by David Weber
* * *
The sun shone bravely in Belhadan. Despite that, the spring shadows remained cool, but the red-haired little girl seemed unaware of the chill. She sat motionless in the shade of the Belhadan Mage Academy’s wall, studying a bed of flowers as if their fragile blooms were the most precious things in the universe, and Trayn Aldarfro leaned against the frame of Lentos’ window and watched her. He’d watched her almost as long as she’d watched the flowers, for she posed questions he couldn’t answer. Questions no one in the Academy could answer, and that was both unacceptable and dangerous.
He sighed.
“Problems, Trayn?”
Lentos had entered the office behind him, and Trayn turned.
“Only one, Lentos. Only one.”
“Gwynna?” Lentos sat calmly as he asked the question. His expression was serene, but Trayn had no need of his Talent to sense the other mage’s disquiet.
“Of course! Lentos, whatever’s happening is even stranger than we’d thought.”
Trayn awaited the Chancellor’s response curiously, for his discoveries had stunned him, and he felt a perverse sort of anticipation as he prepared to shatter Lentos’ famed, monumental calm.
“There are no strange talents; only unusual ones,” Lentos said.
“You don’t need to quote the coda to me, Lentos. Perhaps I should say the situation is stranger than we’d thought. Although I also think ‘unusual’ is far too weak an adjective to describe what’s going on inside Gwynna’s head.”
“I see you’re bursting with new observations.” Lentos leaned back and raised his feet, propping his heels on his desk. “I suppose you’d better tell me, but if you disturb my dreams again tonight you’ll regret it, my friend.”
“Ha!” Trayn looked back at Gwynna. “All right, let’s take it in order.
“First, she should have died in crisis. Something broke her barriers at the last moment, but she was so far gone that just breaking them wasn’t enough. Whoever got in had to give her a reason to live, which is a job for a trained empath. But the only trained empath available—me—couldn’t do it.
“So far, the only answer I can see is Wencit. I don’t know how, but I do know none of us could’ve done it. I’m not the best mage who ever lived, but I’m not exactly the worst, either. I know my job, and saving Gwynna was impossible using mage talent. Ergo, whoever did it didn’t use mage talent, which leaves only magic, and we know wand wizardry and the talent can’t meld. We thought we knew the wild magic couldn’t, either, but since we have proof wand wizardry can’t, this had to be done with wild wizardry. And the only living wild wizard just happens to be her second father. However you slice it, it had to be Wencit.”
Trayn leaned back expectantly, but Lentos merely nodded and waved for his junior to continue.
“Well,” Trayn was a little nettled by Lentos’ composure, “let’s take it as a given Wencit saved her, then. Forget that he’s lied to us by telling us wild magic can’t do such a thing and look at Gwynna herself.
“She should have slept for at least three days after so severe a crisis; she slept less than thirty hours. She should’ve awakened disoriented; she was quiet, but she knew exactly where she was and why. New magi can neither shield nor avoid broadcasting before they’re trained; she hasn’t broadcast a single peep, and I still can’t get past her outer shields. She either can’t—or won’t—let me in. She just sits and stares at those flowers without showing any more curiosity about her talents than a rock!” Trayn’s voice had risen, and he almost glared at Lentos as he finished. “And if that doesn’t qualify as strange, then what the bloody hell does?!” he demanded.
Lentos was silent for several seconds, and when he spoke again, his words took Trayn by surprise.
“Did you know the elders raised the barriers this morning?”
“What?” Trayn blinked. “No. But what about it? Aren’t we about due for a drill?”
“Just about.” Lentos nodded. “You know the barriers around the academies and imperial fortresses are maintained against the possibility of Kontovar developing mage talents of its own. Of course, we’ve carried out our drills for nine centuries without any indication that there are any magi in Kontovar. You know that, too, of course.”
“So?” Trayn was baffled by the turn of the conversation.
“What you may not know, since we very carefully never discuss it, is that the barriers are also impervious to all known scrying spells.”
“What?” Trayn straightened. “Lentos, I’m as upset by Wencit’s…duplicity, I suppose, as you are, but that’s no cause to block him out! If,” he added thoughtfully, “you really can, that is, assuming he can tamper with mage talent at all.”
“You miss my point. We’re not blocking him; we’re blocking all other wizards. Specifically, the Council of Carnadosa.”
“Why? I don’t like being spied on either, but you can’t maintain the barriers forever without draining the Academy.”
“True. But sit down, Trayn. There are things I have to tell you, and I want your word that you’ll seal them.”
Trayn settled into one of the office’s straight-backed chairs automatically, staring at the Belhadan Academy’s Chancellor in shock. “Seal” had only one meaning for a mage: mind-blocked. Lentos wanted him to block the part of his mind dealing with whatever he was about to hear, which would bar him from sharing it with anyone but an elder of the academies. He could never let it slip voluntarily, and if it was forced from him under duress, the first syllable would kill him instantly and painlessly. Only the most potent secrets were sealed, and Trayn wanted no more suicide triggers in his brain than he could help. But Lentos hadn’t been made Chancellor of the Belhadan Academy on a whim. If he requested it, he had a reason, and after a brief hesitation, the master empath nodded slowly.
“Thank you.” Lentos smiled warmly at the proof of his trust, then went on. “First, the elders and I have reviewed the records carefully in the last two days. It seems Wencit never actually said he couldn’t do what your admirable logic proves he did for Gwynna.”
“But it’s in every training text! Every mage knows it’s impossible!”
“True, but he never said that. He simply never corrected us when we misunderstood him. That’s why I advanced the barrier drill so we could discuss this privately.
“We see only two possibilities. Either he didn’t know he could do it, or else he did know and wanted to hide the possibility. We don’t believe he could’ve been ignorant, so we conclude that he chose to hide his ability to touch the mage talent directly.
“Obviously, the next question was why. Not knowing hasn’t cost us anything, but it’s kept him from getting all the help from us he might have. We see no reason he would’ve needed to hide that from us, so we think he was hiding it from someone else—someone with ears so sharp that he could hide it only by telling no one, including us.”
“Wizards,” Trayn said, and nodded. “I follow your logic, but would it really have mattered if the Carnadosans had known?”
“It might have,” Lentos said. “Because of Gwynna.”
“Gwynna?” Trayn shook his head. “Why Gwynna?”
“Really, Trayn! What did you just call him? Her ‘second father’? She has the mage talent; magi experience crises when their powers wake; and Wencit loves her. If hers was a severe crisis—which everyone knew it would be—would you expect him simply to let her die? Of course not! And the Carnadosans are no less perceptive than we are. They’d’ve watched her like a hawk, and when her convulsions started, they’d’ve been waiting. I imagine he protected himself well, but would it have been enough if they’d known ahead of time?”
“So he hid it to keep them from knowing? That’s the mystery?”
“That’s why he hid it, but it definitely isn’t the whole mystery.”
“I guess not,” Trayn said slowly. “They must know now that he can do it, so there’s no point pretending he can’t. But you raised the barriers, so you think somet
hing about it is still worth hiding. I can get that far; I just don’t see what it could be.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re a technician, a teacher. That’s all you’ve really wanted to be from the day Mistress Zarantha first started your training. You don’t deal with the Council or politics, so you’re not devious. But you have to become devious, Trayn, because unless I miss my guess, you’re about to find yourself involved with Gwynna and Wencit right up to your neck.”
“Eh? I’m afraid you’ll have to spell that out,” Trayn said surprisingly.
“Certainly. If we’re right, he showed excellent foresight by hiding his ability so as to avoid the Carnadosans’ attack, didn’t he?”
“Well, of course he did—”
“Foresight so good,” Lentos interrupted, “that he began exercising it nine hundred years ago when he told the first academy no ‘sorcerer’ could touch the mage talent.”
“But that would mean—” Trayn paused as confusion became consternation. “That’s ridiculous! Wizards can’t pre-cog, Lentos, and not even a mage could pre-cog that far ahead! Or are you saying he fooled us about that, too?”
“What I’m saying is even more disturbing. He never outright lied about his ability to touch the mage talent, but he did say—and I quote from the records—‘not even a wild wizard has the power of precognition.’ Pre-cog and prophecy aren’t the same thing, of course, and several wizards produced the latter, but the ability to see future events is quite different from the ambiguities of prophecy.
“Yet Wencit clearly spent centuries preparing for exactly what happened three days ago, which requires something very like pre-cog. He had specific information, and what does that indicate, Trayn?”
Trayn struggled with new data and confusion, and when he spoke his voice was hesitant.
“He knew about Gwynna, but wizards can’t pre-cog. He took steps to protect them both long before she was born, which implies that he started taking those steps long before he knew love alone might compel him to run such a risk, so he must’ve had another motive, as well. But that means…”
“I have hopes for you, Trayn,” Lentos said softly as the younger mage’s voice trailed off. “It means he’s moved even more carefully than we thought. He has a plan based on knowledge to which we aren’t—and probably can’t be—privy. It means he’s spent at least a thousand years waiting for something which is happening right now, and that your pupil is somehow critical to the success of whatever he plans.”
* * *
Gwynna glanced up, but Master Trayn was no longer in the window, and she looked away, wondering if he and she could work together as they must. It would be hard for both of them, she knew, just as she knew she dared not reveal what she’d learned from Wencit in that searing moment of fusion.
She looked back at the flowers. She couldn’t understand all she’d seen, but she knew she’d seen too much. She was simply too young to understand what it all meant.
Many things about what was happening worried her. She couldn’t understand how she’d held Master Trayn out of her mind, but she knew why she’d done it. Before he could help her learn, she had to convince him that certain knowledge couldn’t be shared. But how had she stopped him? All she’d done was push at him with her thoughts, and she shouldn’t be able to keep a master mage out that way. The one thing she did know was that Wencit hadn’t shown her how to do it. He was no mage, and he hadn’t taught her to be one, either.
Yet the ability came from somewhere. And how did the gryphon fit in? For that matter, how did she know the magnificent creature of her vision was a gryphon? And where did the harp music come from? It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard, but it frightened her to know she’d never really heard it at all. And whose were the yellow, catlike eyes? They weren’t like Blanchrach’s, for they were cold and dead. And what was the huge crown? Whose was the big silver horse? What was the recurring image of the sword with the broken hilt? Why did she feel so frightened whenever she thought of her father?
She didn’t think Wencit knew all she’d seen, which only made her problem worse. And whatever he’d shown her, it wasn’t enough. There was too much in her mind, now. Too many new abilities, too much knowledge she hadn’t found yet, hadn’t laid mental hands upon. She needed to master those abilities, to discover the secrets hidden in that knowledge, and understand what it meant, why all of it had poured into her and what she was supposed to do with it all. And somehow, for any of that to happen, she had to get Master Trayn to help her without showing him what she knew.
The little girl with bottomless blue eyes and a heart of harp music watched the flowers and longed to tell someone all she knew or suspected. But she couldn’t. They probably wouldn’t believe her even if she did—she wasn’t certain she believed it all herself—yet she knew she couldn’t tell anyone.
She’d never before been aware of how young she truly was. There was too much she’d never been told, too much she’d taken for granted. The mage crisis was enough to destroy any childhood, but hers had been further ravished by a brief, magnificently terrible melding with a personality thousands of years old. Now she saw herself through two sets of eyes, two minds. One was young, confused, and terrified; the other was ancient, recognizing her youth with a sort of tender, implacable compassion.
Her inexperience could be deadly, and to far more than just her. She knew she’d seen into Wencit’s deepest plans…and that he’d never meant for it to happen. If she made a single mistake, she might destroy everything he’d ever tried to do, and she lacked the training to know what not to do.
She only knew it scared her. It scared her very, very badly.
* * *
Bahzell jogged through the late morning, setting an easy pace compared to the last three days. Kenhodan was grateful, and though he was concerned lest they be overtaken short of Bahzell’s goal, he felt surprisingly at ease.
Before last night, he’d accepted the plan to ambush the assassins largely as a “safe” outlet for the rage within him, and that had changed somehow. He still felt that rage, but something inside his mind’s new walls had transformed his perspective. His fury was no longer a threat; he controlled it, as if it were on a short, heavy chain he could slip at will. He found himself regarding it, almost with detachment, as a part of himself…a useful part which ought to have frightened him, but no longer did.
Yet the idea of an ambush bothered him even less now than it had when his rage had craved an acceptable outlet. It was the right decision, for one killed assassins any way one could. That proposition was now self-evident, accepted almost dispassionately—without arrogance or self-righteousness, but with something much more like…self recognition.
And with it came a weariness, as if some of Wencit’s ancientness had crept into his bones. Did old trees feel this way? Full of vigor and sap as they faced a storm, yet simultaneously older than the hills? As if they’d always been here and would be here forever?
Or was he a river rock? A stone polished and worn until it had no hard edges, only roundnesses and a core of permanence? He didn’t know the answers to those questions, but a sense of balance, of adjustment, gave him a peace he hadn’t known since Belhadan, one all the stranger for the feeling of unending strife beneath it, like a volcano mantled in ice and snow.
The noon halt startled him, for he’d ridden lost in thought. Now he shook himself mentally and dismounted to stretch.
“How much farther, Bahzell?” he asked.
“Another hour. I’m thinking we’ll reach the stream in no more than half that; it’s climbing the far side as will eat up the rest of the time.”
“And the assassins?” Wencit asked.
“Now that’s after being harder to say.” Bahzell shrugged. “It’s an easy pace I’ve set them today, and it’s surprised I’ll be if they haven’t closed on us all the while. It’s five hours back they might be, or maybe as little as two. Not less than that though, I’m thinking.”
“I’d just as s
oon get it over,” Kenhodan sighed, gnawing at a slab of jerky.
“Aye, I’ll not disagree with you there, lad. There’s after being too many of Sharnā’s scum in the world. Best we be showing some of them the way out of it.”
“Scum they may be,” Wencit said testily, “but they’re also skilled fighters. I’d suggest neither of you forget that!”
“Skilled they may be,” Bahzell said sternly, “but don’t be naming them ‘fighters’ to me. Any son of Sharnā’s after being a disgrace to my blade—though it’s happy I’ll be to introduce them to it!”
“Just so they don’t get steel into you first, Mountain.”
“That they won’t.”
“I suggest you make certain of that, because it won’t be clean steel.”
“Poison?” Kenhodan’s skin crawled at the thought.
“Aye,” Bahzell said. “To a dog brother’s thinking, dead is dead, and killing’s naught but a matter of kormaks. And old graybeard’s after being right to be wary. But then, I always am.” The hradani stood once more, resettling his pack on his shoulders. “And I still say they’re no fighting man!”
Kenhodan mounted and followed Bahzell down a changing trail. The forest giants moved well back and lower, scrubbier trees filled the gaps between them. Willow and alder became more frequent, and Kenhodan frowned as they reminded him of rivers. He was finally dry, and he’d prefer to remain that way for a day or so.
Unfortunately, the world didn’t much seem to care about what he’d prefer.
He heard the threatening rumble of water long before the trail led them to the deep gash of the stream. It started low, that rumble, but it grew steadily louder as they approached, and he wondered what it sounded like later in the spring, when the stream which spawned it was in full spate.
When he finally saw it, he could only shake his head. It was worse than he’d feared.
The brawling stream ran in a wide, unpleasant ravine. The water didn’t look deep, but it flowed with appalling speed over tumbled boulders, and white foam and spray made rainbows over the steep shelves of cascading rapids. A necklace of driftwood near the top of the ravine showed it was sometimes a little deeper—by some thirty or forty feet, he thought wryly.