Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  I laid the leather sack on the floor between us. “Knight Commander, I report my mission of seven days ago complete.”

  “Blessed return, Greenshank. Speak.” His every ritual word was a hammer and a warning.

  “My earlier report on Kitaro, the purveyor of rarities, was exact. He rode away, his memory correctly clouded and his Order token left in ashes. But as I returned to the skiff with the cereus iniga, I heard a woman singing. . . .” I told him all.

  He did not interrupt. Not to call me the names I’d called myself. Not even to remind me that a paratus who puts his life at risk through Evanide’s fiercest tides to serve a lie is betraying his brother knights, both those who have nurtured him and those in the future who could suffer for lack of his strong arm and trained magic. Instead, he paced in ever narrowing circles, arms tightly folded. By the time I unrolled the portrait, he was crouched beside me.

  “Goddess Mother of earth,” he whispered.

  Anyone who looked on the portrait would recognize its authenticity, whether they had met the woman or not. But for a person who lived with magic as we did, its truth was indisputable. And truth spoke that this woman was not of humankind, but a legend made flesh. Even stony Inek could not contain his awe.

  “You did this.”

  “I must have done. The name holds no meaning, but my fingers recognize the signature as my own. When they touch the page, magic courses through me and I know I could alter the image, if I wished, and it would remain true. I understand that my bent is but hidden and will be returned if I succeed at my endeavors here, and that the name Lucian will not matter when I choose another on the day of my investiture. But this woman . . . the very same who sang and vanished and professed she was bound to me in ways a human could not understand . . . Rectoré, my every bone, every sense, every perception insists she is Danae. She says her people—Deunor’s holy fire, her people whom tales name guardians of the earth—need my counsel. What does that mean? Who, in the Sky Lord’s mercy, am I?”

  Inek stared at the portrait. Shook his head. “Is there more?”

  “No. I came here straight from the estuary. I do sincerely desire this life, but if you say you must strip these things away— How can I turn my back on a mystery that any man or woman in this kingdom would give a limb to pursue? My soul is ripped asunder with the argument.”

  Inek blew a long exhale and sat back on his heels. “Were these things brought me by anyone else I’d have him whipped for brazen lies. But you . . . I’ve long held suspicions about you.”

  The air shifted as Inek resumed his pacing, tapping the rolled portrait on his open palm. What could he possibly suspect? Commanders had access to our memory relicts, and for two years I had poured out every scrap of thought and feeling to him. He knew far more of me than I did.

  Bracing my shoulder on the stone wall, I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. My head pounded as if the ceiling of the armory were caving in on it, one stone at a time. Not since that initial journey to Evanide, when every moment was a frenzy to squeeze out some scrap of memory, had I experienced the like.

  As I grasped a tenuous hold on my wits, Inek halted his pacing in front of me. Resolute.

  “I do not know who you are. And I’ve never understood how you came to be here—or why. Though physically inept and inclined to sentimentality, you were naturally well disciplined, intelligent, your innate power for magic clear. Why was your place in the outside world untenable? Why would you consent to this life? Even yet those answers elude me, for from your first day I’ve been forbidden to examine your archived memories to plan your training as I do for the others. The old Marshal told me that condition was set by those who recommended you to the Order.”

  A single flaying glare, then he shrugged and continued. “That happens from time to time. Family contention is the usual cause. He gave me sparse information about your talents and weaknesses, which has proved accurate for the most part.

  “But about the time you were made squire, that Marshal—a hale and vigorous man—collapsed and died. Inexplicably. And not a month after this new Marshal—a strict disciplinarian—takes his office, a former senior paratus who failed his final testing is allowed to speak to selected squires . . . and of all Evanide’s trainees you are the only one selected for his notice on every single occasion.”

  “The Marshal. And Damon.” The implication was like a kick to the knees. “You believe—”

  “I believe nothing. I state only fact and a coincidence of time and events.”

  “But this Damon . . . a failed paratus! How is it possible he even knows of the Order?”

  Any trainee who failed, no matter what his rank, was stripped of all memory of the Order before leaving Evanide. Only a paratus-exter, a man at the brink of knighthood, who decided he could not in conscience take the final step, was allowed to leave with both his own memories of life before Evanide and his awareness of the Order intact. And even then he carried no memory of the Order’s particular magics.

  “Damon’s status was not an easy thing to learn,” said Inek, “and I’ll not deny it seeded me with doubts. Yet, his questioning seemed benign. Thus, I’ve held discipline all these months, even as I wondered about him—and you. Now you bring me undeniable evidence of the magnitude of your talent, and this extraordinary mystery of your past on the same night I learn that this same Damon, and not the Marshal, chooses which fragments of memory are returned to you. And now, it seems, Damon will also assign your off-island missions.”

  “My missions!”

  “These things are not righteous.” The air trembled with Inek’s indignation. “They compromise the independence of the Marshal, which compromises the integrity of the Order.”

  “What kind of missions?” His outrage fed my own. I had submitted as was necessary to survive in this place. I had seen worth enough early on to yield my trust as well as my obedience, mostly because of this demanding mentor and what he’d taught me of resolution and endurance, of the knights and their selfless service. And then, the Marshal’s passion had captured my soul’s aspiration. But if outsiders—a failed trainee—held sway over the Marshal and his decisions so far that Inek would doubt, my faith was upended entire.

  “I’m to be told at the proper time. Until then we are to continue your training as before.”

  “So you’ll erase my memory of all this. Leave me naked before the wolves.” Anger, and no little fear, depleted what manners I had left. My life . . . my mind . . . were in the Order’s hands.

  Inek glanced up, blue eyes cold, fully my guide again. “Your training will certainly continue as we are charged. You are a strong and disciplined man, displaying possibilities of becoming a true knight. But you are unfinished, and you will need to be stronger yet—and far more wary.”

  “No. I can’t accept—”

  “Do not interrupt! The Marshal apparently supports Damon’s purposes and though I deem this violation of the Order’s founding principles serious enough to bend my god-sworn oaths, their ultimate goal may be as holy as Mother Samele’s breast.”

  “You don’t believe that!”

  “Silence your insolent tongue and listen.” He scrabbled through a wooden box, and then swung around holding two wide silver bracelets. “I’ll not strip any of this from you—not the mystery of the woman nor your true name nor awareness of Damon’s interest in you. But for your every hour in this fortress, you will bury that knowledge so deep Kemen Sky Lord himself could not discover it. Off-island, however, whether dispatched on exercises I choose or Damon chooses, you may draw upon that knowledge as you do all else that bobs to the surface in the slurry pit of a paratus’s mind. Upon your return, you will give me complete reports of everything you discover. We shall speak of these things only here in the armory.”

  I gaped at him. Missions off-island . . . allowed to remember . . . to pursue answers. Even as my spirit leapt, my blo
od pulse quickened. His plan was enormously risky.

  Inek ran his fingers over the bracelets’ embossed surfaces, seemingly bemused . . . until a stiletto of magic pierced the air.

  “I’ll not excise your understanding of my own violation, either.” Inek continued as if he had not just made the world thrum with power. His magic always sang. “I’ve spoken slander, given you unsanctioned information about your background, and allowed you to retain memories you should not have. One hint of this conversation could result in my ruin. Even so, I will not relent in your preparation. I trust you to keep me safe—to keep us both safe—as we do what is necessary to preserve the honor of our brother knights’ service. If we learn, as I must hope, that I am mistaken in my suspicions, we shall confess our violations to the Marshal, allowing him to determine our future as we have committed ourselves to do. Elsewise . . . we shall see.”

  His courage left me speechless. He was trusting me with his mind . . . with his life . . . for a violation of his knightly oath could surely see him stripped of one or the other. He would allow me opportunities to learn what we needed, yet, by maintaining the integrity of his teaching, the path to knighthood remained open to me. Fear shook me to the boots. If this man, the most righteous of knights, was driven to compromise his honor, then his suspicions of conspiracy must run very deep.

  For Inek, if naught else, I had to make this work. “Will I be able to distinguish tasks of your devising from the others?”

  “When I send a paratus on exercises away from the fortress, I often provide spellwork he is not yet privy to. Often linked to something like these.” He dangled the silver bracelets from his thumbs.

  Silver was an extraordinary medium for spellwork. Even the most complex spells could be linked to an artifact of silver and they would retain their cohesion for years. And somehow silver’s brilliance, its malleability, its delicate variability—so easily blackened, so easily restored—masked the enchantments it carried, leaving them undetectable to even the most skilled sorcerers.

  “These will serve as an armory for your own favored—and perfected—enchantments. And from now on, as you prepare for an off-island task, you will leave them with me for a few hours. Fix will have them waiting for you with your boat. Pay attention, and you’ll easily discern whose mission you undertake.”

  He tossed me the bracelets. Eyes closed, I traced the intricate designs. My fingers saw the shapes they traveled, here an embossed star, there a flower or a ring, an engraved spiral or triangle. With practice I would be able to locate each inerrantly, no matter distraction. My exploration continued until I came upon the residue of a small magic humming on a raised circle. Inek. The name popped into mind, quite distinctly.

  I slipped a silver band over each hand, and snugged it about my wrist with its double latch. “The raised circle will tell me the author of the mission.”

  A tilt of his head affirmed it. His hand motioned dismissal.

  “One more question.” I could not ignore the most unusual part of the interview with Damon. “What is the image in the window? Damon cared what I knew about it. It was my description of fire that shocked him, made him think I knew more than I should—which I did not. I spoke only what I saw.”

  Inek’s arms were folded again, his face inexpressive. “I’ll not answer beyond this: The image is the foundation story of the Order, the reason for our existence and our way. The story will be revealed to you on the day you are vested as a knight, if you should live so long and prove worthy.”

  That wasn’t enough. “Is it possible the meeting was set for the Marshal’s inner chamber so that I would see the glass and Damon could gauge my reaction?”

  “Possible.” I was glad Inek was unmasked, as his brow creased just enough before his answer to reveal he’d not considered that.

  “As you leave, douse the warning light.” He retrieved three swords from the rack and laid them on the worktable.

  One more curiosity. “Rectoré, why the armory?”

  His snort made his opinion of my question clear. He never liked the question why from his subordinates. “Tonight, I deemed you a participant in this corruption of our way. I believed Damon put you here for a purpose, and whether or not you recognized him, I believed you to be working toward that purpose. That may yet be so. The sheer number of enchantments in the armory makes it impossible to be overheard. Thus, no one would hear as I beat you until you told me the truth.”

  “That’s not as easy as it was when I arrived,” I blurted. Foolishly.

  “Try me, paratus. And as you bleed, you will still have to walk the seaward wall for the first quarter tonight and the next thirty nights you reside in the fortress, as punishment for your lies.”

  • • •

  Fortress Evanide’s seaward wall. Had anyone ever devised so miserable a place to stand watch? As if one could actually watch anything while facing the Western Sea in the pitchy dark after midnight. As if any boat would dare approach the sheer cliffs of Evanide’s western face at any hour, come to that. The sea would smash it to splinters in an eyeblink.

  The seaward watch was one of Inek’s favored reminders of failure, this time exacerbated by his hatred of lies. He had assigned me a quarter’s watch each night. Six hours. The normal duration of the seaward watch was two, because a moment’s lapse of attention could send the unwary guard plummeting into the boiling black water below. The walk itself was forever slick from spray, fog, or rain, and narrow enough two men could not pass. That those who built the damnable shelf had seen no virtue in a parapet more than calf-high did nothing for a man’s anxiety. And, of course, full mail was required. The weight of chausses, thigh-length habergeon, pauldron of plate, and all the sodden padding underneath added to one’s weapons ensured death from a fall would be quick, though perhaps preferable to six continuous hours of aching back, neck, and legs, and unceasing wet, cold, and salt spray.

  On top of normal training—sparring, running, unending study and practice with ever more complex magic—and four hours of dead sleep if I was lucky, my punishment ensured I had no time to ponder Curator Damon’s purposes or fret over how I might investigate the Danae mystery. Indeed, those hours taught me to shove all distracting questions deep, as Inek commanded.

  Raimo, the second armorer, helped me choose what spellwork was the most useful to affix to my silver bracelets. He insisted I do the work, of course, which was quite fine with me as long as I could keep awake. It wouldn’t do if I got in a pinch and forgot that I’d linked a veil to the spiral sigil on the left bracelet and instead produced a gout of fire from the spiral sigil on the right.

  On the morning after my third night on the seaward wall, I returned to my cell to shed the cursed mail—and wipe it down with oil, of course—find something dry to wear, and stumble to the Hall to see if anything was left from breakfast. I had made it as far as the wiping down when the curtain in my doorway flew aside. A dark-haired paratus in a mail shirt leaned easily against the doorframe. His grin flashed through his gray mask, warming even my cold skin.

  “Ah, Greenshank, I thought I counseled you never to get on Inek’s wrong side. Thirty nights on the seaward wall . . . Did you curse his forgotten mother?”

  There was only one possible response to Cormorant, Evanide’s paratus-exter, the next to be knighted. I grinned back.

  “An omission is the equivalent of a lie,” I said, quoting Inek’s first and most serious lesson to any tyro. “Perhaps when you beat that into me with such exquisite care, you managed to beat it right back out again.”

  Honorable, generous, supremely gifted, Cormorant had been my paratus-mentor when I was a tyro, soothing the constant pain and terror while teaching me innumerable skills.

  “Of all things, you idiot!” he groaned. “Perhaps another beating is in order.”

  “The wind has done a sufficient job of that,” I said, resuming my blotting and oiling. “Please don’t te
ll me I’m to spar with you this morning. Or just go ahead and skewer me now.”

  “Though I’d relish the occasion, alas, not. I was just up to the armory and Inek dispatched me here. I’m to fetch your bracelets to him, and announce that your training schedule is canceled for the rest of the day. He wishes to see you in his chamber at midday and recommends you sleep until then.”

  Slug-witted and cold, I stared at the heap of dripping chausses and the towel in my hand. “Bracelets?”

  “Paratus, would it be those on your wrists, do you think?”

  “Yes.” Blood surged into my head. “Yes, of course.” Bracelets meant Inek’s spellwork for a mission . . . a mission off-island.

  I unlatched the metal clasps, slipped the wide bands over my cold hands, and passed them over.

  “Dalle cineré, Greenshank.”

  “Dalle cineré, Cormorant. How many days left?”

  “With the Sky Lord’s grace, five-and-twenty.” Five-and-twenty days until he crushed his relict—destroyed his past—and was invested as an eques cineré. A resolution spoken with joy and without doubt. How I envied that.

  Once the curtain fell still behind him, I redoubled my efforts at the cleaning. The salt water could set rust in mere hours . . . and who knew how long I might be gone? Would the task be Damon’s or Inek’s? I doubted I could sleep for the questions roused by the coming venture, but somewhere between habergeon and mitons, I crawled over to my pallet and collapsed.

  • • •

  “Your task will be simple information gathering,” said Inek, shoving a small map across the table. Evanide’s bay and the Gouvron Estuary made it easily recognizable as our own coastline.