The Hidden Stars

by Madeline Howard

  “And how did this one break free?”

  She shrugged, pretending to make light of her own fears. “After all, the spell had lasted for more than ten centuries. It’s not to be supposed that it would hold forever.”

  “Nevertheless, you have an idea, and it isn’t a pleasant one,” the Prince persisted. And again she wondered how much he sensed: did he perceive the world as an ordinary Man did, or as a wizard, or as something entirely other?

  Up on the quarterdeck, Faolein’s chanting had ceased; the wind he had summoned out of the west came with a shriek and a moan and filled up the sails. It sent Balaquendor scudding across the water, toward the great continent. Now that they were moving again, Sindérian felt her spirits momentarily rise; but they sank again, dismally, with the answer to Ruan’s question.

  “The wizards of Leal have known for some time that something is coming—some danger, some disruption in the natural flow of time and circumstance.”

  “And this is Ouriána’s doing?”

  “Not, not something she has done deliberately, we think. She’s been tampering for a long time with things better left alone—has been so very reckless in her use of magic—there is some fear that the Walls of the World are beginning to fray, and the Darkness outside is finding more and more ways to slip through the cracks. Wherever it does so, ancient bindings may lose their strength, many of them may already be failing.

  “Runes—” She caught her breath at the thought. “The names and forms of powerful runes may fade from wizards’ minds. For all intents and purposes, those runes and the magic associated with them would cease to exist.”

  “Then what,” said Ruan, “do the wizards of Leal propose to do, if this should prove to be so?”

  Sindérian shook her head. “You must understand, where these bindings are concerned, we won’t do anything to strengthen those spells—we don’t work those magics anymore. The binding or enslavement of a sentient creature is—”

  “Is a waethas, a very dubious sorcery, if not outright black magic,” the Prince finished for her. And then, at her look of surprise, he smiled and shrugged. “I was tutored for many years by a wizard.”

  She nodded, determined to remember this. “Well then, you will see why we don’t wish to emulate those ancient wizards. They were desperate in those days, of course, and it’s difficult to condemn them, besieged as they were. They had a choice between imprisoning themselves and all they wished to protect, narrowly confined behind powerful wards, or they could imprison the monsters of the sea and the earth instead, and continue to move freely themselves.”

  “And they chose to work waethassi.”

  “Yes,” said Sindérian, with a thin smile and a lift of her eyebrows. “They chose that path. But we account ourselves wiser now…at least more aware of the consequences of our acts. We learned a hard lesson in Otöi. No wizard of the present age would make that same choice.”

  “And so?” asked the Prince, continuing to watch her with that assured ironical gaze of his. She found herself blushing under his scrutiny, though she did not know why she should.

  “And so…We are doing the only thing that we can do. We are trying to put an end to Ouriána’s dangerous meddling before whatever it is she’s accidentally begun proceeds so far there will be no halting it.”

  5

  In the great city of Apharos, inside the brass wall and more than a mile from the gates of ivory and pearl, there once lived a magician who had fallen on hard times. Maelor the Astromancer he was called, more familiarly, Maelor the Mountebank, the Drunkard, the Mad. A ragtag, threadbare, makeshift creature, he was a familiar sight in his dusty robes, shuffling through the narrow lanes and alleys of Ouriána’s capital city, muttering to himself or making signs on the air like a lunatic.

  Yet there were times when something seemed to ignite behind his dull eyes, a flash of sorcery, a glimpse of power debased or diminished, that caused his neighbors to treat the magician with a grudging respect, and the more imaginative to invent for him a glamorous history of palaces and temples, of mastery over wind, wave, earth, and fire, before a life of riotous excess brought him so low. For all that, no one knew very much about him, and least of all what his past had truly been.

  Ostensibly, he made his living casting horoscopes, scratching out charts on scraps of dirty parchment for anyone willing to pay the price of three coppers, but his clients were few. He made ends meet by performing as a conjurer in the busy market squares down by the docks: simple tricks and sleights for the most part, as any true power he retained was unreliable, and such vanishments and conjurations as depended on it were only successful half of the time.

  After a day spent juggling wooden balls and making small coins disappear, he would wander over to one of the humbler stalls, purchase a morsel of supper with his meager earnings—a withered turnip, a whiskery onion, a day-old fish wrapped up in brown paper—then amble homeward. He was often distracted: by an angular formation of birds passing overhead, by the last light of sunset burning on a puddle of stagnant water. Then he would stand, transfixed, absorbed in some waking dream for minutes or hours, until someone hurrying by elbowed him aside, jolting him out of his dream. Sometimes, he grew weary of the steep uphill climb and sat down on a crumbling doorstep to munch on a stale heel of bread or a bit of rancid cheese, and there he remained, until some household servant came along to send him off in a shower of hard words and kicks and blows. These the old man accepted meekly, without resentment, and continued on his erratic way.

  He lived in the attic of a dreary old house perched high above the city. When the magician threw open the battered shutters on his one hexagonal window, he could see the headless statue of a winged Fate on the roof next door, and an iron drainpipe shaped like a crested serpent winding down one side of another building. The rusty pipe was broken in several places, as was the copper cistern it was meant to fill, but when spring came Maelor was pleased to see that the head of the snake still served a useful function: a pair of ravens had built their nest inside its open mouth and were raising a family of raucous black chicks, well out of reach of the hundreds of lean, hungry cats prowling the alleys below.

  Ravens, as everyone knew, were Ouriána’s spies and messengers, but he bore the creatures no ill will. This pair seemed far too busy meeting the needs of their increasingly demanding brood to carry any tales to the palace—and besides, it had been a long time since he had anything to hide.

  From his window looking east, Maelor could see most of the capital spread out before him: a fantastical vista of crooked tall houses, towers, steeples, gargoyles, and spiky obelisks, all in dark granite, black marble, and obsidian, like a city in sackcloth and ashes, perpetually doing penance for some unnamed sin.

  Twice every fortnight, a pall of black smoke rose from the New Temple, where the acolytes built great bonfires in the courtyard, and the bloody-handed Furiádhin consigned offerings of wine and grain, fur and feathers and flesh to the flames.

  One evening early in the year, the old man sat dozing by a tiny hearthfire, while his supper boiled in a dented iron pot. Past and present merged in his mind, dim memories mingled with dreams and visions.

  How long he sat there he did not know. When he came out of his reverie, the room was thick with moving shadows, darkness that ebbed and flowed with the flickering of his fire. Through the open window, he could see a crown of pale stars over the building next door. While he was dreaming, most of the water in his stewpot had boiled away, and all that remained of his supper was a dark sludgy mass in the bottom of the vessel.

  Using a rag to shield his hands from the heat, he removed the pot from the fire, set it down on the hearth to cool. Then, very carefully, so as not to burn his long, thin fingers, he began to fish out tiny bits of bone and lay them out on the sooty bricks.

  Like this, he thought. No, like this. His high forehead furrowed in a deep frown as he arranged and rearranged the delicate pieces of bone: the head, the tail, the long spine. Tentatively, he
spoke a Word of Power. Nothing happened. He moved the bones around on the bricks again, spoke another Word, more potent than the first. Something started to happen, something struggled to take form. Breathlessly, he watched a ghostly image of the fish tremble on the verge of being, a bare hint of what it had been in life be—

  But a sharp, impatient rapping at his chamber door shattered his concentration and severed the thread of his spell.

  With a sigh, the magician rose. Lighting the stub of a greasy tallow candle, he padded in his stocking feet across the room and lifted the latch. Then, cautiously, he eased the low wooden door open, a fraction of an inch at a time, and peered out.

  On the dark landing outside stood a tall figure swathed from head to toe in a voluminous velvet cloak. Man or woman he could not tell, for the hood was pulled forward to obscure the face.

  “Is this the home of Maelor the Astromancer?” The clear, masculine voice issuing from the shadowy cowl had an unmistakable note of command. And from the stairwell below came sounds of movement: a scuffling of feet, a clink of metal—whoever he was, he had not come alone.

  A tremor passed over Maelor from head to foot; he felt a heavy weight pressing on his chest, the same pain that came increasingly, these days, with any exertion or agitation. Be calm, he told himself, be at peace. Let the world flow past you; do not fight what must be.

  “I have paid my tithe to the temple,” he said in a shrill voice. “It may seem very little to the priests, but it was my full share and even something ov—

  “I come from the palace, not the temple. And I’ve no wish to communicate my business to every cutpurse and footpad in the house. Will you or will you not let me in?”

  Wordlessly, Maelor stepped aside. As his visitor crossed the threshold, ducking his head to avoid the lintel, there was a flash and glitter of gemstones and gilded armor under the heavy velvet cloak.

  The magician bowed so low that his head nearly touched his feet. “Pardon me for asking, Great Lord, but—Do I know you?”

  For answer, the visitor threw back his hood, revealing a pale face, green eyes, and thick red-gold hair drawn back and plaited in a warrior’s braid. Maelor caught his breath sharply; another convulsive movement passed over his skeletal frame. The profile he saw before him, with its prominent cheekbones, long, tense mouth, and aquiline nose, had been etched on Pharaxion coins of silver and gold for the last two decades; but the man on the coins had died ten months ago.

  The old man quickly recovered. Though Prince Guindeluc had been dead for almost a year, his younger brothers were said to resemble him closely. Rumor had it that Meriasec was with the fleet to the north, and that left…“Prince Cuillioc,” said the magician, raking his fingers through his long, straggling hair, his thin grey beard. “You are welcome to visit my house at any time. Nevertheless, I am at a loss to understand—”

  The Prince silenced him with an abrupt gesture. He was not, after all, so very like his brother. His face conveyed both wit and intelligence, but also a deep reserve; he had the look of a man who was always questioning himself, weighing his every thought and action, and too often finding himself wanting, some essential quality lacking. “I want you to cast my horoscope. One of the servants at the palace spoke of you. He said that your talents far exceeded your miserable circumstances. Did the man lie?”

  Maelor tugged at his tattered and dirty robes. “No, he didn’t lie. What you see before you is only the result of folly and pride. I have lost much, but I can still read the stars.

  “In truth,” he added, under his breath, as he lit more of the stubby candles, made futile attempts to tidy up the room, “some things I see more clearly now than I ever did before.”

  “Then tell me what the stars reveal about my proposed expedition to Mirizandi.” Moving with a stiff grace, the Prince took several steps away from the door. “The Court Astrologer tells me that great danger awaits me there: danger and betrayal, disgrace, perhaps even death.”

  Maelor whisked some dirty dishes off a table, stacked them on the floor in a dark corner of the room. “Pardon me,” he said, the ragged grey tufts of his eyebrows coming together in a puzzled frown. “But if the great Lailoken—an astromancer of the highest competence—has already advised you, I can’t help wondering why you should come to me for a second opinion.” Again, fear washed over him, the pain in his chest tightened like a vise. His recent activities had been innocent enough, but what did that signify? If he had somehow attracted the attention of the palace or the temple…“And why you should come to someone like me, in this great city of seers and astrologers—”

  “It’s not Lailoken’s competence I question,” said Prince Cuillioc. “But he owes his position at court to my younger brother, and therefore I question the accuracy and honesty of his interpretation. And it seemed to me—in this great city of seers and astrologers—that I would do well to consult someone with no possible ties to the court. Will you serve me in this, or shall I go elsewhere?”

  The magician stopped with a crystal orb balanced in one hand. The center of the globe was clouded, and the surface covered with a network of tiny cracks. “I will serve you, my Prince, as well as I am able,” he murmured. But a momentary confusion came over him, as he stood there in his threadbare stockings and scarecrow robes. His thoughts all jumbled together in a senseless muddle, his voice died, and his eyes glazed over.

  “Is there something amiss?” asked Prince Cuillioc, when the old man continued dumb and bewildered for several minutes. With surprising gentleness, he reached out and touched Maelor softly on the arm. Almost immediately, he seemed to regret the gesture; he drew back, and said with a little barking, contemptuous laugh: “Or is it that I’m expected to cross your palm with silver in advance?”

  At the sound of his voice, Maelor revived. He passed an unsteady hand across his eyes. “When you have seen the value of my advice, Lord Prince, then you must pay me whatever you think it is worth.”

  Stowing the crystal ball and some other oddments under his bed, the magician began to assemble books, paper, goose quill, and ink, carrying them over to a scarred and stained table near the open window. Then he pulled up a battered oak chest to serve as his seat, sat down, and began to make the necessary calculations.

  Looking up only once—in order to ask the exact hour of his visitor’s birth—the old man hunched over his books, turning over a leaf every now and then, running a grimy finger down a long column of numbers, or scribbling arcane figures on an ancient piece of vellum. Meanwhile, Cuillioc paced the room with long, restless strides, his velvet cloak flowing behind him.

  The narrow room was as shabby and unkempt as its occupant; it smelled of mildew, tallow, mouse droppings, old boots, and decaying scholarship. Knots of brittle herbs dangled from the slanted beams overhead: Cuillioc recognized moly and witch’s-knot, sarrow, dragon’s-tongue, and thyssop—the rest he could not name. In a tall oak cabinet with a half-open door sagging on its hinges, he saw retorts, flasks, green glass bottles, and stoneware jars, along with other more curious vessels, harder to identify. On a shelf to themselves were five or six ancient books, sealed with wax seals or bound shut with iron chains.

  Scattered across the bed among the dirty linens, piled on the floor—which was otherwise littered with nutshells, bread crumbs, and greasy parchment playing cards—were still more books, less magical perhaps, but rather more exotic in appearance: books bound in sharkskin, snake, and seal; crocodile, ibex, and zebra. One lay open at a map of the moon, another had strange tinted woodcuts of mermaids, sirens, sea unicorns, and whales.

  And on a long table, a seemingly random collection of splintered glass and rough shards of broken crockery gradually resolved into a pattern so complex and involved that it dazed his mind to look on it. Continuing to pace, the Prince began to see more and more of these convoluted patterns: around the fireplace, the floor, and the ceiling, where the old man had sketched diagrams in chalk, charcoal, and ochre; carved on the inside of the door; in an arrangement of fra
il small skeletons, moles and lizards and tiny songbirds, up on the mantelpiece. Everywhere he looked, there were polygons, spirals, mazes, constellations, augeries—the strange geometries of a troubled mind. Over everything hung veils of cobweb grown furry with dust.

  Even something about the shadows in the room worried him: the way they seemed to congregate in the center of the floor, to flow into each other, then separate into smaller shadows, scatter, and come together again. Darkness—darkness was an element, inanimate and benign. So the lessons he had studied as a boy informed him. But there was that other Darkness, both like and unlike, which was infinitely greater. His mother, the Empress, had claimed it for her ally; she had taught her sons to respect it, but not to fear it, nor to fear the shadows. Yet he did fear them, in this place.

  He began to experience an unreasoning panic. A sickness rose in his throat. What was he doing here? What impulse, what folly, had inspired him to take such an ill-considered step? Had the old man’s madness infected him? If this Maelor was not brain-sick and wandering, he, Cuillioc, was very much mistaken.

  Yet pride forbade him to run away; pride, most of all, would not allow him to be intimidated by such a preposterous figure of a befuddled old man. So the Prince stayed on, listening to the magician mutter to himself, the sound of his goose quill moving across parchment, like the scratching of tiny mice feet behind ancient wainscoting.

  “And so, what do you see?” said Cuillioc eagerly, when the old man finally glanced up.

  Maelor did not reply immediately. He rose from his seat, drew up a chair with a cracked leather seat and one broken arm, and offered it to the Prince, then resumed his place on the oak chest. Even when Cuillioc sat down facing him across the table, the magician hesitated, picking up the blotched and inky chart, squinting at it, putting it down, then repeating the action a second and even a third time, before the Prince—all alive with curiosity and forgetting his recent doubts about the astrologer’s sanity—burst out: “Speak, man, and do not fear the consequences. I wish to know the truth, no matter how dire.”