A Leap

“They thought they were finished….” Quaos said dramatically. She was telling the story to Kayli and Edjica, the only children currently in the Magiary, but Aniya and Devrin were listening just as intently. “But then, a miracle happened. Hundreds of seahorses came up and surrounded them to protect them from--” The story was interrupted by a thunderous pounding at the door.
　
“No, don’t stop!” Kayli protested.
　
“I’ll get it,” said Devrin, already on his feet. “If you get interrupted they probably won’t get to bed till midnight. You or Aniya can tell me what happened, later.” He strode down the corridor to the front door. It was storming too hard for him to be able to see anything through the peephole, so he opened the door.
　
The man on the doorstep was not dressed for the weather, and his clothes were soaked and ragged; his face was dirty and sporting ragged stubble, his hair unkempt. Devrin thought he must be a beggar, until he spoke. “Is there a woman named Quaos here?” he asked. His voice had a hint of Sarcish accent, under the desperation.
　
“Possibly,” said Devrin with caution. “Who’s asking?”
　
“My name is Iaedan. Quaos is a friend of mine, and she’s in danger, though she probably doesn’t know it.”
　
　
Devrin studied the man carefully, then nodded. “All right, come in.” He led Iaedan inside.
　
Quaos was just finishing the story. “And she married the prince and they lived happily ever after.”
　
“And then she killed him,” added Iaedan.
　
Quaos gave a bark of a laugh that was cut off when she recognized Iaedan. She stared at him in shock. The children were not amused. “No!” cried Edjica, and Kayli also looked stricken.
　
“Don’t worry, he’s joking,” Aniya assured them. “They loved each other very much and lived happy and peaceful lives, and never had to kill anyone again. Now go to bed.” With only a few token protests, they went.
　
“Iaedan, what have you been…? what are you…? What happened to you?” Quaos asked.
　
“They’re after us,” he told her.
　
“And that explains it all!” said Devrin
　
“It does, actually,” Quaos told him sharply. “How close are they, how many are there, and who’s behind it?”
　
“Close. Lots. King Evrich, who eventually emerged as the demon’s heir.”
　
“Since this is you talking, by ‘lots’ and ‘close’ I assume you mean armies that are about to descend on us at any moment.”
　
“That’s about right,” Iaedan admitted.
　
“We have to go tell Malexandra.” Quaos led Iaedan toward the stairs, but stopped at their foot. “Can you wait down here… just in case?” she asked Aniya and Devrin. They’d never heard her sound scared before, and they agreed anxiously.
　
“Who exactly is coming?” Devrin asked.
　
“Armies, apparently, from Sarca, to arrest Quaos for regicide.”
　
“Right, of course. Well, while we wait to fight off armies by ourselves, what did I miss in the story? I don’t want to die without knowing.”
　
“Fine, it’s not like there’s anything better for us to do. Basically, there was an epic battle, with the girl and the seahorses and all the creatures of good on one side, and all the creatures of evil on the other side. Quaos went into great detail on the descriptions, but I don’t really remember exactly. Anyway, they were losing and then the prince rode in with an army behind him and joined the fight, and they defeated their enemies and got married and lived happily ever after. Until she killed him, if you believe Quaos’s friend,” she added with a smile.
　
“You have to admit, in real life it would be more likely than a happy ending.”
　
“Come on, Devrin, even you’re not that cynical.”
　
“I’m not saying that people killing each other is always more likely than them getting along, but royal marriages don’t tend to work out, if one of the people wasn’t born royal and it’s a love match rather than being political.”
　
“They do sometimes!” snapped Aniya.
　
Devrin was about to continue the debate, until he saw her expression. “I thought you and Skyler were just friends.”
　
“We were! And then we were practically enemies, and now that we’re friends again, well, I don’t think we are just friends.”
　
“I don’t even want to think about giving romantic advice, but you do need to remember that 98% of the country hates you.”
　
　
“I know! I know! I didn’t say there was any way it could possibly work out--” She froze. “He said ‘armies,’ didn’t he?”
　
“Yes… what’s your point?”
　
“Armies aren’t going to march through the capital of Majardea, right under Skyler’s nose, and knock on the front door. They’ll come across open country and arrive around back.”
　
They rushed through the house. Aniya reached the back door an instant before Devrin, and flung it open.
　
Iaedan had not been exaggerating. A full army stood facing the building. The rain and wind didn’t seem to faze them in the slightest. A single, armored man rode forward, holding up a scrap of white cloth that was nearly blown out of his grasp.
　
“Turn over the criminal, Quaos of Sarca, and we will leave you in peace!”
　
Devrin thought of trying to stall, pretending not to know who they were talking about or saying they didn’t have the authority. He glanced at Aniya. She gave the slightest shake of her head, turned to the soldier, and said, “Hell no!”
　
The man rode back to join the other men in front of the house. He said something, and they rushed towards the Magiary.
　
Before they could reach it, a shimmery, transparent wall sprung up around the building. The army hesitated. One of the soldiers touched it, tentatively, then tried to ride through it. It stopped him as surely as if it were made of stone.
　
“Let’s go see what the plan is,” Devrin said, and they closed the door and went upstairs.
　
A strong wind blew through the room when Devrin opened the door to the top of Malexandra’s tower, and he saw to his surprise that despite the weather, one of the large windows was flung open. Malexandra faced it, concentrating intently on something, and Quaos stood on the window ledge, facing outwards. Drops of rain battered her and flew past her into the room, but no one seemed to notice. Iaedan was asleep in an armchair in the corner, and they could sense the sleeping spell laid over him.
　
“…can’t let innocent people take the blame for what I did!” Quaos was screaming into the storm.
　
“No!” cried Aniya, and before Devrin even realized what was happening, Quaos leapt.
　
They rushed to the window. They could barely see Quaos’s crumpled figure through the storm, but it was clear that she wasn’t moving. The shimmering wall disappeared as Malexandra joined them at the window, but the army stayed where it was.
　
“How could you let her…?” Aniya demanded.
　
Oddly, Malexandra smiled. “Surely you can’t think I would have let her kill herself.”
　
“But… she jumped.”
　
“Breaking a fall is one of the easiest things to do, magically, you know that. And Quaos is a good enough actor to play dead quite convincingly. We just need to take her inside before they decide they want her drawn and quartered, or some such thing.”
　
Devrin began to laugh rather hysterically, and a tear rolled down his face, and he rushed to the stairs. Aniya and Malexandra hurried after them.
　
Malexandra stopped them at the back door. “Wait here. If either of you go outside, you might give it away.”
　
Devrin would have protested, if he hadn’t known she was right. Aniya took a tentative step to follow Malexandra outside, but Devrin grabbed her arm. “Do you really want to risk her life on your ability to act as though she’s dead?” His voice was not his usual sarcastic tone but something darker, and Aniya stayed inside.
　
They waited tensely, both aware that Malexandra was facing down an army who would quite possibly insist on taking Quaos’s “body.” She wasn’t dead, but that could only mean she wasn’t dead yet.
　
Finally, the door opened. A gust of wind and a shower of rain flew in their faces, and then Malexandra came in, Quaos floating at her side, looking dead.
　
As soon as the door closed, she popped up and jumped down to the ground. Relief flooded over Devrin and Aniya. “We thought you were dead!” Aniya said.
　
“I’m sor-” Quaos began, but before she could finish her sentence Devrin embraced her fiercely, and kissed her. It might not have been best of kisses, since Quaos was drenched and shivering, and her near death was on both their minds, but it lasted a long time. Aniya stared at them, then fled. Malexandra had already slipped away.
　
“I thought I’d lost you,” Devrin said finally. “I didn’t even know there was anything to lose, not like that.”
　
“That makes me even more glad that I’m not really dead.”
　
“Was it horrible? They could have killed you.”
　
Quaos nodded. “I would have jumped for real, if I’d had to. I’m just glad I didn’t.”

An Honest Enemy

I was surprised by the knock at my door; it was late, the night was dark and the wind shook the trees as if it were trying to break their necks. Nobody would want to be out in that. My surprise at the knock, however, was nothing compared to my utter astonishment at the identity of my visitor.

“I need your help,” she said without prelude. I thought about what it must be costing her to say those words, to me. We had never been friends, to put it mildly. She clutched her cloak tightly against the cold. The dark eyes that peaked out from under the hood did not quite meet my gaze.

“Why?” I wasn’t sure what I was asking. Why me? Why should I help you? Why do you of all people need help at all?

All hope fled her. Her face fell, her shoulders slumped, and her voice was that emotionless tone of trued despair as she murmured, “I shouldn’t have come,” and turned away.

“Wait,” I called, and she turned back towards me. Xaria had been an opponent, even an enemy, but a worthy one. At times I’d hated her; at times I’d feared her; at times I’d done everything I could to bring about her death. But I had always respected her, and seeing her like this, her spirit defeated, brought me no joy. I let her in.

I had a fire blazing, so it was warm inside. I offered Xaria refreshment; she declined. We sat down and wondered what to say. The silence grew uncomfortable, so I began with the obvious. “I heard you were dead.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“I didn’t believe it.”

“No? Then you have more confidence in me than anyone else, Diren. Unwarranted confidence, really. It was too close.”

“What happened?”

“We won.”

I gave her a look. “I am aware that my lord is dead and yours is wearing a crown.”

“Yes, well, consider yourself lucky!”

“I do, actually. I find retirement rather pleasant. But that wasn’t an answer.”

“To put it plainly, I’m dispensable.”

“I spent ten years trying to dispense of you, Xaria. I assure you, it’s quite difficult.”

“If the arrow had been an inch higher, I’d be dead. Not my first close call, of course, as you know. Still, it was the first from my people. I’d given everything in his service, and the minute it pays off he tries to have me killed. Afraid to lose his newfound power, I suppose, so I got as far out of the way as I could and made it discreetly known that I had bowed out of that sort of thing. I bought a little house in a small town and started to live as an ordinary person. I think I would have stayed there, if I’d had the chance. I’d been there a month when my house burned down. I ran into the woods and stayed there for a few weeks—you know, far up north, where nobody goes. I was hunted down and barely managed to get away. So I went back to civilization. I still had friends, I thought, who could help me out until I figured out what was going on and how to stop it. I was wrong. You remember Madrithi? She pushed you off the cliff in Almingtorn? And Perd, I don’t know if you ever met him personally, but we worked together often. All three of us would have died for each other, once. Madrithi tried to blow me up. Perd poisoned me. When I woke up from that, lying in a dung heap, I decided to really go underground. I used a false name, took a job peeling potatoes in the kind of place no one would ever think to look for me, wore a disguise. A man with a knife showed up two days later. On my way out of the city I was attacked four times, and I was shot at twice on the way here. So maybe it used to be difficult to kill me, but Lord Okrilch, sorry, King Okrilch is in a position to do difficult things, because I put him there!”

I listened gravely. It scared me, hearing Xaria was out of her league, because she’d always been the only one who was my equal. We’d both been the best, and I doubted her abilities had changed with her victory. Perhaps it didn’t concern me. Why should I care that my enemy was being hunted? It only meant others were doing my job for me. But then, we weren’t enemies anymore. Lord Zaloth was dead and Lord Okrilch was King Okrilch, and there was nothing for us to fight over. It had never really been personal.

“Do you have a plan?” I asked her.

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.” She sounded ashamed.

“Well, I do. There’s a reward out for your death?” She nodded distractedly. “I mean to claim it.”

She looked at me sharply, suspicion in her eyes.

“No,” I assured her. “But think about it. It would only seem natural if I’m the one to kill you, and if you’re assumed dead, your problems are over.”

“You’re right, that I’ll have to play dead, but I don’t know if it’ll be that easy. If I’m seen, the whole thing starts over again.”

“Obviously you’ll have to stay away from anyone who’d recognize you-“

“I’m a national figure; everyone recognizes me now.”

“If you stay hidden for a while, they’ll forget eventually.”

“Maybe, but I seem to have exhausted all possible hideouts.”

“You should be safe enough here; it’s the last place anyone would ever look.”

“You mean here, here? In your house? Diren, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

We discussed it, and she agreed, eventually. We also agreed it wouldn’t be safe for me to go to the palace, so I sent a messenger to deliver the news that I’d killed Xaria, along with a pendant she wore as proof.

Two days later, the messenger returned with a bag of gold as a reward.

“So they must’ve accepted it,” I said to Xaria.

She nodded, and, impulsively, I think, kissed me.

“Thank you,” she said, when the kiss was finally over.

“You know, I had thought that I might end up killing you, but I never thought you’d thank me for it.”

Crumbling

My arms ache from holding the metal pole into the pit of fire. I look around at the others each at their own pit of fire around the small area beneath the cliff. None of them seem to be having trouble. We were taught how to do this, to make these new weapons, but I must not have been paying as much attention as I should have, because mine is falling apart, bits of burning metal crumbling onto the stone at my feet.

“Turn it!” Dagnem yells, running over to me. I do, or try to. “Lift it higher in the flames and turn it!” I try, but it's heavy and it just seems to collapse faster. “Just don’t let the handle drop away!” But just then it does, and the whole thing is ruined.

“Can’t you do anything right?” he scolds. I try to defend myself, but he ignores it. “You’re going to burn the whole place down.”

I know he’s right, but the way he’s scolding me pisses me off, so I say “I’m not the one who did that.” Because Dagnem’s wife has a little magic, but she didn’t know it at first, and burnt down the last place we stayed.

He starts to scream at me, so I turn and walk away and start to walk up the trail into the cliffs. I know better, it’s dangerous, but I really, really need to get away. The trail is steep and rocky, and with each step I take a tiny rockslide falls on me, pouring dust in my face and pebbles in my shoes. Though at first I’d been walking fast, to burn off my anger and get as far away as I could as quickly as possible, the terrain slowed me to a crawl.

Finally I sit and rest for a little. I’m far enough up to have a good view, but it’s suddenly lost on me as I see two figures coming up the cliff. I assume it’s Dagnem and one of the others, to bring me back down, but as they come a little closer I realize it’s Thone and Adark. Thone is two years younger than me, and I’ve known him since childhood; we’re friends, and I’m not really surprised to see him. Adark is a year older than me, and I don’t know him as well as I’d like. He’s a good fighter and respected by everyone in our company, and I’m, well, not. I’m rather embarrassed for him to see me running away from the camp, soaked in sweat and dust, and my humiliation is compounded when I realize they were probably sent to bring me back.

But once they reach me, Thone smiles and says, “We got permission for all three of us to go on up ahead and scout the cave at the top.”

“What cave?” I ask.

Adark replies, “There’s rumored to be a cave up there, and a portal in it that the enemy is coming through.”

“And so he wants the three of us to go up there and confront them on our own?” And now I sound like a coward as well.

“Better for only three of us to be killed than everyone,” Adark says, but he smiles comfortingly and adds, “But he doesn’t actually believe it. And they mean to catch up soon.”

“Do you believe it?”

He shrugs. “If it isn’t, I get a nice walk in better company than the people below; if it is we should be able to find out without being seen and sneak back down to raise the alarm.”

I hope I’m not blushing at being called better company than the people below—considering what they’re like, that really doesn’t mean much. The trail grows steeper as we continue up the cliff. By the time we’re near the top, I’m too exhausted to even climb over a few largish rocks blocking the steep path. To my surprise, Adark and Thone are equally worn out, though they didn’t get the chance to rest as I had. I push the largest rock over and it rolls down the edge of the cliff. Thone casts a spell to hold the rest of the disintegrating stone in place; it barely works, but we do manage to get over it, and we’re at the top of the path.

The rest of the walk to the cave is easy, a wide path curving gently around the side of the mountain. We’re almost at the cave when we see them—two large men in the uniform of the Stetenthian army. Adark steps forward to challenge them. I want to do something, to fight them or speak to them or run back down the mountain, but my legs are frozen in place. It doesn’t matter. As soon as they see us, they turn and run back the way they came. Adark grabs my arm and the three of us give chase. We enter the cave just in time to see the two men disappear through a shimmery surface on the wall of the cave—the portal.

I’ve never seen anything like it before. I approach it to take a closer look, but Adark puts a hand on my arm. “Those were just scouts. The rest of their army could come through any moment,” he says gravely.

“What should we do?” Thone addresses the question generally, but he’s really asking Adark, who’s even better at planning our strategy than he is at fighting.

“We’ll go back and warn everyone, and then decide what to do,” he responds.

“Should one of us wait here?” I ask. “So we’ll have a warning if the whole army does start pouring out of the portal?”

Thone nods. “I could do it,” he volunteers, though he seems decidedly unhappy with the prospect.

“No, I should do it, I’m the most dispensable,” I argue. “It’s not like I’m any use anywhere else.”

“Don’t say that,” Adark tells me. “You’re one of the best with magic; and to have any hope of winning this war we’ll need to make more use of it.” Anyway, all three of us will go. If the army comes through, anyone who stays wouldn’t live long enough to give warning.”

By the time we get to the top of the cliff, the rest of the company is just reaching the top of the trail. “You might not want to come any further,” I warn, and we explain about the truth of the rumor.

Dagnem shakes his head. “We’ve made arrangements; we need to get to the top of the mountain.” So we take the path going in the opposite direction of the cave. It’s not a difficult path, but it does grow so narrow we have to walk single file. Thone and Adark have moved up to the front of the group, but I somehow (of course) got caught at the very end. It doesn’t take long to reach the peak of the mountain. We stand there for a bit, wondering what we are waiting for, until suddenly a boat, propelled by magic, floats through the air to hover a few feet above us. Dagnem, who is closest to it, takes hold of a short metal ladder hanging from the edge and climbs into the boat. He’s just made it into the boat when the ladder and the railing it is attached to break halfway off the boat. They speak in worried voices, but I can’t hear what they’re saying, and then Adark spells the ladder back into place. It is very broken, and I can see that he’s having to concentrate intensely. People slowly, too slowly, climb on.

About half of them are on the boat when I first see Stetenthian warriors making their way up the path. I yell for them to hurry, and they do, and soon everyone is on board but me and Adark. “Go!” I tell him. “I’ll hold the spell.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t abandon you; I won’t.”

“Don’t be stupid!” The Stetenthians are nearly upon us. “You have to much information to be captured. You might want to help me but you swore an oath to protect our country!”

He knows I’m right, but I can see he doesn’t like it. I cast the spell, and he reluctantly makes his way up the ladder. It’s a difficult spell, not one I could do while climbing the ladder, or that anyone could do from on the boat, so I know I’m doomed.

A tear rolls down my face as the ladder and railing crash to the ground. I don’t regret what I’ve done, but I don’t want to be captured and tortured or killed.

And then a handle is in front of my face, the handle of the weapon I couldn’t manage to forge. I grab it, but I know that if I wasn’t even strong enough to hold it up into the fire, I won’t be able to pull myself into the boat.

But I have a greater desperation now, and I do manage to hang on as I’m pulled up onto the deck. It was Adark who had pulled me up, and I saw that the weapon had been sharpened and he’d been holding onto the blade; his hands were bleeding.

“Your hands,” I say stupidly.

“They’ll heal. You saved my life.”

Someone hands him a rag and he tries clumsily to bandage his hands. I take it and do it for him. “You saved mine.” I think about how agonizing it must have been to pull me up by the sharp edge of a blade, and then, without thinking, I kiss him. He kisses me back, and I’m glad to have survived.