Footfalls echoed in the bowels of Arram. The moss, infested by vestiges of magic overflowing from one of many portals lent the moss the strange power to glow, coruscating veins of blue crackling through its green tendrils. The velvet carpet deadened the footfalls to a murmur, and the bare feet slapping against the covered flagstones trod lightly.
Ascending a wide stairway, the blue tinged growth gave way to drier hallways, lit at regular intervals by burning torches. There were no guards, no one to greet the returning mage.
His robes caught the muted light and shimmered as he strode toward the centre of the Protectorate’s headquarters, heading with single minded ambition toward his rightful place, among the twenty one leaders of the Protectorate, the Speculate. He was late, but even for an ascendant, time could not be manipulated. Travelling to the portal from any location was possible for one with the power to bend reality, but within Arram such displays of power were generally forbidden. But for the leader of the twenty one divisions, Jek, who alone was more powerful than the visitor.
His eyes caught the torchlight, seeming to reflect their red glow, but his eyes were of a different hue. They shone with their own inner light, a dark blood red, the blood of organs, of menstruation, dark enough to seem black on a moonless night. Sometime they bled light, marking the mage’s light as otherworldly, a preternatural light. It was the mark of an ascendant. As yet there were few, but their numbers, and so the power of the Protectorate, would grow.
An unassuming door stood before him. From beyond he could hear the sound of voices, arguing, as usual. There was no discipline beyond the door. It was something he would change when the power was fully under his control.
Reaching out with one emaciated hand, he pushed the door aside and entered boldly.
As one, the assembled Protocrats turned their heads to look at him.
Jek, at the head of the circle, was the only one to smile.
“Ah, Klan, we are graced with your presence, as always. I trust you have not caught a chill?” Jek, the Speculate and leader of the twenty-one, was not to be taken lightly.
Klan Mard bowed low to his master. “My apologies, Speculate, I was unavoidably detained. But I thank you for your concern. The ice plains have yet to seep into my bones.” Respect was one thing. But obsequiousness, that was for dogs. Klan raised his head and took his place among the circle. He saw that few had ascended. Haran Irulius, Paenth Dorn D’tha, Absalain Ur An…the list was still short. Their eyes glowed with ascendancy, the blight not yet pronounced in all of the twenty-one, but their number was growing.
“And how goes the search for the red wizard? The one prophesised?” Tun, the head of the Search division, asked this innocuously, as though he cared not one whit for the answer. Klan noted the big Protocrat’s eyes glowed as brightly as his own.
“Alas, it goes badly,” Klan admitted. “We have not found sign or marker of the wizard’s resting place. I begin to doubt he even exists.”
“Oh, he exists alright. The Island Archive mentions him, as do our scrolls. It is just a matter of looking in the right place.”
“If only we could utilise our magics. We are hunting blindly, and the ice plains of Teryithyr are vast indeed.”
Klan took a moment to examine his brethren and sistren. Mermi had yet to join him among the ascendants, but her eyes were showing a hint of red where ordinarily there was only grey. The ascendancy was gathering pace.
He voiced his thoughts, although he knew what it meant for him.
“Ascendancy is coming to us already. Time grows short before the return of the old ones.”
“And you understand what this means?”
“Yes, my lord. We must find the wizard, or the three, before long.”
“And you can do this?”
“I have spies in every port. I believe the Saviour, the one known as Shorn, still hides on the land of Sturma. There are few ports there, and we are searching still. The Watcher is with him, hiding him from our scryers. The one known as the Sacrifice is similarly hidden, by our enemies, the Sard. Had we known of them sooner, perhaps we could have acted differently.” He looked pointedly at Paenth, who was responsible for this. She had the good grace to look away from Klan’s terrible eyes.
“We do not know either of their locations,” he added. “I have my men scouring Lianthre as we speak. She cannot hide for long.”
“We will disband for this night. You all know what to do.”
Klan left last. His Anamnesors would do his work in his stead. He could use some time to relax, even an ascendant was still subject to the demands of the body.
After a short trip to the residential quarters, Klan Mard laid softly upon his bed, and stared up at the ceiling in the darkened room. Grinning faces peered down at him, from where they were pinned upon the wood. He smiled, comforted by the sight of his delegation. He wondered if his faces had missed him as he missed them.
As he stared at them, his eyelids grew heavy.
For the first time in a month, surrounded by his only friends, the mage fell into a peaceful sleep.