Shadowborn

by Alison Sinclair

  “I’m glad to hear it, but no. I was asking because, when I return to Minhorne, it will be reassuring to me to know that I have Sejanus Plantageter on the other side of sunset, rather than a regency council.” Composed, he thought, of bigots and old men.

  And are those in charge of the palace any better? queried an internal voice that sounded remarkably like his father’s.

  “You need not worry about Mycene anymore,” the Darkborn said. “The telegram I had earlier said that he had been killed by a Shadowborn. The present Duke Mycene is fighting Shadowborn in Stranhorne Crosstracks. Kalamay continues alive, but I don’t doubt Sejanus will deal with him. My brother is quite well.”

  Which was a relief, but left more than a little unsaid. Fejelis well knew that Plantageter was strongly opposed to having magic in his city, but despite his prejudices, the archduke insisted on scrupulous respect of Lightborn rights under the letter and the spirit of the law. Fejelis could only hope that had not changed. “The injury was magical, was it?”

  “Yes . . . Shadowborn, indirectly.”

  Gracious—or politic—not mentioning Tam’s part in it. Might Vladimer suspect that Fejelis already knew more than he was saying, from Tam?

  Vladimer, suspect? With a name that was a by word for suspicion? Very well. He would put Vladimer’s trust to the test. “What is your plan, Lord Vladimer? ”

  “To retake Stranhorne Manor and the territories on the far side,” Vladimer said. “We have reinforced Stranhorne Crosstracks all night by train with troops and reserves from Strumheller and Telemarch, farther around the border, but, unfortunately, our ability to reinforce by day is limited by the design of this station. Stranhorne has also received further reinforcements from the estates and towns on the inner Borders, including Mycene lands, and they are close to the numbers that they can safely shelter.”

  Fejelis breathed out: Vladimer seemed prepared to treat him as an ally after all. “Both Magister Tam and Magistra Jovance warn me that these are very strong mages. If you come into contact with them, you will take high casualties, possibly to not much advantage.”

  “It has th’full support of the baronies,” Baron Strumheller said—growled, rather.

  “If it comes to that, we may,” Vladimer said. “But that does not imply we will lose. Ishmael—the former Baron Strumheller—killed a Shadowborn mage at my bedside, admittedly with the help of Lady Telmaine here.” Rank? he scratched, to Jovance, and she, 6? “Baron Stranhorne’s sacrifice stopped the advance across Stranhorne lands, and we have information that one of the mages present was killed. I ask you: if they are so potent, then why are they employing such familiar tactics of assassination and social disruption—earthborn tactics, not mageborn? Why use people, such as your Mistress White Hand, or the dukes of Mycene and Kalamay? Why take such care to turn us against each other before they emerged into the open? ”

  All good questions, Fejelis acknowledged. “You assume that you have seen their full strength.”

  “I assume nothing. But we have no choice but to fight or be overrun. By doing so, we may also ease the pressure on the city, which is no small concern of mine, and perhaps provoke your Temple to find its courage.”

  “You are not the one to judge the Temple’s courage,” Jovance said, sorely provoked.

  “I may have no right, Magistra, but others do: my brother, the archduke, who knew nothing of this until after the tower was down; Baronet and Baronette Stranhorne, who both fought in the defense of their home, though the lady is with child and her brother not yet eighteen; Baron Strumheller and his brother and predecessor, who built much of the defense we are now mobilizing, and who is a mage himself.”

  A mage who knew Shadowborn . . . “Is the previous Baron Strumheller still alive?” Among Lightborn, he would almost certainly not be, but Darkborn convention allowed for the deposition of the living.

  “Unknown,” Vladimer said. “He was lost in the retreat, but I’ve learned not to discount his survival.”

  That sounded as though it was directed to someones else’s address, likely the brother’s. How much did he wish to risk alienating one or another of the Darkborn by inquiring further? And if the high masters would not listen to their own, why should they listen to a Darkborn sport mage? “. . . I will support you in any way I can,” Fejelis said. He decided it was time for a little provocation of his own. “. . . Here we are, three Lightborn, essentially alone in the barony. Why not simply take us hostage? ”

  “I thought about that,” the Darkborn spymaster said, unruffled. The muttering this time sounded as though it was coming from Baron Strumheller; Fejelis thought he heard the word “hospitality” in a resentful tone. “But who would ransom a prince they’d tried to depose, especially in the coin I needed? And the mage with you would be more trouble than you’re worth.”

  Point to Vladimer. Jovance’s smile showed teeth, and Orlanjis’s eyes on the decorated paper wall were white ringed. Fejelis quickly sketched two stick swordsmen, the cauled one with arms outflung as he was impaled on the other’s blade. As an artist, he would have starved on the street, but the sketch eased the tension along the glass table while leaving the Darkborn listening to silence for a little while. “. . . We will see which one of us is right about my importance,” he muttered, knowing the Darkborn would hear. He raised his voice. “. . . I’ll be leaving for Minhorne first thing in the morning, Lord Vladimer.” And if he had any sense, he should have asked Jovance beforehand if she would take him. He had a mental image of himself riding in triumph into the city on a hay cart, but that was beyond his drawing skills. He corralled his wandering thoughts. “. . . The high masters are mine to deal with, but I’d appreciate any additional information you have on what has happened over the past day and night.”

  Ishmael

  Lysander Hearne was waiting in the hall outside her room, lounging against the wall as though he had idled away hours there. He returned Ishmael’s sonn and shrugged himself upright, then strolled over and fixed Ishmael’s cravat with a few brisk tugs. There was something cheerfully brazen about him that Ishmael, in his shaken state, could not help appreciating.

  “Ready to get something to eat? ”

  “As long as there’s none of their magic close enough t’turn my stomach, or I’ll get no good of it.”

  The corner of Hearne’s mouth twitched slightly. “You’re a rock-nerved bastard, I’ll grant you that. I know what she just put to you.”

  He steered Ishmael into an interior room where the air was still and all walls sonned as solid. The hexagonal table in the center was large enough to seat twelve luxuriously, and eighteen at a pinch. Lysander directed the servant who arrived at the ring of a bell to set the table for two. He pulled out a chair for Ishmael. “Sit.”

  Ishmael sat. Hearne dropped into the nearest chair on the next edge of the hexagon. “So,” he said, “any questions?”

  “Aye,” Ishmael said. “A few.”

  “And you’re wondering whether you can trust me.”

  “No,” Ishmael said; about that he was quite clear.

  Unexpectedly, Hearne leaned back and laughed. Ishmael’s sense was that the laughter was unfeigned, even pleased. “If you know my brat of a brother, I’m sure you’re wondering how I came to be here.”

  Ishmael was entirely content to let him tell his story; he’d take what he would out of it. Servants set down fresh rolls, with pâté and preserves, fruit and cheese, and newly made tea.

  “I was twenty-one years old,” Hearne said, while Ishmael cut and spread a roll, “and a very bad little boy. I was clever, and I didn’t care who I hurt, and I knew what I wanted. I was well on my way to wealth and I’d have found my way to power, for all there wasn’t a title in the family. But I made a mistake. After that, if I didn’t leave, I’d have to deal with the one person who knew what I’d done. I found I couldn’t. I could make the brat’s life a misery, but I couldn’t kill him—not with the fresh feel of that girl’s throat cracking under my hands. You ever fel
t that? ” The question was rhetorical; he did not wait for an answer. “So I ran. Nowhere’s far enough when a man’s trying to run from himself, but I didn’t know that then. Down at Odon’s Barrow I crossed some of the local enforcers and was knocked senseless and dumped out in the middle of a field. They’d been feeding troublemakers to the Shadowborn.”

  “They were,” Ish said. “We put a stop t’that.”

  “I woke up on the march to Emeya’s midden, a prisoner. You’ll hear more about Emeya presently. Over the centuries, she and our lady have pulled in tens of thousands, and those tens of thousands have begotten others. Emeya’s—barony, I suppose you’d call it—is probably seventy, eighty thousand strong now. Earthborn here do what earthborn have always done: farm, hunt, spin, craft, flirt, gossip, intrigue, marry, breed, and die. I’d no desire to be a peasant groveling in the dirt, so I maneuvered my way into her stronghold itself.”

  His face was utterly devoid of expression. “I said I was a bad little boy, but that’s all I was—a little boy. Though I expect I’d have grown up and made out all right—but for Ari.

  “Besides Emeya, she had four strong mages—and I mean eighth-rank, if not more. That’s the kind of power our lady’s offering you, di Studier. There were Ariadne, Neill, Jonquil, Midora—all of Emeya’s lineage, as mages reckon it. There’d been more, but a while back—a couple of hundred years—they tried to take over and lost. Ari was the youngest, and Neill was Emeya’s favorite, then. Neill wanted to wait for Ari to come round to his wooing, but Emeya wouldn’t have it. She set an ensorcellment on them, meaning to force them together. Ari had enough strength to bind another man in that ensorcellment—me. I could no more have refused her than I could have flown. It made me an enemy of Neill and a target of Emeya’s anger, and I hated Ari for it.”

  If there was an ensorcellment of that sort on him now, Ishmael could not sense it. He certainly did not behave as though he hated her—not even counting the bullet he’d put through Ishmael. Head lowered, Hearne said, “That was the way we started, but along the way, something changed. I never thought I’d care about what someone else felt. And when the boy was born—well, I’ve a cur’s way with the small and weak, but this one was different, too. This one was mine.” He sonned Ishmael with a harsh stroke, his expression defensive, and a warning. “I wanted her safe, I wanted him safe, and the only place to look for safety was here. It was cursed slow doing, convincing Ariadne to take the risk, and by the time I did, the boy had will and strength of his own, and Emeya had made a pet of him—they all had. He wouldn’t come. He said he’d bring Emeya down on us. He forced me to choose, and I chose Ariadne.”

  There was a long silence. “Ariadne’s strength and knowledge were gifts to Isolde. If the uprising hadn’t reduced the numbers of Emeya’s strong ones, not to mention made her so suspicious she put a choke chain on the survivors, Emeya’d already be the only one left.”

  “Emeya’s got one less of the th’strong ones,” Ish said. “I shot th’one called Jonquil at Lord Vladimer’s bedside; two bullets in the body, one in the brain. It’s possible that Stranhorne got others, including your Neill.”

  Lysander sonned him with that close attention he recalled from dealing with his brother, though it was plain the two were very different men. “Did you, indeed? ” he said. “Frankly, that surprises me.”

  “I’d th’help of a brave mage. And”—before Lysander could ask who—“it’s likely I met your son at Stranhorne.”

  The father leaned forward, ready, Ishmael thought, with any of half a dozen ordinary questions. How did he seem? Was he all right? But he eased back without speaking, his lips tight, his expression one of hard-schooled composure.

  “I took him for your brother th’first time I sonned him. Seemed t’me as though he could do with steady feeding t’flesh him out, steady labor t’build him up, and no small amount of education. I’ve known street children less neglected. He’s got th’one trick of fire down fine—nearly broiled me—and he’s learned something of ensorcellment.” He would hold back, for the moment, how Sebastien had used that skill, or how the near broiling had been provoked. “I also got th’sense that your leaving had lost him favor,” he added.

  “It would,” Hearne said, taking the information straight.

  “If Emeya were t’lose this war, you’d have your son.”

  “If he lived.”

  Ishmael chewed bread and considered. Lysander had all the characteristics of a virtuoso liar—someone who lied merely to keep in practice—but Ishmael could not tell which part of this might be fabrication. The one part he believed was Hearne’s feeling toward his son. Briefly, he entertained the thought of asking the man if he could touch-read him. But he knew the answer, because as sure as sunrise killed, there were things that none of them were telling him.

  “If she’s got th’ability t’augment mages, where are th’others? ”

  Unease passed across Lysander’s expression. “What do you mean? ”

  “Th’question’s simple enough. If she can do this t’me, why not t’others? ”

  “It’s . . . not exactly like closing a cut, di Studier. It’s going to be very taxing for both of them.”

  “And? ” said Ishmael. Lysander sighed and toyed with a fork, flicking the tines with a nail to make them chime. “They were children when this was done to them. They lost most of the higher knowledge of magic that existed from before the Curse.”

  “Seems t’me some things are better lost,” Ish rumbled.

  “Isolde knew it was possible; it was done to her, after all. But she did not know how. When Ariadne came over, it filled in what she did not know. Between them, they could do it.”

  “You’re telling me I’ll be th’first to have it tried on me,” Ishmael said.

  Lysander laid down the fork. “You’re not exactly the usual low-rank mage. You’ve pushed your magic to its limits and beyond, you fought Shadowborn for some twenty-five years, and you held out against Ari’s Call for nearly ten years. If anyone’s got the constitution for this, you have.”

  And I’m not fool enough to be flattered into noticing you’ve not answered my question, Ishmael thought.

  “Frankly, now, whether you do or don’t do it, whether it succeeds or doesn’t, if Isolde cannot take down Emeya, if she tries and loses, you’re as dead as we are. And if you live, you’re looking at a cursed lot of power. I’ll not believe any man who tells me that makes no difference to him.” He snorted. “I’ve been trying to persuade her to do it on me, but I’ve as much magic in me as a mud pat.”

  “So it’s t’the death, her and Emeya. And after, if she wins, what then?”

  He committed his attention not to sonn, but to his other senses, allowing Lysander to think himself unobserved, but listening hard for the change in Lysander’s breathing, for the timbre of his voice as he answered. “Trust me, you don’t want to live in a land ruled by Emeya.”

  That, at least, sounded sincere. “So th’choice is rule by one or rule by th’other, is it? ”

  “If it comes to that—and I’m not saying it will—”

  “But y’think it likely,” Ishmael interposed. He was in no mood to indulge prevarication. “I’ll thank you for the feeding and the counsel, Hearne. I’m the better for th’one at least. And now I think I’d best have another word with the lady.”

  They found her not in her grand receiving room but on a small balcony that, like the other, was crowded with planters and pots. She was weeding. Ishmael, stepping firmly onto the balcony, suddenly felt a one-sided heat, like the heat of a fire, or the heat he felt through his day shade when he overnighted outside. He checked himself midstride. He had heard neither bells nor dawn chorus to mark the dawn, nor had he sensed his own ensorcellment in the miasma of Shadowborn magic. He did now.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Lysander Hearne said with false cheer.

  She circled a planter and shook her head reproachfully at her servant. “Shall we go inside? ” she asked, gently.


  In the cool of the interior, he recovered his equilibrium; there was nothing to do about the ensorcellment but be glad of it. “You’ll do with me what y’want, m’lady, I’ve no doubt of that. But if it matters t’you that I’m willing, then let me have a sense of you.” He jerked off his gloves, demonstrating, if not conveying, his meaning. It was ridiculous of him to propose this, to pretend that she would be unable to deceive him or suborn his will—but she need not touch him to do that. He said, “If the sense convinces me, then you can have me willing. If not, I’ll fight you with all that I am, puny though that may be.”

  “Not so puny, Ishmael,” she said. She extended her hand, as a lady might for a formal greeting. The hand was smooth skinned and evenly fleshed, younger than her face. Even so strong a mage had her vanities. Her hand did not tremble. His, he noted, did.

  To have actually taken her hand would have seemed too much an intimacy. He lifted his fingers, offering his palm. She turned her hand likewise, and set palm to palm.

  Telmaine

  “I shall want you with me” was all Vladimer said as they left the conference with the Lightborn. He had moved on before Telmaine understood what he meant: that he was taking her with him to war. She pushed after him, forcing her way through pressing lines and tight huddles of men, skirts snagging on stacked crates and heaped, stuffed bags.

  She caught up with him as he intercepted the stationmaster, who had been trying to dodge him. Little wonder, given the way their last encounter had ended, with the stationmaster telling Vladimer there was no way on this cursed earth that he could convert an open platform into a covered station in the few hours remaining before sunrise, and Lord Vladimer must apply elsewhere for magic or a miracle. Vladimer said only, “Will this train be ready by sunrise? ”

  “Aye, it’ll be ready,” said the stationmaster, deflating from posture of war. “It’ll leave within the half hour, if I’ve anything to say about it, and be into Stranhorne less than two hours after sunrise. It’ll be stopping for lookouts; I don’t want it traveling without a Lightborn guard.”