Keith Baker - The fading dream

“No dragon. And I didn’t say they were my friends. But they are here, nonetheless.” He raised his sword, and two arrows emerged from the mists and whistled down the street to either side of him. “Only a few can see so well as to shoot in the mists, but I assure you, they aren’t alone.”

He’s using the same equipment as before, Steel reported. Shifting blade. Shiftweave clothing. Evocation in the wand and charged for use-the blast of fire, unless I miss my guess. I don’t know about his friends in the mists; I still can’t penetrate it. Beyond that, there’s something about him I can’t put my point on. A faint aura that surrounds him and infuses him, not unlike that of the mists themselves.

The wand’s the problem, Thorn thought. If it was the same as the one he’d carried in Wroat, a single blast could engulf all three of them. And while fire might not hurt her, she didn’t have any sort of special immunity to arrows in the back of the head.

“Covenant Dal.” Essyn Cadrel hadn’t spoken since they entered the mists. He took a step forward, a slight smile on his face. If the passage through the mists had left him on edge, he didn’t show it; he seemed perfectly at ease. If anything, his voice was stern, almost reprimanding. “You swore an oath to our king, soldier. You swore to lay down your life for our nation. Explain to me what could bring you to break that vow. What could possess you to threaten the last heir to Mishann’s throne?”

“I swore an oath to our nation,” Dal said. Thorn’s eyes were fixed on the wand, but Dal’s attention never wavered. “And I spent my years here. This is our nation. Look at it! I have seen it. It’s touched my heart. I know our land better than you, old man. And I will give our people what they need.”

“And what is that?” Thorn said. She shifted her grip on Steel, watching and waiting.

“I’m afraid you’ll never know,” Dal said. “This ends-”

Thorn was still holding the locket Drix had given her. She threw it straight up in the air. The motion was all that mattered. For an instant Cazalan Dal followed it with his eyes, and the point of his wand wavered slightly, drifting up and out of line-exactly where Thorn needed it to be. She threw Steel, his blackened blade nearly invisible in the shadows. It was a perfect throw, striking the wand directly. The impact knocked the wand from Dal’s hand, catching it in Steel’s quillons, and drawing it back as the blade flew back to her hand.

Thorn wasn’t waiting for the blade to return. She was already charging forward. “Go!” she cried, pointing at the storefront to her right. She didn’t have time to see if Cadrel and Drix understood. She caught Steel and threw herself fully into Cazalan Dal, summoning every ounce of strength she could find. The soldier staggered backward, trying to bring his weapon to bear, but Thorn was too close; he couldn’t get the angle. She kept the pressure up, pushing him back through the half-open door of the darkened shop. He tripped and fell over, striking the floor hard. Thorn dropped down and pressed her arm against his throat, silencing any cries. She studied his face as she whispered the words of a spell, feeling the familiar tingle spread across her skin as she stole his appearance. It lasted for only a few minutes, not long enough for deep infiltration, but it was the perfect thing to distract him.

It took only a moment. Thorn smashed Steel’s pommel into the man’s temple, ending his struggles. “Hold him,” she told Drix and Cadrel. Then she snatched the wand from the floor and leaped out the door.

Thorn had mastered only a few spells during her arcane training at the Citadel, but those tricks had saved her life on many occasions. Equally important, she’d learned how to activate the most common magical tools and weapons, such as the standard-issue offensive wand.

The first soldier was emerging from the mists when she unleashed the fireball. Thorn saw only his blade and his arm, more than enough to target the spell. She let her anger flow into the wand, envisioning the energy as a flame spilling out of her, expanding into white heat as it burst through the wand. The result was spectacular. A bolt of flame leaped from the rod, striking the soldier in the chest, and he disappeared from view as the bolt exploded outward in a mighty sheet of flame. If the man screamed, the sound was swallowed by the mists; when the flames died down later, he was nowhere to be seen.

It was too much to hope that the blast had caught all of the soldiers, and sure enough, two more emerged a moment later. An archer and a swordsman, both wielding weapons formed of solid shadow, scanned the street for any signs of the enemy.

“Quickly! Form on me!” Thorn called. The two ran up to her.

“What happened?” the swordsman said. He was bald, his head covered with sores and boils, and his eyes were as gray as Dal’s. “Where did they go?”

No one else had emerged from the mist. Let’s hope this is all of them, she thought. She pointed the wand at the ground and activated it again.

The world disappeared in flame. The light was blinding, but it lasted only an instant. When her vision cleared, she found herself standing at the center of a circle of scorched stone. The soldiers were on the ground around her, twisted and still. Once again, she was untouched, she’d barely even felt the heat. Turning away, she ran back into the shop.

Drix took a step back when she walked into the store, and she let the glamour fall.

“Wake him up,” she said. “We need to find out where their camp is, how many more there are. Sovereigns and Six, were they expecting us?”

“I’m afraid you won’t get those answers from Cazalan Dal.” Cadrel was kneeling next to the fallen soldier. “He’s dead.”

“Impossible,” Thorn said. “I didn’t hit him that hard.”

Cadrel looked up at her, a strange expression on his face. “Perhaps you don’t know your own strength. You fractured his skull with that final blow.”

She noticed the blood spreading across the floor. In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t even noticed the surge of draconic strength, for all that she’d banked on her immunity to fire to save her life when she set off the wand. “There’s no time to waste. Cadrel, search the body. Drix, do you know where we are?”

“Yes,” he said. “The Street of Crowns. We need to get to the eastern gate.”

“Then lead the way. Quicker is better.”

“Nothing,” Cadrel reported, standing up. “Nothing at all. No coins in his pouch. No traveling papers. Nothing whatsoever.”

“Strange,” Thorn said. “It probably means they have a base nearby… and that means we’d better leave before they come looking.”

Drix had already stepped outside. When Thorn and Cadrel followed, they found him rummaging around on the ground. Standing up, he turned and tossed something to Thorn, a tarnished, silver disk that glittered in the light of the ever-burning torch. It was the battered locket, the chain snapped off, the rim of the lid bent and jammed. If there had ever been a picture inside, it had been burned away.

“You never know when it might be needed again,” he said. Then he started jogging down the street. “Come on, then!”

“There’s something strange about that boy,” Cadrel said.

“I can’t argue that,” Thorn said. “But I just might like it.”

She ran after him, Cadrel close on her heels.

The Mournland B arrakas 23, 999 YK

They’re your people,” Thorn said. “Surely you’ve got some idea. They were waiting for us.”

It was difficult to keep track of time. The sky was hidden by the glowing, gray mist; it might have been midnight, but it might have been noon. They’d run for as long as they could stand it, trying to get away from the empty city and to escape possible pursuit. The land around them was withered and gray. They followed the old trade road, which proved to be a gloomy path. Seaside was a port town, and most of the traffic came by sea. But there had been travelers on the northern road on the Day of Mourning. The first caravan had been devoid of all signs of life, just like Seaside itself. Horses’ harnesses stood empty, coachmens’ uniforms caught in the seats or on withered branches. The second was perfectly preserved with no signs of cause of death or even fear on the faces of the travelers. Their eyes were still open, and they looked as if they’d be warm to the touch. They were simply frozen, caught halfway on a journey they’d never complete.