by Melanie Rawn
The choice of St. Mittru’s Day for the gala was puzzling, for that Saint had nothing to do with performing arts. Glenin learned from listening to the chatter around her that the original date, St. Alilen’s, had been scrapped for two reasons. Sevy Vasharron had another commitment he couldn’t break, and Collan Rosvenir had sent back the velvet meant to cover the seats as being closer to the color of curdled milk than sweet cream.
“Pretty,” Saris murmured. She’d been conducting her own inspection. “How much of the performance will we have the chance to enjoy?”
“Let’s see.” Glenin opened her program and ran a finger down the list of pieces. “Choral excerpts from Falundir’s second opera, then a break, followed by Vasharron’s recital, then a second break, and then the last act of Regallata featuring members of the Roseguard Opera. I think we’ll wait for the encores.”
Saris nodded agreement. “Standing ovations are nice and noisy. I wonder about the congestion caused by early departures, though.” She glanced significantly at the shimmering crowd working its way into the theater, finding seats, apologizing for trodden-on toes.
“Unless things go wrong—and they won’t—no one outside the Liwellan box will know anything has happened.”
“Even if someone notices, we can depend on Chava to get us safely out.”
Chava tapped the program against his knee and shrugged. “I’ve shouldered and elbowed my way through any number of unbridled herds.” He smiled slightly, flexing a few muscles. “Of course, it helps to have enough shoulder and elbow to make it work. The aisles may be a little constricted, but that won’t be a problem.”
If it came to it, Glenin would use magic to push a path through to an exit and vanish into the streets of Roseguard. Still, she wished she was in one of the boxes. Named for the six Saints who were special patrons of theatrical arts, the boxes sat four in comfort, six with some cramming, ten if they used a crowbar.
The twins had the box named for Colynna Silverstring—purchased, she was sure, in honor of their detestable father. If she lived to be a hundred, she would never forget an instant of her time with Collan Rosvenir. The pair’s arrival with their escorts created the polite stir that youth, wealth, position, and beauty always bring. Glenin remembered her own years at Ryka Court. Seated down here with the common ruck, wearing the humble black-and-gray of her assumed Name of Colvos, she lost her excitement at being out in the world again in the annoyance of her circumstances. She should have been in the best box, proudly displaying—ah, but which colors and sigil would she choose? Not Ambrai. She had discarded that long ago. The green and gray and Leaf Crown of the Feiran Name? Or the pure white clothes, gold baldric, and badge of the Great Loom that were her privilege as First Lady of Malerris?
Taigan and Mikel were wearing feathers just as false as her own tonight: Liwellan blue and turquoise. The latter was right for Ambrai, but should have been accented with black. Glenin lifted her rented opera lenses to scrutinize the pair, surprised to see reference to the Rosvenirs in the subtle brocade of the boy’s longvest and the girl’s full skirts, a silvery gray that cut the brightness of the two shades of blue. It was not the current trend to include one’s father’s Name in one’s attire—but Glenin suspected it would be by tomorrow.
Neither was it considered stylish—yet—to wear one’s longvest unbuttoned or one’s hair down at a formal function. But the boy obviously knew he had a fine body and enjoyed showing it off; the girl knew just as well that her hair was an absolute glory of gold. Chava certainly thought so; he was staring almost slack-jawed upward as Taigan settled into her chair.
Saris poked her son with an elbow. “Compose yourself,” she hissed. “In another minute, you’ll be drooling.”
Mikel displayed perfect manners as he squired a darkly handsome young lady to her seat, draped her shawl across the back of her chair, and perched just behind her to hang on her every word. Glenin sniffed, reminded of her late husband, Garon, in the months before his death, when a spell had been responsible for his fawnings. Mikel seemed in need of no magical urgings to hover around the pretty little Banderiz in her orange and crimson dress. Disgusting, to see a proud young man behave so, and to a former Fourth Tier. Certainly her father would not have been caught dead dancing attendance so on her mother, nor would her mother have wanted him to behave like a flunky. Just then she caught the arch of an eyebrow Taigan directed at her brother, and a barely repressed grin he gave her in reply. So. A game, a social convenience, a show for the watching multitudes. It fit. Glenin had always known that broadsheet reports of Collan Rosvenir’s sterling husbandly virtues were greatly exaggerated.
She looked for her own parents in the twins. A hint of Maichen Ambrai’s willfulness in the girl’s chin, some of Auvry Feiran’s arrogance in the set of the boy’s shoulders. Glenin saw—vaguely at first, then more definitely as she concentrated—the strong resemblance between Taigan and Cailet, much more pronounced than between the girl and her mother, though Taigan was infinitely prettier. She set the lenses aside and nodded to herself. Wards disguised the likeness, of course. It suited Glenin that the Liwellan whelps went unrecognized for the Ambrais they were. She had her own ideas in that direction.
All at once the house lights dimmed and the stage lights began to glow as if by magic—and magic it was, teasing at Glenin’s senses, provided by some cooperative opera enthusiast with a talent for Mage Globes. The audience found it nothing out of the ordinary, which annoyed Glenin even more. That one of her own kind should use her rare and precious gift to convenience the lighting director in a provincial theater—
No, she reminded herself as the curtain rose, not one of her own kind. One of Cailet’s kind. And if ever she had needed a reason to obliterate the Mage Guardians, their own Captal had just provided her with one.
She sat through the first part of the program in frigid silence. She declined to join Saris and Chava in taking a stroll at the intermission. She didn’t even look up to the box where her niece and nephew sat. She felt magic swelling, her body and brain scarcely able to contain it.
Patience. Soon. Don’t tangle or fray or—Chavasto forfend—break this thread.
When Sevy Vasharron took the stage, she had calmed herself sufficiently to enjoy his performance. He was big, brawny, bearded, with a grin that lit the rafters. His voice had been called the best in five Generations; Glenin, even in her foul mood, had to agree with the critics that he was superb. Through passionate arias and poignant ballads she allowed him to move her spirit. Music was powerful magic. Anniyas had been correct to cripple Falundir. The old Bard was Mageborn, she would’ve staked Malerris Castle on it. She’d been there, that St. Tamas’s Day of his maiming, and remembered the spell his song had woven. She had learned since that her pity had been misguided. No one with a voice and words and music such as his, with real magic besides, could be allowed to retain their use. He still composed, but had not spoken, sung, or played any instrument in thirty-seven years.
Vasharron’s magic was all vocal, but potent enough. Glenin actually felt tears sting her eyes several times during his recital and was very glad when he was done.
During this intermission she again declined to plow through the common hallways, to see and be seen, to overhear idle gossip and drink inferior wine. Instead she prepared herself, hoping that Vasharron, on his return in the final act of Regallata, would work his own spells on the audience again. Especially on the pair seated with their escorts in the best box in the theater. Where Glenin and her son ought to have been. Where, one day, they would be. Not because it was all that important to them as Malerrisi. Because it was due them as Malerrisi—and Feirans, and even as Ambrais.
Only let Vasharron do his work, and the other singers as well, and capture the souls of the audience. Whatever Cailet’s Wards, Glenin had every confidence she could penetrate them and capture Taigan and Mikel.
For the third and final time the house lights dimmed, and the curtain went
up—this time on a scene from Isodir. Regallata had no specified setting, and the director had chosen the Iron City to give her an elaborate backdrop of spiraling, curving wrought iron. Glenin supposed it was symbolic of the twisting plot, or something equally artistic and therefore meaningless. Her fears were alleviated when she found—with a little twisting magic of her own—that the “iron” was but painted wood.
The gist of the opera was this: Regallata, a woman whose Fifth-Tier origins are obvious in her hunchbacked ugliness, repays her Blooded patron’s kindness with treachery. The Lady has a son whose hopes of marriage to a beautiful and accomplished First Daughter Regallata destroys with rumors in the first act. But the hunchback also has a son—a circumstance utterly against the law—who, contrary to all logic, is supremely beautiful. This is attributed to his Blood father, whom Regallata drugged into soiling himself and his Name by siring the boy. In the second act, Regallata introduces young Geldar to the Lady, hoping she will fall deeply in love with him, planning to reveal his lowly origins once they are wed. All goes as planned until someone discovers Geldar’s true identity as a Fifth. Regallata, seeing her vengeful plot foiled, hires an innkeeper, also a Fifth, to murder the Lady. On the night of the assignation, when the Lady will tell Geldar it is impossible for them to wed, the innkeeper—startled by the noble identity of his visitor—hears her sing of her devotion to Geldar and curse the cruel fact of his tainted heritage. The purity of her love moves him—but fear of reprisal by her Blood Name moves him even more. He decides to renege on the contract.
And so the last act began. Glenin watched the innkeeper—lame, black-toothed, and covered in suppurating pustules that were a triumph of the stagecrafter’s art—escort the Blooded Lady to an upstairs room to recover her calm. The innkeeper then sang of how he would keep the Lady alive while collecting his fee from Regallata by giving the hunchback a body in a sack to throw into the river. He decides to kill the next woman who comes in and substitute her for the Lady.
Typical Fifth-Tier, Glenin thought, with the rest of the audience; nothing could compete against the possibility of profit, and to that end he had no qualms about murdering any innocent who happened to walk through the door.
Geldar—played by Vasharron—overhears the innkeeper’s plan from just outside. He accosts a young First-Tier woman on the street, wrestles her cloak from her, and shouts at her to run away or lose her life. The audience—shockingly enough—applauded.
Saris whispered in Glenin’s ear, “It’s not what it seems. The program says the First-Tier is played by a local girl. They’re applauding her, not what ‘Geldar’ has done.”
While Vasharron silently donned the cloak and girded himself for death, the innkeeper warbled of the Lady’s undoubtedly swift recovery from her infatuation. For comic effect he whistled every sibilant through his teeth, but not even that could amuse Glenin enough to ignore the lyrics.
Women are capricious! Fickle and vicious!
First she adores you—then she ignores you!
Trust not a charming face or a fervent embrace!
False tears and falser smiles—young men, beware their wiles!
Women are capricious! Volatile and vicious!
First she adores—then she ignores!
What came next was worse, unless one recalled from the first act that Geldar’s Blooded father had been tricked into sleeping with Regallata. It was the only explanation for Geldar’s bravery: paternal purity overcame maternal degeneracy. Vasharron entered the deserted taproom and let out a piercing wail when he met the point of the innkeeper’s knife.
Regallata burst in, gloating over the body concealed in a canvas sack. The smirking innkeeper collected his money and vanished. Just as the hunchback was about to hoist the corpse over her shoulder for the walk to the river, the Lady began to sing upstairs, bemoaning again her hopeless love. Horrified that her intended victim still lived, Regallata tore at the sack. Beholding her son’s dying face, she wept as with his last breath he berated her for breaking the law by bearing him and for breaking the noble Lady’s heart.
The cream-colored curtain fell, silver sigils and embroidered roses glistening. The audience applauded until their hands stung. Glenin waited until all of them were on their feet before she summoned her magic and cast it upward.
And smashed into Wards the like of which she had never encountered. A howling engulfed her mind but she did not break off the attack. Mikel—where was he?
Yes—there—more, don’t let him evade it—yes! Listen to him scream, feel his magic begin to shatter—I’ll take your mind and magic for my own, boy, and then take your sister to be my son’s brood mare—try to fight me, will you? Pathetic Mage Guardian Wordings—not even the Captal could protect you now, boy!
But it wasn’t the Captal she felt surging up between her and her prey. Every Mageborn in the audience shrieked with agony, yet defied her, battered at her power, deflected it if they could—back toward her—a killing blaze that would sear her very soul if it struck—
Glenin staggered and fell back into her seat. Saris collapsed onto the carpeted floor, writhing; beside her, Chava let out a scream to rival Geldar’s, as if he, too, had received a death wound. Others were down—Mageborns, Mage Guardians. Glenin struggled to her feet. Her magic was bruised and lacerated and would not obey her, and she could not see beyond the crushing chaos of the crowd to Taigan and Mikel.
She pulled Saris up from the floor. They had to get out of here, vanish into the terrified throng before a Mage sorted them out from the others and identified their magic as Malerrisi. Chava pushed himself to his feet, wild-eyed. Glenin shook Saris. Her head lolled, her eyes wide open and sightless—as blind to the world as Glenin’s injured magic had blinded her mind.
“Go,” Chava rasped, picking up his mother’s limp form. “We’re not important! Go!”
With a final furious glance up at the box, Glenin fled.
20
TAIGAN and Mikel were rushed out of Roseguard that very night.
“As if we did something wrong!” Taigan complained—but in a whisper, for even though the streets were nearly deserted in the pre-dawn hours, their mother had ears like a silverback cat. And Sarra was not at present disposed to conversation—especially not her children’s.
They’d been given time to change from their formal wear and collect any personal items that would fit into their pockets and small carry-sacks. As they packed, Taguare—visiting on Ministry of Education business from Sleginhold—assured them that the rest of their belongings would be sent later. The hurry was such that Taigan almost forgot her knives and Mikel his lute; their mother nodded curtly on seeing the former, but told Mikel to leave the instrument.
“You can borrow Marra Gorrst’s at Mage Hall—if you ever have five minutes to spare for music. Come on.” And she led them through a secret exit from Roseguard that they’d never dreamed existed, hidden in the old Have-A-Word Room and giving out onto an alley.
Was this what life had been like for their parents during the years before the Rising? Neither dared ask. No one spoke to Sarra Liwellan when she had that look in her eye.
They didn’t even pause to sleep the next night. They snatched a few hours’ rest during the worst heat of the summer day, which did nothing to assuage the twins’ vicious headaches; they had another couple of hours that evening, when Sarra called a halt after Falundir stumbled with weariness on the road he was Folding for them. They hadn’t even known he was doing it until dawn on the first day, when they realized that they were very much farther from Roseguard than five hours’ walk would account for.
Falundir—Mageborn? Taigan’s first reaction, whispered to Mikel, was that she’d always suspected something of the sort; he told her she was a rotten liar before it hit him that maybe, after he learned magic, he’d be able to learn music from Falundir through that magic.
“But why bring him?” Taigan murmured, casting an amazed glance ahea
d at the old man. “He’s almost eighty, he belongs at home, not tramping across half Sheve!”
“And half Tillinshir,” Mikel added. “Maybe Mother doesn’t trust any of the other Mages as much as she trusts him.”
“Or maybe he made it clear that he was coming along, and that was that.”
It seemed likely; neither of their parents ever argued with Falundir, once he made his wishes known. But Taigan and Mikel didn’t ask their mother for an explanation. Only their father was equal to asking her anything when this mood was upon her. And their father was away on Minstrelsy business.
Familiar landmarks gave way to country they’d seen only a few times, and then to unknown territory. They’d never traveled like this before in their sheltered young lives: on foot, a Mageborn speeding their way, avoiding all habitation. They felt like hunted animals. After what had happened at the theater, they knew that this was precisely what they were.
At dawn of the fourth day they reached the outskirts of Heathering. A few wagons rolled down the rutted road, bringing fresh produce in to market. Otherwise they saw no one, and Heathering itself—what little they saw of it after detouring by a side path—was uninviting. The summer landscape was just about as grim. Thick willows clustered by several small creeks, but the hillside grasses had gone yellow below the cool green of the pines.
“Pretty desolate,” Taigan whispered to Mikel. “How long will we be stuck here?”
“As long as it takes, Taguare says.”
“How long does it take to become a Mage Guardian?”
All of a sudden it was frightening. They knew they were Mageborns; they knew they would eventually learn how to use their magic. But eventually had become now.
The gathering sunlight promised a sweltering day. Sarra finally stopped beside a stream and told them to wash. “Taigan, straighten your collar. Mikel, either put your coif back on or comb your hair. I don’t intend to present the Captal with a pair of ragged beggars trying to pass themselves off as Liwellans of Roseguard.”