Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “He needs friends,” Contare suggested.

  Lasfe shook his head. “I’ve earned his trust, to a point. I feel it will be a long time before anyone else does.” He paused for quite a while. Apparently his thoughts passed through several connected subjects before stopping, when he murmured, “What was Natayl thinking?”

  “Have you tried to reach him?” Contare asked seriously.

  “He won’t answer.”

  “He will.” Contare’s grim voice made Graegor anxious again, made him wonder what would happen if the Thendal sorceress didn’t like him. Would the bond wither and die, or would it linger, torturing him with what might have been?

  “I won’t be able to join you at Pascin’s,” Lasfe was saying. “It would be a bit much for Rossin, and I need to stay with him.”

  “Understandable. There will be several young magi there, which might be a bit much for me.”

  “Ah, so you already have enough magi friends to tax your master’s legendary patience?” Lasfe asked Graegor.

  “Just one, sir. He was assigned the role.”

  Contare raised his eyebrow. “Did Jeffrei tell you that?”

  Graegor had regretted his sardonic remark as soon as it had left his mouth. But it wasn’t as if he could lie to Contare, so he hedged: “Essentially, sir.” But that wasn’t fair to Jeffrei, so he stumbled on: “I mean, he said you chose him to help me—help your successor.”

  “True. Do you think he can’t really be your friend if he was told to be?”

  “I ...” Could the Thendal sorceress ever really like him if she felt she was forced into it? “I don’t know.”

  “The princes were also told to befriend you. Are they really your friends?” Graegor didn’t answer. Contare went on, “Trust your instincts. Magic can tell false friends from true.”

  “Hear, hear.” Lasfe held up his glass. “I’ll tell you a secret, though, lad. I’ve pretended to be Contare’s friend for centuries, and he’s never suspected a thing.”

  “I’m better off not realizing it,” Contare agreed.

  Rossin never reappeared, and Graegor wondered if he had changed shape and flown away. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to sense that kind of magic being worked. He didn’t know how much of what he had felt when Contare had changed shape in Chrenste was from the earth magic released by the collapsing cliff. As they emerged from the shrine afterward and started across the bumpy path toward the wall, Graegor said, “Sir, I thought all the Essenans there were magi, but I didn’t sense any magic at all while we were there. Is it because the little bit of Essenan blood I have isn’t enough?”

  Contare shook his head. “It isn’t that. While we were there, none of the magi would risk our sensing their magic. Lasfe allows me—and you—to enter the shrine, but his magi insist that their mysteries not be shared in any way with outsiders, no matter how strong our mental shields are.”

  Karl and Jeffrei came riding up as Contare and Graegor left the grounds. The sun glared angrily from the western half of the sky, throwing longer shadows, and it seemed all the hotter after the cool air underground. “Sir, would the Essenan magi’s power feel different to me?” Graegor asked, drawing his horse alongside Contare’s. Both mounts had more spring in their steps as they clopped along the paving stones. “I mean, would I know that it was an Essenan working the magic, or at least not a Telgard?”

  “Everyone else’s gen feels different from one’s own,” Contare said. “But for me—and later, for you—the differences we sense cannot be assigned to race.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Contare frowned at him. “We haven’t talked about this yet?”

  “No, sir, I don’t think so.” At least he hoped not. He wouldn’t want to start forgetting such things so soon.

  “My apologies, in that case. This is important for you to understand, so let’s talk about it now.—Other sorcerers, sorcerers who are not Telgards, can tell if nearby magic is being worked by one of their own race or not. But we Telgards can’t.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because of Sorceress Khisrathi. She died prematurely, as you know—by almost three hundred years. When that happened, the other sorceresses of the Fifth Circle gathered her power, her gen, unto themselves so that it would not be lost.”

  This was another one of those legends that Graegor had stopped believing long ago. “Magic really can be passed on like that?”

  “Yes, from one sorcerer to another, at death. When Khisrathi’s successor, Felise, was born, the older sorceresses brought her here and trained her with their own apprentices. When it came time for the apprentices to be initiated, and to assume the gen of their predecessors, Felise was there for every one of those rituals, to gather all of Khisrathi’s gen unto herself.”

  They reached a corner, and Contare nudged his horse toward the right. “However,” he continued as they rode onto the next street, “over three centuries, that gen had become somewhat ... blended ... with that of the other sorceresses. Felise received Khisrathi’s power, but she also received power from all the other sorceresses. So all races’ gen became ‘native’ to her—and, subsequently, to Sorcerer Roberd, and thus to me.”

  This was complicated, and Graegor spent some time thinking it over. He was especially intrigued by the idea that the magic of the Thendal sorceress would one day become ‘native’ to him. “So, if you felt magic worked nearby by someone you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be able to tell if that person was a Telgard, but Sorcerer Lasfe would be able to tell if it was an Essenan?”

  “Correct. But it’s not absolute. There are some characteristics I have learned to recognize, just like you can recognize an Aedseli by his brown skin. But magic is more multidimensional than skin.”

  “It’s not just Telgard sorcerers who can’t tell the difference? It’s Telgard magi too?”

  “Telgard magi pledged to the Circle, yes.”

  Contare had talked about this before, and Graegor’s brain scrambled to recall what he had said. “Magi who choose to bind themselves to the Circle can heal people from all races, but magi who choose not to bind themselves can only heal people of their own race.”

  “Healing and other magic. Yes.”

  “But binding to the Circle requires taking an oath of allegiance to the sorcerers, and that’s what the rogue magi don’t like.”

  “Correct. They believe they should be able to pledge to the Circle, and take advantage of the benefits, without such an oath.”

  The topic of rogue magi was interesting, which was why he had brought it up, but Graegor forced himself back to the original point. “So Telgard magi who do bind themselves to the Circle lose their ability to tell foreign magic from Telgard magic, because of their connection to you, as their race’s sorcerer?”

  “That’s generally correct. Again, it’s not absolute.”

  Graegor turned around to look at Karl and Jeffrei, riding just behind them, no doubt listening. “Karl, can you tell foreign magic from Telgard magic?”

  Karl shook his head. “But it’s not a liability,” he added. “It gives me a stronger connection to magi of all races.”

  “Jeffrei? How about you?”

  Jeffrei hesitated, glancing at Contare. “Actually, I’m not pledged to the Circle yet. Normally it’s not done until graduation from the Academy.”

  “Jeffrei is in a special position, however,” Contare told Graegor. “After he’s clerked in our office for six months, we’ll all decide if he should continue. If so, he’ll be required to be pledged to the Circle, although he will not yet have graduated.”

  Graegor nodded. “So what is other race’s magic like to you?” he asked Jeffrei. “How is it different?”

  “It’s ...” Jeffrei frowned briefly as he thought about it. “For me, it’s as if each magus has his own individual shade of color, blue or red or whatever, but each race has its own sound. Most races have a lower pitch than Telgards, but Adelards and Aedselis are higher. I’ve heard other magi describe it
in terms of touch and scent.”

  “We’ve never managed to invent a distinct vocabulary for it,” Contare said. “We have to use words associated with our other five senses to describe our sixth.”

  “So, in a way,” Graegor said, “Telgards lose one of those senses when it comes to other races. You can ‘see’ that my magic is purple, but you can’t ‘hear’ what it is.”

  “That would be a simplification,” Contare nodded, “but true in essentials.”

  “Then why ...” He stopped. He didn’t want to mention the Thendal sorceress to Contare, in case he was still upset about what had happened.

  Contare glanced over at him. “Please ask.”

  “I ... the bond ... with the Thendal sorceress. It’s ... it’s a color, but there isn’t that other part you’re talking about. There’s no sound or texture or anything. It’s just feelings ... and lines of silver light.”

  Contare tilted his head thoughtfully. “That’s not unheard-of, but it is unusual. I wonder ...”

  He trailed off, and when he didn’t continue, Graegor prompted, “Sir?”

  “Let me do some research,” Contare said, his expression still distant as he thought it over. “I have a theory, but I want to check a few things first. It’s nothing to be concerned about—just a curiosity.”

  Maybe her magic is already native to me. Graegor wondered how the Thendal sorceress might be sensing his magic, and something else occurred to him. “Since the Fifth Circle took over Khisrathi’s power, and it got blended with their own, did they pass on some Telgard power to their own successors?”

  “Yes,” Contare nodded approvingly. “That’s exactly what happened. In consequence, sorcerers and Circle-pledged magi of other races have difficulty differentiating Telgard magic from their own race’s.”

  “Does that also mean that they can draw on Telgards for magic power? I mean, if a sorcerer needs more power to do something, he can draw on the gen of his people for that power, right?”

  “Correct. Some sorcerers almost always use the gen of the people around them instead of tapping from their own gen.” Contare didn’t sound like he approved of that.

  Graegor nodded. “So Sorcerer Lasfe, for example, he can draw on Telgard people for magic power and not just Essenan people?”

  “Correct. And what’s the next logical step?”

  Graegor had to think about that, but when the answer came to him, he felt stupid for missing the obvious. “You and I can draw on all people and not just Telgard people.”

  “Correct again. Whether or not we should is another matter.”

  They went up the next few streets in silence as Graegor digested several courses of new thoughts. Finally he shook his head. “I think you’re going to have to tell me all of that again sometime, sir.”

  “All part of your training, Graegor,” Contare agreed.

  They rode a little further up the street. “Sorcerer Lasfe said his apprentice was a slave,” Graegor said. “I didn’t think a sorcerer could be enslaved. Shouldn’t his power have protected him?”

  “Yes, it should have.” Contare was frowning again. “Lasfe thinks that it protected him by keeping him alive until he could escape. That seems too complex to me ... but if he was born a slave, and didn’t know anything different ... “

  They both lapsed back into thoughtful silence. The houses they were now passing were large, three and four floors high, set back from the street with elaborate walls and gardens. Wrought-iron gates and trellises were stark black against stone bleached white by centuries of sun, and trails of ivy climbed and twisted around them. More carriages and horses moved along the street, and most of the people on foot wore servants’ livery and hurried along without chattering.

  On one street, two groups of mosaicists were working on garden walls directly across the street from one another. The tesserae were so colorful they shone like jewels in the sun. “They’re at it again,” Karl said, his tone long-suffering, after they had passed.

  “These two families keep trying to outdo each other with more and more elaborate mosaics,” Jeffrei explained to Graegor.

  “Garish, Jeff,” Karl corrected him. “The word you want is ‘garish’. It devalues the whole street.”

  The house at which they stopped was on the same street, in a row of high, narrow townhouses with intricate carvings of animals in the stone facings. Bluebirds fluttered at a feeding cradle hammocked in the branches of a young tree. Four Adelard servants in blue livery emerged from the house as Graegor and the others dismounted, and the first and second led them into the house while the third and fourth took the horses.

  The dining room at the end of the central corridor was large and homey. The oak table was set for ten, and cushioned benches lined the window nooks. Three fans spun overhead, and in one corner a grey-muzzled hound and a tabby cat slept in the last slanting rays of sunlight. Of the room’s human occupants, Sorcerer Pascin was easy to identify. He had thin grey hair, and his long nose and chin were sunk into crags, but he had a cheerful smile and a robust bearing as he crossed the room to greet Contare. They talked rapidly for what seemed a long time before Contare turned and brought Graegor forward, still speaking Mazespaak. Graegor bowed, said “My lord,” and nodded helplessly at a string of sentences from Lord Pascin. The elder Adelard sorcerer smiled, gave Graegor a brief speculative gaze, then turned to the youngest of his companions to introduce him.

  Lord Ferogin Holleb, the new Sorcerer of Adelard, had a slight, wiry build and dark hair. His bow and greeting were both precise, and even though he was several inches shorter than Graegor, he gave the impression of looking down his nose at him.

  Graegor returned the bow and the greeting, and Ferogin directed his attention to Contare, more respectfully. Then Lord Pascin, with effusive words and a broad gesture to the dining table, invited them to sit, and the servants brought in cool beer and a variety of breads. The Adelards started eating and drinking without reciting meat-thanks first, which made Graegor hesitate, until Jeffrei murmured that Adelards waited until the meat course for meat-thanks. Graegor knew it was simply a matter of different customs, but it still didn’t feel right to just dive into the food.

  At first the talk around the table seemed to be about weather and traveling, as Graegor understood a word here and a phrase there. He wondered if he should ask Jeffrei to translate for him or just keep pretending he understood. Within a short time, Contare and Pascin had fallen into quiet conversation in another language at the head of the table, Karl was talking in Mazespaak to two Adelard magi about a sailboat or possibly a lion, and the younger Adelard sorcerer was talking to his friends in Adelard. At least, Graegor assumed the young magi were his friends, and he assumed the language was Adelard, though he’d never heard it at length before. He thought about stretching his thoughts, to try to sense what color or texture Adelard magic was, but he suddenly worried that everyone would be able to sense him doing it, and that it might be considered bad manners.

  “At least the beer’s good,” Jeffrei murmured.

  “I like the bread,” Graegor said, since he didn’t agree about the beer. “But don’t Adelards use butter?”

  Jeffrei’s eyes swept the table for the missing spread. “You’re right, where—”

  He was interrupted by the young Adelard sorcerer, who said something in Mazespaak loudly enough to get their attention, looking at Graegor. Apparently he’d asked a question. Graegor glanced at Jeffrei, who said, “He asked you what part of Telgardia you come from, and that it doesn’t seem like you come from the coast.” Jeffrei’s tone was neutral, but his eyes flashed at the Adelard sorcerer, as if the observation had been insulting.

  The Adelard sorcerer’s eyebrow shot up as Jeffrei spoke. Before the translation was finished, he said something else, his tone unmistakably incredulous, and his friends also stared. Jeffrei answered, then said to Graegor, “Lord Ferogin is surprised that you don’t know Mazespaak. I reminded him that you’ve only been here a short time.”

&nb
sp; Ferogin said something else, and Jeffrei said, with an edge to his voice, “He feels sorry for you for needing a translator.”

  Graegor looked Ferogin in the eye. The Adelard sorcerer had a relaxed air as he took a drink of his beer and settled into almost a slump in his chair at the table’s foot, and his expression was now all wide-eyed innocence. It was an effort for Graegor to keep his voice mild. “Tell him that sorcerers learn new languages quickly, and that I’m sure I’ll know Mazespaak well enough in a few weeks.”

  After Jeffrei delivered this, Ferogin nodded and spoke again, pointing to his temple then flicking his wrist to point at Graegor. Jeffrei said, “He says that’s true, especially with telepathy.” The Adelard sorcerer added something. “He’s picked up a bit of every language spoken here, just from linking with magi.”

  “Tell him I’ll try that.”

  Jeffrei did. Ferogin raised his eyebrow again, and even exchanged the barest of smirks with one of his friends, before he replied. Jeffrei’s voice hardened. “He asked if you can use telepathy yet.”

  Now Graegor could feel his face reddening, and he willed it to stop. He had nothing to be ashamed of. He would bet the Thendal sorceress wasn’t any better at telepathy than he was. The Essenan sorcerer probably wasn’t either. “Tell him no, but again, I expect that that I will soon.”

  Jeffrei translated this, and the Adelard sorcerer nodded with condescending geniality and spoke again. Jeffrei said, “He says telepathy comes more easily to Adelards than to any other race.”

  The taller of Ferogin’s two friends spoke up, and Jeffrei said, “This one says that Lord Ferogin has a particular advantage since he’s a scholar, and his mind has been trained so well.”

  “Lord Contare has told me about the University of Jen Idre,” Graegor said.

  The other, heavier Adelard magus spoke, and Jeffrei murmured, “The little sycophant claims to have been a student there himself, but I don’t believe him.” Ferogin was speaking again, and Jeffrei continued, “The sorcerer himself had just finished his second term there when Lord Pascin discovered him.”