The Melaki Chronicle Volume II

by William Thrash

  She took another step, her head tilted a little, angled down, her eyes peering up at him as if she knew... something. “I knew. I knew. You are one.”

  “What... are you talking about?” He looked around, suddenly ill at ease.

  She took another step, becoming more fully illuminated. Her voice was barely above a breath. “I know what you are.”

  His gaze darted around, searching. “I am a wizard.”

  She took another step, now just a few paces away. Her face radiated a beauty of curiosity and wonder. “Oh, yes, that and so much more.”

  “I do not trifle--”

  The woman dismissed him with a toss of her wild hair. “Think I come here to trifle?”

  He seemed unable to find coherent thought. Her eyes were almost white, they were so gray. Her eyebrows were dark, but her hair a shining silver-gray. “Then why are you--”

  “You would draw those like us together as moths to a flame; do you not know?”

  “Know? I am not sure--”

  She took another step closer. Touching distance. “Your essence is unlike other wizards. You did not know, did you?”

  “My essence?”

  She looked up into his eyes, searching, her eyes glittering with emotion and fascination. “Never had I thought to see--”

  Aggravated, he leaned forward. “And what is it you see?”

  She laughed, light, mirthful, and constrained by propriety. “I see me.”

  “You? What?”

  She leaned towards him, her nose close to his. “I see one who is as me. One who uses that which we should not. That which is forbidden--”

  He gripped her arm suddenly and pulled her away from soldiers standing nearby. Walking with her to a safe distance, he released her. “What do you mean?”

  She smiled, the crease at her mouth long unused but gracing her face with an inner light. “Those such as us,” she breathed, “are those who must conceal--”

  “Enough,” he said, roughly. “Explain what you believe.”

  She tilted her head. “Are you that young yet that you can not feel me?”

  “Feel you?” He was confused.

  She stood straight. “See me,” she said.

  “I already see you--”

  “No. See me with your magic.” She looked very confident.

  “What do you mean by see? Delve you for illness?”

  She squinted at him, confused. “If you call it that. Look within me with your magic.”

  “I--”

  “Look.”

  Melaki heaved a sigh and patterned his delve. He looked into the woman, sensing along her body for health or illness. He found health. Searching slower, he concentrated. He felt something beyond the health.

  She was grinning.

  What is she wanting me to see? He ran his concentration all throughout her being, and that is when he realized that just like the itch between his back, there was a nagging difference having nothing to do with her health.

  He stepped back, breathing heavily. He had never felt anything like the sort. “What is this?”

  Her smile showed teeth in pleasure. “You see it now?”

  He gripped her head, her soft hair in his hands. Her body trembled, exhibiting a fear not found in her eyes. He delved again, but this time in a different direction. What direction, he knew not. But a different direction. Not one of health. There in her, bringing wonder and immediate fear, was a golden and shimmering source of familiarity.

  He gasped and released her head.

  Immediately, she brought a finger to her lips. “You saw.”

  He gaped. He had felt himself there, within her. But not himself. He had felt of himself. Something familiar to himself.

  She took a step towards him. “You saw.”

  He looked around wildly, searching for a closing ring of Altanlean wizards, ready to seize... But there were none there. Only him and... He looked back at her. “Who are you?”

  “Bellina, Witch of Remana.”

  “Witch?”

  She looked up into his eyes, hers as bright as his must have been. “I heal the sick.”

  He had nothing to say. He had seen in her the familiar because it was unlike the delving he had done of other wizards. The glow within was different in those that used spirit magic. Finally, he found words. “You use--”

  “Shh!” She looked around in the darkness. Searching towards the nearby campfires. Satisfied no one was near, she looked back to him. “I use magic of myself.”

  “It is forbidden.” He said it without thought, a reflexive reaction designed to satisfy the scribes and elets of the Altanlean Ruhka.

  She smiled up at him, her voice a breathy whisper. “Of course it is.”

  He focused into those reflective eyes. “You understand that a death sentence--”

  She smiled larger. “Hangs over both of us.”

  He stumbled back, then took the step back close to her. “You have survived--”

  “I have lived. But there have been no wizards looking over my shoulder.” She pinched his sleeve between delicate fingers. “But I see that you have lived among them.”

  “What would you have of me?” He felt afraid, his inner being trembling in fright.

  She leaned forward again, her face close to his. Her eyes were earnest; her eyebrows drawn down. “Teach me.”

  “Teach you?” It was almost an exclamation too loud in the dark. He lowered his voice. “What do you think I can teach you?”

  She looked his face over, her eyes roaming. “The power radiates off you like the warmth from the flames of these campfires.”

  “But I--”

  “You know more than me.”

  “I do?”

  “I can sense it.”

  What did she mean by that? He had felt the power of Talin and the lich Mokura in a different way. Could the woman sense his own in that way? “I am not sure--”

  Her bark of a laugh was abrupt. “Do not turn me away. I have met none like you in two hundred and thirty-five years. Our kind needs strength.”

  “Strength?” He looked back down at her after looking around again.

  Her whitish eyes bored into his. “We would benefit each other.”

  “I can not--”

  “Do not send me away.”

  “Send you away? What makes you think we have an agreement to--”

  “There is greater danger, separated, for those like us.”

  “What do you mean--”

  “We can help each other, and I would do so.”

  He had been holding his breath. He took a deep breath. “It is dangerous to be with me.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “No, you can not.” He recalled Tila. He remembered Rashilla, who would have killed him had she known.

  “Do you think you are the only one that has had to hide?” Her eyes pinned him in place.

  If she was over two hundred years old, what could he know compared to her? “I would not presume--”

  She placed a finger against his lips. “Then do not.”

  “What would you learn of me?” I do not know much.

  “What you know. And I would trade you what I know that you do not.”

  “What could I possibly teach you?”

  She stood back, fist on hips and gave him one eye. “Is that an insult to my age?”

  “No, but--”

  “I sense within you knowledge beyond mine.”

  He nodded, accepting that for the truth without feeling the proof of it himself. Had he come so far on his own that he had bypassed what this woman could have learned in over two hundred years?

  “Teach me,” she whispered. “And I will be there to help you.”

  He was nodding, slowly, before he consciously realized it. Was this not what he felt? Was this not what he wanted in seeking out the giants? Who was he to deny this witch the same that he sought? “Very well.”

  Her smile was full of promise. The creases on her cheeks seemed long forgotten. Her eye
s hopeful but melancholy. “I will move my tent.”

  And she did. As Melaki tried to sleep a little later, he heard struggling and hammering. He peeked outside his tent. In between his and Eliam's tent, the woman was forcing her smaller tent into place.

  She wiped a lock of errant gray out of her eyes and looked at him.

  He looked around beyond her and then back to her. He gave a nod and then withdrew back into his own tent.

  His dreams that night were of magic and running. From what he tried to escape, he was not sure.

  * * *

  Eliam shook his head. “Leave them alone, Galli.”

  He stood beside the bald assistant as they watched Melaki walking with the wild-haired witch.

  “This must stop.” Galli frowned.

  “Why?”

  “Because he is a wizard. And wizards do not have interests like this.”

  Eliam smiled. “You fool, have you never been in love?”

  “They are not in love. They are arguing about magic.”

  “And you think that is not love?”

  “We are a day from the capital. He should be concentrating on what is coming.”

  “This might be exactly what he needs.”

  “Being distracted?” Galli seemed perturbed.

  The soldier grinned. “No, being occupied with thoughts that lift his spirits.” Eliam poked the short man.

  Galli grumbled.

  CHAPTER 14

  Melaki shook his head. “No, I do not see it like that. When I cast, I see patterns.”

  “Patterns?” said Bellina. “Like sewing patterns?”

  He chuckled, but still felt exasperated. He felt as if they had little on which to base a commonality with which to proceed. “I suppose so. I think of what I want and a pattern forms in my head. I apply my effort--”

  “No, no, I see a forest of vines. Weaving through them I come to the completion of my spell.” She looked at him annoyed.

  “A forest? That makes no sense.”

  She looked up at him, fists on hips. “Neither does making sewing patterns in your mind.”

  “They are not exactly sewing patterns--”

  “Do you use a needle?”

  “A needle?”

  They walked beside Tila. They would be near enough to the capital to see it in the morning.

  “And a thimble?”

  He looked at her indignantly. “Do you use a scythe?”

  “What?” she said. “A scythe?”

  “Yes, to cut through your vines?”

  “They are not weeds--”

  He leaned close to her. “And my patterns do not make dresses.”

  She huffed.

  Adaris snickered behind them.

  His friend's chuckle reminded him to keep his voice lower. “I have wondered if my usage is peculiar.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He waved a hand. “In my notes--”

  “What? You do something so dangerous?”

  He frowned at her. “In my notes, I have wondered if my visualization of patterns is just a trick I use to draw out my power.”

  She drew breath but then snapped her mouth shut. “That is actually interesting.”

  “Oh?” He felt good to have finally impressed her.

  “I did not think that anyone else using magic from within might use or see a different way of accessing their abilities.”

  “Right.” Excitement tinged his voice.

  She pouted. “That does not help us much, though. How can you teach me--”

  He grunted. “Yes, a problem.”

  “I feel hopeless--”

  “No,” he said. He put his hand on her arm. “You look into people. You told me to look into you.”

  “Yes, the sensing.”

  “I call it delving.”

  “What an odd way to--”

  Melaki stopped and turned to her. “Allow us to assume that our ways of envisioning are different.”

  She looked up into his eyes, curious, searching. “Alright, then.”

  “But we have something in common. We shall use that.”

  A smile flickered across her face as they began walking again. “You can teach me through my sensing?”

  “I believe so.” He went quiet for a moment, thinking of his own instructions in the wards of the Ruhka. “You watch me, and feel it. I learned much that way.”

  She glanced at him. “If you say so.”

  “I had to teach myself, Bellina.”

  “Then you learned much from the Atlanteans.”

  Altanleans. But he did not bother to correct her. “I suppose I did.”

  “I envy you.”

  He looked sharply at her. “Do not.”

  “But in such a short time you have discovered so much - become so powerful--”

  “I would give it all up to restore my village and my family.”

  She went quiet. He had told her the day before about his village and his induction into the Altanlean Ruhka.

  He shook his head. “I did not mean to be morose.”

  She looked up at him, walking beside him and his horse. She had no horse of her own. What little she had she carried in a satchel across her back. “Please, my thanks to you for sharing of what you know.”

  Melaki felt Tila nudge him and he reflexively patted her neck.

  “It must be wonderful to be so close to you.”

  “Hmm?” he said. He did not fully grasp that.

  “Would you allow me to see your magic writings?”

  He drew a sharp breath, immediately guarded. But then he relaxed. “I... I suppose that might be useful. I do not know.”

  “Allow me to see. Allow me to judge.”

  He looked at her. “If it makes no sense?”

  “Even so.”

  He nodded. “Tonight, then.”

  * * *

  Adaris watched Melaki talking to the witch. He had been close a few times – close enough to hear.

  What was so special about magic? Other than not everyone did it? They seemed defensive.

  Galli was in the cart next to him and his horse. “Eliam says to not try figuring them out.”

  He sniffed. “My life is figuring things out.”

  “Well, if you say so. But are you not no longer a spy?”

  He glared at the bald man. “Callacans are--”

  Galli's sudden squinting cut him off.

  Adaris felt bad. “My sorrow, Galli. You are a good man.”

  The man grunted and sat up. “Melaki is a strange one. I find discretion the best policy.”

  Adaris threw up his hands. To him, discretion was an invitation to find out what was being hidden. He grumbled in dissatisfaction.

  Galli frowned. “Stop that or I will put worms in your stew tonight.”

  He laughed. “You would, too.”

  “I would.” Galli's look said he was serious.

  “I suppose I should be thankful that a wizard of his stature is helping me.”

  Galli looked satisfied. “There you go. Now you have the right attitude.”

  He looked sideways at the assistant, but he saw no guile in the man's eyes.

  Leading the way, Melaki walked with the witch.

  * * *

  Eliam said, “Bah.”

  Finli fidgeted in his saddle. “They could destroy any--”

  “The Vattonses will be of enormous value.” He waved around them. Masses of villagers, mostly women, moved with them towards Galvir.

  “They will be in the way.”

  Tolos looked around him. “I believe Eliam is correct. They will be of much value.”

  Finli scowled. “They ride against their own king. Their loyalty is in question.”

  Eliam grunted. “They ride against a usurper, if reports are accurate. Perhaps you should look at it as if they ride to restore their rightful king.”

  The Callacan guard captain to the king shifted in his saddle, a thoughtful look on his face. “Hmm.”

  Tolos winked at
Eliam and gave an approving nod.

  Finli was not done. “Their former king was enemy to Callacan and Tartessan.”

  Eliam shrugged. “Then so be it. Lagash is enemy as well, no?”

  “Hmm.” Finli fidgeted some more.

  Eliam knew that meant he had no viable argument, but still questioned. It was as far as he would get with the king's guard captain.

  * * *

  Melaki crawled into his tent. “Come inside.” He unwound his satchel. Bellina poked her head in.

  * * *

  Eliam and Tolos watched the witch try to crawl into the small army tent.

  They heard Melaki. “Come in and I will show you.”

  Eliam nudged his friend and waggled his eyebrows.

  * * *

  Melaki said, “Close the tent flap after you.”

  She tried but there was so little room to turn.

  “What do you want to do first?” He held up the satchel.

  “Like you said earlier. Show me something,” she said.

  * * *

  Eliam took an elbow from Tolos.

  * * *

  Melaki said, “Watch close.” He produced a blue light.

  Her eyes went wide with wonder. “Let me see again.”

  * * *

  Eliam snorted.

  Tolos said, “I will get us some drink. This is getting good.”

  They heard Bellina in the tent. “It is so beautiful and large.”

  Eliam and Tolos went into a coughing fit.

  Tolos stumbled away to get the drinks.

  * * *

  Melaki winked out the light and made it again. “Reach for it. Feel it.”

  The sound of laughter came from outside the tent and then some furious coughing.

  Melaki dismissed it from his mind. “Can you see it? How I did that?”

  Bellina blinked. “I think so. It feels so strong.”

  Two men snickered outside the tent.

  He shifted the pattern, turning the light. “I can twist it, manipulate it, play with it--”

  The men outside the tent at the fire guffawed.

  Bellina started to look back, annoyed.

  “Keep feeling it. Probably just some bawdy story.”

  Snarls, snorts, and snickers from outside sounded as if a herd of pigs were forming an army.