Mage's Blood

Gron Koll lay convulsing on the ground below the statue, inches from the water’s edge. He had been scalded by the steam where his water-shield had met Tesla’s fire – a water-shield was an effective defence against fire, unless the attacker was more skilled. In that case, it was supreme folly. Koll had been hugely overmatched; every inch of exposed skin was blistered and broken, revealing scarlet under-layers raw and weeping with seams of white fluids.

Alaron looked towards the flood-bank. <Muhren—?>

Tesla snorted dismissively. ‘The valiant Watch Captain Muhren is more or less alive. He seemed to think he could take on Darius Fyrell head-to-head and win.’

‘Is he—? What happened?’

‘He was losing. Then some of his watchmen came and got killed trying to defend him. Then I came. Fyrell wasn’t expecting me.’

‘Is he dead?’

‘Fyrell is a Necromancer, dear. They’re like head-lice – those bastards can survive almost anything. But you won’t be hearing from him for a while.’ There was a touch of satisfaction in her voice. ‘Did you and your friends really think you could keep all your little conspiracies from me, boy? Did you think I was deaf and stupid as well as blind?’ She glanced down at Gron Koll. ‘This was one of those slimes you schooled with, yes?’

Alaron looked down, nauseated by the agony of his old rival.

Tesla appeared to have no such qualms. ‘Good. Then let him suffer a little longer.’ She picked up the cylinder. ‘So this is it?’

He tried to push the sight of Koll from his mind. Cym gave a faint sigh and he lowered her to the ground. Cym, please be all right!

Tesla stroked the cylinder. ‘The Scytale of Corineus. So this was what it was all about, back in 909 … All that patriotism and speechifying that got half our menfolk killed. Stolen, lost and now found.’ Her empty sockets blazed with some emotion and her shoulders shook, but her voice was its usual raven’s croak when she spoke again. ‘What do you think you’re going to do with it, son?’

‘I don’t care any more. Ma, I have to go. Ramon—’

‘Was still breathing. I got to him about a minute after you left. I did enough.’ She brandished the Scytale. ‘You might not care what happens to this thing, but the rest of the world does. The fate of nations, Alaron: that’s what this thing is. What did old Jari have planned?’

‘A new Order, dedicated to peace.’

‘Really? How sweet.’ She suddenly sucked in a distressed breath and staggered slightly.

‘Ma!’ He grabbed at her. ‘What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ll tell you later. Come on, we’ve got to go now. Jeris Muhren is with his men; they’ll look to him. I know a safe place nearby.’ She handed Alaron the knife she had pulled from Cym’s back. ‘I’ll look after the girl, Alaron. You deal with that little prick in the mud over there.’

He stared at her as she wafted her hand to lift Cym and began flowing away across the dappled waves. Someone called across the waters: a watchman. Tesla ignored the man.

He walked back to Gron Koll. He was lying totally still, his breathing laboured and shallow. His eyes flickered at Alaron. <Please – mercy—>

What is mercy? To spare an enemy so he can come after you?

A memory of Auntie Elena, when he was much younger: If you pick up a weapon, you must be ready to kill with it – that’s what they tell us at weapons-training, Alaron. But the thing is, for a mage, our whole being is a weapon. Even healing-gnosis can be used to kill … We pick up our powers and use them every day. We are killers by nature.

It had sounded wrong then. Aren’t we shields too, he had replied, don’t we protect people too?

She had looked at him thoughtfully. Perhaps we are, boy, she’d said. The next day she’d left for Javon. That was the last time he’d seen her.

Now Alaron steeled himself and forced his eyes to take in the ruined youth, his gorge rising as he looked at the bones exposed where the skin and sinew and flesh had been boiled away. He realised that there was only one mercy he could give. He knelt and placed the blade on Koll’s chest. This is mercy.

As he pushed it into Koll’s chest, Koll wheezed, ‘Fuck … you … Mercer—’ Then his eyes went misty and lost focus. His head fell back and his features went slack, empty.

Alaron knelt over him, his emotions churning as hard as his belly, and then he straightened. Dawn kissed the mountains and shafts of light burst across the sky. He turned his face from what he’d done and took to the air, skimming across the water in his mother’s wake.

Belonius Vult stumbled down the slope, shouting with the remainder of his gnosis for some kind of response: <Fyrell – Fyrell, answer me! Koll – where are you? Answer me!> He stumbled again, rolled down a slick, grassy slope, barking his shins, and slammed his ankle against something, making him cry out. He stopped then, clutched his bloodied knees and for an instant felt like a small boy, before his gnosis had developed, when he was just the runt of the nursery, his elder brother’s prey.

He stifled a groan. Fool: rest, recover – Langstrit is dead, Fyrell and Koll are either dead or not answering and exhausting yourself won’t change that. Rest for an hour or two. You will still triumph: when you want something enough, the whole universe conspires to aid you. The Scytale will be yours.

You are still governor. You are still Magister. There are no enemies here.

But no fresh energy rose inside him. He’d reached his limits, softened by nearly two decades of ease and luxury. It won’t matter. A few minutes’ rest. A few minutes of sleep.

Sleep; Alaron craved it more than anything else as he carried Cym through the waking streets, his mother clutching his shoulder, her gnosis exhausted, once more a helpless blind woman. Occasional people stared, but no one approached, not even Watchmen, daunted perhaps by Tesla’s battle-mage robes and blasted countenance.

She guided him to a side-street and down a filthy flight of stairs. A furtive man with white whiskers kissed his mother’s hand and led them to a rough wooden door. ‘And this is young Alaron?’ he murmured reverently. ‘I served your Aunt Elena in the Revolt, so I did. Pars Logan, I am. You remember me to your aunt if you see her.’ He took Tesla’s arm. ‘Come this way, milady.’

Logan led them down many stairs, deep beneath the earth, where they’d be safe from scrying. Cym was ashen-faced and breathing shallowly; Tesla was tottering on her feet by the time they reached the room, where a woman, Logan’s wife, was watching over an occupied bed. Alaron almost burst into tears when he saw that the occupant was Ramon. He carried Cym to the other bed, then sagged against it, his knees turning to jelly.

Ramon’s breath was laboured, but his burns were already half-healed from Langstrit’s earlier aid. Alaron whispered thanks, wondering where the old man was.

Cym clutched his hand when he bent over her, her eyes flickering open, wide and frightened. ‘Alaron?’

‘It’s me. You’re okay.’ Stinging tears welled from his eyes.

‘Where is it,’ she whispered, ‘the Scytale?’

‘Ma has it,’ he whispered back. ‘It’s okay, we’re safe.’

‘What about Muhren? And the general?’

‘Muhren’s alive, but not here.’ He swallowed. ‘We don’t know about the general.’ He glanced at the other bed. ‘Ramon’s here. He’s healing up.’

‘Good thing you’ve got a mother to haul our asses out of the fire, eh?’ Cym murmured, and Alaron nodded mutely. ‘Go to her. Let me sleep.’

He bent down and pressed his lips to hers and she started to turn away, as usual, then stopped resisting. She tasted tart and cool, and he wished he could freeze this moment for ever. ‘I love you,’ he whispered.

Her eyebrows twitched. ‘Idiot. Piss off.’ She smiled sadly, nothing but sympathy in her eyes.

He turned away to hide his face from hers, brushing away tears. I love her and she feels only pity. He felt his heart crumble inside his chest. ‘You rest,’ he whispered huskily, and stumbled away.

He found his mother in a small room at the end of the hall, in one of two armchairs beside a fireplace. Pars Logan had lit the fire and left them a goblet of red wine each. Tesla turned at the sound of his feet, cringing as she did when her gnosis was not engaged. The Scytale cylinder lay in her lap, unopened.

He kissed her forehead, fell to his knees and hugged her. ‘Thank you, Ma.’

She snorted slightly. ‘It’s what mothers do, isn’t it? Clear up their children’s messes.’

‘Where’s Da?’

‘Stuck in a ten-mile swamp on the Verelon Road with all of our worldly goods. Idiot man.’ She stroked Alaron’s head. ‘Idiot son. Lucky for you I’m not dead yet.’

He remembered her earlier faltering. ‘Are you all right, Ma?’

She gave a small sigh. ‘I’m still alive, Alaron – but not for much longer. I have a cancer, you see. It would have killed a non-mage, years ago, and most of my strength has gone into fighting it.’ She grimaced. ‘I’ve got a few weeks, maybe. That’s all.’

‘I’m sorry we dragged you into this. You should have saved your strength.’

‘Nonsense. I’ve always wanted to give that shit Fyrell a good kicking. A shame Vult wasn’t there too. I’d have given him something to think about, pure-blood or not. You don’t mess with an Anborn.’ Her voice held all the bitter combativeness he remembered. She touched his face. ‘Life is struggle, Alaron. You have to be strong and fight for what is yours.’ She brandished the Scytale. ‘Right now, that includes this.’

He nodded mutely and Tesla stroked his face with her ruined fingers, reading the shape of his nose, his mouth, his chin. ‘You know, I’ve never seen you in the flesh, only with the gnosis, and that’s not the same as real sight.’ She gripped the back of his head and pulled him to her neck, pinioned him to her. ‘I could have been a better mother, I suppose, but it’s not easy, being a burnt-out wreckage like this. In the end I gave up. It was hard on you and your father. I’m sorry for that.’

He gripped her thin body and wept. ‘I love you, Ma.’

She grunted thickly. ‘I know, boy. Go and sleep, now. I’ll still be here in the morning.’ She kissed his forehead with cold lips and he felt her mind brush roughly against his: <Goodnight, son. I’m proud of you.>

At the door he half-turned, but she was stroking the Scytale, lost in reverie. Logan was outside the door. He led Alaron to another spartan chamber with a mattress in the corner. He staggered forward and collapsed onto it. All of the terror and adrenalin ebbed away. It was all too much.

Pars Logan shook him awake, countless hours later, murmuring, ‘Young master, you better come. It’s your mother.’

Alaron stumbled up from the mattress. ‘What time is it? What’s happened?’

‘Almost midday, lad.’ Logan led him back to the lounge, where Tesla was still huddled in the big armchair.

Alaron waited for her to turn her head, for her sightless eyes to pin him down. But she didn’t move.

‘I came in to check on her,’ Pars whispered, ‘but she wasn’t breathing.’

Alaron swallowed a sob, tiptoeing to her side as if scared to wake her. Her hand was cold, the scarred face slack and unmoving. Her face was uncharacteristically calm. She used all that she had to save me and it killed her. He dropped to his knees and hugged her cold body to him, fighting the welling grief.

Her taloned hands were gripping the blanket tight. His eyes fell to her lap and then cast about the room. The cylinder containing the Scytale of Corineus was gone. His heart pounded.

Pars Logan handed him an envelope. ‘This was on the mantle, young master. It’s got your name on it.’

Cym’s writing. Alaron tore it open.

Dear Alaron

Do not think the worst of me. Your mother was dead when I found her. I would never have wished her ill. She told me one night when I was tending her that she ought to be dead already. My deepest sorrow for your loss.

I can never repay you and Ramon for your kindness. You risked your futures to teach me. You are my heroes.

The Scytale – yes, I have taken it. I couldn’t just hide here until Vult returned to take it from us. I had to act. I’m sorry.

I’ve never told you about my mother. I will now, so that you know that my decision is the right one. Her name is Justina, and my grandfather, the true and rightful owner of the Scytale of Corineus, is Antonin Meiros. My father and mother were lovers one summer. She never wanted a child, so Father took me away.

I know you have spent most of the last seven years in love with me. Perhaps I love you back, but not in the way you want. Maybe when this is all done, we’ll see one another again, free from danger. How we will laugh! But until then, please don’t hate me and please don’t try to find me.

Show this letter to Ramon. Tell the little sneak that I love him too, in the same way I love you: as a brother.

Be safe,

Cymbellea Meiros de Regia

He looked at Pars Logan. ‘She gone, isn’t she? The Rimoni girl.’

Pars hung his head. ‘I’m sorry lad. She must move like a ghost. Like a moonbeam.’

‘Like a moonbeam,’ Alaron echoed bleakly.