Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  Damon had schooled Fallon well in the pridefulness of purebloods.

  “Conspiracies . . . imposters . . . surely Damon would have told me,” said the Marshal, baring his skepticism.

  “We need a historian,” Ferenc called out to the restless crowd, “or an examiner. Anyone who might discern the provenance of Curator Damon’s death wound.”

  As several came forward from the three hundred delegates and one man from the guests at the back of the Hall, the Marshal stepped to my side, hands knotted at his back. He eyed the group gathering around Damon’s corpse and spoke through clenched teeth. “You will reap Magrog’s own wrath if you left that dagger in place. . . .”

  I crossed my arms on my breast and inclined my back, shaking my head.

  He spewed disgust at the apology, but he well knew he’d not told me to remove the weapon. He’d been too busy enjoying my submission.

  “Join those at Damon’s side and erase all trace of me from that dagger. And if one of these self-important peacocks even hints that he’s learned anything from the dagger, you will do whatever is necessary to silence him. If it reaps you a lashing, so be it.”

  I brought my fingertips to my mouth and then opened my palm in question.

  “No, you may not speak.”

  Good. I wanted my limitations on view. I dipped my head and stepped away.

  As if he’d heard my thought, the Marshal held me back with a touch on my shoulder. “Have a care, Axe, or you will live out your days on such a leash that you will never piss without my command.”

  Blood cold, I acknowledged his warning and joined the small group at Damon’s side. Fallon’s men formed a circle around us.

  Fallon should have brought me the means to end this. If I was lucky, it might be a ring or a pendant to drop over my head, maybe a wooden token set with a silver splinter—anything the Archivist might use to trigger a counterspell to set me free. If the Archivist had failed or decided he wanted to crown Geraint after all, Fallon’s sword would end my servitude. The Marshal had not compelled me to protect myself.

  A white-haired man swathed in froths of lace poured magic into the dagger, but concluded only that it was last touched by a sorcerer. “Without a suspect hand to match with the traces on the dagger, I cannot guess who might have done it. Bring me someone likely, and I could say more.”

  A statuesque woman, her half mask crusted with diamonds, entwined the dagger in powerful magic. She pronounced that the weapon had been wielded in cold malice, intended to kill. “Spellwork directed its flight and maximized the damage caused. The actual power used was of an unusual sort—”

  My arm smashed into her mouth, knocking her into the embrace of the white-haired man. Whether or not she could actually implicate the Marshal was unimportant.

  The group broke into complaints and indignation. “What have you done, domé?” snapped Fallon.

  I crossed my arms in apology, and bowed to the fluttering woman, shaking my head in denial. That was my story’s opening. Please gods, let them read it.

  Geraint had left me no choice as to my task, but I would embellish the doing and try my best to fail. Compulsion did not permit failure, of course. I could slow completion, stumble, restart, but I could not stop myself entire.

  Making a show of my dismay, I reached for the dagger and began constructing a spell of erasure to cleanse the blade of the Marshal’s imprint. Erasure spells were quite complex and could not be cast until the precise details to be removed were known. Using my bent provided far more than I needed, but I incorporated all so as to delay. Inevitably, I completed the spellwork, but I forced my body to withhold the outpouring of magic, aborting my cast before it could destroy the evidence. As long as I possessed power enough to drive the spell to completion, I had not failed.

  And so I began constructing it again. And again I strangled the rush of magic, as if I’d noticed something wrong. I had to avoid casting the spell until someone noticed my strange behavior.

  The third time I denied the flow of magic, one of the silver bands on my left leg tightened, as if my deliberate rejection of its aid angered it. I’d no time to consider why. I had to stay in control.

  A strong hand grabbed my arm from behind. “What is it you do here, bodyguard?”

  This would be the man from the group of guests, whatever courageous fellow Fallon had recruited to help him. Eyes focused on the dagger, I wrenched my hand from his grasp, ignored the now-painful tightening of the leg banding, and started building the erasure spell once more. If I looked at anyone, lost concentration, I would wipe the Marshal’s murderous imprint from the dagger.

  “What is your purpose here, bodyguard?” said the man behind me. A stern voice. Familiar. “What magic is this? Are you an examiner?”

  Groaning through my clenched jaw, I shook my head. I had to make them see I had no choice.

  I began the spell construction yet again, ignoring the warm wetness seeping from the growing agony in my leg. Fix’s rubies . . . gods. When I aborted the flow of power, the threaded gems tried to supply more as if I was depleted. I was fighting myself . . .

  Fallon’s hand yanked mine from the dagger. “Mayhap the dagger will tell us something about this man!”

  My twisting lunge caught Fallon in his middle and slammed him to the floor. Tangled in his cloak I slammed a knee upward, only to have someone else pounce on my back. As Fallon scrambled away, the man at my back reached under my arms and around the back of my neck in a crushing lock hold.

  An eye gouge, a head slam backward. Another twist and I planted an elbow in my captor’s cheek. Leaving him lie, I crawled back toward Damon’s body. The dagger was all I could see, all I could think of. I reached for it, all the while shaking my head. Stop me!

  Shouts creased the rattling din in my head. Fallon’s man must be careful.

  Yet again I touched the dagger. Do not let the magic flow. The rubies won’t cut your leg off. People must see the evidence.

  A blade rested on my wrist. “Let go of it,” said the stern-voiced man standing over me. The familiar voice again. He was hooded and masked in black. “Move away.”

  But, of course, I could not. The Marshal’s compulsion threatened to crush my skull. I shook my head and began the erasure spell yet again.

  Voices rose from every side. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s bleeding.”

  “You four, get his hands off the weapon.” The snapped order was so familiar. . . . “I don’t think he can stop what he’s doing.”

  Hands grabbed me. Demonic rage and threaded magic lashed out with acid stings, paralysis, fire . . . Hold tight, Fix had said. Let your rage give you strength, not control it. Of all things, I didn’t want to harm anyone, kill anyone. I tried. Held back. Threw counters. But at least two soldiers were laid out bleeding. Another crawled away with one of his feet turned entirely the wrong direction.

  At last they dragged me away from Damon and crushed me to the floor. I writhed and twisted. My control was slipping. I doubted I could stop the flow of magic one more time. My left foot was numb; the band constricting my leg had me near howling. If my assailants let loose for an instant, I would go for the dagger again and kill anyone in my way.

  “Tell us who you are!” demanded my captor.

  “He’s the Pretender’s bodyguard,” said Fallon. “We should—”

  “Axe, are you bewitched?” Now the Marshal stood over me, too. My own dagger was in my hand. “You were to offer your magic to aid this investigation. Lord Canis-Ferenc, my apologies. This is entirely unlike my servant.”

  “Are you sure it is your servant?” And at last someone yanked off my hood. I growled and came near gutting him, before they wrestled me still. My knife slid away and I was dragged upright. . . .

  “Lord of light, look at his face! A living mask . . . the design of it . . . the same royal mask!” Shoc
k rippled through the bystanders. “The Pretender swore to wear a mask every hour of every day.”

  And the bold Ferenc: “Lord de Serre, what is the meaning of this?”

  “You damnable, cursed— Who’s done this to you, Axe?” The Marshal’s fury was no pretense. “First my mentor, and now my most trustworthy servant.”

  Roaring, I shook my head, over and over, half crazed with the need to cleanse the dagger in Damon’s back or kill any who touched it. I kicked out at those who knelt in front of me, trying to get a closer look. A cataclysm was building inside me.

  Soldiers grabbed my feet. The man behind me was only one—strong, yes, and magic fed his grip like links of steel. But eventually I would take him down and kill him, too.

  “Take the dead man out of the Hall,” said Ferenc. “That’s what’s driving him mad.”

  “It seems strange that his mask is fixed as the Pretender promised,” said Fallon, “while yours, Lord de Serre, is yet loose. Curator Damon warned of a plot . . . an imposter.”

  The Marshal raised his hand and Fallon’s body jerked and flew across the floor, as if hit by a charging stallion.

  “How dare you speak to me, ordinary?” spat the Marshal. “No matter who you were. Perhaps you know who’s suborned my servant. Someone’s using him to plant a false imprint on the dagger.”

  “But why this erratic behavior?” demanded Ferenc. “I’ll bear witness that this is the very man who accompanied you into the Hall. The one who responded with such dread speed and skill to your command. You commended him for his performance. You relished it.”

  The man behind me loosened his hold on my right arm and ripped my shirt. I wrenched my arm free. Demon compulsion bade me gouge his eyes. The need to finish the task given me ate through my bowels like acid.

  But my captor’s fluid moves were well practiced, and he soon had me caged again. My body wanted to shred his flesh. My fading intellect begged him hold tighter.

  Canis-Ferenc and the other purebloods moved closer to inspect a blaze from my arm.

  “The medallion’s a part of his flesh,” one said. “It’s certainly the one the judges verified.”

  “. . . never seen the like of his face . . .”

  “. . . what honor . . . what humility for a king to mask himself . . .”

  “What is this idiocy?” yelled the Marshal from somewhere I couldn’t see. Beams of purple, azure, and loden green reflected on the polished floor. “I hold the true medallion. I am Caedmon’s heir. This man is my servant. A traitor has mutilated him to discredit me.”

  “One of you is a murdering imposter,” snarled Ferenc. “But which? Both wear a royal mask. Both wear a medallion. And by divine Deunor’s grace . . . both medallions shine!”

  The fire from my arm flamed purple, azure, and loden.

  “Perhaps it is the gods’ sign that it is not our place to decide.” A square-shouldered woman, robed in Registry scarlet and black, swept into view like a tornadic wind. “Historian Geselle-Mando has just determined that the hand that wielded the dagger to murder Curator Damon is the same as the most recent person to occupy your chair, Eqastré Ferenc. Geraint de Serre.”

  “Do not dare touch me,” said the Marshal, snarling as Registry guards surrounded him.

  Lightning bloomed from his hand. The flame joined the clerestory sunlight and magefire, smearing into a blinding brilliance. “You’re all mad. Who will sit Caedmon’s throne? Some brawling ordinary? The madman of Evanore?”

  “Not you,” said Pons. “Attis de Lares-Damon, flawed as he was, forced us to see our own corruption, and you murdered him, using magic.”

  “Slay this witch and these fools who hold you, Axe,” snarled the Marshal. “Rise up and slay any who threaten me. I am the rightful king of Navronne.”

  Magic rushed through me, wild, dreadful, bestial. Wordless, I roared with power, bucking and thrashing even as waning reason fought to hold it back. Hold . . . hold . . .

  “Can no one see? This man”—the woman’s finger pointed at me—“is the true Pretender, his will enslaved by de Serre’s malice. Enslavement of will is the most ancient and most serious violation of Aurellian law. As the last Curator of the Pureblood Registry, charged by the Sitting of the Three Hundred to carry out its dissolution, I arrest you, Geraint de Serre, for murder and enslavement of the gods’ chosen.”

  “Unleash your power, Axe!” yelled the Marshal. “Bring this house down on every cowering traitor! Show no mercy!”

  The ground shook. Dust drifted from the vaults of the Hall. Magic boiled and flowed like molten rock from my bracelets, feeding on Fix’s rubies and eating through my defenses until it became a monstrous flood of destruction. Bellowing, I yanked a hand free and raised it, shaking . . .

  Screams rose from onlookers. A thunderous crack split my kinswoman’s glorious mural. Feel this loss, Lucian, I begged, trying to direct the escaping power where it would do the least harm. Find yourself. Greenshank, reach for your lost name. You cannot . . . cannot . . . do this, a crime for which there will be no redemption. If Pons is here, then surely your sister is here, too. The last of your family. The one who can help you reclaim your soul.

  For a moment, fervid longing muted my fury. But the battle raging inside me incinerated hope and desire, shame, horror, and reason. . . .

  Cracks appeared in the grand pillars. The viewing gallery sagged, and the slender columns that masked it toppled one and then the other into the hall. The screaming crowd surged toward the doors.

  Fallon stood before me, sword drawn, his skin scraped and bloodied, my last hope of salvation. Even as I snarled and summoned death, a deep-buried voice begged him, Do it, do it . . .

  “Not yet,” snapped the man behind me, strengthening his hold as he threw a magical shield between me and the sword.

  I roared and tore at his flesh, but his stern voice ground through madness and into my ear. “The time of your choice has come, paratus. There is no counterspell. The dust you preserved was gone. But the Archivist reminds you that Geraint’s chains were forged with the detritus of a man executed eleven days ago. But in truth, that man ceased to exist two years past.”

  “Axe!” screamed the Marshal. “Execute these traitors! First of all this cur who dares restrain my instrument.”

  But the one who held me would not yield. “You cling to sentiment instead of understanding, listen to echoes instead of voices; you yearn for what is ash, rather than shape what is silver. Think. The soul is not a name. Nor is it incidents of other times, or emotions, no matter how cherished. The soul endures. The divine gift endures. Who are you? Choose.”

  Fading reason searched for an answer . . . and found magic . . . my bents . . . my art. . . . I reached for line and color, shape and depth, and drew the portrait of a man of loving family who found life in a house of the dead, strength in a dark cellar, and purpose in works of justice. . . . And I wrapped this artwork in magic and linked it to the symbol of a knife.

  I am not Axe. I invoked the spell in silence. Nor am I Lucian de Remeni, the artist whose past was stolen and whose future is enslaved. Nor am I Greenshank, because that name was never anything but a placeholder for what Lucian was to become. The divine gift lives in me in generous measure. I am threaded with the power of the Knight Defender of Evanide, and I know truths that will help my people shake off the evils of the past. Even without a name, my soul lives. Unbound.

  I turned inward, and as the Archivist had taught us, I used the knife to cut away the image I’d drawn. Not even memory pricks would be able to return a seed of Lucian de Remeni’s life, because I removed the soil where it could root and display its truth. Three times I invoked the spell, reaching deeper to excise the lingering fragments: a sister who sparked the universe . . . the yearning for home and kinship . . . the connection with a great house near Pontia . . . the intimacy with a being of myth . . . the craving for beliefs, memory,
and experiences that waited just beyond my reach . . . the threads that took fire when I touched a signature or artworks done in other times . . . and all attachment to a name.

  As my knife cut deeper, belief and certainty grew, and lust for murder faded.

  . . . my soul lives. Unbound. When at last I raised my head, the spasms and the killing fever had gone, as if swept away by a god’s hand. Though I yet trembled from weariness and the pain in my leg, my captor had released his hold.

  “You think this is over, servant?” The Marshal backed away from the sword-wielding Fallon, from Pons and her Registry servitors, from Canis-Ferenc and his crimson-and-silver-liveried guards. Both of Geraint’s hands were filled with flame, ready to spew into ropes and chains of spellwork. “My leash has bound your soul, Remeni, and though the traitorous Archivist has allowed you to slip it this time, I will have it back.”

  “No,” I rasped. “You won’t.” But before I could raise a hand to defend myself, his magic flared. . . .

  As if a shutter had blown open and admitted a gale wind, two dozen men in black and gray swooped in and surrounded the Marshal, erecting wards and shields so that his cannonade of fire and lightning shattered without damage—a maneuver we had practiced repeatedly in the bloody days at Val Cleve.

  “Cineré resurge!” bellowed the Marshal. “Out of my way.”

  The knights did not move. A fog descended from the ceiling and blanketed the noisy melee. A very familiar kind of fog—textured, shifting, though we were indoors and nowhere near the sea. A commanding figure walked out of it.

  “Alas, the Knight Marshal’s imperative has no weight when spoken by one who is no longer the Knight Marshal.” The lean, sinewy newcomer was armored and masked in the blue of storm seas and Order gray.

  I grinned, though entirely confused. Even if Bastien had gone straight to Evanide after my capture in the alley, how could Fix have gotten here so quickly?

  “Who in the name of all gods—?” Canis-Ferenc summoned a troop of his warriors, swords humming with power. Pons raced to his side, her single arm bearing a staff that spewed lightning.