“Avelene?” The Highlander hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Is she … well enough?”
“If you are asking me if she is physically well enough, I am assured by our healers that she is. If you mean emotionally, we’ll have to wait and find out. Are you worried?”
“For her, I am, yes. She underwent a great deal of trauma. I don’t know if she can handle any more just yet.”
“I don’t, either, so I want you to find out. If she is to serve in the field–as I think she should–we have to test her at some point. This seems as good a time as any. But she will be in command, Paxon. As a member of the Druid Order, she will lead.”
“I wouldn’t expect it to be any other way.” Paxon hesitated. “Do you mind if I speak to her about this before we leave?”
Isaturin rose, and Paxon stood with him. “Speak to her all you like. But you should know before you do that I didn’t ask her if she wanted to go. She asked me if she could.”
The men stared at each other until Isaturin gave Paxon an amused smile. “You never know, do you?”
Then he gestured him out the door.
Arcannen took his young charges from his living quarters, down the hallway, and out into the open air. He led them past the debris and the remains of the dead to a section of the fallen village that featured neither. There, in a mostly sheltered courtyard, away from the wind and the sudden spats of rain, standing beneath a sky of perpetual gloom and clouds, he faced them.
“When you respond to threats like the ones you faced from the Fortrens, do you consciously think about what you are going to do?” he asked Reyn, standing close enough to be heard about the howl of the wind. “Or do you just react spontaneously without thinking at all?”
The boy shook his head. “I just act. If I get pushed too far, everything just breaks free.”
“When this happens, you are enraged and maybe afraid, too, aren’t you?”
Reyn nodded, exchanging a quick glance with Lariana. The wind was whipping strands of hair about her alabaster skin, giving her face a veiled look. She smiled encouragingly and nodded an unspoken understanding.
“What are you asking me to do?” he demanded of Arcannen, suddenly frightened.
“What you need to do! To learn to think before you act. To not be so easily pushed into reacting in ways you don’t want to. Don’t you understand what is happening? Don’t you see what is being done to you?”
He seemed angry now, almost threatening. Reyn took a step back in spite of himself. But Arcannen seemed to realize he had overstepped himself and held up his hands in a placating gesture.
“I’m just trying to make myself clear. I want to help you. If you take time now to learn how to master your magic–when it doesn’t matter and there is no danger–you will be able to exercise more control when you need it. That’s the task I’ve set you. Practice using your magic in specific ways. Think it through first. Here.”
He came over to Reyn, turned him toward what remained of one wall, and bent close, standing behind the boy, his mouth at Reyn’s ear. “To control magic, you have to imagine what it is you want it to do. You have to visualize it happening. You have to form the image in your mind and do so in a clear, concise way. Don’t think about anything else. Don’t let your mind wander. Keep the image at the forefront of your thoughts. Then sing it to life.”
Reyn hesitated. “Is that how you do it?”
“I don’t have your kind of magic. Only you do. Now do as I say!”
“Then how do you know … ?”
“Just do what I say!” The sorcerer cut him short, impatient and irritated all over again. “All magic works on the same principles. You either layer on its use or you wield it like a hammer. You want the first; the second is what got you into trouble in the first place. Try it. Visualize, then sing to make it real.”
Reyn started and stopped. He tried again, stopped. “I don’t know what I should try to make real?”
Arcannen’s hands tightened on his shoulders. “Picture one of the Fortrens. They caused you enough trouble; think about one of them. Imagine him coming at you, wanting to hurt you. See his face in your mind!”
The boy reacted, barely hesitating this time. His memory of Borry and Yancel Fortren was so strong that their faces came to mind instantly. He didn’t try to choose one, but fixed on images of both–seeing them just as he had that last night he had faced them in Portlow behind the Boar’s Head Tavern. The images formed, and then he began to hum softly to bring them to life. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but his instincts took command of his voice. Slowly, the images began to gain substance and color and finally a real presence.
And suddenly, just like that, they were there, Borry and Yancel Fortren, standing in front of him, advancing with their familiar looks of cruelty and disdain, weapons held ready for use.
In the next instant the image was gone, shattered as if by a hammer taken to glass. Reyn gasped and staggered back into the immediate support offered by Arcannen’s strong arms. “What happened?” the boy demanded. “I had it and then it went away!”
“You lost control,” the sorcerer answered, straightening him up. “You lost focus. It only takes a second. This is new to you. It won’t happen all at once. You need to spend time working on it. You have to practice using it. I want you to begin this afternoon, right now. Work with Lariana. Remember, she can see what you visualize into being. She can tell you what you are doing. She can suggest things to you. Try as much of this as you can. Work hard at it. It’s important.”
“Won’t you be here to help?” the boy asked at once.
“Later. After you’ve experimented on your own. I have something else I need to do first. We’re in some danger here. I need to change that. I won’t be long.”
Arcannen moved away, heading out into the wilderness surrounding the village ruins, satisfied that the boy and Lariana would do fine without him. He would be more comfortable with her, more willing to try things. She would exert no pressure on him; she would suggest and encourage. He had already spoken to her at length about what would be needed for the boy to be won over. He had explained how the magic worked and what was needed for the boy to develop it sufficiently to help him with his plans.
He walked several hundred yards away from the ruins, looking out over the barren rugged terrain surrounding him, wondering how long he had to prepare. Not long, he thought. Usurient wouldn’t waste time. Whoever he was sending was likely already on their way. He could only hope, against all odds, that the Commander of the Red Slash had decided to come himself, wanting to make sure.
But it didn’t matter. At the end of this business, Arbrox and her people would be avenged, and he would have made it clear to the Federation and the Druids and everyone else that he and those like him were to be left alone. He would make them so afraid of him, so unwilling to come near him, that by the time he had found a way to subvert the Druid Order it would be too late for any of them to do much about it, and he would have gained control of the all the magic that mattered.
He glanced at the ruins. Most especially the magic wielded by that boy.
Turning back to the task at hand, he began the slow, tedious process of laying down the wards that would alert him to the presence of the men who were coming for him.
SEVENTEEN
STANDING AT THE BOW OF THE DRUID CLIPPER, PAXON glanced around doubtfully. Clouds layered the skies north to south, east to west, the whole world blanketed for as far as the eye could see. There was a dreary, sullen cast to the day that presaged rain by nightfall. If there was a sun above those clouds, it was keeping its presence hidden, the absence of any source of light a clear indication that any appearance it made would be momentary. The air was awash in grayness at a thousand feet, and with clouds above and trailers of mist below and the light muted and diffuse, the landscape was leached of color.