Taking in a breath, Miranda knew it was here, for real, right in front of her. This was it, and she opened her eyes, seeing the gray, the quick flicks of matter, and she thought about where she needed to go. But there was no where. There was only a who. Sariel, she thought. Sariel. Tell me where you are.
Somewhere, in the far recesses of the moving, living gray matter, she thought she saw something, felt him, heard him say, “I’m here. Come to me.” And without another thought, she closed her eyes and moved in, felt herself pass through matter, felt matter pass through her. She was close now, almost with him. Sariel.
Chapter Nine
Early in the morning, Sariel, Rufus, and the rest of the recently assembled team sat at Adalbert’s long wooden kitchen table. The room was filled with early, pinkish sunrise, a fire crackling in the corner fireplace. Adalbert stood over the hob, murmuring encouraging words to a large pot of oatmeal.
“Have you heard of a microwave?” Rufus said finally. “It’s a wee miracle.”
Adalbert held up a finger, stirred for a moment longer, and then stopped, bringing the pot to the table and serving up bowls for the group. Next to Sariel sat Nala, swathed in yellow robes, her face stern, no wisecracks this morning, and next to her was Sayblee Safipour, a sorciere Sariel had known well in school, though she wasn’t in his class but in Felix’s. Back then, she was fun to be around because no one ever knew what would burst into flame. When she was angry about a test score or at what the cooks had served up in the cafeteria for breakfast, things had a tendency to ignite: desks, cooks’ hats, teacher’s grade books. She could even create fire in the middle of the hardest, densest stone, evidenced by the bursting into flame of a toilet in the girl’s bathroom. Apparently, Amanda Browne had teased Sayblee about her dress and Amanda was sitting on the toilet when the fire commenced. Sayblee was the toast of the school because everyone was evacuated during final exams as teachers rushed to put out the fire that kept springing back to life despite the charms and magic they threw at it.
Sayblee smiled up at him, her blue eyes serious. “Don’t worry,” she said, having read his thoughts. “I’m in a good mood. And I have better control now.”
“I’m sure Amanda would be glad to hear of that,” Sariel said.
Sayblee tucked her blonde hair behind her ear. “She loved it. Boys told her she had a hot ass after that.”
“She had a hot ass,” Rufus said. “And it wasn’t because of your fire.”
Sariel laughed, eating his oatmeal, smiling until he felt something pull at him, something he couldn’t quite understand. Sayblee reminded him of a person or a conversation, maybe, or a thought, but then whatever she reminded him of vanished.
“We will likely need your skill, Sayblee. Who knows what Quain has in mind?” said Mazi Kakkilya, who’d just come in from Tanzania that morning. He was an older man, but his dark skin was unlined, smooth, as if he’d spent most of his life in the gray, traveling between times rather than being in one. His hair, while abundant, was mostly gray, the curls slightly wild, a pale halo around his face.
Across from Sariel sat Baris Fraser and Lutalo Olano, both of whom had spent the night at Adalbert’s after the Council meeting as well. They were chatting about Lutalo’s pet project, a bridge that changed from stone to wood to metal and back again.
“My wife hates it,” Lutalo admitted. “She wanted a nice wooden bridge over the pond in our backyard. But I was inspired.”
“Sounds awesome,” Baris said, running his hand through his orange hair. “Bet the kids love it.” Baris had the ability to hold more thoughts in his head than most, a crowded stadium not overwhelming to him. On any mission, he was an asset, especially when things were in chaos.
Rufus joined in the conversation, telling everyone at the table about the house he and Fabia wanted to buy just outside of Edinburgh. Sariel rubbed his forehead. He needed to get himself together. All of these people had strong magic, were good people, had amazing skills. He was lucky to be working with them. And they hadn’t even left yet, so all this unease was ridiculous. For God’s sake, he thought, how much more comfortable could I be? My mother is here. Hearing his thought, Zosime touched him lightly with her hand as she finished saying something to Adalbert. She squeezed his arm gently, and he put a hand on top of hers.
I’m okay, he thought.
You are and you will be, she thought back. That’s always been the case with you.
I keep on ticking, he thought.
She quickly turned to smile at him. “That’s what I count on.”
“Zosime,” Mazi said. “Tell me what you make of Brennus. I do think he has gotten a bit, shall I say, intense? The messages he sent me!”
Zosime squeezed his arm one more time, and then she turned to talk with Mazi. Sariel shook his head, sat up straight, shifting in his seat, glancing at Rufus, who had always calmed him, and taking deep breaths. But nothing seemed to remedy his jumpiness.
Periodically, he had a flash of something, a woman with her arms outspread, ready for flight. For some reason, the flight seemed dangerous to him, as if the woman in his mind was stepping into something tenuous, air not buoyant enough to keep her aloft.
Then there was another thought, something darker, smaller, quieter, like a snail in the depths of its shell. But each time he reached out with his mind for explanation, the thought curled up and disappeared.
Sariel breathed out, shaking his head. Perhaps he was picking up someone’s dreams or strong thoughts. Maybe the image of flight belonged to the milkman jangling by in his white truck, a thought the man had when dawn broke in the east, white and translucent. Or the image was simply his recollection of his mother’s entrance last night combined with nerves about the mission. Nothing more.
Or he was just nervous, inventing images instead of focusing on the fact that he was afraid of what he might actually do when he saw Kallisto. Or when he saw Quain. He wanted nothing more than to give back the pain he and his family had suffered at both their hands, push all his hate and anger and desire for revenge into their minds and bodies until the story was finally over. Sariel had kept those feelings tamped down for so long, he wasn’t sure what they would do when they erupted, red, jagged, full of spikes.
There was nothing he could do about the future now; he knew that. The only time he could work with was now, the present. And in the present, things were fine. He was with most of his family, trusted sorciers and sorcieres. Everything was all right. Slowly, he felt himself relax, and soon, he was talking with everyone, laughing, almost happy.
When the oatmeal was gone and the last of the coffee poured into the thick mugs, Adalbert pushed his bowl aside, wiped his mouth, and looked at them all.
“I know this seems an informal way to set off on your mission,” he said, motioning to the breakfast table. “A casual meal like this. But we are trying to keep activity to a minimum. We’ve held no meetings at the Council buildings at Rabley Heath, just at the pub or in private homes. All Council members are going about routine business. We have protection spells around every sensitive site, including this house. I need you to keep your abilities tamped down, especially when you are traveling. It’s important to contain your thoughts, keep them to yourselves until you need to join each other’s. Use your skills only as needed. Only when required. As you know, we have Kallisto and Quain’s current location, but until you arrive there, maintain protocol.”
Adalbert looked at them all, but kept his gaze on Sariel a second longer, as if Sariel had done something against the code. As if he were the one to lose control and do something unexpected. But what? Sariel thought, searching for an answer. All I’ve been doing, he thought, for years, since Kallisto, is my job.
He flushed, pushing his hair away from his face. Rufus kicked him gently on the foot, and Sariel breathed in, controlling his confusion. Adalbert’s gaze moved on, and then the old man folded his hands on the table.
“This mission is the most important one we’ve had to embark on for years, w
ell over fifty,” Adalbert continued. “And the battle at Jacob’s Well cost us many good people and disrupted so much in our world. It was a time when we questioned our very way of life, our abilities, the choices we’ve made for generations. In order to keep what we have—to maintain the delicate balance between Moyenne and Croyant— we had to sacrifice so many of our best people. I don’t want to see that kind of bloodshed again in my lifetime, though Quain’s ability to get what he wants could give us just that. He has no compunction about killing, and he will continue unless we can stop him.”
The kitchen was silent, the only noise the dying crackle of the fire. Sariel looked at Rufus and then Zosime, knowing that Adalbert’s words were reminding them all of Hadrian.
“You have,” Adalbert said, “my undying gratitude for your service to our community and all the communities on this planet. Most of the world doesn’t know the reasons for all the disruption, can’t understand the power outages, the market crashes, the wars breaking out like plagues. We are not in the days when Croyant were blamed for everything, but worse yet is that they blame each other. City-states and countries lash out at others that are not in the least to blame, causing the pain and suffering to be multiplied tenscore. The Moyenne may not know what is happening, but they would surely feel the absence of the plaques when things would only become worse.”
Adalbert paused, pulled gently on his beard, turned again to look at Sariel, who swallowed. For a second, Adalbert’s mind skimmed his, offering a thoughtful Good luck, my boy. But at the same time, he knew that the older man was looking for something, dipping into Sariel’s thoughts with gentle, plucking probes. But almost as soon as Sariel noticed, Adalbert pulled his mind away from Sariel’s, stood up, holding out his hands almost in supplication.
“May this mission be successful. May I have you all here at my table again soon.” He pressed his hands together and bowed slightly.
Stern-faced, Nala Nagode nodded, stood up from the table, and then buttoned her robe and adjusted her hood. “Let’s go, then,” she said. “Let’s start this so we can finish it.”
Putting all their minds into a collective seam, the members of the group brought together their images and ideas about Quain and Kallisto, so all would know what each thought. This way, there would be no chance for mistakes, no way for Quain to trap one in the lie of another, no one left without a key piece of information, all able to use what was clearly hard won.
They stood together in a circle, clasped hands and closed their eyes. In a rush of electric current, Sariel felt the six other minds push into his with a jolt. He knew Rufus’s thoughts almost as much as he knew his own, but it was always a shock to come into contact with so many others’ minds. He calmed his breath, stilled his body, opened his mind.
Sariel concentrated, letting the others’ feelings and images filter in: There was Nala’s first meeting with Quain, fifteen years ago, his face a leer as he taunted the Council. Sariel almost gasped, hating Quain even in memory, wanting to fling a curse at his thin, wiry body, yank back his head with his lank, dark hair. Sariel wanted to hurt Quain, but not with magic. He wanted to use his hands, his own flesh, to try to take back what Quain had taken from the Valasay family: life.
In the memory, Quain couldn’t feel Sariel’s gaze, and as Sariel listened to the man’s harsh, punctuated lecture to the Council, he knew the fight for the last plaque would be beyond anything he’d experienced. What they would face shortly was here, fifteen years earlier, in the mind of Nala Nagode. The power, the need, the desire. All of it was in Quain’s eyes. Even in Nala’s thoughts, Quain’s eyes were the deepest black, almost without pupils, hard and full of hatred.
“You think that you can control me? You think that you can contain what I have become?”
“Sit down.” Adalbert—red-faced and uncharacteristically discomposed—smacked the gavel on the Council table.
“No, I think I prefer not to.” Quain sneered and he raised his arms and vanished before the Council could deliver judgment or punishment, despite the charms and spells quickly thrown out to keep him in place. What had he done to be in front of the Council? Nala let the memory continue, showing the uproar in the meeting, the shouts and yells from the crowd, the Croyant vanishing in order to try to follow Quain.
“He must be found before he does worse,” a younger Mazi was saying.
Now Sariel could see how Quain used Moyenne minds to get property, money, power, control. Wars in the Middle East, a blockade of Africa, warlords at each other’s throats. Sariel took in a sharp breath, floored by the anger in Quain’s strangely charismatic face. And then, creeping in through the outrage and anger and fear of that night, was a slim line of new thought, a shamed, quaking thought, but Nala gave it up, held it out for them to see so that she would have nothing to hide. She had appreciated Quain’s looks, despite herself, wished he weren’t the man he was, knew, though, exactly who he was. Once again, Nala brought Quain forth, let him move in front of the Council audience, passion in his face, in his movements. She turned her view to the crowd, and Sariel looked closely and saw how there were a few who were caught in his words, pulled forward with his energy. Without wanting to, Sariel could see why Kallisto went to him. How could she not?
Rufus’s thoughts charged out, blasted through the circle. She chose, dammit. And she chose wrong.
The current between all of them bumped, pulsed, and Nala’s thought shimmered briefly and then faded, the energy in the circle moving to Rufus.
I have to, Rufus thought, taking Sariel and the others away from the blank space that had just recently held Quain in front of the Council. Slowly, Rufus built his own memory, without sparing Sariel. First, windswept Marin hills, the Pacific to the right, San Francisco lights to the left. Rufus moving toward the house, fear in his throat, fear so deep Sariel could barely swallow. Rufus let them hear Sariel’s strangled pleas for help that had brought him to Marin years ago, interrupting his plans to go to London: Rufus! Sariel had cried out in his mind. Rufus, come!
In the darkness, Rufus appeared in front of the house, his robes swirling around him. He had stood in Sariel’s garden, his eyes closed, trying to determine how to enter the house. But even from outside, Rufus heard Kallisto’s mocking taunts, Sariel’s moans of pain and confusion. Rufus didn’t wait, appearing in Sariel’s living room, ready to do anything to save his brother.
The fight—Sariel couldn’t look again—but he felt Rufus nudge him back to the thought. There, in his own house, Sariel hung in the middle of the room, suspended, naked, held still with a sortilege du nature morte, all but dead.
Sariel wanted to blink away this image, but he knew he had to watch, seeing this very scene as his most vulnerable moment, a place that Kallisto and Quain could pick and pull at to weaken him. Sariel hung in the room, enchanted, weak and useless, unable to move while Rufus and Kallisto fought with their bodies and their minds. Rufus used all his magic, throwing out spells and charmes du protection, but even in memory, Sariel could feel his brother growing weak, confused, empty. As she battled Rufus, Kallisto was smiling, laughing periodically, unafraid, unconcerned, completely in command.
She stood in the middle of the room, beautiful in her full red robe, her long hair whirling around her body as she and Rufus battled for Sariel’s soul. Even in memory, even completely enchanted, he could feel how he was pulled to her power, her body, her ideas. Watch! he said to himself. Watch how you hang there, filled only with her magic.
Sariel wanted to fade back from the scene, but the group had to see what she could do, and Sariel’s memory bled into Rufus’s without a segue, giving the group another scene a month before Rufus arrived to do battle. Kallisto and Sariel were in bed, naked, touching, Kallisto waiting for Sariel to promise he would be with her always, share in all her power.
“We don’t have to live by these rules. Their rules! These prohibitions and strictures were made when we were afraid of Moyenne! And why should we be afraid now? Why should we hide what we can do?
We are now so powerful, we could destroy them all the moment they thought to hurt us. Maybe we should destroy them before they have the chance.”
Kallisto pulled Sariel to her, kissing him hard, stroking his body as they lay together, the Pacific moon full in the bedroom window behind them. “Quain thinks as I do, and we will join him, Sariel. We will join him and his followers and leave this insipid existence. Quain has powerful people working for him now. Who needs the Croyant restrictions now? Who cares about the Moyenne! With the plaques, we could be everyone without their ordinary little lives!”
The image flickered, ripped apart, and another replaced it: Sariel agreeing to Kallisto’s plan, making arrangements to leave the Bay Area, without telling Zosime or Rufus or Felix. As he decided how to close up his house and disappear from his job without a trace, he completely believed Kallisto. In the memory, he’s bent over his desk, Kallisto standing behind him, thinking to him, cajoling him, It will be wonderful working with Quain. We will always be together.
Sariel reached out a hand to her, brought her close. What did he really care for the Moyenne world, after all? And he thought he could live without the ordinary beauty of the Moyenne world. Certainly, Croyant participated in the world, helped make roads and aided governments and created art. But they’d grown lazy, magic making art somehow unnecessary. Moyenne never stopped, turning paint into art and clay into relics and ideas into words and words into songs and novels and… and poetry. Poetry.
When You Believe Page 15