The Banishing

Kareea sat knees under her chin in a frenzy of fear. Huddled under blankets on her bed she rocked gently back and forth but to no avail. Earth magic was her friend and consort. She clung to it and fostered her abilities at every opportunity. Chaos magic, that which Wizards used and drew their power from, intruded and disoriented her inner world like sudden loud noises. This she had learned to live with, in part it was the reason she had chosen the far Southern Isles as home. The latest manifestation had actually hurt in places she did not know existed. Bits of it, she had no other way to describe it, had made as if to rend and tear the very things connecting her to the earth. But here she must stay, in the center of what she saw all too clearly, as a gathering storm. Within her jumbled senses a tendril of clarity demanded attention. Kareea ceased rocking, a look of horror on her face as understanding flowered. She flung the blankets aside, hurled herself to the door and ran screaming down the corridor. Those in the common room saw a barefoot apparition in a white bed-shift run through to the outer door. Some smiled, some frowned, and one apprentice Witch threw herself under a table with hands over her ears.

Kareea saw the coterie that was of Galena, Tarrish and Melli with Jon and Meena down where the main path entered the forest and ran screaming toward them just as Morek followed by Ellish came into view.

"It is coming! It's coming again!" She yelled at them. Barely strides away she stopped. All had turned to watch her. As though she were a lightning rod a lash of force struck at the diminutive Witch. Adamant she stood in her own protective sphere, glittering green against the massive orange firestorm that lashed at her. Her actions garnered the others precious moments.

Jon drove his staff into the path shattering stone and a great hemispherical shield encompassed them all, even as Kareea's defenses failed.

The defenses of Ellish, Morek and the coterie bolstered the translucent protection radiating from Jon's staff. Meena stood with one hand on Jon's shoulder with her eyes shut muttering incantations. Jon raised his hands. Glittering blue and green the steel blade he carried appeared above him pointing at the nexus of the firestorm.

"Wreak as you must." Jon commanded the blade. It seemed to divide and its larger ethereal image vanished into the nexus which recoiled, wavered and frayed at its edges. Jon made an intricate

series of movements with his fingers and the protective hemisphere inverted and engulfed the remains of the nexus. With a expression of rage terrible to see he grabbed the compressed ball of fluorescent green and orange. Like a mad baker he pummeled and kneaded it. The power he brought to bear caused the ground to shake.

"I, am the Gate Keeper!" He said in a voice of terrible power. Ash and an oily orange smoke seeped between his fingers and all who breathed it coughed and spat. Then with tenderness and reverence he placed the small pure green sphere now remaining on the pommel of his staff. It flared to a blinding brilliance and rapidly seeped into the staff and down into the stones and earth. All green and living things within view trembled. For the briefest moment lines of life-force appeared and faded within the trees, grasses and flowers. Jon turned to Meena with a look of deepest beseeching and fell. She caught him but his weight brought her to her knees.

The Coterie had gathered round Kareea who was comatose in the fetal position. Ellish scooped up Jon from Meena's arms and strode off toward the citadel. The Coterie carrying Kareea followed. Morek put an arm round Meena's waist. "Come. We must do for him what we can." She said. Meena leaned into the comforting arm.

"I could not give him more, there was none," she said and she collapsed. Morek sighed heavily and plucked Jon's blade up from where it lay on the stones. She tucked it into her belt, noticing that part of the handle was missing. Picking up Meena as easily as a she might a child she followed the others. Jon's staff she left standing, embedded in the stone of the path."Put him on the grass", Meena whispered. "Put us both on the grass." Morek called to Ellish and he turned to join her laying Jon next to Meena and then Ellish sat cross-legged beside Jon. A breeze swept across them. Morek shifted her seat. The grass felt warmer than the air. She looked at Meena's pale face. A warmth suffused Morek's buttocks. She could not remember feeling so well. The trees above and even the grass all seemed to lean toward them and the perfumes of the trees and flowers seemed fulsome beyond recall. Meena's eyes opened and she turned to look at Morek.

"Gaia says thank you." She closed her eyes again and fell deeply asleep. It was full dark when Jon and Meena woke. They hugged while squatting on the grass.

Now I'm being a mother hen, thought Morek, watching them. She smiled to herself...I will never lose this feeling.

In a cottage tucked into a fold in the hills just off the old King’s Road to Larrak Bay Toise sat staring alternately out the window and at a fragment of metal. His slave methodically stitched together the long gash on Toise's arm. In spite of using his thinnest needle and silk thread it was a difficult and slow process. Seemingly oblivious to these ministrations Toise fiddled with the steel fragment; obviously part of the handle of the magical sword that had hurled through the focus of his spell. Only by amazing luck a heavy ceramic jar placed on the table in front of Toise had deflected the blow. A large black blast mark on the back wall was the only other reminder. Tying off the last of the thread and snipping off the extra the servant retired from the room. Toise's whole attention was still on the fragment. Blood still slowly dripped unheeded on the cottage floor.

The crowd in the common room quieted when Ellish entered. Then a babble of questions arose. He held up his hands for quiet.

"There are those of you who remember Marcule Toise." Scattered nods of ascent and murmured replies greeted this. "He was expelled from this school and banished from the Kingdom by edict of the King for the use of Black Magic." Ellish looked drawn. "That was more than fifty years ago. I remember little of the details but I am sure there are records in the library for those who are interested. However," Ellish raised his voice over the murmurs. "These events have a new component. He has managed to use earth power to augment his arts. This is against all edicts. He corrupts what is natural and pure to his own ends. Luckily there has come one who is the direct opposite of this man."

"You speak then of a Terrazard." A voice called from the back of the room. The crowd parted for an elder, barrel chested man, with a vast white beard. He barged to the front. "Postulated! Never been seen: What makes you think this?” A babble of voices broke out.

"Quiet!” A voice called from the outside door. The one word seemed directed personally to every individual in the room. On the center table a goblet shattered. Complete and utter silence followed broken only by the drip of wine on the floor. Jon walked to stand beside Ellish with Meena by his side.

"I am who Ellish speaks of. Perhaps I am a Terrazard. I cannot answer that. But I am the Gatekeeper. I am bound with another by Gaia to protect and bridge between earth and chaos." Jon looked a little sheepish. "I would tell you more but this is something come upon me, not something learned." He shrugged and turned leaving the room with Meena. A chorus of questions arose in his wake.

An ancient Witch seated by the far wall nudged her carer companion and whispered. "I heard every word he said." The companion turned to stare at the ancient. "What?"

"You heard me. Deaf as a stone I be but he has a beautiful voice. A voice of power he has, no mistaking that!" The companion looked incredulous, but patted the ancients’ knee consolingly.

Meena entered Kareea's room first. Galena sat in the chair beside the bed.

"She is unreachable. We have tried all we know." Galena was speaking of Tarrish and Melli who stood aside. The figure on the bed was still in the fetal position and breathing in shallow gasps, her eyes were wide and darting. Meena turned to Jon a questioning look as Morek came in the door.

"There is a thing I heard about. A Witch thing named Calling. It’s about following the person, following their essence to whatever end it has gone," Morek paused. "Never done it myself."

At Meena's insistence they carried Kareea out into the warm spring evening and laid her on the grass. Jon retrieved his staff and sat next to Meena holding hands. Meena placed a hand on the near white forehead. It was slick with sweat but felt icy cold to the touch. Jon followed Meena's quest for Kareea. First there was little to 'see', just a jumble of incoherent images making no sense and having no point of reference. To Jon it was like a fitful snow fall of images till he saw a vague pattern. He nudged Meena in the direction the images seemed to 'fall' from. Slowly it became a blur of light and color flowing past. Jon felt a sense of wrong at being in a mind other than Meena's.With no warning they crossed an unseen border into strangely familiar territory. Familiar in that the basic order held similarities with what they had seen in each other. All else was chaos. Images flickered into existence, coalesced or fragmented with no discernible pattern. Jon brought a tiny ball of his own life-force into existence and expanded it. Slowly he extended its influence to encompass a greater and greater space. Within its influence the images slowed. Like a children's puzzle blowing in the wind, but in reverse, pieces began to come together.

Meena extended her own influence and Jon saw that she had perceived there were many puzzles here. It seemed that order began to start coming together as if seen from the inside of a gigantic sphere and building inward toward the center. They were a long way from the center and Jon urged them gently in that direction. They began to feel resistance to their progress even though order appeared to be restoring in their wake. Denser and darker it became and then they saw it, a tongue of orange horror besetting a fading pale blue shapeless mass which recoiled from its contact yet somehow managed to maintain its integrity.

It was Meena who grabbed the orange writhing thing. She poured her own essence regardless of cost into an encompassing sphere of silver green and Jon poured his own strength into Meena. A reserve of power for her to draw on which was quickly brought into play. A construct she made, hard as diamond, within which the orange tendril had no room to move. They withdrew. As they did so Jon saw in a last backward glance the pale blue essence of Kareea reordering on its own. That is one very tough and courageous person. He thought.

Standing face to face they held the construct together and with a finality and adamant strength Meena extinguished the life within it. The figure on the grass slowly stretched out. Kareea's breathing became normal and Galena burst into tears.

Kareea had fled in that last instant, heedless of the damage wrought behind her, fled to the last bastion of self. From there she had fought on. One thing she learned from this was the real meaning of the word hopeless. The mostly-to-the-forefront pragmatic part of Kareea understood this was not a battle she could win. Another part of her, a mere filament, known about but never utilized had blossomed to its full capability under this duress. It had no actual name until it named itself Kareea. She fought then with a vicious, joyous abandon. There was always hope, even if it was time given to others. Free, truly free for the first time in her life she battled with no thought of either cost or reserve. At that very moment she fought for hope, hope for herself and hope for the others. And that was when they had found her.

In the course of reordering herself Kareea searched for that new and vital element, selfdom. She placed it in a special relationship to the core of herself. Events had changed irrevocably the shape of her internal world. Nothing would be the same. There was one other thing as well something she knew for certain, you learn much about an enemy in battle. She now knew her enemy intimately. Anathema was the word she chose. Kareea came awake to see Meena, Jon and Galena all smiling. She hugged them and cried.

Ellish and Marta had been poring over books and records since the late afternoon. The King's Edict of Banishment was an easy find. Now they sought confiscated documents and anything else relating to Marcule Toise. They were down in the storage caves beneath the main building. Ellish clicked his fingers creating a guide light and they ventured further down into the older and disused section.

"We used to play down here as kids," Marta ventured. Ellish had only spoken of necessity since the last event.

"You were never a child. Not really," he continued down the passage way to the last room. Marta found that the offhand comment hurt in a way she could not pin down.

"I thought I was," she muttered to herself and brushed a cobweb aside coughing in its slowly moving dust. It was extremely dry; so dry she could feel her skin tightening.

The door was locked, unusual in this place but no barrier to a Wizard. There it was a virtual treasure trove of books and artifacts. Ellish dimmed the guide light and muttered and incantation, moving his hands to indicate encompassing the room. Three items immediately began to radiate a faint blue nimbus. He dissipated the charm and passed two of the items to Marta.

"Please do not attempt to open the book or the box. They are both warded." Ellish moved several boxes and unearthed a larger wooden trunk with iron bands around it. This he dragged to the doorway.

In one of Ellish's spare rooms, the three salvaged items were placed on a large table under a candelabrum. Ellish chose the book to tackle first and again used the simple disclosure charm. Berrik Domma peered over his shoulder. He used a large eyeglass on his one good eye. The other was a mass of scar tissue. Even the eyebrow was missing. He was the resident master of knowledge regarding Wards.

'Tis not a simple thing, see how the colors change when you approach," He used a wooden pointer, bringing it close to the book. "Ah same effect," He took a drink of water.

"Would a nullity charm have any effect?" Ellish was somewhat eager.

"Some wards are known to trigger if Magic is brought upon them."

"I would expect Toise to have known that. He was an adept student." Ellish moved a mirror to focus more light. Berrik just stood there looking bored and scratching the scar over his missing eye. Ellish found it uncomfortable to watch.

"Geogonima's Aura perhaps that would tell us something." Berrik said. "Gonni was good. Taught me most of what I know," He looked to Ellish. "You know it?"

"Yes. And there is a little extra trick that just might help." He hurried out of the room and returned carrying a large mirror. He placed a chair on the table and leaned the mirror against it.

"That is very clever. Interrogate the image not the artifact." Berrik was more animated that Ellish had ever seen him. "Well, come on." He hovered behind Ellish and stared into the mirror at the book.

Ellish cast the charm. There in the mirror two bright mauve wards shone, one on the edge of the front cover and one on the back and linked by a mauve haze.

"Ha!” Ellish exclaimed and again hurried out of the room to return with a small sharp knife. With one swift stroke he opened the binding on the back. He lifted the front and back cover away from the book and placed them together on the floor. Berrik nearly bumped heads with Ellish in his haste to see the contents.

"Started without me I see." Marta came into the room. Her comment was devoid of humor. She joined the men at the table.

It was just before dawn when Ellish lowered the candelabra and blew out the candles. He locked the door to the room and warded it before going down to the kitchens where the cooks were making bread for the day. He stole a sweet roll hot from the ovens and went outside to the gardens to think.

Technically the man was brilliant. Toise was an artist when it came to the construct of magic but what he did with it was an abomination. The man was no dabbler intrigued with the black arts. He was a master. A master of perversion of all that Ellish believed. It seemed to Ellish that Toise had left no stone unturned in a singular quest for power. He had found a manner in which the power of the earth itself could be harnessed. That in itself was a simple thing to do but was one that disregarded completely the laws of balance, simply put, if something is created something else is not, or something ceases to exist. That is why Wizardry drew its source from chaos and only chaos. Initiating magic in any other manner created, potentially, paradoxes. The outcome of which there could be no accounting for. The awry spell Jon had quashed was a case in point.

Ellish shivered. That accounts for the power he is able to command: And it seems Gaia is fighting for herself. There must be reasons she is constrained from preventing this usage. So, through Jon she attempts to thwart this. What a conundrum. Ellish rose from his seat on the grass and went inside to bed. To his absolute surprise he found Marta asleep in his bed. He did not wake her. She spooned gently back into him. Ellish listened to Marta’s quiet breathing; it took but a tiny effort of will to set his little fluttering moth of hope free. They woke later than was their usual time.

Jon had wandered alone into the forest and sat on a convenient log in the sun. He watched the distant hills and mountains of home on the far horizon: muted blue blending into the sky under the afternoon sun. He still called it home out of a name of place rather than the meaning of the word. If asked he would have said he was home, here, at the Isle.

The more he stared at the mountains the more he felt he was looking at the wrong place. Without attempting to change that feeling he slowly turned and looked toward Larrak Bay. He wondered if the feeling would change if by chance he was looking in the direction of the person he sought.

Marcule Toise. Even the name had a ring to it that did not inspire a feeling of good. He put that down to what he knew of the person. Then came a different feeling, one of being watched, Jon looked round but there was no one in sight. Yet even as he turned his head, compass like he could feel the attention upon him and the direction it came from. All sound had ceased. He stared in the direction of this attention. That was the best word he had to describe it. Gently at first came the urge to show himself to this...”NO!” The cry was wrung from him by recognition of the origin of this urge that was not his own. The negation was called with all his power in his native tongue. It shredded leaves from a swath of trees toward the sea. The attention vanished. He looked, still wondering at the magnitude of the power he could call at need; leafless branches of treetops toward the sea a stark reminder. In the far hills close behind Larrak Bay a thin column of smoke arose. Instinctively he knew he had caused it and wondered again at the scope of the power within him. He could not remember where he had heard or seen it but the words; with great power comes greater responsibility, came to mind. He felt overwhelmed by the reality of those words and sat for a long time thinking about that.