by Carol Berg
Reason peeped out from time to time warning of the implication: the Order was preparing for all-out war. Not immediately, but soon. The days until autumn and the Sitting were growing fewer. That was when all would come to a head. Damon’s plot. Damon’s war. I was sure of it.
• • •
The fortress was subdued on the night of our return from Val Cleve. The Hall, often boisterous after a major tournament, was dead quiet at supper. Men fell asleep in their bowls, or were simply unable to eat from pain, exhaustion, or nerves yet aflame with battle fever.
Depletion had me shivering worse than wound or weariness, as I’d been tasked to navigate our fifty small boats through the tidal onrush to get us home. Such a heavy responsibility meant setting beacons, guide spells, and unbreakable signals to keep our force together as if we were pursued, yet far enough apart to prevent exhausted rowers from crashing into one another or falling victim to the naturally hazardous coastal passage.
“Nothing but sleep tonight,” I said to Dunlin and Heron, as I stared at the rapidly cooling mess in front of me. For the moment, I couldn’t recall what it was. “The tide charts say . . . I believe tomorrow is a running day. Eat beforehand if you feel up to it. Heron, if you’re coughing up blood or your chest is still painful, see Adjutant Tomas before you come down to run. Dunlin, make sure he does that. If I’m late—”
“Greenshank, you’re not going to—” Dunlin caught himself. “They had you stretched thin these days, Paratus Commander.” He’d not slipped into familiarity for a tenday, so I paid no mind to the breach.
“I’ve already notified the Marshal that I’m not manning the wall tonight, not that it’s any of your concern.” Though I might as well. Mine were some of the nerves yet stuck at alert. I’d never sleep. “The Marshal has yet to schedule the cadre commander reports. That could delay me tomorrow.”
“Are we to join the ordinaries’ war?” asked Heron.
“I’ve not been told,” I said, fearing he was right, “but we need to be prepared. You both did well. Your swordwork was exemplary, Dunlin, attacks and defenses both improved since the spring tourney. And your alertness saved me from a severe wound. Heron, I’m putting you in for a commendation. You saved two lives—and all the lives they may in turn save in their future as knights of the Order.”
“Don’t want a commendation,” mumbled Heron. “We were all half crazed by that time. Near killing each other. Some of us were pushed too—” He clamped his mouth shut. “Guess we just need sleep. All of us.”
I was glad he hadn’t finished his grumbling. “Go. Sleep. Tomorrow we work on endurance, and keeping our wits when we’re pushed to our limits.”
They pressed fists to their breasts and left.
Alone at the long table, I drained the ale in my cup and waved it at the steward who promptly refilled it. Only because I needed to replenish my magic could I force down more of the pignut bread and fish stew, thick with turnips and bitter greens. Even the Order’s granaries were bare after three years of famine. When my stomach threatened retaliation, I left the Hall. But instead of heading straight for my pallet to lie awake, I climbed to the infirmary.
Every bed and floor tile was occupied with wounded. More lay in the assembly chamber across the courtyard. Still insensible, Inek had been moved to a corner pallet, as the beds were needed for those who required more immediate care. Adjutant Tomas, on his way out with an armload of bandages, three well-laden servitors in his wake, rolled his eyes when I arrived. But he’d left the blanket covering the commander.
I told Inek of the exercise and Dunlin and Heron’s excellent performance and my own successes and muddled failures. There were too many ears close by to speak of Fix or Pluvius or Damon, so I cut my visit short.
Descended from the heights, I trudged across the Hall again, and turned into the dimly lit passage of the barracks wing. A man in a squire’s tunic was working on the lock at the weapons’ store. As I walked past him, a thread of his unsubtle magic scored my back like another sword slash. A rusty sword. Or serrated.
My edgy nerves erupted. Grabbing his arm, I dragged him away from the locked gate and shoved him against the passage wall.
“Deunor’s fiery balls, are you digging coal with a pickaxe?” Only respect for those sleeping kept my fury from raising the roof. “And unmask. Squires are never to be masked inside the fortress.”
“A rough passage, eh, Greenshank? Three-and-fifty boats home safe. I believe the boatmaster was pleased. But it’s not knightly to break a man’s arm because you’ve had a difficult exercise. All is never as it seems.”
A wind-roughened voice. A lean, powerful authority under the shapeless tea-colored tunic, and a metallic shell ringing the arm inside the loose sleeve.
I jerked my hand away.
“Sorry. I didn’t know—” No excuses. And I knew better than to mention either of his names.
“Come, come, who do you think modifies all the locks? Though I don’t usually do it with such . . . mmm . . . exaggerated awfulness. If you hadn’t noticed, I’d have to put this little adventure off for another night until your head was back in place.”
“Adventure?”
His only answer was to latch onto my arm and propel me along the passage, past my cell, and downward into Evanide’s foundation—the labyrinthine old fort that had been the first human-built structure on the islet. Magelight shone from Fix’s whole person, brushing the tiny, low-ceilinged chambers and narrow passages with a golden glow.
Half the rubble walls were collapsed, not worth the rebuilding for such meager space. The only use made of them was as an occasional depository for a cowardly tyro who needed some time to meditate amid dust, rats, the creaks of the weighty stone above his head, and the muted surging of the demonic sea as it tried to get through the rock and drown him.
“With everyone dead on their feet, I was thinking I might get the locks reset early for a change,” said Fix. “Maybe snatch an hour of sleep. But my mind keeps parsing your nonsensical tale. I don’t like discovering such astonishing doings going on under my nose. And so I drag out my maps and charts to see if I can find anything like you described on the north coast. Some of our portolans are quite ancient.”
The ceiling got quite a bit lower when we had to crawl over a pile of rubble. I kept my eyes on the glowing body ahead of me and tried to ignore the weight of the fortress pressing ever closer.
Fix’s chatting was a welcome distraction. “To get to the charts I wanted, I had to set aside my plan of the fortress—the Defender’s Map—which shows every stone, brick, and timber of Evanide, maintained since the beginning by every holder of my office. And when I touched it, I remembered a curious mark on it, something like a white hand . . .”
Of a sudden the magelight ahead of me reoriented itself from a view of Fix’s boots to the entirety of his person, standing in a chamber whose dimensions were lost in darkness.
“. . . which designates our own small necropolis!” he said, spreading his arms and expanding his light into the chamber—a huge natural cavity in the rock.
Knights were buried in the sea, their resting place as anonymous as their lives. But others, who had occupied this place before the Order, had hacked niches from the native stone, hundreds of them, row upon row. Some folk had been laid here with swords or spindles, masks of metal or ivory combs. Some were laid face down—the mark of a coward; some were paired with another in the same niche. Here and there were the faded remains of painted god symbols or signs of the crescent moon with a slash across it—the most ancient representation of Samele, the Goddess Mother, who ruled over death and rebirth.
My breath caught. Neither dust nor skulls nor other reminders of mortality had struck me, but rather a small section of the far wall that had been rudely cleared of its burden, leaving heaps of rock and bone to either side of the flat. High on the wall was a chalked image of a white hand, and benea
th it a bronze frame with a round arch.
The interior of the arch was no rippling light or notched rock slab. It was a bronze door. Its hammered center panel depicted a five-branched tree. And it also had hinges and a handle cast in the shape of a long, graceful hand. This door was meant to be opened.
“The Marshal told me that Evanide was once a hospice for Aurellians with magic-raddled minds,” I said, excitement banishing weariness. “A sanctuary of a sort. Perhaps the Danae opened a way through their lands, shortening the traveling distance between Evanide and Xancheira.”
“The door was masked with simple illusion.” Fix folded his long body into a compact package and seated himself on the floor before the door as if waiting for it to speak to him. “I removed it. Likely I should replace it with something better. But the damnable door itself is locked. I am likely the finest locksmith in the world; what else is the Knight Defender of Evanide? But its key is nothing I can provide. I would call this a waiting-for-a-very-particular-kind-of-magic lock.”
Neither mask nor feigned annoyance could hide his amusement.
“My kind of magic?”
“Try it. I would relish seeing you vanish.”
The cool metal of the door handle reflected the racing blood pulse in my hand. No fire seared my arm. The Danae had not blocked this way to me.
A deep inhale to settle my ragged spirit. Then, closing my eyes, I laid both of my hands on the door—one on the handle, one on a hinge—and reached for Sanctuary.
Magic rose hot in my chest, between my eyes, and through the band of fire and power joining them. That was the gift I bore—two centers, two sources, two bents. Sounds and images rushed through me like the tide: smoke and mouldering linen and old death, agonized wailing and hammering picks scattering rubble, the smells of paint and dust and burning herbs . . .
Within moments, the flow sputtered and died. Spasms racked my limbs, and my stomach wrenched as if turning inside out. Depletion.
Strong hands gripped my shoulders. “Draw what you need. I’ve naught else of so much interest happening tonight.”
Parents and devoted tutors offered reserves when teaching children, whose magical capacity was small. Naturally, I couldn’t recall any such occasion. But we also practiced transfer at Evanide as a way to aid a comrade. It was a generous gift, fraught with risk. A dying or severely wounded man could drain everything the giver had and more, leaving that one sick and vulnerable, too. And to open oneself to take of another’s power was the surest way in the world to have mind, soul, and magic enslaved. But even depleted, I wasn’t helpless, and I trusted Fix. Thus—carefully—I accepted what he offered.
The Knight Defender’s magic was very different, like pungent, fizzing cider compared to the smooth, robust wine of my own. The sheer volume of his provision was astonishing. Fix offered the sea, when every other person I’d drawn on yielded only pond or puddle.
And think . . . you need only the power of your bent for this purpose, not the visions or the artworks. He might have spoken this aloud, but it was not my ears that heard it. The source is what’s important.
I’d never thought of them as separate.
I drew on Fix until the shakes were gone, my stomach had settled, and the fire in my breast raged with the heat of a smith’s forge. I nodded, and he removed his hands.
Again, I sought sanctuary. Magic only. No visions, no history, no art. The magic flowing through my fingers had become mine, not Fix’s. In mere moments, the door handle moved, the bronze door swung open, and I toppled off the edge of the world.
CHAPTER 24
Falling . . . falling . . . into endless night and boundless silence . . . into nothing . . . I screamed but no sound reached my ears. Without touch or hearing, sight or taste, my body was vanishing, shredding into flakes like flying ash.
But senses returned in a rush when the darkness of nothing was replaced with the darkness of the deeps—cold, black water. Limbs thrashed against its unrelenting weight. Eyes and wounded back stung. After the terrifying fall, I would have welcomed any sensation were my unprepared lungs not threatening to burst.
Still! Slow! Cast! Evanide’s training lashed through mortal panic like the Disciplinarian’s favored whip. My body hung limp in the water like sea wrack tethered to a rock, my arms its floating fronds. My heart slowed to an undetectable pace. The magic that had flowed into the bronze door now arrowed through the frigid water seeking air. Assuming, of course, that the end of the world was not entirely water.
No currents pulled at me. The sting was cold, not salt. This was neither Evanide’s bay nor the estuary nor the northern sea.
A first layer of magic kept me near stasis, preventing me from gulping water instead of air. Though I did not breathe, the reserves of air stored inside me filtered through flesh or bone, however it did its work. There were always reserves, so Cormorant had assured me over and over when I would panic and swallow half the bay. There was always enough to give the deeper magic time to work . . . as long as I stayed disciplined. Remain still, keep your heart slow, and do not ever, ever let yourself slide into sleep.
My heavy boots settled. That would be down.
With the greatest possible strength and the least possible movement, I kicked in the opposite direction. Up. Once. Careful not to break stasis.
A second cast. Magic enveloped my flesh like a well-fitted mask so the heat would not escape me so quickly. Still adrift, but warmer. Eyes naught but slits—protected by the skin of magic.
Safia had warned me to do no magic here. But without magic I was already drowned. If I was trapped, so be it. Just let there be some end to this.
Not a glimmer of light. How deep was I? Two hours . . . three . . . I could maintain. But longer?
Still! Slow! Cast! Magic flowed through my fingers, shoving the water above my head to either side. A little more. Surely I was rising through the dark. But what waited above? Xancheira? Sanctuary? Was this Magrog’s eighth hell? Morgan had seen the abyss. A crack in the world, she’d called it, the unending dark whence come beasts to devour the Everlasting. Please, Goddess, no beasts . . .
Another slight eddy allowed me to rise through the dark. And another.
When first I glimpsed a glint of gold, I squeezed my eyes shut and renewed the spells. Hurrying would kill me if I was too deep.
I held off looking until I couldn’t bear it, then opened my eyes a slit. Gold specks darted like fish the size of sparks, leaving molten color in their wake.
The gold fish grew in size. Myriad silver ones joined them. Their swimming made glurps and garbles in the slowly swirling water. Words? Dead . . . all accounted for . . . fool . . .
Must not sleep. Must not allow seductive dreams. No senior paratus waited to pull me out.
“. . . a corpse?” This voice was no dream.
“Not dead. Enchanted!” A woman’s voice. “. . . could be the one!”
“Run, woman! Tell Signé we’re breached!” The male speaker’s ungentle hands dragged me from the water onto rocky ground. The gold fire of a torch vanished, leaving only the silver . . . stars. Uncountable stars. Not the stars of Evanide.
“Do not dare harm him,” the woman called, distant.
“Hurry. They’ll have felt his passage.” But she couldn’t have heard my rescuer’s out-of-breath urgency.
A weight pressed on my chest, as my skin of magic began to dissipate in itching warmth.
“Aye, there ’tis. A living heart’s in there somewhere. What vileness lurks inside it?”
My fingers twitched, but will stilled them . . . and forbade me open my eyes wider . . . and stifled the desperation to suck in air.
He lifted his head, but remained a warm bulk at my side as a chill wind blustered around us. “Ah, not-dead-sorcerer, thou’rt skilled indeed. By the Mother, I should end thee. But my lady would never forgive it. Aagh, these women.”
; My slitted vision picked out the crouching silhouette blocking the stars. No gards, either silver or blue, and his stink was nervous male human. Though his speech reflected their archaic lilt, he was not Danae.
Carefully I assessed leg and shoulder muscles. The man’s hostility suggested caution until I could move everything. But before I was quite ready, the stasis magic winked out and my tortured lungs exploded. Harsh coughing threatened to rip my newly stitched wound as well as my chest. Unsure of my legs, I rolled to the side—toward my companion. In the matter of a few moments’ grapple, I had the fellow on his face, hands pinned behind his back. Easier than I expected.
“I wish you no harm,” I croaked, as soon as the spasms relented. “I do appreciate your not killing me.”
“Tell me thy name, intruder,” he growled. His breath smelled sharp, like bad wine.
“You first, I think.” I emphasized the point with a bit more pressure on his strained arms.
“No name you know or are ever likely to.”
Fair enough. “Then tell me where we are.”
He crowed in bitter triumph. “Thou’rt the one who breached. Is it thy habit to blunder through the mysteries of the world without knowing what lies on the other side? Of course it is. Why would a Registry brute behave any different than his kind ever have? I tell thee nothing.”
He was a big-boned fellow, but the starlight revealed his eyes sunk deep and his jaw and cheekbones much too visible through mottled skin. I could restrain both of his dry, fleshless wrists with one hand. The man was starving. Even so, I was not fool enough to let him go.