Along with all Academy students, Arrow had helped the Archivists with chores including one memorable winter clearing spiders out of the stacks. Fuelled by the residual magic from the learning around them, Archive spiders tended to have magical armour and a worrying habit of growing to several times the size of even the largest house spiders. The last one she had encountered had possessed flexible jaws with serrated teeth.
There was a legend among the students that there had been a horse-sized rat living in one of the many branches of the Archives. Arrow doubted it. Anything that size would have been swiftly detected and dispatched. The Archivists were in no way the equivalent of human librarians, but trained magicians with combat skills honed over years of watching over their charges.
Descending the shallow stairs to the Archives entrance she found both Archivists waiting for her, their outer robes liberally coated with chalk dust and the occasional cobweb. Glancing past them she saw one of the Archive assistants bandaging a student’s arm, the bandage spotting with blood. Arrow’s brows lifted. It was not like the Archivists to permit a student to be injured.
“Sometimes the only way to teach is to let them be bitten,” the head Archivist said, faint smile playing about his mouth. Arrow looked again, and her confusion cleared. One of the Sovernis House, by the colours on his sleeve, who were famed for producing hot-headed, impetuous young.
“What damaged him, sir?” Orlis asked, curious.
“One of the new nest of sparrow spiders. We have been trying to clear them out of the warding spells locker. He did not believe us when we told him they had claws,” the deputy Archivist answered, mouth pinching in what might look like distaste, but which Arrow was sure was hiding a smile.
“He has taken no lasting harm.” The head dismissed the entire episode. “Arrow, Evellan thought you would have questions for us?”
“Yes, sir, I do. May we use your office for discussion?”
“Best not.” The deputy tilted her chin to another open door. “We can use one of the practice rooms.”
“We had to put the spider nest into my desk,” the head told them, leading the way into the practice room, the heavy warding on the room making Arrow’s ears pop as usual.
“Stupid creature put the nest into a shield,” the deputy continued, pinched look disappearing into an outright grin as she closed the door. “We have instructed him to keep a watch on it until we are free to deal with it, and him.”
“Ah, an eighth cycle student.” Arrow’s lips twitched. Orlis was openly smiling. The eighth cycle was almost entirely concerned with shielding spells, and the students were given so much homework to do that a shield spell was the most natural defensive, or offensive, reaction.
The Archivists took seats at the slender table, nodding to Arrow and Orlis to sit opposite on the simple stools provided. Arrow blinked; more firsts. Too much change in too short a period of time. Tea with the Preceptor. Access to the Academy’s resources. Discovering she was not the only mixed blood among the Erith. She was nearly dizzy, trying to work out which way was up.
A closer look at the Archivists reassured her. They had not changed. The deputy had been an Erith lady of high standing in her House before she had been sent to Serran vo Liathius for training in her gifts, when the Academy was little more than a fanciful idea of the Erith’s most famous mage. To the outright horror of her family, the lady had not only completed her magical training, proving herself a gifted ward master, but had also fallen into an entirely inappropriate relationship, in her family’s eyes, with one of Serran’s pupils, now the head Archivist.
They were, to Arrow’s eyes, a well-matched pair, each far more concerned with preserving the Erith’s knowledge of magic than either of their House’s political ambitions or their own appearances, often losing themselves in the depths of the Archives for long periods of time, emerging only when summoned, or when even their great academic minds required refreshment. They were also two of the very few Erith who did not particularly care about her origins, just her ability to craft magic.
“An incursion, a terrible thing,” the head said soberly.
“It seems oddly confined so far,” Arrow noted. “Although I am quite certain there is more to come.”
“What do you need?” the head asked.
“Information.” Arrow gestured to the wall, and the Archives beyond. “How to track the incursion, how to repair the rift when an incursion has occurred, whether there is a better way to cleanse surjusi taint, how to contain a surjusi, and if there are any other banishment spells apart from the Serran vo Liathius’ spell.”
The pair blinked almost in unison, minds evidently elsewhere, then the deputy frowned slightly at Arrow.
“You have successfully contained two surjusi so far. What more do you need?”
“A better way to combat them,” Arrow said baldly. The misaligned fingers of her right hand tangled in her hair and she folded her hands on the table instead, willing herself to stay still. “I have succeeded more by luck so far. I do not think this is over.” She left unsaid that, even with the extra power she carried, banishing surjusi was exhausting.
“Even for a shadow-walker?” the head asked, head tilted to one side. Arrow stiffened, chill running down her spine.
“If such exists,” she answered, not meeting his eyes.
Alone among the Erith, the Archivists had openly appreciated her silver power as something special, something that made her unique. Not something despised. At first that had been flattering. A much younger Arrow had quickly learned that there was a price for that uniqueness. Shadow-walkers were the rarest of all Erith magical talents. So rare that Arrow did not know what the term meant. Their existence was not discussed at the Academy. Evellan’s fury the one time she had asked him what they were had discouraged her from asking again, the oath spells burning acid in her veins in response to their maker’s anger. It was one of the very rare occasions when she had been truly frightened of the Academy’s master.
All she knew from the Archivists was that shadow-walkers were rare. And burdened. The Archivists had told her, years before, that she was the solution. To what she did not know. The way it had been said she did not want to know. She did not want it to be true. Did not want the pressure that came with the title. There was enough pressure.
Now, with fresh memories of two surjusi encounters, and no taint about her, Arrow wondered if shadow-walkers possessed some natural immunity to the demon’s taint. Not unique, though. Some of the old text she had read as part of her studies, texts only released to fifteenth cycle students, hinted that some Erith were immune to surjusi. It made sense, when the opposite was also true, that some Erith were particularly drawn to the dark. But she was not convinced that immunity was the totality of what it meant to be a shadow-walker. And still did not want to know. A lifetime spent among the Erith and she finally had freedom from their incessant demands. Free to experiment with spells, travel the world, and soak in a bath until all the aches were gone and she was warm all the way through. Once the mastermind behind Marianne Stillwater’s death and the surjusi incursion was found, she planned to do all those things. Starting with the bath.
Besides, if the Taellan had suspected for a moment that she, their most troublesome burden, was something rare and valuable to the Erith, a shadow-walker, she would have been collared and contained all her life, not even allowed the freedom of refusing her oath. If they had let her live.
The head Archivist lifted a brow, clear blue eyes steady on her face, “What makes you believe anyone else will have more success?”
“A shadow-walker?” Orlis broke in, eyes glinting with interest.
Arrow held onto her composure with effort, stomach sinking. No wonder the Preceptor had been so accommodating. She was his answer. The Erith’s solution to the incursion. Meaning that neither he nor his staff would have to deal with it themselves. As usual.
Her jaw clenched, the old anger and bitter hurt surging up again. She might be free of her oaths,
but the Erith still thought they could use her for their ends. A slow deep breath in, released equally slowly and she remembered that what the Erith thought, and what was real, were not the same thing. Not in this case. Their resources were useful to her just now. Her mouth twitched in an involuntary smile realising that, for the first time, she was using the Erith as much as they were using her.
“The Lady Arrow is a shadow-walker.” The head stated it as fact. Arrow’s good humour vanished as quickly as it had arrived. Being different among the Erith had never been a good thing, in her experience.
“One has not been seen for …” Orlis frowned as he thought.
“Over a hundred and fifty years,” the deputy supplied, eyes bright. “The last was killed in an incursion in an effort to stop the Queen’s family being overwhelmed.”
“There is no proof that I am what you think,” Arrow told them, voice colder than she had ever heard it. She wondered how far the Archivists had shared their suspicions. Before they could protest, or bring up supposed examples, she went on. “The Erith repelled the last incursion without a shadow-walker,” she pointed out, chill creeping out from her spine to the rest of her body, knuckles white as she moved her clenched hands from the table top to her lap. “The learning has been lost. There has to be a way to track the taint. The first incursion was in Hallveran, but the second surjusi was trapped in Lix. That is a lot of ground for one person to cover.”
“Tracking has always been done by a shadow-walker,” the head said slowly. “As far as we can tell it is difficult if not impossible for other mages to do so.”
“I do not know how to track them.” Arrow kept her voice even with an effort. “Any information you can find for me would be helpful.”
“There was a book. About shadow-walkers. A diary, I think,” the deputy said, gaze unfocused as she sorted through her memory. “It is missing, though.”
“Missing?” The head scowled.
“At the turn of the year,” the deputy confirmed. “No one can remember when it was last seen. We will try and find it for you, Arrow.”
“There was just one book?” Arrow could not help but ask. The Archives stretched for miles. There were at least nineteen separate scrolls and books on cleaning spells for household rugs that she knew of.
“Yes,” the head said then paused, lips pressed together. “They are not very common. As you know.”
“So you have told me,” Arrow countered, fingers twisting together.
“Well, we will see what we can find. Is there anything else we can do?” the deputy asked.
“The spells used by the magic user who did the summoning contained some complex and unfamiliar runes.” Arrow pulled a few sheets of human-made paper from her pockets, courtesy of the shifkin, the thin pencil drawings clumsy as her hands were more used to chalk. She laid the sheets on the table, facing the Archivists. They leant forward eagerly.
“These are not complete,” the head said, disapproving frown directed at Arrow.
“They were contained amongst summoning spells,” Arrow said, irritation in her voice. He was too much the academic sometimes. “This is the same rune.” She put two pages closer together. “Between them you will be able to see the complete image.” She put the remaining three pages closer together, careful not to let them touch or overlap. “This is the other rune.”
“In a summoning spell?” The head librarian’s eyebrows lifted.
“Yes.”
Arrow described, in detail, the summoning circle she had found in Hallveran, the twin circles overlaid, declining the head’s request that she draw the circle for them, a request withdrawn as the deputy shot her life partner a stern, dark look, informing him that there was enough to do in the Archives without also dealing with an incursion.
With the Archivists promising to research the runes, shadow-walkers, and ways of countering surjusi, Arrow left the Archives, climbing back up to the Academy’s main floor with something like relief.
~
After the eager compliance of the Archivists, the aid of the castellan and stores keeper, both more than willing to supply her with what she needed, set her teeth on edge. Asking for something to carry her new supplies, she was given a new leather satchel, of Erith make, finer than anything she had owned in her life, with the stores keeper not even blinking as she handed it over. A younger Arrow would have rejoiced at the change in heart. Older Arrow’s skin prickled with apprehension as she filled her new satchel with the supplies.
Maintaining a calm front while her mind was working was a skill she had perfected years before. Underneath that front, power and temper were flaring in ways she had not experienced for years. Not since the Erith had dragged her back from Hallveran and given her the option of the oath or death. More than once she found her hand straying to her neck, seeking the reassurance of bare skin, that there was no collar there to hem her, and checking the insides of her wrists, worried that the oath markings might reappear in proximity to the Preceptor and the demands that the Erith wanted to place upon her. Demands she had already made of herself, she reminded herself.
That she was free of the oath marks did not seem to matter to the Erith. All the aid she was being given was for a purpose. The Erith’s purpose. They still regarded her as useful, someone to do the jobs they did not want to do. Stupid to imagine that a lifetime of being an abomination in their midst had somehow been overturned and that she might be valued for her own sake, rather than for the use they could make of her, or because they believed she was that rarest of mages, a shadow-walker. She heard an angry sound in her throat and curbed it, conscious of Orlis’ silent, listening presence behind her. There was too much to do for her to indulge her feelings.
Settling the new satchel over her shoulder she fiddled with it, trying to settle it comfortably. It did not quite fit yet. She wrinkled her nose. Her clothes smelled. The stink of burning rubber and the aftermath of weapons fire warred with the cleaner scent of healing salve and whatever herbs Thomas had used to treat his bandages, the binding around her ribs not strictly necessary now. She needed new clothes. And some rest. And probably food. The dull flare of temper settled a moment. Definitely food.
Course of action decided, she set off towards the gates, Orlis falling into step beside her. He had been subdued for much of the afternoon which made her suspicious. She had a sense that he was normally as vibrant as his hair.
“We cannot leave yet,” he said, keeping pace with her with long, easy strides.
“Why not?”
“The Preceptor requires a cadre to go with you.”
“I prefer to work alone,” Arrow snapped back, temper fraying, forgetting for a moment that she had been delighted at the prospect of a cadre earlier in the day.
“It would be prudent to have White Guard.” Orlis sounded genuinely puzzled, forehead creased.
“Then by all means, please fetch them.” Arrow waved a hand towards the White Guard barracks, hidden from view among trees, but did not pause in her headlong pace towards the main gates.
“And we need transport,” Orlis pointed out.
A sensible point, Arrow conceded in the privacy of her own mind, but kept going. The fury that she had suppressed had soared again. She needed to be away. Out of sight of the Erith. Away from the manipulation. Away from the changes. On the trail of her quarry.
“I need to call the ‘kin anyway,” she told Orlis, succeeding in shocking him and finally out-pacing him. She did not look to see where he had gone, continuing to the main gate, and being let out of the Taellaneth with alacrity, the sentry as happy to see her go as she was to leave. The new satchel was an awkward weight across her shoulders, pressing the spirit sword’s scabbard into her spine, but she did not check in her pace, stomping along the road towards the administrative office.
The wide-open grassland that stretched as a visible boundary between the Erith and the humans was cast with shadows, telling her it was much later than she had thought. She had lost much of the day in the Archi
ves.
In the far distance she could see the gleam of vehicles approaching along the single road from Lix and cast her senses out. Shifkin. A thrum of anticipation ran through her. The ‘kin were here. Possibly looking for her, which suggested they may have found something.
Slowing her pace slightly, muscles protesting the effort, she kept walking.
CHAPTER 9
Silver flashed. Perimeter ward. New magic, not tested. Impact, brutal and silent, slammed her backwards. Off her feet. Hard surface. Breath gone. Personal wards flaring, world coated in silver.
Scrabbling for breath, calling power, coughing.
Breathe.
Think.
Hit by something too fast for her wards to stop. Deflected by the new perimeter ward. Shoulder icy.
Shot. Long range.
Long range meant still threatened.
More power to wards. Move.
Silver lightning cascaded around her as a series of hard, sharp strikes tried to break her wards. But she was a war mage and holding a battle ward was a long-ago learned skill.
She knelt on the road, making herself as small a target as possible, breath rapid and sore, sending her senses out. Shifkin, vehicles moving slightly faster. A group of Erith behind her, moving fast. Nothing else.
“Mage! Are you hurt?” The urgency in the tone drew her attention.
“I do not think so.” The better part of her attention was elsewhere. Something had attacked her. All her uneven temper vanished into a single focus. Finally, something that was familiar.
“You have been shot.” Orlis’ voice was trembling.
“Long range,” she observed. There was nothing else within reach of her senses.
“Svegraen, reinforcements. Now. Archers ready. Battle wards.” That was Kallish’s voice, flat and urgent, a series of orders issuing without pause. Arrow stopped listening until she was addressed directly. “Mage, you are bleeding.”
Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set Page 36
