The Seekers of Fire

by Lynna Merrill

  Cal would undoubtedly find the situation thrilling. She would perhaps frown her beautiful brows at the "random wenches" statement (who wouldn't!), but then complain how much her hand hurt and couldn't he take a look at it? She would smile at him shyly while he did and would thank him, and it would all be so sweet and cute that no barriers would be broken, but perhaps, just perhaps, he would kiss her. And next time, more. Cal would call it love, probably. Cal was in love often. Of course, he would not want her mind.

  It would not work for Linden. More often than not, she had been irritated, sometimes angry, while watching Cal and her boyfriends (no watching further than the kissing part, of course). Acting as if you were more stupid than a man or weaker just so you could say you had a boyfriend—what was the point? Why did you need a boyfriend? Linden had some experience with young men herself, kissing and somewhat beyond that but not to the end, and she did not yet have an answer. She had fancied herself "in love" once or twice, but she had either known the person was not for her from the start or learned soon enough. She had not even been "brokenhearted" for more than a few days because of these "loves."

  No, that was not right. In a way, she was brokenhearted constantly. She wanted something, needed something. She did not even know what exactly it was, but it left a certain emptiness inside.

  One thing was certain—she had never before wanted power over a man, let alone his power over herself.

  Perhaps Mom would advise Linden to go to Rianor. Mom, who had possessed the power to make Dad never see his mother again—Dad, who was never a weak man. They quarreled often, Mom and Dad, and through the years there had been stormy "make up" moments when they thought the children slept and could not hear them through the wall. Perhaps in Linden's place Mom would deliberately break barriers with Rianor. She had once told Linden that the interplay of willpower was an essential part of a relationship and that Linden needed a man with very strong willpower to match hers.

  But Calia and Mom were not her. She did not want to do what they would do. Oh, she wanted him, all right. She wanted him to show her the exact plans he had for her dress and everything else.

  But more than that she wanted someone to understand her visions while still having visions of his own. Someone whose mind, like hers, leaped into unexpected places, so they could share the journey. A partner. A friend.

  Linden had thought Katrina a person like that, but then Katrina had met Mark, who was sweet and good-natured but nothing special, and Linden could not understand. Linden was angry when Kat, one of the few Master Healers who had invented medicine before—with Mentors' blessing and everything—temporarily stopped and could talk about nothing but baby clothes. Linden was jealous of stupid Mark and the baby; betrayed. And then the baby died and she could do nothing to help.

  At least she could not lose Rianor to a man. Of course, she could lose him to a woman, and something in her stomach overturned at the very thought. The jealousy was the same she had felt for Kat, and yet it was very different. Why, he might even have some woman now ...

  Go to him. Just throw away the pillows between the two of you, press your body to his and let him do the rest. It will be enough.

  But enough for what? Enough to become a "random wench?" Linden was not yet entirely certain what exactly she wanted from Rianor, but it was more than he would give one of them.

  Carefully, she raised herself to her feet and went to retrieve the pillow he had thrown earlier. The motion made her slightly dizzy.

  "May I please see the Aetarx documents?" she said as she sat back, hugging the pillow to her breasts, trying to keep her voice calm. "And what happened to Desmond? You did say there were 'too many events of great importance' tonight."

  Her movement had broken his candle-staring. "You may see anything you want. You deserve it." Their eyes met, and she read in his some mixture of longing and respect—and then, when her dizziness became stronger and she forgot about her wounded hand and tried to press it to her face—concern.

  "You need to eat." He stood, his good hand gripping the back of the sofa. "I do, too, for that matter. Damn it, I forgot. Eating helps after spending time with the Aetarx. Here, Nan has left us some bread sticks."

  The sight of food was more than Linden could bear. Her stomach rebelled so much that she hid her face with the pillow, trembling.

  "Come on, Linde, it will help," and when she just shook her head, "Don't tell me that you, too, follow some ridiculous diet."

  "Me, too? Who else?" She had to ask at least that.

  "Every lady of this House, except perhaps old Mathilda. All right, what is it that you do not eat?"

  Everything, she wanted to say for some reason but said naught, and then the words started pouring as if by themselves, and not about food.

  About the storm she talked, about mori and the heavy curtains of her bedroom, about Master Keitaro and dancing, about banners and changelings.

  By the time she had fully described the strange banner animal to Rianor, she was so dizzy that there were dark spots before her eyes, and "up" and "down" were starting to seem relative rather than absolute directions.

  He silently pressed a bread stick into her hand and then brought the hand itself to her mouth, pushing until she was forced to part her lips.

  "Eat, Linde. I am not letting you kill yourself."

  Don't force me like that, she wanted to say, but could not, for he had meanwhile made her take another bite. "Thank you, Rianor" she murmured, instead, after she had swallowed and the dark spots started fading. "You, too, should eat." She took a new bread stick and handed it to him. "You should not only feed me. And you already did not let me kill myself once, tonight. With the sword. Thank you for that, too. And ... I am sorry."

  Somehow they had so far avoided talking about the fight, the conversation drifting to other topics as if by itself, and already the fight was fading in her mind, like the distant memory of a frightening dream. What she had seen in the Aetarx room, what she had felt and thought—currently it did not seem more real than mori behind the curtains. But it was. Unless, of course, the mori behind the curtains were real, too.

  "I should not forget. But for some reason I am trying to."

  "Others before you have tried to forget as well." So Rianor knew what she was talking about. Was he catching her thought patterns?

  "I will give you something to read." He stood, and she watched his good hand once again grip the sofa, a single muscle twitching on his cheek. Wretch the man and his control. He still walked with agility and confidence, but she was learning to read him. He was unwell. He had not answered her earlier question about Desmond, either.

  "Rianor." She stood, helping herself by holding the sofa like he had, then slowly walked towards where he stood before a wall alcove. "What happened to Desmond. What happened to you?"

  "Something that I should not forget. Rather, many things. Leave them for the Council tomorrow, Linde. Or, should I say, the Council today. Look."

  She looked to her left, towards what, after a quick calculation, she determined to be an eastern window. The rain had stopped again. Countless little lights glowed in the distant windows of apartment houses beneath the hill upon which Qynnsent stood. Morning lights, lit upon getting up and snuffed when people left for work. Until yesterday, her own morning light would have been like that. A small light down below, one amongst many, with no more twinkle than a feather dropped by Firebird, the fairytale bird that was a messenger between worlds.

  How different life looked today, viewed from above.

  Far, far away, the closest peaks of Balkaene Mountain were ink-colored shapes against a pale sky glazed with pink clouds. Eyes narrowed again, Rianor, the High Lord, who for all of his life must have viewed life from above, stared at the sunrise, looking as if he presently bore the burdens of all lives below, and more.

  She wanted to help him. Very much. She wanted to embrace and comfort him, but something in his bearing told her that he would not want this right now. He had not told
her what had happened earlier, but something had. His thoughts seemed far away, and not somewhere pleasant. Well, if he was not going to have her there with him, she would bring him back. She hesitated, then lightly placed her hand on his arm. He blinked.

  "How beautiful the Sun is." She smiled at him and then at the Sun itself. It was beautiful. Red and bright like an apple, it had just floated from behind the peaks. Soft light trickled through pink and orange clouds, bathing the world in a warm, caressing glow. Birds had started singing outside, and in the distance a bird passed before the Sun itself, a little silhouette against the red light. An oddly-shaped silhouette. Linden leaned forward, pressing her nose against the glass. Its shape, there was something in its shape ... The bird flew without spreading its wings! Birds should not be able to do that, but it was the second time she had seen one, the first one being right after she had fought the Ber.

  Above a firewell. Before the Sun. A bird who flew like others birds could not. Could it be? She turned back to Rianor and laughed. "Firebird! I might have just seen it."

  "A firebird?" Rianor cast a suspicious glance at the Sun, then looked quickly away. It had become too bright to watch. "This must be a piece of fire education that the Bers have forgotten to give me."

  "Oh, not the Bers." She smiled at him again, with the sense of elation beautiful mornings gave her. It was already light enough to see the garden below, soil and branches fresh and sparkling after the rainstorm. She wanted to give this feeling to Rianor, too. Talk to him. Try to make him not think of whatever he is thinking of.

  "It is a fairytale thing—like the samodiva, but less frequently mentioned. Firebird can fly between the worlds of humans and gods. Do you know what gods are? From fairytales? Some invisible people who supposedly take care of the world and you can pray to them to help you, but mostly they do not listen and do to the world whatever strikes their fancy. They are expected to judge people, too."

  "Sounds like Bers to me, except for the prayers. Or perhaps like the Powers That Be." Perhaps he did not mean it, but the way he said "Bers" told her many things. At least some of his worries had to do with them. All right, talk about Bers then. If he wished.

  "Prayers, too, my lord, if you count the Master himself as a Ber. You are supposed to pray to him. I am, at least. Or was." She cast a glance at her bandaged hand. Lady. It would take some getting used to.

  "You still are, officially; nobility does not free you from that. But, except for the official Prayers once every thirty days, you are not required to do anything of the sort in my House."

  "Good. I am not much of a praying person." She looked through the window again, squinting towards the Sun. It was so pretty, so magnificent. Something in it made her feel alive. "I have always wondered about gods. There are fairytales where the Sun is a god. My grandpa in the Sunset Lands told me when I was little that some peasants actually believed this. And I know that others, some of them city people, believe that the Sun rises and sets because the Master sends it to look after Mierenthia—or that the Sun is the Master himself. These are people who have gone to school; they should have read at least the first Science book. They should know that the Sun is a star, but still they are turning the Master into a fairytale-like god and the Mentors do not even whip them for it. Why? Mentors hate fairytales and usually whip adults for believing in anything from them."

  "Perhaps because this is a fairytale that suits them. These here"—he handed her a thick, leather-bound folder engraved with a Qynnsent crest—"think that the Master built the Aetarx from the same essence as the Sun. But whatever the essence of stars is, I doubt that my ancestors—or anyone's—knew it."

  The light of the Sun. The light of the sword. Linden watched the morning sunrays play on the Qynnsent crest on the folder, and suddenly the idea of a big flaming ball in the sky did not make her feel elated and alive any more. The folder was heavy in her hands, and suddenly she was afraid to see what the words inside it said.

  Words. Someone else's words again. Someone else's images. She did not want them. Not again. She did not want them.

  "Why was it a sword?" Her voice was pleading, the answer to this question suddenly bearing great importance. "I had never seen a sword—why did I have to fight you with one? I don't know how to use a sword. It was not right. It was not me. And then, in a way, it was." She dropped the folder and her hand clutched Rianor's shoulder just as he put one arm around her waist, supporting her. "Why did the light of the Aetarx turn into a wretched sword?"

  He caressed her cheek, wiping away something wet. Was she crying? She had not felt it. Like before, he was very careful with his touch. "Don't torture yourself, my sweet lady. It is over."

  She shook her head. "I wanted to fight you, I will not deny that. Something made me ... No, this is not right. I made myself. No one and nothing can make you fight. It is your decision. Always. It was my decision to fight you."

  "It was your decision to fight yourself, remember? Do you think you would be here now if you had truly fought me?"

  "Oh." She looked up to meet his eyes, then sighed and rested her wounded hand on his other shoulder. "Why do you think you would have won if we had fought, my lord?"

  "I do not think. I know."

  "You, irritating ... Oh, now I've got you. You were so angry with me before for acting because I felt something was not right, without mentioning "thinking." And how can you know now, without thinking first?"

  He smiled, the first teasing smile she had seen from him in a long time. "Did I say that I had not thought, earlier? I said that do not, now. Listen carefully, my lady."

  "All right, my lord." She smiled back. "Now you've got me. Anyway, we cannot know who would have won, but that does not matter. Wondering about it only diminishes the point of choosing to not fight." You wanted to fight me, too, didn't you?"

  "This is a part of what I wanted, yes." She took a quick, shallow breath as his thumb brushed a lock of hair away from her throat. Then his eyes narrowed again. "Linde, who did this to you?"

  "What?" She touched her throat herself, but felt nothing unusual.

  "You are bruised."

  "The Mentor two days ago ..."

  "I know about him." If voice could kill, the Mentor must die now. "This is new."

  "It must be me doing it to myself, then. In the Inner Sanctum, clutching my throat while I could not breathe. The Aetarx did—Oh, wretch it!" She shook her head hard. "Stupid, stupid, how can I be so stupid! It did nothing! I did everything to myself. And I did some things to you, too. The Aetarx cannot do anything. It can make images, but they are empty by themselves. I thought I had found the trick—I thought I could protect myself—but in the end, it almost got me. Why, I made a wretched sword!"

  "Calm down." The arm around her waist tightened. "You are trembling again."

  "I deserve to be trembling. I should slap myself."

  "If all got what they deserved, the world would be an interesting place. Calm down now. Then tell me."

  She leaned to pick the folder Rianor had given her before from the floor, then took his hand in hers and walked back to the sofa. "I will, but let me show you something first." She put the folder beside the bread, then looked around, confused. "Where is my notebook?"

  "What notebook? The one you had in the Inner Sanctum?"

  "So I left it there." She clenched a fist in irritation. "Any other stupidity that I must have done tonight?"

  He took her fist in his hand and unclenched it. "Stop distressing yourself, will you? I will bring it back to you later."

  "Rianor, no." She placed her unclenched fingers on his wrist. "Please. I don't want you to go there."

  He sighed. "Linde, I have been going there forever—since I became the High Lord at thirteen, so it has been ten years now. I am still alive and relatively sane. I know how to deal with it."

  "Since you were thirteen?" She shuddered. His parents dead and the Aetarx on top of that. "I am sorry. It must have all been terrible."

  "It was not the most
pleasurable time of my life, but this is a whole different story. I am more interested in your Aetarx story right now."

  "My story ... Yes, "story" is a good term to use for what seems to happen there. Or, rather, stories. This is where I got the sword from—stories."

  She told him then, about the tree-tied witch and merchant Pierre's labels; about images that meant little in themselves but meant too much when the mind wove a web of fears, thoughts, and dreams around them.

  "My mind made stories about the women I saw—the women I imagined myself to be—horrible stories that I in no way wanted it to make, but it did. A mind with a mind of its own, you can say, but I thought that I had prevailed upon it. I made another story about the witch, and I would have made another one about the lord ..." She felt herself flushing; she had not told him about that one. "Anyway, the Aetarx reacted to my writing; I started seeing light and perhaps would have seen the door and ran away, but then you came and did what you did, and I lost control."

  She took his folder and propped it on her knees, absentmindedly tracing the engraved crest with her finger. She did not yet dare open it.

  "And when I lost control—what did I do? I made yet another story. With swords in it. I have read and heard countless stories about the old times, about power conquered by the sword, and about the one and only ruler of a House or a village. You know, those stories that old people whisper to children, that books clearly label as "unreal," and Mentors hate? Perhaps Mentors do have a reason to hate them."

  She sighed. "Who would have thought that I might ever agree with Mentors, about anything. But, a sword I got. Even though"—she raised her eyes to his again—"I never liked those stories. I did not like the Ber tale about the first High Lords and Ladies, who became such because they were the only ones who could slay Lost Ones, with swords of fire bestowed to them by the Master. Or the whispered, Ber-disapproved tale about the new ruler of some House who sword-murdered the old ruler first and all other possible rulers second. I hated the fairytales where some boy or girl became a village chief because it butchered the poor old zmay whose only fault was that it drank a little water from the village's waterwell. Or the story where someone killed the old so-called witch only because she had no teeth and smelled funny. Cruel stories about merciless, power-hungry people with whom I like to think I have nothing in common. Yet, when I found myself in a trial, I turned to those stories myself.