by Melanie Rawn
“I’ll be careful,” she repeated. “And I won’t let Col-Ian come along. I’ll spell him into a stupor if I must.” When this promise produced no difference in Sarra’s shivering, she added gently, “Do you think I’d take him away from you, when he needs you so much?”
It was just unexpected enough to astonish. “He needs—?”
“Of course. Oh, Sasha, didn’t you know?” Cailet smiled. “Most women never see in a man’s eyes what’s always in his when he looks at you.” She put a bracing arm around her sister. “Now, go wash your face and don’t worry. The only place he’s going is Roseguard.”
Gratitude quivered over Sarra’s lamplit face, but then she shook her head. “You make sure he’s safe, while you go off to do Saints know what—”
“I’ll have Telo,” Cailet reminded her. “He’ll come with me. He may be ‘just’ a Prentice, but remember who his father was.”
“Don’t risk yourself,” Sarra pleaded one last time, wiping her eyes. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”
“I’ll be fine.” As she gave Sarra a nudge down the hallway, she hoped she was telling the truth.
10
THERE was yet one thing Cailet had to do before she left Ryka Court. It was not the construction of a spell to keep Collan from following her, or yet another Ward to add to his collection set by Gorynel Desse. But it did have to do with him, her belated Birthingday gift to him in a way, and an apology that she would not be taking him with her to the Wraithenwood.
Anniyas’s leftover Wards were gone, and at terrible cost. But Cailet had told Sarra the fact of it: she had learned from what had happened. And now she was ready to face the last Malerrisi taint at Ryka Court.
So, at just past Fourth on the second morning of the new year 970, she threaded her way through a combination of simply physical and distinctly magical mechanisms to the white box of a room where Collan had suffered for nine long days. Upon reaching it, she unWorked every scrap of magic that permeated the walls and floor and pain stake. It took all Tamos Wolvar knew about Mage Globes, and all Gorynel Desse knew about spells and Wards and even Folding, and all Cailet had learned about caution, but she did it. Almost, she was fascinated by the complex arrangement of Globes within Globes, conjurations that triggered secondary and even tertiary magic—almost. She knew what had been done here, to Collan and to others. She could not help but know: their agony echoed in the magic. The perversion of power that fed off pain sickened her, but she had learned from unWorking Anniyas’s Wards something she should have learned at the Octagon Court nearly a year ago. Her emotions were prey, and she could not give in to them and hope to face down Malerrisi magic.
It was weak now, hungry; its last meal, the glut of Collan’s anguish, had faded, insufficient sustenance for all the elaborate workings woven through its walls. Each one gnawed at her. Some arcane spell that feasted on physical pain discovered the wound at her breast, and for a few moments she experienced the force of Glenin’s magic all over again. But she knew she must not give in to it, and so drew on the strength of the Others within her. Denied the nourishment of remembered suffering, the spell died. So did all the rest, one by one, as Cailet forbade herself to respond even to the most hideously insistent of them. If she did not feel, they could not harm her.
At last the stark white walls were drained of magic, revealing nothing more sinister than a cold, leaky, unlit cellar. Cailet pulled the pain stake from its anchoring hole in the gray cobbled floor—only a wooden stick now, splintered and dry. Wearily climbing back upstairs, she fed the thing to her fireplace and watched it burn.
“Well, Gorsha?” she murmured as the last flames died to embers in the hearth. “Will I be a fit Captal one day after all?”
I never doubted it. But don’t forget those books Dombur promised to have delivered. It’s a long time since I had a look at the Code of Malerris. And you and Telo will need something to read on board ship.
She sat up abruptly. “What? We’ll go by Ladder! Ryka Court to Ambrai, Bard Hall to the Ostin house in Longriding—”
No. The Code is so made that taking it through a Ladder wipes all its pages clean. I learned that the hard way, a long time ago.
“Oh,” she said, inadequately. “By ship, then. But I hate being out of reach on a—” Suddenly she smiled, and shook her head. “You’re determined that I’ll have some quiet time, aren’t you? Someplace where nobody can get at me, no Ladders and no Council and not even any other Mages except Telo.”
Lacking Falundir’s cottage, the next best thing is a sea voyage. Enjoy it, my dear.
“I’ll try. The first few days I always lose my balance and knock into things—and for half a week after landing, I rock back and forth as if there was still a deck underfoot! Well, at least I don’t get seasick.”
A little gift I gave you and Sarra when you were born.
“Among others that you don’t care to mention just yet?” Rising from her chair, she went into the bedroom and dragged her traveling case from the closet. While folding clothes, she continued, “How about the fact that I knew Lusira’s pregnant when she didn’t even know it herself? And Sarra’s twins? What about that?”
The former was a talent your father possessed—which was why it was essential to keep him far from your mother once you were conceived. Before she could demand further explanation, he went on, As for the twins—they are a possibility, not a promise.
“But I saw them.”
You saw many other things, too.
Soberly, she nodded. “I could have become all those things. But what scares me most is that I’d do nothing with my life. Could that really happen?”
All things are possible, Caisha. Discerning the probable and working either to achieve it or avoid it—that’s the real trick.
“How can anyone tell? How do you know that if you do one thing, it won’t lead to the very result you want to avoid? Or that if you do something else that you think might be wrong, it’s the exact thing that will get you where you want to be?”
He responded with a wry chuckle. That, my dearest, is called “living.” All you can do is the best you can do, and hope it turns out all right in the end.
“You’re not very comforting. Or helpful,” she complained.
Probably not, he replied blithely.
Cailet deliberately turned to the dressing-table mirror and made a face at her reflection. “‘Probably.’ Very funny.”
11
A week later, Cailet was on the deck of the cargo ship Amity, watching Renig grow from child’s toy to townscape on the horizon. The captain hoped to make the stop as brief as possible; Cailet admired his ambition. In the hold, treated with more care than the human passengers, were fifteen fractious Tillinshir grays—seven mares, five fillies, one stallion, and two colts—destined for Maurgen Hundred. Lady Sefana, having perfected her Dapplebacks, was expanding her business. She had successfully bid on the best horses in the disbanded Ryka Legion’s stables, animals bred for military purposes that would, she hoped, add extra fire and strength to her own breed. Fire these grays possessed, truly told; Cailet estimated it would take two hours to coax just the stud down the gangplank. Maybe the Amity would sail for Roseguard with tomorrow’s tide as scheduled, and maybe not.
Cailet hoped Sarra wouldn’t fret too much if the ship was late getting to Roseguard. Filling half the hold was her new furniture—in a manner of speaking. Timber from Shellinkroth, bolts of cloth from Bleynbradden, and crates of brass hardware from Tillinshir would be used by crafters in Sheve to make everything from beds to desks to butcher blocks for the kitchen. By purchasing the raw materials from other Shirs, the Slegin Web established new and lucrative trade partnerships. But by hiring local artisans to do the actual work, Sheve itself would benefit. It had all been Collan’s suggestion—and who would have suspected that the footloose Minstrel would be so canny about commerce? Let alone that he’d throw himself so wholehear
tedly into the masculine role of making a home for his Lady and her children?
Cailet intended to do some shopping in Renig for a few additions to the Roseguard shipment, and thus was glad of the extra time the Amity would be in port unloading the irritable grays. Instead of dashing around in frantic haste, she had time to saunter through town and browse for just the right items. Some local pottery, perhaps—nothing could challenge the elegance of Rine porcelain, of course, but she’d always thought the swirling iridescent glazes on Combel vases and bowls were more interesting, each one unique. She hoped to find some good sandjade carvings, too—and at this thought she smiled, for no one had equaled the skill of that strange old man who’d once lived in Crackwall Canyon.
She missed him. It was the most peculiar thing. Of all the friends and familiarities of her old life, what she longed for most was a cozy chat with a man who’d never been real. The substance of Gorynel Desse—Warrior Mage, First Sword, and Maker of two Captals—was in large part within her. But the one she missed was Rinnel, the wry old man who carved sandjade and told long, involved stories and taught her all sorts of fascinating things. From the burning of Ostinhold Lady Lilen had somehow rescued the pendant he’d carved for Cailet, and she wore it on special occasions as proudly as if it had been made of diamonds. For Gorynel Desse, she had great admiration and respect, even compassion; Rinnel, she loved.
But there was yet another aspect to him: the powerful, vigorous young Mage he had been in those last moments within the landscape of black glass, when he’d kissed her.
Gorsha had been conspicuously silent during the voyage. While she and Telomir worked on the books Irien Dombur had been reminded to relinquish, any difficulties of spelling or archaic phraseology were smoothly solved by Lusath Adennos. (Telo was initially astounded by her facility with language; she pretended it was part of the Bequest. For all she knew, it might very well be.) Not even the Code of Malerris woke Gorsha up—at least, not so Cailet noticed. Perhaps she was just too busy being alternately repelled and fascinated to register any reactions other than her own.
The Code amounted to an encyclopedia for ruling everything and everyone on Lenfell. From the begetting of children to their raising, from the testing of Mageborns to their education, from the simple spell that Warmed a teapot to the convoluted construction of a Net—all were laid out with bloodless precision. The orderly codification of magic was appealing; the unfeeling ruthlessness of its recommended applications was appalling.
They hadn’t come anywhere near to reading it all, of course; there was too much of it, and too much that sickened. A few hours each day were all either of them could stand before turning with relief to other books. These included the never-finished True History of The Waste War by none other than Shen Escovor, Fourth Lord of Malerris from 767 to 779, and lover of Mage Captal Caitirin Bekke.
“Did they write it together?” Telo mused one evening. “It certainly spares neither side.”
“I think they were working to find the truth,” Cailet replied thoughtfully. “Once they had it, they’d tell everyone on Lenfell. The Mages and the Malerrisi would have to take their share of responsibility. It would all be out in the open. There’d probably be some persecution of Mageborns as heirs to the magic that destroyed so much, but when that was all over—”
“—it would end up pretty much as it is now,” he finished, “with people realizing they do need magic. But, you know, I think they were after something even bigger. Reunification of the two Traditions.”
“Dreamers,” she shrugged.
“Is there anything in the Bequest that would give you any hints?” When she shook her head, he leaned back in his chair with a regretful sigh. “Pity.”
“How can you say that?” Cailet demanded. “We haven’t been through all the Code yet, but what we’ve read only confirms that everything they stand for is everything we hate most! What they admire, we loathe—what we hold sacred, they shit on!”
Telomir blinked in surprise. “I realize you have all the Generations of Captals’ experience to draw on, which includes all their struggles against the Malerrisi. But a Mageborn is a Mageborn. Magic is magic. There’s nothing inherently evil—”
“I know all that,” she said impatiently. Springing to her feet, balance having adjusted days ago to the roll and pitch of the deck, she paced angrily about the tiny cabin. “In this theory, if you raise a Mageborn our way, she turns out ‘good’—but if you raise her Malerrisi, she turns out ‘bad.’ It’s all a matter of philosophy and education and instillation of belief.”
“I’d agree with that,” Telo said cautiously.
“So how do you account for Shen Escovor? Was he so much in love with Caitirin Bekke that he rejected the Malerrisi version of The Waste War?”
“They executed him because they thought he’d become one of us,” Telo said slowly. Then, as low-voiced as if there were no Wards protecting them from listeners: “But that’s not what this is about for you. What you really mean is how could a Mageborn trained in our ways turn to the Malerrisi.”
She stumbled—telling herself it was due to a particularly vigorous lurch of the ship, and that only—grabbing for the back of a chair. “All right, you’ve got me,” she said grimly. “If it happened to a Malerrisi like Escovor, it can happen to a Mage Guardian like Auvry Feiran. And if it happened once, it can happen again.”
Dark eyes widened in shock. “Cailet—you can’t possibly think that Glenin would forsake her training, her beliefs, the very thing that gives her the power she craves—”
“Holy Saints, you’re as bad as Sarra! All you can see is that Glenin is wicked, selfish, ambitious, she could never in a million Generations understand the first thing about using magic to benefit anyone but herself!”
“So you believe that it’s character and not education that determines how a Mageborn uses magic? If that’s so, Captal, then you can trust no Guardian you don’t personally know.”
“I’m aware of that,” she said steadily. “What I’m trying to discover is a way to know them all. And I’m very much afraid that I’ll find it in that.” She pointed to the Code lying on the table between them.
Telomir was silent a while before saying, “We must on occasion use the methods of our enemies. It’s not admirable, or noble, but it is sometimes the only practical thing to do. Sometimes we can’t choose.”
“You’re telling me that?” She almost laughed at him. “When did I choose to become Captal? Oh, don’t look at me that way. I wouldn’t give it up. But how do I know that I would’ve taken it in the first place, if anyone had offered me a choice?”
“It was necessary. No one had any choice. You can blame the Malerrisi for that. But not my father.”
“As if all of this began last spring in Ambrai? Look at reality, Telo! Look what he did to me when I was born! What he did to Sarra so she’d know nothing about me! As for Collan—who knows what’s buried beneath those stacks of Wards? I offered to find out, you know. I asked him if he wanted me to get rid of them.”
Was there the scantiest flare of panic in his eyes? “He didn’t, of course.”
“No. He is what he is, he’s comfortable with it, and he figures Gorsha had good reason to do what he did. But you know what I think? I think this placid acceptance is another Ward. When Sarra miscarried, she worried that it might be some fault in her—or in Collan. I spoke with him about it in a general sort of way, and it never even occurred to him it might be something wrong with him instead of Sarra.”
“It’s not.”
“I know that,” she said impatiently. “The point is, Collan doesn’t even wonder who his real family is. Whenever he does, he shrugs it off. Gorsha did that to him, I’m sure of it. To make sure nobody ever gets inside Col’s head and finds out who and what he really is.”
“Or what he might know? Do you think my father so dictatorial? So convinced of his own power and righteousness that he’d—”
Unflinchingly, he responded, “Yet you have your own notions of ‘rescuing’ your sister from them. Hasn’t it gotten through to you yet that she is the Malerrisi now? That she won’t stop until she’s Warden of the Loom?”
“What makes you think she isn’t that already?”
Telomir looked shaken. “Do you know this?”
“Can you doubt it?” Cailet shrugged. “She’s an Ambrai, a Feiran, and she has Anniyas’s grandson. Of course she’s First Lord by now.”
“But she’s not the real issue here. Don’t you understand that the one you truly want to redeem is your father?”
“I understand why you’d think so. But you’re wrong.” Cailet sat down wearily and poured herself a cup of hot spiced lemonade. “He’s the one who asked me to bring Glenin back. He doesn’t need ‘redemption.’ He may have lived as a Malerrisi for twenty years, but he died a Mage Guardian.”
“He asked—?”
“His Wraith did. I saw him. Talked with him. He loved me, and kept Glenin from killing me. That’s how he died—saving me from her.” She sipped at the lukewarm drink. “I have to try, I have to take every opportunity—this wasn’t what she was meant to be, Telo, I know it!”
“And yet you say that character and not training determines the choice of how magic is used. Does it have to be one or the other? Truly told, Cailet, isn’t it both?” He rose, looking down at her with pity in his eyes. “If so, I fear you’re dooming yourself to a lifetime of disappointment—and foolish attempts to change everything Glenin is by heritage and training.”