'We have to bring new muscle and new energy to the fight,' said Devun. 'Captain Selik had always kept one idea back. Something he thought we could do if we were desperate. I think that time is now. It's risky but if we bring down the colleges, it'll be worth it. Follow me.'
'Where are we going?'
'To talk to the Wesmen.'
Devun turned his horse and trotted away towards Understone Pass.
Chapter 4.
Dystran sat at Ranyl's bedside, where he had spent every hour he could since the Circle Seven Master, and his close friend, had felt the cancer take its death hold. By the old man's head lay a black cat, an expression of human desperation on its features. Dystran wasn't surprised. When Ranyl finally died, the demon familiar would perish with him. The two had been melded for more years than he could remember. Certainly for longer than his tenure as Lord of the Mount of Xetesk.
Dystran sighed. He seemed to have been doing so a lot lately. He'd never really believed Ranyl would actually die. And now he had to face ruling without the man responsible for putting him there in the first place. It would be like losing a limb.
'Stop mopping my brow and tell me what happened today,' said Ranyl, voice still strong though punctuated by gasping breaths.
Dystran dropped the cloth back into the bowl by his left hand and smiled. 'Sorry. I don't mean to mother you. I just wish you'd let me ease the pain for you.'
'I have eternity to feel nothing, my Lord,' said Ranyl. 'Let me feel what I can for as long as I can, even if it is somewhat uncomfortable. '
It was far more than that. Ranyl's drawn white face, pasty skin and feverish brow were evidence enough. But he had been quite determined that when he could no longer numb the pain himself, no one else was to do it for him. Not even the Lord of the Mount.
'So tell me, young pup,' said Ranyl, face softening when he used the over-familiar expression. 'What taxes the mind of Balaia's most powerful man today?'
'Well, old dog.' Dystran responded in kind. 'We have witnessed an extraordinary event today. Something happened to Julatsan mana control. Every spell deployed failed at once during the morning's fighting. Quite suddenly and quite without warning. I have people working on the spectrum now, trying to assess the situation though I understand it was only a temporary condition.'
'But you took full advantage?'
'Without wasting resources, yes,' said Dystran.
'Result?'
'I've been able to recall a significant number to prepare for the press north.'
'But you're unhappy?' Ranyl's breath caught as he felt a sudden sharp pain in his stomach. He closed his eyes while it passed. He turned his head on his pillow. 'What's wrong?'
Dystran couldn't hold the stare. He'd never been able to. He chuckled and stood, walking in a small circle, his fears plaguing him again. At moments like these he wondered how he had survived so long on the Mount. Surely true leaders had more conviction, more strength. All he felt were palpitations, the skin crawling on the back of his neck and the anxiety that descended when his vision tunnelled.
'Am I doing right? Is what we plan the best path for Xetesk and Balaia?'
Ranyl breathed deep. 'It is natural to doubt your path,' he said, his voice soft. 'Because only by questioning your actions do you ensure you choose the right ones. And you have, my Lord. Xetesk must rule and you must preside over that rule. Don't be anxious if you doubt so long as your courage never wavers.'
Dystran sat back down, squeezed out the cold cloth and mopped his mentor's brow. The old man worsened by the moment.
'Who will guide me when you are gone?' he whispered.
'You do not need a guide. You can see the path, you know you can.' Ranyl cleared his throat, gasping at new pain. 'Now, enough soul-searching for one day. I am tiring and I want to know about the research on the elven texts. And the latest from Herendeneth.'
Dystran relaxed. 'The Aryn Hiil is a treasure, a real treasure. We have hardly started to understand its most basic secrets but it is clear the elves' linkage to all the elements is far more fundamental than any of us imagined. It is no myth, and one of those elements is magic. We were right. The Aryn Hiil has so much to give us. It's the central writing of elven lore and the words it contains are only part of its importance.'
Ranyl's watery eyes glittered with new energy. 'And how long before we have spells to exploit it?'
'I am awaiting an estimate,' said Dystran. 'But not imminently, unless the Aryn Hiil reveals information allowing us to adapt spell shapes we already know. You know the research time needed for anything we have to start from scratch.'
Ranyl managed a weak nod. 'But when you are not at my side, I suspect you are spending time with our Herendeneth team, yes?'
Dystran shrugged. 'The dimensions are where the power really lies. And what the Kaan and Al-Drechar have told us opens up so many possibilities. I can see a time when I could drown Dordover without having to leave the catacombs. But it is too far away for our current purposes.'
'Is anything useful now?'
'Oh yes. It is just a shame the One will die with the Al-Drechar. We will soon know about the realignment of the dimensions. On a whim I will be able to open a pathway and send Sha-Kaan home to his own world. On another, I could release all the Protectors. Or make more. The demons no longer have a monopoly on understanding. '
'Good,' said Ranyl. 'Then I can die confident.'
The familiar moved uneasily where it lay, half shifting to its repulsive demonic form. Dystran knew how it felt. Ranyl's time was near.
'Can we do this?' asked The Unknown, when The Raven reassembled at dusk to eat and talk.
The time since the verdict had been difficult and enlightening by degrees. Everything had hinged on Heryst accepting Hirad's apology for his outburst. And he had done so with little complaint, rescinding his earlier order for The Raven to leave by nightfall.
'It was strange,' Hirad had said, and The Unknown who had accompanied him had agreed.
'He wanted to apologise to us,' he'd said. 'His hands are tied. He feels as badly about this as we do but anarchy is a heartbeat away in this city unless he is seen to be even-handed in this most delicate matter.'
The Raven had been given leave to begin their Vigil by the cell block, which was attached to the barracks, and would also remove Darrick's body. In the time left, each of them had visited Darrick under observation, Erienne and Denser had taken the chance to study in the library and The Unknown had tested the feeling of the remaining cavalry and guardsmen in the college.
'It's possible,' said Denser. 'But it depends on getting inside the cells without casting. They'll be watching the mana shield over the college very closely for sure.'
'Find anything useful in the library?' asked Hirad.
'The odd snippet,' said Erienne. 'But as you can imagine, there were archivists taking a great interest in everything we read. The only truly useful fact is that the cells are outside the very heart of the Tower's mana focus.'
'Well, that's a relief,' said Hirad.
Denser chuckled. 'You never studied.'
'Bloody right,' said Hirad. 'Too busy trying to find enough food to live on when I was young. Unlike you pampered mages in your warm colleges.'
'The point is,' said Erienne, 'that there's something I've become aware I can do almost without thinking.'
The Raven shifted uncomfortably. There was something about the entity of the One magic that Erienne harboured so unwillingly that didn't sit well with any of them. They had all grown up with college-based magic and accepted it even if they didn't understand it. But the One, a myth made real, that took its power not just from the mana but all the elements, was a force about which so little was known.
Two ancient elves on the island of Herendeneth, far out in the Southern Ocean, were its last practitioners. For them, Erienne was the last hope of perpetuating the original magical force in the Balaian dimension. But for Erienne, every time she touched the power, savage memories resurfaced. Because her daughter had been allowed to die to effect the transfer of the One entity into her mind.
And now she was trapped. Needing the Al-Drechar elves to help her control and understand the One lest it overwhelm her untrained mind, but hating them because it was they who had let Lyanna die. The Raven knew it, and they knew it was pain they could do nothing to ease.
'What is it?' asked Hirad.
'I can sense people. If the mana flow isn't overpowering I can sense their signatures because magic flows around them differently, not like it does around buildings and the world in general. We are like the elements coalesced, you see, concentrated. It makes us stand out against walls or trees, whatever. This side or the other side, up or down. And if I concentrate, I can tell if they are mages or not.' She paused, looking at Hirad. 'You don't understand, do you?'
'Not really,' he replied. 'But if you're telling me you can see through walls and floors, I don't care.'
'Only if the mana flow isn't too strong. In the Tower, I couldn't. At the cells, I probably can,' said Erienne.
'Probably?'
'Sorry, Unknown, it's the best I can do. According to the structural drawings of the college, the flows dissipate through the cells because it's not part of the main geometric structure. Trouble is, if they've repointed anything since the original building was done, it could have altered the mana map.'
'Why would they do that?' asked The Unknown.
'Broader focus for something like new lecture theatres or long rooms. Students need all the help they can get and part-focused mana is perfect when you're learning a new construct,' said Denser.
'Can't you tell by tuning into the mana spectrum?'
'Unfortunately not. We're not trained in monitoring. Put it this way. Dipping into the spectrum in a college is like standing in a rainstorm and trying to see if it's not as torrential fifty yards away.' Erienne shrugged.
'Any risk in this for you?' Hirad leaned forward.
Erienne raised her eyebrows. 'With the One, everything's a risk right now. But I think I can contain it. The Al-Drechar will help.'
'Right,' said The Unknown. 'Thank you, Erienne. We'll use that skill if we can but that leaves just Denser as cover. Once we're inside, SpellShield, all right?'
Denser nodded.
'Now, I understand there is to be a protest outside the cells and barracks,' said The Unknown, leaning across the table conspiratorially. 'It's exactly what we need.'
'Why?' asked Denser.
'Because I think it's going to give us our way in. Help yourselves to more food and drink, then Hirad and I will tell you all about it.'
Nyam had always been suspicious of the old women. Outwardly compliant they might have been; very willing to help and to explain the finer points of their considerable dimensional knowledge. But whenever he talked to them, he got the feeling that at least one of them was, well, elsewhere. Not physically, he'd explained to the others more than once, but inside her mind.
But apparently he was making far too much of it. They were old, he was told, borderline senile. Hardly surprising their minds wandered away now and then. He couldn't make them understand. They might be ancient but the light in their elven eyes was as bright as that in the eyes of the son he had left behind in Xetesk. So he decided to watch them. One day, something would give.
He smiled to himself as he ambled in the warm sun outside the house of the Al-Drechar. High up in the sky, the surviving Kaan dragon, with whom they maintained an uneasy peace, circled. It had threatened them all with death if they stepped out of line and none of them doubted its capacity to carry out that threat. They had seen all too clearly the results of its anger. That was why the five mages and fifty Protectors left on the island all wished they'd been chosen for the ship home thirty-odd days before.
Nyam walked a little way up towards the beautifully arranged terraces which housed the long dead of the Al-Drechar. There was Diera with the laughing little boy, Jonas. She was tending the Nightchild, Lyanna's, grave while he sat, face upwards, pointing at Sha-Kaan's circling.
Nyam smiled again and found a conflict of emotions running through him. He yearned for his wife and family; another part reached out and understood Diera's loneliness and yet he couldn't escape the fact that he was attracted to her. They all were. She'd been the subject of ribald conversation more than once but none of them would so much as touch her. You didn't try it on with the wife of The Unknown Warrior, no matter how far away he was.
That part of him that sympathised so much with the helplessness of her exile was strongest. She cut a forlorn figure at times, standing on the rocks overlooking the channel into which a returning ship would sail, or spending hours wandering the little island with Jonas wrapped in her arms or experimenting with walking beside her.
Yet she wouldn't reach out. She shunned the Xeteskians completely, never spoke a word to any Protector and didn't seem interested in the Al-Drechar, whom she spoke to like old aunts rather than powerful mages. She ate with the few Drech guild elves who tended the dying mages but only really spoke regularly to Sha-Kaan so far as Nyam could tell. Outwardly bizarre but actually eminently reasonable. The dragon had a telepathic link with the barbarian, Hirad Coldheart. All to do with the Dragonene order. He'd have to read up on it.
Nyam turned at the sound of his name. His turn to sit with the Al-Drechar again and see if he could get clarification on a couple of points, no doubt. Another smile. Perhaps today was the day something would give. He'd be waiting.
They began to gather at dusk. Heryst and his closest adviser, Kayvel, watched them from a window high up in the Tower. He had always known Darrick was incredibly popular but this, following his desertion, was surely unprecedented. Posts were abandoned, meals went uneaten, families didn't see their menfolk at the time they expected. With much of the army committed to the north and east of Xetesk, it was never going to be a huge gathering, but its import was not lessened by that fact.
'There will be no one patrolling the streets or our walls,' said Kayvel.
Heryst nodded. 'But it's a respectful gathering. They all know the law.'
'They all love Darrick,' observed Kayvel. 'Don't expect their respect to extend to you.'
'We must have order,' said Heryst.
He glanced behind him. His personal guard, four senior soldiers, stood waiting. Not every member of the military shared the prevailing mood.
'So what action will you take against this?' Kayvel indicated the crowd which now numbered in excess of one hundred and was growing steadily.
'None,' said Heryst. 'They must be allowed to express their feelings. So long as the protest remains peaceful.'
'So you feel they are justified?'
'Of course I bloody do.' Heryst's voice was quiet. He turned his attention back on the cavalry and soldiers outside the barracks. He felt a sickness in the pit of his stomach. This was comfortably the worst day of his tenure. 'What choice do I have? He isn't the first to be executed for desertion in this conflict. You know the feeling in the council and out in the city. We're on the brink here. Our decision to ally again with Dordover is very unpopular.'
'And you think executing our most famous son will help you?'
'We must maintain the rule of law. None can be seen to be above it. That way lies anarchy.' Heryst sighed, searching for a way to change the subject. 'Where are The Raven?'
'In their chambers,' said Kayvel. 'Eating.'
'Good.' Heryst turned from the window. 'Keep them under close scrutiny. I won't have them whipping up the crowd. We can't afford that sort of disorder. And tell the watching mages they have to be vigilant.'
'You don't trust them?' asked Kayvel, his tone edged with surprise.
'The Raven?' Heryst smiled. 'Oh, I trust them all right. Enough to know they'll try something. Can you see them knocking meekly at the door to collect Darrick's body?'
'Then why did you not have them escorted from the college?'
Heryst breathed deep and sucked his lip, regarding Kayvel until understanding creased his features. He stepped in very close to Heryst and leaned so close their faces all but touched.
'You are playing a very dangerous game, my Lord,' hissed the adviser, voice barely audible.
'On the contrary, there is very little risk,' whispered Heryst. 'The Raven are not murderers. They are, however, very resourceful.'
Kayvel clicked his teeth. Heryst continued.
'I assure you I will do everything in my power to stop them should they attempt a rescue. However, I don't believe I can spare the men for a pursuit.'
'You must order the gates closed,' said Kayvel.
'I cannot do that,' said Heryst. 'You know our constitution and there is no external threat to the college. We must and will remain open to all who need our help. That is Lystern's way.'