Far above the mottled grey of the broken city, upon the steep hill called Star Watch, stood another man. Varsis, once Council Master Varsis, watched expressionless as the mote of silver light receded beyond the horizon. No lines of concern marred his handsome, angular face, no emotion marked his features.
Underneath he seethed. So the murderer still lived.
As leader of the Council, he had voiced time and time again his objection to the ill-conceived notion of immortality for the masses. What use was immortality to an overweight wineseller, or an ignorant stablehand? Were they to work such menial labor for all eternity? Such a fate seemed more punishment than gift to Varsis.
Of course the fools wanted it, who could pass on such an offer? Dangle an apple before a pig and he will bite, never pausing to consider the worms crawling within. It was the province of the wise, those with the intellect to understand the greater good, to make such decisions for them. Leave eternal life to the scholars and the wizards, those who could put the time to far better use.
Perhaps even some who proved themselves useful to the city and made a compelling case, or even a sizable donation, could be considered as well. It was always useful to give the masses something to hope for; no one liked the idea of dying, and it was prudent to keep the populace happy. But immortality for all was madness.
So he had argued vehemently before the council, where his rank and sound reasoning should have been more than enough to sway a majority. But no, of course not, not with Cronius the Great, Arch Magus extraordinaire arguing the other side.
The mere fact that the man outranked him was galling enough, but to see intelligent men follow him so blindly in the face of reason was maddening. That the man had flashes of genius, Varsis could not deny. The Song of Eternity was an inspired bit of spellcasting, and far beyond even his own considerable talent in the art. But such moments of inspiration did not make the Arch Magus infallible.
He spared a moment from his thoughts to glance once more at the ruin of the city below. Oh no, not nearly infallible. Varsis almost laughed at the irony; the man had promised them all life everlasting, and instead had given them a swift, horrific death.
Varsis never stopped to consider that he himself might in some way be at fault. The cloud of silence he had engendered during the great spell could not have caused such destruction. It had been an obstacle, a stop-gap measure to delay the spell and give him time to garner more votes to his side in the Council; such a public failure would have done much to bolster his argument. That self-righteous fool Cronius must have made some horrible miscalculation. There was no other explanation.
Or was there? A thought struck Varsis, a thought to chill even his cool, calculating heart. Perhaps there had been no miscalculation. Perhaps this had been the plan all along. His eyes retraced the path the silver mote that was Cronius had traveled, towards the Isle. With the council gone, with every wizard of consequence now dead, Cronius was free to make the Isle of Children his own.
Indeed, with his power and the Song of Eternity, there was now nothing stopping Cronius from setting himself as a God among those primitives. The idea sickened Varsis, even as he admired the calculated brilliance of the plan. Such a scheme might even had worked, save for the fact that Varsis still lived. Him, and one other.
He glanced to the silent figure standing motionless at his side, cloaked and hooded against the night. An accomplice had been necessary, the spell of silence required at least two wizards working in concert. Finding a wizard who shared his views had not been difficult. Although the majority of wizards had been for the Casting, there were some who had been nearly as vehemently against it as he himself.
He had recruited the most powerful and dedicated from among this faction, and, together, in a forgotten chamber far below the city, they had worked their magic. They had succeeded, but in the end it hadn't matter. The Arch Magus had worked his folly, and the city had died screaming. Only they among the entire populace had come through the conflagration unharmed. Well, he thought, sparing a glance for the figure at his side, perhaps not unharmed.
A light breeze gusted, and Varsis could not restrain a slight wince as, for a moment, the shrouded figure's hood fell back, revealing a caricature of a once beautiful face, now rendered hideous by fire's callous ministrations.
A shame, that. She had been a very fine looking woman.
He sighed. Once the ground started shaking and the screams began, there had been no stopping her. She had run shrieking from the perfect safety of the chamber, crying for her precious Cronius. It had been all he could do to keep her alive.
"He did this to you, Shayle," he repeated for the hundredth time since pulling her from the wreckage of a fallen building.
She made no response, just continued to stare at the point on the horizon where the Arch Magus had disappeared, one sightless, milky eye still weeping from the touch of flame, the other alight with rage.
YOU ARE READING
The Longest Lament
Fantasy“A grizzled soldier at war with peace. A powerful wizard buried beneath the weight of failure. A street child with a knack for language, illusion, and mischief. A nobleman’s daughter unable to ignore the injustice all around. Two countries at war, t...
