Flesh and Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Yes?” The prince had no patience for hesitation now.

  “I believe that he killed her, my lord. And then killed himself.”

  The two bodies were both bloodied, but the girl’s wound was a single blow, hard to the chest, killing her instantly. The man’s were jagged, the blade going in several times before striking the final, awkward blow, as though the killer were resisting the act. The girl’s face was still, almost serene in surprise. The man’s was twisted in a rictus of rage and confusion. There was no evidence of anyone else having been in the room, other than the sailor who had called the alarm. The guards had taken one look and sealed off the entire quarters. By the end of that day the Vineart’s student arrived, clearly having been thrown onto a swift boat and brought thence without delay.

  “Why?” The one word was spoken in a steady, almost dispassionate voice, but underneath was the anguish of a bereaved parent given impossible news.

  The young Vineart swallowed nervously, and looked around the room again, searching for some explanation. Something caught his attention that he had overlooked during his initial study. It might be nothing, and yet. . .He stepped carefully over the dead man and touched one spit-dampened finger to the rim of the earthenware pitcher of water on the table, next to a half-filled cup. “If it is fresh enough, perhaps. . .”

  His fingertip ran along the rim of the cup, and the cloudy-clear liquid shaded into a pale yellow-green. The young man turned a shade paler and whispered something under his breath. He tilted his head as though listening to something being demanded of him from far away, then set his jaw and lifted the cup to his own mouth, visibly bracing himself and taking a sip.

  He shuddered, and a pale blue glow surrounded his throat, running down the front of his body to his stomach, and then dissipating.

  “I know not what happened here,” he said, his voice shaky. “But this water. . .it has been tainted. Fouled. With. . .” He hesitated, almost unable to speak. “With magic.”

  “Who? How? Whose work is this?”

  “My lord, we. . .we do not know.” The student forced himself not to drop his gaze in shame and regret, no matter how much he wanted to. “It is magic, but of what crafting, what grape. . .we cannot say.” Echoes of his master’s voice, two days before. “We cannot identify the source.”

  The old man did not care how the two magicians had managed to share their thoughts and tastes across the distance, or that the young Vineart was shaken as much by the unknown magic as the deaths themselves. He still had four sons, and two daughters. He was still the ruler of a strong and powerful land. And, in that instant, he looked like a man who had lost everything.

  “We have been invaded,” he said softly. “Without a single blow or sound of warning, we are undone. Once word of this gets out. . .once other nations know that we are vulnerable, that my very own family. . .”

  “It need not be that way, my lord.”

  The prince did not turn, did not look at the Vineart or in any way indicate that he was listening, but the student continued, speaking for his master in his cellar halfway across the island. “We can protect Atakus. We can stop whatever this unknown enemy intended. But you must allow us leeway, to do what must be done. You must. . .it is against the Command, in every way, what we would do.”

  The old man did not hesitate. “Tell me.”

  PART 2

  Student

  Chapter 7

  HOUSE OF MALECH:

  FALLOWTIME

  The months after his marking passed in a blur to Jerzy, with every waking moment filled with lessons of one sort or another. After Harvest, slaves spent their days preparing the yards for the dormant season, trimming back the dead vines and bundling them to dry for firewood. When they were done, the ground would be strewn with the remains of the crushing, mixed with pigeon shit, to prepare the ground for the cold Fallow season. Once that was done, they would spend the shortened days repairing whatever was given them to fix, or cleaning whatever was given them to clean.

  In the House, though, the real work was only beginning. His early fears that Malech would teach him nothing, that he would be cast aside, seemed almost laughable now. He woke with the dawn, took breakfast in the dining hall with Detta and, occasionally, Master Malech, then spent the rest of the morning alternating between working on his letters and numbers and map reading with Detta and being beaten into competence by Cai.

  “You are a lump of young tubers,” the Caulian said in disgust after a particularly slow response landed Jerzy flat on his stomach, spitting dirt out of his mouth. “I would be afraid to let the likes of you out into a pen of lambkins, much less a battle.”

  Jerzy flipped over onto his back, wincing as he did so. The yard where they practiced had a layer of dirt, but underneath it felt like solid rock. “I’m not going to go into battle,” he pointed out reasonably. “Fight off a wolf, maybe. Or a bandit, if one was foolish enough to attack the House. But battles are for soldiers and solitaires, not a Vineart.”

  Cai picked up the cudgel Jerzy had dropped and weighed it in his hand. He himself was unarmed, having taken Jerzy down with leg and elbow. “Again thinking like a slave, boy. Power calls to those who are hungry for power, and there are hungry idiots everywhere. Think you forever will stay in this House, protected by Master Malech? A man on horseback is a target to a man without; a man with food is fair game to one who is hungry. I will not have you lose horse nor food for lack of skill to defend.”

  “I don’t have a horse,” Jerzy said, getting up and accepting the cudgel back from Cai.

  “You will,” Master Malech said. Cai stepped back a pace, his shoulders going back and his head inclining slightly in acknowledgment of a superior’s arrival. Malech acknowledged him, not looking at Jerzy. “If you’ve done with the boy for now, I would take him off your hands.”

  “I release his sorry carcass to you,” Cai said. “Boy, be sure to be back here nextday morning, and be more ready to inflict harm!”

  “Master?” Until now, most of his afternoons of study with Malech had involved him standing by and watching as the Vineart sorted the harvest and determined what it would best be used for. Had he expected great and wondrous things, he would have been disappointed: like the hours spent punching the juice in the vatting room, there was little outwardly exciting about the crafting of spellwines at this stage. And yet, he found it fascinating—and exhausting.

  “Every day a little more,” Malech told him that first day, too many weeks ago. “Patience is the greatest skill a Vineart may have. Patience, and a gentle touch.”

  He had tried to be patient. Something was different today. There was an air of excitement, or tension, about his master that made every nerve in Jerzy’s body quiver. Today, he thought, might be different.

  “Come” was all Malech said, turning and walking back through the back archway into the courtyard, and from there not into his study or the usual workrooms where Master Malech tested and blended the basic spellwines, lecturing Jerzy on the aspects of each particular spell, but down into the racking rooms.

  Unlike the vatting rooms where Jerzy had labored, the spellwines here were stored in smaller casks placed on their sides, with tapholes at top and front through which samples were drawn and replenished. Air tunnels carved through the foundation brought cool air in from the outside and kept the stone walls and floor from becoming musty, while spell-cast candles placed at careful lengths above Jerzy’s head gave the rooms a dim but clear light.

  After the workroom, there were three rooms: the first and largest room contained five large wooden casks of the basic spellwine called heal-all, the second held three more casks labeled as healwine, and the smallest held two casks of the firewine, Malech’s secondary specialization .

  Today, Malech took him into the first room, and stopped.

  “Tell me about healwine.”

  Jerzy had a moment of panic that crushed his excitement. “Healwine in its basic form is fresh and free flowing,” he said, repeating M
aster Malech’s words as perfectly as he could. “It’s responsive, easy to use, quick to readiness, and quick to respond.”

  “So you have been listening. But have you been learning? No matter, we’ll soon find out.”

  Malech placed Jerzy’s hands on the side of one of the tanks, palms flat against the wood, just at shoulder level. “Tell me what you feel.”

  “The wood is cool, but not slick. I can. . .I can feel the pressure of the wine inside. It’s heavier than the mustus in the vatting tanks, more powerful, but it does not press the way the mustus did. Master, if all the healwine is in these casks. . .” His voice trailed off, and Malech waited. A shiver went through the boy, as though something had passed over his grave, then he went on.

  “Punching the wine: that brought the magic out, made the power of the juice come together with the strength in the skins. Filtering it, getting rid of the skins”—that had been the second step, the skins going into the fertilizing mixture the slaves spread over the soil to feed it— “allowed the juice to come out on top, for power to use strength, and not to be overwhelmed by it. Now. . .It is not pressing me because it is. . .waiting?”

  He didn’t stop for a response, certain for once that he was correct.

  “You’ve taught me about five different kinds of healwine: heal-all, blood staunch, bone-heal, melancholia, and deep-heal. There are five tanks here, and three in the next room, and none of them are separately marked, so the next step must be for all of them, equally, and then. . .then they are crafted for each specific spell?”

  As the words tumbled out of his student’s mouth, Malech felt his face purse up in an unexpected smile. “Who knew such a mind lurked under all that dirt. Well done, boy. Well done. Yes, there is a process we have not yet discussed. Healwine magic cures or corrects ailments, creating the proper delicate balance in the human—or animal—body. But magic is not, of itself, delicate or balanced. Just as we created a balance between strength and power, now we must craft a delicacy into that power; to teach the magic where to stop, else it do harm where it might heal. Without that. . .What might happen then?”

  Jerzy, his hands still flat on the tank, shuddered. “A heal-all, told to close a wound in the face, might close up the mouth as well?”

  “An extreme case, but possible. And so, here is where your own abilities come into play. Feel the power within that cask, boy. That cask and only that cask, the magic speaking to you, touching back at you, and let your own magic rise to greet it, the way you have been greeting the smaller vials. There is no difference in power, no difference in technique. Do you feel it?”

  “Yes. It. . .sings to me.” The boy sounded surprised.

  “Sing back to it. Sing to it of control and balance. Of a delicate flavor and delicate touch. The magic wants out, that’s all it has ever wanted. Show it the way to get there.”

  Jerzy nodded, his face set in a fierce determination. Malech placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders, feeling the muscles bunch and tighten in response.

  “No, relax. Relax. There is nothing here that controls you; you control it.” He softened his voice, making it as soothing as possible. The boy was quick and smart, but the lessons—and the scarring—of the years of slavery lay in all of them. Stress made for riper fruit—but delicate handling was what made a powerful spellwine—or Vineart. “Relax and listen. . ..”

  Jerzy’s muscles slowly softened, but the tenseness remained until Malech let go and stepped back, still giving instructions until he saw Jerzy’s head lean forward, his forehead touching the side of the tank, and his breathing even out so that a stranger might think that he had fallen asleep in that position.

  “Tell the magic that it must listen to you, in order to be free. Like a horse to harness, magic must know what is expected of it. . ..”

  Even as he spoke, Malech reached out to the cask as well, not physically but with his other senses, overlaying the boy’s efforts with his own. This was still his wine; he was the Vineart. Stress the vines, stress the Vineart. . ..But too much stress ruined both, and he could not afford to have the boy fail.

  “Enough now. Relax, let go, let the wine settle, and release. . . .Good.”

  Jerzy sighed, and he felt those neck muscles tense up again. This time Malech removed his hands, allowing the boy his privacy. “Now,” he said, keeping his tone conversational, “I want you to go into the workroom and do exactly that same thing on the sample there. Only this time, you will be the one to lay down a spell-structure, and see if you can convince it to take hold.”

  He watched carefully while Jerzy nodded, and turned, as though in a daze, and walked back to the workroom. Yes. Students, like vines, needed to be stressed. Like spellwines, they needed to be crafted. Balance was important in knowing which method to apply, and when.

  “UP! UP, DAMN you!”

  The Master’s voice slammed into Jerzy’s ear, tumbling him out of his narrow bed and onto the hard stone floor. He did not stop to consider that he might have imagined the summons: six months within the House had shown him too many wonders to doubt, and so he merely reached for his clothing, grumbling a little at the timing of masters who interrupted dreams just as they were reaching a good point, in this instance having to do with a faceless but nonetheless invitingly warm figure wrapped around his nether regions. Then something in the night air alerted him, and he stopped with one leg halfway into his trousers.

  “Master?”

  There was no answer, only a sense of impatience and. . .worry?

  “Guardian?”

  But there was no heavy flap of stone wings at his window, either. The Guardian, who had more than once been sent to fetch him while he slept, was elsewhere.

  Something was wrong. He looked out the window, his gaze unerringly drawn to the nearest slope of the vineyard, and his breath caught at the flickers of light where there should only have been still darkness.

  Root-glow.

  Jerzy had no memory of getting dressed, or indeed of how he made his way from his bedchamber to the fields. For all he knew, he sprouted wings and flew there. Once on the ground, the sight was worse than he could ever have dreamed; all along the rows of winter-dormant grapevines the soil flickered with a sickly yellow color where the infection was attacking the roots, spreading even as he stood there, horrified, and watched.

  Root-glow was a springtime infestation. How was it here, now, in the middle of Fallowtime?

  “Take this.” Malech appeared next to him, and thrust a wineskin into his hands, his words coming out as puffs of frost in the cool night air. His master was wearing a quilted jacket, cinched at the hips with his usual double-wrapped tool belt, and was pulling on fingerless leather gloves even as he spoke. “It’s heal-all. Do you remember how to cast a clarification?”

  Jerzy nodded, even though the Master hadn’t waited for a response. “Take the downslope; I’ll work uphill. Go, boy!”

  A clarification spell was simple enough; in its most common form it was used with healwines to determine the truth of a story in court, stripping away the lies and elaborations until only the unvarnished truth remained. But that was on people. How was he supposed to. . .

  The months of being drilled on soil, vines, and spell-crafting kicked in, and Jerzy understood. Strip the additions away. Strip away that which was not part of the truth, the original form. A vinespell was crafted to do a specific thing, focusing the magic within the wine, but the magic that existed within the grape was broader than any spell, and that magic could be manifested in a variety of ways—if you were a Vineart.

  Even as he was uncorking the wineskin and taking a mouthful, Jerzy was already focusing his will on the liquid in his mouth, ascertaining the properties of the fruit, fresh and sweet, but with a surprising depth and structure to it. That was unusual for a heal-all. Not a young vintage, maybe five harvests back, when the weather had held warm and dry?

  Now was not the time to play spot-the-vintage, he scolded himself. Too many hours had been spent memorizing the sign
s of blights and infestations for him to underestimate the danger. Root-glow, if not stopped, could seriously damage growth in the spring—and, in worst-case scenarios, require an entire field to be undone and replanted with new stock.

  Around him, slaves scurried with sand and shovels, working to dig out roots that were already too infected to survive, trying to stop the spread that way. But it was too slow, too inefficient a way to save the vines, especially when the slaves had to beware touching the actual rot or risk a painful rash on the exposed skin. Root-glow was only lethal to plants, but everyone knew it wasn’t kind to flesh, either, and the soothe-salve used for it smelled worse than the rash-blighted skin.

  Holding the mouthful of wine in his mouth, Jerzy focused his awareness on the liquid, tasting the properties of the grape, the nature of the soil. He could recognize the specific spellwine, down to what yard the vines had grown in, and that allowed him to unlock the deeper magics within. Had this been a wine of another’s crafting, it would have resisted him. But the crafting had been Malech’s, and the magic recognized him, too. More, this was a spellwine from this very vineyard, soil-to-soil and vine-to-vine, and there was a special strength in that.

  To the root, go. Once, to direct. Once, to decant. Once, to strike. That was the rule.

  He could feel the magic summoned by his direction, sliding from his mouth, out and down the rows of vines, slipping through the thick, clotted soil to spread over the roots, waiting for decantation. What to say? Jerzy felt panic flutter inside him, making his stomach sick, and every thought fled his mind, leaving him helpless and near panic. Why hadn’t the Master told him what decantation to use? He didn’t know, he was only a half year removed from ignorant slave, and he had never done this before, never used a spellwine outside the working chamber before, he didn’t know, it was too much; too much weighed on him!