by Joseph Lallo
Booom!
She flinched at the explosion and stepped back, but then reversed the move. She wouldn’t let anyone see her fear.
She stepped out of the citadel, wanting to feel the sun on her face. She spent so much time inside, that she was in danger of turning into a hermit! She breathed deeply and smiled at the warmth. The sky was an exquisite blue with not a single cloud to mar it. It felt so good to get out. She noticed a tang in the air like hot metal. From the attack on the wards? No, it was the smithy. The metronomic clang… clang… clang of a hammer gave it away.
“You should not be here,” Keverin said, marching toward her. “Get back inside!”
Her smile wilted, replaced by a frown. “I’m looking for a friend.”
“You won’t find her out here,” he said sharply, and motioned her to step back into the citadel. “She would have more sense.”
“I didn’t say my friend was a woman. I came to find Brian if you must know.”
Keverin’s lips thinned. “He has his duty to perform.”
“I can see that he’s busy. I’ll come back later.”
“You’ll not! You’ll stay inside where it’s safe.”
“I thought you Devans valued honesty. You told your mother that nowhere in the fortress is safe. Did you lie then?”
It was a petty accusation, one she wished unsaid the instant the words left her lips, but it was too late. Keverin’s eyes blazed. She stepped back a pace from the fury she saw in his face.
“If you were a man...” he hissed angrily, but then he took a calming breath. His expression smoothed, and he nodded to himself as a thought occurred. “You’ll learn. You’ll learn what I am if you live long enough. I rule here, not you. You will obey me like your father, now get inside and stay!”
“You’re not my father, Lord Keverin,” she hissed. “I’m not your dog to stay when you say the word! I’ll go back inside because I want to, not because you order it.”
“Go then.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
“I’m going!”
She glared at the hint of a smirk she saw on his face. She spun on her heel and stalked back inside. Impossible man! Why did he go out of his way to rile her so?
She made her way up to the second floor of the citadel and stopped to look out of a window. Brian was standing at attention before his lord, listening to him. A moment later, he saluted and trotted off toward the gate tower. She hoped she hadn’t dropped him in hot water. Keverin’s orders probably didn’t have anything to do with her.
Probably.
She sighed glumly and leaned against the casement. She watched as a fireball arced into the air on its way to strike the wards. Why did the sorcerers even bother? It seemed obvious to her that Renard’s wards were too strong for fireballs. What they needed was a nuke!
She wondered if they knew anything about the spell that Darius used to summon her to Athione. They might be the only ones who could send her home. It didn’t really matter she supposed. Keverin would never let her go down and ask them. Not that she would. They were apparently evil incarnate, but then, wasn’t the other side in a war always evil?
She’d learned almost nothing about the reasons for the war despite asking many questions. Everyone she asked gave her a funny look and said the Hasian’s wanted to rule the entire continent, as if it should be obvious why that was desirable. The sorcerers had made a good start. They already governed two of the six nations of Waipara, but those two—Hasa and Bandar—composed fully half of the available landmass. Her problem, one of many she now had, was Mortain’s ambition. His attention was firmly fixed upon making Deva the next kingdom on his list of conquests. She was about to be in the middle of a continent spanning war.
She needed to get home, or out of Deva at least, before the war trapped her here. Maybe there were mages in Tanjung. She would ask Mathius, he would know being a mage himself.
As she made her way through the corridors of the citadel, a feeling of being watched came over her. She stopped and looked back. There was a guardsman on duty at the last intersection she had used, but he wasn’t looking her way and there was no one else in sight. She shivered and hugged herself. It wasn’t the first time that she’d felt watched. People were curious because she didn’t look like a Devan. Her pale skin marked her as different, let alone her green eyes and short hair. Her pallor was due to spending all her time in the gym, and only men wore their hair short here, and not many of them.
She turned away and chose a corridor at random to explore. Whenever she could, she used a different route through the citadel in order to learn her way around. The citadel was hard to navigate. Most of the corridors looked the same, but this one was different. Halfway along, she found a pair of beautifully carved doors. On the left-hand panel there were people shown kneeling with one arm upraised towards the sky. A beggar knelt next to a king, a lord and lady knelt next to a farmer. Children played in the field oblivious to the adults. On the right-hand door, God had been depicted as a wise old man wearing a threadbare robe carrying a crooked staff. He was smiling benignly at the people kneeling before him. She opened the door and stepped inside to investigate, she didn’t realise the shadow near the altar wasn’t a statue until it spoke.
“What are you doing here?”
It was Father Gideon, a man she’d met only briefly once before. His cassock glowed pristine white in the darkness, but despite this perfection, she couldn’t help comparing him unfavourably to the carving on the door. At their first meeting he’d tried to convince her that he was a simple servant of his God, but his demeanour betrayed him. He was too proud, and not just of his appearance. A beggar’s robes, like the carving on the chapel’s door would better suit a humble priest. He was in his late fifties or early sixties, clean-shaven, and his smile was kindly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was very obvious to anyone with eyes that he didn’t like her.
She stiffened her spine, drawing herself up to her full height such as it was, and her expression turned cold and haughty as the familiar walls slid into place to protect her from people’s dislike. She cursed herself for letting her guard down. She’d thought the people here would be different, and they had been mostly friendly toward her. Not Keverin, but most had welcomed her.
“This holy place is not for the likes of you,” Gideon said coldly.
“Worship here is by invitation only is it?” she said sarcastically. She was always at her worst when she felt herself under attack. “Why am I not welcome?”
“You’re an abomination!” Gideon cried fervently. “You’re a mage. The God willed his power channelled through men, not women! You’re against nature, and Him!”
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing the hurt his words caused her. What right did this priest have to tell her she was an abomination before God? She was what He had made her.
She turned and walked silently away.
That night found Julia slipping stealthily through the fortress. Father Gideon’s attack on her was responsible for setting her on her current path, and she grudgingly thanked him now. His words had hurt, but they did remind her of the mage gift she supposedly had—whatever it was. She’d done nothing since arriving at Athione but complain about the mages not sending her home. Well, no more of that! She would take control of her life if it killed her.
After her retreat from the chapel, she’d visited with Jessica and found herself telling her friend about home and her ambitions, but it had felt like recalling a dream. Deva was beginning to feel more real to her than England. She was starting to lose herself in this reality. She couldn’t let that go on or Julia Morton, gymnast and would-be Olympian, would cease to exist. Jessica said that she understood, but how could she? A noble lady was expected to support her husband and help rule his lands. It was a life so far removed from hers as to be incomprehensible. Jessica did help in one way by suppling a hand drawn map of the citadel. With her friend’s blessing
, she dressed herself in a man’s stolen clothes and set off to save herself.
Booom... Booom... Booom...
The noise of the attack was muffled this deep within the citadel. She had become so used to it now that the dull thuds hardly registered on her senses as she puzzled out where she was on the map. It clearly showed the main highlights of the fortress. The great hall, courtyards, gardens, stables, kitchens, smithy—all were clearly marked, but the most important item now was the route leading from the woman’s quarter to the library quarter. She traced the line with her finger, double checking the map one last time, and turned right. If she had followed the directions correctly, the library should be behind a large set of double doors.
It was.
A feeling of quiet calm descended as she entered. It was the familiar hush that all libraries seemed to have no matter where they happened to be. The atmosphere of the room was... expectant might best describe it. Like all libraries, it seemed to whisper of knowledge and secrets to be learned.
“Use me, and know the world,” it seemed to say.
The rows of shelves ahead of her held the knowledge she needed to get home, at least she hoped they did. No one else seemed able to help. So she would do it herself as she always had. She didn’t need anyone.
There were ten long rows of shelves each with five levels. Each shelf had a ladder mounted to it than ran on little wooden wheels fitted into grooves in the floor. Choosing an aisle at random, she browsed the books running her fingers lightly over their leather clad spines. The air smelled pleasantly of leather and paper, and vaguely of dust. She stopped and pulled a thick volume from the middle shelf. Turning the tome toward the meagre light of the lamps, she read the title...
Houses of Tanjung.
She replaced the book and pulled out another.
Kings of Deva.
She scowled and replaced the book in its slot. The way the shelves were organised, it would take an age to find what she needed. She scanned the row for magical sounding titles, but she failed to find even one. Changing aisles, she did the same, but again she failed. Stopping for a moment, she peered around the library hoping to find an index. She didn’t find one, but she did find something else. Along the back wall almost hidden from view, was an archway leading into another hall. Not expecting to find the index in there but curious nonetheless, she stepped through.
The hall was smaller than the first, the only entry the archway through which she’d just come. There were tables with comfortable looking chairs tucked neatly under them, and toward the back of the hall she could see three more rows of shelves. From clear across the room, she could tell they were special. They glowed in the darkness of the shadowy room as if lighted from within. The luminescence reminded her very strongly of Mathius, and the way he lit up briefly in Jessica’s rooms.
She quickly crossed the room and began reading the titles. She realised her error almost immediately. With names like: Higher Principles of Power Transmission, and Animation for Sorcerers, it wasn’t hard to guess that the huge tomes were for advanced study. She doubted that she could even lift some of them, let alone understand what was within their ancient pages!
Hoping for a logical layout, she skipped the centre row of shelves to search the one on the far left, and found what she needed. Again, the shelves were not of a standard type. Each book had been stored in its own custom made slot. She guessed that without an index, it was easier to find things this way. She wondered if they even knew what an index was. Probably not, or she would have found it. She made a mental note to give Mathius the idea of writing one. He would love it.
She quickly scanned the spines and collected a number of interesting titles. She hoped the authors had used descriptive names and hadn’t chosen them on a whim. She didn’t have time to read all of them. The first thing she needed to do was verify that Mathius was correct about her mage gift. If she did have it, whatever it really was, she would look for the spell that Darius used. Once she found it, she would reverse what he’d done and go home. If she didn’t have the gift, she would have to leave Athione and look for help in Tanjung. She’d been told that it was the only place outside the Protectorate that had mages.
Carrying her treasure to one of the tables, she sat and began reading a book entitled: Centring: Groundwork for Apprentice Level Mages.
The term centring was first used to describe the process whereby a mage made himself receptive to the magic in the year 158 After Founding...
Already impatient, she skipped the chapter about the historical significance of founding the Black Isle. Chapter three seemed to be more serious so she began reading that.
Centring is a state of mind achieved by turning all thought inward. That is to say, concentrating upon an image to the exclusion of all else. There are three main schools of thought, and I shall briefly outline each separately...
Julia skipped ahead impatiently.
Some practitioners prefer using the hot coals of a fire. By concentrating upon them to the exclusion of all else, extraneous thoughts are consumed by the flames. Others insist that imagining an empty room, and fixating upon that image until it appears real in their minds is the best way.
My personal choice is to imagine a rose bud. When the rose is so real that I can touch it, I reach out and grasp the magic in its place.
Julia scowled. That wasn’t magic! It was simply a form of meditation! She shoved the book away in disgust. Jill had taught her the Three D Method: Determination, Discipline, and Dynamics. State of mind played a huge role in winning competitions, and Jill knew that. That’s why she had insisted upon teaching her a few ‘tricks’ of the mind—ways to induce calmness and even sleep when she was too wired to do it naturally.
She frowned. Did mages meditate to put themselves in the right state of mind? If they did, it would explain why the book insisted centring was necessary. Centring was another term that Jill had used when she first began teaching how to focus before an event.
“Go down deep into yourself... way down to the very centre of your being. There is where you must live, Julia. At your centre, all things are possible...”
She remembered all of Jill’s lessons, but those times sitting quietly with her coach were special. Jill had taught her how to channel her emotions into her work, and how to prevent them interfering at a critical time. Using the image of a trophy, she’d learned to psyche herself up to a point where the audience and judges became an irrelevance. Jill’s lessons were more important now than ever. They might be the key she needed to get home. The next section in the book was entitled: Grounding.
After centring is achieved, grounding is the next step along the path of power. Essentially, it is the return to the external world without losing the centre. This is easy to describe but hard to do. Once achieved the magic in your grasp may be turned to the purpose you have selected.
She frowned unhappily. Where were the magic spells that magicians used? Obviously after centring she had to come back without losing the calm just gained. She did it all the time while competing, always making her routine the whole of her world for the minutes it took to complete. It was exhausting but worth it when the judges responded favourably.
The next section in the book was an exercise for an apprentice to try. It was an attempt to light a candle with magic. She looked around but there weren’t any candles in the library. Fire hazard she supposed. She crossed the room and reached up to one of the wall lamps. She opened the little door in the side. There was a wick fitted into a reservoir of oil. Lifting the lamp off its bracket she brought it back to the table, and extinguished the flame.
She made herself comfortable and concentrated on the familiar image of an Olympic gold medal. Instantly she fell into her private place where her fantasy of winning gold would come true. Never had it been so easy! The medal spun in her mind’s eye. It sparkled and glittered sending flashes of light deep into the innermost recesses of he mind. She marvelled at its beauty and yearned fo
r it. She wanted it with all of her being. She reached out, and gasped as magic hammered down.
Time stopped.
The power roared into her—thrusting its way into her mind and soul. She revelled in the warmth of it. Like the sun it burned, but did no harm, it roared, but was utterly silent. She was complete, utterly content. No room for doubting, no room for failure, no room for... her.
* * *
14 ~ Intruder
Mathius jolted awake, gasping in fright. He sat up, and swung his legs out of bed, reaching for a glass of water on the nightstand. By the God, he was shaking! He’d been dreaming about a certain kitchen maid who had caught his eye the other day, and they were having a fine time, when the dream shattered. It had felt as if the fortress was about to fall upon his head.
He grasped his magic, but his grip slipped as the disturbance slammed through his head forcing him to let go. It had been no dream! Someone was drawing deeply upon their magic—very deeply. He braced himself, and grasped his magic again. He needed to tell whoever this was, that there were people trying to sleep here! The moment he had a firm grasp upon his magic, he knew something was wrong. It felt as if a floodgate on a damn had been flung wide—a gate that in the real world was a mage.
No one is this powerful!
He climbed out of bed and dressed quickly. If he was sensing an enemy mage in the pass, the war was lost. It couldn’t be what he feared. He’d never been able to sense anything at such a distance, let alone another mage. He prayed he was wrong, but what else could it be? He slipped out of his room intent on tracking the source of the disturbance at least as far as the walls. He tried not to let his fear blind him, but how could anyone face down such a power?
