Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (37 page)

“Oh, the Wittister mages are not vampires or cannibals,
not in the sense you were led to believe.  They do not eat naughty children,
and they do not drink blood.  They do, however, take life energy to fuel their
magic.  It is the basis of their power, and it is indeed formidable.”

A sort of blood magic, then.

“Not blood magic.  That’s a different thing entirely. 
No, this is what one might call vivemancy, for lack of a better word.” 

In his mind, Galorin showed him trees, plants, animals,
people, crowds…and moving among them, figures in seamless robes sipping at the
energy these beings expended voluntarily, storing it away and using it for
their own.  Fascinating, thought Dith.  He’d never considered the vast stores
of energy expended all around him as accessible.  But these gentle souls did no
harm.  They were surely not the Wittister mages.

“No, alas.  These were the Wittisters’ first victims, in
fact––their fellow vivemancers.” 

The images in his mind, memories that were not his own,
showed him these same people, drained, withered away like the husk he’d found
below, and their bones heaped like so much cordwood.

“Somewhere along the line, one of them or another
learned, probably by accident, that they could actively draw energy from a
living being rather than passively accepting only what was expended freely. 
The knowledge spread rapidly between those who were so inclined, and not long
after, they discovered they could take all of a being’s life energy at a shot,
killing him in the process.  They further learned that the more powerful the
being, of course, the more power they could get. Whether the power itself
becomes addictive or whether the killing becomes so, who can say, but their
appetites grew.”

Powerful?  What kind of power?  Did Galorin mean kings and
princes as opposed to peasants, or…?

“Not exactly.  Through experimentation, they found the
richest supply in those who were powerful in terms of magic, hence their orgy
of death against their fellow vivemancers.  Obviously one such as yourself…well,
suffice it to say, you would be quite a prize to them.  We cannot let them get
so much as a glimpse of you or they will hunt you relentlessly.”

Vivemancy.  He turned the word over in his mind. He looked
ahead of him, toward Byrandia, and behind him to where the Witcher mages must
be.  Suddenly the formidable army of mages he’d faced before did not seem
nearly as terrifying.  He looked below them at the now very human camp and its
small fires, then across the strands at the magic the terrified mages had set
down to protect themselves, and he felt a twinge of something––was it guilt? 
Pity?  What had seemed to him such a formidable array of power now seemed
rather pathetic, coated thickly as it was in fear.

“Best you keep perspective.  Both enemies are deadly.”

Yes, but one enemy will likely kill the other, and then I
can escape.

“Most likely the mage army is thinking the same.  Notice
how little effort they expend now to hunt you.  But you both make the same
error.”

Ah, well.  These mages would serve to slow the Wittister
mages down, at least. In any case, his path lay toward Byrandia, and as soon as
he made that determination, Glasada started gratefully down the hillside.

“Their deaths will feed the Wittisters and strengthen
them. You know that, yes?”

Glasada blew out a sharp breath that fogged in the cold air,
but his step did not falter.

Dith shook his head.  What did Galorin expect of him, that
he should face both, here and now?  That was simply not possible.

“By no means!  No, I have said since the beginning that
you should make your way to Byrandia at all speed.  But you must know the cost
of leaving these behind.”

The horse slowed for a moment as the full realization of
what Galorin was saying struck Dith.  Hours before, these mages had been the
enemy.  He had struck a Thrum against them and watched almost gleefully while
they tore each other apart, thinking to kill off the last survivors one by one. 
But now, the thought of killing them offended him on some level he did not
understand fully.

“It’s one thing to face an enemy in honorable battle,
skill against skill, wit against wit.  But this no doubt feels to you like hire
and murder, shooting your esteemed opponent in the back, as it were.”

Dith swallowed hard.  Yes, he supposed it was something like
that, as absurd as it seemed to him.  No, it was more than that:  The enemy of
my enemy is my friend.  Suddenly, they found themselves on the same side
against a far greater threat.

“They are not on your side!  Do not forget, they tried to
destroy you and would again!”

“They did destroy you,” Dith snapped.  But even as the words
left his lips, he knew Galorin was right.  Even assuming he could manage to
parlay with them and offer even a temporary truce so they might join forces,
the eventual outcome would be the same:  either they would die here against the
Wittister mages, or they would die trying to kill him somewhere in Byrandia.

He shivered suddenly, recalling something Galorin had just
said.

The Wittister Mages never achieved Syon:  I saw to that.

If they’d never managed to get to Syon…why were they
following
behind
him on the landbridge?  Coming from Syon? 

“Strange, but I cannot feel the Wittister mages on the
strands,” he murmured.  He directed his attention down toward those at the
edge of the Lacework.  “I see those below me and the curls of power streaming
from them.”  He looked up and peered intently across the Lacework and beyond it
across the landbridge.  “But I do…not…see…”

“No, nor will you, not until they attack.  That is part
of what makes them so deadly.  Their energy does not leak out about them the
way ours does, and for this reason, they can move freely amongst livestock like
horses and cattle.  One of them could walk right up to you, and you would never
know until it was too late.  But if you were ever to see the signature of the
Wittisters’ power on the strands and survive, you would never forget it.”

You have seen it.  Show me.

“You know right well it would be meaningless.  My
experience of the strands and yours are not the same.  Suffice it to say, when
you see it, it is unmistakable.  Above all, the sense of it is of death and
wasting.”

He looked down in frustration.  How could he know he was not
getting carried away with assumption and fears?  Witcher mages, after all! 
Nothing more than a pile of bones had been enough that he’d let himself be
scared back into his childhood by legends and myths of vampire mages to the
point where he’d actually found pity for mages who until only hours ago had
been trying to kill him.

“The body was unmistakable.  The dead zone in the grass
around it indicates he was still in their grasp, still in the process of being
drained, when he ported back.  He must have hoped it would save him, but it did
not.  There is no doubt.”

Below them in the plain, the air erupted with lightning and
fire.  Something, a bat perhaps, was flying over the mages near the edge of the
Lacework, dodging between the bolts and missing them, for the most part.  It
flew with grace and skill, but a flickering glow about the tiny shape said that
it had not escaped unscathed. 

Dith blew across his fingers.  The flickering glow was gone,
and the little creature vanished into darkness.  He would not have a creature
burn to death.  Now at least it would stand a chance of survival.

“So sentimental.  First the horse, now whatever that
was.  I suppose it isn’t any wonder that you feel pangs of guilt about killing
the mages who tried to kill you.  But as you see, they have no such softness
about them.”

No, and that is what separates me from them, he mused.  He
sniffed the air.  A faint odor of burning hair or feathers reached his
nostrils, growing stronger.  Whatever it was, it was nearing him.  To move
that quickly, it could not be a bat.

“Kek,” the bird called out weakly, wracked with pain.  A few
feet from Glasada, a little shape tumbled to the ground and lay still.  On his
foot was a tiny scrollcase.

“Colaris?”  Dith jumped to the ground and ran to the bird. 
The sheriff’s harrier was still alive, but barely, having had the feathers on
his wings and on his back burned mostly away, leaving the skin singed and
blistered.  His breathing was very rough and fast, and as Dith picked him up,
he lay very still, his eyes staring far away.  But that Dith could feel his
tiny heart racing, he would have thought the bird dead.

He slipped off one of his boots and withdrew from it some of
the folded Bremondine silk that lined the inside.  He bit a corner of the silk
and tore off a strip that he lay across the bird’s back and wings to speed the
healing.  Then he wrapped the little bird gently in the rest of the silk to
keep him warm, having a care not to bind him too tightly and avoiding the sharp
talons that lay so disturbingly lifeless.  He would need to get Colaris into
some light to see the extent of the injuries, but assuming the burns did not
run deeply into the bird’s flesh, he should live if he could survive the shock.

Dith looked back toward Syon, not so much to see but to
consider.  Colaris would not have flown here all the way from Brannagh, and
even if the sheriff had sent him to seek Dith, he would more likely have sent
him into the Hodrache, not here.  More likely still, he’d have sent Gikka
herself to cover such a distance.  So had the bird flown from Pyran, perhaps? 
News of the landbridge could not possibly have reached Brannagh so quickly, so
why would the sheriff be anywhere near Pyran, and if he were, why would he have
Colaris with him?

He stroked the bird’s head gently, soothingly.  “There,
there, little one,” he breathed.  “All will be well.”  Then he slipped the
little scroll from the case and unrolled it.

Chul ran as fast as he could back to the knights’ camp
without a care to noise or leaving behind his bare footprints in the sandy
dried sea floor.  Behind him, the sun had just risen clear of the horizon, and
the reddish light of dawn was becoming gold. 

Earlier, as he had always done, he’d risen to greet the
first rays of dawn, and almost as he’d sheathed his hunting knife, the worried
sheriff had sent him to see if he could find any trace of Colaris, who had not
yet returned.

Lord Daerwin had been sitting beside the dying embers of the
night’s fires watching for the bird to return, almost from the moment Chul had
come back from releasing him.  Now he jumped up as Chul stopped before him.

“How now, boy,” asked the sheriff.  “Any sign of him?”

The Dhanani shook his head, recovering his breath.  “I sought
beneath the Lacework as far as I could go.  There is no sign of him.”

Daerwin frowned.  “Not…in the water, either?  You’re sure?”

Chul nodded.

Daerwin sighed.  “Well, that much is a relief at any rate,
small comfort though it be.”

“Aye, my Lord, but I’ve more to tell as concerns the mages’
camp.”

Chul had retraced his path from the night before, listening
and watching for the mages, but he’d seen no one.  No sentinels, no loud
crashing about from the rest.  Not a single soul anywhere.  He’d made his way
closer to the Lacework, conscious that they might be trying to lure him in. 
But no, their camp, their latrines, everything was gone as if it had never
existed.  He’d crouched behind a clump of coral within view of the ancient
stone roadway peeking up above the powdery blowing silt, perhaps a hundred
yards from the edge of the Lacework, and from there, he’d crept along the edge
of the roadway, watching, looking above him on the high stands of coral,
looking ahead and behind, watching for the ambush.  But none came.  Before
long, he’d found himself walking directly down the central roadway, in the
open.  Still nothing. 

They were gone.

“They must have moved on during the night,” the duke
suggested when the boy repeated the story to him.  “So what we should be asking
is what this mean for us going forward.  Did they perhaps retreat to a position
deeper into the Lacework?”

Gikka crouched beside the drawing of the mage camp’s layout
Chul had made in the sand.  “How near the Lacework did you go, lad?”

“About here,” he said, indicating the edge of the Lacework
on his dirt map.  “I did not enter, but I did come near enough to look well in
and to throw a stone.  Not a spark.  A mage should look and be sure, but I
believe they cleaned their magic off the Lacework, as well.  It’s like they
want us to think they were never there.”

Renda shook her head.  “I am certain it has nothing to do
with us.  Did you have a sense from them when you took Colaris last night that
they were aware we were camped here, or that they were concerned?”

Chul laughed.  “If they knew we were here, they were braver
than I thought.  They made more noise than Hadrian whores on Market––” he cast
a self-conscious glance at the duke and Renda.  “A…lot of noise, like men
unaware they were being watched.  It was as if they were marking time.  Like
their part was done, and they were awaiting orders.”

Lord Daerwin nodded.  “So unless their sentries suddenly
learned ambition and extended their patrols substantially, they were unlikely
to discover us.  But why clean their camp so carefully?  As Chul says, it’s as
if they would not let anyone know they’d been there at all.  But surely Dith
already knew.”  Daerwin looked worriedly across the Lacework.  “Who are they
expecting?  Surely not us…”

Damerien stroked his chin thoughtfully.  Behind him, Chul
could see Nestor serving a quick breakfast to the rest of the knights.  “We can
concern ourselves with the why of it when we have leisure, but I think we
should take advantage of this opportunity to cross the Lacework unimpeded.  We
cannot know if they will return or when.  It could be an ambush, of course, so
we will need to move carefully.”  The duke clapped a hand on Daerwin’s
shoulder.  “Peace, Uncle.  Colaris will find us, no matter where we are. 
Come.”