“Bring forth the condemned,” Supreme Arbiter Tanthedesa’s voice boomed, the sound flowing over the crowded justice hall. The people craned their heads to see the door through which the criminal would enter, eager to look upon the face of a murderer.

The great black door swung slowly open on freshly oiled hinges. First entered a member of the guard, resplendent in his court uniform of black and crimson. Then, flanked by two more guards, came the prisoner.

He was a boy of sixteen, perhaps, tall and slender. His dark curling hair hung lank and unkempt about his shoulders. He walked slowly, as if carrying a great burden; head down, but eyes constantly flickering back and forth, as if searching for a means of escape. Those eyes were a piercing blue, framed by dark lashes and set under winged brows. His nose was long and slightly hooked, his cheekbones sharp as if carved from stone. His chin was slightly pointed, his lips full but pressed together, betraying tension otherwise concealed. His hands were bound behind his back, and his legs shackled to a short length of chain so that he could not run.

The guards propelled him forward until he stood directly before Tanthedesa, who looked down from his podium with eyes of steel.

“Adain Eranaseth,” began the Arbiter, “you stand accused of theft, evasion of the law, and the subsequent murder of an official of the law. You have been tried and found guilty by a court of justice.” To his right, a scribe busily recorded the proceedings, his quill racing over the parchment and spattering it with ink. “Your sentence is this:” The crowed hushed, waiting expectantly. “You will serve twelve years as an oarsman on the Symronese Navy galley Inhibitor, whereupon your case will be reevaluated.” The crowd murmured gleefully. The boy would not last a year, never mind the twelve he had been sentenced. A fitting reward for a murderer, even if he was so young. Keldon Reeves, the deceased, had been well liked: a good and honest man; and the people had demanded a great reckoning for his killer. The Arbiter banged his staff on the floor. “Court adjourned.” He exited the hall.

Adain’s guards grabbed him by the shoulders and marched him back to the black door, using such force that the boy stumbled and would have fallen, but for the iron grip of his keepers. They shoved him through the door, and it swung ponderously closed behind them.

Alone in his cell that night, Adain stared out of the barred window, little more than a slit in the rough stone wall. He sat in a corner, chained to the wall by an iron manacle on one leg. His hands were cuffed, the chain connecting them attached to his leg shackle. The manacles on his wrists were painfully tight, his every move causing abrasions that alternately stung and throbbed. He had tried padding them with strips of cloth from his shirt and breeches, but could not force the tattered fabric between the iron and his skin.

He fingered the lump on his head and winced. A gift from one of his guards when he stumbled one time too many, it had swelled to the size of a small egg. The guard’s ring had cut him, but the blood had long since crusted over. The guard had knocked his hand away when he had reached up to stanch the bleeding, and so he had had to let it trickle down his cheek, warm and sticky. He rubbed at it now, feeling it flake off of his skin in tiny particles, thinking, as he did so, of how he had gotten into this mess, and what he would do when he got out of it

If he got out of it.

***

The beginning lay only a few months earlier, when his father had taken ill. A combination of fever and cough, it had surfaced after the man had fallen into Eldyne Lake, then frozen-over by the winter’s cold. He had been out gathering ice for the cold room, and had fallen through a thin area trying to get a tool that had slid away from him. Luckily, Adain’s father had been a good swimmer, and had managed to find the surface. Wet to the bone and shivering uncontrollably, he had stumbled back to the house. Adain’s mother had opened the door just in time for her husband to crash through it onto the floor, unconscious.

For six days, he did not wake. The family tended him as best as they could, heating bricks in the fireplace and wrapping them in cloth to heat him, feeding him broth when they could get him to swallow.

On the morning of the sixth day, Adain’s father opened his eyes. His wife ran to him, but he did not see her. He cried out in horror as she touched him, begging demons only he could see not to hurt him. It was then that the family realized he was hallucinating. He was trapped in his own mind.

He did not recognize anyone. The doctors said that the cold and the shock had killed part of his brain, and that he would never regain it. Mathise Eranaseth was dead, but his body remained, functioning but with no soul to drive it. They could treat him for his physical ailments, but he would never be the same.

Adain’s mother faded. It was a gradual change, but undeniable. She withdrew into herself, becoming a shell of what she once had been. Her eyes, once bright and merry, grew dull, their deep blue color fading to grey. Her cheeks grew hollow, her skin pale. Her hair turned silver and then white.

On Adain’s sixteenth birthday, he found her in her bed, eyes open, staring at nothing. She was dead. His father took a turn for the worse not long after that, his breathing growing labored, lungs rattling with each breath. He began to cough wetly, finally drowning in his own blood.

Adain stopped going to school and worked at a smithy to earn money for food to feed his brothers and sisters, but it was no good; he simply could not earn enough to keep them fed and clothed. And so he turned to the only solution he could think of: thievery.

At first, he stole little things: a sweet roll, a handful of flour, a wedge of cheese; things that would not be missed. But as winter descended, and the days grew darker and colder, prices rose. It had been a wet spring and cool summer, bad for crops, and everyone’s purse was lighter than usual. Adain’s younger brothers and sisters were growing out of their clothes, needing more food to stay healthy. And so he began to steal larger things: wood to burn, warm woolen cloaks, boots and shoes for little feet that were no longer so little. The town grew wary, posting guards at night, buying new locks for their doors. Twice, Adain was nearly caught; twice, luck saved him. Luck, and the knowledge that if he was caught, there would be no one to provide for his family. He did not tell them what he was doing; he could not bear to see the reproach and shame he knew would be in their eyes. He could barely stand himself as it was. He felt dirty, unclean, lower than the lowest of beggars, for he was strong and hale; more repulsive than the vilest of criminals, for he had been taught the difference between right and wrong. He avoided mirrors and still water, despising the face they showed him, fearing what he might see in his eyes. Fearing what he was becoming.

It was the dagger that ruined him. He would have preferred a bow and arrows, for these were much better hunting tools, but knew he could not hope to conceal them. He had watched the sword shop for several days, learning its rhythms, its routines. He noted when the guards shifted watches, and planned his foray in the interstice when no one was watching the rear window.

That night, the moon hid her face behind clouds, leaving it to the stars to illuminate the world. Adain, his face, neck, and hands darkened by soot, crept past darkened storefronts and down narrow alleys, taking a circuitous route to the back of the sword shop and the currently unguarded rear window. Taking a small stone from his belt-pouch, he placed a piece of cloth dipped in sap on the part of the window glass that was nearest the latch. One hard tap from the stone, and the glass gave way with a sharp crunching noise that seemed deafening in the night’s silence, sticking to the cloth instead of falling into the store. Wrapping his hand in a strip of cloth to protect it from the glass, he reached through the small opening and flipped the latch. Gently, painstakingly, he eased the window open. Then, like a piece of night, he slipped inside the sword shop, delicately pulling the window shut behind him.

He knew where the dagger was, having visited the shop enough times to find it with his eyes closed. Or in complete darkness, which amounted the same thing. Confidently, he moved towards the opposite window, towards the front of the store, where the dagger lay in a window display. Keeping to the shadows, he reached for it, closing his fingers over the leather-wrapped hilt.

Bringing the dagger close to his face, he admired it. From the smooth steel roundel set into the pommel, down the ridged black handgrip, to the edge of the needle-thin tip, it was perfection. Superbly balanced, it fit in his hand as if made for him.

A sharp cracking noise snapped him back into the present moment. A guard, coming on watch, had stepped on a brittle sheet of ice. In his haste to exit the shop, Adain’s hands slipped, and the dagger fell to the floor with a clang. The guard’s face whipped around, his eyes focusing on the boy. With a shout, he snatched for his keys to open the shop’s front door.

Adain grabbed the dagger and, subterfuge forgotten, raced for the window, but the latch would not turn. Hearing the doorknob rattle behind him, he raced up the stairs to the roof—four storeys up. It was only when he reached the access door that he remembered that the surrounding buildings were all one level. The drop to them would be suicide.

It was too late to go back down. The guard was behind him, blocking any means of escape. Adain stepped on to the icy rooftop, shoving the door shut behind him. He heard the other’s heavy footsteps, and slowly backed away from the door, aware that one slip could spell his death.

The access door opened, and the guardsman stepped through. He was big, taller than Adain by a good six inches, and heavier by far. He wore his red-gold hair long about his shoulders. His green eyes were wary, but as they settled again on Adain, he saw something in them soften.

“Now, lad,” the big man spoke, “I don’t want to hurt you. It seems to me you’re in some kind of trouble, but it’ll only get worse if you keep running.”

Really? Adain thought. What could you know of my troubles?

“Now just slide that knife to me, then come over nice and slow, and it’ll be better for you. The courts are harsher on thieves that try to escape the law than those who surrender to it.”

So what? The result is the same: I get sent to jail, instead of the mines or quarries, and my family still suffers. If I can just get past him, I might still have a chance to escape.

The man was walking towards him, slow and steady, his face kind and reassuring. Adain, watching him, was suddenly reminded of his father—there was a similarity in the laugh lines around the eyes, in the slightly lopsided smile.

But my father is dead, and this man would take me from all I have left.

Adain raised the dagger. He pointed it at the man, his hand shaking. The man paused.

“I cannot let you go free. It is my duty to turn you in, and I will fulfill that duty, no matter the cost.” The knife stayed up, and the green eyes hardened. “So be it,” he said, and lunged for Adain.

The boy ducked backwards, slipping under the man’s arms. The man whirled around, fast as quicksilver, and grabbed the boy by the shoulder. Adain ducked, throwing the man off balance, and pushed him away.

He had forgotten about the ice. The man slid across the roof, trying in vain to gain purchase on the slippery surface. He reached the edge and, arms pinwheeling madly, fell like a stone to land with a sickening thud three storeys below. Adain stood rooted with shock, and then carefully made his way to the edge. There lay the man, his arms and legs splayed out in unnatural positions, his face contorted in agony. Already, blood had begun to spread out from his body, staining the new fallen snow crimson.

Frozen with horror at what he had done, Adain stared down at the man who had tried to help him as best he could. The man who had done the honorable thing. The man who, for an instant, had looked so much like his father.

I didn’t mean to… he thought numbly.

The guards found him there, staring down at their companion’s broken body. He did not respond as they bound his hands, made no move to resist as they took him from the roof.

***

That night, in his cell, he finally returned from his mind into the world. As he lay with his eyes tightly shut, he tried to convince himself that it all had been a dream, that he was at home in his bed, that soon his mother would be calling him to breakfast, his father chiding him about his schoolwork… But the surface beneath him was too hard to be a mattress, and too cold. Slowly, and with growing trepidation, he opened his eyes.

“No,” he whispered. “No…” How could I have done this? Oh Gods, how could I have done this? He shut his eyes tightly, but in his mind’s eye he saw his mother’s face, frozen with horror and loathing towards her son. Then his father’s, ineffable shame and reproach in his dark brown eyes. Then Adain saw the guardsman’s, Keldon Reeves’, face, forever twisted with terrible pain and fear.

Whatever tenuous control Adain may have had on his emotions snapped. Tears poured down his cheeks in scorching rivulets, wetting the stones beneath him. His shoulders shook, his breath came in ragged gasps that seared his lungs. Father, forgive me, mother, forgive me… Whatever comes to me in retribution is not nearly enough. Oh Gods, give me a chance to redeem myself. Whatever honor I may have possessed is shattered. If I must die to repay this debt, so be it; but it will not be enough. It will never be enough…

He was falling into darkness, into a fathomless pit cold as the snowfields at the bottom of the world. He welcomed the darkness, for it brought an end to his pain. As he took it into himself, he felt his memories growing distant and grey, dissolving into mist.

Father, I have failed you. Forgive me

Forgive me…

~YOU HAVE YOUR CHANCE. DO NOT WASTE IT~

Lady? Who speaks…?

The darkness consumed him, and his consciousness flickered and died.

***

“Hoi! You there!”

A hoarse whisper jerked Adain back to the present. It seemed to be coming from the cell to his right. Adain raised his head, eyes seeking some shape in the darkness. They adjusted swiftly, and he caught a glimpse of shaggy hair and grey eyes. The other was watching him intently, surprise mirrored in those keen eyes.

“Lady above; you’re only a boy!” the man whispered, disbelief roughening his voice.

“I turned sixteen last Nelmede²,” Adain muttered dully, his mother’s lifeless eyes confronting him in his mind. The man grunted by way of a reply, his gaze never leaving the boy’s face.

“You’ve had your share of troubles, I don’t doubt, lad,” the man offered. Adain closed his eyes against the hot tears that threatened to fall. When he opened them again, staring at the night-black stones beneath him, he could feel the other’s gaze on him. Adain forced himself to meet those penetrating eyes again, and found sorrow there, sorrow and compassion.

“My name is Jethwyn Andraeas,” the man told him quietly.

“Adain Eranaseth,” the boy replied. Jethwyn’s eyes widened in shock.

“Not Mathise and Sylva’s eldest?” he asked. It was Adain’s turn to be surprised.

“You knew my parents?” he whispered. The man gave a harsh sort of laugh.

“I know your mother, and your father by her acquaintance. I fear we had something of a falling-out; Mathise and I have not spoken since your sister Eleni’s birth, although I have often regretted it. Your sister, she is—what, eleven now?” Adain nodded, and then replied, in a low voice,

“I fear you will never get a chance to speak with my father again. He is—” Adain broke off, compressing his lips; he could not bear to speak the words. Jethwyn bowed his head.

“I am sorry. Your father was a good man. How is Sylva?” Adain hunched over, resting his cheek on his drawn-up knees.

“She died a little more than a week before my father did, of a wasting sickness.” The man closed his eyes in sorrow.

“Alas; that she should live to see such pain, and die in the midst of it,” he murmured, his voice grieved. He suddenly froze, and then turned his gaze on Adain. “But your sister—who is caring for her?” he asked. Adain lifted his hands helplessly, palms up.

“I do not know what has become of her, or Iswy, or Nathaniel, or Jareen, or Anise—none of them. I can only hope that someone has heard of my absence and come to care for them.” Jethwyn’s eyes burned into him.

“You left them alone?” he whispered. “In the dead of winter?” Adain’s eyes flared with answering fire.

“We were starving!” he retorted. “I had to do something!”

“Like get yourself put in jail?” the other replied. Adain glared at the other across the darkened cell, feeling himself flush crimson, grateful that the shadowy night hid his shame. Angry, the boy lashed back:

“And how did you manage to get into jail, Jethwyn Andraeas?” he asked. The man’s eyebrows crinkled down over his eyes, which blazed out of the darkness, scorching Adain.

“That is for myself and the Lady to know, and is of no concern to you” the other hissed back. “I did not ask what crimes you committed to bring yourself to this state; what gives you the right to demand such from me?”

“If that is the price I must pay to satisfy my curiosity, I shall pay it gladly,” Adain replied. Why not? It’s not as if I can bring any worse harm upon myself. And this man holds no illusions about my character; I cannot lose any respect where there is none to be had. “I broke into a sword shop to steal a dagger. A guard saw me, and chased me to the roof. I shoved him over the edge and killed him.” Adain took a shuddering breath, inhaling the dank and rot-scented air of the jail cell in which he was imprisoned.

Even in the darkness, Adain could sense the other’s shock. It radiated from the man in waves, washing over the boy like liquid fire.

“You meant to kill him.” Jethwyn’s voice was the barest hint of a whisper. Adain bit down on his lip so hard that it bled. Through the coppery taste he whispered,

“I swear, by all that I hold dear, that I did not. I did not!” The waves of emotion coming from the man changed, cooled down until they were only sorrow, and not hatred.

“That is well, for I would hate to call you murderer.” Jethwyn sighed. “Now it is my turn:

“I am a sorcerer, Adain, something of a wizard and conjuror. I was once, if you will believe it, your mother’s teacher.” Adain started, wide-eyed as a landed fish.

“My mother?” he faltered. “A sorceress?” The boy could just make out the shift in shadows that was Jethwyn nodding.

“And a very promising adept she was, your mother. If she had not married…” his voice trailed into silence “but she did, and there is no profit in would-have-beens. She was a bright, Talented woman: she had the gift of magic in her, the ability to manipulate the dimensions, to reweave the warp and weft of the worlds.

“Mathise, however, never liked magic. Oh, he liked your mother well enough; loved her, I daresay. But he was adamant that his children would not know the great joys and desolation that are the Talent’s trademark. He feared, you see, that someone with black intent would try to use that power, and did not want his children, or his wife, for that matter, involved.

“Your mother ceased her studies for love of him. She locked away her powers and kept them at bay, never so much as lighting even a candle with her magic. Her children, you included, Adain, showed no signs of Talent, and so your father was placated. Your mother also, through her love of him, for she loved him dearly, no matter the magic.” The man paused, and Adain waited, silent and still as the stones he sat upon. “She wanted to have her children tested again for magic. You in particular, Adain, she desired to be appraised by a seeker for the Talent. But Mathise would not allow it, fearing, perhaps, what might be found. By the time she thought to look to me, your father and I were sundered. But now…” Jethwyn looked intently into Adain’s eyes. Adain could feel the man searching his mind with mental ‘fingers,’ examining this and that, searching.

“Humor me,” the man whispered. “Imagine a fire: bright red-gold flames dancing, warming you up, seeping into these cold, ancient stones. Keep the image in your head, and then try to bring it out of yourself.”

Adain concentrated. In his mind’s eye, he could see the flickering tongues of fire, could feel their heat on his face, his arms, sinking into his bones, becoming part of him. And then, slowly, he grasped the flames and brought them together in front of his face. He thought at first that he was hallucinating, until he heard Jethwyn’s gasp from the blackness. There, hovering six inches from his face, was a small handful of fire, crackling and snapping to himself. Tentatively, Adain reached out to touch it. He heard Jethwyn hiss in surprise as the flames trickled into his cupped hand. He felt no pain, only a gentle heat and a tingling sensation.

“So,” the other whispered. “You have Talent after all.”

***

Escape

Sirkosyn Jail, Sirkosyn, Ak El Ryet

The next morning

Adain was roused from an uneasy slumber by a guard hammering on the door to his cell.

“Rouse yourself, Eranaseth! Your caravan leaves today for the docks and Inhibitor!” The guard repeated the same message to many other prisoners, Jethwyn among them, but Adain did not hear. His mind was frozen on one word: Inhibitor. To row in a galley in the Symronese Navy was a prisoner’s worst nightmare: sweltering heat, backbreaking labor from the moment the drum began to beat, and the lash of the whip if the overseer thought you weren’t working hard enough. No oarsman had ever lived longer than five years, and Adain was sentenced for twelve. I will die in the belly of a ship, he realized. I will spend the rest of my life chained to an oar, doomed to drown should the ship sink. I will never live to see freedom again. Never my sisters, or my brothers, or anyone else I know. I will die friendless, completely and utterly alone. And it was with this thought that he knew, he knew, that he must escape. Not someday, for who was to say how long he would last? No, he must escape now, or he would never have another chance. Those who went into the holds of those warships never returned. Never, that is, in life.

“Adain!” Jethwyn hissed. “For the seventeenth time, listen to me!” Adain listened.

“Now, I can do no magic while I am chained with spell-locks. But you, lad, they did not suspect. Your chains and locks are simple metal, and readily broken. Listen carefully to what I tell you:

Vonya forti, êlé orö ensêcri

Li ré pélöti té àstö, kenani y siti.

Kel ré na té astösên,

Ré viêtsên sé mortiêm,

Los té àstösên, li dêmràti!³

“Speak these words, and focus on weakening the metal. Try to make it soft as goosedown and pliable as taffy. When you feel it give way, loosen your manacles enough so that you can slide them on and off like bracelets, but keep them on your wrists.” Adain obeyed, shaping the unfamiliar syllables carefully, feeling them fall like shards of crystal from his lips. Hesitantly, he tested his shackles, and felt them give. He loosened them enough to get over his wrists and hands, and then turned again to Jethwyn, expectantly.

“For my shackles, things are a little more complicated,” the man continued. “You must look into the metal and find the spell-strings, looking in particular for knots or other junctions: some of these you must unravel. I can tell you what to do, but you must be the one who manipulates the strings.

“Here are the words you must say:

O télönayà tenui

Alditi siti

Êlé orö rà bénàti

Télö télêntà! ⁴

Adain spoke them, and suddenly he could see bright colored lines—‘strings,’ Jethwyn called them—of magic. They entwined themselves sinuously all around his chains, here and there forming complex knots that blazed white in his vision.

“Do you see them?” the man asked. Adain nodded. “Good. Now this one here,” he pointed to the knot directly above the lock, “is the control knot—undo it, and much of the structure collapses upon itself. The remaining skeleton is easily disassembled.” Adain looked closely at the knot. It was a tricky bit of work: seven strands were woven together into a little ball-like shape paneled with crisscrossing colors. “Take hold of the blue strands,” Jethwyn told him.

“How…” the boy began.

“Reach out with your mind and grasp them,” the other explained. Adain did as he was told, reaching out with mental fingers and taking the two blue strands into his hand. “Now the red,” Jethwyn continued. Slowly, painstakingly, the knot was undone. Immediately, more than two-thirds of the strings vanished. Left behind were two great, thick, yellow-gold strands, tied together with a simple half-hitch. Adain undid the last knot, and the golden strings vanished as well, leaving nothing but cold iron.

Jethwyn let out a sigh of relief, his features relaxing noticeably. Swiftly, he murmured a spell of his own and stretched his own manacles apart. Looking back at Adain, he smiled.

“You learn quickly, just like your mother,” he said quietly. Adain nodded in reply, not trusting his voice, knowing it would betray him were he to speak.

“Now,” said the man, “this is my plan: I know a spell that can disguise us so that anyone who sees us will pay us no mind. We will go with the rest of the prisoners to the road, but then we will slip away.”

“On foot?” Adain objected. “If people will pay us no mind, why not take horses with us?” Jethwyn stared at him, then started to chuckle.

“I like that! The supreme irony: we escape from our jailors on their own mounts! Very good!” He grinned. “Oh, won’t they rage when they realize it! Yes, indeed; we shall take horses.”

The guard returned. Adain, taking care to keep his manacles on his wrists, stood and waited by the door of his cell. Taking a large ring of keys from his belt pouch, the guard unlocked the door. He gave Adain a cursory look to make sure all was in order, glanced around the cell, and motioned Adain into the hall, where he hooked the boy’s ankle-shackles to a long chain. The chain, Adain noticed, ran down the entire corridor his cell was a part of, and was held at each end by a uniformed guard. As he reached each cell, the guard with the keys would unlock the door and attach each prisoner to the chain, then move on to the next cell.

As soon as the guard had locked each of the prisoners to the chain, he led them down the corridor to a door and out into a large courtyard. The light of the rising sun flashed like fire, and was made all the more brilliant by the pristine blanket of snow that enshrouded the world. Adain, now accustomed to the darkness, squinted out at the bright world with watering eyes. Catching Jethwyn’s eye, he mouthed, ‘when?’ The man jerked his head, indicating the large gathering at the far end of the courtyard. Adain nodded and continued walking, eyeing the commotion.

It appeared that Adain’s group of prisoners was only one of many other such groups. They formed a convoluted mass as the chains connecting individual groups wound around each other, crossing and twisting, forming a knot that Adain would have liked to see a master weaver undo. As his group got closer and closer to the throng, Adain began to despair of ever escaping unnoticed among all the watchful guardsmen. Just as the chain began to pull him inexorably towards the mêlée, he saw Jethwyn’s lips begin to move…

Ki télêntà, àstösi ri!

Êlé gardya ri ensêcretên

Té lên ènvàtên morà

Li y ri sanà rà bénàson

Lö kriàsi na portenti,

Lö kriàsi samblà uni,

Tel lö puvràson evadà! ⁵

Jethwyn turned to Adain and nodded.

“Now,” he murmured, “we take our leave.” The man slipped his manacles from his wrists, and Adain followed suit, letting the now empty iron rings clang as they fell against the chain. Although he had some idea of what Jethwyn’s spell had been meant to accomplish, he was still shocked when the men next to them evidenced no surprise that their comrades were no longer chained. “Follow me,” Jethwyn told the boy, and strode off across the courtyard.

Upon reaching the stables, Jethwyn informed the hostler in charge that they needed two mounts. The hostler, untroubled by their lack of uniform, led them over to the stalls.

“Can ye ride?” Jethwyn asked Adain.

“Well enough,” the boy replied, gazing at a coppery-brown mare with a golden ring around her left eye. Jethwyn, following the line of his sight, grinned.

“The lad’ll take this one,” he told the hostler, who turned a measuring eye on Adain.

“Sure ye can handle ’er?” he asked dubiously. “She’s got a mind of ’er own, Hesta does.” Adain nodded.

“She’ll suit me fine,” he replied. Hesta… Oh, if only my Rena was here; she’d give this one a run for her money… Adain shook away that thought. Rena was gone forever, sold to help pay off his family’s farm’s mounting debt. Hesitantly, he offered Hesta his hand. She sniffed it, her breath warm on his skin, then lipped it inquisitively, coaxing a smile from the boy. The hostler raised an eyebrow.

“Well, now, she seems to have taken a liking to ye, lad. She’s never shown that much affection to anyone at first acquaintance. And how about ye, sir?” he queried, looking to Jethwyn. Jethwyn pointed to a stall further down the corridor.

“I’ll take that bay, with the black socks.” The hostler grinned, showing a gap-toothed smile.

“Ye have an eye for horseflesh, that’s for sure. Skie’s a beauty, and the fastest thing I’ve ever seen on four legs.” The hostler opened the stall doors and led the horses out into the corridor.

“Tack’s on the wall over there,” he pointed. “When you’re through riding these ladies, bring ’em back here and one o’ the hands’ll take care of the rest.”

Jethwyn and Adain quickly saddled their mounts. Adain shortened the stirrups a little, while Jethwyn found he had to let his out several inches to accommodate his long legs.

“Many thanks for the horses,” Jethwyn told the hostler, and quite sincerely, for they were fine beasts indeed. The hostler nodded, replying,

“No thanks necessary; ’tis my job, after all!”

And so the two prisoners departed, riding borrowed mounts across a courtyard crawling with guards and soldiers, under the bright morning sun, while no one suspected a thing.

***

“Where to now?” Adain asked Jethwyn as soon as they were safely away. The big man looked at him curiously, grey eyes intent.

“Why, to your home, of course! Where did you think we would go?”

Adain shrugged. He had no real idea of where he was bound, and he wanted desperately to see his family, but all the same, a nagging thought kept chasing itself around his head: don’t go back. They will find you; they will take you. Run now while you are free. He hated himself for thinking it, but could not seem to stop.

They rode all through the day and into the evening. The sun was just beginning to creep behind the horizon when the two reached Adain’s home. Adain knew the moment he saw it that something was not right. Where was Iswy, bringing in the night’s firewood from the stack on the leeward side of the house? Where was Eleni, with the two great buckets to fill with water from the well? Where was the cheerful tallow-candle light in the windows? Where was Nim, their one last cow, who was always tied under the hearthroom window by the sweet clover?

“Something’s wrong,” he told Jethwyn, voice taught with apprehension. The man didn’t question him, but peered out into the deepening gloom with his keen grey eyes.

“Your gate’s open,” he murmured. “Door, too.”

Tethering his horse where she could reach some long, sweet grass, Adain cautiously walked towards the house, keeping in shadows as much as he could. Jethwyn followed suit, warily eyeing the surrounding trees and fields for anyone who might be lying in wait.

Upon examining the lock, Adain realized that it had not been merely broken or melted or otherwise forced open. Somehow, someone had managed to open it from without. Either that or someone had let them in, Adain thought grimly. Either way, someone was in his house that had no right to be there. Adain started through the door, but Jethwyn held him back.

“Wait,” he said, so softly that Adain could scarcely hear him. Passing a hand over the lock, he intoned these words:

Gardi kri êlé abado kri ki sanà,

Li rà pélöti kel ain agrà kiriti esa?

Astösi rö ; té demrasi,

Li rà pélösi, li rà souplisi!⁶

“What are you—” Jethwyn made a sharp cutting motion with his hand and Adain fell silent. After another moment, Jethwyn turned to him.

“That was a seeing spell, of a sort. It allows the caster to see the life-signs of anyone who may be inside the specified area. They are very powerful spells, because of their simplicity. And yet,” he continued, his grey eyes gleaming like a cat’s in the dark, “I could see nothing. It was as if this place simply did not exist.” He restlessly ran a hand through his shaggy hair. “Now, I can think of only two reasons for this: firstly, that one of your parents, your mother, most likely, set a charm of concealment on your house to protect your family. Secondly, and this I greatly fear, our mysterious stranger is a sorcerer, and cast the spell himself to hide whatever may lie within these walls.”

“Then we have no time to waste,” cried Adain, “we must go in at once!” and he made to thrust open the door. But Jethwyn held him back.

“No!” he hissed. “Don’t be a fool. Rushing into an unknown circumstance can only get us killed, or worse.”

“Then what are we to do?” Adain whispered fiercely back. “Wait for him to invite us in for dinner?”

“No,” the big man growled, “we cast a spell of our own.” And he began to speak the words of the spell:

Ki télêntà, kuràsi rö,

Na té pörràsi rö télö!⁷

“There; that should do it,” Jethwyn murmured, and he opened the door and stepped over the threshold.

Adain had imagined infinite scenarios of what his house might look like, each more dreadful than the last, but nothing he had dreamt up came anywhere near what he saw. The house was empty. Neither table, nor chairs, nor dishes, nor even the telltale scratches and impressions that furniture can make in its environment, were present. Astonished, but with growing dread, Adain examined the floor by the hearth. Sure enough, the black stain shaped like a lopsided horse-shoe, caused by a particularly rambunctious fire, was missing. He looked up at Jethwyn, eye full of horror.

“Who could have done this?” he whisperd.

“I could have,” intoned a deep, malicious voice.

Slowly, carefully, the boy and man turned around, and saw the man who had spoken.

He was very tall, with red-brown hair and beard; the latter braided and secured with a golden ring. His hair he had let run wild, fanning out from his shoulders like the mane of an angry lion. He was dressed in a motley assortment of garments: cream silk shirt, red velvet doublet with slashed sleeves to let the silk show through, long striped pantaloons tucked into tall leather boots, topped by a wide-brimmed black hat that he had pinned several red feathers to with a bejeweled brooch. Thrust into his broad leather belt were a rapier and dagger, sheathed in gold-tooled leather.

“Jethwyn Andraeas, how pleasant to see you again, really marvelous,” the man continued, in a mockingly cheerful tone. His eyes, Adain noted, were bright golden in color, and burned like coals.

“And you, Rastivan Telethra,” Jethwyn replied in the same tone, “your lack of taste is especially enchanting tonight. What brings you to this backwater town, anyway? Don’t tell me you came all this way to see me!” Rastivan sneered.

“Did you honestly think this was about you? Don’t overestimate your own importance, Andraeas. This is all about the boy.” And with this he turned his fiery eyes on Adain. Adain met his gaze uneasily.

“You cannot have him,” Jethwyn declared, stepping threateningly forward. “Never again will you corrupt another to your will.” Adain looked from the one to the other, completely confused as to what was going on.

“Jethwyn, what’s going on?” he asked. The man, without letting his eyes off of Rastivan for even a moment, replied in a grim voice,

“This man, Rastivan Telethra, is a dark mage, a sorcerer who dabbles in the black arts and blood rites of the Talent’s darker side. He has long had his eye on your mother, for he desired to train her to his own twisted image, and, with her death, I suppose, has transferred his plans to you.” Rastivan glared at Jethwyn.

“You always were going on about sides and darkness and evil in your years as a student, and the supposed wisdom that comes with age—great age, in your case—” at this Jethwyn stiffened “seems to have eluded you. Adain,” and here he turned his amber eyes on the boy, speaking sincerely “pay no heed to the prejudiced ramblings of a man who should, by all rights, be dead now. I am not, nor ever have been, a worker of evil magic. I desire only the power to accomplish great things, a power which others” and here he glared at Jethwyn “fear to possess.” Jethwyn glowered.

“I do not fear such power, only what I may be tempted to do with it, should I acquire it,” he growled. “Adain, don’t listen to him,” the man continued earnestly, “he will try to trick you with words; he has a sweeter tongue than any serpent and will seduce you with it.” Rastivan hissed impatiently.

“I grow tired of you interference, old man,” he bit out, his eyes yellow-gold with anger. “The boy is no longer your concern. Leave now, or I shall force you to!” Jethwyn laughed; a low, deadly sound.

“You shall find yourself in difficulty should you attempt to do so, Telethra,” he warned. “I am not ‘prejudiced’ enough that I will not hesitate to shed blood as black as yours.” Rastivan spat.

“You’ve spelled your doom, old man,” he said venomously, and flung a ball of fire at Jethwyn’s head.

Adain cried out, but Jethwyn flung up an arm and quenched the fire with a word.

“Ràstösi!” the big man shouted, bringing up a wall of fire around Rastivan. The other sorcerer flinched away from the flames, crying,

“Dàrösi!” Water sluiced down around Rastivan, hissing and steaming as it extinguished the fire. “Mórridàsi!” the sorcerer shrieked, and the water turned to ice and flung itself in glittering shards at Jethwyn.

Back and forth the battle raged, as the two sorcerers fought with fire, ice, lightning, winds, sometimes even sheer raw power. Adain could not tell which of the men was winning, could not see if either of them had any advantage over the other.

Suddenly, Rastivan looked straight into Adain’s eyes. The boy heard the sorcerer’s voice in his mind, although the man’s lips did not move and he continued to fling deadly spells at Jethwyn.

—Come, my young friend; there is no need for this. Decide for yourself; you are of age to apprentice. Join me, and I will teach you things Andraeas could never even conceive of. Join me, and you shall have anything you desire.— Images poured into the boy’s mind: palaces, great mountains of priceless treasures, jewels and coins and silks… the images changed: a vast library, books of magic, shelves of chemicals and herbs, vials and bottles of colored liquids that frothed and steamed… —I can show you the path to the ultimate power: immortality. Never shall you need fear the long darkness that awaits every man. Join me—

“No!” Adain shouted, shaking the thoughts from his mind. “I will not! You took my family! Where are they? Eleni, Iswy, Nathaniel, Jareen, Anise!” He called their names, as if by doing so he could summon them back. “Where are they?” he cried, his voice cracking. Rastivan shrugged, almost languidly sending grasping, thorny vines towards Jethwyn.

—You will see them again when you agree to join me.— Adain shuddered at the feeling of Rastivan’s evil thoughts in his mind. Get out, he thought desperately, get out, get out…

—GET OUT!— The thought, clad in anger sharp as knives, burst through a barrier in his mind, flying like an arrow towards Rastivan. The sorcerer flinched visibly, throwing up an arm as if to ward off a physical blow. Almost instantly recovering, he turned his yellow eyes on Adain, and the boy took a step back from the rage burning in them.

“So... you would strike against me?” he whispered. Adain found himself taking another step back. Rastivan sneered, making a complicated gesture in the air in front of him. He murmured something, and the very air around him seemed to darken. No, not seemed to darken; it was visibly changing, growing murky and distorted. A stench of ash and rotting meat filled the room, making Adain’s eyes water, so strong was the odor. The darkness solidified, and from the smoky pillar stepped something that ought to have existed only in nightmares.

The creature was vaguely man-shaped, with elongated limbs and a head bearing somewhat humanoid features. But there, all resemblance stopped. The elbow and knee joints bent in both directions, horns protruding from each side of the joint. Its digits were unnaturally long, having a fourth joint which somehow made them inexplicably grotesque, and ended in wickedly curved claws. These were stained a bloody crimson, and tapped the floor as the monster walked. It had a remarkably bird-like gait, bobbing its head back and forth, but there was nothing birdlike about its mouth. Running across the creature’s misshapen face like a scar, it was filled with multiple rows of needle-thin teeth and opened and closed as its slit-pupiled eyes swiveled to find Adain. Upon seeing him, the creature threw back its head and uttered a shrill, keening cry, its toes tapping out a lethal tattoo on the hardwood floor. The unearthly sound made the hair on the back of Adain’s head stand up, and completely unnerved him.

Rastivan had not ceased his battle with Jethwyn. The big man was presently surrounded by walls of ice which rained a perpetual barrage of hailstones as large as eggs. Adain could barely discern him behind the glimmering blue-white wall. But,

“Lórösi!” came Jethwyn’s voice, slightly muffled, and the ice melted and disappeared. He gave a cry as he spied the monster, now advancing towards Adain. “Vélàsi!” he cried, and then, when this elicited no response, “Li, Jethwyn Andraeas, là dirösi: rö suràsi, vélàsi ira bé kàn abado!⁸”

The creature turned towards him, its venomously green eyes narrowing. And it was at this instant, when all of Jethwyn’s concentration was on the monster, that Rastivan struck, not with magic, but with plain steel: a dagger flew from his fingers in a blur of spinning metal and buried itself to the hilt in Jethwyn’s back.

The older man gave a shuddering sort of gasp. He blinked: once, twice; as if to clear his vision from the dark fog that was enveloping it. His hands jerked, and he fell, slowly, as if he were sinking through deep water, to the floor.

Adain stood frozen. He felt fuzzy, detached, as if he were viewing the events from a great distance. He saw Jethwyn fall, again and again, and then Keldon Reeves’ face replaced the sorcerer’s, and the guard was falling off the roof as he had only three days previously. Three days—! he thought hazily. It seems an age. He thought he heard someone screaming, and then realized that the voice was his own.

The creature turned back to him. Adain shrieked a word he had never heard in his life, and the thing exploded like an overripe fruit. Its dark green ichor sprayed the room; it blackened his clothes when it touched them and left angry red marks on his skin. Adain turned to Rastivan.

“You!” he whispered incoherently, and drew a breath to shout the word again, but the sorcerer was quicker than him.

“Siranosi!” Rastivan cried, and Adain found that he could not speak.

“So,” the sorcerer murmured, his rage having vanished as abruptly as it had come, “you are receptive. I did not think you would do anything with that command I sent you.” Adain stared at him, his mind still reeling.

That he sent? the boy thought. But how— Rastivan smiled.

“Yes, that I sent. You didn’t think you pulled it out of thin air, did you?” Numbly, Adain shook his head. The sorcerer nodded, his smile growing wider. “Now that you have seen the power I can show you, perhaps you will rethink your rash decision—” Adain screamed silently, with his mind,

—You killed Jethwyn!— Rastivan sighed, looking almost petulant.

“Ah well. I regret to inform you, therefore, that your siblings will remain as they are—”

—Where have you taken them?— Adain shouted mentally. Rastivan grinned, showing canines dyed a bright crimson hue.

“That remains for me to know. Oh, and one more thing before I go,” he continued, “you might want to check on Andraeas.” He paused. “I think he’s still breathing.” And without another word, the sorcerer vanished.

Adain didn’t see him leave. He was already kneeling at Jethwyn’s side, trying to ignore the frighteningly wide pool of blood that surrounded the old sorcerer. He grabbed the man’s wrist, feeling for a pulse: it was slow and faint. Carefully, he turned the man over onto his back, fearful of doing even more damage than what Rastivan’s dagger had already done. At this, Jethwyn’s eyes flickered open.

“Adain?” he whispered, his voice barely more than a whisper. The boy tightened his grip on the man’s wrist, his vision suddenly blurry through a haze of tears. The boy opened his mouth to speak, but remembered the spell of silence Rastivan had laid on him. —I’m here— he thought at the man. Jethwyn’s grey eyes widened, and the corners of his mouth twitched, as if he were trying to smile.

—Well,— he thought back, —that does make it easier to talk. But how did you learn thoughtspeech?— Adain shrugged one shoulder.

—I don’t know, but that doesn’t matter. What can I do to help you?— At this last, Jethwyn shook his head slightly.

—I am too far gone for any healing you could offer, Adain. Only speak with me, until she takes me back to her heart to dwell.— Adain shook is head violently, refusing to believe that Jethwyn was truly dying.

—No!— he insisted, —There must be something I can do…— At his insistence, Jethwyn finally nodded.

—There is one thing, but it is not for me so much as for you. Do you trust me?— The man’s abrupt and seemingly unrelated change in subject startled Adain.

—What?— he asked.

—Do you trust me?— Jethwyn repeated, and this time, Adain answered.

—Yes, of course. But why—

—Open your mind to me,— Jethwyn told him. Adain, still unsure as to where all this was going, obeyed. Jethwyn closed his eyes, and a flood of images, sounds, words, memories, flooded into the boy’s mind. He flinched away from them at first, remembering Rastivan’s invasion of his thoughts, but felt a soothing presence —do not fear, I will not harm you— and let down his mental barriers.

—There,— Jethwyn’s mindvoice said when the flow ceased, somehow managing to sound weary despite the lack of tone or inflection, —it is done. In your mind are all of my memories, my knowledge of sorcery, everything I possess.— His grey eyes grew unfocused, his hand, clasped in Adain’s, grew limp, and his presence faded from the boy’s thoughts.

—Jethwyn…— he thought mutely, clutching the sorcerer’s cooling hand. And then, softly, silently, he began to weep.

Adain did not know how long he sat, motionless, as Jethwyn Andraeas’s body grew colder. He had shut himself away in a far, dark corner of his mind, away from memories that would have driven his conscious mind from reason. The sun set, and the moon rose over the house he so recently had called his home.

But when the stars had almost finished their nocturnal dance, he awoke as from an uneasy dream to find the hearthroom lit by the soft grey light that heralds the dawn, still holding Jethwyn’s icy hand in his own.

Moving slowly, he rose to his feet, then departed from the house. He saddled the mare—Hesta, said a voice in his mind; it could have been his own—and redistributed his and Jethwyn’s packs to make up for his weight. Finally, just as the first pale rays of sunlight were unfurling over the hills surrounding the house, he turned and said a word. Just a single word, but as the strange syllables fell from his lips the house, garden, and all signs of inhabitance shimmered like images in a heat-haze and vanished. Murmuring to the horses, Adain Eranaseth rode away from all he had known and loved, and into his future.

1. A Monday in January, 1960 Earth equivalent

2. November

3. Strong metal, the sorcerer imprisoned [within it],/He asks you to help him, cunningly and swiftly./If you do not aid him,/You hasten his death,/So aid him, he asks!

4. O weak eyes/Illuminate swiftly/The sorcerer needs you/To see magic!

5. Help me, my eyes/the guards imprison me/they want me to die/My friend and I need you/Make us unimportant/Make us seem like we belong/So that we can escape!

6. Guardian of my friend’s home/I ask you if anyone is here/Help us; find him/I ask you, I beg you

7. My magic, hide us/Don’t let him see us!

8. I, Jethwyn Andraeas, command you: leave us, go back to your home!