Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  “This is no choice. You’ve manipulated lives, murdered innocents, cut off all routes for my future but the one you desire. The same way you drove me to the Order. The same way you used Geraint until you decided he wasn’t quite what was wanted and decided to discard him. If I do what you want, you’ll have to kill him. And what of Eodward’s sons? They’re not worthy, either. So what shall we do? Turn a few Order missions to assassination? Because how could we allow any of Caedmon’s blood kin to live? They might claim it is not right for one man to impose his whim on tens of thousands of lives. Their rights have been approved by time and history. Whence comes yours?”

  “The fact remains. You must choose.”

  “Do you not believe your own argument? A just kingdom cannot be built on murder.”

  He would not hear it. “The princes will do each other in. We wait until there is only one left and then make our move. As for the Marshal . . . You will never be safe if he lives, even if we seal him into an oubliette. I’ll do it. It will be a small sin beside my others. I freely confess—”

  The dark air behind him parted with a whisper, a muffled thump, and a quick expulsion of air. Damon lurched forward, until his spread hands gripped the worktable behind him. The purple mask dropped to the floor.

  The Marshal emerged from the shadows on the far side of the table. “Perhaps, curator, you need to stop committing so many sins that you must constantly confess them.”

  Damon’s knees buckled and I moved to catch him. But he had no need of me. Braced on the table, he pulled himself around to face the pupil who’d planted a dagger in his back. “I tried to make you worthy. You promised to give up the old Geraint. Remember your lessons, and perhaps you can still become what I hoped for.”

  “I’ve no interest in your hopes.”

  The Knight Marshal threw off the dark cloak that had kept him hidden and pawed at the litter of silver and cloth piled on the worktable. “No sooner did I reach my dressing chamber than I realized you’d run off with my medallion last night, after displaying it to Canis-Ferenc. So I came back to fetch it, and what have I heard but treason, my devoted mentor seducing my new bodyguard. I’ve not even trained Lucian to my service as yet. But I do thank you for him. And for my throne.”

  He lifted the silver pendant to the light, gold gleaming from its back. His eyes gleamed, too, his mouth twisted into a smile, and he spared not a glance for the dying curator. Damon’s chin had dropped and his hands lost their grip on the table.

  I caught Damon as he fell and lowered him to sitting. Though his expression was entirely contained, he would not stay still. He fought fiercely for breath, clawing his waist and the floor. When his hands stilled, his dulling eyes found mine and for one moment hardened with a burst of will. He stuffed a wad of silk in my hand. “Run.”

  I ran. Straight into five of Ferenc’s guards who stood outside the chamber’s only door. They were ordinaries and not particularly skilled. On another day I could have taken them. But the metal bands felt strange and awkward, slowing moves that should have been instinctive.

  Only when I was on the floor with four of the brutes near disjointing my stretched limbs, and their comrade crushing my neck with his boot, did I notice that one of the bands on my right arm was inset with Fix’s rubies.

  I’d no time to guess whether it was Damon or solely the Archivist who had chosen to provide them. But they forced my mind to the power of threading. And in that same moment, with naught but willing it so, my own rebuilding magic produced a spray of paralyzing filaments—ropes of orange lightning erupting from my hands. Pinned to the floor, I couldn’t direct them, but the four guards at my extremities fell still and the boot man collapsed backward, growling, when his braced foot failed him.

  I wrenched free and scrambled away, halfway down the passage in an eyeblink.

  “Halt, Lucian! No more combat spells for now. No more magic of any kind until I say.”

  My feet stopped. And though I brought every shred of will to bear they would not budge. I tried to raise another spell . . . any spell of paralysis, fire, or confusion that might be incorporated in my silver bracelets . . . but I could not conjure a wisp.

  “Now turn around and come back. We’ve business to attend.”

  And to my horror, I turned around and went back.

  CHAPTER 41

  “Release my attendants,” spat the Marshal. “Do no other magic.”

  “I cannot,” I said, near choking as I frantically tried to command my own limbs, my own magic. “The spells must wear off on their own.”

  “Mmm. Simple paralytics. With your new accoutrements, you should have worked something more flexible.” He swept into the passage.

  The angry soldier with the immobilized leg was trying to rouse his comrades. He glanced up at the Marshal. “My apologies, domé, that we allowed him to escape. We didn’t think—”

  “The villain fooled me, too,” said the Marshal. “That won’t happen again.” He touched each of the five with a sharp burst of power. The angry man, no longer angry and still unable to shift his leg, gaped at his paralyzed comrades in bewilderment.

  “A vacant chamber sits at the end of the corridor, bodyguard. Drag these lumps down there—Damon, too. Leave them their weapons, seal the door, and then return. Indeed, you will always return to my presence when you’ve completed one of my commands, be it successful or no.”

  My throat constricted as I bent to do his will.

  “When I give you orders, you will respond respectfully,” he snapped. “For now you may address me as— Hmm. Knight Marshal is no longer appropriate, though I shall continue to serve in that capacity for a while. For now, call me Master. It will reinforce the training of a man who such a short time ago was offered the crown of Navronne and thought himself too good for it. So?”

  “As you say, Master.” I would have bitten my tongue off rather than say it or feel my body respond to his command. As I dragged the heavy guards one by one to the chamber at the end of the hall, anger and fear boiled beneath my skin.

  Goddess Mother, how had he done this? Of all things, human will was the most difficult to bind with magic. I had given him no consent, an essential part of any working that touched the will. Yet I felt no magic when he spoke, only the unequivocal compulsion to obey. The damnable Archivist must have done something. He’d been the Marshal’s partisan from the beginning.

  The dull-eyed guards breathed, though displaying no intelligence. I assured them that their paralysis would wear off and that someone would find them. The act told me I could yet move and speak as I wished outside the necessity of the Marshal’s commands. But clearly that freedom could end at his word, so I didn’t attack him when I returned for Damon.

  I dumped Damon’s body beside the guards. For seven years, the dark little curator had directed a profound and terrible course for my life and the lives of all who knew me. Yet, in moments, he’d become no more than any other lifeless spider, its legs curled. The dagger in his back might be the pin to affix him to an arcanist’s specimen board. What use to hate him anymore? He’d been right that he knew me better than I knew myself. Just not quite well enough.

  A slip of purple, half hidden under one of the immobile guards, caught my eye. I must have dropped the royal mask during the fight and dragged it here under the bulky body.

  I pulled it out and brushed off the dust—ephemeral, like that foolish moment I’d considered wearing it for the rest of my days. Something heavy was caught in the silk, or rather . . . purposely tied into it. When I undid the knot, a gold disk dropped into my hand. Raised edge. Struck with the head of Caedmon’s daughter. Holy gods . . .

  When the gloating Geraint had dangled his silver pendant in the light, a gold disk had certainly been nested in the back. But Damon had been fussing with a medallion before the Marshal’s arrival. . . .

  Burying all thought, lest Geraint’s strange talents t
respass belief and yield him my most disturbing notion, I bound mask and medallion under my tunic with the string of my underdrawers. Then I sealed the door and headed back to my master.

  An argument rose from the chamber, slowing my obedient steps. “. . . was already dead,” the Marshal was saying. “Lucian was wild when we took him from the wall. I had to use the dust.”

  The dust . . . the Marshal’s spellwork in the dressing chamber?

  “Why such haste?” said the Archivist. “The dust binding was only for specific rebellion against your interests. Damon deserved death. Greenshank meted out justice, exactly as he was trained. Why would he not consent to serve you? The Order’s needs demand it; your cause is clear. The daughter was the eldest of Caedmon’s children, senior to Eodward’s progenitor. Eodward’s own law says that daughters inherit equally, thus you are Caedmon’s true heir—Navronne’s rightful king. Did you not explain these things? I compromised my oaths to assure your ascension. To see such ill-considered actions . . . Pssh.”

  The Archivist dealt in reason, as if that were the antidote to his immersion in memories. But just like his relictory, his world was fragments, each logical in itself, but disconnected from any other. He could feel distress for Inek’s condition, but could not connect that to Damon’s death, or Geraint’s trespass of the morality of magic, or the possibility that Geraint de Serre posed a threat worse than any of the three princes. The smooth-voiced Marshal would tear Navronne apart and implement his tyranny with the Order and an army of purebloods at his back—the ultimate perversion of the divine gift.

  “Your world is your tower and your relictories, good Archivist.” The Marshal’s voice fell into his most persuasive cadence. “But a Knight Marshal sees the men of the Order as you cannot. Lucian de Remeni was ever vain and secretive, so that I often wondered if his memory was properly scraped. He never believed in our rules. Even Inek, who doted on him like a wetnurse, had to send him to the seaward wall for lies and sneaking. Convincing him would be a waste of time. He will make a better servant now he cannot argue.”

  My feet insisted I join them in the chamber.

  “Ah, here is my right arm. Nicely obedient, you see. I’ve forbidden him spellwork for the present. As he recognizes that our aims are the same, he will come to take pride in his submission. Then we can take measures to loosen the hold the dust has on him.”

  “I don’t like it,” grumbled the Archivist. “You are the rightful heir, the Sorcerer King. Your magic is sufficient. Seize the throne and purify the Registry. Why do you need Greenshank?”

  “Damon taught me well. A great king’s hand bestows stern guidance and benevolent warning. He must own a trusty arm to wield the sword and axe. Lucian’s righteous anger will scour the Registry and his well-honed skills teach Navron nobles their place.”

  Geraint commanded me to step to the wall and put my hands and feet back in the binding straps.

  As my body obeyed, fear and anger exploded. “What is it to be this time? Splinters in my eyes so I can’t see Damon’s blood on your hand? Or the blood of the old Marshal, or that of the man beheaded in my place, or whomever else you believe stands between you and power? Will it be splinters in my ears so I can’t hear your plan to use the Order and then destroy it?”

  The Marshal’s hand crashed into my cheek, slamming my head against the wall.

  Dizzy and sick, I pushed on. “Knight Archivist, you know that the worst of all crimes for those bearing the divine gift—worse even than using magic to take life—is enslaving the human will. Never, not to Damon, not to this man, did I consent to be Geraint de Serre’s right arm, left hand, or slave.”

  “Stop babbling,” said the Archivist, elbowing de Serre aside as he tightened the buckles. “You gave consent when you joined the Order. Your relict embodies your will, so the dust of it does as well. Why do you think we dispose of it so quickly?”

  The dust of my relict. Horrified dismay jellied my knees. Geraint had woven me a noose from my own soul!

  “No one disposed of mine,” I said, choking on desperation. “Who failed in that duty? The guilt of the evils I’m forced to do will rest on that man. Just as the guilt of Inek’s suffering falls on those who allowed him to find the trap, as well as the murderer who creat—”

  “Enough!” snapped the Marshal. “Speak no word until I release your tongue. Consider how you would enjoy a lifetime mute, speaking only with your weapons and your magic.”

  I growled, wordless. That would not happen. I’d find a way out. Though he’d forbidden me to work magic for the moment, he’d not forbidden me to construct it. It was bitter that the sample of the relict dust I’d collected, the very element needed to construct a counter to his binding, remained in the pocket of my filthy clothes left in the bathing room. They were likely burnt by now. And even if I structured a counter, when would I get a chance to use it?

  The Marshal held up a full-face silk mask the deep red of good wine, right side plain, the left embroidered in spirals of black. “This will be face of my new bodyguard. Properly fearsome and anonymous. Servantlike.”

  He tossed the mask to the Archivist. “My faithful brother of our beloved Order, I trust you will get my ferocious creature dressed in his new livery and delivered to me outside Ferenc’s hall. As I see to my own preparation for this historic event, I’ll consider what name to give him. Perhaps I’ll call him Sword. Or simply Arm. You have an hour.”

  As the Marshal left the chamber, the Archivist set the mask aside and continued tightening straps.

  Masking. This session was about threading the mask to seal my face from view. Though the silver bands felt strange, they would bring speed and depth to my magic. A threaded mask was far more frightening. Even at arm’s length I could feel its incredibly strong obscuré. No one would ever look me in the eye. No gaze would linger long enough to recognize me.

  Always under the Order mask lay flesh that I could touch and feel and know I was this person temporarily named Greenshank with all his knowledge and questions and hungers, and I was also a person whose true life was hidden in a chip of stone. But a threaded mask . . . after wearing it for months . . . years . . . would the flesh remain? Would the person remain? Or would I become something else altogether?

  Heart thuttered with terror. Mind clawed at any escape—even at a risky notion that had flitted past as I bade farewell to Damon. Surely it was better to risk all than live as Geraint de Serre’s slave.

  I growled and wriggled my fingers. No need for silkbinding when my master had compelled me to forgo magic.

  “Keep still.” The Archivist yanked a thigh strap tight, pinching the flesh between the strap and a silver band. “This must be done, else . . .”

  He did not—could not?—supply a reason. And he didn’t meet my gaze.

  Was it guilt? To support the ascension of a sorcerer king, he had violated his Order oaths. But he’d been appalled at Inek’s injury. Finding Fix’s splinter had told him . . . something . . . that caused him to help me. He had embedded the band of Fix’s rubies discreetly on the inside of my arm. You’ll thank me, he’d said.

  I growled with greater urgency, using each of my fingers in turn to point to my waist.

  “Be still. You don’t want me to attach this to your eyeball!” But this time he glanced up. I redoubled my wordless pleading and pointing.

  “So piss yourself, if you’ve no control. I’m not going to undo all this.”

  But as I kept up my noisy display, he puzzled and glanced at my waist. That part of my will that was yet my own, I aimed in his direction, commanding, pleading, begging him to understand.

  Wrinkling his nose and pursing his thin lips into perfect disgruntlement, he raised the hem of the tunic. Another quick glance up.

  When he had the medallion and the royal mask in hand, one might have thought I’d paralyzed him as well as the guards.

  “You stole these,�
�� he accused.

  No, I voiced soundlessly. His ice-blue eyes widened and he glanced at the worktable—and Damon’s blood staining the floor. Your friend Inek touched that trap spell for me, Archivist. Sacrificed his mind to warn me. You know it’s true.

  The Archivist had recognized the trap spell. He knew who made it, and who destroyed my relict. And he had falsified the naming of the Knight Marshal of Evanide. Guilt dogged him.

  He smoothed the mask. Rubbed the medallion in his bony fingers. Considered.

  “Damon, you sly devil,” he breathed at last. The curator’s name carried every nuance of evolving understanding.

  The Archivist’s glance speared me. “He did intend it to be you, because he knew Geraint before the Order . . . this crass, hasty person who is not at all like the Marshal. But Geraint is the true heir of Caedmon. Even if he murdered Damon, he is surely better than Osriel the Devil or Bayard the Harrower Consort or Perryn the Forger, and yet you want me . . .”

  I clenched my fists, pointed a finger at the mask, and then, signaling two, tried to tell him that Damon had planned to substitute me for Geraint. That wasn’t going to happen. But what would the Three Hundred conclude if they saw two Pretenders at the same time—one enslaved to the other with illicit magic? It was all I could think of, and only the Archivist could help me prevail. My fists opened in pleading.

  In grim, angry silence, the Archivist continued tightening straps. My wriggling and growling ceased. If he had not chosen to do as I wished, further annoyance wasn’t going to make him. I couldn’t see which mask he picked up and smoothed over my face. Lord of light, preserve . . .

  The mask’s own magic slipped it into position. But strangely, the first target of the Archivist’s magic was my upper right arm. The world bucked and writhed as a red-hot nail penetrated my bones. Better to cut off the damnable arm so I could not do murder at Geraint’s whim. Then the Archivist touched my temple and one of the tiny splinters reached out from inside my skull and looped over the mask’s edge. Then another. The silk melted into my face and every thought crumbled to ash.