The Wandering Mage (Convergence Book 2)

by Melissa McShane

  “You’re the enemy,” Liskesstis said. “He can’t even speak our language. You will only bring us death.”

  “We’re mages, Balaenic mages,” I said, “and even though we do magic differently, it’s still magic.” I grabbed Jeddan’s scarf from around his neck, making him squawk, wadded it into a ball and tossed it in the air, and set it on fire. That got a lot more noise, and then shushing, and the burning scarf fell to the earth (bare earth, no rugs for the evil foreigners), where I stomped on it to put it out.

  “No th’an,” Liskesstis said, staring at the remnants of the scarf.

  “It’s how Balaenic mages work their magic,” I said. “I swear we mean you no harm. And I think we can get you out.”

  She looked skeptical. Worse than skeptical—she looked disdainful. I said, grasping at anything, “Master Liskesstis, I promise you in the Kilios’s name we can free you, if that’s something you think will help. I know you can’t go back to your village, and I don’t know where else you can find shelter, but you will certainly start dying if you stay here. I bet some of you, the sickest and the smallest, have already succumbed. Please let us help you.”

  She sneered. “I know the Kilios. Who are you to make promises in his name?”

  “I’m his wife,” I said.

  That changed her expression completely. She said, “Cederic Aleynten has no wife.”

  “We were married two weeks before the convergence,” I said. “You know him? How?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What hand does he cut his meat with?”

  “His left,” I said, “even though he’s right-handed, and before you ask, he cuts all his meat, even chicken legs, and it’s an impressive feat of agility.”

  “Which of his ears is pierced?” she asked.

  “Neither, though his right ear was pierced a long time ago. You can still see the mark,” I said, trying not to think about what we’d been doing when I made this observation.

  “That only proves you’ve been close to him, not that you’re married,” she said.

  I wished at that moment I could raise one eyebrow like Cederic does. “I could give you any number of corroborating details,” I said, “but then we’d have to have a very…intense…discussion about why you happen to know what he looks like naked.”

  To my surprise, she laughed. “No need,” she said. “You’re exactly the sort of young woman Cederic would marry, if he had any sense, which he does.” I don’t know why I blushed at that. I’m putting it away somewhere to consider later.

  Just then we heard footsteps outside, and hands grabbed me and Jeddan and pulled us into the crowd. Someone pounded on the tent pole in the door opening with what sounded like a big stick. “Shut up in there, damned traitors!” growled the guard, and everyone held still until he went away. After a long, long time, Jeddan and I were released, and Liskesstis came to stand before me again. “We will not survive this,” she said in a low voice. “They have already raped a few of us. And our children…we will risk anything for a chance at survival.”

  “We can’t free you unless you have somewhere safe to go,” I said.

  “There’s a town about ten miles east of here, or was. No reason to believe it’s not still there,” Liskesstis said. “We can walk that far, or die trying, but at least we’d die on our own terms. And I don’t think we’ll die.”

  “How many mages do you have?” I asked.

  “Only one, in addition to me, and she is barely more than a child,” she said. “I am the only Darssan mage here. I thought my retirement would be peaceful.” She laughed.

  “You should gather anyone the people will listen to, and begin planning your journey,” I said, “and Jeddan and I will work on helping you leave this place.”

  “We can’t just walk into the snow! We’ll wander until the storm kills us!” a woman said.

  “Have faith,” Liskesstis said. “We’ve kept you warm so far, haven’t we? Hidden the most vulnerable? These two have offered their help, and I think they can deliver on their promise. They will open the way, and we will walk out of here. Or would you rather wait here for that pretty daughter of yours to be snatched up? Twelve, isn’t she?”

  The muttering subsided. I said, “Will you have any trouble bringing everyone together?”

  “We’ve been moving secretly between the tents ever since arriving here,” she said. “You worry about your own problem. I imagine it’s more difficult than ours.”

  I shrugged, then repeated the conversation to Jeddan, quickly. “I had an idea, but I was wondering what you’d thought of,” I said.

  “Let’s see how many guards we’re dealing with, then plan,” he said. “I’ll go outside the camp, where the snow will help conceal me, and you can look around in here.”

  It took us about half an hour to feel confident we knew what we were facing. There was a tent, well-lit and comfortably warm, where ten or twelve guards sat, clearly uninterested in going out into the cold, though one of them made a desultory loop between several of the prison tents while I watched.

  Seven other men patrolled the outside of the camp, though none of them were very alert. It was clear they all were counting on their rifles and the weather and the barrenness of their surroundings to keep the prisoners penned in, because anyone could have knocked the “fence” over and walked away. We met back up in a corner between the prisoners’ tents to confer. Jeddan was grinning far too broadly for someone facing an impossible challenge.

  “I was nearly caught,” he said, “and look what happened.” He wavered, flickered, and I suddenly had to look away, my eyes watering from trying to see past the concealment pouvra. “It’s the strangest experience.”

  “Do you think you can use it on someone else?” I said.

  “I don’t think so. I’ll try. But at least I can sneak up on those guards and overpower them. If we can clear them away, can the Castavirans walk out of here?” he said.

  “There are far too many of them not to attract attention,” I said. “They’ll make too much noise. And we can’t get rid of all the guards I saw in that tent at once. But…I have an idea.”

  “Can you set the tent on fire?” Jeddan said.

  “I could, but that wouldn’t be a long-term solution,” I said. “I was thinking of doing it the old-fashioned way.”

  Which is how I ended up sneaking into the storage tents and stealing about forty rifles, five at a time (I could carry three and use the mind-moving pouvra on two at a time, which means I’m getting stronger), and passing them out to some Castaviran volunteers with some quick instruction in how to hold them. (The Castavirans had never seen rifles before. I don’t know why they don’t have them.) It was extremely dangerous because the storage tents were adjacent to the guards’ main tent, so they could watch them, and the more trips I made, the more often I had a chance of being caught.

  But the guards were all making a lot of noise playing some card game that involved penalty drinking—take a drink every time you lose a round, or play the wrong card—and were well on the road to inebriation. My Castaviran warriors were getting impatient by the time I brought the last armful, but I told them, “There’s one more thing I need to do, or some of you might get hurt or killed. So be patient. Half of you need to go back to Master Liskesstis—quietly—and the other half wait here for your part of the plan.”

  It was going so perfectly I should have known something was about to go wrong. Just as I’d sneaked inside the main tent, intending to start gathering the guards’ rifles (there were six or seven of them, all propped against the tent wall or lying next to camp stools) one of the men stood up, stretched, and said, “I’m gonna go take a piss,” and headed unstably for the door. I was on the wrong side of the tent and there was nothing I could do except watch in horror. He was going to step outside and find himself facing two dozen armed Castavirans, they would shoot him, and then everything really would go to hell.

  But nothing happened. I had one gun clutched to my chest and my other hand resting
on another rifle, preparing to turn the concealment pouvra on it, and felt as if the pouvra had turned me to stone. No shots, no screams, not even the thud of an unconscious body hitting the ground. I slowly concealed the rifle and picked it up—might as well finish the job, since I was there—and eased my way out of the tent. There was no way I was going back for the rest. It would have to be enough.

  I went around the tent to where I’d left the prisoners, and found them huddled up, I thought against the cold. But no, they’d surrounded the guard and completely immobilized him, gagged him with somebody’s scarf. He looked furious and terrified all at once. “Take him somewhere, and bind him. Use the tent rope if you have to. You won’t be coming back here.”

  Three of them dragged him away, and I told the rest, “Just a few more minutes. And remember, you can’t kill any of them.”

  “We’ll do what we like to the bastards,” said one of the men. I recognized him as the one I’d spoken to first.

  “I don’t care what you do to them, myself,” I said, though I quailed inside at the thought of them murdering even such vicious brutes as these guards no doubt were. “But if you kill them, Endolessar will have to hunt you down or risk looking weak. Then all of this will be pointless. Please. Leave your vengeance behind, at least for now.”

  None of them looked convinced, but they did as I asked. I don’t care that it’s skipping ahead in the story to say that. I was so worried, at the time, that their anger would get the better of them, and I honestly couldn’t blame them for wanting revenge. I have no idea what it’s like to have your homes destroyed and your families brutalized in that way and I couldn’t tell them they shouldn’t be angry. But I was risking my life for them, and if they were all killed because some of them let that anger overcome them, it would’ve been a pointless risk. So I was so relieved when everything else went as planned. More or less.

  I went to find Jeddan, who’d subdued four of the guards. I told him I was impressed and he rolled his eyes. “Somebody really did believe these Castavirans were too weak and afraid to fight back,” he said. “I hardly needed the concealment pouvra to get close enough to choke them unconscious. Are you ready for your part?”

  “Are you sure it’s safe, with three guards still out there?” I said.

  “There’s nothing more I can do,” he said. “The last one made some noise, and when the next sentry went past, he looked a lot more alert. They’ll have to take their chances.”

  I nodded and went to find Liskesstis. She was waiting at the door of her tent, peering out into the snow. “This is not the best weather,” she said, “but it’s not snowing heavily anymore and I think in a few hours it will be clear.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I said. “If you can’t find that town, you’ll wander until you freeze to death.”

  “It’s better than dying in captivity,” she said, “and we’ll have a guide.” She moved her fingers, stiffly, and did it again, and then a globe of red light about an inch across hovered level with her nose. “It should lead us to our destination,” she said, “if those who know this area are capable of using it. I’m not entirely certain it will work, but it’s a better chance than we had before.”

  “Did you teach Cederic that?” I asked on a whim. “The writing on air?”

  She laughed. “He taught me,” she said, “some eight years ago, in exchange for some knowledge I gave him. The key to certain kathanas he needed to master to become Kilios. Why are you not with him?”

  “We were separated during the convergence,” I said, “but I’ll find him, or he’ll find me. I’m certain of it.”

  “I wish I could tell you where he is,” she said, “but the locator kathanas no longer work, no doubt because of how the convergence brought the physical worlds together. The magic…you could say a locator kathana recognizes the world around it and identifies a person within that landscape, and of course much has changed now. But don’t worry about it. Cederic Aleynten is stubborn and has never given up on a problem before he’s solved it.”

  “I know,” I said, and saluted her the Castaviran way. “You’ll know when to move. Good luck.”

  I went back to join my “soldiers” and said, “Take your places around the tent. They probably won’t think to grab their weapons. And remember, don’t attack. Unless it’s your life or theirs.” Then I took a deep breath and summoned fire in a great swoop, spiraling around the tent from the ground to its many peaks.

  Shouts and screams spilled out of the door, followed by guards who came up short when they discovered how many rifles were pointed at them. “Drop to the ground,” I shouted, “or we shoot.”

  A couple hit the ground immediately. One looked like he was thinking about going back into the tent, but men were still spilling out and tangling themselves with the ones on the ground. “On the ground!” I shouted, and poured more fire into the conflagration.

  Then one of the guards, who was either less drunk or had more presence of mind than his comrades, raised his rifle. Without thinking I bent my will to the shape of the walk-through-walls pouvra without touching him and saw the rifle fall through his hands, making him scream and fall backwards into the fire. Too shocked to think, instinctively I grabbed his feet and dragged him to relative safety, where a couple of Castavirans immobilized him. I told the Castavirans, “Tie them up, securely, and let’s put them inside that tent over there.”

  By the time we were finished, Jeddan arrived and said, “They’re moving. Your men need to come now.”

  A steady trail of Castavirans was exiting by way of a new hole in the fence that had Jeddan’s work stamped on it, literally, because I could see the shape of his boot where he’d kicked the so-called wall down. I saw two soldiers wriggling in their bonds just inside the wall. “Where’s the third?” I said.

  Jeddan looked grim. “He got away,” he said.

  “Then they need to move more quickly,” I said, taking a few steps toward the line. Jeddan put a hand on my arm.

  “He didn’t get far,” he said. “I…killed him. Accidentally. Went through him, and he spasmed and fell down. I didn’t know it could do that.”

  “Time to think about it later,” I said. “Where’s the body?”

  “I hid it where no one will find it until the spring thaw,” he said. “Are we done here?”

  He sounded weary, and sad, and I wished I knew what to tell him that would comfort him. I remembered what he’d said to me the night I killed the bandit, and said, “You’re not a killer. You couldn’t bear the thought of these people being left here to die and you made me see the truth of that. If you didn’t care about people, it wouldn’t matter to you what happened to that guard. Right now, that doesn’t feel like comfort, but eventually it will. You showed me that too.”

  He glanced down at me in the darkness, and said, “I think we should go,” so we trudged back around the camp, leaving the line of Castaviran refugees behind. Liskesstis was right, the weather was starting to clear, but only Jeddan’s ability to find his way outdoors kept us on the track leading back to the road, and the city, and then Debressken and the Royal Road. Then we kept walking until we found a place well off the highway to camp, and fell unconscious for maybe ten hours. We ate, and walked, and made camp again, and after writing all that I feel as wrung out as if I’d experienced it a second time.

  I keep seeing that line of travelers, stretched out like ants following a sugar trail, their heads bent against the snow. I don’t know if we sent them off to their deaths or not. I realize it was their decision, and it was a risk they wanted to take. I know we couldn’t have left them there without finding out if there was something we could do to help. If they don’t make it…I shouldn’t feel responsible, but I do. I guess it’s because I feel their fates are tangled up with mine now, and I wish I could go with them, to help along that journey. I think that’s what I feel guilty about—Jeddan and I started them on that path, then couldn’t follow it to the end.

  I need to sleep
again. We’re about six days’ journey from Venetry, unless something else happens to slow us down. I just want to get this over with. Talking about Cederic with Liskesstis made me miss him more. Venetry, report to the king—oh, damn it, he’s summoning mages, he won’t want to let us go. Report to the king, sneak away, and go east to Colosse, which Cederic’s probably already left, looking for me. We might go across this new world and back fifty times and never find each other.

  I’m going to sleep now, and pray the true God everything looks better in the morning. Jeddan hasn’t said anything since we left the Castavirans but what’s necessary to set up camp. I hope he’s coming to terms with that death. I hope I’m doing the right thing by not making him talk about it. I’m so glad I’m not alone on this journey.

  Chapter Ten

  8 Nevrine

  Jeddan was back to normal today, or at least he was able to talk about normal things as we walked. We discussed pouvrin, mostly our mutual unexpected discoveries. Jeddan showed enthusiasm when he told me, in more detail, how he’d mastered the concealment pouvra. “You’re right,” he said, “it’s not the same as the others. It felt sharp, somehow, like a knife blade pressing against my skin.”

  “Yes, to me it feels more angular than the Balaenic ones,” I said. “I wish I could talk to the mage who invented it. I wonder what he thought he’d discovered. He put everything in terms of th’an, even though Cederic said there was no way it would have done anything if someone tried to write it. But he knew something about pouvrin. Not the way we both do, but even so, maybe his knowledge would help us.”

  “You said he was insane,” Jeddan said. “I’m not sure how useful that would be.”

  “True,” I said, and sighed. “What I’d like to know is how I managed to do that with the walk-through-walls pouvra. It happened so quickly I’m not sure I can do it again.”

  “I think you should practice as we go,” Jeddan said. He took a few steps off the road and wrenched a thick branch from a tree; it was dry, and snapped off easily. “I’ll hold it, and you make it fall.”