by BJ Hanlon
Edin grunted.
“We all learn in our own way, some with teachers, others by experience. As we worked together, I saw him do it to some other students and coddle different ones. Not everyone was the savage, some were the dancers, like you, others were cowards.” Bolvin chuckled. “I received more knowledge from that first beating than years of training. Pain can be a teacher.”
Edin closed his eyes as the assistant constable stopped talking. Maybe there was something to that, Edin really didn’t want to know. But then a thought crossed his mind: was Grent trying to motivate him or tell him a hard truth?
Edin took a breath and felt a furry lump collapse behind him.
The blonde woman stared at him with fierce gray-green eyes and a deep chestnut bow that seemed to shimmer between brown and gold. Her jaw was clenched and the string taut between her fingers. An arrow was pointed at his heart.
Edin was back in the courtyard with moonlight and torches lighting the ground as if someone had turned it to a stage and they were the performers.
“What are you, where is my father?” she said.
Edin felt a chill surrounding him as he pulled his cloak tighter.
She released the string and the arrow flung toward him but as it approached, it slowed. She gaped and drew anther, her hand was still quick but the second arrow slowed also, as if it were trying to move through thick water.
Ice began to form on both arrows, first on the head then down further on the shaft and the fletching. The arrows dropped to the stone ground with a clink. Shards of ice shot off.
He looked back at her, she hadn’t pulled a third arrow. The woman didn’t act surprised, she drew a long knife, with a jeweled pommel. She raised it and came after him.
Edin ducked beneath a slash and twisted from a jab, he jumped an attack aimed at his knees and rolled under another. He checked his sheath and found his sword.
The blades clattered together, but Edin felt a tingling running through his hand as if it were going numb.
She moved backward and flung her offhand at him as if telling him to stop where he was. A swirl of wind formed into a tornado but passed through him as gently as a breeze. But it was cold and sent shivers down his chest. It felt as if his heart were surrounded by ice.
“What type of wizardry is this? You are not an apparition, but you are,” she said.
“What is this place?” Edin said.
“You will answer me spirit!” she cawed. “I demand it in the name of my father.” Then she looked over him again with a curiosity. “Were you sent by him?”
A moment later, she disappeared into a shimmering light followed by the whole courtyard. A chill came to his chest. He looked down and could see a small blue glow coming from beneath his tunic. Edin reached in and pulled out the sapphire, it was tied next to the fang and glowing.
“Wake up,” a voice whispered next to him, a soft tap was all it took.
Edin looked up to see Grent and wiped his eyes. It was still dark and the moon had disappeared again.
Bolvin was crouched in the tall grass, peering out toward the south, Master Horston was crouched next to a thick ash. He heard the chirps of crickets and the occasional crack of the fire.
“What’s wrong?”
“Voices,” Grent whispered.
Edin grabbed at his sword and drew it. Would he ever get a full night of sleep again? At least one that’s not a four-day slumber next to a cursed tree.
Edin hoped he’d have time for his eyes to adjust. He stood and looked the direction Bolvin had been staring. He saw a black tree silhouetted against a dark sky but nothing else. The flames were a beacon and gave any marksman a clear shot of the group.
In his mind he saw the ice growing on the arrow after it was shot and then the ferocious blonde huntress.
Edin gripped the handle of his sword tighter, he felt his fingertips tingle and shook out his hand. His heart was racing but he heard nothing nor saw anything.
“How far are we from a settlement?” Edin asked as an idea came into his head.
Bolvin shrugged.
How could he not know? Edin wondered. He dropped his hand to his side, his palm facing behind him. He thought of a small ball of mage light in his hand and about the energy in him, around him. He felt it getting larger, growing like an avalanche. A tingle of warmth spread through his body. “Cover your eyes,” Edin whispered, “and be ready to catch me.”
He whipped his hand up sending the ball arcing through the sky like a shooting star. He began to feel faint and willed it to explode.
With a pop, streaks of light shot out from the ball like comets lighting up the grassland. Edin snapped his eyes open hoping to startle the attackers. For at least a half dozen seconds, it hung like a canopy of white light.
“Edin,” Master Horston hissed.
A blade of grass rustled, then another. No human calls or whispers. He tilted, nearly falling. He concentrated on the energy and tried pulling it in like a whirlpool does an unfortunate sailing vessel.
“No one,” Grent said as he caught Edin.
“I thought I heard whispering,” Bolvin said with a shrug before moving back to the fire.
Edin stumbled toward Bliz, the wolf was still in the bed of grass facing the fire. His yellow eyes looking at Edin quizzically.
“You should listen to the wolf,” Edin slurred. His mind went back to the dream. Why was this happening? Why was he seeing real people? They were so vivid, he could feel the snow hitting his face, the air blowing around and the coldness in his chest.
Was it a magi dream? Before his powers came, he’d had dreams of him and Kesona. Usually it was them walking in the forest hand-in-hand. Sometimes he’d be returning from a grand adventure and she would proclaim her love for him. All of those felt different, fake really.
These felt real, they were real.
Edin reached in his pocket and pulled out the sapphire. It was as cold as in his dream and it glowed.
“What is that?” Bolvin asked.
“A sapphire,” Edin replied. In the dream, it was around his neck. He was tired and still felt the chill. Would the sapphire warm him?
“I see that. It’s huge. Where’d you get that gem?”
“You wouldn’t believe us even if we told you,” Grent said.
His fingers felt three times too large, he fumbled a half dozen times trying to loop a string around its hard edges. Finally, he got it to stay, then Edin secured it next to the fang. Again, that took a few tries.
As he dropped it to his chest he expected the coldness to dissipate, but nothing happened.
“What type of fang is that?” Bolvin said.
“A crillio beast,” Edin said closing his eyes.
“You killed one?”
“Three,” Edin said lying back.
“Two of them were injured,” Grent said. “I should’ve gotten a fang.”
All of them went silent for a while. He felt himself drifting back to the realm of sleep.
“And is that all you can do?” Bolvin blurted. “Make lights in the air?”
Edin rolled over and sighed and saw the assistant constable staring at him with something that resembled suspicion in his eyes.
“I can do other things.”
“I’ve never heard of magi powers like yours. I’ve heard of the elementals, earth, wind, water, lightning and… fire. But not the white-light thing you do.”
“They’re called philios, spirit mages or so I’m told.” Horston said. “They can’t control the elements, but they can create their own. Water mages draw from the condensation in the air, wind and earth draw from their surroundings. Fire can be created with friction… or a spell.”
“Told? You said you read it? You did research…” Edin yawned and pulled himself up. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Bliz huffed and kicked out and caught Edin in the hip.
“And how do you know all this teacher?” Bolvin said.
“His father told me in a manner of speaking.” Mas
ter Horston said.
“How? When?”
“A book he left, I did know him obviously and he figured he wouldn’t be around much… and there was a good chance you had his talent.”
“You knew… and you lied?” Edin said his voice growing louder on the quiet plains. “My entire life you could’ve told me what I was… prepared me…”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing good comes from the past,” Horston said.
“We’re all products of our pasts, of the people who came before us, you told me that…” Edin trailed off. His voice quieter he said, “What was he like? I don’t even know his name.”
“Yes, you do,” Grent said. “You’ve met him, but not in many years.”
“Who? I don’t remember him? Does he live?”
“Last I heard he lives, only you know him as Uncle Rihk.”
“Uncle Rihk?” Edin’s eyes opened, “he’s my father?”
Grent nodded.
“And a very powerful terestio, an earth mage,” Master Horston said.
Grent nodded. “You can say that again, he saved our company in the war years back. I was his commanding officer, the Captain of our regiment, and Lieutenant Elva was my number two.”
“That’s why he smiled at me?”
“We were outnumbered five-to-one and were about to go to our deaths. Of course, no one knew he was… what he was,” Grent said as he looked off toward the fire. “The Porinstolians had more than a thousand men rushing our line on an open battlefield. They had a few terrins as well.”
Edin looked up at Grent, the fire was dancing in his eyes.
“You have no idea the terrifying feeling of knowing you’re going to be over run, you put on a brave face, tell the men there’s hope while staring into death’s maw and wait for the end. I was just hoping there wouldn’t be much pain.”
“I do know,” Edin said remembering the crillio. The fear that made him want to take his own life only to not feel the tearing pain. Edin wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.
Grent looked over him, saw the look in his eyes and nodded. “I think you do. Rihkar was a sergeant, a great solider, tough with the men but loved by them just as much. His skill with a sword almost matched mine. Some people thought he was a terrin… He wasn’t.” Grent shrugged and took a drink of the waterskin.
“Anyway, the enemy was a hundred yards away when he stepped out of line, in front of our whole company, I yelled for him to get back in position, but he just raised his hands. The ground rumbled like an earthquake and cliff-like walls rose on the sides of the field. It began to funnel them but they kept running. The Porinstolians, they sometimes take a weed that makes them immune to fear in battle and much real conscious thought. So instead of stopping, they began to run into each other, breaking their lines and knocking others over. Column after column collapsed but they still charged. The tinier the field, the better for us. We were in armor, real armor, while they all used leather and fought mostly with shorter blades.”
Grent paused for a second and took another drink from his waterskin.
“They lost almost ninety percent of their army. Your father collapsed after he’d created the funnel and when the battle was done, no one helped him, no one went near him. It was as if he had the plague and we’d all catch whatever malady he carried if we got too close.”
Grent looked at Edin and offered a halfhearted smile, almost an apology.
“Finally, Elva and I did our duty, we put him in a cage and sent a runner for the Por Fen… we were scared, fearful of what he’d do when he woke and learned we’d turned on him. Betrayed him.”
“What happened?”
“Funny enough, he didn’t do anything, he sat in his cell and looked out over the camp with a complacent grin. He seemed resigned to die. So, we talked, drank a few spirits. He was the same man I knew before, a loyal solider, a strong and thick-willed—some would say stubborn—man. Like his son.”
“He wasn’t an abomination, at least in the way that the Vestion preaches. Under the stars that night, him in the cage and me and Elva outside, I knew it was wrong. He took many lives and was clearly capable of destroying much of the civilized world. He could bring down a city if he wanted to, but he didn’t and it wasn’t him. The church was wrong, the Por Fen, church… all of them were wrong and I knew it. So we freed him, stuck him in the back of a wagon with other wounded soldiers and sent him away knowing our lives would be forfeit as well. But the Prince never punished us; we weren’t summoned before the Inquisitor fo Demar. I was relieved from my duty. Someone said it was war fatigue that caused us to temporarily lose our minds and I didn’t see Rihkar for many years.”
“When was this?”
He paused. “Before you were born. After that, I lived as a merchant guard for a while, I am a terrin after all so despite my past, my talents are highly sought after. Then I ran into him, both of us hired on to the same caravan. He went by Rihk at that point. He told me he met someone and fell in love. Had a child, you. Then one night, a Por Fen came into our camp, hunting your father. Someone found out he was a mage. He got away just in time.”
Edin nodded, he didn’t know what else to do. His thoughts were slow and barely keeping up.
“How’d you come to guard the manor?”
“I owed him, I still owe him. I should’ve died two decades ago. After that last caravan I found your mother and you. Master Horston was already there, though you were just a toddler.”
“Enough of this. Get some rest, we’ll be at the mountains tomorrow,” Master Horston said as he rolled over, facing the other way.
It was just before mid-morning when they reached the base of the black rock, except close it wasn’t black, it was a deep dark granite. There were no plants on any rock face he could see. It was as if the mountains were a desert of stone.
The clouds overhead looked like rolls of bread dough constantly being kneaded with the sun barely peeking through. Rain trickled in starts and stops.
Edin drank from his waterskin as Bolvin turned the horse further south. “It is around here somewhere.” His eyes moved toward the slopes and then back into the grasslands. He paused for a moment and glanced back the way they’d just came. “Where?” he whispered.
Then Edin caught sight of something dark moving in the grass about thirty yards away.
Hairs stood up on his neck. Something didn’t feel right… it felt as if they were being watched. Edin heard the clacks of rocks begin to roll down the stone wall. He glanced toward the sound and saw a black stone. It was a pure, deep black that seemed to pull in the light around it. But not just the light, the energy. Everything in its immediate vicinity felt like it had been forced inside. It was an empty space where nothing survives.
Edin felt empty… as if he’d lost a part of himself. An arm or a leg… or worse, his soul.
“Wan stone,” Grent shouted, he leapt toward it. With a quick movement he hurled it as far as he could. Further than Edin could see.
“Ambush!” Edin drew his sword and turned toward Bolvin.
“The boy is the abomination,” Bolvin yelled. He drew his two-handed greatsword and pointed it at Edin.
Edin smacked the flat of his sword on Hail’s rear-end. The startled horse reared back causing Master Horston’s animal to do the same. It threw Horston to the ground while its front hooves nearly clipped Bolvin’s beast. His horse stumbled back and Bolvin missed his attack.
Edin tried to call forth the energy around him but it was a void.
A cloaked man appeared from the tall grass and aimed an arrow. As he loosed it, Edin fell to the side just as it was about to hit. He heard it crash into the rock wall behind him. More men began leaping from the tall grass and the few sparse bushes. He couldn’t feel his power. He felt sick and scared. It had always been there for him, a shield… his shield. But they were trapped.
Men started to charge forward. Grent rode toward them, slicing his blade like a scythe cutting through body and grass so quick. Then he saw Bo
lvin swing toward Bliz. The wolf saw it and leapt backward.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a wisp of long blonde hair in the low grass. A moment later, a man dropped crying out.
This drew some attention.
Another arrow flew from the same man. It slowed and he remembered the ice forming. It kept getting slower, he glanced around the battlefield and saw Grent was the only other one moving like a man out of water.
Edin glanced at Bolvin and the arrow, the bald warrior was sweating and Edin could see his blond mustache peeling from his face. He was a Por Fen spy.
Bolvin was ten feet away, but his broadside was open. His movements were speeding up, so was the arrow.
Edin slapped his sword into the arrow as the battle increased. A spark glanced off his blade and the arrow slammed into Bolvin’s horse’s flank. The stallion bucked and whinnied loud throwing the big man from the saddle.
Edin looked back toward the archer but as they made eye contact, blood formed in the man’s mouth and he dropped out of sight.
Dephina jumped up and hurled a knife toward Edin. It flew past his head and heard a grunt followed by a thud.
She grinned at him. Edin saw his quarterstaff on the ground as three more men, sellswords, began racing toward him. He rolled it onto his foot as one raised a weapon. Edin flicked it at the sellsword, catching the man in the face as he swung. It threw the man off. Edin side stepped the downward strike and stabbed his eluvrian steel blade through the man’s heart. He pulled it out and rolled between the two other men. Edin came to his feet swinging his blade back, catching a sword strike and deflecting the blade back into the air.
The man looked shocked, but for only a second as Edin came back around and took off his arm at the shoulder. Then he was horrified. The third attacked barely a second after Edin had taken his friend’s arm. Edin leapt a low cut and twisted out of reach as the man came back with two giant sweeps. He felt something at his foot and felt the round wood. He grabbed the quarterstaff and backed up. The attacker looked over his shoulder. Someone was behind. Edin leapt forward to thrust with the weapon as he felt a soft tug behind him.
