The Wandering Mage (Convergence Book 2)

by Melissa McShane

  It is growing too dark to see these pages. We will be posting watches throughout the night, those capable of the shield kathana taking their turn at it—I believe I can improve the kathana to expand the size of the shield, but that will not be possible before morning, and we will all be exhausted by then. Our…I have no idea what to call them, those mages whose magic is lost. They are not former mages, I refuse to think of them as such, not when they have all of them labored for so many years to gain that knowledge. Our mages who cannot work magic will set a traditional watch, joined by men and women of the refugee camp.

  I think we will survive this night, which is more than I can say for the rest of Colosse. It breaks my heart to hear the shouting, and the screams, that come from beyond our walls. Wayn and Cybel want to lead an attack, to push our shields even farther, but in this darkness we would accomplish nothing, and I refuse to risk the lives of those already under our protection.

  Sesskia would think nothing of the darkness. She would likely already be gone, searching for those who need protection, bringing them back to us. I barely understand this magic that has…she called it “waking up,” but to me it feels like a beast breaking free of a cage that will overwhelm me if I do not leash it. I cannot even imagine the pouvra that would let me see in the dark. I will put this away until the morning, and I will try to sleep before I take my turn with the shield kathana.

  I do not know if I should wish to dream of Sesskia, or fear it.

  (17 Coloine)

  We have all survived the night, though the need for food is once again becoming urgent. It is time for us to send out a scavenging group. I wish I could go, to sweep the street ahead of us with this pouvra, but I am needed here, to keep everyone else’s spirits up. I never thought my primary purpose in life would be to be a mascot—no, that is too cynical, I am for good or ill their leader, and they look to me.

  Master Peresten is very ill, though it is an illness of the spirit and not of the body. He responds to no one but Master Engilles, and only rarely to her. I wish I had time to spare for him, but we are about to move our shield eastward, skirting what is left of the palace and moving toward the storehouses. It is likely they have already been looted, but we must take the chance.

  (17 Coloine, later)

  The storehouses were guarded by troops—Aselfos’s troops, as it turned out, with five battle mages. The soldiers looked reluctant to engage with us, almost afraid, but the battle mages had no qualms about turning their magic on us, and seven of our people (three of them refugees, one of them a child) were killed before we could kill them. The loss of their battle mages made the soldiers even more reluctant to attack, and a few sweeps with the mind-moving pouvra convinced them to throw down their arms and flee.

  We took possession of the storehouses, all of them intact, and waited for our scavenging group to return. They brought back more than a hundred more refugees, but very little in the way of supplies, so it is fortunate Aselfos thought to guard the storehouses from the depredations of people like us.

  Unfortunately, we have reached the limit of what territory we can keep shielded. People continue to seek shelter here, but we will soon be at capacity, and I have no idea what to do next. We have what I think can be called a council, Sais and mages and citizens, and we will meet to discuss our options. Then I will try to speak with Master Peresten. Master Engilles tells me he has not eaten for nearly twenty-four hours. Mage or no, he has the finest mind in Castavir, and I will not see him lost to his despair.

  (18 Coloine)

  We have decided to seek out Aselfos and attempt to treat with him. His coup attempt failed—at least, I call it failure because he has been unable to maintain order in the city, and it is clear no one rules in Colosse—but he is not insane, and we may be able to work together to restore civil order. A group led by Lineta Arnisen will seek him out. Mrs. Arnisen has a strong presence and has kept the peace within our sanctum, and I was surprised to learn that she is no community leader, but a householder and mother of three children, only two of whom survived to find refuge here. Strange how, in times of crisis, leadership arises from the least likely places.

  Those of us who remain behind are working to bury our dead and make better arrangements for supplying our groups. There have been more disagreements as our numbers grow, and I am called on more frequently to mediate disputes and, in some cases, stop fights. I used to hate the Kilios’s robe, but now I wish I had it, because it commands respect in ways I more fully appreciate now.

  I overheard a conversation in which one of the Firtha mages asked one of ours how I can remain unmoved by tragedy, whether I am as heartless as I seem, and I felt like taking the man by the throat and shaking him while I howled out my grief and anguish. The city is in ruins, people are dying, there is no one to set it right, and I must stumble along and turn a blank, unfeeling face to the world because if I once give in to the emotions that threaten to overwhelm me, my authority would vanish, and I would be useless.

  If only Sesskia were here—oh, my love, I am so selfish that I think only of how much I need you and not of what you might be enduring. But every time I begin to be afraid for you, I think of how much you have already survived, and it heartens me to know that you are not defenseless. I swear I will find you, and soon.

  Now that we have achieved some small measure of stability, it is time to put the mages to work. I may possibly be motivated by selfish desires—how many of these people have also lost loved ones?—but as wretched as Colosse’s situation is now, how much worse will it be when we encounter the people of Balaen? We will need someone who can communicate with them, and as Master Peresten continues unresponsive, Sesskia is crucial to our efforts. Tomorrow, then, we will begin our search.

  (19 Coloine)

  Utter failure. Did I once consider myself a talented mage? Why, then, did it not occur to me that our search kathanas are all calibrated to a Castavir that no longer exists? The coming together of the worlds has altered the landscape in a way we do not know how to correct for. The only positive thing that came from this debacle is proof that Sesskia is, in fact, alive. Alive, but nowhere that we can find her.

  My momentary elation has now given way to the stomach-clenching dread that is my constant companion. I cannot see clearly—I sleep poorly these days, between the demands of my position and the knowledge that if not for my stupidity, I would not be sleeping alone. I need another mind to see this problem anew, and that mind is in danger of being lost to us forever.

  (19 Coloine, later)

  I don’t know whether Sesskia tried to record conversations, or how she managed to remember the details. For most of the discussions I have had over the last three days, it has been sufficient for me to summarize the outcomes. But now I wonder if I should have been making more of an effort to record the specifics. So I devised a kathana to improve memory over short periods of time, and used it when I spoke with Master Peresten. The effect is very odd. Words take on a metallic echo, and even now that the kathana has faded, I find that I can recall the words of our conversation perfectly, not just the words but the tone of voice and the gestures each of us made. I am not sure if I will use it again, but it may yet prove useful.

  Our territory contains a number of houses as well as some larger buildings, and Master Peresten and Master Engilles have a bedroom in one of these houses. Master Engilles looks worn out, and I think she has not slept more than four hours at a time since the merging. “He’s worse,” she told me when I arrived. “I still can’t get him to eat.”

  “Will he let me speak to him?” I said.

  “He probably won’t know you’re there, Sai Aleynten,” she said, but let me into the bedroom. It had been a young woman’s room, once, with brightly colored blankets on the bed and matching curtains pulled back from the windows to let in the light. A vase under one of those windows contained a handful of dying flowers, pink and gold, that felt uncomfortably like an omen, as if Master Peresten’s health were tied to these wilting blooms
. Master Peresten lay curled up on his side under the colorful blanket with his fists pressed against his chin, his blue eyes wide open and staring at nothing. I pushed his legs gently to the side so I could sit next to him. “I would like to be alone with him, if you don’t mind, Master Engilles,” I said, and she nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

  I sat and looked at the young man’s face for a while. I cannot begin to imagine what he must have felt, to scribe that th’an and see no effect. He would have been Kilios in less than two years, at the rate he was going, but the rank was only the result of what truly mattered to him, which was magic. I have never seen anyone with such a thirst for knowledge, never known anyone with such a brilliant mind. What might he have become, in a world that had never been divided? A linguist? An historian? It all seemed like so much waste that it infuriated me.

  I whipped the blanket off him and grabbed the collar of his shirt, and hauled him up so his head was close to mine. That got a reaction; he flailed a little for balance, and his round eyes focused on me, though he still seemed confused and a little dull. “Terrayel Peresten, you will listen to me,” I said, trying hard not to let him hear the full fury that surged through me at the thought of losing that brilliant mind to whatever dark depression had its claws sunk into him.

  “You have had a loss no one but I can possibly begin to comprehend. Your life has changed forever. You knew what your future held and now that future is gone. I am sorry for that. But it is past time you got out of that bed and found out what your new future holds. No, look at me,” I said, grabbing his chin and forcing his head up from where it had begun to droop. “I need you, Terrayel. You may not be able to work magic anymore, but there is no one more capable of understanding it than you. Sesskia is missing. Our search kathanas will not work. I cannot find her without your help.”

  His eyes focused on me again. “The magic won’t work,” he said in a hoarse voice. “It’s all gone. Broken and drained away.”

  “Then I will perform the kathana, and you will tell me which th’an to use,” I said. “Don’t you dare look away from me, Terrayel. Or did your brains drain away with the magic? Have you forgotten all of the fifteen languages you speak? The history of the Castaviran Empire and all its rulers? The laws of mathematics? You are still a genius, with or without magic, and you have never once disappointed me in all the times I have asked you for something. Don’t disappoint me now. Please. Help me find my wife.”

  I think it was the last word that woke something in him. He struggled away from my hand and leaned back, supporting himself against the headboard of the bed. “Sai Aleynten,” he said, “what can I do? What can I ever do again?” He began sobbing, and that, strangely, reassured me; if he could finally mourn his loss, maybe he would not sink into that black emptiness again. I laid my hand on his head, briefly, then went to the door, where Master Engilles had clearly been listening. She rushed past me to put her arms around Master Peresten, pausing only briefly to give me a look of thanks. It seems we both had the same idea.

  Now I will wait for Master Peresten to come to me. I feel more optimistic than I have since this whole fiasco occurred. We will find Aselfos and treat with him, we will bring order to this city, and we will bring Sesskia home.

  The Meeting (24-25 Seresstine)

  Cederic reached up and traced over a th’an whose glowing outlines had begun to fade. The negotiation tent was as warm as they could make it, but the bitter cold outside meant the magic drained more rapidly than usual. It was warm enough that he could do without his coat, displaying the Kilios’s robe clearly. It still awed him, when he thought about it, that he was wearing a piece of Castaviran history. Haelen Quelten, first Kilios, had donated her robe to the Royal Museum in Colosse before her death, and Cederic’s mages had liberated it so Cederic would have an outward symbol of his rank to command respect, having burned his own robe after Denril’s murder by the former God-Empress. He stopped himself picking at a frayed spot on the sleeve. He had never had that kind of nervous habit before, not since—

  He stopped himself before he could be drawn into a reverie tinged with guilt and sorrow. His fault, that Sesskia was lost somewhere in this new world. He had never erred in a kathana in his entire life, and the one time he made a mistake…his failure could only have been worse if he had killed her with his flawed kathana, and it was cold comfort that he had only failed to return her to his side. No more thinking of her. He needed all his wits focused on the meeting at hand.

  “They haven’t responded, Sai Aleynten,” Master Peressten said, entering the tent and bringing a flash of bright sunlight with him. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “I am not sure of anything,” he said, “save that we should not approach them first. The stealth of their approach tells me that they were prepared for an attack, and I think we should not do anything that might be construed as provocative. We will wait, and if they choose not to approach…then we will plan again.”

  Master Peressten nodded and ducked back out of the tent. How strange, that losing his magic had made him more confident rather than less. Or perhaps it was the discovery that what made him the man he was had nothing to do with magic. In either case, he was an exceptional aide, and Cederic was grateful for him. Grateful for all of them, the survivors of the convergence kathana, bound together now by that experience. It broke his heart that necessity was turning them into battle mages, though they didn’t seem upset by it; if anything, they were enthusiastic about the promise of being able to serve Castavir, or whatever country might arise from the post-convergence world, in any way they could.

  He had taught them all the shield kathana he’d invented to divert Renatha Torenz’s wrath, hoping it would be enough to protect them. He hadn’t exactly lost his confidence in his magic, but he felt less certain these days, without—he was doing it again. He sat in one of the camp chairs and put his face in his hands. Tomorrow he would return to the locator kathanas, and he would not allow other business to get in his way. He would simply tell anyone who needed his advice or magic or judgment that he was unavailable. He needed to stop lying to himself.

  “Cederic, they’re coming,” Wayn said, hurrying into the tent. “Three horses, but at least one of them is carrying two riders.”

  “Get everyone inside, please,” Cederic told the short, compact Sai, who nodded and called something out the door of the tent. Now was where they learned whether the Balaenics would listen to his proposal. They were at least a little reasonable, that they’d sent only a few people to this meeting rather than a column of armed soldiers, and brave, to come out to meet a handful of battle mages with no protection.

  Cederic stood and paced, going over his words for what seemed the thousandth time. Perhaps it was the wrong decision, telling them so much about Castaviran politics, revealing their weaknesses, but if he had any chance of convincing them to aid him, they needed to know everything.

  The mages came into the tent, Master Peressten bringing up the rear. “Definitely five people,” he said. “Five of us, five of them. They’ve come to negotiate.”

  “I wonder what they think we’re here for,” Wayn said. “Our army by far outnumbers theirs—they might think we want surrender.”

  “So long as they are reasonable, and disinclined to panic,” Cederic said, “they can think anything they like about our intentions.”

  They stood, and waited. Cederic felt his hand tremble, and gripped the back of the camp chair to still it. This was not the time to be mastered by emotions. He closed his eyes and took a few calming breaths. This would work. And if it did not, well, they would simply have to proceed without the Balaenic Army’s aid. Capturing Renatha Torenz was still possible. He hoped.

  Hooves beat a steady rhythm on the packed snow, drawing closer. Cederic forced himself to remain calm, listening to the cadence and trying to pick it apart into the sound of three horses slowing to a stop outside the tent. The jingling of harness. Boots landing on snow. The rustle of f
abric against fabric as people walked toward the tent. Cederic straightened and faced the door, flanked on each side by two mages. It would work. His hand was still trembling.

  The soldiers outside parted the door flaps, and three men entered, followed by two smaller figures. One of the men and both the smaller figures—women?—were hooded against the cold so no part of their faces showed. Cederic wished his own coat were so all-enveloping; the fur trim looked warm. The man in the center was tall and broad, with pale blond hair and gray eyes that met Cederic’s in a direct, penetrating gaze. Cederic returned his gaze with equal confidence, concealing a moment’s unease. This man had power, and knew it, but power did not always translate into reasonableness, and if his confident gaze indicated mulishness rather than understanding, Cederic’s task would be nearly impossible.

  The blond man said, “I am General Mattiak Tarallan, Commander General of the Balaenic Army—oh,” he said, turning and extending a hand to one of the women. “You’ll need to translate,” he told her, drawing her forward.

  “I am Cederic Aleynten,” Cederic said, “and I speak for the Castaviran Empire. Thank you for accepting our offer of parley.”

  The woman stumbled and clutched at General Tarallan’s coat; his hand more firmly supported her elbow. Cederic glanced once at her, then back at the general, who said, “You speak our language,” somewhat surprised. Then he said, “Cederic Aleynten,” wonderingly, as if the words were the key to some mystery, and continued, “I think we have already found common ground.” He helped the hooded woman stand and gave her a little push in Cederic’s direction.

  “I do not believe we need fight with one another,” Cederic said, feeling a little irritated at this disruption of their meeting. General Tarallan’s expression had gone from wondering to—could that be regret? Cederic closed his hand on the camp chair and tried to focus. Then the woman put back her hood and said, “Cederic.”