The Summoned Mage (Convergence Book 1)

by Melissa McShane

  Audryn shucked her clothes as she walked toward the back of the room, nodding at a few of the women, and I followed her example. It was uncomfortable, because Balaenic custom is that nudity is really only acceptable in front of people you’re close to, male or female, but I make a habit of following the customs of whatever place I’m in, and the women in the pools seemed disinclined to ogle.

  Audryn’s beautiful, well-proportioned in a way I’m not, and when she loosed her hair from the day’s clip (I still haven’t seen her wear the same one twice, and they’re all exquisite works of the metalsmith’s art) it fell nearly to the small of her back like a chocolate waterfall. I try not to compare myself to other women, because I know I have a tendency to be overly critical of my physical flaws, but it was hard not to wish I had legs like hers.

  The far end of the cave had a fold in it that led on one side to a room with three commodes, all of them with water flowing through them, and on the other side to a room where water poured in a steady flow from a couple of openings in the wall and disappeared down an iron grate. The floor was wet, but too rough to be slippery.

  Audryn took a long-handled dipper with a wide, deep bowl, and an odd-looking sponge, so I did the same. She filled the dipper from one of the streams of water and poured it over herself, then began scrubbing with the sponge. “You drop it in that hole there when you’re finished,” she said, pointing, and went back to washing herself. I held my dipper under the water, then poured it over my shoulders. It was lukewarm, a little warmer than the ocean off Thalessa, but fresh instead of salt, and oh, how good it felt!

  I started scrubbing and discovered the sponge had been treated with some kind of soapy liquid that foamed up wherever I rubbed. It wasn’t a natural sponge, though it looked like one. I don’t know what it was made of. I scrubbed myself pink, then rinsed off and poured more water over my head.

  Audryn handed me a large dollop of a gritty brown soap that smelled like mint and demonstrated how to rub it into my hair. I could have rubbed my scalp with it all day long, it felt so good, but eventually I rinsed my hair—this took a while, I have a lot of hair—and squeezed the extra water out. Then I dropped the sponge into the hole and hung the dipper back on its hook.

  “This is my favorite part,” Audryn said, and we went back into the cave, where Audryn made straight for one of the pools. This one was already occupied, and steam rose off its surface, and as we approached I smelled hot water. There were steps carved into the pool’s side, and Audryn gingerly descended, making a couple of squeaks, then swam to the side of the pool opposite the steps. I followed her.

  The water was hot. Not boiling hot, not truly uncomfortable, just several degrees hotter than body temperature. The pool was too deep for me to touch bottom, so I swam to the side and discovered there was a ledge circling the pool that was just deep enough that when I sat on it, my shoulders were barely above the water. And it felt amazing. I stretched out my legs and every one of my muscles relaxed. I hadn’t realized how tense I was until that moment.

  “Your hair is incredible,” the other woman said. I don’t know how she knew that, given that her eyes were closed and I’d thought she was asleep until she spoke. “I’ve never seen that color before.”

  “I have,” said Audryn. “A lot of Viravonians have hair that color. I don’t suppose you come from there, Thalessi? I mean the corresponding place in your world.”

  “No, I was born near the ocean,” I said. “You all have hair the same color, mostly.”

  “Sarial’s hair is red,” Audryn said, “but mostly we’re all native Castavirans or Helvirites. Though there’s more intermarrying, this last century.”

  “True. My mother’s mother is Endellaviran,” the other woman said. “I’m Sovrin, by the way. I’d salute you, but I think my muscles have melted in sheer joy.”

  That made me laugh. “We don’t have anything like this where I come from,” I said. “The rich houses have plumbing, and large baths, but all the natural hot springs I’ve seen are too hot for bathing.”

  “This isn’t natural, it’s a kathana that does it,” Sovrin said. “And made the wall between the chambers, after creating the pools. The men’s side isn’t as nice as ours.”

  “That seems unfair,” I said.

  “It’s their responsibility to clean it, so it’s their own fault if it’s not as nice,” Audryn said. “I’ve heard they piss in the pools sometimes, but I don’t believe it. That would get disgusting very quickly. There’s a reason we bathe in the kiorka instead of out here. So we don’t have to swim in our own filth.”

  “Fae sneaked in there with Haddan once, after midnight, and she said the men leave their towels lying around for the person on duty to clean up in the morning, when he makes the sponges,” Sovrin said.

  “I thought the sponges looked unnatural,” I said.

  “They are. Though with you coming from near the ocean, I guess you would know,” Sovrin said.

  “Thalessi, you’ll want to wash your clothes, yes?” Audryn said. “Sovrin can lend you something. You’re the same height.”

  I eyed Sovrin’s breasts, which are quite a bit larger than mine, but said, “That would be nice. And I don’t suppose anyone did anything about my jacket?”

  “It’s probably in the laundry somewhere,” Sovrin said. “We can find it, and take your clothes there. Damn, it’s my turn in the laundry tomorrow. I hate the laundry. Always leaves your hands wrinkled, no matter what th’an you use.”

  Audryn slipped off the ledge and swam to the stairs. “Sovrin, stop lazing about and come with us. You know how your group hates it when you show up late.”

  “What are they going to do about it?” Sovrin said, but she climbed out of the pool and I followed them both. We dried off, and I tried to get as much water out of my hair as I could, but I knew from experience it was going to stay wet for a while. I wished I had time for a real swim in the large pool. I think I’ll go back tomorrow morning, after I find a way to keep my hair wrapped around my head so it doesn’t get wet again.

  Sovrin and Audryn both had plain green dressing gowns to wear, but I had to put on my own clothes for the walk back to Sovrin’s room, and I couldn’t believe how filthy they felt now I was clean. I don’t think I’ve ever been this clean in my whole life.

  Sovrin’s room was a surprise. The furniture was all the same as the other bedrooms, just that one narrow bed and the wardrobe and dresser that looked like they’d seen a lot of wear, but Sovrin’s bed was unmade and her gray robe lay crumpled on the floor, and her black trousers were draped over a corner of the dresser. “Yes, Sovrin is a slob,” Audryn said, seeing my expression.

  “No point in making a bed you’re going to get back into later,” Sovrin said. She opened dresser drawers and began pulling out clothes that were definitely not gray robes and black trousers.

  “I’ve never seen you all wear anything but the uniform,” I said.

  Audryn said, “We rarely have the chance to, but sometimes there are rest days, once every two weeks now. It used to be more often, but…our work has more urgency than it used to, and I think we might never stop if Sai Aleynten didn’t insist we take breaks.”

  I have to stop underestimating Sai Aleynten. True, I think he’d push himself past the breaking point if he had to, but I’d assumed he treated his subordinates (is that what they are?) the same way.

  Sovrin came up with a long-sleeved shirt with a wide neck and tossed it at me. “If it fits, you can have it,” she said. “I don’t like how tight it is across the chest, on me, and you’re nice and slender.” Which is a polite way of saying “flat-chested,” but I’m sure she meant it as a compliment.

  She found a few more shirts, then some trousers and even a skirt, which I don’t normally wear because they’re hard to run in and even harder to climb the outside of a building in, even when you don’t care if people can see your underwear. And speaking of underwear, there was a moment of embarrassment for all of us when Sovrin handed me some s
hort pants made of soft unbleached cotton, and said, “I don’t know if…you didn’t seem to…”

  I took them graciously and said, “Yes, I do wear undershorts. I wore through my last pair about two weeks before I came here, and I wasn’t in a position to buy more. So thank you.”

  Sovrin chuckled, and said, “That’s a relief, and I hope you don’t wear breast bands, because I’m damn sure mine won’t fit you.” We all laughed at that. She’s got a very generous figure, but the undershorts are only a little too large. And, not that I’m not grateful, but I can admit in the privacy of this book I hope someday I’ll have clothes that fit again.

  There were a lot of other things we talked about that I forgot to put in before. Like, Sovrin told me more about the construction of the bathing chamber, how the earliest mages built it when they carved out the rest of the Darssan, and how the wall between the sections was erected only eighty years ago, when the trend for separate bathing spread to all levels of society.

  And I learned nobody starts work early in the Darssan. Leisurely breakfasts and chores and bathing all get done before work begins, on the theory that minds will be properly limbered up if they are well awake and aren’t burdened by worry about other responsibilities. Though I would bet hard money, if I had any, that Sai Aleynten is an early riser. I don’t think that’s me being spiteful.

  And somewhere in all of this, I asked them to call me by my praenoma, Sesskia, instead of my placename. I tried to make it sound casual, so it wouldn’t embarrass them to know how much it meant to me, but…I felt comfortable with them in a way I’ve never felt with anyone but my family before. Maybe not friends, yet, but I think they will be, and I wanted to give them something in exchange for how kind they’ve been to me.

  They of course didn’t think anything of it, and wanted to know about placenames, and exchanged glances when I explained that Thalessi Scales refers to my work in the fishery and I’d kept it as camouflage even though I no longer worked in the fishery. I couldn’t exactly call myself Thalessi Mage.

  Then Sovrin went to join her group. She’s group leader, which is why she said her group couldn’t really do anything about her being late, but I think she was exaggerating, because she didn’t waste any time getting dressed. After that, Audryn and I went to her room, where she loaned me a comb and I managed to get it through my tangle of hair, and I admired her collection of hairpins and clips.

  I think it surprised her that I was so knowledgeable about the quality of most of her pieces (none of them are inexpensive, and one or two look old), but I chose not to tell her I’m more a thief than I am a mage, even if I only became a thief to steal books that would teach me magery. No, that’s a lie, I became a thief so Mam and Bridie and I wouldn’t starve to death. Damn it. I swore I wouldn’t think about Bridie again, because I get so furious with Mam

  More fire-summoning pouvra. That painting is all but obliterated now. I’m calm. I’m rational. Time for another list.

  What I did today:

  1. Read a lot of books. At least, read the first pages of a lot of books.

  2. Argued with Sai Aleynten about which books were important. I realize he’s been studying this for a long time, but I’ve been reading ancient tomes for at least as long as he has and I’ve learned to recognize when a writer knows what she is talking about.

  3. Had lunch and bitched to Terrael and Audryn about how unreasonable Sai Aleynten is, which got no sympathy because they think the sun shines out of his ass.

  4. Felt guilty about once again being overly critical of Sai Aleynten, who after all doesn’t know what I’m capable of. As far as he can tell, I’m just a strange mage who knows some tricks he doesn’t and happens to be able to read a language he can’t.

  5. Made peace with Sai Aleynten, who unbent so far as to admit he wasn’t taking my input seriously. We altered our method of study accordingly. He tells me what matters to him, and I read not only the first pages but skim some of the others as well, looking for those things. I also tell him when I find something that would be meaningful to my magic, which isn’t often, but I’ve found at least one book that might give me a new pouvra, and I got to keep that one. Sai Aleynten was excited about that book, though he only shows excitement by becoming still and expressionless.

  5a. I really wonder, now, what made Sai Aleynten the way he is. I would have sworn he was indifferent to practically everything, but the more I interact with him, the more I realize he’s just so self-contained it’s a wonder he doesn’t erupt. He gets sarcastic instead. Good thing he doesn’t turn that on me, because I would shout at him, since I don’t share the respect the other mages have for him.

  And that’s not entirely true, either. True, yes, in the sense that I don’t venerate him—and I don’t mean that slightingly, it’s just that I know the mages respect his person and not only his role—but I’m beginning to see how good he is at what he does. He’s quick to grasp the implications of what I’m reading, and I know he’s already memorized the new configuration of the library, and of course he can write th’an on air.

  Which reminds me I still haven’t seen a real kathana. I keep forgetting to ask someone when that will happen, there’s always so much else going on. Besides, Terrael is almost totally occupied with translating the Eddon book. Audryn had to drag him to the refectory (this is what they call the eating room) so he’d leave the book behind, because of course you wouldn’t eat while you were touching it. Audryn is in Terrael’s working group, by which I mean Terrael is the leader, and I think one of her jobs is keeping him either focused on a problem instead of flitting about, or not focused on a problem to the point of forgetting to eat or, and I sympathize with this, bathe.

  When I wasn’t bitching about Sai Aleynten, I had all sorts of questions about the Eddon book. I stayed up far too late reading it, but aside from not wanting to give it to Terrael without finishing it, it fascinated me.

  The short version: Eddon was a king of Castavir in the dark time after the disaster. The royal family still existed, but people were so busy scrounging for a living they didn’t have time for kings. Eddon had a vision—Okay. This is the part I didn’t understand. Eddon had a vision where he learned he was God and he had a duty to make Castavir the greatest nation in the world. So he used his personal resources and what was left of the kingdom’s treasury to build an army and levy taxes.

  Then he used the taxes to build up the kingdom’s infrastructure, improve its economy and so forth, and by the time he died Castavir was the region’s economic powerhouse. Interesting, because in my world most rulers would interpret “greatest nation” to mean “the one with the biggest army.” So whatever else Eddon was, he was practical. And he taught his heirs they would become God, or at least God’s avatar on earth, as long as they were worthy to hold the throne.

  Well, I suppose most of that makes sense. What didn’t make sense was I couldn’t tell if the author of the book believed in Eddon’s godhood or not. So that was what I asked Terrael and Audryn.

  And they became really quiet and furtive, and Terrael started on this long and complicated explanation I couldn’t understand, until Audryn shushed him and said, “As far as anyone is concerned, as far as people will say, the God-Empress Renatha is God on earth. She certainly believes it. Whether that means she’s actually God is more complicated. But no one would ever come out and deny her status.”

  And she gave me a very meaning look that I understood perfectly. It said, She’s not God, but who knows what she might do to someone who doubted that?

  So now I know more about the ruler of the Castaviran Empire, but it only raises more questions. Like: Is her rule benevolent or despotic? How far is she willing to go to enforce her dicta? Is she as unstable as Audryn hinted at? How much power does she actually have, versus the power of the individual countries’ rulers? I’ve traveled in countries where the rule of law was overtaken by martial law, and it’s not pretty. I’m happy it’s unlikely I’ll ever be in a position to care about what God
-Empress Renatha does.

  More I learned from the book: Another thing Eddon did was make Castavir welcoming to mages, who were hated and feared because of their role in the disaster. The book says they were blamed for things they hadn’t actually done, which suggests the author was fairly sympathetic to mages himself. And of course I already knew about Audryn’s namesake founding the Darssan.

  Then there was the growth of the Empire. During Eddon’s time, Castavir absorbed a couple of smaller countries, but peacefully—they saw the benefits of being part of the Castaviran economy. Castavir conquered Helviran a century later, when one of Eddon’s successors realized not having a seaport (Castavir is land-locked) was hurting them, and since Helviran had a history of killing off its mages, Castavir and its battle mages conquered them readily.

  That was where the book ended, so I asked Terrael and Audryn what happened next. They told me there was a Castaviran Empress, much later, who wanted to conquer the whole world, and she managed to triple the Empire’s size before her death. Her successors weren’t so talented, and the Empire shrank back to almost its original size, with the addition of Endellavir and Viravon. That was about a hundred years ago. Endellavir assimilated into the Empire well, though it has a strong cultural tradition and all these holidays specific to Endellaviran history, but Viravon is this tiny, scrappy little place whose people still resent being annexed, and there are rebels there who fight the Empress and whom the army hasn’t been able to suppress. I think I like the Viravonians.