by C J Paget
“Ow! Whatcha think your doin’?” Audrey shrank away.
“Sit still, lemme see.” They were caught, there was no point whispering anymore. Tosha brought her face up to the tender spot. It was red, a red that wasn’t fading like the rest of the irritation from the snow. The low table next to her was jostled, the flowers on it sprawling and the water from the vase dripping down—Audrey must have hit it when she’d been thrown to the floor.
It was a bruise. Even her mother’s healing hands couldn’t do anything for a bruise but distract from it. But Audrey was shivering under her touch—as the numbness passed off, the room’s warmth was making them both colder. She whispered the incantations for the healing touch, and she laid down behind Audrey, wrapping her arms and legs around her so that they wouldn’t freeze. She closed her eyes and buried her head in the crook of Audrey’s shoulder from behind. It was easy to believe, just for a moment, that they were safe.
The illusion did not last. As they lay curled about each other the door to the garden slid open and a blast of cold hit them. A gruff voice cut through their small, imaginary cocoon.
“Put them on.” Heavy terry cloth robes thudded on top of them. By the time Tosha had thrown them off and looked around, the cold had gone along with whatever body owned that voice.
That voice. It curled the fibers in Tosha’s bones. It was his voice. She’s learned it over all the afternoons when she’d watched him lighting his incense fires, saying his prayers, and not suspecting he was being watched.
Audrey was up and getting into her robe, hugging the oversized deep green about her like a womb. The color was coming back to her cheeks, but the effect didn’t comfort Tosha. The over-dilated eyes and the hollow abandon in her expression gave her the look of the dead. Garish. Empty.
But the terry cloth was warm. And even though she knew that a mere robe that opened in the front would protect her from no one—and certainly not a wizard who could bewitch whomever he chose—the material around her body made her feel less vulnerable.
“Audrey…” She had to say something. Audrey swung her gaze to Tosha, as if moving a long boom, and the effort taxed her. “I’m sorry. Sure’n I didna know this would happen.” She should have known, though.
“‘s not your fault, Toshi.” Audrey hugged her, then pulled back and smiled gently. “An’ a great time it was, too!”
Tosha suddenly felt like the child in the room. Audrey’s grace shamed her, and she blushed and looked away. It seemed as good a time as any to take stock. Just how much trouble were they in?
She took in the deep colors—the rust orange of the velvet couch, the occultic snail shell pattern on the rug, the geometric forms everywhere, the deep blues and greens, levels of color that no commoner could afford unless they rose through luck or guile to the political class.
And set deep in dark polished oak shelves, the prize she’d been hoping to find. The reason the man in purple drew her like spider silk. The thing about him she coveted more than his power.
There were books.
Thousands of them.
She had heard of it. But she never dared hope there’d be so many.
So many. She had to get her hands on them, just to touch them.
She couldn’t be caught.
“Audrey, sit down and face the door.”
But Audrey was sick of taking orders. “Why should I…”
“Chirs’, girl, just do it!” Tosha poured all her fear into her voice, and Audrey relented.
“Okay.” She spoke as if to say ‘this isn’t over.’ Audrey harrumphed and sat on the couch, looking longingly out the window, no doubt wishing she could get away.
Tosha started towards the bookshelf, but Audrey blocked her way with her legs resting on the low table. She was left with little choice but to step over her friend’s spindly limbs.
“This’ll be what you wanted to see all along, eh?” Audrey was still looking out through the glass door, but her question was aimed squarely at Tosha. And it wasn’t exactly a question.
“I’m sorry, sweets, I never thought they’d ever catch us. I was…” But no explanation seemed adequate, and even with Audrey’s angry sighs scratching at her heart, she couldn’t turn back now.
This was what she’d been after. This was how she’d know. She stepped towards the shelves, one leg at a time, as if walking in a wedding processional.
The books were recessed in the shadows of each shelf, but if she looked carefully she could make out pieces of titles. As she carefully sounded out the words, parts of her that she didn’t have names for stirred to life. The titles referred to things she couldn’t even fathom. The Science of Misdirection. Human Perception. Close-up Magic. Optical Illusions. Gray’s Anatomy. Malleus Malificarum. Black Holes and Time Warps. The Meaning of Quantum Theory. The Economics of Natural Selection in Sociobiology… the list was endless. This was the base of their power.
The pitch of her terror grew again like a priest’s malice.
Laying open on the desk, there were two more books.
Tosha picked one up and leafed through it as quickly as she dared. Its title read Electromagnetic Control of Temporary Sculptures. It was full of diagrams, charts, principles like “magnetism” (which she was vaguely familiar with), and concepts like “ferrofluids” (which she was not). She could tell it was something that should reveal a great secret, but she couldn’t fathom it. She turned her attention to the second book.
This one, she could understand. The title along the top of the left hand page read Sculpture Mortalis. The page it was open to showed a formula for something it called a “desiccating plaster surfacing compound.” The illustrations that accompanied it showed a dead body being transformed into what looked like a marble sculpture.
Tosha’s stomach lurched. Still carrying the book, she turned and walked measuredly towards the glass door, shading her eyes and peering out through. The oily sculpture at the far end of the garden that had spooked them was too dark to see clearly, but around the circle she counted six bronze sculptures and twelve marble ones. Or, rather, they looked like marble.
“Please Mary, please get us out of here.” Tosha’s mother always told her that Mary had the most influence with the gods. “I’ll give anything.”
“That may be exactly what is required of you.” Him. The wizard. She could almost feel his breath on her neck. She took her hand down from the glass, and froze as his reflection sprang before her face. Behind her, she could hear Audrey’s breathing. Ragged. Panicked. “No, indeed, lassie. This library is not for the faint of heart.” He lowered his voice to a growl. “Neither is the garden.”
Tosha forced herself to turn around and face him. He towered over her. The man who had intrigued her from afar now made her heart wilt. The malice in his eyes was unendurable. His purple robes shrouded him in the glory, like a royal angel of death. She knew he was elegant, she knew he was wise, she had seen his effortless comfort with privilege. She had not reckoned on his power. She lowered her head and dropped to her knees, as was expected of supplicants who approached him when he held audiences.
Audrey followed suit.
The wizard grunted and walked back toward the large, leather, wing-backed chair and sat down as if holding court. “You have moved past that point.”
Tosha raised her eyes to Audrey. She was quaking.
I have to do something. She stuffed her fear way down into the bottom of her chest. She stood up and approached the wizard, keeping her eyes downcast and her walk respectful.
“Please, sire. What must I do?”
“Why have you come?”
“I…” she stammered. Did she dare tell the truth? She turned and looked at Audrey, still kneeling by the door, her head bent and her lips trembling in hurried ritual prayer. “I…”
“Don’t look at her. You have violated my sanctum. I will have your answer one way or another.” His voice echoed through the room, smooth and beguiling, with a menace underneath, the faint echo of a wolf’s growl.
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Without moving her head, Audrey looked up and met Tosha’s eyes in the glass. Hollow. Hurting. Full of the sorrow of a jilted lover. She already knew she’d been betrayed. Tosha turned back to the wizard. She raised her eyes to meet his, and tried vainly not to quail before him.
“You know many things, m’laird. Surely you know of my stepfather, dying from the ‘sisstants what he got in the barracks. My mother, she’s a healer, but she canna do a thing to help him. I come to beg for your mercy, your help in curin’ him.”
The wizard regarded her coldly for a long moment. Then he closed his eyes and gripped the armrests of the chair, squeezing his palms rhythmically for a moment. Then he got up and walked to Audrey, standing in front of her. “Rise, my child.” His voice was gentle.
Audrey shook her head sharply. “No, laird, it is not proper.”
“Get up.” The wolf’s growl returned, and she started to her feet as if in a single move. “You are no longer welcome here. Be gone!” He raised his left hand high over his head, and brought it sharply down in a gesture of condemnation. Audrey wailed. A cloud of red smoke bloomed around her and the room filled with the sound of a thunderclap. Tosha covered her ringing ears, but she was unable to look away.
A second loud clap sounded. The wizard drew a nasty, curved dagger from his robes. He raised it wide, and slashed.
“No! Audrey!” Toshi cried, but the knife glided easily through the cloud, and the smoke curled back upon itself in twin spirals as it dissipated.
Audrey was not there.
Shaking with impotent rage, Toshi looked up at the wizard. It was all she could do to keep her tongue.
“Now,” he turned on her, “you will tell me the truth.”
How can he know? But she knew it was a foolish question. Wizards were said to be able to read minds. She cursed herself for her cowardice. She’d not wanted to hurt Audrey, but her lies had condemned her friend to gods knew what.
“Is she…”
“I outgrew my taste for lies before you were done gnawing on your mother’s nipples. Inside these walls, you will tell the truth! Or,” he grinned sadistically, relishing the moment, “you will join her.”
Tosha dropped her eyes, recomposing herself like a proper supplicant.
“I… I… sure’n I would apprentice with you, my laird, if’n you’ll take me.”
He laughed. Like knives carving up her mind, he laughed. He twirled the blade lightly in his hand, then waved his hands past one another, and it disappeared. His eyes did not let hers go.
“What makes you think I’d want you?”
“I’m a good worker and I’m nearly grown. I’d be a good companion to ye. I can do the drudger work and… I could…”
“Why would I want that?” he sneered. “You didn’t come here to whore yourself to me.”
“No, laird, I will do whatever…”
“Stop it. My tastes do not run to the young, the stupid, the cowardly, or the pathetic.”
“I risked my life to come and ask to apprentice.” She felt like she had him cornered. She permitted herself a little confidence. She could—she would—prove her worth.
“Why?”
Tosha blanched. It was the question she wasn’t prepared for. She had come prepared to argue her worthiness, to trade her servitude for help for her stepfather, to trade her body for his tutelage. She knew that she wanted the power he had. She wanted the poise and the grace. She always had. But she did not know why she wanted it.
“I donna know, m’laird. I’ve always watched you. I’ve dreamed about it since I first hauled wood in the gasworks. But I dunna know why.” Her eyes hardened against his gaze, daring him to call her a liar, and then she brought her eyes under control again, and softened them.
He let her gaze go and walked blithely to the desk in front of the bookshelf. He produced the book he had taken from her from a fold in his robes and set it down beside its flatmate.
“Do you know what you’re asking?” His voice was gentle again, relaxed. It put her at ease.
“No, m’laird, I donna.”
“Do you know what you will learn?”
“Yes, laird. I’ll learn to disappear, to read minds, I’ll learn the rituals to call the favor of the gods.”
“No, you won’t. You do not understand.” He suddenly sounded old, and his voice was full of pity. “And you don’t know what you’re asking. But your desire shows you up.”
“I donna understand.”
“You know it is death to come here, or your mother is a fool. You brought a friend whose life is as dear as your own, and you watched me banish her from this world in front of you. You know that no one can see within this house and live, and yet there you stand without a tear. Your lust consumes you. For knowledge. For power. For freedom.” She was glad he wasn’t looking at her. It should not surprise her that he knew her—he was a wizard. But she felt exposed. Naked. His probe must be in her thoughts—how else could he have known? She wept under the weight of his words. They shamed her. “Your lust is all you have. Even now, you stand there, haughty, certain I will not deny you. Convinced of your own righteousness.”
He whirled on her. “Your ambition gives the lie to your grief. You would have killed her a hundred times over just to get into this room.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “No.” It was barely a whisper.
A long moment passed, and she felt his lips pressing to her ear. A deliberate parody of her words with Audrey. “You lie.”
She found her voice. “No.” The tears rolled down her face like oil from an olive press.
“You didn’t love her. You needed her to shore up your courage.” The malice in his voice chilled her like the snow.
“No!” She screamed and pushed him back.
“Then I have no use for you. A heart full of lies can not learn how to understand the truth of the world.”
She hung her head. “I can.”
“No, you can’t.” He swooped away with his robes and lighted with a whoosh onto his leather throne. “And I have no use for a bastard laborer maid with a heart of deceit.”
“What’ll be done to me?” She was beaten. She knew it. She fell to her knees before him and wept at his feet. “I didna know. Oh, gods… what have I done.”
“You will follow your friend, and your name will be forgotten.”
The fight had gone out of her. She nodded meekly.
“Stand up.” The quiet authority made the words all the more terrifying. She stood, quaking. Every inch of her shook. “Look at me.”
She raised her eyes off the floor and looked into his eyes. She could do this. If nothing else, she could face her own death. There was still some dignity to be had.
Her eyes hardened.
“As you will, laird.”
He stood in front of her. He raised his hands above his head. Feeling the breath of the grave on her neck already, she let her eyes slip past him, for one last, longing look at the books.
He halted. His arm stayed overhead, like the blade of a guillotine. He smiled.
“You want them, don’t you?” Somehow, it was not a question.
“Yes.” There was no longer any reason to lie.
“You would do it all again.”
She closed her eyes against her shame. “Yes.”
“Even though it meant her life, again.”
She wanted to say no. She loved Audrey more than her own life. She would never want to see her hurt. She’d never meant for her to be caught. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. It couldn’t end like this.
She trembled afresh, she couldn’t breathe. Her gasps came out as sobs, and with them, a small, whispered secret.
“Yes.”
“Even if you knew.”
“Yes.” She couldn’t hold it in. Like the gold from a beggar’s teeth, he pried it from her.
“Even…” he pressed his lips to her ears again, mocking her, “if you had to sacrifice her, yourself.”
“Yes!” She
screamed the word over and over, tearing her throat. She felt as if her soul was being pulled out of her, inch by inch, like bowels rolled up on a spiked wheel. Ripping.
He stepped back.
He sat down.
“Then I will teach you.”
It took a moment, and then his words penetrated. “What?”
“Let this be your first lesson. On this road, you will learn many things. But the first lesson is that the truth, no matter how cruel, is the only thing we deal in. We guard it, because the law does not allow us to teach. In public we must go in disguise. We hide what we really are behind misdirection and ritual, for those who learn too much are not allowed to live. Like your friend.
“Outside these walls, people tell their stories. They think that we keep secret our knowledge, and that what we know gives us our power. That is the lie that we allow them to believe. It protects everything.” He paused. Perhaps he was deciding if he really could entrust her with her first confidence.
“The method is our real secret. It shows us truth from falsehood. Through it, we build knowledge. It is the source of our power. It’s why they,” he pointed towards a painting of Parliament, “depend on us and the common people are cut off from us. The method is what matters.
“Even when you learn horrors, and there are many, you will continue. You will not quail before the truth. Inside these walls, there are no falsehoods. There will be no guile, no deception, no cowardice. If I sense these things in you, you will join Audrey, but your banishment will not be so swift. You will suffer in this world as well as the next.” He placed his forefinger under her chin and lifted her eyes to his. “Do you understand?”
She nodded her head vigorously through her panic, lowering her eyes again. “Yes, m’laird.”
“Good.” He vanished from her sight, moving faster than she could see, his footfalls heavy on the bare floor near the door. He opened the garden door, and the cold pinched her eyebrows.
She winced.
“There will be many tests in the coming days. Across the garden, behind the pool, you will find a door in the wall. It is now open. Through the door you will find a room. Go there, and sleep. In the morning, I will wake you and your training will begin.” He walked out the door, and was gone from her sight.