The Silence of Medair

The sandy brows drew together as he blinked at her again. She wondered if he was short-sighted. "It’s spell shock," she informed him, attempting a soothing tone. "Not too serious. Don’t worry, you’ll sleep it off before the week’s out."

Definite perturbation. He turned his head to look at her better, then abruptly lifted a hand and held it over her face. Medair flinched instinctively, but he compensated, the base of his palm pressing against her chin, fingers splayed towards her brow. Before she could do or say anything there was a huge surge of arcane power and the boy said, "Take me to Athere," in a hoarse, barely audible voice. "As directly as convenient," he added, then sighed and passed out.

Medair gaped.

"You little wretch!" she gasped, not believing what had happened. A geas. He had put a geas on her. This scrawny, filthy, half-dead scrap of a boy had geased her!

Medair’s vision swam with unaccustomed fury. It was a spell the White Snakes had introduced to Farakkan. They had geased their prisoners in droves, bound them with magic so the invaders need not fear the conquered. It had been in many ways a merciful approach, but Medair would never forget the frustrated impotence in the eyes of the people of Mishannon, the first Palladians bound not to harm Ibisians. One of them had described it as living with your heart in a cage.

Trembling with anger, she paced about the confines of the shelter, glaring at the grimy face above the matching grey blanket. A geas. The little rodent had geased her. Geased her!

Eventually, since the little rodent was now both defenceless and unconscious, she calmed down enough to sit sulkily on her own blanket, still glaring. There had to be a way out of this.

The geas had not been spur-of-the-moment. He had had it set, just waiting to spring on someone. Not an uncommon practice – many spells took too long in the casting to be useful, but they could be prepared, set, ready to be triggered, and would last up to a couple of weeks before they had to be renewed. She couldn’t tell a great deal about the geas which he had placed on her, though she could feel the power of it like a snake coiling about her spine. She doubted it was as simple as the verbal command he had given. Very likely it had the usual clauses about not harming the caster and so forth, so she couldn’t kill him to free herself and she could not break it. Medair was too minor a mage to even begin to cast such a spell, and the Empire had learned some hard lessons about how much stronger than the caster you needed to be to break a geas.

Despite her limited magical defences, she might have been able to withstand the geas if she’d guessed for one moment that he could or would cast such a spell. Instead, having nursed this viper back to relative health, he had surprised her with a bond she didn’t have the ability to break.

Medair grimaced. Relative health indeed. He looked on his way to giving up the ghost. Most of the power for the geas would have been in the preparation, but what he had used in triggering it had obviously sent him close to the brink. Well, there wasn’t anything she could do for him. He would die or he wouldn’t and it would serve him right if he did!

After a further spate of glowering she pulled another blanket from her satchel and tucked him up more firmly. There was still a hint of power about him and, at this stage, she wouldn’t be surprised if he had a whole sackful of tricks ready and waiting for unwary rescuers.

"A twelve year-old adept. My luck is running true to course." Medair stared out at the storm, which was now driving in through the door. With difficulty she shut out the weather, and carefully fed damp twigs into the fire to alleviate the gloom. Smoke lurked about the ceiling, but didn’t grow too suffocating. Small mercies.

Medair wasn’t particularly good at being angry, so she grew resigned instead, plotting her course to Palladium’s capital on the map she kept in her head. The quickest route would be east from Thrence through Farash, but nothing was ever that simple. As Herald she had been used to travelling without bar or threat through an Empire where quarrels between duchies were settled in the Silver Court. Now Farakkan had broken into myriad little kingdoms clustered into alliances about four major realms: the Ibisian Palladium in the north-east, Decia to the south, Mymentia in the west and Ashencaere in the north-west. Kyledra, Lemmek and Farash enjoyed an uneasy existence in the centre of these four groups, battling not to be swallowed up or overrun in the hostilities between their powerful neighbours.