The Fire Mages

by Pauline M. Ross

  The servant left us, and we walked slowly down the room, and then into another, up some stairs into a third and then a fourth room – the same types of displays, different eras of history – and Drei pointed out the most interesting objects, letting me read out the description attached to each one, and then correcting it. As we walked, we gradually passed further back in time. The era of the Drashon first, then the time of the One King, and then the Three Princes who first founded Bennamore somewhat to the north. Before that the land was the home of barbarians and savages, no better than animals. That was the beginning of history, as far as I knew.

  But we had not exhausted the final room. “ ‘The Catastrophe and the Changing of the World’, ” I read. “What catastrophe? And how could the world change?”

  Drei spun round, looking at me quizzically. “Are you joking? Oh, you’re not! You really are the most uneducated child. Did your tutors teach you nothing?”

  “I had the best education a village teaching room could provide,” I said defensively. I was beginning to realise just how limited a teacher my mother had been.

  “I’ll get you some books,” he said. “You really must learn. The Catastrophe was a long time ago, and to be honest no one truly knows what happened, or even if anything happened at all. Maybe it’s all myth. But the story is that there was some disaster which was only narrowly averted.”

  “And how did it change the world?”

  He was silent for a long time. “Actually, I don’t know the answer to that. But perhaps when we get into the Imperial Library, we’ll find out. They do say that it predates the Catastrophe.”

  “It must be pretty old, then.”

  He laughed very hard at that. “Old. Yes, you could say that. It is a bit old.” More laughter. His mood shifted abruptly. “Come on, I’m hungry. Let’s go and eat.”

  We ate noon board at a crowded board house, hot and pungent, near one of the Keep’s eight gates. After that, he took me out into the town to buy clothes. There were shops and tailors enough within the walls of the Keep, but when I asked why we didn’t buy there, his face darkened. “They overcharge, and they’ll treat us like scum.”

  “But you’re Bai-Kellonor!”

  “I am one Bai-Kellonor from one of the Kell-Durshalons. A very small fish in this pool, but I will not be treated as if I’m nobody, certainly not by tailors and shopkeepers!”

  As we passed under the archway with its metal gates standing open, he suddenly pulled me to one side. “Here! Touch it, tell me what you think.”

  He took my hand and placed it flat on the red stone of the wall beside one of the massive hinges. At once I was aware of it, some trace of magic. I wasn’t drawn to it, as I was to the pillar of energy in the renewals room. It wasn’t even the glowing hint of power in an enhanced quill. It was a more passive form of energy, sleeping perhaps, waiting for something to waken it.

  Drei was practically bouncing with excitement. “You can feel it, can’t you? It’s spelled, of course. If it gets damaged – if any part of the Keep is damaged – it will repair itself. Then there’s the hot water, it just appears in the water pipes, no one knows how.”

  “No smoke! That’s why there’s no smoke here. I thought there was something odd about it.”

  “Yes, no need to burn wood. The hot water is pumped all over the town, and keeps everyone warm.”

  “And clean, I daresay.” I thought of the hours I’d spent in the scribery laundry shifting wood by the cart-load to keep the cauldrons boiling. How much easier with hot water always available. “So the whole Keep is spelled? That must keep the mages busy.”

  He laughed. “This building predates any of our feeble mages.”

  The town of Kingswell, or the part of it I saw that sun, was a clean, respectable place, with wide paved streets, stone buildings several storeys tall and a bustle of well-dressed residents in well-made, colourful clothes.

  We didn’t go far from the Keep, just a little way down the street leading away from the gate, then a short distance along a side road to the premises of a prosperous looking tailor. She was expecting us, and had a table in a private room already laid out with an array of exquisite silks for my azai, and some soft velvets for what Drei described as informal wear, although to me they seemed too sumptuous for that.

  I was expertly measured and, after much discussion of fashions and styles between Drei and the tailor, orders given for a number of outfits. I took no part in this. Drei seemed to know exactly what he wanted me to wear, and talked knowledgeably about the fabrics, the cut required and even such matters as undergarments. The tailor and her staff were suitably deferential, and Drei seemed to mellow in the respectful attention. I was glad to escape much notice.

  The second shop we visited was very different. Several twists and turns brought us to a market square, hot and noisy, populated by what I took to be respectable merchants and craftsfolk and the like, dressed in simpler versions of some of the fashions I’d seen on the main street. The wooden stalls sold a variety of small items, and Drei purchased soft felt hats for each of us, and the sort of plain wool scarves worn by almost every one I could see.

  “What are these for?” I whispered, as the stall-holder was wrapping the items. “We already have plenty of scarves.”

  “Disguise.” He grinned mischievously. “You’ll see.”

  We walked back to the Keep by a different route. I had our parcels from the market under one arm, and Drei was holding my other hand. A turn brought us to a wide square fringed with imposingly colonnaded buildings, and the open space gave us an unrestricted view of the Keep to our right, and ahead of us Candle Mountain and the golden splendour that was the Imperial City. It nestled between two craggy arms of the mountain, so that it was protected on three sides. The fourth side facing us was a curving wall rising higher than the Keep, without a single window or door to be seen.

  And it glowed. I’d heard of the effect, but I’d always assumed it was just a trick of the light, or a quirk of the rock it was built from, but no, it really glowed.

  Even though we were some distance away, I could feel the power emanating from it. I was astonished I hadn’t noticed it earlier.

  “The Imperial City is a very strange place,” Drei said when I told him. “They call it the Shining Wall, you know. No doors, and impossible to climb. You can’t even rest a ladder against it. I’m not sure it was built by human hands.”

  “Then who...?”

  “Magic, what else?” His eyes gleamed.

  ~~~~~

  For evening board, Drei took me to a common room within our own tower.

  “Our own Durshalona lives here for part of the year,” he told me, looking around eagerly, “and a couple of my father’s cousins are permanently posted here as his representatives, so we’ll see a few people we know.”

  “No one I know,” I muttered, but he didn’t hear. That night we didn’t see anyone he knew, either.

  After we’d eaten, he whisked me back to our apartment, and selected some clothes from my box – a well-worn tunic and trousers, the cloak I’d had since I was twelve and the new hat and scarf from the market. “Here – put these on. We are going to disguise ourselves as servants.”

  Drei’s version of servant attire was far more stylish and unpatched than mine, but we looked suitably anonymous. Once we had left the tower and were mingling with the crowds thronging the walkways, we blended in rather well with the servants and junior administrators and off-duty guards enjoying the evening. The Keep’s shops were closed, but the board houses were doing good business and plenty of taprooms were open. Drei ambled about for a while, occasionally peering through a doorway, before selecting a taproom that was quite full but not yet rowdy. We went in, found seats against one wall and ordered ale.

  I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking what he was up to. Maybe he just liked pretending to be ordinary, or perhaps his love of gossip drove him to sit in common taprooms, who knows. He would tell me what it was about in
his own good time. Or not, as he chose. I’d long accepted the eccentricities of the nobility, and Drei was more eccentric than most.

  I had to admit that the disguise was very effective. We attracted no attention whatsoever. Drei had left off his rings, and the hat and scarf covered our earrings, so there was no indication of our rank. I no longer wore my scribe’s necklace – there was little point, now that my precious gold chains had been replaced with plain silver. Drei’s dark hair was hidden, too, and in the shadows he looked far less exotic than usual.

  He sipped his ale, then set the tankard back on the table. “Now,” he said quietly, “tell me every time you see the blue light.”

  Ah, so that was it. For an hour or more, I reported every occurrence I saw, together with the degree of blueness, in a whisper that wouldn’t attract any notice from the other patrons, and we tried to work out what it might signify. Just once, Drei saw it too, a particularly spectacular vivid blue that almost hurt my eyes. He was quite excited to find he had something of the same capability, and insisted on holding my hand, which served to enhance it a little, so that he could see the blue flare more often. But despite our efforts, we were no nearer working out the significance of it, if any.

  I suppose it should have struck me how odd all this was, but I never thought about it. My life had ended when I lost my licence to scribe spellpages. I was grateful to Drei for rescuing me from the ignominious consequences, so I was quite happy to do whatever he asked, even to pretend to be a low-status servant. Some people would have been ecstatic to be the drusse to a Bai-Kellonor, and I was human enough to enjoy the fine clothes and exotic foods and the leisure afforded by the provision of servants. Still, I would have been much happier to be back at the scribery. All of this felt like a long, rather strange, dream, and some corner of my mind still hoped that one sun I would wake up and everything would be as it was.

  Two suns later my beautiful new clothes arrived, and two suns after that I got my first opportunity to wear them. The Drashon held a court assembly every ten-sun, two or three hours of formal representations and petitions, followed by several more hours of eating, drinking, mingling and political gossiping.

  Drei was excited at the prospect of so much court intrigue gathered in one place. Although he had visited Kingswell before, he had never been involved with the court. I was nervous. This was not a role I had ever trained or planned for, and although our court protocol was not as rigid as in some other countries, nevertheless I didn’t want to make an embarrassing mistake.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Drei said airily. “You don’t have to say anything, just bow at the proper time. Walk a little behind me and follow my lead. There, you look very well in that. Turn round. Yes, it suits you.”

  I thought so too. The azai was composed of floaty silk trousers with a long silk coat on top, fitted close around chest and waist, then flaring into loose panels round the legs. There were delicate embroidered slippers to match, and several transparent silk scarves in toning colours which two servants expertly intertwined and wrapped around my head so that the loose ends frothed down my back. The pale sage colour looked surprisingly good with my red hair. It made me feel very feminine, and I actually blushed at Drei’s compliment. He looked good, too, in a stiff brocade coat over silk trousers, with a small matching hat, and calfskin sandals.

  Because of the size of the Keep, there was a wide corridor on the second floor connecting all the towers. Broad-shouldered men carried the nobility from tower to tower in velvet-padded chairs fitted with lifting handles. I felt very grand being carted about, and glad that I didn’t have to walk far in the impractical slippers.

  We sat in an ante-chamber before we were called into the assembly room, along with several others of noble rank also waiting to be presented formally to the court. One rather imposing elderly lady with a retinue of fluttering minions was summoned first, then it was our turn. We followed a servant in gold-encrusted livery through an archway of carved marble, and into a vast echoing hall lined with marble columns alternating with painted statues. On either side I had an impression of many people in clothes of every colour under the sky, and a low murmuring everywhere. The servant led us between the columns to where the Drashon and his currently favoured drusse sat in marble chairs many times too large for them. Our names were given – this took some time, given all Drei’s honorifics – the servant stepped aside and we made our obeisances to the thrones, once for him and then again for the drusse.

  The Drashon inclined his head regally, and said a few words – “Welcome to my court” or something equally bland. There was some back and forth of greetings – respectful good wishes conveyed from the Kellon to the Drashon, similar good wishes expressed by the Drashon to the Kellon and so on. It was very dull.

  The Drashon barely looked at me. He could hardly have forgotten our last meeting, but whatever he thought of my new situation he gave no indication. The drusse was a middle-aged woman with quite a noticeable moustache in a very stiff brocade gown which had so much fabric that it almost covered her chair. She stared at me with a supercilious air before losing interest.

  Drei made a very pretty speech explaining that Bellastria wished to solicit potential suitors. He rather cleverly described his sister in flattering terms as a strong-minded and intelligent lady, perfectly capable of becoming Kellona in time, while subtly making it clear that the right husband would be more than a mere consort. I could see that it might be an appealing option for, perhaps, a son not favoured as heir in his own family, who might enjoy taking on the more active duties of ruling a Kell. The Drashon made a little speech of his own wishing him well with the project, we bowed again and withdrew to the side of the room.

  “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Drei murmured into my ear.

  We stood and watched as a succession of other nobles or visiting dignitaries were formally introduced, after which various people came forward to present petitions for the favour of the Drashon. Some of these were noble, but some were wealthy commoners, all got up in their very best finery for the occasion, requesting tax exemptions or the right to establish a mill or a build a warehouse or extend an inn or, in one case, asking for a mage to help with a rat problem in the sewers. One man had been found guilty in law of actions designed to damage a rival business and was protesting the penalty. Another man complained that his apprentice had stolen a secret cake recipe and set up his own business, and wanted something done about it. Sometimes the Drashon would make an instant decision and that was the end of the matter, but more often it would be set aside for further discussion in private. It was just like the Kellon’s assemblies, only on a grander scale.

  As this was going on, people moved about, held whispered conversations or even left altogether, while others arrived to take their place. Drei ambled about until he found a spot where he could watch both the petitioners and the Drashon, and hear what was said. There he stopped, and took my hand. “Squeeze if you see any blue,” he murmured into my ear.

  We stood for some time, until my legs were aching, and my feet numb, but there was no blue. Occasionally I would glimpse a flare in some other part of the room, but nothing right in front of us.

  Eventually, there were no more petitions to be heard, or perhaps the Drashon ran out of patience, who knows. He certainly became more abrupt as the hours wore away. He rose from his chair, and an invisible minion sounded a gong. Everyone still left in the assembly hall strolled through an archway into a series of smaller rooms, each laid out with an array of food and drink. Every table carried a different type: pressed fruit juices, tiny pastries with some kind of meat, little cakes, smoked fish, an array of eggs. I had never imagined there were so many different ways to cook eggs. There was wine, too, and ale and spirits in abundance. This, Drei told me, was where the real business of the assembly took place, in the seemingly casual meetings at the cheese table or while pouring a glass of wine. There were no servants unless called in to mop up a spill or replenish the tabl
es, so the nobles could mingle freely and talk in relative privacy. At least, as much privacy as the crowded rooms afforded.

  There were chairs provided, but every time I tried to sit down to rest my aching feet Drei would say, “Oh look, the Dusha-Bai-Durshalonor of Grensorna, I must talk to her,” or “It’s the Most Holy Regent’s envoy, I’ll just have a word.” It was tedious, to say the least. I’d never managed to memorise all the stupid titles, and the foreign ones were even worse. If this was what it meant to be a noble, I could live without it.

  It was the Regent’s envoy who gave us the final clue about the blue lights. He meandered his way across the pastries room, smiling benignly at those he passed, trailing a cloud of deferential subordinates, to introduce us to his wife and son. They were from the desert, so they wore the colourful draped outfit of their people – I don’t even know what to call it, but it was just a long length of fabric artfully arranged so that it flowed and fluttered as they moved. They were darker skinned than Drei, but they seemed glad to see him, as if they felt he was in some way one of them. I’d never thought to wonder where his mother came from, but with his dark hair and eyes he could easily pass for one of their kind.