by Clare Smith
“Beauty is never fair,” said Maladran, “and people are always taken in by it without seeing what is beneath. They prefer it to the ugly truth of life and reality. Remember that as you do your next master’s bidding and you may yet live long enough to reach manhood. Now sleep, we both have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
The boy turned over pulling the magician’s cloak over his head, not wanting him to see the tears that were forming. The man had made it clear he had no intention of keeping him but he didn’t understand why he had gone to the trouble of rescuing him from the Stablemaster’s dog whip and Tarris’s cruelty if he was just going to hand him on to someone else. It made him feel like a piece of baggage or an unwanted dog. Did he not know that one master would be much the same as another?
Maladran took a last look at the boy and returned to his place by the fire putting the globe back into the saddle bag, stretched out and rested his head on the hard leather saddle. He had felt the pain of the boy’s despair before sleep had obscured his feelings and was disturbed by the effect they were having on him. It was unfortunate that the boy had seen his scrying, it had clearly upset him and he was even sorry for his sharp and pointed retort but it couldn’t be helped. He turned irritably away from the fire, unable to get comfortable.
Hellden have him, he even felt sympathy for the boy, feelings which had been dormant since the early days of his own apprenticeship. The magician shrugged the feelings away. He supposed he was tired from his journey and the night’s activity and was over sensitive. One thing was certain, he couldn’t continue to allow the boy’s emotions to impose themselves on him so the sooner he could be bound to a new master the better.
The boy muttered in his sleep and Maladran rolled his shoulders in discomfort feeling the same prickling unease he had felt before when he had first seen the boy. It seemed that even in his sleep there was something in the boy reaching out to him but such contact should have been impossible. Only Yarrin had possessed the level of power to touch his mind and he was dead, yet there it was again, something in the boy was disturbing him. The boy cried out again, louder and more urgently this time and rolled over in his sleep tangling himself in the cloak.
Maladran sat up, the feeling of unease increasing so that his skin prickled and his stomach knotted with tension. Random thoughts battered at his mind as he stared into the fire; they were not his own thoughts but the boy’s. He stood up shaking his head. This was intolerable and could not be allowed to continue. To stop this he had to get control of the boy and for that he had to know his name. Maladran crossed to where the boy lay entangled in the cloak and whimpering in the throes of a nightmare. His sudden scream made Maladran wince as the sound cut across his frayed nerves. He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder to wake him and the boy’s eyes shot open as he tried to scuttle way from the man’s touch.
“Steady boy, be quiet now,”
He could feel the boy shake beneath his restraining hand and his heart pounding at an alarming rate. Sweat ran down the boy’s face and body and his skin was cold and clammy. Maladran helped him to untangle the cloak and guided him closer to the fire. Not sure what else he could do he sat down next to the boy and held him for a long time until his breathing slowed. When he had stopped shaking Maladran left him to put more wood on the fire and returned with two bowls and some small packets he had taken from his saddlebags. He filled both of the bowls with hot water that had been heating in the pot and added some herbs from a grey packet to them and some other herbs and a dollop of honey to the one he held out for the boy to drink. Maladran sat opposite the boy and sipped at the hot, bitter liquid.
“Was it the same nightmare as before?”
“It’s always the same.”
“Tell me,” Maladran commanded and then more gently, “These things are often better when they are shared.”
“I can’t,” replied the boy hesitantly. “I can’t remember what I dream only the feelings afterwards.”
Maladran sat back on his heels frowning and studied the boy for a while. He had encountered this problem before; an event so traumatic that the mind blocked out its existence, only releasing it piece by piece through dreams until the subject could face what had happened to them. Sometimes it took years but there was a quicker way.
“Would you like to remember?”
“Will I remember everything?” said the boy looking surprised and slightly scared.
“Probably but not all at once. Firstly you will remember what caused your nightmares and in remembering they will stop. After that things will come back to you piece by piece until you remember everything.” The boy still looked doubtful. “Don’t you want to remember who you are?”
“Will it hurt?”
Maladran found himself smiling. “No it won’t hurt although you may feel a little confused when you first remember who you are but you can do something to stop that happening. When you wake the first thing you must do is tell me all about yourself, starting with your name.”
The boy nodded in acquiescence and Maladran crossed to the other side of the fire and sat down beside him. Returning a person’s memory or letting them relive a dream was as easy as blocking their memory and much more permanent. Both were processes which he’d practised may times. It was a simple case of entering their mind and setting or releasing the lock which held their store of recollections in thrall. To restore a memory only required a quick mind probe, often with only the tiniest bit of magic. With a willing subject it was only mildly tiring and the recipient was always inordinately grateful and very occasionally overwhelmingly emotional. He assumed the boy would fall into the first category or at least he hoped as much, he was far too weary to give comfort to a distraught child.
“Close your eyes, boy.”
The boy closed his eyes and almost instantly opened them again. “I’m scared,” he said in a small voice.
Maladran knew he was, he could feel the boy’s emotions, timid and anxious. It wasn’t like his previous fear, the terror of pain and being abused but a fear of being lost and alone. Somehow it touched something within Maladran from his own childhood.
“There is nothing to be scared about, I will be with you.” He took the boy’s cold hands and smiled encouragingly. “Now close your eyes.”
Maladran closed his own eyes and sought the darkness in his mind which was the vessel of his power. He pushed thoughts and feelings aside, even awareness of his senses ceased to exist as the dark void grew to consume all his being. Within the darkness a soft light began to glow; the focus of his power, formless but intense and ready to do his bidding. With practised ease he moved the light from his own mind and pushed it outwards, slowly and gently towards the boy.
For a moment there was an unaccustomed resistance and the light wavered and retreated back towards the void as if some unknown force within the boy had warned it away. The void in Maladran’s mind was thick with power and he thrust the light impatiently forward where it wavered irresolutely before being snatched into the boy’s mind like something being torn from him.
The thick power he held in the void recoiled and dissipated, leaving him dizzy and strangely empty. The sensation lasted for only a moment before a new awareness took its place. Against everything which was possible his own senses were being penetrated. He could hear the wind in the trees and the impatient stirring of a horse, he could smell wood smoke and the metallic, salty taste of fresh blood. Although it was impossible he could feel the touch of a man’s hand, long strong fingers and rein-callused palms. He recoiled with the shock as he realised it was the boy’s senses he was feeling and not his own. Somehow the focus of his power had pulled him into the boy’s mind so he could see and feel all the boy saw and felt. He knew he had to withdraw before the link with the boy became too strong but shapes were forming before his eyes and the moment to retreat was gone.
The shapes became more solid but still the vision did not clear. He breathed deeply to impose more control on the boy’s mind and then coughed viol
ently as acrid smoke filled his lungs and stung his eyes and tears ran down his face. The sound of burning wood and falling timbers overwhelmed all other sound except the clash of steel and the screams of men as they battled and fought. Hot salty blood ran down his face and into his mouth and he went to wipe it away but it was not his own blood but that of a woman who held him protectively in her arms. Through the smoke and the blood he could just make out a pristine figure in white, still alive and his body unmarked except for the bloody stumps of his wrists where his hands had once been.
He tried to reach out to him but in an instant time had passed and he was no longer there. The fires no longer burnt although wisps of smoke from charred timbers drifted by and the arms that held him were cold and stiff. Crackling flames had been replaced by cackling carrion feeders come to feast on the dead and the taste of blood had dried bitter in his mouth. In an indignant flurry of wings the black flyers retreated from their meal as a solitary horse and rider in bronze and leather armour entered the scene of carnage. He felt fear now like never before and cringed back as far as the unyielding corpse would allow. Despite his efforts a whimper escaped his lips and then a strong hand was taking his and lifting him from the corpse’s embrace to a place high above the ground on the quarters of a large, black war-horse.
From that precarious height there was no escaping the vision of horror spread in a circle around him. Men and women hacked down and butchered, children disembowelled and dwellings burnt to the ground. On the ground at the man’s feet lay the woman whose arms he had been pulled from, the remains of her torn clothes soaked in the blood from the gash in her throat, her pale eyes staring sightlessly at the sky. The horseman cursed, mounted his horse and turned away from the scene of carnage, using his cloak to shield the child from the horror around them.
Then a new sound filled his hearing. He was still facing the man’s back but now the man stood with legs braced and a short sword drawn in each hand. Facing him in clear view were twelve soldiers, dressed in dark flowing robes, armed with long curved swords and grimly determined. They studied their quarry for the first sign of attack, their eyes flicking passed the warrior to where he stood, cowering behind his protector. A new kind of fear washed over him and took him by surprise. This was not fear for himself but for the man and intermingled with the fear was trust and love. A shout of defiance escaped the man’s lips as the soldiers rushed forward and the warrior stepped up to meet them.
His arms hurt and his head swam dizzily as if it had been shaken violently and something had come loose. Beneath his tightly closed eyelids, his eyes were gritty and stung as if he had been crying for a long time. Someone yanked hard on his hair, pulling his head back and forcing him to open his eyes. The scene had changed although there had been no sense of time passing. He looked around at the grey stone courtyard with its raised platform and sturdy crossed poles driven into the stone.
Maladran shuddered; he recognised the place and knew what happened between those crossed poles. He felt fear building inside of him, tensing his muscles and increasing his heart rate and realised that it was now his own fear he was feeling and not the boy’s. His control had returned with the boy’s confusion, giving him the chance to withdraw but before he could grasp the focus of his power a commotion caught the boy’s attention and he was swept away again on a tide of the boy’s emotions.
The guards harried their prisoner forward, quieting his struggles with a blow to his gut which made him cough and retch. They dragged him onto the platform and fastened his hands and ankles to the leather thongs at each end of the crossed poles. It was the warrior, stripped and blooded from his capture and with a long bloody wound from thigh to knee. The boy struggled against those who held him, not caring that the grip on his arm could break his bones, intent only on getting to the man. Frantic emotions tumbled from him; love for the man who had tried to protect him, guilt that he was the cause of the man’s humiliation and a furious anger that he could do nothing to help.
Viciously the guards pulled the leather thongs tighter until the naked man was spread to his limits and could not move. Maladran was assailed by emotions, the guards’ sadism, the warrior’s terror and the boy’s fear but they were nothing compared to the horror of his own feelings. He knew what would happen next and even if the boy never remembered his past he would not let him watch what was going to happen. Using all his skill and strength the magician took hold of the focus of his power and began pulling it from the boy’s mind as fast as he dare. The light moved, the scene froze and became dim and the raging tide of emotions faded but his hold was a tenuous one and the boy would not let go. A scream tore away the focus from his grasp and the scene returned in vivid detail.
It was the boy’s scream and his scream and the man’s scream joined into one as the executioner’s razor edged knife slit the man’s flesh from gullet to groin in a single stroke. He rested his knife on the man’s throat whilst blood poured down his body before the knife was used again to slice across his abdomen, spilling grey entrails in its wake.
The warrior’s pain and terror were unbearable but the boy would not release him, holding him trapped in the scene whilst pain and emotions tore him apart and threatened his sanity. The executioner rested his knife for a moment on the man’s extended genitals and when the knife cut again even the guards turned away from the mutilation but they held the boy so that the mercy of that escape was denied him. The warrior arched in one last contortion of agony and the boy gave a scream of despair before everything went black.
Maladran was ejected from the boy’s mind with such force that the focus of power was instantly extinguished, plunging him into darkness and only the boy’s scream of “Jonderill!” echoed across the void.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
CHAPTER FOUR
Magician’s Rise
Maladran slipped into the room from his hidden entryway like a shadow. He emerged from behind a silk and brocade drape which was heavy enough to disguise his entrance but light enough not to bulge noticeably as he pushed passed its rich folds. Stepping to the side, he took up one of his preferred positions in the lee of a pillar where the polished stonework reflected the light of hundreds of candles which lit the great hall but left him in the shadows. As usual none had noted his arrival, being too occupied with pushing themselves forward into the centre of the hall. They knew that standing in a shaded corner was no way to attract your liege’s attention when he held court.
If there had been someone else present hiding in the shadowed corners of the audience chamber, either through disgrace or devious designs, he would have emerged further down the hall. There was a space between the walls of the great hall and the treasury room which allowed him undisturbed passage and from there he would have watched them carefully to see what knowledge could be gained of their intentions. Unbeknown to those present there had been several occasions when he had taken such advantage, to the dismay and downfall of any who would plot against the king. He alone was aware that much of what people claimed to be his gift of magic was merely the fruits of careful observation and the sharp wits to take advantage of others indiscretions. If they had asked he could have explained this to the court and eased their suspicion of him but it did no harm for the cringing courtiers to fear him and keep him at a distance.
Now he observed them from behind the iron throne as they paid court to the king of Leersland and his contempt for them remained unchanged. From his position they resembled a waddling flock of coolly birds, all feathers and frills of cascading, garish colours. Their fine silks, imported from across the great ocean to the far south, held the radiance of the candlelight in a display of intermingled hues. It was a pity that the subtle effect was ruined by the thousands of gemstones sewn into the silk, many of them poor imitations, which snatched at the light and cast it back in jagged beams. Their resemblance to the placid and stupid coolly bird did not stop with their fine plumage. Those at the rear, the least of the flock, periodically stood on their tip toes and craned the
ir necks forward and sideways in as much of an effort to be seen as to see what was going on. Those at the centre, who had a much better view of proceedings, gathered together in small clutches and bent their heads in a huddle as they clucked and squawked about the proceedings before them.
They were the flock, the crumb peckers and blade fodder when sacrifices had to be made for the good of the kingdom. The real cocks of the roost stood in the front row, their plumage so brilliant it put the others into the shade and their gesturing and strutting so comical that Maladran had difficulty controlling his laughter.
Slightly in front of the three Great Lords of the realm stood a man of no less physical stature or gaudy refinery but who appeared shrunken and cowed. Lord Andron jabbed a finger at him making him cringe further whilst one of the others appealed to the figure on the raised dais for justice. Meanwhile the other Great Lord pushed the visibly shaking sacrifice forward and then stepped back as if to touch the man would contaminate him.
Maladran watched dispassionately; it was all a sham of course, a charade, a game invented by the powerful houses to deflect attention from their own activities. If it meant that one of their own number disappeared from view every now and then what did it matter? One less noble family meant more land for the sons of those who remained. By now the subject of their accusations, the young Lord Tulreth, was cringing so much that he had fallen to his knees with his forehead touching the floor.
The magician allowed himself a very small smile, he had seen terrified coolly birds roll over and die at this stage before but this one looked stronger than most and would likely survive the ordeal long enough to feel the full force of the king’s justice. Maladran moved suddenly, almost surprising himself with his decision to show himself and intervene. It was something he rarely did when the king was holding court and passing judgment. The changes which had come over him during his journey had made him feel magnanimous towards the man, besides which he had waited long enough to talk to Sarrat. Apart from anything it would give him considerable satisfaction to put the three pompous Great Lords firmly back into their places, grovelling at the feet of the king and, of course, the king’s magician. He sauntered towards the dais and instantly drew the king’s attention to him.
