the order owing fealty to the red moon, Lunitari, was in turmoil.
Belize walked through the corridors and tried not to smile at the contained commotion around him. Everything had gone according to plan, almost as if the moons themselves ordained his plots and machinations. That day was the culmination of years of planning and aggressive daring. That day was the beginning of his rise to power.
Two red robe wizards stood outside the solid oak door on guard or on vigil. Belize couldn’t tell which, nor did he care enough to ask. He nodded to the door, and one of the wizards quickly opened it for him.
The room beyond was dark and surprisingly cool. It was hot outside and humid, thanks to the Turbidus Ocean on whose shoreline they sat. A handful of lonely orbs floating near the ceiling provided magical light, but they were so dimmed as to make candles blinding. The shadows made murky the room’s dimensions, though he could see the hint of a bed and nightstand, a bookshelf, a dresser, and a washbasin. It was a chamber he knew well, the bed even more so. A robed physician spoke a gentle word to the patient who lay in repose and glided over to Belize. A mouth appeared in the thicket of his white mustache and beard.
“You’re in time,” he said gravely. “I’ll leave you two to confer.”
Belize nodded and waited for the physician to depart. He went to stand over Yasmine’s deathbed and patiently waited for her to die.
He struggled to hide his smile. Yasmine of the Delving’s last coherent instruction was that Belize was to head the Order of Red Robes. The order had to approve his ascension, but that was almost certainly a formality.
Yasmine’s eyes fluttered open; they were half lidded, her skin so pale that Belize could read the blue map of capillaries that scored her eyelids. She struggled to smile, to speak, but only a thin rasp escaped her lips.
Belize looked around the room and cast two spells in quick succession. The first ensured they were, in fact, alone. The second ensured nobody could hear what he had to say. With those two spells in place, Belize finally allowed his smile to spill open. The words he’d kept to himself finally found their release. Belize couldn’t help gloating. He desperately needed to share with someone. It was a maneuver worthy of boasting and only successful on the condition he remained silent … until that moment.
“The other masters of the orders couldn’t make it here in time, for which they send their sincerest apologies,” Belize said. “But they’re currently dealing with a crisis. It seems that a certain three renegades have been making a mess of things. First at the High Clerist’s Tower and now in Palanthas.”
Belize chuckled to himself.
“They more than exceeded my expectations in the hunt. I knew sending Dumas after them would sow chaos, but this is beyond ideal.”
Yasmine continued staring at him in confusion. Her mouth opened and closed to speak, but no words would sound.
“Shh, shh,” Belize whispered, kissing her lips. “No need to tax yourself so. The poisons I’ve been slowly administering to you, my love, have almost run their course.” He paused, studying her wide-eyed expression. “Oh, did I fail to mention that? You haven’t been dying of illness; I’ve been poisoning you slowly. I’m quite good at it, you know. Well, I suppose you know now, but that’s beside the point.”
A strangled gasp escaped Yasmine’s lips.
“Why, you ask?” Belize shrugged. “Well, poisoning you was the only way to keep you susceptible to my suggestions. And it was the fastest way to power. But yes, I also sent Dumas and her hunters after Tythonnia, Ladonna, and Par-Salian.”
Yasmine struggled to speak, but her breath grew shallower with each indrawn hiss of air. She rasped something incoherent.
“Again with the questions,” Belize quipped. “Well, I suppose you deserve an answer. I need Berthal alive, you see. Not because I wish him success, but because I need the conclave preoccupied and looking elsewhere while I maneuver. Thanks to Berthal, and now that incident in Palanthas, nobody will examine your death too closely. In times of crisis, people want continuity and stability. Nobody will oppose my ascension to master of the order. Brilliant, no?”
Yasmine shuddered as she passed through the final stages of death. Her eyes, however, remained clear despite the pain. She focused on Belize and opened her mouth to force out one last word, a spell perhaps. Belize, however, gently clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Farewell, lover,” Belize whispered, drawing in close to her ear. “Now … shut up and die.”
The keelboat had sailed past the naval docks of Palanthas and out into the Bay of Branchala proper. It followed the mountainous coastline until the mountains turned to high-sloped hills just before the Gates of Paladine marked the mouth of the bay and the Turbidus Ocean beyond.
The keelboat anchored close to the sandy shore and ferried its passengers by rowboat to the bay’s western beach. From there, Par-Salian, Tythonnia, and Ladonna followed Raff on foot as he navigated the twisting maze of hill paths to the west. Where they were headed, Raff did not say-at least until the third night of travel, when the Vingaard Mountains were behind them and the grassy plains stretched out before them.
Tythonnia and her compatriots were glad to finally have a bed of grass to sleep on, and within moments after eating a cooked hare beneath the open sky, Ladonna and Par-Salian settled in to their bedrolls. No sooner had they closed their eyes than they were asleep.
That left Tythonnia to quietly help Raff with the cleaning of the hare meat from the bone and burying the viscera in the pouch of the animal’s fur.
“You do that well,” Raff remarked.
“Practice,” Tythonnia admitted. “My father taught me everything I know about hunting and surviving.”
“Did he teach you magic as well?” Raff asked.
“No. That was Desmora, a wise woman in our village. She had Vagros blood.”
“Really!” Raff said, his curiosity piqued. “Wyldling magic?”
Tythonnia blushed then realized there was nothing to be ashamed of, not in front of Raff. “Some Wyldling craft,” she admitted. “But it was a hard discipline.”
“Yes!” Raff said. “Discipline. People miss that fact. They think the Wyldling ways are carefree-easy. Which clan of Vagros did she come from?”
“The Gratos,” Tythonnia said. She washed her hands with a bit of water from her waterskin.
“I know them,” Raff said, nodding. “I believe they’ve settled, most of them. A few Vagros are with us.”
“That’s surprising,” Tythonnia said.
“Hunters captured one of their seers. For practicing Wyldling magics. They’re nearly the last practitioners of it, you know.”
“Ah,” Tythonnia remarked. She couldn’t help herself. She felt her skin flush at the comment. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?” Raff asked, scrutinizing her. “You’re not part of the Wizards of High Sorcery anymore.”
“But I was,” Tythonnia said, drying her hands. “I can’t help feeling responsible, like I failed somehow-” She hesitated.
Raff cocked an eyebrow at her and waited for her to complete her sentence.
Tythonnia glanced at the others. “The Wizards of High Sorcery don’t understand why certain magics exist.”
Raff nodded and motioned for Tythonnia to sit next to him on the grass, away from the others. When they were both seated, their legs crossed, Raff planted his chin in the palm of his hand and waited for her to continue.
“They can’t tell the difference between why
“And why do the others practice their magic?” he asked with a half-cocked smile.
Tythonnia felt like she was back with Highmage Astathan, answering his riddling questions and trying to glean the reasons behind the queries. “To offer comfort,” Tythonnia said.
Raff smiled and nodded; he seemed pleased, like a tutor’s pride for the ingenuity of his principal student.
“The orders don’t understand that,” Raff said. “They think all sorcerers study magic for the same reason: for
