The Shattered Vine

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Careless magic. Power. Strength. The core of magic, curled deep within the world, reaching up through endless, countless roots, shattered and broken, but never gone. Waiting for someone, some slave, to look up and see beyond his walls. . . .

  Yes. This was the lure no blood-mage would be able to resist. Everything that lived within him. Everything that breathed with his breath. He was House Malech, and House Malech was him.

  And House Malech had become a prize the Exile could not resist.

  THE HOUSE WAS uncannily silent. Ao had not realized, as he moved through the house, how accustomed he had become to the natural noises of the Household, from the steady hum of the kitchen to the distant shouts and sounds of the slaves working outside, the wagons that occasionally rolled up and down the cobblestone road, and the sound of voices that rose and fell throughout the day, Mahault’s clear tones, Kaïnam’s more formal accent, Detta’s clipped, exasperated voice, and Jerzy, slower than the others to speak but his voice, deeper now than when they had first met, carrying over all others. Odd, that it was only when they were gone that he could identify them.

  Like his legs, he had never appreciated them until they were gone.

  He rubbed at one leg, almost expecting it to feel like flesh through the cloth of his trou. The wood underneath was smooth-hewn and polished, carved to mimic the exact lines of a natural leg, and it flowed with enough vigor that he could move it, simply by desiring to walk, or bend, or rise . . . but it was not flesh. It was not real.

  His flesh had been washed down the gullet of a sea serpent, half again the size of the Vine’s Heart and three times as toothy. When he slept, he could still hear the splash it made as it rose up out of the water, echoing through his dreams, turning even the most pleasant fantasy into a shadowed horror.

  He had made his choices, struck his Agreements, and he would not go back on them. But, even more, he would not allow a man who would loose such creatures on the world to gain even one more handspan of power. He would die, first.

  “Jer, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  He had no desire, at all, to die.

  * * *

  “WHAT ARE WE looking for?”

  Brion looked at the young girl who had appeared, walking alongside him. She was slender, with her hair tied back into a neat braid, the red kerchief that was so common in this land tied around her neck in a simple knot, her clothing worn but clean, her hands likewise. A servant, but one who held herself like a House-keeper, her eyes clear and her voice steady. Lil, the others called her.

  “I have no idea,” he admitted, even as they matched steps along the road that bisected the vintnery, separating yard from House, from the stables and paddocks at the crest of the hill, down to the end where it joined the main road. The sky, a clouded blue that afternoon, now filled with purple shadows as the sun dipped below the treeline, and the air filled with the sound of birds making their evening calls.

  “Shouldn’t we watch the vineyards?”

  Brion hesitated, and then shrugged. “I had thought to do so, but . . . something warned me off.” He waited for her to scoff, but the girl nodded.

  “With all that’s happened . . . I imagine the yard would welcome no strangers, now. We built Master Malech’s pyre there; he will protect it.”

  “You believe that?”

  “Detta says she can still sometimes feel old Master Josia around the House. Vinearts don’t leave, she says. They sink into the roots, and grow into the wines.”

  “I’m not sure I find that comforting in general, but today? I hope that you are right.”

  Lil shivered despite the thick jacket she had thrown over her shoulders. “Whatever happens, it’s coming. Soon. I can feel it. I can . . .” She let out a snort that might have been amusement. “I can feel it. Like a storm coming over the ridge, the way the animals get upset. A prickling in my skin.”

  “The Vineart said, if we saw or sensed anything, we should tell him, and then leave.”

  “We can’t help him,” she said. “Not really. The strongest spellwine, the best decantation, and we’d still be useless. Master Malech was warned, and it still came in and struck him dead inside his own House. Jerzy . . . whatever he’s doing, we can’t help him, or protect him, or . . .”

  “So why are you here?”

  “I am House Malech,” she said, simply. “I was born here; my father was an overseer for one of the southern yards. I will not abandon my Vineart.”

  “Hm.”

  “Why are you here, Washer? You came to deliver a warning; that warning was given. You could leave with a clear mind, return to your own people. And yet you stand with us, even though your sword and your prayers are useless. Why?”

  Brion stopped, staring up at the House, the pale stone a ghost in the dusk, the windows of the upper level dark and abandoned.

  “We are commanded to different roles,” he said, still looking at the House. “Generations trained to obedience, told that obedience is all that keeps the world from returning to disaster. But still we find ourselves here, hounded from without and torn apart within, by hiding, narrowing our focus until all we could see were our own fears. I cannot think that was what Zatim wished.”

  “What if it was?”

  Brion looked away, finally, his gaze sliding over the vineyards, the distant shapes of the sleep house and storage sheds, and then back to his companion. His skin prickled, the same unease she had mentioned overtaking him as well. “Then he was wrong.”

  THE VOICES, THE faint worries and fears of the others carried through the still air where Jerzy lingered, neither swimming nor floating but merely existing in a pose of nonanticipation, letting each minute flow of magic swirl and settle into him. Far below, the Root stretched, reaching, looking for power to match its own, to feed and be fed from. The world Root, the source Root. The remnants of the shattered Vine, the First Vine, seeking to grow whole once again.

  His enemy had found that Root, fed it with blood, coaxed it into cooperation. But he needed more. His goal was not power, but sole power. Total control.

  The shimmer of Jerzy’s magic along that Root would bring his enemy to him . . . but he could not let himself become entangled in it. Balance. Control. A Vineart stands alone. Now, here, Jerzy finally understood. It was not a command to be separate, to be lonely, or isolated, but to be complete.

  That the Root was far more powerful than he was did not matter, only that Jerzy held control. Only that he remained master of himself.

  The sense of exultation, of restless, relentless energy, surged through him, all five legacies coming to the fore, pushing for space, the similarities overlapping where their differences chafed, leaving behind rough patches that felt like bruises to Jerzy’s Sense. He let the sensations wash through him, until his skin became liquid, his bones pure magic. Was this how a prince-mage felt, the power of the First Growth to command with a thought and a word?

  Even as he held control, a shiver grew in his wine-saturated bones, deep in his groin, radiating outward until his spine arched and his fingertips ached with the sensation, his breath coming faster and harder until the Guardian slammed into his awareness with a warning.

  Storm.

  The sense Jerzy got was not of weather but rather a disturbance, an unsettling. He turned, swirling within himself, to follow the Guardian, deep in his sense of the quiet-magic, awash in his own blood, and felt it as well, shivering through the ground. It was not entirely unfamiliar: the Exile had scented him, had snatched at the lure.

  You.

  Jerzy’s eyes opened, contained again within his flesh, aware of where he sat within his own study even as he retained a sense of the depths of magic swirling around and within him, the connectedness of it all. His breathing was still too quick, his heart racing and his limbs shaking. There was a dizziness in his head, and he could not quite focus.

  “Guardian.”

  A request, and the smooth, cool strength of the stone slid into him, steadying him, keeping him with
in the stillness. The quiet-magic flowed over that calm, coating it, pushing it gently into his own bones. The awareness he’d had of the entire vintnery, the feel of the others outside, faded; still part of him, but not a distraction, and he was able to find the mage-storm, racing along the roots of the world, toward him.

  It differed from his, this storm. He could taste the lack of weathervines, the way Lil could tell when a spice was missing. But the hole was filled with the dark tang of stolen blood, surging like a heartbeat, steady and slow. The fear he had not felt before surged at that sound; it was too steady, too calm.

  Had the Exile even noticed that its tendrils within the Lands were being counterattacked? Was the loss of Atakus barely a distraction, the rebuffs of his attacks here, driven off by the solitaires, a counter-ruse of his own?

  It no longer mattered. Harvest came when it was ready; the Vineart could only act, or lose.

  This deep within the magic there was no taint, no wrongness within the storm, merely power. Pruned of human concerns, it merely existed, waiting to be used.

  Jerzy closed his fist around the sense of it, felt it coat his tongue and fill his nose. Power.

  Here I am, he thought, the stone weight of the Guardian taking his challenge like a spear, direct into the enemy’s awareness.

  The reaction was immediate.

  Before, when he had encountered the Exile’s work, it had carried the taint of rot and decay, of oversweet fruit gone bad, the coppery tang of blood overpowering any freshness or delicacy. Here, there was none of that, merely a wave of power, deep and rich, thick and heavy, as unstoppable as a storm at sea, wind and spume combining to toss any ship foolish enough to challenge it into splinters. For an instant, Jerzy was back on the doomed ship in just such a storm, only the vessel being threatened was himself, and there was no one left to rescue him, as Kaïnam had lifted them from the sea.

  In that instant, Jerzy knew that he had been wrong.

  He was not strong enough. Even with his access to the five legacies, the power Vinearts had grown out of the splintered bits of the First Growth . . . it was not enough. Whatever legacies this mage had access to, they had been twisted in a way that Jerzy’s quiet-magic could not match.

  Not alone.

  Not alone.

  The realization hit at the same time he felt cold claws grip him, pulling him back and up, giving him space to breathe, and think.

  Take.

  He had already taken of the Guardian, to the point where he could feel the stone of its body underneath his own flesh, the cool, calculating tick of its thoughts a counterpoint to his own. And he knew, in that same way, what the dragon was saying.

  Take what was needed. Take what would bring him to match with the Exile.

  Blood.

  The thought was enough to find them; the slaves, halfway to safety, some riding, some walking, all tired but trusting in Detta, trusting that the Vineart had sent them to another vineyard, that all was well, all would be well.

  They belonged to the vines. They belonged to him. Jerzy could reach out the way he had touched the two slaves earlier, dry them of what he needed and leave husks behind, and no one would point a finger or whisper, even if they knew. Even if they knew, no one would gainsay his right, or his need.

  Sin Washer had broken the First Vine with his blood.

  A drop of a Vineart’s blood, mixed with a cask of weatherwine, tamed their stubborn nature and brought them into the Vineart’s control.

  The Exile mage had taken the blood of others, had mixed it with his vines, somehow . . . reversed what Sin Washer had done, to bind rather than shatter. Jerzy could not follow it, the Guardian had no sense of how it was done. But he could sense the strength within the slaves, now that he looked for it. Blood-magic. Malech had told him they had called quiet-magic that, once. In the blood. In the blood of the grapes, in the blood of the Vineart . . . in the blood of slaves who might someday become Vinearts.

  Stolen.

  Not the magic itself, but the potential. The strength to use and control the vine-blood. Jerzy’s anger felt like cold rain, pelting against his skin, even as another, deeper part of him saw how it could be done.

  Take.

  The swirl of magic intensified, an almost painful pressure within him, reminding him that while he paused, the Exile drew closer, emboldened.

  Take, and survive.

  The Guardian was basic. Survive. Protect. Jerzy thought of the force he had touched, so much stronger than his own, and imagined it spread out not only over the vintnery but all of The Berengia. Smothering the hills of Aleppan, the sun-washed cliffs of Atakus, so clear from Ao’s description, the distant plains where Ao’s family built their caravans, and the wild, untamed interiors of Irfan . . .

  Despairing, Jerzy reached out, and took what was needed.

  Chapter 20

  The storm hit just as Mahault turned off the main road and headed up the cobblestone drive into the vintnery. She barely had time to slide off her horse and coax it to the ground before the winds would have knocked them both sideways.

  The weather had been fair all the way back, her pace driven by a worry she could not name. Once Keren had released her, she had known only the need to be here, her feet set in the soil of the vintnery. It made no sense: she had no ties to the Vinearts save friendship with Jerzy, and yet she returned, with as little hesitation as she had shown the afternoon she helped a scared youth escape her father’s hall, and turned her back on all that had been, and whatever might have become.

  Three times now, she had turned away from the future she dreamed of, chosen another road. And all those roads came to the same place: House Malech.

  Scrabbling at her pack, she slipped it loose, taking her blade from its tie-down, and left the horse to its own devices. Staying low, she was able to move with the wind, the gusts practically pushing her toward the stone structure of the House. The thought that she was being herded came and went: this storm had no interest in her. It was magic, and magic meant Jerzy.

  “Aipe!” she yelped, as her arm was caught up, and she had almost drawn the blade in reaction when another hand came down and held her steady. “At ease, woman.” The voice was not familiar, but it had an air of command she responded to, letting her muscles slacken and the sword remain undrawn.

  “You’re the maiar’s girl.”

  “I am Mahault.” The stranger had a soldier’s haircut and a face that looked like it had seen the hard end of something a few times too many. What was a fighter doing here?

  “My name is Brion,” he said, as though sensing her suspicion. “Washer Brion.” Before she could react to that, he dragged her farther, into the alcove of two trees, where they were slightly protected from the storm. “I stand with Vineart Jerzy,” he said. “In this moment, at least. What news from beyond?”

  “Riots,” she said, reporting as she would have to Keren, without hesitation. “Uprisings in towns across the Lands, as though the people have lost their minds. There is no need for monsters any longer; the people see them behind every door, under every wave, and strike without thought. And the lords’ men strike in return, seeing only the threat of rebellion, securing even peaceful towns against the fear of later upheaval.

  “It has to end.”

  That was why she had come back: nothing she did made a difference, out there. If she stood with the solitaires and the prince’s men, it would merely be to cut down frightened men who had no business holding anything more martial than a plow.

  “I think it will,” the Washer said. “Jerzy sent them all away, intending to lure this mage to him.” They both looked back, careful to remain out of the direct wind. “I believe he has succeeded.”

  Mahault chewed at a fingernail, worrying the tip as she glanced from the House to her companion. “What can we do?”

  Brion shook his head and sank down to his haunches, resting his back against the tree. “Wait.”

  THE SENSE OF distance was staggering. Jerzy stood at one end of an empt
y plain, the ground hard under his bare feet, turning and then turning again, trying to comprehend. The air was dry and cool, nothing breaking the emptiness out to an impossibly distant horizon, in all directions. Isolated, impossibly barren, Jerzy had never seen anything like it, not even the furthest ocean stretch had been so empty and depressing. This land would eat sounds, not echo them.

  Somewhere, elsewhere, bodies fell, blood dripping into the soil, each drop sliding through stone the same dry white as the Guardian’s form to reach roots hungry for the magic within. And Jerzy, in turn, pressed down on his soles and felt the roots surge up into him.

  These were his lands. His slaves. He commanded, and obeyed.

  In this place, Jerzy was dressed in worn trou, the material stained with dirt, the lace worn and frayed, his sleeveless tunic a hand-down, washed so many times its original color had faded to a yellowish white. A slave’s outfit, more comfortable and familiar than any fine cloth he had worn since. A red kerchief was tied around his neck, sweat-stained despite the cool air around him.

  Jerzy looked up into the sky. Thick gray clouds filled the overhead space, matching the featureless brown plain. If there was sunlight hidden behind the clouds, it could not be seen, making the shadowless light all the more strange, the landscape that much more barren.

  “Guardian?”

  His voice sounded flat, his mouth awkward, and, he realized, the awareness coming as though he had always known it, that he was not real. This was not his body, this was not a plain, those were not clouds overhead.

  Even as he became aware of that, the ground rumbled and split, the brown soil shaking aside as thick, gnarled roots shoved their way up from the surface. Jerzy took a quick step back, but the roots appeared there as well, trying to curl around his bare ankles, the rough surface burning his skin where it touched him.

  “Guardian?” he asked again, but there was no answer, not even the cool weight that usually accompanied the dragon’s awareness.