Craig Saunders - Tides of Rythe

Each night Tirielle travelled to the Library of the Secessionists. Iruliya was mildly curious as to what Tirielle was hunting, but that was not what she was being paid for.

The woman had bodyguards while outside, and had taken over the whole of her lodgings with her men — by all accounts most capable men. She would have to be killed inside the library while she was unguarded. It would be no great challenge for Lunan. He was the best for a reason. It was time to put him into play. He had never failed her. He would not fail her now.

Lazily batting aside a mite, she went inside, into the shade. It would not do to get too much sun, it dried the skin and aged a woman before her time. But a little sun replenished her when she found herself too pale. Men seemed to appreciate a little colour in her face, when they could compare it to her pale body. When they were appreciative of something, they worked all the harder for it…but she was distracting herself. Time enough for that when evening fell.

She rang the call bell and sat on a comfortable divan to wait. She would pen Lunan a note. It would give him time to work. By evening, he would have his plans. That was his business, but he was particular, in a way she could understand. He was an artist, the night his palate. It was not for her to interfere, but she could not wait for a masterpiece this time. Just a swift execution. He might not like it, but she would never place a man’s satisfaction before her own.

Klan Mard sat quietly in his tent, contemplating his next move. His breath frosted the air within his tent, but his feet were bare and he only wore a cloak of sickly colours. It did not seem thick enough to keep out the cold, but he did not shiver. No fire burned within the tent. What little moisture there was in the air was frozen to the inside of the tent’s wall, turning the beige canvas as white as the lands outside.

The cold was invigorating. It helped him to think. Not that thought would change anything. Only time could do that. It was their move — the three that had eluded him for so long. His nemeses, three strong for all that they were mere humans.

Shorn was coming, of that he was sure. He had no guarantees that his Anamnesors could stop the mercenary when he landed on the wastes, as he undoubtedly would. Would that he could get close enough himself, but he had his orders. Jek did not want him to go against the mercenary, and with the wizard in tow, the fabled watcher, he was not sure he would triumph. He had seen the power of the Watcher first hand, in a small village on the Sturman coast. The watcher had wiped out twenty Draymen, as easily as Klan could have now he was ascended.

Yet he was a human. There was no ascension for humans. It was puzzling that one man could wield as much power as ten Incantors, as much power, perhaps, as Klan himself…maybe Jek, but the Speculate remained an unknown quantity.

No matter the humans’ plans, though. He had his orders, and he was doing what he was able. More than most Protocrats, he knew, but perhaps not enough. He had sent men to deal with the Watcher, and the Saviour, and their strange entourage. He was hunting Tirielle A’m Dralorn with all his resources on Lianthre (he was sure she was still there — how could she be anywhere else?) but both Tirielle and Shorn were hidden from the Prognosticator’s far-seeing eyes. He had not that gift, so he could not attempt to scry them himself. Traditional means must suffice.

Either way, if he could just be patient, he had no doubt they would come to him.

But he was impatient in some respects. He wanted to test himself, to go against the Watcher. To see if he was as powerful as the fables and legends of the ages said he was. The most powerful human caster to walk the earth in any age, with an army of paladins in tow. What a test that would be. But instead, he was attacking from afar, going against a helting mir during the day with a spear — it was not a true contest of skills.

Instead of fighting, he was skulking. He had no doubt of the importance of his mission. Finding the last wizard’s resting place and putting him to sleep for eternity was his duty and he must place it above his growing pride, but he suspected any Protocrat could just as easily have fulfilled the task. This endless, blasted hunt grew tired and old. More and more he became convinced that Jek wanted him out of the way. Out of sight, to do whatever it was Jek was doing…he did not know, and it riled him.

But he was ascendant, and on the face of it he had been given an important task. He would not fail. But, he thought with considerable irritation, it would be so much more interesting to pit his powers against their foes head on, rather than forever waiting, searching for mountains in the snow.

He was bored beyond belief. He passed the time as only he knew how, examining the bone archive, the scrolls of the ages he had etched onto his very bones with his new found power. He had learned much of note.

He scoured the plains, using his men to search for any sign of the mountain, one among many. It was a fire mountain, and it too slumbered as the wizard did. If only it had been awake…its smoke could be seen for tens of mile — perhaps hundreds. They had found the mountains, climbed to the tops in the arduous weather, losing men he could ill-afford to sacrifice, but found nothing to mark the mountains different.

He had even communed with his undead slave, Fernip Unger, travelling back to Arram when he could, and the dictates of the search let him, to see if the reader had discovered anything new. He suspected the reader was holding something back, but he knew if it was of immediate import the man would have been unable to keep it a secret. When Klan had given the man life everlasting he had also placed a geas on him. Fernip Unger could not lie.

And yet the mountain of fire had been lost to the ages. There was no mention of it in the scrolls, in the island archive, and certainly not in Klan’s bone archive.

Outside a cold wind howled down from the mountains, tearing stinging shards of ice from the permafrost in a driving, endless dry rain. The only relief came when the heavy snows lay in weighty flakes thick on the ice. But he had lost many soldiers and scouts in the snows. The white shroud hid deadly crevasses in the ice, or sudden cliffs where there should be none. His Anamnesors never imagined they would be in a battle with mere terrain. It was almost a relief for them when the Teryithyr came. He let his men fight them. He could not summon the enthusiasm to burn them from the plains. It was character building for his warriors, and his casters, and provided entertainment for him in this dull exclusion.

There was nothing for it but to search laboriously through the endless white wastes.

His breath frosted in the frigid air of his tent as he sighed through his pinched nostrils. It was time to talk to the Speculate. He did not know the meaning of dread, but was cautious by nature, and more than anything else in his vast experience conversations with the leader of the Protectorate required caution in abundance. His master would not be pleased at his progress. He had lost many of his Anamnesors, soldiers in the last battle and vanguards of the return, that the Protectorate could ill afford to spare. His master might prove…irritable…when he was informed. Perhaps, Klan mused, he could couch the news in terms less likely to cause irritation. Brother San would be a welcome diversion, perhaps, but a visit to the Protectorate’s most accomplished torturer would mean that Klan would be ill-disposed to lead the search himself. He needed to be prepared when the three mites came close enough to be swatted, not curled in a ball. Healing himself would be little problem, ordinarily. He would just feed on someone he had no need of, but he had too few men to spare, and probably could not get away with feeding on another of the Protectorate within Arram. He would risk further punishment, and at this stage he did not want to rouse Jek’s ire. There would be time for that later, when he was better placed. As it was, in the eyes of the other nineteen Speculatae, he was an untried member. They would not support him, should he try to oust Jek. Then he would be at their mercy. If he was lucky enough to survive an open battle with Jek, or remain undetected should he try to remove his master by more devious means.