The Ruins of Ambrai

by Melanie Rawn

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Oh, shut up and hold your breath,” he said an instant before plunging them both underwater.

  She came up coughing. “What exactly did this accomplish?”

  “If they listened to the Justice, they’ll be looking for a blonde woman and a red-haired man. My hair looks brown now, and in a few minutes you won’t be a blonde anymore.”

  “This is your brilliant disguise? What do you mean, I won’t be a blonde?” She gasped and clutched her loosened braids. “You’re not going to cut my hair!”

  “Did I say I was going to? Women!”

  He walked out of the waves and put her on the damp sand. At the bottom of the nearest pylon he found what he wanted. He sliced his fingers prying loose a few tide-starved mollusks, then added a handful of sticky seaweed. He sat down beside her and cracked open the shells, squeezing dark, viscous fluid onto the seaweed. Then he smeared the whole mess into her hair.

  “Undo your braids and rub that in. Don’t worry, it’s not permanent.” He paused to consider. “Would it look more realistic if you ripped my shirt open for me? No, don’t bother. They won’t be looking at my chest.” He tore the material himself, buttons popping.

  She sniffed at her fingers. “What’s in those shells?”

  “They use it to dye leather.”

  Regarding with horror a handful of formerly golden tresses, she wailed, “It’ll never wash out!”

  Deploring the ill-timed vanity, and aware that she had no intention of doing as told, he reached over and finger-combed black muck through her long hair. Sarra crabwalked away from him, swearing as her sore ankle protested.

  “If you touch me again, I’ll kill you!”

  “Who’d want to touch something that looks like you do right now?” The truth of this made him scoot near—careful of the sand scraping his bare butt—and scrub some of the streaky black from her face.

  “I may kill you anyway!”

  Suddenly there were footsteps again, on the wharf overhead. By now he knew the sound of government-issue boots—and they were tromping down the wooden stairs to the beach.

  “Some other time, First Daughter,” he whispered, and kissed her.

  9

  Council Guard uniforms still provided protection—though Lusira’s arrogance had no effect on the Legionnaires except to annoy them. Only belatedly did Cailet recognize Lusira’s attitude for a deliberate ploy; they needed to be elsewhere, and being ordered out of the commander’s presence was a good start down what she feared would be a long road.

  Elin and Bard Falundir had vanished with the other Mages. The seven of them left—Cailet, Lusira, Taig, Elomar, Pier, Keler, and Tiron—marched smartly down the waterfront street and took the first chance to duck down a side alley.

  “St. Fielto alone knows if we’ll find them all,” Pier said. “My sister will know to look for us, but she also has to look for those looking for her.”

  “They’re Mages,” Keler reminded him. “There are spells and Wardings—”

  “—which they’re all probably too exhausted to try,” Lusira interrupted.

  Cailet knew exactly what she meant. She ached all over from the fall, the cut on her brow stung, and her shoulder was stiffening up. And fear wasn’t helping. Her inability to cast a Ward of Invisibility a little while ago had shaken her badly—but how was she supposed to know how to do it, when she’d never done it before? Nothing had popped instantly into mind, not the ready-worked Ward nor an instructional guide nor even the surety that she could do such a thing.

  Now, however, a dozen possible uses of magic whirled in her head, from Invisibility accomplished in an instant to kindling of directional Mage Globes for each fugitive that would have been the work of five minutes. I know so much, she told herself caustically, so much, in fact, that I know absolutely nothing. Was it supposed to be this way, Gorsha? Was it?

  “Well,” said Taig, “twenty-two people to find, Mages and Rising. The seven of us should be able to show ourselves in enough places so most of them will see us, even if they’re in hiding.”

  “Safe houses?” Elomar asked.

  “Probably not safe anymore. Let’s split up and start looking. Pier, you and Keler take the east end of town, work toward the center circle. Luse, you—”

  “No,” Cailet heard herself say. They all stared at her. “Pier, Keler, and Tiron will retrieve our journeypacks. Meet us at the St. Tamas Shrine, Stonekettle Street.”

  “Cailet—”

  “I know what I’m doing, Taig,” she said shortly. “The shrine was a refuge long before the hatmaker’s on Market Circle or the Mikleine coach house.”

  He swallowed hard, then managed, “How did you—”

  “I know,” she repeated. “Just as I know that we don’t have to go looking for them. They’ll come to us.”

  “Yes, Captal,” said Pier, with a crisp nod for Cailet and a warning glance for Taig. He set off with Keler and Tiron for the stables where they’d left everything not in keeping with the accoutrements of the Council Guard. Thank the Saints, she told herself, for properly raised, obedient men.

  “May I ask how you intend to accomplish this?” Taig asked, respectfully enough but with an edge to his voice.

  It was as odd for her to be giving him orders as it was for him to receive them. Yet part of her automatically expected him to obey her as if she were Gorynel Desse. I’m not. I’m not! I’m me, Cailet—

  Mage Captal.

  “The St. Tamas Shrine is shaped like a starfish,” she said as she started walking. “The design makes more sense on an island, because you can sail in all directions. But Renig is on the tip of a cape, so the only point of the star that doesn’t apply is due north.”

  “There’s a similar shrine in Pinderon,” Lusira said. “A pretty little thing, too. But, Captal, I don’t quite see—”

  She continued as if the woman hadn’t spoken. “Pottery starfish tokens are left in the apse that points in the direction you’re sailing. It’s for luck, to draw the Saint’s attention to the voyage. The energy of Tamas’s protection, if you will. The same can be done with the energy of magic. Mageborns will feel it, and come to us there.”

  “I’ve never heard of any such thing,” Taig said.

  Cailet shrugged. “You’re not Mageborn. It’s part of the Captal’s Bequest.” She fell silent as they rounded a corner into an arcade of stalls. People leaped warily aside as they marched past. At the end of the block they turned into another empty alleyway, and she continued, “News that all Mage Guardians are required to know is disseminated in this fashion—the approaching death of a Captal, a gathering for defensive action or discussion of policy, a dire threat from the Lords of Malerris—”

  “Captal Bekke’s Tower!” Elomar exclaimed, then looked embarrassed and lowered his voice. “It’s the tallest at the Academy, if that matters.”

  Cailet nodded. “It doesn’t, but you’re right. That’s one location. Another is the Octagon Court.”

  Lusira’s great dark eyes lit with revelatory joy to match her lover’s. “Eight points! All the directions of the compass!”

  “Precisely. I intend to use the six points of the shrine’s starfish design to the same purpose. Potentially—”

  “Cailet, talk like you,” Taig burst out. “Precincts, disseminated—you never used words like that before in your life!”

  She refused to feel the burn of blood in her cheeks. “I’ve never had to,” she replied stiffly. “I don’t know any other way to say such things.”

  Elomar spoke a quiet rebuke. “With the knowledge came the vocabulary of two accomplished Scholars.”

  Taig’s resentment flared, brightly silvering his gray eyes. Then he gave an awkward, pained little smile and said, “Sorry, Cai. I don’t mind the Scholarly language, truly told. Just please tell me you don’t remember all the profanity my brother learned from Val
Maurgen.”

  “If she did,” Lusira contributed lightly, “she’s too much of a lady ever to admit it. St. Tamas’s is two blocks away now, isn’t it? It’s been a long time since I was last in Renig, and I don’t quite remember.”

  Four blocks, in fact—four very silent blocks, while Cailet raged internally. She couldn’t even open her mouth anymore without hurting Taig. And without Taig’s hurt hurting her.

  A polished brass plaque at the entrance informed visitors that the shrine had been founded in 771 by the Eddavar Name in gratitude for the safe return of their First Daughter from a war against Veller Ganfallin. A small wooden sign below announced that the Resident Votary was Fellis Eddavar. Cailet asked Taig to find him and keep him occupied. She stationed Elomar and Lusira just inside the front door. Then she strode to the center of the shrine.

  Radiating from a central circle were six long, narrow, triangular apses. One faced due north; in that direction was the rest of The Waste. South, southeast, and southwest was Great Viranka, the ocean that girdled Lenfell. To the northwest was a stretch of sea toward Tillinshir. And to the northeast was Blighted Bay. Cailet expected to find plenty of votive starfish in that apse.

  The floor tiles might once have been gorgeous, but only a faint wash of color lingered here and there, mainly sea-blue with touches of gold and white like sun and spray on waves. The walls needed fresh plaster and paint, and the windows set at random in the steeply pitched roofs were pitted and murky after Generations of storms. What light filtered down was softly mysterious: rather appropriate for the magic Cailet was about to work here.

  Despite the central circle, no Ladder had ever existed here. But she did sense hints of prior magic—like a whisper spoken just before she entered, or a candle snuffed early this morning. She paced off the circumference, feeling where magic might be strongest. Nothing drew her to one triangle or another. With a shrug, she returned to the center and faced southeast.

  Walking straight down the middle to its point, she noted strings of shells and seaweed charms braided of silk or wool hanging here and there. On the floor were a dozen or so pottery starfish. Some were painted in colors never seen in nature; some were plain; a few were real, which surprised her. The creatures were unknown north of Bleynbradden, and rare everyplace else.

  Thanks to her benefactors, she knew where the starfish lived. She knew about the good-luck charms. And she knew how to use the point of the apse to direct her magic in a call only Mageborns could sense.

  What she didn’t know—and, as the others hadn’t asked, thought it wiser not to mention—was whether all Mageborns would sense it.

  A small Mage Globe, white-gold and opaque, appeared at the triangle’s apex when she bid it appear. Power revolved within, gathering strength. After a minute or two it burst. The energy it contained pushed against the starfish point and vanished, arrowing to the southeast.

  My proclivity for drawing a straight line to my goal again, she thought, and went to another pointed apse.

  Cailet knew what she was doing. One day, she promised herself grimly, she would know how she was doing it. For the present, she only hoped she wasn’t sending this summons all the way to Seinshir.

  She sent the next one south, where beyond Renig lay thousands of miles of open sea until Roke Castle. Then the southeast, in the direction of Ryka Court. Northeast; north; northwest—and she was done.

  And exhausted.

  Her muscles had been aching ever since the battle with the real Council Guard. But that magic had been the sword’s, not hers. It had been the same when she shattered Agva Annison’s Globe. Now she was drained of magic to her marrowbones, her temples throbbing and her eyes sand-raspy with weariness.

  “No wonder they didn’t do this very often,” she muttered, dragging herself to the middle of the circle once more. She sat down, too tired to move any farther, and when Elomar hurried over to ask if she was all right, said, “Fine. Now we wait.”

  “We’ll wait. You sleep.”

  Excellent advice, and if she’d been able to keep her eyes open she would have told him so.

  10

  Sarra was positive she’d never get the taste of him out of her mouth—an unsavory combination of last evening’s wine, the gone-off cheese and moldy bread they’d been given this morning, and plain old unscrubbed teeth. His was by no means her first kiss, but if the future couldn’t offer anything better, it would damned well be her last.

  Two soldiers of the Ryka Legion—an elite corps that answered not to Auvry Feiran but to the First Councillor—found them at about the same time Sarra was running out of breath. For that reason she was almost glad to see them. They strode across wet sand and ducked under the wharf, careful not to snag their journeypacks on the splintering wood.

  “What’s this, then?”

  Collan yelped and pretended shyness, covering his groin with one hand and his uncovered hair with the other as he rolled off Sarra. The single wild glance he cast in her direction made it clear that talking their way out of this was her responsibility.

  Wonderful.

  Taking a little gasping breath, she cried, “Don’t tell my mother!”

  Amusement tinged with scorn twitched the Legionnaires’ faces—flavored with intense interest in Col’s anatomy, just as he’d boasted. They were tall, strapping women in their late thirties who wore their swords the way wealthy women wore jewels: with easy pride and absolute authority.

  “You’ve more taste than sense, domna,” the fairer one observed, grinning at Collan’s imitation of cringing embarrassment. “Bet he cleans up awful pretty.”

  “Please don’t tell my mother,” Sarra begged. “She’ll kill me!”

  “What happened to your clothes?” the Legionnaire asked Collan.

  “She—she ordered me to undress,” he whimpered, tugging the shirt around him in a fine impersonation of pathetic victim—while making sure, Sarra noticed, that they saw the holes where buttons used to be. “Then she th-threw my clothes into the sea.”

  “Well, I can’t say as I blame her,” she said, grinning. Col actually blushed. Sarra was so amazed by it that she vowed to ask him how he managed it.

  The second soldier was chuckling. “Wouldn’t think to look at her she’s so feisty, would you?”

  “Poor boy. Shenna, you still have that extra cloak in your pack? He needs something to wear.”

  Boy? Sarra thought. He’s thirty if he’s a day! I ordered him, indeed!

  “Right here. Promise to give it back.”

  Col nodded, wide-eyed.

  A few minutes later, decently wrapped though lacking a coif to hide his tangled, sopping hair—which looked anything but red—Collan scrambled to his feet and bowed humble thanks.

  Sarra wanted to slap him.

  “Now, you be sure to buy him clothes to replace the ones you took,” scolded the fair-haired woman. “That’s a nasty trick to play on a nice boy like this.”

  “Yes, m’lady,” Sarra breathed.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve seen anybody running away or hiding, have you? Two men, two blonde girls?”

  They shook their wet heads, Sarra hoping hers looked anything but blonde.

  “Mage Guardians, all of them,” came the severe warning. “If you do see them, you come to one of the Legion right quick, understand?”

  This time they nodded.

  “There’s a house-to-house lock going on, so nobody’ll be on the streets to see you—” She stopped to laugh. “Not that there’s much of him to see now but legs, more’s the pity. Anyway, you go on back home. If anyone stops you, show ’em this.” She handed Sarra a small, flat brass square with a round hole cut in the middle. “Return it when you bring the cloak back to our ship at dusk. All right? Be on your way, then.”

  “Yes, Lady,” Sarra whispered, amazed at the luck. “Thank you!”

  “And remember, girl, that while a woman has a right to any unmarried
man who takes her fancy, if he’s someone you know your mother wouldn’t approve—”

  “A lecture from you? That’s a good one!” Shenna chortled. “Your mother caught you with a Fourth Tier stablehand when you were fifteen!”

  “Sixteen, and it’s not as if I wanted to marry him,” her companion sniffed. Then, with a wink at Sarra, she finished, “He was almost as hung as your boy here. Get going, and be more careful next time.”

  With a nod, the two soldiers walked back out into the sunlight and up the creaking wharf steps.

  “Do you know what this is?” Sarra murmured to Collan. “It’s safe passage not just through town, but out of it.”

  “Is it, now?” He straightened up, running fingers through limp curls. “Not bad, if I do say it myself.”

  “I had every confidence you would say it yourself,” Sarra told him. “Come on. Their invitation to get out of here is one I’m inclined to accept.”

  Blue eyes, their color made more intense by the black smears of mollusk dye, laughed down at her. “Now, now, First Daughter, don’t grump. Just because you’re disappointed that they came along so soon—”

  If she’d had the use of her magic, she would have blasted him to cinders right where he stood. What she did possess was full command of thirty-three Generations of Blooded arrogance. Allowing her gaze to descend to his groin, decently hidden now beneath the cloak, she said sweetly, “The disappointment was obviously hardest on you. Shall we go?”

  Renig was all but deserted. Street vendors had abandoned their carts, shops were closed up tight, and even the usual assortment of beggars had fled. Sarra didn’t notice this last until Collan remarked on it.

  “Beggars?”

  He pointed, then hastily gathered the cloak about him again. “See that corner Shrine? St. Maurget Quickfingers. It’s where they always gather. I guess when the Ryka Legion puts a lock on a town, they mean it.”

  “Everybody back to their homes, doors and windows barred?”