Hearts of Tabat

by Cat Rambo

  “It is a clear night,” Fewk said. “Look! Hijae will be out soon, its face half-masked.”

  The formality of its tone struck him as even odder. “What is it?” he demanded again, but the Gryphon ignored him, staring up into the sky.

  “There are fireworks again tonight,” he said. “Few will dare to brave a sky full of gunpowder. Look how low the clouds hang! They will have to aim them carefully so they can be seen below the clouds.”

  The clouds were few and scarce, but hung like agonized, flayed sheep in the rising red moonlight.

  Something was terribly wrong. The muscles jerked and spasmed beneath his touch. He closed his eyes and tried to summon a healing charm, but whatever roiled in the Gryphon’s blood drank it down and emerged the stronger for it.

  Fewk lowered his head from the sky and butted him in the side with it, a gesture of impatient love. “It’s time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Let me loose for a moment, that I can stretch my wings in the moonlight.”

  Sebastiano hesitated. It was against all his training.

  “The pain is in my wings, I must stretch them!” the Gryphon insisted.

  He knew what Fewk was asking. This was how old Gryphons died. Flying up and up, until their wings could carry them no further. But he pretended not to understand.

  “A firework could break a wing, or make you falter and fall,” he said.

  Fewk was breathing now in quick short pants, the trembling in his wings more apparent.

  “The pain is not in my wings,” he whispered. “The pain is in my heart, and it will give way soon. I have not flown freely beneath the three Moons for decades. Give me this last thing, my …” His voice faltered, then strengthened. “My friend. My Human friend.”

  I cannot bear this, he thought. Visions of the scene at Lilia’s, then Marta’s swam through his head. This life has held enough pain lately. I cannot bear it.

  But I will. For my friend.

  He touched the bridle and it fell away. Fewk took three quick steps and launched himself upward like a passage of birdsong so sweet and sure it cannot go anywhere but into the sky.

  Sebastiano listened to the heavy flap, and heard it falter, and flutter, and then the silence of the fall, the thud of the landing.

  Weeping, he went out into the courtyard.

  HE KNEW THIS: the salve that had killed his friend had come from Murga. It had been meant for Sebastiano, but that didn’t matter. It had killed Fewk.

  The Sphinx would know what Murga was up to. He found her where he had seen her so often, drowsing on the secluded landing that the students avoided. She lay in a great trapezoid of sunlight, centered on her form, and every inch of her was drenched in sunlight. He came down the steps lightly, and did not think she had heard him until the great eyes opened and stared at him. Her woman’s torso was larger than that of a regular woman by half again, and the muscles of her bare arms and shoulders rippled like great serpents. He would not want to see her fighting another Beast, let alone a Human. There was savagery in Sphinxes.

  That was their nature.

  And this one, that they had thought governed, gentled. Wound about with ropes of magic, bound to the College’s welfare. Unable to work against the College’s good.

  How had she managed to subvert that? Had Murga helped, somehow? Or had she learned it on her own, the result of living among Mages, hearing the drift of lecture after lecture on magical theory. How much of it must she know by now?

  Beasts could not wield magic—they were magic.

  But was it possible that a Beast, raised among magic users for so long, could learn enough to mimic how a Human wielded that force? Would the force care who spun the spell? Sebastiano did not think so. In working magic, he had never sensed a presence of the sort some described, and he rather thought that such descriptions were the result of people persuading themselves that they had experienced something (or possibly even spinning outright falsehoods in order to seem important) rather than any actual experience.

  He thought of all the times he had seen her dozing in the grass, beneath classroom windows.

  Not dozing.

  Listening.

  That realization made him falter. Was it possible she was dangerous?

  Fear stiffened him.

  She had been watching his face all this time. “Yes,” she said. “You should have thought of that before.” Her voice was careless. Amused.

  But he was a trained Mage, and he feared very little from Beasts, due to Letha’s training. No creature was invincible, not even Dragons.

  The Sphinx rose, all in one motion, lazily graceful, with an edge of look how prettily I will kill you somehow contained in her smile’s tilt. He stood five steps above her and she shifted to face him, languidly stretching out each paw. If she had been a cat, he thought, she would have begun washing her hindquarters at this point.

  The thought made him smile. It was clear she did not like the expression on his face.

  “You have come to confront me,” she said. “To tame me. Contain me.” She laughed. “Do you really think that you can?”

  He shrugged at her, steeling his face back into boredom. “It will be an interesting challenge,” he drawled.

  The great eyes flashed in anger before she gave him a creamy smile. “Indeed, for you, perhaps,” she purred. “But I am very used to dealing with little Mages.”

  She thought he was here to capture her. That was the sort of thinking the College engaged in. Preserving knowledge, even when it came in Beast form. It was his duty not to destroy such valuable property.

  But he was Letha Silvercloth’s child and he was nothing if not pragmatic. He knew that sometimes you cut your losses and put a Beast down, before it could make those losses any greater.

  She was willing to kill. So was he.

  Her glance traveled past his shoulder. He rolled his eyes at the clumsy subterfuge, then heard Maz’s voice.

  “It’s no good. They’re on to you.”

  “Get away from here, boy,” the Sphinx snarled.

  Sebastiano relaxed his attention from her, let it follow her stare to Maz, who stood at the top of the landing.

  “Go fetch help,” he told the boy, but the boy paid him no more mind than a rock. Instead, he spoke again to the Sphinx.

  “You have been kind. If you stay, they’ll hurt you.”

  Her face inexplicably softened at the boy’s words. What sort of relationship had they had? It could not have been carnal, but had a motherless boy, a childless mother, connected with each other somehow?

  Touching, but not so touching that he did not seize advantage of the moment when it presented itself. She was looking at the boy and not at him.

  He could cast a magic to rouse the College, certainly, but who would get harmed in the struggle?

  Like the boy, who had moved past Sebastiano and stood face to face with her, close enough to touch.

  “You should go,” he repeated, his voice urgent.

  “Times are changing,” she said. “You should get away, little spy, scurry back with what you came for.”

  The boy’s eyes darted towards Sebastiano in a moment of panic.

  What was she saying? Or was it all just another trick, a way to put him off guard, to keep him from allying with the boy and overcoming her? Instead, he stepped forward, looking only at her, not at the boy.

  “Surrender,” he said, forcing confidence into the words.

  She angled her head, studying him, and he kept his face disinterested, as though it were no question who would win, if push came to shove. As though he had no fear anywhere in him, despite the quantity of it twisting at his guts.

  “You think you can stop Murga,” she said scornfully. “But even he answers to someone else, and you cannot stop her.”

  She snorted, and sprang, not at Sebastiano or the boy but up past them, moving up the staircase and out of sight around the corner of a building before either could react to the moment. Sebastiano had nev
er seen anything so fast. He thought to himself that he should be in no hurry to go after her, not with all that strength and speed, not to mention her innate magic.

  He turned to scowl at Maz. The boy drooped.

  “Why did you come here? What did you mean by what you said to her? Do you not know, boy, what trouble we shall both be in, because of all of this?”

  Maz’s eyes were wide. “She helped me in my studies,” he said faintly.

  “Are you a dunce, then, to need help in the same thing that all the rest of your schoolmates are able to master without trouble?”

  “It’s not like that!” Maz said. “It’s not like that at all. Maybe for you, if you were one of the smart ones. But most of them, they’re just muddling through. And everything is different here.”

  “Different than in the North? Magic is ever the same, lad, no matter where you are.”

  Maz closed his mouth.

  Sebastiano stared at him.

  The boy was the first to crack the silence. “So what are we to do?”

  “We will say the truth, that we came upon her, and she was able to get away before I had time to stop her.”

  “Where will she go? What if she hurts someone?”

  Where indeed would the Sphinx go? She was instantly recognizable, the only one of her kind in town, and people would note her passing. Would she try to escape from the city and if so, what route might she take? He pondered. She could be anywhere, using magic to hide herself.

  But the spells were limited and would only take her so far. Where would she go?

  The answer sprang into his mind so rapidly he knew it must be true.

  Where else would she have gone, but to the Circus of the Autumn Moon to shelter there with her Master, Murga? How many secrets of the College had she told Murga, how many pieces of magic had he stolen that way?

  The poison in the salve might have come from the College’s store of dangerous liquids, used with care in teaching. The Sphinx would have had access. Could easily learn what killed quickly and what did not.

  But when he got there, there was no sign of her and they told him Murga was gone already. To the Duke’s Occasion.

  Very well. Sebastiano would follow him there.

  CHAPTER 51

  Dismissed. No more last chances. No more hope.

  Lucy walked along, barely able to see the street for her tears. She hadn’t known—she still didn’t understand why Adelina, wonderful Adelina who had saved her from the tannery, would have turned on her this way. And now she was condemned back to the Temples.

  What was she to do?

  Did she have a choice? The streets had proven too inhospitable. At least at the Temples she’d be fed and warmed.

  She turned down Thimble Street, but even the windows of never-worn clothes and cloth failed to distract her from her misery.

  She heard the footsteps behind her as she turned into Stumble Lane but didn’t take much notice.

  “Lucy!”

  Maz, running to catch up.

  “I called out from the upper terrace but you didn’t hear me,” he panted.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said glumly.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sent to the Temples, to be a slave there.”

  “Well.” He considered. “They’re not really proper slaves, are they?”

  “Pretty much they are,” she retorted. “Tell me the difference.”

  A few blocks ahead, a lamplighter’s distant golden flicker moved from pole to pole. The shuttered houses here were set close together in precise, two-storied arrays. Only a few lights gleamed, scattered in arched lower windows. To the left loomed the high iron fence surrounding Piskie Wood, caging tree trunks damp with the same warm rain that slick-misted the cobblestones underfoot, part of the impossible Spring.

  The footsteps approached in a rush and hands grabbed her from both sides, each taking an upper arm and rushing her along, continuing her movement down the street. They had no trouble lifting her. Even for a thirteen-year-old, she was small.

  “Not a word, you, if you know what’s good for yeh,” one growled, his voice husky with tobacco and spirits. Canumbra! She hadn’t seen him since Eloquence had ordered him away. With Mamma dead, she’d thought she’d never see him again. He shifted his grip and something sharp prodded her ribs.

  “Hey!” Maz’s voice shouted beside her.

  “Egga’s wounds!” Legio said. She heard Maz’s yelp.

  They were running. Forced along, she half-lurched, half-flew, gasping for breath whenever her feet touched the ground. As they passed a house, curtains twitched aside and a woman looked out. For one horrified moment, their eyes met before Lucy was dragged on.

  “In here!” She was pulled into an alleyway. Pushed against the cold brick while the other man did the same with Maz.

  She would have paid more attention to his fate if it hadn’t been for her own problems. With expert quickness, the other man thrust a wadded rag into her mouth despite her struggles. He tied it in place before dropping a sack, smelling of burlap and horse manure, over her and hoisting her over his shoulder.

  “Got one.”

  “Yeah, an’ here’s the other one. Do we need them both?”

  “Grab it, Cap’s always wanting more canaries.”

  A house alarm’s vigorous clang came from somewhere and a woman shouted, “Guards, guards!”

  “Frith’s fingerlashings! Come on, this way.”

  She couldn’t free her arms, bound painfully to her sides, so tightly she could hardly breathe. She jounced on her captor’s bony shoulder, trying to work her jaws free.

  The shouting quieted behind them.

  She was thrown onto something. Helpless, impotent, she kicked out, colliding with a wooden wall. Straw itch overtook her and she sneezed despite the gag, half-retching as she fought the cloth in her mouth. A jolt as someone was thrown in beside her and the world rumbled into action.

  CHAPTER 52

  The vast ballroom was a dazzle of light from the aetheric chandeliers suspended overhead, a hubbub of conversation shaded on the western side of the room by the attempts of flute and guitars to entertain without being overly obtrusive.

  Beneath the center of the glare, Sebastiano saw Murga, more dapper than ever, speaking to the Duke.

  Sebastiano didn’t have the Duke’s ear, could not warn him of the plot. The two men walked together, trailed by a dog with brown liquid eyes, a puppy on a lead held by the Duke.

  Close enough to eavesdrop, he heard Murga say to the Duke, “One of the most charming things about our accommodations is one of the College’s marvels. It’s called the Great Hive.” His eyes traveled over the Duke’s shoulder to meet Sebastiano’s. “I will show it to you, later on.”

  He circulated, trying to think what to do.

  When he saw Adelina and Eloquence enter together, Sebastiano’s heart plummeted. In all his imaginings, he had never thought that she might bring the River Pilot here. The man was utterly out of his depth with all the nobility around him. Certainly he held himself gracefully enough—despite the awkward fit of his coat, which surely had been tailored for someone else originally, despite the newness of the cloth—but there a nervousness lurked at the back of his eyes that Sebastiano was a little glad to see. He also noted that the coat was last year’s style—the colors were a good half inch thicker now, at least among the truly style conscious, which was each and every person in this room. Style was about ways of spending money in lavish quantities while pretending that you had not, that you had made certain choices out of whim or coincidence. All in accordance with the Trade Gods.

  He took a step back, mingling with the crowd, when Adelina’s gaze swept his way. He had no need to make her feel sorry for him, any more than she did already. He felt self-pity clamp down on his shoulders, making them slump. Taking two glasses of wine from one of the circulating trays, he took them both out on the wide balcony and downed one quickly before turning his attention to the other. />
  “You had best pace yourself, my lord.” A voice from the shadows.

  He turned. Recognizing Ruhua, the Duke’s huntswoman, he held his glass up to her greeting. They had talked together more than once of Beasts. “Had I known you were out here, lady, I would have offered you that one.”

  She shook her head, stepping out a little so he could see her smile. The aetheric lights that ringed the balcony were a subtle design, not the great blaring lights of the Duke’s Plaza, but a softer illumination that flattered the harsh angles of her face as much as the smile did. “I set out on a sea journey in the morning, so I do not drink tonight, and eat but lightly.”

  “And hence, you lose half the joy of such occasions, for the wine is excellent,” he said. He took a sip and rolled it in his mouth, feeling silk and tannin and an undernote of pears. “From the Old Continent, the orchards of Talaferre. The trees there are nothing but ash; the world will not see this wine again.”

  She shrugged. “There are other joys of it.” He raised an eyebrow at her and she blushed. “I mean the music.”

  The blush enchanted Sebastiano. She was usually so blunt and bluff, so to-the-point that he found himself wanting to coax more of this uncharacteristic behavior out of her. He took a step closer. “The wind is sharp. Let me shelter you.”

  She tilted her chin up at him, considering him coolly, but the blush lingered. “You are most considerate.”

  Had that been the slightest waver in her voice? He felt like a cat stalking a mouse, the deliciousness of the hunt even more important than the eventual savor of the prey. Rather than step closer, he simply leaned.

  He laid aside all thoughts of Murga and the Duke. All thoughts of Adelina and Eloquence. Here was a possible bride, and one he could choose for himself. He would make this choice, make this moment his, a triumph rather than ashes. Adelina’s face flitted through his head and he forced it away, and marshaled his will.

  This is one of the most important occasions of my life, he deliberately thought. This will be a moment I remember all my life. I have decided; this is how it will be.