Ren dropped down, one hand bearing his weight against the sandy ground, and shoved forward under the swipe of Shan’s enormous axe. The magician stepped back before Ren’s diving thrust could make a connection, and brought the disproportionately large weapon smashing into the ground. Ren barely rolled out of the way. With practiced dexterity, he kicked his legs up and flipped up to his feet again. With one hand against the back of his sabre, he blocked the speedy follow up attack and skidded back a few steps.
For another ten minutes, he tried to land a blow on Shan’s bare torso. The magician had muscles no larger than Ren—in fact, he was of a shorter build—but the weapon he wielded was enormous.
The declaration of a break came as a relief, and Ren hunched over his knees, panting for breath. “How do you do that?” he asked.
Shan ran a long comb through his fine black hair and grinned ear-to-ear. “I call her Thunder,” he said, tapping the flat of the axe-head. The weapon at full height would stand over his head and was as wide as his torso. “Thunder weighs as much as I would like her to. When she connects with my enemy, she bears all the force of a storm, but can be as quick as lightning too. You ask how? It took me twenty years.”
“I said ‘break’,” Telan said, approaching with his arms crossed. Shan bowed and turned toward a bench.
“Oh,” Ren said, blinking. He hadn’t seen Telan, standing behind Woodro and Asar. “Can we help?”
Telan uncrossed his arms and patted down the dark blue robe he wore today. His well-kept black beard quivered as he spoke. “Your brother will be out shortly. My Master has arrived—your master too, now.”
“Well, I finally get to meet the boss?” Ren asked, smirking.
“Better clean up,” Telan said, and tipped his head toward a round building that had been built as a council hall and meeting room. “He’ll see you two exclusively, in there.”
“Just the family members?” Woodro asked. “So I can keep training?”
Telan smiled. “Certainly.”
Woodro eagerly taunted Shan with a pointed finger and pranced lightly on his feet. “I’ve got another plan to try,” he said.
“Another?” Shan asked, while Ren paced away.
A wooden basin of water was built against the wall of the barracks they’d been housed in, and Renado quickly washed his face with a few splashes. He pulled off his tunic as he walked through the hallways to his small quarters to find one less sweaty. Last week, he’d had a hot bath! It seemed some of the magicians used their abilities for comforts such as that, as overall luxury on the island of Dusk was left to those living on it.
Lerran blocked the sun from his eyes as he stepped through the wooden door of his dormitory, squinting and failing to notice Ren coming out the front door of the adjacent structure. Renado crossed his arms and leaned back against the building, smiling as his brother slowly adjusted to the light. It wasn’t until Lerran was almost upon Ren that he started. “How long have you been standing there?”
“How long since you’ve seen the sun?” Ren retorted.
Lerran scratched his scalp. “My head is… damn, it’s sore.” He blinked his eyes a few times. “Their healers spend hours with me each day.”
“You’re still alive, which is more than the last healer told us you’d be.”
Ren’s brother shrugged wearily and led the way along the building front. The large circular yard between the structures on the Isle consisted of a few training fields, and a big stone disk where many magicians spent hours meditating. Shan and Woodro kicked up clouds of dirt as they sparred—Woodro’s plan seemed to be trying to get a foot or two on top of the enormous axe shaft, confusing the magician’s sense of its weight.
“There’s barely a scar where the spear cut me anymore,” Lerran said, “but my head pounds, day and night. I can only sleep a few hours at a time now, even though I could sleep for days right after my rescue.”
Ren nodded and patting his brother’s back gently. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“We both have,” Lerran said.
Telan leaned against the front door of the round meeting hall. He smiled politely to them both, then rapped the door once with a knuckle. A voice called out, “Send them in,” and their host pushed the door’s latch inward. Ren was a little surprised that the man who had greeted them on the isle’s shores did not enter with them.
Inside awaited an elderly man in a black tunic and loose beige pants. Barely a handful of hairs were left on his bald, wrinkled scalp, though a few white tufts spouted in front of each ear. The man didn’t have a beard—aside from a few errant whiskers—but those silver sideburns framed his eyes into scrutinizing focus. His mouth, quirked permanently in one corner, opened for one quick breath, and then he extended his hand toward Lerran. “My name is Gravagan,” he said, with a low voice. “You’re Lerran of Sheld?”
The elder brother took the man’s hand in a clasp and tipped his head. “You have my thanks,” he said. “For my healing, and for this safe haven.”
“Well, it won’t come cheap,” the man said, shrewdly. “Renado, I presume?”
“Indeed.” Renado embraced the man’s palm, and found the man’s bright eyes prying his in an uncanny way. He responded with a quip, of course: “This visit has been far better than my last, either way.”
Gravagan’s teeth were briefly revealed in a flitting grin, before he withdrew, turning his back to them to claim a wooden seat at an enormous rectangular table. He indicated two seats for them, at a square angle to him. “Help yourself,” he mentioned, waving his fingers towards a tray of drinks. Lerran poured something, but to Ren’s surprise did not partake.
“Pardon me,” Lerran asked, leaning forward in his seat. “Are you the top man or one of the links in the chain?”
“The politics on the Isle of Dusk are not that simple,” Gravagan said, quietly. His voice rose gruffly as he explained, “Suffice it to say that my organization is helmed by a peer or two, and myself. Not all magicians benefit from a membership of my…” He parted his lips in a smile once more. “Family.”
“So this conversation remains between us,” Lerran said.
Gravagan wagged a wrinkled finger in the air and nodded. “Precisely so.”
Renado voiced a question that his brother and he had both been thinking. “Will you be giving us tasks, as we agreed with Telan?”
“Your crew will be assigned tasks by a variety of my peers—including some who are not part of my group. But you two, and whomever you choose, work directly for me,” the old sorcerer said. “Lerran, your leadership in Sheld was brief but capable. Your contacts are numerous and scattered around the Grey Sea. Renado backs up your services with the bravery and bluntness required to carry out what needs to be done. Perhaps the fall of your Family was all due to poor timing, that you were not side-by-side.”
“Quite a theory,” Renado muttered, when it was the fault of everyone on this damn island that the timing was disrupted.
“And what will we do for you, Master Gravagan?” Lerran asked.
The intelligent old man leaned back in chair and scratched one of his finger nails through a furrow in the grain of the wooden tabletop. “In the Radregar theatre, in Ith, one of our magicians has gone rogue. You two will devise his elimination. The requirements are simple: the fewest possible numbers made be made aware of this contract, and he must be dealt with within the next two or three months.”
“As assassination,” Lerran said, frankly. “You’re incapable of hiring an assassin on your own?”
Gravagan’s mouth quirked again, in amusement. “Why would I hire an assassin when I’ve already hired you?”
Lerran scoffed and nodded with a dry smirk. “What’s this magician’s name?”
“Axar,” Gravagan said. “The details of the circumstances are a little vague and frequently change on account of the social upheaval in that region, so you will be connected with one of the operatives scattered in the lands surrounding Ith.”
“How are we supposed to take out a magician who presumably knows we’re coming?” Lerran asked.
Gravagan raised his hands to shrug. “You and your men are offered as much training in dealing with magicians as possible, but sorcery is more dangerous in the public eye than in truth, in most cases. Axar is a skilled warrior, who will distort his actions and yours with magic, but very few magicians are capable of killing with sorcery alone.”
“I think I know a killer or two who would volunteer,” Ren muttered, nodding his head back toward the sounds of clacking sticks in the yard.
Lerran sighed, massaging his temples with his thumbs. “Surely, a professional assassin is the best option,” he said, and finally took a sip of his wine. “But we’ll see what our men are capable of over the next couple weeks and make that decision.”
“Will you travel to Ith in person, or accept a Journeying spell?”
Renado swore under his breath at that question.
Gravagan smiled again. “Journeying is a tricky mistress, it’s true. The reason you vanished for so long, Master Renado, is because you would have truly died in that hurricane. The chances of you dying on a venture to Ith are slim, but the chances of dying from a spell such as Journey are non-existent. It is your decision. Should you venture to Ith in person, you must account for a longer time of travel. Should you Journey there, you may spend a week or two more in training, but run a slim and ambiguous risk of failing this task, should the spell delay your arrival in a truly unusual circumstance.”
“Gods,” Ren rambled, “How do you keep track of this nonsense?”
Lerran put his hand on his brother’s arm. “Ren.” After a breath of calm, the leader of the Family spoke up again. “We’ll discuss these options and decide within the next couple weeks as well. A physical voyage poses a few issues on account of the hostility of the Raderan coast.”
“The green eyes are closed,” Gravagan said quietly, and both of Gharo’s children tensed. The family emblem had been discarded since the Atmos Septi burned down their business. The master wizard tapped the table with his index finger. “But both of yours are still open.”