“Have I not proven my good faith?” His sharp-chinned face took on an imploring earnestness that near matched Kiran’s.
I snorted, snatching up a final cloth strip and a piece of rein. If I left that quick tongue of his free, no doubt he’d convince Cara to untie him before I’d made it half a mile.
“Should you survive...I renew my offer of employment,” Pello said. “Sechaveh would be glad to have a man so resourceful and willing to embrace danger.”
Khalmet’s hand, but he had nerve. I stuffed the cloth in his mouth and bound it tight. Embrace danger. Ha. More like, throw myself on my own funeral pyre. He knew as well as I did that survival against Simon in Arkennland would take a miracle of Khalmet.
***
(Kiran)
Kiran shifted against the rough rock wall, trying to find a more comfortable position. Chains bound his hands to iron bolts sunk into the stone, one on each side of him. The silvery tendrils of Simon’s binding charms once again twisted over his forearms, blocking all his attempts at magic.
He stood against the back wall of a wide-mouthed, shallow cave. The cave floor was unnaturally smooth and level; likely the entire space had been hollowed from the rock by magic. The cave’s arched mouth opened onto a gently sloping meadow lined with cinnabar pines. Tiny red flowers dotted lush green grass, and the rippling chuckle of a stream echoed from somewhere beyond the cave’s edge.
A beautiful spot, if Kiran could only ignore the dark stains at his feet and the smooth floor, as good a place as any workroom to lay out channels. Simon was now deeply involved in that very task, pacing slowly across the cave to measure, then setting out short lengths of flexible silver links in precise swirls and loops. Once finished, he’d use magic to etch the pattern lines into the stone beneath and coat them with the silver, readying them to channel power.
Kiran watched Simon’s every move. Analyzing the channel lines wouldn’t tell him everything about the spell, but he’d get an overall sense of what Simon meant to attempt.
The first step in countering any channeled spell is to locate the pattern’s weak points, where the energy may be diverted or blocked,
Ruslan said in his memory.
But even though the henannwort’s numbness had long since vanished, Kiran’s thoughts still felt horribly scattered and slow, his concentration fragile as charm-stretched glass. Not for the first time, he wished he had Mikail’s gift for pattern reading. One glance and Mikail could discern a spell’s purpose, whereas Kiran had to work through the pattern with careful diligence.
Mikail is a natural channeler
, Ruslan had said.
You, on the other hand, were born to focus. Yet with enough practice, you can approach his skill, and he yours. A mage should be equally prepared for either role.
Kiran had spent endless hours analyzing spells at Ruslan’s direction. Yet now when it mattered most, the scrawl of lines and spirals on the cave floor refused to cohere into meaning.
Simon didn’t appear to care if Kiran analyzed his spell. Ever since Kiran had woken after his unsuccessful escape attempt, Simon had made sure Kiran never left his sight.
No more surprises,
Simon had snapped at Morvain. Simon had been furious that Pello hadn’t crossed the border as planned. Kiran’s initial satisfaction over Pello’s desertion had faded when Simon brought Kiran to the cave. Whatever supplies Pello had carried were apparently needed for something other than spellcasting. The cave was stocked with crates of metals and gems, and Simon appeared to have more than enough silver to create proper channels.
No surprise Pello had elected to block Simon’s binding by remaining in Alathia, after Kiran’s failure at the border. Curse it, Kiran should have lied to the man. Insisted the only way he’d live was if Kiran broke the binding. Kiran sighed in frustration.
Simon glanced up from his channel pattern, his brown eyes sardonic. “You’ve not identified my spell yet? Ruslan must have sorely neglected your training.”
Irritation set Kiran’s teeth on edge. “I don’t need to read the pattern to know you will fail.”
Simon chuckled and stepped over silver to stand before Kiran. “I admit, I begin to understand why Ruslan left your mind untouched. To crush defiance brings a certain pleasure, and the taste of victory is all the sweeter after a struggle.”
He gripped Kiran’s throat, pressing him against the cave wall. Fingers caressed Ruslan’s mark through the thin cotton of Kiran’s shirt, then slid downward. Kiran snarled and twisted, unheeding of the rock gouging his back.
Simon laughed and released him. “Ah, but I am a practical man. Only a fool keeps a knife that can turn in his hand. Enjoy what defiance you can, Kiran—you’ll have it only a few hours more.” He turned back to his pattern.
Kiran fought down nausea. If Simon was in such a talkative mood, perhaps Kiran could learn something of use. “You keep speaking of Ruslan as a fool. How could such a fool force you into exile?”
Simon glanced back. “Foolish as Ruslan is in personal matters, I don’t deny he possesses a viper’s cunning. Especially when faced with the certainty of a rival’s power soon far outstripping his.”
“But...you both are master
akheli
.”
Once fully trained, a mage’s power remains relatively constant, a function of innate talent, imagination, and strength of will
, Ruslan had said. “How could your magic suddenly grow to overshadow his?”
A cold light sparked in Simon’s eyes. “Tell me, Kiran, what do you know of the Well of the World?”
The immense confluence beneath Ninavel...Kiran frowned, and said slowly, “Ninavel’s confluence is unique in size. No greater single source of magical energy has ever been identified.”
Simon nodded. “Yet even the
akheli
must tiptoe about its edges, barely touching its potential. Imagine if a mage could access the confluence forces directly, without need for cumbersome intermediaries such as these.” He waved a dismissive hand at the silver links.
“That’s impossible.” To touch the confluence energies directly would be like an untalented man plunging into an inferno.
Simon gave him a condescending look. “Yet Tainted children do it every day.”
“That’s not the same—the Taint only operates on the physical plane,” Kiran protested.
“Limited as the ability is, they bend the confluence to their will with hardly a thought.”
“You claim you found a way for a mage to do the same?” Kiran made every word a study in skepticism. Simon didn’t appear to share Ruslan’s hot temper, but he might share Ruslan’s eagerness to demonstrate superiority.
“After long years of experiments—yes. I designed a series of spells, cast upon the confluence itself, to bind the energies to my own
ikilhia
...” Naked yearning showed on Simon’s face, before his expression hardened. “But after I cast the first spell, Sechaveh—” he spat the name—“interfered. He took exception to the amount of
ikilhia
needed for the spellcasting, complaining I would destroy the productivity of his precious mines.”
Kiran swallowed. Sechaveh hadn’t blinked an eye when Ruslan killed thirty men for Mikail’s
akhelashva
ritual. Hundreds must have died in Simon’s casting to draw his attention. And Simon had said that spell was only the first of a series...his nausea increased.
“So Sechaveh told Ruslan what you hoped to accomplish...” Kiran could well believe Ruslan would have hastened to prevent a rival from gaining such advantage. “And you fled to Alathia before Ruslan could cast against you?”
Simon snorted. “Ruslan was the craven one, not I. Sechaveh set his tame mages upon me—and then Ruslan came, claiming sympathy for a fellow
akheli
and saying we had tolerated Sechaveh’s shortsighted rules long enough. He cast with me against Sechaveh so I would let him into my counsel—and then the sneaking coward struck down my apprentices rather than face me himself.”
“Hardly cowardice, when in one stroke he removed your ability to cast channeled magic.” Kiran strove to match Ruslan’s arrogance. “I think you the coward, hiding from Ruslan for twenty years.”
“Waiting, rather, for the right opportunity,” Simon said. “Which you have so kindly provided me.” He shook his head. “Still. Twenty years without true magic, my research stagnated without Tainted and formerly Tainted subjects to experiment with...Ruslan will pay for every moment of my wasted time.”
Kiran still didn’t see how. He stared at the partially completed pattern as Simon bent to set out another series of silver rods. All Simon’s talk of the confluence made him wonder...he pressed his back against stone and concentrated.
Beyond the block on his power, a deep, slow pulse of earth energy. The cave must sit over a minor confluence point. Though the confluence beneath Ninavel dwarfed all others, weaker points lay widely scattered throughout western Arkennland. Unlike Ninavel’s confluence, the forces here were tame enough to touch directly. Even so, without a partner to channel the energies during his casting, Simon would be restricted to crude, brute force methods. He must intend something more powerful and subtle, against Ruslan...but what?
The pattern section Simon had just finished looked oddly familiar, silver lines coiling in complex tangles toward a wide circle at the center...
Understanding hit Kiran with the force of a magefire strike, the spell exploding into shape in his mind.
“You mean to focus this location’s earth-power all through me—through my mark-binding link, at Ruslan.”
Simon’s face filled with malicious delight. “Very good, Kiran. I see Ruslan’s teaching was not completely inadequate.”
The pieces fell into place with terrible precision. “That’s why you needed the memory! You needed to see the channel pattern he used when he created the link, so you could properly harmonize yours with it!”
“Nothing comes without cost,” Simon said softly. “A mark-binding is an excellent means of control, but to be unbreakable, the link must be formed at the deepest level.”
“Behind his defenses,” Kiran said. “You’ll bypass them all. That much power...it’ll...”
“Incinerate Ruslan,” Simon said, with vicious satisfaction.
Kiran’s horror deepened. Simon’s casting would serve a double purpose, binding Kiran and destroying his will the moment it obliterated Ruslan. And Simon’s spell wouldn’t only kill Ruslan. The power would blast through Mikail’s mark-binding link, destroying him as well. Unexpectedly, a lump rose in Kiran’s throat. He’d never forgive Mikail for his betrayal, but he couldn’t hate him, not the way he hated Ruslan.
Worst of all, Mikail’s death would only be the prelude to a bloodbath in Ninavel. Icy panic threatened to drown Kiran. He forced it back. One piece was still missing. “This won’t work, not with only you to cast. You can’t force me to take in the power without both a channel and focus, and no drug will help you.”
“Once again, you lack imagination.” Simon’s smug air intensified as he bent to lay out more silver.
Kiran didn’t doubt it, after the muddled mess the drug had left of his head. He studied the pattern with desperate intensity. If his magic was unbound for even a single instant during Simon’s casting, he had to be ready to seize the opportunity to disrupt the spell. The alternative was too terrible.
***
(Dev)
The sun’s final rays warmed my back as I lay flat to peer over the edge of a rock outcropping. In the steep-sided valley below, the silver thread of a stream tumbled over short cliffs and wound its way through pine groves and meadows. The find-me charm pulsed with warm urgency on my arm. Kiran was somewhere in this valley. Not hard to guess where, either. In one meadow, a horse grazed. Its color and size matched Simon’s mount, and the log wall of a cabin showed through the screening trees at the meadow’s edge.
Kiran’s amulet dug painfully into my skin, trapped between my chest and the rock. Kiran had implied the amulet would work even when worn by an ordinary guy like me. I sure hoped so. Otherwise, this’d be one short rescue attempt.
Even with the amulet, I didn’t dare enter the valley in daylight. At this altitude, the forest was much thinner than down in the Elenn Gorge. Far too easy to get spotted by Simon or his guardsman, and the amulet wouldn’t help me then.
I willed the sun to set faster. Suliyya grant Simon hadn’t finished his preparations yet! I’d lost precious time in Kost finding and bargaining for the items I needed, and barely made it through the border gate before the deadline I’d given Cara. The whole time, I’d cursed myself for leaving Pello alive, my imagination conjuring up visions of him getting free and finding some new way to fuck me over while he laughed at my gullibility. Yet in the end, I’d passed the gate without incident.
Unbidden, my thoughts turned Cara’s way. By now, the Alathians would’ve questioned her under truth spell and realized she wasn’t crazy or pulling some prank. I entertained a brief, happy fantasy of an entire force of Alathian mages rushing into the valley below and taking Simon down without me having to lift a finger.
Yeah, right. No doubt the Alathians would be bound up for days arguing over the political consequences of a raid into Arkennland. Cara’d be stuck giving testimony ten times over. Hell, they might even take her to Tamanath, to speak before the Council.
Just where I wanted her, far distant from Simon’s deadly magic. But gods, it’d been hard to leave, knowing I’d likely never see her again. One hug, and a quick, fierce kiss...I’d wanted to hold her longer, but she might’ve realized the truth of my intent.
At last, the sun slipped below the western hills to leave the valley in shadow. The sky remained pale, only a few bright stars glimmering above, but I judged the forest dark enough for what I had in mind.
When I’d sent Cara to coax mage war stories out of Jerik, I hadn’t expected much. Sure enough, most of what he’d said was useless—exciting but uninformative tales like the ones we’d all heard growing up—but one thing had caught my attention.
You always knew when the mages really got to fighting, because it was like fireworks going off. Not the Ninavel kind that make sky-pictures, but those nonmagical ones Sulanians sell, that go off in simple colored flashes and showers of sparks, and bang loud enough to shatter eardrums. We learned quick that the instant you see that shit, you run, and pray to Khalmet a wall doesn’t fall on you,
he’d told Cara.