Arbiter (The Arbiter Chronicles Book 1) (26 page)

“You're...from the Towers?” asked Selde.

“Yes,” said Cathel simply, his eyes meeting Selde’s. “Am I wrong? About humans in the Edgelands?”

Selde hesitated, and Rae felt him size Cathel up. “…Yes,” he finally said. “You're very wrong. But that isn’t unexpected. We hide ourselves from the Inner Lands, and with good reason.”

“How many of you are there?” asked Cathel, staring at Selde with a stunned look on his face.

“Many,” said Selde, shrugging once. “Not as many as those in the Inner Lands, or so I’ve heard, but many. In High Lord Berais’s lands, there are three major cities, one of which is Velleter.”

“But…how?” asked Cathel.

“Don't you know your own history?” asked Selde, staring at Cathel. He shook his head, and Rae felt him relax somewhat, although it was clear that he was still suspicious of the mage. “Are you Cathel Tarethan?”

“Yes,” said Cathel, nodding his head.

She felt Selde relax fully now, and she relaxed as well, releasing her grip on the shadows. “Then you have nothing to fear from me,” he said. “But you have a lot to learn.” He turned towards Rae, completely overlooking Mika for the moment. “Arbiter, I apologize for my rough treatment. Allow me to lead you and your company to Velleter. We can rest there, and I will take you to the High Lord’s castle in the morning.”

Rae stared at Selde. She could feel both Mika and Cathel’s eyes fixed firmly on her, and knew that they were waiting for her to decide. She exhaled slowly, wondering  why the decision was always left to her, before extending Elrithea’s power towards Selde. He met her eyes, his own gray eyes firmly fixing hers.

She couldn’t feel any deceit from him.

“Fine,” she said with a nod. “We’ll go with you.”

Selde nodded once, closing his eyes. He took in a breath, and as Rae watched, his armor seemed to recede, folding in on itself and pulling back until there was nothing more than two black bracelets around his wrists. Underneath, he was dressed in a black shirt, simple traveling pants, and boots. It surprised him, how ordinary he looked. One of his shirt sleeves was torn, the blood barely visible against the black of his clothes. Selde frowned as he noticed her staring at it, inspecting the wound.

“This will have to wait until Velleter,” he said, nodding respectfully at Cathel. “We can treat your injuries there as well.”

“…Sure,” said Cathel. His eyes drifted from Rae to Selde, before he sheathed his sword. Rae glanced at Mika, but the younger girl wasn’t looking at them anymore, her eyes fixed on the ground. She wondered what sort of teenage angst was bothering Mika now, but decided against asking, nodding at Selde instead.

“Lead the way.”

He nodded once, setting off down the path and letting them follow him.

Velleter, as it turned out, was not only a human settlement in the heart of the Edgelands, but a bustling, prosperous one. As Rae, Mika, and Cathel sat with Selde at a table outside a restaurant in the heart of the city, complete with patio umbrella, Rae couldn’t help but wonder if they had stepped back through the veil into her world. True, there didn’t seem to be any of the technological items that she had come to associate with the Daylight Realm, but the whole time she had been here, the closest thing she had seen to a gathering of humans had been Laria Tower. Everyone else she'd encountered aside from Mika had been Ivali.

This was different. Almost everyone around her was human—she could tell that much. Small snippets of their thoughts and feelings drifted out towards her from the crowd, as she took a sip of the drink that had been brought out to her. It was bitter and aromatic, reminding her of coffee, but it didn’t quite have the same taste, and instead of being black, it was colored a deep amber. Mika took a sip of it and made a face.

“You add sugar to it,” offered Selde. “Or milk.”

Mika turned towards Selde, not looking at all pleased by the suggestion. The warrior drank his the way it had been served. Rae reached for the sugar, ignoring Mika and focusing on Cathel. The mage was staring at everything around him with a look of wonder and disbelief in his eyes. There was a blotchy purple bruise on his face from where Selde had struck him, and he wore a bandage, but it looked like both men had gotten out of their battle relatively unscathed.

“How did so many people get here?” he asked.

Selde took a sip from his drink, slowly setting the cup back down onto its saucer. “We’ve lived here for centuries. At least as far back as any of us can remember. We’ve been living here since the Schism.”

“The Schism?” Cathel set down his cup and turning towards Selde, an expression of curiosity on his face.

Selde nodded. “…About five hundred years ago.”

Cathel frowned in thought. “…Five hundred years ago?” he asked. “The Ivali Invasion? The establishment of the barrier?”

“Invasion? I suppose you could have called it an invasion. Personally, massacre would be the term I’d choose.”

Cathel stared at Selde. The warrior watched him, as if challenging him to argue. Finally, Cathel shook his head. “Clearly, we have been taught two different versions of the same event. Why don’t you tell me your version first, and then I’ll tell you mine.”

“Very well,” said Selde. Rae leaned forward slightly, folding her arms on top of the table and preparing herself to listen. She had heard a little bit about this world’s history from Alcian, but she wasn’t afraid to admit that she knew very little. There were a few things she could piece together, but they mostly involved specific people. She did know, however, that it had been over one hundred years since the last Arbiter.

Whatever had happened five hundred years ago was as much her history as it was Selde’s, and as it was Cathel’s.

The warrior paused to collect his thoughts, taking another sip of his drink before he began. “…Before the Schism, there was no border. No barrier. Humans—known as the Enteli—and the Ivali interacted freely. They maintained separate governments, but they were not at war. The Enteli Court acted as a force of neutrality, generally letting the High Court and the Dark Court play their games without complaint, until the conflicts became too intense to ignore. The position of Arbiter came out of the Enteli Court, somewhere along the line.” He paused, looking up at Cathel. “Is any of this familiar to you?”

Cathel nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve heard of the three Courts, but not about the Arbiter.”

“The Courts each had their own capitals, but there was one location where they could convene and interact peacefully. This place was known as the Threefold Capital, or in the language of the Ivali,
Cabentel.
Nowadays, I think it’s known simply as Entel.”

“The human Capital,” said Cathel with a nod.

Selde shook his head. “Entel was never the human Capital, even though the race was named for it. It was truly neutral ground. It belonged to neither Dark Court, High Court, or Enteli Court. It was inhabited by all sorts of people, from humans to the Ivali. But it was the headquarters of a certain human institution, one you're probably familiar with.” Selde’s eyes hardened as he spoke, and he leaned forward, giving Cathel a look that might have been a glare.

“…The Council of the Five Towers.”

“The Magic Council,” said Cathel, his tone growing solemn.

Selde stared at him, meeting his eyes, before nodding. “Yes,” he said. “The Council said that Entel was the most central to their Towers, so that was where they would meet. They also claimed that its neutrality allowed five competing magic institutions to talk on equal grounds. My ancestors lived in Entel as well. We were guards, we swore no loyalty to any Lord but that of the city, although we did have ties to one member of the High Blood—the man who would become High Lord Berais. We became known as the
Entelithielen—
the swords of the Capital.”

He clenched his fist. “We…protected the Council,” he said. “In the interest of neutrality, we served them—fought their enemies, protected them from harm when either Court would think to harm them. We believed that they meant the best for the world as a whole, that they would foster the spread of magic among humans and improve the quality of life for everyone. We were naïve…”

He eyed Cathel carefully, his eyes narrowed. “…If my ancestors knew what would soon take place, they would have killed them.”

Rae listened intently, interested now. She glanced up at Cathel. The mage was listening to Selde with a hint of trepidation on his face, underneath his growing curiosity. It was clear that he wanted to know the end of the story, even though he knew that it would probably be painful for him. Even Mika was listening now, tapping her spoon idly against her saucer.

“…It was the barrier,” said Selde. “They were just biding time until they activated the barrier that connected the Five Towers.”

Cathel’s eyes widened. “But the barrier was placed to keep out the Ivali,” he said. “When they attacked the cities. It wasn’t—.”

Selde raised a hand, stopping him. “This is my version of the story,
tarethan
,” he said. “You see the barrier as a shield, something to keep your human lands safe. I see why you would see it that way. But that wasn't what it was created for. Do you know how that barrier works?”

Cathel nodded once. “I know the basics,” he said. “The barrier…repels any Source that isn’t human. It’s painful for Ivali to venture too far into the barrier, which is how it keeps them out.”

Selde shook his head. “Not repels,
tarethan
,” he said. “Destroys. The barrier is poison to the Source of the Ivali. It taps into their magic, leeching it out and using it to fuel itself. It grows stronger as its victim grows weaker. After a while, the Ivali simply dies. Haven't you ever wondered, in all your magical studies, how something so strong as the barrier could be generated from something so weak as human magic?”

Cathel looked as though he had been struck. He stared at Selde for a long moment, his face pale and a look of sudden shock and horror on his face. His hands trembled slightly on the tabletop, and when he opened his mouth to speak, it seemed as though he could not find his voice. “I…I wondered, obviously. I asked. I was told that it was simply a large number of mages, working in unison. I—I was told that the barrier was a precautionary measure…not…”

“…You get it now,” said Selde. Mika frowned, glancing from Selde to Cathel.

“I don't,” she said. “What does the barrier’s strength have to do with anything?”

Rae looked from Selde’s grim expression to Cathel’s stricken face. She could feel Mika’s genuine confusion, Selde’s certainty, and Cathel’s disbelief. It radiated off of each of them clearly. She hardly had to open her mind to let those feelings in. Her eyes drifted from Selde to Cathel again and suddenly she understood. And she understood Cathel’s horror.

“…Mika…” began Rae, lowering her eyes to the plate. “…What do you think would have happened if there were Ivali inside the barrier’s range when it was set up?”

Mika stared at Rae as if considering the question. And then, slowly, Rae felt understanding creep in, and along with it, a cold, underlying, tone of disbelief and fear. Mika’s eyes widened, and she turned towards Selde, looking for confirmation. Selde slowly nodded.

“The barrier started out as a small, weak thing. More a suggestion than anything else. But it poisoned the weaker Ivali in the Safelands. And it killed them. And as it fed off their Sources, it grew and grew and grew until it became something unstoppable.” He eyed Cathel coldly from across the table. “That thing your masters are so proud of—their impenetrable shield—that thing is built from the Sources of the Ivali that were within the Safelands when it was started. Their Sources
, tarethan
. Their souls.”

Cathel stared at Selde for a full ten seconds after he had finished speaking. His face betrayed only his shock, only the numbness he felt after hearing what the warrior had to say. But Rae, through Elrithea’s power, felt something else coming from him.

It felt too much like breaking.

“Some of us decided to side with the Ivali. We fled to the Edgelands, and we live there today,” finished Selde.

She didn’t think Cathel heard him. At that moment, it felt almost as if she was Cathel, as if she were seeing from behind his eyes. She heard Selde’s words both clearly as herself and as Cathel heard them—distorted, as if they were coming through water. The mage stared at Selde, and Rae could feel him holding his breath, could feel him gathering the frayed remnants of his thoughts, holding them close as if they were a lifeline and the only thing that could save him. A knot formed in her throat, and her hand trembled, as if it was possessed by the impulse to reach out and grab his.

Her fingers shook. His hand wasn’t too far from hers. It was simply a few inches away from hers, across the top of the table…

Cathel stood up suddenly and she froze, watching him. Selde watched him as well. The mage kept his eyes on the table in front of him, not looking at anyone in particular. “I—,” he began. “I—I’ll see to rooms. Inside.”

He didn’t turn back to see if any of them heard. He didn’t wait to see if any of them had objections. He simply turned and left, heading into the inn that Selde had pointed out to them with his pack slung over her shoulder.

Rae looked away from him, staring down at her hand. It lay useless on the tabletop.

#

That night, Rae lay awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was odd, being in a town again. She hadn’t been in a town since first coming to this world, not counting the city in Elrithea’s mirror dream. This late at night, Velleter was mostly quiet, but she could still feel countless human presences crowding around the edges of her consciousness, trying to worm their way inwards and force her to acknowledge them. During the day, they weren’t so bad. They were like a soft sound she could tune out, like a radio playing at low volume.

At night—this night—they overwhelmed her.

At least, she told herself it was the voices.

Rae sighed, sitting up in bed and pushing the blankets off of herself. The innkeeper had been Ivali, and had been more than happy to assign them each a room. Apparently, Selde’s status as Berais’s student and servant made him something of the town favorite here, and word had gotten around that he was escorting the Arbiter and one of the
tarethain
.

She let her feet land on the cool wood of the inn’s floor and flexed her toes, deciding whether or not she needed to find shoes. She didn’t have flip flops out here, and she wasn’t willing to put on her boots just to go for a walk. After a while, she decided to forget it. The floor had looked clean enough earlier. She slipped her cloak off the hook by the door, letting it fall around her shoulders. As an afterthought, she also grabbed Alcian’s faesteel knife. She didn’t think anyone would harm her here, but she was nothing if not careful.

Quietly, so as not to wake Mika, Selde, or Cathel, she slipped out of her room, letting the door close behind her as she made her way down the hallway. She headed towards the balcony doors she had seen earlier, the one that overlooked the main street of the city. Rae hesitated as she approached it. The door to the balcony was ajar, moonlight filtering in through the windows.

She placed her hand on the glass door that led outside, slowly pushing it open.

The balcony was empty. Rae stepped out into the cool night air, looking around. She glanced from the open door to the empty balcony, then closed her eyes, slowly lowering her barriers and opening herself up to Elrithea’s gift. She quickly opened her eyes, raising the barriers again. There were too many people in the immediate area for her to focus on just one.

“Up here,” said a voice, causing Rae to look up.

Cathel sat on the rooftop above her, one arm draped across his knee. Rae’s eyes widened, and she glanced at the smooth stone wall in front of her.

“Are you out of your mind?” she asked.

He chuckled darkly in response, moving over slightly. “Should have known you’d come out here. I’m not doing a very good job of avoiding people, am I?”