Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “This is lovely, Lady Tabitha,” Clementa said as she pulled out her chair at Tabitha’s right. “Thank you for arranging it.”

  “Of course,” Tabitha nodded. She swept her blue skirt aside and sat down. The linen dresses she now usually wore were in the island fashion and much easier to manage. At first, the shorter skirt and sleeves, and especially the collarbone neckline, had made her feel so indecently exposed that she could not bring herself to wear them. But then Mistress Agnes had arrived from Tiaulon, and together they had found small compromises that would keep both fashion and modesty intact. A crocheted lace panel here, a fold and a tuck there, and Tabitha had quickly grown to love her new dresses. They were much more practical in the heat, and she liked the flow of the skirts’ loose folds. Most of all, she liked that some of the magi girls had already made similar adjustments to their own dresses.

  She saw two of the girls cover sudden giggles, though they had not been speaking. Not aloud, at least. They were likely sending telepathic comments to each other, comments they could not share with her. It was frustrating for Tabitha because telepathy was proving so difficult for her. It was almost impossible to attempt telepathy and keep the Telgard sorcerer out of her mind at the same time.

  She turned back to Clementa. “This will be more private than the library.”

  “And more comfortable,” Clementa said.

  Most of the girls murmured agreement to this. The benches in the library’s meeting rooms never had cushions, and the rooms themselves were cramped. But worst of all were the interruptions. The Academy boys liked to invite themselves into any room in the library where girls were gathered, falsely assuming they would be welcomed. They acted as self-important as grown magi men did, expecting girls to defer to their opinions, flaunting their extensive education, and ordering ordinary people around as thoughtlessly as if they were servants. She had had to set a few of them straight, and none of those boys ever came near her or her ladies again, but the problem persisted in the form of the new Adelard sorcerer, Lord Ferogin.

  He was short, dark-haired, and plain-faced, and as snide as Natayl. He and his cronies had begun to disrupt Tabitha’s study sessions whenever they were in the library at the same time, claiming to have reserved the meeting room or to have need of a book shelved nearby. Tabitha had known that it was only a matter of time before the Adelard sorcerer stopped even the pretense of being polite and started sitting down at the table with them. Frankly, it was only a matter of time before she stopped pretending to be polite and demanded to know who had taught him such boorish manners.

  Something had had to be done, so she had done it. It had been a simple matter to ask one of the Greeters to reserve and prepare one of the Hall’s meeting rooms for her, so simple that she felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier. Here, they could be at ease, and here, they could speak aloud without being overheard.

  She wished she could solve the problem of the Telgard sorcerer so easily.

  “Shall we get started?” she said in Thendalian, and the girls settled themselves and turned to her. “Lord Natayl mentioned something to me recently that I had not heard before.”

  Lord Natayl had actually not mentioned anything to her in weeks. After the day he had bonded her to the Telgard boy, he had not resumed his teaching sessions with her, and their only interactions were stiffly polite pleasantries at meals and at the official events that they needed to attend together. Maybe he found her unfit to train. It was insulting, but she was also relieved that the horrible old man was leaving her alone.

  “What was it, my lady?” Clementa asked. The granddaughter of a baron, Clementa was in her final year at the Academy and was among its top students. In case that was not enough to intimidate most young men, her face had a pale, austere beauty that put her firmly out of their reach. She had been the first to win her way into Tabitha’s inner circle.

  “Well,” Tabitha said, “what I would like to know is, what does ‘corrode’ mean? I know what it means generally, but not for magic specifically.”

  Most of the girls frowned and shook their heads to show that they did not know either, but a few frowned more deeply and nodded, including Clementa and Velinda. Velinda leaned forward and said, “My lady, if I may answer?”

  “Of course.” Tabitha liked Velinda’s eagerness to please and impress. Her blonde hair and dark brown eyebrows gave her a strange appearance, and she stared at men too openly. But she came from a respected baronial family, and she had an excellent eye for fashion. Tabitha had asked her who set the styles on Maze Island, and Velinda had said, “Sorceress Josselin once did, but they say she lost interest once she aged. No one has really stepped into the role.” Then she had winked. “Which means, I suppose, that we have all been waiting for you.”

  Now, though, Velinda spoke in a tone like a healer giving bad news. “Corrosion is the removal of a magic-user’s ability to do magic.”

  Everyone grew quite still at this, and Tabitha’s heart beat faster. The day he had bonded her to the Telgard boy, Lord Natayl had threatened to corrode her if she did not calm down.

  “Only a sorcerer can do it,” Velinda went on, “and not to another sorcerer. Only to magi.”

  Tabitha’s heart lurched in relief. It must have shown on her face, because Velinda quickly added, “I am sorry if I alarmed you, my lady. Did Lord Natayl say that he would corrode … someone?”

  “Once,” Tabitha said with a wave of her hand, but she did not quite manage to sound casual. She should have known that Natayl was lying to her in order to scare her. “Exactly how is it done?”

  Velinda looked at Clementa, who also sounded like a healer as she said, “There is an area of the brain that is the node of our power. The sorcerer uses his magic to deliberately damage the magus’s node.”

  Tabitha did not remember Natayl ever telling her about a node of power inside the brain. “Can it be healed?”

  “No. Damage to the brain, and particularly the node, does not respond well to normal magical methods used to heal the body.”

  “And where exactly in the brain is this node?” Surely it would not be easy to reach. Surely it would be deeply buried, so that a simple slap or punch would not affect it.

  “There is some debate among scholars and healer about that. It might be in different locations for different people.”

  Velinda said, “Yes, Magus Casimir was talking about this in my mind mapping class.”

  This seemed a less disturbing topic. “Mind mapping?”

  The girls around the table seemed to relax a little as Velinda explained. “Mind mapping is the study of the subconscious. There are patterns and paths that we can use to remove blockages to conscious understanding and memory. Each person’s mind can be mapped to nine basic patterns.” Suddenly she stopped and looked at Clementa again. “I asked Magus Casimir about the tenth. He said it was just a variation of the ninth.”

  Clementa tapped her slender finger against her chin. “That surprises me,” she said thoughtfully. “When I was in his class, he once spent an entire period speculating on the idea of a tenth pattern.”

  “What are the patterns?” Tabitha asked. “Is it something you can draw for me?”

  About half the girls at the table were taking the mind mapping class or had taken it during previous terms, and they took paper and charcoal pencils out of their satchels. As they drew, Tabitha thought most of the patterns looked like star constellations, irregular and subject to quite a lot of interpretation and imagination, but as usual, she enjoyed the girls’ lively talk. It made the subject interesting.

  This was so much better than learning from Natayl. Her friends told her what they were studying, and she could practice with them. Although she still could not make a telepathic connection with any of them, the girls had talked about telepathy at length, doing their best to explain the similarities and differences among basic links, deep bonds, and the particular telepathy involved in a maga’s pledge to the Circle. They showed her the fundamentals of te
lekinesis too, and notwithstanding the itch that spread down her back whenever she used her magic, Tabitha could now focus enough to push small objects across the table with her mind. She did not know why she took such pride in this feat, since she had thrown men with her mind back home, but the precise control was very satisfying. The girls also taught her Mazespaak, and she was somewhat fluent now, perhaps even enough to try to conduct these meetings in that language instead of Thendalian. She had not yet done so because she did not like how clumsy she still sounded.

  Or, maybe it was a way of holding herself back, of not stepping fully into this world. Maybe her language was the last piece of her homeland, which she fiercely missed as she lay awake at night, reading and re-reading all of her letters from Betaul.

  Or, maybe it was another way to try to keep the Telgard sorcerer out of her mind.

  The discussion moved on to other Academy topics as it always did, but one of the girls, Attarine, continued to draw pictures with the charcoal pencils. She was well known among the Academy girls for her sketches, and Velinda started passing some of the drawings around the table for everyone to admire. One was of Tabitha, and it was much better than anything produced by any professional artist. Just like Jenevive’s drawings of her, Attarine’s made her look beautiful, refined, and just slightly older than she was. “This is wonderful! May I keep it?”

  “Of course, my lady,” Attarine said in her high, soft voice, smiling shyly. “I am glad it pleases you.”

  Tabitha had not wanted to like Attarine. She was a Jasinthe, a cousin of the queen, and Tabitha was sure that the Jasinthes had specifically ordered Attarine to befriend the new sorceress and gain her trust. It was the only reason they would have sent her to Maze Island among so many foreigners. But Attarine’s sweet nature made Tabitha wonder if she was making a mistake in judging all the Jasinthes by the faults of the queen. Accepting their overtures of friendship could be beneficial to her. “Attarine, you are the first of your family to attend Maze Island Academy in a long time, is that right?”

  Attarine nodded. “Yes, my lady.”

  “I understand that you arrived here just after I did.”

  Blushing as if she had been caught in a lie, Attarine looked down at the table. “I did, my lady, yes. There is a college for magi girls in Jasinde town, and I was training there.”

  Taking pity, Tabitha smiled in a friendly way. “It is much different here than in Thendalia.”

  “Yes, my lady.” Attarine smiled tentatively in return. “But you and Maga Judita and everyone else are all very kind.”

  “And there is so much to see and do here,” Tabitha said. She had been thinking about organizing a weekly theater group, but had not decided if she should make it more exclusive than this study group, or less. Either way, perhaps Attarine deserved to be included. “So many performances of all kinds.”

  Attarine started to answer, but suddenly, the door to the room opened. Everyone turned toward it, and Tabitha’s first thought was that Lord Ferogin had tracked them down to bother them some more. She stood, the Mazespaak words for leave us forming in her head, but the one who entered was not the Adelard sorcerer.

  She had first met Lord Borjhul, the Kroldon sorcerer, at the same time that she had first met several of the other sorcerers, at a reception three weeks ago. She had seen him and all the others twice at other receptions since then. He was tall, with olive skin and black hair. His eyes were so dark that they had no color, and his southern features had such a strange cast that she could not think of him as handsome. He had barely spoken to her, or to anyone, but his stare was disturbing and she had tried to avoid it.

  Now she could not. He walked several steps into the room without any hesitation, and stopped to focus on her at the head of the table. He was dressed like a magus, with dark grey tunic and trousers and a badge with the red fang sigil. He nodded formally and said something, maybe in Mazespaak, but she could not understand a word of it.

  “This is a private meeting,” Tabitha said, trying to put as much cold clarity into the Mazespaak words as she possibly could.

  The Kroldon sorcerer said something else in a low, firm voice, then made a slashing gesture with one hand, quick and stiff. Some of the magi girls stood and started to gather their books and papers, and all the rest quickly stood as well. Not a single one of them looked up at him or at her. Tabitha turned to Clementa with a desperate question in her eyes.

  “The Lord Sorcerer requests a private word with you, my lady,” Clementa said steadily, leaning across the table to pick up a charcoal pencil that had rolled away.

  “No,” Tabitha said at once, sharp and loud, and the girls all froze and looked at her. Tabitha faced Borjhul, who stood still as a stone. “My ladies stay.”

  She heard one of the girls pull in her breath, in shock or fear or both. None of these girls had acted upset or disturbed, or anything other than annoyed, when Sorcerer Ferogin and his friends had been constantly interrupting them at the library. In fact, Tabitha had excluded from her group the four Thendal girls who had seemed too ready to pay attention to the Adelard sorcerer. But now, they were all afraid, and she did not blame them.

  Borjhul said something else, his brow heavy over his eyes. Clementa spoke quietly. “He says he has been asking to meet with you for weeks.”

  “No one told me,” Tabitha said, then repeated it in Mazespaak, icy needles of fear at the back of her neck as she struggled to remember the words.

  Borjhul spoke again, repeating the slashing gesture. Clementa said, “He says you must dismiss us so he can meet with you now.”

  “No.” She did not take her eyes off him. “My ladies will stay. You will go.”

  Borjhul started toward her with a determined stride, and the icy needles became barbs, itching and prickling all over her skin. Suddenly certain that he meant to touch her, to seize her bare hand in his own, Tabitha took a reflexive step backward and hit her chair with her legs. She slid around the chair to put it between them, painfully aware of the indignity of being chased. But she could not risk his touch, could not let him force his mind into hers. No one would do that to her again, ever.

  He stopped on the other side of her chair and gestured past it, toward the corner of the room. Inviting her to step away from the others? For privacy? He was close enough that she had to look up at him now, at those strange black eyes and that broad nose over a narrow jaw.

  She forced herself to speak. “Another time.” She had no intention of keeping her word, but she had to make him leave.

  Then something cut against her mind like glass shards. A painful itch dug into her skin as her power reacted to his, rising high and fast. But his met hers, just as high, just as strong, stopping it, stopping her. She had thrown Nicolas from her window, thrown Alain against a timber beam, thrown her puppy into a stone wall, but what she threw against him was crumbling into nothing.

  The Kroldon took half a step to one side of the chair between them, lifting his hand. Tabitha hated herself for flinching back. I am a Betaul! “Another time,” she repeated, but it sounded weak and pathetic. Her head was pounding with the effort of pushing so hard against his mind.

  The Telgard boy would help her. She knew it by the way he looked at her whenever they were in the same room. If she pulled at that soft warmth, he would sense it, and—

  No! She was ignoring him and would continue to ignore him and she did not need his help! She was a Betaul! Countless generations of her family had bravely stood against every enemy, and she would do no less!

  Borjhul said something, and his mind pressed harder, and then his hand reached across the chair toward her face, to touch her, to force her. Tabitha jerked back, gasping, and then Clementa stepped in front of her.

  Fear for her friend suffused with shame at her own weakness, Tabitha grabbed Clementa’s arm. Then, his eyes never leaving her, Borjhul pushed the chair out of the way. Stark panic wrapped Tabitha’s mind, and she found Natayl’s name, the image of his wrinkled face, the memory of
the sandpaper roughness of his magic. She imagined her scream flying to his mind like a shout to his ear, springing from her like a rabbit from a thorny thicket.

  “Girl?” Natayl’s shock thrummed through her as if she was a plucked string, and it was so disorienting she almost lost the sense of him. But then he grew much larger, much closer, and Tabitha shied away from him as she had the very first time. Just like that first time, though, Natayl held on, sending thorns of thoughts into her head before he let her go. She was horrified at how much he pulled out of her mind. He knew where she was, what was happening, and what she wanted him to do about it, and before she shut him out completely, she knew that he was sending to Sorcerer Oran.

  Then Borjhul’s power sliced like glass under her skin, beneath her magic, trying to push through the portal she had opened by calling to Natayl. She retracted everything, everything, desperately pulling everything down into herself, closing, sealing, denying, gasping, wincing. But even in her panic, she clearly saw the moment that Sorcerer Oran called to Borjhul.

  He blinked twice. Then his magic slid off her like shattered glass from the frame of a window. Tabitha pulled Clementa to one side, shoving back the chair even further, and the rumble of wood against wood seemed terribly loud. Borjhul watched this, then said something. He watched her and waited as if for an answer, and when she gave him none, he turned and walked purposefully for the door. He did not close it behind him.

  Tabitha hurried to close it herself. She looked for a latch or bolt, but the door did not have one. When she turned back to the magi girls, they were all staring at her like stunned deer.

  She took a deep breath. I am a Betaul. A Betaul! “Forgive me,” she said as graciously as possible.