"Sounds like fun." Aspen couldn't hide a certain glee when the Guard Dog looked up from the sheet of paper with a grimace. "Where do we start?"
With a resigned shrug Djol tilted the paper toward him, displaying a roughly drawn but very detailed map. "We'll move through the lowest circle and work up to the valley's rim," he said. "On the first pass, we'll be viewing every room, searching for the obvious and the unusual. Anything resembling a diary or history is to be collected. If it comes to a second pass, we'll be divining for hidden entrances, turning over every object. Can you read Essan?"
"Not enough for more than the vaguest guess." The language of the Fair and the language of magic were thoroughly related, and any well studied word-mage could usually puzzle out a hint of meaning. But both were hugely complex and completely tedious. Aspen was never going to claim to be well studied.
"Then we will guess," the Guard Dog said. "And aim for at least a half dozen buildings before dark."
Shuffling his map into a tight roll, he headed off toward the first building to the right of Darien headquarters, yet another oversized box, the entrance all columns and carving. "Yessir, Captain Sir," Aspen said to his back, then grinned sunnily at Rua. "Alone at last."
"Even so," Rua said, with that composed good humour. She began to follow the Guard Dog, but not too quickly.
Aspen admired the ripple of muscle, the velvet-steel skin, and was glad of her just for existing. And she gave him a chance to ease another point of curiosity.
"Is the Atlaran court rife with poetry, Rua? When we found him, the Aurak recited a phrase..." He trailed off hopefully.
"'Gentian, Gentian, meek and mild'," Rua said, very wry. "Well, that is a translation, but I have encountered the originals."
"And?"
She laughed, a clear, buoyant sound. "I cannot remember most word for word, which is as well, for they are not kindly intended. It is how I first heard of Magister Calder, how her name became known in Atlarus." She paused for a moment, then said: "'Gentian, Gentian, meek and mild; Asks politely, then changes your mind.'"
"That's it?" He'd hoped for something far more salacious. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"She is an artist, that one. Gardens do not ordinarily bring great fame, but the Aurak's valley has a reputation outside unusual, and it was even whispered that the Arachol himself had commissioned a work in the inner fastnesses of the Great Palace, a place few are ever privileged to see." Rua gave him an amused look for his impatience at this non-explanation. "There is one among the most powerful of our lords who declared that Magister Calder would create for him as well. He is renowned for his successes, and he turned upon her every persuasion."
"And she would not."
"It is her size, of course, which made it so amusing. Like a child, but so steadfast, a rock against all his power. 'Gentian, Gentian, meek and mild; Walking the shore, she turned back the tide.'"
"Feh." That was nothing like so interesting as Aspen had hoped, so he contemplated a much more interesting prospect. "What are you going to be when you grow up, Rua?"
That made her laugh again, but she understood just what he meant. "Under the Aurak's guidance I have reached Maja rank. I am committed to his service until the year's turning, and he has offered me a student's year after, for me to further my studies. I am privileged to learn from him."
"But–?"
"But I will not continue beyond year-end," she said easily. "I do not have the love for magic. It is a craft to me, not an art, and it is not fair to those who are truly drawn, that I should take the Aurak's time."
"No love for it." Aspen turned that one over approvingly. "It's always best to follow your heart."
"The Aurak has been greatly impressed by your Lord," she added, quickening her pace to catch the Guard Dog as he tested a heavily decorated set of double-doors. "For him, it is a calling."
"No arguments there." Aspen shook his head at understatement, and set his back against the door to help Djol push. "Sun! If it wasn't for the threat to Darest, I'd say this is the most the Diamond's enjoyed himself for months. Rummaging through the Fair's dirty laundry and with his own study-group of magisters to play with? This is practically a holiday."
That earned him a disapproving look from the Guard Dog, who no doubt had very worthy opinions on things you shouldn't say about your betters. Then the door deigned to shift, and they stood looking in at a long, lofty-ceilinged hall. Afternoon light streamed through high windows, picking out motes of dust dancing in the air, and gold lettering on the spines of row, upon row, upon positive rank and file battalion of books.
"No Fae here," Aspen declared after a revolted pause, and made to shut the door. The Guard Dog blocked him irritably and strode into the room, disappearing among the rows of shelving.
"Ever record-keepers," Rua said thoughtfully. "This is a lifetime's study."
"A Fae's life." Aspen had been caught by a faint tickling, one of the first traces of lingering enchantment he'd felt in the valley. Following it to the back wall of the library, he found the Guard Dog before him, opening a book from a long set of shelves. Peering over the man's shoulder, he saw a page covered in runes, all neatly boxed off like tigers in cages.
"Their arcanum," Rua said, coming up at his elbow. "The Aurak will wish to hear of this immediately."
Aspen watched her stride away regretfully, then eyed the books with a mix of disdain and excitement. Spells. A collection of word-magic on a truly excessive scale, written down in a safely neutered manner so that it could be taught to others. Fors Cabtly, his former teacher, had owned two books: thin, worn, painstakingly preserved volumes he had guarded like the gold they were. Unless you truly understood Elachar, unless you were a devising mage like the Diamond, spells were something you learned to repeat. They were recipes which, properly followed, gave the desired result. And, while there were spells which almost every mage knew, most of the really interesting stuff was hoarded, guarded. Getting access to it required joining certain schools, 'prenticing to a master, and making the most stringent oaths imaginable. An arcanum like this was, was–
"The Diamond's going to wet himself," Aspen said, just soft enough Djol could pretend not to hear.
Still, it earned him a disapproving flicker. Closing the book, the Guard Dog put it back in its place. "We'll check the rest of the building."
"So which part of the East are you from, Captain Djol?" Aspen asked, as the man struck out for a door in the library's back-left corner.
"Sorania." Tight, curt, and entirely discouraging.
"Been here long? In the West, I mean. I’ll presume you've not been plumbing Telsandar's murky past any longer than the rest of us."
This time Djol ignored him, though there was a sense of gritted teeth as he opened the door and looked inside. Aspen mentally rubbed his hands together. There were few things he enjoyed more than being cheerfully friendly toward someone who didn't like him.
"I've often considered going for a look at the East," he announced, entirely untruthfully. "If only to see if it's as fraught and dramatic as all the stories make out. Is it true that even accidentally bumping someone in the street's liable to see you with swords drawn at dawn?"
Djol failed to acknowledge the bait at all this time, but Aspen didn't let up, positively burbling in the man's wake as he moved systematically through the library's few side-rooms. They reached the entrance in time to meet Rua.
"They will be here shortly," she said. "Shall we–?"
"We'll continue as planned." The Guard Dog went down the steps as if a few of the more picturesque Deeping monsters were at his heels.
"Captain Djol has been telling me all about life back home," Aspen said gaily. "Have you ever been to Eastern Sumica, Rua?"
"This is my first visit to the north."
"Tell me something of your home," he demanded as they reached the door of another of the manor houses. "Are your parents scholarly types?"
She gave him that quizzical look, assessing, then shook he
r head and began to entertain him with tales of her home life, of brothers, sisters and cousins spilling out of every cupboard, and a family business which involved garments of most extraordinary cloth. Aspen in turn told her about his own family, about their surprise when he'd thrown back to some magely ancestor, and their indulgent exasperation at his ideas of 'prenticeship, and how he'd promised to smuggle his much-younger brother in to see King Aluster in a temper, just as soon as an opportunity presented.
And his voice grew a little high, the words coming too fast and then, somewhere in between the third and the fourth echoing hollow house, it all dried up in his throat until finally he found himself in a bedroom, one that belonged to one of the non-human races the Fair liked to keep about them. The scale of the furniture gave it away.
There was a little wooden horse on the floor, worn but polished. The kind of thing some grandparent had made, generations ago: passed down to each new child, lost and rediscovered, growing a little more battered each year, the bridle painted on again and again. It was just there on the floor, next to a plate with an apple core gone brown.
And Rua was holding him, because he was shaking and could not stop. "They died too," he told her, wanting her to make it not real, not caring that the Guard Dog watched from the door. "They weren't even Fae. All that's left are goats and chickens. And nothing we can do, nothing we can say or think or try or want can ever change that."
"No." Rua, solemn and restful and the best of creatures, failed to spare him. "Nothing will ever change that."
ooOoo
The wrong side of dawn and Rua was gone. But she'd kept the nightmares at bay, just as she'd brought sympathy and welcome distraction. He blinked in the dark, trying to cling to happy thoughts full of sensual appreciation, of a long, strong body that had wrapped itself about him and made the bad things go away. But he couldn't. Not when he remembered why he'd left a wake-cantrip to get him up at this ungodly hour.
Gentian, of course. The Diamond had told him he was to attend the experiments, which Aspen could only interpret in one way. Cut off from all his stalwart myrmidons, the Diamond had settled his eye on Aspen and seen in him the answer to a particular need.
Chaperone.
It was a delicious prospect, and Aspen knew he should be beside himself at the opportunity to play faithful assistant, with a front-row seat for more of Gentian's wholly inept handling of the Diamond. But he couldn't work up the enthusiasm.
He liked the little gardening mage. Over-quiet, yes, and with a faint tendency to forget a proper sense of decorum, as well as apparently being inconveniently stubborn. But good people. If only she wasn't possibly-very likely-all too surely being used by some massively inhuman evil intent on ravaging Darest. The thing that had killed everything in this valley, which he was supposed to go help prod out into the open. He'd yet to think of an acceptable excuse for not turning up.
One good thing about the saecstra was that if he concentrated, Aspen could hear its nearby whisper. Unless the Diamond put some effort into guising the thing, it would handily reveal things like the fact that the Lord Aristide Couerveur was still in his room. Aspen, provided he could force himself out of bed, would manage a creditably early arrival.
Clinging to thoughts of Rua, and the hope that she didn't plan last night to be a one-off occurrence, he fumbled himself out of his tangle of sheets, cleaned up and dressed before braving the cool corridor. His room was in the middle of the three, and a glance showed no light beneath the Diamond's door. Gentian's stood open, revealing her sitting up in bed, waiting to be investigated.
"Don't you have anything transparent?"
Complete incomprehension, then a faint, twisted smile as she looked down at soft grey trousers and a shapeless, long-sleeved shirt of blue stripes. "I'd be horribly uncomfortable in something transparent," she said, drawing up bare feet so she was sitting between her heels. "I spent too much of my childhood on mornings like this to, ah, have quite the right associations."
"A wasted opportunity," Aspen declared, looking with determined interest about a room very much like his own. "I'd certainly be buck-naked and oiled, with only a sheet artfully arranged." He grimaced at a huge vase of cushiony buds on long, hairy stems, like a collection of smirking sea-serpents. "Aren't you supposed to wait for the flowers to open before you pick them?"
She laughed. "Poppies look good like that. Besides, they'll open eventually, uncrumple their petals and become an entirely different arrangement."
"Very butterfly-minded of you." He moved restlessly about, turning over ways to make the woman agree to stay in Darest. "What's in these trays of dirt?"
"Cress. I want to see if it grows at the same rate under an illusory sun."
That earned her a disbelieving look, but she seemed to be serious. "Do you think we'll be here long enough to find out?"
"Yes." She shrugged. "Unless we die first, or It gets out."
This was not what Aspen wanted to hear. He pulled a face at her, then noticed she'd placed a couple of comfortable chairs on the far side of the bed, and plumped himself into one. "No talk of dying," he chided, trying to refuse her pragmatic fatalism. "For one thing, I gather the Diamond thinks it among my duties to keep an eye on you, make sure you don't fall off a cliff or anything."
"Indeed?" She didn't look surprised. "Bodyguard or watchdog, Aspen?"
"Maybe a little of both, who knows?" He pulled a face, as he had wanted to when the Diamond had issued this particular gem. "What he imagines I'll be able to do if one of our collection of delectables tries to wring your neck, I don't know. I've as much chance of stopping Jurasel as I would Suldar."
"None at all?" Her gaze drifted past him to the darkened window.
"Why hasn't your head exploded?" he asked, feeling the need to switch the subject. "Sun knows, the one thing that Fors did manage to din into my brain was the extreme peril of breaking name-oath. Don't you think you should shrivel up into a blackened lump, or at the very least turn into a frog?"
The understated smile for this, but then she glanced toward the door. The faint itching tickle of the saecstra was moving toward them. "The consequences of foreswearing name-oath are always apt," she said in a subdued voice. "Not necessarily fatal. What better penalty for breaking a vow never to return to Darest than to be doubly tied to it?"
"You said you didn't think being trapped here had anything to do with your oath."
"I didn't mean the valley."
Even though she'd said something like this before, it took at least two beats for comprehension to hit, and then only because of the wholly appreciative expression in the Diamond's eyes as he stood looking at her from the doorway. And all the good sense in the world couldn't hold back the sound which choked its way out of Aspen's throat in response. He tipped out of the chair and hit the floor with a satisfactorily solid thump. And laughed. Laughed until he sobbed, until his face ached and his ribs hurt and the Diamond had come over to look down at him.
"She thinks you're her punishment," Aspen informed him, too far gone to even care about legendary Couerveur vengeances.
"So I gathered. High flattery indeed." The thing Aspen loved most about the Diamond was that, for all his reputation for venom, something truly ridiculous would only make him sardonic, not send him up into high ropes of dignity. And there was not a hint of spite in the considering look he turned on the little gardening mage. "The question of your departure from Darest is, as you said, a moot point in these circumstances, Magister Calder. Shall we set it aside in the interests of finding the source of these morning disturbances?"
She shrugged. "I won't argue against you trying, Lord Magister. I doubt Aspen could take much more entertainment."
"Punish me some more," Aspen murmured, but knew enough to make it barely audible, for he was well on the verge of going too far. "Thank you," he said more loudly. "I needed that." He levered himself off the floor and settled back in the chair as the Diamond took the one closer to the corner.
"You are not opt
imistic of our chances of success, then?" the Diamond asked.
"No. It's no easy problem to solve."
Aspen gave Gentian points for composure, telling the Diamond Couerveur she expected him to fail. In fact, she seemed curiously undismayed, not concerned about whether she should alienate the more-than-edible object of her desires.
While the Diamond...just nodded and began casting. Aspen blinked and blinked again. Something had changed. No curling smile, no courtier's barb. This was almost the same manner the Diamond used with the King. Businesslike.
Fascinating. Aspen considered the cool profile of Darest's most stand-offish of mages. Surely not. But then, why the chaperonage, after all? It was obvious that Gentian wasn't the sort to take advantage of the setting. She'd keep her hands to herself until asked – fortunate given how fond the Diamond was of being pushed or manipulated. So why had the man dragged Aspen in to play raspberry?
Highly entertained by the possibilities, Aspen considered Gentian all over again. Brains and magery, which would certainly score high in the Diamond's books. Vastly different in style, but she did hold her own against him, parrying any darts with undiminished calm. She was shorter than him, which was to some men's tastes. Nor would it do to forget the Varpatten bloodline, which a mage thinking about heirs would find reason enough alone. Plus that story she'd produced yesterday had surely balanced her absenteeism.
Nor, he decided, had the clothes been a mistake. Gentian was far outside Aspen's wide-ranging tastes: he had a distinct preference for dramatic colouring, and had never been particularly drawn by small women. Tall and lush, tall and muscular, tall and lean. He liked someone he could wrestle. But Gentian, overwhelmed by the Fae-sized bed, was looking unexpectedly intriguing. Fine bones at wrist and ankle, a slender little neck, with the line of her back and shoulders pleasantly outlined and small breasts only hinted at beneath the shirt: the modest clothes only made you want to take them off. And there was a definite draw in this authoritative composure, the frank and uncowed interest with which she watched the Diamond make a circuit of the room casting a four-corners ward. Yes, she was, after all, a definite possibility. Up against a wall, for preference, and–
Bones of the Fair Page 14