Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Contare came up from his telepathic trance, and seemed to be less upset. “Pascin has invited us to dinner. I also spoke to Lasfe, and we’ll visit the Essenan shrine to meet his apprentice as well.”

  Graegor had been eager this morning to meet as many other sorcerers as possible, but now ... “I thought we were going to invite the Telgard magi ...”

  “We’ll postpone that until tomorrow night.” Contare stood, pushing together two stacks of paper and corking an inkwell. “I’ve asked Karl and Jeffrei to join us, and they’ve gone to get the horses.” He stopped and looked at Graegor critically. “Did you know that you have a cobweb on your sleeve?”

  “I do?” Graegor glanced from his left to his right arm. “Of course I do,” he muttered when he found it. It was quite large. “I just met a beautiful girl, so of course I look like a bum.” For the first time, the thought occurred to him that she may not have found him appealing, and his gut seized up in anxious pain. He realized that this was exactly the sort of problem that Contare was worried about.

  “There’s a washbasin and a water closet through that door,” Contare was saying, and Graegor went to use both.

  It was still hellishly hot outside when he and Contare met Karl and Jeffrei beyond the Ring of Flags, where they had brought the horses. “Is the heat always like this?” he asked Jeffrei as he swung into the pinto’s saddle. He wondered if the Thendal sorceress already knew how to keep herself cool.

  “Only in high summer. When I first got here, I stayed in the basement of the library for three straight weeks to escape. It never gets this hot in Chrenste.”

  “Is that where you’re from?” It explained the accent.

  “Born and raised.” They nudged their horses to fall in behind Karl’s and Contare’s past the guardhouse and into the market, which seemed just as busy now as it had been at midday.

  “Are your parents magi too?”

  “No. Mom nearly fainted when she saw me levitating sticks and stones.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seven. After that I couldn’t run around with the other alley brats anymore—I had to go to school, so that I wouldn’t be completely ignorant when I came here once I turned fourteen.” He grinned. “It worked—I was only halfway ignorant.”

  They threaded through the marketplace and came out to the Walk. It, too, was still busy, but the air felt marginally cooler where the street paralleled an arm of the river. Workers on the river barges were finishing their day, securing loads and lining up at the paymaster’s booth. As Graegor watched them, he caught a glimpse of the Colosseum, and its distinctive high arches, rising behind the neighborhood on the other side of the river. “The games are tomorrow, right?” he asked Jeffrei.

  “Right—want to go?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “A lot of my friends are going, since it’s between terms.” He stopped and looked at Contare, who had turned toward them and was now rolling his eyes in resignation. “Unless, of course, my lord ...”

  Contare waved it off. “No, go ahead and take him. The sooner he sees what all the fuss is all about, the sooner he can become jaded. One hopes.”

  “You don’t like the games, sir?” Graegor asked curiously.

  “Oh, I still go occasionally, but I’ve had to put down several riots resulting from race fanaticism. I wish you young people wouldn’t take the business so seriously.”

  This made Graegor wonder how exactly a sorcerer would put down a riot. Could he put everyone to sleep, or stun them back into their senses? How? Would he have to reach into everyone’s minds one at a time? Could a sorcerer actually do that to an ordinary person?

  He could feel the Thendal sorceress’ threads weaving into his core, gripping tight, but giving nothing away. He didn’t know how she felt about what had happened. How could she be right there in his mind and yet still as distant as a star? There was still so much about this that he didn’t understand.

  “Here’s something I’d like to show you,” Contare interrupted his thoughts, gesturing toward the street ahead, where Graegor could see what looked like impossibly tall fenceposts lining the way. As they drew closer, he suddenly realized that he was seeing obelisks—the Avenue of Obelisks.

  He had never seen more than two of the monoliths together. Now he saw dozens. They contained all the knowledge brought at the Arrival, the crafts and medicines and teachings of the ancient people who had settled the three continents hundreds of years before even Carlodon was born. The sorcerers of Contare’s own Circle had studied those scattered obelisks, copied them, and set them here for everyone on Maze Island to see and know. Graegor knew all this, since he had learned about this street both in school and in legend, but the reality—here in the shift and hurry of the crowd, where few if any people paid any attention to the famous pillars—touched him with awe.

  The obelisks were grey with white capstones, and as he rode closer, he could see that they were smooth and clean and whole, unlike those few he had seen in Telgardia. The pavers on the street had changed from cobblestone to marble, white and blue and black and green and mauve, in intricate patterns that repeated at each towering obelisk. Or—not towering. Graegor squinted as he edged his horse right up against them. Something was wrong with these reproductions.

  “They’re smaller than the real ones,” he finally said in surprise, and something akin to disappointment, as he reached out to brush his fingers against the warm stone. The carvings under his fingers were deep and clear.

  “They’re two-thirds scale,” Jeffrei said. “That way the carvings are more accessible to people and easier to read. The guildmasters in the city insisted on that.”

  “Actually,” Contare said over his shoulder, “they’re smaller because building them to scale would take up too much room. The owners of the homes up the street refused to sell their gardens to the city, so the line of obelisks couldn’t extend as far as we originally planned. And the owners of the homes who did give up their gardens didn’t want their entire view of the street blocked, so the obelisks had to be shorter than three stories.”

  “M’lord!” Karl feigned shock. “You mean it was politics and not altruism that carried the day? I can’t believe it!”

  Graegor glanced over at Jeffrei, who looked a little flushed but only said mildly, “I should know better than to believe anything the older students tell me.”

  “How many of these are there?” Graegor asked him, brushing his fingertips over a second obelisk as they rode by.

  “One hundred fifty-one. This is the west avenue, and it intersects with the other three avenues up ahead.”

  Graegor squinted up at the top of the obelisk. The sloped-roof house symbol was carved into the pyramidal marble capstone, which meant this obelisk was dedicated to one of the sciences. His fingers glided over a third obelisk, and he peered at it in surprise when he felt no carvings at all. A large patch of the stone remained smooth. “Why is this one blank?” he asked Jeffrei.

  “That’s probably because the carvings on the original were so worn that they couldn’t be made out.”

  “Do a lot of them have blank patches?”

  “Yes, but when you have five or six originals in the world to copy, you can usually get a complete picture.”

  They reached the intersection, where a single, full-sized obelisk rose from the center of the rainbow-tiled plaza. It towered above the line of rooftops on all four sides, a polished black granite monolith with an uncarved onyx capstone. “That’s an original,” Contare said, and Graegor pulled his horse next to it to inspect the carvings, in places so faint they appeared mere penstrokes on the rock. “We brought it here from Toland and put a preservation spell on it so it wouldn’t deteriorate any further.”

  Graegor stretched his thoughts to try to sense the spell. But his concentration only made stronger the musical, ambient magic of the island, the presence of the magi in the city, and the silvery threads of his bond with the Thendal girl. “What’s its subject?”

&nbs
p; “How to build an obelisk.”

  For some reason that struck Graegor as funny, and the others laughed when he did. “It’s an odd thing,” Karl said, “but just about everyone laughs when they hear that. And the carvings themselves seem almost whimsical. There are rubbings in the library that you can look at.”

  “Many of the obelisks show evidence that our ancestors had a very good sense of humor,” Contare said, laying his hand on the obelisk fondly. “I find it reassuring.”

  They showed Graegor all four avenues—Science to the west, its symbol the sloped-roof house; Food to the south, its symbol a fish; Medicine to the east, its symbol the ginseng leaf; and Crafts to the north, its symbol the riding boot. Graegor stopped, then dismounted, in front of the obelisk dedicated to carpentry and cabinetry, the crafts of the woodwright.

  On the day of his presentation to King Raimund’s court, messengers—magi using telepathy and couriers using horses—had spread the announcement from Chrenste to every part of Telgardia. Word had likely reached Farre within two days, and circulated to all of Lakeland within two more. Well before he had left Chrenste for Maze Island, therefore, his family and their neighbors had learned that Lord Graegor of the reborn House of Torchanes was the kingdom’s new sorcerer.

  He’d made his choice to keep moving forward, to not stop at Long Lake on their way downriver from Farre to Chrenste, to not remain in Chrenste past the last day of the celebrations. If his father had not known about their Torchanes blood, then he would not have connected the new sorcerer to his son, and would not have believed Johanns if Johanns had insisted that the two were the same. If his father had known, then all the guesswork began—would his father have told his mother about it, before or now? Would he be proud, or annoyed? Would he be angry that Graegor had not come back to tell them himself, or relieved? If his mother had known, before or now, would she have insisted on traveling to Chrenste to see him, and if so, how long after his departure had they arrived?

  He didn’t have to guess at Audrey’s reaction, whenever she had learned, or would learn, the truth. She would be both ecstatic to be the new sorcerer’s little sister and deeply hurt that he hadn’t allowed her to be part of the celebrations. He knew he could make it up to her, and he knew she would not hold a grudge. But he had no idea what to do about his parents.

  Contare appeared at his side, looking up at the obelisk as Graegor was. He said nothing, but his mere presence offered sympathy, and Graegor gestured to the obelisk. “My father told me there was one for his trade.”

  Contare nodded. “Is he a good craftsman?”

  “Yes. He’s ... he’s a good man, actually.” He sighed. He should have written to them. Even if he couldn’t go back, he should have told them about all this himself. Now he didn’t know how.

  “You could bring your family here to live, you know. Would they like that?”

  Graegor shook his head. “That’s probably the worst thing I could do to them. They’re craftmasters, and they don’t like cities or lords.”

  “They sound pretty attached to that little village.” Contare sounded a little wistful himself.

  “Very much.”

  “Write to them. Better late than never. We’ll think of something you can do for them that will please them.”

  “Thank you, sir.” After a few more minutes’ silent contemplation, he deliberately looked over at the next obelisk. He and Contare led their horses that way, Karl and Jeffrei trailing behind.

  After they had looked at all the obelisks, Contare led them a few streets over, where an eight-foot granite wall stood opposite a row of modest homes. Broad, leafy trees spread their branches over the wall to shade the street. A wooden door in the middle of the wall was apparently their destination, for Contare stopped there and handed his reins over to Karl. Graegor thought that the squarish symbol carved on the lintel might represent an Essenan grove, and he was right—the two magi who opened the door were indeed Essenan, with white hair, though they were not old.

  They wore black-on-gold magi badges as pendants around their necks. They bowed low before Contare, and Contare greeted them in their own language. They rose and softly answered, their faces averted. Contare gestured to Graegor, who started forward with his horse, but then Jeffrei took the reins from him. The two Essenans bowed again and stood to one side. Graegor saw that Karl and Jeffrei were making no move to follow them through the door. “They don’t normally allow anyone who isn’t Essenan to enter,” Contare murmured. “You and I are special.”

  The first impression Graegor had beyond the wall surrounding the grove was the same as when he had entered the Hall of Councils: silence. The outer wall should not have been enough to block out the bustling noise of the huge city, but the rows of trees helped—trees that were really too large for the yard that lay between the gate and a long, low stone building. Their roots spread like veins through the uneven grass and across the gravel path along which the two Essenans led them.

  He was careful to think about a ring of shields around his thoughts, separating him from any magic of this place. He knew less about Essena than he did about Thendalia; it was on the northern continent, but far to the east, and the people who lived there were decidedly not L’Abbanist. They lived in tribes, and they raided other tribes to take slaves. Their skin and hair was so pale that the Adelards called them ghosts.

  Graegor expected to feel something brush against his mind when he entered the shrine, but it wasn’t magical, only stuffy, and poorly lit by a rack of tallow candles. The air cooled dramatically as they went down a broad stairway, also candlelit, and at the bottom they were led down a corridor. Their two guides bowed before a door standing ajar, then rose and gestured Contare and Graegor through.

  After the dimness of the route to get there, the room beyond seemed bright, lit by two of the suspended-from-nothing globes Graegor had seen in the Hall and the library. Two figures stood near shelves of scrolls at the back wall, and one moved forward into the light while the other hung back in the shadows.

  Contare and the elder Essenan sorcerer greeted each other with smiles and clasped hands and soft words. The Essenan sorcerer head’s was as round and bald as an egg, and he wore a plain robe and a large copper pendant on a cord around his plump neck. Contare brought Graegor forward to introduce him. “Lasfe, this is Graegor, my successor. Graegor, Sorcerer Lasfe ben Sefans of Essena.”

  “My lord,” Graegor said in Mazespaak, and bowed.

  “Welcome,” Sorcerer Lasfe returned in Telgardian. He had a kind smile, but circles under his eyes made him look tired as he turned and gestured the second figure forward. The second figure paused for a long time before coming into the light, his head bowed. He had long blonde hair tied back in a horse-tail.

  “My successor, Rossin ben Sefans,” Lasfe said, and added a few soft words—presumably in Essenan—to the young man beside him.

  Graegor had seldom seen anyone so ill at ease. Rossin was just a little shorter than he was, but pathetically thin. He was wearing a shirt and trousers similar to Graegor’s, but they hung on his spare frame like sheets. He kept his mouth tightly shut and never looked up, even when Contare spoke to him in Essenan.

  “He’s not accustomed to strangers,” Lasfe explained, but Graegor could swear that Rossin was not accustomed to humans. Lasfe said something else to Rossin, who stood silently for a long time before shaking his head. Lasfe sighed, and Rossin quickly retreated into the shadows and through an open door at the back of the room.

  “Please, come sit.” Lasfe led them to a table with four chairs and a pitcher of iced tea. An Essenan magus in a white robe appeared, poured their drinks, dropped lemon and orange slices into them, and disappeared again.

  “You have some work ahead,” Contare said to Lasfe.

  “Yes.” Lasfe sighed again, but then he looked at Graegor and smiled. “But here, a Torchanes! At last. Graegor, did you know that we’re related?”

  “Yes, sir. Lord Contare told me that Prince Augustin’s mother was
your niece.” His niece—and she had been murdered by the Rohrdals. Had Lasfe, too, broken his Circle vows to help Augustin?

  Lasfe was studying Graegor’s face, but then he shook his head a little sadly. “I’m afraid I don’t see any Essenan left in you.”

  “Twenty generations can blur the clearest family lines,” Contare pointed out.

  “Oh, of course. Take Rossin—I’m certain he’s of my family, but he doesn’t look anything like my brother did. Of course, the shapechanges may have warped his human looks.”

  Graegor’s eyebrows shot up at the word “shapechanges”. Contare noticed. “Tell him about it,” he suggested to Lasfe.

  Lasfe hesitated, then gave a little shrug. “All right—at least he’ll know what rumors to believe. From what I’ve been able to guess, Graegor, Rossin was born a slave. When he was about ten, he escaped by tapping the deepest part of his gen and learning to shapechange. He’s been living on his own ever since, shifting from animal to human form as easily as you change clothes.”

  The childish part of Graegor’s brain envied Rossin. It would be incredible to be able to fly ... but on the heels of that envy was pity, for how horrible Rossin’s life must have been, for him to reach inside himself for that power, so early?

  “I thought shapechanging was one of the most difficult of all spells,” he said.

  “Not for him. What is difficult for him is other people. We’ve been on the island for three weeks, and this is only the second time I’ve convinced him to come into the city with me.”

  “Can he talk?” Graegor blurted before realizing the incredible tactlessness of the remark. “I’m sorry, my lord, I ...” He trailed off, his face reddening.

  But Lasfe only shrugged. “Yes, but he’s very literal. Which means he has no sense of humor.”