“You have been studying that lead sphere for eight minutes,” Master Tnegun said at last. “And, lead being unsubtle and single-natured, it holds only one quality. I am confident you identified this some time past. What is it?”
Araenè blushed. “It blocks against vision,” she muttered, and put the sphere back on its shelf. She had been holding it too long: her wrists, now that she paid attention to them, ached from its weight.
“Indeed. Not a quality I would ordinarily expect you to value.”
Araenè did not look up. “I don’t want clear vision right now,” she admitted in a low tone.
The master did not say, Your cousin will be well. He did not say anything at all. But he pushed away from the stair railing and came to kneel down on the floor, facing Araenè across the line of spheres she had been examining. He studied the spheres for a moment. “Tourmaline does not belong in this row,” he commented at last. “All the rest you have selected contain spellwork that has to do with shaping and making. That one is not associated with any such magic.”
Without a word, Araenè picked up the tourmaline sphere and handed it to him. He took it thoughtfully, but then did not put it back on its shelf, but only held it for a time, studying its rich orange-gold depths. “What does it taste of, to you?” he asked Araenè.
“Fenugreek, and something musty I don’t recognize,” she said, still not looking at him. “Something with a trace of lime to it, but much more bitter. I don’t like it—I tried to bury it behind the fenugreek.”
Master Tnegun nodded thoughtfully. “That is the summoning set into it,” he murmured. “You submerged that magic underneath a much more polite magic of calling and naming. The summoning is for the smothering dark, the darkness so heavy it puts out fire and crushes light. One understands very well why you should find your hand drawn to this sphere.”
Araenè did not say anything.
The master still did not say anything reassuring about Trei. He said instead, “The hidden school would be the poorer without you, Araenè.”
Araenè looked up at last. “Does anyone think that, besides you?”
Master Tnegun lifted an eyebrow at her. “Do you value anyone’s opinion, except mine?”
Araenè was too taken aback to respond at once. Then she could not help smiling at the trick in that question, where saying yes would be disrespectful of her master’s authority and saying no would be simply presumptuous.
“You are too wise to answer,” observed the master. He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “You have certainly had an … interesting effect on the hidden school. Your affinity for fire and for doors has been and remains beyond price. You have not, I trust, recently stepped through any door into fire?”
Araenè stared at him.
“You might,” said Master Tnegun. His unexpected smile startled her, teeth gleaming in his dark face. “The heart of the school once again contains fire, were you aware? No? Then allow me to assure you of it. I would not be astonished to find that the young dragon curled there recalls your name.”
Araenè was not at all certain she wanted the baby dragon to remember her name. But she was very glad to know that it was well. She asked hesitantly, “How did it come here? Did you—?”
Master Tnegun tilted his head to the side judiciously: No. “We did nothing—indeed, there is nothing we know that we might have done. It merely came there—this morning, we believe. We suspect the great dragon brought it to us: a fire dragon that remembers the sky and wishes, for whatever reason dragons may wish such things, for our Islands to prosper. Master Kopapei assures me the young dragon seems content. If it is not, I suspect you will discover the fact.”
“Oh,” Araenè said faintly.
Master Tnegun considered her for another moment and then added gravely, “I believe you may not be aware that girls sometimes become mages, in Yngul.”
Araenè looked up swiftly.
“It’s said a girl’s strength fades less swiftly than a boy’s. That may be so; I have not tested the question. I believe we will find it does not fade more swiftly, however.”
Araenè made a noncommittal sound, though she was listening intently.
“Here, girls look straight ahead down the path their mothers lay down for them, and if power arises in them, they smother it. But Cassameirin … When Cassameirin was young, from time to time a girl would come into the hidden school. He had a girl apprentice, once. That girl became Kanora Ireinamei, mage and teacher, who spoke to the wind dragons and coaxed them to settle upon Kotipa.”
“I never heard that!” Araenè exclaimed, staring.
“It was long ago. There are accounts in my private library. They are available to you, if you wish. You may find them instructive, if you find yourself speaking to fire dragons on a frequent basis.”
“Oh!” said Araenè, and was silent, repressing the urge to leap up at once and go find the master’s private library.
“The school put itself in your way. Your cousin abetted you. Master Kopapei knew what you were, and he did not condemn you. Nor do I. What other opinion concerns you?”
“I don’t know,” Araenè whispered.
“You do your Islands and your city and this school an injustice,” Master Tnegun said gently, “if you condemn them out of hand and without trial.”
Araenè said, “It was easier—” but stopped without completing the thought.
“It is often easier not to try,” agreed the master. “If you wish to leave the hidden school, I cannot prevent you. But if you do not wish to, then no one will cast you forth. I would thus prefer that you cease walking about as though you are afraid of waking a basilisk with every step.”
Araenè made herself meet his eyes. It wasn’t easy. But she did not look away. She nodded instead, and said, not whispering this time, “All right.”
“Good.” Master Tnegun rose to his feet, bent, collected a sphere of black iron, and weighed it in his hand. He said, his manner sardonic, “And I believe you may have an unusual chance to bend the opinion of the city in your favor. A visitor has come calling for you, Araenè. You will, I believe, find him waiting for you in your garden.”
Trei, Araenè thought at once, but immediately knew that could not be right. Her second guess … She knew, once she had thought of him, that her second guess was right. A smile, unfamiliar in these days, tugged at her mouth, and she glanced down at herself. She was wearing a plain dress, as she did these days when she was in the school. Now she wondered whether the dress was too plain. Whether she ought to have found something more … more feminine.
“My advice, though you have not asked for it,” said her master, “is not to fuss.”
“Yes …,” Araenè said distractedly. “Excuse me …,” and she opened the carved ebony door that stood suddenly at her hand, and stepped through.
17
Trei came back to Milendri less than a senneri after he’d left it. It seemed to him that he’d been away much longer.
Nor was this arrival at all like the first. He’d come like a Tolounnese boy the first time: staring up from below, stunned by his first sight of the winged kajuraihi, amazed by the floating stairway … amazed by everything. And dazed with grief and the memory of grief.
The grief was still there. But muted, and … not the same. And there was, this time, also an unexpected sense of coming home.
This time, Trei came down from the heights like a proper kajurai: riding the living wind under the inscrutable regard of transparent dragons half visible above. He gazed down through the infinite layers of the air to the white towers of Canpra. And he came in company, surrounded by other kajuraihi: Master Anerii Pencara below and to his right; others, with crimson wings, or white, or gold, flying above and below and all around.
They dropped toward Canpra: the shining towers grew more distinct, and beyond the towers the wide, tree-lined streets of the Second City and the crowded bustle of the Third.
Trei hesitated … then slanted his descent toward Master
Anerii. He called, “Can we—?”
The novice-master turned his head. He was too far for Trei to read his expression, but after a moment his gruff shout came back: “Why not?” Allowing the other kajuraihi to go on without them, Master Anerii turned out into a wide spiral that would take them well out across the city before bringing them back to the kajurai precincts at the edge of the Island.
At first, Trei thought that surprisingly little damage had been done by the Tolounnese attack. There were large areas, at the edge where Canpra had been built down into the stone, where buildings had been broken and ruined. But there was nothing, of course, of the damage catapults would have done against a recalcitrant grounded city.
Of course, Tolounn had not required artillery to enter Canpra, which had neither walls nor any other defense save its height above the waves. A closer look showed that the people of Canpra had not prevented the Tolounnese from penetrating deeply into their city. There were the marks of fire, where buildings had been put to the torch by either attackers or defenders; there were the remnants of hasty barricades in the streets; there were places where one building or another showed damage from the powder bombs Tolounn had developed according to Yngulin formulae. And, as they passed inland, they overflew a large new cemetery where the red earth was as fresh and raw as a wound.
Master Anerii and Trei turned at last across the city, back toward the sea and kajurai territory. Trei found that the balcony nearest the novitiate had been badly damaged; Master Anerii passed it by and guided Trei to another. This one was smaller and much more difficult to come down on; one had to stall very neatly in order not to rake feathers across the wall. Trei managed it with something approaching grace and tried to look as though he always landed that well.
Master Anerii lifted an amused eyebrow, not fooled at all. But he merely said, “I’m to report to Wingmaster Taimenai at once. So are you,” and gestured for Trei to turn so he could help him off with his wings.
The wingmaster was not in his office. He was in the map room, which Trei had previously seen only during lessons. The map posted on the big wall at the moment showed the long sweep of the Tolounnese coast, from Tetouann in the north all the way down past the great island of Toipakom and then past Marsosa and Goenn and Teraica to Emoenn and Gaicana in the far south. Toipakom had only become a part of the great Tolounnese Empire a few years ago. It hadn’t actually wanted to join the Empire. Either.
Wingmaster Taimenai was not alone in the kajurai map room. Lord Manasi Teirdana was there, standing close by the map with a pointer in his hand; so were two men Trei didn’t know. The wingmaster was stepping around a long table cluttered with other maps in order to approach the big one.
Trei hesitated at the door, but Master Anerii went right in. So Trei followed, uncomfortably. Wingmaster Taimenai turned his head and at once all his motion checked. His expression wasn’t neutral at all: Trei stopped in his tracks, startled at the relief and gladness in the wingmaster’s face. The two men he didn’t know caught the wingmaster’s reaction and turned, glancing first at Master Anerii and then, with obvious surmise, at Trei.
“So Goenn seems to offer the best possible combination of access to resources from the interior and access to shipping down the northern currents,” Lord Manasi was saying. Facing the map, his back to the room, he hadn’t at once realized no one was attending to his words. But now, finally perceiving the change in the quiet, he swung around. His eyes widened, then narrowed.
“I believe we shall finish this discussion at a later time,” Wingmaster Taimenai said.
“Taimenai—” Lord Manasi began.
“We may all hope that after we have had time to consider Master Anerii’s detailed report, our discussion will become more fruitful. I hope my lords will not find a brief postponement too inconvenient,” the wingmaster said. Firmly.
“Well …” Lord Manasi gave Trei an odd look, combining wary approval and simultaneously a kind of suspicious dissatisfaction. “Yes, I suppose so.…” He moved toward the door along with the other two men. Master Anerii shut the door behind them.
Wingmaster Taimenai said, “Anerii! Well done!” He crossed the room in two strides and caught Trei by the shoulders, looking at him closely. “Trei. Are you well? Genrai brought us word that you were carried away from the Teraica engines. We believed you injured—imprisoned—possibly close-questioned—” He looked a question at Master Anerii.
“Injured, healed, imprisoned, and released,” Master Anerii answered that look. “You will indeed wish to hear my report. Which,” he sighed, “I suppose I shall have to put down properly in black ink as soon as possible. Tonight, I suppose.”
The wingmaster grinned at the other man, actually grinned, an expression Trei had never imagined breaking through his stern manner. “I fear so.” Then he looked back down at Trei. “Trei—”
Trei tried to find words past an unexpected tightness in his throat, but failed.
Wingmaster Taimenai, seeing his difficulty, let him go, stepped back, and drew the familiar reserve across his manner as though he donned a cloak. “We are glad to have you back among us,” he said formally. “We had feared worse. You had no need to go to quite such lengths to prove yourself to us, however. Or if you did, I’m sorry for it.”
“I didn’t do it for that,” Trei protested, but then stopped, uncertain.
“Didn’t you? Well, it had that effect,” the wingmaster answered drily. He reached out, tipped Trei’s chin up gently, and looked into his face. “Welcome home, Trei.”
Trei had not exactly expected punishment, not after … everything. But neither had he expected this welcome. It was as though a weight he’d braced himself to carry had, if not lightened, at least shifted into an easier load to bear. He didn’t trust his voice to answer.
The wingmaster let him go, stepped back, and said sternly, “I will ask you to add your own detailed report to Master Anerii’s. Write it tonight, if you please. You may begin with a justification of your decision to venture out of the novitiate despite the strictest possible injunction to remain within. Then continue to the moment you departed Tolounn. Is that clear?”
Sternness was much easier to answer than open joy and relief. “Yes, Wingmaster,” Trei agreed, though he winced at the thought of the work that report would entail. “Um, Ceirfei? Genrai and the boys? Rekei—he was injured? He didn’t …” He couldn’t make himself say “die.” He asked instead, “My cousin? Do you know what … Is my cousin all right, do you know, sir? Master Anerii said he didn’t wait for much news to come in. Please, may I have leave to visit my cousin?”
“Ah.” The wingmaster sounded so serious that Trei was immediately afraid everyone had died. But he said instead, “Everyone is well enough, Trei. Rekei was injured, as you say: another kajurai caught him and managed—somehow!—to keep enough height to gain a low balcony. Ceirfei, ah. He and your … cousin … apparently worked with that Yngulin mage of ours to support your own efforts and thwart the Tolounnese.” He paused and then added, “Of course you must visit your cousin as soon as possible. I am confident she will tell you a far more comprehensive tale when you see her.”
Trei cleared his throat. “I’m sure she will. Sir. Is she … That is, she is still …”
“She is, I believe, generally to be found at the hidden school. And Genrai, Kojran, and Tokabii are properly back within the novitiate,” Wingmaster Taimenai concluded. “Where you should be, Novice Trei, by dusk, if you please.” He gave Trei a dismissive nod. “I expect that report! Clear and direct, novice, and reasonably concise, or I will ask you to rewrite it. I will ask you to have it in my hands by second bell.”
“Yes, sir,” Trei said. The cool dismissal did not at all blur the warmth of the wingmaster’s initial welcome. He added quietly, sincerely, “Thank you, sir.”
The wingmaster gave him a nod, then, turning to Master Anerii, said, smiling, “Anerii, if you will stay a moment …”
Trei slipped out. But then he hesitated. The wingmaster was
one thing, and his cousin was important, but the person he really wanted to find right now was Ceirfei. Trei had no way to find him if he wasn’t in the novitiate. But then … perhaps Araenè knew some way?
He no longer had the little crystal pendant Master Tnegun had given him. But he thought maybe Araenè might be listening for his voice, or at least have done something so he could find her. So he put his hands against a door across from the map room—he had no idea where it led—and whispered his cousin’s name. Nor was he surprised when the door swung open under his hands to reveal not whatever room ought to have been there, but a tangled, overgrown garden that smelled of sunlight and herbs, with an iron fence bordering one side and a brick wall on the other. His cousin’s voice came clearly from somewhere in the garden: she was laughing. She sounded happy, Trei thought, surprised. His own heart lifted.
He stepped through the door and made his way through the garden toward Araenè’s voice, stepping over herbs that had spilled out over pathways and ducking under branches that, as often as not, seemed to have thorns as well as flowers. It seemed a surprisingly large garden when he was actually trying to find someone in it. Araenè laughed again and said something indistinct, and he followed her voice around a small, contorted tree with delicate leaves like lace and red berries like polished garnets.
Araenè was sitting on a low stone by a pool, amid a tangle of vines with small white flowers shaped like trumpets and big-leaved shrubs with purple flowers dangling like bells. She was wearing a plain linen dress with green embroidery around the hem; a narrow green silk cord gathered the dress up around her waist and crossed between her small breasts. Trei paused and frankly stared: she was not exactly pretty, but despite her cropped hair, no one would have mistaken her for a boy. In fact, now that she wore girls’ things, her short hair only accented the slender length of her neck and the fineness of her bones; it was hard to see how she had ever looked like a boy.
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