Sil was arranged on their bed, with a towel next to her and a bucket at the bedside when Hirn returned home.
She lay feigning weakness, wrapped in a woollen bed jacket and looking as unattractive as she possibly could manage
without raising too much suspicion.
“Sil!” he cried concerned, “What has happened to you, a curse on me for leaving you alone!”
She smiled what she hoped was a wan smile and waved him in, patting the bed beside her.
“I’m not ill, you foolish man, I’m pregnant, and I‘m just experiencing morning sickness.”
She had retained the mental clarity spelling, and saw the annoyance flicker through his face an instant before he
took her in his arms saying “a baby, a baby, so soon, this is wonderful news.”
She felt him probe her with the healing spelling, he wanted to know if she was lying.
She kept her thoughts on the baby.
She felt a slight flash of anger pass through him as he realised she was indeed carrying a child.
So. He wasn’t pleased.
“We need a physician here this instant!” he said with an concern that she would have thought sincere a week ago.
“I don’t think so yet”, she answered “ I’m not experiencing anything that I haven’t read about in a book.”
She was incompliant! Hirn was on his guard. For this to happen now was most unfortunate.
“Have you been treating yourself, my dear, with your healing skills?” he asked innocently.
“Yes, I have to cast clarity spellings daily, or else I can get no work done at all. I can usually manage an hour
or two in the Study, but I’m afraid I’ve slowed down, and I haven’t anything for you yet.”
She hoped she’d managed to look dejected.
“Aha“, thought Hirn “That explains it.“ Things were still going to plan, and it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to
have a son, his probing had determined that it was a son.
Actually, he felt quite pleased with the idea now he had gotten over the surprise.
His next smile was genuine, and Sil could tell that it was.
“When?” he asked beaming at her
“I think in about seven months time, I’m not sure. If you’d like a physician’s opinion, of course you must summon
one. I’m sorry Hirn, I’ve been a bit abrupt, I’m not feeling myself at the moment.”
“Understandable, completely understandable.” He was feeling out of control. He had no idea what to say.
Everything about their time so far had been scripted for him and controlled by him.
He was in a scenario that he just hadn’t planned for, that was all.
No need to panic. He was to become a father.
He had thought that he might be ready in a few years time, when Sil was fully initiated into the Order, but this was a shock for him.
He decided to improvise.
“First I’ll make sure you have what you need, and then I’ll see to getting us a servant.
I meant to do it months ago but things have been so hectic. Then I’ll summon a physician.
I think you know I need you to be in the best health possible.
I‘ll be back in a few hours. I‘ll need to go into town.” he kissed her forehead.
“Thank you love,” she said meekly. He had confused her now. Everything that he had just said had felt totally
genuine. Perhaps there was some affection for her after all? It didn’t change anything though.
He was using her for something, and not telling her what, or giving her a chance to agree to it or not.
The physician was a pleasant old man. Sil sensed he was covered in a glamour, now she was looking for it, she
sensed Hirn was too. It was the same weaving as was around herself, but much stronger. So, they probably all shared
the same disease. The physician must belong to Hirn’s mage Order. He gave her a clean bill of health and pronounced
that they could expect the newcomer in six months. The next few months were a little strained for Sil and Hirn.
He only left her twice and only for a few days. There were of course rites to be performed, but when Sil expressed
concern for the baby, Hirn admitted that they could postpone them. “You are worth waiting for” he had told her.
A servant had been hired and Sil was enjoying home cooked food and pampering. The servant was a middle aged woman
called Wenda and she was a very honest and down to earth person. She was also a midwife, and Sil felt relatively
safe about the pregnancy being under her experienced gaze.
Probably to Hirn’s annoyance, though he didn’t show it, her work in the Study when she went there produced nothing
but a variety of children’s toys that could not possibly be turned to military use. She managed to keep a straight
face when she had said enthusiastically, “ and we can send some to the Orphanage!”
About two months before the baby was due, Sil began experiencing stomach cramps and severe back pain.
Wenda ordered bed rest, and Sil was happy to comply. She felt terrible, and was in a lot of pain.
Wenda took it upon herself to ask for the Physician to call.
The Physician turned up an hour later, and complimented Wenda on her foresight. Her actions had been completely
correct. Sil had seen Wenda glow with pride at the compliment from a doctor. Even if he was in this mysterious mage
order, it had been kind of him, and she couldn’t help but like him for saying it.
Hirn had been away, but came back unexpectedly a few hours after she had been taken ill.
“You won’t like what I’m going to say Sil, but it has to be said” was Hirn’s opening gambit.
“I want you in the infirmary at the Order House, and no, don’t argue with me, I insist. “
“I’m not arguing Hirn, I feel awful. I don’t care where you take me.” she meant it.
A few times in the night the pain had been so bad she had thought that she might be dying.
Mat was born at Midwinter, just over two months prematurely in the Order House.
Sil needed another month to recover. Blood poisoning had caused the complications and both mother and baby were
lucky to be alive. She was able to feed and change him, but that was about all.
By Spring she was more or less back to normal health, and Mat a noisy and healthy three months old.
Hirn seemed devoted to him, and strangely enough, only one emergency took him from them after he had been born.
If Sil had not been the woman she was, she might have relented on her plan to abscond with Mat, but though Hirn
could not have been a more caring and loving husband and father, and she knew that these were genuine emotions
now, he had also badly abused her trust. He had unspoken plans for her and she wasn’t waiting to
find out what they were.
Her plan was still to leave him and run for the Keep. He was due to leave in a few weeks time, for somewhere she
didn’t even bother to remember the name of, and when he did, they would leave.
On Sunday evening, the weekend before he was due to set off, Hirn announced that they were invited to a celebration
in her honour in the Order House. “Whatever for!” she had exclaimed, “all I did was have a baby!”
“Sil, it’s the people who fund the projects that you helped with your technology. They want to say Thank You” Hirn explained.
“Oh.”
She didn’t believe that there were any projects, but couldn’t see an easy way to refuse.
They dressed, Hirn in his ceremonial robes, violet and royal blue for celebratory occasions, and Sil in a dress
that he had bought for her especially. A white gown, with golden lilies embroidered on the bodice and sleeves.
“It’s beautiful Hirn” she had gasped. It truly was. The symbology was obvious. He was hoping she would feel like
resuming the sexual element of their marriage. She didn’t, but the dress was exquisite, and she felt like a queen wearing it.
A cloak of emerald green velvet was also produced, and Sil had spontaneously hugged Hirn in thanks before she
remembered that she hated him.
The banquet at the Order House was a very splendid affair, a scrumptious feast and wine running like water.
Three dozen servants saw to the needs of about fifty mages and their partners. Most mages in this Order were men.
She counted only three women in ceremonial robes. Speeches were made in her honour, expansive in thanks
and detailed in saying to exactly what use her work had been put, and she felt almost guilty.
Could she have been wrong about Hirn? About everything?
Then a speech from the Order’s Master of Master’s was announced and the room was hushed.
The servants scurried out and the lights were dimmed. Partners of Order members were simply gone.
They had obviously been told that this part of the celebration was private.
She touched Hirn’s arm gently “I don’t think I’m meant to be in here” she whispered.
“Oh, you are.” He whispered back, a beaming smile of pride lighting his whole face.
The Master of Masters addressed the assembly.
“It is not often that I am called upon to initiate a new member” he pronounced importantly.
“It is a grave and serious matter, and a time of severe testing for all concerned.
He looked directly at Hirn, “yes, for all concerned.”
“Please step forward Sil of the House of Hirn A’Kiel”
Sil saw no option. She should have guessed that this would happen. That’s why Hirn was still beaming at her.
Could he really think that she would want this?
Oh well. They would ask her if she wanted to join, she would say no, she and Hirn would argue,
and she would be in the Keep with Mat in a week or so anyway.
Breathing deeply, she stepped forward thinking “lets get this over with.”
“I, Master of Masters, Danid, Keeper of the Light of the Elite asks you Sil, wife to Hirn A’Kiel to swear allegiance to the Order of the Elite.
Do you so swear?
Sil prepared to burst his bubble and Hirn‘s delusion at the same time.
“No” she spoke clearly and calmly.
“I Master of Masters, Danid, Keeper of the Light of the Elite invoke the testing”
Had he not heard her? She had just made it clear that she wasn’t interested!
She was now standing next to a torch and brazier in an almost darkened room.
The other members, including Hirn, were all around her making a full circle of about fifty feet in diameter.
She and the Keeper of the Light of the Elite were spotlighted by the torch and brazier in the middle.
Danid realized a ward. It was a common or garden ward, no fancy design.
“Sil, wife to Hirn A’Kiel you will absorb the ward offered to you.”
She made no answer and no move to absorb it either.
“Sil, wife to Hirn A’Kiel you will absorb the ward offered to you.”
he repeated himself with the same exact monotone inflection as before.
She stayed silent and still.
“Defend yourself” he commanded.
What? She had a plummeting feeling that “No” wasn’t a word they wanted to hear here.
The ward had disappeared and a middle level fireball was heading straight for her.
“Water” she spelled and it disappeared into steam.
“Defend yourself” he repeated.
He had created a simulation.
It was a serpent, about seven feet long and an ugly shade of green, and she had no weapon.
It would probably be deadly, and judging by this man’s position in the hierarchy , last a good few hours before it disintegrated.
She was not tempted to absorb it. That would be the quickest way out of this situation, but she was finished with that.
If she created her own simulation, or any static spelling, he could, and would absorb it, there was no question of that.
It had to be an attack spelling and a powerful one.
“Lighting” she spelled. The creature was stunned for about a minute, but then resumed its creeping in her direction.
Concentrating all the energy that she could at the floor of the chamber she spelled “Riven” and the creature
tumbled into a hole that surprised her with its depth. Maybe fifteen feet deep and a foot across.
Not bad, she congratulated herself. Something for them to remember her by.
“ You are deemed worthy of entry to the Order of the Elite at Master Level One.
I, Master of Masters, Danid, Keeper of the Light of the Elite ask you Sil, wife to Hirn A’Kiel to swear allegiance to the Order of the Elite.
Do you so swear?”
“No” This was not good. That last spelling had taken a lot of her energy.
“Defend your child” he intoned
Sil’s eyes widened in horror, as she watched two of the mages carry in Mat‘s crib and lay it the circle two
meters away from her. Danid had moved backwards. She ran to the crib and snatched the sleeping Mat from it.
Holding him tightly in her arms she saw seven of the serpents making their way slowly towards them.
“Hirn you complete bastard! I‘ll kill you for this!” she screamed, swirling in a circle as she shrieked looking for
him, to beg, to accuse, but she could not make him out in the dark.
At least they were only coming from one direction.
The rift was still in the middle of the floor.
“Please let there be enough energy “ she prayed silently,
she waited as long as she dared for every scrap of her magic that could regenerate to do so.
Then she spelled “Torrent” and five of the creatures were swept into the abyss.
One more time “Torrent” she spelled and the remaining two joined them.
She glared at Danid
“Cease this now, please, it’s pointless! I don’t want to join your Order.
“Defend your child” he repeated
She had nothing left. Nothing.
At least two dozen serpents were approaching them from around the edge of the circle,
then crawling after them other nightmare creatures.
Every mage in the circle must be participating in this.
She whirled around, trying to gauge which one would reach them first.
If she had not had Mat to protect she would have simply ran at Danid and tried to steal a weapon, but she couldn’t risk him.
Dying a little inside, and recognising a betrayal within herself so deep that it could not be redeemed,
she absorbed each of the realizations one by one.
Each one contained massive amounts of energy, some had had more than one weaver working the spellings.
This had none of the intimate and delicate pleasure that she had felt when exchanging energies with Hirn.
This was nothing but an assault.
Each time she absorbed a simulation she felt searing pain.
The energy levels were too high, and her body unable to process them without massive, cellular damage.
She realised that by avoiding allowing her body to gradually become used to the energy transfers in those marriage
rites that Hirn had kept proposing, she had insufficient physical tolerance for what she now was forced to do.
He knew that.
He knew that she would be in agony, that she could not have let Mat come to harm, yet he hadn't postponed this.
She fought through the torture of the physical sundering of herself, using the pain to keep herself angry.
The temptation to simply yield herself and her son to death on realising how total was Hirn's contempt for her was almost overwhelming.
She used it to remain alert, to choose the correct target to draw into herself next.
She howled out in tortured outrage, as she recognised that one of them had actually been woven by Hirn himself.
His ultimate betrayal and abandonment of her.
He had allowed her to be spiritually violated, organised it, and had willingly participated in it.
He had risked his own son to make certain her eventual surrender.
Now truly she hated him, completely hated him.
She hated herself also, because she had not been able to let herself die, and in doing so rob her son of his life.
She took into herself the last of the writhing horrors,
physically exhausted and yet her whole body throbbing, hardly able to contain the energy inside it now.
Looking down at her hands she saw that they were red and covered in broken veins, ridged and darkened.
She had just absorbed large amounts of magic from every mage there.
She was full of power now, but there were at least fifty of them.
She couldn’t take them all on and save Mat too, though at this moment she would have happily tried to burn them all
in an inferno, herself included and probably had the power to kill over half of them she reckoned.
Her eyes ran with tears of shame, anger and despair and hopelessness.
How could she return to Avin now, a vampire, stealer of force, and breaker of oaths?
“ You are deemed worthy of entry to the Order of the Elite at Master Level Four.
I, Master of Masters, Danid, Keeper of the Light of the Elite ask you Sil, wife to Hirn A’Kiel to swear allegiance
to the Order of the Elite. Do you so swear?”
Life or death for her son.
She chose life for him, and existence without it for herself.
She held Mat tightly in her arms and faced the Master of Masters staring directly into his red and soulless eyes.
“I , Sil, so swear.”
She forced each word from her lips, her heart breaking,
and then breaking again and again as she realised the deep and dark depths into which she had sunk.
Two of the mages approached and beckoned for her to join them.
She followed almost automatically, both arms gripping her son, her eyes fixed straight ahead and her heart a stone.
She would do what was necessary and one day, when she got an opportunity, she would kill Hirn.