It was daylight when he woke. The sun was high in the sky and he felt confused and disorientated. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, but he felt even worse than before, if such were possible. His lips were dry and cracked, and it felt like his tongue was stuck to the back of his throat when he tried to swallow. The skin on his face felt tight and sore to the touch. It seemed he had been lying there for some time. It took a moment for him to recall what brought him to be there and he sat up with a start.
The plains seemed almost endless from where he was, the horizon disappearing into the haze. He looked around but could see no sign of the barbarian city and was pleased that he had managed to put in so much distance before collapsing. He had no idea where he was, and he had no idea if he was being hunted, but it stood to reason that if he hadn’t been found while he was asleep, then it was likely that he was out of harm’s way. Perhaps the barbarians had been telling the truth when they said they were as eager for the shaman’s death as anyone. The thought of the shaman made his heart jump. The temptation of the power she had presented still sent a shudder through his body. For the first time he could empathise with the dream seed addicts that wandered around the streets of Ostenheim. At least he had managed to destroy the source of his temptation.
He got to his feet and could feel every muscle in his body protest. The bottom of his feet stung when he put weight on them, and he could not remember ever having felt quite this bad. Clearly the years of good living had made him soft, he thought, which made him laugh painfully. He looked up to the sun and tried to take a rough bearing from it. It was high, which made it difficult to be sure, but he satisfied himself that south was where he thought it was and headed in that direction.
As he walked he began to chastise himself about the way in which he had carried out his mission. He had been in such a rush to carry it out he hadn’t given proper thought to what would come after, and how best to make his escape. He had no water, and no idea of where to get any. It was likely that he would not get any until he re-joined the army, if he actually managed to find them again, an eventuality he was beginning to doubt.
Seconds stretched to minutes and minutes stretched to hours as he walked, ever more slowly. His throat was so dry that he could not swallow any more, and his tongue felt as though it had doubled in size. His eyes itched and burned at the same time, but when he rubbed them the burning doubled and his vision blurred. His lips cracked when he smiled at the thought that this was all down to his own stupidity. Instead of taking his time and planning properly, he had succumbed to his own arrogance. Now he was going to die of thirst on the endless dusty plains. It would be a foolish death for a deserving fool.
He walked until he collapsed with exhaustion that night, and was amazed when he awoke the next day. How he had survived through the cold of the night was anyone’s guess, but he had, so he struggled to his feet and continued to walk. At this point he didn’t even know where he was going, but walking seemed better than just lying down on the featureless plain and waiting for death to come.
The sun was beginning to sink toward the horizon when he spotted a short, stunted tree in the distance. It was the only feature on the otherwise barren plain, so for no reason other than that, he walked toward it. It took him some time to get there, shambling along with barely enough energy to lift his feet. When he did, he slumped to the ground and shuffled under its meagre shade. It was as good a place as any to die.
As he leaned back against the gnarled trunk he watched the leaves moving gently in the breeze. Where their edges touched the sky, there was the faintest of blue tinges. It was strange, yet familiar. A trick of the light he thought, or perhaps he was hallucinating. He let his mind drift. He thought of the snowy north. He had liked the peacefulness of the snow-blanketed woods. It would have been nice to see them again. He thought of Alys and of the belek. He wondered what she was doing now. It was a shame he had never had the opportunity to wear his cloak. It was just too damned warm in the south for the heavy fur. He thought of Alessandra, and the way he had reacted when he found out what she had become. He wished more than anything that he had apologised for the way he behaved before he had left, but there was nothing that could be done about that now. The thought caused him pain, but what she had become caused him more. And Amero. He had caused it all. He didn’t even want to think of him.
His rambling train of thought came to an abrupt halt. His mind suddenly felt clearer. Where for so many hours there had been only a disorientated stream of consciousness and a primal desire to survive, there was now focus. He didn’t feel quite as tired as he had. His eyes flicked to the leaves as his mind demanded an answer to his sudden feeling of wellbeing. The blue tinge was still there, but his eyes were no longer foggy and ranging in and out of focus. His sight was sharp once more and the tinge was, if anything, even clearer. He reached out with his hand to touch it and felt the faintest, almost imperceptible tingle at his fingertips. Warmth spread through his hand, which had been numb with cold the second before. The tinge fluctuated ever so slightly, and understanding came to him like a light being turned on in a darkened room.
As the clarity continued to return to his train of thought, he could recall the times that he had seen the blue glow before, the belek standing out foremost in his mind. He considered that to have been the first time he had experienced the Moment. He had noticed the glow just before he had entered it and now it seemed that he could see it again. He had discounted it on those previous occasions as a figment of his imagination, and perhaps this time it was also, but unlike the previous times, it was not a fleeting glimpse; the glow remained.
The warmth it had bestowed on his cold, tired fingers continued to spread down his arm toward his shoulder. He looked elsewhere for the blue glow, but the tree was the only feature for miles around and he could not see anything on the short, scrubby grass that covered the plains.
He toyed with the glow, which stuck to his finger as he slowly drew it away from the leaf until it stretched and pulled away as though it was syrup. His head felt so much clearer that he was sure he was not imagining it. The tingle was unmistakeable and the glow did not go away, it was definitely there. What was more, there could be little doubt in his mind that it was responsible for, or at least connected to, his increasing feeling of well being. Considering that he had seen the blue glow prior to entering the Moment on previous occasions, did that also mean that it was responsible for causing the Moment? Was this blue glow the manifestation of the energy that caused the Gift of Grace, that fuelled the Moment?
He thought over what he knew of the history of the old bannerets, but there was so little that was of any use to him now. The old stories and legends had made them out to have exceptional speed and strength that allowed them to achieve feats far beyond those of a normal man. He would have discounted the stories as nothing more than fairy tales were it not for Master Dornish having lent them credence when he suggested that Soren too might have these exceptional abilities. Now they started to make sense. If this blue glow was indeed an energy source that he could draw on to enhance his speed and strength, then perhaps they were true.
He did not know enough about what the Gift of Grace was, nor how it had come about to work out how it related to the energy, but it made sense that the Gift was what had allowed the early bannerets to make use of this energy. The Order of the Bannerets had been created by the mages, an elite bodyguard to protect them, presumably in times of vulnerability, although the reason was never mentioned in any of the histories he had read. So much of the documentation had been destroyed or lost to the passage of time; perhaps it would never be known.
Once bestowed with the Gift, the bannerets could experience the Moment, but that was all either he, or seemingly also Master Dornish could find out about it. To Soren, it seemed he was influenced by the Gift almost all the time, although it did wax and wane in intensity. Then there was the Moment, which it seemed allowed him to push beyond all physical limitations.
One glaring question remained. If it was the mages that bestowed the original bannerets with their ability, the Gift of Grace, how did he come by it? There were no mages left; they had been wiped out in the Mage Wars centuries before. The practice of magic had been illegal and mercilessly rooted out ever since. To his knowledge there was no one alive in Ostia, or any of the other states of the Middle Sea, who could perform anything more than a parlour trick. There had been the shaman of course, but he had experienced the Moment before ever coming into contact with them. Indeed, when he thought on it, he had been exhibiting signs of the Gift since his late teens.
The mages, their society had been known as the College of Mages, had grown arrogant and drunk on power. They had thought themselves beyond the laws of men and had delved into ever darker magics as, in their megalomania, they sought out more power. Eventually their dark acts became too much to bear and the Empire, and even their own bodyguards, the bannerets, turned on them. The wars lasted for years, but in the end the mages were defeated and any survivors were hunted to extinction, by the bannerets.
With the mages gone, there was no longer anyone to imbue future bannerets with the Gift of Grace. They, like their former masters, were gone from the world in only a generation. There was an irony in that, Soren thought. The concept of bannerets continued however, until the present day, but those with the right to bear their own banner no longer had any skills beyond those earned through countless hours of training. That was until Soren, it seemed.
It appeared that the Gift of Grace had been simmering away in the background without Soren ever really noticing it until he had started to look for something out of the ordinary. Now that his body was being pushed to the very brink of survival, the Gift was taking a more prominent role to ensure that he did not die. All the parts of his mind that dealt with it subconsciously were being opened to him. It was the only explanation that he could come to. Did it mean that he would see this blue glow everywhere the energy existed from now on? Where did the energy come from and where else did it gather? There were so many more questions that Soren had, but on his limited information and his only limited experience, they would have to remain unanswered, at least for the time being.
While he still felt hungry and thirsty, his body felt stronger, no longer on the verge of failing. Now that he was presented with the energy right in front of him, it seemed like a good opportunity to experiment with it. He needed to know if the Moment was something that would happen of its own accord, or if he would be able to influence its coming. He already reckoned that he could stave it off through will alone, he had discovered as much when he killed the shaman. Could he likewise bring it on?
He focussed his mind on the blue glow, willing it into himself. He felt a flush of warmth across his body, but neither the sensation of the Gift gaining in strength, nor the Moment. Perhaps there was not enough energy here, gathered around that lonely little tree. Perhaps this simply wasn’t the way to do it. He tried once more, but the result was the same. He did, however, feel a little stronger.
He sat under the tree for some time, allowing his body to recuperate further. Despite feeling better than he had, he was still desperately thirsty and his stomach felt as though it was twisting itself into knots. As he sat there he continued to try to reason out the aspects of his gift. It did not appear that he was drawing energy from the tree, merely from around it. Perhaps the energy gathered where there were living things. Perhaps it leaked out of those living things and accumulated around it. It was purely speculation, but it seemed to make sense. He looked at his hand. There too was the faintest of blue tinges. How had he never noticed this before? He pulled back his sleeve. All of his bare skin had it.
It was clear now that despite his expectations, he was not going to die under that tree. The energy was giving him strength and in spite of his hunger and thirst, it was enough for him to carry on.
He got up, and began to walk.