The Silence of Medair

"There will come a time when you will have to stand forward," he said, firmly. "No-one lives outside this war, not even on Bariback Mountain. I add this. My king searches for a way to victory. Failing you, and without the rahlstones, he will tread a more dangerous path to cleansing Palladium. Think on that."

"She’s not budging, Sir," the Mersian said, tersely. "If there’re troops coming, we’ve got to make tracks soon."

"Then answer me, Medair ar Corleaux. Will you stand with the White Snakes or your own kind? Are you loyal to the blood of Corminevar?"

"I stand with neither," she replied, without hesitation. "I will not win this war for you."

Vorclase let his breath out in a short, angry exclamation. "So be it. But I cannot, you realise, leave you in the hands of White Snakes." He turned to the Mersian. "We’ll burn her out."

Medair didn’t protest or visibly react to the words. She sat and watched as his men set about dousing the kitchen and other rooms with lamp oil. Under Vorclase’s instructions, they left a clear passage to the front door.

"If you change your mind and move quickly enough, you should be able to make your way clear. Oh, and don’t expect that invisibility trick to work twice. We’ll be waiting for it."

"Thanks for the warning," she replied, curling one corner of her mouth up, though she was more than a little worried. The spell-shield would keep out conjured effects, people, missiles, but she wasn’t sure it would be effective against natural heat and smoke.

The mage paused at the door and looked at her, sitting in her circle of safety. He smiled, and clicked his fingers, producing a tiny spurt of flame.

The farmhouse burned.

Chapter Eleven

It would have been possible to run for the door if she had gone immediately, but Medair waited. Soon droplets of oil on the pathway had ignited and it was passable only to salamanders. Tasting the acrid smoke, feeling the heat through the shield, she knew she couldn’t stay.

Kneeling, she unlinked the spell-shield and tucked it safely away. The Decians would be able to sense the abrupt disappearance of its power emissions just as they would feel but not comprehend what she planned to use next. Avahn groaned, but showed no signs of recovering as she levered him precariously over one shoulder, one arm wrapped firmly across his thighs. His hair flicked the back of her knees as she rose with difficulty to her feet. Smoke stung her eyes, tore at her throat.

It was a moment to make Medair regret her decision to stop investigating Kersym Bleak’s hoard, since there could very well be something in her satchel which would protect her from the flames, if only she knew what it was and how to use it. Struggling to keep Avahn slung across her shoulder, she fished into her satchel and produced the very ring which had prompted her decision to give up experimenting with artefacts. Managing to cram it onto the middle finger of her left hand, she closed her eyes. When Medair had first tried on the ring, a simple circle of silver, it had not activated. She could only be sure that it possessed some strong magic, but could make nothing of the engraving inside the band. Six hundred feet of what? The next time, she’d found out. She’d put it on, seen no response, heard a noise and stared toward a nearby stand of trees. And from the ring, as happened now, a circle of light expanded. It had spread along her arm, stretching to cover her entire body. Then she had been in the trees. About twenty feet off the ground, sharing a branch with the squirrel whose nut-gathering attempts had attracted her attention. But only long enough to fall off.

Teleport spells were something only a very powerful adept would dare attempt, and most would prefer to use a gate instead. It was necessary to very precisely picture a destination within the spell’s range. Those who did not visualise their target clearly might never arrive, or even appear within an object. Or twenty feet above the ground.

Medair pictured the low, sheltering hill which curved around to hide the farmhouse from those travelling north from Finrathlar. She’d had a nice long look at that when she was tying up the horses, scanning for men with crossbows waiting in ambush. The light crawled up her neck and face, covered her eyes with a glimmering haze and she concentrated with all her strength on every detail she could remember of the very crest of the hill, of just exactly how and where she wanted to be. Inches above it, not in it. Her arm tightened on Avahn’s legs as the light grew brighter, blocking out roiling black smoke and dancing flames. Above it, not in it.

She hadn’t realised how hot the room had become until she fell into the wind, tumbling to the ground in a tangle with long Ibisian limbs. She righted herself, then hastily flattened to the ground. Spiky tufts of grass pricked her flesh as she stared down at the burning farmhouse, but no-one was looking up at her.