by Greg Curtis
Then it was their turn to go flying.
Luckily they were well protected and the bruising was minor. But how had they done that? He asked himself that as he picked himself up again. His magic wasn't supposed to be able to be reflected back at him.
But there was no time to wonder about such things when one of them cast a wave of icicles at them, and he heard the sound of them smashing into the wall behind them and shattering the wooden wall boards.
“Bloody hell!” Baen picked himself up quickly but he was starting to become worried. These two – these women – were tough. Far tougher than he'd expected. The chances of their winning through weren't as high as he'd hoped. Baen quickly cast a dust storm at them, thinking it would at least distract them while he worked out what to do. He threw it at the women and watched them disappear in a wall of dirt.
“Nyri?” He turned toward her, hoping she had an answer.
In response Nyri stamped her foot and what remained of the floor suddenly rose up and flew toward the women trapped in their cloud of filth. How effective it was, he didn't know. But he heard them scream and knew a moment of pure happiness at the sound. Maybe it was wrong but he was bleeding from head to foot and Nyri wasn't much better.
Then the back of the warehouse exploded in a ball of fury and fire, and the feeling went away. So did the dust and the floorboards that had been attacking them, along with half the building. What remained was left hanging precariously above them, threatening to kill them.
“Shite!”
He swore but recovered quickly when he saw that the remains of the building weren't about to collapse. Thankfully the two women were down, lying on the ground outside the remains of the warehouse, and he could see that they didn't have much fight left in them. And they were on dirt. He had an enchantment for that.
A heartbeat later he had the earth rise up with great arms and grab them, then start squeezing as it pulled them down into its deadly embrace. That was the end. The women didn't have anything more left to fight with, and the spell was practically burying them alive and crushing the air out of their lungs. They tried to scream, but no sound came out of their mouths.
The battle was over. Not being able to speak, or gesture or even concentrate, the women couldn't cast. He breathed heavily, relieved to have won. What was happening to his world lately, he wondered? Not so long ago the most exciting thing that would ever have happened to him would have been an expensive sale in his store. Now he was battling wizards?! He shook his head in disbelief.
“Nyri?” Baen called to her and then hurried over to her to check that she was alright when he realised she was on the floor and not answering.
Happily she was fine, just winded, although she looked just as battered and bruised as he felt. So much so that she didn't even object when he held out his hands for her to help her up. Not even when he wrapped her up in his arms, even though it was probably not the sort of thing wardens did. Not during a battle anyway. Then together they picked their way across the bare joists to the two trapped women.
Once he reached them he warded them both to stop them casting. He didn't like doing it even though he wasn't branding them permanently as he should. He'd suffered the horror of having his magic locked away from him himself. But he couldn't allow these two to retain their spells. They were just too damned dangerous. The ward he'd cast would wear off in time.
After that there wasn't much to do. He pulled the imbued rings off the women together with their necklaces and any other enchanted items they carried on their person while they kept swearing at him. They even tried to hit him.
Only once he and Nyri were completely satisfied that any magical threats had been dealt with did he release them from the earth’s embrace. Even as they picked themselves up and wiped the worst of the dirt from their faces, Baen sat down to recover. Nyri remained standing – she would no doubt think it poor form to show any form of weakness – but he knew she too had to be tired.
“Pig! Piss pot!” One of the women cursed him.
Somehow he wasn't surprised to find that once she'd removed enough of the dirt from her face he recognised the woman. He'd been expecting to see her again in time.
“Estor.” he named her. “Which means that you must be Estor’s mother Metea.” He nodded to the other figure, noticing only then that her hair was completely white. The seer had to be nearly a hundred. Even her daughter had to be seventy – much the same age as the Duke she'd tutored in magic. “We haven't met.”
“And we weren't supposed to. Ever!” She spat out some of the dirt in her mouth. “But everything is so addled. My thoughts are addled. I knew this was a bad idea, but it was all we had. This wedding can't happen! It will destroy everything!”
“I take it the bad idea was to attack us? Or was it coming to Cedar Heights in the first place?”
“Both, you dolt!”
“You could have stayed away,” Baen pointed out. “Gone somewhere, lived a quiet life. No one would have gone looking for you. Certainly not me.”
“All my memories are dark. Full of blood and pain. And some are only of death. None are solid. Without Estor's potion, I'm helpless.”
“And I'm truly sorry for the suffering your gift causes you,” he replied. It was actually the truth. He understood what she was saying. Her world, her entire future had been thrown into chaos when the raid on the Glade of Grace had failed. When war hadn't broken out. And barely had she started recovering from that when her High Priestess' plans had fallen apart. Then the Duke had lost his claim to the throne and once more her future had changed. And now the wedding. She had had to stop it. And that desperate gamble had failed. Once more she was lost, desperately trying something to cling on to. Some stability. He saw the pain in her eyes.
“If you give me the enchantments and ingredients I can probably make some. My Great Uncle Mortimer has the same problem. But it won't be up to me to decide whether you receive it. You'll be handed over to the custody of the wardens of G'lorenvale. They'll decide what to do with you.”
“They'll kill us!” Estor told him bluntly.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “I don't know. But do you think that that's not the fate you deserve? You worked with the Duke to send raiders into Illoria and they murdered a score of people, injured scores more and then tried to abduct even more. It is up to them to determine what justice demands.” And if they did swing from a rope he wouldn't shed a tear for them. But he kept that thought to himself.
“I had no choice!”
“That may be. I wasn't there and so I don't know. But I do know you're talking to the wrong man. It's not my decision.” He paused for a moment, to let that sink in. “But one thing I do know. The Fae will be more willing to forgive if you can tell us where the Duke is.”
“We don't know!” Estor yelled at him as loudly as she could while scrubbing at her hair, trying to get some of the filth out of it. “Our arrangement was temporary and totally at his whim! Filthy bastard! He called, we came.”
“And how did that work?” Despite everything Baen was curious. He noticed that Nyri was listening closely too.
“I was travelling, exploring the world as I hunted down the ingredients for my work,” Estor, snapped at him angrily. “He used his gift to find me and then he somehow caught me. He knew where and when I'd be and what I'd be protected against. He knew I'd learned how to create a potion to ease the suffering of my mother and he wanted it. Then he tricked me. He lied to me.”
“He does that,” Baen agreed. “He lies.”
“But he told me he cared. The foul bastard! He got me with child. And then he sent our child away. Our son. I was trapped as if he'd locked me up in a dungeon. And then he used me to control my mother. I could only send her the potion when he decided. And she suffers.”
“And then he used me as a weapon against Sia Oran.” Metea took over. “Not that I cared. She is a despicable creature. But I had to tell her things. Lies that suited him. Lies that changed the future – and my future.
Lies that left me in agony and confusion.”
“He does that too.” Baen had worked out that the Duke had used the daughter to control the mother – he'd done much the same thing with Dariya and her mother. But he hadn't completely worked out how. Just that it involved the potion the daughter had made. Using a son though, that was new.
“So you told Sia Oran exactly what she needed to hear to plan her war and to turn the world upside down.” Baen wasn't completely sure he could blame her entirely for that. But he was sure some of it was her fault hostages or not.
“I had to. He had Estor. His people. He has other friends in G'lorenvale. Ones who will do his bidding. They forced me to take my daughter's potion.”
“They forced you to take the potion?” Nyri asked. “I thought it was supposed to make the life of a seer easier?”
“In small doses. A taste only. It makes the memories of what is to be less real. You can live in the present alone and only know the past as they change. But if you use too much it takes the memories away completely. All the memories to come fade and they don't return for weeks or even months.”
“And now you've stopped taking the potion.”
Baen suddenly understood why she was complaining about her memories of the future. They were all slowly returning to her since she'd stopped taking the potion, and she was now experiencing a world of confusion. Trying to work out what was real and what wasn't. It had to be hard. To go from knowing everything about your life, past, present and future, to knowing almost nothing. And then having an entire new world of memories take their place. Metea was lost. Maybe that was the reason why she'd come to Cedar Heights? When all her thoughts were in chaos, perhaps the Royal wedding was actually the only solid future memory she could cling to. An anchor point in her life.
But something she had said led him to other questions.
“You said that Duke Barnly has other friends in G'lorenvale?”
“Many. Sia Oran leads a cabal of priests and priestesses who dream of a glorious past. In their hearts they want to restart the war and claim Grenland for our people. But many of those she thinks follow her, listen to the Duke instead.”
“Praise the Lady!” Baen shook his head in sorrow. Was there no one that the Duke hadn't manipulated and twisted to his ends?!
Not only had the High Priestess been receiving her lies about the future straight from the Duke himself, her people had become his followers too. She had become a game piece in his game of power twice over!
And it suddenly occurred to him that when he had been given the High Priestess' name to speak to, that information had come from the Order of Friends and their counterparts in the Hallows. Which meant that in three days’ time when the wedding took place, some of those wardens who were there to help keep the peace together with the city guards, might actually be working for the Duke – even if they didn't know it.
Suddenly he felt ill. All his plans might yet be undone! It could be that the Duke might only have been pretending to be ruined when everything that had happened could have been part of his plan from the beginning! Just how far did the man's cunning go? And how did you fight someone who not only knew the future but was actively working to shape it to his ends? Someone who lied and deceived as easily as he breathed? And someone who had been planning his ascension to the throne for decades?
“With me please.” Nyri abruptly took over, ordering the two women to their feet and then marching them around the side of the ruined warehouse and then out into the street. They didn't try to resist. “We'll get you a nice clean cell where you can bathe, and then you can start telling us about every single friend of the Duke's that you've encountered over the years.”
Baen walked with her, a couple of steps behind the prisoners, knowing that what she was doing was the right and sensible thing to do. In the end the grandmother was the creator of her own demise – and that of her daughter and grandson. Because though he had no evidence, he knew why her life had gone wrong. She had been born to one she didn't like. Probably a plain one. And she had wanted more. So she had told others of her gift hoping it would lead to greater things. But predicting the future could change it. And the moment she had set her feet on that path, she had changed her future. And with every prediction she had made, it had become worse. That was why her fate which she had been trying to avoid, was so poor.
And from there, everything else had followed. Her daughter had studied her potions, desperate to help her mother. And in finding the potions the Duke had found her. To control the daughter a son had been conceived. And from there, the son controlled his mother, his mother controlled her mother and the matriarch controlled the High Priestess. All because this woman had been unhappy with the life that had been given to her. It was a tragedy of ambition.
Gaol was the right place for the seer. And interrogation was necessary. But he also knew in the churning pit of worry that was his gut, that it wouldn't be enough. And he only had three days to work out what he needed to do.
But then it occurred to him that he already had the answer. He walked a tiny bit quicker to catch up to the prisoners.
“So Estor, tell me about this potion…. It makes memories of the future fade but not the past?”
“Baen!” Nyri groaned at him. “I know that tone!”
“Yes, you do!” He stepped back a pace and wrapped an arm around her waist before kissing her on the cheek happily. “And I know how to completely confound an annoying seer's ability!”
“Sadly, I believe you,” she sighed and shook her head sadly. “If there's anything you do know it's how to confound things!” But she returned his kiss as she said it.
Maybe he thought as he walked with her, his great uncle was right. There were children in their future.
Chapter Forty Four
One day to go. Dariya stared out the window at the rain and thought it was a perfect accompaniment for her mood. In one day she would be married. Or dead. Maybe both. It was hard to be sure. Just as it was hard to be sure which she preferred.
In the end, she just didn't want to be married though she understood the need for it. It could well save her life. Certainly it was likely to bring a measure of peace to the world. But she had never wanted to be married. It wasn't J'bel's fault. If she had sought a husband, he would have been the best she could have asked for. She just didn't want a husband.
And her wedding tomorrow would just typify everything that was wrong with the world for her. She was a woman, and this world was unfair to women. Brutally so. And nothing was more unfair than the fact that she was right now, technically the Queen or the Regent, and yet she had no power. Or rather she had only one power, the power to confer the title of King on a man! How could that be right?!
That was the problem with Grenland, she thought. It didn’t value women. It wasn't right! That was the truth. She was as smart as a man. Smarter than most she fancied. Stronger too. Better educated. And she could fight better than nearly all of them. But even as the most powerful woman in the realm she could do no more than bestow power on a man!
She couldn't even be a soldier! With the exception of certain elite orders like the Friends, she could never take up arms in any military. Not that she wanted to be a city guard or a rank and file infantryman. She could never lead a noble House either – if she tried any agreements the House made would be immediately made invalid. Any commands she gave would be ignored. And she would be openly mocked. And she could never rule.
As far as she was concerned the raindrops outside the window were just the bitter tears of women everywhere. And they had been crying for a lot longer than just a few days.
Still, she had to go through with this disgrace. Dariya carefully slid the dress over her specially shaped chain mail and did her best to wear a smile as she did so. She didn't even bat away the hands of the seamstress helping her dress.
“You look lovely milady,” the seamstress announced as she finished straightening her dress and stepped back. “Just like a Queen.”
<
br /> Dariya resisted the sudden urge she felt to yell at the woman. She was just trying to be nice. Besides she wasn't the youngest either and you didn't yell at aged women. But she bristled regardless. And took a deep breath.
“Let’s just get this dress rehearsal over with, shall we?”
Why in all the hells she needed to do this, Dariya didn’t know. And dressed in her full regalia too They would even recite the vows and the priest who would marry them tomorrow would officiate. It seemed like far too much preparation to her. All that was missing was a damned crown! But the wizard insisted. He claimed it would help him to prepare for tomorrow. And that she needed to practice her vows anyway.
She suspected that the truth was that he just enjoyed her discomfort. But she couldn't accuse him of that. Not when he was letting her stay in his home instead of the Mission. And paying for everything too. But then, she decided resentfully, he should pay since the whole damned wedding was his idea! And it wasn’t as if he didn’t have the gold to pay for it. Just what sort of wizard had more gold than a King anyway?! There was something wrong there.
