Shade and Sorceress

by Catherine Egan

  “I will answer all of your questions, Eliza, but first we have an urgent matter to take care of. The sound you heard a few minutes ago was the Citadel telling us that Unauthorized Magic was being done on the premises. I suspect...indeed, I hope...that it was something you did. Perhaps accidentally. Before you heard the siren, Eliza, did you try to do something?”

  “I’d just...I didnay know where I was,” said Eliza. “I was getting dressed.”

  She realized she was terribly hungry after all and began on the waffles. No point starving herself, after all. They were delicious.

  The Mancer’s voice was heavy. “It is very important that you be honest with me, Eliza. Did you do any Magic?”

  In spite of her fear and confusion, Eliza almost wanted to laugh. It was all such an absurd, hideous mistake, her being here. She was afraid of what he would do, but she said again, “I told you, I can nay do Magic! Trust me, I’ve tried! My best friend and I used to...” She trailed off, because he didn’t seem to be listening any more and likely wouldn’t be interested in the half-serious attempts she and Nell had made to mix potions.

  “You are safe for the time being,” he muttered, looking past her. She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, or to himself, or even to somebody else she couldn’t see. This last possibility gave her a little shiver of fright. Then he looked straight at her with those radiant eyes and she found she had to look away immediately.

  “For many hundreds of generations, the Mancers have guarded and guided the Shang Sorceress from infancy to adulthood, until she bears a daughter fathered by a Mancer,” Kyreth pronounced, as if he were giving her a set speech. “Once she has a daughter and the line is secure, she can perform her duty as humankind’s champion. Since the separation of the worlds, her task has been to guard the Crossing and banish those who do not belong here. Your mother, Rea, was my daughter, Eliza, and so I am your grandfather.”

  At this, Eliza almost choked on her last bit of waffle. It simply couldn’t be true. She rejected it absolutely, horrified.

  “I hope you will not always feel that way,” he said softly, and she realized he knew what she was feeling. Ashamed and confused, she stared down at her plate.

  “We had intended Obrad for your mother,” continued Kyreth. “The manipulator of earth has no seasonal ascendancy and so his power does not wax and wane as much as the others. He is strong and young and we hoped it would prove a good match. But your mother was difficult. I say this as her father and teacher and someone who loved her. She was remarkably gifted. Such power! We had not seen it for generations. She will be a legend, Eliza, like Zara who slew the Demon army in the Early Days, or Lahja who obtained the Gehemmis from the Horogarth. But Rea was willful. She kept secrets, and your father was one of them. Had she married Obrad, their child would have been born in our care, raised in full knowledge of her birthright. But she married your father in secret and hid you from us with Magic.” He looked down at the marble desktop for a moment, and Eliza felt the relief of being released from his gaze. “You are already twelve years old, untaught, entirely ignorant, fathered by an ordinary human. It remains to be seen whether you possess the full power of your foremothers, but nonetheless, you are the Shang Sorceress. It has taken us ten years since her death to find you, ten years during which agents and spies of that pythoness in her Arctic prison have also been searching for you. Our duty now is to protect you and to teach you what we can. That is why we have brought you here, Eliza.”

  “Wait, do you mean the Xia Sorceress was looking for me?” asked Eliza, dumbstruck. The entire recitation had sent her mind reeling, but this last piece of information was just too much.

  “We do not use that title for her here,” Kyreth said with an angry flash, and she knew then she never wanted to anger him again.

  “But why would she be looking for me?”

  “You are far more important to Di Shang than you realize,” said Kyreth, with another of his brief, crumbling smiles.

  Eliza found this answer entirely unsatisfactory, but before she could say anything else there was a knock, and several Mancers entered the room. Each of them had the symbol of a white bear on their robes.

  “These are manipulators of metal,” said Kyreth, rising. “They have something for you.”

  “Miss Tok, if you would please wear this around your neck,” said one of the Mancers with a brief bow. Eliza jumped off the chair, feeling very small indeed among the towering Mancers. Their eyes cast her in a pool of bright light. The Mancer who had spoken was offering her a gold pendant shaped like a star with many points, hanging on a heavy gold chain.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It is a barrier star,” said Kyreth. “It will keep you safe. It has a great many powers and uses, but while you are wearing it within the Citadel walls you can neither be harmed nor removed from this place, and none can take it from you. Not even I could take it from you once you have put it on.”

  “But I’ll be able to take it off, nay?” said Eliza, rather alarmed by this.

  “Yes,” said Kyreth. “But you must not remove it until we are sure that it is safe to do so. This is very important, Eliza. Do you understand me?”

  Eliza nodded. She took the pendant obediently and hung it around her neck. She half expected to feel something, a charge of some kind, an indication that this was not just any pendant. But she felt nothing. It was even heavier than it looked.

  The manipulators of metal filed out, each one bowing to Kyreth as they left.

  “I will join you in the Inner Sanctum,” he said to them. Then he turned towards Eliza again. “I have work to do, but we will speak more tomorrow. Today Missus Ash will show you the grounds.”

  “When can I go home?” Eliza asked.

  “Try to think of this as home for a while,” said Kyreth, and her heart sank.

  Missus Ash appeared again and picked up Eliza’s empty tray, the little legs folding up neatly.

  “Come on, lah,” she said. “Let’s get you washed and then have a stroll, shall we?”

  Eliza turned hopefully towards Kyreth once more. “But my da will come? I’ll see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Soon, Eliza.” He gestured for them to leave, and Eliza followed the woman out the door, which rippled and disappeared when they closed it behind them.

  ~ Chapter 3 ~

  After taking Eliza back to her room, where she washed her face and brushed her teeth at the porcelain sink in the corner, Missus Ash led her straight outside onto the grounds. It was a sultry day and the garden was full of birdsong. Eliza could see rows of white-robed Mancers heading for the large domed building at the centre of the grounds.

  “Is that the Inner Sanctum?” she asked Missus Ash, remembering what Kyreth had said.

  Missus Ash nodded her head. “The manipulators of earth live there, and it’s where they all join together to work Great Magic,” she said, with something a little like wonder, or maybe fear, in her voice. “You know what they say about Mancers... It can take them days, or years, or even centuries to work a spell, but once the spell is complete it is nigh unbreakable. Theirs is a slow Magic, but a very strong Magic, aye. Now I spec they’re going to try and find out what caused that siren. If someone besides the Mancers is working Magic here, that can nay mean any good.”

  “Well, it was nay me.”

  “No,” said Missus Ash thoughtfully, looking Eliza straight in the eyes for the first time. Her eyes were brown and kind. “I dinnay imagine it was.”

  “You’re from the archipelago,” said Eliza. “Did you know I’m from Holburg?”

  Missus Ash smiled at her. “Lah, so I heard, lass. I hark from Schon, a long time back.”

  “How did you end up here?” asked Eliza, but Missus Ash didn’t seem to hear her, pointing out a large red bird watching them from the trees, “You watch for those, aye, they’ll pluck at any shiny thing they see, barrettes or rings or what have ye,” as they walked up the slope tow
ards the lake Eliza had seen from the window. Eliza had more pressing matters on her mind, in any case.

  “Do you know anything about the...you know, that one the Mancers imprisoned?” asked Eliza. After Kyreth’s reaction, she didn’t want to say the Xia Sorceress.

  “Only that we’re all better off since the Mancers locked her away,” said Missus Ash rather sharply.

  “Kyreth said she was looking for me,” said Eliza.

  “Lucky for you that the Mancers found you first, then,” said Missus Ash, in a tone that ended the conversation.

  Like all children in the Republic, Eliza had grown up knowing the Xia Sorceress to be the most ruthless and terrible and evil being in the worlds. Nobody knew why she had been banished from Tian Xia half a century ago, but no doubt it was for some unspeakable crime. All manner of wicked beast had followed her to Di Shang to support her in her quest to rule this new world, and even the Scarpathians had thrown in their lot with the otherworldly threat. Ten years after the end of the long war, with Scarpatha occupied and under the stern yoke of the Republic, and the Sorceress imprisoned in the Arctic, still she inspired a deep horror in ordinary people. Wherever Eliza and her father went there were whispered rumors about the Sorceress: that she had died, that she had escaped, that she was amassing an army. Every few months there was an official government announcement to the effect that she was still alive and still imprisoned. Eliza’s entire world had been thrown into confusion, but strangest and most horrifying of all was the fact that this bane of two worlds somehow knew about her, had been looking for her.

  A gravel trail marked out a pleasant walk towards the lake among flowering trees and bushes, but Eliza’s gaze was repeatedly drawn towards a tangled wood at the far corner of the grounds that didn’t allow any light in at all. Black ivy climbed up the tower behind the wood.

  “What’s that place?” she asked Missus Ash, pointing.

  “I dinnay rightly know,” said Missus Ash. “A place for a certain kind of Magic, and a dark Magic, I should think. I dinnay ask too many questions.”

  “So, are you a witch?”

  Eliza’s knowledge of witches was limited, but she knew they sometimes looked like ordinary humans. Stories of witches being discovered in Di Shang, where they did not belong, were not uncommon.

  “Me? Nay, I’ve no power at all. They trust me, is all. I take care of a few things need taking care of, food for human guests and the like. Being a person myself, I know what a person needs to be comfortable.”

  “Dinnay the Mancers eat?” asked Eliza.

  “Lah, but you’re one for questions!” said Missus Ash, amused. “I’ve never seen it, but I dinnay rightly know. Seems to me every kind of being eats something, it’s just the something they eat that differs. Now, I wonder if my Charlie is about somewhere? That boy just disappears sometimes. Nice for him that you’re here now, aye. It’s lonely for a lad, spending his holidays in a place like this.”

  “Who’s Charlie?” asked Eliza, hoping Missus Ash wouldn’t comment on her asking another question.

  “Charlie’s my own boy, aye. Just about your age, he is. The Mancers arranged a very good education for him and I’m grateful to them for that. Best school in the capital. But I think he’s bored in the holidays, hanging about here without his friends. Oh, he spends some time visiting them too, but I like to see a bit of him myself, aye, and I’ve no home but this one. I can nay leave, you see. That was part of the arrangement.”

  “Our school holidays dinnay start for another two weeks,” said Eliza, surprised. “I should be at school today.”

  They came to the lake through a cluster of tall oak trees and crossed a stone bridge to an island in the middle of it. Eliza could see bright fish leaving streams of light behind them in the clear, dark water of the lake as they swam to and fro. A sonorous chanting rose up from the white dome at the centre of the grounds and the fish all disappeared, diving deep into the water.

  “That’s them doing their Magic,” said Missus Ash, with a frown.

  ~

  Missus Ash clammed up when Eliza attempted again to raise the Xia Sorceress as a topic of conversation, but was more than happy to talk at length about the Mancers and the layout of the Citadel. She told Eliza that the south wing, from which they had emerged, housed the offices and guest accommodations, as well as the private chambers of the manipulators of fire.

  “South is their point of the compass,” Missus Ash explained. “And as it’s summer, it’s their ascendancy, as they call it. You can fairly feel ‘em buzzing with power, aye. Now, just about the whole north wing is the Mancer Library – you’ve heard of that, no doubt! And that’s where the manipulators of water have their chambers too. East wing houses the Portrait Gallery and the manipulators of wood; west wing houses the Treasuries and the manipulators of metal.”

  “But where are we?” asked Eliza. “I mean, we’re still in the Republic, nay? Is this Kalla?”

  Missus Ash laughed brightly. “Dinnay rightly know! It moves about, they say, but lah, nobody leaves except the Emissariae. They go off to visit kings and queens and prime ministers and such, and every now and then they bring some important humans here. Nearly cost me my job when my boy Charlie caught some crickets from around the lake and set up a race through the Queen of Boqua’s guestroom.”

  It took them most of the morning to go right around the grounds. Just beyond the Inner Sanctum the Mancers kept pigs and chickens and cows, and this fenced grassy area was no different from well-kept human farms Eliza had seen. West of this there was a broad single-story stone building that Missus Ash said was the forge. It had a large padlock on the door. They skirted anxiously past the dark tangled wood in the northwest corner and took their time circling back towards the south wing, ambling among fragrant orchards and carved marble fountains, flower gardens where roses the size of Eliza’s head hung heavy from their thorny stems, gurgling streams where bright fish shed light behind them, and an aviary in which every kind of bird imaginable clamored together in discordant song. As the Mancers were all busy chanting in the Inner Sanctum, they met no one on their walk. Missus Ash kept up a steady narration, as if she were a tour guide, while at the same time peppering Eliza with questions about her father, her mother, and her life until now. They returned to the south wing and Missus Ash gave Eliza lunch in the large, cluttered kitchen: hot sandwiches, a fruit salad, and a tall glass of frothy milk fresh from the Mancers’ cows. After lunch Missus Ash told Eliza to entertain herself, as she had work to do.

  Eliza was glad to be left to her own devices. Her mind was a tangle of questions, and a slow-burning anger at her father was working its way through her. He had not prepared her for any of this. The way they had moved from place to place, the fact that she had never even met her Sorma relatives, the little he had told her about her mother – all this had new meaning now, and she wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

  Nobody had told her where she could or couldn’t go, so she assumed she was free to wander where she pleased. It would take some time, but she decided to go right around the inside of the Citadel. In particular, she wanted to see what lay on the other side of its walls. In this, she was quickly disappointed. The only windows she found were narrow slits that faced onto the huge rolling grounds. None faced in the other direction. They could be in the middle of a city or on the top of a mountain, for all she knew. The hallways were all alike, vast and doorless, and so exploring them was not terribly exciting. Each window she came across, and they were few and far between, offered the same view of the grounds from a slightly different angle. She was looking out at the Inner Sanctum when a voice next to her said, “Lah, wonder if they found out who done it yet.”

  Eliza nearly leaped out of her skin. Standing right beside her was a boy a few inches taller than she was, with dark, closely cropped hair, long-lashed brown eyes, and a friendly smile. His black eyebrows pointed up a little at the ends. She hadn’t heard him approach but quickly realized who he must be.

 
“Sorry.” He grinned. “Didnay mean to scare you.”

  Embarrassed at having appeared so jumpy, Eliza said a bit gruffly, “I spec you’re Charlie.”

  “And I spec you’re Eliza,” he said. “Ma told me you were exploring. Took me forever to find you.”

  “This place is prize big,” said Eliza, then cringed. What an obvious thing to say!

  “Have you seen the Portrait Gallery?” Charlie asked.

  Eliza shook her head.

  “You’re going in the right direction for it. The Gallery is good if you’re bored. I mean, it’s pretty much the only place to go if you cannay conjure a door. Can you conjure doors?”

  “I dinnay think so,” said Eliza, remembering how the door to Kyreth’s study had appeared and disappeared. “No.”

  “Me neither. There are a lot of places in this wing where you dinnay need to conjure a door, but they’re all just guest rooms and meeting rooms and the grand dining hall – places for human visitors. The only really good place without doors is the Portrait Gallery, aye.”

  It was true, Eliza thought, that her bedroom door had just been there, like an ordinary door in the ordinary world ought to be.

  “Gum?” said Charlie, offering her a stick. She took it and said, “Thanks.”

  He watched her unwrap it and put it in her mouth and begin to chew as if he were expecting her to say something more. She was a bit annoyed at having her solitude disrupted but couldn’t think of any polite way to tell him to go away.

  “It’s good gum,” she said finally.

  “Lah, do you want to look at the Gallery?”

  “Okay,” said Eliza. “I mean, yes.”

  “It’s good if you’re bored,” he said again, jerking his head in the direction they were to go. She cast one more look out the window at the Inner Sanctum. Then she followed Charlie down the hall.