The Golden Key

by Melanie Rawn

  Then she brightened. When Lissina died and the family inherited Dregez, she would suggest that the charities and this annual reception go with the title and lands. A tribute to dear Lissina, beloved of all. Pleased with herself, it was easy to charm and chat—even when she caught sight of Leilias Grijalva in the crowd. Their gazes met; Leilias was the first to look away.

  As the sun slowly set, Meya Suerta began its revels. Torches would be lighted at the first sight of the evening star. Every business and residential block would have its own little fiery parade. The Cathedral Imagos Brilliantos would be circled by the sanctas and sanctos, Palasso Verrada by the family with the Premia Sancta and Premio Sancto, and Palasso Grijalva by everyone able to walk. After this would come a gigantic procession to the fields outside the city, where a bull, a stallion, and a ram would be driven between twin bonfires to represent every animal in Tira Virte. Music, dancing, and drinking would follow until the dawn.

  All of which meant that Tazia could enter Palasso Grijalva, meet her son as planned, and afterward sneak away to meet Arrigo on the hillside, all unobserved.

  Rafeyo took the Corasson painting from behind the door and set it on his easel. For a long while he simply gazed at it, a half-smile tugging his lips.

  He had finished the last lines of the lingua oscurra only two hours ago; the prick on his thumb was a sweetly stinging reminder of that final effort of magic. With the words, the seal had been set on the painting even though the paint was not yet dry; they would be feeling it at Corasson by now!

  Eiha, they were all outside, ever since sunset, lighting torches for the celebrations and sanctifications. Only those within the house would feel anything.

  But not for long. Tonight. He would not wait another year for the stars to come back to the position shown in the painting. Who knew but that Mechella would add a seedling tree north of the house, or alter the flowers bordering the drive, or change the wooden trim to yellow instead of green. No, it must be tonight.

  It had been laughably easy. Tell the Fratos he was spending a few nights at his mother’s caza; tell them he’d taken a commission for a Birth or Will from someone living outside the city; tell them anything, and they believed him. Even Mechella’s stupid orphans had been useful; he’d said that a picture he’d done had been damaged, and he must ride to the remote Casteyan village to do it up right again.

  There were no nights at his mother’s, no commissions, no trips to Casteya. But he knew the road to Corasson as well as he knew his own face.

  This reminded him of the portrait he would soon begin. His own face, his own clothes—but Riobaro’s pose, easy and dignified, lit by Riobaro’s subtle and mysterious candlelight that had taken him so long to perfect. They’d all know whose Peintraddo Chieva he’d used as a guide for his own. He meant them to, meant to put them on notice. He glanced over his shoulder at the table where he’d left the oil sketch, but the lamplight didn’t reach that far and he saw only the usual jumble of different papers and scrap canvas.

  He set the lamp on the floor and resumed contemplation of his true master work. Corasson was reproduced down to the smallest detail. All the ridiculous towers and turrets, mismatched crenellations, climbing roses and oak trees and every damned rock and flower—all of it in exact position. It had taken him a very long time to get everything just so.

  Coaxing the necessary information about magic from Premio Dioniso had been simplicity itself. Dioniso the Great Premio Frato, who thought himself omniscient! The old fool had never realized that Rafeyo was storing up all the little threads of knowledge and weaving them into the whole complicated tapestry that was Grijalva art. Flattery here, wheedling there, a roundabout question and a seemingly spontaneous leap of insight—Rafeyo grinned widely and danced a few irrepressible steps over to the window.

  The evening star had appeared, and the crescent moon above it curved like the pregnant belly of the Mother. The star signified sanctification of the Son in her womb, just as tonight all the land and people and animals would be purified with torches imitating starfire. All across Tira Virte the Paraddio Luminossos would circle villages and towns and fields, and the animals would be driven between bonfires, and those in charge of public safety would flinch with nervousness lest anything catch fire. Tonight, something would.

  The sky outside was nearly a match for the sky in the painting. Only a little while now, until the moon rose just a little more and the star glowed just a little brighter in the darkening sky. The urge to dance his glee left him, replaced by a shivering—but of excitement, not that strange chill that had come to him yesterday. It had seemed to originate in his lips and tongue and behind his eyes, spreading down his whole body, making him fear he was catching cold—and Limners feared illness of any kind, those intimations of early death. But the shivers had passed after a few hours, and this morning he’d woken feeling better than ever before in his life. And why not? He had painted in oils, in blood, in sweat and semen and tears and spit. In magic. This was what he’d been born for.

  He returned to the painting, counting off minutes under his breath. From his pocket he took a new, clean brush, dipped it in lamp oil, lit it at the wick. A miniature torch to sanctify the painting of Corasson. To purify Corasson itself by burning it to the ground.

  “I really can’t allow this, you know.”

  Rafeyo felt his knees give with shock at the sound of the Premio’s voice. It came from the corner shadows, and continued with the cold inevitability of a Casteyan winter.

  “Not that I care about Mechella. It’s you I’m concerned for, Rafeyo. You have no idea what will happen to you if you set fire to that painting.” He gave a dry little laugh. “You know only what it amused me to tell you, and thought yourself oh-so-clever to guess the rest. Don’t you realize I’ve watched you trace every little clue back to its origin and forward to its end? You have an expressive face, mennino, with remarkably passionate eyes. It’s something I’ll have to remember, and guard against.”

  “P–Premio—what—I don’t—”

  He stepped from the shadows, the lines of his body broken by the canvas he held in one hand. Rafeyo knew it for his own self-portrait sketch.

  “En verro, it’s not just you I’m concerned with. There’s a painting at Corasson. A very important painting—the most important I ever created. I can’t allow you to destroy it along with Corasson. And yourself, I might add.”

  “Mys-self—?” he stammered stupidly. “What do you—”

  “Incoherence can at times be an admirable trait.” He moved nearer, the oil sketch in one hand, the other extended toward Rafeyo, nearly touching him. “If you’re attempting to ask what I mean by all this, allow me to show you.”

  Rafeyo felt his hand grasped firmly in the old man’s disease-gnarled fingers. Panic thudded through him. He would be stopped—Corasson would stand—Mechella would live—all of it, all the work and the blood and the riding day and night, all for nothing—nothing!

  Rafeyo lunged for the painting with the fire-tipped brush. The old man’s grip on his hand kept him from reaching it. The flames passed near the painting but not near enough. He struggled, gained a step, leaned against the restraining grip.

  Fire touched paint, and Rafeyo screamed.

  He was yanked back but not allowed to fall. The old man’s lean, cold arms wrapped him round, close and possessive as a lover. As the pain slowly eased, Rafeyo heard the chill inexorable voice again, again as if from shadows, for agony had blinded him with tears.

  “Now do you understand? The demonstration with your Peintraddo Chieva is much less painful, only a pinprick. When you damage a canvas such as this one, painted with all these signs and symbols and runes, with everything a Limner can possibly put into it of his own substance, you suffer in your own body what you cause the painting to suffer.”

  It was true. Fire throbbed with every frantic heartbeat.

  “Whatever is the most powerful fluid you use, this is how you will feel it. With tears, your eyes will burn
. Urine, and you’ll want to take a knife to your own manhood. But blood has precedence. And blood is in this painting of Corasson. As you now know, Rafeyo, this was a very foolish thing to do.”

  Pain was receding now, bearable. Fear replaced fire in his veins. He shook with it, terrified of this man with his cold, cold eyes.

  Suddenly the crooked fingers released his hand and touched the tears that runneled his cheeks. Before he could react to the almost fatherly gesture, the fingers moved to the sweat on his upper lip. Then, swiftly, a thumb thrust between his lips and under his tongue, and came out slick with saliva. The moisture thus collected was daubed onto the scrap of canvas in the man’s other hand.

  “Grazzo, that completes the inventory. Except for semen, of course, but I’ve found that acquiring it is a disgusting process and not really necessary. By the way, you really ought to empty your chamberpot on a regular basis, Rafeyo.”

  His mouth was ash-dry, as if every drop of him had been raped away by that invasive thumb.

  “You don’t understand any of this, do you? Poor Rafeyo. Only a little while longer. Patience.”

  He’d heard that word often, but never accompanied by this particular smile. His gaze involuntarily shifted to the floor as a boot heel crushed the absurd little ceremonial torch. He felt as if his heart was extinguished in the same moment. His own heart; the wrong corasson.

  Through wordless, mindless despair he felt his hand taken again, and his fingers were drawn across the last of the oscurra, smearing the paint. Destroying the spell.

  “For all your efforts, an amateurish attempt. There are things in the Kita’ab that would smite Mechella where she stood. Now do you know what true power is, boy? Now do you understand what a Grijalva Limner is?”

  A sob caught in his throat, strangling him, as his teacher and his tormentor began a low rhythmic murmuring, like a sancto chanting his devotions. All at once Rafeyo swayed on his feet as if not only his heart but his very being had been crushed. The old man’s eyes were at once glazed and gleaming, watching something in the distance and yet focused fiercely on Rafeyo’s face.

  Curious. To be wandering. Drifting. Dissolving. Wayward spirit floating free, light and insubstantial as a feather—

  No!

  Casting about in sudden fear for hands to strike out with—

  —voice to scream with—

  —eyes to see with—

  —heartbeat, breath, skin, bone, flesh, SUBSTANCE—

  Something called to him. Bereft and terrified, he groped for the thing that was familiar, yet very weak in ways he did not understand—trying to clutch his own shadow. A wall sprang up—he could not see or feel it but he knew it was there, pulsing with a rhythm he didn’t recognize. A rhythm rather like a heartbeat….

  Corasson! I must … the fire … where are my hands I need my hands I need the fire the burning my hands—

  I know. I know you do. This way, Rafeyo. Come along. This way.

  This time there was guidance. He lunged as he had for the painting of Corasson. And felt again the familiar casing of muscle and bone and skin clothing his soul—

  Ah, so good to feel his body around him again, after that horrible lack. A supremely powerful magic had been used on him, and he was wild to know its name and uses and the means by which it was called forth. To do this to Mechella!

  But how strange he felt. Dizzy, a little queasy, perspective altered as if he’d suddenly grown an inch or two in height. And his hands hurt. They hurt in every knuckle as he grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself. His muscles were sluggish. He couldn’t understand it; a few moments ago he’d been taut with tension. His pulse was as dull as if drugged, when it ought to be racing with the last of his fear.

  Still, the frightening aimlessness was gone, and he had substance again, bones and flesh and eyes. He used those eyes to look around in befuddlement.

  A hand that was his own held up a framed canvas. Other fingers, also his, delicately displayed a needle. As the sliver of gold poised at the painted chest, he recognized what sort of painting it was, and the face within it.

  By why would this man puncture the heart of his own Peintraddo Chieva?

  He tried to move, to reach out, to stop what was to come. He looked down at his awkward, hurting, listless hands.

  They were not his hands. They were gnarled and mottled and they were not his hands.

  All the strength drained out of him and he staggered against the chair. He looked up and saw a face by lamplight.

  The face was his own. His mouth smiled at him. But it was not his smile.

  “Like looking into a living mirror,” said his voice.

  He had not spoken. The lungs and throat and tongue and lips he felt had not created speech. Yet he heard his own voice, issuing from his own mouth.

  “Premio D-Dioniso—” And he flinched on hearing the deep tones, desiccated as old parchment, that came from his own throat. Not his own voice, not anything like his own—

  “Sario.” His mouth smiled at him. Not his smile. “And Ignaddio and Martain and even Riobaro—yes, even he. All Sario. But after tonight … Rafeyo.”

  “Sario—?”

  He heard the voice that was not his, and looked at the hands that were not his, and at the painted face that was not his—and at the living face that was his.

  Had been his.

  When the needle pierced the painted heart, he finally understood. And, in understanding and in agony, died.

  FIFTY-FIVE

  Soothing the tension of Rafeyo’s terror—rapid pulse and respiration, tremors, all the mindless responses to being for a time mindless—was the work of a few moments. It was like calming a frightened child, and indeed the words he murmured in his head as he stroked the new hands over the new arms and legs and chest were those of a loving father: “Hush, I’m here, don’t be afraid, carrido ninito, I’m here now.”

  Sario stretched luxuriously, getting the feel of this strong young body. A little shorter than Dioniso, but he was only nineteen and probably hadn’t finished growing. He inspected the hands by lamplight—the precious, supple hands—enjoying the long straight fingers and fine skin. Slowly, as if he at last explored the body of a coveted woman, he ran his palms over the new body. Rounded muscles of shoulders and upper arms; firm chest; flat belly; lean thighs—he laughed as manhood twitched and stirred, and on a whim caressed it to hardness. The swift surge of delight startled him. It had been years since he’d felt so urgent a response.

  But with no time to indulge it, he took his hands away. All Rafeyo’s sketches must be soaked to unidentifiable impotence. He had no way of knowing which of them had been bespelled. The paints with his blood in them must be locked away for the far future, when he would need them to paint himself out of Rafeyo and into another strong young man. But first the old wreck that had been Dioniso must be carried to bed. Tomorrow it would be sadly reported that the honored Premio Frato had died in his sleep of a seizure, probably of the heart. Which, in a way, he had.

  Sario slipped the golden needle from the portrait and lit a match to burn it clean. Sancterria, he thought, amused; though the needle was long since hallowed by usage. Consecrated, for him, for having belonged to Saavedra—a gift from one of their cousins in hopes of encouraging embroidery rather than paint on canvas. She’d scorned it and given it to him for work on frescoes.

  Through the heart with a golden needle that had been hers—it was both fitting, in memory of the pain she’d given him long ago, and merciful to Rafeyo. In the past he’d experimented with sliding it into the painting’s head, but correct placement was tricky and sometimes produced only a violent headache. The abdomen he had used only once, and shuddered to recall it. Ignaddio, that had been; his first host, taken before he’d thought of the needle and used a paletto knife in the painted belly. The resulting mess stank to the skies and took hours to clean up.

  Now he stored the purified, newly sanctified needle in a little silver box. He knelt beside the cooling corpse and
undid the first buttons of the shirt, preparing to check for a telltale drop of congealing blood. Once, to his horror, the aged heart had burst at the touch of the needle and pumped blood all over his hands. Ever since (eiha, who had it been? Ettoro, perhaps), he’d kept a clean shirt handy just in case.

  He was about to inspect the chest when the door opened behind him. Surely he’d locked it—yes, of course, and so had Rafeyo when he entered. But someone else must have a key. With sickening certainty, he knew who it was.

  “Rafeyo!”

  Tazia swirled into the room, white silk cloak and festive yellow gown rustling importantly. Sario tried to position his body to hide Dioniso, hoping the lamplight was dim enough. As he looked up, with startled dismay involuntarily—if appropriately—scrawled on his face, he wondered how it was possible for the same chi’patro blood that had created Saavedra’s wistful loveliness to produce this woman. Tazia was beautiful, but there was an obviousness about her, a polished and disciplined perfection that could disgust, in time. She was inbred, overbred, the way lapdogs were too closely mated for looks without thought to temperament or intelligence.

  Of this woman’s ferocious character he had no doubts. As her gaze flickered to the painting of Corasson and then to the corpse on the floor behind him, she proved that brains at least had not been bred out of the Grijalvas.

  “He caught you,” she said quite calmly. “You should have been more careful. How did you kill him?”

  “I didn’t! He—he just—he was furious, and then he just died!”

  She arched a brow, as if she almost believed him, then shrugged. “Eiha, he was close to fifty, and that’s obscenely old for a Limner. He mustn’t be found here. We’ll have to take him to his room so it looks as if he died in his sleep.”

  “You always think of everything, matra meya.” He knew instantly that it was the wrong diminutive, though her surprise turned at once to a smile.