The Ruins of Ambrai

by Melanie Rawn

  The musings vanished, dismissed as irrelevancies by another part of her mind (hers? Alin’s? Wolvar’s? Adennos’s? Gorsha’s? How could she possibly tell?). There was something more important to think about: the Ladder at the other end. She had to expand that circle as well before they could go anywhere at all, and if she couldn’t, those outside the circle would die. Those partially inside . . . she shied away from that idea, stomach clenching.

  More. More, damn it! She explored the circle and found it flawless. Then, casting her mind to the destination Ladder, she fed its spells with her magic. No one had ever tried this before because no one had ever known how—and no one had had power enough, either. Cailet drained herself nearly dry, not knowing how she did it and not caring, and felt still greater power flow forth from some unsuspected source deep within her.

  How did Gorsha manage to Ward this? Where did it come from?

  His voice, deep and soft and mildly amused, said, My dear, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

  She remembered something then. A promise she’d made him, and forgotten on waking. She cast out with what magic she could spare and found the Mage Globes. None had yet shattered into funeral fire.

  You gave them no time, even after Sarra’s warning. It’s up to you, Caisha. As you and I both feel it should be.

  Yes. She centered on the one guarding Alin and Val, lingered a moment to smile at the sight of them lying side by side, and then with a wordless farewell exploded the sphere. She did the same to the Globe hovering over Lusath Adennos. And then, hesitantly, found her own creation that lit Gorynel Desse where he lay in what had been Cailet’s own bed.

  Do it, love. Don’t let them find me.

  It wasn’t as difficult as she’d dreaded. It was an old man who lay there, white-bearded, spent, in some ways gladly dead. She would always think of him as she had seen him on the black-glass plain. Fire cascaded down onto the body she could not believe was truly him.

  Thank you, Cailet. Hurry now. The Malerrisi Net is nearly woven.

  Gorsha?

  But the voice was gone. The wisp of the feel of him was gone.

  So was the Blanking Ward.

  And the room in Bard Hall.

  “Shit!” exclaimed Collan Rosvenir. “Damned cactus!”

  Had the press of bodies around her not been so tight, Cailet would have toppled bonelessly from her perch on the crate. As it was, she was further crushed as people winced away from threatening spiny blades and Collan swore additional vengeance on the cactus. It was almost funny, and if she’d had any strength she would’ve laughed.

  All urge to mirth died as something prodded at the hazy remains of the Ladder spell. Tempted to catch at it, for it seemed achingly familiar, in the next instant she flung up an instinctive Ward.

  Against Glenin.

  It’s not time yet. One day—but not yet.

  As Taig helped her down, she wondered whose thought it had been.

  29

  “And so,” said the First Councillor, “you tell me it is over.”

  Neither Glenin nor Auvry had said that. Neither one corrected her statement. Anniyas rose slowly from her desk chair, plump fists sparkling with rings in the lamplight. Garon stood beside her. Father and daughter, mother and son. Glenin met her husband’s gaze steadily, thinking what a happy little family they made.

  “Gorynel Desse is dead,” replied Auvry Feiran. “As is the Captal.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen their heads. Thoughtful of you to enclose my little trophies in Globes to preserve them. Pity they’re not in better condition.”

  Feiran said nothing more. Glenin had said not a single word in the hour since they’d come here directly from the Ladder. It was Solstice Night, and all Ryka Court was celebrating at a ball hosted by the Doyannis Blood. The few sentries on watch didn’t so much as lift a brow at their dishevelment. Glenin was exhausted and filthy and bruised from climbing over rubble at an alarming pace during the frantic attempt to reach Bard Hall before all the evidence burned. Her father looked even worse, but somehow, through some trick of posture or interior strength, managed to give the impression that his uniform was spotless.

  Garon had accompanied his mother from the party. He was overdressed, as usual, in silver velvet—longvest, trousers, and shirt—with rainbow ribbons sewn along the underseam of his sleeves from armpit to wrist. When he first saw Glenin, he flung open his arms and took three running steps toward her before his mother extended a hand to stop him. With her arm braced across his chest, and an agonized expression on his face, he’d looked like a bird shot dead in flight just before it begins to fall.

  He’d obeyed Anniyas, not his compulsion to be with Glenin. She didn’t let it bother her. Anniyas could do nothing to her now.

  “You promised me two heads,” the First Councillor went on. “And delivered.” She turned to Glenin. “You must be disappointed. The Liwellan girl got away.”

  “How can that matter?” Garon protested, unable to keep silent any longer. “She’s officially dead. She has no power anyway. She’s not Mageborn, she—”

  “She is now surrounded with all the Mage Guardians left in this sorry world!” Anniyas bellowed.

  “And how many might that be?” Glenin inquired quietly. “Five? A dozen? Reports list more than five hundred Mage Guardians killed all across Lenfell, another two hundred imprisoned. We know what will happen to them!”

  “Seven hundred out of a thousand! I want that thousand—every damned one of them!”

  “However many survive, they’re nothing but a pathetic remnant. Lacking a Captal, the Mage Guardians are as good as dead—and lacking Desse, the Rising is dead. They will trouble us no more. We have the future to think of now.”

  Anniyas glared at her. “You’re damned sure of yourself for a woman who just lost the most important game of her life so far!”

  “I am damned sure of myself,” Glenin replied calmly, “for a woman who will deliver of a Mageborn son this autumn.”

  Not Wards or Wraiths or the command of St. Chevasto himself could keep Garon pent now. He ran for her, ribbons flying, arms encompassing. Over his shoulder she saw the flare of stunned joy in her father’s eyes—and the spurt of terror in Anniyas’s.

  Garon, realizing his exuberance was half-strangling her, drew back and let her breathe. “My darling! Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known? Mother, isn’t this spectacular news?”

  “Spectacular,” she repeated flatly, then roused herself to a mockery of a smile. “How wonderful, Glenin.”

  Glenin smiled back with equal sincerity. “I only found out for certain yesterday. I would never have gone on so dangerous a journey if I’d known earlier, Garon.”

  “I’m going to take such good care of you this time,” he promised, catching both her hands to his lips and slobbering kisses all over them. “First thing is to get you into a hot bath, poor lamb, and then to bed. Come with me, beloved. I’ll see to everything.”

  “You’re so sweet to me, Garon,” she purred. Leaning against him, his arm about her waist to give her support she didn’t need now and never would, she smiled at her father. “I forgot to tell you that the First Lord says you still look much too young to be a grandfather!”

  Thus did she put the child’s grandmother on notice that this pregnancy, unlike the other, was sanctioned.

  As Garon assisted her to the door, Anniyas said to Auvry, “You didn’t tell me you’d gone to Malerris Castle before coming here.”

  “We didn’t, First Councillor. The First Lord came to us, through the Traitor’s Ladder to Captal Bekke’s Tower.”

  What her father didn’t know was that Glenin had used that Ladder early this morning before anyone was awake. Then, from the obsidian circle overlooking the waterfall, she’d cast a spell toward the Castle and been answered—at first irritably, for she’d roused the First Lord from sleep. For reasons of his own, the First Lord had chosen
not to mention this visit; it made him look so much wiser and cannier if it appeared instinct had led him to the Academy.

  “Lots of rest,” Garon was saying. “And I’ll hire our own special cook to see to your needs.”

  All the way to their suite he continued in this vein. She stifled a sigh. Twenty weeks of this would surely drive her mad.

  But for her son, decreed by the Lords of Malerris and destined to stand at the Great Loom as its Warden and Master, she could endure anything. Even her son’s father.

  The Rising

  1

  Of all the things Lady Lilen had been called on to explain, the presence of twenty-five Council Guard corpses in her greenhouse was not among them.

  The day before Cailet woke, Elin and Pier Alvassy had arrived at the Ostin house in Longriding. Elin’s was the superior magic, but her brother’s devious instincts were such that Cailet suspected his Name Saint, Pierga Cleverhand, of personally blessing him in the cradle. Though his plan made his sister and Lady Lilen rather queasy, they had to admit it was the only thing to be done. So while Elin used her magic to create temporary ruin of the two-acre garden in back of the house—screened from neighboring properties by a ten-foot fence—Pier lived up to his thieving naming by stripping Guard corpses to bare skin. Uniforms, swords, identity disks, personal jewelry—all of it went into a trunk for storage, a pile for washing and mending, or the trash for disposal. As for the bodies. . . .

  “Mulch.”

  Cailet winced. “Sorry I asked.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Collan remarked. “It’s not so bad, really—not when you think that they’ll end up as roses or lavender.”

  “Kind of poetic,” Pier agreed.

  “What happens when somebody comes looking for them?” Sarra wanted to know.

  “Somebody already did.” Elin’s feral smile was unexpected on an otherwise sweetly delicate face. “The local Justice was here on Solstice Night. I told her the squadron had marched off, following Lady Lilen to Ostinhold.”

  “And she believed it?” Col asked.

  “Oh, yes,” Elin assured him, green eyes dancing.

  In point of fact, Lilen had indeed gone to Ostinhold. With her were Geria, spelled to selective amnesia by Elin, Sela Trayos’s two children, and Sela’s body. She had given birth to a son, named him, and died. What that name might be, neither Elin nor Pier knew.

  “Lady Lilen says he ought to be anonymous for now,” Elin explained. “For his own protection.”

  Cailet agreed. But she couldn’t help wondering if, in fourteen or so years, she would meet up with a boy whose magic she would recognize.

  Fourteen years? She could scarcely think ahead fourteen days.

  In the last eleven, she had sent small groups deeper into The Waste. First to depart had been Riddon, Maugir, and Jeymi Slegin, with Ilisa Neffe and Tamosin Wolvar. Their destination was Maurgen Hundred, near Ostinhold. Biron Maurgen—tall, dark, and strongly built, but otherwise so little like Val that Sarra had difficulty believing they were twins—had ten days ago offered the refuge of his family’s out-country property.

  “With my mother’s permission, naturally,” he said, showing a nice sense of the proprieties. “And, of course, my sister Riena’s. She runs the Hundred these days, since Mother’s back got so bad.”

  “Lady Sefana is ill?” Taig asked. “Not seriously, I hope.”

  “She’s all right as long as she stays off a horse—which is like asking her to cut off her legs.”

  Cailet nodded. Vigorous, impulsive Sefana Maurgen had practically been born in a saddle.

  “Actually, Cai—I mean, Captal—I was wondering if your Healer Mage might be willing. . . .”

  “Certainly,” Elomar responded at once. “Anything I can do will be done.”

  “Thanks.” Biron smiled his gratitude, then sobered. “People don’t realize, you know. About Mage Guardians, I mean. Even the last years, with so few of them around—”

  Cailet nodded her understanding, and he finished with a relieved sigh. Val had always been most obviously his mother’s son: the silver-tongued charmer, the handsome self-described Wastrel. Biron cheerfully described himself as an amiable plodder who rubbed along on thoughtfulness and steady consciousness of duty, with a face that at least didn’t frighten babies. He had confessed privately to Cailet that with his twin dead, he felt as if half of himself had been taken away. “The best half,” he said, and only shook his head when she protested that this wasn’t so.

  His problem was the exact opposite of Cailet’s. She was still wholly herself, but the addition of other people’s memories and knowledge had made her skull a crowded place to live. Every evening for the last eleven days she had spent long hours before bed simply letting her mind run free—listening to those others, as it were, tagging each bit of information, absorbing techniques and memories as parts of herself now. But mere was so much. So much. . . .

  She’d had to order Imilial Gorrst, Kanto Solingirt, and Telomir Renne to Ostinhold. There were certain advantages to single-minded loyalty (especially when embodied in Imi, sword in talented hand), but much as Cailet appreciated their fierce desire to protect her, there were things she must do that they would not approve. Thus the three had to be safely shunted aside.

  The same motivation told Cailet that Taig ought to go with them—their need for a guide was a good enough excuse. Somehow, she couldn’t make herself say it. When Sarra did it for her, she was both angry and relieved. Imilial had bristled, asking tartly if Sarra thought her unable to read a map. Cailet had found sudden fascination in a snagged thread on Gorynel Desse’s cloak.

  She wore it now, even indoors—ostensibly because it was chilly. Only Collan knew it was a substitute for the one Lusath Adennos had not lived long enough to give her. Tarise had mended, washed, and soaked the wool in a vat of black dye to freshen the color. She had also hemmed it a full eight inches and altered seams at the sides and shoulders. Cailet supposed it fit. But she was still trying to get used to it.

  And to the look in Taig’s eyes sometimes when he thought her attention elsewhere. She didn’t want him to leave. She just wished he’d stop watching her that way—as if aware that it was just Cailet, just the girl he’d known since her birth, and yet not Cailet at all but some strange near-mythical personage wearing Cailet’s face. It was confusing him, she knew that all too well. How did he think she felt? Especially when he called her Captal. . . .

  But Captal she was, and as such had ordered Imilial Gorrst, her aged father, and Telomir Renne to Ostinhold. She’d thought about sending Tarise and her husband Rillan with them, but on the day of departure another new arrival appeared: Taguare Veliaz.

  He was no more a Veliaz than Sarra was a Liwellan. He was a former slave, Bookmaster at Scraller’s Fief, purchased and freed years ago by Orlin Renne. Rillan’s family had given him a Name, and Lady Agatine had given him a job as tutor to her sons. Left behind at Roseguard by his own request to accomplish certain unstated Rising goals, the tale of his journey to Longriding was, Cailet surmised, fairly typical of those lucky enough to have avoided arrest.

  When she noticed Collan’s reaction to Taguare she began to wonder once again about his Wards. Vague recognition was followed by puzzlement, as if he knew that he knew this man but didn’t how how. Then he gave a tiny shrug as if resigning himself once more to the holes in his memories. At least, Cailet told herself, the sight of Taguare and the sound of his name brought him no pain.

  Perhaps Gorsha had reset Col’s Wards on purpose, changing them in subtle ways so perhaps one day he would remember the truth of who he was. Col had said he didn’t want to remember, but it just might be that he would have no choice.

  Whatever Gorsha had done had impaired his memory for music and lyrics not at all. He knew eight distinct versions of the Ladder song and during one very long afternoon in Lady Lilen’s elegant sitting room he sang all of them in order of antiquity, plus
the version he’d learned from Alin at Bard Hall. Sarra scribbled frantically whenever she heard a difference from the song she knew.

  When Collan finally finished, the debate began. Elomar thought this, Taig thought that, Elin was reminded of something else, and Sarra talked and took notes simultaneously—but Cailet noticed that Collan had nothing to say. Almost as if he was letting them talk themselves to a standstill before presenting his own brilliant solution. Irked, she decided she could wait just as long as he could any day of the week.

  Sarra was not possessed of Cailet’s patience—either that, or she wasn’t quite as stubborn. “Well?” she asked at last. “You haven’t contributed your two cutpieces yet. What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “I think you’re idiots, all of you. You shouldn’t be tracking down the oldest version of that silly song—you should find the newest.”

  All eyes were on him now. Cailet couldn’t help but admire, grudgingly, his Minstrel’s instinct for gathering an audience.

  He grinned, enjoying himself, and ticked off points on his fingers. “How long has that shop had a pink pig sign? Twenty years? Thirty? What was there before the toy shop? Has the Bower of the Mask ever been sold and its name changed? When did the Garvedians buy Domna Lusira’s house in Cantratown? I know for a fact that the Affe Name hasn’t always owned their house there.”

  Taig was nodding. “So the song has to change to match the changes in what surrounds the Ladders.”

  “And the Ladders were built before The Waste War,” Collan went on, “or so everybody says. Roke Castle Lighthouse has been there half of forever—but if history is anywhere near accurate, a lot of Roke Castle was destroyed in that war. An army or two has trotted through since, and they managed some serious damage. But the song is specific about a lighthouse. It’s the only way to read the rhyme.” He spread his hands wide. “So either the song changes to keep it up to date on ancient Ladders, or the Ladders aren’t so ancient after all.”