by Sam Bowring
‘May you live forever in that fetid carcass,’ he howled, ‘with only the maggots in your eyes for company!’
He flung his sword at her, and she grunted as it lodged firmly in her back …but she did not bother to turn as the bouncing of the horse began to work the blade loose. She swerved to avoid a brace of goblins and Bel managed to land a kick on one of their necks as he flew past, and was rewarded with a crack.
It wasn’t enough.
‘Let me go!’ he screamed.
•
A shadow mage flashed past Tyrellan’s knee, and quick as a cat he reached down from his horse to snatch her by the hair. Her momentum almost ripped him from the saddle, but he tightened his legs and held fast, feeling some of her hair come loose in his grip. She jolted to a stop with a cry, her legs almost shooting out from under her, and twisted around ready to attack …but froze as she stared into Tyrellan’s impassive face.
‘None of that,’ he said, and released her.
‘No, First Slave,’ she said, rubbing her head painfully. ‘I did not know it was you.’
Tyrellan reached for a dagger and flung it without looking at a Varenkai who came at them.
‘Where is the dreamer?’ he demanded.
She pointed. ‘He bade us leave him, to inflict damage elsewhere while their lightfists are distracted with attacking him.’
What foolish heroism is this ? thought Tyrellan.
‘You,’ he said, jabbing her chest with a claw, ‘send out a message to all of our mages – on the authority of the First Slave, get back to the dreamer! Do it before my eyes find you again, or I’ll run you through and find another.’
He glanced around – the fighting was thick here, but over where the mage had indicated, there seemed to be a clearer patch.
‘You lot with me!’ he ordered the goblins around him, who were fending off various attacks. Then he turned back to the mage.
‘It’s done?’
‘Yes, master.’
‘Then obey.’
She nodded and sped away. Tyrellan kicked his horse after her, his goblins helping to cut a path. To his left and right, the two armies had well and truly intermixed, but ahead, where they’d first clashed, it was a different scene. The Throne stood with hundreds of lightfists, Battu as well – may his bones roast while he lives – together with overseers, healers and even some mercantile mages. It seemed that Fahren had brought casters of any quality to stand with him.
Stupidity , Tyrellan thought, taking in the different robes, to advertise one’s particular skill in bold colour.
The area before Fahren was inhabited only by corpses, and a brilliantly glowing orb resting on the ground, some five paces across. Each and every one of his mages was channelling their own stream of light into it, a fearsome web coursing through the air. Tyrellan squinted at it, trying to see through the flashing surface …what did they seek to contain so fervently? And with the thought came the answer. Who else?
His hands began to shake. They had the Shadowdreamer trapped! A fear rose in him the likes of which he had never known, threatening to freeze him in place, if not for the rage that melted it instantly away. He reared his horse and screamed, ‘Shadow mages, to me!
•
We are here , came Elessa’s voice, and Fahren’s gaze shifted in the direction of her sending. A moment later she appeared through a group of Arabodedas, flinging them aside with her power and riding out into the clear space. Behind her Bel floated in the air, his face a mask of rage. So, he had not been plucked easily from the battle.
Look Bel , sent Fahren, we have Losara trapped!
How dare you interfere , mage , replied Bel . I can drown this field in blood – I don’t need the help of your odious magic. Release me!
Fahren was stunned by the response. He had seen Bel wrathful before, but what he felt from him now went even beyond the day when they’d told Bel his father had been banished. How lost he must be in the fervour …
Elessa pulled up, bringing Bel around the horse to set him on his feet – and yet she had to restrain him still, for he struggled to tear off immediately.
‘Thieves!’ he shouted. ‘I have waited so long for this moment I was born for, and now you snatch it from me?’
‘Bel,’ said Fahren quietly, finding his own anger stirring, ‘ this moment was hard fought for, long planned for, by you and me both. See?’ He pointed off at the sphere. ‘Losara is there – you can draw him in then fight anew, your soul complete!’
Bel stared for a moment at the sphere, but his eyes narrowed and he twisted once more in Elessa’s grip. ‘To blazes with you!’ he howled. ‘Let me go!’
Fahren could not believe what he was hearing. Where was the Bel he knew? Who was this wild-eyed hateful man, greedy for nothing but death, uncaring of the sacrifices others had made to shape this moment?
‘Drunk,’ observed Battu. ‘You know, you do not need his permission to fling him into the orb.’
Elessa lifted the ranting Bel slightly off the ground, and sent Fahren a querying look. In the back of his mind, Fahren became aware of numerous shadow mages converging on the area. He felt sick. It wasn’t meant to be like this.
‘Put him in,’ he said.
•
The water curled about his toes, belying the depths that lay beneath. Around Corlas some two hundred of his best warriors fanned out atop the river’s surface, watching the battle that stretched from the shore into the distance. A shadow mage dashed past on the bank, shooting bolts at fleeing Varenkai. He glanced in their direction and stopped suddenly, his targets forgotten as he squinted at them. Old Magic would not shine in the perceptions of light or shadow mages, but at such close range it seemed this one had picked up some hint of the invisibility spells that hid the Sprites, or the water-walking that supported them.
‘He senses us,’ said Nindere.
‘Yes.’ Corlas made a grasping gesture. Water shaped like a giant hand reached from the river to seize the mage, and dragged him flailing into its depths. As his head plunged beneath the surface, Corlas made a fist, crushing the slight resistance offered by shadow magic as he squeezed the air from the man’s lungs.
‘They are so weak!’ cried Charla, delighted.
‘Not so brash,’ said Corlas. ‘We may be stronger, but they outnumber us greatly.’
He narrowed his eyes as he pushed his sight into the distance. The sphere was flashing mightily, enclosed around his other boy, the one he had never met, never even spoken to. Would he soon? No, for if the one called Losara was put back together with Bel, neither of them would be the same.
‘That is Lord Battu?’ said Charla, also watching the unfolding scene.
‘Yes.’
She reached to grasp his bulky arm and gave it a squeeze. ‘I will thank him, if I get the chance.’
‘What?’ he said, wrenching his gaze away to hers.
‘Without him you’d never have been delivered to the wood,’ she said. ‘Or to me.’
She smiled, and Corlas felt the hard look disappear from his eyes.
He saw a blond woman ride up to Fahren and Battu – and there, turning in the air behind her, was Bel! His son did not seem happy or compliant, and Corlas’s immediate instinct was to rush to him …but he dug his toes into the water, as if he could root himself to such shifting stuff.
‘It is as the Lady said,’ announced Nindere excitedly. ‘The players are in their rightful places. Soon the blue-haired man will be reborn! And then …’
‘And then he comes with us,’ said Corlas.
•
Bel knew there was no point struggling, yet he couldn’t help himself. As Elessa drove him forward, the glowing sphere loomed wide in his vision. The fight still called to him noiselessly under the constant clamour, threads of the pattern still wavering from him, looking for an enemy to latch onto …and then suddenly they twined and thickened to one, leading straight and true into the heart of the globe. He stared into the pulsing light, suddenly calm.
That’s right , he thought. This is how I’m supposed to win.
He passed through the surface – a warm touch on his skin – and, as Elessa’s hold disappeared, landed on his feet. There sat Losara, cross-legged on the grass.
‘Hello, Bel,’ he said.
‘Hello,’ said Bel.
‘How are you?’
Bel stretched his arms. He hadn’t realised how covered in blood he was. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Never better.’
•
‘They are returning,’ muttered Battu, and Fahren knew what he meant. From every direction, the briefly dispersed shadow mages were swarming back towards them.
‘We cannot cast through the sphere,’ said Fahren.
‘Order it dropped, and we will stun them.’
Fahren nodded. He did not like treating Bel this way, but there wasn’t time for anything else.
‘Are you ready?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
On my mark , he sent his mages, cease your casting. A blue bolt sizzled past, hitting someone behind him. The shadow mages were back.
One , he sent …two …three!
The streams of light feeding the sphere abated and it disappeared. For a split second Bel and Losara were revealed, Losara sitting on the ground while Bel stood – and then Fahren and Battu channelled a shockwave that set Losara on his back and Bel to his knees.
‘Now,’ said Fahren.
Please, Arkus , he prayed, let this work.
Together, he and Battu sent forth power to seize both Losara and Bel …and discovered that through the Stone, their magic seemed to consider the blue-haired men a single target. A good sign!
‘ Stop them! ’ came a shout, and he saw Tyrellan frantically rallying shadow mages. While Fahren felt sure the Old Magic ward would keep them protected, now was not the time to leave anything to chance.
Attack , he sent his mages, and light spells began to flash past.
Battu grunted and shielded his eyes. ‘Curse you all,’ he muttered.
Groggily Bel and Losara floated towards the Stone. It began to throb, so hard and fast that Fahren felt pain in his eardrums. Threads crackled from it, the darkest shadow and the brightest light, sunset orange and the grey of dusk. He raised the staff as high as he could, fearing the vortex that was forming. As Bel and Losara drew closer, they began to grow translucent. The next moment their bodies were overlapping, though the outlines of each remained visible. Power jumped at them from the Stone, their heads thrown back as they were seized by it. Fahren flinched as there sounded an almighty crack, the staff shattering in his grip, the Stone flying off to land in the grass. He raised his eyes, then glanced from side to side.
Bel and Losara were nowhere to be seen.
Part Three
Unbroken
It is true that the whole world once had a name, though by my time it had become rare to hear it used. So long had Kainordas and Fenvarrow stood divided, with so little common ground between, that not even a unifying word survived. It was us and them, neighbours living in separate lands, broken so long we had forgotten what it was like to be whole.
Ah, but how things change. How they fade away.
The Third Power
Lalenda’s wings gave out and she fell the last pace to the ground.
They had done it. They had stolen her Losara.
Tears threatened to burst from her scrunched-up eyes. She forced them back, raised her head, hardly saw the shadow mages around her mustering attacks.
‘No!’ she screamed, scrambling to her feet, and raced towards the place Losara had been sucked into the Stone. As she was just about to clear the mages, an iron grip caught her wrist and swung her about.
‘Do not,’ said Tyrellan, ‘get yourself killed for no reason.’
She wrenched her eyes back to the field. On the grass, about halfway across the clear area between the lightfists and the shadow mages, lay the Stone. Fahren was labouring towards it, his body wreathed in protective light, against which shadow spells drummed repeatedly.
‘Where is he?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing has emerged yet from the Stone,’ said Tyrellan, and for a moment she heard in his voice a note of the worry they both felt. As he stared hard into her eyes he seemed to reach some conclusion, and released her.
‘Go and get him, then,’ he said. ‘Assedrynn guide your steps.’ Then he turned and shouted. ‘A shadow ward for the Mire Pixie! As for the rest of you, beat back that filthy grasping light mage lest he steal our Shadowdreamer .’
As she moved onto the field, a darkness settled on her. She had never been the subject of a shadow ward before, but it was as if she stood just inside a tunnel mouth looking out. Fahren was closer to the Stone but slow under the rain of blue bolts and shadows. As she came to be about the same distance away as he, light spells began to break across her field of vision. The shadow mages must have actually attached the ward to her somehow, for when it juddered so did she. A blazing hot beam momentarily pierced the darkness, and she rolled as it passed overhead, flattening her wings as she felt the heat of it along her back.
‘That be a close one,’ said Grimra. She had not realised that he’d come with her.
‘Back to the army!’ she told him. A fireball painted the edge of her ward molten red. ‘It’s not safe out here!’
‘Exactly,’ said the ghost.
She began to claw along the ground, pushing against the streams of light. Ahead Fahren also struggled, his hands spread wide as he shuffled on. As the leading edges of his ward and hers met above the Stone, each of them ground to a halt. She reached towards it uselessly, but it was still too far away.
A mistake , came Fahren’s voice in her head, to have sent one who is not a mage herself.
His light began to push into her shadow, creeping towards her. Without magic of her own to push back with, she was reliant on the shadow mages channelling to her from a distance.
‘Come on, you fools,’ she muttered, as Fahren’s brightness made her squint.
‘Fly away!’ said Grimra’s voice urgently. ‘They do not be protecting us much longer – we must fly!’
‘Losara …’ she whispered. She could not leave. She would die here and never see him again. Despite the warmth touching her face, she continued to strain forward, the Stone gleaming brighter than all around it. If she could but touch it, maybe she would touch him again, somehow, somewhere …wherever he had gone. But she could not reach. A single tear broke loose from her eye, the first since the death of her mother, since she’d vowed never to cry again. It lived on her cheek for only a second, evaporating quickly in the heat. Her strength left her, and Lalenda lowered her head to rest on the grass.
The horrible heat disappeared, the blazing light too. There was a thump nearby, and a footfall. Wearily she looked up. Fahren’s ward was gone, as was hers. Fahren himself lay on his back, the air around him fizzing slightly. Over them both loomed a man Lalenda did not recognise.
He was broad and muscular with tree-trunk arms, his fingers aimed at Fahren still crackling with residual violet power. His clothes were strange – a jerkin of incredibly smooth animal hide, and matted trousers that looked like the forest floor beaten into shape. Piercing grey eyes flecked with gold stared out from a stormy face framed by a wild green beard. Around his bare feet, the grass curled anew around his toes.
Pages of books turned in her head, and she was intrigued, despite herself. This man could only be a Sprite, of fuller blood than any seen in recent history. She realised that the zap and crackle of spells had grown dim …and fell breathless when she saw the reason why. All around them stood a ring of Sprites, each one conjuring an Old Magic ward, and the spells of the forces beyond could be seen breaking on the other sides.
The man bent to pluck the Stone from the grass. Fahren managed to rise on his elbows, his brow furrowing.
‘Corlas?’ he asked disbelievingly.
‘Aye,’ said the man.
Befuddled, Lalenda still registered the nam
e. ‘Losara’s father,’ she breathed.
Grimra swirled small near her ear. ‘Looks nothing like him,’ he said.
‘But …but …’ Sitting up now, Fahren was taking in the Sprites nearby, and the wards they’d erected. ‘You wield Old Magic now?’
‘Aye,’ said Corlas.
‘But how can this be? What has happened to you?’
‘Remembered who I am,’ said Corlas. He held the Stone out in his palm. ‘What have you done to my boy? Is he dead? Or is he in this?’
‘He cannot be dead,’ murmured Fahren.
Lalenda stared desperately as Corlas closed his fist around the Stone.
‘Stay low, flutterbug,’ whispered Grimra. ‘We cannot be fighting these.’
She did not know if she was terrified of Corlas holding Losara or not. Surely his father did not wish him any harm?
A blond Sprite woman arrived at Corlas’s side, took his arm, and they turned away.
‘Corlas!’ cried Fahren, scrabbling to his knees. ‘What are you doing?’
Corlas paused. ‘Reclaiming my son from you,’ he said. ‘For the last time.’
Suddenly he and all his folk blurred, their wards streaming towards the river, flinging aside the forces in their way. Once they had headed out onto the water, they shimmered and disappeared.
‘Corlas!’ shouted Fahren, to no avail.
The opposing groups of mages found themselves staring dumbly at each other over the clear space, while elsewhere the battle continued to rage.
•
Far too many questions at once vied for attention in Fahren’s head. Of all the eventualities he had considered in terms of what might happen this day, Corlas turning up transformed into a Sprite, with warriors wielding Old Magic at his back, had not been one of them.
You may want to think about moving , came Battu’s voice.
Immediately, Fahren saw what he meant. The Mire Pixie was backing off towards the shadow mages, who had once again erected a ward around her. Others were readying to attack, and Fahren lay in the open.
