by T. A. Miles
Ashwin had guided him safely indoors and to his room. “Shall I summon Lerissa?” the Mage-Superior asked, depositing his student into his own bed. “Do you have a headache?”
Korsten sprawled on the mattress that had never felt softer or more inviting and promptly closed his eyes. “I think … I’m going to have … a migraine.”
“Perhaps,” he heard Ashwin say, as if from some distant place or a dream. “Learning spells as quickly as you do does tend to have an intoxicating effect, complete with the coinciding after effects.”
“Yes….”
“Goodnight, Korsten,” Ashwin said, his voice seeming to fade away now. And then, just before it was gone completely, “Analee, you are raising a wonderful mage.”
“You’re raising a fine scholar, Fand.”
Korsten could hear the voices through the library door. He despised it when others talked about him, even if they had pleasant things to say. Usually they didn’t and if they did it was usually just to placate whomever they were speaking to, who happened to be unfortunate enough to have him as their relative.
“He was a fine scholar when he got here,” Fand said.
“Thank you, Uncle,” Korsten murmured as he read. “Perhaps you ought to tell them what else I was. What else I am … diseased … abnormal … fourth daughter to Lord Sethaniel Brierly….”
“It’s come to my attention that the young man gives lessons as part of his duty to you,” the man continued. It sounded like Lord Camirey himself.
Korsten made a cynical noise and glanced at the closed door as he turned a page in his book. “As part of the fee owed for being allowed to stay here … in the house rather than the stables.”
Fand’s next words made his nephew feel a pang of remorse for having spoken so quickly, even if only to himself. “It’s part of his duty to himself. The lad needs a career and, aside from that, I’m considering naming him my heir. His father’s too pigheaded to recognize his abilities over some questionable bastard only a few years older than Kor and several leagues away from his equal in matters of education and intellect.”
“Well, Fand, with that being the case, would you mind if I propose a new student for the young man? Ren’s been struggling in his history less—”
“I have not, Father,” a young man groaned. He had a deep voice, but the words and tone betrayed his youth. “Hell’s depths, I only said that if it’s so dire that I impress Lord Irbain with my education that I ought to be fully educated, else let him ask me something on a topic I haven’t had time to study properly and watch me embarrass the both of you with the frankest answer I can think of in the moment.”
“He’s not interested in learning,” Korsten muttered irritably. “He only wants someone to enforce key words upon his otherwise occupied brain. No, thank you. It’s difficult enough trying to….”
The silence in the study next door made Korsten pause. He heard footsteps come across the passage, and then a crisp knock upon the door. He cursed to himself, then sighed. “Yes, come in.”
“Ah, Kor,” Fand said pleasantly. “Right where I expected you to be.”
Korsten failed to look up from his book. “Is there something I can help you with, Uncle?”
“Lord Camirey has brought you another student. You remember his son Renmyr?”
That was his cue to look up from his reading. He did, and reacted the same way he always had when given a view of Ithan Camirey’s second son. His heart immediately dropped into his stomach and his blood began to throb under his skin. The youth was so damnably handsome … tall and well-muscled with a slightly squared jaw, and enthralling silver eyes … and so miserably arrogant. The few times Korsten had actually spoken to Renmyr he walked away with his heart hammering, every inch of his skin gone to ice, and his blood burning. Gods be damned if he wasn’t attracted to the brute, if he didn’t want him as surely as an unattended horse would eat itself sick … but there wasn’t a hope beyond friendship for them, and even that was debatable. Korsten believed he would go mad closed in a room with the younger man for even a few moments, let alone hours.
At some point during his staring and agonizing, Korsten realized that Lord Camirey was speaking to him, requesting his time and knowledge … requesting that he grant it to Renmyr. Dragging his gaze away from the mercilessly charming topic of the discussion, Korsten opened his mouth to refuse. The excuse was half-formed, on the tip of his tongue. And then he said, “Very well.”
The words weren’t eager, thank the gods, but they weren’t in refusal. Korsten caught a glimpse of Renmyr Camirey’s satisfied smile, along with Ithan and Fand’s, then gave his attention back to the book he’d been reading.
Parting words were delivered, feet shuffled as bodies made their exit, and Korsten felt like he could breathe again. However, his breath quickly fled him, when someone leaned over the back of his chair, placed his slightly sun-darkened hand on the table very near to where Korsten’s own hand was braced, holding the book, and began speaking.
“So, what’s this?” Renmyr asked affably. “It looks like history, but I hope you plan to summarize. One page of this will take hours by itself.”
Though his heart was hammering wildly, Korsten managed to speak in steady tones. “Well, I suppose I could abbreviate just a bit, so as to limit some of the time you have to spend indoors rather than….”
Renmyr went to turn the page, as if curious to see what was on the next, and his fingers just brushed over Korsten’s hand, setting fire coursing through his insides. This was going to be damn near impossible, but he couldn’t slip. He couldn’t embarrass Fand and take the chance that his uncle wouldn’t throw him out. He’d have to go back to Cenily, else live like a beggar, and gods only knew what Sethaniel would do.
“I’m not in any hurry,” Renmyr said, finally drawing away. He found another chair at the library table and sat himself down. “I think that we will be able to cover more, though, if some topics are kept short, leaving room for others.”
Korsten looked at his sudden student, who he would not have kept today, if given a choice. “I’ll just get you a journal … so that you can write down things you want to remember.” It took him entirely too long to act on his words. He realized suddenly that he’d been staring at the youth, who’d been gazing right back, calm and confident … and what else? Korsten was neither innocent nor ignorant and he knew, based on rumors, that Renmyr wasn’t either. However, Renmyr’s affections had all been for women. He couldn’t possibly…. This isn’t going to work. There must be somewhere else I can go, Korsten thought to himself as he went for the journal. I have other relatives in Edrinor. One of them must live someplace where the population is comprised of nothing but women, children, and very old men. Remember Firard, just as confident, just as certain in his gazing. As certain as I am now? I accepted Firard, because he was there and eager. Gods, but I want what sits before me now, as much as I’ve ever wanted anything … more.
Korsten found a book of blank pages and turned to deliver it to Renmyr … his student, who unexpectedly came to be standing right in front of him.
There was a peculiar absence of words, of announcement or consent, before the young lord took Korsten’s face in both hands and brought their mouths together. They kissed passionately for several dizzying moments. In those moments, it became apparent that Renmyr had already determined that there would be no lessons learned that day, save how to make love discreetly.
Korsten awakened from memory, feeling as if he’d awakened from dream as his environment settled around him. He was so very far away from that library … and Renmyr.
What have you been doing all this time, Renmyr? What has become of the city I believed meant so much to you? Gods, I want nothing more than to go back, but I can’t yet. I don’t have the knowledge I need to save you, love. I’d trust the task to no one else, though it’s not as if anyone will ask me when it comes time for the Sem
inary to give its attention back to Haddowyn. That’s why I have to study as long and hard as I can. When I’ve mastered the spell of Release, I’ll come to you, Ren, and unbind you from the darkness. I promise.
“I love you, Ren,” Korsten whispered into the predawn air that wafted into his room at the Seminary. Afterward he turned onto his side and gazed out at the sky for hours, watching morning come. The sky scarcely seemed to light at all as rain moved in over Vassenleigh.
Eventually, Korsten rose, bathed, and donned the peculiar cassock-style robe with sheer sleeves. The close-fitting breeches underneath stopped at his ankles and on his feet he wore soft slippers. He didn’t feel much like doing anything physically active today and hoped Ashwin would let him limit his studies to books and spells.
If not, I’ll simply have to change, Korsten thought, looking at himself in the mirror, deciding on a whim to tie his curls back. He didn’t look too bad off, for a despondent student of magic, who’d been taking in far too much of a certain flower that contained the souls of dead people.
Korsten wasn’t tending toward excess glamour yet, thankfully, but he also didn’t look as beleaguered as he should have after everything he’d been through over the last several months. He had a strange feeling that he was seeing himself as he would always look, forever now, until the time of his death, so long as he remained a mage. And what would happen if he left the Seminary?
That subject was given to a long while of rumination after Korsten carried himself to the middle arch leading to his balcony and sat on the floor beneath it, watching the inclement weather. An Apprentice eventually came bearing breakfast. Korsten acknowledged the food by thanking the gray-clad youth who brought it to him, then continued with his thoughts, drawing no conclusions and letting each one bring him back around to Renmyr. His eyes filled with tears eventually, but he didn’t weep. He was getting better at not doing that so automatically. Analee came to him and planted herself upon his left knee after fluttering close to his jaw, as if to kiss him sympathetically.
“You’re really a very lovable creature,” Korsten finally said to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t see that before.” He could feel that no apology was necessary, but he was glad to have delivered one anyway. Just as he had been with Merran, difficult as the man happened to be.
“I wonder what’s taking him so long,” Korsten said aloud. He’d developed a habit of speaking to his soul-keeper, as he’d learned most mages did. “If he’d been killed, I think Ashwin would have mentioned it. Lerissa surely would have. I can only assume the man’s been incarcerated for stirring a panic. And this time no one’s been good enough to get attacked by a ravenous corpse and give themselves cause to believe a word of what he has to say. Well, I suppose they’d have to survive the attack first … like I might not have if….”
Once again his thoughts came to Renmyr. He did not vocalize them. You knew, Ren, didn’t you? You knew what had befallen Areld, and what he might do. And still you let me walk right up to him. You were so calm that day, except during the moments you felt it necessary to call Merran a liar, when it was you who were lying. Lying to me. I have never lied to you. Not once, Ren.
Time slipped away from Korsten. He’d stopped concentrating on it, giving his focus solely to his training. He still hadn’t mastered the Mist spell, but there wasn’t an opponent provided at the Seminary, not Sharlotte and not even Ashwin, who could keep up with him any longer in foil practice. His movement was fluid and flawless, enabling him to evade or turn back the most aggressive attack and to defy the most subtle. Surprisingly, not even Mage-Adepts, also with strong gifts of Balance and Quick could defeat him.
“Those two gifts,” Ashwin explained after a particularly long duel that was eventually called to a draw, “never become Ambient. Not in the physical aspect. They’ll reach varying degrees of Resonance. Some, like yours, much stronger than others. Ambience is reserved for rarer or more specialized talents, such as Will, Healing … Empathy….”
“Father of the gods,” Korsten said with a very faint smile. “I never thought I’d witness you breathless.”
“Though they defy decrepitude, like the rest of a mage’s body, the lungs still work the same.” Ashwin walked his foil to the storage rack in the training hall, one of several at the Seminary, and reached back for Korsten’s as he arrived.
Korsten surrendered the item, noticing a sheen of sweat upon his skin as his exposed arm passed in front of his vision. He’d taken to wearing the sleeveless jerkin with high collar routinely. As routinely as Ashwin presented himself in brocade robes and Merran elected to wear that long black coat of his. When Ashwin noticed and Korsten had tried to explain his taste for the simultaneously simple and attractive outfit he’d been given to wear on his very first conscious day at the Seminary, it was the Mage-Superior who actually gave explanation.
Ashwin stated simply that a mage tended to select the attire that would best suit his station and function at the Seminary. When Korsten failed to see how wearing the comfortably sparse, athletic garb helped him to read, which was what he did most often, the elder took the opportunity to inform him that he would be a field operative when his training was complete. He would be like Merran, journeying to various places to sort out any trouble with the Vadryn or, he was surprised to discover, getting sent to the front lines of the ongoing battle kept up between Morenne and the remains of Edrinor’s organized army. Those who had remained loyal to the Throne and to the mages who had spent lifetimes serving it. Korsten had previously known nothing about this. He’d been taught that, after the death of the king, his soldiers slowly scattered, many of them becoming mercenaries, hiring on with random landlords looking to build up defenses against Morenne.
Korsten still didn’t know what he thought about that. He was not exactly the militaristic type. Of course, he was not the type to stalk demons, either. He understood now that it needed to be done and he fully believed that there were individuals equipped to do it, but he yet held onto a single purpose. His cause, without waiver, was to save Renmyr. After that…. “Join me at the Falls, won’t you?” Ashwin suddenly requested.
Korsten blinked, pulling too quickly out of his thoughts and into present conversation. It took him a moment to hear all of what Ashwin said. When it did finally settle, he asked, “The Falls?”
Ashwin laughed lightly. “Don’t tell me you’ve been here all this time and never visited them?” In Korsten’s confused silence, the Mage-Adept started to walk away, guiding his underling with a gentle touch at the elbow. “Come along, Korsten.”
The Falls referred to a moderate waterfall somehow channeled indoors from an unknown source. Steaming water spewed out of the mouths of three lions and dropped several feet down into a long pool bordered with stone. The rest of the room was, like many of the other large chambers within the Seminary, polished marble of a light brownish tone. There was no furniture and currently the only light was provided by the narrow windows high overhead, lining the walls that flanked the enormous fountain. There was a large brazier overhead, though Korsten had no reasonable clue as to how anyone was to set a fire quite so high up as it happened to be. Perhaps the flame burning in it now was everlasting.
“This place continuously eludes my grasp on reality,” Korsten murmured.
Ashwin caught the words and chuckled quietly, evidently amused once again by his student’s sense of awe. “This is an excellent way, not only to bathe oneself, but to relax as well.”
“Who would build something so extravagant?” Korsten wondered helplessly, marveling at the fantastic architecture before him.
“Come,” Ashwin said, walking away from him, toward the pool. “I’ll tell you the story, if you like.”
He’s using your curiosity against you, Korsten warned himself, but to no avail as he remained curious and made no attempt to part ways with the glorious elder. Once Ashwin arrived at the pool, he began to undress and Korsten saw a drastic t
est of his endurance forthcoming. He waited until his mentor was in the water, then slowly joined him. The elder swam a bit, then showered in the falls before coming back to where his student sat up to his chest in wondrously hot water, his back to the smooth stone bordering the pool. There were actually stone benches built along the interior walls. It was indeed relaxing.
“Vassenleigh sits upon semi-mountainous land,” the Mage-Superior finally got around to explaining. “The Seminary is built up against a rock face that curls around it and the city, forming a bowl of sorts.”
“I’ve noticed that,” Korsten replied. “The structure of the outer walls, I mean, in accordance to the town. I assumed that was for defensive purposes.”
“Yes,” Ashwin continued. “That was the intention, in recent centuries. However, long ago the Seminary was not the institution you see now, but rather more a secret, a much smaller order of mages committed exclusively to the study of magic. They convened in the caves that now exist behind the Seminary, vast networks that were made livable and that often led to underground springs. As the order expanded, so too did the living and working space. The Seminary was built from the rock as much as beside it. At the same time a settlement was cropping up under its nose, I might add.”
“I wondered about that,” Korsten said, noticing just how striking the elder was with his very blond hair wet and slicked back, making the surreal beauty of his face that much more apparent.
Smiling just above the water he’d been treading in, Ashwin continued. “Yes, well, getting back to the Falls; the water from the springs was channeled here using magecraft and carefully devised engineering schemes. You see….” He swam toward the bench Korsten occupied, waded into the shallower water, and stood before him. His leanly muscular frame was exposed now from the waist up, the ends of his long hair floating behind him, like strands of golden silk. “We mages have always been sensualists.”