Mark Anthony - Kindred Spirits

“Ah, well,” he said, and touched torch to debris.

Flames roared.

Miral raced along the second balcony, his goal the spiral stairs to the main level. Gilthanas had spent far too much time in the corridor. Something was not going according to the mage’s plan. He raged with the injustice.

As he reached the door to the stairwell, he heard expressions of horror ripple through the onlookers, and he turned back.

“Porthios enters armed!”

“What?”

“The Kentommen youth is never armed!”

“What does this portend?”

Solostaran was pallid as he gazed at the figure he believed was his son and heir, but his self-possession never faltered. “Porthios,” he ordered. “Tell me what this means.”

“There is a murderer in the Tower,” Tanis cried, sweeping the hood back from his face.

More expressions of shock burst from the nobles as the crowd involuntarily parted and Tanis bounded through, his sword at the ready. With one leap, he was upon the rostrum, standing before Solostaran.

“Tanthalas!” Miral exclaimed from above. “But you’re dead!”

The youth whirled to face the mage. Tanis’s gaze caught Miral’s, and the mage saw pain flare within the youth. “How do you know, mage?” he demanded.

“Guards!” Tyresian thundered.

Tanis held up his sword, Elansa’s amulet glittering like a small sun. “The mage has twice killed, and he seeks to slay still more today.” He pointed the sword at Miral.

Miral fought back a laugh at the chaos below him. What better time to unleash his final spell? He began to chant.

“By the gods,” Tyresian barked. “The half-elf has lost his mind. And so has the mage. Guards!”

“Tanis, where is Porthios?” came Laurana’s shrill cry. “And Gilthanas?”

Tanis had no time to reply. He was dashing through the nobles to the stairwell. Black-garbed ceremonial guards poured into the Tower but didn’t immediately realize that the half-elf was the one Tyresian wanted them to capture. Tanis slipped through, threw open the door to the stairway, and took the steps three at a time.

As though the words pounded in his brain, Tanis could hear Miral continue his chanting. Above, the top of the Tower creaked.

Suddenly, Eld Ailea appeared before him on the stairs.

Tanis spun to a halt against the wall of the first landing. “Ailea!” he cried. “You’re not dead.” She looked down at him and smiled.

Then suddenly, she was not Ailea, but Xenoth, laughing loudly and pointing derisively at the half-elf. Tanis held his sword before him and struggled to overcome the panic within him.

Xenoth turned into a middle-aged elf man with a slender face and eyes of purest blue. His arm supported a pallid woman with long, curly hair the color of wheat and eyes as brown as the earth. She looked at Tanis, raised one weak hand, and whispered, “Tanthalas, my son.”

Tanis stood motionless, feeling his heart thunder. The agony of the moment tore into him. Then he wrenched away, shouted, “This is magic!” and the two figures vanished into shimmering air.

He pushed through the spot where they had stood; cold fingers of air brushed against his arm as he pounded past.

“Miral!” he cried, bursting onto the second balcony.

Three chunks of tile burst from the mosaic and plummeted into the teeming mass of elves. A thin crack rent the top of the Tower.

At that moment, with a crash of thunder, Flint and Fleet-foot appeared on the rostrum.

“Arelas!” the dwarf called. His voice reverberated. “Are-las Kanan!” He pointed his hammer at the mage.

Miral’s chant slowed and stopped. Hands above his head, sweat starting from his palms, he held the spell and looked down at Flint. Suddenly, there was no noise in the Tower but tiny “pings” as bits of tile showered down from the double mosaic. The smell of rock and plaster was in the air.

“Arelas?” Solostaran said tentatively. “My brother?”

“Your brother never died, Speaker,” Flint said. “Not Arelas. He came to you as Miral.”

The mule brayed, breaking Flint’s spell, and Miral resumed his chant. A groan sounding like agony came from the division between the mosaic of day and the mosaic of night, at the top of the Tower.

“He slew Lord Xenoth for discovering who he really was,” Flint cried, his voice trembling with anger. “He killed Eld Ailea for the same reason. And now he wants to slay you and your children!”

Astoundingly calm, Solostaran simply turned to Miral-to Arelas-and said, “Why?”

Looking down at them, Miral felt the rage he’d been carrying for nearly two hundred years. He lowered his arms and ceased his chant. “They sent me away, Solostaran!” he shouted. “They sent me from Qualinost!”

“You were dying, Arelas,” Solostaran replied. “Or so we thought.”

“I was ever the more talented, Solostaran,” Arelas shouted. “I should have been Speaker. I will be Speaker! And 1 will keep Qualinesti for the pure elves. Now that I have the power of the Gray-

A portion of a marble column that supported the first balcony burst, weakened by Arelas’s magic, and sent shards of rock spewing into the chamber. The nobles scattered. Arelas grimaced and threw his hands out, sending a burst of lightning toward the rostrum. Flint hurtled toward Solostaran, knocking the Speaker off the platform. Tyresian threw himself at Laurana, sending her spinning toward the relative safety of the balcony overhang. A block of marble crashed down upon the elf lord, and Laurana screamed.

Porthios burst from the Yathen-ilara.

“Arelas!” Tanis shouted again, and raised his sword.

But the mage laughed. “It won’t work, Tanthalas! The sword will not work against me.” He threw his arms wide and danced a few steps of glee. “I enchanted it, you see, at the same time I enchanted those arrowheads that you used so well against the tylor and Lord Xenoth.” The laughter turned into a coughing spell, and Tanis saw his chance. He sprang at Arelas, slashing with his sword.

But the sword clanged off something in the air and passed harmlessly over the mage’s head. Arelas raised his arms, pointedly turned his back on the half-elf, and continued chanting. Another patch of mosaic tile came down.

Arelas leaned over the balcony, one arm drawn back as if to throw another bolt of mage fire at the onlookers.

Tanis tried again. “Miral! Arelas! Gilthanas lives.”

Below, off to Tanis’s left, he could see Porthios’s head snap around, his face ablaze with hope as he learned that his younger brother had not died. Arelas turned, his face terrible, all color gone from his irises.

“He lives?” the mage demanded.

Even though the sword appeared useless against Arelas, Tanis kept it poised before him. “Gilthanas is above you in ascendancy, Arelas,” the half-elf shouted. “You will not be Speaker no matter what you do here today.”

Arelas quivered, as if he teetered at the edge of the Abyss. Then one arm shot forward, and lightning hurtled toward the half-elf.

Acting purely on instinct, Tanis raised his sword. The mage’s bolt struck Elansa’s pendant, melting it into drops of steel; a new burst of lightning arced from the sword back to the mage, who screamed with the blow and hurtled from the balcony.

His body burst into flame before it struck the floor of the Tower.

A.C. 308, Late Summer

“But where did he get the power?” Tanis asked again.

Flint shook his head. There were rumors, of course, legends of a source of great chaotic power hidden in caverns deep below Qualinost, but the dwarf was not of a mood to recite legends.

He ordered ale for the both of them. The innkeeper at the Inn of the Last Home brought the beverage to their table in overflowing mugs, and Flint sighed. “Ah, lad, I have longed for this. A comfortable table in the corner of a cozy inn. Real ale, with a kick like Fleetfoot’s.”