Union of Defiance

Chapter 1 – Impressions

It was not until the morning after the surprise arrival of the Seaforest court mage
and her oddly dressed charge that Urwick returned to the barracks. He assured Miranda
that they were doing what they could for the sake of Clarke, and that Ebon had departed
to retrieve the Sunstone. After he had made sure that everyone was settled and had their
place for the moment, Urwick then went back to his usual University business while they
were awaiting Ebon’s return with Shetland.
Miranda had refused to leave Clarke’s side, considering herself responsible for his
well-being. In order to accommodate the foreign pair, a couple of the Templars had
agreed to be temporarily relocated to spare rooms in the main hall, a more comfortable
and luxurious alternative to their bunks in the cramped quarters that they called home.
 Brianna, on the other hand had not been willing to move, despite the fact that
Clarke now lay in the bed next to her own. She did not trust the unusual slim stranger or
the blond wizard who accompanied him and who watched the holy soldiers like a hawk
between her select catnaps. Brianna was angry that Urwick had decided to impose their
presence upon those who resided in the barracks. Miranda caught the gruff woman
looking at her with hostility on more than one occasion, and was finding it progressively
difficult to ignore her.
“I didn’t volunteer to be here you know,” Miranda said with annoyance, catching
her in the act during one of these instances. “I’m here under orders, just like you are, I’m
sure. So you can stop giving me the dirty looks. As soon as I’m given the okay to take
him home, I’ll be out of your hair. We’ll both be out of your hair.”
“Oh,” Brianna grunted with obvious derision. “So that would suffice as an excuse
if I showed up suddenly in your backyard and made myself comfortable in your bedroom,
with some unconscious man dressed like one of your worst enemies? I’m sure you would
sleep like a baby if that were the case.”
“The castle is my home, but I don’t get to dictate who sleeps where, so if those
were the prince regent’s directives, then I would just have to tolerate the circumstances
until they sorted themselves out,” the Master mage insisted. “I certainly wouldn’t shoot
the messenger.”
“If I weren’t ‘tolerating the circumstances’, as you so like to put it, this man
would be dead already. I don’t know why you believe he isn’t a Jadoran. They aren’t
known for their honesty. We’d be better off killing him than trusting him,” the grouchy
Templar responded.
“He wasn’t conscious when he arrived at the castle, from what I understand, and it
was the captain of the royal guard himself who assured me that Clarke was no assassin.
That doesn’t make him innocent. He’s still guilty of being a Renegade, but I was
commanded to bring him here, as quickly as possible, for healing. Then, when he has
recuperated sufficiently, I’m to take him back to Feltrey to face criminal charges,”
Miranda explained.
“And what if he doesn’t want to go back?” Brianna asked, propping herself up in
her bunk on one elbow. “Renegade magic isn’t a crime here. The University is closely
affiliated with a number of Renegade mages. I’ve fought the Jadorans with Renegades at
my side. If that truly is his only crime, the dean may choose to give him asylum, if he
asks for it. He may refuse to allow you to take this man with you when you return to
Seaforest.”
“Oh, that’s not the only charge that he’s facing, but I have a feeling that this
Renegade will want to return, despite having to face possible punishment for his crimes,
whatever that punishment may be,” the court mage said with a shrug. “I was informed
that he had colleagues who were in great danger when he was brought to us. They had
been attacked by the assassins you consider your primary enemies, and their theatre was
on fire. I’m sure that he’ll want to return, if only to see what has become of them.”
“Theatre?” Brianna exclaimed. She took a closer look at Clarke, her annoyance
fading a little, and her curiosity peaked. “He’s a bard? Are you trying to tell me that this
outfit is some sort of costume?”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything. Jarvas was a little scant on the details. I
know that this man is an entertainer of sorts, a member of a group known as the Feltrey
Feature Players. They have, or perhaps by now I should say they had, a theatre on the
waterfront in the capital city of Seaforest, but they had already been caught harbouring
one Renegade, and a water-bug at that. Then there was the fellow that portalled Clarke’s
sorry carcass into the castle, some hulking half-breed named Rory. One Renegade is an
accident, possibly a coincidence, two Renegades or more, and it’s a conspiracy. That
makes Clarke a likely criminal and a possible threat,” Miranda remarked. The way she
spoke the word “half-breed” made it clear that she intended the comment to be
derogatory.
“I don’t know where you would get that idea. This guy here doesn’t look like
much of a threat, aside from the way that he’s dressed. Unless he’s a reasonably potent
wizard, I don’t think there’s a woman in these barracks that couldn’t take him,” the
normally ornery Templar said with a grin.
“It’s not very likely that he has much in the way of spells,” the blond wizard
commented. “Except for the naturally inclined, fire-bugs, water-bugs and the like, the
Renegades in Seaforest tend to be fairly weak because of the law that’s in place. It makes
them less of a danger to society because it is difficult for them to learn and trade spells,
but they still tend to gather in swarms in all the hidden cracks and crevices, like vermin,
and combine what strengths they have as best they can. That theatre was probably
crawling with his kind, and they were possibly trying to hide their criminal ways with
bardic magic. We’ve had that problem before, within the castle even, right underneath
the noses of the law-makers themselves.”
“Sounds like you got a pretty good hate on happening for Renegades. The town
of Anthis won’t be much to your liking then. The Renegades there tend to be fairly adept
and are free to go about their business as they please. I’m thankful for that too. They’ve
proven to be quite handy during the Jadoran raids on campus. They’ve got their own
school in Anthis you know,” Brianna stated, as she swung her legs around to the side of
the bed, and sat up.
“I’m aware of that,” Miranda assured her, with a slight frown and a disapproving
tone. “The prince regent had travelled here to fetch a contingent from that school. He
was presenting them before Council when all of this mess with the theatre began. He was
hoping that they would repeal the law banning Renegades.”
“I take it that you disagree with that concept. You think them beneath you, do
you?” the Templar scoffed, getting to her feet. “Maybe you should stick around for a
while, then. You could learn a thing or two from the younger wizards at the University
and the Renegades in Anthis. I’d personally trust them with my life. I have in the past,
and they’ve all come through for me, Master and Renegade alike.”
“I don’t need lectures on tolerance from someone who would be willing to kill a
man because of the way that he was dressed. At least my judgements are based on
actions and not appearances,” the mage countered with an edge of hostility, rolling over
on her bunk, to stare up at the ceiling of the barracks. “You are no better than I am on
that front. You can stuff that air of superiority. I still brought him here despite my
reservations. It’s not up to me to decide his guilt or innocence, and it is not up to me to
mete out his punishment. It is my duty to help preserve his life and escort him back to
Feltrey when he is able to travel there again – and that’s exactly what I intend on doing.”
Brianna laughed at this, a taunting, throaty sound.
 “I pass judgement based on real dangers. I persecute Jadorans because they are
cut-throats and murderers known for their deceit. It’s black and white with no measures
of gray. Evil is their way of life. You, on the other hand are prepared to doom a man for
a lifestyle choice that may not negatively impact anyone? How is that right?” She
started towards the exit.
“It’s the law. I thought those who were faithful to Oron valued the law,” Miranda
called after her.
“We value what is fair,” she replied, without turning back to look at the wizard.
“How is that law fair?”
Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared through the door.
Miranda rolled her eyes and settled in for another catnap.

*-*-*

After the first leg of their journey, the band of travellers, that included the
Renegade wizards belonging to the group of freedom fighters known as the Defiance,
came to a stop by Salgar, a small town in the Plains of Turmetti. The majority of the
group chose to camp in the wilderness there, but two amongst them, Dee Aaronsod, a
mage-in-training, and her companion from Anthis, the clairvoyant named Clayton, had
both had enough of the great outdoors.
Dee and Clayton had travelled from Anthis to Seaforest not that long ago, as part
of the diplomatic contingent for the prince regent, and had spent several nights outside on
their way there. Between a number of ambushes en route, and problematic issues
involving campfires, Dee’s natural inclination towards fire, and Clayton’s clairvoyant
episodes, they had both agreed it was worth the coin to spend a night in a somewhat
comfortable room and a warm, dry bed, with no fears of ambush and no problems with
fire. It would also give them the opportunity to spend time together alone, something the
couple had not been able to do much of lately.
There was only one inn in Salgar, and it was not the best of accommodations, but
it was certainly better than the cold hard ground and exposure to the elements. They
would make do with the slightly damp and drafty room, and the lumpy mattress that
rested within it.
Exhausted and chilled, the pair fell into bed that night, expecting to sleep like the
dead. Dee was asleep moments later, curling her somewhat athletic physique up against
her companion for warmth, but fate was not that kind to poor Clayton. He was comforted
by her proximity, but felt slightly nervous because of it as well, never quite sure how he
should respond to any displays of affection on her part. To make matters worse, he was
in for multiple surprises that evening, all of which were to end up disrupting his sleep.
The first incident that caused the lanky blond man unrest, before he had even laid
his head upon his pillow, involved his newest acquisition. He and Dee’s diplomatic
mission to Feltrey had proven to be successful, but not without some difficulty. The law
banning Renegade magic in Seaforest had been struck down, but they had both come
very close to dying in the process of trying to make it happen. Much of this was due in
part to an anti-magic cult known as the Scourge. The Scourge sought to cleanse the land
of all non-divine magic, and had been after a magical brooch owned by Angellica, the
rebel leader of the Renegade Underground in Feltrey, Seaforest’s capital city. The
Scourge had sent mercenaries with specially trained dogs and assassins after the
Underground, trying to scavenge the iridescent trinket, which was more than just the
bauble that its owner had assumed that it was.
The Weavecharm was actually a portion of a larger artefact referred to as an
embodiment, an object containing the essence of a god, and in the case of the
Weavecharm and its fellow pieces, specifically the essence of Energia, the goddess of
magic.
Thankfully, the Scourge’s efforts to steal the Weavecharm from its rightful owner
had failed, thankful since they wanted to acquire all of the scattered sections of the
embodiment in order to destroy it and the goddess of magic along with it. However, they
had succeeded in destroying the Underground’s home base in their attempts and nearly
killed many people, Dee and Clayton included. The Scourge’s plans aside, with the law
struck down, there was no more cause for the Renegades of the Underground to hide.
They set about constructing their new home, their own version of a school of blended
magic, within the safety of royal terrain, and within sight of the castle, where the Scourge
was unlikely to target them.
As Dee and Clayton had organized with the Renegade freedom fighters with
whom they now travelled, the Defiance, in order to oppose the Scourge, Angellica had
come to the decision that she wished to hand over the Weavecharm to the building army.
The Defiance would be travelling to Anthis, to warn the Academy, and particularly, the
University, of the Scourge’s intentions, while recruiting new members along the way.
Angellica thought it best that the Weavecharm be delivered to the University, for safe-
keeping, and to help them in their battle with the Scourge.
Thanks to a Renegade informant planted amongst the Jadorans, the Defiance was
aware that the anti-magic cult would be amassing with the assassins to the north of
Anthis in order to make a full-on strike against Magic University, something the officials
at the University needed to know if they were going to be prepared to counter the assault.
The Defiance also planned on helping to defend the people there from the assault, despite
the fact that it would mean setting aside any differences between Master and Renegade.
In the end, Angellica had specifically given Clayton the Weavecharm, trusting
him more with the artefact than anyone else, because of his foresight. She did this with
the belief that this would allow him to see any problems that may arise involving the
piece of embodiment ahead of time. If only things had remained that simple.
That night, when Clayton had tried to remove the Weavecharm along with his
clothing as he prepared to go to bed, he had no problem unpinning it from his shirt, but
then he had been unable to release the iridescent brooch. When he tried to put the item
down, it clung to his flesh like it was glued in place, and no manner of shaking or
scraping would free it from his grasp. If he attached it to his bed clothes, it would allow
him to let go, but Clayton was aware that wearing the piece of the embodiment to bed
would elicit some suspicion from Dee, and she had already questioned Angellica’s
decision to give the Weavecharm to the clairvoyant – just another concern to add to the
many that they already faced.
His first encounter with the brooch, when he had tried to analyse its magic, had
ended badly, with Clayton possessed in a fashion by the piece of the embodiment, and
Dee had been worried that there was some chance that this experience might reoccur.
Clayton had not been as concerned, believing that the occurrence had been a side-effect
of the spell. Despite Dee’s anxiety over the incident, she had never suggested that
something like this might happen, however. He could not explain exactly what it meant,
other than potential problems for him in the future. He had heard of cursed items
adhering to their keepers in such a fashion, and that idea frightened him.
Initially, Clayton had thought that wearing the Weavecharm to bed was not an
option. He palmed the brooch instead, believing Dee would be less likely to notice that he
had kept it with him that way, and therefore, would be less inclined to ask questions. The
edges of the metallic ornament dug uncomfortably into his palm, preventing sleep, and
when he was sure that Dee was asleep, he gave up fighting the piece of embodiment and
returned it to its place on his shirt. Positioning himself on his back, with Dee’s muscular
arms entwined around one of his own, he finally drifted off.
Clayton suspected that it was the Weavecharm’s presence that had led to the
second surprise of the night. The clairvoyant’s foresight had never played a part in his
dreams in all of his thirty-six years. His visions only seemed to arise when he was
awake, dependent on visual triggers, or at least, that was how it had been in the past. The
closest he had ever come to experiencing his foresight while sleeping was on one
occasion where he had visions taking place in the dark, and closing his eyes in
preparation for sleep had triggered his foresight. That had been a very challenging time
in his life, when he had been tormented both by insomnia and less than pleasant visions,
and it was not something that he would ever want to repeat. Having his clairvoyance
interfering with his sleep had caused him a great deal of suffering at that time.
That evening, however, when Clayton did settle down to sleep, nervously cupping
the Weavecharm at first in his hand and then cautiously returning it to its place upon his
chest, he had no trouble succumbing to his exhaustion. Once he was past the point of
waking, the visionary dreams began, a stream of images leading up to their anticipated
arrival at Magic University.
The episodes that he could make any sense of all involved Dee, and in every
single one she was angry at him, terribly angry, and he was not sure, based on what he
saw, what exactly he had done to provoke such rage. He did get a few glimpses that had
hinted at what may have happened.
The first picture that offered any insight was Dee snapping harshly at him that
something was not his to tell. They had only been reunited for about two years, and
before that, they had only spent a few months together, many years past when they were
adolescents. Despite this, Clayton still knew a lot more about Dee than her own family
did, and some of the details were rather grim and dark, things that she likely would not
want him sharing with anyone else. He could not imagine himself betraying her trust that
way, though.
The second vision actually revealed that whatever he had done was serious
enough that Dee had been willing to attack him over it. In that vision, she was actually
throwing a small burst of blue flame at his face although the image did not proceed to
relate to him the outcome of that attack. All that he knew was that the entire experience
was shocking to him.
After this, Clayton sensed there had been serious tension between the two of
them, with glimpses of Dee refusing to look at him or scowling at him, and barely
speaking to him at all. That hurt him more than any minor flame spell could.
 Dee woke twice, noticing that the dreaming Clayton tossed restlessly where he
lay. She did not know that he was trying to resist the unpleasant images that were
torturing him right at that moment. Clayton had always claimed that he had never
experienced his foresight while asleep. She attributed his unsettled sleep to the stress of
the recent past, when he had been trapped in a burning building and had nearly met his
end in those flames. A nightmare, she supposed, and placed a hand on his arm, jostling
him slightly and hoping to rouse him enough to spare him from his fearsome dreams.
She did not detect the iridescent brooch that he had returned to his shirt, hidden by the
blankets. When he did seem to grow calm, briefly, she turned over and went back to
sleep.
The actual reason that he had quieted was not because she had shaken him from
his dreams, but because his visions had shown him an encounter with his brother, Gillis,
after this dispute with Dee had begun. His older brother had always had a calming effect
on Clayton, who admired him and viewed him with a certain sense of awe. The fact that
he was seeing Gillis suggested they would be passing through Alma on their way back to
Anthis, and that notion brought Clayton some relief.
What was the most disturbing thing, and Clayton’s third surprise for the night was
the thing he encountered at the end of his series of flashes, once they would have reached
the University. It happened to be the thing a clairvoyant fears encountering the most in
one of his visions, and that thing was nothing.
It was not that his visions ceased exactly. That had happened before, and he did
not always see that far into the future, so when a series of images came to an end, it was
not startling or unnerving in any way. His gift was inconsistent, sporadic and completely
unpredictable, but the experience he encountered on this occasion, the nothingness, like a
void in his consciousness, suggested a possibility that Clayton had never confronted
before - the possibility of his own death. Why else would there be such a sense of
oblivion to his visions?
This bizarre blankness supported the theory that he might be facing his own end,
and when Clayton awoke in a cold sweat, and compared what he had just seen to his
unusual reaction to the history spell he had cast on the Weavecharm, he could not help
but fear the worst. He had gotten both a hasty record of where the piece of embodiment
had been, and several glimpses of where it was going to go. The final time he saw it
changing hands was when Angellica had passed it over to him. If he had been unable to
see any future exchanges, perhaps it was because he would no longer exist to observe any
such transfer. The thought chilled him so badly that he shivered in response, reaching out
for Dee’s hand for solace.
Clayton looked over at the light brown-haired Dee, who still slept, and wondered
if by alienating her in such a very serious way, that it might bring about his own demise.
Dee had prevented his death on more than one occasion, even though, in some instances,
she had brought about the situation that had put him in jeopardy in the first place. When
they were very young, she had put herself at risk to warn him of an impending assassin’s
attack, and more recently, she had actually taken one of their poison blades for him. She
had also saved him from an army of attacking mercenaries, but had burned him badly in
the process, and she had dragged him out of the burning building he had been trapped in
while in Feltrey, but he would not have been there if he had not gone in looking for her to
begin with. As well, she had pulled him out very roughly, despite a broken leg. She had
played the role of saviour but often times not without doing some harm to him in the
process.
He sighed. They were facing a huge battle with the Scourge and the Jadoran
assassins at the University, and Clayton was no fighter. He was useless on the offensive,
and even with good intensions on the defensive, his efforts often failed, for one reason or
another. It was almost as if he were jinxed. If Dee was not there to watch his back when
he was facing possible doom, it could explain why that nothingness was going to occur.
Sitting up in bed, Clayton hung his head in his hands, not sure what, if anything,
he could do. Based on past experience, he could not change what was going to happen.
It was all about taking the warning and trying to achieve some sort of damage control, but
how in the world was he going to manage any damage control with this? Dead was dead
– there was no working around that.
Dee started to stir, responding to Clayton adjusting his position in the bed. He
worried she might awaken, and find him looking disturbed as a result of his most recent
visions...dream visions. He had been able to lie to her in the past, taking advantage of the
fact that she usually was not watching for signs of deception from him. This was
important because Dee was very good at playing human lie detector. When he lied to
her, she was usually distracted by something more serious than whatever he had to say.
That or he would lie by omission or by twisting the truth, something that Dee seemed less
capable of detecting.
Lately, however, she had been tiring of discovering his deception after the fact,
and had been less likely to trust him at his word. He could not depend on her accepting
everything that he might have to say.
He stared at the iridescent brooch, shimmering upon his shirt. He brought his
finger up to it. It certainly did not offer any answers. That was when he noticed that there
was something strange about the way that it felt. His shirt was bunched around it, and it
did not seem to yield to his touch the way it normally did – like it was somehow clinging
directly to his skin.
Dee’s eyes opened slightly, and she yawned, gazing at him blearily. She noticed
that he was clutching at her hand and gave him a slight smile.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked. “Did you have a bad dream?” She noticed him
handling the Weavecharm. “Why are you messing with that thing? For that matter, why
are you wearing it to bed? Wouldn’t it be best if you just left it alone?”
“A bad dream? You could say that, yeah.” Clayton murmured. “I’ll put this
away, Dee, when it seems appropriate. I was thinking about everything that we are
dealing with now. Can I keep this safe? Are we sure that we can keep it out of the
Scourge’s hands?”
“You don’t need to wear it twenty-four seven to keep it safe. Sorry, Clay. I wish
you wouldn’t worry so much, but you know it will be better off in the hands of those at
the University, and you can’t deny that you saw things happening this way. I know that
things have been rough lately. This playing rebel and the army thing, it’s not your style,
but just think of all the good you and Logan did in Seaforest, and all the good that we’ll
be able to do once we get back to Anthis,” Dee mumbled, inching closer to him. “I think
it was worth the suffering, don’t you, even if it means a few bad dreams after the fact?
And now we have the opportunity to do even more – to preserve the embodiment and to
prevent their proposed Cleansing. Try to remember that, if things start looking bleak
again. Why don’t you put that thing away and try to go back to sleep?”
Easier said than done, he thought, as he moved to unpin the clasp. His fingers
found a smooth edge where the clasp had once been, an edge that actually penetrated his
shirt. His blood went cold at the unnatural feeling. He grabbed at the front of the
Weavecharm and tried to rip it free, but all he felt was a sharp pain.
The Weavecharm was attached to his chest. It was not wedge in by the pin, which
would have involved a fair amount of pain in and of itself. It was actually melded to his
flesh – embedded there. It was like it was now a part of him.
He reached over and made one more attempt to rid himself of the Weavecharm,
resulting in more jabbing pain. When he failed once again, he lay back and looked over
at Dee, who had already dozed off. It was best, he decided, that she did not learn of this
turn of events. She would blame him, and she would worry – two consequences he did
not want to face.
Preferring to ignore this newest problem, since it was not something that he felt
capable of facing at that moment, he went back to contemplating his dreams. He still
could not fathom what he was going to do or say that would make Dee that mad, and
knowing that the potential would be there to cause such a rift between them in the
process, why he would possibly do it in the first place? She was too important to him to
throw her away over some careless words. He had always been careful what he had done
or said around her, from the point where he realized how much he was going to end up
relying on her. The fact that he could not understand this frightened him more than the
gaping void staring him down from the fairly near future. The only thing that scared him
more was the piece of the embodiment now firmly adhered to his chest.
At this thought, he gave the offending piece of embodiment one last frantic shake,
gritting his teeth at the resulting pain. The gesture was as futile as ever, and after Clayton
abandoned this final attempt, he slipped back underneath the covers and stared up at the
ceiling.
It was going to be a long night.