by Carol Berg
What had irked her so sorely? Negotiating such a precarious temper would be tricky. She wanted me to eat from her hand like a trained hound, whether it was food or the course of our partnership. I could do that. But it meant that she must never guess that I had interests beyond the knowledge she offered me.
I fingered Anne’s pendant and redoubled my morning’s resolution to neither think nor speak of her in Xanthe’s presence. If Xanthe turned her power on Anne—
That could not, would not happen. I needed a way to prevent Xanthe extracting those things I would not reveal. I dabbled with ideas but came up with nothing sure enough and fast enough to bind in the time I was likely to have in an emergency. I couldn’t count on more than a count of thirty to keep Hosten off me.
I pressed the heel of my hand into my forehead, where the dull ache seemed to have taken up permanent residence. A thousand other questions pursued each other through the darkness…what tactics to use…what to tell the lady of myself…what did Jacard really know of me…how to go about learning all I needed to know. And how in the name of all the gods was I to let anyone know what I learned here?
CHAPTER 22
MANCIBAR
“Much better.” Xanthe circled me, brushing her fingers across my not-quite-naked scalp, a most…heated…sensation. “Drab, plain, and clean, as becomes my slave. Behave yourself and I might indulge you with better garments.”
Kneeling—clearly, her favored posture for slaves—I nodded, dismissed my treacherous body’s reaction to her touch, and remained silent. Beyond her windows the shadowed city and golden plains stretched eastward to a deepening sky.
“In Maldeon’s house, only the imperator and his ladies washed themselves,” she said, poking a tidbit of fish into my mouth. “I would sneak into the baths, pretending I was Nessia. But the little scorpion found out and tattled on me, which earned me a beating and made the guards watch out for me. She said I’d have to find my own king. And so I will. Till then, I’ve no desire to smell sour flesh.”
Her complaints about Nessia might have been true or might not. They would not erase my memory of the girl’s voice as I squeezed the life out of her. That memory must hold me to my purpose. Hold patience. Gain her trust. Learn of the Stones and Jacard. Find Portier. Gods, I was no good at patience.
Another bite of fish. Then grapes, one, two, and three. A slow way to take a meal, especially when the one feeding me was so distracted with her own talk.
“I’m glad they found you a clean glove. The priests told me that if I failed in my duty, the god would shrivel my body into purple and black wrinkles, like fruit left in the sun. In my dreams, my arms and legs looked exactly like your grueish hand.”
She held a fragment of buttered bread far from my mouth, feinting, teasing. She wanted me either to rise to her goading, so she could punish me, or to beg. I refused to play.
“For certain no god burnt my hand. I was most diligent in my family duties. And I’ll vow the heat was much fiercer than desert sun.”
Xanthe dropped the bread and collapsed on a pile of cushions in a rustle of bright yellow satin and laughter that swept across the room like a tide of silver bells. Soon a pillow came hurtling straight at my head. And then another and another. “You’re as stiff as a Tareo matron, magus! Perhaps I should call you Matron Dante.”
When the first hard implement—a spoon—joined the barrage of lacework, silk, and tapestry, I redirected the conversation yet again. “Shall we begin our quest, Mistress? Two generous meals, a bath, and a nap have replenished me. I feel quite ready to serve you.”
She sat up straight, instantly sober. “What do we do? Well, I know the first thing.” She pulled a small bundle from under her canary-hued skirts—a silken pouch, which she emptied onto the table beside the remains of my supper. Emerald light beams darted from the two Stones.
To my surprise, she fetched my staff and laid it beside me. “You may sit, if you wish.”
I did wish. Between Hosten and Xanthe, my knees bore more bruises than my face.
Curling my legs in front of me, I leaned in close to the low table. A visual examination first. There were many things to learn before touching the faceted crystals.
Color: a deep green. Easy to mistake them for emeralds. But flecked with gold that might be lamplight…or something else altogether.
Overall shape: irregular, of total dimensions perhaps seven by five by three centimetres.
Facets: at least ten polished surfaces, entirely irregular in shape and dimension, some at square angles to each other, some at more oblique or acute angles, the two Stones quite different one from the other. No scratches, nicks, or other markings on the polished faces, nor marring the crisp straight edges. The one who had cut and polished the crystal had been expert and meticulous.
Clarity: that of the finest gemstones in Queen Eugenie’s jewel case. And yet the longer I gazed on them, the more opaque the center grew, as if storm clouds gathered there, the one with a bloodred hue, the other with green so dark, one must call it black. Rhymus, the Red-Hearted. Orythmus, the black.
I averted my eyes. I wasn’t ready for visions as yet.
And so to magical structure. Closing my eyes, I shifted my perceptions into the realm of magic and dream.
I blinked. Puzzled. The Stones formed a dark, impenetrable mass, more like holes in the aether than objects of power. A tangle of spell threads dangled from them, as the gheket spells had dangled from the shepherd’s paper cone. Attached to the artifact, not a part of it, they were most likely the wards that kept the owner of one stone from murdering the owner of another or charms to protect the surfaces from marring, explaining how they remained perfect after so many centuries. The innate properties of each glass were more compelling just now.
I held one hand a few centimetres above Orythmus and gripped my staff with the other, the better to focus my inner senses on the work.
Still I sensed no enchantment in or on the two crystals. Feeding a small amount of power into my efforts, I moved my hand around their sides and dived deep into the streams of the aether—
A bludgeon struck my cheek, toppling me sidewise. My head narrowly missed the edge of the table on its way to meet the floor. A boot threatened to crush my jaw.
“What is it you think to be doing here, magus?” Hosten.
I certainly couldn’t answer.
“What is this about, Captain?”
“Spellwork is what he was doing, my lady. Magic. He’s forbidden.”
“Move your boot, Captain. I’ll keep him still.” Xanthe’s scent near choked me as she crouched beside me. “Is this true, magus?”
Indeed, she had to modify her command before I could speak and wait for me to spit out wool threads, fishbones, and oil-soaked crumbs. “Certainly I was working magic. It’s how I learn.”
“The Regent won’t have it,” said Hosten. “The magus might interfere with other workings in the palace—things that protect us all from earthshaking or thieves or our food from poison.”
“He is my slave, and he’ll do whatever I please while in this chamber—even magic. Anywhere else, you may stop him as necessary. But you will bring him to me for punishment. He knows the punishments I can mete out—and I can do them to you, as well, if I choose. I’ll speak to the Regent about it tonight to make sure he understands.”
“Aye, lady, please do that.”
A kick in my side accompanied the release of my paralysis. Fighting for breath, I rolled to my knees and kept my forehead on the carpet.
Xanthe crouched beside me. “You will inform me whenever you must use your magic in my service. You are forbidden any other use of it. Wag your smallest finger outside this chamber and I will cut off your healthy hand. Do you understand?”
I did. Entirely. Moments later, I had resumed my puzzling examination of Orythmus’s nature, having told her exactly what I was doing. Then I did the same for Rhymus.
I sat back, opened my eyes, and stared at the two crystals. They were a mag
ical void, displaying no spell structure in the way I expected. What’s more, they seemed to lack even the unseen energies that formed the basis of keirna—the essence of every natural object. If the streams of the aether were entirely emptied of individual voices, emotions, dreams, and visions, it would appear no different for the existence of these two lumps of glass.
How was that possible? There must be barriers hidden in the very material of the objects, physical barriers of unknown kind or enchantments buried so deep as to make them undetectable.
“So teach me,” said Xanthe, bursting the quiet with excitement. “What have you learned? When can I command Hosten or Iaccar or my serving woman to attend me without ringing the bell or sending messengers?”
“Mistress—”
How could I explain to her that learning any new enchantment required care, precision, and time? And this one…it could be hours…days…until I knew the smallest thing to teach her. She wasn’t going to like that.
“—though I’m quite capable with traditional sorcery, these Stones are entirely new to me. In fact, you are far more experienced than I. You know three commands for Orythmus. Even with my skills and experience, how could I possibly learn so much in a quarter of an hour as it took you months to glean?”
She creased her brow and twisted her mouth, not in a petulant frown, but in the way I had already come to know as her expression of deep thought. “A very good observation, magus. But my patience is worn thin by all these years. If you cannot serve, perhaps I should let Iaccar teach—” She straightened as if she’d pricked her finger. Her brow cleared. “What if I was to teach you what I know already? Then you could apply your own skills to my lessons.”
“Good…yes, of course. Excellent.” I had fully intended to ask what lore she had wheedled from her priests. I’d hoped to have developed some structure to interpret her information first, but this could shed some light on where I might begin—and would serve to keep her happy. Two worthy goals. “Certainly, that would speed things here at the beginning.”
As a whirlwind, Xanthe darted through the room, closing draperies, dousing lamps, and setting one candle, a wheel of thread, and a silver ring on the table. Experimenting with several vases, cups, and other oddments, she at last positioned Orythmus on a dark blue porcelain plate sitting atop a cup. This placed the candle flame and the center of the Stone at exactly the same height at opposite ends of the long table.
“The clan priests told all manner of tales about the Seeing Stones: that only men could wield them or only those of noble birth, though Altheus himself was but his clan father’s cousin. The high priest insisted the wielder must be someone of Altheus’s own blood. After Maldeon scorned me, I felt free to trade my favors for secrets. That’s when I learned that the wizard himself yet lived and I could learn the truth.”
“The wizard…Altheus?”
“No, no. Tyregious was Imperator Altheus’s First Magus.”
The Tyregian Emeralds the Stones had been called in my book of gems. My blood heated. “He’s the man who cut and shaped the Seeing Stones?”
“Aye. Maldeon kept him chained in a cellar that Tyregious might teach him how to use the three together on the day he wrested Tychemus from his brother. Though the wizard was old as the Spider God, he was a randy goat, and most ready to thwart Maldeon in any way he could. He told me the Stones did require a bonding with their users, but it had naught to do with Altheus’s blood. For a…favor…he would tell me how to invoke the bond. So I pleasured him. He had me bring clay, so he could fashion a model of Orythmus. He taught me the binding, and about the faces, and how to invoke these few commands. We were but a few seasons into our lessons when the barbarians attacked, so I didn’t have time to learn everything. Now I must bind myself to Rhymus, too, of course. He said it would work the same.”
“Tyregious himself taught you— Great Heaven!” My excitement matched hers. I’d never imagined she’d been tutored by a true mage, much less the very mage who had studied the Stones and wrapped the ancient crystals in magic. “Tell me…show me…everything you can remember. From the beginning.”
She slipped the silver ring about the candle. “He said that this exercise would tell me everything there was to know about the Stones, which was a ridiculous thing to say, else I would know all its commands already. But I’ll show you anyway. We must use only one element with light shining on it. The wizard said he preferred a sunbeam shining on a statue of himself—who would ever own such a thing?—but that a candle banded in silver would do. Or the band could be gold or jewels or anything bright. Now, watch.…”
As if I could do aught else. Everything about them?
Xanthe strung a thread from the candle to Orythmus, turning the prism so that the thread met one particular face squarely, aligning the light and the receiving plane. “He called this the squaring face. You must move around and look at the candle through the glass.”
So the candle was the source of light for the demonstration. That explained why the wizard preferred a sunbeam. The weak candlelight did not pass through the prism in a sharp beam as the sunlight had done at the Grand Exposition of Science and Magic. Not even a faint smear of light shone on my shirt as I moved into position. But I did as she directed and peered through the facet directly opposed to the one facing the candle.
All I saw was darkness. I took a quick look through the adjacent facets, to make sure I wasn’t being fooled. I saw vague glimpses of the dim, cluttered room.
“Now look through this one.” And she pointed at an entirely unlikely face, sitting square to the first. I looked…and there was the candle straight ahead of me. But when I glanced over the prism instead of through it, the candle remained exactly where she’d placed it, to my left. My seeing had traveled not in a straight line, but in a path that turned a corner.
As I marveled, she rotated the prism, using her thread to angle it as she wished. “This next one, he called the doubling face.”
Again I peered through the face opposite the candle. “Snakes’ teeth!”
Instead of one candle, I saw two. Double images, skewed images, things round the corner, Adept Denys had read.
Preening, Xanthe rotated the glass yet again. “You can tell me what he named this one.”
“Vanishing face,” I said, for the evidence of my seeing said the candle had disappeared no matter which other face I looked through. Even at the edges of my sight, the room seemed darker, as if the prism had gathered the candle’s light and hidden it away.
“Indeed, so.”
My next view showed the candle poised at a sharp angle, yet not toppling to earth as nature’s laws would insist. The skewing face, she called it.
I could not but think of Portier on the day I had explained the Gautier lenses, the mystery that had led us to Mont Voilline. How he would laugh at an illiterate serving girl demonstrating such marvels to the pompous Master Dante.
“There are more. But these two together”—she turned the prism with a small triangular facet to the light and pointed to a larger triangular facet on the top of the glass—“he called the seeing face.”
I knelt up and peered downward through the prism. The candle gleamed deep in its green-black heart…only it wasn’t Xanthe’s candle, ringed with silver. A guttering stub in a pewter holder sat on a small table. A grate in the wall named the room a prison cell. The candle’s wan light pushed back a greenish gloom and shone on a dark head, bent over a page of writing. The words faded as quickly as the man—for it was a man’s dirty slender hand holding a quill—could set them down.
… found a scroll shortly before I was taken. So much explained. It said: Through the centuries of the Daemon War, the Living Realm grew darker, abandoned by its guardians, rife with ignorance, and plagued by cold and famine, magic lost. A pervasive sadness afflicted the world, for though they had discounted the worth of humans, Dimios and his fellows had learned that they could increase their own strength by draining the energies from the souls of human dead, a cr
ime against the Creator who had set the order of the world. He who had been the Pantokrator’s First, was ever after named the Souleater…
“Aagh!” The writer threw down his pen and ripped something from his face, cramming his hands to his eyes. On the desk lay a pair of spectacles, lenses blazing with emerald fire.
“Portier!”
The dark head lifted, eyes bleeding, face bruised and gaunt.…
Xanthe snatched the prism away. “I daren’t allow you to spy out his whereabouts. Iaccar and I have an agreement.”
“How is it possible that I see Iaccar’s prisoner?” This was no illusion; Portier had heard my call.