Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  Fix brought the old Archivist out of his forced retirement, and over the course of three days I would give much to forget, the old man and the new Archivist, once known as Second, unthreaded the mask, carefully undoing the magic that had bonded it to my skin, to my nerves, to my mind and magic. Somewhere in the blur of those days, the old Archivist leaned close and whispered in my ear so no one else could hear. “You said the day of the Sorcerer King is not yet, and you promised to wait and watch. Was that empty posturing? If I remove the threading splinters around your face, this mask can never be put back.”

  I had no intention of donning the mask again and no desire to do so. But neither would I retract the promise made at Cavillor. Perhaps it was delirium caused by unending pain, but I whispered hoarsely, “Leave them.”

  Two months it took me to recover from that ordeal and regain some semblance of my former skills, sleeping during the days, and working all night in the training rooms, alone or with Inek. Daylight hours when I was not sleeping, I spent in the bowels of the Archive Tower. The new Archivist taught me more of the memory magic I should have learned before my investiture. Intricate, glorious magic. Which made my growing certainties all the more difficult.

  During that time of healing, Fix and Inek purposely kept me ignorant of the world outside, saying it was useless until I had the skills to deal with what I heard. They confirmed Geraint de Serre was dead, but didn’t tell me how. I grieved for the Marshal I’d believed in, but not for the man whose seductive voice lurked in my dreams like leeches in a pond.

  On the night Inek laid a hand on my shoulder and said I was to meet Fix at the boathouse an hour before sunrise, with my weapons and what kit I had assembled during my stay, I knew the time of my choice had come. “As you say, Knight Commander. I want to tell you how much—”

  “You told me enough when I lay in the infirmary, unable to reply,” he said. “Dalle cineré, Knight Aros, my friend and brother.”

  “Dalle cineré, Knight Commander.” From the ashes. Never had the words meant so much.

  “You sleep well; you can run the flats in the dark at a pace near your best,” said the Defender, as we strolled down the quay toward the boathouse that morning. The wind frosted the scruff on my chin that was the only beard I could grow around the scars left by the unthreading. “Inek reports your swordwork has actually surpassed your last testing. . . .”

  I laughed. “Every tyro would be at this level if he trained with Inek every night.”

  It was hard to know Fix was going to force me to a decision. I hated to disappoint those who put such faith in me.

  “It’s good to hear you laugh,” said Fix. “Don’t ever allow that skill to wane. I’m pleased your time has been profitable, but the Order will benefit now our new Knight Marshal can be invested instead of playing nursemaid every night. The mysterious Knight Defender is most inadequate to handle both offices and his boats, as well.”

  I glanced up sharply. “Inek is to be the Knight Marshal?”

  “He was named two years ago—before the Archivist falsified the count. He will implement the reforms we’ve decided on and lead us into this new world you’ve made possible. As for you—”

  “Knight Defender, I cannot stay.” Only the need to get the painful words spoken could make me interrupt Fix. “I’ve matters to see to, some personal, which sounds strange for one who so recently relinquished all identity save the One-Who-Waits. But I meant what I said at Cavillor. And these days of work and solitude convinced me I cannot judge the world if I don’t live there. I cannot allow others to filter my view. My heart is with the Order, especially now it is in such fine care, but Aros belongs elsewhere.”

  We stood at the end of the quay, gazing out on the restless sea.

  He tilted his head my way and looked at me the way the boatmaster looked on a tyro who could not remember how to tie a knot. “This is not exactly a shock to me. Indeed, I’ve a proposition for you,” he said. “But first I’ll have to tell you a bit about what’s come of your deeds. . . .”

  • • •

  The dawn light tinted the sprawling town on the horizon a vibrant pink, as I emerged from the snowy wood and joined the eastern road. I’d walked for a month since that dawn on the quay at Evanide, and winter had set in with a vengeance though we were yet a few days from the solstice.

  I’d spent my journey listening—to travelers, hostlers, and laborers at the side of the road, at sop-houses and taverns, in alleyways and gatehouses, and at the windows of pureblood enclaves and official chambers, most of the time veiled in Order magic. Ordinaries were accustomed to the uncertainty the tides of war left behind. Purebloods weren’t. They were struggling to move forward from the Sitting.

  A few powerful families like the Albins had declared their intent to re-create an administrative council with stricter rules—a new, purified, but harsher Registry. Duc Benedik had returned north to secure his people against winter and war. Canis-Ferenc had sent wagonloads of provisions, tools, and seed with him, and they had committed to further negotiation in the spring. Ferenc’s partisans sewed white stripes on their wine-hued cloaks—many of them fashioned in the shape of Xancheira’s tree. Rumors already spoke of intimidation by the traditionalists. I would have to see to that.

  But first something even more important. Morning bells rang at a Karish monastery school that nestled in the valley upriver from the town. Half a quellé past the school, a side road led into gentle hills. I pulled my hood low to shadow my face. The two women were already waiting.

  The larger, older of the two, wide-shouldered and severe in her claret-hued robe and mask, raised a hand. I raised mine and then laid it on the opposite shoulder in the signal Fix’s message had arranged. The smaller rider in black mantle and mask—the variant garb permitted for purebloods in mourning—dipped her head gracefully and pulled her mount around to take the side road into the hills. Without a word, I followed, leaving the other woman behind to guard the way.

  As I passed, Pons—the temporary Administrator of Sorcerer Registration—nodded. She knew only that I was a messenger from the Order. Neither she nor Juli knew that I lived.

  Unkempt myrtle and bay had almost overgrown the road. Only rabbit tracks marred the pristine snow. We saw no sign of the horror that had happened here until we reached the top of a hill overlooking a broad valley. The black and broken stubble of a huge house and myriad outbuildings laid a blight upon the frosty morning.

  “Here,” I said, calling her to halt. “This is far enough.”

  I dismounted and offered her my hand, but she refused. “I don’t understand why we’re here,” she said, as she dropped smoothly to her feet and stroked her mare’s neck. “Administrator Pons says you are investigating matters of corruption brought before the Sitting of the Three Hundred last summer. I thought this particular matter was well understood.”

  “We’ve come for several reasons. I’ve the skill to learn a bit more about the night this happened.” I gestured toward the ruin. “And I made you a promise.”

  Her hand stopped in mid-stroke, and she spun around, her eyes wide.

  I lowered my hood and held out my hand. “I live.”

  One hand flew to her mouth, as the other reached for mine. Even through her glove it was cold as the ice glaze on the ponds below us.

  “I’m so sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner,” I said. “By the time I knew what they’d told you . . . shown you . . . I’d no opportunity. And once I was free, I had to go away for a while. . . .”

  “That was you in the mask,” she said, tracing the dreadful scars its removal had caused. “On the ramparts. And all I could think was how like you he sounded—and how glorious was his magic, more so than even my dearest brother’s—the one I’d just buried. Oh, Mother’s heart, Luka, where have you been?”

  I guided her to a bench I’d noted in that relict-seeing so long ago and held her until the rackin
g sobs had eased. “I saw you working at Cavillor—after—shoring up the wreckage I’d caused. So your bent leads you to that . . . to—”

  “Building,” she said, blotting her eyes before fixing them on my own. “So you still don’t remember.”

  “No. And I won’t. Not ever. I can’t regret it, as it was how I got free of a man who wanted to use my magic to murder his enemies. As long as I clung to the part of me that believed I was Lucian de Remeni—which was not so much, as you’d already seen—I was de Serre’s slave. To break his magic I had to destroy every part of me that would enable me to reclaim the person I was—the experiences that shaped me, the kinship and love I held for my family, even the desire to know more. I am forever changed, Juli. The affection and admiration I feel for you, the responsibility I feel for you, is because of who you are now, not blood nor anything we shared before that night at the Sanctuary pool.”

  She didn’t flinch. “But your bents, you still have them?”

  “Yes. Indeed”—I fetched parchment and a stick of plummet from my pack—“I wanted to use them today. Two purebloods were here the night this happened, and I intend to discover who they were. To make sure justice is done. I thought perhaps I could draw something for you, too. If I search the history of this place—your home—and you told me something to look for, I could sketch it for you. A gift. A memory, since I’ve none to share with you.”

  “But it wouldn’t put the memory back in your head where it belongs.”

  “No.”

  “Then there’s no use to it. Everything I loved here is graven in my heart forever, including my eldest brother Lucian, who was supremely talented and brave, but a bit of a prig. So, go ahead, do your investigating.”

  My laughter made her smile. I’d not thought there would be any of either on this day.

  Closing my eyes for a moment, I touched the ground and searched for what had happened here. As the terrible scenes raced through my head and my joined bents answered my call, I opened my eyes and began to draw.

  If I needed any confirmation of what I’d done at Cavillor, it lay here. I grieved for those who died and felt horror at the manner of it, but even with my deepest magic, I could not say the victims’ names or recognize their faces. The villains, though . . .

  “Who were they?” asked Juli, when I was done.

  I showed her that justice had been satisfied.

  “Pluvius, the lying wretch!” she said. “And—”

  “Attis de Lares-Damon.”

  What was I to think of Damon? He had countenanced savagery and brought a murderous tyrant a handsbreadth from Caedmon’s throne. Yet, would the Fifty have dissolved the Registry and set purebloods on a new, albeit rocky, course without Damon’s impassioned case? Would I have found my way to the Xancheirans without the strength Damon’s horrors forced on me?

  Mayhap. Yet I refused to believe that slaughter was necessary to evoke changes in the world. If I’d recognized the wily curator in the relict-seeing, I might have killed him, and the Marshal would almost certainly be on his triumphal journey to Palinur right now, the Order, the Three Hundred, and his murderous slave, Axe, at his beck.

  As the sun moved inexorably upward, Juli told me of her plans. Pons had found a distant Massoni cousin who had married into another family several generations back. She wanted Juli to adopt their name and pursue her studies until she was ready to forge a contract on her own. “. . . so I’d get to keep one of my names at least. But I’ve decided to go back to Xancheira. Think of the skills I can learn there—even if I only have the one bent. Signé and I are great friends, both of us cursed with over-righteous brothers. She’ll likely enjoy imagining that someday you’ll come back to see me. But what of you, Luk— So what is your name?”

  “Aros,” I said, “though I may take on different names from time to time. Your eldest brother is dead and must stay that way. To raise him, even in memory, puts us both in danger.”

  “So what will you do? Vanish into the sea fortress and let them take away all memory of me? How can you spend your talents—your kindness—your loving, generous spirit—only to be a warrior, even an extraordinary warrior?”

  “I’m not going back, for a while at least. Damon plowed a furrow amongst our kind thinking to grow a new world. Instead, it could divide us for generations, perhaps become a morass to drown our gifts. I’m going to dig a little, toss a few stones aside, plant some seeds, and, yes, fight a little, if necessary . . . to see if something worthy might grow in that soil.”

  “So you’re going to wait and watch, like you said on the ramparts, and do the work of justice.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all right, then.” She took my scarred face in her small hands. “Goddess Mother protect thee, beloved. Deunor, Lord of Light, be thy guide. Kemen Sky Lord give thee strength. And know this: Even without a shared name, or blood, or hearth, shall I ever be thy sister.”

  I helped her mount, firmly removed her hand from my hair, kissed it, and gave it back to her. As she rode away, I fingered the wooden token in my pocket, the match for the one I’d just left in her fist. But in the end, I burnt the disk to ash, which would do the same to hers. My boot ground the neutered splinter that remained into the soil that had once been my inheritance.

  Some things were too much to yield.

  • • •

  The wind howled across the white wilderness as I emerged from the slot gate in Palinur’s outer wall. Across the plateau, mounded with graves of the unknowns, the gates of Necropolis Caton stood tall, the towers broken and lopsided. Flames shot high from stone cauldrons flanking the gatehouse, lighting the statues of Deunor and Magrog, yet grappling in their endless duel. The flames told me the coroner was at home.

  Someone else lurked about Caton, as well. A tall woman, luminous with traces of sapphire and lapis, stood at the outer edge of the plateau. I did not go to her, nor did I call out. She soon vanished in a gust of winter wind and a swirl of snow. Perhaps she didn’t recognize me anymore, now Lucian was gone.

  Regret, but no sadness, followed me across a graveyard toward the necropolis. I paused once to pour out the dregs of my ale flask as libation to the Goddess Mother, thanking her for bringing me here safely. No familiarity, no echoes of chains or prisons or other times greeted me, even when I considered what had happened to Lucian here. And my head did not ache.

  No one sat behind the gates when I rang the bell. But at my third ring, a shutter flew open above me and a shaggy head poked out. “What’s your business so late of a night? The dead are not in so much hurry.”

  “I’m looking for work,” I said.

  “One man is useless. I need twenty washers and twenty diggers or no one at all. Go away.”

  “What of a sketcher? I’ve heard you employed one in the past, someone who can draw a dead face so it can be recognized. Folk pay well to know how their kinsmen die, who did the deed, and where they’re laid. Folk pay to know their enemies are dead, or their neighbors’ farm has no man to work it anymore. Nobles pay decent. Merchants pay better. If they learn the news before—”

  “Sky Lord’s everlasting balls! Lucian!”

  “Name’s Aros. Traveling artist . . .”

  But he didn’t wait to hear my pretty story. He trampled down the gatehouse stairs like a herd of goats, wrenched away a barricade, and unlocked the gate. Lantern raised, he stared as I lowered my hood. “Stars and stone, did the headsman miss with his axe?”

  I wore no mask to hide the scars.

  “Lucian’s death was a part of Damon’s plan, and he must stay dead,” I said. “Forever. I can make it easy for you to forget him, but I’d prefer not. I’ve work to do in Palinur, and thought I might apply for his former position.”

  “If making it easy means erasing memories, then, no. I’m moth-eaten enough. Don’t need extra holes. And I wouldn’t want a sorcerer unpracticed at the art to m
iss what he’s aiming at.”

  My spirits lightened with every moment here.

  “Actually, someone more proficient worked the token magic.” I flipped his token into the air and frizzled it with a thought. The silver bracelets were sometimes annoying, but I’d grown to like them very much.

  “All right.” He looked askance at the drifting ash. “I saw the masked sorcerer on the ramparts of Cavillor. Rumor named him Caedmon’s heir. But it was you, wasn’t it? Should I be afraid of you? Are you still working out of the sea fortress?”

  “I am not Caedmon’s heir. As to the fear . . . yes and no, as I’m a great deal quicker with magic than I used to be, and I’m still getting used to it. And yes, my roots are still at Evanide. But I’m on a special mission, having to do with what was spoken at Cavillor. I thought a man of the law who liked a bit of adventure might be just the partner I need. Besides, you’re owed three years and ten months service and a great deal more. Such debts must be paid.”

  “You’d do portraits for me . . . help investigate?”

  “Yes.”

  He pretended to consider it. But his face was already sparked brighter than his gate fires. “When Bayard took the city, the Harrowers ran wild, but now the war’s down to the south, it’s quieter. We could likely take up where we left off. A few of the magistrates have come forward to keep order, hoping to find favor with the new king, whoever he might be. We could get Constance back to run things. She’s sewing for a living now, but hates it. And what else would we be doing?”

  I peered beyond him into the dark courtyard. “Maybe we could have a seat and a drink of something? I’ve just walked from Evanide without any Danae to shorten the distance. And first off, I need to bury a few things where no one’s going to run across them.”