Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  “Such was your question that night, too,” said Bastien. “Demetreo said he’d tell of the symbol, but only to you. He’d done us a service, summoning Bek to stitch up my Garen and keeping you both safe here. So we worked a bargain. In exchange for telling you about that bit of paint, he wanted an hour of your assistance. He didn’t allow me to stay.”

  Bastien’s meaty arms wrapped his broad chest, and he strolled over to the armchair. “These stains are blood, you know.”

  He swiveled around, his sharp glance puncturing me. Judging . . . what? Guilt? Confusion? But he continued the story. “When you got back to Caton, you refused to say what you’d learned. You said you’d done a portrait, but wouldn’t say whose.”

  But Bastien had been angry. He had spewed resentments when he recognized me. His grimy leather jaque was straining to hold them in even now.

  “Three days after Bayard laid his siege and you failed to show up at Caton, I came down here in search of Bek. We had wounded who needed his skills. I found a few of Demetreo’s fighters lying dead out there, left in a heap for rats and vultures. But every other Ciceron was gone, as was my surgeon. Soldiers told me they’d never seen any but those few. But then”—he pointed a thick finger at the floor—“I came inside here. And right where you stand was Demetreo with his skull caved in, laid out as if he were a hero prince, wrapped in a cloak I’d last seen on you, exactly the kind of nicety you’d do. And beside him lay his granny Oldmeg—a crone who could have been the Goddess Mother’s own granny—with her wrists sliced open, a stab wound through her heart, and a bloody knife laid careful on her breast. Guess you don’t recall what that could be about, neither?”

  I shook my head. Why Cicerons?

  “I had plenty of reason to fear the Registry had taken you. Killed you. Buried you. Whatever. But that morning I came to suspect you’d run off with the Cicerons.”

  “Nothing inside me supports such a story,” I said. Cicerons were the dregs of every kingdom.

  “Gods’ bones, what’s happened to you?” Bastien’s frustration spewed like boiling water. “Did someone drop you on your head?”

  “I can’t—”

  “Our answers are there.” Morgan pointed to the back wall beneath the fresco. Her voice was tight. Her hand kneaded her stomach fretfully.

  “What is it, lady?”

  She waved me forward. “I dislike all walls. But that one is more than a wall. Learn, Lucian. I would not spend my life a beast.”

  I shoved the bloodstained chair aside. Though touch deemed the rough plaster solid, the stone quivered with illusion. None of my working, though my hand named it familiar, the sensation very like seeing my own ghost.

  With a touch of my left bracelet and an infusion of power, I ripped the illusion away.

  Perhaps a third of the plaster vanished, exposing a stony bulwark—not the even courses of pale blocks found in the city’s outer wall, but age-blackened, undressed stones, laid and mortared as they were dug from the ground. Set into the wall was a low, round arch, worked of bronze hammered into flowers, vines, and a variety of beasts and birds.

  It was the interior of the arch stunned me, however. Shifting patterns of light in thready colors I could not name filled the man-high space. Shapes of landscapes, cities, temples, and faces formed and vanished so quickly I wasn’t sure if they were actually there or only imagined, as one might glimpse wolves or cats in cloud shapes. The harmony of the enchantment’s design and the perfection of its creation settled into my spirit like good wine. The magic used . . . its substance and texture . . .

  “Extraordinary,” I breathed. “Though I’ve no idea what it is.” Again, my fingers twitched, it felt so like my own work.

  “What’s so damned remarkable about a bit of metal set in a rock wall?” grumbled Bastien. He ran his hand across the brilliant display. Tapped it with a hairy knuckle. “Looks like a door was bricked up when the wall was built. But why would anyone hide it behind magic? Or did you just pull down the plaster and vanish the leavings?”

  “You don’t see colors or patterns inside the arch?” I sensed no obscuré or veil. My finger touched the wall of light. . . .

  I staggered backward, only my eyes testifying hand and arm remained uncharred. Two more attempts gave the same result. Bastien looked at me as if I’d fallen in a fit.

  “You didn’t feel that?” I said. “Morgan, surely you— Are you ill?”

  Halfway across the chamber, she sat on her haunches, pale and stricken, hands knotted at her breast as her gaze fixed on the wall. “’Tis a crack in the world. The abyss. The unending dark whence beasts come to devour the Everlasting. Long have we spoken of such, but never have eyes beheld it.”

  “I see light and color that scald my hand,” I said, exasperated. “No brick. No beasts. No abyss. Why would we three perceive it so differently?”

  Morgan shook her head, her fear and horror choking me.

  “There is something here,” said Bastien. His fingers rubbed a cluster of grapes halfway up the left side of the bronze arch, and then a spot exactly opposite on the right. After a careful examination, he tapped a third spot at the apex of the arch. Each place was darkened with paint or dirt or—

  “Old blood,” he said.

  “Blood-sealed spellwork! That would explain the old woman with cut wrists and a wound in her heart.”

  I touched the stains on the sides of the arch. “Blood of the left spirit—the side of the soul, where anger and outrage lie, the part of us that is passion and ferocity. Blood of the right spirit—the side of peace, of reason, learning, and skill. And the blood of the heart”—the stain at the top of the arch—“which binds the two into a whole and makes us human. A blood seal is extremely rare—used only to protect objects of the most profound consequence. . . .”

  “So did Oldmeg’s blood close up this mystery or open it?” Bastien’s question drew me out of the tangle of implications.

  “From the age of the arch and the rocks, I’d say she unsealed it, until her blood dried and the enchantment reverted.”

  “A portal locked and unlocked with death blood?” Tears dribbled down Morgan’s cheeks. “That’s what sickens me. Lucian, this blood magic was perfectly devised to bar my kind from what lies beyond this wall.”

  “Perhaps your ‘crack in the world’ is devised for the same purpose,” I said, “while what I see is supposed to intrigue me enough to pursue answers. Certainly I didn’t create the seal.”

  Because the blood seal was Order magic, like the memory spells inherited from our beginning. From Xancheira. Xancheira, whose blazon of the white tree and five branches was so like the Order’s white quiver with five implements, which was so like the white hand glaring above the arch in all its mystery . . .

  The clues fell upon me like raindrops. A silver-marked woman who told me to follow the Path of the White Hand. A rivalry between those marked in blue and those marked in silver. A doorway marked with the white hand and locked in a way that would keep Morgan’s people out. It would keep ordinaries like Bastien away, as well; he could not even see possibility. But a clan of Cicerons had vanished on the day of Bayard’s siege, and fighters stayed behind, perhaps to ensure that the others got away safely. . . .

  I wandered over to the little table and fingered the dice left lying there, working to maintain detachment. “Bastien, did this Demetreo or his granny mention leaving the city?”

  He cocked his head. “Not exactly. But you told me the crone warned of dangers to come on that morning of the siege. It’s why you vowed to come to Caton to help.”

  “But I couldn’t, because I was waylaid. First by Naari, I think”—who believed humans had crossed into the true lands by virtue of my boundary-thinning magic—“and then by . . . others.” For I myself had been in the process of vanishing into the embrace of the Order. It would explain the hint of familiarity with the necropolis. Perhaps I
had met the knights while on my way to keep my promise. But knowing of the white hand, if I’d seen the knights’ blazon . . .

  Puzzle pieces shifted and aligned. Cicerons, the Order, Xancheira. White hand, white quiver, white tree. And Danae. Only one answer came, however unlikely. “What if these Cicerons passed through that arch seeking sanctuary? Somehow I helped them . . . or showed them . . . or interpreted the magic by way of the portrait I did for them, using my joined bents, thinning the boundaries.”

  “Then they’re dead.” Morgan’s voice broke. “The world is broken. There is no sanctuary.”

  “But I don’t see the abyss,” I said. “Perhaps that is but one possibility, while the light and images I see are another. The evidence says the magic was unsealed by an old woman’s sacrifice, so perhaps her headman and his fighters died for hope. That’s not a matter for grieving.”

  “Why Cicerons?” Bastien’s resentments were bound with grief. “They may not be the blight everyone thinks, but why not other ordinaries? Thousands died that day. Thousands disappeared. Some of them . . . We might never know when they died or where.”

  “That makes no sense to me, either. You said the silver-marked Dané spoke of her kind and my own kind waiting for me to prove myself. Maybe my test of quality is to solve this puzzle. Sanctuary. The sentinel said no more of it?”

  “Only the one mention—that her kind could grant it.”

  “Morgan, you say there is no sanctuary, yet your father wants to break me if I don’t tell him more of it. And there is a song. . . .”

  Morgan stood at the open doorway, drawing in great breaths of chilly darkness. Unfortunately, I could give no comfort. “Lady, I need your help.”

  “What I see is no illusion,” she said without looking back. “The land you visited is real. Perhaps it is even safe . . . for now. But the abyss yawns beneath it. Thou canst not imagine the danger.”

  She stepped outside. “We must go, Lucian. Thy duties wait.”

  Duties, yes. The Order. The war. I’d promised Inek to be ready when the spy gave the signal. He was risking all to help me.

  Yet I felt so near to solving this great puzzle—all these pieces at my fingertips. Why they had come together in me seemed the greatest mystery of all. Throughout this journey I had tried to understand how I had ended up in the Order, why I would have given consent. And I’d learned it was naught so simple as madness or murder or a rebellious nature, but this verisame mystery.

  I pulled out my dagger. I had followed the White Hand.

  “I don’t suppose I ever spoke of a city called Xancheira?”

  “So I’m to hear more of that mystery, as well!” Bastien’s acid could have etched steel. “Let’s just say I was never nearer bashing your hard head against a wall as when you told me to bury the little sample of Xancheiran needlework we’d gone to so much trouble to retrieve. You were never a good liar. The thing terrified you.”

  That seemed ludicrous—though no more so than Cicerons seeking refuge behind a blood-sealed doorway. “Can I see it? How did we come by it?”

  “It’s a deal of trouble to fetch, as I did exactly as you said. It’s buried deep, and all my diggers are dead or conscripted. As to how: You believed the mystery of Xancheira was somehow connected with that”—he pointed to the fresco above the gleaming arch—“and you found it in a chest full of artifacts from your grandsire’s investigation of Xancheira.”

  “My grandsire . . .”

  My throat constricted. All other considerations fled. Never could I have imagined Bastien would know anything of my family. Contract masters were never privy to such personal information, save that Bastien and I had evidently been more than master and pureblood.

  “. . . a historian, is he?”

  A great wave of understanding blunted the sturdy coroner’s brittle edges. “You don’t remember them, either? Your family?”

  “Lucian, we must go.” Blistering with urgency, Morgan reached for my arm.

  My hand stayed her. “All of my past is locked away. Not destroyed, but hidden, so I can focus on my work. I’ve accepted that. It’s likely wise, save when one has problems with the Danae. But I would ask”—grace of the Goddess Mother, did I truly want to hear this?—“does my family, too, believe me a murderer? A recondeur?”

  “Stars and stones, Lucian, how do I answer that?” His distress was near as palpable as Morgan’s.

  “You know so much of me,” I said. “You’ve this skill . . . to perceive. If I told you about my family, then I’ve a notion you can guess what they know, what they believe happened— Please, tell me the truth.”

  He glanced frantically from me to Morgan and back again, and then puffed his cheeks and blew a note of resignation. “You once told me that your family was more precious to you than the crown of Navronne to its princes. From what I know, they thought of you the same. But they’re all dead these three years, every one of your blood kin save one young sister. And she— She’s a spark of a girl who gave you fits, but you loved her dearly—your only kin left in the world. When all the trouble came down on you, you sent her away to the safest place you could think of, a place where she could still practice her magic. I’ve neither seen nor heard mention of her since then. But you left some valuables to take care of her should she ever come to Caton in search of you. I’ve kept them safe.”

  “All but one dead.” Body and soul had become unmovable weight as if I’d been melded into the ponderous wall in front of us. How could one grieve properly when the faces and voices were no longer a part of the soul? “How? The war? Plague? What?”

  “Murdered in a Harrower raid is what you were told. But you came to believe— Damn, damn, damn. I oughtn’t—”

  “Say it!” Of a sudden my entire body was shaking.

  His mouth opened but either he didn’t speak or I couldn’t hear. Surely the bones of my skull fractured, as fear, anger, and certainty boiled out to devour patience, setting a storm raging in the great void of my soul. “They burned, didn’t they? My family.” Hundreds of sorcerers . . . couldn’t get out . . . trapped inside . . . purebloods laughing . . .

  “You thought some Registry curators had a hand in it. The night before the siege was laid, you sneaked into the Registry Tower to look at the curators’ portraits you’d done the previous year. You believed your joined bents had shown things you couldn’t know—crimes they’d done that caused them to do murder. Some had tried to kill you and your sister. Some wanted you buried in that prison. That Curator Damon wanted you to run . . .”

  “Damon!”

  I would have crushed the words from Bastien had he not continued. “He came to the necropolis one day near the end. He was the first of the curators seemed willing to listen. But he was shifty. You didn’t trust him. He told you to run, that he knew of a house of healing and reflection where you could hide.”

  “Healing!” The laugh that scraped my chest was more a donkey’s bray than a human sound. The months of terror and nausea, drowning, bleeding, fighting. And it was Damon’s Registry who had broken me to begin with. Damon had sent me to the Order . . . and because of the white hand mystery, I had consented.

  “I never saw you again after the night you went to examine the portraits. That’s why I believed they had you. I do know you accomplished at least one task of value that night—in a matter of justice, though it was a small thing compared to the troubles of the world. So, if you weren’t dead or captive of the Registry or bolted with the Cicerons, I suppose you ran?”

  “I suppose I did,” I said, hauling in the torn threads of my composure. “But you can be sure it has not been healing or reflecting and certainly not chasing women. I thank you for your help, Coroner Bastien. I would be ever grateful if you would retrieve the Xancheiran artifact. I’ll be back to fetch it as soon as I can.”

  “I will,” he said, peering at me curiously. “I’m ready to help however
you need. You need not do this alone, Lucian. Whether you remember it or not, we partner well.”

  I jerked my head in acknowledgement, though I doubted anyone could help me understand save the spider at the center of this web. Damon.

  CHAPTER 13

  I crouched on a rocky outcrop above the restless lake, my senses extended to detect the approach of the Order spy. Midnight was long past; dawn, yet hours away. The waning moon was setting over the hills.

  If I needed any proof of Morgan’s contention that seven days had passed since leaving the Gouvron Estuary, it was that slouching moon. When I cast off from Evanide, a mere three days past, so mind and body insisted, the moon was pregnant, approaching full. Morgan said time’s river meandered differently in the true lands. Confusing, impossible. Like so much about that journey, it didn’t bear thinking about. My family slaughtered, save for a sister. And not one, but two bents. My spirit ached from holding it all at bay. But it was necessary. I was in-mission.

  Wind-shifted trees, ruffled lake, and weak moonlight provided good cover for a practiced spy. I awaited the signal.

  Muffled harness chinked softly at the spot where the track from the village emerged from the wooded ridge. A pearl of light winked not far from the source of the noise. A slow second and rapid third wink followed.

  I responded with a slightly different pattern. When a green flick answered, I breathed again.

  A dark figure scrambled quick and quiet as a gray spider across the spread of boulders tumbled from the ridge into the lake. Had I not known to watch, I doubt I could have spotted him. By the time he found my perch, I was standing with knife drawn.

  “Well met, Paratus Greenshank.”

  “Blessed respite, sir knight.”

  “You may call me Grey.”

  We sheathed our weapons. Though he wore his mask for our meeting, Grey’s dagger did not bear the Order’s mark. He lived outside our bounds.