Kirbyr's grip loosened. Ingharr took the glass from Taziar and studied it at arm's length, then immediately before his face. He spoke harsh, wordless noises, and the rankstone glowed a brilliant, opaque yellow.
Taziar held his breath, hoping the spell would not reveal the owner of the stone.
Ingharr seemed satisfied. "It's a rankstone. Apparently, you've stored most of your life force in it which explains why I can't see your aura." He offered the stone to Taziar. "What's your name, boy?"
Taziar accepted the glass piece and placed it in his pocket. The first Scandinavian name to come to his mind belonged to a barbarian prince in Sweden. "Manebjorn. Please, master. I have to go. I've obviously wandered into the wrong garden. Where can I find Mistress Astryd?"
"There." Ingharr pointed toward the center of the school grounds. "Leave here through the gate. Follow the road straight. Turn right after the second building, and you'll find the entrance to Astryd's garden on your left."
"Thank you." Taziar trotted down the pathway. The rapid motion jogged pain through his side, but he wanted to leave the garden before Ingharr found more errors in his story.
"Manebjorn, stop!"
Reluctantly, Taziar turned.
Ingharr came up beside him. "Don't move, young fool.
You nearly ran into another of my wards. Didn't the arch-master teach you how to avoid them?"
Taziar shook his head, covering his ignorance as well as he could. "He said so much, master. I can't recall."
"Then I will remind you." Comfortably, Ingharr slipped back into his teaching role. "The wards become visible if you don't look at them. What do you see before you?''
Taziar stared. "A dirt roadway, master," he admitted.
"Now." Ingharr inclined his head toward the center of the garden. "Look there."
"I see a shabby-looking statue."
"Hey!" Kirbyr protested the insult to what was, apparently, his magical artwork.
Ingharr loosed a snort which Taziar suspected was a politely suppressed laugh. "What do you see here?" He indicated the roadway.
Gaze fixed on the stone figure, Taziar studied the path from the edge of his vision. Just before him, glimmering, narrow bands crossed the walkway in an intertwining pattern. Smaller, less dramatic wards hovered throughout the garden. Taziar recalled the difficulties he had had locating the magics on the wall stones. Now, it all made sense. He knew Ingharr's revelation would serve him well. "Thank you, Master Ingharr," he said with genuine gratitude and left the garden as quickly as possible.
After Taziar's run-in with the Dragonrank mages, dodging spear-toting sentries in the roadways seemed like play. Under normal circumstances, he would have enjoyed the simple challenges eluding guards demanded. But the left half of his body alternated between numbness and excruciating pain, making his usually careful dodges seem unprofessional and clumsy. The pathways outside the gardens contained no magical wards, and Taziar suspected the Dragonmages did not permit the guardsmen in their private gardens. That would explain why the sorcerers trap their gardens so thoroughly, and yet the sentries can still move freely.
Four flawless, clean, stone walls enclosed Astryd's residence. Taziar found the gate where Ingharr had told him to look for it. But a complicated ward filled the entry way like a huge, glimmering spider web. It seemed odd to Taziar that anyone would create a gateway, only to render it unusable. As he clambered painfully over the granite wall, he wondered how Astryd entered and left her own garden.
Once inside, Taziar studied the garden from the corners of his eyes and memorized the pattern of Astryd's wards. Skirting them, he followed a winding pathway to Astryd's home. The soil beds on either side sported plump vegetables of varieties Taziar had never seen. He paid them little heed. Born and raised in a crowded city, he knew nothing of the farmer's livelihood. Cullinsberg's food supply came from trade with neighboring towns, hunting, and the bakers' skills with grains from the city's holdings.
At the center of Astryd's courtyard, Taziar paused to examine its single statue. An alabaster horse supported a rider dressed in a simple tunic and breeks. A wine glass in the figure's hand spouted water into a basin on the ground between the animal's dancing forelegs. Taziar could not imagine a carving tool which could have rendered the fountain's surface as smooth as it appeared. But what impressed him most was the rider's features. The face bore a striking likeness to his own. He stared, wondering if this was Astryd's idea of a tribute. Though, surely, she never expected me to see it. Flattered, he continued toward Astryd's building.
As Taziar reached the doorway, anticipation filled him with eager excitement. More than a month had passed since he had last seen Astryd, but he recalled her features as if she had departed only yesterday. She stood smaller than him, an asset few women and fewer men shared. She sported the taut, lithe frame of a young swordsman or a dancer. She had a boldness and cunning beyond that of any person Taziar had known since his days with the street gang. Though plain, her face was in its own way attractive; it had become the standard by which he measured beauty.
As Taziar raised his hand to tap on Astryd's door, doubts assailed him. What if she's forgotten me? What if time has allowed her to realize it was her ranks tone, not
my charm, which made her fall for me? He rejected his questions as they arose. She knows that already, and she claimed it didn't matter. And her fountain would suggest she still cares for me. He knocked as his fears of rejection turned his thoughts to raving paranoia. Unless she uses my likeness for target practice.
Before Taziar could pursue the idea, the door swung open. Astryd stood in the doorway. She wore a faded pink sleeping gown which in no way revealed the gentle curves of her figure. Her blonde hair hung in tangled disarray. As she stared, her eyes lost the glaze of slumber and filled with open astonishment. Her jaw sagged.
Taziar spoke with matter-of-fact politeness. "Good evening, Astryd."
"Shadow," she whispered. Suddenly, she caught him by the arm and jerked him into the hallway.
Caught by surprise, Taziar staggered. He heard the door slam shut behind him as Astryd seized him around the waist and half dragged him past several curtained or open entry ways and into a room at the farther end of the hall. Again, he heard a wooden door close. Astryd swept him into a hug.
For some time, they clung in a silent embrace. Astryd's closeness filled Taziar with warm desire. He caught her lips in a passionate kiss, assessing the layout of the room over her shoulder. Behind Astryd, a bed lay, rumpled from sleep. Closed wooden trunks lined the walls on either side, and a shelf at the farther end held a jumble of bric-a-brac, including a transparent pitcher filled with water. Beside it, an oil lamp bathed the room with light.
The bedroom, Taziar guessed. How convenient. He maneuvered Astryd down against the wrinkled sheets and blankets.
Astryd resisted, scrambling out from beneath him to face him from across the bed. "Shadow, stop it! Not now. We need to talk. Why? How?"
Taziar smiled. Here with Astryd, all his pain seemed unimportant. "Could you be more specific?" he asked.
She cocked her head and placed her hands on her hips with mock sternness, studying him in the lamplight.
"How did you get by…" She broke off with a gasp. "Shadow, you're hurt."
"Just a scratch," Taziar lied, dropping his left arm into the shadow of his body.
"Take off your shirt."
Not wanting to worry Astryd, Taziar protested. "But I don't need…"
"Take it off, Taziar Medakan. Or, I'll rip it off you."
"That sounds like fun." Taziar joked, trying to downplay his injuries. The entire left side of his body throbbed, and the exertion of climbing and running had begun to wear on him. Obediently, he removed his ruined shirt. The linen scratched the blisters on his arm and ribs, reawakening the sharp agony of his burns. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he sat on the edge of the bed.
Astryd took a seat beside him and reached for the raw and swollen areas of his skin.
&
nbsp; Taziar flinched away.
"Just a scratch," Astryd mimicked in a wry singsong. "So why did you try to jump off the bed when I looked at it?"
Taziar said nothing. A half blind beggar could see the jagged red burn which ran from his shoulder nearly to his hip, splotched yellow-white with fluid-filled blisters.
"Hold still. I can make it feel better." Gently, Astryd took Taziar's arm, inflicting a fresh wave of pain. She ran her ringers across his shoulder, her touch cold as metal in winter. "I hope this wasn't caused by one of my wards. You know, Shadow, if you'd come through the gate, rather than over it, you would have tripped my signal spell. I could have escorted you around my defenses. Why do you always have to do things the hard way?"
That explains the sorceries across her entryway, Taziar mused. Astryd's caress soothed the ache of his wound, and he felt more comfortable as her hand slid along his arm. "It was Ingharr's ward. And while I'm thinking of it, return this to Kirbyr when you get a chance." He retrieved the glass rankstone with his uninjured hand and tossed it to the balled coverlet.
Astryd followed the stone's flight. "A Dragonmage would sooner give up his eyes than his rankstone. How did you get it?"
Where Astryd had touched Taziar, the blisters disappeared and the flush waned. "Kirbyr didn't give it up willingly." At Astryd's horrified glance, he clarified. "Don't worry. I didn't hurt him. I stole it." While Astryd inched her healing magics across Taziar's puckered skin, he described his experiences infiltrating the school and its protections.
Astryd listened with rapt attention.
Taziar finished as Astryd ran her sorceries along his side. "… But I can't understand why Ingharr lets Kirbyr get away with his annoying, childish whining."
Astryd smiled knowingly. "Sometimes we do spoil the glass-ranks." Her voice went soft.
Taziar realized Astryd's healing magics had weakened her, and guilt twinged through him. Apparently, the spell was a difficult and taxing one; it had significantly drained her life energy.
"As you know, only one eligible jade-rank can advance to garnet each year." Astryd met Taziar's gaze, her fingertips resting against him. "The others must abandon any further education here. Despite the law forbidding Dragonmages lesser than garnet from killing other Dragonmages, the competition gets evil and fierce."
Taziar nodded. One such conflict had brought him and Astryd together.
"Once garnet, a Dragonrank mage loses all need to compete, but the rivalry has often become ingrained. So the schoolmaster decided to assign glass-rank apprentices to each garnet."
Taziar grimaced. "Sounds lethal for the glass-ranks."
"Doesn't it?" Astryd's fingers circled Taziar's ribs. "You'd be surprised. The time demanded by our training prevents nearly everyone from having a family. The glass-ranks, especially the young ones, become like our own children. We protect them, teach them, and boast about their abilities. It's a proud moment when one's own apprentice becomes a jade-rank graduate. It redirects the competition. Of course, we're not allowed to participate in their rivalry in any way."
Astryd continued. "Apparently, Kirbyr has become Ingharr's prodigy. Besides, Shadow. There are other reasons to tolerate some glass-rank foolishness. Someday, one of Ingharr's apprentices may become more powerful, and of higher rank, than him. Ingharr wouldn't want his student to recall the time his master punished him for silliness by holding him underwater until he lost consciousness." She considered. "Though I doubt Kirbyr could ever become more powerful than Ingharr."
Astryd's movements grew sluggish. Her eyelids drooped.
Noting Astryd's somnolence, Taziar redirected the conversation to the school's defenses. He held no illusions that his escape would be much easier than his break-in, even with the knowledge Ingharr had imparted. "You once told me a Dragonmage's worst enemy is another Dragonmage. But it seems to me an enemy wizard could find a way over the walls, if he didn't already live here. And he would surely know how to avoid the wards." Nothing remained of Taziar's burn but a faded pink scar and an occasional flattened blister. Not wishing to weaken Astryd further, he reached for his shirt before she could continue her healing.
"The school's actually far better protected against sorcerers than thieves. We have a law against Dragonmages at the school killing one another, and the schoolmaster has ways of finding and dealing with criminals. Not very pretty, I'm afraid. Magic, by its nature, functions best against creations or users of magic. The ward which harmed you might have killed Kirbyr. And most of our spells work only when used for or against sorcerers. For example, an invisible barrier lines our outer walls and forms a ceiling over the school. Any attempt to pass through by magical means would result in the sorcerer's death. It's a powerful spell, the result of years of high rank cooperation. No one has managed to create anything similar to use against nonmagical creatures; if possible at all, such a spell would prove far more challenging to invent or to cast."
Carefully, Taziar pulled on his shirt.
"For a sorcerer, the only safe entrance is our front gate. And we have protections there, too. You, however, blundered unscathed through wards which would have killed the most powerful diamond-rank master."
Taziar mulled over Astryd's explanation. Though confident of his own abilities, he was not arrogant enough to believe no other thief could have sneaked into the Dragonrank school. Still, the mundane and magical defenses would have thwarted all but a handful of men and women. Of those capable of penetrating the training grounds, few or none would have good cause. By Astryd's descriptions, any mage above glass-rank could defeat all but the most skilled and cunning warrior. It seems strange that I could survive magics which would kill a sorcerer. Yet, somehow, it seemed appropriate, part of the natural scheme of the gods to assure mankind's survival. Most societies had some moratorium against soldiers killing civilians; and, aside from the odd plague, fatal diseases were always rarer than those the body could overcome.
Astryd stretched, arching her arms overhead.
Taziar watched her, awed as always by her beauty. Fatigue had slowed her words and movements, but it diminished none of her natural grace and charm. Staring, he fell in love with her again. Jealousy of the Dragonrank school which held her as student and prisoner stirred within him. He scooted closer to her, aware they had whiled away precious time deliberating matters of no importance. He also knew why they had kept their conversation to trivia. The Dragonrank school's defenses, the wards in Astryd's courtyard, the relationship between Ingharr and Kirbyr, all kept Astryd and Taziar from addressing the single issue they needed to discuss: themselves. Now, Taziar stared at his feet, fighting the wellspring of emotion Astryd's closeness inspired. In his life, he had made her only two vows. He had already fulfilled the first; he had found a way to enter the forbidden school grounds to see her again. He had also sworn never to interfere with her Dragonrank training. At the time, he meant both with equal assurance. He knew he could no more deny her the right to her power and schooling than she could deny him the reckless thefts and escapades which kept his life interesting. Yet here in her presence, his good intentions seemed to crumble. "I have to go soon," he mumbled, afraid of what he might say. "I'll see you next week?"
"No." Astryd's voice went firm, but her expression betrayed a hint of grief. "By morning, Ingharr will know we have no new glass-rank named 'Manebjorn.' He'll change security. If you're caught, they'll kill you… and perhaps me, as well. Shadow, I love you. But you mustn't ever return. When vacation time comes, I'll find you."
Taziar met Astryd's moist, blue eyes, and she looked away quickly. Her welling tears hurt him worse than her rejection. He caught her hand and thoughtlessly mouthed the words he had promised himself never to say to her. "Astryd, marry me." Even as he spoke, he knew he should not have forced her into such a decision.
Her grip tightened about his. She turned back to him, her face now composed. "You know I can't."
"I'm sorry." Taziar hid disappointment behind humor. "I went wildly insane, but I think I have
it under control now."
Astryd's forehead crinkled thoughtfully. "Unless…" She dismissed the idea with a grin. "My turn to go insane."
Taziar leaped on the opening. "Unless?"
"Unless nothing. I made a mistake."
"Unless," Taziar repeated relentlessly. "I distinctly heard you say 'unless.' "
"All right." Astryd went defensive. I said 'unless.' I made a mistake. I had a thought, but I realized it would be impossib…" Astryd broke off suddenly, her expression pained; apparently she knew Taziar too well.
Excitement suffused Taziar. Despite the trials of his break-in and a day and a night without sleep, he felt suddenly wide awake. The lure of a task deemed impossible inspired him every bit as much as the chance to marry Astryd. "Explain. Let me decide if it's impossible."
Astryd sighed resignedly. "Very well. But only because I know you won't leave until I do. If you stay here much longer, we'll get caught and killed." She squeezed his fingers affectionately, which softened the reprimand. "In order for me to gain rank, I have to remain at the school. But the attainment of power and ability requires only practice, initiative, and guidance. I could leave the school and still reach my potential if a high ranking Dragonmage would accept me as an apprentice."
Taziar tapped his thumb on his knee as he considered. "You'd always be garnet-rank?"
"True. But that doesn't matter. The rank itself is only a symbol. A king without a crown is still a king. The color of the gem in my staff doesn't matter if I've gained the knowledge of a master."
It sounded too simple to Taziar. "So all I'd need to do is find a Dragonrank outside the school willing to train you? That doesn't sound impossible."
Astryd drifted to her back and stared at the ceiling. "It would have to be a sorcerer of ultimate advancement, a diamond-rank master or a sapphire-rank, at least. I know of only one of each, siblings locked in a bitter war who would have better things to do than concern themselves with a Dragonmage of comparatively insignificant experience. Bramin, the diamond-rank, would gleefully torture you to death for no cause. Silme might listen, but her powers and attention are stretched far enough trying to protect the world from Bramin's evil. Her assistant takes a dim view of anyone he considers incompetent."
Dragonrank Master Page 10