Of Mortal Dreams: Chapter XIII [Part 1]

Revon

Revon was out of practice. And patience.

The art of ingress was simple but tedious. Much of the time was dedicated to preparation—searching out fertile memories in a subject’s mind then establishing ‘pegs’ within those memories. The greater the emotional intensity of a memory, the more effective and rooted the peg, allowing for later repeated use. In any other case, Revon would have engaged a professional coviner to establish the most common pegs—the death of a family member, an injury or severe illness, a moment of peril to a subject’s life, and other such harrowing events. But there was only one coviner Revon trusted to perform to his standards, and she was not in Orrendale.

Another mage might have said that there was no rush. After all, the maker he’d requested would arrive today and Nightwing would soon be able to fly again. They would reach Dabdagan in another day or so and, as long as Revon retethered Vara’s mind periodically, she would sustain no permanent damage from such a short dissolution period. In terms of preserving her utility, there was no hurry.

But Revon knew the Counsel and its members only too well.

When others learned that an unclaimed Evershade had been found, they would try to use her the way he intended to: To root out the inherited memories of the most famous elderblood mage in history, Isydenia Nossidar. From the coviners to the makers, every mage in Dabdagan would have their own questions and special interests. That included the office of the High Hand, a cadre of fools that technically outranked him. Revon’s claim over Vara’s mind had to be as unimpeachable as possible before she arrived in Esset—before any other mage knew she existed. That made every hour in Orrendale of great importance and every moment of resistance doubly irritating.

Leaving her untethered after their latest encounter, Revon took the cellar steps quickly and emerged into the bright hallway of Orrendale’s keep. A midday breeze fluttered the garish green and gold sigil flags overhead and a servant girl was walking past, carrying with her an armful of crisp, folded linens. She peered at him over the pile, through a pair of unusually thick spectacles, with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity. Revon locked the cellar door behind him, and slipped the key into an inner pocket.

“Where is the Counselhand?”

She hesitated, slowing to a stop. “Sani?”

He grimaced at the familiarity. “Yes.”

“Guests arrived from Esset.”

When she inexplicably offered nothing else, he said, “And where are they?”

“In the feast hall,” she finished, shying away as he stepped past her.

Revon walked until he reached a corridor that ran directly towards the center of the keep. As he crossed the unbearably bright yard to the main hall, he heard Nightwing’s chatter in the ravensward overhead. Another raven answered her.

A ravenrider. But which? No one had announced themselves.

The smell of freshly cooked meat and bread wafted towards him as he passed back inside, his eyes adjusting more easily to the darkness than to the day. Orrendale’s main hall, which would regularly be used for important feast days and public events, was one of the largest mortal halls he’d been in, so it took him a moment to find Sani. She was at the far end with two guests, just past a treacherously tall ladder. A wrinkled, wiry man was changing out candles in the candelabra overhead.

The near guest—eating, as always—was Beneth, the Esseti maker who had rendered Nightwing to perfection, but the other was positioned just so that Revon couldn’t quite see who it was. The back of Revon’s neck prickled and he quickly refastened any parts of his mind that might have been loosened by his efforts with Vara. When the woman leaned forward and he recognized her, he relaxed. But only slightly.

“Hand Evershade,” Sani offered, standing at his approach. “Beneth is here—”

“So I see.”

“And someone else you’d know.”

Sya stood and bowed, her expression pleased but distant, as though they were meeting for the first time in several years rather than days.

“My old lesser,” Revon said, offering his hand. She took it, warmly. “How are you?”

“Well. Very well,” she said in a vaguely political tone specific to Dabdagan and those that lived there. “Though the journey never gets shorter, I have to say.”

He released her hand, detesting the practiced falseness.

“And what brings you to Orrendale? Esset is busy this time of year, as I recall.”

Sya’s eyes glinted through her controlled mask. Revon knew the answer. She was here to learn what had happened on the other side of the mountains, with Tareth. Clearly, Sya had her eyes and ears around Esset and Dabdagan, and her sister Sani played a key role in that little web, otherwise she wouldn’t have known that Orrendale had requested the most expensive Esseti maker alive on an immediate basis. That would have tipped her off that Revon was somehow involved.

“I could use your help, actually,” Sya mused, straightening her belt. Her crimson hair was pulled back, her soul stones were fastened, and she was wearing sturdier clothes than she had been the last time they spoke, almost as if she expected to do some real work. “Creatures have been reported along the eastern border here and Cazagar sent me to investigate.”

Some kind of ruse, no doubt. One that made a visit to Orrendale both explainable and necessary. It was just that kind of maneuvering that had convinced Revon he could never live in Dabdagan. Watching his comrades engage in subversion was exhausting. They were mages, not mortals. They should do as they pleased.

“What kinds of creatures?”

Sani spoke up: “Fleshseekers.”

Beneth coughed, looking up from his meal in shock—his first display of interest in the conversation at hand. Defective mage-offspring, Fleshseekers burned and rotted under the open sky, making daytime movement all but impossible. So, when the rare escape did occur, it always took place in the dead of winter, when the days were short. But they were at the start of summer and the days were only growing steadily longer. Any Fleshseeker that did escape Dabdagan’s underground containment would have to hide in caves and gullies, or under houses, and would have to know where to find them. If even one of the ravenous monsters had made it this far inland, over a hundred miles of rolling grasslands, it wasn’t by accident. Revon looked at Sya.

“How many?” Under the right circumstances, even one was deadly.

“Two most certainly, but possibly a third.”

Beneth grunted, indignant. “And you didn’t think to say, before bringing me here?”

Sya narrowed her eyes. “There’s nothing to fear in the day and you’re perfectly safe in the castle at night,” she finished with mild disgust. “And Revon’s payment is good in either case.”

The maker glared. “I won’t be taking the road back.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” she replied, irritated.

Interesting. One escaped Fleshseeker amounted to a serious error and two were enough for an inquiry with the High Hand, but three escapes begged the question of whether they were ‘escapes’ at all. Revon’s thirdhand swirled at the back of his mind, agitated by his sudden suspicion.

He raised his voice over their ongoing bickering. “And you came alone?”

Sya looked over his face, trying to read it. Trying to decide whether he cared for her safety. Even after all these years. Pitiful.

“I don’t intend to engage them, only to assess how this might have happened.”

“In that case, a thorough remapping of Dabdagan’s crypts and undergrounds would be more apt,” Revon retorted. “Would it not?”

Sya took a breath. “That too, yes.”

“Your opinion would be greatly valued, Hand Evershade,” Sani interrupted. “I have been meaning to ask you, but what with the—” She started a little, catching herself before she mentioned Vara. “Well, there hasn’t been a good time.”

She had barely caught herself, and he could tell by Sya’s confusion that his former lesser had no idea what her sister might have said. But Sya’s curiosity was what had drawn him to her from the start, what had made her his best lesser to date. So whether she wheedled it out of her sister or figured it out by other means, Sya would eventually discover Vara and jeopardize his plans. He needed to keep her away from the castle.

“I haven’t been an active razi in decades,” he sighed, grimacing. “But very well.”

Sya’s jewel-blue eyes had narrowed but her expression cleared at his words. Sani looked pleased and a little relieved. Beneth stood, wiping his mouth of the greasy meal he had been eating, and gestured upwards, towards Orrendale’s ravensward.

“I will know within the hour what to do with Nightwing. After that, it shouldn’t take long to fix her,” he sniffed, waggling a finger at Sya, his napkin still in hand. “I’ll stay one night and not another more. Is that understood?”

She nodded, her jaw tight. He threw his crumpled napkin on the table.

“I became a maker to create monsters, not fight them,” he muttered, pushing past them towards the courtyard. “Damned backwater.”