by Rowe, Andrew
Taelien examined the soft fabric in his hand for a moment, momentarily perplexed.
“Put it on,” she commanded, adjusting her belt with her lips flattened in a self-conscious expression.
Taelien quirked a brow, but wordlessly complied. The inside of the robe was warm from Lydia’s body heat. It had fit her loosely, which allowed for just enough room for his arms to fit inside the sleeves without tearing them off. After a moment of confusion at the presence of a protruding bit of cloth in front of his face, Taelien realized he had put the robe on backwards.
The swordsman slipped his arms out of the sleeves, turned it around, and settled into the garment. Lydia shook her head silently, opening a pouch on her waist without shifting her eyes.
“You will put this on and follow me. Once we leave this chamber, do not speak unless you are addressed directly or if I prompt you to do so. If you need to speak, speak in a deep monotone voice. You are to call yourself Istavan, a court sorcerer in service of Queen Regent Tylan,” she instructed him, digging through the pouch.
Lydia removed a featureless white leather mask, unfolded it, and tossed it at him. It didn’t make it quite far enough, so he lunged forward to catch it, bringing himself a couple steps closer to Lydia in the process. She stepped back immediately, her hand again flashing to the hilt of her weapon.
Good instincts, he considered. He smiled warmly and nodded to her, finding the leather strap on the back of the mask that he would need to use to fasten it into place. The mask smelled like freshly dyed leather – which meant it most likely hadn’t been worn much or at all. He knew from experience that leather masks tended to collect sweat quickly, and the smell of a well-used mask was very obvious.
“Keep your hands in the pockets of your robes,” Lydia instructed. “Istavan’s skin is much darker than yours.”
“Are you rescuing me, or are you just capturing me a second time for a different faction?” he inquired, donning the mask. She hadn’t asked him to put the hood on to cover his hair, but he did so instinctively.
“You may assume I am doing at least one of those things,” she replied coolly.
“May I ask why?” he asked, cracking his knuckles unconsciously.
“You can ask,” she said, adjusting her glasses, “But you won’t get any answers until we’re clear of this place. If things go poorly, I will need to let you be recaptured, and I can’t risk telling you much.”
“I understand,” he replied, disappointed. “Now,” he said, deepening his voice. “Does this sound like Istavan?”
Her lips twisted slightly in consideration. “Too deep, actually. That sounded pretentious.”
Taelien sighed, lowering his gaze in disappointment. He liked his malevolent monotone sorcerer voice. “Very well,” he said, making a second effort. “I must insist that we retrieve my sword before leaving.”
“That was a better impress-” she paused. “Your sword? That won’t be possible.”
He shook his head, continuing to speak in his Istavan voice, “I won’t be leaving with you, then. I can’t take the risk that the weapon will be transported to a location I can’t reach after I leave.”
“Who is to say it hasn’t been already?” she asked, flexing her fingers. “Never mind. I know where it is,” she added in a frustrated tone. “You will follow my instructions exactly. No exceptions. Understood?”
He nodded gratefully.
“Let us go, then,” Lydia said, turning toward the door.
“Wait,” he replied. “One moment.”
Lydia spun back around, folding her arms and glaring at Taelien.
He waved his hands in front of him, trying to defuse her. “My lack of shoes is obvious, since the robe is short on me. Just give me a moment.”
Lydia regained her composure in an instant, reaching up to straighten her glasses again. “Very well.”
Taelien slipped over to the bed, casting off the heavy blanket atop it and finding a thin sheet beneath. He was loath to damage a part of such a comfortable bed, but the necessity was pressing. He grasped the corner of one of the sheets and pulled it free, then began to tear the sheet into strips. The cloth was surprisingly resistant, but after a minute or so of effort, he managed to pull away a few pieces.
Taelien wrapped his feet and ankles in the cloth, layering it as heavily as possible, and then stepped over to the pile of chains on the floor. He reached down, grabbing a handful of rings, and concentrated. “Flatten,” he told them. The rings of metal shifted in his hand, merging together into a single thin, malleable sheet. He wrapped the piece around his right ankle, folding it so the metal overlapped with itself. “Merge,” he told the iron, fusing the ends together, forging a thin metal cylinder around his lower leg.
He repeated the process with his opposite leg, creating a similar metal casing. Finally, he picked up a third handful of rings and flattened them around his left arm. Feeling the weight of the sorcery on his body, he stopped there, turning to Lydia. “Istavan is a name from the Teris-Guard region. This might look like their style of training without boots. Maybe.”
Lydia’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded thoughtfully. “Sabatons might have been better,” she offered.
“Too complex for me to make under these conditions,” he explained. He intentionally avoided saying that he would have had a hard time making something that complex under any conditions. “Even real greaves would be too difficult. These are just flat sheets of metal. They wouldn’t offer much real protection, but they look like armor.”
“It will do,” she conceded. “We need to go.”
Taelien nodded and followed as Lydia turned and opened the door.
Lydia led the way into a carpeted hallway. Not a single guard stood outside the room, leaving Taelien feeling oddly disappointed by the lack of security. He had envisioned dozens of guards prowling the halls, specifically dedicated to preventing his escape. Fighting such a large group would be difficult – especially without killing anyone – but he had enjoyed the idea of the challenge.
The sorceress pulled the door shut with her left hand, whispering as she held her right hand open. “Dominion of Protection, form the key to this door.”
A shimmering glow enveloped Lydia’s right hand, and she moved it toward the lock, turning her hand. Taelien heard the familiar shifting of tumblers and the click of the lock.
Clever trick. I’ve never seen protection sorcery used like that before. I suppose that means she doesn’t have the real key.
Lydia strode with purpose toward a stairway on the right. Taelien followed awkwardly behind, his fabricated greaves proving even less hospitable for his skin than the chains had been. I really shouldn’t make anything to wear in the future without practice, he considered. Apparently, my legs aren’t perfectly cylindrical. Who knew?
He considered pausing to try to adjust the dimensions of the greaves, but he decided that the cost on his body from performing additional sorcery was not worth the comfort. He was already starting to feel lightheaded from using his previous spells.
As Lydia continued to guide Taelien, they made their way up two flights of stairs. He held his head high, confidently, like he imagined a sorcerer who likes to wear a mask might do. It wasn’t all that different from how he was used to behaving in a courtly setting, anyway. They passed a few people in the halls – a couple people in servant’s garb, and a single patrolling guard. No one paid them any significant attention. The guard actually gave him a salute, to which he nodded silently in reply.
As they walked, Taelien observed the trappings on the walls. There were tapestries, paintings, and even mounted weapons and armor. The paintings were in a style he wasn’t familiar with, favoring colorful landscapes that didn’t seem quite real. He wondered briefly who might have painted them, but a glance at the weapons jarred him back into the moment.
If any guards catch on to us, I can grab one of those decorative weapons, fix the balance on it, and fight my way to where my sword is being held, he considered.
If he had been more proficient at Dominion Sorcery, he could have called raw material in the shape of a weapon directly from the Dominion of Metal. His manipulation of metal was a type of Core Sorcery, which allowed him to manipulate the properties of metal objects that he was in contact with.
Using Core Sorcery, Taelien could freely shift the distribution of the material within the metal, allowing him to sharpen edges or alter the weight in favorable ways. With greater effort, he had discovered that he could change some of the characteristics of the metal by commanding it to take on properties of a different type of metal – but this did not extend to appearance, which prevented him from changing iron to gold and making a fortune. He suspected that altering the inherent properties of the metal required drawing from his own body’s dominions to make the alteration, but he had never found anyone who could teach him more about metal sorcerous theory. Metal was a relatively obscure dominion, and Core Sorcery was not taught as widely as Dominion Sorcery.
Learning how to conjure or manipulate each dominion was a unique challenge, and thus far, Taelien had only managed to demonstrate any degree of control over two dominions.
Taelien glanced at Lydia, who was walking with a similar air of superiority to his own. I’m sure she doesn’t wear an extra pair of robes and carry a duplicate of this Istavan’s mask everywhere. She planned to rescue me from the outset, or at least considered it. Either that or this is all part of some kind of extremely complicated trap.
The swordsman grinned at the idea of someone setting up a convoluted trap for him – it seemed a ridiculous notion, given how he had peacefully surrendered, but anything was possible.
They reached a large wooden door without passing more than a half dozen people. He contemplated the possibility that Lydia had timed the rescue during a lull in palace activity – after most people had gone to sleep, perhaps, or during some important meeting.
“It should be in here,” Lydia said vaguely, indicating the door with a gesture. She reached down and turned the knob tentatively. The door was apparently unlocked and began to slide open.
A single figure stood inside, examining Taelien’s sheathed blade. He stood behind a wooden desk littered with weapons, his body clad in robes, and his face concealed behind a familiar mask. Familiar, in that it was identical to the one Taelien was wearing.
Istavan. Great. Definitely a trap.
Taelien improvised. Surging forward, he shook his left wrist free of the robe, revealing his makeshift plate bracer. Sharpen, he told it, creating a thin blade that protruded from the metal cylinder. His initial plan was to grab Lydia from behind and hold the blade to her throat, holding her hostage against the real Istavan. For perhaps the first time in his life, Taelien moved too slowly.
Istavan raised a single hand and thrust it toward Taelien. “Ignite,” he said simply, a surge of burning light issuing forth from his hand. Lydia stepped sideways, directly into the path of the blast.
Taelien froze in place as the burst of sorcerous power slammed into the red-haired woman’s body. He had seen a similar spell before – and he had seen it kill with ruthless efficiency.
Lydia recoiled from the assault, nearly stepping into Taelien. He caught her as she staggered, ashamed of his aborted effort to hold her hostage, and observed as smoke rose from the front of her body.
His eyes shifted downward for just an instant, registering that a circular section of her robe a few inches in diameter had been incinerated, but her flesh looked unaffected.
Lydia shook free from his grasp and lunged forward, while her attacker dropped Taelien’s weapon and retreated in apparent surprise.
Looks like she’s helping me after all. Taelien grasped the metal encasing his left wrist, focusing for an instant. Unfold, he told it, causing the seam that held the cylinder together to separate. Ball, he continued, reshaping the metal into a tiny sphere.
Istavan grabbed a dagger from a nearby table and hurled it at Lydia as she advanced. Taelien’s metal ball intercepted the dagger in mid-flight, sending both weapons to the floor. Lydia didn’t spare a glance back at Taelien as she advanced, her right hand sitting menacingly on the hilt of her weapon.
Lydia’s masked opponent pulled a naked longsword from a nearby table, holding it in front of him defensively. “I suspected we had a traitor among us, I didn’t think it’d be you, Lydia.” Taelien winced. His earlier impression of the man hadn’t been very good.
The red-haired woman bent her forward knee as she approached the range of Istavan’s longsword, keeping her weapon in the sheath. Taelien had never seen such an impractical stance – and he wasn’t ready to watch his rescuer be butchered. Taelien followed behind her, rushing to the table that contained his own weapon, among others.
Istavan raised his longsword and swung it downward heavily, attempting to utilize his reach advantage. Lydia’s cut came diagonally upward – not aimed at her opponent’s torso or weapon, but at her attacker’s wrist. She twisted the blade at the last instant, slapping his arm with the flat of the blade rather than the edge. The jarring force of the strike sent Istavan’s own attack awry and forced him to take another step backward, directly into a chair. To his credit, Istavan both retained his grip on the weapon and his balance, growling audibly as he kicked the chair aside.
Lydia flourished her blade silently, pointing it directly at Istavan’s chest. Taelien snatched up a random sword of from the table, not daring to draw his own weapon in a place like this. The risks were too great.
Before Taelien could move to flank their opponent, Istavan jabbed his palm in Taelien’s direction. “Burn,” the man said viciously, a flickering sphere of orange flame surging in Taelien’s direction. Lydia moved to intercept the spell, but the table blocked her path. This time, however, Taelien was ready.
Taelien’s blade flashed twice. Disperse, he told the flame as it met with iron, and the incendiary globe obeyed his command. Flame was the second of the two dominions he could shape using Core Sorcery, but his mastery over it was feeble by comparison. Rather than setting him aflame, the ball split further apart each time his weapon struck, washing harmlessly over him in a wave of warmth.
Istavan lashed out at Lydia again with a slash aimed at her midsection. Lydia caught the horizontal strike on her hilt and pushed his sword toward the floor, stepping in and tapping him on the face with her off hand. “Sleep,” she said.
Istavan collapsed unceremoniously, colliding with the chair and knocking it over as he fell.
“Effective,” Taelien mused, staring at Lydia and furrowing his brow. Either thought or dream sorcery, he considered. Both extremely difficult to perform, both among the most dangerous types of sorcery to fight against.
“Efficient,” she replied. She leaned down to Istavan, pressing a hand to his forehead again. “Dominion of Knowledge, shatter his last memories into fragments,” she said. There was no visible effect. Afterward, she leaned down further and whispered another phrase in the downed sorcerer’s ear.
Memory erasure? I was led to believe that was impossible, Taelien considered. He said nothing. Either the woman in front of him was proficient in a type of sorcery he was unfamiliar with, or she was trying to trick him into thinking she could do something that she couldn’t. In the latter case – and possibly the former – he was better off pretending he believed her.
Lydia stood up and gave him an incredulous look. “Did you bisect his fireball?”
“No,” Taelien replied in his ominous emulated sorcerer tone, “I cut it into quarters. Halves might still have hurt.”
Lydia quirked her eyebrow. “You’re going to have to tell me how you did that later.”
“Trade secret,” he replied, grinning broadly.
Without any further hesitation, Taelien abandoned the ordinary blade he had acquired and retrieved his own sword from the table. The ornate weapon was still in its unique scabbard, and that scabbard was still on his belt. He fastened the belt on his waist, immediately feeling a sense of comfort at the presence
of the weapon that had accompanied him through every memory he possessed.
Lydia glanced at the sword, narrowing her eyes. “We need to wrap that up in a bundle of cloth or something, it’s too obvious,” she explained.
Taelien nodded. The sword was about as conspicuous as any weapon could be. The hilt consisted of a pair of silver wings, outstretched as if in flight. Between the wings sat a single sapphire, glowing perpetually with sorcerous light. The hilt held a similar, larger sapphire, grasped within four claw-like prongs. The blade – once unsheathed – was even more distinctive.
Ordinary, he told the sword with a pang of regret. He found his eyes momentarily closing as the spell drew from him, and he shook his head to dismiss the feeling of exhaustion. When his eyes reopened, the weapon’s guard had been replaced by a simple cross. The pommel appeared to be a ball of metal.
“What have you done?” Lydia asked, her voice tinged with an unfamiliar note of panic.
“Nothing of significance,” Taelien replied calmly, raising an eyebrow at her outburst. “I simply reshaped the metal, covering the gems-“
“That is a sacred weapon,” Lydia said desperately, wringing her hands in the air. “Assuming, of course, that it isn’t a counterfeit,” she added in a more typical, analytical tone.
“It is most certainly genuine,” Taelien replied with a chuckle. “What’s the problem? I thought you were Edonian, not a Tae’os follower. Why would you care?”
“Your observations do you credit, but your assumptions are flawed. We need to leave,” Lydia insisted vehemently, “And then we have a talk. A long talk,” she assured him, taking an audible breath.
“By all means,” Taelien said, adjusting the familiar sword on his waist. “Lead the way.”
Chapter II – A Contemplation of Constant Complications
Twelve Hours Earlier
Lydia woke to the sound of a gentle rapping at her door. This was unusual, as few dared to interrupt the sorceress during the early hours of the morning; it was well known that her work often kept her awake past the rising of the dawnfire.
