Chapter I
I
Kallinesha
The silence was alive, the way stalker spiders are alive even if you never see them, the way their fangs feel real even if they're gone by the time you reach down to swat them away. Kallinesha could just make out the flicker of candlelight under the door, but the silence stood guard and she dared not disturb it.
This was probably just her guilt playing tricks on her. It wasn't fair, this guilt, not when she had finally won an argument with Mistress. She should have been basking in the moment, but instead she'd come here. Guilt, her father always said, was a weakness. If you did something wrong, you fixed it. You wasted no energy on remorse. So she'd come here to apologize, no matter how it galled her, because once the heat of the argument cooled, Kallinesha realized how low a blow she had struck. Besides, one of these times she would go too far and Mistress would send her away. No small moment of victory was worth that. But the silence had crushed the apology from her mind, and she stared at the door, entranced, trying to understand this something that danced angrily around the edges of her awareness.
Kallinesha could only feel others' magic when it was strong enough to set the air tingling like sand thrown against her skin by a sudden wind. The magic behind the door was different: a darkness that pulled at the hairs on her arms. Mistress had told them never to interrupt her when she was far-knowing. If that's what she was doing now, spurred on by Kallinesha's words, then perhaps Kallinesha had underestimated Mistress's powers. Because this was strong, whatever it was.
She reached out to the door, ready to snatch her hand back if the wood…what? Bit at her? She turned the handle gently. It wasn't locked. If she interrupted Mistress, it might really be the end of her apprenticeship, but what if Mistress was in trouble? She eased the door open.
Mistress lay twisted on the floor in the middle of the ring of glass shards and fox fur and whatever other enforcements she used for far-knowing. She'd flung one arm outward, smudging the ring, breaking the circle. Skin white as linen. Eyes open and unseeing. Kallinesha jumped into the circle and knelt down.
"Mistress? Wake up." Kallinesha put an ear to her mouth, felt the slight disturbance of breath, and placed her hands on Mistress's neck. Unable to feel any trace of life force, she yelled for Ista, who never had trouble sensing such things. Silence smothered the cry. She tried to concentrate, searching for her own essence past the fever of her fear. It kept slipping away, taunting her. Finally she caught hold of it and tried to convince it to share a part of itself with Mistress. She'd never been good at transfers, not even when they practiced in complete calm, but now she felt her limbs growing heavy, her head beginning to ache. It must be working.
Mistress jerked, dislodging Kallinesha's hands.
"The Chaos Mage," Mistress gasped, her eyes watery now, but alive.
"He did this? How?"
"The trance. Couldn't. Break."
The far-knowing trance. Kallinesha knew it. She'd goaded Mistress into action before she was ready. This was all her fault. She could hardly look Mistress in the eye. "He's very powerful," she muttered. "You couldn't have predicted this."
"But I should have," Mistress whispered. "He's hidden his identity so well. I should have taken more precautions." Her lips, the color of ash, barely moved.
"Mistress?" The cry came from Ista, standing in the doorway, big-eyed.
"Where have you been?" Kallinesha hissed. "See if you can feel her essence. Hurry up."
Ista sobbed the moment her hands touched Mistress's neck. Then she closed her eyes. Trying to transfer her essence. Maybe she would succeed where Kallinesha had failed. And this time Kallinesha wouldn't mind.
"Ista, my pet, stop," Mistress said finally. "It's not working."
Ista had gone almost as pale as Mistress. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she helped Mistress shakily onto the bed. Kallinesha stood back, unsure where to lend a hand. "What should I do?" Ista begged.
"Leave us for a moment, lamb. I need to talk to Kallinesha."
"No. Please," Ista begged.
Mistress caressed Ista's hair. A trio of candles glowed behind her, and Kallinesha could almost see the light through those blue-veined hands. "My pet, obey."
Ista crept off, whimpering like the child she still was, even at fifteen years, and Kallinesha stood up straighter as the door swung shut, leaving them alone.
"You must find the Chaos Mage, Kallinesha. Find him and destroy him."
"What?"
"You and Ista."
"But—"
"I know where he is."
"You do?" He'd eluded everyone for so long.
"The far-knowing showed the truth before it took hold of me. He's in Baron Selkimear's castle."
"But shouldn't we tell the King and the High Mage? Let them send their best men?"
"The High Mage entrusted me with the task." The veins on her neck stuck out like a choke-vine on a tree trunk, slowly sucking the life out of its host. "Listen. The Chaos Mage has supporters inside the mages' guild, in the army, everywhere. Yes, even in your perfect father's army." Kallinesha stiffened. "They're everywhere, seeking the downfall of the King. The High Mage trusted me alone." Her eyes were impossibly wide now, like crazy old Robbila down the street, who was always talking about ghosts and poisoners in the shrubs, and animals who gave her news of the future—almost always wrong. "You and Ista, I trust you, just as the High Mage trusts me. You have to destroy the Chaos Mage. He's developing powers we don't understand. Powers that will kill the King."
"I know," Kallinesha said. Mistress had spoken of little else for weeks. King Tykell was a good man, a noble man. Kallinesha's father had spent most of his career defending the King's mother, and now he served King Tykell with the same dedication. Queen first, self second her father always said, when Kallinesha was younger and complained that he was gone too long on campaigns. For three years now, the King had sat on the throne of Andalinn, and already they were calling him Tykell the Just, and Tykell the Wise.
The last few months, however, he'd grown preoccupied, distant. Her father had mentioned it too, not just Mistress, not just rumors on the streets. Ista thought maybe it was worry over his wife's failing health. Mistress believed, as did the High Mage, that it stemmed from worry over the Chaos Mage's growing powers. Nearly every week some report of his evil reached the capital: a summoned wind destroying one village, mage fire another, travelers found dead on the road with no signs of violence, all their gold still in their bags, entire families disappearing from their houses, unexplained waves of illness, livestock going mad and stampeding off cliffs, unexpected floods. All this was the work of the shadowy Chaos Mage, who no one had ever clearly seen.
"You must destroy him," Mistress pleaded, her voice growing weaker. How much of her life essence had the far-knowing drained? "King first, self second. Your father will finally realize how brave his daughter is."
It was crazy to think she could defeat someone the King and her father hadn't even been able to find. But if she put a stop to the Chaos Mage's evil, her father would have to recognize how hard she had worked, what courage she had shown. My daughter, she saw him say, tears in those ever-strong, ever-tearless eyes of his. Defeater of the Chaos Mage. You are truly my daughter. Her mother would ride from Eslamyst province and throw her arms around her, as she hadn't done for years, forgetting solemnity and propriety. One day you will be high mage. And the King: Kallinesha would kiss his royal hand, but the King, overcome by gratitude, would kiss her hand.
"Kallinesha," Mistress whispered. "You will succeed because he's not expecting you. Take Ista. You'll need her raw power. Go to Baron Selkimear's castle. The Chaos Mage, he's tall. There's a gold chain he wears."
"The far-knowing showed you this?"
"Yes. And there's fear in him. Power, but fear. Use it. And use your wits. Don't fail your king."
Kallinesha took a deep breath. This was her chance. All those years of her childhood she watched her father march off to battle a
nd return victorious. After he was raised to high commander, she watched him counsel his queen, then his king, giving his all for Andalinn. Her mother too, governor of one of the richest, fastest-progressing provinces, and her oldest brother, about to become a commander in her father's army—they'd all had their chances, and she, she'd only slaved away here, seven years trying to learn magecraft, trying to prove herself worthy to carry her family name. Now was her chance. Could she live with herself if she passed it by? "I'll find the Chaos Mage," she promised. "I won't fail my king."
II
Ista
Ista prepared a draught, hands trembling. Why hadn't the transfer worked? Was Mistress's life essence too far gone? Maybe time and rest would restore it. Of course time and rest would restore it. Of course they would. And this draught would help her rest deeper, recover faster. Tears wet the slivers of birch bark, and she hoped they would only make it more effective. She tossed in some mint, just to disguise the bitterness of the bear thistle, and stirred it all together with a silver rod. What were they talking about so long? Why couldn't she go in? It wasn't fair. Kallinesha didn't even like Mistress. What if she died in there, with no one who loved her at her side? No, Mistress couldn't die. She was too wise, too powerful. She'd taught Ista so much. Not just about magic. And Kallinesha—Cold Kalli—didn't understand that, didn't understand the bond they had. Kalli never took time to simply sit and listen to Mistress. All she wanted were straight answers on how much essence of rock you needed for an ice-to-marble transmutation, or how long a look-away enchantment would last on a wooden chest with an iron lock, before it began destroying itself. She never just felt for the power within her, felt for it, embraced it, and used it.
Ista paced up and down the workshop, the draught warm in her hands. Why hadn't she stayed here tonight, instead of visiting her family? She would have felt the Chaos Mage's magic, felt Mistress's distress. Even after Kallinesha had broken the link, Ista could feel it. How could Kalli possibly miss something so strong? She'd only been in the other room. But Kalli was a mole, always digging, digging, working away at her little tunnels, trying to move the earth. Completely blind. She wouldn't notice the sun if it fell out of the sky.
The door opened and Ista ran through. Mistress smiled, but her skin still looked papery thin, her body limp. "Here, Mistress." Ista put the draught to bloodless lips and watched her take two swallows, three, then push it away, the movement almost too much for her.
Kalli was gone, the door closed.
"Ista, dear," Mistress said. "You know what the High Mage asked of me?"
"Yes, Mistress. And you will succeed." It meant everything to Mistress, the esteem of the High Mage, the honor of his trust.
"I will, but only if you help me."
"Of course."
"You must find the Chaos Mage and bring him to justice."
"Me?"
"Yes. You. The connection he used to drain my essence, I think it's still working. I feel weaker now than before."
"Rest then. Take this." Ista held up the cup again. She slid a hand to rest on the side of Mistress's throat and closed her eyes, feeling inside herself for her own essence. It was still so full of energy, so quick to rise to her summons. Why couldn't Mistress take strength from it?
"Don't, love. It's no use. But if you find him and destroy his power, I believe his hold over me will be broken."
"Yes, Mistress. I'll try." But Ista's hand trembled and the draught sloshed in the cup. How would she fight a man so powerful the High Mage hadn't been able to defeat him?
"You have the gift, Ista. Haven't I always told you? You'll find the strength. Be careful. Half the protectors are corrupt. Even Kallinesha's father. But don't tell her that. You need her. She knows more about the world than you do, pet, and more about magic, though she doesn't have your gift. And she's got clout. Protectoressa Kallinesha Rhaelenor of Gaidella and Illandri, daughter of the High Commander. Just say half that and doors will open. Unfair as it is, you need her."
Ista could hardly stand to spend an afternoon alone with Kallinesha and her snide comments about commoners and her accusations that Ista was only trying to curry favor with Mistress. "But—"
"Do it for me."
"Yes, Mistress. If you ask it."
"Trust no one but the High Mage. And Kallinesha. I know she's hard on you sometimes, but she knows how to find the Chaos Mage. Now let me rest."
Ista didn't stand until Mistress fell asleep, her shallow breaths peaceful. When finally Ista opened the door to the workshop, Kalli wasn't there. She found her in her bedroom, the one Kalli had insisted she keep for herself when Ista came to the house. I'm a protector, she'd said. I don't sleep on the ground like a pig with the other piglets.
"Kallinesha? Did Mistress ask you to—"
"Of course. Do you think you're the only one she confides in?"
"No."
"Then pack."
"What?"
"She charged us to finish her task. If the Chaos Mage knows that she found out where he is, he'll leave. It's only maybe a six-hour ride. Get packing."
"I won't leave her like this."
"I've already called for her sister. Do you think you can find a better healer, or one who cares more for Mistress? She'll be taken care of. So pack."
III
Kallinesha
By the time Kallinesha left, dragging a weepy Ista behind her, Mistress had fallen into a sleep from which she could not be roused. An enchanted sleep, her sister confirmed, caused by the far-knowing gone awry. Until they found the caster of whatever magic had done this, Mistress's sister feared there would be no waking her.
Nearly four hours remained until dawn. The best far-knowing happened after dark. "That's when sight is dulled," Mistress had told Kallinesha once, her voice low and earnest, full of awe at the power she wielded.
She and Ista didn't say a word, just rode in the dark. Kallinesha's mother was a famed horsewoman. She'd won races in her youth, daring tests of skill and bravery. She'd laughed at a younger Kallinesha's fear of the fences she was supposed to jump, the sharp poles she was meant to dodge. But it had taught her courage. And horsemanship. Her father and oldest brother, both expert riders, had never demanded any less of her in their long rides than they had of themselves. So Kallinesha had hardly broken a sweat, hardly begun to feel the hardness of the saddle, when Ista begged for a rest.
Kallinesha allowed herself a smile. Ista might be able to do magic she couldn't, even at fifteen to Kallinesha's seventeen, even with only three years of training to Kallinesha's seven. But Ista couldn't ride worth anything, held a dagger as if it were a kitchen knife, and was a coward, plain as that. Snakes scared her, and heights, and the tales Mistress told in the dark some nights. Tales of murder and intrigue and danger. She cried at the smallest provocation, but Mistress just said that was a sign of how close Ista was to everything around her—in tune with the essence of life in all things—and that made her a great mage. Mistress had never said that about Kallinesha. The one time she'd cried in front of Mistress—the one time—Mistress had sneered.
"What would your father think of your tears, child?"
She'd been ten years old, and she hadn't cried since, not in front of Mistress, anyway. She hated the way Mistress spoke with such sarcasm of her "great father, His Greatness, His High, High Commandership."
"Why do you hate him so much?" she'd asked once, in her third year, when she'd lost a little of her fear of her mistress.
"I don't hate him, child, but the sun does not rise because he tells it to, as you seem to think it does. And there are some qualities of his you'd best not emulate."
"Like what?" she'd challenged.
"His conceit, and the price others pay for it. His belief that the kingdom owes him. He's a hero all right, child. Kept the Vorittians at bay, won us the war with Usktan, caught that plot against the High Governor last year. But hero worship is a dangerous thing—for the hero as well as the worshipers. And a very dangerous thing for the truth. Re
member that."
Kallinesha hadn't talked so much of her father since then, or her mother either, although she had recently been appointed governor of Eslamyst. Stray comments still escaped now and then. And yesterday, when Mistress began rhapsodizing again about the trust the High Mage had put in her, and this crucial task he'd given her, Kallinesha's patience wore out. "Then go find the Chaos Mage," she snapped, though she burned with the shame of it now. "If the High Mage had entrusted my father with the knowledge he gave you, the Chaos Mage would be dead by now."
Mistress, for once, had no answer. And that very night she'd tried the spell of far-knowing. She hadn't been ready, hadn't performed all the precautionary rites, and now she lay in a deathlike sleep, all because of Kallinesha. No time to think of that now. She had to think of the King, of the kingdom, of ridding Andalinn of the Chaos Mage's evil. When you do something wrong, you fix it.
In the spring she had accompanied her father on a ceremonial visit to the site of a major battle twenty years before, to commemorate those who had died there defending the kingdom. Despite the noble nature of the trip, and the honor of being invited, it had been a misery of constant cold rain and slippery country roads that wound up and down through endless steep hills. The ceremony would have been stirring if it hadn't been so watery and gray. They spent two more days in the village nearest the battlefield, while her father's men performed honorary guard patrols, like the ones that had discovered the enemy twenty years before.
The second afternoon, Kallinesha was studying her books of magecraft, reading up on secondary summonings and how to avoid their unwelcome effects, when a dull rumble, longer and deeper than thunder, shook the candlestick on her wobbly desk. She went downstairs to the common room, where the innkeeper and a cluster of her father's men were huddled around a broken pottery bowl behind the bar, rubbing chins and murmuring. When her father entered, they all stood to attention. His sharp eyes scanned the place, as if to find the source of the rumblings. Kallinesha couldn't help but shrink away from those eyes. He quickly put an end to the idle puzzlement of his men and sent them to make sure the rest of the villagers were unharmed.
After they left, Kallinesha stood in the doorway, watching the rain and listening for thunder. After a while she heard something, but not thunder. The clomp of a horse, approaching from outside the village. When it thumped into the courtyard, one of her father's men toppled off, covered head to toe in mud. His hat was gone and a bloody scrape down one arm darkened the mud to black.
"High Commander," the man shouted. "Mud slide. Northeast. Half the patrol's buried."
Kallinesha's father made her stay at the inn, but she saw the battered men they carried back near dark, one with a leg so badly crushed it had already turned a puffy gray. Kallinesha could still hear his screams sometimes, when she was alone in Mistress's house, studying in the quiet. It was the men they didn't bring back, however, that truly haunted her. Five dead, including the one with the blue eyes, the one she'd flirted with a little when her father wasn't looking, a clever, dutiful, perfect example of what a defender of the kingdom should be. Dead. For no reason.
The survivors claimed that the last downpour had come when the clouds seemed to be lightening, and they all agreed that the rain smelled strange just before the hillside sloughed off. One of the wounded—an empath—didn't come around until later that night. Kallinesha was crushing some herbs for the healer when the man gasped awake and called for the High Commander, his eyes wide and fearful.
"Sir," he said as soon as Kallinesha's father could be fetched, "I felt something. Before the slide."
"What?"
He struggled for the right words. "Glee. Cold, malicious glee. It was him, wasn't it?"
Her father didn't deny the possibility.
"Afterwards, I was clawing around in the mud and the rocks, trying to get out, and I felt magic, sir. I know it. Strong magic. And then everything went black."
Her father questioned the man a bit further, then thanked him and bade him rest.
The patrols he sent out that night weren't ceremonial. One of his best trackers headed each team, accompanied by locals who knew the terrain.
"Do you think it was the Chaos Mage?" Kallinesha asked when she got him alone later. "Summonings often take on strange effects, like—"
"I know," he snapped. "And yes, I think it very likely. But if he's left a trail, we'll find him."
He didn't leave a trail. They didn't find him. But they found the recent remains of a camp, where someone had left behind an enforcement bag, just like one of Kallinesha's, made of fine leather and full of small milky stones Kallinesha couldn't find names for in any of her books. Back in Goldhall, the High Mage carefully studied the enforcement bag and declared that indeed it had come from the Chaos Mage. Kallinesha's father cursed the rain that had washed away all traces of his path.
Months had passed since the mudslide, but now when Kallinesha heard thunder, or wagon wheels of a certain timbre, or the neighbor's giant cook pot falling from its perch, it all came back. She'd never let Mistress or Ista see her fear, but it rumbled through her.
When people in the city spoke of the Chaos Mage, which they did more and more often, they did it in low voices, but the stories grew ever more elaborate and terrifying. No one could be sure anymore just what was rumor and what was truth, which made it all the worse.
It would have been easier to face if they understood his plan, if they could guess where he would strike next. Theories abounded as to why any man would cause such death and destruction without any apparent pattern. He simply enjoyed watching people suffer, some said. Or he was drunk with power. Crazy. Trying to drive people out of fertile areas so he could buy the land cheaply. Avenging his lost love. Looking for a legendary hoard of gold. But the one Kallinesha believed—the one that made the most dark sense—was that he wanted to strike fear into the people and the army, to throw everything into chaos. Then, when Andalinn's defenses were down, he could attack. Backed by one of the neighboring kingdom's armies, perhaps. It was her duty to stop him. It was everyone's duty.
She knew there was little she could have done to stop the tragedy of the mudslide, even if she had Ista's sensitivity to magic. By the time a summoning spell grew strong enough to detect, it was usually too late, especially in a case like this. But she should have suspected magic the moment she heard the news. Summonings that powerful often left concrete, discernable evidence. If she had looked for those signs immediately, and warned her father, his men might have caught up to the Chaos Mage. The killings might have stopped right there. But it was no use wasting time wondering about it. The only thing to do, if you failed the first time, was to succeed the second time. This was her chance. The Chaos Mage had finally left a trail. Kallinesha would follow it until she found him. Nothing would stop her. Except maybe Ista.
Kallinesha could barely see the girl's outline in the darkness, but she could tell, just from the uneven rhythm of the horse's hoof beats, that Ista's inexpert control was slowing the animal down.
Ista begged again for a rest, and Kallinesha relented. Maybe she'd ride better and faster after a little break. Ista had, after all, poured a lot of her own life force into Mistress. Foolishly, really, since it had gone straight through Mistress, and she had to have realized that. But Ista didn't think when she was upset. Instead she'd exhausted herself with the transfer, leaving herself ill prepared for hours in the saddle.
Kallinesha stopped, helped Ista down, and lit a fire the old fashioned way—no use wasting energy on trivialities—to heat some tea.
"Eat." She pushed into Ista's hands a bread roll stuffed with pork and mushrooms, then tore into one herself.
"How do we find this man?" Ista finally asked. The horizon had already appeared, a faint line where black met not-so-black.
Kallinesha told her everything Mistress had said. "I know the baron. He's my mother's cousin."
"You're all cousins," Ista muttered.
Kallinesha, from long practic
e, was able to ignore the dig. "I can get us in. Then we find the mage and we…we destroy him."
"Oughtn't we capture him, take him to the High Mage for justice?"
"And give him a chance to escape, to kill us with his magic?"
"But what if we get the wrong man?"
"We'll know. You'll be able to sense his power. And he'll be tall with a gold chain."
"Unless he took it off."
Kallinesha glared. "We'll still know. And then we'll destroy him, secure the King's safety, and stop the destruction he's causing."
"That's all good, but how do you expect to kill someone so powerful? Because kill is what you mean, isn't it, though you keep saying 'destroy?'"
"Yes," said Kallinesha. "Kill." But she faltered. She'd never touched anyone in violence, unless she included her brothers in their play battles or her arms master in practice, back when she was a child. Magic, Mistress always said, is about life, about the essence of things. Kallinesha once insisted they needed to know about martial magic, if only to defend against it.
"That's for later," Mistress said, "when you're old enough to know not to use it. Aggression, violence, that's for men like your father."
Kallinesha sometimes wondered how Mistress expected to become high mage with an attitude like that. If Kallinesha's father were here right now, he'd not hesitate to kill the Chaos Mage and save countless lives with that one death.
"How will you do it?" Ista's voice was just a whisper.
"We could enchant something to give to him—something that puts him to sleep."
"Sleep's so slow. Won't he notice and strike back before it grips him completely?"
"If it's strong enough, and he doesn't suspect us, maybe not."
"What about some other suggestion enchantment," Ista said. "Make him believe that what he really wants to do is turn himself in and confess to his evil."
Stupid girl. Didn't she ever listen to Mistress? Suggestion enchantments only worked if the suggestion didn't go against a person's ethics, his aims, his will. "You think turning himself in somehow fits with his plans?"
"No, but maybe we could suggest something he thinks will further his goal. Some sort of trick. Make him think, I don't know, that it would be a good idea to team up with another powerful mage—with Mistress maybe. Then we can take him to her. Or something like that."
Kallinesha thought. "Might work," she conceded. Ista smiled in the weak gray light, and Kallinesha frowned. "But it's too complicated." Suggestions were tricky, unpredictable, and worked best with the weak-minded or indecisive. She doubted the Chaos Mage was either. "Maybe it would be better just to slit his throat with my dagger." She sounded more confident than she felt, and Ista's face blanched.
"You couldn't."
"I could. He won't be expecting it. Great mages tend to discount non-magical threats."
"How many great mages do you know?" Ista retorted.
"I listen to Mistress's stories."
"So do I, but apparently we hear different things."
***
Want to read more? Pick up a copy of Far-Knowing at your favorite online bookstore.
Other Books by Melinda Brasher
Leaving Home, a collection of short stories, flash fiction, and travel essays.
Far-Knowing, a YA fantasy novel about those trying to defeat the ruthless Chaos Mage.
Agrilon's Arrow (Coming Soon), a YA fantasy novel about a girl whose parents lock her away for showing signs of a dangerous and shameful magic.
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