Eris preferred torture to broken bones. Flay her alive, shove pins beneath her toenails, roast her over coals; pain was but a minor obstacle. Pain could be conquered with will. Yet place weight on a shattered ankle and collapse every time. Try lifting a pot of water with a snapped forearm and watch which wins. Magic might overcome such obstacles, but force of personality never could.
A broken bone therefore meant dependency. Like Robur at her side from the mines of Akancar she would need another to drag her back to town, or to shovel food into her mouth, or to carry her things for her. That was the worst fate imaginable: reliance on others. Nothing was more dangerous, for one never knew when ‘others’ would do something incredibly stupid.
It was not easy to carve a bird with a sword. Rook at least had the good fortune to find the bird he squatted over a giant one, so that his blade looked in proportion to the carcass leaking blood into the swamp around them. Aletheia conjured her light to bright the dark while he worked. Pyraz took a single look at this spell and cast another. At once, between two branches from trees opposite each other, there appeared a yellow ball of fire, a miniature sun overhead which leaked radiance in all directions and burned night into day. Looking at it directly seared the eyes.
Aletheia beheld the majesty of this magic and hung her head. Farewell to this girl’s single ounce of utility, thought Eris. All the same she used the opportunity to complain.
“Do you not think ‘tis rather conspicuous, as we tend our wounds? That the light of day overhead might draw more predators as moths to flame?”
Pyraz gestured with his hand. The sun dimmed somewhat. “No,” he said.
“With any luck the smell of this predator will keep the rest away,” Rook said. He considered the carcass again. “We won’t need the light forever.”
“What is it?” Aletheia said.
“Water dragon?” Rook frowned. “Help me with the meat.”
Eris wanted to deride them—it was clearly some chimera of bird and alligator—but as her mouth opened she found the pain too intense in her arm to do anything but shudder.
“Why,” she choked, “must it always be my right arm?”
“There must be a spell for that,” Rook said. “Rejuvenate Righthandedness? Deliverance of Dexterity?” He stood and walked toward her, bringing with him a large cut of meat.
“You are so amusing,” Eris growled.
“Do you know any healing magic?” he said to Pyraz.
A vacant look had been on the dog-man’s face, but when he was addressed he snapped to attention. “No,” he said again. “Healing magic is dangerous. Its only practitioners are experts.”
“Why? They seem spells like any other.”
“They are. But would you like to be the subject an amateur magician like Eris practices her skills on? The effects must be permanent; a minor miscast will leave the subject disfigured for life. Or worse.”
“Dead?” Aletheia said.
“Much worse,” Pyraz said. “The risk is extreme.”
Eris was too delirious to be angry at his comment, so she merely added, “He is right. Healers are rare even to this day.”
“But Astera taught me salves,” Aletheia said. “And how to make potions. That should help.”
“Save me the trouble and douse me with poison directly,” Eris said as she fell down to her side. She was only half paying attention.
A wolf’s feast was served, all meat. Pyraz seemed to prefer his meals that way. Eris found the creature’s flesh much too fishy, but she ate her fill regardless—pitifully, one-handed. When they were finished Pyraz extinguished his light and they tried to return to sleep. That was when Rook took a seat beside her.
“You look like you could use a hug,” he said.
“Leave me be,” she said.
“I think you’d grown to appreciate Pyraz’s snuggles.”
“Is there some sign on me which invites your harassment?”
“Yes, I found invisible ink in the tower—I wrote it all up and down your arms while you were asleep.” He glanced over at her left hand, her good hand, and frowned. “Why is it your ring always turns red when you talk to me?”
She had been languid until then, but that comment jolted her awake. She went to conceal her fingers within her other palm but, finding such an action impossible, she instead hid her hand between her legs.
“The ring is always red,” she said.
“In the library it was yellow. When we saw Pyraz it was black. And after our nights together, it’s usually blue. Then red again.”
Between bugs, the roar of the swamps, the fright of the battle, and the pain of the injury, Eris was never going to sleep that night. She was secretly grateful for the distraction. But she was also in no mood for Rook’s play.
“You spend a ghastly amount of time staring at my hands,” she said.
“Would you prefer I stared elsewhere?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, I dress this way because I simply adore it when men notice my fingers.”
“Fair. Unfortunately, for now, your hands are attached to the rest of you. At least until the gangrene sets in.”
“I am so happy you are in a good mood tonight.”
“I am,” he said, this somewhat distantly.
“One begins to wonder if ‘tis seeing me injured which brings you joy.”
“No. That’s not it. Only—I’ve been much too dreary of late, even as our fortunes turn good. I haven’t done a poem in months.”
Eris groaned. “You are infuriating!”
“I am?”
“Have you forgotten already? Do you think I have forgotten?”
“Of course not,” he said. He scooted closer to her. “But maybe you can remind me.”
In the darkness of the night a red glow escaped from between her thighs. Her enchanted ring—the ring which read her mood, which she wore alongside the Lion’s Roar Ring and had hardly noticed since acquiring—was hot in revealing her frustration. She withdrew it and sat on her hand instead. That was enough to conceal the light.
“Our fight. In the Manasearing chamber?”
“Oh. That.”
“Your idiotic moralism saw me burned—literally—and untold value go to waste. And led to our assailing by scarshades.”
He paused for a moment. “What precisely was it that happened again?”
“I hate you,” Eris growled.
Rook tilted his head toward her. “Alternatively,” he said, and he spoke without a hint of hostility, “your senseless greed poking around the bones of ghosts without any consideration for the place you stood awakened the scarshades and saw both of us burned. Literally.” He pulled up his shirt to reveal his manaburn.
Eris thought this over. It was true, she should have known better. They had seen the shades already. But then he wasn’t being honest. “You had no notion taking the manaserum would lead to our attack beforehand. That fact cannot be used in your favor. You made your decision entirely out of your distaste for the notion of Manasearing as a procedure.”
“Yes, but I like to think that good things happen to good people, and vice versa.”
“That would explain your uncle’s success,” Eris said. “Perhaps the Korakoi were not so innocent after all.” It was a side remark, a comment, but it made Rook fall silent in an instant. When she looked his way his joviality had faded. She felt instant regret, for such a comment had no real purpose beyond cruelty, and she hadn’t even intended it as such. “I am sorry, that was—”
“No,” he said, “I rather opened myself up to it.” His smile returned. “I can get as good as I give. You know that.”
She smiled. “That I do.”
She meant what she said. Rook was free to hold his own beliefs, but only until those beliefs came into conflict with their success as adventurers—and, above all, her personal ambitions. She longed for the pragmatism of Kauom. Useless though he was he never put morals above profit. A useful quality. She almost regretted his incineration.
Meanwhile she withdrew her hand once more. The ring’s glow faded toward a neutral silver sheen. Looking at Rook it was impossible to stay angry. He was so disgustingly affable—when he wanted to be—and, against her wishes, still magnetic in the extreme.
He slid a hand around her waist. His next assault. Unless both of their clothes were imminently torn off, unlikely given the circumstances, she wanted nothing to do with this intimacy. But perhaps this had always been his plan, to wear her down before moving in to strike. Like a lion at the hunt. By now she was too exhausted to resist. Not just to resist him, but also herself, and all her most primal desires. And though she would never admit it, he was right. She did miss snuggling with Pyraz.
So she put her head against his shoulder, under duress. And she hated how good it felt.
----------------------------------------
“They say ashore to take a boat into the fever swamplands,
To go upstream with tandem oar into the monster chomplands;
You snake through pessiyanua stones, evade the fins in water;
You reach the Falls where river’s thrown, the torrents liquid slaughter.
Yet at the edge of world known, the boat you’ve bought bears cracks;
Into the river shore it sinks: farewell return’s relax.
But on this tour, return on foot, at least there’s one thing good to say—
Don’t worry, swimming’s not half bad—it’s downstream all the way.”
One foot after another dragged through the shallow water. They were going to be coated in fungus by the time they made it back to town.
“Monster chomplands?” Eris said.
“I like it,” Pyraz said. “It’s evocative.”
“You are both idiots.”
“I’d like to see you do this off the top of your head,” Rook said. “It isn’t easy.”
“I am not the poet,” Eris said. “But neither do I inflict bad poetry on others.”
“You’re just the judge of intelligence,” Aletheia said.
“Precisely,” she sneered.
“You’d think someone so smart could find smarter friends.”
“Would I had not tried.”
There was infinite time for banter on that route downstream. The going was brutally slow. The next day Aletheia made it two miles before scaling to the branch of a tree hanging from the water. She was yelping and quavering and she dangled her legs off the side.
“There’s a fish in my boot,” she cried.
Sure enough she took her boot off and poured it free of water, and down the stream came an enormous eyeless fish covered with spines. It plopped into the murk of the swamp, where it began swimming about the party in circles.
The girl shivered.
“This is why I wear sandals,” Eris said.
“I overheard the fisherman in Patiyali say it’s good luck,” Rook said.
“How did it fit?” Aletheia said, panting. “It was—I hate the water.”
“We will have every disease known to Telmos by the time we reach Patiyali,” Eris said.
“Did you always complain so much?” Pyraz said. “I didn’t notice before.”
“Who?” Rook said.
“Everyone.”
He leaned toward Pyraz, frowning, considering, then said, “Pretty much. Come on, let’s go.” He helped Aletheia down from the tree. So they continued.
There were many more alligators left to go, more fish that brushed against their ankles, leeches on everyone’s most private places (easily removed with magic), eels and snakes and poisonous toads and, on their final day before reaching salvation, a herd of bipedal lizards with hammerheads that each stood ten feet tall. They browsed away harmlessly at downhanging vines and branches. At times the party walked on muddy ground and at times the party swam downstream but more often they waded, from ankle to waist to shin to waist to ankle once more, until at last they came to a stretch of green ground and soon enough the piers and ramshackle walls and vine-covered huts suspended on stilts over green waters that made up the village of Patiyali.
Eris had known harder journeys, but few so miserable. She retreated to her room at the upper storey of the rickety Patiyali Inn, a tiny, creaky, humid chamber that did little more than keep the rain off, but she collapsed into her bed, overheated, sweating, and there she laid, staring at the ceiling, clutching her broken and chafed arm, and never had she felt more like a queen.
----------------------------------------
They agreed to take a third from each share of Lord Arqa’s bounty and give it to Pyraz. That only seemed fair. Less than half the funds were exhausted so far. The journey had ruined all their clothes and most of their supplies so over the coming days they went together to the market in search of new things. Patiyali was small but busy for what it was, and although the swamp-dwellers, the forsaken descendants of the Magister Prince who stayed behind, lurked in the corners and sold fish at market stalls, for the most part commerce was dominated by men of more civilized persuasion, from Katharos and beyond. A dozen languages were spoken over the course of a dozen yards down the boardwalk.
Pyraz browsed the stall of a frightened-looking Daromese woman who sold only women’s clothes. Rook was off at his own business while the girls babysat their dog.
“What are you doing?” Aletheia giggled.
“Looking for a tunic,” he said.
“She sells dresses.”
“I can make do.”
Eris leaned against a wooden pole. “The nice man from Veshod across the way does sell clothes for men,” she said.
He glanced that way. “Shirts and trousers. I will not wear trousers.”
“What?” Aletheia said.
“Pants are for barbarians; the People of the Blood wear tunics fastened about the waist.”
“Are you not from Ganarajya?” Eris said. “Can one ride an elephant without pants on?”
“We were no less part of the Kingdom for the color of our skin. Ganarajya was the Regizar’s most loyal province.”
“I meant more for proximity. ‘Tis hard to say you are part of the Old Kingdom’s culture when you are across a sea.”
His head snapped toward Eris. “There is no sea between Seneria and Ganarajya.”
Aletheia and Eris looked to each other with passive surprise—the kind of surprise which, for however surprising it was, could hardly be called unexpected in its arrival.
“My mistake,” Eris sighed.
Pyraz frowned deeply before returning to browsing. “I was born and raised in Ewsos. I am Esenian. And I will not wear pants.”
He found a simple dress, white with long sleeves, broad enough for his shoulders. A gold coin was flipped the vendor’s way; and once in his hands, he cut off the sleeves with his dagger, sliced the bottom off, and immediately slipped it on. At first he looked ridiculous, but he fastened a belt around his waist, then hung Eris’ cloak—she let him keep it—around his shoulders.
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Aletheia did not like the look. “You should dress like Rook,” she suggested.
“This will do until I find armor.” He glanced Aletheia over. “Women shouldn’t wear trousers, either.”
“I agree,” Eris said. “Are we concluded here?”
If Aletheia had been left to her own devices she might have dressed herself more like Eris, with an eye toward nice things, but her companions kept her sober. No doubt she felt the need to live up to Rook’s expectations of life as his squire. They found clothes that would suit them well enough, and outside the Patiyali Inn they reconvened with Rook.
His hair was cut short and his beard had been trimmed. All his clothes, new and clean (save his armor). Eris hardly recognized him at first. He was against the wooden wall and, speaking to him, was a woman in a low cut red dress. She looked about twenty and her hair was long and blonde.
“She’s beautiful,” Aletheia said.
“Who is she?” Pyraz said.
Eris gritted her teeth. She wasn’t watching, but no doubt her ring burned red: the pain in her arm bubbled over her and her cheeks trickled hot. She stepped forward, ahead of the others. They were some distance off; Rook said something and he put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. She glanced Eris’ way, sighing, and stepped through the inn’s door.
“Eris,” Rook said.
She folded her arms. “Who was she?”
“No one,” he shrugged.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, really. You look nice. What on Earth is Pyraz wearing?”
“Do not be coy, Rook. I know she was a whore.”
“That’s rude. She might hear you.”
“Do you think I haven’t noticed the brothel the master of the inn runs?”
He smiled at her. “And?”
Eris scoffed. “‘And?’”
“I thought there were no chains between us,” he said. “What does it matter?”
“It—it does not matter!” she sputtered. “You are free to do what you like. Just—”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just nothing.”
He waved to Aletheia. A few moments passed. “I bought new packs for the four of us, they’re up in my room, with some supplies.”
“Where are we going next?” Aletheia asked.
Eris was extraordinarily annoyed and responded without delay, “We are not going anywhere until I have two hands again.”
“We have time to make a decision,” Rook said.
“I wish to return to Ewsos,” Pyraz said. The party fell silent. They stared at him. “The capital,” he added. “In Seneria.” When there was still no response he frowned. “The City of the Dawn?”
“We are well aware,” Eris said. “I have been there before.”
“You have?” Rook said.
“The story is complicated. Suffice to say ‘tis a ruin infested with demons.”
“Ewsos is where the world ended,” Aletheia said.
Pyraz paused. “All the same,” he said. “I intend to return.”
“Like I said,” Rook said, “we have time to discuss it further. Let’s not rush to any decisions.”
They entered the inn thereafter, but Rook put a hand on Eris’ shoulder and stopped her alone outside.
“What do you want?” she snapped.
“She was a whore. She liked my haircut.”
“I see,” Eris said. “You do look very handsome, I will admit.”
“You needn’t feel insecure, you’re much prettier than her. Even with one arm.”
“I am well aware, yet that is little assurance when dealing with an idiot like you. Who knows what ludicrous things you might do against all common sense. But ‘tis no matter. I do not care. Truly. Whore away.”
Of course she did care, very much, though she didn’t know why. She decided it was simply because she hated sharing—as well as the notion that Rook might desire another woman more than she. Fidelity was no concern, but why would he need another when he could have Eris?
“Well, in that case…” He went to leave her behind, but he spun back around on his heels, smiling as ever, and he said, “But I really would prefer you.”
She did want it, but given her arm, her frustration, and her general feeling of antipathy toward her party she was inclined to decline the invitation, and she would have were it not for the unusual state of her partner’s hygiene. That seemed something worth savoring while it lasted. It would not be long.
Or, maybe, she was just looking for excuses.
“Fine,” she sighed.
So Rook grabbed her by the good arm and dragged her up to his room. This time he assumed command. And although magic could make all the difference, Eris realized there was sometimes pleasure to be found in forfeiting control after all.
----------------------------------------
“Here,” Aletheia said. “Drink this.”
She handed Eris a glass vial of viscous red liquid. It smelled like a tar pit. “I do not think I will,” she said, leaning back in the bed.
“It’s a potion. It’ll help.”
“I do not like being helped.”
The girl’s shoulders fell. “The nurse helped me make it. I tried some, I know it’s safe.”
Eris stared through the glass. Healing potions were not common, but with the Elektronoi gathered from the Magister’s Keep—among the other useful reagents from the swamps—it was not challenging to brew such a thing.
“Swimming alongside sharks is also often safe, but I do not make a habit of doing it.”
“You heard what she said—three months in the cast. Don’t you want to have your arm back after only one?”
“What does it matter to you? Can you not allow me to look after myself?”
Aletheia looked at her. “It matters because we’re a team. And we help each other, no matter what.”
“You have learned far too much from Rook’s selflessness,” Eris said. But she took one last look at the potion, swirling its not-so-liquid components, and decided this fight was hardly worth it. She tipped the bottle back and drank.
The potion burned her throat like acid. She traced its slow descent down her esophagus, then felt as it settled in her stomach like a coil of tapeworms.
“There,” she said. “Now leave me.”
And mercifully, the girl did.
----------------------------------------
The scroll of Sleep had been saved. It was wet and faded somewhat from submergence in water, but after three days of airing out its previous state was mostly restored. She set about utilizing her time in convalescence learning it.
Aletheia’s potion indeed hastened the healing process, and over the next day every cut, burn, bruise, and bump on her body disappeared before her eyes. The bone would take longer to set. In truth the simple mulch hardly hastened the healing on an internal injury, but it did dull the pain, and any acceleration—no matter how small—would still be appreciated.
Still she was left with ample time to study the spell left for her by Eisolaz. It was complicated, with instructions provided in Regal and twice as many enchanted runes to learn and absorb than even Polymorph. To forcefully shroud the unwilling’s mind in a somnific trance without leaving any lasting damage took great skill—and much was liable to go wrong.
Aside from looking into the mirror Rook gave her, which she did often, there was nothing to do in Patiyali but study. And so she did. One by one the scroll’s runes went out as her Essence absorbed their magic and their imprints were transferred to her. By the time she felt confident in her ability to use the spell, she realized there was no one to use it on.
Except Rook…
But then if something went wrong the consequences could be dire. It was not worth the risk. Instead she returned to the market. She found the poulterer and from him she purchased a ‘chicken’ after the fashion of Hebat’s, a ferocious feathered fiend in a cage that snapped at the bars with its beak all hours of the day. Back in her room she looked into its orange eyes; her mind reached out to tug at the threads of its consciousness. She held its wakefulness, warm and angry like a stone heated beneath a campfire, between her hands.
One tug: the warmth faded. The chicken stumbled in its cell as drowsiness overcame it. Another tug and coolness came in again. The chicken stopped its fighting. One more—it collapsed to the ground asleep, all its consciousness unraveled.
She opened the cage to check the bird was still breathing. It was. She sighed in relief. A Telmosian chicken was no human—using Sleep on an unwilling man or woman would be much more challenging. True experts in the spell could cast it on dozens at a time. It was a favorite of assassins and surgeons alike, for many of the same reasons. Eris would not be using it so aggressively for some time yet. Still she was satisfied to see that her talent for learning new spells held true. Another technique added to the repertoire.
----------------------------------------
Aletheia cried at night. Not tears of grief and sorrow, but late, when she thought no one was listening, gentle sobs of despair. Eris heard her through the walls. She was growing very tired of it.
----------------------------------------
Injured, with nothing to do but study and no obligations, Rook visited Eris day after day, and she indulged him, and even practicing for life as an amputee Eris found it delightfully entertaining. She wanted him more or less endlessly. Even as he became more aggressive initiating their encounters he was the one who needed respite after release. She could go all day. Perhaps she would have, too, had there not been more reading to do, more studying to concentrate on. She still needed to read the treatise on forgestones they had found…yet there were other distractions that occupied her mind as she worked.
She enjoyed herself to such an extent that it was nearly two weeks before she noticed that the cure-all for lust’s distraction was no longer working. Even when he slinked out of her bed late at night and she was left alone, she closed her eyes and she saw him. When she tried to sleep she could think of nothing else except him. When they ate meals together she looked upon him and felt a tightness in her chest, and when he glanced at other women her jaw clenched before she knew why she was upset.
This was very unlike her. It was a passing insanity. She would get over it soon enough. So she ignored it, and business continued as suited her.
----------------------------------------
She and Pyraz stood on a clearing of impossibly green grass, beneath a gray sky, surrounded by ferns larger than the sun. Mosquitos and flies assaulted them in brutal humidity. An idea struck Eris then, so she closed her eyes and focused on the insects around her. She found the consciousnesses in the air—very simple consciousnesses indeed—and used Sleep. A single tug…
All around her bugs tumbled to the swampy floor in unison.
“Sleep is the spell of assassins,” Pyraz said. “Are you an assassin?”
“Not at the present. Do you know where I might find employment? It does sound like entertaining work.”
“Hypaspists fight with honor. We kill those who are awake. Still…at least you are using real magic.”
“Do not tell me you, like Rook, are obsessed with manly virtue. ‘Tis most tiring to hear about.”
He frowned at her. “You are the one who seems obsessed with Rook’s manly virtue.”
Eris opened her mouth, but she couldn’t think of an appropriate retort. Already more mosquitos had found them. She slapped one from the air with her good arm. “Is there some reason why you have dragged me to this place?”
“I will teach you a spell of Destruction.”
She raised her eyebrows. “The school of artillery?”
“I told you I would.”
“I suppose I had not believed you. Very few in Pyrthos learn destructive magic. The Magisters believe ‘tis too dangerous. Naturally they prefer only they and their Seekers possess it.”
He took a moment to concentrate. Breathing. “Yes. It was less dangerous when we required Manastone to cast our spells. The Regizar assured only those loyal to him used magic. Now…things are different.”
“…there are many stories you still need tell me,” Eris said.
“Later,” he said. “For now we practice. I have only one condition.”
“Condition?”
“Payment. In return.”
Eris regarded him warily. “‘Tis not sex, is it?”
“No,” Pyraz said. “Aletheia. You will become her instructor.”
She gasped in disgust. That was even worse than a request for prostitution. “No! You do it! I am not a teacher!”
“I am too old,” he said. “And I will not stay with this party forever.”
“And you think I will?”
“Yes. You will stay with Rook. Rook will stay with Aletheia. And you will teach her. She deserves to learn.”
Eris whined like a little girl. “But I do not like her! Why should it be my duty?”
“I am making it your duty. If you say no, then I will not teach you anything.”
She groaned. “I hate children!”
“You are a child.”
“And I hate old men! Gah!”
“Instructing another is the greatest way to master one’s own Essence. It will make you stronger. Do it for yourself, if not for her. The experience will better you.”
Pyraz certainly knew how to appeal to Eris’ sensibilities. And she supposed it would benefit everyone, Aletheia and Rook and herself, in the long run.
“Also,” he added, “you swoop down to take every scroll and spellbook you find for yourself, like a vulture. You have an obligation to share what you learn.”
Eris put her face in her hand. Sighing deeply.
“Fine. Fine! I will do it!”
“Thank you,” Pyraz said.
“And what Destruction spell have I, in your eyes, earned the right to learn by undertaking this dreadful task? Magic Missile perhaps? Arcane Orb? Ray of Annihilation? That was what you used to defeat the creature in the swamps, was it not? I had best hope ‘tis one worth the price.”
“Disintegration.”
“Disintegration?”
“Cease channeling Sleep.”
Eris hesitated. Pyraz was commanding, an older man with immense authority. She felt like she was back at Pyrthos immediately. At first she resisted, but she decided there was no use. She allowed the insects to raise. Seconds later the air swarmed with the fluttering of microscopic wings once more.
Pyraz made a gesture with his hand. He traced the air. Eris felt the mana burning off of him, but she saw nothing with her eyes. He turned about himself, then said, “Stand still.” A moment passed, then he snapped his fingers.
The buzzing stopped in an instant. Ash rained from the air like a volcanic eruption nearby in the swamp as every insect was disintegrated.
He sighed. “Flies are easy targets. Humans are more challenging. They will disintegrate more slowly, and physical contact is usually required. But it is more effective than fire in emergencies.” Their eyes locked. “This is for emergencies. You are too prone to placing yourself in danger. Next I will teach you Mirror Image, if I have the energy.”
Eris knew she knew better than her teachers, which made her a dreadful student. All the same she was eager to learn anything she could—and in this rare scenario, she respected the wisdom of her elder, for she knew well that he came from a time when knowledge was very different from their own.
Mastering a spell from a mentor was a quite unlike gleaning it off a scroll or book. Their Essences joined in communion to transfer the technique directly, with no translation required through the medium of paper. That meant the basics were far easier to understand. Yet to fully master the casting one was forced to rely on the expression of the magic’s use by the mentor: his consistency, his reliability, his articulacy.
Sometimes that was no barrier at all. At others, a spellbook was vastly preferable.
Pyraz was not an articulate mentor. His understanding of magic was intuitive, and although he was excellent at wielding mana, so long as a dog had sundered his ability to express how others might do the same.
Thankfully Eris needed no such instruction. It took several weeks more, but she swiftly became confident in her ability to use Disintegration—at least when touching her victim.
She cast sleep on the chicken and opened up its cage. Pyraz folded his arms, clearly in disapproval, but said nothing. She grabbed it by the feathers around the neck. Then she did as she had learned: a release of energy, yet channeled, focused, more honed than simply expelling fire. To shoot jets of flame from her fingers was like exhaling quickly, expelling mana in an uncontrolled fashion. This was much the same—only that same breath was whistled.
The chicken’s feathers turned to ash beneath her fingers, like fire engulfing spiderweb stretched across stone. In an instant the creature was rendered naked. It woke up at that, Sleep disrupted, and Eris had to pin it down—not easy with one arm—to prevent it from biting her.
“Your concentration lapsed,” Pyraz scolded. “Try it again.”
The chicken bit and squawked and clawed at her with its hands. She tightened her grip and whistled once more. This time it roared in pain, but she felt the flesh around its now-naked neck weakening, thinning, until it was gone entirely. The bird’s still-living head tumbled to the cage’s floor. Its body disintegrated only partially, down its neck, a few inches off its breast. Eris was forced to pull away to avoid being scratched.
It still took several seconds to die.
“One must wonder,” she said, “if fire would be easier.” She flicked her hand and chicken dust fell to the floor. “It would certainly be less grotesque.”
“You have grown used to easy magic so that you fail when faced with a challenge. Do better next time.”
She scoffed. “The chicken is dead either way. You can hardly call that failure.”
“Congratulations,” he said with a frown. “You killed a chicken.”
He departed. She went to call out at him in a retort, but when she glanced back over to the ‘chicken’ she noticed the delayed effect of her spell: all its body now turned to ash, and it poured from the cage onto her foot like a blackened stream of Heaven Falls. She swore.
----------------------------------------
She took another sip of Aletheia’s potion. The following week the nurse removed her cast, and although she felt weak, her arm was hers once more.
They discussed their next destination. Eris placed the forgestone on their table.
“The greatest mana foundries are in Ewsos,” Pyraz said. “If you intend to use this stone, we go there. We are nearby.”
“Seneria is nearby,” Rook agreed.
“Astera always said she would take me to see her village. When I was older,” Aletheia said.
“And we see how that turned out,” Eris said. “Listen. Seneria will make Telmos look a playground. Its animals feed on mana. They will consider us magicians food. It is a place overrun with demons, orcs, goblins, and elves. If we are to venture there, we had better make use of this forgestone in preparation first.”
Rook nodded. “She makes a fair point.”
“Do you agree with everyone?” Pyraz said to him.
“I’m easygoing,” Rook said.
“The treatise we found in the library of the Magister’s Keep,” Eris continued, “speculates on the location of manaforges which might still remain in the world after the Fall. I have been translating it in my free time.” She glanced to Rook. “The Dwarves of Kem-Karwene operate them still, of course. They are unlikely to allow us access. He supposes that any forges near the coast are most likely lost; that those within Seneria cannot be reached; and that the only others which will still be powered are connected directly to the Spires of the Oldwalls.”
“There can’t be many,” Rook said.
“Indeed not.” Eris smiled. “Indeed, only one, according to this author. Do you recall the name ‘Dakru?’”
“That’s where you found Pyraz!” Aletheia said.
Pyraz frowned. “The Spire of Rytus.”
“Our first adventure together. There was no manaforge there,” Rook said.
“Not in the Spire, but connected to it, by the Oldwalls. If you recall we did not explore the walls which led toward Thermopos. It may still be that the forge lies ruined, but accessible, connected to the Spire.”
Pyraz growled. “You count everything on speculation. You have no notion any of this is true. But I guarantee the foundries of Ewsos still stand. I have seen them myself.”
“You saw them two thousand years ago,” Eris said, “you have no notion what their state is today.”
“Returning to Rytus is far out of our way,” Rook said. “The journey will be long.”
“Do we have some more pressing concern to attend to?”
“No. But we’d be placing ourselves at greater risk of encountering the Seekers once again.”
This was a point she hadn’t considered. She did so momentarily. “Good,” she said. “Then we might deal with them once and forever more. If we encounter Lukon we will do what we should have done last year and kill him. Then we might stop fleeing from him like schoolchildren across the continent.”
“…I would be curious,” Pyraz said after a long silence, “to see my stasis chamber.”
“Then ‘tis settled,” Eris said. She spun the forgestone on the table. “Our course is set.”
Aletheia leaned down toward it. “What do you want to make with it, anyway?”
“That is easy,” Eris said. “An enchanted staff.”
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The moment she returned to her room her mind was overcome with thoughts of Rook. All her being became obsessed with him. Like a child waiting for an elder sibling to return home she wanted nothing more than for him to knock on her door. They had spent so much time together this last month that even seconds apart were torture. Her ability to do anything, to practice, to study, to think, to sleep—all was disrupted as she found herself enthralled to this idiot man.
And she hated it. She was furious. He had done something to her. Slipped poison into Aletheia’s potions, or had Pyraz cast a spell on her. There was no other explanation, she was certain.
As the hours passed she worked herself into a state of fury. She decided she hated Rook. Once they had concluded the business with the forgestone, she would leave him once again. Then she would be freed. Never again would any man hold this sway over her. She would not allow it. And he would be sorry for forcing these feelings onto her once she was gone.
But for now…why hadn’t he come? He always came to her at night. Was something wrong? Did he think poorly of her? Was it what she had said at the table? She fell on the bed and used her hand mirror to examine her every feature, to make sure she was still beautiful, and she most certainly was. There must be something wrong with him to leave her alone like this for so long.
Her fingers bit into the mirror’s golden handle.
There came a knock on her door. She told herself she would not answer it. Three seconds later she jumped to her feet and opened it. And there, on the other side, he stood.
All her anger disappeared. She was relieved to see him—an avalanche of tension released in her chest.
“Yes?” she said.
He pushed into her room and slammed the door behind. His lips attacked hers and his beard bristled against her cheeks and his hands wrapped against her waist as she was picked up and carried toward the bed.
And for a moment, she had never felt happier. That was exactly the problem.
She battered against his shoulder. “Let me go!” she protested, but he wasn’t listening. “Let me go or I will turn you into ash! Let me go!”
With a kick to the gut Rook stopped and let her down. He hesitated, then looked her in the eyes as she pulled away from him. “What’s wrong?”
“‘What’s wrong?’” she said back to him. “Must I tell you, to justify my refusal? Will you then decide if the answer is sufficient?”
“No—”
“No! So do not ask ‘what’s wrong.’”
“That isn’t what I meant, Eris. Are you well?”
“I am not Pyraz!” she snapped at Rook. “I do not get beneath you simply because you command it, and a woman is not unwell simply because she refuses your advances.”
“You were the one who advanced on me. This was always your idea.”
“So it was in the past. But no longer. Not tonight. Leave.”
He frowned. “Okay,” he said. He retreated to the door, then at the frame looked back at her. “Goodnight.”
But it was not a good night. She stayed awake for hours in the dark, thinking of him, regretting turning him away. Yet she found some assurance to know that this time sleeping with Rook would not have made those thoughts go away. Sleeping with him would only have made them worse. And if she wanted to be free, she could never sleep with him again.
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That morning there came another knock on her door. She opened it cautiously, expecting Rook.
An eager-looking Aletheia greeted her.
“Pyraz said—Rook told him that you’d told Rook that you’d teach me Aethereal Voice?” She smiled. “Will you?”
Eris groaned. She wanted to scream. She rested her forehead against the door. There was nothing she wanted to do less. But then she needed a distraction. She could not stand to be locked alone in this dungeon of a room any longer, brooding about Rook.
“Very well,” she said at last. “I will teach you.” And she gestured the girl inside.