Children of Prophecy (5 page)

Jan’tar shrugged; his boyish face the perfect expression of tolerance. “No, you are,” he insisted.

“Boys!” Kove’tar’s basso voice rumbled through the building argument, and all three children turned to look up at the old Ranger, falling silent and looking guilty.

He eyed them with a twinkle in his eye. “I see you’ve met our local terrors, Tal. Have my rapscallion sons bothered to introduce themselves, or did they start fighting immediately?”

“They introduced themselves,” Tal told him. “They weren’t fighting either!” he added, not wanting to get the twins in any more trouble.

Kove’tar grinned widely. “I know my boys,” he said firmly. “And, like you,
they’re
supposed to be at lessons. Aren’t you, boys?” he demanded.

The twins nodded. “Be off with you then,” the Ranger told them. “Next year, you’ll join us in the salle. Once you’re old enough.”

From the expressions on the twins’ faces, there was no doubt that they
would
join Tal and Kove in the salle. They may not have been Magi, but they knew what they
were
, and what they wanted to be.

Like Tal, they wanted to be just like their father.

About three weeks after his first arrival at the Manor ‘Raen, Tal found himself being awoken early one morning by his father. He blinked up at Car, realizing that the only light in the room came from a magelight floating over the Hawk’s shoulder.

“Wake up, son,” Car told him firmly. “We have something to do today.”

“What?” Tal asked, slowly rolling out of bed and reaching for a tunic.

Car shook his head. “It’s a lesson, but one that doesn’t work if explained,” he told Tal.

Confused but obedient, Tal finished dressing and followed Car out into the courtyard. The house was still in the pre-dawn dark, and no-one seemed to be moving.

“How long till dawn?” Tal asked.

“Another hour or so,” Car replied and handed him a walking stick. “We’ve got a ways to walk yet today.”

Tal considered objecting to the idea of walking for a moment, but rejected it quickly. If Car’raen said they were walking, then there was probably a reason for it. With a resigned sigh, he took the staff.

The pair of Magi hiked deep into the hills around the manor, without any apparent destination or course. Tal’raen had started the journey with questions about the ‘lesson’, but Car refused to say anything about it, and responded with questions about Tal’s new life at the manor and his time at the Academy.

Finally, the sun well on its way into the sky, Car led Tal into a strange valley, sheltered by towering walls of black basalt. Vines and trees climbed the stone walls, despite their strange flowing shape, but none of them reached the top of the stone walls.

At the center of the valley, looking out of place, sat a plain gray granite boulder. Car led Tal up to this boulder and stopped, leaning on his staff, looking at it. Confused by his teacher’s attention to the plain rock, Tal examined it himself. It was just a plain boulder, a little mossy. Nothing else.

“This is the lesson,” Car said simply.

“What?” Tal asked dryly. “The rock?”

“Yes,” Car replied. “By now, you can recognize Chaos and Order energy, yes?”

“You taught me,” the young Mage replied.

“All right,” his teacher said. “Look into the rock, tell me what you see of those two.”

Tal wondered if Car was going crazy. It was a
rock
. Logically, it ought to be pure Order. However, what one was told… He looked into the rock.

A moment later he jerked back, a violent hiss escaping his lips. There was Chaos
all
through the rock, corrupting its clean Order.

“What happened to this rock?” Tal demanded. “It’s full of Chaos!”

“Indeed,” Car replied. “Do you know why?”

“It’s been corrupted, infected, obviously,” Tal told him.

“I see. In that case, perhaps you should cleanse it?” Car told him. “Reach into it and remove the Chaos. If you can sense it, you can manipulate it.”

Recognizing a lesson at last, Tal’raen turned to the rock and approached it. His magical sense buzzed as Car did something. It was familiar, but unimportant to his task.

Focusing his concentration on the rock, Tal sank his awareness into it, carefully avoiding the chaos all through it. He studied it for a moment, and then readied his power. He shaped an overlay that would sweep through the rock and obliterate all the Chaos, replacing it with Order.

With a grin, he unleashed the spell. In moments, he was gasping as power drained from him like water, but he forced it forwards. He struggled with it, and succeeded. The Chaos was gone from the rock.

He opened his eyes, gasping, and looked at the rock. Something had gone wrong! The rock had suddenly compressed to less than a tenth its original size and turned pure black.

These facts had only barely entered his mind before the rock detonated into a horrendous fireball. Even through the shields Car had erected, Tal was driven to his knees, and his exhaustion from the spell caught up with him and he collapsed the rest of the way.

While Tal slept, Car opened the pack he was carrying. Firstly, he took out a blanket and covered his exhausted pupil. Then he pulled out food and laid it on a nearby rock, neatly sterilized by the explosion.

The lesson he’d just demonstrated wasn’t one most Battlemagi were taught. For that matter, it was one only a few
could
be taught, as most didn’t have the power to completely purify even a small stone. Forty years ago, his own teacher had brought him to this same valley to teach it to him.

When Tal finally awoke, he announced it with a loud groan. Car crossed to him and handed him a small loaf of bread.

“Here, eat,” he ordered.

His son took the loaf, and groaned again. “What happened?” he asked.

“You succeeded in removing all the chaos from the rock,” Car told him. “Now eat. You used up all of your energy doing so.”

Obediently, the boy began to eat, his appetite driven by the amount of energy he’d used. After he’d finished the loaf, Car gestured him to the rest of the food on the rock.

“Why did that happen?” the boy asked as he settled down to eat.

“Because the rock wasn’t ‘corrupted’, as you put it,” Car told him. “It was, in fact, perfectly natural.”

“But it was full of Chaos,” Tal objected between mouthfuls.

“Yes,” Car agreed. “At its most basic level, Tal, the entire universe is made up of energy. You, me, the trees, that rock; everything is made of energy. And there are two types of energy. Do you understand?”

Tal nodded, and Car continued. “The first form of energy tries to push everything apart. It gives things their size, their weight. Left unbound, it would scatter to the winds, and there would be no universe.

“The second form of energy holds everything together. It gives the universe its form, its surfaces and rigidity. If
it
were left unbound, however, it would compress everything into one little ball, and there would be no universe.”

“You’re talking about Chaos and Order, aren’t you?” Tal asked.

“Indeed,” Car confirmed. “Only in the fragile balance of the two can the universe exist. When they become unbalanced – when, for example, you removed all the Chaos from that rock – the balance tends to be restored violently. In this case, the Chaos rushed back in so fast that it shattered the Order bonds, leading to an explosion.”

The Hawk shook his head solemnly as he looked at his son. “Chaos and Order are forms of energy, really, nothing more,” he told the boy. “Any Mage can use either. Order is harder to use, but Chaos… Chaos corrupts the body, mind and soul.”

“Is Chaos stronger?” Tal asked.

“No,” Car replied. “It is simply easier to wield, more potent, so to speak, but a strong Order Mage can do so much more with the same energy.”

The older Mage laid his hand on Tal’s shoulder. “Remember that, Tal. It may seem, now, that Chaos is the easier route, the stronger route. If you stay the course, and learn to truly master your power, no Chaos Mage short of the Drake Lord himself will be able to face you.”

The galloping hooves of the three horses echoed through the forest. Tal’raen led the other two youths in a race for the stream that could just be seen around the bend.

He let loose with a wild yell as he broke into the lead, his lanky form leaning close over the neck of his horse. His two companions were neck and neck as they followed behind him, both of them sharing nearly the same features and wearing identical Ranger-style clothing.

Tal let his horse splash into the stream, ignoring the water that splattered over his simple black tunic; the clothing of a Battlemage Initiate. He turned to the twins who’d followed him in and grinned. “You two are slow, again.”

Jan’tar shook his head. He and his brother shared the same blue-eyed and golden-haired features, which already had the girls from the nearby villages swooning over the fourteen-year-old pair. “I think you cheat. I’m sure there’s some magic you’re using to make Blazer run that fast.”

Tal laughed at his friend. A year and a bit older than the twins, he’d matured into a leanly built young man, with raven-black hair and golden eyes like those of a wolf, or the Hawk he was in his other form.

“While there’s probably something I could do with Air to make Blazer run faster,” he admitted “I’d need to be a Life Mage to really cheat. Which I’m not, and I wouldn’t need to cheat anyway.” He sniffed in disdain at the thought.

Liv’tar, Jan’s brother, made a mock grab for the bow hanging off his saddle. “Of course, the fact that you have the fastest horse has
nothing
to do with it,” he observed dryly, grinning at Tal. “I’ll believe you’re the better rider the day you ride a horse other than Blazer and still win.”

Tal waved a hand. “Details, details, details.” He laid his hand on the bow on his own saddle, while shifting to settle his plain steel longsword more comfortably. “Well, gentlemen. Are we going to hunt or not?”

“Mom said she wanted
something
from us for supper,” Liv’atar laughed, “or she’d make us all wash dishes!”

“And she wouldn’t let you use magic to do it either!” added Jan.

“Well, since none of us would dare disobey your mother…” Tal replied, shuddering artistically before he continued, “let’s hunt!”

The dark of an early autumn night was beginning to fall as the trio rode back towards the house. Each of them had several rabbits and grouse hanging off their saddles and a travois, improvised from a sack and some tree branches, carried the neatly butchered and arranged carcass of a medium-sized buck behind Liv’s horse.

They were quieter than they had been earlier; luxuriating in the silence of the woods they called home. They knew the sights and sounds of these woods like their own, and when an unexpected sound cut through that silence, all three of them turned in their saddles towards it.

Tal gestured the other two to silence before they could speak, then concentrated, enhancing his hearing to catch the sound again. “Horse hooves,” he said quietly. “One horse, with a rider.” He glanced around to the other two. “Shall we go meet him?”

The twins shrugged. “We probably should,” Jan replied. “Even if they’re just passing through, the sun’s setting and the manor is the only place nearby to stay.”

Tal nodded, still slightly abstracted as he located the sound. “This way,” he said suddenly, turning his horse down the path, towards the main road. The brothers followed him, Liv more slowly, as he had to take care with the travois.

The road wasn’t far away and the three boys knew all the shortcuts and little paths near the manor. They came out onto it just as the rider was passing by.

“Ho, traveler,” Tal called out. “What brings you to these parts?”

The rider started, turning to face the boys. Tal inhaled sharply as the man’s cloak flared open in the wind, revealing the blue and gold uniform of a Kingsman. He was silent for a moment and Tal took advantage of the opportunity to study him.

The gold trimmed and braided blue tunic was definitely that of a Kingsman, one of the oath-sworn soldiers and servants of the High King. Tal’s eyes caught a flash of silver on the man’s breast and he focused on it, to recognize the winged horse that was the symbol of the High King’s Couriers, men who bore the King’s orders and spoke for the King in disputes. A pair of medium length swords, shorter if less plain, than Tal’s own longsword, marked the man as a practitioner of the
Kor’len
School of swordsmanship.

The Kingsman seemed to study the boys in return and Tal caught his eyes widening as he recognized the meaning of the black tunic Tal wore. When he finally spoke, his voice bore the accent of the Deoran Highlands, the hills in which the High King of Vishni made his capital.

“Well met, Mage,” he said respectfully. “I seek the local lord, for I bear a message for him.”

“I am merely an Initiate, Kingsman.” Tal shrugged. “As for the other, if you seek the Lord Car’raen, Hawk and Battlemage, his manor is just a short ride from here. We can show you the way if you wish.”

The courier inclined his head in thanks. “I thank you for the offer. I am Sir Gav’rel, Courier for the High King and it is indeed the Hawk Car’raen that I seek.”

“Well now, then you should come with us.” Tal gestured to his companions. “These are Ranger-trainees Jan’tar and Liv’tar; and I am Initiate Tal’raen. Come, the manor is less than half an hour away.”

Gav’rel nodded to the brothers then turned his attention back to Tal. “You are related to the Hawk then, Initiate?”

“Yes and no,” Tal told the man with a slight smile. “I am Lord Car’raen’s apprentice, and I am also his adopted son. But that is unimportant,” he continued with a shrug. “Come, it isn’t far, but night falls both quickly and coldly in these mountains.”

Pushing aside the topic of his relation to Car’raen, Tal led the way into the rapidly darkening night.

Air swept under Car’s wings as he headed home. As much as he enjoyed being a hawk, he didn’t manage to do it for pure relaxation very often anymore. Most of the times he’d been Shifted lately, he’d been teaching Tal how do it.

The black and white banded hawk winged his way up to his manor, following the line of the road. As if conjured up by his thoughts, he saw Tal and the twins on the road, riding with a stranger.

No, not a stranger
, he realized as he dipped closer. It was one of the King’s Couriers and the Hawk Car’raen had met most of them in the past.

Bad news, almost certainly, if Kelt’ahrn is sending a Courier here,
he thought.

It seems our holiday is over,
Jor’nial responded.

Car shrieked a greeting to the boys and saw Tal look up and wave. Car looped to return the wave, then set off for home.

He suspected he would want to enjoy every remaining minute he had there.

Car met them in the courtyard in front of the manor, dressed casually in a plain black tunic. His eyes were sharp as he watched the four riders approach. Without even thinking about it, he was sure, the three youths had dropped into a neat escort formation around the courier. Nothing was going to touch the man without going through two Ranger-trained youths and a Hawk Mage Initiate, and not much could manage that.

Tal was first of the four to dismount, crossing the courtyard to Car. “Good evening, master,” the boy greeted him, then nodded back towards the Courier. “Kingsman Gav’rel says he bears a message for you.”

Car inclined his head to his son. “Thank you for bringing him here, Tal,” he said quietly. As Gav’rel dismounted, Car crossed the cobblestones to him. “Welcome Gav’rel, to the manor Raen.”

“Hawk Car’raen,” Gav greeted him with a bow. “I bear news, greetings and a request from the High King.”

“I expected as much,” Car replied with a slow nod. “Come, we will speak inside.” He turned to Tal and the twins. “You three put the horses away and attend to your chores.”

With that, Car turned on his heel and led the way into the house. The Courier followed, obviously watching everything around him.

As they headed up the spiraling staircase to Car’s study, at the top of the main tower, he spoke. “This isn’t what I expected of the home of the Hawk,” he told Car. “It’s not like the residence in the High City at all.” The city of Deoran was the capital of the Kingdom, but to most it was merely the High City, seat of the High King of Vishni.

“The residence in the High City is the best part of a thousand years old,” Car snorted in reply, “and has had a lot of money thrown at over that time. It is
meant
to be magnificent, to underscore the power of the heirs of the Hawk Lord.” He shrugged. “This is my home. It is far more
my
home that the home of the Hawk. I lived here before I was Hawk and others who are not the Hawk will live here after me.”

They reached the top of the staircase. The stairs simply came to a stop at a functional wooden door, with only the barest of landings. Car barely slowed down, opening the door without breaking stride.

He took a moment to glance around the room before stepping aside to let Gav’rell in. Like the rest of the house, the room was rather plain. Unlike the house, it was far from simple. The room was huge, combining library with lounge with everything else Car needed to do in solitude, taking up the entire top floor of the four-story central keep. The door was the only break in the bookshelves on the eastern wall and each of the other walls had three slit windows apiece as the only breaks in the shelves on them. Other than the door and windows, bookshelves covered every single inch of the walls. Even so, the room would be well-lit in the day, with a central fireplace and lamps evenly spaced around the room looking to provide light at night.

On seeing the fireplace, Car made a small gesture with his hand. The wood seemed to glow for a moment, then burst into flame, shedding light across the room. A desk stood near the fireplace, guarded from sparks by a metal screen but still positioned to get the best light at any time of day or night. Several heavy, down-stuffed chairs placed around a small table and a larger table with some wooden chairs made up the rest of the furniture.

“Take a seat, Courier Gav’rel,” Car told the man, gesturing towards the stuffed chairs and then took one himself. “Now, give me your messages.”

“Firstly, High King Kelt’ahrn and his lady Tris’dael send their greetings and their hopes that you have achieved the goals you returned home for,” Gav’rell began as he took a seat. “The lady Tris’dael also asked me to tell you she wishes to meet your adopted son and that you have been missed in the High City.”

“It’s good to hear from them,” Car admitted with a slow smile. “How is their daughter?”

“Lady Initiate Brea’ahrn is well -” Gav began.

“Hold on a moment, Lady
Initiate
?” Car interrupted before he could continue. “Brea is a Mage? Since when?”

Gav looked nonplussed for a moment. “Since…” he paused before continuing. “Since shortly after you left, I believe. She had begun showing signs before then, but we didn’t realize until later. I don’t think anyone realized you hadn’t been informed. She’s a Life Mage, one of some power, or so I am told.”

Car nodded slowly, considering. Life Magi came to their powers later than Death Magi, which would have Brea beginning to come into hers right about when he’d left, looking for Tal. “Well, that’s an interesting tidbit of information, but you said you had a request from Kelt’arhn for me?”

“Well, I think I may to have to give you some news first,” the Courier said slowly. “How well have you kept up with events in the Kingdom?”

“I live with a bunch of Rangers and a Seer, Sir Gav’rell.” Car said dryly. “I don’t think it would be possible for me to not keep up with events.”

“What do you know of what Earl Jyd’har has been up to?” the Kingsman asked.

“Not much,” Car admitted with a shrug. “He’s the most southeastern Earl, with two sides of his Earldom bounded by the ocean. I’ve heard something about discontent in his Earldom, but not much.”

“Well, it’s coming to more than discontent,” Gav said quietly, then stopped for a moment, his gaze drawn to the western window.

Car followed his eyes, to find a black hawk had flown in and settled onto the perch just inside. He nodded gravely to the bird.
Well, I guess Tal is curious
.

Should he be listening in on this?
Jor’nial asked.

Car glanced back at Gav, who had pulled his eyes away from the hawk, obviously realizing that Car seemed to think it belonged.
I think that I’ll be taking him with me and he’ll need to know what it’s all about.

“Define ‘more than discontent’, Gav’rell,” Car requested.

“Jyd’har has been rattling his saber and making noises about secession,” the man clarified quietly. “He seems to want to return to the days when the Earldoms were kingdoms in their own right.”

“What is he using for reasons?” Car asked, putting asides the concerns of the father for the duties of the Hawk.

Gav’rell looked uncomfortable. “He does have some true complaints,” he admitted. “However, Kelt’ahrn has been doing his best to address those complaints. Jyd’har seems to be using them more as an excuse and his lords are far more uniformly behind him than we’d expect.”