The Charmed Sphere

by Catherine Asaro

  “Varqelle would certainly have such agents.” Fieldson considered Chime. “But why you both times?”

  “Because she’s beautiful,” Muller said. “Because she’s a mage. Because she’s sweet and lovely and vulnerable, and someone wants her, damn it.”

  “It could be.” Della cocked her eyebrow at Muller. “But so are many women. Perhaps you are biased. The reason must be more than that.”

  “Fine,” Muller said sourly. “When they kidnap her, we can discuss my bias more.”

  Brant spoke to Chime. “We will send you to a safe place. Somewhere in the country.”

  She knew what he was up to. “I would rather stay here.”

  Della spoke gently. “Perhaps it would be best if you and Muller separated for now.”

  Muller swore. “No, it would not be best.”

  Brant crossed his arms. “You should have thought of that before you went to her room.”

  The door to an inner room creaked open. As they all turned, Jarid entered, tall and dark, looming among the gilt-edged furniture. Chime recognized his distant expression; he had just surfaced from one of his trances.

  The maids jumped to their feet and everyone bowed, except Iris. She went to her husband, even her tall figure seeming delicate next to his muscular form.

  “My greeting,” she said.

  Jarid touched her hand, his face gentling. Then he looked around until he saw Chime. “You are all right?”

  Chime nodded. “I’m fine, Your Majesty.”

  Jarid came to where she stood with Muller. “Apparently someone wishes to take you away.”

  Muller stiffened. “He won’t get her.”

  “You would protect her?” Jarid asked.

  “She is my betrothed,” Muller said, sparing a glare for Brant.

  “There is that,” Jarid agreed.

  “Your Majesty,” Della began. “If I may speak?”

  Jarid glanced at her. “Go ahead.”

  “Prince Muller was found this evening with Lady Chime.”

  “Found?”

  Della cleared his throat. “In her suite.”

  Jarid frowned then and turned to Muller. “Is that true?”

  “I can explain,” Muller said quickly.

  “Yes or no,” Jarid grated. “Is it true?”

  Muller flushed. “Yes.”

  Jarid scowled at him. “Patience is not one of your virtues, cousin.”

  “It changes nothing.” Muller put his arm around Chime’s shoulders. “We still wish to marry.”

  “As soon as possible,” Chime added.

  Jarid considered them, his eyes dark in the candlelight. Then he motioned to Chime.

  Puzzled and uncertain, she went to him. He ushered her into the chamber he had just left. Shaped like a tiled box, it vibrated even now with echoes of his mage trance.

  Jarid left the door open so both he and Chime remained in view of the others. But he spoke in a voice only she could hear. “Iris has told me about Muller’s gifts, that he draws on imperfect shapes.”

  Chime felt as if she were adrift in choppy waters. How she replied could determine her future with Muller. If she steered badly, she could capsize in currents she didn’t understand. She couldn’t lie, but the less said, the better. So she answered only, “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “You reach him. The rest of us cannot.”

  “Reach him?”

  “He seems open with you.”

  “I think so.”

  “With others, he believes himself dangerous.”

  What to say? If she fumbled now, it could affect the dreams she and Muller shared. She wanted to insist he posed no danger, but it wasn’t true. Muller had reason for his fears. If she lied to Jarid and that led to harm, she could never live with herself. Besides, Jarid made a mood spell, he would recognize any falsehood she gave him. If she told the truth, it could still cause grief, but at least Jarid would know she acted in the best interests of Aronsdale. It might help.

  “Yes.” Chime loathed the words she had to say. “Yes, he is dangerous.”

  “So.” His face gave no hint of his thoughts. Lifting his hand, he indicated the doorway.

  Miserable, she went with him back to the parlor, aware of everyone watching. She couldn’t look at Muller.

  Jarid went to Muller and crossed his muscled arms, frowning at his cousin. “It was appalling of you to compromise Lady Chime’s honor.”

  “Your Majesty,” Muller began.

  Jarid held up his hand. After Muller closed his mouth, his face reddening, the king turned to Chime. “It was wrong of you to lie with him. It raises questions about your virtue.”

  Virtue, indeed. Chime fumed, but she held back her tart response.

  Muller had no such reservations. “That is absurd,” he growled. “She is an angel.”

  Unexpectedly Jarid smiled, his grin flashing, a startling contrast to his usual more somber moods. “I do not know if angel is the word I would use, cousin. I have seen her ire.”

  Mortified, Chime said, “Your Majesty, I do surely regret any—”

  Jarid held up his hand. His expression had softened, though. He turned to Brant Firestoke. “Please fetch the Bishop of Orbs.”

  Brant blinked. “You want me to wake him?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “It would seem the only way to get these two married before we have a scandal.”

  Chime barely held back her grin. Married? Yes!

  Fieldson obviously had other ideas. “Your Majesty, surely a marriage now would be unwise.”

  “Well, probably.” Jarid sighed as he regarded Chime and Muller. “You two will be my bane, eh?”

  Brant spoke in a quiet voice. “I urge you to reconsider, Your Majesty.”

  “You’re always urging,” Muller said hotly. “Why don’t you admit it, Brant? You don’t think I’m good enough for her.”

  Brant started to answer, then seemed to think better of it.

  Jarid turned to Della. “Two of my advisors urge against this marriage. What say you?”

  She spoke with obvious reluctance. “I wish Muller and Chime could marry. They obviously love each other. But it would do more good if Muller wed a princess from Shazire or Taka Mal to bring us allies, and if Chime wed a man who wouldn’t interfere with her work.” Sadness touched her voice. “I am sorry. But I don’t believe the marriage is in the best interest of Aronsdale.”

  Chime struggled with her disappointment. She had hoped Della would support them. As an advisor to the king, the mage mistress would speak for Aronsdale first, but Chime still felt betrayed.

  Muller spoke bitterly. “Saints forbid it should matter what Chime and I want.”

  “Cousin, enough,” Jarid murmured.

  Muller’s face reddened as he stared at the man who had taken his crown and now would take away the woman he loved. Chime needed no spell to know Muller’s thoughts; he hated himself, first for abdicating and then for creating a situation that made him lose her as well. Well, it had taken two of them to manage that.

  Jarid turned to Iris. “What say you, wife?”

  Chime knew then that she and Muller had no chance of turning this around. Jarid placed Iris’s opinion above all others. Remembering the many stupid, tactless things she had said to Iris when they were students, she wanted to curl up and vanish.

  Iris regarded Jarid with an odd expression, as if she hurt inside. She said, simply, “Let them marry.”

  Chime was certain she had misheard. But everyone else was gaping at Iris as if they too had heard the words. Only Jarid remained unreadable. He held his emotions in check, isolating himself.

  The king simply walked over to Brant. They conferred in low voices, their posture stiff, their faces tense. Then Brant bowed angrily. He stalked out of the parlor without a farewell to anyone.

  Jarid turned to Chime and Muller. “He goes for the bishop.”

  It was the opposite of everything Chime had imagined for her w
edding. She had planned a beautiful dress with diamonds; Muller would be resplendent in his best finery. They had intended to marry in the Hall of Kings with the royal court as their guests. Hundreds of candles would shed golden light over the festivities. Everyone would dance and dine all night, and people would talk of the grand event for years to come.

  Instead she stood facing Muller, holding his hands, both of them in sleep clothes and bare feet, their hair a mess and dark circles under their eyes. The bishop had just pulled a robe over his sleep trousers and shirt. They had only a few witnesses: the king and queen, the King’s Advisors, and Chime’s maids. Everything she and Muller had planned, all their dreams for the great occasion had come to naught.

  It was lovelier than anything she had imagined.

  She looked up at Muller while the bishop read the ceremony, and her groom’s eyes filled with an inner light more radiant than a thousand candles. Together, they made a spell of enchantment in the early hours before dawn.

  And so they became man and wife.

  III

  The Hollow Mage

  25

  The Sun’s Bower

  Spring came crisply that year. As meadows brightened with new life, the people of Croft’s Vale and Suncroft ventured out to enjoy the warm days.

  High on a hill, Iris sat in succulent grasses, surrounded by fire-lilies and white star flowers. Farther down the slope, Chime was running to Muller, her arms full of wild roses. In the three months since their wedding, they had been like sunshine on water. It hurt Iris to see them: they glowed, gold and beautiful, oblivious to the rest of the world. Iris had never doubted her advice to Jarid; Aronsdale needed the joy Chime and Muller shared far more than it needed foreign princesses or overworked mages. But she envied them their happiness, knowing she and Jarid would probably never find what they shared.

  Her husband, the king, was standing on the edge of a bluff, gazing out at the vista of green hills. He wore rich garments now instead of rags, but he dressed simply, in dark trousers and a white shirt. She had no idea what he was thinking; even when she picked up his moods with her faltering spells, she had trouble interpreting them.

  Still, Iris was coming to know her husband. He would never let go of the guilt that haunted him, but the mild days of spring eased his tormented moods. He had asked his foster father to stay, granting Unbent farmland to the south. The king rarely spoke, but fourteen years of honing his gifts to the exclusion of all else had turned him into a mage unlike any other described in the history texts. Few people knew about the extent of his power; his advisors cautioned discretion and Iris agreed. Too many unknowns remained; they had yet even to fully understand his abilities.

  Muller also remained an enigma, his gifts simmering like embers, unpredictable. He and Chime were a haven for each other in a world that demanded more than they had to give. Iris longed to find such a refuge with Jarid, but they had no such fortune. They couldn’t even settle into their roles. The queen served as the leading mage for the realm and the king as sovereign, but the more they learned, the more they reversed their duties. Jarid had little desire to govern but he could meditate on spells for hours. The process of governance suited Iris, to her surprise.

  Her days felt unreal. For the first seventeen years of her life, she had believed her future held no more than scrabbling out an existence in the stony reaches of the Tallwalk Mountains. Her foster family had made no secret of their expectation that she would achieve nothing of significance. Even now, she had trouble believing she had talents to offer Aronsdale.

  On the bluff, Jarid turned toward her, the wind rippling his laced shirt and its billowed sleeves. He had been distant and withdrawn earlier, but now he beckoned. Surprised, she rose and walked to him, breezes molding her silk tunic around her body, the gold top layer fluttering aside to reveal a rich blue layer underneath. Jarid watched, his gaze less fierce than usual. She savored the sight of him. It hurt, too, longing for closeness with him when they struggled just to know each other.

  They sat together on the edge of the bluff. In the distance, Croft’s Vale slumbered in the sunlight. Down the hill, Muller and Chime walked together, holding hands.

  “They are happy,” Jarid said, his voice rough even months after he had regained his ability to speak.

  “Yes. They are.” She wanted to ask, And you? But she held back. When he had agreed to stay at Suncroft, she had sworn to herself she would never push him. In the months since, she had done her best to keep that vow.

  He took her hand. “Iris.”

  “Yes?”

  He rubbed her knuckles. “A lovely day.”

  “Aye, it is.” She wondered at his mood.

  Softly he said, “It will never come easy for me.”

  “It?”

  “Speaking.”

  She flushed. “Can you tell my moods that easily?”

  “Not easily. But some.” He touched her cheek. “My silences leave a woman lonely, I think.”

  “Nay, Jarid.” Everything had changed when he came to Suncroft. The emptiness she had known all her life had begun to fill. It made her feel vulnerable; if you loved someone, it would hurt that much more to lose him. But it was better, far better, than loneliness.

  “Silence donna mean absence,” she said.

  “It is hard for me to say what is inside.”

  Iris curled her hand around his. “It is you I want. Not words.” She almost added, Words can’t love you, but it was too much. They had wed as strangers. It was enough that he seemed content with their union.

  He turned her palm up to the sky and cupped his hand under hers, as if they were holding an invisible orb. “Look.” A sphere of light appeared in her hand, violet. His mage color.

  Her pulse quickened. The power of that simple orb could vanquish any mage in the land. “It’s beautiful.” Terrifying and beautiful.

  “Now yours.”

  “Mine?” No one yet knew her mage color.

  “Watch.”

  The light changed into a rainbow. Every color swirled within the enchanted sphere.

  Wonder spread through Iris. “It cannot be. A mage is one color, not all.”

  His voice gentled. “You are like none other. You have part of all of us in you.” He lifted their hands together, offering the orb to the sky and land.

  As she watched, marveling, the sphere rose from their hands, translucent in the streaming sunlight. Hills and meadows showed through its glimmering surfaces. It bobbed on the breezes like a giant bubble, rising higher, blown toward the village, its colors swirling. The orb drifted across the land, pulling out against the sky. Farther and farther it floated, stretching out…

  And then it was done—and a rainbow arched in the blue sky. It was impossible in the clear weather, with nary a raindrop in sight. Yet there it was, a great bow of color over Croft’s Vale.

  “A gift to our people,” Jarid murmured. “Light and the healing that comes after a storm.”

  Tears gathered in Iris’s eyes. “It is lovely.”

  He cupped her cheek, his palm tingling with the power of the sphere. “It truly is.”

  He had given her a great weight. Now she understood; she had struggled with her spells because she confined them to one color. But in the woods and meadows, she had let go without realizing the truth. Her abilities flowed then, blue, yet blending a little of all colors.

  Together, they sat in the sunlight, watching the colors in the sky, filled with warmth.

  Anvil ran. He pounded up the hard path that wound into the mountains above Castle Escar. General Stonehammer ran with him, the beat of his feet keeping time with Anvil’s pace.

  They stopped at the top of the path, which surmounted a cliff. Stonehammer bent at the waist and braced his palms against his knees, heaving in deep breaths. Anvil waited, holding back his smile at the general’s lesser physical prowess.

  Lifting his head, Anvil looked over the mountains. The castle stood below them, and beyond it to the south and west, the Escar r
ange extended as far as he could see, unusually sharp peaks alternating with knife-thin valleys. To the east, the folds of the Escar range rippled out toward the horizon: beyond them lay fertile Aronsdale.

  Stonehammer straightened, breathing more normally now. “You set quite a pace.” He rubbed the back of his neck, under the steel-gray hair he had pulled back from his face into a warrior’s knot. He was an imposing man with a strong chin, a beak of a nose, and green eyes. His old leggings and light sweater hung on his frame, which may have lost some of the musculature of his youth, but which remained strong.

  “I enjoy the air up here.” Anvil inhaled with satisfaction. “It braces a man.”

  “Indeed.” Stonehammer didn’t sound braced. “Tell me something.”

  Anvil turned to him. “Yes?”

  “Why do you wish to see Aronsdale conquered? Most men do not seek war against their own home.”

  He met Stonehammer’s gaze. “I am not most men.”

  The older man scrutinized him. “Your people would call you traitor.”

  Anvil knew he had to answer with care. Stonehammer had spent a great deal of time with him lately, but Anvil didn’t fool himself that the general enjoyed his company. As Varqelle’s top officer, Stonehammer was studying the mage who had betrayed his own country, offering his services against Aronsdale. Varqelle meant to lead a campaign; Stonehammer’s job was to ensure its success. Anvil had no doubt the general considered him suspect for his change of allegiance.

  Bitterness welled in Anvil. “‘My people’ killed my family. They would have killed me if I hadn’t escaped.”

  Stonehammer watched him with an unreadable expression. “King Varqelle tells me that you claim they did this because you were mages.”

  “They murdered my parents, then my brothers.” Anvil’s anger strengthened him. He had never hidden the truth. If he ever let his hatred go, he would shrivel into his grief. “They kept my sister and me for—for—” He shook his head, unable to continue.

  The general studied him. “In a land where the king must marry a mage, where mages have higher status even than most dignitaries and military officers, you lived in a place where they killed mages?”