The Silence of Medair (4 page)

Then she saw the bodies.  A fat man dressed in comfortable robes lay on the road in a position which spoke eloquently of attempted flight.  The back of his skull was a black depression.  A short distance away lay an armswoman with a red snake insignia on her shield and flies rioting in the blood drying around her.  Medair had seen death before.  She had witnessed the slow defeat of the Palladian Empire, stood impotently on the sidelines of too many battles.  Toward the end there had been heavy losses.  Dead people still made her sick to the stomach.

Dismounting, she led the bay carefully around the bodies.  His ears were flat back and his eyes showed white, but the ring held him.  She wouldn't try its control by taking him directly toward whatever was up ahead.  Instead, she led him off the right side of the road and made a short, arduous journey through the trees until the smoke streamers were behind them and the air untainted.  Then, leaving her slightly less frantic horse securely tethered, Medair went back.

She had stumbled onto slaughter.  There were bodies in all directions, centred around a circle of char about a hundred feet in diameter, intersecting with the road along one edge.  It looked like a prelude to the Conflagration and had probably been burning merrily yesterday afternoon or evening while she slept at the roadside.  It was fortunate that the fire had not spread far outside the blast area, or she would have woken to a more pressing problem than a fractious mount.

Dotted among the fallen trees and charred remains of shrubs were blackened lumps.  Large ones for horses, smaller for people.  Medair made a complete circuit of the ashes first, a cloth held over her face as she worked to keep her stomach under control.  An adept had done this: killed so many so quickly.  An adept of immense power, for the blast to have been so large, which likely meant an Ibisian.  What had she stumbled into?  What were the White Snakes planning now?

A pale, mask-like face turned to look at her out of every corner of her memory.  She could almost hear that soft voice make some particularly hateful comment about unfounded assumptions.

Shaking distractions out of her head, Medair looked about for a key to this carnage.  Half out of the circle of char lay a man wearing a familiar outfit of grey cloth and sturdy leather, no insignia visible.  Bariback seemed to be infested with Decians.  She had to force herself to check the body over for identification, but found only his hawk-nosed profile to proclaim his allegiance.

Reviewing the uncharred bodies, she found Decians, Kyledran guards, the badge of a merchanter house, and more snake-shielded fighters.  Mercenaries.  The mercenaries were probably connected to the merchants, hired swords.  But here was another, this time with a silver horse on his shield.  Very well, four or five distinct groups, out here in the middle of nowhere, fighting.  Over what?

Being familiar with spells that exploded, although unable to cast them, Medair walked gingerly to the centre of the blackened ring and sighed through her teeth and the cloth which was wholly inadequate at blocking the stench.  Fire was a dangerous weapon in close combat – it killed so indiscriminately sometimes even the caster fell.

Uncharred, a woman in a brown travelling dress lay crumpled atop a circle of green grass.  She'd been wounded, Medair guessed, and her body hadn't been able to take the stress of the spectacular casting she'd released.  It was hard to guess from her appearance, but Medair thought she might be linked to the mercenaries.  She was too blonde to be a Decian and didn't seem to be a Kyledran official.

There was an inexplicably strong and distinct aura of power lingering about the fallen mage.  Medair, investigating tentatively, discovered a purse tied to the woman's belt.  She opened it and shook out onto her hand a cluster of faceted stones, clear with a tinge of yellow.  Each was about the size of a pigeon's egg.

Disbelieving, Medair almost dropped them.  This explained the span of the fire and was most likely the reason behind the battle, as well.  Rahlstones.  Not incredibly powerful in their own right, but they magnified a mage's power tenfold.  Her eyes went to the dead woman's hand, clenched into a fist, and she carefully prised it open.  Another clear stone.  After a brief hesitation she added it to the rest.

A dozen rahlstones.

"Just what I didn't need to find," she muttered, surveying the carnage.  These people had killed each other, almost certainly over the contents of the purse.  None had survived to take the stones, but there would surely be many more eager to ride right over Medair to take possession.  She wanted nothing to do with what could only be a major intrigue.

But it seemed stupid to leave them lying in this blackened clearing, so she dropped them into her satchel, where the power-shielding would hide their presence.  A contribution to Kersym Bleak's collection, unless she found something more positive to do with them.

Turning to leave, she literally stumbled over a figure curled at the base of one of the smouldering trees.  A boy of twelve or thirteen, only singed beneath a thick coating of ash.  Alive.

Wide-eyed, Medair lifted him from the ashes and staggered out of the circle, checking for wounds and finding none.  He was breathing steadily, but his temperature was high and he was obviously dehydrated.  There was the scent of power about him, too.  Not as obvious as the rahlstones, but a lingering suggestion of depth.

Except for that trace of power, he was not difficult to puzzle out, especially with the blue circles beneath his eyes and that temperature.  The boy was a mage.  Strong, since he'd been able to protect himself against the fire.  In the brief moments between realizing what the brown-clad woman was casting and the set-spell being released, he must have drawn the sum of his strength up into a shield of pure power, the simplest and most exhaustive of magical manoeuvres.  So now he was in spell shock, having overextended his considerable abilities.

Spell shock was not fatal, if you survived the actual casting.  The boy would be weak and feverish and thirsty and would doubtless sleep a great deal over the next few days, but he would not die.  Unless she left him out here in the ash, with a storm coming.  She would not, of course, but she grumbled beneath her breath, mind on the five men who thought she must be valuable, none of whom were likely to cherish kind thoughts about her after she had stolen their horses.  How far behind were they now?  How much would this boy slow her down?

Medair was able to hook him over a shoulder and stagger back to the horse, where she pulled water skins from her satchel.  The bay was grateful for the drink, but the boy only feebly swallowed without waking.  He did not so much as move as she struggled to keep him slung across the bay's withers while she mounted.  She didn't need a dependant, no matter how forlorn he looked, and would leave him at the first convenient village.

-oOo-

Thunder accompanied her on the awkward ride which followed, and an early green-grey twilight descended.  Then the rain arrived in force.  At first the huge, heavy drops were a relief after the relentless humidity of the last couple of days.  It quickly became an annoyance, then something to make the situation wholly miserable: riding through a forest on a mean-tempered, stolen horse, clutching a dirty, feverish little boy, and hunted by five killers.

Drenched and battered by the force of the downpour, vision obscured, she could think of nothing to do but travel on until she reached the ramshackle wayfarer's shelter she'd used on her way to the mountain.  It couldn't be more than a mile or two, and she used the time to speculate about the boy's role in the battle.  He was dressed in plain trousers and loose shirt.  Perhaps he was a servant of the merchant, or even the son of the mage.  When he had recovered she would at least be able to ask him what had happened.  An exchange of the precious stones, interrupted by – one? two? – sets of thieves?

The current political situation was not particularly stable – or had not been in Autumn, when there had been talk of a trade war between Decia and Palladium.  A dozen rahlstones would be a spectacular advantage if it came to war.  Used together, a group of adepts could cut a swathe through enemy forces or maintain defensive spells against all but the most persistent attack.  Their stock of rahlstones had been one of the things which had made it possible for the Ibisians to wage war against an entire Empire.

The shelter proved too small for the horse, but she was sure it would mind the rain less and, besides, it shouldn't have stood on her foot.  Medair tended to the animal before the boy so she wouldn't have to venture back out into the rain and by the time she staggered inside with the tack she was shivering.

The single bedroll she had kept was soaked, but she made do with a pile of the many blankets she had stowed in her satchel.  Stripping the boy, she dropped him on the pile beneath another blanket, then chanted her way through a fire charm, wishing she'd had the foresight to ready a few set-spells before being forced to flee Bariback Mountain.  Finally, she started a watery vegetable stew and changed into dry clothes and considered the boy.

He sounded suitably alive, groaning and twitching as she wiped traces of ash from his face.  She patted a streaked cheek consolingly.  Not a particularly taking lad, with little chin and a nose which would be impressive when he was fully grown, but he'd survived that fire, so there must be something to him.  When the stew was done and she had eaten, Medair eased him upright, and rested him against her chest.  Time to try to coax him awake, enough to accept a spoonful of savoury liquid.

The role of nurse was new to her, and she was uncertain if she was doing all she should, but the boy's response to the stew was at least encouraging.  He was sluggish and only half-awake, but if he could eat he mustn't be too deeply spell shocked.  His skin was still fever-hot, but he did not drop immediately back to sleep.  Blinking ponderously at the ceiling, he lay frowning at something, then focused on her when she sat back down.

"A few days abed and you'll be back on your feet," she told him.  "You can rest properly at the next village along the road."  And out of her fumbling hands, Thank Farak!

The sandy brows drew together as he blinked at her again.  She wondered if he was short-sighted.  "It's spell shock," she informed him, attempting a soothing tone.  "Not too serious.  Don't worry, you'll sleep it off before the week's out."

Definite perturbation.  He turned his head to look at her better, then abruptly lifted a hand and held it over her face.  Medair flinched instinctively, but he compensated, the base of his palm pressing against her chin, fingers splayed towards her brow.  Before she could do or say anything there was a huge surge of arcane power and the boy said, "Take me to Athere," in a hoarse, barely audible voice.  "As directly as convenient," he added, then sighed and passed out.

Medair gaped.

"You little
wretch
!" she gasped, not believing what had happened.  A geas.  He had put a geas on her.  This scrawny, filthy, half-dead
scrap
of a boy had geased her!

Medair's vision swam with unaccustomed fury.  It was a spell the White Snakes had introduced to Farakkan.  They had geased their prisoners in droves, bound them with magic so the invaders need not fear the conquered.  It had been in many ways a merciful approach, but Medair would never forget the frustrated impotence in the eyes of the people of Mishannon, the first Palladians bound not to harm Ibisians.  One of them had described it as living with your heart in a cage.

Trembling with anger, she paced about the confines of the shelter, glaring at the grimy face above the matching grey blanket.  A geas.  The little rodent had geased her.  Geased her!

Eventually, since the little rodent was now both defenceless and unconscious, she calmed down enough to sit sulkily on her own blanket, still glaring.  There had to be a way out of this.

The geas had not been spur-of-the-moment.  He had had it set, just waiting to spring on someone.  Not an uncommon practice – many spells took too long in the casting to be useful, but they could be prepared, set, ready to be triggered, and would last up to a couple of weeks before they had to be renewed.  She couldn't tell a great deal about the geas which he had placed on her, though she could feel the power of it like a snake coiling about her spine.  She doubted it was as simple as the verbal command he had given.  Very likely it had the usual clauses about not harming the caster and so forth, so she couldn't kill him to free herself and she could not break it.  Medair was too minor a mage to even begin to cast such a spell, and the Empire had learned some hard lessons about how much stronger than the caster you needed to be to break a geas.

Despite her limited magical defences, she might have been able to withstand the geas if she'd guessed for one moment that he could or would cast such a spell.  Instead, having nursed this viper back to relative health, he had surprised her with a bond she didn't have the ability to break.

Medair grimaced.  Relative health indeed.  He looked on his way to giving up the ghost.  Most of the power for the geas would have been in the preparation, but what he had used in triggering it had obviously sent him close to the brink.  Well, there wasn't anything she could do for him.  He would die or he wouldn't and it would serve him right if he did!

After a further spate of glowering she pulled another blanket from her satchel and tucked him up more firmly.  There was still a hint of power about him and, at this stage, she wouldn't be surprised if he had a whole sackful of tricks ready and waiting for unwary rescuers.