by Melanie Rawn
“I think he’s ready, don’t you?” Anniyas glanced briefly at Feiran.
“It seems that way.”
“Oh, look at him! Nobody lasts in here more than two days.”
“It’s well into the third, for him.”
Col choked in mid-tirade. Three days? But he knew they must be lying. Just as the impossible seamlessness of the white stone box was a lie. They were Malerrisi, powerful ones. This whole place must be heavily spelled and Warded. Because if it wasn’t, and it really had been three days, it was quite probable that Collan was truly-told crazy.
He sank down onto the floor as if exhausted—not a demanding performance, for even a Minstrel’s capacious lungs ran out of breath.
“Get on with it,” Anniyas said. “I assume you’re ready?”
“Of course.”
She faced him then, smiling an even less likable smile. “Are you sure Glenin wouldn’t like to watch?”
Feiran stiffened. “Not in her condition.”
“Of course, poor darling,” Anniyas said in a voice oily with sympathy.
Was she sick? Injured? Saints, he hoped so!
Then a third voice intruded—and that it was indeed an intrusion was evident in the two suddenly stiff faces above.
“I suggest, First Councillor, that you and Domni Feiran attend on his daughter while I see to this man.”
Anniyas went ashen beneath her cheek-rouge, then so red that the flush clashed with the artificial color. Feiran drew himself up to his full height, white robes rustling.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the First Councillor demanded.
“My duty as Fifth Lord, of course.” A new face peered down at Collan, who let his jaw drop open in an impersonation of idiocy. If Anniyas’s smile was unsavory, this man’s whole aspect was downright slimy. “He’s nowhere near ready, that’s obvious.”
“It’s been three days,” said Feiran.
The Fifth Lord’s surprise was also obvious. Collan read his expression easily—and Anniyas’s angry scowl confirmed his suspicions. They did lie about the three days. So I can’t be crazy. But I still better act like it. He wreathed his arms around his drawn-up knees and began to rock back and forth, singing under his breath.
“Doriaz, return to Seinshir at once!” Anniyas gave the Fifth Lord a look to castrate a full-grown unbroken Tillinshir stud. “You have no right to this man! He’s mine!”
“He’s a thread that must be rewoven or cut,” came the chill reply. “I’m Fifth Lord. That’s what I do.” A big, thick hand deliberately fingered the golden badge on his white tunic.
“What’s the matter, little man?” she jeered. “Haven’t killed anyone in the last two days? Scissors getting a bit dull?”
Collan actively prayed that Anniyas would win the skirmish. If he had to be interrogated, he’d take Auvry Feiran over Doriaz any day of the week. There was something corrupted about the Fifth Lord’s eyes, like rotting flesh.
“It is my right,” he said again.
Feiran interrupted. “Only with direct authorization from the First Lord.”
Doriaz flushed, his lips tightening. “The duties of my position demand my taking charge of this man’s torture.”
Torture? With a cry not entirely feigned, Col sprang to his feet and leaped for a hold on the lowest rung of the silver railing. He caught it, felt it like a pole of solid ice in his palms. His body slammed into the cold marble wall. He swung one leg up, trying to hook a foot on the corner.
Fifth Lord Doriaz raised a flawless white boot. Before he could smash the heel onto unprotected fingers—Sweet Colynna Silverstring, not my hands! Not my hands!—Col grabbed the boot and yanked.
Doriaz lurched, his other heel skidding out from under him. He fell hard on his ass on the white stone floor. There was a lovely grunt and an even lovelier crack as his head hit.
Dangling now by one hand, Col looked up into Feiran’s gray-green eyes—which glinted with amused approval, surely imagined. Gently, swiftly, Feiran unhooked two of Col’s fingers from the rail. He landed on his feet, knees bent, panting for breath.
Anniyas leaned over to regard him with an almost comical mix of irritation and gratitude. “Well, it seems Doriaz was right after all. Our little albadon hasn’t worked on you yet.”
He grinned up at her and began to sing Falundir’s “The Long Sun.”
Once again painted color was a grotesque mismatch for the natural crimson that rushed into her cheeks. For the first time he witnessed the truth of the phrase “blind with fury.” Her eyes actually glazed over, their frozen blue nearly swallowed by blackness. Recovering quickly, she demonstrated an impressive command of the language. She cursed for a full minute without using the same phrase twice. Collan heard her out rather admiringly, still grinning, still singing.
Anniyas swung on Feiran, snarling, “Break him!”
And left.
After a moment, Feiran murmured, “That may not have been wise, you know.”
The white lid of the white box slid back into place. He was alone in the marble cube. He sang the song until its end. Then he sat down, wincing a little at the cold against his bare backside, and planned how not to break.
22
Dressed in stolen clothes—the uniform of a dead Council Guard and Collan’s purloined cloak—Sarra left the Crossroads of St. Feleris the morning after the father she hated captured the man she loved.
Garments and weapons that had vanished the first night had reappeared, his as well as hers. But there was no shaving gear ready for him in the alcove and breakfast was laid for only one. She bathed, combed her hair and braided it tightly, ate, and stuffed her pockets with all the bread and cheese they would hold. She started to tie the golden goblet to her belt for later use, then changed her mind. The thing would probably disappear with her first step out the front door.
She wanted very much to take the grimoire along for Cailet, and at least one songbook for Collan—a promise to herself that she would see him again to give it to him. But these she also left behind, locked in the trunk.
Taking one last look around at the herbs and carvings and woven spells, Sarra wrapped herself in the cloak. Despite an obvious wash, it still somehow smelled of Collan. She turned her cheek briefly to her shoulder to feel the nubby warmth of it, and then went downstairs.
The house was not only satisfied with the payment but actually seemed the stronger. Wood was piled in the great kitchen hearth; the tables and benches of the common room were set neatly upright, ready for a score of visitors. Yet a search of the cupboards for additional food yielded nothing. There was a limit to Truth’s magic, it seemed. She couldn’t help but wonder if things would be different had she been brave enough to tell her Truth to Collan himself. She opened the door, went outside, and didn’t look back.
A breeze was blowing, scattering the clouds and ground mist with a scent tainted by the marshes on the western shore of Blighted Bay. She turned her face to the wind and started walking to the east, where Ambrai was.
The day she began her journey was the eighth of Lovers’ Moon. She knew the date not because of any time-sense like Val’s or because she’d kept track of the days, but because the Ladymoon that night showed a full three-quarters. In four nights it would be full again, on the first of Green Bells, when Lenfell would celebrate the feast of Miramili the Summoner. For now, St. Imili watched over the world and especially over new mothers and those newly wedded; Sarra didn’t qualify. Sweet-smiling Imili was also the patron of joy—and never had Sarra felt more a stranger to that emotion.
I could use Rilla the Guide or Fielto the Finder about now—for I’m traveling blind and I’m certainly a lost item who needs finding. St. Maidil would be appropriate, too—not as patron of new lovers, which is my own damned fault, but as protector of fools. Which is also my own damned fault.
And these thoughts were getting her exactly nowhere, she reminded he
rself. Her feet and her need to go home were all she had. A day to get to Blighted Bay, if she was lucky; another two or three days across it, if she could find a boat willing to take her; another five or six days to the Brai River, if she could find a road over the hills; and then she would drift downriver on a barge, if there was any produce being shipped this early in the spring.
If, if, if. How did such a tiny word produce such huge problems?
Combel was closer. Easier. Surely there would be an Ostin or someone related to the Ostins who would shelter her. She could borrow a horse and ride all the way to Ambrai in half the time it would take her by boat and on foot.
Instinct demanded otherwise. Even if the authorities weren’t looking for her in Combel—and it was a dead certainty they were—she simply could not turn west. To the east lay Ambraishir. Home. She had to go home. The need was that powerful within her, defying logic and reason that shook their heads like wise elder sisters at her chances of success.
Magic had nothing to do with logic or reason. And it was magic that called her home.
So on the first day she walked the lonely expanses of The Waste, avoiding each of the few farmhouses except for one, from which in the dead of night she stole a man’s oversized shirt off the clothesline. Wool, much-mended, with Collan’s cloak it would keep her warm enough. The shirt of the Council Guard uniform she left behind in payment; the tunic she buried the next morning by the side of the road.
On the second day she reached Blighted Bay.
On the third day and the fourth—when the moon rose full—she was on a fishing boat helping sort each day’s catch. On the fifth day she ended her stint as deckhand by rolling barrel after barrel of fish from boat to dock. She slept that night in a warehouse, cuddled up to a big furry watchdog more interested in having his belly scratched than in savaging intruders. On the sixth morning she left the village nestled in the northeast corner of Blighted Bay and started due east again toward the Brai River.
As it happened, St. Imili was watching out for her after all, even two days into St. Miramili’s week of Green Bells. On the sixth day, about half an hour before she would have entered a deadly mire all unknowing, Imilial Gorrst finally caught up to her.
The Warrior Mage galloped up out of nowhere on a strong bay mare, yelling and waving madly. Sarra gaped at her as if she were a Wraith.
“Great Geridon’s Stones, girl, I’ve been chasing you for six days now!”
“You have?” Sarra asked stupidly.
“I figured you’d feel the Summons like the rest of us did,” Imi went on, swinging down from the horse. She untied a waterskin from the saddle and gave it to Sarra, who drank, still dazed. “But Telo was worried about you, Warded and all, so before we left Ostinhold my father did a little scrying with one of his Globes. And couldn’t find you!”
“I was—in a Warded house,” Sarra managed.
“Where?”
“The Waste.”
“Truly told? One of the old shelters, I bet. Well, whatever happened, Telo and Miram and I started out—”
“Miram?”
“Ostin. Not a shred of magic, that girl, but the soul of a Warrior Mage. Anyhow, along the way I tried a Globe or two of my own. You look starved, girl. Want something to eat? I’ve got plenty in my saddlebags.”
Sarra shook her head. “I’m fine.”
“Right,” Imi said skeptically. “Five days ago I finally caught sight of you. Telo and Miram went on ahead, and I backtracked. Lucky the Maurgens breed fast horses, or I’d never have caught you in time.” She squinted at the brownish-green expanse of marshland. “Nobody who goes in there comes out.”
“I—I didn’t know.”
“No reason why you should, I guess. Come on. If you’re ready to ride, let’s get going. It’s a bit of a climb over the hills, but from there it’s a straight road to Ambrai.”
The Warrior Mage swung up into the saddle as if weariness and she had never been within speaking distance. Sarra clambered up behind her, circling her friend’s waist with her arms. The mare broke into a brisk canter.
“So, Sarra, what happened to the Minstrel?”
Her throat closed and her eyes welled with infuriating tears.
“Don’t tell me he just left you to fend for yourself!” Imi exclaimed.
She thought she’d wept herself dry over Collan back at the magical cottage. Evidently not. Imilial waited her out, slowing the horse to a walk and making awkward soothing noises as she patted Sarra’s arms. Finally the storm subsided, and Sarra lifted her head from the Mage’s powerful shoulder.
“Imi—”
“Just start at the beginning and tell it in order.”
She did. Imilial gave several soft explosive curses, and by the time the tale was finished—lacking certain Truths—she was rigid with fury.
“Feiran!” she spat. “You can bet Anniyas and the Lords of Malerris have Col by now. This happened when?”
“The seventh of last week.”
“They’ve got him. And he’ll tell them all he knows—not that he isn’t a smart boy, and brave and generous despite himself. He kept you safe, when it’s you Feiran and Anniyas want more than him and he could’ve bargained you away easy. But Wards or no Wards, he’ll empty his every thought to them once they bind him with magic to the Pain Stake.”
“The what?” Sarra breathed, heart hammering with fear.
“A perversion unique to the Malerrisi,” the Warrior Mage answered grimly. “He’ll survive it, but not as the man we knew. Saints damn Auvry Feiran! And every other piece of Malerrisi shit ever born!”
“But—but what is it? What does it do?”
“Sarra, sweet, you don’t want to know.”
23
Glenin was neither sick nor injured nor fashioned of featherweight porcelain, and resented mightily being treated as if she was all three. Forbidden to go near the albadon, the Warded white box occupied by Collan Rosvenir. Not allowed to cast any spell more complex than Warmth to her teacup (coffee had been outlawed by that fool of a cook Garon hired). Prohibited Ladders, lest the magic upset the Mageborn son in her womb.
She felt a devouring curiosity about the Minstrel’s experience with the Pain Stake. She’d read of it in the Code of Malerris but had never seen it applied. She cared little about small magics (although every morning she craved a good strong cup of coffee). These were minor things. It was the Ladders she really wanted, the strictures against them repeated by her father and Garon and Anniyas until it was damned near impossible for her to resist using one.
On her way to the Octagon Court Ladder she asked herself a trenchant question: Why flout tedious rules and exert her independence if the rule she broke was of no importance and the demonstration of her freedom gained her nothing? If defiance of prohibitions was her goal, she might as well defy the most serious one. Thus the Ladder to Ambrai.
Certain texts asserted that a fetus exposed to strong magic actually had an easier time, recognizing magic instinctively upon its release at puberty. She would never have dreamed of using a Ladder during the crucial last five weeks of gestation, but she was probably doing her son a favor by using one now.
And it was vital to know what was happening at Ambrai. The Summons was almost impossible to pick up now, and it gave Glenin a headache even to try. But Ambrai must be the destination—again, the last place anyone would look for the Captal, the Mage Guardians, and the Rising.
Vassa Doriaz, obliquely questioned before his unfortunate experience with the Minstrel (Glenin couldn’t help but grin when she heard of it), seemed to know nothing at all about the Captal’s Summons. Darvas Keviron, who’d accompanied Doriaz to Ryka Court and ended up carrying him back to Seinshir, was just as ignorant. Anniyas had said no Malerrisi had felt it, and Anniyas—First Lord!—was under no obligation to say a thing about it unless and until she saw fit to do so.
Glenin was sure she wouldn’t. She now
understood what Anniyas planned. What better demonstration of her power than to defeat the new Captal all by herself?
Glenin nodded to the sentries outside the Ladder chamber, who bowed as if to a Council member before they opened the doors. She waited until the latch clicked shut before she smiled at this indication of her growing influence.
Pleasure did not last long. Anniyas was a formidable enemy even if, at present, an undeclared one. Glenin and her unborn son were a threat to her. She must prove that Glenin’s time had not yet come. For if enough Malerrisi agreed that the intricate design that was Avira Anniyas was now complete, her thread would be summarily tied off and snipped from the Great Loom. Not even a First Lord could escape a Net woven by dozens bent on her elimination. Vassa Doriaz would be more than happy to stand ready with his golden Scissors open wide.
As the Blanking Ward wrapped around Glenin, she vowed that if anyone defeated the new Captal all by herself, her Name wouldn’t be Anniyas.
It was five hours earlier in Ambrai, a beautiful spring noontime of unclouded sunlight and fresh blue skies. Glenin stepped out of the Ladder within the Double Spiral Stair and looked upward. The roof of the Octagon Court had collapsed, probably during the brutal winter of 964 when snow buried North Lenfell all the way to Roseguard. Tiles and rafters littered the marble hall of the Double Spiral, making it difficult to climb over the debris. Glenin cursed the extra weight that was rapidly depriving her of suppleness and altering her balance. One wouldn’t think twelve pounds would make such a difference. Soon she’d be unable to hide her pregnancy any longer.