Twixt Heaven And Hell (8 page)

And be well worth it, for all that,
Theodoric thought darkly. As the matter stood, if Bastion did not find a way to counter or make up for this advantage, they would soon find themselves in a very difficult position.

All at once, the General came to a decision. “We will attack Cairn at once,” he announced, and several of his commanders’ faces brightened at the pronouncement. “The Enemy is no doubt preparing another attack for some other valuable place within our border. We’ll make him split his attention. Perhaps they’ll be able to stop us, but I don’t think so. I can hold Cairn inside of two days, and there are other defensible positions I can retreat to if I must. Yes, we’ll make certain the Enemy doesn’t have everything his way.”

To his dismay, Wizard Ethion immediately spoke against him. “No, Theo! We cannot risk it. What if the Enemy simply surrounds you in the field? We cannot throw away the forces we’ve built up here so rashly. We must learn more about this spell before we do anything else.”

“Ethion, the Enemy has a limited supply of both soldiers and magicians, just as we do. They will certainly not abandon Nebeth now that they’ve taken it, and I guarantee you that they are preparing another attack for another place. We can prevent that attack, probably even take and hold Cairn! I have enough men and provisions to withstand months of siege!”

“It is a fine plan, Theodoric,” The Wizard began, and even with the kind words the General’s heart sunk. “But I forbid it. It is too dangerous now, and we have much to lose. Bastion will get word to us soon, I have no doubt. We will know what to do then.”

I know what to do
now, Theodoric thought, but it was no use. Even the most junior wizard technically outranked the most senior General, and Ethion was one of the most powerful and experienced wizards Bastion had ever produced. Arguing with him would be of no use whatsoever.

Even when he is wrong,
The general thought as he nodded his acquiescence, unable to keep the frustration off his face.

Especially
when he is wrong.

Chapter Twelve

Balkan was surprised to see that the latch to his laboratory was undone. There was someone working magic inside, as well. While the room did not technically belong to him, it had been so long since any other wizard had used it that it came as a shock. He pushed open the door and saw a man sitting in the chair by the far wall, near the only window in the chamber.

Darius looked over his shoulder and smiled. “Hello, Balkan. I decided to borrow your room for a bit.”

Balkan returned the smile. “You are welcome to it, my friend. I’m surprised to see you here – have you decided that research is for you, after all?”

Darius snorted. “Hardly. Still, come and look.”

Balkan walked past the bookshelves – many of them filled with volumes penned by Balkan’s own hand – to stand by his friend. There was a sheet of parchment laid on the table, and an ink pot and quill, but nothing had been written down. Darius was worrying at something in his right hand, and as Balkan approached he opened his fist to show that it was merely a pebble, such as could be picked up on any street in Bastion.

“The magic of pebbles,” Balkan said. “An obscure and perilous study.”

“Shush. Watch.”

Leaning back in the aged wooden chair, Darius lay each arm down on the rests. He allowed his hands to rest open naturally, the pebble still cupped within his right palm. Balkan felt magic begin to well up within his friend, centered within the palms of both his hands. The pebble began to wobble ever so slightly, moving seemingly of its own accord as the nature of reality was bent and reshaped around it in ways Balkan had never seen before.

Darius was now commanding a great deal of power, and the effort could be seen in the sweat that covered his furrowed brow. Balkan looked closely, seeing and feeling what his friend was doing, but not comprehending.

With a sudden vortex of energy, the pebble disappeared from Darius’s right palm, and was now in his left. Muscles which had begun to tense under the peculiar strain of working magic relaxed, and Darius suddenly seemed out of breath. Balkan stared in amazement at the pebble, now in the wrong hand. So many new things had just occurred before him, and he hadn’t been able to follow them all.

“By the Choirs!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been back in Bastion for a mere week and you’ve already figured out how they do it?”

Darius was already shaking his head. “I’ve confirmed that it is possible, certainly. Truthfully, once I
knew
it was possible it was rather simple to figure out the basics. Doing it, however, is by far another story. It’s maddeningly difficult, Balkan. You felt it, how hard I had to work – and that’s to move a pebble a distance of two feet!”

Balkan clapped his hands in delight. Nothing excited him like new magic. “I barely saw what you did, Darius. Show me again.”

“Hmph. ‘Show me again,’ he says,” Darius grumped. “Watch more closely this time – as I said, it’s very hard.”

Balkan knelt by the chair as Darius replaced the pebble in his right palm. When Balkan questioned him about this, he replied, “I’m right handed. It seemed more natural.” Balkan smiled a bit; wondering if that might affect the spell itself. Staring intently, this time he was prepared and caught the beginning of the spell. Tiny, questing strands of magic reached from one hand to the other. They formed the initial link, Balkan saw. That made sense. In order to transport something you had to know where it was going, and where it was coming from.

It grew more complicated from there. When the pebble once again lay in the left palm, Balkan stood again, his eyes closed as he envisioned what he’d just seen. This time, he understood. He retraced every step in his mind. Then he took the pebble from his friend’s hand and, while Darius watched, duplicated it. As always, the actual deed was more difficult than the knowledge of it indicated, but he felt elated that he had done it just the same.

Darius merely looked grumpy. “It took me four days to do that.”

“Take it from me, Darius. The original discoverer never gets his due,” Balkan said. His tone was buoyant despite the depressing advice.

Balkan tossed the pebble from hand to hand, contemplating it. “What else do you know about it?” he asked. “I see you haven’t written anything down.”

“What I know would barely fill half a page, even with my clumsy script,” Darius proclaimed. He held up his hand and began raising fingers as he ticked off facts. “Difficulty increases with distance, and with the size of the object. It’s easy enough to transport something to a place you can see – within a small distance, of course – but to anywhere I couldn’t see, it was far more complex. That’s as far as my experimentation has taken me, and that all in the last three hours. I’ve needed some time to rest between every few tries. You felt it – I’ve never tried anything that took so much effort in such a small space of time. Transporting that pebble from palm to palm four times in a row was as bad as an hour of combat.” Darius shook his head ruefully. “I have no idea how the Enemy can manage to move hundreds, thousands of men over miles. It shouldn’t be possible, even with dozens of sorcerers.”

“Demons?” Balkan wondered aloud. Demons, like Angels, were capable of astounding feats of magic, and no-one really knew just how powerful they were compared to a mortal magician.

Darius shrugged. “It’s possible, but there was certainly no demon with the marauders that I hounded, or the Choirs would have known the instant they entered our lands.”

Balkan stewed on that for a few moments. “Perhaps the Demon remained behind and
brought
the soldiers to itself.”

Darius smirked. “Try it with the pebble.”

Balkan did, setting the pebble on the table before Darius. Try as he might – and he tried until he was sweating and fatigued, pouring power into the effort – he could not make the spell work. “That’s strange,” Balkan observed as he mopped his brow.

“I already thought to try that, and yes it is quite strange. I have no idea of the reason – that is for you laboratory types to find out – but the direction of transport always has to be away from the spell’s origin. That is to say, away from you. I wouldn’t discount it as impossible to bring something closer, but I haven’t found the method.”

“This is all very new, Darius. We’re casting about in the dark,” Balkan chuckled at his own pun, and Darius cringed. “We don’t even have any theoretical knowledge about what we’ve managed to do so far. It’s plain enough to see that it works, but to have such abilities without laying the theoretical groundwork is dangerous. We could stumble into something harmful without any warning.”

“Save the lecture for the acolytes,” Darius scoffed. “I still remember it. I will not worry overmuch about ephemeral dangers when the Enemy has a blade at our throat.”

“I agree, but some caution is still necessary.”

“If my head explodes, you’ll know to be more careful.”

“What if you take the Crown with you? Or the entire city?”

Darius snorted dismissively.

“I’m serious!” Balkan exclaimed with a laugh. “I grow more and more certain that we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of magic. We don’t know a thing, not a thing yet – not with all the teaching the Cherubim have given us, nor all our own learning since. I don’t know if they’re holding things back from us, or…”

“Or?” Darius inquired with a frown. “You mean, you think they don’t even know?” Then his eyes opened wide. “Heaven! All the events of the past week pushed it right out of my head. Balkan, I agree with you entirely.” Darius proceeded to outline his own feat at the village of Deem’s Crossing, overpowering and erasing the stain caused by the marauders. When he finished, Balkan simply stared at him in disbelief from a chair he had pulled over.

“You waited until now to share to this, Darius?”

“I forgot! Forgive me, Balkan, but it has been a rather eventful week.”

Balkan shook his head. “Only you, Darius. Only you could forget about something like that. Using soldiers to help with magic? What ever made you think of such a thing?”

Darius shrugged, searching for words. “The stain upon those ruins did not feel like the work of a sorcerer. It was... more primitive, somehow. Emotion has power of its own, it seems.”

Balkan looked troubled. “If this is a natural phenomenon, why haven't we seen it before? It is not the first time a village has fallen victim to the War.”

“I do not know,” replied Darius. “Perhaps the suddenness of it all, the shock. The people of Deem's Crossing were not on the border. They thought themselves safe.”

Balkan nodded. “This matter of drawing power from your soldiers... it seems akin to sacrifice.”

“What? Nonsense!” Darius responded.

“Calm, Darius. I said 'akin,' not 'identical.' I have no reason to believe what you did was immoral. You drew power from other people, people who are not wizards. I know of no other way to do that save human sacrifice.”

“The two have nothing in common,” Darius argued. “My soldiers were not harmed.”

Balkan looked out the window at the darkening sky. “Come, Darius. Enough of theorizing for one night. I need to hurry home for supper, and you may as well come with me. We’ll speak of this more afterward.”

“I’d be delighted,” said Darius. If Maggie’s cooking were to war with that of the barracks’ quartermasters, the latter would soon find itself cut off, surrounded, and slaughtered.

Chapter Thirteen

Kray stalked through the corridors, his destination once again the Great Hall. He was not coming uninvited this time. He had been summoned by the Warlord himself.

He felt apprehensive, but attempted to calm himself. The Warlord knew nothing, for Kray had never revealed anything – not to the other sorcerers, not to the soldiers he’d commanded. He had no friends to confide in, no lovers. The whores he used in the camps were certainly no good for conversation.

Yet still he felt nervous. Surely the Warlord did not wish to speak to Kray about the soldiers he’d killed the previous week. He killed soldiers all the time. Many sorcerers did, in fits of rage or as punishment for stupidity. Kray did it to improve his mood and ease his lust for revenge until the time was ready to reap the greater share.

Why had Traigan sent for him?

The sorcerer shook off these questions, concentrating instead on his demeanor. He had played his part for so many years, it came quite naturally. For all intents and purposes, it was natural. Head up with a challenging stare, hands balled into permanently clenched fists. Mouth always on the verge of sneering. The man who so infuriated his fellow sorcerers. The Sand Sorcerer, a term both demeaning and deserved.

The Great Hall was completely empty except for the Warlord himself – and the Thralls, of course, which were nothing more than malevolent furniture. Traigan stood, as always, before his maps. He was waiting, staring impassively at Kray as the sorcerer strode to him with an arrogant swagger.

“You sent for me, Warlord?” Kray asked.

“I did, Kray. Do you know why?”

“Warlord, I do. You have finally decided I am to be given what I so richly deserve – the chance to terrorize our foe. How many soldiers will I command, Warlord? Where shall I lead them? I will kill all in my path! The ground will be soaked in blood. Farms will burn, homes will burn, livestock will burn, people will burn!”

Kray kept up his idiotic rant, and the Warlord allowed him to continue until the sorcerer was afraid he’d run out of foolish things to say. The smile had disappeared from Traigan’s face, and he was impassive again. Studying Kray with those knowing eyes, and Kray once again had the nervous feeling that the Warlord somehow
knew something
.

When the sorcerer finished, finally running out of false heat, the Warlord took a deep breath, his leather-cased chest rising and falling over long seconds He let Kray stew in the silence, growing ever more uncomfortable. Kray decided that, whatever game the man was playing he would not be the one to break. He waited as well, staring back with his usual challenging glare.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, the Warlord tore the silence that had hardened like a scab.

“Kray, I want that to be the very last time you sound stupid for my benefit, or anyone else’s. Do you think me as easily taken in as all those fools out there?” The sweep of the Warlord’s arm took in the entire city, the entire world. “I know what you really are, Kray. No more pretending. No more hiding. That is an order.”

Mind churning, Kray puzzled over what exactly the Warlord meant. He hid so many things, put on so many shows to fool so many people....

The sorcerer reassured himself once again that, no matter how clever Traigan was, he did not know all the things that Kray pretended to be. One secret at least would never leave him, not until it was far too late for him to be stopped.

Kray let his posture relax, and the false arrogance slid from his face. He nodded once, curtly, to his master.

It seemed to please the Warlord. “Good, Kray. Well chosen.”

Kray nodded again, and spoke in moderate, considered, intelligent tones, a voice that he had not used for many years. “Where am I to go, Warlord? You didn’t just call me here for that. You are going to send me to tear through the enemy’s soft underbelly, as I’ve requested so many times. We both know there are few who could do it better than I,” Kray boldly claimed.

“No, Kray. I am not,” Traigan said, and Kray lost some of his hope. He’d thought final victory was within his grasp at last.

“Why?” he could not help but ask. “Why do you keep us so close? We took Fortress Nebeth with ease. The Enemy must surely be terrified at what we’ll do next. What more purpose can there be to holding back? We should be putting more marauders behind their backs every hour, burning every field and forest!”

A change had come over the Warlord as well. He was speaking to Kray not as he spoke to a sorcerer, whom Traigan dealt with as a chore and an annoyance, insulting and threatening by turns to get what he needed. He was speaking to Kray as an equal.

“I like you, Kray. I like your boldness, your ambition. You let no other stand before you even when that individual seems more powerful. In short, I like you because you have potential; and so, Kray, I am going to do you a favor. I am going to teach you something about magic.”

Kray almost laughed. “You? Teach
me
something about magic.” He may be a weak sorcerer, but the Warlord was no sorcerer at all!

“Yes. Come over here,” Traigan said, indicating the table where his maps were splayed. He stabbed a finger down on one. “Here is the map detailing how we re-took Nebeth. These symbols here are where each Firewalking spell was targeted. I know you are smart enough, Kray, to ask me the obvious question. Look, and ask.”

Kray did as he was bidden. He was familiar enough with the map. Every sorcerer – and he was sure, every wizard of the Enemy – knew the land around Fortress Nebeth by heart. The terrain was rolling, verdant grassland, watered by the blood of the countless soldiers who’d died fighting over that one place, almost perfectly between the great cities at war. To the northeast of the fortress the hills became mountains, the furthest reaches of the same mountain chain in which nestled the city of the enemy.

The spells,
Firewalking
they were called, had not been targeted to take advantage of any of the more prominent defensive features of the land. No hills nor valleys in particular. In fact, it seemed to Kray that the spells had been –

He looked up at the Warlord. “Why were our troops sent so far from the Fortress?”

Traigan smiled. “Very good, Kray. Why indeed? We gave the Enemy more time, more warning that we needed to. We could have taken the Fortress faster and with less loss had we put our soldiers right next to Nebeth in the first place.

“But I commanded that this be the minimum distance, and you are now the first sorcerer who will know why.  Long ago, before I was Warlord and before you sorcerers had ever dreamed of the word ‘Firewalking,’ a sorcerer told me that he can feel spells. Feel them as a man feels the direction of the wind. He can tell what is being done, how strong it is, and he can do it at a goodly distance. Is all this true?”

“Yes, Warlord,” Kray nodded, and then it dawned on him. “You didn’t want the Enemy to learn anything of the spell!”

“Correct. This spell is an incredible advantage, and if I let those fool generals have their way, they’d squander it in a month. The Enemy would have learned what we were up to, learned to do it themselves, and learned to stop us. Nothing would change. I will deny them that knowledge. They will figure it out eventually, have no doubt; but by delaying them, I can maximize our gain.”

Kray blinked. It was so simple, and yet it took a man who would never know what it was like to command magic to realize it. Kray had long known that rashness was a primary weakness of his people – had, in fact, depended on it – but it seemed the Warlord did not share it.

“Thank you, Warlord Traigan, for teaching me this,” Kray said.

The Warlord looked away, at his beloved maps. “You are welcome,” he replied. The words seemed almost not to fit in the man’s mouth. “It is the first lesson of many, Kray. You have potential, I said, and I mean to use it.

“In a moment, another sorcerer will be joining us. I will detail to you both the mission you will have in our next assault. Know this, Kray – if you do well in this mission, you will wear the gold. What do you think of that?”

Kray was entirely speechless. Him? A General? The Sand Sorcerer, a magician so weak he flung pebbles and sand at the Enemy to blind and harm them, where any other sorcerer would have ripped them apart outright. The others would be absolutely livid at this news! Taking commands from Kray, the mongrel magician!

The Warlord expected a response from him, and so Kray replied, “I had never even considered the possibility, Warlord.” Which was quite true. His ambitions took him down far different paths.

“Consider it now, Kray. I am no fool, and I will not be surrounded by them for much longer. You have my word on that.” Traigan looked over Kray’s shoulder. “Come in, Padraig. You are late.” Looking at Kray as he stiffened in disgust, he spoke for their ears alone. “Remember, no more pretending. I will not tolerate idiocy from you any longer. I have enough of it to deal with from the likes of him.”

Kray looked over his shoulder, relaxing his face from its previous disgust to a more mild disdain.

Padraig. A name known throughout the city. A sorcerer of such vast ability he had first killed at the age of two, when the talent for magic had been discovered within him. When the sorcerers led soldiers to his home, one of them had died as they attempted to take him from his mother’s arms. The sorcerers could not believe it; a young child able to use magic well enough to kill. It was amazing, and incredibly promising. They’d separated the babe from his mother quickly enough, and Padraig was on his road to greatness. The youngest sorcerer to win the silver, he’d done it as soon as he set foot on the arena sands – every opponent chosen for him cried out and immediately expired, some quite messily. Ten grown men killed in an instant, by a boy of nine.

As soon as the prodigy strode onto the battlefields, he proved to be everything his mentors had dreamed. He was a juggernaut, a titan, second only to a demon in pure, destructive potential – and he knew it. His arrogance was the only match to his power; such that even for all his fame there were none amongst the sorcerers who actually enjoyed the man’s company. He was nearly as reviled as Kray.

Kray hated this man more than any other in the world. He had the feeling the sentiment was returned.

Padraig had a large face covered in sandy blonde hair. He was a large man as well, and could have been quite a warrior if he hadn’t made such a phenomenal sorcerer. His robes were deep red and garishly decorated. Furthermore, they were of a shorter style that was becoming popular with the sorcerers, barely covering the knees and leaving the lower legs absurdly naked, as sorcerers rarely wore high boots.

Padraig barely glanced at Kray as he swept into the room. Nor did he show the ill-disguised disdain that generally tainted a sorcerer’s dealings with the Warlord. Either there was something in Mertoris Traigan that Padraig respected, or the arrogant battering ram was more disciplined than Kray gave him credit for.

“Warlord! When your summons reached me, I was indisposed. I came as quickly as I could!”

Traigan could have asked what could possibly be more important that a summons from the Warlord, but let the matter lie – dismissed it, in fact, with a flick of his hand. “No matter,” he said. “Come here.”

Shoving aside the map he’d used to give Kray the ‘lesson,’ he replaced it with another, of a region many miles distant from Nebeth. Placing stones upon the edges to keep the hide flat, the Warlord spoke.

“Our scouts have confirmed the Enemy is moving to retake the fortress with armies from both north and south. This leaves our next target vulnerable, and here is where we will strike next,” announced the Warlord, affixing a pin to the place that he indicated. Situated between Nebeth and a camp known as Cairn were a pair of impressive forts that guarded the best approaches for many miles around. With the control of both Nebeth and these two forts, Traigan would wreck the integrity of the Enemy’s border along the entire southern half.

“We could assault Riverside,” Kray breathed, excited at the possibility even though he wished the Warlord as much victory as he did to a biting fly upon his arm. This statement earned him a scornful look from Padraig though, and the Warlord merely shook his head.

“No, Kray,” The Warlord said. “That is not, unfortunately, how it works. We can certainly take these forts, though. Padraig here was commander of one of them when we still held the region. Look here. Padraig knows the area well enough to bring you in near this valley road. Correct?”

Padraig merely nodded.

“That road is crucial. If we deny its use to the enemy, reinforcement will take almost an entire day longer to reach the Enemy. The hills around there are difficult, numerous and steep. I guarantee you will see battle soon after the attack begins. They will respond quickly this time, we cannot rely on their shock to hold them at bay as with Nebeth. You will hold that road. Do whatever else is necessary to make that happen. Do you understand?”

Both sorcerers nodded. Padraig vigorously and confidently, Kray with more dignity but just as confidently. He wanted to give the Warlord no reason whatsoever to doubt his ability. It would make the end result all the sweeter.

“Do not stray far from the Hall. We must be ready to attack as soon as the moment is ripe.” Traigan flicked his hand at them. “Dismissed.”

Kray waited for Padraig to take the lead, not wanting to have to walk next to the insufferable man. As they turned the corner outside the chamber, a blast of magic shoved Kray against the wall. His feet dangled several inches off the floor. The guards pointedly ignored them as as Padraig stood very close and put his face next to Kray's as he spoke.