What was she saying, exactly?
“I know your master very well,” she went on. “Nevery certainly never wanted to take you on as an apprentice. He would be happy to be relieved of your care. I think you would be wise to leave Nevery’s damp and drafty old mansion and come live here, in the Dawn Palace.”
Where she could keep an eye on me, she meant. And even though she was mostly right about Nevery—sure as sure, he hadn’t wanted me as an apprentice—I wasn’t leaving Heartsease. I shook my head.
“Very well,” she said.
I eyed the plate of biscuits. Better not have another one. I needed to ask her the right questions. “Duchess,” I said. Was that right? Duchess? Or was I supposed to call her something else?
She raised her eyebrows, waiting.
“What d’you think is happening to the magic in Wellmet?” I asked.
She didn’t even blink at the change of subject. “I am told by my advisor that it is a natural ebbing. The problem will eventually reverse itself. I have been assured that the city is not in any danger.”
That didn’t make sense. My locus stone was rare and strange, and it showing up when it had made it clear that something big was happening. “But you can see that the magic is leaving us, can’t you?” I said. “Without it, the city will die.” I hadn’t thought about it that way before, but as I said it aloud I realized that it was true: if the magic died, then Wellmet would die. Soon.
She gave me a level look. “I am sure you are just repeating Nevery’s alarmist ideas.”
“No,” I said, getting frustrated. “Nevery agrees with you. He doesn’t think the city is in danger. But you’re both wrong.”
“Really.” She shook her head. “And what, exactly, do you think is happening?”
“I don’t know.”
The duchess, looking past me at the door to her office, repeated, “I see that you do not. Perhaps my liaison to the magisters can share with you his thoughts on the matter.”
Oh, no. I turned in my chair and, sure enough, Pettivox himself stood in the doorway, tall and broad, his locus magicalicus a thumbnail-shaped gleam of white against his black waistcoat. He strode into the room.
I grabbed my coat and felt in the pocket for my locus stone, but I didn’t take it out.
“Well, Magister?” the duchess said.
Pettivox bowed. “Your Grace.” Without looking at me, he went on. “What is Nevery’s failed apprentice doing here?”
“Going away,” I said, scrambling to my feet. I looked at the duchess. “Is Pettivox the one who has been telling you not to worry?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to; I already knew the answer to that question.
As Pettivox turned his glare on me, I edged around him and skiffed out the door. Avoiding the guards, I found my way out of the Dawn Palace to the werelit streets of the Sunrise.
Time to go home to Heartsease. But drats. The duchess would surely tell Pettivox about my locus magicalicus, and Pettivox would tell Crowe. And Nevery was not going to be happy with me.
* * *
Headed home from Magisters Hall. Gates through tunnels still on their hinges, assumed boy hadn’t returned yet from meeting with the duchess.
At Heartsease, went up to kitchen. No sign of Benet.
Went up to workroom, heard sound of banging from upstairs, attic, where boy has made his lair. Climbed crumbling ladder.
Benet there. Had set a lantern on the floor and by its light was making some kind of frame out of wood. A window frame; he had glass and putty set aside, and a few nails. He nodded as I came up.—Been meaning to get to this, Master, he said.
Attic room freezing. Good man, Benet, thinking of putting glass in the windows.
Looked around at boy’s room.
Nest of holey blankets against the wall
Pile of books beside it, stacked neatly
Saucer with stub of candle in it
Painting of dragon, propped against wall
Arranged on the floor, a collection of junk:
Burnt scrying globe
Box of rusted gears
Stuffed alligator
Examined hearth, peered up chimney, which was blocked with sticks and bird droppings; something had built its nest in there.
—Where is he? Benet asked. With the hammer, he tapped a nail into the corner of the window frame.
—The duchess sent for him, I said.
Benet didn’t comment.
Went down to study, stirred up fire, read. Secretary had tabulated notes, as ordered. Did a decent job of it.
Boy came in at last, looking chilled, tired. Went to the fire to warm himself.
—Well, boy? I asked, setting aside papers I was reading.
He was quiet for a moment, thinking.—You were right, Nevery. She’s tricky.
—What did she say? I asked.
Boy gave quick grin.—She said you’re dangerous and not to be trusted.
Curse the woman, anyway.—What did she want with you? I asked.
Boy silent again for a few minutes. He sat cross-legged on the hearthstone; the cat came in and climbed into his lap, purring.—Pettivox was there, he said.—He’s been advising her about the magical decay.
Not Pettivox again.—Listen, boy, I said.—Pettivox is the duchess’s advisor on magical issues. It is his job to keep her informed about the magical decay. Now, what did the duchess want with you?
Boy yawned and rubbed his eyes.—She had one question. Why did her jewel come to me?
Ah. Typical of the duchess, to get straight to the salient point.—And what did you answer? I asked.
—That I don’t know.
Expect he doesn’t. But if I know boy, it’s not for lack of thinking about it.—Anything else? I asked.
—Not really, boy said.
—Well, boy? I said.
He shook his head.
* * *
CHAPTER 27
When I came down for breakfast the morning after my meeting with the duchess, Nevery and Keeston were sitting at the table, eating, and Benet sat with his chair tilted back against the wall, knitting something with red yarn.
Keeston had, clear as clear, spoken to his master, Pettivox, who had told him about my locus magicalicus. He stared as I stepped into the kitchen, pulling my sweater on over my head and combing my hair with my fingers.
Benet pointed toward the stove, where a warm plate of biscuits and bacon was waiting for me. I hung my scarf and my coat, with my locus magicalicus in the pocket, on a hook beside the door, then fetched my plate and joined them at the table. Keeston watched my every move.
“G’morning, Nevery,” I said, taking a bite of bacon and biscuit.
He glanced up from the book he had open on the table beside his empty plate. “Hmph,” he said, looking me up and down. “Benet is right; you do need a haircut.”
“After supper,” Benet said. His knitting needles went click-tick.
I ate for a while, thinking, trying to ignore Keeston’s fascinated stare. I’d woken up curious about something. “Nevery,” I said. “That guard captain from the Dawn Palace. Kerrn?”
Nevery nodded while continuing to read his book.
“Why does she talk funny?” I asked.
Nevery looked up. “What do you mean, boy?”
“She said ‘phlister’ like this: phlishterrrr.”
“Ah.” Nevery nodded. “Because she’s from Helva, in the far south, beyond the Peninsular Duchies.”
I didn’t get it. “Why would that make her talk funny?”
“Because in Helva they speak Helvan, which leaves that accent when she speaks our language.”
Our language? “Helvan?” I asked. “You mean they have different words for everything?”
“Yes, boy,” Nevery said, going back to his book. I could tell what he was thinking: I don’t have time for stupid questions. But I’d never met anyone before who spoke a different language. Not all that surprising, since most people traveled away from Wellmet
, not to it.
Language. Different words for everything. The new idea washed over me like a wave. “Magic spells,” I said. Of course!
“What, boy?” Nevery said sharply.
“Magic spells are another language. When we say ‘lothfalas,’ it means ‘light’ in the language of magic.”
From across the room, my locus magicalicus, responding to the spoken spell, burst into flame, blindingly bright even through the cloth of my coat pocket. Keeston flinched away.
“Put the light out, boy,” Nevery said, blinking.
I did.
“Now,” he went on, “before you make any more wild claims, you must read more magical theory. It has been proven that magical spells are simply a string of linked word parts that focus the wizard’s mind so he or she can, with the locus magicalicus, tap into the city’s supply of magic and effect the spell.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so, Nevery. The spells are a language, and we use it to tell the magic what to do.” It made perfect sense.
Nevery was shaking his head, frowning. “Nonsense. Read Jaspers’s essay on the subject, boy, and then tell me what you think.” He snapped his book closed. He started to tell Benet to look for more slowsilver when he went to the marketplace at Sark Square that day.
I didn’t listen, eating my biscuit and drinking tea, and thinking about magic and language and magical nodes and Wellmet. If magical spells truly were a language, whose language was it? What, or who, did the spells speak to? Was a magical node not an atmospheric convergence or an upwelling but a living, thinking being?
Oh, Nevery was going to hate this idea. He was going to grumble and tell me to read some treatise and some other book and to stop talking about things I didn’t understand.
But I was sure as sure, down in my bones, that I was right about the magic.
“Well, boy?” Nevery said, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up, blinking. He, Benet, and Keeston stood beside the table, waiting for me. I realized that I was sitting with my cup of tea in one hand and the biscuit in the other, staring at the wall.
Nevery shook his head. “You and Keeston will go to the market with Benet and help him carry the supplies back.”
I nodded and gulped down the rest of my tea and biscuit. After Keeston had put on his apprentice’s robe and I’d put on my coat and wound my scarf around my neck, we went down the stairs and joined Benet, who was dressed warmly and had a truncheon in his belt.
When we stepped out the door, the wind attacked us with icy teeth, tearing at our clothes. Shivering, we crossed the courtyard. In the big tree, the birds hopped up and down on their branches, talking excitedly.
Benet led the way down the tunnel stairs. The tips of Keeston’s ears were pink from the cold.
When we got to the gate, we stopped. I waited for Benet to pull out his little gray keystone. But he didn’t; he folded his arms and waited, without saying anything.
Keeston glanced nervously at me. “Don’t you want to open it?”
Oh. “I can do it if you want, but I’m not very good at it.”
“One of you do it,” Benet growled.
Keeston wore his locus magicalicus on its golden chain outside his gray apprentice robe. Quickly he grabbed it, pointed it toward the lock, closed his eyes—concentrating—and pronounced the opening spell. Nothing happened. He gripped the stone even tighter and tried again. After a sullen moment, the lock turned over and the gate creaked open.
We went on through the damp and chilly tunnels and up the stairs to the Night Bridge.
I glanced aside at Keeston, at his locus stone on its fancy chain. “You’d better put that away,” I said.
“Why should I?” he said. He was feeling proud of himself for opening the gates, and the sneer had crept back into his voice.
“Why d’you think?” I said.
We stepped from the bridge and into the Twilight. Fleetside Street twisted up the hill before us, covered with packed-down snow and ice, lined on both sides with dirty, broken-down tenement houses and trash; the air smelled of smoke and open cesspits; ragged people watched us from dark doorways.
Quickly Keeston shoved his locus magicalicus on its chain inside the collar of his shirt and buttoned his robe up to his neck.
We started up the hill, trudging into the wind. Benet went first, his hand on the truncheon at his belt, and Keeston and I came behind. I put my head down and shoved my hands into my coat pockets.
Questions and half-thought ideas swirled around in my head. If the spells were the magical being’s language, could I learn to speak to it through my locus magicalicus? Would it listen? Could it talk back, tell me what was going on?
I thought back to the question the duchess had asked me the day before: Why had the jewel come to me, a gutterboy and a thief?
Nevery had asked me once about how I had survived the Twilight. I had told him that it was because I had quick hands and I was lucky, and because my mother didn’t die until I was old enough to take care of myself. But that didn’t really explain it.
Maybe, all along, when I was growing up in the Twilight, the magic of Wellmet had made sure I didn’t get sick or end up drudging in a factory or fighting off misery eels in a damp cellar or freezing to death in an alley. The magic had protected me, and when I was ready, it had led me to Nevery, and then to my locus magicalicus.
I knew, sure as sure, why the magic had done all this. It had chosen me. It had saved me so I could save it. I had to do something about the magical decay.
Keeston said something, interrupting my thoughts. “What?” I said. We were just turning onto Strangle Street, cutting off the worst of the wind. I stepped around an icy pothole.
“I asked you how you dare talk to your master like that,” Keeston said.
“Like what?” I knew Keeston didn’t like me calling Nevery by his right name, but we’d already been through that.
“You interrupted him reading and he snapped at you, but you weren’t afraid, and then you contradicted him. ‘I don’t think so, Nevery,’ you said.” He swallowed. “If I’d said that to Magister Pettivox, he would have beaten me until my bones ached.”
I shrugged. “Nevery wouldn’t.”
“How do you know?” Keeston looked truly interested. “Everybody’s terrified of Magister Nevery, even the other magisters. He’s got this”—he lowered his voice—“this brutal mercenary bodyguard working for him. And he was banished for blowing up his mansion, and he’s very fierce.” He shivered.
“He just wouldn’t.” I shrugged. “Not me, and not you, either.”
Keeston shook his head.
“And Benet’s not so bad,” I added.
A pace ahead of us, Benet looked over his shoulder and snorted.
And then we were attacked.
* * *
Completed gauge to measure magical level last night, made some initial measurements. Findings not entirely unexpected. Magic level in Wellmet is no longer decaying. Level is absolutely steady, unchanging. But very, very low. Dangerously so.
Reread Micnu’s treatise. Low magical levels could be related to extreme cold; the node Wellmet is built upon could simply be frozen, and once the thaws of spring arrive, magic will begin to flow again.
Yet Arhionvar is an example that must not be ignored.
May propose to magisters that we reduce use of magic until spring thaws.
* * *
CHAPTER 28
Benet, Keeston, and I turned off Strangle Street into an alley that would take us to Sark Square, when four burly men loomed up before us. Minions, I realized; they had that oversized, mean-eyed look, and they carried clubs and knives. Drats. I’d been stupid. Crowe had always had a word out on me, and now that I had the jewel locus magicalicus, he’d want me for himself more than he ever had. He must have every minion in the Twilight on the lookout.
Benet stopped, Keeston and I behind him. “Run,” he said quietly.
Not likely. I looked over my shoulder. My heart jolted with fright
. Two more minions stepped across the mouth of the alley; we were trapped. “Two more behind us, Benet,” I said.
He cursed and pulled his truncheon out of his belt.
All at the same time, the six minions closed in around us. Benet stepped forward and, ducking a swung club, bashed one of them in the jaw; another minion shoved Keeston to the snowy ground, and four of them grabbed me. I struggled as hard as I could, kicking and biting and trying to twist out of their grip, but they were too strong. “Benet!” I shouted as the minions started dragging me out of the alley. One of them clapped a hand over my mouth; I bit him and he cursed and cuffed me on the side of the head.
Roaring, Benet bulled through the two minions he was fighting and punched in the face one of the minions holding me. I wriggled out of a minion’s grip, but another one grabbed my arm.
Keeston sat on the ground where he’d been pushed, staring at the fight, his mouth and eyes wide. “Do some magic!” I shouted at him, elbowing a minion in the nose. Keeston pulled his locus stone from inside his robe and held it in shaking hands. “Do it!” I shouted again.
“I c-can’t remember any spells,” he squeaked. One of the minions rounded on him, and he shrieked and scuttled backward into a snowdrift, away from the fight.
Benet cracked his truncheon across the hand of the minion holding me, and I wrenched myself away, groping in my pocket for my locus magicalicus. “Benet, cover your eyes!” I yelled, and as he threw his arm across his face, I shouted, “Lothfalas!”
As I pulled the stone from my pocket, the magic surged through it and blazed, white-bright and blinding, filling the alley with a wave of light. The minions flinched away. I put the light out and shoved the stone back into my pocket. “Clear,” I gasped, and while the minions blinked the brights from their eyes, Benet bashed one of them on the head and turned to grapple with another.
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