by Sean Hinn
“What did you feel, Shyla Greykin? Please, you must say it aloud, now, before it fades.”
Shyla closed her eyes, grimacing. “I…. I felt a dyin’.”
Trellia shuddered. “A… dying? Of who? Who died, Shyla?”
Shyla shook her head. “No. Not who.”
The Vicaris placed a hand on Shyla’s arm, trying to convey some degree of comfort. “A thing, then, Shyla? Something dying?”
Shyla shook her head. Trellia knew then to wait, to allow the gnome a moment to find the right words. A turn later, she did.
“A dyin’ of all things, of all hope, of all that’s ever been. But… not just that. Not just dyin’.” Wolf let out a pathetic whine.
Trellia moved a wisp of hair from Shyla’s eyes. The gnome shied away, eyes shut against whatever assailed her.
“What else, Shyla? What else did you feel?”
Shyla opened her eyes and beheld Trellia. The fear etched in the little gnome’s features broke Trellia’s heart.
“A birth,” Shyla replied.
“A birth?” asked Trellia. “A birth of what?”
Shyla shook her head.
“It’s all right, you can say it.”
“You don’t understand. I canna say it. It… it ain’t got a real name.”
“What doesn’t, dear? What doesn’t have a name?”
Shyla turned to face the rest of the company. They huddled near, listening, watching, expectant and afraid.
“Watch.”
Shyla sent a flash of thoughts and images to the minds of her companions. They each recoiled save Trellia, who leaned in closer, her face fingers from the gnome girl’s own.
“How did you see this? I do not understand.”
“I didn’t see it. Wolf saw it, comin’ outta Fang. Or, well, I mean, sorta. I think it came to ‘im, like a dream maybe? I don’t know.”
“Is this a true vision, Shyla Greykin? Can you tell, somehow?”
Shyla swallowed. “‘I can tell. ‘Tis true, Lady Trellia. Leastways Wolf thinks it is.”
Lucan was the first to ask aloud. “Vicaris… what... what in Fury was that black… thing?”
Again, Wolf whined. Shyla placed a calming hand on his neck.
Trellia shook her head. “I have absolutely no idea.”
VIII: KEHRLIA
Sartean awoke covered in sweat, shaking, screaming.
“What did you do to me!”
“I did nothing, Master, please, calm down–”
Sartean threw off his blanket and lunged for Jarriah, missing him, falling from the couch to his knees.
“My mind… it burns! What is this horror?”
Jarriah retreated to the far side of the room, attempting a soothing tone in reply. “It is the potion, Master. You are withdrawing. It will pass.”
“Give me more, then! Oh, I cannot bear this!” Sartean began to crawl towards the apprentice.
“You must not drink more, this will pass!”
Sartean lifted his gaze to the young would-be Incantor. Pinpoint pupils in dark irises danced in mad rhythms, darting this way and that within the reddened, veiny orbs. The master of Kehrlia growled and ground his teeth, curling back his lips like a cornered animal.
“You will bring me more or die here and now!”
Jarriah swallowed, knowing without question that Sartean was moments away from ending his life. He reached into his robe and extracted a small phial containing a day’s dose of the powerful potion.
“Here… do not take too–”
Sartean snatched the phial away from Jarriah. Trembling hands fumbled with the stopper; his fingers were useless, completely unequal to the task. Sartean extended the bottle to Jarriah, the wizard’s terrible visage of anger replaced with a pitiable, pleading look. Jarriah reached to help, but Sartean dropped the glass onto the marble floor. The bottle shattered.
Jarriah dove behind Sartean’s desk, partially to avoid any spell that the wizard might then cast in rage, but also to retrieve another bottle from the desk. He opened a drawer and withdrew another bottle, shocked to discover that he was still alive to do so. As he stood again to give the potion to his master, he discovered why it was that he still lived.
Sartean D’Avers was too busy to kill Jarriah. The Master of Kehrlia was again on his knees, slurping the spilled Flightfluid from the floor of the library. Jarriah noticed with horror that the clear liquid mess had turned pink. Sartean did not bother to avoid the shards of glass that floated within the spilled liquid; the wizard’s lips and tongue were a mess of red. When the last vestiges of the potion were licked from the floor, Sartean looked up to see the second bottle in Jarriah’s hand.
“More.”
Sartean drank the second does in a single swallow and threw the bottle against the wall, rising.
“YESSSS! Get me more!”
Jarriah reached for Sartean. “Master… please, you must–”
Sartean struck the apprentice with a vicious backhand, sending him reeling against the wall. He stood in the center of the library, huffing, panting as the potion coursed its way through his veins, sating the terrible thirst. A turn passed, then another before Sartean finally looked up and again became aware of his surroundings. Jarriah remained slumped against the wall, unmoving, afraid to draw attention to himself.
“Come, Jarriah,” said Sartean. “Come, I will not harm you. I was not myself for a moment. Come, now, do not just cower there like a rat.”
Jarriah stood. Sartean could see that he had split the apprentice’s lip. With a wave of his hand, Sartean healed the injury.
“There. Now come! We have much to do!” Sartean moved to leave the library.
“Master!”
“What is it now, Jarriah!”
“You are naked!”
Sartean looked down at himself. “Ha! So I am.” He continued out the door.
~
An hour later Sartean stood in his blackest robes on the first landing of the steps within the vestibule of Kehrlia. Before him stood near to a hundred Incantors and apprentices. Jarriah had preceded him from his chambers by a few moments, announcing that the address would soon begin. Sartean waited for Jarriah to descend the steps and join the others before he began speaking. When he did, his voice rode currents of wrath.
“Many of you have betrayed me.”
The accusation reverberated in the vestibule, rebounding off the concave marbled walls as if the words themselves sought suitable targets. Sartean wore a hideous grin as he watched the fear take hold. It required no magical effort to know which of those present had refused him entry to Kehrlia in his time of need. The guilty parties all wore the same expressions: they expected to die. Sartean stepped forward and raised his voice.
“I would expect nothing less. You are Incantors of Kehrlia! You are not the dogs of Mor, drooling under the table for scraps! You are not sheep, patiently waiting to be led to the slaughter! You are wolves! You take that which is to be yours! You fear no man, nor should you!”
Sartean took a breath, allowing the idea to take root. More than a few clearly remained terrified, certain that the wizard was employing some ruse. Sartean’s smile returned.
“Yes, I see that many of you fear me. And you should. Because you are inferior. You do not command the magic I command. And thus, those of you in possession of but a shred of wisdom will know your place. But that is your place as measured against the master of Kehrlia. Tell me, what is your place when measured against the sheep and dogs of Mor?” Sartean paused, a scowl of disdain taking shape on his face as he surveyed his subordinates. “Look at you! Serving as house wizards! Retainers in the employ of the aristocrats of Mor, as if you could not wish them from existence!” Sartean scanned the crowd for a face, finding it. “You, Incantor Tallis. Tell us how you spend your days in Kehrlia.”
“I, ah, well–”
“Are you a sheep? Speak like an Incantor of Kehrlia!”
The man cleared his throat. “I process the requests of the citizenry
, Master.”
“What does that mean?” Sartean pressed.
“It means that when someone in Mor requires the assistance of a wizard, but cannot afford to hire one, they submit a request in writing, and I sort through them, prioritizing–”
“And what sort of requests have you been processing lately, Tallis? Since the last quake?”
“They are all the same, Master. Deliverance from the abomination that emerged from Fang, wards to protect homes, magical weapons with which to–”
“Thank you. Tell me, Incantors of Kehrlia, what do you hear?”
The vestibule fell silent; none responded.
Sartean shook his head. “Has anyone a turnglass?”
Several Incantors reached into their robes, withdrawing sand-filled glasses. Sartean waved a hand, drawing one through the air to him. He set the timekeeping device on the rail before him and set the sands to fall. No one noticed the shaking in his hands.
“I will slay one Incantor each turn until I hear a suitable response. I ask you again: when you hear Tallis’ report, what do you hear?”
“Fear!” said one.
“Wrong!”
“Pain!” said another.
“Wrong!”
“Suffering and panic!”
“Wrong and wrong! Have I no wolves here today? Are you all sheep and dogs? What do you hear!?”
The sands continued to fall. Sartean lifted his left hand; within it a ball of fire began to form. Terror-filled moments passed like days as the assembled Incantors struggled to find the right answer while simultaneously watching the turnglass, wondering if it would be them to shortly die. An impossible silence lingered in the vestibule; one could almost hear each sand slide through the narrow passage in the glass. Sartean turned his gaze to the crowd, seeking a target.
“Opportunity,” someone said.
The flame in Sartean’s hand puffed out.
“What? Who said that?”
Jarriah raised a hand.
“Ah, I could have guessed it would be you. Say that again, Incantor Jarriah.”
“Ah, you mean ‘apprentice’, Master?” said a young woman, a recently graduated Incantor whose name Sartean could not recall.
The ball of fire returned to Sartean’s hand briefly before it sped towards the unnamed Incantor. The flame stopped mere fingers from the woman’s face.
“Do I?”
The woman fell to her knees. “No, I… forgive me.”
Sartean frowned in disgust at the woman’s cowardice as she crumpled in fear.
“You,” said Sartean, “are no wolf.”
The ball of flame became a hand, its fingers became tendrils, their tips darting towards the woman’s mouth, nostrils, and eyes. The young Incantor had barely time to inhale, but no time to scream. The flame hollowed out her skull in less than the time it took for her lungs to empty. As she fell to the cold floor the Incantors near her edged warily away.
“Incantor Jarriah, you were saying?”
Jarriah swallowed but held his composure. “Opportunity, Master. If all of Mor seeks the succor of Kehrlia, and Halsen is no more, we are well positioned, I would think.”
Sartean nodded. “And you would be right.” He raised his voice. “Do you hear now, Incantors of Kehrlia? The kingdom of Mor has no leader! Its people have no direction; they flap and flail like a banner in the breeze! Out of the mouth of Fang has been borne no beast, but rather a blessing! For who can slay it? Who possesses the power to confront such things? The army of Mor? Certainly not. The rangers of Thornwood? The druids of the Grove? Not even if they were to act in concert. So, who do they beseech? Kehrlia. Upon whom do they rely? Kehrlia! To whom do the sheep and dogs of Mor come crying when confronted with power they cannot comprehend? To Kerhlia!”
The wizard straightened his posture and cast an inaudible enchantment. He appeared to grow taller; his voice took on a powerful, crystalline timbre. Where the wizard’s presence had been deserving of rapt attention a moment before, it now commanded it.
“And so, I ask you, my fellow masters of the elements: if you remain in service to these, the dogs of Mor who whine at shadows, the sheep who scatter and tremble without a shepherd… if you are subordinate to these, Incantors of Kehrlia, then what does that make you?”
IX: EAST MORLINE
As far east as Fang, the Mawline trail, as taken from Mor, turned to the southeast, still roughly parallel to the Morline, but unlike the great river it continued in that direction until it terminated at the southern jaw of the Maw. Near to that meandering turn a fork in the trail offered a path to the northeast, heading more or less towards the river, and then directly east, on towards the easternmost outpost of the soldiery of Mor. There one would find a crossing, a small contingent of soldiers, and a stable. The soldiers of Mor assigned to the remote garrison were commonly referred to as the Molar men, for if the mountains of the Maw truly resembled the jaws of a great beast, the outpost would have indicated that one had made it past the bicuspids.
Given the time and leisure to do so, Barris would have preferred to make for the Molar’s outpost and share reports with the garrison there before meeting up with his knights, who would most likely be planning to rendezvous with the Rangers of Thornwood just east of Fang, north of the Morline. He very much wanted a first-hand report of what had been transpiring in the eastern Maw, and knew the men there well enough to trust a straightforward accounting. He would also have been able to inform Captain Marion of the troubles in Mor; the man had a wife and young daughter in the capital, and certainly several of those assigned to the Molar had kin in danger as well. To Barris’ mind, they deserved the opportunity to decide whether to abandon their posts and ensure the safety of their families. With Halsen likely dead, the undisciplined army of Mor would almost certainly be in disarray, and quite possibly in the process of disbanding. Despite his own considerable experience with military discipline, Barris allowed that in such times one’s duties were not so clear.
His duty, however, was not unclear. Barris needed to get Nikalus to a healer as soon as possible; the boy had fared well enough since his fall the previous day, tolerating the onnium better than Barris had hoped. He had rested poorly during the night, however, suffering not only from the pain but from the odd dreams the onnium had stirred, and Barris knew the boy had been behaving far too bravely, given the agony he must certainly be in. Nikalus clearly idolized Barris, and so did his best to not complain or show that he was in pain. Yet Barris saw the winces that matched each beat of Champ’s gait, and the sight of the boy in pain troubled his heart; the decision to turn northeast was made for him.
Twice now, in as many cycles, I find myself rushing a boy to safety, thought Barris as they rode. No, that was not exactly accurate. Young as he was in comparison to Barris, Lucan was not a boy. He was a young man, one whom Barris had, to some degree, misjudged. He was no thief, to be sure; Barris believed his tale of how he came to be in the company of Hope. He had certainly displayed some bravery, some sense of duty, in his willingness to embark on the journey to Eyreloch. At the very least, the young man possessed a sense of adventure, which to Barris’ mind was a moral not far removed from courage. And such magic, Barris admired. Lucan’s talent with a dagger was certainly a skill well-honed and could not be wholly attributed to the magic he wielded, particularly considering that Lucan was scarcely aware he did wield magic. Yet wield it he did, and no small amount. Barris would have liked to train the young man; his natural and instant bond with Hope indicated that, were he an elf, he would have made an excellent candidate for the knighthood, if measured only by his aptitude.
Yet, Barris reminded himself, aptitude was but one of many traits that suited one to wear the Brooch. Despite Lucan’s skills and apparent courage, Barris sensed the young man was afflicted by ghosts, a dangerous condition for one who would be given so much responsibility. He also acknowledged that it would require more than merely a firm hand to rein in Lucan’s independent streak – the young man had, as
far as Barris knew, never been accountable to anyone but himself.
Barris dismissed the exercise as academic; Lucan was no elf, nor had he grown up in Thornwood, and thus would never be trained as a knight. Neither would the young boy who was now in his care, despite his eagerness to serve and follow in Barris’ footsteps. Barris had not been exactly truthful when he had told Nikalus that an elf took no squire; in a literal sense, the statement was true, for no title of squire existed in the ranks of the Thornwood military. In practice, however, most all knights took special interest in training a young soldier at some point, as Barris had with Mikallis. The First Knight had just returned from an extended period of travel when Mikallis was still yet a toddler, recently adopted by the Citadel as an orphan. The boy dogged his heels from the moment Terrias introduced the two.
~
“This,” the queen said to the little boy in her lap, “is Sir Barris, First Knight of Thornwood, the bravest, most honorable knight in all the North. Say ‘hello, Sir Barris’!”
The dark-haired boy grinned. “’Lo, Sbarriz!”
The moment was to become one of the most special of Barris’s life, on two counts. The first being the moment in which he met Mikallis Elmshadow, the orphan boy whom he today loved as he would his own natural born son. The second, for the look on Terrias Evanti’s face as she spoke the flattering praise. He would not forget the memory if he lived to see a thousand years, his queen’s blue eyes lifting to meet his own as she spoke, a wisp of platinum hair framing her face just so, a smile playing on her lips, a new smile, a sweet yet desirous expression that Barris had never seen on the face of his queen, one that he, at first, believed to reflect his own love and longing. His heart had stopped then, and if the boy had not been in Terrias’ lap, Barris would have surely forgotten his place, pulled Terrias into his arms, and kissed her until they fell breathless to the floor.
Yet the moment passed, and he did not kiss his queen that day, nor any day since. Sir Marchion brought word, not a turn later, that Halsen had begun rounding up elves in Mor; no one knew to what end. The king of Mor also loved Terrias Evanti, and since she had rebuffed him two decades earlier, the spoiled young man had gradually evolved from an overzealous admirer into a maddened animal over the issue. It was widely believed that Halsen possessed the Fever for Terrias Evanti, which would be impossible if he did not possess some degree of Elven blood. No one knew where in his lineage the blood had come from, but there was little doubt; his terrible obsession for the queen of Thornwood was beyond natural.
