Lesson of the Fire (58 page)

Goh Rue leaned heavily on the staff.

“The Delegates recognize Yee Ka Lah.”

Katla jumped. She had not even stepped into
the circle. No one had mentioned her name yet today. She stepped
forward, unsure as to what the new Overseer wanted. The rest of the
delegates stepped back, but Lee Zah bounded forward.

“The Zoh must insist that this breach of
protocol be overturned,” he cried. “The Yee delegate was not in the
circle to speak!”

Goh Rue lifted the staff. “The Zoh delegate
will remove himself from the circle.”

“The Yee are savages who are not interested
in truces and refuse to take prisoners!” Lee Zah shouted to anyone
but the Overseer. “If the Delegates do not destroy them, what will
keep the Yee from invading? We must kill them all! We must kill
them or die!”

Goh Rue gestured, and two striped guer
stepped forward to apprehend the raving stinger. Shouting and
kicking, they dragged him from the circle.

All eyes turned to Katla.

“Yee Ka Lah thanks Due Goh Rue and the
Delegates for this chance to speak. The Yee are not savages. The
Yee follow their ruler, Yee Seh Tah, with devotion and loyalty. If
a truce is made with him, it will be honored.”

“You may bring him here, to negotiate.”

Katla smiled wanly and shook her head. “I am
here to negotiate on his behalf. You may send one Delegate with me
to negotiate with him in the Yee capital.”

She raised a hand into the silence. “The Yee
will continue to kill your peoples until the truce is made! You
must call back the waves that left today, cease mobilizing the
Thirtieth Wave, and order a retreat of the invading waves from the
Yee lands. With this sign of good faith, Yee Seh Tah will be more
amenable to a fair negotiation.”

“And he will not pursue us into our
lands?”

“The Yee will not,” Katla said. “You have my
word on that.”

The debate raged until after sunset. When
Due Goh Rue at last called for a vote, the gobbels and ravits were
the only ones other than Doh Zue Sah who opposed the truce.

“By a vote of forty in favor and thirteen
against, the Delegates have chosen to offer the Yee a truce so both
parties can discuss terms of a more lasting peace,” Due Goh Rue
announced. She then turned her attention to Katla. “The Delegates
expect Yee Ka Lah to remember that while peace is desirable to
them, they will not agree to terms that will harm their
constituents.”

Katla met her gaze. “Yee Ka Lah will work
diligently to ensure that both parties find the terms of any treaty
agreeable to them. Among the Delegates, I represent the interests
of the Yee, but among the Yee, I represent the interests of the
Delegates.”

“Then go with the Delegates’ good will, Yee
Ka Lah. We will send insero messengers to order the Waves to
withdraw from the lands south of the Lapis Amnis. Order your
wizards not to pursue them.”

Katla looked at each delegate in turn and
left the Delegates’ Tent. She did not teleport until she was out of
their sight, for though all of them knew she was a wizard, some
might have regarded it as threatening if she wielded magic in their
presence.

* * *

“You should not have killed that Traveller,”
Ari said, finally breaking the morning silence.

Robert frowned at him from across the table
where the enchanter had set up a recon stone of their own.

Ari continued. “The Drakes are invading from
the north. Wasfal’s army approaches from the east. Does it even
matter if they are invading or rescuing? And now a third Mar army
from the Duxy of Flasten is less than a day’s march south of here.
Someone will certainly have seen the last recon sweeps and
triangulated our positions by now. Westward is the Duxy of Domus,
and I do not think much of our chances there, either.”

Robert’s voice betrayed no small amount of
annoyance, and given the farl’s usual unshakable demeanor, Ari was
certain the enchanter was more worried than he wanted to admit. “Do
I have to break your will the way I have broken the others’?”

Ari looked away, unable to meet Robert’s
gaze. “No, Weard Wost.”

Robert stood up and paced from one end of
the room to the other. “Weard Faul, we have been over this a
hundred times. We have Mardux Takraf to use as a hostage. His
friends and allies will not risk his life by killing me. I am the
only one with the antidote to the strange poison that plagues Weard
Takraf.”

Perhaps not the only
one,
Ari thought, but he stayed silent. The
spell nestled beneath the tor buffer, which meant a simple Elements
counter couldn’t reach it. It would take both Elements and
Presence, which most Mar wouldn’t dare attempt.
But I’ve watched you and I’ve learned, and maybe I can wield
it well enough to undo your enchantment.

The victims of the Will-Breaker were easier
to free. Robert’s enchantment would only last a span or two without
renewal. The enchanter’s mastery of Energy was not nearly as
complete as an eighth-degree wizard’s. The spell would fade, and
the victims would not, thankfully, remember anything they had
witnessed while they were enchanted.

There may be hope for Einar and Sven yet,
which means there may be hope for me.

Robert turned suddenly to look at the recon
stone. He smiled in that way that made Ari uncomfortable. “Come,
Weard Faul. Our guests are arriving. Einar, bring me those fine
gloves you made for me, and make sure these visitors do not attempt
anything foolish.”

Einar handed the farl a pair of Blosin
gloves, which Robert pulled on as he strode out of the large hut.
The aged border guardian trailed the enchanter’s steps as if a
short rope connected them. Behind them, Ari fingered the gap in the
front of his cloak, just above his knee.

When they reached the village green, four
reds and a green — Dux Gruber Ratsell, Horsa Verifien, Nightfire,
Arnora Stoltz and Erbark Lasik — waited for them.

“Weards Wost and Faul,” Arnora said in a
level tone. “I accuse you of violating Bera’s Unwritten Laws. These
duxes and weards stand as witnesses to this accusation, and
Nightfire will try you for your crimes under Mar law.”

Robert laughed. “Such exalted company we
have, Weard Faul! The priest has become a dux, now? Did you kill
Ragnar and Volund the way your Mardux killed Horik?”

Ari’s cloak rustled as he lifted one leg,
plunging the short blade of the marsord into the back of Robert’s
thigh. The enchanter tried to pull away, but Ari wrapped his left
arm around Robert’s shoulders, holding the farl’s back to his chest
as he reached for the marsord.

“I am not sharing your fall,” Ari
whispered.

Gruber and Arnora summoned fire to strike
both of them, but Einar stepped in front of them before they could
find their marks. He countered most of the attack, but fire licked
his cloak.

Robert snarled in pain and fury and lifted
up his hands.

“Counter the gloves!” Ari shouted at them
all.

It was too late. Erbark moved only a few
steps, marsord already out. Nightfire and Horsa did not even move,
but they had no doubt begun gathering myst. In mad desperation, Ari
reached around Robert and grabbed his wrists.

Then black tendrils of killing magic lanced
out of the Blosin gloves, sweeping and twisting in the air as they
chose their targets. Ari closed his eyes, waiting for the
inevitable.

Abruptly, Robert’s body crumbled in Ari’s
arms. He risked opening one eye.

The wizards stood staring at him, unharmed
by the deadly magic. Einar lay on the ground, healing himself. The
light had returned to his eyes.

“What happened?” Ari murmured.

Everyone turned their attention to
Nightfire, who cleared his throat.

“It would seem the close proximity of Weard
Faul’s tor somehow interfered with Weard Wost’s application of
morutmanon. This is an unprecedented series of events, but as
repeating the experiment in a more controlled environment would be
... problematic, we may never know the cause of what we just
witnessed. I will make a note of it for future generations,
though.”

“If Weard Wost’s morutmanon harmed only
Weard Faul’s enemies,” Horsa said, “then I suppose that means we
are not his enemies.”

“Had my son not acted when he did, Weard
Wost’s morutmanon would likely have killed us all,” Einar said.
“According to Vangard’s Rules of Governance, he could demand eight
years of service from each of us.”

“This is true,” Nightfire mused. “In light
of that, it is my judgment that Weard Faul was enslaved by Weard
Wost’s Will-Breaker and cannot be held responsible for the crimes
he committed while under its effects. In exchange, no one serves
anyone for eight years. Weard Faul, is this acceptable to you?”

Ari nodded and drew the marsord. “This is
yours, Weard Schwert. I was wrong to take it from you.”

“I am sorry, son, for everything.”

“The rightful order is restored and justice
reigns again, yes?” Gruber said with mock cheerfulness. “Then we
should join our armies and march before the Drakes come any farther
south. These two will no doubt bring reinforcements soon, yes?”

The wizards murmured their agreement and,
one by one, vanished into the Tempest, leaving Einar and Ari alone
with Robert’s army of confused mundanes armed with wands.

“Father, even if I had not been there,
Robert’s Blosin gloves would not have killed anyone, would they?
The morutmanon attacked your enemy instead of his, didn’t
they?”

“Which would you rather believe, Ari?”

“Whichever is true.”

Einar shrugged. “The truth is I do not know.
Maybe it was your tor. Maybe morutmanon knows its creator’s enemies
better than the scholars realize. Maybe one of the gods intervened.
Maybe it was the Traveller’s curse. Believe what you wish and be
glad you are alive and free.”

Einar pulled the last strap of the shin
sheath tight. He frowned at the mundanes standing around them. “It
seems the morutmanon freed me from Robert’s Will-Breaker, but I’m
not sure what to do about the rest of the Protectorates.”

“I think I can free them. If not, the
enchantment will eventually pass.”

“And the Mardux?”

Ari took a deep breath. “That will be
harder. It is a different enchantment, and unlike the others, he
will remember his nightmare.”

Einar went silent at that, remnants of his
own torment perhaps not yet fully faded. “Then let us get started,
son.”

Chapter 47

“
Every story has its end. The mortality
of storytellers alone makes this true.”

— Pondr,

Collected Journals,
edited by Weard Asa Sehtah

“Would you like me to tell you one last
story about yourself, Mardux?” Pondr’s voice whispered in his ear
as Sven floated in the frozen darkness.

What is happening?

Then Pondr spoke, and Sven felt himself
transported.

Sven Takraf stood on an altar at the center
of a vast host of Mar. Adepts, wand-wielders, mundanes and wizards
stood in a circle around him, and the Mass pressed in all around
them, trapping them, suffocating his people.

From his vantage, he could see clear to the
horizon. The swamps’ giant trees, with their thick, hollow roots
and soft moss, were gone. The moors’ and fens’ grasses and stunted,
rotting growth had vanished. No wild rice fields remained. The
rivers themselves had disappeared, replaced by countless
Drakes.

Guer of every species, gobbels and ravits
had swallowed his country, and their fierce cries and waving
weapons and arms were a wild, ungodly creation before them. Even
the reclusive ochres could be spotted among the fray.

The Mass truly
was
. Unlike the first
Waves of it, the Drakes did not separate by race. Here, two gobbels
and three distinct types of guer, united, launched spears at his
Mar, who deflected with their magic but as yet did not attack back.
There, a lone ochre was enmeshed with jabber and spiny-tailed guer,
waving spears and screaming in disarray. They moved in many
directions, but as one, as if the Mass wasn’t a singular collection
of all the Drakes, but had acquired its own mind and person in
Domin’s favor, with millions upon millions of hands, preparing to
take Sven’s last island in Marrishland.

And its largest hands were the damnens, who
had come from their seclusion to finish off their largest
competitor. They towered above everything except the insero and
ravits, Mar-length claws reaching for Sven’s people and jaws wide,
screaming as incoherently as the rest of the Mass.

It was a nightmare. It was everything Sven
had feared it would be, but everything he had prepared for, as
well.

We have placed the last of our food on the
altar as a sacrifice. If the gods do not provide for us, we will
die.

The buzz of inseros’ wings shadowed the sky
to the north, and the darts of the ravits on their backs rained
deadly poison on the adepts and wand-wielders.

“Stand fast! We will still carry the day!”
the Mardux shouted.

It was no use. No one could afford to turn
and look at him. No one could waste the energy to raise a cry. The
south and east continued their collapses, meeting the remnants of
the west. The damnens roared again.

“Stand fast!” Sven called again, more
desperately. “The gods are with us!”

A few eyes in the back ranks searched out
the Mardux. A hand pointed. Someone said his name, maybe. But the
wizards who had joined his cause gladly and the magocrats he had
ordered to bleed for him knew the battle lost, and yet they fought
to stay true to their oaths. The screams of adepts and
wand-wielders — people from the Protectorates who entrusted their
lives to him and those from Domus Palus who blindly followed him —
filled the air.