The Makers of Light

by Lynna Merrill

  "You can't do something like this nowadays! They threw stones at our gates and walls! What is that for? The gates and walls won't let an invader in before their Magic has weakened—before we have weakened inside! Stones or not! Besides, we are honorable! Just like any House, when it comes to an army before the walls of our House's seat in Mierber, we'll go out and fight! With swords, as it is proper! They are throwing stones at us only because we are women!"

  "My lady Miriam." The game master, his voice appeasing and yet authoritative. "This is not 'nowadays.' Or the long-gone past, for that matter. Indeed, nowadays we don't even fight with swords any more because we don't fight at all, right? But this is just a game. Please do not take a game action personally."

  The game master proceeded to allocate eight Science points to the Kimei lady and the young Ironqette lord, for they had not just thrown stones but had described throwing them with the assistance of a big lever that made it possible to throw heavier stones, and further.

  "Didn't do much with their stonethrower, did they? Can't do anything against Magic, of course—but they did get their Science points, and Science points is what we are here for." Someone else's voice, and then uneasy laughter. Even nobles did not joke lightly with Magic. But indeed they were joking with Science, with the perceived inferiority and inadequacy of their own vocation.

  Now Linden was angry again, and she felt Rianor's own rising anger and contempt for all around them.

  "Not against Magic," indeed. As if Magic could do anything these days—as if it would have protected Qynnsent a few days ago when all that had kept a semblance of order was Linden and Rianor's rudimentary Science.

  "Well, the Qynnsent lady moved a whole river with Science," someone said. "This is nothing now, a stonethrowing lever."

  But it would have been something the last time these people had played their game, for their Science had only been door locks then—and not locks of Noble Houses, at that—and little trinkets.

  "Yes, our Qynnsent lady has disrupted the whole game, it seems. People did not use barbaric stones before that." Miriam again, staring at Linden. "Well, the Qynnsent lady has hopelessly drowned most of her pawns and has run crying to her High Lord. Neither Science nor water can help the Qynnsent lady now—why, Magic itself cannot help her now—so, dear friends, do not imitate the Qynnsent lady's actions."

  Science and Magic and water—what did Miriam know about any of those? What did she know about anything!

  Just then lord Everad, a faint smile on his lips, announced that the remains of his and Orlin's army was proceeding forward. No new Science this time. Destruction of Linden and Rianor's city would be enough for him.

  Rianor glanced at Everad, his feelings towards the Aarthi lord momentarily clear on his face, and then he glanced at Miriam. Miriam had the audacity to smile at him! He ignored her, scribbling something fast, his other arm still around Linden.

  Linden leaned to see it and he let her, but shifted his hand so that no one else would. It looked somewhat like that picture she had seen on his desk yesterday, that of the Militia crossbow—then he crossed it out and sketched what looked like an enormous can without a cover but with an intact bottom. Then he drew a stone inserted at the can's opening, and the can inclined at an angle, the open end with the stone pointing outwards.

  "Do you remember steam, my lady?"

  Suddenly she felt like trembling, a feeling of both chill and burning growing inside her. She remembered steam—and smoke.

  "Water touched by fire—Everad and Mister Flint giving you an idea—Miriam, even. This is what you meant! Magic and water and Science."

  "Fire and water and Science, my lady," Rianor corrected her, softly.

  He said a few words more, but they were unneeded, for she had seen where exactly his ideas were going. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and she reached out to somewhat alter his drawing, to widen the bottom and middle of the can and to narrow the opening.

  Then, they were almost like one person, both adding details to the same sketch, both crossing out parts of it and then adding others, their actions synchronized without them even talking. It was like yesterday, with the wolf, and she was glad.

  No, not glad. Happy.

  Happy to think with him because he, too, could think. To build with him, to do things that mattered; not alone (or with nice, helpful Mister Podd, whose thought, however, could not run as far or fast as hers), but with this man whose thought was a partner, who could and dared go where she could and dared go—and who could take her to strange places of his own choice.

  No one could stop them now. They could do anything.

  * * *

  They won the game with Science points. The crowd was stunned when Rianor explained their device. The open can with the stone inserted inside—Rianor had used the word "pipe" with Linden, but would not use it with the rest—was enormous, more than two meters tall. It was wide, too, a large part of its body having a diameter of more than a meter. At the top, however, the can narrowed abruptly, the diameter becoming half its previous size for the topmost one seventh of can's length. Indeed, the contraption looked more like a giant bottle than a can, but a can they called it.

  The can had a lid for its narrow part, but this lid did not stay on top of the narrow part but fit inside it, being placed right where the wide part ended and the narrow part began. The lid fit the narrow part very tightly—nothing, no water or steam, could pass from the wide part of the can into the narrow part while this lid was there.

  That mattered because the wide part of the can was filled with water—and because a stone, a very large one, its own diameter almost half a meter, was placed on top of the lid, in the can's narrow part. Everything concerning that can was enormous, and it was good that, inside the game, Mister Flint had removed the real-world restriction of finding tools and materials.

  The can would be placed on a tall kitchen stove and made to lean forty-five degrees to the side, so that its narrow part would extend out from a kitchen's window. (The kitchen in the game city, like the kitchen in the real Qynnsent and most other kitchens, was in the basement and its windows were high on the walls, by the ceiling.) Then, a Master Cook would apply the stove's fire to the can and heat it just like he or she would heat a cooking pot, to the same level of heat and steam that could make a cooking pot's lid rise in the air.

  This would create steam in the wide part of the can, Rianor told them all. Those who did not believe him were free to try it on their own risk, with metal pots in the kitchens of their own Houses. And just like steam would raise the cover of a cooking pot, seeking a way to escape in the air, it would seek a way to swiftly escape from the can—but it would not be able to, for the lid between the wide and narrow parts of the can would indeed be very tight. It would hold the steam in.

  However, on the side surface of the can, just where the wide part ended and the narrow part began, at the level of the lid and thus beneath the level of the stone, there would be a slit. The slit would be just big enough to insert the lid into the can through it—or to grip the lid with the right tools and remove it through the can's side, without trying to force the lid up through the narrow bottleneck. Forcing the lid up through the bottleneck would be impossible, anyway, Linden explained; the tightly-fitting lid would be too wide for that, the can's bottleneck too narrow. Even the steam, despite seeking a way to escape, would not be able to force this lid up.

  Humans would then suddenly remove the can's lid through the slit, to the side, at the exact moment when all the water had been turned into hard-pushing steam—and then, all that steam would suddenly push the stone up. The steam would shoot the stone in the air, high and far, Rianor and Linden said, straight at Qynnsent's enemies.

  The same thing could be done with many cans, and many times.

  Mister Gabriel Flint could have said, like with Linden's river before, that the steam might not do that, that water could not be relied on. However, Rianor expected it and explained even before the game master
had asked that this was not just water any more. It was water touched by fire—and if the Bers trusted Master Cooks to work, predictably, with it in real life, the Stratagem players could trust them to do so in the game.

  The game master could have also said that heating such a can and not a pot was not a Master's Cook's typical task, that it lacked the right Ber rituals, protections and such—but he did not. He did not mention that perhaps the in-game Qynnsent did not have a proper kitchen any more, for it had been flooded earlier, either. (Indeed, what would, according to the Bers, happen to a flooded kitchen? Would it be fire or water that was considered stronger in this case, by those who worshiped one and yet feared the other so?)

  Mister Flint did not mention the Bers. Neither did he wonder why Linden and Rianor thought that the steam would shoot the stone far and not just shoot it centimeters away, or why they thought that it would shoot at all—he did not say that the whole project was just a guess, that it might not work. But it was "theory" that the game master had stressed earlier, and now, for the briefest moment, he watched Rianor and then Linden with something Linden could not quite define. It could have been acknowledgement, deference, admiration tinted with fear, or something more than that. Then it was gone, and the game master smiled softly at the two of them, and then at everyone else.

  "Eighty Science points for Qynnsent," he said.

  Lord Orlin tried to argue that the shots from the steaming can could not exterminate all of their army, and that indeed the can might not shoot far enough—and why was it better than the Kimei and Ironqette stonethrower, anyway?

  "Because fire is stronger than anything else," Miss Jade whispered from the Women in Science table. "It will throw stones further, and harder, do not doubt that."

  "But our army is big! They might kill many with this thing, all right, but we may still destroy their city after they have shot all they like!"

  "True," the game master said, quietly. "Despite the cans, the city's destruction is very likely, indeed—if the game were going on. However, the Qynnsent couple already have one hundred points." He looked at Linden and Rianor. "Unless you, my lady and lord, offered to raise the number of points needed to win and aimed for even a higher achievement?" There might have been challenge in this smile. "This has been a very interesting game. I am sure everyone would agree to continue a little more of it—"

  "No." This was lord Everad, his face stiff. "I would not."

  He was looking at Orlin and Gabriel Flint as if he wanted to hit them. "They won. Period." Everad bowed to Rianor and Linden, then glared at his partner again. "There will be other games."

  The Guild became noisy then, people shouting congratulations, challenges, and all kinds of unrelated things. There had been tension, but perhaps there was only so much tension people could handle for one evening, for it broke easily. Besides, wine and food were being brought. Last night it had been the servants' turn to celebrate Guilds Day, but tonight it was the nobles' (and the Guild's commoners'), and they felt that they well deserved it.

  Now, like last night, Linden did not drink, but she felt drunk nonetheless.

  Miss Jade came to tell her how proud she was, as a woman, of Linden. That Qynnsent had won against all odds mostly because of Linden's ingenuity. Lady Miriam came to tell the opposite, how lucky Linden was that the High Lord of Qynnsent was so incredibly smart that he would fix even Linden's game mess. Rianor watched both women with naught but amusement, and Linden cared not for either woman's words. Neither did she care for the words of others, women and men both, who would come to hint the same as either Jade or Miriam—or for the many other words that she did not even remember moments after she heard them.

  Linden cared less than she would have expected even when lady Dierdre told her how much she had liked Linden's Science Guild application many days ago; that because of that application and the recommendation of someone who knew Linden well, if Linden had not become Rianor's apprentice, she might have been Dierdre's now.

  "Most of these people are so petty and trivial," she told Rianor when, finally, they were back in Qynnsent, alone and in each other's arms. They had not wanted to remain in the Fireheart. "We won together."

  Rianor caressed her cheek, gently, his fingers barely brushing her skin—as if she were something that could break very easily. "Yes," he said. "And it is my mixed blessing and curse that you would do this with me."

  "Why?" Her voice was barely a whisper, but still he must have sensed the trembling in it.

  "You are asking why it is a curse, darling. You know why it is a blessing. It is a curse because every time I have seen your genius and your strength, I have seen them followed by vulnerability and sickness. Because it all takes too great a toll on you, but you still insist on doing it—and I cannot stop you without hurting you. Because throughout my childhood I saw my mother dwindle on some Edge between her own talents and this world, and even my father could not help her, no matter how much she clung to him." He shook his head, as if chasing the memories away. "A woman cannot do it all, Linde. I walked into that hall today and saw you fight, and I was at the same time proud of you and mad that you would do it and thus expose yourself to others' vileness—and I was also mad with myself that I had not been there to protect you, so that you would not have had to fight."

  "You were not in that hall because you were protecting me somewhere else."

  That he had. He had been suspicious of the paintings in the Fireheart all day; he had sensed danger from some of them. Then, during her introduction as his apprentice, he had suddenly remembered another painting that he had seen a year ago. It had disturbed him last year, too, he told her, but at that time he had not possessed enough knowledge to know why. Today, he had thought the painting to be an entrance to the Healers' Passage, or to another such place.

  He had also suspected that someone had been following him and Linden all day, watching them through the walls—and he had thought that the painting might be a convenient place, and the introduction of apprentices a convenient time, for this someone to come out. He had been correct. As for the High Lady of Laurent, he had only met her in the corridor on his way back to Linden. Rianor did not know what Marguerite might have seen of his encounter, but for the half a minute that they had walked together, she had hinted that she knew of the Healers' Passage.

  Linden stroked Rianor's face, tracing his narrowed eyes with a finger, trying to take the tension away. "You were protecting me," she said again. "And, yes, a woman cannot do it all alone—but a man cannot do it all, either. Have you looked at yourself lately, Rianor? You are walking on some Edge of yours these days. I am not going to let you walk alone there any longer."

  The arm around her waist gripped her more tightly, drew her body to his. "You would walk on an Edge with me? I want that as much as I want to keep you as far from all Edges as could be." He kissed her, very lightly, just a brush of his lips over hers. "Don't you understand that I have rarely feared anything in my life, but these days I always fear that something might happen to you? That before I could have reacted and fought it, something might take you away from me forever?"

  "Don't fear that. My love." She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself to him. His heart was beating so fast. "Nothing will ever take me away from you. If we fight together, nothing can ever win against us."

  Some time passed—she did not know how much—but in the end he smiled, and she smiled, too. Then it was her turn to kiss him, lightly and timidly at first, and his own response was also soft and gentle. And then she did not know who of them first embraced the other one so closely that both could barely breathe, the next kiss—and what came after it—lasting an eternity.

  It did not matter who of them it was. They were as one, together. This night, their first night, in some ways felt the same as working on the the steam mechanism or helping the wolf—and yet it was much, much more than that.

  Chapter 6: Paths of Darkness

  Dominick

  Evening 30 of the Fi
rst Quarter, Year of the Master 706

  The path was dark, but Dominick was already used to darkness. In the days since he had found the Order of the Mother, darkness had been his constant companion, his lover, his friend. It was becoming difficult to imagine himself without his black cloak and the dense, black air that seemed to follow him wherever he went.

  No. The darkness did not follow him; he chose to walk in it. He must remember that. He should be careful of what he thought, for he might be a Mentor, but he was still a human. He, too, suffered from human fickleness and weakness. Darkness could not follow a person.

  "As long as this person makes a conscious effort to cherish and follow the light of the Master," an old thought came, a thought of something he had once been taught and taught others himself.

  But no longer. Not before he knew, himself, what the light of the Master was.

  Doubt again. Always that, the path to a Mentor's undoing, a constant shadow of the Mentor he had now become. Yet, doubt could lead him towards those truly lost, Maxim had told him, and he believed in this. He needed something to believe in, and one who doubted could at least believe in doubt.

  Dominick walked further. The path was dark, too dark for the man to chase him here, even if it were a man who had once walked this path himself. With her.

  Then, it was not so dark any more, for a candle was lit a few steps away from him, its pale, eerie light hinting the contours of another black-clad figure. Katrina, the young healer woman, was waiting for him before the entrance to the inner tunnel where he could not go by himself, even with her trinket. On his hand, her bracelet only worked at Outer Doors, the ones the Healers' Passage had in the Fireheart and—so he had been told—the Firemind. She and her ilk were the only ones who could open Inner Doors and single doors like those in people's houses from the outside.

  "You are hurt." It was not a question. "Roll up your sleeve." Then, "the other one, do not try my patience."