by Melanie Rawn
“Yes!” She felt her eyes sting suddenly, infuriatingly.
“But she’s in no danger at Ostinhold.”
“We have to take her under the protection of the Mage Guardians.”
“Gut-jumping.”
“If you like. And even if you don’t like. Just don’t get in my way.”
They returned to Alin and Elomar, who had been making plans.
“It’s daylight, so we can’t climb out of the Ladder right in the middle of Naplian Street,” Alin said. “But I know of a maintenance tunnel in an alley.”
Elomar added, “I’ll send the image to the Mage Globes. The rest should join us within an hour.”
“Excellent. We’ll go to Combel at once to secure it, then send Alin back to bring the others through.”
Val nodded unhappily, not liking this at all. But he didn’t get in her way.
She nudged him with a shoulder. “You really do have the worst manners of any man I’ve ever met—except one. But the rotten truth is that when you yell at me, it helps me think!”
18
That evening, Collan traveled by Ladder for the first time in his life.
It was a real shame that he was unconscious when it happened.
Lady Agatine’s eyes were suspiciously bright as she lit the evening candle at her dinner table—perhaps for the last time. Orlin Renne’s timely fit of coughing distracted their sons from their mother’s distress. By the time slaps on the back and a glass of water had been applied, Agatine was calm again.
Gorynel Desse did not share the meal. Officially, he didn’t even exist. But later, while Col tuned his lute as usual, the old Mage slipped into the room and sat down to listen. No one did more than glance at him.
Shortly after Thirteenth, more guests arrived. Sela Trayos, Verald Jescarin, and their little girl came in and took seats on a blue velvet couch. Tamsa waved at Col; he winked at her, and she giggled.
Domna Sela was no longer just very pregnant. She was hugely pregnant, ready to deliver at any moment. Col despaired of making any kind of speed from Roseguard with a woman so close to term, but no one seemed worried. And why should he be, anyhow? It wasn’t his problem.
Two songs later two more people came in: Tarise Nalle and her husband, Rillan Veliaz. Col’s glum thoughts infected the folk tune he played; here were gathered the foremost members of the Rising in all Sheve—plus its worldwide Mageborn mastermind. Though Collan wasn’t exactly an innocent bystander after all the favors of the last few years, this company could get him not just arrested but executed.
He sang on, wondering if he was easing adult nerves or distracting the children. At just past Fourteenth, Gorynel Desse got to his feet.
“I thank you for a lovely evening, Agatine, my dear. It will not be the last we spend like this in Roseguard, I promise you.”
“I’m relieved to hear you say it, Gorsha,” she replied softly.
So it was time to go. From various cabinets the four Slegin sons produced stuffed journeypacks, including Collan’s own. There was one for each person present, even a little one for Sela’s daughter—excepting Sela herself, who already had enough to carry. Col cased his lute, pocketed his picks, shouldered his pack, and put on the cloak and coif Jeymi produced from a cupboard. Desse led them all into a between-walls passage barely one person wide.
They emerged through a stone door into a small room overlooking the harbor. Jeymi whispered in awe that he never knew the Have-A-Word Room had a Ladder.
“A Ladder—?”
It was all Collan had time for. Verald Jescarin, standing just behind him, said, “Sorry, friend,” and hit him gently but efficiently on the head.
19
Luck favored them—or perhaps St. Maidil: the Plum Room was unoccupied. Its closet Ladder being as cramped as the sewer Ladder in Neele, Alin brought the eleven Mages through in two groups. Val made both journeys with him, flatly refusing to leave his side.
Nobody could decide which Saint to blame for making each trip singularly memorable—perhaps Viranka, patron of wells, though she had never been said to have so perverse a sense of humor. Maybe it was just bad timing. For it was morning in Neele, and residents of Naplian Street did what everybody did first thing out of bed. Mercifully, some early risers were also just finishing their baths, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been—or so Sarra told herself. But she and everyone else arrived in Combel splattered, sopped, and stinking six ways to the Wraithenwood.
“Damn,” said Keler Neffe. “This was my last clean shirt!”
“At least you’re wearing a coif,” Sarra reminded him, and once again resisted the urge to run fingers through her soggy hair.
Elomar had uprooted a huge plant—with purple flowers, of course—from its tub for use as a washbasin, filling it with water from the nearby bathroom. He thought it unwise, and Sarra agreed with him, to send the Mages trooping down the corridor. So in the silent expanse of purple and mirrors, they took turns cleaning up as best they could while waiting for Alin and Val to return with the other Mages.
“We had to come back here, I suppose,” sighed Truan Halvos.
No one answered him. A few minutes later they heard more voices—Geris Mirre’s, mainly, telling Deikan Penteon to get off his foot. As they emerged into the Plum Room, both choked in astonishment. Dalia Shelan, right behind them, clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a fit of giggles. Ilisa Neffe, Tamosin Wolvar, and Tamos Wolvar had equally abrupt reactions.
“Holy St. Geridon,” whispered Ilisa in genuine awe.
Her husband gestured to the gargantuan bed and asked, “Want one for our next house?”
His uncle snorted. “It’s big enough to be your next house!”
In Combel, halfway around the world from Neele, it was Fourth. The Bower was asleep all around them. Sarra had listened carefully for sounds from other rooms and heard nothing. She dared to relax a little. All the Mages were assembled, they were safe and undiscovered, and they had three native Wasters to take them to Longriding.
A sudden chill draft, which she might not even have felt but for the dampness of her hair and clothes, warned her an instant before a voice spoke.
“Crawled out of a sewer, I see. How appropriate.”
From a mauve shadow stepped a tall young woman. Glenin Feiran. Beside her was a smaller figure, arm grasped in Glenin’s strong fingers. Sarra’s heart lurched. Cloaked and hooded as the girl was, still Sarra recognized the cloak: Liwellan blue.
Glenin took another step into the room, tugging Mai Alvassy with her. Her gray-green eyes caught and held Sarra’s. For all the attention she paid the others, they might not have existed.
“My little toy may have broken, but magic has other uses. When applied to an unWarded mind—say, Captain Nalle’s?—much can be learned. Unfortunately for the captain, few survive such questioning.”
Geris Mirre caught his breath. “You wouldn’t dare—”
“And you are going to tell me no?” Glenin raised her free hand and pointed at him. His long body crumpled soundlessly to the violet carpet.
Ilisa Neffe knelt beside him. The stricken face she raised to Sarra was indication enough that the man was dead.
“Where was I?” Glenin asked. “Ah, yes. Did you know this girl is my cousin? But her resemblance to you is truly remarkable, Lady Sarra. You’ve been very clever.” Her gaze flickered to Deikan Penteon. “Must I make an example of you as well? I dislike interruptions.”
“Do nothing,” Sarra commanded, finding her voice at last. “She’s Warded. No one would confront so many Mage Guardians without powerful protective magic.”
Glenin nodded approvingly: a teacher pleased at a rather slow student who had finally worked out the answer.
Keler Neffe spoke coldly. “Only a Lady of Malerris would know such spells.”
A corner of Glenin’s mouth twitched downward. Sarra noted it, and put aside curiosity about its
meaning and potential use. She had more urgent concerns.
Specifically, the remaining Mages—and Valirion and Alin, who were still within the Ladder closet. She begged all the Saints to make them stay there.
Quietly, Sarra went on, “There’s no one to respond if we call for help. She’s cleared every room in the building.”
“An excellent guess. You impress me, Lady Sarra.”
“It was no guess. It’s what I would have done.”
“If you had any magic.”
Never in her whole life had Sarra so bitterly regretted it. “If I had your ethics—or lack of them.”
“Now, let’s not make this any more unpleasant than it needs to be.”
“I assume there’s a Ward from roof to cellar, too.”
“Of course.”
“But no Council Guards.”
“Not one. Right every time! Do you pretend to understand me, then?”
“Your reasons—no. Your methods. . . .” She let herself smile slightly. “Let us say that I know you better than you might think.”
Elomar Adennos glided quietly to Sarra’s side, his presence a silent warning to drop this line of conversation at once. He asked Glenin, “Have you a purpose beyond an attempt at entertainment? I find myself singularly bored.”
Glenin deigned to notice him. “Lusira Garvedian’s lanky charmer, aren’t you? Her family has appalling taste in men. Yes, I have a purpose, one to capture your full attention. As that young man surmised—” She nodded to Keler Neffe. “—I represent the Lords of Malerris. Every one of you is an enemy of my Tradition—and within a day or two, of all Lenfell, by Council Decree. You will be taken to Seinshir, where those still capable of bearing or fathering Mageborns will live. The rest of you will die.” She smiled at Sarra. “Is that what you would have said?”
She didn’t answer.
“Oh, of course. Ethics. Well, you and I can discuss it at Malerris Castle—which I understand you’ve already visited.”
Someone behind her gasped. Sarra did not. So she’d been right. They’d been watching.
“I’m afraid you won’t be going there just yet, however. You and I and my cousin here are going to Longriding.”
“To trap Taig Ostin,” Sarra said.
She had the satisfaction of seeing her sister blink in startlement. “You know, you’re really very good,” Glenin admitted.
“Thank you. But I’m not quite clever enough to know just how you got here.”
“Captain Nalle’s ship never left Renig.”
Sarra saw Mai bend her bright head, and knew that Agata Nalle and every woman and man on board the Rose Crown was dead.
“The ship will dock today at Roseguard. Its new captain is a Lord of Malerris with a feel for the sea, and its crew is loyal to the First Councillor. They’ll be part of the forces that deal with Lady Agatine and her hive of traitors—captured or killed, I’ve no real preference.”
“Because none of them are Mageborn,” Sarra said, sick with loathing and already knowing what Glenin would say. Instinct. Gut-jumping that twisted her guts into knots.
“And therefore of no value,” Glenin replied.
“The Mage Captal,” Elomar Adennos asked. “Lady, does he live?”
“A cousin of yours, as I recall? Yes, the doddering old fool is still breathing. He’s waiting in my carriage downstairs, in fact.”
“To lure Taig Ostin,” Sarra added. Glenin had just made a severe tactical error. In danger, the overriding duty of any Mage Guardian was to ensure the Captal’s survival. Whatever happened to any or all other Mages, the Captal must survive. Those in this room now knew of his captivity, and would do everything in their power to free him.
Glenin Feiran was equally determined to keep him. Sarra did not intend these Mageborns—including a fifteen-year-old boy—to die for Lusath Adennos.
She could win this. Instinct sang in her, this verbal sparring with Glenin as intoxicating as the game she’d played with Anniyas. At Ryka Court, it had been for amusement, for the stimulation of flexing her wits; here, it was for lives. Yet it remained a game—one Sarra could win.
Glenin did not yet know about Val and Alin.
She didn’t know about Sarra herself.
Or Cailet—
Something was glinting at the edges of Sarra’s mind, something of power she could sense but not share. Warded as she was, still she knew it for Mage Guardian magic—just as she knew what emanated from Glenin was not. Elomar had spoken of a “taste” to magic. Now she knew what he meant.
What Sarra sensed from Glenin was Malerris—but it was also Ambrai, and it was Feiran.
“Once you capture Taig in Longriding,” she said to Glenin, “You’ll Ward him and send him back to the Rising, to betray it from within.”
“You really do have a flair for this! Yours is a thread I’ll regret seeing cut and pulled from the Great Loom.”
“But you’ll never allow that,” Sarra murmured.
“Not until you’ve had several children, no.”
“You will never allow it, Glenin.” She felt Elomar’s fingers touch her spine, another silent caution. But she knew what she was doing, she knew that she need only gain time and Glenin’s absolute shocked attention, and the something that shone just out of reach would happen.
“It’s not my decision to make. I’m not the Warden of the Loom, or—”
“Never,” Sarra said one last time, and drew breath to tell her why.
She never spoke the words. Tamos Wolvar, master of Mage Globes, had finished his work: a great shimmering sphere of magic that encased Glenin and Mai in swirls of white and rainbows. The Mage Globe shone opaline and spat sparks of fire, and within it Glenin staggered.
Sirralin Mossen acted first. She grabbed her son with one hand and Keler Neffe with the other, and ran for the Ladder. Truan Halvos had to be shoved along by Dalia Shelan and Deikan Penteon together. Ilisa Neffe stumbled after them, pushed by her husband—who was supporting his uncle the Scholar Mage physically as he swayed with effort. Within the sphere, Glenin had begun to fight back.
“Sarra! Hurry!” Elomar Adennos dragged her back as the huge Globe sparked and crackled with flashes of barely controlled magic. Mai Alvassy collapsed, arms wrapped around her head and face buried against her knees. She rocked back and forth; somehow, Sarra knew she was screaming.
“Tell Alin to get them out of here! Back to Neele, it doesn’t matter—”
“He already is,” Elo said. “I’ll get the Captal.”
Tamos Wolvar’s magic-filled sphere was shot with lightning tinted blue and green and red. His eyes were squeezed shut and he sagged against his nephew, but despite Glenin’s attacks the Globe held firm. She had conjured a hand-sized Globe of her own, and from this the lightning spurted.
Sarra stood helpless, waiting for a chance she didn’t know whether or not she’d have. Mai raised her tormented face and her mouth formed the words Leave me! But Sarra shook her head vehemently.
Wolvar suddenly groaned, and within the Globe harsh lightning flashed. Glenin’s face was rigid with strain, her eyes fierce with triumph. The Scholar Mage was weakening. Soon her prison would shatter.
Glenin’s small Globe shattered first. Mai Alvassy, surging up from her knees, reached for the sphere of concentrated magic. She wrapped her fingers around it, and her lips parted in a shriek Sarra felt rather than heard. Glenin fought her, kicking with polished riding boots. Mai held on, wrenching the Globe from Glenin—and as it left its maker’s hands, it exploded.
Glenin fell. Tamos Wolvar’s Globe splintered—and with it, every mirror in the place. Glass spewed off the walls, spattered onto the absurd purple bed. Windows blasted outward, dragging lace curtains with them. Sarra threw her arms up to cover her face too late; tiny shards pricked her cheeks.
She only realized she’d closed her eyes when she heard Tamosin Wolvar’s shaky voice. “It did
n’t kill her, Lady Sarra. The magic in her Globe was hers, and Uncle Tamos would never use lethal magic even against a Malerrisi.”
Sarra looked at him, not quite comprehending. He cradled the old man in his arms, and as he walked toward her she heard glass fragments ring down to the littered carpet and crunch beneath his boots.
“I can still feel her Wards,” the young man added, “even though she’s got to be unconscious.” So was Scholar Wolvar, limp in his nephew’s strong arms.
“Is—is he all right? Will he be?”
“Yes. He’s no longer young, but he’s the best.” He cast a glance of loathing at Glenin’s sprawled body. “Even against such as she. Miryenne be merciful, our old enemy has returned.”
“Her Wards still function?” Sarra had never heard of such a thing. A Mageborn must be awake and aware to maintain Wards, mustn’t she?
Tamosin nodded confirmation.
“Then—she can’t be killed,” Sarra heard herself say.
“No. We must hurry, before the Malerrisi recovers.”
The Malerrisi. That was what her sister was now. And in that moment Sarra no longer had two sisters. She had only one.
At Ostinhold. Please, let her be at Ostinhold, and not in Longriding where Glenin knows Taig will be!
“Get to the Ladder,” she said. “I’ll bring Mai.”
“Lady,” Tamosin murmured, “she is dead.”
“No—!” But when Sarra turned for her, she saw the blood seeping from Mai’s delicate nose and parted lips. She was dead, sacrificing herself to free them—killed by Glenin’s magic.
“Sarra!”
Familiar hands on her shoulders turned her from the sight of her cousin’s death. She looked up into another cousin’s living face.
“Sarra, listen to me.” Val shook her slightly. “Listen! Alin took the others back to Neele. They’ll find safety as they can. Elo’s taking care of the Captal. We have to get out of here. Now, Sarra!”
“Mai’s dead,” she whispered.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Glenin—” Sarra choked on the name.