The Spirit Lens

by Carol Berg

  But how had he done it? I stared at my hand, pocked with the burn scars he had soothed and dressed after the fire on the Swan, as if it had taken on a wholly unfamiliar shape. Never in all my studies had I come upon a formula to embed enchantment into a man’s very blood and flesh. Into his mind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  6 CINQ 19 DAYS UNTIL THE ANNIVERSARY

  “You said twelve of fifteen elements.” Jacard frowned at my sketch of Dante’s circumoccule. We sat beside the tall case ments at the end of the mages’ passage on the morning after the Camarilla had taken the three away. “It’s none of my doing that Dante was hauled off before you could get him out. I risked my career.”

  “Sorry. Ten are all I can remember. Truly I appreciate your help, Adept, and as soon as I’ve a chance to consult my journal pages, I’ll let you know the rest.” Not that better instructions would do him any good without Dante’s power to seal and charge the thing. So deeply shaken were my magical certainties, I could no longer assert that any particle embedded in the ring affected the mage’s enchantments in any fashion whatsoever.

  My skin buzzed with lack of sleep. I had not dared return to my apartments or be seen in public lest someone decide to enshroud me in dark wool and iron and haul me off to the Bastionne. I’d spent the entire previous day in a rose arbor, watching the carriageway for Dante’s return. The night I’d spent huddled in the summerhouse, hoping to see a light in his window and trying to decide if the thoughts and fears and urgencies in my head were my own or a product of his enchantment. No enlightenment had been forthcoming. At dawn, rabid for news, I had given up and set out for the east wing. On my way to Dante’s apartments, I had run straight into Jacard.

  He folded the page and slipped it into his sleeve. “Acolyte Nadine’s uncle is a house mage at the Bastionne. He hasn’t been home since yesterday, but he sent her father a message that Gaetana’s assistants are not to be summoned. And if hers aren’t, the rest of us aren’t likely. You’re something of a special case I suppose, with this ‘holy mission’ to root out treachery, but I’ve not heard your name mentioned. They’d surely have come for you already if they thought you had something useful to say.”

  “That seems good news,” I said. “Perhaps none of this is as serious as it seems.” But it was, of course. Too many hours had passed. Camarilla inquisitors did not indulge in drawing room chatter with their held Witnesses.

  “Head up,” whispered Jacard. “Someone’s coming.”

  “Let me pass. Let me pass.” A disheveled Mage Orviene swept down the passage toward his grandly carved door, drawing acolytes and adepts behind him as a comet leads its tail of stars. “I must sit in my own chair. But follow me in, all of you. You must hear what I’ve to report. And by your hope of Heaven, recall that your lips are sealed by the oaths you have sworn to the Camarilla.”

  “I’ll find you later.” Jacard jumped up and joined his fellows, eight or nine of them crowding through the doorway after Orviene.

  I slipped onto the back of the group as if I belonged, remaining nearest the door.

  Orviene’s expansive great chamber vied with Ilario’s in overblown elegance, if not so obviously in cost. The mage sagged into a cushioned chair, carved in the shape of a rampant lion, motioning for one of his acolytes to light a man-high lamp of fluted brass. Though the hour was early on a bright day, thick draperies covered the chamber’s sole window.

  The lamplight only clarified the mage’s out-of-character turnout. His chin-length hair, customarily pomaded and combed, straggled on a soiled collar. His skirted doublet hung unbuttoned; his meticulously tailored sleeves flapped about his wrists. But his round face carried worse news, his complexion gray, his eyes dull and uncertain.

  “Mage Gaetana was beheaded by the Camarilla Magica at the first hour of morning watch . . .”

  The news slammed my chest like a battering ram. Warning, denial, horror, guilt exploded in my head and heart. Only with difficulty could I follow the rest of his words.

  “. . . unholy practice . . . transference . . . a former adept in her charge . . . and an innocent girl . . . murder . . . confession after intensive questioning . . .”

  I had killed her, as clearly as day followed night. As coldly heedless as a child who burns an insect to see how it reacts, I had set the Camarilla on her. Intensive questioning. Holy angels, Father Creator . . . I’d never have written the letter had I truly doubted the woman’s involvement in terrible crimes. I’d wanted her out of play, prevented from tormenting anyone else. Yet I had expected a prolonged investigation, time to be certain. And what of Dante? Saints defend him.

  “. . . shock . . . dismay . . . private quest for arcane knowledge . . . thankfully, no evidence of collaboration . . .”

  No sense. No sense. No sense. Even amid this nauseating self-reproach, the agente confide in my head bullied me with reason. Why had they not come for the lunatic who had written the accusing letter? Great gods, I had signed my name. And these young colleagues were inexperienced, yes, most of them new to court, overawed at their privilege to study with the queen’s own. Those I recognized were not Seravain’s elite, to be sure, but capable. Yet they had not been asked for their own observations. That must mean the Camarilla possessed other evidence implicating Gaetana.

  “. . . who worked for her are dismissed without prejudice. I shall personally write recommendations. For my own self and my staff, we must wait to see how Her Majesty reacts to the news as the prefects present it to her. Information may be curtailed or held entirely in confidence. Such scandal so near her royal person! Truth be told, I am tempted to resign.”

  Her Majesty. When the world learned the queen’s mage had been executed for illicit magic, Philippe would be forced to act—to declare his support or arrest her. And if he declared his wife innocent of murder and corruption, he must have the truth to offer his people instead.

  The Concord de Praesta had been wrought to prevent civil and magical life from swallowing each other. It ensured that magical practitioners were subject to a law that took into account the particular demands, requirements, and possibilities of their deeds, and it ensured that those lacking magical talents would never be judged by those with talents so alien to their own. Only the Camarilla could judge matters of magical practice. Only the crown could judge civil matters. On the day I had been admitted to the study of magic’s secrets, I had sworn the oath to uphold the Camarilla’s prerogatives as set by the Concord, believing fully in their value. No argument had yet convinced me otherwise. I had to pursue my own part of this investigation, trusting Philippe to give me time to bring him the truth.

  Shaken to the marrow, bursting with questions to which I had no answers, I slid round the door frame into the passage before anyone noticed me. With such alarm and upheaval, none present were looking beyond their own futures. I sped lightly to Dante’s door and slipped inside, only to receive another jolt. One might imagine a herd of elephants had arrived before me.

  The contents of the worktables had been scattered from one end of the room to the other. Every box had been opened. Every bottle emptied. Every book unstacked. Every paper . . . I spun in place. Not a paper was to be seen. Dante had predicted the Camarilla would come looking for the book. Better they than Michel de Vernase.

  It was tempting to run to Ilario. More than four-and-twenty hours Dante had been held. Yet even were we willing to risk our partnership, Ilario, a man outside the magical community, could not intervene with Camarilla business, even to ask for news, nor could his half sister or the king. And I was oath-sworn not to speak of Camarilla business to an outsider.

  And so I sat for a while in the midst of the destruction, worried, guilty, and wholly unsure what to do next. I did not so much doubt Gaetana’s guilt, as wonder at the circumstances of her “confession.” Haste implied a wish to avoid probing too deep, a wish to hide unpleasant truth, a wish to contain and conceal. What if someone in the Camarilla itself wanted Gaetana’s testimony cut short? How likely wa
s it that Gaetana and Michel de Vernase worked alone? And why, why, why did they keep Dante so long?

  Near midday, unable to sit still any longer, I began to tidy up the mess, blotting oils and inks, stacking books, and gathering the scattered leaves and scraps, the beads of coral, jade, and lapis, and slips of varied metals onto a sheet. As the afternoon waned, I collected the emptied bottles and jars, settled on the floor beside the heaped sheet, and began to sort the materials into their proper containers. The sun slid westward. . . .

  “SO WHEN DO WE RIDE?”

  I jerked upright to the chinking clatter of glass and stone. The world had gone black, save for the soft glow of a white staff.

  “Dante! God’s teeth!” I jumped to my feet, the sorting debris showering to the floor. “Are you all right? Is it true about Gaetana? What, in the god’s creation, did they do to you? What did they ask? So many hours . . .”

  I could not slow the spill of questions, even as he moved away, raising his staff high enough to cast its soft light on the jumbled cupboards and filthy floor.

  “A blighted mess here. I presume you did not cause it.”

  “Certainly not.” How could he speak of such trivialities? “Dante, tell me about Gaetana.”

  “The Camarilla killed her for bleeding the girl. She confessed to it.”

  A statement of fact, entirely dispassionate. I expected rage—or gloating, perhaps—anything but glassy calm.

  “And what of you, Master? What did they ask? Did they use . . . extraordinary methods?”

  “I am neither dead nor accused.” He nudged the broken night jar with his toe, then strolled across the room and touched his staff to the wall. A spike of red light split the dark, and the bedchamber doorway stood revealed. He picked up an emptied rucksack from a worktable and carried it into the bedchamber.

  “Shall we get a start on the morning?” he called through the opened doorway. “I’ve no wish to field idiot questions from slobbering ladies-in-waiting or devious assistants. The moon’s just past full, and I’ve been told the road to Vernase is a good one.”

  The suggestion surprised me. Dante hated riding, and night travel could be slow and unsettling. But, then, perhaps he was as anxious to be away as I was. Perhaps he dared not speak of the Bastionne inside the palace, where listening ears were everywhere.

  “Certainly. Yes, of course, we should go. I’ll roust the stableman and meet you in the yard.”

  “I’ve a few things to gather; then I’ll be down.” As I touched the door latch, he called after me. “You do still have my book, yes?”

  His will nudged my hands and tongue, subtler than his earlier attempts to influence me, but unmistakable now I knew to watch. Yet even so small a move unleashed a fury in me. I no longer even questioned that he was capable of magic my studies deemed impossible, but that did not mean I would ignore this crude manipulation.

  “So tell me, Master, do you still not trust me, or is it you believe me a pure dullard? Would it make a difference if I repeat that these spell tricks are unnecessary? Or that I prefer us to deal with each other as honest men? Or if I told you that an armed assassin would not have kept me from your side once I saw Camarilla in the palace?”

  He appeared in the doorway, the rucksack on his shoulder. To my astonishment, he had donned a mage’s formal blue gown instead of his favored russet tunic and scuffed trousers. Though his silver collar gleamed in the light of his staff, his face remained shadowed. I could imagine its ascetic arrogance well enough.

  “I don’t know what to make of you, student. On the one hand, I never met a man who understood himself so little as you. Your own excessively rigid mind plays more tricks on you than I ever could. But on the other hand . . . So tell me, honest man, where is my book?”

  “I’ve put it away, as I presumed you wished.” Underneath a bench in the summerhouse, to be precise, as my “excessively rigid mind” had not completely failed me.

  “Exactly so. But if I’m to discover anything of interest in it, I’ll need it back, won’t I?”

  I bit back a useless retort. We were not children, and the past two days had surely overstretched him as well as me. I’d known from the first he was subject to this choler. “I’ll fetch it with us, certainly. And as we ride, you’ll tell me what you’ve learned from it.”

  He stooped to rummage through the heaped contents fallen from a gaping cupboard. “Little enough. A few tricks. Some tedious history. The Mondragoni had no use for this other family, the Gautieri, I’ll say. Evidently the other way round, as well, as the encryption is hideously complex, doubly so for what puling spellwork is written in it. I doubt I’ll ever be able to finish reading the thing, much less grasp its full meaning.” He picked a few items from the heap, carried them into his bedchamber, and stuffed them into his leather satchel.

  I gaped for a moment, not sure what I was hearing. Dante, suggesting a magical task he could not perform? A conclusion that wholly contradicted his statement of a day earlier that he would “astonish” me with what he learned from the Mondragoni text. “What foolery is this? You said—”

  Caution aborted my retort. Did he speak this way for my benefit or for some other listener—perhaps someone who also knew of Gaetana’s book? His deliberate preoccupation offered no prospect of immediate enlightenment. I would challenge him again, once we were on the road.

  So I left him at his packing. It would not pain me to rouse the stableman, Guillam, from a sound sleep. Perhaps with a cannon.

  OTHERS WERE AWAKE IN THE middle-night hours of Castelle Escalon. As I awaited the mage in an unlit corner of the carriageway, an increasing number of footmen and guards raced in and out of the east wing doors. Extra torches were brought out to light the portico steps. Before very long, old Guillam himself led out two palfreys, one white, one sleek bay, both saddled for ladies.

  “We’d best be off before we get caught in this lot. The house is in an uproar.” Engrossed in the activity, I near shed my skin when Dante spoke from behind me. He snatched his mount’s reins from my hand.

  A troop of guardsmen marched round the corner from the direction of the barracks, just as a knot of people emerged from the east wing: guards, ladies, court officials. Lady Antonia, unmistakable in a yellow cloak, hair piled in billowing curls, descended the steps and was assisted into her saddle. Her voice carried, but not her words. Two more followed her—a tall, slender figure, draped head to toe in black and leaning on Ilario’s arm. It could be no one but Eugenie de Sylvae.

  “He’s sending her away,” I whispered. It was the only conclusion that made sense. But was my cousin dispatching his wife to her family’s home in Aubine or his own mountain fortress Journia, or had Gaetana’s treachery pushed him past patience?

  The answer came swiftly. The queen and Ilario were bustled down the steps and wrenched apart, amid a flurry of sharply announced commands. The lady, surrounded by a bristling forest of spears, was aided to mount. No coach. No baggage. No attendants but her foster mother. A snapped order moved the party forward, and the milling courtiers dissipated like smoke in wind, leaving the pale-haired Ilario alone in the carriageway.

  One other watched alone from the east portico as the queen’s party vanished into the dark. Ilario marched up the steps and past my royal cousin without so much as a word. When the king slowly followed the chevalier inside, footmen stepped out and doused the extra torches. A sense of utter failure settled over me like a leaden mantle.

  The yard quiet again, Dante and I rode out into a restless city. Lamps blazed. Doors stood open. Knots of citizens had gathered in the streets. Many an eye glared at Dante as we rode by. “Ought to burn ’em all,” yelled a burly taverner, just after we’d passed his doorway.

  A crowd of boys and rowdies surged across the road, heading down toward the river. When I asked where they were headed, a boy yelled back, “Sorcerer’s whore is headed to the Spindle.”

  I was relieved when we left Merona behind without further incident. For beyond all this, we had
still to determine if Michel de Vernase, king’s friend and confidant, who called himself the Aspirant, was trying to drive Sabria into chaos with Mondragoni sorcery or save her from those who were. If any clues were to be found in Michel de Vernase’s house, we needed to get there before his family or co-conspirators thought to remove them.

  Surely Philippe would wait for my report from Vernase before he judged Eugenie—surely.

  THE GIBBOUS MOON HUNG HUGE and yellow in the cloudless void, bathing the quiet vineyards south of Merona in ocher and gold. As the road led us into the soft hills, the shadows of clustered hornbeams and downy oaks mottled the roadway, requiring a rider to keep alert for pits and obstacles as well as the ever-present possibility of thieves. Fortunately the horses could see better than either of us.

  Dante continued to put off my questions, claiming the concentration required to stay on his horse quite consumed him. When I persisted, he insisted I shut my mouth unless I had something useful to tell him. We had scarce exited Merona’s gates when he had demanded the Mondragoni book. Perhaps if I’d been clever enough to hold it back, I could have pried a few answers from him in exchange.

  Well along in the night, the road dipped into a thickly wooded vale creased by a shallow river. “The moon’s too low to do us good,” I said, weary to the bone. “We should halt until sunrise and rest the horses here by the water.”

  “Can’t say an hour’s sleep would go amiss,” said the mage, yawning. “Inquisitors don’t heed day or night. They pursue what clues they’re given.” A white glow swelled from his staff, and he urged his mount ahead of mine.

  Using his muted, steady light, we found a clearing by the water, a few hundred metres down a side path. Old dung, wheel tracks, and scattered ash evidenced that other travelers had used the clearing. We tended the horses and set them to graze, matters for which the inexperienced mage needed constant direction.