The Gossamer Mage
Page 21
What skill he had, to craft these. What license, to spend magic for friendship’s sake, for Tercle said he’d accept no payment.
The wagon with Insom’s dreadful urns would follow behind. It should, by Maleonarial’s plan, arrive at the school before any word of the contents. She’d done what she could. Rather than order secrecy, she’d offered her people a bonus, from her own purse, if the lord’s gifts inside remained a surprise until presented, counting on self-interest as well as courtesy to close mouths.
The gull rode atop the carriage, a spy, uninterested in conversation. If the Fell wanted the pretense of a real bird, they should have had it fly off, but it remained, despite determined efforts by driver and groom to shoo it away. Pylor let them try, so long as they didn’t harm it.
She wasn’t sure they could.
Problems for later. To brighten the gloom within the carriage, Pylor opened curtains with a determined flourish. “I’m told Alden’s border marsh is a sight not to be missed.”
When no one else moved, Kait drew back the curtains on her side. Obediently, they peered out.
The boardwalk, a wooden road wide enough for wagons to easily pass, meandered like a stream through the marshlands. Reed grass, tips curled by early frost, stretched in a great arc between canal and the rise of drier land. Cattails, their neat brown heads nodding, marked shallower pools. There were occasional lumps of greener stuff. Bare branched bushes here and there. No birds—
It was late fall, Pylor reminded herself. In the rest of Tananen, away from the sea, birds left before the water froze. Were there not thin rings of ice clinging to the cattails?
“Excuse me, Damesen, but what aren’t we to miss?” Leksand asked. “This looks like any bog back home to me. Just bigger.”
The uncle chuckled. “Glad ye said it first, laddie.”
While she knew more of oceans than bog, Pylor couldn’t see anything special about the place herself. “I’ve no idea.”
Tercle gave a smug little grunt. “Gossamers.”
As the others in the carriage pressed noses to their closest window, Pylor lifted an eyebrow at her friend. “‘Gossamers’?”
“Dom told me, the scribemaster’s man. He said the marsh is full of them. And yon hills behind the school. You don’t go there.” Tercle made a whirling motion with her fingers. “Might not find your way back.”
“Why so many?” Leksand asked.
Kait’s eyes narrowed.
“Mistakes.” Tercle grinned at Leksand. “Years and years and years of them. The kind that don’t die or go away.”
“Gossamers aren’t mistakes,” he retorted hotly, looking to his mother for support. “The Lady loves them.”
“Mages don’t—”
Pylor shook her head. “Tercle. Leave be.”
“Kaitealyon. Momma!”
“Aie. Aie. The Lady cares for them.” Kait closed her lips, making it plain she’d not add more.
Satisfied, the boy twisted to press his face to the window again. “I don’t see any. Do you?”
“Might be shy,” his great-uncle ventured when no one else answered. “Ours ha’ great trees to hide’n.”
Pylor met Kait’s troubled gaze with one of her own. The daughter claimed Tiler’s gossamers gone, something, in hindsight, she’d realized she could confirm. Years without count, a gossamer shaped like a blend of owl and spider and sunbeam had taken its ease on the windowsill of her chambers, overlooking Her Mouth with its cluster of gem-like eyes. A familiar presence, absent since summer. She’d assumed it had finally grown bored of the view. Or the smells of brewing inks.
Instead, had her window gossamer fled the evil Insom brought to the hold? Or, the thought neither of them dared utter, but both, Pylor was certain, shared—
Had Tiler’s gossamers been consumed, like the mages’ creations, by the Fell? An evil presence now riding behind them, secured in nets and straps.
If so, Alden’s were right to hide.
If so—Pylor closed her eyes—something far greater was wrong. When any of Her Blessed Gossamers were in danger, The Deathless Goddess struck without hesitation, ending whomever threatened them.
Opening her eyes, but refusing to look outside, Pylor took hold of the strap.
Where was She now?
* * *
Magic serves a purpose.
A mage writes in answer to a specific need, frivolous or dire, his intention clear and direct.
Sael’s matched made-horses being a case in point. Rid had sat so stiff at their reins he seemed paralyzed with joy. Domozuk had openly wept. Nim been unimpressed. Harn envious.
Regardless, Maleonarial hadn’t spent some of his life for them. He’d done it for no greater or lesser reason than to bring Saeleonarial home in a way to impress those waiting. His friend deserved respect.
Unlike Sael, who’d made a team that outlived their creator and might them all—it being possible to make beasts able to consume nourishment and need care, if the mage were willing or extravagantly paid—his made-horses would conveniently turn to ash in four hours, give or take.
Out of habit, the mage used his tongue to test each tooth. Still tight in their sockets, as were his limbs. If anything, Her toll for this intention left him more comfortable, stripping away youth’s burning impatience.
Some of it.
Maleonarial looked between the pricked ears of his mount, this bend in Alden’s boardwalk facing southwest. At this distance, the mountains bordering that side of Tananen appeared a low bank of cloud, their stark bleak slopes blurred into soft folds. The impassable range was called Her Left Arm and where it bent, like an elbow, cradled Her Tears, the trackless fen surrounding the tower where The Deathless Goddess lived when not tormenting mages.
Her Soul.
He’d been to Her Tears, once. Each new scribemaster made the journey, to stand at the end of solid ground and gaze into thick ever-present mist until patience failed and damp won. He’d stayed that day and night, and through most of the next morning, surely longer than any of his predecessors, in hopes the sun would burn off the fog, or a breeze blow it thin so he could see Her fabled tower for himself.
Why? Because that Maleonarial had believed in curiosity for its own sake. Had trusted the way the world worked to be fair. Believed in the grace of The Lady, and longed to view Her sacred place.
The mist refused him, or She did, though once, in the eerie quiet between night and the first hint of dawn, he’d thought he glimpsed something tall blocking out stars, and imagined a shape that might have been a tower—
Or a hand.
To this day, Maleonarial couldn’t be sure what he’d seen, or dreamed. It didn’t matter. To him, The Deathless Goddess had become The Hag, graceless and foul. He’d stayed as far as possible from Her Soul while searching a means to end Her grip on magic and mages. Though nowhere in Tananen was hidden from Her sight, distance had seemed—prudent.
No longer. Her Soul would be his destination once he made sure those with him were safe from the Fell.
He’d burn Her tower down, if that’s what it took.
“Ye be leav’n again.”
The mage turned to look at the farmer. Nim sat twisted on his made-horse to glare at him and Maleonarial told him the truth. “Not yet.”
“M’Mom fed you.” Hot and low. “You ow ’er. Owe all’o’us. To stop this.” A too-hard slap on the pristine white of a hide that neither felt nor responded. “Not anothern Cil, mage. Not anothern village gone by magic. Swear’t.”
A breeze ruffled through the stands of cattails to Maleonarial’s left, as if hunting a rabbit. It flowed up and over the boardwalk, strong enough to shake bells and make Nim squint, bitter enough to numb fingertips and noses. Gone, as quick as that, and he’d have thought it a gossamer—
But his blood was young again, his heart full and sore, and if She was
listening?
“I swear,” Maleonarial vowed, to more than the grieving young villager. “By Her Gift and on my life, I’ll put an end to it.”
* * *
If there were no gossamers, there’d be no Lady, but she wouldn’t know for sure, would she, unless she listened with her heart.
What if she heard the Fell?
Kait leaned her head against her uncle’s shoulder, pretending to look out the window.
Pretending they were safe. On a trip into Meadton to market, though their wagon was a flat with wheels and the mules weren’t smooth travelers, being inclined to balk at hills or loads or rabbits so instead of riding, she and Leksand would walk by their heads and tell the silly beasts stories to pass the time.
If she didn’t listen, what if an urn bounced and cracked, or a rat chewed off the seal, not that she’d seen one, but rats did such things, so that the Fell were even now flowing like smoke through the wagon, and onto the seat, reaching for—
She’d know if she listened, wouldn’t she? Be able to give warning if nothing else.
Kait closed her eyes.
Nothing, at first. No sense of Her Presence. The singer was too distant, or not singing at all. The mutters of the Fell were memory, not fresh, and Kait pushed them aside. Well, then—
She felt pressure, as if her insides resisted the push of a wind that wasn’t there, then realized it wasn’t a feeling but another unheard sound, and it was wind—
—but wasn’t.
Because it was the soft, endless susurration of air moving through the needles of the old pines about their home—
—but wasn’t.
It was breathing. Not like the Fell or singer. This was as if the past inhaled the future, then breathed out the present, and she was too small to hear it, too small to survive hearing it.
“Kaitie.” A nudge. “Sorry to wake ye, but we’re ’ere.”
She hadn’t been what slept . . .
The thought drifted, with nothing to attach to it; gone as Kait turned to look out the window.
An empty bog. A sky turned to dull metal.
A heart—Kait ignored, busying herself with what was needful and could be done. “Put on your scarf,” she told her son. She brushed a nonexistent crumb from Ferden’s beard and eyed the damesen’s bandage.
“I took care of it,” Tercle informed her, catching the look. She’d shrugged on her cloak after helping the damesen adjust hers and now sat with both arms around her wooden case. On the opposite seat, scarf donned, sat Leksand with both arms around his box. Ferden still cradled a mug of what might be tea, though the bargemaster had slipped it to him with a wink.
The damesen rested her hands atop her cane.
Bereft of duty, Kait tucked hers inside her cloak.
The teams might have trotted on air, by the lack of hoofbeats, but wheels that rattled over wood planks clattered suddenly over cobbles as if to say “We’re here! We’ve come!” They passed through the chill shade of a brick-lined tunnel, Alden’s hold wall much thicker than it seemed from outside, and into a yard full of waiting attendants.
No, not attendants, Kait realized. Residents packed the immense space, spilling into the wide streets as far as she could see. They stood on the great tiled stairs leading up to the wide open doors of a hall, itself full, and crowded the modest doorways of homes, business, and stables. More looked down from windows in the wall and towers until Kait had to believe everyone of Alden Hold watched them arrive.
“We’ll get out here,” the damesen ordered, her hushed voice loud in the silence.
Kait moved first, climbing down from the carriage. She stepped sideways to stand by the rear wheel and make room for the others, though Alden’s folk didn’t crowd close. The drivers had drawn their teams to face the stairs, the made-horses become statue-still.
The people she could see were dressed in what looked to be their best jerkins and tunics, most brown, livened with green and yellow wool cloaks and bright woven sashes. Each adult bore a twist of sweet hay on garment or hat. Children stood in front with bundles of the stuff in their little arms and the aroma gave the yard the unexpected warmth of a fresh-cut field.
For Saeleonarial, returned home.
Every eye snapped to Maleonarial when he slipped a leg over his mount to jump lightly to the cobblestones. The bells sang with every move, but this was more. Recognition. The children wouldn’t know the former scribemaster but it was plain the adults did, sufficient to duck heads and share soft whispers. Fear?
No, the faces Kait could see showed astonishment. A few, curiosity. The rest, welcome, and she realized that from student to master, Maleonarial had been as much of Alden as the school. Despite the solemn occasion, as he walked forward hands reached out to clap him on the shoulders or brush his arms.
He looked astonished himself, gravely nodding to those he passed.
“They liked him here,” Leksand whispered to her. “Missed him.”
“Aie.” Mages weren’t likable, as a rule; what they could create was missed, not the person or the charge.
Tercle leaned toward the damesen. Whatever she said, Kait missed for two were coming down the broad stairs to meet Maleonarial, the crowd parting. It didn’t take Her Gift to know Alden’s hold daughter and lord, though they were dressed as any of their subjects.
Slight, the lord, and dark, with a neat black beard and glossy hair pulled back in a braid. He’d a pleasant face with lively brown eyes and his curious gaze touched each of them. The corners of his mouth turned down when he looked to the wagon with the scribemaster’s sigil, curving up in a glad smile as Maleonarial clasped his offered hand.
But it was the hold daughter who claimed Kait’s attention. Wrinkles couched her features and her hair, shaved close to her scalp, was white; nonetheless, she took the stairs with the vigor of someone half her age and Her Gift blazed forth—
Kait felt the pull and resisted, taking her son’s elbow lest he move out of turn, this being neither the place nor time for those from humble Woodshaven to seek notice.
Instead, with the others waiting, she bowed her head to Alden’s Daughter and Lord, pleased Leksand and Ferden quickly did the same.
Unknowing her bow was that between equals.
“Your pardon, Daughter.” One of Alden’s people approached them. If the earnest young woman was an acolyte, there were no obvious marks of her calling. There needn’t be. Kait could sense Her Gift, if muted. From Leksand’s widened eyes, he did too.
“Come with me, please.” The acolyte smiled at Leksand. “And you, student-prospect. Your audience with Affarealyon shall be private.”
Making this public moment when they’d be separated. Kait looked to her uncle, not hiding her dismay.
Ferden put his hands on Leksand’s shoulders. “Mind y’teachers, laddie,” he ordered gruffly. “Remember where y’come from.”
“I promise, Uncle.” Then the boy broke and threw himself into his great-uncle’s arms, holding tight; his fervent, “I’ll come home soon as I can. Come see you,” muffled against the other’s tunic.
“Lady Willing.” Over his head, Ferden’s glistening eyes searched for Kait. “Now go w’yer Mom. I’ll b’fine.”
Another’s gaze found her. Nim Millerson’s face was set in determined lines. “I’ll see him home.” The farmer almost smiled. “Ferden’s t’teach me ta throw.”
Her uncle’s chuckle was the bravest sound Kait had ever heard. Gently, he eased Leksand from him. “Tol’him it’s ’ard work, but Nim’s will’n t’stay t’winter.” He pressed his lips to the boy’s forehead. “Go on, laddie. Find yer magic.”
Leksand took Nim’s hand in both of his, nodding his thanks as if he didn’t trust himself to speak.
“This way, please,” Alden’s acolyte said, with the impeccable timing of someone who’d seen such a scene many times before.
* * *
Pylor Ternfeather’s knowledge of the wider world surpassed most. However large Tananen seemed to her people, how complex and vast with its nine holdings and myriad canals, in reality the realm of The Deathless Goddess was smaller than a minor province of Lithua and held fewer inhabitants than called the barrier islands of Whitehold home.
Still, Tananen was large enough for diversity. Customs varied from holding to holding. Styles and ideas spawned in one traveled, or didn’t, to others. Most noticeable was the gulf between those of the heartland and those from a holding nestled in one of the valleys of the surrounding mountain ranges. “Of the hills” referred not to distance, but to the likelihood the individual spoke a dialect nigh incomprehensible to counterparts from anywhere else. It was said only those with Her Gift truly understood one another, Her Words immutable by time or place.
Pylor hadn’t heard of spreading cut grass as a symbol of respect, but that’s what Alden’s population busied themselves doing, children dropping their bundles on the cobbles of the street leading through the hold. Marking it as the one along which they’d take Saeleonarial and the damned urns to the mage school, and nothing about the stink of dying plants improved the damesen’s opinion on how terrible an idea this was.
First, they must receive the hold daughter’s permission. Dare she act on her own? A hold of Alden’s fabled wealth must have secure storage—vaults, perhaps, underground. As Pylor climbed the stairs into Alden’s audience hall with the rest, she focused on the click of her cane’s metal tip—her authority—on each tiled step. Could she prevail on Alden Hold to be a repository for Insom’s gift? Find some excuse. The urns had been for the dead scribemaster, not the living. They’d been brought by mistake.
She kept her head up and eyes ahead, her face composed in the needful somber dignity, and hoped no one could hear the pound of her heart.