“Beyond the curtain.” Edmath shivered at the thought. “Magic lies beyond, and it flows forth into out world when released.”
“They are terrible foes, and they hate all in this world. Your father died sealing them from Zel, making us safe for decades. It is more dangerous beyond the border, but I will lead my peoples away from the empire if you will help me.”
Edmath met Kassel’s eyes and returned his expression.
“If you will answer my questions, I will help you, but not before.”
Kassel Onoi glanced down at the spreading fire in the pit.
“You leave me no choice. You have the last of the protean spheres I know of in Zel. Without it, I cannot lead my new people.”
“I understand.” Edmath crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Why give Chelka and I the stethians on our wedding night?”
Kassel Onoi shrugged.
“For the reasons I said then,” he said. “I wanted you to know about them, so you would be safe. My only mission was to kill the High Emperor. Vosraan Loi and I were never friends, but I respect him. I only sought to take his crown because otherwise, I fear the foes that took your father’s life will take many more when they return. They are not well known anymore, the exiles.”
“Exiles? You mean, the tribes that went beyond the world?”
“The very same, Edmath. They and their mages, called Muborque, have been plotting a return for centuries. When I am gone, it will be up to the rest of you to protect this nation from them. As your father did.”
“My father. I saw a vision in an augury, and there were two of him, here at Beliu.”
Chelka glanced at Edmath, eyebrows raised.
Kassel Onoi folded his hands together.
“Indeed. Royals of the Worm Tribe in their toshes can divide their bodies, create copies of themselves. Usually, these are short-lived, but your father found a way of making his duplicates last longer. I believe they are all dead now.”
Edmath nodded, mouth dry. Pain spiked in his stomach and he staggered.
“I will protect the empire.” He clenched his fists. “Just answer me one more question. Why did you send this monster after me?”
“Simple enough. I sent it to find you and commanded it not to die. During the battle, it must have been afraid, so it hid. It hid inside you. Now—” Kassel spread his arms. “I will free you from it if you will let me. Once I have this creature, you may trust me. I will never wage war in Zel again until the exiles return.” Kassel closed his eyes and bowed his head.
Chelka raised her stethian, pointing it at his chest. She shouldered the Saale weapon.
“Save him. Then be on your way and take the misery you caused with you.”
Kassel Onoi sighed again and brought his arms together.
“I will try, Lady Benisar.” He reached down and touched Edmath’s stomach, prodding his finger in while speaking in a language even Edmath could not understand. His voice echoed in Edmath’s head. The occasional snatch of ordinary words came in through the rasping madness that was the rest of his speech. He drew the sign of the twinkling seven-pointed star in the air over Edmath’s tunic and finally dropped to the floor with one final word. “Release.”
Edmath’s heart skipped a beat. For a moment he felt nothing. Then he felt hot surges in his gut. Tendrils scrabbled within his throat. He gagged even as breath flew from his lungs in a scream of pain. The protean sphere, small and round and black flew from his mouth and fell to the floor at his feet.
He staggered and fell backward, landing on his side. The sphere tried to scuttle past Chelka on tiny legs but she struck, faster than light and slashed across the floor with her stethian. A barrier of energy flew up along the line she’d covered and repelled the sphere back into Kassel Onoi’s open hands. With a final mess of sounds in the rasping other language, the sphere went limp in his grip. He swallowed the sphere without so much as a gag, a rite of kingship. He rose from his place on the floor and then reached down and helped Edmath stand.
“Thank you, son of Jurgat. Bless you and your wife both.” He nodded to them with a solemn flourish of his hand. “I cannot live here, but now I can live on. As can both of you.”
Edmath’s weariness had gone. He turned back to Chelka, offering her a hopeful smile. She wrapped her free arm around him and they walked toward the door together into the cold.
Snow blew through the village square outside Kassel Onoi’s lodge. Edmath shivered despite his heavy cloak as he and Chelka made their way into the village square. In spite of his elation at being free of the accursed sphere, he groaned as he walked. The villagers surrounding the lodge turned and stared at him and Chelka as they passed.
She tightened her grip on his shoulder as they walked. At first, the warped villagers did not move to allow them past, and Chelka’s hand strayed to her stethian. A moment later Kassel Onoi appeared in the doorway of the lodge. The misshapen crowd parted, all eyes fixing on the Worm King. They emerged from the circle of villagers. Edmath and Chelka stopped by the arched-roofed wooden temple on the other side of the square.
The wind moved cold air from south of the lake and the clouds in the distance over the plains opened up. Edmath’s hands shook in the cold. Kassel Onoi leaned down and spoke quietly to a stocky village man who approached him from the side, back bulging with red and black protean-flesh.
“Are you alright, Ed?” Chelka asked.
“Yeah.” Edmath couldn’t help but keep staring at Kassel Onoi as the Worm King raised his hands over the villagers. He wanted to say something else, to reassure Chelka, but his attention remained fixed on the strange man whom his father had known. The man who had accepted the protean sphere so gladly. Finally, Kassel spoke.
“People of Beliu,” he said. “The time has come to leave this village behind us. Find every man and every woman, and gather every child. Before sunrise, we must empty this village and begin our march west before the High Emperor can catch us.” He took a deep breath and lowered his hands. “I can only lead you if you will follow me. Will you follow me?”
The villagers let up a cheer, bestial and wild. The sound died away as Kassel Onoi descended from the entrance of the lodge and walked into the crowd. Chelka turned to Edmath with a small smile.
“He seems to have inspired them.”
Edmath couldn’t shake the queasy feeling in his empty stomach as he watched the crowd break up. “As long as they leave and do not return, I will be pleased. Of course, that’s a given if all goes to plan.” Edmath looked down at Chelka’s fingers constricted around his shoulder. “We should return to Brosk as quickly as we can.”
Chelka craned her neck and looked out to the plains beyond the village to the south. Thick gray clouds moved in where the light had only recently appeared.
“You are right. A blizzard is on its way.”
She led him away from the temple and through the villagers milling around Kassel Onoi in the square. They had passed the lodge and had turned toward the lake when a loud cry came from the villagers behind them.
Edmath turned back, following the gazes of the villagers to the crest of the temple’s high, slanted roof. Three figures stood there, white and green imperial cloaks flapping in the southwest wind. Edmath squinted through his glasses, making out the young face of Keve Zasha amid her streaming yellow hair. On her right, a bald, flint-faced man Edmath didn’t recognize stood on the roof’s slope, his dark skin apparently impervious to the cold. The long white hair of old Morior Lem marked him as the man on Keve’s left. His hand rested by the sphere of Keve’s stethian, keeping it pointed down.
“You have attempted to slay my master,” Keve shouted. “High Emperor Vosraan Loi demands you repay him, Kassel Onoi!”
The men on either side of Keve drew small rings and struck the air. Magic poured forth. Kassel Onoi stared at them from the center of the square, surrounded by a ring of villagers, with more approaching from every side.
“You don’t know what’s at stake, child!” His hand f
ell to the sword at his belt. “Emperor Loi is blind to the true danger!”
Edmath took a step back toward the square. This was a dangerous moment. All his training told him how impossible it would be to intervene, but all his instinct screamed that he must. He broke away from Chelka, but she caught his wrist.
“This isn’t our fight, Ed.”
He looked back at her, seeing the same beautiful face as he had all the years he had known her. Nothing could change what he needed to at that moment. He didn’t strain against her grip.
“They’ll kill him,” he said. “I owe him my life.”
Chelka bowed her head, the hood of her coat falling over her face. She released his hand.
“Don’t give it up now.”
Edmath’s breath caught in his throat. She was right. If he failed in this he could be killed. He might lose his good name, his position. He could be—
Keve Zasha waved her stethian and the bald man vanished from beside her. He appeared in the square beside Kassel Onoi, a grin on his face and a dagger in his hand.
“We finally caught up with you, Onoi. I must say, I was looking forward to this.”
Kassel Onoi made no move, but stood with perfect composure, as if no one had threatened him. He looked up at Keve Zasha.
“Your vendetta is misguided, good Saale. I am leaving this nation this very night and I have promised never to return.”
Edmath looked from the Worm King to the Saales on the rooftop and then back again. He clenched his fists as the wind cut through his light cloak and chilled him. The gibbering villagers around Kassel turned as one to face their king, the man who would sacrifice his own humanity to be with them. Edmath gulped.
“Chelka,” he said. “Please understand. Give me a striker.”
She took his outstretched fist in her hand. She gently unfolded it, not trying to hold him back. He looked back at her, as her hood fell back revealing her tumbling black hair, her narrowed eyes, and her set jaw.
“I trust you.” She pressed a single ring of bone and sinew into his hand. “Don’t destroy our lives for this.”
“I won’t.”
Edmath struck the air, splitting the physical curtain with a hiss only audible to a Saale. Whatever dwelt beyond the curtain, the spirits of magic, flowed out, guided in a spiral around him by a current previously invisible to his eyes. Reaching out with his open hand he drew in the magic, feeling the energy pulsing deeper into his skin. He closed his eyes as Chelka stepped back from him. He needed to distract these Saales, needed to stop this confrontation.
He pressed the tips of his index fingers together, touched the tips of his thumbs. As magic flowed into him, he completed the sign, touching all his remaining fingertips to the end of their opposite digit—his sign of the great seed.
He fixed his eyes on a spot between the Worm King and the temple where Keve and Morior stood. With any luck, this distraction would be all it took to dampen this situation. Releasing the magic from his mind even as he took in more from the world around him, Edmath gritted his teeth with the focus. The snowy ground cracked as the growing seed burst from beneath it. Snow turned to water in a ring all around the seed even before it erupted with roots and trunk.
Edmath broke the symbol in half, tearing his hands away from each other. The seed split and its growth accelerated. A trunk shot up before the temple directly in front of Keve Zasha and Morior Lem.
Keve shouted something and swung her stethian before she vanished from sight behind the tree. The Saale beside the Worm King glanced back at the temple. Kassel Onoi shoved him backward with a shoulder. The dagger fell from his hand even as Kassel’s gleaming sword emerged from its scabbard and poised above the fallen Saale’s neck.
Keve appeared beside the bald man on the ground, touched his shoulder, and then vanished again along with the man. Edmath scarcely believed he’d seen her, the movement happened so fast. The tree stopped growing at about a story higher than the temple roof and Morior Lem appeared from over it, riding on a greater moth.
Chelka cried a warning. Edmath looked around for the danger. Keve Zasha appeared a few yards ahead of him with the fallen bald Saale at her feet. She saw him and closed her eyes.
“Saale Edmath Benisar,” she said. “You are healed, I presume?”
Behind Keve, the ring of villagers broke and charged toward her and the fallen Saale. Edmath took a step back to stand behind Chelka. The Saale picked himself up from the ground as villagers surrounded his and Keve’s back.
“You’re out of power, aren’t you?” Edmath sagged with the effort of his last spell. “You can’t teleport so fast without striking again.”
A ripple of movement passed through the villagers as they murmured in the accent of the borderlands. Shapes split and twisted as they revealed their protean spheres. Red and black flesh emerged from men and women all around the semicircle. Keve opened her eyes and glared at Edmath.
“Correct, Lord Benisar.”
The Saale beside her twisted his shape, flesh hardening into scales, tail sprouting from an opening in the cloak on his back, and eyes slitting like the serpent he now resembled so well. Another dagger fell into the man’s hand, a striker ring hanging from the chain at its hilt.
“Lord Savnon,” she said. “Be ready to slay these beasts.”
“As you wish, Lady Zasha.” The man called Savnon’s serpent-eyes moved from Edmath and across the circle of villagers as he turned slowly to face opposite the way from Keve.
“You won’t last long against my people,” Kassel Onoi said from the other side of the villagers. “You’d best call this off, Saale Zasha.”
Edmath took a step through the snow toward Keve, letting his striker fall from his fingers. He raised his hands.
“Yes. Of course, we will ensure you’re safety as long as you do not choose violence now.”
Keve looked over her shoulder at Stark and Morior Lem. She gave a frustrated sigh and turned her gaze back to Edmath.
“Fine. Otherwise, we appear to be in trouble.”
Kassel Onoi stopped a few paces back from the semicircle of warped villagers and gave Edmath a satisfied nod.
“What he says is the truth. Leave now and we will not pursue.”
“Alright.” Keve glared at Edmath. “Humiliation does not suit me, Edmath Benisar. Someday...” She turned to the Serpent Tribe Saale Savnon. “Let us go.”
Her glare turned into a grin as Kassel Onoi called the villagers back to let her past. Edmath felt her strangeness almost as much as he sensed her hostility. She must have arranged this herself. The High Emperor would not have sent her to fight. She was still a child.
She walked to the base of the tree Edmath had grown in front of the temple and, with snow falling in her hair, placed her hand on its trunk. Morior Lem descended to her on Moth wings while Stark followed past the villagers. She glanced at Kassel Onoi as the two men struck on either side of her.
“It doesn’t matter what I do. That mirache and its rider will overwhelm you without my help.” She swung her stethian and vanished into the frigid air, leaving magic flowing all through Beliu Square. Edmath turned to Chelka. Her hood had been pulled back by the wind, and her hair streamed around her face. Still frozen in their warped shaped, the villagers turned to Kassel Onoi as he walked between them.
“This is a strange turn,” Kassel said. “To be so pursued.” He came to a stop before Edmath, calm, but clearly ready for action. He sheathed his sword. “Have you seen any sign of the Roshi, Edmath?”
Folding his arms, Edmath tried to keep from shivering.
“We encountered on the lake. We drove him back, but he must not have stuck to his word.”
“Who is he?”
“Ursar Kiet, the champion of Akalok Roshi.”
Kassel Onoi’s hand fell back to his sword hilt. Beside Edmath, Chelka drew in an audible breath, but the former worm king did not draw his weapon. Kassel whistled and shook his head.
“He is a man who lives to kill.”
<
br /> Edmath’s fingers twitched reflexively.
“Of course, we will not let him find you,” he said. “You saved my life, King of Beliu. Thus I cannot let you die.”
Kassel bowed his head like a servant.
“I am no king. Not anymore.”
“It’s good you understand that.” Chelka scowled at Kassel. “We have to move quickly. Confronting Ursar Kiet will not be easy.”
“And of course evading him may be impossible,” Edmath said. “He could slay many villagers, no matter how fearsome they are. Only a Saale has any hope of defeating him.”
Kassel Onoi raised his head and grimaced as a spasm ran through his body. The protean sphere must have taken root. Already it was changing the former king. The tremor passed, and Kassel straightened his back.
“You sound as though you have a plan, Edmath.”
The snowfall intensified and the wind picked up, howling over the rooftops and through the square. Edmath shivered, his stomach gnawing at him, a personal famine.
“I’m sure you’ve thought of it too,” he said. “You used your worm tosh to copy yourself at Niniar, did you not? Why not use a decoy here as well.”
The smile that had spread across Kassel’s face when he’d started speaking disappeared in another spasm that passed through his body.
“No.” He gasped in pain and clutched his stomach. “I cannot do it now. The change is too fast. I will not be able to use my tosh.”
Edmath rubbed his chin with his fingers.
“This complicates matters.”
“The Roshi wants only me.” Kassel turned his back on Chelka and Edmath. He walked back through the crowd of villagers, which parted around him. Reaching the steps of the lodge, Kassel shrugged his shoulders. “I will send them away, as I planned. Then I must face him.”
Edmath followed Kassel with Chelka at his side. The villagers would not allow him past but stood as a silent wall against his movements. With a frustrated grunt, Edmath fell back a step.
Spells of the Curtain Volume One Page 31
