“But a Varyah can?”
“A Varyah can Destroy light, thereby creating darkness. Destroy heat, thereby creating cold.” Her voice hardened. “And they can Destroy life, thereby creating death.”
“And can’t anything good be done with that?”
Brinelle would need a good, long meditation session at this rate.
Windrunner noticed her irritation and hurried to explain himself. “I see what you mean, that Varyah magic seems bent toward bad things, but it can’t be completely hopeless. Can it?”
“If I ever find a good Varyah,” Brinelle said, “then I will believe the end of the world has arrived.”
Windrunner peeled another branch from his staff and threw it into the fire. They spent a few more moments in silence.
“Hold on a minute. Does that mean you can Create life and bring someone back from the dead?”
“Theoretically. But life is among the most complex and ethereal concepts to work with. It would be far beyond my power, or even the Godspeaker’s, to do that. I’ve never heard of anyone Creating life.”
Windrunner opened his mouth, met her eyes, and shut it. Brinelle took a few more deep breaths. “Ask. I won’t attack you.”
He seemed slightly mollified by that. “Back at the monastery, the Godspeaker said something about a Varyah’s magic tainting whatever it was around,” he said.
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“Exposure to magic can change a person. If someone spends enough time around Varyah magic, it will change them. Perhaps not enough for them to use it themselves—that would take an extraordinarily strong magic, or an extreme intimacy to it—but enough that the stain of the Varyah would be upon them forever. It makes them a danger to themselves and to others.”
“And so your job is to wipe them out, before they can infect everyone?”
Brinelle nodded. “They are a virus upon humanity. The knights of Evantar are the cure.”
She listened to the crackling of the fire. Her hands had clenched into fists.
“Why couldn’t it work the other way, then? Why couldn’t a person with Destruction magic be helped by being exposed to Creation?”
“The Godspeaker has tried, but Varyah are tricky. They can be given the light of Creation magic, but never enough to cure them of the darkness. The impulse to Destroy never leaves them. They will always be Varyah.”
She couldn’t help the hatred at that last sentence. There was no such thing as a good Varyah. No matter how much Evantar tried to help them, they always succumbed to the darkness. That was why they had to be destroyed. There was no hope for them. Left alone, all they would do is hurt others. Take away families. Spread their darkness to others.
If Brinelle had her way, she’d wipe every single one of them from the face of the earth herself.
“Why has the Godspeaker not let you out to hunt them?”
Brinelle felt her nails biting into her palms. The question had been one she’d asked and fumed over for years. “The Godspeaker doesn’t think it necessary to pursue the Varyah. He believes they will bring about their own destruction, in time.”
“Is he wrong?”
“Perhaps not. The very nature of their magic would point to that eventual conclusion. But how many innocents will suffer in that time? How many Varyah will we allow to flourish, to prosper even, and spread their dark magic to others? Just because they may bring about their own destruction doesn’t give us leave to allow them to live in the meantime.”
“I get that,” Windrunner said. Brinelle could hear his anxiety. She was scaring him again. “But why are you willing to risk everything to kill a few Varyah? You say you didn’t leave Evantar, but if they don’t take you back you might as well have gone rogue. I know you weren’t really happy there, but doesn’t that hurt?”
Finally the anger cooled. It was almost harder this way, though. Without the anger, she had nothing to feel but pain. “Evantar is all I have ever known. True, I have never found my place amongst the priesthood, but the knights of Evantar are my family. Our mission is clear: destroy Varyah. That is what I want to do. If Evantar refuses to allow me to do so …” She had to fight to get the next words out. “I must follow what I know is right, and that is to kill Varyah. Should that mean I part ways with Evantar, I will do so.”
“So when we’re done here, and the Shahadán are destroyed … I mean, if we can do it … do you think they’ll take you back?”
Brinelle took a long time in answering. “I don’t know.”
The thought of not being able to go back stabbed at her heart. She had no idea what she would do, or where she would go, without the monastery. It was the only way of living she knew. If she lost that, she’d lose everything she was.
When she finally looked up at Windrunner, he was watching her with as much sadness in his expression as she felt. “Sometimes the freedom we crave doesn’t taste as sweet once we get it,” he muttered.
Brinelle didn’t know what to say. She’d never stopped to ask why Windrunner had left his home. He said he’d been pulled into the portal and brought here, but he’d never told her how he’d found himself there in the first place. There had been hints in his conversation that he’d wanted to leave, but she’d never considered it may be as painful for him to be unable to return as it was for her.
How was it this strange, foreign man could have so much in common with her?
He saw her watching him and stiffened. “What?”
The smile crept onto her face unbidden. She’d often wondered what it would have been like to be raised with other kids, by people who’d wanted her and knew how to deal with children. What it would have been like to have friends. “I was just thinking,” she said. “I’ve never had anyone I can talk to like this. It’s … refreshing.”
She met his eyes again, suddenly shy. Had she overstepped her bounds? She didn’t want Windrunner to retreat. Just the thought made her sadder than she’d expected.
He met her gaze with a crooked half-smile, all charm and humor. “I know what you mean.”
Her heart fluttered. Brinelle looked down, stirring the bloodwood stew she’d forgotten about. She felt the heat in her cheeks and blamed it on the fire.
6
Between the hard ground, rotting mazahnen carcasses, and blazing heat, Windrunner got very little rest. The sun was well on its way toward the western horizon by the time he fell asleep, and it seemed like an instant later he was being shaken awake.
“Good evening,” Brinelle said. She knelt above Windrunner in her chatana drosand linens.
“Not yet it’s not,” Windrunner said, bunching his cloak into a pillow. Now that he had to get up, he was finally comfortable. “Talk to me in a few more hours.”
“We must make time for chatana drosand before darkness falls and we continue our journey.”
Windrunner grumbled and rolled over.
“How am I to keep my promise and teach you the techniques of staff fighting if you will not wake up and attend the lesson?”
Windrunner groaned. Damn it.
He left the comfort of his makeshift bed and stretched. Brinelle had brought him a new pair of the short, loose okura. He was far from ready for another grueling session of chatana drosand, but he changed and joined Brinelle in the open sand nonetheless.
He had to admit, watching Brinelle stretch in the sunset was worth waking up for.
“Why are we practicing out here?” Windrunner asked, taking his place beside her. “Aren’t you afraid we’ll be seen?”
Brinelle did not pause in her stretches. “There is a risk, but we would not have sufficient room in the grove.”
“And I don’t suppose we could just … not do it.”
“We must practice if you wish to learn.”
Windrunner sighed, but fell into his stretches.
When they finished warming up, Brinelle extended her hand toward him. A length of string dangled from her thumb and forefinger. “What’s this for?” he a
sked.
“This is your practice staff,” she replied.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“There are many things you must learn before you are ready for a staff. Until then, you will use this. Keep it taut between your hands, but do not pull so hard you break it. In this way your arms will learn their exact place in each movement without relying upon anything but your muscles’ memory.”
“My muscles’ memory,” Windrunner muttered. He took the string and glared at it.
“Once you have memorized the movements you can work on perfecting them and building your strength. Then you will be ready to begin practicing with a staff and an opponent.”
“How am I going to learn how to fight from exercising by myself?”
She turned away from him slightly, giving another stretch to her back. “How much of the chatana drosand routine do you have memorized?”
“Umm … about the first twenty moves or so.” He still had to follow Brinelle’s prompting for the remaining 180 movements.
“Very well. Then defend yourself!”
Before Windrunner could reply, Brinelle turned her stretch into a high kick to his left. He automatically assumed the beginning chatana pose and with a turn of the waist pushed her incoming foot aside. He circled his right arm around in time to intercept Brinelle’s punch with his crossed wrists. A low sweep of his right foot would have knocked Brinelle to the ground if she hadn’t anticipated the move.
Windrunner moved through the routine, astounded he could deflect the incoming attacks and take advantage of the holes in her defenses. But then he reached the end of his memorized motions.
He remained in the last position—a defensive crouch with arms crossed before his chest—as his mind scrambled for the next movement.
He didn’t remember until Brinelle’s fist contacted his nose.
“You should have stood on your left foot, using your crossed hands to deflect my punch and raising your right foot to kick.”
“Yeah,” he groaned. “I remember that now.”
She smirked at him. “You have been exercising by yourself, yet somehow you have learned how to fight.”
“Well, yeah, as long as everyone fights like that all the time,” he said, gingerly prodding his nose. She must have pulled her punch. He wasn’t even bleeding.
Brinelle stepped back and cocked her fist for another blow. Windrunner assumed his defensive crouch again, this time ready for the incoming attack.
She lowered her fist and nodded. “Chatana drosand can be adapted to any fight. All one must do is observe their surroundings and pay attention to the enemy.”
Windrunner swore he would never again question the value of chatana drosand.
WINDRUNNER’S partly-stripped staff lay on the ground where he’d left it, covered in a rusty brown scab. After the long, draining chatana practice lifting it seemed like a monumental effort.
Outside the grove, long shadows stretched across the dunes. The moon was nowhere to be seen. Until it rose, the desert would be plunged into complete darkness.
“Will it be safe to travel without the moonlight?” Windrunner asked. His footing felt weak and he was already having trouble judging distance between the dunes, and they hadn’t even left their camp. Once the last of the sunlight faded, it would only be a matter of time before they got lost or one of them got hurt.
“We won’t have a problem.” Brinelle held out her hand, and a flickering flame appeared in her palm. “The belantra naan will be sufficient.”
Windrunner stared at the fire she’d Created. Would he be able to do that? Brinelle said he had the magic. He’d felt it back in the bloodwood grove.
“How do I do it?”
Brinelle paused, looking out at the dunes and back to their grove. She quenched the fire in her hand, set her pack down, and sat in a meditative pose. Windrunner copied her. Even if he hadn’t been eager to learn, he’d have been grateful for the time to rest before they started walking again.
“Listen to what the magic inside you says. It will guide you.” Brinelle closed her eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. When she spoke her voice sounded dreamy and far away. “Relax and send your thoughts to that place within you that has not yet awakened.”
What the heck is that supposed to mean? Windrunner closed his eyes, though he wasn’t sure he’d be able to send his thoughts anywhere. Or if he’d send them to the right place. For all he knew, he’d end up wasting time daydreaming about his mother’s pie or something. He mimicked Brinelle’s deep breaths and tried to quiet his mind.
For a long time Windrunner didn’t feel anything other than foolish. But slowly his thoughts began to clear. The darkness grew more intense, the silence more profound. Windrunner felt as if he’d left the Nevantian desert behind and been dropped into the center of an inky black mass. His movements were sluggish, like he was underwater. When he tried to speak his voice sounded hollow, and after a few seconds a slight echo returned to his ears. “Hello?”
He waited for several minutes, but no reply came.
He was about to give up when a tiny glimmer of light caught his eye. It was little more than a pinprick, a tiny seed that may one day become light. Windrunner gravitated toward it like iron to lodestone. Its presence made him feel warm and tingly, the way Brinelle’s magic had.
Just before he reached the light, a sudden darkness stepped in his way. It was blacker than their surroundings, churning with anger and radiating searing heat rather than soothing warmth. Windrunner recoiled from it out of pure instinct.
“What are you?” he asked. His voice was a squeak through his fear.
The shadow didn’t reply, but Windrunner didn’t need it to. He knew.
This is Destruction magic. He peered behind the shadow, to the pinprick of light. Blocking my way to Creation.
Am I … a Varyah?
Windrunner opened his eyes. He was back in the desert—or had he never left? Though Brinelle sat next to him, the belantra naan once again burning in her hand, he hadn’t felt this lonely since leaving the Farmlands. He remembered her frigid hatred of the Varyah all too well. If she ever found out about this, that wrath would turn toward him.
The very thought made his stomach flop in his belly.
Brinelle placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Your magic is not yet mature. It will grow stronger in time.”
That was not the kind of comfort he’d been looking for. She must have thought he’d been distressed because his magic was weak, or he didn’t see anything. How could she have known he was terrified by the specter of his magic, the darkness and anger radiating from it? How could she have guessed that when he looked at his magic, he’d see the power of Destruction?
He should have guessed, though. His rage had a tendency to get him into trouble. It was what had driven him to punch Maddox. To shout at the Godspeaker and steal his map of the portals before escaping the monastery. His anger practically had a mind of its own.
Was that because it did have a mind of its own?
Would Brinelle kill him, if she found out?
She’d said these emotions would get stronger as his magic matured. He had a hard enough time corralling his rage as it was. If it continued to grow, how would he be able to fight it? What would happen when it became so strong he couldn’t keep the anger in check any longer?
I’ll become like those mages in the story. So consumed by the power I lose control.
Windrunner clenched his fists. He couldn’t let himself become that. He’d fight it.
“Windrunner?”
He looked over at Brinelle. She was watching him, fear and concern in her eyes. “I’m all right,” he said, hoping he sounded sincere. “I’ll be all right.”
THEIR TREK across the darkened desert was quiet that night. When the first glimmer of dawn appeared in the sky before them, they sought out another bloodwood grove and cleared it of sleeping mazahnen.
After another dinner of bloodwood sludge, Windrunner took up his
staff and knife, resuming the bloody work of stripping bark from the wood.
What was he even doing this for? His magic followed the powers of Destruction, not Creation. It was the same as the Shahadán. There would be no magical force behind this weapon. It would be just another staff, useless against their terrible enemy.
Then again, he had seen that tiny pinprick of light behind his Destruction magic.
“Hey, Brinelle.”
“Hmm?” She didn’t stop watching the leaves above as they lightened with the sunrise.
“What if someone could use both Creation and Destruction magic?”
“They would be a myth.”
“What?”
“A myth. Since the magic was sundered, there have been so few people born with both it’s unheard of. By now it has been so long it’s likely there will never be another.”
There goes that theory. “But what if it did happen? What would that person be then?”
She met his eyes. “That depends on which legend you listen to. Some say that person would be a savior. Most, however, say they would be even worse than the Varyah.”
“Even worse?”
“A mage with the power to not only Destroy anything, but Create whatever they like in its place? It’s a dynamic that defies even the most skilled Varyah or Evantar priest. Yes, we can Create whatever we wish, within the limits of our power, and the Varyah can Destroy the same. But pairing those two magics makes them exponentially more potent. Most magics we work are temporary, sustaining as long as we hold focus. A Tsenian’s, however, would be permanent.”
Windrunner froze. “What did you call them?”
“Tsenian. It is the ancient name for the most powerful mages.” She paused, raising her head to look more intently at him. “Windrunner? Are you all right?”
Sure. No problem. I just found out my name is the title of some ultra-powerful mage who’s even worse than the bad guys you’re willing to throw everything away to hunt. Why wouldn’t I be all right?
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
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