Aethersmith (Book 2) (48 page)

Iridan ran to close the distance before the sorcerer could
recover, wincing at the pain in his ribs as his lungs expanded. The fires had
burned away the fog in an instant, so Iridan was crossing open ground as he
neared his opponent. Arrows stung against his shield as Megrenn archers among
the patrols could now see him. Single arrows were little danger to him, but in
the aggregate, they became a threat, wearing away at his shield, and requiring
him to draw more aether to strengthen it.

The sorcerer straightened at Iridan’s approach, and he could
hear him choking on the first words to a spell. Dragon’s Whisper put an end to
that, though, carving the man in half neatly—at least as seen in the aether.
Iridan ignored the spray of warm blood as he turned to seek out the archers who
had harried his charge. Head-sized balls of flame shot from his hand in the
direction of each he discovered. They were larger than the flaming darts he had
used earlier, but he wanted to make sure that the bows were consumed in flame
as well.

With immediate threats destroyed, and more on the way,
Iridan paused a moment to catch his breath, and discovered his folly. The smoke
from the many fires his magic had started was invisible in the aether, but he
could feel the stinging in his eyes. When he tried to fill his lungs with air,
he breathed it in.
Stupid,
he thought, unable to draw breath enough to
berate himself aloud.
I heard that Megrenn coughing in it.
Dropping to
the ground, and crawling away from the fires, his hacking, gasping coughs
wracked his injured ribs with agony.

The onslaught began as the outlying members of the Megrenn
search team arrived in numbers. Seeing Iridan stricken and debilitated, they
tried to finish him much as he had done with the sorcerer. From his hands and
knees, Iridan swatted ineffectually with Dragon’s Whisper as he was set upon by
swordsmen, whose blows wore at his shielding spell anew.

Iridan wished that it was Heavens Cry he carried instead of
the gift from Brannis. He liked the idea of just purging the city with the
greenish, acidic fumes of Rashan’s weapon. It would be like smoking out a hive
of vermin, purging the city of Megrenn and Kadrin alike, but allowing it to
begin anew, fresh and clean of infestation.

Instead Iridan fought to his feet as he cleared his lungs.
Dragon’s Whisper took little effort to wield, and against such foes as he
faced, he required only a fraction of his attention as he worried more about
his breathing. It batted aside their parrying blades as it snapped through the
air like a serpent’s strike. The impacts against his shield grew infrequent as
he finished off one opponent after another, until he was breathing heavily
again, suffering the stabbing pain in his ribs as the price that had to be paid
for the victory.

He had not had the presence of mind to keep lookout for the
other two Sources he had identified initially. When he found all foes within
arm’s reach dead around him, he noticed them again at last, bracketing the
length of road he was standing on. There were only ten paces or so between him
and each of them: two more of the blade-priests. He might have been able to
make it to one of the narrow alleys to one side or the other between the houses
that lined the road, but he was in no shape for running.

Iridan stuck Dragon’s Whisper into the ground at his feet,
and collapsed to one knee, using the blade for support. Tears streamed from the
corners of his eyes from the pain and from the smoke he had just escaped. If
either of the blade-priests was aware of Iridan beginning to make a concerted
draw upon the aether, neither showed a sign.

“This is not an honorable death, demon-spawn, to face you
wounded and two against one,” one of the blade-priests said by way of apology
in advance of finishing him.

Iridan saw nothing but a Source and a weapon. “The light is
filled with distraction,” Rashan had told him. “Empathy worst of all. See a
Source, destroy a Source.” The voice might have been older, but the Safschan
accent made guessing tricky. The Source of the voice’s owner was the weaker of
the two, but only by a hair.

“To slay Rashan in such a manner might be worthy of note,
but to kill one such as you, we do our duty, and no more,” the other
blade-priest finished summing up their statement.

Iridan had realized his mistake with the first blade-priest,
engaging him in parley to no advantage. The fleeing soldiers had obviously
spread the word that it was not Rashan Solaran rampaging through the nighttime
streets of Munne. Though there was nothing more he might give away in banter,
he was not going to repeat the error. Iridan said nothing, just waited, and
drew more aether as they wasted time explaining their motives to a man they
intended to live only a moment longer.

They approached briskly, the middling ground between caution
and a reckless charge. It seemed very professional by Iridan’s estimation—good
teamwork. It also showed a weakness of the blade-priests: a clear lack of
awareness of the aether as they fought. It seemed that they were not suited to
fighting warlocks.

Iridan let them get close, but not within reach of their
rune-blades. Twin blasts of aether hit the two men in the chest as Iridan
thrust his arms out to either side, releasing his grip on Dragon’s Whisper.
They were tighter, more focused blasts than he’d had time to form in his
earlier engagement, when he was fighting in a panic. Iridan found a new moment
of panic, however, when the bolts did not stop his adversaries’ momentum. He
threw himself backward to the ground as two corpses stumbled into one another
with ragged, bloody holes through them.

The impact with the ground nearly made Iridan black out in
pain from his ribs. He felt one of the rune-blades bounce off his shield, and
another try to knife into his leg as it was caught between him and its former
owner. Iridan felt a volley of arrows strike his shield, weakening it near the
point of failing. The archers had no reason to hold their fire now that the
blade-priests were not in danger.

Iridan drew more aether, realizing too late that the
blade-priests’ newly dead aether was closest at hand. He strengthened his
shield and shot more balls of fire, both at the archers, and at any buildings
within easy range. He needed time. The Megrenn occupiers had shown that they
would stop pursuit of him to attend to fires in the city. The chaos of the
frightened peasants who would be flushed into the streets would help as well.

Iridan pulled himself from beneath the pile of dead
blade-priests, and retched. The feeling of the dead aether passing through his
Source had disgusted him. It was a sensation his body had been unaware it could
experience.

His stomach empty of its contents, Iridan wobbled to his
feet, retrieved Dragon’s Whisper, and set about to find his shelter for the
daytime.

* * * * * * * *

“Very well, we will try your plan tomorrow night,” General
Rozen said, staring out into the night to watch the fires of Munne burning. “I
am sorry for the loss of your brothers.”

“A priest does not expect to die of age or sickness. To
never be defeated is the wish of the vain, thinking that none is better, or
luckier, or more worthy than they,” Tiiba replied. He stood at the general’s
side, but did not look out at the burning city. His attention remained fixed on
the general as a show of respect.

“Do you really think it will work? You seem to assume much.”

“I study. To spend hours each day in sparring and meditation,
and think oneself adequately prepared, ignores half the equation of combat. The
study of foes is the other half. Understanding his training, his motives, his
fears, and his vanities—that is the other half. I have read books, including
one about this new warlock’s father. I have reports from the battles he has
fought in the city, both his ambushes and in the attack that slew Souka. I will
have reports of tonight’s battle, if any survive to make one. I also have other
sources of information that—with respect, General—are secret to my kind.”

General Rozen nodded, satisfied that if the plan did not
work, it was at least well thought out—and the planner was at greatest risk.
Plans that were assembled by men who would be safely removed from battle were
never as trustworthy as plans by men who would risk their own lives in trying
them. General Rozen did not think to ask what those secret sources of
information were. He assumed they were secrets of Tiiba’s brotherhood of
blade-priests.

They were not.

* * * * * * * *

Iridan stumbled into the wine cellar of a nobleman’s estate.
He did not know which, and could hardly have cared less. The Megrenn occupiers
had leveled a great many of the wealthier estates, places that could have been
used by generals, sorcerers, even the accursed blade-priests, who counted among
their own elite. Part of the ceiling was caved in, but a comfortably large
space remained, smelling of the grape.

Iridan had swept away the broken glass, and burned off the
spilled wine, making it into a hideaway for the hours when Megrenn and peasant
alike would be stalking the streets of Munne. He had brought in blankets and
some pilfered foods to hold him over for a few days—he could always loot more
from either the occupiers or the peasants. His aching body needed rest, and
lots of it.

“Maybe I will rest tomorrow night as well,” Iridan told
himself. He knew that he would not. The drive to save the city kept him out on
the streets each night, every death bringing the city closer to freedom.

Iridan uncorked a bottle of a vintage he had never heard of.
Wine was all the same to him, whether it was of ancient vintage or last
season’s grape juice. He just needed to get drunk enough to fall into a
dreamless sleep. He half-succeeded …

He found himself stalking the streets as he had on his first
nights in Munne. He dodged among the buildings, facing off against stripe-cats
and infantry patrols. Nothing hurt in the dream, not when the headless
stripe-cat collapsed atop him momentarily, not when he landed awkwardly jumping
from a third-story rooftop to pursue a fleeing Megrenn captain. Every opponent
he faced off against fell either by blade or by spell.

He found himself bereft of opposition, and decided to find
shelter and respite. The dream fatigue felt real enough. Everything slowed to
where he felt like he was wading through honey; he needed rest.

A peasant home caught his eye. It opened onto an unremarkable
street and, from its look, likely had a loft where he could hide. Blade still
in hand in case of ambush, he used a bit of telekinesis to flip the bar that
held it firm against intruders. The dream was in the light, so Iridan could not
see the occupants within, but he remembered them from when it happened to him
in the waking world.

The husband and wife within had been awakened by the
throwing of the bolt, and had both come to investigate. The man carried a wood
axe, the woman a small knife.

“I am Warlock Iridan. You have nothing to fear from me. I
seek shelter as I drive out the Megrenn soldiers,” he said to them. They looked
at him with fearful eyes, seeing a black-clad swordsman, dripping blood all
over their floors, and with a readied blade in hand.

“Leave us alone! We want no trouble here!” the man shouted
at him.

“Be quiet,” Iridan ordered, trying to sound authoritative,
but in the dream it came out with a savage growl.

“Mommy, what’s goin’ on?” a voice came from above. There had
indeed been a loft in the house, and a young girl of perhaps six or seven
winters leaned her head over the edge to see. When she did, she screamed. It
was the shrill, piercing note that only the very young and very frightened can
manage.

Iridan panicked. He needed stealth and refuge, safe from
further discovery by the occupiers until he had rested. His hand acted before
he could think enough to stop it.

A little girl’s head dropped to the floor. In the dream, it
kept screaming.

Chapter 28 - Found

Dingy light fell through the sewer grating to cast the
passageway in a gradient of shadows, devoid of color. A trickle of water echoed
in the dark recesses past that border of illumination. Sodden, filthy debris
piled in the path of the flow dammed it off after a fashion, leaving a space
that was merely damp, rather than awash in sewage.

Measured in the length of Anzik’s foot, the area was twelve
feet wide and thirty-one feet long, in the direction the flow would have gone,
had he not stopped it. But he had stopped the flow. Sometimes it would leak,
but he would stop it again. The Staff of Gehlen was nine feet long. He had to
measure it so that he could find the height of the ceiling by pushing it
against the top of the passageway, and seeing how many feet fit beneath it. The
ceiling was thirteen feet tall, except where the grating was—it was sixteen
there.

Anzik had checked his measurements fourteen times; he got
the same results every time. It comforted him to get the same results every
time. That was the way it was supposed to be. Counting kept his mind busy, and
the voices away. He had refrained from using any magic at all since meeting
Faolen.

It should be soon.

Anzik started another survey of his hideaway, pressing heel
to toe, heel to toe across the passage.
One, two, three …
A pang of
hunger growled for his attention, but he was counting. There was food, stolen
from the marketplace, in a cloth sack on the ground by the staff. He had dates,
plums, apples, hard-crusted bread, and a cheese that smelled like he remembered
from home. But he had started counting. It would be wrong to stop in the
middle.
Four, five, six …

Anzik paced off the space, then double-checked himself by
doing it again. Satisfied that everything was where it belonged, he sat himself
down, and ate his meal. He had paid little attention to time since he had run
away, so he decided that every meal was lunch. Lunch had no runny eggs that
felt funny in his mouth. Lunch did not need a knife or someone to cook
it—though soup might have been nice.

Faolen is going to get you now, voices. Just you wait. Any
time now …

* * * * * * * *

The wagon trundled along at a relaxed pace. The wooden
rumbling of the wheels set a counterpoint to the rhythm of the horses’ hooves.
Five other wagons traveled alongside them as they made their way down the
Tradeway, the east-west road that ran the length of Takalia. The caravan was a
common means of traveling safely over long distances, providing safety in
numbers as well as in paid guards. For their part, the Takalish guards cost
little enough: food for the journey and a small stipend paid by each wagonload
of passengers or goods.

Zellisan looked the four caravan guards over, and was
impressed with what he saw. None was older than twenty-five years by his
reckoning, but they had a polite, calm dignity about them. Left alone, they
would ride in silence for hours; strike up a conversation, and they bantered
like they knew you since childhood. They would answer any question like a proud
host, showing off his new home to guests at a dinner party. They knew every
inch of the Tradeway and a good ways to either side of it. They were passing
through wine-making lands, with vineyards stretching as far as could be seen
from hilltop to hilltop. The distinctive wide-brimmed hats they wore—large
enough to cover an open barrel without risk of falling in—let brigands know the
caravan was protected.

Should any brigand be foolish enough to attack the caravan,
he was in for a rude welcome. Zell had seen Acardian muskets in his military
days. They were scary to hear fire—louder than pistols even—but not terribly
accurate. The long guns that the Takalish caravan guards wore slung over their
shoulders were of fancier make: polished barrels gleaming down their length
without a hint of a flaw in their straightness, dark-stained stocks padded in
leather, and each carrying a small spyglass mounted to the top. He knew before
he noticed the distinctive square-on-end
C.E.
logo on the stock that
they had to have been from the Errol workshops. It stood to reason, since the
Mad Tinker’s island refuge was not far north of Takalia.

Zell found himself ill at ease with his new traveling
companion. He knew that Wendell was a Kadrin sorcerer in Veydrus, which ought
to have made him trustworthy. Being brought in to head the Imperial Palace’s
guards had given him too much insight into the goings on of the seat of
imperial power of late, though. House Archon had its flaws, its malcontents,
and, from time to time, its high sorcerers summarily executed for treason … but
he trusted all of them. He had known Brannis since he was a lad, and knew that
he had carved himself a separate path, but the rest of the Solarans were a
scheming lot. Wendell seemed cut from the Solaran cloth rather than from the
Archon.

“What is it you keep looking at me for?” Zellisan asked,
noticing the magician’s gaze wandering his way too often for comfort.

“I might ask you why you spend so much time looking at the
caravan guards. I suppose it might be the same reason: I am curious about whose
hands my protection lies in,” Wendell replied. In his road-dusted gentleman’s
suit and hat, he looked the very image of the traveling neophyte—overdressed
and underprepared.

“Not a bad life, if you don’t mind the pay,” Zellisan said,
conceding the point. Wendell had already made clear that his power in Tellurak
was limited. He would need Zell’s protection should any danger find them once
they were clear of the caravan’s protection. “I could do the same back home.
Know every road from Scar Harbor to Urdur like I put ’em down myself.”

“So why don’t you? Seems an easy living, seeing the land and
meeting people, making a bit of coin for the trouble?”

“It’s the ‘bit of coin’ part, really. Couldn’t see docking
myself pay. Couldn’t see folk paying my typical rate just for some light guard
duty,” Zell answered, lacing his fingers behind his head, and leaning back on
the bench seat of the wagon.

“You’re paid that well, are you?”

“I don’t need to pass a hat around at the end of a job,
magician.”

“The hat takes care of me. I don’t expect to die a rich
man.”

* * * * * * * *

“Jinzan, a word, if I might?” Narsicann said, diverting
Jinzan’s attention from the farewell dinner he was enjoying with his wives and
children—those who had not run away at least.

“Is this urgent, or can it wait until we have eaten?” Jinzan
asked, setting down the slab of bacon he had been working on, and sucking the
grease from his fingers.

“One bit of news could, I suppose. The other, no.”

Jinzan regarded him a moment, looking for hints that he
might be jesting, but he found no such indication. Narsicann’s humor could be
subtle at times, but he would not dare trifle with Jinzan just before he left
to make war.

“If you would excuse me, everyone,” Jinzan said to his
family, making sure his gaze swept across each of them. He wanted to make sure
he remembered them as they were, not the fading memories of the children as
babes or his wives as when he had met them. He was home too infrequently, even
when he was in Zorren—sleeping did not count for making memories.

“We have found a Kadrin sorcerer within the city,” Narsicann
told him once they were alone on Jinzan’s balcony. Narsicann was back-lit by
the low sun, making his expression hard to read. Jinzan wondered how the
spy-sorcerer always kept such subtle tricks at hand, even when dealing with
friends.

“Where? To what end?” Jinzan knew that if the Kadrin had
been captured already, Narsicann would have said so first off.

“He and an accomplice seem to be closing down a business in
the warehouse quarter. Checking on it, they set it up several days ago,
fronting a half-season’s rent, and claiming to be traders. The fact that they
are leaving now—”

“You think they found the staff?” Jinzan said, interrupting
Narsicann. He felt like a cold-blooded politician for asking first about the
staff, and felt a pang of guilt.

Narsicann nodded.

“We think it quite likely, in fact. Their rented shop is
surrounded—we even have the nearby sewer entrances watched. Everyone is keeping
their distance until we arrive.”

“You need my help in case the Kadrin uses the staff against
us,” Jinzan said, drawing another nod from the master of spies.

“Indeed. I have five other sorcerers already waiting for us,
but none so strong as you. We need you,” Narsicann stated, not quite asking it
as a question, but Jinzan heard it that way.

“Of course, let us be off,” Jinzan replied, wondering if his
last look at his family truly would be the last. Jinzan knew the power that the
staff granted its wielder. “Once I have it in hand, I will make for Munne, and
deal with Rashan Solaran.”

“Well … that was the other thing, the one that could have
waited until your dinner was ended. It seems that the trouble in Munne is not
Rashan Solaran, but his son Iridan. The young demon-spawn styles himself a
warlock now, and has slain three of the blade-priests you sent,” Narsicann
said.

“Was Tiiba among the fallen?”

“No, Master Tiiba has a plan for dealing with this
‘warlock.’ He intends to set a trap and—”

Jinzan waved off the explanation. “Tell me about it
afterward, whether he succeeds or fails. We have more important matters to
attend.”

“Agreed.”

* * * * * * * *

“I see no Sources inside,” Jinzan whispered, peering around
the stone bricks of an adjacent building.

“Neither do I, but I trust the eyes of the men who said
there are two Kadrins inside. I find it more likely they are concealed in magic
than escaped by it,” Narsicann replied, crouched low next to him.

“The two of us, then—prepared for whatever lies inside?”
Jinzan asked.

“Aye, it’s been too long since we last fought together. If
we fail, it is unlikely that the perimeter guards will be able to stop them. We
must not fail.”

“If we do, it has been a pleasure knowing you, old friend.”

“Likewise.”

The shop door bore no visible ward upon it. A simple spell
of telekinesis lifted the bar from inside. Jinzan pushed the door in, and was
relieved that it did not squeak as it swung. It was dark within the building,
the curtained windows permitting scant slivers of filtered starlight about
their edges and little else. The only other illumination came from the newly
opened door.

Jinzan conjured a tiny sphere of pale blue light, and sent
it whizzing about the front room of the shop, finding nothing out of the
ordinary. There were no spies and no staff, just a counter and a number of
crates half-filled with useless bric-a-brac. Jinzan and Narsicann tiptoed into
the room, and searched about from closer up, but found no sign of their quarry.
The door to the storage area in back was unlocked, and opened easily, quiet as
the first. The blue light led the way again, doing a circuit of the larger
space, and showing nothing extraordinary. Jinzan turned to Narsicann, who only
shrugged.

There was a set of stairs that led to an enclosed loft over
the customer-oriented front half of the store. Jinzan crept up them, careful to
ease onto each in turn, lest they—

Creeeeeeeeeeee …

Jinzan mouthed a variety of curses without lending breath to
them as the stair creaked loudly enough for someone to have heard from the
shop’s front door. He felt Narsicann grab his arm to stop him from going any
farther. The two sorcerers waited, motionless, silent. Jinzan could hear his
own breath, coming faster and deeper than he would have hoped. He swallowed,
wondering if that sound really carried as far as it seemed to in his head.

Noises came from above, behind the door at the top of the
stairs. A creaking of a floorboard—softer than his own misstep but
unmistakable—followed by a rustling noise. Jinzan felt a tug at his arm, and
turned to look Narsicann’s way. He saw Narsicann’s face by the ghostly light of
his spell, the man’s eyes wide. Narsicann jerked his head in the direction of
the door they had entered by.

There is certainly time to run,
Jinzan thought.
We
could be gone before anyone came down the stairs.
Jinzan looked Narsicann
in the eye, and shook his head.
If we give up now, we lose the staff.

Jinzan pointed up the stairs, making certain his hand was
visible in the scant light available. He held up his hand, fingers spread wide,
watching to see Narsicann’s eyes focus on it.

Jinzan pulled in his thumb, leaving just four fingers
extended.

He put down his little finger, leaving just three. He
watched Narsicann’s head nod just enough to let on that he understood.

Two.

One.

The two men rushed up the stairs, all attempt at stealth
abandoned. Soft-soled boots thudded heavily on the wooden treads. Jinzan leaned
his shoulder against the door as he thrust it open, trusting to brute force
over magic in his haste; he found it unbarred, unwarded, entirely unprotected
against his advance.

Jinzan stumbled into the loft, Narsicann close on his heels,
and the first words to a spell poised ready on his lips. There was nothing
there.

While there was a bed, a scattering of blankets upon the
floor, and various personal effects lying here and there, it amounted to
nothing. There was no spy, no accomplice, and—after a cursory viewing in the
aether to be sure—no Staff of Gehlen.

“Your informant was wrong, it appears,” Jinzan said, casting
an annoyed glare at Narsicann out of the corner of his eye, a gesture lost in
the gloom of a single open window, whose light did not quite reach the doorway.

“At first glance, it would appear so,” Narsicann said. He
stalked past Jinzan into the room, and lit it with a spell of his own,
banishing all semblance of nighttime. The master of spies made his way to the
window, and stuck his head out, looking for signs that their prey had climbed
out onto the roof or dropped to the ground below. “But I like to be thorough.
We should burn the building to the ground.” He pulled the shutters closed.