by Barbara Howe
Jean said, “Tension must be mounting within the Fire Office, if it does not have a single enemy to focus on.”
“No enemy at all,” Beorn said. “Both sides seem true to Frankland, and it’s…Let’s say it’s confused, and that’s not good.”
“You are not usually given to understatement, my friend.”
“Huh. Anyway, we’ve all agreed to go ahead and fix her Office as best we can, as soon as possible, with the decisions we’ve already made. We may not get it right on the first try, but it’ll be headed in a better direction. With the coven already familiar with the spells, and a less extreme lock, we can fine-tune it later, once we see how the fixes are working out.”
“Or remove the justice-related functions.” The Frost Maiden’s mouth was set in a thin line. “Even I now accept that may be necessary.”
Beorn said, “If we wait much longer, all we’ll have left is a charred and smoking ruin.”
I did not attempt to keep my voice from shaking. “At least now I know why I was afraid to come home. I’m not strong enough yet. I don’t know how much it will take.”
Beorn said, “We want you to take another look at that lock. Maybe you’ve stretched enough in two years that it won’t look as bad.”
I sniffed. Why dignify rubbish with a response?
The Frost Maiden said, “My dear Locksmith, please understand, you must not risk your life if you cannot open it. An attempt, too early, leaving the Office still locked and you dead would be disastrous. What we need is an estimate of how long we must wait.”
Beorn said, “Yep. We’re not telling you we’re going to do it in a month, hurry up and get ready. You’re going to tell us when.”
The Newest Warlock
We walked to the guildhall in Blazes three hours later, with René in tow, for an emergency meeting of the Fire Guild Council. The nursemaid had crept back, apologising for abandoning us, and I had handed over my now-sleeping little angel. Jean and I had had time to eat, bathe, change into clean clothes, and inform René of the dire state of affairs, but we were bleary-eyed and on edge.
My eyes burned as if I had been awake for days. We had left Cathay mid-morning, travelled for ten hours, and arrived in Blazes before noon. I couldn’t understand it. It should have been after midnight now, not early afternoon. Jean explained to René the theory behind the phenomenon—something about the earth’s rotation—but my head throbbed. I couldn’t take it in.
Warlock Sunbeam was waiting when we walked into the meeting room. He was, as always, cordial, and delighted to see René. “So, the predictions were true, and you’ve turned out to be a warlock? Excellent. I’m glad to know we have another wizard in line. As it seems Jean was right about the Fire Warlock being able to designate his successor, I’m sure Peter, when it’s his turn, will be happy to—”
“Peter?” I said. “Who’s Peter?”
Sunbeam’s eyebrows drew together. “Warlock Flint, of course. He’ll make the Fire Office skip you. As talented as I’m sure you are, dear,” he said, with a graceful bow to me, “we will all sleep more comfortably knowing a woman won’t be the Fire Warlock.”
“Sure will,” René said. “I’m a better fighter than she is.”
“Er, right,” I said. I didn’t need Jean’s wince and slight head shake to know not to argue. I would be ecstatic if it skipped me and went to René. I would. Really. So why did I want to spit in the old man’s eye? I turned my back on them and sat down at the conference table.
Beorn and Master Sven arrived together from the Fortress. Beorn grabbed René, wrestled him into a headlock, mussed his hair, and growled, “Haven’t they been feeding you? You’re as skinny as a new colt. And who gave you permission to get taller than Jean and Lucinda? Next thing we know you’ll be as tall as Sven.”
That was unlikely as Sven was a head taller than René, but the boy looked thrilled. “You think? I’m still growing.”
Beorn let him go, tousling his hair again for good measure. “It’s good to have you back. Too many fossils on this guild council.”
While they were engaged in their manly salutes, Sven squared his shoulders and walked towards Jean and me, as if greeting us were a chore rather than a pleasure. He said, “Welcome back. You look, er, …”
“Dreadful,” I said. “Don’t beat around the bush. We should have been in bed hours ago.”
“Let me reiterate my congratulations, Sven,” Jean said, “on your ascension to the Company of Mages.”
“Oh!” I said, “I’d forgotten. Yes, that’s wonderful. You must be proud of yourself.”
He flushed. After a curt “thank you,” he turned on heel to greet René with obvious affection. The throbbing in my head intensified.
Was he still jealous of Jean? Or angry with me for forgetting he had been recognised as a mage? Didn’t matter. His fit of pique, whatever its cause, was his problem, not mine. I stared out the window and cursed the knots in my stomach.
The last to arrive was Warlock Flint, giving off waves of anger like a blast furnace. His greeting was, “What’s that fool boy doing here?”
Jean, his voice dangerously uninflected, said, “René is a full-fledged warlock, and as such is entitled to a place on the Guild Council.”
“That’s what you say. How do I know he’s really a warlock?”
“Because I can do things—” René disappeared in a burst of flame. Flint rocked back a step. René reappeared carrying a large piece of cast-iron cookware. “—only a warlock can.” The handle began to glow red.
“Put that down,” I yelped, “before you ruin a perfectly good skillet.”
The red glow disappeared, and he dropped the now-cold frying pan on the table. “Sorry.” He grinned at me. Sorry, my foot.
Flint said. “Just because he can do that doesn’t mean he has enough sense to be on the council. He shouldn’t be here until he’s eighteen, at least.”
“I was on the council at sixteen,” Jean said.
“Not helping,” Beorn muttered. I snickered. Flint had been a late bloomer who hadn’t proved he was a warlock until he was nineteen.
“The way I figure it,” Beorn said, “is if I’m going to order him around, doing things only a warlock can do, then he has a right to a vote on the Council.”
“What’s the fuss about?” I said. “The Fire Office won’t let you keep a warlock off the Council, will it?”
Beorn said, “We’re wasting time. All in favour of René being on the Council—”
“Aye,” René said.
“Nay,” Flint said.
“—say aye.”
Six ayes later, Beorn said, “Good. Now let’s get down to business.”
“Wait,” Sunbeam said. “What’s our new warlock’s war name?”
Beorn blew out through his moustache. “That’s not important. We have—”
“Of course it is. How can you expect rioters to disperse if you send them a warlock who doesn’t have a proper name?”
René snickered. And Flint doubts my judgement?
At least he acknowledged your existence.
Beorn rolled his eyes at Sunbeam. “What’s your suggestion?”
The old man looked taken aback. “I haven’t given it any thought.”
I said, “What about a—”
Flint’s rough voice drowned me out. “Pest, nuisance, headache, aggravation, …”
Two years earlier Jean had advised me to be polite but evasive with Flint, and let the Fire Warlock deal with him, but I didn’t want polite treatment out of fear of the Fire Office. I would be a lightning-wielder someday. I wanted respect.
“Fervidus?” Sven suggested.
René winced. “Not Latin, okay?”
Sunbeam said, “Quickwit?”
I said, “The witches of Thule—”
Flint rode over me again. “Be
tter make that halfwit. Moron. Imbecile.”
Beorn and René glowered. Jean’s eyes glittered. Flint was goading me, to get at Jean. Thought I was an easier target, did he? I readied a lock I had practiced on René, and began my suggestion again.
Flint interrupted. “Trouble, bother, plague…”
I snapped the lock on him. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“As I was saying—”
He flamed me. An instant later Flint lay sprawled on the floor gaping at burns on his arm and chest. The other men surged to their feet, René shooting sparks from his eyes. Jean laid a hand on René’s arm, pushing the boy’s wand down, without taking his eyes off Flint. Beorn looked disgusted, Sven and Sunbeam looked shocked. Whether they were more horrified by Flint’s actions or my quick reflexes and return fire, I couldn’t tell.
Beorn jerked Flint to his feet by his unburned arm and shoved him into the hallway. “Don’t come back until you’re ready to apologise to Lucinda,” he barked, and slammed the door.
I said, “Jean told me you couldn’t keep another warlock out of the Council meetings.”
“I didn’t answer your question earlier because I wanted him to see he was outvoted, and not that I won because the Office overruled him. I can kick somebody out—temporarily. As long as I impose a condition the Office recognises as trivial to meet.”
Sunbeam said, “Trivial for you or me, certainly. Perhaps not so trivial for our friend Peter. Did you remove your lock, dear?”
“Oh.” I concentrated. “It’s gone now, sir.”
The old warlock’s eyes twinkled. “I wonder what you do to Jean when you get angry at him.”
Jean winked at me. “Angry? At me? Surely you jest.”
The temperature in the room cooled with Flint gone, and my headache diminished. I might pay later for what I’d done, but I had been itching to flame something or somebody, and at least I had a good excuse with Flint.
“Go on, Lucinda,” Beorn said. “What’s your idea?”
“The Thule witches suggested we might use one of their names: Ari, eagle, or Hrafn, raven.”
René shrugged. “Better than Fervidus.”
Jean said, “I prefer another of their suggestions, a name that has earned some renown in Thule. Warlock Snorri.”
René’s eyes gleamed. He appeared to be holding his breath.
Sunbeam said, “Snorri? What does that even mean?”
“Attack,” Jean said. “Onslaught.”
Sven smiled. “How apt. In our exercises there always seemed to be three of him to the one of me.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. “I don’t want to be reminded day in and day out what a nuisance he is.”
Beorn guffawed—the first laugh I’d heard that day from the normally ebullient wizard. “That settles it.” He thumped the grinning boy on the shoulder. “Snorri it is. Now can we get down to business?”
Beorn and Jean parcelled out the competent fire witches and wizards, assigning the lower-ranking ones either to patrol the Green Duke’s domain under Jean’s supervision or Blacksburg under Sunbeam and Master Sven. Our Fire Eaters were paired with mature and trusted wizards, and would be sent to other hot spots, under Beorn’s supervision.
My mind wandered, and my headache returned as I reviewed the confrontation with Flint. Jean was, as usual, right in his assessment that our reliance on the single Fire Warlock caused problems. An experienced warlock in his prime should never let a witch with only two years training catch him with his guard down. Sunbeam would be worse; everyone in the Fire Guild knew he was lazier than Flint. Even René, more alert and with better reflexes than either of them, would be in danger in the thick of an angry, rioting mob. Did Sunbeam and Flint believe they were invincible? I shivered.
Beorn started talking about René. Since he didn’t look like a warlock, he would travel from place to place without guild emblems, as additional eyes and ears scouting for unrest.
“Lucinda, too,” Beorn said, “only she’s going to stay in Blazes or the Fortress, using the spells seeking out trouble from a distance. And she’s going to see what the lock on the Water Office is like.”
I opened my mouth to protest we already knew about that fiendish lock. The words I said were, “There’s no point in making plans until we know what’s there.”
René’s head snapped around. Hey, big sister, I thought you already knew.
I stared back, just as startled. We do, but the Frost Maiden didn’t want the news about the dangers to spread. She must have woven a spell around it to keep it a secret.
So, I’m a part of a conspiracy? All right.
René looked thrilled. I found the idea unsettling.
Sunbeam looked unsettled, too. “I’ve heard wild rumours about plans to rebuild the Offices, but whenever anyone repeated the rumours to me, I’ve gone to great lengths to squelch such nonsense. Do promise me that’s all they are—nonsense.”
My headache returned full force. Jean broke the short silence. “The rumours are not nonsense. The Offices need repairs, and we would be irresponsible to not fix them.”
“We’re going to take the Water Office apart,” Beorn said, “as soon as we can.”
Sunbeam started up from his seat, shouting. “No, you mustn’t. You can’t. God knows I don’t love the Water Guild, but wrecking any Office will destroy Frankland.”
Beorn’s gruff voice was almost as gentle as Jean’s had been. “We won’t wreck it. We’re going to fix it before it destroys Frankland.”
The light-hearted old gentleman’s hands and voice shook. “But we’ve lost so much since the days of the Great Coven. They were so far beyond us in knowledge and power we can’t possibly duplicate what they did.”
Jean steamed. I put a hand on his arm. Don’t argue, I thought at him, and met a stone wall. Why couldn’t I talk with him mind-to-mind, as I could with René? He pursed his lips, nostrils flaring, but didn’t speak.
Sven coughed. “I’ve been studying the Fire Guild spells in the Water Office for nearly two years, and there’s nothing in them we can’t handle.”
Sunbeam turned a shocked face towards the mage. “Two years? You’ve been planning this for two years? Why haven’t you told the Council?”
“Er…”
“Because I said so,” Beorn growled. “Sit down.”
Shock and bewilderment played across Sunbeam’s face. He didn’t move.
Beorn pushed him into a chair. “Sit down, I said. There’s more.”
A muscle in the old man’s face twitched. “More?”
“Yeah. Jean’s teaching Lucinda and René to call down the lightning on their own.”
Sven blanched. Sunbeam gasped and sputtered, “My God, man, are you mad? Your own wife. You can’t teach a girl to call down the lightning. That’s… that’s… that’s murder.”
I glared at the old stick-in-the-mud. Livid, Jean barked, “It certainly is not. She is more than halfway there.”
“But why?”
Beorn said, “You’ve got to understand. If we can’t fix the Water Office, we’re going to need all the firepower we can get.”
Seize the Night
Three days after our return, and feeling no more rested, I walked through the tunnel at the head of the Fortress stairs. Despite the July heat, I carried my winter coat over my arm, scarf and gloves clutched in my hands. Sorceress Eleanor met me at the exit and guided me through marble halls.
“Welcome,” the Frost Maiden said, smiling, as we reached her study. “I trust we have given you a more hospitable reception than the first time you entered the Crystal Palace.”
Her study was as plush as the Fire Warlock’s, but his was a warm refuge, with carved wooden panelling and reds, yellows, and oranges in the carpet and furnishings. Hers had alabaster walls, an ocean of white carpet, and furnishings in blue and silve
r. Tall windows overlooked surf battering rocks on the edge of the North Sea.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. Claire would have loved it.
Both women wore sleeveless linen frocks. The Frost Maiden gestured toward a couch, upholstered in pale blue watered silk, with a neat stack of lap robes on one end. “The Earth Guild finds my home an uncomfortable place, I am afraid. Whether you will need those, or your own heat will keep you comfortable remains to be seen.”
I donned my winter gear and her lap robes before diving into the thicket of spells making up the Water Office. An hour later, the cold had seeped into my bones, but we had reached the lock before my teeth started chattering. And once again, I asked what it would take to release it.
Two years of incessant training had worked its magic on me, and this time I did not flinch. Jean had called down lightning bolts greater than this, with my hands in his. Where once I had cowered before all displays of fire magic with killing power, I could now distinguish shades and degrees.
Given another year of training at the same pace, I could release the lock without permanent damage. Another two years, it would not hurt me. But now? I could release it, I was sure of that. I might even survive, but it would hurt like hell.
I had hoped my question would reveal a clear-cut answer—yes, I could handle it, or no, it would kill me—but it had not. I could not escape the burden of making up my own mind.
The Frost Maiden watched me with puckered brow. “I gather two years of practice have expanded your limits such that this lock is no longer certain death, but not such you are certain to live through it, either.”
“That sums it up pretty well,” I said. “I’d like to talk it over with Jean, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. I understand.” She rose. “Rather than returning through the same tunnel, may I give you a tour of Quays? It would be a blessing for more of the Water Guild to see us talking in a pleasant manner.”