The Gossamer Mage

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Perhaps The Lady wasn’t fond of carriages.

  The monotony was broken only twice, first when Tercle produced a welcome basket of tidy little meat rolls and a jug of water shared by all but Pylor, who claimed no appetite and gave Leksand her portion. Then again, too briefly, when the horses were changed for the made sort with a great clatter and commotion.

  They went faster after that, and though the road from the mountains was well-maintained and smooth, the carriage swayed in a new, heavy rhythm Kait feared would cost her the meat pie before too long.

  “Who are you, Kait?” Insom’s cousin asked abruptly, a brow lifted.

  “The lad’s mother—” A second brow rose to join the first. Well then. “I am that, Damesen, but also am I called Kaitealyon.” The temptation to impress, to add “successor-designate” was easy to resist. She scarcely believed it herself. “One of Woodshaven’s daughters, visiting Tiler’s court.”

  “Ah,” with satisfaction. “Tell me, Daughter Kaitealyon, do you come to learn more of the hermit mage or to be sure I do not?”

  The damesen knew full well the line between courts, acknowledged it, yet crossed without hesitation. A refreshing bluntness, after weeks in the hold, and Kait answered in kind. “Kait, if you please, and neither, Damesen Ternfeather. The hold daughter kindly allowed me to accompany my son to the school.” Kait patted the leather seat. “Lord Insom is generous indeed. We hadn’t thought to ride in such comfort.”

  “I’m glad of company.” A small, knowing smile invited her to share secrets. “But surely you—and by that I mean Wendealyon—are curious about this mage.”

  “It appears you weren’t informed, Damesen,” Kait said coolly. “The Lady’s Witness accompanied the scribemaster.”

  “I was not.” The smile dropped away; the grave intensity left behind more natural to this face. “I understand what that means and grieve with you. An acolyte’s sacrifice is—oh—” A gesture begun stopped, a flash of pain crossing her face as she cradled a clumsily wrapped hand against her chest.

  Kait shifted forward. “Let me see that.”

  Leksand sat straighter, familiar with her no-nonsense tone.

  “Tercle’s cared for it.”

  Badly, by the discomfort. “I’ve some skill.” She took hold of Pylor’s wrist, easing the hand into a stable patch of sunlight. She looked into the other woman’s eyes. “May I?”

  A terse nod, the arm no longer resisting.

  Freeing the knot, Kait unwound the strip of cloth, careful not to jar the hand. When the last came free, Pylor hissed between her teeth.

  The middle finger was the worst, awry and discolored at the second joint, the whole swollen like a sausage. The others were straight and undamaged, but a pattern of purple-black bruises marred the back of the hand. She’d seen the like before, Linnet’s drunken brute of a husband having used his timberman’s grip on his wife.

  The husband had been shamed and run out of Woodshaven. Tiler’s Hold Lord, for Kait had her notion who’d done this, wouldn’t be as easily brought to account.

  First things first. Thank The Lady, Pylor wore no rings. Kait indicated the rest of the finger. “The color’s good. A physician can reset the joint, but now we must ease the swelling and your pain. The guards should have a suitable ointment.”

  At “your pain” Pylor gave a wistful sigh, but shook her head. “It’ll have to wait. I don’t—”

  Ferden, who’d awakened during this, grunted. Removing a boot, he pounded it fiercely on the roof of the carriage.

  The damesen slid as the conveyance lurched to a stop, but Kait had her arm, kept the hand still. “I’ll get what we need.”

  A relief to be outside, despite the carriage’s generous upholstery, but Kait didn’t linger. A guard had bandages. A driver of a freight wagon had the rest. The Squid hurried after her as she collected these items, bleating about schedules and consequences, though from the number watering the verge, a respite was overdue.

  She ignored him until he blocked the steps into the carriage. “Go take your piss,” she advised. “This won’t take long.”

  He managed to look offended and comically desperate at the same time. “What’s all this?” Bird-like, he dipped his head, eyes fixed on her hands as if the roll of linen and leather bag would give a more reliable answer.

  “I’ve a minor injury to tend,” she said firmly. “Then my own piss. Unless you want to take over?” She offered the items.

  He stepped aside hastily. “Be quick about it.”

  Her menfolk must have heeded nature’s call, for on the Woodshaven seat resided Insom’s gift to her son, red lacquered wood with brass at corners and latch. He’d left it covered by his folded scarf, as if too precious to leave unguarded, and Kait worried, seeing that.

  “Go, Tercle,” the damesen ordered. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  The apprentice lowered her brows but obeyed.

  “She worries,” Pylor said as Kait sat beside her.

  “No need. I’ve done this before. Raised a son.” The explanation would suffice. She opened the leather bag, scooping two fingers’ worth of salve, then held out her free hand for Pylor’s. The truth. “It’s for treating horses.”

  “Tincture of Arnica, then.” The damesen half-smiled. “Inks are my passion, but I’d be a poor chemist not to know potions and medicinals. A—” A hiss as Kait began to stroke the salve along the damaged finger. “Your Leksand seems a fine boy.”

  Even a noble needed distraction. “I think so,” Kait agreed, spreading salve over the bruises as well.

  “His father? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I don’t. I accepted The Lady’s offer—” Kait stopped to grin at the other’s appalled expression. “The mage was willing and kind. I wanted a babe.” Rogeonarial hadn’t returned to meet the result.

  He’d been close to a hundred n’fifty bells, had whispered his despair in her ear at growing old before his time, had vowed to resist the call to write magic.

  By now? Surely dead of it.

  The fate ahead of her son—Kait focused on her patient. “You’ll feel relief soon,” she promised. “It must be reapplied several times each day. Until you have a physician reset the joint—” This sternly as she secured the dislocated finger to its neighbor with some of the fine linen, testing it wasn’t too tight. She looked up. “—or it will stay crooked.”

  “I’m no fool, Kait. I’ll have it done. Thank you.” Pylor reclaimed her hand, gingerly flexed the rest of her fingers and thumb. “Leave me the salve, please. Tercle will tend me.”

  The carriage shook as Ferden climbed in, with Leksand’s help.

  “My turn,” Kait declared. “Damesen?”

  “I’ll remain.”

  Kait found the driver checking the harness. “Good sir, I need m’bag, please.” She waved a vague hand downward then scrunched her face. “It’s m’time.”

  Being an older man, from country not court, he gave her an understanding wink. “I know the one. Came last. I’ll fetch it down.”

  When she’d the bag, Kait headed for the nearest unoccupied stand of shrubs, clambering into the ditch to be sure she was out of sight. Then she sat on a boulder and put the bag on her lap. Ursealyon had promised a means to report.

  Kait opened the bag.

  Three sets of bright black eyes looked up at her. Unremarkable, ordinary birds. They appeared to be thrushes, in their drab fall plumage. Not that real birds would sit on her clothes—

  —fouling them. She grimaced. A shame the mage scribe had to write them so real.

  Kait picked one up. It stood placidly on her palm, tiny claws digging in, eyes rapt on her face. “What do I do with you?” she whispered, and hesitated.

  Its beak opened. The senior acolyte’s voice said, “I will deliver,” and away the made-bird flew, straight for the mountains.


  Well, now she knew how to use the dratted things. Kait picked up a second, speaking to it clearly and without pause. “I saw and heard nothing of the Fell once through the gate out of Tiler’s Hold. Nor have I yet heard The Lady. We travel in haste, but the damesen hasn’t explained why or doesn’t know. Courage to you both.” She stopped.

  “I will deliver,” and away it flew, fluttering after the first.

  Maybe it wasn’t her place to wish the formidable pair courage.

  Kait closed the bag.

  She’d a feeling they’d all need it.

  * * *

  Magic serves a purpose.

  Tananen’s people take it up and discard it, of less import than the shoes they wear, confident it will always be there. That mage scribes will write what is needed. That The Lady will provide, as She always has.

  For how else could the world be?

  Tercle had brought news: there’d be no more stops. They traveled in such haste to catch a barge. Her companions were pleased. Barge or carriage, Pylor cared not, but who wouldn’t smile at the boy’s excitement? For the first time since her lab, her hand didn’t throb. “That’s right,” she told Leksand, answering yet another question. “The wagons and this carriage will fit on one, with room for the guards and drivers to pitch tents.”

  “The horses too? Damesen,” he added politely.

  “Na.” Tercle snorted, easy with them now. “They’ll be left for the next to use them. More’ll be waiting for us at Alden’s port, you’ll see.”

  Grief, fleeting—kept from the boy—crossed the mother’s face. Her gaze met Pylor’s, held in a moment of understanding. Some might celebrate a mage scribe in their family. Kaitealyon knew the cost too well to be among them.

  Share her own burden? To what end. There was nothing to be done but obey Insom’s command. Or was there?

  “My cousin’s gift.” Pylor looked to the boy. Everything about this journey troubled her; the box alone in reach. “Would you like to open it now?”

  He swallowed. “May I?”

  “It’s not from me.” The words came out harsher than she’d meant. She gentled her voice. “It’s yours to do with as you wish, Leksand. You’ve no need of permission. Please yourself. It’s what my cousin would want.”

  Kait frowned.

  “Aie, laddie,” the great-uncle said, blissfully unaware of troubles or fear. “I been wait’n patient as can be. Not get’n any younger.” A gnarled finger tapped the box.

  And it wasn’t that he’d done harm—there was no reason at all—but Pylor watched Kait’s eyes widen then narrow, staring at the box. Saw her face grow pale and felt afraid, all at once, to see what was inside. “Stop—”

  Too late. With an eager smile, Leksand undid the latches.

  And took off the lid.

  * * *

  Saeleonarial’s funeral procession, pitiful as it was, arrived at the east side of the port of Nor Holding in time to join the queue of those awaiting the final barge of the day. Wooden docks lay tilted up on both shores, crews sitting by with their hooks. Once the barge arrived, the docks would be pushed into the water and linked together for as long as the barge lingered.

  The shadows were lengthening, the air adding chill to the damp. On the far shore, a matching line snaked down to the canal along the cobbled laneways of Nor Hold’s market. Buildings rose between, most brick, for the bottomlands held clay, none taller than the hold itself, rising on a distant hill.

  Smoke curled from chimneys, promising hot suppers and warm beds. Maleonarial heard a wistful sigh. Harn, no doubt. For his part, he was glad to avoid entering the hold proper and delay the inevitable. The first to spot him. See what he’d become.

  Domozuk dismounted, steadied himself, took up his stick and pennant. “The rest of you stay with him,” he said gruffly. “I’ll find Nanse—the bargemaster—and arrange passage.”

  He forged into the line, pennant lifted high.

  “Wa’appens now?”

  Maleonarial turned to regard Nim Millerson. “We travel to Alden.”

  “No need’o me, then.”

  Ah. He’d wondered where the anguished young man would decide to leave them. When. Not while they were alone on the road, Nim too responsible a person for that, but now?

  He was in too much pain to be left on his own, without help, and too proud to accept it. “There is, Nim,” Maleonarial said gravely. “A great need.”

  Nim twisted to bring his surviving eye to bear, full of distrust. He lowered his voice. “What need?”

  “To speak for the fallen. For your village.”

  “T’mages,” with disgust. “Why’d such care ’bout us?”

  Because they’d learned a terrible truth, that magic could create not only from Her Words but from spite. Magic to cause harm, harm The Deathless Goddess couldn’t prevent or gladly allowed, and Maleonarial hadn’t decided which, but it didn’t matter, in the end.

  “Because what happened to Riverhill mustn’t happen again.”

  Nim turned away. He didn’t leave. Satisfied, Maleonarial waited with the rest and watched. Time later to confess he very much doubted the masters at the school would be other than intrigued by such magic, and care nothing for its dire impact. So long as they didn’t bear the cost.

  Domozuk moved through eddies of the curious, men and women who listened to what he had to say, then looked up the rise toward the body in its shroud. They moved apart, then, granting the road, standing alongside in grief and respect. Saeleonarial had been that rarity among mages, a man who never forgot his origins, a man cherished by Tananen’s people.

  As he was not. When Maleonarial would have hesitated, Domozuk waved them forward and that was that.

  He dismounted, to avoid being even more of a spectacle; the others did the same, Nim helping Harn.

  He walked to the canal beside the corpse of his friend and refused to flinch even as eyes widened, at the gasps and gossip, as he was spotted and the rumor of who he was—who else could he be?—spread like wildfire and raced ahead so the road widened as those they passed stepped as far back as they could.

  To avoid him. The hermit mage? Or Maleonarial the renegade? He’d have asked—had any been willing to talk to him.

  At least he’d one answer. There was no traveling Tananen unnoticed.

  * * *

  The tap of Ferden’s finger had spawned a dire echo. She’d heard it.

  Hadn’t she?

  Or she heard an odd rattle from the carriage. The springs made their own music as it bounced along the roadway. At times they couldn’t talk over the din without shouting.

  . . . Stop . . .

  Kait shivered. The word—had she heard it from more than one voice, or heard Her, at last?

  Was she so desperate for Her Voice she now imagined it?

  Too late to obey regardless, Kait made herself sit quietly and watch. What harm could be in a box no longer than her forearm nor wider than her hand?

  Held her breath and tensed, for harm there could be in stone. What if the Fell had come with them?

  Blissfully unaware, Leksand’s voice cracked with excitement. “There’s a pen, Momma. Of glass.” He removed the glittering amber and cream object from its black silk bed. “See, Damesen?”

  Pylor leaned forward in answer, eyebrows high. “A treasure, Leksand. This isn’t any glass. It’s Surano, crafted solely on the island of that name, deep within the Whitehold Isles. You might,” she added dryly as she sat back, “want to gain skill before attempting to write with it.”

  “I’ll take care. I promise.” Leksand lifted the pen, tilting it this way and that to catch the sunlight, then replaced it reverently. Next in his hands was a curious bronze object, a little tub with a lid, set into a base like an opened flower, with four flat petals. The lid was worked into a design of leaves, exaggerated and flattened in no style Ka
it recognized. The petals of the base were edged in curlicues. Two opposing petals were crowned, with holes as if the base were to be attached to something else.

  Three dollops of bright red wax sealed the lid. As if entranced, Leksand shifted his grip, fingers going to break them.

  “Na do that, laddie,” Ferden advised, hanging onto the strap as the carriage hit a bump, jostling them sideways. “Could make a mess.”

  “It might be full of ink,” Kait clarified. She wiggled her fingers and Leksand put it back in its place within the box.

  “I’m sure it is.” Pylor’s face was unreadable. “This inkpot was one of our grandfather’s most prized possessions. My father used it often.”

  Poor Leksand was mortified. “Then it’s yours.” He caught it up again. Went to offer it. “Please, Damesen Ternfeather. Take it—”

  She forestalled him with her good hand. “It was Insom’s to give. May it bring you good fortune.”

  Left in the box, last of the gifts, was a small scroll of parchment, the sum a most appropriate gift for a student heading to Alden’s mage school, if one so far beyond the means of a student from Woodshaven her son could have no idea the value of what he held. Nor could she, for that matter, except it was too much.

  And too soon. A master’s tools. What was Insom thinking? Still, nothing of it appeared more ominous than over-generosity; the echo, Her Voice, products of a weary mind. She’d speak with her son when they were alone. Be sure he understood the difference between decent gratitude and indecent obligation, in case Insom sought to lay the latter upon him.

  Leksand must have judged the scroll safe to handle as they rattled and shook, for he plucked it from the box and slipped off the ribbon. “It’s a letter,” he exclaimed, then fell silent, eyes scanning. His face turned serious as he read.

  His great-uncle nudged him. “Will you be tell’n us what it says?”

  “It’s from the hold lord himself.” Astounded, he looked from one to the other, even Tercle, his eyes wide. “In it, Lord Insom says I must use his gifts for my first writing at the school, to show to the masters I have the support of Tiler’s Hold and holding. He ends with the hope I’ll return to be his court mage scribe.”