The Gossamer Mage

by Julie E. Czerneda

  Even gossamers, unpredictable and unique, remain as they are once created, forever. Or not. Impossible to prove one way or another, for a gossamer reveals itself at its own whim and will.

  Only those who were here, before the cessation of ice or fire, take any shape they please.

  We are who we are.

  Until we contain what is not us, but has, shall we say, an interest. Mages host what they call Her Gift and give life for magic, but theirs is a slow trade and might seem a choice, if it were not.

  Daughters and acolytes host what they call Her Gift and choose to offer their lives, having faith The Lady acts for the good of Tananen. If claimed, their life ends, to become Hers. Her Designates complete Her acts, their emptied flesh become ash.

  There were once those far less merciful, whose arbitrary claim on a body included the host’s delectable awareness and delicious despair. Whose actions had nothing to do with the good of anything but the unending appetite for everything.

  Eaters of life. Eaters of hope. Eaters of magic.

  Magic must be defended.

  Or magic will be lost. The Eaters are coming and it is a simple choice.

  What would you sacrifice, to keep magic alive?

  PERILOUS DICTATES

  Every so often, the question is asked. To preserve a mage, keep him from writing magic and expending life, why not cut off his hands?

  As The Deathless Goddess cares enough for Her mages to take immediate vengeance on those who harm them, vanishingly few are the number who’d risk severing hands or any other part. And to what end? Mages without hands—and there’d been some in history—find other means. Any means. Her Words demand to be written.

  But if a mage must write, and can’t be stopped, what happens when his mind loses the discipline to form an intention? When his reality breaks—yet, being still a mage, he must write—what does he loose upon the world?

  What hasn’t been requested, paid for, and needed by anyone. What rises from some fantasy within. Most, to the relief of all, are gossamers and harmless.

  Some are nightmares.

  Maleonarial’s footsteps echoed down the long narrow corridor of the upper floor. The light of his lamp chased his shadow and shuddered with the breeze of his steps. He didn’t look up. It was best not to pay attention.

  The high peaked ceiling was the underside of the roof. In a bargain renewed each time Alden’s workers marched up the road to rebuild the school, the means of its future destruction was left behind when they were done. In his time, a netting of twisted rope impregnated with flash powder was affixed to roof planks, with sacs of more powder interspersed with oil bladders suspended from the joists, in every building. Though it seemed redundant in the student residences; those learning magic needed no help whatsoever to destroy their own quarters.

  The masters confined here were left the means to write, being the way mages came to their end. As for their creations? Any gossamers written on the upper floor soared to freedom, neither roof nor Alden’s bargain an impediment.

  Things kept in, things best ignored, slithered along ropes and between sacs and bladders. Added their glues and dreadful mementoes. Remained high above and harmless, unless noticed.

  Usually.

  Busy with his own thoughts, Maleonarial had no trouble ignoring them. The masters hadn’t liked what he’d told them, that magic’s toll couldn’t be escaped despite what they’d heard of Cil’s gossamers. All would comply, for he’d provided a graphic description of Cil’s demise, and who’d want to end life with Her Kiss? As for his restoration—

  He’d suggested they pray.

  Not that The Hag listened, but the ploy proved an admirable distraction, Xareonarial the first to depart on urgent business he’d forgotten, the rest following behind like a flock of made-sheep.

  Leaving him free to come here.

  The floor was metal, as were the walls and doors. Nightmares down here too, giving way, their eyes hot discs in the lamplight. More rooms stood open and vacant than closed. Things slithered in them as well. A good sign, Maleonarial supposed. The empty rooms, not the slithering. Fewer mages and students in confinement.

  Or lately most had written their last flawed intention and died of it.

  Gifted student, bent of heart. Eccentric master, ill of mind. Innocent or evil, those held here were incredibly dangerous, sequestered by the mage school to live out the rest of their lives, hopefully short ones, where they could harm no one but themselves. Where what they created, whether it lived a flicker of time or endured, remained.

  Another hope not always realized, hence Alden’s bargain. Alden Hold guarded the rest of Tananen from the school’s creations, despite most masters’ fond belief the hold existed solely to shield the school from intrusion and provide staff.

  Had he not sought the wilds and lived alone, far from here, Maleonarial was well aware his actions would have seen him in one of these rooms.

  He passed three closed doors, raising his lamp to read the name chalked on each, before finding the one he sought. Gave grief time to wash through him, for this was no good end for anyone, least of all a friend, before he knocked once.

  Then drew aside its bolt.

  Not vacant, this room. Books lined two walls, a tapestry another. A pair of leather chairs and small table waited on a thick carpet. A desk stood ready for scholarship. Another door, this with a curtain swayed to the side, showed a luxurious bed chamber. A tub sat on clawed feet, bubbles heaped as if he’d interrupted a bath.

  He stepped in quickly and drew the door closed behind him, for none of it was real. The chairs opened big brown eyes and wagged as if encouraging him to sit. What appeared books on shelves quivered, as if uneasy to be noticed, then suddenly broke apart, each tome sprouting sticky feet and fleeing to cluster on the ceiling.

  Little wonder Pageonarial had aged, if he’d made this and who knew what else. The greater amazement? That he’d lost the ability to write in time to survive it.

  Maleonarial took a quiet step back. He’d leave his friend in the peace he’d created.

  A faint but cheery, “Look at you!” came from the tub to stop him.

  And there was nothing friendship could do but walk into the other room, dodging the eager chairs, to answer. “Hello, Page.”

  Pageonarial’s smiling face and knobby knees poked up from what weren’t bubbles of soap, but living bubbles with tiny eyes, mouths, and hands. Those in the air giggled. Maleonarial sank on his heels where the other could see him without twisting, his hair falling over a shoulder with the tinkle of bells.

  Rheumy eyes glistened. “Look at you!”

  Maleonarial put out his hand. A made-bubble landed on it, proceeding to scrub with ardent attention between his fingers. “Is there any of you left, Page?” he asked, wistful.

  Those eyes sharpened. “Just enough.” A trembling hand rose. “Help me up.”

  Before Maleonarial could try, the bubbles lifted Page from the tub and floated his wizened naked form to the bed, his white hair, dense with bells, chiming like a song. Task accomplished, bubbles flew back to the tub as a thick red robe purred with joy, rushing to wrap itself around its creator and help him sit.

  A not-mage might feel this a paradise of care. Knowing the decades lost to achieve it, Maleonarial felt the stir of fear. The bolted door lied. These were reasoned intentions. Purposeful.

  Once slippers put themselves on Page’s feet, he rose. “Sit with me.” The leather chairs tried to squeeze through the doorway at the same time. “Out there,” the master commanded testily. The chairs paused, brown eyes blinking in confused woe. “Out!”

  They wiggled backward, setting themselves on the carpet in the outer room with unhappy whoofs. “They’re new,” Page explained, shuffling after them. Seeing him, the books hurried back into place, muttering titles at one another as they sorted their order on the shelves. The d
esk gave a resigned sigh when the mage sat in one of the big chairs and not at it.

  Maleonarial sank into the second chair, doing his best to ignore its welcoming hug. This wasn’t confinement to the upper floor. This was a sanctuary, one for which Page had paid his health and future. “How long?” Despite the warmth of the chair, a chill went through him. “Why?”

  The historian’s lips were colorless, his sunken cheeks spoke of teeth lost, but the wise little smile, full of secrets, that was the same. “When and because someone touched The Brutes and returned to Tananen, alive.”

  “Insom the Second. Then you already know what came back with him.”

  “I suspected. Feared. And, now, look at you, Maleonarial.” Pageonarial raised a finger. “Ottle’s Memoirs. Ban’s footnotes.” A made-book on the top shelf squirmed free with a popping sound. It ran down the wall and across the floor, leaping for the side of the chair. An anxious brown eye formed to watch it climb. “Steady,” the master said, and the eye closed. The made-book turned around on his robed lap until satisfied, then flounced flat and opened.

  Maleonarial swallowed and looked at the shelves. “The archives . . .”

  “Are here, yes. As are you, at last.” Said without warmth. “Caton wrote of the possibility of a mage being restored by The Goddess, if She’d some great need.” Three made-books by that author eased out, to sheepishly reshelve themselves when not summoned.

  He put a hand to his chest. “Her need’s for me to return this.” Maleonarial let himself say the truth. “It should have been Sael.”

  Cold keen eyes regarded him, summed the bells. “Sentiment, of which The Lady has none. Our good scribemaster was careful of his life. By your count, you’d spent enough to be dead.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  “This?” Page wagged his finger. “I calculated precisely what I’d need in order to be here and hidden if—when—the Eaters reached us. By your arrival, in a caravan from Insom? I take it they have. Chair, trap!”

  Leather turned hard and tough, encasing Maleonarial from neck to foot. He didn’t attempt to struggle. “What’s this?”

  The finger stabbed at the made-book lying on his lap. “Ottle writes of a man washed up on The Brutes, four hundred years ago, who then tried to swim to shore. Those who pulled him from the water cut off his head and threw his remains into the sea, because he’d swallowed evil and become it. Ban’s footnote adds ‘other accounts of that time list beheading as the only defense against possession by an Eater, a being of evil whose goal is to destroy Tananen.’ Desk, release the blade.” There was an unpleasant buzzing noise.

  A huge made-fly zipped to the ceiling, circled the room, then stopped midair, hovering by Maleonarial’s ear. After a sidelong glance to confirm that yes, its razor sharp mouthparts could sever a head, if not quickly, he focused on Pageonarial. “You’re right. It’s true, Insom’s possessed. I’m not, Page. You can see it in my eyes. There’s a black lightning—”

  The old master snorted. “If I come close to you, what’s to stop you from changing hosts and taking me?”

  “They can do that?”

  A finger twirl. “Farid.” A book scampered to obey. “Anecdotal, but reliable. ‘An Eater will exude from its host to enter another or to feed.’”

  Page had knowledge they needed; was surely the help they’d come to find. “If you want proof,” Maleonarial said eagerly, hearing the chair growl. “Kaitealyon can hear the Fell—these Eaters. She’ll vouch for me.”

  “The daughter is irrelevant here. Urray.” Another tome scampered into place, fell open. “‘The Deathless Goddess does not arbitrate between mages.’”

  He’d like to see Page try to tell that to Kait. More urgently, how to get Kait here? “In this She does,” Maleonarial insisted. “The Eaters are Her enemy.”

  A stark look. “Nonsense. She has none.”

  The archives—he’d spent his own years nose in books. Knew, all at once, the only way to convince the historian.

  “Corvinas, Fundamental Lexicon of Tananen Vol. 1, the arrival.” To Maleonarial’s delight, a volume larger than most popped free and ran down the wall. It hesitated on the carpet as though conflicted, then climbed to the arm of Page’s chair, oriented so Maleonarial could read the text. “‘The world was not always thus.’”

  “Pssh. Garrod and Nabo dismissed Corvinas as a writer of fiction.”

  “What if she wasn’t? ‘We were not the first here.’ Corvinas wrote that before ice or fire, there was a struggle between magic and what would destroy it. Sound familiar?”

  “Fujin!” Pageonarial half-shouted. The made-book wasn’t halfway down the wall before he quoted angrily, “‘When people arrived in Tananen, they received Her Gifts and lived in peace and magic within the arms of The Deathless Goddess.’ No mention of a destroyer. None.”

  “Gudrun.” A made-book budged.

  “No!” A scowl as the book pushed itself back. “A flawed source that shouldn’t be in the archives. I’ve no idea why I’ve tolerated it.”

  The book whimpered. The chair rumbled happily until Maleonarial said, “It’s here because unlike my predecessors, I was willing to consult my counterparts in the Daughter’s Portions. Gudrun and Urray, now!” Both raced to obey, this time crawling on the leather of his chair as if afraid of being summarily discarded, stacking themselves close to his nose. Maleonarial didn’t dare sneeze. “Gudrun’s accounts are based on generations of verbal records, passed down with exceptional accuracy within Xcel’s Daughters.” He stopped. Waited.

  The historian’s lips worked a moment, then his finger bent, conceding interest. “Your point.”

  Kait had said it. The Hag wasn’t omnipresent. “According to Gudrun, the first settlers to Tananen met but a tiny portion of The Goddess, the wounded remnant from the battle that threw up Her Fist and Veil against the world. There was almost no magic to be had.”

  “Tales.”

  “Accounts,” he retorted. “Those first daughters were tasked with helping The Goddess recover. The first mages, with channeling Her magic back into the world and replenishing Her life. If She depended on us then and since, what’s to say we don’t act for Her now, daughters and mages together, against the Eaters?”

  “Fantasies.”

  The book shifted as though to argue; admittedly, he’d taken certain liberties with Gudrun’s text. Was the leather tighter? Had the blade’s wingbeats grown louder, as if closing in on his neck?

  Ignoring those as best he could, Maleonarial tried once more. “You’ve always said scholarship is the hunt for truth. That however buried or distorted by time, truth remains to be found by those who reject their own prejudice.”

  A suspicious look. “I said that?”

  Maleonarial dared wink. “Maybe I just did. Does it matter? We believe in the truth. Strive for reason. We always have.”

  “Humph.” Almost a smile. “Go on, then. The Urray? What will you cite from it to impress me?”

  He grinned. “You know how it is. The more books, the better-sounding the argument.” Before the hint of goodwill could fade, he turned serious. “Kait will tell you the truth about me. Call for her, Page. She’s staying in the staff quarters. She’s come with me and the damesen to find a way—”

  “Insom’s chemist. I saw her.” For the first time, Pageonarial looked uncertain. “We corresponded for a time. A formidable intellect, not that I would share the inkmaster’s secrets, but the history of our inkmaking, yes. What does she have to do with this? Is she possessed too?” With renewed alarm.

  “No. Pylor discovered Insom is possessed. He—the Eater in him—ordered her to ask questions about me and to bring his gifts to the school. Through Kait, we know there are Eaters sealed inside those gifts. I said you’d know what to do, how to defeat them.” And been right, he thought with rising triumph. “Call for Kait, Page,” Maleonarial urged again. “A
fter what happened at the funeral, you must believe in her. That she’s sent by The Lady, not this evil.”

  Hands clenched on the made-books, which wriggled in protest. “I believe,” Pageonarial said after a moment’s consideration. Another of his wise little smiles that neither reached nor warmed his eyes. “We will have Kaitealyon here. And you will wait as you are, Master Maleonarial, to learn if she believes in you.”

  * * *

  “Sorry to wake you, but it’s your turn to keep watch.”

  Pylor rubbed sleep from her eyes, endeavoring to focus on the earnest figure at the door. A servant stood behind Kait, who’d draped a quilt over her cloaked shoulders and whose cheeks were as crimson as if she’d been outside. “It’s all right, Tercle,” in response to a muttered question from the dark room behind.

  Though how could it be, if the daughter asked her help? Now wide awake and concerned, Pylor kept her voice calm, wary of the servant. “Where?”

  “Keep an eye out the window. For any signs the owls are about,” Kait said with inane cheer, as if it weren’t the dead of night. “I’ll be back to take over soon.”

  The servant covered a yawn, suitably unimpressed by visitors to a school of magic who watched for owls. Pylor, having seen only the moth-eaten stuffed specimen in the storeroom she used for her chemicals, would have enjoyed watching for the living version. For anything but the Fell, but she knew what the daughter asked. Still, “But Kait, you’ve the best eyes,” she protested. “Shouldn’t you do it?”

  Eyes that rolled meaningfully at the servant. “I’ve been summoned to a master. I may have overstepped in the hall,” Kait added.

  Or Maleonarial had urgent news to share, for the daughter’s ears only. Nodding, Pylor pulled her wrap tighter. “I’ll keep watch.”