They were there, as she had hoped, sitting around one end of the table as always. Myriell had the pipe in her hands though it was only late afternoon.
‘Sit, Erienne. Sit.’ Cleress waved a hand wearily at the empty chairs. Erienne chose one where she could face them all.
‘I think it’s time you told me what is really going on,’ she said.
‘You sound as if you think something’s wrong,’ said Aviana.
‘And it’s time you dropped that illusion too. It’s as full of holes as the one I flew over just now.’ There was no reaction. Erienne pointed at her eyes. ‘These work, you know.’ Then her ears. ‘And so do these. So why don’t you drop the high and mighty all-conquering Al-Drechar bit and tell me what’s happening.’ Erienne felt her anger stir. She saw a frown flash across Ephemere’s face but it was Cleress who spoke.
‘Your daughter is an exceptionally talented individual but her abilities are unfocused. It is taking longer than we anticipated to calm her mind. Then we can begin to train her to use the Way.’
‘Gods, I get straighter answers from Lyanna,’ Erienne said. ‘Look, I don’t know whose benefit all your bluff is for but I’m not buying it. I may not be Al-Drechar but I know when I see a major illusion disintegrating and I know what that causes in the mana spectra. I also know when I see four exhausted old elves and I’m looking at them right now. I’m asking you, please, don’t fail because you’re too proud to call on me to help.’
The Al-Drechar were silent, expressions neutral while they conversed with each other. Erienne waited and presently Ephemere focused on her.
‘Erienne, the depth of your daughter’s potential power exceeds our hopes but brings such problems. Her youth makes her mind so vulnerable to surges and uncontrolled expression of mana and we have had to absorb and refocus so much as she learns to accept the feelings within her.
‘She is not currently at risk because we are able to accommodate her energies but, as you have made clear, it has depleted our own and leaves us somewhat exposed.’
‘Somewhat? Look at you Ephy, Myra - all of you - taking the pipe in the afternoon, sitting like it takes all of your remaining energy to stay upright. And that illusion above our heads is a liability. Why do you even sustain it?’ Erienne felt a crawling in her chest. The Al-Drechar looked so frail. Such power and venerability reduced to sunken-eyed exhaustion.
‘It is our only defence,’ said Aviana. ‘We are so few and our enemies are so near.’ She sounded close to panic.
‘But how long can you go on, Ana? Gods, you’re killing yourselves. Let me help, I implore you. Tell me what I can do.’ She searched their faces through the wisps of smoke. ‘Clerry? Ephy?’
‘We have already taken steps,’ said Cleress.
‘Ren’erei is leaving on the pre-dawn tide,’ said Ephemere.
‘To do what?’
‘To seek mages who can sustain the illusion and allow us to focus all our energies on Lyanna,’ replied Cleress.
‘Where’s she going? I mean, do you have mages you can trust?’
Cleress shook her head. ‘I’m afraid it’s a little more urgent than that. We have no mages in the Guild and Ren’erei goes to Calaius to recruit those who believe in our myth.’ She tried to smile. Erienne was horrified.
‘You’re going to invite total strangers here? Think of the consequences! ’
‘And think of them if we don’t,’ said Myriell harshly, her voice thick with pipe smoke.
‘No, no. Sorry, Myra but you misunderstand,’ said Erienne. ‘I’m talking about trust and betrayal. You’ve spent so long keeping your location secret, you can’t afford even the slightest risk that Ren’erei finds the wrong people.’ She paused, her heart swelling in her chest, ashamed at the rush she was feeling. ‘I’m going with Ren’erei but not to Calaius because you need people, and not just mages, that you can trust utterly. We’re going back to Balaia. You need The Raven.’
Chapter 8
The vanguard of the Protector army scouted half a day ahead of the rest, at the limits of contact with their brothers. Twenty men, masked and silent, accompanied by four mages directing their movement but no longer with the ultimate punishment for disobedience available to them.
The Protectors represented a declining but still awesome Xeteskian calling. The last man had been taken more than six years before and subsequently freed in a ceremony that could not be repeated until it was further researched. He was The Unknown Warrior and they would never forget him.
A frighteningly short time ago, a Protector transgressing the harsh rules of the calling would have suffered soul torment by demons for as long as his Given mage wanted. That was no longer sanctioned although the demons hadn’t been told that. Souls to torment was their part of the bargain for maintaining the Demon-Chains that linked each Protector to his soul held outside his body in the Soul Tank, deep in the catacombs of Xetesk.
In truth, the punishment wasn’t needed now anyway. Aeb, at the head of the vanguard, could barely remember the years before he was taken. He would have been in his late teens, he thought. What he knew now was that the Soul Tank, where his soul linked with those of his hundreds of companions, meant brotherhood beyond all human meaning. It meant strength, comfort and understanding on the most basic level. It was what made them the power they were.
He understood that one day, he might be asked to choose freedom. He wasn’t sure what he would say.
But some rules remained. A Protector could make no decisions except in a battle situation unless his Given was lost. And Protectors were never told to where they marched. They followed and fought or threatened as directed. Aeb accepted it had to be this way. And though the souls often swam in unhappiness in their Xeteskian containment, their abiding joy was their closeness and the power it gave them. There were no dissenters. It had ever been so and the concept was alien. It would undermine the whole and that was unacceptable. Abhorrent.
Aeb was aware that research would break the brotherhood and it saddened him. But for now, people feared the Protectors and that was right. People like the Dordovan cavalry they had encountered.
They had been travelling south and east from Xetesk for four days, stopping late in the night and setting off at dawn each day, their pace fast, their rests dictated by the tiredness of mages and horses. An hour from the borders of the mage lands, in an area once rich for farming but now battered by incessant rain, they had paused for refreshment.
All day, low cloud had released a shifting rain mist that eddied in the wind and made visibility poor. The damp penetrated armour and mask, the land was quiet as if every other living thing had sought shelter, and the mist played with the eyes, making shapes where there were none. For some time before the Dordovans had ridden up, they had heard hoof falls echoing dully, the rain and wind making their direction of approach difficult to determine. Eventually, the Dordovans had appeared, their lead warriors pulling up sharply as the Xeteskians loomed at them out of the mist.
Aeb permitted himself the tiniest satisfaction at their manner. He could see the mask of Elx, dark and shining, and knew that they must have startled the horsemen. Aeb signalled the body of the army, using his nineteen brothers to augment him over the range. The mages stepped into the centre of the trail as a rider trotted up from the middle of the Dordovan column. He was another mage, but fat, the skin of his face unhealthy under the hood of his cloak. His horse had the girth to match.
Their lead mage, Sytkan, spoke.
‘Vuldaroq. What an unpleasant, if predictable sight.’
The fat mage smiled. ‘Likewise, Sytkan. We’ve heard reports of you and your abominations on the move for days. I suppose it’s pointless to enquire after your destination.’
‘A waste of your breath, but more a waste of mine.’ Sytkan looked about him. He was a young mage, a junior master but being schooled for greatness. He was tall, quick and heavy-boned, his grey eyes glaring out from under his tight-fitting skull cap. ‘You know something, I do believe these lands to be under the care of Xetesk.’