“I guess it’s something to do,” I said. So we did that for a couple of hours, with no success. I feel like I’m groping for something I’ve only heard about, even though I can remember a little of how it felt. It was I don’t want to lie. After hearing what Jeddan did to that guard, I was feeling uncertain about using the walk-through-walls pouvra in any way. We haven’t discussed it, but neither of us has any idea why, after all the times Jeddan has dived through people, this one died of it. So my heart wasn’t in my efforts. I’ll try again tomorrow.
9 Nevrine
It worked this time. It feels really strange. I’ve been thinking of this pouvra as a single thing, but with this new…technique, maybe? I’ve realized it’s three separate pouvrin: turning myself insubstantial, turning that on someone else I’m touching, and extending that to work on something I’m not connected to. And they look…I’ve been thinking about it all day, and all I can say is it’s like they’re made of the same fabric, but assembled differently. Like a pile of twigs used to make a bird’s nest and then a woven mat. I don’t know what it means yet, but it feels important. If I could find more related pouvrin, or find another way to
It took me about twenty minutes, and I don’t know if that’s fast or if I’m slow, but I’ve confirmed that the fire pouvra as a mass of fire is different than as a rope of fire, and concealing myself and turning it out on someone else are different. Not as different as the walk-through-walls pouvrin are from each other, so I’m not surprised I didn’t see it, but I’m still shocked.
So I’ve created four new pouvrin without the help of books—or maybe they exist somewhere and I just discovered them independently. No way to tell. I still don’t know what it means, though! And it’s hard to analyze the pouvrin while we’re walking, so the only time I have is in the evening, and then I’m usually so tired I have trouble bending my will to anything.
I feel even more urgency, now, to get to Venetry, deliver my message, and then…would I really want to stay there for a few days just to study? I would. I’d apologize to Cederic, but I know he’d do the same. We’re both infected with the disease that drives us to learn. He might even be annoyed I let my desire to rejoin him interfere with my becoming a better mage. He’s going to laugh when I tell him about this.
10 Nevrine
We’ve decided I should try to teach Jeddan the mind-moving pouvra. I actually suggested teaching him the other walk-through-walls pouvrin, but he went very stiff and very silent, so I didn’t say anything else. I hope he doesn’t give up on using the pouvra entirely. It was his first, the one that made him a mage, and…maybe it’s not the same for him, but even though I don’t use fire often in comparison with some of the others, I know I’d feel like part of me was missing if I stopped using it. But it’s not my right to tell him how to use his magic, so we’re concentrating on the other pouvra, and it’s true that the mind-moving pouvra is the most generally useful, at least to people who don’t have to sneak around on a regular basis.
It’s been not quite three months since I learned that pouvra, but it took me more than twice that long to understand it. I’ve written before about how I learn a pouvra, how it’s about learning the figurative language the mage who created it used to describe it, then understanding the shape that arises from that language, and finally bending your will to meet the pouvra so it manifests through you.
Since I’ve already done all the work of interpretation, Jeddan and I will use our new vocabulary to give him the shape of the pouvra, and the rest is up to him. That’s the idea, anyway. We’ve never done this before; it’s possible no one’s ever done this before, given how solitary mages have had to be thanks to Balaenic society. So I hope it will take less time, but we both know there’s no use making assumptions where magic is concerned. I would have sworn the mind-moving pouvra was for small, finicky movements, and then I saw Cederic knock half a dozen soldiers across the room with it. I wonder if he uses it often, or if he’s so used to th’an it never occurs to him to try. I wonder if he’s figured out any more pouvrin.
Anyway, today we mostly just refined our vocabulary, made sure we meant the same thing when we used a word or image, and I practiced making things insubstantial. I have no idea what use that might be. Hah. I felt the same way about being able to turn the concealment pouvra on another person, but using it on the God-Empress saved the lives of my friends. So maybe there will be a crucial moment that depends on someone dropping their weapon, or something like that. It’s fun to speculate about.
We’re going to need food soon again, and we’ve almost used the last of the bandits’ money. There aren’t any large cities between here and Venetry, and I really, really don’t want to steal from people whose lives depend on the food they have stored for the winter. But I also don’t want to starve. We’ll have to think of a better way.
11 Nevrine
I’d completely forgotten Jeddan took the mage bandit’s pendant and ring. We found someone this morning willing to take the ring in exchange for five days’ worth of food, more than enough to get us to Venetry, which is only two more days away. It was worth a good deal more than what we got for it, and part of me wishes we’d waited until I could sell it in Venetry, but the rest of me, the part that doesn’t like going hungry, shouted that little part down.
Our learning technique works, and it doesn’t. That is—and I shouldn’t have done this—I had this unreasonable expectation I’d be able to pour the structure into Jeddan’s head, so to speak, and he’d get it immediately and then it would be just a matter of his flexibility of will. And that didn’t happen. But we’re making a lot more progress, more quickly, than I did, so in that sense, it works. Jeddan’s enthusiastic about it. Still won’t talk about what happened to that guard, and I’m starting to worry that maybe I need to bring it up, and I don’t know how to do that. I don’t want to make things worse. So I’m going to leave it alone, and hope, if he needs someone to talk to, he’ll feel comfortable turning to me.
We came across the strongest evidence of the convergence’s destruction this afternoon. There was a place on the Royal Road where a Castaviran highway intersected with it, or would have if the convergence didn’t destroy every structure that overlapped with another. So the Royal Road comes to a crumbling halt, and then there’s a big roundish space where everything’s been obliterated, and then it starts up again. It was eerie, and we detoured around it even though we assured each other it was harmless. Castavir’s roads aren’t as well-kept as ours, and they don’t have the new procedure that keeps ruts from forming, but then we don’t have self-cleaning chamber pots, so I think they win.
12 Nevrine
Nothing important happened today. Jeddan’s still working on the pouvra, but we’re both distracted wondering what’s going to happen in Venetry tomorrow. Some of our food turned out to be rotten. Wish I could steal that ring back.
Chapter Eleven
13 Nevrine, after curfew (hah!)
I’ve decided to keep these books hidden now we’re among the mages. Not that we’ve met any of them yet; it was late when the King’s men brought us here. So they might all be friendly and intelligent and committed to learning—in short, like the Darssan mages. But I’m not counting on that. No telling what someone might make of these records…all right, that’s a lie, I have a very good idea of what someone might make of these records, which is that I’m a traitor to my country on any number of grounds, not least of which is being married to a high-ranking mage from the “invading” world. The fact that I’ve done all of this to save both worlds would be lost on anyone who was stupid or fearful or had a grudge against me, though I hope there isn’t anyone here who falls into the latter category. Making enemies is the worst kind of being noticed, and I’ve spent my life trying to avoid that.
It stopped snowing early this morning, but it was still gray and depressing and Jeddan and I were impatient to get to our goal, so we didn’t stop except once to relieve ourselves, ate on the way, and spoke little. Wh
en we approached Venetry sometime late this afternoon, there was a crowd milling about on the road outside the gate, not aimlessly, but with the erratic movements of a lot of people in one place, all wanting to be somewhere else.
We hung back, observing, and realized that rather than being an incipient mob, which has a much tenser, higher note to it, these were all people waiting their turn to get into the city, which was strange. I’ve been to Venetry often, and yes, I did use the gate, and nobody stops travelers unless they’re carrying trade goods. But we could see a lot of armed soldiers stopping people and having long conversations with them before letting them inside. It made me nervous, and I suggested we enter the city by another way.
“We’re mages. The King wants us here. It’s not like we’ll be turned away,” Jeddan said.
“They’re making people put their names on lists,” I said. “I don’t like that.”
“But we have to get the King’s attention somehow,” Jeddan said. “Being on an official list will help with that. And these soldiers will send us to wherever the mages are supposed to go, and that’s got to give us better access to King and Chamber than going through the wall will.”
I scowled, and said, “All right, but if this goes wrong I’m blaming you.”
“If this goes wrong, neither of us might be around to do any blaming,” he said cheerfully.
We fitted ourselves into the loose line of travelers and inched forward with everyone else. It was boring, and cold, and I wished we’d gone through the wall. Jeddan had the glazed-eyed expression that said he was working on the mind-moving pouvra. I’m not sure he’d thought about what might happen if he succeeded in the middle of this crowd and knocked someone over. At least it would be exciting. The whole thing made me realize I haven’t stood in line for anything in at least five years. I vowed it would be another fifteen before it happened again.
“Name?” said a soldier, and I realized we’d reached the front of the line while I was daydreaming.
“Thalessi Scales and Rokyar Axe,” I said.
The soldier wrote our names in a little book, along with the date and time (there are about fifty big clocks in Venetry, none of them in agreement with each other, and one of them is just above the main city gate where we were. No one knows why some long dead ruler, or Chamber, thought people entering the city ought to know what the time was. At least that one doesn’t toll the hour) and had us initial the entry. “Purpose?” he said.
“We’re mages,” I said.
“What’s that?” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Magickers? People touched by magic? With the eyes?” I pointed at my eyes in emphasis.
He peered closely at me, then at Jeddan, and I realized he was very nearsighted. “Papers?” he said.
“We don’t have papers,” I said. “We heard about the summons in Hasskian, but no one said anything about papers.”
“Then you’ll have to prove yourselves,” he said, and pointed at another soldier, standing just inside the gate. “Talk to Nessan there. Curfew is nine p.m., no carrying weapons in the streets, no loitering, watch for the off limits signs, and if a soldier tells you to do something, you do it without question.”
“Curfew?” I said. “I’ve never known Venetry to have a curfew.”
“Martial law,” he said. “City nearly tore itself apart after the calamity, what with magic happening and the earth shifting. Things still aren’t back to normal. Move along.”
Jeddan and I went to where the soldier Nessan was standing. He was older than the first, his hair graying and his eyes deeply lined at the corners as if he’d spent thirty years staring at the sun. He also wore a different uniform I didn’t recognize as either regular army or city guard. “Magickers?” he said when we approached.
“We’re called mages,” I said, which was pointless, but I was feeling edgy and annoyed and wanted to get the whole thing over with.
“You can call yourself nasturtiums for all I care,” he said. “Over here, and let’s see what you can do.”
We stepped out of the way of traffic into a little guard room empty of everything except a couple of chairs, a chest with a couple of warped drawers, and some smoked-glass lanterns, lit against the dimness of the windowless room. Jeddan put his hand through the wall and didn’t seem afraid or upset or anything but calm, so I hope that means he’s coming to terms with what happened in the camp. I settled on the fire pouvra, the ropy version. Nessan wasn’t impressed by either of us. “You’re to go to Fianna Manor for instructions,” he said. “You know where that is?”
“I’ve been to Venetry before,” I said, which was a non-answer, but he understood the way I meant it.
“But we have to deliver a message first,” Jeddan said. “An urgent message from the army at Calassmir.”
“Go ahead,” Nessan said.
“It’s for the King and Chamber,” Jeddan said. We’d worked out he should bring the message, in case anyone wondered why a woman had been entrusted with military intelligence.
“Of course it is,” Nessan said sarcastically. “And I’m supposed to take you to the King on no more proof than the say-so of some backwoods lumberjack.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Jeddan cut across me with, “What exactly do you think I’m going to do? You think I’ve traveled all the way from Calassmir just because I feel like wasting the King’s time? I’m tired and I’m hungry and if I could deliver this message to just anyone, I’d tell you and my work would be done. But this message is for the King himself, because he’s the only one who can decide how to act on it. So find someone to take us to him, or we’ll wait here until you change your mind or carry us off to jail.”
I was impressed. And terrified. Nessan hadn’t struck me as the sort of man who can be bluffed, but Jeddan wasn’t bluffing. I’m sure he meant it when he said they’d have to haul us away. And Nessan knew it too.
Nessan tapped his finger against his lips for a few seconds, then opened one of the drawers, took out paper and pen and ink, scrawled something on the paper, blew on it and folded it. Then he walked around us to lean out of the guard room and call to someone passing nearby. “They’re to see the King,” he told the young soldier who answered the summons, and handed him the paper. “Urgent military business. Five minutes.”
That made me nervous; he might have written our execution sentence, and I wished he’d had better penmanship so I could have read it while he wrote. But there was nothing we could do about it except follow along.
The soldier saluted, and we trotted after him through the wide streets of Venetry. In the late afternoon, everything looked dismal, what with the slushy, filthy snow peppered with frozen horse turds shoved to both sides of the road, making a frozen barricade between the passing horses and the pedestrians. I made note of landmarks as we went, updating my mental map of the city.
Not much had changed in the thirteen months since I’d been here last. All the traffic from the main gate funnels through the center of the city, where everything is new and modern and enticing to the eye of the visitor to Venetry. But that’s just the center. As you spread outward from that wide main avenue, you enter much older, dirtier places, some of which aren’t safe for anyone after dark, even their own denizens. I’ll have to see about renewing some old acquaintances there. Derria’s shop is probably still open, and she might give us a good price on that opal pendant. But that will have to wait.
We trotted along for a good while, through the city center and into the wide spiral that leads up to the top of Venetry where the rich manors are. One of those manors used to belong to my family, according to Mam, but I’ve never cared enough to find out which one. No point mooning over the past. I don’t even know what our surname used to be. I guess I’d be more interested if I didn’t feel like it was betraying my Dad to care about our past, when he set out to make a new life after he’d been ejected from his old one instead of clinging to what was. If I ever think about it, I mostly get mad over the injustice of it all, thoug
h I don’t even know if it was injustice. I know my Dad was a wonderful man, so he couldn’t possibly have deserved to lose all that.
But I’m getting off course. We went all the way to the top of the city, which has an amazing view, maybe not as nice as Colosse, with all those white walls and colored roofs, but still amazing. You can see the whole city laid out in tiers below, and beyond that, the plains, but the best part, the part that actually brought tears to my eyes, was a distant lumpy smudge off to the west I recognized as mountains. Mountains that hadn’t been there before. The Arabel Mountains, in fact, under which lay the Darssan.
It struck me then as it hadn’t before that the land had changed; the desert we’d traveled through to reach Colosse was gone, but the mountains remained. I wonder if Cederic will want to reopen the Darssan, when things have settled down and the God-Empress’s threat has been eliminated. Thirty years from now, probably. No sense worrying about it at this point. We still haven’t even met our fellow mages. Magickers. There’s no way I’m calling us that. I’ll just have to change everyone’s minds about it.
The royal manor—one of them, there are several throughout Balaen—anyway, the one in Venetry is called Janeka Manor. (I’ve never understood why so many of the wealthy manors are named after women, especially since women haven’t had much of a role in government until the last fifty years.) It’s a beautiful old house, built in the style of 150 years ago, with lots of windows made up of grids filled with thick glass bricks you can barely see out of and steep, shingled roofs that meet each other at odd angles. The gardeners had put the beds to sleep for the winter, which gave the manor a bare look, its harsh stone walls unsoftened by the hedges that would bloom in the spring. The ivy that used to grow on the walls all around the front door was gone, adding to the harsh look.
Two more soldiers stood at attention at the front door, and our guide saluted them, told them his errand, and they let us pass. I thought that was lax behavior until we came through the narrow hall, almost a tunnel, that led into the main hall of the manor, and came face to face with ten more soldiers, all of them standing where they could easily attack an intruder, all of them with the humorless faces that characterize the really good warriors. I tried not to let them make me nervous. This time, at least, I was here legitimately.
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