Dust and Light

by Carol Berg

  Eventually, my great pattern was ready. Holding it carefully in mind, I gathered a handful of dust, bound my enchantment with will, and filled it with magic.

  The cascading power set my spirit soaring. And when I threw the particles of dust into the air and they spun in a cyclone of sparkling scarlet, lapis, and canary yellow, I fell to my knees and crowed in wordless delight until my sides ached, until the dust drifted to the floor in showers of fading color.

  Clutching my fists to my breast, I tried to hold on to joy and wonder. But as the light faded, abject terror sent me scrambling to a corner. How could I be so stupid?

  Hours I spent quivering, waiting for the door to crash open, waiting for the leather mask, for the shackles, for worse. No one came. And when I at last believed that magic so deep in the underbelly of the Registry Tower could go undetected, I sprawled on my back in the dust, flapping my arms and cackling. Perhaps I was not quite sane just then.

  * * *

  Another cycle. And another. I considered new magic. But some affliction of bad meat or soured milk blighted an endless succession of hours and shredded my reason. Virit could scarce bring enough dry litter to soak up the vile mess. The pain in my head threatened to crack my skull, and sometime in my thrashing, my fingernails clawed long, deep scratches on my arm. The cold was especially bitter in that time, and I came very close to begging for a blanket. But I could not, would not speak. The punishment for speaking would be dreadful.

  Like the burns, the illness passed and the lacerations on my arm healed. Nelek granted me a pail of lukewarm water and a rag to clean myself. Trembling with weakness, grateful for the indulgence, I could no more have conjured an escape by way of bucket and rag than I could have climbed to Idrium by way of the dust on the floor.

  “Take no satisfaction from this grace, plebeiu,” said Nelek. “We’re charged to keep you healthy. But you’ve shown no remorse as yet. I’ve reported that to the curators.”

  But I would not confess to murder, not even in pretense.

  My stomach returned to its more common unease. My eyes played tricks in the dark. The headaches grew worse, leaving thought . . . and magic . . . impossible. I was hungry all the time. Either Nelek was bringing food more often or I was sleeping longer as time passed. That worried me. What if I fell asleep here and never woke? What if they stopped coming?

  Gods, don’t think of that.

  * * *

  “Lucian?”

  A faint pinpoint of magelight creased the midnight of my cell, enough to illuminate the dusty iron floor and the hem of a scarlet robe. I drew back into the corner and clutched my knees. More ghost dreams? I knew better than to speak.

  “Ah, lad, this is so dreadful, so wrong.” The voice was quiet. Furtive. “They’ve kept you healthy, at least.”

  Mad, though. Surely that. His voice was so clear, the robe’s scarlet so vivid.

  A warm bulk crouched beside me. The soft light came from a twisted ring worn on thick, ink-stained fingers . . . so familiar. But I could not remember.

  Before my mind knotted irretrievably, his hand rose just enough to illuminate his worried face. Pluvius!

  My spirit scrambled from the depths. I rolled to my knees before him, clenched my fist to my breast as a beggar might, and motioned toward the iron door. Take me out of here! My mind yelled this at such volume, he must surely hear. I killed no one. I am not mad. I yearned to bellow these things aloud, but this could all be illusion—a cruel trick. If I spoke, they would know.

  “I cannot set you free. Not yet”—his denial pierced my soul like a poignard—“but if I’m to help, you must tell me the truth.” He raised my sagging chin. I would have told him anything.

  “You took something from the Archives after your grandsire died. I’m not sure in what form—scrolls, tablets, artwork? Vincente told me that he had stored his greatest discovery in the Archives—something of extraordinary significance, something most secret and most dangerous because it propounded a great and terrible historical lie. He made me promise to destroy it if anything ever happened to you. Yet no work of such significance is there now. I’ve looked everywhere. So you must have taken it.”

  I opened my palms in confusion and shook my head. I’d no idea what he meant.

  He crouched in front of me, all urgency. “You must tell me, boy. If I can convince the others that no such thing exists, they’d have no reason to keep you. So I must know where you hid it. You could not have removed it from the Tower without my knowing, which means you’ve stored it somewhere here. Tell me, lad. I’ll help you every way I can.”

  Perhaps I’d forgotten. The past was so murky. What did a scroll or tablet have to do with my captivity? Yet one thing . . . one thing I knew. Everything Capatronn stored in the Registry Archives—whether journal, document, or crumbling potsherd—was a part of the history of magic. King Eodward himself had agreed that everything relating to the divine gift belonged in the Tower, where it could be studied and preserved, rather than the Royal Antiquities Repository amid shields and spears, jeweled combs and ancient coins. Magic, and the power it took on in the lands of Navronne, was the greatest mystery of our kingdom’s history. To abscond with any piece of the puzzle would have been unthinkable. And why would I? If Pluvius said . . . then I must have done . . . but I couldn’t remember.

  Tears pricked my eyes. I cupped my hands at my breast and shook my head yet again, until Pluvius laid a cool palm on my brow to stop it. Care flowed from his fingers, calming my frenzy, deepening my despair.

  “By the spirits, what have we done to you? I’m so very sorry, Lucian.” He bent close. “You must not tell anyone I’ve come. The consequences would be terrible for both of us.”

  My folded hands flew to my lips to vow silence. Telling would mean speaking. Telling would mean all this was real and no dream. Already the edges of the world blurred, the light playing tricks as if the dust had risen from the floor to hide us.

  As I curled up in the dust to sleep, murmuring shadows closed in around me. I wasn’t quite sure if the Master of Archives had walked out or vanished, or if he had ever been there at all.

  CHAPTER 16

  The door clanged shut behind Nelek and Virit. They’d shaved, trimmed, and blotted me with a damp towel, and soothed my ravening hunger with a bread bowl of milk. Now I could return to the contemplation they had interrupted.

  Sitting in a meditative posture, I blessed Master Pluvius and prayed fervently for his good health. His presence had borne such a different quality than the usual ghost dreams—the lines so sharp, the color so vibrant, his concern so real, that my mind had begun to function as it had not since my sickness.

  Certainly his visit had been a dream. Waking logic—how fine it felt to hold two thoughts in tandem!—demonstrated that truth. My grandsire had pursued no historical investigations since his retirement five years before his death. The curators could easily have consulted him about any questionable discovery. And if they believed I had removed something dangerous from the Registry Archives, they’d had ample opportunity to question me about it before stowing me in Magrog’s bunghole.

  I pinched my arms and scrubbed at my bristly head and chin. I was not mad. No madman could have come up with such excellent reasoning. And if I was not mad, then I had not murdered my sister and our servants.

  Hot tears rolled down my cheeks. Not frantic tears. Just relief and simple sorrow. When it seemed enough, I was able to stop—another small victory—and return my mind to the great question the dream of Pluvius had raised: Why?

  My captivity was not solely Pons’s doing. Her initial argument with me—a breach of discipline insufficiently punished—had naught to do with madness or violence. Even for the Hound of Correctness, it could, in no wise, merit the horror of my confinement. There must be something more.

  Besides, all six of the Registry curators had sent me here. Pons. Pluvius, my sole advocate, though not so effective an advocate. Gramphier, my grandsire’s colleague, who had made no move to heal
me. Damon, the inscrutable, whose eyes had bored into me during the judgment, who prized discipline and loyalty, but evidently not truth. Had I insulted Scrutari’s annoying family? Or Gilles? Albin had been vicious and decisive in his condemnation; had he planned for Gilles to do the curators’ portraits?

  The six portraits. Gilles might have been wrong about only two or three having been altered. Yet even if I could recall the images, I might not recognize what my strange combination of bents had revealed. I needed to know more about their subjects. And in the Tower cellar—deprived of speech and human contact—only my bent could teach me anything. Perhaps if I sought out the faces of people I knew, like the curators . . . like my grandsire . . . I could discover something of their secrets. Each of them had walked, taught, and spoken in the Registry Tower over the course of decades.

  To invoke my bent was riskier than working light spells or aerogens. A pureblood’s intrinsic gift was to other magic as Ocean to a rain puddle, more easily detectable while it was active, a more distinct residue after. Better to risk the consequences for useful purpose than mere occupation. And better to attempt this while I had some clarity. If the ghost dreams returned . . .

  I rolled to my knees and touched the iron floor in front of me, brushing away the layered dust and a fear that investigation might reveal only what happened to prisoners confined here too long.

  Emptying my mind’s canvas was easy. Lord of Fire and Magic, grant me your grace, if grace be left in this world. Allow me to see truth.

  My bent responded to my desire with bounteous glory. The power risen between my eyes set blood and bone afire. And when my fingers released the cascading magic into the resistant iron, I focused all my strength of will to draw the history from the earth below. Images of ancient warriors, sentries, and wild-haired marauders held me rapt.

  This place was very, very old. The marauders’ curved swords were bronze, not steel. The settlement surrounding the tower—Palinur—was but a cluster of sod-roofed huts, housing a few herders, pigs, and goats. No vineyards had yet shaped the green hillsides into a patchwork. On every horizon thick forests loomed dark like invading armies.

  In a sensory barrage I witnessed the coming of sheep, the coming of kings, the fall and rebuilding of the stone surrounding me. But I had a purpose. The anchor I sought for my seeing was a man of strength whose mind had ranged Navronne’s past with the vigor of those marauders, whose insights and intelligence had shaped the stories of the past into truth. My grandsire had shared his gift with me, forming my hand and mind, infusing them with his delight in creating order from tangles like these.

  From the chaotic stream I snagged an image of black-haired strangers—Aurellians, so unlike the fairer Navrons we found here. A thread of magic led me to caskets of gold and jewels hidden in these iron vaults, which led me, somewhat surprisingly, to Cicerons in gold armbands and dangling earrings, wearing braids wound with gold thread, mail shirts, and black tabards marked with a white hand. Though curious—who ever thought of Cicerons as warriors?—I abandoned that image. I wanted sorcerers—purebloods—not magical cheats.

  Amid threads of wine-colored cloaks, silk masks, and wondrous magics that would take a lifetime to explore, I sought my grandsire. Truly history was a difficult concept to pursue, in the same way that pursuing words or talespinning would be, for each concept encompassed everything of humankind’s experience. But the scroll, quill, and mask symbol of the Registry Archives took me right where I wanted.

  Images showered like falling leaves. One: Pen in hand, Vincente de Remeni scribbled in one of his journals opened on a slope-topped writing desk that, even now, found use in the archive chambers far above my head. Years ago, this was, as his queue of thick hair was not entirely grayed.

  Holding tight to his thread, I sought others of the curators.

  My belly lurched when I came upon myself, seated in a wooden chair in a candlelit cell, chest and wrists strapped to the chair to keep me from toppling forward. The scent of beeswax from the wall sconces seared my nose, and the taste of ash near choked me. My grandsire stood behind, hands gripping my head. I was screaming.

  Magic boiled through my fingers into the dusty iron floor and brought the fading vision into clear focus. Never would I forget that dreadful day. Capatronn had brought me to the Tower, prepared to ensure my dual bent would never lead me to disgrace our family.

  To my surprise, two others kept us company in the delicately named Procedure Chamber. First Curator Gramphier stood beside my grandsire, his hands spread as if invoking the blessing of the gods on the rite. And behind them both, scarce visible in the doorway, was Pluvius. At first I thought Pluvius was preparing to attack the other two. His arms were raised high as well, holding a staff and a long dagger crossed above his head. But the dense magic swirling about the weapons merely flowed into the larger magic of the excision.

  More unsettling than unexpected witnesses to my breaking was my grandsire himself. Unlike on that day, when agony had kept me blind and deaf, the vision revealed my grandfather’s face as he reived my soul. His jaw was resolute as I remembered, but neither grief nor anger scarred his face. Only fear.

  None of them spoke when the magic was done. Pluvius vanished. My grandsire unbuckled the straps and walked out with Gramphier, leaving me spewing my previous day’s meals into a waiting bucket.

  After Montesard, my indulgent grandsire had entirely reversed his character. He had done this horror to me before we knew for certain what the gods intended or whether I might be an exception to the belief that two strong bents indicated a deviant mind. Why had he taken a youthful indiscretion so seriously? He had forced me into a contract with the Registry, where he knew Gramphier and Pons would note my smallest lapse. He had refused to speak to me, as if my childish assignations and a single glorious afternoon of love were some personal assault upon him. It had never, ever made sense. Unless my grandsire, too, believed me deviant, broken, mad.

  No. No. No.

  I was not mad. Gods save me, I was not, unless this place had driven me to it.

  I released the thread into grayness and grasped the next that slid into the range of my seeking. Capatronn’s thick gray hair was cut off short, as he’d preferred it after retiring from court. A solitary lamp set on the floor illuminated the near side of his face with a soft glow. He knelt beside a painted chest, pulling out artifacts and piling them on the floor: potsherds and rusted daggers, linen scrolls, gold earrings, elaborate necklaces displaying the finest artistry of silverwork, goldwork, and gems, stone-carved cats and fat-bellied images of the Mother. From an ivory box he lifted an intricate gold armring, beautifully wrought in the mode of a curling vine.

  Inside the box lid was engraved a five-branched tree, the mark of the lost city of Xancheira. Xancheira and the massacre that erased it from the earth had been my grandsire’s last historical investigation, pursued while I frittered away our honor at the university.

  Someone stood in the murk across the open chest from him. Silver gleamed from a woman’s thick-fingered hands waving in earnest argument—the very hands that signed my contract on the day my life collapsed. Pons! Capatronn gestured in dismissal, but she persisted, not angry but urgent. I’d no idea they’d had dealings beyond Montesard.

  With every scrap of my strength and power, I reached deeper, determined to draw that thread close and hear what they said. But my body spasmed as happens in that sliver of time between sleep and waking, when the world seems to drop out from under. In the matter of a heartbeat, darkness swallowed every image, scent, and sound of my magical vision. Power yet flowed in my veins, but not through my fingers, for they no longer touched the iron floor, as if that, too, had been devoured by the dark.

  A gust of icy wind sent shivers through my skin. Naked still, dream or waking. Sharp, clean air scraped my nostrils, its faint scent redolent of the river country.

  A flutter of great wings and the screech of a hunting bird drew my gaze upward. I blinked once, twice, as my heart swelled.
Surely I had fallen asleep or been enspelled, for above my head was such an array of stars as if Kemen Sky Lord had crushed all the gems in his treasury and scattered them across the sky.

  Unlike the usual progress of dreaming, movement seemed my own choice. Wondering, I spun in place.

  Narrow spikes of spruce and pine stood black against the glittered sky. On other sides rolled the larger silhouettes of soft hills. A pool might have been a splash of stars fallen to the grass—dry grass that tickled my bare feet and ankles. So strange, so . . . sensual . . . to be naked outdoors at night.

  Never had I been a participant in any vision drawn from my bent for history. Yet never had any dream exhibited such a sense of life.

  My breath caught. At the edge of the shadowed trees appeared a woman wearing only a draping of spidersilk that left no significant mystery to her womanly form. On her bare arms gleamed the most exquisite line drawings of full-leafed vines, though worked in traces of silver and not the vivid blues I’d seen or imagined those uncounted nights ago. A graceful eagle scribed on her cheek wrapped one wing about her left eye and across her brow, and the other down her long neck. And across a shoulder and the low mound of a breast, a second bird took flight.

  But it was her thick, unruly curls that drew my gaze to her eyes—so large and angled ever so slightly and as luminous as the Wolf Moon of winter’s end. Though she was too far away for me to discover their hue, I would have wagered my soul they were green.

  Morgan? Even the unspoken name witnessed to dream . . . or madness.

  The woman raised her chin and shrilled a piercing call. The nearest I could identify it was a falcon’s yip, though longer and so loud it must strip the bark from the trees at her side.

  Before the cry faded, she stepped from the shadows, the cold wind rippling her hair and filmy draperies. She might have been a creature of the wind and starlight, so light was her step. My soul longed for pen and ink to capture her wildness.