Heritage of Fire

by Dave Luckett

  "How far away is he?" he asked. The translucent face he had seen had been a man's, long, imperious, magisterial.

  "As far as his power allows. A few miles, perhaps. Perhaps less."

  "He could be here within the hour, then. Or he might wait for daylight."

  She shook her head. "The moon is rising," she said. "He will come now."

  Power. He had forgotten the rising moon, one day past the new.

  The river chuckled, and there was a slow cool north wind to stir the leaves. The fire had burned down, giving little pops and hisses. There was no other sound. A horse on the path would be heard half a mile off.

  It took the time needed to knead dough and bake camp-bread. Gerd was knocking the ashes off it when he heard the hoof-beats, as if they were echoes. He glanced at Nela, to see her face gone hawklike in profile. She had heard it too.

  He stood carefully, settling his cloak around him, covering the sword hanging at his side. Nela glanced at him, but said nothing. She did not rise.

  The hoofbeats stopped. Apparently the rider had seen the fire. Perhaps he thought his approach had not been heard. Gerd watched the road, but nothing moved. The slow minutes seeped past. Too long. If he was coming, he should be here now. Gerd's lips moved in the scrying spell. Something about this was not right.

  Ah. Yes. He could see it on the road, a moving shadow, but this time a solid one. The air rippled around it as if distorted. That was a cloaking spell. He could see through it, but Nela could not. She was following his eye, but showed no sign.

  The mage had left his horse behind at the last twist in the path. He was walking, a patch of moving darkness to eyes assisted by the spell, but the darkness rippled like a banner.

  Nela spoke, clear and fearless in the shadowy night. "There is no need for stealth, colleague. Come and share our fire."

  The shadow froze in place, like a thief challenged. Then it stood taller, and it was clearly a man in a hooded cloak. The spell dissolved. Hands appeared, pale in the waxing moonlight, reaching up to pull the hood down, letting it lie on the shoulders. The shimmer ceased.

  Gerd assessed him. The mage certainly wasn't like the impossibly tall and graceful figure of misty light that he had sent. His cloak was sweeping and heavy, a dark rich cloth with a sheen to it, but the face was round and plump. There was some sort of resemblance to the sending's patrician features, and even the same goatee beard and peaked eyebrows, but this face was not so very far off the ground, even when its owner stood upright. The paces that he took as he walked towards them suggested short legs and a slight waddle, not the fluid strides of the seeming.

  Gerd smiled, but privately. It appeared that even mages had their small vanities.

  The mage halted at the edge of the firelight and sketched a bow, not taking his eyes off them. "Forgive me," he said. "I could not be sure of you. The times do not permit of trust." He spoke in the Ancient Language. Perhaps it was a test.

  Nela passed it, of course. "Of course. Share our fire. Will you eat?"

  Gerd hoped the invitation would be declined. This was the last of their meat and flour. He had been hoping to save some of the bread for tomorrow, or it would be a hungry march.

  But the short man only indicated the way that he had come. "It would be best for you to come to me. There's a village not an hour away. It's not much, but I can offer you guesting. In the morning I can set you on the road to Shelstro." He hesitated. "You will need to go there, anyway. The council will have questions for you."

  "Council?" Gerd could not help asking. Nela shot a glance at him, and he saw the warning in it. He resolved to mind his tongue.

  The mage had not glanced at him, and didn't answer. Nela pursed her lips. "My apprentice speaks out of turn, Majis," she said. "Yet it must be asked. I, too, know nothing of a council to which I must report and whose questions I must answer."

  The other stood for a moment, assessing. "Perhaps I can explain as we go," he said. "Come with me." His voice was harder.

  Gerd glanced at Nela this time. He would follow her lead. She stood a moment more. Then she shrugged. "Very well," she said. "Gerd, the fire. Do you think Jane will mind going on a little further?"

  "She's had an hour's grazing," he answered. "No doubt shelter would be welcome." He realised as he said it that he was answering for himself as well.

  Nela nodded. They broke camp while the mage stood waiting, and got on the road again.

  "I am Sert, majis," he said, as they turned downstream. He was walking rapidly to keep up with their longer strides. "I am appointed to keep watch on the southern road."

  Nela glanced at Gerd as he fell in behind, but did not question the word, appointed. "Nela verch Laurentian am I," she said, using the form that implied that she was an heir. "My apprentice, Gerd Penrose."

  Right enough, thought Gerd. No Penrose heir, me. Well, I used to have only one name. A step up, is this.

  "Laurentian?" asked Sert. His peaked eyebrows shot up. "Majisto Laurentian?" Nela inclined her head, not a nod, more a gracious acknowledgement. Sert's lips formed a silent whistle. "The council will be glad of your coming. Your father was a great scholar, held in much respect. I have myself heard Maethlis speak of his being missed. Even before his death... removed the chance of his, er, coming over."

  Nela watched the river, visible as a dark stippled sheet between the trees, moonlight glinting on its waters. "My father…" she began, but paused, and then altered what she had been about to say. "My father held aside from the talk. He always said..." She gestured.

  Sert nodded himself, but this was in vigorous agreement. "I, too, was reluctant to choose. To choose one is to refuse another, not so?" He watched Nela's face sidelong, but it stayed politely neutral. "But there are times when there is no choice but to choose." It sounded like a quote, an aphorism.

  Something like pain crossed Nela's features. "My apprentice says something the same," she said, and Sert glanced half-way over his shoulder. Gerd was stumping along behind, leading Jane. He returned stare for stare.

  "He is wise, then," said Sert, turning back. "We must choose, and we cannot choose merely to be servants. Servants of the rich, that is."

  "No. On the other hand, we should not choose merely to be masters of the poor, either."

  Gerd, listening, thought that it was an old argument, a dispute going back many years. They sounded resigned to their differences.

  A moment later, Sert confirmed it. "We need not debate it. The matter has been decided by events beyond us, as your presence here shows. Hence the council. There was no other way." Nela said nothing to that.

  They rounded a curve, to find a small horse - a pony - tethered by the side of the path. Sert reclaimed it with a glance at Nela, hesitated about riding while they went afoot, and opted to lead the animal instead. They marched on in silence for another ten minutes before Gerd raised his head. There was a faint scent of woodsmoke on the breeze. They were approaching a fire. And there were animals, too. A village.

  "Ah," said Sert. "Nearly there. Welcome to Shelstro-ad."

  Gerd frowned. The suffix meant something like "land of" or "territory". Sert was saying that the country around Shelstro, the town, was its own land, different from others.

  A hundred paces later they topped a finger of higher ground. The river had bent away to the right, and the trees thinned. They came into worked fields. Down the slope a huddle of houses stood around a minor stream that flowed down to join the river.

  "This is Sutt Longacre," said the mage. "My village. I like to think that my own name descends from this part of the country." Nela said nothing. "Though, of course, I am myself from the south. Nonetheless, my grandmother's grandmother came from somewhere near here, and the name is a family tradition. It gives me a connection to the people here."

  "Ah," said Nela. It could be taken as an agreement, perhaps, if one were looking for agreement.

  They passed field-walls enclosing long fields, the one on the right high in crop, the left one fallow. N
earer the stream was a meadow grazing a few cattle, black shapes in the moonlight. Gerd watched the houses as they passed them. They were wattle-and-daub rectangles, some with chimneys, most without. It reminded him of his home village, but even simpler. No glass in the windows, no ironwork. No mill. They must grind their grain by hand. And the houses were all shut tight, shutters latched fast against the mild night, silent and still. Nobody was moving in the dark street.

  They walked right through the village, the path turning briefly into a muddy track around the green. It was the sort of place that no sooner had you finished walking into it than you found that you'd walked out. A hundred more paces, and they turned left off the track, Sert indicating a narrow footpath climbing a gentle slope. A house loomed up, more substantial, framed by trees, and standing in a yard surrounded by a split-pole fence. Gerd smelt damp herbs. He could even identify them: comfrey and feverfew, foxglove and sweet basil.

  "My house," said Sert. "There's a stable - well, a lean-to - around this way..."

  He led, and Gerd followed. He tethered Jane while he unloaded and unharnessed her, rubbed her down and then let her roll. There was grass hay there for her, and water. When he turned around, he found the mage already gone, and the pony tied up to a rail. Apparently Sert thought it was the apprentice's job to act as groom.

  Well, he needed the practice. Gerd unsaddled and unbridled, rubbed the pony down and cleaned out his feet. There was hay and water for him, but no oats. It wasn't as though he was in full work, though. There was a sort of a stall, and the pony walked in by himself.

  He left them comfortably together, and walked around to the front of the house. It was a solid structure of half-timber over a stone foundation, not quite up to being a manor, but certainly more substantial than the village cottages. The door was open, but he stopped to clean his boots on the step before entering.

  They were talking in the front room. Sert's voice, slightly raised: "I regret the necessity. Truly I believe that the old freedoms will return, but at the moment we are under attack. There was an assassination attempt on Maethlis himself only a month ago. It is not by our choice, therefore, but it is necessary that you first appear before the council. At the very least, they have the right and the duty to give guesting to a fellow mage. You must allow them that, at least. And all travellers should give news to their hosts. Neither of those acts is any more than common courtesy."

  There was no response, which Gerd thought significant. He finished scraping his boots, knocked and entered, closing the door behind him. He found himself in a narrow hall, with one door open at his right. Nela and Sert were within, she standing by the window, he engaged in lighting a couple of candles on the chimney piece. A low fire, only red coals, burned in the fireplace, and he was using a taper lit from that. He settled the mantle over the candle and blew out the taper.

  "A late supper," he said, "and cold. But I have a boar's ham, the remains of a pasty and a herb salad. And a decent bottle of Sarassin. Sit, sit. I'll bring them in. The serving woman from the village has long gone home. Give me a hand, Master, uh, Penrose."

  Gerd checked with Nela. She nodded, still looking out of the window into the night.

  But when supper was laid out on the table in the front room, she ate little.

  In the morning, Sert went with them as far as a ford, downriver a mile or two. He pointed and described the way, but it was plain that there was only the one road. Then he drew a sealed sheet out of an inner pocket and held it out. "A safe-conduct," he stated.

  Nela took it, holding it between thumb and forefinger. "A permit, rather, I think," she said, her voice neutral.

  "It will see you safe to the council in Shelstro," he said, confirming it.

  "And if we wish to go elsewhere, it would be unsafe, I suppose. But unsafe for whom, I wonder."

  Sert ignored that, or perhaps he pretended he hadn't understood. He swung himself up on his little horse, which he had been leading, and used the height to look down on them. Perhaps it gave him confidence. "Farewell," he said, and there was neither apology nor regret in his voice. "Perhaps we shall meet again in Shelstro."

  Nela gave him the same acknowledgement that she had given before, a slow inclination of the head. He turned his horse and walked it away up the slope.

  "Choices," said Gerd, watching him go, his voice also as neutral as the taste of air.

  "He has made his," answered Nela, and turned to the road again. "As had Taram, back a way. Master Taram." She spoke the title in the common tongue. "They have both opted to be masters and servants, both at once." She pushed her stride a little more, and Gerd had to stretch to match her. "A mage should not be either one."

  Gerd held his peace. Had he not himself said that choosing was necessary, when you were driven to it?

  20

  The country became more settled as they moved down the vale. Wide fields appeared on both hands, either in grain or fallow. Gerd frowned when he saw them. In late summer, one field in three should be high in a crop of oats or rye, one in stubble after the wheat or barley had been cut, and one idle. Did the people here not sow in spring as well as autumn?

  And the traffic on the road was far less than near Walse. Peasants driving animals. A pedlar under a pack. One or two people with donkeys bearing bundles of firewood, or trade goods. One string of pack ponies with cloth, but no waggons. Gerd glanced at the river. He saw only modest fishers and a few skiffs, no great cargo-bearing barges. Probably it wasn't deep enough, but still...

  Perhaps it was that the whole country near Shelstro was less thickly populated than the south. There were certainly fewer villages, and poorer. The crops didn't seem as heavy, and the space where they turned the ploughs around was much wider than he'd become used to. On Loriso they used every scrap of arable land; near Walse, they turned the plough teams as tight as a pair of horses could turn. Were they still using long teams of oxen to plough, here? What, all of them? Even at home, the better-off were using horses.

  And all the people they passed in the villages or in the fields were of a type. Knotty, small, stooped with labour. They'd look up, and then go back to their work again as soon as they saw the staff and the robe. They worked slowly, their coarse tunics kilted up, often bare-footed and bare-legged.

  Nela might have noticed it, too, but she said nothing, and Gerd was not about to speak of it. They moved steadily down the road.

  At mid-morning they came over a low height, a spur of stony ground that jutted into the meandering valley. Ahead, on another such ridge, a stone tower thrust up, its proportions more butter-churn than needle.

  "A mage tower," said Nela, halting. "Always on a height. To study the stars, the sky, the flight of birds."

  "And also to watch the road," observed Gerd, his voice neutral.

  She shot a glance at him, but made no further remark. They walked on.

  They were met as they climbed the further slope. The mage was waiting for them on the road. This was a tall bent old woman in a coarse brown robe, leaning on a gnarled staff, her iron-grey hair in plaits on either side of her face. Beside her stood another, her apprentice or a daughter perhaps, almost as tall, but dark and heavy-featured. The pair stood unmoving as Gerd and Nela approached.

  "You are welcome," said the old woman, as they came level with her. "I can see now what Sert was getting excited about, but he has too little power to make himself plain."

  Gerd watching, saw the younger woman suck her lips in, then look down at her hands, which were clasped in front of her. Nela only smiled graciously.

  The mage's smile, in contrast, was mechanical. "A formality, but I must see your safe-conduct."

  "Of course," said Nela. "I can hardly stop you from inspecting your own property, after all." She pulled it out from within her tunic, creased and damp.

  The mage took it and gave it a cursory glance. "You're only a half-day from Shelstro, now," she remarked. "You should be there by evening, if you step out a little." She turned and walked slowly up the
slope to its height, leaning on her staff. Nela paced beside her, and her apprentice fell in behind with Gerd.

  At the top, almost at the foot of the mage-tower, the old woman waved a hand at the onward slope. Gerd peered past. Far in the blue distance the valley flattened out and the hills receded to either side, making a rolling green plain. The road lost itself in the patchwork of woods and fields. At the very horizon, where the shimmer of the air blurred and rippled, a hardness and a subdued line suggested the sea.

  "The road leads straight to the city," said the mage. "It's not like Walse. You know when you're approaching Walse, from the stench and the filth around it and the pall in the air. Shelstro is still a fit place for people to live."

  Gerd, watching the apprentice's face from the corner of an eye, saw a flicker pass over it. He cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing.