Juliet McKenna - The Assassin's Edge

The nurse set aside her sewing and came to lay the back of her hand gently against his forehead. “He sleeps more easily.”

“He may yet recover,” I suggested, though Saedrin knows, I couldn’t think of a man who would relish such a life.

The woman shook her head regretfully. “In cutting him off from his future, Ilkehan has cut him off from his past. Without the blessing of those who have gone before, he cannot live much longer.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “At least he will know a little peace.”

“It’s best that you do not come again.” The nurse’s face was unreadable.

“Very well.” I turned as I reached the door. “I shall not speak of this. Will you keep silent as well?”

She nodded.

I did the same and left the room. That would be best for everyone. I didn’t relish trying to explain to Ryshad or Sorgrad what I’d done, not when I had no clear idea just why I’d done it myself. Besides, as Sorgrad and Ryshad would both surely tell me, there was no reason for Olret to know what Artifice we might have to call on.

A riposte to Gamar Tilot and his Thoughts on the Ancient Races

Presented to the Dialectic Association of Wrede

By Pirip Marne, Scholar of the University of Vanam

Scholar Tilot makes a worthwhile contribution to the debates among the learned and leisured with his reminder that many with Forest and Mountain blood live among us. I allow we strive too hard on occasion to find arcane explanations for the mysteries of the past, when the fears and desires that drive us all might prove a wiser guide. The ancient races doubtless wished to eat, thrive and procreate just as we do today.

Nevertheless I take issue with Scholar Tilot. True, a proportion of our populace share a heritage with the Forest and the Mountain, but in no sense has either race vanished beneath a tide of common blood. I suspect Tilot’s travels have been extensive within the libraries but seldom beyond them. I have journeyed widely, to meet Forest kinships where children stood amazed to see my brown eyes, when all they had ever known were green or blue. Such families live a comfortable life in the trackless depths of the greenwood, supported by knowledge of their world that town dwellers cannot hope to appreciate. I have scaled the passes of the mountains dividing Solura from Mandarkin and similarly found Mountain clans with scant knowledge of lowland tongues and less interest in our lifestyle, content as they are with their own customs and comforts.

As a young student, I even hoped I might travel to some remote reach of the Dalasor grasslands and find the stocky lineaments and swarthy skin of Plains blood in some isolated nomadic clan. Alas, I now chide myself for such fancies, not because I believe legends of the Plains People fleeing beyond their rainbows but rather because I learn the brutal cohorts of the Old Tormalin Empire did their work all too well. Tilot’s progress through his libraries has unaccountably failed to bring him to the innumerable records of the strife that marked the Old Empire’s conquest of unwilling lands. This is no tale of peaceable union. Nowhere was this fighting more fierce than in the grasslands of Dalasor. Time and again, the archives of Tormalin Houses speak of the unfamiliar race already dwelling beyond the Ast marches. Those tied to vills and burgages in Caladhria and Lescar may well have yielded to the invaders rather than see homes and livelihoods burned over their heads but the herders between the Dalas and the Drax could vanish into the distance whenever the cohorts advanced, returning under the cover of night to strike at their tormentors.

We have copious journals and letters written by the young esquires leading those cohorts. All see the Plains People as entirely different from themselves. They speak of them wrapping themselves in shadow to pass unseen. We read of plans thwarted when news known only to a captive is communicated to his fellows beyond, enabling them to evade pursuit or launch some preemptive attack. In contrast, acts of mercy and kindness are rewarded with gifts brought by unseen hands, found by men who had told no one where they intended to hunt or bathe. These real and doubtless unnerving experiences have been handed down to us by way of children’s tales of the Eldritch Kin. Even the most inventive fancy could not build such chilling notions without some foundation.

A few years since, I could not have explained that foundation but let us not join Tilot in ignoring the issue of Artifice. The comprehensive studies of our estimable Mentor Keran Tonin offer the best guide to any curious on this subject but, suffice it to say, I am convinced by his argument that this ancient magic was known to all three of the earliest races and inextricably woven into their religions. It was from them that the emerging powers of Tormalin learned their lore and turned it to their advantage. Now we see that power ultimately proved a double-edged sword, as its loss brought disaster to Toremal’s Emperors at the height of their powers. For the Plains People, it proved no salvation but it unquestionably provides the origin for the Eldritch Kin’s mystical talents.

What has this to do with Tilot’s arguments? Consider this: prompted to look outwards and beyond our easy assumptions by the events of the past few years, scholars of Vanam have discovered aetheric magic hidden among the Mountain Men and Forest Folk both, well hidden from prying eyes. If we of Ensaimm and the other erstwhile western provinces of the Old Empire are indeed descended from the Plains People, how is it that we have no recollection of such lore? Alas, I fear the secrets of the Plains magic were scattered on the wind as the nomads fell beneath Tormalin blades. As the re-emergence of Artifice holds out its intriguing promise, I am surely not the only one to mourn such a loss.

You’re either bored or plotting something.” Sorgrad studied me after looking round my door to find me sitting cross-legged on my bed.

“Bored,” I said with a rueful grin. I was playing an idle game of runes, one hand throwing against the other. “No one’s overly inclined to gossip with me.” I’d done my best to be helpful and friendly after another strangely assorted breakfast but none of the women about the keep would give me more than a couple of words.

I threw a cast of runes on the bed and totted up the score out of old habit. With the Sun dominant, dagger hand had the Reed, the Pine and the Chime beating the off-hand’s Horn, Drum and Sea.

“They’re just jealous.” ’Gren peered past his brother’s shoulder. “With you so devastatingly beautiful and this shocking shortage of men.” He sighed in mock regret.

“Where did you sleep last night?” I asked as I put away my rune sticks.

“Next to me and snoring fit to shake the bones that guard our homeland,” Sorgrad replied with faint malice.

“I could have tucked up a pretty girl five times over.” ’Gren shook his head. ”But my so-chaste brother here thinks it better we keep ourselves to ourselves.”

“Five would be a record, even for you.” We were walking down the corridor now. “Why does a runt like you get welcomed like Halcarion’s best idea since sex itself?”

’Gren stuck his tongue out at me. ”Because they’ve lost four ships since Equinox, all hands drowned, all thanks to Ilkehan according to the word at the wellhead.”

I winced. “That’s a lot of widows and orphans.”

“A drain on Olret’s resources just when he lacks strong arms and backs to get the hay cut and the harvest in.” Sorgrad shrugged. “Ilkehan’s not stupid.”