Sorcery Rising

by Jude Fisher

  Rui Finco looked up in surprise as Mam came shouldering through the door of his pavilion, pushing the northern King before her. He leapt up from his couch so fast that the slave who had been in the process of removing his boots catapulted backwards into Mam’s knees. ‘Outside!’ he hissed to the boy. ‘Fetch Lord Varyx.’

  Mam noted with a certain pleasure that the suave lord’s garb was in less than perfect condition. A sleeve of expensive Galian lace was charred and frayed; streaks of black marred the pale blue doublet. ‘We’ve brought your delivery,’ she grinned.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to bring him here!’

  ‘How else to ensure we get the rest of our money in all this chaos?’

  King Ravn Asharson stared around him like a man woken from a sleepwalk. ‘Why have you brought me here?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s Southeye?’

  ‘I fear the Earl had inescapable business elsewhere,’ Mam said cheerfully. ‘So we’ve brought you to this fine gentleman instead.’

  The Lord of Forent gestured for the northern king to take a seat. As Joz appeared in the doorway with the Rosa Eldi slung over his shoulder he said sharply, ‘Stay outside, you, with the Footloose whore. I need the King’s mind focused.’

  Mam nodded. Joz winked. ‘She’s a rare one, this, Ravn. I can’t say I blame you.’ And he ducked his seven-foot frame out of the pavilion.

  As soon as he felt he had the King’s undivided attention, the Lord of Forent reached into a small drawer in the table, extracted something from it, and placed a small marquetry box on the table between himself and Ravn Asharson. ‘Open it,’ he said.

  With a frown, Ravn picked it up. He examined it for some moments before finding the secret mechanism. Part of the box sprang open and he stared inside. The Istrian lord pushed a candlestick across the table. ‘In case you need a little more light,’ he said helpfully.

  Ravn closed the box. His face looked drawn. ‘Where did you get this?’

  Rui Finco smiled. ‘Shall we say, a family connection?’ He held Ravn’s gaze intently.

  From the other side of the pavilion, Mam watched the interplay between the nobles with growing interest. Seen in profile, she noticed for the first time, they shared a certain resemblance, though the Lord of Forent had several years on the northern king. Similar reputations, too. Rui Finco had no wife, but it was said he’d spawned a hundred children, that in a short time he’d have bred his own private army. She narrowed her eyes and watched Ravn Asharson consider possibilities and consequences, alarm gathering about him like a stormcloud.

  ‘Who else knows of this?’

  The Lord of Forent dropped his voice. ‘I’m so glad I haven’t had to spell out the whole sorry tale,’ he said. ‘Unpleasant times . . . Let me see: your father of course, Falla rest his soul; my father, too: though being a proud man he took the secret to his grave. Not before he’d roasted a few hundred nomad magic-makers, however . . .’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘A small and trusted consortium of my peers . . .’

  ‘You bastard.’

  Rui Finco laughed. ‘An interesting choice of phrase!’ He paused. ‘And of course your lady mother. I’m sure if you ask her about it when you return she’ll be delighted to tell you all. Such a burden to carry for what – twenty-three years? Hard on her to be barren as the Bone Quarter and have to accept another’s child as her own. Discretion is a marvellous thing in a woman,’ he added, raising his voice for the mercenary leader’s benefit. ‘And I shall pay you for yours, madam, shortly. But first King Ravn has a certain document to sign.’ He unrolled a parchment and held it out for scrutiny. ‘I think the rights to half the goods you bring back through the Ravenway a fair trade for my continued silence, do you not, my lord king’? Though I would be curious to watch the repercussions in your kingdom were your true parentage to be revealed.’ He stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘I have heard the bloodlines of Eyra are much vaunted: how fascinating it would be to match the shock and bloodshed that would surely ensue were it to be revealed that Queen Auda is not, in actual fact, your mother.’

  Ravn paled. ‘My father told me this before he died: but who else would believe you?’ He threw the parchment down. ‘You know I will never sign this.’ The light had come back into his eye.

  The Lord of Forent’s smile widened. ‘If you do not, I shall merely have this good lady run you through where you sit and dump your cadaver in some conveniently compromising location—’

  There was a rumpus outside the tent, followed by a shriek of female outrage. A moment later, a woman with long tousled hair came stumbling in at such speed it suggested a hand had helped her on her way.

  The candlelight illumined a round, ruddy face and golden hair with the faintest tinge of green to it.

  ‘Ah yes, the lovely Lady Jenna,’ Rui Finco said carelessly. He rose to his feet and swept her a bow. ‘Welcome, my dear.’ He regarded Ravn’s confusion with amusement. ‘Jenna is going to make a prolonged visit to Forent as my guest,’ he said smilingly. ‘To ensure her good father’s cooperation, though Falla knows I’ve already paid him a more than decent sum.’

  ‘I am not!’ Jenna cried hotly.

  ‘Shut her up,’ Rui Finco said to Mam.

  Mam made a gap-toothed grimace at Jenna. ‘You choose, my dear. Shut your hole or I’ll be forced to make you shut it.’

  Jenna quailed.

  ‘Good girl.’

  The Lord of Forent turned back to the northern king. ‘Now then, my lord, the document.’ He took a quill and inkpot from the table’s drawer.

  ‘And if we fail to negotiate the passage to the Far West?’

  Lord Rui Finco shrugged. ‘We shall have to come to some other arrangement.’

  A slave appeared at the door. ‘My lord Varyx, sir,’ he announced, and the thin Istrian noble stepped through the entrance, ran his eye over the occupants of the room and laughed. ‘Excellent, Rui. We shall be as rich as Rahai!’ He nodded to the northern king. ‘King Ravn, my honour entirely. Delighted to see you have so sensibly acceded to our scheme. Shall I act as witness?’ He leaned over the table to peer at the parchment.

  Ravn Asharson looked the southern lord up and down, his features as still as stone. Then he smiled. He nodded to Lord Varyx in turn. And then he pushed the document aside. Just as Varyx had started to frown, there came a sudden flurry of motion. The table went over, the inkpot flew through the air, and a moment later a gleaming swordpoint had appeared under Rui Finco’s chin. Ravn’s hand was on the hilt. Lord Varyx stared down at his empty scabbard like a simpleton. ‘Falla’s tits!’ he exclaimed.

  Without taking his eyes off the Lord of Forent, Ravn retrieved the marquetry box with his free hand and slipped it into his robe.

  ‘Do something, woman!’ Rui Finco screeched at the mercenary leader, all sang-froid gone. ‘I’ll pay you a bonus!’

  ‘I’ll double whatever he owes you,’ Ravn grinned at Mam.

  She laughed. ‘Three times!’ she cried.

  Ravn’s eyes shone. ‘One of Finn Larson’s finest ships,’ he countered, ‘and enough to buy yourself a crew: a king’s word on it.’

  Mam leered. ‘Done!’

  ‘When we’re done here, take the girl back to her old man,’ Ravn ordered. To Jenna he said kindly, ‘You will tell your father I know about his treacherous arrangement with the old enemy, but that there will now be a new one.’

  Jenna, flustered and tongue-tied in the presence of her idol, merely nodded and blushed a deep scarlet.

  To the Istrian lords, Ravn inclined his head. ‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, pressing the sword a little harder against Rui Finco’s windpipe. A thin line of red flowered along the blade. ‘Good Forent steel,’ he mused. ‘It would be most ironic were you to meet your end thus. But I’ll not be called kin-slayer.’ He withdrew the blade, tossed it lightly to the mercenary leader, then leapt over the fallen table and thence to the exit, noting with some satisfaction as he did so how the spilled ink had entirely spoiled Lord Varyx’s fine
silk cloak. ‘Watch them for ten minutes,’ he said to Mam, ‘enough time for me to get my bride safely to the ships.’

  Mam switched the Forent blade to her left hand, drew her own sword with her right and regarded the Istrian lords gleefully.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Which one of you’s first?’

  Out in the chill night, Fent Aranson ran swiftly and silently between the booths. By following the mercenaries to the southern lord’s pavilion he overheard a conversation not meant for any Eyran’s ears. His mind was in turmoil. Finn Larson a traitor to his country: it made his blood boil. It was not just that the shipmaker had been selling his finest vessels to the Istrian Empire: in doing so, he was selling every advantage the north had ever had over the old enemy – their mastery of the oceans, and the means with which to explore them. The Ravenway, he thought furiously, that was their goal, the greedy bastards. The Ravenway, that wonderful, mysterious ocean-passage to the fabled Far West: the Ravenway, that haunted the dreams of every red-blooded, sea-going Eyran. How could Finn Larson betray us all so? He had Katla’s finest blade in his hand. He had used the pommel; now he meant to use the blade.

  By the time Ravn exited the Lord of Forent’s pavilion, he found Doc clutching his head and wandering about as if in a daze. Joz Bearhand lay on the ground with blood seeping from a wound on his temple. But the Rosa Eldi had vanished.

  The fire had run amok and was threatening to consume everything in its path.

  ‘We must leave this place!’ the pale man said. He clutched at Lord Tycho’s sleeve urgently. The Gathering had gone from celebration to what seemed instant riot in a way he simply could not comprehend. Such violence, such chaos. His head reeled. He remembered the outbreak that had engulfed the nomad stalls, resulting in old Hiron’s death, but that had been a mere brawl in comparison to this savage tumult. And the smoke! His eyes were watering so hard he could barely make out the Istrian lord’s expression as he made his plea. ‘If we get out of here,’ he advised desperately, ‘I can fetch her back for you.’

  At that, Tycho Issian gripped the map-seller by the arm and tugged him through the crowd. ‘You will,’ he said grimly. ‘By the Goddess you will or I will spit you myself.’ There was too much activity up on the dais in front of them: pulling Virelai along with him, Tycho made for a different exit. ‘This way!’ He looked back to make sure the map-seller had heard him, and saw that a great crest of flame had run up the central mast-pillar and was even now dancing amid the ropes that held the whole thing together. ‘Hurry!’

  Tycho shoved aside a weeping girl crying out for her father, trod firmly upon a man who had dropped in front of him, coughing weakly, and headed inexorably onward. The map-seller stopped to wait for the fallen to regain their feet, then was dragged off his own by Tycho’s insistent hauling. Stumbling over the bodies, his mouth open in a silent wail, he found he had no choice but to follow. As they neared the exit, the pile of bodies and those struggling to surmount them grew higher. Ruthless to the bone, the Lord of Cantara removed the ceremonial knife from his belt and plunged it into the kidneys of a woman in front of him who was scrabbling ineffectually at the obstacle. ‘Get . . . out . . . of . . . the . . . way!’ Each pause punctuated by a stab. Though the knife might have been designed purely for ornamental purposes, the blade small and less than razor-sharp, in Tycho Issian’s desperate hands it was as deadly as any combat dagger. The woman, without even a moan, slithered away underfoot. A man caught the blade in his throat as he turned to protest. The hot gush of blood spattered Virelai’s face. He tried to scream, but found his lungs so full of smoke he could not.

  ‘Climb, damn you!’ the southern lord was shrieking at him. ‘Get up there!’ He trod on the dead woman and hauled the map-seller up by an arm, then set his shoulder under the pale man and launched him up the pile.

  Virelai found himself falling; first up, then, at some speed, down. Cool air rushed past his skin, then there was the impact of hard ground under his back, and suddenly he was outside in the night, and the sounds and smells of horror from the place he had been seemed to have receded so far as to belong to another world. When he realised he was still alive and relatively undamaged, he opened his eyes and looked up to find the distant stars twinkling down upon him. The voices, loud at first on his contact with the ground, receded at last, as if appeased by his slowing heartbeat. He lay there for some time with his mouth opening and closing like a beached fish, and then there came a sharp pain under his ribs.

  ‘Get up, damn you!’

  The southern lord drew his foot back, and Virelai watched it coming towards him as if time had slowed, not understanding the purpose of it till it struck him again, at which point he yelped and scrambled to his feet. By the time he had come upright, Tycho Issian was flourishing the little knife at him. Blood glinted on its tip.

  ‘I have saved your life, you miserable turd, and I’m not even sure why I’ve done so, considering that you have tried to dupe me into buying something it was clearly not within your power to sell; and I am less than convinced by your vaunted ability to get the woman back.’ He took a step towards the map-seller, the blade trembling with his rage.

  ‘My lord—’

  Virelai knew real fear now. He began to regret ever leaving Sanctuary: for all his faults, the Master had never treated him as ill as this. He willed himself to coherence. ‘I can do magic!’ he reminded his captor. ‘I was apprenticed to a great mage, from whom I learned many mysteries.’ This was overstating the matter, admittedly, but as long as he had the cat, it would be almost true . . . ‘I can trace the Rosa Eldi and by spell draw her back to me.’

  Tycho scoffed. ‘Like you did just now?’

  ‘My lord, it was all so confusing: I could not focus. Just bring me to my wagon, somewhere quiet—’

  ‘And what about my daughter?’

  Virelai frowned. The daughter. What was the daughter to do with him?

  ‘Can you bring her back, too?’

  She had been taken by others, he recalled as through a mist . . . ‘I . . . can try, my lord.’

  ‘If you can return them both to me, sir magician,’ the Istrian said with venomous sarcasm, ‘then I will spare your life.’

  Virelai gulped air. He tried to concentrate on the problem. The scrying bowl; some water; he might at least espy the girl’s whereabouts. As for the Rosa Eldi—

  ‘You must permit me to fetch . . . certain items from my wagon,’ he said. ‘Then I will do what I can.’

  Armed bands roamed the fairground like packs of hunting dogs. Tycho Issian and Virelai passed a pitched battle between a group of Eyrans and some southern youths, but in the darkness it was hard to tell which side was winning.

  Further on into the northern quarter, all was havoc. People were running and shouting: there was smoke and fire everywhere.

  ‘She’s not in here!’ came an Istrian voice. ‘Nor here,’ came another. ‘Burn the ones you’ve checked!’

  A tall dark boy in orange came skidding around a corner, torch in hand and was soon joined by another. Tycho thought he recognised them. Then some Eyran women came running out, armed with cooking implements. One of them belted the second lad with an iron cauldron on a chain that she whirled over her head like a mace; the next wielded a huge ladle. One of the Istrians went down with a split head; the other threw down his torch and took to his heels. Further along, they were forced to dive aside as a string of horses thundered past, whinnying in terror. No one seemed to be driving them. Past the end of the Eyran quarter they came into that part of the fairground designated for the nomads’ use. Here it was quieter far, and darker, too. Virelai stared around. More than half the wagons were gone, and in the distance he could just make out the tail end of a line of vehicles and animals snaking away into the foothills of the Skarn Mountains. Wares had been cast aside in the rush to leave: pottery lay abandoned, fabrics trampled under yeka hooves; a puppet-theatre and its painted backdrop depicting the famed caves of gold lay forlorn and smashed beside an overtur
ned cart. Virelai regarded it, head on one side, and a strange little smile touched his lips.

  ‘Don’t delay, you fool,’ Tycho growled, shoving the map-seller in the back.

  The wagon he had shared for these past months with the Rosa Eldi and the Master’s familiar stood isolated, where before it had been hemmed in, and his yekas were gone. Something died quietly inside him. It was not that he had formulated any specific plan for escaping the southern lord; but without his animals even that option was closed to him now. But at least no one appeared to have tampered with the wagon, for the door was still latched as he had left it. ‘I would ask you to remain here, sir,’ he said to Tycho. ‘While I pack my requisites.’

  The Lord of Cantara nodded impatiently. Virelai opened the door a crack and slipped inside, shutting it quickly behind him. Inside, it was dark, and he felt the cat’s eyes upon him seconds before he saw the beast. A movement on the divan betrayed its position. He watched as its outline stirred, then saw the wary green light of its gaze. ‘Now, Bëte,’ he said softly, but with despair already rising, ‘nice Bëte, come with Virelai, who will do you no harm.’ He picked up the woven-reed box he had made for the creature all those months ago when they had at last struck land, and placed it gingerly on the couch. Then he opened the flap. ‘Bëte, my little dove, my pigeon, my sweetling . . .’

  The cat purred, and he realised with some surprise that he had used the Master’s voice.

  Bëte rose from her resting place, stretched first her back legs, then her front legs, and then with the perversity that is the essence of the feline, strolled over to the box and sat down in it. She looked up at Virelai expectantly, then started to wash her face.

  Virelai stared at her as if he could not believe his good fortune, then remembering what he was about he reached out quickly and snapped the catch shut. Moving methodically about the wagon, he gathered his most necessary belongings – his herbs, including the container of brome – though he had no confidence he would ever see the Rose of the World again; the little grimoires he had made for himself, the few spells he had rescued from the Master’s efforts to destroy them; a sharp knife he suspected he might need. The gold and the maps he ignored for the worthless rubbish they were; but he managed to retrieve his scrying bowl and a few items of clothing . . . He paused. Draped over the back of the wagon’s single chair lay a slip of silk. He picked it up, held it to his face. He ran it across his skin with his eyes closed and inhaled deeply. He could smell her. He could smell her . . .