by Alec Hutson
Searing radiance consumed him, and he was falling.
His cheek.
His cheek throbbed, pressed against dirt. Points of light flared, then faded just as suddenly, leaving his vision full of strange dancing shadows. He tasted vomit, his arms and legs moving feebly as he tried to push himself to his hands and knees. For the second time that day he had fainted, but while earlier he had been overwhelmed by something welling up inside him, now a great force was pressing down from elsewhere.
“Keilan!” Small hands clutched at his shirt, trying to pull him up.
“Embrace the light, sorcerer,” he heard the Pure say from far away as waves of scalding power pummeled Keilan. He was caught in a riptide, being pulled farther and farther away from shore. It was all he could do to keep his head above the churning water.
And then it was gone.
He drew in a shuddering breath, coughing into the ground, tasting dirt.
Something was happening. Raised voices were arguing. He concentrated, trying to understand what was being said.
“You have betrayed your oaths . . . the Radiant Father weeps . . .”
It was the paladin, spitting his words angrily. Who was he talking to?
“Ama has spoken to me, brother. The faith has become tainted.”
Senacus! Keilan groaned and rolled onto his side, squinting into the day’s brightness. Relief roiled in his chest. “Save us,” he tried to say, but what emerged was nothing more than slurred nonsense.
Nel and Sella were crouched beside him, watching the two paladins as they faced each other. The soldiers that he could see were likewise frozen, apparently struck dumb by the sight of two warriors infused with their god’s power on the verge of fighting.
And they were: both Senacus and the other paladin had their hands on the copper hilts of their white-metal swords, though neither had yet started to draw their blade.
The Pure with the tattoos sneered. “You still call me brother? You are no longer part of our order. The High Mendicant has named you apostate.”
Something passed across Senacus’s face, a momentary sadness. Then his expression hardened. “You do not understand. Sorcerers have infiltrated the temple. You must believe me, brother. Give me a chance to prove it to you!” His voice was pleading, but the other Pure was unmoved.
“I reject your lies, traitor!” cried the paladin, lunging forward as he ripped his sword free of its sheath. “For Ama and the emperor!”
A shuddering crack and a flash of light as Senacus’s own white-metal blade met and turned away the blow. The tattooed Pure recovered instantly, his sword a blinding crescent as he hammered at Senacus’s guard again and again, driving him backwards. With each ringing clash Keilan feared that Senacus would falter, but he managed to ward away each attack as he gave ground. For a moment none of the soldiers moved, seemingly awed by the speed and power of the paladins as they came crashing together, but then one of the Menekarians pointed at Senacus and screamed, though whatever he said was lost beneath the clanging of the white-metal swords.
His meaning was clear enough, though, and one of the soldiers charged towards Senacus while he was busy fending off the paladin. Fear rose in Keilan, and he grasped desperately for the power that Niara had taught him how to seize. He imagined twisting it into blue fire, but before he could unleash his sorcery the memory of his grandmother enveloped in flames rose in his thoughts, and the tendrils of the spell slipped through his fingers like water.
“No!” he sobbed as the soldier hurtled towards Senacus.
Then the Menekarian toppled over, a knife hilt jutting from his back.
“Run!” Nel screamed as the other soldiers turned towards her with murder in their faces. With blinding quickness she reached beneath one of her leather bracers and sent a smaller dagger spinning at another of the Menekarians, but this time her aim was not true, and it skittered off his armor harmlessly.
“Get out of here!” she cried again, putting herself in the way of the advancing soldiers, yet more daggers appearing in her hand. The blades of these ones were slightly longer, and Keilan recognized them – Chance and Fate. She meant to fight dagger to sword – four swords – exactly what she had once told him never to do if he wanted to live. Better to run away and fight another day, she had said. But if she fled, she’d leave Sella and him behind.
Keilan staggered to his feet. The suffocating pressure had vanished, though he still felt lightheaded. He picked up his sword from where it had fallen in the dirt and set his feet in the second of the forms. Nel saw what he was doing and growled something about him being a stubborn fool. Then she ran straight at the soldiers, screaming and brandishing her daggers.
She’s trying to draw them away, Keilan thought, and for a moment it looked like they all would pursue her as she suddenly swerved from her headlong charge and dashed towards another of the small houses. But one of the soldiers hesitated, then turned back to Keilan as his three fellows followed Nel.
Keilan swallowed back the lump of fear in his throat, trying to find that clarity, the perfect battle-calm that Xin had always claimed was what a warrior must embrace if he wished to fight at the peak of his training.
It wasn’t there.
But the soldier cautiously approaching him looked as nervous as he felt – the paladin had named Keilan a sorcerer, and Menekarians were taught to fear and loathe sorcery above all things in this world.
“Lay your sword down, boy,” the soldier rasped, raising his stubby sword as he adopted some fighting stance Keilan had never seen before.
“I can’t,” Keilan replied, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet. As he lifted his own blade it caught the sun, light skittering along its silvery length and blazing in the rubies set in the hilt.
The soldier cursed and spat, then lunged forward. For a brief moment Keilan felt fear, but it vanished as his own sword leapt to meet the soldier’s and they came together with a clash of steel. Surprise flickered in the Menekarian’s face, and then he swung again. Keilan shifted to the third form of the One Who Waits, turning aside that blow as well. The soldier thrust out and Keilan danced back, the sword’s tip nowhere close to catching him.
Keilan tried to tamp down his excitement. Maybe the soldier was just testing him, trying to take his measure, and he’d suddenly close with a barrage of blows that Keilan couldn’t parry. But he suspected that the soldier was not holding back. Perhaps he had been trained in formation fighting, mechanical sword blows that perfectly meshed with those of the legionaries pressed to either side, and he was entirely unprepared for this sort of single combat. Or perhaps the long lessons with Xin and Senacus had taught Keilan to fight better than he had thought, because in comparison to the Pure or the Fist warrior this man seemed to be wading in mud.
The soldier came at him again, faster than before. Still Keilan deflected each blow with variations of the One Who Waits, and then instinctually he followed his defense with a quick thrust, something Xin had taught the apprentices of the Scholia as they trained atop Saltstone. He felt brief resistance as the point of his sword pierced the leather cuirass of the soldier and slid into his belly.
“Oh,” Keilan could only murmur, shocked, as the soldier staggered back a step and dropped his sword. The Menekarian looked confused, like he couldn’t understand what had just happened. Keilan’s blade slipped out, streaked with red, and then the soldier sank to his knees, clutching at his stomach as blood poured from between his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” Keilan whispered, and he had to fight back the urge to kneel beside the soldier and try to find something to staunch the wound. The soldier toppled over, groaning.
He’d killed a man. He’d killed again.
The soldier squirmed in the dirt, panting, trying feebly to keep his lifeblood from leaking out. Keilan desperately wanted to look away, but he could not.
Then Nel was beside him. “Wak
e up!” she yelled, striking him in the shoulder with the pommel of a dagger.
“I killed him,” Keilan said numbly, gesturing with his bloodied blade at the moaning soldier.
“No, you didn’t,” Nel said, stepping over to the soldier and taking a fistful of his hair. In one quick motion she lifted his head and sliced his throat with her dagger. “I did,” she told Keilan, letting the soldier’s limp body flop forward.
“Shael’s mercy,” he breathed softly.
“This is not a time for mercy,” Nel replied as she turned back to where the Pure were locked in combat.
“The other soldiers . . .” Keilan began, but then he saw them splayed out unmoving on the ground. Three of them, incredibly. And there was Sella, cowering behind the trunk of a gnarled little fruit tree, her face ashen and her eyes wide. She was staring at the dead soldiers like she feared they might rise again.
A quick flurry of clashing swords brought Keilan’s attention back to the paladins. Senacus was being pushed backwards by the Pure with the copper tattoos, desperately fending away his flickering blade. Every time the white metal came together there was a hollow chiming, more like a bell being struck than the ringing of steel. That sound, coupled with the grace with which they were moving, almost made it seem like this was a performance and not a lethal duel where the smallest mistake would mean death.
Nel stalked closer, looking for an opening, but given the quickness with which the paladins were moving Keilan couldn’t imagine how she could throw a dagger without risking accidentally striking Senacus. She must have agreed, as he saw her raise and then lower her arm several times.
A white-metal blade lashed out, and Senacus reeled away, the long sleeve on his left arm torn. For a moment Keilan thought it must have struck his vambrace, but as he turned away another thrust he saw darkness welling up from beneath the rent in the white cloth. Fear seized Keilan at the sight. It was not his sword arm, but certainly such a cut would bother him. And yet it did not appear to. If anything, Senacus seemed to gain strength from the wound, and then suddenly it was the other paladin warding away blows that seemed on the verge of slipping past his defenses.
It happened so suddenly that Keilan couldn’t hold back a gasp of surprise. After a ringing series of parries, the white-metal swords little more than pale blurs, one of the Pure was a moment late in raising his guard, and his opponent’s blade slipped through, plunging into his chest. It happened so fast that for a terrifying instant Keilan wasn’t sure who had been struck, but then the paladin with the copper tattoos crumpled with a pained cry. After sparing a glance at his companions – making sure no aid was needed, Keilan assumed – Senacus knelt beside the dying paladin, dropping his own sword and cradling the Pure’s head in his hands.
As Keilan approached with Nel he saw Senacus’s lips moving as he intoned what sounded like a prayer. The wounded paladin’s chest heaved and he coughed raggedly, spattering Senacus’s white-enameled gauntlets with blood. As Keilan watched, the light leaking from the Pure’s eyes gradually faded, revealing dark irises that stared sightlessly up at Senacus as he finished ushering the dead paladin’s soul along on its way to the Golden City. Then he gently brushed the Pure’s eyes closed and placed the paladin’s sword lengthwise on his body, arranging his hands so that he could hold the copper hilt of his holy blade one last time.
“Are you hurt?” Nel asked, crouching beside Senacus.
The Pure glanced at the stain on his tunic’s sleeve, as if he’d forgotten the wound he’d taken. “It’s a scratch,” he said dismissively.
“Scratch or not, let’s clean that and get it bound up.” She looked at the open doorway to Pelos’s house. “The fishmonger had ale, I remember, and I’d wager probably something harder as well. A splash for your arm, and then I think I need more than a splash for myself.”
Senacus’s burning gaze wandered for a moment before settling on Keilan. Lines of sorrow were etched in the paladin’s face.
Keilan swallowed away the dryness in his mouth. “Senacus, I—”
A door clattered open behind him. “Keilan!”
He whirled around as a plump, gray-haired woman emerged from one of the neighboring houses.
“Amela!” he cried as Pelos’s wife rushed towards him, and then a moment later he was being crushed to her bosom.
“Oh, lad,” she said, her voice cracking. “You’re alive.”
He pushed himself away, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Where’s Pelos?”
Amela was gazing around at the bodies sprawled outside her house, her eyes wide. Her face had gone deathly pale.
Keilan gave her shoulders a squeeze, and she seemed to come to herself. “They took him. They wanted to know where you’d gone, but he wouldn’t say. He wouldn’t betray you, Keilan. He’s a good man, my Pelos.” When she said her husband’s name a tremor went through her, and then she gave a hitching sob as tears streaked her face.
“Come inside,” Nel said, pulling on Amela’s arm. The tone in her voice brooked no argument.
As Nel led the fishmonger’s wife inside her house, Keilan went over to meet Sella as she tentatively crept out from behind the tree she’d been hiding behind.
“They’re all dead,” she said numbly, skirting around the outstretched arm of one of the soldiers Nel had slain.
“They would have killed us,” he assured her as he gathered her in a quick embrace. “Or done other terrible things.”
“Why do they hate you?” she whispered, her fingers clutching at his back.
“They hate what I am,” he replied. “A sorcerer.”
“But you never did anything bad,” Sella said.
I have, Keilan thought, his gaze straying to the soldier he’d stabbed. The man’s empty eyes stared at him accusingly. But I just wanted to protect my friends.
Keilan guided Sella inside the fishmonger’s house, where they found Nel and Senacus seated around the table where they’d feasted and celebrated before leaving for Ven Ibras. It felt like a lifetime ago, even though barely more than a month had passed. Amela was fluttering around the room, talking to herself as she bemoaned the mess the soldiers had made.
“We need something to wash this wound,” Nel told Amela as she examined the cut in Senacus’s arm.
The fishmonger’s wife paused, clenching fistfuls of her stained dress. “Yes, yes. And then some honey to dress it. Old fisherman’s trick, keeps away the infection.” She started rummaging through a shelf full of glazed clay pots, eventually pulling one down.
Nel twisted off the lid and then took a quick smell of what was inside. “This will do,” she said, and then tipped the jug so that some of the clear liquid inside splashed over the cut. Senacus’s jaw tightened, but he did not make a sound.
“What happened?” Keilan asked as Amela set another container on the table.
She paused, her hands shaking so hard that she had to grip the back of one of the chairs. “They arrived a few days ago. Many soldiers, and three of the Pure. Mendicants, too, some with gold on their robes . . . but the one they took orders from had white robes banded with black.”
“An inquisitor,” Senacus said softly as Nel began to spread honey on his wound. “They are trained to find the truth by any means necessary.”
“They took my Pelos,” Amela finished with a wrenching sob, fresh tears trickling down her cheeks.
“To the temple in Theris,” Nel said. “That’s what the paladin said.”
“We have to save him. We have to go to Theris.” Keilan saw Nel’s mouth thin as he said this.
“Remember what we have, Keilan,” the knife admonished him, glancing pointedly at the rosewood box Sella was still clutching to her chest. “A single life cannot be weighed against what we saw in the Oracle’s vision.”
“He’s there because of us,” Keilan insisted, his voice rising. “Because of me.”
N
el muttered something under her breath as she began to cut a piece of cloth on the table into strips.
“I have lived for many months at the temple in Theris,” Senacus said slowly, not looking at Nel. “And there’s a way inside known only to the Pure.”
Amela’s breathing quickened, hope rising in her face. “Oh, by the Ten, please save my Pelos. Please, Keilan.”
There had been a thousand afternoons he’d sat beside the old fishmonger as Pelos drove his wagon from the beach back to his village. He remembered the old man tickling his ear as he pulled forth a copper coin with a sly wink. Keilan had clutched at his mother’s dress as she stood beside Pelos, her laughter high and pure from something the fishmonger had said, as his father pulled his fishing boat out of the surf. He knew what Nel was saying was true, but he could not simply abandon Pelos to whatever horrors the inquisitors of Ama would inflict.
“We will find him,” he said to Amela. “But there’s something you must do as well.”
“Anything,” she murmured, her eyes shining.
“You have to leave here. It’s not safe. Take Sella back to her family and stay at her farm until you get word about Pelos.”
He turned to Sella, who was staring at him with her wide, mismatched eyes. For once she wasn’t arguing. “I will return one day for you, and bring you back to the Scholia. But it’s too dangerous for you to come with us – you see that now, don’t you?”
Sella gave a shaky nod, and then she slid the box she’d been holding onto the table and put her arms around him again, resting her cheek on his shoulder. She didn’t make any noise, but he could feel her sobs as her thin body shuddered against him.
It had taken less than two days for the armies of Dymoria to slay the mighty Serpent.
“Clever bastards.”
Willa ri Numil grunted her agreement, leaning heavily on the ebony sphere that topped her walking cane. She shivered as the wind swirling down from the Bones wriggled through her layers of furs and brushed skeletal fingers against her skin.
