Eolyn (30 page)

C
hapter Thirty-Six

Tzeremond strode down
the castle corridors, dark robes flowing behind him, magic crackling through his staff. He did not acknowledge the guards who saluted his passing. When he arrived at his quarters, he sent his chamber servants away, shut the door behind them, and leaned against the solid oak. His hands trembled, and his breath came in wheezing gasps.

Drawing air deliberately into his lungs, Tzeremond stood, steadied himself on his staff, and continued through the maze of small chambers that led to the heart of his apartments.

He reached a place sealed by magic and accessible only to him. A dark, windowless sanctuary illuminated by gray candles, littered with secret books and parchments, and adorned with numerous magical objects.

Opening a small box of ironwood, Tzeremond pulled his most treasured tool from its resting place among sheets of black silk. The polished crystal stared back at him, a faint glow in its black heart.

Divination is a reckless form of magic.

He jumped at her voice, glanced around, but saw nothing.

Sending a soft curse into the shadows, Tzeremond sat at one of the cluttered tables. He shoved aside papers, books, and instruments. Then he laid the crystal sphere in front of him.  Closing his eyes, he spread his long fingers over its smooth face.

Ehekaht, naeom veham

Renenem pelau

Erenahm uturm se sepuenem eom

She laughed at him. “You can’t see the future in a rock, my love.”

“I saw our future well enough!” he spat back.

“Did you, Tzeremond?”

That voice, its sad lyrical beauty, like a knife through his heart.

Tzeremond looked up, and there she stood. Young and beautiful, just as she was so many forgotten years ago. Her eyes shone gray like the autumn dusk, her platinum hair ran in a silky river down her back. Her fine linen gown was drawn loose about pale shoulders. A melancholy smile graced her lips.

“One day that toy will mislead you,” she said, “and you will regret it.”

“It was you who misled me!” he cried “That is the only regret I have.”

She lowered her eyes, and her image dissolved like a mist.

Tzeremond returned to the cloud-filled crystal and repeated his spell. The device may have failed him these past weeks, but by the Gods, it would not fail him now.

He focused all his will on its smoky depths, until images began to dance through the glass. For hours he sat deep in concentration, combing the past in search of a connection he had missed, a critical thread he had failed to cut.

As the candles burned low, he found her: a child racing into the woods. Her laughter mocked the autumn wind. Her magic was still too weak to be detected under the cover of that ancient canopy. Tzeremond watched as Riders ravaged her village. He saw the Guendes lead the girl away and take her across the river, through an enchanted forest that parted like a curtain to reveal the lost home of a woman he once believed dead.

Ghemena.

With an unnatural roar, Tzeremond took the crystal and flung it against the wall. The smooth glass shattered into a million indigo flames that flared and dissolved like quicksilver. Light faded into darkness. Tzeremond let his weary head sink into his hands, clutched at his graying hair, and wept.

They outwitted us
.

Somehow, the dead magas had lifted spells out of their graves with their cold, charred fingers. They had saved Ghemena. Then they had delivered to her a girl who could corrupt a prince.

How very clever their ruse. How innocent the young maga must have appeared! How ingenuous the boy who found and befriended her.

No wonder the problems with Akmael persisted after the death of his mother: the insolence, the barely concealed skepticism, the arrogant insistence on questioning the obvious. A student of similar temperament but different breeding would have been barred from further training, but this was Kedehen’s only son, destined to become High Mage and King.

For years, Tzeremond had tried to convince Kedehen to take another queen, but to no avail. With a second prince, the future of Moisehén might have been secured and the scourge of female magic forever extinguished.

But the Gods had not willed it so. They had left Moisehén at the mercy of this insipid King, a man who pardoned his father’s assassin, set a maga free at Bel-Aethne, and treated the heretic Corey like an honored guest.

And now he wants the maga for himself.

It could not be allowed to happen. Kedehen had the strength to resist the darker influences of Briana, but his son was of a different constitution. This witch would be Akmael’s ruin, and with him the ruin of an entire kingdom.

With weary determination, Tzeremond recognized the path before him. Redeeming the young King would be difficult, a complex and delicate undertaking. It would require much of the wizard, perhaps the rest of his life and magic. But the Gods reserved the greatest tasks for their most dedicated servants, and Tzeremond resolved to accept this challenge with gratitude and humility.

The future of his people depended on him.

Filling his lungs anew, Tzeremond dried his tears and lifted his head. He extended his hands to the candles, restoring them to their full height and steady glow.

Much of the night would pass before he found the curse he sought among the stacks of books and parchments. It was an ancient spell, meant for the most troublesome of enemies, so powerful he would need assistance to control it. But Tzeremond knew who among the High Mages were loyal. He copied the spell faithfully and tucked the parchment into his robe.

When he extinguished the candles and returned to his bedchamber, dawn’s pale light was just beginning to filter through tall windows.

“Ghemena,” he whispered, lifting his face to the new day. “You have played your last hand. Now watch as play mine.”

C
hapter Thirty-Seven

The march from Selen
to the Pass of Aerunden proved arduous. Ernan’s column snaked forward at a tedious pace. The stink of urine and manure followed them everywhere. The longer Eolyn rode at her brother’s side, the greater her distaste for this endeavor the Gods had handed her.

Ernan’s men took what they wanted from fields and farmers, filling wagons with grain and slaughtering pigs or cattle wherever they pleased. Girls showed up from villages, bartering pleasure in exchange for food or coin. When Eolyn asked Ernan to put a stop to these practices, he laughed, though not unkindly.

“I cannot ask my men to fight on empty stomachs,” he said. “And if they have other appetites that need filling before they confront their fate on the battlefield, who am I to stand in their way?”

“At least pay the farmers for their food,” Eolyn insisted.

“Their liberation from the Mage King will be payment enough.”

With that, her brother turned his attention to other matters.

They were still a couple days east of Aerunden when Renate caught up with them, one afternoon.

Some weeks before, the mistress had retired to Corey’s estate, claiming she was too old to lend further service to the rebellion. Eolyn had tried to convince her otherwise, but without success.

Renate’s unexpected arrival sent a wave of excitement through the camp. The mistress had undergone a visible change. The lines of her face no longer ran so deep, and the silver gray of her hair had given way to intermittent strands of charcoal. She wore midnight blue colors of a Middle Maga.

Overjoyed by this transformation, Eolyn greeted Renate with a full embrace and a kiss of friendship. Together, they retired to the privacy of the High Maga’s tent.

“I departed East Selen as soon as word of Corey’s arrest reached me,” Renate said as they sat down. “It is a tragedy, Eolyn. A tremendous loss for all of us.”

“We cannot give ourselves over to mourning just yet. Rishona’s dreams indicate Corey is alive, and his injuries have been attended to.”

“But I have heard rumors.” Renate’s hands worked nervously in her lap. “It is said he abandoned the rebellion and swore fealty to the Mage King.”

“I know.” Eolyn did not like to be reminded of this. “Do you think it’s true? That he would betray us?”

Renate shook her head. “I have considered Corey my friend too long to rid myself of the habit of believing him. But he was a student of Tzeremond, and he is cousin to the King. I suppose it will be revealed, before this has all ended, where his loyalties lie.”

Eolyn sat back and bit her lip. Uncertainty weighed heavy in her heart. She rose to her feet, retrieved the tomes Mage Corey had given her in Selen, and set them in front of Renate.

“These are the only annals I have of wartime magic,” she said. “They all came from him, from Mage Corey.”

Renate took one of the volumes and leafed through it.

“Are they authentic?” Eolyn asked. “Do you think they’ll be useful?”

“I don’t know. I had no training in this kind of magic.”

“But you knew people who did. Do you remember anything?”

Renate set the book on the table. “They used sacred circles used to channel courage to the warriors, and different sorts of flames and curses.
Ahmad-melan
, for example, and—”

“
Ahmad-kupt
?”

“Yes. The death charge.” Renate frowned. “You found that spell in these books?”

“I think this is it.” Eolyn reached for another volume and drew a small slip of paper from inside the cover. “It was inserted between the pages, as if someone had left it there by mistake. The bound volumes don’t contain any spells for war flames and similar curses, or if they do I haven’t found them.”

Renate murmured the first word of the curse as she read. An icy shiver ran down Eolyn’s back. The mistress bit her lip and examined the rest of the invocation in silence.

“Such violence in those words.” She set the paper down carefully. “May the Gods save you from having to use them.”

“So it’s the death charge?”

“That, or something very similar. You must take great care with that curse, Eolyn. It could kill you just as easily as your enemy.”

“Ghemena told me as much, a thousand times it seemed. Sometimes I’d like to curse her for leaving me so ill-prepared.” She let go an exasperated sigh. “I need at least another year to understand all this, to practice. I try to tell Ernan, but he is too bent on defeating the Mage King, too convinced our destiny is at hand. Or perhaps too distrusting of me to listen to my council.”

“Distrusting of you?”

“He thinks I might be under a spell of the Mage King. He’s said nothing more of it since Selen, but I see it in his eyes often enough. And he will believe his suspicions confirmed when he sees how miserably I perform in battle.” Eolyn rubbed her forehead, trying to alleviate the tension that had lodged there. “This is hopeless, Renate. What am I to do?”

“I’d hardly say it was hopeless. I’ve seen hopeless, you know. They said none of us would survive, and yet here we are still.”

Eolyn tried to smile, but tears stung her eyes.

“I have a gift that may brighten your spirit, Eolyn. Wait here.”

Renate left the tent and returned with an oblong cedar box that she set on Eolyn’s lap. An exquisite image of Dragon was carved upon its face. Her long tail and powerful limbs intertwined with the thick branches of an ancient oak.

“Open it,” Renate said.

Eolyn undid the seal and lifted the lid. A burgundy robe lay inside. She ran her fingers over the soft fabric, sensing the magic embedded in its ruby threads. “Where did you find this?”

“We have kept it hidden in Corey’s estate for years. This used to be mine before the purges began, before I surrendered my magic and allowed my staff to be destroyed.”

“But they would have burned your robes at the same time.”

“I was not wearing the robe when they apprehended me.”

Eolyn stood to lift the dress out of the box. She draped the garment over one arm and studied the elaborate motifs embroidered on its surface. Ghemena had taught her the intricate spells, secret fibers and special dyes used for the robes of a High Maga, but without a complete coven of twelve, it was impossible to craft one.

“It is too great a gift to accept,” she murmured.

“You must wear it when you confront the Mage King,” Renate replied. “It will enhance your power, and protect you, should the Gods require you to invoke a curse like
Ahmad-kupt
.”

“Then I will wear it only for this campaign, and return it to you when we are victorious.”

“I have no more use for it.”

“But you will,” Eolyn said. “When Dragon grants you a new staff.”

Renate’s complexion lost its color. She looked away. “Do not jest about such things.”

“It is no jest.”

“A staff, once destroyed, cannot be replaced.”

“Why not, if the Gods will it?”

Renate shook her head. “Dragon would punish me for such arrogance. I surrendered my magic, a faithless coward, and watched without protest as all my sisters burned.”

“The Gods have a different way of judging our transgressions.” Eolyn returned the gift to its box and took Renate’s hands in hers. “They interpret our acts across a grander expanse of time and consequence.”

“More words from your Doyenne.”

“No,” Eolyn realized. “Those words are mine. What I mean, Renate, is that perhaps you were meant to give up your magic then, so you could recuperate it now, at a time of greater need, and greater hope.”

Renate choked back a sob and hid her face behind shaking hands. Sensing the upheaval that moved toward the surface, Eolyn wrapped her arms around the mistress and drew her close. A shudder went through Renate’s shoulders. She clung to Eolyn and wept long and hard, releasing all the tears denied during the interminable years since the last of her sisters had perished.