Blood of the Emperor (16 page)

“And are our warriors to stand still and our blades to remain clean while war is waged?” Marshal Wadex sputtered.

“That is precisely why, my good Thanes, you will support me in this war,” Jugar said, holding his head up with pride. “Because the manticores, goblins, gnomes, chimerians, and humans…all those who have come together against our common enemy, will fight our war
for
us. They will bleed in our stead. They will die for our cause. And when at last they have thrown themselves against the gates of Rhonas and both the Empire and this army of rebels are spent and wasted…only
then
shall our armies march from beneath the mountain and none shall remain to stand in our way.”

Silence fell among the Thanes.

“All you have to do is prepare the army for war and await my
word,” Jugar said through a gap-toothed grin, “while others do our dying for us.”

“And what will you be doing?” Thane Evod asked.

“Insuring our triumph,” Jugar replied, “By destroying Aether magic…wherever it is found.”

Conjuration

W
ITH HIS CLOAK PULLED AROUND HIM, Drakis stood next to Braun on a windswept hilltop two leagues to the east of what the residents had started calling Pyris Camp. Before them stood a ragged formation of pilgrims, almost entirely human with a smattering of elves, three goblins, and a gnome mixed in.

“These are all there are?” Drakis whispered to Braun in dismay.

“Yes, Drakis,” Braun answered with a soft smile in the morning light. The sun had drifted only a hand’s width above the horizon, burning away a hazy low fog and leaving them all under a bright, if chill sky. “Sixty-nine that have the ability to command the magic.”

“Sixty-nine?” Drakis said, shaking his head. “I count only fifty-three.”

“There have been a few—incidents—during the training,” Braun said, his thick brows lowering as he spoke.

“Incidents?”

“There were some initial problems with fire and lightning that we’re still working on and then there are the fold spells,” Braun shrugged. “They can be a bit difficult when you first learn them. They require a lot of control even over short distances. Some of our acolytes have more talent than patience and decided on their own to attempt longer distance folds for themselves.”

“Did they survive?” Drakis asked.

“If we ever find them, we’ll know,” Braun said then coughed.

Drakis turned to mask his frustration. He gazed at the vast encampment in the distance, spread as it was almost three leagues on a side spilling out of Willow Vale with columns of smoke rising into the bright sky from innumerable cook fires. An elven Legion would have to be blind not to spot that smoke from more than a hundred leagues in any direction.

And Soen—the elf Inquisitor who has hunted me since the day I woke to this living nightmare—advises me to move
that
secretly into Vestasia?
Drakis gritted his teeth at the thought.

It was insane. He had barely managed to get the quarrelsome pilgrims under some form of order. The enormous and still increasing number of pilgrims that comprised the assembly had created a growing problem of segregation within the encampment. Manticores preferred to associate with their own by virtue of their common customs. Chimerians were recognized by every other race as reclusive even in the best of relationships. Humans were distrustful of other races and had begun to develop their own group called the “Brothers of Drakis.” The elves that had joined the cause of Drakis felt shunned and marginalized. The presence of the goblins in the camp, ostensibly as a constabulary force operating side by side with the Grahn Aur Guard, had become a source of constant friction for everyone. Coercion, extortion, and intimidation were just a part of their job as far as the goblins were concerned, and they could not fathom why none of the other races in the encampment could grasp those simple facts.

Drakis spent most of the first day upon returning to the camp dealing with this mess. He first decided it would be better for him to proclaim a division of the encampment himself before other, more partisan divisions formed on their own. It was the Lyric who suggested that the pantheon of Drakosia would provide names for ten smaller camps. The names of ancient and largely forgotten gods were beyond the scope of any existing partisan disagreements. She even provided the names of the gods who now, it seemed, were remembered only by her: Abratias, Heritsania, Aremthis, Aegrain, Khorithan, Tyra, Pythus, Jurusta, Quabet, and Elucia. Drakis divided the Encampment into those ten individual camps and then appointed a council chosen from as best a balance of the different races as possible
for each. Each camp council would appoint a representative to the Council of the Grahn Aur to convey their problems to the central council as well as the directives of the council to each of the ten camps. It had taken three days to accomplish this; much longer than he had hoped.

He managed to return to the column of his army that night on the back of the dragon Marush. He kept flying into the night farther and farther up the coast until he discovered them encamped just north of Markrethold. Their advance had not been as fast as Drakis had hoped and his meetings with the unit commanders lasted well into the night. He managed a few fitful hours of sleep before awakening again and, back on the harness fixed around Marush’s neck, returned again to the southwest.

On the fourth day, Drakis had met with the Pajak of the goblins and convinced the goblin ruler—through his winning smile and the presence of an enormous, impressive, and hungry-looking dragon at his back—to have the Pajak’s units on wyvernback conduct their so-called “security patrols” only
outside
of the encampment and leave the interior enforcement of the camp’s law to the Grahn Aur Guards. It had still cost the coffers of the encampment dearly to purchase that agreement even with the threat of Marush eating the Pajak’s entire court but thereafter the incidence of theft and extortion within the encampment plummeted.

But as Drakis stood on the hilltop next to Braun and inspected the group standing before him, he was not sure how long the unity of the pilgrims would last.

“So your folds can’t help us, then?” Drakis asked Braun.

“Oh, of course they can help!” Braun grinned. “We lost a few at first but we’ve gotten rather good at the folds since then. It’s largely a question of the potency of the Aether as we draw on it. The more potency the Aether exerts, the farther we can open the fold. Unfortunately that potency falls off over distance. The farther we get from the inverted Aether Well in Port Glorious and, for that matter, the Wells you inverted across the ocean in Drakosia, the less potent the Aether we have to draw upon. The Rhonas enchanters surmounted this problem through the use of portable altars for their Devotions. They would gather the weak force from distant Aether Wells over a lengthy period
of time and then discharge it in a powerful burst of Aether in a short period of time.

“Could such a device help us?” Drakis wondered.

“Absolutely,” Braun affirmed. “As as soon as I can determine just how such a device can be built, we will make use of it at once. What would be most helpful would be an elven enchanter who could tell us how such a thing might be accomplished. Still, the Aether should be sufficient to help us reach the Shadow Coast. Once we are there we could invert one of their local Wells and that would solve many of our problems for us.”

“So you believe this group of wizards can move the entire population of the encampment, their wagons, equipment, and the army as well?”

“Undoubtedly!” Braun beamed. “We can with almost perfect certainty project a transport fold corridor a distance of ten leagues if we can see the destination—twice that distance if we have another mage at the other end. You remember the gatefold runes I used to inscribe as a Proxi? In this case, the mage acts as a living rune, anchoring the far fold and doubling the distance traveled.”

Drakis turned his skeptical gaze back on the assembly before them. “And these are all the enchanters you could find?”

“Mages,” Braun corrected.

“Mages and enchanters…what’s the difference?” Drakis sighed.

“Mage is the latest appellation for the users of our Aether magic,” Braun said with a smile. “A mage is traditionally someone who uses or channels magic. It’s found in the old Drakosian language, or so the Lyric tells me. Those who use the elven method of Aether would more properly be called “enchanters” as their technique requires that the magic be channeled through a prepared physical object…”

“Such as a Matei staff,” said a voice from the huddled group before them.

Drakis looked sharply toward the high-pitched, elven voice.

Soen stepped out from the gathered mages and approached Drakis and Braun as he continued speaking, his unpowered staff still in his hand. “The Aether requires a physical property or conduit through which its power may be channeled. But the elven enchantments, as you call them, and your own sorcery, as you may more reasonably call
it, are basically the same. Rhonas magic is channeled through exterior physical objects like staves, crystals, wands, amulets, and the like. Braun magic—and if it needs a name, why not your own?—also requires a physical resonant connection with the source of Aether but in your case the connection appears to be in your internal bones rather than external objects. Elven magical items resonate and are bound with the Aether with which they are charged which is why they retain the power over time. Your bones do the same—but it seems that only a very particular combination will work, is this not so?”

“Why are you here?” Drakis asked with thinly-veiled suspicion.

“Perhaps a better question to ask would be
how
I am here,” Soen responded.

“You were with the Army of the Prophet when I saw you last,” Drakis said, his eyes narrowing as they fixed on the Iblisi’s Matei staff. “You should be more than a week’s travel away.”

Soen followed Drakis’ gaze then shook his head, smiling. “No, Lord Drakis, my magic has not returned. My staff is still dead and my powers spent. In truth, you were the magician who conjured me here.”

“He was selected,” Braun groaned. “He’s right, Drakis. You asked that we quietly find as many among the encampment as had a gift for the restored Aether magic and gather them for training. Whenever we found an acolyte—a novice mage—the first thing we taught them was how to use the Aether to detect others who had the gift and bring them here. Once the folds were more reliable, we sent several mages to search the army.”

“And to bring them back here through your folds,” Drakis sighed then glared at Soen.

Soen shrugged, smiling as he showed his sharp teeth slightly. “It seems I have an aptitude for this sort of thing.”

“Get him out of here,” Drakis said quietly to Braun. “He’s done enough already.”

Drakis turned his back to walk away.

“On the contrary, Drakis, I’ve done too much to stop now,” Soen called out. “Rhonas Magic and Drakosian Magic—it’s two sides of the same Aether coin. There are important, fundamental differences between them but there are significant areas that they have in common—and I know them better than any man here, including Braun.”

Drakis stopped but did not turn around.

“Braun said just a moment ago that there were nuances of controlling the Aether that were difficult to master but the elves had faced those problems early on in their use of the Aether and developed methods of dealing with them—methods from elven enchantment magic that can be applied to human conjuration.”

“Enchantment and conjuration!” Braun beamed. “Say, I like that!”

“I’m offering you knowledge that could take you years to develop and discover on your own,” Soen said. “Knowledge you need now to help your people survive.”

Drakis turned. He looked at Soen, considering before he spoke. “What do you want, Soen?”

“Teach me your magic,” Soen said casually. “Just let me learn from Braun what everyone else you have brought here has come to learn as well.”

“Our repertoire is limited,” Braun said, almost apologetically. “You might be bored.”

“You just show me your magic,” Soen said, his featureless, dull black eyes still fixed on Drakis. “And I’ll show you mine.”

“Oh, I like the sound of that…and it seems rather fair,” Braun nodded with a pleasant smile. “Edra! Kardan! Open a fold another league to the east and take half the acolytes with you. Jullan and Pheleg; you take the rest of the acolytes—including Soen—through a fold two leagues to the south. Pheleg you’ll teach Soen the fold anchor summoning. Soen will anchor the southern group and Kardan will anchor the eastern. Then we’ll practice folds between the anchor points.”

A collective groan was heard from among the acolytes.

“I’ll move between the two and we’ll see what Soen has to contribute,” Braun said. “Go now, we’ve got a lot to cover today.”

Edra, a scrawny female human with her hair cropped raggedly short, stepped out from among the group and raised her hands. She formed patterns in the air in front of her as she spoke, the words somehow interacting with the gestures and causing the air to waver in front of her. Suddenly the space tore into a circular opening in the air with a different place beyond. Jullan, the sole gnome in the group, did likewise and a second fold opened leading to a rocky knoll presumably
two leagues to the south. As soon as the openings appeared, the acolytes began filing through them to the other side.