The Summoned Mage (Convergence Book 1)

by Melissa McShane

  The possibility of me learning to use pouvrin to manifest th’an is looking less likely every day. Cederic told us to focus our efforts on creating th’an that are based on the structures of pouvrin. I feel useless. Our discussion on the topic went nowhere, and I think some of the other mages were laughing at us, which made me feel worse. I don’t know why I can’t explain things better. This kathana is going to fail, and it will be my fault.

  8 Coloine, very early

  I was right to be suspicious of Vorantor, though I still don’t know exactly what he’s up to. I’ve decided to write all this down before taking it to Cederic, since there’s nothing he can do about it now, but there were things that happened before I found Vorantor in what I’m sure are illicit activities, so I have to make a quick list before I forget the details:

  1. snake, arch, fork

  2. pictures (he’s a good artist, maybe that’s something all mages in this world learn)

  3. why did he spit?

  4. rhythm tap tap taptaptap thump

  Before that: last night Cederic finally came to bed before I fell asleep, and though we were both too tired for sex, we cuddled together and I poured out my fears to him. I love how he listens like what you’re saying is the most important thing in the world.

  When I was finished, he wiped away the few stupid, self-indulgent tears I’d cried and said, “It doesn’t matter if our mages succeed. The kathana Denril has invented has no room for your magic, and it is bound to fail.”

  “So why aren’t you doing something about it?” I said, sitting up in outrage.

  He pulled me back down to lie close beside him. “Because he is not listening to me,” he said, “and there is a smugness about him that I do not understand. I may have the allegiance of the mages, but Denril still has control of the kathana, and he is relying far too heavily on the th’an Master Peressten extrapolated. He is clearly building the kathana to his glory without regard for whether or not it will work.”

  “I don’t understand how he can do that!” I said. “He’ll suffer as much as anyone if we can’t bring the worlds together safely.”

  “I think he intends to make the failure look like my fault, to make me look like a fool, and then he will reveal another kathana, this one effective. This is my fault. I should not have humiliated him so thoroughly,” Cederic said.

  “If you hadn’t, he would have found another way to strike at you,” I said.

  “Probably true,” he said. “At any rate, I have asked Master Peressten to observe him; he can get closer to Denril than I. And I am studying the false kathana when Denril is not present, to see if there is any way to salvage it. If we make corrections…and don’t worry that your efforts don’t seem to be successful. Just keep working at what you’ve been doing. If it doesn’t affect the kathana, it will almost certainly matter after the worlds come back together.”

  He kissed me, then said, “I apologize, but I have to leave you now. I have very little opportunity to study the kathana without Denril hovering behind me.”

  “But—” I began, then realized I was being selfish. “I understand,” I said. “Just as you will understand I intend to go exploring now.”

  His face went impassive in the way it does when he’s trying to control a strong emotion, then he said, “Where do you intend to go?”

  “Somewhere you’re happier not knowing about,” I said, then, when he began to protest, I said, “I’m going to snoop around in Vorantor’s room. If he’s trying to get you out of the way, I want to know about it.”

  “You are correct, I was happier not knowing that,” Cederic said. “Though I was afraid you were going back to examine those war wagons again. I admit to being curious about them myself, though I think it is less safe for you to pass those guards than any of the other places you have gone wandering.”

  “I agree, and I’m not going there tonight,” I said.

  “Which implies you will do so some other night,” Cederic said.

  “I knew you were brilliant,” I said, and he laughed and held me tight for a moment, then released me to rise and dress. I did the same, then concealed myself and watched him move silently down the hall to the stairs before going, equally silently, to Vorantor’s door. No light came from beneath it, so I sneaked to the end of the hall and checked the observatory.

  Sure enough, Vorantor was there, sitting where he always did. It was too dark for me to make out any details, so I don’t know if he had a note or not, but that wasn’t important. I crept back to his room and passed through the wall, then used the see-in-dark pouvra and took a look around.

  Vorantor—this wasn’t new, I’d learned it the last time I’d been in his room—is neat and has almost no personal belongings aside from his clothing. I went through his wardrobe and found several ceremonial robes of different levels of splendor, though I’m sure I’d have been more impressed with them if I could have seen colors.

  He also had a lot of shoes; I think he could wear a different pair of shoes every day for a week. He uses only one drawer of his dresser, for underclothing, and I poked through that in case he was a fool and kept important things there. Nothing.

  There were no rugs on his floor, which is one of the places I look first when I’m searching for hidden documents. The lack of rugs almost got me caught, later, and I still wonder why Vorantor doesn’t have such basic amenities. Though I suppose, based on what I witnessed in his room, he might have had them removed on purpose.

  I checked under his pillows (he has more than I do), between his mattresses and in the frame of the bed, felt along the top of the canopy frame, and found nothing. Since I didn’t know what I was looking for, I wasn’t terribly disappointed. I slipped behind his bed, which had been shoved nearly all the way against the wall into a corner (that made no sense at the time, but I get it now), and checked underneath it and along the wall.

  There was a niche very like the one in my room, the one that’s practically an invitation to hide things, and I was about to feel around inside it, just to be thorough, when the door opened and Vorantor came in. I closed my eyes in time to avoid being blinded by his lamp. I was crouched behind the bed, so between that and the concealment pouvra I wasn’t worried about him seeing me, but I went still anyway until the effects of the see-in-dark pouvra wore off.

  When I opened my eyes again, he was removing his gold and brown “working” robe; fortunately for my peace of mind, he wore a sleeveless tunic under it, because what I do not need to see again is Vorantor’s very pale skin and bony back. Just one more reason for him to be jealous of Cederic, who is wonderfully handsome.

  I closed my eyes again, in case he was undressing for the night, but I heard him taking things out of his wardrobe, so I opened my eyes again and saw him pulling a richly embroidered red robe around himself, and despite my well-trained self-control I nearly made an indignant noise, because he is not entitled to the robe of a Kilios! I don’t even know how he got one!

  I managed to stay quiet despite my outrage. Vorantor dressed himself with great care, unfastened his hair and brushed it and secured it again with a wide gold band. Then he knelt on the floor, took out a piece of black charcoal or chalk, and began drawing. I couldn’t see a thing with the bed in the way, so I carefully slid out from that narrow space and moved to stand behind him. It was insane, I know, but I had to know what he was doing.

  This is what it looked like: He drew a circle—the mages are all good at drawing nearly perfect circles—and then a much smaller circle inside it, centered on it. (I’m having to check my list from the beginning of this entry, because I’m already forgetting things. I feel very smart for having made it.)

  In the space between the circles, he drew th’an, some of which I recognized from the Codex Tiurindi summoning, others which were unfamiliar to me. Inside the small circle, he drew a tiny picture, and he is an excellent artist, because it was obviously a war wagon.

  Then he sat back on his heels, breathing hard as if he’d been running, th
en with his left hand began tapping out a rhythm, tap tap taptaptap THUMP, over and over again. He did it for long enough I almost started tapping myself. Then, at the top of the pattern, he leaned over and with his right hand began making new th’an, following the beat.

  I didn’t know these th’an, but they looked so much like real things it was easy to remember them: one like a snake, or an S with two extra curves, one like an arch that curled outward at the ends, and one like a Castaviran fork, with four tines. He drew these in several places around the outside of the circle, and then totally surprised me by spitting a great gob of saliva at the war wagon at the center of it all.

  All the chalk lines went from matte black to shining gold, as if inlaid with metal, and the spaces inside the circle that didn’t have lines drawn on them glowed with white light, not bright or painful, just a soft white glow.

  And then I did something stupid. I inadvertently took a step back because the glow caught me off-guard, and I wasn’t as balanced as I thought. My boot scraped across the bare floor (no rug!) and made a small but distinct sound. Vorantor’s head whipped up and around, and he stood up and scanned the room, his eyes slowly passing over the walls and the floors.

  I closed my eyes, which was terrifying, but I had a feeling if our eyes met, the concealment pouvra wouldn’t protect me. So I had to stand there, motionless, blind, waiting for him to grab me and unable to do anything about it.

  Nothing happened. Finally Vorantor took a few steps in the direction of the window, and I opened my eyes and tried not to breathe loudly. The chalk marks on the floor, and the light, were gone as if they’d never been. Vorantor had the curtains open and was looking out at Colosse (my room is on the other side and looks over the palace roofs).

  I dared take a silent step backward; he didn’t react. Slowly, one cautious step at a time, I moved toward the door—and then I stopped. I should have left, but I wanted to know if he kept anything in that niche behind the bed. So I leaned against the wall next to the door and waited. Eventually he got undressed (I kept my eyes closed for this too) and I waited for him to finish reading, then he turned off the light and settled in for the night.

  I waited a while longer until his breathing slowed. I hoped he’d start snoring, but unfortunately that’s one annoying trait he doesn’t have. So I did the see-in-dark pouvra again, crept up to his bed, slid between it and the wall, then crouched low and felt along the base of the wall, wishing there were enough room for me to wiggle under the bed. Instead I knelt there with my face pressed against the cold wall, telling myself I was being stupid and there was nothing to find, and then my fingers reached the crack and I reached inside.

  Something moved beneath my hand and made a rustling sound that in the dark seemed louder than an explosion. Vorantor shifted his weight, and I held my breath, but he didn’t wake. The wall niche seemed full of dry leaves, or small papers—I teased one out and brought it to where I could look at it. Meaningless writing, but I was certain it was one of the notes Aselfos had sent Vorantor.

  And now I had a dilemma. I really wanted to know what was in those notes, but I was equally desirous Vorantor not know someone had been snooping in his room. There was a chance he’d notice if one of them were missing. I crouched there with the note in my hand, weighing the possibilities.

  Then I tucked the note inside the waistband of my trousers and retraced my slow, silent steps. Vorantor hadn’t checked the niche when he came in, which means he likely only looks inside when he puts a new note there. I can show the note to Cederic, then return it during the day tomorrow when Vorantor is at the circle chamber, before evening when he might receive a new one.

  That’s my plan, anyway. I’ve been waiting for Cederic for nearly an hour now and I have no idea when he’ll return. He can’t go forever without sleep, though he doesn’t seem to need as much of it as normal, sane people do, so eventually he’ll have to come back, and then he can read the note and we can decide what, if anything, we should do about it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  8 Coloine, evening

  I had nodded off when Cederic returned and prodded me awake, telling me I shouldn’t sleep in my clothes. The note was crumpled in my hand—I had to smooth it as best I could before returning it—and I told him what I’d seen and what I’d found, leaving out the part where Vorantor nearly caught me.

  Cederic was very interested in the kathana I’d witnessed and asked me a lot of questions about it. I was surprised at how much of it I remembered, and I was able to draw the th’an Vorantor had used at the end.

  “It was a transference kathana,” Cederic finally said, “to move things from one location to another. The spit…it is a way to allow one person to perform a kathana that would normally take two or three mages. It is easy, but we try to train ourselves out of using it, not only because it is disgusting but because it often prevents a mage from moving further in his or her training. Denril was likely moving those war wagons. It might explain why there was no other exit from that chamber.”

  “But he couldn’t have been doing it officially,” I said, “or he would have used the circle chamber, and asked for help. So he was doing it for Aselfos.”

  “That is far too much speculation,” Cederic said.

  I thrust the note at him. “Maybe this will confirm it,” I said.

  Cederic read it quickly. “It is a list of items, most of them martial in nature,” he said, “and a few that are unfamiliar to me.”

  “I bet one of those is whatever the war wagons are actually called,” I said.

  “Possible,” Cederic said. He gave the note back to me. “But not proof, unfortunately. It is unsigned and Denril’s name is not on it.”

  “I could bring all the notes here,” I said. Cederic shook his head.

  “That is unnecessary,” he said, “and I don’t say that because I dislike you risking yourself, because you could certainly do it tomorrow—later today, I suppose—when Denril is gone. This may not be proof good enough to accuse Denril of collusion in whatever plot Aselfos is behind, but it is enough to convince me of his involvement. But, as I believe I told you before, we still don’t know enough to do anything but confuse things. And an attempted coup by Aselfos is not necessarily a bad thing.”

  “What I’m worried about is that Vorantor is planning something to hurt you,” I said, “and I don’t like not knowing what it is.”

  “This does not seem related,” Cederic said, “and if you were not able to find anything indicating what Denril might have in mind, it is likely there isn’t anything to be found. I believe it is nothing more sinister than trying to take all the credit for the melding kathana, and it doesn’t matter to me who gets the credit for that.”

  “You said you thought he would try to make it fail and look like your fault,” I said.

  “Which cannot hurt me, since those whose opinions I care for will know the truth,” he said, and brushed my hair gently away from my face. “What matters is that the kathana works, and we will deal with whatever else happens afterward.”

  “All right,” I said, “but I’m going to keep an eye on him anyway.”

  “You and Master Peressten can protect me,” he said with a smile, “and I will do my best to allow myself to be protected. Now, let’s sleep, and make what we can of what’s left of this night.” And that’s what we did. We probably won’t be making love tonight either. Damn Vorantor anyway.

  The day was just like yesterday. More Vorantor planning his kathana and keeping Cederic out, more of us (meaning the Darssan mages and me) failing to get our magics to combine. I didn’t tell anyone what Cederic said about our efforts possibly being useless, which would have been cruel.

  I ran back after lunch to put the message back in its niche, then went to the observatory to see if Aselfos had left a new note. He had. I wish I could read. Terrael would teach me if any of us had time. If the world doesn’t end, that’s the next thing I’m doing.

  9 Coloine

  BREAKTHROUG
H!!!

  I’ve been going back and forth from elation to feeling like a complete idiot, trying to tell myself there was no way I could have known this, when really it’s that with one thing and another I forgot about the collenna. Well, no wonder, when all I could see for days was the master’s neck snapping. And I know I told Cederic, but I can’t have made it make sense or he would have seen it. Probably.

  Oh, I’m so excited—everyone is, even though we don’t know what use it will be—but I’m having trouble keeping my thoughts from flitting all over the place like a pod of baby dolphins, so:

  1. Pouvrin and th’an ARE related.

  2. We may be able to combine a pouvra with the merging kathana.

  3. Creating new pouvrin is now more likely.

  4. Using pouvrin in the merging kathana is unlikely no matter how successful we are, thanks to stupid Vorantor and his pride.

  It was a dream I had last night that did it. I was touring Colosse with Cederic, and we were both in our underclothes (no mystery about that; it had been six days since we made love), and Terrael was driving the God-Empress’s rose-colored collenna. Only instead of painting the th’an in the grooves of the brass plate, he was drawing them in mid-air, making it three-dimensional instead of flat.

  And I saw it.

  The reason it felt familiar is that it’s the mind-moving pouvra! Missing pieces, and flat instead of multidimensional, but once I saw it in the dream it all fell into place.

  I wrenched myself out of the dream and startled Cederic awake, and then I started babbling until he hushed me (that still works on me, and I hope it doesn’t become a problem for us later) and made me explain everything more slowly. He went very still, of course, as I explained, then when I’d wound down he said, “But you never recognized th’an before.”

  “No, it all makes sense now,” I said. Honestly, I thought I might leap out of the bed, I was so excited. “I’ve been looking at individual th’an, or maybe two or three combined, and that’s like…like recognizing a person by being shown their heel and big toe. Pouvrin are far more complicated than that, have many more parts—many more th’an, is another way of looking at it. So on the lowest level, there’s the single th’an you use to lift things—not to disparage your ability—”