No Return (19 page)

Pol felt an all-too-familiar moment of paranoia, and quickly reviewed their conversation to make sure he had not revealed anything he had not meant to. He opened his mouth, sure of words to come.

“Don’t,” Shav said. “Denying it won’t do any good. I’ve contacted a linealogist at your academy, and he confirmed my suspicions. A drop of blood or semen will answer all of your questions about my heritage. You have access to both. Of course, you would still need a linealogist to perform the spells, and then your study would be public. Somehow, I gather that isn’t part of your plan. The linealogist was quite eager to know your name.”

Pol’s hearts beat harder. To be caught pursuing another guild’s lore could land him in some trouble. The fact that he had no intention of casting linealogical spells would make no difference. If the administration searched deep enough, they might even discover that he had been pursuing his own unregistered research with illegally acquired alchemicals. The academy, which inherited any documents of magical innovation upon a mage’s death, considered such illicit practices acts of sedition against Stol, punishable by death.

The chair creaked under Shav as he sat back. He did not need to smile to show his satisfaction. Not for the first time, Pol wondered what it would be like to fight the quarterstock—what it would be like to straddle his back and wrap fingers around his throat.

“No,” Shav answered the unspoken question. “I didn’t give him your name. Your secret is safe.”

“Scholars and mages are jealous of their lore,” Pol said, shrugging the matter away. “The linealogists are no exception. Nor am I. The tamers themselves, for that matter.”

Shav shook his head. “There’s more to it than that. Sometimes I think you’re simply stalling, waiting for something to announce itself. I’m not... I’m...” Mouth working, he stared through Pol’s chest.

The back of Pol’s neck tingled as the shift occurred.

“The dragon and I,” Shav finally said, voice lower than normal, words slightly slurred with the touch of an accent Pol could not name. “A halfbreed and a quarterbreed at this moment in time. The conjunction of the two is interesting, Pol. Interesting. I’ve seen a dragon crash into the sea, sure the animal had killed itself. Instead it surfaced, twisting its long neck and beating its wings upon the water, a great sea serpent clamped in its jaws—a sea serpent so large that it could’ve swallowed our tiny boat in one bite. Its skin shone like silver in the moonlight, and its thrashing frothed the sea like a child’s hand slapping bathwater.”

Pol did not interrupt, though he knew no mortal man had ever sailed upon the ocean.

Shav leaned forward, eyes liquid and unfocused. “The Needle had only risen halfway, and the moon showed a quarter of her face. I stared at the destruction coming swiftly: a wall of black water that blotted out the stars along the horizon. I waited and told my men to prepare themselves. Some of them prayed to Adrash, some to Orrus, and some to the devil.” He dipped his head and touched his horns almost reverently. “Me, I just waited for the inevitable, almost wanting it. Most likely, I would die along with my men. An odd feeling, being that powerless.”

He blinked. His amber eyes refocused. The corners of his mouth twitched, and he spoke in the voice Pol had become accustomed to.

“Someday soon, I think you’ll know what that feels like.”

‡

To Pol’s astonishment, the statement had haunted him for days. Finally, chagrined that it should take him so long to see the light of reason, he dismissed the possibility that Shav had performed an extraordinary feat of magic. No, the quarterstock had merely read the signs of Pol’s anxiety.

Though he had seen Adrash through the cloudy lens of magnification spells many times, Pol had never ventured within a thousand miles of the god. He had always run from the divine presence as he had been taught—yet if all went according to Ebn’s plan, in less than two weeks he would encounter Adrash in the flesh. The thought made his hearts thunder.

Pol examined his fear, and it disgusted him.

Is this the man Adrash will see?
he asked himself.
A coward?

Shame drove him forward. A mere day after talking with Shav, he began tattooing himself with alchemical ink of his own design—a foolhardy enterprise, surely. There were precedents, but only a few, and by accounts those men had gone mad.

Gone mad?
An understatement, surely. The mage Dor wa Dol, driven to such insanity by his sigils, had single-handedly caused the Cataclysm. He had been captain of the outbound mages at the time, an elderman in the prime of his ability.

Clearly, even the hardiest elderman could not handle that much alchemy coursing through his body for long.

Pol knew the risks, having researched the possibility for years. Aside from the likelihood of overloading one’s body with magic, the execution of each sigil had to be exact. One misstroke, and the consequences would be dire.

Nonetheless, he proceeded.

First, his left shoulder: a rudimentary warding sigil. His hand shook so severely that the character—four simple lines—took nearly an hour to complete. When nothing untoward happened—indeed, when his voice failed to rouse the symbol to life—he painted a second, slightly more complex character on his bicep: a flight sigil. This too remained dormant despite his attempts to activate it. Emboldened and not a little frustrated, he drew a sigil on his right wrist, his left shin, his stomach.

Once started, he could not stop. In numb horror he watched his body become a canvas of inert magical symbols.

The morning sun slanted through his windows. The day progressed, and then the evening. A week passed, during which he added several new sigils. He took to wearing long-sleeved, close-fitting garments. Whatever he had imagined might happen in time, did not. The black characters lay dormant despite his every incantation. He did not grow ill or suffer visions. Disappointed that years of expectation had apparently presaged nothing, he stopped tattooing himself.

It was only on the morning of Ebn’s mission, as he contemplated the prospect of his own death, that he found the exercise had produced something of value.

The act of tattooing—of risking his body for the sake of power—had silenced his fear.

‡

The world flared against Pol’s eyelids. He opened them in time to see the great fireball the wyrm had belched disperse into nothingness: A lightning flash, stamping the afterimage in Pol’s mind—a fluorescing cloud, amorphous and vast, dwarfing the giant serpent that had birthed it. Its long, razor-toothed jaws opening and closing.

The other mages were already moving, fingering their spell-laden bandoliers. Pol would not mirror their anxiousness. He would not fidget. When the occasion called for action, his movements would be fluid and precise.

To his right, Ebn signed with fingers that glowed blue with magefire.
One minute
.
On my signal
.

Forty-one mages signed their understanding, and waited. For sixty seconds, Pol thought of Shav, arms and thighs tightly gripping the wyrm’s skull, bonedusted skin hoary with ice crystals. Were his eyes closed behind the heavy goggles? Or was he staring down at the mages even now, thinking his inexplicable thoughts? Perhaps he watched the stars, which seemed close enough now to touch. One last look before returning to earth.

Ebn’s hands screamed actinic sapphire.

Now!

Pol smashed his gauntleted fist into the second spell in his bandolier. His tether reignited as the wyrm dropped the statue. Though he did not count to be sure, it looked like all of the mages had reacted in concert. Any who had not were now untethered, and would have to rely upon their own lore to return to earth or ascend to orbit. Whether their actions resulted in death or the simple shame of failure, Pol had little sympathy.

The statue fell through the circle of mages and Pol smashed the third spell in his bandolier. His body surged upwards. He felt a powerful tug as his tether took the weight, but kept ascending. He checked his speed to make sure he did not rise too fast. Others adjusted similarly, Ebn, Qon and the senior mages among them, yet it soon became clear the action was unnecessary. Gravity pulled weakly thirty miles above Jeroun, and even the youngest mages seemed to be handling their share of the weight.

The circle drew in. Pol read excitement on most of the faces. Qon smiled and signed with quick hands, unembarrassed of her enthusiasm. The others responded in kind.

Fools
, Pol thought. It would be at least another day and a half before they reached Adrash, assuming he could be located. More than enough time to poke holes in any plan—enough time to get tired and cranky and edgy. Perhaps, Pol reasoned, they needed this momentary upswell of emotion to prepare for the long haul to the moon.

Once again, he had little sympathy. The path was clear. What benefit could be garnered from deceiving oneself?

Ebn met Pol’s sober look and nodded with equal sobriety.

Now the hard part
, she signed.

‡

On average, an outbound mage could reach the moon in thirty-six hours. Qon could reach it in twenty-seven, Ebn in just under a day. Pol had once traveled the distance in twenty-two hours, forty minutes, a full fifty-three minutes faster than Ebn’s stated record. Of course, he had publicly recorded a less impressive time. Undoubtedly, she had done the same. A smart mage would not reveal his true power unless threatened.

Of course, such threats were common at the academy and came in all varieties, as did violence. The administration did not approve of murder as a means to advancement, but they made no move to stop it. Death kept the ranks slim and mean. The mages who survived planned ahead and bided their time. Eventually, they became leaders. If they remained vigilant, they stayed in their positions for a very long time, indeed.

As he flew, Pol wondered if it might be possible to unseat Ebn without killing her. When her plan ended unsuccessfully—assuming she survived the encounter with Adrash—perhaps she could be persuaded to step down. With great care Pol might then find a way to draw her to his side. She loved him, clearly, and that could be used to his advantage.

Still, her death would be the most convenient outcome.

And if Adrash took the lives of a few of the seniormost mages as well... Pol thought of the opportunities their absences would create. He fantasized, a thing he did not often allow himself to do.

Thirty-six hours passed slowly in the void. The mages had little to distract themselves. Shy two youths who had failed to activate their spells in time, each was forced to pull a bit harder at his or her tether. The alignment needed constant watching lest someone wander, and so they slept in shifts, two hours off, four hours on. They signaled constantly to one another, reminding themselves to stay alert.

The blazing stars called seductively. If one listened closely enough, the emptiness echoed with their stately, hypnotic song. Drawing energy from one’s flight spells was both taxing and monotonous. Bonedust-and-honey lozenges provided nutrients, but did not fill the emptiness in one’s stomach.

For the less skilled, these factors often resulted in what Ebn had termed hypnogogic drift, a state wherein the body and mind uncoupled without the mage’s awareness. A drifting mage thought he was operating at full attention, when in fact he had entered a dream almost identical to reality.

When the sun came out from behind the swollen belly of Jeroun below their feet, its light created yet another problem. Though nourishing to both suit and mage, the radiation proved too severe for sensitive elderman eyes. In response, the dustglass helmets polarized, locking each mage in a dim chamber where hallucinations arose easily. Suddenly, the emptiness seemed to echo with familiar voices, strobe with color. In such conditions it was easy to become disoriented and veer off course. A single mistake could send the statue tumbling, resulting in a massive waste of energy and time as the mages scrambled to right it.

In addition, many of the younger mages had yet to develop their remote manipulation sigils. They did not fully comprehend the way a massive object moved in the void—how deadly even a spinning body could be.

But the most common danger of navigating the void was simple forgetfulness. Drawing power and keeping a steady course became routine, so easily done even experienced mages could neglect spells that preserved life on its most basic level. Heat. Air. During the outbound mages’ long history, many had been lost to the void, slowly having frozen or asphyxiated to death unawares.

Thus the mages looked to each other, orienting themselves back to reality over and over again. They traveled swiftly into the never-ending night, wrapped in thin bubbles of atmosphere that distorted and magnified the stars around them. They gestured to one another, carrying on trite conversations to keep their minds busy.

Traveling slower than he otherwise would, soon even Pol forgot his pride and talked of the food in Kengsort, the weather atop Miselo Hill, the wine of the Aspa foothills.

Thirty-six hours passed slowly. Tensely.

‡

They were still eight hours from the moon when Adrash showed himself. He appeared in an instant, matching the mages’ speed at the center of their spread circle. His eyes flashed like the sun itself, yellow-white and harsh, washing out the figure behind.

The light pushed against Pol. It broke upon him in wave after glacial wave, stiffening his limbs. He squinted against the glare and fought the torpor that had been imposed upon him. Slowly—agonizingly—he bent frozen fingers, formed a fist and held it before his chest, ready to shatter a spell in defense.

Shaking like palsied old men, his neighbors to the right and left began assuming similar postures. Of course, their lore would be of no use against Adrash. Holding forty skilled mages in a thrall, even one that did not bind completely, spoke of power beyond reason.

Slightly above and to Pol’s right, Ebn’s hands erupted in blue flame.
Sever!
she signed.

The distraction proved enough to break free of Adrash’s ensorcelment.