The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Chapter Four

As they headed down the road once again, Vale shared with Sylanna all that she had learned. For her part, she listened to the story dispassionately as Vale had honestly expected her to. That was one of the things that Vale found that she definitely respected about Sylanna and could grudgingly admit that she actually liked: that the other could look at a problem with complete objectivity.

For her, a problem was much like a machine, the function of which was to keep her from doing what she needed to do. Each aspect of the problem was a part of the machine and it was simply a matter of which part or parts, once removed in one way or another, would break the machine with the least collateral damage, unless collateral damage was the point.

When Vale finished, Sylanna pondered the issue as she spoke. “The only thing worse than a mage dealing with magic that they don’t comprehend is a mundane doing so. If your telling is accurate,” and she added smoothly before the words could be taken as any sort of dig, “and I’m sure it is. I suspect that he is as subsumed by the magic as the women he took.”

“No doubt,” Vale said in resignation.

Sylanna huffed almost imperceptibly. Almost.

“What does that mean?”

She tried to dismiss it rather than start another disagreement. “Nothing at all.”

“Those sounds never mean nothing, least of all from you. What?”

“You feel sorry for him.”

She was taken aback, though, at this point, she really shouldn’t have been completely surprised at the judgment. “Is that so horrible? Someone barely shows him how to use a bit of magic and leaves him to it, or he finds that talisman open and he feels the power and decides to see what he can make it do.”

“You mean he killed a mage after the mage opened it for use.”

Vale was firm. “You don’t know that.”

“Seems most likely to me,” Sylanna said as she played out the scenario that she decided happened. “How else does he find it open? He has a friend who is a mage, or at least someone versed. He sees an opportunity to go from powerless to someone with power, so once the talisman is open the mage meets a blade or a blunt object. But this man has no idea what he’s doing or how to do it and it overwhelms him.”

Her voice managed to shrug, “In that event, it sounds like justice. The only problem with it is the harm he’s doing to others.”

The pause that came after was sharp, almost as though she was cut off in mid-thought as though she said something she knew she shouldn’t have the moment she said it. She did feel sorry for them, and that was something that she was still getting used to. Not so long ago their plight wouldn’t have mattered much at all, but now it gnawed at her like a small, feral creature gnawing around in her gut. They certainly didn’t ask for what happened to them. That she felt it at all annoyed her inasmuch as she feared that trying to contend with it might lead her to make mistakes in whatever might be asked of her in this.

Deres, her maker in the ways that he was, deemed it important that she find value in others beyond herself. This was all well, good, and understandable in theory. But, in practice, it was more like crawling over broken glass: seemingly insane and supremely uncomfortable. She closed her eyes as she caught herself. There was an in this.

It wasn’t so much that she had resolved go after him. She might have done that on her own simply because the bit of magic might be worthwhile, or, if for no other reason than she’d keep such a thing from an idiot who had no business having it to begin with. But the need to help those women drove her as well. Even Sylanna as she once was would have freed them most likely, but she would never have been drawn by their plight and driven to save them for their own sake. But her path was set. She had already resolved to do so. Sylanna knew without having to ask that Vale was set to the same goal.

That there was someone on the path with her at least made it feel slightly less uncomfortable crawling over glass. It was just at these moments when she realized how much the tiny machines that had mastered her change under the will of Deres had actually done so. “At any rate, I don’t believe it matters why right now as it matters to you. What matters is finding him and the women he has taken. When we do we can decide whether he needs help, justice, or a bit of each.”

Fair enough, Vale thought. They had been to two other homes over the course of the day. In one lived an elderly couple and in the other was a family with three sons. None of them had seen anything of note and Vale detected no traces of magic amongst them, which suggested to her their quarry had stopped looking for prizes. “The question is where to look. Any ideas?”

“I’m not much more familiar with this area than you are, but it hardly matters. There are only two real possibilities: He has decided to go house to house to find some pretty girls to take back to his hovel or some other place that he knows so they can all fuck until he’s physically exhausted and bored of it and them. If that’s the case we’ll find them wandering the road or in a field somewhere in a mindless haze. We get them home, assuming he hasn’t melted them to nothing, and then we get our hands on whatever magic he has That would be ideal.” The tone in Sylanna’s voice suggested that she wasn’t used to ideal so she didn’t see that as likely. “Or...”

Vale didn’t want to contemplate the alternative, but it was indeed the more likely scenario. If he liked the power he felt and wanted more of the good things it could bring him, and the women his power could bring him… When the words left her lips they were still bitter on her tongue. “Where would he go here to sell them?”

“Do you think I know every slaver and bit of scum in the world? As I said, I am scarcely more familiar with here than you are.”

There was a pause. “Not every.”

Sylanna glanced over to take stock of the other. To her surprise that she dared not show she saw a hint of wry amusement on Vale’s features. “Was that an insult or an attempt at humor?”

Vale pondered it. “I believe it was seventy percent an attempt at humor.”

“Ah,” Sylanna acknowledged, turning her focus back to the dirt road ahead of her.

“Maybe sixty.”

Vale did not see her quickly crush the smirk that had formed. “At any rate, such people are not difficult to find. Go to the darkest places you can find, places that you wouldn’t be caught dead in unless you had business there and there you will find who you need or someone who knows someone who knows where to find who you need.”

“Do you know of anywhere like that around here?”

“One or two, possibly. I served as a protector for a wealthy jeweler as he traveled through the area to trade.”

“Stolen property,” Vale said, filling in the blank on her own before correcting herself. It would be much easier to fence such goods in a larger city. “No. Off the books imports.”

“Very good. Raw stones skimmed from various sources and taken to cutters in the middle of nothing, then eased back into circulation. The cutters move around quite a bit. It wouldn’t do for it to become known that there’s always a man with a cache of jewels who lives in a shack a mile east from where the river breaks or some such thing.”

“Do you know where we might find one?”

Sylanna was certain to qualify her response. “Might, yes,” she said, surveying the landscape. It had changed somewhat, but wasn’t completely unfamiliar. Neither were the generalities that came with these quick-stop shacks. “The stops favor certain bits of terrain and are somewhat evenly spaced, from one another and from prying eyes. Since the houses we passed are well lived in and not new...”

“You’re guessing,” Vale concluded.

“I am. But it’s a reasonably educated one. If we’re lucky we’ll actually find our mundane in heat with his harem. At the very least we’ll find a place to get warm.” While the cold was of little consequence to her, she remembered how a chill could seep into one’s bones almost as a state of being and a respite might benefit Vale. “Even if there’s no one there, it’ll be a good place to stop.”

Vale did not disagree as she simply decided to follow Sylanna where she led, as she looked not for a place, but a place that looked like a place where something might be. She fought a sense of awkwardness as time went on because she couldn’t help but consider that the old Sylanna could have used this as a ruse in any number of ways. Vale could think of some of those herself, but by no means all of them. She trusted that Sylanna had indeed been changed by the means used against her. Vale was there during her change and had helped employ the means.

Still, there was a hint of paranoia that came with memories, particularly when the woman spit much the same venom she had before she was taken and, Vale imagined, she had always done. She was told by Deres Valtise, mate of Guild Mistress Bryana, and engineer of the change, that it was important to him that she be allowed to be the person that she was as much as possible because that added to the tapestry of life.

That, and the urge to try to reshape every aspect of a person as one could if they had the means was its own form of darkness. It became an addictive game of chipping away at this or patching that. It was best to eliminate the worst desires, so that the soul could no longer be a danger to themselves or others, and then just leave them alone to figure their new selves out on their own terms.

The fact of the matter was though that Vale could at least see some value in that. Trusting the change enough to not truly be expecting a knife to the back Vale could take stock of the woman. Even as they rode to neither of them knew where Vale marked how she carried herself. In some ways it reminded her of Bryana Lia, their guild mistress. Her eyes scanned slowly and deliberately, but there was no frustration or annoyance to be seen. She acted like she knew where she was going if she didn’t. She trusted herself and her abilities. Sylanna trusted that there was nothing she couldn’t overcome.

And Vale saw the good that rested within the woman now. She had watched Sylanna work tirelessly for Ara’s life. She had watched her spend hours upon hours in the guild libraries writing down everything she knew so that, even if she didn’t teach it, it was there to be taught.

When Vale compared the two of them, Vale had come a long way from the novice who struggled with basic magics, but not so far that she could quite see herself having that sort of...casual dominance over the world. Perhaps being able to project it came with having felt it, which she had to admit she never had. And, while she was using her time wandering the woods for honest self-reflection she thought too, perhaps, that she never would because she often felt like she was learned in many magics enough to be a help to those in need, but a master of none. Nothing felt uniquely hers.

She shrugged it away in her mind, as it just seemed petty. But she did like the way Sylanna carried herself. Noting a change in brown tones in the distance, she pointed it out to Sylanna who loosed a small grin in satisfaction. It was always nice when hunches paid off. “I believe we have what we need.”

The trees thinned, leaving only enough space between the forest and the weather beaten shack to keep unintended visitors from reaching the cabin completely unseen and with no warning. Vale sent her magic outward to look for current or recent signs of life there. She was pleased to have found none as Sylanna rode ahead just enough so that she could reach the closest first to dismount and tie off her spotted mare.

As Vale followed suit, Sylanna turned the knob. Finding the door locked, she briefly looked around for a key. Not finding it in the usual places, she gave it up, and pressed her hand to the lock. A quick burst of power took the simple lock and she was inside. Leaving the door open behind her, she stamped her feet out of habit as she looked around the small cabin. It was bare, with a table much nicer than the rest of the ramshackle place, two chairs, cupboards, a fireplace, and a cook pot.

Out of a curiosity that took her every time she happened on a place like this, Sylanna thought to look about the leavings of the fire. While fire was always the best way to make sure something one wanted seen stayed unseen, too many people were sloppy when it came to making certain that the fire took it completely. Or they tore things up and left them in the ash, certain that the person to follow them wouldn’t care. It was even more odd given the fact that places such as these existed so that people could keep their secrets. People were often hard for her grasp even in the best of times.

There were almost always hints as to the previous visitors, who they were or what they were about. There were bits of half-burned papers. Some pieces were still legible to the eye and others were with a bit of help from her gifts. Vale watched from the doorway as Sylanna turned and twisted pieces of paper in one hand as if piecing together a puzzle and magic made bits of the blackened paper glow. “Find anything we could use?”

“Bits of map,” she answered, “enough to suggest that there’s someplace else our quarry might go with his women.”

“Any idea where that might be?”

She sighed. “We are headed in the right direction since it’s not the way we came. But we at least know now that there is a place to find, and that it’s important enough to map.”

Vale checked the two cupboards, one of which was stocked with what looked like piles of whatever surplus tools or goods a traveler decided to leave there, whether they worked or not. The stock of tools were more a collection of spare parts, so not entirely useless in and of themselves. The only food to be had was the only food she’d expect: dried beef, hardtack, honey, and a surprisingly varied collection of spices.

Sylanna peered over her shoulder, “Did you find anything?”

“Nothing really unexpected,” Vale replied. “We should definitely take the time to eat if nothing else.”

“Agreed.” She took log from the small pile next to the fireplace and tossed it inside. A flick of energy from her hand set it roaring and she closed her eyes for just a second to enjoy the fire for its own sake before deciding that a stew was in order and she would go take the game for it. She announced her intent and headed out, waiting only for Vale’s acknowledgment.

Not long after, they were on opposite sides of the table, remaining mostly silent through the meal to simply enjoy the bit of added comfort more than because of any animosity. Sylanna finally broke the silence, “It’s good.”

“Thank you,” Vale said simply.

“It’s well spiced.”

“I imagine not as well as you could do it,” Vale noted, bracing for criticism.

“It is done better.”

That response left her momentarily at a loss. “Really? That I don’t believe, Mistress of All That Grows.”

Sylanna eyed her. Finding no hostility, but, instead, a half smile, she continued. “Believe it. Salt and pepper are the extent of my spice expertise. For me, cooking is about sustenance. I choose to make the fastest, heartiest meal possible with what I have and I move on. I enjoy the cooking of others when they add more flourish, of course, but I have never spent much time exploring cooking as a form of art myself. I...appreciate your efforts here.”

“Two compliments? Is that a record for you?” Vale exaggerated her tone so as to make clear she wasn’t trying to stir the pot.

“It may be. You are fortunate.”

“Our journey is officially worthwhile.” Vale declared in victory. She decided to let the next words out, as she figured that a better time may never come. “I apologize, Sylanna.”

That gave her pause. “For? What was said before? Think no more of it. I have heard far worse said about me and said to my face. Your words were tame by comparison.”

“Perhaps so. But...you were not entirely wrong, and it is something Mistress Bryana pointed out to me before we left. I have not given you a chance. I have not done so and have used your attitude as a reason to continue not to when that very attitude is, directly and indirectly, a part of that change. I don’t know that you feel that anger towards others as you did before, but to go through its motions is perhaps comfortable. It’s hard to give you a chance because of what you have been and what you have done. I told Mistress so.”

Sylanna was now genuinely curious and waited for her to continue.

Vale took the look as a prompt and pressed on, “She then reminded me of that which I still find uncomfortable: that you and Mistress are more alike than not.” That much was true. They both shared dark pasts. They were both changed by magic and technology beyond themselves. But that past was still with them. But where Bryana had accepted the change and found her purpose quickly, Sylanna was still, in some ways, at a crossroads.

“I need to remind myself, as she reminded me, that you don’t know who you are yet when all you know for certain is that you can’t be who you were anymore. I’m not sure you ever did know. You can’t even decide on a face to wear.”

Sylanna’s experiments on herself left their mark. She was by no means hideous, but she was changed enough so that her her appearance would frighten others by just being far too different. “Which face should I wear?” Veils through which she could tailor her form to suit her whims had become a specialty.

“How about the one you have now? Vale suggested. “Smooth out the rough edges for the masses, certainly, but look like who you were meant to look like. But you don’t do that, do you?”

“If you see someone different when you look in the mirror you can tell yourself whatever you like and be whomever you want. If you do, you don’t have to look at the one you know is you because you’ve never known who you are.” Her eyes went downcast for a moment. “I’m sorry. Those are just my thoughts on the matter. I’m not calling them truth and I’m not trying to start a fight.”

Sylanna surprised Vale after such a long silence that she began to wonder if the other had simply chosen to end the conversation. “You may be correct.” The shock on the other’s face amused her. “I remain honest with myself, even if no one else. Do you know why we were assigned this together?”

It seemed so obvious to Vale as to be simpler than elementary. “Because I’m better with people.”

“Because you understand people, Vale. I do not. I never did and never had to. One of the things that so drew me to the mage arts was that I didn’t have to understand them. I could learn in seclusion, with as few people as possible. I struck out on my own as soon as I was able; as soon as I had a foundation of knowledge to draw from and explore, a guild member in name only. When I acted against my master’s wishes, I didn’t care. When I was made an outlaw, I didn’t care. It was all the better to show me that I was always outside of society.” She snorted, “I was even apart from those who are already outside of society. I could focus on the art.”

“It’s a simple matter to use and hurt that which you don’t understand and are so far beyond. But I cannot hurt them with no care anymore. I cannot use and discard them with no thought anymore. I am literally unable to do so. So now I am thrust among them now more equal to them than not and I feel adrift.”

Vale weighed Sylanna’s words carefully before speaking. It would have been so easy a thing to slide back into old habits, so she bit her tongue as she measured her response, “Good, Sylanna. Honestly. You feel adrift. I have, too. Everyone has at one time or other in their lives, and you certainly have plenty of cause to do so. Not only do you have to contend with your own feelings, you are expected contend with the feelings of others with others when, as you say, you don’t understand people.”

Sylanna simply listened.

“I think a good place to begin is to try to put yourself in their place. Empathy is a start. Even if you don’t truly feel it, if you understand where the other person is even as just an intellectual exercise, you can deal with them more effectively and get what you want from them without literally abusing them or, if nothing else, leaving them feeling that way.”

Sylanna felt slightly patronized so that flattened her tone, “I understand the concept.”

“Good. That you understand that Ara’s mother meant no harm tells me that you were and aren’t insane. If you had told her that the cost of Ara’s life was her own, it would have been paid.”

“As I said, I understand the concept. Just because I didn’t care doesn’t mean I didn’t understand.”

“But you care now,” Sylanna concluded with some satisfaction. “You care now and it’s so foreign to you that you try to make things as they were by seeing to it that all around you are, at best, indifferent to you. They do not share their feelings. They don’t bare their needs, their wants, and their fears because they feel you cannot be trusted. Then you are left in a place not unfamiliar and not uncomfortable.”

“But there is always risk, so now you seek to leave.”

“Exactly, Vale.” When the other’s brow furrowed, she continued. “If I am alone, all there is to contend with is the ghosts I carry with me that I am now forced to face.”

“There is a very old saying that goes, no matter where you go, there you are, Sylanna. The ghosts of our pasts are always there with us.” She looked down at her bowl, as if to perhaps avoid looking at one as she began to speak before looking up again, as if to face it. “I think of my mother. I think of what it was before I left. I think of her begging me not to go. I remember, after everything, stopping for just a moment because perhaps my leaving would open her eyes that not just her grief mattered and that I needed her before she turned my pain into an attack on her, as she had done a thousand times before.”

“I wonder since if all she has done is wallow in her pain. I wonder if she has healed. I wonder if she thinks of me at all. Those are already many ghosts to carry with one person.” She released a sigh that felt years in the making. “I have tried to show others exceptional care to limit the ghosts that walk with me and how many I leave to others.”

“But it’s always easier to contend with your ghosts when you have people close to you that know you and trust you. To leave others better than you found them wherever you can lessens your burden and quiets those ghosts. Run away to be alone and all there is is you and them, which doesn’t help now that you have no choice but to listen to them.”

“It is better for you to not be alone, for many reasons.”

Sylanna quietly weighed the words, before answering. “Well, now that we’ve rested and had a decent meal, I believe we should move on.”

Perhaps Vale heard an added bit of finality in the tone and perhaps she added that bit in her own mind and let it be. She wasn’t sure she had anything to add now anyway.

Leaving the shack as they found it, they compared thoughts on the bit of map Sylanna retained. Enough remained for the pair to come to a consensus as to a general direction and set off once again. The path was thick with woodland, but, if they read the piece correctly, it would thin out in time and meet a new bit of road. Where to go from there, they were uncertain, but that was a problem for later.

“I assume you’ve made mental note of the shack?”

“More than that,” Vale answered. “I marked it before leaving.”

Sylanna reached her senses outward and found the mark that shown in her mind like a beacon. They could now find it again blind. “Good.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t.”

“Perhaps I wished to see if you would.”

“Think I’m incompetent?”

“Would it surprise you to know that I do not?” She looked to Vale to see her studying her carefully. “You simply lack experience. In fact, I know learned mages that would not mark a useful place on their journey. They believe their wits are enough that they will remember the place. They believe their skills are enough when the rain falls in sheets, the snow cuts into their eyes, or the heat sucks the fluids from their bodies. Yet a simple thing such as a mark placed somewhere useful could have kept them from dying.”

“Did a mark save you, or did you doom someone because they didn’t use one?”

“Did I doom someone because they didn’t use one,” Sylanna repeated, deliberately changing emphasis. “Is it completely my fault if I leave them to their own devices and they fail because, in their own arrogance, they did not help themselves in the smallest of ways before ending up as they had?”

“You, no doubt, would never have left them in such a position to begin with, endangering yourself and the job just in case they fall short in such a way, playing nursemaid as you go. I trust the people that work with me to be able to be where they say will be and will be capable of doing what it is they are supposed to do. That they are sometimes incompetent isn’t my doing.”

“Doesn’t helping them help you?”

“It does,” she agreed. “And, rest assured that I have spent much of my career compensating for the shortcomings of others. But there are limits to even my exceptional abilities. I’m sorry I couldn’t be everywhere at once, but I wouldn’t have to be if my fellows would remember to do simple things like mark their path.”

“Heavy is the burden of…”

“Quiet,” Sylanna said harshly. “We are not alone.” A lifetime being alone left her with a keen sense of when she was not.

Vale looked around her. Seeing nothing through the trees and no hint of the passage of others in the blanket of stow they traveled over, she reached out her senses and detected the dimples in the pattern of life around them that flowed through the haze. Mages made larger ripples in the flow of life by their very nature since they might need to tap that flow to use their power. “Mudanes, all eight of them.”

Sylanna gave a slow nod, “Coming from where we’re headed, I imagine.”

“Excellent.” Vale made a choice before she could give herself time to think better of it. “I’ll go meet them.”

Sylanna blinked. “You should not. Let us instead follow them back where they came from.”

“And have no idea what we may face when we get there? I know that you would prefer to fight your way through….”

Sylanna’s spine stiffened with her sense of righteousness. “Because it is usually easier than deal-making whether you choose to accept that or not.”

“Perhaps. Sometimes,” she conceded, in part just to keep from descending into argument. “But I believe this way has more merit. There are too many unknowns. We don’t know how many men are there. We don’t know if who or what we seek is there, not for certain; not the talisman and not the women.”

Vale continued speaking, focused so on closing off any potential avenues of argument for the other that she paid no real notice of the other reaching for this powder from her cloak and that elixir from her bag in a rapid, practiced fashion, mixing one after another in an ever more complex mix.

“If he is, and he has it, perhaps a deal can be struck, and you’re not the one to do that. If need be, I’ll take it from him. Or at least try to.”

“And if he has a mastery of it you don’t expect? Or if he and those with him have no interest in parting with it?” Sylanna asked, using a long-honed skill of only half-listening to that which she found pointless. “Then to have a stronger mage on the outside to cause mayhem and one within may allow us opportunity to free the women if nothing else.”

“You are the stronger mage,” Vale admitted, finally paying attention to what her companion was doing just in time to see her pour a glass vial of muddy brown liquid into her mouth, swirling it around as she looked through her surroundings, as if in deep concentration. “What are you…?”

The thought was lost as Vale felt the contents of Sylanna’s mouth spray into her face. Her mouth dropped open in shock and she wiped her face clean with her arm, too stunned by the act to register that her cloak came away dry. “There really are less disgusting ways to express your disdain.”

“To track where you are and see what you see.” She raised her brow, unable to quite let the opportunity pass without comment tinged with derision. “That it bought your silence isn’t an unwelcome side effect. You are determined to do this and this is as close to you not going alone as can be managed just now. Deal with it.”

“Looking out for me,” Vale wondered.

“Sparing myself the endless interrogations that would ensue if I failed to even attempt to safeguard Mistress Lia’s favorite pet. And, as you reminded me, I have ghosts enough following me, and I imagine yours would be the most insufferable.”

“Afraid I would torture you with cloying sweetness?”

“As you do in life. I can’t imagine it would be any other way with your shade anchored to me.”

“I’m trusting you to do the right thing.”

She huffed, “As if I know what that is.”

“You know.” She made sure that she met and held Sylanna’s gaze. “I’m trusting you. I trust you.”

Thinking for an instant that she had heard one of those random utterances in a disjointed dream that has nothing to do with who you are or what was happening around you, she froze. She saw determination in those eyes and even a hint of...faith?

Not in Sylanna certainly; more likely the magic that changed her. But Vale admitted that Sylanna was the stronger of the two, leaving her to the greater task if it came to that, and the trust in her stemmed from that. Reconciling that in her mind, she gave a small nod just before, “Proceed carefully and...good luck to you, Denna Vale.”

She took the reins more firmly and prepared to move. The words were comforting and disconcerting at once. “Could you not say goodbye to me as though I’m going to die?”

Sylanna averted Vale’s gaze for a moment, afraid she’d undermined Vale’s confidence, and unused to dealing with moments such as these, as it had rarely mattered to her whether or not a companion she traveled with was doomed beyond how it affected her task. She recovered quickly however and her tone conveyed a shrug, “Better to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised.”

“All right. Makes a certain morose sense, I suppose. Stay hidden until I’m clear unless there’s a fight.”

“Obviously.”

Vale started ahead on a parallel course with the riders, waiting to begin easing towards them until she knew that no one would be in a position to spy Sylanna even though she was certain that the woman was probably already vanished, so she didn’t bother looking back. She told herself that was why she was waiting and it was at least reasonable, but the truth of the matter was that she was steeling her courage.

She had rarely headed off into anything with so many unknowns. Most of her meetings were on behalf of her guild and the people she met were, at worst, neutral towards her. They needed the guild’s help with problem or other for which magic provided the only solution, or sometimes some of the more unsavory elements of society used the guilds to mediate and enforce agreements between them, so she had rarely been exposed to people openly hostile to her. They may not be so to her, but she was preparing herself for that, as it seemed wise to plan for that. Then, to do that, led her down the path of contemplating all that could go wrong until she forced herself to stop. Whatever will happen will. You will not prepare yourself for it by spinning around every possible outcome in your head.

Mistress Lia once told her that bravery was doing what needed to be done in the face of your fear and all the worrying was just a way to call her fear something else and avoid doing what had to be done, so she steered toward the men, angling towards them as they rode down the path. She kept her pace casual, not only because weaving through the trees would have made anything faster impossible, but because time wasn’t of the essence just now and they would cross paths soon enough. There was no reason to alarm them unnecessarily.

It wasn’t long before a pair of eyes caught the movement of her horse and the group stopped and silently waited for her to catch up. Now making as straight a line as she could, she rode towards them. “Fancy meeting you out here,” the fourth of the men in the now haphazardly assembled half circle called out to her. He was tall and scruffy with all of the men looking a bit on the unkempt side, but they were hardly the nastiest looking lot she’d ever come across even in her relatively few years dealing with the underbelly of society.

“Greetings,” she said warmly, careful to mind her tone so that it didn’t sound too chirpy.

“Some coincidence meeting you here,” the man noted. “This isn’t an often traveled path.”

“Which is exactly the reason for my own interest in you,” she told him, settling herself in the center of the circle, maintaining her amiable tone, making eye contact with each and offering a smile even as she appraised which might attack her first if it came to that. “This doesn’t seem an often traveled path, so it seemed a bit strange to see so many traveling together, though for that very reason that it is a rarely used path, there’s strength in numbers. “I am Denna Vale. And you are?”

He thought for a moment before deciding that his name wasn’t that much of a surrender of information. “Hawly. I think I would have remembered one like you in these parts.”

“Understandable. With so few people around here, I imagine you know everyone by sight.”

“Almost, I think.” He looked her up and down. “Since I don’t know you, what are you doing out this way, mage?”

“Mage,” she said, tone flat so she didn’t sound like she was trying to dodge.

He looked to a bit of her arm exposed and the edge of the expertly drawn black and gray tattoo. “I recognize a guild marking even if I don’t get to see the whole mark.”

The look in his eyes dared her to dispute it. She wouldn’t have even if she hadn’t seen a couple of the men tense up around her. “Very observant, though I’m not actually part of a guild anymore. Freelancer. Making my way around, finding work where I can.”

“Isn’t that just about the most perfect of coincidences, boys?” Several of the men snickered and exchanged glances. “It just so happens that we’re looking for a mage and here you happened to be, just waiting for us to find you.”

Vale kept her posture relaxed. “A coincidence, I assure you. Fairly off the beaten paths and not many people around this way. You know that yourself; a good place for an unaffiliated mage like myself to make a living. I cured someone of fever not terribly far from here and I heard whispers from him and others about another place up this way and I thought there might be work to be had.”

Hawly made a show of looking around her and saw nothing. “Working alone these days?”

“Most freelancers do, I’m afraid. It can be a bit lonely, but, it’s a good living if you’re gifted enough.” Vale kept the tension from her voice and her body through practice, knowing that she was already in deeper than she’d anticipated. That’s what happens when you step into something you know nothing about.

He made eye contact with his closest companions who were even less adept at hiding their emotions as he was. “Well, it just so happens that we are in need of a healing mage, and, in a day of coincidences, here one comes upon us even as we search. The Goddess works in mysterious ways.” At that, his companions laughed.

“At times. You need a mage and I happen to be one who has some skill and likes getting paid for it. Sometimes fortune turns as it needs to. Does it really matter right this moment how we came across one another?”

“I suppose not, he agreed. “Will you come with us?”

“Will I be paid for my efforts?”

“Of course. My employer has promised good money for anyone that can deal with his problem.”

Deciding to go with something that she thought Sylanna might say and the way she might say it, a smirk followed, “All money is good money. Lead the way.”

The group turned back the way they came, Hawly coming to ride next to her as the rest loosely encircled them. It was disconcerting, but it helped her to remind herself of Mistress Lia. She carried herself as though she could handle anything or anyone that crossed her path. She had seen Mistress with the queen together at official ceremonies and always treated Queen Evaline with respect and affection. Mistress was careful never to give the impression to others that she was believed she was on the same level as the queen, always walking behind when expected, always showing proper deference.

Even so, Bryana Lia moved as if she was a queen herself. She knew her power and her gifts. Vale needed to do the same. She had had a few opportunities to stand off against others, or even threaten to, and this was another. She focused on her posture, her breathing, and making eye contact with each of them in turn. Vale was gratified to see two pairs of eyes shy from her gaze, the reputation of mage kind aiding her as much as anything else.

“Can you tell me what the nature of the problem is?”

Hawly seemed slightly more relaxed now that something of an agreement existed between the two. “I don’t, really. All I know is that one of Lord Solos’s guests is seriously ill and we were sent to find help for her.”

“All of you for that?”

“You said it yourself, safety in numbers. There are unsavory characters all over these parts.” There was another smattering of laughter from those around him.

“So, what does Solos do, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Hunter. Trader; mostly those things.”

Her perception told her he was holding things back, but it wouldn’t help her at all to push. Is there a place that I might get a meal and stay nearby?”

“We have a pretty nice set up. If everything goes fine I don’t expect you’ll have any problem with either.”

The ‘if it doesn’t…’ hung in the air. She found herself a little less uncomfortable with the idea that Sylanna’s magic could track her and see what she saw. The journey wasn’t a particularly long one. Clearly, the group hadn’t been on the hunt for help for long. Idle chat filled the time until they came upon the old trade post. She recognized some design bits still in use. Guards stood on either side and rushed to open them well before the group approached.

Heading inside, Vale scanned the scene. Her eyes saw nothing unusual. People milling. People haggling. People loud and drunk far too early in the day. By outward appearances, it wasn’t a terrible bit of civilization, but appearances could deceive, and she felt that, too when her sense of magic sent a shiver through her. There was the magic she sought. The remnants of it in the minds of those that set her on this path matched what she felt now even just in the air. It was powerful. It was wild and untamed. She felt echos of sadness. Desperation. Anger. Confusion. It all only added to her own considerable unease.

“Someone go find Solos,” Hawly said to no one in particular behind him, just expecting that someone would do it. “Tell him we found a mage.”

“We’ll stay here until he comes.” The words suggested a casual idea, but Vale was certain she wasn’t welcome elsewhere in the compound yet.

“That sounds fine.” She came off her horse and guided him to posts near the opposite wall to tie him off, knowing their eyes would remain on her. After doing so, she took the opportunity to look around. It was very much like other outposts she’d visited when it came to goods to be had, though there seemed to be fewer exotic baubles, the merchant goods focusing instead on basic needs of travelers, though there were a few things that she might have been interested in under other circumstances.

She used the opportunity to peruse the people, too. Vale didn’t see anyone she recognized, though that meant little because she was well beyond her usual paths. What she did recognize was the look of those around her. It was, for her, one of those things that showed her that all people were tied together no matter how far apart they could tell themselves that they were. Hunters dressed in layers to protect themselves from the elements, and wore their weapons to be seen, as much as to try to display their prowess as to ward off potential human predators.

Merchants always dressed well as a display of their own prowess, always displaying one or two rare bits, like an ornate ring or a finely-tailored coat. It was advertisement, too; showing others their reach and what they could provide with it.

The oddity was that those with darker needs and intentions all carried themselves similarly as well. They hoped to blend in, be unnoticed, and then forgotten as soon as they left. But, rather than dress to attempt to look like a hunter, a merchant, an herbalist, or any number of other vocations, they tried to dress as, for lack of a better description, nothing.

They dressed in clothes in bland colors that weren’t too expensive looking so as to draw attention, usually with no jewelry of any kind. They feigned interest as they milled about, asking questions of the merchants while almost never making eye contact because, Vale surmised, they knew on some level that what they were there for was wrong.

Even most those that simply didn’t care about the right or wrong of it for themselves usually cared for the perception of others in places like this. To her trained eye those people stood out more than anyone else, and they were here, too.

If nothing else, she knew she was on the right track. Someone with a stable of women would come here.

And then there was the magic.

She felt it drawing nearer to her even now. It was powerful, but wild and unrestrained, like a waterfall. Such power was not to be underestimated, and she did not. She simply hoped that she did not have to stand against it. Talismans grew in power, sometimes handed down over generations, where each user left the marks of their own understanding of magic on it, which the next with the keys to tap and shape even more power. Life and magic blended in unique ways in such things and it took a deep understanding of magic and a granite will to truly control them. Without the latter, a powerful talisman could overwhelm the user as she suspected happened to the man she sought. He was dangerous, yes, but probably not so of his own volition. For that, her heart went out to him.

“That was fast,” a voice boomed. “Where is she?”

Vale turned and saw the man who clearly fit that voice, moving his bulk with unexpected fluidity in the direction that one of her guards had his arm extended. As he approached, she could see how he towered over her. She could also see how he looked at her, sizing her up as a predator might. She’d gotten that look before and knew that the only correct response was to stare it down, so she gave him a glare as though she were weighing whether or not to burn him to the ground. When she did not wither, she thought she saw a hint of approval in his eyes. “You would be?”

“Denna Vale, Lord Solos,” she answered with a nod. And you would not be the man I seek. Her eyes lingered on the talisman. For those who knew how to see it, it radiated power like a beacon in pitch black. She could tell by the way the river flowed to and fro within the confines of of the necklace that it was always on the verge of being unleashed. No one had, by accident or design, bound the power after using is so it radiated from him like a blazing fire in a home waiting for someone to open the door so it could burst forth and consume all in its path.

For her, it was another piece of the mystery revealed. This one’s will was strong enough to begin to keep it in check despite a lack of training. For a lesser one, the fire would lick through the cracks in the door, their own deepest, darkest desires mingling with it, bringing those desires to the fore almost as whispers. In many ways, magic lived and did so symbiotically with the user, especially stored reserves as with talismans. What became of the other?” The way this one just looked at her, she could guess.

He appreciated the use of the honorific and spoke with pride. “I am the master of all you see and beyond. While my kingdom is small compared to some others, I built it, I control it, and I rule it fairly, but with iron.”

“A fair ruler is all that anyone can ask for,” Vale said, eager to move things along. “At any rate, I’m told you need a healer. I’m not as skilled as a formal healer, but if I can’t help, I can call upon others who should be able to.”

“One step at a time, little thing, but I will say that the person I want you to help is very important to me, so we’ll see.” It was beginning to make sense. The mages were now a factor in things. One of them around here was a rarity. Two was almost unheard of, and more than that to call upon only meant he was missing something important. Maybe he underestimated Delvine’s importance to her employers, and they were pulling all the stops to get her back. Maybe the mages caught sight of what he’d built on their own and wanted a piece...or all of it. Maybe they wanted to mount him on their wall.

If that was the case, they would not find him easy prey, especially now that he had some power of his own. So he resolved to see what was what. “Come with me, and I’ll take you to her.” Vale followed closely behind him, noting that two of those she rode with followed behind her as they made their way into the fort and through the halls. The people that were there didn’t exactly part for him, it was clear they knew better than to be in his path just now.

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“Magic was used on her.”

“Yours?”

Solos liked this one. She wasn’t going to dance around things. “Sense that, do you? I have to tell you that I actually feel this damn thing and it feels very good, like I could run a hundred miles and not break a sweat. Does it always feel this way as a mage?”

Perhaps reaching him could begin now since he was open to discussing it. “Sometimes, but we avoid dwelling on it. If it is seen as a pleasant side effect of what needs to be done, a reward, if you will, that’s one thing. If the sensation becomes an end unto itself, it leads to the dark paths. That’s why one of the most difficult aspects of magic is learning to properly restrain both it and yourself.”

His voice conveyed a shrug. “If one has skill they should be unafraid to use it. If one has power they should embrace it. But, to answer you, sort of. The man I got this from used it on her before he tried to use it on me.” He was proud as he made his way up the steps and to his private chambers. “He failed.”

“Where is he now? If I can question him, it could help.”

“Like I said, he tried to use it on me, so he’s in a shallow grave behind the back fence. If he can help you now, you’re quite the mage yourself.” There were snickers from the guards as he opened his chamber doors. What Vale saw wasn’t the opulence of royalty in gold, jewels, or the finest tapestries, but what were displays of wealth for out here where one didn’t waste gold by adorning their entry ways with it or encrust something with jewels so that others might be impressed when there were few others who mattered enough to impress. Here, it was size. She could tell that his chambers took up much of the floor. They were appointed in clean, polished, dark woods like a royal hunting lodge. Four pairs of boots clacked on the hardwood with a not unpleasant sounding rhythm as they made their way to his bedchamber.

Behind that door, Vale found a servant girl spoon feeding the one she assumed to be the one who needed help on top of the covers. The servant girl jumped at the sound of the door opening and stood, head slightly down, waiting to be spoken to.

“Any better?” he asked.

“No, Lord. Eats when you feed her, knows enough to hold herself in, and still seems very happy even though she doesn’t talk much.”

“Find something else to do now.”

The girl nodded and passed Vale on the way to the bed. This moment, for her, there wasn’t any other problem on her mind than someone who needed her help. “What’s her name?”

“Delvine,” Solos responded before turning and gesturing the guards out the door with her. They left with her and one of them closed the door behind him.

“Hello, Delvine. How are you today, Delvine?” She looked to him, “Do you know what happened? Be honest. I don’t care what happened before, but I can’t help unless I know the truth of all of it.”

“No one knows,” he said truthfully.

“Except the man you killed.”

He found that he didn’t dislike the annoyance in her voice. “No one was in a position to get the details out of him. I asked him what he’d done...assertively. He attacked, we defended ourselves, he died, and lucky for him that he did.”

“But the magic came from that. You’re certain.”

“Yes. He didn’t have anything else on him that feels like this.”

“Let me see it.”

He laughed. “Oh, no, no, no, no, little girl. No mage is going to touch this little trinket. It’s mine now, and it’s pretty useful, all things considered.

It was worth a try. Do you know what happened, Delvine? Do you remember who did this to you, Delvine?”

He was suddenly put off. “Why do you keep repeating her name as though it were a hiccup?”

Vale traced the pattern of a spell upon the forehead of the other and didn’t take her attention from that, “Do not think of pink dogs. I beg you not to think of pink dogs,” she implored. She finished drawing the spell and looked over to him, trusting that her point was made. “I wish to find Delvine and I wish her to think of Delvine so that she might bring forth what the name Delvine means to her.”

Solos nodded, as it made perfect sense.

Her hands touched the sides of her patient’s head. She closed her eyes. “Think of Delvine. Think of all that there is to being Delvine.” Vale closed her eyes and followed the symbols drawn into her and down into her mind.

What there was left of it.

There were many ways into a mind. For the most part almost all of them were unprotected. Even for those with training or with superior will, there were ways to sneak in unnoticed. Or, if the magic was powerful enough, you could force your way in and seize control. But that took more will and control than even some of the other ways in. One had to have the will to stop and the ability to impose that will to draw the power back.

There was no evidence of either here. All there was was the aftermath of brute force. The power had been driven into her with no care that anything be left of her after it was done, and there was little left. There were fragments of memories, the ability to understand some words, even if she couldn’t begin to articulate what they meant, and only the most base sense of self. She was a mostly empty thing now and Vale didn’t need to be a full healer to know that this wasn’t going to be undone. She kept her face a mask even though she grieved for the woman that was no more.

The only question now was how to handle it, and she could only think of one way that would address the only problem that she could do anything about. “Healing her is possible, but it will take a great deal of time, and is beyond me alone. I would have to call for assistance from at least several actual healers.”

“No.” He was firm. “I’m not bringing more mages in here, especially not friends of those that did this to her to begin with.”

She rose from the bed. “Friends of…? No.”

“No?” He closed the distance between them in one long stride. He grabbed her arm in the vise that was his hand and pulled her to him so that he towered over her that much more. “You mages think you know so much. You think you’re so much smarter than everyone else that you can do the most obvious things and no one will be the wiser because we’re all just idiots.”

He looked down upon her with a sneer. “Do you honestly believe that anyone with half a brain would think that your being within such easy reach is a coincidence? Someone brings some spellbound women to get through my door, goes straight to the most important person to me just then and melts her down before he tries to kill me and destroy everything I’ve built here.”

“Then, as if an angel was sent from the Goddess herself, you show up offering to help. All it will take is a few more mages and, oh, just hand me the power he tried to kill me with while you’re at it. Do you realize how that sounds?”

“No one thinks you’re stupid, Lord Solos.”

“Is that so, woman? Then how about some truth. What are you doing here? Really.”

Vale weighed her options once again and decided that, in the moment, some truth might help her to help him see reason. “I sought that talisman and the man who held it. It has great power. I feel it. You, even as an mu… someone unskilled in the ways of magic can feel it. He left a trail for me to follow, not that he meant to. So, no, Lord, it’s not a coincidence that I was close, but I was not with him and, if there was a plot to undo you, that was his and his alone.”

His gaze bore into her and, out of reflex, she began to marshal her defenses against it to defend herself fearing he was about to set it loose upon her and she did not know how it would end, for she had never truly been exposed to unbridled power in this sort of circumstance before and she’d guessed that few mages had. Most lessons from the first had been about control and its loss. Vale also did her best to hide her power from him. What little she knew of the events that brought her here and what she could feel now, she knew that once set loose, it acted to control and consume. She would not be its victim without a fight, and she would not end up like Delvine.

He could feel her fear, her anger, and her resolve. He had a good eye for prey. He could see in their eyes what was behind them and the decisions made. He knew the vicious snarls that were lies because the beast had nothing left and wanted to die in peace. He knew the rumbling purrs from their bellies that others mistook for death rattles, but they were really trying to lull the hunter closer.

That sense worked with people, too. In a fight with more than one, he knew which ones would attack first and which would run after the first good run-in with his fist. And he had a good idea when he was being lied to and, so far, this one didn’t seem to be lying about anything that mattered.

“That he would come for one such as you, or believe that he could overwhelm you should be lesson enough, don’t you think? He thought he could control it and now he’s dead. You think you can control it, and, maybe you can in the short term, but you feel it even now, like a bug gnawing in you ear; a whisper you can’t quite hear. You want to use it because it feels good. As I’ve tried to tell you, it becomes its own end. It won’t be long, if you just let it run through you for the rush, before the feeling becomes all that you care about.”

“So I should just hand it to you to save myself, is that it?”

“There are worse options for you, Lord, but you have something of interest to my guild. You would be well compensated, so, no, I’m not expecting you to surrender it out of kindness or even self-preservation. Surrender it for wealth.”

‘If controlling it is so important a thing to know, how about you teach me, girl?”

“Because I don’t have years to dedicate to it and neither do you. You already like the feeling. I don’t need to be a mage to see that. You are a powerful man and powerful men most often want more power. You’ve tasted it already and you like it. Stop now, before it’s too late.”

He let go of her arm. She at least believed her words, and power came in many forms. He could give up one for another, but it would have to be worth it and then some, and, right now this thing around his neck was all he had worth anything. “If you can make Delvine there useful to me again, and that works out, then, we can talk about trading this,” his hand touched it and relished the warmth, “for a great deal of money.”

“If you’re lying to me, I’m going to need this.”

“For what?”

“To do what I needed her for in the first place: a bit of business expansion. This might make things easier all around, but what she knows could still open doors for me. So, heal her, or at least show me that it can be done, then we’ll talk.”

“I told you that I cannot heal her myself. Broken bones, heavy bleeding, the worst of internal injuries? I can mend the worst of the most obvious things, but her mind has been undone and it’s as much physical as anything else. I am not healer enough for that.” As she spoke, she used the distraction of the heightened emotions between them to reach her power outward toward the talisman. He was tied to it enough now to feel her touch it, and would probably react badly if he felt her do so, but that wasn’t her aim.

She felt and saw her own power drift towards him, letting it come come close enough to the talisman to demand a response from him if there would be one. Seeing none in his expression or action, she pulled it back and surmised that he was all will and had no real sense of it. The other had been weak and apparently been subsumed by the power at his disposal quickly, probably in a haze of confusion and lust for it. This one would last longer. Perhaps even long enough to convince himself he’d accidentally mastered it, but he would end up in the same place.

“But you know people that are.”

Holding on to the bit of lie, “I do. Even so, they will need access to the magic that damaged her, to study it if nothing else. It’s not all the same, even if you think it is.”

Meeting his eye, her jaw set even if he did see the unease there. This one had some spark. Like that spark, an idea flashed within him. If she was indeed right about the trinket, something would have to be done, and she was the perfect position to be of help.

“Come with me.”

To Be Continued...