If she were going to kill us, she could have
done it already – and easily at that.
She might not have killed me so swiftly, as an ape magus is of unknown
social standing to her. Yet she would
not have hesitated, had she known I am exiled:
an exile and a lone wandering goblin are unlikely to be missed. Yet there is the goblin again – whether her
aims were malicious or merely mischievous, she’d be best-served eliminating us
as soon as possible. I cannot guess at
why she might not do so, except that she is telling the truth when she says she
aims for redemption.
In any event, she has not yet
killed us, and I need sleep to be alert as I am able. We are headed South into the crescent of the
blighted desert, and unlikely to run into anyone overnight. Tomorrow we turn Eastward, and by nightfall
we shall be upon the scrub plain, making either for the Southern jungle or the
central plains. From there, we are much
more likely to be in either ape or goblin territory – and if not, we shall
enter the gods-forsaken warzone between.
Whatever the glyphed knight’s aims, the danger shall only increase down
the road, and I shall need rest upon our journey together.
“Our” journey. So it is.
Whatever she’s up to, I had better keep an eye on her. If her aims are noble, I must aid her; if her
aims are foul, I must – what? Stop
her? I could no more stop the world from
turning. Unless I could persuade her,
somehow. Or at least warn others of her
coming – and if so, I must know where she is coming from, and would be better
served knowing whatever it was that tipped the scales toward disaster. No, it’s settled: my place is here.
And so I must sleep.
“Will
you walk on through the night, then,” Cooper asks, turning his head up to the
silent soldier.
“I
shall,” she says with a nod.
“I
can tell my carpet to follow you while I sleep.
Will that be all right?”
She
nods.
“Thank
you,” he says, after a pause.
She
walks on. Cooper lays back on his
carpet, legs still crossed, the young goblin curled up at his knees. He falls asleep under the sparkling stars.
Hackard
dreams.
She
dreams of many things: of her home in
Santuji; of flying upon her bird dog, Karrai; of her brothers and sisters.
She
also dreams of gods.
Sappa,
who is the land, rises before her in her mind’s eye. His feet crush even the tallest of trees as
if they were no more than dry leaves underfoot.
Upon his shoulders are the mountains, and upon his back is all
Eversummer. His head bears a crown of
glaciers over the sheer stone of his face, and the sandy coasts spray the ocean
from his sides. Yes, this titan could
have wrestled Sagacia to the Earth, even though it flew among the clouds.
Yet
he was not enough, and so he had called more.
Wind,
water, the Moon, and storms – all these heard his call.
Kukulcan,
the wind serpent, winds about the shoulders of Sappa: it flows like a gentle breeze, but strikes
like a merciless hurricane. Its many
feathered wings seem not to beat but swim through the air along its undulating
body. Its voice speaks sometimes in soft
whispers through the trees, and at other times in howling gales; it is able to
blow ships across the oceans, or pass through the leaves as soft as a newborn’s
tufted tail.
And
Doonongaes, the winding river – she had seen this one, too. Many rivers forked through the Southern
jungles; Santuji itself was built in the tangled branches over the forking Ta’Dillata. The Ta’Dillata itself split and split again,
like the antlers of the stag himself; both may run and crash like a wild river,
or lay deep and still as a sunken stone.
A bit out of his element over the Northern Tundra, but nevertheless
charging with all the force of the rivers behind him. Although, Hackard thinks, even the rivers
flow ultimately from the mountains, so perhaps Doonongaes was all the stronger
near his source.
Podaga,
father of storms, had also answered the call.
This god too the young goblin had seen for herself: he is formed of clouds and crowned with
sunlight, he speaks in rain and there is lightning in his eyes. He is rarely subtle, though sometimes gentle;
his wrath is fierce and primal. When all
the spirits of the trees and the grass and the very stones were accounted for,
the world had more to fear from the wrath of Podaga than from a god with so
paltry a purview as blood – for most things do not bleed, but storms threaten
all upon the Earth.
Ixchel,
though – she was a surprise. Had even
the Moon’s daughter decided to strike down the very humanity she had created in
the first place? Hackard wondered what
she must have been thinking, staring down from the sky with the stars in her
eyes and the night in her heart. How
many times must she have turned her face away, ashamed and repelled, until she
decided to walk right into Sagacia and pluck Deathsong’s heart from her
breast? Did the bones hung about the
Moon’s daughter rattle as she went about her task? Or did she move as slow, sure, and
unstoppable as the Moon herself?
No
goblin could ever betray Druma’s purpose – even the villains in goblin legends
loved Druma, and would either be returned to the path on betraying the old
tree, or would be destroyed by the constant harassment from all spirits
everywhere. The apes, for their part,
could never betray Demeter as the sky elves had betrayed Ixchel – how does one
anger a goddess of grass? Did
Falconheart forget the divine progenitor of her own society? She who looked down upon them, even as they
looked down upon the whole Earth?
Apparently,
she had.
And
while the glyphed knight might hold off a mortal army by herself if the legends
were true, not even the Kara’Tamisra could stand against these five – though the
Hidden Hand had been enough to slay Rakta’M, what force could stand against a
handful of gods? Hackard had heard them
speak, and could never dare to raise arms against them.
How
had the Kara’Tamisra fared? Did they
fight to the last? Or did they die
fleeing and scattered as the Wretched Queen’s soul fell into the Howling Void?
The
soldier walks on through the night. The
ape and the goblin sleep on the flying carpet behind her. Her talons sink into the sand with every
step, and she does not count the dunes she leaves behind; instead, she
watches the stars above, and walks
South, due South.
She
feels the glyph crystal of frostfire, tugging at her from afar. She has felt it since she awoke at the bottom
of Lake Mountainsroot. Like the crystal
she was sent to retrieve, it pulls at her like a ray of moonlight through the
clouds, cold and strong. But the glyph
crystal of lifeblood is another story:
it seems to tug at her in a pulsing, diffuse rhythm. She hadn’t felt this while Rakta’M tore a
ragged gash across Eversummer; she had felt its rallying light as –
Well,
it had been different back then.
The
soldier walks South, due South. She puts
thoughts of the past behind her, and thinks of the journey ahead. She must destroy the glyph crystals, that
much is certain, yet she had planned on traveling alone. Planned.
Right.
A
thought had occurred to her, all those centuries ago: What
next? She had flown from Sagacia
even as Sappa pulled it down from the sky – she had stared Ixchel in the eyes
as the Moon’s daughter stepped down from the clouds. Sagacia was falling, and maybe the
Kara’Tamisra were as immortal as they seemed.
But what next? Would the Queen raise the rubble into the
sky?
No,
Sagacia would never fly again. And then,
suppose the Queen should complete her genocidal campaign? What
next? Why, they would have shown
even the gods that the sky elves would not disappear without a fight, that was
certain as damned. But Sagacia would
never fly again.
And
even had they built their flying city anew, what next? Who would populate it? The Queen had sacrificed her only child to
the very god she ended up slaying and enslaving; every other sky elf who had
ever lived was now dead. Would
Falconheart have lived out her days in peace, knowing that she had proven her
vengeance to the heavens?
No,
this was not the answer. And with that
thought, she had fallen out of the sky.
It was as though her whole purpose had flashed before her eyes, and she
thought she had died again, yet she didn’t quite. And she thought about what might come after
that.
When
she woke up, her head was a mess. There
was a nightmarish blur and then she was alert once more. But two things were clear: she was free of her Queen, and she was at her
full strength. So she decided to destroy
the glyph crystals and then… what next?
Well,
maybe she could live out her days in peace, knowing she had finally found
freedom? Hardly. She was not flesh and bone, but blood and
stone – in truth, she wasn’t quite sure what
it would take for her to die. The glyphs
bound her into something rather like life indeed, but as the ape pointed out
with unexpected understanding, it was not a mortal soul. Yet she would die at some point, that much
was sure. What to do until then?
That
was quite a ways off, though; for now, she would focus on destroying the
crystals. There was no sense in counting
eggs, as the saying went.
So enough of what’s next. What now?
This goblin. She tells me it’s been eight hundred years,
and offers me a bag of gold. How do I
know what gold coins are worth after eight hundred trips around a star? But it’s useful at any rate, and maybe I can
– what? Make up for bygones?
Hmph.
And this ape. A man of great learning, but dodging his own
scholars. He will be an asset in
avoiding as much attention as possible.
Still, if he seeks to avoid his council, why stick with me if they’re
coming this way?
No matter. It’s not like they’ll be getting in my way,
and even if they do, they seem worth the trouble for now.
In the morning, Hackard and
Cooper rise with the Sun. The magus
consults a map and book from the simple leather satchel slung over his
shoulder, calculating their position as the goblin stretches her legs upon the
sand.
“If
we turn East a bit before noon,” he says, “That should put us on a good
heading.”
The
soldier nods and says, “If you say so.”
They
otherwise pass the morning in silence.
The ape and goblin eat sparingly from rations in their packs, drink
frequently from their canteens, sometimes resting on the carpet’s back and
other times walking in its shade. After some
hours, the scrub plain can be seen in the East from atop the taller dunes. And when the Sun is nearing the apex of its
daily race across the sky, the three turn East and leave it behind them in the
desert.
“Tell
me, Cooper,” Birdstrike asks, “How are you with magic?” She had been thinking that the danger of her
situation hinged powerfully around the apes’ magical proficiency. She couldn’t very well ask him to his face
for a tactical assessment of his species’ military prowess – or could she?
Cooper
asks, “What do you mean?”
“Suppose
there is a conflict with your council of magi.
I don’t think the possibility’s to be ruled out. What can I count on you for? What might we expect from them, for that
matter?”
“Ah,
I see. Well,” he trails off, stroking
his goatee. “I’m –” he stops short again, wiggles his hand in the
air. Then he pauses, shakes his head. “You see, the Council,” he begins –
“It’s
like this,” the magus says after a few moments of silence. “You’re looking for, like, a tactical
assessment or something, right?” The
soldier stares blankly at him as she walks.
“Except that I don’t know how to do that, because I don’t know what
sorts of magical concepts you’re familiar with.
I don’t know anything about hieromancy, and I’m betting you don’t know
much about modern magistry, and so I don’t think we can really translate
between them without a frame of reference.”
Birdstrike nods.
“So,”
she says, looking around. “If you’re not
familiar with my concepts, then familiarize me with yours.”
He
looks sideways at the glyphed knight. “You
know,” he says, “I have no idea what it was like in Sagacia, but where I come
from, magical knowledge is a precious commodity. You don’t just – just – tell someone how to do it.
There are classes, and exams, and registration, and security – it takes years.”
“Huh,”
the soldier says. “Well, I should think
I would be more help to you, knowing the council’s capabilities and your
own. And as it happens, I have money from
our goblin friend.” She pats the coin
purse upon her belt.
“Even
if that purse is filled with gold – you could live a comfortable commoner’s
life for a month on that, but you could just as easily spend it in a day among
the high court. That wouldn’t cover
Magisterium tuition for a week, and the money isn’t the point anyway.” He rubs his fingers over the stubble emerging
from the top of his head. Maybe he could
angle some knowledge out of this conversation.
“If you tell me what you know about hieromancy, I could try to explain
how modern magistry is different, and then
I could explain the extent of our arcane art and compare your strength to the
Council’s and my own.”
“As
I’ve said, I know no more of hieromancy –”
“Than
any commoner might, I know. So: tell me what any commoner might have to tell
about hieromancy, and we’ll go from there.”
He looks at her expectantly. She
looks at the goblin, who fails to stifle an impish grin. Well, then.
There was no avoiding it now, she supposed.
“We
would be taught in class, just as you,” Birdstrike begins. “Hieromancy is just that: hieroglyphics, put to arcane purpose. It is no different from our writing – it is our writing. And while I can speak easily enough, and read lay texts, this
barely qualifies me as literate by Sagacia’s standards. I was born to the hawk’s song, though; I
learned to read and write in childhood, but my formal training was all in
tending to our raptors.”
“So,”
Cooper says, “Your glyphs…”
“They’re
just words,” Birdstrike says, tossing a dismissive hand into the air. “But the writing of them, when the spell is
cast, that is where the art of it is.”
She stares off for a moment before continuing. “Minor spells might be cast in long phrases,
but this is clumsy; it is how children learn.
The true art is to cast with a single glyph, or to reinforce them in a
circuit. And in this, I hardly qualify
as a novice. I can operate the glyphed
stones at my hands and heart, but can only inscribe one at a time with anything
like clarity; I could never have written as Deathsong wrote when she made us.”
“I
see,” Cooper says, nodding. “That is an
interesting technique. Our art, as you
put it, is what we call ‘hexis.’ We must
hold the thought in our minds, and focus to maintain it. Novices can create a hexis briefly, for a
transient effect. But with practice and
training, the novice grows in skill and power:
after one hexis can be held for a time, we learn to hold one while
creating another, and eventually to hold two and create a third, and so on.”
Handy, Birdstrike thinks, But taxing.
A hieroglyph could be written down once, and then called on whenever
needed. Although working one’s will
directly upon the world would perhaps be more versatile than hauling a
spellbook around.
“Go
on,” the soldier urges the magus.
“Well,
each hexis we hold in mind must be maintained at the cost of our soul’s
strength – we divert the flow of ether through ourselves, and redirect it to
manifest an effect upon the world. We
can only do that so much, but the ether flows through all things as a cup ever-filling: the vessel never fully empties, but there is
only so much available at any given moment.
With practice, even this may be improved, but the fact remains that
there is always some practical limit at which one can spread neither the focus
nor the flow any thinner.
“I
may hold three or four hexes at a time, if I am alert and healthy; a senior
student at University might hold half a dozen or so. The magi of the Council, perhaps a dozen –
though typically those who graduate University go on to focus their advanced
studies on interweaving hexes rather than simply piling them up, which takes an
entirely different sort of concentration altogether.”
And that’s why you should have been writing
it down, Birdstrike thinks. But
again, the ability to do it all on the fly with no tools seemed a tempting
trade-off.
“I
see,” she says. “And what of your subtle
arts, the magic for spying and for subverting another’s spells?”
“Those
are, umm,” the magus stammers. “They’re
restricted to those with the King’s sanction.
You see, they involve spying and subversion, so the art is illegal for
common folk and even most of the court to practice.”
“What
do you know of such arts,” the soldier asks frankly.
“I
don’t think you understand,” the magus says.
“Even if I did know of them, their very discussion with foreigners is a
crime against the Crown.”
“And
here you are,” Birdstrike says, “Avoiding your council – does one perhaps know
too much?”
“Huh?” He looks at her with what just might be
genuine confusion. “Oh, no. The Council isn’t after me for anything. I
just don’t think your plans to destroy the glyphed crystals will go very well
if the Council’s allowed to get their meddling hands on you. They might
be cross with me for helping you avoid them, but that’s assuming they even find
out – which, again, I think we both have an interest in preventing.”
He
was an exile, not a fugitive. Nevertheless, if the Council knew of his last
days’ deeds, he might not be able to talk his way out of some serious
consequences.
“And
what skills,” the soldier asks, “Might you employ to see that it is prevented?”
“Umm,
I’m no spy, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Can
you scrye?” She looks him in the eye –
he narrows his eyes and raises his hands as though weighing his words.
“There
are scrying spells.”
“Can
you ward against them? Or counter-scrye?”
“I
can’t. I’m able to recognize that sort
of disturbance in the ether, but I couldn’t do anything about it except try not
to act suspicious.”
“I
see,” Birdstrike says with a nod. “Can
you scrye the Council?”
“There
is no way they are not protecting against that.”
“What
can their protection do?”
“Oh,”
he says with a wave of his hand, “They could see us, probably fix our position,
and maybe even give me some wicked psychic feedback. It’s out of the question.”
“All
right,” the soldier says. After a moment’s
consideration, she asks, “And what if they come out of the sky at us, hands
blazing?”
Cooper
says slowly, “I have seen a magus call down lighting upon a target at three
hundred yards. Of course, using magic to
harm humans will earn you an execution – unless it’s an act of war in service
to the Crown.” He looks at his
companions. “Your very existence will be
seen as an act of war,” he says to the soldier.
“My association with you is treason at the least, and the goblin will
certainly be classified as an enemy for the same reason.”
“And
you, blackstone magus,” he asks after some moments of silence. “What can we expect from you in a fight?”
“I
have laid low a god, and been at one with the minds of ten thousand warriors
across battles beyond counting.”
“Well,”
the magus says, “I’d say that makes for a fair bit of experience. And you, goblin – what are your
qualifications for this adventure?”
Hackard
thinks for a moment before breaking her silence.
“I
am helping the last sky elf to destroy the vestiges of Deathsong’s power and
bring peace to the land.”
“Very
good,” he says after a moment’s consideration.
They
have left the desert far behind them, and are well into the scrub plains. Few live out here of their own choosing, and
even fewer for very long. There is game,
but also predators, and crops do not take well to the land.
Another
night passes, the soldier walking ever on.
They talk of small things in the evening, to relieve themselves of
discussing weighty matters. But always
the glyphed knight feels the distant pull of frostfire – and the nearing pulse
of lifeblood.
In
the pre-dawn gloom, the soldier sees a road ahead, at the limits of her
vision. As she draws closer, the
carpet in tow, she senses a human life ahead – ape, male, and fearful. No, not fear – wariness. Before she can spot him among the scrub, he
is suddenly alert.
“Hey,”
Birdstrike says, jostling the magus’ shoulder.
Cooper awakens, yawns. “Company.”
His
eyes open wide as if sprung. He scans
the sky.
“Ahead,
near the road,” the soldier says. “One
ape. I think he’s spotted us.”
“How
far,” the magus asks.
“A
few hundred yards.”
He
nods; too far for him to read an aura.
He could scrye the road – if they were spotted anyway, then the chance
to get a look at their observer justified the risk of counter-magic. Even in failure, it would provide some of the
very information they sought to gain.
Cooper
focuses his mind and wills an ethereal window into being over the road. In his mind’s eye, he sees the loose
flagstones, worn smooth with travel. He
turns the window this way and that, and spots a crouching figure among a stand
of brush, his back to him. Cooper moves
the window closer, and sees no more than the normal amount of ether flowing
through his quarry’s aura.
Good.
The
ape is dressed in shabby clothes and carries a small pack. A peasant?
Then he spots the spyglass at his eye.
Bad.
Cooper
closes the window and says, “I think we’ve got a scout. He’s dressed like a peasant, but he carries a
fine spyglass. I can overtake him on my
carpet, but I don’t know what sort of weapons he carries.”
“No,”
Birdstrike says as Hackard wakes up. “You
said yourself that I might be mistaken for one of your Blackened Guard. He is curious – and fleeing. Not in fear.
He likely thinks he’s got some new treason to report – and that is all.”
Cooper
considers this. If the truth of the
matter were discovered, that would be bad.
But a red herring could work to their advantage. One of the Blackened Guard, traveling with a
rogue magus and a goblin, as he would see it.
With no scheduled rendezvous, it would appear strange, and the scout
would either report it right away or continue with his own mission – in either
case, he would do nothing to jeopardize his ability to report back, and that
made them safe. They would have moved
on, and could press whatever advantage they were left with before being
ultimately discovered.
Somehow,
Cooper was certain that they would
eventually be found out – as certain as he was that the Sun would rise
tomorrow.
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