Aethersmith (Book 2) (34 page)

It did not take long before the glow of the wards in Kyrus’s
aether-vision began to flicker and fail. When it seemed it had failed
completely, he stepped in front of the door, and released the aether all at
once. A few moments later, he picked himself up off the floor, dazed, where the
blast had left him. He had channeled the aether directly away from him, just
firehurling, with no thought to trying to harness it in any sort of spell. He
knew of no spell that he could have handled with so much aether anyway.

The door was gone, along with some of the surrounding wall,
and bit of the floor as well, the edges of the vaporized region still glowing
red, and dripping molten stone. Gone as well was the door of the cell opposite
his, thankfully unoccupied. There was a channel though the far wall of that
cell, and into the unworked stone beyond. Kyrus walked across to the other
cell, choking and coughing at the cloud of soot hanging in the air, and looked
into that channel. He thought he could see an end to it, fifty or so paces in,
but the glow was dimming, and he was not so curious as to venture in to look.

Kyrus gave some thought to freeing Juliana and Iridan, but decided
against it.
They’ll be happier figuring it out on their own. I would not
want to free them just before they manage it themselves. I will return in the
evening if they have not gotten out by then.

Following his instructions, Kyrus headed off to track down
Rashan.

* * * * * * * *

“I rather suspected you might find your way free of those
cells, Brannis,” Rashan congratulated him upon seeing him approach. “So tell
me, what trick did you use to get out?” He was seated in his office in the
Tower of Contemplation when Kyrus finally found him. He had been attended by a
number of functionaries dealing with logistics of the impending coronation, but
Rashan dismissed them as soon as he saw Kyrus approaching.

“No trick. I just outdrew the wall, and melted it with
hurled fire,” Kyrus said.

Rashan laughed out loud. “You have a better sense of humor
than the other Brannis ever did. I am going to enjoy having you around.”

“It was no joke. You only have four of those cells now,”
Kyrus replied. “And I would not get too used to me being around. Once I figure
out a way to find Tellurak again, I will be going back.”

“Hurled fire? If you think that is a solution to a problem
like those cells, you have as much business trying transference spells as an
ogre does playing the dulcimer,” Rashan snapped. “I have no idea how you
managed to find your way to Veydrus or how you managed to survive channeling
that much aether to make the trip. I would suggest you put any notion to trying
that trip again far back into the reaches of your mind. Thank fate, gods, or
what have you, for the luck that you survived it once, and do not tempt them
again. With the power you have, someday you may unravel that mystery but for
now, you are just a firehurler.”

“You are speaking of winters, not days,” Kyrus spoke softly,
almost to himself despite addressing the warlock.

“Tens of winters, more like,” Rashan corrected. Kyrus
swallowed, finding a sudden lump in his throat. “Come upstairs a moment. I wish
to demonstrate something for you.” Rashan stood, and headed up the stairs to
the Inner Sanctum.

Decades. I will learn life extension. Abbiley will grow
old. Davin will pass away. If I ever make it back, what would I be going back
to? In decades, what would Brannis be returning to, an old man, suddenly and mysteriously
bereft of magic? If I cannot manage to return rather soon, I may not end up
making the trip at all.

Kyrus blinked back his inner monologue long enough to
remember that he ought to be following Rashan. He headed up the stairway after
the warlock.

“This chamber is warded against violence, so it ought to be
a bit safer. None of the others are around right now, so it is just the two of
us,” Rashan said, standing in the middle of the room. “Come down here.”

Kyrus silently levitated himself down to the bottom of the
chamber, where guests of the Inner Circle would present themselves. Rashan
watched, shaking his head.

“It is like watching a blacksmith swing his anvil at a
hammer to make horseshoes. I cannot fathom the amount of aether you waste with
that shabby technique of yours. We shall work on that later but for now, a
demonstration of the worthlessness of hurled aether,” Rashan said. Kyrus saw a
shielding spell spring to life around him. “Even the simplest of shields
thwarts it. You may have been able to destroy a wall with it, once you drained
it of aether.” Rashan shook his head, still incredulous about Kyrus’s claim.
“But any construct of aether will stop it entirely. Now … if there is any
mishap, stray fire ought not hurt anything in this room, due to the wards.”

“But I thought the wards prevented all violence within the
Sanctum,” Kyrus said.

“Only in the Academy texts and the half-copper tours of
Kadris. I killed Gravis Archon in here, and the wards did little enough to save
him. The wards protect the Inner Circle; they do not protect against those so
powerful as we.” Rashan looked meaningfully at the hole in the wall, still
unrepaired after a season in power. The warlock had left it as a symbol, a
warning. “Now go stand over there, and hit me with everything you can
manage—just hurled fire, mind you.”

“Fine,” Kyrus agreed. He walked over to the supplicants’
entrance to the chamber and turned. He drew in some aether, and hurled it right
at Rashan as fire. As promised, it turned harmlessly aside against his shield.

“Well now, someone thinks he is being clever again. You are
not going to believe me until you see your
best
effort fail. Now try
again, like you mean it! I was going to let Iridan and Juliana out of those
cells in time for dinner tonight, but if you continue to try my patience, I
just
might
leave them down there the whole five days,” Rashan snarled,
goading Kyrus with what he hoped was an idle threat.

Despite seeing through the barb, Kyrus felt his heart begin
to pound, and the edges of his vision grow fuzzy.
So I am stranded here on
Veydrus, most likely. I will never see Abbiley again? It falls to
me
to
protect Juliana, just as Brannis would. Brannis, if you are watching right now,
take care of Abbiley for me. Make her happy.
Kyrus drew hard against the
aether and Rashan’s eyes widened in shock.

A moment later, there was a second hole to the outdoors in
the Tower of Contemplation, and the regent of the Kadrin Empire had been
jettisoned through it. It had passed through from the lower Sanctum wall,
through the warlock’s office, and to the open sky beyond.

Kyrus walked to the edge of the hole with growing
trepidation. He had hoped to spend his anger against the warlock’s shield. It
had not occurred to him that he would shred that shield, and blow the warlock
through the building. He looked around to the palace grounds below, and saw
Rashan, charred and nearly naked, rising unsteadily to his feet. In the aether,
Kyrus was very interested to see that wisps of aether rose from the warlock’s
exposed Source. As he watched, the aether flow slowed and ceased. The charred
flesh regenerated itself. A makeshift wardrobe of aether formed about him.

Rashan walked unsteadily to the base of the tower, and
looked up at Kyrus. “I stand corrected,” Rashan called up to him.

“I am sorry, I did not mean to—”

“No, no. It was my fault underestimating you. We will speak
of it again, but I think I ought to head down to the dungeons, and see about
releasing the newly married couple. Not sure what I was thinking … was no point
locking them up as well …” Rashan trailed off, and then wandered away.

Kyrus found himself alone in the warlock’s office. Mischief
was uncommon to his nature, but there was a heady feeling welling up in him,
making him bold. He found a particular book, one that he had come to hate. It
was a book of names—names of sorcerers and sorceresses. He found the entry he
sought with little trouble:
“Brannis Solaran. (F) Maruk Solaran, (M)
Lyphaela Solaran (Sharniss),”
the whole of which had been crossed out with
a double line, accompanied by a notation in a different handwriting:
“UNSUITABLE.”
Kyrus took up a quill and ink—his preferred weapons—and crossed out the
“UN.”

Chapter 20 - Reacquaintances

There could be no mistaking: Kyrus Hinterdale was actually
Brannis Solaran. Wendell had been on the first ship to land, but he had
panicked, and thrown on a false face before he had been recognized. He had been
nervous enough approaching a neophyte sorcerer, but finding one he knew had
spooked him.

I need to talk to him. I cannot let caution deter me. I
have to find him alone, and introduce myself properly. It is Brannis, after
all. How much danger could there be? I owe it to Jurgin to take on an
apprentice to carry on his teachings but I no longer need this Kyrus. He was a
bad idea from the first but he was all I had.

Wendell had not been blessed with as strong a Source as his
twin Faolen. He had little recourse beyond simple trickery should he get
himself in trouble. He had made a long habit of identifying and avoiding other
twinborn. There were troubles with the knowledge of two worlds, and not
everyone was so mild in their interests in the connection between them. Jurgin
had told him tales about twinborn that set themselves up as warlords or
gangsters, even just run-of-the-mill mercenaries. They used the skills they
learned in Veydrus to act as hawks among the chickens of Tellurak. Wendell’s
skills were useful—extremely useful—but he would not be able to put himself on
equal terms with a Veydran sorcerer, should one be found on Tellurak.

I should tell him about the boy. I do not need Brannis’s
twin as my apprentice but I could have his help in securing the twin of Jinzan
Fehr’s son. It is in the Empire’s interest that I get hold of the Staff of
Gehlen, even if I must buy it with service in this world.

Wendell resolved to approach Brannis’s twin, and reveal
himself. He took a long, shuddering deep breath, and walked to the door of his
cabin. He put his hand to the handle but the door would not open. His hand
would not let him.

But he is incredibly powerful. What if he does not care
for what I have to say? He may want peace here, safe from the Kadrin Empire and
all the burdens he faces there. If he sees me as intruding, I could not imagine
he would have any trouble reducing me to ash, and sprinkling me over the ship’s
railing, never to be missed. I could not even report the crime to Warlock
Rashan without seeming a madman, and any vengeance would just as surely get me
killed, successful or not. Brannis Solaran is too well placed to act against.

Having resolved not to cross the twinborn sorcerer with the
mysteriously weak Source, Wendell sat down on the edge of his bunk. He sat in
stillness for a time, but soon found that his leg had been bouncing up and
down, belying his nerves.

I am being paranoid
, he admitted.
He
is
Brannis Solaran, whatever he is called in this world, as surely as I am Faolen.
He will know me. He will share common cause with me. I might need to abduct the
boy, and I could enlist his aid. I could get messages to Kadris via him. He
could arrange aid with no one questioning his authority or whence his knowledge
came. I would be a fool not to take this opportunity for the gift it is.

Wendell stood again, and strode over to the door, yanking it
open before any part of his body took the opportunity to voice an objection.
The plan worked, and he was freed from his prison of hesitation, for better or
worse.

* * * * * * * *

“You do look familiar, now that you mention it,” Brannis
replied. The wizened magician looked like someone he knew, but Brannis, for all
his memory for the written word, numbers, dates, and magic runes, was awful
with faces. Worse, Kyrus had never been one to socialize much. There were
likely folk all throughout Scar Harbor who knew him by sight, but whose names
the scrivener had never attempted to learn.

“If you are wracking your memory, let me give you a hint to
jar loose any spare thoughts from the corners of your psyche. I traveled with
you once, a few months ago, by horse. There were five of us.” Wendell knew that
if that hint did not give him away entirely, this Kyrus Hinterdale was almost
certainly not fully aware of Brannis. It seemed impossible how closely the two
resembled one another, though. He had seen his own and Faolen’s reflections in
enough mirrors over the years to know myriad differences, even before life
extension separated their apparent ages by a decade or more: a cut that scarred
just a bit, a shade deeper tan in the warm months, fingers calloused from
working sleight of hand versus ones that did no work at all. Kyrus Hinterdale
looked exactly like he had remembered Sir Brannis looking when last he had seen
him.

Brannis’s eyes widened. “Faolen?” he guessed, sudden
recognition spreading across his features. He looked the magician up and down.
Wendell noticed how his eyes were drawn to the grey hair, the wrinkled
features.

“Indeed. Here, though, I am Wendell the Wizard, worker of
parlor tricks for coin. Faolen is off in Zorren at the warlock’s behest, but
here I have crossed paths with you, and only partly by coincidence,” Wendell
replied, glad that Kyrus and Brannis were aware enough to make introductions a
simple matter of an exchange of names, with no need to delve into the mystery
of the connection of worlds.

“What do you mean, ‘partly’?” Brannis inquired. Wendell knew
for certain then that he had the right man. Brannis was ever one to pick out
the bit to question, needing to satisfy his curiosity above nearly all other
concerns.

“Well, I had heard of your exploits. I tracked you down
hoping to take you on as an apprentice. Two things had been obvious: you were
vastly powerful, and you were dangerously unschooled in magic. I am growing old,
and I have a debt to repay my old master. I must pass on his teachings so that
his legacy will live on. It seemed a long-odds wager, but I had hoped to find a
bewildered young sorcerer in need of mentoring. I had no idea it was
you
I was seeking out.”

“Would that have made a difference?” Brannis wondered.

Wendell marveled that Brannis’s twin was so single-minded.
There were a thousand questions he might have asked, but he doggedly pursued
his first line of questioning, and would continue until he had been answered to
his satisfaction. He had overheard him do the same thing to Warlock Rashan, and
had nearly laughed aloud as he twisted the slippery-tongued demon’s words to
get around Rashan’s constant evasions.

“I think so, yes. I had even considered bypassing this
opportunity, even after paying dearly for a ship to fetch you off that island.
You see, twinborn are troublesome creatures. Not all of them are quite the same
person in both worlds. Circumstance and the age they awaken, so to speak, to
their knowledge, can affect how much they differ. From what I can infer, you
are new to this knowledge, but if you do not mind me saying, you are the very
image and equal of Brannis Solaran,” Wendell remarked.

You have no idea,
Brannis thought, smiling vaguely
enough that he hoped he gave nothing away.

“So why did you, then?” Brannis asked. “There must be some
reason. You must realize now that I have no need of a master. I have access to
any resource in the Empire, with only a few limitations. I have even learned a
trick or two from Rashan.”

“Why would Rashan teach you spells? He must know you cannot
cast them. What does he think it accomplishes?” Faolen asked, ignoring
Brannis’s question.

“Well, for starters, I seem to have been able to … move … my
Source to the other world. You will find that I am not terribly capable as a
sorcerer here now, and that I am quite a bit more so back home.” Brannis’s
expression did not betray it, but he knew he had slipped in calling Kadrin
“home.” He hoped Faolen—or Wendell, as it were—had not noticed.

“Are you serious? I realize your Source is weak, or appears
so at the least, but I thought it a mere curiosity that it so closely resembled
Brannis’s shabby Source—no offense. No, this is a jape you are having at me. I
am too much the magician to take a tale like that at face value. You have some
hidden trick to make your Source look weak. I cannot see it, but I can do much
the same when I need to,” Wendell rambled, throwing up a wall of skepticism
against Brannis’s best “plausible” lie. It obviously needed work.

“Would you believe that I worked a transference spell, and
managed to wind up switching places with Brannis?” Brannis ventured. Wendell
said nothing. He just raised an eyebrow, crossed his arms before him, and shook
his head slowly.

“How about this one? I have no idea what I am doing. I
cannot even see my own Source. I have pieced together a few workable spells out
of books from the Tower’s libraries, but I cause havoc wherever I use them. For
the time being, just assume I am a non-sorcerer; I will not risk burning the
ship down while at sea,” Brannis tried.

 “I can accept that one for now, I suppose, but I will get
you figured out. Not to worry.” Wendell winked at him. “Now since I know you
are just going to ask again anyway, I will answer your earlier question. I came
to see you because I think you can help me.”

“With?” Brannis pressed.

Wendell was truly a showman, dramatic flair worked its way
into his everyday speech, it seemed. He also drew things out, such as the
pregnant pause he had just left hanging between them.

“I have found Jinzan Fehr’s son,” Wendell concluded, smiling
as he revealed his wondrous news. Brannis seemed less than overwhelmed.

“Do you need me to tell Rashan or something?” Brannis
guessed. “I did not know the boy was even missing. Is this somehow related to
your search for the Staff of Gehlen? Are you trying to kidnap the boy to trade
for the staff?” Brannis could hardly disguise his disgust at the last notion.

“No, not yet.” Wendell paused a moment to replay in his mind
the order Brannis asked his questions. “Yes. Certainly not.”

“All right, then, what does this mean, and how do you think
to involve me in it?” Brannis relented, taking the bare, literal answers to his
badgering as chastisement.

“Well, first off, his son is like us, I have discovered. The
boy hears voices in his head. They think him mad, but I was afflicted much the
same as him in my youth. My old master, Jurgin, knew the signs, and helped me
separate the two worlds in my mind. I know where the boy is, and I intend to
pass the gift along to him as well. It will be a better continuation of Jurgin’s
teachings than taking you on as an apprentice ever would have.”

“Very noble of you, certainly. How does this relate to the
staff? Is this just a side project for this world?” Brannis was thinking up
questions faster than Wendell could answer them. If there was some remote
corner of Tellurak that was overflowing with answers because they had run short
of questions to pair them with, Wendell suspected Brannis's twin would be to
blame.

“The boy stole the staff. He has been leading half the
snoops and sorcerers of Zorren on a merry chase for days. He has been using it
to kill folk who have tried to apprehend him,” Wendell said.

“But not you,” Brannis put in, playing along with Wendell's
drama. Wendell appreciated the opening left to him to continue the story in his
own fashion without being sidetracked by yet another question.

“No … not me. I bargained with the boy. I offered my help,”
Wendell continued. His eyes had an almost manic earnestness to them. “I will
get my apprentice in this world, just as I promised. In the other, I will have
the staff when he is ready to give it to me.”

“You are assuming that the boy keeps it long enough for you
to win him over. Eventually they are going to catch him and get it back, I
would think. You may have hours, maybe days. They could have it back now for
all you know,” Brannis said. He did not like Wendell’s plan, it was clear. And
why not? It counted on a young boy with a powerful weapon outmaneuvering half a
city’s dedicated defenders. Like them or not, the Megrenn showed every sign of
being a competent people in the execution of their affairs, both financial and
military. The plan was no certain thing.

“A risk, yes. But it is the risk of getting the staff from
him or losing it and having to try again; weigh it against an attempt to wrest
the staff from him by force or trickery, when failing means death at his hands.
I will take the former. I would also have your help,” Wendell said.

“And my part would be…?” Brannis let the statement hang half
asked as a question, awaiting the final detail to be supplied by Faolen’s twin.

“I am an old man, and a poor one. I cannot buy his release
from the refuge where he is cared for. I cannot take him by force. My magic
might
allow me to sneak him out unnoticed, but I do not wish to chance it. My best
resource is my voice, and what words I can think to arm it with. I fear I may
not talk my way around this problem. If I can, all for the better. If not, I
could use the sort of help you might provide.”

“You need me for my muscle, is that it?” Brannis scoffed.
While Wendell could well imagine Brannis storming Pious Grove Sanctuary, he had
expected to find Kyrus Hinterdale, noted scrivener and weakling, and possibly
dangerously unstable witch. Seeing the brawny lad before him had come as a
surprise.

“So to speak, yes. We can work out details on the voyage
there. I had not the time to ponder options that included you. I only just
discovered what I have stumbled upon. With a bit of time to think, I am sure we
can manage a solid plan,” Wendell said.

“So where is it that the boy is being kept?” Brannis asked,
wondering where he might be heading, should he consent to accompany Wendell.

“Takalia.”

* * * * * * * *

The cards flicked through the air, once, twice, thrice
around the table, until each player had their allotment. Stalyart’s practiced
wrist had sent them unerringly into tiny piles, around obstacles of coin and
drink. Soria was immediately suspicious of anyone who showed such skill in
handling cards. It was the sort of thing you saw from dockside grifters and
back-tavern hustlers. If she had thought upon agreeing to play that they were
merely seeking to feel one another out, and pass the time, she knew better now.