Key to Magic 02 Magician

by H. Jonas Rhynedahll

  Then the Phaelle’n, having had enough, charged.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Mar brought the cart straight down into the center -- the only clear area -- of the barbican court. The marines had erected tents on all other available space and, apparently, the families of the Old Keep’s defenders were quartered within. Many of the children squealed and pointed as the cart descended and wives and other assorted relatives stopped what they were doing to watch curiously. As the wheels settled, he released his spells but kept a slight lift in the front axle in place of the missing wheel. Several legionnaires ran up, shouting questions. He waved at the wounded.

  “Get them out quickly! I have to return to the palace immediately!”

  Ghesev climbed down to make way for the injured corsairs and Rhel to be removed from the tail of the cart, holding Prince Davfydd protectively. The lad’s head danced about, taking in the unknown armsmen and the unfamiliar locale. He seemed to have recovered from his fright, and watched all with wide-eyed interest.

  “Phehlahm, Borlhoir,” Mar ordered, “go with the Prince. Find him something to eat and get him settled in with the families.”

  “One of us had best return with you, sir,” Borlhoir countered.

  “No, I’ll need every span of space for Lord Ghorn and the rest.”

  When Phehlahm appeared ready to protest further, Mar stared him down.

  “That’s an order, marine!” he groused, doing his best to imitate Berhl and striving to project the presence that Mhiskva radiated naturally. If the Mhajhkaeirii were going to insist that he was a High-Captain, then he was, by Forty-nine non-existent gods, going to take advantage of it!

  Not at all happy, Phehlahm saluted. “Aye, sir!”

  A fugleman appeared with an armful of blankets to bear the wounded pirates into the barbican. Rhel walked under his own power, but appeared ready to collapse. As soon as the last man was off, Mar gestured the Mhajhkaeirii back and poured umber screeches into the frame to make the cart bolt skyward. When he cleared the walls, he raced toward the palace.

  As he crossed above the Transept, he saw to his east that the Phaelle’n, a sea of armored figures, surely a full legion, had reached the plaza at the intersection of the Transverse. The legion formed a defensive square that securely blocked both avenues. No Mhajhkaeirii’n forces were to be seen. Another enemy legion arrayed in maroon and gray was only moments farther to the east, marching determinedly along the empty Transept. Yet a third was off to the west, almost at the western fortress.

  Bringing down the armory had not held them for as long as he had hoped. The Old Keep could certainly hold out for a short while, at least, but it was clear the mighty Citadel of The Greatest City in All the World had fallen. The Phaelle’n victory was all but complete.

  He had expected this, but still there was anger. He shook his head, thrusting away the rawness of the emotion and the desire to strike at the Monks that it brought. He might delay the Phaelle’n once more with more attacks from the sky, but he could not stop them. Nothing he knew would alter the undeniable outcome. This thought gave him no ease but simply stoked his anger.

  Growling under his breath, he made to turn his head back toward the Palace. Ghorn and the others awaited him and he dare not delay; what he could do he must do.

  Something odd registered at the corner of his eye. Without thought, he turned his sight to the west again, saw nothing but the sun washed roofs of the city, the Transept, and the marching Monks, and looked north again. Yet still something indescribably strange teased its presence at the edge of his vision. It jangled when he glanced away, unseen in direct gaze. In spite of his urgency, he banked the cart to the west and concentrated in the direction of the anomaly.

  By measures, a strange burning glow began to make itself known some short distance ahead of the third invading legion. He had a moment of indecision, but decided he could spare a few seconds more to learn whether this new oddity presented a threat.

  It was not fire; the glow was a mist whose inner light ignored the sun. It seemed as if he heard it within the marrow of his bones. The glow began to fill the Transept, growing, shouting, cheering, and burning hotter. As he flew closer, the glow began to sing to him, a glorious, noble sound as of a thousand voices singing ancient songs of sacrifice and heroism. It drew him onward.

  He knew it for what it was then: magic, terribly powerful magic, building to some magnificent release. He wondered what mischief the Phaelle’n brewed now, and continued toward this new manifestation of flux. Might he have a chance to disrupt their magic once again?

  In seconds he drew above the Phaelle’n legion. The rear ranks remained in formation, but the forward third had broken into a run, closing swiftly on a tiny group. A few of these, including a bowman firing relentlessly, looked to be Mhajhkaeirii’n legionnaires. The vast wave of Monks would swamp them with barely a ripple.

  These lost, doomed souls, not the Phaelle’n, were the source of the magic. Flux boiled from the men, an awful, resplendent outpouring of magical energy that anticipated their deaths.

  FORTY

  Eishtren continued to fire as the Phaelle’n legionnaires closed the distance to fifty paces. Each time he drew and loosed, another monk dropped, writhing in agony or motionless in quick death, an obstruction to his fellows. His own surviving Mhajhkaeirii stood close about him now, a thin circle of inadequate protection.

  He could see the Monks’ faces now within their open-faced helmets; they were at twenty paces. Another fell to his bow, and another, and another. A thought of his dear wife and daughters sailed through his mind. He continued to shoot. A monk with black eyebrows collapsed a bare ten paces from Eishtren. One with a hawk nose fell atop his fellow. A second died atop that one. A third. A forth. Soon, the growing pile of bodies blocked the rushing Phaelle’n armsmen and these were compelled to flood around as two flanking arms.

  Eishtren drew and loosed faster than he had in all his life. Five more fell. A dozen. A score. However, even this appalling slaughter could not hold back the flood.

  The crash of the charge hurled Truhsg and Taelmhon backwards, swords ringing. Kyamhyn disappeared beneath the boots of the enemy.

  Eishtren did not hesitate. He let his grandfather’s bow sing his funeral dirge.

  A pikeman slashed down at him.

  Then, unaccountably, all the Phaelle’n flew backward out of reach, crashing into their compatriots in a great struggling jam, held by unseen forces.

  A shadow slid over Eishtren and he looked up. Just to his left, about three manheight above the Transept, an old wagon hovered. Atop it stood a man wearing a marine brigandine, his arms outstretched in fists. Slowly the dilapidated conveyance descended, and the man stepped down, arms clenched so tightly that the veins in them protruded purple and throbbing. His fists began to shake, but as he moved forward, so moved the jam of imprisoned Phaelle’n legionnaires.

  “Get away!” this apparition shouted. “I can’t hold them for long!”

  “Truhsg,” Eishtren barked. “Check Kyamhyn. Where’s C’edl.”

  “Dead,” the fugleman responded flatly. “Over there. One of the devils bashed in his skull.”

  Kyamhyn was alive though unconscious and bloody enough to be dead. The fugleman from the kitchens hoisted him across his shoulder.

  “Dhem?”

  “Here, sir.”

  “Taelmhon?” Eishtren continued the roll.

  “I see his arm moving,” Bear commented, staggering toward a heap of bodies. The man seemed unaware that he had a horrendous gash across the right side of his face from forehead to jaw. Half of his once magnificent beard had been chopped away and blood dripped unceasingly onto his chest.

  Eishtren looped his shoulder through his bowstring and went to help. Though his segmentata had sustained perhaps irreparable damage and he himself numerous cuts and slashes, Taelmhon, once freed of the entrapping Phaelle’n corpses, shrugged away their hands.

  “I can walk,” he grumbled. “Let me be.”
r />   Eishtren waved at the others. “Toward the Redoubt, armsmen!”

  The Phaelle’n, thankfully, had begun to retreat, some trying agitatedly to extricate their hapless fellows from the magics of the apparition. Eishtren saw the man relax and drop his arms. Released, the Monks moved away at speed.

  The men of Eishtren’s shrunken command made a wide berth around the stranger as he climbed aboard his wagon, but Eishtren went to him quickly and saluted.

  “Sir? You are the Lord Magician?”

  The man was younger than expected and he did not smile as he examined the quaestor. “Yes, that’s what you Mhajhkaeirii call me.

  “Sir, have you orders for us? Should we prepare another holding position?”

  “Are you mad? That’s insane!” The magician shook his head, cursed. “Head for the fortress. I think it’s still in Mhajhkaeirii’n hands.”

  Eishtren braced. “Yes, sir.”

  “Look …what are you? A legate?”

  “Quaestor Eishtren of the 4th Payroll Section, Mhajhkaeirii Logistics Legion, sir.”

  “Right, quaestor, be careful of that bow of yours.”

  “Sir?”

  The magician waved about vaguely. “The flux, it didn’t key. All the building energy had to go somewhere and it went into your bow. There was some there to begin with but now there’s a lot.”

  Eishtren blinked. “Sir?”

  “Never mind. Get out of here. I’ve a place to be.” The wagon zoomed skyward.

  The five survivors had only gone a score paces and Eishtren trotted to catch up.

  Dhem looked at him oddly. “Sir, may I ask a question?”

  “Yes, recruit?”

  “Where did the arrows come from?”

  “What? It was your idea. I shot the recovered Phaelle’n bolts.”

  “Yes, sir. But I mean the arrows you kept shooting. You only had about a dozen bolts and after they were gone you just kept on. I didn’t see where they came from but I saw them fly. Long arrows like you originally had, but silvery.”

  “They were the color of fine gold,” Taelmhon suggested.

  “Red like fire,” Truhsg judged.

  “They were the cold blue of death straight from the hand of Mhokh,” Bear contradicted. “The Death God always appears at hopeless battles. He takes pleasure in watching men stand and die in a lost cause.”

  FORTY-ONE

  Fourteenthday, Waxing, Third, Wintermoon, 1643 After the Founding of the Empire

  Struggling against the battering waves, Telriy staggered up the beach, the wet sand sucking at her boots. She could not tell much of the ground in front of her; some light had started to show from the east, but the sun was still well below the horizon. She continued directly inland. The beach sloped sharply and soon she was pushing across dryer sand. Her feet slipped unpleasantly in her boots with each step; the soaked leather would certainly begin to wear blisters if she had to walk far. Blowing inland, a sharp wind sliced at her back, cutting through her shirt and britches and pricking her skin. Her coat had absorbed water like a sponge and she had had to shed its dragging weight on the long swim. She still had her pouch, but the bundle with her food and extra clothing had gone down with the Eagle Cat.

  The beach faded into old dunes covered in tall, browned grass that cracked and broke over as she trod through it. Beyond the dunes, perhaps a sixth league, she began to encounter small trees and low hills. Her objective, the old Imperial Coastal Highway should not be much farther. In Mhevyr, she had learned that the coastal Princes still maintained many parts of it and that it linked all the major cities. She had considered traveling overland to The Greatest City in All the World, but the trip would have taken twice as long.

  She found the stone paved road about an hour later, just as the day was beginning to become light enough to see. The forest had encroached upon its edges, but a clear lane a dozen paces wide in most spots wandered down its center.

  Shivering, she gazed thoughtfully along the highway to the west. Her best guess was that the Eagle Cat had brought her halfway to Mhajhkaei, most of a hundred leagues. That left her near a hundred. She would need to walk to the nearest village or town, but she had been told that a good amount of trade followed the route and hopefully she could bargain for space in a wagon. She shivered again in the crisp air and found herself unable to stop.

  The sky was lowering and gray, promising rain. Some sort of shelter must be her next goal. She felt a transient pang of regret for the mild, balmy days of the wintermoons of her youth on Gh’emhoa. She started west, her hand closing unconsciously in search of her lost staff. It had served its purpose and saved her life, but she had grown accustomed to the easy swing of it as she walked. Although its use had validated the greatest work of her Gran’s magic, it had been Telriy’s constant and only companion, a daily remembrance of the peculiar, stridently opinionated woman who had shaped Telriy’s life and purpose.

  After about a half-league, she found a stream that passed beneath the highway in a brick culvert. As a drizzle slowly began, she picked her way down the loose rock that lined the channel and knelt to scoop a drink. It was clear. She drank till her belly was full.

  Rushing over and around small boulders and other stones of all sizes, the stream cut through the sandstone and shale of a hill. Not far off the road, a stratified bluff leaned out toward the stream. That looked promising. She made her way toward it along the rough bank. Some distance above the high water mark of the stream, a more or less flat rock shelf a few armlengths wide spread under the overhang.

  A gust brought the splatter of heavier rain and she hurried along the broken foot of the bluff and under the overhang. A blackened hollow indicated that travelers had rested there in the past, but there was no evidence of recent occupation. Someone in the past had dragged a flat sandstone slab to the shelf for a seat. With a whispered thanks to that bygone journeyer, she sank tiredly onto the improvised stool. The rock was cold, but the bluffs discouraged the surging wind. She slipped the strap of her pouch from her shoulder and raised the flap.

  The interior, of course, was dry and clean. Her Gran had spelled the ward that sealed it from dust and all liquids and the old woman had had a sense of magic that Telriy had always envied. Where the girl often needed the aid of herbs, wine, and meditation to perceive the slightest glimpse of the ethereal haze, Gran had been able to see bits of it in things.

  She set Gran’s book beside her on the slab, then removed and opened the small copper-lined box that held her blazes. She herself had made these. They required no spell or direct manipulation of magic; they were simply a concoction and a charm. However, the ingredients of the concoction were rare and the steps to refine them tedious; she had only six and had determined to hoard them against desperate need.

  Another series of shivers racked her. Her need now seemed certainly desperate. She took one of the black spheres, closed the box securely with its small clasp, and carefully tossed the blaze into the blackened hollow. A point of fire, white and blinding flared from the blaze as it struck. Ignoring the now steady drizzle, she got up and began to search along the stream for dead falls. The blaze would burn for near an hour, but not provide much heat. She continued until she had a large pile of half-sodden wood. She fed this piece by piece into the blaze and soon had a mound of coals edged with half-burned, steaming branches.

  Finally at rest, she tugged her low boots off and extended her white, moisture wrinkled feet toward the heat with a sigh. In minutes, her feet began to feel unfrozen, but the rest of her remained chilled. With some trepidation – sitting naked in the open seemed inherently dangerous, but neither her clothing nor her skin would dry quickly without being aired – she stripped off her clothes. She wrung her woolen shirt, canvas trousers, and cotton smallclothes as well as she could and draped them out on the rock near the fire. Without a comb, it took her several wincing minutes to unbraid her hair and flair it about her shoulders to dry. Then, still shivering, she made herself into a ball, her knees pressed ag
ainst her breasts and her arms wrapped around them.

  A stray thought caused her to turn her wrist slowly in a practiced gesture to test her Maiden’s Companion. The slim knife appeared in her hand, glowing minutely. Since it would last, at most, four minutes, it was of dubious protection. The required exclusive concentration on the key, a forty-eight syllable nonsensical word, and the exactness of the sign made it impractical in difficult situations, but it gave some comfort to see it now. She watched the dim firelight writhe along the magical metal, thinking. If she could manage it, the Discouraging Ward would be an even greater comfort.

  Gran had taught her the mechanics and incantations all of the thirty-nine charms and thirteen spells that she and her antecedents in her ancient line of witches had discovered, preserved, and practiced. The charms were simple matters of memorization, but each spell required a specific key, a purposeful shifting or transformation of a particular expression of magic. Telriy’s accomplishments with these spells had been few, but with the three wards, especially the least powerful one, she had managed some success.

  The Discouraging Ward required a focus. The slab on which she sat had come from a denser layer of sandstone and it might be suitable. Closing her eyes, she laid her palms on it, searching. Long moments of regulated breathing later, a dim, spare breath of magic suggested itself from the heart of the stone. If it could contain that, it would withstand the moderate store of energy necessary to feed the ward.