Flesh and Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  These vines were his responsibility to save.

  That thought staggered him, hitting like a blow to the gut, and then a slave shoved him aside, digging frantically at a half-mature vine, swearing as he did so, and Jerzy’s paralysis was broken. It was too much, but to do nothing was unthinkable. He was no slave, to dig and grub—he was a Vineart.

  “Restore to health.” It was as clumsy a decantation as could be, yet all Jerzy could think of. Healwines. “Heal the vines. Go!”

  Even as he gave the strike order, Jerzy swallowed the spellwine, feeling it rush down his throat and explode through his body. Ordinary folk didn’t feel this, the intoxicating power flooding every nerve, making him shake in the aftermath, Malech had said. But he couldn’t revel in it; this wasn’t a training class. Even as the spell was cleansing and protecting the roots from invasion, the yellow glow fading and sputtering out up and down the row, Jerzy was moving on to the next grouping of vines, repeating the process over and over again as he moved downslope, slaves moving out of his way even as they kept digging at the roots that still glowed. His world narrowed to the wineskin in his hand, the feel of the rounded, sweet fruit in his mouth, and the flickering lights in front of him, his body moving mechanically down and down the hill, aware only of the darkness behind him and the lights ahead, until there were no more lights on the ground, only a pale glow overhead. He tilted his head back, and wondered blankly if he was supposed to do something about that glow as well.

  “Young one.”

  Jerzy blinked, and turned to face the source of the voice. The overseer stood there, his hard face covered with dirt and worn with exhaustion. “The Master calls for you.”

  “But. . .I must. . .” Words felt strange in his mouth, and he was suddenly aware of a confusing dizziness in his body.

  “Master calls for you,” the overseer repeated, and then something strange flickered across his face, and his huge hand came down on Jerzy’s bare shoulder. Jerzy was too tired, too confused to flinch, but the touch, while firm, did not crush his shoulder as expected. “You done right, young Jerzy. The field is safe. Let us handle the rest, like we know how. You go to the Master, now.”

  Still numbed and confused, Jerzy realized that the morning had come, his wineskin was near empty, and the buzzing in his head was not due to a swarm of insects but the pressure of so much magic ingested too fast.

  “Yes. All right,” he said. Tucking the wineskin over his shoulder, Jerzy stumbled around a slave still digging around the roots, although with less frantic energy, and headed back up the slope to where the Vineart waited.

  “Master?”

  Malech was looking out over the fields, and Jerzy turned to echo him. The vines were still brown, bare, and wizened, and it was almost impossible to believe that in a few months, pale green leaves would begin to unfurl and ripe fruit would hang low. The soil was innocently still, to all intents and purposes untouched except where spades had turned out root and filled the spot in with paler sand, to halt the root-glow infection.

  “Out of season,” Master Malech said, as though to himself. “Out of season and so fast. It could all have been gone. The entire yard, my oldest vines. Overnight, in the blink of the moon and the whim of the silent gods. All our care, our skills, are nothing in the face of such disaster.”

  “Is there no vine immune to root-glow?” Even as he asked the question Jerzy cursed himself for a sleep-addled idiot. If there were, would not the Master already have planted it? He deserved to be hit, for such ignorance.

  “You pay a price for such an immunity,” Malech said, and to Jerzy’s relief there was no censure in his voice, only a weary instruction. “A vine might be bred to resist rot, or a particular bug, or to grow where rains come heavy or weather runs cold. And then?”

  The night air was chilled, and he shivered despite the sweat, wishing he had thought to grab his quilted jacket as well. “To change the nature of the vine in such a way. . .it would change the nature of the grape as well?” Vines showed the nature not only of the roots but the soil they grew in. A spirit-healgrape grown in the dry sand of Malech’s home-land would have different effects from the same grape transplanted to the Cerian Hills and their shorter, cooler summers, and neither would be the spirit-heal Malech grew in his northern fields. The magic itself would change, depending on the location and the Vineart. It seemed logical that changing the plant itself would have no less an effect.

  “And?” No hint if he had answered correctly or not, merely his master offering more rope with which to truss himself.

  “And only Sin Washer had the right to change the nature of the vines?”

  The expected cuff landed then, although not as hard as it might have been on another morning. “The Sin Washer gave the vines into our care,” Malech said. “We have dominion. . .but that dominion must be tempered with wisdom, else we have learned nothing from the fate of the prince-mages. And wisdom, boy, means considering the balance of the universe when making such a decision. A vine resistant to root-glow almost inevitably opens another weakness—one we would know nothing about until it struck. And then, our fields denuded and a full span of replanting to wait before a new harvest; what happens to a Vineart then?”

  “Yes, Master,” Jerzy said. His head spun from the wine and the cuffing and the lack of sleep, but he dared not show any of that until the Master released him from lessoning.

  Malech stared at the vines a moment longer, his eyes deep set with exhaustion under shaggy gray brows, and then sighed. “Enough. I race ahead of your understanding once again. Tell me, what decantation did you use?”

  “A restore-to-health,” Jerzy said, grateful to fall back on his familiar role of student being quizzed. “I thought at first to strengthen-and-protect, but was afraid that it might attach itself to the root-glow rather than the root itself.”

  “Hrmmm. A fair enough concern, and a passable solution, if lacking elegance.”

  “Would not a rougher vinespell be preferred?” Jerzy knew he was exhausted, if he was challenging his master, but the question seemed a fair one. “This. . .root-glow is rough and ugly and seemed to call for blunt flavors, not delicacy. Is that not why you brought heal-all, not something more particular?”

  “Hrmm.” A pause, and then the Master laughed. “Perhaps you have been listening in lessons, after all. Go, get some food in your stomach, boy, and meet me in the workroom at the eighth hour.”

  Released, Jerzy staggered off back toward the house, feeling every hour of exhaustion in his parched skin and weary bones. Halfway there, he turned and looked back. Master Malech still stood on the rise, his long and lean form upright against the pale blue Fallowtime sky, so like the Guardian’s stone-still form as to be carved of the same materials.

  Shaking the thought off as useless fancy, Jerzy went in to break his fast. The kitchen was already roused, aware that there had been a disturbance in the night, and he found himself seated at the scarred wood table in the dining hall with a bowl of sweetened grain on the table in front of him and Lil pouring out a cup of steaming tai from the cast-iron kettle. She had been made cook the month before, freeing Detta to more efficiently run the Household and manage the business aspects for the House of Malech. The change had also affected their relationship; he was oddly more comfortable with her now, and she teased him less as a result.

  “Here.” Lil’s red kerchief was slipping down over her sweat-beaded forehead, and she shoved it back into place with the inside of her elbow. “I made it extra strong and extra sweet this morning, and drink it up and no complaining. It will keep you going until you can fall over.”

  Jerzy hated tai, especially sweetened, but the girl was right—it would help him stay awake throughout the day. He took the mug from her hands and sipped, trying not to grimace.

  “Take it all at once,” Detta said, bustling into the room and sitting down to take her own meal. Unlike the others, she was dressed for the day, her wide leather belt jangling from the keys and pouches hanging from i
t, and her gray curls neatly combed and coiled. The uncertain hesitation Jerzy had once felt in front of the older woman hadn’t quite disappeared—she was still as much a force of nature as Malech, and with almost as much power within these walls, but it was tempered now by the knowledge that Detta saw them all as her cubs to protect, even the Master.

  “It ruins my taste,” he said, scrunching his face to show his dislike of the brew.

  “That’s why you should take it all at once,” she told him. “Sipping it spreads it on the tongue. Gulping it gets it into your throat that much the faster.”

  Jerzy was annoyed that he hadn’t thought of that himself; it was so obvious now. Taking a spoonful of the grain, he chased it down with half the mug’s contents, wincing a little as the steam hit the inside of his throat and rose up through his nose. The second gulp was more cautious, trying to avoid the gunk that waited at the bottom of the mug. Lil hadn’t been jesting when she said she had brewed it strong.

  “You were able to contain the infection.” It took Jerzy a moment to realize that Detta was stating a fact, not a question. She had worked for the Master her entire life; she knew that if they hadn’t, he wouldn’t be here, spooning grain into his mouth and waiting for Lil to serve out the cheese roll he could smell baking in the oven.

  “How did it get into the vines?” Lil asked, refilling his mug without regard for his protest. “Another mug, and then I’ll leave you be. Doesn’t Master have protections up against such a thing?”

  “Of course.” Jerzy felt a flash of annoyance that Lil—a serving-girl— questioned the Master so casually.

  Lil wasn’t at all abashed by his tone. “Then how?” She looked first to Jerzy, then to Detta. Detta shook her head, and looked at Jerzy, as though he would have the answer.

  “I don’t know,” he had to admit. “Master Malech will, though.” He scooped the last of the grains into his mouth and swallowed, then washed his mouth out with the entire mug of tai in one long gulp that left him coughing.

  “Don’t breathe and drink at the same time,” Lil suggested pertly, taking the now-empty bowl and spoon away, even as he put the mug back down on the table and pushed his bench away. The cheese rolls would have to wait.

  “Master’s waiting for me. Don’t know that we’ll be finished in time for supper,” he told Detta, who nodded as though she had been expecting such, and likely had. “I’ll have Lil set cold meats aside,” she told him, “for whenever you’re finished, or famished, as comes first.”

  THE STEPS DOWN to the workrooms were steep and shadowed as ever, but after half a year’s climbing up and down, Jerzy took them confidently, if not carelessly. Halfway down, he heard the sound of stone brushing against stone, and ducked even as the Guardian moved overhead.

  “And where were you, all night we were slogging and spelling?” he asked, not expecting an answer. The stone dragon took its usual place on the mantel, curling its wings tight against its body, and merely stared at the boy. Jerzy didn’t even know what the Guardian guarded—it moved from workroom to House and then back again, occasionally disappearing but never for long.

  The boy shrugged and entered the workroom. The now-familiar smells of must and candle wax met his nose, almost overriding the memory of the tai on his tongue. Malech was in his usual spot, leaning back in the carved wooden chair and staring off, seemingly into space. Jerzy settled himself on the small bench, the surface after so many months a comfortable perch.

  “Today we will continue with the crafting of heal-all, as we used up a considerable portion of our stores this evening past. Go fetch a half barrel from the last but one Harvest and bring it in.”

  Jerzy blinked disbelievingly at Malech, who met his gaze with a solemn, unperturbed look of his own. Clearly, today’s lesson was not to be about root-glow. He bit back the questions still on his tongue, and did as he was bid.

  MALECH WATCHED HIS student carefully all morning as they poured vial after vial of the jewel-red wine from the barrel and tested Jerzy’s understanding of craft. It was a delicate process: only a trained Vineart could convince the liquid magic to accept a spell. It was that framework—the spell—that made spellwines viable, allowing someone other than its creator to use it. Without the spell, the wines were no better than a toy, an amusement. Properly incanted, they were powerful tools.

  The gift and the training were equal sides to the crafting, and needed to remain in balance to create a balanced spellwine, an effective spell-wine that would do as directed. That was the secret to Vinearts’ continued survival: not that they could command the magic themselves, but that they had learned, over centuries, how to allow others to do so as well. And if those others never knew how very little of the magic inherent in a spellwine they in fact used, compared to what a Vineart might command. . .

  Safer that way for all concerned.

  All this went through Malech’s mind as Jerzy focused intently on a vial, trying to sense the magic within and bend it to his will. Some might caution against letting him jump so swiftly from slave to blender, but Malech had seen from the very first that the boy was a fast learner, swift to comprehend and cautious enough not to overjump his abilities. And it had been a good Harvest; they had spellwine to spare, if the boy ruined a batch, or it came out too weak for use.

  Still, the boy was not without flaws and weakness. He hesitated, looked too much to Malech for approval instead of trusting himself. He was a follower, not a leader. Neither of these things were fatal, but. . .For that reason so far the boy had handled only the heal-all, the simplest if most lucrative of Malech’s craftings, although they’d worked the other healspells together, Malech guiding the boy’s touch. By the time the vines flowered again, the boy should have the basics down cleanly. After next Harvest, he would start the boy on more complicated crafting of firewines, and then. . .if Jerzy survived that far, then they would move on to the most delicate of the three vines the Valle of Ivy was known for: a rare fertility-wine that grew only in a small enclosure along the coast and was vinified only once every two or three years, as conditions allowed. Growvines were the oldest variety, and required a steady hand, a delicate balance, and a mind strong enough to clear itself of all but goodwill and good wishes, else it turned into a curse. Grow-spells were nothing for a beginning student to touch.

  It would be a shame if this promising boy were to fail before that point. Malech had grown fond of Jerzy, and this attack on the vine-yard—and it had been an attack, no mistake—would have overwhelmed most of those of his age and limited experience. Aware of that, the Vineart was alert to even the slightest sign of breakage. So far, save for a few carefully hidden yawns, the boy seemed the same as the day before. Curious, yes—only a Guardian wouldn’t be curious!—but not flinching, not hesitant. . .and not overconfident, either, despite his success during the night before. The boy was taking the events in stride, and not shirking in the day’s learning. Good.

  He doubts too much.

  He did well last night, Malech replied.

  He doubts, Guardian repeated. Doubt fails.

  Malech pushed the stopper back into the bunghole of the half cask, and turned to face his student. “Now. Quickly and clearly. What are the three applications of heal-all?”

  The boy set aside his decanting glass and stood to recite, his eyes fixed at some spot over Malech’s head. “To apply to a patient who is asleep or insensible: compose within the mouth and apply through the application of hands. To apply to a patient who is alert: compose with the mouth and apply through application of mouth to mouth. To apply to self: a patient must compose within the mouth and apply onto the wound particular.”

  “And the limitations?”

  “Limitations are. . .” Jerzy’s eyelids flickered as he tried to remember, his dark, almond-shaped eyes taking on a panic until the knowledge came back to him. “Healwine, in the hands of ordinary folk, affects only wounds visible or known. The healer must be aware of the injury and how to fix it. An unknown or unsuspected injury will
not be affected. If an untrained ordinary were to attempt a healing, the spell would not work.” A pause, and one hand whisked nervously at a strand of hair that fell over his forehead; then he continued. “A Vineart, using a basic spell-wine, may heal all injuries known, even without healing arts. A more complicated spellwine might accomplish more. . .Master?”

  The boy had done well enough that Malech allowed the interruption. “Yes?”

  “You said the root-glow was out of season. So how did it get into the vines? Had it been there all summer? Could you have missed it, when we cleansed the soil after Harvest?”

  The boy obviously braced himself for the cuffing a foolish question would normally earn, but did not flinch or show any other sign of uncertainty. Despite himself, Malech was pleased, both by the unexpected confidence in asking and the thinking behind the question. That didn’t stop him from cuffing the boy across the nearest ear, for impudence, and then again in case the first cuff hadn’t seemed serious enough. Jerzy’s skin flushed a dark red to match his hair, then faded to its normal tones. For the first time Malech wondered where the slavers had found this boy, with that skin and doe-slanted eyes and his dark red hair. The slave caravans traveled everywhere, picking up trade as they went, but such a striking-looking boy child normally would have been kept by all but the poorest, most overrun of parents, in the hopes of his catching a wealthy patron’s eye once he came of age. . ..

  No matter. They all ended up where they were meant to be, somehow.

  “You think I failed something as basic as a soil-cleansing?” Malech asked in return, his tone purposefully calm. The boy would have earned a third cuffing for such a suggestion. But not asking it would have been a greater omission, and an even greater disaster for them both. Guardian was correct, damn it. A Vineart could not doubt. The leap from a slave’s obedience to Vineart’s confidence was the most-often deadly one.

  “If it wasn’t there before, and it would not occur in the natural order . . . the vineyard was deliberately infected?” Jerzy wasn’t asking his master, but rather speaking to himself: Malech could practically see the workings of his student’s mind, puzzling over the question. “Who could do such a thing? Only someone who knew how quickly root-glow spreads, and yet, if they knew that, they would also know that it is easily contained and destroyed, so long as one is alert. . ..”