Chapter Twelve

ACT IV


What Light Remains

PART TWO
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage.

TERRY PRATCHETT
Witches Abroad

Fight till the last gasp.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VI

CHAPTER TWELVE

Stepping Stones

“?????????.”

?????????

Jace opened the heavy oak door and felt like he was stepping back in time. As if crossing the threshold in the tavern was not the only doorway he walked through. The warmth and light felt as consuming and familiar as a dream. He had been here lifetimes ago and yesterday all at once.

And everything seemed to slow down.

Stale ale on the floor was sticky on the bottom of his boots and the steady, ambient rhythm of cluttered conversation washed over him like a tide. It was an instant shield against the confusion and impossibility of what was happening to him. Here and there, the first few notes of a drinking song would drift up: Fenlow Thean, dark and lean was all he heard before the chorus collapsed into disarray, each man crowing his own version of the words.

Jace thought about lyrics just then.

Hacking and whacking but then the thoughts were out of his head.

“You know, I came looking for you here,” Cedwyn said. “Thean sent me. But you were already gone.” He nodded towards an old painting without looking. It was of a soldier. He was in my vision in the Tunnels, Jace thought – but the gilt was gouged where some had been scraped off the frame. All that could be made out was the first name Khayn, but the legend was too dull to read.

He found himself wondering what he did after his encounter with Augustine Calloway.

Squelch, squelch.

“Well, you’re about to meet him, So I’d say the odds of you finding out anre pretty damn good,” Cedwyn said.

Jace glanced from the painting back to Cedwyn. “No matter how many times I experience that,” he said, doing his best to continue in a level tone. “It’s still annoying.”

Cedwyn narrowed his eyes, sharpening his stare until Jace could almost feel heat from it.

“Get used to it, Dabriel,” he said. “You’ll be able to do it too, soon.”

Jace sighed. He had been told that he did that a lot.

Cedwyn went on.

“I’ve made arrangements for an audience tonight, but there are some things I might need to work out.Every emotion, every change in the air, every turn in conversation has a pulse; a sound, a smell, a color. You do not exist in the moment; you become part of it. The messenger,” he said, eyes darting for a moment to take in their mixed company, “hides all he has, and thus, he falls. The first rule of keeping a secret is that no one should know you have one.” Dorsey nodded as he surveyed the tavern, but Kerrick waited until he caught and held his eye. “No one,” he repeated. “Not even you.”

Dorsey did not answer, but shifted uncomfortably.

“The last stroke, the last instant, that's the easy part,” the master went on, falling into a casual drawl. No listener could say he wasn't discussing the art of painting, or making love to a woman. “Mark this well, or someday soon you’ll wish you had.”

For a while, they said nothing further. Each had on a similar, contemplative silence; each was taking in the sight of those who did not quite belong Some of those types sank into the background; others were bright in their sight.

Night traders. Like old friends come back in the dark.

He saw a cute brunette speaking to one, and for an instant, he balled his fist; arresting his motion before he ever became aware that he wanted to reach out. How could she look at them and not see the difference? See the danger? They’d sell her in an instant.

To any man there or to the Devil himself.

Yet none, no matter how sly they were, ever looked back at him. Finally, Dorsey asked: “You’re not going to reconsider, are you?” Kerrick gritted his teeth, pitching his voice lower this time.

“You’ll be dead even quicker than him if you ask me that again,” he said, giving an upward nod towards a ragged-looking man sitting alone at the end of the bar. Dorsey’s eyes stayed on Kerrick a moment, then matched his line of sight.

“Who are we?”

“Prospective buyers for his pig farm,” Kerrick muttered almost to himself. “You’re my son.” Dorsey cocked his head back, raising his eyebrows.

“He’ll have to assume your mother was extraordinarily beautiful.”

Dorsey’s cockeyed expression intensified.

“Aw, shut your stinkin’ yap,” Donovan said, pushing Dorsey so hard he almost knocked him off his feet. By the time Dorsey recovered, his mentor was already walking towards Tyrus Minch. “Find a table and order the drinks.”

Finding a place to sit was not hard. Most of the patrons were crowded around the bar, endlessly talking rumors and local nonsense. There was to be a new clock in town square -- next week, next month? Perhaps no one would start keeping track until after it was installed.

There was talk of the clock-maker as if such knowledge made one a saint—

“I could do as good as that bastard,” said one bitter, sullen voice. “If I could get outta this place.”

Dorsey let his attention swerve as he approached a table, exchanging an easy smile with the pretty barmaid as he pulled out a chair. The same one who, just seconds before, had been within inches of disappearing from this town with a sigh and a scream—

Yet, in her green eyes he saw a sly spark; something told him she’d survive here after all.

He ordered three glasses of Orinel Lin, and was not at all surprised to see it was on the menu.

Kerrick was engaged in what appeared to be light conversation with Minch at the end of the bar. In another life, he might have been a complacent family man discussing a fruitful season’s harvest.

In a fairer life, Dorsey thought.

The maid returned with the drinks, three short glasses filled with liquid the color of fire. He
realized for the first time that her nails had been carefully painted the same color.

Dorsey thanked her, and while he could tell she sensed his stare, she pointedly focused on her work. As he dropped some coins onto her tray, he didn’t notice she had moved her hand at the last moment so it would brush his, or her glances to him as she moved to other tables.

The last memory Jace had was of hitting the water. He remembered bracing himself for the fall, anticipating the cold, and expecting warbled silence to snuff out the chaos. But instead, he found himself staring up at a stained glass window that depicted a broken ship on stormy seas. It felt familiar and desperately important, and Jace’s world rocked from side to side — as if he were on that ship. As he struggled to regain his bearings, as absurd as that idea was under the circumstances, he heard Cedwyn’s voice say:

Well now … They’re certainly screwed.

At first, the Outrider couldn’t tell where he was – the glass was heavy and dark, like the kind in old pubs built back when a looking glass was a luxury for the rich. As the clouds outside shifted, misty red moonlight spilled across the ridged surface, a crimson tide as slow as molasses.

Jace tilted his head minutely to the side. Then he noticed a man as familiar as the window slipping his hand casually into his cloak.

“This isn’t real,” Jace said. “Wait … no, this isn’t real. Is it?”

“You’re not asking the right questions,” Kerrick said. “Same as last time.”

“Please don’t,” Jace blurted without thinking.

Donovan withdrew the narrow tin that held his cigarettes.

“Don’t be such a goddamned baby,” he said, placing one in his mouth. Attached to the case was a small flint box lighter. Kerrick struck it, but pain was twisting his hands, and he could not quite lift the flame to his mouth.

Jace leaned over in his chair. Moving as if someone else was in control of his movements. Moving like a puppet on, and playing out, a string. Moving without thought, he grabbed the flint box and lit the cigarette for him. Donovan took a long pull.

“Thanks,” he said. Then he went oddly silent.

A feather-light tickle along Jace’s chest—

The tip of one razor-sharp dagger — the one with the onyx handle engraved with a snake — was pressed to his ribs, and that was message enough.

Jace glanced down at the weapon. Even now, he knew Kerrick could attack, give him a wound that would mar him for a lifetime. If they both fell here, they would be nothing but a rumor, buried in a shallow hole and carried on in drunken tales in this godforsaken underwater.

“Every emotion has a pulse, greenhorn,” Kerrick said, and then winced as his stomach clenched. He hid the pain as best he could while he slipped the weapon back under his belt. “You’re so much smarter than that.”

Jace’s eyes were bloodshot. He swallowed hard. At last, he asked: “What is this?”

Kerrick flicked some ash before taking another drag, then slouched in the chair and crossed his legs at the ankle. The pain was subsiding.

“What are you blabberin' about now, boy?”

“I asked you what this is.”

“You’re the one who set me up, Dorse. Or Jace. Or whatever you call yourself now. Conspiring with that glorified politician. I never did trust him as far as I could—”

“Spit,” Jace said. “I remember.”

“Yeah, you remember,” Kerrick said, rolling his eyes. “You don’t even remember your own past. Nothing real before your 16th birthday. Everything you remember ain’t but smoke ‘n mirrors put there by one them Red Moon Monks. And where’s that idiot now, hm? Playing Regicide on the docks, wasting away. Stalled on his path, waiting for you, like some worthless, rudderless ice blood.”

“What are you even talking—”

Kerrick was staring into some far off, imaginary horizon when he cut Jace off.

“I woulda thought you already had all the answers. Conspiring and such, remember? Like I was saying.”

“You were killing innocent people, Kerrick. My orders were to confirm that, and if it was true, to neutralize you. And in exchange—”

“Neville Katic would cover your tracks. Tell anyone who mattered you were dead. It’s quite the story.”

“Yes. And he kept his word.”

“And while you were setting me up, the true target, that plague-infested, Leather Apron, Papa Bones butcher escaped and caused havoc through time, space, and god knows how many dimensions. He causes that havoc still. You see, that’s the problem in a nutshell, greenhorn, you don’t even know what Mirror Lake is. Not really. Because I never taught you that lesson. But ask Jaden about it if you live long enough to get back there.”

“Right. That’s where this is. Mirror Lake, right? That’s where we are right now?”

Luna Scarlet ruled the night sky like nothing Jace had ever … no, wait, he had seen it like this before. On that night on the Fairlawn Thoroughfare when Artemus had sent him here, tried to trap him here forever.

So where is this guy?” Raven asked as he made his way towards the stairs.
“Nice to see you too, boss!” an unidentified wise cracker responded.
Raven held up his hand to dismiss the comment, to the amusement of the others. “Room Seven,” Irick said.
They approached the stairs, snaking through the activity. Occasionally Raven would shake a hand and smile, or be patted on the back or shoulder by any of the men he came close to. Khayn observed many of them gesture towards the assassin or to each other in show of their satisfaction at his return. But Raven was oblivious to his surroundings, set on making his way to the visitor. He said nothing more to Khayn or the other men, and began to pull away from them as he quickened his pace up the stairs.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you what an honor it is,” Brayden said, turning to Khayn as they followed Raven up. “To meet you.”
“Honor huh?” Khayn smiled. “Careful not to be too star struck there, kid. I’ve spent most of the last two years doing nothing.”
Brayden let out an amused sigh. “I wouldn’t say that, captain. If it wasn’t for the Greywall Agaron could be exactly like this country for all we know. I’ve studied a lot of your career. You’ve been our outfit’s primary mission for almost a month now.”
“Outfit?”
“Arkelais’ foothold into Joran. His eyes and ears.” Brayden held up his arm, the rune symbol on his arm already exposed due to the lightweight clothing he was wearing. “All part of the same exclusive club.”
Khayn nodded to acknowledge the rune symbol on the kid’s arm. “How’d you find out I was immune so quickly?”
“How do we know anything?” he asked, and then with an upward nod he motioned to Raven who had reached the top of the stairs.
“News must really travel fast then,” Khayn said, suspicious. “Considering I only sent word to the king of my encounter with Galad three weeks ago.”
“The Crossroads,” Brayden said, clearing his throat. “They’re these tunnels we use to cover vast distances almost instanteously.”
​“Interesting,” Khayn responded quickly. “I heard they were consumed by some malevolent presence which made them impossible to use.”
​Brayden’s eyes darted over to Irick, as if he had sensed the older man’s stare on him. He was right.
“You talk too much, Brayden,” Irick said, annoyed. He looked back over to Khayn as they reached the second floor and started down a long corridor. “You know quite a bit more than I would have imagined.”
​“Raven works quickly,” said Khayn.
​“Hm.” Irick looked forward again. “Yeah, he can still use the Crossroads. The only one who still can.”
​Khayn was staring at Raven’s back, a thrown off expression on his face.
​“I take it he didn’t mention that.”
​Khayn narrowed his eyes. “No.”
The trio came to a halt as they caught up to Raven at the last door, for though the hallway went on, the rest of it was dark. Khayn could see a few more doors and the vague detail of the painting of a wintry landscape on the fringe of the mounted lantern light, but beyond was complete darkness.
“We don’t go down that way,” Brayden said as if reading the captain’s mind. “We can’t.” He motioned down to the floor, and Khayn bowed his head. There was a line drawn in chalk, and a rune symbol drawn below it.
“The wizard do that?” Khayn asked.
“Galad did,” Raven answered for him. “Keeps whatever ‘metaphysical’ crap he was worried about out.” The assassin looked away from the door and down into the darkness. “He said it was too powerful to ward off back there. Too deep in the woods.”
“You ever go down there?” Khayn asked, intrigued.
“Yeah,” Raven answered.
“See anything?”
Raven looked back to the three of them. He hesitated a second before raising his eyebrows. “Enough to believe him,” he said.
Looking away from the abandon hallway, Raven cleared his throat and turned back towards the door; staring at the a copper number seven. To Khayn, he seemed much more composed, much more like the Raven the captain had sat with in the Captain’s Lodge the night before.
“What do we know about him?” Raven asked.
Irick took a step forward. “Not much. He showed up a few days after you left. He calls himself Cath Orin and says he’s from the capital’s Wizard hermitage.”
“Is there a way to verify that?” Khayn interrupted. The unexpected sound of his voice drew the attention of both Raven and Irick. “Sorry for being a little uneasy about this situation, but the last guy I saw who called himself a wizard wasn’t exactly … stable.”
“Unfortunately it’s nearly impossible to verify anything in this country,” Irick said. “I’m sure you know how secretive the inner workings of the Joranese government has always been. Now it’s a jumbled mess and we’ve had no success whatsoever in obtaining any official records to help us.”
“Why not just walk into the capital?” Khayn asked. “What about the Republican Archives?” The captain glanced over to concentrate his attention on Raven. “Those records date back to the earliest days of the Empire.”
“And before even then some say,” Raven said. “But Farbacen has only just recently been evacuated, and there have been reports of huge caravans transporting everything of value to Lehdar.”
“More than just reports,” Irick said. “Since you left I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“And?” Raven asked.
Irick nodded. “The convoys have ceased, but up until a few days ago they were running steady between the two cities. Apparently they got everything they wanted from the capital, but there are other convoys snaking all over the country now.”
Raven appeared suddenly agitated. “Doing what?”
“Can’t be sure. We only know that they always return to Lehdar. We have a few guys watching the city trying to learn more.”
“Alright, well stay on that. Learn everything you can.”
Irick nodded.
The volume of their conversation had decreased as if they were conscious that someone might be listening on the other side.
“Meanwhile, I think it’s time we get to know this guy. What does he look like?” Raven asked. “Young, old?”
“Uh, I’d say middle-aged,” Brayden chimed in.
Irick nodded in agreement after a bare glance to the kid.
“Since he’s been here have you noticed any unusual activity on your patrols. Any strange sightings?”
“You mean, besides the wizard who was wearing the head of a dead bear that for a second came back to life?” Irick asked.
Raven sighed. “Has he chalked any rune signs on the floor or walls? Anything like that?”
“No, boss,” said Brayden. “He comes down for his meals, usually three or four a day, sometimes he hangs out with the guys to play cards, but he spends most of his time in this room.”
“What does he eat?” Raven asked.
Brayden hesitated, surprised by the question; he glanced over to Irick as if seeking reassurance before responding. “Um, same thing every time,” he said. “Split-pea soup with bread … and an ale.”
“Has an affinity for black currant tea, too,” Irick added. “Hardly ever see him without a cup.”
To Khayn, who was standing there intently but motionless, the questions seemed tedious and bizarre. But he knew better than to make any more assumptions as to what was important and what wasn’t. He had already made that mistake on the road when what he had interpreted as a madman had turned out to be something much more dangerous. So even though what a wizard ate seemed irrelevant to him, Khayn remained patiently quiet, as for all he knew, it could have held the meaning of life.
“Anything else I should know?”
“Just a reminder. Consider giving him the benefit of the doubt,” Irick said. “Like I told you earlier, he’s the one who told us where we would be able to find you … and when.”
“Find us?” Khayn asked. This bit of information was new to him.
Brayden glanced over to Khayn but nodded to Raven as if he were the one who had asked the question. “When he came down to get his soup tonight, he announced that two of us should stay off the road but in sight of it, travel north and leave in precisely one hour.”
“And you believed him?” Raven asked.
“There was nothing to believe, really,” Irick shrugged. “He didn’t say why, just gave those instructions.”
“But you went alone,” Raven said, his words coinciding with a look of disapproval.
“We did,” Irick admitted with no regret, “and came upon you at the exact moment you fell in front of that bear … guy … thing.”
Raven bounced a look off of Khayn. “Looks like our wizard friend likes to cut things close.”
Just as Raven’s expression appeared to lighten slightly, Brayden’s turned more serious than at any point prior. “I don’t think so, boss,” he said. “Just before we heard the scuffle, we were contemplating turning back.”
Irick sighed, closed his eyes and began running his hand back and forth across his forehead. “Kid, you don’t have to tell them every single detail.”
Raven smiled. “Don’t listen to him, Brayden. I admire a man who can admit what’s on his mind. Go on.”
“Well ..,” obviously garnering quite a bit of respect and affection for Irick, Brayden looked at him once more before he continued. When Irick made an exaggerated gesture to continue, he did so. “No one else really believed him, and to be honest, if we had arrived any earlier and found nothing, doubt might have caused us to turn back.”
“And we would both be dead,” Raven said, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Well, in all truthfulness Raven Lale, only you would have been vanquished. Arkelais’s captain would have survived, albeit maimed.”
A crooked expression came across Raven’s face. He turned toward the door. “Cath Orin?” he asked, leaning his head closer.
“Quite right, lad, quite right. I’m afraid, however, that I will require further evidence of your identity. For it is possible you have staged this little conversation outside my door as part of some cleverly concocted ruse.”
Raven seemed oddly amused.
“From what I hear, you’re responsible for saving my life,” he said. “You knew I was coming.”
“Ahhhh, yes that,” Cath Orin’s voice came through the door. “That could also be a trick. Someone or something sending me false signs, perhaps? It’s possible, you know. Quite possible. Perhaps you are an imposter yet.”
Raven sighed. “Well if you can think of a way for me to prove who I am I’m open to suggestions. Although I’d say the fact that I’m standing outside your door and have had to walk past my men to do so, weighs pretty strongly in my favor.”
“You forget, kiddo, I have accomplished that very same feat myself. It means nothing.”
There was an extended pause, and after another moment Raven glanced to Brayden and Irick. Each had a look of anticipation in their eyes, but neither seemed to have any suggestions. The assassin turned back to the door. “Ok?” he said, trying to prompt further instruction.
“If you are who you say, Lord of Agaron’s Assassins, you will find no difficulty entering this room with the heirloom. Bring only yourself and the captain.”
Raven nodded over to Irick. “We’ll talk later,” he said, and Irick left without a word, Brayden following. “And Var,” Raven added. Brayden turned back to him. “You’ve done well.”
The boy smirked, nodded and then continued on his path with Irick towards the stairs.
“Here goes nothing,” Raven said.
The second he touched the doorknob, there was a bright crimson flash that caused Raven to instinctively recoil his hand, and he realized immediately it was his ruby ring which was glowing. Khayn stepped forward, grabbing Raven’s wrist as if to remove it before the assassin waved him off.
“It’s alright,” Raven assured him. “Just startled me a bit.”
Khayn had no time to respond as the door clicked, creaking open on its own, and with a final exchanged glance, both men entered.
The first thing they noticed in the room was a candle flickering on the sill of the lone square window, but the flame appeared white at first glance, not the color of flame. Just beside it, a symbol of some kind had been drawn with chalk and flickered in the arcane candlelight.
“So much for not drawing on the walls with chalk,” Khayn whispered.
All of the mounted lanterns – a style consistent throughout the Inn - were burning brightly. The room itself was simple. A table with a few cheaply made chairs stood off in the corner near the window, and on the opposite side of the room was an unremarkable bed on which sat a man who appeared no older than forty. He was holding a large ceramic teacup and looked to breathe a sigh of relief at the sight of them; his long black mustache swaying in the expulsion of breath as if this were the only true confirmation he trusted.
Neither Khayn nor Raven sat; they just stood looking at the man.
“..person at last,” Raven heard, but the wizard’s mouth appeared to move in slow motion, and he felt violently nauseous as if he would get sick right there and then. Raven fell back against the wall, finding it difficult to breathe just as an agonizing migraine overtook him. Reflexively, the assassin closed his eyes, clenching his teeth. Through the darkness of his tightly shut eyelids he could see the symbol drawn on the wall pulsating like a heartbeat, a beating transition between cream and blinding light. With each pulse the symbol grew brighter, the pain impossibly worse, and Raven was sure his head would split in two at any moment.
Khayn, standing unaffected drew his sword, taking up an aggressive stance against the wizard, about to strike. “What are you doing to him?” he screamed. “Stop it or I’ll kill you right now!”
Cath Orin paid no heed to Khayn’s threats as he stood suddenly up from his bed, sending the mighty broadsword flying from the captain’s hands where it stuck in the wall behind him. Instinctively, Khayn stepped to it and grabbed the hilt, but the weapon was fastened there with the weight of a mountain. With his other hand, the wizard waved what appeared to be some sort of symbol in the air and Raven was flung to his feet, then with a pushing motion, the assassin too was pinned to the wall. It appeared as if the wizard was preparing for a deathblow, having Raven in a defenseless state, and in his desperation Khayn abandoned his attempt to retrieve his sword and charged. His effort earned him a head nod from Cath Orin and he found himself frozen in his tracks.
All Khayn could do was watch helplessly. Is that what he had entered Joran for? Is this what he had waited on that wall to achieve? Raven’s eyes were rolling back in his head, his breathing coming in quick, useless spurts. Cath Orin’s eyes glimmered. Khayn screamed in impotent rage.
There was a noise that sounded like glass breaking and it lingered as if on the edge of an echo. Khayn felt his legs break free and behind him his broadsword fell from the wall with a loud clang.
Raven was free as well, sitting with his back against the wall, trying to catch his breath.
“You alright?” Khayn asked, staggering towards him.
Raven only nodded, the full of his concentration on breathing more than anything else. He opened his mouth in an attempt to say something, but couldn’t yet manage words.
Khayn’s scornful stare darted to Cath Orin and he spun to pick his sword off the floor. In a flash he had the weapon in his hand and he twirled toward the wizard. With just a single step forward he had the tip of the blade at his throat.
“Give me a reason not to,” Khayn said, holding the steel straight and absolutely steady below Cath Orin’s chin.
“Stop,” came a hoarse voice from behind him. Khayn turned to see Raven with an outstretched hand. The assassin swallowed. “Lower your weapon, Khayn,” he finished with more strength.
Khayn didn’t question Raven’s words, but maintained his intense stare as he lowered his sword.
The wizard did not appear concerned. Instead, he sat down on the bed, reached over for the mug he had placed down on the nightstand beside his bed, and took the opportunity to sip its contents as if he too were recovering strength.
“What happened to me?” Raven asked, having resituated himself to one of the chairs at the table. “What did you do?”
Cath raised his hand just slightly before letting it drop as if it had taken great effort to do so. “Your broach,” the wizard pointed out. “My symbols warded against what it was channeling. If I hadn’t destroyed it, it would have destroyed you.”
Raven looked down to the broach that secured his cloak around his shoulders, and to his amazement, found that it had changed from midnight black to a cascading riot of color. “What are you telling me?” Raven asked, still admiring the beauty of it. “This is some kind of evil talisman? I bought it for next to nothing at a market in Avaleen.” Raven took it off and his cloak fell loosely behind him, catching on the back of the chair. Admiringly, he slowly rubbed his thumb over its glassy surface. “Probably worth fifty times as much now,” he casually remarked to himself.
The wizard slurped some tea. “You will,” he looked over to Khayn who was still standing. “Both of you need to learn the significance of all precious stones if you want to survive. You look foolish in these lands, what’s left of them, wearing them the way you do. Anything beyond rings… maybe some rare necklaces is primitive.”
Raven looked up quickly. “Primitive?” he asked with some offense, his uncanny ability to forget recent events, no matter how horrible, at work. “It’s just an opal.”
“They’re tools is what they are,” Cath responded calmly, placing the mug back on the nightstand. “Would you walk around with a hammer around your neck because it was stylish? A fork, perhaps, because it was pretty?”
Khayn glanced back over to Raven, but he was looking down at the opal again.
“No. No, of course you wouldn’t.”
Cath Orin stood up, rising to his feet and walking towards them. “Sit, sit,” he said, looking at Khayn and motioning towards the free chair beside Raven.
“I think I’d prefer to stand for now,” the captain said.
The wizard smiled. “Well, alright. Suit yourself then. Fine.” He made his way to the window, speaking as he peered at the view of densely packed trees wrapped in darkness.
“Had you been in Joran last night,” the wizard went on, “you would be dead. The artificial dawn would have killed you both.” Without looking, he referenced the chalked symbol just beside him. “The opal would have killed you. I bet it hurt, nonetheless.”
Raven no longer seemed concerned with the broach. “Yeah, it did,” he said, exchanging a glance with Khayn who remembered the unpleasant experience in his quarters just as clearly.
“A storm is coming, I see,” said the wizard. “A gale for some. A blizzard for others…”
Raven sat in silence, and after an extended pause, Khayn couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “What’s that?” the captain asked. “Some sort of foreboding riddle?”
The wizard looked over at Khayn who simply stared back at him, conscious to not wilt under the man’s apparent scrutiny.
“No,” Cath Orin said at length in a very unassuming tone. “An observation. There’s bad weather coming.”
In the corner, Raven smirked as he watched the wizard walk back to his bed and sit. Frowning, Khayn moved to join the assassin at the table.
“Please, call me Orin,” said the wizard. He folded his hands, leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “You want to know about the light. That’s fair, that’s fair.”
Raven leaned forward on the table, intent on Orin’s words.
“It was the first breath of a civilization long dead. The first twitch of the first kingdom’s corpse.”
The wizard looked directly at Khayn. “Now that, young fellow, was a foreboding riddle.”
Raven looked to say something, but stopped when Orin held up a finger.
“Trust me,” he said to the assassin. “By the same tides that have brought our paths together this night, will our conversation satisfy your questions. But first things come first, and I must know, who was it you encountered on the road?”
Raven crossed his arms slowly, and leaned back against the wall. He answered with some delicacy, realizing he was probably about to talk about this man’s friend. “Adeemus Breen,” he said.
Orin remained motionless.
“You didn’t sense him?” Raven asked. “Brayden said you told him where to go. What to expect.”
“That is correct,” Orin said. “That’s right, I saw the threat. But I could not be sure until now that it was Adeemus.”
Raven and Khayn both fell silent for a time, almost as if granting the wizard time to grieve.
“And the animal I saw. The decimated creature?”
“Sebastion,” Khayn said. Then added. “Sort of.”
“Yes,” Orin nodded. “Sebastion.”
The wizard reached again for the mug of tea, straightening his back as he brought the rim to his lips.
“Then it is as I expected. I am the last.” Orin seemed to drift, cocking his in an internal debate. “Unless Nova,” he started. “But … no, can’t count on that.”
Khayn looked over to Raven then, clearly depending on his lead to move things along, and the assassin didn’t disappoint.
“Tell me how it happened,” Raven said. “What happened in those crossroads?”
Orin focused on Raven again.
“I know you were a part of Galad’s entourage,” the assassin said. “I know you were waiting for him in Lehdar.”
“Ah,” the wizard said, smiling. “‘Crossroads.’ How charmingly quaint.” Orin stood up so abruptly that Khayn jumped. Raven, however, didn’t move, afraid to get in the way of the eccentric wizard’s train of thought. “Catacombs, tunnels,” he went on, and he took a full step towards Raven, resting his fingertips on the edge of the table, looking down dead in his eyes. “Wizards, Warlocks… Sorcerers. These are but pitiful labels put in place by a primitive linguistic system practiced over countless worlds and civilizations.” He laughed, a sort of belittling cackle. “There are no words for what I am. What we are. It’s embarrassing enough that you treat gemstones like trinkets, with no knowledge-”
“Don’t let it get you,” Raven said, seeming to see something Khayn could not. Khayn realized that his hand had drifted down to the hilt of his sword, sensing the dark turn on which the wizard appeared to be headed. But Raven just held his stare. “I know what it feels like. It can only be worse for you.”
There was a long pause before the muscles in Cath Orin’s face relaxed. At last he smiled and shrugged as if it were his only explanation. “Even worse because I know the nature of the source,” he said. “I should be above it, but the land is sick. Existence is sick, and then so am I.”
Again, the wizard made his way back over to the window, bracing himself against the wall by placing his hand to the side of it. To Khayn it seemed like looking outside lent him comfort, some inexplicable reassurance. It conjured images of Raven the night before.
“So,” Orin said, his face almost pressed against the glass now. “I am to play the wise old wizard. The all knowing sage who guides the heroes on their path.”
Apparently, Orin had expected a response to this, for when he received none, he twisted his head towards Khayn and Raven. The wizard’s gaze bounced between them, but their expressions remained blank. “It’s an old story,” he said, clarifying. “The wise old wizard.”
Khayn raised his eyebrows. “None like I’ve ever heard,” he said, withdrawing his tin case of cigarettes. He placed one in his mouth and it bounced on his lips as he spoke. “And you don’t look that old to me.”
“Not in here,” Cath said, snapping just as Khayn struck the lighter, and as he did so the flame turned to water; a white light flickering in its center. As the tip of the cigarette entered the “flame” it became drenched and ruined.
Khayn absently took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it down at his side. He kept the small apparatus lit, staring in amazement at the flickering water.
“It’s probably just paranoia,” Orin said. “I’m probably just being paranoid. I don’t think flames so small as candles or flint box lighters can be used as spyglasses. But better safe than sorry and easily done with more than one element at our disposal.”
The wizard looked back to Khayn who was still hypnotized by the water flame, presently appearing to work up the courage to touch it.
Orin smirked.
“And this is who you’ve brought to contest Arkhelan’s beast?” he asked good-naturedly.
Raven’s eyes widened and he warily looked to Khayn, wondering if he had caught that.
The water flame disappeared. “What?” the captain asked, but his tone was drowsy, distant, and it was clear he had been too distracted to hear.
“Nothing,” Raven said.
“Ordaeus,” Orin continued, and at first it appeared as if he was on the verge of an explanation.
“It was as you suspected,” he said to Raven. “You wanted to know what happened in the Crossroads during our escape. You already have the details nearly exact.”
Raven’s expression turned to curiosity and confusion. “Um. What?”
“How you told him,” the wizard said with a gesture to Khayn. “Last night. Within the Greywall. When you played the role in which I currently play myself.”
Khayn was examining the wet and useless cigarette, still holding it in front of his face, looking past it to the wizard. “But?”
“The hearth,” Raven said. “You were listening through the hearth.”
“And watching,” Orin corrected.
“That’s how you knew where we’d be on the road,” said Khayn.
“That’s right. And if I can use the fire, others can as well. There aren’t many left alive who still can, but Arkhelan is one of them, and so we must, all of us, beware.”
“But we made poor time,” said Raven. “How could you have known that would happen?”
At this the wizard seemed to retreat within, reflecting.
“I knew the dark magic that would cross your path. I knew when it would be on that road, and so knew you would be there as well.”
“But you didn’t know it would be Adeemus Breen,” Raven said.
“I did not,” said Cath Orin. “Because it was not.”
Raven stood slowly from his chair, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in the confines of the small room.
“Did he speak … in the old tongue?”
Khayn nodded. “There were a fair share of ‘thines’ and ‘thous,’ yeah,” he said. “Same as Vigrath.”
The wizard nodded to himself, now standing upright and crossing his arms before the window.
“They are not the old words of the Joranese Republic,” he said. “Nor of the ancient Empire that preceded it. It is the articulation of the direct descendants. The descendants of the Sun Kingdom of Joran.”
Raven cocked his head, but didn’t dare speak.
“A civilization of the very earliest times, times that no one can understand now. It was the time when magic words were made. A place of pure thought. Pure energy. A place of mind. A word spoken by chance would suddenly become powerful, and what people wanted to happen could happen, and nobody … nobody could explain how it was.”
Cath Orin turned around to face them again, his eyes sharp. Focused.
“Now all we know is division. Division between mind and speech, mind and matter, metaphysical and physical. And it is of this division, this first of all divisions that both the Joranese Empire and Kingdom of Agaron were born.”
Khayn’s jaw dropped.
“Certainly you’ve made the connection by now,” the wizard went on. “The name of your king is Arkelais. Does that sound similar to any other finding its way into current events these days?”
Raven sagged back into his chair. “Arkhelan,” he said in a whisper.
“Bravo,” said Cath Orin, clapping lightly. “Both names stem from the Sun Kingdom. Your king’s, for instance, has been handed down through countless centuries and epochs. But I have reason to believe that Arkhelan actually lived in that time. Dare I say he is a direct descendant of that Kingdom that was the world?”
“On the night Galad Vigrath arrived at the Greywall, he was trying to speak something about our king,” Khayn said. “And then tonight, Adeemus touched on the same thing.”
“It was not either of those two individuals, but a power speaking through them,” the wizard corrected. “It is a force seeking to cause chaos within your kingdom. Indeed, throughout the world. To convey the information I have now shared with you. To unleash secrets upon unready minds is to incite disaster, and in that way words retain their potency.”
“What force are you talking about?” Raven asked. “What is the metaphysical side of the plague Galad used to tell me about? He said only the wizards understood.”
Orin hardly hesitated, as if eager to get out the explanation. “The remnants of a ruined and directionless power now completely devoid of purpose. A power dependant on what is put in to determine what is put out.”
The anger crept back into the wizard’s tone.
“What has been put in is centuries of misuse and neglect by an ignorant government. What has come out is what we refer to as the plague, which has now spilled into physical reality as well.”
“I am so confused right now that I could literally puke,” Khayn said.
“You need not concern yourself with such matters. There are philosophies and studies in my culture in which even the immortal lack proper time to appreciate. It is not your lot to understand the realm of mythical revelation. Nor is it your responsibility to interpret the primordial society in which the gods reigned in the world and supported humanity’s endeavors.”
Khayn and Raven remained silent.
“I was merely answering a question,” said the wizard, turning a moment from the window. “‘What force are you talking about?’ Isn’t that what you asked?”
“It is,” Raven acknowledged, and then took a deep breath. “Nevermind.”
“Some of the violent break between what you might define as ‘heaven’ and the world you know is relevant, however.”
By mere habit, Khayn reached once more into his cloak and withdrew his cigarettes. He placed one in his mouth and was about to strike the lighter when he remembered and froze.
Looking annoyed, the wizard batted his hand and the cigarette lit. Relieved, the captain took in a deep drag of the tobacco. Raven never took his eyes from Orin.
“There was a war, that is all any of us know for sure. It ended all intercontinental contact, fracturing the unity of the world, and thus ending the days of the Sun Kingdom. In time, even the name of this world that we live in deteriorated from all memory and remains lost today.”
Although originally said in jest, the wizard had truly assumed the persona of a wise old sage. Raven and Khayn, both intelligent men well versed in the ways of their world, hung on his every word like children.
“The final battle was said to have occurred right here,” said the wizard, motioning out with an upward nod. “In these very woods. Not far from this exact spot,” he paused. “Although some accounts have it taking place closer to the modern day border between our two countries, near where the Greywall stands today.”
Raven ran a hand back through his hair and looked over to Khayn who stared back blankly as he tried to figure out why; and the assassin plucked the cigarette from Khayn’s mouth, placing it in his own.
Cath Orin went on.
“This break, this … division of the Sun Kingdom would evolve over the course of aeons into two separate governments, each an established shadow of the opposing primeval forces. The first of these, the Empire of Joran, went on to keep the name of the Kingdom while espousing an Imperial structure in continued pursuit of the arcane. The second grew into a monarchy named for the omnipotent Prince Agaron, a great hero of the primordial cause to abandon the Sun Kindom’s celestial existence.”
“Who in their right mind would wanna abandon an ecstatic dreamland?” Khayn asked.
“Ah. What cosmic irony it is that an Agaron citizen would ever ask that question.” Orin smiled. “Prince Agaron, with his followers, held to a faith that to continue in the Sun Kingdom’s existence, to possess that sort of power, was to live in a state where ideals could never survive; that the absence of ideals would ultimately lead to the irrelevance of morality, at which point subsidence itself would cease. He believed in individuality. That living alone was the miracle.”
Khayn looked to be considering the possibility of taking his cigarette back from Raven. “Then what?”
“Civil War.” The wizard sighed. “The first of all wars that has echoed eternally in the form of all conflicts since. The war that waits at the end of any journey to restore the Sun Kingdom. … Along a road my country has treaded all too often.”
“You’re talking about Joran’s Civil Wars?” Khayn asked.
“The tides, young Ahara. Wait for them. They will take us there.”
Khayn rolled his eyes.
“Alright, look,” Raven said after a deep inhale of the tobacco smoke. “Just pretending for a minute that the secrets to all creation is in fact a normal topic of discussion and not the source of this migraine from the seventh circle of hell, can I make an observation here?”
Orin’s reflection in the window smiled back at him.
“Now that you’ve explained why my country has no real,” Raven paused, flicking ash from the end of the cigarette, trying to avoid the word Cath Orin seemed to hate. “Wizardry of its own, maybe that’s saying something. I mean, in light of what’s happened to Joran, has it occurred to you that Agaron might have been saved by that fact? Look where the pursuit has taken Joran.”
The wizard crossed his arms, his eyes glistening.
“Perhaps, young assassin, perhaps. But it is a simplistic version of these events that I bestow upon you this night, and so you would find your perspective on the matter equally inadequate and small could I truly share my thoughts.”
The wizard nearly continued without pause but then suddenly did not as if reacting to a thought revising itself while spoken. For a moment Orin said nothing and only thumbed the week’s growth on his chin. “Still …,” he finally went on at length. “Joran and Agaron, doomed as they may be to perpetual conflict, are no less entwined for eternity. Inseparable … no. Symbiotic.”
A thunderclap rolled in the distance just as the first taps of rain started to pelt the window.
“You have seen how this plague .. these dark forces attack the mind. You have seen the horrific effects it has on the body.”
Orin turned away from the window like he was coming out of a trance, like whatever soothing qualities the view engendered had all at once grown stale, and he did not speak again until he was sitting on the bed.
“You see, by Joran’s philosophies we have become, by our very nature, the metaphysical. Our pursuit is the mind.”
Orin focused in on Raven and his gaze seemed to pierce straight to the assassin’s heart, to the very fabric of his soul. Raven swore he saw the wizard’s eyes change color more than once, although Khayn noticed nothing.
“Agaron is the corporeal, Raven” said Cath Orin’s voice, though not aloud. “Heed where I’ve told you this plague began. And do not forget where I’ve told you it spread.”
Even before Cath Orin could look away from Raven, Khayn was speaking. “Wait a minute,” he said, finally taking his cigarette back from the dumbfounded Raven. “You’re saying there’re other continents? Other societies in this world?”
“I am,” said Orin, his attention entirely back on the captain. “And this was the original design and true purpose of the Crossroads; to negate our navy’s inability to overcome the sea’s impassable tides and once again connect them, to reach out in another, far more efficient way. Indeed, the most remarkable achievement of the Joranese Empire. These passages made worldwide travel reality and yes, contact with their societies possible. It was a tremendous step towards unification and discovery unparalleled since the breaking of the Sun Kingdom. We were almost there. We were so close.”
The look in the wizard’s eyes grew hungry with what Raven somehow knew instinctively to be an obsession long denied. Orin’s hands trembled ever so slightly as he went on. “It was an amazing time,” he said with some old emotion in his tone. “A marvelous breakthrough, when the future seemed bright. New, amazing lands that had survived and evolved in their own way.” Cath Orin reached once more for his mug. “Alas, a breakthrough that would be our undoing.”
“Was Agaron never informed?” Raven asked. “None of our history collaborates any of this.”
“Of course it wouldn’t,” the wizard said, finishing the black tea and now holding an empty cup. “The shifting sands of time sweep away all. Joran’s memory remains intact only by the labors of her hermitages. Our..,” he paused, appearing typically irritated at having to continually use the word: “magic. Without that benefit, the earliest origins of your histories have faded completely into myth. It is doubtful that even your king has any real knowledge as to the true root of his name, or that of his kingdom’s for that matter.”
Raven took the cigarette from Khayn for a final drag and then snuffed it out on the table as the wizard went on.
“The Empire tried to share its knowledge with Agaron, in vain. Your people, your ancestral kings were conditioned with an ingrained mistrust and hatred of Joran. The few kings of that ancient history that may have been willing to listen did not dare oppose the powerful aristocrats whose innate suspicions were tradition. In short, there was already a wall between our nations long before there was, in fact,” Orin nodded to Khayn. “A Greywall.” He bowed his head. “Political quicksand and miscommunication ensued. Age old ingredients to the ultimate sin.”
“War?” Khayn asked.
The wizard seemed to find something charming in the captain’s tone, and looking strangely delighted, he tapped his finger twice against his temple and pointed to Khayn. “Our Emperors tried to force the issue, to make your kings listen. But at the mere mention of wizards, other continents and crossroads,” he trailed off for a moment. “The rest is an endless series of tragic details in a heartbreaking story of shattered possibility and promise. And so it is …,” the wizard said, expelling a heavy sigh, “that here, on this continent which is the cradle of life as we know it, death has become our only shameful constant.”
“And the revolution?” Khayn asked, seizing the opportunity for a second attempt at shedding light on a historically vague chain of events.
Cath Orin nodded, having expected the question. “It was the House of Vigrath that first voiced their wish to stop the fighting with Agaron. To let the world live and breathe on what popular opinion was increasingly coming to see as its natural course. The movement spread. The hermitages resisted, turning their powers on the people, all consciousness lost, consumed in the fires of their obsession. But some of us knew the people were right; knew the time had come to let go. So despite our cravings for the euphoria of world restoration, despite our primal need to restore the Sun Kingdom, many of us joined the nobles in what we knew was the right thing to do.”
Raven could have sworn in that moment that he heard the clashing of weapons and war screams, but though the sensation was as distracting as it was indescribable, the assassin remained intensely focused on the wizard’s words.
“The civil war was horrific,” Orin was saying, and by the faraway look in his eyes he was watching what Raven could hear. “By all that is holy I tell you there are no words that could ever define the … no. I cannot bear to recall the detail.”
The wizard took several deep, steadying breaths as if simply touching on the subject was enough to cause severe physical and psychological distress.
“Are you alright, Orin?” Raven asked.
“I’m fine,” came the weak reply after a long pause.
“Are you sure?” Raven stood up from the chair. “Maybe I should get you some water or-”
“Fine, boy. Now listen. Sit.”
Raven complied, slowly sitting back in his chair. As he did so, the color appeared to return to Orin’s face, along with some strength to his voice. “What happened next is recorded even in your own history books. Members of the House of Vigrath, with the wizards in their cooperative, destroyed the hermitages unwilling to surrender. Some were so consumed that at the moment of their death, they wept with joy, basking in the ecstasy of being freed…”
For just a moment, it seemed as if the wizard might once again be swept to a dark and distant place. “I saw friends of mine engulfed in necromantic flames … praising their good fortune at being burned alive.” But before the demonic reverie took him completely, Orin resisted and came back.
The room was absolutely still, as if the words Cath Orin spoke wove a tapestry of silence to wrap around the moment. Even the intensifying rain faded away. Khayn and Raven were frozen.
“When the fighting was over, only the House of Vigrath had survived intact. The other noble Houses were scattered. Our greatest minds, our most preeminent hermitages, were lost. The surviving wizards reestablished as many hermitages as we could, but from then on, we were forbidden from entering any positions of power. Even the most fiercely loyal of us were shut out as Joran’s new policies sought to prevent history from repeating itself. We found ourselves widely persecuted for nearly all of the first century, before the tolerance of the masses eventually allowed us to enter society as little more than celestial scientists meant to predict weather, set agricultural calendars and the like. Some were graced with the opportunity to become glorified historians while the most powerful and trusted were assigned as guardians of the Republic’s prominent cities. The tremendous forces of the Crossroads continued on their path of deterioration as well. Having made the journey from an instrument of ultimate peace, to use in the wars against Agaron, to use in the war against each other, to a means of commerce for wealthy merchants to travel the country.”
“And yet Arkhelan proved the prejudices well founded,” Raven said.
The comment drew a somewhat cross stare from the wizard.
“What? Am I wrong?” Raven asked, realizing how his words could have offended Orin but unapologetic. “According to Galad, he decided the entire High Council was expendable. ‘Butchered them like cattle,’ I believe was his exact quote.”
Orin held Raven’s stare a little longer before finally reaching back to the nightstand and the teapot.
“Arkhelan never fought in the civil war,” Cath said as he refilled his mug with the steaming tea. Even from across the room Raven and Khayn could smell the scent of berries.
“But…” Raven cast a sidelong glance to Khayn as if he missed something. “You said only the wizards loyal to the nobles survived ...”
“That’s true,” said Orin as he set the teapot back down. “But shortly before his attack on the High Council, the documents of his ancestry were found to be forgeries.”
“So then what are you telling us?” Khayn asked. “That he’s been waiting centuries just to unleash this plague and resume the civil war?”
“Why would he have to fake his identity to do that? Or wait until now to do so?” Raven added.
Orin looked down at his teacup, blowing into it before glancing up over the rim. “Well founded questions, all. Questions I have not yet been able to answer, for little is known of Arkhelan if I am to be honest in the matter.”
“He’s a mass murderer,” Raven said. “You can start there.”
Orin sipped at the tea and then lowered the steaming cup to his lap. “Arkhelan,” he said, and taking another minute, looked down to the floorboards. “We first met upon his acceptance into the capital’s hermitage … it would have been 75 years ago this Spring. He claimed it was his first time in Farbacen, which I admit I thought was strange, however not inconceivable. And from then on he did a remarkable job with any and all tasks the government assigned him. He was disgruntled with the High Council, resented how we wizards were treated, but that hardly made him unique. In truth, his profile was kept quite low in his time with the hermitage. I might even go so far as to wager not one out of ten politicians would know his name.”
“They would know now,” Khayn said.
“Indeed. And yet alas, I still find myself in shock that we should suffer so much fear from the man.”
“I don’t understand,” Raven said, anger creeping into both tone and demeanor. “Why is it so difficult for you to understand? His actions have already told us what we need to know. The man killed the High Council. Turned you and the rest into escaped refugees!”
Orin was completely unfazed by the rising tension. He was still calm, sedate in his thoughts. “The only one of us who could have truly claimed they knew him was a wizard named Nova Hazen. A mentor of Arkhelan for many years, he once described him as having ‘the soul of a child and the mind of a philosopher.’”
“This is ridiculous!” Raven said standing up with such a start that his chair crashed to the floor behind him. “You actually sound like you admire the man!”
Khayn remained seated and still, staring up at the assassin while Cath Orin looked to be heeding Raven’s animosity for the first time. When neither man spoke, Raven wiped a hand across his mouth, took a deep breath and tried to collect his thoughts. “When this first started, before the people of this country had lost all hope as they seem to have rightfully done now, I remember mothers …” Raven stopped to clear his throat, desperate to fight back the emotion threatening to betray all composure. “I remember mothers cradling dead babies on the side of the road … begging for money to buy coffins. Do not tell me this man is anything but evil incarnate! Do not tell me he is a child when I have seen what his plague has done!” Without realizing it, Raven had stepped mere inches from the wizard and had been screaming down on top of him. That Khayn did not try to intervene spoke volumes of his opinion in the matter.
“Don’t let it get you,” Orin whispered, slowly placing the teacup beside his bed and rising with a calm gracefulness in direct contention to Raven. “Isn’t that what you told me?” the wizard calmly asked.
Raven took a deep breath, then blew it all out of him, his shoulders visibly relaxing.
“I said he had the soul of a child, not that he was one. And do not presume to think I cannot appreciate the things you have seen and endured in this country.”
In the corner, Khayn stood from his chair as if debating whether or not to approach. Raven progressively cooled. He even raised his head to make eye contact with the wizard as Orin went on.
“The first signs of something amiss came long before any physical manifestations of the … ‘plague’ came to pass. Arkhelan tried to bring this to the High Council’s attention.”
Khayn’s eyes widened. Raven was absolutely still.
“I have done my best here, my sincerest best to grant you at least some semblance of perspective into what we are dealing with. I have done this in the hopes that you might appreciate the history that has led us here. Led us to this … endgame of what has been an infinitely complex continuum of events and circumstance spanning back to preexistence. What I am telling you, Raven Lale, is that no one man, being, or force could ever be singularly responsible for that which has manifested itself as this all-consuming epidemic. I am telling you that Arkhelan is not the architect of the plague. I am telling you that he warned the High Council to untie the hands of the wizards so we could prevent it. I am telling you that although he is indeed responsible for toppling the Republic, his motives beyond that are shrouded in mystery.”
“Um,” Khayn’s voice broke in. “Excuse me.”
Cath Orin looked past Raven’s shoulder to Khayn.
“You wouldn’t be able to just … snap your fingers and make a bottle of brandy arise from this table?”
Raven smirked before shaking his head and turning to face him. The comic relief was appreciated.
“Because I don’t think any man ‘spanning back to preexistence’ has ever needed a drink as badly as I need one right now.”
“No, I regret not, captain,” Orin said, beguiled. “I regret not.” He brought his eyes back to Raven’s. “Now … the tides I spoke of have brought us back to the beginning, as promised. So let the discussion come full circle. Let me fill in the blanks, as it were, to the events you discussed last evening.”
Raven nodded.
“You still wish to know what happened after Galad returned to Joran, I trust?”
“Yes,” Raven said. “I do.”
“Then walk with me, boy.” Orin started to the door, his mien lightening tenfold as he moved. “I will build upon what you shared with me last evening.”
“What you eavesdropped, you mean,” Khayn said from the corner. Then his forehead crinkled as if something more had just then come to him. “You know, I had the feeling of being watched from my hearth last night. I knew it,” he said, and that seemed to please him.
“Yes,” the wizard acknowledged. “As I recall you almost made out my face. I was impressed. Quite impressed, in fact.”
Orin opened the door but before he could step out, Raven spoke. “He could still be a megalomaniac, you know,” and he turned to the wizard now standing in the doorway. “Arkhelan,” he clarified. “And if he really is a direct descendant of this Sun Kingdom, it could mean he’s even more dangerous.”
“Agreed,” Orin said, and then winked. “So now that you got that out of your system, follow me.”
Cath Orin left the room, and while Khayn looked to be surprised that he had made a left towards the abandon part of the Inn, Raven was still staring at the wall behind the bed.
“And here I thought last night’s conversation was bad,” Khayn said.
Raven grunted. “Yeah.”
“And where does this rank on the bizarre scale, I wonder?”
Raven massaged the bridge of his nose, and then shrugged. “It’s up there,” he said for the second time that evening, and then followed the wizard out.
Khayn followed suit, and as he made his way to the door the heavy rain outside became perceptible all at once, coinciding with the comforting sound of the jubilant activity of Raven’s men downstairs as he crossed into the hall.
Raven and Orin were standing in front of the chalk line the captain had first noticed earlier.
“Galad Vigrath had many talents,” the wizard was saying to the assassin, kicking at the rune symbol drawn on the floor. “But this is crude. A temporary, barely effective solution.”
“Did the best he could, I guess,” Raven said, sounding a bit defensive. “He wasn’t a wizard and whatever he did here has worked pretty well so far.”
“Pure happenstance, I can assure you,” Cath said, and without the slightest hesitation he started down into the darkness. “Come.”
Khayn and Raven followed, but not before exchanging a bothered glance. They listened to the wizard intently as he talked quietly before entering the first of the unprotected rooms.
“By the time Galad returned to Lehdar after his last meeting with you, the city had made the final descent into chaos. Governor Lograine locked the castle, shut out the citizens and horded all supplies. Then he lit most of the remaining structures on fire in an attempt to slow the plague.”
“Brave guy,” said Khayn, but with the majority of his attention on the soon to be opened door. He looked to have the expectation that something might jump out at them when the wizard creaked it open.
The door clicked and Cath Orin pushed it into a gaping vertical void, and at this, the wizard did hesitate briefly, but only for a moment before entering. Raven followed, then Khayn. The room was revealed, after the wizard lit the mounted lanterns with his water flames, to be predictably identical to and equally unimpressive as the one they had just left. Now, with the proper lighting flickering throughout, the wizard concentrated on the window, withdrawing a piece of chalk from his pocket.
“We tried to convince the Governor to open the doors, Adeemus and I did; to let the people into the castle in hopes of increasing their odds of survival,” Orin said, nonchalantly scripting the familiar rune sign beside the window. Then he took the lantern from the table and placed it on the windowsill, careful to ensure its glow basked directly over the symbol. “But he wouldn’t hear of it. He was a fool, after all. Corrupt and cowardly in the end, despite however he might have sold his actions to himself.”
Orin took a step back to examine his handiwork. Satisfied, he turned around to face Khayn and Raven. “Lograine was of the House of Silith, one of the most decimated in our Civil War, and the passing generations have only fueled their extreme prejudice. He wouldn’t even open the gates to hear our proposals. He wouldn’t even see us.”
Raven stood by the door, eager to leave the room. He waited for Khayn and Orin to walk past him into the hall. “Well, judging by your desperation to flee Lehdar after Arkhelan destroyed the High Council, I’d imagine our repugnant little governor did not survive his arrival.”
“No, I would imagine not,” Orin said, reaching the next door and then pausing to listen for activity on the other side. “When we left him, however, he was still very much alive. He and his wizard servant, a magus with marginal skill but an abundance of obedience, had been attempting to contact the High Council for weeks.”
Orin twisted the doorknob and entered the room. Khayn and Raven behind.
“Had he only opened the gates in the stead of setting fires, we could have conveyed the gruesome fate of the Council and the hermitage members who did not share Arkhelan’s views.” The wizard went about the mundane task of lighting the lanterns, but this time he went straight for the one on the table, placing it on the windowsill immediately before tending to any of the others. “But, he did light those fires, lads. Shutting out our knowledge, and in the process, killing himself with his own cowardice.” With the lamp aglow, Orin was drawing the symbol now. “It was at this point that the people, who were our only real concern, fled the city.”
With the rune emblem securely completed, its white chalk luminescent in lantern light, the wizard took to lighting the others, and as he did so, Raven stepped to the window and looked out. “Then maybe some of them survived,” he said, holding up a hand to the small group of men standing outside the Inn’s stables below, huddled beneath a long overhang as a shield against the torrential rain. They were plainly confused to see light and activity coming from this room, but even from this distance Raven could sense their optimism upon recognizing their leader had returned.
“Doubtful,” the wizard said as the last lantern jumped to life. “In Lehdar, the effects of the plague were at their worst; perhaps due to the city’s proximity to the Crossroads … and then again … perhaps not.”
Raven turned away from the window to find Orin looking down at the floorboards, motionless, tumbling the chalk in his hand.
“Arkhelan was no more than two days away. The time had come to make a decision.” The wizard looked up to make eye contact with the assassin, and again, Raven thought he saw the shade of his eyes fluctuate. “And so a decision was made. We fled into the Crossroads.”
“When we learned of the escapees attempt to use them,” Raven said, surprised. “We thought it meant Galad ran out of time. That he,”
“Panicked?” asked Orin rhetorically. “You forget that, for all intents and purposes, I was also present in the Captain’s Lodge last evening. I recall.”
“Ugh,” Khayn said, his back to the open doorway. “You never used my hearth to like watch me sleep or anything, did you?”
The comment met with complete silence, and this is what caused the captain to look up from the cigarette he was about to put in his mouth. As he did so, he saw both Raven and Orin staring at something behind him.
“What,” Khayn said, cigarette hanging from his lip. “What is it?” His hand crept slowly to the hilt of his sword.
“Easy. It cannot enter here any longer,” Orin said. “Who is it that you see, Raven?”
“Brayden,” Raven said without hesitation.
“Of course it’s me. Can I talk to you for a minute, boss? Something’s come up.”
“He’s asking me to go out there,” the assassin said.
“Do not move. Steady a moment,” the wizard insisted.
“What. Is. It?” Khayn asked again.
“Orin, you old magician! Survived as I knew you would,” said Adeemus Breen to Cath Orin. “Join me for some tea. We have much to discuss.”
Fed up with being ignored, Khayn spun on his heels, withdrew his sword in a flash and faced that which was behind him.
And to his astonishment he found First Marshal Damien Tove smiling at him from the hall. “Come now, Khayn,” he said with the grin the captain had known since childhood. “You didn’t honestly believe I would let you brave the dangers of this country alone, did you?”
“Damien?” Khayn said, lowering the weapon at his side. “… how?”
“Captain Ahara, step back,” said Orin in a very deliberant, urgent tone. “Step back now.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Well, that’s a funny story, son. One that I would be more than happy to share over a brandy or two. It seems that even in this forsaken land they can still appreciate the value of tending bar.”
Khayn smiled. “But…”
The Marshal sneered, withdrawing a dagger from his cloak and thrusting it through the doorway towards Khayn in a single, blindingly fast motion. It was sheer good fortune that in that instant the captain was pulled backward, falling hard to the floor with Raven who had yanked him back just in time.






















​Jaden’s eyes were open again, she shook her head a little, took a deep breath, and then looked down at him, narrowed her eyes a little. “Jace,” she tried again. And then mustering all she had yelled. “Jace!”

​When she did his eyes flashed open and in one motion and then flashed through every color of the rainbow. Without wasting any time he sat up, grabbed her hips and picked up her off the stool. She didn’t resist him, draping her arms around his neck as he charged all the way back to the wide indoor ledge of the windowsill and sat her on top of it. He had one hand grabbing her thigh, pushing up the loose sky blue cloth of her dress, nearly all the way up to the top of her thigh showing nearly her full leg, the foot of which the only part of her touching the floor.

​Jaden’s eyes, throughout the commotion, never left Jace’s as he pushed her back.

Suddenly the door kicked open, slamming into the wall and knocking vases all about, all of them crashing the floor.
While Jaden, her world feeling like it was in slow motion, blinked in the space of what felt like an eternity and looked over to Thean, Jace never moved. He just opened his eyes slowly as she looked back to him and made eye contact. And they stayed in that position, as it was impossible to know how he stopped himself so quickly, he had halted just inches from her face, and when his eyes opened, they were staring at her her lips, and then slowly they rose up to meet her amethyst eyes.

She was breathing in deep but steady breaths, a look of concern all the way up until the point when his eyes met hers and he smiled, and she did too, her eyes opening a little wider, wrinkling her nose as if answering a challenge.

Jace heard what sounded like a thousand echoes coming from a million directions chanting ‘ace, ace, ace’ pouring in on him and then focused, and time seemed to catch up to them with a focused “Jace!” And Thean was standing next to him. He was standing straight up, looking at himself in the reflection of the window, seeing the reflection of a young Artemus Ward looking back at him. It was the mirror in his tent and that was the reflection at first. Then the mirror in the carriage with the smoky metal from Relic’s vision on the wagon.

“Outrider Dabriel!” Thean yelled again, and then sleepishly he looked over to him.

“Out! Now!” he yelled furious.

Jace looked over to her in the window sill, and she was sitting there looking at him, not having moved, perspiration still on both of them. He took a step over, picked up his shirt, glanced back to the reflecton, it was him again. Then he hesitated, looked at Thean as if he didn’t know why he was standing there for a minute, looked at him with almost complete disregard, and then looked back at Jaden. She still hadn’t moved, but looked to be recovering. She nodded a few quick times, and without another word Jace picked up his shirt and left.

Thean turned around to watch him all the way out, and when he got to the doorway he stopped, slid his arms into the sleees of his shirt, and peaked back in as he buttoned them back up.

“Go, boy!”

Slowly, confusedly, Jace continued down the stairs.

When he was gone, Thean turned back on Jaden like a cobra.

“Are you out of your god damn mind?” Jaden started drinking some water, looking out the window, her hand on her hip as she drank a whole glass and sighed. “What the hell are you thinking?”

“Please. You knew what I was going to do.”

“I had hoped I was wrong. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and that’s a mistake I won’t make again. These little meetings of yours? They end. Today.”

“Not your decision to make,” she said simply.

“The hell it isn’t!” he growled, stopping and turning around.

“He doesn’t belong to anyone. He’s not a possession.”

“That’s right. He’s not a possession. Say that over again a few times to yourself.” When she didn’t immediately respond, he yelled: “You initiated a trance!”

“He needed a break.”

“He isn’t ready, Jaden! He’s just a kid!”

She smiled and cocked her head to the side.

“So were the four of you when I met you. And besides” she said, half-turning to the door and motioning. “When it comes to that one, that’s up for debate.”

Thean charged her and walked up to her and grabbed her wrist, took the glass out of her hand and put it on the ledge, and she barely resisted, like a child being disciplined and still being a brat and then he made her look at herself in the reflection and as she stared there.

“You wanna end up trapped in Mirror Lake like your daughter? Hm? We no longer have the resources to launch a rescue. We lose you we lose everything.”

“Is that all Cedwyn was to you? A resource? Is that all Jace is to you now?”

Thean had the look of one about to burst forward in another eruption of anger, but he managed to restrain himself at the last moment and took a deep breath.”

“These meetings of yours are over,” he said again, reiterating the point to her reflection as if that image may still be open to sense.

Then he took his hands off her, turned around, and started toward the doorway.

“Or what?” she asked. And Thean stopped, the look on his face of infuriated impatience that his outriders had seen countless times before. “You’ll torture me? Like you’re going to torture my daughter?” He stared a little longer, and then Thean’s expression softened. “I mean you brought her up. Just another resource, isn’t that right?”

Thean narrowed his eyes and a ripple of tension twitched from his body, like guitar strings relaxed but still taught. “No one is going to hurt Hazel, and you know that.”

“Do I?” now she was asking her own reflection. She looked over to Thean who was still looking at her. “And why is that?”

“Because you’re not crazy.” Thean looked at her a little longer, turned and started to the door. When he was almost at the doorway he stopped again, and Jaden’s head looked up a little, for the first tiem looking like she hadn’t been expecting him to stop. “And because I will personally gut any son of a bitch who goes near her without my permission.”

A silent exchange seemed to pass between them, a meaningful silence that seemed to ease some tension from the air.

“He’s been through so much.”

“He can take it.”

“Do you know that? I mean, do you really now that, Fenlow?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Because I’ve spent every waking moment since he was sent to me making sure. And because Donovan himself would come back and murder me in my sleep if I didn’t,” he said with the hardness returning. Then proceeded to move to the top of the stairs that were right outside her door.

“If you care about him that much, you should tell him,” she said. “Before it’s too late.”

“He isn’t Artemus, Jaden,” Thean said at last, stepped out the door and grabbed the handle on the otherside. “Gabriel, Cleo, Relic, and Isabelle just arrived. And Gabriel has news about Aleister.” He let that news hang in the air for a moment. Then some of the tension eased out of his shoulders. “Sorry about the vases,” he added, and closed it. Jaden, looking at her reflection, sighed and slowly leaned her head against the window, letting herself relax.

Aleister’s making a run at Leverette. There’s a lot to talk about.

With that girl Malcom saved you with. A senator now.


This material is the beginning of Chapter 13:

Talking to Kerrick -
Jace: Hey Alarick. Where’d you really get that horn that night? You didn’t really get it from the Fairlawn Bizarre, did you?

Alarick just says nothing.

We’re gonna have to have a talk about that, you and I at some point.

At some point. Aye.

Make it through whatever and we’ll both of us be rich.

We’re already rich.

Alarick smiles and pats Jace’s leg and leaves.

​Leading into Sindell from the eastern side, guarded heavily now by a few legions who had moved there as part of the reorganizing of the defense of the city overnight who probably couldn’t have believed their luck, and in a twist, Jace’s old cavalry legion, The Third, was even present, his old command no Constable Thean’s legion. And here there was a wide green lane of grass that had immense dimensions, meant as an emergency runway if something was wrong with an airship or multiple airships and they wouldn’t be able to either make it back to the Hangar. Since the occupation and invasion of Sindell, it had not been able to be used at night, as when the forcefield was up at night to guard against unknown ground forces and the winged creatures, it cut the immense lane in half. And before the time of the forcefield, for security, a series of evenly spaced doors were capable of being closed upon it, only to be quickly opened at a momen’t notice were there some kind of an emergency. Making the forcefield literally a contradiction, a thing that both saved lives and was responsible for taking them over the last year. The very magic reflecting the wizards themselves. (clean last sentence up, good thought.)
​Today, it was a lane on which all of the cavalry legions stood as well as most of the infantry divisions. Others were civilians watching from highrises on either side of the lane looking down upon it, giving the feeling that this was taking place in a stadium. The way totally out of the city was more than 500 yards (find out in relations to miles this distance.) But only 100 was going to be the distance he was going to ride. To the Veil’driel troops, this was a treat for them, something Jace often did to improve morale, but since their arrival though the Sindell people and troops had never seen it, as Jace’s legend grew through all of them there were two favorite things. His forbidden romance with Isabelle Talabray, that was the stuff of strarstruck mothers telling their children (Toa reference stuff) and him riding what everyone called “The Gauntlet.” Usually, it was just done on the battlefield, in which case there was a lot of people watching him, however, this was beyond anything he had ever done before. It was an event. People hung Veil’driel and Sindell flags from the buildings and high up on either side it went up and all around him, then down below. The atmosphere was electric and even the idle chit chat was loud.

​Usually he did this for the morale of his own men on the battlefield, today, he had been asked to do it by the Parliament of Sindell as part of the festivities leading up to the night’s ball, and he was in the middle of talking to two men who had just recently returned to the capital city, both of which had seen him do it plenty of times.

​“Don’t be do’in that spinny twirly thing you do when the shot comes low,” Darvin Nash was saying, holding his leather glove so Jace could push his hand all the way in. “You wipeout every single time you try.”

​“I do a spinny twirly thing?” he asked.

​“Yeah,” Ferris Lang chimed in. “You do. And it never works.”

​Both gloves on, Jace looked up to find they were both more serious than he had anticipated. Finally he smiled looking back down to minding the feel of his gloves. He rolled his eyes, feigning annoyance.

​“Aren’t you two supposed to be helping Creed with something?”

​“Finished last evening,” Lang said.

​“Yeah,” Darvin chimed in. “Don’t worry about it, we wouldn’t miss you breaking your neck..”

​“Mmhm. And how much you boys have on this?”

​“Enough,” they both said simultaneously.

​Jace smiled again, shaking his head, amused.

​“You guys crack me up. Whole damn world is ending and you’re worried about money.”

​“Yeah, well, just don’t go jump’in him into anymore oceans,” Darvin said.

​Jace smiled again.

​“Oceans?” he looked over to Malcolm. “It was a bay, wasn’t it.”
​Malcolm nodded, twirling a toothpick in his mouth.

​“Bay,” he nodded.

​“I’ll do my best. Let’s just hope that horse of yours is up to the task.”

​Darvin tossed him a look and Jace seemed to appreciate that the joke had succeeded.

​“That is a lot of people,” Malcolm said, holding a toothpick in his mouth and looking up at all the buildings lining the entire way down the wide long lane. He was leaning against the base of one of the massive arches that was the outline of one of the immense doors, that when the doors were open the arches ran the entire course of the long lane.

​Jace looking down, adjusting something on the bracers now, glanced up at all the buildings and the people at the comment and then looked back down to those he was talking to again.

​“Alright, you know what?” he said. “I’m going to stand over here now.”

​Darvin and Ferris both smiled.

​Malcolm stepped forward just as Jace looked like he was about to start over towards Darvin’s horse. The horse he was going to ride.

​“Hey, Jace, you got a second?”

​Jace looked up at the announcer who was discussing something with someone standing next to him from a recently erected wooden tall structure. There were precious stones all over it that he understood the Sindell Air Force used for communicating over the noise of airship engines in the hangar. Now it was to be used to amplify his voice over the army of spectators.

​When Jace walked up into the front part of the lane, out of where the archway of the closest door to the city hid him, he came into view and there was a brief elevation in cheers and clapping that would have been mild if not for the sheer size of the crowd and made it tremendously noticeable, of those chattering to each other telling each other they could see him, and fathers pointing them out to their sons. They weren’t yet in a frenzy, but it was getting there.

​“Yeah,” Jace said turning now to face him. “What’s up?”

​Now Malcolm stepped out into view after him, and it had the same effect with the crowd.

​“Ladies and gentlemen, the twin stars!” the announcer said, and ruckus applause.

​Malcolm sighed and waved around though it was impossible to differentiate between the massive crowds rising up on many levels up and away in buildings and beyond. Then his attention was back on Jace.

​“I was wondering if I might be able to get some of that feverlew,” he said, and Jace looked up with a slight frown.

​“C’mon, don’t give me that look,” he said. “You know what our workload’s been like, and now with being in charge of all the archers I have all kinds of briefings and things I have to do. Just need a little pick me up.”

​“You know that stuff can be addictive, right?”

​Malcolm hesitated a little at this, conflicted.

​“Yeah,” he said very weakly, but then cleared his throat. “Yeah, of course,” he went on with more conviction. “I’m talking about a pick-me-up here, Jace. Nothing more.”

​Jace sighed.

​“Yeah,” he said. “But don’t tell anyone. It’ll be my ass.”

​“Of course not.”

​“Right.” And it looked like he was actually waiting for it, and Jace didn’t notice at first but then did a double take to him. “After this,” he said surprised he had to and gestured all around. “Unless you want me to slip you an illicit substance in front of the whole damn city.”

​Malcolm smiled. Right.

​In what felt like a strange bit of timing, then, the announcer began speaking, although he then realized that the announcer could have seen him from where they were talking and was probably waiting until it was finished.

​“Ladies and gentlemen of the two great nations of the Republic of Veil’driel and the Kingdom of Sindell, we are gathered here today in honor of the tremendous retaking of the city of Zarponda, and as a symbol of this unprecedented alliance, we present Outrider of Veil’driel Jace Dabriel.”

​Jace, still standing there offered a little wave at the sound of his name, and now the crowd did raise to a frenzied pitch.

​Jaden nodded, smiled, looked around.

​“Good luck,” she said and bowed and took a step back and walked away.

​Over the crowd the announcer’s voice boomed.

​“Bowmen, take your positions!”

​Jace was just about to mount his horse when Malcolm took a couple steps forward past him, he reached out at the last second and put his hand on his chest.

​“Don’t. Even think about it,” he said.

​Then, without another word he turned and mounted up, Malcolm laughing a little as he went back into the crowd.

​In the saddle, Jace stood straight up in the stirrups and spread his arms and acknowledged the crowd elevating it all to a fever pitch. Then he sat, took his hat out of from a pocket, put it on his head, and in the same motion withdrew cigarettes and put them in his mouth. Lighting it he looked up, down the lane and the world was beginning to slow. He took a drag, thinking of how he wished he hadn’t done it one time and it hadn’t become a thing. It was all for show because the first thing he did upon taking off he dropped the cigarette.

​Just off the lane near where he was a large man with a big bushy beard was standing there holding a bunch of slips of unofficial bets. There was a time when the bets would be whether or not he made it through or not without getting hit. Now they were whether or not he would even be challenged.

​“That smoke a his is just be for show,” the giant man was saying to a bunch of the younger men around him, infantryman. “Drops it as soon as he’s off.”

​“Seen one or two of these shows before, have ya?”

​“Aye, 27 point of fact. Used to take bets as ta whether he’d be hit or not.”

​“Has he ever? Aye, once. By a shot the likes the devil himself could not have made.”

​“A shame they don’t let us rifleman have a go.”

​Now for the first time the infantryman with the bushy beard turned to face him.

​“Ha. Is it now?” he asked, the infantryman he was with also turning around to face the rifleman. “Those contraptions ya boys got there’d be useless. Might as well be shoot’in at flies ina windstorm.” He nodded back over his shoulder to where Jace was no preparing. “The ‘ol Captain there have yall sites so backward, by the time you thought you had anything to aim at he’d be outta yer range ten times.”

​The rifleman laughed.

​“Think I’m joke’in da ya?”

​The one rifleman looked away from his friends, and back to the infantryman, and he eased a bit when he saw the seriousness on the men’s faces.

​“Look, no disrespect. That’s Jace Dabriel. All us here love the guy and’ve heard he’s an amazing rider.” The others with him nodded their agreement as he exchanged a glance with them as to say “right?” And he turned back to the infantryman who was standing there with his group of infantryman, all with their big busy beards of the north provinces.

​“Ah yer misunderstand’in laddy. It’s not offense we’ve smelled in the breeze of the trees. But a proper wager on our hands. Ina right, boys?” he asked his own group. Their beards were not as bushy, and they looked a bit younger. They were in their dress uniforms as appropriate for the festivities of the day, all the same color to mark their legion, and while the Sindell rifelman didn’t know their ranks completely, he didn’t need to to realize this man was a sergeant and those with him his unit. “Well alright then, it would appear we got a proper wager on our hands doesn’t it boys?”

​“Alright, what’re the stakes?”

“Pints a night at this upcoming shindig, that ba tha time,” he pointed at Jace in his saddle still getting ready without looking. “That lad gets through with riding through that lane, yall be force ta admit you’d have no chance to hit’em wit dose well to do toys ya got there.”

The look in the rifelman’s face was that it was too good to be true.

“Drinks all night? …” he started then paused as if to hyper clarify because he couldn’t have possibly heard that right. “Bought by us if we have to admit we could never hit him, drinks bought by you if we don’t.”

“Righto ya got it, we dance’in to the same tune now.”

He turned back to his group of rifleman, the looked almost guilty for accepting the bet and he looked back.

“Right. Okay my roughneck friend, you’re on then. Place’in quite a bit in our integrity. What when we could simply deny admitting we couldn’t hit him no matter what we truly think.”

“Ah na trust me, boys,” the bushy bearded infantryman said, staring in now again at his captain. “In just a minute now you’ll see it’s you boys who’s taken all the risk.”

A loud horn sounded and then there was that dead silence. Thousands of people to the point where you could hear a pin drop. It was extraordinary silence. The world began to slow and he stared down the lane, and then he let the silence consume him.

​Finally he cracked the reins, and in his own mind, things still stayed absolutely silent as he dropped the cigarette out of his hand and grabbed the rein with his other hand in a fraction of an instant, and the stallion bolted with the same extreme energy he remembered from the Gliveren Arcade, even as the horse bolted and there was an eruption as the buildings and very ground they stood on shook. And the cheering became thunderous, and the announcer screamed at the top of his lungs: “Ladies and gentlemen!” he yelled as Jace thundered forward down the lane. “Jace—”

“—Dabriel. Veil’driel Star recipient and Outrider,” the ball announcer heralded him in as he entered the extravagant Ball Room, and by the looks of Jace’s face he was surprised by the introduction, and the deafening applause that immense gathering gave him, filled with high society, and regular people as well, people from all over the city, dressed in their finest. For tonight, at least, the war was put on hold. At a loss for what to do he gave a little wave and a smile, standing there in his dress uniform, then continued down the rest of the short stairs down into the room.

​Immediately, he had spotted Outriders Darvin Nash and Ferris Lang standing over by a giant ice sculpture, one of many scattered throughout the immense Ball Room, and walked over to them through the crowd, the attention of the ball room as he walked towards them. When he reached them, all of them were smiling, realizing his surprised reaction, Ferris handed him a champagne glass as he walked up and taking it with one hand he shook Ferris’ hand with the other, then shook Darvin Nash’s hand, hugged Ferris’ wife and they kissed each other on the cheek.

​“You look beautiful,” he whispered to her, then looked over to Ferris as he added: “I don’t know what you’re doing with this guy,” he said. And they all laughed. Then he looked down to see little Casey Lang, wearing the promised green dress, obviously standing quiet and still waiting patiently for Jace to notice her. When he looked down, he opened his mouth and gasped.
​“Wooooooah, pretty girl,” he said. “Look at you. Very beautiful.” She beamed at him, looking shy for a second before putting her arms up to Jace. Jace handed his champagne glass to Darvin Nash, put his hands under her arms, picked her up, pecked her on the lips when she pursed her lips and then transferred her over to his arm as he took the champagne glass back from Darvin.

​“Good job today,” he said as he handed back the champagne glass.

​“Mmmm,” Jace said as he took a sip. “Didn’t do that spinny thing.”

​Darvin winked at him.

​Jace glanced up at the ice sculpture.
​“What is this? A horse?”

​“Supposed to be,” Ferris said. “Don’t think the sculptor had much experience making them. Think he only made some for our benefit and presence.”

​“Huh. Kind of looks like a….,” Jace tilted his head a little to the side. “A giant … dog or something.”

​Casey who had caught sight of a small table filled with pastries and things had been transfixed by it and now was sort of squirming, and still staring asked “Mommy, can I…”

​“Yeah,” she said, go on.

​Jace put her down and she ran over there.

​“It’s ridiculous how big she is,” Jace said, watching her go.

​“Yeah, well, she just loves you,” Danielle said, but then she smiled. “But who doesn’t these days? Pretty popular, aren’t ya? For a minute I thought we were back at the Avaleen Riders Ball.” She said, referencing the annual Ball held by the outrider order.

​Now Ferris stepped a little closer to his wife and slipped his arm around his wife’s waist, pulling her a little closer.

​“I could have been the most popular outrider if I wanted,” he said.

​She laughed.

​“Awww,” she said, kissing him on the lips and then wiping off the lipstick that was there.

​“Speaking of the Rider Ball, I’d say this has got it beat.”

​They all took a moment to really look over the room and take it in at that moment. Splendor. The protocol staff, who hadn’t much to do in recent memory had gone all out, but they were among the best in the world anyway. And they had a moment, where it was as if the beauty really hit them all at once and made them reflective. The music continued on, string instruments, violins, it was all so beautiful. The ceiling had steel beams all over the place but was mostly transparent, with airships flying over and around. And thinking about those annual balls, which led him to thinking about the past, about when Cedwyn was there with them.

​Jace was the first to turn back to them, holding his champagne glass a little highter in front of his chest.

​“To those we’ve lost, and those absent,” he said. “To Cedwyn,” he managed to get out, but just barely, and his hand was trembling ever so slightly.

​“To Cedwyn,” they all said.

​And Jace’s reaction made it even worse. Danielle Lang was tearing up, and Darvin reached up and squeezed Jace’s shoulder after he took a sip and it was obvious that he wasn’t recovering, and was in fact, on the brink of losing it, the beautiful music, the surroundings, and being with people he loved only intensifying the moment that he probably was just now truly reflecting all at once.

​Eyes wet and breathing through his wife to fight off doing just that, he was saved only by the sudden distraction by the guards deeper within the hall yelling out the king’s entrance into the hall on the way to the Ball. Then, as he reached the top ledge, the herald announced proudly: “His Royal Majesty, King William Bryce,” and many of his subjects bowed down to the ground. And it all got silent, the music stopping, those who were not his subjects, were quiet and bowed their heads slightly, and he was dressed in the dress uniform of the air kingdom. He went and assumed his spot at the giant table slightly elevated over all the proceedings, the Parliament sitting there with him, all old retired pilots themselves. Then, as tradition required, he motioned to the muscicians who started playing the beautiful Air Force song that was the national anthem. It was beautiful.

​And the airships zoomed over in every high note, every perfectly timed display. It was enough to make the hair stand on end. The must have been taking their cues from sapphires in the room.
​

​In the high eastern corridor of the Sindell Castle, Jaden was standing outside the heavy door where her unconscious daughter was in her bed. She just stood there, staring, her arm outstretched touching the wall.

​“Looking at it won’t make the courage come any faster,” the voice of Gabriel Foy came down the hall. “No matter how powerful a Tear you might be.”

​She smiled, sighed, and without hesitation walked fast over to him, hugging him and he hugged her back.

​“Has she regained consciousness, do you know?” he asked.
​Jaden shook her head.

​“Then let them be. There’s something that feels right about Avery being in there with her, you must feel it to, and we’ll wait to see how it developes.” He paused, then leaned away from the outrider sitting beside Hazel’s bed on the other side of that door, and to another, one he was much more interested in at the moment. “Heard he saved her life,” Foy said. Jaden said nothing just kept looking at the door, nodding. “Has he been told yet?”
​“I meant to,” she said. “But there was an incident. He’s been impossible to reach since then.”

​Gabriel nodded, seeing she was looking weak and supporting her.

​But Jaden knew him far too well and his silence spoke volumes.

​“What?” she asked.

​“Nothing. It’s just that he’s been here for months. It’s surprising that it wouldn’t have come up.”

​“There was never the right moment.”

​“Okay. As long as it’s not something else.”

​She stopped, and sighed.

​“You know he isn’t Art—”

​“I know he’s not!” she snapped.

​Foy didn’t seem to mind, letting it roll of him. Now would be the time she wished he was anyway. Not only did Jace resemble him so much when he was younger, but now, knowing his betrayal, it made the memory of when he was young and good that much more appealing.

​“Well, I imagine we’ll be doing it together, then,” he said. “Along with Fenlow. We’ll be doing the rest of this together, actually. As far as it takes us.”

​She looked at him, seeming grateful.

​“I still just can’t believe that Artemus. That Hazel…” she trailed off.

​Gabriel nodded.

​“Damn bad business,” he said. “No easy answers. No good or bad. No black or white.” He stepped closer, taking control, putting his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll sort it out, and there will be a time to talk to the girl. Let her rest now,” he looked away a second. “She isn’t awake yet. We’ll check on her shortly.”

​He stuck out his arm, a triangle away from his body.

​“Now what do you say we go check out this shindig I’ve heard so much about.”

​She smiled a little, sighed, nodded.

​“Have I mentioned how wonderful it is to see you again?”

​“No,” he said. “But that goes without saying.”

​She laughed a little and they started down the hall, making their way down to the Ball.

Now the National Anthem was over, Will stood up and held up a glass, his speech, also tradition about to be made.

​And while he held up the champagne glass, and hundreds of people fell to exact science, as even people all around his city and outside in the courtyards were all silence, as they had their sapphires attached to this room, listening. And so as he spoke to everyone in the room, he was speaking to everyone in his city.

​“I’m not really one for making speeches,” he joked and people laughed, knowing that was one of the most important jobs of a king, and he had made countless by the time he was a late teenager. “Now it might seem silly to some that we would be gathered to have a Ball in the middle of an unprecedented war. But I say there is never a more important time, more appropriate time than now. Not so long ago, we thought the entire world had fallen, that we were alone. We were protected by a forcefield that was orchestrated by my father, but we didn’t know as it was done behind the scenes with Jaden, as the first stage in long preparations, and then we lost him right when the rest of our world had fallen into darkness. Jaden was kept away from us, falling victim to the same lies of a deceiving force. And it was our fault. Generations of nations acting as one. Isolated from each other, only interacting out of absolute necessity, only a few places in the world where that kind of contact was acceptable or practiced. And it has, in turn, We’ve lost so many. We will undoubtedly lose more. But then there was a spark of light. Jaden arrived to us, and we learned we were not alone. And in fact, it was whistlers, outriders, another nation that made her getting to us even possible.” He turned around above him to where he knew Constable Thean and General Creed were up on the balcony looking down on everything and he saluted them with his glass and they saluted him back, and then the King turned back towards the main beautiful Ball Room. “Another nation willing to sacrifice so much so that we might be warned of what was going on. So that Jaden might reach us. Despite what happened before. Then Jace Dabriel came to us, against all odds, and yet more light shined through the dark clouds of deception and illusion, and for the first time we were not isolated behind our forcefield, but on the offensive as well. And then, the reason for this ball, the retaking of Zarponda City. No longer are we divided, never shall we be again. Even in the darkest night, there is always hope. As my father, our king who too sacrificed everything so that we might get tot his point to have a chance once said …. Even in the darkest night, there is light. And so we will fight, all of us, and we will live, not just survive, and we will win, and then we will unite the rest of the world. For that’s what tonight is about. The corner we have turned forever, and the world we have earned and know we want but now find ourselves in the position to fight for, to earn. It what we live for, it’s what we fight and hope for.” He held up his glass. “To Something.”
​Hundreds of people in the Ball room raised their glasses in unison, and though they couldn’t be seen, it was likely all over the city the scene was the same. People who had been so transfixed by this man and his words all raised their glasses and nodded.

There is a Lina Scarlet canticle not heard on Ciridian since The Looking Glass War. A conflict that left scars and dishonor on both sides that silenced them forever. But now I present Sylan Vhair to lead the chorus.

​“!” he shouted back.

​And then wild applause broke out, the music kicked back up, and the parliament was shaking his hands and they continued to talk, and all on the parliament, especially Tharod Chaypin looked genuinely moved. And then throughout all of it, the king glanced over towards where the outriders were, and they were all looking back at him, to Jace, and to Darvin and Ferris who had been the first of Veil’driel to reach Sindell with Jaden on that fateful night that felt like lifetimes ago. And to Jace, who his own people loved the way his own did.

​They saluted him back with their glasses just as Casey came running back with a cupcake in both hands and simply jumped up at her dad, knowing that he would catch her and pick her up, that absolute trust that can only exist in that kind of relationship. He flung her up, bringing her to his arms. Then she poined up, motioning up with one of her cupcakes at the glass ceiling.
​“Look!” she yelped, and all of them did. To see a beautiful shooting star streak fast across the sky. “That means a soul is going to heaven, right mommy?”

​She laughed, a little self conscious that it was now obvious that she had told her that at some point.

​“That’s right, honey.”

​Satisfied, Casey jammed one of the cupcakes against her mouth, taking a big bite, frosting all around her mouth.

​Now another small group of people walked over and took a few of the glasses of champagne from the giant pyramid in front of the ice sculpture, smiled, even they looked a little nervous around Jace. But then a servant came up to the group and looked at Darvin and Lang.

​“Excuse me, gentleman, but you wanted to be told when it was …” he paused, not knowing what he was bout to say. “Time, sir.”

​“Ah, right, Nash and Lang looked at each other.”

​“Actually, you know what? I’ll take this one.”

​“You sure? Want us to go with?”

​Jace shook his head, finishing the rest of his champagne.

​“Mm mm,” he said, and then placed his glass down.

​“You coming back?” Casey asked.

​“Right back,” he said looking down at her. “go dance with your daddy.”

​“Tell’em we said good luck,” Nash said.

​Lang took out a map he made.

​“We took the liberty of going and double checking those mines again, his route through the the mines again and we made our own map. Checked the route for him where he’s going. Kind of a superstition like last time.”

​“Thanks,” he said.

​And then he left out towards the wide open balcony door where he could walk through the courtyard, as he exited he walked to the giant exit balcony glass door, the giant bearded infantryman, raised his giant pint in salute as Jace walked by, walking slowly because he had already opened the map as he walked to the wide open door.

​“A hearty hail to ya, Captain,” he said.

​“Shaw, almost didn’t recognize ya without yer axe,” he said, mosing over to him.

​“You’re look’in surprisingly sober.”

​Jace was shaking all his group’s hands and then got to his.

​“Early yet sa, early yet. Got a limitless supply of deese fair ladies com’in ma way for this shindig is over. On account of dem boys over there and that rid’in a yers.”

​Jace twisted back around and saw the rifleman who also saluted them with their drinks, wearing the dress uniforms of a Royal Rifleman.

​Jace acknowledged them with a little upward nod, knowing the powerful sergeant’s penchant for betting on his riding of the gauntlet.

​“Well enjoy,” he said, not having read the map anymore. “Oh, and by the way, it’s an open bar,” he picked up the crystal class and the brown liquid out of the man’s hands. “Means the drinks are free,” he commented at their hesitation and then tossed it back in one shot. Wincing he blew out a breath and raised his eybrows. “Which is good for you,” he said, handing it back. “Believe me. I’ll see ya boys.”

The burly bearded infantry man whispered, staring in: “Aye. Come on then lads. Bout time we had a word with those fine lads.” That probably costs as much with the ice cubes clinking around in the glass, Jace drank it all in one shot, winced and handed it back. It’s an open bar.”

​They all looked at him in confusion as Jace had his hands in the pockets of his dress uniform, and turned around doing in a full circle as he exited out the giant sliding glass door so he could specificy. “Drinks are free,” he said, smiling as he left out of sight.

​“Ah well if that don’t beat all (funny line irish),” They started walking to the riflemen. “If that don’t beat all outta beat all,” he said. “A word, fair gents. A word!” He started over.

“You spilled all the drinks on that ice doggy!” she yelled, and she looked immediately up to her parents, expecting them to share in her shock.

​But both of them were staring at Jace.

​He was absolutely still, eyes locked on the top of the stairs where Isabelle was standing. It was an impossible sight, it was like being in a dream where the details don’t make sense if they’re thought about, but without thought nothing else matters. She was in her dress uniform. Even if she was really there, how could …

No one should k ow where their dreams come from.

The whole world was a heartbeat. And no force, natural or otherwise would have gotten through to him at that moment.
​Amazingly, for the second time, the muscicians stopped playing, this time, tradition had absolutely nothing to do with it, it was that wherever Jace went, stories of his forbidden romance was spread like wild fire, some exaggerated, some not, but his romance with Isabelle was told to young daughters by wide-eyed mothers in both Veil’driel and Sindell alike. No one could believe that Isabelle was present. It shouldn’t have been possible. And now everyone was quiet, staring at the living icon Jace Dabriel and they were the center of everything as she walked down slowly towards him, you could even hear her footsteps.

​All the eyes, even that of the king and parliament, followed her path until they all centered on the same place, right where she was standing directly in front of Jace. They were standing there, standing inches from each other, just staring.

​Danielle Lang noticed that Jace’s hands were trembling, just like they were not long before when Cedywn had come up, and he was keeping them down at his sides. It was as if the entire kingdom was holding its breath, as they were face to face, they knew that even the slightest interaction beyond military courtesy could have serious consequences. For as Darvin noticed when he glanced up back to the high level where the king had saluted them a little earlier, he saw Constable Thean and General Creed staring down at them. Everyone who was everyone was in that room, staring at them.

​Isabelle seemed to understand the situation, and nodding slightly, she actually took a small step to the side, but she looked sad as well, something torturing inside of her that she was keeping inside.

​Then Jace’s eyes drifted up to Thean up on the top balcony, whether he knew he was there or just sensed him was unclear but he looked up. And even in the dead silence, the massive attention that would be the talk of the city and everyone else for who knew how long to come, Constable Thean, standing next to General Creed motioned with two fingers towards himself. And Isabelle was standing there, nodding a little, and Jace took two or three steps away from her, towards the stairs that would lead up to where Constable Thean was.

​When he did, Isabelle nodded a little to herself, knowing that it was the right decision. The only decision, and she would have to talk to him later. But she bobbed a little in place, eyes welling up a little, and after only getting two or three steps away, Jace stopped suddenly and there was mumbling throughout the crowd, perhaps anticipating what was to come or at least talking about the fact that he just stopped.

​He spun around, and as he started back towards her he mumbled the words “To hell with it,” fluctuating, not caring about anything else as he charged her, his hands going up to the side of her face and he kissed her, like he never had before, then he kissed her cheeks, kissing her forehead, and the ball room erupted in ruckus cheer, and then he just hugged her, they hugged each other in this sea of jubilation. It was a perfect moment. An absolutely perfect moment, and the consequences didn’t matter, neither did the war. And they just hugged in spite of the consequences that were sure to come. Both of them somehow simultaneously emotionally energized to the highest level and exhausted all at once.

​And with all the laughing and the cheering, the muscicians started up again, and people went back to dancing, all over the floor, under the glass ceiling and the stars all overhead, and Isabelle was still in Jace’s arms, their eyes locked on each other, when suddenly both Darvin Nash and Ferris Lang straightened into a more locked up position as if almost to attention, but not quite, and being one to have had Thean sneak up on him many times throughout his life, a simple glance over and Jace knew the man was no doubt standing near him. He didn’t even know what to expect. He had never broken an ancient outrider edict in front of a Ball room literally filled with hundreds of people.

​Little Casey didn’t know what was going on but she recognized the serious mood that settled on the area all of the sudden, and the unreadable expression on Thean’s face.

​“Are they gonna be in trouble now?” she looked up and asked her mother.

​Danielle bounched her a little.

​“Shhhhh.”

​Even in Jace’s rebellious heyday, this would have been pretty bold. This was as crazy as anything he’d done.
​It was Darvin’s wife, who saved Isabelle without a single word, and she looked so excited like she could barely contain herself. Little Casey was similarly transfixed, stunned and quiet by the curious thing she had probably never seen before, and certainly a little intimidated or dumbstruck.

​“C’mon you,” Danielle said, grabbing her wrist. And before Jace knew it, Isabelle was pulled away from him, deeper into the party and out of his arms.



The Republic of Veil’driel Parliament was laughing around the table, pretty hysterically, as Senator Katic was wrapping up one of his stories. It was the first dinner or occasion of the old boy’s club that Aleister had been invited to and no doubt it was because of his suddenly changed position, falling more in line to what they wanted, the day before. Indeed, that had been his main motivation for doing so. To be brought to this table, on this night, in this way.

​“… and he looked down to the thing, holding it there in his hands book wide open, pages falling out of his back pockets ….” ​The laugher rose to a near obnoxious level now. Some of them into what he was saying and laughing legitimately, others not, all laughing, whether they were afraid of him or truly amused varied on what he was saying. All of them except for Aleister, whose odd smirk could have been interpreted as amusement at the story, but looked vaguely out of place, like it was not related at all. ​“… when he said, if you’ll excuse me, First Consul, I’m usually quite organized.”

​When the story was done, and the laughter – both real and faked – had subsided, Katic had near tears in his eyes he was so amused and took a long exhale, working now on his fourth cup of wine, he clanged a salad fork against it and motioned down to Aleister.

​“Preator Ducheyene,” he started. “It’s something of a tradition at these quaint little affairs of ours to honor our newest and first time guests with an after dinner cigar, could I interest you in this?” he snapped his fingers and a servant in white walked up with a silver platter, he lifted the lid to reveal a single cigar.

​“Ah,” Aleister said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair and leaned over picked it up off the tray, raised it a little and then looked with mock suspicion all around the table. “Isn’t poison is it?” he asked.
​Another round of laughter.

​“Well, no,” Katic said as a joke. “Luckily for you, you saw reason yesterday and the poison was no longer necessary.

​The laughter intensified.

​Now Aleister leaned over to the side, raising his eyebrows slightly while the servant withdrew a silver lighter and sparked it holding it to the end of Aleister’s large cigar.

​“Ah, yes, right,” he stated, pausing to puff until the cigar was fully lit. When it was, he rotated it towards him, looked down at the wide red cherry, and satisfied, he dismissed the servant with a satisfactory nod. Then he leaned back in the chair. “About that, I’m afraid that was an act. A ruse to get me invited to this very spot, this very dinner that you guys run, at this very time.” He punctuated the dramatic news by crashing the heels of his boots on top of the table, rattling glasses, silverware and everything else that was on there, they crashed on top of the table one after the other as they crossed over each other. At first, when he had first talked, there was some laughter that continued on, though the one on Katic’s face had vanished completely. By the time Aleister was sat back, boots crossed on the table, puffing on his ‘initiation cigar’ all was utterly silent, the High Council of Veil’driel all staring at him. Some with confusion, or in Katic’s case, something more seemingly sinister.
​A stare Aleister met head on, meeting it and locking eyes, his words spoken in the subtext of being meant for everyone there, but were quite obviously meant for Senator Katic, but then his eyes floated over to the First Consul as well as he started to bring the cigar back up to his mouth. “I’m afraid we have some rather … unpleasant business to discuss.

***

​Isabelle held her eyes locked with his as long as she could as she was pulled away, until finally they were both, along with little Casey in the other woman’s arms, swallowed by a throng of other party guests and people wanting to talk to.
​Confused as to what just happened and how it could even be possible, Jace cleared his throat, straightened his posture and tried to prepare for whatever was coming, he turned and face Constable Thean.
​“Constable,” he said.
​Before Thean could respond, the heralder, who had also must have been distracted by the spectacle of the Isabelle Jace kiss, had resumed his duty, and announced a few more people who came in, and Jace could not get himself to turn away from Thean. It was an authority the man carried, the same he had seen in Artemus at Lornda Manor, that seemed to hold everyone’s attention, and two things surprised Jace. One, Thean did not look near as furious as he would have suspected, and if he was furious the expression wouldn’t have been that different, but Jace could read them all. Second, despite what had just happened, he actually looked past Jace a bit to acknowledge the other outriders behind him.
​“Gentlemen,” he said simply.
​He was answered by two nods and rigid postures with a successive: “Constable, constable.”
​And then his gaze was back on Jace.
​“Well,” he said simply in his gravelly voice, and Jace could smell the liquor on his breath. “That was interesting, wasn’t it?”
​Darvin and Ferris exchanged a quick glance, barely registered, and then their stunned eyes were back on Jace and Thean.
​“Whaddya say you walk with me?”
​And with that, amazingly, he simply turned and started walking away into the crowd.
​“Yes, sir,” Jace said, trying to figure the situation out.
​He felt Darvin’s hand on his shoulder but didn’t turn around.
​“Good luck, brother,” he said. “I wouldn’t worry too much. I’m at least 70% sure he’s not going to kill you.”
​Jace barely reacted, this was all almost too much.
​“What. In the hell. Is going on?” he whispered.
​“Don’t know,” Ferris chimed in. “But you better go find out.”
​“Yeah,” Jace whispered to himself, in a daze, and with that he started taking his first steps after the man.

The room Thean had led Jace into was adjacent to the main garganduant ball room, but it was still elegant and beautiful, immense windows jutted out of the building like a ship keel looking out on a courtyard full of happy people gathering on a courtyard with lanterns of every color. When he was a kid, he had once attended the Fairlawn City Harvest Festival, and that’s what it kind of reminded him of.
​Before the window, a wide plush bench stood, and Thean sat down on top of it.
​After a few moments of no progression Jace looked around, kind of stunned and clearly confused.
​“Umm … you’re not gonna … like kill me or anything are you?” He remembered playing the odds about a week ago when the golden rider was riding towards him, and now as the time went on, he found himself thinking of them again, and he hoped Darvin’s 70% estimate held true.
​“You were supposed to have a meeting with the Tear today, were you not? After your,” he smiled. “Carnival display?”
​“I was busy. I meant to, but I …”
​“Yes, sure you were. Well now, because you skipped that, it’s fallen on me to explain some things.”
​“Sir, that really isn’t …”
​“Sit down.”
​Jace walked over to a chair near him and sighed as he took a seat. Then he looked over and actually smiled at Thean.
​“You’re drunk, old man,” he said with a smile.
​“Yes,” Fenlow quickly answered. “You bet your ass, I am.” Now he looked down at his glass filled halfway with red liquid that almost had a strange glow to it, moved the glass in a circular motion, looking down into it, and then back up to Jace. “30 years ago,” he said, just jumping into it. There were reports of strange attacks happening out in the wilderness. Merchants told tales of being robbed by magic, explosions, men using bright colored gemstones and plants to create explosions and do things out of thin air. Then, when a high ranking dignitary and his family were attacked during one particular time to an old retreat home they had out on the plains, the Council contacted the Outrider Order, and asked Constable Farrell to send a point team to invesitage the strange occurrences by any means necessary.” He trailed off, reflecting. “Constable Farrell,” he said, with a half breath half grunt. “A real merciless son of a bitch, that one,” he said. A few minutes passed and then he remembered himself, looked down to his drink. “Right,” he said, looking back up to Jace. “It was called Operation Longstreet.”

***

​For years I wondered what you must have on him, knowing it must have been something, now I know.

And I also know who the golden riders are.

“Operation Longstreet?” one of the Senators asked and then there was some mumbling around the table. “What in blazes are you talking about, Praetor Ducheyne?”
​Katic’s eyes hadn’t left him and Aleister never wavered, still.
​“Senator Katic? Consul Leverette?” he asked while never taking his eyes off of the Senator. “Care to fill the rest of these fine gentlemen in?”
​“Everyone get out,” Katic said.
​Again mumbling.
​And for the first time, Katic took his eyes away from Ducheyene, but only just briefly to the rest of the men sitting around the table.
​“Out. Now,” he said with venom and this was beginning to cause a stir.
​“Okay, okay, now let’s calm down,” Leverette said, patting the air and sounding exceedingly nervous. “Please, gentlemen, let us have the room for a moment as we work this rather private matter out.”
​The rest of the Senators, while not at all happy about it followed out, and the servant followed them out. Katic watched them out and after the heavy door closed, Leverette, still standing, was the first to speak.
​“Alright, Preaetor Ducheyene, what exactly is the meaning of this?”
​“Who cares what he wants!” Katic yelled out with venom. “This is an outrage!”
​“What do I want, your Grace?” Aleister asked, he still looked very relaxed and tweaked some ash over the side of his armchair. “It’s quite simple, really. I want to talk about the Illumanar, the mysterious golden riders you’ve known about since the beginning. I want to talk about the compromise you made so that you might walk the halls of power.” Now he looked over to Katic. “I want to talk how you’re desperately trying to betray your country a second time to save yourself.”
​Katic stood up.
​“You don’t honestly expect to sit here and listen to this?!”
​Aleister nodded a little, flicking ash off of his cigar.
​“Well, yes, I do as a matter-of-fact,” he said with a smirk. “Otherwise how will you feign outrage in the upcoming moments? Not to say I don’t understand, however,” he said looking over to Katic. “If anyone has reason to make a deal with the devil, it’s you….”​
​Anger overtaking him he looked down and Katic was almost growling out his words.
​“I should have known … we all should have known. How you spent so much time with the wizardess during her time here. Conspiring with her, conjuring up these lies.”
​Artemus stayed cool, calm and colleted. Precisely the calm and always being in control that drove Katic mad. It was passed on to him by his father, the outrider blood in his veins.
​“What was the deal, anyway? Make it easy for the army to infiltrate Veil’driel and maybe you could head up whatever puppet government he put in place? Or maybe he just wouldn’t have his men cut you into pieces? Funny enough, you betrayed your country for nothing. Because the army on its way, from across the sea, are gonna cut you into pieces anyway. Artemus, you see, was merely counting on your cowardice. A cowardice he knows all too well because of your actions 30 years ago, isn’t that right?”
​“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this!” Katic started and then started to storm out of the room.
​“No, actually, you do,” Leverette said, staring at Aleister and holding up a single finger. “I’m through lying. I’m sick from all the lies. What do you wanna know, Aleister?”
​“You can’t honestly be entertaining this-”
​“Don’t make me call the Scarlet Guard, Neville.”
​For the first time, it appeared as if there was something other than rage in Katic’s eyes. Indeed, there was fear.
​“Sit,” Leverette said, in a way he hadn’t talked to Katic ever and he complied like a child. Then he looked back to the Praetor. “Okay, Aleister, you have what you wanted, where would you like to begin? Operation Cool Name, if I recall.”
​Aleister flicked some ash, nodding.
​“Operation Cool Name was during the administration of Consul Heywood, isn’t that right?” Artemus began. “There were mysterious magical attacks happening in the plains, and he assigned a politician, top secret, to act as liason to the High Council on the mission.”
​
***

​
“Political liason?”
​“To the High Council,” Thean was saying, drunk.
​Jace was suddenly struck with the memory of Tillian Bren being there during the Fairlawn campaign, but said nothing.
​“Who was it?”
​“Never knew,” Foy said. “It was kept anonymous. All communication was done through the liason through written communication.”
​“Is that normal?”
​“Hell no, it’s not normal. But nothing about this mission was normal. It’s all about politics, and this has been done before. That way if something goes wrong, they can pull the plug, deny everything, and there’s no way to trace it back to the First Consul or to the liason we were talking to.”
​“Nice,” Jace said sarcastically.
​Now Thean started to drift, scratching his chin.
​“For months there was no word. We looked everywhere, followed leads, we’d go to where the attacks were taking place and then there’d be nothing. Like ghosts. And some of the attacks. The attacks were beautiful. People with melted spines, entire families, butchered, often times for their possessions or sometimes there would have been nothing of value taken at all.”
​Jace was transfixed. Outside through the window he saw Malcolm. Too far away to see detail cuz he was above, but he could tell it was him.
​“Until one day, we caught up with them.”
​Jace was leaning back, like a child being told a story.
​“Where?”
​“We eventually followed their trail. We caught up with them,” he paused, appreciating the significance. “On the edge of Terrill Silva.”
​But Jace did not react.
​“We battled them but they had superhuman strength, manipulating precious stones to give them things like superhuman strength and all kinds of things. Agility, so fast you couldn’t even catch them. During the battle we were rescued when Jaden appeared and saved us, but Artemus had been severely injured. In fact, it didn’t seem like he was going to survive.”
​Jace sat back a little, already seeing the parallels.
​“For months he covalesced at Lornda Manor and we all hung out there. She told us about Ciridian, how we forgot the name and about how everything had become divided and cold over the long generations. Much of what you learned in the communion vault through the word of your cousin and Artemus, is what we learned over our stay there. To Ailmar and I, it was all very fascinating, but Gabriel became obsessed. Burying himself in the library there, always hungry for more information.”
​“Then what happened?”
​“When Artemus regained consciousness and made a full recovery physically, there was something different about him. He began having visions and things. Growing more distant, more focused, more single-minded. He and Jaden began to grow closer, she would tell him the complexities of things and we would just seem to naturally understand them. Shocking us all, and they started traveling the entire world together. And they…”
​“They what?”
​“Oh, you know,” Thean said, drunk.
​Jace didn’t.
​“Became a couple,” Jaden suggested, and she walked in.
​Foy followed her in and closed the door behind them both as Jaden went on.
​“Falling in love, whatever you wanna call it.”
​Jace raised his eyebrows, shocked by he words and sudden appearance.
​“Why do I get the feeling I’m being amushed?” he said.
​“Because you are,” Foy said.
Jace looked over to Thean with a frown.
​He squinted and remembered from his vision, though he wasn’t young anymore he saw the resemblance.
“Gabriel Foy,” he said.
​“Yes. Congraultations. Pay attention.”
“The attacks continued, started to get worse, and the Tears hidden throughout the land started reporting what was really happening. It wasn’t just Orinus and Valith, but they had a group of followers. Supernatural thugs, and they were starting to attack the villages on the plains. Orinus and Valith were of the belief that Tears should rule the world. An unfortunate position which has caused problems around the world since the beginning of time as you all know it, since the splitting of the Sun Kingdom and its merge into the existence as it is defined today. Most of which was never reported as while the Republic claims rule over the lands they don’t really control them.”
​“So what did you do?” Jace asked.
​“I told them we were going to have to go to Bryce Valley, home of the shamans, as they were hidden by the same illusion magic. They were the most powerful magical beings on the planet, tuned in to a point beyond any Tear, but they purposely stayed out of sight of the world and isolated and hidden in places all over the continent. Later, looking over their civilization, people in Veil’driel and Sindell would call them druids, and we needed their help before Valith and Orinus, those thugs could do any more damage. We went to the Valley, we used their help, they helped us beat Valith and Orinus but they all retreated into Sindell and started causing the same kinds and amount of problems.”
​“I went back to Fairlawn to alert our mysterious political liason, to drop a message of our project into the assigned box,” Thean said.

***

​“But you didn’t deliver the message of correct progress, did you?” Aleister was saying, and Katic was very still, seething. “You never relayed to the First Consul or High Council that these magical beings had retreated into Sindell, with the help of a wizardess called Jaden and our Outrider point team? You took Fenlow Thean’s report and you lied. Because you were afraid of the revelation of magical beings. You hated what they represented, you were scared..
​Leverette crossed his hands and put his elbows on the table and put his chin on top of it and sighed.
​“These magical beings, these sorcerors and heretics posed a threat to national security, to everything we believed in. They had to be slaughtered, not aided. You think you can coexist with them?”
​“So you sent word to Sindell. You sent word to bomb Bryce Valley because that was the headquarters of where the magical beings threatening our continent lived. You took the information provided by the outrider point team of this concentration, these powerful beings in Bryce Valley, and you told the King of Sindell, William Bryce’s father, that the only way to save his kingdom was to destror Bryce Valley, knowing that it was only a small part of the supernatural population on this continent that had done bad things led by two rogues called Orinus and Valith.”
​“Yes, two rogues,” Katic seethed. “With a group of followers, and thank god for that. No being should have supernatural powers on this earth except for the Gods in heaven. How long before there were more and more rogues? Before they all went bad? They could form an army at any time and wipe us all out!”
​“But they didn’t,” Aleister said. “See that’s the thing. They existed thousands of years before any governments on this continent, in secret, watched over by Jaden from her isolated place in Lornda Manor, the shamans staying in Bryce Valley. And yes, there were bad apples in Valith and Orinus who eventually made them known to this entire continent. If they had ill intentions towards us, the majority I’m talking about, they would have acted long ago and they didn’t. and when the time came, and those bad apples came out, they helped us. The shamans in Bryce Valley, Jaden from Lornda Manor, they helped us.” He leaned back looking at Katic. “But you had your classified top secret information. You knew their hideout, where they hid themselves for aeons by illusion magic, and this was your chance. You could use the Sindell Air Force.”
​“Yes, and I’m not ashamed of any of it. I would do it again!”
​“How did you do it?” Artemus asked.
​“Enough of your questions!” Katic shot back.
​“We sent a scout,” Leverette said. “In secret through back roads in Bryce Valley that would not draw attention. We sent him to Sindell City to tell them everything you just said. And the only way to save their Kingdom would be to bomb Bryce Valley.”
​“With the outriders still there!”
​“Collateral damage, to save our entire continent!” Katic said.
​For the frist time Aleister was angry and stood up, his chair falling to the ground behind him.
​“Shut your mouth!” he yelled down and Katic seemed startled. “There is an order on this continent far older than any nation. They lived in secret, passed down from father to son to daughters for aeons, the population on this continent. See, why the Tears, these magical beings lived on this continent were a secret to us, they were not a secret to the order or underheard of. This Order was called the Illumanar.”
​Leverette and Katic exchanged a glance.
​“What are you talking about now?” Katic asked.
​“Oh, well, it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve never heard of them,” Aleister said, still furious. “I myself didn’t know of them until last evening, when Artemus told me.
​“You can communicate with him?” Leverette asked, astonished, but simultaneously nervous.
​“I was in the communion vault last night and he contacted me.”
​“Haven’t you been preaching that he is a traitor for the last three months?”
​“I have,” Artemus said. “And he is. But he no longer has any reason to lie to me. He’s already accomplished his goal in luring our forces away from Veil’driel. His trap is already sprung. And so he has no reason to lie about this secret order I was telling you about. The Illumanar.”
​

***

“Golden riders to you,” Jaden said.
Jace scratched his chin, he was beginning to get a little angry.
“Go on,” he said.
​“They’re an ancient order, their sole purpose to protect the Tears, protect magical users in times of need. In times of great threat to the Tears they were called on to be defended.”
​“That time came thirty years ago,” Thean said, and he stared at Jace awhile after speaking to gauge the reaction. A reaction that barely registered as he was still looking at Jaden waiting for her to go on.
​“While we were in Bryce Valley, a scout was called, one of Senator Neville Katic’s personal emissaries ran through the Valley, and when we stopped him, he said he was sent to warn Sindell that Orinus and Valith and their supporters retreated into Sindell. And that was their immediate decision after being warned. And we were all to stay put in Bryce Valley.”
“What we didn’t know,” Foy said, was that he was really going to tell Sindell to bomb Bryce Valley under false pretenses. That it was the only way to save their kingdom. Three days later, as all of us were in the valley, the valley was attacked by the airships,” Jaden went on. “During the bombing Ailmar Ducheyene was killed,” he glanced over to Thean. “Thean and I raced to try and save the population from their home in the caverns, but we were too late, they all caved in and everyone was killed.”
“It was because we mapped the Valley,” Thean said. “You see? As part of our reconnasicne we mapped the entire Valley for our government. They used that to tell Sindell where exactly to strike so the people never had a chance.” He said as if he deserved hatred from this, never got over the guilt, but Jace just looked back to Foy.
“When we returned to the Valley floor, after the attack, we found Ailmar Ducheyne was dead there, Artemus was critically wounded, dying. Jaden was standing over him.” Now he stopped, as if this next part should have special importance to Jace. “His wounds miraculously healed, and he was restored.”
“How?” Jace asked.
“Because he was fulfilling a destiny,” Jaden said. “When the Illumanar are needed, they are captained by someone picked by the fates, the very powers that the Sun Kingdom is all about. The greatest ambassador and champion of the most powerful nation in the land to lead the bodyguards, the Illumanar of the Tears while simultaneously trying to find a peaceful resolution.”
“That person was Artemus Ward,” Thean said.
“He and I returned to Lornda Manor,” Foy said.

***

“And Thean returned home with my father’s body,” Aleister said. “He wanted to tell the population the truth about what happened, but you convinced him not to. You knew the truth, knew that you were all responsible, but convinced him that for the sake of national security, secrecy was the best option. That the people wouldn’t understand or could not be trusted. Like the government of Veil’driel has lied and covered up to the public since it’s inception going all the way back to Jonathan Silva’s expedition where the government’s explanation, rather than simply admit what happened, stunted expansion.”
“Oh, and now you will blame us for that I suppose? Why not for bad weather as well?”
“Maybe not you personally, but the philosophy of your forefathers passed down and down and down. A philosophy of hiding the truth and half truths and politics.”
Leverette leaned a little forward.
Aleister went on.
“So, too you covered up what happened in Bryce Valley. Said you didn’t know what happened to Foy and Artemus and why not? Artemus was a big hero of the time, but the populace barely knew of the others. So you made Thean Constable, his life dream to calm him down, and to also use him to instill the ideals you wanted. You used him to fade the prominence of the Outrider order more and more, thinking you won this whole time. That the magic users, these wizards had been blown off the face of the earth.”
Katic leaned back.
Leverette sighed.
“And then your chickens came home to roost, didn’t they? The attacks on Fairlawn City. You must not have known what to do until my cousin pushed them back near single-handedly. Then Jaden arrived, you found out Artemus was working with her. Must have been nerve-racking at first, but lucky for you he had never found out it was you,” he looked to Katic. “Katic who had been the political liason who betrayed them all.” Aleister leaned back. “Only he did, Neville. He knew everything.”​

***

“How?” Jace asked. “How could he have found out the mysterous liason that betrayed the original point team?”
Foy sighed.
“Arkhelan told him. Arkhelan can see and know things in ways we don’t know about. He told Artemus everything, about Neville, Leverette, the betrayal.”
“Then Hazel got sick using the Tunnels of Armegeddon,” Jaden said. “And it must have been the last straw. Though I thought he was still loyal to me, he apparently wasn’t. As it turned out, he was using his knowledge of Veil’driel and scouting prime targets for the tears that were not obeying me any longer but obeying him under the authority of Arkhelan. All the while feeding me false intelligence of mysterious armies occupying Veil’driel, the same lies he used to take over the rest of the continent. All in his quest to conquer it all, to hold dominion over all the nations and await Arkhelan’s arrival. Seems so foolish now, but it’s amazing what you’ll believe when you want to.”
​“Yeah,” Jace said. “He tried to kill you in Bryce Valley. He’s the one who sent Valith and Orinus.”
​“I would guess that now.”
​Jace looked over to Thean, disappointed and a little hurt.
​“And you went along with all of this. You knew the government was covering up this tragedy, were phasing out the importance and the grandeur of the Outrider Order, the prestige, until it declined,” he remembered something Artemus had told him in the caverns. “To where Senator Bren, on that first night, had to be told what an Outrider was. You presided over the decline of our order and for what? Why? They wanted to cover up what happened in Bryce Valley and you let them!”
​Thean did not react, or get angry, he sat there and took the accusations as though he felt he deserved them.
​“At my request,” Jaden said. “He stayed Constable to train you personally when the time came, and to watch over you until that time came.”
​“Why?”
​“To watch over you, boy,” Foy said. “Because of who your parents were.”
​Jace leaned down and put his hand on his forehead.
​“Oh please don’t tell me this is the part where you tell me my father, who I never knew, was some legendary figure and now I have this grand destiny I never knew about.”
​“No. Your father was a womanizer, a gambler, and a drunk,” Thean said quickly.
​There was a moment of silence, and the slight disappointment of Jace.
​“Oh,” he said, suddenly thinking that secret destines weren’t that bad.
“Your mother,” Jaden said. “It was your mother is how I knew.”
“We thought it was Aleister at first, the son of Ailmar,” Foy said. “But by his fifth birthday, we knew his path, while equally as critical was not the one we thought.”
“I asked Fenlow to watch over Ailmar’s whole family, however, and five years later you were born. Your mother died in child birth, and you were sent to live with your grandfather. Your grandfather was the last Illumanar Captain who was not needed. Ailmar was next, but was killed in Bryce Valley and it passed to Artemus.”
Jace was still animated.
“And this has to do with my mother?” he wondered if he was purposefully not getting it.
“Yes, your mother,” Jaden said. “Sara. Sara Du-”

***

​“-cheyne! I will not stand for any more of this blather!” Neville was yelling.
Aleister finished. And the look on First Consul Leverette’s face said it all. (good reason for saying his name right here.)
​Aleister was looking at the Senator again, and he slid a thick herald to the center of the table.
“What is here is a copy of tomorrow’s herald, the biggest Senator Tillian Bren has ever written. It includes everything I’ve just said tonight and your work to impede progress in the High Council just to save your own ass. They will know the fight is not just being waged in Sindell, but right here, at our doorstep …. And within it as well. You see, as a former military liason for the High Council himself, Senator Bren takes such violations quite seriously. What you see in front of you is a copy of tomorrow’s herald. His biggest yet. Everyone is going to be alerted to the approaching army, the truth about the original point team, Artemus, everything. They will know that the only fight is not just in the Kingdom of Sindell. But here at home as well. And we will also use this new information to edit opening sequences in High Council chambers.”
​Now he looked back over to the First Consul.
“I always wondered why Katic didn’t run in your election. I know he would have beaten you, and so did he. But you had proof, you kept all of the documents that tracked his role in the liason duty of the original Bryce Valley mission. You kept them to blackmail Katic, to keep him from running against you. Not even sure if you agreed with it all, but injustice is a small toll to pay to walk the halls of power, eh your Grace?” He leaned a little more forward and pointed to the giant herald that by dawn would be circulating over the entire republic. “You see, last night, when Artemus contacted me, he told me about those documents and where to find them, which I did, in your secret archives. Proving everything he says is true. Which is another reason you had to diminish the standing of the Outrider Order, because you needed to downgrade the clearence, as usually, the Constable would have all rights to see such documents as they have the highest security clearence.”
​Leverette, a man who always had so much energy for his age with a spring in his step suddenly looked very much his age. A man caught and defeated, an elderly man as if his political power was draining out of him the same as life force.
​“The good I thought I could have done, Aleister,” he said. “I had to keep Katic from being First Consul. He was going to beat me. I didn’t agree with what he did, but what choice did I have? It was the only way to keep him out of the Consul office. From being the most powerful man in the Republic.”
​“Yet after you did that, Katic could use it against you. By admitting what you did, blackmailing him and the real reason why he didn’t run, he had information that could bring you down as well. Information that could have destroyed both of you.” He looked over to Katic, “and that’s how you two stayed. Cancelling each other out for decades since. Doing more damage. And when Jaden arrived here there was nothing you could do, Katic, but go along with it as I worked with her. As Creed worked with her and she saved our servicemembers’ lives and helped this Republic day after day. And yet here you are, trying to sell out your country, the country she risked her life, continues to risk her life along with everyone in our country and the Kingdom of Sindell. You claim to try and save Veil’driel from the wizards? And yet you yourself are the true threat. The true reason for destruction. Becoming the very thing you sought to prevent or fight against. A theme that has permeated this entire continent for far too long, a chain reaction sparked by you, thrity years ago.” He leaned back again. “Sparked by both of you.”
Katic stood up
​“You’ve signed your death warrant tonight, Praetor, and that’s all you’ve done.” He looked down to the herald. “Do you think this drivel, this fantasy fiction will ever see the light of day? Do you think I would let the likes of you bring me down? The son of a brute footsoldier?”
​“This is your chance,” Aleister said to First Consul Leverette. “A real chance to do something good in your administration. Admit what you’ve done. Come clean.”
​The First Consul stood up, glanced at Katic.
​“I’m sorry,” he said.
​Katic looked from the First Consul to the Praetor, an expression that was momentarily unsure all at once reassured and cocky, smiling with a wide smile of yellowed teeth.
“Guards!” he yelled.
​All at once the Scarlett Guard came in and kicked open the door, half a dozen soldiers, standing around and behind the Praetor.
​“Arrest this man on the charge of treason! He’s been conspiring with the traitor Artemus Ward,” he picked up the herald. “And spreading sedition, inciting rioutous material.”
​Aleister stood up slowly, unmolested.
​“Artemus Ward is only a traitor because you made him that way, Senator. And you gave rise to an ancient army, the Illumanar. You’re the traitor, and you are under arresst.”
​“What are you waiting for?” Katic yelled, a little shocked.
​“Do as the Senator asks, on my authority,” Leverette added.
​The Guards still said nothing only stared.
​Now the two men’s attention went down to Artemus’ ring, a sapphire, glowing just slightly, and Artemus was rotating it on his finger.
​“Fitting, don’t you think,” he started, spinning the ring on his finger. “My father’s ring. Sapphire. Fitting that you betrayed your nation,” he looked to Leverette. “And you your conscience until there was none left at all,” and now here you are. Coming full circle with another sapphire. Almost poetic, one would say.”
​“You’ll be the doom of us all!” he yells, knowing he was caught he admitted everything. “Those magical people will kill all of us! Unnatural demons, all of them! The world will not be safe until all of them are dead! I saved this country! I’m a hero!”
​Now only three of the guards and the First Consul were left in the room. The three scarlet guards behind Aleister waiting for his lead.
​The First Consul all at once lunged for a sharp knife on the table, where not long before they had laughed around it, happily as an army marched on them. He picked it up and retreated fast to the corner, but Aleister was on him in a split second, somehow grabbing the man’s wrist, knowing what he was planning, the sharp blade just over his wrist. Still, the guard waited.

​“Please, Aleister. Please let me. Please let me go this way.”

​For a moment they had a stand off, and the guards didn’t advance.
​For a moment or two it seemed like Aleister was going to let the old man do it. But finally, though he looked like he took no pleasure in it, said “I want you to think about the Outriders of Veil’driel who died in Bryce Valley in your cell, sir,” and squeezed the old man’s wrist hard enough to where the blade dropped on the floor. “I want you to think of my father.”

​He stood up out of the crouch.

​“Guards,” he said and they came and took him out, leading him past the other shocked High Council members, led out in shame and quiet.

​One of the guards stood behind as Aleister stood there, quiet and still in the abandon room.

​“Sir,” he said, and Aleister didn’t move a muscle, staring out into space. After awhile the guard tried again. “First Consul.”

​At this, Aleister turned to him slightly.

​“What will you have us do, sir?”

​“Start mass evacuations, as many as you can, anyone who can’t fight into Avaleen, tell the rest of the High Council that there will be an emergency sesson called at dawn, give me time to work some other things out. Then return.”

​“Yes, sir” the guard said, and then left, closing the door and leaving

Aleister in there alone.

Chapter Thirteen  (E) The Black Cat #2190678 by Dan Hiestand