Shadowborn

by Alison Sinclair

  Then she was alone in the backwash of his magic, for he had not even opened the door to the compartment. She gulped at such a casual display. How could she possibly resist? She thought she smelled smoke and frantically made her mind blank, holding her breath. When she had to breathe, it was only the stale air of the compartment, like old cigar smoke, that she inhaled. Perhaps she had only imagined the smoke.

  Sweet Imogene, the thought of Farquhar or Phoebe in her mind appalled her, though not nearly as much as it would have before she had met Ishmael. Ishmael she would, and had, let into her mind without hesitation. Society had not the least notion of all the improprieties possible through magic—she had not had the least notion.

  If she could only speak to Ishmael, she would have laid her confession before him, even though . . . even though . . . Would he understand how she had come to know about Duke Mycene and Duke Kalamay’s plans to launch an attack on the Lightborn Mages’ Tower, undeclared and unprovoked—except that to such men, the very existence of the tower, and the mages it housed, was an offense. Would he understand why she had misused her magic so? He would understand why she had taken the knowledge to Vladimer, trusting him to act on it? Ishmael was deferential to Vladimer’s greater cunning. And she thought he would understand why Vladimer had chosen to do nothing.

  But that was because, after years of service and friendship, he knew Vladimer, and Ishmael’s was not a nature given to outrage or bitterness. He would not hesitate to condemn Vladimer’s silence, but he would understand it. She could not trust that the Broomes, who barely knew Vladimer, would be forgiving.

  Vladimer—and she—could not do this alone. They needed the Broomes and their commune. She could not—

  A woman screamed in full-voiced horror. Telmaine lurched to her feet, sweeping aside her skirts, and threw open the door as Phoebe Broome cried out, “Phineas! ”

  The mage was standing in the corridor, bracing herself against the walls, her father at her side. “Phineas! Oh, Mother of All, Phineas.” She stretched out an arm, back along their track, and Telmaine could feel the magic streaming out of her.

  “What is it?” Vladimer said, harshly, from behind Telmaine. He was framed in the door of one of the two staterooms, supporting himself against the lintel, coatless, hair disordered, and shirt loosened.

  Phoebe gave another cry of “Phineas” and fell to her knees, curled palms held up before her, as though cupping water or life. Behind them, mages crowded the corridor; behind Vladimer, the door to the engine opened and one of the engineers stepped through, revolver drawn.

  Phoebe lifted her face to her father. “Why didn’t he call on us!”

  “It was too quick, dear girl.” He put his hands beneath her elbows and lifted her with an implausible ease. Telmaine sensed magic. Phoebe hung, limp as a pennant, on its prop.

  She heard Vladimer dismiss the engineer, assuring him that he would take care of it.

  “I just felt my brother die,” Phoebe told them all, between sobs. “I don’t know what happened. Olivede is there, but I can’t get her to respond. I could feel her pouring out magic . . . healing. . . .”

  “It is not death you felt, dear girl,” Farquhar said.

  “Then why—Oh, no. He feels like Ishmael. He feels just like Ishmael. Phineas—”

  “Telmaine,” said Vladimer, so close behind her she could feel his breath.

  “I don’t know,” she answered the implied demand for information. Phineas Broome had been lately in the service of the Duke of Mycene, though exactly why he had taken such service, perhaps only he knew. He claimed loyalty to the state, protecting Vladimer and the archduke from a dangerous mage—Telmaine herself. Vladimer inferred he wanted access to the Mycene armory for his revolutionary associates, and using that inference, Vladimer had struck a deal with the mage: silence for silence on Telmaine’s escape. Telmaine had been immensely relieved that Phineas had not joined them, that his actions appeared to have estranged him from his family, because Phineas knew about Vladimer’s silence over the tower.

  If Phineas had remained with the Duke of Mycene, and Olivede Hearne had been there, then it was not too far to assume that the archduke was there also. And if by “he feels like Ishmael,” Phoebe meant that he felt dangerously overspent, burned out, that meant the Shadowborn—

  Vladimer said, “In here,” in a voice meant to be obeyed.

  “My dears,” said Farquhar to the rest of his party, “we will tell you as soon as we are able.”

  He steered the stumbling Phoebe into the compartment, moving as steadily as if he were walking through the halls of the immense, immovable archducal seat. Phoebe subsided limply into her seat, with a murmured, “I’m sorry.”

  Vladimer sat down. “Magister Broome,” he said, in a voice that caused Telmaine’s stomach to clench. “Inform me.”

  Farquhar Broome sighed. “I wish I could, dear boy. . . .” Vladimer’s lips thinned dangerously at that, though whether it was the evasion or the solecism, Telmaine didn’t know. “I cannot sense either Phineas or Olivede now; there’s too much Lightborn magic blocking me. They are quite a bit stronger than I.”

  “Lightborn?”

  “It is customary, particularly when sensitive negotiations are proceeding, to block magical surveillance.”

  “Magister Broome, I could order this train to turn around, this minute.”

  “Dear boy, what would that possibly achieve? What is happening in Minhorne would be long over by the time we reached there, and what is happening in the Borders very much needs attention.”

  Vladimer accepted that with obvious reluctance. “Were the Lightborn responsible for the attack on your son?”

  “No,” Phoebe said, faintly. “It was Shadowborn. It felt stronger than Phineas. He was trying to stand against it. . . . There was fire . . . and he . . .” She put gloved hands to her face. “I’m sorry, Lord Vladimer, but he’s my brother—”

  “And was my brother there?”

  She swallowed. “Yes,” she said, more steadily. “Yes, I think he was. I don’t know where they were, but I don’t believe it was in the archducal palace. There were other people there—you’d know who should have been there better than I. But the first thing I sensed for certain was Phineas’s alarm, and panic and pain—agony—as he tried to quench the flames. And then I felt him wring himself out with the effort, and—from Olivede, Dr. Hearne’s sister, and not as strong as Phineas—I sensed only healing effort, on a man. Two men. And . . . emotional turmoil, something to do with family. She wouldn’t, or couldn’t, respond to me. And then I lost all sense of them.”

  “The Shadowborn have used the guise of Lysander Hearne in the past; perhaps they did so again. That would certainly disturb his sister—it did his brother.”

  “Yes,” said Phoebe. She put out a hand, groping, and after a moment, her father took it.

  Vladimer braced himself as the train shook and rattled over uneven tracks. “When we arrive in Strumheller Crosstracks, I will immediately wire north for information. But if you learn more by other means,” he said through his teeth, “I need to know.”

  Balthasar

  Duke Mycene was dead, despite Olivede’s efforts. Phineas Broome was still alive, but barely so, his heartbeat irregular and his blood pressure very low. They had no stimulants for him. One of the archduke’s guards had been gravely injured when his revolver exploded; only his fellows’ quick work with tourniquets and pressure bandages had kept him from bleeding to death. The others were all burned, lacerated, and half deafened, but still standing. The archduke had left two with the physicians and casualties in a side hall, and taken the remaining three with him into the main conference room. Balthasar could just hear the voices from there, the words themselves indistinguishable.

  “Balthasar,” his sister said, lifting a face that seemed to have aged twenty years in minutes, “I am so sorry about Telmaine. I had no idea that she was mageborn. If she had only trusted . . .” Her voice faded.

  For Olivede, th
ere had never been any question of not following magic, or any expressed regret at the life and place in society that she gave up to do so. But the open, sensitive girl had become a guarded woman, bruised by the many hurts the world dealt her kind, and Balthasar was not certain that she knew how much she had changed. He did not think she could understand—could have understood—his wife.

  Olivede pushed herself to her feet and came along to where Balthasar sat beside Sebastien, whom he had made as comfortable as possible on a long, padded bench. The bleeding had almost stopped; the boy snored slightly in his drugged sleep. There was a suppressed revulsion in Olivede’s face as she sonned the boy, though whether it was at his magic, his actions, his resemblance to their elder brother, or all three, he could not know.

  She took Bal’s bandaged arm—he had strapped it properly with the help of one of the guards—in hers, checked it, and let it go. Wasting magic on so minor an injury was out of the question. “I can’t annul the ensorcellment on you,” she said in a low voice. “I haven’t the strength, even if I had much left after”—a twitch of the head toward where the body of Duke Sachevar Mycene lay in an improvised shroud. Even so, the smell of his death tainted the air. “He so willed to live. He gave everything to the struggle. How could I give less?” Her smile twisted in a peculiar mingling of compassion and repugnance. “To him, the only profanity in magic was that he had none himself. He liked power.”

  “Be careful,” Balthasar breathed. “If Kalamay—”

  “Between Mycene and Kalamay and the Shadowborn, they murdered dozens of Lightborn mages,” Olivede said, as though she had not heard, her head still turned toward the dead duke. “But that death was obscene.” She sonned him. “Balthasar, you’re in as much danger as I am from Kalamay. You cannot protect this boy.”

  “I must,” he said, throwing all the weight of meaning he could into the two words and imploring her to understand.

  She masked her face with her hand, denying him the chance to sonn her expression. “The Lightborn are preventing me from reaching anyone, but I don’t suppose Master Kieldar could come, until the curfew is raised.” Even in here, they could hear the warning bell. “Phineas needs more than I can do for him, and Phoebe must be frantic. I didn’t respond because I . . . didn’t want to explain.” She sighed and sat down beside him, her worn skirts folding almost silently—unlike Telmaine’s starched, scented rustlings—and slipped her arm around him. “My poor little brother,” she said quietly, “you’ve sustained a dreadful loss. I cannot imagine what you have been through. But you have your daughters to think of. Just remember—”

  She brought up her hand as though to draw his head against her shoulder. He sonned the bare skin, thought of the ensorcellment, and ducked out of her embrace. And then realized what she had meant to do: spend the last of her magic in rendering him unconscious. “I am not distraught with grief,” Balthasar said angrily. “At least not distraught beyond reasoning.”

  “Balthasar,” she said. “Please let me—”

  From the main chambers, they heard a shout: “Will you listen to me!” Balthasar’s experience of the archduke was slight, generally gained as part of a large audience to Sejanus’s masterful public performances. He had never heard the veteran statesman even raise his voice in anger, much less shout. He took a step toward the door.

  “Not with that ensorcellment about you! If any of them can sense it—”

  There was real fear in her voice, but, still angry with her, he disregarded it. “I know more about the Shadowborn than anyone here. I’m used to conducting business with Lightborn—six terms on the council, Olivede! And if there is someone who can sense it, my ensorcellment would be proof—”

  “Of further Darkborn involvement. Don’t, Balthasar. There’s at least one high master in the building—I can sense the strength. It’s important—it’s vital—that this is dealt with as a matter between earthborn. If the Lightborn mages decide we had anything to do with it, they’ll crush us like cockroaches. Phineas—”

  “If it were to be dealt with earthborn to earthborn, would they have a high master with them?”

  “Archduke’s orders were that none of you were to leave,” one of the guards said civilly from his station beside the door. In deference to his injuries—his face was bound with cloth torn from a pennant—it was a seated station. But if his hand on his revolver was not quite steady, it was purposeful. Brave men, Balthasar thought, knowing what they guard here.

  Olivede wrapped her arms around her ribs. “Phineas went to warn Dukes Kalamay and Mycene about Vladimer’s mage, who was your own Telmaine. But because he was involved with them, he might be accused of ensorcelling the munitions that destroyed the tower.”

  He could not keep his temper; she sounded so frightened and forlorn. He lifted his scorched jacket and put it around her shoulders. She leaned against him with a sigh, and he rested his cheek cautiously on her hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry you have to fear your own people as well as the Shadowborn.”

  She pulled away, wrinkling her nose. “Ugh, Bal, that ensorcellment is revolting.”

  She had worn exactly that expression at twelve when he had run to her in outrage after Lysander had pushed him into a pigsty. Though the muscles of his face moved like clay, he smiled at the memory.

  They heard the door to the main council chambers slam open, and a moment later, Sejanus Plantageter swept into the room, a brace of Mycene’s guard scrambling ahead of him. Balthasar found himself up and standing between them and Sebastien before he was aware of having moved.

  Dukes Imbré and Rohan followed the archduke together, Rohan lending an arm to the oldest duke. Then came a young man who, by his resemblance to Xavier Stranhorne, was surely Maxim di Gautier. At his shoulder was a stout older man who steered his young baron with the gentlest of touches and cast a challenging sonn over Balthasar and Olivede. In his other hand, he held a staff in a grip that dared anyone to menace his baron. Duke Kalamay followed, fingers kneading an amulet that Balthasar recognized as one distributed to followers of the Sole God as a shield against magic. Behind Kalamay came his heir, whom Balthasar knew as a clever man of malicious wit and considerable theological knowledge, and one who took as much pleasure in demolishing the fallacies of faith as those of skepticism. He stumbled on the threshold, caught himself against one of the benches, and lifted a face sagging with shock. “You said there was nothing to it. Nothing,” he said, to his father’s back.

  Imbré laid a hand like a gnarled root on the archduke’s shoulder. “Well, Sejanus, now we know.”

  “W’can’t yield, of course,” said a stocky man in a Borders accent, setting his stance before the archduke.

  “You shall not treat with mages,” Kalamay said.

  The archduke ignored him. “Lord di Gruner, while yielding is as repugnant to me as it is to you, I cannot ignore the fact that, should they choose, they could trap us in our homes, day and night both, with their lights. I doubt most households have more than two weeks’ sustenance to hand, and the poorest will have less. Not to mention the havoc it would cause for business and trade.”

  “Are they,” Maxim di Gautier spoke up, hesitantly, “a legitimate government? Is this princess a legitimate ruler, or does authority still properly vest with Fejelis?”

  “Of whose whereabouts we have no idea,” said Rohan.

  “I got the impression,” the archduke said, “that neither did they.” He started to pace. “I should not have let myself be thrown by the fact that they brought forward a woman. I think even Vladimer stopped keeping a dossier on Perrin when she dropped out of the succession. I thought if Fejelis went down, it would be Orlanjis. And his mother, likely—Odon’s granddaughter, indeed. I wonder if this order of expulsion was her idea.”

  “Our people won’t stand for it.”

  “Indeed they won’t—and I wonder if theirs will, too. Oh, there’s feeling against the Darkborn—the riots and the vandalism tells us that—but there are sectors of the
economy and parts of the city that owe their prosperity to trade with us.” He paused, his expression one of concentrated thought. “We are vulnerable to the light, but we have other, subtler means to hand. But I think I do not want to discuss any of our options until we are well out of this building.”

  Balthasar got stiffly to his feet. “Your Grace,” he said, “am I to understand that the Lightborn still insist this is a matter between Lightborn and Darkborn—that they do not accept the part played by Shadowborn?”

  Sejanus hesitated briefly—whether because of Balthasar’s insignificant status or his involvement—and then said, “You understand correctly, Dr. Hearne. As far as the Lightborn are concerned, the attack on the tower was entirely Darkborn. As to what happened just before their arrival—they didn’t even acknowledge that.”

  But even lineage mages should have been able to sense Phineas and Olivede’s efforts, and the injury and deaths of Darkborn on this side. So how much of the denial was authentic and how much politic? First and foremost, the Mages’ Temple served its own interests, and those interests would not include admission of so profound a vulnerability. Mages contracted to the various members of the Lightborn nobility would obey the letter of their contract—no more. But what of the princess herself? She was born outside the lineages, to a family with no known magical members. Was her magic of the sport form?

  He said, slowly, “My ensorcellment makes me immune to daylight. As long as that ensorcellment lasts”—as long as Sebastien was allowed to live stood implied, he hoped—“I would be able to go into the courts of the Lightborn and act both as envoy and as living proof of the existence of the Shadowborn. To my best knowledge, even the high masters would not be able to reproduce the feat of allowing a Darkborn to survive in light, or a Lightborn in darkness. If they cannot sense my ensorcellment, yet there I am, alive, they must ask themselves why.”