The fellow leaned close, whispering in a conspiratorial fashion. "See, the high-and-mighty Sceptanar, he's no fool. He knows that Gormantor of Akanax would beat him in any kind of stand-up fight. So he's looking for a way to break the deadlock. I've heard that he has a coven of sorcerers working for him, silencing the few wizards Gormantor employs, razing Akanax's castles and firing its towns. He's had the Akanaxans on the run all summer."
"Doesn't seem right," Fineghal grunted.
"Well, that's what the king of Mordulkin thought, so he jumped in on Akanax's side. Airspur, too. Forced Cimbar and Soorenar to split their armies, one to march south against Akanax, one to march west along the coast to deal with Airspur, and the third landed by Cimbar's fleets on the shores under Mordulkin's walls." Satisfied with his answer, the soldier moved closer to Eriale as the barmaid returned with their ale.
"Oslin sends her soldiers to fight for Gormantor of Akanax?" Eriale asked. Gereax of Oslin had been Akanax's vassal for decades.
"Of course. If we don't help Gormantor beat Cimbar and Soorenar, we'll all be singing the praises of the Sceptanar by the end of the year," the soldier said. "I'll be damned if I'll call some wizard my king."
Aeron weighed the soldier's words. He had to get to the college to see for himself what was going on. Dalrioc Corynian must have secured Soorenar for Oriseus after all; it seemed likely, based on the course of the war the Oslinite described. Did Oriseus openly flaunt his command of shadow-magic, or did he conceal his role in the sorcerous winter that had fallen over Chessenta? The soldier was only reporting rumors and speculation, but he didn't doubt that there was truth in the fellow's words.
The soldier leaned forward, making a show of pouring Eriale a mug of ale. "Enough politics. What business sets your feet on the road on a cold, lonely night?" he asked her.
Eriale set her face in a stony expression. "I travel with these gentlemen to Mordulkin."
"You mean to find work there, too?" The soldier's coarse laugh indicated the type of work he thought she might be looking for. "Where the armies go, there's always a place for an enterprising woman to earn some gold. Me and my fellows-" he jerked his head over at the other soldiers-"have been riding back and forth across this country for a week now with not a night to relax. Why don't you join our table for a bit?"
Eriale shook her head. "No, thank you. These gentlemen have offered to escort me to Mordulkin. I'll stay with them."
The soldier turned a hard stare at Aeron and Fineghal. "You fellows don't mind, do you?" Behind him, the other soldiers pushed back their chairs, slowly standing. The taproom fell silent as the other patrons felt the tension in the air. Aeron sensed an ugly black flicker in the weak currents of the Weave that flowed through the room. Why would the corruption of magic limit itself to the forces of nature? he realized. Every living creature carries a spark of the Weave in its heart. Could a person's spirit be poisoned just as the fields and the waters have been tainted?
Playing his part as an old mercenary, Fineghal scraped his chair back a half-pace, clearing his sword arm for action. "I think that the lady has made her preference clear," Fineghal said quietly, smiling without humor. "If she wants to stay with us, she'll stay with us. But we'd be more than glad to buy you and your fellows a round or two of drinks to show our appreciation for the good king of Oslin and the fine men who serve him."
The soldier's face darkened. "I don't want your lousy ale. I want the woman. There's two of you and five of us, old man. If you're smart, you'll just get up and walk out that door."
"All right," Aeron said. He stood and reached down to help Eriale to her feet. "We'll leave. All three of us."
The soldier twisted his face into a vicious sneer. "The two of you must be hard of hearing. I said, the woman stays here!" He lunged forward and caught Eriale's free arm.
"Take your hands off me!" Eriale barked. "I don't want your company, or your fellows either. Leave me be!" She yelped in pain as the soldier twisted her arm and pulled her away from Aeron. The fellow turned back to grin at his friends and took one step back across the taproom before Eriale's hard-driven heel came down on his instep with bone-cracking force. The swordsman cursed and drew up his foot, while Eriale leaned back and swept his remaining leg out from under him, throwing him to the floor. She took two steps back, fire flashing in her eyes. "I am not a piece of property," she said in a clear voice.
The hairy soldier rolled quickly and stood, wincing and favoring his foot. He drew the broadsword from his belt with a long, rasping hiss. "You'll be sorry for that," he snarled. The other soldiers bared their blades as well, advancing with menace in their eyes.
The soldier yelled and threw himself at Aeron, who stood closest to him, leveling a furious high cut that Aeron barely ducked under. The other soldiers followed in a rush of steel and leather. Aeron caught a glimpse of Fineghal's sword flashing as the elven lord parried two attacks and riposted, stemming the tide for a moment. Another man tried to seize Eriale, but the archer danced back, vaulting over a table.
The soldier attacking Aeron recovered from his swing and brought the sword back in an overhand cut that would have split him in two if it had landed, but Aeron rolled aside. He found his staff and brought it up to deflect the next blow. Steel rang on steel as Fineghal duelled with two of the soldiers. Chairs and tables clattered to the floor as Eriale dodged away from her pursuer. That's four, Aeron thought. Where's the last one?
Behind Fineghal steel glinted, catching Aeron's eye. The last man had circled around to position himself behind the elf, and he was preparing to strike. "Fineghal! Look out!" Aeron yelled, just as he barely managed to twist away from a vicious thrust by his opponent. He dropped one end of the staff squarely on the injured foot of the black-haired swordsman, and was rewarded by a howl of pain and a momentary stumble. He started to speak a spell, but the swordsman unleashed a flurry of blows that drove Aeron back, unable to find the opening he needed.
Fineghal leaped and whirled, running the last soldier through as the fellow rushed him. But his sword caught in the man's mailed ribcage for a long moment. The two men who had first engaged him pressed forward, scenting an easy kill. The elven mage released his sword, backed away two steps, and barked an incantation, extending his hand to unleash a dazzling spray of brilliant sparks. The shower blinded his attackers and drove them back, although the spell left Fineghal staggering with fatigue. The glamour that hid his features shimmered and vanished.
"Sorcery!" spat Aeron's attacker. "I should have known!"
"Wizard! He's a wizard!" The other patrons cried out in fear or anger, suddenly scrambling aside to give Fineghal a wide berth. From one dark corner a dagger glinted in the air, thrown by a beefy teamster. It turned once and struck Fineghal high in the shoulder, lodging just above his collarbone. The elf reeled and went to one knee, his hand reaching up for the knife.
This is getting worse, Aeron realized. He ducked away from another slash and countered with a jab that the soldier stepped into, clamping one hand over the end of Aeron's staff and trapping it against his body. The soldier grinned ruthlessly and raised his sword to cut Aeron down.
Without even thinking about it, Aeron barked a word that triggered the staff's magical powers. Blue light flashed and a wave of arctic cold raised patterns of white hoarfrost all over the room. The hairy soldier stood frozen to the spot, covered in a cloudy rime of ice a handspan thick. Shouts of dismay and rage echoed around him. Aeron wrenched his staff away from the frozen soldier, ignoring the sick crack and crunch of icy fingers snapping away with the dark wood. "Stop this!" he roared.
Across the room, the spark-burned soldiers stood over Fineghal, their swords red. They looked up in surprise, just as Aeron spoke another word that hammered them like the strike of a sledge, blasting their broken forms against the opposite wall and splintering the wooden floor. He whirled to search for Eriale, and found her struggling on top of one of the tables as the lout who had been chasing her tore her shirt open.
Aer
on shouted in rage and charged him, striking the soldier across the shoulders with a staff empowered by a smiting-spell. The mercenary's mail shirt literally disintegrated with the blow, and he collapsed in a nerveless heap. As Aeron reached down to help Eriale to her feet, something heavy struck the back of his head, knocking him to his knees. Cold wetness ran down the back of his shirt. Blinking in astonishment, he focused on a large wooden mug rolling on the floor.
"He's a wizard too!"
"He killed Jonos!"
"Get him before he casts any more spells!"
Eriale hauled him to his feet. Everywhere he looked, the tavern's denizens were charging forward, armed with knives, clubs, or just their bare hands. "Aeron, do something!" Eriale cried.
Aeron thought for a split second, and mumbled the words to a spell he'd crafted only a few months ago. He exerted his will to seize the tangled threads of the Weave that burned just out of reach, building a cage or barrier. As he spoke the last word, the room suddenly became smoky and dim, as if viewed through thick, dark glass, and the sounds faded to mere whispers.
"Aeron? What did you do?" Eriale's voice was clear and close to him; she was within the barrier. She flinched away as a heavy stool hurled through the air at them, but it seemed to strike something in midair a few feet from her face and clattered to the ground. Around them weapons rose and fell, but nothing could seem to reach them.
"It's a magical barrier," Aeron explained. "Unless someone in here is a wizard with the right spells at hand, nothing can harm us. We'd better get Fineghal and leave while it lasts." With Eriale clinging to his side, Aeron walked ahead slowly, the furious blows of sword and club no more tangible than the flutter of a moth's wings. He moved over to where Fineghal had fallen, and knelt by the elf, gently turning him over.
Fineghal's white tunic was scarlet with his blood. He'd been stabbed several times. His face was white as ice, and his skin was cold. "A skillful barrier, Aeron," he gasped. "Yet.. it is a little. . too late for me, I fear."
Aeron's heart seemed to shudder and stop. "We'll have you out of here in a moment, Fineghal," he said. He reached down to pick up the elven wizard, uncertain of what he could do to help, but determined not to leave him lying in the wreckage of the tavern. He'd never imagined that Fineghal could be hurt, let alone wounded to the point of death.
The elf lord grasped his hand, stopping him. "It won't matter, Aeron." He gazed into Aeron's face. "I had hoped … that I could aid you. . against your enemies, but this quest will be yours alone. You must succeed, Aeron. My death-and Kestrel's-will be but two … of a countless number … if you cannot break the stone's spell."
Aeron leaned over the fallen elf, openly weeping. "Fineghal, I don't know what to do."
"Nor do I, Aeron. This sorcery is. . beyond my comprehension. But you have learned both. . the elven and the human ways of magic. I think that you have it within you to understand. . and destroy this evil." Fineghal coughed raggedly, drawing a deep gasp that bubbled in the back of his throat. "Telemachon would have known … what to do," he whispered. "He was a great diviner. I believe … he saw this day coming."
"Telemachon is dead," Aeron said.
"His work may not be," Fineghal said. "Go now … before your barrier fails. You cannot fall. . "
"I won't leave you!"
"My spirit … is passing, Aeron. If you perish. . my death will have been for nothing. Please.. flee while you can."
"You're not going to die," Aeron stated, determination in his voice. He bent down and tenderly cradled Fineghal in his arms, struggling to his feet. "You've taught me something of the old healing songs. All I need is a little time to ready them-"
"After a thousand springs … it seems ironic. . that I cannot spare you that," Fineghal said with a faint smile. "Farewell, Aeron." The light faded from the elven lord's eyes and his fingers slipped from Aeron's grasp.
Aeron dropped to his knees in shock. Outside his gray wall, the angry peasants and laborers waited in silence, watching for some break in his impervious defenses.
Beside him, Eriale knelt and reached down to disentangle his arms. "Come on, Aeron. We've got to get out of here."
Dully, he nodded. He reached down and took Fineghal's pouch of spell-tokens, and then stood again. "Oriseus is going to pay for this," he said. Then he led her out into the night.
Seventeen
For the rest of that night and most of the next day, Aeron and Eriale pressed on, stopping only when exhaustion forced them to. Aeron's spirit was empty, and his heart ached as if it had been filled with cold ashes. Kestrel's death still seemed unreal to him, an awful mistake of some kind. Now Fineghal was gone as well, a noble spirit whose death seemed senseless. One by one, every person he'd ever learned from had been taken from him, with the sole exception of Oriseus, and Aeron didn't like to think of what the High Conjuror might intend for him. He could only keep his horse's feet on the road leading north, and lose himself in the dull rhythm of the ride.
Eriale matched Aeron's own silence. Grief set her face in a forlorn stare, and the endless mist and rain beat her hair into a dark, wet hood, so that she looked like a lost child. Aeron knew that he should send her back to Saden before evil befell her too, but he didn't have the strength. Lost in her own sorrow as she was, it still comforted him to know that she rode beside him. If he needed any reason to continue on, any incentive to confront the failures of his past, Eriale provided it. For her sake he had to carry on.
Late in the afternoon after their flight, they came to the road that sliced northwest from the ruins of Luthcheq to Soorenar and the great city of Cimbar beyond. They turned west, riding more carefully-they were traveling into the heartlands of Chessenta, the broad belt of townlands and terraced hills that ran from Akanax to Cimbar, and the relative safety of the desolate hinterlands was gone.
Near sunset, they left the road and camped in a dense copse a few hundred yards to one side, building a small fire and drying out their traveling clothes as best they could. "How much farther is it to Cimbar?" Eriale asked over a cold and cheerless meal of trail rations.
"I'm not sure. I traveled by sea when I was here before," Aeron replied. It raised his spirits a little to break the silence. "I think we'll reach Soorenar by late in the afternoon. After that, it's another two days to Cimbar."
Eriale nodded. "Have you thought about what you'll do when we get there?"
He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "No. I haven't even thought about it, with-"
"I know. I haven't been myself lately, either. I didn't know Fineghal as well as you, but he was one of the noblest souls I've ever met." She smiled softly. "The world's a sadder place without him."
"And Kestrel."
"And Father, too." She set a tin cup on a stone by the fire, dropping a handful of coffee grounds into the water. Aeron was struck by the severe lines of her face, the weariness in her gestures. Eriale was too young to have so many cares. "So? What will we do?" she asked.
"I don't know," Aeron replied. "I'll need to get to the chamber of the Shadow Stone, examine it closely, see how the spell works. Maybe I can determine how to stop it."
"Won't that be dangerous? Could it be guarded?"
Aeron shrugged. "It might be. Then again, the stone seemed capable of protecting itself."
"That's not what I meant. Wouldn't Oriseus be careful to protect the stone, to make sure that no one tampered with what he was doing?" Eriale stirred the coffee with a stick. "If Oriseus's got any sense at all, he'll guard his work to make sure no one interferes."
"He might not need to, Eriale," Aeron said. "Oriseus's spell may be unbreakable. Even if he knew I was coming back to Cimbar to stop him, he might not care."
Eriale's eyes flashed. "Listen, Aeron. If you can't undo Oriseus's work, then there's no hope for any of us, and there's no sense making any plans at all. We might as well go home and wait to see what the world's like when he's finished with it.
"Since we both know that we're not going to turn around and go
back to Maerchlin, let's assume that you'll be able to find some way to reverse the spell. And if we assume that's true, we'd better also assume that Oriseus knows it, and that he'll take steps to make sure that no one can upset his work." She held his eyes, cold determination in her face. "I am not going to let you give up on this before we see what we're up against, Aeron."
He flinched, but refused to look away. "All right. I don't think we'll have anything to worry about until we reach the college grounds. The city's far too big, with thousands upon thousands of people and places to hide. But the college sits on the acropolis, surrounded by the university and the Sceptanar's palace, and everyone inside knows who is supposed to be there. That's where we have to worry."
"Why can't you walk right in? There's no law against it. You have every right to be there if you wish," Eriale said.
Aeron shook his head. "That might be true, but why ask for trouble? Oriseus is Sceptanar now; he'll command hundreds of soldiers in the immediate vicinity. If he is inclined to make sure that I can't undo his design, there's no one in Cimbar who can defy his authority."
"Do you know a spell that would let us creep in without detection?" Eriale asked.
He thought for a long moment before shaking his head. "There are wards around the college to defeat magic like that," Aeron said, "and I'm certain Oriseus would have added to them."
He warmed his hands, watching his coffee beginning to boil. There was just too much he didn't know. Did any factions oppose Oriseus's rule? The demagogues of Cimbar's Mob had railed against the reign of the previous Sceptanar, albeit to little effect. Were there any masters within the college who still opposed Oriseus? How many of Oriseus's disciples were at the college, and how many had been sent out into Chessenta, like Crow? Any scrying spell he cast might be noticed and investigated. Suddenly Aeron laughed at himself with a sharp and bitter bark.
"What? What is it?" Eriale asked, sitting up straight.
"The problem with being a mage," Aeron said, "is that you try to figure out how to do everything with magic." He gingerly retrieved his cup from its place by the fire, blowing on the hot coffee. "I know four or five spells that could have warmed this coffee or conjured it up out of nothing. But this campfire and a few old grounds will do just as well."
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