“All of them,” she answered. “The bear things, the spiders, the wolves—there are even large serpents that hunt in this forest. All of them are drawn to any significant amount of aythar.” Then she pointed at me, “Right now you’re drawing them to us. That’s why I put the veil back up, but if you don’t close your mind, seal your aythar inside yourself, they’ll find us eventually.”
A noise outside caught our attention, leaves rustling beneath heavy feet. Elaine seemed to crumple, shrinking back toward the back wall of her hiding place. She motioned toward me with her hands, begging me to come with her.
“We have to make a circle,” I told her, refusing to lower my voice. “Get started. I’ll deal with this.”
“Magic doesn’t work…” she began, her voice almost a whisper. “You have to use something else.”
I nodded, “I know. Rocks, dirt, whatever is close at hand. Start the circle, I’ll finish it and add the keys when I get back.”
Stepping back through the veil, the shadowy light of the forest floor was still bright enough to almost blind me. Luckily, my magesight didn’t suffer the same problem, for standing not ten feet away was a giant man.
Well, ‘man’ wasn’t really an appropriate description, but it was humanoid. Covered in pebbly grey skin and standing somewhere close to fifteen feet in height, it had two arms and two legs, though they were twisted and lumpy compared to human proportions. The head that sat on its shoulders was thick and short with almost no neck, and it was crowned by a massive black horn in the center of its forehead.
“Damn you’re ugly,” I muttered. Looking at the horn I felt sorry for the mother that had birthed it. Then again, I realized on second thought that the horn had probably grown in later.
Chapter 18
The ogre and I stared at each other for a second. I thought of it as an ogre because I had no idea what else to call it. It certainly looked like a monster from some demented writer’s fairytale. Since I was no longer in the mind of the stone, I couldn’t expect my surroundings to deal with it for me, but I had plenty of other options.
Plus, I was still dealing with a lot of pent up anger and self-loathing.
The ogre twisted at the hips, whipping the massive club it had been dragging behind it into the air and swinging it toward me with one large lumpy arm. Perfect.
I didn’t bother directing my power at the monster, since it likely had the same protection all the creatures here had. Instead, I seized its club, which was in fact a moderately sized tree that appeared to have been recently uprooted and trimmed of its upper limbs.
My iron will and seething power gripped the club, stopping it only a foot from my still tender head. Then I wrenched it around in the air, which sent its former wielder flying into the nearby bushes.
It roared with rage and seconds later it was back, covered in twigs and leaves. I met its call with the rooted end of the club, driving it into the ogre’s head like a battering ram. “It’s time to improve your looks,” I muttered.
And then, I beat it to death.
There was nothing glorious or romantic about it. It couldn’t even be called a battle. The ogre never had a chance. The first blow had stunned it, and after that it was just a brutal succession of hammer blows while I smashed its body into a twitching pile of flesh and broken bones.
Even furious as I was, the sight of what I did made me sick. Finished, I placed the club in front of the entrance to Elaine’s hiding place, in case I needed it again. And as I walked inside, I couldn’t hide from one particular thought, If I had done that earlier, rather than rely on Penny and Gram…
My stomach knotted within me.
Elaine had the circle half done. I finished the rest and added the destination key, before doing a calculation to assign the present location key. Once that was done, we returned to Castle Cameron, taking Brent’s body with us. It would do him no good, but at least we could give him a decent burial, unlike poor Walter.
Matthew, Moira, and Conall were there ahead of us, having brought Penny back via a similar temporary circle as soon as they had left the forest. The others were still on the road with the soldiers.
Moira and Conall embraced Elaine, while Matthew looked on. He wasn’t one to give hugs when they could be avoided, but as his siblings had released her, she reached out and pulled him in anyway. From my vantage point, he looked uncomfortable, but then the dam finally broke within Elaine and her shoulders began to shake. Matthew’s face softened, and he held her tightly while she cried.
Moira looked to me, mouthing Walter’s name in a silent question. Bowing my head, I answered with a negative nod.
Leaving Elaine in their care, I found Peter, my chamberlain, waiting for me. I directed him to Brent’s body, which we had left outside. “Send word to his family and have him prepared for a hero’s funeral.”
Peter started to speak, “My lord, I have…”
Ignoring him I asked Conall anxiously, “Where’s Penny?”
“The men just took her upstairs. She should be in bed by now,” he replied. “Elise went with her.”
I started for the stairs, but Matthew called out to me, “Hey, old man!”
That brought a frown to my face. “What?”
“Don’t do that again. I don’t want to be Count any time soon.”
“Oh really? You should be so lucky,” I told him.
He nodded. “Really. It seems like a very inconvenient job. I have better things to do with my time.” Then he grinned.
I hadn’t thought about the matter in a long time. I had been declared dead once before, and Penny had held the title in my stead, but she wasn’t a Cameron by blood. She could only hold it until one of the heirs was of age. If I had died, it would have fallen to him. Conall and Irene were in line after him, since Moira was adopted and not my natural born child.
“You’d better use your time well then,” I said. “One of these days it will be your turn, whether you like it or not.”
Peter spoke up once more, “My lord. Things have not been quiet here. I have bad news.”
I was in no mood. I needed to be with my wife. “Haven’t you already told them?” I asked, waving my hand toward Matthew and the others.
The chamberlain shook his head. “They arrived only moments before you did, and with the Countess in such a state, I haven’t had the chance.”
“Whatever it is can wait…,” I began.
“It’s Lady Rose, and your daughter, Irene,” interrupted Peter. “There were intruders in the castle.”
“What?! How? Are they alright?” I rounded on the chamberlain with something approaching panic.
“Lady Rose was rather shaken, and Irene—I’m not sure what happened. She’s asleep now. Gary understands more of what happened, but I’ll give you the details of what I know.”
I listened for several minutes, and then headed for home.
***
“How is she?” I asked Elise.
The old woman looked at me with tired eyes. “First you, now her, I’m convinced you two are trying to work me to death before my time. She’s breathing, and you seem to have done a good job with her bones. I can’t tell if there are more serious internal injuries, though. I don’t have your sight.”
“She isn’t bleeding inside,” I told her. “Everything is in its place—except her...,” I stopped, unable to say the words. Except her arm.
Elise got up from her stool at the bedside and wrapped her thin arms around me. “You did well, Mort. If you hadn’t removed the arm immediately, she would have died. Don’t blame yourself for it.”
“I’m going to fix it,” I said suddenly, firming up my conviction.
She misunderstood me. “I’m sure Matthew can build her an arm that will be better than the original.”
I stepped away from her. “No, I mean I am going to restore it.”
Elise frowned. “Can you do that? I thought your unique form of healing was limited to yourself.”
It was, if the archmage attem
pting it was sane, but I had done it twice before, once when Penny had nearly died after being struck by a ballista bolt meant for me, and once when Elaine had been near death years before. It was something I had never intended to do again.
Using metamagic to become another human being, essentially resulted in a merging of souls. It held a risk unlike that of becoming earth or wind, but no less dangerous. Separating again was difficult, and afterward you could never be sure who you had been originally, the healer or the patient. I still wondered occasionally if I was really Elaine, and whether she was walking around with my soul instead of her own. There was no way to know.
But for Penny, any risk was worth it. And if I had to become another person, there was no one else I would rather be. I’d feel a little sorry for her though, I thought. I wouldn’t wish being me on anyone.
In answer to her question I nodded. “I can. I’ll wait until she has recovered, though.”
Elise’s eyes narrowed. “Is it safe?”
“Certainly,” I lied, before changing the subject. “What was your impression of Irene?”
She threw up her hands. “What do I know of magic? Her body is whole, but I couldn’t wake her. Whatever she did sent her into a comatose state.”
It was obvious that Irene’s power had finally awoken, and if her body was unhurt, I was fairly certain she would be fine. It went differently for everyone and usually occurred sometime after puberty, and often during a moment of stress. With me it had happened around sixteen, to save a friend’s horse from drowning.
At least Irene, unlike me, would have plenty of people to help her learn and adjust to her new abilities. A splashing sound from the adjacent room drew my attention. I did my best to ignore it.
After they had settled Irene’s unconscious form into her bed, Elise had brought her daughter-in-law to my room to use the bath. Nearly alone, the old healer had had a lot of patients to look after, and they hadn’t expected me to return so soon.
Most of the bedrooms in my hidden mountain home were warded for privacy, but the large bath that Penny and I shared was warded with our bedroom. Which meant it was entirely open to view with my magesight while I remained by Penny’s bedside.
A natural question to ask would be, why did it matter? In my everyday life I dealt with people constantly, and clothing was no more of a barrier to magesight than walls were. I, and my children, were all accustomed to that. For myself, I usually just tuned it out. Peering through clothing and searching out the shape and form of other people’s bodies gets old quickly when it’s part of your everyday life.
Also, it wasn’t quite like sight. There was no color, only form. For example, in a pitch-black room I couldn’t read a book. I could detect its shape, look at the pages, but the writing was not easily apparent, unless it was writing imbued with aythar. I could potentially read it, but only by focusing intently on it, inch by inch, to detect the difference in places where ink was present and where it wasn’t, but such a thing would take forever.
Similarly, examining people’s skin beneath their clothing didn’t reveal too much more. Usually their general shape was already apparent from the lay of the cloth anyway.
A woman bathing nearby though, was a little different, though it was mainly a psychological thing. Fortunately, I had developed a lot of discipline, and age and maturity helped as well.
I couldn’t help but see a bit, but the main thing was to keep my attention focused on other things closer at hand.
One other point, while aythar doesn’t show true color, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t present other information to the mind beyond simple form. The problem is that the human brain wasn’t designed with this extra method of perception in mind, so it borrowed from our experience of the other senses to interpret what was observed. The aythar of individuals was unique, and the mage’s mind often presented that difference as a taste, a scent, or a color.
Through long association I could easily identify the aythar of my friends and family. Someone like Rose, whom I had known for well over twenty years now, was no exception. Not being a mage, her aythar was far dimmer, and it clung closely to her body. To my mind it possessed a pleasant scent, and it was entirely feminine.
At times like this, as she stretched and stood to rise from the bath, it rippled across her skin, highlighting the shape of…
“Goddammit,” I said out loud.
“What is it?” asked Elise, looking at me strangely.
Leaning over, I kissed Penny’s sleeping face. Standing, I took a few steps and then answered her, “Nothing, I just need to go check on Irene for a while.” It was a relief when the door shut behind me, and with it the ward.
Irene was unchanged. I had been in her room only a short while before, to look in on her before checking Penny. I hadn’t really expected to find anything changed yet. She still lay quietly, her breathing and heart steady. Most importantly, her aythar seemed intact, though it was still turbulent. She would probably be nauseous when she awakened.
A knock came at the door, and then Matthew entered without waiting for me to answer. Gary stood behind him in the hall. “Dad, we need to talk.”
“What have you learned?”
“Quite a lot, actually. Gary has been able to give me some important insights…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, for another voice interrupted him. “I hope you gentlemen weren’t planning on having this discussion without me.” Lady Rose stood in the hallway, her hair in a towel and clad in one of Penny’s nightgowns. The garment was entirely too large for her.
“You should probably rest,” I argued. “You’ve been through an ordeal, Rose.”
She nodded, “I couldn’t agree more. I don’t enjoy being attacked and having to wash that much blood out of my hair was almost as unpleasant. Nevertheless, before I sleep, I’d like to know the meaning of it. Otherwise I won’t be able to rest.”
Gary spoke up, “Actually, it would be helpful to have your account of what happened before we arrived.”
Since they were all making sense, I agreed, and we adjourned to the living room.
Chapter 19
Rose followed the others, and I was behind her. Before entering the main room, though, she turned back toward me. “I need something, Mort. Just a moment if you don’t mind.”
Matthew looked at me questioningly, but I waved him on. “I’ll be right there.”
Lady Rose smiled at him and after a second, we were somewhat alone. Rose turned to me and looked up. “I am not well.”
Concerned, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
Then her façade cracked, and her face twisted. Burying her head against my chest she threw her arms around my waist and held on tightly. I hugged her back, worried. Rose was a woman of famous self-control. In the twenty plus years I had known her, I had only seen her like this on a couple of occasions.
She wasn’t crying, but I could feel a tremor in her shoulders and a strangled noise came from her throat. She was screaming silently into my chest.
After a minute she took a deep breath and released me, composing her face and wiping at her eyes with the sleeve of the nightgown. “How do I look?” she asked me.
I gave her a once over and made my pronouncement with a wink, “Better than me, as usual.”
She nodded, making a brave face. “Thank you, Mordecai.” Then she turned toward the living room.
I followed her in. “Don’t thank me, Rose. That’s what family is for.”
After that she found Alyssa and set her to making tea for us. Then we all settled in and got comfortable.
Conall walked in before we could start. “What’s going on?”
Matthew looked at his younger brother with frustration, but after a moment he sighed and answered, “Actually, go find the others. We may as well do this once, so everyone can share what they know.”
Conall left, and a few minutes later he returned with Gram, Moira, Elaine, and Lynaralla. There weren’t quite enough seats, but that was a common problem
in our house, which was why we had an abundance of cushions. Elaine took the last chair while Moira, Lynaralla, Gram, and Conall made themselves comfortable on the floor.
Matthew addressed the room, “I’ll start, since I think Gary and I have the most to add.” Leaning over, he waved his hand at the android. “Gary can detect ANSIS. He can hear their means of communicating with one another.”
That produced a stir in the room.
Matthew went on, “He can detect types of light that are invisible to us. One type he detected today is used for long distance communication, but it generally requires a long piece of metal called an antenna to be used. He also detected a different type of communication that is faster, but only effective over shorter distances of a hundred feet or so. That was why he led Irene to Rose’s room.”
Elaine spoke up, “Did you say this was a type of light?”
Gary answered her, “It is, and before you ask, yes, your invisibility veil blocks it. When you went to my world with Karen and Matthew, that was why I had to have you open holes in your veil, so I could communicate.”
She nodded. “I just wanted to be sure.”
Matthew smiled. “What Elaine is considering is an important point. The Prathion abilities could conceivably be used to block or interfere with ANSIS’s ability to communicate. With her and her brother George’s talent and the judicious use of specialized enchantments, we could create areas that prevent them from communicating.”
Lynaralla broke in, “If you can use the short-range signals to locate them, can you also use the long-range signals to discover where they are hiding?”
Gary answered, “Yes and no. It is possible, but I am barely able to detect those signals at all, given the size of my physical body. Also, because of the potential distances accurate triangulation would require me to measure the signal from at least three separate locations simultaneously. Those locations would need to be separated from one another by a significant distance. We would have to build antennae in different cities and find some way for me to connect to them all at the same time to monitor for the signal.”