Of Mortal Dreams: Chapter III

Revon

“Magic is, by nature, destructive.”

Pens scratched against parchment. The studious ones took notes. The less-so, the ones who would become watchers and lessers, did not. Revon walked towards the great open side of the room that overlooked the northern sea. In a rare display of truly warm weather, the water glittered under a noonday sun, oscillating flecks of diamond-bright light. He felt the refracted glare against the backs of his eyes and squinted. The distant growl of crashing waves rose with the breeze, little more than a whisper by the time it reached the rounded stone walls of the classroom. He turned once again to his students, their eyes following his every movement.

“And, as all of you discovered before coming to Arysdur—perhaps by way of a plant, or an animal, or a person—any mage can destroy,” he went on. “A good mage, the very best, destroys for the benefit of the Counsel,” Revon said, turning on his heel and looking over the handful of faces. “To which we owe our present peace.”

Most of the students bowed their heads deferentially. Others nodded.

“But you all have chosen, or been encouraged to consider, the path of the ravenrider,” he said. “Which means that you must be more than ‘good’—you must be great.”

He let his words hang in the air for a moment. Let the whisper of the ocean fill the space. He waited until the students began to shift in their seats.

“In five hundred years, there have only been forty-eight ravenriders,” he said. “As such, I don’t expect any of you to claim the title, but there is no shame in that. What you learn over the coming decades will make you formidable servants of our people, regardless.”

They were ready. They were chomping at the bit. Their power was baying for blood, their desire to prove themselves a great, unseen swell in the room. Now, he could teach them. Revon moved towards the door, opened it.

“Words will only teach so much. Follow me.”

Behind him, seven sets of feet eagerly scrambled into the hall and formed a haphazard line. Like all of the great fortresses, the castle where mages went to school was oversized—designed for creatures much larger than those that now lived there. Ceilings arched high overhead, each door wide enough to fit two or three horse drawn carts. It was a cavernous place, and much quieter than it had been in former days. Their path was a single, graded walkway that spiraled upwards to the right and downwards to the left. All other hallways and rooms in Arysdur were offshoots of this one, long path.

“Are we going to the Hollow?” A light voice piped up, excited. “I’ve never been in a Hollow.”

Someone else chimed in. “Don’t you have one, at your keep?”

“Not everyone comes from a keep-house,” another voice muttered.

A plump, flushed boy pushed in front of the others. “What kind of fell-beasts do we have here at Arysdur?”

We? Really. Revon glanced at him. His hair needed a good brush. “Every kind.”

A round of excited hums and quiet exclamations rippled through the group. By now, they had reached the level Revon wanted. He turned from the slightly graded walkway, towards the heart of the circular fortress. At its center lay the Hollow, a training ground of dust and stone, where mages were given free reign to practice their craft. While not impossible, even the most inexperienced generally found destroying its solid stone walls a challenge.

He led his students down several steps, into a kind of observation deck with a slim aperture that lay across its length, which provided a full but protected view of the Hollow. That protection would become very important very soon. A soft chorus of awed gasps shivered through the air as the size of the place dawned on them.

“It’s enormous,” one girl breathed. “The biggest Hollow I’ve ever seen.”

The boy with the messy hair leaned over to her, voice low. “It’s bested only by the Great Hollow at Dabdagan. So my father says.”

“Find a position along the window,” Revon quipped. “And be still.”

The students quieted, one half lining up on his left, and the other half on his right. Both rows of faces angled towards him, watching. But Revon wasn’t looking at them. He was peering into the hollow, at the four stone doors on the opposite end.

They were too heavy for mortal machinery to move but a pleasant challenge for those practiced at using their third-hand. Revon’s third-hand lay patiently at the back of his mind, an ever-present companion in the darkest recesses of his thoughts. He preferred to keep it small and compact most of the time, well aware of how every weapon can be turned against its owner. He was old fashioned in that regard, living in an age when many mages leaned on their third-hand as a daily device. He’d always thought such practice was lazy.

At his release, the swirling blackness at the back of his mind abruptly swelled and burst from the confines of his practiced restraint, striking out like a desert snake. It couldn’t be seen by the untrained eye, but his students felt the threat at once. An uncontrolled third-hand, while having the harmless appearance of heated air, could actually cut a horse in half. He sensed them bury their own third-hands and protect their bodies by turning away. Such instincts would do them well in the years to come.

Revon’s third-hand coalesced and reached pointedly towards the northern door, spreading around its edges. The experience was different for every mage—some could hear whatever their third-hand touched, others could feel it in different parts of their body, and still others could see it as though whatever it touched was directly in front of their face. Right now, Revon tasted the dusty stone, the musty air squeezing from the darkness of the vaults beneath the fortress, and the filth of fell-beasts. Hands at his sides, he used his third-hand to push one stone door open very slowly. A moment later, three fenwolves leapt from the pitchy dark opening and into the enclosure. Curiosity renewed, his students leaned towards the narrow window. As the wolves accustomed themselves to their surroundings, he pressed the stone door closed again. They were trapped.

“Fenwolves,” he began, voice low. “Not the largest of the fell-beasts but prolific, and one of the fastest. At full speed, they can overtake a Zenhaqian race horse and are about as large as one, on average.”

The same, tousle-headed boy spoke up. “How’d we catch these?”

His use of the word ‘we’ was extremely irritating to Revon.

“They had already been injured and were caught by ravenriders at the edge of the northwestern range. We’ve been seeing more of that lately,” Revon admitted. “As Ravenriders, you will encounter such beasts and it’s important that you know how to destroy them. Injured or not.”

He glanced around, looking for the meekest student. There. A girl in grey,  standing at the opening but an arm’s length away, unlike her peers. She was a Yadirfan, one of the mage houses that ran a lesser fortress on the edge of the Shaandilar. He knew her to be intelligent but with a weak stomach.

“Yadirfan,” he said, drawing her attention. “What’s your given name?”

“Neela.”

“Neela.” She nodded, hesitant. He gestured at the wolves. “Provoke them.”

Her large, dark eyes widened. “Provoke them?”

He didn’t nod or repeat himself. It was important that these novices learn to act after the first order. Understanding his silence perfectly, Neela looked out over the Hollow. She cupped her hands at her mouth and shouted at the wolves. All three whipped their heads towards the viewing deck, noses lifted to the air. Their hackles rose and, even from here, everyone could see their snarling grimaces. They growled and snapped, padding slowly towards the class, searching for a way up. They weren’t starved or kept hungry—killing was in their nature.

“Why,” Neela mused, curious. “Why do they want to kill us?”

“Because we understand them. To understand is to dominate,” Revon replied. “If you don’t truly understand something—how it thinks, moves, acts—you can’t undo it. Now, tell me the seven elements of a living thing.”

Her clear, quiet voice broke the silence. “Flesh, bone, blood, mind, heart, soul, and breath.”

Good. “You will master all seven elements but, in war and moments of danger, speed is the key. Flesh and bone is where you start.”

The students glanced between each other. Revon chose the wolf on the left. It was black as night with glimmering green eyes. 

Flesh from bone.

As the students watched, Revon’s third-hand found the sweeping lines of the wolf’s bone structure, its joints, ligaments, marrow. The creature growled at the sensation then began to whimper as he tightened his grip. A few of the students looked down, shifting from foot to foot. They now understood what was happening.

“Look up,” he ordered. “This is what the Counsel requires of you.”

He had wrapped himself around every edge of the bones, had found every point where they were linked to the muscles. Then and only then did he begin to pull the bone through the sinews, imagining a clean separation in his mind: Flesh and bone, lying side by side. He heard the wolf’s wretched, twisted death cries and its pack’s fearful yowling; he sensed the pained turmoil of his students and smelled the acidity of vomit. But he experienced these things the way one would experience the gentle rustle of leaves outside a window. Background.

The Hollow fell silent. Where there had been a living wolf, there now lay a perfect, pale wolf’s skeleton and, opposite it, the deformed flesh it had once belonged to. Both were intact and the fell-beast was dead, its heart stopped cold from the impossible amount of pain.

A perfect disseverment. Unnecessary, but aiming for perfection kept his days interesting. Revon retracted his third-hand carefully and assessed the observation deck. One student was curled up in a dark corner, dry heaving. Based on the state of the floor, the girl’s stomach was already empty. Another was out cold, his fellow students trying to revive him. He appeared to have hit his head. Revon turned to Neela. He saw in her eyes that she had watched the whole thing. That she was forever changed but standing. She had taken an important first step.

“When they are able to walk on their own, escort them to the overseer.”

She swallowed, her mouth dry when she spoke. “Why?”

“We have no use for them and they should choose a new discipline,” he said simply. “You would be wise to remember this moment. And call the keepers for this mess.”

Neela bowed her head. A third student was sniffling. Whoever it was had stayed on their feet, so he would let the weakness of sentimentality go.

“You are all dismissed for the day,” he ordered, waving the shaken students out of the observation deck. “Remember to read scrolls 171 through 173. Be here at dawn, the five of you that remain. It will be a long day.”

They hurried out of the room, half dragging their weakling comrades, and left Revon in the silence. The surviving wolves were pressed against the stone door they had come out of, only too eager to return to the vault after what they had seen. He opened it and they slipped into the darkness. He closed it again then smothered his third-hand back into silence.

“I see your methods haven’t changed.”

He stiffened. Not many people could sneak up on him. But, of course, she had waited until he was focused elsewhere. That was a mage’s one vulnerability.

“What are you doing here,” he said, less a question. “Does Cazagar know?”

“I would never leave Dabdagan without his permission.”

True, but that didn’t quite answer the question. At the tactful evasion, Revon turned to assess his unexpected visitor. The woman wore blue, the color of the High Hand. Despite their history, the face itself he struggled to describe, a challenge for older mages in general. Her red-brown hair was caught up into a long braid, all but hidden behind her slender neck. As was the style for most she-mages in the field, she wore her soul stones woven into her hair like a crown. It was less utilitarian than a chest plate but more reasonable than a necklace. The crown of stones glinted even in the shadows, entirely made of the same striking bloodquartz. He had often suggested she get them anchored to the skull beneath the flesh, as many riders preferred, but that had been too brutal for her. She smelled of sage oil, as usual.

“Do you remember what it was like, to know you could be killed?” She took a breath and looked at him, her familiar proud expression slackening. “To know that you could die?”

That was a strange and foolish line of thought.

“No.”

She was staring down at the dead wolf. She seemed transfixed. Ravens and vultures had begun swirling down to gorge themselves on the carcass.

“Neither did I,” she murmured. “It’s been so long—forty years, maybe.”

He had seen her afraid but once. “I didn’t train and install you at Dabdagan so you could come back here whenever you pleased. It rather defeats the purpose,” he quipped. “What do you want?”

She met his gaze, sharp. “I was on the other side of the western mountains.”

“You don’t have leave for such a thing.”

“Cazagar sent me. Fell-beasts are appearing in increasing numbers, as you know, and I have been given the task of finding their entry point. It requires that I go where I normally wouldn’t,” she sighed, turning her back to the arena. She lifted a hand to her face, fingers tracing one brow. Pensive. “And I did find it.”

He was not particularly interested in fell-beasts. “Do I look like a siphon?”

Her eyes flashed. “There are people living on the other side of the western mountains. Thousands and thousands of lawless mortals.”

He was briefly surprised. Then his mind began to seek out the only possible explanation. No one had imagined the first of the banished mortal houses would survive the crossing. It was precisely why the Counsel had sent them into the untamed wilds of the western mountains. It was also why they hadn’t sent anyone there, since. Mortals had their uses.

Fascinating.

She tossed her head. “Is that worth a visit?”

“But that means—”

“There is a mage among them,” she interrupted.

No, not just any mage. Revon’s whole being was focused now, on a single point. 

“You felt it—male or female?”

“Male, I think. And, I don’t know how to say this,” she hissed, grimacing. “He is the most powerful lawless mage I have ever encountered. He has been blocking that entire valley for hundreds of years, with a blindsight.”

“Is he like us?” Revon already knew the answer.

“No.” She looked ill. “He burns like fire. Like the sun.”

Notwithstanding the theatrical overstatement of another mage’s magic, Revon hadn’t felt this much excitement in a hundred years. According to modern knowledge, only a handful of the elder-bloods were unaccounted for and, of those, only three really mattered: Tareth Persefydon, Isydenia Nossidar, and Amlis Antesar. With Amlis and Isydenia being female, that left but one option for this newcomer.

“Tareth Persefydon.”

Sya scoffed. “You cannot be serious.”

“Since the Counsel ascended, there has been a strict accounting of births. Besides, only an elder-blood would have the power to block an entire valley,” he retorted, irritated at her resistance to the only option. “You yourself said he was the most powerful mage you’d ever encountered.”

An old feeling of envy slithered through his veins. He had almost forgotten it.

Such natural power. The injustice was sickening.

“But we would have felt his magic before now, surely?”

“Not if it was in place before the Gaunt and if he was able to manage any bleed, as it seems he can. We wouldn’t notice it if it was always there,” he reasoned then, more gently: “You were right to come to me.”

Sya gave him a warning look. “I am no longer your lesser and I will go to Cazagar. I tell you this out of professional courtesy. You have questions. Perhaps you will get answers, after all.”

He smiled slowly and she looked away. Her loyalty to him was so total, she couldn’t fully see it. That had been the intent of his every action with her, since he’d found her as a child.

“But you also know I am the only one who could challenge an elder-blood and hope to win.”

And do so without begging permission.

Sya didn’t try to deny it. Once again, he saw a shade of fear pass over her face. Encountering an elder-blood had changed her. It had shown her something forgotten—her mortality—and, in her fear, she had come to him. There was a time when such a gesture would have been intoxicating. Even now, he felt a whisper of that same satisfaction. But it had been many, many years since another person could spark any kind of true feeling in Revon Evershade.

“Who felt the other first?”

“Can’t say. But he issued a very clear warning,” she admitted, lifting a hand to her crown of stones on instinct. “I don’t expect to receive another.”

Irritating. Their minds had met. That was dangerous. “Did you see anything? Anything from the past.”

Sya squinted, seemingly racking her mind. “No. I was eager to abandon the connection. As soon as he released me, I fled.”

Good. That would have been unfortunate for her.

“Go back to Dabdagan. Tell no one,” he instructed. “There are too many enemy eyes and ears in the Counsel’s halls now. This must be resolved quietly.”

She looked weary, looking up at him almost like a child. Revon raised a hand and traced one finger from the outer edge of her eyebrow, down her cheekbone, to her jaw the way one might paint the same. She held her breath. By the time he took her chin between his thumb and first finger, his mouth hovering above hers, she was frozen in confusion. But she didn’t pull away. She never had been able to. Revon held her gaze.

“You always were my favorite.”

She blinked but didn’t look away. “Once I make my report, a party of ravenriders, redguards and siphons will be sent out to deal with the fell-beasts.”

He hummed, letting his hand fall. “How long do I have?”

“A week. At most.”

“That’s plenty of time,” he murmured. He moved for the door. “Have you eaten?”

“No, but I don’t like northern food,” she replied. “And I have to get back before this visit becomes obvious.”

Once Sya left for the capital, Revon got to work, starting with detailed instructions for the master who would take his place with the new novice class. The institution overseer asked no questions about his departure. It was not the first time he had been called away and, as a ravenrider of his caliber, he answered to no one in Arysdur. They knew enough to think better of prying.

Night came quickly. At the ether-hour, when flying would draw the least notice, Revon slipped out of his rooms. The stone halls and chambers of the fortress lay almost perfectly quiet as he made his way to the ravensward tower, the tallest point of the fortress. The crashing of the sea sounded closer now, but he could no longer see it in the pitchy darkness. Thanks to the dusty winds of summer, the moon was barely more than an orangey sliver in the sky and would little disturb a covert flight.

Revon stepped out of the poor moonlight and into the cavernous darkness of the ravensward. At the moment, it housed only one beast. She hissed a little at Revon’s approach, lifting herself off her haunches to her standing height, her sheer mass unseen yet heavy before him. He heard and felt the rush of air as she stretched her wings and ruffled her feathers.

“Sya brought us news,” he murmured into the dark. “What do you say to that?”

The low warble of his graven, Nightwing, assured him that she might not be able to understand but that she was listening intently. He peered into her nook, where the black of her feathers blended imperceptibly into the deep shadows. As if aware that he wanted to see her, the creature stretched her avian neck and emerged from the curtain of darkness, each footstep sending the tiniest tremor through the stone floor. Her head alone was twice the size of a horse’s and bore a formidable, gleaming beak as long as Revon’s forearm. Her eyes were copper-red, the only color on her, and fixed on him. He lifted a hand and scratched under her chin, an act that would result in the loss of a hand for anyone else. Her feathers smoothed a little and she leaned some of her weight into him. She was happy. It had been a long time since they’d left Arysdur, and many years since they’d been active.

Revon remembered the first time he had seen a graven. He had been speechless, overcome by the sense of power in its form. He had never taken made-beasts seriously, had always thought them an absurd waste of magic, but the graven breed had changed his mind entirely. As with all made-beasts, their beauty varied depending on the skill of the maker, but they shared several key traits. Their essence and primary physical characteristics were ravenic—intelligent, loyal, and observant with beaks, wings and feathers covering most of their bodies. But efforts had been made to perfect the form, and their back legs and tails were those of a mountain cat, albeit with varying degrees of plumage on the very tip of the tail. The first attempts had been little more than oversized ravens, weak tools in ground-level battles. The newer iteration meant dominance over the skies and growing usefulness in ground work.

Nightwing was the only graven Revon knew that sported a hawk’s talons. It had been risky, of course, as some combinations simply would not take. But the look people always had, once they saw the impressive discrepancy, constantly assured him that he had made the right choice. And anyway Nightwing had settled beautifully, requiring less conjuring by the day. When made-beasts went wrong, the opposite was the case.

“Ab razid’yad u’tar,” he murmured in word’lure. A ravenrider again.

Earlier in the day, Revon had worn the plain, grey robes of an Institution master and the necklaced soul-stones of a sedentary, elder mage. Now, he wore the gleaming, black-iron breastplate of the ravenriders and was cloaked in velvety onyx garb from head to toe. While the color was less important, the extensive nature of the ensemble was a necessity in the cold, lofty air of the long flight before him. Naturally, it had the added effect of being menacing, especially so once he lifted the mask that would protect his face from the frigid winds. Looking down at his gloved hands, a strange sort of power went through Revon, and he briefly forgot why he had abandoned his previous career. By the dead, perhaps people had been right to be shocked at his retirement. There was nothing like being the darkness. Like being the shadow.

They stepped into the breathless night, onto a broad scarp. It resembled a balcony but had no rails or walls. Its purpose was not to prevent a fall but to allow one. Nightwing spread her wings and bent low, giving Revon the space he needed to mount. He did so and she stood once more, lurching a little under him.

Her enormous heart beat against the insides of his legs. Where she was a cat, hackles rose. Her talons grated against the stone with a mean hiss. Revon knew she had reached the edge of the scarp because a sudden and ferocious updraft blew his hair back from his face. At the edge of the platform, Nightwing stopped and tossed her head, eager to be gone. Revon cautiously drew his third-hand out, thins as a piece of yarn—Nightwing could handle no more than that—and brushed her simple mind with a feather touch. The brief bond showed her the northern line of western mountains. That was all she needed. Revon retracted his third-hand and smothered it into silence. 

Being an animal, Nightwing didn’t see the need for hesitation the way a mortal or even a mage might. The impending jump had no effect on her whatsoever. They hovered there only for as long as it took her to assess possible threats and for Revon to flatten himself against her back, gripping the tufts of hair where her front legs met her torso. Then she dove into the updraft.

The twist of his stomach before her wings sprung outwards and caught them. The weight on his head and shoulders as she banked sharply to the south and began to climb. The breathless cold.

They were the only things he never grew tired of.