Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “She’s right, though,” Patrick was saying. “Sorcerers always want the strongest magi, and based on telepathy alone, these two,” he gestured at Rose and pointed over at Jeffrei, “are amazing.”

  “But we can’t talk to animals like you can,” Rose reminded him.

  “Talk to animals?” He hadn’t heard of this talent outside children’s stories.

  Patrick waved it off. “Not talk like people talk. I can touch their minds, calm them down, figure out if they’re sick, things like that.”

  “But not all of us can do that,” Rose told Graegor. “Patrick’s going to be an animal healer.”

  Patrick nodded. “And a trainer. I love horses.”

  “So do I.” It was interesting that Patrick’s ambition was so close to what his own had been, only ... God ... was it only a month ago? One month? “What are you going to be, Rose?”

  “Eventually?—First Minister to the new Lady Sorceress.” She made the sign of the Godcircle to wish herself luck. “I’m the clerk now, but when I graduate from the Academy I’ll be an assistant, and I’ll work my way up.”

  “She may not look like the cutthroat type,” Patrick said, “but watch out.”

  “I don’t have to be,” Rose told Graegor. “There isn’t much of what you’d call ‘court intrigue’ around here. When you can talk to each other mind to mind, it’s easier to know what the other person means.”

  Patrick nodded. “We don’t argue as much as ordinaries do.”

  Graegor wasn’t sure about that—it seemed naïve to think that the games of power and rivalry weren’t played on Maze Island. But he also wasn’t vain enough to think that he was more worldly than they were. They probably knew what they were talking about. “I can’t wait to be able to do that,” he said. “Talk mind to mind.”

  They were both startled. “You can’t?” Rose asked incredulously. “But—” She stopped, and she and Patrick glanced at each other. Jeffrei had probably told them, and everybody, not to mention what had happened in Chrenste. But it seemed stupid right now to be talking about his magic and not mention it.

  “I don’t have good control over my power,” he said, and they looked back at him. “If I stay calm it won’t break free, but right now I can’t seem to use it to do anything less than move the earth.”

  Patrick quirked his eyebrow. “Then please stay calm, m’lord.”

  “Yes, Magus.” To move off this road, he asked them the same question he’d asked Jeffrei. “I was wondering, is the Academy difficult?”

  They acceded gratefully to the subject change. “Yes, the load is heavy, and the bookwork is hard,” Rose said. “Sometimes we don’t leave the campus for weeks. We don’t just learn magic here—there’s medicine, languages, literature ...”

  “History, geography, trigonometry, music ...” Patrick added.

  “This is the best school on the face of the earth,” Rose declared. “And we take everyone who has magic, not just healers. Everyone has a chance here, boys and girls.” She set her wine down so she could gesture with both hands. “Lady Josselin says that part of the reason the Academy is here is to get magi to meet and marry and have magi children. The more magi there are, the better! Think of it, if every village could have an Academy-trained magus or maga. But not even all the city magistrates are magi anymore. There are so few of us. We know we’re special, and that pulls us together.” She tapped the sides of her fists against each other. “That’s why Jeff and I can be friends, even after—” She stopped, flustered; she clearly hadn’t meant to talk about that.

  “We don’t hold grudges,” Patrick said quietly.

  “What about the rogue magi?” Graegor asked just as quietly. “Those who want no sorcerers?—They hold grudges.”

  Rose looked pained, and Patrick scowled deeply and muttered “Traitors,” into his stein. He seemed about to say more, but Rose waved her hand to cut him off.

  “No, let’s not talk about that now. Some other time.” She looked back at Graegor. “Um, so ... how was your voyage from Telgardia?”

  He wished she had let Patrick talk, but she was probably right—this wasn’t the time. He realized he was assuming that there would be another time for long conversations with these young magi. They were already friends. “Wet,” he answered her question. “It rained most of the way. But when we passed Queen’s Landing it cleared up.”

  “I noticed that too, when I first came here,” she said. “My father and I changed ships in Betaul, where it’d been raining for weeks, and then it rained every day all through the islands—until we reached the inner sea, and the sun came out.”

  “Do the sorcerers do that?”

  Rose shook her head. “Apparently it’s just the geography.”

  “How?—I was never that good at geography.”

  Patrick snorted. “I’d say you’re really good at it.”

  Graegor laughed, but stopped, because it was strange to laugh at that. Until now he hadn’t found what had happened to the Chrenste cliff face to be remotely funny. “Or really bad at it.”

  Rose smiled, and Patrick said, “Just don’t take up meteorology.”

  Graegor nodded. “Or astronomy.”

  This made both of them laugh out loud, which attracted Jeffrei’s attention. “What’s so funny?” he called from the cue-ball table.

  “Your friend here,” Rose called back. “Never mind.”

  Jeffrei caught Graegor’s eye, saw all was well, and turned back to the game.

  “He doesn’t like being left out of anything, does he?” Graegor asked Rose as Patrick tilted back his head to drain the dregs of his beer.

  “No, he doesn’t.” She threw another complicated look over to the cue-ball table. “He can be irritating, but it’s hard to stay mad at him.”

  Soon the magi at the cue-ball table rejoined them, and Jeffrei bought a round of drinks. Tabac smoke curled over their table from other patrons enjoying their pipes. Someone brought in melted cheese rolled in flatbread, which disappeared from the platter almost as soon as it was set on the table. The cheese was very spicy, and required another round of beer to wash it down. A friendly argument over who was paying for the food led to a game with copper and nickel ounces floating in patterns above the table. Graegor again felt surprised at the young magi’s casual proficiency, particularly when Rose started spinning the coins in midair, one after the other, and Jeffrei and Patrick launched other coins at hers to see where they would ricochet.

  Someone voiced a rumor that there would be so many new students at the Academy this coming term that the dorms could not accommodate them all. Jeffrei offered to move into the girls’ dorm if that would help with the bed shortage in the boys’ dorm. Rose said that he could sleep in the kitchen and make her breakfast every morning, which led to a discussion of the utter horror that was dormitory food. Despite that, Graegor wished he could stay in the dormitory with everyone else.

  Patrick tapped his shoulder with a cue stick. “Care for another game?”

  Most of the group, including Rose and the other girls, took their leave not long after that, and Jeffrei joined Patrick and Graegor at the cue-ball table, along with Marcus, a Telgard magus whose noble relatives Graegor had met in Chrenste. He was almost as good at cue-ball as Patrick. Graegor, on the other hand, had played probably ten games by this point but his shots came off no better than they had during his practice rounds. He told himself that it was the fuzziness in his head, plus the long day, but it didn’t help his frustration.

  “Line it up quickly and shoot quickly,” was one piece of advice. “Put the end of the cue between your knuckles, like this.” “No, the bridge of the thumb gives you more control.” “That’s good, but just keep your wrist loose ...”

  It was an effort to keep from snapping at them after almost two games of this. He didn’t know why he felt suddenly so irritated. He didn’t like to lose, but it was more than that. He didn’t think he was drunk—it didn’t feel nearly the same as it had in Chrenste—but maybe h
e just wasn’t used to being drunk. Maybe he was actually an angry drunk, like Ted’s father back home had been.

  It was his turn again, and he lined up the red ball to the white. It was an easy shot—the pocket was less than a foot from the white ball. He kept his wrist loose, slid the cue over the bridge of his thumb, blinked smoke out of his eyes, and shot. The red ball missed the white ball completely and caromed off the side of the table to knock two of the other red balls into perfect alignment for Patrick.

  “I stink,” Graegor muttered as he straightened and backed away from the table, passing the cue to Jeffrei. He knew he was getting angry over something that didn’t matter in the least, but all he wanted to do was snatch up one of the ivory balls and hurl it through the window. It was stupid. It was a game. He realized he was gritting his teeth, and he forced his face to relax as Patrick circled the table for the next shot. He lifted his stein and saw it was empty again. With a good reason to step away and take a deep breath, he took the stein around the corner and up to the bar.

  The tavern keeper was at the far end with another customer. Sitting at the middle of the bar was a Kroldon, who looked up from his drink. Graegor stopped cold.

  It was the Kroldon sorcerer. It had to be. The tension that had been pricking at Graegor came sharply into focus. The Kroldon rose from his seat, his dark eyes intent but his expression otherwise carefully neutral. He looked as if he was years older than Graegor, rather than the few months that was the longest possible separation between their births. His clothes and cloak were dark and nondescript, very similar to what Graegor had seen Kroldon magi wearing, and the red fang badge was pinned to his collar. He had dark hair, cut very short, and he was built like a stone wall.

  As Graegor slowly placed his stein atop the bar, the Kroldon stepped forward and presented a brief, shallow bow. Graegor responded in kind, his mind racing for something intelligent to say, the incident with the Adelard sorcerer painfully clear in his mind. But the Kroldon spoke first. Although it sounded like Mazespaak, he had a heavy, sonorous accent, and Graegor couldn’t make out a single word.

  “Forgive me,” he said after the pause had turned awkward. “I don’t understand Mazespaak yet.” He realized the Kroldon had probably introduced himself, and he went on hurriedly, “I’m Graegor Torchanes. From Telgardia.”

  Mild surprise crossed the Kroldon’s dusky face, and a brief moment of consternation, which confirmed Graegor’s sense that he spoke no Telgardian. The Kroldon said something else. Graegor recognized “Torc’anniz” as a repetition of his name, and he nodded to confirm the pronunciation, then wondered what to do next—besides resolving to ask Contare to force-feed him the island language.

  Then the Kroldon sorcerer lifted his hand, palm-up, and extended it forward, obviously inviting Graegor to make contact.

  Now Graegor really froze. After what had happened with the Thendal sorceress ... the thought of her thrummed the silver strings of her gen within him, and warmth flooded him inside and out. He didn’t want to share this with anyone else. But it was probably the only way he and the Kroldon could understand each other ... and he was curious—what was the other sorcerer doing here, now?

  The Kroldon’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he started to move his hand back. Graegor told himself to keep steady and stepped forward, raising his own hand and extending it. The Kroldon’s hand came back to his, and their palms met.

  Maybe it was because he was better prepared, but the connection of his mind to the Kroldon sorcerer’s was far, far less intense than the connection to the Thendal sorceress’ had been. There was an immediate respect for each other’s boundaries. The Kroldon—Borhal was his name—had a wall of mental shields like glittering onyx, sharp with ridges, cool with self-possession. His gen, like Graegor’s, was still largely locked inside, and he had only begun to tap the edges of telepathy. But Graegor realized that he was receiving impressions that Borhal was sending.

  He and Sorcerer Oran arrived on Maze Island late that afternoon. Oran was tired from the journey and wished to stay at the castle until tomorrow, but Borhal wanted to see the city, so he took a horse and went himself. The city was very unlike Mor Siuleth, the few magi girls he saw nothing like Nitara. He went to see the Hall, and rode along Davidon’s Walk. As he neared this tavern he felt a pressure, a presence—Graegor himself, it was now clear.

  The exchange was simultaneous, for in the same moments Graegor was learning these things, he knew that Borhal was learning about his own long day. He was keenly interested in the meetings with the other three sorcerers—particularly the beautiful Thendal girl. Despite himself, Graegor gave the telepathic equivalent of a growl, and in return he received a brief sense of soft, derisive laughter.

  They pulled their hands apart at the same moment. Borhal’s face was still impassive, his eyes still intent, but his body was as tense as Graegor’s. Graegor lowered his hand but did not let out his breath. Borhal watched him for another moment, then bowed again—a different bow this time, with an intricate hand gesture, maybe one used in his own country. Graegor repeated his earlier bow. Borhal’s eyes flicked over Graegor’s shoulder, and then he turned with a sweep of his cloak and walked out of the tavern.

  “Jeh-mai.”

  Graegor turned to see all three magi staring at him from the end of the bar. It was Jeffrei who had spoken. Patrick let out a low whistle, absently chalking the end of his cue, and Marcus was still watching the door through which Borhal had disappeared. Something moved at Graegor’s elbow, and he turned to see the tavern keeper hurrying away to fill his stein.

  Jeffrei walked up to him, and Patrick and Marcus followed, their eyes wide and solemn. “Was that the Kroldon sorcerer?” Jeffrei asked. Graegor nodded. “Did he come looking for you?”

  “Not exactly.” Graegor found a stool and sat down. The others crowded around while he told them what he and Borhal had exchanged—except for the part about the Thendal sorceress. He thanked the tavern keeper and drank down half the contents of his stein without thinking about it.

  “Nitara,” Jeffrei said thoughtfully. “That’s interesting.”

  “Who is she?”

  “The Kroldon emperor’s daughter—and right now, his heir. She is—” He stopped, and the brief flicker of his eyes told Graegor that whatever he had been about to say shouldn’t be said in front of the others. “She’s a maga,” he said instead.

  “I got that impression.” And a darker one. Graegor hesitated, trying to define it, then shook his head, took another long drink and stood up. “Let’s finish the game.”

  They finished the game and played another. Graegor didn’t sink a single ball, but that didn’t have the power to upset him anymore. There was a tightness to his chest that wouldn’t go away, even when he sat down while Patrick was running the table and mentally recited some of the calming prayers Contare had taught him.

  Jeffrei kept sending worried glances his way, and after the last ball was sunk in the second game, he finished his beer and tapped Graegor’s shoulder with the cue stick. “It’s late.”

  “All right.” They put away the balls and cues and brought their steins to the bar, where the tavern keeper set about washing them and placing them in the cupboard. Patrick paid for their last round of drinks from his winnings, and they all walked back to Contare’s townhouse. Their talk, though subdued, sounded noisy on the moonlit street, and Graegor found himself glancing around a couple of times.

  He wasn’t frightened. He thought about it and decided he wasn’t deceiving himself; he really wasn’t frightened. He was ... wary. He had made a mistake back there. But so had the Kroldon.

  “Here we are.” Jeffrei stopped by one of a series of identical sets of stairs. How he could distinguish Contare’s townhouse out of all the others on the street was a mystery, but Graegor trusted him. The magi suggested giving Graegor a tour of the Academy campus the next day, and of course going to the games at the Colosseum, if the Lord Sorcerer thought it was all right. Then they all said goodnight,
the others started back toward the Walk, and Graegor went up to the door. It was unlocked, and the foyer was dimly lit by pinpoints of light cast by the chandelier overhead. As he reached the stairs, a rumpled Karl appeared in the parlor doorway, rubbing his eyes.

  Graegor apologized. “I didn’t know you were waiting up for me.”

  Karl waved dismissal as he yawned. “No, don’t worry. I would have called to Jeff if it had gotten too late. It’s been a long day.”

  “Yes.” Sleep sounded good, and he trudged up the stairs. Karl wished him good night and went down the hallway to the small room next to Contare’s, and Graegor turned to his own door. He used the privy, the washbasin, and the tooth powder, then undressed, doused the lamp, and crawled into bed.

  The sheets were cool, the mattress and pillow soft but firm. Silver threads lay quietly against his mind as he fell asleep.

  Chapter 8

  The fireworks would start at full dark, but for right now, the noise itself was astonishing. Graegor had thought the Colosseum deafening yesterday, but it was clearly surpassed by the Hippodrome today. His horse did not like it, and kept snorting and tossing his black mane, restrained from rearing and kicking only by Graegor’s constant mental presence. Very shortly, he would be riding with the Telgard magi into the stadium, and after that, the grooms would take the stallion back to his stable. “Oats and sugar,” he sent soothingly, injecting the images into the stream of thoughts he was directing at the horse. “Soon you’ll have all the oats and sugar you want.”

  For answer, the horse tossed his head even more violently and picked up his feet as if the ground were hot—although it was probably the only thing that wasn’t. Though the Equinox winds had cooled the island from the accumulated weeks of summer, it was very stuffy with everyone crowded here at the arch waiting for the procession to begin. Graegor’s shirt stuck to his back, and not just because his quarterstaff was strapped diagonally across it. The embroidery on his collar itched, the Saint Carlodon medallion on its leather cord felt like it was pulling his neck down, and the knee-high boots were somewhat ridiculous when he was only going to be riding for such a short time.