“Welcome to Hasskian,” the Lord Governor said. If I’d seen this room before meeting the man, I’d have guessed he was as oversized as everything else. But no, he was no taller than average, neither fat nor thin, with longish blond hair the same color as mine and, of course, the same green-gray eyes. He approached us with his palm out, and we each saluted him; the skin of his palms was hot and dry, probably from his proximity to the fire. My own skin was starting to feel parched.
“Please, sit down. Thank you for joining me,” he said. We put our packs next to the door and sat down. My feet dangled. Jeddan looked as if he belonged in the oversized room. Endolessar looked beyond us, and shortly a pitcher and a couple of glasses came bobbing past, unsupported by anything but his pouvra. Impressive, if he’d only had it since the convergence. He poured water for us, again with the pouvra, which I tried not to gulp. “What are your surnames?”
“We don’t have surnames,” I said. “I’m Thalessi Scales, and this is my companion, Rokyar Axe.”
“Thalessi, Rokyar, welcome,” Endolessar said. “May I ask your magics?” He looked eager enough I almost forgot why we were there in my shared enthusiasm.
“I can summon water, and Rokyar can walk through things,” I said, since Jeddan didn’t seem to mind me speaking for both of us.
“I have never heard of summoning water,” Endolessar said. “Would you show me?”
I summoned a little blob over the pitcher so it fell inside without splashing. Endolessar looked thrilled. “Wonderful,” he said. “I’m sure we will find a use for you.”
“I’m sorry?” I said.
“In the defense of Hasskian,” he said. He sounded as casual as if he’d pointed out it was snowing.
“Then—you know about the invasion?” I said, which was stupid, because how could he possibly know? But I was so preoccupied with delivering our warning and getting back on the road I wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Of course,” he said. “We discover more of these excrescences every day, more foreigners intruding on our territory. We must eliminate them.”
“The village,” Jeddan said, because he was quicker on the uptake than I was.
“We are making this territory safe for Balaen,” Endolessar said.
“No,” I said, “the villages aren’t a threat. It’s the invading army you have to worry about.”
He frowned, and said, “What are you talking about?”
So I told him about the convergence, and about the God-Empress’s army, though I didn’t call it that because that would have revealed I have far too much knowledge about Castavir for someone who doesn’t speak the language, and ended with a plea for him to leave the Castaviran villages alone. “You need to put all your efforts into defending Hasskian’s lands, and the towns dependent on it,” I said. “That army has many, many battle mages who are far better trained at warfare than your mages—your magickers—are, and if your efforts are divided, who knows what might happen?”
“Interesting,” Endolessar said. He got up and walked toward the fire. I half expected to see his hair start to frizzle from the heat. “Then you will fight with us?”
“We have to go to Venetry,” I said.
“Surely their summons is irrelevant, with this news,” he said. “They couldn’t possibly expect us to give up our only advantage, though I’m not sure how much use dropping water on someone is.”
“What summons?” Jeddan said.
“You haven’t heard?” Endolessar said. “The King and Chamber have summoned all magickers to the capital city to help in its defense against the invaders. But as Hasskian is going to meet this army before it reaches Venetry, I’m certain the King will understand your refusing the summons.”
“We have to warn them of the threat from the south,” I said. “We’re only two mages. You don’t really need us, and as you said, I won’t be of much help.”
“I can send messengers,” Endolessar said. “You’ll stay here.” He took two steps and grabbed my arm, painfully tight. I tried to pull away with no success.
“You can’t keep us,” Jeddan said.
“I can’t keep you, certainly,” he said, “but I’m counting on you being unwilling to abandon your companion, and her I can most certainly confine.”
I glanced at Jeddan, who gave me the briefest nod, then I went insubstantial briefly and stepped out of Endolessar’s grasp. “No one said I had only one magic,” I said to Endolessar’s astonished face, then we ran for the door, awkwardly scooping up our packs on the way, and dashed through it, not bothering to open it first.
We went substantial and pounded down the corridor to the stairs. “Where now?” Jeddan said.
“Out,” I said, “then we need provisions, and then we get the hell away from Hasskian before anyone finds us.” Behind us, we heard Endolessar shouting for his guards, and a stirring below told us someone was responding to the call. “Be ready,” Jeddan said, and we came out of the stairwell into the cold stone hallway, and made it almost all the way back to the entry when half a dozen guards poured out of it and headed in our direction.
“Now,” Jeddan said, and we worked the walk-through-walls pouvra and kept running. I fell behind Jeddan, since I still can’t pass comfortably through flesh and had to dodge the guards, but even so it didn’t take long for us to leave the screaming behind and tear across the moat and down the road back into the city.
There are still two pages left in this book, but this feels like a good place in the story to switch to the new one. I’m glad I thought to steal it before leaving Hasskian. Sort of steal it, that is. I’ll miss writing in this one; it’s all I have of Cederic right now.
Huh. It never occurred to me, in all this time, that he must have bought this for me because he loved me. That this was a gift of the heart. And it has so much of him in it, from the night he told me he loved me to his final goodbye. When we’re together again, I’ll read it to him. I think he’d like that.
Chapter Nine
BOOK EIGHT
7 Nevrine, continued
This new book feels strange, probably because the cover is thick, stiff paper made of many layers pressed together and not beautiful blue leather. All that matters is that it’s a book, I know, but it’s hard to look at it and not think how much better a job I’d have done making it.
We ran, for a while, without paying attention to where we were going, getting as far away from the Citadel as we could. Eventually, we were breathless and hot even in the cold weather, and I had a stitch in my side I kept trying to bend into, hoping that would make it go away, so we stopped and went to walking at a normal pace. “I don’t think they’ll find us,” said Jeddan.
“Two anonymous strangers who don’t look different from anyone else, in a city this size?” I said. “You’re right.”
“We do look a little different,” Jeddan said, pointing at our shadowy reflections in a shop window (dozens of little glass panes, very modern). Our images were crisscrossed with the black leading of the windows, but I could see his point: we looked travel-worn, and our coats and hats looked incredibly provincial, and I was still wearing my Castaviran uniform boots, because they were warm and waterproof. In the window, I saw someone passing behind us give us a skeptical look.
“We can either get new clothes, or find somewhere to hide,” I said.
“We could do both,” Jeddan said. “My shirt is getting ripe.”
“We don’t have a lot of money,” I said, “and we should buy food. And we ought to do it quickly, in case somebody here has a locate-person pouvra.”
“We’d have to kidnap that person, if that’s true,” Jeddan said, making me laugh. I wish there were such a pouvra. I have so many friends I wish I could find. Even a prove-someone’s-alive pouvra would be nice.
“All right,” I said, “let’s walk,” and I linked my arm with his so we looked like a couple of sweethearts out for a stroll. I didn’t really know where to go. The only places I was ever familiar with in Hasskian were the n
oble manors near the Citadel (probably not a good idea to go back there), the slums (dangerous unless you were very familiar with them, which I wasn’t after seven years’ absence), and the industrial district (because nobody wants to pursue a thief through an abattoir). And none of those were exactly what I wanted. But the place we were in now was too upscale for our business. So I took us in the direction of the slums, and hoped we’d find something in between.
To sum up, because it was boring by comparison to what came next, we found a neighborhood where we could not only purchase cheap, clean clothing, but they let us change in the back of the shop and gave us a discount in exchange for our old clothes. I like my new trousers; they’re old-fashioned, so they have deeper pockets than the last, perfect for keeping my books in.
Then Jeddan bought food, and I stole this book and a new pencil—true, we had money enough for it, but I was feeling reckless and felt like giving myself a challenge. Then I felt guilty and left some money on the counter when the store owner wasn’t looking. I don’t think I’ve ever stolen anything except out of need, because I know what it’s like to have almost nothing and then have that snatched away from you. Anyway. I have it now, and it’s a nice fat one that should last me for a while, unless we keep having adventures like yesterday’s.
We were watching over our shoulders the whole time we were in Hasskian, but never saw a single guard. I’m worried Endolessar didn’t take our warning seriously, given that we “betrayed” him and ran away. I hate to think of these people being crushed by the God-Empress’s army. But we’ve done what we can, and now it’s up to them.
Despite not being pursued by the guards, we went through the northeast wall, between two of the gates where the industrial district is. It was every bit as smelly as I remembered, what with the tannery and the butchers and all the other unpleasant things no one wants to think about that civilization needs to move smoothly. We passed through, concealed—this was about mid-afternoon—and hugged the wall, circling the city until we could strike out toward the road.
The snow had stopped falling for the moment, but I could still smell the storm in the air, waiting to start dumping on us again. I felt pretty good in my fresh new clothes (used clothes, but cleanly laundered) and almost cheerful about getting on the road again.
Then Jeddan said, “It’s not right. We have to do something, Sesskia.”
“What’s not right?” I said.
“The Castaviran villagers,” he said, “the ones they took from their homes. We can’t just leave them there.”
I stopped and turned to face him. “What do you propose we do?” I said. “Even if we could sneak them all away, they can’t go back to their homes. And we can’t go to Venetry trailing who knows how many Castaviran refugees.”
“You think those people give a damn about the comfort and safety of foreign invaders?” he said, hotly, which surprised me. “They’re penned up in some camp somewhere, probably without enough food and inadequate shelter, and that camp is going to be their home for months, and with winter coming on they’re going to start dying. That’s assuming someone in Hasskian doesn’t decide they’re too much trouble and orders them all killed.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” I said.
“They already think of them as dangerous outsiders,” Jeddan said. “Leave them there long enough, they’re going to start thinking of them as not human. And nobody thinks twice about squashing a spider that might be poisonous.”
I thought about it for a minute while he watched me, silent. We were both right, unfortunately. The Castavirans were in danger no matter how you looked at it. But there were too many of them—one, or two, or a dozen we might have been able to help escape, but a whole village? I cursed myself, but I could see we only had one choice.
“Let’s find the camp, and investigate,” I said, “and make a plan from there. We won’t abandon them unless there really is nothing we can do, all right?”
“Agreed,” Jeddan said.
We retraced our steps and circled back along the walls to the northeastern gate. The guard outside Debressken had said the camp was to the northeast, and it seemed logical that anyone going to or from it would leave by that gate. I thought about walking wide around the city, but I didn’t want to risk missing the path to the camp and maybe getting lost, so we stuck close to the walls, holding hands to stay concealed.
We had to conceal ourselves for longer than I liked, staying hidden from the guards at the gate, but eventually we were far enough along the road we could walk openly. There weren’t a lot of travelers, and if we’d been sane people, we wouldn’t have been on the road either, because the snow had started falling again, and now it was big wet clumps that stuck to everything and dampened the shoulders of my coat.
“I think this is it,” Jeddan said. He’d been watching the road carefully, and now he stood next to a smaller road, more of a large track, that branched away more northerly than the main road. “The snow is packed down the way you’d expect if a lot of people had used it, but there are only a few faint footprints. They set up the camp and then had a couple of men traveling between it and the city, or several men but only a few at a time.”
“All right,” I said, and we took that side road and trudged on. It was getting dark, and I tried not to be resentful of the Castavirans for getting us into this. I reminded myself we’d still be out in the wet and cold even if we weren’t heading into who knew what kind of trouble. I shook like a dog to get the snow off me and kept trudging, watching the road ahead so we didn’t run into a patrol, or something.
Specks of light ahead grew into lanterns, barely visible in the snow, and I grabbed Jeddan’s arm to slow him down. We crept along, watching dark shapes emerge—walls thrown together from boards and rope, poles where the lanterns were attached—and then one of the shapes moved, and I worked the concealment pouvra on both of us as a guard bearing a rifle walked past, circling the camp. The moment he was gone, I dismissed the pouvra, said “Wait here” in Jeddan’s ear, and ran to the wall, concealed myself again, and ducked through it.
It was pretty bare beyond. There were lots of tents, heavy dark army tents, and more lights, lanterns with their tiny flames holding back the dark. There were so many of them that if it hadn’t been snowing, everything would have been bright as midday. I saw no guards. I ran back to Jeddan and the two of us went inside, then quickly ducked under the nearest tent flap.
It was as dark inside the tent as it was bright outside. A woman screamed, and then there was a lot of movement. “No, no, we’re friends!” I said, “stop or they’ll want to know what’s going on!” The scream cut off, as if someone had muffled the woman. “Sorry to startle you,” I said, “but we saw your village, and heard you’d been taken away, and we came to see…” My voice trailed off because I wasn’t sure how to end that sentence without sounding like their suffering was nothing but entertainment for us along the road.
My eyes adjusted to the dark—I’d thought about using the see-in-dark pouvra, but I wasn’t sure if we’d need to pass quickly through the brightly-lit space between tents—and I saw people huddled together, most of them wrapped in blankets. A baby coughed, then wailed, and its mother shushed it. “Who are you?” said someone in the darkness.
“My name is Sesskia,” I said. I felt so sorry for them it felt like an affront to distance myself by using my placename. “Is there anyone who speaks for all of you?”
More shuffling. “Carlen Liskesstis, I suppose,” said the same man.
“Is he here? Can you get him?”
Silence. “Carlen’s a girl’s name,” the man said. “You ought to know that.”
I cursed myself. “I didn’t know, because I’m Balaenic. One of the, um, foreigners. But I speak your language, and I want to help,” I said.
Nobody said anything for a long, long moment, in which I wondered if a week’s captivity was enough to weaken them enough so they couldn’t attack us. “I’ll get her,” the man said. He came forward, g
lancing at me briefly—he had dark hair, and dark eyes, which was all I could see of him—then left the tent, keeping low to the ground.
Jeddan and I waited. I felt awkward. I don’t know what Jeddan was thinking. I couldn’t come up with anything to talk to these people about; polite small talk would have been ridiculous, and I started worrying we’d been truly stupid to come here at all. There was nothing we could do for them but raise their hopes and then smash them.
The man came back through the door, making me step out of the way. He was followed by the shortest woman I’d ever seen, her hair silvery in the dim light. She, too, was wrapped in a blanket, and I realized I hadn’t seen a single coat on any of these people. Suddenly I was so furious I wanted to kill every guard in the place and burn my way through Hasskian until they learned to behave like human beings.
“Who are you?” the woman said. Her voice sounded like a flute, not at all creaky the way I’d expected.
“Sesskia. This is Jeddan. We—” I didn’t know what else to say. I couldn’t make these people any promises. I couldn’t do anything useful except be angry, and that wasn’t useful at all.
“We saw what happened,” Jeddan said. “You’re in danger here. If we could get you out, is there somewhere you could go?”
“Jeddan, they don’t know what you’re saying,” I said.
“Then tell them,” he said.
I sighed inwardly, but repeated his words. Liskesstis’s expression didn’t change. Slowly, she raised a hand, twitched her fingers, and amber light outlined a th’an just before the same amber light coursed down the poles of the tent, filling it with a warm light. “You don’t look like a fool,” she said.
“We can get you out,” Jeddan said, and I started to protest, then shut my mouth because even as I’d been about to say “We can’t promise that,” an idea had blossomed into life inside my head. I didn’t know what Jeddan had in mind, but I knew him well enough to believe he wouldn’t make that promise if he didn’t have some idea of how to do it. “Tell them, Sesskia.”
The Wandering Mage (Convergence Book 2) Page 10