by Kim Fedyk
Selene climbed up on Zeeshan’s arm and put both of her hands on the iron bar around his waist. She concentrated for a few seconds and the metal glowed blue, steadily getting darker and darker. Then all of a sudden the bar disappeared completed in a shower of water.
Arleth gasped despite herself. The woman had changed the iron bar into water! Aedan, who was standing beside her, turned towards her, “See I told you Selene wouldn’t have a problem freeing him,” he beamed proudly. Arleth grunted in response, well if they had told me she was a sorceress.... Aedan looked over at her and let out a short laugh, smiling in amusement at the look on her face. Arleth tried to be disgruntled but, looking at the smile on Aedan face, made it impossible. She couldn’t help smiling back at him. She wasn’t really upset anyways; she was relieved that Zeeshan was free. She hadn’t wanted to contemplate what she would have done had she been alone and none of her efforts had freed him. But now thankfully she didn’t have to worry.
By the time Arleth and Aedan turned back to look at the scene in front of them, Zeeshan was free and he was alternatively stretching and testing out his new limbs. Selene had turned from him and was looking into the nearest jar and nodding silently to herself.
“Come here please,” She said turning to beckon Aedan to see what she was looking at.
Aedan walked over to her and Arleth followed him, curious about what Selene had found.
When they had reached the jar, Selene pointed to one of the black string-like fibers floating around in the fluid, “See that?” She said addressing both Aedan and Arleth.
“What is it?” Arleth asked
“It’s an essence.”
“A what?”
“An essence. How do I explain it? Let’s see. The world and everything in it is made of billions and billions of fibers. These are invisible to the naked eye and to people without magic, but sorceresses and sorcerers are able to see and manipulate them. Therefore, most magic is really just weaving the fibers into different combinations to create new forms. It sounds simple, but of course the reality is a lot more complicated. Some forms are not easily created, the bigger or more intricate an object is, the more fibers it has, and the harder it is to alter. And of course it is possible to create entirely new forms by taking fibers from different objects, creatures, wind patterns etc and weaving them into a new pattern. Each sorcerer or sorceress has their own characteristic spells that they create. For example, Rogan has his enchantments, I have my concealing spells or Alondranes. When a magic is created over and over again enough times, the fibers will naturally flow into that pattern when all the necessary components are present. It only takes a gentle push in that direction to create the item. That is when it becomes someone’s speciality.
Aedan coughed
“Right,” Selene said, “I am getting off topic.”
Arleth hardly cared, she found it all fascinating.
“So,” Selene continued, “When fibers are woven together they become essences. So for example someone’s personality is made up of hundreds of essences and each essence is made up of hundreds of fibers. It is possible to take out an essence out of its host for a short time to study it; to see how the fibers are woven in it. I have done this myself many times to study how to create a new item. But the essence always is returned to its owner. However, the way that Rogan has been doing it is not natural. He has figured out how to harness the essences and trap them here in this fluid so they stay and do not return to the owner. Then he changes the owner so much that the essence no longer recognizes its owner and so it can be put into anyone. This is how he is doing the experimental combinations. He took certain essences out of Zeeshan and held them here. And he took essences out of the snow bear and put them in that jar over there.” She pointed to the jar on the other side of where Zeeshan had been held prisoner. “Rogan then exchanged them, replacing Zeeshan’s essences with the corresponding ones from the snow bear. These ones here must be what are left over. What no longer would fit together into one host.” And then almost to herself, “What horrible magic.” Selene turned to look at Arleth.
“See Arleth, almost any combination of fibers can be woven, making the spells that magical beings can do almost limitless. But the universe exacts its price. All magic is symbiotic, meaning a sorcerer doesn’t just create the magic, but each spell cast feeds back onto the person who created it. The more evil a spell is, the more people it hurts, the more corrupt you become on the inside, the more the magic will change your outward appearance. That is why all Dread Mages are green and terribly disfigured. That is the outward appearance of the inner corruption that rests in their soul. A mirror of the destruction they have created with their magic.”
Arleth gasped, “So Rogan...”
“Yes, Rogan, Absalom’s Dread Mage. Each evil spell that he casts makes him more and more disfigured. You can see just by looking at him how much suffering he has caused.” Selene practically spat out the last few words, her disgust with her magical adversary quite evident in her voice.
Arleth was thinking of something else, “Even 7 years ago?...” She breathed. Rogan was that disfigured even 7 years ago? What kind of a horrible monster is he?”
Aedan’s head turned sharply in her direction and he opened his mouth to ask her what she meant. But at that moment Zeeshan had finished experimenting with his new limbs.
“So thank you very much for freeing me, but Arleth who are these two?”
Arleth looked over at Zeeshan, realizing then that she had never introduced them. She opened her mouth to answer, and then stopped. How was she going to tell someone that the man standing in front of him was the rightful heir to the throne? And that everything he thought he knew was wrong? She decided to just go for it.
“Well Zeeshan, this is Aedan Amara and Selene. He is the true heir of the throne and Absalom is not. Oh and I am his sister.” Arleth looked at him carefully, there was no way he was going to believe her, she was still getting her head around it herself.
“Huh?” Zeeshan stared at her in confusion.
Arleth smiled and tried again. This time she recounted what Selene and Aedan had told her, with the two of them filling in the gaps.
“Oh,” Zeeshan said. He was surprised to say the least, but he still had the intelligence of a Talywag and he was smart enough to realize that in this war, he didn’t want to be on the side that had enslaved and disfigured him. He thought he believed Aedan, but it didn’t matter who was the rightful heir to him right now anyways, he was on the side of his rescuer. Besides, another question had just come to his mind.
“So,” he said, directing his question at Arleth, “What were Selene and Aedan doing in the basement of Iridian castle?”
“Oh well that is simple, they were....” Arleth paused. She realized that she had absolutely no idea. “What were they doing here?”
Aedan piped in, “We were looking for her.”
“Yes that’s right,” Arleth chimed in. “They were looking for her. Uh who’s ‘her’”
There was no response so Arleth turned to look at Selene and Aedan. They were both staring at her and smiling.
She didn’t understand for a second, and then she realized.
“Me?!”
They both nodded.
Chapter 20
“Where is this blasted girl?” Absalom raged for the fifth time in as many minutes. He and Rogan were in the courtyard; it was close to the last place they had left to look. Absalom, quickly losing his patience, stomped through the grass as though intent on crushing every blade into a thin green paste.
After leaving Rogan’s basement laboratory, he and his sorcerer had searched the entire castle for Arleth and had yet to find her. They had searched the dining hall, the servant’s quarters, even waited outside the servant’s bathrooms for a while, but all in vain. Questioning the servants was a futile attempt, as Absalom had quickly re-affirmed. It was ironic how making perfect, docile workers could prove so infuriating when you wanted something useful from them. They were incapable of
lying so he knew what they were telling him was the truth. But the fact that no one had seen her since breakfast wouldn’t help them narrow down where she was now. With no free-will the servants were incapable of thinking past the specific tasks they were enchanted for. They swept or cooked or folded; that was what they were programmed for, not questioning the whereabouts of a fellow servant. Absalom cursed,
“Why did we not think to enchant a servant to follow her? What the hell were we thinking?”
Rogan didn’t answer; he was lost in his own thoughts. It didn’t matter though, Absalom wasn’t expecting an answer. He continued on in an unbroken stream,
“Where is this damn girl?” Angrily, he broke off a low-hanging branch from a nearby tree and threw it as forcefully as he could. It hit the trunk of a tree a few meters off, breaking in two with a loud crack.
The sound jolted Rogan out of his thoughts. He turned towards the direction of the sound and saw the King of Oherra pacing around in an angry circle, muttering to himself. Rogan, himself a model of calm composure, stared at Absalom for a moment in disgust. Then shaking his head, he remembered what he had realized right before the tree-branch had startled him.
“Absalom,” Rogan said dryly. The king paused in his pacing and looked at Rogan impatiently. “I think Arleth was still in my laboratory when we were there.”
“WHAT?” Absalom yelled. And then calming down a bit he rationalized, “Wouldn’t you have sensed her presence?”
“That was what I had assumed too. But remember? Tobin gave her a concealing spell; he let that slip at the end. If she had taken it, I wouldn’t have sensed her.”
“But we looked in the room, she wasn’t there.”
“But we didn’t look everywhere.”
Absalom stared at him angrily, “Well where didn’t we look then?”
“Behind the failed Imari.”
Absalom thought about it. It certainly made sense. She could have easily hidden behind the creature without being seen, it was big enough.
“Shit!” Absalom cursed. “We were there!” He turned towards the door. “We will go back, I doubt she is still there, but we might get lucky.”
Rogan turned as well, “And if she is not, I can find out all I need to know from that creature. It would have seen everything and it still has its free-will after all. And I haven’t tortured anyone yet today.” Rogan smiled at that thought and side by side, he and Absalom raced out the courtyard door.
Five minutes later, they had reached their destination and neither of them was smiling. Absalom’s eyes were opened wide in shock, hands over his mouth, and Rogan’s face if possible, looked even greener than usual.
Where just over an hour before, there had been a neatly ordered laboratory, there was now complete chaos. The first thing both men noticed was that the Imari was nowhere to be seen. Second was the level of destruction in the room. All of the 7-foot vials that Rogan had so carefully crafted in order to hold the essences at the proper conditions had been knocked to the ground. Some had huge jagged circular holes as though they had been punched by a massive hand. Still others had been sliced clean in half, the dismembered sections still smoking from the heat of the burn spell used. And some had hit the floor with such force that they had cracked by themselves. The fluid inside was still leaking out of the broken vials. It spread across the floor, some disappearing into cracks, but most was accumulating into pools around the vials. The only vial left untouched was the one that contained the essences of the failed Imari.
There was no doubt that Selene had been here. The still smoking vial sections were testament enough to that. But that meant that Aedan was also free; Selene wouldn’t have wasted her time here before saving him. Third, they had freed the failed Imari and he was likely with them. The only question still in Rogan’s mind was whether or not Arleth had been with them. He was willing to bet the answer was yes. It was too much of a coincidence that the one place Arleth had been told to go, was also the place that Selene and Aedan had visited, while trying to sneak out of the castle without being seen. Selene and Aedan would be looking for her; that was why he had risked being caught. And it seemed like they had all met up right in the middle of his, now ruined, experimental chamber.
Rogan spat on the ground in fury. He turned to Absalom who still hadn’t said anything and glared at him with pure hatred. If that stupid ass hadn’t missed an Alondrane, none of this would have happened. Rogan didn’t care as much about Absalom’s intense desire to control Arleth and punish the Amara family as he pretended to. Absalom’s revenge was not a top priority for Rogan. No, what he was so upset about was the destruction of his work. This room was one of Rogan’s greatest passions, the summation of his dark intellect, and aside from his torture chambers, the best and most interesting way to quench his bloodlust. But now, it would take weeks to fix everything that had been destroyed due to Absalom’s negligence. Rogan breathed in deeply trying to calm himself.
He would take all the servants that had been working in the kitchen today and torture them. If he spread it out long enough it might just last until he had fixed his chamber. It would also have the added bonus of making Absalom believe he was doing this as punishment for them not noticing Arleth leaving. He wasn’t of course, but Absalom wouldn’t know.
This thought cheered him a bit. Carefully he lifted up his robe and waded into the pool of fluid. He wanted to get a look at the still intact jar. He didn’t know why they had left it alone. Perhaps it was meant as a statement of his failure with the Imari, or maybe Selene didn’t understand the magic and simply didn’t know if destroying the vial would harm the creature. Whatever the reason, Rogan was just glad it was still intact. It would be much easier to rebuild his laboratory if he had one vial still intact. It also meant he could still continue building Imaris one at a time with this vial until the rest of his chamber was rebuilt. It was slow and cumbersome, but at least it was something.
“Rogan,” Absalom began, now aware of what his sorcerer had seen almost as soon as he had entered the room. “The way the vials have been destroyed, clearly indicates that Selene and Aedan were both here with the failed Imari. But how can we be certain that Arleth was with them?”
“We can’t be,” Rogan said slowly. “I can’t sense that she was here. But that doesn’t mean much. She almost certainly took the concealing spell that Aedan’s spy gave her. With such, as you know, she would be untraceable.”
Absalom nodded disdainfully. He was well-accustomed to Selene’s concealing spells. Over the years, not only had they made it possible for Aedan to be successful in hundreds of ambushes, skirmishes and raids; they had also allowed dozens of spies to enter and nose about the castle. The fact that he had caught, tortured, and killed each and every one of these spies in the end didn’t do much to ease Absalom’s displeasure. No, the king knew just what a pain in his ass Selene’s spells were for him.
What made it even worse, was that try as he might, Rogan had not yet been able to find a way to counter them. Absalom, not one to tolerate any sort of failure, took this particular one especially badly. If only his sorcerer spent as much time on finding a way to stop Selene’s blasted spells as he did on torturing and experimenting with his subjects... But bringing up such old disagreements wasn’t going to help them now. And although the king wasn’t quite as smart as he thought he was, he was still far from foolish. So he forcibly reined in his re-surfacing anger and when he spoke he did so with a calm voice.
“Well, it makes logical sense that Arleth was with them. This chamber was her destination. It seems unlikely that Selene and Aedan would have just happened to stop here after they escaped the dungeon, especially since it is in the opposite direction from their way out, unless they had met Arleth somewhere on route and she had brought them here.”
Rogan agreed with Absalom; he too was almost one hundred percent certain that Arleth had been with them. However, unlike the king, he wasn’t hell-bent on capturing the girl. If she hadn’t been with Aedan and Selene whe
n they caused this destruction, he could count on the fact that she would be soon or might be already. Aedan had come to the castle specifically to free his sister after all, and when Selene broke him out of the dungeon, finding her would have been his first priority. Even still, Rogan knew the danger in letting all three escape together, especially when they had all been right here, under their noses, in the castle.
But he had planned ahead, he had assumed Absalom would miss an Alondrane and Aedan would escape. In fact he had secretly been hoping for just such an outcome. He had planted his own magic, a failsafe so to say in case of such an eventuality. Now it looked like he was going to get to test it. He was particularly fond of his creation; he had never made something like this before and was eager to see it in action. The anticipation of it as well as the torture of the kitchen servants might just get him through until his laboratory was rebuilt.
All he had to do was buy some time.
“I agree with you,” Rogan told the king. “Arleth is and was most likely with Aedan and Selene. However, I think we need to be certain.”
Absalom nodded his assent.
“If we go to the dungeon I will be able to tell what time Selene used her Alondrane, which will tell us when she and Aedan left the dungeon. With such information, we can better predict if time-wise, they would have met up with Arleth. Also, I have set up traps all over these halls. They are easy enough to disarm, but it is possible that Selene missed one or two; and even if she didn’t I can tell the route they took just by the ones that are dismantled and the one that are still intact. They only go up into the entrance of the main hall, just beyond the stairs. I couldn’t have the servants tripping them every five minutes; it would have been a constant and daily chore to keep rebuilding them. So out of necessity I couldn’t continue much beyond the dungeons. As a result, once they reach the main hall, I can’t track them. But we can at least know if they were all together, if they are still down here somewhere, where they went while they were down here, and roughly which direction they went in if they have left.”
