The Magus

by Ted Neill

  Lady Chastain let out a cackle of laughter. “You offer me aid, now? At this late hour? Look around you, the end has already come.”

  Adamantus moved through the doorway, turning his antlers sideways. “Was it vaurgs who did this?”

  If she was surprised by the elk speaking, she did not betray it. Katlyn wondered if she was completely mad. Annabeth Chastain’s jaw trembled and her eyes glistened. “Vaurgs . . . vaurgs . . . you mean the creatures from the wood . . . nightmares they are. But no, they are allied with him and when they passed through they still had use for me.”

  “Who is this ‘him’ you speak of?” Darid asked.

  Lady Chastain giggled through clenched teeth. “You still do not know who he is, do you? You are fools. Fools. You have played into our hands . . . into his hands all this time.”

  “The Magus?” Adamantus asked. “Tell us his name.”

  “I don’t know his name,” she shouted, her voice breaking. As suddenly as she had laughed, she now wept, twisting at her hair and pulling it in stringy clumps. “No one knows his name. But I tell you this, he does not go where he is not invited.”

  “You made an ally of him,” Adamantus said.

  Lady Chastain let out a pain-ridden sob. “I did. I thought I could control him, command his men. I wanted to be part of their new order, but they never wanted order. Only chaos. And when the walls came tumbling down they called upon the monsters to scatter the people and unseat the council. I was just a traitor to them . . . having betrayed my people once, they did not trust me themselves.

  “But I resisted. He tried to control me,” she said, and pointed across the room to a vanity. The mirrors were shattered, the candlesticks toppled, the jars of powder and perfume cracked and spilling their contents. And in the center of the tabletop sat a moonstone set in a choker and adorned with amber, a lidless glowing eye. “I’m no fool. I knew what the stone would do to me. But he found other ways to control me. He took my daughters from me! And when they came to punish me, they brought a brand shaped into the word ‘traitor.’ They heated it in the fire. I begged them to have mercy. Begged them to spare me. ‘Anything,’ I said. ‘Anything. Anyone. Not me.’”

  She went silent, her fingers working her hair, her eyes on the floor. Katlyn felt Tallia take a step closer to her own side so that their shoulders touched. It was reassuring.

  “They listened,” Lady Chastain said. “They listened to me. ‘Anyone but me,’ I had said. So they followed through. My daughter, my only daughter he did not slay, Annabell, they burned her with the brand, her face, her hands. I can still hear her screams.”

  Katlyn felt the blood drain from her face. The fate was worse than she would have wished on anyone, even Annabell who had so often teased and bullied her at the academy, who had also set them free that night they had been trapped at the manor. Queasy, Katlyn walked to the window, pushing it open for fresh air. A bracing breeze swept in around her as she leaned with both hands on the sill. The men that had escorted them were running about below shouting to one another. Some were drawing their swords. “Riders at the gate!” one called up to her. Darid and Gail rushed out of the room. Katlyn was ready to follow when she heard a familiar chirping. A fluttering flash of blue danced around her head and before her eyes. It was not Azure nor was it Sapphire.

  “Cyan!”

  The boy-jay danced in the air, flapping his wings until she reached out a trembling hand for him to perch upon. He sang out a joyous tremolo. “You silly bird, we thought you were lost.”

  At her words he lifted into the air and swooped down to the gate where a pack of riders were galloping through. At their lead was a familiar face.

  “Are they friend or foe?” Tallia asked, her spear ready.

  “Friend,” she said and cried out the window to her original champion. “Cody Youngblood!”

  Cody turned in his saddle, caught sight of her and his face brightened with the smile so many women found irresistible. Even Tallia let out a wordless hum of pleasure.

  “Lady Katlyn, I am at your service,” he called up with a flourish and a bow.

  Chapter 19

  Soledor

  The ship slipped into Soledor harbor, the water reflecting the morning sky stippled with clouds that caught the golden color of the rising sun. The shore was enclosed by steep bluffs which crowded ramshackle sheds, shops, and homes that made up the unrecognized settlement that had become the base of the resistance.

  Or so Val had said. Now as the men in the towboat strained against the oars to draw the Respar to dock, Haille watched from the behind the bow, Chloe beside him. He listened as a set of footsteps approached them. Haille turned to see Val holding a sheathed sword. Haille knew the sword well: the top of the handle fashioned into the profile of an elk, the antlers branching through the crossguard and holding a heart between them. Haille stared at Elk Heart, the sword crafted for him by Pathus Sumberland himself. It was like a relic from another life and Haille, at first, hesitated to take it back.

  “It is yours, Prince Haille. You wielded it well and it’s about time you did so again.”

  Haille could feel Chloe’s eyes watching him. He sensed that the trainings, the beatings, the discussions, had all led to this. It was more than taking back a sword, but rather, an identity.

  “I don’t know if I’m worthy, ready even,” Haille said, his hand stopping short of the handle.

  “Truth is, we never are,” Chloe said in a warm, soft voice beside him. “Take it, Haille, it’s yours.”

  Haille clasped the handle, pleased at how familiar it felt, how light and balanced the blade was compared to the clumsy practice swords that he had been using. His mentors had little else to say, the moment of testing past. This was the beginning of further tests, where failing meant death, for himself and others. As he buckled the sword and sheath to his belt, he felt a weight more than physical on his shoulders.

  But like Val had said long ago in the house of Sandolin Blythewood, where they had stayed with the Elves of Sidon, Haille knew it was time to at least put forward a face of courage.

  Its only when you are afraid that you truly know if you can be brave. Val’s words from that night echoed in his mind. Haille turned to the captain, weighing so many of his lessons in his mind. Val, for his part, stood at the foremost point of the bow, his lips set in a fine, pensive line. Haille did not need to ask what troubled him. With a look to the shore he could see it for himself: the docks were empty of movement, the ships moored there were few and the sky over the town was clear; not a fire was burning in a single hearth. No smoke, not even gulls hovered in the air over the town.

  Then Haille saw a single skiff bobbing in the water, sending out tiny spreading circles of waves. All eyes were on the skiff as its lone passenger pulled up the oars as he neared the towing boat and glided past to come alongside the Respar.

  “Well if it isn’t the devil himself,” Chloe said from behind Val, who leaned over the rail, relief turning the creases in his face to smile lines.

  “Cody, you are a welcome emissary, welcome indeed,” Val said.

  “Captain Mandaly,” Cody said, saluting as the skiff neared.

  Val’s expression turned quizzical. “Why the formality old friend? What news? Soledor looks like a ghost town.”

  “The militia has decamped for higher ground, just over the bluffs, but a few longshoremen remain ready to meet you. Steer for the southernmost pier. I’ll meet you there.”

  Val shouted toward the towboat, “You heard the man. Pull to starboard.” The men altered their course while Val turned to Gunther. “See if you can spell a zephyr into the sails to help them.”

  Gunther nodded, walking back to the stern, Gregor alongside him. With a few enchantments they called forth a gentle breeze that aided the men straining at the oars of the towboat. Still, the Respar was heavy, laden with many passengers and waterlogged from sailing through the rain. Cody reached the pier long before them and Haille watched as their old friend tied up his ow
n boat and walked the length of the pier to the shore where he sat alone waiting on a barrel next to a leaning structure with boarded windows and a patched roof. It was the largest structure Haille could see in the town of small buildings and he guessed it would make a good place to shelter the many escaped slaves they carried with them.

  “I long to hear that old dog’s adventures since we left him in Karrith to head north,” Val said to Chloe.

  “Yes,” she said, picking a blister on her palm, then biting some of the dead skin away. “Funny though, when was the last time you knew him to call you by your surname?”

  Val shrugged. “Never.”

  Neither seemed to think much more of the incongruity, Val moving to the gangway, Chloe following, spitting out the piece of skin she had freed from her palm. Haille was close behind and descending the gangway onto the planks of the dock. Sailors secured the lines while the men they had freed worked their way off the ship, carrying the wounded and the weak. The dock was soon crowded and Val turned from supervising the movement of men and supplies to ask Haille to fetch Cody, who was still seated at the end of the dock, whittling a stick with a dagger.

  “Go see what is keeping him. Ask if we can move the men to that warehouse.”

  Haille nodded and worked his way through the throng of men to walk the length of the pier to where Cody waited, a harbor bell hanging on the post behind him. Cody continued to whittle his stick into a sharp point. Azure accompanied Haille, floating from one pylon to the next, her chirps loud in the quiet morning. The water below the planks at Haille’s feet was black and covered with an oily sheen. The bluffs rose overhead, appearing higher now that he was on shore, their tops blocking the palate of colors presented by the morning sky. It was a peaceful morning, so why wasn’t Haille feeling more settled? He shivered as he walked from sun into shadow. The lanes leading to the shore were still empty, not even a cat wandered past looking for fish scraps. He was wondering where the longshoremen were that Cody had spoken of when he thought he saw something move beyond the gap in the door to the warehouse.

  “Prince Haille, we meet again,” Cody said. He had slid the dagger into its sheath and did not look up as he cleaned his nails with the tip of the stick.

  “Cody . . . Val wants to know where we can lead the men, some are wounded from battle,” he said, watching Azure land near the door to the warehouse. “Can we take them into that warehouse there?”

  Cody’s eye twitched, the corner of his mouth lifting in a smile. “Why don’t you go see?”

  Haille hesitated. Something did not feel right, with Cody, the town, the morning all together. Where were the people, the animals, the birds? Why was the place preternaturally silent? His nose twitched at a foul odor. It was sour, dark, something different than the smell of dung, fish offal, and tarred timbers that characterized most port towns. The planks of the docks were shaking as Val and the others made their way closer. Cody’s eyes flashed up at them and his jaw flexed. Haille noticed Azure hopping closer to the gap in the warehouse door, her head twitching as she peered inside. He stepped closer to the shore. As he did something just below the surface of the water caught his eye. It was a face. At first he thought it was his own, reflected, but he realized it was not, nor was it alone. At that moment Azure let out a panicked warble, her wings snapping as she made straight for Haille. He turned to run.

  “It’s a trap!” he cried out to the others.

  But Cody was already up, his hand clasped around the harbor bell’s clapper. The bell sounded and the sailors and passengers of the Respar became still, just as the doors to the warehouse groaned open and a nightmare issued forth.

  Vaurgs.

  The noise of their cries was like a heard of boars, their mismatched armor jangling as they rushed out, the whole warehouse filled to its back walls with their gray and green bodies. The flood of horror parted and coursed around Cody, whose own face had turned into a demonic mask, his eyes burning with hate for his former friends.

  “To arms!” Val called out, but no sooner had he cried out than the vaurgs were upon them, flashing blades and wielding cudgels. Haille drew Elk Heart and joined in the fight, but the ground was not advantageous. The vaurgs, greater in number, poured down the length of the pier pushing many of the surprised men into the water where Haille now saw the sunken bodies of hundreds of dead militia soldiers.

  Their break came as Gregor and Gunther rushed to the fore and together called upon a wave that sucked up the water from the shore, exposing rocks and the tangled bodies of the dead men, built into a mountain of water and swept across the pier, sending the first line of vaurgs spilling into the harbor. Haille hacked and stabbed his way forward, grateful now for the practice Val and Chloe had insisted upon, both of them close, on his left and right. The bell had stopped ringing, Cody gone from its side. Haille searched the chaos for him and did not have to look far: their friend was descending upon them, his sword drawn, his stare fixed on Haille himself.

  Two men from the Respar engaged Cody and he made quick work slaying them, his fighting form advanced from what Haille knew of their friend. Val and Chloe readied themselves, their swords drawn, but their faces still confused.

  “Cody, what is the meaning of this?” Val cried.

  Cody’s answer was steel. He met blades with Val and turned to catch Chloe as she flanked him. She twisted in close, drawing a knife with her free hand but Cody raised his own empty palm, flexed his fingers, and sent Chloe flying off the dock and over the water to the shore where she crashed into a stack of crates which shattered into splinters from the impact. Haille’s skull tingled as he had learned it would in the presence of powerful magic. Cody closed in on a flabbergasted Val, but stopped when a horn sounded from the bluffs above.

  The bluffs presented a steep wall of earth along the length of the town but the north and south slopes were gentle enough to ride down on horseback and riders were coming, letting out a war cry, flying the banner of Antas at the fore. Leading the charge was an elk with a shining crown of silver.

  “It’s Adamantus!” Haille said.

  The vaurgs abandoned their attack on the ship and began to regroup in the space before the warehouse, shoring up their flanks by closing together shields and throwing up barricades of barrels and crates. It was of little use. The riders came down like an avalanche, crashing into the hastily built shield wall and trampled vaurgs before them. Howls, screeches, whinnies, and yells rose up to the heavens as horses, men, and monsters collided. Adamantus showed no mercy as he slashed and impaled one vaurg after another with his antlers. To Haille’s greater confusion he saw another Cody, this one on horseback with a Karrithian ranger to his left, and a rider who Haille thought to be Avenger Red on Cody’s right.

  “Haille!” a familiar voice called out. He turned to see Katlyn riding up to him, a compact girl in Maurvant war paint and bare arms riding beside her, letting fly one arrow after another into the vaurgs with deadly efficiency.

  “Katlyn, is it really you?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Then who is that?” he said, pointing to the first Cody who on foot was still slaying men, his sword red and bloody. A rider tried to trample him but Cody struck in close, stabbed the man in his thigh, unhorsed him, and mounted himself in the saddle. As he did so the second Cody spied him, surprise on his face.

  The first Cody organized the vaurgs and they formed into ranks for a counterattack, riders having broken through their ranks, but the vaurgs had superior numbers.

  “We’re still outnumbered,” Haille said.

  “Not for long,” Katlyn said as another horn blasted a high pure note that sounded like sunlight breaking through clouds. It felt like power and hope, like the inexorable coming of spring after a long winter. Haille’s heart skipped a beat.

  “There.” Katlyn pointed to the southern shore. Pounding through surf and sand on a wave of ponies, their manes flying, were riders in resplendent armor that caught the slanting morning sun. Their faces and blad
es seemed to glow with their own light and the water formed a sparkling aura around them. “The elves have come.”

  No sooner had Katlyn spoken did Haille pick out the figures leading the charge. Kalief, Lasolorn, and between them, her hair flying like a war banner, her sword lowered for immediate attack, rode Veolin.

  A howl of terror rose up from the vaurg horde and they began to scatter, but it was too late. The elves were upon them with fire, bolts, and blades. Many of the men from the ship, never having seen such a spectacle, cowered, but the men led by the second Cody pressed on from the north and soon the vaurgs were overrun.

  A chorus of chirping followed as the jays—all three of them—Sapphire, Cyan, and Azure, reunited about Haille’s shoulders.

  “Baby jays, just in the nick of time.”

  Adamantus barreled through a group of vaurgs, then came alongside Haille, and stopped to regard the unfolding battle. The elk locked eyes with the first Cody. This Cody snarled, reared his horse, and began to gallop in the opposite direction.

  “It’s the Magus!” Adamantus exclaimed.

  “Come on,” Katlyn said, pulling Haille up beside her on the saddle with the confidence of an experienced rider—so much had changed since they had first fled Antas city when she had struggled to remain in a saddle. All was movement, wild swords swinging, and clanging collisions of blades, armor, and claws as they pressed through the mob. Katlyn spurred her horse on at a reckless speed. The Maurvant girl fended off attacks for them until they were free of the battle completely and followed the chase.

  Adamantus pursued, down empty lanes, past storefronts and porches, trading houses and taverns. The imposter Cody pushed his horse forward even as it stumbled, its strength flagging. Adamantus closed the distance and Cody turned down a lane between two buildings. The elk disappeared around the corner, not breaking off his pursuit. Katlyn kicked her own horse to follow faster, the Maurvant girl covering their backs.

  The lane opened up to a square that backed up to the bluffs themselves. It must have been a place for trading slaves for a block with chains was set in the center. The imposter Cody rode up to the block and circled it, nowhere left to go. Katlyn pulled up on the reins, her horse coming to a stop, the Maurvant girl next to them.