's major religions were represented in Merlyon, along with the differing cultural interpretations of the various races, but Rochelle found it intriguing that all people could unite under a single act of faith: the absolute, unshakeable belief in the shield of magic. It had always been there, like the sky, and, like the sky, it always would be. That was the consensus. The idea that it might fail had most likely never occurred to anyone.

  The Council of Magic was one of only two buildings to reach up through what might be considered the roof of Lower Merlyon through to the upper level. The second was where Rochelle had come: the Central Merlyon Library of Magic, otherwise known simply as the Great Library. There, among the vast, draughty corridors of wood and innumerable leaves of paper, she was hunting for answers to the questions that burned in her mind. The library was the single largest building the gnome had ever seen, raised and shaped magically from the granite bedrock of the city. It possessed no fewer than fifty stories, plus a basement, each with corridors that must have been nearly a quarter of a mile long. Its most curious feature, however, was also one of Merlyon's most famous landmarks: the Nine-and-a-Half Towers. This name was derived from the fact that while there were indisputably nine towers within the library, sometimes from the outside, it appeared to have a mysterious, shadowy Tenth Tower. No-one understood why this was so, but then there wa
s much that was not understood about the magic of the Ancients. In a way, that was why she was here.

  Having got nowhere by herself, Rochelle headed back to the main entrance, under the Seal of the Council of Magic: Majaos y Natus. Magic is Life. Reaching the reception desk, she approached the librarian for the section on Magic: Ancient and Obscure - a human male who looked to be in his early twenties. His robes declared him to be a white Catalyst; Rochelle wondered if he might be one of Eilidh's former classmates, but she decided it was best not to ask.

  She approached him with a smile and whispered, “I'm looking for answers, and I think this section stands the best chance of providing them. Couldyou help me?”

  “I will if I can, miss...er...” “Ribbons.”

  “Certainly, Miss Ribbons. What questions are on your mind today?”

  “Well, I want to know how a single mage can cast spells unique to sorcerers, wizards and warlocks.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “One person casting the magic of illusion, creature control and war.”

  “You don't need any books to tell you the answer to that,” he answered, affording the gnome a dismissive look. “It cannot be done; it's impossible and forbidden.”

  “That doesn't make any sense,” Rochelle argued.

  “Oh really?” Ignoring the sarcasm, she explained her thoughts. “Impossible and forbidden.” Rochelle said. “That's nonsense. If it's impossible, why would it need to be forbidden? Is it forbidden to walk across the ocean to the next continent? No, because it's impossible. Is it forbidden for a dragon to fly to the moon? No, because it's impossible. There's no point making prohibitive rules against impossible things. So going back to my question, which is it: impossible or forbidden? It can't be both.”