The Silence of Medair

Chapter Three

Dramatic thoughts of suicide were nothing new to Medair. Waking early, she set about packing in the relative cool of dawn. The pile of saddles and bags she had taken from the other horses would mark the place she’d spent the night, but she didn’t think it worth the effort of hiding them. She would do better to simply stay ahead of her Decian pursuers.

The bay had almost chewed through his tether overnight and eyed her sidelong as she approached. He knew she wasn’t his usual rider and didn’t seem as indifferent to the fact as most horses she encountered. She offered him a dry biscuit, which he lipped eagerly, consenting to stand still long enough for her to heave the saddle onto his back. Then, when she was distracted trying to tighten the girth-strap, he stood on her foot. Her boot saved her from more than a bruise, but it was hardly endearing. Cursing, she gave an admonitory jerk on his bridle, and he blew his ribs out in retaliation. Now she could barely get the girth fastened, let alone safely tightened. Nasty creature.

She considered continuing to wear the ring. Animal control was not a quiet magic, and the ring would act as a small beacon for any mages in the area. But she had no wish to fight her mount for the entire day. After a moment’s hesitation, she used it long enough to get the bit and saddle properly settled and herself securely on the bay’s back. The gelding snorted and surged a few paces down the road when she slipped the ring back into her satchel, but, though his ears were back, he didn’t buck or bolt. That would be enough.

Bariback was a forest of low, dark trees: tight, close and secretive. It had never been a friendly place and, beneath the tallest mountain in Farak’s Girdle, it felt crushed and sullen. The road was well supplied with fallen logs and encroaching saplings, and on top of that it was an awful day for any sort of travel. The air was treacle, buzzing insects pestered, crawling over sweat-soaked skin and making determined attempts to fly up her nose. The bay’s tail flicked in constant punctuation to their progress and Medair spent half her time pulling at the collar of her greying shirt, which was sticking to her in the most uncomfortable manner imaginable. She made a note to cut her straggling hair, plastered with sweat past her nose and down the back of her neck. A year’s untamed growth, when she’d once kept it almost daily trimmed.

Despite the circumstances and the heat, Medair was feeling almost cheerful. Her tentative decision to return to the cave where she had found the Horn was now a definite goal. Whether she would stay to sleep was another matter, something she doubted she could decide until she was there. But giving up the burden of lost hope which was hidden within her satchel was something she was certain was a good idea.

Late morning, and the bay’s head suddenly came up, ears pricked forward. He stuttered to a halt and sidled sideways when Medair tried to urge him on, nearly dislodging her on a low branch. Pacifying him by agreeing not to go anywhere just yet, she stared along the overgrown road, wondering what had set him off, and spotted a dozen thin streamers of smoke dissipating in the muggy air to the north. Camp fires? A forest fire? It was big, but didn’t seem to be getting any bigger.

She couldn’t go back. Nor did she want to leave the road and risk getting completely turned around in the forest. It was important to get to Thrence quickly, so she could lose herself in the crowd and try to find a solution to the Decians' trace spell. The bay made his opinion clear by backing down the centre of the road.

Exasperated, Medair hauled out the silver ring again. Enough was enough. If it were an early summer fire, she needed to be past before it really caught. If it were more strangers, then she could always try and outrun them.

Under the control of the ring, the bay went forward, jerky and reluctant. By the time they were close enough for the smoke to be making her eyes sting, he was inching down the road, sweating and blowing. The ring gave him no choice but to go on, but his extreme resistance was making Medair wonder if going around might be the better option. It wasn’t just burning wood she could smell. It was the rank, sickly odour of scorched meat.

Then she saw the bodies. A fat man dressed in comfortable robes lay on the road in a position which spoke eloquently of attempted flight. The back of his skull was a black depression. A short distance away lay an armswoman with a red snake insignia on her shield and flies rioting in the blood drying around her. Medair had seen death before. She had witnessed the slow defeat of the Palladian Empire, stood impotently on the sidelines of too many battles. Toward the end there had been heavy losses. Dead people still made her sick to the stomach.

Dismounting, she led the bay carefully around the bodies. His ears were flat back and his eyes showed white, but the ring held him. She wouldn’t try its control by taking him directly toward whatever was up ahead. Instead, she led him off the right side of the road and made a short, arduous journey through the trees until the smoke streamers were behind them and the air untainted. Then, leaving her slightly less frantic horse securely tethered, Medair went back.

She had stumbled onto slaughter. There were bodies in all directions, centred around a circle of char about a hundred feet in diameter, intersecting with the road along one edge. It looked like a prelude to the Conflagration and had probably been burning merrily yesterday afternoon or evening while she slept at the roadside. It was fortunate that the fire had not spread far outside the blast area, or she would have woken to a more pressing problem than a fractious mount.

Dotted among the fallen trees and charred remains of shrubs were blackened lumps. Large ones for horses, smaller for people. Medair made a complete circuit of the ashes first, a cloth held over her face as she worked to keep her stomach under control. An adept had done this: killed so many so quickly. An adept of immense power, for the blast to have been so large, which likely meant an Ibisian. What had she stumbled into? What were the White Snakes planning now?

A pale, mask-like face turned to look at her out of every corner of her memory. She could almost hear that soft voice make some particularly hateful comment about unfounded assumptions.

Shaking distractions out of her head, Medair looked about for a key to this carnage. Half out of the circle of char lay a man wearing a familiar outfit of grey cloth and sturdy leather, no insignia visible. Bariback seemed to be infested with Decians. She had to force herself to check the body over for identification, but found only his hawk-nosed profile to proclaim his allegiance.

Reviewing the uncharred bodies, she found Decians, Kyledran guards, the badge of a merchanter house, and more snake-shielded fighters. Mercenaries. The mercenaries were probably connected to the merchants, hired swords. But here was another, this time with a silver horse on his shield. Very well, four or five distinct groups, out here in the middle of nowhere, fighting. Over what?

Being familiar with spells that exploded, although unable to cast them, Medair walked gingerly to the centre of the blackened ring and sighed through her teeth and the cloth which was wholly inadequate at blocking the stench. Fire was a dangerous weapon in close combat – it killed so indiscriminately sometimes even the caster fell.

Uncharred, a woman in a brown travelling dress lay crumpled atop a circle of green grass. She’d been wounded, Medair guessed, and her body hadn’t been able to take the stress of the spectacular casting she’d released. It was hard to guess from her appearance, but Medair thought she might be linked to the mercenaries. She was too blonde to be a Decian and didn’t seem to be a Kyledran official.

There was an inexplicably strong and distinct aura of power lingering about the fallen mage. Medair, investigating tentatively, discovered a purse tied to the woman’s belt. She opened it and shook out onto her hand a cluster of faceted stones, clear with a tinge of yellow. Each was about the size of a pigeon’s egg.

Disbelieving, Medair almost dropped them. This explained the span of the fire and was most likely the reason behind the battle, as well. Rahlstones. Not incredibly powerful in their own right, but they magnified a mage’s power tenfold. Her eyes went to the dead woman’s hand, clenched into a fist, and she carefully prised it open. Another clear stone. After a brief hesitation she added it to the rest.

A dozen rahlstones.

"Just what I didn’t need to find," she muttered, surveying the carnage. These people had killed each other, almost certainly over the contents of the purse. None had survived to take the stones, but there would surely be many more eager to ride right over Medair to take possession. She wanted nothing to do with what could only be a major intrigue.

But it seemed stupid to leave them lying in this blackened clearing, so she dropped them into her satchel, where the power-shielding would hide their presence. A contribution to Kersym Bleak’s collection, unless she found something more positive to do with them.

Turning to leave, she literally stumbled over a figure curled at the base of one of the smouldering trees. A boy of twelve or thirteen, only singed beneath a thick coating of ash. Alive.

Wide-eyed, Medair lifted him from the ashes and staggered out of the circle, checking for wounds and finding none. He was breathing steadily, but his temperature was high and he was obviously dehydrated. There was the scent of power about him, too. Not as obvious as the rahlstones, but a lingering suggestion of depth.

Except for that trace of power, he was not difficult to puzzle out, especially with the blue circles beneath his eyes and that temperature. The boy was a mage. Strong, since he’d been able to protect himself against the fire. In the brief moments between realizing what the brown-clad woman was casting and the set-spell being released, he must have drawn the sum of his strength up into a shield of pure power, the simplest and most exhaustive of magical manoeuvres. So now he was in spell shock, having overextended his considerable abilities.

Spell shock was not fatal, if you survived the actual casting. The boy would be weak and feverish and thirsty and would doubtless sleep a great deal over the next few days, but he would not die. Unless she left him out here in the ash, with a storm coming. She would not, of course, but she grumbled beneath her breath, mind on the five men who thought she must be valuable, none of whom were likely to cherish kind thoughts about her after she had stolen their horses. How far behind were they now? How much would this boy slow her down?

Medair was able to hook him over a shoulder and stagger back to the horse, where she pulled water skins from her satchel. The bay was grateful for the drink, but the boy only feebly swallowed without waking. He did not so much as move as she struggled to keep him slung across the bay’s withers while she mounted. She didn’t need a dependant, no matter how forlorn he looked, and would leave him at the first convenient village.

Thunder accompanied her on the awkward ride which followed, and an early green-grey twilight descended. Then the rain arrived in force. At first the huge, heavy drops were a relief after the relentless humidity of the last couple of days. It quickly became an annoyance, then something to make the situation wholly miserable: riding through a forest on a mean-tempered, stolen horse, clutching a dirty, feverish little boy, and hunted by five killers.

Drenched and battered by the force of the downpour, vision obscured, she could think of nothing to do but travel on until she reached the ramshackle wayfarer’s shelter she’d used on her way to the mountain. It couldn’t be more than a mile or two, and she used the time to speculate about the boy’s role in the battle. He was dressed in plain trousers and loose shirt. Perhaps he was a servant of the merchant, or even the son of the mage. When he had recovered she would at least be able to ask him what had happened. An exchange of the precious stones, interrupted by – one? two? – sets of thieves?

The current political situation was not particularly stable – or had not been in Autumn, when there had been talk of a trade war between Decia and Palladium. A dozen rahlstones would be a spectacular advantage if it came to war. Used together, a group of adepts could cut a swathe through enemy forces or maintain defensive spells against all but the most persistent attack. Their stock of rahlstones had been one of the things which had made it possible for the Ibisians to wage war against an entire Empire.

The shelter proved too small for the horse, but she was sure it would mind the rain less and, besides, it shouldn’t have stood on her foot. Medair tended to the animal before the boy so she wouldn’t have to venture back out into the rain and by the time she staggered inside with the tack she was shivering.

The single bedroll she had kept was soaked, but she made do with a pile of the many blankets she had stowed in her satchel. Stripping the boy, she dropped him on the pile beneath another blanket, then chanted her way through a fire charm, wishing she’d had the foresight to ready a few set-spells before being forced to flee Bariback Mountain. Finally, she started a watery vegetable stew and changed into dry clothes and considered the boy.

He sounded suitably alive, groaning and twitching as she wiped traces of ash from his face. She patted a streaked cheek consolingly. Not a particularly taking lad, with little chin and a nose which would be impressive when he was fully grown, but he’d survived that fire, so there must be something to him. When the stew was done and she had eaten, Medair eased him upright, and rested him against her chest. Time to try to coax him awake, enough to accept a spoonful of savoury liquid.

The role of nurse was new to her, and she was uncertain if she was doing all she should, but the boy’s response to the stew was at least encouraging. He was sluggish and only half-awake, but if he could eat he mustn’t be too deeply spell shocked. His skin was still fever-hot, but he did not drop immediately back to sleep. Blinking ponderously at the ceiling, he lay frowning at something, then focused on her when she sat back down.

"A few days abed and you’ll be back on your feet," she told him. "You can rest properly at the next village along the road." And out of her fumbling hands, Thank Farak!

The sandy brows drew together as he blinked at her again. She wondered if he was short-sighted. "It’s spell shock," she informed him, attempting a soothing tone. "Not too serious. Don’t worry, you’ll sleep it off before the week’s out."

Definite perturbation. He turned his head to look at her better, then abruptly lifted a hand and held it over her face. Medair flinched instinctively, but he compensated, the base of his palm pressing against her chin, fingers splayed towards her brow. Before she could do or say anything there was a huge surge of arcane power and the boy said, "Take me to Athere," in a hoarse, barely audible voice. "As directly as convenient," he added, then sighed and passed out.

Medair gaped.

"You little wretch!" she gasped, not believing what had happened. A geas. He had put a geas on her. This scrawny, filthy, half-dead scrap of a boy had geased her!

Medair’s vision swam with unaccustomed fury. It was a spell the White Snakes had introduced to Farakkan. They had geased their prisoners in droves, bound them with magic so the invaders need not fear the conquered. It had been in many ways a merciful approach, but Medair would never forget the frustrated impotence in the eyes of the people of Mishannon, the first Palladians bound not to harm Ibisians. One of them had described it as living with your heart in a cage.

Trembling with anger, she paced about the confines of the shelter, glaring at the grimy face above the matching grey blanket. A geas. The little rodent had geased her. Geased her!

Eventually, since the little rodent was now both defenceless and unconscious, she calmed down enough to sit sulkily on her own blanket, still glaring. There had to be a way out of this.

The geas had not been spur-of-the-moment. He had had it set, just waiting to spring on someone. Not an uncommon practice – many spells took too long in the casting to be useful, but they could be prepared, set, ready to be triggered, and would last up to a couple of weeks before they had to be renewed. She couldn’t tell a great deal about the geas which he had placed on her, though she could feel the power of it like a snake coiling about her spine. She doubted it was as simple as the verbal command he had given. Very likely it had the usual clauses about not harming the caster and so forth, so she couldn’t kill him to free herself and she could not break it. Medair was too minor a mage to even begin to cast such a spell, and the Empire had learned some hard lessons about how much stronger than the caster you needed to be to break a geas.

Despite her limited magical defences, she might have been able to withstand the geas if she’d guessed for one moment that he could or would cast such a spell. Instead, having nursed this viper back to relative health, he had surprised her with a bond she didn’t have the ability to break.

Medair grimaced. Relative health indeed. He looked on his way to giving up the ghost. Most of the power for the geas would have been in the preparation, but what he had used in triggering it had obviously sent him close to the brink. Well, there wasn’t anything she could do for him. He would die or he wouldn’t and it would serve him right if he did!

After a further spate of glowering she pulled another blanket from her satchel and tucked him up more firmly. There was still a hint of power about him and, at this stage, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had a whole sackful of tricks ready and waiting for unwary rescuers.

"A twelve year-old adept. My luck is running true to course." Medair stared out at the storm, which was now driving in through the door. With difficulty she shut out the weather, and carefully fed damp twigs into the fire to alleviate the gloom. Smoke lurked about the ceiling, but didn’t grow too suffocating. Small mercies.

Medair wasn’t particularly good at being angry, so she grew resigned instead, plotting her course to Palladium’s capital on the map she kept in her head. The quickest route would be east from Thrence through Farash, but nothing was ever that simple. As Herald she had been used to travelling without bar or threat through an Empire where quarrels between duchies were settled in the Silver Court. Now Farakkan had broken into myriad little kingdoms clustered into alliances about four major realms: the Ibisian Palladium in the north-east, Decia to the south, Mymentia in the west and Ashencaere in the north-west. Kyledra, Lemmek and Farash enjoyed an uneasy existence in the centre of these four groups, battling not to be swallowed up or overrun in the hostilities between their powerful neighbours.

Strange to think of the once ardently loyal Duchy of Farash at odds with the Empire’s heartland, but she’d found on her way to Bariback that the border between Farash and Palladium was not an easy one to cross. She doubted it would be any simpler on the way back, especially with a semi-conscious mage-child in her care and who knew how many different groups searching for someone with rahlstones.

Grumpily, Medair decided on a route north to the generally neutral Ashencaere, which had remained inward-looking since the fall of the Mersians – a kingdom far older than the Palladian Empire. There was nothing else to do but go to sleep. Resisting a geas once it had taken hold usually resulted in painful bouts of nausea, headaches, all manner of nasty maladies right up to total paralysis. If she didn’t take the boy to Athere "as directly as convenient," she’d have cause to regret it. Fortunately the wording of the compulsion wasn’t wholly unreasonable. She would not be forced to travel through the night until she dropped in exhaustion, but she doubted she would be given too long a grace period.

Nothing ever seemed to work according to her plans. She should stop making them.