Fortress Draconis (21 page)

The young mage had always found comfort in the history, and studying it was one of the few tasks all of his mentors had praised. Kerrigan suspected this was because his reading gave them time free from dealing with him; and he was fairly certain they did not realize he relished the same from them. In the history he sought for clues—of what he was not quite certain, just clues in general to make things make sense.

He found a passage that addressed the flotilla off the coast and concentrated on it. The sting in his knee made that difficult, but he managed it despite the distraction. He’d used that spell many times before and, being well practiced at it, could make it work easily.

A blue glow spread from his hands to envelop the book. A little bit of it trailed off, tracing the ethereal link between his volume and the grand history. The glow sank into the golden pages, then emerged again to edge some pages earlier in the book. Starting from the front and the oldest cite, Kerrigan opened the book and read quickly. He wore a blank expression on his face as he began, but a smile slowly stole over his lips as he checked cite after cite.

He got to the most recent with a triumphant smile on his face. A quarter century previous, when the fleet sent to save Okrannel sailed past, it had contained four dozen ships, less than half those coming to Vilwan today. He’d remembered correctly, and this pleased him. His smile bit deeply into his fleshy cheeks and gleamed from his green eyes.

And his stomach growled, reminding him he had yet to break his fast. Tucking a lock of fine black hair behind his left ear, he closed the book and tried to roll up onto his right knee. The sleeping gown rasped over his abraded knee, rekindling the sting. He hissed and almost dropped the book again. He got his fat-fingered hands around it and hugged it to him as he might a dear friend, and huddled there waiting for the echoes of pain to die.

The chamber door’s well-oiled hinges did not betray its opening, but the rustle of sandal on stone did. Kerrigan looked up, surprised. He grabbed his knee with his left hand, hoping to conceal his wound. He scraped cloth against it, magnifying the sting. He cried out, then clenched his jaw, trying to keep tears back.

He bowed his head and breathed through his nose until he’d gotten himself back under control. “Good morning, Magister Orla.”

The woman’s robe matched the grey of her hair, and the long plait her locks had been braided into could have doubled for the cord looped about her waist. She stood in the doorway, her head up, her brown eyes bright, watching him carefully. She always watched, as his other mentors had, but looked for more than they had. Her seamed face and leathery skin suggested a hard life, but as nearly as he knew, she’d not left Vilwan more than a time or two in the last thirty years.

Strength filled her voice, and her voice filled the chamber, but she neither barked nor cooed at him. “You have injured yourself.”

“Yes, it hurts.”

“I imagine it does.” She closed her eyes for a moment and gestured, wrenching the history out of his grasp. It floated to her outstretched hands and she caught it easily. He hoped for a moment that she would stumble as he had, but the book’s weight barely caused her to move at all.

Orla walked to the shelves and slid the book home, then turned to look at him. “I suggest something should be done about your knee.”

“Yes, call a healer.” Kerrigan thrust his lower lip out defiantly. “I want a healer.”

“Heal yourself.”

Kerrigan looked down at his knee and gently lifted the cloth away. “That is an elven spell, Magister.”

“A spell you’ve mastered. Use it.”

He brought his head up. “I am not to use it without proper supervision.”

She smiled slowly, the lines at the corners of her eyes deepening. “Why persist in this game, Adept Reese? You know and I know that I will not summon an elf to be present while you heal your knee. You also know that I am not embarrassed that you have mastered a spell I could not learn were I to study another lifetime. Finally, you and I know you do not want to heal yourself because that process will hurt—hurt more than the wound does now.”

“It’s not a game. There arerules, Magister; there have always beenrules. The rules guide me. I do everything in accord with them. The rules state that when I use elven magick, or urZrethi spells or anything sufficiently Magisterial, I shall be supervised.” He spoke carefully and precisely, even a bit slowly. “If I violate the rules, I will be punished.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Kerrigan, you know I will not sanction you for doing what I tell you to do. I am not like some of your past teachers. You know I have more latitude than others. Why won’t you do what I ask you to do without this charade?”

The young Adept narrowed his eyes. “I want to see the ships. I want to go to the docks and see the ships.”

“Oh, isthat it, then?” Her dark eyes opened, and she cocked her head slightly. That motion with her head made Kerrigan cringe. “Very well, I think we can permit that, provided you follow my orders exactly.”

Kerrigan nodded hesitantly. “Yes, Magister.”

“Very good. First, heal your knee.”

He started to get up, and held a hand out to her to have her help him get to his feet, but she shook her head. “No, do it there, on the floor.”

“But the way I do the spell… I have to change …”

“And soil another robe? I think not.” Her eyes hardened. “You agreed to this bargain, Adept Reese, do not make me regret it. There, where you are, you can do it.”

He shook his head and kept his voice low. “It’s not right.”

“Do you mean to tell me youcannot do it kneeling there? After I have seen countless elves perform that spell on ships, on battlefields, at the site of horse-cart accidents and tramplings? Perhaps, since it is an elven spell, they are just that much better than you. Is that it?”

“No.” His nostrils flared defiantly. “I can do it.”

“I’m waiting. Do not make me wait long.” Kerrigan sucked in a lungful of air through his nose, and slowly exhaled it. He kept his breathing shallow after that and all but closed his eyes to minimize distractions. He flexed his fingers, then laid his left hand over the wound gently. The sweat on his palm seared into it, but he pushed that pain away.

He cleared his mind as much as he could and began the weaving of the elven healing spell. Kerrigan liked elven mag-ick because the spells themselves seemed to be living things. Whereas a human spell would have angles and intersections, sharp breaks and sharper edges, elven spells flowed as if they had rootlets growing into the earth, or branches reaching out to embrace the sun. Human spells seemedconstructed^ comparison, and were easy to master, whereas an elven spell became a knotwork maze his mind had to travel to achieve his reward.

His left hand glowed with blue energy. Darker in hue than the indexing spell he had woven, this blue had the depth of the sea behind it, whereas the other had the fragility of a bird’s egg. The energy flowed into his knee, teasing tissue to grow faster and heal, absorbing the blood and fluid, sealing the wound. As it did so the pain built. Kerrigan knew it was the sum and total of the aches and pains, itches and twinges, he would have felt while it healed. Condensed it seemed to drill straight through his knee like an arrow, then it vanished, a mind-ghost he would never summon again.

He looked up and peeled his hand away from the knee. The flesh had been reunited, with no hint of a scar. Blood still stained his palm, so he wiped it on his gown. Pushing off the stone floor with his right hand, he straightened up and felt his gown tighten around his ample middle.

He looked down at her. “Done, Magister, as you requested.”

“Very good, Adept Reese.” She looked him up and down, her brows creeping toward each other as she did. “Next you will remove your robe, hem it, and wash it.”

“What?”

“You heard what I said, Kerrigan.” Orla gestured toward the door. “I know you have servants who do that for you, under normal circumstances, but things are far from normal here. All the island’s inhabitants are being pressed to other duty. Today you will clean your own robe and fetch your own breakfast.”

He smiled. “From the kitchen?”

She nodded. “You can find your way there?”

“Oh, yes.” Kerrigan fought to conceal a smile. While no one gainsaid him anything he wanted to eat—and servants often scurried between his chamber and the kitchen to bring more bread or soup or meat or fruit—the few times he had found his way to the kitchen, he had been enchanted by what he saw. All of his magicks were worked in thearcanorium above his living quarters. In the kitchen Magisters and Adepts, even Apprentices, worked magicks that kneaded dough for bread, or warmed an oven, ground spices, stirred pots. Many of those spells he knew very well, since he mixed ingredients the same way, and worked on potions and preparations with care, but in the kitchen he saw a direct link between what he studied as theory and they practiced in reality.

And the fruit of their practice filled his tummy warmly and well.

“Good, though you may be disappointed. Because of the fleet, and the need to feed the men aboard it, food is being rationed.” She tapped a finger against her pointed chin. “You’ll get a pint of watered ale and a small round of bread.”

“I’ll starve.”

“Not for a long time, Adept Reese.”

He frowned. The treats he could already taste turned to dust in his mouth. “Repair and wash, then eat, andthen I may see the ships?”

“Yes.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “That will give me no time, though, to see the ships because by the time I am done eating, it will be almost time to begin lessons.”

Orla smiled slowly. “Ah, but you see, Adept Reese, this is what I came to tell you. Everyone is being pressed into duty—even me. I am meeting with the Magister of Combats this morning, to learn my duties. You are free until noon.”

“That is what you came to tell me?” Kerrigan frowned. “You would have let me go no matter what?”

“Yes?”

“Then why…?”

“Because, Adept Reese, you chose to play a game, and you lost.” Orla strode simply to the door and paused halfway through it, looking back at him over her shoulder. “If you play games, youwill lose. Consider yourself fortunate that, this time, losing did not cost you dearly. Learn from that. Given all you can do, if you lose in the future, you and those around you will likely never survive the loss.”

Fatigue burned Alyx’s eyes more than the light of the dawning sun. The sleep she’d had in the previous three days could have been counted in minutes and still not threatened to fill an hour, and that had been after the long ride to ambush the Aurolani forces. With General Caro’s help, she’d managed to convince the local merchant-princes that their city was doomed. Caro had carefully pointed out that if the evacuation was not carried out in an orderly manner—by which he meant that his orders would be followed to the letter—then looting would likely be the result. It would cost the merchants more than having to move on, so they reluctantly agreed to it.

Caro did not leave things to the merchants alone. The city was broken down into its neighborhoods, and the local power brokers, be they merchants, thieves, clergy, or scholars, were brought to the government tower and told how things would work. The general noted that looters would be slain immediately. At his signal a man dressed in the uniform of his own Horse Guards was brought struggling to the front of the audience hall. The canvas hood obscuring his identity also muffed his words.

Caro drew a dagger from his own belt, bent, and said to the prisoner, “Come now, do some good, die like a man.” He thrust the dagger into the man’s chest, allowing the bloody tip to pierce the back of his tunic, only withdrawing it when the man slacked in the arms of his fellows.

Caro had not seen it necessary to let folks know the man he’d just slain was a murderer pulled from the town’s jail and dressed in a cavalry uniform.

The general looked at the assembled leaders and let blood drip from the dagger as his men dragged the body off. “As I said,all looters will be killed. Man, woman, child. Everyone will find enough to do carting off their own possessions, or working for those who have things they need hauled.”

Tent cities were set up on the western side of the Salersena River, and merchants emptied their warehouses into them. There some carried on brisk business selling the things others would need to flee. Prices remained moderate, though, once Caro commented that usury and price-gouging were tantamount to looting.

Alyx sighed. The whole evacuation would have broken down save for the arrival of a party of riders from Yslin. They’d covered the ten leagues from the capital very quickly, and had arrived doubtlessly expecting to celebrate the great victory she’d won. Messengers sent by the advanced party sought her out in Porasena, and along with General Caro, she’d ridden back to her camp in mid-afternoon on the second day.

She and Caro had begun the liberation of Porasena at odds with each other, but the evacuation had united them. Caro had appreciated her turning power for the operation over to him. He used her stature as the architect of victory to suggest to those who did not like his orders that appeal was possible, but she sided with him at every turn. As resentment built in the city, it strengthened her alliance with

Caro. And neither of them liked being called away from the city.

The messenger brought the two of them back to her command tent, and Alyx was ready to tear into whoever had appropriated it. Caro gave her a nod as they entered, letting her know he’d be with her, but two steps in, Caro’s broad form stopped, then shrank as he dropped to a knee before the man standing in the heart of the tent. Alyx caught sight of him for a second, before the tent flap closed behind her, cutting off the sunlight, but it was enough to drive her to kneel as well.

She bowed her head. “Highness, we had no warning.”

“I allowed you the same warning you gave Chytrine’s troops. Rise, the two of you. You serve me well.”

As her head came back up she saw a smile on the man’s face. Though she stood tall enough to easily see some of the white scars on his bald head, Alyx had always felt tiny in comparison with Alcida’s King Augustus. In part, she knew, this came from having first met him when she was just a child. Then he’d had dark hair, and lots of it. Over the years it had thinned and gone as white as the luxurious moustaches he wore, so the king had taken to shaving his head. Regardless of what time had done to his body, adding wrinkles as it leeched hair away, it had not dimmed the vitality and power shining from his brown eyes. They revealed a man still vital in spirit and mind, which Alyx had always held in awe.