Host tsc-3

by Faith Hunter

  I forced my hand up. With a single motion, I slid the necklace of amulets over my head. The need receded, fled. Died. Acid churning in my belly and rising in the back of my throat, I returned to myself, gasping,

  The loft was unchanged, the world unchanged, but now the power pulsing through the room was sharp and focused to my mage-eye. I swallowed reflexively, not knowing why it had been so hard this time to harness and control the stone-energy of creation. Something was wrong, I could feel it, but I didn’t know what it was. The circle I had drawn looked fine, the loft looked okay. I was normal. But something didn’t feel right. Exhaustion? The effect of low-level, prolonged mage-heat? I shook it off, concentrating on my breathing to settle myself.

  Before I tried to scry, I drew on the creation energies I had harnessed, and dropped a shard of amethyst from the stockroom into the silver bowl. As it fell through the water, I sent out a mental call to the wheels of the cherub Amethyst. I had done this before, and the wheels made working with energies so much faster and easier. It was a shortcut, and I knew I probably shouldn’t do it, and it was probably dangerous to contact and use a cherub’s power base without her permission, but I was just so tired.

  The wheels answered with a drone of joy and a gush of power so personal and tender that it felt like the love and affection of a mother’s hands. A small smile curved my mouth and I sighed as the wheels poured power out on me, into me, filling my flesh with energy so gentle it was almost like a sedative. For a long moment, the wheels and I communed, and though they were far away, I could sense the wheels’ eyes gazing at me tenderly.

  As if knowing what I needed, the ship offered control of the power conversion properties of its living engine. Steadier now, I used the wheels to manipulate the energy of the molten heart of the earth, directing them and filling all the amulets on my necklace. Without the wheels, it would take hours to fill my amulets, but now, bonded as they were to cherubs’ wheels, it took only minutes.

  The speed was a blessing, but the payback would be a pure horror if Holy Amethyst noticed what I was doing. I had tried this after a previous battle when I needed healing from battle injuries, when I needed to fill my amulets and I was too tired and injured to do it. But I had been careless, and Amethyst had noticed. The backlash when she closed the power circuit had knocked me unconscious.

  The ship crooned, its voice mellow and tender, vibrating along my nervous system, through my bones and marrow. “Little mage,” it sang. “My little mage.” Mentally, I caressed the wheels as I would a cat, if mages could keep pets without them eventually going feral and killing anything that moved.

  The wheels increased the power flow, and when the amulets were all full, I transferred the surging energy to the empty household amulets. Utilizing the underground viaduct, I topped off the energy sink at the ring of stones around my spring out back. The wheels seemed to ripple and surge in my mind, though I knew it was probably impossible for a ship the size of a football field, one made of living amethyst stone filled with eyes, to move in the way I sensed.

  “Enough,” I told it softly, feeling warm and full and slightly drunk on the might of the wheels. “Your mistress will see.”

  “Yours,” it hummed, so softly in my mind. But it constricted the flow of power into a fine strand that twisted to a delicate point and pulled away.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as it withdrew, as grateful for the might it offered as for the secrecy we shared. When it was gone, even to the echo of its voice, I gathered the creation energies and my will and breathed myself into a meditative state again. Content, tranquil, I began the process of scrying.

  Into the bowl, I dropped a stone, a small shard of unpolished bloodstone, a mineral I had a close affinity for. It clanged softly when it hit bottom. I added another. They settled gently into the bowl between the larger spheres of white and gray marble. When the third dropped in, a soft resonance of energy gathered, as crystalline matrix touched matrix. A faint sheen shimmered on the surface, mutable and chatoyant like liquid kyanite.

  I had tried this several times before, without success. But I was not giving up. “Rose?” I whispered the incantation. “Can you hear me? Rose, hear your Thorn.” The water mottled, darkened, as if light warped in lumps and bulges. The vision rippled at the bottom of the bowl, like a current in a creek, with sunlight dappling over smooth sand. I heard a roar, like howling wind in a storm. It lasted only a moment. A single heartbeat of time. The surface cleared.

  Disappointment scoured my heart like steel wool. I had seen moments of visions in the last weeks, while trying to scry for my twin, and like this one, they had been out of focus, blurry, confused. But I kept trying, and had promised myself that I wouldn’t give up, my hope bolstered by the memory of both Light and Dark claiming my twin was alive. Forcing away the frustration, I settled myself again and, when calm, began to scry for Lolo.

  “Sea and shore, jazz and dance, I search for the priestess of Enclave,” I said, repeating the incantation several times. It was a simple mantra as conjuring went, and the lack of scripture made it less powerful, but more focused. Simple seemed best. With my pitiful level of training, I was less likely to mess up and do a truth read or some other conjure by accident. I had done that before and it wasn’t fun. On the seventh repetition of the verse, the water in the silver bowl began to glisten. It thickened, forming a dark, mirrored surface. It didn’t cloud or become opaque, but it was as if all the light began to vanish, as if a silver cloud rose from the bottom. I kept up the words and rhythm of the incantation, syllables soft and cadenced.

  In the water, kaleidoscopic images swirled, cool greens and warm creams, mellow shades of butter and amber and the gold of sunlight on yellow roses. These were not the rich shades of ruby and emerald I associated with Lolo. The image began to sharpen into a sunlit room, walls painted shades of sage, rosemary, and moss, with cream moldings. A huge vase of flowers, roses and buttercups and freesia against darker green fronds, sat atop a round inlaid wood table. Over it a fan turned lazily, the air moving the flowers in an artificial breeze.

  Beside the table, reclining on a yellow chaise lounge which was centered in a conjuring circle, was a woman. She stared at me through the water and the miles, unsmiling, her face giving away nothing except beauty and hauteur. Instantly I felt like a bumbling country bumpkin in the presence of royalty. She was elegant in gold silks and lace, her formal mage-clothes embroidered in the leaves and flowers of her gift. By her clothes I knew she was an earth mage with an affinity for living things, one of the rarest and the most difficult to control mage-gifts. With it, one could heal or kill, bring life or destroy it. She was staring at my scars, and though her expression didn’t change, I sensed her revulsion.

  I fought the urge to raise my hand to cover my face and throat. The visa throbbed with a rhythm of suggestions and information and I recoiled. This was a consulate situation? Seraph stones. Who had I contacted? “I offer apologies for disturbing you,” I said, following the visa’s lead as to proper protocol for a scrying mage. “I am Thorn, of the litter of twins, licensed stone mage out of the New Orleans Clan, abiding in Mineral City in the mountains of the Carolinas. Hail to Adonai. I was searching for the priestess of Enclave.”

  “You found her,” the woman said. She had a beautifully modulated voice, mellow and serene. “And I know who you are. Speak.”

  “Forgive me. I searched for Lolo, the priestess of the New Orleans Enclave,” I clarified, running over in my mind the words I had used in the calling. I hadn’t mentioned Lolo’s name, and I hadn’t specified the New Orleans Enclave. I had screwed up again, calling for any priestess who liked music and lived by the sea.

  The woman’s voice grew hard as petrified wood. “You have found her,” she said distinctly. “Speak.”

  Shock made my breathing speed up and my heart trip unevenly. “Lolo?” I whispered.

  “The former priestess is in retirement.” There was an edge of satisfaction in the words. I had no idea how to react to
that but it seemed politic to ask after Lolo’s health. When I did, the mage on the lounge flicked her manicured fingers as if tossing away something useless and said, “The old priestess is unwell. She suffered an apparent stroke during an unanticipated mage-heat rut.” She turned her leaf-green eyes to mine, stroking honey-blond hair back behind her ears. She was about my age, maybe a bit younger, early twenties.

  Unanticipated? Ruts were scheduled and planned, to prevent chaos and to keep bloodlines pure. An idea flickered in the back of my mind, but I didn’t know how to ask my questions without getting burned. This mage was all sharp edges, like saw grass in a marsh, cutting and brittle. I said, “The date of this rut? Was it within the last three weeks?”

  The priestess’s pale brows lifted. “It was.”

  I took a deep breath, stabilizing my oxygen intake. “Was it caused by an unscheduled visitation by Barak, the Watcher, to Lolo?”

  She reacted by the merest tightening of her lids. And I knew. I had freed Barak from his captivity and he had gone directly to Enclave, against all edicts of the Seraphic High Host, the ruling council of seraphs. Seraphs caused mages to go into heat. Mages had the same effect on seraphs. It could get ugly if it happened without proper precautions in place.

  After an unnerving pause, she said, “Yes.”

  That was short and sweet. I tried another question. “Forgive my ignorance. I ask a point of clarification. Is Lolo also the one called Daria, the first mage to lie with a seraph and produce a litter of kylen?”

  The priestess, who hadn’t bothered to tell me her name, tilted her head, a small smile on her wide, coral-tinted mouth. “Old history. Barak has been chastised for his presence here. The Watcher claimed to have been prisoner of a Power of the Dark for many decades, and to be unaware of the edict against seraphs in Enclave.” She lifted a negligent shoulder. “All know a Watcher has no need or coercion to speak the truth of the Most High. But the Watcher left willingly, when he saw the havoc he was creating, including Lolo’s seizure.”

  Seizure? A coldness settled in my chest. Across the loft, my eye was caught by a faint green glow. Barak’s flight feather, a talisman of great power, freely given, was shining with lustrous energies, reacting to something, but I didn’t know what. The scrying? The conversation? His name? The presence of a charmed circle? I took it as a warning, though I didn’t really need one. “He left willingly?” I asked. “So the seraphic council didn’t imprison Barak for his visitation?”

  “They did not. But they asked many questions when they scried us. They have uncovered a conspiracy by the former priestess,” she said, a barely contained glee in her words, “one that jeopardized all Enclaves. It is believed that you are in the center of this intrigue.”

  Careful, the visa throbbed at me. No kidding, I thought back. This mage didn’t like me. And she was Lolo’s enemy. Meekness, the visa suggested. I could do meek. Unless I got riled; then my mouth tended to run away from me. “Me?” I asked. “How can I be involved in any Enclave plot? I am the least of my kind.” This was true from several viewpoints, formal mage training uppermost, pecking order in any Enclave next, and consular assignments last, though I hated to sound so pathetic. Yet, the visa was right. Humility, even false humility, would help me most here, if I could keep my temper long enough to feign my way through it.

  “True,” she said. “You are from an abnormally small litter. Only twins. And all know that small litters often result in weak and unworthy offspring.”

  I wanted to slap the woman for the insult, but I kept my face immobile. If she was testing me, I needed to show restraint. If she was really this stupid, I could learn more by curbing my temper than by giving in to it. And if she had reached the position of priestess at such a young age, she wasn’t stupid. But I felt my back molars grind.

  “However, though from an atypical litter, you were created by Lolo, who locked your parents together during a rut.” She was watching my reaction to see if this was new information. It was, but for reasons I couldn’t articulate, I didn’t want her to know that. “There is evidence that the mating was against their desire, as both were paired with others at the time, and further evidence that they were brought together by a love incantation in the hopes of more litters.”

  I remembered seeing a love potion in the Book of Workings. Blood and plagues. What had Lolo done? Such crimes carried ghastly penalties. When I didn’t speak, she went on.

  “What do you know of her plans for her offspring? If you provide us with answers, you may be spared punishment when you return, after your visa runs out next year.”

  Return? I had no plans to—Her offspring? I thought back over the conversation. Had my parents been of Lolo’s lineage? Daria had born both kylen and pure mage children. Were Rose and I of Daria’s mage lineage? Yeah, that’s what the smug little priestess was insinuating, and that opened up an entirely new strategy for this conversation. Because if I was of Lolo’s line, I was genetically superior to the little twit baiting me from afar.

  I let the idea settle into me. I had never looked up my genetic ancestry, though all mage family trees are carefully cataloged. Mage heat could cause mating too closely in a direct family line, so most mages have a thorough knowledge of their lineage, down to the human, Pre-Ap ancestors. I never expected to experience a rut so I hadn’t bothered to learn my own. And even had I looked myself up, I hadn’t known that Lolo and Daria were the same person, making it impossible to comprehend the connections.

  The mage was still speaking and I dragged my awareness back to her. “…with a small cadre of seraphs to affect the course of developing mage powers and gifts. If you tell me all you know, I would be willing to stand for you before the mage council when you present your defense for leaving Enclave without authorization.”

  I had missed something, but I recognized the carrot and stick. I was being herded and I didn’t like it. I put aside my qualms about speaking out of turn and said, “Priestess, what is your official title?”

  The woman blinked. She had been rude and officious, and now the ugly, scarred, and provincial mage was calling her on it. A mage who had to outrank her. Had to. So that’s why she’s all prickly. The priestess sat up slowly in her chaise and stared at me through the surface of the mirrored water, trying to intimidate me with her influence and position.

  I had been stared at by a Major Darkness. There wasn’t much that a less powerful being could do to me. And that had to tick her off too. I raised my brows and allowed a bit of my own power to shine through the scrying. Her shoulders went back, and the pearly flesh beneath her silk lace blouse glistened. “Thorn of the twins, of the line of Daria, I am Élan, of the litter of seven, of the line of Eugene.” She put peculiar emphasis on the name, as if he held some special importance. I had some research to do. “I am an earth mage and acting priestess of the New Orleans Enclave,” she said, adding the last line almost unwillingly.

  Acting priestess? I smiled at her. I didn’t need a mirror to know it wasn’t a pretty smile. Her face hardened like old wood, polished and smoothed. The gloves had just come off. Whatever this woman had against me, her antipathy had surfaced and multiplied. Lucky me. And so much for humility.

  Lolo’s line is preeminent, the visa confirmed, a tiny pulse of information.

  Feeling myself on surer footing, I said, “Priestess Élan, I didn’t leave Enclave without the consent of the council, I was drugged and smuggled out, banished by the former priestess when I was still a child. If there is sin, it wasn’t mine, as all children are innocent.” I was parroting mage law. Audric had prepared me for this accusation, knowing it would come once I was found out. “I am properly licensed,” I continued, though there was a time when I hadn’t been, which made it a sticky situation, “and my visa and GPS locator device were provided by the Angel of Punishment Cheriour himself”—which she well knew, as it had been reported on SNN. “They are both in working order and were presented when requested by the town fathers of Mineral City. There will be no trial,�
�� I said.

  “Accusations have been made that you were in the human world for some time before the appearance of the angel, living without diplomatic sanction,” she said, her tone laced with satisfaction. Yeah. She wasn’t stupid. “Additional charges have been laid that you went to war against a Major Darkness without Enclave permission.”

  I needed permission to fight evil? “My champard will answer all charges when I am brought before the entire council,” I said, with emphasis on the word “entire.” Her lids flickered again. I refused to be judged by a small cadre of neomages. As a mage in the human world, it was my right to ask for a full ruling, and she knew it.

  If Lolo’s line was preeminent, then maybe that offered me another opening in the little battle of wills and knowledge. But it meant taking a chance. I raised my chin slightly and let my mouth soften. “I was not notified that Lolo was ill and that her duties had fallen to another. You are kind to take such onerous responsibility from my shoulders until I return.”

  Her eyes tightened and lips thinned. Bingo! Now I knew why she was so bitchy. That knowledge gave me more options and confidence. I wasn’t powerless in this battle of wills and words. And it helped that she was a lot less beautiful when she was being backed into a corner.

  “Should I decide to give up my place in succession to the position of priestess,” I said, “I shall consider all your service at this difficult time.” Carrot and stick right back at you, you little witch. They couldn’t pay me enough to take that job, but she didn’t have to know that.

  While I had her off balance, I could take the chance and confirm my conclusions about who and what I was. I said, “It has been brought to my attention that Rose and I, while only lowly twins, were bred to be the first battle mages who could join mentally with seraphs, without physical mating, in the fight against evil. We would become a new weapon in the war against the Dark, a weapon that would provide new war strategies to the High Host. Surely the current council concurs with the historical record.” Assuming there was one.