by Carol Berg
She had been there. I recalled her now wearing her bone necklace, petting a dog, carrying a torch, watching as I made a grand show from a knife and a pen, and again when I explored Fleure’s death place. I wanted to press, to ask how she learned to analyze spellwork and why she believed my simple enchantments mimed something so marvelous as this in front of us. Yet, in truth, my mind could shape no sensible argument.
“I can do no more for you tonight. Our hour’s bargain is surely done and my master expects me. If you’re so familiar with true magic, then you know a sorcerer’s expenditures must be replenished. I can’t explain what you perceive, Naema. Perhaps with some thought, once I’m refreshed, I might, and if so and Bastien allows, I’ll send word. I need to go.”
Yet even as I sagged against the wall, knees like porridge and the rest of me shaking so violently that my ability to reach Caton was in serious doubt, the words of the silver-marked Dané resounded in my memory, rebuking me for turning away from the white hand—and from where it had led me. To certain of my kind and certain of thine own kind, thy gifts might be the answer to a long waiting.
Thine own kind—humans, perhaps, not purebloods. And what humans had waited longer than a tribe of outcasts who’d spent centuries searching for their god’s grace?
So follow the path, Lucian. Prove your quality. But how? The Dané said my gifts could vanquish boundaries—indeed, I’d done exactly that with each of my bents, and with the mystery of their entwined power that seemed to make each more than it was alone. If this daunting magic was one of those boundaries . . .
And in that moment, I knew what might tell us more. But no matter how I wished, I had no capacity for magic just then.
“Elsewise I’ll have to have food,” I said, “and a blanket, cloak, or rag of some kind to get me warm. Even two hours’ sleep would restore me enough to try one more thing. But of course, I’d need a message carried to Bastien and someone to persuade him to send down my writing case and parchment and permission to use them.”
The words were scarce out of my mouth before Oldmeg had my belly stuffed with sour ale and leek stew, and my quaking limbs bundled in a ragged rug beside the still-warm hearthstones of the commons house. At some point Demetreo vanished through the red door, while Oldmeg settled in her chair and began to hum. A most pleasurable sound, as my chattering teeth kept time.
“Tell me one thing,” I said as drowsiness slurred my speech. “Why do Cicerons staple dead men’s tongues?”
“’Tis only for those who babble our secrets,” she said. “You’d never do that.”
* * *
The floor was hard. The hearthstones cooled. The rug itched me—fleas, my groggy instincts warned. And the subtle menace in Oldmeg’s answer reminded me that she was no gentle, dithering gammy, but the Goddess Mother’s heart in a clan of murdering thieves.
But it was the magic kept me drifting in the twilight verge instead of sleep. The scraps of enchantment hanging about the room—Ciceron magic? Oldmeg had so much as told me outright. And though my eyes were closed, the portal enchantment hung before me in all its marvelous complexity—lighting the darkness inside—a complete, harmonious image as if I had studied it my entire life. As if it were my own.
Oldmeg’s humming eased my snarled thinking. Still, I knew that whenever she stopped, the questions these things raised would drive me into territory unimaginably dangerous.
Who and what were the Cicerons? My vision in the Tower said they had once been warriors, wearing their shield openly. More important, I had found them while seeking Aurellians, the ancestors of all pureblood families. Were we kin? And did the Registry know they could work true magic or did they only suspect? If purebloods were not the sole receptacles of the gods’ gift of magic, then what were we?
And how was it possible that my magic and this extraordinary artifact were so like? Only the dual bent set me apart from other purebloods. Had others in the past risked madness to retain and wield two bents? My grandsire, the historian, claimed not—my grandsire, who had dared thwart Registry restrictions on my behalf, until he turned on me. . . .
* * *
Pale sunlight invaded the Ciceron commons house. The humming had yielded to soft murmurs. A sharp laugh pierced the frigid air . . . and the answer struck me like a spear in the gut.
Xancheira! I sat bolt upright. Threw the itchy rug askew. My bleary eyes were not yet focused, save on the unlikely, astonishing link. Xancheira, my grandfather’s last historical investigation. Xancheira, the lost city of elegance, grace, and good governance, whose emblem had been a white tree with exactly five branches . . . something like a white hand with five fingers. Was it madness to think the two emblems were related? Surely it was lunacy to believe that my grandsire’s investigation of an ancient massacre and a city that had been wiped from the earth was tangled with Ciceron magic and Registry restrictions and enchanted portals and Danae and cellar prisons.
And yet my life—my whole world—had changed in Montesard, but not when I had lain with Morgan. My small sin had not caused it. While I dallied in the university cloisters, Capatronn had pursued the mystery of Xancheira. And when he rejoined me in Montesard he’d told me nothing.
If Bastien was right, he had reported my dalliance himself. He had not only stuck me with a contract where curators could observe me, but he had resigned his post and never pursued an investigation again. Because he was afraid. For me. For himself. For our family. My vision of Tower history had shown me the fear on him as he tried to rip the magic out of me.
I’d thought Pluvius’s visit to the Tower cellar a dream, a sign of madness, but what if it wasn’t? What had he said to me? You took something . . . his greatest discovery . . . something of extraordinary significance, something most secret and most dangerous because it propounded a great and terrible historical lie.
Xancheira. What had Capatronn discovered?
“Are you revived?” Demetreo’s braids and dark mustache obscured his expression as he stood over me. Naught could obscure the anxiety in his voice.
“Yes,” I said, my emotions surely a match for his. Discovery was so near, my spirit rumbled like approaching thunder. If I could unlock this portal’s secrets, the storm might break.
The headman and I were alone in the commons house. The hearth was cold, but the lamps sparkled. The magical portal remained unmasked, its weaving a riot of purples and blues.
“Best be on with the work, then. The coroner will be most annoyed if we keep you much longer. Scouts say Prince Perryn’s only a few quellae from Palinur. Betimes, we’ll see chaos in the streets and the deadcarts will roll.”
And chaos would fall worst on the wretched corners of the city like this.
“Did Bastien send what I asked?”
The headman’s expressive chin directed me to the dice players’ table. My writing case, an ink horn and cup, and a single sheet of parchment sat waiting.
“And the permission?”
“Given.”
“Then I need Oldmeg back here,” I said, climbing to my feet. “I want to do her portrait.”
“You what?” As a sword drawn from its sheath was the headman’s true nature laid bare. Sharp-edged and dangerous. “Do you think to take her likeness round the city and see what witnesses make of her? I’ve heard what you and Bastien do, and you will not—”
“The portrait will go nowhere,” I said. “It’s but a way to access my most powerful magic.”
Oldmeg’s people believed the mantle of the Goddess Mother enfolded her. And the old woman had spent her life hunting for this place; she believed the portal was her magic to use. I believed that, too; her fingers did not burn when she touched it. She would be welcome, as I was not. Not until I proved my worth.
A first principle of historical study: Impassioned belief shakes kingdoms. And belief was the foundation of a sorcerer’s power.
“Let her decide,” I said. “If she says no, I’ll go and our bargain is finished. Bastien would be pleased.”
“Eat before magic working,” she said, crinkling her eyes as she appraised my bedraggled turnout. “We’d not wish you to collapse again.”
“Maybe after,” I said, pushing the bowl aside and pouring ink into my cup. “We’ve people waiting on us. Sit in your chair.” The tall-backed chair would be the symbol of her place in the clan. The bone necklace was likely the same, as was the woven robe she donned as she took her seat. I had placed the chair close to the portal.
“Naema,” I said, bowing. “May I touch your hand? It serves—”
“I understand how it serves you.” She held out her hand—coarse, dry, chilled, but steady, and when I squeezed it slightly, she squeezed back with an extraordinary grip and a twinkling eye.
With a fervent invocation, I began to sketch the seams and crags that defined the landscape of her face. The curve of her hollow cheek. The checkered brow. The sun creases at the corners of her eyes. The sagging lids above and the smudges of worry and short nights beneath. The heavy braids entirely gray.
A few strokes added the knife that had pricked her hand and mine. She was Ciceron as well as Naema.
The fire built inside me.
Even with her seated, I sensed movement in her posture. Alert, not at rest, not in that chair. Age had neither shortened her long legs nor curved her back, nor had time withered her will.
My own will summoned the pent flame in my breast, but before releasing it, I touched the center between my eyes and reinforced the web that linked my two bents. Nothing must be left to chance this hour. My own body as well as hers told me time was short.
For a moment my left hand moved from Oldmeg to the cool bronze arch and the scalding field of light. A radiant enchantment flowed through my arm and joined seamlessly with my bent.
Now! As liquid enchantment surged through my fingers, ready to transfer the true image to the mundane page, I shoved aside concerns of life and breath, mystery and spirit, and when I had reduced all the pieces I had assembled to their most elemental forms—dust and light and magic—I released the raging glory of my art.
* * *
“Well, what is it, pureblood? Failed, did you? I never believed this was going to tell us anything.”
I passed Demetreo the portrait. He wasn’t going to like it. The woman sitting in the chair would know it was true, though. As I did. Naema. She had been wrapped in magic and wonder since she was a girl.
The sengé’s dusky skin grew as dark as old blood. “A Registry man after all,” he snarled. “Only one thing on your mind.”
“Show her,” I said, louder, where the woman could hear. “Ask her.”
“I’ll not!”
“You will.” No fear or anxiety sullied Oldmeg’s command. Perhaps she had felt the truth as I worked. She who had recognized how my magic and that of the portal fit together long before I did. Did anyone in the world comprehend the boundaries of her insight and her skills? If the time was as short as she believed—and the stench of war now assaulted my nostrils, too—then I would have no time to learn. One regret among many.
“You were right about the portal magic, Naema,” I said, inclining my head to her.
She acknowledged in kind, eyes bright and pleased. For that moment we shared the exquisite sweetness of mystery and magic fulfilled.
Demetreo fought the truth, even as he dropped to his knees beside her chair and passed her the portrait. “He is pureblood, Naema. He is Registry. He’s tricked us and thinks to steal our strength.”
But the headman’s insistence held no conviction, because he saw her face as I did. Her smile lit the room beyond the magic of the lamps.
One steady hand held the portrait and the other stroked Demetreo’s gray-streaked hair. “Will you not stand in the vanguard to save us, boy? Of course you will. Why would you deprive me of the same joy? And, truly, it is not today.”
It would be soon, though. There was no discrepancy of age between the woman and her portrait.
Demetreo kept trying to deny the tale of the portrait, even as his expression crumpled into sheerest grief. Oldmeg’s joy made sense to me. She had searched for her path for a century.
The woman in the portrait sat straight and unbowed, as regal as any queen on her throne, as assured as the Goddess Mother herself. The knife had not remained sheathed at her waist, but lay in her lap, stained dark with the blood leaking from her wrists and heart—the same that smeared three precise places on the bronze arch. With the light in her eyes almost faded, a throng of people wearing dangling earrings of false gold and ribbons braided in their hair passed through the arch to a landscape we could not see. Beyond the commons house, the hirudo was ablaze. And apart from it all, a man in a half mask and a ragged pureblood cloak sat head on his knees and very much alone.
CHAPTER 26
The gray morning was well advanced by the time I climbed out of the hirudo. Thanks to Oldmeg, strips of dirty linen wrapped my hands, legs, and feet, and the flea-bitten rug was pinned about my shoulders. Thanks to Garen, my mask was in place. Thus protected against cold, threatening rain, and wandering pureblood investigators, I could prepare what to say to Bastien.
He wasn’t going to like hearing that I couldn’t tell him what I’d done for the Cicerons. Even less that I would be of no use to him this day. Two hours’ sleep was not enough after my misadventure in the temple, much less to sustain me past the magic in the hirudo commons house. No enchantment of my working had required so much of me, summoned from so deep. Complex, intricate magic. Wondrous magic. A harmony I’d not felt for a long time, as Oldmeg’s joy at the result balanced my own at the doing.
But as I threaded the muddy trenches between nameless graves, long-denied anger swelled in me. What historical lie could have driven my grandsire to destroy such a gift? If Capatronn had but trusted me, he might yet be living, for his attempt to excise my second bent had failed, and, as sure as my name, some unexpected detail in a curator’s portrait had condemned my family to the fire and me to the dark.
Which ones of the six? Pons was so easy to blame. But Gramphier and Pluvius had witnessed the mutilation of my bent. And Pluvius had dogged me about the Xancheira artifacts, implying he had to destroy them to protect me. On the day I asked Gilles about the “flickering,” my town house had burned. Whom had he told? His severe, traditional uncle Albin—or perhaps Damon, who valued loyalty from those beneath him, or Scrutari, who was ever coveting political advantage?
I had to question Pluvius. I had to see those portraits.
“Come back, have you? We were beginning to think you’d turned tail and hared back to your own kind.” Garibald waited at the necropolis gates, long arms crossed over his gaunt frame. “Done damage enough, don’t you imagine? Sent our runner back here ruint? And consorting with pickthieves and hoors—didn’t think the likes of you would stoop even lower than dead-handlers.”
Garibald had never been easy around me, but he’d never insulted me to my face. Perhaps the rags I wore made it easy. Perhaps it was the chains awaiting me in the prometheum. My hands clenched, aching to cast some astonishing enchantment to silence him. But discipline was not just for easy times. The sexton was Bastien’s man and Garen’s friend.
“Garen was brave beyond measure,” I said stiffly, as if I wore brocade and fox fur instead of blood and threadbare linen. “His wounding grieves me. I was responsible and I failed him. As for the Cicerons, they saved us both. But then again, their business is none of yours.” No stapled tongue in my plans.
Summoning what I could of dignity while wrapped in a rug, I hurried past Garibald through the gate tunnel. Bastien was waiting just inside, a steaming pot about to blow off its lid.
“Please tell me the runner is healing well, Coro
ner.” Might as well get this contentious accounting over with. “Give me a moment to fetch water from the font, and I’ll put my feet in your shackles willing and answer all the questions I’m permitted. Just don’t ask me to do magic today.”
“Insufferable, arrogant dunderwit, marching in as if you own us all.”
Teeth clenched over his growl, Bastien grabbed my arm and dragged me around behind the merchant stalls, through a side door, and into Bek’s windowless surgery. Only then did he speak again. “I’m sorry to tell you, O high and mighty lordship, that we’ve a small problem you must deal with right away, lest I get hauled off to your Tower and installed in your cellar dungeon or thrown off the top or whatever they do to people like me who misplace people like you. Now rid yourself of the rags and wash. You might dip your fingers in that ink horn as well, as I’ve put him off two hours claiming you’re in the midst of sketching corpses out at the Hallow Ground. Summat’s told him about my spyhole, so I couldn’t claim you were in your regular place. Gods save me, I detest purebloods!”
Purebloods! And I just come from working enchantments for Cicerons after murdering a temple guard while using magic to attempt a burglary. Mighty gods!
A washing bowl and a mostly clean towel waited on Bek’s bloodstained surgery table. Blood pounding, I stripped off the rags and the filthy remnants of my temple clothes and scrubbed at face and hands. Shirt and chausses had been left beside the washing things. They were dry, at the least, if not particularly clean or well fitting.
“It’s not a group of them, is it?” I said as I fumbled with loops and laces. “Armed servitors in livery?”
“Stop dawdling or I’ll drag you in there naked. It’s only one and his servant, but I thought he was going to cut off my balls when I dared tell him for the fourth time that he had to wait longer.”
Only one and a servant. Not so terrifying. But who? And why?
I pulled on the cheap cloth slippers, then thought better of it and settled for swabbing most of the dirt from my feet. If I’d been in the Hallow Ground, my shoes would be wet and muddy. No time to make these look right. As Bastien locked on my shackles, I ran conveniently ink-stained fingers through my matted hair.