27 Coloine

We came out of the forest mid-afternoon and turned north to follow the foothills. That was a shock. This part of Balaen is, or was, all forest—it doesn’t even have a name, just The Forest. But now there are low hills covered in scrub interspersed with the trees, and the weird thing is it doesn’t look torn up the way you’d expect if the worlds were mashed together. It looks as if the landscape has been this way forever, thick forest growing right up to where the hills begin, then clumps of trees here and there between the hills and none growing on them.

I’m starting to worry about my ability to recognize landmarks. I know there’s a town near here, right where the Royal Road enters the forest, but with the hills, I’m not sure exactly where it is anymore. I hope it wasn’t destroyed by the landscape changing, though Cederic did

Just writing his name struck me with the most awful heartsickness. It’s not like I want those dreams to persist—I’ve never had sex dreams before, and I feel so embarrassed to think Jeddan might see and know what’s happening—but they feel like a connection to him I don’t want to give up.

We’re traveling farther from Colosse every day, every step, and that breaks my heart more. If he knew where I was, he’d have come after me, done some kathana to bring me back, which means he doesn’t know where I am and is suffering as much as I am—more, because he has no reason not to believe the convergence kathana killed me. I wonder what he does to keep his mind off it. I at least have Jeddan to talk to and pouvrin to think about, and when we stop for the night I’m so weary I don’t have the energy to worry about Cederic. And then I dream.

No. I’m writing this down so I don’t fall into despair. Pouvrin. Today I tried to isolate the similarities between the walk-through-walls pouvra and the concealment pouvra. Though I’m not sure what good it will do. I need a third companion pouvra to those two for more points of comparison. Possibly it’s time to get Jeddan to teach me the see-inside pouvra. And I need to apply more logic to our studies. I’m used to learning from books, so this is new and uncertain, but I see no reason Jeddan and I can’t learn from each other.

26 Coloine

Less cheerful today as the aftereffects of our infiltration of the God-Empress’s camp sank in. We did a lot of walking, and talked about pouvrin on the way, but mostly went in silence. I’m starting to see relations between pouvrin—not between his and mine, but between my own, specifically the concealment pouvra and the walk-through-walls pouvra. That was unexpected, since the concealment pouvra was developed by a Castaviran madman, and I’ve always thought of it as more angular than the others. But the more I look at them both, the more I can see similarities.

I asked Jeddan to experiment with the pouvra for seeing inside things, since he said it was a variation on the walk-through-walls pouvra. If there are categories of pouvrin, if some of them are related, then it could be possible to learn, or even create, new pouvrin based on your familiarity with one of its companions.

25 Coloine

It shouldn’t have worked. I think the true God is watching over us, because there were so many places where the plan should have failed, and luck saved us.

The first part of the plan involved stealing uniforms. This was harder than it should have been because Jeddan is just so damned big. By the time we entered the camp, almost everyone was gone to the front, and we almost didn’t need to conceal ourselves to avoid being noticed. We searched tents and found a uniform for me almost immediately, minus the chain shirt, but I’d seen soldiers without them and judged I wouldn’t look too wrong. Those leather pants are really uncomfortable and stiff, and they make me walk funny, but I’m keeping them just in case we need to impersonate soldiers again.

I was more worried that I didn’t have the sword and knife, but we didn’t see a practical way of getting them, and in the end it was just another risk we had to take. I hate that kind of risk. Normally, if I were doing something like this, I’d spend a couple of days mapping out the camp, stealing pieces of the uniform until I looked right, then walk all over the camp making sure I’d fool people before making my theft. But we don’t have time for that.

It took us nearly an hour to find something to fit Jeddan, during which time I became increasingly anxious. We were nearly spotted twice—I love the concealment pouvra, but it’s not perfect, and all it takes is for one very observant person to look in the right direction and then you have to run for your life. But finally we were properly outfitted and could come out of concealment and walk openly.

I’d instructed Jeddan in some of the basics of sneaking around in plain sight:

1. Move confidently.
2. Don’t keep looking around to see if someone’s watching you.
3. Meet people’s eyes and nod when you pass.
4. Be prepared with a believable response if someone wants to know where you’re going.

That last had me worried, since Jeddan doesn’t speak Castaviran. We decided I’d speak for both of us and hope no one addressed him directly. But no one did. We passed any number of people and none of them wanted to talk to us or tell us to do something. It was so easy I became even more tense and had to calm myself. Bad to become complacent when it’s easy, but worse to be so on edge to overcompensate that you make mistakes.

Then we nearly did get caught. Someone called out, “You there!” I didn’t think he was addressing us until he repeated himself and added, “Don’t ignore me, soldier!” So we stopped and turned around, and I subtly positioned myself so the officer would direct his attention at me.

“Yes, sir?” I said. The man was probably in his fifties and had the kind of florid complexion that comes from a too-rich diet with too little exercise. My heart was pounding as I thought of all the possible mistakes I could make, starting with not knowing how to salute him. I went back over what I’d observed earlier that day and settled for what seemed to be the all-purpose gesture, right arm crossed over chest, right fist pressed to shoulder, sharp nod. It was acceptable and he didn’t draw his weapon and attack us right there.

“Where are you going, soldier?” he said.

“The front, sir, to join our unit,” I said.

“Why aren’t you there already? Malingering?” he said.

“No, sir, Weylan here was vomiting this morning and I was told off to wait with him until he recovered,” I said, bluffing with all my heart, “then escort him, just in case he wasn’t as well as they thought.”

The officer looked at us narrowly. “I want you to take a message to General Burris,” he said. “He’s to send a squad to wait on God at the pavilion.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“And move it along,” he said, then turned to Jeddan and said, “Big man like you, it’s shameful you should let illness interfere with the performance of your duties.”

“Yes, sir,” Jeddan managed in Castaviran, and I was impressed at his lack of accent—though it’s not hard to pronounce just a few words properly. Even so, it was good. This time, he joined me in saluting the officer, who (fortunately for us) turned and walked away without waiting to see where we went. Since he hadn’t told us how to find whoever it was, we were clearly expected to know, and walking off in the wrong direction could have been disastrous. We waited for him to move out of sight, then proceeded toward the command tent.

It was a lot busier than it had been that morning. Jeddan and I separated; he walked casually around to the rear of the command tent, and I turned and made a wide loop that took me to the far side of the God-Empress’s luxury abode. As I walked past, not looking at the tent, I set it on fire.

It was just a little fire, since I didn’t want it to look suspicious, but that meant I risked having someone see it when it was still small enough to be easily extinguished. So I set a few more fires at different places, and then I started screaming, “Fire! God’s tent is on fire!”

That caught everyone’s attention. People came pouring out of the command tent, soldiers came running from every direction, and everyone was squawking and calling out conflicting orders. Someone brought a swath of canvas and began beating at the nearest fire, so I started another one above her reach, all the time shouting and pointing.

I’d half hoped the God-Empress would be in her tent, just to add to the panic, but she didn’t appear. Probably a good thing, because she would certainly recognized me if she’d seen me. More people arrived with buckets of water, which helped—would have helped more if some crafty person hadn’t kept starting new fires in place of the old. Hahahaha.

“I’ve found it,” Jeddan said in my ear, startling me. “Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I said. “There’s one more thing we’re going to do.”

We strolled away from the fire—easy enough, everyone was no doubt preoccupied with terror over what insanities the God-Empress might rain down upon them for letting her things be ruined—then went directly to the quartermaster’s tent. Tents, I should say. It takes a lot of food and supplies to run an army, and I’d seen (from a distance) supplies being brought in by a long train of wagons, supplies probably looted from Viravonian and Balaenic villages.

We went through the back of one of the supply tents that was divided in half, and though we could hear someone moving around in front, the back was unoccupied. We discovered it contained food, so I left Jeddan there to fill our rucksacks and I hunted around until I found a tent where I could get bedrolls, blankets, a pot and some utensils, and a heavy ground cloth I had trouble fitting into yet another pack, but it makes winter outdoors so much more comfortable. No tent, unfortunately, but I was heavily laden at that point anyway.

I concealed myself and sneaked back to find Jeddan, we distributed the load better, and hand in hand we walked off, practically invisible and ready for a long trip. We came out on the southern side of the camp, the far side from both our potential destinations. Jeddan said, “I found a map of the area. I didn’t recognize any landmarks except the river, but the marks on it say they’re heading north next.”

“Hasskian,” I said. “And then Venetry. Well.”

“I think she knows where the capital is,” Jeddan said. “I saw what I think was a map of Balaen. She must have taken it from one of these towns. Even if she can’t read Balaenic, the way it was marked, even I could tell which were the big cities. And there was one up in the northwest with a triple star over it, just like on the flag.”

“She has to eliminate Calassmir as a threat, or have them dogging her heels all the way north,” I said. “And they can probably hold out for a while. If we can get to Venetry quickly enough, they can send out the army to meet her, and from what little I saw, they outnumber her even without the forces at Calassmir.”

“Then let’s go,” Jeddan said, and shouldered his pack. He can carry about twice what I can, and I hate to think how rough I’d be living if I didn’t have him along. Plus, I like him, and not just because he’s the first mage like me I’ve ever met. He’s good company.

We took a very long route around the camp, then struck out northeast, following the Arinz River even though it took us in the wrong direction; the ground next to it was clearer, so we made good time, and having a source of water helped us stretch our provisions further. Though we’ll still need to find food long before we reach Hasskian—it’s about nine days’ travel from Calassmir if you take the direct overland route, so even longer for us, but I don’t think we’d make it through The Forest on the provisions we have.

We walked a good ways before camping for the night, and I feel that buzzing, elated feeling you get when you’ve pulled off a good theft without dying. I think we both also feel more confident: we have direction, we have a plan, and we had a hot meal tonight. Nice not to have to rely on matchlighters to start a fire.

24 Coloine, noonish

I didn’t get very far scouting the army this morning. For one, Jeddan wasn’t happy about being left behind, even though he had to agree I’d move faster if I didn’t have to hold his hand to conceal him. For another, there are still a lot of people in the camp even though the siege was going strong, and I had to depend as much on my stealthiness as the pouvra to keep from being detected.

It looks just like any other military camp, lots of dull canvas tents, lots of cookfires where people were having breakfast, lots of people grousing about the bad food and the bad weather (it was drizzling a bit, typical southern winter weather). I guess there are really only so many ways you can organize an army and still have it be effective. The only unusual thing, to my eyes, was the presence of female soldiers as well as male. The Balaenic Army is entirely male. I don’t know what goes into that kind of decision, and I don’t really care.

But the point is that despite those problems, I was able to infiltrate the camp deeply enough to find their command center, and that’s where I ran into different problems, which is why I’m back here and writing while Jeddan is hunting for our lunch (we ran out of food this morning, and decided he should try to gather more while I was gone, just in case).

It was easy enough to identify the command center, since it flew the falcon flag from its highest peak, and just as easy to sneak into the tent with the walk-through-walls pouvra, and easy to stay concealed, though at that point my fingertips were pretty numb. It’s really big, though not the biggest tent in the camp—that honor, naturally, goes to Her Godliness Renatha Torenz—but bigger than any I’ve ever seen before. It has several tent poles holding up the roof and they actually put rugs down to cover the ground so it doesn’t get muddy.

Even so, military tents are all the same no matter the size: lots of uncomfortable-looking stools, the smell of whatever greasy meat was for dinner, and the dim wavering light of camp lanterns, always lit no matter the hour, so it wasn’t as if it was luxurious. The God-Empress’s tent, on the other hand—well, I should tell this in order, so more on that later.

So it was easy to get inside undetected. The problem was the tent is almost always occupied, and I couldn’t see any of the information we needed lying out in the open. And there’s no way I can rifle through the papers spread out over the tables without someone noticing. There were always three or four officers there, going over paperwork and writing out orders, and it seemed just as one left, someone else came in.

I wandered around the tent for a bit, just in case something changed, but the officers just talked about how the siege was going and a lot of technical stuff about strategy and tactics that didn’t mean anything to me, given that I don’t know much about besieging a city. Nothing useful. So after about half an hour, I gave up and left.

Only I didn’t return to Jeddan immediately. There was, as I said, an even bigger tent nearby, also flying the falcon flag, but with a difference: there were angular symbols printed beneath its beak, the God-Empress’s personal sigil. There was no way I’d leave the camp without investigating her tent. I circled around to the back and went through the wall.

This was luxurious. It also had rugs on the ground, but they were plush and soft and looked as though they’d come from a palace guest room. The lamps hanging at intervals from the tent poles shed a warm, bright light over the space. And she’d brought actual furniture, a four-poster bed and dresser and a little table next to a deeply upholstered armchair, and even now I can’t imagine how she managed that. I suppose if you have enough manpower, you can do almost anything. The place smelled not of greasy, stale food, but of her sweet-citrus scent that made me gag because I associate it so strongly with the deaths she’s caused.

The God-Empress wasn’t there, and I was confident no one would enter the tent without her permission, so I dismissed the concealment pouvra and poked around for a bit. She’d even brought useless knickknacks to decorate her dresser. I thought about stealing one, not because I’m desperate to own an abstract pink marble sculpture of (I think) a woman giving birth, but because it might have been a disruption for the God-Empress to believe one of her soldiers had stolen from her. But I realized she wouldn’t hunt down the perpetrator; she’d just pick some random person to blame and have them executed immediately, not slowing down the attack at all. And even though it could probably be justified as an act of war, I couldn’t bring myself to cause some innocent person’s death. So in the end, I just reflected on how insane the God-Empress is and left the tent. Then I came straight back here to our “camp,” such as it is.

I told Jeddan what I’d learned and we discussed options:

1. I go back alone after dark and look for more information. I was in favor of this, but Jeddan is increasingly worried that we’ll get permanently separated. This is reasonable, but I’m not sure it’s worth the risk of going in together. The real problem with this is that military camps never entirely sleep, and there’s a chance the tent will never be unoccupied. So I’d risk being caught again for nothing.
2. We go back together now and try to distract the officers so we can get what we need. Jeddan’s plan. If we can get the officers out of the tent, we can quickly search for their plans. The problem here is creating the right distraction when we don’t know what would be effective.
3. We capture an officer and interrogate him or her to learn where the army’s going next. The most effective plan, but dependent on too many variables, and what would we do with the officer afterward that wouldn’t reveal our presence?
4. We give up on learning anything, wait for the siege to end, then see which way the army goes and try to beat them to their destination. I really hate this plan, but it’s our last resort, because even though we can move a lot more quickly than the army, we need the best head start we can get.

So it looks like 2 is our best bet. Jeddan just came back with an armful of apples, only a little worm-eaten, and we’ll have lunch and then make a more detailed plan.

23 Coloine

Another dream, more intense this time. This had better not be a pattern, because I won’t be able to bear it if it keeps happening, night after night.

We reached the edges of the God-Empress’s army about an hour before sunset. It’s big, but not as big as I feared, and while there’s smoke coming from Calassmir, there’s none of the noise you get when a city is being overrun. I can’t explain the difference, but I think of it as being more…terrified, I guess. That could just be me putting my own interpretation on it, but that’s how I see it. There was a lot of shouting and screaming, though, and occasionally we heard these deep thunderclaps I didn’t recognize, but they couldn’t be anything but battle noises.

So the army is clearly attacking, but we don’t know more than that because we decided to rest and come at the problem fresh in the morning. The good news is Calassmir doesn’t appear to be in immediate danger of falling. I hope I’m right about that.

22 Coloine

I dreamed of Cederic last night. It was a very intense dream, so much so that when I woke up to nothing but bare ground it was so disorienting I had to go for a walk so Jeddan wouldn’t see me cry. I’d resolved to stop dwelling on the possibility that something bad has happened to Cederic and all my friends, to be strong instead of weak and tearful, but I could feel his arms around me and his lips on mine, actually feel it, and when he wasn’t there…. I hope I don’t dream like that again.

Today there was more walking and more talking about pouvrin. Sometime around noon, just after we’d eaten and rested for a bit, Jeddan said, “I’m going to go insubstantial for a bit. I want to try something.”

I nodded, and watched him go in and out of that state. It’s hard to tell someone is insubstantial, actually, because it’s not like they turn misty or pale or resemble any natural object that’s capable of slipping between things. It’s more in the way they move, as if parts of them get to places before the rest of their bodies. Jeddan can hold that state longer than I can, longer even than I think he’s capable of holding his breath, but we haven’t talked about that so I don’t know how he does it. He can’t talk while he’s insubstantial, though, and he does start to fall through things if he stands still long enough, though again it doesn’t happen as soon as it does to me.

After about half an hour, he stopped walking, went solid, and leaned over to put his hands on his knees and breathe deeply. “I got dizzy,” he said.

“That’s happened to me when I use that pouvra too often,” I said. I waited for him to rise, and then we walked on, though I was impatient to find out if he’d learned anything, or even just what the point of that exercise had been.

“There’s definitely a shape there,” he finally said. “It’s like…a cage, maybe? Or a mold for iron or bronze? But I’m on the inside, not on the outside as you seem to be.”

“Can you describe the shape?” I said.

He shook his head. “Eventually, maybe,” he said. “I just think discovering we are doing things the same way is important. I was afraid our magic was just too different for us to learn anything from each other.”

“I think Castaviran magic is easier in some ways,” I said, “since each th’an is clear, and you know when you’re getting it wrong because it just doesn’t work.”

“But you said you’d learned to create a pouvra using th’an,” he said.

“Yes, but I don’t know enough th’an to make that a practical method of learning magic,” I said. I did the binding pouvra then, with no results—I practice it occasionally, hoping to work out what it’s for.

“If the two countries can learn to coexist, maybe you’ll have the chance,” he said.

“Do you think that’s possible?” I said. It was something I’d been thinking about, off and on, between wondering what we’d find at Calassmir and what the God-Empress’s next target might be.

“It’s either that or the strangest civil war anyone’s ever seen,” he said. “Two countries invading the same piece of land at the same time.”

“But maybe war is inevitable,” I said. “Balaen and Castavir can’t remain autonomous; their lands overlap too much. One of them has to come out on top.”

“Just so it isn’t your God-Empress,” he said. “You’re lucky she didn’t have you killed before.”

“I know,” I said, and then I think we both ran out of things to say for a while. With Jeddan, that’s not awkward or uncomfortable; he’s good at quiet, and so am I, so we went a couple of miles before I picked up the topic of pouvrin again, this time talking about things I thought might be possible. We went back and forth coming up with ideas until it was time to camp for the night, and now I’m sitting by the fire across from him. He’s watching the logs. I wonder what he thinks about.

21 Coloine

To look at him, you wouldn’t think Jeddan was very restless. He’s so big and calm that he looks stolid, like nothing moves him. But when I explained to him this morning what I’d decided, he said, “We should get started, then, if it’s really three days away.”

“You don’t have to come,” I said.

“What else is there for me to do?” he said. “Go back to my village, back to a life of hiding what I am, never able to learn anything new? Travel somewhere else, alone, and get hopelessly lost because I’ve never been farther than twenty miles from my village? I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. At least until you teach me those pouvrin.”

I thought about protesting further, but I discovered that the idea of traveling alone again, after being surrounded by friends for so many weeks, made me feel incredibly lonely. So I just said, “You understand it’s dangerous and we could be killed.”

“I know,” he said, “but I’ve been in danger of being killed for years. This is just a different kind of fear. And it doesn’t seem so terrible. Maybe that’s crazy, but it’s how I feel.”

It was crazy. And I completely understood. I’ve taken so many risks for the sake of my magic over the last ten years that the idea of risk, in general, doesn’t frighten me. I’m not deterred from acting just because something bad might happen. Not that I’m terribly reckless; I like living, and I carefully consider my actions before I take that leap. Mostly.

Anyway, we packed up our few things and headed west. I think we made good time. It’s been a while since I’ve been this far south, and while I know I kept us on the right course, I wish I had a map. We’re going to run out of food by the time we get there, so there’s something to add to the list of things to do in Calassmir, if we can. It’s going to be a busy trip.

We talked about pouvrin while we walked and discovered that we perceive them very differently. I see pouvrin as three-dimensional shapes given form by memory and sense. Jeddan says to him it’s more like being shaped, as if he’s altered to be something that can, for example, walk through walls. The only thing we both agree on is that you have to bend your will to meet the pouvra, that force does nothing but make it slip from your grasp.

We discussed the walk-through-walls pouvra a lot. Since we can both do it, there’s a chance that each of us understanding how the other does it will be the key to learning from each other. Jeddan’s very intelligent and comfortable to be around. I wonder if the other mages are like him? I really hope we don’t all have different ways of understanding pouvrin, because it could take forever just to be able to speak the same language.

20 Coloine, very late (continued)

Jeddan came to stand next to me, thankfully not saying anything inane like “are you all right?” and held my shoulders so I didn’t fall down. I vomited until I was wrung out and empty, then I wiped my mouth and stood up straight. None of the villagers would meet my eye. That’s small comfort.

I walked away down the street so I wouldn’t have to see more killings. Jeddan followed me, still silent. He’s very good at quiet, which makes him a comfortable companion. I think we might become friends, even. At some point, I stopped, and looked into one of the shop windows, though I don’t remember what I saw there, and then I said, “Let’s go,” and we walked away from Erael without looking back.

We had to dodge Jeddan’s village on the way north, and I asked him if he wanted to get anything, and he said no, so we just kept going. Around sunset we stopped and made a fire; it’s starting to get cold at night, and I wish we’d thought to equip ourselves for sleeping outside, but not enough to go back. We ate, and then I started writing, and Jeddan asked about the book and was satisfied with the brief answer I gave him, which is that it’s a record of my journeys. Eventually he fell asleep, but it’s been another hour or so since then and I’m still not done.

The truth is that I’ve been thinking about the God-Empress, and Calassmir, and the army, the whole time we’ve walked today. Calassmir does have an army detachment there, because it’s only another fifty miles to the southern border of Balaen and there’s always been a lot of bandit activity down that way, what with the trade caravans traveling from the jungles where they harvest medicinal plants. But I don’t think it’s very big. If the God-Empress came on them unawares (and why wouldn’t she) they might not be able to put up much of a fight. And, as I wrote, capturing Calassmir puts her in a position to drive deeper into the heart of the combined countries.

The southern trunk route leads to Garwin, where the Myrnala branches south and west, and the Royal Road is named that because it goes all the way north to Venetry, the capital city. Either highway would put her in a position to conquer more Balaenic cities, and I have no doubt her ultimate goal is to rule the new world.

I just don’t know what to do. Time for a list:

1. I could warn whatever city is her next target. Both Garwin and…actually, I guess Hasskian would be the next city north of Calassmir…anyway, they’re both defensible and have military presences.
2. I don’t know what her next target is. If I guess wrong, it would be catastrophic.
3. I could just keep going to Colosse. Those cities are defensible and they probably don’t need my warning.

3a. i.e. I could take the cowardly, selfish way out.

4. I could find out what her next target is and warn them.

1 and its corollary 2 aren’t very sensible options. If I guess wrong, I’d be wasting my time in addition to risking catastrophe. And much as I just want to run to Colosse as fast as I can, I’d hate myself for taking option 3.

But 4…I’d have to sneak into the God-Empress’s camp, and hope to find some kind of drawing or plan because I can’t read Castaviran, damn it, and that’s incredibly dangerous even with the pouvrin. And I certainly can’t ask Jeddan to risk his life over this, so I’d be doing it alone. And even if I did succeed in learning the God-Empress’s plan, I’d still have to find a way to convince whatever city she’s attacking next that they’re in danger from someone they’ve never heard of, at the head of an army they’ve never seen.

So that’s settled. I’m going west to Calassmir. And I’m hoping the God-Empress’s army isn’t so enormous that they’ll have taken the city before I get there.

20 Coloine, very late (continued)

I had just enough time to realize the battle mages had entered the fight—villagers began collapsing, gray-faced, or screaming through flames—when Jeddan shouted and ran past me, throwing himself at one of the battle mages’ horses, and then through it. The terrified animal reared up, dumping the battle mage on the ground and knocking his board from his hands.

It shook me out of my stupor. I feel bad that I didn’t think to attack first, but the truth is I’m used to fighting from the shadows, protecting myself from discovery so I could live to fight another day, and attacking just didn’t occur to me until then. Then I lashed out with the fire-summoning pouvra, which I’ve gotten very good with; it engulfed another battle mage, who also fell off her horse, screaming and beating at herself. I didn’t take time to admire my handiwork, just bolted from my hiding place and ran straight at the leader, wrapped my arms around his leg, which was all I could reach of him, and worked the concealment pouvra on both of us.

I was hoping it would have the same disorienting effect it had had on the God-Empress’s soldiers back in Colosse, but I wasn’t able to look around to see because I was too preoccupied with not being shaken free by the leader. He was disoriented, because he dropped his sword and leaned down to beat at me. I squinted hard and exerted all my will to see him, his arm flailing around, and switched my grip to his wrist and just let myself go limp.

I had about half a second to realize this was a bad idea before he tumbled off his horse and landed atop me, knocking the wind from me and making me lose my concentration and turning us both visible again.

Terror at being pinned and helpless gave me the edge I needed to recover first, and I shoved him and scooted away only to have him grab my upper arm and pull me back. We struggled for a bit, but he was a lot bigger than me and soon he had me pinned again. “What are you?” he said, breathlessly.

I’d like to say I came up with something clever like “Your worst nightmare” or “Retribution,” but all I did was stammer out, “None of your business” which sounds even stupider when I write it. He scowled and said, “I think the God-Empress will want to know about you. Thank me for sparing your life.”

“Oh, she already knows about me,” I said, “and you’re a cocky bastard if you think I’m in any danger from you.” (See, I can be witty and clever. Sometimes.) Then I spun out a string of fire and looped it around his neck, crossing it in back like a garrote and drawing it close enough to singe his skin. He started to jerk away, came up against the fire, and froze. “Let me go,” I said, “or I tighten the noose.”

He wasn’t stupid. He let go of my arms and knelt in the street, holding perfectly still. I rolled to the side and stood and looked around. To my surprise, the fight was nearly over—and the Viravonians had won. They’d taken losses, but more soldiers than villagers lay dead in the street, and a couple of women were controlling the horses, and Jeddan was coming toward me, limping a little but otherwise unharmed. “I didn’t know it could look like that,” he said, nodding toward the line of fire.

“It took a lot of hard work,” I said. Then I returned my attention to the leader, who looked furious now. “Is the God-Empress with the army?” I said. He ignored me. I tightened the noose fractionally. “You know, that fire will burn a long time before it kills you,” I said. “Besides, think of this as a chance to brag about how she’s going to bring her army down on this village and burn it to the ground.”

“This village is nothing in God’s eyes,” he grated out. “She has greater conquests to make.”

“Really? What conquests?” I said.

“She is God. She will rule this land, Castavirans and invaders alike. You think you’ve won today, but you have only delayed the moment when she drags every person in this village into the street to peel the flesh from their bodies and feed it to the dogs.” He looked as if I would be first and he would hold the knife.

“That does sound like something she’d do,” I said. “Where is she now?”

He just glared at me. I said, “Fire. Neck. Lots of pain.” (I was bluffing. I’ve only just been able to bring myself to burn flesh, and I don’t think I could do it in cold blood. But I’m a really good liar and he didn’t know I wasn’t serious. I feel sick thinking about it now, like I was a child playing at war without understanding what it meant.)

He clenched his jaw, then said, “There is an invader city some three days northwest of here. It is to be her first conquest.”

I briefly considered my mental map. The only “invader” city anywhere near here was Calassmir. That scared me. Calassmir is on a couple of major trade routes, and the Royal Road and the southern trunk route both converge on it. If the God-Empress could take Calassmir, she could move her army easily through Balaen—I mean, along the Balaenic highways to any Balaenic city and probably a few Castaviran ones.

“What’s the size of her army?” I said. He clenched his teeth harder and looked away from me. “Talk,” I said, but he said nothing, and I had to either make good on my threat or give in. So I gave in. I dismissed the fire and shoved him toward Jeddan, who held him fast as easily as if the man had been a kitten. Jeddan’s got shoulders like a lumberjack. He might be a lumberjack. I still don’t know what he does for a living.

I hadn’t really thought about the God-Empress until that day—too busy surviving. When she’d disappeared in Colosse, we had no idea what had happened to her, though as I wrote before I was fairly certain she wasn’t dead. So whatever that th’an was that she did at the end there, it seems it took her to Viravon, to her army. All I know about the army is it’s about a third of the combined Castaviran armed forces, but since I don’t know how big that is, it doesn’t really tell me anything. On the other hand, if she’s attacking Calassmir, her army has to be fairly big, because Calassmir isn’t a small city. I wonder if she has any war wagons, or if Vorantor gave them all to Aselfos?

I’m stalling, aren’t I? Because I really don’t want to write what came next. Maybe I’d feel different if I really were Viravonian, because I know some of what the army has done here, the atrocities they’ve committed against helpless people, and even if the Viravonians don’t want revenge (which they do, true God help them) they have to be ruthless to survive. But I’m not Viravonian, and I can’t kill a man in cold blood, so when the black-bearded villager took the leader’s own sword and drove it into the man’s stomach, I turned away and threw up. I am never going to forget the look on that man’s face for the rest of my life.

to be continued…

20 Coloine, very late

It’s taken me nearly an hour to convince myself to write the events of the day. So much has happened that I’d rather forget, because I feel so guilty about it, guilty too because it was so easy to tell myself that the Viravonians have a right to defend themselves in the ways they’ve learned over the years are most effective. But there’s nothing I can do except move forward. And maybe I shouldn’t have started this entry this way, maybe I should have just written it out and let things unroll the way they did today. It’s one of those days where I feel every one of my choices was a bad one.

I only slept a few hours last night because I was up so late writing, but they were restful hours despite the mattress feeling thin, and Kasselen fed us a very good breakfast. (I don’t think I wrote that Jeddan and I stayed in his house. He was an excellent host.) Even so, I felt lazy, so we took our time packing our things—Jeddan has a backpack with essentials, including shaving tackle, and he makes a ritual out of shaving that I’m sure will become annoying when I’m in a hurry, but today it didn’t bother me—and then visited a few stores in the village.

I found someone to buy one of Audryn’s hair clips, only one because it occurred to me that Castaviran money would do us no good in a Balaenic town, so I saved the other to sell later. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s enough for an emergency. Erael is a very pretty town, as pretty as Jeddan’s village, and it makes me angry that they’re probably going to destroy each other because they don’t have the good sense to make common cause.

We were just about to head out of town when we heard horses coming toward the village from the south. That is, Jeddan heard the horses first, and pulled me to one side of the road to put us behind a stack of boxes displaying the last vegetables from someone’s kitchen garden. I resisted, and he said, “We haven’t seen any horses around here, just mules and oxen. And that sounds like quite a few horses. I don’t like it.”

I was impressed with Jeddan’s paranoia, so I stood with him behind the boxes and watched. By this time a lot of people had heard the approaching riders, and it was clear they weren’t happy about it. Mothers dragged their children off the street, storekeepers shut their doors, and soon the street was empty except for about twenty or twenty-five people lounging casually in doorways or on hitching rails. But their seemingly relaxed stances did a poor job of concealing tension. Some of them were standing very near posts or hammers or pitchforks, things that could become weapons under the right circumstances. All of them looked like people who expected a brawl to start soon.

It took only a minute or so for the riders to come into view, and by then we could also hear the ominous sound of a lot of marching feet, thudding echoes in perfect rhythm that to me screamed “soldiers.” Sure enough, six men (or women, I couldn’t tell at that distance) rode at the head of a double column of thirty or so soldiers. They were fully armed and armored, down to the chicken helmets, but their long-sleeved linen tunics were green instead of black and they wore short green surcoats bearing the falcon emblem over their steel mesh shirts.

The man in the lead had black stripes sewn to the cuffs of his shirt, three or four of them, and for some reason he was carrying his helmet in the crook of his arm instead of on his head. The other riders’ tunics and surcoats were white, and each carried a very familiar wooden board in his hands. (His and hers. Two of the mages were women, I eventually discovered.)

They rode right down the middle of the street, ignoring the villagers, who turned to watch them go but otherwise didn’t move. The leader raised his hand in a gesture that meant “stop,” and they did, right at a point where they were surrounded by villagers. I have no doubt he did that on purpose, and I can see why he thought he had the upper hand. Poor bastard.

He said, in a loud voice that carried the length of the street, “In the name of the most benevolent God-Empress Renatha Torenz, greetings. God requires that all Castaviran subjects contribute to the support of her army, which protects her subjects against enemy incursions. You will provide five hundred measures of wheat, four hundred measures of oats, two hundred bales of hay, and twenty casks of beer, all to be collected in three days’ time.”

“We need that food to survive the winter,” a man called out. He stood a little ways behind the leader (captain?), arms folded, leaning against a post as if he were entirely relaxed. His long black beard quivered in the brisk, chilly wind that had begun rising as the soldiers approached, as if in warning, or in omen.

“Your duty to God will bring blessings. She will not permit her servants to starve,” the leader said, not turning around.

“We went hungry last winter ‘cause of her demands,” the man said. “We won’t do that again.”

“If you refuse to give willingly, it will be taken by force,” said the leader. He gestured, and the soldiers began spreading out, drawing swords and choosing targets.

“Your choice,” the black-bearded man said, and to my surprise lightning forked out of the clear sky and struck the ground at six equally spaced points surrounding the soldiers, hitting some of them and making them fall. The bolts that didn’t strike targets radiated tendrils of electricity, making the other soldiers fall back.

I looked up to see where the lightning had come from and saw instead Lineta, leaning out of an upper window with her board and scribbling rapidly. Then she screamed as fire circled her, and dropped back inside the room, and then everything was chaos. Villagers leaped to the attack with their makeshift weapons, or took swords from dead soldiers, and as the lightning faded, battle was joined.

to be continued…