“Iliel,” I commanded, tossing the tiny scorpion aside into the grass to let it grow.
Soon the twins were chasing each other round on their eldritch mounts, everyone under strict orders not to cause anyone, human or fey or rabbit, any harm. I watched them for a few minutes, bundled in well-made winter clothing for the first time, riding a unicorn and a giant scorpion… How things had changed.
I sat back, fished out my book and started to read again, picking up where I’d left off. I ran my fingers along the spine, the little runes imprinted there which protected it from incidental harm, as I delved with my mind back into the tortured, torturous words of a pre-vampire arch-diviner, the words whose implications had so-worried the city’s greatest champion…
We hadn’t been there more than ten minutes when she arrived.
“Behind you,” Em whispered in my ear.
I jerked my head around, saw Stormsword arrowing down, still half a mile or so away.
“You’re getting better control,” I murmured.
She laughed lightly in response, then moments later settled down a few feet from me.
Jaid trotted over to say hi, but Jaroan was pursuing her fiercely – the scorpion didn’t seem half as quick off the mark as the unicorn, and soon Jaid was prancing away again, teasing him as she went, a strand of her long blonde hair coming free of her woolly hat and trailing in the wind.
“So, learning much?” Em asked, smoothing down and drying the grass with a quick funnel of hot wind before sitting beside me.
I chuckled, closed the book, and looked down at its cover. The rune of Vaahn, the tall, spiked crown – like that worn by the champion who’d helped me win my newfound status.
“Why, if he uses demons,” I mused, “does Direcrown wear the symbol of the Lord of the Undead on his head, do you think?”
“Perhaps he uses zem too?”
“He didn’t on Fullday. Not once, that I could tell…”
“You are avoiding ze question, Kas.”
“Careful – there might be a dark druid in the grass, just listening out for our names, Stormsword.”
She regarded me with an increasingly-icy demeanour.
“Okay, okay, fine,” I relented, sitting up and gathering my wits. “I – there’s a lot of it you don’t want to hear, and even more of it you really don’t want to hear. But I’ll let you be the judge of that,” I added quickly, worried she was about to draw in a frostbolt. “It’s about – the Magisterium. Zadhal – it seems it wasn’t the dark elves we needed to blame after all.”
She waited patiently, so I continued, “You remember, before you left for work, in the library? None of the books wanted to come to me? I had to coax down that one that I knew wanted to come but couldn’t?”
“Zis makes even less sense vhen you describe vot happened,” she complained.
“Well, I can explain it now… I think I know enough.”
I related what I’d managed to uncover, and did my best not to watch her body language while I spoke, for fear of being put off when she started to get upset. When one of my imps popped in with a report on Nighteye and its failure to find a trace of him, I waved it away instantly. Em wanted to hear it – she could damn well hear all of it, no distractions.
Ilthelor, and perhaps his twin brother too – the notes were unclear – had started the whole thing. A prophecy had been created, a vision foretelling Mund’s destruction. And at the heart of it, there we were – archmages, ‘of a common, uncouth brogue’, lowborn coming in to wreck everything. That was how the highborn of Zadhal had chosen to interpret it, anyway. Their ruler (King Keltoros, whose last act in this world had birthed a manifestation of a dark god) went to Mund to debate what had been witnessed.
The so-called ‘Chosen Lord of Mund’ – I assumed that’s what they were calling the First Lord back then – had been a kind-spoken, soft-hearted chap by all accounts. He’d open doors for others and always be the first to stretch out his hand in greeting, his biographers had been at pains to point out. (It very much sounded as though Aidel had detested him, from the way she wrote of him.) Yet on this one thing he had been unbending; he was not about to issue an edict preventing the nobles marrying whom they pleased.
The pre-vampires, the Isromalle brothers, thought the Chosen Lord of Mund was weak as well as soft – that he feared losing support amongst the lesser lords and ladies, whose own votes might remove him if he started pretending to be a king. But it had Aidel and Graima confused – why would any noble want a son or daughter free to make their own minds up in matters of love, when the tradition of generations decreed the best match ought be selected for them by wiser hands?
They suspected enchantment, and the day Graima entered Mund to investigate was the day the war began.
Whilst I would’ve loved to have disagreed with them, would’ve been overjoyed to think the best of the highborn who had ruled the Mundic Realm in those times – I couldn’t find it in myself. The rulers of Mund should’ve taken the whole thing more seriously – if they’d been able to predict the way the archmages would increasingly come from the ranks of the lowborn, they’d have been falling all over each other to stand behind King Keltoros and his delegates.
But enchantment? That seemed far-fetched, if Henthae had been right about the nature of defence versus attack in terms of mind-control. It had intrigued Zel, but even she, with her paranoia about enchanters, didn’t think it possible someone could put the whole Arrealbord under their power. That was the kind of feat you’d expect only from the legends – sure, Nimmenvyl Olteron, the Enchantress Founder, pulled off things like that in the rhymes, claiming the hearts of entire kingdoms with a single softly-spoken word and all that malarkey. There were stories behind the whole ‘Queen of Souls’ deal, if you were inclined to believe them…
I was not so inclined.
In any case, as was often the way of events in the early histories, one thing led to another and another thing led to war. As was not so-often the case, this had been suppressed, all mention of the Diamond War expunged save for a scant few passages of illegible text that might’ve had the casual, contextless reader thinking it were myth rather than fact under discussion.
A war, between two states, the hearts of which were joined by portals across the vastness of the world.
A war, between two states, one of which was a nexus for others, rich beyond calculation, diverse and populous and expansive; the other, a small, regressive backwater with little other than its mineral wealth as a claim to fame.
The results of the first battle had been predictable. The Magisterium took the initiative, and annexed the Zadhal-side plaza around the Winter Door in the first four hours of fighting.
Aidel’s notes from this time were difficult to read, not only because of their incoherency but because of the clear distress that accompanied them. The archmages of Zadhal saw Ilthelor’s vision writ large, looming in their near future.
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Within two weeks they got desperate. King Keltoros was the first to raise the dead, and their friend Lord Saphalar, chief sorcerer of the city, convened even the merchant-sorcerers to aid in the deed. Overnight the Mundians were stymied by waves of zombies, blocked and locked into the areas they’d reinforced. Control of the skies was wrested from them. For a time, it looked to Aidel as though they might actually attain victory, or at least independence. If they could just take back the Winter Door and somehow bring it down –
None of these ancient archmages had known for sure whether the destruction of one of the Doors might entail the destruction of the city. But their speculations were in vain anyway. They never came close to removing the Mundians’ foothold in their city. Huge shields contested zones of the district, sometimes with one side of a street populated by Zadhalite shopkeepers and skeleton patrols, the other bristling with Magisterium eldritches and explosive wards…
It was only after three years of incessant, seemingly pointless fighting that the Magisterium played their hand. The book in the library at the Maginox had been lacking in detail – it wasn’t like the Magisterium-approved authors had anything concrete to say on the topic – but the upshot was that if the Zadhalites were so keen to transform their subjects into undead minions, they could all take a spoonful of the same medicine. From a secret corner of the hotly-contested network of tunnels beneath Zadhal, the Mundian wizards broke through into one of the ancient caverns beneath the city-centre. The Candle of Retribution was created – apparently this was Lord Saphalar’s term for the fountain of undeath we’d destroyed with his custom-designed sphere.
The magistry withdrew from Zadhal – even as King Keltoros and his subjects were transformed, cursed never again to leave it.
“Until you vent,” Em said warmly, taking my hand and nestling in to me.
I hadn’t expected such a placid response, so I mumbled, “Until we went, I suppose… Anyway, that’s as far as I’ve got. I think, maybe, Dustbringer knew something too. There was something Direcrown said, and I – his power…”
When I’d held the book in my hands in the library yesterday, I’d gotten a feeling, a sense of his energies still wreathed there – energies I’d more than just sampled when we’d fought in the main room of my apartment. He too had once coaxed the book down. The traces of the man, the simple magic he’d used just like me to call the book to him, remained on our plane.
I drew a shuddering breath. “But he didn’t have access to this.” I tilted the Vaahn-stamped book. “To the notes of Aidel on the prophecy of Ilthelor. The ravings of two original rebels, heretics of centuries long-gone.”
She drew patternless patterns on the back of my hand with her fingernail. “His death shocked you, didn’t it, Kas? Is…”
She hushed. She could feel my response, the coiled tension.
“Well – yeah. More than any of the others who’ve died. I keep thinking – I keep feeling – invincible. But we aren’t. Being reminded of it…”
I hadn’t told her I’d charged an avatar with the power of death-touch, and every time I remembered this fact I prayed Shallowlie kept it to herself. Asking the sorceress to keep it to herself could be worse. Better to forget about it, hope she did the same, trust to her tact.
“I think it’s – Dustbringer was a sorcerer. More powerful than me. And he didn’t make any mistakes, didn’t do anything wrong. He was just – he was used to being able to solve his problems by chopping them in half, and when it backfired –“
The sapphire blade, shearing him in two –
“– it’s still the worst thing I’ve seen, I think.”
I licked my lips. That wasn’t quite true. My empty apartment, the night of the Incursion. And –
Not as bad as seeing you lying there in the healing-tent…
But I couldn’t say that, so I continued haltingly: “Dustbringer… It affected me worse than the bodies in that vampire cellar, you know? Worse than anything in Zadhal, or… after… Lightblind… I guess it was when Dustbringer died that it hit home, we aren’t anything special. I thought we weren’t supposed to die, not really. Definitely not – not him. He was supposed to teach me… He was supposed to be my Henthae, you know? My own incredibly-badass Henthae. Heh.”
I looked out towards the sea, and thought: Here’s to you, Endren Solosto, wherever you are.
Her hand had settled upon my own. “I understand.”
We sat together like that for a few minutes, and I basked in the warmth of her body, her aura… until I finally plucked up the courage.
“You – you don’t mind, then? It’s all the same to you?”
I saw through her mask’s slits that her eyes narrowed in bewilderment.
“No, not Dustbringer – I mean – what I was talking about before. The prophecy, the war…”
She sat up.
“So, zey thought ve archmages vould be to blame for ze downfall of Mund. So vot? Zey are just heretics, as you said.”
“But the Magisterium…”
“Ze Magisterium do not think ze same – ozzervise zey vouldn’t have continued viz ze policy, allowing ze bloodlines to mix…”
“Diviners can be wrong,” I admitted, feeling a little confused. “But…”
Doesn’t she understand my problem? Is she going to make me say it out loud?
“Zey can be wrong, and zey can mis- how do you say, misinterpret?”
I nodded, smiled tightly.
“Zey can misinterpret ze signs,” she continued. “Ze destruction of Mund may be, you know… ze symbolic downfall. Or just a… a time of changes.”
“Ah, well,” I patted Aidel’s memoirs, “it looks like the vision was a little more specific. Flames and ash. Mund an uninhabited wasteland, a battleground. You know, typical apocalyptic stuff. Chadoath mark two.”
“Zat doesn’t mean zey interpreted it correctly, zough.”
“Sure, sure.” I could tell what she meant. The destruction of Mund could be ten thousand years off yet, and even if the presence of lowborn archmages was going to contribute to that destruction, they would be needed just to help the city survive that long. A high proportion of champions were lowborn, and possibly a decent proportion of arch-magisters too. It was only due to the sacrifices of champions and the other archmages willing to put their lives on the line that Mund got through each Incursion…
“Without us, they wouldn’t even get that far,” I pondered aloud.
Em was nodding. “So ve are agreed, zen.”
I met her eyes.
“On ze Magisterium being in ze right.”
“Being… in the…”
I couldn’t even repeat the word. That was the very last word I’d have chosen.
“I know, zis viz ze undead, zis is troubling.” She looked down at the grass. “I understand zat. It is unforgivable. I see vhy zey have worked so hard to hide ze truth from us all…”
“I can’t believe you’re still willing to be one of them!” I exploded. “It’s unforgivable, yet you’re willing to forgive –”
“No, Feychilde, but I am villing to forget. Vot vould you have zem do? Go put it right? Zey tried! Zey vent, viz you! And –“
“They went – Zakimel – he went to dispose of us,” I almost spat the words.
“If he vonted to dispose of you, you vould be dead!” she retorted, the air around us suddenly turning cold once more.
“Rosedawn and Leafcloak did die –“
“Duskdown’s vife! Timesnatcher slew her, did he not?”
There was something to her voice when she said ‘did he not?’ that brought the worst of Stormsword’s highborn accent into her tone, a sneering presumptuousness that slid into my brain like a razor-blade.
I knew I shouldn’t have told them. It was a risk. Timesnatcher hadn’t made me take a vow of silence or anything, but he’d spoken in confidence. They had both sworn they wouldn’t reveal what they knew – but while I could trust Em’s loyalty, could I trust her restraint?
Either way – it wasn’t like Killstop had chosen to shut me up before I’d spoken with the two of them yesterday. Timesnatcher had to know I’d tell the ladies – unless Killstop’s very presence there could’ve interfered… But she wasn’t powerful-enough to contend with Timesnatcher’s sight, was she?
Divination – and enchantment – confused everything.
I looked away. “She was planning the destruction of the Maginox – Timesnatcher saw her, heard her voice!”
“So he killed her.”
I looked back, her cool steel eyes pulling mine inexorably to meet them.
“And he voz right to do so,” she went on dismissively. “Dark enchanters – zey are almost as bad as ze diviners.”
I closed my eyes drew in a deep breath. We were so alike – and so different.
“Then how does that explain Leafcloak? What does Zakimel have to gain from the death of Leafcloak? She wasn’t the bride of the most-wanted darkmage in the world, was she?”
“I don’t know – zis, zis avatar –“
She suddenly sounded troubled, on the back-foot, some of her vehemence giving way to confusion, so I pressed my advantage:
“You’ve got to admit there’s a difference! Whatever his ulterior motives, Zakimel wanted some of us to die! You – your test – you said it yourself, it seemed off, coming out of nowhere like that. You wanted to go – and they knew what you’d see, what you’d hear, if you came with me. They did what they did three hundred years ago and they never changed. They…” My voice weakened. “They knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Believe you?” she whispered. “I – I believe you, Kas. I –“
Then, between one moment and the next, something changed inside my mind. I couldn’t do it to her any longer. I couldn’t be the cause of the doubt, the concern warping her features.
Couldn’t resist the thrust-out lower lip…
I kissed her, and the angry words running through my mind were drowned out by the frantic drumming of my blood in my ears.
Within ten seconds she was sliding her hand inside the neck of my robe, lightly scratching my chest with her nails –
I jolted backwards, regarding her coyly. “The twins!” I waved a hand at the frolicking nine-year-olds.
“Ah.” She followed my gaze and I saw the devious smile touch her irresistible lips. “I have… an idea. Tell me – do you fancy a svim?”
* * *