Ensharia gasped, and Silenos felt the convulsive tightening of irritation in his throat.

“How did he let himself die?” He asked, keeping his temper cool. Cellular regeneration, genetic immortality, redundant organs, soul-tethering, safeguard bodies. There were a hundred ways he’d found to keep his own existence preserved, albeit most had been left untenable by his sudden transfer. It took a very young and very stupid caster to be killed.

“He was murdered.” One magus spat, literally spat, globule passing his lips and hitting the ground in contempt. “His own apprentice, Arion Falls. Walriq is no more.”

Silenos and Ensharia took their time gathering yet more information before finally moving once more. Falls was, indeed, the magus Walriq’s apprentice, and a point of pride for even him. A windmage, he was apparently the kind of prodigy who emerged only once every few centuries, and had been expected by most to surpass even his mentor despite being only twenty years of age.

It was believed, likewise, that he had overpowered and killed him the few days prior in an argument. Evidently, the natives were too stupid to see any kind of contradiction between his only “one day” surpassing his mentor, and having personally killed him so recently.

Ensharia waited until they’d stepped out of the room before speaking, which Silenos appreciated for the wise judgement call it was. She had no way of knowing whether they were being observed magically, her eyes were not made of the same stuff as his.

“We can’t get Walriq.” She sighed. “But we can still track down Falls, right? If anything he might be even better.”

“Perhaps.” Silenos hummed, thoughtfully. Young casters were often capricious, the egotism and ambition that came so naturally to those of power tended to mix poorly, in his experience, with the hormonal chaos that was a body just barely out of puberty. Such an ally could be unreliable.

“He did kill his master.” Silenos noted, and found, pleasantly, that Ensharia was shaking her head.

“You think a magus would start an argument with someone they thought was stronger than them, or fail to recognise when they’d been surpassed by their apprentice? Further, you think that apprentice would go on letting a city full of men who think might makes right think that he was only eventually going to be the better caster, if he’d already outgrown the strongest?”

A smile made itself known to Silenos, and he happily granted it space upon his features.

“Astute and logical deductions.” He informed the woman. “Yes, we shall go and examine the apprentice in his cell.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they met more resistance on their way to do so than they had moving for an audience with the magi. Accused murderers tended to be guarded well, Silenos knew, particularly when they carried the genetic material of a magical prodigy. The inconvenience of reaching Fall was nonetheless an opportunity to gather more information about him, and one he made the most of.

He was stored below-ground, as might be expected of a windmage, and behind heavy guards. Several doors of thick iron barred the sole corridor leading to his cell, manned by individuals whose bodies carried an innate magic of the same order as Ensharia’s. Silenos had no doubt any of them could toss his own form around like a ragdoll, such would be their strength, and made a mental note to study the phenomena responsible for humans being so passively imbued with power in this world. It was not known to the people of his own.

More iron doors, big, thick things. Slabs of metal that might have found use in House Shaiagrazni as shields against cannon fire, it made Silenos consider the order of caster who lay bound behind them. He wasn’t considering for long. They soon reached the final door, stepping past, entering the chamber that held magus Walriq’s supposed killer.

It was a young man, as Silenos might have expected. Seated against a far wall, and with the look of one who had been born handsome, but recently withered in circumstance. His clothes were ragged, features unkempt, surroundings grimy and dirty in such a way as to seemingly infect him. He looked up to study Silenos with eyes coloured an emerald green, tousled brown hair falling around them in greasy locks.

Silenos spoke first.

“Arick Fall.” He identified. “Did you kill your master?”

The boy’s face was tight with hostility instantly.

“Another interrogator?” He asked, then shook his head fractionally. “No, you’re not local, and you’re not working for the city either.” He nodded to Ensharia. “Unless you had an exception made for you to be bringing the bitch along.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The Paladin bristled, but said nothing. A pity, Silenos would’ve found it rather amusing to see her temper run out.

“Answer the question.” Silenos pressed. “I’m already bored, and should my boredom reach critical mass it- ah.” Of course, these savages had no concept of nuclear fission. “I am an incredibly destructive and dangerous person prone to mercurial violence when my patience is tested.” He simplified.

Silenos saw the boy’s eyes focus for a moment, then his pale skin went paler still. Had he…Seen his magic? The gift of Sight was a rare thing to have naturally, but not unheard of. Not even amongst savages.

“I didn’t.” The magus said, after a pause. “And people only say I did because they’re jealous of me, they all know that, in Walriq’s absence, there’s no competition at all for greatest alive. It’s just me, me, me, me. And without me, suddenly, that position is contested by about four others, any two of which would be hard-pressed to best me with both their powers combined.”

An interesting answer.

“And so you would say your master remained superior to you as of his death?”

The boy snorted.

“He made magus at fifteen, I barely managed it at thirteen. I was more gifted, nobody was stupid enough to think otherwise, but the difference wasn’t that big. He had sixty years of experience on me, I doubt I’d have beaten him one time in ten if we’d fought in earnest.”

Silenos believed him, such disparities were commonplace. Talent was two thirds of magic, but age made up much of what remained.

“How did he die then?” Ensharia asked.

The magus stared at her, as if she’d just drooled on herself.

“He was eighty.” He said, slowly. “How do you think he died? The old man’s heart stopped while he was balls-deep in some whore, I found the poor girl panicking next to his dead body when I came back half an hour later.”

Silenos had once been told about Araquia the Great, one of the foremost casters of House Shaiagrazni. A woman of such power that she was able to split mesas in half with a thought and redirect entire rivers with a whispered word of power. She’d died when he was still in training. Auto-erotic asphyxiation, as he had heard. Her safeguards had failed to act simply because it had, technically, been her own act that killled her. Such things were more common among masters of magic than most tended to know.

And the magi of Magira surely knew that.

There were other facts Silenos judged to be in Fall’s favour. The second among a gathering of great powers was perhaps the least likely of all to challenge the first, in his experience. Such individuals were in a position to enjoy practically all the indulgences of the highest station, and were the least often challenged. It meant those rare occasions on which they interacted with their superior were far less grating, far more easily ignored. Some might have been impulsive enough to lash out, regardless, and yet that seemed even less likely. Magi were patient, intelligent individuals, as most casters were. And Fall was the greater genius between himself and his master. Had he decided to strike the old man down, he would simply have waited a half decade until he could be certain of doing so, not risked losing a contest to the death as he was.

All that, and there were far less sloppy ways to kill a man sixty years one’s elder. Silenos found himself more confident in the man’s innocence with every passing moment.

“I believe you.” He said at last, and Fall leapt to his feet, animated by a new vigour. It was like watching true life given to a fresh corpse. Silenos had to hide his smile as he stifled it. “But it makes no difference.” He continued. “You will be executed tomorrow regardless, good day.” He turned for the door, taking his leave without another word.

Ensharia was quiet behind him, face dark, eyes sad. Silenos recognised the primitive firing of empathetic synapses that had bound their species so tightly before sapience and knowledge had come to rule everything else.

“You dislike him.” He observed. “And yet you are saddened by his death?”

She eyed him, confused, concerned. Thoughtful as she took her time in considering how best to answer. The more Silenos spoke with this Paladin, the more he appreciated her habit of favouring silence over pointless speech.

“He’s innocent, and I’m a Paladin. I’m opposed to capital punishment at the best of times, and this is the worst of them.”

He could understand that much, at least, however different his own people’s customs were. Standing beside principal rather than emotional reaction was admirable.

“You’re also worried that we’re losing a powerful ally.” Silenos observed, and Ensharia stiffened.

“Obviously.” She conceded. “I’m not an idealist, I understand that there’s more at stake here than one man’s life. We can’t free him?”

“No.” Silenos replied. “If I had time, and a graveyard, perhaps, but I am not a direct combatant. Those magi we met, together, would be more than a match for me, however many other councillors of their level are in this city would further the gap, and then there would be several hundred more magi to contend with. It is impractical to free him.” A smile creased his face. “But I have another plan.”

Ensharia awaited it eagerly, and Silenos gave her the answer.

“I imagine Walriq has yet to be cremated, given how recent his death was. One day at least would be spared to examine his body, another to unlock whatever magical secrets may be held within. If we act quickly, tonight, I ought to be able to reanimate it, and unlike the drooling idiot you call a Dark Lord, I am able to bring back an individual with all the intellect and powers they held in life. When the situation calls for it.”

A double-edged sword, always, but Silenos knew when a risk was worth taking. Walriq had impressed him. Ensharia seemed less thrilled.

“I suppose…It’s for the best.” She managed, sounding more to be convincing herself than acquiescing to him.

“Splendid. Then you will help me by being the one to execute him.” Silenos announced, enjoying the look of shock upon her face rather a lot. “It will, after all, gather all the more magi to witness if he’s killed by something as humiliating as a woman, hm?”