Flesh and Fire

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Malech collected himself from memories, and continued tracing the lines of the map. “This is your world, boy. Each marker indicates the House of a Vineart of note, or their secondaries, and those sigils, the ones in green, are the rulers of each land. You need to learn them, boy. Do you think that you can do that?”

  “Yes, Master Malech.” Jerzy had no idea—there were so many!—but he dared not give Malech any cause to doubt him. The threat of returning to the fields was still too close, too raw, even if he didn’t quite believe it anymore.

  “A decade,” Malech said, and it took Jerzy a moment to realize that his master was speaking not to him, but to the Guardian. “A decade, the boy needs, should have. And here I am, planning to cram so much into him in less time than a wine takes to age. Can he do it, do you think?”

  The Guardian lifted its stone head from its paws and looked down at them with blind, unblinking eyes.

  Yes.

  Jerzy felt the voice more than he heard it, and knew, somehow, that it came from the stone dragon overhead. Like tasting must in the air, the essence of the Guardian was unmistakable.

  “Yes. Well, if he couldn’t, no doubt the vines would have left him to rot under the sun,” Malech said. “But the crafting must still be done with care, no matter how hurried. . ..”

  The Guardian, its part in the conversation clearly ended, lowered its head back to his paws and was silent.

  “Master. . .why?”

  Malech stopped speaking and stared at Jerzy, long enough for him to feel that same uncomfortable sense of uncertainty he’d felt that first day, almost a year past, when Malech had first tested him for magic. All that he had accomplished was suddenly dwarfed by a sense of everything he didn’t know, the depth of his ignorance reflected in Malech’s troubled expression.

  Then the lines of worry in the Vineart’s face smoothed out, and the calm, composed mask was back in place.

  But now, for the first time, Jerzy understood that it was a mask. That more went on underneath than he had ever been given permission to see. . .and that something between them had just changed forever.

  “This world was once a terrifying place. You know of it, if only through Washers’ stories. Great prince-mages battled against each other for vanity’s sake, and the lands trembled with their might. . .and the people suffered, and cried out to the gods for protection.”

  Jerzy nodded. Everyone, even slaves, knew that. Sin Washer came down and saved them, punishing the mage-princes for their arrogance.

  “What the stories forget, or never knew, was that the land suffered, too, boy. It, too, called out for protection. There are some who claim that the gods responded not to our needs, but to protect the land itself.”

  Malech took a sip of his tai, grimacing when he realized it had grown cold and bitter.

  “Grapes are like men: they grow best, most strongly, when they are placed under stress. Too much stress, too much harsh treatment, and they wilt and die. It is a balance we must observe, to bring out the best in the grapes. . .and ourselves.” He looked as though he were about to say something more, then changed his direction.

  “The Valle of Ivy maintains balance, and because of that our spell-wines have been sought after for their potency and consistency. Our princeling, Ranulf, and I maintain balance, so the people need not worry about power struggles between us, and live their lives untroubled by things greater than they. So it was ordered by Sin Washer, and so it has been for counted generations. But now. . .I hear whispers and see portents, boy. Beyond these lines—” he traced the boundaries of the Valle with his forefinger— “something grows. It grows, and it stretches its tendrils out, not merely to one region, but everywhere. The vines are sensing it, the stress in their soil beyond what is healthy or desired. Men? We know only that the world becomes a darker, more frightening place. Crops are endangered, and Vinearts scurry to make the best of what remains; princelings and maiars and kinglets all squabble and bite, each trying to blame the other. I hear of this, I sense it, and I know, no matter what I do, it will come, too, even to the Ivy.”

  “What is it, Master?” He was fascinated, caught by his master’s telling.

  “That, boy,” Malech said, laying his palm down on the map and pressing down, as though to keep it still. “That is what we must discover.”

  Chapter 10

  ATAKUS

  The seas off the coast of Atakus looked the same as they had for every day of his life; blue-green, capped with white, stretching leagues in every direction into the horizon, the waves and wind tossing the smell of brine into the air. If an observer didn’t know better, he would think that nothing had changed, and nothing ever would change.

  Everything changed.

  “Ah. There you are.” The voice carried across the open courtyard, although the speaker barely raised his voice. “I’ve been waiting.”

  Kaïnam, Named-Heir of Atakus, had a grinding headache located just behind his ear and over his left eye. The cause of that pain raised one gnarled hand and summoned him across the small courtyard: Erebuh son of Naïos, Prince of Atakus, Hereditary Lord of the Island, Protector of the Sea and the Isles Surrounding.

  Before becoming Named-Heir, Kaïnam had no idea how much those words weighed on the back of one’s neck, a yoke you could not, dare not, shake off.

  His father sat on a white stone bench, resplendent in his red tunic and pearlescent shellstone diadem, and smoothed the cloth over one knee. Kaïnam came and knelt before him, both greeting and submission.

  His father’s hair was long turned white, but his voice and his hands were as steady as a much younger man’s. “So. You have seen the scroll, had time now to digest the contents. What think you?”

  Kaïnam wasn’t fooled by the mildness of the question. As Named-Heir, his opinions actually had some value. Some only: and to be spent carefully, wisely. His sister would have counseled him patience and delicacy, especially in matters concerning their father.

  His sister was dead. He had been but a student at her heels, and she was gone now.

  Bereft of her advice, he stood now like a tested schoolboy, his teacher awaiting a response. The scroll in question had come that morning from Edon, Master Vineart of Atakus, the culmination of months of work and secret correspondence back and forth. It had taken Kaïnam a mere five minutes to form his opinion on the result.

  “Father, you cannot think to approve this. It is . . . it’s . . .” Diplomatic words failed him, and he blurted what was foremost in his mind. “Vineart or no, Master Edon has gone mad, and infected you with it as well.”

  “Mad? Perhaps. But you are not lord here yet.” The words were softly spoken, with gentle affection, but a clear warning in the tone as well. “When you are, you will know that ofttimes things that are distasteful must still be done. Be they stone-sane, or mad as the wind.”

  The courtyard they stood in was part of the private garden outside the royal chambers. At his back was sheer cliff and deep ocean. At the other end of the garden was the bulk of the main building, and two guards loitered a discreet distance away. In all the years of his growing, the royal family had never required guards, nor even his father. Not here, on Mount Parpur itself.

  All that had changed when the Wise Lady had been murdered by an honored guest, and his father had gone mad.

  He missed his sister terribly. He had gone from fourth son, one of seven, to the heir-announced on the basis of her murdered regard, and the trade had not been a fair one.

  “Master Edon has, as promised, delivered a spellwine that will protect us and our ships from any repeat of last season’s attack on our ships, to protect us and those we have promised to protect. I see no reason not to make immediate use of it.”

  “No reason? No reason?” He knew that his voice was rising, becoming almost shrill, but he couldn’t seem to moderate himself. “Do you know what using that spell will do?”

  His father’s voice was almost obscenely calm. “It will protect us.”

  “It
will destroy us.” By Sin Washer’s hands, how could his father not see that? They had gone mad, Master Edon and his father alike. The attack, however startling, however disturbing it had been to realize that their waters were somehow suddenly vulnerable, did not warrant this. Not even murder warranted such a drastic measure.

  His sister would have agreed. His sister would have known how to change their father’s mind.

  Kaïnam tried to modulate his thoughts and his words, but it was oh so difficult when what he wished to do was shake his father until the old man saw reason.

  “We have always been isolated, by our own intent, but still we traded, still we saw the world—and the world saw us. We are one of the major—one of the only!—ports of resupply for ships traveling to the desert lands! To slip from sight, to disappear behind this curtain of magic, as Master Edon claims he can accomplish. . .the only purpose that will serve is to raise questions—of where we have gone, and what cause we might have had. If we are not alone in being attacked, if there are others suffering similar depredations—then in protecting us, you will turn us into scapegoats!”

  Even as he uttered the last word, he saw that his breath was wasted, the look in his father’s eyes no longer on their once-protected boundaries, but somewhere else, darker and less lovely.

  “Scapegoat or sacrifice, which would you choose for us? No matter; my decision is made. At the filling of the moon, we will raise this curtain of magics, and Atakus shall slip entire from the world’s view.”

  The Wise Lady would have known what to say, would have counseled them fairly, coaxed them from this madness, and earned her naming yet again. But that wise voice had been silenced by an assassin’s blade, and Kaïnam bit his tongue, and did not argue further. Heir-named could yet be un-named, and he did not trust his brothers with that responsibility. Not now. Not faced with what they faced, from the outside, and within. Not while his father and Master Edon held to this course.

  His father stood, his sun-bronzed skin still firm and his shoulders still strong as a much younger man’s. His eyes might carry more shadows these days than even a year before, but they still saw true. Kaïnam had to believe that. If he didn’t. . .

  If he did not, then all was flame and ruins, and he would have no choice but to do the unthinkable.

  There was a pause, two figures standing, young and old sides of the same coin, the silence growing into something heavier, thicker than the salt-scented air.

  “I will see you at the evening meal?” his father asked.

  “Of course.” He ate every evening meal with his father now, no matter how often they had conferred during the day. One food taster was more economical than two, after all.

  AFTER HIS FATHER left, his guards accompanying him, Kaïnam found himself retracing a route, only recently familiar, to the guest quarters. His guard trailed a discreet distance behind, only one and relaxed, here inside the very walls of the residence. Never mind that his sister had been killed within these same grounds. Kaïnam almost wanted to scold him for being lax, save that the laxness suited him in this moment and this instance. He wanted no eavesdroppers on this conversation.

  The door he approached was open, as though the occupant had been waiting for him. Perhaps he had.

  The robed figure stepped out, his body language casual, and they walked together along the open corridor, as though by chance meeting on their way to the same destination.

  “I have met with my father,” Kaïnam said. “He and the Master Vineart are in accord as to their intentions.”

  “You could not convince him otherwise?” Brother Joen paced alongside him in the corridor, his sandals slapping against the cool stone tiles like the lashing of a cat’s tail. In contrast, Kaïnam’s bare feet were silent as a whisper.

  “Did you truly expect me to?” he asked Joen, keeping his voice low. The guard was distant and discreet, but even innocent words could often be misunderstood. “Do you think my father would not consider his actions and his reasons well before calling upon my advice?”

  “You are his chosen heir. I had thought. . .”

  Kaïnam watched the Washer as he realized where that sentence led, and tried to draw back his words. “You thought I had more influence on the old man, more say in how things were run. Is that why you have cultured me, after my sister’s death? To wind your way into Atakus politics in that sideways fashion?”

  Brother Joen blinked, his gentle face like that of a confused owl. “Kaïnam, how could you think. . .”

  Suddenly, the weight of his new title was too much, and he could practically hear his shoulders crack. “Spare me the injured innocence, Brother Joen. It does neither of us honor. I know that my sister did not trust you, and you know that she did not trust you. In her absence, lacking another entrance, you sought to use me. That is how the tide is sailed. I will not deny that I used you, in turn. My father trusts the Washer Collegium, and to think that I am aided by one of its members soothes his mind and gives me a way to challenge him, sway him, without suspicions being raised as to my loyalties.”

  “You do not trust me?” This time the injury sounded real, and it amused Kaïnam that, of all he had said, that was what the Washer picked up on, and questioned.

  They passed an open window, framing an ancient olive tree, and Kaïnam inhaled the spicy scent, taking refuge for a moment in the familiarity of it. The crest of the Principality was an olive tree main-masting a trade vessel. Even before vines, there had been olives. His family was as old as this island and survived the same way: by letting the winds and the tides roll by. This, too, was but a moment in the ages.

  “Try not to take it too personally, Brother Joen. After the murder of my sister, I trust no one, least of all an outsider. We are no Vinearts, restricted from political games, and so we must learn to play them well. You—and by you I presume the Collegium as a whole—do not wish Atakus to isolate itself from the rest of the world, to shut our ports as Master Edon proposes. Nor do I. For now, we work in accord. But it will be work done in vain, at this moment. My father the prince has decided, and will not be gainsaid.”

  “A decision may be reversed. . ..”

  There was no change in tone, no sideways look or inferring words, but Kaïnam stopped hard and brought a hand down in front of the other man, halting him in his tracks as well. Agendas were all well and expected, but he would not allow this. “Do not say what you might not be saying. Do not even think what you might not be thinking. I disagree with my lord in this instance, but his is the right of decision, by right of law and leadership. More, he is my father. Do you hear me, Brother Joen?”

  “Kaïnam, I did not mean to. . .”

  Kaïnam stared down from his additional height, drawing his spine up to make the most of that difference, presenting as regal an image as he could accomplish in bare feet and simple tunic. This must be nipped in the bud, immediately. “Do you hear me, Brother Joen? My allegiances will not be challenged.”

  The Washer, defeated for the moment, raised his hands up, under the arm held against his chest, and made the traditional cup-and-pour blessing motion. “I hear you, Named-Heir Kaïnam of Atakus.”

  Kaïnam did not believe him, and certainly did not trust him, not as an individual or as a representative of the Collegium, blessed be the Sin Washer’s name. Still, the Wise Lady said more than once, you make do with the tools you are given, to make the boat you must have. So it would be with him. And so, smiling gently, he dropped his arm, and they continued on their way to the Session, where his father the prince would inform his people of how their lives were about to change.

  Interesting times. Yes.

  He almost looked forward to informing Brother Joen that the Washer would not be allowed to leave the island to tell the Collegium what had happened to the people of Atakus.

  Chapter 11

  HOUSE OF MALECH

  Once Master Malech shared his worries with Jerzy, the pattern of life changed again. Jerzy’s lessons with Cai were reduced to twice a week,
and his time with Detta ended entirely. He now spent much of his time in the fields, performing midwinter inspections for Master Malech, while a slow but steady stream of visitors came to meet in private with the Vineart. Detta stood in the doorway watching them arrive and depart, her normally comfortable, confident face looking more and more worried. “It’s not natural,” she said more than once, in the manner of a woman who knows she won’t be listened to. “It’s not natural for him to be so partaking of the world, poking about like this. It won’t end well, Sin Washer knows, it won’t end well.”

  “Master knows what he is doing,” Jerzy said finally, tired of hearing her worries that niggled deep inside at his own. “There are things going on that you don’t understand.”

  “Is that so, young master?” Detta said, and Jerzy flushed, feeling a handspan high and twice as foolish. “I. . .”

  But Detta had gone, back in through the half door that led from the road to the inner courtyard, leaving him standing alone with his confusion. He hadn’t meant it the way it had come out, truly. He just. . .Jerzy sighed, and watched the most recent arrival hand the reins of his horse to a slave and walk up the path to the House, moving forward to greet him and direct him to Malech’s study. He no longer stopped to marvel at the whisper of awareness that brushed him as he walked under the arch-way—an awareness he now recognized as belonging to the Guardian.

  This visitor’s arrival was a reminder that he, too, had somewhere to be, and things to do. While thrilled to be trusted with the monitoring of the secondary fields, Jerzy wished he could be in two places at once, the better to keep track of what was happening. Master Malech knew what he was about, no doubt. But having finally been allowed in to some secrets, Jerzy wanted to know them all.