by Damien Lake
“No. I just don’t like high places.”
The mage stared straight ahead at the camp. Upon closer inspection, Colbey noticed he clutched the trunk tightly with the arm wrapped around it. They were hardly twenty-five feet above the ground.
“You think this is high?” Amusement flavored Colbey’s voice.
“It’s high enough.”
Unable to help himself, Colbey barked out two or three laughs. It earned him an unfriendly glare. He realized after the last left his throat that he had laughed at no other time since leaving his home.
“All right, hotshot! I’ve got a question for you! Why haven’t you told anyone you’re a mage?”
Colbey’s mirth vanished in an instant. “What?”
“Or some kind of magic user.”
“Are you addled?”
“Don’t look at me like that! I saw what you did yesterday, when we were getting ready for our little run.”
“You’re seeing smoke.”
“Don’t play games, Colbey. I don’t know what I saw exactly, but I know you did something weird.”
“Listen mage,” Colbey growled through clenched teeth, suddenly angry. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but I’m as much a mage as this tree. Don’t you forget it!”
“Then tell me what you did. It isn’t normal to be able to run the way you did. You left me in the dust, and I’m not that far out of shape! And, you’re one of the band. I can tell you haven’t told anybody there about whatever it is you can do.” The mage looked over at him with a curious emotion behind his eyes. “If you want to kept your talent a secret, I can understand that. Believe me, I can understand that. But if you turn out to be a threat to the Kings, I have to tell Tollaf and Torrance about you.”
Colbey studied this strange mage carefully. Did he mean what he had said, or was he bluffing to make him spill his secrets? “I told you, I’m no magic user. And I don’t lie.” At least not until it suits my purposes.
“Then come clean. We’ve got plenty of time until dusk.” When Colbey did not immediately respond, the mage grew irritated. “Well?”
“Careful mage. I’d hate to have to tell the captain you tumbled from the tree and broke your neck.”
Marik remained silent. He sat staring at him.
“What do you care, anyway?”
“I told you.”
Colbey sighed. Why did outlanders always think they were so damned clever? But this annoying mage might cause him trouble, get him expelled from the band before he located his quarry. If the hoard appeared with him outside the band and in a disadvantageous position, his already slim options might reduce to nothing. “Fine. Don’t go telling anyone else. Understand?”
“If that’s how you want it.”
“It is.” A quick glance around told him no one had wandered close. “It’s simple enough. It’s a type of meditation that lets you ignore your weariness or muscle aches.” That stretched the facts but it should be close enough to satisfy this busybody mage.
Or maybe not. “Oh, really? You just thought yourself past the need to breathe for half a mark? And what about your aura?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your aura,” the mage repeated. He paused at Colbey’s blank expression. “You don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“No.”
“Everyone has one. It’s sort of like the glow around a candle flame. Tollaf says it’s the natural bleed off of life energy from the people that create it.”
“Uh-huh,” Colbey replied noncommittally, though his mind picked through his training, matching the mage’s words to his lessons.
“The point I was about to make is that your thoughts alone don’t make your aura do what yours did.”
“Is that a fact or is that your guess?”
The mage suddenly appeared uncertain.
“I thought so. What exactly are you saying I did?”
“It changed shape. Normally it’s like that candle halo I mentioned. Yours changed shape until it matched your body. You were wearing it, like a set of clothes. I’ve never seen that before!”
Colbey pondered his possible responses carefully. “Mage, you say you never saw this before.”
“Right.”
“You are a mage yourself. You have trained with other mages?”
“Yes.”
“You think I am a magic user like you because you saw this thing. Yet you have never seen a magic user do this themselves. How did you arrive at the conclusion that I am a magic user because I did a thing no other magic user does?” Colbey hoped this would end the conversation. It wearied him, probably because it was the longest discussion he’d had with anyone for nearly two years.
Once again, Colbey hoped in vain. “Because there are lots of different kinds of magic users, and my own experience is limited to the mages in the band.” He stopped and reconsidered. “Well, there was one other, but I never really saw him.”
“I told you I am no mage! Not one of any stripe and I tell you the truth, so leave me alone!”
“Then tell me the rest of it. You didn’t tell me everything, did you? I want to know how a ‘meditation’ can do that to your aura.”
“And how should I know?” he barked. “It’s a simple technique. An exercise in concentration and control and…and visualization!”
“Visualization?”
“Yes!” Colbey admitted harshly before wishing he had not. The words sounded harmless enough except the mage became lost in thought, as if they carried deeper meanings to him than Colbey thought they would. “Are you satisfied?”
“Hmm.” He thought quietly, losing interest in the conversation, which suited Colbey fine. The irritations in dealing with these outlanders far outstripped anything Colbey had ever endured at home in the Euvea. This one in particular persisted where others tucked their tail between their legs. Most left him alone after Colbey showed them his teeth.
He wondered, as he so frequently did, why he remained in this strange land with its stranger inhabitants. When the invasion broke out on the Nolier border, Colbey had felt certain that these must be ones he had waited so long for.
After an entire spring as an army scout, practically walking in the Noliers’ footsteps before the grass could spring back up, he knew it for another dead end. These men were as foolish as the Galemarans and the Tullainians, and the entire Nolier army could have invaded the forest, but the Guardians would have held them at bay. Certainly they never would have been torn to shreds the way they had been.
Only if the Noliers were holding back could they turn out to be his longed-for prey. He’d heard the mage say the invasion seemed less than serious despite the scale of the fighting, that the Noliers looked ready to whirl and run at a moment’s notice. The mage was wrong.
His assessment of their instant mobility had been correct, but for the wrong reasons. All spring Colbey watched their actions, creeping close enough to overhear casual conversations, and knew what Captain Trask knew. From his own life, he knew the ins and outs of forest fighting. It would always be far easier, far more effective, to attack on the move than to defend. If the Noliers built earthworks like the Galemarans, they would lose the edge the forest provided them.
Familiar with the surrounding land, they could blend into the trees, could all but disappear if they needed to. The particular patch of land their camp inhabited meant nothing. There were abundant clearings in the Green Reaches. From the trees, their archers could wreak havoc and be gone by the time the Galemaran soldiers arrived to retaliate. Guerilla fighting at its most basic.
As for the creatures that had destroyed his home, he had no word yet. The fighting around the gold strike continued with no immediate victory for either side. Colbey listened to every story and rumor he could, hoping for tales of strange beasts or strong magics. Nothing. If the Noliers controlled such, they chose to hold them in abeyance.
“Where did you learn it?” The mage’s sudden question wrenched Colbey from his thoughts.<
br />
“What?”
“This technique of yours that lets you run like the wind. Who did you learn it from?”
“I don’t see as it is any business of yours, but I’ll tell you if it will end your pestering. A friend.”
The mage waited. When additional words failed to follow he asked, “That’s it?”
“That’s all you’re going to get. I learned it from a friend who is now dead.” Memories surged; the dead…the dying... It took a moment for Colbey to choke them back down.
His inquisitor eased off. He had either sensed Colbey’s unwillingness to disclose further information or briefly felt Colbey’s pain. They sat silently in their tree.
The descending sun painted the sky with fiery oranges and reds. After nearly a candlemark of silence, the mage made one last attempt, coming in from a different path this time. “I’ve been trying to place your accent since yesterday. What part of Galemar are you from?”
Colbey remained silent.
“Or are you from outside? A couple men in the Ninth are from Tullainia and Vyajion.”
“It is dusk. If you are going to do what you came for, then get started.”
The mage shook his head. “I’m only trying to be friendly.”
“I don’t need friends.”
He finally gave up. After drawing his legs up, the mage sat cross-legged in the crotch. “Make sure I don’t fall,” he told Colbey, before becoming vacant eyed, as before when he had surveyed the camp.
Visions rose as fresh and as painful as if Colbey still stood in the carnage, seeing it in truth, smelling the charnel smoke, hearing his people moan. He knew that his sole duty as a Guardian had been to protect the village at all cost. I wasn’t there! They all died, they all were murdered, and I wasn’t there!
“No,” he murmured in a faint whisper to no one but himself. “The failed and the damned certainly have no need of friends.”
* * * * *
Keep the magician off the troops! That’s easy enough to say, Trask you bastard.
Since he knew what to look for this time, Marik found the magician easily enough. How he would prevent the magician from causing trouble…well, that was the question of the day. Marik only possessed the few shields he’d learned from Tollaf and Caresse, and one attack the magician would probably laugh at. He discarded the attacking option. The crude working would probably never affect the enemy he now faced.
Shielding every man storming the clearing against magical attack would be impossible. His only option, as he saw it, was a gamble. He could reverse the shields. Marik would enclose the magician inside a shielded dome of etheric energy. It might prevent spells from getting out, except the weakest point of an arch is an attack from beneath. Which is how the magician, casting from inside the dome, would be hitting it. He figured to play it by ear and deal with problems when they manifested. With his limited training, what else could he do?
Marik had made that fact as clear as day to Trask when he’d reported back last night. He had given Trask the best description of the magician he could, garnered through his detail-less magesight; average height, not very muscular and short spiky hair that stood straight upward. The captain promised every fighting man would have the description and be on the lookout for him.
Small help.
From his tree, Marik followed the man’s progress while he spoke to other men Marik assumed were officers. He gathered what scant information on them he could. Knowing them on sight might prove useful. The rest of the camp’s attention fixated on two wagons located to the south where oversized pots and kettles steamed over cook fires.
The sun lowered further. Marik watched while Trask’s quartered company slowly crept through the forest toward the Noliers. Trask wanted to hit them from the four compass points simultaneously to prevent them from fleeing. Each element appeared in place and ready to strike fast.
Time for the shift change on the picket line. As soon as the new men were in place, Marik noticed several auras creep forward. Many of the new pickets were quickly put down. Their thoughts on their full bellies, all but three fell to the Galemaran front men.
The last three did not allow their after-meal lethargy to hamper their alertness. They shouted while they ran for the camp, then fell with arrows sprouting from their backs. In the evening silence, their cries were enough to set the Noliers jumping.
As unprepared as they seemed to Marik, they moved with a readiness that surprised him. Trask’s southern and western forces erupted from the trees, followed moments later by the eastern detachment. Men turned to flee, most heading north, in Marik’s direction. It looked like an open escape avenue so the Noliers dashed headlong for it until Trask led his men into their path from the forest. The Noliers halted as one to assess their situation. They drew their weapons.
Marik noted all this, but his primary focus centered on the magician. At first the man froze before he ran like a frightened rabbit. The apprentice mage almost laughed when he realized the magician sprinted for his tent to retrieve his components. He had been caught with his pants down.
The urge to laugh quickly evaporated when the magician strapped on his twin belts.
Time to earn my pay for the day.
Marik readied his personal shield and worked through it with his mental hands. The nearest line flowed too far away to reach, restricting his draw to the ambient energy of the surrounding mass diffusion. He gathered as much as he could into himself.
Caresse had taught him a shield for astral protections. Marik had decided beforehand it would be the best bet. He prayed it would catch whatever part of the magician’s spells relied on astral forms. Normally, he wove the energy in a sphere around himself. At first he had only formed a half sphere to protect his front until Caresse had sent attacks to his rear, rapidly teaching him to shield in all directions.
This time, rather than feeding the shield from within, he would have to surround the magician and maintain it from the outside. Marik worked speedily, taking the fresh energy and forming the sphere around the magician.
He proceeded warily despite the speed, expecting an attack the moment the magician sensed the trap taking shape. But the man acted oblivious to Marik’s manipulation of the etheric substance around him. The man ran outside his tent, head turning to see what transpired.
Marik carefully moved the shield with him. He felt it too risky to tie it to the man’s core, which might explain why he’d sensed nothing.
The magician studied the enemy forces. Marik built new shields, layering them atop the previous to form a thick sandwich. All the layered shields fed through the same channel once he linked them. He could continue building new ones as long as he had the energy to do so. Since they needed to be as strong as he could make them to avoid shattering at the first casting against their weaker underbelly, he prayed he would be able to create as many layers as would be needed.
Trask’s men had cut off the Nolier escape routes. The fighting swelled thicker when Noliers were pushed back toward the center of their camp. With twice the number of men as their enemy, Trask would claim the victory.
As long as Marik prevented the magician from turning the tables.
The magician reached into one pouch. He withdrew a small handful of its contents. It slipped through his fingers, probably dust or sand. With a portion in each fist, the magician clapped his hands together and shouted.
A stream of white and blue fire shot forth, no doubt intended to splash across Trask’s western detachment. Instead, the intense flames struck the underside of Marik’s shields and spread across the interior like liquid. In less than a heartbeat a swirling fire sphere surrounded the magician.
To outside eyes, the magician became engulfed in his own flames. Marik hoped the man had killed himself…but the spell ended and the flames dispersed. The magician had fallen into a crouch on the ground. His arms were across his face to shield his eyes. He parted his arms enough to peer through at the world. His clothes smoked, yet he had survived unharmed.
That’s the same spell. Edwin described it to a tee and I’ll remember those flames for the rest of my life. All right then! Come on, bastard!
Marik spun shields to replace those that had collapsed. The magician rose shakily to his feet and reached out a hand. He swept it back and forth through the insubstantial shields, feeling nothing. Rage quickly replaced the astonishment on his face.
He tugged open a different pouch to withdraw a new component. Marik strained to see what, bracing himself for the next onslaught. The magician held it between his thumb and forefinger. It crumbled while he spoke his words. Nothing happened. Did the spell misfire?
Instead, the man stood still, searching the region before abruptly turning his head to stare straight at Marik despite the distance. The last spell must not have been offensive. Now the magician knew the game. He also looked to be in a towering fury.
From a different pouch, the man selected a handful of feathers, their dark shape clear in the localized light from his aura. Wielding one in his right hand, the magician smiled wickedly. He swept the feather violently downward, as though he executed an overhead strike with a blade to crush an opponent’s skull. With a shout while he did so, the feather blew apart into fragments. A hurricane torrent erupted from nowhere within the shielding sphere. Wind whipped the man’s hair and clothing inside the tornado created through his magician’s power.
Marik could not see the exact form this spell had taken. He only witnessed the effects when it sheered away the layered shields with awesome speed. The spell endured only eye blinks yet half the shields were either gone or in tatters. Quickly drawing fresh energy from the diffusion, Marik restored them as fast as he could weave replacements.
The magician plucked a larger feather from the bunch in his left hand. He repeated the motions, recalling the spell for a second round as the new feather blew itself apart to join the first.
Trask’s company forced back the Noliers further still. Harried as the defenders were, they avoided stepping too close to the magician. They knew nothing of what he did except one glance kept them all at their distance. Faced with swords or magic, the soldiers chose Trask’s swords.
