Striking Chains

by Kris Schnee

  Julia spoke once they were outside, being escorted by the guard who'd caught Dominic. "I'm a respectable person and I ended up in a cell!"

  "You didn't do anything wrong. I cleared it with the Citizen. You can teach me."

  "Maybe I don't want to," she said.

  "It was your idea in the first place."

  She glared. He sensed he couldn't win that argument.

  Instead he said, "Thank you anyway for what you already showed me. I'd never written out my name before. You were right about calling that a kind of magic."

  She ignored him until they got back, possibly because of the guard watching them. At the inn, her owner spotted them and said, "You actually did it? How?"

  Dominic tried not to look smug. It really had been mostly luck. "The Citizen in charge decided that she's a registered teacher now. Do you mind if I stay another night?"

  Julia tugged him right back outside, into the darkness. The city loomed high overhead, as a mass of shadows unbroken but for the departing guard's lantern. "He said I can teach other people openly?"

  "Yes."

  "More things to do than serve drinks all my life." She shuddered. "I've changed my mind; I want you to learn everything I know. So that you can be a good Servant."

  * * *

  The second day in Seaflower was much calmer. Off and on, Julia came to him at his corner table to teach him. He spent hours lurking there, drinking pure water and buying small beer and food to keep the innkeeper tolerant of him. He wandered the streets, bought some good cheese, shared it with Marchaud the scroll-seller, and ate while chatting about art, writing and incidentally spellcraft.

  "How can an island float?" he asked again, thinking about the picture he'd bought yesterday.

  "I think it's the trees holding it up, not the stone. They say the Madlands are the source of magic, so maybe spells just work better there. Can't be all that impressive though. The Madlands are far out west where the Mithraist thugs live, and they still can't conquer us with all that power."

  He returned and stared triumphantly up at the inn's sign, where "Lynx's Den" stood out in curling letters beneath a sleepy cat. Also there were more words. He walked in and asked the innkeeper, "What does 'Figst Watir' mean?"

  "You misread it. 'First Water'. We get a direct pipe from the Seaflower, so it's the same as fetching from the central fountain." The innkeeper shrugged. "A lot of places can say that, but since we're close to the north gate it's impressive for the people who walk past; they've been getting their drinks from the irrigation network or the streams."

  That day, he sought out an actual magic teacher, but found nothing more than another Citizen merchant willing to let him watch for a few minutes as he played with the Weave. It really was play, how someone could dangle the threads and brush them like musical strings.

  He went back and found that the inn's one guest bedroom had two other people, so that he'd have to share it tonight. He sprawled on a cot in the corner. He felt a little more at home, actually; the crowd was more like sleeping in a normal bachelor-house instead of being alone. Still, he felt the new guests staring at him while he tried to practice the spellcraft he'd learned. Their presence distracted him from trying to form the "knots" of thought he'd been told about. He tried to anchor his control over the sticks and bread-crusts he was working with.

  It turned out that hearing someone cough at the wrong moment was exactly what he needed. The crust from his lunch twitched and danced like a caught fish. He lost sight of the threads themselves until he turned his attention back to them, which made the thing drop again. Progress, though! He kept at it and found just the right twist of thought -- something like hearing a line of poetry over and over -- to make a stick wobble in the air.

  "How do you do that, anyway?" said one of the other guests. There was a light of curiosity in his eyes that Dominic found compelling. He was unbranded, and his owner was away.

  Dominic grinned, fumbling with the thing. "I can't teach you. Anything you'd learn from me would be by accident..."

  He went downstairs a little later and found the innkeeper's girl alone, cleaning up. He helped to gather some of the plates and mugs. "I figured it out," he murmured. "Look!" He took out the crust (he'd had the most success with that) and let it drop a few inches from his palm without falling the rest of the way. It held in midair for a few seconds before he had to snatch it with his other hand.

  "That's nice," Julia said, and turned away.

  "Nice? It's magic!"

  "It's leftovers."

  He wound around one of the wooden tables, thinking he should try lifting that too. "You have the sight. I saw you use it on my amulet. I could teach you to do this too. You're already registered for teaching, so being taught can't be much different. I wouldn't need to dance around the subject like I did with one of the men upstairs."

  She lowered her voice. "You're teaching random Bound now? After what happened yesterday?"

  "I was careful to do it the way that's allowed here."

  "You fool! You let the Bound learn things that could get them executed for trying. I'm allowed to see the Weave but never to touch it. And now you're offering to teach me to do that, the day after you already had to spring me from prison?"

  Dominic's cheeks burned. "He wanted to know. It shouldn't matter what he is!" She was right, though. "He'd be in danger if he actually managed to use it. But he probably can't, right? Most people who have the sight can't cast a single spell, so there's no harm done. You might be different. You might be able to learn and use magic yourself, then come away and study it."

  Julia stood with her hands on her hips. "With you and your Servant? And become a mask-wearer myself, and go through whatever horrible rituals they do to become so cold? No, thank you. Don't even tell me how you're playing with your food."

  "But why not?" Anyone who'd seen the endless knots of the Weave should want to reach out and pluck them. An instrument needed to be played.

  "Because if I could learn how, I'd be tempted to actually do it. And then I'd either have to be a Citizen and fight for years, or be a Servant, or die, or give it up forever. I'd rather be powerless, than have the power and be forbidden to use it."

  Dominic put the bread down and took one of her hands with both of his own, making her meet his eyes. "I've only been away from my home for a few days, and I've already seen more of the world than I would have in a lifetime. Magic is a way of doing that. If there's any chance that you can learn it for yourself, what's so bad about taking up the mask? I've had... different rules, here. The ability to go where I want and see what I want. That life is just starting for me."

  The tavern girl wavered, glancing at his hands and back at his still-unmasked face. "It's just starting, and you don't have any idea of what you're doing. You won't have anyone to take care of you, to make sure you have a proper job and a roof over your head and everything else you need. Even as a Citizen you could wind up poor and alone. And if you do become a Servant, who knows your future? I don't. I don't want that life of danger." She pulled out of his grip and turned away. "Don't tempt me with it."

  She stomped upstairs to clean the bedroom or something, leaving Dominic alone in the dim tavern room. He sighed and gnawed on his bread-crust.

  3. The Throne By the Sea

  The third morning, something was wrong. His necklace was missing! He ransacked the little pile of everything he owned: his clothes, the art scroll, a few scraps of paper and the money-pouch he'd wedged under one arm all night. The one item that kept him safe was gone!

  He hopped to his feet and found that the guests from last night were missing too with all their luggage. His search of the whole dingy room turned up nothing. The Bound man must have stolen it. Ungrateful thief! He started down the stairs, then froze, realizing that there was nothing protecting his neck anymore. Well. There was the innkeeper and his Bound, who could at least vouch for him.

  Since it wasn't safe to go outside, he spent the day sulking at the inn, mainly in h
is room. Couldn't seem to coax another lesson out of Julia. He at least managed to get his hands on another customer's scrawled, abandoned notes about shop supplies. He carefully copied out the words, consulted his own notes to puzzle out what a few of them meant, then gave up for now and returned to practicing spellcraft instead. He was getting used to the lifting-spell.

  That evening, the Servant came back as promised. He loomed in the doorway of the inn's main room. The few other guests cleared out as Jasper walked over to Dominic. "How was it, boy?"

  Dominic simultaneously wanted to hug Jasper and to punch that mask off his face. The words spilled out of him as he stood there, fists at his sides, trembling. "You left me all alone with no instructions, so I studied magic and learned reading. Then the innkeeper's girl got arrested and I managed to rescue her, but she didn't want to learn for herself --"

  Servant Jasper held up one hand. "Slower. And it sounds like we should discuss your actions in private."

  Dominic slumped back down onto his seat. He explained at greater length, trying not to shout at the man for leaving him without papers. "I didn't know what I was supposed to do. And now the necklace is stolen."

  "Don't worry about that. The mark on it was designed to expire in two days anyway."

  Dominic's eyes narrowed as he thought about that and decided to ignore it.

  "You mentioned that Citizen you talked into freeing the girl. What do you make of his remarks?"

  Dominic said, "I'm not sure. I think he was trying to serve in his own way, but he blames the city's master for something. The 'High Citizen'. So Citizens rule each other?"

  Jasper paced, tapping his chin. "Yes. Someone will need to keep an eye on that situation. The bickering among the Citizens never stops. I suppose if it did... well."

  Dominic pulled out the money pouch. "Here. I have some of the coins left."

  Jasper took the pouch, hefted it, then glanced at the decorative scroll Dominic had beside him, depicting the Madlands island. "This seems like a frivolous purchase."

  "It wasn't. I learned this from it." He lifted the scroll without touching it, making it wobble above his hand.

  Jasper laughed, and tossed the coin pouch back. "It's refreshing to be contradicted once in a while. Keep this. You've done well with what few resources you've had, so I'll give you more. Now: what justifies the work that Servants perform?"

  "You asked me that before."

  "And you've acted on your own since then, without clear instructions. Has your opinion changed?"

  Dominic thought. "I didn't talk with any Servants in town. But the plays... They stop just short of outright criticizing Servants. The masks scare people."

  "Are the masks badly designed, then? Should they be made to smile?"

  "That would be worse! Servants show up and stab people, make them kill each other, judge them." Dominic shuddered, then remembered who he was talking to. "I mean, rightly! They're supposed to."

  "Here in my presence you may speak freely," Jasper said, waiting for more.

  "Well. If I didn't know better, if I'd never heard of your kind before, I'd think they were monsters. Friendly one day and murderous the next. What makes them right is... the restraint you mentioned. Good judgment, so you can be trusted to go somewhere and fix things as you see fit."

  "A reasonable answer. We'd have a trail of burned villages wherever certain Servants go, if we didn't encourage them to focus on war. Not all of our candidates are good ones, in the end."

  Jasper fished out a small block of wood from his robe and held it out to Dominic. "I believe it's a formality at this point, but: what do you see here by your magic-sense?"

  Dominic peered at it. The wood itself was just a small cube with rounded edges, but... "I see glowing patterns when I look into the Weave around it!"

  "And?"

  "There's a curved shape on this side like the letter An, and on this side there's a Sa. And... it's faint, but this third face has a Co."

  "Are you sure?"

  "No, wait, not Co but Li."

  "Anything else?"

  "I don't think so," Dominic said, looking at the blank sides. "Am I missing something?"

  Jasper said, "It's all right," and took the cube back.

  * * *

  Jasper spoke about magic and the finer points of horse-riding as they rode out of the city. They went just south to the shallow Newmorning River that some of Seaflower's fountain streams created, and took a ferry downstream from there.

  "You're leaving the horses?" asked Dominic, puzzled. "Aren't they valuable?"

  "Yes, but they're only horses. They'll be assigned to someone else."

  The river took them southeast to the coast. Dominic began to grow nervous despite Jasper's attempts to keep him busy with lessons. "Sea air makes you a Citizen," Dominic recited.

  "Haven't you ever wanted to see the ocean?" said Jasper. "Most of the coastal people are Bound; they just do less farming and more fishing than your old village."

  "I know, but back home everyone thought of it as so far away. It's where Citizens go, and where they fight and drown. Are ships really full of moldy food and water you can't drink?" Tales of the sea were frightening, and had given people good reasons not to want the responsibility that came with a brand.

  "That's too often true. Our journey will be short, though. We sail for the capital."

  Dominic's mind shut down at the sight of the coast. The world ended and became glittering blue as far as the horizon. Unfamiliar birds wheeled overhead and the sea growled and purred, invitingly, in the distance. He grew angry. He stammered, "I was told it was ugly, empty! We were cheated!"

  "That's the way of things. Most people will never know the sea. Why make people long for what they can't have? Come; we'll need a real ship this time."

  There was a city named Avicenna here on the coast. Dominic would have called it huge, but the hilly town with its high-perched keep was smaller than Seaflower, and probably more important for its outlying farms than for the markets within its walls. Dominic marveled at the sheer number of farms once again and thought about how many people they fed.

  He didn't get to enter the city, though. Jasper led them right to the port and pointed out a ship.

  Dominic stared at the lettering on its prow. "Trusty... Hound?"

  "That's right. Why are you scowling?"

  Dominic hadn't realized it. "I don't much like dogs. My Citizen's family had a few, always slobbering over their masters like Bound trying to get favors."

  Jasper laughed. "All castes can be like that sometimes. Let's go." He went aboard and commanded the crew ("if you please") to make room for himself and Dominic.

  Dominic followed Jasper up the gangplank with his arms outstretched, trying to keep his balance so he wouldn't fall into the sea or be crushed between ship and dock. Onboard the air was dingy and confining and full of constant creaking as though the whole mass of wood would shatter around them. He reached out with his new ability to sense the Weave and felt intangible threads winding through the planks as though holding them together. That at least was comforting.

  A masked man carried a pack over one shoulder. Dominic tried to help, then realized that this wasn't Jasper. This one had dark hair and a heavier build. Dominic stepped back and banged into a Citizen sailor. The Citizen cursed as Dominic retreated into the shadows.

  "May I speak to these people?" Dominic asked Jasper. "I don't know the rules."

  "A Servant, even one in training, may speak to anyone."

  He stood up straighter. "Then...?"

  "Yes, I believe you should humble yourself so far as to wear the mask." His voice sounded strained. "I won't be a terribly interesting companion on this trip in any case."

  It was a frightening honor, to join Jasper's caste. Dominic would need to live up to it.

  * * *

  Once they set sail, Dominic learned there was some truth to the sea stories: constant rolling and pitching of the floor under his feet, making him queasy. Jasper lock
ed himself in a tiny cabin and left his recruit to fend for himself. Dominic dealt with the sickness by getting up to the deck where he could at least have fresh air, warm and salty.

  Up there he found the other Servant again. "Sir? My name is Dominic, being brought in by Servant Jasper."

  The big man turned away from watching the burning sunset to starboard. "He made a live catch? Don't fall overboard on the way there, now."

  Dominic grimaced as a particularly large wave rolled under them. "Sir, what am I in for? I don't know anything."

  "Knowing nothing is a good place to start. Your ears will be more useful than your mouth. Expect to work hard and follow orders like you used to, but to use your mind more."

  That didn't sound too bad. Dominic noticed a scurrying creature at the Servant's side. A huge rat or an unusually sleek dog? The Servant saw him staring and said, "My familiar. I take it you haven't seen an otter before."

  Ah! Otter, wolf and hawk were considered sacred creatures, but not for any reason Dominic understood besides "the way of things". He'd only seen decorations in the vague shape of the hairy creature looking at him. "What exactly is a 'familiar', sir?"

  "A familiar is an assistant of sorts. Tied to you, deeper than a Bound to his Citizen. We Servants wear masks, yet we are still individuals, and the bond of the familiar helps us to remember that." Unbidden, the otter scrambled up his leg and he helped it climb, to perch on the ship's railing and be petted along its sleek fur.

  "Does every Servant need one?"

  "No, but it can be helpful. You'll understand in time."

  Dominic watched the man and the animal, then turned his mind to the Weave. Indeed there was a bond linking the pair of them, like a green vine. Faint sparks tipped the otter's whiskers and tail. It seemed that the bond would influence any spell that the man cast, but Dominic couldn't tell exactly what it did or how it was made. It was certainly more advanced than simple stick-levitation.