The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds Page 2

  ***

  Duncan side-stepped his horse around a stump. He was riding at the head of a formation with the other senior staff of the combined armies. He had desperately wanted to travel with Gawin and Jewel to find Grim, but with Grim missing, his place was leading the monastic knights.

  The armies traveled overland, taking advantage of fields empty by virtue of the fall harvest.

  At the moment, Trevor McGill was having a heated debate with General Stanton, or Reed as his friends called him. It seemed the General favored sending a handful of scouts ahead to reconnoiter while Trevor was in favor of sending his rangers ahead. Frankly, Reed did not trust the training Trevor’s irregulars had received. His men were professionals, Trevor’s were anything but. Where the General’s troops were spit and polish, Trevor’s men were gruff and unshaven. Trevor sagely pointed out that his men could travel freely without drawing undue attention. Reed pointed out that the inside of a tavern was no place to look for an opposing army. Trevor countered that it was exactly the right place. It was obvious the two were not going to come to an agreement.

  Perela, who was riding next to Duncan, looked at the big knight and said in a calm, but threatening, voice“I’m going to throttle those two if they don’t learn to play together nicely.”

  “It’s a matter of trust. Until each can trust the abilities of the other, they are going to have a hard time working together.”Duncan explained to her. He hoped that a better understanding would keep her from turning the two men into something…unnatural. Perela huffed.“Remember,”Duncan continued,“until just recently they were not even on the same side.”

  “I’m still not sure they are.”Perela admonished.“I’m going to put an end to this.”

  “Be gentle.”Duncan pleaded softly.“We need those men.”

  Duncan saw Perela approach the two men and whisper something into the ear of each. Their reactions were immediate. Each flushed beet red and shook the others hand. Perela rode back up to Duncan with a self-satisfied smile.

  With a sense of dread Duncan asked“What did you say?”

  “Me?”Perela blinked innocently at him.“Oh nothing, really. I just pointed out that they could send both groups out and then compare notes.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you said?”Duncan couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t imagine that would be why the men blushed.

  Perela smirked slightly.“That and a promise to put them both in diapers if they didn’t stop acting like children.”

  Duncan noted that each of the two men was issuing orders to their respective lieutenants. By midday each was receiving a steady flow of intelligence back that for the most part agreed with what the other was receiving.

  By evening the scouts and rangers were reporting as teams to both officers at once. Trevor and Reed could not have been more pleased with the synergies. That did not stop them from casting a nervous eye toward Perela each time she smiled at them.

  They set up camp that first night in a field surrounded by open country as far as the eye could see. A smaller group might have tried to find cover but there was no way to hide several thousand soldiers. A smaller group might have also covered more territory. As it was, the eight leagues the army had managed was impressive; especially given that most were un-mounted foot soldiers.

  One advantage to traveling with an army was the accommodations available once camp was set up. Perela appreciated both the spacious officer’s tent, with its water proof lining and floor and the fact that she did not need to cook.

  Duncan had started moving his gear towards Trevor McGill’s tent out of some sense of courtesy or propriety, but one well-placed kiss and a scolding look from Perela put an early end to that foolishness.

  Dinner was a hearty beef stew, a small wedge of dry cheese and camp bread.

  Duncan and Perela shared their meal in the general’s command tent. It was a large affair with three rooms, divided by oil cloth partitions. Duncan knew from earlier visits that the two smaller rooms were reserved for a bed chamber and personal field office. The larger room, where they were seated on cushions now, held a large rolled map on one wall and a small cooking stove used to keep coffee or mulled wine warm.

  Duncan chatted idly with retired general T’Garon. The former general was ill at ease. This was the first time in his experience where there was not a clear chain-of-command for all the armies involved in a campaign. He said as much to Reed and Duncan.

  Trevor, for his part, having learned a lesson from the day’s earlier events, proposed a partial solution.“There’s no denying my men are trained to fight war differently than yours.”

  The general nodded and added,“Clearly, they do their work very well. I just don’t see them integrating well with my forces.”

  The bearded woodsman smiled at the compliment.“Still, I think both groups can be used in a coordinated way that plays to the strengths of each unit.”

  “I fully agree.”Reed nodded.

  “Then let me propose the following…I will place myself under your direct command, as the commander of His Majesty’s Royal Rangers.”

  “I will not abuse the trust you are showing me, my friend.”General Stanton said with a smile as he clamped a hand on the other man’s shoulder in friendship.“I hereby appoint you, in the presence of these witnesses, General and commander of the Royal Persharian Rangers.”Reed finished his declaration by offering a toast to his majesty’s newest general.

  Duncan found an opportunity to pull Reed aside. “You know my knights stand with you but…”

  The lanky man grinned and slapped the big knight on the back. “Fear not, my noble friend. I’ll not be asking for your knights as well. You and your men have a vow to the church.”

  “Then, as long as you understand it is a temporary arrangement, I will place myself under your provisional command.”

  “Fair enough. All I ask is that you notify me when this‘arrangement’needs to terminate.”

  “Done.”Duncan agreed.

  Chapter Two - Of Night and Mud

  “In the darkness of midnight; hope is a feeble warmth.”Unknown

  1905 years before present... Arathin

  A glorious day faded into evening. Night always falls. Just this time, it fell hard.

  The child cried. As she sobbed, the sounds of her shattered heart echoed in the cold world around her. Not that it really cared. Aritéknelt at the head of a large stone slab. In its center a man lay dressed in midnight blue robes. A silver-blue sash ran diagonally from his right shoulder to left hip. Plaited silver and onyx rested upon his brow. He was as cold as the stone.

  Celestial lighted mist swirled in motes upon the floor. Ribbons of it lapped at the stones’edge; flaring up to cast light on the dead face. The light was gentle on the man, hiding his pallor and the slight evidence of a painful death. In this soft light he appeared asleep. Peaceful even.

  But he would never laugh with his daughter again.

  An unfortunate fact that Aritéknew well. It was one of many she had recently learned. She was alone in a palace full of people. People who were fighting. People who knew hate. She was old enough to know she could survive, that she had a war to try to prevent. Old enough to feel and recognize futility. And when her nose is shoved into it; old enough to understand death. But she was also young, too young and too fragile. She was too weak to keep her country from falling apart.

  And her father was dead.

  Hate ran deep between the two most powerful families. Murder had been committed. War had been called. And no one cared to mourn the dead king. No one, but his weeping daughter... and a young woman named Jewel Al'Dap.

  The shadows that clung to the ceiling in swirling clouds reached down to Arité. The comforting blanket of night hugged her shoulders. Aritéclosed her eyes and held the illusion to her. The warmth of the light below surrounded her.

  Magic was heavy in the air. The pressure rested on the nape of Jewel’s neck as she made her way back to the child. Aritéhad been her first frien
d in this land, that at first she, had assumed was Pershara. That was, of course, before she had sat in on young Arité's map lesson. That was when Jewel had cold water dumped over her. She wasn’t in Pershara. She wasn't anywhere near Pershara.

  Jewel didn’t know how far back in time she had magically jumped. The common tongue of these people was Arathin. No one in her time knew the origins of that language... Only that it was very old. Given that she did not recognize the maps from this land she could only assume she had jumped to Arathin.

  And she had no idea how to get back home. There was no sign or word about Gawin and their daughter. They were lost…somewhere and/or some when.

  Jewel stopped in the doorway of the room where the poor girl’s father lay dead. Jewel’s eyes widened as she took in a spectacle she had never seen nor heard of before. Black and starlight blue light swirled about the girl. It was almost as if it was alive. A puppy trying to comfort the heart broken girl.

  Screams echoed down the lonely hall. Arité’s eyes snapped open. The palace trembled. Jewel staggered, clinging to the wall to stay upright. The magics upon the floor and ceiling roiled. The pressure spiked causing both girl and woman to cry out. Distantly, Jewel could hear howling. It reminded her of when she was attacked by the dark sons. Dread licked at her. Meanwhile, Aritéhunched over her father’s corpse; tears of fear and grief streaming down her face. Aggression, anger, hate, malice, and ambition screamed triumph around her. Sorrow, panic and fear were born and slain. Compassion and mercy were no more.

  Jewel’s heart hurt for the child. She hurt for the dead king she had just begun to know. She longed desperately for her own family. She cried out for the world that seemed to be falling apart around them. And she had thought Pershara had problems…Jewel made her way to her crying friend who reminded her of her own daughter. The magics parted to let her get to Ari. The starblue light touched her lightly, caressing gently, knowing she too had lost loved ones.

  “”Shh, sweetheart.”Jewel soothed, sitting next to Arité. The palace heaved again. Jewel held Aritéclose as she watched cracks forming in the once smooth stone. The screams and howling intensified.“We need to get out of here. Quickly.”

  Aritésagged against the beautiful red head who was the only one who cared about her in this crazy world. She wanted to stay right where she was and cry and rage against the wrongness of the world. To do that, would be to die. She could do nothing. Her country would fall, but what could she do now to stop it? What could an eight year old do? Her country was already crumbling, the great pillars swaying. A debatably wise saying that was either her greatest failing or perhaps her greatest wisdom: know when to leave to fight another day.

  Holding onto her friend’s hand, Aritétouched her father’s brow and gathered her power. Jewel was far more powerful than she, but even at eight years of age Aritéhad more control of her magics and so she led the way. The pressure in the room spiked, and vanished. The room was empty of both the living and the dead.

  It became. It was neither living nor dead. It was both.

  The roiling lights and shadows swirled together. Shadow surrounded the light like the night surrounded the stars. The magics condensed in the middle of the stone table. A child, dirtied and bleeding appeared. It cried as the Nirami’s Palace was torn asunder. It cried as fire consumed the lush land. It cried as stone simply vanished. It cried as rivers ran with more blood than water. It cried as thousands died quickly of blade, tooth, claw, and magic. It cried as thousands died slowly of hunger and disease. It cried as the very earth screamed.

  The sundered land shattered yet again.

  ***

  Present day…Pershara

  Captain T’nere swore loudly. He swore loudly all the time now. Far from aiding him, Altana had laughed at him when he had asked for help getting his orders amended.

  “Fool!”she had spat.“Do you think I care where your general sends you? Be thankful I may yet have need of you or I’d bind you over to the dark master himself just for wasting my time.”

  Some thanks he got for capturing the leader of the Grimedian Knights, he thought. He and his men had marched south for the better part of two weeks. They had made miserable time. The weather had been foul. Half the men were sick with dysentery, the other half were in as foul a mood as he because of the unending rain, mud, and hail.

  They were still a week out from the Isle of Grinley when T’nere received his first bit of outside news in weeks. He was in his leaky field tent trying to ignore the irritating“pit-pat”of water dripping from his ceiling to his floor when a messenger arrived at the door flap.

  “WHAT!”He barked at the rain drenched foot soldier. The man handed him an oiled message pouch. Saluted and backed out as quickly as he had come in.

  The message read thus:

  We were advised of the full situation yesterday. We understand you allowed yourself to be forced into leaving the main group on a fool’s errand. Unsure why it took you two weeks to contact us regarding the situation or why you didn’t abandon your orders when the nature of those orders became clear. We assume you will be prepared to justify your delay when reporting to the King in person next week.

  T’nere swore again. There was virtually no way he could get his men to Pershara in a week’s time. Salvo was making it plain that unless T’nere was already well on his way to the capital city, or was willing to run his men into the ground to get there; he would finish he career at the end of a rope or in a dungeon.

  T’nere opened the flap of his tent and barked orders to break a camp that had been setup less than an hour ago. He gritted his teeth again. It would be a long run.

  ***

  Mud, Mud and more mud! It seemed all Sergeant Tolivier saw any more was mud. Well, his poor deceased mother had told him, hadn’t she?“Ya walks with pigs and ya gits to walk in shite and mud.”She had said, she did.

  Mud was certainly where he and Tep were walk’n. But they weren’t walk’n with them pigs anymore! Tolivier had seen to that.

  The grizzled sergeant had spent most of the last month hiding the young boy Tep from his perverted commanding officer. When the camp was split, some staying near Vandenburg and some going with Captain T’nere to the south, Tolivier had been elated because he and Tep were to be in the group that stayed. Unfortunately, T’nere needed a cook and mess tent crew. Somehow Tolivier and Tep were chosen.

  Tolivier solved the problem by showing the lad how to hide in an empty cooking oil barrel. The barrel was kept with the full barrels in the mess wagon, near the mess tent. Whenever Tolivier saw or heard an officer approaching, off Tep went for his bolt hole in the barrel.

  This had worked fine while they were marching south but as soon as they started their mad rush west, things fell apart. First, all excess supplies, containers and barrels had been discarded. Second, the food stores were spread out evenly amongst the men. Finally, the wagons were burned. The captain was going to march in a straight line for the capital and roads suitable for wagons would be a rare luxury.

  Tep was out of hiding spaces and it wasn’t three days before T’nere had spotted the boy. Tolivier saw the lecherous grin on the captain’s face and knew something needed to be done.

  That night, while pulling guard watch, Sergeant Tolivier fled north with Tep at his side.

  ***

  3000 years before present- Thioden

  The vase lifted shakily from its perch on the table. Once it was three feet above, Kairevasigh bent her will on the silk ribbon and sent it to wrap about the vase’s middle. Her brow furrowed as she concentrated. She set about sewing the ribbon together with her mind. It was a tricky exercise she had been working on during the long hours of council meetings. She focused too much attention on her sewing- fine, precise movements were complete hell from five feet away- and the vase dropped.

  A second before it shattered on the table, it halted. Kairevasigh stared at it blankly. Her concentration broken; the sewn ribbon fluttered to the ground.

  “Balance your f
ocus, Light of Dawn Silence. Remember?”Kaizir said from the doorway, translating her name. His translation of her name was prettier. Apparently the language, as languages are want to do, had shifted meaning. The word for word translation of her name in her time was Light Dawn Silence. His translation would have been Kairséevasigh: more of a mouthful, which was why her mother had dropped the‘sé’.

  She sighed.“My head hurts.”He entered the room. The vase settled down without a sound onto the table. With gentle fingertips, he brushed her forehead with a warm thread of soothing magic.

  “You are doing much better.”Kaizir said showing her the ribbon he had called to his hand.“Perfectly sewn. You also managed to mask most of your usage of power.”

  “Younoticed.”

  “As I said, most. Not all. Not yet.”He said seating himself in a push chair stationed next to the warmly glowing fireplace. His copper hair was slipping out of its queue. He looked very tired.

  “Council not going well?”She asked setting the ribbon in the vase.

  Kaizir looked surprised.“What?”

  “You don’t…look so…um…good.”She replied shyly, staring into the fire.

  “Ah, It’s not council. It’s just me.”At her quizzical glance he grimaced.“I haven’t been sleeping well. A repetitive, chaotic dream.”

  Something about what he admitted pulled at her.“Bad dreams?”

  He snorted. Kaizir was not what she had expected of the Great King of Legend. He was…human and very easy to like. He was what people here called‘a man of faith’. “It is very melodramatic. The end of the world, wars, a child of light and a child of darkness...”His voice turned somber.“I think the Lord is trying to tell me something…”

  Chapter Three- Kaber’s Inn and Eatery

  “Time has a habit of repeating itself…”Bendon D’Armis.

  Present Day- Pershara

  Gawin felt the bitter cold rush of a winter wind against his cheek–reminding him that the snows would return in earnest soon enough. It had been unseasonably warm the last several days. The snows had melted and the roads were often muddy. Jewel seemed to like the mud, a fact Gawin found most unladylike. Still, it was hard not to grin when she would see a large stretch of it in the road. She would deliberately pranced her horses’feet to splatter everyone - giggling the whole time. The last time she did it, Bendon had shared his smile of amusement. There was something else in the old man’s eye, a sense of longing almost. It was only there for the barest of moments...