Sanctuary 5.5 - Fated in Darkness

by Robert J. Crane

Terian felt the ice water chill run over him, and he suppressed the thin smile that he reckoned would have come otherwise. “Well,” he said, probably just a hair too fast, “I hope we’ve enough of that failure currency built up …”

  15.

  J’anda

  When he appeared out of the portal north of Saekaj Sovar, J’anda knew immediately he was being watched. He handed over the promised gold to the wizard he’d hired in Fertiss to take him here, and watched the woman disappear in a flash seconds later, obviously nervous to be even this close to dark elven territory. He could not blame her; he did not exactly enjoy being here himself.

  Courage, he said to himself. If I go to my death now, it comes but a little sooner than it might otherwise have. He sat atop a horse he had purchased just for this endeavor, not wishing to consign one of Sanctuary’s mounts to the Sovereign’s wrath but also wary about walking miles and miles in his current state.

  He urged the animal forward, ignoring the feeling of eyes upon him. He knew they would make their presence known eventually, that they would challenge him. It was not as though this were human territory any longer; he was surprised the portal was not surrounded by countless soldiers with spears, waiting to drive them into the heart of a traitor such as he before he could say a word in his defense.

  That would probably be too good for me, though, he decided, and settled himself in for a long, slow ride. The horse was not good for much, but it did keep him off his feet, so there was that. The pace was glacially slow, not even a canter, and the sun burned overhead as it sunk lower in the sky.

  I wonder if they’ll come at me at nightfall? The thought concerned him little. He was one man, after all. He could have been mistaken for a trader, though it was more likely that in time of war, he’d be thought a spy and have to prove otherwise in order to keep his head. Either way, he knew without doubt that dark elven rangers followed his steps even now, as he passed under the trees strewn with rotted cave cress flowers that denoted the official beginning of the territory of the Sovereign of Saekaj Sovar.

  The boughs of the trees looked like shadowed bones over him as the sun sank below the horizon. He sighed, listening to the still quiet of the woods. The chirrup of crickets was not-so-strangely absent to his left and right, but audible farther out. He considered calling out to his watchers and simply ending the charade, but like a good enchanter, he allowed them their illusions for a while longer.

  The smell of the night in the northern Waking Woods was a strong aroma, night blooming flowers filling the air with their dusky bitterness. J’anda had not remembered this smell, but the memories of it came back him now, stronger than the images in his head of those days. He recalled walking these paths to war, smelling those night blooming y’algras flowers as their heavy scent floated all around, an army marching behind him.

  It was a scent he remembered from the day he left, as well.

  “Halt,” the quiet voice of the ranger to his left whispered out at him. He tugged on the reins, which stopped his horse, probably more gently than the ranger anticipated, given his brow’s quirk of surprise. Other green-cloaked dark elves were stepping out of the brush at this point, blades and bows at the ready. “Papers.”

  “But of course,” J’anda said, taking a light breath. He raised a hand as he reached slowly for his tunic, pretended to grasp something within, and brought his hand out with a slow flourish that radiated yellow light in all directions.

  The ranger in front of him blinked only once, then stared straight ahead. “I …”

  “I’m going to go along now,” J’anda said, “you should stay here and guard the road for another hour. You never who could be about in the night, after all.”

  “No,” the soldier said, voice rolling and distant, like he had not a thought in his head, “you never know.”

  “You’re a good soldier,” J’anda said, and looked at the others around him. “You’re all good soldiers. You should go back to the portal and rejoin your detachment when you’ve finished guarding the road. Someone could be coming. Someone you would not want to miss. You should always be vigilant.”

  “Always vigilant,” they all repeated, in time with each other.

  “That’s the spirit,” J’anda said, and steered his horse around the lead. “Do take care.”

  “And you as well,” the soldiers said, still in time.

  J’anda watched the images that were playing in their minds flash forth in his. It was rather like an old memory; he could keep it away for the most part, let it play in the back of his mind while he considered other things in the front. It came back when he reached a point of quiet on his main thoughts, always, like water seeping up in a slow flood.

  The forests opened up into clear space sooner than he had anticipated, and certainly sooner than when last he had been here, a century prior. The lands had been cleared and were lying fallow for the autumn. He could see the tilled dirt even in the light of the moon once the branches covering his head were out of the way.

  The moon was rising, drifting slowly to the crown of the dark sky, and it shone down on those fields, the dark dirt tinged blue in the moonlight, like the skin of J’anda’s brethren. He felt as if he were drifting slowly forward on the currents of an ocean as the horse carrying him over these dark grounds. Silhouettes stood over the flat earth, watch stations built on what looked like old trees, reaching up into the air to elevate their guards over the fields below.

  Figures waited atop the towers, and he sent a subtle spell their way encouraging them to turn inward toward the watch fires that kept them warm in the night chill. Their shadowed silhouettes moved in the night, faces lit as they obliged his spell by turning from their vigil on the road. Peals of laughter reached him over the fields between them, and he felt a stirring in his heart for times long gone, of the comradeship that came with a duty such as theirs.

  He carried on in a similar fashion, prompting all the guards he saw to keep him out of their sight, off their minds, as he made his way. It was a simple thing, something that the Sovereign probably expected to happen at some point. This was not the challenge; for who cared if an enchanter or twenty made his way over fallow fields of little value in the fall. It was hardly worth pledging magical defense to.

  No, it was at the gate where he would begin to run across difficulty. But that was expected, and every step his horse carried him bettered the chance that when he was inevitably captured, he would end up in the right place rather than summarily executed.

  The hill with the mouth of Saekaj Sovar’s entrance yawned wide ahead of him in the dark, a rounded silhouette like an outcrop sticking out of the earth. True watchtowers glowed on either side of the gate, which was wide open, and J’anda considered his approach once more. It was roughly as he had thought it would be, the same as it had been in the last war.

  His eyes had diminished with his age, of course, depriving him of the ability to tell what he faced in the terms of spell casters ahead. He wore no illusion, and he counted on his aged appearance to aid him.

  His horse sauntered up to the gates, and he dismounted, not needing to feign slowness and stiffness as he did so. He carried no wand or staff, merely himself. As he stood with the reins in hand, guards slowly approached, wary at the sight of his traveling cloak, which hid the vestments that identified him as an enchanter. To them, he probably looked like a trader, or a traveler of some stripe.

  “Who goes there?” the nearest guard asked, as eight of them approached him in a knot, slowly breaking loose of each other until he was surrounded.

  “A traveler bound for the palace of the Sovereign,” he said, not bothering to look behind him as they tightened their circle. “I come with urgent news.”

  “Your arrival is not expected,” the lead guard said with a look to his nearest companion.

  “Good news seldom is,” J’anda said, casting his spell sublingually, with barely a movement of his fingers. He could feel the will of the head guard, saw the man’s vision of a perfect
life, and froze him in place, mesmerized. He did the same in rapid order with the others in the circle, then sent the same spell in a swirling loop through the tops of both guard towers, where he snared eight more, closing his eyes to concentrate on threading the illusion through their minds.

  He closed his eyes and saw sixteen different visions, most of them the same in basic regards. It was always a sensory feast when he created these illusions of one heart’s desire; the crackle of mutton slow-roasting on a hearth in one vision, the touch of a dark-skinned lover in three others, fingers dancing over naked flesh, a peaceful day spent in a boat bobbing gently on the Great Sea in another, and fingers running over smooth gold, the smell of the metal wafting through greedy nostrils in yet another.

  Basing them on the guards’ desires, J’anda wove and crafted each of the visions as he felt the spell begin to increase in power. It was not mind reading; more like he could pick up the burdens weighing on one’s heart and use the vision lighten them to the point where all the concerns of the world simply melted away. These were simple guards, not soldiers, and they had little will or desire to fight against that which he created. There were others beyond, surely, ready to spring into a battle at the slightest cue of troubles coming, but as it was, he left the guards all standing there, his horse at their center, without so much as a word spoken between them, like a stone circle in the starry night.

  J’anda felt the first bite of the cave chill a hundred feet down. It was unlike the night, with the cave’s stagnant air heavy around him. The slope bothered his hips, and he wished he had brought the horse a little farther. Nothing for it now, though, he knew. The courtyard was ahead in any case, and he could procure transport from there that would ease his bones.

  He stepped into the great courtyard with mild surprise. It was quiet here, entirely too quiet for his liking. Even in a time of war, the passage of nearly all goods came through this staging area, both into and out of Saekaj and Sovar. To see it so dead means we are exporting little and importing even less. He looked over the circular chamber with a steady eye. Carriages sat parked with the great vek’tag spiders larger than bulls hitched to them, drivers sitting at the ready in case passengers of great import came in the night. The symbols of the houses they belonged to were draped along the sides in uncolored banners.

  J’anda paused at the top of the courtyard, overlooking all the carriages. Several were for guild use, a few more were for the most noble houses, ones that might receive a visitor from the outside world and require transport on short notice. There were probably only twenty in all, and as he caught sight of the one for the Gathering of Coercers, he smiled, seriously considering it. Too obvious, he decided, and instead walked toward one he recognized well. A spider on a red banner, some of the only color on any of the house symbols, surprisingly crude given that use of color in clothing or banner was a thing that would be seen as low class. “Ah, Grimrath Tordor,” he whispered to himself, “you have not changed, I see.”

  J’anda made his way to the carriage of Grimrath Tordor and sent a simple charming spell to his driver. It didn’t vary too much from a mesmerization spell in the work involved, but it sent a slightly deeper twining of the magic and mind to his subject. Rather than simply paralyzing the man into inaction, as he had done with the soldiers on the surface, this required either a blunt subversion of will or a careful deception to get the subject to play along. One required considerably more finesse than the other; J’anda knew that most enchanters were incapable of this kind of subtlety.

  He had practiced with the best, of course, and had bested the rest. This is the truth that Vracken Coeltes never seemed to grasp; that to spin threads of a spell in the mind, honey is preferable to vinegar. He’d seen the spells the way Coeltes and others did them, too harsh and blunt for the unveiling of a heart’s desire. Coeltes and his ilk all preferred fear, to drive deep into the minds they paralyzed or charmed and drag out the worst aspects. It was a faster approach, he supposed, requiring less effort but their marks woke with screams rather than gently snapping to the waking world from a pleasant dream.

  This was never a thing I understood. He put out his hand and slipped a subtle illusion into the now-prepared mind of Tordor’s carriage driver, making him think that his master’s own chief servant was in the back, that he had complimented him on his diligence at his job. He threaded the vision together as he stepped onto the running board and opened the door himself, slipping into the darkness of the coach.

  The benches were padded, a curious relief. J’anda could not recall any of the seats of any of the carriages he had been in in Saekaj ever having a pad to relieve the skin against the ride. Tordor is a most curious chap, though, I suppose, and he is likely rather old now.

  The carriage lurched into motion, passing down into the descending passage with a squeak of wheels. J’anda sat silently in the back, already preparing his next feat. The gate at the entry to Saekaj would surely have a cessation spell upon it, designed to strip any spell usage or illusion from a person as they stepped through. For most enchanters, it would be a nearly insurmountable problem; to take Tordor’s carriage through, after all, would result in the mind of the driver instantly being cleared of the misapprehension that a steward of Grimrath himself was in the back. To say nothing of the guards at the gate; as soon as he began to walk through, the illusion that he belonged in Saekaj, that he had papers of any sort, would be stripped away from the minds of the subjects.

  This is not a concern, however. J’anda smiled as the carriage rattled into sight of the gate. He had already felt the mesmerization spell he had cast upon the surface guards fade, leaving them with a lingering and pleasant sense of befuddlement. There was no sign remaining that he had cast anything upon them; it was long gone, and he was certain they had returned to their guard posts merely confused about why there was a horse left in their midst.

  This is why you should not lead with fear, Vracken, J’anda thought as the carriage rattled to a stop in front of the gates of Saekaj. The gates were wide open, had been thrown open at his approach, probably out of respect for Tordor. J’anda peered out of the carriage window and sent a thought to his driver, a compliment to his skill and ability from the servant of his master, and then stepped out onto the cave ground, narrowly avoiding turning his ankle in a rut made by countless carriages that preceded him.

  J’anda adjusted his cloak, looking into Saekaj beyond the gates. He had not seen the city in a century, but it appeared that little had changed. The Grand Palace of Saekaj was right there, on the far back wall of the cavern, and visible even from here as a sign of the splendor of the upper city.

  He walked up to the gates, to the guard waiting for him, and smiled. He had no magic in mind, no illusion upon him. The carriage behind him started to pull away, turning to head back to the surface.

  “State your business,” the guard said politely, looking up and down his traveling cloak. This deep in the caves, he probably wasn’t expecting someone to sneak down; and a citizen of Sovar would be coming from the opposite direction.

  “I am a citizen of Saekaj,” J’anda said pleasantly, with a smile. “And in the service of the house of Tordor, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” the guard said with a nod. “I’ll need your name and your papers.”

  J’anda did not dare raise an eyebrow. “I’m afraid I was dispatched on an urgent mission with a wizard and did not have my papers when I left. You may, of course, check my identity, but my destination is the Grand Palace of Saekaj to report to the Sovereign himself.”

  The guard’s face became a study in barely contained panic. It was the contradiction that did it, really; no papers, but the not-so-veiled suggestion of the highest authority behind him with the mention of the Sovereign and a mission. If he was turned aside and it ended up that he was actually an envoy of the Sovereign, the guard would doubtless find his head somewhat disconnected from the rest of his body. On the other hand, if J’anda were lying …

  “Perhaps
you should have your men escort me to the palace gates to be dealt with there,” J’anda said and watched the man’s face relax slightly. “I wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble because of my unfortunate circumstances, after all. No reason for you to have to take this responsibility on your own shoulders.”

  “Right,” the man said, as though he were latching on to a rope while drowning on the Great Sea. “Karnven, Rickkart, Yarwan … take this man to the Grand Palace of Saekaj.”

  J’anda nodded at him with a smile. “Always best to push these things up the ladder. Better they fall on the rung above, eh?”

  “Quite so,” the head guard said, looking immensely relieved. “Be on your way, then.”

  “Indeed,” J’anda said, letting the three assigned guards flank him, one to either side and the third behind with his weapon not far from his grasp, surely. J’anda started forward at a leisurely pace, passing through the gates with a beneficent smile on his face, on a stroll to his destination, not a care in the world. The houses and dwellings of Saekaj lay before him, the main street turning slightly to the right as he entered the upper city.

  He walked in companionable silence with the guards until just before the markets. He was on the main road and could see the start of the manors ahead, the twelve houses of greatest renown in Saekaj, lined on either side of the main thoroughfare to the palace. Greatest in the Sovereign’s estimation, those twelve. I wonder who they are now?

  As they walked through the small crowds of the market, he paused to look at a cart that was open even at this hour, selling meats of indeterminate origin. J’anda directed his hand toward the guard nearest him and sublingually cast a mesmerization spell. He let the magic drift lazily to the man behind him, wrapping up his mind in a vision of some of the high quality meats roasting lazily on a stove while he sat in a comfortable chair, and then turned the spell on the last of his guards, who was partial to something that J’anda had never quite seen before. It raised his eyebrows, but he shrugged, leaving the man in peace, staring at the meat display in the market with dull eyes, dreaming of crocheting blankets of the finest quality for everyone in Saekaj.