Flamecaster

by Cinda Williams Chima

  There was one thing in their favor: being scared of the King’s Guard wasn’t unusual—it would have been more suspicious if they hadn’t been nervous.

  “It’s late to be out on the road,” the blackbird said. Something about his velvet voice made Jenna’s hair stand up on the back of her neck.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  “Would you care to explain it?”

  “We—we was bringing dry goods to the kitchens yonder.” Jenna nodded toward the garrison house.

  “In the middle of the night?”

  Jenna nodded, her gaze fixed on the wagon team.

  “Look at me, boy.”

  Jenna looked up at the blackbird. His eyes were like twin coals set into his skull, or maybe more like marbles set over a straight nose and an almost lipless mouth. He was completely hairless—no brows or lashes, and his head was smooth as a billiard ball. He wore the signia of an officer.

  Scummer, Jenna thought. It’s Clermont.

  Marc Clermont was the commander of the King’s Guard in Delphi, the spider that maintained the king’s web of control here in the north. He was rumored to have a knack for torture. Once you came into Clermont’s hands, you would talk. And when you’d spilled everything, then you would die. Slowly.

  At least he’s not a mage, so he can’t spell me, to make me tell the truth. Jenna could always tell a mage—they had this peculiar glow about them, to her eyes, though others said they didn’t see it. Very few mages ever came to Delphi, and those who did were all in the army or the King’s Guard.

  Jenna suddenly realized that the commander had said something, and she’d missed it. “I’m—I’m sorry, sir. What was that?”

  “There’s no reason to be frightened,” Clermont said with a smile. He put his hand on her shoulder. When she flinched, he tightened his grip. She didn’t like him touching her, but didn’t dare fight back. Now she was the one who was tempted to bolt blindly, without a plan.

  “What’s your name?” Clermont said.

  “Munroe, sir.” To Jenna’s surprise, the lie spilled right out. So you could tell lies to the Breaker after all.

  “Munroe. That’s an unusual name.” His voice had an odd, soothing quality. Byram was staring at him, like a rabbit at a hawk. Jenna kicked his shin to bring him back to his senses.

  “Tell the truth now—why are you really out here in the middle of the night?” Clermont said.

  She tried another lie. “We had to come late, ’cause we work in the mine in the daytime. And then there was nobody around, so we had to unload it our own selves. That made us late heading back.” Remembering Byram’s papers, she pulled them out and thrust them toward him. “Here’s our papers.”

  Clermont made no move to take them. “Doesn’t day shift in the mines start in just a few hours?”

  “That’s why we’re in a hurry,” Jenna said. “Elsewise, we won’t get any sleep at all.”

  Clermont gave her a long, searching look, then released her shoulder, settling back into his saddle, frowning, as if he didn’t know what to make of her.

  “What about you?” Clermont said to Byram. “Do you have anything to say?”

  “Nossir,” Byram croaked.

  Turning to the other blackbirds, Clermont said, “Search the wagon.”

  That didn’t take long, because there wasn’t much to see except Mick, huddled in a corner, ready to piss himself. Still, it seemed like a lifetime to Jenna, who sat, shoulders hunched, waiting for the blast that would signal the end of the world.

  Finally, the blackbirds jumped down from the wagon. “There’s nothing, sir,” one said.

  Clermont rubbed his chin, squinting at her like he was fascinated. “Your eyes,” he said, “are an unusual color. Like old gold, or candlelight through honey.” The way he said it gave her the crawls. She didn’t like him noticing anything about her. It made her glad she was dressed as a boy.

  “Sir?” one of the blackbirds said. “You want to bring them along, and see what the garrison commander says?”

  Clermont hesitated, then shook his head. “No. We’ve wasted enough time here.” When Jenna still sat frozen, afraid to move, he snapped, “Are you deaf? Go on, then.” He waved them on down the road.

  Jenna loosened the reins and slapped them across the broad backs of the horses, and they rattled into motion. Behind her, she heard one of the blackbirds make a rude joke, and the rest of them laughing.

  Her ears were sharp as her hawk’s eyes. Her da claimed she could hear candy rattle into a jar from a mile away.

  She heard the horses moving, slowly at first, accelerating into a drumbeat that dwindled as the distance between them grew.

  “Scummer,” Mick whispered.

  Beside her, Byram let out a long, shuddering sigh. All of his cockiness had drained away.

  As they mounted a small rise, Jenna reined in the horses and looked back. The moon had risen yet higher, and the riders cast long shadows behind them as they reached the bridge. Even at that distance, Jenna could hear the faint clatter of hooves as they hit the decking.

  Byram stirred beside her. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “That was a close call. Guess it’s just as well it didn’t work. If that bridge had blown, we’d be on our way to gaol.”

  “Hang on.” Jenna watched as the last of the blackbirds rode onto the bridge. She saw a glare of light, oddly silent, followed by a distant boom, and then another right on its heels. The bridge crumbled, pitching men and horses into the gorge, leaving a jagged hole where the span had been. A plume of dust rose, glittering. On the far side of the bridge, a small cluster of survivors spurred forward, collecting at the edge of the cliff.

  A primitive joy filled the void inside Jenna that had opened when Maggi and Riley died. Jenna tried not to think too hard about why she liked to blow things up and watch them burn.

  Byram hooted and pounded Jenna on the back, his skepticism forgotten. “Did ya see that, Flamecaster? Did ya see it?” Even Mick was grinning broadly.

  Jenna was glad the surviving blackbirds were on the far side of the bridge. She couldn’t tell whether Clermont was among them, but she had a feeling he was. He’d seen them—he’d seen all three of them, and now he’d be looking for them.

  With any luck, though, he’d be looking for a boy named Munroe.

  7

  ODEN’S FORD

  “You never come to see me these days unless you’re on your way to kill someone,” Taliesin said.

  That was close enough to the truth that Ash didn’t dispute it.

  The Voyageur had her back to him, had not so much as looked at him, but she always seemed to know him by his step, or the smell of him, or because he was so simple and she so clever that she could tell what he was likely to do on any given day.

  “I’m a second-year at Mystwerk now,” Ash said. “There’s much more work than last year. The masters and the deans keep us busy.”

  “I see,” Taliesin said. She squatted barefoot between the rows of carrots, expertly lifting them with her digging fork and sliding them into her carry bag. Taliesin Beaugarde might be dean of Spiritas, but she never put on airs. The contrast between the healer and the humblest master at Mystwerk was striking. Wizards were arrogant by nature, and Taliesin had her feet planted firmly in the earth.

  Ash had been fighting his private war on Arden every summer since his father’s murder. Every marching season he traveled the south, working as an itinerant farrier. Farriers were welcome everywhere they went—in army camps, in cities, at every farm along the way, in the stables of the highest-ranking thanes—everywhere there were horses.

  Farriers didn’t excite suspicion like other strangers did. Most had to travel from place to place in order to find work. It was a natural fit for Adam Freeman, a native of Tamron. Young as he was, his work was top of the line, and so his services were in great demand. He was good with horses, after all.

  He was also good with poisons, garrotes, and the small daggers known as shivs. Poisons were hi
s weapons of choice. Courtesy of Taliesin, he used compounds no one had ever heard of, that no southern healer would ever detect. It helped that green magic was considered witchery in Arden, and so was forbidden.

  Even if his poisons were identified, it was always too late, anyway. Once he got to someone, they were already dead. By then, young Adam Freeman would be on his way somewhere else, trailing death and misery in his wake.

  Often it was one of the nobility—perhaps a thane who supported the king. It might be a commander or a general, or a blackbird who was known to be especially cruel. Sometimes an entire column of mercenaries took sick and were unable to march north for weeks. The Summer Sickness, they called it, guessing that it might be caused by mosquitoes.

  An encampment of recruits would break out with pustules that drove them absolutely mad with itching. Or a severe dysentery that had them in the privy for days. That was attributed to bad water. When all else failed, Adrian resorted to his array of blades. He preferred to avoid bloodshed, because that left no doubt that there’d been an enemy in their midst.

  He rarely took the life of a line soldier if it could be avoided, since many were unwilling recruits from the captive realms. It wouldn’t make much of a difference strategically, anyway. The king of Arden viewed them as expendable.

  He never targeted the horses, either. For one thing, it would draw attention to his work as a farrier. For another, he preferred horses to most people.

  “This is not your usual hunting season,” Taliesin said.

  “I thought I’d try something new. In the summertime, the southerners I want to kill are all in the Fells, killing northerners. In autumn, I might find them at home.”

  She finally turned to face him, shading her eyes against the declining sun. The sun was at his back, and his long shadow slanted across the rows. “You’ve grown so tall, Mageling, in these four years,” she said, as if she hadn’t really looked at him for a while. “And handsome. Are you taller than your father was?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard for me to remember now.” That was a lie. He remembered—exactly—the measure of his father’s arm around his shoulders, the distance between them when he leaned down to speak at Ash’s level, even the scent of him—leather and sweat and fresh mountain air.

  “Other young men your age come to me seeking love potions.” She looked him up and down again. “I suppose you’re not in need of those.”

  “No,” he said, shifting from foot to foot. Taliesin still had the power to put him off balance. She was the closest he’d had to a mother since coming south. A mother who was nobody’s fool.

  “Quit fondling that jinxpiece,” Taliesin snapped. “It makes me edgy.” Witches had no use for amulets. She wiped sweat from her brow with her forearm, leaving a smear of dirt, then tossed a digging stick at him and pointed with her fork. “Here. Finish that row.”

  Idle hands made her edgy, too. Ash squatted next to her. He was in a hurry, but he knew better than to rush his longtime teacher. There was a price to be paid for access to Taliesin’s vast inventory of plants and expertise in poisons.

  “Where are you off to this time?” Taliesin said. She seemed to have a talent for breaking into his black moods.

  “Me? I’ll be in the Southern Islands, studying in the library of the arcane and collecting herbs for the healing halls.”

  “Where will you be, really?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know,” Ash said. Though she’d never admit it, he knew that she worried whenever he was away.

  “They killed your father, and now you’re killing them. What makes you different from them?”

  It was part of their bargain that he would listen to these lectures now and then.

  “They fired the first bolt,” Ash said. “If they’d stayed in the south and left us alone, I’d have no quarrel with them.”

  “Poison is such a scattershot technique,” Taliesin said. “You never know where your bolt will land.”

  “I know that, but I’m careful. And I’m good at what I do. I had the best teacher.”

  If he’d thought he was offering an olive branch, she slapped it away. “I did not teach you to travel about, leaving death in your wake,” she snapped. “I thought you intended to heal yourself by healing others.”

  “I do heal others—three seasons of the year. As for the rest, that’s a public health measure. Consider how many premature deaths I’m preventing. The lives I take are balanced by those I save.”

  “You should stay here and work with me,” Taliesin said. “You may not think it, but you still have much to learn.” She paused for a response, but he said nothing. “The time will come when you will wish that you were a better healer.”

  Ash thrust his stick into the soil with vicious jabs. “Teach me how to bring the dead back to life. Then I’ll stay and listen.”

  That shut her up for a while. Finally, she said, “I may be gone when you return.”

  “Really?” Ash frowned at her, thinking she must be bluffing, trying to persuade him to stay at school. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know,” Taliesin said, getting her own poke in. “A better question is why.”

  “All right, why are you going away?” Ash said, gritting his teeth, knowing that Taliesin was right—she always had something to teach him, even when she was giving him a hard time. Especially when she was giving him a hard time.

  Taliesin sat back on her heels, resting her forearms on her knees. “Something has changed. There’s danger here, like a noose tightening around us.”

  “Not here at the academy,” Ash said.

  “Yes, here. I don’t know that the gifted will be safe here for too much longer.”

  “Really.” Ash found this hard to believe. With Arden on one side, and the vassal state of Tamron on the other, the academy at Oden’s Ford remained an oasis of neutrality—a real sanctuary from the ongoing wars. No doubt Mystwerk, the wizard school, presented a tempting target to Arden’s mage-handlers. And the Temple School had never toed the Ardenine line when it came to history and religion.

  The reputation of the faculty kept outsiders away. The most powerful wizards, the fiercest, best-trained warriors, the cleverest engineers, the most skilled healers—many returned to the Ford to teach. The academic houses didn’t agree on much, but they all took a dim view of any attack on its sovereignty.

  The Peace of Oden’s Ford had persisted for five hundred years. The war in the north barely merited a footnote in its history.

  “Would you like some advice?” Taliesin said, lancing into his thoughts again.

  “No.”

  Like usual, she ignored him. “You have a rare talent, sul’Han, especially for a mage. I’ve never seen the likes of it. It’s a shame to waste it this way. This is not what I had in mind when I agreed to teach you.”

  This is not what I had in mind for a life, Ash thought. Oh, well.

  But Taliesin wasn’t finished. “Some creatures were made for murder—” Her hand shot out, into the row of carrots, and came up gripping a wriggling adder. She broke its neck and tossed it into the carry bag, too. “You were not. You cannot stand astride the line between good and evil, life and death, for long. It will destroy you.”

  “Isn’t that what a healer does?” Ash said, drawn into the debate in spite of himself. “We follow our patients into those borderlands, where life and death meet.”

  “Aye, we do,” Taliesin said. “And then we either turn them around, or gently help them across.” Her eyes narrowed and her voice sharpened. “We do not give them a push.”

  “Aren’t you the one who always says that it’s easier to prevent a problem than to treat it?”

  “I have said that,” Taliesin admitted. “But—”

  “I was right there when my father was murdered,” Ash said. “I was right there, and yet there was nothing I could do. What I learned that day was that healing has its limits.”

  “There is never a shortage of killers. Any
brute with a club in his hand will do. But a good healer is hard to find.” Taliesin rose gracefully to her feet, settling the bag of vegetables on her ample hip. “You need to find a way to let go of your anger. Leave Oden’s Ford while you still can. Go home and be the healer that you were meant to be.”

  “Right now there are advantages to being dead. No expectations, no obligations, no restrictions. It gives me the freedom to do what I have to do.”

  “You don’t stop being who you are just because you’ve run away.”

  “I’ll go home eventually.”

  “If you live that long. Now. What is it you’ve run out of this time?”

  Finally, the lecture was over. Ash had his list ready. “Gedden weed. Black adder. Sweet misery. Dollseyes and wolfsbane. Sweet forgetting.”

  “Sweet forgetting?”

  “For witnesses,” Ash said. “Despite what you think of me, I try to keep bloodshed to a minimum.”

  “I don’t know why you always come to me,” Taliesin grumbled. “Your decoctions, infusions, and tisanes are as good as mine.”

  “They’re good,” Ash allowed. “Just not as good. Besides, I’m in a hurry.”

  “You are always in a hurry these days,” Taliesin said. But she’d already surrendered. “All right, then. Come with me.”

  Ash handed her his carry bag and followed her into her cabin, breathing in the fumes from the pots that simmered on her wood stove all year round.

  He wrinkled his nose at something new, a foul stench that made his eyes water. “Did something die in here?”

  “Those are the eels I’m having for supper,” Taliesin said. “You’re welcome to stay.”

  It didn’t take long for her to put Ash’s kit together, once she quit stalling. Still, by the time he left her cabin in Tamron Wood, following the road back to school, it was nearly dark. Though the weather was still warm, the sunny southern days were growing shorter. The scent of night-flowering spice lily hung like lust in the air, just one more sign that the season was turning.