Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  It was strange to think that for everyone else, today was an ordinary day. All were at their labors or their crafts or their amusements. The world went round while he sprawled here and stared at the ceiling.

  He supposed it was all right. He had no plans.

  “There’s someone here to see you,” Magus Karl told him the next morning. “He says his name is Johanns. Do you know him?”

  Graegor frowned, and took a moment to pull the drawstring on his pack tight. “He’s my father’s broker.” He’d given one of the inn’s servants a nickel ounce less than an hour ago to deliver a letter to Johanns’ house.

  “Oh, is your father a pearl trader?” The change in Karl’s tone today was understated, but it was definitely less formal. Karl had apparently decided to treat him as he would another magus, which was just fine with Graegor.

  “No, a craftmaster. We’d stay at Johanns’ house when my father came here for business.”

  “Ah.” Karl had a strong, bony face, not unpleasant, with freckled skin and light brown hair he tied back in a queue. “Isn’t that unusual, to stay at his house? He must represent a lot of craftsmen.”

  Graegor had never really thought about it that way. “I suppose we were special. Mister Johanns always had lots of commissions for my father.”

  “I take it you hadn’t exactly expected him here.”

  “No.” But maybe he should have. If his father had told Johanns about finding him in jail, Johanns would want to know the details, and would not be satisfied with Graegor’s brief note.

  “Well, he’s downstairs in the dining room. Do you want to talk to him? You don’t have to. I’m very good at conveying polite regrets.”

  “I’ll go down. Thanks.”

  Johanns was alone; Graegor had been worried that he would see his father there too. He was sitting at a table near one of the lace-curtained windows, and his elegant clothes in this elegant setting made Graegor feel rather lowly in his homespun.

  That’s another thing you need to get past. You outrank everyone in this room.

  Instead of heartening him, the thought only made him feel more awkward as he threaded his way between the scattering of tables and breakfasting guests to reach Johanns. Johanns saw him, stood up with a broad smile, and clasped his hand enthusiastically. “Graegor! It’s good to see you.” He ushered Graegor to his table and signaled the serving girl for two drinks. “Looks like you survived that little quake we had a couple days ago. Wasn’t that strange?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s good to see you too, sir.”

  “Forgive me—I asked your messenger where you were staying. I wanted to see you before you left town.”

  “That’s very kind of you, sir.”

  “Your father went back home only a few days ago. I know he was hoping to find you.” It appeared that Johanns didn’t know about the jail incident. He placed his arthritic left arm carefully on the table, and his expression became speculative, his voice softer. “Your note asked me to tell your folks that you were leaving Farre. May I ask where you’re headed?”

  Graegor had the very strong impression that Johanns had already figured it all out. He knew how old Graegor was; he knew Graegor had never been sick; and no doubt the inn’s servant had, with monetary encouragement, told Johanns that Graegor was staying with two magi.

  But Graegor didn’t want to talk about it. It was still too much for him to take in. He wanted to hold the secret close for a while, to get used to it before everyone in Telgardia knew his name.

  “Chrenste,” he said finally.

  The serving girl returned with two glasses of porter, and Johanns gave her a coin she seemed pleased with. She left, and Johanns raised one eyebrow at Graegor. “Forgive my asking, but you’re not in any trouble, are you?”

  “No, sir, not at all. Thank you. It’s kind of you to worry.”

  “Well, of course I worry. I’ve watched you grow up.” He took a long drink, his eyes unreadable. “You’ve found a job, then?”

  For the next five hundred years. “Yes, sir.”

  Johanns waited, but when Graegor didn’t elaborate, he nodded. “All right, then. Do you need anything? A horse, silver, anything?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Thank you, but I don’t need any money.” It was the sentence he was least likely to have uttered two days ago. Earlier, while packing, he had emptied his pouch on his bed, put his coins in stacks, and looked at them for a while before putting them back.

  My money is yours, the sorcerer had said. Which was just as incredible as anything else.

  “I’m curious—why do you want me to send a message to your family? If you’re going to Chrenste, you’ll be going downriver. You could tell them yourself.”

  “We ... well, we want to get there as soon as we can.” After a second, Graegor knew that Johanns wasn’t buying that. “And I want to have some success before I see my father again. That’s all. If you could tell him that I’m fine, and that I’ll come back in a few years, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “Ah. Well, I can certainly do that for you.” Johanns was clearly disappointed that he hadn’t managed to get any more information out of him.

  He’s treated you well. Let him know you won’t forget it. “Sir, I hope to be able to do business with you, once I’m older. I’ll write to you and let you know how I’m doing.”

  At this, Johanns smiled slyly, and his nod was oddly formal. “I appreciate that, Graegor. I’m sure you’ll do very well.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Graegor stood up. “And thank you for the drink.”

  “You’re welcome,” Johanns said, tactfully ignoring the fact that Graegor hadn’t touched his. He stood up and offered his hand again. “Lord Abban go with you.”

  “And you.” It was the first time he had ever heard Johanns use that pious farewell. His handshake was solid, and Graegor matched it, to let Johanns know that he meant what he said. Any business the new sorcerer had in Lakeland would go through one particular broker. For the first time, he had granted someone a favor.

  Johanns left another coin on the table. Graegor walked with him to the door, and waved as Johanns headed down the street. He felt reasonably sure that Johanns would respect his wishes and not tell his father anything more that was in his note. For some reason, he really, really didn’t want his father to know. Not yet.

  He went back upstairs, his steps slow and thoughtful. In his room, he picked up his quarterstaff. Nothing felt unusual or magical about it today—just a good stout staff that his father had wanted him to take back.

  What would his father say about it now, if he knew?

  I am Telgardia’s new sorcerer. I am the Torchanes heir.

  Anything can happen.

  “Graegor?”

  He turned. Lord Contare stood in the doorway, wearing a heavy grey traveling cloak. His white hair gleamed in the light of the oil lamp hanging from the ceiling behind him, and his eyes were calm, vivid blue. “Are you ready to go?”

  Maybe. Maybe not. But ... “... I’m ready to start.”

  Chapter 6

  Graegor’s first glimpse of Telgardia’s capital city was the Flame.

  He’d been looking for it for the past mile, ever since the river had bent back to the east. Now the trees were thinning, and the sun had risen nearly to noon and no longer washed out the horizon. And there it was—a tiny, bubbling sphere of orange beneath a whipping wisp of grey smoke.

  Long centuries ago, Sorcerer Aind had lit the Eternal Flame atop the central dome of the greatest of God’s houses in all Telgardia. In this last act of his life, he had given all his energy to the spell that kept the Flame alive. It burned without fuel, without succumbing to wind or rain or snow, without earthly end.

  As long as us Lord Abban loves,

  His Flame will burn on high above ...

  Those lines were among his earliest memories, part of a lullaby his mother had sung to him, and later to Audrey.

  Spellbound castle on the hill,

  For royal blood, by roya
l will ...

  These lines were also among his earliest memories, though he could not remember who had sung this Torchanes song to an unknown Torchanes child.

  The brief gaps in the forest on either side of the winding river gave evidence of their approach to the city—more villages, closer together; more movement of horses and carts on the riverside roads; stronger smells. More barges and boats glided down the river with them, or pulled upstream with long sweeps of powerful oars.

  You’re going home.

  He wanted very much to see the place where Sorceress Khisrathi had set her bloodspell. He could feel his nerves keying up as they drew very slowly closer, and it grew harder to sit still. He fidgeted with his quarterstaff, tapping it on the deck. If the legends were true, and if Lord Contare was right about him, then the doors to Khisrathi’s tunnels would open for him, and her spell would let him enter.

  Maybe that would convince that stubborn part of his brain—the part that refused to believe this was happening, because he was too ordinary for anything like this to actually be happening—that this was really happening. He’d had all this time on the river to absorb it, but it had only sunk into his skin, so to speak, and not his bones.

  They had embarked at Farre on a riverboat that carried no cargo, only passengers—a floating inn. Graegor couldn’t even guess how much it cost to travel like this. They voyaged from sunup to sundown, and they’d made a steady forty miles a day for the last twelve days. At night they tied up at one of the many famous sites along the river, such as Beacon Hill, the Deepwood Canal, and the Tirrell Locks. The boat’s single-bed cabins were tiny but comfortable, and the dining room under the wheelhouse had a view downriver. Last night a priest on board had conducted a Godsday service in the dining room for everyone. Lord Contare and Magus Karl were there now, drinking tea with some other passengers, but Graegor, as usual, had gone outside after breakfast to sit at the rail near the broad prow.

  He’d spent a lot of time sleeping, and a lot of time listening to Lord Contare. The sorcerer was a good storyteller and entertained the boat’s crew and passengers in the evenings with epic tales. He was also a good teacher, and in the afternoons he patiently answered Graegor’s questions about magic, Maze Island, Torchanes kings, and his own long life. But he never asked Graegor about his life, which Graegor took to mean that he was willing to wait until Graegor wanted to talk about it.

  You’re going home.

  Leaving home, and going home. No wonder that stubborn part of his brain refused to believe.

  On the evening of the day they’d left Farre, the boat had passed the tributary of the river emerging from Long Lake—Long Lake, which lapped at the shore below the main street of his village. Graegor had resisted the temptation to look back once they had passed it. It didn’t feel right to not tell his mother and Audrey what had happened. It didn’t feel right to not give Jolie the proper apology and farewell that she deserved. But it also didn’t feel right to strut into town and brag about all this when he hadn’t actually done anything yet. Nothing that deserved honors, anyway.

  The truth was that he didn’t want to go back yet. He wanted to go forward.

  He stood up, trying to see beyond the curve of the earth, trying to see the castle, the city. The Eternal Flame seemed larger now, no longer a point of light but a torch, dancing and leaping in the air. The river, the trees, the villages stretched before him, hinting at but hiding Chrenste itself. He wished the captain of the riverboat would stop governing the craft’s speed. He knew they could go faster—other boats, bigger and smaller, were passing them in the current. The stately pace had been fine upriver, but now ...

  Lord Contare came up to Graegor’s bench and stood a short distance down the rail. They looked downstream together for a few moments. Then the sorcerer asked, “Have you tried to stretch your sight?”

  “Sir?”

  “If you focus, you can see further and further away. It’s akin to the very fine detail you saw in the dark, with the bird and the mouse.”

  “But I thought that was a regenerative trance.”

  “It was, but I believe you were tapping this other talent as well. Have you considered trying it again?”

  Graegor shook his head. “No, sir. I’m still just trying to ... to sense it inside me. But everything feels slippery.”

  Lord Contare nodded understandingly and looked across the water. “The river takes another bend at the tollway ahead,” he said after a moment. “Chrenste seems to appear out of nothing just after that.” His voice took on an undertone that Graegor now recognized as joking: “You aren’t allowed the view until you’ve paid for it.”

  “I’ve heard that it’s beautiful. ‘A twinkling net of emeralds and sapphires.’”

  “Do you know to what that lyric refers? ... After the Rohrdals’ overthrow of the Torchanes, they eliminated purple from the city because it was the Torchanes color. In Chrenste there had always been a number of purple roofs and doors, or awnings and signs, and many people covered the purple with dark blue paint or dye.” He paused thoughtfully. “It was a symbol of loyalty to Prince Augustin to keep a trace of purple,” he remembered. “A single roof tile, or a purple border on a curtain, told us who we could trust when we were preparing to move our rebellion here.”

  “Were there many people who stayed loyal?”

  “There were few who were willing to die for it,” the sorcerer said, without emotion. “Before the coup, the Rohrdals did everything they could to turn the citizens against their king because he had married a foreigner.”

  Graegor nodded, knowing this tale. After his betrothal to the now-Sorceress Josselin was annulled, King Zacharei had wed a princess of the far-off land of Essena. “Not just a foreigner, but a pagan.”

  “She converted to L’Abbanism.” The sorcerer gazed off toward the still-hidden city for a time.

  It occurred to Graegor that he was descended from this princess, and therefore carried a drop of Essenan blood. He thought that was rather exotic. It seemed he grew less ordinary every time he turned around.

  “So, most of the purple was replaced by blue, by Rohrdal decree,” Lord Contare picked up the thread of the story again. “As you know, the Rohrdal line did not endure. Barely a hundred years later, their last king found himself with but one heir, a daughter. Tales say he held a tournament and gave her hand in marriage to the victor, but it didn’t happen that way. He chose the strongest of his dukes—Adlai Carhlaan, who was popular, and a brilliant general. The fact that the Carhlaans had held the throne before King Breon’s time gave their line additional legitimacy.”

  Graegor knew about this too. The Telgard royal families, and the legends of the “thrice-risen Torchanes”, had been his first history lessons in school. Saint Carlodon Torchanes had risen from obscurity to unite the Telgard tribes under one king for hundreds of years. After losing the throne and spending several generations in exile, the Torchanes had marched on Chrenste and recaptured it. Then, after a betrayal by the Volnettes had taken the crown from the Torchanes again, the Carhlaans had risen to power, and they in their turn had reigned for hundreds of years. Finally, Breon’s ancestor, Joshua Torchanes, had wrested back his royal birthright, and Breon’s cousin Khisrathi had then ensured with her bloodspell that their line, being thrice-risen, would not be thrice-fallen.

  But they—we—did fall. It took a long time, but we fell. Were the Torchanes rising a fourth time, now? Did it count if he was the sorcerer and not the king?

  “Duke Adlai married the Rohrdal princess, and when her father died, he ascended the throne in his own name, as a Carhlaan king. One of the first uses to which he put the royal treasury was a restoration of the capital city. The ban on purple was lifted, but few used it, because the king himself had taken a great liking to the dark blue that had replaced it.”

  “‘Sapphire blue, like Telgard eyes,’” Graegor quoted from another song.

  Lord Contare smiled. “Correct. Among other projects, he ordered that all the roofs and
doors throughout the city be repainted blue, or else green, the Carhlaans’ color. When owners of places with names like ‘Black Door Tavern’ complained, he granted exceptions, for a hefty fee—which is the infamous ‘color tax’. Now Chrenste shows every shade of blue and green, winding through the streets and gleaming from the rooftops.” He pointed. “And there is the tollway, so we shall soon see this famous vista.”

  The tollway consisted of one small building on the south bank. Graegor could not see any obstacles to downriver traffic, but all the eastbound boats lined up to patiently await the official’s attention. But their boat moved past the line and gave three toots of its horn. One of the green-clad guards on the riverbank dipped a red and white flag in answer, and a crewman on their boat ran a blue and green flag up the pole atop the wheelhouse. “Our captain has an annual pass,” Lord Contare explained at Graegor’s questioning look, and Graegor noticed that another boat, just pulling from the tollway into the current, now flew a blue and green flag like their own.

  Now Lord Contare was pointing to a break in the trees ahead and to the left. “Look there as we make the turn,” he said.

  Suddenly the entire city rose in front of them—the slope to First Hill on the right, the steeper climb to Second Hill on the left, and the houses and chapels and markets in between and all around. From here, the effect of the bright blue and green roofs and doors was of a city built from exquisitely painted wooden toys, and the reflection of the sun on the sea beyond was a warm lamp shining over a calm pool. Graegor knew that this was the largest city in Telgardia, and therefore everything his parents hated—noisy, smelly, vulgar, uncaring. But from here, less than a mile from the wall, Chrenste held itself with poised beauty and a particular kind of peace.

  The Eternal Flame shimmered in the sky atop the largest of the five domes of the Basilica Solthea of Saint Carlodon Exalted, and the domes gleamed an icy blue at the summit of Second Hill. To most people, it was Saint Carlodon’s Basilica, or the Solthea, or the Five Domes—and some people still called it the Temple, even though it had been almost a thousand years since the Council of Chartaul. On First Hill, pennants flew from the four high granite and marble towers of Castle Chrenste. All the stained glass in the basilica and castle windows sparkled emerald green and sapphire blue.