Into Vushaar

by Robert M Kerns

  “Yes, I did.”

  Lillian’s eyes narrowed as she worked her jaw. “Gavin, I’m not happy with this. This is a new low for you. That you could casually set up some poor woman as a sacrifice…it’s…well…it’s something Marcus would’ve done. It’s not who you are, Gavin.”

  “What makes you think I decided upon that path casually, Lillian? Do you think I just plucked some desperate soul off the street and threw wealth and food at her without explaining the full extent of what I was trying to do?” Gavin pushed himself to his feet and took a few steps away from the table, pivoting to gesture at all the note-pages that hid the tabletop. “I’ve gone as far as I can go, Lillian. Yes, I’ve broken down and deciphered the entire effect, but that doesn’t mean I have a solution. There’s no part of those diagrams anywhere—anywhere—that is designed to cause the death of the slave if the brand is removed, so it’s an unintended consequence. Matter of fact, everything I’ve seen in those diagrams almost screams that Marcus intended the marks to be removable, but damned if I can see how.

  “Oh, sure…I could invoke a dispelling effect on a slave, but I’m not so indifferent to life that I’ll risk someone like that. I am literally working with people’s lives, Lillian…your friend included. You think Kiri wants to spend the rest of her life branded a slave?”

  “She’s your friend, too, Gavin.”

  “I have to see the branding effect take hold,” Gavin said, continuing on as if Lillian hadn’t spoken. “I’ve already examined the slave Declan hired for me to a far greater degree than probably even she realizes. I’ve seen the tendrils of power radiating out from that brand throughout her entire being. I’ve seen how it blocks her from having children. Did you know that every slave’s brand is linked to every other brand?”

  Lillian’s eyes went wide. “What? I’ve never heard anything about that.”

  Gavin chuckled. “I doubt even the slavers know. It’s buried deep in the effect. There is a link between every slave brand through the world’s ambient magic, almost like some gigantic invisible web. I have no idea how the old man did it, but it is breathtaking in its artistry. Matter of fact, there are tendrils of power like the links between brands I haven’t even identified yet; maybe they link the slaves to the brands that marked them…or maybe the slavers somehow. I don’t know, because I’ve never watched a brand in action with all the knowledge I now have. But that’s the solution, don’t you see? If I can successfully remove one slave brand, I can remove them all.”

  “And what if I told you I cannot support you using some innocent as a glorified laboratory tool? What if I told you it’s wrong and you need to choose between our friendship and continuing in this?”

  Gavin turned and locked gazes with Lillian. He stood silent for quite a while, with the rising and falling of his chest as he breathed the only indication he was alive.

  “If that is truly how you feel, Lillian, I respect your opinion and your values…but I do not share them. You know the Word of Transmutation to teleport yourself home. You may do so whenever it suits you, but I have work to do.”

  “He really said that?” Kiri asked as she leaned forward from her relaxed pose on the sofa.

  Kiri and Lillian faced each other across Kiri’s private sitting room, once again having shared a meal. They mirrored each other in their poses, leaning against the arm of the sofa with their legs folded beneath them. They each held a crystal glass containing one of the finest vintages of wine produced in recent years, a post-prandial refreshment.

  Lillian nodded. “I’ve never seen him like this, Kiri. Well…no, that’s not quite right. I’ve seen him aloof and unyielding toward others but never us.”

  “Did you mention it to Braden or Wynn?”

  “Oh, no. I never considered it. Wynn is thoroughly enjoying his role as lead instructor for Gavin’s new apprentices; I’ve never seen him so happy. And Braden? Well, Braden is just as happy I think. He’s watching and learning how to deconstruct an artifact no one today understands. I’ve seen him sitting off by himself, doodling ideas for imbued items using designs based on what he’s learning at Gavin’s side. If I asked them to leave, they’d probably leave…but I can’t help but feel they’d always resent me for asking.”

  “What of Mariana? I haven’t seen much of her lately…or the elves, come to think of it.”

  Lillian smiled. “Mariana’s happily ensconced in the barracks and practice spaces for your Cavaliers, and from a few whispers I’ve overheard, she’s making a name for herself. I think there’s a part of Mariana that has always regretted being born a Wizard of the Great Houses and Heir to Cothos to boot. I’ve never seen her happier than when she’s training with arms among like-minded souls.” Silence descended on the room for several moments, before Lillian lifted her eyes to meet Kiri’s. “Are you considering approaching Gavin about his plans?”

  Kiri worked her lower lip between her teeth for several moments before she shook her head. “No. I’ve thought on it during our visit, and I can’t bring myself to do it. Like Wynn and Braden, I can’t help but feel he’d stop if I asked him…but I’d also be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that’s afraid he’d turn his back on me and keep following his course. We are from such different worlds, Lillian, but I can’t stop thinking about him. I keep hoping…well, it’s silly I suppose.”

  “Kiri Muran, we’ve shared so much, silly and otherwise. You never need to censor your thoughts with me.”

  Kiri lowered her eyes to gaze at the floor. “I…I keep hoping he’ll visit and tell me how much he has missed me and never wants to leave me again. I never thought being so close to someone could feel like I’m so far away.”

  “You could always go to him. I know it isn’t usually done that way, but there’s nothing saying you can’t.”

  Kiri shook her head. “It’ll never work, Lillian. I’m a—the Crown Princess. I will be Queen of Vushaar someday, and it’s always been discussed and assumed that my marriage would be one of state to ensure the best future for Vushaar.”

  “I can see that,” Lillian said, “but was your parents’ marriage a marriage of state?”

  Kiri lifted her gaze to a portrait hanging on the wall over Lillian’s left shoulder. It depicted her parents standing somewhere on the Claymark Estate, after their wedding but before Kiri. They stood close together, her father’s arms around her mother’s shoulders, and they looked so…happy.

  A wistful smile curled Kiri’s lips as she shook her head. “No. It wasn’t. Grandfather was—and still is—the major grain supplier in the country, so a lot of people tried to say it was a kind of dynastic marriage between the royal family and the family of the country’s greatest merchant prince. But that wasn’t it at all. I asked Father once when I was thirteen or so and had overheard someone saying something to that effect, and Father said that he’d never met anyone who felt more right to him…someone who accepted him as Terris Muran and not the Crown Prince of Vushaar. He told me Mother was the only woman he ever met who didn’t seem to care he was the second most powerful person in the land and later the King.”

  “So…it’s not like there isn’t precedent for a non-dynastic marriage. Besides, Gavin being Kirloth is probably prestigious enough that no one would gainsay you setting your sights on him, if he’s truly who you want.”

  Kiri shook herself. “We need to change the subject. You have me thinking thoughts I shouldn’t be…especially since Gavin has never cared to share his thoughts or feelings.”

  “What should we discuss then? The weather?”

  “It has been rather hot lately.”

  The Cavalier patrolling the halls of the Crown Princess’s personal wing stopped for the briefest moment at the sound of almost-adolescent giggling echoing into the hall.

  Chapter 36

  A tense ambiance filled the basement laboratory. The refugee woman Gavin hired stared at the slaver who stood a short distance away and held a slave branding iron. The slaver looked rather tense himself, sweat c
oating his brow and eyes jerking from point to point all around him. Declan—standing behind the slaver—seemed untouched by the tension in the room, while Braden stood off to one side as if not sure where to stand, and Gavin? He stood between the refugee and slaver, with his back to the staircase and out of their direct line…and his frustration was building.

  “You keep me caged up like an animal for weeks,” the slaver said, “and you have the nerve to expect me to bark when you say ‘speak?’ What are you? Insane? Why should I do anything for you?”

  The woman flinched away from the slaver’s harsh tone, asking, “Will this hurt?”

  Gavin directed his attention to the woman. “I don’t know if it hurts; I’m sorry.” Then, Gavin turned to the slaver, and when he spoke, his voice was slightly deeper and unyielding…the voice his friends had come to associate with ‘Kirloth.’ “You should do whatever I tell you to do in the hope that you will enjoy a quick and painless death, and right this moment, it’s looking like it’ll be slower and rather agonizing. The age of the slavers is finished and shall not come again. You can help me see to that, or I need to acquire another slaver, someone more agreeable to being useful.”

  The slaver stared at Gavin for several moments before he swallowed hard and turned to the woman. “Hold your hand up like you’re catching an apple. It seems to hurt less that way.”

  “Hold,” Gavin said. He stepped to a small end table off to his right and retrieved one of two specially prepared crystals. He returned to his position and invoked a composite effect, blending Words of Divination, Transmutation, and Illusion, “Stynohs-Zyrhaek-Zaethyx.”

  Any wizard within a block and a half of the house felt the resonance of Gavin’s power, and the crystal in Gavin’s hand took on a kaleidoscopic radiance as the effect took hold.

  Gavin nodded in satisfaction, looking at the crystal through his skathos before lifting his attention to the slaver and saying, “Proceed.”

  The slaver lifted the hand holding the branding iron and pressed it against the palm of the woman’s hand. Gavin closed his eyes and concentrated with his skathos just in time to ‘watch’ the effect take hold. He saw the power embedded in the brand snake outward through the woman’s arm and suffuse her entire being, manifesting as the brand everyone knew so well on her left shoulder. It was over in an instant, and the woman collapsed to her knees as she gasped for air. Still concentrating on his skathos, Gavin saw two tendrils extend from those suffusing the woman: one reached out and merged with the brand and the other the slaver.

  “Oh, my,” Gavin whispered. “Now, isn’t that interesting…”

  Gavin sat at the table in his lab. Even though the composite effect he invoked recorded everything he witnessed through his skathos to the crystal he held, Gavin still felt it important to write down his first-hand observations, and he was re-reading those observations in preparation for calling on the Illusion portion of the crystal to watch the woman’s branding a second time at a much slower speed. After all, he didn’t want to miss anything about how the branding effect worked.

  “Gavin?”

  Gavin turned and saw Lillian standing at the base of the stairs. He quirked his eyebrows in a silent question as he gestured at a nearby chair. Lillian crossed the space between her and the chair, taking a seat.

  “Am I still welcome here?”

  Gavin chuckled. “Lillian, you were never unwelcome. Just because we have different values and opinions on one, specific matter doesn’t mean we’re suddenly at odds in all things.” A faint memory of a conversation between two friends—more of an impression, really—floated up to the forefront of his mind from the gray mists surrounding his consciousness. “I always will be your friend.”

  “Is there any way I can help?”

  “Is that what you really want to do? Or do you feel as though you should help to prove yourself?”

  “You’re working to remove Kiri’s slave brand. I suppose it’s naïve to think something that’s caused such pain and suffering could be removed without inflicting pain and suffering in the process.”

  Gavin shook his head. “No, Lillian. That’s not naïve at all. In fact, I would prefer to remove Kiri’s brand without anyone suffering, but I don’t have that luxury. I need to understand how the brand affects people, because the diagrams of how to make the brands doesn’t explain that. There’s no way they could…beyond a bird’s-eye view anyway.”

  “So…Gavin…how can I help?”

  “Well, there is something. I was going to ask Braden to do it, but perhaps, it would be more instructive for him to watch through his skathos instead.”

  “Why do I get the impression whatever this is won’t be that much fun for me?”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t enjoy it when it happened to me,” Gavin said. “I want my pet slaver to brand you, and I don’t want you wearing your medallion in plain sight when he does it.”

  Lillian frowned. “Won’t that…kill him?”

  “Lillian, he was never going to leave this project alive anyway, and at no point have I promised he would. Besides, it may not kill him outright; there’s always the chance that it’ll leave him with your House Glyph burned into his forehead or palm but still alive. I’ve watched a commoner get branded through my skathos, and it was far more instructive than I could’ve imagined. Now, the only thing left is to see how the protection against wizards being branded activates.”

  Lillian sat in silence for several moments, her eyes and face angled down. After several moments, she lifted her face to Gavin once more and took a deep breath. She grasped her medallion by its chain and pulled the neck of her dress out from her shoulders far enough to drop the medallion inside and said, “When do we start?”

  A short time later, the slaver once again stood in Gavin’s laboratory holding the branding iron and facing Lillian. Declan stood behind him, a dagger at the ready, and Braden stood off to one side.

  “So, I’m supposed to brand some other poor girl?” the slaver said. “You creating yourself a personal harem or something?”

  Gavin shifted his attention to the slaver and lifted one eyebrow. It seemed the ambient temperature dropped just a bit under that gaze.

  “Uhm…yes, well…girlie, I want you to hold your hand out like you’re catching an apple.”

  Lillian lifted her right arm and curled her fingers as requested. Gavin held the second crystal and invoked the composite effect to record the proceedings once more before saying, “Proceed.”

  The slaver started lifting the brand, and Gavin closed his eyes to concentrate on his skathos. To his skathos, he saw Declan and the slaver as people-shaped forms of energy that pulsed in time with their heartbeats. Lillian, Braden, or any wizard looked to be roiling, seething masses of kaleidoscopic power just barely contained within their physical forms. Gavin could approximate their individual strengths as arcanists by how turbulent the power’s motion within them was and how bright it glowed. His former apprentices were bright, but if he focused on himself, the radiance of his power hurt.

  The moment the slave brand touched Lillian’s palm, Gavin saw the embedded power reach out to her as a series of snake-like tendrils, just as before. This time, though, Gavin watched as Lillian’s power latched onto those tendrils like a predatory beast and sucked them into her very core, swirling like a torrent or whirlpool.

  With no warning whatsoever, Lillian’s power destroyed the tendrils in a flash and surged into the brand. Gavin felt and watched Lillian’s power twist and blacken the brand as her power surged through it and into the slaver. The slaver screamed.

  Gavin watched through his skathos as Lillian’s power subsumed every facet and section of the slaver’s being drowning out the man’s life force with the overflow erupting out the man’s eyes and mouth as he screamed. Gavin had no doubt he’d see familiar eldritch flames leaping toward the ceiling if he opened his eyes. At long last, Lillian’s power stopped cascading into the slaver, and what was left concentrated in the man’s forehead, burni
ng the Glyph of Mivar into the man’s flesh…just before the corpse collapsed to the floor.

  Gavin released his grip on the crystal to stop the effect’s recording of the happenings and opened his eyes. He saw what he expected to see, the corpse of a slaver laying on the floor. When he turned his attention to Lillian, he saw a reaction he remembered all too well: she herself looked ready to drop.

  “Pharhyk,” Gavin invoked, causing a nearby chair to slide across the floor to stop just behind Lillian. He extended his left hand to her, and she grasped his forearm with both her hands as he helped her ease onto the chair.

  “Did it make you feel like you were going to pass out?” Lillian asked.

  Gavin nodded. “If we hadn’t been faced with half a dozen slavers, I probably would’ve slid right down into the alley’s muck and had myself a pleasant nap.”

  “I think…I think I’m just going to sit here for a little bit. Did you see what you needed to see?”

  Gavin’s mind flashed back to watching through his skathos as Lillian’s power destroyed the brand’s tendrils and smiled. “Yes, I think I did.”

  Chapter 37

  Gavin looked up from the notes in front of him at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He saw the refugee woman tentatively walking down the stairs. She seemed afraid, and Gavin didn’t know whether she was afraid of him or what he was going to say. She reached the basement floor and approached, stopping a respectful distance away from Gavin.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  Gavin nodded. “It’s time. I have everything prepared and am ready to attempt removing the mark. Are you ready?”

  The woman nodded and visibly forced herself not to wring her hands. “I suspected that’s why you wanted to see me. Before I came downstairs, I told my children I loved them very much…in…in case…it doesn’t go as planned.”

  “Well, let’s see what we can do to ensure events follow the plan. Shall we?”