The End of Magic - Chapter 21
Jan. 24th, 2022 07:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desastristaThe End of Magic is an original multichaptered fantasy work that I am currently publishing on both AO3 and Dreamwidth. You can find the master post of all chapters here or just click the "end of magic" tag. (AO3 link here)
When Nadide’s mother had been alive, she had enjoyed telling her only daughter what to expect from the day of her wedding. “You’ll look so beautiful, with your hair finally up, and we’ll get you the finest dress in all of Kadehir,” she would say with a smile. “And when you leave the house, you’ll have your family and dancers and singers to escort you to your husband and your new life.”
The morning that Nadide was to wed, Esma’s hands shook so badly braiding her hair that the brush got caught several times. “You should have your family here,” the maidservant kept repeating, half to herself. “This doesn’t seem right. It’s not supposed to be like this.” Perhaps for a girl who had wound so many of her dreams into her own marriage day, it was a disappointment to see how this one was playing out. Nadide, however, suffered no such delusions. She finally lost her patience and grabbed the brush from Esma to finish the job herself. It was not artfully done, but she did not need it to be, and at least her hands were steady.
When it was time for Nadide to put on her cloak and climb into the palanquin, there were no dancers beside her. There was no music to send her off. There was hardly anyone at all to send her off. Her brother still slept and Kadim waited by his side. That left only Esma, who said nothing and just worried her bottom lip as the men that Kadim had hired carried Nadide towards the Stand. The procession had all the joy and levity of a funeral march. Nadide found she didn’t mind.
When their sad procession finally reached the Stand, Nadide walked towards the Inner Sanctum with her face impassive and her head held high. It was crowded today, and she could feel the stare of magicians and Mucevheden alike on her. Doubt and something worse filled their expressions. Nadide found herself wondering how much they knew about what had happened to her brother. Too much and not enough, if no one was trying to stop her. But that was no surprise. Nadide had learned months ago not to place too much of her faith in the men of the Stand.
Nadide hesitated as she stepped into the entrance of the Inner Courtyard. Esma took her cloak and tried her best to smile.
“At least you are doing what is best to help your brother.”
Nadide surveyed the men inside, who had assembled for this farce of a marriage. She was here to do what her brother had tried and failed to do; thinking of the price, she knew Ozal would never approve. “Something like that,” she murmured, and started walking towards the God-trees.
Even with her magic diminished, the boughs of the Maiden were beautiful and bountiful. Savaner sat waiting for Nadide on a cushion underneath the flowered branches. He was the very image of what a kishah should be; his white turban elegantly tied, the cloth of his robe rich but the color subdued, his saber resting almost casually against his hip. Mahir stood behind him with his eyes cast downwards; Nadide wondered if it was duty, the spell or shame that stopped him from sparing her even a glance. In front of both of them stood the Imperial Magician and his Mucevhed. With his colorful robes and jewelry, the Imperial Magician had a festive air about him that Savaner and Nadide both lacked utterly. It might have been because he was the only one of the three who actually smiled.
The rest of the men Nadide passed and recognized only distantly. Several kishahs, but also some high ranking ministers, a few priests, and even some foreigners that must be some provincial leaders. It was not a large group. But it was a well-connected group, and that was what Nadide had hoped for.
She could hear the men whisper as she walked through their ranks. She was alone. It was unusual to see a bride without at least someone who would escort her to her husband. The men stared, and their stares were pinpricks against her skin, but Nadide did not flinch.
She did not spare a second glance for any of the men around her. She only looked straight ahead and thought of all the times she had magic-walked to this very courtyard. It had felt at the time like all the magic of the world pooled into the roots of the God-trees. She could feel it still. The courtyard was full of magic. The very air seemed thick with it.
Nadide might not have had an escort, but she was not alone. Her mother had been wrong about her wedding, but Nadide had all the procession she needed, even if no one else could see it.
The magic of Kadehir was with her, and she intended to use it.
Nadide only stopped walking when she reached the trunk of the Maiden. Then, she stopped and bowed first to the Imperial Magician, then to Savaner, and finally -- deepest of all -- to the Maiden herself before finally taking a seat upon the cushion opposite the kishah. She kept her eyes low and pretended it was modesty that stopped her from meeting Savaner’s eyes. Her hands clenched so tightly in her lap that she was worried her nails might draw blood.
“What a beautiful day for a wedding,” the Imperial Magician started. He was smiling fondly at them both, oblivious to the fear and the fury consuming Nadide from the inside. “I know the conditions are -- perhaps not what any of us would have liked. But Kadehir has a hard-won peace and this marriage is just one more reason to celebrate.”
He prattled on and Nadide heard less and less. There was only the blood rushing in her ears, the sound of her own heart beating louder and louder. She wondered that none of the guests appeared to hear the noise. If they could, would they have tried to stop this farce? But no one moved to stop the Imperial Magician. No one was going to stop Nadide.
She’d gone this far. There was no turning back.
“Wait,” she cried out, interrupting the Imperial Magician himself. “There is something that Sav -- something that my husband would like to say.”
She heard the mutterings of disapproval from the crowd. A wedding was sacred -- any interruption was profane, an interruption by the bride unimaginable.
That would not stop her. “We’re underneath the boughs of the Maiden, whose virtue is truth,” she continued, looking directly at Savaner for the first time. “This is no place for secrets.”
His eyes narrowed. She saw suspicion but not surprise in his expression. Perhaps he had been expecting some last trick of hers. But she could see that he was not worried. This little rebellion of hers would be easily quelled. Ahmad and her brother were gone. Of what consequence was the leftover Nadide?
He opened his mouth to disavow her, and instead said, “I cursed Ozal bajedi.”
In the brutal silence that followed, he added, “I killed Eryadin bajedi.”
Nadide released the breath that had sat like a rock on her chest even as she closed her fists tighter. The bright white of the truth-telling spell burned against her palms; she did not want any of its light to escape and reveal to the courtyard the true cause of Savaner’s sudden honesty.
She need not have bothered. No one was looking at her. The assembled men all stared at the kishah in mute horror. And then the whispers began. At first, just a lone murmur from the crowd. But Nadide could see the men turning to each other, their gaze still on Savaner. She could only hear broken bits of conversation. Shock. Disbelief. But of course some were claiming that they had suspected it all along.
“I cursed both of them and blamed the Vaspahnians,” Savaner started again. His voice croaked as the words came out, and he seemed to chase after each one, as if he might recall it back to his tongue if he just tried hard enough.
He’d fought hard to earn the respect of the men here, Nadide knew. He’d killed for it. And now that he had it, he was being forced to reveal what he had done to obtain it. And that was going to make him lose it all.
Nadide was smiling faintly when he finally turned to look at her. She saw the recognition slowly dawning in his eyes. And with it, hatred.
“Your brother and Eryadain bajedi were fools.” He spat the words at her feet. “They thought Kadehir could talk its way to peace with the Vaspahanians. As if there could be any peace with a nation that had long ago stopped fearing magic.” He was no longer trying to hold back his words; on the contrary, he seemed to relish in them now. “I thought it would only be fitting if I killed them and made it seem like the Vaspahanians had done it. It would be a chance to practice the kind of magic that hadn’t been done in Kadehir since the first settlers -- the kind of magic that would save Kadehir. Their death would purchase the peace they’d spent so many years begging the Vaspahanians for.”
“This is -- this cannot be true.” The Imperial Magician said, still rooted in his spot. “A member of the Stand is dead, Savaner, and you are saying --”
There was no need for the spell anymore. Nadide extinguished the light between her fingers and stood up. “He is not saying anything,” she snapped. “He is confessing! He has confessed to murder in front of the God-trees themselves!”
The Imperial Magician blanched. The most important man in Kadehir, and he just stood there gaping at her.
“My spell was meant to kill both of them. I regret that I only succeeded at one.” Savaner started to stand, too. His eyes had not left Nadide. She swallowed heavily, but she met his gaze. It was much too late to back down now. “I always wondered,” he said, half under his breath, “how your brother survived all those months before the desert magician arrived.”
“My brother will see you hang,” she spat back. Turning to the Imperial Magician, she beseeched again, “He has just confessed. You arrested Ahmad bajedi earlier for a lesser crime than this. How can you stand by and do nothing now?”
“I --” the Imperial Magician stumbled. “I never -- I mean, Savaner.” He sounded disappointed. Nadide felt her gut twist. A member of the Stand dead, a boy’s corpse buried by the shore, her brother attacked, and the most Tolga bajedi could muster was disappointment.
“Go,” Savaner nodded. “She is right. Get your guards. I have confessed.”
Evidently a confessed murderer’s words still held more weight than Nadide’s. The Imperial Magician finally stepped away, even as Nadide cursed him under her breath. The crowd had started to melt away, leaving Savaner, Mahir with his empty eyes, and Nadide alone underneath the flowering branches of the Maiden.
It did not matter if the Imperial Magician came back with his guards or not. She had done it. She had robbed Savaner kishah of what he valued most: the approval of the men in the Stand. But there was a reason she had told Kadim she might not come back home today. She knew what it was like to lose everything. She knew what it did to people. What it would do to Savaner kishah.
She felt the ground under her feet start to shake as Savaner started to cast a spell, and she drew the magic of Kadehir to her once again.
Mahir felt his master drawing on his magic. He was drawing on a lot of magic. The ground itself was lifting around them, forming a wall of dirt and stone that cut off him and Nadide from the rest of the courtyard. Mahir heard some surprised shouts from outside, but the sound was cut off as the walls rose higher and higher. They were entirely cut off from the rest of the courtyard.
Savaner did not want an audience for what he was about to do. Mahir’s stomach twisted on itself. He’d seen his master angry before, furious even, but this was beyond anything he had seen before. And this time, Nadide was his target.
The janum called forth a shield charm, but it collapsed under the sheer force of the gust of wind that Savaner summoned next and Nadide was knocked hard to the ground.
“You wanted to hear the truth so badly,” Savaner called out. “Do you think it will help you now? Do you think it will help your brother now?” Mahir was surprised to hear the wounded pride in his master’s voice. No doubt he had thought, in his own way, that he was genuinely helping Nadide. He had thought he had been helping Kadehir.
All those years ago, when he had sold Mahir away to a caravan, had he convinced himself that he had been helping Mahir too?
Nadide raised herself slowly up on her forearms. Her hair had been knocked loose, but there was a perfect -- dangerous -- clarity in her eyes. She laughed, “Did you think I was afraid to face you alone? I am going to kill you. Finally.”
The ground itself shook and split from under her palms. Savaner lurched for balance. Mahir, too dazed by the spell and his own indecision, fell uncertainly to the ground.
He recognized the spell. It was commonly taught in the Stand -- Nadide must have seen her brother or father practice it. Mahir had seen enough magicians do it to know that her control was lacking, but she had put enough power into the spell that finesse didn’t matter. The air itself around her seemed to shine white. Mahir had to blink to make sure he was not seeing things. But no. He’d always heard that there was a lot of magic in the soil, in the air of Kadehir.
And now Nadide was wielding it against Savaner.
Savaner pulled sharply on Mahir’s magic in response. Lightning crackled in the air. Mahir flinched. The pull felt like a knife to his ribs. Savaner seemed intent on matching Nadide blow for blow, but Mahir was not Kadehir. He did not have that much magic to provide. But still his master took and took from him.
Mahir thought of the boy on the beach, his magic drained entirely from him. At the time he’d thought that boy should be him.
Now maybe it would be.
The lightning hit Nadide again, and her shield lasted longer this time but still shattered in her hands. She lurched backwards for a moment before finding her footing to cast another spell.
Mahir’s hair whipped at his neck as Nadide started to summon a cyclone.
No, Mahir wanted to say. That’s another Stand spell; he knows how to counter that. And indeed Savaner had started to summon a shield of his own. It was stronger and sturdier than the one Nadide had made. It was draining the very air from Mahir’s lungs but Savaner did not care, as long as the spell held.
If you want to beat him, Mahir found himself thinking, you have to do something that he hasn’t seen before.
Ahmad had used Savaner kishah’s magic against him. He’d moved his arm to misdirect a spell, even undid the spell from his Mucevhed’s collar. It was not magic the Stand was used to seeing, it was magic that had shocked the Imperial Magician and Ozal bajedi, but it was magic that had easily beaten Savaner in a fight.
Nadide was trying to fight like she was a member of the Stand. But Savaner kishah had years of the kind of training that Nadide could only have witnessed secondhand. Nadide could call on more magic, but as long as she used the Stand’s spells, Savaner would have the upper hand. He might kill Mahir in the process, but he would have the upper hand.
He wanted to tell the janum that -- wanted to yell the truth out to her -- but the spell kept his mouth firmly closed.
If only Ahmad were here, Mahir thought sadly. Nadide had always listened to him; he would know just what to tell the janum to do so that she could end this.
The wind was still bearing down on them. Savaner pulled on Mahir’s magic again when his shield started to waver. The spell held, but Mahir’s vision blurred and he grasped blindly at the ground to try and orient himself.
Some part of him knew that he should move. If he walked behind Savaner, the shield would protect him too. But it was more than that. Savaner wanted him to do that -- wanted him to stop putting himself in harm’s way, so he could continue to use his magic. Continue to drain him. And since Savaner wanted Mahir to do that, the spell wanted Mahir to do it too. Mahir felt his legs start to move. He was standing up. And then he stopped.
What a fool he’d been earlier, he realized with a start. If Ahmad were here, he wouldn’t be giving Nadide advice. He wouldn’t care about the fight, not really. He would be trying to stop the spell from killing Mahir.
Ahmad had said it was a suggestion spell. Its power was to change what Mahir wanted. So no doubt if Ahmad were here, he would be asking him that question that Mahir never seemed to have an answer to:
What do you want, Mahir?
No one had ever asked him that question before Ahmad. All his life, Mahir had been encouraged to erase himself. The art of being a Mucevhed was to disappear, he’d been told. And he’d been so eager to disappear. He had learned how to stand attentively but inconspicuously. He’d been praised whenever he denied any part of himself and replaced it with the wishes of others. Even when he had grown older, even when he left Kadehir, it had been the only thing he had known and so it had been what he kept doing. He was supposed to be as quiet and forgettable as a shadow, and shadows did not want.
It had only been Ahmad who had questioned that. Ahmad had been the first person who asked him what he wanted and took the time to listen.
And if he had been here, if he asked Mahir what he wanted now, Mahir thought he had an answer this time: he would say that he just wanted to be his own person. He did not want to be a tool anymore for a man who he despised.
The shield that Savaner had conjured disappeared. There was nothing left to stop Nadide’s spell from bearing down on them. Savaner was knocked on his back, only a few paces from Mahir. He stayed on the ground even as Mahir made to stand. Mahir could feel that pull again at his side -- Savaner was trying to summon another spell -- but this time he fought it and the pull vanished. The collar’s spell was strong, but Ahmad had been right. It was just a suggestion spell, and Mahir could break it.
“Mahir --” Savaner started. There was an impatience in his voice. He didn’t known. He hadn’t realized what had happened.
Mahir looked around. The way that Savaner had fallen, the saber he had been wearing had been knocked loose from his side. It was only a few paces away. Mahir stared at it for a long moment and then stared at his master. His former master. And then he did something that he had been forbidden from doing for a very long time: he made up his mind for himself.
It took only a moment to grab the sword and to slit Savaner kishah’s throat.
There was quiet in the Inner Sanctum as the kishah died. Mahir let the sword drop to the ground. His breath was coming in fast, shallow pants. The courtyard seemed to be spinning around him. Maybe it was the result of having so much magic drained from him so fast. Maybe it was shock. Mahir didn’t know. Even keeping his footing steady felt like a victory.
There was a loud groan as the earth underneath Mahir shifted. The walls that Savaner had created around the God-trees started to collapse back to the ground -- and then just as suddenly they stopped.
Mahir turned to see Nadide standing in front of him with one hand out and her palm pointed towards the sky. She looked like she’d been dragged through the mud; her hair was loose, her gown torn and muddied, and dirt and blood caked on her arms and face. But the white light she had conjured held steadily in front of her.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“It’s over,” he nodded.
Nadide walked over to the body and gave it a long stare. Her expression was unreadable, but her lips curled in a bitter smile. Then she turned to Mahir.
“The Imperial Magicians and the others -- they can’t have gone far. They might even still be in this courtyard. And while they didn’t try to interfere with what Savaner was doing, once I let these walls fall down again, they’ll have questions about what happened here.” Mahir nodded, not quite sure why she was telling him this, until she added, “I’m not sure there’s anything I can say that will save you.”
Mahir swallowed heavily. Nadide was right. A Mucevhed lifting a hand against his master was worse than unbelievable. It was an abomination. Once the men of the Stand knew what he did, it would be a kindness if they were content just to hang him.
Maybe he could have fled or hid. But he did not want to do either.
“I’m not afraid of them finding out the truth,” he said.
After all, the truth meant that he was at last what Ahmad had always been telling him he was: free.
The janum gave him an appraising look and then nodded. She took a deep breath and then extinguished the light in her palm.
The ground shook. Mahir could see the walls that Savaner had made start to collapse. He braced himself to see who was waiting on the other side for them. But then he felt his footing slip, and his attention was no longer on the rest of the courtyard. Instead, he looked down and saw the ground underneath him was starting to give way.
“Is this part of the spell?” he asked Nadide.
She had gone pale. “This isn’t me.”
Mahir barely had time to move before the ground split underneath his feet. Thick coils of white growth forced themselves up from the ground. Roots, Mahir thought dumbly. But that was impossible. He’d seen the roots of the God-trees before. They did not grow so close to the ground. But then he turned to look at the God-trees again and it was the strangest thing in the world. They had started to grow. In all the time he had lived in Kadehir, he’d never heard of the God-trees growing. He’d never heard of them changing form at all. But now their roots were starting to expand and push aboveground, their trunks had started to thicken and swell, and their branches were stretching further and further and starting to reach for the sky. And then as Mahir watched, more and more trees started to push their way through the ground, their trunks growing quickly and unfurling new branches as they broke through the ground and rose to join their siblings. It was not just the Seven anymore; it was a whole forest of magic given form.
And this forest was going to destroy everything in its path.
Mahir felt Nadide’s hand grab his and pull him backwards. “We have to get out of here,” she cried out. They ran for the entrance of the Stand, and they could see the crowd from earlier doing the same. Distantly, they heard screams coming from outside the wall, as they and the rest of the Stand watched the God-trees devour what had once been the Inner Sanctum.
When Nadide’s mother had been alive, she had enjoyed telling her only daughter what to expect from the day of her wedding. “You’ll look so beautiful, with your hair finally up, and we’ll get you the finest dress in all of Kadehir,” she would say with a smile. “And when you leave the house, you’ll have your family and dancers and singers to escort you to your husband and your new life.”
The morning that Nadide was to wed, Esma’s hands shook so badly braiding her hair that the brush got caught several times. “You should have your family here,” the maidservant kept repeating, half to herself. “This doesn’t seem right. It’s not supposed to be like this.” Perhaps for a girl who had wound so many of her dreams into her own marriage day, it was a disappointment to see how this one was playing out. Nadide, however, suffered no such delusions. She finally lost her patience and grabbed the brush from Esma to finish the job herself. It was not artfully done, but she did not need it to be, and at least her hands were steady.
When it was time for Nadide to put on her cloak and climb into the palanquin, there were no dancers beside her. There was no music to send her off. There was hardly anyone at all to send her off. Her brother still slept and Kadim waited by his side. That left only Esma, who said nothing and just worried her bottom lip as the men that Kadim had hired carried Nadide towards the Stand. The procession had all the joy and levity of a funeral march. Nadide found she didn’t mind.
When their sad procession finally reached the Stand, Nadide walked towards the Inner Sanctum with her face impassive and her head held high. It was crowded today, and she could feel the stare of magicians and Mucevheden alike on her. Doubt and something worse filled their expressions. Nadide found herself wondering how much they knew about what had happened to her brother. Too much and not enough, if no one was trying to stop her. But that was no surprise. Nadide had learned months ago not to place too much of her faith in the men of the Stand.
Nadide hesitated as she stepped into the entrance of the Inner Courtyard. Esma took her cloak and tried her best to smile.
“At least you are doing what is best to help your brother.”
Nadide surveyed the men inside, who had assembled for this farce of a marriage. She was here to do what her brother had tried and failed to do; thinking of the price, she knew Ozal would never approve. “Something like that,” she murmured, and started walking towards the God-trees.
Even with her magic diminished, the boughs of the Maiden were beautiful and bountiful. Savaner sat waiting for Nadide on a cushion underneath the flowered branches. He was the very image of what a kishah should be; his white turban elegantly tied, the cloth of his robe rich but the color subdued, his saber resting almost casually against his hip. Mahir stood behind him with his eyes cast downwards; Nadide wondered if it was duty, the spell or shame that stopped him from sparing her even a glance. In front of both of them stood the Imperial Magician and his Mucevhed. With his colorful robes and jewelry, the Imperial Magician had a festive air about him that Savaner and Nadide both lacked utterly. It might have been because he was the only one of the three who actually smiled.
The rest of the men Nadide passed and recognized only distantly. Several kishahs, but also some high ranking ministers, a few priests, and even some foreigners that must be some provincial leaders. It was not a large group. But it was a well-connected group, and that was what Nadide had hoped for.
She could hear the men whisper as she walked through their ranks. She was alone. It was unusual to see a bride without at least someone who would escort her to her husband. The men stared, and their stares were pinpricks against her skin, but Nadide did not flinch.
She did not spare a second glance for any of the men around her. She only looked straight ahead and thought of all the times she had magic-walked to this very courtyard. It had felt at the time like all the magic of the world pooled into the roots of the God-trees. She could feel it still. The courtyard was full of magic. The very air seemed thick with it.
Nadide might not have had an escort, but she was not alone. Her mother had been wrong about her wedding, but Nadide had all the procession she needed, even if no one else could see it.
The magic of Kadehir was with her, and she intended to use it.
Nadide only stopped walking when she reached the trunk of the Maiden. Then, she stopped and bowed first to the Imperial Magician, then to Savaner, and finally -- deepest of all -- to the Maiden herself before finally taking a seat upon the cushion opposite the kishah. She kept her eyes low and pretended it was modesty that stopped her from meeting Savaner’s eyes. Her hands clenched so tightly in her lap that she was worried her nails might draw blood.
“What a beautiful day for a wedding,” the Imperial Magician started. He was smiling fondly at them both, oblivious to the fear and the fury consuming Nadide from the inside. “I know the conditions are -- perhaps not what any of us would have liked. But Kadehir has a hard-won peace and this marriage is just one more reason to celebrate.”
He prattled on and Nadide heard less and less. There was only the blood rushing in her ears, the sound of her own heart beating louder and louder. She wondered that none of the guests appeared to hear the noise. If they could, would they have tried to stop this farce? But no one moved to stop the Imperial Magician. No one was going to stop Nadide.
She’d gone this far. There was no turning back.
“Wait,” she cried out, interrupting the Imperial Magician himself. “There is something that Sav -- something that my husband would like to say.”
She heard the mutterings of disapproval from the crowd. A wedding was sacred -- any interruption was profane, an interruption by the bride unimaginable.
That would not stop her. “We’re underneath the boughs of the Maiden, whose virtue is truth,” she continued, looking directly at Savaner for the first time. “This is no place for secrets.”
His eyes narrowed. She saw suspicion but not surprise in his expression. Perhaps he had been expecting some last trick of hers. But she could see that he was not worried. This little rebellion of hers would be easily quelled. Ahmad and her brother were gone. Of what consequence was the leftover Nadide?
He opened his mouth to disavow her, and instead said, “I cursed Ozal bajedi.”
In the brutal silence that followed, he added, “I killed Eryadin bajedi.”
Nadide released the breath that had sat like a rock on her chest even as she closed her fists tighter. The bright white of the truth-telling spell burned against her palms; she did not want any of its light to escape and reveal to the courtyard the true cause of Savaner’s sudden honesty.
She need not have bothered. No one was looking at her. The assembled men all stared at the kishah in mute horror. And then the whispers began. At first, just a lone murmur from the crowd. But Nadide could see the men turning to each other, their gaze still on Savaner. She could only hear broken bits of conversation. Shock. Disbelief. But of course some were claiming that they had suspected it all along.
“I cursed both of them and blamed the Vaspahnians,” Savaner started again. His voice croaked as the words came out, and he seemed to chase after each one, as if he might recall it back to his tongue if he just tried hard enough.
He’d fought hard to earn the respect of the men here, Nadide knew. He’d killed for it. And now that he had it, he was being forced to reveal what he had done to obtain it. And that was going to make him lose it all.
Nadide was smiling faintly when he finally turned to look at her. She saw the recognition slowly dawning in his eyes. And with it, hatred.
“Your brother and Eryadain bajedi were fools.” He spat the words at her feet. “They thought Kadehir could talk its way to peace with the Vaspahanians. As if there could be any peace with a nation that had long ago stopped fearing magic.” He was no longer trying to hold back his words; on the contrary, he seemed to relish in them now. “I thought it would only be fitting if I killed them and made it seem like the Vaspahanians had done it. It would be a chance to practice the kind of magic that hadn’t been done in Kadehir since the first settlers -- the kind of magic that would save Kadehir. Their death would purchase the peace they’d spent so many years begging the Vaspahanians for.”
“This is -- this cannot be true.” The Imperial Magician said, still rooted in his spot. “A member of the Stand is dead, Savaner, and you are saying --”
There was no need for the spell anymore. Nadide extinguished the light between her fingers and stood up. “He is not saying anything,” she snapped. “He is confessing! He has confessed to murder in front of the God-trees themselves!”
The Imperial Magician blanched. The most important man in Kadehir, and he just stood there gaping at her.
“My spell was meant to kill both of them. I regret that I only succeeded at one.” Savaner started to stand, too. His eyes had not left Nadide. She swallowed heavily, but she met his gaze. It was much too late to back down now. “I always wondered,” he said, half under his breath, “how your brother survived all those months before the desert magician arrived.”
“My brother will see you hang,” she spat back. Turning to the Imperial Magician, she beseeched again, “He has just confessed. You arrested Ahmad bajedi earlier for a lesser crime than this. How can you stand by and do nothing now?”
“I --” the Imperial Magician stumbled. “I never -- I mean, Savaner.” He sounded disappointed. Nadide felt her gut twist. A member of the Stand dead, a boy’s corpse buried by the shore, her brother attacked, and the most Tolga bajedi could muster was disappointment.
“Go,” Savaner nodded. “She is right. Get your guards. I have confessed.”
Evidently a confessed murderer’s words still held more weight than Nadide’s. The Imperial Magician finally stepped away, even as Nadide cursed him under her breath. The crowd had started to melt away, leaving Savaner, Mahir with his empty eyes, and Nadide alone underneath the flowering branches of the Maiden.
It did not matter if the Imperial Magician came back with his guards or not. She had done it. She had robbed Savaner kishah of what he valued most: the approval of the men in the Stand. But there was a reason she had told Kadim she might not come back home today. She knew what it was like to lose everything. She knew what it did to people. What it would do to Savaner kishah.
She felt the ground under her feet start to shake as Savaner started to cast a spell, and she drew the magic of Kadehir to her once again.
Mahir felt his master drawing on his magic. He was drawing on a lot of magic. The ground itself was lifting around them, forming a wall of dirt and stone that cut off him and Nadide from the rest of the courtyard. Mahir heard some surprised shouts from outside, but the sound was cut off as the walls rose higher and higher. They were entirely cut off from the rest of the courtyard.
Savaner did not want an audience for what he was about to do. Mahir’s stomach twisted on itself. He’d seen his master angry before, furious even, but this was beyond anything he had seen before. And this time, Nadide was his target.
The janum called forth a shield charm, but it collapsed under the sheer force of the gust of wind that Savaner summoned next and Nadide was knocked hard to the ground.
“You wanted to hear the truth so badly,” Savaner called out. “Do you think it will help you now? Do you think it will help your brother now?” Mahir was surprised to hear the wounded pride in his master’s voice. No doubt he had thought, in his own way, that he was genuinely helping Nadide. He had thought he had been helping Kadehir.
All those years ago, when he had sold Mahir away to a caravan, had he convinced himself that he had been helping Mahir too?
Nadide raised herself slowly up on her forearms. Her hair had been knocked loose, but there was a perfect -- dangerous -- clarity in her eyes. She laughed, “Did you think I was afraid to face you alone? I am going to kill you. Finally.”
The ground itself shook and split from under her palms. Savaner lurched for balance. Mahir, too dazed by the spell and his own indecision, fell uncertainly to the ground.
He recognized the spell. It was commonly taught in the Stand -- Nadide must have seen her brother or father practice it. Mahir had seen enough magicians do it to know that her control was lacking, but she had put enough power into the spell that finesse didn’t matter. The air itself around her seemed to shine white. Mahir had to blink to make sure he was not seeing things. But no. He’d always heard that there was a lot of magic in the soil, in the air of Kadehir.
And now Nadide was wielding it against Savaner.
Savaner pulled sharply on Mahir’s magic in response. Lightning crackled in the air. Mahir flinched. The pull felt like a knife to his ribs. Savaner seemed intent on matching Nadide blow for blow, but Mahir was not Kadehir. He did not have that much magic to provide. But still his master took and took from him.
Mahir thought of the boy on the beach, his magic drained entirely from him. At the time he’d thought that boy should be him.
Now maybe it would be.
The lightning hit Nadide again, and her shield lasted longer this time but still shattered in her hands. She lurched backwards for a moment before finding her footing to cast another spell.
Mahir’s hair whipped at his neck as Nadide started to summon a cyclone.
No, Mahir wanted to say. That’s another Stand spell; he knows how to counter that. And indeed Savaner had started to summon a shield of his own. It was stronger and sturdier than the one Nadide had made. It was draining the very air from Mahir’s lungs but Savaner did not care, as long as the spell held.
If you want to beat him, Mahir found himself thinking, you have to do something that he hasn’t seen before.
Ahmad had used Savaner kishah’s magic against him. He’d moved his arm to misdirect a spell, even undid the spell from his Mucevhed’s collar. It was not magic the Stand was used to seeing, it was magic that had shocked the Imperial Magician and Ozal bajedi, but it was magic that had easily beaten Savaner in a fight.
Nadide was trying to fight like she was a member of the Stand. But Savaner kishah had years of the kind of training that Nadide could only have witnessed secondhand. Nadide could call on more magic, but as long as she used the Stand’s spells, Savaner would have the upper hand. He might kill Mahir in the process, but he would have the upper hand.
He wanted to tell the janum that -- wanted to yell the truth out to her -- but the spell kept his mouth firmly closed.
If only Ahmad were here, Mahir thought sadly. Nadide had always listened to him; he would know just what to tell the janum to do so that she could end this.
The wind was still bearing down on them. Savaner pulled on Mahir’s magic again when his shield started to waver. The spell held, but Mahir’s vision blurred and he grasped blindly at the ground to try and orient himself.
Some part of him knew that he should move. If he walked behind Savaner, the shield would protect him too. But it was more than that. Savaner wanted him to do that -- wanted him to stop putting himself in harm’s way, so he could continue to use his magic. Continue to drain him. And since Savaner wanted Mahir to do that, the spell wanted Mahir to do it too. Mahir felt his legs start to move. He was standing up. And then he stopped.
What a fool he’d been earlier, he realized with a start. If Ahmad were here, he wouldn’t be giving Nadide advice. He wouldn’t care about the fight, not really. He would be trying to stop the spell from killing Mahir.
Ahmad had said it was a suggestion spell. Its power was to change what Mahir wanted. So no doubt if Ahmad were here, he would be asking him that question that Mahir never seemed to have an answer to:
What do you want, Mahir?
No one had ever asked him that question before Ahmad. All his life, Mahir had been encouraged to erase himself. The art of being a Mucevhed was to disappear, he’d been told. And he’d been so eager to disappear. He had learned how to stand attentively but inconspicuously. He’d been praised whenever he denied any part of himself and replaced it with the wishes of others. Even when he had grown older, even when he left Kadehir, it had been the only thing he had known and so it had been what he kept doing. He was supposed to be as quiet and forgettable as a shadow, and shadows did not want.
It had only been Ahmad who had questioned that. Ahmad had been the first person who asked him what he wanted and took the time to listen.
And if he had been here, if he asked Mahir what he wanted now, Mahir thought he had an answer this time: he would say that he just wanted to be his own person. He did not want to be a tool anymore for a man who he despised.
The shield that Savaner had conjured disappeared. There was nothing left to stop Nadide’s spell from bearing down on them. Savaner was knocked on his back, only a few paces from Mahir. He stayed on the ground even as Mahir made to stand. Mahir could feel that pull again at his side -- Savaner was trying to summon another spell -- but this time he fought it and the pull vanished. The collar’s spell was strong, but Ahmad had been right. It was just a suggestion spell, and Mahir could break it.
“Mahir --” Savaner started. There was an impatience in his voice. He didn’t known. He hadn’t realized what had happened.
Mahir looked around. The way that Savaner had fallen, the saber he had been wearing had been knocked loose from his side. It was only a few paces away. Mahir stared at it for a long moment and then stared at his master. His former master. And then he did something that he had been forbidden from doing for a very long time: he made up his mind for himself.
It took only a moment to grab the sword and to slit Savaner kishah’s throat.
There was quiet in the Inner Sanctum as the kishah died. Mahir let the sword drop to the ground. His breath was coming in fast, shallow pants. The courtyard seemed to be spinning around him. Maybe it was the result of having so much magic drained from him so fast. Maybe it was shock. Mahir didn’t know. Even keeping his footing steady felt like a victory.
There was a loud groan as the earth underneath Mahir shifted. The walls that Savaner had created around the God-trees started to collapse back to the ground -- and then just as suddenly they stopped.
Mahir turned to see Nadide standing in front of him with one hand out and her palm pointed towards the sky. She looked like she’d been dragged through the mud; her hair was loose, her gown torn and muddied, and dirt and blood caked on her arms and face. But the white light she had conjured held steadily in front of her.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“It’s over,” he nodded.
Nadide walked over to the body and gave it a long stare. Her expression was unreadable, but her lips curled in a bitter smile. Then she turned to Mahir.
“The Imperial Magicians and the others -- they can’t have gone far. They might even still be in this courtyard. And while they didn’t try to interfere with what Savaner was doing, once I let these walls fall down again, they’ll have questions about what happened here.” Mahir nodded, not quite sure why she was telling him this, until she added, “I’m not sure there’s anything I can say that will save you.”
Mahir swallowed heavily. Nadide was right. A Mucevhed lifting a hand against his master was worse than unbelievable. It was an abomination. Once the men of the Stand knew what he did, it would be a kindness if they were content just to hang him.
Maybe he could have fled or hid. But he did not want to do either.
“I’m not afraid of them finding out the truth,” he said.
After all, the truth meant that he was at last what Ahmad had always been telling him he was: free.
The janum gave him an appraising look and then nodded. She took a deep breath and then extinguished the light in her palm.
The ground shook. Mahir could see the walls that Savaner had made start to collapse. He braced himself to see who was waiting on the other side for them. But then he felt his footing slip, and his attention was no longer on the rest of the courtyard. Instead, he looked down and saw the ground underneath him was starting to give way.
“Is this part of the spell?” he asked Nadide.
She had gone pale. “This isn’t me.”
Mahir barely had time to move before the ground split underneath his feet. Thick coils of white growth forced themselves up from the ground. Roots, Mahir thought dumbly. But that was impossible. He’d seen the roots of the God-trees before. They did not grow so close to the ground. But then he turned to look at the God-trees again and it was the strangest thing in the world. They had started to grow. In all the time he had lived in Kadehir, he’d never heard of the God-trees growing. He’d never heard of them changing form at all. But now their roots were starting to expand and push aboveground, their trunks had started to thicken and swell, and their branches were stretching further and further and starting to reach for the sky. And then as Mahir watched, more and more trees started to push their way through the ground, their trunks growing quickly and unfurling new branches as they broke through the ground and rose to join their siblings. It was not just the Seven anymore; it was a whole forest of magic given form.
And this forest was going to destroy everything in its path.
Mahir felt Nadide’s hand grab his and pull him backwards. “We have to get out of here,” she cried out. They ran for the entrance of the Stand, and they could see the crowd from earlier doing the same. Distantly, they heard screams coming from outside the wall, as they and the rest of the Stand watched the God-trees devour what had once been the Inner Sanctum.
