Conflict (38 page)

“You have to help me. If you don’t, I won’t be able to manage it alone. I’ve no idea what I’m doing, I’m not in command of my power and I can’t control the medallion at all. You have to help me!”

“As if I was a sorcerer! How can I help you if all this stuff gives me the creeps and makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck?”

“Between the two of us we’ll think of a way. We’ve always managed, help me once more, I beg you. For the sake of our friendship…”

“Wouldn’t you really prefer to go exploring, looking for incredible creatures to hunt?” Hartz asked.

Komir shook his head. His eyes were pleading.

The giant took a few steps in a circle, mumbling all kind of refusals, cursing his bad luck, until he finally yielded to the weight of his great heart.

“All right, damn it, I’ll help you. But you’d better not set me on fire or leave me petrified for a week, or else you’ll get a good thump on the head.”

Komir laughed heartily. “In fact you just nailed it, that’s exactly what I need you for. You must keep me under control so I don’t lose myself. If the experiment goes wrong, you have to stop me however you can, and I’m sure a good blow to the head would work,” Komir said with a big smile.

“Experiments? Uh-oh, not sure I like that at all!”

“Easy, big guy, everything’ll turn out right, you’ll see. I’ve already been trying by myself and it worked, although the system was a pretty painful one. I have no control over what I invoke, but I can make my energy and the medallion react as one.”

“Well… that’s a big step in itself, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, and that’s why I’m so happy. Who knows what I might end up doing with my power and the medallion? All the wonders waiting around the corner…We have to discover them!”

“If it’s to do with magic, I have a nasty feeling that there are accidents and mishaps waiting round the corner, not wonders…” grumbled the giant.

“Trust me, my friend, we have a lot to discover, skills and powers which will help us on our way, you’ll see. Be positive!”

“Wouldn’t it be better to go in search of a real mage to teach you? Surely that would be a lot less dangerous.”

“Do you know any mage?”

“Well… mage as such… I just know Amtoko, the Witch of our village, but I don’t know that she qualifies. To tell the truth I’ve never come across one. Not that there are so many of them according to what I’ve heard… and you don’t see them very often.”

“I don’t know one either, and you’re right, there aren’t many…”

“Perhaps Kayti might know…”

Komir tensed the moment he heard the name.

“Let’s leave your girl out of this for now. Promise me that this stays between us and no one else. Give me your word as a Norriel.”

“I don’t see why we can’t tell her, she’s with us… “

“This has to stay between you and me, between two friends, between two Norriel.”

“All right then, for the sake of good relations and because I don’t want any more altercations, I promise. You have my word as a Norriel.”

Komir smiled, satisfied.

“Thank you, my friend, and I mean that. Now let’s get started.”

Komir stood in the middle of the small room and held the medallion in his right hand. As he did so he felt the same sweet tingling as always, that ethereal feeling which enveloped him from head to foot like a great cloak. He felt a strange sense of disembodiment, Ether, Spirit…The medallion was showing him.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” Hartz asked, suddenly uneasy.

“Nothing, Hartz. Relax. The medallion is telling me about its origin, I think, or the source of its power, I’m not sure. It’s conveying a feeling of being bodiless, of ether…”

“Of
what
?”

“It’s hard to explain, you have to experience it. I’m telling you what I feel…”

“Fine, but now you’d better explain more calmly.”

“I’ll try again, you’d better be alert. If anything out of the ordinary should happen, or if you sense danger, I want you to stop me.”

“All right, but be very careful. I’ve heard that magic is treacherous, it turns against the unwary who invoke it without knowing what they’re exposing themselves to.”

Komir smiled at his worried, fearful friend. He took the burning candle he kept on the side table and put his good hand over the flame. Hartz stared at him, wide-eyed. Komir held his hand over the flame and the intense pain reached his mind an instant later.
Now, how long?
he wondered uneasily.
How long will I have to bear this torture before my inner energy activates itself?

The answer was not long in coming, and completely surprised Komir. The last time he had had to endure a long torture, whereas this time the sky-blue shining on his chest appeared as soon as he felt the first pang of pain. He saw in his mind the arcane energy accumulated in his chest, at rest, forming a lake of quiet blue water. A flash indicated that it was active, as if someone had thrown a pebble on the quiet lake and disturbed it. He moved his hand away from the flame, he did not need the suffering any more. He left the candle on the table and closed his eyes, concentrating on the lake of energy within him. He put his hand on the medallion and wished to work magic, to cast a spell. But he really did not know how to do it, he had not thought of it beforehand, thrilled as he was by all the possibilities. Once again he was acting on instinct instead of thinking things out at leisure, as was his bad habit. Before he could decide one way or another arcane symbols, golden runes, began to dance in his mind. It was a dance that was working towards the shaping of words of power. The Ilenian medallion of Ether was activated and it was casting a spell, a magic which he was not controlling or guiding at all.

He could only wait and see what would happen. Perhaps he was creating light, or fire, or perhaps even some other greater wonder. How thrilling!

A mist began to surround him, enveloping him completely, making everything around him vanish, even Hartz who was watching without missing the slightest detail, blinking rapidly so that his big eyes would not miss a thing, tense as a bowstring. Komir was already familiar with this strange mist, he recognized it immediately and felt at ease.

As on those previous occasions the mist enveloped him completely as if to abstract him from that particular reality, making the context and the situation disappear. Very probably even time had stopped, although he could not be sure. It was as though he were on another plane of reality.

Before him a figure began to take shape, translucent at first, then gradually gathering form and color. Komir waited expectantly. A woman appeared before him, a woman with a medallion like his own.

As he made out the medallion even before the woman was clearly defined, an idea took shape in his mind. This was the unifying link! This was what he and the two women the mist had shown him had in common: an Ilenian medallion. Both he and the two women he had seen in the mist wore it around their neck. How come he had not thought of this before? This was deeply significant, and anybody sharp-witted would have realized the importance of that singular fact. Kayti would have thought of it immediately. Lately events had begun to overwhelm him, he was not even thinking clearly. He was annoyed, almost ashamed that he had not realized before.

The three of us wear an Ilenian medallion, that’s why we can see each other. Mine calls on theirs, searches for them to form a link with them for some reason I don’t know yet but that I plan on finding out.

He shook his head, trying to clear away the negative thoughts and focus on the positive ones. He had just activated his inner energy with little pain, which was no small feat in itself. His right hand would take longer than a month to recover from the wounds of those first attempts. He felt the medallion drawing on his energy and it did not bother him; far from it, he felt pleased. He was the one who was initiating the process now, the medallion, although he was still far from mastering or controlling it, at least required his energy to cast spells. He still did not know how, but it seemed very likely that if he stopped the flow of energy to the medallion it would be unable to conjure anything. This gave him a brief, misleading sense of control.

He remained looking at the shadow, which was beginning to take the form of a female silhouette in front of him. Who would appear? The golden beauty with curly hair and eyes like the ocean? Or the wild girl with red skin and long jet-black tresses? A pleasant sense of apprehension ran through his stomach.

Hundreds of leagues away, Aliana stopped and leaned against one of the enormous trees. She looked towards young Asti, the Usik she was fleeing with through that immense forest of giant trees. The girl returned her gaze, disconcerted.

“Something happen? You well?” the Usik asked.

“Call Kendas, quickly!” the Healer urged.

A moment later the Royal Lancer, still camouflaged as a Usik, came to her.

“What’s the matter? Do you feel ill?” he asked when he saw her leaning against the tree.

“You don’t see the mist around me, Kendas, do you?”

The Lancer looked all around without seeing any mist or haze. It was broad day in the Usik forest, and it was not possible that there could be any mist at that time of year, not in that environment.

“No Aliana, I don’t see any mist…” he said, alarmed.

“That’s natural. It’s a magical kind. I have no time to explain, but I’m going to be out of it for a while. Nothing’s going to happen to me, but it’s very likely that I’ll fall into some kind of trance that I won’t be able to come out of. If the Usik arrive, you’ll have to carry me. I won’t be able to wake up.”

“Not a very good time for something like that… they’re very close…”

“I know, Kendas, and I’m very sorry, it’s not me that chooses when it happens. Let’s just say I’ve been summoned by a great arcane power and I can’t resist it. It takes me with it. I don’t know how long I’ll be in the trance, but I’ll try to make it as brief as possible.”

“All right, don’t worry, I’ll protect you. And if the situation gets complicated I’ll carry you, rest assured.”

“I know it’s just what we don’t need right now, with all the trouble we already have. Kendas, I’m sorry.”

And with those words still on her lips, Aliana was absorbed by the mist before the shocked eyes of both Kendas and Asti.

The medallion around Komir’s neck was beginning to emit the whitish flashes he knew already. He was aware that the medallion was showing him the young woman, consuming part of his inner energy. The girl who had just materialized before him was the one he had already seen that first time. A serene young woman of great beauty, who wore a similar medallion round her neck. But it was brown flashes that hers emitted, as if it were made of earth.

Komir greeted her with a wave of his hand as an unintended surge of happiness and apprehension stirred in the pit of his stomach at her presence. Aware that he could not communicate with her in words he smiled, trying to project calm, since he did not wish to startle her and he did not want her to go. Most probably this woman was somewhere far, far away. But for all that, Komir wanted to reach her, to talk to her and get to know her. He yearned for it.

The girl greeted him and smiled in return. It was an honest smile but not a whole-hearted one. She was worried about something.

Her face showed exhaustion and worry. Komir would have given anything to be able to communicate with this breathtaking being, but he could think of nothing. He tried to talk, but as on those other occasions nothing came out of his mouth.

While he was wondering what he could do to make contact with her, his medallion began to flash anew, more rapidly and steadily. A new translucent shape began to form between Komir and the woman. Someone else was beginning to materialize beside them, summoned by Komir’s medallion. This had not happened before. Komir gave all his attention to what was taking place before his eyes, deeply intrigued…

At the foot of the Fountain of Life on the faraway Masig steppes, Ilua Hidden Path, the Healer of the Blue Clouds, was looking at her pupil apprehensively; something was happening to her, and it did not look like anything good. Leaving the heavy granite mortar on the ground where she was crushing medicinal seeds, she went over to Iruki Wind of the Steppes and put her hand on the girl’s forehead. Her temperature seemed normal, there was no fever. But her face had lost all color, she looked as if she had seen a ghost, a bad spirit, and she had spilt the potion she had prepared with so much care.

“What’s wrong, my girl?” the Medicine Woman asked in concern.

“It’s… it’s…happening again…” Iruki said without looking at her, her eyes fixed on the far end of the conical cloth and leather tent which was the old Healer’s home.

“I don’t understand, little one. What’s happening again?”

“The evil spirit, he’s visiting me again…”

“Are you having a vision, my girl?”

“Yes, Healer, the spirit with the emerald eyes, he’s back…”

“I’m going to get Oni Black Cloud the Shaman, he’ll know what to do, he knows how to communicate with the spirit world.”