Torchlight

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “I still think you should name him Spook,” Jeff told him mind-to-mind. Even though his own horse stood close by Graegor’s, the cheers of the Hippodrome crowd—twice as large and boisterous as that at the Colosseum—made it impossible to hear anyone speak aloud. It was difficult to even think straight. Even though he’d practiced all summer, his telepathy was still shaky, and he didn’t think he would have received Jeff’s sending if he’d been any further away.

  “I’m not naming him Spook,” he sent back.

  “I once had a black cat named Spook.”

  Graegor ignored that. “I wish the king had named him before sending him. But I’ll think of something.”

  “Spook.”

  “No.”

  By some signal Graegor didn’t see, hear, or feel, the front of his entourage started through the arch. He straightened in the saddle and concentrated even more on his horse, silently assuring him that all was well, that the noise was nothing to fear. Jeff led the other student magi ahead of Graegor, and the older magi dropped behind him. As he emerged into the bowl of the Hippodrome, the cheering beat even deeper into his ears, and the excitement beat even harder against his mental shields.

  Above their heads a hundred falcons and a hundred eagles released from the rim of the Hippodrome flew in a line, wing to wing, drawing behind them a wave of light like a sunrise sparkling across water. The magi pushed their white horses to a trot to begin the parade movements they’d been practicing all summer. Graegor set his quarterstaff more firmly against his back, crouched low over the stallion’s neck, and told him to go.

  The stallion sprang forward with the energy of all his suppressed nerves. Graegor kept his mind tightly focused on navigating the Hippodrome track, his vision tunneled down to the maneuvers of the white horses ahead, to the split-second gaps in their lines that his stallion raced flawlessly through, length after length. Magi acrobats leaped from horse to horse right over him as he passed, while other magi kept control of the falcons and eagles in their aerial dance through the glittering radiance that enveloped the stadium.

  This horse was magnificent. He’d only arrived from Chrenste two weeks ago, but they’d become attuned to each other so quickly that Graegor had decided to add a flourish to what was originally planned as a simple trot around the track through the magi’s formations. The committee in charge hadn’t liked it when he’d told them, but they were the only ones. The people in the stands were screaming themselves silly, the young magi jumping and spinning from saddle to saddle were laughing with exhilaration, and Graegor was totally lost in the thrill of the moment.

  His heartbeat set the timing of the dance. The magi’s white horses rushed through him like lightning in his blood. With his black horse as potent as a force of nature, he rode high upon wave after wave of intoxicating energy.

  Go. Go—go—go.

  It seemed much too soon for the ending when Graegor guided the stallion through the last left turn and into the straightaway to finish their third lap and approach the first of three jumps. The white horses melted away from them, clearing the view ahead to the purple ribbons now crossing the track. The stallion surged and leaped over the ribbons, and for a long, incredible second, Graegor felt like he was touching nothing, suspended in empty space.

  For the second jump, the horse gathered his muscles again and stretched high to clear the two pole vault beams that stood taller than a man’s head, and this time Graegor could sense Sorcerer Contare’s magic all around them as the stallion literally flew through the air. The landing was cushioned by magic and perfectly timed, the approach to the third jump straight and strong. The falcons and eagles sped before and behind him, lining the way to the eight white horses cantering toward him, and eight more at their tails, their magi riders standing in the stirrups and their arms spread high. Again Graegor felt Contare’s power elevate his stallion’s bound, and he closed his eyes as they sailed over the heads of the magi and through the sparkling golden light. The eagle soaring next to him let out a long, fierce cry.

  It was incredible.

  The final leap carried them to the racetrack’s traditional starting line near the box seats, where almost all the other sorcerers, with their privileged magi guests, were already seated after their own processions. Many of them were cheering as much as anyone in the stadium as Graegor guided the stallion up to the dais at the front of the box. He tossed the reins to a nearby groom, then pulled the snap at his shoulder harness to release his quarterstaff. He caught it behind his back and braced it in his left stirrup as he pulled his foot out, then gripped it tight with both hands and vaulted out of the saddle.

  All his practice paid off. Contare’s telekinesis boosted his aerial somersault, and he kept his eyes open as the world flipped over. He landed with perfect control on the dais, his feet together and square-on. His hands spun the quarterstaff over his head, so fast it was like a purple disc stirring a vortex all around him. When he stopped, brandishing it high to salute the Hippodrome crowd, the cheers lifted him like a whitewater wave rushing up the shore.

  Unable to keep the grin from his face, he held up his arm to point to the single eagle spiraling down toward him. The eagle landed beside Graegor, and then it disappeared into a pure white glow that pricked like lightning against Graegor’s mental shields. When that glow cleared, and the golden light over the stadium with it, Contare lifted his own arm to the crowd. The cheers rebounded through the Hippodrome, into a place beyond mortal hearing.

  “Well done,” Contare told him mind-to-mind.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  They turned to go to their seats, which were in the first of three tiered rows of tall chairs. A dark-skinned hand waved in front of Graegor, and he saw Arundel, the new Sorcerer of Aedseli, sitting with Ilene, the new Sorceress of Medea. They were in the first row, clapping and shouting something to him that he couldn’t hear too well, but obviously admiring his horsemanship. Still grinning, he tipped the quarterstaff to them. Their approval felt good.

  But it would have felt even better coming from Lady Tabitha. At that thought, his irritation from earlier in the day threatened to resurface. The order of the processions had been chosen by lot that morning, and Thendalia was last. It meant that Lady Tabitha was with her magi now assembling in the tunnel, and she hadn’t seen him.

  As he moved toward his seat, he saw Ilene’s mother and father, both magi, sitting stiffly in their chairs behind her. That triggered a chain of thought that dragged him even lower, and by the time he and Contare sat down, the elation of his ride had evaporated completely. He set the staff on the floor, and a servant brought him a stein of lager—the only kind of beer he liked, since it was practically water. He sipped it while watching the second part of the Telgard magi’s performance.

  Why hadn’t his family come?

  He knew they’d received his letter and his gifts, and the letters from Sorcerer Contare, King Raimund, and Duke Richard. He knew they would be happy with what he had done for the village. On Contare’s suggestion, he had bought the charter from the baron and given it to the townspeople to celebrate the centennial—a couple of years early. They could now elect their own mayor; anyone who’d lived on their plot of land for over thirty years now owned it outright instead of paying rent; and their taxes were owed directly to Duke Richard. Their crafts now had a direct line to the Maze Island marketplace—brokered through Johanns, of course. And he was going to make sure that the spring of their centennial year would see the most fantastic celebration ever held in Lakeland.

  But he’d had no word back from his mother or father, or even from Audrey. He had sent them money and letters over his seal so their visit to Maze Island for the Equinox presentations would go as smoothly as possible, but they hadn’t come.

  Almost every other sorcerer of his Circle had family here. He’d briefly met Lady Tabitha’s formidable-looking father, the Duke of Betaul. He’d also met Ferogin’s father, Ilene’s magi parents, the Kroldon sorcerer’s magi foster parents—al
l but Rossin’s. Graegor didn’t know which was worse, to have no family with whom to share this, or to have a family who chose not to share it with him.

  They hate cities, he told himself again. And it’s dangerous here right now.

  Four people had been trampled to death yesterday when a shoving match among some drunks had engulfed the crowd on the street. A tired cook at a tavern had spilled coals into a laundry basket, and the resulting fire had consumed nearly an entire neighborhood before the Circle could put it out. Outside the city walls, visitors had been allowed to put up tents because all the inns were full, and robberies and fights were happening every night out there, even with the guard patrols. Many rogue magi were certainly in the city, though only one had shown himself—by throwing a spear at Arundel during a parade through the streets. The white heralds and the shovel-men had openly clashed twice, for both heretical sects had grown since Graegor’s magic had relit the Eternal Flame. Many of the L’Abbanist kingdoms’ leading Archpriests, including all four Hierarchs, had declined to attend the celebrations because they still weren’t sure if the relighting of the Flame was a miracle or a curse.

  Even the royal family had sent their regrets, Darc and Adlai being particularly aggravated that they hadn’t been allowed to come. Many lords and ladies of the Telgard nobility had come, but it was a fact that at every new Circle’s presentation since the Fifth, there had been an assassination. Understandably, King Raimund did not like those odds.

  It was also a fact that Chrenste had not been quiet over the summer either. Among the crowds who had rushed to the city to see the Flame—and to see Graegor himself, not knowing he had left after only a fortnight—were heretics of both stripes, made bold by what had happened. They were preaching in the streets, playing tug-of-war over potential converts, and taunting the priests. The king’s horsemen were keeping themselves visible in the streets at all hours of the day and night, but there had been fights, and there had been deaths. Understandably, again, King Raimund would not leave his capital city under such conditions.

  So, given all this, his mother and father were surely justified in feeling nervous about traveling to Maze Island. But for God’s sake, he was the sorcerer.

  He had half expected Audrey to show up by herself. She never seemed to realize when she was too young to do something she wanted to do.

  It would have been fun to have had her with him in the Colosseum yesterday. Here in the Hippodrome there was only one box seat section, but in the Colosseum there were nine, one for each sorcerer, and even people who weren’t magi were allowed to sit there. Audrey would have loved the displays of exotic animals, the camels and elephants, moose and mammoths, lions and rhinos—many of which had been part of today’s processions too. She would have been amazed by the acrobats and displays of pyrokinetic magic. She might even have liked the staged battles and tournament demonstrations. She would have loved just being here.

  He realized that the noise had risen again. Quickly he added his applause and shouts for his magi countrymen, who had finished their performance and were riding toward the arch on the opposite side of the stadium. He needed to stop brooding and pay closer attention, because the Thendals were about to come out.

  He watched the arched entryway for a while, but nothing happened, and nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen. On his right, Lord Henrey had the unfocused look that meant he was using telepathy. On his left, Contare was settled comfortably in his chair, but he was turned toward Lady Josselin, sitting beside him, holding her hand. The softly aged face of the Khenroxan sorceress was set in a frown, and she and Contare looked like they, too, were speaking mind-to-mind. Graegor looked past her to the end of the row, where her apprentice, Lady Koren, sat with her eyes downcast.

  He had met Koren several times over the past few weeks, and of course he had seen her every day since the festival had started. From what he could tell through the language barrier and an extremely brief mind-touch, she seemed very nice—shy, but sweet. Though he knew she was his own age, to him she looked barely older than his little sister. She was so small her feet almost couldn’t touch the floor as she sat on the edge of the large chair, and she had the round face and nearly straight-up-and-down shape of a child. Right now she was holding herself rigid, and he could see that the color had left her cheeks.

  She must have sensed him, for she glanced up, and a fleeting smile curved her mouth to greet him. But then she quickly looked down again, a lock of her red hair falling across her face. Her hands gripped both sides of the cushion on her seat, and she swayed like she was about to faint.

  Alarmed, Graegor sent to Contare, “What’s wrong with Koren?”

  “She’s had a fever.” Contare’s mental presence was shaded with careful calm.

  “But we don’t get sick.”

  “Not normally.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Don’t worry. Josselin is taking care of her.”

  It was obvious that Contare knew much more than he was telling, and Graegor wondered if he had been helping Lady Josselin. It could explain his absences in the week before the festival. “She’ll be all right, won’t she?”

  “Of course.” But Contare wasn’t hiding his own apprehension very well. “I think she would prefer not to call attention to it.”

  Graegor realized he was still staring at her, and he quickly sat back. No wonder Lady Josselin seemed anxious. She had vast medical knowledge, but how could she treat someone who wasn’t supposed to get sick?

  He wished there was a way he could help. He hadn’t been able to tap into the healing paths yet, but maybe ...

  A shadow flickered at the corner of his eye, and he looked back at the arched entryway. It was filling with something huge and dark, and after a startled moment he recognized the form of a woolly mammoth. The Thendals were coming out.

  The crowd loved the mammoths, and cheered louder as more of them squeezed through the arch and tramped onto the Hippodrome floor. Their fur was rich, glossy brown, their tusks bright slices of white. Across their massive shoulders they carried fortresses of wood and steel, and spears bristled from the fists of the magi warriors riding their backs. They plodded along until twelve of them had emerged, and when they stopped, at twelve points around the track, they lifted their trunks. The hair on the back of Graegor’s neck stood straight up as the mammoths let out a sound like the blast of a thousand trumpets.

  In the instant of silence between the fading of the mammoths’ call and the resurgence of the cheers, he could hear the thrumming of the silver cords laced through his heart. She filled his mind as she filled his eyes, the girl on the horse in the center of the archway.

  Without deciding to, he found himself extending his vision so he could look at her. Her gown was silvery white satin, and her hair was swept up to fall in cascading ringlets woven with violets. A diamond necklace glittered at her throat. Her beautiful face was composed, but her grey eyes were constantly moving from one side of the stadium to the other. She rode sidesaddle, and her horse was a chestnut gelding of exceptionally fine color, with white ribbons in its mane. Behind her came more Thendal magi, mounted and on foot, carrying a forest of lances and pikes.

  She seemed so close to him that he could whisper in her ear; he saw a tiny violet fall from her hair, and it could have landed on his cheek.

  Then something snapped against his shields. Graegor gasped, and a spasm seized his body and threw his mind back to where he was sitting. He blinked hard and took deep breaths to readjust his sight.

  “Graegor,” Contare sent, with the mental equivalent of a sigh of resignation. “I warned you not to do that.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Extending your sight does count as extending your power. It’s not like telepathy, and there’s too much loose magic here.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

  Lady Tabitha was only now riding into the circle of mammoths, and her magi were splitting off to fill the gaps bet
ween the giant beasts. After the warriors came the women, each maga in a pale grey robe and veil to show she was a healer, each riding a dark grey mule. They followed their sorceress down the middle of the floor, and after them, last of all, flew dozens of trumpeter swans.

  The swans made five circuits of the stadium, rising higher with each, and disappeared into the sky. Then the magi on the backs of the mammoths stood up fully and hefted their spears. The women in the center of the ring remained motionless as the warriors hurled their spears at them.

  Graegor was on his feet before he knew it, and Contare and many others around them had also stood up in alarm. But a second later it was clear that the spears had been cast to pass over the women, and a second after that, all the mammoth-riders reached out and caught the spears thrown by those across the circle.

  The crowd went wild, but Contare’s voice in Graegor’s mind was disgusted: “Natayl’s idea of entertainment.”

  “Sir?”

  “He didn’t tell us what he was planning. He enjoys alarming people.”

  Graegor had never heard Contare speak of anyone in his Circle, or anyone at all, with such open contempt. But Contare was still upset about what Lord Natayl had done the day Graegor and Tabitha had met. He was all the more upset because the Circle had not been able to agree on a suitable punishment for Lord Natayl, or to extract a good explanation from him for why he’d done it.

  Tabitha sat her horse without flinching as the spears from the mammoth riders, and then the lances from the magi on horseback and the pikes from the magi on foot, sailed over her head. Graegor didn’t see Lord Natayl anywhere as the weapons were thrown and spun and passed back like balls in a children’s game. At the final moment, the magi flung the spears, lances, and pikes straight up into the air, higher than the topmost tier of the Hippodrome, where they burst into bright flames. The fire consumed the wooden shafts before they fell, and the steel points spun together into a glittering tornado that descended over Tabitha. Graegor watched with his heart in his throat as the whirling blades drove themselves into the ground to make a perfect circle around the girl and the horse.