The Chaos Balance

LXXX

The Cyadoran mage walked slowly toward the ash-covered wall. His once-white boots were gray and matched trousers that were so ash-encrusted that they would never be white again.

Behind him walked Fissar, trimming his longer steps to remain behind the mage.

Themphi stopped a good hundred cubits short of the line of white stone and turned to the lanky apprentice. “You have the case?”

“Yes, mage Themphi.” Fissar extended the whitened leather container. His eyes flickered from the gaunt visage of the mage to the knee-high green shoots that rose from the ashes. Those ashes stretched nearly a half kay away from the white stone wall that once had marked the definitive south border of the Accursed Forest. The latest set of shoots remained confined to a space one hundred cubits from the wall.

Themphi eased the glass from the soft leather, careful to touch only the edges as he slowly lifted the glass and turned it to catch the sun. Covered with soot, his hands shook. His brows furrowed, but his eyes flashed.

The air around the white mage seemed to twist, and scattered shadows flickered through the cloudless sky.

From the glass poured a line of fire that struck the greenery. Ashes exploded like water striking cherry-red iron from a forge, sparking and spraying away from the sunflame that Themphi played across the ground.

In time, he lowered the glass.

Fissar took it from his shaking hands, and offered him a silver flagon.

The mage drank, deeply, then relinquished it to his apprentice.

Beyond the haze, Themphi could see the line of white stone, fissured and cracked. He also sensed fresh shoots of green ready to edge upward through the ashes, as they did in all places along the southern walls when the mages were not present. He tried not to think of the kay-wide stretch of new forest, more than waist high, sometimes man tall, that had grown along the north wall. All that despite the redoubled efforts provided by two journeymen and two apprentices, and three more companies of Mirror Foot. Despite his efforts and theirs, the Accursed Forest continued to threaten. If not for his efforts, would it reclaim all of eastern Cyador?

“Not while I am here,” he murmured. “No.”

Fissar opened his mouth, then closed it.

The white mage sighed and closed his eyes, standing silent in the sun for a time before reopening those tired orbs and starting to walk westward toward the next section of green-infested ash.