The Daemon Prism: A Novel of the Collegia Magica

by Carol Berg

  De Ferrau’s posture did not shift, as if I’d said only what he expected. “Many of my fellow tetrarchs, older and more experienced than I, have seen fit to accept the king’s judgment in this matter. Perhaps it displays my youth and ignorance to believe that rumor is often founded in truth. Perhaps those of us from the northern demesnes where life is harsh are more like to pay close attention to sacred matters—and require their strict distinction from civil law. Or perhaps it requires younger eyes, like mine, to observe that the rumors of necromancy coincided with very visible and well-described daemonic occurrences in the royal city, and that these same incidents and same rumors ceased entirely on the day Master Dante was exiled from Merona.”

  Though his body had settled easily into his chair, the young tetrarch’s pale eyes did not waver from my face. A frisson of fear feathered my spine. This man was Dante’s enemy. My enemy.

  He leaned forward slightly. “After the dreadful events of four years past, which neither king nor Camarilla has ever explained to us, Sabrians properly turn to the divine Pantokrator and his Temple for answers. We tetrarchs are required by our vows to provide them. It is abomination to me that Master Dante has not been brought to any Temple for questioning. I intend to change that.”

  In a long, slow motion, I drew the gold thread through the linen and poked the needle back through the fine weft, while words raced and whirled through my head like dry leaves in a gale.

  “Why come to me? Of all people I have reason to despise the man.”

  “I have witnesses who claim you have maintained contact with Master Dante these two years since.”

  “Contact? I’m not sure what you are insinuating, sirrah.”

  The only people who both knew of Pradoverde and had been in any position to witness Dante’s deadraising were people we trusted. Yet neither had we hidden ourselves. I dared not deny the association.

  With all the composure I could muster, I raised my eyes to de Ferrau. “Two years ago I was made a pawn of Germond de Gautier in his conspiracy to assassinate King Philippe and topple the throne of Sabria. I witnessed horrors. I was subjected to vile enchantments and poisons. My family was brutalized, my sister murdered. No one could emerge from such events unscathed. My symptoms—screaming fits, nightmares, uncontrolled frenzy, which many residents of Castelle Escalon can substantiate—induced me to confront the man who was responsible for them. He was the only living person who might unravel the illness I suffered. He did so as a condition of his parole. Our association was not pleasant, nor is it something I wish to relive for a stranger. Suffice it to say, I now reside here with my beloved family in the home of my childhood, helping my parents recover from torments far worse than my own. I cannot help you.”

  I laid the sewing aside and rose.

  “Creator’s peace, Tetrarch de Ferrau. And I will ask that you refrain from disturbing my parents with any mention of Master Dante.”

  He dropped his gaze before I did, but I suspected it was not from embarrassment. I could almost hear him assessing and evaluating my answers. At last he rose briskly and snapped a bow. “Thank you, Lady Anne. I appreciate your candor.”

  I showed him out of the salon. As Bernard opened the outer doors,

  de Ferrau swung around. “Perhaps you would be interested to know that these new crimes I spoke of include a sorcerous explosion that destroyed one of Jarasco’s town gates, a fire that leveled the stable of one of our local hostels, the incineration of a Camarilla adept, and a rain of deadly arrows that slew a dozen of my Temple’s bailiffs. Civil, magical, and sacred crimes, and he is implicated in the direst form of murder this side of Heaven’s gates—that of one’s own father. I have brought witnesses to Merona. Whether you choose to hear their testimony or not, Dante de Raghinne is an abomination. I strongly recommend you take any further symptoms to a different physician.”

  Incineration…explosive destruction…more than a dozen murders…And now de Santo, too, dead. Dante would never— But did I believe that?

  Tetrarch de Ferrau and his servitors rode out before I could move from the doorway. Breathing away a wicked fit of the shakes, I grabbed my small traveling bag, bade farewell to my parents, and raced away from Montclaire on a track through the vineyards and hills that no Temple servitor could possibly expect.

  Dante

  CHAPTER 13

  6 ESTAR, AFTERNOON

  DEMESNE OF ARABASCA

  Winter chased us south and west and into the new year. The three of us rode as long and hard as the winter roads and care for the horses permitted. Though we glimpsed no signs of pursuit, we took precautions. I hid my collar.

  Midmorning of our tenth day out from Castelivre, Andero brought us to a halt atop a shallow rise. “I’ll tell you, Master Mage, I’ve seen the ice barrens and sea cliffs of the northland, and every sort of hill and mountain you could imagine, but never such a road as this one lies below us. It’s got neither curve nor blemish, as if it could take us right over the rim of the world without us meeting another breathing person.”

  My heart raced. “The Syanar high road. Be sure, we’ll encounter blemishes enough along it—caravans, thieves, Cult shrines, and enough pilgrims to choke a priest. Mattefriese lies only a few days east.”

  “And there we turn south to Carabangor?”

  My back stiffened.

  “Be easy, Dante; the hoptoad has lagged again to dig his mushrooms or roots or whatever. I just need to understand what’s going on with you. You’ve not spoke three words of explanation since we left that blighted ruin.”

  “There’s naught to explain. We’re going after Portier.”

  “And if he’s not to be found? I know you don’t want to think about that, but what if? If this Jacard and the enchantress are as wicked as you say, perhaps someone else ought to know what you’re about. Perhaps your lady?”

  “She’s not my lady, and I’ve naught to tell her as yet. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I understand you’ve not worked a smat of magic since we’ve been traveling. I understand you’ve not sent word to those who might care about you. Something happened that night at Castelivre and you’ve locked it up inside you.”

  “I told you that’s none of your concern.” I spat it through my teeth, then yelled over my shoulder, “John Deune! Get back here or I’ll boil you in your own pots!”

  Cantering hoofbeats brought the little weasel back, babbling: “Pardon the delay, Master, especially as it was all for naught. ’Twasn’t dock I saw, but blisterweed. I’m attempting only to give some variety to our fare.…”

  Fortunately for him, Andero took out right away, and I had to mind Devil and my seat. Would that I could break the damned tether that linked Devil to Andero’s mount. “Lag behind us again, John Deune,” I shouted after them, “and we’ll send you back to Merona afoot.”

  I forced my hands to unclench, lest I bruise poor Devil. I wanted to hit something. To hammer something. To twist something until it broke. Anything but lay my mind to what Andero had said. I’d spent these days on the road reviewing every word, every circumstance, every action that I could recall since the day Masson de Cuvier had arrived at Pradoverde, trying to figure out why the sky over Jarasco might have been bulging and what connection that might have with white-gowned enchantresses and legendary emeralds and tales of the war for Heaven and the madness that had risen in me in that ruined cellar. Going over it again would feel like shaving my skin with a rasp.

  By afternoon, the intermittent snow had yielded to a dry chill, and we joined a stream of travelers heading eastward. Patching sounds, smells, and snips of conversations into a moving landscape was a welcome distraction.

  A heavily guarded caravan hauled tin and silver to trade for silk and porcelain.

  A large family drove a rattling wagon eastward, hoping to reclaim their family holdings in Aroth. Their axles ground, spalled most likely, and would surely break down before too many more days on the road.

  A large group of Cult penitents ventur
ed the pilgrim way in winter as punishment for their faults. They nattered at each other about proper badges on their clothing and whether one could drink wine when fasting. An argument about the requirement to stop at every one of the fifty shrines along the way put them to blows.

  A few days’ sharing encampments and wells with these myriad strangers and I began to distinguish individual travelers. One of the penitents peppered her conversations with wholly irrelevant quotations from Cult holy books. A soldier, who forever stank of spirits, had a wicked case of the shakes. A woman with five bodyguards and an older female attendant was riding to her wedding. Would her bridegroom smell the seductive smoke of synoise lingering on her garments? Did she deaden her senses in anticipation of his attentions or to erase the time they were apart?

  It was about this same time I began to suspect we were being followed.

  “Odd,” I said to Andero. “Weren’t those two ahead of us yesterday?”

  “Who?”

  “The two riders we passed not three breaths ago.”

  “Naught but a clump of scrubby locusts at the edge of a field three breaths ago.”

  “Then they must be hiding behind the trees. They stink of pipeweed and have likely not bathed since their birth washing. Their horses are lively and light, but they never make ground on us, and never talk but in mumbles when they’re close by. How odd is that? One of them wheezes like a leaky bellows. The other has a nose that runs like a river. Surely you can pick them out.”

  “There’s a deal of riders about, Dante. None odder than the next.”

  A day out from Mattefriese, the traffic grew heavier. The roads were dry. We shed our wool mufflers after sunrise and welcomed the sun’s blaze at midday. Three times that day I noted the two, once ahead, twice behind.

  “I’ve peeled my eyes,” said Andero as we made camp at a caravan stop outside the city walls, “but I’ve seen naught out of the common way. There’s thirty campfires hereabouts, and travelers always ride together in the lean seasons.” Andero’s great bulk leaned closer. “Not my place to say, but you’re blind, if you recall. And now your collar is exposed, and your scraggle of a beard makes you look like a dying scarecrow, none dare lag anywhere near you.”

  “Tell me how a man who smells like a wet dog looks better,” I said, a grin threatening. My brother could find my better humor, even when I thought it entirely lost. Still, those two riders were up to no good.

  Andero sharpened his pen, unstoppered his ink bottle, and went back to scratching at his map as he did every night when the weather was dry. John Deune fussed with the fire and his pot. The manservant had maintained an exceptional quiet since we’d joined the other travelers.

  “What of you, John Deune? You must have been accustomed to watching for thieves when you traveled with Lord Ilario. Have you noticed anyone suspicious?”

  The thwup and splash of a dropped water flask marked him. I’d never heard him clumsy or so fluent in his cursing. “No! Certainly not! If I did notice such villains—and indeed I was always most careful watching out for the chevalier—you can be sure I would mention it right away. Many a time I saved his lordship’s purse from a snatch. He refused to go about without his jewels and gold chains and silken kerchiefs, as if every man and woman might own such things and not desire them. It was certain his privilege to display his riches so.”

  I didn’t like having John Deune around. He didn’t know when to be quiet. And I’d never taken enough notice of him in the days when I might have learned to distinguish his truth or lies. But to abandon such a silly, preening cockroach on this road would be like offering him up to bandits. He was Ilario’s man, and Ilario had given his life for me. I owed him something. But I couldn’t make myself trust him.

  Not wishing his knife so close to my throat, I didn’t allow him to shave my chin, but indeed, he wielded a pot and spoon with worthy skills. Using his leather packet of herbs and spices, he could have made a decent meal from dead grass and sticks. Yet I would have welcomed his dead master the more. Guilt and regret were hollow company.

  “Perhaps you could work some magical thing to detect those two,” said Andero. I clamped my teeth against the curse I wanted to bellow at him, emptied my mind of the reasons, and rolled myself in my blanket.

  MATTEFRIESE

  Andero reported a large number of Temple bailiffs hanging about the gates of Mattefriese, so we took to the road as soon as Andero and John returned from the city. Andero brought information about our route, and John Deune brought supplies along with complaints about rancid bacon, stale bread, and the high cost of water.

  After only a short distance on the high road, Andero slowed, allowing a wagon to rattle past us and out of hearing. “Five metres and we turn south,” he said.

  “What are you doing, fool of a smith?” said John Deune. “Abidaijar is straight east on the high road. The librarian…”

  “Plans have changed,” my brother said. “We’re not going to Abidaijar.”

  The winds cut deep as we headed south. I drew up my hood, wrapped my scarf about my face, and retreated into a drowsy half sleep.…

  “Halt!” bellowed Andero, dragging me back to full alert. “Where is the blasted prig? How are we to make any speed at all if he keeps drifting so far out of sight?”

  I held tight as Devil followed the other beast’s lead and came to a stop.

  “I’ll go back. You wait here,” said Andero, detaching my tether rope.

  “We should leave him,” I said. “He’s likely decided it’s time to collect the Temple’s price on my head.”

  “If he didn’t have most of our food and all the extra water, I’d agree. From what I hear, we can’t afford to go ahead without. But I see the least thing suspicious, I’ll break his neck.”

  My ever-genial brother made me believe he’d do it.

  Surely it was half an eternity till the two of them returned.

  “My profound apologies, Master. It was only after we were on our way that I realized I’d left all our extra water at the caravanserai.”

  “Then why didn’t you say something instead of vanishing?” I snapped.

  “Indeed, Master”—he was near choking—“Goodman Andero had emphasized how we dared not risk this road on a meager supply. Shamed, I thought it best to slip back quickly before we’d gone too far.”

  I could not judge if he spoke truth. Yet no one had brought the Temple down on me in Mattefriese, and Andero wouldn’t have brought him back if he’d seen a risk. We shared out supplies equally and warned him that next time he fell behind we’d not stop for him.

  “Certainly, Master. Certainly.”

  “I think I know the two stragglers you spoke of, Master,” said Andero as we rode onward. “Glimpsed them in the marketplace buying sausage and water flasks. Two scrawny, pasty-faced fellows in ill-fitting clothes. One wheezing; one about to drown in his own snot. But they strike me as shop clerks more than highwaymen. I don’t—”

  “Why would anyone be interested in us?” burst in John. “Well, of course, I know there’s a price on the mage’s head. But how would they know of it? Not that I noticed them. But none would ever guess that a ruffian on a leash”—he sniffed like a lord himself—“could ever be a court mage, certainly not one so clever and dangerous.”

  Clearly John Deune believed blind men were necessarily deaf as well.

  “Exactly so,” said Andero. “Indeed, they ducked away when a Temple bailiff came poking his nose about the market, elsewise I’d have had a serious word with them. Sure, if I should see them along this road, I’ll gut them both.”

  I believed that, too.

  DEMESNE OF ARABASCA

  For days, we encountered neither man nor beast on the road south. As the steep ground leveled out to high plains, sere winds sapped moisture from our bodies and life from our spirits. Even Andero grumbled.

  We traveled what Andero’s comrades in the Coverge legion called a ghost road. Our narrow dirt track centered a wide, shallow, grassy trou
gh, the evidence of repeated invasion. For centuries, armies had marched across this land. My imagination conjured pockets of colder air in the wind, naming them hollow-eyed dead men who whispered, Lead usss. To be locked in one’s own head oft made for poor amusement.

  No one followed, not even our sausage-eating tagalongs. Either Andero or I stayed alert during John Deune’s night watch. But I set no wards. To imagine reaching for power set my hands trembling like an old woman’s.

  On our fourth day out from Mattefriese, the road brought us within sight of a village. Andero described it as a cluster of ramshackle huts huddled together like scrawny cattle with their backs to the wind. Though the daylight waned, he urged us to keep moving. “They’ll want to feed us,” he said, “but I’ve never seen folk could make a life from so much nothing as out here. Taking aught from ’em would be thieving.”