Wartorn: Resurrection

'But I am past a fixed point. Rejuvenation magic is-dangerous, and I've cheated that danger some while now. It's fair and right that it should be satisfied soon. Don't grieve me!'

The twin tracks of Praulth's sudden tears seemed to freeze on her cheeks at his command.

'I didn't waste my life,' he explained, his voice now assuming an unfamiliar gentleness. 'I have lived long, and I have done many things. Accomplishments that preceded my arrival here at Febretree. I've known pity and arrogance and anger and love. I have grown concerned these past few years over the rise of magic in the north. I... secretly feared what has come to pass.'

'The Felk war?'

'A war of magic.' His white-fringed head shook once, sharply. 'I made Cultat aware of these doings some time ago. Of Matokin, a powerful mage, rising to power in Felk. Of the founding of the Academy, where wizards were trained to be part of an army. All the indicators were there. This war has been inevitable for several years.'

Praulth furtively wiped her eyes.

Honnis's hand moved beneath his bedclothes. He was now holding a single glove in his lap.

'I am still in contact with the premier. And with the scouts I convinced Cultat to deploy into the field to observe the Felk advancements. Those scouts come from a particular noble house in Petgrad, traditionally and clandestinely trained in arts that have, with time, fallen out of favor.'

Praulth gazed at the glove.

'You don't believe me,' Honnis said.

'Master—'

'Why should you?' Some of his normal vehemence returned. 'You know nothing of magic. You're as ignorant as everyone else on this miserable Isthmus of ours. Everyone, that is, except one wily wizard in the north, who tapped into a power that has gone witlessly neglected and nearly forgotten for hundredwinters and more.'

Praulth chose her words carefully. 'It is true that I don't know much regarding magic. But I accept that the Felk military is employing it.' She had seen detailed maps of what had happened at U'delph, how General Weisel used the transport portals to move his forces.

'Then,' Honnis said, a bit out of breath, drained by his outburst, 'you have faith in something that most people turn away from in prejudicial fear. Magic is natural. And like most natural things, it is also dangerous.'

He lifted the glove. Praulth saw, with some alarm, that Honnis's hand could not hold it steady.

'You have wondered from the start how I have been providing you with current intelligence of the Felk movements occurring so far away.'

'Yes,' Praulth said honestly. 'I have wondered.'

'Far Speak.'

'Master?'

'Communication magic. This glove belongs to one of the elite scouts dispatched by Cultat. That scout, in turn, possesses an item of mine, something I've handled often, that has essentially taken on something of my ... spirit, if you will.'

'Spirit?' Praulth retreated from the word. It had no place in her world of cool logic and deductive

insight.

Honnis gritted his teeth. 'By the sanity of the gods, Thinker Praulth, don't close your mind now.'

'My apologies, Master Honnis.' How strange. Only a watch ago she had been silently cursing this man. Now she was affording him all the courtesies of his academic status. Not to mention the respect she owed him as her mentor.

Yet Honnis had betrayed her. How could she forgive that... even if this was his deathbed?

'Everyone,' Honnis pronounced, 'has the capacity to work magic. But the facility for it is another matter. It is a penchant, no different from the distinct ability to, say, understand at a fundamental level the strategies and cunning of a war commander who has been dead two and a half hundredwinters.' 'I see,' said Praulth.

'I don't believe you do.' But he said it gently. 'Tell me then.'

Honnis closed his eyes, drew a breath that rattled slightly. 'Magic has a source. People commonly believe— if they believe at all—that practitioners draw on energies that are locked away inside themselves. Some even who use magic in a minor capacity believe this themselves. They don't know better, and they've not been formally taught otherwise. But magic doesn't come from within.' She was curious. 'Where then?' 'Elsewhere. The source has as many names as the gods have faces. The Wellspring. The First Divinity. The Glorious Birth.'

She puzzled over the names. They sounded archaic, superstitious.

'It is the place from which we come,' said Honnis, 'and to where we are all restored. It is a reality of great energy, of vast power.'

'A reality?' Praulth felt herself frowning as her logical mind instinctively picked apart Honnis's words. 'Are you implying that there is a reality other than this one?' 'It is self-evident.' 'How so?' 'This reality is life. What is life's opposite?'

'I am not Master Turogo's pupil,' she said. Turogo headed the philosophy council. 'I am yours.' This last came out somewhat hoarsely.

'Life's opposite is ... ?' pressed Honnis.

'Death,' Praulth said, with a small shrug.

'That is yet another name. The oldest.'

She wasn't following. She wasn't even convinced this was leading anywhere. But she had promised to hear this man's words. Then, what he had said registered.

'Are you saying,' Praulth whispered, 'that magic taps into a reality beyond this one ... beyond life? Its source is—death? That makes no sense.' In truth, all this was greatly offensive to her rational mind. She accepted the authenticity of magic. The Felk had used it in their war, and war was a reality not to be denied. But this babble about the Wellspring or whatever Honnis had said—

'From which we come and to where we are restored,' the elderly instructor repeated. His eyes had remained closed. Now he opened them, peering up at Praulth.

She felt the impulse to go to him, to kneel by the cot, take his hand. But she didn't know if such actions would be welcome. She remained standing.

'I am dying because the rejuvenation spells are failing,' said Honnis. 'Also because I have strained myself by exercising the Far Speak magic. Death is not evil. Life is not good. Both are potent forces, as all opposites are. Both draw great power from the other.'

He needed to pause again, for another labored breath.

'Matokin has reawakened magic in this reality to a degree it has not known for many, many years,' he continued. 'He has produced many practitioners. He has schooled his mages in magic's methods, but he has taught nothing of the ethics of the art. They don't grasp the consequences of what they do. Only the most powerful—the Far Movement mages, I would say—would know anything of the Wellspring. Most would only know that with enough training, with the proper incantations and gestures and discipline, they can achieve spectacular feats.'

Praulth absorbed this. 'But what are the consequences?'

The thinnest of smiles touched Honnis's lips. It was startling nonetheless to see any sort of smile on his face.

'They are using Far Movement magic,' he said. 'Opening doorways, portals. They are entering the reality beyond this. They are flirting with dangers that perhaps Matokin himself doesn't even understand.'

It was Praulth's turn to press. 'Yes—but what are those dangers?' A coldness spread through her.

Honnis abruptly gathered himself. His face became the severe disagreeable mask she had seen so often before. He fixed her with his withering stare.

'Why did the mighty empires of the Northern and Southern Continents crumble so many hundredwinters ago?' he asked as if she was some pathetic first-phase student.

'The Great Upheavals,' she answered. 'And they were?'

'Internal strife. If you require a detailed accounting, I can recite what historians have cobbled together from that chaotic period—'