The Mages of Bennamore

by Pauline M. Ross

  He squeaked in surprise but, held firm by Mal, he made no attempt to wriggle free. He nodded quickly. Arin moved out of the shadows to stand behind Lenya, completing a menacing trio.

  Lenya waved the knife under the man’s nose. “Do exactly what you’re told and nothing will happen to you. Clear?”

  Another nod. His eyes were huge as he watched her, terrified. His gaze slid across to me, and his eyes narrowed, puzzled. He looked back at Arin and Lenya, but their faces were concealed by helmets. Then back to my face again.

  Mal bundled his captive back to the servants’ stairs. We all crowded in behind, and Arin closed the door. Lenya lit a glow ball and held it to the man’s face.

  Now that his face was clear of shadows, I recognised him – Nord! By the Goddess, what was he doing in Ish’s wife’s bedroom, arguing with her as if she were a lover?

  “Now then,” Lenya said. “My friend is going to let go of you, but if you try to run, one of us will stick you with a very large knife, understand? So just stand quite still, and no squawking.”

  He nodded again, and very gingerly Mal let go. Nord was clad only in a nightgown, and I couldn’t get my slow brain to accept that he’d been visiting Ish’s wife’s bedroom in the middle of the night while undressed. Was there a reasonable explanation for that? I couldn’t come up with one.

  “Very good,” Lenya said. Then she turned to Arin. “He’ll do, won’t he?” Arin nodded.

  “Do for what?” Nord said, his voice hoarse. “What are you doing here? Why is she here?” Nodding at me. “Who are you people?”

  No one answered him.

  “Let us get him down the stairs,” Arin said, giving him a little push, and Nord’s frown deepened. Perhaps Arin’s high born accent surprised him.

  Still he watched me. “How did you get in here? Can you get out? Can you get me out?”

  Mal grabbed one arm and spun him round, holding him tight enough that Nord winced and leaned away from him. Mal loomed over him and snarled, “Shut up! One more word and my knife will silence you.” One mailed finger tapped Nord on the forehead with a clunk. “And no funny stuff.”

  Nord nodded rapidly, and, half dragged by Lenya and pushed by Mal, descended the stairs. He said not another word, but even so, whenever the curve of the stairwell allowed him a view of me, his eyes sought mine, although more in speculation than anything else.

  The guards were still gathered in the entrance hall, or at least their weapons were. They were silent now, and we crept past their floor as quietly as we could. If they heard us go by, we were sunk, for there was only a thin door with no lock separating them from us, but we passed safely. We reached the lowest level, and something tickled my consciousness – something not right, some metal out of position. Not a sword, but – something.

  “Stop!” I hissed.

  Too late. Lenya and Mal barrelled into the kitchen with their prisoner, then stopped with sharply indrawn breath. Arin strode in and around them, with a scrape of drawn sword, while I peered round the door jamb to see what the problem was.

  He couldn’t have been a moon over twelve, a scruffy scrap of a boy wearing only a stained shirt. He stood before a cheese on the table, wire in hand, the cheese wire I’d been aware of as it moved but unable to identify. The newest kitchen boy, no doubt, wakeful and hungry. He stood frozen, a look of such abject terror on his face I thought he would pass out.

  “What are you doing here, boy?” Arin said, in such a commanding tone that I almost believed myself in his outraged voice of authority. We could only hope the boy was too new or too junior to realise that we were even greater interlopers than he was.

  The boy backed away from the cheese. “S-sorry, Mas’er. Dint mean no’ing…”

  “Well, well, no harm done,” Arin said paternally. “Put the cheese away, and no more will be said this time.” The boy scurried off with the cheese into a side room, emerging moments later. “Back to your bed now, and not a word to anyone, mind.”

  He couldn’t get away quick enough, vanishing into a door behind a curtain that I’d not noticed before, presumably leading to the servants’ quarters.

  “That was close,” muttered Lenya.

  We bundled Nord through the door to the tunnels and I carefully locked it behind us. The lock moved smoothly, well oiled and responding willingly to my thoughts.

  Drin and Kael had retreated to a side tunnel not far away, which turned several times before ending in a bricked-up wall. It made a private place to talk to our prisoner. Lenya watched the main tunnel to warn us of anyone approaching, while Mal stood guard over Nord.

  We had brought along rugs to sit on, some sweetmeats to nibble and a flask of decent wine. We’d expected it to be Ish’s wife enjoying these small luxuries, but they worked just as well for Nord, huddled miserably against the wall, knees drawn up, wrapped in a thick woollen blanket against the underground chill. He sipped the wine, looking from one to another of us in bewildered misery.

  Arin sat cross-legged against the opposite wall. “Now we can talk,” he said calmly.

  “What do you want with me? What exactly is going on here?”

  “Well, now, Dern, that is what you are going to tell us.”

  Astonishingly, his face crumpled and he began to cry. It was a long time before we could get another word out of him, and when he did speak, it was only to ask over and over, “Who are you?”

  Eventually, in exasperation, Arin and Drin removed their helmets, and Nord gasped, and then began to laugh, an odd high-pitched laugh that rattled on and on.

  “Dragon’s balls, Dern, stop it!” I spat. “Talk sensibly, or I’ll get Mal to start carving bits off you until you do. We haven’t got all night to waste.”

  That shut him up, and his face closed up. “Gods, Fen, when did you get so hard?”

  “Maybe when you pranced off and left me as the sole heir. Thanks for that, very kind of you. Now talk.”

  And, at last, he did. Arin asked questions and sullenly he answered.

  “So tell us about this fleet that sailed recently.”

  “Bennamore’s sword ships. All that were seaworthy – eight, altogether. They have gone down the coast to the Sea Defenders’ training camp near Greet Bay to pick up crew.”

  “And then?”

  “Then they will return here in a moon and a half. During Convocation.”

  “For what purpose?”

  He sighed, eyeing Mal’s knife. “They will blockade the harbour entrance, flying the Bennamore flags. Then Ish will tell Convocation: ‘Look what Bennamore is doing, they are building a war fleet, we have to band together for our own safety.’ The Holders will be so terrified that they will make Ish a king. That is the idea.”

  “And you will use your power to convince them,” I said.

  “I can help a little. I cannot do what the Fire Mage did – convincing a whole room full of people to do whatever he wanted. That was an amazing trick. I can only adjust emotions – reduce fear, increase approval, that sort of thing. It is hard to do with so many. But there is still some residual effect from his work last year. That is why it has to be done now, this year, otherwise it will be too difficult to get agreement and we will be under Bennamore’s yoke forever more. If we could have got the mage to do what he did – but without that, we have to move quickly.”

  It was the strangest feeling listening to him talk, knowing that he was my brother but not recognising anything about him. The voice – if I closed my eyes, perhaps there was an echo of the Dern I recalled from my childhood. But the face triggered no memories, the hair and clothes were alien, even the accent was pure Bennamorian. I felt no kinship with this man.

  “What did you intend to do with me?” I said.

  He rubbed his face. “I am sorry about that, Fen. It was Tella’s idea. She thought if we could reawaken your feelings for Ish, you would help convince Shannamar. If Dristomar and Shannamar are united, the rest will fall into line. But – your emotions were so complicated, so confused. I could
not disentangle them. And then it was difficult to get the right amount of enhancement. I refused to try again when clearly it was not working correctly.”

  “How terribly clever of you to spot that.”

  Even in the gloom of the tunnel, his flush was obvious. “You are quite right to be angry with me. It was unforgivable. I should not have listened to Tella, I know that now.”

  Mal shifted slightly, and I caught his eye. Even with his helmet on, I could tell he was grinning, remembering the times I’d been all fired up by Dern’s manipulation of my mood. I hated the idea of anyone messing about with my mind, but I’d enjoyed the effects as much as Mal had.

  So I just shrugged and let it go, asking instead the question that was haunting me. “What were you doing in her room tonight?”

  He shuffled miserably and mumbled something inaudible.

  “That is irrelevant,” Arin cut in sharply. “What I should like to know is why you took off in the first place. You were going to take us out to a tray house the next day, you promised, and then you were just gone. Vanished. You might as well have flown to the moon.”

  It’s odd the things that rankle with a child. Offered treats that don’t materialise may seem trivial to an adult, or to Dern at sixteen. To Arin and Drin, at nine and eight, anticipating the outing with fevered intensity, the disappointment, the breach of trust, would have been almost like a death. And here it was, thirty years later, the resentment still fresh and raw.

  Dern’s head shot up. “I wanted to leave word for you, or write to you later, but it would not have been safe. I had thought of leaving for some time, but the opportunity came up very suddenly and I had to take it. Truly, I am sorry.”

  “But why? Why did you go?”

  “You cannot imagine what it is like,” Dern said softly, letting his knees slip down so that he sat cross-legged in imitation of Arin. “Being able to feel every emotion in every head, no matter how intimate. When I was a boy, it was not so bad, the effect was muted, but when I reached thirteen or so it began to increase until it nearly drove me mad. I used to walk along the beach for hours, because it was the only way to escape the torment. But then Krindyon – my new tutor – arrived, and he told me about Bennamore, how they have mages there who are respected and valued. They know about magic, he told me, they would be able to help me.

  “Of course, it was not so simple. Bennamore magic is hedged about by rules and strictures. There was nothing about my kind of magic – or whatever it is. They feared it just as much as my mother ever did, so I still had to keep my secret. I started at the scribery, learning to write spellpages, and learning also how to protect myself from the deluge of emotions I was privy to, but after three years I was almost found out and we had to leave in haste. Twice more we moved, but eventually we ended up in Kingswell, a big enough town that an extra eccentric or two is neither here nor there.

  “I had money, though. I worked at a Scribing House during the day, and in the evenings I frequented the gambling rooms. I was good at it, of course. I always knew when a player was excited about his bones, or disappointed. I would lose a few times, and then pick up a big win, which looked just like luck. Because I was discreet I was invited to some of the nobles’ haunts, where the big money was. That was how I met Ish and Tella. We – found we had a lot in common, so we became friends.”

  There was a hint of blue around his head as he spoke – not so much an outright lie, but perhaps a prevarication. Something he wasn’t telling us. That was curious, but I couldn’t guess what he might be hiding.

  “I have been helping them ever since,” he said, spreading his hands in entreaty. “But I have had enough. I do not like what happened to Fen and Hestaria, and now Tarn has disappeared. I did not agree to this. I have no idea what you are here for, but can you take me with you? I can be useful to you, I swear.”

  “You can leave any time you want,” I said.

  “No! They will not let me leave on my own, not any more. They no longer trust me. If I do go outside the tower, for formal events, meetings, anywhere I have to be seen, they watch me the whole time. Kestimar and his men watch me. I am a prisoner here. Please, Fen. Do not make me go back in there. Let me come with you.”

  “You are switching sides.” Even with the odd echoes in the tunnel, I could hear the distaste in Arin’s voice. Disloyalty was a great crime for a member of a Holder’s family, and Dern had already left his own Holding behind and aligned himself with Dristomar. Now he wanted to change again.

  “I say no.” That was Drin. “We do not want him. Let him stay here and sweat it out.”

  Kael had said nothing, watching intently, eyes flicking back and forth between speakers. “I think he should come with us,” he said. “I like him.”

  Dern smiled at him, his nondescript face lighting up. “I like you, too, Mage Kael.”

  The two beamed at each other like a pair of lovers. Kael expressed so few opinions that Mal and I gawked at him in astonishment.

  Arin clucked in annoyance. “What has that to do with anything? Fen, what do you think?”

  “I would like to see him prove himself to us before we take the risk of allowing him to tie his flag to our mast. Drin, have you got the ball?”

  For a moment, Drin registered only puzzlement. Then he got it. “Oh, the ball.”

  From the bag on his shoulder, he pulled out Hestaria’s glass ball.

  “What in the deeps is that?” Dern said.

  “A trinket. I should like you to hide it somewhere in the planning room, somewhere it won’t attract attention but is in the open. Can you do that?”

  “I – yes, I think so. Why?”

  “Never mind why. It is a token of your good intentions. When you have successfully placed the ball, we will come and release you.”

  34: Watching And Waiting

  While Dern tried to get the ball placed somewhere in the planning room, he carried it everywhere with him, and I was the unwilling recipient of every conversation going on around him. It was clear that he was widely disrespected in the Hold. Kestimar was openly contemptuous, Tella impatient with him and even the servants, superficially polite, subtly snubbed him and disregarded his orders. Only Ish treated him with friendly dignity, as he did everyone.

  I learned a great deal more about Dern than I really cared to know. I discovered that he snored loudly at night, that he hummed tunelessly while bathing or dressing, that he prayed at length to the Goddess at each high tide, and that he paid one of the kitchen girls to sleep with him. This last was of great interest to Mal, who tried every technique he could think of to listen in. Thus we discovered that if I touched my glass ball, anyone else touching it could hear and see everything that I could. The only difficulty we had was staying quiet in case our giggles and whispers were heard through the other ball. I wondered what Dern would think when he found out that everything he did was audible.

  Dern attended every planning meeting, and even though the ball was stuffed in a bag and the sound was muffled, by holding my own ball I could hear what was said well enough. There was a planning meeting at the same hour every morning and we sat in Losh’s study, Losh, Arin, Mal and me, huddled around a small table so that we could all touch the ball, listening to the Hold’s secret plans, although we could see nothing.

  It was amusing, hearing them sniping at each other and squabbling. It was clear things were not going well, and there was a great deal of grumbling about it. There were too few sword ships ready, and some had been floated before they were fully fitted out. There were not enough Sea Defenders trained to crew them. There were difficulties in getting uniforms and food supplies. There were too few barrels for the fresh water needed, and the galleys were poorly equipped. I smiled to hear all the complaints.

  I couldn’t make out most of the voices, but Ish said little, except to pour calm good sense on the bursts of temper. Dern said nothing at all, as far as I could tell. The wife wasn’t there, although she was mentioned frequently. Certain decisions had to be ap
proved by her. Kestimar was there too, no longer outside the doors on guard duty, but within as an advisor. Not just one of many, either, but taking the lead, drawing out information and then giving orders in a decisive manner which everyone accepted without demur. It was disquieting that Ish was so subservient, and I remembered the puppets I’d watched in the square before my eventful meeting with Ish, which showed him bowing to the whims of his wife and Kestimar.

  We ourselves were much talked about. They had discovered that we were all back at the Rillett House and had not gone to Arin’s ship. “So we don’t have to sink it, then,” Kestimar said, to laughter round the room. But it was causing the Holder’s advisors some concern that we apparently remained meekly contained within the grounds of Rillett House, and there was much speculation about tunnels.

  “I’ve told you, there are no tunnels beneath the house,” Kestimar said, with his strange plains accent. “I’ve checked the plans several times, and although there were access points at one time, they have all been permanently closed up. I expect the tunnels have collapsed by now.”

  “But they have magic, Commander.” A plaintive older voice. I imagined white hair, a stooped back and perhaps spectacles.

  “By the Nine, how many times! Their magic can’t break through solid rock. It may look spectacular, but it’s all smoke and arm-waving. They can’t do anything useful with it, I’ve explained that.”

  That was not what he’d said in private. ‘Their magic was too strong.’

  “We do not know what they can do with it.”

  Kestimar changed the subject pretty smartly, but later the same plaintive voice could heard asking, “When will Tarn be back? She should be here for Convocation.”

  But no one answered. I supposed they’d put out a story that she’d gone off on her travels again, but only the old man believed it.

  These days were very odd for all of us. The guards trained in the grounds, with the enthusiastic help of Arin’s Sea Defenders, so the yard rang to the sound of clashing steel and the whirr of arrows all morning. The mages had no clients, since they couldn’t go out officially and no one could come to them. Someone complained at one of the Hold’s meetings that his child was sick, and he couldn’t call on the mages to heal her. Kestimar told him very sharply to use more conventional means.