“As your mentor, I expect you to obey me when I tell you to do something. We have a very dangerous job and learning to follow orders could mean the difference between life and death for both of us.” I opened my mouth to apologize but he interrupted me. “That being said, part of being a really good mage is also knowing when to defy orders. Your quick thinking may have saved my life this evening. I thank you. I have learned to be more cautious, but you must also be sure to follow orders in future. The next time you disobey, the outcome may not be so favorable.”
Chapter Four
By the end of the week, I had had my fill of travel and adventure. The coach was hot and small and the scenery passing outside the window was utterly monotonous. If I had hair, I would have torn it out from madness. At the beginning of the journey, each new sight was a marvel and I could not wait to see what was beyond the gates of each new hamlet. After seven days of watery meals and hard beds, I was much too travel weary to be afraid of what was in store for me at the journey’s end.
I had nearly dozed off in my seat when we rounded a bend in the road and the great city of Fadaria came into view. The walls around the city were smooth and they glittered and shone in the midday sun. I hung my head out of the window to get a better look. “It is a city of silver?” I asked breathlessly.
Wylan flashed one of his half smiles. “If the walls of the city had been made of silver, they would have been torn down in a fortnight. The shimmer is a character of the stone. It is strong and beautiful, like the city herself.” I gazed at the city walls until we turned again and the front of the carriage blocked them from my view.
Moments later, the carriage rolled past a stone cottage and my mouth fell open again. Stone cottages were rare in this heavily forested land but this cottage was even more extraordinary. It was perfectly round like a massive tree stump and it had a pointed roof made of woven straw. I thought for a moment it might be some sort of short, squat grain silo, but there were windows and doors and I could see people milling around outside the structure. Wylan must have sensed my curiosity. “That home is built in the Mirabi style. They prefer stone as a building material as it is most plentiful in their country. Their holy book dictates that houses should be round to promote unity and harmony in the home. It is kind of a beautiful sentiment really.”
It sounded like a preposterous sentiment to me. Surely harmony started with the people in the home and not the shape of the walls. I kept my opinion to myself so as not to be rude and instead I asked, “Are there many Mirabians in Fadaria?”
Wylan nodded. “Fadaria is a large, international city. There are Mirabians, Geronians, Vanwarans, and even people from across the seas sometimes come and settle here. My own mother came here from The North Lands. My name comes from her people.”
My mother had once told me a tale about having met a North Lander when she was a little girl. She had traveled to Okwa with her family and he had been the manservant to the merchant her father had gone to meet. She said his skin was the color of the seed fluff from the cottonwood trees. She said his ghostly appearance frightened her at first, but she soon got used to seeing him. The man had been kind to mother, giving her maple sweets and wooden fidget toys when she got bored. I looked at my mentor and his honey colored skin with new understanding.
The gates of the city were as thick as a man was tall and the carriage was momentarily thrown into darkness as we passed through them. When we emerged into the light, I saw a wide street, lined with the most extraordinary looking buildings. Their thick, smooth walls were painted in muted rainbow colors. They had flat roofs, some of which had furniture on top. “This is the Vanwaran style of dwelling. They are made of mud bricks that are plastered over and then painted. The desert does not have much color, so the people paint it onto their buildings.”
I smiled. “The colors make them look like fancy cakes.”
Wylan tilted his head and stared at them. “I suppose they do look rather delicious.” The streets were teeming with people. The carriage ground to a halt at times as the crowds spilled into the streets. There were so many different hues of skin! Some were the darkest of brown and others had skin much like my own golden brown. Some people even had skin the same as Wylan. It was an amazing sight to behold and I nearly thrust my entire torso through the carriage window in order to get a better look at them all. I watched a group of men with red-brown skin, wearing knee length linen shirts and matching trousers. Wylan pointed to them and said, “Vanwarans.” I nodded. The afternoon was hot and they looked very comfortable. Later we passed a group of Mirabians. They wore identical cinched waist, floor-length black robes. The men wore brimmed hats and the women, black head scarves that covered their hair. “Mirabians feel it is a sin of pride to stand out. They dress the same because we are all the same in the eyes of God.”
We turned down a street full of buildings made of sturdy, reliable local timber and at first I felt a bit disappointed. The wood dwellings would last for generations, but they were all I had seen along the road to the city. Then I began to notice differences. Outside of several buildings, there were life-size statues painted to look like living men and women. The rooflines of most buildings were decorated with ornate scrollwork. Wylan pointed to one, two-story home on the corner. “Geronian architecture is much like our own, but they do love their plaster flourishes.” The entire second floor of the building was covered with a large plaster frieze, depicting ornately carved figures in various states of undress. I averted my eyes. “The Geronians claim that these figures depict scenes from religious texts. Personally, I think they do it to scandalize their Mirabian neighbors.”
Suddenly a group of three or four men rounded the corner. They had skin the color of milk, just as mother had described. They wore animal hide shirts and pants and big, bushy beards covered their faces. “Not many North Landers come to our shores. Their ships are not large enough or powerful enough to make the journey. They are still a primitive people. Sometimes when our ships arrive on their shores, they sign on as deckhands and work their way here.”
I was so transported by the sights, sounds and smells of a real, international city, that I was barely aware of the distance we had traveled until the blue gray stone of the castle walls loomed up over our carriage. I could not see the tops of the walls from the window and I could not see any of the buildings beyond. We pulled up to the entrance of the bridge that led out over the moat. There were two guards standing in front of a stone arch at the front of the bridge. There was a large wooden door blocking entrance to the bridge. It was closed and neither of the guards moved to open it for us. Instead, one of the men approached Wylan and saluted him. “Good evening, Sir.” He glanced at me briefly and I became self conscious. Suddenly I felt nervous. “It appears that your journey was fruitful. I shall inform the king of your arrival.”
Wylan nodded at the man. “Please tell him that we are weary from our travels. We will require the remainder of the day to recover. If he wishes to see us, we will await his convenience on the morrow.”
The man made a curt bow. “Very good, Sir.”
“Tell the cook we require dinner and supper to be delivered to us.” The man nodded again. “Thank you, that will be all.” I had been traveling with Wylan for a week now. I knew him as my guardian and mentor, but I had never really pictured him in his role as Royal Mage. He was a well respected member of the king’s court and there were people who obeyed his commands. This alternate view of him was a bit jarring.
Our carriage turned left and continued down a small dirt road on the far side of the moat. I looked back on the gate and saw the men in the stone towers on either side of the archway. I was puzzled. “Are we not going through the gates?”
“We are part of the royal court, but we do not live behind the castle walls. Our tower is about three miles beyond. You will see it as we round the bend up ahead.” I kept my eyes glued to the window, even though there was only a wide channel of dark water and a large expanse of stone wall to look at
for several minutes. We reached the corner of the large castle complex and the road turned away from the village. The tower appeared in the distance. I could see the green domed roof of the tall thin structure. The tower itself was creamy white and it stood out in sharp relief against the blue, cloudless sky. There were no other buildings surrounding it. It was tall, pale, solitary and beautiful, and I was struck by how well it suited my new mentor.
We pulled up in front of the building and I could see that it was made of yet another kind of stone. Wylan looked up at it as he responded to my unasked question. “This used to be a Mirabian holy place. This white stone is rare and quite difficult to mine, so they only use it in their most sacred buildings. They lost the territory in a border skirmish centuries ago and it still looks like it was built yesterday.” He looked up at his home and I could see his love for the place reflected in his eyes. “We earth mages always feel most at home when surrounded by our element.” He turned to me. “Obviously you cannot spend much time surrounded by your element, but perhaps you have experienced something similar?”
I thought about home and sleeping by the hearth. Watching the dying fire crackling in the grate gave me a deep sense of peace and comfort. I had never slept more soundly than I did, lying on the cold, hard floor, gazing at the glowing embers. I nodded in understanding, “I always feel best in rooms with fireplaces.”
“The tower has a fireplace in every room. Perhaps you will come to feel at home here.” I realized I had not thought about the interior of the tower until he mentioned the rooms. Suddenly I was curious and anxious all at once. I thought about the grand manor I had visited in Bedato and all the other fine homes I had seen during our journey. This tower was far more beautiful than any of them. It looked as delicate as Mother’s flower vase, which sat on the mantle above the fire, somehow miraculously unbroken. I did not want the tower to be as delicate on the inside as it appeared to be on the outside. I was every bit a farm girl. I liked my surroundings to be simple and durable. The thought of perching on the edges of gilded chairs and trying to eat tiny morsels off slippery glass plates with tiny spoons sounded exhausting. It would never feel like home and I really wanted to feel at home here.
The driver had unloaded our bags by the time our conversation was completed. Wylan walked over and picked his up and I did likewise. We both traveled light so there was not much to carry. We entered the tower and I was immediately struck by how bright it was for a windowless room. The stone walls were quite thick but they seemed to glow with some inner light. There was a large fireplace on the far side of the large, circular room and a square table in the middle with two chairs arranged on opposite sides. There was a curved bench pushed up against the wall, but it was piled high with so many books, there was no room for sitting. The bench was situated underneath several rows of shelves full of jars and vials. I could only guess what might be inside them.
“I do not permit servants to wander around the tower. There are too many ways for an untutored outsider to set off a magical catastrophe. We are responsible for our own cooking and cleaning, in addition to our other duties. When I say that we are responsible, it should be understood that I chiefly mean you are responsible. Domestic duties are every bit as important as spells and enchantments. Mages are not permitted to marry. There will never be a wife to run your household. You must learn to mend your own stockings and wash your own underclothes. Since you will be about it anyway, you will wash and mend my belongings too for extra practice.” He paused as if he suddenly remembered my gender. “You will probably have it easy, since you already learned these skills from your mother.”
My face grew hot. “After I burned up a basin full of dishes, Mother stopped giving me chores. She just left me to my studies.”
He nodded, “Understandable, well here you will keep up with your studies and we will manage this household. Since it was already your task during our travels, I think your first duty this evening will be to light the fires in our rooms before bed.”
Wylan turned and walked up the circular staircase that wound up the side of the wall. I followed him up to the second floor landing. The room here was also wide open with a fireplace on the wall to the left. My mouth fell open when I saw it. There were five large windows set into the walls at regularly spaced intervals, and in between the windows, there were tall wooden bookcases that reached from floor to ceiling and they were all filled. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of books. There was a desk with a padded chair behind it, and there were a few benches and even a cushioned lounge. Even Wylan managed to quirk his lips into a half smile. “This is the library I was telling you about. I must confess, it is my favorite room.” I knew it would quickly become my favorite too. I did not want to leave. The house needed no other rooms, as far as I was concerned.
Wylan was on the march again before I could draw close enough to even touch any of the volumes. We walked up to the third floor in our peculiar home. This time the landing led to a narrow hallway. Each of the wooden walls of the hall had a door set about halfway down the length. “Here are our sleeping quarters. They are more or less the same.” He opened the door to the room on the right and I walked into a half circle sleeping chamber. There were two windows in the room which let in plenty of light. There was a small fireplace between the windows, with wood stacked neatly in the grate. The room was tidy. The bed was stripped bare, but blankets and linens were folded neatly at the foot for my use. There was a small writing desk with a stack of paper, quills and some sealing wax. There were triangular shelves set into the narrow corners of the room on either side and I had mentally placed my books and carvings on them already.
“We have one more stop, then I will let you unpack.” He looked at the suit of clothes he had bought me. “We will have to go to the royal tailor as soon as possible in order to get you fitted for robes. They are the uniform for the job.”
We walked up the final flight of stairs. The top of the tower almost looked as if it were made of glass. Translucent white brick covered the bottom third of the wall, but above that, closely packed clear paned windows lined the entire circumference. In most towns and villages, holy spaces could be identified by the beautiful colors on the glass windows, but I had no trouble recognizing that this room was a place of power. The clear glass gave an almost uninterrupted view of the landscape below. I had a bird’s eye view of the city to the south, the castle to the east and the forest with the rocky mountains of Mirabi behind it. To the north there was a wide expanse of grassland and a stand of trees beyond. I squinted and I imagined that I could see the sea beyond the northern tree line. “This is our workshop. Here you will learn how to enchant the weapons and the armor that our soldiers use. We also work on non-magical weapons. Not the swords and cannons and bows. There are specialized craftsmen for that. We try to develop less conventional defenses.” I did not understand what he meant and he could evidently tell by my expression. “I will explain later. I imagine you have quite enough to assimilate this evening.” I nodded and looked around the room again, wondering what the Mirabian people must think of this use of their holy space.
I looked around at the high tables and stools in the room. There were oddly shaped glass vessels and boxes fit with metal wheels and cogs. I was filled with curiosity, but also afraid I would never understand what any of it was for. Like every other room I had seen, this room contained books. Several open volumes rested on the tables along with a book of handwritten notes, with half its pages full.
Wylan sat down on a bench facing the east view of the castle and beckoned me to sit beside him. “So, what are your impressions so far? Please be honest. I do not need silly platitudes. My pride needs no bolstering.”
“This tower is the most beautiful place I have ever seen.” I said it because it was the truth.
Wylan nodded. “But?”
“It is very quiet. I am one of nine children. I am unaccustomed to so much solitude.”
He nodded again. “A mage’s life tends to be s
olitary. We do not marry. Our powers make people uncomfortable so no one comes to call unless it is absolutely necessary and we tend not to be invited to many balls or card games. You may expect your time here to be exceedingly quiet. I will teach you to conduct yourself in a manner befitting a royal mage and your robes will immediately garner a certain amount of respect, but respect is not the same as friendship. Mages do not win friends easily. Quiet it is, and quiet it will stay.”
“I am no stranger to suspicion and scorn. I have always been alone. It was just that before, I was alone in the company of ten other people. I think this will take some adjustment. I am grateful that I will be able to live and learn in such a beautiful place.”
“My company will not be nearly as diverting as a house full of children. I am quiet by nature and there is not much hope of changing that. I hope it will not be a difficult adjustment for you.”
I did not know how to respond. How could I know how well I would adjust to a life I could not even imagine? I nodded at him. I stared out of the window, suddenly feeling very tired and overwhelmed. Within moments, a small figure appeared to be moving towards us from the dirt road leading to the castle. Wylan pointed. “I think our meals are on their way. They will have dinner and supper in the hamper. No one will want to make the trip out here twice. Unlike your Uma, I am not a psychic, but I suspect that there will also be a note from the king. He will require our presence on the morrow, unless I miss my guess.” Before I could say a word he added. “Do not fret. We will discuss the visit after you have had time to unpack, eat, and get a good night’s rest.” I took him at his word. I had no choice.
Chapter Five
My morning meal was a bowl of deliciously prepared lamb stew from the previous evening’s supper, but I was having a hard time swallowing it around the lump in my throat. “You have been pushing that same lump of lamb around for the last ten minutes. Are you going to eat it, or train it to race?” Wylan watched me from the other side of the kitchen table. He reached out and awkwardly patted the back of my hand and an odd shiver ran up the length of my arm. He drew his fingers away quickly, flexing his hand as if he had felt the tingle too. I realized, despite the fact that we had spent an entire week trapped in a cramped carriage together, this was the first time he had ever touched me. I did not have much time to reflect on it before he spoke again. “I was trying to think back to the first time I met the king and what that felt like. Just like you, I was barely twelve and I was terrified.” I knew I really should have corrected him on my age, but I was feeling much too nervous to speak so I let it pass again. “When it came time to demonstrate my power, I could barely raise a small mound of earth.”
Through The Fire: The Alawansi Book One Page 5