ramshackle they were presumably abandoned. Her father paused at a side door and again looked back. Jennesta was well hidden. Satisfied, he pushed the door just far enough to slip in, then quietly closed it behind himself.
She lingered where she was for a moment. There was no question that she would act. Her dilemma was how. Remembering the last encounter with her father, she considered summoning Helix and military reinforcements. But there was a good chance he wouldn’t still be here when they turned up. More importantly, he looked far less robust than he used to, and perhaps not so much of a challenge. Although she didn’t know who else might be in there with him, of course. In the end her rage at his presence, and a hunger for vengeance, overrode any other considerations. She made for the door.
It wasn’t locked, and opened at her touch. Inside was a short wooden passageway leading to another door that stood slightly ajar. She approached it stealthily. Peering through the crack, she saw a barn-sized interior lined on two sides with stalls for the horses, all derelict now. Ahead of her were stacks of powder-dry bales of hay. She crept to them and hid there.
There was a murmur of voices. The interior was ill-lit, but she could make out two figures. One was her father. The other was a much younger man, no more than a youth, with a striking mop of red hair and a freckled face. Like Serapheim, he carried no obvious weapon. The pair were conversing earnestly. Serapheim dug into a pocket, took out an amulet on a chain and handed it to the youth. The young man stared at it for a moment, then put the chain around his neck and tucked the amulet into his shirt. They carried on talking, and Jennesta, keeping low, moved forward in an effort to hear.
Serapheim held up a hand to halt whatever the youth was saying, then turned in her direction. “You can come out,” he said, his voice clear and steady.
Jennesta cursed herself for thinking he wouldn’t detect her presence. She stepped out of hiding. The youth looked shaken. Her father displayed no such reaction. He seemed calm as she walked towards them, though she judged his appearance as weaker than when they last met.
“You look a mess,” she told him.
“You haven’t changed,” her father replied.
“Thank you,” she gave back wryly.
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Don’t you mean hoped?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Luck and the Craft got me out of the palace. Just.”
“And not without cost, by the looks of you.” He said nothing and she added, “So how do you come to be here? Or need I ask?”
“I thought the… task was done in Ilex. It was only later that I realised you hadn’t perished, or had at least arrived somewhere you could do no harm. And when I saw what you were up to in this world…”
She wanted to say You can do that? but bit it back. “You can’t be that far-looking if you weren’t aware of me tracking you tonight.”
“I let myself be preoccupied. Humans do that. We’re not perfect.”
“That wins a prize for understatement. I assume your arrival at this particular time has some significance?”
“I’ve been here a while. I’ve watched you. I know you’re intending to go to Acurial.”
“Ah. Your beloved orcs. So that’s why you came here.”
“We owe them, Jennesta. For what we’ve done to them. What Vermegram tried to do.”
“My mother was a visionary!” she snapped. “I’ll never understand why she got entangled with a weakling like you.”
“Perhaps I was weak in turning a blind eye to her… misguided notions. But I believe she came to see the error of her ways.”
“There was no error in her ambition,” Jennesta replied icily. “It was right, and she almost achieved it.”
“I can’t allow you to carry on what she started.”
“And how do you think you’ll stop me? By repeating what you did to me in Maras-Dantia? You failed.” She rapped her chest with a fist. “I’m here, in front of you. You’ll fail again.”
“I’ll have allies.”
“Not in this world. None in the empire and certainly none in-” She checked herself as a thought struck.
His thin smile seemed to confirm her suspicion. “Not all orcs are like those in Acurial. As you well know.”
No, she thought, not in this world. She turned her attention to the youth, as much to give herself thinking time as anything. He looked awed. “And is this one of your… allies?” she asked, contemptuously.
“Parnol’s an apprentice; a very promising one.” He laid a hand on the boy’s arm and fixed Jennesta with an even gaze. “And he’s under my protection.”
She didn’t think her father would have made that point if this Parnol was capable of defending himself magically at any high level. So he had to have another function. She was beginning to guess what that was. “Careful, Father,” she said. “You don’t have Sanara here to help you.” She flicked a glance at the youth. “And he doesn’t look comparable.” Parnol shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m warning you, Jennesta,” Serapheim bristled.
“Do it now.”
“What?”
“If you’re so confident you can defeat me, why bother with plots and schemes? We can settle this now. Right here.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he reasoned. “Reflect on the course you’re taking.”
“Oh, save your breath, old man,” she retorted disgustedly.
“If you can see the light,” he persisted, “as your mother did-”
“To hell with this.” She swiftly brought up her hand and lobbed a fistful of flame at him.
For all his age and brittleness, Serapheim was faster. A swathe of energy instantly appeared, embracing him and his apprentice. When Jennesta’s searing volley struck, it dissipated harmlessly. She summoned a defensive shield of her own and continued her fiery assault. At first, her father didn’t respond, until, under the increasing salvo, he retaliated. Blast and counter blast illuminated the cavernous barn.
It was all too reminiscent of their duel in Ilex, but Jennesta was determined on a different outcome. She invested all her concentration and considerable skills in overcoming her father’s defences. Yet despite her resolve, and Serapheim’s apparently diminished state, she couldn’t break through.
Then she noticed her father produce an object from the folds of his cloak. Or rather, a cluster of objects, interlocked. In a heartbeat she realised it was a set of instrumentalities. Her eyes widened at the sight. She burned with frustration at having what she most desired so near yet beyond her reach.
Her aggravation heightened when she saw that her father was manipulating the artefacts. He had them directed at Parnol, who was doing little beyond looking terrified. Jennesta guessed what was about to happen, and nothing in her magical armoury seemed able to pierce Serapheim’s barrier and prevent it.
In a rush she realised the flaw in her father’s strategy. The barricade of energy he conjured was focused solely on repelling magic, which left another possibility. But Serapheim was slotting the last instrumentality into place, and she had just seconds to do something about it. More in desperation than in hope, she acted.
The sunburst spell she unleashed was simple. It was merely the generation of an eruption of light, but blindingly intense. When she opened her eyes she saw that it had left Serapheim and Parnol in disarray, and both had instinctively turned their backs on her. But her father was still fumbling with the instrumentalities. Gathering up her gown, Jennesta plucked out the dagger she kept strapped to her thigh. She drew back her arm and flung the blade with all the strength she could muster.
In that speck of time, two things happened simultaneously. Serapheim activated the instrumentalities, and his apprentice, still dazzled, lurched into the dagger’s path. Unimpeded by the shield, it struck the youth square between his shoulder-blades. Serapheim cried out. Parnol staggered from the blow, then whipped away by the power of the instrumentalities, he vanished.
Shocked by what had happened, his concentration broken, Serapheim lost his hold on the protective shield. As it dissolved, Jennesta began to conjure a further, lethal strike. Her father hastily adjusted the instrumentalities, and with a last look mixing sorrow and anger, he disappeared too.
