Danid arrived early the morning after his dream at the halfway point where Arrin had camped his legion.
Halfway between Varta City, where the King kept court, and Strant.
Arrin had a small stronghold there and in less than a week would be marching to save his own city from the invading
mages that he himself helped to command. He was surprised to see Danid but pleased.
He was out of touch and anxious to know how things were going. Danid nodded in greeting, “Where’s Hirn? “
“Dead I think “ Arrin told him,
“Poul certainly. I don’t know what happened but they went to try and trace our signal on one of the worlds
and must have found trouble. Hirn did come back but disappeared again. He was mortally wounded.
It was taking him half of his mage power to keep himself alive.”
Danid couldn’t believe that Arrin had taken no action, “You didn’t think to inform me?”
“He might have come back. He’s always been at your beck and call Danid, I never queried him.
I suppose I thought he was doing something for you.”
“You didn’t think at all!” shouted Danid.
Arrin had no care whatsoever for people.
Neither had Danid at an emotional level, but the resource that had been Hirn was not expendable, nor Poul.
The Order had invested a lot in them, and now they had simply “gone?”
Not good enough.
“Well its not important.” Arrin was not even slightly interested in Hirn’s whereabouts.
The man had been as good as dead when he got back. Of no further use.
A matter of weeks, no longer.
Danid heard Arrin’s dismissal of the situation with disbelief.
The man was a total fool.
Hirn should have been drained of his magic, not just ignored and allowed to crawl off somewhere to die.
It bothered him that Hirn hadn’t come to him to offer himself.
Possibly he was too close to death, or perhaps he was the “thief” mentioned in his dream?
Thanks to Arrin and his short sighted carelessness he may never find out now.
“Reports from our people placed in Strant?” Danid demanded, Arrin was trying his patience.
“Yes, a few days ago. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just my nephew trying to assess them for a Levy at the school.
I’d have done that myself if I’d have been there. They’ve always been accused of tax avoidance by the Guilds.
Its long overdue.”
Danid wasn’t reassured.
“ I want to bring things forward a little, lets start sending a few people through to the school to assist Sevaren.
He’s more than capable of finding some reason for them being there.”
Arrin agreed, he was impatient to have things over with and get on to the next step of getting his throne.
He intended to be a king or why else would he put himself through the bother killing his brother or joining the Order
of the Elite and making himself look the way he did. It was in sight, and he wanted it. His motivation was simple.
Power. He didn’t deny it, and he wasn’t ashamed of it.
Three mages that Danid had brought with him from Artez stepped forward at his signal.
Two squeezed themselves into the portal chamber.
Arrin pressed the button and nothing happened.
Danid went to check it himself. He tried to adjust it to get them into the castle but no luck there either.
Finally he tried the Kanar coordinates, and the men disappeared.
“We are discovered Arrin. I feel it. Somehow the portals at both the castle and the school are not working.
How was Hirn when he got here?”
“I told you, he was dying.” barked Arrin, totally bored with the subject.
“His mood! What was his mood.” Danid insisted.
“I don’t know. He didn’t say much, I keep telling you, he was dying!”
Danid gave it up for now. Arrin could be right.
Perhaps it was a coincidence but the dream had warned him, and sure enough he had found that something had been wrong.
“We’ll go to Kanar now. I’ll start sending people from Artez tomorrow. All yours should go today.
Your troops should start marching now to meet us there.
Your charade is now impossible. We need to attack in strength with your legion and the magical contingent as
one force as soon as possible. “
“Agreed” Arrin didn’t think anyone in Strant had the knowledge to cause a breakdown of the portal magic, but they
were blind without access to Sevaren and his spies. They couldn’t risk it.
He gave orders for the legion to march and sent someone to tell Danid’s two men already at Kanar to wait for the rest.
Then he prepared to empty the stronghold of its forty mages, all members of the Order of the Elite.
The sooner this was over with the better.
**************************************
Riani had awoken from her dream refreshed, and a little euphoric.
Avin was already dressed and making tea, the usual way with hot water for a change.
He smiled at her. “You looked lovely when you were sleeping, I never saw anyone smile the way that you did in their sleep before.”
She told him about the dream. He was very interested, and prompted her for more and more detail.
She told him everything she could remember.
“Is there something wrong?” she asked.
“Not wrong, just familiar. One of the books I had. It described something similar. My mother gave the book to me I think.
Tell her about it. Its beautiful enough to share.”
“I’ll tell her tonight. I need to get a move on, we’re teaching in an hour.”
They had breakfast like two ordinary people with work to go to, and laughed at themselves. It was fun to talk over
the results of the days training. Only another week and they’d be finished. Then they would have to fight.
Riani intended to enjoy every minute that she had with Avin. Who knows what might happen then.
She suddenly felt afraid and took his hand. “Whatever happens, we had this time” she said.
He didn’t understand what had suddenly affected her like this, sending her mood plummeting.
“Riani, we will come through this. Both of us.” He held her tightly in his arms. In many ways she was still very young.
She still sometimes needed him to hold her and keep her safe. He didn’t mind.
He was allowed many roles with Riani, and would deny her nothing she needed. The kiss that followed reminded him
that there were certainly were other roles that she liked him to take. He felt, not for the first time, blessed in
his life to have found her. She pulled away from him reluctantly, “I have to go, Alena’s waiting.”
He walked out to the door with her and then went to look for Sil.
Today people would be aching and maybe bad tempered.
They would need to have plenty for them to do to take their minds of it.
*************************************************
Gant watched Hirn at work for the second day running and congratulated himself on his idea.
Hirn was a natural performer and able make a point hit home.
He found himself getting on quite well with him and, though he wouldn’t trust him as far as the stable boy
could throw him, he liked him. He felt sorry that nothing could be done for him.
He meant to speak to Riani later. Surely if she could reverse the damage done to Sil she could do something for Hirn.
He’d probably still die, but at least he’d die human with the skin he was born in.
All in all everyone would be as ready as they would ever be by the end of the week.
Plenty of time. Then they would surround the Kanar portal and say goodbye to the Order of the Elite forever.
Pick them off one by one as they came through.
Not the stuff that legends and heroes were made of, but he wouldn’t lose warriors to magic that way,
and that was what mattered to him.
*************************************************
At the Kanar portal a temporary camp was being erected.
The portal was flashing for most of the day.
By the end of the following day over two hundred mages from the Order of the Elite waited patiently for the warrior
legion to arrive, and then to march, and then to feed.
Arrin and Danid were already there. An ocean of black battle robes around them.
They looked already a terrifying force, with a legion at their backs Arrin was certain that the mages in
Strant would run, or beg to join them.
The other legion would have seen nothing like it.
If treachery had preceded treachery, as Danid suspected it might have, one concerted magic attack would have the
warriors changing their minds.
*************************************************
Gant had accosted Riani shortly after she and Alena had finished the days training.
He talked to her about Hirn, and Riani agreed.
She should try.
The voices in the dream had said, well sang really, “heal our love” and “cleanse our weave”.
It made sense somewhere in her, though not at a conscious level.
She didn’t know what had caused Sil’s transformation but she’d repeat the same process with Hirn and see what happened.
Jan had taken readings from her every day and nothing had changed in her energy readings.
She decided to go to Hirn tonight and take Jan too. She wanted also to tell Sil what she was doing.
She didn’t want to raise and dash any hopes, but Sil had earned the right to know what she was planning,
though if she disapproved, Riani still intended to follow through.
Sil agreed. She’d admitted to herself that she’d been proud of Hirn, that he could act the way that he did in court.
“Did you know that he’s been helping Gant brief the legion about the Order?” Riani asked her.
“No!” Sil was surprised. The old Hirn would have made sure she knew that somehow to manipulate her emotions.
“Well he has, and Gant said he’s doing a good job. Do you want to come with me?”
“No” Sil said after a moment’s thought.
“Whatever he’s doing needs to be for himself. If I turn up, he’ll…and I’ll get mixed up.
Let him decide what he wants without me there.”
Riani went to find Jan. She found him in his quarters with his Lute.
He could already play a tune and was doing it, then breaking off and writing words down on a piece of paper.
“Riani! I’m writing a song!” She peered at the words.
“Like breath to life, out of time, the joy that lives in song
Be my love, heal our love, we are not here for long”
“I‘ve only got the one verse yet but Derel says it can take…Riani? What‘s the matter.”
“What gave you the idea for the words?” she asked, recognising some of them from her dream and feeling a shiver
move down her spine.
“Well, Derel showed me two patterns to place my fingers in on the Lute.
As I was practicing moving from one to the other a little tune came to me, and then those words just popped into my head.”
She put it to the back of her mind.
She hadn’t talked to Marg yet, but she’d also tell her about this.
She told Jan about Hirn. He put his Lute down a little reluctantly, and grabbed his pack.
“Lets go heal a horror.” He said grinning and they hurried from the barracks to the Legion’s camp.
They found Hirn with Gant in the Commanders tent at the centre of the Legion’s camp.
Hirn was doubled up with pain. “It started a few minutes ago.” Gant told her.
Riani moved forward to help “No! wait please…” said Hirn as forcefully as his pain would allow.
“Whatever for Hirn? you’re in agony!” Riani said impatiently.
The man had chosen a poor time to play at martyr she thought.
“They’re here. I can feel them. They’re casting something, a camouflage spelling. Two hundred, maybe more.“
The combined power of them trying to hide so many of themselves was calling for Hirn to use his power also.
Demanding it. Only his will was stopping what would have been an automatic response of the pattern’s of energy
in him to that call.
Gant knew that the Duke’s legion had still been in the Stronghold until yesterday because a merchant passing
through that he knew had told him that. If the man wasn’t lying, and Gant couldn’t be certain, then it would take
maybe another day for the legion to reach Kanar.
“Hirn, Kanar is twenty miles away, could they affect you like that from that distance?”
“Yes, from twice that distance with that many people spelling.” He relaxed, the pain receding.
“They’re finished.“
Gant sent an orderly to find the Scout team’s sergeant.
Riani sat next to Hirn, filling her mind with the details of his current glamour so that she could recreate his likeness.
“Hirn, I want to try something now that might help you, or it might not.
First you need to drop your glamour spelling.”
Hirn did, looking puzzled.
She took both of his reddened and disfigured hands in her own and cloaked him in her own spelling.
“Aren’t you worried I might…”
“No I’m not.” said Riani. “You’ve earned a second chance, and I pray that something in me gives it to you.
Unfortunately I don’t know how it works yet.”
She was feeling dizzy.
“Riani?” Hirn’s voice, concerned from a world away echoed through her mind.
Gant’s voice, then Jan’s. She could hear him saying “Her energy levels are off the scale again.”
It was as if he was drifting away. She felt herself floating… and then nothing.
She woke with Gant cradling her in his arms like a child.
“ Thank the gods for that. I don’t have to tell Avin you’re asleep again.” He said affectionately.
“How long?” she murmured.
“Ten minutes or so.” Jan said. Same as before. Your energy is more, but all your own.
Hirn is showing only his own pattern. He’s no longer marked. He’s no longer a member of the Order of the Elite.”
“So my recovery time is getting quicker, or the process is slowed down by the portal” she guessed.
Hirn was trying to make sense of it. His wound was also healed. He would live, and he would live as a human.
“Thank you. I never dreamed…I need to find Sil. I need to tell her. Thank you Riani!”
“Off you go“ said Gant, “and get back here tomorrow morning, and don’t forget to bring an ugly face to wear for
the training session. That new one’s not going to scare anyone.“
The Scout team sergeant arrived and Gant told him to take a dozen scouts to Kanar to check whether Hirn was right.
Jan rummaged in his pack. “This will detect a camouflage spelling”
He handed it over to the sergeant and showed him how it worked. Gant wanted information on the Duke’s legion too.
“Be careful” he told them, “I want every one of you back here.
Six to Kanar, six to see where the legion is.
Take the fastest horses we have.”
Gant called for a carriage to take Jan and Riani back to the barracks.
Hirn had probably flown there he was so elated.
Then Gant remembered that Hirn didn’t know about Mat‘s death.
Whilst he was still under suicide watch it had been thought insensitive to tell him.
What was it that made fate lift people to the heights of joy, and then drop them face down in a cow pat every time?
Gant shook his head and went of to find Alena.
He needed a drink and a friend to drink it with.