The Spirit Lens

by Carol Berg

  And led them here. Cornered, he had tried to rip through the fence . . . then placed the book.

  Carefully I lifted the worn leather cover, so thin a wind would wrinkle it like paper. Recalling the banners on the Swan, I shielded my eyes with my free arm, but no spits of fire leapt out. The title page read Covenants of Civil Properties in the Demesne of Challyat, which meant nothing to me. Naught seemed hidden between its pages. I lowered the cover gently. The board creaked.

  The impact of the book itself wouldn’t kill, even with a square hit on someone’s head. But memories of the Swan would not leave me, nor would Ophelie’s family or Gruchin’s. “Have you a fondness for fire, Adept?”

  Fedrigo shrugged, but the roused hunger on his bruised face answered all. A spark on the Market Way at its narrowest point—the oldest houses in Merona—would rage through Riverside like summer lightning in the maquis, and up the hill into the city proper.

  Now his eyes were on the book, Fedrigo could not look away. A man who loved fire. A man unafraid, perhaps because he intended to die. Which meant we all would die . . . and Philippe, too. I had just sent him notice that one of his son’s murderers sat in this alley. Saints defend us.

  So, Portier, you can try to move the book to a safer place—like the river—or you can sit here and wait for this little trap to fall and explode or whatever it’s designed to do.

  “One of you bring water,” I said, in focused urgency. “Enough to douse the book and more. Hurry!”

  Fedrigo’s smug expression told me that would not be enough.

  “Greville Orin, get you to the palace and find one of the mages—Dante, if you can find him, or Orviene—and get him to come here. Tell them that Duplais says there’s a challenge here that devil’s fire will not explain. And hurry. Whatever you do, make sure the king keeps away. He must not return to Riverside. Do you understand?”

  “Understood. I’ll spread the word of more fireworks to come at the river, as well.” He set the lantern well away from Fedrigo’s feet. “Hagerd, be alert. The prisoner is your charge.”

  “Good man.” Better than me to think of a way to empty Riverside without causing a riot.

  I crouched near the book like a useless schoolboy, Fedrigo’s sly grin driving me to distraction. Had he some alternative trigger to ignite the book? Surely he’d not have perched it so precariously, if so. I dared not move it, but the torn plank could give way at any moment. The imagining had sweat beading my brow and the burn scars on my hands twinging.

  “Did you work this nasty spell?” I mumbled, knowing full well Fedrigo would not answer.

  But the answer came anyway. The magic that hung about the book was huge, not simple. Even I could sense so much. But Dante had called Fedrigo’s magic that darkened the Rotunda infantile. Darkening spell . . . blanking spell . . .

  I pulled out the wadded loop of silk-threaded string Dante had given me and dangled it in the air. “Perhaps the one who taught you to work blanking spells is the same who ensorcelled this vile book. We’re going to discover who it is whether you speak or not. Whether you die or not.”

  Fedrigo’s smirk faded. His thick neck reddened and spittle dribbled from his mouth. Perhaps his voice had been muted like Gruchin’s.

  “Not a twitch,” growled Hagerd, pressing his sword tip to Fedrigo’s belly.

  Gaetana hadn’t bound this spell; Michel’s vengeance had flared to murder only after Eltevire was destroyed and Gaetana dead. Nor had Fedrigo; if Fedrigo was capable of sophisticated spellwork, why would he have used something infantile as he deposited Edmond’s body? Certainly an experienced spellworker could bind his spells poorly if he wanted. If he had reason. If he wished to make investigators think him incapable. . . .

  I twined the looped string about my fingers. And I recalled an impatient Dante poking his staff into an enclosure loop before it could be picked up—one of two loops laid side by side behind the dais in the Rotunda.

  “Souleater’s bones,” I whispered. “Orviene taught you spellwork.” The incapable Orviene, who had somehow earned a mage’s collar. So kind he was . . . so concerned for his poor missing adept. Orviene had asked me if Ilario might know why Fedrigo had gone to the docks on the day the adept was supposedly knifed, yet, when questioned, he had reported Fedrigo perpetually short of money and in the habit of gambling. Indeed, Orviene had pointed me repeatedly at Gaetana, and I, like a dotard, had followed his accusing finger. Of all men, I should have known to look harder at a fool.

  Narrowing his eyes and curling his lip, the adept squirmed, and the swordsman shifted his blade to Fedrigo’s throat. The magic grated at my spirit, growing like a canker, like raw poison. Gods, where was the man with water? What if Dante refused to come?

  I glared at the damnable book and imagined how Dante would proceed. He would see an overused book, smudged and worn. My enlivened senses could smell the dusty shelves where it had lain, the smoky lamps that had illuminated it, could hear the voices reading it, discussing, arguing over it. Covenants meant lawyers and magistrates and registrars and property disputes. Angry people had used this book. Maybe that’s why it was so tattered. None were so angry as Fedrigo, a man who burned innocents for pleasure, who would burn himself to keep his master’s secrets.

  Yet those who had made the book’s pages—those who shredded the old linen, soaked and washed and pulped it, spread it in its frame, pressed and dried it—had no clue as to what might be written upon them. Paper could hold poems or stories, accounts or covenants—endless possibilities. And those who brewed the ink, and the binders and printers, for this was a printed book . . . all their labor and invention had gone into a volume destined to hold a cruel and evil spell to murder a king and fire his city. I inhaled deeply of the Riverside stench, of the fishy harbor and the dry wood of the warehouses—every sensation crisp and hard-edged and alive.

  Fedrigo, scarlet-faced, growled and rocked his massive body, as I pulled off the link belt I wore over my tunic, clipped the ends together, and laid it gently around the book. He roared, even as Hagerd’s rapier bit his fleshy neck.

  I grabbed a fistful of dirt and laid it atop the book, evenly so as not to upset its balance, and sat down near the warehouse wall. Closing my eyes, I built the rune in my imagining, encircling the book as it lay on the plank, incorporating everything I’d considered. Dark curling lines for the inked words, ragged white strips for the paper, rectangle for the presses . . . and before I knew it, I was painting the rune with red blotches for anger, and orange, blue, and white arrows for flame, black claws for evil intent. . . .

  Fedrigo began to slam his bound feet to the ground. The soldier kicked him, and I wanted to scream at them to stop, for I felt the heat rising. Not in my flesh, but in my bones. In the part of me that understood these things, a part of me I had not visited since I was a child and felt the stir-rings of power that made me dream of magic.

  I considered coolness, damp, and stillness, and the heaviness of dirt that could smother a fire.

  Fedrigo yelled, wordless, guttural, gurgling yells. The swordsman grunted and crashed to the ground, his legs kicked out from under him. But I did not see the plank give way and the book fall, because my eyes were focused inward, where walls and barriers toppled like paper standards struck by the pendulum.

  “Sonjeur, the book!” This time the blaze seared my cheeks, and the crackling quickly rose to a thunder like fifty horses galloping together.

  Fedrigo’s agitation erupted in crows of triumph.

  But I sought the power that lived in the pattern I had made, and I joined it with what lived in me, born in my blood. And as if the spout of flame had been sucked into my veins, enchantment roared through me, unruly and awkward, but building, rushing, towering, shivering my foundation, swelling heart and lungs and filling me with torrents of magic. I spread my arms and bellowed in the triumph of a lifetime’s longing.

  I did not need to open my eyes to know the book was ash or that Fedrigo glared at me with such hatred as would ea
t a man’s heart, for I had built his hate into the keirna of his book, and I had quenched it with the glory of my art.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  30 CINQ 5 DAYS AFTER THE ANNIVERSARY

  The trial of Michel de Vernase-Ruggiere, Maura de Billard-Vien, Orviene de Cie, and Fedrigo de Leuve for murder and high treason began and ended on 30 Cinq in the 877th year of the Sabrian Kingdom in the city of Merona. Philippe de Savin, King of Sabria, Duc de Journia, Protector of the Fassid, Overlord of Kadr, sat in judgment, in company with a Judicial Scribe and seven Magisterial Advisors, drawn by lottery, as prescribed by Sabrian Law.

  Of the four accused, only Orviene de Cie and Fedrigo de Leuve were in attendance. The Conte Ruggiere and Damoselle ney Billard remained at large. A mage of the Camarilla Magica sat as family advocate for de Cie and de Leuve. The Chevalier de Vien refused to send a representative to his daughter’s trial, stating that the family maintained no further interest in Damoselle Maura’s person or fate. Representing the Conte Ruggiere’s family was Damoselle Anne de Vernase. . . .

  I LEAFED THROUGH THE NEAT pages, meticulously penned by the judicial scribe and delivered to me for review, scratching out a word here or there, replacing a sentence, correcting not the testimony itself, but its articulation. My cousin had insisted I complete the task immediately following the trial’s adjournment to ensure that no questions remained unanswered before he announced his verdict publicly.

  Countless activities came to mind as preferable for a soft summer evening after such a long and arduous day. I would have liked to close my eyes and recapture the sweetness of Maura’s embrace. I would have liked to write a letter to my mother and tell her I’d be home to visit soon, and express my hope that perhaps she would be feeling well enough to walk in Manor Duplais’ lavender beds with me, as I knew she enjoyed that above all activities.

  Magic, too, beckoned at this sunset hour, when the world itself donned a mantle of mystery and all things seemed possible. All these days, even when concentrating on this trial, my spirit had existed in a state of exaltation. So much to learn, to explore. Everything I’d read and studied lay before me like mysterious lands and oceans lay before the Destinne’s prow. Twice in the days since, I had ridden into the countryside and spent an afternoon creating simple spells, just to confirm this renewal was no cruel imagining. Each success but fed the yearnings that had ever lingered in my innermost heart, a deep and hungry burn like that of raw spirits or swallowed lightning.

  But I would work no magic at Castelle Escalon as long as Dante remained there. He would sense it, and I was not ready to tell him. Somehow his terrible spellwork at the Exposition had shattered the walls and barriers he’d claimed stifled my magic, in the same way it had broken through my memory of my own death. I wanted to believe he had given me this unparalleled gift knowingly, as a friend. But until I understood what was happening with him, I would tell him nothing. It grieved me, but I dared not trust him.

  So much for the Invariable Signs of sainthood. For those first few moments after magic had scalded my veins, Ilario’s beliefs had come upon me in a rush of wonder. I had eluded Death three times, once so close as to smell the grass of Ixtador Beyond the Veil. What if I was Other? What if the recurrent dreams of my youth—the battlefields, the flood, the rescue that had gotten me chained to a rock—were the true memory of recurring lives?

  I had quickly recovered my sanity. If I were a Saint Reborn, my inerrant perception of righteousness was, if not broken, then entirely confused.

  And so I corrected a paragraph, then approved a swan’s graceful glide to its landing in the swan garden pond. Another paragraph and I watched the sky change color. After so many sultry days, the breeze ruffling the pond smelled of rain to come. I breathed deep, hoping that the most refreshing of all scents would cleanse my blood as Dante’s sorcery had cleansed my head, for it seemed as if the facts and implications of this investigation had taken up residence in my veins and arteries, so that if I were to cut my arm I would bleed evidence. Appropriate, I supposed.

  I turned another page. Two-thirds of the testimony was my own. The remainder I had elicited from witnesses, for my cousin had designated me Principal Accuser.

  Calvino de Santo had testified to Michel de Vernase’s actions in the aftermath of the previous year’s assassination attempt. In return, Philippe commuted his former captain’s sentence. De Santo could now find work and rebuild his life—outside of Sabria, I hoped, lest someday his king discover his role in Maura’s escape. I wondered if Gruchin’s spectre would yet haunt him outside the palace walls.

  Audric de Neville had testified haltingly of Ophelie de Marangel’s death. Philippe had granted royal clemency for the killing stroke Ophelie had begged from the old chevalier.

  Chief Magistrate Polleu of Challyat testified that the fire that killed the Marqués de Marangel and his family had been traced to a carpenter’s apprentice, whose money box at home contained receipts for the building of crates to specification, signed by Maura ney Billard. The apprentice’s wife identified Fedrigo as a customer she had spied delivering “white paste in a jar of water” just before Ophelie’s home burned. The carpenter’s helper himself could not testify, as he had died in a fall less than a week after the Marangel fire. That small fact I recorded in my journal, another death to the Aspirant’s account.

  Henri de Sain witnessed to the shipments of crates by Maura ney Billard, bringing a solidity to the case that masked some of its more speculative elements.

  A palace guard and a registrar identified Fedrigo as the householder who brought an “ill kinsman” into the Exposition, revealed later to be one Edmond de Roble-Margeroux, dead son of the king’s great friend, Lord Olivier. Captain de Segur’s soldiers witnessed to Fedrigo’s attempt to murder Philippe by dropping a fire-spelled book on his head.

  Orviene had tried repeatedly to defend himself, babbling like a terrified child of his blindness to Gaetana’s and Fedrigo’s plotting. He claimed never to have seen the spelled book, and that the enclosure string turned over to the Camarilla had never bound a fire spell and was never his at all.

  The Camarilla advocate sat silent through all this. His participation would have made no difference. Orviene and Fedrigo would be bound over to the Camarilla as soon as I verified the transcript. They would be dead by middle-night. The imagining did not grieve me.

  Lianelle ney Cazar de Vernase initially refused to testify, until the Principal Accuser took her aside and pointed out that she could sit either in the witness chair or in her father’s empty prisoner’s box, accused of complicity to treason. The prospect of beheading at dawn the next morning tarnished the luster of defiance.

  To give full credit to the girl’s courage, however, she agreed only to give yea or nay answers. Though it made my questioning more difficult, I was happy at the solution. I was able to squeeze the story of Ophelie and transference out of her, while avoiding the matter of Eltevire or its disturbing nature. I avoided any testimony that might reveal Ilario’s or Dante’s roles as king’s agentes. For Ilario’s sake, if no other, our confederacy would remain as secret as I could manage.

  Certainly, the most damning of all witnesses was Anne de Vernase, who identified Maura’s letters, verified her father’s signature on the letters that had sent Edmond de Roble to his death, and reported Michel de Vernase’s last words to her: that it was his duty to “take down” persons he deemed corrupt, “no matter how highly placed . . . no matter the consequences.” Nothing more was required of her.

  Throughout the day the girl had listened to every word unflinching, never once meeting the eyes of her royal goodfather or anyone else in the chamber. When I had done with her questioning, it required three prompts for her to remove herself from the chair. She could not seem to take her eyes from the bloody lancets and scarificator we had found in her father’s library.

  It surprised me that Lady Madeleine would have sent her daughter alone into such an ordeal. Bad enough the girl had been forced to witness
to her father’s infamy. At the end when Philippe gave Anne an opportunity to speak in Michel’s defense, the girl had shaken her head and remained silent.

  Philippe’s own demeanor, grim and settled more than angry, had not wavered throughout. He did not present Michel’s last letter in evidence, but told his advisors that it laid out frustrated ambition as motive for Michel’s crimes. I did not believe that was all, but it was enough for the Magisterial Advisors that Philippe was convinced of Michel’s guilt. The burden of judgment was the king’s alone.

  And so we arrived at the verdict.

  Michel de Vernase to be declared Outlaw, Abductor, Murderer, and Traitor, stripped of Title and Demesne, neither to be housed nor succored in any wise under penalty of Treason. Upon his arrest to be taken to Spindle Prison, there to be stripped, flogged, and executed by beheading, his body burned and ashes scattered in an unknown location, according to the law of Sabria.

  Maura de Billard-Vien to be declared Outlaw and Conspirator in Treason and Murder, neither to be housed nor succored in any wise under penalty of Conspiracy. Upon her arrest to be taken to Spindle Prison, there to be executed by beheading, according to the law of Sabria.

  Fedrigo de Leuve and Orviene de Cie to be declared Murderers and Traitors, to be remanded to the Camarilla Magica for the crime of Blood Transference. If the penalty adjudged by the Camarilla is in any wise lesser than the following, then to be returned to Crown custody, taken to Spindle Prison, there to be stripped, flogged, and executed by hanging, their bodies burned and ashes scattered in an unknown location, according to the law of Sabria.

  AND IT WAS DONE.

  Without hesitation, I signed the document in the space reserved for the Principal Accuser, capped my ink, and wiped my pen, and again wondered if I had done right.

  My life held too little of faith to understand how Maura could have done what Michel told her without questioning, yet my conviction of her innocence remained unshakable. I had risked my life and carved out a piece of my honor to save her. Never again could I call myself an honest man, else I must give myself up as guilty of conspiracy as outlined in the verdict. And I would do it all again.