The Red Knight

It’s an unhealing. A curse.

Tell me.

You cannot banish it. You can only heal it.

Another voice. The Magus. I see! Well thought, mistress.

Now it was her turn to raise her defences. Get out! She said it aloud too.

Sym looked at her.

‘Not you, silly,’ she muttered.

Lissen Carak, The Lower Town – The Red Knight

The captain could feel the poison thickening in the air and he didn’t know how to heal. Although now that she showed him, he could see it.

A curse.

The physical manifestation of a curse.

He went into his tower. ‘I need help,’ he said to his tutor.

She smiled. ‘Ask me anything,’ she said.

‘A curse. A physical curse – a poison in the air.’ He went to the door to his tower.

‘He’s waiting for you to open it,’ she said.

‘I think he’s busy, and a lot of people are going to die if I don’t act.’ He reached to door.

‘If it is physical, perhaps we can move it physically,’ Prudentia said. She smiled sadly. ‘I don’t know healing, either.’

‘That’s a fine thought.’ He looked up at his symbols. ‘Wind,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Prudentia agreed.

He spoke the names. ‘St George, Zephyr, Capricorn,’ he said, and the great ranges of symbols rotated silently.

He touched the door.

He could feel the enemy, and he opened it anyway.

And slammed it back shut.

Lissen Carak – Sauce

The wind came up without warning – first a heavy gust that cooled them, and then a mighty rush of air from the east.

Sauce drew a shuddering breath.

‘Get a scarf over your face,’ the captain shouted. ‘Anything.’

The wind moved the poison – but he could still smell it.

And then he felt the sending. It was gentle as snow, and just for a heartbeat the air seemed to sparkle all around them, as if the world was made of magic.

Lissen Carak – Harmodius

Harmodius watched the Abbess’s working and he could only think of Thorn’s statement that men were too divided.

It was beautiful. The sort of mathematical Hermeticism that moved him the most deeply. In it were the rotations of the planets and the paths of the stars across the heavens. And many other things, thought and unthought . . .

‘You are far more powerful than I had imagined,’ Harmodius said.

She smiled. Just for a moment, it was the Queen’s smile.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘You know who I am,’ she said it playfully. She rose from her seat. ‘I think Thorn will find it very hard to use that trick again.’

Harmodius raised an eyebrow. ‘Trick?’ he asked. ‘It wasn’t Hermeticism. It wasn’t a working. Not as I understand them.’

‘There are more things on heaven and earth than are in your philosophy,’ she said. ‘He uses the deaths of the irks to fuel his curse. It is a very, very ancient way to power magic.’

Harmodius nodded in sudden understanding. ‘But you-’

‘I stand for life,’ the Abbess said. ‘Me, and my God, as well.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘He will not be back for some time. I need to speak to a novice. Pray excuse me.’

Harmodius bowed. As she swept past him, he said, ‘Lady-’

‘Yes? Magus?’ She paused. Her attendants paused, and she waved them on.

‘If we linked, lady-’ he said.

She made a moue. ‘Then you would know all my innermost thoughts. And I yours,’ she said.

‘We would be more powerful,’ he insisted.

‘I am already linked to my novices. And to all my sisters,’ she said. ‘We are a choir.’

‘Of course you are,’ Harmodius said. ‘Gads, of course you are. I’m a fool.’ It was obvious, when she said it. Forty weak magi would still be very powerful indeed, together. But it would require incredible discipline.

Like monks.

Or nuns.

‘I will think on it,’ she said. She smiled.

He watched her go, and then sat beneath the apple tree.

Chapter Thirteen

Thorn

Lissen Carak – Michael

The Siege of Lissen Carak. Day Eleven

The captain took the watch to support our garrison in the Lower Town – a small fortified bastion at the base of the ridge. The Enemy has constructed siege engines – catapults and trebuchets – to attack. Because of the rage of our engines atop the fortress, and because we can launch sorties from the fortress through the streets of the Lower Town, the captain says that the Enemy must take the Lower Town first.

He made two attempts, but both resulted in heavy losses of creatures of the Wild. We lost not a single man or woman yesterday. The Abbess called on the Power of God and defeated the Enemy’s poison air. Many men felt lighter at heart after she prayed.

But the Enemy’s engines now throw heavy stones all the time. The air is full of smoke, and many of the farm folk have become angry and downcast.

During the night boglins assaulted Bridge Castle, but their surprise failed and they were driven off.

Michael put his quill down and shook his head at the ink stain on his forefinger.

Kaitlin had not come out to meet him last night, even though he was on his way to the Lower Town. The farmers were angry – he could feel it. Old Seth Lanthorn, an oily bastard in the early days of the siege, was now surly and silent. Farmers muttered when he walked by.