Wren Journeymage

by Sherwood Smith

  Connor bowed to both, then moved to the carved wooden chest on the other side of the room. No one liked to touch the strange object called the Eye, though everyone who came looking for a job was tried out on it as a matter of course.

  Connor lifted it out, careful to grasp it by the twisted brass supporting rods that were made in the form of vines. He avoided touching the sphere set within it.

  The Admiral stared at it in distrust, scooting his chair away from where Connor was expected to sit.

  Connor set the Eye carefully on the little table that was his station during his work day. The Eye was not glass, or crystal, or metal, but some strange combination of them all. Not only did the room reflect from its surface in brilliantly colored distortion, but it glittered with colors whose source no one could guess. Satisfied that it was stable, Connor dropped onto the waiting stool.

  “You ready?” the Admiral snapped.

  “Yes,” Connor said.

  The Admiral turned to the Commander, who spoke to the guard messenger standing at the door: “Bring in the prisoner.” As the boy vanished in the direction of the stone holding cell, the Commander said to Connor, “There was a sea battle just beyond Purba. Most of the pirates had some kind of magical device that cloaked their longboats and helped them escape under the cover of rain.”

  Magic—and pirates. That sounded bad.

  “Someone thinks these pirates might be part of the Black Hood of Tomad’s fleet. You know how many rumors we’ve been hearing that they have magical devices to cloak their ships.”

  Tomad was the name of the island cluster farthest east of the archipelago. Pirates had taken it some years ago, that much Connor had heard in local gossip. The rumors now insisted someone new had command, someone far worse than the former pirate commander. He was only known by the nickname ‘Black Hood.’

  “So you’re looking for proof of the magic from this prisoner?” Connor asked.

  The Commander nodded. “Most of ‘em got away in the boats, but this fellow was drunk, fell overboard, and no one wanted to come back and get him, so the Admiral put out a boat and plucked him out of the water.”

  A pair of strong guards entered with a tousled, glum pirate between them, a scarred man of about forty. He looked as if had spent most of those forty years doing violent things against his fellow humans.

  The guards thrust him onto a stool facing the Eye.

  “You know what that is, don’t you?” the Commander said. “In case you don’t, it’s the Eye of Truth. If you lie, the stone shows it.”

  “So?” the pirate snarled, crossing his arms. “What’s it to me? You Okidaino fools don’t hang or burn pirates, I know that much.”

  “No one ever escapes the work parties,” the Harbor Commander said, smiling. “You get a nice magical bracelet that keeps you right in your place, all orderly and law-abiding. And if you decide to stray, well, you fall down like a sack of stones until your keepers decide to haul you up again and put you to work.”

  Connor hid a grin. The Commander was both loud and rude to his subordinates, but when it came to questioning prisoners he was more polite than a courtier.

  “And while it is true that on this island the death penalty is forbidden by law, you will not escape discomfort. For every lie you tell us, you will spend time in the stocks, before your sentence for whatever acts of piracy you’ve committed even begins. Do you know how much people around here hate pirates?” the Commander asked with great cheer. “Do you know the favorite game of the children in the harbor? Most of them are sons and daughters of those who have been victims of pirates. They like to play target practice with the garbage and droppings they pick up off the streets. I assure you, they never tire of target practice if they have a pirate to pelt.”

  The pirate spat on the floor.

  “Ready?” the Commander asked Connor.

  The Admiral watched, his brow furious.

  Connor carefully laid his hand on the sphere, and as always, felt the magic settle around him like a mantle made of cloud. The others quickly looked away from the Eye. Connor had learned that they thought the magical object somehow read their minds and showed their thoughts in those ever-winking and spinning colors. It was useless to explain that that wasn’t how it worked. He’d discovered that most people were afraid of powerful magical objects that they didn’t understand.

  “Who was your prey?”

  “No one. I come off of merchants out o’ Denlieff,” the pirate growled.

  The Admiral and the Commander turned to Connor, who watched colors coalescing around their reflections in the Eye: the deep red of anger in the Admiral, the green of intent mixed with the orange of enjoyment in the Commander—and the darkness of the deliberate lie around the pirate. He never told them about their own revealing colors.

  “He’s lying,” Connor said.

  “No I ain’t!”

  The Admiral snorted. “Stocks. I saw several children down there with a bushel of rotted stenchpuff berries.”

  “Our friend here does seem to be volunteering for target practice,” the Commander suggested, grinning. “I do so hate it when the breeze carries the smell all the way up our mountain. Strange, how the sloonge bugs just love that stuff, and crawl all over the pirates’ skin, lapping it up.”

  “I ain’t lyin’! That thing is just—” The pirate cursed, long and loud.

  The Commander said, “One more chance. State your name, and where you were born.”

  “Lemoal Vebb—”

  “That’s true,” Connor said, seeing the flicker of blue around the pirate’s head.

  “—of Arpalon.”

  The colors darkened again.

  “Lie.”

  “All right, guards, take him out—”

  The pirate grimaced. “I was born in Damatras.”

  “True.”

  The pirate shifted uneasily on his stool.

  “Who was your prey?”

  The pirate shifted again. “Free trader. Brig.”

  “A free trader!” The Admiral snorted. “Just another pirate.” He frowned. “But there were three pirates in your fleet when we intercepted you. I saw all that fire damage, and no prize.”

  “We lost. Had to run,” the pirate muttered.

  “Lost? Against a single trader, a brig?” The Admiral hooted, looking Connor’s way.

  Connor shrugged—it was true.

  “Damage,” the pirate snarled. “Bad storm.”

  The Eye flowed with darker blues shot with red.

  “We were in that storm as well, and there was not enough lightning for all the fire damage you took,” the Admiral said.

  Outside the window behind the Admiral, a shadow flickered—a winged shadow. One of the jackdaws.

  “So you are part of this new pirate commander’s fleet, then,” the Admiral stated. “The new one infesting Tomad Islands.”

  The pirate shook his head. “Never heard o’ him—”

  “Lie.”

  “Only new hires,” the pirate muttered. “Testing us first.”

  Both the Admiral and the Commander turned to Connor, who nodded.

  “So you were hired to attack a free trader brig? Why?”

  The pirate spat again, but the colors around him were the murky red-shot brown of fear.

  The Admiral bunched up a fist, but the Harbor Commander raised a hand and said in a reasonable voice, “You are already in a lot of trouble, and I suspect your name has become known all over the main harbors of every southern island over a long, misspent career. Why not tell us why you were hired?”

  “Because he will find out if I blab, that’s why,” the pirate snarled. “I’d rather sit in your stocks a year, or work in your mines ten years, for my own deeds, than tell you anything about him. He—he finds out. He knows, when people blab. And then he does things to you.”

  “True,” Connor murmured. “At least, he believes it to be true.”

  The pirate gave a grating laugh, one of those horrible laughs that has no
humor in it. “Everyone says it’s true. You don’t want to cross Black Hood’s hawse. He has ears everywhere.”

  The jackdaw drifted by the window again.

  “That’s all I’m sayin’,” the pirate stated. “I’ll sit in your stocks. I’ll work in your mines. But if he finds out where I am, he will know I ain’t blabbed.”

  And, on Connor’s nod, the Commander sighed. “Take him out.”

  The guards tromped in, yanked up the pirate, and marched him away. The Admiral and the Commander looked at one another. “That’s the third one we’ve captured in as many months,” the Admiral said.

  “We got two, last season. That pair didn’t even know as much as this one did.” The Commander sat back. “So you’ll cancel your interview with the king?”

  The Admiral shook his head. “I can’t. I’ll have to go, even with no real information, except the reflected evidence, you might say. We know that this Black Hood is building a fleet, that much our friend Vebb told us. And it corroborates what I’ve gleaned elsewhere. I think we’re also seeing evidence that Black Hood is some kind of mage. I wish we knew whose ship they attacked—and why they attacked it.”

  “What bothers me is his conviction that this Black Hood has spies everywhere. How? More important, who?”

  Both men turned toward Connor, who watched their faces: question, doubt, then dismissal.

  The Commander leaned forward, brows furrowed. “I know you’ve only been here a couple of months, boy, but I don’t take you for a spy. However, one thing I do know after a long career is, least heard, less said. Take off. You can have the rest of the day, since we brought you in early.”

  Connor replaced the sphere in its case as the two moved away in low-voiced conversation. He retrieved his staff and walked to the other end of the court, away from the prison building. The jackdaws circled overhead, one high, one low.

  Connor looked up, shading his hand against the sun, and said in his home language, “I wish you’d talk to me.”

  The daws wheeled overhead.

  “I don’t believe you’re spies,” Connor continued. “At least, not for this Black Hood, whoever he is. But I know you are watching me. I wish you’d tell me why.”

  Dive, swoop.

  Then another idea occurred to Connor, and he whispered to himself, “Even if you aren’t spies, how about some of the other birds?”

  He whirled around. Sure enough, seabirds flew around the prison, wheeling and darting, but the mess building was just beyond, and the scrapings were always put out for the birds. He had to determine if they were ordinary birds, or ones being enchanted to serve as magical spies.

  Connor drifted back in that direction, head down, careful to move slowly and aimlessly. The birds made constant noise, mostly about food. They also warned one another away. He sorted through their cries with the expertise of long habit, chilled when he sensed among them a single strangely monotone bird-voice from what should have been a raucous gull.

  He felt the internal tickle of magic when he focused on that voice. And when he heard the gull cry, over and over and over, in no natural tone for any bird, Vebb, Vebb, Vebb, listen to Vebb, alarm burned through him.

  Connor gripped his staff. This bird was a spy.

  Connor had worked his entire life to keep his talents hidden. Should he expose them now? Even if the Commander believed him, he was not sure what could be done. He could hear the gull but he couldn’t point out which one it was. And the pirate was going nowhere.

  He had been given the day off, but any thought of joining his friends or taking a solitary hike in the mountains had vanished.

  He sat down to wait.

  Fourteen

  “Halfrid!” Tyron exclaimed.

  Night had fallen, bringing a soft rain shower. Tyron had worked far later in Halfrid’s office than he’d intended, but the work was piling up. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he said, getting up from Halfrid’s chair and moving to sit in the window seat.

  The senior mage smiled ruefully as he sank heavily into his chair. “I’m not back. That is, I am only back for a couple of very old texts on tracers. I have some ideas—oh, that can wait. First, give me a report on things here.”

  Tyron rubbed his head, though he knew his hair was already a wild tangle. Not that he cared. “Mistress Leila is still gone.”

  “I know. I spoke with her just before I transferred here. Queen Nerith is healing, but there is trouble in the court, something having to do with Prince Rollan.”

  Tyron was surprised. “Prince Rollan?” He was the only one of Connor’s half-siblings that anyone liked, outside of Teressa’s deceased mother and Mistress Leila. “He can’t be causing problems. Though I wouldn’t say that for the rest of ‘em.”

  “Oh, he’s not. That princess in Allat Los seems to want to marry him, and only him. One of the results of the war.” Halfrid chuckled, hands folded comfortably over his plump middle. “But the problem is his principality, there in the mountains. A strange place, I’m told. It’s out of the way, but strategically important for a number of reasons that I’m glad to say I don’t have to concern myself with as it is not our kingdom. Apparently the brothers and sisters of our friend Connor all want to be duke or duchess of this holding—but without doing any of the work.”

  “Some things,” Tyron said grimly, remembering some of the stories he’d heard when Connor was first sent to Meldrith, “don’t change.”

  “I do not envy Mistress Leila having to deal with her greedy royal siblings. Anyway, she won’t be coming back any time soon. So I thought I’d better see you before I return.”

  “Well, we’re holding our own, in spite of our shortage of teachers,” Tyron said. “Classes sometimes double up, or get cancelled, but we just demand more practice time, and set the students to writing out of old spells in the ancient magic books, with glosses on historical context. This will be a well-educated set of mages, if we keep going this way.”

  Halfrid chuckled again.

  “All our border mages report in regularly, with no problems so far. Fliss found us a good mage for the farmland spells classes, who is now doubling with the beginners as I had to send Fliss out again, to meet our responsibilities along the southern border and at Hroth Harbor.”

  “You could have sent Wren,” Halfrid said. “She would do well with all those renewal spells. And she speaks the language, so she’d get along with the Guild Council at Hroth Harbor.”

  “She’s gone.” At the quick contraction of Halfrid’s brows, Tyron explained what had happened, ending with, “I know you didn’t want anyone going north, but she went south, and the only one who saw her was Mistress Falin. I just wish I’d known we’d still be short, as I would have had her do those renewal spells first.”

  Halfrid sat back stroking his chin with his thumb. “Is young Hawk still here?”

  Tyron was tempted to unload all his complaints. He took a deep breath instead. Halfrid was facing far more serious problems than an obnoxious suitor who hadn’t really done anything besides be insulting. “He noses around, but hasn’t interfered with anything,” Tyron said slowly. “He did tease Teressa into proposing a midnight party on the lake, come Two Moons Night. But Garian Rhismordith and I have made plans for that.”

  “Good.” Halfrid neatened the stack of waiting papers with a decisive tap of his fingers. Outside the rain had stopped, leaving the occasional musical drip from the roof. As Tyron opened the window to let in the fresh, cool air, laden with wet garden scents, Halfrid went on, “I hoped that young Garian would prove to be steady. I don’t like Hawk being here, I confess. But if he has made no trouble, I’ll leave him to you. At the first sign of anything alarming, promise me you’ll use that summons ring.”

  “Oh, I promise.”

  Halfrid’s gaze dropped to the waiting reports. He looked old and tired. “Much to do, I see. Well, I shall help with some of these matters, and then return to our searches. All three mages summoned away on regular business, and all three vanished
. And none of us, even the most experienced, can find a single trace.”

  “Could they be dead?” Tyron made a face.

  “Either that, or living in another form. That’s the trail I want to follow now. Fouling tracers by transformations is complicated, but not new. Except who would do it? And why? These three hardly knew one another, so we know they were not together. That’s for tomorrow. For tonight, let’s get these school matters caught up.”

  Tyron and Halfrid bent over the lists, talking and writing by turns, until Tyron’s eyes burned and Halfrid blinked, hesitating longer and longer between his words.

  Finally Tyron said, “I still have the fire class just after dawn.”

  Halfrid pursed his lips. “The third year students are already there? You definitely need to be rested to teach that class.” No mention of how very complicated and dangerous stored fire spells were, and how important it was to be exact in one’s spells. “Go. Sleep. I’ll finish here and then return to my tasks in the northlands.”

  Tyron got to his feet, glad to be heading toward bed at last.

  He reached his room and clapped on the light, still feeling that sinking sensation of something undone. He hated that.

  It could be just tiredness, but he didn’t think so. He sat on his bed and forced himself to run through the list of things they’d discussed. School, each year’s students, Orin’s special status, the mages’ reports from the border, Hawk, Teressa, trade and treaty spells, travel—

  Travel. Wren! Tyron sat up straight. Yes, he’d wanted to ask Halfrid about Wren’s promise to scry and her failure to do so. Then he sank back. No, in the face of real problems, this one seemed like borrowing trouble. What could be wrong? Students went out on journeymage trips every year. Wren was an experienced traveler, and one of the best students.

  “I’m just being fussy. Wren would hate that,” Tyron said to the ceiling, and clapped out the light. “If she were in trouble, she’d just transfer home.”

  He was asleep before he’d drawn a second breath.