“You broke the fever, did you?” Eryk thought, a little contemptuously. “Your apprentice sat with him all night while you slept in your own bed.”
“I am very pleased to hear it,” he said instead, “but shouldn’t someone stay with him?”
“High Mage Alycon.” Master Illyrian drew himself up to his full height, chest puffing out as he did. “I am a very busy man, as is my apprentice. We have many patients who need our attention, what with the typical summer sicknesses at full tilt. Too many for one of us to play nursemaid to a single, unconscious mage with the whore-pox.”
The High Mage considered any number of scathing remarks to the pretentious twit, but chose silence as the better part of valor. He’d seen his niece and another girl approaching down the hall and didn’t want to fight with the physician in front of them. So instead of calling up a gale and blowing the little man out the nearest window, Eryk simply nodded. Master Illyrian spun on his heel and started off, strutting like a bantam rooster before a flock of hens.
“Uncle Eryk, this is Enari. Mama and Kvinna Vasi sent her to take care of Jex.” Kylan looked between her uncle and the direction the master physician had gone. “Why is he so…so…” She threw up her hands, mimicking a gesture of her mother’s. “He’s like a mean old goat sometimes!”
Trying not to laugh, Eryk turned his attention to the young woman behind his niece. She shifted back a step when his gaze settled on her and nervously averted her eyes, but not before he saw their amber-gold coloring.
He stared hard at her. Hair like spun fire, ivory skin, pointed ears; she looked like…but that was impossible. Tanith had vanished long ago and as far as he knew, she’d had no living family. He’d have to ask Vasi more about this peculiarly familiar girl, when there was time.
“I am,” he started, clearing his throat. “I’m pleased to meet you, Enari, and I am sorry for my discourtesy in not introducing myself last night. If you’re Vasi’s apprentice, I have every confidence in leaving Jex to your care,”
“Is he going to be alright? He won’t die, will he?” Tears shimmered in Kylan’s eyes and Eryk knelt, hugging her fiercely.
“No, my dear, he isn’t going to die. You may go in and see him if you want, but he’s asleep so you must be very quiet.” Taking her hand, he gestured for Enari to precede them.
She grimaced as furnace-hot air struck her face. Rolling her eyes, she strode to the windows and shoved them open, though she left the curtains half drawn. The breeze that rushed in was warm, but not nearly as stifling as the air inside the chamber had become. The palace physician must truly be half-witted if he thought a stuffy, closed room was anywhere near conducive to healing. Eryk raised an approving eyebrow at her, but said nothing.
Moving briskly about the room, she emptied the washbasin of its murky contents, refilled it with clean water, examined the pile of supplies left haphazardly on a table, and made a list of the things she still needed. She returned to Eryk, ducking her head, and handed him the scrap of paper.
He almost laughed when he saw the messy scrawl. Most ladies prided themselves on fancy, delicate penmanship, but this little novice seemed utterly unconcerned with such niceties. It was rather refreshing.
“Are these all the things you need?”
She nodded, still not looking up into his face, and Eryk had to fight an urge to lift her chin so he could study her more closely. Instead, he put the paper into his pocket, promising to have the items brought to her as quickly as they could be found. When he asked if she required anything else, she shook her head no. They turned towards the bed and found Kylan kneeling on the edge, petting Jex’s hair and murmuring to him.
“Why don’t we let Enari get to work?” Eryk suggested, laying a hand on his niece’s shoulder. “You can come back and visit him later, alright?”
Sniffling back tears, Kylan slid off the bed. The High Mage hoisted her in his arms and together they left the room. Enari was at last alone with her friend and, unfortunately, first true patient.
As she turned away from the bed, something in the mirror stopped her. Squinting, she moved to one side and edged closer, bringing Jex’s reflection into full view. What she saw froze her blood.
Weirdly glistening black smudges, like wisps of greasy smoke from a crematorium, hovered around him. They squirmed grotesquely over his chest and a circular patch marked his brow just above and between his eyes. Enari suspected that if she pulled down the sheet, she’d find more of them about his other injuries. Watching the ones she could see slowly twist and undulate made her nauseous. She closed her eyes and shook her head, hoping they’d be gone when she looked in the glass again.
They weren’t, and if anything, they were stronger, darker.
She spun to face him, and saw nothing on his sleeping form. He groaned quietly and shifted onto his back before subsiding. When she looked over her shoulder into the mirror, his reflection bore the marks plain as day.
Obviously this was no normal malady, but the only alternative was magic and she’d never heard of anyone using it like this. Curses, she knew, could be cast by someone with enough skill and focus, but those killed swiftly, or simply brought bad luck. This shouldn’t even be possible.
Enari moved slowly to the side of the bed, not wanting to wake him, and put her hand on his chest.
Images exploded in her head and she was catapulted back into the dreams she’d had on the road.
A lightless room, coins clinking on a dirty table, the laughter of the crone…and then the vision shifted. A different chamber now, dancing shadows cast by half-melted candles and a pale hand scratching its nails across the naked chest of a child’s corpse… red eyes, a fanged grin in roiling darkness, the hiss of demonic laughter…
She yanked her hand away and stumbled back from him.
Turning to flee the room in search of Vasi or the High Mage or even the Master Physician, she swayed drunkenly for several steps before collapsing into blackness.
* * *
“You’re idiots, the lot of you.”
“Now, now, there’s no need for that! Just because the bloody High Mage intervened this time doesn’t mean he’ll always be around to do so. We can gather more support, present the idea again when we’re truly ready.”
“No. You’ve had more than ample time to gather that support and you were no more successful the second time you presented the idea, even without the High Mage to oppose you. You’ve failed me, and I warned you what would happen if you failed, Councilors.”
“You’re being hasty. Things like this don’t happen overnight, especially when the idea is so…distasteful to so many. You can’t possibly be surprised that they were appalled at the thought of marrying off a seven-year-old, royal child or not. They simply need time, and perhaps some additional incentive, to consider the benefits of your proposal. If you could find more coin—”
“Enough! I’ve waited long enough. You leave me no choice but to do this myself. I’ve no further need of any of you moronic, simpering slugs, and neither does the Grand Council.”
“Best watch your tongue. We know far too much for you to simply discard us like refuse. I know you think yourself above us, but I can still make your life immensely unpleasant should you choose to cross us. Even you aren’t untouchable.”
“Excellent point, Adipem. Lucky I planned for this, then, isn’t it? Pasusabael, they are yours. Deal with them as you wish.”
“Wait, wait! No, what are you doing? Please—”
“No one can hear you. Adipem, Hera, Hrivaldi, may Diu welcome you with open gates.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“But Papa, I could help! I could do so much more if I stayed here and we both know I’d make a much better Tora-in-Waiting than Kylan,” Sarene insisted. She’d been pleading with her father for over an hour, yet he gave no signs of changing his mind this time anymore than he had the last.
“Sarene, dearest, your mother and I appreciate your enthusiasm, but the decision is final,” Brinon said gently, re
aching for his daughter’s hand. She snatched it away angrily and he forced down a sigh of frustration. His middle daughter had always been the most difficult and headstrong of his children and she had become particularly so over her impending marriage. He missed the sweet girl who’d followed him about, asking questions a mile a minute, and wondered if she’d ever return to him.
“You just want to get rid of me!” she accused, “You’re marrying me off to some nobody in a backwater country so that I’m out from underfoot.”
“Sarene, you know that isn’t true. Your marriage to Torin Reord will secure an important alliance between Davaria and Egalion, an alliance we desperately need with Tahir on his deathbed. You will be helping, more than you can imagine.” He smiled at her. “Your mother and I plan to live a long time yet and Reord’s father is old. Wouldn’t you rather be tora in a year or two rather than a Tora-in-Waiting for who knows how many years?”
Sarene folded her arms petulantly. “It isn’t fair. I don’t want to marry Reord!”
Brinon let slip a little of his exasperation. “Who would you rather marry then, daughter mine? A nobleman’s son? Battlemage Xander?”
Her eyes gleamed and she sat up a little straighter. “Yes! He would be much more to my liking and—”
He held up a hand, cutting her off. “It was a rhetorical question. He is a good man, but not a suitable match.”
“Why not?” she demanded, “I think he’d make an excellent tor someday, and the physicians say he’s going to live. He’s clearly hearty enough to provide a strong heir, probably even more than one.”
“First of all, the Grand Council would never approve your union. He’s fatherless, a commoner, and worst of all in their eyes, a mage. Granted, those qualities are no clear detriment to his character, but I can’t say that most would agree. Things are far too delicate to be upsetting sensibilities right now, my dear.”
“Our family has married both commoners and mages,” she reminded him, “and there have even been bastard tors before.”
“You know I don’t like it when you use such coarse language, Sarene.”
“You use it!”
He had nothing to say to that.
“Why does it matter what the Council thinks?” she pressed, “What‘s the good of being monarch if you can’t make your will into law?”
“It simply isn’t done that way. This isn’t Atromore, for Consorts’ sake! Tors and toras in Egalion have not had exclusive power in centuries. The Grand Council was formed so that the entirety of the kingdom has a say in what happens to it.”
“I still think it’s a ridiculous waste of time. If I were tora, I’d make a decree and enforce it. My will would be absolute and the country would have no choice but to obey me.”
The declaration sent a chill through Brinon. It was that attitude above all that had influenced their decision to marry Sarene to the Torin of Davaria. Reord was an honorable man of strong moral inclinations and an even disposition. Brinon and Aelani secretly hoped that the pairing would instill a little more temperance in their daughter.
That same tendency, however, was also what had prompted him to consider a match with Min Ha at one point. Sarene would be more than capable of handling him with or without Nareina’s meddling. Aelani had been firmly against the idea and so an envoy had been sent to Davaria in the end.
“Sarene, there’s no use arguing about this anymore. Our decision has been made and you have been promised to Reord. Egalion will not break faith in such a manner, just to suit a passing whim.” Brinon stood up. “This discussion is over. I love you with all my heart, and I’m sorry you are unhappy, but there is no turning back.”
Sarene burst into furious tears. “If you truly loved me, you wouldn’t do this!” Still crying, she stormed from the room and slammed the door hard enough to knock several portraits askew.
* * *
The muffled sound stopped her in mid-step.
Laying her hand on the cool metal of the ornate handle, Enari pressed her ear to a door that looked very different from the others she’d passed in this hallway.
She’d regained consciousness to find herself sprawled on the floor of Jex’s sick room, head pounding and eyes burning. After assuring herself that he slept, she’d begun to wander in search of Vasi. It hadn’t taken long for her to become hopelessly lost in the maze of halls, and she at last found herself in a part of the Imperial palace that seemed much older than the rest. She’d been roaming up and down the deserted corridors for hours now.
She listened intently, but only for a moment. The beautiful singing called to her, tugged at her senses, and she pushed open the heavy door just enough to allow her to step inside.
Large, longer than it was wide, and paved in black and white marble, the space felt unusually open, though the dimness shrouding the corners made it hard to judge exact dimensions. Benches of dark, lustrous wood lined both sides of a central aisle, and tapestries hung on the walls. There were twenty-seven benches and twenty-seven tapestries on each side, and every one of the latter depicted a well known legend in great detail. Single candles, each in their own small niche, shone at intervals between the scenes of dragons, knights, and divine beings before which mortals knelt in supplication and worship.
When she squinted, she could see tiny white stars embroidered in the plush weave of the black runner that carpeted the aisle from where she stood to the head of the room. The vaulted ceiling high overhead was all but lost in shadow, with a glimpse here and there of old and carefully maintained paintings on the smooth plaster. The chamber was warm, but not as hot as the rest of the palace, and was lit only by the flickering of candles and the light of a single window, an enormous masterpiece of stained glass set in the wall behind the altar. The soft light filtering through the abstract pattern illuminated the floor in panes of color too numerous to count. When she took a deep breath, she could smell incense, beeswax, and more faintly, wood polish.
As beautiful as the chamber was, it was the haunting voices that captivated her full attention. She slipped into the closest pew, listening.
Seven men in cassocks so gray they were almost black knelt in a semicircle before the altar, just outside the fall of multicolored light. A statue of the Goddess stood upon it and a lit censure was at her feet on each side, the smoke drifting forth redolent of myrrh, frankincense, and something more subtle that she couldn’t place. The monks were chanting to the image, heads bowed, hands clasped on their knees before them. Though she didn’t understand the words, the voices were in perfect harmony, rising and falling in steady cadence. A quiet peace stole over her and she felt all the pent up confusion and desperate homesickness fade away. The room had the same kind of serenity she’d come to know in the sanctuary at the Temple and she found longed-for comfort in this sacred place.
“Lovely, is it not?”
Enari glanced up at the speaker, too relaxed to be startled by his sudden appearance at her side. He was dressed in the same cowled gray as the others, but his hood was pushed back to reveal his face. She had to look up a long way to see that face; he stood well over seven feet tall. Broad shouldered and flaxen-haired, the man was a giant.
He was of indeterminate age, but not old, she guessed. His weathered features had seen much sun and wind, his skin darkened by exposure to the elements. His faded blue eyes were gentle and there were deep crow’s feet at the corners. These were matched by pronounced laugh lines etched around his slightly thin mouth. His most prominent feature was a large and bulbous nose, the bridge crisscrossed with broken capillaries. When he turned his head, she saw a gold hoop dangling from his left ear.
The monk was not really a handsome man, but he was certainly not ugly. He looked, Enari thought, like one would imagine a comfortably retired general to look. And despite his size, he had an air of tranquility about him that immediately put her at ease.
“It is the ‘Lux et Tenebris’ they sing.” He looked to his brethren. “Though it is sung in Old Egali, and not many now under
stand it. Are you such a one, my child?”
Enari indicated she was not, her fascination divided equally between the song and the man beside her.
When he smiled, it brought a kind light to his face. “I shall translate. It is a song of mourning meant for the departed, but the words are well worth contemplation and may help with whatever is troubling you. May I sit?”
She moved down the bench to make from for him and he settled next to her, folding his large hands before him and closing his eyes.
His singing voice was deep and husky, smooth and mellow as sage honey, and the words flowed from his tongue with the ease of long practice.
“Light beside Darkness, gain within loss,
Strength mixed with weakness, life and death cross
The sweet with the bitter and hope between fears
Andehai after wandering, honor through tears
Harvest and sowing, the sun follows rain,
Knowledge from mysteries, peace despite pain
Joy tempers sorrow, calm comes from blast,
Rest after weariness cometh at last.
Near after distant, bright beyond gloom,
Love from longing, life from the womb
After long anguish, hurt turns to bliss,
Noble the course that led you to this.”
A sudden lump blocked her throat and Enari couldn’t breathe.
When the monk opened his eyes and regarded her, he was not surprised at her reaction to the prayer. The conflict within this small creature called to him, and if he could but bring her a small measure of peace, he would gladly do so.
“You are Enari, apprenticed to Kvinna Vasi of the Cyrilan Temple, are you not?” Seeing the puzzlement on her face, he continued. “Your coming was much discussed in the palace before you actually arrived. I know your Sura from…well, from long ago. I am Brother Lucrisen.”
It took her a moment to place the name, but then she remembered. This man was the Master Librarian and his domain was where the bodies of several Grand Council members had been found earlier that day.
Errant Spark (Elemental Trials Book 1) Page 15